Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(76)

“How are we gonna get past an army of siege-class badbots piloted by the best Daedalus has to offer?” Cricket demanded. “We already performed unauthorized surgery on a BioMaas kraken. Do we really want to be getting on the bad side of Daedalus, too?”

“The warrant on Ana’s head was put out by Daedalus,” Ezekiel said. “The Preacher said so when he hit the ministry. So she’s already on their bad side.”

“We knew it was someone with deep pockets after you, Riot grrl,” Lemon muttered. “But not that deep. What the hells you do to get Daedalus Technologies on your back?”

“Think about it,” Ezekiel said. “Ana dropped a Goliath just by yelling at it. She can fry blitzhunds with a word. All Daedalus Technology gear runs on electrical current. Their machina. Their vehicles. And BioMaas and Daedalus have been circling each other ever since Gnosis collapsed. Sooner or later, one of them is going to try for the throne. Now, what do you think a BioMaas army could do with a weapon capable of frying any Daedalus tech with a wave of her hand?”

Ana looked down at her open palm.

“They could win a war,” she muttered.

“But she doesn’t even really know how to control it … ,” Lemon objected.

“Apparently, Daedalus doesn’t care.” Ezekiel shrugged. “They want Ana caught or killed before BioMaas figures out a way to use her to their advantage.”

“Maybe that’s it, then,” Ana said.

“… That’s what?” Cricket asked.

“The way in.” Ana closed the fingers on her hand. Held up her fist. “If I can drop Daedalus tech just by thinking on it, we head for their machina garrison outside Babel and use me to punch straight through it.”

“Evie—”

“I told you, it’s Ana, Cricket.”

“Whatever name you slap on it, this is pants-on-head stupid.”

Ana ignored the bot’s fretting, settled into her seat. The hum of the engine was almost hypnotic, the world outside the window flying by too quick to scope. The tunes spilling out the sound sys were solid, the company, bankable. She looked at Ezekiel in the driver’s seat, his olive skin turned golden by the sinking sun. Those too-blue eyes fixed on the road ahead. Had it really been just a couple of days since she’d found him in the Scrap? It felt like she’d lived two lifetimes since then… .

They roared on through the wasteland outside Armada, the built-up houses of a desiccated suburbia slowly giving way to wide and open roads, rocky badlands and endless deserts. The country was almost beautiful in its barrenness, just a few tiny specks of civilization humming amid all this nothing. The minutes melted to hours, the meters to miles. Nothing but the dub and her own thoughts for company. Every moment, they were drawing closer to Babel. Every moment was bringing her nearer to the things who’d killed her family, destroyed her entire world. Faith. Gabriel. Their siblings.

What would she say to them?

Where would she even begin?

Lemon was in the backseat, drumming her fingers on the cracked faux leather. Thumping her feet off-time to the music. Something was eating her, Ana could tell. It had been chewing her for days now, backing up behind her teeth like an old 20C traffic jam.

“You okay, Lem?” she asked.

“Fizzy. Max fizzy.”

“You seem kinda jumpy.”

Lemon chewed her lip hard. Foot tapping. All adrenaline and nerves.

“Look, I know Crick is programmed to fret, Riotgrrl,” she finally said, “but maybe he’s onto something.”

“A human talking sense?” Cricket growled. “Someone pinch me, I’m dreaming.”

Lemon clapped a hand over the little logika’s voxbox to muf fle his voice. “You’ve taken out a Goliath and a couple of Spartans before, true cert,” she said to Ana. “But how you gonna fight off a whole garrison of them? They’ll blow us off the road before we get anywhere near Babel.”

“Ezekiel drives a mean stick. And I’m getting better at it, Lem. It didn’t take me half as long to fry that blitzhund as it did those Spartans. Maybe I’m figuring it out.”

“Maybe you were just lucky? Maybe it’s easier to fritz smaller things?”

“Maybe we won’t know until I try? I mean, unless you’ve got a better plan?”

“This is crazy, Riotgrrl. I’m glad you wanna get Mister C back, but—”

“Crap,” Ana said.

“Um.” Lemon blinked. “That’s a little rude, but okay… .”

“No.” Ana pointed past Lemon’s head, out the rear window. “Crap.”

The day had been ground away beneath their wheels, and the sun was almost set into the west. The sky bled through from sullen gray to a furious red, the edge of the world consumed in flame. Ana could see the tiny Armada skyline to the south, silhouetted against the glow. But through the dust in their wake, she could see a smaller cloud: a tiny dark speck closing in on their tails. She engaged her telescopics, narrowing focus until she found a single figure, bent over the handlebars of a low-slung motorcycle. Black coat whipping behind him in the dirty wind. Blue eyes fixed directly on her.

Lemon scrounged up a pair of binocs from underneath the seat, peered through the filthy glass. Cricket climbed up beside her, both speaking simultaneously.