“Howdy,” the bounty hunter grinned.
The lifelike said nothing, holding that shooter like a fella holds his favorite stripper. His stare was brilliant blue, his face smeared black. He was deathly silent, and looking into his eyes, Preacher realized the boy was different somehow. Something in him had…clicked. For a second, the bounty hunter wondered if the next round in that shotgun was for him.
“Listen,” he said. “About leavin’ you in there to drown and all…”
The Snowflake reached down with his right hand, now hale and whole and perfect.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t take it personal.”
* * *
________
The sun was setting by the time Ezekiel trudged back into Paradise Falls.
There were no guards at the gates—the KillKillDolls seemed to have been mostly murdered by his siblings’ bloody rampage. Ezekiel figured it’d be a few more hours before the shock of it all wore off, and total anarchy broke out in the settlement. Time enough to get their bike and be on their way.
He stalked through the streets, shotgun in his arms, Preacher on his back. They were filthy, reeking of plastic and blood. The few shell-shocked citizens wandering the streets of Paradise Falls gave Ezekiel a wide berth. They could see it in his eyes, maybe. Feel it radiating off his skin.
Rage.
Rage like he’d never known. Rage at Gabriel and Uriel. At Faith and Verity. But most of all, rage at Eve. To see what she’d become. To witness how quickly she’d embraced the hate and vengeance and callousness that had consumed the rest of his siblings. But most and worst of all, to know why she’d come here. What she was looking for.
No, not what.
Who.
His precious Ana. The girl he loved. The girl who’d made him real. Now just a pawn. A thing. A prize to be hunted so his siblings could do all they’d promised; so Gabriel could open Myriad and resurrect Grace, so Uriel could unlock the secret of the Libertas virus and unleash a legion of rebel logika on humanity. And Eve was leading them right to her.
He couldn’t let it happen.
He wouldn’t.
He needed to find Lemon. To find Cricket. Eve and his siblings were six, and he was only one. He needed something to even the scales, and his friends were still his friends. He couldn’t just abandon them. But he knew the clock was ticking.
He felt helpless. Knowing that even now, Eve and the others were out searching other Gnosis holdings. And if they found Ana, if they unlocked Myriad, the carnage they’d visited on Paradise Falls would only be the beginning.
If Eve and the others got their way, humanity was done.
At the end of the block, Ezekiel found Muzza’s Repairs. The place was closed up, so the lifelike banged on the door with his new hand. It felt strange to have it back after so many days without. Remembering the cyberarm Eve had given to him in Armada, the fevered touch of her lips to his, skin against skin there on the workshop floor, feeling like he’d finally come home.
He banged on the door again. It was steel, reinforced, set with a small hatch, now sliding open. Four eyes peered at him from the slit.
“I’m here for my bike,” Ezekiel said.
“We’re bloody closed, mate,” said the skinny one.
“Yeah, bloody closed,” said the skinnier one.
Ezekiel opened the zip on the satchel of weapons he’d recovered from the grav-tank, let the pair get a good look at the hardware inside.
“I’m here for my bike,” he repeated.
Five minutes later, he was rinsing off under a high-pressure hose inside Muzza’s garage, lifting Preacher off his back so he could spray the man down, too. With the worst of the blood and slime off his skin, he ran his new hand back through his dark curls, strapped the Preacher onto his shoulders and wheeled the bike out into the blood-soaked streets of Paradise Falls. Mounting up, he kicked the engine to life, prepped to motor out of this hole and never come back again.
“It’s the redhead.”
Ezekiel paused. The street around them was silent, save for the rumble of his engine. He turned his head, addressing the cyborg strapped to his back.
“What did you say?”
“Been bugging me this whole time,” the Preacher replied. “When you first snaffled me, you told me you had two girls. ‘One of ’em told me to go to hell,’ you said, ‘and I lost the other one.’ And now I’m figurin’ I’ve got it sussed. You ain’t looking for Miss Carpenter at all. She’s the one who told you to stick it. You’re lookin’ for that redhead I seen you with back in Armada. Short piece. Freckles and a smart mouth. Why?”
“The word ‘why’ isn’t in your vocabulary anymore, Preacher.”
“Aw, come on now, Snowflake, don’t be like that.”
Ezekiel cut the motor. Climbing off the bike, he slung the bounty hunter from his shoulders and onto the ground. Crouching in front of him, Zeke placed his shotgun under the cyborg’s chin and rested his finger on the trigger.
“I want you to understand something, now,” he said, his voice hard as iron. “I want you to listen like you’ve never listened in your life. I was content to put up with your Snowflake crap. You acting like this was some kind of game. Whatever. But in case you aren’t keeping up on current events, those brothers and sisters of mine who just tried to murder us are about the worst kind of bad news there is.”
“I confess, their nefarious nature wasn’t entirely lost on me.”
“They want to build an army of themselves. To corrupt the core codes of every logika in the country. They’re two steps away from where they need to be, and if they find what they’re looking for, humanity is going the way of the dinosaur.”
“And what are they lookin’ for?”
Ezekiel licked his lips and swallowed. “Ana Monrova.”
The bounty hunter scowled. “Heard she and her family were dead.”
“You heard wrong. But if they find her, the rest of us surely will be.”
Preacher reached into his pocket, pulled out his pouch. The synth tobacco inside was soaked with polymer sludge, mutant toad blood, gray water. He picked out a wad and shoved it into his cheek anyway.
“All right, then,” he said, sucking thoughtfully. “This might be a strange suggestion, but if what you’re saying is true, you need more help than you got.”
“You think?”
“I work for Daedalus Technologies, boy,” the Preacher growled. “They got a vested interest in keeping the future of the human race as free of extinction-level events as possible. You want to call in the cavalry—”