“Major?”
A distant shout rang out over the alarms, and Lemon’s voice faltered. She met the Major’s eyes, her belly flipping as she recognized the voice, as heavy boots began ascending the stairs to the office.
“Lemon, you about?” Grimm called.
“Grimm, don’t come in here!” she cried.
But still, the footsteps were coming closer. Lemon’s eyes fell on the pistol in the Major’s hand. If Grimm came in here, if he saw all this…
“Stand down, soldier,” the Major shouted.
“Grimm, stay away!” she yelled.
Heedless, oblivious, Grimm stepped into the outer office.
“What’s all the bloody noise?” he demanded.
She saw it all happen in slow motion. Like some awful vid, playing out in front of her, and she, helpless to stop it. The boy’s eyes widening. The pistol in the Major’s hand rising. His finger tightening on the trigger. The rage on the old man’s face. The shock on the boy’s. Lemon lifting her hands and screaming. All the world stuttering, freeze-frame, alarm-wail, muzzle-flash by muzzle-flash.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
The air between Grimm and the Major sizzled as the boy threw up his hands, the bullets striking the hatch, the frame, his body. Rage swelled up inside her as she saw Grimm’s eyes widening, the shot striking. Another scream tore up out of Lemon’s throat, her fingers curling into claws. The Major spun on the spot, the pistol swinging in slow motion toward her head, his finger tightening on the trigger. She could sense the static inside her head. The buzzing, crackling gray behind her eyes. Because that’s all life was, really. Little arcs and sparks of electricity, neurons and electrons, ever changing, always moving. And through the fear, through the anger, through it all, Lemon reached toward the tiny pulses leaping synapse to synapse, crackling along the Major’s nervous system, making his heart pump and his fingers squeeze. It was like reaching into a cloud of angry flies, a storm made out of a million, billion tiny burning sparks.
And stretching out her hand
she took hold
and she
turned
him
off.
It wasn’t the most spectacular end. Some monsters die without drama. The Major gasped like she’d struck him. His pistol tumbled from his fingers as he staggered, falling to the deck with a clunk. The old man blinked once, met her eyes. His mouth opened as if he wanted to speak, and Lemon wondered what he might say. But then he simply dropped, like he’d been hit with a hammer right between his eyes. Dead before he hit the ground.
Grimm fell to his knees beside the old man, clutching his chest, his face twisted in pain.
“Grimm?” she asked.
And with a groan, he collapsed to the deck.
“GRIMM!”
They’d motored all night back to New Bethlehem.
Jugartown was still on fire as the Brotherhood convoy peeled out of the city, smoke drifting over the ruins of the WarDome and Casar’s Place. Four Disciples had bundled Cricket back into the transport, gunning the engine almost before the door was slammed. He sat in the back of the truck, his mind whirling with images of the carnage, of Evie, standing in the middle of it and holding out her blood-red hand.
“Come with me, Cricket.”
In the chaos after the lifelike attack, nobody bothered to tell the WarBot what was happening. Sister Dee had apparently kept things under control long enough for the posse to begin heading back to New Bethlehem. But as they fanged it back to the settlement, Cricket could imagine the word being passed up and down the line, in hushed murmurs and muttered radio transmissions:
Abraham is a deviate.
Verity’s grenade. That burst of metal and flame. The boy had held up his hands, setting the air rippling and deflecting the fire and deadly shrapnel with the power of his mind. He’d saved his mother’s life, half a dozen other members of the faithful. But in doing so, he’d revealed himself to be all the Brotherhood despised.
Cricket knew Sister Dee ruled New Bethlehem by fear and sheer bloody magnetism. Despite her apparent ruthlessness, she truly seemed to care for Abraham, in her own twisted, awful way. But how would she protect her son if he’d proven himself the enemy? How could she save him and keep control of a city where only the pure prospered?
They pulled through the New Bethlehem gates late in the morning—the square was crowded, the desalination plant churning, the streets humming. As Abraham stepped out of the truck cabin and into the burning sunlight, Cricket noted the way the Brothers and Disciples watched the boy.
The way they whispered.
The Brothers, the Disciples, the black-clad Elite, all of them looked to Sister Dee. All of them were still clearly afraid of the woman who’d carved this settlement with her bare hands. None wanted to be the first to dissent. To accuse. Abraham was her only son, after all. But Cricket could see the questions in their eyes.
Had she known?
Had she lied to them all?
Abraham let Cricket out of the truck, his eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. Some of the citizens cheered to see the big WarBot, calling his name, asking how the match had gone. But Abraham kept his head down, ordering Cricket onto the workshop loading platform and lowering them both into the oily gloom below. The cheers of the crowd faded as the loading bay doors hummed closed over their heads. The silence afterward was oppressive. Tinged with awful promise.
Solomon was waiting down there in the dark, nursing his faulty dynamo on the workshop bench. The spindly logika looked up as Cricket and Abraham descended, his grin lighting the gloom as he spoke.
“GOOD AFTERNOOOOON, FRIEND PALADIN, MASTER ABRAHAM!”
“WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT?” the big bot asked.
“TROUBLES, OLD FRIEND? PULL UP A PEW AND TELL SOLOMON YOUR WOES.”
Cricket could feel the tension crackling in the air. Imagining the hushed arguments and backroom debates going on around the city even now. Abraham stalked across the workshop, grabbed a satchel and started throwing belongings inside. His blue eyes were wide, his breath coming quick.
“ABRAHAM, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?” Cricket asked.
“I’m thinking it might be time for a vacation,” the boy declared.
“YOU SURE RUNNING IS THE ANSWER? MAKING YOUR WAY OUT THERE ALONE…”
“It’s better than staying here. You know what the Brotherhood do to people like me, Paladin.” He shook his head. “You know what I am to them.”
“YOUR MOTHER WOULDN’T LET ANYTHING HAPPEN TO YOU, SURELY?”