Ezekiel heard an engine roar overhead, a spray of autocannon fire. Bullets ripped up the road, cut a handful of Brotherhood boys off the New Bethlehem walls. The lifelike’s heart surged in his chest as he saw a flex-wing with Gnosis logos on the tail fins roaring in out of the cigarette sky. The flier zoomed over the city walls, sprayed another burst of bullets into the Brotherhood and sent them scattering.
Cricket caught sight of the flex-wing, too. The big bot paused in remodeling the Sumo’s insides, roaring over the engines, the gunfire, the screams.
“FAITH!”
Ezekiel followed the path of the flex-wing, guessing who might be inside it. The lifelike knew Cricket couldn’t hear him, so he yelled across at Preacher instead.
“You see them?”
“Yeah, I seen ’em!” the man replied, firing off a couple of half-hearted shots.
“This place was a Gnosis outpost before the company collapsed!”
“You figure lil’ Miss Monrova is in residence?”
Ezekiel’s heart thumped faster at the thought, but he tried to keep the emotion in check. The thought of seeing her again. After all this time. After all those years…
“Why else would they be here?”
“Found religion, mebbee?”
“We can’t risk them getting their hands on her!”
Preacher looked up over his cover at the small army of Brotherhood now gathering on the walls. “Bad odds, Zekey.”
“You know what’s at stake here!”
Preacher scowled. “If I were less of a gentleman, I might be pointing out that we could really use a Daedalus army helping us about now.”
“You can say you told me so later!”
The bounty hunter spat a long stream of brown into the dirt, scruffed his blitzhund behind the ears and sighed. Unslinging the shooters from his hips, he nodded. “Alrighty. Let’s go melt us some snowflakes.”
The flex-wing made another pass over the Brotherhood boys and Disciples, cutting a bloody swath through their thinning line. Ezekiel heard a deafening explosion as the flex-wing unloaded into what was presumably a fuel dump beyond the walls, and the ground shook as a rippling blossom of flame rose into the sky. He lost sight of the flier as it looped back through the rising smoke, but the good news was that it’d certainly got most of the Brotherhood’s attention now. And Cricket had the rest.
The big logika seemed to have decided the gate was too crowded, and had started climbing over the wall instead. He dug his metal fists into the concrete, tore through the razor wire and broken glass and jumped back into New Bethlehem with a heavy thud. A few Brotherhood boys were peppering his hull, but his armor was thick enough to shrug it off. The closest thugs got sprayed with a gout of thick white foam from Cricket’s palms. But the city sirens were wailing, flames rising, and Zeke could see more machina stomping in from the surrounding fields of gene-modded corn.
Time to move.
Zeke didn’t know who this Abraham boy was, only that he was a friend of Cricket’s. Grabbing the boy by his greasy coveralls, Solomon with his other hand, he jumped into the cabin of the RV he’d been hiding behind. Preacher leapt up into the back, his blitzhund following. And with his teeth gritted, Zeke planted his foot and tore through the shattered New Bethlehem gates.
The square beyond was in chaos, the buildings on fire, the air a black, choking haze. The flex-wing was buzzing through the smoke-smeared sky overhead, spraying indiscriminately into the crowd. But something about this didn’t feel right….
“THEY SENT FAITH AS A DISTRACTION IN JUGARTOWN!” Cricket yelled. “THE REST OF THEM WILL BE AT THE GNOSIS BUILDING!”
Ezekiel squinted across the square, saw the desalination plant rising above the other shanty shacks and burning buildings. It was wreathed in dark fumes and smoke, a corrosive stink. But through the flames spreading across New Bethlehem’s square, he could still see the faded GnosisLabs logo on the wall.
“GO!” Cricket yelled. “I GOT BUSINESS WITH THESE TWO!”
A chaingun unfolded from Cricket’s forearm, and twin pods of missile launchers unfurled from his back like insect wings. The big bot started firing on the flex-wing, and the few remaining Brotherhood boys seemed to decide the flier was a bigger threat than the bot, and joined in on the bullet party.
Ezekiel stomped the accelerator, tires squealing as he tore across the burning New Bethlehem square. Citizens scattered as he wove the RV through the settlement, skidding to a smoking halt in front of the desalination plant.
The building squatted on the edge of the bay like an old, broken king. Its facade had been modified into the crude likeness of an oldskool cathedral, with double iron doors and a big stone bell tower. But in reality, it was an ugly bloated hulk with fat storage tanks and a tangled knot of hissing pipes. Thick smoke spilled from its chimneys, laying down a pall of fumes over the black water beyond.
Ezekiel climbed out of the RV with his trusty shotgun in hand. He spoke to Solomon and Abraham.
“You keep your heads down. We’ll be back soon, all right?”
“IF YOU INSIST, OLD FRIEND,” the logika replied.
Preacher jumped down onto the concrete beside him, and Jojo leapt down behind his master. Zeke spied four guards with greasepaint Xs on their faces, lying dead by the factory’s front doors.
“They’re already inside,” he muttered.
“Mmf,” Preacher nodded. “Came in from the ocean.”
Ezekiel saw Jojo snuffling among a few sets of wet black footprints, coming from the direction of the boardwalk on the bay—he guessed the plan was for Eve, Gabriel and Uriel to steal in from the water while Faith and Verity kept the Brotherhood’s attention. And his siblings already had a head start.
“All right, let’s move.”
His heart was hammering in his chest as they stepped inside, swathed in oily stink and tar-thick fumes. More bodies were waiting just inside the doors, and over the burble and clank of the factory’s workings, he could hear gunfire, cries of pain. He imagined Eve stalking through the gloom, Gabriel and Uriel following her like shadows. Tried to picture the girl he’d met only a handful of days ago, reconcile who she’d been with who she’d become.
She looked like Ana. Talked and laughed and kissed like Ana. But looking at the bodies in her wake, the blood she’d left spattered on the walls, Ezekiel knew for sure and certain that Eve was nothing close to the girl he’d loved. He remembered the way she’d butchered those gangers in Paradise Falls. He remembered searching her eyes for the girl he adored, and finding not a glimmer. Not a spark. And he realized if it came down to a choice between protecting Ana’s life and ending Eve’s…