She spoke so soft, Ezekiel almost couldn’t hear.
She spoke almost as if to herself.
“She looks just like me….”
New Bethlehem burned.
Its citizens were fleeing or trying to douse the spreading flames, its soldiers either in hiding or cut to pieces by Faith’s cannons. Cricket stood in the square, feet apart, optics aimed skyward. He locked onto Faith’s flex-wing with his missile pods, unleashed a volley of incendiaries. But Faith laid down a stream of heat-seeker decoys as she cut through the sky, the missiles exploding harmlessly around her.
She returned fire, forcing the big bot into cover behind a pile of old autos and a rusty Neo-Meat™ stand. GnosisLabs had designed his body to be top of the line. But they’d designed that flex-wing, too, and sensibly, it looked like Faith’s flier was equipped to deal with anything Cricket could throw.
The WarBot felt a tapping on the side of his head. He glanced at Solomon, crouched on his shoulder with his whiteboard and marker.
You’re not very good at this, are you!
“SHE’S GOT MISSILE DECOY SYSTEMS! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?”
Perhaps something less high-tech, old friend!
Cricket looked about, deciding that was actually a pretty sensible plan. As the flex-wing swooped overhead, the big logika took hold of the Neo-Meat™ stand and tore it up out of the earth, hurled it with all his strength. Faith hit her air-skids hard, fired more useless decoys, but the wreckage crushed her portside wing and sent the ship spinning. Faith tried to hold it, engines screaming as the flier spun out of control. She clipped the de-sal plant’s belfry, and Cricket imagined the gongs ringing over the city as the craft kept falling, smoke spewing from its rotor blades. It swung over the marketplace and finally crashed—right into the New Bethlehem WarDome.
Bravo!
The Dome bars had been rolled back, so there was nothing between the flier and the killing floor. Faith and Verity bailed out as the flex-wing crashed, hitting the concrete hard and rolling with the impact. Cricket waded across the marketplace, careful not to crush the flood of panicked citizens. He set Solomon on the bleachers and dropped down into the arena as the two lifelikes climbed to their feet, a plume of fire rising up from the long trail of burning wreckage behind them.
The big bot looked around at the empty seats. The oil stains slicked like old blood on the killing floor. Fixing the pair in his glowing blue stare.
“THIS IS A LITTLE IRONIC, ISN’T IT?”
Faith’s lips moved as she replied, but Cricket held up one massive hand.
“SAVE YOUR BREATH,” he told her. “I CAN’T HEAR A WORD YOU’RE SAYING. AND I’M NOT HERE TO TRADE QUIPS, ANYWAY.”
He unfolded the chaingun on his right hand.
“SHUT UP AND FIGHT.”
The WarBot opened fire. Faith and Verity moved like silk in the wind, splitting apart and rolling behind a couple of rusty barricades. Verity dashed across to an old auto hulk as Cricket blasted away with his chaingun, spent shells falling like shooting stars. The lifelike doubled back, throwing off Cricket’s aim as Faith emerged from cover at his flank, drew out her arc-blade and closed the distance between them in a heartbeat.
He swung one massive fist, denting the killing floor as Faith rolled past the blow. He felt the impact, the vibration, but it was true strange fighting in silence. He could see Faith’s lips moving as she lashed out with her blade, severing the ammo feed to his chaingun. Though he couldn’t hear his enemies’ footsteps, his 360-degree tracking software had them both locked, rendering them on a digital topography inside his head. He sensed Verity rise up from cover, his engines vibrating as he rolled beneath the grenade she fired. The explosion’s roar was silent. The bleachers were empty around them, but he could almost hear the crowd in his ears.
He’d set foot in WarDome with Evie dozens of times. Watched the bouts beneath the flashing lights. He’d even fought in here himself now. But for the first time, standing there on the killing floor felt right. He wasn’t fighting for the scratch or to please the starving mob. He was fighting to avenge Silas. To avenge his friends. To avenge the life he’d lived with Evie and Lemon, with people who truly cared about him. The life that Faith and her siblings had taken away.
Looking at Faith and Verity, those picture-perfect faces and plastic, empty eyes, he realized he wanted to break them. He wanted to pound them to pulp underneath his fists and make them hurt for all the hurt they’d dealt in kind.
But they were so quick. So strong. Verity kept pounding him with grenades, ducking out from cover and taking shots at him from range. He returned fire with his incendiaries as best he could, but her barrage kept him off balance and stumbling. Meantime, Faith was cutting away at him with that damned arc-blade of hers, and the current burned hot enough to liquefy his armor. He tore one of the barricades loose from the killing floor and swung it like a club to keep her at bay, just as another grenade crashed into his shoulder.
He stumbled and fell to one knee, and Faith sliced at his hydraulics, fluid and oil spraying. He managed to clip her with a wild swing, sent her tumbling and skidding across the concrete floor. But another grenade hit him in the back, knocked him forward onto his belly. Faith was up in an instant, knuckles and elbows bloodied, dashing toward him. Her sword was raised to cleave his head in two.
Her lips were still moving—she couldn’t resist mouthing off, even though he’d told her that he couldn’t hear a word of it. It struck him how childish she was. How childish they all were. Like petulant little kids with the world’s biggest chips on their shoulders, looking to even the score.
The sword descended toward his head. He raised a hand, tried rolling aside, tensed to feel the blow. But as the sword fell, Faith was slammed backward into the WarDome wall, her eyes wide, blood flying from between her teeth. Cricket climbed to his feet, leaking hydraulic fluid and coolant, turned to see Abraham standing behind him on the WarDome floor. The boy’s oil-stained hand was raised, a frown darkening his bloody brow.
A grenade flew at Abraham from Verity’s launcher. The boy twisted, fingers outstretched as the air around him rippled like water. The projectile bounced backward like a kickball, tumbling through the air before exploding right in Verity’s face. The vibration rang in Cricket’s chest as he unleashed another salvo of incendiaries from his launchers, catching Verity in a burst of white-hot flame. The lifelike’s clothing caught fire, her mouth open in a scream, her body dropping to the ground as the flames began to catch. Cricket picked up his barricade and hurled it like a spear at Faith. The lifelike tried to move aside, tried to dance, but Abraham extended his hand, the air rippling once again, and an invisible force seemed to hold her pinned. Those plastic gray telescreen eyes widened as the barricade struck home, hurtling her backward and crushing her against the wall.