Cress

One by one the four men approached the gopher. The first gestured with his rifle and yelled, "Get on out where we can see ya!"

I glanced at Jimmy, my pulse galloping in my throat. We didn't have time for this, but I was having a hard time thinking of a way out.

He stared back at me, dazed, his blue eyes washed out in the light of the headlamps pouring through the front glass.

I swallowed. Then I gave him a little nod as I put my hand on the door pull and shoved the door open. "I love you," I whispered, turned and hopped down to the ground.

For a moment the man in the lead looked me over, then he nodded at the others behind him. "Go look in the back."

I faced him. Unblinking. Unmoving. Frozen, as the others jogged around the gopher.

He took a step toward me, his gun lowering, a sneer spreading across his homely face just before shots rang out from the back of the gopher, three in quick succession, followed by a fourth.

It took a second for the man in front of me to fall. He frowned first. Looked down at the fist-sized hole in his chest, the edges glowing for a moment before his own blood quenched the embers. Then he crumpled to the road like a sack of so many potatoes.

I let out all the breath I had been holding.

Then I looked up.

The vehicles were all running. It didn't take much to climb into the one in front of the gopher, throw it into reverse, and back it out of the way.

They were military transports of some sort. New, though. Much newer than my Liberation era gopher. I didn't recognize the emblem on the side at all, either – a black bird-sorta-looking thing on an orange shield. Illyrians had a white horse head on most of their stuff. Coalition was just the Coalition five-color, with a green peace wreath in the middle.

Wherever they came from, these transports had to have been the way the men had gotten to the farm. Ergo, they would also be the way they could come after us. I pulled my utility knife out of my coat pocket and set to work.

Their wheels were cast metal, so I cut their fuel lines. Then I stole their fuel cans, tossing them in the back with the Mech. That would keep them from repairing and refilling anything, and we could use the fuel ourselves.

He wasn't looking too good, the Mech, slumping in a corner of the cargo bin, those freakish eyes closed. His right arm was hanging in ribbons, the inner workings exposed, and a starfield of holes in his metal hide was leaking all manner of fluids. After a second's hesitation, I popped the motor cover on a few of the transports and went fishing for their power distributors. He would probably need a top up, and he had proven himself too useful not to keep around.

Then I nabbed the ion rifles, got back into the gopher, and sent her rumbling down the road again.

I didn't look at Beckett. Couldn't bear to see if he was alive, or dead, or see the shock on Jimmy's face. I could only drive, and hang onto that crazy spark of hope burning in my chest, get to Doc, get to Doc, get to Doc.

>>><<<

Dawn unfurled its banner across the sky, rippling in bands of gold and amber and rose as we came around the last bluff before starting the short climb up to Darkening. Old Man Karrumu's place had never looked more inviting, its weathered clapboard walls done a wealth of favors by the gentle kiss of the rising sun.

I took a breath and relaxed my hands on the steering yoke. We were almost there. We would make it. Just a few more bends, and we'd be passing Red's Alehouse...

The familiar line of wooden buildings that marked Darkening's southernmost end came into view, then, and I sucked in a gasp.

Jimmy swore.

I pulled the gopher over to the side of the road and both of us sat there for several seconds, just gaping up at the top of the bluffs.

All that was left of those buildings that had once stood on the edge of town was a row of smoldering, charred skeletons, blackened timbers sticking up like broken ribs, roofs and walls falling in, their shells sending up skeins of thin, white smoke.

I inhaled again and realized I could smell that smoke – quarter-sawn argus pine and meat on a spit.

Abruptly I gagged, my empty stomach heaving.

"What do we do?" Jimmy asked, his voice breaking in a way it hadn't in a while. "What do we do, Cress?

I swallowed hard against a flood of nausea and shook my head. "I dunno. I dunno, Jimmy, you gotta let me think. Gotta let me..." I needed more information. The Mech. Those eyes could probably see for miles.

I shoved the door open and got out, forcing my aching, bruised body around the side of the gopher and up the tailgate into the cargo bin.

At the jostle of movement, the Mech opened its eyes, one lid drooping. It was still alive, though, and it came a bit more awake as I proceeded to haul it up by its armpits, shoving it against the wall of the bin until it could see through the first gap between the slats.

"I need you to look up there and tell me what's going on," I commanded.

There was an audible whir of mechanics in its head and it blinked, its glowing irises flickering and fading. "I... I cannot... cannot... " It almost sounded drunk, its words slurring, its voice monotone.

I slapped the back of the thing's skull and adjusted my grip, holding it more firmly. "Try again."

It jerked and blinked several times, then it closed its drooping eye and squinted through the other one. "It's the Archeron. Looks like a division..." It paused, then grunted and refocused. "They're uh... They're rounding up the civilians... putting them on lorries..."

I bowed my head. Closed my eyes tight. Not Doc. Please not Doc. I looked at the Mech again. "Is there a man with short black hair? Maybe wearing a brown leather apron, or a green silk vest and grey jacket?"

The Mech was obviously struggling. It blinked, the glowing orange lines in its eyes moving like the aperture of a sylvocapture device, cinching tight then blowing wide. It shook its head, its jaw clenching. "No. No... black haired... man... I... I'm... sor–"

Its systems shut down with a subtle hiss, and its eyes went dark.

"Don't you dare..." I lay the Mech flat on its back and grabbed the nearest power distributor, then dove for my toolbox. "I didn't get this far for you to die on me now," I muttered, yanking things out of my traveling repair kit. The siphon tube would have to do. Moving quickly, I pried open the distributor's core, baring the bulky tank of sulphuric acid that made up the power storage unit. Then I popped the Mech's chestplate open. Its energy distribution system appeared to have automatically closed itself off to everything but its basic functions, but it was still running dangerously low on fluid. It didn't take much to start draining the acid out of the transporter's distributor and into the Mech's energy distribution tank.

It didn't wake up. In fact, I was fairly sure it had gone into some sort of hybernation mode, but at least it wasn't going to stop running whatever insanely complicated command spool it had streaming through that mechanical brain.

Grim, I finished refilling the Mech and then scrambled back up into the cab. Old Man Karrumu's place wasn't on fire. Maybe that meant they had already established that it was abandoned and wouldn't pay it any attention if they came back this way. I could park the gopher in the dry gulley behind the house and hide our tracks. And then we would wait. 

I couldn't leave. Not with that tiny slip of a chance that Doc wasn't with the others. If he wasn't, he could see to Becks. Becks was still alive, still breathing, although he wasn't conscious. Jimmy had patched him up as well as he could while I drove, staunched the worst of the bleeding, but the round was still lodged in Beckett's chest. I could handle all sorts of things, do whatever it took, but putting that little boy back together, that... I had no idea how to tackle that.