Jeb and Orsen had continued along the Highway for some time, now, with not a word spoken between them.

Silence was not a healthy thing, Jeb felt. It gave weary travellers too much time to think. For instance, maybe that weed over there was a man-eater? Or what if those Old World ruins hid a Waste Beast? And worse still, what if none of this was real, and everyone was actually locked inside some kind of giant Overlord computer, waiting to be turned into goop for the Overlords to fuel their bodies with?

Thinking would be the death of a man, Jeb reckoned.

But he couldn't stop.

It was weird, he thought, how stress always made you think about more stress. How you'd have a thousand little arguments inside your head with people who couldn't argue back, or you'd think back to some of the worst moments of your life. Jeb often thought about his time as a sheriff, foiling the Orcks day by day, and fleeing from them night by night. And he thought of his string of ex-wives, four of which had been Orcks in disguise, two of which died of infectious diseases (which Jeb swore he didn't give them), and the most recent of whom exploded - particularly in the cranial region.

He trudged along glumly, mind whirling, Orsen a step behind with his eyes fixed on the dusty road at their boots. Jeb's feet ached from all the day's action. His body felt weak and tired. But 80 Cu t had his brain in a little noose, and the flashes of memory that flickered before his eyes only tightened it.

Somebody had to say something. The silence was too much to bear.

Jeb finally opened his mouth to speak, but Orsen cut in.

"Look, Jeb ... I'm real sorry," he said miserably. His eyes never left the road, and the pair never stopped walking. "Mr Tinkles ... he was my best friend at the commune..."

Jeb watched his young protégé as the misery leaked from his lips. He knew he was about to have to say something encouraging and thoughtful, but wasn't sure what that would be just yet. He marked it TBD and let the boy keep speaking.

"He was my only friend, really," Orsen continued, his voice barely audible above the ambient gusting of the Waste plains. "I just ... I couldn't let another Mr Tinkles get got. He needed savin', Jeb. The whole Waste needs savin', I reckon."

Jeb stayed silent for a moment longer, staring at the boy. "How'd the last Mr Tinkles go, lad?"

Orsen's head sunk lower. "Orcks."

"Ah."

This, Jeb knew, was the moment to speak. To give a short speech that would lift the boy's head, and not to mention his spirits. They'd be back to their old selves, putting the day's horrors behind them. Hopefully forever, but you never really knew what horrors would catch up in the Waste.

But Jeb wasn't very good at this sort of thing. The only feelings he had much experience with were the manic passions wild Orcks raved about before opening up someone's belly like a can of beans. And those were pretty easy to deal with, relatively. They opened their mouths, they said something stupid, he shot them in the head. He could arrest the corpse afterwards, but it was usually easier on his back to just leave it there and let something take it in the night.

Real feelings were much trickier. If Orcks were Waste Beasts or man-eaters, real human feelings were more like boulderfrogs - you'd never know a boulderfrog was there until you sat on it, and then not only would you quite suddenly know it was there, but you would get the grand tour of its mouth and stomach, too.

Yep, just like feelings.

Jeb's mouth floundered like a fish out of water, but he couldn't figure out what to say. So he went with what he knew instead (except not the shooty guns bit. He went with other stuff he knew. People can know more than one thing, don't you know).

"Orsen," he said.

The boy finally looked at him. His eyes were all filmy and sparkly, his cheeks red. Damn if he didn't look utterly devastated.

"How 'bout we go visit Smack-dab, eh? We're not too far, maybe a couple o' days at most. Ya can play with Meatsack, an' we can sleep in real beds. How 'bout that?"

Orsen smiled weakly and nodded. "That sounds a'right, Jeb. I'd like that."

Jeb smiled back, a big fatherly grin. "Well OK then. To Smack-dab we go!"

* * *

Phoenix stood in a stare-off with the dungarees-wearing short man and his frighteningly static Overlord companion.

"My name's Ernest," said the man whose name was Ernest. He was interrupting what was becoming a very tense silence. "And this 'ere is H2-149. What's your name?"

Phoenix lowered the tip of his weapon to see what would happen. "Phoenix."

H2-149 lowered its cannon precisely the same degree.

So it was an H-unit, eh? Phoenix thought. That meant it was just a soldier - the lower in the alphabet the bot, the dumber it was. But that made even less sense. He could understand a robo-human partnership if a political body was involved, maybe a C-unit or something, but some dumb-ass soldier? That made about as much sense as Phoenix's growing love of Bert and Meatsack, but mostly Bert. Meatsack needed some work before he could be fully likeable. A bath would help. And a brain.

"There," said Ernest, earnestly, "now ain't that better?"

Phoenix's face turned to a grimace. No, it wasn't better. If anything, it was a little worse. "What do you want?" he asked, deciding to try get this over with. "I'm a busy guy."

"O' course, o' course!" the shorty exclaimed, a little flash of warmth sparking somewhere behind his faux-smile. "Let it not be known that a man o' the Farm was one t' hold up a good day's work!"

"HIGH PRODUCTIVITY IS IMPORTANT IN A TRADER'S LIFE, PATHETIC HUMAN," the tin-man added. "WE SALUTE YOU."

"Trader?" Phoenix said, lowering his rifle entirely. "Hell no, not this guy. I'm out here hunting for Smack-dab." He beckoned the rifle to prove the point.

Idiots, he thought, thinking he was a trader. What trader wanders without a pack? Maybe these two weren't so dangerous after all.

Ernest glanced very briefly at his companion, as though something had just connected in his brain. H2-149 did not look back.

"Smack-dab, huh?" Ernest finally replied, scratching his tidy hair. "Can't say I know what a Smack-dab is. That a new town or somethin'?"

"Town?" Phoenix frowned. "What kind of rock is your farm planted under? It's the Back Road bar, up thataways." Phoenix shrugged in the direction of Smacks.

Short McClipboard spoke a little "Huh", and brought his board up. He scribbled on it hastily with a well-used pencil, mouthing the words 'Smack-dab' and 'Back Road bar' as he wrote.

"What kind of farmer has Overlord bodyguards, anyway?" Phoenix asked, gently scratching his balls and looking at H2.

Ernest glanced quickly up from his work. "Farmer? Oh no, sir. We're 'ere representin' the Farm - it's the new name f'r the town down the road. Ya know, with the big walls an' that. One of our smart lads, 'fore he was decapitated that is, captured an' reprogrammed H2 for the boss. Pretty neat, eh?"

Flush, and the blood swirled out of Phoenix's face. His metal-plated glove paused mid-ball-scratch.

The robot's eye didn't move, but by golly did it see. "DETECTING EMOTIONAL CHANGE: NERVOUSNESS INCREASING. BE AT EASE, COWARDLY FLESH BAG."

Ernest fully put his clipboard down now, letting it dangle from a bit of string on his belt. He rubbed his hands together, fingers red from the cold. "Woah there, friend, no need t' get all frightened. Farmer Brown don't mean ya no harm. We're just out 'ere doin' some inves'gative work, an' then we'll be on our way." He paused, picking the clipboard up again to briefly re-scan the words. Then his beady eyes looked back up at Phoenix. "Don't suppose ya heard anythin' about a group o' fine folk with a trailer gettin' murdered recently?"

At this point, two thoughts happened simultaneously in Phoenix's brain.

The first came from a little horned demon, who was red and farted smoke. It told Phoenix that he ought to go get Bert, so she could handle this so-called investigative pair. The dungarees people must have been out here looking for the companions that Terrance killed, and Phoenix wasn't sure what to tell them that wouldn't get Smack-dab further ... investigated.

The second thought came from a tiny little pixie, clad in white and glowing gently as though it were soaked in radiation. If Phoenix had heard of angels, he'd have called it one. Its voice sounded a little more like this: Kill them, Phoenix. Kill them now. No more talking. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill...

Someone had once told him that the personalities of these little voices were the wrong way round, but they found it hard to convince a man of anything logical once he'd seen little pixies screaming on his shoulders.

"Uhh..." was the awkward noise that finally escaped his mouth.

"HEARTRATE INCREASING," the robot noticed. "SKINBAG KNOWN AS ERNEST, THE SKINBAG KNOWN AS PHOENIX KNOWS SOMETHING."

"Uhrm...."

And there it was again: Ernest's weird, glitching face. His smile didn't move, it was still at all the same angles, but something inside it died. In this case, something inside it died violently. "Please, Phoenix, if ya knows somethin', ya gotta tell us. We're out 'ere makin' the Waste a better place, ya know? Fixin' roads, buildin' farms - we're just claimin' a little Tax is all. Now if it were up t' me I'd leave ya in peace, so I would, but I'm afraid we gots t' know what 'appened to our trailer. Got no choice."

In Phoenix's mind, he carefully (but quickly) weighed up the options. If he attacked now, the robot would almost undoubtedly see it coming. Insert Bullets A into Torso B. The way to avoid a conflict, then, was to tell Shorty McClipboard all about Smack-dab, the trailer, and presumably, Smack-dab's money. But if Bert found out he'd told a dangerous group of bandits not only where Smack-dab was located, but that it also had money and very few staff, she'd probably pull out his insides. He was confident her robotic hand was capable of such a feat.

So he decided to mix it up a little. It wouldn't be lying, it would just be not telling them everything.

He smiled widely, innocently, and relaxed his stance. "Well, it just so happens that I do know what happened to your trailer."

The robot's head tilted to the side - the first movement it had made since lowering its weapon. There was something creepy about a thing that moved suddenly, but subtly, after being as still as a statue. Something in the back of Phoenix's head worried he might start to have nightmares about The Woman's statue coming to life. That would be just what he needed. More angry women attacking him in his dreams.

"TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW."

"Oh I'll tell you, tin-man."

"THEN TELL US."

"I'm going to."

"NOW."

"OK, let's do this telling thing."

Silence.

More silence.

"Oh, right," Phoenix awkwardly chuckled, "I'll be doing the talking. So, umm, your trailer was attacked by a stranger. An adventurer with, like, big guns and an ugly face. Yeah, real ugly face. Write that one down. He just murdered all your folk because they asked him for Tax, and because he's meant to be famous but they didn't know who he was. Probably on account of his ugly face. Who wants to make that famous, you know? That's it, that's the whole story. Bandits ask stranger for Tax. Stranger realises he's not famous and he's ugly and he sucks. Stranger takes it out on bandits. What a bastard, right?"

Phoenix smiled openly and widely, emanating pure goodness from the bottom of his very soul. Right? ...right?

Ernest looked between the robot and Phoenix.

The robot stared straight through Phoenix.

"I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU."

Phoenix pouted. "But I'm a believable kinda guy!"

" 'e seems like a believable kinda folk t' me, H2."

"I DO NOT BELIEVE HIM."

"I think that's on you, not me."

"The story seemed plaus'ble t' me. Ya can't trust a man with an ugly face an' big guns."

"I FOUND IT LACKED BELIEVABILITY."

"Well that's just rude."

"YOU ARE RUDE."

"Your lightbulb is rude."

"TELL US THE TRUTH."

"I told you the truth!"

" 'e told us the truth, H2."

"HE DID NOT TELL US THE WHOLE TRUTH."

"I don't know what you mean."

" 'e don't know what we mean."

The robot stepped forwards, its legs whirring noisily. The cannon in its hands hummed all of a sudden, little twinkling lights flashing on all down the shiny casing. "I WISH TO KNOW WHY THE PATHETIC BAG OF MEAT KNOWN AS PHOENIX HAS NOT TOLD US HOW HE IS SO SURE THE TRAILER WAS ATTACKED BY A STRANGER. A STRANGER THAT HAS BEEN DESCRIBED ALMOST IDENTICALLY TO THE PATHETIC BAG OF MEAT KNOWN AS PHOENIX."

"Hey," Phoenix frowned, fingers tightening once again on his rifle, "that's just hurtful."

Ernest scratched at his chin, face in thought. "I gotta admit, I'm a little unsure o' that meself now that it's mentioned. 'ow are ya so sure our trailer was attacked?"

"Because he told us."

" 'e told ya? Where?"

"At Smack-dab."

Then Phoenix's eyes grew wide. "Oh wait! I mean, he told me personally. One on one. Mano-a, um, -uglo. Whilst I was out here doing my solo thing. You know, alone."

"YOU ARE NOT DOING A SOLO THING."

"Yes I am."

"NO YOU ARE NOT."

Phoenix scowled. "Who are you to tell me what I am or ain't doing?"

"YOU TOLD US YOU ARE OUT HUNTING FOR A SMACK-DAB."

...

"No I didn't."

"Aye, ya did, I think."

"YOU TOLD US THIS INFORMATION AT PRECISELY A406 dash 43 dash 453439."

Nobody really understands how Overlords track time.

Phoenix shuffled his feet nervously, fingers wrapping and unwrapping from his weapon. He'd dug himself into a right old hole, this time. Bert was gonna be real pissed. She'd probably yell at him about his mouth or something, then stomp around and flex her fists. She liked having fists, Phoenix had noticed. She was always, you know, fisting. Oh, but not in, like, a weird way. Just having fists. Not fisting. Fisting was the wrong word. Unless she did that in her spare time, which was cool if she did because that's her business, but it's not what Phoenix meant.

Yeah.

"TELL US EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT THE DEATH OF OUR TRAILER. THEN TELL US WHERE SMACK-DAB IS. YOU OWE TAX TO-" the robot twitched, as if being forced to change its words, "<lord and protector of the Farm, Farmer Brown, long may he reign>."

"Please tell us what ya know, Phoenix. If ya don't, it's gon' get real ugly for ya." Ernest looked genuinely concerned. He obviously knew what 'ugly' meant.

OK, enough was enough. Phoenix had to either piss or get out of the bog. It was showtime, for the greatest show of all. A little show called Life. Phoenix's Life. Phoenix's Life Which He Enjoyed Living and Quite Wanted to Keep Living. It was gonna be a damn good show.

And at this point, Phoenix felt that it should involve a little bit of adventurer's strategy. He was an adventurer, after all. A hero. He knew every trick in the book. He could escape any situation. Tie him up over a burning fire? He'd get out. Strap him to a weird altar and try to sacrifice him to your gods? Good luck, he hadn't been sacrificed so far.

It was just an H-unit soldier. Phoenix felt pretty confident that he could outwit that. Hell, he'd even done it before, right before he shot it. Or was that an A-unit Primarch like Terrance had said? Naw, pretty sure it was just a soldier. A soldier they were real mad about losing for some reason...

Anyway, it was time to employ one of the greatest heroic tactics the Waste has to offer. A time-honoured tradition of heroism that had been practiced for generations, probably dating back to the Old World.

First, he looked past the duo before him and frowned.

Second, his eyes opened wide and he pointed urgently.

Third, "Holy shit! What's that behind you?"

* * *

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