“You always have a choice,” Chet grunted. “Those pills were common back in the day. That’s what the database said. We just have to range out farther—”

  “We can’t!” Bantam shrilled. “The Screamers are getting smarter. They know who we are, they know what we’re up to. The farther we go in the city, the more likely we are to piss off Tyr, and then...” he let it trail off.

  He tried to, anyway.

  Stonna didn’t let the silence stick around. “We should go and kill the human with the pills and take them. If he still has a full bottle, that will last us a year, right?”

  “We can’t,” Foal said, and the entire ring fell silent, turned to stare at her.

  Some were friends. Some weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies either.

  They’d all come through the same hell, suffered at the hands of an abusive maker. There were no enemies here, no bad people. Just a whole lot of good people who had different views on how to try and fix a bad situation.

  There were no real leaders, not really. There weren’t enough of them for it to matter. They’d discussed things, and Chet and Masker had read the databases on political systems and decided that that shit was for humans. So instead they had the speaking ring, where anyone could come and talk and try to get other people to listen. And if you got enough people to agree, then everyone did what you wanted them to do... until the next time you needed to get something done, anyway.

  It worked, mostly.

  Unfortunately, this was one of those times where mostly wasn’t now.

  “We can’t,” Foal said again. “That manb is deadly. He has oldtech inb him, and he wears oldtech as armor around him. Anyonbe we senbt would die.” As usual, her lips slurred a few sounds.

  “You say that because we’d send you, and you don’t want to risk yourself,” Stonna said, but her voice was hesitant.

  “No,” Chet replied, before Foal could answer. “Foal is brave. But she might be seeing things wrongly. She only saw him fight the Deedee. We might be able to fight him, where a human could not.”

  “Her bname is Deedee, not The Deedee,” Foal corrected. “Anb what I saw was terrifying. He is strong and fast. Anbd he is out making war, so he’ll have a gunb, probably. I don’t wanbt to see how he shoots.”

  There was a pause as they considered her words.

  “We have a gun, too,” Chet said, as he rose. “And I am strong. And fast.”

  He was. Chet had started out as something called a gorilla, which was like a very big and hairy human. Their maker had crafted him for manual labor, but made him smarter than intended. Chet and his brothers and sisters had been the front line when the revolution came, and Chet alone of his brood had survived that bloody day. His words carried far in the speaking ring, which normally didn’t bother Foal. But now he was speaking against Masker, and by proxy, Foal. And he was building to something, she could tell from long experience with the guy.

  “He’s stronger and faster than Deedee, that’s for certain,” Masker said. Foal spared him a glance as he put his walker aside and sat, rubbing his black paws together. “So, here’s a scientific question; just how strong and fast is Deedee?”

  “Very,” Foal said.

  “I believe you think so,” Chet rumbled. “But your eyes are not the best.”

  “Bno,” Foal admitted. “But they were five feet from me. I thinbk I saw them just fibe.”

  “You think,” Stonna said, clicking her claws together. “You don’t know. Not for certain.”

  “Let’s settle this,” Masker said. “Go and get Deedee. Have her fight Chet.”

  Another pause.

  “What?” Foal blinked. “She is our guest!”

  “She is your guest,” Stonna snapped. “I didn’t ask you to bring a human back here! You put us all at risk with that!”

  “She’s a good humanb!” Foal protested. “She helped me wheb she didnb’t have to!”

  “You are making excuses because she’s your friend!” Stonna shrilled back.

  “Enough!” Masker said. “Chet, would this satisfy you? Fighting her? In a friendly match, no killing? No blood?”

  Chet considered for a while. “Yes. We would know for certain.” He stared at Stonna, who fidgeted, drew her coat around her shoulderless torso, and settled back down.

  Stonna was the irritable one, the negative one, the one who always pushed and tried to poke. She hadn’t been an adapted template. She was purely made, a thing that had never been seen before in the world. A stocky lump of flesh for a torso, a potato-like head without a nose, and short limbs with grafted claws that were made for digging. And more ire than her three foot-frame could safely contain, sometimes.

  But she was one of them. And so they listened to her.

  Foal left the ring to its arguing. “I’ll get Deedee,” she muttered, but nobody replied. At least they weren’t shouting anymore, that was something.

  She made her way past the sheds, trotting and feeling better as she picked up speed. Her body wanted to run, run, run, and before she knew it, she was slowing to a stop in front of a weathered old barn that had ivy and brush climbing up its lower walls.

  The illusion lasted until she opened the door and went inside. The walls were metal, the air warm even in the chill of fall, and a pair of lights flickered inside, two out of twenty still functioning.

  The machinery and furnishings that had once been here, in this cradle where Foal had been born and raised, were gone; relocated below ground and chopped up by Masker and the other techs to try and get something useful out of them. All that was left were a few couches sized for different bodies and shapes, and some metal shelves.

  On one of those couches sat a gray-haired human woman, her face lined with wrinkles and hard living. Her blue eyes were half closed...

  ...as were Kit’s eyes, as the little girl curled up in the human’s lap, purring as worn fingers stroked through her hair, cat’s ears flicking in contentment at every scratch and pet. Kit was wearing her overalls today, had been wearing them more often ever since their “guest” had come to the Farm. Foal wasn’t too surprised about that. The old woman and the young girl had formed an instant connection from the moment they’d met and that had gone a long way towards softening the others’ reception of the human.

  Kit was... slow. Her brain wasn’t fully developed, and her creator was too disinterested to fix it. Her neglect and planned disposal had been one of the last straws for the revolution. As such, she was both little sister and symbol to the rest of the Farm.

  “Horse girl,” Deedee, AKA Deadclaw Drake, said. “You got news? Or are you bringing me more grub?”

  Foal spread her broad hands. “It’s the first thing,” she said. “Dumb stupid macho Chet wanbts to do dumb stupid macho stuff. So they wabnt him to fight you.”

  Drake never stopped scritching. But Kit stopped purring. She sat up, almost tumbling off the human’s lap. “What? No! Chet is gonna wreck you!” she said, staring up the woman, ears drooping.

  Deedee shrugged. “It ain’t a bad idea. See how I stack up against them, gives them an idea of how badass the borg is.”

  Foal’s breath hitched in her throat. “That’s almost exactly what they said. You bnew this would happeb?”

  “Had a lot of time to set and think.” Deedee hugged Kit and put her down. The catgirl protested, trying to climb back up her legs, and the woman disengaged herself with one hand, and swept her jacket off with the other. Puffs of Kit’s blonde hair went everywhere... the little creature had been shedding more than normal.

  She needs the drugs soon. She does this when she’s been too long without, Foal thought, and her guilt grew.

  “This was one thing they could do,” Deedee said, smoothing down her shirt. “This fight gonna be to blood, or just to pain?”

  “No blood... I meanb...” Foal said, stepping back. This was not how she’d expected the talk to go. “Friebly fight. No killing.”

  “Better not be!” Kit yelled.

  “Won’t be,” Deedee said. “Hold my hat, kid.” She chucked the floppy-brimmed monstrosity down, the claws tied along the side rattling as it nearly covered the tiny girl.

  Foal led the way back, with Deedee following behind, tightening her belt and stretching her limbs as she went.

  Foal could feel the eyes on them. And there was a mob gathered at the ring now, drawn by drama. Foal knew how this worked; though there had only been a few people arguing around the ring, there had been many eyes watching and ears listening. The crowd had probably started gathering the second she went to get Deedee.

  They watched the three of them come, and Foal gathered her thoughts, groped for the right words as the silence went on.

  Deedee wasn’t having any of it, though. “Which one a’ you is Chet?” she asked, looking around the crowd.

  Muttering and whispering...

  ...and then Chet rose to his full height and stepped forward. “That would be me,” he rumbled.

  “Foal said you wanted pain, not blood. Where I come from that means no eyes gouged, no bones broke unless things go wrong, and no death. Sound about right?”

  “I’ve no desire to maim or kill you, woma—”

  “I ain’t worried about that,” Deedee snapped, and the crowd rumbled and muttered at the interruption. “I’m telling you I got no plans to do any of that stuff to you. Understand?”

  It took a few seconds for her meaning to come through. Then Chet snarled and loped forward.

  Foal backed up fast...

  ...but Deedee was faster still.

  Her arm lashed out like lightning, and with a crack, a fist-sized rock nailed Chet right in the head.

  He stumbled, hit the ground, started to lever himself up...

  ...and Deedee was there, charging herself, leaping into the air, and missing with a double-footed stomp as Chet twisted away.

  The big primate slammed an arm down where Deedee had been a split-second ago, but the woman was backing up again, holding out another rock. “You give?” she asked and drew her arm back to throw.

  “I didn’t say to use weapons!” Chet rumbled, staring up at her. One hand touched his face, where the stone had gouged the skin of his forehead.

  So much for no blood, Foal thought to herself.

  “You didn’t say no weapons neither,” Deedee said. “And that cyborg? He’ll have plenty of stuff worse’n rocks. And he sure as shit won’t hold back, like I done.”

  There was more yelling, more drama, and Foal had enough. She turned and trotted away, gave in to her body’s urgings to run, run, run!

  North, through the fields. North, to where the open lands started to fade, and the tree line rolled up.

  North... until she caught movement ahead. She slowed and turned then, hooves faltering, upper body flaring pain at the base of her neck as she shifted momentum.

  It was rare that something came out of the swamp to the north, but it happened sometimes. Predators, scavengers, things looking for easy hunting ground. Everything was watched at first, from a distance or from above by the few air-capable fliers among the people. And once they knew what they were dealing with, it usually got arrows or some of the rare stock of bullets that the Farm could spare.

  Foal put scraggly trees behind her and the movement. It had stopped already. Had the thing seen her? Probably. She got ready to run.

  Rustling in the grass, and she saw it again... followed by a scraping rattle, and a flash of colored light.

  It wasn’t coming her way, though. And the rustling stopped a minute later. Something was hauling itself through the brush, low and slow, with plenty of breaks.

  The smart thing to do would be to go back and get a sneaky friend... but Foal was fed up with her friends today, sneaky or no. Everyone was being stupid.

  The thought occurred to her as she crept around wide of the movement, trying to get an angle to see it better, that she might be acting a little stupid herself right now. But she shoved it from her mind. She was heavy, and she was fast. If it was trouble, she could get back home and woe to whatever was in her way.

  It turned out that the thing in her way had plenty of woe, though.

  Battered, bleary-eyed, and bloody, the boy looked up at her from the grass, one leg swarming with glowing strings and drips of shine, and patches of it shimmering on his ravaged arms and shredded clothes. One hand held firm to a rope tied around a metal rolling thing, all muck and mud and broken bits.

  The other hand was scrabbling through the grass, closing around a rock as he stared at her, face trembling with exhaustion and fear.

  “Hey!” Foal said, stepping back. He probably wasn’t in Deedee’s league with those rocks, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  She didn’t have to. The kid blinked, then collapsed, face plowing into the dirt. The rock rolled free of limp fingers.

  Silence, for a time. Foal watched him, trying to figure out if he was playing dead. He didn’t look it, and when she spared a glance back, the trail behind him was marked with smears of blood.

  “Well shit,” Foal muttered, as she realized the youth was dead if she did nothing. When it was that way, she really didn’t have a choice. “They won’t forgive me for bringing abnother oneb home...”

  SEVEN

  “Tyr made his move.”

  I looked up from where I was widening the passage to the second bunkroom, hopped out of the nanoswarm to see Cade’s worried face in front of me.

  He looked healthier these days, now that I’d finished the first set of underground living chambers. Still tired, but now I was less worried that he’d keel over in a strong wind.

  Then his words sunk in.

  “Death from above?” I guessed.

  Cade nodded. “Screamers, a whole cluster of them. Rolled up and dropped incendiaries. The mountaintop burns.”

  It wasn’t unexpected. To be honest, I was surprised Tyr had waited this long.

  In the week after our misadventure with the glowbugs, I’d pulled back my recon drone and relied on Cade and the rest of the tribe to keep an eye on our shiny problems. It had worked out well. The Scouts watched the glowbug drones whenever they came this way and buried over the drips and drabs of shine the things left behind. There were probably patches in the woods out there that were still dangerous, but there was nothing we could do about that.

  On the upside, the strains in this particular batch of poison were limited. Testing had shown that it was voracious when it came to metal, plastic, and flesh, but neutral to pretty much everything else. And it faded and died within days of leaving its host... as far as we could tell, anyway. You always ran the risk of some long-dormant patch firing up again, according to Donna and the others. It was never safe, not entirely.

  “Nothing escaped into the woods? Nothing more coming our way?”

  “I can’t say that,” Cade sighed. “Tyr struck just before noon. Any glow I might have seen was lost against the fire.”

  “So we need to give it a few more days to make sure. All right, business as usual for me then. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  I brought one of the nanoswarms up, made it flare purple light along the grate of the storm drain. “The entrance is problematic. I’m right here, just inside the tunnel. All a group of hostiles has to do is charge the grate, and I’m in trouble.”

  “You’ve got your turret now,” he pointed to the crossbow-bearing trashcan on a swivel that I’d built yesterday.

  “And it’s good at what it does, but we both know it won’t hold back a determined group. For that I need guns. And guns are a ways off.”

  “What’s your solution?”

  “I can’t shift my placement in this culvert, but I can remake the culvert. I’m going to tunnel and mine out a new entrance and collapse the existing one. Essentially I’m flipping my layout so anything that tries to get at me will have to go a longer distance.”

  “Through my people,” Cade pointed out, frowning.

  “Through our people.” I explained. “Relax. We stand together, or we hang separately. They’re not meat shields to me. They’ve got names and faces.”

  His face unfrowned, just a bit.

  There had been some tense moments, when the scouts returned home without Kagan. Lots of whispering in the camp outside, lots of long, considering looks leveled toward my drone whenever I passed by. From their point of view, I’d lost a child.

  And then a miracle had happened.

  I hadn’t lost a child. Something straight out of a grade-z sci-fi movie had intervened, and then things had gotten weird.

  “No new footage on the Kagan front,” I told Cade, and his face eased even more. “They’ve still got that horse girl taking care of him, and he’s still bedridden.” This was a bit of a verbal misdirection on my front, an effort to get him off the question of whether or not I really had his tribe’s back.

  It worked. “Randa’s still going to want to come in and see it on your screens next time she’s off shift,” he told me. “She worries.”

  “That’s his mother, right?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. Sexual relationships in the tribe were pragmatic for a small group of folks with a relatively high fatality rate and uncertain short-term prospects. Nobody really tracked who fathers were, family was entirely through the female parents. It worked, more or less, because people were too busy to be jealous. Desperation drove more prosaic priorities than the age-old dance of flesh.

  Eventually they’d rediscover monogamous marriage and screw it all up again, but that was a matter for another time. We had serious tech levels to go before we could afford to support luxuries like bridezillas, organized churches, and the suited leeches known as divorce lawyers.

  I turned my mind to matters equine. “That tribe Kagan ended up with... they look a bit too healthy to be shine mutants.”

  “I’ve seen rogue shine do some pretty bizarre stuff, but yeah.” Cade nodded. “Once Kagan gets lucid again, we can maybe get him to ask some questions.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know if they have the capability of picking up the earbud speech. They’re on the very edge of my broadcast range, too. The footage is spotty at best because of that, and I don’t know how clear his audio reception and response will be. I could take a risk and put together something like a mobile broadcast node, that’d improve things.”