“What’d he call it? Some special type of iron?” Tech One asked.

  “Fighting Iron,” Tech Two answered. “Back in the Bloody Conflict there were all types of mechs. Most were used for transporting cargo through rough terrain. There were plenty of mech cavalry divisions as well. Battle machines designed to kick ass.”

  “This is one of them?” Tech One asked.

  “No, this is something better,” Tech Two said. “Of the battle mechs, there was a special class that was outfitted like no others. Fighting Iron. You saw them belt guns and rocket launchers, right?”

  “Right. But battle mechs had them things.”

  “This baby also has some plasma cannons and probably all kinds of other things that normal battle mechs don’t got,” Tech Two said.

  “But the Mister can’t use none of them in the tournament,” Tech One said. “No weaponry. That’s the rule.”

  “He don’t need weaponry,” Tech Two said. “We’ll strip all that out. Put it on some rollers. Be badasses on the range. If the Mister wants this baby for the tournament, it’s because the thing has doubly reinforced struts all throughout its structure. The joints are armored. The hull is some alloy that was outlawed a few centuries ago, but the powers that were brought it back to fight in the Bloody Conflict. Technically, by treaty law, the Mister should destroy this thing just because of that alloy. Worse than the poly, is what I heard.”

  “Worse than the poly? No way,” Tech One replied. “Poly gets in yer blood and gunks up your body. How can metal be worse?”

  “I don’t know,” Tech Two said. “But it is.”

  “This thing don’t look like it’s made of special metal,” Tech One said. “Got rust and divots and pits in its hull.”

  “That’s camouflage,” Tech Two said. “Supposed to look like that.”

  Gibbons chuckled to himself. He wished the hull was all camouflage. Some was, but most of it wasn’t. Real rust, real pits, real dents and dings and gouges. He and Clay had been up and down the Ams like the tech had said. That kind of travel was hard on any machine, even Fighting Iron like his mech. Not even a biochrome hybrid could stop the passage of time and what it did to metal.

  “Hold on, what’s this?” Tech Two asked. “Do me a favor and fire up the com system, will ya?”

  Tech One nodded and flipped a few switches until the com console was filled with red and green flashing lights. He frowned at them, then smiled when they all turned green and became solid. Flashing is bad. Red and flashing is worse. All green and not flashing is always best.

  Except there was one light that refused to stay green. It winked back to red, flashed a couple of times, then returned to green.

  “This what you’re looking for?” Tech One asked, pointing at the light that refused to be good.

  “That’s it,” Tech Two said. “Someone’s either listening, or this thing has a faulty circuit somewhere.”

  “Great,” Tech One said. “Takes forever to track down a faulty com circuit.” He fumbled at his belt and removed a small orb. It was about the size of a large cherry, perfectly round and shiny black. “Good thing I got this.”

  “Whoa, where did you get that?” Tech Two asked, his voice filled with awe and jealousy. “That’s a drain hunter. A freaking drain hunter. Those things cost half a year’s salary. No way you could afford that. The Mister buy it for us to use?”

  “The Mister didn’t buy it and it’s not for us to use, it’s for me,” Tech One said. He held the orb up in front of Tech Two’s face. “It cost more than half a year’s salary. More like three quarters. But I didn’t have to pay a dime. Won it.”

  “Won it?” Tech Two asked, the awe gone and replaced by suspicious incredulity. “At what? Being the biggest idiot on the range?”

  “No,” Tech One snapped. “Cards. In Haggie’s Saloon. Won it off a couple of strangers passing through Del Rado. They was using counterfeit scrip and Haggie was gonna blast them to Hell with a scatter gun, but I held her off. Said I’d search them for anything valuable. Found this.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Tech Two said. “Haggie just let you walk out of there with a drain hunter? The way the wiring is in that piss hole? She’d have slit ten men’s throats to get one of them marbles in her hand.”

  “Well, she didn’t see it, did she?” Tech One laughed. “I palmed it and showed her the fancy belt knife one of the men had on them. She snatched that out of my hand so fast I had to count my fingers after to make sure she didn’t take one with.”

  “She has no idea you got a drain hunter?” Tech Two asked.

  “Nope,” Tech One said. “Nobody does.”

  “That so?” Tech Two asked.

  “Hey, now, stop looking at me like that,” Tech One said, his voice shaky and annoyed. “I’m showing ya, ain’t I? Gonna share with ya, ain’t I?”

  Tech Two tapped the rebel light that had just gone back to flashing red for two seconds before returning to a safe green.

  “Then use it,” Tech Two said. “Let’s see it in action. Ain’t no use to neither of us if it’s just gonna sit in your hand like that. Track down this circuit, then we’ll use it on the whole mech. Find all the faults.”

  “And all the secrets,” Tech One said. “I bet an old beauty like this has lots of secrets.”

  “I bet it does,” Tech Two agreed.

  Gibbons cut the com. He scrubbed any trail his listening would have left. Or he hoped he did. A drain hunter wasn’t something to sneeze at. He knew those tools well. They’d been used by both sides after the Bloody Conflict. They were used to go over every single Fighting Iron left after the treaty was signed. No more co-pilots after that.

  If those boys figured out what it was really for, he’d be in a lot of trouble. And stuck in the stealth drives meant he couldn’t escape that trouble. Maybe once the mech was at full power, he might have a chance. But until then he’d just have to hope and pray the two techs were as stupid as they had sounded. Even with a drain hunter, they probably couldn’t find their own dicks, let alone find him in the stealth decks.

  Still…

  Gibbons began sorting through all the data that was with him in the stealth decks. The mech had survived the purge after the treaty, so there had to be record of how he’d resisted the drain hunter back then. He wished he could remember, but everything was fuzzy after the Bloody Conflict. Fuzzy until Clay found him and brought him out of hiding. Or he found Clay. Fuzzy, all of it.

  Gibbons set to work, knowing he was on the clock. Even if the techs were morons, they still had coincidence and probable luck on their side. Gibbons had hours or seconds to prepare for discovery, he didn’t know which. He attacked the data as if he had seconds. It was the only way to be sure.

  14

  A memory.

  Hot and painful.

  It slammed into Clay’s mind and he sat bolt upright. The world was nothing but darkness and pain. His vision exploded with flashing lights and swirling colors. He was used to it. Getting knocked out as much as he had in his life, he knew concussion lights when he saw them.

  He felt around and discovered he was on a bed. No, not a bed, more of a cot. He was naked and had a long deer hide blanket covering most of his body. His shoulder was pure agony, but that was nothing compared to his belly.

  His guts felt like they’d been split open and his insides replaced with fire ants. Carefully, he pushed the deer hide blanket aside and looked down at his belly. The light was too dim for him to make out much other than a wide strip of bandages wrapped about him.

  They glowed with the hint of iridescence which had him worried. Contaminated hemp? If so then his belly was not just full of fire ants, but enough rads to cook him from the inside out.

  He leaned closer, careful not to move too fast or bend too far, and peered at the bandages. After a couple seconds of inspection, Clay sighed with relief. The bandages weren’t hot with rads. It was cave lichen. It looked like it was made into a paste and spread liberally under the bandages and along the edges. Old range trick. Fought off infection and alerted anyone to possible rot by changing colors if the flesh started to spoil.

  That realization made Clay look closer at his surroundings. Pitch dark except for the glow from his bandages and also a faint glow from more lichen up on the ceiling. It was the ceiling to a cave. He wasn’t in a hut or some cellar, although it had the smell of a cellar, he was in a cave.

  Memories of his flight from General Hansen and the destruction of the roller flooded back to him. He reached up and touched the bandages on his shoulder tenderly, careful not to press too hard for fear of passing out from the already close to unbearable pain. Flashes of his escape from the vehicle and out into the range rolled across his mind. He remembered seeing a bluff far off. He’d tried to reach that bluff, but no dice.

  Yet, by the smell, feel, look of where he was, maybe someone came along and helped him to the bluff. Of course someone helped him. His wounds didn’t clean and bandage themselves. But was he in the bluff, tucked away in a secret cave, or was he somewhere else? Maybe taken kilometers away to some ravine or mesa?

  He didn’t know. Not a clue. All he knew was that he hurt all over, especially in two places, and he needed to pee bad. Like real bad. Like close to wetting the cot if he didn’t get up off his ass and find a chamber pot or piss hole.

  He slowly moved his legs over the edge of the cot. He placed his bare feet on the cave floor and sighed at how cool the ground was. He wanted to lie down and let the cool stone fill his body. Anything to fight the fire of agony that roared through him.

  Fever?

  He felt his forehead but couldn’t tell. If he was fevered then his hand would be just as hot as the rest of him. His thinking wasn’t muddled, so he ruled out fever, although he didn’t outright reject it. Lichen paste was good, but it wasn’t a cure all. Infection was a looming specter always.

  Clay stood up and waited for the cave to stop spinning. He took one step, stopped. Took a second step, stopped. The third, fourth, and fifth steps came one after the other, then he had to stop and take a few breaths before he could go on with steps six, seven, and eight.

  In all, it took close to two dozen steps before he reached the wall of the cave. He hoped he was near some corner, a spot where he could relieve himself without soiling the entire space. But hopes had to wait, Clay needed to piss and he was about to let loose where he stood.

  It was not easy. The muscles in his belly, the ones that helped squeeze that bladder of his, were not exactly fully intact. He whimpered as he let loose a stream of hot, acrid piss against the cave wall. His head swam again, and he reached out to place a hand against the wall. Steady, or as steady as he could be in his state, Clay sighed with immense relief as his bladder slowly emptied out.

  “I should make you clean that up,” a woman said from behind him.

  Clay yelped, spun about, sent piss streaming everywhere, yelped again, spun back, yelped some more, put both hands on the cave wall, and just shook his head. Nothing he could do about someone sneaking up on him, so he just let the piss flow and flow until he was empty.

  “Peekachu’s ghost,” the woman said. “I leave you alone for fifteen minutes and you pee everywhere like a puppy. What the hell is the matter with you, mister?”

  “Clay,” Clay said, turning around. He was naked and had piss all over his feet. Giving the woman his name wasn’t exactly going to compromise his position. “You the one that fixed me up?”

  “I am,” the woman replied.

  She held a single candle, and by the smell it was beeswax. A rarity. Clay’s eyes flicked to the candle’s flame and the woman followed his gaze.

  “We have about seven different colonies in the rocks here,” the woman said. “Not something we like to share with the rest of the range, but not exactly a secret either.”

  “Should be,” Clay said. “There are more than a couple of folks who would kill you to get ahold of a viable colony of bees.”

  The woman laughed hard and long at his words. Clay frowned but didn’t take offense. Not the first time a woman had laughed at him like that, wouldn’t be the last. He shuffled his way back to his cot and eased down. The woman was still laughing as he managed to get his legs back under the deer hide blanket. Clay settled into the cot and waited for her to stop with the laughing.

  “Feel better?” he asked as she wiped tears from her eyes and walked over to him.

  “That was what I was going to ask you,” the woman said. “But since you were able to get your ass off that cot and piss everywhere, then I assume you are feeling much better. Wasn’t sure you were going to make it there for a while.”

  “How long of a while?” Clay asked. “Where am I? How many hours have I been out?”

  “Hours? Seriously?” the woman asked.

  Clay was afraid she’d start laughing at him again as she shook her head back and forth, but she gulped air and fought it. Downright courteous.

  “Not hours,” the woman said. “Not even days. Weeks.”

  “I what? Weeks?” Clay gasped. “You have to be shitting me.”

  “I ain’t,” the woman said. “Two weeks and a day. The first three days we had the priest in here praying over you. He was certain he’d have to help your soul onto the next realm. But I had a feeling you had fight in you. You got away from General Hansen. Most men don’t make it out of that ranch house. And if they do, they only get so far, then end up in her fun chamber. You got all the way out, and in one of her rollers!”

  She laughed some more, but not at him.

  Clay studied her face and was pleasantly surprised to see she wasn’t some weathered old crone. Not that it mattered much, he wasn’t exactly in the mood for female companionship. Not after…

  “You alright?” the woman asked. She grabbed a stool by the head of the cot and set the candle on it, then crouched down next to him. She placed her hand to his forehead and nodded. “Fever’s gone. What’s that look you gave me? Do I have something on my nose? I checked for boogers before I came in.”

  “Boogers? What? No,” Clay said. “I was just remembering my time with General Hansen. It’s something I’d like to forget.”

  “She’s a piece of work,” the woman said. Then she held out her hand. “Nasta. I kind of run things around here.”

  “Clay,” Clay replied, shaking her hand.

  Her skin was rough, callused. She was used to hard work and didn’t mind people knowing. No hint of the scent of lotion or salve for the many cuts and scrapes he felt as he shook. No hint of perfume on her either, just the smell of a woman’s sweat mixed with the musk of hot sun and a couple of days since the last bath.

  Clay wasn’t exactly repulsed by the smell.

  “My britches stay on, pilot,” Nasta said.

  “Excuse me?” Clay replied. “Not sure where you’re getting at there.”

  “Right,” Nasta said and smiled. “Just wanted you to know that you won’t be getting any action here. I have way too much work to do to deal with some horny wanderer.”

  “Nope, no worries there,” Clay said, holding his hands up. He winced as the skin around his shoulder stretched and pulled. “Ow.”

  Despite her warning, Clay couldn’t help but make a quick assessment of her physically. Full chested, that was obvious, although she kept herself wrapped tight. That was obvious as well from the way her deer hide shirt shifted across her body. The woman was ready for action. He’d never met a woman that bound herself that wasn’t either preparing to run or to fight. Or both.

  Her eyes were a golden brown, flecks of green throughout. Her hair was long and straight, tied up in a careful and secure ponytail. She wore hemp trousers, or britches as she called them. No shoes, just sun-darkened bare feet that looked like they had enough calluses on them to walk over a field of scorpions without feeling a single stab.

  Her nose was small, piggish but not repulsively so. Clay had seen a whore down in the Brazilian Empire that looked like someone had cut of a hog snout and it glued right above her mouth and below her eyes. It hadn’t bothered him so much that he didn’t still pay. But she was half price, which was nice.

  Cheeks were covered in dark freckles that complemented her dark skin nicely. Her lips were a thin, severe line in her face, but there was an upturn at each corner that showed she liked to smile. The laughing had already confirmed that though.

  “You done?” Nasta asked, a mocking look in her eyes. “Want me to stand up and twirl for you? Maybe lift my shirt so you can make sure my backside is to your liking?”

  “Not a fan of male attention?” Clay asked. But before she could respond, he continued. “Hold on. You called me pilot. How the hell do you know I’m a pilot?”

  “Took you long enough to catch that,” Nasta said. She fished in her trousers pocket and pulled out Clay’s watch. “This was a giveaway.”

  Clay snatched it from her, but she didn’t look offended at the force he used. He thumbed it open and stared at the insides. Dark. No lights, no hint that it had any power left at all. Which was bad. Very bad. It meant one of two things. Yes, it could mean two of two things, but Clay doubted it.

  “Has it been dark all this time?” Clay asked.

  Nasta shrugged. “No. It went dark about a day after you got here. Hasn’t lit up since.”

  Clay didn’t have to ask how she had gotten it open. His hand had been at her disposal for two weeks and a day. All she had to do was put his thumb to the catch and it would have popped right open.

  Dark for two weeks. Active for a day after they found him, then nothing. It didn’t mean the watch was dead, but it easily meant that his mech was dead. Or completely out of power. Or…

  Gibbons. He could have severed the connection on purpose. But that would have meant he was tucked away in the stealth decks and worried about being discovered. But for two weeks? If he was out of power and stranded out in the desert, then he would have kept the watch active so Clay could find him. That meant the mech had been captured and Gibbons didn’t dare reconnect the link. Whoever had the mech would want the watch.

  The mech wouldn’t run without the pilot having the watch. Or if Gibbons issued an override on all systems and gave someone access. But Gibbons would never do that. It would mean his death the second a strange pilot realized what he was. They would have purged that system and wiped him out.