Under Dark Sky Law (19 page)

“Alright. I’ll be able to clean up these
wounds a little more thoroughly if I’ve had some drugs, but I may
end up passing out for a spell. Just jam some atropine in my
ass—that outta wake me up,” she said and drew up a small dose of
morphine.

Within seconds of injecting the drug a warm
sense of relief washed over her, and she realized just how much
pain she’d been in from the distributed chemical burns. She pulled
the syringe out of her thigh and gave a long audible sigh.

“Better?” he said.

“Absolutely,” she said sluggishly, drawing
out each syllable.

“Sorry I don’t have any Alphamine on me. That
would probably do you some good right about now,” he said.

She laughed. “I’m the one that makes that
stuff, you know,” she said.

“I do—it’s still one of my hottest
commodities. I assume you don’t have any either, considering you
were on a government run when the storm hit,” he said. Smart man.
She was liking him more as the night wore on, and she began
thinking of what she could use to try and entice him to join up.
That would have to wait till later. First they needed to get the
fuck out of the dead zones.

“I never touch the stuff—shit’s addictive as
fuck,” she said.

He shook his head and chuckled. “Ah, the
irony. Well, at least you have the morphine for now,” he said and
turned his attention back to the vast sandy plains that rolled past
in never ending segments of their headlights.

She set about cleaning herself up before the
morphine made her too drowsy to function. She’d given herself a
deep intramuscular injection, so she had some time before the full
effects took hold—it would take time for the drug to make its way
into her bloodstream. Getting to some of the burns meant that she
had to strip down to her skivvies again temporarily.

“Sorry I keep getting naked in front of you,”
she said.

“Not something you typically do on a first
date, eh?” he said.

She bit her lip, feigning embarrassment. “Oh,
I wouldn’t say that,” she said.

“I can think of worse things to be subjected
to,” he said without taking his eyes off the road. “Don’t worry
though—I’m always a gentleman.”

“I dunno, peeling skin from chemical burns
and crusty stab wounds are pretty fucking irresistible. You might
not be able to control yourself,” she said.

They both laughed hard, releasing some of the
tension between them. He would fit right in with the Grease Weasels
if she could dream up a contract tasty enough to tempt him.

Besides helping her relax, the pain
medication allowed her to do the unpleasant job of debriding all
the wounds and cleansing some of the more serious chemical burns
without wanting to just give up and shoot herself in the face with
a laser. It still wasn’t terribly comfortable, but at least she was
able to get through it without vomiting or passing out.

“You okay over there?” he said, listening to
her grunting and huffing through the discomfort.

“I can think of better ways to spend an
evening, but I’ll live,” she said. After covering herself in a
layer of burn salve and putting sterile bandages on all of the
larger cuts, she put her clothes back on and put away the medical
supplies.

“Put your head on my lap and take a nap. You
need the rest,” he said.

She raised both eyebrows.

“I promise to be a gentleman,” he said.

She didn’t really have the energy to argue,
didn’t give a shit if he was a gentleman or not, and the morphine
was starting to make her dizzy. She mumbled something, and lay her
head on his pants. They were surprisingly soft, smelling of wood
smoke, sand, and something she couldn’t quite place. He switched
off the overhead lights, and in the rumbling darkness she fell
asleep listening to the crawler’s treads rolling across the uneven
desert terrain.

CHAPTER 15

Gila Bend had seen better days. It had never
been a particularly robust city, but if nothing else it had been a
decent crossroads for travelers trying to make their way from
Arizona back into Southern California. When it had become a dome,
the town had gone through significant modernization and
gentrification, briefly functioning as a tourist destination before
traveling became restricted and the railroads died.

After being abandoned to become a flats
location, things had slowly deteriorated, but it was still in much
better shape than some of the abandoned domes she had toured. That
wasn’t saying much, but at least it meant that there was some
modicum of structure left behind, some commerce and city services
that they could exploit. Radar seemed to be fairly familiar with
the place, and he navigated around the area with ease. Border
security was nil, so at least they didn’t have to deal with that.
Not that security seemed to mean jack squat these days anyway.

The only bad thing about having some residual
infrastructure was that there was also still some sense of
community, meaning people still gathered and talked. After
depositing the survivors at one of the still functioning medical
shelters, Radar had taken them to one of the local restaurants to
try and get ahold of some information and a way to contact the
outside world. The radio was still fried from the rain, and they
hadn’t had any luck making contact with anyone. They were both
starved for information, and now that immediate survival was taken
care of, Xero was antsy to figure out what the fuck she was going
to do about the Ketocillin.

The Saturn Disco had to be nearly 100 years
old. It had been remodeled and repaired numerous times during its
lifespan, but remnants of another century could still be seen
within the elements of the tacky restaurant’s décor. Everything was
blue and white and covered in cheesy planetary decorations—bad
models of space ships and planets with peeling paint jobs hung from
the ceilings, and retro space ornaments plastered every wall. The
place was dirty, its blue Formica tables cracked and peeling, the
white booth seats torn and smeared with decades of grease and ass
stains. It was packed with agitated patrons and she was second
guessing how wise it had been to park themselves in there.

Radar had insisted on just pulling the
crawler up to the front of the joint and leaving it there—he said
it would help with the intimidation factor and might make someone
think twice about trying to get the drop on some out-of-towners. If
there was a military vehicle involved, they were likely to be armed
with lasers too. With all the chaos going on, she wished that she
had been able to recover Delta and Echo’s lasers so that they would
both be armed, but she had never even found Echo’s body.

Speaking of which, their weapons were now
technically unauthorized, so perhaps it was best that an
undocumented mercenary wasn’t in possession of a government laser.
She needed to make contact with the Phoenix dome as soon as
possible so that they didn’t think she was part of these rebel
attacks on the domes. Officially speaking, they were also AWOL and
in possession of cargo that could be considered stolen. Not that it
seemed like there was really any time to be tracking down such
trivial crap like a load of missing cargo while major terrorist
attacks were happening, but she’d seen the dome governments do
stranger things. She couldn’t afford a trip back to a dome prison,
and she also couldn’t really afford to sever her official ties with
the domes just to stay out of jail for a weekend. Sometimes,
whether she liked it or not, you just had to play by the rules.

Radar was leaning with his back to the wall
with one of his legs stretched out across the booth seat. Xero sat
across from him with her feet straight forward and her arms
crossed. The place was crammed full of people talking, eating, and
arguing amongst themselves about what had happened at Yuma.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” she
said.

“It’s good to see Gila Bend so active
still—look at the agitation and the community spirit. They’re still
ready to band together and fight. You don’t see that in the flats
very often. They’re not ready to just roll over and die,” he said.
“Also, it’s a perfect place to gather information. It’s all here,
we just have to wait and listen.”

She unfolded her arms, leaned forward onto
the table, and twirled a grimy half-full salt shaker in her
fingers. “Point taken,” she said. She was enough of a well-known
personality that word would have spread that she was in town
trolling around in a government crawler sooner or later. She was
far from being above scare-tactics or strong-arming, and she had no
problem being up in people’s faces for the purposes of getting
vital information.

A jaded waitress slumped over to their table
wearing a stained white apron. She was middle-aged and had poorly
dyed red hair.

“Hey Radar, what are you having today,” she
said evenly, as though the place wasn’t crawling with turmoil and
it was just like any other day at work. Her eyes briefly flicked
over to Xero before quickly moving back to her waitresses notepad.
“Who’s yer lady friend.”

“Trudy, this is Xero—we crossed paths while I
was evacuating Yuma,” he said.

Trudy tapped her foot. “Good for you. You
want the usual?” she said. Xero was surprised that the waitress
didn’t really seem to give a shit that a major territory boss was
chilling out in a booth in her restaurant.

He nodded and handed an old laminated menu
back to Trudy. His fingers left streaks on the grime coating the
surface of the plastic.

“How about your lady friend?” she said.

Xero had to stifle a laugh—she couldn’t
remember the last time she’d been called someone’s fucking lady
friend. “I’ll have the same,” she said, not really giving a shit
about what kind of food came out. Whatever it was, it was probably
better than what they had eaten the day before.

The waitress walked off without another word
and Xero turned back to Radar. The first rays of the morning sun
were slicing through the window and falling on the right half of
his face. With his face spotlighted she noticed that his tanned
face was also marked with a network of old, faded scars. This
wasn’t his first rodeo.

He noticed her staring at his face, but she
didn’t break eye contact. “So you’re a regular here,” she said.

He shifted so that his face was out of the
direct path of the sunlight. “You could say that. Gila Bend is on
many of my regular routes,” he said.

It made sense—her organization didn’t have
much penetration out this way, so it was a definite area that would
be appealing for independent operators.

“I’m not trying to be ungrateful here, but
we’re kind of pressed for time, and I don’t know if we’re really
using our time wisely here,” she said. There was a lot of talk
going on, but she couldn’t really make anything comprehensible or
useful out of the din.

He swung his left leg back onto the floor and
straightened his posture. “Patience is a virtue, you know. Trust
me—I’ve got great hearing, we’ll catch some useful information, and
I think you’ll be very happy with our meal,” he said.

Xero scoffed and wanted to argue, but this
was clearly his turf, and she knew from experience that arguing
with someone more familiar with a territory often didn’t end well.
“You have some fucked up priorities,” she said.

He just grinned and looked around at the
pandemonium in the restaurant. “No one has ever accused me of being
normal,” he said.

She scrunched her mouth into a hard line.
“Speaking of which, I’m not one to really pry into someone’s secret
business, but I think there’s a big fucking elephant in the room
I’d like to address, given that it looks like we’re going to be
working together for a little while longer,” she said.

He leaned back into the corner again and
breathed loudly.

“I don’t need gory details, I just want the
essentials,” she said.

He looked around and flipped forward
suddenly, tearing a chunk of the vinyl booth as it stuck to his
gritty jacket before he came to a stop halfway across the table,
inches from Xero’s face.

“I suppose this is as good a place as any to
talk. No one’s going to hear jack shit in here with all this ruckus
going on,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Just two things. I want to know how you
shocked my ass when we were in the dead zones, and I want to know
how you’re able to get around like a professional runner if you say
you’re not from the pits,” she said.

“It’s actually one answer for both questions.
I’m part robot,” he said.

She burst out laughing, slapping her hands
against the cracked table hard enough to make spilled salt bounce
into the air. “That’s a good one buddy, I’ll give it to you for
creativity,” she said.

She raised her eyes again to meet his gaze,
expecting him to start laughing with her, but he held his face
still like weathered statue. She cleared her throat and lowered her
voice. “What? You’ve got to be kidding—cybernetics were outlawed
when I was a kid,” she said. After a series of unfortunate
incidents, rising paranoia about the power of machines had caused
the government to make a series of serious mandates limiting
implantable cyborg technology. Penalties were so severe that even
in the pits they didn’t mess with that kind of technology, as
anyone caught with substantial implantable cybernetics would be
executed immediately.

He tipped his head forward and kept his voice
low. “There’s more than one reason that I prefer to be an
independent contractor. In any event, I think we have enough intel
on each other to make it clear that our mutual data will remain
totally discreet” he said.

She smirked and lowered her head to the same
level. “Absolutely discreet,” she said, paused, and shook her head.
“Man, that is seriously fucking crazy though. Motherfucking robot
mercenary.”