Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart (33 page)

‘So you rotate the fields they feed on?’

‘Yeah. We’ve got eight fields. We move them around one every day. It keeps the grazing fresh, but next year we’ll need to move them onto the second pasture.’

Ella nodded. ‘That sounds efficient. Everyone here follows the same pattern?’

‘Yeah. Have done for generations.’

‘What do you know about animal husbandry?’ Aneka asked silently.

‘Right now I’m pretty good at it,’ Ella replied. ‘I slotted a skill chip before we came out here. Animal husbandry and farming.’

‘Oh. You got many of those?’

‘A few. I’ve got basic chips for several skills none of us have. Gillian figured it was worth the expense since we got way over our required budget.’

‘It’s looking like rain,’ Marie said, looking up at the sky. ‘We should set up the shelter first. Make sure our guest doesn’t get wet.’

Ella opened her mouth to protest, and then obviously thought better of it, frowning instead. ‘I’ll do it,’ Aneka said, partially to assuage Ella’s guilt. ‘You get started on your flock.’

The three shepherds looked at each other, unsure, until Abigail said, ‘Go on. We can handle it.’ Looking distinctly unhappy, Ella put down her own small rucksack, extracted a sensor unit from it, and went out after the shepherds.

The shelter was basically a tarpaulin, hidden for the night under some rocks, which went up on the poles to form an open-sided box which was likely at least waterproof. Abigail started to help as Aneka lifted the fabric up, and then stopped trying as the robot woman just yanked the sheet into place with very little apparent effort.

‘Tie it off,’ Aneka instructed. ‘I’ll hold it.’

‘You’re, uh, very strong.’

‘People tell me that, yes.’

‘Did, um… Did they do something to you?’

‘Who?’

‘The people from the city. Ella.’

Aneka laughed. ‘No. No, they didn’t do anything to me. What makes you think that?’

‘Well… We hear stories. They all have these plugs at the back of their head, and they do experiments all the time.’

‘Ella just collects data. No experiments. And none of them experimented on me.’

Abigail tied off the last of the cords and looked around. ‘What’s she doing now then?’

‘Sensor analysis of the sheep. She’s checking blood oxygen levels, nutrition, temperature… Basically she’s checking their health.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘Sometimes she needs help.’

‘She doesn’t look very happy,’ Abigail said, nervously. ‘Do you think she’s found something wrong?’

‘No, she just isn’t really happy about not being liked.’

‘What?!’ It was almost a squeak.

‘Abigail,’ Aneka said. ‘It’s pretty obvious that everyone’s nervous about her. You seem to have eased up a little after last night, but these three had to be bribed with food to be happy about us coming along. She’s not stupid. She’s just here to take some notes, not hurt anyone, and she doesn’t think she deserves the hostility. Not that she entirely blames you, but it doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it.’

‘Oh. She seems quite nice, but…’

‘She’s from the city?’

‘Yes.’

Aneka tried not to sigh. Obviously her idea to have Ella be one of the smart visitors had been a really lousy one.

~~~

The rain came mid-morning. It was not actually too bad; large, warm, summer drops fell, making an impressive sound on the tarpaulin. Aneka raised her face to it, smiling. Marie looked up from where she was checking one of the ewes, shook her long, dark hair, and then went back to work. Ella was almost pushed into the shelter by Abigail and Mark.

‘I bloody hate this,’ Ella grumbled into Aneka’s head.

‘I’m sorry, love. If I’d known we’d have both come in as locals.’

‘No… If they’d seen my implants they’d have been suspicious, and this is probably making it easier to get the data we want. It was a good idea, even if I hate it. David’s looking a little tense.’

David was a slim man with a lot of corded muscle, probably from manhandling sheep, and short, dark hair. Right now he was holding the shotgun he had brought with him as though he might have to use it. His eyes were on the sheep, more specifically on his sister out among the sheep.

‘You expecting trouble?’ Aneka asked.

‘There have been a few reports of ogres moving about in the day.’ His voice carried the same tension as his body; ogres were real, it seemed, and something of a threat. Aneka glanced at her rifle case on the ground just inside the shelter. ‘They usually stick to night raids, but every so often they get bold.’ She flicked open the straps on her holsters, just in case. ‘They like the rain. Harder to hear them…’ He stopped, reeling back and to the left just as Aneka registered the sound of the shot.

In-vision Al popped up a directional indicator showing where the shot had come from. Aneka was already drawing her pistols and turning to the right. Targeting images showed in her vision field, the right one zooming in as she saw the figure in a classic shooting stance over one of the low stone walls which divided the field. He was shifting his aim, but not towards her.

‘He’s lining up on Mark,’ Al said. ‘He wants the men dead.’

‘I’m affronted,’ Aneka replied, and pulled the trigger. A stream of needles shredded the air and then the chest of the man with the gun. He jerked violently, staggering backwards and then falling behind the wall. Aneka was pretty sure that he was dead, but she was not going to get the chance to check immediately.

There was a roar from her left and she swung Clara around ahead of her body, the camera picking up three more men in rough clothing charging towards them from the next field. Her overclocked brain took in details even as she was swinging herself around to bring both pistols to bear. Abigail was screaming. Mark had not moved yet, but he was starting to react. David was still moving; at least he was not dead. The three men running towards them had melee weapons: two carried little more than thick tree branches, the third had a knife. Their clothes were not just rough, but tied on, and their skin looked odd, sallow, thick, and rough. They would be on her in a second…

The air filled with bullets as the horrendously powerful machine pistols swept in twin arcs across the space occupied by the three men. They looked, if anything, surprised and they did not seem to have time to register any pain before they were sprawling onto the grass. Aneka registered the fact that the sheep were starting to panic and Ella was screaming something as she grabbed for her rucksack. Then something that felt like a sledgehammer crashed into the back of Aneka’s head and she staggered forward a pace, turning as she did so.

Another of the strange men was behind her, recovering from swinging what was actually a sledgehammer at her. There were messages flashing across her vision indicating that she had taken damage to her dermal layer, but her skull was living metal, very thick, and pretty much immune to hand-powered weaponry. This close she could see the thickened brow, heavy jaw, dense muscle structure, and skin that looked like greyish orange peel. The ogres were Human, she was sure of that, but there was something wrong with them. It really did not matter. She rammed Bridget’s muzzle into the ogre’s belly, angled her upward, and pulled the trigger. Blood, flesh, and bone fragments exploded upward as his body thrashed and jerked on the stream of hyper-dense plastic and force pulses.

‘Marie!’ Mark’s scream drew Aneka’s attention away from the dead ogre and she turned. Another of them had grabbed Marie and was running for the top of the field at an alarming pace for a man carrying a woman slung over his shoulder.

‘Fuck,’ Aneka snarled, slamming her pistols into their holsters. She dropped to one knee and grabbed her rifle case, unzipping it quickly and pulling the huge weapon free.

‘He’s too far away,’ Mark said, his voice despairing.

‘Not for this baby,’ Aneka replied. She raised the rifle to her eye and sighted through the scope while targeting information appeared in-vision.
Range: 40m. Target velocity: 2.4m/s. Wind: negligible.
Aneka squeezed the trigger. There was a sound like the world had split open in such close quarters and the ogre’s right leg exploded just above the knee. Dropping her rifle onto its case, she got to her feet and started running. Mark was close behind when they started, but she got to the fallen ogre a full two seconds before he did.

Marie was lying on the grass several metres away where she had scrabbled to when she had been dropped. As far as Aneka could immediately see, she was unharmed; the ogre was far from unharmed. A trail of blood led from where he had been hit to where he had crawled. He had to be losing blood quickly, but he was still moving, dragging himself across the ground. Aneka pulled Bridget from her holster and levelled it at the ogre, but did not fire.

‘Kill it!’ Mark yelled as he ran up.

‘He’s no danger to anyone. He’s going to be dead in a few minutes anyway.’

‘They heal fast.
Really
fast.’

Aneka swallowed. ‘See to your sister.’

‘But…’

‘I won’t repeat myself.’

The ogre had stopped moving. He rolled onto his back and tried his best to snarl at Aneka, pulling a long knife from his belt.

‘Are you fucking crazy?’ she asked him, but she got no reply. The effort had been too much and the knife slipped from nerveless fingers as he collapsed, unconscious but not dead. Aneka stepped closer and looked down at the misshapen form.

‘Clearly Human,’ Al commented, ‘but also somewhat regressive. Almost Neanderthal.’

‘Aneka,’ Gillian’s voice said over the radio, ‘get blood samples.’

‘That won’t be difficult,’ she replied.

‘If you let him live,’ Al said, ‘I suspect Mark will use that shotgun on him.’

‘The thought had crossed my mind.’ Aiming carefully, she fired five rounds through the man’s right eye and the breathing stopped.

Mark was carrying Marie back towards the shelter and Aneka stalked after them at a fast walking pace. Ella was already working on David when she got back, ahead of the couple. ‘How is he?’ David’s shirt had been cut open at the shoulder and there was a patch of artificial skin pressed over a wound on his left bicep.

‘The bullet went through,’ Ella replied. ‘I’ve stopped the bleeding and patched the wound. Medi-scanner says there’s no serious internal damage, but that arm’s going to be useless for a while.’

Aneka nodded. ‘Abigail. I need you to walk,
not
run, into town. Get some people to come out here and help with these bodies and the flock.’

Abigail got to her feet, nodding rapidly. ‘May I walk quickly?’

‘You may walk as quickly as you wish.’

Nodding again, Abigail hurried away while Aneka turned to Ella’s rucksack to retrieve a sample container. There was plenty of ogre blood around, getting a sample was not going to be too hard.

‘Thank you,’ Marie said. ‘Both of you.’

‘I’m just doing my job,’ Aneka replied.

‘Not that many citizens would help like this,’ Mark said. The hint of anger in his tone suggested that he had not met any that would.

Aneka shrugged and went to find blood to put in her bottle.

~~~

Linden looked as though someone had rained on his parade as well as his bald head, but he was there along with his daughter and half a dozen of the townspeople, four of them armed. His pace quickened as he spotted Aneka watching his approach, her rifle cradled in her arms, but he hurried as best as his limp would allow past her to the shelter where Ella was sitting, her attention on David.

‘Citizen, were you harmed?’ the Reeve asked, worry obvious in his voice, though Aneka did not think it was actually for Ella’s safety. ‘I must apologise for this terrible incident…’

Ella looked up at him, blinked once at the stream of apologetic garbage pouring from his mouth, and snapped. ‘What the fuck are you apologising for, man? I’m not angry.’ She was, in fact, shouting loudly and angrily, which seemed to confuse Linden more than anything. ‘We were attacked by ogres. It’s not something you can control. I
asked
to be out here, you didn’t force me, so unless you’re saying you have some means of telling the mutants to
not
attack people, this is not your fault. You’re not saying that, are you?’

‘Of course not…’

‘So it would seem then that it was a very good thing that we came up here today. If it were not for Aneka, Mark and David would be dead, and Marie would currently be playing house with the ogres!’ Her annoyance reaching a crescendo, Ella took a deep breath and turned back to her patients. ‘Now, David took a bullet, but I’ve stabilised the wound, strapped up his arm, and given him a shot to increase cellular regeneration. He should be fine in a day or two, but he is to
get some rest
whether he wants it or not. Marie also needs rest…’

‘I’m fine,’ Marie began, ‘really I…’

‘You have a mild concussion and severe bruising on the shoulder from the fall,’ Ella replied sharply. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed you favouring your right arm, even if my scanner hadn’t detected the clotting.’ Ella looked back up at Linden. ‘I’ve given her something for the disorientation and pain. The bruising should go soon enough, but she is to spend the rest of the day in bed. Both of them should be good to walk back into town, with some help. We’ll need some people up here to take care of the sheep and dispose of these bodies. Any questions?’

‘I love it when you take charge,’ Aneka said over their intercom.

‘I am feeling rather assertive,’ Ella replied. ‘I guess a couple of days of being simpered at is enough to make me want to smack someone.’

Linden’s jaw was still working up and down. ‘I’ll see to everything personally,’ he managed. ‘Thank you for assisting our people.’ He looked around at Aneka, properly acknowledging her for the first time. ‘And thank you for dealing with the ogres. Are you hurt? There’s blood in your hair.’

‘One of them clipped me with a sledgehammer,’ Aneka lied. ‘I got lucky, just a scrape really, but you know scalp wounds. They bleed like crazy.’

Linden’s brows knitted. ‘A… sledgehammer?’