The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (16 page)

(All I need to do is touch him. Liver failure: slow
and painful. Or a series of strokes to take his mind from him piece
by piece.)

I take hold of the girl instead, stand with her by
the airlock, let them know

“I’m going with her. She has my protection.”

“You’d have to exterminate the Cast to keep her
safe,” Palmer lets me know his plan is more than just idle sadism.
He’s smarter than he looks. “You can’t keep a prize like that away
from them as long as they’re breathing.”

“I think I can be convincing.”

“You haven’t been so far,” Palmer insults.

“I’m trying not to hurt you. I’m not sure why you
keep asking me to.”

He draws his gun on me, points it at my face.

“Nothing stopping me from hurting
you
,” he
dares me. “How long would it take you to grow a new head?”

It strikes me: I can summon my own weapons. Can
I…?

The gun is metal. Steel.

I raise my hand, feel the power surge. Shove. And
Palmer staggers back, his gun barrel shoved up under his own
chin.

His fellows draw their weapons before I can make a
snappy comeback. Palmer struggles to pull the barrel of his gun out
of line with his brain. Murphy just looks stunned, unsure of what
to do.

“How long can you keep that up?” one of the other
H-Ks challenges me.

I jerk Palmer’s gun downwards, point it at the
floor.

“Just making a point: You’re only still alive because
I’m
really
trying to be good. We’ll be going now.”

“No!” Murphy suddenly speaks up, stepping forward.
All eyes are on him now, especially Palmer’s, daring him to do
something stupid. He exceeds even Palmer’s expectation. “
I
volunteer to be Cast.
Kara stays inside.”

“
No!
” Kim protests in panic, which quickly
turns to rage. “For a Low-Score civilian?
Why?
”

“I promised to protect her, advocate for her and her
family,” he tries to explain. “I’ve failed to protect her from my
own partner. And if he’s going outside, I have to go with him.”

“He’s infected you with something,” Palmer
accuses.

“My duty is to protect the colony. If this man can
ensure our future, defend us from threats we can’t even imagine,
then I’m going to help him. We should
all
help him.” But his
call to duty is ignored by his fellows. Murphy grabs a coat and a
mask from a locker. His wife gets in his way.

“What about our family? Our son?” But her pleas seem
more selfish than heartbroken.

Murphy draws his gun, hands it to her.

“Our son will make a fine H-K. And I don’t plan on
dying out there. Or being gone long.”

She takes the revolver with shaking hands. I almost
expect her to shoot him with it.

“You may need a gun,” I suggest. Then I rip Palmer’s
from his grip, fly it into my hand, pass it to Murphy. He looks at
me like I’ve just done something unthinkable. Palmer looks about to
explode. Mission accomplished.

Murphy takes hold of his wife, forces a kiss on her
that looks like both are in agony, then lets her go. He takes the
rest of the supplies from Kara, then pushes her toward her mother,
whose face is bright red and drenched in tears.

“Get your scores up, child. I won’t do this for you a
second time.”

“
No!!!
” Kim protests again, hysterical.

“I’m coming back,” Murphy insists. “Now cycle the
lock.”

“
No one comes back!
” Palmer seethes, almost
like an angry child.

Murphy steps next to me inside the airlock, and the
inner hatch begins to close.

“
I
do,” he tells Palmer, then puts on his
mask.

Murphy has his stolen gun ready as the pressure drops
and the outer hatch opens into the green. I step out in front of
him, onto a path I now see is paved with bone chips.

“They watch this hatch,” he whispers urgently,
scanning the foliage. “It’s like a feed chute to them.”

I shift my vision to infra-red. We are indeed
surrounded, but the hundred or more heat-shapes I can make out
appear to be slowing down, then stopping, waiting. I expect metal
to come flying out of the shrubbery. Nothing happens.

Then a smallish shape glides onto the pathway in
front of us like a jungle cat, low to the ground. I recognize the
mop of red hair instantly.

“Fera,” I greet her evenly.

She makes a keening sound as she grins, but it
doesn’t sound exactly threatening. Murphy levels his gun past me at
her, and I push it down smoothly, shake my head. Fera’s vocalizing
builds up to an excited howl (it reminds me somewhat of an Arab
warble cry), and suddenly she lunges, springing herself directly at
me. I step into it to give me distance from Murphy, start to raise
my guard to intercept her, but at the last instant she throws her
arms open, blades going wide, and… wraps herself around me. Arms.
Legs. She’s gripping me for dear life. I’m really not sure if her
noise is happy or sobbing, but now her face is nuzzling my neck,
she’s sniffing my hair, like an animal or an excited child or…

Her face comes back and she pulls aside her mask,
takes my head in her hands. And she kisses me.

I manage in the midst of this bizarre assault to turn
and look at Murphy, who just looks back dumbfounded. Then something
gets his attention. His gun comes back up, pointed down the
path.

It’s Two Gun. He looks at us with a wry grin on his
face, like this deeply amuses him, arms across his chest. Mak steps
up behind him, hands on her knives.

“Weapons down,” I insist calmly. Murphy slowly
complies. Fera is still hanging on me like a long-lost lover. I
very carefully return the embrace. “This is really unexpected.”

Two Gun bursts out laughing. Murphy looks
beyond-confused.

Fera eventually lets me go, kneels at my feet, shyly
offers me one of her knives.

“I wouldn’t…” Murphy tries to discourage me, but I
accept the offering before he can finish. His sigh as I do so
suggests I’ve just done something exceptionally stupid. A howl goes
up all around us, echoing up into the broken rafters, building to
hundreds of voices. Fera is embracing me again (just with her arms
this time). Two Gun continues to look highly amused.

“Don’t crush him, sister,” he jokes. “Save some for
the wedding bed.”

Oh. Shit.

I pull back from her a bit. She’s chewing on her
lips, looking up into my eyes.

“You saved her life, Sider,” Two Gun explains. “Gave
yours. At least so it appeared. Happy surprise. Still, you took the
bullet. Her life is yours while you both live. And you seem to have
earned more than that, Pretty-Pretty.”

I consider the knife gift in my hand.

“You fought her well. Earned her respect. Impressed.
None have ever. You’ve accepted her blade.”

“Girl, you don’t owe me anything,” I risk
offending.

“Free-given,” she tells me earnestly. “Always
always.”

“She’s our best,” Two Gun keeps selling. “I doubt
I
could even tag her. Sixty one kills.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“We have to get away from the hatch,” Murphy urges.
“Palmer. You took his gun.”

Two Gun almost barks, this new detail amuses him so
much. “You’ve had a busy day, Pretty-Pretty. Beat us. Bought a
life-debt. Back from the dead. And with a prize gift.”

“This man is under my protection,” I warn them.

“A
pet
? My-my Pretty-Pretty! Busy-busy you
are
! And you’ve taken a Hunter’s gun? And
not
killed
him?
True
cruel…”

“He’ll come as soon as he can petition another one,”
Murphy explains quickly. “Usually, he wouldn’t be able to—no one
would give him their gun after losing his own, he’s done—but he
could convince Gardener to lend him Hammond-8’s while she’s down.
And he still has friends, or at least family that might fight for
him.”

Fera lets me go to face the hatch—apparently the
promise of violence overrides her debt (and her ardor). She’s eager
for someone to come through it.

“No,” I insist, stepping forward and fusing the hatch
locks.

“They won’t come this way,” Murphy tells me I’ve
wasted my time. “We have sally-ports all over, tunnels.
Well-hidden. That’s how we sneak up on them, get in and out without
being seen.”

That gets another chuckle out of Two Gun. We really
seem to have made his day.

“You get out because we
let
you,” Fera is not
so amused. She glares at Murphy like she’d eat his face if I’d
approve. “We know all your holes. Just better to draw you into our
world. More fun in the green.”

“If we don’t want you out, you die in your doorways,”
Two Gun reinforces. He makes a series of hand gestures, and the
heat shapes of his people move with purpose. Then he’s looking up
somewhere above the hatch. I track his eyes, find security cameras.
The H-K—and Gardener—are watching this.

“Come come,” he finally says, gesturing us down the
path. “What shall they think?”

We don’t stay on the path. We quickly divert through
the greenery. It’s like a jungle, but narrow passages have formed
through the vines and leaves from use, invisible until one has
stepped into the brush. We seem to make junctions at random—the
place is a maze barely wide enough to move through. It all has
nightmare ambush potential. (Fera was right: they would have the
upper hand if they could draw their so-called hunters into their
ground.)

We climb over a railing, up a cracked ramp, climb a
ladder. We’re up a level or two in the terraces now. I can barely
see a few meters through the green all around us. Up a flight of
steps. Another garden terrace. I see metal and concrete
barricades—battlements—pockmarked with bullet divots. Old blood
stains. But no bones.

Two Gun is leading the way. Fera stays right in front
of me, looking back regularly to make sure I’m keeping up, smiling
when I am. Murphy keeps right behind me, and Mak right behind him,
looking ready for any sign of what an H-K would normally do.

More ladders. We move quicker now that we’re up
higher. I’m imagining cliff ruins I’ve seen, defensible because the
only access is a narrow climb, except these are masked in
overgrowth (probably to prevent snipers). I see heaters left out at
random points on the terraces, sitting next to metallic cut-outs
that are roughly body-shaped. I expect they do a good job of
deceiving heat imaging.

We’re about five levels up when we get led down a
tunnel, a dark corridor, and wind up in an old Ops hub. It’s been
set up as a living space, and not as primitive as I expected: There
are bedrolls, blankets, water cans, a heater, an old cooktop, spare
survival gear. The paint is worn and faded, but the place is neat,
everything fit into the smallish space between the existing
conduits and valves. The old piping provides an O2 feed once the
hatches are shut. (And there are four exits, just in case.)

In a few moments, they can take off their masks. The
air is thin but rich.

I see an old hardcopy photo on the bulkhead over one
of the bedrolls: A straw-haired H-K and his family in better
times—the dome behind him still has its transparent panels,
intact.

“My Grand,” Two Gun tells me, seeing my interest.
“I’m Keller Legacy. He was one of The First.” He gestures to his
jacket, then his right-hand gun. “His. From my own father.” He
takes two old aluminum cups and fills them from one of his tanks,
hands one to me, and we share a simple necessity. The water is cold
and tastes metallic.

“I appreciate the hospitality,” I give him
sincerely.

Murphy, poking around, pulls aside a curtain made
from an old survival blanket, revealing a creatively rigged
bathroom—or at least a stacked shower/sink/toilet—in what may have
once been a storage closet. (Whatever door or hatch there was seems
to have been scavenged.)

“Your pet probably thinks we live in corpses and
shit, drink blood,” Two Gun grumbles about Murphy. “None of his
have been this far. Not and got away to tell.”

“They think you’re cannibals,” I admit. “That you
rape, torture and eat the people they send outside.”

He pulls up an old tech chair, sits on it like a
throne. Grins lazily.

“We have our fun,” he postures.

“We don’t eat the flesh,” Mak seems to need to
explain. “It’s taboo. But we strip it all from the bones, process
it into fertilizer like our other waste. It makes the plants grow
lush, produce good fruits, healthy eating. No waste. Life to
life.”

“And the bones? Trophies?”

“
Warnings
,” Two Gun corrects. “On the paths,
the entrances. Lets Siders and Domers know the price of trying to
hurt us.”

I reach out for Fera, take one of her carved bone
hair-beads between my fingers (she seems to appreciate my
willingness to touch her—she almost purrs).

“Makes good jewelry, too,” Two Gun admits.

Murphy does look surprised by what he’s seeing and
hearing. I expect this may be the most words the Cast have
exchanged with the H-K in generations.

“We eat what grows for us,” Fera tells me with
unexpected gentleness. She goes to the cooking stove, lifts the lid
on a large battered pot. I smell herbs, something hearty. She gets
out a small metal bowl. Ladles it full. Gives it to me. It’s a kind
of lentil or bean stew with vegetables. It’s simple, but tasty. She
seems overjoyed that I appreciate it—I start seeing her as a young
girl (and a young girl in love, or at least seriously
crushing).

“Why are you here, Pretty-Pretty?” Two Gun gets to
it.

“You’ve seen the UNMAC—the Unmakers. You fought with
a Heavy Armor team several months ago, killed two.”

“The Domers took the bodies,” Fera grumbles at
Murphy. “Everything.”

“
Nice
guns and armor,” Mak catalogues the
loss. “Breathing gear. Boots.”