Chapter 3 #3
The bot standing next to Ronin’s table was a synth of average height and build, his hair trimmed to stubble, wearing a faded leather jacket, blue jeans, and brown combat boots.
No obvious weapons, no bulked-up frame or visible combat modifications.
His face was neither particularly attractive nor displeasing, unremarkable save for a single feature—the only feature that set him apart from anyone else.
The tear in his synthetic skin, running from his left optic to his jaw, had never been properly repaired.
It was held together by thin metal sutures, allowing a glimpse of the faceplates and human-like teeth beneath.
“Enough trouble for you to investigate personally, Warlord?” Ronin returned his attention to the human on stage. “I think your bots have spent too much time with humans. They’ve learned to exaggerate.”
At the edge of Ronin’s vision, Warlord pulled out a chair and eased onto it, turning his optics toward the dancers. “These sacks of meat don’t have many admirable qualities, but they can be…entertaining.”
The human on stage flicked her eyes to Warlord, and her movements faltered.
“Yes.” Ronin replayed the redhead’s dance again. Entertaining was one word for what she’d been doing, but so many other words seemed more apt—fascinating, mesmerizing, moving.
Warlord leaned an arm on the table. He tapped his index finger atop it, in time with the music’s beat. “Good for brief diversions.”
Ronin clenched his jaw. Warlord was not to be taken lightly, but the dustwalker rarely sought company. “You find me just to scold me about coming in late?”
Warlord made a sound almost like a human laugh, but from his mouth, it was hollow and flat. “Comp said you look like trouble.”
“And what do you see?”
“Opportunity. You’ve traveled the Dust, you’ve seen what this world is. And you know the truth of things.”
“What truth are you referring to?” Ronin faced his guest, though Warlord didn’t look away from the stage.
“The truth of my city. Cheyenne is an oasis in a desert, a sanctuary. I know there are other towns out there, but none are like this place. And that’s because I’ve forged order in a chaotic world. That’s why Cheyenne is still standing. That’s why we have prosperity and comfort.”
“Even chaos has an order to it.”
Warlord’s finger stilled, and he frowned. “Chaos birthed the world we’re forced to endure. It’s a world that needs to be tamed. Order brings prosperity, which benefits us all. Even the meatbags.”
“What does that have to do with me? Am I an agent of chaos, a thing to be tamed?”
“No. You’re capable. Never had a walker come through who brought in so much scrap so regularly.
You come back damaged sometimes, but you always come back.
” Warlord turned his gaze to Ronin; his optics were the gray of old steel.
“How many have you ended out there? How many have you left behind to be claimed by the Dust?”
Ronin’s hands twitched on his lap. The faces of every human and bot he’d destroyed were preserved in his memory, frozen eternally in the instant of their death or deactivation.
He would carry them until his own end, always with perfect clarity.
Yet it was the memories he couldn’t place, the faces that drifted up from his damaged core, the ones from before the Blackout, that concerned him most.
There were hundreds more of those.
“You’re a danger, dustwalker. Not because you’ve killed.
Most of us have done that.” Warlord’s finger resumed tapping, slowly but forcefully, no longer with any regard to the rhythm.
“You’re a danger because you disregard the rules.
The rules are what set this place apart, what raised it above the rest. Otherwise, it would be the same as all the other ruins you’ve picked through.
Another gravestone in a worldwide cemetery. ”
“I should have sheltered in the Dust tonight.”
Warlord slammed his fist on the table. “No.”
Several patrons glanced over and quickly looked away.
He leaned toward Ronin, his scarred face still impassive despite the intensity in his optics. “You should have shown some fucking respect.”
“Your guards haven’t earned my respect.”
“You shelter here in private quarters because I allow it. I offer that to all bots, because we’re the ones who are rebuilding this world and making it whole again.
All I ask is that my rules are followed.
They’re not difficult. Every bot that wears my mark has the authority to enforce those rules.
Disrespecting them is disrespecting me.”
Ronin forced his jaw closed and temporarily cut power to his vocal modulator to keep any words from escaping. Dozens of bots wore Warlord’s mark. Ronin would never make it out of the market if Warlord commanded it.
“You took a few hits out there,” Warlord said, easing back into his chair and swinging his optics to the dancers. “Behave yourself, so you don’t take a few more on your way to the clinic.”
Ronin pressed a metal hand to the table and pushed himself up.
A strange sensation skittered over his palm, and his processors, unbidden, ran a simulation—if he unslung his rifle, he could empty the magazine into Warlord’s chest. Power cell, memory banks, CPU…
at this range, it would all be annihilated.
The simulation ended with Ronin torn apart by the behemoth at the front door.
There weren’t enough bullets in Cheyenne to stop Comp.
Still, the idea was strangely tempting.
He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. Zeke should’ve nearly been done with his assessment by now. With a last glance at the stage, Ronin left Kitty’s. He couldn’t determine whether the credit he’d spent for admission had been wasted.