I’m not— #5
If any backup could find me. I pulled away from him and touched my morphon, setting a timer.
Helmet snugged firmly in place against the cold, I rolled to a squat, my legs folded down.
I began the duckwalk in the general direction of the buildings.
In the whiteout. With no visual, or any other kind, of references. Instantly, I knew this was stupid.
I also knew that Enrico was behind me, my back-up, crawling through the path I was making in the snow.
I had avoided all the people at the mine.
All of them but Jagger and Tomika, and even then I had worn gloves.
My nanos wanted to make thralls, so it was easier to keep my distance than to fight temptation twenty-four, seven.
But I had known Enrico was nearby. Had known Cupcake and Amos were close.
Where, in general, Mateo was most of the time, as in, somewhere that-a-way.
But Enrico was mine. He was following me to keep me safe, to protect me against all harm.
I stopped and waited for him, pivoting to face my rear.
In the white, he was suddenly just there, his head hidden beneath a snow-caked motorcycle helmet, his dark eyes visible behind a smeared faceplate. His eyes went wide. “I followed you,” he said, beneath the roar of the wind.
I flipped my face shield back to shout. “So I see. How’s your situational awareness?”
“North is there,” he said, pointing. “The large pond is there and the smaller one we used as bait is there.” He shifted his finger in different directions, his Italian-accented voice lilting and certain.
The Italian was my fault, from the burger chips I had used on him when I re-transitioned him from Clarice Warhammer to me.
It had been the only way to save his life.
“And the buildings where the Sisters plan to film from?”
“There,” he said instantly, pointing in a different direction from where I was headed.
“And the mines we planted?”
His mouth turned down. “Too close.”
“Get us to the buildings without blowing us up.”
He smiled as if I had crowned him king. A thrall with a job for his queen.
Bloody hell. He stood and walked around me, leading off in the direction he said was safe.
I could trust myself and my sense of direction or I could trust Enrico.
If I got him blown up his father would kill me.
I knew that. I let him lead because we all had our skills; a sense direction wasn’t my strongest suit.
It took what seemed like forever, though the travel, on my part, was much easier following behind Enrico the snow-plow. A weathered wall appeared out of the white and I leaned against it, blowing hard, my throat aching in the cold air, my thighs on fire. “Good job,” I gasped to him.
Through the snow-crusted bike helmet face shield, he gave me that blinding smile again, as white as the snow.
“Do the Sisters who Tomika brought know you?” I asked.
“Shashina does. We made love last night under the clouds.”
That was more information than I wanted, but he was a thrall. He aimed to please and I had asked an open-ended question.
“Get her attention,” I said, “and see if she’ll let us come inside.”
Enrico vanished and was back moments later, motioning me inside.
The unexpected warmth hit me like slap in the face.
Better than HQ with its snow wall, this spot was blocked from the wind, the air heated by human bodies close to freezing instead of twenty below.
It wasn’t big enough for four people but I dropped to my butt and leaned against the wall I used on the other side.
The building, maybe once a storage area, had a partial ceiling and roof, a pile of broken furniture, disintegrating file cabinets, electronics with rat nests in them.
Carpet. Dry carpet. It felt almost hot under my butt.
The room hadn’t seen a coat of paint since the first time it was painted, drywall tape and spackling visible beneath the thin coat of drab, dirt brown.
The Sisters had drawn weapons on me. I pulled off my helmet, revealed my face, and the weapons lowered. My ears burned at the change in temps. If I had skipped the protection and not worn the helmet, my ears and nose would probably be frostbitten by now.
I accepted a bottle of water and drained it. Brushed the snow off me and tucked the empty into my kutte. “Thanks,” I said. “I need to borrow a camera.”
The weapons aimed my way again, as neither of them seemed to find my request acceptable.
“Fine,” I said. “Then you crawl through the snow, avoiding the mines, to the helos, and film the people inside.”
The weapons still didn’t drop.
“Tomika and I have a deal on other matters,” I said. “If I damage the camera, you can charge it against—me.” I had almost said, “against my chocolate.” That would have spilled the beans in front of Enrico.
The Sisters looked at each other, then one looked at Enrico. “She trustworthy?”
“In every way. Yes. I trust her with my life.”
Not that there was any way he could have said anything different. Still, it was nice to be affirmed.
The one I assumed was Shashina lifted a camera from the carpet and placed it in my hands. It was heavier than I anticipated and I let it drop a few centimeters before my muscles caught up with it.
“You know how to use it?” Sashina asked.
“No clue,” I said.
“Quick tutorial,” she said.
It was quick. The camera was AI backed, and along the lines of, “Tap here for the menu. Tap for snow and temp here. Tap for natural light here. Tap for enhanced here. Push this red button for video. Take care of my damn camera.” Her eyes went harder than I expected as she said, “And take care of my man. He talks too pretty to lose and he’s good in the sack. ”
“I am excellent in the sack,” Enrico said.
Shashina grinned. “Yes, you are, boy. Yes, you are. Don’t get shot out there.”
“I will endeavor to keep myself safe and will give my life to keep Shining Smith safe from all harm.”
It sounded like a solemn promise against his own life, like a knight errant promising to his queen.
What the hell was a knight errant, anyways?
Rather than deal with that or the Sisters’ continued disapproval, I pulled on my helmet and tucked the camera under an arm. “Lead the way to the helos,” I said.
The trip was brutal. Even with my gloves, helmet, winter riding gear, and nanobots, I was half frozen, teeth chattering, by the time a helo appeared from the blinding whiteout.
Enrico pointed to the left and to the right, mimicked guards with guns.
Just two, in the cold. But they’d have headgear with infrared, at the very least, and we would show up if they looked our way.
The helos had far more sophisticated scanners, but .
. . Equipment used energy and they would need all their energy to survive the storm, so why waste it on something that would be perceived as useless and unimportant.
I ran a hand up the fuselage of the helo beside me, found a place where light came through, and figured it must be the corner of the front window.
Or, to use Jagger’s sexy talk, the corner insert of the “cockpit transparency.” I placed a small stick-on microphone and, beside it, cleared a small place for the cam.
Unfortunately, I had to remove my helmet to film.
Crystalized ice shards hit me like nails, stabbing into my ear, combing through my hair like frozen talons, cutting into the skin of my cheeks and nose.
I gasped and forced myself to breathe the mess with my mouth open so I could filter out the ice.
I braced myself against the wind and began filming.
In ten minutes, I had good footage inside the powered down Sikorsky: weapons and enough snoring soldiers to bore a dead man.
The helo was literally packed with humans making use of the body heat, to say alive through the blizzard.
I saw no armor, that would protect them from the cold so they were waiting until the storm blew out to start work.
Smart. I wished I had been able to wait, but here I was.
I made my way to the next helo, where the cam showed me it was dark as pitch inside.
Then the auto lens found an earth mover, brand spanking new, probably brought to pull the Bug ship they expected to find out of the containment pond.
It was strapped in with huge, high-tensile strength chains and synthetic flex webbing, with binders, chocks, and wedges to prevent movement.
Sucker was so new, I bet it smelled like the factory.
I also was suddenly betting that they had never checked the fluid levels, the hydraulics, or the starter.
This helo was unmanned, lights dimmed, which explained the number of people on the other helo. The brass wanted to save power. Like the other Sikorsky, this one was powered down and batteries were at minimum pull.
Too good to pass up.
I turned to call Enrico, and discovered him standing to my side, body steadied over me, arms out to his sides, with a pup tent around his back, stretched in his hands. He was blocking the worst of the wind from me. I had no idea where he got the pup tent.
I didn’t want to feed his thralldom, or whatever it should be called, but damn. “Thank you,” I said. “That was nice. And very helpful.”
His ice-caked helmet nodded once. He handed me my bike helmet and said, “Please. Put it back on.”
The ice would melt in my hair, on my skin and I’d be colder, but what the heck. It made him happy. After I put it on, I said, “I have a more difficult job for you.”