I’m not— #12
Before I was done infecting them, I got all the names of their nest in every branch of Gov.
and the military. There were twenty-four more traitors, all of them big names and big brass.
If they survived this vid going public, I’d hunt them down later.
For now, I had done enough of my own version of evil.
It wasn’t a fair or good fate for them. It was pretty bloody damn horrible.
But someone somewhere was using thralls as warriors, and that couldn’t happen.
If I ever found these men again and thought I could fix them, I would, but for now, they had to be useless.
So, I made them useless. It made me sick to my stomach.
I was breaking all my rules. But they couldn’t go free and help build a new nest and take over the world.
And that would happen if they weren’t killed or disabled.
When they were all sick, I went and found the women the men had abused.
Physically, most were in good shape. Mentally, they were pretty traumatized.
I got them into medbays and hooked up with Berger chip counselors until something better could be offered.
If it was offered. These days women mostly suffered in silence or formed gangs and hunted down their abusers for the fun of it. I had no idea which way these would go.
Then I got out of the armor and the bloody—literally—catheter wand that had rubbed my privates raw.
I put on my own clothes and ate a meal and drank a couple of halfway decent beers before falling dead asleep in an abandoned bed in the commander’s quarters.
When I woke, I had an entire clowder of cats in bed with me.
The combined purrs were like the vibration of driving the dozer. Nice. Real nice.
* * *
Twelve hours after we stormed the HQ, the Sikorsky lifted off, piloted by Evelyn while Bengal and Jagger played five card stud in back, to see who would own the helo now that we were done with it. I didn’t want it. Too much maintenance.
Instead, I pulled onto the road, driving a new tractor trailer loaded with 48,361 kilograms worth of my new Caterpillar bulldozer and its mighty pusher blade, hidden under every auto-camo ghillie-tech tarp in the compound.
Behind me traveled a tanker truck halfway full of diesel.
A warbot suit sat on top of the tanker extending its camo across it to look as if the truck was hauling a pile of dirt.
It wouldn’t pass close inspection, but it would do for drones or satellites.
The road from the waterpark led to the nearest ford, a low-water crossing over the Catawba river. This one was reinforced with broken asphalt and chunks of concrete and, a few times, I thought I might puncture a tire, but I made it.
As we climbed out of the Catawba River gulch onto what had once been interstate highway, I took the shard from Spy’s harness and hid it again in the tin.
Comms came on strong, people talking to and over each like maniacs.
After so long with silence, the cacophony was painful and I turned my comms off, tuning into a news channel. Waiting.
Two hours later, the Sisters hit the airwaves with everything: video, pics, uniforms, conversations I hadn’t heard because of the shards, an information overload that shattered what was left of the nets. The Sisters of the Cross named names, becoming viral video stars within minutes.
The Dark Riders—or Dragon Fist—were allied with the CRP and the vice president of the US. They were planning a major coup to disrupt and take over what was left of the Gov. and military. They had people everywhere, in every branch of the government and the military.
As the vids went viral, there were riots, fires, hangings in public streets. The people I had thought I would need to take down were, instead, hunted by the citizenry.
I watched as long I could stomach it and then stopped.
I was going home to the roadhouse, to my people.
That was all that mattered. That and the rep I had added to.
I’d need a new badge for my kutte. Cupcake had designed one for the Battle of Warhammer’s Nest, and it was due in the mail any day now.
I was sure she’d come up with something for the Battle of the Waterpark, or the Battle of the Dragon Fist, or whatever people would end up calling it.
* * *
The roadhouse never looked so good, as my new tractor trailer and dozer rolled into it.
Cupcake, Amos, and Jolene were out front, the humans wearing roadhouse T-shirts in the seventy degree heat, Jolene wearing some kind of sparkly sequined dress and a black wig.
They took over the deliveries and got the payloads into the back of the junkyard, sprayed down with camo paint to look like the bedrock under them, the trucks parked.
I checked on the medbays in the UC container. The patients were still asleep. Inside with the humans were the same cats. I didn’t like that at all, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Minutes later, I got a shower. With water.
Jagger? Didn’t show up. Asshole.
* * *
The wedding between Amos and Cupcake turned out to be the biggest thing in four states, as far as the biker clubs were concerned.
Over two hundred people showed up the day before the wedding, filling the parking area and the street leading up to the drive with bikes, trucks, trikes, and a few restored nineteen-fifties motor cars.
Some of our visitors were club presidents and VPs with their Old Ladies, and they paid premium prices for sleeping quarters, showers, and laundry. Others, from national enforcers to chapter house presidents, slept under the stars or in tents or in the beds of pickup trucks.
Just on the first day, the wedding was the biggest—and most successful—drunken party in modern motorcycle history. The Junkyard would make a tidy fortune, even considering the cost of the open bar I had promised for the day of the wedding.
Jolene and I worked nonstop, slinging drinks and keeping tabs and tossing rule-breakers out on their asses.
Alex (safe from Dark Riders and any hypothetical attempt to make a new queen) and their mom made a fortune in tips, and Evelyn displayed her previously unknown talent as a line cook, making breakfast foods and sandwiches like a pro.
But I was exhausted. The days of travel, fighting, and then wedding prep had been steady, unceasing work. Exhaustion left me feeling a lot sassy by the time I went to put on my wedding clothes.
In the office, alone, I stared at myself in the one long mirror.
My hair was gelled up and I was wearing a bronze colored dress, orange nail polish on toes and fingers, and bronze spike heels by somebody named Choo.
I looked more like my mama than I had expected.
Little Mama had always had a flair for party clothes.
My feet in the spike heels hurt so bad I wanted to cry. That was the excuse my heart used. My feet hurt. Tears filled my weird eyes. I pulled on my orange lensed glasses to cover them—eyes and tears.
But.
Jagger hadn’t shown up. Hadn’t called. Hadn’t anything.
The wedding started at two p.m. on a day that was warm for the season, and it was standing room only in the roadhouse.
The AC took that moment to go out. Of course.
But Jolene got it going before anyone but me broke a sweat.
I was sweating so bad I wondered if I was having hot flashes or if it was just nerves.
I had never put on a wedding before. I hadn’t even seen one since I was a kid and that was between Black Diamond Kowalski and his Old Lady, Maggie.
It had resulted in Black Diamond getting caught cheating at cards and his summery beating by the chapter enforcer, and Maggie taking off on his Harley, and divorcing the man who was now toothless and broke. Shortest marriage in OMW history.
Jolene, who seemed to recognize I was having a meltdown, pushed the crowd apart with her black mechanical arms and informed the horde at large (and one group of drunken bikers specifically) that they would be quiet, get into position and stay there, or be banned forever.
She then pushed everyone where she wanted them, according to some archaic vid she had watched and memorized.
I moved out of the way and let Jolene be in charge. Thank all that was holy for Jolene.
Over the speakers, Jolene started the wedding march, which I vaguely remembered as a ta ta tada. Ta ta tadaaaaa song.
Cupcake appeared in the doorway and the crowd went dead silent for about two seconds before bursting into wild cheers. She looked beautiful, blond and blue eyed, a gorgeous bride, in a backless red dress (that showed off her Junkyard Roadhouse club tats) with a full skirt and matching stilettos.
She looked younger than when I first saw her, by nearly two decades, thanks to my nanobots. Her blue eyes sparkled and she had makeup on. Her hair was tall on top and curled up on the ends.
Over the cheers, one drunken horny biker yelled, “You look like Marilyn Monroe. You sure you want to waste all that on a someone who ain’t a made-man?”
Whoever Marlyn Monroe was, the compliment made Cupcake’s cheeks go pink. She was happy, so that was good. Her reply was less agreeable. “You shut up, Howard Daget,” Cupcake yelled back, “or Jolene will toss you out on that skinny ass.”
Amos, wearing a black suit make out of denim, looked like a tank, as he strode up the aisle from the bar to Howard Daget.
One massive fist shot out. A fast punch.
Daget never saw it coming. He fell back into the throng around him and disappeared from sight, to reappear on his back between other people’s feet.
There was a Roadhouse Rule about no fighting. I pretended to study my orange painted nails. I hadn’t seen a thing.
Amos held out his arm to his lady love and escorted her up the aisle to the bar. Amos-the-tank stood next to his pretty-in-red bride, in front of Judas the Priest.