DEV1AT3 (DEVIATE). Jay Kristoff

maybe.

      Wasn’t like him to just lie down and die.

      But after a whole day and night of this crap, it surely was tempting.

      The bounty hunter stopped crawling, rolled onto his back. His mouth was ash dry, coated with dust. He pulled off his black, beaten cowboy hat, held it up against the merciless sun.

      “And God said, let there be light,” he muttered. “And I ain’t complainin’, Lord. I could just use a little less of it right now, is all. Maybe some kinda miracle if you’re in a giving mood? A little one’ll do just fine.”

      And, as if on cue, Preacher heard footsteps.

      Slow and steady, crunching on the black glass toward him. He thought he recognized the tempo, but without his augs, he couldn’t be sure. Lifting his head with a wince, he focused on the approaching figure with his one working eye.

      “Well, well,” Preacher chuckled, leaning back on the glass. “Snowflake.”

      The boy stopped a good forty meters away, leveled a pistol at his head.

       Smart.

      “I’m wondering if that skull of yours is bulletproof,” the boy called.

      “Matter of fact, it is,” Preacher replied.

      “You move sudden, we find out for certain.”

      The boy advanced slowly, gun aimed steady. He looked like hell—bloodstained and filthy, a bulky satchel on his back. But last Preacher had seen the boy, that right arm of his ended at the bicep, outfitted with a prosthetic that predated the war. Now his arm extended below his elbow, and the bounty hunter could see five small nubs sprouting at the end of the stump.

      “Well, you surely are a special one, ain’tcha?”

      “Considering you survived a point-blank blitzhund explosion and a shotgun blast to the chest, I’m guessing I’m not the only one,” the boy replied.

      Preacher reached into his shredded coat, stuffed a wad of synth tobacco in his cheek. “What’re you doin’ out here, Snowflake? Shouldn’t you be with your girl?”

      “Well, one of them told me to go to hell, and I lost the other one. Along with my logika and my tank and what little remained of my good mood.”

      Preacher nodded. “That does sound a goodly dose of misfortune.”

      “Not really. In fact, this is my lucky day.”

      “How you figure?”

      The boy knelt beside Preacher’s head, barrel aimed right between his eyes.

      “Because you own a blitzhund. And you find things for a living.”

      He held up a grav-tank pilot’s helmet, smudged with spots of dried blood.

      “And now, you’re gonna help me find her.”

      Preacher looked down the barrel into all that black. He wasn’t anything close to afraid—he’d spat right in death’s eye before, after all, and he knew the reward waiting for him in the hereafter. But talking true, he was having an awfully tough time keeping the smile off his face.

      He’d always been a man of the Goodbook. Always believed he was part of the Lord’s plan. He’d asked for a miracle, and as always, the Lord had delivered. He just didn’t think the heavenly father would send him a miracle quite so goddamn stupid.

      Preacher sucked his cheek, leaned up on his elbows and spat into the dirt.

      “Mmf,” he grunted. “All right, Snowflake. I s’pose I am.”

       2.5

       HELOTRY

       >> syscheck: 001 go _ _

       >> restart sequence: initiated _ _

       >> waiting _ _

       >> 018912.y/n[corecomm:9180 diff:3sund.x]

       >> persona_sys: sequencing

       >> 001914.y/n[lattcomm:2872(ok) diff:neg.n/a]

       >> restart complete

       >> Power: 04% capacity

       >> ONLINE

       >>

      “Haaaa, toldja!” someone crowed. “What’d I tell ya?”

      “Shuddup, Murph.”

      “You shuddup, Mikey!”

      “Ow, don’t touch me, dammit!”

      As his optics came into focus, Cricket tried to sit up and found that he couldn’t. He was lying on his back, staring up at the rusting roof of a warehouse or garage. Data was pouring in: damage reports, combat efficiencies, percentage of munitions depleted, recharge rate. It took him a moment to remember who he was.

      Where was a completely different matter.

      He recalled the fight with Ezekiel. The sudden warning from his internal systems, the loss of power. After that … nothing.

      “Hey!” Cricket felt a clunk on the side of his head. “You hear me?”

      “YES,” the logika replied. “I HEAR YOU. BUT I CAN’T MOVE.”

      A grubby face leaned into Cricket’s field of view. It was a man, freckled skin, a pair of cracked spectacles perched on a flat nose. He wore a threadbare beanie on his head, stitched with a knight’s helm logo.

      “WHO ARE YOU?” the big bot asked.

      The man’s grin was the color of dirt.

      “I’m the guy you’re gonna make rich.”

      Cricket felt hands inside his chest.

      “NO, WAIT A—”

       >> power disconnected

       >> system offline

       >> syscheck: 001 go _ _

       >> restart sequence: initiated _ _

       >> waiting _ _

       >> 018912.y/n[corecomm:9180 diff:3sund.x]

       >> persona_sys: sequencing

       >> 001914.y/n[lattcomm:2872(ok) diff:neg.n/a]

       >> restart complete

       >> Power: 17% capacity

       >> ONLINE

       >>

      “See, there it is,” crowed a now-familiar voice. “Said so, didn’t I?”

      Cricket’s optics whirred and glowed, the room about him snapped into focus. He was somewhere different—underground, he realized. A large metal hatch was sealed over his head. The walls were concrete, lined with the shells of logika and machina, all in various states of disrepair. Tools, a loading crane, acetylene tanks … a workshop of some kind?

      He could hear the dim rumble of machinery, the distant hubbub