Bohu’s eyes opened to the midday sun glaring down upon him. He pushed himself up to his knees on the cracked glass earth and looked around. All he could see was the wreckage of the carrier. The caravan was long gone, probably in Eastend by now. His head ached and swam as he lurched to his feet, groaning out a curse as he did so. He gave himself a onceover. Everything hurt from the blast but overall he appeared to be unharmed. Ten fingers, ten toes. The same couldn’t be said about the carrier’s driver, a man shotgunned across the windshield of the overturned vehicle. Bohu winced – he should have worn his seatbelt.

  Now what? He thought as he took a few staggered steps back, struggling to get his bearings. Did he bite the bullet and call for help? Tell Avon he failed and have to listen to his condescending scoldings? “Fuck!” Bohu bellowed, kicking one of the carrier’s tires, causing the vehicle to lurch in place. With it there came a groan – someone was still alive.

  Bohu cocked a brow and made his way to the rear of the vehicle, to where the mech had been nested. The mech laid sprawled out like a corpse trying to drag itself from the grave. The pilot sat nestled in its steel bosom, caged by twists of metal that prevented him from escaping. Bohu let out a nasal sigh and a whistle, saying “You guys are especially hard to kill. I thought I had that honor. But you guys, you’re like roaches. Still kicking no matter how I stomp you. It’s kind of gross, you know?”

  “Fuck… you,” Reverence struggled to say in a daze. There was no doubt he had a concussion and a few broken ribs. He reached for his mask with unsteady hands and yanked it free with a gasp. Blood veiled his face – the face of a living corpse - sunk in eyes, sallow skin, no nose to speak of, and a tattered and scarred upper lip exposing his teeth.

  Bohu clicked his tongue and huffed. “It’d be a bit poetic if you died in there. It’d make me feel a bit better too I think.”

  “Then fuck off,” Reverence spat with a glob of blood.

  “No – no, because I think I have me an idea,” Bohu said, clasping his hands. “You don’t really want to die here – painfully and all alone. So, here’s the deal, my captive audience…” Bohu reached forward and twisted free some of the barring metal as if it were nothing but rubber. “I’m going to set you free, and you’re going to be my little Judas lamb and take me to your friends.”

  “I said fuck you!” cursed Reverence with a futile struggle against his bindings.

  “Wait-wait, before you commit suicide just listen,” Bohu said, raising his hands. “If you do, I won’t kill you – or your friends. Scouts promise. I’ll take back what you’ve stolen and leave you to your sad and miserable lives. I’ll even tell my companions to do the same.” Bohu clasped his hands together. “And if you don’t – well… that blood is on your hands now, isn’t it? So, come on, whaddaya say? Save your friends lives?”

  For a long moment Reverence just glared flinty daggers, but, at moments end, he relented. “How do I know you’ll keep your promise?” he asked softly. “How do I know you won’t just kill us all anyways?”

  “That’s the neat thing – you don’t,” Bohu said, blasting him with a set of finger guns. “But… I like to pride myself on my honesty. And the honest thing is, I’m going to find them whether you help or not. Even if they scatter like the roaches you guys are, we’ve ways to track you down. You’re not safe, and you won’t be, however far you run. It might not be today – then tomorrow, or the next day. We’ll find you and yours and put you all to the sword. OR – or you can take advantage of this once in a lifetime deal and make things easy for me. Deal?”

  Reverence spat again and mulled the idea over. He really didn’t want to die here, trapped in his machine, but he didn’t trust the man’s word either. Who was he protecting by dying there? Where did his loyalties lie? Surely not with the job or their employer. Piety’s mysterious patron could rot in hell for all he cared. Then with Piety and his crew. Reverence grit his teeth. They already had one murderous group on their tail, they couldn’t outrun another one.

  “Fine…” Reverence caved at last with a curt nod. “I’ll take you to them.”

  “Good! Good!” Bohu exclaimed. “I was sweating having to walk out of here with no one to talk to.” Bohu reached in and wrenched the barring metal free, twisting it like taffy. “Let’s get you out of there, new friend.”

  Within a few short moments Bohu was pulling Reverence free. As soon as his boots were on solid ground Reverence pushed himself away. For a brief second Bohu thought he was going to run for it, but he didn’t.

  “Don’t be salty,” Bohu said with undiscernibly mock sadness. “We’re all just doing our jobs, aren’t we? Mine just happens to be keeping thieves out. Can you really fault me for that? You guys are the bad guys here, if you really think about it.”

  “No one was supposed to know about the entrance,” Reverence said. “We didn’t know there was any guild claim on it.”

  “Guild?” Bohu echoed with a huff. “Do you honestly still think you’re dealing with the Merchant Guild?” Reverence didn’t answer. “Oh boy – you guys don’t even have a boat, do you? Well, since we’re regular bosom buddies now, I don’t see any harm in telling you.” Bohu grinned a vicious, shark-toothed smile. “You can keep a secret, can’t you?”

  --

  The scorched caravan inched its way through Eastend’s entrance gate at a snail’s pace. They had all but run the engine dead in their mad dash to escape. Just another price to pay for their lives, none of which Piety was sure they could afford in the long run. She sighed and handed the last of her trade bars, what passed for currency amongst the Merchant Guild members, over to the driver. “See if we can get it fixed ASP,” she said. “I don’t want to be here longer than we have to. And see the dead get taken care of.”

  The man gave her a curt nod and waved broadly over his shoulder, summoning what little of the crew remained to his side. Piety watched in silence as they began unloading the bodies. Her guts twisted like snakes as a wave of regret washed over her. If she had just given the woman over they would still be alive – that was the fact of it. Wasn’t it a fair trade? Two lives for many? Now what? She lost half her crew, Reverence too maybe, and for what? Some random woman she hardly even knew? Piety spat a curse and turned away, knowing that for some reason she’d do it again if the choice presented itself.

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  Piety reached up to her NCI port and adjusted the plug. A wall of static zigzagged across her vision as a red ERROR sign flickered in the corner. She spat another curse. It must have been damaged when the man broke her neck. Piety rubbed her neck and shivered. The fact she had died, or very nearly, hadn’t really had the time to set in before – but now she couldn’t stop thinking about it, especially as they carted the bodies off behind her.

  Sophia stepped out of the caravan on tender feet and slowly limped her way to Piety’s side. A warmth bloomed where regret just was as Piety spotted her out of the corner of her eye. Even now, the woman had a strange hold over her. It wasn’t something Piety was wholly fond of, consequences being as they were.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” Piety began with a sigh. “Your feet… Huh – you can heal my neck but not yourself.” Maybe it was a dream after all? Maybe she hadn’t been as hurt as she thought? The woman offered her a hapless glance before staring down at her feet. She just stood there, clothed only in Piety’s jacket, truly a pathetic sight to behold. Piety sighed, everything but that warmth washing away. “I suppose we ought to get you something less revealing. Come on, we should have something on the truck.”

  It was harder to find something to fit the woman than Piety had expected, tall and broad as she was. But, after digging through their stash of equipment, she finally found something fitting. It wasn’t pretty, but she was now outfitted with tattered pants, a ratty shirt, and a pair of mostly fitting boots. Piety doubted the dead would miss any of it. “There we go,” Piety announced as she took a step back to admire her work. “Now you’re ready for polite company.”

  Sophia wore a wide smile as she looked down at herself. “Thank you,” she uttered softly before meeting her eyes. “What now?” What now was a good question, one Piety wasn’t wholly sure the answer was. They had escaped their pursuer, but Piety doubted it would be the last time they seen the man. The question was, did they lay low here, or scatter to the wind with the rest of the crew? If Reverence was still alive, here was where he’d come looking – but the same went for the pale man. Eastend was the only habitable area in miles, they had to come here, and he would know that.

  Piety looked the woman up and down. Either way it would be hard to hide her. She was pure human without a tainted mark on her – no mutations, no flaws at all. And that aside, she was a giant as well, well nearly seven feet tall. She was practically built to draw attention. Piety let out a nasal sigh as she adjusted Sophia’s shirt collar. “Next…” she began, “we lie low and wait for my brother. I know a good safehouse here that we’ll be, well, safe at.”

  “That man won’t be able to find us?” Sophia asked cautiously. “I don’t want to go back to that place.”

  “No, we’ll be safe,” Piety answered, unsure of the truthfulness of her words. She smiled reassuringly, “I promise. It’ll be just for a couple days, anyways; until my brother catches up.”

  “What makes you think he survived?” Sophia asked genuinely, sorrow plain on her face.

  “Faith,” Piety answered truthfully. “I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I have faith in my brother. He survived, and he’ll find us.”

  “I hope so,” Sophia said with a warm smile that nearly caused Piety to melt.

  “We should get going,” Piety stated, doing her best to brush off the feeling. “Staying out in the open is asking for trouble. Come on, this way – and keep your head down.”

  Making their way through town as quietly and with as much haste as Sophia’s wounds would allow, the pair soon found themselves at the waterfront, trading out dusty streets for mud-caked docks and salty sea air. Seagulls sang noisily overtop the ringing of buoy bells. Waves crashed against the shore as a distant storm brewed with storm clouds dotting the horizon far to the east. Piety stopped to stare off into that wild wilderness that was the frontier – across the vast inland sea that bordered Eastends shore.

  “I’ve never seen the ocean before,” Sophia said softly, following her gaze to the lapping waves.

  “Still haven’t,” Piety denied, shifting her gaze from the immense lake to the woman at her side. “This is more like a gulf than an actual ocean – I hear anyways. No one’s been to the other side. No one that’s come back, anyways.”

  The pair walked for the better part of an hour before arriving at a strange lakeside tower. It wasn’t a lighthouse, at least anymore. It was brick all the way up to where the light used to be housed. There it changed into a crown of metal beams. This crown was adorned with all manners of satellite dishes and antennas. It was clear that this was a communication hub of some kind.

  “What is this place?” Sophia asked.

  “A radio station,” Piety answered before adding, “A friend runs it. I might need to call in a favor or two, but we should be able to hide out here for a while.” After a moment she would say, “Reverence knows to come here when shit hits the fan. We’ll be safe here. The host makes a habit of helping out people such as us – those stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

  They approached the front door. Above it was a crudely drawn picture of some kind of mutant creature doing a peace sign. Piety tried the handle. Locked. Piety tried knocking – then pounding and hollering. “Open up!” she demanded. “We need help!”

  Besides the door there was a small metal box. An intercom perhaps? Piety gave it a once over. No call buttons to be seen. That left pounding and hollering. But just when she raised her fist again, a staticky voice erupted from the callbox. “One moment – one moment! Can’t a girl use the loo in peace?! What do you want? We’re not taking any guests today.”

  “H-hi, hello, can you hear me?” Piety stuttered, dropping her fists. “It’s Piety and I’ve run into a bit of trouble.”

  “Piety? Well, how the heck are you?!” the voice chimed. “What, did Reverence brick that mech of his again? I told him it needs new joint actuators not just a good greasing.”

  “It’s… a bit more complicated than that,” Piety began with a mournful sigh. “Can we come in? I’ll tell you all about it. It’ll be a great story for your show.”

  “Of course – of course!” chirped the voice. “I’ll be down in one moment.”

  True to their word, at moments end there was shuffling behind the door. One by one, a whole series of locks clicked. Piety didn’t remember them to be so paranoid, but she guessed times had changed since they last met. After what felt like forever, the door opened with a metallic groan.

  Behind the door stood the very same mutant creature that the sign boasted in what was actually a pretty accurate depiction. The creature was squat with dwarfish proportions. Its bulbous eyes were froggish, looking almost too big for their head. But most notable was its mouth, a strange lipless muzzle packed with five-inch sharp fangs. Sophia tried to take a step back, but Piety placed a hand on her back to prevent her. “It’s okay,” Piety said reassuringly, “she won’t bite. Sophia, this is BP. BP this is…”

  “A First-Seed!” BP interrupted.

  “You already know what she is?” Piety asked in shock. “How?”

  BP peeked outside, looking left then right before motioning them to follow, saying as she did so, “You better come in quick! No one followed you, right?”

  “That’s part of the problem actually…” Piety answered, following her inside.

  “I was afraid of that,” BP said with a click of her tongue. “Come on now! Inside, hury!”