 
Didi and the Gunslinger

Didi and the Gunslinger: Book One

Smashwords Edition

Patti Larsen

©2015 by Patti Larsen

Find out more about Patti Larsen at

http://www.pattilarsen.com/

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Cover art (copyright) by Valerie Bellamy at Dog-Ear Book Design. All rights reserved.

http://www.dog-earbookdesign.com

Edited by Annetta Ribken, freelance Goddess. You can find her at http://www.wordwebbing.com/

Copy edits by Jessica Bufkin.

***

# Chapter One

He's broken, that much is certain, with one wing hanging at his side, a leg half torn, showing the shining metal beneath. But, he's been in worse shape than this. She bends and lifts him from the melted front plate of a trashed fighter pod, fingers dirty from the scorch marks.

"Silly Pip," she whispers over him, tucking his twisted body against her side as she picks her way to a level spot. It's hard to find a good place to work in the mass of garbage, her heavy, leather boots only finding purchase thanks to the humming deflection grid she's assembled around their soles. Just enough of a push to flatten a spot to tromp.

Sunlight beats down on the two of them in the quiet of the trash heap, hazy air thick with chemicals her nose filters do little to clear. Good thing she brought her new breath guard. The clear filament sits firmly around her mouth, transparent, porous surface blocking and flushing toxins as she inhales and exhales through parted lips. Doesn't help the raging heat, though. That she deals with by sweating through the thin fabric of her tank top, a narrow line tracing down behind each knee to pool in the tops of her boots.

The heat doesn't bother her all that much. The smell is worse, or would be if Trash Heaven wasn't home.

She settles on the crooked door of a mostly burned-out skimmer, the rounded surface a perfect place to perch. Crows caw overhead, imports from another planet making this one their own. She shades her eyes, looking up at them, scowling until her dark eyebrows almost meet.

"You leave him be," she calls after them. "He's broken because of you lot."

No response, heavy wings mocking her with their rustling as they disappear in a coordinated banking sweep around the next pile of garbage. She settles their cousin in her lap and, whistling a tune she barely remembers learning, the girl with the clever hands begins her work.

The sun climbs overhead, pounding her with its intensity, but she doesn't notice, not while doing what she loves most—fixing things. Nimble fingers sort out his feathers and the twisted end of one leg, fitting the pieces back together as the heat of the day fades into late afternoon and, finally, early evening. Twilight is a multicolored kaleidoscope of vibrant shades across the horizon, the pollution-heavy air taking on a softly undulating rainbow as the ultraviolet rays penetrate to their nighttime resting place.

Her shoulders shift when she sits up at last, sighing over his quiet body. "Worse than I thought," she says. "But you should be tops now, Pip." Her fingers find the faint depression on his chest under the thick, black feathers, and with a soft push, pops his power core back into place.

"—wait for me!" He leaps to his feet, a feeble attempt to flap his wings knocking him sideways, buffeting her face with the sharp edges of his pinfeathers. She catches him before he can tumble from her lap, his slight pound of weight a benefit, though as he thrashes she almost drops him, round face compressing with a frown and a hint of sadness.

"Pip." She pulls him to her chest, cradling him there, cooing softly and rocking him until he settles, panting out of his sharp, black beak, tiny red tongue darting into the night air before he settles.

"Didi." He says her name with such hurt her chest aches from the sound. But, as he ruffles his feathers, claws—some real, some metal—digging into her leg for purchase, she releases him and allows him the dignity of regaining his own balance. "You found me, I see." He cranes his neck, the whir of a motor in his spine allowing him that movement. "Where are we?" Pip looks up at her with his glittering black eyes, a pinpoint of red in the right one where a lens replacement gives him better sight than any crow. "And after dark. Didi!"

She shrugs, hopping down from the upturned door. Pip flaps and squawks, settling on the roof of the skimmer, his dark plumage blending into the burnt out husk.

"Wasn't about to leave your feathered behind out here alone." She can't let him see the tears rising in her eyes. It's not his fault he tries to join his family. It's just his nature. But, she saved him, saved his little life two years ago, and he should be grateful, she reckons.

She's grateful to have him, isn't she?

Pip flies to her side, lands on her shoulder. She extends her arm and waits while he hops down to her forearm then rubs his head against her shoulder.

"Thanks, Deeds," he whispers, the hum of his vocal motors soft in the background. Ingenious, she thinks, enhancing his natural ability to speak with a voicebox of metal and gears, and a brain that can think as well as any human. Makes her wonder why he bothers flying off with them, anyway. They'd never understand him.

Part of the problem, she guesses. Crows are a particularly snobby lot.

Her boots vibrate as she begins their walk home, miles to go in the gathering darkness. The locator beacon in her right shoe won't let her steer off course, so she's not worried. Besides, she has Pip in case she gets in trouble. He can fly home, now she's fixed him, and fetch Dad if the need arises.

"You shouldn't have come out this far." Pip sounds equally irritated and guilty. He's blaming himself for putting her in this position. She flips her black hair out of her face and grunts at him. Well, he has, silly bird.

"You fly off and vanish and you expect me to just let you go, is that it?" She slips down the side of an abandoned flyer. This part of the garbage heap is all discarded flight machinery from skimmers to planes to parts of old space ships huddled and piled on top of one another as though they can create more of themselves just by coexisting. She likes it here, though it's not her territory. Maybe that's why she likes it. "Nice for you to harangue me when you're the blikey corbie who knows better." She strokes his feathers to take the sting from her words while he clicks his beak at her.

"I do," he says, wistful, soft as his under plumage. "I adore you, Didi, you know that. But, sometimes when they call..."

She does feel for him, can't help herself. Didi pauses and hugs him again while he grooms the ends of her hair with his beak.

"A right pair of whackadoodles we are, Pip Squeak," she laughs, brushing at tears she refuses to acknowledge. Her boots begin their forward trek again while he mutters softly under his breath a moment.

"You've put yourself in danger for me again," he says at last. "Your father will take me apart with his own hands if he finds out."

"Dad wouldn't notice if the pair of us never came home, Pip, except if dinner wasn't on the table and his stomach told him something was amiss." Did pushes her bangs back from her forehead, her goggles descending as darkness envelops them. She loves her new lenses, custom made them from a sheet of polyaluminoid she dug up from the back side of a junked holojack. A simple press of one side and she can see the black of the Trash Heaven night now lit like daylight. It's her first chance to really test them, and as off-putting as this jaunt is, she's secretly pleased her new creation functions perfectly.

"So you say," Pip snaps his beak. "But there are more dangerous things out here than the wrath of Tarvis Duke. And you know it."

"Then stop flying your foolish tail after a pack of them who don't give one whit for you." Didi's tired of this conversation. She's had it too many times in the last two years. Pip seems content enough, until that blighted murder comes flapping around, stirring him up though they made him an outcast the moment she saved his life.

If she could catch their black hearts, she'd do it, no matter the trouble, if only to save Pip more heartache of his own.

Pip shivers and leans against her as she rounds one of the piles, the distant green glow of Trash City enveloping the horizon. It's hours away and around the curve of the planet, but the pollution allows its light to cover almost half the sky. She pauses, liking this view. Civilization—as it exists here, that is—lies miles from here, so far she can't even fathom, but the massive sprawl is big enough and bright enough she's sure they can see it from half way across the galaxy.

The galaxy. She looks up to the stars, the spread of twinkling lights barely visible through the thickness of the polluted atmosphere. Sure, there are other worlds out there. She's seen enough glimpses of them in trashed vids she's rescued. But Didi is practical enough to know she's a Trash Heaven girl and will always be happiest surrounded by piles of garbage.

Different thinking just makes her chest ache.

"Wait," Pip says, breathless, when she stifles a sigh and starts on again, doing her best not to think of anything but home. Dad's teased her in the past about her wide-eyed viewing of adventure on the screen he made her, has even joined her a time or two to watch one of her favorite vids. Makes her feel not so alone out here in the trash, just her and him and Pip in their little territory.

"You just said hurry," Didi snorts at the crow. He really needs to make up his little mind.

His cyborg claw cuts through her jacket and into the leather armband she wears for just this reason. He still doesn't know his strength, her crow. It flexes with more power than it should as he turns and looks around them. "Didi."

"Oh, hush," she says, focused on the trash crushed under her boots. The footing is slippery here, deflectors or not. "I'm going already. Bossy needs to choose stop or go for once."

"No." His tone pulls her to a new halt, the small hairs on the back of her neck springing alive, skin tingling with sudden nerves. A red spark flares in his right eye, the lens engorging his cornea. "We're not alone."

She doesn't hesitate, reaching for her side, for the weapon hanging there. Even as fat, quivering bodies slither from the dark and surround her.

***

# Chapter Two

Didi's goggles show her numbers, scrolling through the count of her enemies as the stout, furred forms gnash their huge, yellow teeth at her, whippet tails thrashing against metal with odd booming, ringing and bell-like sounds, a chorus of music to accompany their attack.

They hold back, though, long snouts quivering, the giant one who seems to lead them sniffing her out as Didi holds her ground, the weapon now in her hand leveled in his whiskered face. Trash rats aren't easy to frighten off, but if she can take out their king, they'll scatter long enough for her to make a run for it.

"We need a place to hide." Pip quivers on her arm.

"You could fly off," she snaps at him, not sparing him a glance. Her finger closes on the trigger of her gun. She can only hope her new modifications give the results she hopes for, or they could be overrun quickly. There's no promise—the one test she did wasn't all that satisfying, frying a small hole in the side of a plastanium hull about the size of her fist. It should be enough to take out a trash rat. Except there's more than one, isn't there?

She should be afraid. Didi catches her lips twitching as badly as the rat's tails, though, feeling like one of those heroes in her vids who wins out despite impossible odds.

"I'd never abandon you in a time of need." Pip's shock and arrogance makes her bark a laugh. The lead rat hops backward, his twenty pound body slinking low to the ground. Another transfer from a distant system, trash rats are common in the piles, but most are fearful and small, living off the carcasses of the dead. These are the largest she's ever seen, and makes her wonder what is out here they've grown so huge.

"Then hush," she says to the muttering crow. "And get ready to spread those wings. I won't be able to carry you and run."

She waits, as the king rat waits, taking his measure. She can see him returning the favor and grins, showing her teeth. Has to be fifty pounds, his long, round body low to the ground, feet tipped with sharp claws. He squeals at her, his pack joining him, her goggles settling on twenty- four in total.

"That's a lot of rats." If Didi's the hero, her crow is the opposite. Pip's breathlessness reminds her of a damsel in distress.

Her gun never wavers. The king must recognize it's a weapon, because he continues to hold back. Smart these trash rats, smarter than they have a right to be. Stalemate in the dark and the trash between a slim girl and a cyborg crow and a pack of giant rats. She'd write a song about it, if she knew how.

When the king makes his move, she sees it coming, her goggles giving her warning through readings of his subtle muscle shifts. If she was ever grateful for the tech she's adapted, it's now. And with a faint prayer to the gods of all guns and ammo, she pulls the trigger of her cobbled weapon.

The gun in her hand might have offered a small showing when she tested it previously. Tonight its power appears to have risen to the occasion. A giant beam of green builds up at the tip of the tarnished silver muzzle, the barrel distending slightly as the charge bursts forth like a bubble, exploding into a fist of energy that hits the charging king directly in his beady little eyes. Didi stumbles backward in surprise, Pip cawing and backwinging into flight as she stares with delight.

The king rat flips ass past the skimmer, bouncing like some inflated toy over and over, tail taking out three of his hovering pack. He crashes with considerable force into the side of a crushed spacer, collapsing on his side with a gurgling sigh. Blood gushes from his open mouth, over his yellow fangs, pouring onto the trash beneath him.

Didi looks down at her weapon with a grin of delight, even as a deep keening begins, the pack gathering around their king. Pip's claws hook her shoulder, tug at her, but she remains in place, one hip cocked to the side, confidence returned. He buffets her with his wings, only to be waved off as she points her gun at the pack.

"Take that then, squeeby squealers." They turn to face her, staring her down. Didi's anxiety makes a sharp return, but she's got her weapon. Let them try a thing and she'll take them all out.

The first one advances, a big female, the queen, most likely. Didi twists her lips in contempt. "Make me do it, then," she says. "I'm all for it." The rat continues her creeping progress and, with a flip of her hair out of her goggles, the clever girl shrugs and pulls the trigger, all casual like.

When nothing happens, Didi grunts. Shakes her gun and tries again.

"Didi." Pip's voice holds the same kind of quiet horror she's beginning to acknowledge growing in her chest. "Didi, run."

"Well, blast it," she mutters before spinning on one foot and doing as he says to the skittering sound of the pack's pursuit. "And dang it to blazes."

Rats to the right of them, rats to the left of them. She's heard that litany before, but different. It sticks in her head though, a cadence in time with her thudding boots. One of the pack comes too close, leaps for her and Pip, but not before Didi's heavy sole lashes out, the deflection shielding crushing its furry chest.

It's not the rats one at a time she has to worry about. She can take them, if she can find a place to defend, maybe even turn the tables and chase them off. But if they circle and trap her, come at her all at once... fifty pounds times twenty-three—now twenty-two—is more than she can handle.

It would actually be easier to find her way if it weren't for Pip hovering like he does, his wings flapping in her view, blocking off her scan of the area. She swats at him, though doesn't want to risk knocking him down. She doesn't have time to stop and the rats would kill him lickity.

She scans the piles of trash around her, but none are easy to climb and only the vague, natural channels that are common place on Trash Heaven offer a place to go. She knows there has to be a reason the garbage dumped here seems to form a labyrinth of pathways, but she's never sat down to squidge out the equation and probably never will.

"Didi, be careful!" He chooses the wrong moment, as Pip often does, to distract her. She spotted the downward pathway, had half turned to avoid it, only to have his cry turn her head at the same moment one of her boots gave way. With the augmentation shorted out—they just weren't meant to take such a pounding in unknown territory—Didi stumbles sideways, down a metal ramp.

"Bad idea, Pip." Her clenched jaw aches but she's on a trajectory now and can't halt it. She was looking for a defensible place, high ground. This is the exact opposite. The garbage climbs around her on both sides, the slim path leading her down and down until she's at a dead end and is forced to turn around.

They have followed her, though maybe it's not as bad as it seems. The pack can only come at her two at a time on the ramp. She's feeling better about it, looking around for a weapon, until the sound of chittering overhead makes her look up.

They're above her, too, ready to leap on her head. Didi's shock is more powerful than her fear. If she'd been asked just this morning how she'd die, it wasn't at the teeth of a stupid pack of squealers.

Her back thuds against the hard place behind her, sounding hollow, echoey. "Pip!"

"I won't leave you." He settles on her shoulder as she half turns and scans the barrier. Yes, a door. How did she miss it? The controls are even faintly lit under the panel when she pops it open.

"I didn't ask you to, coward," she says. "Get ready."

"For what?" He's quivering his fright. "Didi, this is my fault, I got you into this, forgive me." His throat vibrates, a warble of distress escaping. "I'm a terrible, terrible friend."

"Some days," she says as the door hisses open under her touch. "But not today."

He shrieks protest as she grabs him bodily from her shoulder and throws him into the dark passage beyond, throwing herself after him. She can hear the skitter of claws approaching, knows she has a mere second to save them, leaping to her feet and for the inside of the door. Her fist finds the interior panel, pounds on it and she grins in the face of the queen whose wriggling nose she catches in the whoosh of the sliding door.

***

# Chapter Three

"Didi," Pip whispers as she turns, back to the closed portal while the squealing outside goes on. It's pained squealing, and though it disgusts her, she can't help but flick her finger at the still twitching tip of the queen's snout. It thuds to the ground at her touch, severed from its owner, rolling softly to one side, leaving a smear of red behind.

"That'll hurt, I reckon," Didi says.

"Didi." Pip's voice is choked, stuttering. She bats at him as he flops on her shoulder.

"Heard you the first time," she mutters before spinning to look where they've found themselves. And stops, frozen and stunned, as the crow has been for the last minute or so. Now she understands why.

Dim light illuminates the interior of the tube of metal, eerie and cold. They line the walls, their metal bodies upright, seated in rows on both sides of the interior. Some kind of carrier, she figures, three metal stairs leading down into the main chamber where the silent, still forms wait, staring into nothing with their empty eyes.

"Gunslingers." Didi breathes the word out, one boot ringing on the metal steps, the second's deflector setting off a soft buzzing, her feet carrying her down without her knowledge. She's too caught up in the sight before her, stretching out twenty feet wide, over fifty feet in depth. So many silent cyborgs all in a row.

Pip lifts off, settles on the head of one. Didi hisses at him, the disrespect of his act making her wince. Sure, these are still and empty now. But once their massive metal bodies strode the galaxy dispensing justice, or fighting wars to keep softies safe. Pip taps the gunslinger's temple with his beak before squawking and flying to her again, settling on Didi's absently raised arm.

"They're dead," he says.

"Weren't alive to begin with." Didi drifts forward, though she corrects herself. "Least, their metal parts. Been what, fifty years or so since the gunslingers were decommed?" She hesitates next to the seated form of the closest gunslinger, a woman by the shape they've given her. The temptation to open the face guard is so tempting Didi has to wipe her palms on her thighs to eliminate the slick of sweat raised there.

"At least," Pip murmurs. Like he'd know personally, though she's downloaded the history of the galaxy into his cyborg brain. Beats having to call up deets on her system. "What do you think they are doing down here?"

"Beyond me." Didi exhales and skims her fingertips over the surface of the female gunslinger's shoulder. The body is silent and the metal cold, long since shut down. Feeling braver, she leans forward, examines the propped open front panel hovering about heart height on her chest. The center slot is empty, the place for a power chip now vacant. "Wouldn't think gunslingers were trash."

Pip tuts softly, sadly. "We're all trash in the end, Deeds."

"Got that right, I suppose." She straightens, pushing her hair back, using her goggles to hold her bangs out of the way. She doesn't need them to see, and from what the lenses showed her, the only power in this place is the tube itself, barely there, shielded from the outside. Just a curiosity. Though, she could take advantage of this bounty, couldn't she? Spare parts were hard to come by and gunslinger tech, outdated or not, could give her some fun toys to play with.

Feels too wrong to contemplate. Not with them looking so abandoned. Like no one cares they used to be people.

"We need to get home." Pip tugs at her hair with his beak, the heat of his cyborg eye warming her cheek. "This place creeps me to my bones."

Didi doesn't respond, moving deeper into the cargo hold. That's what this has to be, some kind of shipping section of a ship. At least, the design feels right, the rounded walls, the markings for decontamination and life support. It's been stripped down, the faint lighting in the ceiling tucked beneath a fine veil of plasglass, just enough to cast an eerie glow over everything. "Just need a bit of time alone down here," she says. "This is a gold mine, Pip." But not to strip, oh no. As she wanders the quiet cargo hold, her mind turns to a larger plan than she's ever considered.

A gunslinger. Of her very own. Imagine.

Pip shakes, feathers fluffing, claws digging in. "You listen to me, Divinity Solace Duke," he says in his best attempt at bossiness. She almost giggles, though it's out of character for her. If only he knew how comical he was when he tried to make her do what he wanted. "You don't even think for a moment you should be messing about with gunslinger tech." Pip's voice dropped in volume as she slowed to a halt near the end of the cargo bay, near a circular chamber, the door partially pried open. More light, but from the floor this time, shining outward from the crack. Looks to her like someone tried to get inside, only to meet with the kind of resistance that makes quitters walk away.

But Didi is no quitter, not in this lifetime.

"Gunslingers were decommed for a reason, you silly girl." Pip's beak chatters. "Near the end, they had issues." Like he knew what he was talking about. Issues. "Their cyborg brains couldn't handle the pressure, you recall?" She seemed to remember something like that in the history archive. How the gunslingers were created to keep the peace only to be redesigned to fight the wars of the Galactic Conjunction. Their poor human brains couldn't take the reversion back to peacekeeping. Made them crazy. Didi planted one booted toe inside the crack of the door and peeked inside.

"Well," she whispered at the sight, heart pounding, skin tingling in fresh excitement. "Hello there, handsome." He is, too, a perfectly preserved specimen, from what she can tell, still shiny, unlike his counterparts in the cargo bay. Even the seat he occupies looks like something special, a throne or a captain's chair meant for a leader. Is that it? Was he their leader?

"Didi!" Pip nips her ear. "You listening?"

She smacks him, softly but with irritation. He squeals at her, settles into place. "Not until you stop yammering at me," she says. "Considering you're a cyborg, little crow, you might want to be a mite more understanding of your bigger, stronger and, dare I say, smarter kin." She grins at him while he chatters his unhappiness. "What you think his thing was?" She jabs at the gap. Pip hops forward, takes his own look, cyborg eye whirling.

"No good," he mutters. "Sad to see them here, but that's as far as I'll go." He settles his wings like the conversation is over. Well, let it be. Not like she needs him around to harvest parts, combine them in a specimen she might be able to resurrect. This one looks like an excellent candidate, she reckons.

First, she needs to figure out just what this gunslinger's about. She'll take Pip home, get him settled, herself fed and Dad looked after. Then, tomorrow, she'll set Pip up for a diagnostic before returning to do some unhindered exploring.

"Weird," Didi says to herself, "how there's power down here." If the gunslingers are trash, why leave them with auxiliary backup systems in place?

"Stupid, you ask me," the crow mutters. "Boles and such wandering about, looking for electric systems to feed them." It's part of the reason everything with power is shielded, from her house to the bottoms of her boots. She shivers at the thought of one of the giant undertrash creatures coming to sniff out a snack. But, the hum in her one working boot tells her the shields are intact around this cargo bay. Have to be, or the gunslinger's home would be long ago trashed and drained. Feels like, from the piles around it, it's been here a space. Makes her wonder about the clear channel to the door, though.

Someone's been here before her, right? She registered that truth already. So, someone else thinks these gunslingers have importance. It only takes her a second to connect the territory she's encroaching with its owner, enough to chill her and cool off her enthusiasm.

"Can we go now?" Pip's pathetic whining can be endearing. Sometimes. "Please?"

Didi shrugs, grins at him so he won't see her worry. The last thing she needs is to run into the squatter, Ives Jackus. He's threatened her in the past, but worse, looks at her lately like she's tasty. Gives her the stomach curls. "Surely," she says. "Ready to fight the trash rats?"

He groans. "We're trapped!" One wing rises to cover his face. "We're doomed!"

"Cork it, corbie," she says, pointing to the hatch at this end, leading outward. And no, she has no proof it opens into safety, but at least it will shut his trap. Never mind she just spotted it herself, feeling a bit panicked at the thought until her gaze made the connection.

Pip shivers, leans into her. "I don't like this place," he whispers. "They're staring, Didi."

She looks around at the gunslingers, feels a shiver of her own. The stale air makes her nose tingle, and for the first time she thinks about the vibration of the power core keeping this place alive and humming under her feet. She could use that core, if she can access it. Not like the dead gunslingers need it anymore. Nothing to attract bole attacks if the core is gone.

That thought is enough to drive away her heebies.

But, Pip is right, it's time to go. She'll be back with tools. As she accesses the panel to the exit and Pip lets out a whoop of relief at the wash of fresher air that pours over them, Didi looks back once more.

A gunslinger of her very own. Wouldn't that be just the best thing ever.

***

He's been alone for so long, with only brief moments of contact, contact he is unable to respond to, he almost doubts his dimmed senses. The endless darkness he thought he could handle has devoured some of his control. He's waited so long for the light to come back, for it to burn around the edges of his vision, just enough to cast shadows, to make him wonder if he is being reactivated.

He shouldn't care. He needs to remain steadfast and loyal, as always. But, it's difficult, partially awake, aware, dim but alive. All alone.

She feels different to him, the girl with the soft voice he's not sure exists. Hope he's never thought possible within the boundaries of his programming almost drives him into the vortex of darkness. Subroutines kick in and save him, pulling him to calm, but he isn't sure how much longer his deprived mind can last. Perhaps, were he still human, he would be saddened by that truth. And yet, she felt real, as real as anything he is able to experience in this state. As much as the man who came first, the one he can't bring himself to trust.

There is something about the she—Didi, the second voice called her—who has made the most recent examination of his resting place. Unusual. And gone again, leaving him alone once more.

He must not hope. He will not give in to such fantasy. He is a gunslinger and his purpose is to serve, no matter how long he must wait. To be ready the moment he is needed.

He sinks back into the dark as far as he can and returns to the mental exercises allowing him to retain his sanity during long periods of segregation in the silent tomb of his people.

Even as that dreaded and needed hope forms a warm, soft ball of longing in his damaged brain.

***

# Chapter Four

Didi stops for a few minutes once clear of the cargo hold to perch on the top of a trash heap. With Pip keeping guard, she pulls free her boot and examines her deflector array.

The thin wiring is severed at the heel, an easy enough repair. She has to find the time to implant the array inside her boot to protect it from accidents like this. It's a fine balance between enough force to clear her a path and so much she leaves huge gaps in the ground around her. A tweak with her pliers and a reboot of the system and she's back on her feet.

Pip swoops over her head, taking his favorite place on her left shoulder once again when she heads for home. She makes notes of landmarks with her goggles, so she can find this place again. The steady tromp of her passing fills their time for at least ten minutes before the crow speaks.

"Thank you, Didi," he says. Chokes on the words, cackling his crow cough. "For coming for me."

"Always," she says, stroking his feathers. "Stupid bird. Think next time."

He sighs into her ear. "I know better," he says. "When they call me, they taunt me." She's been meaning to create some kind of translator, to see if she can figure out just what they say to him, those jackbutt crows he used to call family, but there are other, shiny things that pull her attention. Like the gunslingers. She's almost lost in them—in the shiny, hulking form waiting silently for her on that captain's chair—when Pip speaks again. "I just can't seem to resist them."

Didi thanks the goggles over her eyes at a particularly rough patch, though her nighttime eyesight is excellent and she's reached a path she knows well. Sure, it's still outside her territory, and she's not supposed to be here, but that's never kept her from slipping through, has it? At least, as long as the squatter who owns this territory doesn't catch her.

Not like she helps herself to anything of value the few times she does encroach. Though, that's going to change, isn't it? But, maybe Jackus won't mind her helping herself to a cyborg peacekeeper or two.

Gunslinger, her mind whispers. Thing is, if she does manage to raise one, Jackus won't be an issue anymore, will he? She skips a bit in excitement. Dad will freak if he finds out, until she brings the giant thing home. He wasn't happy about Pip, either, but he'll get used to having a gunslinger around.

She bites back a laugh at the image of the towering cyborg cohabitating with her and her father. She can dream, Didi Duke. She's allowed.

And, though the idea really is a daft one, she's well aware of that fact, and likely to fail, it will give her something to do in the long, empty days of Trash Heaven. A project worth getting riled up over.

And Jackus can kiss her boots. She'll figure out a way to sneak through, right quick.

Didi's grinning as she skims the giant mass of discarded ship's furniture recently left behind by a dumpall carrier. She wishes her father would agree to a more industrious section to take on as their own—there's an empty territory just beyond this one. In that the dumpall's use for computer parts she could have a lifetime of bliss exploring—but he's always insisted that the trash heap equivalent of a vintage pawn shop is the place for them.

And, thanks to the ancient tech surrounding them, she knows what a pawn shop is. Or used to be, back on Earth, Colony One. TV shows and movies at least she appreciates, though their way of talking makes her head hurt.

She wonders as they walk, as she often does on treks beyond her own territory, just how much trash there is on GTR-679. Trash Heaven has been the center of dumping for the galaxy for at least a hundred years. And dumpall carriers appear overhead sometimes on a daily basis. Must be weird living in a place where trash isn't a way of life. She's seen what that looks like, surely, thanks to the vids and films she's salvaged. But can't imagine doing it.

Where would she get spare parts?

A dumpall rumbles in the distance, the glowing red and green lights flashing on its sides, faint white illumination aimed upward, the ident number visible. It's over her territory, the last run of the night. She should go take a peek, but she's tired, finally, all this tromping and the heat and the fight taking it out of her at last.

And Pip's right. Dad will be looking for her, no matter her absent brush off to the contrary. He might be hard at work on his new invention, but he does look up from time to time. And if dinner's not ready, he might even come looking.

That hurries her pace. Not because Dad will be angry, but because he's not equipped to be out here on his own. She's tried a few times to guide him, when he's needed pieces for his project. She's never met a clumsier, more absentminded soul in her entire life, though fair to say she's maybe met a grand total of two dozen others in her sixteen years. Mostly other squatters. Once a crew of a dumpall who broke down nearby, and a couple of shop owners in Trash City. She's taken it on herself these days to get what Dad needs so she doesn't have to be so nervous over him trying to navigate the trash.

Just easier that way.

Didi scans the sky as she goes, anticipating the next dumpall. Sure, the one over her territory might be negligible when it comes to interest, but its typical partner usually has some fun tidbits to dive through. And, being right on the edge of her territory, it could soften Pip up to the idea she's forgotten their find.

As she slips down into a narrow valley, heart pounding all over again, she can't stop smiling.

She'll never forget the gunslingers.

"Didi." Pip loves using her name, inflecting it with all kinds of emotions, trills, edges. She ignores him as she often does, internally drooling over the possibility of maybe, just maybe, finding out what makes a gunslinger, well, sling. She's mastered small jobs, like Pip. But the idea of raising a full-sized humanoid... the power consumption alone is daunting. She's seen schematics, but nothing in detail. Easier, oddly, to get the tech drawings for the mechcops who replaced the gunslingers, fully robotic and heartless. That's the part she finds romantic, though if anyone ever said so to her she'd be the first to start a fistfight over the term. And yet, the idea that the human heart and brain still ran the soul of the gunslinger makes Didi lose herself in cyborg construction.

Even Pip's hissed, "Didi!" directly in her ear isn't loud enough or registers important enough to catch her attention. Only when he shrieks at her, flapping his wings, does she slam to a halt.

Too late, her greatest fear is realized. Lack of attention will be her downfall, she's sure of it, just as it has been now. She freezes in place as she looks up and into the snarl of the man who owns this territory, stomping toward her with a purpose. And he doesn't look happy.

***

# Chapter Five

"Trespassing, little girl?" She holds still too long, held by her shock. He reaches her before she can back away. Ives Jackus's fingers dig into her arm, clutching her like he owns her. "We've had this talk, hey?" He peers down at her through his bloodshot eyes, one wandering off to look in a different direction, the sheen of his oily skin making vomit rise to the back of her throat. Didi's done her best to avoid Jackus, especially lately. There was a time the lean, greasy man in torn jeans and a filthy t-shirt simply yelled at her for crossing over onto his property. But, the way he looks at her, the slow and horrible way he licks his lips with a wet, smacking sound as he gazes her up and down is almost too much.

Didi struggles against his grasp, long-fingered hands holding her elbow in a vice that grinds her bones together. Pip has fallen silent, clinging to her back, the cowardly thing.

"Am not," Didi says, pointing at the line of thick, blue glass her father placed on their borders with Jackus just a few weeks ago. Her boots are crossed it, aren't they? Thank the dumpalls above and the trash below, she's made it over the line. "You're the trespasser."

Jackus grunts and shakes her a little, snuffles up a nice, deep wad of snot, spitting it over his shoulder. The gummy wad glistens in the faint light of a dumpall humming overhead.

"Smart mouth," he mutters, tugging at her. Trying to pull her over the line into his territory again. Didi's fingers dig into the pocket of her jacket, searching for the trigger to the metal coils threaded into her clothing. A precaution against attack, but she never expected to have to use it against Jackus. Her mouth fills with saliva, swallowed convulsively as he stops pulling and smiles.

It's hideous, his smile, full of snaggled teeth where he has any left, bits of blackened edges showing even in the low light. She wishes she wasn't wearing her goggles. This view is far too clear, a spinning analysis of the bacteria and content breakdown flashing on the inside of the lenses. And though the stench of Trash Heaven is a thing she's grown long since accustomed, his breath rivals even the marshy pits to the west that spew their methane vileness into the atmosphere.

"Look at you, Miss Divinity, growing up like you are." His tongue is a thick slug of flesh slopping over his puffy lips. Something is wrong with his skin, bits of flaking dryness coming free from the sides of his nose, the reddened circles under his eyes giving them a burned out appearance. He takes a half step closer, pulling her against him. Her flesh creeps from where they make contact even as her fingers hover over the trigger that will likely shut down his heart and make her a murderer.

So be it.

"Let me go." She's proud of how steady her voice sounds, of Pip who pokes his head over her shoulder. "Release her at once, Jackus. How dare you manhandle Didi this way? Her father will hear of it."

Jackus ignores Pip, the hand tight around Didi's elbow softening enough so his thumb can trace circles on her skin. She's never felt anything so disgusting and the visceral reaction to his touch that races through her body makes her shudder so violently he starts and lets her go.

Didi staggers back, wiping at her mouth as her stomach threatens to make a visit to the surface. Jackus makes a move for her, but she's already turning, running for home. She should walk, she's in her own territory and, were he to try anything she would call self-defense.

"You come on back into my territory when you're ready," Jackus calls after her with a cackling laugh that ends with a wet cough. "I'll show you what it means to grow up, little girl."

She needs to leave it alone. Didi feels the compulsion to ignore her good sense rising from the soles of her boots and up to her knees, spinning in place and reversing course before she can stop herself. Pip snaps in her ear, biting the soft flesh.

"Didi!" His hissing makes her head hurt. "What are you doing?"

She stomps to a halt at the edge of her territory, crossing her arms over her chest. Jackus stares at her, shocked from the gaping look on his face. It's the first time she's realized how young he is, maybe only a decade her senior. But life hasn't been kind to Jackus, that much is written all over him.

"Don't you ever," she snarls in his face, "touch me again."

Jackus steps back before standing his ground, fury flickering in his wandering eye. Good one, too. "We'll see," he says. "You just step over that line, missy. You'll be fair game then, I reckon." He laughs, a bark of a sound. "Or, maybe I won't wait to catch you on my land. Tell your daddy I'll be calling."

Dad would throw Jackus out on his behind. Or so Didi would like to think. More probably, he'd stutter in shock, offer the man a homebrew then find a way to make him leave, hopefully before it came to blows.

Didi has no father illusions whatsoever. But, she's not above using him as a weapon. "Don't bother," she shoots back. "He'd never approve of someone like you."

Jackus's face twists, his body lunging for her. She dances back, finger on her trigger. He has no idea how close he's come to death. It makes her feel powerful.

He clearly doesn't. "Stupid little bletch," he snarls. Pauses and straightens, looks away. "Not worth my time, either of you. Crackpot and his nasty little mite."

It shouldn't hurt, the way the others talk about Dad. But Didi can't help her temper. He's got no one else to defend him these days and she can't stand the stigma.

"Says you." Didi hates the nasty, small look on Jackus's ugly mug. She'll show him. "Don't see you building machines to help the galaxy."

"Didi." Pip's whisper is a warning. She's tired of him using her name like that.

Jackus's feigned interest is a joke, a farce. Didi realizes she's said too much, but it's too late as the squatter smiles.

"Just what is that daddy of yours up to these days?"

Didi knows the rumors, has heard the others talk about her father. Calling him a crackpot out one side of their stupid mouths and a genius out of the other. She didn't miss the way her father's only friend, Putter, drooled over the new invention he was working on, though the old man had no idea what it could do. For that fact, Didi isn't entirely sure either. But any outside interest is bad interest. She knows better. And she let Jackus bait her.

"No business of yours," Didi says, turning her back for good this time. She knows he's watching her, feels his eyes on her as she leaves.

"I'll be calling, Didi," he shouts after her. "You be ready, missy."

Didi circles a large pile of garbage, only then releasing her touch on the trigger. She takes a moment to flash her middle finger in the direction of the squatter, out of his line of sight, while Pip sighs in her ear.

"You just had to turn around."

Didi swats at him, irritation burning through her. She spins on one boot and marches for home through the familiar tracks of garbage. "Shut that beak," she snaps, "or I'll leave you to the corbies next time."

Pip's silence doesn't make her feel any better.

***

# Chapter Six

Didi's foul humor lasts all the way home. Pip's quiet doesn't hold out, though, and that's part of the problem. Before they're even in sight of the collection of bits and scraps that Didi's Dad declared their house, the crow opens his beak.

"You really need to tell Tarvis about the way Jackus spoke to you." Didi snorts, knowing doing so will reap no benefit. "Look, the main house light is on. You're in trouble, young lady." She grinds her teeth together, not bothering to remind him he's the reason she's out so late. Besides, Dad knows better than to give her grief. She's the only one who takes care of him. A bit of scowling and crossed arms and he'll be backing off any kind of harangue he might try to deliver.

The crow, on the other hand... simply doesn't know when to shut his trap. Didi's forehead aches from frowning as she stomps the last quarter mile for home, strongly considering letting Pip stay broken the next time he decides to fly off with those reprobate cousins of his.

"You just be careful the next time you're near Jackus's territory," Pip says, just as sure as if that's something she hadn't considered with her own brain, the silly creature. "And that means giving up on any idea you might have to go back to those gunslingers."

She's smart enough to admit she's irritated more by his understanding of her motives than the words he's actually saying. No matter. Maybe she could deactivate his voice box, just for a little while.

His chest feathers puff up, for the life of her as though he's some pontificating wise man, cyborg eye brightening as he glares at her. "Don't think I can't hear your mind whirling, Didi."

She pushes through the front door, enough oil on the old entry to someone's long-lost spacer swinging easily inward at her touch. Its original design called for a slider, but she likes the action of that push the best, the satisfying way its perfectly balanced weight moves with ease under her fingertips. Took her weeks to get the pulley system holding it in place just right, fiddling and finagling until the barest brush of her touch would move it. The latch catches as she swings it shut, locking with a faint click behind her while Pip sighs on her shoulder. The security grid she's wired up hums to life, sealing them off from the outside world.

"What am I going to do with you?"

She's already moving through the front entry to their home, lined with salvaged parts she has, as yet, to find a use for. Dad doesn't complain about the junk inside—he's as bad as she is when it comes to sorting through what's there for his own use. She keeps it tidy, at least, the metal parts piled high to the ceiling of the back half of a cargo bay welded with plasfoam to the front twenty feet of a scrapped housing module. She likes the impressive way the ceiling of the bay curves upward over the front of the main house, like some kind of grand foyer she's seen in vids. A thin veil of plas hums as she passes through it, popping out her mouth guard and nose filters on the other side. The house itself has its own protections from the stink and chemicals of the planet, enough her exposure to outside every morning gives her a start at the stench.

The kitchen is empty, stove dark and cold. She lucked out on the heating node from a plasma generator, more than enough power to run the rusting old cook unit. She pulls open the front doors, both handles sliding in her grip, and frowns at the interior. Won't take long to reheat a slab of the slush mole she caught and skinned two days ago. As long as Dad hadn't finished it off for lunch.

She can hear him puttering in his lab on the other side of the wall, the thin metal not much of a sound insulator. At least he hasn't noticed she was gone, after all. While Didi is certain she can win out on any argument with Dad, she'd rather not have to. He's so much more pliable when he's happy.

The cooler lid creaks when she opens it, stacks of mole steak piled on one side wrapped in protective plas, steam rising to the surface as hot air meets cold. Two steaks should do it and, though the memory of slaughtering the creature is still close to the surface—she hates killing anything, food needs or not—her mouth is already watering at the thought of grilled mole steak.

Pip hops down on the counter, a slab of petrified wood someone dumped near the edge of the sludge creek, the perfect size and shape for the new center island she built to give her a place to prep food. Dad used to handle all this, but Didi finds it easier to take care of dinner. Especially if she actually wants to eat and not starve while his focus on work keeps him distracted.

"Didi!" Dad's voice drifts through the wall, tinny from the vibration of the metal between them. "That you?"

"Home, Dad," she calls back, the generator kicking in with a grunt of disagreement. She kicks it in irritation even as it jerks itself to life, the interior of the oven instantly hot. Flesh sizzles when her fingers slip, the tips touching the rack as she slides the pan with steaks inside. Didi hisses softly, sucking at the singed spots, slamming the oven door.

"Dinner?" He sounds plaintive, boyish.

"Coming." Didi sighs, eyes Pip who clacks his beak at her. "We have time," she says, scooping up the feathered cyborg and carrying him toward the other door in the kitchen. The narrow hall on the far side feels oppressive to her at times, mostly because she hasn't made replacing the glowtubes in the ceiling a priority. Every time one goes out, she adds scavenging more to her list, but somehow it always ends up on the bottom. Her boots hum against the fake wood floor, made to replicate natural veining but always looking flat and dull to her. The wall panels are the same color, adding to the closing in feeling she gets. She pushes through the swinging door first on the right and into her own workshop.

She found this particular bubble of awesome herself, about a year ago, and convinced Tortley from three territories over to trade her a transport of the unit for a fix of his favorite skimmer. Dad hated it when she showed off her skills to the other squatters, but the trade was worth it, in her estimation. It had to have been some kind of expensive sunroom or greenhouse in the past, a piece of a rich family's place. She adored the pale green plasglass, unbreakable but breathable, containing its own filter system. Tubes of fleximinum formed the curved shell's frame, carrying the power and water supply like its own ecosystem. The air inside is so fresh she takes a huge breath, loving how it makes her feel alive, even after the day she's had. She's acutely aware of how badly she smells as she does, grimacing while she crosses to the large, metal table in the center of the room and clamps the protesting Pip into the large vice protruding from her work surface.

A quick glance at the pot of green on the far side of the room and she makes a decision to add some peas and lettuce to dinner. She has some spices she traded with Putter a few weeks ago for a handful of her peppers. More mouthwatering as she harvests her precious greens.

"If you don't mind," Pip's chill tone makes her laugh as she turns, the succulent morsels of freshness tucked into a small pouch she carries back to him. He's on his side, awkwardly posed, unable to move as the magnetized clamp holds his metal body in place. "Honestly, Didi."

"A bit of patience, bird." She strokes his feathers a moment. He mutters before closing his eyes, a soft purr emerging. "Your right leg is still a disaster."

He holds still as she retrieves some tools, finally able to straighten him out. It will take his organics time to cover the wound, but at least she's managed to shut down his nerve centers so he doesn't feel pain.

Her task done, she releases him from the vice. Pip stands, shakes, examines his leg.

"You're welcome." She tosses her black hair at him before scooping up her greens and heading for the kitchen. Pip wings after her, muttering to himself.

Dad is bent over in half, staring into the open oven when she enters. He glances up, smiles at her past his round-rimmed glasses. "Smells great."

She rolls her eyes, slamming the door on him. "House is hot enough."

Dad grins, shrugs his narrow shoulders, pushing one long fingered hand through his brown hair. He's so nondescript, so ordinary. But he's hers. Didi tosses the bag of greens on the counter, has to slap his fingers from stealing a pea pod. Pip snags one, flies off with it, hooting laughter while Didi shakes her head at the both of them.

"Good day?" Dad helps her retrieve plates, cutlery. She's proud of the set he scrounged for her, all matching even though most are chipped and the metal is faintly rusting. Proper table settings, even old and tired ones, make her happy for some reason.

"Good enough." Her luck he doesn't know the time, isn't aware after all she's been out so long. She licks juice from the greens from her fingers as she shreds them and piles them on the sides of the plates, sticking her tongue out at the crow who hops in agitation from leg to leg. Dad's already fetching the steaks, a steaming, dripping slab appearing at the end of his fork. She taps the release on the stool tucked under the table and settles in, not even bothering to criticize when Dad begins shoveling food into his mouth.

She's doing the same thing.

Pip flutters over and, though she swore she'd not share after the day he put her through, she divides up her portion and offers him bites between her own.

Dad straightens from hunching over his plate, gaze settling on Pip's damaged leg. "What happened?"

Didi's no tattle, though Dad is aware the silly corbie tends to take off from time to time. Pip, on the other hand, can't keep his fool beak shut.

"Your daughter," the ratting bird says before she can stop him, "has been out beyond territory again, Tarvis."

Dad winces, turns to Didi who glares at Pip. Yes, removing his voice box for a little while is an excellent idea.

"You know how I feel about that, Deeds." Dad's quiet, not angry. He's rarely angry. More scared and she knows why. It's dangerous out there.

"And you know if I didn't we wouldn't have half the things we do." She meets Dad's eyes with her own level gaze. "That spool of silverwire you needed for your invention. Think that came out of thin air?" Well, it did, she remembers. When it fell off the back of the dumpall.

Dad hesitates. "Is that where you were all day?"

She's not about to turn in the damned bird, though she should. "How's your steak?"

Pip tuts around a crunchy bit of peapod he's stolen from her plate. "Tell him about the trash rats, Didi. And your run-in with Jackus." Dad chokes on his sip of water, eyes huge behind his glasses while Didi's chest tightens, fists clenched around her cutlery. Maybe she'll just disassemble the farging bird. Make an entirely new—faithful—creature from the old. Or, maybe she'll dump his feathered behind in the sludge creek. "Oh, and the gunslingers."

Her turn to choke. "Pip!" She can't help it. How dare he share that with Dad? It's their secret.

Dad's anxiety rises visibly on his face. "You found gunslingers?"

Didi is forced to nod, though she keeps her voice steady and calm, a miracle in her estimation. "A whole cargo hold of them, Dad. Someone dumped them here."

Dad nods, head down, food forgotten, it seems, as he goes still. "How horrible."

Didi agrees, though he seems to be taking it personally. "Why horrible? They aren't active or anything." Not that she could tell, anyway.

Dad sits back, pushing his glasses up on his nose, arms crossing over his chest. His long-sleeved shirt rides up his narrow forearms, the rolls of the cuff hanging softly aside, exposing faint scars on his pale skin. She's often wondered what happened to him, where the scars came from. But Dad won't talk about it and it's easier not to ask. "Horrible," he says, "because they were people once, Didi." He looks off in the distance. "Like you and me. Hurt, beyond repair under normal circumstances, placed in metal bodies and turned into soldiers." Dad shudders, running his hands over his arms. Didi's heart constricts but she doesn't know why. "Just seems a tragedy for them to end up in a place like this." Their home. Dad often speaks of Trash Heaven like it's more hell than heaven. But despite its faults, it's all Didi knows. Protectiveness rises inside her, the need to defend her planet. Except he's right.

It's just a pile of trash.

"I never thought gunslingers would end up here." Dad pushes his plate away. Pip hops closer, helps himself, the greedy guts. Didi doesn't try to stop him. Waste not, want not. "But, I guess even their usefulness comes to an end eventually."

"They were decommed over fifty years ago." Pip pauses in his gulping. "What's the big deal?"

"They were meant to be disposed of like real people," Dad says, almost whispers. "Not tossed like garbage." He stands before Didi can ask him how he knows. Dad knows a lot of things he won't talk about. "I need to get back to work." He leaves her there, head down, hands in his pockets. Only stops and pauses when he reaches his lab's door. When he turns back, his smile is kind and, like always when he takes the time to truly see her, Didi's heart warms up so much she hugs herself from the joy of it. "Thanks for dinner."

***

# Chapter Seven

She turns back to her plate as his door closes, looking down at the remains of her meal. Just in time for a black beak to help itself to the last pea pod on her plate. Didi's hand lashes out, catches Pip by the neck. He drops his stolen booty and squawks. Her even, white teeth crunch through the pod as she glares at her captive.

"You're a flying rat, you know that?" She lets him go when he shudders, flapping and whining.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" He flutters to the surface of the island, head hanging low. "I can't help it. I worry about you." His one red eye flares. "And, it's just my nature."

She snorts, turns her back on him, taking the two plates to the cleanser. Water is a precious thing here on Trash Heaven, not something to be wasted cleaning such ordinary things as dishes. Didi tries not to think about the chemical mix of goo that the recycling cleanser uses to scrub as she leaves Pip to fly after her on her way back to her lab.

It was her intent to finish repairing the air conditioning system she'd located on the edge of her territory—for real this time, just lying there waiting for her attention—but she can't stay focused. Pip is smart enough to stay quiet, floating on whispering wings as she finally sets down her tools and leaves her oasis for the main hall. Her bedroom calls, a good night's sleep curled up in a cot in the corner of the greenhouse. But she's drawn, as always, to check in on Dad before she takes her own rest.

He's been working so hard on his new invention he's even more distracted than normal. Not that he tells her to keep her distance—doing so would just make her even more curious—Dad hasn't exactly been forthcoming with the details of what he's working on. And, quite frankly, Didi doesn't care. He's a good inventor, she'd defend that to her grave. But nothing he comes up with seems to have, well, greater value. Who on Trash Heaven needs a rig to extract precious metals from fresh clay? There hasn't been a scrap of bare ground on this planet accessible in over a century. Or a device that can turn liquid plas into fabric? Though, she admits it's been fun experimenting and making clothes with the stuff. She runs one hand over the front of her tank top as she enters Dad's lab. No more scrounging for discarded cloth or scraping what she can from spacer seat backs. Sure, Dad would buy her things and bring them home from Trash City, but she likes having control over her own style.

Didi pokes her head into the lab, Pip settling on her shoulder without invitation. She briefly considers dumping his feathers onto the floor, just to show him she's still unhappy, but it's not worth it when Dad is obviously in the middle of something exciting. She's never seen her father's face so pink, his smile so wide and, as she intrudes, he turns and waves for her to join him.

"Come see."

Didi hurries to his side, the rare opportunity to observe without feeling like she's invading his private space triggering her own excitement. "It's almost done, Didi."

"What is it?" Rather unassuming, this thing he's built. A silver box, looks like. A small panel on one side blinks green as the machine hums softly to itself.

He glances at her, pauses. Which tells her he's going to lie to her, and she's fine with that. He doesn't have to, though. She'd never spill his secrets to anyone. That so? Her mind whispers to her, showing her Jackus's interested face, before she shakes it off, angry. That's so, rightly. Never.

"I'm trying to find a way to transform liquid organics into metal," Dad says. Didi smothers a snort. No way that's truth, she's hardly stupid. But, she'll live with his lie until he's ready to tell her the real purpose. Dad clears his throat, uncomfortable, before forging on. "This thing," he pats it, the hum rising a little louder before it settles again, "is our ticket off Trash Heaven, Didi. I just need a few more tweaks..." He's lost to the machine again, muttering to himself, lost to the fact his daughter stares at him in shock.

Leave Trash Heaven? And how will this machine take them from here? Resentment bubbles, boils suddenly, waking her anger. She glares at the machine as though it's alive and purposely trying to take her from her home. It gurgles softly in response to her irritated attention. "Don't see a ship in it," she says, sharp and bitter.

Dad laughs. "No, not a ship, Didi. But maybe this will allow us to reunite with those we're missing..." She wants to ask him what he means, who he's talking about, but her gut clenches at the thought. He's never spoken of it before, at least not much. It's always just been them and she likes it that way. Money, sure, that would be nice. But they've scrounged what they needed for as long as she remembers. What's wrong with that? "I'll finally be able to take you away from here."

He says that like it's a good thing, forces her to stop and think about it. The people in the vids she's watched, the planets out there without trash heaped up for days. What kind of life would that be?

Dad is working again, ignoring her now. She doesn't bother to try to stir him, not with her own thoughts all jumbled and tossed. He might as well have just triggered a dumpall of trash on her head, she's so flummoxed. With Pip silently clinging to her shoulder, Didi drifts out of his lab again and goes to hers.

"Leave Trash Heaven." Pip whispers what she's thinking. "I've never heard the like. What do you reckon, Didi?"

She ignores him, strips off her boots, turning off the deflectors she's forgotten all evening. They power down with sparking spits before settling firmly on the floor next to her cot. The faint green light translated by the glass overhead dims as she settles back, looking out at the stars through the plas, cloudless sky the same as it's been since she can recall.

Not much changes on Trash Heaven. Not even her life. But, sounds to her like that might be coming to an end sooner than later.

Or not. Dad's inventions being what they are. She feels better as she thinks on it. Sure, maybe whatever he's building might be stirring his need to go, but the proof will be in the trash he's put together.

"Night, Pip." She turns over on her side as the crow settles down next to her, beak against her wrist.

"Night then, Didi." He's silent a long moment, the quiet of the greenhouse embracing her. "Sorry I'm a blabbermouth."

Didi sighs and closes her eyes, unable to stop smiling.

***

Is it Pip's snoring that woke her? Didi rolls half over, nudging the crow who clatters his beak at her, still asleep. She's wide awake, that's certain, drat the feathered brat. Didi exhales in disgust, one arm rising to cover her eyes, the bright light from outside shining over her face.

Wait, light? It's not morning, far from it if the rest of the sky's color is an indicator. Where's the light coming from? Didi swings out of bed, heart hammering suddenly. She can't help it, she thinks of trouble.

She's barely pulled one boot on when she hears her father's voice, muffled through the plas, the sound of an engine firing up. Who is he talking to? Pip jerks awake as she runs for the door, flapping after her. The passage to the kitchen is so dark she stumbles forward, falling onto the metal floor, catching herself with both hands while the crow squawks overhead.

"Be careful!" He needs to tell her this now? Didi lurches back to her feet, runs for the foyer, for the open front door she's hung so carefully, standing ajar.

Just in time to see Dad, talking fast but too far for her to hear what he's saying, falling forward himself into the back of a low, black skimmer while three big shapes surround him. Didi hesitates, a moment of guilt that will haunt her the rest of her life, too late to stop them as they leap into the hovering vehicle and drive off.

With her father.

Leaving her alone.

Her mouth goes dry as she opens her lips to call her father's name, inhaling a giant lungful of noxious night air. Coughing, she pushes the door closed, spinning to reach for her filters and mouth guard. Pip flaps in her face, cawing and clawing at her while her heart tries its best to leap from her chest and go west, after her father.

"Didi!" Pip's claws catch her hair, pull her head around. She stares up at him, shaking but frozen, blinking moisture from her view. "Didi, stop." She lifts her hands, lets them drop to her sides. She's stopped, surely has. Now what, bird?

She must have whispered the last question, because Pip shudders and settles on one of the heaps of salvage, red eye whirling.

"I don't know," he says. "But running off, that's foolishness and we both know it."

Her father is gone. What does Pip want her to do? Sit here and wait? "Over my dead body." She's charging forward, to her lab. She'll get her filters and mouth guard, a skein of water, some of that freeze dried food she salvaged two months ago. Jacket and her weapon...

She stops in a jerk just inside her greenhouse. The weapon. She hasn't fixed it yet. It's no good to her if it doesn't work. Despair rides a wave up her legs into her gut and bursts like a volcano in her chest. It closes off her throat, drives a wedge in the tops of her lungs until she can't breathe, is bent over in half trying to force air into her body while the world goes black around the edges, sparks of light dancing in what remains of her vision.

Something slams into her back and she gasps, life returning while she falls forward onto her knees.

Pip settles next to her on the floor, rubbing her cheek with his, murmuring to her while his beak clicks open and closed in sympathy.

"Didi," he whispers. "Stop."

She nods, pulls him to her and hugs him against her chest, rocking with him there. "We have to go after him."

"He could be gone on a job." The first rational thing that's come out of Pip's mouth in a long time. Was that it? Was Dad just gone on a job? She'd love to believe that, except for the way the three giant figures pushed him into the skimmer and how Dad would never, ever leave her without telling her where he was going.

"His lab." She gasps the words, is on her feet, running with Pip still in her arms. Maybe he's left some indication there, some sign to tell her what's happened. She bursts through the kitchen and into the lab door, stopping in a heartbeat with her mouth open.

The machine. Dad's invention.

It's gone.

***

# Chapter Eight

Didi paces her dad's lab while Pip flutters from place to place, muttering, "Oh dear," over and over again. She fears he's on some kind of mental loop, his system overwhelmed, but she doesn't have the will to do anything about it.

She's feeling rather that way herself at the moment.

"So, not a job." She stops in the middle of the room, staring at the empty space where her father's work used to sit. Pip stops his flying, stares at her, head cocked to one side, the whirring of his cyborg eye loud in the stillness. "Looked like an abduction, Pip. Like they took him."

The crow doesn't comment. For once. The time she needs him to talk to her and he's lost his tongue? Contrary creature.

"They went west." Didi knows where they went, knows the only thing west is Trash City, the single settlement on the planet, the only place anyone who is anyone might want her father. And that skimmer, all sleek and black, no way it belongs to a squatter. Trash City, for certain. She shudders softly, a sympathetic reaction she's barely aware of.

Fear fizzles, simmers. She's been there before, course she has, with Dad. When their skimmer worked, before he traded it off to Putter for parts. Other times he traveled with squatters, never let her go with him. She barely remembers Trash City, always left locked in the vehicle or left home. And he's there, she's sure of it.

Hide her dad from her out here, in the trash, and he'd be free again in a heartbeat. But Trash City... she bites her lower lip, stomach knotted so tight her back aches. "We have to go after him."

"How?" Pip finally has his voice. She wishes he'd shut up again. "No transport, no way of knowing where he went or who took him." He pauses, looks down as though ashamed of his words. "What if he's just gone a bit and is coming back? Would be silly for us to chase after him if that's the case."

Didi's mouth is dry. She needs to swallow but can't. "You think we should wait."

Pip flies to her shoulder and settles. "You'll just see." He sounds cheerful, far too cheerful, but she latches onto his tone like a safety line. "Tarvis will be in touch before morning. Let us know what's what. Just a misunderstanding, him not telling you he was going. You know what your dad is like."

Well... that is true. He's absentminded enough she could see Pip's point. Except she can't get that scene out of her head, her father being shoved into the skimmer, not of his own decision.

"If he doesn't?" It's necessary, to ask.

Pip is silent a long moment before preening his chest feathers and sighing. "I don't know, Didi," he says. "I surely don't."

She waits until morning, just an hour out, with no word from her dad. Pip squeaks and mutters at her, though he doesn't argue at least when she turns on her boots and dons her short coat and goggles, packing some extra water and tools.

She exits the front door, closing it up behind her, locking the system and setting the electrified protections. Pip hops from one foot to the other on a nearby heap of discarded spacer chairs.

"Where you going, Didi?" He flies to her but she shrugs him off her shoulder, forcing him to wing his way past her then circle over her head like a hovering cloud of doom.

"Don't try to stop me, Pip." He squawks as she swats at him, his dive bombing irritating to no end, especially now. "I need answers, not some foolish platitudes and possibilities."

When she turns toward the south, he breathes an audible sigh of relief. "Not the city," he says. Pauses a moment before going on, curiosity in his voice. "You think Putter'll know what's what?"

Didi tromps her way down the path, heading for the southern edge of her territory. "That old man knows everything," she says. "Maybe he's heard something."

Pip tries again to sit on her shoulder and she finally lets him. Sure, he's a pain in her behind but his familiar weight is comforting and she's finding she's in need of more than a little comfort. Doing something, anything, is better than sitting around waiting to hear from Dad—or not hear from him, as she fears will be the case. But, the further her feet carry her from home, the more unstable she feels, and she fights the well of tears that sits in the center of her chest, waiting for her first moment of weakness so they can emerge.

It's a long walk to Putter's territory, though she knows it well and doesn't mind the distance. His spot has a lovely oasis of green in it, the source of her seedlings and slips now growing in her greenhouse. It still amazes Didi how life can flourish on a place like this and, while she grits her teeth against her heart's hurt, she sends out a silent word to Dad. She'll happily go with him anywhere he wants, leave Trash Heaven, if he just comes back to her.

Didi's got Pip, sure. But she's never felt so alone in her life.

The filters in her nostrils buzz at the extra demands on them. Didi can't help but wrinkle her nose, grateful for the distraction of the smell. Putter has a nice organic spot in his territory, but it comes at a price. As the piles of shining garbage turn to teetering, sagging heaps of rotting organics, Didi stumbles over the slick surface of the ground, turning off her deflectors that are only making her passage harder. Thick, oozing pulp squelches under her feet, her open mouth breathing heavily through the plas guard. Filter or not filter, the taste in the back of her throat will linger for days. She has that on experience. And whether it's worse today than usual or she's just acutely aware, Didi is almost tempted to turn back.

"That stench." Pip's complaint instantly seals her path, driving her forward faster. "How can you stand it? I can barely smell and I want to vomit."

Didi grits her teeth. "It's pleasant to humans," she says. "Thought you knew that."

He snorts. "Such a liar, Didi."

She is half tempted to turn around and just go home as her feet squelch through the mess growing sloppier by the second. The heat of the day won't hit for at least another two hours, right around when she'll be arriving at her destination. But, it doesn't have to be at maximum temperature for the liquid under her boots to begin evaporating into the air. It might stink now, but as time goes on, she'll be drenched in sweat and organic fluid in equal measure.

Pip soars up overhead to escape the smell, leaving her to trudge on alone, stubborn, head down, heart hurting. She has no choice. Going home isn't an option. She needs answers and, at the very least, advice. And Putter is the only person she can think of who won't lie to her or try to take advantage of her when he finds out her father is gone.

Of course, Dad will be upset with her for talking their business to other squatters. But, at least Yos Putter is a good friend, someone even her father trusts. She has to believe Dad would approve of her seeking out his help.

If only they'd taken the time to figure out what to do if something like this happened. Dad never wanted to talk contingency plans or what if's. He refused to even discuss what she should do if he got hurt. She eventually stopped asking and, like him, settled into the rhythm of her life, ignoring the obvious danger than any moment either of them could vanish into the trash.

Didi shudders, fear appearing all over again as she sheds her coat in the rising heat, draping it through the strap of her bag. She's always felt secure here, relatively so, anyway. A child of the garbage heap, even when hunting or confronted with danger, she's only really ever felt excited and confident. She pictures the snout of the trash rat yesterday, realizing even then her fear was more a surge of adrenaline and not real terror.

That emotion, she's realizing only now, is a far different animal, a beast stalking her as surely as the pack of rats had. Only it's inside her and she can't escape it by burrowing into a pile of trash.

She's distracted by her thoughts, the miles passing under her boots. This territory might have been contended, a place the most eager squatter would try to claim from its owner, if not for the chemicals. The sludge stream carries them through the garbage. While green grew, Didi knew better than to sample their flavor. Unless a slow and agonizing death was her desire. She hunted here quite often, the mini moles delectable, certainly. But only the flesh, and never anything else. She can't even use the intestines for sausage casings. Too risky. The moles themselves have evolved to process out the deadly spew left over by the dumped garbage, the concentration of which actually making their meat tender and delicious. But, she knows better than to push her luck.

Putter's ability to cleanse enough water—liquid gold in these parts, thank goodness for the new distillation unit in her greenhouse—meant he grew his own plants, safe and protected from the ruin of the planet. But the slim margin of profit he gleaned—at least from his estimation—is enough to discourage any squatter from trying to take his territory.

Didi wipes her face on her arm, the sweat tinted green, and grimaces. Anyone who wants his territory that badly can have it.

She shuffles past the edge of the sludge stream, over the rickety bridge she'd helped Putter build two years ago. The slab he'd previously employed had given way to the continual excessive moisture and drying cycle that happened every single day, crumbling even the most enduring metal into dust in a short period of time. Didi's deflector tech, wound through the new structure, is enough to keep decay at bay, powered by the tiny generator cell she scrounged from the dying power pack of a space suit someone dumped. While the cell itself isn't limitless, Didi's solar coil allows it to charge each morning, more than enough power to carry through overnight.

She runs her hands over the rough rails, rather proud of her invention. She comes by her talent honestly, at least. Though thinking about her father just them makes her chest constrict. She should be focused on finding him, not patting herself on the back like some vid heroine on a quest.

Putter hovers over a cluster of pots outside his domed house, old back bent into a curve. His long, white hair braided, the end sweeping the ground next to the tail of his beard. He looks up at Pip's squawk of welcome, shading his eyes before he hurries toward Didi, face wrinkled and fearful.

It's enough to bring her tears to the surface again, the way Putter looks at her like that. As if he knows something she's not going to like.

"My dear, dear Didi," Putter says, grasping her arms in his hands, kissing her cheek. "We feared the worst when we heard."

That's the end of it then, she thinks. Proof.

Pip mutters before speaking. "You know about Tarvis?"

Putter gestures toward the door of his house. The round, squat structure crumbles around the edges, the old poly and plastic sheeting barely holding together. A woman stands in the doorway with matching long, white hair and pale blue eyes, wrinkles and a faint smile. Didi's only met Putter's new wife once, but Murta was nice to her when she was here a week ago.

"Come inside," she says, gesturing for Didi to precede her. "You poor dear thing."

Didi enters, ducking her head to do so, Pip soaring in over her shoulder to land on the low chair next to the back wall. Stairs lead down into the garbage, subterranean living keeping the interior cool even without the benefit of a conditioning system. The smell is stronger in here, but Didi ignores it, is getting used to it again. Putter closes the door behind him, descending past her to gesture her on.

The pit at the bottom rounds out toward a cooking space, surprisingly comfortable with rescued furniture and a few new pieces Murta must have supplied. The old woman's hands take Didi's and she leads her down into their living quarters, the hushed sound of quiet taking over as they descend twenty feet under the trash.

Putter has been alone so long, Didi is happy to see him with a new wife.

"You know what happened to Dad." Didi stands in the middle of the space while the old couple join ranks, holding hands, nodding and tsking while Putter sighs.

"We've heard rumors," he says. "Feared you were gone, too, but neither of us with the strength to go find out. I'm sorry, Didi. From what we heard over the line, your father's been taken."

The line runs from territory to territory, a monorail system transporting workers and settlers from the outlying areas of Trash Heaven where more productive and valuable garbage is sorted and sent to the city for sale. A perfect source of gossip. And, she realizes as she struggles with asking what else they know, an opportunity for her to reach the city if she's willing to take it.

If she's brave enough.

"Who took Dad?" They know, she can tell from their expressions, from the way Murta twitches next to Putter, how he pats her hand before turning his watering green eyes on Didi.

"Not sure what your father did to warrant it," he says, voice soft and afraid, "but it's not good Didi. Not at all. Your dad..." he looks to Murta whose lips thin, blue eye hard.

"Your father was taken by an Underlord."

***

# Chapter Nine

Didi's fears compress her, push her down to sit in one of the chairs, an overstuffed affair that smells faintly of oil and some kind of chemical cleaner used to hide the scent. She can't speak, can't hardly think, but Pip does both for her.

"An Underlord?" The crow ruffles his feathers in shock, a few sticking out at odd angles in response to his unrest. "How can that be? Since when did an Underlord move into Trash Heaven?"

Murta's expression tells Didi the crow is an annoyance, even more so when she turns to address Didi instead of the fluttering creature. "We'd be foolish to assume a place like this is immune to the touch of the Underlords. What with all the valuables people call trash, this planet is a haven for criminals looking to capitalize on such throwaways."

Didi nods slowly, weirded the woman sounds so certain of such things. She comes from a distant territory, though, closer to Trash City, so she'd know. "Why would an Underlord take interest in Dad?"

Putter sighs as he sinks his old body onto the wide, burnt orange sofa. It creaks under him, one leg half-snapped, supported by a stack of twisted metal plates. "Your father's tinkering and inventing must have caught attention at last." He pauses as if he has more to say before shaking his head, pale with a faint sheen of perspiration on his lined forehead and upper lip. He wipes at it absently with a stained handkerchief he fetches from under his worn jacket. Murta's upper lip curves, almost sneerlike, before settling again.

Didi must have seen wrong in her distress. "What's to be done?" She hates feeling without options, cornered like a trash rat hunted by waste snakes. She shudders, imagining one of the dark green creatures coiling around her, swallowing her whole. "Maybe the outpost? I could report him kidnapped to the Conjunction."

Murta snorts, crosses to sit on the arm of Didi's chair, strokes her hair. "I fear the Galactic Conjunction's reach is weak and useless out here, my dear girl." Didi's only seen one mechcop ever in her life, the robot peacekeepers of the galaxy collective burned into her mind. Towering, three-legged, loaded with weapons and not a scrap of compassion in their metal brains.

"Everyone knows the Underlords are the real rulers of the galaxy." Murta almost sounds proud of that fact. She clears her throat, still petting Didi's hair. She doesn't want to be rude, but the woman stinks of garlic and too much perfume, almost worse than the stench of the muck outside, truth be told. "And a place like this... well, I can tell you, more than just trash passes through this planet's atmosphere."

"Agreed, dear," Putter says. "I'm so sorry, Didi. But whatever your father was building, it has caught the attention of the worst possible sort."

Didi sinks back into the chair while Murta frowns at her husband.

"Let's just examine this a little," she says. "Seems to me there might be a way for Didi to get her father back and live in peace after all." She turns, her blue eyes locking on Didi who feels a faint wash of hope mixed with the fluttering feeling Murta isn't exactly a friend after all. "Things the way they are, if Didi can offer something more valuable, this Underlord could be swayed to let her father go."

More valuable? She doesn't even know what the Underlord was after in the first place. She stares into Murta's eyes, lost for an answer, while Putter surges to his feet, distracting them both. His face has twisted into concern, worry, fear. And, for a moment, Didi is sure he's going to speak.

Murta glares at him, eyes narrowed, while the old man's mind seems to settle. He offers a faint smile to Didi, a shrug to his wife. "If only there was something. But, until we know why Tarvis was taken..."

"What was he working on, sugar plum?" Murta turns to Didi. She can't stand it any longer, the woman's long, thin fingers sliding through her hair, nails scraping ever so softly over Didi's scalp and giving her the willies with each pass. She stands too, hugs herself as she paces back and forth. Pip rises, flaps to her, sits on her shoulder in his comforting place.

"Another foolish invention." Didi lets it go at that. "Nothing of his ever works, don't you see? Well, it might work, but not in a way that's helpful. This Underlord has made a terrible mistake. Dad's inventions are as useless as Pip."

The crow flaps his wings in protest.

Murta doesn't seem happy with that answer, but Putter speaks first. "I hope you're wrong this time, dear," he says, mournful and low. "Underlords aren't known for their patience or compassion. If he can't deliver what is believed to be offered, his life won't last much past discovering the truth of it."

Murta nods, chewing her bottom lip. "Child, you're certain there's nothing to the machine he's building?"

Didi shakes her head. "Not certain, no. For all I ken, Dad's on to the greatest discovery in the history of the galaxy." That would be something, wouldn't it? Her father, a success at last. "I can't know, because the machine is gone, along with the ability to examine it."

Murta sweeps toward her, tries to embrace her, but Pip's beak snaps set the woman back a pace with a grimacing smile. "There must be a way." She turns to Putter. "Surely we can find a way to help this poor girl."

He grunts, shoulders hunched forward. "I've failed my friend, it seems." Just a mutter, almost a whisper, as though not intended for them. When he speaks again, his voice is stronger. "You can't go home, Didi. It's too dangerous."

Her whole body rejects his words in an instant, feet carrying her forward, toward the door, before she forces herself to spin back and face the old couple. The dim light filtering through the filthy plastic dome makes them seem feeble and weak, just like Didi is feeling.

"Of course I'm going home," she says. "Then I'm gathering my things and hopping the mag rail and going to Trash City."

"My dear girl," Putter says, choking on the words, "you won't find him alone."

"And you two won't help, I reckon?" She waits for his response, surprised when Murta speaks first.

"Stay with us," she says, holding her hands out to Didi, a smile strained and tight on her face. "We'll do what we can to find out where your father is. Maybe go further, make contact with the Underlord, find something to trade."

Putter sputters but his wife waves him off.

"Don't be naïve," she snaps. "I know more of these things than you. My people have had dealings with the folk in Trash City." Her imploring tone returns, focusing on Didi. She wavers slightly as Murta goes on. "Let us try, sweetness, before you go out there into danger alone."

It's tempting. She's afraid, and she has no one to help her. But Putter and Murta aren't the kind of allies she needs. Not when an idea so radical and almost painfully exciting races through her chest and hits her heart with a blow.

"Thank you," she says, gasping the words in the aftermath of her idea. "I have to go." Didi spins and darts out the door, feet thudding on the wet ground now firming as the full heat of the day embraces her. She ignores the sound of Murta calling her name, races for the bridge, only slowing her pace, panting and exhausted, when she's crossed.

The sludge oozes past as she follows the edge of the stream, plopping and gurgling as it passes over trash, the height of the moisture lowered in the rising temperature. Didi pauses to sip some water through her mouth guard, savoring the clean taste around the vile backwash of the air's flavor before hurrying on.

Pip flies ahead, wings silent but for the occasional flap as he rides the heated air. She can't tell him what she has planned. He'll never let her do what needs to be done. And she's not even sure her idea is possible.

But she knows in her heart it's the best option. She needs backup, someone to watch over her while she hunts for her father. And she can only think of one way to accomplish that.

When she reaches home, she pauses on the edge of the clearing she and Dad made, a safety ring of visibility around the house. Putter and Murta said she might be in danger here. And while she doesn't believe that's true, well, there's no need to rush into anything without checking things first.

The protections seem active, no sign of intruders. Pip floats forward and lands on the ground near the front door, head cocked to one side. He clacks his beak at her, fluttering his wings. She takes his word for it, easing forward, looking around. Then shakes off her anxiety.

She will not be afraid. She can't afford its crippling control.

The interior of the house feels still and dull without Dad's energy, but she's happy to be home. Perched on a stool in her lab, Didi's mind whirls while she holds Pip in her lap and strokes his feathers while he leans against her, silent still. She's sure this is the longest the bird has gone without speaking since she turned him into a cyborg and she misses the sound of his constant chatter.

"What are we going to do, Didi?" His whisper makes her feel worse. Pip, she realizes, might be a little thundercloud of doom and gloom but he's never sounded defeated before.

She knows what she wants to do. "I just wish I knew what the Underlord would want with Dad." Could he have invented something worthwhile after all? Her dad?

"Tell me we're not going to the city." He looks up at her, red eye bright.

"Pip," she says, hands settling on his small body. "We are not going to the city."

He nods, settles in her lap again. "We'll be okay. And Tarvis will be back. You'll see."

She carries him to his perch, the stuffed bed she made for him, lays him out on it. Pip's eyes drift closed as she hums the song she remembers from childhood, though not the source, and lets him rest.

She really should just shut him off, leave him here powered down. Because if she doesn't come back, Didi has no idea what will happen to him alone out here. It would be the kind thing to do, to just let him go. Because she told him the truth. They aren't going to the city.

But she is.

She can't bring herself to release him, to turn off his power and let him go. She stands there for a long time, staring down at the crow who has been her only friend. He'll only argue, get in the way. And she needs all her wits about her if this plan is to work.

Didi leaves him there at last, the sun setting over her world, quietly exiting the house and resetting the protections. He'll be able to leave, to make his own way. There's enough food around he'll survive. And who knows, maybe the next time he tries to join the crow murder, they'll have him.

If her idea works, she'll come back for him. Hopefully not alone.

The night time quiet engulfs her as Didi heads for the edge of her territory and the cargo hold where all her hopes lay waiting.

***

# Chapter Ten

She's grateful for the dark when she reaches the cargo hold. It's kept her safe, she's certain of it, though for all she's aware Jackus has the means to track her at night. She's never considered him all that bright, but fear is a new thing that wakes thoughts she'd not normally consider.

Didi refuses to let his specter stop her from slipping down the ramp any more than it keeps her from crossing into his territory in the first place. No sign of the trash rats this time. Good thing since she hasn't had even a second to see what's wrong with the foolish gun she'd been so proud of.

The door slides open for her, hatch easing shut silently. Her toe kicks aside the remains of the rat's nose inside, the rattle of its travels echoing in the hold. The blood trail on the outside is long since licked clean by whatever enterprising creature thought the taste a nice meal.

Didi glances up at the two hovering moons overshadowing her planet, the sparkle of their surfaces reflecting their trash-heap covered status. She rather likes the way they glimmer and glitter and wonders as she often does what treasures might be hiding up there.

No time for idle speculation or the dreams of a girl. She's got to grow up and now, push past any thought of weakness or fear. If she's going to free Dad and find some means to confound the Underlord who's taken her father, she's going to need the help of the silent, cold gunslinger.

She knows the one she's targeting, hasn't a doubt in her mind he's the only one she might have a hope in all this to resurrect. Didi doesn't look around, ignoring the sight of so much amazingness. She's seen it before, after all. And maybe there'll be time later to scrounge. For now, it's the gunslinger she's focused on.

He's still there, the faint light from inside his capsule shining out at her. She pauses, toe of her boot shoving into the crack, pushing tentatively then with more force. Nope, stuck solid, just as she feared. She circles to the control panel, jerking open the cover to examine the insides.

Something sizzles, snaps, a spark falling to her feet. Didi's gloves, slid free from her heavy bag, hug her hands with mole skin leather lined with rubber. Just enough to ground her, though she has to pause and deactivate her deflectors. Wouldn't do to have a shock short them out when she's likely going to need her feet under her shortly.

"Crazy, girl, you know that, don't you?" She whispers at herself through clenched teeth as she digs at the corner of the panel with her screwdriver. It pops loose, falling with a clang so loud to the metal floor she jumps and clutches at her chest a moment. "Idiot. Be careful." The wires on the other side crisscross and intersect, plugged into a plas sheet with circuits and wiring run through that, too. But, she recognizes the basic structure, had a mess like this to figure out when she hung the door at home. Grinning, she digs into the wiring and begins her work.

The door groans almost immediately, sliding slightly toward her. She doesn't need much of an opening for now, just enough to squeeze herself through. Figures the gunslinger himself can make room if need be. But, with another tweak of the system, a pull on a red thread that seems burnt on the edge, the doorway heaves a final sigh and slides out of the way, casting a brighter light over the rest of the cargo bay as the interior of the gunslinger's capsule is exposed.

Excitement pounding in her chest no matter Didi's purpose for this endeavor, she circles the platform and stops, peeking around the corner of the door and at the seated, silent form of her chosen savior.

He's in great shape, from all appearances, not a spot of rust or decay on him. The capsule seems to have preserved him far better than the rest of his counterparts. That's what gives her the hope he's the right choice. If any of these relics can help, it's him. Shiny silver chroming and black plastic create a humanoid body, the long, narrow, horizontal slits of his eye holes dark and lifeless. Two gun butts protrude from his waist, standing out like an invitation. If nothing else, maybe she can take his weapons and use those.

Not sure exactly why she's nervous, Didi finally forces herself into the capsule with the gunslinger and exhales. It's slightly colder in here, the last of the chill air dissipating as his containment field shuts down completely. She takes a slow step forward, blood beating through her so hard she hears it in her ears. Another step, a third, until her outstretched fingers settled on the back of his hand.

Nothing, no reaction. So, he's fully deactivated. She's not sure if she's disappointed or not. This could have been so easy if he would just wake on his own. Still, it might be better for her to have access to him before he rises. After all, his kind were shut down for a reason.

"Yup," she says, one boot gently kicking his leg, making the metal ring. "Crazy."

And yet, as she leans forward and pulls open his chest panel to peek inside, she can't help but feel a surge of respect for him, and a bit for herself in turn. There was a time he was a great soldier, a peacekeeper, a gunslinger without rival. His kind kept the galaxy safe, created from the fallen bodies of men and women who signed over their physical forms to serve and protect. And, for herself for being brave enough to take matters into her own hands.

She'd like to think she would have volunteered to be a gunslinger, given the chance.

Didi lets out a soft crow of delight at the sight inside his chest panel. There it is, at heart level, the power chip she dreamed of. Without it, she'd be without a hope or a prayer. The tiny fission generator is a miracle of engineering, one she's studied in the past and tried without success to recreate. But, as she leans closer, thumb running over the surface, she curses softly.

It's damaged, the blackened edge a clear indicator. Tongue clamped between her teeth and fingernails digging for purchase, Didi pulls at the corner of it, tugging as gently as she can. It pops out into her palm a moment later, lying quietly in her hand. The core of the most power ever created by humans sits in her grasp, the one thing that means success or failure in this venture, and it's not working.

Heartbreaking. Didi rubs it gently, over the scorched spot. This must be why his was left intact. They are too valuable to just leave behind, she reckons. The few gunslingers she looked at already are missing theirs, panels open. She turns, does a quick visual scan of the ones she can see, cast in the glow of light from the chamber, and her heart sinks further.

All chest panels are open. Which can only mean they are empty.

Didi turns back to the gunslinger and debates even as she gently massages the black from the edge of the chip. It's warm in her hand, suddenly, vibrating, though it stutters and stops after a second. Renewed enthusiasm takes over as Didi lowers her goggles and takes a closer look.

There, the damage. She sees it, magnifies it until it's clear. Not so much, but enough to slow the pulse of the core, to interrupt the steady rush of fission power. Can she fix it?

Does she have to? If she can bypass the damage, create a constant flow, there might be enough power to at least start up the gunslinger. She only needs him to do this one job, not to carry on, after all. Can she?

She's about to find out.

Didi gently sets aside the core, forcing herself to assess the full situation. If Dad taught her anything, it's to look at a project as a completed work then figure out the details to get it running.

The panel that accesses his brain works, so he has backup systems that function. Good to know. It slides open, showing the gray matter under the dome of plasglass, pulsing softly on the inside. She grimaces, though she's fascinated by the sight of a human brain. When the panel sighs shut, she slips around behind him, to the back of his neck where his main control panel lies.

The slot for his heart is a blackened sludge. She'll have to clean that out, apparently, as disgusting as it is. Whatever damaged his fission chip has to have melted his organic heart. But, from what she can tell, the rest of his human parts are still intact.

A heart. Where is she going to get a heart?

She circles around him again, stares at him. He's almost as tall as she is, and he's sitting down, massive shoulders shining in the light. He'd be impressive on his feet. She's only seen them in vids, of course, studied their schematics as part of the schooling Dad gave her. He always calls them a miracle, the gunslingers. How the creators managed to keep their hearts intact, their human brains... the cyborgs had just enough of their humanity remaining they weren't quite machines, but had the capacity to do what needed to be done.

Didi agrees, standing there in the abandoned gunslinger graveyard as she hugs herself. This could work. But she can't fix him here.

Which means she has to go home again after all. The thought makes her happy. She misses Pip, shakes her head at her own lack of confidence in her abilities. All that drama over leaving him behind. She has a viable plan now, knows—thinks she knows—it will work. Time to tell Pip, maybe, let him badger her. But she wants him with her, after all.

Didi pats the gunslinger's hand and smiles at him.

"Be seeing you, my friend." She exits, closes the door via the panel. Thinks again and replaces the cover, not sure why it's important. Only that he's hers now, as surely as Pip is. Hers. And she's going to make him live again.

Humming to herself, Didi exits the bunker.

***

"Be... see...ing...you..." the words float in his head, wobbly and distorted, but he understands them. He's felt her touch his mind, explore the place his heart used to be. She's removed his chip, but his backup system will keep him safe for now.

At least, for the next twenty-four hours. Until the explosive charge in his chest goes off. He wonders if she's aware she's set his self-destruct sequence.

No matter. He will wait patiently for her return. Or he will die. Either way, he will be free.

***

# Chapter Eleven

Didi stumbles the moment she steps foot outside the back exit of the cargo bay, feet slipping over the rubble beneath her feet.

"Well, blikey," she snarls at herself, bending in half to turn on her deflectors. They hum to life again, snapping peevishly a moment, as though she's woken them from a peaceful sleep. She rubs her banged knee with one hand, hating the sting and numbness that follows such a blow, hobbling forward into the trash.

The gunslinger's chip is a dilemma, though she's less concerned about it now than she had been at first. One step at a time, just like Dad taught her. And no blubbering over his being missing, not while she needs to focus on work. A heart. She's had an idea about that, though part of her doesn't want to consider how risky this undertaking might be. Still, it's the only option open to her, outside murdering another person, something she's not sure she'd be willing to do, even for Dad.

Then again, if she is backed into a corner and given no choice...

Head down, mind at work, she's near the border, the glimmer of blue glass ahead, when someone grabs her arm and hauls her against his chest. And no choice becomes the center of her reality.

She doesn't have to guess who has his hands on her, arm around her throat, pinning her body to his. How could she have been so distracted, so foolish as to just stomp her way through his territory without consideration? She knows better, but can't think past the touch of his skin on hers. His foul breath brushes over her cheek, the vibration of his panting making her mouth guard hum. Or is that her own panic driving her heart to beat so fast she can't breathe?

"Knew you'd come back," Jackus whispers in her ear, filthy fingers stroking over her cheek, free hand wandering as his arm tightens, keeping her still by choke hold. Didi tries to cough, frozen in her fear, while Jackus feels his way over her shoulder and down her arm. "Knew you wanted it, Didi. Wanted me. Well, here I am, little girl. And here you are, too."

Both of her hands are clamped on his arm, the one around her neck. She has no idea how they got there or why she's not kicking the living snot out of him with her boots. It's as though she's outside herself, looking down at the slim girl with the goggles and black hair, pinned to the chest of her assailant and doing nothing to protect herself.

His lips brush over her face, her skin crawling from the contact. And, whether he's taken her lack of resistance to this point as acquiescence or not, she's most definitely not going to allow him to touch her like that ever again.

Ever. Again.

Didi meeps as one of her hands drops, terror driving the sound from her lips past the plas guard. She's never been so afraid. It's a life-defining fear that teaches her a valuable lesson—while she might react instantly to some kinds of danger, this unfamiliar horror makes her stop in place and flutter inside like a trapped bird.

At least, the first time. As her anger grows—more at herself then Jackus, truth be told—her fingers dig into the lining of her jacket and press the trigger on her protections.

She's seen enough vids to know what he wants of her, and can only guess what it would feel like. She has enough of an imagination she wants to throw up after scrubbing herself raw with cleanser.

At first nothing happens, her index finger mashing down on the button embedded in the liner of her jacket and her panic, once a living thing, roars into monstrous proportions, driving adrenaline through her body in spikes so powerful she convulses all at once, as though she's the one attacked by the fine lines of threaded wire with which she's lined her clothing. Jackus's laugh is a bark of derision, turned to something like a whimper as the lashing of her body finally makes the connection required for her invention to activate.

She can feel it vaguely, the taser shock of the pulse racing through her clothing. But, the rubberized liner is enough to protect her, to keep her conscious and aware of the scent of singing hair, the deep, thrumming throb of his voice as Jackus loses control of his vocal cords. The way his body takes on its own dance while he herks and jerks over her, around her, until the charge runs out.

Didi spins, looks down at him as he collapses, eyes staring upward into the night. She's killed him, he's dead and she'll be hung for it for sure, but she doesn't care. She can harvest his heart for the gunslinger. That bloodthirsty thought comes to her without her bidding, chilling her blood, making her tingle all over with further shock. But she'll do it, won't she? If he's dead.

When he groans, blinks slowly, she's almost disappointed in a dispassionate, needful way. Her terror returns when he screams as the life returns to his nerves.

She reacts, running through the trash, over the blue glass marker, onward toward home. Panting, a faint, animal whine rising from her chest, all the way, cutting the hour trek in half until she's slamming through the front door and sealing it behind her without remembering how she made it there.

The safety system on the house shudders back to life when she slaps its casing.

"Didi!" Pip's voice makes her scream, turn around to see him flying toward her. She waves him off, so he instead lands on a sheet of plas waiting to be stacked, staring down at her with his red cyborg eye whirling. "Where were you?"

She can't respond, sick to her stomach, hating herself and her terror, wanting to curl up on the floor and just forget about Dad, about the gunslinger, all of it.

But she can't. There's no one but her and Dad needs her, doesn't he? Unable to collapse as she wishes but also unable to speak, Didi leans against the door and sobs into her hands.

Her knees buckle at last, carrying her to the floor where she fights her tears. Claws dig into her shoulder, the whisper of feathers as Pip settles with her, sliding into her lap. Didi cuddles the crow in her arms, rocking him, while he hums the same song she remembers only vaguely.

The sound is soothing enough she is able to catch her breath, to scrub the tears and snot from her face, to draw her first deep, deliberate breath and squinch her face into a foul scowl of fury.

"Next time," she says with venom, "I'll make sure the charge kills the bastard."

"Who?" Pip looks up, clacks his beak at her. "Didi, what happened and why did you leave me trapped here?"

She hesitates, despising the feeling of fear returning. How can she go back there? She'll have to charge up her protections again, make sure the voltage is higher, the power pack fully engaged. That way his heart will stop and she'll gladly go to the gallows.

"It doesn't matter." Because she's a practical girl. Has to be. She finishes wiping her nose on the corner of her jacket before fixing the crow with her determined stare. "I have a plan, Pip. And you're going to go along with it or I'll be leaving you here for good, with your power turned off. Hear me?"

He swallows visibly. "You'd never do that, Didi." Pip shifts from one foot to the other, his claws scratching her through her clothes. "Please, don't say that."

Didi stands up, carrying him into the house. She has to be fast. Surely Jackus will come for her. She needs to get back to the gunslinger before long and fix him. She laughs, hysterical and cracking, ending in a warbling sob, at the thought of Ives Jackus trying to touch her with a gunslinger standing over her.

"Didi." Pip's voice is kind, soft, the mutter underneath concerned. "What have you done?"

She sets him down on the kitchen counter, slips free the chip, the fission generator that is now her only hope.

Pip's beak clacks together. "The gunslingers."

"Just need one," she says.

***

# Chapter Twelve

Didi crouches at the end of a trash tunnel, the net over one end wired for power. She's had to sacrifice the small generator that keeps her greenhouse running to set up the lure, but it'll be worth it in the end if she gets what she needs.

It's hard to sit here and not think about how little time she has, fighting waves of panic and terror, checking over her shoulder what feels like constantly as Pip floats overhead, keeping watch. She told him a little about Jackus, but only enough to make him alert, as if he needs much.

"Where are we going now?" Pip flew after her when she left the house a short time ago. It was the hardest thing she's ever done, her body resisting her desire to pass over the threshold and into the outside again. All she can think of is Jackus, that he's waiting for her out there and she hasn't had time to refresh her power cell on the threading in her clothing. What if he comes?

She just didn't have the time. The gunslinger is the priority.

"We need a heart," Didi told the crow, finally holding her breath and physically shoving her foot out the door. Once outside it was easier, less like being hunted, more like a constant, steady thread of fear following her like a thin trail of doom. "Don't need human, but close to human will be best." She knows exactly where to get one, too, though it will be a tough kill. And not as satisfying as ripping the still-beating heart from the chest of Ives Jackus.

She's only captured one tunnel bore before in her life, the giant cousin of the mini mole starting at ten times its size and not good eating, as it turns out. But the heart, that she remembers as close enough to hers, when she took a good look for educational purposes. Gross and exciting, all at once. She'll never admit to anyone that combination of learning is her favorite.

The generator hums at her feet, unshielded, chugging away gently, the electricity calling deep below through the spikes she's driven into the trash. Tunnel bores can't resist a good feed of juice, though the stupid creatures often rise up to attack unprotected homesteads if squatters aren't careful and end up dead. Not the smartest of critters, nor with good instincts. Blind hunger drives them.

Didi kind of knows how they feel at the moment.

She feels the first rumble of movement beneath her and turns to the gennie, pumping up the power. The net across the end of the tunnel—a sure sign a bore's been here before—electrifies the hull of an old homestead, amplifying the reach. Didi's careful not to touch anything metal with her bare skin, gloves firmly in place. The charge might be dispersed enough it won't hurt her permanently, but she needs her wits about her.

When the bore breaks through, she holds her breath, stench of rising methane and other gasses pouring out of the hole, mixed with the musk of the pale, filthy creature broaching the surface like the vid of a whale in an ocean. She's never seen water in such volume and privately thinks it's someone's imagination, so much liquid all in one place. Metal and plas crunch under the bore's giant feet as it surfaces, wide paws six claws wide planting over a two foot circle, the blade-like crescents digging firmly into the trash.

It shakes itself, debris flying from the crusted scales, pale and gray, coating its broad neck and shoulders, the muzzle a wriggling mess of tentacles, flushed red and squirming. Its lack of eyes is the most disturbing part, face smooth but for the writhing mouth of blood red wormies.

Didi ups the charge again, waits for the bore to turn its massive, flat head on its thick neck. It spins with surprising agility, bulky body heaving the rest of the way out of the tunnel it's made. Four more legs, increasing in size and musculature secure its balance, a stub of a tail thrashing twice before falling still. Its whip-like appendage was lost at some point, the scar over the end saving her life. For, had the tail been intact, Didi is fully aware when the stub settles, had its spiked length been present, she would have been directly in its path.

It makes her shudder and focus. She can't afford to be sloppy, to make mistakes. Her life—Dad's life—depends on her doing what she needs to do. She waits for the bore to approach the net, whispering an apology to the huge creature as its tentacled nose brushes against the alum fibers she's strung there, channeling every ounce of power into its tiny brain.

Its mouth feelers wrap around the netting and suck on the electricity, the generator beside her groaning. Didi approaches from behind, slow and deliberate. She has to act fast, but with horrible patience. The creature's eyes and ears might be an evolutionary rewrite, but its sense of vibration, she knows from experience, is excruciatingly powerful.

She's seen bores leap from the trash and take down dumpalls with a single strike. What she's risking is foolhardy and she'd never attempt it without her special boots—enough to deflect the vibration her footfalls make—and desperation on her side.

As she draws closer, she sees the old scars on its body, the way its right hind leg hangs oddly. It's been through tough times itself, makes her pause and feel even worse for what she's about to do. But Didi has a need, and the bore's life is all that can fill it.

Electricity feeds them. But, when she faced one last time, she found out by accident that they have one weakness, these giant, powerful and stupid creatures. One that makes it easy even for a tiny girl a fraction of its weight to bring it down.

Water. Precious, life sustaining. Absent from the ecosystem of the bore. Didi fell into the sludge the last time, the bore sliding in after her. And the moment its hardened outer shell touched moisture, it dissolved.

She hates to waste her precious reserve, but she has no choice. And, as she squeezes slowly past the shoulder of the bore and into the front of the tunnel, the net vibrating with power quickly slowing to a dull thrum, almost drained by the eager feeding of the creature, she stops to pat it gently on the top of the head.

"Sorry about this," she whispers. Its head tilts toward her, though it doesn't stop feeding. "Good cause, promise." Her hand shaking, she lifts the canister of precious fluid and pours it directly over the creature's mouth and head.

Hoping to reach the brain as fast as possible.

The results of her attack, however, are far beyond her expectation. Didi remembers the last one falling forward and dissolving as it fell, almost in real time, while she screamed until it was gone. She is ready for it to simply cave in, disappear, collapse and leave her with what she needs.

She is not, however, ready for the giant surge of energy that passes from the creature to the net to the generator and back again as the water closes the circuit the bore has created with its mouth, nor for the moment when, with a deep, aching whine, the bore's head explodes outward in violent protest.

Didi falls back, spluttering out bits of charred flesh, her mouth guard the only thing preventing her from swallowing bits of cooked bore. It collapses all at once, falling forward and squashing her with its bulk against the side of the tunnel. Breathless from the pressure, Didi pants her way out from under the creature's spreading death weight and pulls herself up to its back where she lays a moment, choking for air.

A shadow passes over the end of the tunnel, wings flapping in the darkness. Didi looks back over her shoulder as Pip lands on the stump of the bore's tail and cocks his head at her.

"That was impressive."

She laughs. She can't help herself.

It's a few moments before she musters the energy to drag herself to her feet. For a moment, she's afraid she's lost the laser pen she scavenged from her father's lab, only to find it tucked into her boot for safe keeping. She really needs to remember when she does things like that, but it's been a rough day all around and she decides slack needs some cutting.

Bore, too. It's a disgusting job, slicing through the creature's back to get to its chest and the precious, organic matter inside. She only has so much time, knowing the heart's cells will begin to degrade quickly if she's not fast enough in preservation. Grim and determined, a goddess of gore and tech, Didi stands firmly over the shoulders of the fallen giant and cuts it open until the chest cavity is exposed.

She kneels, leaning down into the body of the bore, breathing through her mouth the humid, copper stench of its insides. It's still charged, little pitzes of electricity jumping and sparking at her as she gently severs the arteries and veins connecting the heart to the bore.

A quick examination of it as she lifts it free and she's satisfied. It pulses softly in her hand. The current the bore lives on and ingested keeps it viable longer than a human heart. She scrambles back over the carcass to the generator, hoping she calculated correctly. Grateful when she sees it's still alive and has some power left.

Just enough to preserve this heart inside a vacuum tube of plasglass, running a constant stream of power through it. She seals the jar, hears the air suck free, watches in sick fascination as the organic matter twitches before beating once, slowly. Holds her breath until it does so again thirty seconds later.

It will have to do.

She turns to find Pip picking at the exposed flesh of the bore's chest, swallowing a few pieces. At least someone can eat it. He turns to her, red tongue licking the blood from the edges of his beak.

"You have a heart," he says, "and the chip. But, tell me, Didi Duke, what will you do if you succeed and your gunslinger turns on you?"

She rests a moment, shoulder against the back hip of the bore, body weary and in desperate need of a cleansing.

"You just leave that worry to me," she says. Since she's been mulling it since this whole idea woke in her anyway.

She finally rises, taking the generator and tube with her, the small power unit swinging from one blood caked hand, the other holding the precious plasglass to her chest. She's never been so tired, though she has a long way to go yet before she can rest.

He saves her again, the silly bird, as she stumbles outside her yard. Feathers rustle, Pip's claws digging in sharp, holding her back. She looks up at him, numb with weariness as his cyborg eye hums and whirls red.

"We've got visitors," he whispers.

She looks back, in time to see Jackus exiting her house.

***

# Chapter Thirteen

She is forced to crouch behind a pile of wobbling ship innards and watch, fear and frustration in equal measure tearing her apart, as two more men emerge from her home. They stand in a circle beside a reasonably new skimmer, the dark blue paint scuffed on the right back end, one of the thrusters dented and rusted around the edge. She has never seen the two men with Jackus before. Strangers are rare in her parts, enough she takes notice of their bulky physiques, the way their leather coats, hanging to the tips of their pointed boots, seem new and manufactured, probably purchased. That means money, as does the skimmer, and the city, more than likely.

Her first fear Jackus is here for her, for revenge, fades as the three argue. He doesn't seem to be in charge. Are they looking for her? Not likely. More than anything, as their argument goes on, too distant for her to make out details, she begins to believe this is about Dad.

Surely these two thugs must work for the Underlord. But, if so, what are they after? They already have Dad's invention, not to mention the man himself. What's missing?

Pip chitters in her ear but, for once, knows to hold his tongue, cyborg eye whirring softly in her ear as he observes next to her. It's almost morning, the sun's rays penetrating the edge of the horizon, lighting the dense atmosphere with a spread of color almost too brilliant to describe. She lowers her goggles as the light cuts through her visibility, casting the men in shadow. She needs details if she's going to track them when she reaches the city.

If only she could reach that skimmer, she could plant one of her beacons on it, the same one embedded in the crow's chest, follow them that way. Or, she might be able to convince Pip to track them from the air. But, it's a long flight to Trash City from here and she's doubtful the small crow could keep up with a skimmer like that. Sure, they might be forced to go more slowly over the rough terrain, but they could still move at a good clip with their mags at full force, keeping them buoyant.

Before she can make up her mind, Jackus tosses his hands and turns his back. The lead bully, his forehead swept low over his thick, black brows, hair receding well past the middle of his head, steps toward her house and raises his hand.

There's nothing she can do, no matter if she had backup or not. Didi's reaction time is just too slow, the distance too great. The moment the man releases the canister in his hand, launching it into the front door of her home, he turns back to the skimmer and leaps inside, his companion with him. Jackus scrambles for the back seat, plas dome sliding into place. She gapes, mouth open, ducking at the last moment as instinct drives her to hide behind the trash.

The ground beneath her thrums, shudders, the garbage hovering over her wavering, dropping dust and debris down on top of her while a blast of heat so powerful she feels it despite the shelter of the discards washes outward in a physical wave of fury. The sound follows it, a deep, thundering boom that rattles her teeth together and sends her to her side. Arms tented over her head for protection, she curls into a ball while Pip squawks his protest and launches himself into the air.

When she's finally able to sit up, wiping sweat and dust from her face, ears ringing from the blast, the crow returns, chittering sadly as he rubs his cheek against hers. It takes a moment before she's able to hear what he's saying, and it's not good.

"All gone," he says, mournful and low. "All gone."

She knows what she'll find when she looks, intellectually has no doubt her house has been obliterated. But, her heart isn't ready, as much as her mind warns her to be practical about the whole thing.

The skimmer has left, the two men and Jackus long vanished. And, save for a smoking hole in the ground, so is the only place she's ever called home.

All of her tools, her spare clothes, the bits and pieces of her life, gone, incinerated by the flare grenade. She's only ever seen them in vids, part of her thinking they were just some wartime lie to scare the masses. She's had an education today in what the world out there can be like and she's not ashamed at last to admit she's terrified.

Doesn't mean she's a quitter. Just that, as she creeps forward onto the smoking, shattered wreckage around the crater of her house, she's able to cry and not feel badly about it. That, she tells herself, will have to be progress.

"Why?" Pip's tone of voice mimics her heart hurt exactly. He lands on her arm as she raises it without thinking. "Why would they do this?"

"I don't know," she says. "I surely don't. But, more important, what was Jackus doing with two hires of the Underlord?" Pip stares at her, beak open. "Come on, snackerel," she says. "Put two and two in their proper place. Who else but the Underlord's folks?"

He exhales in a shudder. "You think they were looking for us?"

Didi shakes her head, turns her back on home. Good thing she has the gunslinger's chip in her bag, the heart still tucked against her side in the plas container. And a generator. Some tools, like the laser pen, though the charge is near done. Will have to be enough, won't it?

"No," she says, walking away toward the path, "if it were me they were after, they'd have lain in wait, not blown home to sky heaven."

"Agreed," Pip says, sounding more relieved than she thinks he should under the circumstances. As for Didi, she's doing her best not to stop, fall to her knees, sob her heart out for the second time tonight. To put one boot in front of the other and keep herself moving. "So this is about Tarvis."

Her father's name mentioned makes it all the worse. She swears she won't turn around, that she needs to look ahead, but, at the last minute, as she rounds the corner that will lead her back to the gunslinger, Didi can't help herself.

She chokes on her tears, on the tightness in her throat, the burning in her eyes, forcing her to raise her goggles so she doesn't fog them with the heat of her tears.

Home. Done for. Maybe, like she's done for, like Dad is.

"Didi?" Pip nuzzles her with his beak. "We going?"

She sighs, nods, shoulders slumping. "No more arguing?"

He shrugs his feathered body. "Nowhere else to go," he says. "Unless we head back to Putter." Pip flaps his wings as Didi opens her mouth to protest. "Not saying we should. Only that it's an option."

"No option." Didi turns away from home, jaw set, lowering her goggles over her now-dry eyes. "We'll just see what kind of damage a gunslinger can do."

It's good to have Pip on her side for once, as he mutters his agreement. She just wishes he wouldn't stare back over her shoulder like that, as if he could will home back to creation. Because it makes her want to turn around and do the same thing.

He finally stops his constant backward surveillance, but doesn't make her feel any better when he speaks. "Jackus might not be looking for you," he says. "But that doesn't mean getting into his territory again will be an easy thing."

Didi doesn't want to think about that, though it's all her mind has pondered since she let go of home. She'll build a new one with Dad, bigger and better. There's some fresher modules dumped not too long ago she's been thinking would be nice additions to their place. The more she ponders it, the easier it is to consider this is a good thing, chance at a fresh start.

Once she resurrects the gunslinger after sneaking into Jackus's territory, finds and rescues Dad and stops the Underlord.

Now she's sounding like Pip.

He's fine with her plan to send him up into the sky, to scan for Jackus and his new friends as the sun rises fully over the edge of Trash Heaven. She's sweating all over again, lugging the extra weight of the heart and generator, but it's worth it when they reach the cargo hold without a sign of the squatter. Maybe things are heading her way just a bit more. It would be nice, for a change.

The inside of the hold is cool, the power cell keeping it alive using energy on the aircon, for which she is grateful. Didi closes the door after Pip who wings his way inside, straight to the nearest gunslinger's silent form. She lets him be, hurrying herself to the platform stairs, and the panel.

Pip caws softly when the door slides open, revealing the form of the gunslinger. She doesn't try to stop him when he flaps into the capsule and takes a perch on one silver knee.

"Big fella," he mutters.

"Size doesn't matter," Didi says, setting the plas case and generator on the floor behind the chair. "As long as he runs."

Pip hops up on the gunslinger's shoulder, peering over his back as Didi accesses the back panel again. She doesn't have the proper tools to clean the chamber, but the remains of the gunslinger's organic heart are now powdered to dust with exposure to air, so it's easy enough to blow on the interior and hope for the best. With her tongue firmly between her teeth for luck, Didi opens the case at her feet, the hissing sound of the seal breaking loud in the dull air, only the clack of Pip's beak and the tinkle of his cyborg claws on the gunslinger's metal shoulder breaking the silence.

"Now, the part that should be easy," she says. Her hands grasp the slippery heart and lift it, gooseflesh rising as it pulses once in her hand, a static charge racing over her skin under her clothes. The system to install the new heart should be automatic, if the schematics she's seen are accurate.

If not, she's out of luck. Attaching a heart to a cyborg is beyond her present tools and experience. Pip still had his own. With her breath held tight in her chest, she slips the wet, dripping mass into the chamber and lets go.

Nothing happens, aside from the firm muscle of the bore's heart sliding slowly down to settle on the bottom plate of the chamber, burping softly.

"Crud," Didi swears.

"What's supposed to happen?" Pip's eye whirls.

"The thing is supposed to take over," she says. Waves her hands in front of the chamber as though that will make it work. "Drub it, Pipster. Now what?"

He snaps his beak, head tilting, silent a moment. "Power's your issue," he says at last while she sags against the seat back. "Reckon?"

Didi smacks herself in the forehead before wincing at the fresh smear of blood. Then shrugs it off. Not like she's clean or anything. She probably looks like she's been bathing in blood and gore all night. Which, technically, she has. With careful precision, she wipes her hands on the outside of her gloves, then the legs of her tights, until the tips are clean, even spitting on the ends to make sure all the blood and dirt are gone. Never mind the chip's casing is tough and meant for battle, nor that it's been damaged already. But, it seems like she should take precautions, at least what she's able.

It's safe and sound in the small plas box in the bottom of her bag, buried under her water canister and the few food packs she has with her. Her stomach rumbles, reminding her it's been hours since she ate a speck of anything, but there's no time to think of her own wellbeing.

She has a gunslinger to wake.

Didi examines the chip with her goggles again. She'd meant to take the casing off, to clean the circuits and maybe see if she could replace a few. But, without her tools and the time she needs, she just has to trust that the chip will function well enough to make the heart pump.

His chest panel gapes as she circles around him, the gunslinger's head facing directly forward, eye slits black, silver body silent. Her fingers tremble as she replaces the chip she'd taken, pushing it firmly in place. It catches, sticking partially out, and it's then she realizes this is the way she found it. Someone had removed it, left it in place but not activated. Excitement softens her weariness and sense of dread like nothing else as she pushes harder against the slim chip, her thumb popping it finally into place.

She feels the rumble of his systems waking instantly, backs up and hustles around his seat to examine the heart chamber. Pip mutters in delight as the small chamber on his back wakes, light flickering around the edges, red and blinking, before turning blue. The heart shudders, a thin film of light flashing into place to cover the front of the chamber—the shielding his last heart was missing—as the bore's organic matter lifts into place and four suction tubes connect to the deflated arteries and veins.

Didi holds her breath as fluid begins pumping through the heart, wanting to squeal, to jump up and down, while the crow on the gunslinger's shoulder flaps his wings and caws.

"Well done, Didi," he says.

She spares him a tight grin. No time for losing herself to excitement just yet. Sure, he has a heart now. But that's about all. His body's vibration goes still again when she closes the panel and lets the machine take over.

"When does he wake up?" Pip's questions aren't helping. "Huh, Didi? Now? Or are we missing something?"

She waves at him to be still, chewing one fingernail before tossing her hands and exhaling all her frustration into the air.

It's the pressure change that warns her they aren't alone, or won't be, shortly. Didi spins, heart coming to a halt before beginning to pound a painful rhythm in her chest as she realizes someone has opened the door to the cargo hold.

***

# Chapter Fourteen

Her first instinct is to lunge for Pip, and she's glad she did, because he's just starting to squeal a warning. Didi dives for the stairs of the capsule, circling it and slapping the panel. The tube door slides shut, closing off the gunslinger and returning the interior of the cargo hold to mostly darkness.

In time? She can only hope so as she crouches on the far side with her wriggling crow in her arms, fingers holding his beak closed, while the sound of voices and stomping feet grow louder.

Pip writhes so hard she wrangles him sideways into her arms and half presses the button on his chest. He sags in her grasp, eyes locked on her. He can be as angry as he wants later, but for now his silence means their safety.

"Here it is, just like I said." That's Jackus, she knows his voice. Didi breathes through her mouth, as silent as possible, as the sound of footfalls grows closer. Please, don't let them come to the capsule.

"So what?" One of the voices is deep, gruff, like a sheared off edge of metal. Something thunks, rings. She peers around the side of the capsule, unable to help herself, sees the two hulking men who blew up her house standing not ten feet away. The big one with the balding head's foot drops. He must have kicked the female gunslinger's body, because she tips sideways. "Don't work none."

"Maybe they don't." Jackus has a whiny tone to his voice, something she's never heard from him before, like he's trying to impress them. "But their weapons? Hey?" He leans forward, jerks the gunslinger's pistol from her hip. Surely it's nonfunctioning, doesn't carry a charge after all this time.

The lead brute takes it from Jackus and hefts it, points it. "Might be worth something to the Underlord," he grunts before handing it over to his partner. The weapon disappears inside the second man's coat. "If you can get it to work."

"Leave that to Tarvis, remember?" Didi starts at Jackus's words. Her father? He wouldn't know a gunslinger weapon from a water heater. Would he? Her mind whirls. At least now she has information. Or, access to it, once the gunslinger is up and running. And Jackus will supply it, won't he? Everything she needs to know before he dies at the hands of her new best friend.

"You said you knew where the girl was." The second man's voice is softer, more alto, almost musical. But, he's as brutish looking as his companion.

"She's around," Jackus says, now nervous. She's finding this side of him interesting. She's been afraid of him, but sees that he's as fearful. Her gunslinger will make all the difference when she pays him a visit. And she can't wait, can she? He'll be a quivering wreck by the time she lets her cyborg hero end Jackus's miserable life. "I still think wrecking her place was a mistake."

The bigger brute shrugs. "Now she has nowhere to go. Find her, Jackus. Get us that final piece of the machine. The girl has to have it."

The two spin and leave, the second man helping himself to a second weapon from another gunslinger before they depart, leaving Jackus behind. Didi's mind screams at him to get the hell out, but he lingers. Of course he lingers, his disgusting presence making her temper burn in her chest, up her throat. He seems to slink his way forward, a thief lurking where he doesn't belong. Forget the fact she's one, too. She considers herself a liberator.

Will liberate Ives Jackus right out of existence if he'll just get out.

He takes a moment to fondle the rounded, metal breasts of one of the gunslinger women, licking his lips and grinding his hips against her before he barks out a nasty laugh and slaps her silver face. Her jaw unhinges, head tilting to the side.

"Teach you to talk back, bee-atch," he grunts. Big man, he saunters off, toward the front of the capsule to Didi's relief. When the exit hisses open again, the air pressure shifting at the open and close, she collapses a moment, fingers fumbling to reactivate the crow.

Pip comes to life, but lies there still, glaring. "I would have been quiet."

She smiles, strokes his feathers. "Liar." Didi grunts her way to her feet, the crow transferred to her shoulder as she touches the panel one more time. "Back to work, you. We have a job to finish."

Didi refuses to consider her last, best effort might be a waste of time.

***

He can feel his insides warming, the plasma pumping fiercely through his limbs, activating systems long dormant. Pain tingles across his forehead, though he doesn't have an organic one anymore, toes coming to life as his brain wakes fully, awash with a fresh batch of oxygen, carbon and power fed through the pumping of his new heart.

His brain remembers a nervous system once human, muscles and bones and skin made of flesh and blood, anticipates fully waking. The girl races toward him in his memory, laughter vivid, drawing a bubbling joy out of his consciousness and speeding the flow of plasma further.

The girl has done it. And he will show her his gratitude.

The gunslinger lives.

***

Didi stands back as the door slides open. Stares in utter astonishment at the sight of the gunslinger looming over her from the interior of the pod about a half second before his weapon comes up, pointed at her chest. She dives for the floor as a pulse of energy lashes outward from the tip of the gun, sending one of his fellow gunslingers spinning sideways, a giant hole in the already damaged plate of its chest.

"INTRUDERS." His voice booms, the volume shaking the cargo bay, the metal under her body trembling from the sound waves as he clomps forward one step, big, silver boots stomping on the ground. "UNLAWFUL ENTRY WILL BE MET WITH DEATH." He fires again, pivoting on his lean, metal hips, his weapon firing over and over again, scattering the remains of his gunslinger brothers and sisters, filling the space of the cargo hold with noxious fumes and smoke. Didi chokes through her mouth guard despite its filtering presence, frozen by the unexpected assault on her ears. This isn't how things were supposed to happen.

"INTRUDERS." He spins back, feet never moving, gun lowering toward her and Pip, the crow squawking his terror as he thrashes under her, one wing pinned to the ground. "IDENTIFY OR BE ELIMINATED."

"Gunslinger!" Didi finds her voice, holding up one hand. "Civilian! Stand down now!"

He stares down at her, his once silent eye holes glowing blue, the same color tracing around his limbs and shining from his chest, blinking every now and then as his newly risen body wakens fully.

For a long moment, as Didi stares into those eye holes, she feels a terror beyond anything she's felt before. This is her last moment, she's certain of it. She's made a terrible mistake and the gunslinger is about to kill her. At least it will be over quickly, his plasma gun's power likely to vaporize her with the first strike. But, she can't stop thinking about Dad and how dying here, like this, will let him down.

"Dad," she whispers into the sizzling air of the cargo hold, tears stinging her dark gray eyes.

The gunslinger's entire body jerks, his gun dropping to his side, sliding into the holster. Didi wipes at her face, unable to believe her luck. His human brain must have finally caught up with his defensive systems.

"Civilian," he says, voice no longer making the cargo hold rattle, modulated to a more normal tone, though deep and human sounding. She's grateful he doesn't have the metallic tones of a robot. His human voice is soothing compared to the gigantic figure he cuts. "Standing down."

"Pip," Didi says, breathless, heart pounding. "Maybe you were right."

He pokes her with his beak, reminding her he's still pinned down. Didi rolls onto her knees, stands slowly, hands outstretched toward the now silent gunslinger. He seems to watch her, his head tilting with her movement, but he doesn't speak again as the crow shakes himself into order and flaps his way to her shoulder.

"Now you say it," he mutters in her ear. "Bit of a beast, isn't he?"

Didi lowers her hands, ignoring the insult toward the giant cyborg. Hopefully he will, too. "Gunslinger, designation."

The cyborg's body stiffens, chin snapping downward as he stands at attention. "Battalion Commander G.S. 1275, 5th Regiment, Cyborg Regulars."

Foot soldiers, if her history is right, specializing in ground assaults. Perfect for her needs. And while she wouldn't have turned down a pilot or a weapons specialist, the general purpose gunslinger in front of her couldn't be more ideal. As long as she can keep him from shooting her.

"Gunslinger." Didi swallows past her dry mouth. "Run diagnostics program Alpha." That should tell her if anything is out of order, if his chip is fully functional or if his brain has damage she couldn't see. And if the heart she killed for is integrating the way she needs it to.

The gunslinger's head tilts forward, eyes blinking as the light goes out and returns. "Diagnostics in progress."

Before she can stop him, Pip lifts off from Didi's shoulder and lands on the gunslinger. He ignores the crow, still focused on her, while the silly bird pecks gently at his cheek.

"Seems solid enough," Pip says.

"I am constructed of plastanium," the gunslinger says, voice falling into what sounds like a teacher's, like one of her training vids. "My heart and brain are human, my blood made from human plasma, enhanced with fissionable materials and carbon based fuel fluids. The remainder of my casing is plas, my internal structure—"

"Good for you," Pip interrupts him. If Didi didn't know better, she'd swear the irritating crow just rolled his eyes. "Do you have an off switch, chatty pants?"

She chokes on his annoyance, though it's half laugh, half hysteria. This giant relic from the past, this massive weapon with the soothing voice of a human man, almost killed them a minute ago. And the dumb crow is annoyed the gunslinger talks as much as he does.

Typical Pip. She shushes her friend with a wave of her hand. "System's check?"

"Complete." The gunslinger's tone returns to professional, cool, competent. Helps her to feel better about what she's doing, while the enormity of his presence and her audacity slams into her every time she allows it to. What was she thinking? "Brain function at 87 percent of optimal, some damage received in previous battle. Heart capacity at full, organics integrated." He pauses a moment. "Unknown DNA, but compatible with plasma." That's one fear taken care of. "Fission chip." He pauses again. "Fission chip damaged, at 42 percent capacity and falling."

Would it be enough? "How long will the charge last?"  
"Indefinitely," he says, "as long as further degradation is prevented."

Relief washes over her. "Are you able to function at half capacity?"

He waits, so long she fears he might be shutting down again. "Confirmed," he says. "Full activation required for final assessment."

Full activation? She rubs the frown line on her forehead, tension making her face ache. She's given him his heart, replaced the fission chip. What else? What is she missing?

The gunslinger stands, silent and unhelpful, as Pip hops onto his head, cyborg claws ticking over the matching material. "Maybe a reboot?"

Maybe. She considers the hulking man in front of her. Could it be this easy? And, if so, is it really smart to give him full control of himself again? She could just order him around like this, keep him pliable. But, she needs someone to help her rescue her dad, to have her back. If she just wanted a weapon, she'd have taken his plasma gun and been done with it.

She has to have a working gunslinger. And that means risking waking him completely. She could be triggering a repeat of his initial wakening. Or, getting exactly what she asked for. Either way, she has no choice, unless she decides to just shut him down and walk away.

Not going to happen. "G.S. 1275," she says. "Activate."

She's ready to duck, just in case. And hopes, when Pip flaps away in clear fear, she hasn't just sealed their doom.

***

# Chapter Fifteen

His blue eyes darken, go dead, his entire system shutting down. Didi grinds her teeth together in frustration as he dies, kicking the metal under her boots as she hisses soft curses to herself.

She should have just left well enough alone. Now see what she's done. But, even as she chastises herself for rushing into activation on a machine that's been in stasis for over fifty years, blue flares in his panels and eyes again and his entire body shudders.

It's an impressive sight, over six and a half feet of plastanium shivering like a wind chime in a strong wind. Didi holds her breath, heart pounding as the gunslinger shifts his feet, head lowering, one hand rising to press to the side of his face plate. Is he human under there still? She knows some of the gunslingers retained their faces, parts of their bodies used to augment the bond between metal and flesh. He might have a normal skeleton in places, even muscles and tendons, nerve endings bonded to the inside of the plastanium. From the schematics she's studied, the creators did their best to make sure the gunslingers felt as much as possible, finding that their humanity was the best defense against mental degradation.

He groans softly, hand falling to his side with a soft clang as he looks up and stares at her.

"Hello," he says, voice soft. "I'm G.S. 1275. Are you in need of assistance?"

She almost cries. Her throat closes over, both hands rising to cover her mouth, cutting off her sob of relief as she nods and nods and nods at the gunslinger.

"Can you tell me your name?" His voice is kind, though stiff, as though he hasn't used it in a long time. Well, he hasn't, has he? He looks around a moment, seems to freeze. "And where we are?"

"Didi." She chokes out her name, takes a breath and tries again as Pip lands on her shoulder and rubs his cheek against hers in comfort. "Didi Duke."

"Hello, Didi Duke." The gunslinger's servos hum gently as he reaches out one hand to her. She shakes it in stunned silence, amazed at how warm his plastanium now feels, at how gentle his touch is. As his hand drops again, his arm jerks, twitches, falls. "I seem to be experiencing some glitches in my systems," he says, apologetic of all things. She almost giggles, feels the hysterical reaction hopping and jumping in her solar plexus. Trampolining bubbles of humor she's sure will turn into uncontrolled sobbing if she lets them out.

"Sorry about that," she says, gesturing at his chest. "Your fission chip is damaged. And there was some brain tissue loss."

He nods, chin tilting sideways and, for the life of her, she feels him looking inward. "Understood," he says. Is that regret? Her heart twists. She wasn't expecting him to appear so human. He's a suit of metal and plastic. But his brain is like hers. "Bypassing."

"You can do that?" Fascination finally wins over panic and fear at what she's done.

"My systems are designed to function at a sixteenth of capacity," he says. "Battlefield requirements."

Right. So he can keep fighting and killing even if he's damaged. "Will it make it hard for you to function?"

He has no lungs, but she swears he sighs. "No," he says, straightening then, saluting her gently. "I am now fully functional within reduced parameters." She needs to know what those are, but it can wait. Right now, they have to get out of this cargo bay. She's suddenly acutely aware of the fact that she's not only reactivated a gunslinger, a criminal offense, she's certain, but she's done so in a hidden bunker where Jackus could return at any moment.

She grins then, feeling evil delight grow inside her. Well then, what's her hurry after all?

"Do you know what happened to you?" Pip's red eye hasn't stopped whirring.

"Deactivation occurred 52 standard years ago," he says. "Earth calendar time." He hesitates, though whether because of his damaged brain or another reason Didi can't guess. "With the development of our mech replacements and the proven unreliability of the gunslinger model, all G.S. units were decommissioned on Earth and their physical bodies interred as due their honor." He looks down at his hands. "And yet, I seem to be here."

Interesting. She knew that part about his history. So what were a cargo hold of gunslingers doing here on Trash Heaven? They were half a galaxy from Earth.

"Thank you for reviving me, Didi," he says. "I have spent the last half a century wondering when my final end would come."

Pip coughs in her ear. "You were aware?"

"The presence of my chip ensured the survival of my human brain," he says. So matter- of-fact, though Didi's chest compresses in sympathy. All those years of quiet and solitude. "It was my understanding I might be of further assistance, with the passage of time and no final rest."

She's grateful, no matter the reason for his continued existence. "Speaking of which," Didi says as Pip flaps his agitation against the side of her head. "I could use your help."

"The mission?" He seems willing to listen, so Didi dives into her story, telling him about Dad and the Underlord and all the things she's been hanging onto. She doesn't mean to meander or weep or even mention Jackus, but it all pours out and she can't stop herself once she starts.

When she's done, she's wiping the last of her tears and snot away from her face with the hem of her glove, spent and exhausted from the task, but feeling better for it.

The gunslinger has been silent the entire time. When she finally finishes, his body shifts toward her and he gently, oh-so-gently, pats her free shoulder with one giant hand.

"I'm so sorry for your troubles," he says.

She looks up at him, startled by the gesture and the kindness in his voice. She never expected this, is shocked and floored by it. And yet, she shouldn't be, should she? Pip's personality comes shining through no matter his metal parts. "Does that mean you're going to help me?"

The gunslinger straightens. "Have you contacted the authorities?" All business again. "This planet must have an outpost of the Galactic Conjunction? Mechcops?"

Well, she hasn't. "I raised you to help me," she says.

"I was decommissioned for a reason, Didi Duke," he says, soft and sad. "I am no longer an authority or carry any power in the galaxy. To act on your behalf would be done illegally."

This she hadn't considered. "The people who decommissioned you left you to rot in a cargo container on a trash planet." He doesn't react. "My father needs you. I need you. You're a gunslinger."

"I was a gunslinger," he says, that same gentle, weary tone in his voice. "And while I am grateful for this renewed taste of life, I fear your need lies elsewhere. Now, if you would please remove my chip and return me to rest. I would suggest you then proceed immediately to your nearest GC outpost and report your father's kidnapping so the proper authorities can begin his rescue."

She feels the impossible need to stomp one foot on the ground, like a petulant child whose toy isn't working the way she wants it to. Blikey, she saved him from another fifty years living in silence. Maybe all that time in the dark did more damage to him than she thought. Didi raises one hand, swipes it in his direction, but she has no strength behind it and it doesn't land, that blow.

Only to her heart.

"Dung it," she whispers. Turns and runs from the cargo bay, head down, heart dragging under her boots.

***

The gunslinger stands alone and silent in the quiet. He tries not to look at the fallen bodies of his men and women, the soldiers he led into so many battles. He knows them all, recognizes them, even in pieces. Knows it was his weapon that laid them low, finally, though the government who swore to them they would be treated with final respect and sent to their peace has let them down, as they were let down so many times before.

If he could weep for them, he would, his fallen folk. Instead, he stands at attention, granting them the only gesture of respect he is able.

He was wrong to want to wake. He sees that now, the image of the girl in his head fading, shunted to the side by the systems reset he's been forced to activate. The time of the gunslinger is over. The tiny seed of hope he clung to these years of silence, while the programs of patience and maintenance they gave him kept his mind from dissolving into darkness, is fading as fast as his memory of the dark haired girl.

He will wait for the girl Didi Duke to return and shut him down. Doing so should deactivate his self-destruct system, something he's been unable to accomplish. Sixteen hours remain. Surely she will be back in that time.

If not, he will test the flight system in his cyborg body and hope it has enough power to carry him out of the atmosphere. Or his destruction will take most of this planet with him.

***

# Chapter Sixteen

Didi staggers into the trash, the heat of the day taking her breath away. But she doesn't care, just wants to run into the garbage and find a place to collapse. Not that she's quitting, she won't admit that to herself just yet. But Dad is gone and so is her house. Jackus is hunting her and the only hope she has is a run-down piece of rubbish who won't do what he's programmed to do, snargle it all.

Pip flutters as she stumbles, clinging to her too tight. She brushes him angrily from her shoulder, forcing him to take wing. Didi rubs at the painful cut he's made, the small puncture oozing. She's already filthy, but the fresh damage makes her feel like she's failed at last.

"You have to shut him down." Pip lands hard, voice sharp edged and hissing. "You can't just leave him in there like that, Didi. Who knows what mischief he'll get into. And, if Jackus finds him—"

"Hope he does." Didi doesn't care she's shouting. "Hope he stumbles in there and that rugging blikey gunslinger opens fire."

Pip blinks, settles. "I know you're upset," he says.

"Shut your beak." She turns her back on him. "Don't want to hear another peep from you, corbie. Not one." She stomps off, deeper into the territory. Where ruddy else is she going to go, blarg it? Back to the crater that was home? She shakes her head, arms crossed over her chest, old blood flaking from her skin in the heat before sticking to her in a mucky mess as she sweats.

She'll have to find a way to the city herself, see if she can catch the magrail. Maybe the gunslinger's suggestion isn't a bad one if the farging pile of useless scrap won't help her the way he's meant to. She should rewire his brain or shut down his full activation and just make him come with her.

That'd serve him, rightly. Make him do her bidding while his human brain couldn't do a thing to make her stop. She stomps to a halt, jaw aching from tension as she forces herself to unclench. When she glances back over her shoulder, she's surprised how far she's come, the cargo bay long vanished in the trash. And not a glimmer of Pip to be seen.

He's taken her warning to heart, the stupid bird. Just when she needs someone to yell at. Well, forget him, then. She spins and stalks further, heading vaguely west without a plan or a hope or even a breath of anything that might keep her moving. And yet, she goes. Moving.

Because Dad. She can't let him down.

When she finally staggers to a halt, sinking into the interior of an abandoned skimmer, the front seat still mostly intact, Didi shades her eyes from the beating sun, cursing herself for forgetting her bag back at the cargo bay. Defeated at last, she shrinks down into the crisped upholstery, the edge of the seat missing from some kind of blast, closing her eyes against the bitter sun.

She'll have to go back then, there's nothing solving it. She has to have water, above all else. In fact, with all the crying she's been doing, she's likely dehydrated as it is. Tears. What a waste of water. Didi grunts to herself, unable to muster even a hint of happy.

Something rattles in the trash behind her, the faintest sound of debris falling. She should sit up and look, just in case. But no, it's nothing. Just garbage falling over garbage. The story of her life.

A shadow falls over her face before she opens her eyes to look.

And into the beady black eyes of a trash rat. One whose snout oozes where a nose used to be. Before she can cry out or lift a finger to fight, they swarm her and darkness swallows her whole as the bottom of the skimmer gives out and she falls into black.

***

The gunslinger hears the beating of wings on the doorway to the cargo bay. Squawking, the tap of metal claws on exit. He listens, curious. The girl Didi had a crow. His mind is slower than he would like, more of it shut off than is really good for him. And while it means reactivating parts that are damaged, he needs those parts.

The door whooshes open and the crow flies inside, panting as it lands at his feet while his systems reset into the part of his brain where the most decay has happened.

And triggers the image of the laughing girl with the black hair while the crow speaks.

"Didi!"

The girl. She needs his help. And he turned her away. His body surges with adrenaline, the plasma pumping through his system not created to handle such a flow. He bends at the waist, seizing the crow gently but firmly, raising it to eye level.

"Where is she?"

***

Didi wakes to the sound of chittering, to the overwhelming stench of furred and scaled bodies pressed close together, their waste mingling with the fermenting, rotting scent she now knows is her clothing caked in the blood of the bole.

Perhaps it is that smell that has saved her so far. The trash rats have her surrounded, but keep their distance, their noseless queen hovering, squealing at those who try to prod Didi. She's deep undertrash, the faint glow from her goggles giving her sight as she slides them down over her eyes and examines her surroundings.

Calm settles over her despite her circumstances, the surety of someone who knows her life is over and fear has long since fled to another place. Surreal, this experience, but she embraces the flat, quiet silence in her heart and lies back after a moment, sighing out a heavy breath.

The rats skitter back, then crowd in again, as if sensing she's given up. And she has. She has nothing to fight them with. Her bag is back at the cargo hold, her laser pen there. Maybe her boots might serve as weapons, except she's wedged in, the ceiling of garbage above her just high enough for the rats. The hole she fell through has been sealed. Either that or they've dragged her deeper into the warren of their tunnels.

Had she her protections fully charged, she might be able to keep them at bay. Or with her generator, summon another bole. If, if, if. So many possibilities out of her reach. And no one knows she's here.

She feels the shift in their intent, the undertrash chamber heating with it as the queen squeals her attack cry, muffled and snotty with the weeping fluid that was her nose. Calm flees at the last second and Didi screams, unable to stop herself, as the trash rats flood over her.

The first concussion of sound and heat hits her through the garbage, the rats freezing in place as debris rains down on them all. When the roof of the nest blows apart a moment later, she gapes upward in shock, believing at first she is dreaming, escaping her death with a last-minute mental break. Or, that her soul has already left her body, that silly energy field abandoning her human form before the actual end. While she debates her belief in souls and mental breaks, the rats scream their fury at the invasion of their territory as a large, looming shadow casts over her and a second plasma blast sends them scattering.

Glowing blue eyes look down at her, at least ten feet above. "You are well, Didi Duke?"

She chokes on her answer, nods instead. The gunslinger leaps down into the space, one hand grasping her as best he can in the narrow gap and pulling her to her feet. Didi clings to the heat of his metal body while a brave rat—or foolish for all—throws itself at the gunslinger's leg. His hand moves with robot swiftness, the barest flash of light from his weapon as his computer system analyzes the threat and dispenses only the necessary force to vaporize the wriggling creature gnawing on his shin. Didi's mind, thoroughly shaken by the ordeal, can still find amazement in the simplicity and beauty of the cyborg's systems.

As long as she has that, she figures she'll be all right.

He leaps for the surface, the barest bending of his knees her warning as his arm slips around her waist. "Hang on." She clings to him, looking down as he launches them to the surface of the trash with a quick burst of power from the base of his boots. He has thrusters, functioning thrusters. She hadn't thought of those, will have to factor them into her plan to rescue Dad.

Just as soon as she finds a way to get clean and have a long, ugly cry.

When he sets her on her feet, she stumbles, her boots deactivated. Either the rats figured out how to sever the connections or the power has run out. Neither scenario makes her happy. In fact, her inactive boots, though a minor part of her displeasure in that moment, serve as the center of her attention—her very angry and frustrated attention—as she siphons off her desire to crumple and let go into a passionate need to break something.

Anything but the nothing she felt down below the trash. Anything.

"Didi!" Pip lands on her shoulder but she slaps him away, sending him squawking free.

"You idiot!" She shouts at the gunslinger, hands fisted at her sides, a new focus for her freshly woken fury. It feels good to vent, even if, a tiny part of herself admits while in the middle of her rant, it's unfair and she should be thanking him for saving her life. "Do you want the whole planet to know where we are?"

He tilts his head at her, blue eyes dimming before returning to their normal glow. "I hadn't considered that," he says.

"You don't say." Her voice could chill the surface of the sun. "And you!" She jabs a finger at Pip, feeling better already. "Where have you been? I could have used your help, you stupid bird."

"I thought I was helping." He's snippy, bless him. She needs the argument to continue and since the gunslinger doesn't seem willing to fight with her, well Pip will do just nicely.

"Some helping." She turns her back on him where he lands on some trash flung free by the gunslinger's attack on the hive. "Could have come with me instead of abandoning me like that."

"I abandoned you?" The corbie's shriek brings her no end of satisfaction. "You stomped off like a spoiled git with a hangnail. You're lucky I cared enough to fetch this one." She turns back to see Pip spinning himself, beak pointing briefly at the gunslinger before his shining feathered back is to her. "And that I figured out how to make that tracking chip you hid inside me work the other way around."

That's how he found her. Didi's anger fades, softens. She's had her shout, expelled her energy. Now, knees wobbling from the aftereffects, she crosses to the crow and scoops him into her arms. He tries to peck her while she snuggles him and rocks him.

"Dumb critter," she says.

Pip mutters at her.

"Thank you." Didi kisses the top of his head.

"Welcome." It's a mumble.

She turns to face the gunslinger who stares at her in silence. "Well?"

He shifts in place. "I'm sorry for drawing attention."

She laughs, can't help herself. Pip rises to her shoulder while she approaches the cyborg and hugs him. It feels odd, the heat of his metal body, the lack of humanity in his form outside his shape. And even weirder for him, she assumes, though his arms slowly rise and gently embrace her a moment before he lets her go.

Didi steps back, wipes at her filthy face with the back on one hand. "I need you to help me find Dad."

He nods. "I understand," he says. "Perhaps a compromise?"

She's not sure she'll like what he has to say, but crosses her arms over her chest and waits.

"I will escort you on your mission," the gunslinger says. "And, if the opportunity presents, I will speak on your behalf to the proper authorities."

She was right. She doesn't like it. "And if the proper authorities won't help?" She's no proof that's the case. For all she knows the mechcops of the Galactic Collective will be more than happy to assist. Except the way everyone she's ever met talks about the state of things in Trash City, she's not holding her breath. Especially if an Underlord is in charge.

"If not," he says, "I will do everything in my power to help you find and free your father."

"Promise?" She holds out one hand, waits for him to shake.

"I promise." He grips her fingers gently. "Might I suggest we begin immediately?"

He doesn't have to tell her twice.

***

The gunslinger follows the girl Didi over the trash heap, hovering behind her. Perhaps he should offer to carry her. The trip back to the cargo bay would be much faster if so. But, he's seen her pride, the humanity left in him recognizing her need to stand on her own two feet.

He should tell her about his timer. But perhaps he can take her safely to the city and deliver her into the hands of those in authority before they are at risk of his destruction.

Fourteen hours remain. Surely he has time.

With a growing feeling of protectiveness winding its way through his new heart and the laughing girl he used to know dominating his mind, the gunslinger follows the girl through the trash.

***

# Chapter Seventeen

Didi isn't stupid, though from the chittering and flapping Pip is doing, along with his mutterings about how foolish she is going on and on in her ear, he thinks otherwise. She's not about to barrel her way back into the cargo bay where she found the gunslinger without checking it out first. Sure, she has a cyborg protector stomping along behind her now. But with Jackus and his two companions armed with gunslinger weapons, she has no idea if the resurrected peacekeeper can stand against them on his own.

Her goggles lowered, she scans the area as they draw close, surprised how quickly they make the return trip. The rats didn't drag her far, though that does make sense the more she thinks about it. They cornered her in this area, so their lair had to have been nearby. She shivers at the thought of them still undertrash, possibly following her. She has to put that out of her mind if she's going to concentrate on keeping them safe from Jackus.

The gunslinger stands over her as she continues her scan, his tall, shining body looming, dare she say sparkling, in the sun. A beacon of machinery perfection and an absolute eyesore. She glares up at him as she turns and catches a flash of his shininess in her goggles, making her wince.

"You stand out like a hammer struck thumb," she grumbles.

His servos hum as he looks down at her. "I do appear to be rather obvious." Is he joking? Was that humor in his voice? Surely not. She imagined it.

He's a gunslinger, not a comedian.

"There is no need to be cautious." He walks past her, heading for the ramp down to the cargo bay. "Were there concern, I would have alerted you long ago."

Didi's jaw jumps as she chases after him. Arrogant so and so, how dare he treat her like a little girl? She contemplates a hard kick to those sparkly, silver buttocks, wondering if her foot would hurt, as he strides with absolute confidence into the darkness undertrash.

She's not used to having someone as competent as herself in her life. Sure, Dad is great and all, but he needs her, she's been aware of that her entire existence, can recall bringing him dinner at a tiny, tender age. Even making sure he slept and curling up with him when she could barely walk. This new relationship, she decides as she clomps her irritation down into the cargo hold after the gunslinger, is most unsatisfying so far.

It's time Didi set the ground rules.

She opens her mouth to tell him what for, even as he spins on her and speaks in his mild, calm voice.

"I'm assuming you have no means of transport to the city?" He sounds kind and all, but he has the body and demeanor of a soldier. She reacts to his confidence with a nod, kicking herself mentally he's able to manipulate her like that.

"The plan," she stresses the word so he's clear it's her plan and not his, "is to reach the mag train and ride it into Trash City." Rather ingenious, she thinks. Though, she has no idea how difficult it might actually be to enact such a plan. She's never been on the train or even near it, save for the occasional depot she and Dad passed on their way into the city years ago.

Can't be that hard, can it? It's just a train.

The gunslinger doesn't comment. "And, when we reach our target location, what then?"

Pip thrashes on her shoulder, swallowing over and over again as his throat flutters. "You can't go," he says. "It's too dangerous, Didi." His beak swings around, red eye whirling. "We have him now. Send the robot and be done with it."

The gunslinger's head rotates slightly, blue eyes dimming. "I," he says in a low, gentle voice, "am not a robot."

Pip shifts uncomfortably in the silence that falls over them. Didi's heart pounds despite herself as the quiet lengthens and focuses on the tall, deadly gunslinger who stares without motion at her trembling crow.

"Sorry," Pip mumbles at last. "Gunslinger."

The cyborg nods slowly. "Crow."

Peace, how delightful. Didi shakes off the eeriness of the last moments, acutely aware of the tension remaining in the dim cargo space. Even as a cyborg, he's sensitive, it seems.

"You seem to think we need to seek out the G.C. mechcops," Didi says, continuing the former conversation.

The gunslinger returns his attention to her. "So I said." He pauses, servos whirring as he shrugs. It's an odd gesture from a cyborg, as flexible and realistic as he seems to be. She can almost imagine he's a real person inside a suit of armor, like a knight from the ancient days of Earth or even a man in a suit. But, the reality of his existence, of his humanity, is a fraction of his original body, most of which comes down to the damaged brain housed in his helmet.

She can't think about him like a person. Because he isn't anymore.

"Then, why are you asking?" Didi turns her back on him and retrieves her bag. She has some food and water, a few tools. She checks the charge on her laser pen, disappointed to see it's almost empty. She holds it up to the gunslinger. "Any chance you can fill this up again?"

His sigh is immensely human. "I'm a gunslinger, not a plug."

And not much good to her with that attitude.

"I asked," he says as she hefts her bag and goes looking for an outlet to charge her pen, "because you seem to think doing so won't solve your present circumstance." He pauses again and she wonders how much damage there really is to his human brain. It's like he has to stop and think or reset or something. Didi suppresses her nervousness about his condition.

He's all she's got.

"Perhaps," he says, "I am unaware of present politics." Wait, is he agreeing with her? "We will investigate all means of restoring your father to you before making a final decision."

That makes her feel better. "Thank you." She didn't mean to say that. In fact, she had a smart remark on the tip of her tongue. Somehow, her gratitude made it out first.

"You are very welcome, Didi," he says, bowing his head to her. "Though, we shall see, before too long, if thanking me is the correct response. I have no idea what danger I am leading you, a civilian and a child, into."

If he wanted to endear himself further to her, he's failed miserably. Didi spins away from him and jabs the end of the pen into the socket next to the fallen body of the female gunslinger. It sizzles and pops, but seems to be charging, much like her temper.

"Don't for a second underestimate me," she snarls into the wall, shoulders shaking. "Not for a second. And if you think you're going to leave me behind, you might as well shut yourself down right now, G.S."

"I apologize." She turns to see him watching her. His stillness gives her the creeps about as much as it makes her feel safe, oddly. What a mix of responses to the hulking, shining cyborg. "You are clearly a resourceful," he pauses again, head tilting, "young woman." Didi groans and turns away. "But, you must realize my programming includes protecting civilians from undue harm."

She assumed that was the case and feels her anger fizzle out without fuel for it. Blikey. "Well, go ahead and reroute that particular piece of programming," she says. "Because from this point on, I'm your boss." She jerks the pen from the outlet and checks the charge. Three quarters. It'll have to do. She doesn't have the patience to wait much longer. She thinks briefly of her protections, sewn into her filthy clothing, but there's no time for that, either.

The only weapons she has are her boots, the gunslinger... and her mind.

It'll have to do.

The gunslinger doesn't comment, but Pip finally speaks up.

"And I'm her second in command." His chest puffs outward, feathers fluffing. "Got that, gunslinger?"

Didi's chest tightens a moment as an odd noise escapes the cyborg peacekeeper. At first, she's not sure what it is—some malfunction shredding an internal system? She can't afford to have him break down now. Not when she's on her way at last to finding Dad.

That sound, it's deep and rumbling and so odd she takes a half step toward him before she stops and feels her jaw unhinge, eyes widening.

And grins suddenly as she understands, a giggle escaping into the still air of the cargo bay.

The gunslinger is laughing.

***

He watches her turn, still giggling, and head for the exit, his humor registering as an anomaly. He hasn't laughed in a very long time. The crow's arrogance triggered something in him, in the damaged part of his brain, and, though he knows it has to be a sign of his degradation, he embraces the humanity and simple joy of it.

If this is a signal of his eventual downfall, he will accept it. Because it feels good to laugh.

With the sweet face of the laughing girl growing more prominent in his scrambled memory, the gunslinger follows Didi with a light heart the likes of which none of his kind has ever known.

***

# Chapter Eighteen

Pip launches into the air the moment Didi clears the exit.

"I'll check ahead," he says, so loudly Jackus could have heard him from about a two kilom radius. She just waves at the bird, grateful he's willing enough to come along without further argument.

The gunslinger is a continual surprise, and she finds herself glancing back over her shoulder to check on him as she moves through the paths in the trash. She needs to resist thinking of him as a person, but it's difficult when he acts so human.

There might come a time she has to sacrifice him for Dad. Personal feelings for him will not be permitted.

She stops at last and turns to him, waiting for him to catch up. It's obvious he's been keeping his distance, his long legs easily outdistancing her a pace as he strides past her before slowing again.

"You said you can tell if anyone is about?" If true, that's helpful.Means she won't have to worry so much about Jackus and his mates sneaking up on them.

"Indeed." The gunslinger's voice drops to the same volume as hers, hushed though she doesn't know why she's keeping it down. "My external scanners are fully functional."

"Good to know." She gives him that compliment grudgingly and trudges along beside him for a few minutes in silence, eyes scanning the darkening sky for Pip. Blikey crow, where did he wing off to this time? She can't go running after him if he's chasing his family's murder again. He'll be on his own.

"You do realize," the gunslinger says in that same conversational and yet instructional tone that puts her complaining, cantankerous mind to rest, "hitching a ride on a mag train isn't as simple as you might think?"

She hadn't thought that far ahead. "You're worried about the charge perimeter." Every mag train ran on a powerful magnet system, electrified and powerful enough to drive hundreds of cars at a time down the span toward the city.

"I am," he says. "The radius of the charge perimeter might prevent us from gaining access to the train itself."

"Unless we get on at a depot." There, she's solved it. And there's one just a few kilometers distant. "The train doesn't charge until after it's loaded."

"The depot itself?" He's thinking ahead, she should be grateful, but it feels like he's arguing with her, trying to find holes in her plan. Well, he is, isn't he? With good reason. Still, she's embedded in cranky right now and just wants things to be easy.

Why can't things be easy?

"I don't know." She knows she sounds petulant, as childlike as he called her earlier. He doesn't respond, his patience with her almost as annoying as his challenges to her plan. "We'll find out when we get there."

The black speck in the distance wings toward her like an arrow, Pip's inbound flight so rapid Didi holds up her hands in front of her face as he launches himself at her in a puff of feathers. The gunslinger's silver hand lashes out and catches the desperate crow at the last second, gently buffering the impact with a backward sweep of his arm. Pip pants in the gunslinger's grip before flapping awkwardly to Didi's outstretched arm.

"Putter," he gasps. "Something's wrong at Putter's."

Didi can't stop to worry about the old man or his creepy wife. She has her own father to rescue. But, though her mind tells her this in very stern terms, she's already turning to the gunslinger.

"How fast can you run?"  
He lifts her into his arms without her asking. "Just tell me where to go."

She's never flown before, not really. Riding inside a skimmer isn't the same thing, though it feels amazing to slip over the surface of the trash on mags. This is entirely different as he lifts off, the thrusters in his boots carrying them up ten feet. Pip launches from her arm and flies off, the gunslinger following while Didi clings to his warm metal body and tries not to scream in terror.

The fear fades quickly, amazement and joy replacing it. She must be over tired, the desire to laugh out loud and spread her arms like a bird's wings so overpowering she turns her head purposely and looks forward. And instantly sobers at the sight of the plume of black, thick smoke rising in the distance.

Easy to see from up here, despite the encroaching night, and in Putter's territory. What else could it be but a tragedy?

The gunslinger has the smarts to stay low, at least. She doesn't have to tell him to be careful, though by the time they touch down in the small, cleared space outside what used to be Putter's, she's forgotten about Jackus and the Underlord and, for a second, even about Dad.

He blends into the background, his crumpled body cast off to one side near the crater that was his home. Didi knows instantly who is to blame for the attack, and wonders with hurt in her chest, if she's the reason the old man lies like a crumpled bag of trash near the ruin of his life.

She goes to him, kneels, expecting the worst. But, his chest rises once, a soft groan escaping. Shadow hovers over her, the gunslinger blocking the dimming sunlight. She hisses over her shoulder at him, enough of a command he steps out of the way and allows the brightness to return. Not a great choice, as it happens. It just makes the blood redder, the damage to Putter's old body more obvious. Didi gently cradles his head in her lap as his bleary eyes open.

He coughs softly, an apology in that sound, tears running from the corners of his eyes and through the wrinkled folds of his skin, into his wispy hair. He tries to touch her, but his hands just flutter.

"He's suffered a great deal of internal damage." The gunslinger's soft voice is an intrusion. Like she doesn't know already Putter is near death. "I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do."

She doesn't have anything to give the old man to ease his pain. All she can do is stroke his forehead with her fingertips as her own tears splash down on his cheek.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers around a knot in her throat that threatens to cut off her air.

"Didi." Putter sighs out her name, fingers fluttering. She bends forward to hear his whisper as his lips open, close, open again. When she does, his hand finally manages to move, to grasp her hair and pull her closer. "Pocket."

She looks down at him as his fingers fall away, a long, low exhale leaving him. What about his pocket? What is he talking about? There's a horrible hesitation in her as Putter's chest rises for the last time, the rattle in the back of his throat exiting with whatever kept him animate. She sees it as he dies, watches life leave him, the spark that was Putter no longer inside him.

In that instant, he's gone, just gone, a bag of meat and bone and blood. And yet, she can't bring herself to let him go just yet.

Pip lands on Putter's body, head down, cyborg eye whirling. "I'm sorry, Didi."

She shrugs, wipes at her face. "He said something about his pocket." As if it matters. But, it mattered to him, so she has to make the effort.

Pip's beak taps at the old man's chest, inside his thin, woven vest. Something metal rings back. Didi's fingers explore, digging out the metal box, gripping it in the palm of her hand. She gently settles Putter's head on the ground, backing away, turning to face the crater that was his home, the edges of the box cutting into her skin as she squeezes it.

If they killed him to get to her, she will make sure they die. But, as she looks down at the box in her hand, she can't help but wonder. Especially when she slides her thumb over the small scanner on the front, activating the lock. Keyed to her DNA.

Didi stares down at the small, golden chip nestled in a bed of foam. And knows then they killed Putter for something much greater than her. They killed him for this. And will do the same to her if they catch her.

She knows her father's work, is amazed at the delicate design. His finest creation. But, what does it do? A fission chip. She closes the box, heart pounding. Her father created a fission chip. It has to be more than that, have a greater purpose. But knowing her dad was capable of this...

Had she underestimated her own father all this time?

She tucks it into her bag, then thinks better of it. As she turns back to the gunslinger and Pip, she hides it in the folds of her skirt, against her skin, in the small pocket that houses the controls for her protections. If the Underlord wants it, he'll have to either give up her father or kill her for it.

***

# Chapter Nineteen

Didi heads for the nearest rail depot on foot, forgetting in her determination she has a quicker way to go. But, when the gunslinger fails to offer a ride even after her mind tells her he could carry her, she spins to find he's not followed.

Instead, he watches her from twenty feet away, immobile and quiet.

"What?" They have to get out of here, if only to escape the stench of decay and the crisped flesh of Putter's fallen body.

"What does the chip do, Didi?" He watches her with those glowing blue eye slits, making her uncomfortable.

"I don't know." And she might not tell him if she did. Not from the way he's staring at her like that.

"I see." He hesitates, though she's sure this time it's not his damaged systems working around the issue. "You do realize it could be for a weapon." He taps his chest with one fist, the metal ringing against metal. She thought she was careful, shielding it from him, but he's seen more with his enhanced vision than she expected. Not that she purposely hid it from him—or did she? She's so confused by the fears and doubts running around in her head, Didi feels off balance, like she's in a dream. "That's a fission chip, Didi. Like the one powering me."

She's hardly an idiot, is she? "I'm well aware of what it is, G.S." She turns her back on him, shoulders tight and aching. They really don't have time to stand around and talk about this. "So?"

"So." The gunslinger finally moves, a step toward her that feels like a gentle, careful approach as though he expects her to run away from him. "Until we know what that chip does, we have to be cautious." The gunslinger's voice sounds reasonable enough, but she knows there's authority behind it. "We can't simply hand it over to the Underlord in exchange for your father." He pauses as Pip rises to sit on his shoulder, the traitor. Her crow should be with her, not physically supporting the gunslinger's words. "You must know that already."

She shakes her head, backing away that ground he closed between them, hand clutching at the small pouch where she's secreted the chip. "You obey my orders, G.S.," she says, trying to keep her voice low and steady but hearing the hiccup of stress in it. "That's the agreement."

"Not if it means handing over power to the Underlords," the gunslinger says. There's that reasonable tone again, making her head spin, her chest ache. "The Galactic Conjunction authorities must be allowed an opportunity to examine it. Surely you understand the risks, Didi. The Underlords were powerful when I was functioning. I can only imagine their authority has grown over the last half century." His voice quavers then settles. "I must be malfunctioning," he mutters, "to be able to speak so. But, that doesn't make it any less true."

She can't argue with him. She has no grounds for debate. But, she does have the chip in her possession and her father is her only priority. Since when did the Galactic Conjunction give a fairy's fart for Didi Duke and her father? Why should she return the favor?

"Didi, be reasonable." Pip has turned tail feathers for certain. She shouldn't be surprised, but the hurt his words cause make her inhale with a painful breath. "Your father hid this chip with Putter for a reason. Even he didn't want it falling into the wrong hands." She doesn't want to listen as the crow goes on, because there's a deeper, more agonizing thread to this conversation. The fact her own father didn't trust her with what he was doing, didn't tell her about the chip or his association with Putter.

He trusted that old man over her. And that fact is killing her slowly.

"I don't care about the stupid Galactic Conjunction," Didi says, words hot, searing her throat on the way out. "I don't care about right or wrong or either of you or your blikey opinions. All I care about," she stabs the air between herself and the gunslinger and her traitor of a cyborg crow, "is finding and rescuing my father." And to the depths of the trash with these two if they get in her way. "I'm taking this chip to the Underlord and I'm getting Dad back. You two can do whatever you want. But don't even think about getting in my way."

The gunslinger moves so fast she's in shock. His silver body blurs as he crosses the distance between them, suddenly standing between her and the path she's on, the path leading out from the carnage of Putter's former life. He doesn't touch her, but his bulk blocks her way.

"Didi," he says, soft and low, kind but sad. "I can't let you do that."

Fury rages inside her, but she stands there, shaking and impotent, knowing he's stronger, he's faster and she's in trouble. "You'd rather go to the same authorities who decommed you and your kind and left you to rot on a trash planet instead of giving you the humane burial you were promised?" She pokes his chest with her finger, needing some physical outlet for her anger, tingling pain running up her hand as she hits him harder than she thought. "Is that it, gunslinger? You want to trust those who can't even protect their own from corruption and lies and treat you like rugging garbage?"

He doesn't comment, just stands there, an immobile mountain of plastanium.

"How dare you betray me after I saved your blarging life." Spit flies from her lips, her trembling uncontrollable now. She wishes she was stronger, shakes with her need to push him out of her way. She's never felt so helpless, not even when Jackus attacked her or when the trash rats had her in their lair. This helplessness comes from knowing she can act, knowing she has what she needs to save Dad, only to find the tool she raised to help her stands in her way.

Pip was right. She should have left the gunslinger to rot with his fellows and just done this herself.

"I believe," the stupid bird quips, his arrogance making her teeth grind painfully together, "he returned that favor, Didi. Listen to him."

She'll take him apart when she gets her hands on Pip, revert him to the pile of crushed bones and dying corbie he was and just see if she doesn't. He must sense her thoughts because he squawks and ducks his head behind the gunslinger, shivering.

"I'll shut the both of you down." It's an empty threat, at least to the giant cyborg in front of her. He's too fast, she'd never beat him to the panel in his chest.

"A compromise." The gunslinger holds out his hand. "I promise you, Didi, no matter what it takes, I will rescue your father or die trying. But, only if you agree to hand over the chip to the authorities."

She wavers, can't help herself. She's so tired suddenly. This has been a massive blow to her existence, to the life she's found so comfortable and, for a brief moment, she sags inside herself. It would be easy to hand the chip over to the gunslinger, to let him do what he says he'll do. She has no doubt he's telling her the truth. He can't lie to her, at least as far as she knows. Though, he's damaged, isn't he? Maybe that's not true anymore. But, she can't help but trust him, to believe the words he's said. His sincerity is too palpable, a living thing pulsing between them.

He will end his own life to save her father. How much more can she ask for?

"Just trust him, Didi." Pip's voice is as soft as the gunslinger's. As caring. "Please. You know Tarvis would want you to be safe. And, he hid this chip for a reason. Even your dad doesn't want the Underlord to have it."

There is that. And, it's the final truth that wins over Didi's heart and mind.

Not that she's happy about it. She crosses her arms over her chest and shrugs, looking away toward where she knows the mag line crosses the trash. "I'll agree," she says. "But we get Dad first. Then we turn the chip over. Just to be safe."

The gunslinger nods slowly. "Unless we encounter an opportunity to recruit the aid of the Conjunction."

He had to suggest it. "Fine." She pushes past him at last and he lets her, pivoting his body so she can keep going up the path. It irritates her to no end he has so much power over her.

***

He follows her on heavy feet, though his body is as light and powerful as ever. His programming overwrites so much of his humanity, but that damaged part of his brain he's allowing to function seems stronger than the subroutines his creators put in place to control him. It's a dichotomy he's unused to, and only makes the phantom image of the laughing girl all the more real.

There are moments he pauses and feels her there, as though he could reach out and touch her. Has had to hold himself still to keep his arm from rising to do so. He is uncertain if the girl Didi has noticed his lapses, but they are growing more frequent and the gunslinger wonders if he will remain functional long enough to save her father after all.

He must try. And complete his mission before his countdown ends in thirteen hours and he self-destructs.

His confused systems almost miss the approach of danger. But, in the end, he is a gunslinger. And his instincts take over even before his cyborg enhancements know he's moving.

***

# Chapter Twenty

Didi's head is down, eyes on her feet as she tries to focus on walking and not thinking. The last of the day's sunlight is waning, washing over her shoulder in a stunning pattern of color she's not in the mood to appreciate. A dumpall rumbles overhead, its familiar shadow falling over her and she's lost in the steady whoosh of the sound of its thrusters when two hands grab her from behind and lift her into the air.

She doesn't have time to squeal when the gunslinger heaves her into his arms, for a moment terrified his mind has finally snapped and he's turned into some crazed and uncontrollable menace. But, when she looks over his shoulder and sees the skimmer heading for them, a familiar face in the back seat, Jackus's arm pointing over the driver's shoulder, she understands just how valuable this giant, silver hero really is to her.

She'll never thank him or let him know how safe she feels in his arms as he carries her away from the threat of Ives Jackus.

A plasma shot fires overhead, impacting a pile of trash on their right. It teeters and slips, crumbling down in what feels like slow motion as the gunslinger lifts off, taking to the air. Pip shrieks on his shoulder, clinging to the cyborg's plating and flapping his wings for balance. Didi reaches for the crow and pulls him free, cuddling him against her chest, between her and the gunslinger while the massive cyborg's thrusters carry them upward.

Right for the dumpall. Didi turns her head, hiding her face in the gunslinger's shoulder as they skim past the automated ship, the next blast from the skimmer taking the side of the scum-crusted transport in the flank and sending it spinning. The gunslinger's thrusters fire, carrying them beyond the spinning mass, before he dives for the trash surface and peels past the edge of a mass of decaying organics.

Didi can't help but watch, breathless and oddly excited, as the skimmer barely makes it past the dumpall as the autosystems of the trash carrier kick in and right its trajectory. Another blast skips past, exploding the organics they are passing, sending a shower of stinking, clinging mess over them.

The gunslinger doesn't pause or seem to notice, acrobatic flying taking her breath away. He pulls to a halt on the far side of a trash heap and tosses her to one hip, his hand flashing to his side while she clings to him, her crow in her arms, and waits. The skimmer flies past, his gun already aimed and ready.

The plasma charge hits the back of the skimmer, taking out one of the thrusters, but with the unfortunate side effect of spinning it around to face them. Jackus might look terrified, but the two bulky men in the front seat of the skimmer seem ready and, with one thruster functioning, gun it right toward them.

The damaged skimmer wobbles, but picks up speed. Didi has no doubt if both thrusters were functioning they would be dead, gunslinger or no gunslinger. But, the added few seconds the damage allows gives the cyborg time to target the front of the skimmer and blast it. Again the skimmer spins, toward the healthy thruster, the pilot unable to control the turn. It's almost hysterical, really, seeing their faces turn, their eyes following even as their bodies are forced around inside the damaged skimmer. Didi feels a giggle of absolute horror and delight rise in her chest and has to clamp her lips together to keep it from escaping as the absurd moment unwinds.

He's fast, the gunslinger. What has felt like a half hour's worth of battle has been mere seconds, if that long, and he's firing again, sending the second thruster into failure. It would be over, they would have won, she's certain, if it weren't for the hum of a second skimmer approaching from the distance.

They have backup. Didi taps on the gunslinger's shoulder, but he's already aware, leaving the fatally damaged skimmer to sink to the trash while plasma bursts from the stolen weapons fire toward them. He pushes hard, the air rushing past her, pulling at her lips and cheeks until Didi feels crushing pressure on her chest, making it hard to breathe. But, the speed allows them distance, pushes them toward the now visible mag train, leaving the following skimmer far behind.

The gunslinger pivots in midair, making her scream in fear, though his arm never wavers and she's certain it would take his death before he would drop her. She's clutching Pip so tight he wheezes, the faint sound audible now the gunslinger has slowed his pace and Didi forces herself to release her painful grip on the corbie.

A depot squats ahead, a train at standstill in station. Their luck has turned at last. The gunslinger's thrusters die off as he sinks to the ground, legs churning until he literally hits the ground running. Didi feels the tingle of the mag train firing up, knows they only have seconds before the perimeter of power fries them. Panic surges, equally met with excitement, as the gunslinger throws his giant form at the edge of one of the train cars and lands them with a thud on the surface. The barest fizz of electricity raises the hairs on her neck and arms and they are safe at last.

He sets her down on a pile of trash, looking back over his shoulder. "Perhaps we should make ourselves invisible to the air," he says as if they haven't just been in a major battle and he didn't pull a giant hero act right in front of her.

"Good idea," she says, mimicking his tone exactly. Because it's all in a day's work and really, why else did she resurrect his shiny, silver behind?

She grins. Didi can't help it. And sinks on shaking legs to the garbage while Pip whistles and shudders for his freedom.

She'll let him go eventually. She just needs someone to hold onto right now. The gunslinger sinks to his haunches and begins to create a shelter from the trash as the sun sets in the west and she wonders if this might work out after all while she slowly, firmly strokes the feathers of her crow.

***

The gunslinger sits next to her sleeping form, the crow still cuddled against her, tiny snores escaping the creature's black beak. She looks so innocent and young lying there and fear—something he's been programmed not to feel—emerges for the first time since he became what he is.

The battle, that he could handle. Fighting, dying, killing others to fulfill his orders, all of that he understands. But this emotional turmoil he's woken by allowing his damaged brain to function... this he isn't sure he can handle. And yet, he has no choice. When he tries to bypass it now, it weakens him, makes him feel out of control and as though he can't focus. And that he can't allow.

He will endure, as he has since his creation two centuries ago. He is a gunslinger and he will survive long enough to ensure the promise he made Emma will be completed.

Wait. No. He shakes his head, one hand rising to rub at his metal face, a habit he would realize—were he aware he was doing it—he left behind when he lost his humanity. Not Emma. He doesn't know an Emma. Didi Duke.

His self-destruct ticks softly inside him. He needs to tell her when she wakes. They are running out of time and he fears he won't be able to do as he's promised with the little span he has left. Only twelve hours. He can't let Emma down.

Didi.

What is happening to him? No time and no energy to uncover anything. He must focus. Carefully and with precise caution, he begins to shut down small pathways, one at a time, in an attempt to return to the calm of the gunslinger.

While Trash Heaven flashes by and the girl next to him sleeps, his memory fills with the image of Emma laughing.

***

# Chapter Twenty One

Didi wakes in the darkness, sitting upright so fast the world wobbles around her. She didn't want to sleep, had planned to plot out her path to her father while the train hurried its way to the city. But, she obviously needed the rest.

The gunslinger sits beside her, silent and staring straight ahead, his blue eyes pulsing only faintly. He must be resting, too and she can only hope he holds out for as long as she needs him. So far, despite some bumps and frustrations, he's been there for her, she has to admit. He's not Dad or anything, but she has little choice in the matter.

Didi swings sideways, Pip beside her, waking more slowly as his beak yawns, red tongue visible when she lowers her goggles into place and looks out over the trash flying by. The glow of the city is usually so distant, like a sun trying to rise over the horizon, it's always surprising to see it up close. She's only ever been here in daylight though, so the sight of the giant, sprawling and filthy city in the glow of nighttime, multicolored lights from millions of windows and streets pulsing their light up into the polluted sky looks like a wonderland of brilliance instead of the dirty pile of reclaimed refuse she knows makes up Trash City.

Maybe coming in at night is the best choice. She glances back at the resting gunslinger and winces. He's fairly obvious, isn't he, something she hasn't thought through. Gunslingers are decommed and having one lumber around after her in broad daylight could be an issue.

She giggles softly into her hands and turns back to the approaching city. What an understatement. Still, she'll have to make do. And, if her desires and dreams go her way, her father will be rescued long before the sun comes up and makes her giant, silver companion even more obvious.

Maybe she should feel guilty she plans to go against her promise to him the first chance she gets. The gunslinger might be forced to tell her the truth, but she's under no such conditions. If the opportunity arises, she will turn herself and the chip over to the Underlord once her father is safe. She pats at the small pouch holding the charger for her protections and the golden chip, reassuring herself of its presence as much as securing her own courage. Dad has to come first and a blikey pox on the Galactic Conjunction.

Pip's words linger with her, though as they near the city's edge. The fact Dad obviously wanted this hidden, had left it with Putter, of all people... and hadn't told her a thing about it. She wipes at the corner of her eyes, forced to lift her goggles away as moisture collects. She'll give him what for when she sees him again, for making her figure this out on her own instead of just telling her what's what. But, until then, she'll just smother the seed of hurt his distrust in her left behind.

Dad had his reasons. And she'll know every single one of them in detail before she forgives him. Or lets him forget what a massive mistake keeping her in the dark actually was.

Pip clacks his beak together, fluffing his feathers. "Perhaps we should prepare to disembark," he says. The silly bird is starting to sound like the gunslinger. She agrees with him, though, turns to prod the silver bulk behind her, but the cyborg is already powered up and looking at her.

How long was he sitting there, staring? It's creepy and yet stirs that same sense of safety she felt when he carried her away from danger. She's not sure she likes it.

The sky is lightening in the east when Didi turns back and, with a groan, she realizes her mistake. The time is earlier here, half way around the planet. What should still be night is now morning. Which means any chance she has of disguising the gunslinger in the dark is slipping away with the rising sun.

She'll just have to deal with it. The gunslinger sweeps to his feet, shoving aside the trash shelter he built them and, a moment later, as the tram shudders to a halt at the small station ahead, he lifts Didi into his arms and carries her free of the car, Pip flapping after them.

She almost chastises him for not asking first, but lets it go. Didi would rather trust his instincts than her own from here on in, though the thought of the damaged gunslinger running this little show makes her uneasy. Still, if there's danger or need to move quickly, she won't fight him. As long as he leads her to her father.

Didi settles on her feet, not bothering to activate her boots. This part of Trash City is flat, the ground leveled and compacted into some semblance of evenness. She weaves through the last piles of trash, past a pair of automechs stacking garbage from the tram, and out of the main yard.

The road to the city is eerie, in her mind, the glow of the rising sun cutting through the lights she thought beautiful, casting the entire hulking mass before her in shadow. It looms like a dark blot in the near distance, as though the mouth to hell had opened and waits for her to enter.

She shivers and hopes she's just being melodramatic.

Didi turns and looks back over her shoulder, winces at the sight of the tall, shining gunslinger who glows in the light of the rising sun. "We need to do something about how you look," she says. Maybe some clothing to disguise his armor. A hat, perhaps, pulled low over his glowing blue eyes...?

He looks down at her and the mental image she's created of his shrouded form bursts like a bubble. "Agreed," he says.

Pip chitters on her shoulder. "A bit of an attention grabber, isn't he?" The crow chuckles.

"There should be a G.C. office near the tram exit." The gunslinger doesn't look at her again, just stares straight ahead, his stride matching hers. "We could go there and ask for assistance. Perhaps they would be willing to allow me a temporary revival in order to assist in the recovery of your father."

Didi can't help her scowl, it feels like a natural expression these days. "No," she says, waving off Pip who flaps his protest at her denial. "Not yet. I want to find Dad first. I need to know he's safe before some stupid G.C. mechcops go in and put his life in danger."

The gunslinger doesn't answer her, though his lack of argument makes her feel a little better. She's about to lower her goggles to shield her eyes from the rising sun when a wave of shadow passes in front of her, flapping and cawing in the morning light.

Before she can act, react, stop him, Pip rises from her shoulder and flies upward, answering the murder of crows flying past with calls of his own. Didi inhales sharply, heart tugging at him, pain twisting in her chest at his defection, but there is nothing she can do as Pip flies off and leaves her there with the gunslinger.

"Blikey traitor of a corbie!" She stomps one boot, knee aching from the impact on the crushed metal roadway. "I don't have time for this." Tears sting her eyes, throat tight. The stupid, wretched, crusty old creature. He'd have to fly off now and leave her, wouldn't he, the farging snargle?

"Will he return?" The gunslinger sounds sad himself.

"No," she snaps, stomping away. "He's gone for good this time. Let him. I'm for Dad."

It's a grief-stricken, furious moment before she realizes he hasn't followed her. She spins and tosses her hands while the gunslinger looks up and off into the distance as though waiting for Pip to come back.

"Just leave him," she says, defeat making her vicious. "He's done for." The murder will surround him and tear him apart. It's the way of crows, she's observed, how they don't accept anything not like them. It's how Pip ended up with her in the first place. Her mind can't help but go back to the morning she found them pecking at him, leaving him for dead only because she chased them off before they could finish the job.

The gunslinger finally nods and follows her as though he's come to terms with the loss. Maybe she should worry about his interest in the crow, or the odd way he acts sometimes. Surely he's far more damaged than she's let herself believe. But she needs him, now more than ever. Without Pip, she's truly on her own.

Helpless, hopeless in many ways, minus her best friend, Didi heads into the city, trailing a wildly obvious gunslinger in her wake. The residents of Trash City are just stirring, from the minor traffic she observes as she passes through a narrow gateway and into the city proper. Why it's walled she has no idea, the thin and rickety barrier not even enough to stand up to a firm shove. Maybe those who live here need some kind of clear and present separation from the trash surrounding their city, though it's that very garbage that makes their home in the first place.

Didi keeps to the side of the street, head down, hoping no one notices the giant, silver cyborg walking silently along behind her. Well, not entirely silent. She's acutely conscious of the whir of his servos as he walks, of the faint whoosh of air that he makes with his swinging arms, how his giant feet thud with the same volume of sound as her own boots. With every step she feels more and more exposed, as though any moment someone will leap out of a doorway and point and shout. "Gunslinger!"

She's clearly given the residents of Trash City far too much credit. When the first person they encounter—an older man pushing a floating sled with a definite tilt to the right—looks up and sees the cyborg, his eyes widen slightly before he continues on his way. Didi glances fearfully back over her shoulder to see if the old man is staring, but he's already moved on, turning into an alley with his loaded cart.

Three women converge on a front step the next block down, chattering away at each other in the rising morning heat. They don't even look up from their gossip while Didi and the gunslinger stride past.

It's not until a pair of young workmen, their dark heads lowered, overalls stained and torn, push past her without a sound she breathes out a sigh of relief. Maybe she was worried for nothing. It seems the people of Trash City don't want to notice.

Though, that makes her sad, too. She's with a gunslinger, a legend. And no one seems to care.

"Might I ask," the gunslinger says three blocks later, "if you have a plan, Didi, or are we going to wander the streets of this city hoping to stumble on your father?"

She spins and plants her fists on her hips. They've entered a more populated area, though this still feels like a workaday part of town, with the average resident appearing run-down and rather pathetic in her estimation. Ramshackle complexes piled high out of reclaimed garbage seem to house a large number of people who are only now entering the street.

"I'm thinking," she says, grumbling in her tone. "You have a better idea?"

"You are well aware of my opinion on our next course of action." He sounds amused. Ruddy cyborg. He shouldn't be so smug.

"And I told you I want to find Dad first." She turns around and hesitates. A few people are finally staring, a pair of kids whispering and pointing. Their dirty faces show hope, of all things, and delight. When an old lady raises her hand to the gunslinger and he waves back, it's as if the entire street suddenly realizes he's there.

And they all stop to stare.

Didi can't decide if that's a good thing or not. Before she can choose between emotions, the gunslinger grabs her by the arm and shoves her into the alley they've stopped beside. It's dark here, the tall buildings overhead blocking all of the sunlight. She staggers against the wall of the nearest, catching herself with both hands before turning back to yell at him for being such a bully.

Only to find the gunslinger is gone. No, not gone. Striding out into the center of the street while the crowd watches with mouths hanging open as Jackus and his two friends come to a halt twenty feet away.

***

# Chapter Twenty Two

The gunslinger is in his element at last, all emotion and doubt and fears about Emma—Didi—gone from his malfunctioning mind. He knows these targets, recognizes them from the skimmer that attacked them on their way to the train. The same targets, Didi believes, who killed the old man, Putter, and kidnapped her father.

He doesn't have proof of their guilt, though their attack is enough for his gunslinger sensibilities to kick in and demand action. Action. His mandate.

"Suspects," he booms in his augmented voice. "Discard your weapons and prepare to be taken into custody." His cyborg vision sharpens, studying the three as he speaks again. "Resistance to arrest will be met with lethal force."

The one in front—Jackus, according to Didi—grins while the gunslinger's programming processes his stance, the tightening of his lips and the way his hand shifts to his side where a plasma gun sits. The gunslinger takes in all of this as the suspect speaks.

"You have no authority here, relic," he says, fingers twitching, unnoticed by the human eye but as obvious as a warning to the gunslinger.

The crowd mutters. He ignores them, though civilians in the area do make his job harder. His focus spreads outward, sensors at three hundred and sixty degrees, a bubble of awareness no human can match feeding him constant information. Such as the fact the suspect's two partners seem more inclined to run than to fight.

"Relinquish your weapon," the gunslinger booms. "And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke."

Jackus's hand moves. Not fast enough. The gunslinger's emotions feed him after all. Sheer delight.

How had he never known this was fun?

***

Didi hovers at the corner, finally shoving her way past two watching residents, hugging herself in fear as the gunslinger faces off with Jackus. It's three to one, though even she can see the two bullies with her enemy seem nervous.

"Relinquish your weapon," the gunslinger's voice echoes from the buildings while the people around her watch in rapt attention. "And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke."

Hope soars inside her when she finally understands what the gunslinger is doing. His job, bless his bole heart. He's really doing it. She could hug him right now, though her mind warns her this kind of confrontation could draw more attention, the wrong kind. Conjunction attention. He's an illegal gunslinger, after all.

But the cyborg doesn't seem concerned. Not even when Jackus laughs and draws his stolen weapon.

Didi's sorry she blinked. She saw Jackus's hand move, knew what was coming, didn't even have time to draw a breath to call a warning to the gunslinger. He didn't need it. Jackus doesn't even have his weapon out of its makeshift holster and the gunslinger's is magically in his hand, pointed at the squatter. Jackus's mouth gapes but his hand keeps moving, pulling the gun free, and raising it slightly. Her heart pounds, why doesn't he fire? When the flash of plasma hits Jackus, Didi bounces on her toes, until she realizes it's the weapon in the squatter's hand that flies free, not his head.

She really wanted it to be his head. Until the gunslinger aims at Jackus and speaks again in his commanding voice.

"Stand down," he says. "And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke."

Of course. He's thinking clearer than she is. They need Jackus. Though his two companions would do, in a pinch. Companions who are now, from all appearances, ready to run and leave Jackus hanging.

She's surprised when the first one—the skimmer's driver who blew up her home—pulls his own weapon. The gunslinger is still faster and easily destroys his gun, too. That's when the crowd cheers for the first time and it's Didi's turn to gape. The gunslinger spins on the second bully who drops his gun and makes a run for it. The cyborg peacekeeper lets him go, his companion taking off after him, leaving Jackus to shudder under the smoking attention of the business end of the gunslinger's weapon.

"I won't ask again." The gunslinger is harder to hear this time, the cheering crowd making it difficult. They've gained in volume, throwing garbage and bits of debris after the two running bullies. They must be well known in this part of town. "Where is Tarvis Duke?"

This is it—her plan has worked. Didi can barely contain herself, gathers to run into the street and join the gunslinger, ready to cheer herself and maybe do some physical damage to Jackus before letting the cyborg kill him.

She doesn't get to celebrate, not when the jarring, heavy tread of approaching threat kills the cheers of the crowd. They all turn, en masse, as three towering mechcops enter the street, their tripod legs carrying them swiftly around the corner and into view.

Didi's seen their kind before, but only once, and only one at a time. Three of them makes a more powerful impression. They are easily ten feet tall at the tip of their curved, smooth bonnets, the balanced bulk of their mass hovering over the three giant legs ending in flat platforms of shining metal. She'd thought the gunslinger massive when she'd first seen him standing, but now, as the mechcops surround him, she realizes just how small he really is.

And feels her hopelessness return as Jackus scoots out from under them and runs off into the crowd. They let him go, focused with muttering anger on the mechcops and the gunslinger.

He doesn't seem concerned to see them, lowering and holstering his weapon. "Greetings," he says. "I am G.S.—"

The lead mechcop doesn't give him a chance to finish. This time Didi does scream as a huge bolt of energy hits the gunslinger in the chest. He freezes, blue flaring all over his body before he slowly crumples and falls to the ground, silent and dead.

Two people hold her back as she tries to reach him, the mechcop who shot the gunslinger extending a clawed arm from its bulky body and scooping up the drooping cyborg.

"Disperse." The tinny, mechanical voice makes her shiver. A pulse of power runs through the ground, making her jump.

"That gunslinger just cleaned up more of a mess in three shots than the lot of you in three years." It's the old man she'd seen earlier. The one with the lopsided cart. Only he has the nerve to speak out, though the rest of the street's occupants seem just as upset as he is. "Bring back the gunslingers!"

The crowd mutters their agreement. This time, when the pulse runs through the ground, Didi hops and shrieks at the pain despite her protected boots. A few of the people around her fall, a girl crying for her mother.

"Disperse now." The mechcops don't wait for the crowd to part but march their inexorable way through. Didi stares after them with her heart sinking, no longer held back by friendly hands, but by the realization she's lost her gunslinger.

And, when she turns back, she understands the absolute truth. The street is emptying, the beaten and unhappy people of Trash City doing as they're told, brief rebellion as dead as her hopes.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that feels like defeat, Didi slinks back into the alley, acutely aware of the fact she's all alone.

***

# Chapter Twenty Three

Didi hovers for a long time at the mouth of the alley, frozen in indecision. Her heart has gone to ice in her chest, no matter the growing heat of the day, her mind turning in circles, faster and faster until she can't think straight and feels like she's going to throw up. Forget eating or drinking anything out of her bag, though she knows she should at least find somewhere to hide and close her eyes so she can sort out what she's going to do. But every time she tries to force her feet to move, to carry her away from the spot where the gunslinger had been, she finds she's frozen and immobilized by her loss.

No Pip. No gunslinger. No Dad. No home. No hope. Those four truths circle and circle like a cawing pack of unhappy crows. No Pip. No gunslinger. No Dad. No hope.

Just Didi, alone in Trash City with a chip an Underlord is looking for.

She should just go back to her territory and wait things out. That's the smartest, most logical thing to do. Jackus would never think she'd retreat, right? He'd never look for her there. She could rebuild while she waits for Dad. He'll be back, the Underlord will let him go when he realizes Dad doesn't have the chip.

Didi shakes, her whole body breaking into trembles, forcing her to move at last, to half turn away from the empty street. Better yet, go to the Galactic Conjunction as the gunslinger wanted her to. Maybe she can convince them to let him go, to allow him to help her find her father. Doubt chokes her, makes her vision waver behind tears threatening to carry her to her knees.

She could just ask around for the Underlord. Or stand in the middle of the street until Jackus finds her. She has no doubt the Underlord will kill her for what she carries. But, maybe he'll wait until she gets to see Dad one more time. It would be worth dying just to hug her father again.

She doesn't recognize the sound of pounding feet until they are almost on top of her, turns the rest of the way into the gloom of the alley just as someone plows into her and carries her to the ground. He grunts on top of her, head swiveling around as he shoves himself up on his hands, a huge grin lighting his young face.

"Sorry about that," he says, leaping to his feet and grabbing her hand, jerking her to hers beside him. Someone shouts down the mouth of the alley and he spins, broad shoulders brushing hers before he looks back with a wink. "Thieves! Stop them!" She gapes at him while three large men come running toward them.

Still holding her hand, her assailant runs for the street, pulling her along beside him. "Whoops! Guess you're with me now, beautiful!"

But... she's not a thief! She's innocent. Any attempt to free her hand fails as he leaps over the side of a trash pile on the other side of the road, forcing her to copy his jump. What has this insane stranger gotten her into? And yet, even as she complains at him in her head, relief washes through her, the freedom of just running, letting loose all the stress and anxiety she's been wallowing in since the gunslinger was taken away.

This odd young man will never know just how grateful she is he's gotten her into trouble.

"Sorry about this." He grins at her over his shoulder even as the sound of pursuit grows quieter. Their chasers aren't in as good shape, it seems. She flies over the smooth surface, so used to making her way through uneven ground this feels easy. Her new companion seems impressed with her speed and picks up his own until she feels like she's flying beside him, winding down a block, across another street, up an alley way and down two more blocks.

He pulls her into another alley at the last second with a jaunty wave at an older woman who snorts her irritation at their rapid passing. Didi stumbles to a halt when he stops suddenly, turning and burrowing sideways through a pile of garbage. She follows him without thinking, into a tiny cubbyhole that's actually quite comfortable, dug out of the side of the building.

"Come here often?" She hugs herself and ducks her head in the small space as her companion shrugs his wide shoulders, blond hair falling forward over the most brilliant blue eyes she's ever seen.

"Often enough," he says, laughter in his voice. He keeps it low and soft, though. "But never with someone as beautiful as you."

She's hyper conscious of the fact she's in desperate need of a cleansing, that she still carries the residual dried blood of the bole with her as well as various other effluvia from her flight from home. And yet, his compliment makes her blush, touch her dirty hair.

"Name's Bo Rylen." He holds out one big hand and she takes it, shaking it firmly, as though a tiny show of aggression will make her feel more in control of herself. Something about the sparkle in his eyes, his wide, white grin, the warmth of his touch makes her shiver.

She's seen enough romance vids she's mentally rolling her eyes at herself even as previously untapped teenaged hormones wake in her sixteen-year-old body and sigh over Bo.

Didi opens her mouth to share her own name only to have the handsome blond lean in and cover her lips with one finger. His head cocks to the side, eyes locked on the entrance to their little hiding place. Footsteps, muttered voices, a few moments of tension and it's over, the men who had been chasing them moving off and finally leaving them to the quiet of the trash.

Bo drops his hand and sits back, still grinning. "Well now, that was a fun morning jaunt," he says. "Thanks for taking part."

Didi tries to scowl, but can't muster one. She owes him for getting her moving, after all. "Didi Duke," she says, then feels a fool for blurting her name instead of coming up with something clever to say. He'll think her a right idiot.

Bo's eyes widen and she realizes her mistake, the surge of hormones killed off by her sense of self-preservation. He knows her name, she can tell by his reaction, though he softens his shock and leans toward her with curiosity in his blue eyes.

"Well now," he says. "The whole of this city seems to be looking for you, Didi Duke, and I'm the one who runs into you." He chuckles and sits back again, smile wide, broad chest straining against the buttons on his pale green shirt as he crosses his arms behind his head. The top two are undone, smooth skin showing beneath, the round of a pectoral muscle. Didi forces her eyes away, furious with herself. She needs to focus if she's going to escape this situation.

Then again, does she want to? Maybe this Bo Rylen is the person she needs to find her father. After that... well, she'll think about after, after.

"Forgive me," he says. "I'm not in the habit of dragging strange girls into danger."

"Who's strange?" It comes out sharp and full of anger. She needs it to keep her safe.

He unfolds his arms, holding up both hands in defense. "I didn't mean it that way," he says, deep voice soft. He's close to her age, maybe a little older, but he seems so much more confident than she is. More practiced. And while she shouldn't let him lull her into calm, she does feel better when his attitude switches from easy arrogance to kindness and compassion. "Besides, you, from what I understand, bring your own danger with you." He lets his hands drop into his lap. "You do realize there's a price on your head?"

***

# Chapter Twenty Four

She should feel uncomfortable with him right now. Surely he's thinking about turning her in. But there's still that kindness in his tone, in his face, that makes her feel like he's not her enemy. Silly, silly girl. Wariness wakes at last. She should have charged her protections, at least. The only weapon she has is the laser pen in her bag.

"So," Bo Rylen says, offering his hand, "what does it feel like to have an Underlord after you, anyway?"

Didi fumbles for something to say, even as Bo laughs and shoos her toward the exit.

"There are more comfortable places to talk," he says. "And I have a delivery to make."

Didi hesitates, hand going to her bag. She could get a few good cuts in with the laser pen before he could pin her down. If she can get her fingers around it.

He doesn't move, but his face softens further. "I'm no threat to you," he says in a voice that reminds her of the gunslinger. "I promise. I just want out."

Didi nods, swallows. Backs her way out of the small cubbyhole. Bo emerges behind her, stretching out his tall body, turning to look back and forth at both ends of the alley. He's taller than she thought when they ran, about a foot taller than her, lean hipped and long legged, with an expressive face that fascinates her. She has to shake off this odd influence he has over her before she loses it completely.

"Now then," he says, turning down the alley the way they'd come, gesturing for her to precede him, "while it's been delightful, I have a job to do." He pauses while the panicked idea of being alone again takes her over in a rush of fear. "Unless you'd like to join me?"

He doesn't have to ask her twice, though her mind is screaming at her to be more careful. What, is she really going to trust the first stranger she comes across, someone who is obviously at odds with the law, some kind of thief or criminal? Why yes, as a matter of fact. Until someone better comes along.

Didi convinces herself he might be able to help her. so she joins him when he strolls out into the street, taking her hand in the process. She welcomes the warmth of his skin against hers while her heart pounds, partly from the fear of being out in the open like this, and partly from the contact with Bo Rylen. He whistles softly to himself as they walk, the picture of a good-natured and well-behaved citizen of Trash City going about his business.

His attitude doesn't help her nerves any.

"Why should I trust you?" The words escape her in a whisper and she wonders if he even heard her until he answers in a low voice past his relaxed smile.

"Why should I risk my life just being with you?" He winks. "Just so you know, I'd be crazy to turn you in. It's my guess anyone who did so would end up dead, thanks to the Underlord." He shrugs casually, Didi admiring the way his body moves before she swallows and looks away. "At least, that's our experience in dealing with the scourge of the galaxy." He nods to an older lady who smiles back on impulse. He really does have that kind of open allure and charisma. Didi catches her own lips turning up and stops herself by clenching her free hand into a fist, though for the life of her she can't figure out why she's still holding onto him with her other.

"I see," Didi says. "I guess that's a good reason."

He laughs, the sound of it making her tingle. "That and I can't resist a damsel in distress." His blue eyes are the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. "You are in distress?"

She nods, looks away again as a lump rises in her throat. "How much do you know?"

Bo's hand tightens ever so slightly, a gesture she takes as sympathy. "Not much," he says. "Only the scuttlebutt about you. My family received the alert yesterday."

"I'm looking for my father." She shouldn't tell him anything. She has no idea who he really is, though she strongly suspects he's not trustworthy despite his assurance he won't turn her in. There are lots of different kinds of trust.

"So that's what this is about." Bo sounds satisfied. "There was a rumor about a scientist the Underlord wanted to talk to. But no one knows why or what he's after." Her companion glances at her. "Your father, I take it."

It's Didi's turn to shrug. "I guess it must be."

"Any idea what's so special about Daddy dearest?" She should take offense to his phrasing, but his words are kind, almost self-mocking. Is he thinking of his own father, maybe? Her mind and heart make the leap.

"No," she says. "Only that he was working on a new invention." She touches the pouch in her clothing, reassuring herself about the chip. She catches Bo looking at her hand, but he glances away again. He has no way of knowing what she carries. "Since it was taken too, I can only guess it was about that."

"And Pops gave you no clue as to why this particular machine of his had value to an Underlord?" Bo slows his steps and waves to a young couple coming toward them. Didi holds her breath as the pair pass, Bo shaking hands with the young man before they continue on, the girl nodding to Didi. They have passed before she can nod back.

"None." Didi shivers despite the heat of the aging morning. "But I need to find my father. That's all that matters to me." She thinks of the gunslinger with regret, of Pip. And pushes them to the back of her mind. Dad has to come first. The other two... well maybe she can find a way to help them when this is over.

"Interesting." Bo turns her down another alley before releasing her hand and crossing his arms over his chest. "Not that I believe a word you're saying. But interesting anyway."

Didi stares up at him, mouth gaping. "Did you just call me a liar?"

He nods, shrugs, grins. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face," he says. "Yours in particular it seems." Bo's arms drop, one hand going to her cheek, to brush hair back. She steps away from him, insulted and hurt and finally shaking loose of this odd charismatic control he's woven around her. "But I know a liar when I talk to one."

"Go to hell." She turns on her booted heels, ready to abandon him and go it alone. Blikey boys and their ruddy arrogance.

"Didi." She hesitates. "I'm sorry." She turns back, body betraying her before she can stop herself. He stands there in the dimness, shoulders slumped, hands extended. "Please, forgive me. But I had to test you. Just in case you were lying."

"Why?" She snaps the word like a command.

"Silly," he says. "If I'm going to help you at the risk of my own life, I have to know you're telling me everything." He pauses, looks purposefully down at her waist, at the pouch where the chip hides. "You're not, are you? Telling me everything?"

He's like magic, this stranger. How does he know? And why ever would he want to help her? He doesn't even know her.

"You've gotten as much from me as you've earned," she says, taking a firm grip on herself. "For someone who threw me headlong into more trouble when I have enough of my own, you're awfully cocky about this trust business."

He laughs, shoulders back again. "Fair enough," he says.

"I didn't ask for your help, either," she says. "Nor do I trust a stranger who offers when there's nothing in it for him."

Bo's grin widens. "Who says there isn't?"

She's nervous again, looks around, expecting to be jumped or pinned down by strangers. She's followed him blindly until now, the fool she is. But, no one appears, it's just the two of them, Bo grinning at her like it's hilarious.

"I don't have anything to give you," she says, stammering the admission.

He holds out his hand again. "I beg to differ," he says. "See, I'm an enterprising sort. Whatever it is the Underlord wants from your father, it's bound to be valuable, yes?" She can only assume that's true. "And, since I have no desire to work for such an unsavory taskmaster, I'll choose the next best thing." He tips an imaginary hat at her. "I figure you and that dad of yours will be so grateful when I save the day some kind of sumptuous reward will be in order."

Didi nods quickly. "Anything I can do, if I can do it."

He winks, and she feels heat rise in her cheeks. Whatever that expression is on his face, she rather likes the way it makes her body tingle all over again.

"Good then," he says. "For now, we need to get you to a safe place, cleaned up," his nose wrinkles slightly and she blushes all over again, "something to eat. And a plan."

She takes his hand, allows him to pull her along again. "What about the job you had to do?"

"What about it?" His blue eyes catch the light as they reenter the street. "Already done."

She almost asks when, and realizes the young couple had to have been part of it. "I didn't even see you pass him anything."

"Not him," Bo says with a chuckle. "Her. She picked my pocket."

Didi shakes her head. "You are a thief, then."

"Now, now," Bo says, hurt in his voice. "Not a common thug, thank you. I am a master of my craft. As are most of my family." He says the word with a hint of bitterness in his voice, just the barest touch. It makes her wonder what he means by family. "But, fear not. They are of equal mind with me. They know better than to mess with the Underlord. If anyone can find out where your father is being held, it's them."

She tugs on his hand, stumbling to a halt, forcing a couple of pedestrians to circle around her with odd looks at her. She's suddenly aware of her state of mess, of the fact there's a price on her head. They are still in the more run-down part of the city. Anyone here could be on the Underlord's payroll. Including Bo and his family.

Bo gets her moving again as fear keeps her protests at a minimum. "I know what you're thinking," he says. "Just trust me, Didi. They'll do anything for the right price."

She shouldn't. No way, not a chance, she's daft and foolish to consider it. But she's exhausted and alone, without anything resembling a plan of her own. And his smile and her hormones urge her to follow.

Knowing she's a blikey fool, relieved to be doing something, anything, she finds herself going with him anyway, wondering if she's just lost her mind.

***

# Chapter Twenty Five

Didi follows Bo, his hand still gripping hers, dragging slightly behind him as they move through the city. She keeps her head down now, worried she might run into Jackus again. Has he tracked her here? He must have realized the gunslinger put her on the train, that she's looking for her father. It's just disconcerting he might know how to find her.

But no, as she walks along behind Bo, his firm hand on hers, her logical mind puts it all together. Of course he knows she's in the city and their path from the mag train yard was pretty much a straight shot. It would be easy for Jackus to find them. She's been acting foolishly, bouncing around from disaster to desperate act to mindless wandering.

That has to stop if she's going to find Dad.

Their odd course to escape their chasers seems to have done the job, for she sees no sign of Jackus or the two men he's been traveling with. Either that or the mechcop appearance scared the squatter enough he's gone into hiding.

It makes her think of the gunslinger with more sadness than she expected. It's not like he's a real person anymore, though her heart says otherwise. He's organic under all that plastanium, isn't he? She keeps forgetting he's just a weapon to her, a means to an end. That's ruffled her feathers about as badly as losing Pip.

"Any idea where the mechcops would have taken a fallen gunslinger?" She says it casually, wincing at the words emerging, knowing it's anything but a casual thing to say. Bo glances over his shoulder at her, whistles.

"You brought a gunslinger with you?" His blue eyes are wide, a grin about the brilliance of a ten-year-old with a new toy lighting his face. "A real, honest-to-trash gunslinger?"

She sighs and nods. "The mechcops have him."

Bo shakes his head, excitement fading. "Probably scrapped by now," he says, disappointment clear in his voice. "Blikey. I've always wanted to meet a gunslinger." Before she can get too down, though, he winks at her. "That kind of information is worth knowing, Didi. I'll see what I can dig up."

Relief is a foreign thing to her and she's not sure how to say thank you. Doesn't need to as he jerks on her a little harder, pulling her toward a building at the end of the street. They don't enter the front door though, not that she's surprised. It's a warren of dilapidation around here, even worse than the previous areas she's visited, closer to the mag line. It's like the people who live here don't care or can't bring themselves to, the stench of the planet far worse than she's expecting as though all the decay on Trash Heaven has culminated in this cul-de-sac.

Worse even than Putter's territory, if that's possible, the combination of rotting effluvia mixed with the burnt tang of metals and plas that have seen better days. Her mouth guard's filter is long overdue for a cleaning, nose plugs in about as good a shape. She swallows past her revulsion and keeps pace with Bo's longer legs just so he won't pull her arm out of its socket in his eagerness.

He's like a giant, bounding puppy—she's seen such creatures in vids, fluffy and enthusiastic—and, within minutes, she's in darkness again, out of the full light and heat of the mid-morning sun, washed with cleaner air, thankfully as she steps through a side door in the alley next to the last building on the block and into a startling reality.

A façade, the building, masking a private garden of Eden. It's the only way she can describe the courtyard-like space, pots of fresh plants sheltered with plasglass and misted with water as condensation rolls softly down the insides of the cases.

Even the ground is different than outside, as though on purpose, plates of mismatched plas and metal covering it in irregular rectangles that forms a gorgeous pattern of color and shape. The many windows and doors, a ring of balconies overhead, seem scrubbed clean and almost pristine, the heavy stench outside not penetrating in here.

"Welcome to my home," Bo says, smile soft and genuine as he looks around. "What do you think?"

She gapes, looking up at the sky, catching the faintest shimmer of blue. They must have a filter screen over the roof to keep the smell away, the dirt. She's never seen anything so beautiful and it makes her acutely conscious of how dirty she is.

He doesn't wait for her to answer, laughing at her expression, continuing to drag her into the courtyard. She looks down with a blush as a small group of people about her age hurry by, laughing. They wave at Bo, one of them tossing saucy hips his way, and Didi wonders at the sharp jab of anger that flirtation raises in her.

But, they don't stop, Bo guiding her across the span, leaving the courtyard for the cooler interior of the building. It's still lovely in here, though not as lush as outside, the floors clean, walls freshly painted. Even the doors seem newish, with embellishments that remind her of art.

Bo sees her looking and grins, points. "One of the guys is a metal shaper," he says. "Loves to play with design. Brill, right?"

She nods, stumbling over her feet in her continuing surprise, feeling like a bit of a bumpkin in this lovely place. Sure, she adored her greenhouse and would pit it against this recreation of something more extravagant, but even she has to admit she could get used to living in surrounds that meant she would more than likely remain clean.

How lovely that would be.

"First things." He stops at a staircase, swings up them two at a time, Didi hurrying to keep up. "A cleansing, some fresh clothes. Then, you meet Hist and we find out what we can do for you."

She almost resists the offer of new clothes. She'll lose her protections. But a cleansing... that she's been looking forward to for what feels like ages but, she realizes, is less than a day.

A day. Since she killed a bole, resurrected a gunslinger, lost everything she loved.

Didi finds it hard to breathe when that truth settles in. So much can change so very quickly.

Bo is barely at the top landing when he slams to a halt, Didi running into his back, squashing her nose against his spine. He seems stiff suddenly, his easy good nature firming up into stress that instantly triggers her own anxiety.

She peeks around his shoulder as a stranger speaks, the tall, gray haired man not even looking her way.

"Hist wants to see you," he says, gruff voice angry. "Now."

"I was going to offer our guest hospitality." Bo gestures at Didi, but the man doesn't change attitude or shift his gaze to her. Like she doesn't exist.

"Now, Bo." The man points back down the stairs. "Move."

Her companion's casual shrug is anything but, if the hard squeeze of his hand is an indicator. Bo turns and smiles at Didi, his eyes tight around the edges.

"Hist it is," he says. And shakes his head ever so slightly at her, lips pursed.

Didi's fear level rises, though Bo never lets go of her hand, the two retreating back down the stairs. The man follows them, his feet clomping on the steps like hammer-falls of doom and the pair of angry women at the bottom, staring up with matching scowls, only serve to make Didi even more nervous.

The taller of the two has her arms folded over her wide, ample bosom, her slender companion's horse face grim. Neither speaks, turning their backs on Bo whose footsteps slow even further though he follows.

"Didi," he whispers. "I don't know what's happening, but whatever it is, I'm sorry." He sounds genuine. "This can't be good."

"I thought you said your family would help?" She tries to pull her hand away but he won't let her.

"That was the consensus when I left this morning." He glances over his shoulder at the older man, head tilting down toward her as he continues to whisper. "Something's changed."

She knew she couldn't trust him. This was a terrible idea. But Didi is out of options. All she can do now is see this through and hope he's wrong.

They pass several open doors, gather a crowd of frowning followers. Bo's attitude only worsens, his shoulders slumping slightly until they emerge through a pair of wide, wooden doors—a rarity on Trash Heaven, Didi's never seen the like—and into a low but expansive chamber. It looks like tile on the floor, real stone tile, and more wood, this time chairs and a long table. Where they found such precious pieces Didi has no idea. The climate on Trash Heaven wreaks havoc on organics.

But, it's the trio of older people sitting in the rare chairs that draw her full attention, and the press of people who enter behind her, filling the room with their presence. Bo is still holding her hand in a death grip and she's thankful for his touch, no longer wanting him to let her go.

He's right. This can't be good. Not from the stern and angry expressions on the faces of the elders.

"Bo Rylen." The woman in the middle speaks, her long, silver hair braided over one shoulder, thin, wrinkled hands clasping the arms of her chair like claws. "What have you done?"

"Mistress Hist." He bows to her, smooth and silky tone stroking her name, charisma turned up to full volume. "May I introduce—"

"I know full well who this girl is." She cuts him off with an abrupt gesture, and Bo is suddenly gone, torn from Didi, fingers aching from her grip being severed. Didi holds her ground, hoping her lower lip isn't trembling the way it feels like it's trembling, and stiffens her shoulders as the crowd presses in behind her, forcing her forward.

Alone and afraid, she faces the leaders of Bo's family.

"Didi Duke," Hist says, her voice cold, brittle. Pale, gray eyes examine her a moment, make her shiver. "I'll give you one thing, girl. You have more brains than sense." The crowd mutters behind Didi in response. "A gunslinger. You raised and brought a gunslinger to Trash City. For what purpose?"

"To rescue my father from the Underlord." She knows without a doubt lying will get her nowhere with this woman. But, maybe honesty will serve her. She senses a faint respect in Hist as the woman looks her up and down. Or is she imagining it?

More mutters from the crowd, the woman beside Hist snorting, the man shaking his head.

"A single girl and an ancient peacekeeper against the power of the Underlords." When she puts it that way, Didi has to admit it sounds ludicrous.

"What else would you have me do?" Didi didn't mean to challenge the woman. But she's in the worst situation of her life, and has a feeling no matter what she does or says, this is going to end badly. "Abandon my father? Sit out in the trash and do nothing?"

Hist raises one hand to silence the barrage of hissing and shouts that answer Didi's questions.

"You have brought trouble and risk to this family." She drops her hand to the chair arm with an audible thunk. "And, though one of ours made the mistake, it is you, I'm afraid, who must pay the price."

"Hist, please." Bo speaks up, even his smooth calm gone, faintly desperate. "Just let her go."

"I can't." The old woman shakes her head. "The Underlord knows she's here, you idiot boy. Knew the moment the girl passed into this territory."

Didi's chest tightens. "You're turning me over to the Underlord."

Hist shrugs, looks away with a frown pinching her brows together. "Were this handled better," she says, "I may have found a way to keep you safe. But that time is over." She looks back, gray eyes cold. "I have sent an emissary to the Underlord. You will be turned over when my man returns."

"What happened to our rules, Hist?" Bo's voice vibrates with rage. "We don't traffic in people." This time when they crowd mutters, it's in soft response to him. There are a few here, it seems, who agree with him. "And we don't work for the Underlords."

More mutters, head shakes. But Hist's anger is stronger as she thumps her fists down one last time.

"You give me no choice!" She surges to her feet, tall, skinny body swaying in her red robe. Didi almost feels sorry for her. Looks around at the family gathering, though she now realizes that term is a loose one.

"I understand." She nods to Hist who seems suddenly shocked, then ashamed, her pale, wrinkled cheeks pinking. "You have them to worry about. But, I ask you, Mistress Hist. Once you cross that line, once the Underlord knows you will capitulate, you've lost your ability to say no."

The woman sinks to her seat. "I am aware of that, young woman," she says. "It's the reason I curse your arrival in our lives."

"Then help me defeat the Underlord." If they fight with her, help her find her father... even rescue the gunslinger, they might have a chance. "Eliminate the problem." It's the most logical course of action.

Hist seems to waver, but finally hangs her head. "Take her," she whispers. "Keep her safe. And let me know when the Underlord's emissary arrives."

***

# Chapter Twenty Six

She's led away by the same pair of women, considers running. But this place is a warren of corridors, a mess of people and doorways and staircases. She could flee, but she's pretty sure doing so might lead to worse than just being held until the Underlord's people come.

Besides, why run? This is what she wanted, isn't it? To find the Underlord and trade the chip for her father. Perfect. Mind you, she doesn't have the gunslinger to guard her back, or Pip to watch over her shoulder. It's just Didi and the tiny, gold sliver of tech in her secret pocket.

Her fingers dip, explore the space. Find the trigger for her protections.

And nothing else.

She stumbles to a halt, chest constricting, heart pounding, all the blood rushing from her face to pool at her feet. She's certain she's going to pass out as blackness closes in around the edges of her vision, her chest compressed so tightly she can't breathe.

The woman leading her spins instantly, the one behind her prodding her to make her move, but Didi can't. Can't. The chip. Her fingers search, ignoring the sharp pain as the large woman behind her smacks her on the back of the head before pinching her hard.

"Get a move on, you." Her deep, rough voice barely registers.

The pocket is empty.

The chip is gone.

Didi finally lurches forward, all hope dead inside her, fumbling for motion as the big woman shoves her with a flat hand in the middle of her back. She moves in a fog, defeat a bitter tang in the back of her throat, not seeing or hearing anything around her as she's shoved through a door and into a small, dark room.

"No tricks outta ya," the big woman grunts before slamming the door. Didi sinks to the floor, knees now rubber, legs strengthless as the last seed of her hope for Dad dies in her chest.

The chip. She's lost it somewhere along the way, on her run with Bo, maybe, or on the train. No, she had it in the city, she remembers feeling for it. It must have happened when Bo ran into her.

Wait, no. She checked for it, didn't she? And his eyes—

She pounds on the ground with both fists, sobbing her sudden rage. He took it. He stole the chip from her, the lying, deceitful, blikey—

Didi slumps over and sobs into the plas floor, willing herself to just die. It doesn't happen, naturally. She's a failure at everything, so why should her last desire come true? She's bungled things so badly since the moment Dad disappeared. And, likely, now that she thinks of it, telling Jackus he was working on something has to have been the trigger.

She got Dad kidnapped. And now she's set herself up to be taken by the Underlord, too. Without a scrap of anything to trade for her life and her father's.

It's a long time before she drags herself upright, wipes the tears from her dirty face with her equally dirty hands, sinks back against the wall of what feels like a closet, and hugs her upraised knees. She stares at the door, waiting. There's nothing more she can do. They have her bag, they have the chip. And she's alone.

When the door creaks open, Bo slipping inside, she can't even muster the strength to shout at him. She just stares up at him with hate in her face, and hopes somehow though she's unable to will herself to death, that sentiment works on him.

He winces at her expression, crouching in front of her with a bundle in his hands.

"Didi, I'm so sorry." He swallows hard, blue eyes rimmed with moisture. She turns her face away from him, refuses to say a thing. He doesn't deserve her attention or her forgiveness. "I really am. I thought they'd be more understanding."

"Go die in the trash," she whispers. Her voice is hoarse from all the crying, but she doesn't care. Didn't mean to speak, either. "Thief and liar, that's what you are, Bo Rylen."

He nods, looking down at the cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands. "I know it," he says, soft, unapologetic. "Always been, Didi."

"You stole the chip from me." She rests her forehead on her knees. "The only thing that will keep Dad safe."

He doesn't answer, but she catches movement form the corner of her eye as he sets the bundle on the ground next to her.

"Found this in the courtyard," he says. "Funny, the thing said your name before it collapsed." He stands, heads for the door. "I know you'll never forgive me. But I'm not going to give up on you, Didi. This isn't us." He sounds choked up, falls silent a moment. "I've never been so ashamed of my family." Another pause. "Just give me a chance to make it right."

He leaves, closing the door behind him. She looks up, shouts a curse at the exit, turns sideways, eyes on the bundle.

Feathers. There's black feathers under the strip of cloth. All thought leaves her, desperate hope, once dead, waking like a fire bird from the ashes of her heart as she lunges forward and pulls free the covering.

"Pip!" Didi gathers the crumpled form of the crow in her arms and rocks him. She can feel the damage to his little body through their contact, eases him back and into her lap, tears making it difficult to get a good look at him. At least they left her goggles. She pulls them down, examines her small friend with the holographic lenses and feels her heart twist one last time.

He's badly damaged, much more than ever before, his cyborg parts crushed in places, organics still and quiet. She doesn't have the tools she needs to resurrect him, though she can feel, with some relief, the tiny, frail beating of his heart.

He's alive, barely. For how long she has no idea. And no way to help him recover.

"Oh, Pip." Didi hugs him again, gentler this time. "I'm a right fool, dragging us into this mess. I promise if somehow we manage to get away, I'll take care of you. I swear I'll make you whole again."

He doesn't respond, feathered body silent and still.

It's the most heartbreaking moment she's ever endured.

She has no idea how much time passes as she rocks her crow friend in her arms and tries not to think. Thinking is too painful. Better to just give in to her despair and wait for the end to come.

When the door opens for the second time, she doesn't look up, though she knows it's Bo by the way his big feet cross the floor. She doesn't resist when one of his hands grasps her arm, pulls her to her feet. She's so surprised he's manhandling her, she looks up, her first moment of interest meeting a scared but determined expression on his face.

"Are you coming," he asks, eyes tight and grim, "or not?"

***

# Chapter Twenty Seven

"The Underlord's people are here?" She won't go willingly after all, feels a tiny, furious animal wake in her chest, claw and fight and shriek until she's sure it will tear a hole in her body and run away on its own.

He turns and only then does she see the unconscious form of the large woman collapsed in the hall outside her door. She gapes as Bo tugs on her.

"I told you I wouldn't give up on you," he says. "Turns out I'm a bigger fool than you are. Now, if you want to escape and maybe not have my people kill us in the process, you'll get your feet moving, Didi Duke." He manages a grin at last. "This is a rescue."

Never mind he's the reason she's in this room to begin with. "Why?"

He exhales heavily and shakes his head. "Really? We're going to have this conversation right now?"

She resists him, can't trust him. Her jaw sets and he sighs, running his free hand, shaking, through his messy hair.

"Let's just say I have a fundamental clash of ideals with Hist right now." So, he's in trouble, too, then is he? And he's looking for his own backup. She's not sure she wants to be that for him.

Still, she's quite aware by now he'd never leave without a security blanket of his own. Didi sticks one hand out and glares. "Give it back," she snarls.

Bo gapes at her. "What?"

"Really?" She mimics his tone perfectly, tapping one toe on the floor. As far as she's concerned, she's already going to the Underlord, has made her peace with that fact. This opportunity will only work out for her if he has what she wants, what she needs.

Bo hesitates, biting his lower lip, face contorting. "Didi, come on."

"The chip." She feels her nostrils flare. "Now."

He groans, but finally digs his hand into one pocket, depositing the shining, gold chip into her hand. Didi's heart palpitates as she returns it to the secret hiding place in her clothing. If only she had enough of a charge to fire up her protections, he wouldn't be stealing from her again.

Just let him try it. She'll take his rugging hand off at the wrist.

"Are you happy now?" Bo's panic rises, a physical thing, his blue eyes darting toward the door. "You're resistance has likely just signed both of our deaths in plastanium."

"I'm done talking," she says, pushing past him, Pip tucked against her side. She steps over the fallen woman in the hallway, turning to glare at him again as her hope—newly restored and now fed by a fury so powerful she is sure she could kill him with it if she really wanted to—surging in her veins. "Hurry up and get us out of here."

He looks like he's going to say something before tossing his hands and rushing past her. Didi runs after him, down the hall and dodges when he does through an open doorway. The sound of feet thudding on the floor makes her anxious, distant shouts telling her someone has found the fallen guard. But they are still running, through the maze of the building and, as Bo makes turn after confident turn, Didi begins to think maybe they might escape after all.

And yet, she has the chip again. The Underlord's men are here. She could just turn herself in and do the trade. Not ideal, but an option. So, why is she still running as if her life depends on it?

Because, she realizes, it does. She's been a fool all along, but she's done with that now. No trade, no giving herself up. The Underlord will just kill her and take the chip, then kill Dad, likely. No, she needs firepower and the means to rescue her father, a way to bring the Underlord down, like she said to Hist.

She needs the gunslinger.

Bo stops abruptly, back pedals so fast she trips over him, almost lands on the floor. He catches her, pulls her back, through a doorway, just as someone shouts.

"Well," he says, characteristic grin wide and sparkling. "That was a bit of bad luck." Bo turns, looking up and down at the window at the far end of the room where they stand. Didi hears feet heading their way, slams the door, but there's no lock.

They are trapped.

Until Bo leaps up, grasping the window sill, and kicks out with both feet at the plas window. She's sure he'll end up with shattered bones. That stuff is harder than rock. And, when he falls to the floor, groaning, she realizes his idea is a good one.

He just doesn't have the right equipment.

Her boots zing to life, the deflectors at full power. With a shout of defiance at the solid surface, Didi runs for the window and leaps at the last moment, both feet impacting the slick window.

She's either just killed herself or made their escape. And, as the plas shatters even as the frame collapses under the outward thrust created by her boots, she catches herself laughing, hysterically.

It's a five foot drop to the street below, but the cushion of her deflectors catches her at the last second and softens the landing. Someone hits the ground hard beside her, Bo's groan enough of an identifier to tell her he's at least alive.

She doesn't wait for him, running down the alley way toward the street. His footfalls follow a moment later, staggering and off beat a bit before they settle into something more steady. His hand grasps hers to the sound of pursuit, but they have a lead and, with a tight tug on her hand, Bo leads her deeper into the city.

He pulls her up a few moments later, tucking her in behind a pile of recycling, bending at the waist to catch his breath. Bo looks a little worse for wear, not that she cares.

"You're welcome," she says.

He grins at her. "We're even, the way I see it." He pushes her further into the shadow of the pile as someone runs by the end of the street. It's not until silence falls again, punctuated by the normal sounds of the nighttime city, that he speaks again. "But, I might have a one-up, if you're interested."

She is, but hates to admit it. "Impress me, thief boy," she says.

Bo's face crumples, and it takes her a moment to realize the crushed expression is fake. "You cut me, dear lady." He sniffs. "Cut me deep."

His antics make her feel better and she laughs despite her determination to hate him forever. "Just tell me."

Bo turns and gestures to the end of the street. "Well," he says, "while you languished in relaxation and laziness, I did my best to figure out this problem of yours."

"Uh-huh." She cradles Pip, wondering how much longer he has. "You mean your people were going to turn you over or punish you and you decided to help me instead of letting them kill you for bringing this to their door."

"Ah," he says. "Well, perhaps there was something like that involved. Still. I did bring you your crow." He seems surprised and curious about Pip but doesn't comment further. "And, in case you were wondering, I located another friend of yours."

Didi grasps Bo's arm with one hand, desperate need burning inside her. "You found him?" She has gone from hopeless and helpless to the scrape of a maybe. She'll have to make it count.

"I have." Bo bows at the waist. "And, if you're of a mind, I'll be happy to take you there."

She pushes past him again, already on the move. He might have screwed up so far, but Bo will be forgiven at last if he really can take her where she needs to go.

"Get me to the gunslinger," she says over her shoulder. "And we'll see about that reward."

***

# Chapter Twenty Eight

In a way, she is grateful for Bo, especially when he finds her an underground, abandoned machine shop and helps her break in. She spends the next tense hour repairing Pip while Bo paces and waits with a total lack of patience.

She does her best to ignore him. He's the one who's gotten her into this mess, isn't he? And yet, without him, she would have no idea where to find the gunslinger and Pip would likely be dead.

It's a close thing, as she triggers his cyborg systems back to life with the help of a small genny she is able to activate. His metal parts sizzle and spark while his organics twitch, but it's not until his red eye opens, servos inside whirring, she exhales in relief.

"Pip." She strokes his feathers smooth while his beak opens and shuts, heart settling into a steady rhythm, if a little fast for her liking. "Stupid bird, what were you thinking?" The same as he's always thinking, she reckons.

But, he finally clears his throat and surprises her. "So glad I found you, Didi," he croaks, voice hoarse. "I found Tarvis."

Didi's entire world shivers before tunnel vision drives her torso forward, her hands grasping the crow firmly despite his still damaged condition. "You what?"

Even Bo seems interested, drifting closer.

"They might be cruel and mischievous," Pip says, "but my kind, they know everything." He coughs softly, wings fluttering ever so little. She should be working on getting him functioning, but she can't think past what he's saying. "I should have told you why I went." There's his apology, a real one. "But I thought if you knew my plan you'd make me stay."

She would have. Or would she? Any chance to find her dad... let the crow think so. It made it easier on his heart, if not hers.

"Stupid bird." She blinks back tears, bends and kisses his black brow. "Well done."

Her hands shake, but she gets back to work. She'll need him functioning, now more than ever. She fills him in on what's happened to now, while the corbie's red eye spins toward Bo, suspicion practically oozing from his feathers.

"I'll keep an eye on him for you, Didi," the crow says, loud enough the young thief hears him, surely. Bo grins in response, arms crossed over his broad chest.

"A talking crow," he says, good humor in his voice. "You should take this show on the road, Didi. You'd make a mint in the rich houses off-world."

She doesn't comment. "Where's my father?" Because, Dad is first on her list. But she doesn't stop there, a little surprised at the heat and emotion in her voice when she speaks again. "And tell me about where the gunslinger is being held."

Bo shrugs, looks out the small, dusty window, the only source of outside information in the underground space. Didi is rather taken with the place, now her heart's desires are coming true. She'd love to make it her own, set up shop here. It has everything she needs and more. Such a pity someone just abandoned it.

"Your cyborg is at a G.C. depot," he says, answering her second question as though she should know what that means. "Three mechcops, no humans that I know of. All automated. They'll likely decom him again and ship him out, is my guess."

Didi pushes her bangs out of her face with one wrist, hands slick with oil and a few drops of the crow's blood from his organics as Pip squirms beneath her, testing her repairs long before he should. "Would he be gone already?" She won't lose hope, not now. If she can't recover the gunslinger, she'll find another way.

"Not likely." Bo drops his arms to his sides, points at Pip. "But we shouldn't be much longer. There's a transport to the moon in a few hours. If he's going out, it'll be on that ship."

She's not done with Pip, but she doesn't have much choice, it seems. When she rights him on his feet, his cyborg claw stiffens, forming a hard ball of metal he can't seem to unravel. But, when she sighs and reaches for him, Pip shakes out his wings and takes erratic flight.

"This will do," he says. "Let's go get the gunslinger."

Didi hugs him in gratitude and lets him take his favorite perch on her shoulder, feeling his club foot slide through the lip of her jacket for support. Bo chuffs a sigh and grins, heading for the exit.

"Finally," he says. "Follow me."

She does, blindly, knowing he could be leading her into more danger. But, the precious chip is in her secret pocket again—she checks it every minute or so to be sure—and she has Pip back. If she can pull off the rescue of the gunslinger...

Well. One step at a time.

The depot isn't far, as it turns out and, before Didi can prepare herself—is there any way, really, to prepare herself?—Bo is spinning on her with the biggest grin ever. Something dangerous and sparkling dances in his eyes as he points across the street in the darkness. She takes in the tall fence, the gate, the two mechcops emerging as Bo speaks.

"Wish me luck. And be safe, Didi Duke." His lips press to her cheek, hot and tingling, before he runs off, heading right for the gate. Didi stares, mouth gaping, fingers brushing over the place his lips touched, even as Bo stops at the gate and waves at the mechcops.

They have him, the gunslinger. He's on some kind of floating pad, silent and stiff, but intact from what she can see. Bo whistles sharply, drawing the attention of the towering machines who spin their turrets toward him, lights bright in his face, casting his long shadow back toward her.

"Bo Rylen," he bows to them with a hearty tone. "At your service. I believe I'm on your most wanted list...?"

The mechcops freeze and stare. Didi's heart pounds as the first one speaks its mechanical command.

"Identity confirmed. Bo Rylen, male, seventeen years. Prepare for arrest." Its system must be linked to the yard, because the gate slides open, the sizzle of a protective charge shutting down with the act. Didi understands, processes the opportunity and is running before she can stop herself, while Bo heads the other way with a wink in her direction.

Both mechcops pursue him, leaving the gunslinger standing on the floating pad. Didi can't believe her luck, sends a silent thanks to Bo for putting himself at risk, hoping he will escape but unable to think about his safety just then. Stupid mechcops, left her exactly what she needed.

It's not until she steps up on the pad, her weight not even registering on the mags beneath it, she remembers Bo mentioned there were three protectors of the yard. Just as the third mechcop emerges from the warehouse and focuses its attention on her.

No time. She grasps the gunslinger's weapon from his side holster and jerks it around, pointing it at the mechcop. The thing vibrates in her hand, the sight instantly assessing and registering the target even as she pulls the trigger.

She expected a blast of plasma. Didi did not, however, plan for the giant ball of death that emerges from the muzzle of the gunslinger's weapon. Tuned to each situation, its internal systems create exactly the amount of force needed to take down opposition.

Didi lands hard on her behind, almost sliding off the edge of the platform while Pip squawks in her ear. She gapes in shock at the mechcop, heart pounding, blinking through the dazzle of light from the plasma charge. It takes her a moment to clear her sight, just in time to watch the smoking remains of the machine topple slowly on its side, the turret smoking and red.

"Farging snargle," she whispers, looking down at the gun in her hands. Has visions of blasting her way into the Underlord's lair. And looks up.

He towers over her, still silent. This weapon is his. Imagine what he could do with it, now he's prepared? Didi catches herself grinning, an adrenaline-fueled burst of energy driving her up to her feet. She stuffs the gun into his holster, hands shaking so violently she has to try a few times to make it right. Hurry. She has to hurry. The blast will surely bring attention, the other two mechcops probably not far away. She needs him to wake up.

His chest plate dings softly as she slams it open, the metal ringing on metal while she digs around inside. The chip. It's there, still there. Thankfully. Just slipped free, like when she found him. Didi bites her lower lip hard to keep from laughing hysterically—she really needs to learn to control her emotions in times like this—and hits the chip as hard as she can, driving it into place.

Forgetting his reaction to waking last time wasn't ideal. At least, until it's done and blue light bursts from his body, eyes flaring even as Didi ducks to the ground, Pip in her arms.

"Didi." The gunslinger bends instantly, pulls her up. "Thank you."

She exhales in delighted terror. "Nice to see you're all in one piece." She hefts Pip back onto her shoulder.

The gunslinger turns slowly, stares at the fallen mechcop. "Unlike someone we know."

Humor. He has a sense of humor. She can't wrap her mind around that.

"We have to go." She tugs on his hand, but he's already moving.

"Agreed," he says, lifting her into his arms and running for the gate. She stares over his silver shoulder, expecting to see pursuit and half hoping for a glimpse of Bo, though she'd never admit it out loud. But, nothing as they slip around the corner, the gunslinger continuing his run.

She guides him from there, back to the machine shop. When he sets her down at last, she spins and hugs him, can't help herself. When he hugs her back, heavy, metal arms gentle, it's very, very hard not to cry.

The mechcops will be hunting him, but she can't leave just yet. Instead, she tells the gunslinger of her encounters, of Bo and Pip's return while stalling. Just in case.

Just in case Bo Rylan shows up again.

"We will find your father and rescue him." The gunslinger sounds even more determined, totally on her side, and Didi doesn't know if she should laugh or cry. "I have seen the corruption of this place. I know now the machines that replaced my people aren't worthy to carry the safety of your citizens in their care." He sounds almost offended, furious if she can add that to his list of oddities. From everything she knows, gunslingers aren't supposed to feel. "Injustice exists on Trash Heaven. And I will not tolerate it to continue. I might be decommissioned as a peacekeeper, but I will not stand for this, Didi."

She blinks, confused then concerned. "We're not here to save the planet," she says. "Just my dad."

"Indeed." The gunslinger turns to the exit. "And, once that task is complete, I will deliver you to safety before returning to ensure those who have corrupted my duty pay for their crimes."

She's created a monster. As long as he's on her side.

***

He will stop at some point and tell her their time is almost up. His need to save the people of this place supersedes everything, as does his drive to rescue Didi's father. So much darkness here, down to the root of the Galactic Conjunction. The human handlers of the mechcops and their greed.

"A gunslinger," the man in the uniform had chortled over him, rubbing his dry, filthy hands together, bloodshot eyes glittering, the front of his G.C. coat spotted with food waste. He made the cyborg furious, an emotion that startles him with the depth of its hurt. "I know the perfect home for him. Collector on Martis will pay handsomely for a specimen this perfect."

Bought and sold like a trinket, instead of returning him to his rest...

He has less than two hours before he self-destructs, the sun descending over this despicable place. If she can't figure out how to stop it, he will take as many of his enemies with him as he can. Only if he can prevent the deaths of civilians at the same time. A conundrum he will contemplate until his end. For now, he will bring his best version of law to this lawless place.

The little girl claps her hands in his mind. Daddy.

The gunslinger will not let her down.

***

# Chapter Twenty Nine

Didi follows the gunslinger, pulls him back. Her quick search of the machine shop turned up the only disguise she can offer him. In the turning dark spinning toward morning, she observes her handiwork and shrugs. The long coat only comes to his knees, the hat floppy and barely shading the blue of his glowing eyes. But, at least he's not so obvious and, if he only does up the top two buttons of his coat, his gun is easily reachable.

"Does this make you happy, Didi?" He watches her with his servos whirring in the quiet early morning.

She sighs and tosses her hands. "It's the best we can do for now," she says. "Pip, point the way."

The crow chitters a moment. "That direction, if my kind can be trusted." His beak rises and falls deeper into the city. "According to the murder, we're heading underground." The crow shudders. "We need to find a bar, the Dark Bole. Some kind of entry point."

The gunslinger pauses, head up, first rays of sunlight catching his silver skin. "Allow me to uncover specifics." He turns toward a power pole in the street and approaches it. Didi watches with fascination despite her need to hurry as his right index finger shifts, becoming a port end. He plugs into the city's power system, blue glow of his body pulsing a moment before settling again. Didi holds her breath and her crow while the gunslinger's body stiffens. He finally drops his hand, index finger returning to normal with a whir of servos.

"I have the location," he says. "They are drawing a lot of power, but are shielding beneath. It's some kind of warren, deep beneath the trash."

Shielding beneath would be to protect from boles. That has to be the place. She grins up at him, slugging his plastanium arm before shaking off the sting. "Good job, G.S. Let's go."

He pauses, looking down at her, shoulders shifting under the coat that strains over his massive bulk. "Before we do," he says, "there is something you must know."

She's not going to like what he has to say, she's sure of it. Because this has just been that kind of day.

"When you removed my chip," he says, "in the cargo bay, you activated my self-destruct." She did what? She's not sure if she should hit him or cry. Wants to do both as he goes on. "A twenty-four hour clock began at that time."

But, it's been so much longer than that, hasn't it? Since she first met the gunslinger? Trash Heaven runs on a twenty hour clock... Her mind whirls and rewinds. And realizes no, it hasn't. She glances at the sky, at the early morning, realizing with the time difference added on, it's been maybe one of her days gone past.

"Twenty-two, to be precise," he says in a soft, apologetic voice, "and three minutes, fifteen seconds."

How kind of him to give her such insight. "How do I shut it off?"

He shakes his head. "I am uncertain. My system should have rebooted and canceled the self-destruct when you activated me fully. But, it is still counting down."

"You waited until now to tell me this?" He's fried in the brain for certain.

"I had hoped to find a solution before now."

Blikey.

"We don't have time for this." She needs to get to Dad. But, if she does only to have the wretched gunslinger blow them all to the moon... "You should have told me." She grasps his hand, pulls him aside. If he had told her in the machine room, maybe. Could they spare the time to go back there? Did she dare not? She pulls open his chest panel, has a look inside. But, she's lost without schematics and knows it. No amount of tools or time will help her figure this out without information.

Her heart heaves a little, stiffens before softening and beating again, the inside of her nose burning and tingling with tears she forces down. This can't be happening now, of all times. Not when she's this close to saving Dad.

"I have only one suggestion," the gunslinger says. "Pull the main chip and allow my reserve power to run out. If I force myself to bypass my shutdown, all of my reserves will be used up quickly. While they will keep me sustained in sleep mode, if I remain functional, I'm certain I will die within a matter of an hour or so."

"It's not enough time to rescue Dad," she says.

"Perhaps." The gunslinger's head hangs. "My second option is the best. When the time comes, I simply rise to the outer atmosphere and allow the self-destruct to complete its course."

She grasps at the front of his coat, desperation so vast she's swallowed by it a moment. "You can't!"

His hands settle gently on hers. "I may have no choice." He looks up, across the street. "Our destination awaits. And your father. If you see an opportunity to disarm me, if we are within the time frame I listed, please, remove the chip. But, no matter the end result, I will ensure your safety for as long as I can, Didi."

She won't cry over a stubborn hunk of plastanium and his misplaced sense of heroics. Not when he's marching onward, leaving her no choice but to follow.

***

He already knows how this will end, but he feels badly for her. His death is inevitable. Time to ensure her life lasts far longer than his.

***

Didi trots after the gunslinger, around a corner, catching sight of the sign over the bar they've been searching for. She pauses half a step, opens her mouth to speak. To offer a plan of attack, a suggestion as to their entry point. Maybe they should circle around the back, slip inside unnoticed. Get a look at the place, see if they can find the entrance to the Underlord's lair.

Only to skip a step and have to run to keep up as the gunslinger's stride widens. Before she can do or say a thing to stop him, he's pulling free his weapon and pointing it at the front door of the Dark Bole, plasma blast opening the way.

"That's one way to do it," Didi grumbles under her breath, secretly excited, a thrill running through her veins at the fact they are finally doing something. Dad is close, she can feel it.

She makes it to the hole the gunslinger made in the front of the bar in time to watch flashes pepper the darkness within, waving at the smoke emerging as she coughs on the acrid flavor. She steps over the fallen body of a groaning man, boots crunching on shattered plas and twisted bits of fried metal as she follows her gunslinger—yes, he's hers, she decides with delight—into the dark interior and to the long, low bar at the back of the room.

Someone squeals and runs, but the gunslinger lets the woman go, stomping without pausing to the bar. He strides behind it, disappearing a moment as he bends at the waist, rising with a squirming, shrieking man in his grasp. The skinny, greasy young man sobs in terror, shaking so violently in the gunslinger's grip he swings like a trash rat held by the scruff of its neck.

"You will tell me," he says in his booming voice, "where I can find the Underlord."

The bartender squeaks out a few words Didi can't decipher. Can only assume the same goes for the gunslinger as he casually shakes his prisoner, making the man sway further, a dark, wet stain spreading between his pant legs.

"Repeat the information." He really is good at this. Didi tries her hardest not to giggle.

"The elevator shaft!" This time she hears the man speak clearly, and is able to follow his pointing finger—no matter how hard it trembles—turning to observe the side exit door of the bar.

"Excellent response." The gunslinger sets the man on his feet. "You may leave, citizen."

The bartender gapes up at the silver cyborg a heartbeat before running on shaking legs past Didi and out the door. It's not until he reaches the street he starts screaming.

Let him scream. The Underlord knows they are coming by now. And though that crosses Didi's mind, she has to trust the gunslinger knows what he's doing.

Though, as she approaches the door on the hulking cyborg's silver heels, a tiny part of her quivers in worry his mind's damage is leading her into more trouble than either of them can handle.

He tears open the door, pulling it free of its hinges in a whining cry of breaking metal. A single-panel elevator door waits on the other side. The gunslinger's massive finger mashes the button, lighting it up. Didi clutches both hands to her mouth as they wait to the sound of groaning and moaning behind them for such a pedestrian occurrence as the arrival of the elevator.

The soft ding of its appearance is too much for her. Didi snorts.

"Really," Pip snaps in her ear. "You must take this seriously. He's leading us into the bowels of the planet and you're hysterical."

She shushes the bird, following the gunslinger into the narrow, wobbling chamber. When the doors hiss shut behind them, doubt returns, swallowing her giddiness, but the gunslinger's calm helps keep her stable.

"Do you have a plan when we get to the bottom?" She certainly doesn't. This is the epitome of her entire experience so far—leap without thinking.

The gunslinger's weapon emerges, the whine of it powering up making her shiver.

"Shoot anything that moves," he says.

That's supposed to console her? And yet, she's grinning again. She remembers the kick of that weapon, the way it felt when it went off and took out the mechcop.

Her hope and trust held firmly in her chest like a shield, Didi exhales and tries to feel calm. Seconds tick by, the gunslinger's weapon pointed, unwavering and humming, at the door.

She doesn't think she can handle the pressure as her ears pop and her heart feels like it's going to explode outward like the mechcop's turret.

Didi is ready for anything—an army, an explosion of gunfire, her own death. She thinks so, anyway. Until the elevator comes to a jerking halt and the bell dings. Until the door swishes open and her wide, startled eyes take in who waits for her at the bottom.

"Didi." She lurches forward and into Dad's arms, and bursts into tears.

***

The only thing that saved Tarvis Duke from death was the look on his face. The gunslinger knows that look, feels it in himself. It's how he remembers looking at the girl who laughs in his mind and calls him Daddy.

Emma. He looked at Emma that way.

What is this sharp, agonizing pang ripping through his chest at the sight of Didi leaping into her father's arms? Where does this pain come from, this need to pull her back and shelter her in his own embrace, safe from harm? His body freezes as he processes emotions he's not built to handle, feeling his damaged mind struggle, burn out in places, his systems fighting for control while the girl hugs her father and weeps.

His finger stiffens on the trigger as Emma laughs in his mind, the sky behind her going dark, her giggling joy turning to terror and screams. She falls away from him as he reaches for her, desperate need cutting him into tiny pieces of utter hurt.

The gunslinger is well aware there are others gathering at the door, that he's given up his advantage to these emotions, but he can't shake free, not while the girl he loved and the girl he guards mesh together in the heat of his rising feelings.

Instead, he lowers his weapon, holstering it in the face of the multitude pointed in his direction. He's failed her when she needed him most. And so, he will bide his time, as long as they don't harm Didi. While his clock tick-tick-ticks down closer to zero.

***

# Chapter Thirty

Didi hears Pip whispering in her ear, warning her they aren't alone, but she refuses to open her eyes, simply hugging her father and enjoying their reunion. There will be time to feel fear and desperation and anguish later. Right now, she holds onto him as if he is all there is in the world.

Because he is.

When Tarvis finally pushes her back and away from him, his eyes brim with tears. He looks terrible, his already gaunt face dirty in places, his eyes sunken with lack of rest. His disheveled person isn't so out of the ordinary, but he seems a bit more roughed up than normal.

How dare they? Fury bursts in her and she pushes him sideways, facing the group that's come to greet her.

The gunslinger stands next to her, weapon holstered. He's picked a fine time to stand down. She can't show weakness, not when she has Dad so close. If the cyborg is going to fail her now, she'll have to do this herself.

A face she doesn't expect emerges from the crowd, the old woman pushing people out of her way until she is in the front of the crowd. Didi's stomach clenches as Murta looks the gunslinger up and down as though he's of no notice before fixing her nasty gaze on Didi.

"You," Didi says. "You're the Underlord."

Murta cackles. "Clever girl. I knew the moment I met you I'd be having to deal with you eventually. Better now than when you're older and too clever for your own good." She gestures at the gunslinger. "Disarm that thing."

Her men hesitate while the cyborg remains silent and still. Didi feels pride well in her chest, but it only lasts a moment. Until Jackus emerges from the group and approaches the gunslinger, holding up his own weapon, taking the gunslinger's.

Who does nothing to stop him. Blikey.

Jackus hands the gun to Murta who turns it on Didi. "The chip, if you please."

"What chip?" Didi knows her response is the wrong one the moment she speaks up. The old woman's face tightens, finger on the trigger. For the first time, the gunslinger responds, stepping in front of Didi, blocking her from harm. Even as the Underlord tsks her impatience, Didi shoves against him before stepping around him again and elbowing him in anger.

She rubs at her aching joint, glaring up at him before turning on Murta. "You killed Putter."

Her father sways beside her, hand rising to his mouth. So, he didn't know the man he trusted was dead. Murta shrugs. "I knew he had the chip. But the old fool wouldn't give it up." She gestures at Tarvis with the weapon. "I didn't have the kind of leverage I have now. The chip or your father dies."

"You won't kill him." Didi doesn't know what's gotten into her. She's here for exactly this purpose, isn't she? To trade the chip for her father. Not to challenge the Underlord in her own lair. "You need him. And the chip."

The old woman's eyes glitter her rage. "Too clever already then," she says before turning the gun on Pip. He squawks his protest, flapping his wings as he understands the threat.

"I'm willing to hand it over." Her father's hand settles on her shoulder, and she knows he's going to try to stop her. But, he's too important, more important than some invention. "For a trade."

Murta lowers the gun a little. "I'm listening."

"The chip for my dad." It's that simple.  
The Underlord laughs. "You just said I need him. Why would I do that?"

"Because," Didi says, "if you don't, I'll leave the gunslinger's self-destruct active and we'll all be dead shortly."

She hadn't meant to use that as a weapon, but Murta has her cornered. The old woman's gaze flickers to the cyborg before returning to Didi's face.

"You're bluffing." She doesn't sound convinced.

"I'm not." Didi reaches into her secret pocket and pulls out the chip. She hears her father groan.

"Didi, no." He reaches for her hand but it's halfhearted.

"Here." She holds the thing out to Murta, the gold glittering in her hand. Wait, it's not as shiny as it was before, is it? Seems tarnished. Hopefully she hasn't damaged it along the way and it works. "You do whatever you want with it and you let me and Dad go. And I won't blow half this planet into the solar system."

Murta spins on the gunslinger. "Confirm self-destruct."

He nods. "Self-destruct confirmed. T-minus one hour and 54 minutes, 19 seconds."

He pauses. "18. 17—"

"Enough!" Murta lowers her weapon further, watches Didi with careful eyes before laughing a coughing, frustrated laugh. "If only things were different," she says, "I would have recruited you, girl. What a protégé you would make."

Didi will never admit that idea sounds appealing. Why does this life seem to call to her like a bole to electricity? She's never been so afraid—or felt so alive.

"I need confirmation the chip works." Murta snaps her fingers. "Hand it over."

"No chance." Didi pulls her hand back. "We confirm the machine works then we leave, free and honest. I won't let you have it and do some kind of switch, then lie to me and say it failed when it didn't." Sweat pools in the small of her back.

Murta grunts, gestures with the gun. "Very well. After you, Didi Duke."

She strides forward without hesitation, head up, shoulders back, the gunslinger at her side, her father trailing along, his hand taking hers. Pip mutters his dissatisfaction in her ear while she fights the bubbling giggles in her belly.

Pip is right. She needs to take this more seriously. And yet, the deeper into trouble she gets, the more fun this is. She has Dad with her. Nothing can go wrong.

"Didi." Dad whispers to her, barely audible. "No matter what happens, you need to escape. Do you hear me?"

She nods ever so slightly as they pass down a tunnel made of what looks like liquefied plastanium. This place had to have cost a fortune to outfit and taken forever to build. She can feel the buzz of the shielding under her boots, wonders what would happen if that shielding died. How many giant boles would it take to shred this place?

Something to keep in the back of her mind, maybe.

What troubles her most is the way the gunslinger's silver head turns at her father's words. And when he nods in return. Tarvis's relief makes Didi angry.

"Don't get any ideas, you two," she says. "We're all getting out of here, lickety."

"She won't let you go." Tarvis sighs heavily. "When the time comes, I will overload my invention and kill them all. But only after I know you are safe." He looks to the gunslinger. "You must get her to safety."

Again that subtle head turn from the cyborg.

Over Didi's dead body.

Someone pushes Didi from behind. She stumbles one step, forced sideways down a branching corridor and into a huge, arching ceilinged chamber. It's bright in here, almost daylight bright, the expenditure of electricity astounding to her.

The walls are lined with benches and tables, covered in tools. She thought the machine shop a dream location. This lab is something she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams. She's practically salivating and almost forgets why they are there until Murta circles them and jabs the gunslinger's weapon at the machine in the middle of the room.

Her father's invention sits, quiet and unassuming, in the center of a plas table.

"I hope you enjoyed your little reunion," the Underlord says. "And your plotting against me." How much had she heard? But no, Didi must assume anyone in her position expects plotting. Just a natural course of doing business. She can only guess the Underlord is plotting the same against her. "Now, the chip. And our bargain can be complete."

With zero illusions the old woman plans to keep her side of things on the up and up, Didi turns to her father and deposits the chip in his hand. Only to have his eyes widen, his mouth fall open.

"Didi," he hisses. "What is this?"

She blinks. "The chip Putter gave me."

Dad groans softly, eyes full of fear. "Then we're dead, my darling girl. Because this isn't the chip I left with him. It's a fake."

To prove it, he snaps the thing in half.

***

# Chapter Thirty One

As the pieces fall from her father's fingers, Didi's hurt returns. Her mind flashes to someone she trusted, to a face she thought she'd like to see again, even as a familiar voice rings out from the entry.

"Nice try, Miss Duke." She half turns, can't bring herself to spin all the way, catching a glimpse of Bo Rylen out of the corner of her eye as he struts unencumbered into the room. Though, she's aware of the guards following him inside. He's grinning, the blikey bole feces.

He's played her and she let him.

Murta's lips twist, wrinkling the folds around her mouth. "And who might you be, young man?"

He sweeps into a bow, at his most charming. Didi can feel the warmth of his charisma from where she stands but she's immune to it now. "Bo Rylen, my dear Underlord. At your service." He holds out one big hand. "The chip you so desire. Upon my first encounter with Miss Duke I liberated it from her and replaced it with a fake."

Murta laughs, horrible and cruel. "I like you already, boy." She gestures to Jackus who steps forward with a grimace of dislike and takes the chip from Bo. "But your little coup does nothing for my present dilemma." She jabs the gun's barrel at the gunslinger. "Unless you know how to shut down the self-destruct sequence on that hunk of antiquated plastanium?"

Bo's blue eyes meet Didi's. She dearly wishes for the power to kill with her mind. Dearly. She would give anything to see him drop dead right here and now. Would laugh while he did. Maybe do a little dance next to his cooling body.

But Murta is right. He's too late if he wanted to cross her. Sure, maybe he just wanted an in with the Underlord. He has that. But he'll die along with the rest of them if she doesn't get what she wants.

"I do not," Bo says with elaborate regret.

"Then, go stand over there with your little girlfriend." Murta laughs again while Jackus glares between Didi and Bo. She despises the way the squatter looks at her, but she's had his ticket once and this time if he has the courage to touch her she'll make sure he never gets up again.

Bo shakes his head with a laugh and holds out his other hand. Didi stares at the plain black box. "As it happens, I brought some insurance of my own. Just in case." He flicks open the top of the box, exposing a red button. "I've planted a few explosives at key points in your shielding system." His thumb hovers, dances, over the red light. "One touch and this place is bole heaven."

Well now, snargle it all. He might be a traitor, but he's not stupid. At least, not completely. Stupid enough to cross her, but smart enough to bring backup. Didi will kill him later.

He joins her without comment or argument, still smiling, the arrogant fool, his trigger in his hand. She resists the temptation to stomp his foot with one of her boots and ignores him while Murta growls and tosses her hands in the air, gunslinger's weapon sweeping dangerously over all of them.

"I'm going to shoot someone very soon," she snarls. "Go find those charges!"

Some of her people scramble from the lab, but from the confident smirk on Bo's face, he's not worried. Didi is, though. He could very easily ruin her own plans if she's not careful.

"Tell me what you want." Murta's grumbling acquiescence is a front, Didi is sure of it.

"The money you promised my family." There was a reward involved? Right, the price on her head. "And the girl." Jackus makes a waver toward Bo, toward Didi, and her skin crawls as he looks at her with that same possessive expression that gives her the creeps.

Murta shrugs. "Fine, whatever. Let's get on with this before I die of irritation."

Jackus moves when she jabs him with the gunslinger's weapon. He crosses to Didi's father and hands him the chip.

"The girl's mine," he growls under his breath at Bo.

"The dead don't have possessions," she snarls back. Braver with her posse at her side, as odd a conglomerate as they might be.

He flinches from her when she stomps one foot. That helps her confidence.

"I'll make sure you're not charged the next time." He licks his lips, her revulsion rising. Tarvis grunts, fury on his face, Bo looming. But, it's a shining silver hand that grasps Jackus by the front of the shirt and tosses him with casual strength away from Didi. The squatter crashes to the floor with a grunt while Murta dodges the flying trash with a snarl of her own.

"Don't. Ever. Touch. Her." The gunslinger goes silent and still again while Didi's heart soars.

She might be between a trash pile and a bole attack, but she's got backup, by blikey.

Her flash of happy dies as her father steps away, crossing to the machine he built with slow, heavy steps. Murta follows him with her eyes and the barrel of the gun while Didi hugs herself, Pip flapping a few times on her shoulder.

"We can't let him do it." The crow's anxiety matches hers.

"We have to." This is about her father. Just Dad. That's it. Let the galaxy be damned.

She's not sure what to expect when her father opens the side panel on the boxy, boring looking machine and inserts the chip. Not the happy, burbling sound that emerges from it, the cheery row of lights flashing into existence inside. It's fairly unassuming looking, a rectangle about three feet long and a foot and a half tall, with an opening on both ends. A small belt begins to run, chugging softly and bravely through the machine to a spout at the front.

Murta's rapt attention, her visible hunger at the machine's activity, makes Didi nervous, though. If she's this excited, then Dad is onto something after all. Didi's been hoping this was all a mistake, that her father's invention didn't work.

Can't think that way any longer, not with it humming joyfully along as he lays one hand on it like it's alive.

"I give you the dream of the galaxy," he says as one of Murta's men feeds a hunk of trash into the back end. The machine gurgles and burps softly before a steady, clear stream of fluid exits the other side, down the funnel and into a glass.

Bo jerks beside her, more motion than she can muster. "You... it..."

Murta chortles. "The fool figured out how to turn garbage into the most valuable substance in the galaxy."

Didi groans. Her father made water.

***

# Chapter Thirty Two

"How?" It's the only word she can muster, but seems to do the trick. Dad turns toward her, a faint smile on his tired face. He might regret the Underlord gaining possession of his creation, but who wouldn't be proud of what he's done?

Water from trash.

"You gave me the idea, Didi," he says, soft and with excitement in the back of his words. "Cyborg technology adapted to reverse the waste process."

She sees it, can almost trace his thought process backward until it glows in her mind like a lightbulb. "Instead of water to waste, waste to water!"

"Exactly." He gestures at the machine that chugs happily back at him. "The system works like a reversed digestive process, separating the waste into base components and extracting all of the oxygen and hydrogen molecules. It recombines them at the end to make water." The machine burps again, the bottom hatch opening. It's only then Didi realizes there's a hole in the table. A large chunk of black, a perfect cube square, falls to the floor with a heavy thunk. "What's left is a refined block of material that can be recycled into building materials."

Brilliant and amazing. She wants to run to his side and hug him, but the impact of what he's done holds her in place.

"The chip is a modified fission reactor, like that which powers your cyborg friend." Dad sighs and pats the machine again as it gurgles to a halt. "Just a prototype. Larger versions could process enough garbage to clean the surface of this planet in a little over a year."

"And turn Trash Heaven into the most powerful place in the galaxy." Murta laughs again. "Thank you, Tarvis. Well done." She points her gun at Jackus. "Last test. Go taste it."

The squatter gapes at her, chokes before he's able to speak. "Underlord!"

"Get your scrawny behind over there and test it before I fire a hole in you the size of this plasma blast." All good humor is gone from her face, leaving her a dried-up skeleton of pure darkness. Jackus staggers from her, goes to Tarvis who actually smiles at Didi's enemy.

"It's all right," he says, lifting the plas pitcher and handing it to Jackus. "I've tasted it myself. Pure water."

The squatter doesn't look so sure, but takes a tentative sip while Murta's gun hand shakes in threat.

When he exhales with huge eyes and smiles, she bursts out into a shriek of delight. He hands her the pitcher when she marches to his side, jerking it from his hand to take a long swallow herself. Her cold eyes glitter with something dangerous as Murta wipes her mouth with the back of her gun hand and grins at Didi's dad.

"You've done it," she says. "I'm going to rule the galaxy."

Didi knows there's no time to waste, takes a half step forward. "The bargain is complete. I want my Dad. We're leaving."

Murta shakes her head, lips twisting in a grin. "First, the boy here is bluffing." She sets the pitcher aside, her men seizing Didi's father, Jackus the first to grasp onto him with hard hands and an evil grin for her. "No way he'll put his own handsome hide at risk. Or yours, if I'm reading him right."

Bo shrugs. "You're not." He raises his hand, thumb on the button. "Shall we find out?"

Murta grunts. "Second, I'll just shoot your gunslinger and that will put an end to his threat."

"Actually," the gunslinger says with a calm that makes Didi grin, "doing so will prematurely trigger my self-destruct and kill all of us, taking half the planet in the process."

Her scowl would cut plastanium, Didi is sure of it. She smiles in Murta's face, crossing her arms over her chest. "You were saying?" The Underlord glares. "My father, Murta. Now."

She chose to call the old woman by her first name, the only name she knows, out of disrespect. It has the desired effect as the Underlord snarls and gestures at Jackus.

"Let him go." The squatter begins to protest, but the Underlord is already focused on the machine, her cruel delight and possessiveness back. "We have what we wanted."

Adrenaline surges as Didi's hope flares. Have they won? Really? She reaches for her father's hand as he pulls himself free from the men holding him and comes to Didi's side. Bo winks at her when she turns to tell him off.

"You didn't need me after all," he says, blue eyes sparkling. "But, just in case the old lady is planning to go against her word..." his thumb descends.

Didi gapes at him one moment before spinning on her heels and running for the exit, Dad in tow, even as the sound of an explosion booms dully beneath her somewhere, her boots vibrating from it.

The idiot. He has no idea what he's done.

Murta shrieks behind them, plasma discharging over her shoulder as the Underlord screams orders. Didi makes out, "Kill them!" before she dodges into the corridor and heads back the way they came, toward the elevator.

"Fun, right?" Bo laughs.

"I'll feed you to the boles myself." Didi hates he's right. Hates it.

She skids to a halt at the sound of another explosion, dust and debris hurtling toward her. A silver arm grabs her around the waist, pulling her free of Dad's grasp. Didi squeals in protest, the gunslinger spinning around as the force of the blast hits him in the back. Dad and Bo huddle in front of the cyborg as the explosion's aftermath ends, Didi's ears ringing. But, even her assaulted hearing can't miss a booming voice up ahead.

"ALL RESISTENCE WILL BE MET WITH LETHAL FORCE! SURRENDER AT ONCE TO THE GALACTIC CONJUNCTION AND YOU WILL BE SPARED."

The mechcops have come.

Bo shakes his head, shrugs. "Guess shooting at their ship from the Underlord's plasma banks wasn't the best idea for her continued health." He looks far too pleased with himself.

The gunslinger spins and sprints for the elevator as a mechcop, its legs bent at the mid hinges to accommodate its bulk, spins its turret toward them.

"CIVILIANS." The gunslinger's answering boom rocks the small space. "SURRENDERED."

"ACKNOWLEDGED, GUNSLINGER." This mechcop has a different look to it, more sleek than the ones she's seen, almost modern. And with some kind of badge or logo etched in red and gold letters on its turret. "STAND DOWN."

"NEGATIVE." The gunslinger keeps running past the mechcop. "DANGER IMMINENT. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."

"UNDERSTOOD." The mechcop's turret whines as it spins around. "SCANNING. SHIELDING HAS FAILED. BOLE ATTACK UNDERWAY."

Didi dearly wishes they would stop shouting. Her head is aching and her body, too, from the gunslinger bouncing her around. Or, is that the ground bouncing? More thunderous explosions from below, and screaming even her aching ears can make out.

Bo made good on his threat. But he's put them all in terrible danger. Even more so now she sees the condition of the elevator. Or lack thereof. A giant, smoking hole is all that's left of the unit, destroyed by the descent of the mechcop.

Plasma fire blasts over her head, the turret of the mechcop wobbling in response to the attack. The gunslinger ignores the gunfire and heads for the shaft while Didi reaches for Dad's hand. She knows what's coming, Pip flapping on her shoulder, and he has to be with her when the cyborg lifts off.

She sees grasps him tight, feels the thrusters fire. And knows, in that moment, only one of them will make it to the top as Jackus leaps out of the smoke and grasps hold of Dad around the waist. Bo completes the chain, leaping on Jackus. The weight is just too much for the gunslinger's damaged systems. She knows the moment Dad makes the decision, screams out for him when he pulls free of her hand. And she fights the gunslinger when he lifts off, rising to the surface like a rocket.

"GO BACK!" It's her turn to shout.

Too late. She loses sight of Dad and Jackus and Bo as the gunslinger hurtles to the surface

***

# Chapter Thirty Three

Didi chokes on the smoke rising from the hole as the gunslinger bursts to the surface and flies her out the rubbled interior of the bar and into the street. Sirens blaze in the morning air, the sound of desperate terror that is the throbbing warning shaking the whole city.

Bo's plan. It's put the entirety of Trash City in danger.

The gunslinger sets her down a block from the bar front. Didi immediately kicks and punches at him, screaming incoherently. They have to go back! But, when she tries to force her way past him, sobbing and shaking, he stops her.

"I promised him I would keep you safe," the gunslinger says with regret in his voice.

"And you promised me you would rescue him!" She screams in his face. "I HATE YOU."

He flinches. "I will fulfill my promise, Didi Duke," he says, subdued as the sirens continue their horrible claxon. "You have my word." He flies away from her, back toward the bar. Didi bends in half, coughing out the smoke that wafts down the street, choking her. She runs, boots thudding on the ground, to the bar front, but it's on fire, flames gushing from it, smoke billowing and she's forced back.

Her goggles lower over her eyes, boots humming to life. At least she can see. Pip mutters sadly and anxiously in her ear while she hugs herself tight and waits, waits, waits.

Shining silver bursts into view out of the fire and smoke, landing smoothly at her side. Bo Rylen collapses at her feet, coughing, near unconsciousness. Didi doesn't have a chance to chastise the gunslinger who is gone again, into the black and the flames.

Didi ignores Bo who rolls over onto his back, still coughing. Let him. This is his fault. She had it all under control, the blikey idiot. She stumbles as the ground beneath her heaves, a building at the end of the block swaying. Screaming citizens finally take the claxon seriously, pouring out of their homes and businesses, running down the street in terrified herds of fleeing humanity. She grabs Bo and hauls him with all her strength out of the way, against the side of a trembling building made of trash, though if he is trampled, well that saves her from killing him herself.

And she wants the pleasure.

Another silver vision shoots out of the hole, but this time it's the mechcop. It hovers over the street a moment, booming voice adding to the mayhem.

"CITIZENS. BOLE ATTACK IN PROGRESS. RETREAT TO DESIGNATED SAFE AREAS IMMEDIATELY IN AN ORDERLY FASHION."

Didi can't help but laugh as the people ignore the shouting tin can and continue to shriek and flee down the street.

Satisfied, she guesses, its message has been heard, the mechcop streaks upward into the sky and disappears. Fury wakes in her heart, her first seed of real hate for the Galactic Conjunction sown.

"Coward," she snarls. "Good riddance."

Surely it's following orders. But, she's human enough—and young enough—and tired, dirty, beat up and worn out by conflict enough she holds a grudge, by blikey.

She's giving up hope, hates that about herself, dancing on the toes of her boots, Pip flapping to keep his balance while Bo finally gets a handle on his coughing and pulls himself to his feet.

"Didi," he says, face dirty and full of shock. "I guess I blew it."

She hates puns. "Shut up," she says.

Bo glances at the store front but doesn't try to drag her away. He's smart, at least. She'll claw his eyes out before she'll let him pull her away. "I'm sorry. I had a hold of Tarvis, but... Jackus hit me and I..." He shakes his head, fingers a lump on his temple. "The gunslinger?"

She doesn't spare him a glance. "Saved your sorry behind," she says, bitterness sharp and hurtful, "and left my dad in there."

Bo shifts his weight from foot to foot, the strained silence between them growing. "The boles are coming." She can feel the street shifting, the pressure of their approach. She's not leaving. He can run, as cowardly as the mechcop. And she'll never, ever, speak to him again. Will kill him the moment she sets eyes on him if he leaves her here.

He doesn't. She's surprised by that, but doesn't say anything to him. He hasn't earned her respect.

It's Pip who makes her the angriest while she staggers under the impact of something just below the surface.

"Didi!" The crow leaps from her shoulder, flaps awkwardly a few times, his damaged body lumbering and ungainly. "We have to go!"

He's right, she knows he's right, but she won't leave, not without Dad. All of this has been for her father. An entire city at risk, an invention handed over to an Underlord that could alter the course of power in the galaxy.

How can she abandon him now?

She's about to. Guilt will eat her alive forever because she knows in the quiet, hurtful part of her soul she's a heartbeat from turning and running away. A giant, tentacled head bursts from the center of the street, the biggest bole she's ever seen lurching to the surface with a bellow louder than the claxon's warning.

Her heart stops beating and her feet clench, body tensed to run. Just as a flash of silver from the smoke turns into the form of the gunslinger. Carrying something in his arms.

She sobs as the cyborg comes to a harsh halt in front of her, shifting unconscious Dad to one arm and lifting her into the other. Bo waves at the gunslinger.

"I'm right behind you!" The young thief runs immediately, heading down the street away from the bole now lumbering toward them. Didi stares into its pink, writhing muzzle as the gunslinger lifts off and fires his thrusters, the bole screaming its agony as the plasma crisps its hungry mouth.

"You did it." She hugs the gunslinger around the neck, sobbing uncontrollably, barely able to get the words out but unable to stop herself from repeating them over and over. "You did it. You did it."

"As you asked," he says, calm and kind. A burst of thrusters carries them over the heads of the fleeing populace. She sees the shining ship hovering over the ground as he clears the edge of the city, knows he's taking her there even as he speaks. "The Conjunction's forces will take care of you," he says. "I was unable to apprehend the Underlord, and the machine was gone when I found your father." He stops at the edge of the city, sets her down, and lays Dad gently on the ground. "But I did retrieve this from Tarvis Duke before he became unconscious." Didi accepts the golden chip from the gunslinger, her throat closing over in gratitude. "And now, Didi, my time is up."

She stares at him, the world she knows crumbling behind her, shining ship waiting ahead, unable to comprehend what he's saying.

"I must escape the atmosphere," he says, gentle and with caring, one hand falling on her free shoulder, "before I complete the job Bo Rylen began."

His self-destruct. Panic hits her. "Don't go. I'll fix it!"

The gunslinger shakes his head. "There is no fixing this. Goodbye, Didi Duke. Thank you for allowing me this one last chance to be a gunslinger."

She leaps at him before he can leave her, slamming open the hatch on his chest. The cyborg's thrusters fire, his hands gently but firmly forcing her away. But, she's faster than him, this time, his speed interrupted by his need not to hurt her. Didi's quick fingers release the chip in his chest and pop it free.

The gunslinger's thruster power dies, his head falling forward. "You have doomed this planet," he says, voice falling away and dying as the blue light in his body goes dark.

"No," she whispers, circling around behind him and opening the panel to his bole heart. She jerks it out of him, tossing it aside before boosting herself onto his back and opening his helmet. The brain inside pulses ever so slightly. "This will either kill us all, or shut you down. And you deserve the chance to live." Fear making her fingers quiver, she pinches off the feed to his plas-coated brain until the pulsing stops.

Didi steps away, waits. Screaming, fire and smoke, the upheaval of the ground behind her, city crumbling in on itself, none of it pulls her attention from the gunslinger. Heart pounding, she waits to a twenty count before retrieving the heart and sliding it back into the slot in his torso.

Sluggish, painfully it seems, the tubes reconnect, though the faint, stuttering beat of the heart tells her she might have gone too far. Didi leaps up again, wiggles the hose to his brain, encouraging the flow to return.

"Too much," Pip whispers.

"My behind," Didi snarls. Something silver is flashing toward her from the ship but she ignores it. She has a job to finish. The chip she inserts in the gunslinger's chest shines gold.

He deserves the best.

Nothing happens. The mechcop who comes for her, landing beside her, ready to take her into custody, doesn't understand tears. Least of all, not over a girl weeping while a gunslinger stands over her, silent and proud, the last of his kind.

***

# Chapter Thirty Four

Didi paces the small—if lovely—room where she's spent her last two days, knowing every corner and cranny of the ship-board accommodations as though she was born to them by now. While a part of her can appreciate clean clothing and the fact they had real water—real water!—to shower in under a powerful nozzle in the suite's bathroom, she can't help but feel like a prisoner.

They assure her she's not as often as possible. From the lovely young man with the white streak in his hair who delivers her meals (How are you today, Miss Duke? I hope you're hungry!) to the cheerful woman who supervises the two bots who clean her room (How gorgeous you are this morning, Miss Duke!) to the hyper caring and eager young woman who Didi considers her personal handler. All of them, endlessly, despite the fact every time she tries to leave this light, airy room on board the Galactic Conjunction vessel, the G.C.S. Melville, Didi is firmly but kindly told no.

She's tired of no.

The curtains on her make-believe window eddy in time with the small fan embedded in the wall to mimic wind. If only they understood such surroundings didn't make her feel calm or relaxed or at home. This odd place is about as much like home as the trash rat warren or the cargo bay where she found the gunslinger. She's never—outside of vids—encountered anything this sumptuous. The clothes are soft and always fresh, the bed squishy—too much for her liking. Though, the first time she laid her head down, that morning she was brought here, she was happy enough for the shower, for the clean clothing and the soft, soft bed. But, now it irritates her, even more so since she's used to her freedom.

She would trade a hundred rooms like this, luxurious carpets under her bare feet or not, for a chance to stomp the trash yards in her boots.

They are gone, taken away with the rest of her things. Not that it really matters, she supposes. Once they let her go, she can remake her goggles, the boots, her protections. She can't imagine wanting to put those horrible clothes back on anyway, not after everything she put them through.

And yet, there's a burr under her skin, a need to be off and doing something that won't leave her alone.

Pip isn't much help, but not for the obvious reason. The silly crow has taken a shine to this life, she can tell. Maybe it's the endless baths he's been taking, soaking his feathers for hours on end—a good thing his plastanium parts won't rust. Or the seeds and berries and fruit he consumes in such quantities she's not sure he'll be able to fly if she doesn't get him out of here soon.

Didi collapses on the low sofa near the fake window and sighs into the view of a bright, green meadow, chin on her fist. They won't let her see outside, either. That bothers her a great deal. For all she knows, they are in space by now, flying somewhere she's never been before, though her handler, Parkay, assures her they are still on Trash Heaven.

Speak of the devil, the bouncy, enthusiastic energy of the tall, skinny blonde as she enters the room with a flourish puts Didi's teeth on edge. She's tried being nice, being bored. Maybe it's time to be mean. But, she can't bring herself to do so when Parkay lands on the sofa beside her like a floating feather, fanning her lovely face with the edge of her hand and beaming a perfect smile at Didi. She's never seen anyone with skin so pale and perfect, except in vids. She has to be part plas.

"My sweet Didi," Parkay says in her singsong voice. "How are you, darling pet?"

Didi chokes on a rude reply. So maybe she can be mean if she really wants to be. "When can I see my father?"

Parkay's face falls, a moue of sorrow replacing her smile. "Aren't you even the teensy tiniest bit happy to see me?"

Didi sighs long and hard. "Parkay! What a surprise. Lovely to see you. Take me to my dad."

The handler laughs, one long fingered hand landing on her bared cleavage, glittering ring shimmering against the silky pink dress she wears.

"My Didi," she says, leaning forward to place that same hand on Didi's knee. "Always making me laugh." She sits back and shakes her head, smooth, blonde hair shimmering. "And here I thought I was bringing good news."

Didi perks. "Such as?" She really wants to get out of here. "A tour of the ship?"  
Another pout. "No, darling pet. But, your friend, the handsome one with the delicious smile, has come on board at last."

Bo? What is he doing here? "Why?" She intends to be blunt, stands and strides away, scowling, arms crossed over her chest. She's had enough of him.

"Why, Didi," Parkay chastises her with her voice. "He's brought the most interesting and helpful information about the Underlord, Murta. We were more than happy to reunite you two in exchange for what he had to say."

Didi spins. "She escaped?"

Parkay stands, shrugs delicately. "A pity, really. But not the kind of conversation I wanted to have with you today." She approaches Didi, straightens the collar on her white shirt. Didi knows what's coming and resists another sigh. "Once we catch her, maybe then you can tell us what she was after?"

It's her only resistance and the reason she's sure they won't let her near her father. She's told them nothing of his invention and refuses to. It's all she has left. The gunslinger is gone, though she's sure he didn't self-destruct so her plan to save him worked. And he has the chip in his chest. Without Dad's machine, there's no way the G.C. will figure out what it's for. She's not sure why playing dumb is important, except that feeling like a prisoner makes her angry. And angry Didi doesn't do as she's told.

They could have asked her father that.

Someone knocks on the door and Parkay turns, a wide smile returning. "Ah! Our guest. Do come in, won't you?"

Didi braces herself to hate him the moment she sets eyes on him again, but Bo's easy smile and sheepish expression stirs her heart. She shouldn't forgive him for betraying her, for messing up everything with his stupid, wild plan that just blew up half the city. But he's a familiar face and she can't resist his smile.

That's going to be a problem, she's sure of it.

Pip rises from the white tablecloth with a grape in his mouth and squawks at her visitor. "Thief," he snaps.

"Look who's talking." Bo points a finger at the crow and pulls the trigger on his air gun before facing off with Didi. He runs one big hand through his hair, nodding to Parkay. She looks back and forth between Didi and Bo before clasping her hands in front of her and sighing.

"Young love," she says in her airy voice to which Didi chokes and Bo snorts. "I'll leave you two to catch up." The handler sweeps toward the door, pink dress swirling around her ankles. She pauses at the exit to fix Didi with her crystal blue eyes. "We'll talk again later, darling pet," she says and leaves.

Didi shudders and fakes a gag. "That woman makes me crazy."

Bo grins. "She's kind of hot."

Didi's face pinches tight. Cretin. "What are you doing here?"

He feigns hurt, one hand on his chest, before helping himself to a big pile of fruit. His booted feet hit her table, ankles crossing while he settles in to his snack. "I wanted to make sure you were all right, of course."

Didi crosses to him and hits his feet off her furniture, the thud of his heels hitting the ground satisfying enough she joins him and picks at a grape cluster. Pip hops up and down next to her until she feeds him one.

"Working angles, Bo?" She's not surprised. There's far more deceit in him than she first believed, naïve as she was. That's right, was. Didi's grown up a lot in the last three days.

"Always." He sits forward, still smiling. When he speaks again, she can barely hear him, his lips not moving. "I've seen your father."

"What?" She sits back with a start. Bo sighs, smile strained. He reaches out, pulls her forward by her hand, lips on her cheek.

"I'm trying to fool the sensors and vids," he says. "Try being a little more obvious, would you?"

She should smack him, but he does have information of value. "How did you see him?" His fingers trace over her cheek, blocking view of her lips from the side. Her whisper is as quiet as she can make it. "They won't let me out of here."

"I snuck on yesterday to take a look around when I figured out the crew of you were on board. Not hard to figure out where you were, but I wanted to be sure before I went to the effort." He catches her lips with his a moment, making her cheeks tingle. When he pulls away, his mouth traces her jaw to her ear again. "Do you still have the gunslinger's chip?"

She does. They let her keep the old one, ruined now. The only reason they let her keep it, she supposes. "It doesn't work."

"Good." He leans away and kisses the tip of her nose. "Grape?"

She takes the fat, purple orb from his fingers, teeth biting into the sweetness. Bo sits back again and grins at her, his favorite expression.

"Did you know, Didi Duke, that your father, Tarvis Duke, is a famous scientist and inventor for the Galactic Conjunction?" He glances ever so subtly sideways. She already knew the vid lens was there behind the waving plant. Of course she did.

"I didn't." She feigns boredom, but her heart leaps. Any talk of Dad is good talk. "How interesting."

Bo nods, wide jaw flexing as he chews. "From what I understand, some scandal drove him out of the University College of Sciences on Galactic Prime. Oh, about sixteen years ago." He leans in with a conspiratorial whisper. "Something about a woman, I believe."

Didi's mother?

The door opens before he can go on and Bo laughs, sitting back. Winks. This was his plan, was it? To get them to silence him? Didi looks up as Parkay hurries forward, smiling as usual but with a rush of anxiety in her demeanor.

"Good news!" She claps her hands. "Your father is free to see you now."

Bo's sly grin tells Didi he's given her what she wanted all along. Though how, she doesn't know. If he's told them about the invention, she'll kill him. And she already owes him at least three deaths. Maybe more. She's lost count already.

Bo stands, offers Didi one arm, Parkay the other. The woman simpers but declines and Didi just stomps her way past him, wishing the small, soft shoes she's been given to wear had the presence of her heavy work boots. Pip leaps from the table and wings to her, settling on her shoulder. At least they gave her what she needed that first day to fix the cyborg crow completely. Well, his body. His screwed up brain is all his own.

She leads the way though Parkay hurries to get out in front, two soldiers—human, to Didi's surprise—follow behind more slowly. The corridor of the ship feels like a street, wide and full of light. Extravagant, in Didi's opinion, but she won't complain. Not if they let her see Dad.

His lab isn't far from her room and she's furious he's been so close all along. Not surprised to find him in a lab, either, ignoring the second brilliant setup he's been handed in favor of running to his side and hugging him.

Dad cuddles her close, lips against her ear. "Didi," he whispers. "You have to run."

***

# Chapter Thirty Five

Didi freezes in shock, partly from his words and partly at the sight over his shoulder. The gunslinger stands at attention, silent, blue light extinguished. What is he doing here? Why does Dad have him? She's happy to see him, though he's as dead to the world as he was when she deactivated his self-destruct by killing him. Sure, she'd hoped to save him, save them all by doing so. But, now she knows better. He warned her this might happen and she did it anyway.

Murderer. She's a murderer.

Dad's smile is strained as Parkay watches carefully, her own happy expression tight. Dad waves to Bo who nods to him in return, all slouching and easy going. Telling Didi she needs to be on guard and ready for anything.

"I'm so happy to see you, Dad." Didi feels tears well, turns her head so Parkay will see them. The woman seems to relax as Didi hugs her father a second time. "What's going on?"

"Just trust me. You have the gunslinger's old chip?" Dad pats her back, cheek on her hair.

"It doesn't work." She's sure. Well, pretty sure. Thinks so. Fine, she has to test it. But it looks burned out.

"Get to the gunslinger." Dad lets her go and backs away, inhaling and exhaling as though invigorated by the visit. "You see my new lab? Amazing, isn't it?" He gestures at the gunslinger. "And our old friend is here, keeping me company."

Didi crosses to the giant cyborg, notes the chest plate is partially open. "I miss him," she says, just to say something, but surprised to find she does. That more tears, real ones, rise at the thought of him being dead. Her hand slips into her pocket, fingers the chip. She pulls it free and opens the front panel while Parkay gasps at her. "This belongs to you," she says, and pushes the chip into place.

The gold one is gone. Whatever Dad's done with it, Didi has to trust him. And that he has a plan. It's only when the blue light of the gunslinger flares, his right arm flexing, that she realizes someone has replaced the weapon at his side. And not with his original gun.

This one is shinier, newer and, from the glow at the tip, even more dangerous than the last.

The gunslinger doesn't speak, fires at will, over Parkay's head, the soldiers. She shrieks and hits the floor, the two men diving for cover, pulling their own weapons. But the plasma blast wasn't aimed at them. It was aimed at the wall behind them.

Sunlight pours through, the mottled sky of Trash Heaven at dusk on the other side. Didi almost cheers, but then things get out of hand and by the time the gunslinger sweeps her and Bo into his arms, Pip flying after them on hasty wings, she's screaming.

"DAD!"

Thrusters fire, carrying her out the hole and into the growing darkness, her father's valiant wave goodbye breaking her heart.

"They'll follow," Bo barks at the gunslinger while Didi slumps in his grasp, the stench of her planet hitting her like a wall, battering her unprotected nose and mouth and making her choke. She doesn't care. Let her die from the smell. Her father. He's gone again. No, it's her this time. Just when she was with him at last.

"Not in time." The gunslinger sounds like he was never dead, diving for the surface, skimming the ground. And doubles back. Didi's heart lifts. Dad. They're going back for Dad. The gunslinger's promise...

But no. His trajectory leads them past the outside nose edge of the G.C.S. Melville just as four mechcops flash from the hull, heading in their last direction, away from them. While the gunslinger drops to the ground, on his feet, still carrying them both toward the open hatch of a beat-up old transport.

The captain takes one look at the gunslinger and nods, heading for the pilot room. Didi would fight, but there isn't any fight left in her. She can only stand, furious and afraid, in the doorway of the transport's rear, and watch as it closes, through the dirty plasglass, as the Melville and her father disappear from sight.

***

Space is a dark and horrible place, she's decided. Though, at least it doesn't stink. Didi picks at the toes of her fancy shoes, crouched in a corner of the cargo hold, doing her best to ignore the hulking gunslinger and napping Bo Rylen sprawled next to her. Pip mutters in his sleep, curled up on her shoulder, beak nuzzling her neck as he dreams.

She's been trying to figure out a way to go back and return to Dad. Sure, he wanted her to leave, obviously set this up so she'd be out of danger, but that's her decision to make, isn't it? He could have come with them.

Didi had thought Bo was sleeping. Until his foot reaches out and taps hers.

"I know what you're thinking," he says. "And trust me, if there was a way to rescue Tarvis, we would have done it."

She doesn't respond. Anger flares, makes her skin tight.

"You accomplished your goal, didn't you?" Bo's teasing tone hides a hint of sorrow. "You rescued your dad."

From the Underlord. Only to leave him in the clutches of the Galactic Conjunction he seemed bent she'd be free of. But why?

"Here." Bo leans forward, slips something into her lap. "He wanted you to have this."

Didi waits a long moment before dropping her knees and examining the vid card he's handed over. Dad left her a message? She wants to be furious, to throw it from her and not care, but she can't resist.

"I have no way to watch it," she says, feeling pathetic and close to weeping.

The gunslinger's big hand takes it from her, inserts the card into a slot on his arm. He points one finger at the ground and the vid begins to play. Dad appears, in his lab, his voice tinny and soft. He obviously made this on the sly.

"Didi," he says, "I know you'll never forgive me for sending you away like this. But you had to go. And, when you get to your destination, you'll have all the reasons why."

Didi perks a little. "Where are we going?" But neither of her companions answer, Pip snorting awake as her dad goes on, his image guessing her question.

"The ship captain will take you where you need to go. He owes me a favor or two. And having a gunslinger with you will make a big difference." He smiles gently. "And be kind to Bo, would you? He's gone through a great deal to get this to you." Didi glares at the young thief who shrugs and blushes. "You're not safe in the hands of the Conjunction. Your mother always said so. It was her idea to send us out into the middle of nowhere to keep you safe." He shakes his head, looking down, shoulders slumping. "And I had to go and keep inventing. She warned me. But I didn't listen."

Didi gapes. Her mother? But... her mother is dead. He told her so years ago when she asked. Made her cry. She hasn't thought of it since.

Dad looks up again, glances hurriedly over his shoulder. "They'll notice I'm jamming the vid feed shortly. I don't have much time and I wish I could tell you everything. But, when you arrive on Humnitara, ask for Petal Gont. Your mother will find you."

Bo whistles, low and soft, the gunslinger's head tilting to one side. Didi ignores them both in favor of leaning closer to Dad's image.

"Please, don't worry about me. I'm too valuable to them for them to harm me. And for me to come with you. I'd have sent Putter, if he survived." Dad swallows hard on the vid. "He and your mother were old friends, Didi. There's so much you don't know." He sounds close to tears before clearing his throat and going on. "They don't know how important you are, not yet. But if I had run with you, they would never stop looking." Blikey, her own tears are going to be the end of her. She wipes at her face and nods to him. "I will see you again, Didi. I swear it. Find your mother. Tell her what happened. And, whatever you do, don't lose that chip."

Bo is grinning again, hands her the gold chip. She takes it, shaking, grips it tightly in her hand. Her father trusted a thief with this chip? Maybe he's as naïve as she is. Still, Bo returned it, didn't he? She can't soften, not now. But it makes her wonder despite herself.

"Didi, it's not the machine. It's the chip's technology that makes it work." He stops, shakes his head. "I've said enough. And you have running to do. I love you." He chokes on his words. "I've never been good at being a father. But I'm doing right by you now, my sweet girl. Be safe. And trust the gunslinger."

The vid goes dark, leaving her bereft. She wants to ask the gunslinger to play it again, but can't bring herself to speak. As she sits back again, Pip hopping down into her lap to coo at her comfortingly, Bo's stare makes her turn her head and meet his startled—dare she say, scared?—blue eyes.

"Your mother." He chokes on further words, clears his throat. "Your mother, Didi."

"Just spit it out already," she snaps, irritation a far cry better than this damned hurtful melancholy/pride/hurt she's feeling.

"I believe what young Bo is trying to say," the gunslinger speaks up in his calm, reasonable voice, "is that your mother, Petal Gont, is an Underlord."

Didi's turn to choke while Bo whistles softly again. "Understatement, my plastanium friend," Bo says. "An Underlord born of an Underlord from the most powerful Underlord family in the galaxy." He laughs suddenly, arms crossed behind his head. "Well now. I made the right choice, didn't I?"

She wants to hit him so badly, but can't muster the energy. "I don't understand any of this," she says.

"Nor do we," the gunslinger says. "And though that's a normal way of being for one of my kind—orders are never to be understood—I can see why you are frustrated."

His humor always surprises her.

But, it's Bo's grin that holds her attention and brings her back to herself. Yes, he's arrogant. Yes, she's grateful. It gives her something to focus on.

"Who says you're invited?" She kicks him.

"Your dad." Bo makes a face at her, childish and funny enough to make her smile a little. "I'm special and he likes me. Remember?"

She turns away so she won't laugh. No, she's not ready to give up on Dad. But, if they are right, if her mother is a powerful Underlord... well. Maybe there's hope for her father yet.

Didi settles back against the metal wall, the thrum of the ship beneath her lulling her at last into sleep, her pet crow cuddled against her, gunslinger at her side. She'd rather Dad, but... she'll take it.

***

Long into that night, as the two young people sleep, the gunslinger watches over her. Tarvis Duke wasn't idle in the time they allowed him access to the cyborg. In fact, he was sure to implant vital information in the mind of the gunslinger.

Only one thing of import lingers from that attention. He must protect Didi. Guard her with his life until she is safe in the arms of her mother. And he will do so, will die to save her, even as the fission chip in his chest, already damaged, leaks vital power he needs to survive.

He watches over Didi as though she's his own, just as Tarvis wants. While another little girl, dark haired and smiling, laughs in his head and whispers Daddy over and over.

###

Fine the rest of the Didi and the Gunslinger Trilogy

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About the Author

Everything you need to know about me is in this one statement: I've wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl, and now I'm doing it. How cool is that, being able to follow your dream and make it reality? I've tried everything from university to college, graduating the second with a journalism diploma (I sucked at telling real stories), was in an all-girl improv troupe for five glorious years (if you've never tried it, I highly recommend making things up as you go along as often as possible). I've even been in a Celtic girl band (some of our stuff is on YouTube!) and was an independent film maker. My life has been one creative thing after another—all leading me here, to writing books for a living.

Now with over 100 titles in happy publication, I live on beautiful and magical Prince Edward Island (I know you've heard of Anne of Green Gables) with my very patient husband and multitude of pets.

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