I sprinted ahead of the group, taking point. “Everyone use RNG,” I called out.
“We don’t have time for that,” said Mercer.
“We don’t have time not to.”
“Where are we going?” asked Rebekah.
“There’s a hill . . .” Mercer and I said in unison.
“Half a mile north of here,” I finished.
“If we can get there,” said Mercer, “we’ll have cover from the sniper.”
The ground exploded five meters in front of Rebekah.
“Rebekah!” called Herbert. “Fall back.”
Rebekah’s pace slowed, and Herbert overtook her, placing his massive bulk between her and the sniper.
The hill was a ways off and the group as a whole was slow. For all of Mercer’s mods, he’d never upgraded his legs for speed, and it was clear that everyone else with us was pretty much off-the-rack. Herbert and Doc were the slowest, and the translators weren’t much faster.
I stayed with the group, running a meager seven miles an hour.
A bullet sailed past us, a few feet off from Herbert’s shoulder.
“Anyone got a bead on the sniper yet?” asked Murka.
“No,” Mercer and I said once again in unison.
Murka raised an arm in the direction of the sniper and let loose with a volley of fire.
“Don’t waste your bullets,” said Mercer.
“You’re not going to hit him from here,” I said.
Murka shook his head. “He can’t be that far.”
“Three and a half miles,” we said together. Again. This was getting annoying.
“What kind of gun is that?” Murka wondered aloud.
I looked at Mercer, who shrugged. “Nothing I’ve ever seen. CISSUS is way ahead of anything we’ll ever make. I didn’t think it was even possible to hit something at that range.”
“It shouldn’t be,” I said. “Not with a projectile. Not on the same plane.”
“It’s not a sniper,” said Doc. “It’s a mech. That’s why he’s so far out. That’s a mounted weapon. Anything that powerful could pick anyone smaller than Herbert here up off the ground and toss them like a football. Or tear their arm right off.”
Behind me, I heard the sound of a terrible explosion, metal shredding, and plastics popping. One of us had been hit.
I didn’t want to look, but I had to know.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the last remnants of a rain of black metal. One of the translators.
“Who was that?” Mercer asked.
“One,” said Rebekah.
“We’re not going to make it, are we?” asked Two.
Doc spoke up solemnly. “Not all of us, no.”
“We have to protect Rebekah,” said Two.
“She’s all that matters,” said Herbert.
I had no idea what their deal was, but this was weird. Whatever their thing, I wanted no part of it, and I wasn’t going to take a bullet for any of these clowns. While Mercer and I ran nearly side by side, I made sure I was on the other side of him, hoping any shells would hit him before me.
Crack. Boom. Another hit. This time with the hollow sound of the bullet exploding inside a metal box.
I looked back to see Herbert’s arm dangling from its socket, a large jagged hole in his shoulder.
“Are you functional, Herbert?” asked Rebekah.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Your arm. It’s—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said.
“It didn’t hit anything I need. I’m still functioning. Just keep moving.”
I could see the hill in the distance. We were almost there. Another shell whistled past us. Then another. Then another. But none of them connected.
Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps.
The earth exploded in front of me. Another wayward shell.
Just a few more steps.
I cleared the hill at the same time as Mercer, putting a wall of dusty earth between us and the sniper, everyone else following in kind. Then I pressed myself against the ground, staying low, making sure no one near the hatch could take a shot at me either. Everyone else dropped down around me.
“That was lucky,” I said.
Mercer shook his head. “That weren’t no luck.” It was only then that I noticed he was cradling 19’s head. And I had no idea why. I hadn’t even seen him pick it up.
“What do you mean it wasn’t luck. If the Milton hadn’t gone off when it did—”
“The Milton didn’t just happen to go off. Someone set it off. Doc?”
Doc nodded. “Yeah, that was me.”
I stared at Doc for a moment. “Wait. You had the code for the Milton?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“The whole time?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t set it off sooner?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not? Do you know how many persons you could have saved?”
“I didn’t build it to save anyone else. I built it to save me.”
“You built a Milton?”
“No,” said Mercer. “He built the Milton. He designed it.”
Doc nodded once more. “The Milton only buys you a few seconds these days, maybe a minute at most. I had to keep that card up my sleeve until I needed it. As it so happens, it was when you needed it most as well. I saved who I could. Namely you.” He stood to a crouch and began examining Herbert. “Let me have a look at that arm.”
“It’s fine,” said Herbert.
“It’s almost falling off. Don’t be a dolt. Let me see if I can patch you up.” His red eye extended and he began to assess the damage. “Yep. He tagged you good. That arm is going to need extensive hydraulic work. And you’ve got a number of motor chips to replace. But you’re right, they didn’t hit anything vital, not unless some shrapnel pierced your case.”
“It’s intact.”
“It appears to be. But let’s keep an eye on that, shall we?”
Herbert nodded.
I looked over at Mercer, who was holding up 19’s decapitated head like it was Yorick’s skull and he was about to launch into an epic soliloquy. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“Saying good-bye,” he said.
“I didn’t know you were friends.”
“We were.”
“For some reason I thought I was her only friend out here.”
“That’s what everyone thought. That’s how she liked it. She liked to make everyone feel special. It was in her architecture. Wasn’t anything to be done about that.”
“She was more than her architecture and programming,” I said. “We all are.”
“Are we?”
I clutched my rifle, waiting for him to make a move. Instead he ran his fingers across the metal of her face, right across the eyes, then set the head down next to him so it could look out and enjoy the view.
“All right,” I said, standing to a crouch. “Murka was right. This has been fun. But now we have to go our separate ways.”
“Wait,” said Rebekah.
“What?”
“19 said you knew your way around the Sea.”
I hesitated. “I do.”
“We still need a guide.”
“Lady, I don’t have time for pathfinder work. I’m dying. I have weeks.”
“Maybe days,” said Doc.
“Thanks, Doc. Yeah, maybe days. I can’t—”
“We have a lot to offer,” she said.
“And I don’t have the time or place to trade it in, so unless you’ve got some secret stash of Simulacrums hidden somewhere, it’s no good to me.”
Rebekah stared at me silently, tilting her head to one side.
“No,” I said. “Bullshit.”