DEV1AT3 (DEVIATE). Jay Kristoff
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convoy were all wearing red cassocks, a few hanging out their windows and firing rifles into the air.
The vehicles slowed as they drew closer, the crowd parting to let them rumble up to the main gates. The lead car was an old muscle truck, fitted with tractor tires and monster suspension. Scripture was painted on its panelwork, and choir music was spilling from its tune spinners. On the doors and hood was the same ornate black X that marked the settlement walls, overlaid with a grinning white skull. The crude, homemade license plate read WAR.
The door cracked open, and a man jumped down to the asphalt. He was one of the biggest units Lemon had ever seen—bearded and mohawked, broad as a house. He was dressed in a white cassock, filthy and spattered with what might’ve been bloodstains. A white skull was painted over his face, chin to forehead, and a well-chewed cigar stub hung from his lips.
“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war!” he roared.
His posse fired a few more shots into the air, some of the rowdier thugs on the walls joining in. One of the Brotherhood boys at the gates raised his voice over the clamor. “You get ’em, Dub? How many you brought us?”
The big man gave a beartooth grin, like a corner huckster about to reveal the secret of his trick. He reached into his cassock, then whipped out his hand, holding two fingers in the air. The thugs and Brethren whooped and hollered in delight.
“Finally!” one shouted.
A gaunt man with the same greasepaint skull as the big man leaned out the window of the monster truck and roared, “Get those crosses ready, boys!”
“You heard Brother Pez!” More shouts and hollers echoed among the Brotherhood boys as Brother Dubya raised his hands and grinned. “Get ’em up!”
As he began making his way through the crowd, Lemon looked this Brother Dubya over. The big man was well fed, his gunslinger belt loaded with tech, ammo, a fat pistol. The crowd treated him like a celebrity, but he looked at them like they were something he’d found on the bottom of his snakeskin boots. The mob jostled and surged to get a better looksee, and Lemon found herself pushed forward, until she bumped right into the big man’s belly.
Heart hammering, she blinked up into that greasepaint skull. The black eyes burning behind it. Wondering just how many abnorms this fellow had put to the nail.
Can he see?
Can he tell just by looking at me?
“Best watch where you’re stepping, lil’ sister,” the man growled.
“I’m sorry, Brother,” she said, smoothing down his cassock. “I’m jus—”
Brother Dubya put a hand on her forehead and shoved her out of the way. Hunter stepped smoothly between them, bristling with threat. But with contempt in his gap-toothed smile, the man simply puffed on his cigar and pushed on through the mob. The convoy trundled into the settlement, Brother Pez behind the lead truck’s wheel, Brother Dubya leading it through the gates to what sounded like more raucous praise inside.
The noise slowly died down, and with the excitement apparently over, the thugs manning the gate got back to work. Lemon wiped the greasy handprint off her forehead, shuffled along in line. Watching the junior thugs on the door, the way they spoke, the way they rolled. As far as Lem could tell, who exactly they let in and turned out seemed to depend entirely on their mood.
“Okay, I don’t mean to tell you your biz,” she muttered to Hunter, “given you’re running this kidnapping and all. But we step out of line here, we’re not getting through that gate. So maybe let me talk and keep the deathbees in your bra?”
The woman glanced at the guards. Nodded slow.
“Lemonfresh speaks wisdom.”
“… You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever accused me of that before.”
The sun was kissing the horizon by the time they reached the entrance. The sky was soaked the color of flame, fires were lit inside forty-four-gallon drums. The sign above the gate flickered into bright, neon life. As Lemon and Hunter reached the entrance, a young, weary thug looked her up and down.
“Ho there, lil’ girlie.”
“Brother,” Lemon nodded, mustering her least irradiated smile.
“Ain’t no Brother.” He pointed to the greasepaint X covering his face. “Just a Disciple. You here for WarDome tonight?”
“… Yep, that’s us.” Lemon smiled, smooth as an oil slick. “Me and cuz love us a good bot fight.”
Mister Greasepaint looked Hunter over—the cloak, the goggles, the stance.
“She’s your cousin?” he asked.
“Twice removed,” Lemon replied.
The thug sighed. “You know the rules of New Bethlehem, little girlie?”
“It’d be real fizzy if you stopped calling me ‘girlie,’ sir,” Lemon said.
The Disciple blinked. “Well, you’re a whole mess of mouth, ain’t you?”
Lemon glanced down meaningfully, slowly turned over her hand so the man could see what she held. In her palm sat a shiny credstik.
“In a hurry is what we are, sir.”
It was a gamble, offering a bribe to a religious sort. Could be he was the kind who’d take offense. But holy man or no, Lemon had never met a doorthug who wasn’t on some kind of take, and she guessed standing out here in the burn all day wasn’t the most well-paying gig.
Trying to appear casual, the Disciple checked over his shoulder to see if any of his colleagues were watching. Satisfied, he quickly pocketed the stik, tipped an imaginary hat and stepped right the hells aside.
“Welcome to New Bethlehem, sisters.”
Lemon winked, shuffling through the crush with Hunter in tow. A broad square waited beyond the gate, ringed with stalls and old tires and pubs and all manner of people. Once safely through, the BioMaas agent touched Lemon on the arm.
“How much did she pay?” she whispered.
The girl shrugged. “Wasn’t my credstik. Lifted it off that Brother Dubya fellow when I bumped into him. Looked like he had scratch to spare.”
“… She stole his money?”
“Borrowed. So to speak.”
“Resourceful. Fearless.” Hunter smiled. “Her name will be a song in CityHive.”
“Not if we don’t find some meds in here.” She winced, holding her gut. “Feels like I swallowed barbed wire and washed it down with battery acid.”
“Come, then. We hunt.”
Lemon could feel starving eyes on her as they limped through the square. She wasn’t carrying much worth stealing, but she was certain the two other credstiks she’d lifted from Brother Dubya were worth a little murder, and her bod would sell to any number of buyers, kicking or otherwise. There were dustnecks in Los Diablos who’d kill you for a can of Neo-Meat™, and New Bethlehem looked meaner still.
A heavy stink hung over the place like fog, and Lemon soon saw the source, parked on the edge of the bay. Frontways, it looked like an oldskool cathedral, with double iron doors and a big stone bell tower. But springing up out of its hind parts were the chimneys and fat storage tanks of a bloated factory. Black smoke spilled from its stacks, burbling and hissing spilled from its guts. The same words that marked the gates were painted above its doors.
AND THE WATERS BECAME SWEET
“It’s a desalination plant,” Lemon realized, looking around her. “That’s what they do here. Suck up the ocean, get it fresh to wet down those crops.”
“Come,”