She frowned. “Mention what?”
“Come here,” he ordered. “Let me look at you.”
Sebastian’s highlighted form looked up attentively and watched as Rhea stood. She ignored his gaze and went to Will, then sat beside him.
Will held her chin with one hand and turned her head from side to side as if examining her face. “You’re missing some artificial skin.”
Rhea nodded. “Not entirely surprising.” She’d probably lost the skin when that Werang had crushed her underneath its body and scraped her across the hard ground.
“You’ve run full diagnostics?” he inquired.
“Yes, everything is fully operational,” she replied.
“Well, at least I don’t have to jury-rig any repairs,” he said. “But… you don’t feel any pain?”
“I disabled my pain sense when a certain Werang crushed me,” she said. “Forgot to reenable it.”
She did so then, and felt a dull, throbbing ache in her cheek. She touched it experimentally and flinched at the pain that flared.
“It’ll heal up,” Will said, letting her go.
She nodded, leaving her hood lowered, and turned her head to find the other cyborg still staring at her. At least she thought he was, judging from the positioning of the outline that comprised his head.
“What?” she asked him.
“You don’t remember who you were, do you?” Sebastian asked.
Rhea wasn’t sure what to say. “Why, did you know me?”
“You recall nothing of your former life?” the man pressed.
“Nothing,” she said. “But if you knew me, tell me.”
He remained silent.
“Speak up, Bandit,” Will said. “Because if you did know her, you’re in a load of trouble.”
She glanced at Will. “Does this have anything to do with the mark?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Will answered.
Finally, Sebastian said: “No. I did not know her. But I overhead you talking to her on the way here. She does not speak, well, like a cyborg from Aradne should. She talks of repaying debts to a lowly salvager. And of finding different work when that day comes. One who could afford a body like that would not be in debt. Nor would she need to find work of any kind.”
“Let’s just say I’ve fallen on some hard times,” Rhea said. “Like yourself, I assume. You’re a cyborg, and you’ve lived along in the Outlands for two years. A strange life, for someone who could afford a body like yours.”
Sebastian remained silent. She could almost feel his eyes boring into her in the night. At last, the upper part of his blue outline shifted downward, which she interpreted as him lowering his head.
Horatio, keep an eye on that monkey bandit tonight, Will sent over their private mental channel. I don’t trust him.
Will do, Horatio said.
As usual, Rhea didn’t feel the need to sleep immediately. Instead of initiating AR target practice like she usually did, she stared into the night. She watched the outline of Gizmo circling the perimeter for a while, then diverted her attention to Sebastian.
The man was asleep, or at least pretending to be. He remained several meters apart from the others, near the far side of the big oak, but still firmly ensconced within its dead branches. She could see that deadly tail with those sharp blades outlined in the dark, along with the rifle, which he had unholstered and laid down at his side. He was still sharing his location with them, but that sharing could be severed in the blink of an eye. It was definitely a comfort knowing that Horatio would be watching him all night. Along with Gizmo.
At last she felt sleepy. She placed her pistol on the ground in front of her, and before she slumbered, she set her motion alarms to wake her if anything came near. Just a little extra, added precaution.
With that done, she closed her eyes.
17
Rhea blinked. The forest around her was lit by the murk of predawn.
Her pistol lay in front of her. She scooped it up and sat up to scan her surroundings. She kept the weapon pointed at the ground, as Bardain had taught.
While Will reposed not far from her, there was no sign of Horatio, nor Sebastian. A glance at her overhead map told her Gizmo yet circled overhead, dutifully standing guard. The blue dots of Horatio and Sebastian were frozen about a kilometer to the north, where the pair had last been in contact.
“Will,” she said urgently.
Her companion blinked, brushed the dreadlocks out of his eyes and sat up. He retrieved the AR visor from the ground in front of him and slid it in place between his brows and eyes. He grabbed the pistol next, which had been lying on the rocky soil beside it. Then he glanced about the camp. Realizing that Horatio and Sebastian were gone, his eyes defocused—he was obviously navigating his HUD.
“Horatio left a message with Gizmo,” Will said. “Sebastian took off twenty minutes ago, when the predawn began. Horatio followed. I guess we head north to their last known position.”
Will sent Gizmo forward to scout but found no sign of the pair within those dead trees. The drone halted above their last known position and assumed a holding pattern.
When Rhea and Will arrived at the site, Will knelt to examine the terrain, obviously hoping to pick up the trail.
“Got footprints,” Will said. “Of the kind might expect from a pair as heavy as a robot and a cyborg. I’m sending the tracking data.”
The footprints lit up on the ground, becoming highlighted in blue, courtesy of the tracking algorithms Will had built into his AR visor.
The two of them proceeded forward, keeping their pistols in hand. Meanwhile Gizmo scouted the forward and aft regions.
The sun rose, and the light of dawn purpled the sky.
“So beautiful,” Rhea said. “You’d think nothing of beauty could still exist out here. But you’d be wrong.”
“There’s beauty, all right,” Will said. “But only so long as the source is external to this place.”
“That’s a bit of a dour outlook,” she told him.
“But it’s true, though,” Will said.
In only a few minutes, the blue dots representing both
