“I heard a few Hydras were captured alive…” Brinks said. He sneezed then, causing the lobes of flesh hanging beneath his chin to jiggle.
Horatio nodded that polycarbonate head. “We had a few, but what was left of them didn’t last very long.”
“Live dissections?” Brinks asked. “Or they were just in bad shape when you found them?”
“A little of both,” Horatio explained.
“You’re awfully quiet, Warden,” Renaldo scratched his forehead, parting the hair that draped it. “Still upset about what happened in the city?”
“She’s a woman of few words,” Will said.
“You ask me, she’s simply trying to maintain an air of mystery,” Chuck said. “Not that I blame her. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say.”
Rhea smiled cryptically, saying nothing.
Miles adjusted his hat. “I don’t think she wants to let any of you get very close,” the albino said. “She allows you in her company, yes, but that’s the extent of her trust.”
“You talk like you’re in her confidence or something,” Chuck said. “Saying ‘you’ instead of ‘we.’ But we all know you’re not any closer to her than the rest of us. Not like the salvager and the robot: the two who’ve actually fought with her in battle.”
“Yes, you’re right, I’m not,” Miles admitted.
“Maybe when we actually prove ourselves in combat, she’ll talk to us like them,” Renaldo said. “I can’t wait until that day.”
“You and Brinks both, huh?” Chuck said. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
Brinks shrugged. “You might be surprised at what a man like myself can do when backed into a corner. I’m telling you, when the bowel discharges hit the plasma fan, I’ll be right there fighting with the best of you.”
“Bowel discharges?” Chuck shook his head. “Come on, Stick Arms… if you’re going to swear, use a real word.”
Brinks ignored him and glanced at Will and Horatio. “She communicates with you two in her head all the time, doesn’t she?” He turned toward Rhea. “Don’t worry, Warden, we don’t mind. Your privacy is important to us.”
“Sure it is,” Will said. “That’s why you scour the Net every day, looking for even the smallest mention of the Warden so you can announce what you’ve found to her and get brownie points. Stalking much?”
Brinks looked down and stammered. “I’m— I’m only trying to keep the Warden informed! If I don’t save the data, who else will? As soon as anything is published online mentioning the word ‘Warden,’ the AI censors kick in! If I don’t act quickly, the knowledge could be lost forever!”
“It’s okay,” Rhea said. “You’re doing well, Brinks.” Even if the files he showed her were mostly hit pieces: while it was true that pro-Warden articles and videos were deleted almost instantly, government propaganda remained online indefinitely.
She gave Brinks a reassuring smile, and he grinned like some dog freshly petted by its master.
A dog. She’d watched videos of them online. Apparently, they were a common pet in the big cities like Aradne, though they were strictly quarantined indoors. She’d never seen one. The residents of Rust Town certainly didn’t have any pets, and in the Outlands, there was no life at all, neither plant nor animal.
Well, excepting bioweapons, which fed on each other. Many of them had chlorophyll pigments from cyanobacteria spliced into the cells of their dermis, which allowed the smaller creatures to survive on photosynthesis for a very long time between meals. A variation of these pigments was responsible for the energy absorption capabilities of the Hydras, the local biologists had determined.
Rhea continued touring the rebuilt streets and byways of Rust Town until she reached Daria’s Quarter, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods.
She passed beside a lean-to that was being rebuilt from the ground up.
“Where do you need me?” she asked one of the workers.
The man gave her a toothy grin. “The Warden herself visits us! It’s an honor. Here.” He beckoned toward the 3D-printing drones that were smelting metal nearby. She went to the drones, waited until they created a sheet of metal, then returned to the lean-to and began attaching it using the available tools.
“Well, that’s my cue,” Will told her. “Think I’ll take a break from rebuilding today. I’ve got a human body after all. It can only take so much punishment. Not like you cyborgs.”
Rhea shrugged and didn’t look away from her work. “Have a good rest of the day.”
Horatio remained, mostly to watch her back, she suspected. Which was good. She wasn’t an Orber after all and could use the extra eyes.
Gizmo also stayed behind, circling patiently overhead like only a machine could, and Rhea gratefully tapped into the drone’s camera feed, placing the video in the upper right of her vision so that she had a bird’s eye view of the general area visible on her HUD at all times.
Renaldo and the fourteen Wardenites also stayed, and they spent the rest of that day helping out wherever they were needed in that neighborhood.
That night, she returned to the series of stacked cargo containers the residents had gifted to the Warden to serve as her home, and she promptly fell asleep. She was utterly exhausted and didn’t have to worry about her usually overactive mind keeping her awake.
It was too bad that she was roused from sleep shortly after midnight by an alarm.
3
Rhea continued to inhale and exhale with the same regularity and intensity as she would have while asleep, in order to fool any intruders into believing she was still under. It was a trick she thought of instantly, no doubt thanks to the person she once had been. It was relatively easy to achieve, considering only a few days ago, out of curiosity she had switched her body to sleep mode while keeping her mind conscious. She had observed her breathing rate among the other subtle physiological changes.
The next order of business was locating
