I donno what I hated more. Was it the almost-constant sound of metal scraping on metal, or the invisible threat of the signal repeaters slowly wearing away at me? One was attacking my body and eating it from within, but that freaking noise was just awful, like a fork and knife rubbing against a plate or hooves on a chalkboard.
“I think I can rig up a display showing signal strength,” Destiny said. “It’d be a little basic, but we could avoid walking into that broadcast.”
“Thanks, but it wouldn’t help much,” I said. “I can feel it in my bones. Literally. It’s like termites.”
“Sorry. The armor isn’t a perfect signal blocker, so we’re getting a significant amount of leakage.” Destiny popped open a small map in the corner of my vision. “If it helps, we’re mostly going the right way!”
“Only mostly?”
“Some of those detours around the really strong repeaters took us out of the way a bit.” A line appeared on the map. We were circling around the monitoring station instead of going towards it. “I’m sure we’ll find a safe path soon.”
I nodded. We’d already run into a few spots where the SIVA broadcast was overwhelmingly strong. Trying to push through would probably kill me or worse, and neither of us wanted to find out what ‘worse’ looked like.
“We’re almost halfway around,” I pointed out. “We might need to think of another plan.”
“You could try going over,” Destiny suggested. “You might need to fly pretty high to do it, but it could work.”
“Not if we run into the same problem trying to land. If it's too bad, it could knock me out, and that'd be game over. I’m worried the monitoring station might be swamped.” It was too far away to see it through the forest. It’d be nice to get a glimpse of the place, but the tundra was pretty flat and the brush was pretty thick.
“There is one other option you might like,” Destiny said. “DRACO’s electronic warfare suite includes anti-radiation targeting.”
I stopped walking and tried to figure out what that might be.
“Okay, I can see from the helmet’s eye tracking that you’ve got no idea what that is,” Destiny said.
“I’m just not sure how useful that is,” I admitted. “I mean, you said it yourself - there’s so much metal woven in my skin that I’m practically shielded against mild radiation, and with the armor on top of that I could hang out near a reactor and not worry too much.”
“Anti-radiation targeting is used in active electronic warfare,” Destiny explained. “The radiation we’re talking about in ‘anti-radiation’ isn’t ionizing radiation, it’s the broadcast of radar stations and other active sensors. Think of it like… radar is shining a light in a dark room. You see what the light bounces off of, but anti-radiation targeting is staying in the dark and shooting at the light. It’s like a big bright target!”
“I get it. If we can’t get through because some of the transmitters are too strong, we blow up the transmitters!”
“I thought you might approve,” Destiny said. “Let’s backtrack to this point.” She put a marker on the map in my vision. “That was our closest approach to the monitoring station, so it’s probably the best place to start.”
“Right,” I agreed, turning around and walking back the way we came. “Hey, I was thinking while we were walking through the forest -- you said the trees here aren’t native to the area, right?”
“They definitely aren’t,” Destiny said. “There are palm trees next to orange trees next to brushwood pines, and none of it should be within a thousand miles of here. This place is barely good for growing lichen!”
“Okay, so where did they come from? Even if SIVA is keeping them alive, it would need seeds or something to start, right?”
“It would,” Destiny agreed. “I’m not sure. It’s tickling at my memory, but it’s still a blur. I know there was a place it could get those seeds, but I can’t quite… it’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“I hate that feeling,” I said. The minimap blinked. “Okay, what do I do now?”
“Turn to your left,” Destiny said. “DRACO will lock on to the most powerful broadcaster in range, and…”
The big rifle’s barrel adjusted itself, whirring on tiny electric motors, then let loose with the sharp, hard rapport I’d very nearly started to get used to. A willow burst into flames, and I felt the pressure on my body start to lessen, the pain abating just a bit.
“I think it got the right one,” I said. I hovered over the razor-edged brush just in case it was hiding something nasty enough to slice through the barding I was wearing and let the throbbing in my shoulder guide me.
“Good, we’re making progress,” Destiny said. “I’ll mark the path so we can follow it back out if we need to.”
“The signal’s getting stronger again,” I said.
“No problem. We’ll just take out another transmitter.” DRACO twisted slightly, taking careful aim, and another tree erupted into flames from an incendiary round.
It took three more shots to get close enough to the station, and even then I had to push through an area where the broadcast was so strong I felt it in my teeth. Somewhere, I was distantly aware it was probably killing me by inches. I stopped for breath and leaned against a tree that wasn’t trying to murder me, the taste of blood on my lips. The last transmitter we’d taken out was burning merrily off to the side, and if the brush was just a little dryer and a little less metallic it might have been enough to start a forest fire.
“Looks like we made it,” Destiny said. “The monitoring station is overgrown, but the signal dropped off again. I think we can get inside.”
“That’s good,” I said, not feeling like anything was good at all.
“One small issue - we’re completely out of ammo for DRACO. If we run into trouble, we’ll have to get creative.”
I looked up at the station, trying to figure out a way in. “Looks like the front door is covered in vines. Maybe that’s a sign nopony has been here--”
The vines parted like a curtain, tugging themselves to the side with a motion that reminded me of muscles flexing.
Two raiders walked out of the doorway, looking around cautiously. I ducked behind the tree and tried not to even breathe too loudly. Could they sense me? Down in the valley I’d been able to feel them coming from a while away just from the SIVA in their bodies, but here the air was thick with the broadcast, like everything was dancing to its tune.
“Stay still,” Destiny whispered. “They haven’t spotted us.”
“Why did I have to jinx us?” I groaned.
The two raiders walked over to the burning tree and looked up at it, the metallic leaves of the cyberforest scraping at their armored legs. They didn’t even seem to notice the blades. They were also facing away from me. I carefully climbed up the tree I was hiding behind, not wanting to go right into the air. A gust like that and the brush would sound like bells and knives being sharpened and they’d be on top of me in a second.
“Did it explode?” the first one asked. She was a mare, and either had been a unicorn or the SIVA had just decided to grow her a horn anyway, because she had a brass framework sticking out of her forehead like an artist’s suggestion of a horn’s outline with nothing filling it in.
“Maybe lightning struck it?” the other one said. He was a stallion whose cutie marks had been replaced with screens flickering through a half-dozen twisting designs. Where his eyes had been was a cavernous hole with a single spherical camera in it that swept back and forth.
“I thought I heard thunder,” the mare agreed. “That’s probably all it was.”
“We’d better tell the Master about this,” the stallion said. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Should we wait until he’s done with the new arrivals?”
“No. If it goes poorly again, he’ll take it out on us.”
They turned around and started back inside. I waited for them to pass by me and jumped off the tree branch, catching the wind and gliding towards them with the silence of an owl on the hunt, if the owl was big and dumb and worried it’d be caught any moment.
The blade flipped out of my hoof and I held it down and away from me, thinking. I had to be stealthy and clean with this. If there was really some big boss here, I wanted to see who it was and what I was really up against. That meant I needed to avoid alerting everypony by being a giant clumsy monster.
I hovered as quietly as I could, easing my way over the mare. I figured with the stallion’s weird eyes, he probably couldn’t see as well as her, so she’d have to go down first. It wasn’t ideal, since the stallion had a nasty-looking rifle at his side, but it was probably my best bet.
“Turn off the weight reduction,” I whispered. “I need to hit hard.”
I felt the full weight of the armor settle onto my back and shoulders, and instead of struggling against it I let it drag me straight down to slam into the mare’s back. I expected ribs to crack, but instead my weight made them bend and cave in, deforming like a metal cage instead of bone. She struggled and tried to scream. I stabbed, trying to hit something vital, and she blasted me clear off her back with a forcebolt, proving that her weird horn worked just fine.
“What in Tartarus--” the stallion said, spinning to face me, the screens on his flank flickering to a view through his mono-eye as it turned to track the threat. The big gun took aim, and I moved on pure instinct, moving my right forehoof like I was pitching a cloudball. The blade detached and launched itself right into that eye and sank in all the way, the tip poking through the back of his skull when he fell down.
“Sorry,” I said, wincing. That was a very, very strange feeling. Did I just throw one of my bones at him? Was it going to grow back?
The mare tried to stand, but the ruin of her midsection made it impossible, her back legs just twitching in spasms. Another force bolt went past my head and into the forest.
“Buck!” I swore. “Destiny!”
“Use the Junk Jet!” Destiny snapped. I bit down on the trigger, and a wrench flew at near-sonic speed to hit her horn before she could fire again, putting her down for the count.
“That was messy,” I said.
“Get rid of the bodies before we go inside, just in case,” Destiny said.
“Yeah, yeah, already on it,” I sighed, limping over to the stallion. Putting weight on my right forehoof felt weird now. I could feel the empty space like a socket where a tooth should have been, but in my leg.
I flipped him over onto his back and yanked the blade free from his skull.
“There has to be some way…” I muttered, looking at the back end. I held it next to my right wrist and it snapped into place like it was magnetic, vibrating for a moment before sliding back inside and between my bones.
“You know I didn’t think to mention this before,” Destiny said. “But you should probably clean that thing off once in a while.”
“Thanks for mentioning that after I got a pony’s brains and blood all over my insides, best buddy,” I groaned.
I swung my (now-clean) hoof blade through another thick cluster of vines. They weren’t as cooperative for me as they were for the raiders. Every time I cut through one, I got a jolt of electricity right into my bones. The damn things were half-copper and acting as power cables, and I was lucky none of them had enough of a charge to kill me yet.
“For the record, this really sucks,” I grunted, kicking some of the fallen vines out of the way.
“Don’t be so negative. It looks like that was the last of them.” The cone of Destiny’s hornlight swept around, showing a corridor that was mostly clear, even if the walls were bulging with some kind of growth underneath the rusting panels.
I ducked under the cut vines and slowly walked in. The place felt alive, like I was walking into something’s guts. I would have preferred creepy and haunted, since I’d be bringing my own ghost along with me.
“Any chance you have an idea where we’re supposed to go?” I asked.
I felt a mental shrug. “Not really. Let’s check downstairs. Server mainframes were pretty big and fragile, so it would probably be installed in the basement.”
“Is it just me or did they build everything underground during the war?” I asked, trotting through an old locker room and looking for the stairs down.
“You’re just annoyed you can’t fly down here,” Destiny said smugly. “Underground spaces are insulated and more secure.”
She was right but I didn’t want to admit it. It just would have been nice to skip right to the top and have an easy escape route through the sky. Going underground felt like shaking hooves with danger -- every step I took down the stairwell we found was just bringing me further and further away from safety.
“I think some of those trees must have gotten roots down here,” I muttered quietly. There were raiders in here somewhere, so I had to be careful. “I can feel everything pulsing.”
“Are you going to be okay? Do we need to turn back?”
“I can deal with it for a little while. I don’t want to have done this all for nothing.”
The lower level was a trash dump. Yellow, buzzing lights flickered on the ceiling and there were ruined cardboard boxes full of waterlogged files standing next to barrels that might have been full of oil a hundred years ago but were just muck and tepid sludge now.
“We always go to the nicest places,” I said.
“Good thing the armor filters smell, or it might kill you even faster than the SIVA.”
I snorted and shook my head.
We turned the corner and spotted a raider leaning against the wall next to a doorway just down the short hallway. On instinct, I flicked my hoof at the guard, and the blade flew out and got him in the neck. He looked more surprised than hurt, opening his mouth to speak and nothing coming out.
“Crap,” I muttered, running on three legs up to him and spinning to kick with both back hooves, crushing his snout in. He staggered, falling to his knees, and I grabbed the gun at his side and yanked it off, having to pull wires right out of his skin and whatever it was connected to under his hide. I brought it down on his head, smashing the weapon apart along with his cranium.
“Messy,” Destiny commented unnecessarily. I yanked the blade free from his neck and something closer to motor oil than blood splashed all over me.
“Remind me to ask Wolf-in-Exile if he has any ammunition for a rifle DRACO’s size after we’re done here,” I said, between deep breaths. The raider twitched, obviously not entirely dead.
I grabbed his hoof and pulled him over to a murky barrel full of water, dumping him in with a splash. The place was messy and damp enough that maybe none of the others would notice him for a while.
“I’ll also remind you to get a bath,” Destiny said. “Maybe we’ll find a hot spring that won’t boil you.”
“That’d be nice. Now let’s see what he was guarding…” The door was locked, but the bolt was easier to cut through than the raider’s armored neck. I pulled it open and looked inside, a gust of warm air hitting me in the face.
Inside, it looked like a graveyard. Monoliths taller than I was sat in rows and columns, each one a respectful distance from the rest and quietly clicking and whirring with tiny lights blinking on every side.
“This is the server room,” Destiny said. “Look at this place… it’s a heck of a lot of hardware for the middle of nowhere. Even a communications hub wouldn’t have this much.”
“So what was it?” I asked. The place had a kind of quiet oppressive feeling like some kind of holy place.
“Either some kind of Ministry project or we’re looking at part of that nice, friendly AI that screamed at us in its own language.”
“Kulaas.”
“That’s the one,” Destiny confirmed. “Either way, it’s good for us. This place still has power and it’s doing something. That means the server data probably isn’t corrupted! There’s got to be something useful.”
Movement caught my eye. I ducked behind one of the server racks and tried to make myself as small and silent as possible. A pony lurched past my hiding spot, looking more like a ravaged skeleton being forced along by machines than a living being. It seemed blind, pausing and listening as it moved instead of looking around. I slowly worked my way around the server before it had a chance to turn around just in case it wasn’t as unseeing as it seemed.
Somewhere deeper in the room, I heard ponies shouting.
“We need to go check that out,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Any idea how we can sneak up there?”
“I think we can get above the lights,” Destiny whispered. “There’s scaffolding there that might take your weight.”
I looked up, squinting past the fluorescent lights and trying to see into the shadows. There was definitely something there, and if I was having trouble making it out, the raiders probably wouldn’t be able to manage it at all.
The only problem was getting there. I just had to hope I wasn’t seen.
I waited until I was pretty sure that the lumbering mostly-dead thing patrolling right near me was as far away as it was going to get and jumped into the air, trying to fly quietly, for whatever that’s worth. Gliding was silent, hovering was quiet, this was neither of those things. Even with the weight of the barding supported by its own talismans I was not a precision flyer.
The lights blinded me until I was past them, and if I didn’t have a heads-up display adjusting faster than my eyes could, I would have flown into the pipes and ducts hanging from the too-close ceiling. I just barely avoided them, and then the thin scaffolding of the lights was below me and in my path and I would have made an amazingly loud sound crashing into it if Destiny hadn’t thrown a magical shield in my way and let me very quietly slam into it.
“That could have gone better,” she said.
“Your magic feels tingly,” I muttered, a little dazed. I very carefully made my way along the lights, wincing whenever they flickered.
The room was shaped something like a big square, with the corners taken up by fenced-off sections with machines in them and all the servers in rows in the cross shape between them. A central platform in the middle of the room had static-filled screens around the edges.
It had probably been very organized and clean two hundred years ago. Unfortunately, roots had climbed down one of the big pipes running along the walls and the machines in the far corner of the room were overgrown with a mix of leaves and glittering lights. Most of the servers around it were tilted and dark, or covered in vines that burrowed into the silicon and steel.
“Looks like the forest got down here after all,” Destiny said.
“That’s not all,” I said. “I think we just found the High Priest. You’ve got to have a title to go along with a hat like that.”
I couldn’t tell if it was a mare or stallion, and I suspected there was so little left of them that it didn’t really matter either way. They were wearing an ornate cloak and hat that seemed to be as much metal as they were fabric, the cloak a jangling collection of triangular plates and the hat closer to an armored helm with a wide brim.
He or she or they, I guess, was flanked by two ponies who looked like they were in better condition than most of the raiders. They were a matched set. I don’t know if they were twins or what, but they were the same faded pale color and both of them were wearing visors that covered their eyes. I didn’t see weapons on them, but I was willing to bet they had something up their sleeves. Literally. They were both wearing coats that seemed to be woven from some kind of tough webbing, the kind a pony might use as a cargo strap or safety harness.
The three ponies in front of them didn’t seem like they were part of the gang. They were tied up with lengths of woven vines, and one of them was barely conscious and nursing what looked like two broken legs.
All of them were standing on that central platform, in front of a number of haphazardly-installed pods. Metallic vines stretched across their stainless steel surfaces, and every panel was bulging and straining, like something inside them was pushing out from within, like a seed pod ready to burst and spray spores everywhere.
“I’ve seen those before in the hospital,” I whispered. “They’re Auto-Docs, right?”
“Yeah, but these are… infected,” Destiny said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go anywhere near them.”
“Let us go!” the lead mare yelled. She had a few nasty bruises, and was wearing the filthiest barding I’d ever seen. It looked like she’d skinned some animal and started wearing the hide without even bothering to wash off the blood first.
“The three of you have a chance to become something greater today,” the High Priest said. “You were just surviving in the ruins of the old world, and today you will join the new one.”
“Buck you!” the mare shouted, spitting in the big guy’s face. The two guards flanking him took offense to that and started to close on her. The High Priest held up a hoof and they backed off.
“You’ll learn to thank me later,” he said coldly. “We’ll start with your injured friend.”
The High Priest turned and lifted the first raider into the air with telekinesis. At least I knew he had a horn under that big hat. The injured pony groaned, and the Priest carried him over to one of the auto-docs.
The pod opened up like a flower, the door spreading apart along organic-looking seams. The raider screamed when he was thrown in, the hatch slamming shut like a maw and quieting the sounds from within.
“We have to--” I started to move, and the armor suddenly resisted me, like every joint had locked up.
“Wait,” Destiny said. “We need more information before we run in.”
The pressure came off me, and I could move again. I wanted to glare at her, but I didn’t have anywhere to look.
“The three of you are merely scavengers, thugs, and violent barbarians,” the Priest said. “I offer you salvation. You will become something greater. Once you hear the Great Voice you will stop being mere animals and become members of the Word of the Dragon!”
“See?” Destiny said. “They’re raiders. No point saving them.”
“They’re still ponies!” I hissed.
“By my count you’ve killed a bunch of ponies without feeling too bad about it.”
“I didn’t kill anypony that was on their knees begging for someone to save them,” I said.
The medical pod split open with a rush of rusty water and oil, and what was left of the stallion with the broken legs was flushed out with it. He was twitching and raw like he’d been eaten alive and partly digested. Most of his coat was missing, and his skin was oozing and seemed half-molten. He staggered to his hooves and moaned in obvious pain, metal under his skin forcing him to move.
“That must be where the things patrolling the room must have come from,” Destiny muttered, without the horror that I’d have expected from anypony seeing an unnatural and hideous parody of birth like that.
“A failed dreg,” the Priest said, shaking his head sadly. “He was judged by the machine god and found unworthy.”
He picked up the mare. She struggled and tried to kick her way out of his magical grip, but it wasn’t happening. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Perhaps you’ll do better,” he said.
I was moving before Destiny could do anything to stop me. She might have been content to let things play out, but I wasn’t. I hit the struggling mare with my shoulder and carried her right out of the Priest’s grip, bullying my way through it with brute strength and skidding to a halt on the steel floor, putting her down and staying between the mare and the pony in charge.
“What’s this?” he asked, more amused than annoyed. “You don’t seem quite as weak and worn down as the usual scavenger scum, and that scent…” the priest raised their snout and sniffed the air. “You’ve already felt the touch of the machine god! Join us, sister! You were chosen and found worthy!”
“Your machine god isn’t here today, priest,” I said. “I’m not letting you torture these ponies.”
“Please, call me Fornax,” they said, tipping their hat slightly. Well, not really a hat. It was clearly part of their head, which really says a lot about them that they were happy to have a giant hat as a permanent part of their skull.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “Give up, stop hurting innocent ponies, or else.”
Fornax shook their head. “They’re hardly innocent. The mare you’re protecting lives by preying on the weak. Don’t pity them and try to protect them from the world, help me make them stronger!”
“I don’t think he’d agree that you’re helping anypony.” I nodded to the stallion that had been eaten by that pod and spat out as a horror.
“A failure, unfortunately. Salvation doesn’t come to us all. Still, even these dregs can serve as useful cogs in the greater system. Let me show you.”
He tilted his head. The brim of his hat lit up like it was stuffed with neon lights, and I felt a wave of static wash over me, leaving crawling and aching in its wake. I stumbled at the sudden shot of agony, before the cold pinch of an autoinjector brought relief washing through my veins. Before I’d recovered enough to say anything, the skeletal stallion slammed into me, wailing through swollen, infected lips.
“Get off me!” I shouted, punching him in the side of the head and putting him down on the ground. His legs kept thrashing like he was being forced to gallop as hard as he could, scrabbling at the ground and trying to force himself back up again.
I reared up and brought both forehooves down, and I could feel metal and flesh tearing apart, like a stick pulling out of a pudding pop because the pudding melted, but in this analogy the sticks are cybernetic and the pudding is the pony and the pudding pop is bleeding everywhere. I might have been craving chocolate when I was thinking up this analogy.
High Priest Fornax turned and started walking away calmly in my moment of distraction. I spread my wings and started after him, and his two bodyguards were suddenly in my face, opaque visors making them even more intimidating than if they’d just been glaring at me.
“Out of the way,” I said. “Otherwise you’re next.”
They stood like a wall of steel-infused flesh. But they were lacking one important advantage. I spread my wings and just went right over--
One of them grabbed me by the hind leg and swung my whole body like a club into the floor hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
“Ow,” I groaned.
“Hey, Blue!” the mare I’d saved shouted. “We could use a little help here!”
Four of the skeletal horrors, the things Fornax had called dregs, had surrounded her and the stallion that I guessed was her friend or at least partner in crime. They were backed up against one of the tall server racks, trying to keep the monsters at bay.
“Hold on, I’m coming!” I shouted. I got up, and one of the two identical thugs stepped in front of me. I glanced back. The other one was behind me. They moved in concert, taking steps at the same time as they circled me, getting just a little closer with every step.
“I think I can charge up a shot,” Destiny said. “Can you keep them busy for a minute?”
“I don’t know if we’ve got a minute,” I retorted.
The twins came at me at the same time, and I tried to get into the air again. And again, they swatted me down to the floor like I was a pest. I rolled out of the way before they trampled me, and I tried to get up, but they were already on me again. I triggered the Junk Jet, throwing a wrench into their plans, or at least into one of their chests. It only stunned him for a second, but that was enough of an opening for me to get up, put my head down, and charge right back at them.
I hit the closer one, the one who hadn’t been smacked with a wrench, and I could feel that there wasn’t much pony left. It was more like running into a robot than a living thing. I wasn’t sure if there was any flesh under the coat he was wearing.
It was sort of a miscalculation, which isn’t surprising because I’m bad at math. I bounced off the much heavier pony, but at least he stopped in his tracks. That gave me a half-second to flick the blade out of my wrist and stab him in the shoulder. He swiped at me, but I twisted the blade and hopped back, making him stumble and fall to his knees.
The second one had recovered by then, just shrugging off a heavy tool being flung at high speed into his chest. He ran at me and I went low instead of high, knowing he’d just snatch me out of the air if I tried. The big guy wasn’t expecting that, and definitely didn’t expect my wing at ankle-level, tripping him up and sending him over the edge of the central platform.
He fell face-first into the open, infected medical pod, the thing snapping shut like a dragon’s jaws.
“Guess that’s one way to deal with it,” I muttered.
“Are you gonna help or not?!” the mare shouted. I looked over to her, and she was perched on top of the tall server, just barely out of reach of the dregs. Her friend was on the edge, trying to pull himself up. She reached for his hoof, but the dregs grabbed his hinds, yanking him down to the ground. He screamed for a second before it cut off in a wet gurgle.
“I’m coming!” I shouted, immediately before a hoof hit me in the face and sent me sprawling. The remaining twin picked me up before I could start getting up on my own. I triggered the Junk Jet again, and a bottle half-full of protein shake splattered against his shoulder. He frowned. I’d done a great job of making him angry.
“I hope this is enough!” Destiny said. The whole room lit up with red-gold light and a bolt of force hit the stallion in the forehead from point-blank range. The back of his head exploded, and he toppled over in a heap.
“We really need to pick up some rocks or something to throw with this thing,” I said, jumping over the fallen cyber-pony and rushing towards where the skeletal dregs were trying to climb up to get the mare I’d briefly saved.
There were four of the things, three once I’d bull-rushed one and flung it back into a server tower, the already-damaged rack exploding in sparks. A second one was just fast enough to turn and face me before I slashed through its neck and severed its spine. I was running entirely on instinct, everything slowing to a crawl. I threw the blade at the third horror and pinned it to the wall. The last of them got me from behind, right in the place I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head.
“Get off!” I yelled. Its hooves were just long knives attached at the knees, and it was trying to stab me with all four of them. I reared up and used my wings to fling it back. It wailed in pain, recoiling and stinking like burned flesh. My feathers were almost red-hot.
“Good work, Blue!” the scavenger yelled. “Now get me down from here!”
“My name’s not Blue,” I said, suddenly dizzy. Something was hitting me hard, like I’d had too much coffee and cheap sugar and the high was crashing down to all new lows.
“Well it’s not like you told me your real name,” she said, hopping down carefully. I walked over to the dreg pinned to the wall. It was still struggling to free itself. I turned and gave it a swift back kick, quieting it down before I pulled the knife out and let it fall to the ground in a puddle of oil. “It’s probably not dead, you know,” the mare noted.
“They’re hard to put down for good,” I admitted. “Did you see where that priest went?”
“I was a little busy with my own problems, but I think he scampered,” the mare shrugged. “Probably long gone.”
I grunted. “Great.”
“There is a little good news,” Destiny said. “DRACO managed to get connected to the local wireless. He got the data downloaded while you were fighting.”
I took a deep breath. At least we’d gotten one thing done.
“Don’t suppose you could give a girl a lift somewhere nicer?” the scavenger asked. I was going to say no until I remembered that immediately outside was a razor-edged ice-covered forest, and she’d be lucky to make it ten paces without being torn apart.
“I’ve got just the place in mind,” I said.