22

That evening, they moved on. Charon helped Xen climb through the rocks back to the outer edge of the outcrop. The last drop was only four or five feet, but she still hesitated, unused to jumping or falling any distance.

"Charon?" said Xen.

Charon reached up, put his hands around her waist, and lifted her down to the ground.

"Thanks," Xen said breathlessly. "I'm not very good with heights. Even little ones." She was sweating from the pathetic amount of climbing she'd done. Changeling passed them, hovering ten feet up or so, and then dropped down to her normal level with a small shake of the cargo net. They were back on the dirt track.

"We should have some miles of safe travel," Changeling said. "Super mutants tend to clear their immediate area of life that is not associated with them."

"Associated," Xen said, trying to recall her reading. "You mean like centaurs?" She'd seen one or two pictures. She couldn't imagine associating the image of mythological horse-men with the crawling horrors that came out of long-term FEV exposure. But then, it was reasonable to expect the average sense of humor to be darker out in the Wasteland.

"Affirmative," Changeling said.

"Don't those spit corrosives?" Xen asked. She started along the trail, which was now badly scuffed.

"Affirmative."

"Charon, have you ever seen one?" Xen asked.

"More dan once," Charon said. "Dey move very slowly."

Meaning they're easy to shoot, Xen deduced.

"So you didn't get spat on," she said.

"On t'contrary," Charon said. "But the burns were not severe."

"Things don't slow you down much, do they?" Xen said. There was no response to this. Charon evidently knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.

The next two nights and days passed without much incident. After the first they were past the outcrop and back into gently rolling hills, dry and almost bare. A little green was showing here and there, new evidence that Project Purity was working as planned. Xen practiced drawing and targeting when they stopped during daylight. She wanted to save the .22's ammo. She did have flashback nightmares, but they were not as bad – and in some of them, she was holding the gun.

The third night they were on their way up a small rise when Charon raised his head.

"Be cautious," he said. Xen could just make out a distant heat signature through the bulk of the hill.

"Changeling," Xen said. "Stay here. Turn off your light. Charon, don't shoot anything until I see what it is."

"As you wish," Charon said.

"Cloaking sensor," responded the packbot. Xen dropped to her belly and squirmed up to the top of the little hill so she could see over. Charon crept up beside her without making a sound.

An ancient truck sat on the flat down below, next to a pond that was hardly more than a mudhole. It had a short trailer with an intact canopy in back. The gate was up, and a man was sitting on the back fender. Xen saw the glow at the end of his cigarette as he smoked. To her eyes, unlidded and without goggles, it lit up his face and chest intermittently. She could see the white claw painted on his black combat armor. His hair was shaved close to his head, and his face had a thin growth of stubble.

The cigarette also reflected from the barrel of the long gun that lay beside him on the truck bed. Xen received a brief impression of movement from behind him. A grunt and a laugh, both in male voices, drifted up to them. Xen made out maybe two, maybe three heat signatures inside; they were too close together to be sure.

"This is an enemy?" Xen whispered.

"Yes," Charon whispered back. "Talon Company mercenaries."

"I thought they weren't common out here."

"Dey are not," Charon replied.

"I want a better view," Xen said. She crawled as quietly as she could backward and around the hill. There wasn't much chance the man would detect her if she didn't make too much noise. She was pretty sure the light from the cigarette would make it harder for him to see out into the dark.

From her new position she could see inside the truck. There were two more mercenaries inside. One was kneeling on a woman's arms, pinning them above her head. She was naked, and her skin was smooth and sallow. Xen could only see part of her because the other man was in the way -

Xen crawled backward as fast as she could until she was behind the hill again.

"Charon," she hissed. "I've never had sex. Does that look consensual to you?"

Charon belly-crawled to her previous position, examined the situation, and crept back.

"No," he said.

Xen narrowed her eyes, half in anger and half in pain.

This is what Tori was afraid would happen to me. This woman didn't have a Charon to protect her. Not even a robot with a laser.

"Kill them," she said. "Leave the woman. Tell me when it's secure."

"I am yours t'command," Charon said. He stood gracefully, whirled the shotgun off his back, and stepped up over the hill. Xen listened to the soft click-click of the gun being cocked, and then she drew her new pistol and crawled up to where she could see what was happening.

Charon was halfway down the hill before the mercenary noticed the movement in the dark. He started to reach for his gun. He had it raised about halfway when Charon blew his head into goo. The body thumped back against the truck bed and rebounded, sliding out onto the ground with the force of its own weight. Xen heard one of the others shout. Charon rolled to one side as a shot whipped past. She heard it impact harmlessly in the dirt, and then the Ghoul was up on one knee and firing again.

More shouting. A man in combat armor tried to jump out of the truck with a gun in one hand as he held his pants up with the other. This resulted in a predictable stumble. He didn't get a chance to right himself. Charon put up the gun with one hand as he drew his knife with the other. Two steps and one arm movement too quick to follow, and the mercenary lay twitching and gurgling with a cut throat.

"Good riddance," Charon said. He knelt to wipe the blade of the combat knife on the dead man's body armor. "Xen. Secure."

"I always forget how fast he is," Xen said. She sheathed the pistol, feeling suddenly clumsy. "Come on, Changeling."

Xen suppressed a wince at the stink of recent death as she came down the hill. She had thought she was ready for it this time, but the images were there waiting. Raiders bleeding on the concrete and blood spreading up the sleeve of Dr. Montalban's lab coat -

No. I'm here now. I'm alive. I can do this.

She walked around the two corpses and looked into the truck. The third man sat slumped against the back wall. He was mostly without a head, and there was a wide, red splatter against the wall. Charon was consistent that way. The woman sat against one wall of the trailer with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. She stared out at Xen with no expression. She was stocky, with muscular arms and legs. Her face was a smooth oval, pale against the dark of the trailer's walls. An epicanthic fold across a corner of each eye gave them an almond shape. She didn't seem to notice the spatter of blood across her face and shoulder.

There was a steel collar around her neck. A single light blinked red on one side of it.

"I'm Xen," Xen said. "We won't hurt you."

"My name is Bell," said the woman. "Do you think you can get this collar off?" Her hair was black and cropped very short around her face and ears.

"I don't know," said Xen. "I'll look at it. Can you come out of there?"

"May I get my clothes?" asked Bell. "They made me take them off."

"Yes, of course," Xen said. "I'm sorry about the mess. You can change out here if you want to. We won't look."

"It doesn't matter," said Bell. She was surprisingly calm. Xen had expected rage, or tears, or an inability to respond, or at least a request that Charon move out of sight, but Bell didn't seem to care as she went to gather up her clothes. They lay piled in a corner, shielded from the gore by a pair of ammunition boxes. Even Bell's body temperature was calm, almost a full degree below Charon's normal one.

That may be because she's smaller, and female. I don't have a lot of basis for comparison.

Xen turned away. Bell had not asked for privacy, but she didn't feel comfortable watching. Charon stood with his back to them, patiently scanning the horizon. "Changeling," Xen said. "Scan her."

"Temperature pattern is not consistent with any internal hemorrhage," Changeling said. "There is no circulatory disruption indicating shock. Pulse is slightly elevated. No indication of bruising."

"Really?" Xen asked. "How is that possible? He was kneeling right on her arms in combat armor."

"I don't bruise very easily," said Bell from behind them. "I am dressed now."

Xen turned. Bell now wore a ragged tee shirt, old jeans, and red canvas sneakers. She had no jacket.

"I'm sorry that this happened to you," Xen said. "I wish we'd got here sooner."

Bell shrugged. "They've done it every night since they caught me," she said. "I'm just glad you stopped them. I don't like it."

This seemed such an obvious understatement that Xen had to raise her eyebrows.

"Are you all right?" Xen asked.

"No," Bell said. She tugged at the collar around her neck. "It's this thing. It gives me a headache. I can't think straight."

"Will you let me look at it?" Xen asked.

"Yes," said Bell.

Xen stepped forward and was somewhat surprised to find Charon right beside her. Bell didn't seem bothered or even surprised, so Xen didn't say anything.

She's acting strangely enough. And I don't know how she'll react when I touch her.

Bell appeared not to react at all as Xen probed and prodded the collar with her long fingers.

"Strange," she said. "I've heard that the slavers use explosive collars, but there's no place for a charge here. The power source is too small for it. Changeling, look at this." She moved aside so that the robot's sensor could examine the collar.

"There is a small sonic pulse emitted by a unit on the back of the collar," Changeling said. "It should be easily deactivated with a hand tool. I detect no security measures."

"All right. Let's try a screwdriver." Xen went to rummage through the bags under the cargo net until she found the one she had brought. Originally, she had planned to use it if Camel needed any maintenance. Now she held it in one hand as she pulled back the collar with the other. "Let me know if you can't breathe."

"It's all right," Bell said.

Xen found the tiny panel and managed to dig the screwdriver's flat edge inside it. She twisted sharply. There was a snap. A miniscule cylinder fell out. Xen picked it up and stepped back.

"Is that better?" she asked.

Bell stared at her with the same dull non-expression for a moment. Then her face contorted and she crumpled to her knees. Xen watched without understanding as she pressed both hands over her mouth. The woman made a long, hoarse exhalation of breath, a scream without noise. She did it again and again. The sound made a soft and hellish static in the quiet night.