Chapter 29

"Changeling," said Xen. "Does your data show the town as infested with deathclaws?" She lay atop a small knoll overlooking a parking lot at one edge of town. A couple of hundred yards away, an enormous shape stalked among the defunct prewar cars. It was upright, twice as tall as a man, and the shape of the horns and tail were quite distinct. The deathclaw tended to let its long foreclaws rest on the ground when it was not moving. Occasionally the starlight would reflect from a gleaming eye.

"Negative," said Changeling. "I have mapping information only. I remind you that situations like this one were your ostensible reason for bringing Charon with us."

"Charon's never been here," Xen said, resisting the urge to tell Changeling to shut up. It was never any use snapping at a bot, and it would give her the idea she had the upper hand. "Have you, Charon?"

"No," said Charon, who lay beside her, tracking the creature with the barrel of the combat shotgun. Xen had had to tell him promptly and firmly not to attack it on sight. She probably imagined the reproachful set of his shoulders. Bell lay on Charon's other side, and Changeling hovered behind them with her sensor light cloaked.

The deathclaw huffed through its nostrils – the sound was audible even at two hundred yards – and turned to wander off back toward the opening of a street. Xen could clearly make out the heat signature of a second enormous thing there. They tended toward darker maroons, almost purples, a normal body temperature lower than a human's.

"I wonder how many of them there are," Xen said.

"Too many," said Charon immediately. "I can certainly kill one deathclaw. Probably two at once. More dan two would pose a difficulty wit' regard to preventing injury to yourself and Changeling."

"What about injury to you?" Xen asked.

"Dat also," he said calmly. "I am not sure about Bell."

At this point Bell was heard to mutter words to the effect of me, neither.

"Does the town have sewers?" Xen asked Changeling.

"Affirmative," said the packbot. "They are entered via manhole covers throughout the town. There is some connection between the sewage system and the town's underground transportation as well."

"Would these manhole covers be too small for a deathclaw to fit through?" Xen asked.

"It is likely. The town also has storm drains, however, which are not. I remind you that deathclaws are very intelligent animals."

"Acknowledged," Xen said, remembering this from her reading. "So they're probably in the sewers, too."

"Their numbers will be fewer below ground," Changeling said. "They are aggressively territorial, and space is less there."

"Enough that we'll only run into them one at a time?" Xen asked.

"Insufficient data. At the intersection of territories non-agonistic interactions are possible," said Changeling, which was more or less what Xen had expected to hear.

"So what are they eating in there?" she asked, suddenly curious. "Each other? There can't be many people left in the town, can there?"

"I find no human heat signatures," said Changeling. "Small animals might escape the range of my detection apparati, however. Deathclaws will not become cannibalistic until all other options are exhausted."

"So they're probably fairly hungry," Xen interpreted this.

Which means they'll be very alert for unusual sounds. Or smells. Or movement.

"I don't suppose your mapping information gives any indication of where the manhole covers are?" Xen said.

"It does not," Changeling said. "Xen, I detect no alien energy signatures within my range. To enter the town at all would be foolhardy in the extreme."

"But your detection range is too small for that to mean anything," Xen said. "And that's a good-sized town. Let's assume that we're going in there. Charon, how would you suggest we do it?"

"I would suggest we enter dat building wit' as much stealth as possible," Charon said, indicating the nearest structure across the parking lot with a minimal jerk of his head. "Probably t'rough t'nearest window, which is too small to admit a deathclaw. Den I would put something heavy across the door, climb up to t'roof, and shoot everyt'ing wit'in visual range. Den we will have a secured area and a viewpoint from which to survey the area for targets and entries to t'sewer."

Xen mulled this over for a moment. "That sounds good to me. Does anyone have another suggestion?"

"Should I survive to assist in the raising of your clone after your demise, I will strongly suggest she be physically prevented from leaving the Lab until at least age twenty-one," said Changeling. Xen rolled her eyes.

"That's not very helpful. As usual."

"What? How old are you?" Bell asked. Xen saw her turn from watching the retreating deathclaw to bestow a curious look on Xen.

"Seventeen," said Xen. "You?"

"Let's see," said Bell. "By my count, I've been consciously operational for five years, two months, three days, six hours, and so far, fifteen minutes. Or around an hour older than B2-10, who was next in the same production run. She's still back in the lab. I remember her as kind of stupid." Bell shrugged. "I guess I was, too, before I hit the glitch and my data acquisition snowballed."

"My siblings are all dead," Xen said. "Alien/Xenoorganic Hybrids #1-18. None of them made it out of the tank. Most of them had more xeno DNA than I do. Either the allergies got them, or the immune problems, or they weren't lucky enough to hit this particular neotenous mutation and survive direct ultraviolet exposure." She pointed at one of her eyes.

"So it really was just you and your robots," Bell said.

"That's right," said Xen.

Bell turned to look back across the parking lot. "I'm sorry. I don't know anything about tactics. But I'm good at lifting heavy things, if Charon ends up needing help with that."

"I am sure that will be useful," said Charon, his diction suddenly crisper.

"Then whenever you're all ready," said Xen.

"When I tell you, run as quietly as you can to that window." He pointed. "Changeling will go inside first and scan for any hostile presence. Then you. Then Bell. Charon will enter last."

"Acknowledged," Xen said, not missing the sudden third-person reference.

But then, I know who it is I'm talking to. I guess I should be honored that Charon's letting him speak to me directly.

Charon nodded once, watched until the deathclaws were out of sight, and said, "Run."

Xen got up and ran across the uneven ground with her holster bumping against her hip. Charon and Bell kept pace easily beside her, and Changeling sped along at a stable hover on her left. The parking lot seemed suddenly larger now that she had to look down every second or so at her feet. Charon, whose night vision was presumably only human, did not stumble, so she would feel particularly stupid if she twisted her ankle.

Her heart was thudding in her ears before they were halfway across. She knew she could walk for twenty miles a day. She'd seldom tried to run. Xen tried to focus on the building ahead and the ground below at the same time, but no giant heat signature loomed up in front of her. The shotgun, which Charon held easily in one hand, was a cold but very welcome presence to her right.

At last, they reached the shadow of the building. The window was perhaps five feet above the ground.

"Firing," said Changeling, and scored a neat rectangle around the edges of the glass. It fell inward with a tinkle and a crash. The packbot zipped up and in, so fast that the cargo net trailed almost straight out behind her, only just fitting through the narrow space. A few weeks' worth of meals earlier, it would not have gone through at all, Xen thought. There was a further crunch and tinkle from inside, probably Changeling clearing the glass away.

"Negative for hostiles," said Changeling's cool, flat voice. Xen was seized by strong hands and lifted, and a second later her moccasined feet were over the sill and she was inside. She moved out of the way, stepping around a neat pile of glass shards, and Bell vaulted easily over the sill and stepped off to one side. Xen waited impatiently, but Charon did not come. She almost swallowed her tongue at the sound of feet running. Big feet. Taking inhumanly long steps, the sounds of impact far apart.

"I see you," said a guttural accent from outside, and the shotgun went off, unbelievably loud in the hush. There was an animal scream, a long shrieking roar. "Yeah. Ya like dat, ya bastard?"

"That is enough. Get inside!" said the crisper voice.

"Better him dan me," said the first one, and then Charon chinned himself up on the glassless sill and climbed inside with the shotgun on his back. Xen felt slightly sick to her stomach, and there was a tightness in the back of her throat. Charon's body temperature had risen perhaps half a degree, consistent with exertion.

"Was that a deathclaw?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Charon, and then in a more normal voice, "You should move away from t'window. Bell?"

"Sure," said Bell. Xen backed away from the window and turned to look at the room. It had been a tavern once, or something like it. There were tables scattered around and a bar across the other side of the room, bottles still neatly lined up here and there. A spotty mirror hung behind it, tilted slightly downward to show the whole floor. She could see herself, standing in the dust her feet had stirred up, and Changeling's teacup-shaped chassis with her scanner light blinking, and Charon moving purposefully to shove the Nuka-Cola machine over across the single front door. She saw with relief that the door was made of something solid that looked like wood, not out of clear glass. Charon edged the machine over next to the door as Bell watched, then gave the top of it a shove. It rocked, then fell. Xen winced, anticipating the loud noise, but Bell's hand caught the machine six inches from the floor and she lowered it silently. Charon nodded approval as if that was exactly what he had expected to happen.

"It's not tall enough," Bell said. "Let me get the fridge."

Charon nodded again and returned to stand between Xen and the window, watching outside. Bell walked behind the bar, looked at the appliance for a second, then wrapped both arms around it and lifted. It came away from the wall as if it were made of cardboard. Xen swallowed against a scratchy throat as she watched Bell carry the appliance back over to the doors, cord trailing. She set it on its side on top of the overturned Nuka-Cola machine. Something clinked from inside it. Bell lifted the door open and peered inside.

"Want some crunchy mutfruit?" she asked. "Or a warm beer?"

"Ew, no thank you," said Xen, and swallowed again. It was harder this time, and she noticed it was a little hard to breathe also. Her tongue felt thick, and the inside of her mouth tingled. "Changeling. Firs' aid subroutine."

"Results consistent with anaphylaxis," said Changeling. Bell's head jerked around to stare at Xen, eyes wide and mouth a thin line.

"Epi," croaked Xen. Changeling glided forward, rotating to expose the appropriate leg joint. Xen slapped her hand over it and waited for the sharp jab of the needle. Her heart jerked in her chest, but her throat cleared as if by magic. "Better," she said over the thudding in her ears. "Can we get upstairs out of the dust?"

"Yes, and Charon's damn well going to carry you," said Bell. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Definitely," Xen assured her. The light in the android's left eye was blinking rapidly on and off, as sure a sign of distress as the swearing. "Just a little off for an hour or so. Go ahead, Charon." She hated her own weak knees, but knew it would take her too long to make the stairs even if she didn't pass out halfway up. Charon hoisted her easily over his shoulder again, and off they went to the stairwell behind the bar. Xen stared around them, but there were no giant heat signatures looming nearby to threaten through the walls. The gun on her hip didn't seem very reassuring now.

"I don't see any of them," she said. "I guess Charon got the only one that heard us."

"With one fucking shot, no less," said Bell. "Must've hit it right in the eye."

"Mouth," said Charon briefly.

"Changeling, you go up first," said Xen.

The packbot entered the stairwell, shining a faint red light ahead.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Bell asked. "I can hear your pulse. And your temperature's up even though your blood pressure is down." Xen, elbows once again on Charon's shoulderblades, grinned reassuringly at her.

"That's the epinephrine," she said as Charon started to jog up the stairs. "Haven't you seen a human treated for an allergy attack in the lab?"

"No," said Bell.

"Well, now you know what that looks like." Thinking was difficult now, but talking seemed easy. She sneezed again. The stairwell was hardly less dusty than the barroom had been. "Anyway, if you can read my temperature you must be able to read Charon's. Does he look anxious to you?"

"He never looks anxious," said Bell. She looked dryly at the Ghoul's broad back. "The A3 units show more fucking emotion than you, Charon."

"I have no information on dat point," said Charon.

"Probably true," said Xen. "But he gains a couple of degrees if he thinks I'm in real trouble. It's the only time I've ever seen him show much in the way of physiological activation." She was talking rapidly now, and she stumbled a little over the longer word. "When we were attacked by the super mutants he had four ribs broken and didn't even blink. He wouldn't stim himself even, I had to have Changeling do it..." She blinked as the walls appeared to tilt. Charon took the first landing in a couple of strides and started up again.

"Xen?" said Bell.

"S'okay, I get kind of dizzy on the epi sometimes," said Xen. "'Specially with s-stress... Uh..." She was conscious of a cold feeling in her fingers and toes. "Oh. Don' worry, s'not fatal, prob'ly pass out in jus' a..."

The cold and the dark closed in around Bell's round and worried face.