Lizzie clomped down the steps and threw herself into one of the kitchen chairs.

"Sleep well?" Vincent asked while he cooked reconstituted eggs.

"No," she grumbled.

"Ah. Dreams?"

"Yeah." Lizzie crossed her arms on the table and thumped her forehead down on them.

"Mmm-hmm. So …" Vincent sprinkled on more salt. "... how shirtless was he?"

"Extremely."

"And on a hotness scale of one t–"

"Eleven."

"Ah. He's floating your boat, eh?"

"My boat is currently very buoyant." Her voice was muffled by the protective circle of her arms.

Vincent chuckled as he flipped the omelette.

"It's not funny, Vincent," Lizzie growled without lifting her head. "How am I supposed to look him in the eye after dreaming about … you know …"

"The horizontal mambo?" he guessed.

She grumbled unintelligibly, circling her arms tighter around her face.

"What's mambo?" asked a tired little voice.

Harry was standing in the archway to the kitchen with that sleepy-owl expression so much like his mother's that it made Vincent's chest hurt.

"It's dancing, kiddo. Grown-up dancing."

"Mom made me go to ballet."

"Oh, did she?" Lizzie asked, trying to steer his curiosity away from what she and his grandfather had been discussing.

"Ballet hurts. I don't like the stretches. Or standing on my toes."

"No worries, son," Vincent assured him. "I don't think your radio broadcast classes have ballet as an elective."

"What's elective?"

"A class where you choose what you'll study."

"I'll elective no ballet." He turned the et in ballet into a huge yawn with his eyes screwed shut and his gaping maw exuding the frank odor of multiplying bacteria.

Lizzie waved away the stench. "Whew, Harry. Time to put those new tooth-brushing skills to good use. You could knock an elephant over with that breath."

"Mmm-kay." The boy shuffled slowly back up the steps.

Lizzie heaved herself to her feet and came to assist Vincent by making toast. She flicked on Vincent's music player, looking for something peppy, and settled on Robert Palmer.

Vincent let her sing along to "Some Guys Have All the Luck" for a few verses before asking, "I thought you didn't like innuendo?"

"What do you mean?" She put the warmed-up top of the butter dish over the cold butter to soften it.

"I mean this song."

"Huh?"

"It's a metaphor."

"How is playing dice and giving someone a necklace a metaphor?"

"Is that what he's doing?" Vincent raised his eyebrows and blinked slowly.

The chorus had perfect timing.

Oh, to taste the lips of Lady Luck tonight

Ooh, the face you make when you find out there's a pearl in it

Girl, the way you squeal when you get it

"No!" she exclaimed, suddenly wide awake.

"Yup."

"That can't be what it means!"

"It is."

"Vincent, stop!"

He began to laugh. "Don't look at me, kid. I didn't write the song."

She clapped her hands over her face. "Oh my God," she groaned. "I always sing along to this song when it comes on. Always. When Ayers is here."

"Nothing wrong with two consenting adults –"

"Vincent!"

Vincent almost let the eggs overcook, he was laughing so hard at her naiveté.

"My whole life I thought it was a guy playing dice at the casino and buying his girlfriend a necklace in one of those little velvet boxes!"

"You're adorable."

"You're a dirty old man." She flicked a pat of butter at him.

He dodged the butter, still giggling. Charlie pounced on the errant dairy product and slurped it up with gusto.

"Don't worry about it, Lizzie. A lot of innuendo seems to go right over Ayers's head anyway."

"Don't worry about it? Don't worry about it? You're not the one bopping around the garden singing about oral –"

Harry skidded into the room in his socks.

"– hygiene." She fumbled behind her to turn off the song.

"They taught us more about oral hygiene in Health class!" Harry chirped. "Like these chewy tablets that stain your plaque purple so you can find it and brush it off!" Harry demonstrated the cleanliness of his teeth by using the index and thumb of both hands to peel his lips back like a dentist.

"Yes, Harry, very impressive,' Vincent praised him. "Can't have you getting cavities. I'm good at a lot of things, but I'm no dentist."

"I'm supposed to get my teeth cleaned in June." Erika had taken the boy for a checkup every six months like clockwork.

Vincent knitted his brow. "Yeah, uh … yeah. I'll have to look into that." He wasn't sure if Denver still had dentists, and if they did, he was leery of taking a small boy out into the rubble. Even if the devastation didn't disturb the child, there were miles of open ground and a lot of unknowns between them and the nearest entrance in the Wall. Although if Ayers were escorting them, it would literally be a walk in the park. Vincent hrmphed to himself. 'He's got some explaining to do first.'

"Can I play Legos until breakfast is ready?" Harry asked.

"You go right ahead, son. Put them away before you leave the room, though. I don't want to step on one later."

"Yes, Grandpa!" He thundered back up the stairs to his toy chest.

Lizzie growled under her breath about hidden meanings to songs, and buttered her toast like it had personally offended her.

Vincent smirked. "Exactly how much will you be blushing when he comes by today? Light pink? Or is this more of a scarlet situation?"

"Smugness does not become you, Carter."

"Don't worry, he likes it when you blush. He thinks it's cute."

"Amusing, you mean."

"No, I mean cute. His eyes do that crinkly thing at the corners."

"Enjoying my embarrassment doesn't mean he has a thing for me. Besides, I'm not going to hit on Ayers, no matter what you say. He is simply a generous, funny, thoughtful man who by total coincidence is also good-looking. That's all: my coincidentally good-looking friend. One of my best friends, now that I think about it."

Vincent smiled. "And who are these best friends of yours?"

"Obviously there's Charlie, you, Harry, and now Ayers."

"Why is Charlie ranked higher than me? I provide at least as much companionship and entertainment as a cute dog."

"You're not the one who sleeps at the end of my bed to keep my feet warm."

"Well, you've never asked," Vincent informed her sassily.

"Come on, Harry. Physical Education." Lizzie selected an up-tempo song for his lesson. "You've been sitting all day for classes. Time for fun."

"But I don't wanna dance," the boy whined, half-slumped with his arms dangling loosely from his shoulders. "I told you, it hurts."

"This won't hurt, I promise." Lizzie set Vincent's tiny music player on the table next to the old man's rocking chair and tapped the porch floorboards experimentally with her foot. There was a nice hollow echo because of the open space beneath. "The Funky Chicken is essential to a well-rounded education. Now, tuck your hands into your armpits."

Harry tilted his head quizzically as the jaunty piano intro started.

"Trust me, Harry, you can do any dance move to this song. And if you get really good at these, I'll teach you The Nitty Gritty."

The cave had excellent acoustics, and combined with the quality of Vincent's music player it sounded like a live performance. You could almost convince yourself The Mavericks were giving a concert in the backyard. Which would have been impressive for a bunch of dudes who died a hundred years ago.

Lizzie flapped her elbows like wings and strutted up and down the porch with her head moving in the opposite rhythm to her feet.

Someone tell me which promises to keep, she sang, deliberately off-key. And how on Earth do guilty people sleep?

Harry started giggling. "That's not dancing, Lizzie. That's just being silly."

"Anything's dancing if you try hard enough," she told him.

Lizzie held her arms in front of herself like she was going to hug him and rotated her fists in circles around each other while pivoting left and right.

What makes us think this is going so well?

Someday maybe time will be able to tell

Harry had started getting good at the heel-toe dance moves by the time that the bunker doors slid open to admit Ayers. Lizzie froze in the middle of The Bee's Knees, realizing she looked like a little kid who has to pee.

"Look, Mr. Ayers!" Harry crowed. "I'm a dancer!" He did something more like The Butterfly than The Bee's Knees because he hadn't mastered the hand-switching yet. The song continued on loop.

It's hard to judge if all you need is love

Are we all deaf to the word from Up Above?

A crooked grin spread across his face when Ayers realized she was petrified with embarrassment.

Coming out of the house, Vincent muttered quietly to her as he passed, "Someone who'd despise you for a silly dance wouldn't be a person worth knowing."

Vincent walked straight up to Ayers and stood in his way so the marine would have to alter his path toward the house or run an old man over.

The merc halted and gave him an inscrutable stare.

"Let's chat," said Vincent.

That look appeared on Ayers's face. It was the look of a man sizing someone up for a fight. Vincent had been on the receiving end of it a few times and couldn't decide if he was pleased that someone so fierce was looking out for Lizzie and Harry, or if it only meant he had a quick temper.

Ayers put that flash of aggression away with a blink, like closing a door to hide a pile of dirty laundry. He nodded in the direction of the picnic table.

Another look crossed Ayers's face as he and Vincent seated themselves. This one was not directed at Vincent, but the woman and boy on the porch doing The Sprinkler like a couple of goofballs at a middle school dance.

Ayers put this new expression away as quickly as the first, but this time it was like closing a door to keep a nosy deliveryman from seeing what books you like to read. Nothing shameful, but too intimate to share with a stranger. That look was the main reason Vincent had trusted the mercenary. Before he'd tried to abandon them, that is.

"You came back."

Yes.

"Thought you had a mission."

I do.

"Friend of mine on the radio network says Baton Rouge is a ghost town."

Ayers did not react.

"Has been for weeks now," Vincent continued. "Whole city burned to the ground. Nothing but ash and bones."

The marine didn't move.

"He hasn't seen hide nor hair of any mercenary group in Louisiana."

Finally Ayers responded by shaking his head. I wasn't going to Louisiana.

"You were going somewhere, though?"

Yes.

"Where?"

"Classified," Ayers said out loud. He didn't have a hand signal for that concept.

"Somewhere … classified," Vincent repeated slowly, the way he had when Erika was telling him where she'd been instead of at school.

"Start the generator!" Lizzie called to Harry, demonstrating the pull-start of a kinetic-motion power generator. Vincent was pleased that she hadn't let her fear of what Ayers might think get in the way of Harry's fun.

I want to know if I should be weeping like willows

Or actually punching my pillows

"Hmm," Vincent said. Ayers wasn't going to handwave this one away with an It's classified. "Was your mission pre-scheduled for yesterday, or an 'any time' kind of mission?"

Ayers waited for a moment, then held up two fingers to indicate the second option. I could go at any time.

Vincent was prevented from speaking by the anger closing off his throat. Eventually he cleared it out.

"And you were going to leave because …?"

Ayers made a motion with his fist like staking a vampire in the heart. The thing with Buffy.

Now they were getting to the truth of the matter.

"Because of the way Lizzie reacted. I see."

Vincent was pondering the best way to get Ayers out the door – maybe knockout gas and a wheelbarrow – when the mercenary shook his head vigorously. Not the way she reacted.

That caught Vincent off guard.

"What do you mean?"

The merc made the staking motion again, then flicked his fingers away from his throat, which meant a loud voice. Buffy. She screamed.

"Ohhh." That made things entirely different. "Buffy was scared when she saw the cute guy she'd been flirting with is actually a monster."

Ayers nodded once, sharply, while his jaw muscles worked furiously.

Vincent let him be.

"Mud on my shoe!" Lizzie stood on one leg and shook the other foot like trying to get rid of something clingy. Harry nearly fell over trying to imitate her. They were both giggling like mad.

How long must we wait until Hell runs dry?

How long must we listen to politicians lie?

"I can never decide if this is a sad song or a happy one," Vincent remarked. "The music is really upbeat, but the lyrics are like a raincloud that might have a silver lining if you squint."

Depends on your interpretation, signed Ayers.

"Good point."

When the marine had untensed as much as he was going to, Vincent asked, "What makes you think she'd see you as a monster?"

Ayers's eyelids flickered, like a dozen tiny winces back-to-back. Then he made the vampire-stake motion again, with a vicious twist this time. The way I kill demons.

"Ah. She's never seen you fight."

He nodded.

"Go a little berserk, do ya?"

Yes. Ayers put a finger-gun to Vincent's temple and pulled the trigger. I've killed humans, too. He flashed the Numbers sign rapidly. A lot of them.

"I'd imagine so, if you were a soldier during the Amazon Wars."

Yes.

"And now?"

Snarling at nothing, Ayers chopped the air with his hand, then crossed his forearms in an X.

No. Never again. He saluted angrily and dusted off his hands. Let someone else do their dirty work.

"Ah." Vincent could certainly respect that. "That's why you quit and went mercenary. You get to choose your missions now. Turn down the ones that would require you to kill people you aren't convinced need killing."

Yes.

Lizzie demonstrated a Circle Glide, which she was quite good at. Harry would require a lot of practice to get that one right, but he gave it a valiant try anyway.

"What about the Cultists who sacrifice people? Demon worshippers and such?"

Ayers looked sideways at Vincent.

"Gray," he said.

"Ah. Case-by-case basis."

Yes.

"Do The Charleston!" Lizzie hollered. Harry giggled nonstop at the foot-waggling involved in the 200-year-old dance.

"I think I'd break my ankles if I tried that," Vincent remarked.

How come it took so long for us to meet?

The very thought makes me want to stomp my feet

It's so unfair that history repeats

But then again, you turned out so sweet

"So this mission," Vincent continued. "It's a long one?"

No.

"Then what's the holdup? You leave the rabbit's foot with Lizzie like always, go on your mission, come back, done."

No. If I go, Delta-22 goes with me.

"That's only twenty-two hired soldiers. Still leaves all the other military and paramilitary groups."

Ayers snorted quietly.

Vincent was amused. "You think two dozen mercs are what's keeping Denver secure? Not the thousands of professional soldiers, hundred thousand mercenaries and civilian militia, plus twenty mega-mechs with giant guns?"

Yes.

"Oh." His humor faded away. Ayers wasn't one to exaggerate. He meant it.

Vincent examined Ayers's profile with a critical eye. He'd never actually seen the man in action, but the ex-marine had clearly been through many fierce battles unarmored. Judging by the thin scars on his face and hands, a good portion of them had either been knife fights or had a hell of a lot of shrapnel flying around. Maybe precision strikes carried out by twenty-two commandos were enough to tip the balance in Denver's favor. An enemy force could prepare for a frontal assault by several thousand soldiers, but not for a camouflaged sniper who'd spent three days creeping into position to take out their leader.

'That's what's got him worried,' Vincent realized. 'He's concerned Lizzie will be scared of him if she finds out he's an assassin, not a foot soldier slash bomb defusal specialist.'

"Double lasso, Harry!"

Ayers's face lightened at the sight of the pair whipping both arms in overhead circles.

I can show you what it feels like to be king

I can show you how I make the birds sing

They watched a few more minutes before Ayers turned fully to face Vincent and pointed to his left ring finger.

Vincent didn't want to believe it, not when they'd finally been hashing things out. His heart sank.

"You're married?"

Ayers shook his head slowly.

"Oh. Divorced?"

He shook his head even more slowly.

"Widowed?"

Ayers nodded.

"God, I'm sorry, kid. That's the worst. The only thing more awful is –" Vincent stopped when he saw the expression on Ayers's face as the merc watched Harry do The Twist alongside his adopted aunt.

'Damn,' Vincent thought with a pang of sympathy. 'He's lost a child, too.' Judging from the way the marine was watching the woman and boy on the porch, he'd lost them at the same time.

"Deployed," Ayers said roughly, and tapped his chest. "Mission." This was said with extreme bitterness, like a curse.

I wasn't there when they died. I was away on a mission.

"Okay," Vincent acknowledged. "Yeah, I get it, son. I really do." If Vincent had the chance to protect someone who reminded him of Elaine or Erika, he'd do the same damn thing. Even now you couldn't pry him away from Harry and Lizzie with a dozen crowbars.

If Vincent had this right, Ayers had been putting off a dangerous assignment so he could be with them, but decided he couldn't avoid it anymore. Especially when he'd been hiding the brutal nature of his work from someone who would probably be scared if she knew. The only thing Vincent could think of that fit that scenario was an assassination. Locate one of the Cultist leaders and kill them to slow down the enemy's advance until the ARC could come up with some kind of superweapon. When he had actually gone to deploy, however, he found the idea of leaving yet another woman and child behind without his protection was too much to bear.

Ayers frowned at Vincent with concern. Don't tell them I had a family. Not yet.

" 'Course. Not my information to share."

Thank you.

"Eventually, though?" Vincent asked. "You're needed to finish this classified mission?"

Yes. The others can handle it for now. But it would go faster if I were there.

Ah. Delta-22 had operatives searching for a target. Ayers could help them search faster, probably by capturing Cultists for interrogation.

"Yeah, except 'faster' is relative. Meantime something could happen to Harry and Lizzie."

Yes. I need to make sure they're safe before I go.

"Look, we appreciate the thought, but this bunker is probably the safest place on Earth if you don't include NORAD."

Ayers looked at him with an expression halfway between pity and disdain.

"Lava," he said simply.

"Oh," Vincent said. "Right. They have those floating spires that make lava." He felt his face go blank as the horrible image came to him: a 2000-degree waterfall coming down through the ventilation system, rapidly filling up the cave with liquid rock and the toxic smoke of their burning home. Harry would suffocate. If he didn't catch fire first.

"How do you stop something like that?" Vincent whispered. He had no plan for a lava incursion.

Ayers answered. "Wall."

Vincent's faculties came back instantly. "What, Denver's really expanding the Wall out to Aurora?" He'd heard rumors on the radio net, but hadn't thought they'd actually bother protecting a heap of rubble and a few hundred rebellious loners. "They're going to surround Aurora with their Fascist Fence and make us all bow down to the ARC? No thanks."

"Lava," Ayers reminded him.

Vincent grimaced. "Shit. You're right. But letting Oppenheim collar us is definitely the lesser of two evils."

Ayers made a humming sound in agreement.

"Shopping cart!"

Harry pranced behind Lizzie, pulling invisible items off shelves.

Vincent stewed for a bit in the distasteful idea of being slowly penned in by the government, something he'd spent his entire adult life trying to avoid. Finally he decided, 'Harry's safety means more to me than my pride. Let 'em build. We'll find some other way to keep our independence.'

Vincent crossed his feet at the ankles and leaned back against the tabletop.

"So what does a merc do between wars?"

Ayers grinned in that way he had, the one that still made a shiver run down Vincent's spine. The marine held both fists together and then let them spring apart, fingers splayed.

Blow shit up.

"Ah ha," Vincent said in approval. "Military installations or corporate biolabs?"

Biolabs.

"Goddamn bios," Vincent cursed, and added out of habit, "You know, if countries hadn't needed to band together for protection from the mega-corporations, we wouldn't have empires like Indochina and Mexico running the show."

Ayers nodded in agreement.

Vincent warmed to his subject. "You've got Amazon with their bioweapons trying to literally kill off their competition, Mixom's stranglehold on any kind of medicine or manufacturing that doesn't already belong to the UAC – which is even worse than Mixom about not sharing life-saving technology – Starbucks buying up nearly every coffee bean on the planet and putting God-knows-what in the brew most of the population drinks on a daily basis –"

He hadn't noticed Lizzie approaching until she chuckled. Coming closer, she smacked his knee with affection.

"Vincent, you promised you wouldn't spend all of Ayers's precious free time venting about the evils of runaway capitalism."

"Yeah, I suppose I did."

She smiled at Ayers, confident again. "Come on, guys. Harry got tired and wants to play a board game."

The boy was pushing the virtual buttons on Vincent's player, switching songs rapidly.

"Harry, sweetheart," she called as they approached the house. "Let's put on the 'Happy' playlist for the game."

Vincent whispered in her ear, "Better make sure there's no Robert Palmer on this one."

"You are the worst best friend ever," she hissed.

Lizzie could tell from the devious squint of Vincent's eyes that he was going to contrive some reason for her and Ayers to be alone when the game was over.

'That's fine,' she told herself. 'That's okay, he's just a friend, remember? You can be alone with a friend and it's no big deal. A friend who just so happens to be outrageously handsome through no fault of his own. It's fine.'

Now if only her inner voice could manage to say that without quivering.

As soon as the Settlers of Catan - Pluto Expansion box was closed up, Vincent said, "So … Ayers. Lizzie."

'Here it comes.'

"I wonder if you two could do me a favor."

Sure. What is it? Ayers raised his eyebrows.

"Harry needs a dental checkup in a couple of weeks, but I don't want to take him out there unless there's a safe path."

"I'm going outside?!" Harry hollered. The adults winced at his volume.

"Harry, listen –" Vincent tried to calm him down, but the boy was already pogo-sticking in excitement. Charlie started barking when he realized there was something exciting in the works.

"Out-SIDE! Out-SIDE! Out-SIDE!" Harry cheered, and took off out the front door to make laps around the house with the little dog in his wake. "Woooooo!"

"Uh, yeah." Vincent looked a little embarrassed. "Maybe I should have waited until he was out of earshot to ask you that."

Ayers flapped a hand at him. Don't worry about it. He tapped his wrist. You want us to go now?

Harry passed the big window to the living room hollering, "AaaaEEEyyyaaahhhhahahaha!"

"I kinda think we have to," Lizzie admitted, rolling her eyes at Vincent. "Since someone let the cat out of the bag."

Vincent said with deceptive lightness, "Don't forget to dress for the heat! It's 95 degrees Fahrenheit out there."

She willed herself not to blush at the idea of walking around with Ayers, sweating buckets and wearing skimpy clothing.

Lizzie rose haughtily from the table and fairly sneered at Vincent, "Sounds good to me. I'll be back in five."

When she came back down in the shorts Vincent had made her and the lightest long-sleeve T-shirt she could find, Vincent had prepared a hydration backpack and stuffed the extra pocket with snacks. Lizzie took it with a grateful nod.

Ayers held out his hand. I'll carry that for you.

"No, thank you. I, uh, I'll need the constant hydration. Hot out there." She flicked the little tube and its bite-release valve. The on-demand ability to quench her "Ayers-thirst", as Vincent liked to call it, would be very useful.

"And you, son?" Vincent asked. "Your water reservoir's full up?"

Yes.

Ayers led the way out the door. Vincent caught her arm as she went to follow.

"You'll have a good time," he told her quietly, without a trace of the usual teasing. "He enjoys looking after you."

"Makes sense, because he's good at it. I wish there was something we could do for him in return."

"You're already doing that by being with him." Vincent's voice got quieter. "He's a lonely guy. I don't think he makes friends easily."

She did feel like less of a burden when he put it that way. "That's a good point. He's never mentioned the other Deltas by name. I think he doesn't hang out with them very much."

Vincent patted her shoulder. "Like I said: have a good time. He certainly will be."

They heard Harry shrieking with delight even before they stepped out onto the porch. Ayers and Harry had their hands locked around each other's wrists, and the merc was pivoting on his heels to spin the boy so fast that the centrifugal force had him horizontal in mid-air.

"Wheeee! Faster!"

Chuckling silently, Ayers shook his head as Harry spun like a planet rotating around a star. Any faster and you'll fly off.

"I wanna flyyyy!"

Not like that, you don't.

"Eeeeeeactually … I am getting kinda woozy," Harry admitted. The blood rushing toward his feet must be making him light-headed. "Can you put me down?"

In order to burn off the boy's momentum, Ayers converted Harry's centrifugal motion into a vertical toss ten feet in the air. Vincent and Lizzie barely had time to gasp before Harry dropped into Ayers's hands like a figure skater landing a triple-twist. Harry let out his held breath with a whoop of laughter as he touched down lightly.

"Jesus, Ayers, warn me before you do that!" Vincent blurted out.

"Language, Carter," Lizzie reminded him when she got her own voice back.

Ayers grimaced in apology. Sorry.

Vincent put a hand on his chest to help his breathing slow. "I know you have great reflexes, but remember I'm past my prime, all right? I can run for miles, but still: let's not tempt the cardiac-arrest gods."

Understood.

"I am tired," Harry declared with a massive grin.

"I should think so, buddy," Lizzie answered. "We danced for a good half hour even before your little trip into low Earth orbit."

Harry responded with a huge yawn.

"Time for your nap, son," Vincent said, lifting his arm over Harry like a chick under its mother's wing.

"See you Mr. Ayers!"

See you, Harry.

The trip to Denver was taking a long time, but that didn't bother Lizzie. Well, it did, but not in the You're bothering me way. More of a Hot and bothered way. Working alongside Ayers as he shoved cars and equipment off the road and she swept away broken glass with an evergreen branch was … bothering. She was sweating so much in the May heat that her T-shirt stuck to her stomach and arms, and her back was practically steaming under the hydration pack. But that was okay because it gave her a legitimate cover story for why she was so flushed from watching Ayers push, and lift, and grunt quietly, and how the armor plates on his arms and thighs actually moved out of position when the undersuit conformed to his flexing muscles –

Lizzie took a long pull of water from her bite valve.

Ayers's helmet must have his own bite valve that he'd been surreptitiously drinking out of, because he didn't need water when they stopped in the shade of a tree to let Lizzie re-apply her sunblock.

"My dad had a dark complexion," she explained as his eyes followed the movement of her hands smoothing the clear lotion down her neck and across her collarbones. "Unfortunately, I didn't inherit that. I did get his thick hair, though. Benefits of having a diverse ethnic background. I mean," she babbled, "it's uncommon to be only one ethnicity these days, and it means your genes have a lot of variety to choose from, so if I'd had any siblings – do you feel that?"

Ayers had been listening so intently to her nervous chatter that he didn't seem to notice the tremble in the ground until she pointed it out. The vibration was definitely drawing nearer, and within a few seconds they could hear the whining of giant servos.

Lizzie must have looked like a kid at Disneyland when she turned to Ayers with a grin.

"Mega-mech!" she exclaimed. "I've never seen one close up! I went to the ARC's 24th Annual Expo, but there were so many people at the demonstration that I couldn't get within a block of them. This is our chance!"

She couldn't tell through the smoky visor whether Ayers shared her enthusiasm. Lizzie darted down the street, heedless of whether he'd follow.

The rhythmic trembling and whining grew stronger the farther she ran, and Lizzie knew they were getting close when the treetops joined in the shaking.

Finally the mech crossed their path at the intersection, striding down the street like a mythical Titan.

Lizzie skidded to a stop, open-mouthed. Her distant view at the Expo had not done it justice. Taller than a six-story building and with shoulders nearly as wide, the battle mech was alloy-gray with dark yellow accents and a white 51 on its right flank. It had a fully articulated left hand, and its right forearm was a huge cannon.

"It's the Juggernaut!" She pointed to the number emphatically. "They finished it! It was only half-armored when I saw it at the Expo. Look, they even completed the machine guns on the ankle joints!"

She took off again, feeling the whisper-light touch of Ayers's hand that almost caught her wrist before she sped away from him, weaving around fallen branches and potholes. "Oh, it's beautiful!" she declared breathlessly as she ran parallel to the mech's path. "I'd give my left kidney to pilot it for a couple minutes." Of course, they'd never let a civilian near it, even though she was a certified operator for power-loading. That honor would be reserved for military officers.

Ayers caught up to her, jogging alongside with a hand in front of her stomach to catch her if she tripped, which she might well do because it was difficult to keep her eyes on the road and not the incredible machine they were chasing.

The mech was one block over and slowing down, but she couldn't see the tiny cockpit because it was facing away from them.

"It's stopping! Let's see if we can talk to the pilot!" She dug deep for more speed, hoping to get far enough ahead of it to wave them down.

The mech lifted its elongated arm cannon across its torso like someone about to karate-chop a practice dummy.

"What's it do–"

Juggernaut demolished the top five floors of an apartment building with a back-handed swipe. She would have been impressed at its ability to smash a supposedly everything-proof highrise if she hadn't been in a perfect position to be crushed by said highrise.

Large sections of the outer wall plunged through the cloud of perma-crete dust, creating swirls of turbulence in the suspended particles as they fell. She pivoted to push Ayers out of the way, but he yanked her to his chest and turned his back to the plummeting slabs. There were short bursts of flame from the tiny jets on his backplate, but it wasn't enough.

The building fell on them.

Apologies for the cliffhanger, y'all, but I had to rewrite half this chapter when I realized there wasn't enough commentary on the song lyrics to make them "transformative work". :( Better safe than sorry.

If you want to listen to the actual lyrics, the songs are "Some Guys Have All the Luck" by Robert Palmer and "I Want to Know" by The Mavericks. You'll probably know Robert Palmer better for "Addicted to Love", and The Mavericks are like Michael Bublé and Garth Brooks had a baby with a mariachi band.