Trashbreed.
Abnorm.
Deviate.
Now, looking at the big, lumbering machina, Lemon pictured that auto-peddler. Felt that gray static building up behind her eyes. Fingers stretched toward it.
And then she made a fist.
The machina bucked like someone had punched it. Hydraulics shrieked, power cables burst, a blinding shear of electrical current arced across its rusting skin. The pilot screamed, frying inside the cockpit as the voltage lit him up, as his machina stumbled and crumpled like paper into a smoking, sparking heap.
Fried to ruins.
Just like that.
Behind her, the last rocketeer plunged into the gully floor with an awful, wet crunch. Ezekiel shouted down from the emplacement above.
“You okay, Freckles?”
Lemon hauled off her helmet, blinking blood from her eye. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she put on her braveface. Her streetface. The face that told the world she was big enough to handle anything it threw at her and more.
“Toldja already, Dimples. I’m too pretty to die.”
She grabbed a chem-extinguisher with shaking hands, climbed out of the turret and doused the burning hull. Jumping onto the tank’s rear, she sized up Cricket. The big bot was dented and scratched from his brawl, but his paintjob was apparently flame-retardant, so the good news was he wasn’t on fire.
“You okay, you little fug?”
“I … THINK SO?” The big bot shrugged. “AND D-DON’T CALL ME LITTLE.”
Ezekiel carefully scaled down from the emplacement, dropping the final three meters onto the rocks below. Dusting his palm against his battered jeans, he made his way across the broken stone, fugazi blue eyes on the fallen logika.
“What happened?”
“EAT IT, STUMPY,” the big bot growled. “A NICE BIG BOWL OF IT.”
“Seriously, Crick,” Lemon said. “Are you all right?”
“YEAH. I’M … GOOD? I TH-THINK?”
Cricket stood on wobbling legs, the glow of his optics flickering and fluttering. He steadied himself against the gully wall, barely able to keep himself upright. Ezekiel sighed, and spinning on his heel, he climbed into the tank. A few moments later, he emerged with a heavy toolbox under his one good arm.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the broken rock. “Let me have a look.”
“… YOU’RE SUGGESTING I LET YOU POKE AROUND INSIDE ME?” Cricket fixed the lifelike in a flickering stare. “I THOUGHT LEMON WAS THE COMEDIAN IN THIS OUTFIT.”
Lemon frowned at the big bot. “Wait, I thought you were the comedy relief, and I was the lovable sidekick?”
“Cricket, if there’s something wrong with you, maybe I can spot it,” Ezekiel said. “I know a little about bots. Not as much as Eve, but a little.”
The mention of her bestest’s name brought a fresh ache in Lemon’s chest, a stillness to the group. Ezekiel glanced back toward Babel, and she could see how bad he was hurting, too. They’d had no choice. Evie had told them to leave. But …
“DON’T YOU DARE SAY HER NAME,” the logika growled.
Ezekiel blinked, turned back to the logika.
“I miss her, too, Cricket,” he murmured.
“OF COURSE YOU DO, MURDERBOT,” Cricket said. “THAT’S WHY YOU RAN AWAY FROM HER AS FAST AS YOU COULD.”
“She told me to leave,” Ezekiel said, his voice rising with his temper. “This was her choice. The first one she ever had in her life, don’t you get that?”
The big logika’s massive metal hands spangspangspanggged as he brought them together in a round of applause.
“OH, MISTER EZEKIEL, YOU’RE MY HERO.”
Lemon raised her hands, stepped between them. “Now, now, boys—”
“Go to hell, Cricket,” Ezekiel hissed. “What do you know about it?”
“I KNOW YOU LEFT HER BEHIND,” the bot growled, standing taller as his voice grew louder. “I KNOW EVERYBODY LIED TO HER! EVERYBODY BETRAYED HER! SILAS, LEMON, HER FATHER, YOU! CAN YOU IMAGINE FOR ONE MINUTE WHAT THAT FELT LIKE?”
“I didn’t want t—”
“AND THEN SHE FINDS OUT SHE’S NOT EVEN HUMAN AND YOU CLAIM TO LOVE HER AND YOU JUST LEFT HER THERE!”
Lemon’s heart was hammering. Every one of Cricket’s words was like a bullet fired right at Ezekiel’s chest. She saw them strike. Saw the rage welling up in the lifelike’s eyes, twisting his hands into fists.
“So did you,” he spat at the bot.
The blue of Cricket’s optics burned into a furious white.
“YOU ROTTEN SONOFA …”
A two-ton fist came crashing down on the spot Ezekiel had stood a split second before, the ground shattering like glass. Cricket roared in shapeless rage, swung at Ezekiel again, the lifelike once more slipping aside. The big bot tried to scoop him up, but Ezekiel was faster, darting between Cricket’s legs and leaping up to seize hold of the armor plating on his lower back with his one good hand.
“Cricket, are you crazy?” Lemon shouted.
Cricket roared again, his voice box crackling at the volume. He slapped at the lifelike as if he were an insect, massive hands clanging against his hull like some great, booming gong. Ezekiel’s superhuman agility was all that saved him from being pulverized, the lifelike hauling himself up the seams and rivets in the WarBot’s impenetrable hull until he reached his shoulder.
“Cricket, stop!” Lemon wailed. “STOP IT!”
The logika fell still immediately at the girl’s command. He bristled with outrage, glowing optics fixed on the lifelike perched atop his shoulder.
“YOU’RE LUCKY SOME OF US STILL OBEY THE THREE LAWS, M-MOTH …”
The big bot swayed, his optics flickering again.
“Crick … are you okay?” Lemon called.
“I D-DON’T FEEL S-SO …”
The light in the logika’s optics flickered one final time and went out completely. His towering body wobbled a second longer, then fell like a collapsing skyscraper. Seventy tons of WarDome champion came falling right at Lemon’s head, and she shrieked as she dove aside, hitting the gully floor, elbows grinding in the gravel as Cricket crashed to the ground with a boom.
Ezekiel picked himself up from the dust, ran to the girl’s side.
“Are you all right?” he asked, helping her to her feet.
Lemon winced, pawed at her bloody brow, her bleeding arms. But her eyes were fixed on Cricket. The big bot had dropped like someone had shot him, and now lay motionless on the broken ground.
“What the hells just happened?” she whispered.
Ezekiel looked the big bot over, hands on hips. Walking to the tank’s toolbox, he started rummaging around inside. “Let’s find out.”
Lemon watched, chewing her lip with worry as the lifelike took a power drill and began unbolting a maintenance hatch on Cricket’s chestplate.
“Um, do you know what you’re doing, by any chance?” she asked.
Zeke