Harbinger by Wen Spencer

Author:Wen Spencer [Spencer, Wen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Urban, Contemporary, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781982126018
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2022-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

13: Team Mischief! Go!

Louise yipped in surprise and fear when something ran up her bare leg. In theory she loved all things small and furry, but not when they were running loose inside her shorts. She jumped up from the concrete floor.

Jillian yelped in unison. “What is it?”

“There’s something alive in here.” Louise had been sitting cross-legged, wiring together the luggage mules through their maintenance ports. Whatever the small furry thing had been, it had fallen out of her lap and disappeared among the clutter scattered thick around her.

“Alive?” Jillian pulled out her Taser. “Like what? A steel spinner? A strangle vine?”

“I don’t know!” Louise stepped up onto the luggage mule’s platform to get herself off the floor.

Crow Boy had gone to find food and information. He believed that the bunker was safe, hidden as it was in the middle of the secret tengu village. He was thinking “oni invaders” not “deadly vermin.”

Louise looked around for a weapon.

“It’s me!” Nikola’s voice called from inside a boot lying sideways on the floor. A white robotic mouse peeked out cautiously to wave at Louise. It wore Nikola’s blue scarf. “Silly old bear. We were bored so we came to see what you are doing.”

“Nikola!” Jillian squealed with happiness. She tucked away her Taser so she could scoop up the robotic mouse and nuzzle it. “I’ve missed you and the girls so much!”

Louise felt a flash of surprise and dismay. Didn’t Jillian realize that the last thing they needed was bored babies?

On the heels of that impatient thought, she also realized that Jillian had spent most of the summer worried that she’d lose first the babies and then Louise. While Jillian had Louise walking and talking and plotting beside her, the babies had been dormant for a month. Jillian didn’t have Louise’s “sense” that the babies were safe and sound within their seven-pound eggs. The twins had marked the sky blue shells with the name of the baby they held but Louise supposed that wasn’t the same as hearing Nikola’s familiar Christopher Robin/little English boy voice.

“Are the girls here too?” Louise said.

“Of course we are!” Chuck answered as she parkoured across piles of camping gear. Her mouse had lost its pink scarf. Its right ear was torn and its face had dirt streaked across it like war paint.

“Chuck!” Jillian scooped up the battered robot to add to her mouse nuzzling. “You look so fierce!”

“Being in an egg is boring!” Red Jawbreaker stood on Louise’s tablet three mules down. The Jawbreakers sounded nearly identical but Red wore a red gingham scarf. “There’s nothing to do. Nothing to listen to. I want music! Let’s drop the beat!”

Red must have opened up Louise’s music folder as the deep thumping base of Imagine Dragons’ “Believer” started to play. Red sang along with the words. “First things first, I’mma say all the words inside my head! I’m fired up and tired of the way that things have been, oh-oohh!”

“We want to race!” Green Jawbreaker scrambled up the next luggage mule down.

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