Death From Above! (Scoundrels of the Wasteland Book 3) by J.I. Greco

Author:J.I. Greco [Greco, J.I.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: Chaotic Neutral Media
Published: 2017-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The Wound roars away from the Combine, towards the setting sun, the Dodge’s adaptive tires kicking up twin trails of dust behind her.

“You believe the nerve of that egotistical, self-centered, nanochine-infested freak?” Trip asks, his hands clawed around the car’s steering wheel, his knuckles white, the wireless jack behind his ear blinking an agitated red—no link. He’s doing this manual, and the Wound’s puppy-level AI is not happy about it, wondering what it did wrong. “I’ve got half a mind to invent a practical method for time travel, build a time machine using those principles, put on a snazzy jumpsuit, hurdle back through time to our happy-go-lucky early teens, and stop ourselves from accidentally setting off that All-Mart bomb and creating her in the first place.”

In the passenger seat, Rudy’s got his stomach unzipped, his hand rummaging inside his guts. “If we had a time machine, I’d go back to stop George Lucas from casting Hayden Christensen.”

Trip glances sideways at his brother. “What, you wouldn’t stop him from doing the whole Jar-Jar thing?”

“I like Jar-Jar,” Rudy says, popping the empty vial of raw hallucinogenic ingredients out of his belly-implanted chem synth plant with a hiss. He flicks the empty vial out the open window. “He’s funny.”

“Remind me to get a DNA test at some point. No way we can actually be brothers.” Trip turns his attention back to the road, ignoring the flashing GameGear screen in the dashboard, pleading to establish a link. “But the correct plan is to stop the prequels entirely… and then stop ourselves from setting off the All-Mart bomb.”

Rudy takes a pair of glasses — older than he is by a factor of three, kept together with electrical tape and wire, the left lens cracked, the other one discolored with age — out of what used to be a hideaway knife sheath in his right combat boot, and slips them on.

“Okay,” he says, adjusting his bandolier so he can squint down his nose through the glasses to read the labels on the lids of the vials of chem mixes stored in it. “So we didn’t get the workers we need. We can build some robots to do the work. You’ll see. It’ll work out.”

“Nobody’s building any robots.” The flashing plea for a connection on the screen gets flashier, with reds and yellows, and now a soft but insistent beep. Trip rolls his eyes and reaches for the screen and it’s big flashing CONNECT button. At the last second, he pokes the physical OFF button instead and the screen goes black. “Nobody’s building anything. What’s the point?”

“Sure, Lock’s mechas are sweet, but they’re high-end. Not everybody’s going to be able to afford them.” Rudy scans the vial labels, with names like SKYWALKER KUSH - BEGGAR’S CANYON REMIX (THC-A/MESC-A), LORD OF THE HIGHS (THC-A/PEYOTE DISTILLATE), and DON’T EVER USE THIS ONE, IT WILL KILL YOU (SERIOUSLY). “We can serve the low-end market. Warcars for the warlord on a budget.”

“Warcars? You saw what I saw. She’s got a jet,” Trip says through clenched teeth.

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