Machine-Gun Girls by Aaron Michael Ritchey

Author:Aaron Michael Ritchey [Ritchey, Aaron Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age religion religious spiritual, science fiction dystopian action adventure, lgbt survival stories Social & Family Issues, metaphysical visionary theology spiritual, Romantic Science & Technology, sister small town clones cyber punk genes
Publisher: Shadow Alley Press Inc
Published: 2019-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I like failure. We failed at the batteries for years on end, and it made me and my team innovate. No way would the Eternas be as good as they are if we hadn’t spent years screwing them up.

—Maggie Jankowski

informal comments

September 1, 2057

(i)

I PULLED THE HORSES through the darkness until the heat of the fires washed over me. The light was still bad, so I couldn’t check the body.

Same hair. Same build. Same silky shirt I’d felt on me even while I wanted to rip it off of him.

One of the bonfires blazed up. Wren stood in the firelight, hands on her hips. Breeze and Keys flanked her, and I counted their three horses. Thank God all had been spared.

You have to check to see if it’s Micaiah.

I couldn’t.

I stepped out of the saddle and threw the reins of all the horses around a torn bit of metal hanging off the trailer. My legs trembled. I forced them steady. If Micaiah was dead, I’d go on. Not sure how, but I would.

First, I had to pet Christina Pink and hug Wren. Got to do one, but not the other. Wren pushed me away. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, glad to see you too, Cavvy, but I’m not about to get sloppy, kissy girly ’strogen. Not when I didn’t get to fight.”

Breeze and Keys let me hug them, and I did, for a long time.

You have to check to see if it’s Micaiah.

No. Couldn’t.

I turned to Wren. “What happened?”

Wren spit and shook her head. “Goddamn, it was dark out there. But we saw the Psychos come, let them ride past us, and I was fixing to shoot as many as I could, when our old friends, the Regios, showed up. Me, Nikki, Tenisha, we laid low, but they had to have seen us. Those soldier girls were wearing night-vision gear. For real. Had big sniper rifles like Petal only with night-vision scopes as well.”

Pilate moved away and kicked over the dead Madeline who had rode up on us. He pointed. “Shot. Right through the throat. Night vision, you say?”

Wren nodded. “Had these masks with goggles, and they wore camo gear, like the high-end bushy stuff.”

I hadn’t really studied NVDs, or night-vision devices, ’cause all the new stuff was powered with Eterna batteries and wouldn’t work in the Juniper. However, I did know the technology went back as far as World War II. You could slice lenses in a certain way to use every bit of light. Cats saw well at night, and they didn’t need batteries.

Wren chuckled. “So we sat back and watched. After the initial RPG hit the Ford, the Princesses went after you hard, real hard. Then? One by one, those Regio snipers started taking ’em out. Got real serious after they worked over the trailer with a big ol’ machine gun they had on a cart. The Vixx army saved us.” She grinned at me. “Your plan sucked, Cavvy. We’re alive, so I won’t make fun of you too much, but you’re slipping.

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