Twisted Metal Heart - Eve Langlais Page 0,71

that’s when he shot me down and lay in wait for her.”

“Meaning he wanted Riella.” Titan rubbed at his scruffy jaw. “Could be he needed her skills with bionics.”

Alfred answered with a scoffing, “Then why attack me and not ask? He knows Riella works for hire.”

“Unless he doesn’t want to hire her but is after the bounty.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if that pirate sold her back to the queen.” Could a metal ball glower? Because Alfred sure did something.

“In order to sell her, he needs to meet with the queen.”

“And in order to meet or even inform the royal bitch he has her, he’ll need to send a message and transport,” Alfred continued. “He will head to the Sapphire Port City first.”

“And how far is it still from here?” Titan asked.

“Far enough,” Alfred grumbled. “I did some aerial scouting. According to my calculations, given they have vehicles, if they stick to the road through the woods, they’ll be there within the next two to three hours. It will take you most of the day and part of the night to the same distance on foot.”

“If I walk.” He shifted the pack on his back.

“How else do you plan to get there? Fly?” was Alfred’s acerbic reply.

“I’m going to run.” Titan flexed his metal leg and said to it mentally, I’m going to need you to move us faster than flesh can handle without killing us.

I thought you’d never ask.

Before he could warn Alfred, Titan leapt into a loping run. Bionic leg shoving harder and further, the flesh leg mostly just providing a quick balance before the metal moved again. It wasn’t as fast as a terrain vehicle, but it got them there in four hours.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d done it in two, because arriving didn’t mean he’d easily find Riella. Standing at the last hump behind the dirt-packed road, which swooped down into a busy valley, he gaped. Gaped at the biggest sprawl of homes and buildings he’d ever seen.

Mind, he’d only ever seen the outside of dome habitats and a limited section of the Marsh City. Wastelander camps, he’d visited more than a few, but he’d never seen a place like this.

For one, there was no covering over the city. No panels to protect it from dust and wind. Just like in Eden, the people lived outside a dome. Like the ancients once had.

As Riella had claimed, the land rose into a spire upon which sat a stone crenellated castle with high walls. In tiers going down the outcropping were more walls set in rings and, inside those rings, buildings big and small. Access appeared to be only via a winding road that went through gates in the walls.

At the base of the promontory, the road splintered into a few directions, which then splintered again as a mass of structures—some built with the same stone as the castle and others with wood—spread and clustered in strange sections.

There was more color than he’d ever seen, and this despite the mostly gray aspect of the buildings themselves. Roofs were bright shades, red and blue overlapping tile. The shutters on the windows framed in a riot of hues, pretty and functional. It seemed so lavish.

“You going to stare all day like a yokel or finish what you came to do?” Alfred nudged, soaring past him, his hologram a much smaller, subtle version of a bird. At least he was showing more caution than Titan.

“It’s a big place,” he said as he began to walk, still taking in details. For a city this size, it seemed nicer than expected. Wasteland camps tended to involve squatting in ruins, the inside of a truck or tents. He hated tents.

A glance at the sky showed no smoke, nor did he see any chimneys. It made him wonder how they heated and cooked. He’d heard in the domes they used electricity for most tasks, the kind harnessed from heat and the sun. Plenty of that in the most barren of places, but here, with the cloud over the sun and a breeze over the ocean, he had to wonder where their power came from.

He’d seen very little habitation during his loping run, having followed the line of the cliffs rather than the more meandering road Albert claimed ran through the forest. Entering the valley, though, he couldn’t avoid habitation. He passed a strange long and low building with doors that reminded him on the hangar that used to house Haven. “What is that?”

“Garage. No motor