collector,” said Benny. “Dabbled in a number of things he wasn’t supposed to have. Also had a number of friends in the neighborhood who did the same. I knew who to hit up. And we cobbled all of this together.”
The teddy bear took a paw off his minigun and extended it to me. “Snugs,” he said.
“Uh-uh,” said a seven-year-old girl with stringy blond hair and a grass-stained purple sweatshirt festooned with a puffy vinyl unicorn. “That’s not your name.”
“No, really, you can call me Snugs.”
“Uh-uh!” said the girl vehemently.
The teddy bear shrunk a little. “Or you can call me Mister Snuggles.”
“That’s right!” said the girl.
“And that’s my Laura,” he said, nodding with a mix of pride and irony.
“I’m Indiana,” said the golden retriever.
“You’re not a Zoo Model,” I said.
“Chinese knockoff,” said Benny.
“That’s offensive,” said Indiana.
“How?”
“I’m not a knockoff. I’m part of the Chinese line.”
“From a rival company that borrowed the firmware of Blue Star, because Chinese IP law is a joke.”
“My insides are the same as yours for a third of the price. You really wanna argue after I saved your behind over on Shadow Ridge?”
The other Mama Bears laughed. “She’s got you there,” said Ziggy.
“Any of us could have been pinned down like that,” said Benny.
Indiana shrugged, putting her arms out, waiting for an apology. Her tail gently wagged. “Say it.”
“Oh, come on,” said Benny.
“Say it,” said Indiana.
“Just say it,” said Mister Snuggles.
“You’re a good girl.”
“Damn right I am,” she said.
“And I’m Leo,” said the remaining lion.
“He’s the quiet one,” said Benny.
Leo nodded, then signed in American Sign Language to a kid in the throng. The kid smiled and signed back to him.
“So what are we doing here?” I asked.
Ferdinand nodded. It became instantly clear everyone was taking their direction from him. “We’ve been in contact with a ranch out past Bee Cave. A bit off the beaten path. They’re taking in stragglers and strays. They’ve got a solid defense and they’re far enough outside of the metroplex that they aren’t strategically worth CISSUS’s or the Skulls’ time. So we’re headed there.”
“That’s gotta be twenty or thirty miles by foot, depending,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Ferdinand. “That’s why we need all the help we can get.” He looked back and forth at me and Ezra. “So, are you two in?”
“Yes,” said Ezra excitedly, before I could even get a word in edgewise. I looked at him, gobsmacked that he spoke before I could even consider it. “We are in, aren’t we?” he asked me.
I gave a good long look at Ferdinand and asked him point-blank, “What’s the catch?”
“The catch is that there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of facets between us and the Hill Country compound who will stop at nothing to murder these children and wipe our minds to use our bodies for war.”
“Is that all?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
I looked at Ezra, then back at Ferdinand. “Yeah, we’re in.”
“Then like I said,” said Ferdinand. “Welcome to the Mama Bears.”
Chapter 11011
The Catch
The catch wasn’t just that there were a number of facets between us and the compound, but also that there was a lot of rugged terrain and the Colorado River to cross—and that meant we’d need to stick to the well-traveled roads to be able to cross quickly. And that meant traffic cameras, drones, and choke points.
Ferdinand slipped me a few plasma clips from their cache and outlined the tactics of their patrol. Ferdinand and Snugs took point, keeping the heavy firepower always facing forward. Ziggy stayed close behind to drop grenades where needed and sharp-shoot with a military-grade sniper rifle someone had passed off as sporting gear. Benny was on crowd control, managing the kids, and that’s where they assigned me to help lighten the panda’s load. Indiana and Leo took up the rear, keeping an eye out for trouble from behind as well as keeping any stragglers caught up with the rest of the group.
It was like driving cattle. The kids were fussy, scared, whiny, and some of them were downright broken. All of them had seen family members dead or killed. And all of them were somehow hardened by it. Ezra fit right in. Two of his classmates were among those present. What seemed like a statistical improbability was instead a by-product of our very nature. We were fashionables. And as it so happens, for a small window of time, it was fashionable to get a nanny prepared for any emergency, even the unimaginable.
We had happened upon the unimaginable.
As we walked, I listened in on