another bot could understand. The PRC Mama-Bots had pulled themselves out of the waters of Possession Sound, Washington, and begun destroying everything in their paths. With the detritus of destroyed cities, their mechanical nanobots built Perker Crawlers. The Crawlers crawled off the Mama-Bot assembly lines by the thousands and hitched a ride on anything that moved, crossing the country, moving east until they found a place that looked nice, a town or small city, which they destroyed and took apart to make more of themselves. Or, they buried themselves in the soil like mines, hidden where they could stay for years.
Each Crawler had a timer or trigger that set it off. When activated, they’d dig themselves out of the soil, like locusts or cicadas, and go hunting. Find a target. Destroy it. Perker Crawlers could be the size of a tank or as small as a wheelbarrow, but none had been seen in the West Virginia desert in more than five years, mostly because there was only stone near about, no soil to bury themselves in. Also, they had to travel to get here, and here was the middle of freaking nowhere. Crawler AIs were smart. They went to cities where they could cause mega-damage, not into a desert of stone.
Unless one had been targeted at me, or deliberately dropped off near here, and something had triggered it to come hunting me. And the Perker then set off the kutte. The fear-sweat trickling down my spine went cold in the heat.
“A week ago,” I clarified softly, “you say the sensor you’re looking for was triggered. By a Perker.”
A week ago a Perker had entered my land. My kutte had sent out an alarm to OMW central. Yet Mateo and I and our exquisite security system hadn’t received the alarm or spotted the Perker. Because we hadn’t been looking. We’d gotten sloppy.
Bloody damn, bloody damn, bloody damn!
In my earbud, Mateo suggested a sexual activity that was anatomically impossible by anything with bones. I rolled to my feet, slamming my ungloved hand into the war-sleeve at my side. It clamped around my hand, forearm, and molded to fit up to my bicep, the scales adjusting to my slender form instead of the muscular dead soldier I’d taken it from. Moving faster and smoother than pure-human. Way faster. I aimed my weapon at my assassin, and a piercing green laser centered on his chest with a soft hum and latched on.
He tensed all over at the transformation in my body language and position. And my speed. And the fact that I was now wearing a functioning section of military Dragon Scale exoskeleton anti-recoil armor, a war-sleeve with a Smith & Wesson XVR 460 Magnum now poking out the end. His expression said he recognized that the S&W’s auto targeting system had acquired the target. And the target was him. Which was way more impressive to warriors than the big, in-your-face Para Gen.
My visitor was a dead man smoking. Double dead. The two weapons trained on him would churn him to hamburger. The Asshole puffed, squinted, and grinned.
“Defenses,” I said to Mateo, now not caring that Jagger heard. “Anything?”
“Nothing followed him. Scanning vids and stills from perimeter cams. Searching everything from the past week.”
“We got problems,” I said to the OMW enforcer as the female hunter cats leaped or belly-crawled to join the fighter cats. They were in two groups, staring in two directions. We had two Perkers? “You know how to fight, Jagger?”
“Happy to make your acquaintance,” he said, relaxed, still amused. “But you have me at a disadvantage.”
He puffed. A perfect smoke ring left his mouth.
A disadvantage? Oh. I knew his name. I hadn’t given mine.
“I asked you a question,” I half-growled.
“I do okay. I survived the Battle of Mobile.”
Mateo laughed harder than I’d ever heard him. It would have been a belly laugh, if he had a belly. Anyone who survived the Battle of Mobile with all his limbs and his mind intact was a miracle man with the luck of the Irish.
“I like this guy,” Mateo said. “Ask if he’s ready to rumble.”
His breathing had sped up. Mateo was getting ready to go to war.
“Update,” I demanded of him.
Jagger’s eyes narrowed. He flicked them everywhere, seeking out the location of my confidant. Or his war-time instincts had finally gone on alert.
Mateo said, “I got nothing. Nothing on scans, but the cats’ body language says we have more than one Perker. Behind the Outlaw and behind you. Attempting to pinpoint positions.”
Behind