The gunslinger is in his element at last, all emotion and doubt and fears about Emma—Didi—gone from his malfunctioning mind. He knows these targets, recognizes them from the skimmer that attacked them on their way to the train. The same targets, Didi believes, who killed the old man, Putter, and kidnapped her father.
He doesn’t have proof of their guilt, though their attack is enough for his gunslinger sensibilities to kick in and demand action. Action. His mandate.
“Suspects,” he booms in his augmented voice. “Discard your weapons and prepare to be taken into custody.” His cyborg vision sharpens, studying the three as he speaks again. “Resistance to arrest will be met with lethal force.”
The one in front—Jackus, according to Didi—grins while the gunslinger’s programming processes his stance, the tightening of his lips and the way his hand shifts to his side where a plasma gun sits. The gunslinger takes in all of this as the suspect speaks.
“You have no authority here, relic,” he says, fingers twitching, unnoticed by the human eye but as obvious as a warning to the gunslinger.
The crowd mutters. He ignores them, though civilians in the area do make his job harder. His focus spreads outward, sensors at three hundred and sixty degrees, a bubble of awareness no human can match feeding him constant information. Such as the fact the suspect’s two partners seem more inclined to run than to fight.
“Relinquish your weapon,” the gunslinger booms. “And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke.”
Jackus’s hand moves. Not fast enough. The gunslinger’s emotions feed him after all. Sheer delight.
How had he never known this was fun?
***
Didi hovers at the corner, finally shoving her way past two watching residents, hugging herself in fear as the gunslinger faces off with Jackus. It’s three to one, though even she can see the two bullies with her enemy seem nervous.
“Relinquish your weapon,” the gunslinger’s voice echoes from the buildings while the people around her watch in rapt attention. “And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke.”
Hope soars inside her when she finally understands what the gunslinger is doing. His job, bless his bole heart. He’s really doing it. She could hug him right now, though her mind warns her this kind of confrontation could draw more attention, the wrong kind. Conjunction attention. He’s an illegal gunslinger, after all.
But the cyborg doesn’t seem concerned. Not even when Jackus laughs and draws his stolen weapon.
Didi’s sorry she blinked. She saw Jackus’s hand move, knew what was coming, didn’t even have time to draw a breath to call a warning to the gunslinger. He didn’t need it. Jackus doesn’t even have his weapon out of its makeshift holster and the gunslinger’s is magically in his hand, pointed at the squatter. Jackus’s mouth gapes but his hand keeps moving, pulling the gun free, and raising it slightly. Her heart pounds, why doesn’t he fire? When the flash of plasma hits Jackus, Didi bounces on her toes, until she realizes it’s the weapon in the squatter’s hand that flies free, not his head.
She really wanted it to be his head. Until the gunslinger aims at Jackus and speaks again in his commanding voice.
“Stand down,” he says. “And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke.”
Of course. He’s thinking clearer than she is. They need Jackus. Though his two companions would do, in a pinch. Companions who are now, from all appearances, ready to run and leave Jackus hanging.
She’s surprised when the first one—the skimmer’s driver who blew up her home—pulls his own weapon. The gunslinger is still faster and easily destroys his gun, too. That’s when the crowd cheers for the first time and it’s Didi’s turn to gape. The gunslinger spins on the second bully who drops his gun and makes a run for it. The cyborg peacekeeper lets him go, his companion taking off after him, leaving Jackus to shudder under the smoking attention of the business end of the gunslinger’s weapon.
“I won’t ask again.” The gunslinger is harder to hear this time, the cheering crowd making it difficult. They’ve gained in volume, throwing garbage and bits of debris after the two running bullies. They must be well known in this part of town. “Where is Tarvis Duke?”
This is it—her plan has worked. Didi can barely contain herself, gathers to run into the street and join the gunslinger, ready to cheer herself and maybe do some physical damage to Jackus before letting the cyborg kill him.
She doesn’t get to celebrate, not when the jarring, heavy tread of approaching threat kills the cheers of the crowd. They all turn, en masse, as three towering mechcops enter the street, their tripod legs carrying them swiftly around the corner and into view.
Didi’s seen their kind before, but only once, and only one at a time. Three of them makes a more powerful impression. They are easily ten feet tall at the tip of their curved, smooth bonnets, the balanced bulk of their mass hovering over the three giant legs ending in flat platforms of shining metal. She’d thought the gunslinger massive when she’d first seen him standing, but now, as the mechcops surround him, she realizes just how small he really is.
And feels her hopelessness return as Jackus scoots out from under them and runs off into the crowd. They let him go, focused with muttering anger on the mechcops and the gunslinger.
He doesn’t seem concerned to see them, lowering and holstering his weapon. “Greetings,” he says. “I am G.S.—”
The lead mechcop doesn’t give him a chance to finish. This time Didi does scream as a huge bolt of energy hits the gunslinger in the chest. He freezes, blue flaring all over his body before he slowly crumples and falls to the ground, silent and dead.
Two people hold her back as she tries to reach him, the mechcop who shot the gunslinger extending a clawed arm from its bulky body and scooping up the drooping cyborg.
“Disperse.” The tinny, mechanical voice makes her shiver. A pulse of power runs through the ground, making her jump.
“That gunslinger just cleaned up more of a mess in three shots than the lot of you in three years.” It’s the old man she’d seen earlier. The one with the lopsided cart. Only he has the nerve to speak out, though the rest of the street’s occupants seem just as upset as he is. “Bring back the gunslingers!”
The crowd mutters their agreement. This time, when the pulse runs through the ground, Didi hops and shrieks at the pain despite her protected boots. A few of the people around her fall, a girl crying for her mother.
“Disperse now.” The mechcops don’t wait for the crowd to part but march their inexorable way through. Didi stares after them with her heart sinking, no longer held back by friendly hands, but by the realization she’s lost her gunslinger.
And, when she turns back, she understands the absolute truth. The street is emptying, the beaten and unhappy people of Trash City doing as they’re told, brief rebellion as dead as her hopes.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that feels like defeat, Didi slinks back into the alley, acutely aware of the fact she’s all alone.
***