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Zune gently disentangled herself from Xian when she heard voices and sat up, listening. She knew the owners of the voices were quite far away and that she could only hear them due to her upgrades, but they were still close enough to the camp to cause concern.
Xian was now snuggled down in the sleeping bag and dreaming peacefully, while Micro and the t-unit were still in sleep mode, for the electronic horse was also still charging from an old hover car battery. Zune saw no need to alarm them and let them continue in dreams, instead rising carefully from the sleeping bag and closing it gently over Xian.
Zune’s orange jumpsuit was open and tumbled down around her shoulders as she stood, listening.
“Reaching the portal will be easy,” a woman’s voice was saying. “You have to trust me. You love me but you don’t trust me?”
An anxious voice answered, but it was too far away to be heard clearly.
Frowning, Zune zipped her jumpsuit and buckled her laser rifle to her back, still straining to listen. The voices were faint, drifting toward their camp from the east. Zune followed them, moving slowly, pausing often to listen, until the voices had grown louder and clearer.
“TW7 is one of the safest sectors in Eazon,” a woman was saying. “And plenty of old machines to jack power from. Might even find some batteries if we’re lucky.”
Zune set her boot carefully against the mountain of debris before her and climbed up as quietly as she could.
“But that rogue said there was a crazy old cyborg nearby,” said a second voice. “And not just some brain-fried raider, either. She’s one of the original soldiers. The real deal! If she sees us, she’ll kill us! Those things are programmed to kill on-sight, just like the damned Xubertrons—!”
“Keep your voice down!”
“Keep my voice down? Did you forget those bodies we found outside the depot? If you could call them bodies. They were in pieces—pieces!”
“I know! Which is why you should keep your voice down! Unless you want to be in pieces as well?”
“She isn’t just any soldier, though, Driller! I managed to scan her, and I think she’s the wife of the pod woman, the one we’ve been stealing power from. If she finds out . . .”
Zune had made it to the top of the debris pile. She looked down into the gray alley between collapsed buildings, where two figures were standing together in the rain. They seemed unbothered by the downpour and were standing in the maze of vibrating puddles with their hands in their pockets, two women in rags. They were both in shadow, their faces completely hidden beneath hoods.
The taller woman spoke again, sounding irritable, “I don’t care who she is! If that zonked cyborg attempts anything, Syphon will make her sorry.”
Zune was just wondering who or what a Syphon was when a small infiltration unit’s round face suddenly filled her vision. The robot’s face was framed by silky black hair, and its round eyes were narrowed viciously and glowing red. Zune reached for the laser sword on her belt, but the infiltration unit was faster: the blue blades of laser swords appeared suddenly, extending from the rods in both its hands, and its torso spun, whirling the blades around, so that Zune was sliced in the face.
The blades only grazed Zune, who leapt back on reflex just in time to feel the very tip of each one burn her cheek in a line of fire. Scowling, face throbbing, Zune pulled her rifle around and had just aimed it when the little robot bounced up and kicked her – one, two – in the face.
Zune’s head snapped back, blood sprayed from her mouth, and as darkness closed over, she could see stars falling.