Within minutes, they were gone.
Ryan walked over to Axler and Grind, who were talking and laughing. "Nicely played, you two."
Grind turned. "Thanks, Quicksilver. I think we were about a half beat too late, but it was difficult to read your body language."
Ryan shook his head and smiled. "No, any sooner and he would have known something was up. You were both right on."
Axler shook her head. "Those boys were good. When we made our move, I would stake all the chrome I've got that they were just waiting for us to make a play."
Ryan nodded, and looked at the skyline where the choppers had disappeared. "I got the same feeling."
"They were looking for Burnout, weren't they?" said Grind.
"Yeah. Probably want to recover his tech. That drek is expensive." Ryan winced. "They know we were lying about this being a weather station," he said. "But I think they bought our story about him hitting us and disappearing."
Axler shook her head again. "I got the distinct feeling we'll be seeing those boys again."
"Me, too," said Grind.
Ryan turned his back on them, the familiar pain working at his gut. Fatigue hitting him suddenly in the pouring sunshine. He was tired of the unending search for Burnout. Tired of staring into the unchanging maw of Hells Canyon. He was tired of the mission Dunkelzahn had left him.
Maybe Nadja 's right. Maybe I should take a break from this place and settle things with her. Maybe that's what Dunkelzahn would have told me to do.
In the sky, the sun rose high into the washed-out blue above the mountains. But can I afford to leave now? What if General Dentado finds Burnout before I do? What if Aztechnology gets the Dragon Heart?
He didn't know what to do. He was unused to indecision; he was a man of focused action. A weapon, guided by Dunkelzahn.
Nadja will know, he thought. She will help me think this all through.
Provided she doesn't hate me for almost killing her.
2
It had been a long and rough trek from the depths of Hell, beginning several days ago. Lethe would never forget it. The sensation of drowning as Burnout's body sank to the bottom of the Snake River, until his compressed air supply automatically kicked in to keep the organic parts oxygenated.
It was incredible that this body was still alive, if barely. The cyberzombie had a number of built-in devices like the air tank nestled into his artificial torso, all designed to keep it going under adverse conditions. In fact, as far as Lethe could tell, the only natural tissue remaining were Burnout's spinal column and part of his organic brain. His limbs were mechanical, his torso was man-made, and all his internal organs had been replaced with a battery pack and a system of some sort to deliver food and oxygen to the organic nervous system.
A dull sound had come then to Burnout's cybernetic ears, and Lethe had heard it. Lethe listened to the muted throb and realized that it was a boat. If he could move the metal limbs enough to push to the surface, perhaps he could latch on and save the Dragon Heart.
Lethe discovered that, with Burnout unconscious, the body obeyed his will. He pushed off the bottom and succeeded in latching onto the jet boat. They traveled nearly forty-five kilometers upriver in less than an hour. It was dark when the boat docked, and Burnout's compressed air supply was quickly vanishing.
Lethe had made the body stagger onto a gravel beach and hide among a jumble of boulders. The moon rose a few hours later-a bloated, blood-colored thing that clung to the horizon like a maleficent boil.
Burnout had slowly drifted back into consciousness. And as the man's spirit awakened, Lethe lost control over the machine. He became a trapped passenger again, an inmate in the body of a chrome killing machine. Burnout seemed confused, lost, for the first few minutes after he regained consciousness. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there.
It took Lethe a moment to realize that the cyberzombie believed himself to be dead, that the machineman had fully expected the fall to kill him. Even though Burnout had come to rely on the near indestructibility of his metal coil, his mind still found it inconceivable that anything, even a being such as himself, could survive that fall.
Lethe sensed a great feeling of relief in Burnout at this thought, that some great weight had been lifted from the man's shoulders. But then Burnout became fully aware of his surroundings, exerted his will, and called up an internal mechanism he referred to as his GPS-Global Position System.
Within seconds, Burnout had his exact coordinates, took in the entire situation, and formulated a crude plan. That was when the Dragon Heart made its presence felt, still clutched in the twisted chrome remains of Burnout's telescoping fingers.
For a moment, Burnout remained rigidly still, then began to laugh. It started as a low chuckle and gradually grew to a shrill whooping screech until Lethe couldn't tell if it was laughter or a cry of pain. It continued for long enough that Lethe began to wonder if the fall had not somehow unhinged the creature's frail mind.
Lethe nearly panicked again. Being trapped was torture enough, but to be prison mates with an insane animal… It was horrifying. Lethe focused his will and tried to exert control over the body, and actually managed a faltering half-step before Burnout's laughter stuttered and wound down to a dry chuckle.
The man didn't seemed to notice his own involuntary movement, but simply lifted the Dragon Heart and held it before him at arm's length. The blood light of the moon shone on the heart-shaped orb of golden orichalcum. "So I beat you after all, Ryan Mercury," Burnout said softly.
"I'll give you credit-you were the closest thing to a challenge I've had in years, but in the end, I stole your magic."
Then something changed in him. Lethe could sense a coldness radiating from the man's aura, a sense of flowing rage. "No. I came away with the prize, but you still beat me, didn't you?"
Lethe couldn't understand the icy hatred he felt coming from Burnout. After all, Burnout had defeated Ryan, and in the final counting he had the Dragon Heart. Suddenly, it came to him, almost as if he could discern the intense thoughts in Burnout's mind. Burnout had snatched this victory from the jaws of defeat, and the man hadn't known defeat in combat since becoming this nightmare of magical metal contradiction. To him, victory was almost more important than gaining the Heart.
Lethe also understood one thing more, something he guessed was just sinking into Burnout's mind. Ryan was still out there, in possession of resources, manpower, and weapons that even the cyberzombie, killing machine that he was, couldn't hope to match. Burnout was on his own, while Ryan had a veritable army with which to trace, track, and finally run to ground even the most formidable enemy.
Burnout was beginning to realize he hadn't come close to winning yet, and victory would never truly be his until Ryan Mercury had been ground to dust beneath his heel. Quickly, Burnout wrapped the Dragon Heart in a strip of camouflage that he tore from his vest and lashed to his belt. He then took a rapid inventory of himself, discovering that he was in surprisingly good shape, all things considered. His telescoping fingers were jammed or sheared off, essentially useless, and his left shoulder showed a slight limit in motion due to a bent servo. His magnetic generator wasn't functioning, either. In the places where his body plating showed through the ruin of his black outer garments, his vat-grown skin had been abraded down to the dermal sheathing, which gleamed red in the light of the full moon.
"Not too slotting bad," he muttered to himself. "In fact, I feel more coherent and human than I've felt since… since I sold my soul to those Azzie hatchetmen. Maybe it's the Heart."