He looked around at the shacks and the townsfolk who were gradually drifting back to the square now that the killing was done. “I was headin’ for here when I called. These folk coulda given them pricks a warm welcome if they’d had any warning. I didn’t make it. Finally got jumped near the river.”
“Yeah, we saw the marks where they’d dragged you off.”
“Dalton’s boot heel trick saves the day again.” Vargas chuckled, but then looked at Athalia again and frowned. “When you say “we,” you mean you and her? You’re really the only one left of Team Foxtrot?”
Foxtrot. So that had been the name of my unit. Good to know. I nodded and pulled the ranger stars I’d found on the bodies in Sleeper One from my pocket. He stared.
“Jesus. I… I can’t believe it. I’m sorry.” He called me the same name again, and again it didn’t feel right. I held up my hand.
“Don’t call me that. I… that guy died there, with the rest of them. I’m… I feel like some kind of a revenant. Call me that instead.”
“Revenant?” He shrugged. “Kind of a mouthful, but if that’s what you want. So, did you find the high–tech gear we—”
“Snake!”
Vargas and I looked up. A woman was running across the square toward us with a shaggy–headed guy in mechanic’s overalls jogging along behind her. I gave the woman all my attention. She was a redhead, whip thin and freckled, with a ranger’s star on her cowboy hat, a pistol on each hip, and a long gun on a strap bouncing on her shoulder. She dropped to her knees beside Vargas without even a sidelong glance at me and started checking his wounds.
“How bad are you? Can you walk? Do you need a drink?”
He laughed. “Stop fussin’, Angie. I’m fine, thanks to your old friend here.”
“Old friend?” Angie turned as he nodded in my direction. “I….”
And all of a sudden she yelped, looped her arms around my neck, and hauled me in close for a kiss.
I was less than a day old, and I’d killed more folks than I’d kissed, but truth be told I can’t believe there’s ever been a better first kiss in the history of mankind. It was firm, sweet, wet, and warm in all the right ways, not to mention shy and brazenly familiar at the same time. My surprise melted into hunger, but before I could slip my arms around her and go back for seconds, she backed off just as abruptly and slapped me clean across the face.
“W—who the hell are you?”
“Another kiss like that and I’ll be anyone you want me to be.”
Anger blossomed in her eyes and I realized I’d said that out loud. I quickly brought my hands up. “Wait, listen. I—”
Her green eyes tightened. She cut me off. “You look like him, but no suntan, no scar on your forehead. And apparently your finger grew back.”
I glanced at my hands. So did Vargas. He gawked.
“Well I’ll be damned. I shoulda noticed that.”
She pointed at the offending digit. “Little one, right hand. You got bit by a gila monitor. I took its head and your finger off with the same swipe of my knife.” She brushed her long red hair off her shoulders. “Saved your life, then you saved mine, which is why I ain’t shooting you right now. But if you don’t tell me who you are, that may change.”
Athalia came to my rescue. “He can’t tell you. He’s a clone of whoever you knew.”
Angie made a sound like cat with a hairball. “A… a clone?”
“Yes. There is a cloning chamber in Sleeper One. He used it. I call him Ghost because of it. Who are you?”
Angie pulled her eyes away from me reluctantly. “I… Uh, Angie. Angela Deth.” She took a slow gander at Athalia. “And who are you?”
Athalia bowed her head. “Sister Athalia of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud, at your—”
A new voice broke in from behind me. “Wait. Who is this guy again?”
I raised my head. It was the guy who had been following Angie — clean shaven, mop of curly hair, Las Vegas gang tattoo on his neck, sub–machine gun slung under one arm. He was standing stiffly behind Vargas, hard eyes giving me a pretty cool once over. Angie looked at him and got a look on her face like she’d run over somebody’s cat and didn’t feel so good about it.
“Uh, Ace, remember the guy who died? The one you wanted to help me forget?”
Ace looked pretty sick too. “He’s not dead after all?”
Angie looked back at me, frowning. “I… it… it’s more complicated than that.”
“Seems pretty simple to me.” He turned and walked away.
Angie called after him. “Ace!”
He didn’t look back, just went to one of the other poles and started helping with the wounded. She cursed under her breath.
“So who’s Ace?” I asked.
She looked unhappy. “A mechanic we saved in Quartz. We…” She looked unhappier. “I’m sorry. I thought you were dead.”
“So,” I said. “That means we, uh… You and me were…?”
Angie shot me a look. “You don’t remember?”
Images of rolling around in an army cot with a redheaded wildcat flashed around in my brain, mixed in with snapshots of walking and laughing with her, drinking and talking with her. They didn’t fold together into a full memory, but there was enough to get a pretty good picture.
“Some,” I said. “My former self’s brain–box got pretty badly cracked before he managed to clone me. I think a lot got lost in translation.”
She smirked. “Well, I hope you remember the good bits.”
I smirked back. “I hope there’s more to come.”
Her smirk died, but a shy–eyed young woman joined us before she could speak again. The young woman bowed her head to us.
“Greetings, rangers. I’m Kate, apprentice to our village healer. The village would like to offer you a meal for saving us from those men, and our healer and I can help with your wounded. If you can walk, it is this way. If you can’t, I can call men to carry you.”
Angie and I helped Vargas to his feet. We exchanged glances over his head as we walked him to the healer’s shack, but we didn’t speak.
While the healer and his young apprentice got to work on Vargas and the other two human punching bags, the townsfolk dragged the bodies of the raiders off and burned them, then got to work on preparing a celebratory meal, which wasn’t exactly a feast, even by wasteland standards, but looked to be all they could manage.
Vargas was all bandaged up by the time it was ready. He, Angie, Athalia and I sat down for a chat with the village mayor as we ate. Ace was there too, but he ate by himself off to one side and contented himself with shooting longing looks at Angie.
“These ain’t the first raiders to come through,” his honor told us. “Been more than usual lately, all comin’ out of the north. First bunch took near to everything we had, and all the others that followed beat on us ‘cause we didn’t have nothin’ left.”
Vargas nodded. “From what those boys were saying as they were draggin’ me along, they got chased out of their usual stompin’ grounds by robots. Happenin’ to everybody up there.”
“More robots,” said Angie. “Robots attacking Vegas. Robots rousting raiders. Robots killin’ farmers. Every other S.O.S. we get at Ranger Central is about robots these days. Seems impossible they’re all comin’ from this Base Cochise. How can one place hold ’em all?”
“And where is Base Cochise?” I asked. “Do we know that?”
Vargas gave me a look. “Guess your memory is messed up. You got the location from us when we radioed for help lookin’ for Sleeper Base One. A fella name of Max told us it’s northwest of Vegas, but we already kinda figured that out from all the reports coming from up that way.”