Chapter 11: Fighting Back

Didi stumbles the moment she steps foot outside the back exit of the cargo bay, feet slipping over the rubble beneath her feet.

"Well, blikey," she snarls at herself, bending in half to turn on her deflectors. They hum to life again, snapping peevishly a moment, as though she's woken them from a peaceful sleep. She rubs her banged knee with one hand, hating the sting and numbness that follows such a blow, hobbling forward into the trash.

The gunslinger's chip is a dilemma, though she's less concerned about it now than she had been at first. One step at a time, just like Dad taught her. And no blubbering over his being missing, not while she needs to focus on work. A heart. She's had an idea about that, though part of her doesn't want to consider how risky this undertaking might be. Still, it's the only option open to her, outside murdering another person, something she's not sure she'd be willing to do, even for Dad.

Then again, if she is backed into a corner and given no choice...

Head down, mind at work, she's near the border, the glimmer of blue glass ahead, when someone grabs her arm and hauls her against his chest. And no choice becomes the center of her reality.

She doesn't have to guess who has his hands on her, arm around her throat, pinning her body to his. How could she have been so distracted, so foolish as to just stomp her way through his territory without consideration? She knows better, but can't think past the touch of his skin on hers. His foul breath brushes over her cheek, the vibration of his panting making her mouth guard hum. Or is that her own panic driving her heart to beat so fast she can't breathe?

"Knew you'd come back," Jackus whispers in her ear, filthy fingers stroking over her cheek, free hand wandering as his arm tightens, keeping her still by choke hold. Didi tries to cough, frozen in her fear, while Jackus feels his way over her shoulder and down her arm. "Knew you wanted it, Didi. Wanted me. Well, here I am, little girl. And here you are, too."

Both of her hands are clamped on his arm, the one around her neck. She has no idea how they got there or why she's not kicking the living snot out of him with her boots. It's as though she's outside herself, looking down at the slim girl with the goggles and black hair, pinned to the chest of her assailant and doing nothing to protect herself.

His lips brush over her face, her skin crawling from the contact. And, whether he's taken her lack of resistance to this point as acquiescence or not, she's most definitely not going to allow him to touch her like that ever again.

Ever. Again.

Didi meeps as one of her hands drops, terror driving the sound from her lips past the plas guard. She's never been so afraid. It's a life-defining fear that teaches her a valuable lesson-while she might react instantly to some kinds of danger, this unfamiliar horror makes her stop in place and flutter inside like a trapped bird.

At least, the first time. As her anger grows-more at herself then Jackus, truth be told-her fingers dig into the lining of her jacket and press the trigger on her protections.

She's seen enough vids to know what he wants of her, and can only guess what it would feel like. She has enough of an imagination she wants to throw up after scrubbing herself raw with cleanser.

At first nothing happens, her index finger mashing down on the button embedded in the liner of her jacket and her panic, once a living thing, roars into monstrous proportions, driving adrenaline through her body in spikes so powerful she convulses all at once, as though she's the one attacked by the fine lines of threaded wire with which she's lined her clothing. Jackus's laugh is a bark of derision, turned to something like a whimper as the lashing of her body finally makes the connection required for her invention to activate.

She can feel it vaguely, the taser shock of the pulse racing through her clothing. But, the rubberized liner is enough to protect her, to keep her conscious and aware of the scent of singing hair, the deep, thrumming throb of his voice as Jackus loses control of his vocal cords. The way his body takes on its own dance while he herks and jerks over her, around her, until the charge runs out.

Didi spins, looks down at him as he collapses, eyes staring upward into the night. She's killed him, he's dead and she'll be hung for it for sure, but she doesn't care. She can harvest his heart for the gunslinger. That bloodthirsty thought comes to her without her bidding, chilling her blood, making her tingle all over with further shock. But she'll do it, won't she? If he's dead.

When he groans, blinks slowly, she's almost disappointed in a dispassionate, needful way. Her terror returns when he screams as the life returns to his nerves.

She reacts, running through the trash, over the blue glass marker, onward toward home. Panting, a faint, animal whine rising from her chest, all the way, cutting the hour trek in half until she's slamming through the front door and sealing it behind her without remembering how she made it there.

The safety system on the house shudders back to life when she slaps its casing.

"Didi!" Pip's voice makes her scream, turn around to see him flying toward her. She waves him off, so he instead lands on a sheet of plas waiting to be stacked, staring down at her with his red cyborg eye whirling. "Where were you?"

She can't respond, sick to her stomach, hating herself and her terror, wanting to curl up on the floor and just forget about Dad, about the gunslinger, all of it.

But she can't. There's no one but her and Dad needs her, doesn't he? Unable to collapse as she wishes but also unable to speak, Didi leans against the door and sobs into her hands.

Her knees buckle at last, carrying her to the floor where she fights her tears. Claws dig into her shoulder, the whisper of feathers as Pip settles with her, sliding into her lap. Didi cuddles the crow in her arms, rocking him, while he hums the same song she remembers only vaguely.

The sound is soothing enough she is able to catch her breath, to scrub the tears and snot from her face, to draw her first deep, deliberate breath and squinch her face into a foul scowl of fury.

"Next time," she says with venom, "I'll make sure the charge kills the bastard."

"Who?" Pip looks up, clacks his beak at her. "Didi, what happened and why did you leave me trapped here?"

She hesitates, despising the feeling of fear returning. How can she go back there? She'll have to charge up her protections again, make sure the voltage is higher, the power pack fully engaged. That way his heart will stop and she'll gladly go to the gallows.

"It doesn't matter." Because she's a practical girl. Has to be. She finishes wiping her nose on the corner of her jacket before fixing the crow with her determined stare. "I have a plan, Pip. And you're going to go along with it or I'll be leaving you here for good, with your power turned off. Hear me?"

He swallows visibly. "You'd never do that, Didi." Pip shifts from one foot to the other, his claws scratching her through her clothes. "Please, don't say that."

Didi stands up, carrying him into the house. She has to be fast. Surely Jackus will come for her. She needs to get back to the gunslinger before long and fix him. She laughs, hysterical and cracking, ending in a warbling sob, at the thought of Ives Jackus trying to touch her with a gunslinger standing over her.

"Didi." Pip's voice is kind, soft, the mutter underneath concerned. "What have you done?"

She sets him down on the kitchen counter, slips free the chip, the fission generator that is now her only hope.

Pip's beak clacks together. "The gunslingers."

"Just need one," she says.

***