‘We’re the ones,’ Morag said. Mother, Tailgunner and the others turned to look at her, confused. ‘We put God into the net. She’s not a Them virus; she just tells the truth.’
Merle was shaking his head and looking pissed off. Pagan turned to her but she ignored him. Mudge was grinning. Instead of earning their trust we could just make grandiose gestures, I thought. Morag may have been talking to Mother, Tailgunner, Dog Face and Big Henry but she was looking at Strange.
‘Have you got any vodka?’ I asked Mudge as what Morag had said started to sink in with our hosts.
‘What am I, your own personal off-licence?’ Mudge demanded.
‘I’m not wasting good whisky in this shit-for-atmosphere.’
To give Mudge his credit he went and got a bottle. He’d probably jumped with it and humped it all over hell’s creation.
Tailgunner and Mother were both still thinking it over. Mother didn’t look happy.
‘I thought you looked familiar. Changed your looks before you got here?’ she asked.
Morag nodded. Though that had been a waste of time if we were just going to tell everyone, I thought.
Dog Face was the first to get angry. ‘This is your fucking fault?’ he growled.
‘Yep,’ Mudge said proudly as he opened the bottle, took a swig and passed it to me. I passed it to Mother. She looked at it as if I was offering her a knife point-first but took it, wiped the top and took a swig before passing it to Tailgunner.
‘We may as well tell them everything,’ Morag said. There was resolve in her voice.
‘And if they’re the bad guys?’ Cat asked from behind us.
‘Hey, fuck you!’ Dog Face spat.
‘She’ll spank you again,’ Mudge said, presumably because he’d seen an opportunity to start an argument.
‘Like he spanked you. Shut up, Mudge,’ I told him.
Dog Face looked like he was about to say something as well, but Mother glanced over and he lapsed into irritable silence.
‘They’re not the bad guys,’ Morag said with conviction.
‘Hooker’s intuition?’ I asked.
Morag smiled. We’d run on her intuition for a while when we’d had nothing else.
‘You’re a hooker?’ Big Henry asked hopefully. ‘We like hookers.’
‘Sorry, darling. I’m retired.’ Then to the rest of us: ‘Bad guys live better than this. We know that.’
There was an almost childish logic to it. I was also convinced she was correct.
‘She’s right,’ Merle said. ‘These aren’t the bad guys. Bad guys know what they’re doing.’
‘Why don’t you go and fuck yourself, you arrogant prick!’ Dog Face had moved into a crouch. He looked every inch the angry war dog. He didn’t remind me so much of the Vucari as the cyber-enhanced Tosa-Inus the Cossacks had run with.
‘Put him on a leash or I will,’ Merle said.
I’d noticed him shift slightly. He was ready. Something bad was going to happen if Dog Face went for him. I felt rather than heard Cat move behind me, ready to help her brother. I think Mother noticed as well.
‘Dog Face, take it easy,’ Mother said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Big Henry took his angry brother-mech-pilot’s arm. Dog Face’s head turned to look at him. Big Henry nodded.
‘And you,’ Mother said to Merle. ‘You don’t like what we’re doing here then you can leave your supplies and fuck off.’
The others watched, waiting for Merle’s response. Tailgunner was particularly tense. He was giving Merle the hard stare. I almost wanted something to kick off. I was interested to see who’d win.
‘Does everyone with a penis want to fuck off so we can actually accomplish something?’ Morag asked.
I smiled. Behind me I could hear Cat laugh.
‘She was being just as macho,’ Mudge complained, nodding at Mother.
‘Mother may well have a penis,’ Big Henry said. ‘That’s why Tailgunner likes her so much.’
More smiles, less tension.
‘You can go with him if you want,’ Mother said deadpan.
‘All right. None of us are diplomats-’ I started.
‘I am,’ Mudge interrupted inevitably.
‘We don’t know each other so nobody wants to give,’ I continued, ignoring Mudge. ‘So let’s just try for an exchange of information and see where that gets us?’
‘I wasn’t trying to denigrate what you’ve done here,’ Merle started. ‘How could you know what was going to happen and prepare for it? This is not your kind of war.’
‘So what? You going to save us?’ Dog Face spat.
Merle ignored him. ‘My point was, we tell them and that’s more people who know. They get caught, we get compromised.’ Then he turned to Mother. ‘Unless you’re prepared to kill any of your people who get captured, or yourself if that happens.’ Merle had turned his intense brown eyes on her. The Maori woman didn’t flinch. She didn’t answer either. ‘No, of course not, because you care for these people. You want to see them safe through the war, don’t you? Admirable but fucking dangerous to us.’
‘Fine,’ Mother said tightly. ‘Then like I said, leave your supplies and fuck off.’
Dog Face was nodding. Merle turned to me. ‘They’ve got no useful intel. We’ve done the hearts and minds thing at the expense of our own supplies. We need to move on.’
He was right. I knew he was right. These were clearly good people, clearly capable at what they did, but they’d drag us down. They should have split into smaller groups and either hidden or fought in cells.
I didn’t even see the girl come out of the darkness. I hadn’t been paying attention and I’d not sensed her move. She was suddenly next to Merle and her hand slashed out at his face. I saw the sliver of metal reflected in the light. She had a small curved blade sticking out of the bottom of her fist. Merle caught the girl’s wrist. Despite her black plastic eyes I caught the look of panic on her face.
‘Strange!’ Mother shouted.
She must have realised what sort of person Merle was and that the damaged girl was courting death. Merle wasn’t quite quick enough to catch Strange’s other wrist. She drew a thin line of red down his cheek with the blade in her other fist.
I felt the FAV I was leaning against rock as Cat came off it. Strange screamed as Merle trapped her other wrist, disarmed her and put her into a painful-looking hold. I could see panic building in Strange as she struggled against him. Enthusiasm and sneakiness is rarely a match for actual skill. Mudge had his pistol in his hand. He didn’t look quite sure what to do with it. Pagan had pushed himself back. I don’t know why I didn’t move, why I didn’t do something.
‘Let her go,’ Tailgunner said. There was impending violence in his voice but something else as well. Tension.
Strange was freaking out. Struggling like a trapped animal. Tailgunner, Mother, Big Henry and Dog Face were on their feet. They didn’t care who we were, that some of us had guns in our hands, in Cat’s case a railgun; they were ready to go at us.
‘Let her go,’ I said.
Merle looked like he was going to object. Not unreasonably; he had just been slashed.
‘Now,’ I said in my best don’t-fuck-with-me NCO voice.
He looked like he was ready to tell me to fuck off but released her. Strange rolled away from him and onto her feet and hissed before backing into the shadows again, crouching like a predatory beast.
When I glanced over at Morag she was smiling. I couldn’t make out why. Maybe she liked what Strange had done. That worried me. I tried to catch her eye but either she didn’t see my look or she chose to ignore it.
‘She comes near me with a blade again, I’ll put it in her. At best,’ Merle said.
He was dabbing at the cut. Looking at the blood on his fingertips. I think he was more surprised than anything else.
‘You ever touch her-’ Tailgunner started.