Jay Kristoff - DEV1AT3 (DEVIATE)

He took a step backward, struggling to keep his balance.

“I DON’T FEEL SO …”

The machina pivoted, its massive tail knocking Cricket back up the gully. The big bot tumbled along the ground, crashing to a halt against the grav-tank’s rear. Lemon fell out of her seat again, wiping the blood from her split eyebrow as she peered at cams. The big bot was trying to stand, but his movements were sluggish, clumsy, like he’d spent a hard night on the home brew.

“Crick, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“I DON’T …”

“… Crick, you gotta get up!”

The dinomachina was stomping toward him, jaws limp, one floodlight smashed. Ezekiel had leapt the six meters across the gully to the other emplacement, and was busy ending the second crew. But as Lemon watched, the scavver pilot slapped a control pad in his cockpit, and a cluster of short-range rockets popped from the machina’s shoulders, ready to unload right at Zeke’s exposed back.

“Fat-kidneyed rascal!” the scavver cried.

The situation had turned a deep shade of ugly.

Lemon knew she should stay in the tank. It was safer there. She was still aching and tired from the Babel throwdown, and feeling kinda queasy, talking true. But Cricket was her friend. Ezekiel was her friend. And beat and sick though she felt, Lemon had lost enough friends already today. Without thinking, she lunged toward the tank’s hatch, popped up into the smoke and flame. And fixing the machina in her stare, she dragged her cherry-red bangs from her eyes, pulled her helmet on tighter and stretched out her hand.

She’d been twelve years old when she first used It. Just a skinny little scavvergirl, scratching out a living on the meanstreets of Los Diablos. It’d been late at night outside the Skin District, and she’d stolen a credstik, slipped it into an auto-peddler for a quick meal. But the automata had swallowed her stik, no food to show for it, and Lem had just lost it. Rage boiling in her empty belly. A gray static, building up behind her eyes. She’d made a fist and punched the bot, and the automata had spat sparks and burst clean open, spewing cans of Neo-Meat™ from its belly.

She’d snatched up a few meals and run. Fast and far as she could before the Graycoats or the Brotherhood saw her. Knowing from that very first moment she had to hide it, lie on it, stomp it down and never show or tell anyone what she was.

Trashbreed.

Abnorm.

Deviate.

Now, looking at the big, lumbering machina, Lemon pictured that auto-peddler. Felt that gray static building up behind her eyes. Fingers stretched toward it.

And then she made a fist.

The machina bucked like someone had punched it. Hydraulics shrieked, power cables burst, a blinding shear of electrical current arced across its rusting skin. The pilot screamed, frying inside the cockpit as the voltage lit him up, as his machina stumbled and crumpled like paper into a smoking, sparking heap.

Fried to ruins.

Just like that.

Behind her, the last rocketeer plunged into the gully floor with an awful, wet crunch. Ezekiel shouted down from the emplacement above.

“You okay, Freckles?”

Lemon hauled off her helmet, blinking blood from her eye. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she put on her braveface. Her streetface. The face that told the world she was big enough to handle anything it threw at her and more.

“Toldja already, Dimples. I’m too pretty to die.”

She grabbed a chem-extinguisher with shaking hands, climbed out of the turret and doused the burning hull. Jumping onto the tank’s rear, she sized up Cricket. The big bot was dented and scratched from his brawl, but his paintjob was apparently flame-retardant, so the good news was he wasn’t on fire.

“You okay, you little fug?”

“I … THINK SO?” The big bot shrugged. “AND D-DON’T CALL ME LITTLE.”

Ezekiel carefully scaled down from the emplacement, dropping the final three meters onto the rocks below. Dusting his palm against his battered jeans, he made his way across the broken stone, fugazi blue eyes on the fallen logika.

“What happened?”

“EAT IT, STUMPY,” the big bot growled. “A NICE BIG BOWL OF IT.”

“Seriously, Crick,” Lemon said. “Are you all right?”

“YEAH. I’M … GOOD? I TH-THINK?”

Cricket stood on wobbling legs, the glow of his optics flickering and fluttering. He steadied himself against the gully wall, barely able to keep himself upright. Ezekiel sighed, and spinning on his heel, he climbed into the tank. A few moments later, he emerged with a heavy toolbox under his one good arm.

“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the broken rock. “Let me have a look.”

“… YOU’RE SUGGESTING I LET YOU POKE AROUND INSIDE ME?” Cricket fixed the lifelike in a flickering stare. “I THOUGHT LEMON WAS THE COMEDIAN IN THIS OUTFIT.”

Lemon frowned at the big bot. “Wait, I thought you were the comedy relief, and I was the lovable sidekick?”

“Cricket, if there’s something wrong with you, maybe I can spot it,” Ezekiel said. “I know a little about bots. Not as much as Eve, but a little.”

The mention of her bestest’s name brought a fresh ache in Lemon’s chest, a stillness to the group. Ezekiel glanced back toward Babel, and she could see how bad he was hurting, too. They’d had no choice. Evie had told them to leave. But …

“DON’T YOU DARE SAY HER NAME,” the logika growled.

Ezekiel blinked, turned back to the logika.

“I miss her, too, Cricket,” he murmured.

“OF COURSE YOU DO, MURDERBOT,” Cricket said. “THAT’S WHY YOU RAN AWAY FROM HER AS FAST AS YOU COULD.”

“She told me to leave,” Ezekiel said, his voice rising with his temper. “This was her choice. The first one she ever had in her life, don’t you get that?”

The big logika’s massive metal hands spangspangspanggg ed as he brought them together in a round of applause.

“OH, MISTER EZEKIEL, YOU’RE MY HERO.”

Lemon raised her hands, stepped between them. “Now, now, boys—”

“Go to hell, Cricket,” Ezekiel hissed. “What do you know about it?”

“I KNOW YOU LEFT HER BEHIND,” the bot growled, standing taller as his voice grew louder. “I KNOW EVERYBODY LIED TO HER! EVERYBODY BETRAYED HER! SILAS, LEMON, HER FATHER, YOU! CAN YOU IMAGINE FOR ONE MINUTE WHAT THAT FELT LIKE?”

“I didn’t want t—”

“AND THEN SHE FINDS OUT SHE’S NOT EVEN HUMAN AND YOU CLAIM TO LOVE HER AND YOU JUST LEFT HER THERE!”

Lemon’s heart was hammering. Every one of Cricket’s words was like a bullet fired right at Ezekiel’s chest. She saw them strike. Saw the rage welling up in the lifelike’s eyes, twisting his hands into fists.

“So did you, ” he spat at the bot.

The blue of Cricket’s optics burned into a furious white.

“YOU ROTTEN SONOFA …”

A two-ton fist came crashing down on the spot Ezekiel had stood a split second before, the ground shattering like glass. Cricket roared in shapeless rage, swung at Ezekiel again, the lifelike once more slipping aside. The big bot tried to scoop him up, but Ezekiel was faster, darting between Cricket’s legs and leaping up to seize hold of the armor plating on his lower back with his one good hand.

“Cricket, are you crazy ?” Lemon shouted.

Cricket roared again, his voice box crackling at the volume. He slapped at the lifelike as if he were an insect, massive hands clanging against his hull like some great, booming gong. Ezekiel’s superhuman agility was all that saved him from being pulverized, the lifelike hauling himself up the seams and rivets in the WarBot’s impenetrable hull until he reached his shoulder.