Great chariots of fire. The one topic Dobson had actively been avoiding for months now, and Misty, naturally, had to go and bring it up like it was a casual Sunday brunch conversation. Dobson drew her hat over her eyes with a grunt, unwilling to participate.

  Misty carried on without her. What’s worse, her voice was uncharacteristically soft, void of its usual biting charm, as if she was truly capable of feeling emotion for another human being. “In hindsight, I should have suspected something sooner. You’re good at hiding it, though.”

  Closing her eyes did nothing to tune out Misty’s voice. She prattled on in soft tones, wearing away at Dobson’s steely resolve.

  “If it weren’t for that freeze-up during the fight, I don’t think I would have noticed.”

  A memory flashed before Dobson’s eyes. She tried to shove it back down, but the memory remained, forcing a play-by-play account of the one moment Dobson sorely wished to forget. Bright lights strobed on and off, disguising the hazy shapes that jumped out at her from all sides. Pain blossomed within her chest. Crippling heat devoured her from the inside out as her core temperature surged, scorching the surrounding soft tissue beyond repair. The memory continued to unfold. Dobson couldn’t stop. Even with the alarm system going off in her head, she had to keep fighting. But the men kept coming. One after another, they continued to pour in around her, pushing Dobson’s overworked body into full system failure.

  Misty’s voice broke through the sirens and screams echoing within Dobson’s head. “How long have you been hiding it, Dobsy?”

  Dobson’s eyes shot open and the flashing images receded. The memory slunk back to the deep dark corner of her mind where it lurked, waiting for the next opportunity to spring on her unannounced. The skin on Dobson’s face was hot and dripping with sweat. She took a slow breath, attempting to calm the runaway gallop of her heartbeat. Talking, unfortunately, helped squash the queasy sensation roiling inside her gut.

  “Since the coup,” Dobson admitted, taking another slow breath. “After Gritstone sold me out, all the bounty hunters came flooding in and, well...” She didn’t have the heart to say the rest and settled for a shrug instead. It hurt, but not nearly as much as forcing the truth to scrape across her tongue.

  “To hell with Gritstone,” Misty muttered through gritted teeth.

  That much they could agree on. Dobson bobbed her head, repeating Misty’s sentiment. “To hell with Gritstone.”

  “Let me guess, you ran out of borg juice mid-fight and had to push through? Overheated yourself, yeah?”

  Dobson refused to confirm Misty’s suspicion. Even now, weeks after the attack, she still couldn’t bring herself to admit it out loud.

  “I’ve seen a hundred times before, Dobsy. If the initial strain doesn’t kill you, the eventual organ failure will.”

  Misty’s words were nothing new. Dobson was fully aware of the deadly consequences that came from pushing an augmented body too far. She’d tried to dismiss the signs at first, but as time passed and the symptoms grew more severe, she couldn’t hide from the ugly truth any longer. Her mind was fading, being gradually worn down by the strain. Her vision modulator switch, most notably, was deteriorating by the day. The other systems would follow, one by one, until her body shut down indefinitely.

  “What’s been affected?” Misty asked.

  Dobson said neither ‘the brain’ nor ‘my brain’ only, “Brain.”

  As if detaching herself from the reality taking place behind her eyes would somehow make it an easier pill to swallow.

  Misty stirred beside her. Her voice was no longer soft but filled with agitated excitement. “See? This is why I wish you had said something sooner, Dobsy. We are literally surrounded by spare parts here. Had I known, I would have saved one of these low-lifes from a shot to the head and swapped some of the drives around. It wouldn’t have been pretty, but it would have lasted until we could do it properly.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Misty paused, adding thoughtfully, “It’s not too late. I suppose we could borrow some parts from one of the fellas still holed up inside the train.”

  Dobson stared up at the inside of her hat, surrounded by darkness. “It won’t matter.”

  “There you go again, with that nihilistic bull snot of yours. Stop doubting me. I have the skills—”

  “I don’t have the parts to switch out.”

  There was a pregnant pause as Misty struggled to absorb what Dobson was telling her. “You’re,” she started, forced to gather her thoughts and try again, “you’re organic?”

  “What you see is what you get.” Whereas the majority of Dobson’s internal organs had been retrofitted to withstand the strain of an augmented endoskeleton, she’d insisted on keeping her mind as is. No power banks, memory drives, or internal processors. The moment a human mind melded with the machine was the same moment a cyborg lost their touch with humanity. And while that was fine and dandy for those who chose it, Dobson didn’t count herself among them.

  She wanted her decisions to be hers and hers alone, not influenced by some string of code.

  Misty shook her head in disbelief. “And they call me mad.”

  The trick to achieving a moment of silence, Dobson discovered, was to make Misty feel sorry for her. As it turned out, she didn’t like that much, either. She felt backed into an emotional corner with no way out. Sighing, Dobson broke one of her own rules, allowing the most insidious of empty platitudes to tumble free from her stubborn lips. “It is what it is.”

  “But it’s not what it has to be,” Misty countered. “Organ failure can be managed with proper care and lifestyle choices.”

  “I don’t intend to live that long to find out.”

  Misty glared. Even though the hat perched over her face, blocking out the low-burning light of the nearby embers, Dobson felt it. “You’re not planning to go belly-up on me, are you?” Misty demanded. “We’re getting that train, Dobsy, and using it to get the hell out of here.”

  “And after that?”

  “We steal the sheriff’s vessel and continue getting the hell out of here.”

  She made it all sound so easy. Dobson wished she’d had that sort of unfounded confidence. “And even then, I wouldn’t bother changing my ways. Dying. Not dying. It doesn’t matter. Any remaining time I have left will be spent getting back at Gritstone.”

  “It is possible to do both, ya know. You can seek revenge and take care of yourself. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I dare say, doing both might actually help extend our time in the revenge business.”

  “Our time?”

  “That’s what partners do, numbskull. They stick together.” Misty said, grumbling, “Of course, you wouldn’t know that. Considering you never bothered to work with anyone else before. It’s a real burden being the one to teach you the ropes, but it is a burden I shall bear, nonetheless.”

  “Partners,” Dobson said, allowing the word to roll over her tongue. For some reason, it didn’t cause her to shudder like it normally would. Perhaps Misty had abused the word so tirelessly, it had lost all bite. Dobson’s aversion was gone.

  Naturally, she chalked the phenomenon up to yet another symptom of organ failure. What she refused to admit, however, was that out of all of her symptoms so far, this was one she didn’t mind so much.

  “What do you say, partner?” Misty said. “Are you feeling recharged yet? Ready to go rustle us a train?”

  “Why are you in such a hurry to die?” Dobson demanded. “Want to go out with a big bang, is that it?”

  Misty started to say something and then stopped, as if overcome with thought. An unexpected pause followed and lasted nearly five seconds in total. “Oh, contraire, Dobsy dearest!” she cried, her voice lit with excitement. “I am in a hurry to live! And you, oh blessed stoic one, have given me an excellent idea on how to achieve that. Come on, now. Up and at ‘em, pumpkin. We’ve got things to do and people to piss off.”

  Dobson lifted the hat from her face and glared accusingly at Misty, watching as she staggered triumphantly to her feet. “What about your arm?”

  “Will have to leave it as is for now, sadly. The connective tissue is shot. I’ll need to replace everything in a proper workstation.” Misty picked her torn jacket from the floor and flung it over her shoulders like a cape, grinning like a fool. “Consider it an advantage in our enemies’ favor.”

  Dobson heaved to her feet, reluctantly. “That’s exactly what I consider it to be.”

  “Good! Lord knows, those poor boys are gonna need all the help they can get.” Misty sauntered across the room, inspecting the bodies as she went, clearly looking for something.

  Dobson could see a deranged plot glimmering behind her partner’s wild eyes. “You have an idea, you said?”

  “Yes, a plan. A great one.”

  “Why do I get the strangest feeling that I'm not going to like it?”

  Glowing piles of smoldering embers dotted the floor of the upturned tavern. Misty looked up, her face cast in long shadows from the flickering red and orange light. A toothy grin spread across her bloodied face from ear to ear. “Because darling, you’re going to love it.”