Chapter 12: Heart

Didi crouches at the end of a trash tunnel, the net over one end wired for power. She's had to sacrifice the small generator that keeps her greenhouse running to set up the lure, but it'll be worth it in the end if she gets what she needs.

It's hard to sit here and not think about how little time she has, fighting waves of panic and terror, checking over her shoulder what feels like constantly as Pip floats overhead, keeping watch. She told him a little about Jackus, but only enough to make him alert, as if he needs much.

"Where are we going now?" Pip flew after her when she left the house a short time ago. It was the hardest thing she's ever done, her body resisting her desire to pass over the threshold and into the outside again. All she can think of is Jackus, that he's waiting for her out there and she hasn't had time to refresh her power cell on the threading in her clothing. What if he comes?

She just didn't have the time. The gunslinger is the priority.

"We need a heart," Didi told the crow, finally holding her breath and physically shoving her foot out the door. Once outside it was easier, less like being hunted, more like a constant, steady thread of fear following her like a thin trail of doom. "Don't need human, but close to human will be best." She knows exactly where to get one, too, though it will be a tough kill. And not as satisfying as ripping the still-beating heart from the chest of Ives Jackus.

She's only captured one tunnel bore before in her life, the giant cousin of the mini mole starting at ten times its size and not good eating, as it turns out. But the heart, that she remembers as close enough to hers, when she took a good look for educational purposes. Gross and exciting, all at once. She'll never admit to anyone that combination of learning is her favorite.

The generator hums at her feet, unshielded, chugging away gently, the electricity calling deep below through the spikes she's driven into the trash. Tunnel bores can't resist a good feed of juice, though the stupid creatures often rise up to attack unprotected homesteads if squatters aren't careful and end up dead. Not the smartest of critters, nor with good instincts. Blind hunger drives them.

Didi kind of knows how they feel at the moment.

She feels the first rumble of movement beneath her and turns to the gennie, pumping up the power. The net across the end of the tunnel-a sure sign a bore's been here before-electrifies the hull of an old homestead, amplifying the reach. Didi's careful not to touch anything metal with her bare skin, gloves firmly in place. The charge might be dispersed enough it won't hurt her permanently, but she needs her wits about her.

When the bore breaks through, she holds her breath, stench of rising methane and other gasses pouring out of the hole, mixed with the musk of the pale, filthy creature broaching the surface like the vid of a whale in an ocean. She's never seen water in such volume and privately thinks it's someone's imagination, so much liquid all in one place. Metal and plas crunch under the bore's giant feet as it surfaces, wide paws six claws wide planting over a two foot circle, the blade-like crescents digging firmly into the trash.

It shakes itself, debris flying from the crusted scales, pale and gray, coating its broad neck and shoulders, the muzzle a wriggling mess of tentacles, flushed red and squirming. Its lack of eyes is the most disturbing part, face smooth but for the writhing mouth of blood red wormies.

Didi ups the charge again, waits for the bore to turn its massive, flat head on its thick neck. It spins with surprising agility, bulky body heaving the rest of the way out of the tunnel it's made. Four more legs, increasing in size and musculature secure its balance, a stub of a tail thrashing twice before falling still. Its whip-like appendage was lost at some point, the scar over the end saving her life. For, had the tail been intact, Didi is fully aware when the stub settles, had its spiked length been present, she would have been directly in its path.

It makes her shudder and focus. She can't afford to be sloppy, to make mistakes. Her life-Dad's life-depends on her doing what she needs to do. She waits for the bore to approach the net, whispering an apology to the huge creature as its tentacled nose brushes against the alum fibers she's strung there, channeling every ounce of power into its tiny brain.

Its mouth feelers wrap around the netting and suck on the electricity, the generator beside her groaning. Didi approaches from behind, slow and deliberate. She has to act fast, but with horrible patience. The creature's eyes and ears might be an evolutionary rewrite, but its sense of vibration, she knows from experience, is excruciatingly powerful.

She's seen bores leap from the trash and take down dumpalls with a single strike. What she's risking is foolhardy and she'd never attempt it without her special boots-enough to deflect the vibration her footfalls make-and desperation on her side.

As she draws closer, she sees the old scars on its body, the way its right hind leg hangs oddly. It's been through tough times itself, makes her pause and feel even worse for what she's about to do. But Didi has a need, and the bore's life is all that can fill it.

Electricity feeds them. But, when she faced one last time, she found out by accident that they have one weakness, these giant, powerful and stupid creatures. One that makes it easy even for a tiny girl a fraction of its weight to bring it down.

Water. Precious, life sustaining. Absent from the ecosystem of the bore. Didi fell into the sludge the last time, the bore sliding in after her. And the moment its hardened outer shell touched moisture, it dissolved.

She hates to waste her precious reserve, but she has no choice. And, as she squeezes slowly past the shoulder of the bore and into the front of the tunnel, the net vibrating with power quickly slowing to a dull thrum, almost drained by the eager feeding of the creature, she stops to pat it gently on the top of the head.

"Sorry about this," she whispers. Its head tilts toward her, though it doesn't stop feeding. "Good cause, promise." Her hand shaking, she lifts the canister of precious fluid and pours it directly over the creature's mouth and head.

Hoping to reach the brain as fast as possible.

The results of her attack, however, are far beyond her expectation. Didi remembers the last one falling forward and dissolving as it fell, almost in real time, while she screamed until it was gone. She is ready for it to simply cave in, disappear, collapse and leave her with what she needs.

She is not, however, ready for the giant surge of energy that passes from the creature to the net to the generator and back again as the water closes the circuit the bore has created with its mouth, nor for the moment when, with a deep, aching whine, the bore's head explodes outward in violent protest.

Didi falls back, spluttering out bits of charred flesh, her mouth guard the only thing preventing her from swallowing bits of cooked bore. It collapses all at once, falling forward and squashing her with its bulk against the side of the tunnel. Breathless from the pressure, Didi pants her way out from under the creature's spreading death weight and pulls herself up to its back where she lays a moment, choking for air.

A shadow passes over the end of the tunnel, wings flapping in the darkness. Didi looks back over her shoulder as Pip lands on the stump of the bore's tail and cocks his head at her.

"That was impressive."

She laughs. She can't help herself.

It's a few moments before she musters the energy to drag herself to her feet. For a moment, she's afraid she's lost the laser pen she scavenged from her father's lab, only to find it tucked into her boot for safe keeping. She really needs to remember when she does things like that, but it's been a rough day all around and she decides slack needs some cutting.

Bore, too. It's a disgusting job, slicing through the creature's back to get to its chest and the precious, organic matter inside. She only has so much time, knowing the heart's cells will begin to degrade quickly if she's not fast enough in preservation. Grim and determined, a goddess of gore and tech, Didi stands firmly over the shoulders of the fallen giant and cuts it open until the chest cavity is exposed.

She kneels, leaning down into the body of the bore, breathing through her mouth the humid, copper stench of its insides. It's still charged, little pitzes of electricity jumping and sparking at her as she gently severs the arteries and veins connecting the heart to the bore.

A quick examination of it as she lifts it free and she's satisfied. It pulses softly in her hand. The current the bore lives on and ingested keeps it viable longer than a human heart. She scrambles back over the carcass to the generator, hoping she calculated correctly. Grateful when she sees it's still alive and has some power left.

Just enough to preserve this heart inside a vacuum tube of plasglass, running a constant stream of power through it. She seals the jar, hears the air suck free, watches in sick fascination as the organic matter twitches before beating once, slowly. Holds her breath until it does so again thirty seconds later.

It will have to do.

She turns to find Pip picking at the exposed flesh of the bore's chest, swallowing a few pieces. At least someone can eat it. He turns to her, red tongue licking the blood from the edges of his beak.

"You have a heart," he says, "and the chip. But, tell me, Didi Duke, what will you do if you succeed and your gunslinger turns on you?"

She rests a moment, shoulder against the back hip of the bore, body weary and in desperate need of a cleansing.

"You just leave that worry to me," she says. Since she's been mulling it since this whole idea woke in her anyway.

She finally rises, taking the generator and tube with her, the small power unit swinging from one blood caked hand, the other holding the precious plasglass to her chest. She's never been so tired, though she has a long way to go yet before she can rest.

He saves her again, the silly bird, as she stumbles outside her yard. Feathers rustle, Pip's claws digging in sharp, holding her back. She looks up at him, numb with weariness as his cyborg eye hums and whirls red.

"We've got visitors," he whispers.

She looks back, in time to see Jackus exiting her house.

***