The rain failed to lessen, but had in fact increased with the added benefit of sleet.

  Soaked from head to toe, I had given up the effort of trying to stay dry. We had been walking for what felt like hours when we finally saw two figures up ahead of us.

  One sat on a moss-covered rock with an unlit soggy cigar hanging from the side of his mouth; red shades covered his eyes and water dripped from the end of his nose as a hand rested on the handle of a revolver big enough to put down an elephant. The other stood beside the first. He was a towering figure who wore a hood that hid his features, with a machine gun as big as me nested down by his foot.

  “Gland to see you, mi amigos,” José said, eyes ranging over us.

  “We would have been here sooner, but some pussy,” Willis said staring my way, “was afraid to get his feet wet.”

  “If you mean, not venturing into an unknown marsh on an unknown planet then yeah, I thought it would be smarter to stick to solid ground where we can see our feet. Sorry for thinking with my head.”

  About to say something Willis was cut off by Poppy. “What’s the situation?”

  José sighed heavily as he brushed the water that had collected on his dome. “If I knew what a pain in the ass this job would be, then I would have never taken it, but that really wasn’t an option to start with, now was it?

  “I destroyed most of Arun’s ship but he did a good number on the old girl. I had to look for somewhere to land The Kennel as he and his estúpido friends were chasing me all the way down; I managed to shake them off before I hid the ship.”

  “Think Arun’s still alive?” I asked. “Could just be his men looking to finish what they started.”

  “Has to be,” Willis replied. “If he was dead then his men would scatter; his being alive is the only thing keeping them together after suffering such heavy losses. Loyalty isn’t to be found in Arun’s crew.”

  I nodded my head at the logic of his words.

  “Gregory’s still alive. He escaped. It was my fault.”

  José looked at me like a wolf sensing its prey was nearby. “No worry. He shall get what’s coming to him in due time; right now we need to make our way towards the meeting point.”

  “Did you grab the data-stick?” I asked.

  “Be but a fool’s errand if I didn’t.”

  “How far?”

  “Another half an hour at best,” José said, turning his head and looking at the trail that continued for some distance. We all followed his gaze lost in our own thoughts till a snigger escaped Tuari as he smirked and pointed his forefinger towards Willis’s beard.

  “How does your beard become even more ginger when wet?”

  “First off,” Willis said, talking in a measured tone, “moisture brings out the natural tones in my hair giving it this vibrant look you see. Secondly, get your dirty black-nailed fucking finger out of my face! Before I break it off and shove it up your ass! You ass-mongrel.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Smirk only increasing, Tuari said, “Is my finger dirty? Oh, I may have forgotten to wash it after scratching my ass but don’t worry, when I last made a meal for you it was just as black, as I know how you like some extra seasoning.”

  Willis took a step forward and still the finger remained.

  “I thought I told you to get—”

  “Pull my finger.”

  “How old are you, don’t you think I know that joke?”

  “Trust me,” said Tuari, “it’s a new joke. Pull my finger.”

  Willis rolled his eyes as he latched onto Tuari’s finger and pulled. Nothing happened and Willis looked confused till Tuari gave a belly-shaking burp and blew it in Willis’s direction.

  “Told you it was a new joke,” Tuari giggled, before taking off at a run.

  “I’ll kill you! I can still taste it!”

  “I guess we’d better get a move on then and finish this thing,” José said with a shake of the head, as he got off the boulder he’d been sitting on and made his way in the direction they went.

  I couldn’t have agreed more. I silently looked up at the trail as the winds howled and the rain beat a drum against the ground I stood on.

  My breath billowed out before me as I tried to control my breathing. The end was nearly in sight. After that… God only knew, but for now, I wanted to get this over and done with once and for all.

  Unlike the last few hours, which had passed like days when we had first arrived, the last half an hour had seemed like minutes.

  One second we were talking with José and Tuari back at the boulder they sat at, the next I was lying flat on my stomach hidden amongst some bushes alongside Poppy and Willis, while José and Tuari were situated some way to our left behind another row of bushes.

  José wanted us to scout the rendezvous point before contacting The Lady, which meant crouching down in the mud and waiting. He had told us we were early, although I couldn’t quite believe how. The rain still hadn’t let up, but it mattered little as the adrenaline coursing through my veins left me numb to it all.

  The spot where we were meeting The Lady was on a patch of grass that dropped over a sheer cliff face. I took in the amazing views of the surrounding ocean as I breathed in the salt air.

  We had seen no sign of Gregory or Arun, but that didn’t mean they were not waiting for their chance to pounce.

  “What do you think, José?” Willis whispered into the comms we were all linked up to.

  The only response we got was the howling wind as the minutes passed us by. Willis rolled his eyes to the sky and gestured to the heavens, while we continued waiting.

  “He gets like this sometimes,” Poppy said, wiggling up to me, “before a big event or mission when a lot is on the line. It’s like he’s so focused he blocks everything else out. When the time’s right he’ll let us know.”

  I sure as hell hoped so. I still didn’t know how this was going to turn out. What would Gregory do once we gave the data-stick to The Lady? Would I also have to watch my back from attack from Arun and his goons? Would I always be running from the law?

  But the one thing that kept coming back to me time and time again was whether it was right to allow what was on that data-stick out into the wider world—much less give it to a bunch of hardened criminals who would use the knowledge to their advantage. If The Lady was everything she was cracked up to be then what would a monster like that do with the knowledge we had?

  “Do you think this is the best thing to do?”

  Poppy looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve heard stories about these things. Humanoid AIs. The first history lesson I ever heard was about the ruthlessness of their nature, how they were looking for a way to eradicate the human species off the face of the Earth. It was only pure luck that we won against them, pure luck they somehow didn’t find a way off-world. If the stories are true then their creation is the greatest and worst thing humankind have ever done.

  “They’re in some ways more destructive than any nuclear weapon and more advanced than any spaceship that crosses the stars.”

  Poppy said nothing as she stared out ahead of her. Her hair stuck to the side of her face.

  “Do you think they were that... scary? Mankind has a history of demonising what they do not understand.”

  “What’s not to understand? They were machines built for death. Machines that had all the intelligence of man yet none of his weakness.”

  “I guess...” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  “My point is, if even some of those stories are true then is it the wisest thing to give that kind of knowledge to this Lady person? Shouldn’t we at least try to destroy—”

  “It’s time,” came José’s voice over the comms. “She’s here.”