Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

of sand that would send this tractor-trailer pitching off course if given half a chance. Without my mechatronic legs, I'd be having a tough time keeping my balance as we careen along the way. "Now you get the hell off my rig. Or I blow your brains out."

"I've got a better idea." I crush her gun with my right hand and pull it free of her grip. "You put on the brakes, and I'll let you walk away."

For a second, it looks like she's turned to stone at the wheel. Then she nods once and applies the air brakes, trailer first. As we decelerate into the dust she's been kicking up, I flip my left blade back into a mechanical hand and swing myself around the outside of her door. I watch her set the parking brakes.

Then I tear her door off and toss it twenty meters away. Just for show, really.

"Get out." I drop to the ground and wait for her to join me.

She moves slowly, keeping her hands where I can see them. "Why are you doing this?" Sounds like a bit of the fight has gone out of her. I can't see her expression behind the dark face shield, but I have a feeling she's spitting mad.

"I could ask you the same thing." Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shechara approach. She's got a 9mm in both hands, elbows locked in the tactical stance I taught her, muzzle trained on the driver. "You're stealing our food, our fuel and supplies."

"It's not yours," the raider scoffs. "It's ours. Always has been."

So she might actually be one of those bad apples who cackles in the dark.

"The world's changed," I reply. "North America doesn't exist for the benefit of the United World anymore. Maybe we did, once. Manufacturing and producing everything for you. But as you can probably tell, now we need it more."

"There is no United World. There is only Eurasia." She holds her spine straight, like she's real proud of something. Herself, most likely. "We live only now, never looking back."

"And those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it." I shake my head at her. She's old enough to know better. "Start walking." I point toward her sore compadres, indistinct shapes in the distance. "We'll bury him."

She glances at the dead guard with the lock-bar skewering him through the chest. A length of steel piercing his heart like that would have killed him instantly. I gave him a chance to cease and desist, and he declined. I'm not thrilled that I ended him, but at least he didn't suffer any.

"We'll find you." The driver side-steps around Shechara and backs away from the truck. "There's nowhere you can take this rig without us knowing about it."

True enough. We don't have the time or the equipment to scan for a tracking device. My arms can do a lot of things, but not that.

"Until we meet again, then." I stare her down, my unreadable black goggles going up against her face shield. Guess we both win.

She walks away without a glance back, in no hurry to meet her bruised and battered pals. That pristine suit of hers will be as dusty as theirs in no time. It's obvious she's been behind the wheel for a while, not getting her boots dirty.

"Bury him?" Shechara inclines her head toward the dead guy.

Not now. We've got to get moving if we want to reach Stack before the raiders' reinforcements show up.

"Once we get to where we're going." I shrug my shoulders of flesh and bone. "If we can find the time."

"You big softy." She turns her goggles toward the retreating driver and tucks the 9mm into her belt. She keeps one hand resting on the grip, just in case. "Sure you can drive this thing?"

My grin is lost behind the head covering wrapped around my face, but I can't help it. I smile anyway. She has that effect on me.

"Girl, there's nothing on this wasted continent I can't drive. You know that."

"Have you driven one of these before?"

"Well, no."

"So this could be the first time you're stumped?" There's a playfulness in her tone.

"Let's get moving."

She skips toward me and stands on tip-toe, and I bend at the waist. Takes some effort, but we've figured out how to deal with our height difference. She's fun-sized, I'm cyborg-monster-sized, but somehow we make it work. Once the sun goes down, we won't have to kiss like a pair of mummies, pressing our lips together with these dusty head-rags in the way.

"I'll follow you, big guy." She pats my chest and returns to her jeep.

She'll keep an eye on our six while I steer this rig twenty klicks north, toward the only place other than the coast where shipping containers are a common sight. Once we're there, the locals will slide it off the flatbed to sit beside others of its kind. Then I'll ditch this tractor-trailer as far away as I can in the opposite direction. The last thing I want to do is draw any unwarranted attention to Stack. So far, they've managed to survive without earning the enmity of the UW raiders. Or Eurasian, if that woman's right about them no longer thinking of themselves as hailing from the United World.

Must be nice to be whatever you want to be. Reinvent yourself.

My gaze falls on my mechanical hands, metal digits curled around the rig's steering wheel as I sink into the driver's seat. I suppose I've gone through a couple rounds of reinvention myself.

"Strongman, this is Eagle Eye, over," Shechara's voice comes through the radio clipped to my shoulder.

I'm grinning again. "Trucker names?"

"Thought it was appropriate, considering."

"My thoughts are somehow inappropriate at the moment, Eagle Eye." I release the brakes and rev the engine, allowing the truck to roll forward as I get a feel for how it handles. Starting out slow before I ramp things up. "How about you and me schedule a passionate tryst in this here trailer,