Warden

asked. “I don’t get a weapon, too?”
“Even if I had a spare, I’m not sure I’d give it to you,” he said. “You don’t have the knowledge necessary to handle a weapon. You could hurt yourself. Or us.”
“How do you know?” she said. “Let me hold your pistol. Maybe I have the muscle memory.”
Will studied her uncertainly. “Not today.”
Horatio gave her a one-piece uniform, and she slid the gray fatigues over her arms, legs, and torso, and zipped up the front. She donned the boots the robot gave her next and slid on a pair of gloves so that when she was done, only her head and neck remained uncovered. That actually suited her, as she felt strangely ashamed of her more robotic parts, preferring to expose only those portions of herself that were covered in synthetic skin, even if her eyes and mouth were too big to be entirely human.
“There you go,” Will said. “From afar, no one will be able to tell you’re a cyborg.”
“What about him?” Rhea nodded at Horatio, who wore no clothes whatsoever. “You don’t think his spare parts make a tempting target?”
Will waved a dismissive hand. “From far away, he doesn’t look like a robot either. He’s just another bandit wearing a face wrap and an AR visor, with antennae for communicating to his drone. The black and gray coloration of his polycarbonate body blends right in with the rubble. Besides, even if he was recognized, there’s a good chance bandits wouldn’t attack. His body is made from cheap, salvaged parts: something not really worth risking their lives for.”
“But I’m made from the same parts,” Rhea insisted.
“Your body, maybe,” Will agreed. “But not your head. The mind-machine interface you carry up there? That alone is worth a small fortune.”
She studied him uncertainly. “You could have killed me when you found me. Taken that interface and sold it. But you didn’t. Thank you.”
“We’re not murderers,” Will grumbled. “Believe me when I tell you, the thought didn’t even cross my mind.”
“It crossed mine,” Horatio admitted. “But only for a microsecond.”
She gave the robot a wide-eyed look.
“I’m kidding,” Horatio said.
“Dude…” Will told him.
Horatio raised two robotic palms. “All right, all right. I admit it. Jokes and I don’t mesh.”
Will reached into a pocket and produced a small pill bottle. “Hungry?”
“Ravished, in fact,” she replied.
Will opened the cap and offered her a small pill. “Eat this. It’s simple enough to be processed by your artificial digestive system.”
She took the pill and frowned. “What is it?”
“Olive oil packaged in pill form, essentially,” he told her. “You can eat standard human meals if you wish, and while it might taste great, most of the food will pass right through you. It’s better to take your macronutrients separately, in pill form like this. The majority of your diet should be fat, by the way.”
“You want me to binge on fat?” she asked in disbelief. “That doesn’t sound very appealing.”
“Have it in pill form, it’s tasteless,” he promised.
She sighed, then popped the pill, taking a swig from the canteen he offered her. It went down easily.
“All you really need are fat pills and water,” he told her. “That’s what your brain is mostly made of, after all. You don’t particularly need carbs. Your artificial stomach will convert fat into ketone bodies, which your mind can use as fuel. The small amount of protein in the fat pills is converted into glucose, which again your brain uses. Your HUD will notify you if you’re lacking any nutrients, of course.” He glanced at Horatio. “Well, my friend, I believe it’s time we blew this joint.”
The robot retrieved the gurney from the crate and folded it up, then stuffed it into one of the backpacks. Horatio removed the five lights that hung above the crate, then collapsed the stand that had held them, shoving everything into his backpack. Horatio did the same with the various other equipment yet strewn about.
“Where to now?” Rhea asked.
“We continue to Rust Town, where we’ll sell the remaining salvage in our inventory.” Will shrugged on one of the heavy backpacks. “When that’s done, we’ll get you some proper weapons training, buy a pistol to lend you, and then head back into the Outlands so you can work on paying off your debt.”
She frowned. “Rust Town?”

3
The three of them had only walked through the rubble for thirty minutes when Will turned back to her and said: “Want to try hauling my pack? It will get your body used to carrying more than its own weight, and further train your mind-machine interface…”
“You just want a rest,” Horatio countered.
“Maybe I do,” Will admitted. “I could swear you swapped some of the heavier parts into my pack.” He turned toward Rhea. “So, what do you say?”
She eyed his pack uncertainly, then sighed. “I signed a contract with you. Now’s as good a time as any to start pulling my own weight.”
Will transferred his load to Rhea, so that in moments she was traipsing through the broken city streets with the twin straps of his backpack tugging at her shoulders. She didn’t actually mind. Anything that would further prime her mind-machine interface was a good thing in her eyes, even if the benefits of such priming were minimal. Besides, she hardly felt the weight of the pack at all and continued at the same pace as before. She didn’t even break a sweat. Actually, she didn’t think she was capable of sweating.
Up ahead, Gizmo led the way at a height of about twenty meters; the drone navigated between the different buildings, picking out a path through the streets that was the least clogged with rubble.
Rhea glanced at the overhead map in the upper right of her vision. That particular HUD widget had appeared when she’d accepted a telemetry-sharing request from Will shortly after leaving the shelter of the container; the map showed three dots indicating the positions of Will, Horatio and Gizmo relative to her. Apparently, the range could extend up to a couple