The Jack's Story (BRIGAND Book 2) by Natalie French, Scot Bayless Read Free Book Online Page B

But bots aren’t very adaptable. You buy them. They do what they do and that’s pretty much it. People might be more trouble, but they were a hell of a lot more flexible.
    "You want to spend your hard earned cads on a bot?" I knew she was carrying that scrip tucked safely into the small of her back. She would never leave so much money on an unmonitored ship. Me either. Mine was shoved in my boots.
    Trig raised an eyebrow. "Split the cost?" It was warmer in the shuttle and she pushed back her hood..
    "Nope. You want it, you buy it."
    She sighed, "Fine. But you have to help me pick it out."
    "That I can do. This is the Belt. The place is crawling with bots."
    She looked at me quizzically.
    "Air and water are expensive out here. There’s a lot that bots can do cheaper and safer. So, even in the big habs like Mundus, the bot to human ratio is ten times what you’d find anywhere else in the System."
    The shuttle stopped and we emerged into a cavernous space that seemed to be a study in monochrome. Low steel-colored buildings stepped into the distance beneath a massive transparent dome. The black sky was alive with bright, hard points of light that crawled slowly overhead as Ceres rotated. The sun was rising, a small yellow-white disk that threw weak shadows in the freezing atmosphere.
    Trig seemed to be developing an attachment to our bot. The stupid little bucket whizzed around her hooded head as we walked through the frigid air into the heart of the city. I’d been on Ceres before and I knew a guy. Trand’s shop was a bit of a hike, but he didn’t like to be too close to the ports. I’d met him a while back when I was in Mundus for a priv. There were things I knew he wanted. Things that were hard to get in the Belt. Things I had. He’d pay well and maybe we’d buy a new bot to tend to the boat. Then we could be off this frozen-ass rock.
    Easy.
    The gravity field felt heavy, but that was because it was a full gee. I kept the ship at .75 to save power. I could see Trig was surprised by the cold. The ambient temperature was probably around minus 20. You could feel it seeping into your feet, your legs. Just walking created a wind chill. With the parkas, the cold was relentless. Without them, we wouldn’t have lasted the day.
    Trig’s breath clouded in front of her and, even with her hood up, her cheeks were slightly flushed. I bit down on the urge to tug her hood closer around her. What the fuck? A couple of days with this girl and suddenly I was all chivalrous? Like that made any kind of sense at all.
    I hunched into my own coat and led the way.

CHAPTER NINE
    Trand’s shop was way too far for my taste. Man, there was nothing about this rock I didn’t hate. But Trand was well connected and, unlike most Belters, he wasn’t stingy. We’d have what we needed to sustain us for a long while. So I didn’t think too hard about the deal we’d make and focused on navigating the endless maze of identical fused iron-silicate buildings. Funny. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but the upside of the cold was the emptiness of the streets. We only saw a few people about, all of them seemingly intent on getting to their destinations as quickly as they could. After the crush of Marajo, it felt strange, almost eerie.
    We found the place and our bot zipped up to the door, tapping the entry panel with one of its extensibles. The door slid open, washing us in light and heat. A voice called from within, "Get inside before you let the chill in!"
    I grabbed Trig’s arm and hauled her through the doorway as the bot circled around behind her. The door thumped shut as soon as we crossed the threshold, sealing out the brutal cold.
    Inside, buzzes and clicks filled the air as a menagerie of small bots whirled through the air, tending a jumble of fabricators, decomposers and various bits of machinery that meant absolutely nothing to me. Bots and pieces of bots were scattered on workbenches, their vitals spilling from disassembled