from Junkyard Bargain by Faith Hunter
“I love broccoli,” I said, shoveling beets into my mouth. “I had broccoli pesto once. It’s good.”
“Oh my god, yes. Anything with garlic and pine nuts is good. You ever tried Brussels sprouts pesto? So good! The greenhouse is just blooming up a storm,” she nattered on now that I had contributed to the conversation, once again cheery, her blue eyes sparkling. I ate and heard her say, “That new hemp mesh Mateo and I strung up? The stuff that was left over from shading the greenhouse compound? We put it up on aisle Tango three.”
“Mmm,” I said, now scooping in the pancakes. Trying not to puke at the growing rotten-finger stench.
“This place needs a good cleaning,” she said. “It’s getting kinda rank in here.”
“Right. Soon. New hemp mesh?” I reminded her.
“It’s absorbing and capturing moisture out of the night air like a dream. Come winter, we might bring in enough to actually get a shower once a week.”
That caught my attention. I swigged my coffee so I could talk. She poured me more. “Fresh water?” I asked.
“Nearly a week’s supply for drinking and watering the greenhouse, in a little over ten days,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “We think we can do twice that in winter.”
My hand, holding the fancy fork, halted halfway to my mouth. “That’s … That’s really good.”
“It’s not a full replacement, yet,” she prattled, “but not bad for summer, and if Mateo and I can get that water tower off the office roof and patch it up, we’ll have a good place to store water.”
Something like pleasure, maybe mixed with joy, flowed through me—a rare and unexpected sensation. “I’m … I’m proud of you, Cupcake.”
Cupcake’s blue eyes widened. Her color went high as she blossomed at the praise. “Eat,” she ordered, pointing at my meal, shaking with elation.
I didn’t praise her enough. I had to remember to do that. I ate. The buckwheat and millet pancakes were tasty enough. The roasted beets were surprisingly sweet and tender.
“It’s good.”
She hid her smile in her coffee cup. That was the thing about thralls. They were eager to please, needed to please, quite literally might die if they couldn’t find a way to serve and didn’t get attention from their nanobot-donor queen. She set down her cup, whipped a nail file out of her pocket, and reached for my left hand. “Not this morning,” I said softly. To keep her from freezing in uncertainty, I continued, “Tell me more about the netting and the free water.” Then, because it made her glow, I added, “This is exciting.”
Read the rest in Junkyard Bargain by Faith Hunter to see what happens from here—and all the new ways that Cupcake finds to serve.
My thanks to Let’s Talk! Promotions for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the book via NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group) they provided.
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