"They came for the data. The pile of bodies in the server room confirms that."
"There's nothing of import on those drives. Old records, mission logs. Nothing more."
Hessler tried to keep the irritation from his voice. "Nothing of import? The door to that room was two feet of titanium alloy. No one can access the hardware inside without a high-clearance UH government contract. We're talking gateways to the most classified cloud systems in the nation."
Salter's face sagged when the realization hit. "I have to make some phone calls."
"Yes, sir. You do."
Hessler waved the hologram away, returning the scene to its natural state of burnt-out ruins. Aides and rescue workers scurried about or dug in the debris for the remains of the men and women who died at the hands of an unstoppable killing machine.
His holoband buzzed, flashing red for a priority call. He walked a few yards away for privacy before accepting. Dean Lynch's wizened profile appeared on the screen of his holoband. The Director of the HSSC was old enough to have retired but never appeared to want to. Rumors said he was replacing his physical body with bionic parts so he would never have to quit. Cold, cybernetic eyes gleamed from his angular face. His hair was the color of steel wire; the fine wrinkles etched into his skin as if carved by a scalpel.
"Hessler, I received your report."
"Already, Director?"
"I have eyes and ears on the scene."
Hessler figured that ahead of time. Lynch was renowned for his skills in information harvesting. Using everything from drones to tiny surveillance insects, there wasn't much that he didn't have access to. At any given moment he processed endless data streams, all processed within milliseconds through his eyes and fed into the implant in his brain to decipher.
"Then you know about the Elite?"
"He's no mere Elite."
Hessler was surprised by the certainty of the Director's tone. "If he's not an Elite, then who—?"
"Someone more dangerous than an Elite. It's Kilgore."
"I… thought he was dead."
"He's always dead. Until he's not. The main thing is finding out who he's working for."
"What makes you think he wasn't the one in charge? Someone capable of doing this doesn't seem the type to take orders."
"Someone capable of doing this is the exact type to take orders. Kilgore is a soldier. Someone is holding his leash. I suspect the leader of the New Legion."
Hessler tried to digest the stunning revelation. "The New Legion? I never heard of them."
"You haven't had a reason to hear of them. Most of their activity up to this point was rhetoric and posturing. Then three months ago they suddenly went underground. When they surfaced, they were careful to avoid surveillance. Like they knew what to look for."
"You suspect an inside man."
"I know a high-profile defector has joined their ranks. I just don't know who it is yet. He's been… evasive."
"And whoever he is, he's responsible for this."
Lynch's mouth twisted. "Yes. And for that, he can't be forgiven. But what's worse is the data he recovered from the site."
"What was stored here, sir?"
"Among other things, launch codes for missile sites that went missing during the Cataclysm. But more importantly, emergency access codes to individual Havens."
"Which Havens?"
Director Lynch's eyes whirred, making him look more machine than human. His words left Hassler cold.
"All of them."
Chapter 5
The Battle-Cat leaned drunkenly to one side, grounded. Mateo stared at the smoke rising from the underside of the Battle-Cat. "Hey Cash — is this what you meant when you talked about things getting real screwed up?"
Cash stood beside Mateo; fists on hips, a resigned glower on his face. "Yeah, kid. Something like this."
The heat was blistering. Dry heat — the shimmery, mirage-inducing, sweat-evaporating type. The landscape was a full spectrum of reds, oranges, and browns, all of it dulled by the choking dust that layered everything. The vegetation was reduced to stunted prickly plants too stubborn to surrender. Sand was shoved along by temperamental winds, flinging hot grit in their faces.
Cash lit a cigarillo. "I hate New Mexico."
"Is it still called New Mexico? I thought it was renamed after Mexico annexed it."
"Yeah, they call it Nueva Esperanza, I think. Doesn't matter. I still hate it."
Happy stepped out the door with a sniper rifle balanced against her shoulder. She assessed the situation with a casual glance.
"This piece of junk finally broke down, huh?"
Mateo waved. "Hi, Happy. Did you sleep well?"
Cash pointed a finger at her. "You did this. It was your explosive, wasn't it?"
She clambered up the ladder to the top of the Battle-Cat. "If it was my explosive, we'd still be flying through the air right now. You should invest in maintenance. That's what people do when they want their mechanical equipment to keep running."
"I'll make a note. What are you doing?"
She knelt and peered through the scope, slowly scanning the horizon. "Getting the lay of the land. Could be a town nearby. If there is, I might want a cold beer."
"Or a cold bullet. People aren't too friendly this far outside the Havens. Lots of roaming Tribes, too. They're highly territorial and don't like strangers wandering on their lands."
"If you're scared, say so."
He sighed, shaking his head. "What do you think, kid? Can you fix this thing?"
Mateo lifted his perspiring face. "One of the anti-grav repulsors is completely busted. I can fix it, but not without parts."
"Great. Where are we gonna find parts in the middle of the desert?"
"There." Happy pointed southwest of them.
Cash squinted. Something was barely visible in the hazy distance. He slid his shades over his eyes and adjusted the binocular focus.
"Looks like a junker town."
The place appeared as if the residents built their settlement from the remains of a scrapyard. The scattered buildings were battered and rusty, constructed from whatever odds and ends of metal and piping that were available.
"Well, it might be dirty, haphazard and ugly, but at least it's there. Might get lucky and find what we're looking for. Get started taking the repulsor apart, Mateo. I'll take a trip to Rust City over there and see if they got anything."
He looked up at Happy. "Whaddya say? Coming with?"
She shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
Mateo glanced up from examining the rig. "Why can't I come?"
"I need you to keep working on the Cat. By the time we come back all you'll have to do is reassemble it."
Happy leaped off the top of the rig, landing in a catlike crouch. "What he's not telling you is that he trusts you. Not me, which is why he wants me as close to him as possible. And who knows? Maybe things will go bad in the town, and he won't have to worry about me anymore." She winked her mechanical eye at Cash. "Right, bounty hunter?"
He spewed a cloud of smoke into the wind. "Yeah, that about covers it. C'mon, we're wasting time."
The cargo bay doors clattered open, and Cash drove the Blunderbore out into the heat and dust. The thick tread on the massive, all-terrain tires made his squat, armored-plated vehicle perfect for off-road travel. He bounced in his seat as he drove over the rocky terrain. Now and then he glanced sideways at his unwelcome companion. Happy sat in a cocoon of silence; posture relaxed, gaze fixed outside the window.
"Nice rifle."
Her eyes never moved. "It's a.388 ShadowKill."
He took a closer look. "I heard of that one. Modifiable modes from a machine gun to a sniper rifle. Thirty-three hundred yard range, target locking, built-in GPS and weather tracking hardware. So you're ex-military, I take it? No, that's too easy. If I were to guess, I'd say ex-HSSC. Pretty sure your talents were put to good use in their kill squads."