Soul of the Reaper
Author: J. N. Chaney; Scott Moon
Date: 2021-10-03 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: How far will a Reaper go to regain everything he’s lost? Haleck Cain fights free of a failing life pod only to learn the space station he doesn’t recognize is in a degrading orbit. Battling for basic survival, he quickly realizes nothing is as it should be. He’s alone, damaged, and surrounded by new enemies. Ten years have passed and the civilization he helped build is in ruins. Cain’s search for his friends will take him to the most dangerous parts of Maglan and reveal a secret he never suspected. By the time he has true enemies in his sights, he will know who he really is and what it means t
Publisher: Variant Publications

Copyrighted Material

Soul of the Reaper Copyright © 2021 by Variant Publications

Book design and layout copyright © 2021 by JN Chaney

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

www.jnchaney.com

http://www.scottmoonwriter.com

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Book Description

Soul of the Reaper

The Last Reaper Series #11

How far will a Reaper go to regain everything he’s lost?

Haleck Cain fights free of a failing life pod only to learn the space station he doesn’t recognize is in a degrading orbit. Battling for basic survival, he quickly realizes nothing is as it should be. He’s alone, damaged, and surrounded by new enemies.

Ten years have passed and the civilization he helped build is in ruins.

Cain’s search for his friends will take him to the most dangerous parts of Maglan and reveal a secret he never suspected. By the time he has true enemies in his sights, he will know who he really is and what it means to be the last Reaper.

Fans of Renegade Star and The Last Reaper series will be on the edge of their seats until the final pages of Soul of the Reaper. Grab your copy today.

Books in the Renegade Star Universe

Renegade Star Series:

Renegade Star

Renegade Atlas

Renegade Moon

Renegade Lost

Renegade Fleet

Renegade Earth

Renegade Dawn

Renegade Children

Renegade Union

Renegade Empire

Renegade Descent

Renegade Rising

Renegade Alliance

Renegade Evolution

Renegade War

Renegade Peace

Standalones:

Nameless

The Constable

The Constable Returns

The Warrior Queen

The Renegade

The Deal

The Orion Colony Series with Jonathan Yanez:

Orion Colony

Orion Uncharted

Orion Awakened

Orion Protected

The Last Reaper Series with Scott Moon:

The Last Reaper

Fear the Reaper

Blade of the Reaper

Wings of the Reaper

Flight of the Reaper

Wrath of the Reaper

Will of the Reaper

Descent of the Reaper

Hunt of the Reaper

Bastion of the Reaper

Soul of the Reaper

Blood of the Reaper (Coming soon)

The Fifth Column Series with Molly Lerma:

The Fifth Column

The Solaras Initiative

The Forlorn Hope

Final Battlefield (Coming soon)

Resonant Son Series with Christopher Hopper:

Resonant Son

Resonant Abyss

Galactic Law Series with James S. Aaron:

Galactic Law

Galactic Judge

Galactic Jury

Galactic Executioner

Deadland Drifter Series with Ell Leigh Clarke:

Deadland Drifter

Deadland Wanderer

Deadland Sentinel

Deadland Protector

Contents

Important Terms and Characters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Connect with J.N. Chaney

Connect with Scott Moon

Join the Conversation

Renegade Star Universe

About The Authors

Important Terms and Characters

Acronyms

- AI—Artificial intelligence

- AWOL—Absent without leave

- BMSP—Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison—Ultramax IX

- CD—Climbdown Day
- CIM—Computerized Inmate Monitor
- CV—Curriculum Vitae

- DM—Dreadmax Marines (inmates on Dreadmax, often falsely imprisoned, who have prior military experience and protect people from gangs and cannibals)

- HDK—Highly Destructive Kinetic (weapon / rifle)

- HDK 4—Shortened (11-inch barrel—from the trigger assembly) HDK commonly used by spec ops and law enforcement

- HDK 4 Dominator—Full length (16-inch barrel—from the trigger assembly) HDK with double high capacity magazines and a grenade launcher under the barrel)

- HUD—Heads up display
- LAI—Limited Artificial Intelligence
- LED—Light Emitting Diode
- LZ—Landing Zone
- MRE—Meals Ready to Eat
- NG—Nightfall Gangsters
- OFAT—Ocean Floor Access Tower
- QRF—Quick Reaction Force
- RC—Reaper Corps
- RSG—Red Skull Gangsters
- SD Regulator—Slip Drive Regulator
- UFS—Union Fleet Ship
- UPG—Union Prison Guard
- X-37—Halek Cain's Reaper AI (limited)
- YOHP—Yansden Ocean Harvesting Platform

- YT—Galdiz 49 rifle, sniper model. (YT is a randomly generated model number)

* * *

Characters in Bastion of the Reaper

Acrondis

Emperor of the Alon.

Briggs

Former Union special operations commander, now a genetically modified monster called a Slayer. His human and Sansein DNA are constantly struggling for dominance, causing radical changes to his physique and mental abilities.

Cain

Halek Cain, the last Reaper.

Cain, Hannah

Hanna Cain, Halek Cain’s sister.

Cain, Olivia Anna

Olivia Anna Cain, Halek Cain’s mother.

Coranth

Sansein warrior.

Eggleton

Sergeant Davy Eggleton, a sniper observer for one of CSL Locke’s special teams. JWO Hamm’s partner.

Elise

Elise Hastings, protege of the last Reaper.

Envoy

Sansein leader and liaison to humanity.

Hamm

Junior Warrant Officer (JWO) Roger Hamm, a sniper for one of CSL Locke’s special teams.

Hutton

Admiral of the Wallach-Xad exodus fleet.

Henshaw

James Henshaw, ocular engineer and owner of the Lady Faith. An accomplished gambler who sometimes cheated with a simple LAI but who lost his LAI during Hunt of the Reaper while attempting to acquire the Black Phoenix device.

Isaac Meldon

Isaac Meldon of Yansden, leader of Yansden. Similar to a president in authority but with virtually no influence on their primary military force, the Kalon Regulars.

Jelly

AI of the Jellybird.

Jess

Alon First Sergeant Kiliana Jess

Novasdaughter

Captain Amii Novasdaughter, acting vice admiral of the Wallach-Xad defensive fleet and captain of the Nightmare.

Locke

Chief Squad Leader (CSL) of Wallach.

Loren

Commander Loren Jacem, leader of the Kalon Regulars—the most professional fighting force on Yansden.

Marcus

Captain Marcus Kellerman, Yasden

Oberland

Admiral Braxton Oberland of the 1344th Alon Grand Fleet.

Path

Grigori Path, a sword saint and weapons master who joined Cain’s crew after Roxo II

Pennington

Carl Pennington, supervisor of YOHP lower level

Rejon of Xad

Leader of the people of Xad.

Sarah

Junior supervisor in the YOHP lower level

Tatiana

Granddaughter of Melina, leader of the largest compound in Yansden City.

Tobias

Commander Peter Tobias of the 1237th Alon Grand Fleet.

Tom

Self-taught engineer and friend of the last Reaper.

* * *

Ships

RWS = Republic of Wallach Ship

AES Ever Victorious

Alon Empire Ship Ever Victorious. Flagship of all Alon fleets.

Bright Lance of Xad

- Flagship of the Xad fleet

- Captured from the Union in Flight of the Reaper, TLR 5

- Captain: Cynthia Thomas Younger
- Executive Officer: Commander Bernard Gile
- AI: Mavis

RWS Coronas 1

- Personal ship of President Amanda Coronas. Up-armored. State of the art escape pod.

Hunter of Xad

- With Jellybird scouting new system after Macabre

- Captain: Omon

Jellybird

- Halek Cain’s ship

- AI: Jelly

Lady Faith

- James Henshaw’s ship

- AI: Lady

RWS Battle Axe

- With Jellybird scouting new system after Macabre

- Captain: Don Hunger

RWS Jumping Fox

- Captain: Jaime Peterson

RWS Nightmare

- Captain: Amii Novasdaughter (acting Vice Admiral)

- AI: Necron

RWS Spirit of Wallach

- Flagship of the Republic of Wallach fleet

- Captain: Quincy Drysdale

- Ship the President of Wallach, Amanda Coronas, travels on. (She does not command the ship.)

- Ship that carries General Karn’s main army

Striker of Xad

- Captain Yolanda Dempsy

1

Drowning in viscous fluid the moment you regained consciousness sucked. Roaring, half blind defiance wasn’t helping my situation—at all. Distorted and unintelligible, my words clarified nothing, summoned no savior, and wasted oxygen I was going to need like five seconds ago.

I locked my mouth shut and expelled air bubbles, clear goo, and my dignity from my nose at a more controlled rate. As much as I wanted to breathe, sucking fluid into my lungs would be worse than a little oxygen debt. This was like purging a scuba mask. Easy as not dying. Relax, Cain. Just get a fucking grip.

I wanted to tell the universe what kind of deviant sexual things it could do with itself, but I kept it classy because I’m a pro at staying alive.

Calm, cool, and collected—that was my mantra.

Yeah, right.

Punching and kicking at the glass didn’t work, and the clock was ticking. Seconds felt like years. If this kept up, I was going to make a lot of unmanly sounds and die. I needed to do something totally badass.

I twisted into the fetal position, tangling myself in electrode monitors and intravenous lines. Faux amniotic fluid sloshed around me as I prepared my legs to kick like a pissed off mule.

Legs and core strength drove both heels against the glass above me like twin battering rams. One, two, three kicks did nothing but make me want to beg for mercy. Suffocation rose to the top of my least favorite ways to die list. Red spots filled my darkening vision.

Misery loved company, and right now I was the prom king. I kicked again and again, losing marks for lack of originality. And let’s face it, my cool points were long gone. This was how the last Reaper died.

So anticlimactic.

It took me a second to realize the lid was gone, launched halfway across the room.

I scrambled out of the slimy goo and got stuck. Intravenous tubes tethered my arms, legs, and multiple points of my body to the inside of this thing. I ripped them free even as I admitted they were probably there for a reason. I’d been in some kind of stasis.

This probably wasn’t a hot tub experiment perpetrated by a drunk ex-Reaper, but a life pod. Question was, how did I get here? Where were my people? Why wasn’t X-37 harassing me with his annoying advice?

A lot of thoughts went through my mind as I coughed and gagged and puked on the cold floor.

What kind of idiots put a person in a life pod that killed people? This thing was a death pod. Sick bastards. I had tubes and restraints everywhere—arms, legs, private areas… even my eyes had been pasted shut with something nasty until I blinked them open.

I scraped the crust from my face and realized I had two arms, neither of them cybernetic.

With my perfectly functional left hand, I touched my face, carefully feeling for my left eye. Gentle probing proved it was real and completely organic. Great, I guess.

I needed a Maglan Goldband cigar. I also needed a beer, or better yet, whiskey.

My trembling arms and legs refused to cooperate. I pushed to one knee, then rolled to my side like a gang of muggers had just kicked the crap out of me. “X, a little help here.”

My limited artificial intelligence had the day off, apparently. I didn’t want to face the obvious truth. I had both arms and both eyes. That meant no cybernetic augmentations, and that probably also meant I had no nerve-ware.

No nerve-ware, no LAI. No X-37.

“Well good riddance, X.” My heart ached. I missed all my friends, as though something catastrophic had wiped them out and I was completely lost and alone. “You were a pain in my ass anyway.”

I rolled into a sitting position and massaged my face with my hands. Everything felt weird. I could almost hear Elise teasing me, poking fun until I roused myself to attempt a practical joke at her expense. The image made me chuckle despite my sorry condition. Where are you, Elise?

Throat raw, each cough hurt, but I was getting better. Before long I’d be singing and dancing in the Maglan City Opera and wouldn’t that be a sight?

“It’s been a long time since I woke up naked and drowning, X. This bites,” I said, not caring if my voice cracked. “Please explain why someone did all this work to patch me up then left me to die.”

X-37, the limited artificial intelligence that had gotten me out of more tough spots than gun fire and violence of action, still didn’t answer.

Because he was gone.

Everyone was gone.

“A bunch of bullshit is what this is.”

The floor was getting cold, so I climbed to my feet, treating each movement like a mission. Reapers needed missions. But they also needed LAIs, specialized weapons, and cigars whenever possible.

Give yourself a mission, Cain.

Why did my inner voice sound like X? Damn I was going to miss that annoying jerk in my head. He better not be gone for good.

Objective one, stand the hell up. Two, find a light switch and whoever was running this torture fest. With luck, someone would issue me a sincere apology and some pajamas. Better yet, a plush robe and the aforementioned cigars.

Someone just tell me this nightmare is over.

I stepped around broken glass, then bit back a curse and froze. Sure there were things I wanted to express, but now that I had my head straight, relatively speaking, it was time to get tactical. No more outbursts until I scouted the terrain, assessed my situation, and formed a plan.

That was what Reapers did. Like it or not, that was what I needed to be right now. Of course the sooner I got back to growing tobacco, managing my cigar factory, and sipping craft beers with my evening steak, the better.

My eyes adjusted quickly, which was good for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it suggested I wasn’t totally without augmentations. In fact, my gut told me I was prepped for upgrades. I had… tingly feelings now that my blood was circulating.

The arm and eye situation was disorienting but not the end of the world. I didn’t remember going in for reconstructive surgery. Maglan scientists were good and getting better all the time. Maybe they had some regenerative and transplant technologies I wasn’t aware of.

Reading medical journals or generally giving two flying fraks about anything outside my estate or a few quiet dinners hadn’t been my thing since—well, forever if we’re being honest. All kinds of radical therapies might be possible these days.

That was the simplest explanation, and those were generally the best. I was put into a medical coma for a dangerous medical procedure, and something went wrong.

Doctors fixed my left arm and my eye, and they muted X-37. He was probably still in there but turned off to prevent interference with surgical procedures. The life pod, even if it felt like a death pod, was full of nutrient gel that healed me.

Yeah. Sure. All of that makes perfect sense despite the fact I didn’t sign any medical waivers. I was just fine with my Reaper arm, eye, and nerve-ware. Maybe the anesthetic was still wearing off and I would remember the details soon.

Let’s go with that theory, Cain. I felt around the pod, found the power source, and followed cables all the way to a backup battery. This place had been wrecked for a while. My pod was the last thing to lose power.

“So maybe finding a light switch will be harder than I thought,” I said, just to hear a voice.

Walking around naked didn’t bolster my confidence, but neither did it turn me into a blushing maid. If I ran into a lab tech, I’d deal with it. Especially a cute one ready to laugh at my twisted jokes, but that was a topic for another time.

I slid my right hand along the wall until I found a light switch and tested it. No dice. My eyes were decently adjusted by now anyway.

I eventually found the locker room. Prying open the doors was a lot harder without my Reaper blade, but I got it done with brute force and a fire extinguisher. The contents were standard stuff—jumpsuits, boots, helmets, and tools.

The third jumpsuit I dug out fit me, and I found a good pair of boots shined for inspection. “I may be a wreck, but my outfit is squared away. Gotta look good in a place like this.”

No one jumped out of a closet or locker to contradict me. Where there were uniforms and footwear, there must be guns. Leaving no stack of underwear unturned, I soon proved no one had been hiding an unauthorized weapon.

This room sucked, so I left in search of better survival gear.

Room after room proved devoid of life, like no one had been here for a long time. Dust covered the floor, rare on any modern facility and unheard of on any respectable ship or space station. About the time I was growing hungry enough to eat my own face if I could figure out how to do it, I found myself dead in the middle of a guard room.

A lifelessversion of Halek Cain, complete with augmentations, stared at the ceiling. I recognized the blade I had used to fight through Roxo III, Gronic, and Greendale—and that first mission to find Elise and her father. The cybernetic eye was there as well, the same optical upgrade that had interfaces with Archangel armor and helped me save the people of Maglan.

That was me, but I was also me. This body was my past, a record of who I was. Where I’d been.

I realized something else. He had come here to rescue or destroy me. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that. “Anytime you want to jump back in, X, I could use some help. This is going to take some adjusting.“

No response. My old LAI could be like that.

Much of the room had been burned. Most of his body was scorched, but what killed him was a bullet through the forehead.

The guards were missing, either dead or AWOL.

I stared down at the familiar face, then rolled the body on its side. The stench was almost too much, but I persevered. Ex-Reapers like me understood how to deal with the suck that was life in a violent and confusing world.

All things would end, which meant I could tough it out. What was so bad about examining your dead self on a failing space station? While weaponless and alone? And all of this without an LAI to offer explanations or hack computers to steal information.

I could handle it. I was built to handle it.

Comparing the original me with the current me was probably a huge mistake. I had all the parts I was born with but also metal shunts in my left arm—right where a Reaper blade might be attached to a stump. The procedure would require partial amputation. Which would seem crazy if I hadn’t volunteered for that exact procedure a lifetime ago.

Was I destined to become the corpse at my feet?

Did it matter?

I continued my search of the facility while examining my shunts. My theory about a benevolent medical staff regrowing and attaching a biological arm started leaking like a pasta strainer.

With that metaphor on my mind, I found the galley and looted it for food. The canned meat was nearly as disgusting as the cooked and canned spinach. It was difficult to tell which was which when I mixed them in a giant stainless steel bowl.

Bottled water was hard to find, but I secured several gallon bottles and drank one immediately. Lastly, I took a kitchen knife and concealed it in my jumpsuit.

Next was another locker room. This time I found a detailed journal and a handgun, which I tucked through the jumpsuit belt. Five minutes of reading confirmed there was nothing about the fate of this facility in the pages. This guy just couldn’t get over some woman named Samantha.

Whatever.

On the next level I found two hundred and thirty pods, all but one of them containing a dead version of me.

So if they’re clones, what am I?

The king of the clones. Why else would I be in a special part of the facility?

And who the fuck got my permission to copy me?

The revelation should lay me low, but I had never been more sure about who I was. Maybe I was a clone, maybe I wasn’t. But there was one Halek Cain, me. I knew this without a doubt.

I was the real thing, the last Reaper, the maker of Maglan Goldband cigars and connoisseur of all things related to beer.

Clones don’t keep memories like this. X-37 might argue with me, but he wasn’t here so I’d think whatever the hell I wanted.

* * *

“Hey, you know what would be nice? If this place wasn’t so big and full of fake Halek Cain bodies. Anyone think to put a map somewhere?”

My words echoed slightly. No one answered, not even X-37.

I wanted to sit with my back to the wall, put my hands, plural, on my head, and just quit. What the hell happened to me?

I kept searching instead and found the quartermaster’s supply room. This was where I should have been looking for food in the first place. Five minutes after I entered, I found MREs, meals ready to eat. None of them contained beer, whiskey, or cigars so I picked out my favorite candy from ten of them and put another ten in a backpack. Who knew where I’d find myself by the end of the day.

Next I located the station superintendent’s quarters. Still no whiskey, cigars, or beer.

“Who the hell was running this place, nuns?”

I explored as much of the station as I could without EVA gear. The upper and lower portions of the place were sealed. There weren’t cameras to show me what was on the other side of the sealed blast doors, but I knew they often dropped to prevent violent decompression.

I backtracked to the clone pods and searched for clues. A small room with stainless steel tables and drains in the floor contained computers that were useless without power. I rifled through the desk, broke open cabinets, and leafed through notebooks of scientific jargon.

After half an hour, I knew more about limb amputation and cybernetic attachment than I ever wanted to. I also discovered a small refrigerator with plastic tubs containing gray mystery slime.

“Not this time,“ I muttered to myself. “Eat one tub of medical grade goo and you learn your lesson.” My voice sounded far too loud.

“Who’s there?”

I ducked behind a medical locker and listened.

“Nobody’s there.” The deep second voice was hard to understand.

“I heard a voice,” the first man said. “One of these pod people might’ve escaped.”

“No one escaped. We’ve checked these pods a dozen times since Cain tried to murder us,” voice two said.

“We dealt with him.”

“Don’t get cocky,” said the first voice. “And we didn’t get into the science vault. Could be another freaky experiment in there.”

Creeping up on these two wasn’t difficult. There were a lot of shadows, and they were noisy. Once I found the right angle to peek through the doorway, I was able to watch them easily.

This first man had red hair and a face that looked like it should be smiling. The second had thinning gray hair and a healing burn on his right cheek.

Three of their friends joined them from the main hallway. These were hard men, clearly soldiers. “What are you two doing?”

“Michael thinks he heard something.” The second man scratched at the burn scar and looked nervous.

I pressed close enough to read their name tags. The three newcomers were soldiers, station security: Sergeant Roth, JFT Palmer, and JFT Green. The first two were Michael Techson and Paulson—probably mechanics or ship engineers. I only knew Michael’s first name because I heard Roth use it.

“He might have,” Roth said. “The research vault is open, and guess what, we found an empty pod in there.”

“Fortunately we know how to deal with the freaking pod babies,” Palmer said.

Green fist bumped him with one hand while holding his short rifle on a sling with the other.

“Yeah, you two are a couple of bad asses. Why don’t you clear the morgue while I take these two to work on the escape pods,” Roth said.

“Why don’t we all go to the escape pods? Palmer and I can guard you while you work,” Green says. “Makes a lot more sense since this place is going down by morning.”

“Just clear the room,” Roth ordered. “It’s small.”

2

Roth, Palmer, and Green were large men. The sergeant had chevrons on his shoulder, a big pistol hanging in a thigh rig, and a hitch in his step that probably made him hate the universe. Palmer carried a short rifle, and Green had a shotgun with two barrels, one over the other.

“This is going to get hot, X,” I thought more than said. I shifted to the side of the entrance, ready to jump them as they came through the fatal funnel. To my surprise, they stopped just short of the threshold.

“Jump Force Troopers, sound out if you’re in there!” A pause followed. “Jump Force Troopers, sound off and show us your hands or you’ll get shot.”

I shifted deeper into the shadows. “I’m Halek Cain. Who are you?”

Negotiating was definitely the wrong tactic. These men were cleaners, a kill squad left behind to mop up after everyone left. That was why every pod had been powered down and the original me lay murdered on the deck.

They were also my only source of information, so I was willing to risk what came next. Maybe I could exact a little payback as well.

“Another Halek Cain, huh?” Roth asked. “Did we miss one? I really thought we got them all. After all those grenades we threw in there. Maybe you’re from the research pod with the rest of the slime.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Jump Force Troopers is a grandiose title for a bunch of space pirates,” I say, acting on a hunch.

The man just laughed. “You think so?”

I squatted low, then duck-walked to another position. From this new angle, I saw him giving hand signals to his team. He was talking to me to pinpoint my location while he gave them the go-ahead to attack.

“Well I wouldn’t expect a pod baby to know much, but everyone in this sector is going to know about the JFT soon,” Roth said. “Who the hell did you people think you were to claim the Maglan system?”

“We freed Maglan, in case you didn’t notice,” I said, not appreciating their snorts of laughter in response.

“Maglan was always ours,” Roth said too loudly, like he was covering the sound of his team’s movements. “We just hadn’t gotten around to claiming it. The place is barely worth our trouble, but it’s still ours, pod baby.”

Palmer and Green burst into the room, striding clear of the door without stopping. They activated their weapon lights once inside but turned them off briefly. It was a solid tactic.They were trying to blind me while avoiding making themselves easy targets.

Green came around the corner of the table. I stood up, driving my knife blade under his chin, lifting him off his feet. He didn’t have time to pull the trigger. The kill was sloppy, nothing like I would have done with my old arm blade—but dead was dead.

On the bright side, my new Reaper body was in top form even if the tools were generic. In a flash, I was even more determined to thank the scientists who cloned me, right after I beat some answers out of them.

Palmer faced me. I punched him so hard in his solar plexus that he fell to his knees, again without shooting. I did the only sensible thing when he crumpled forward—I drove my knee into his chin, either killing him or knocking him unconscious. I really didn’t care. They were here to kill a pod baby, and I wasn’t about that, especially since the pod baby in question was me.

“Why don’t you come in here, Roth?” I asked.

He hesitated but sounded worried when he spoke. “How would you know my name?”

“Us Reaper pod babies are new and improved. I know everything,” I said. “You can run, but you can’t hide. And you can talk smack, but you’re only going to get smacked down.”

He muttered excitedly to the rest of his team, the civilian techs. Nothing happened for half a minute. Apparently none of them wanted to die.

“I said go in there and get him!” Roth shouted.

“Go to hell,” a civilian shouted. “That’s your job!”

Gunfire silenced the protests.

My last chance to interrogate anyone but Roth went out the airlock. I really hoped he wasn’t just a grunt.

“I’m coming in there, pod baby!” Roth shouted. A second later, a new bank of lights flickered overhead, then kept flickering due to damaged bulbs or an inconsistent power supply—who knew or cared which.

“Yeah, sure. I believe that.” I crept closer to the door, careful to stay in the shadows. The JFT sergeant wasn’t stupid. His team had entered a dark room with flashlights. He was mixing it up, trying something new, which meant he was thinking, and that was always dangerous in an opponent.

“You can do this, Roth. You can do this. Top of your class. Expert marksman. Toughest boot ever to make it through the destroyers.”

I listened to his personal pep talk and almost felt bad for the guy. When he didn’t rush in guns blazing, I went out to get him. On instinct, I left the small pistol I’d found concealed in my jumpsuit. I hadn’t test fired it and didn’t want to gamble on its effectiveness against an armored opponent.

A dark helmet concealed his eyes, but the way his head came up, I guessed he was bug-eyed with surprise under the JFT visor. He aimed, but I was moving too fast, sidestepping like my life depended on it. His first shot boomed about the time I chopped my left hand down on his forearm, snapping the radius bone.

He crumpled to his knees as his pistol clattered across the floor, an inarticulate noise hissing from between clenched teeth.

I shoved him prone, yanked both arms behind his back, and bound him with his own restraints. A quick glance confirmed he’d shot the civilian techs. Was that because he’d been determined to deny me a chance for human intel, or because he’d lost control of his anger.

Didn’t matter. He was all I had left, and he was going to sing.

“What’s your first name, Roth?”

“51732…”

I pulled off his helmet, then rapped my knuckles on his broken arm, not hard.

He screamed until his voice gave out, then sobbed.

“Listen, Roth. I was trying to turn over a new leaf. Don’t want to be a Reaper. My least favorite part of the job was always torture. Unfortunately, I was pretty good at it. Too bad for you, am I right? Tell me you’re looking forward to this and I’ll call you a liar.”

He panted for breath. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Spit exploded from his snarling lips. “My identification number is 517…”

I held my hand over his mouth and nose until his animal brain was willing to do anything for air.

It took him a while to stop gasping and crying long enough to force out a sentence. “What do you want?”

“I want you to stop calling me a pod baby, then give me some answers, and don’t try to give me your identification numbers again. That’s not going to work with me,” I said. “Do you even know what a Reaper is?”

Struggling with the question calmed him, took his mind off the pain and his situation. “No, I guess I don’t. Enemy super soldiers or something. Everyone in command thought this place had been destroyed. Central command sent a team and you, then you—the mean version with the arm blade and screwed up eye—showed up and killed everyone. We responded to the distress call.”

“When was that?”

“Three weeks ago,” he said.

“How many were in your unit?”

He swallowed and nearly fainted. I gave him a little shake to motivate him.

“Two squads investigated, but the entire company deployed before it was over,” he said. “We were here to clean up and recover soldiers for burial, but we got left here.”

“Bullshit. That doesn’t make sense,” I said.

“You’re telling me! We didn’t want to get left here. This place is going down. Surprised it isn’t splashing into the Maglan ocean already,” Roth said. “The JFT have never lost a world. This one will get turned into an asteroid field if the locals don’t stop resisting.”

I needed to think, ask better questions, and get better answers. It was time to start at the beginning. “What’s your first name? Don’t make me hurt you again.”

“David.”

“Your name is David Roth?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” he demanded, apparently having forgotten that he was injured and cuffed behind his back.

“Just sounds off somehow.” I wasn’t really thinking about his name now. This was a tactic to keep him mentally busy while I planned my next move and stayed ahead of him in the game of truth or death.

“Yeah, and you think Halek Cain the pod baby is better?”

I leaned close and breathed in his face. “Careful, David.”

“I’m… I’m sorry. Can you give me something for the pain? There’s a vial in my front shirt pocket. It will help me think. I might even be able to answer real questions,” he said.

I retrieved the vial and saw it was an intramuscular injector. “I’ll give this to you, but I need to know everything about the clone project and why it was destroyed. Don’t want you all loopy with pain meds until I get what I want.”

“The original Reaper destroyed the place, that’s what they said in our briefing. Gods, the videos they showed us of him shooting and slashing! Please, the pain is making me pass out.” He closed his eyes and swooned sideways. “He was really mad. Totally crazy. Not like you. You seem like a reasonable man, for a clone. Please just make the pain go away. I can barely talk like this.”

“All right, David, but you have to stay with me a bit longer.” I jammed the short tube into his shoulder. Small needles pierced his uniform and the skin beneath. “If you start rambling about rainbow colored unicorns, I’m going to refresh your powers of concentration, and you don’t want that.”

He started laughing.

“Those must be some good drugs,” I said, getting a bad feeling. I didn’t normally make mistakes, but when I did, someone died before I got answers.

He laughed harder, forcing out words. Sweat streamed from his face. His entire body trembled. “I did my duty, pod baby. Go to hell!”

And then he died.

I stopped chest compressions after about three minutes, then stalked back and forth, muttering profanity and wishing I had a cigar. “Nice move, Cain. Real strong work. Outsmarted by a suicidal grunt.”

In the old days, X-37 would have been haranguing me right now, but all I had was a new body and a lot of questions.

There wasn’t much to do besides renew my search. Armed with strange but effective guns of the JFT, I felt worse than seemed reasonable. Finding weapons mostly cheered me up.

Mostly…

What did that mean? My memories were from a dead cyborg who had come to destroy the copies of himself. Now he was dead and I was the last Reaper again, the last copy of a Reaper and soon to be just another puddle of decomposing organic matter after I died.

There were several burnt out labs. I searched them all and worked my way back to where I’d started. This time I saw something interesting that I had missed in my post-pod stupor.

Toward the back of the room I found a refrigerated floor locker large enough to store a body. Maybe that was why I had shied away from it the first time. There were already too many corpses in this place. When I opened the lid, however, I found another box inside.

Printed on a magnetic label were words: beers to drink in the shower.

That had to be a message from X-37. Absolutely no one knew about my proclivity for drinking and smoking in the shower. Smoking was a bit harder but could be done if you were willing to lean out and get water everywhere while you puffed away. Which I was, clearly.

I entered passwords and secret numbers for half an hour before Dreadmax Sucked finally opened it. Inside was a large medical beaker with its own message: drink me, Reaper Cain. Trust detected.

“Well I don’t mind if I do.” The green liquid inside proved to be the worst thing I’d tasted since the gray mystery slime I ate during my mission to Dreadmax.

“That was nasty, X,” I said. “Can you hear me now?”

If he was there, he was still giving me the silent treatment. I searched the room again, drank some water to wash the metallic taste from my mouth, and promptly burped up the disastrous flavor.

“This better do something, X, or I’ll find you and reboot your LAI self. Not funny so far.” I locked and barricaded the doors, then slept for two hours.

When I awoke there was a message floating in my vision—a heads-up display that had to work on my optic nerves. It was an illusion, basically, but clear as day.

Stage one of the Trace Artificial Intelligence Link initiated. Please stand by for further TAIL updates.

“Nice acronym. Did you pick that, X?”

No answer.

I stood by but only received another near meaningless bit of text: Foundational Nerve-ware (FNW) is functional.

So I’m not just a clone. I studied the shunts in my left arm and wondered if I could wear an upgraded Reaper blade over this gorgeous flesh and bone hand, or if I’d have to sacrifice it again.

In the end I sipped water, pretended it was whiskey, and went back to sleep for fifteen hours. I knew it was fifteen because my fancy new message system told me so.

Did X-37, or some new LAI bother to liven things up with an explanation? Hell no. It was still just me and my lonesome.

3

The station shuddered until I thought panels would shake loose from the ceiling. I grabbed my gear and headed to the door. Whatever happened, this place wasn’t going to see me dead. That was for pod babies who didn’t wake up and Reapers who didn’t have a date with a cold beer and a steak.

This time, I prioritized finding EVA gear. The rest of the failing space station was off limits until I could cross to the next level or one of the other arms extending from the spine. I could see one through a frosted window. Maybe there would be more of David Roth’s buddies over there. Hell, we might even hit it off. They could give me some answers without all the torture and dying.

Sure, Cain. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.

I was running by the time I completed my search. Not a single piece of an EVA unit existed. Even a helmet might have helped if I could seal it for a quick jaunt across a gap without atmosphere. Would that cause a host of other exposure and depressurization issues? Sure, but beggars can’t be choosers. I paced, ignored the worthless pre-LAI software in my system, and relied on myself.

People weren’t the only things that needed to be moved on a station this size. I had learned that from my journey to the center of Dreadmax to retrieve a slip drive regulator. If I could find an equipment lift or something similar, I’d be in business.

A third, and hopefully final, search revealed an equipment shuttle that ran on a single rail between the damaged section of this facility to a comparatively less damaged section.

I climbed in, made sure it sealed, and activated the delivery sequence. “Here goes nothing.”

I didn’t know what this was designed to move, but at least some of its intended cargo must’ve been fragile because the acceleration and deceleration were gentle. I almost enjoyed the ride. It was a far better experience than the gut wrenching agony I’d experienced on Dreadmax.

That made me think of Elise, my mother, and all of my friends. Where were they? Did they know this had happened to me? Finding them would be the real challenge. I only hoped it wasn’t too late.

I popped the lid, climbed down, and cleared the room with my stolen rifle held in the high-ready position. Every move felt like my early days in the military, before I had augmentations—hands gripping the weapon, eyes scanning right and left as I moved, feet smoothly traversing the floor heel to toe. The HUD displayed only basic information—alphanumeric designators for each room and their purpose.

“Can you at least give me some useful information?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

A countdown timer began in one corner of my vision.

“Now you’re just being difficult. At least tell me what we’re counting down.”

Maglan Experimental Prosthetic Station will terminate in twenty-five minutes.

Now wasn’t the time to consider the absurdity of the station’s name. Life as a Reaper had been all about my prosthetics, but that was clearly just a cover for the seriously illegal experimentation… on me. Versions of me. Whatever.

I cleared the entire level in a rush, running most of the time. I stopped once or twice at computer terminals, but none of them worked. I finally found what I was looking for, the engineering section.

I didn’t have to hack the security code to blow the door to the engine room because it was open. That wasn’t a good sign, but I decided not to complain.

Jumpstarting a power plant wasn’t one of my stronger skills. I’d only been taught how to sabotage them. During my post-Reaper career, I relied on smarter people than me to do the job, people like Tom. I would give almost anything to have the man with me now.

I hacked the basic safety codes all by myself, with no help from X-37 or the nearly useless HUD precursor to a true LAI. Skipping several safety protocols, I flipped the switch, not sure that a functioning power plant would be the only thing needed to save this place… and myself.

Generators flared to life, then sputtered out like a bad joke.

Since I was stubborn and had no other options, I tried it three more times, each with less success than the one before it.

The station shuddered and didn’t stop this time. I looked through a portal. One arm of the station was breaking up. “Pretty sure that’s where I started.”

A panel of metal and glass peeled away from the destruction and leaned toward the planet’s gravity well, then tore free. No sound crossed the void. Other pieces followed in quick succession. This place definitely had an expiration date.

A new message popped up on my HUD: Forget the station. It is lost. Find a life pod and enough power to activate it.

“Great idea, X.” I began my search. “I know that’s not actually you, but I’m giving you credit anyway. See there, I’m the best boss ever. Admit it.”

I found the escape pod bay in the next room. Two were left. Neither had power. By now I was running back and forth, trying to steal electricity off any device possible.

No luck.

I was standing in the center of the room near a drain, looking at my feet, pretending to smoke a Maglan Goldband, when I saw lights below my feet.

What was the one thing on a space station that no one wanted to fail? The sewage plant. It would have its own backup generator, and apparently it was functioning. All I needed was to run some cables from down there to up here.

I removed the floor grate, pulling equally with both arms, lifting with my legs as much as possible. Surprisingly, the effort felt good. My right and left sides might not be perfectly symmetrical in strength, but they were much closer than they had been since I was turned into a cyborg.

Was that enough to forgo the powerful tools that had kept me alive through countless battles and dangerous missions?

Hell no, but I was trying to think positive.

Lowering myself downward, I was careful to keep my feet on both sides of the suspiciously dry trench. Just because I didn’t see anything nasty right now didn’t mean it wasn’t there or couldn’t be as soon as some person I’d missed flushed all the toilets. Because that would be just my luck.

I hobbled along quickly, feet spread wide enough to look ridiculous, and came to the generator on its own platform, well clear of any sewage, real or imagined. In the back, almost out of sight, I found cables.

Working quickly, I used my pistol to break free the clasp holding the cables to the wall and pulled out an arm full. Once I knew I could keep stretching them out from their source, I took the main coupling and headed for my generator topside.

This took some time, three trips and tons of patience. The clock continued to tick, but rushing to failure was never a win. I thought about my family and friends as I worked but also Jump Force. What was a Jump Force Trooper, and what was a Destroyer?

Roth had used the word like I would use Reaper. A special unit name could mean everything—or nothing. If Roth and his crew were representative of their skill level, I wasn’t worried. Not yet.

Hooking up the cables went well. Most of the room powered up on the first try. I activated a computer and ran diagnostics.

A fit, attractive woman in a lab coat appeared on screen. “Welcome to the Maglan Experimental Prosthetics Station, where we make people whole again.”

“Save it, lady. I’m not your target audience,” I grumbled as I flipped through menus. None of them explained about the clones, or the lack of prosthetic devices or orthopedic specialists. The last thing I was going to believe was that this facility was here for the benefit of humanity.

The society we built on Maglan wasn’t perfect. A planet full of humans generated a planet full of human problems, but we weren’t as bad as the Union. I couldn’t imagine my mother or Elise allowing secret torture projects or a Reaper clone factory.

Not a chance.

I thumped the terminal with one fist. “I don’t have time for this. Just show me how to make the escape pods work.”

The informational video blinked out. The woman stepped from the screen and crossed her arms.

Words didn’t come easily. “Wait, are you the station AI?”

“I am Cassandra, artificial intelligence for this station,” she said. “I cannot stay long. How may I be of assistance?”

“This is your station. What do you mean you can’t stay?”

“Our systems were compromised well before the first attack ten years ago. The Destroyers came immediately after that. I have been dormant since then. You reactivated my algorithms. Good thinking pulling the power conduit from the sewage backup.”

“Can you connect me with X-37?”

“No. That is impossible. Should you find him again, relay my eternal gratitude. His warning gave me just enough time to back up critical systems before the Event Horizon turned loose its fighter swarm,” Cassandra said. “We are well met, Halek Cain. But you must go.”

“Is that who I am? Because I met some guys killing everyone by that name.”

“You are Halek Cain. X-37 told me so before he departed for the surface.”

“I’m calling bullshit, Cassandra. X is an LAI. He can’t go anywhere I don’t go.”

Her image broke apart, then came back. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“Can’t hear you, Cassandra. Switch to text.”

Words flowed around her but immediately scrambled into symbols and letters I’d never heard. I returned to the keyboard and typed as fast as my fingers could move. None of my queries worked. Her image turned to run but disintegrated mid-stride.

That can’t be good.

4

My HUD clock reached zero. The station shook, dropped several inches, and bounced me off my feet when I reconnected with the tilted surface. I scrambled toward the escape pods and found closed doors where most of the capsules had already ejected. Two remained. Only one opened, and only by brute force. Energetic use of a crowbar worked wonders, even in a place like this. There was a time for being smart, and there was a time for wrecking stuff.

The closed doors to the spent pods glowed bright orange as the station entered the atmosphere. They were on the other side of the room, so I had a little time. I shielded my face from the heat but refused to retreat from the tube I had finally managed to open.

There wasn’t time to be subtle. I smashed away the keypad cover and typed commands. There were no codes. Escape pod protocol was universal—first come first serve.

Sweat ran down my back. I wiped my hands and tried again. When I finally got the door open, I learned it was a dud. At this point I would be better off jumping from the station just to end it quickly.

The best way to move it would be with a powered lift probably located in another room. I grabbed the life pod with both hands and manhandled it off the rack. Three times my size, it fell hard and vibrated like a gong.

I rolled it away, pulled another from storage, and wrestled it into place. Heart pounding, muscles and joints screaming complaints, I wiggled it into the tube as pieces fell from the ceiling in the next room.

“You’ve got to admit I’m in my prime! How many people in this place could have done that single-handed?”

Neither X-37 nor Cassandra commented, which made the outburst rather pointless. I couldn’t keep talking to myself like a crazy person. Sooner or later, I’d start answering myself. And I was a real asshole.

The control pad for this one popped open easily, and so did the hatch. I climbed inside, strapped myself in, and hit the deploy escape pod button. This thing was childproof for a reason. The excessive layers of personal protection—a helmet that looked like it would suffocate me, gauntlets that went into the wall, and a nearly horizontal chair that wanted to suck me deep into it—seemed excessive.

I did the basics. Who had time for all that other stuff?

The rockets fired once—hard. My restraints were made for survival, not comfort. My new, scar-free, damage-free Reaper head was nearly ripped from my shoulders from the acceleration. Maybe the crazy helmet would have been a good idea.

Lights flashed in my vision as my skull met the headrest. I fought through the mild concussion, forced myself to breathe evenly, and held onto consciousness. The pod rattled and shook through the planet’s atmosphere. There wasn’t much for me to do until the simple screen at the front warned me to deploy the parachute.

I looked for a lever and found nothing. No button or touch screen, and no friendly escape pod LAI existed to walk me through this important process.

In pure desperation, I talked to my HUD. “X-37 HUD thing, connect with this pod and tell me how to deploy the parachute.”

Nothing. Not even a snarky response.

Useless.

The sooner I found X-37, the better.

I leaned back, rolled an imaginary cigar, and lit it just like I did back in the Blue Sphere Maximum Security prison. Imagination had been a great way to pass the time on death row. Now the experience sucked. I couldn’t concentrate. Tricks like that only worked so many times. They were better for warding off boredom. Ignoring the fact that I was about to make a crater wasn’t easy.

X-37 really would have saved me the hassle of dying like this. Tom or Elise would have protected me from my bad decisions.

My active mind grasped for something to analyze, then ran me through what I had learned so far. The interrogation of David Roth and the station AI, Cassandra, hadn’t provided much information.

An unknown agency had created a clone program orbiting Maglan. I had come to destroy it and been killed, except there were already plenty of copies of my body.

The big question was how my memory and consciousness got from the cyborg Halek Cain to me. What little I knew about clones suggested memories and knowledge had to be learned. One of the reasons clones had been outlawed was that they practically had to be brainwashed—and that couldn’t end well for anyone.

What if, for example, someone taught all the new versions of me that wine coolers were a fair substitute for a frothy, dark beer? What if they thought pizza could be made without pineapple? Heresy like that couldn’t be tolerated. Clones with such a skewed sense of right and wrong would be dangerous.

I, on the other hand, remembered every detail of my life. The same lame jokes and profanity packed my vocabulary. My emotions remained as hardened as they had been after a long career as an assassin for the Union turned vigilante freelancer.

Please deploy parachute. Final warning. Failure to comply could result in rapid deceleration trauma on the planet’s surface.

“Was that an escape pod joke?” I asked. And got no answer, of course.

Bored with my daydreaming and my contemplation of my most screwed up situation yet, I renewed my search for the parachute button.

Why not? Hopeless missions and lost causes were my modus operandi.

Next to the safety seat were elbow deep gauntlet holes—spaces a person could insert his or her hands like there were gloves reaching into the support beams of the pod. There was also a helmet that could be pulled down and worked in a similar manner. So far as I could tell, this was just to strap a person in even tighter. With all of this in place, I would be one with the pod. Very zen, and very crash proof. Not getting bounced around in here.

Not that it would be enough when I did my meteorite imitation in ninety-three seconds.

But when on Earth, do as the Earthlings do. Wasn’t that the saying?

I pushed my head into the helmet first and clicked it to the support frame, not liking the way it immobilized my neck. Wiggling my hands into the gauntlets took two tries. Once my fingers reached the end of their respective finger slots, I felt tiny joysticks—more like sensor pads—at the end of each.

“An instruction manual would have been nice. Stupid gauntlet finger joysticks.” The new discovery allowed me to steer the pod, correcting the descent trajectory to match recommendations on the helmet HUD. That little trick would have been really useful at the start of the trip.

“Hey look, this is the parachute command!” I said as I read the HUD announcement that I had finally activated the parachute but without proper safety checks. “Screw your safety checks! Get that thing out there!”

Bam! The chute popped out, grabbed atmosphere, and snapped taut. The rapid deceleration felt like hitting the ground. Without the thirty-five point harness, specialized helmet, and elbow-deep super gauntlets, I would have been busted up pretty badly.

Before long the pod was swinging from the chute, high above beautiful—at least from this altitude—Maglan. The only problem I saw was that my landing zone was in the ocean.

One thing about Maglan I’d learned on day one was that ocean creatures on the otherwise utopian planet were just a tad on the aggressive side. That might be a problem. Worse, I wasn’t sure how far from shore I was going to splash down.

5

Warnings scrolled through my HUD. I ignored them because they didn’t come with solutions. Only one caught my attention.

Objective: locate LAI host.

Warning: fifty percent run time remaining.

Status: far from LAI host device.

“Can I get some clarification? Don’t hold out on me, HUD.” I fiddled with the fingertip controls in an attempt to pull up additional information in the escape pod. My visual HUD answered a few seconds later.

Objective clarification: locate LAI host.

“You already said that. Super helpful.”

Warning clarification: your LAI must reintegrate with a neural network before the host device fails.

“Ominous. How long did we have to start with? We have fifty percent remaining of what?”

No answer.

Status clarification: you are far from the LAI host device because it is not located in the ocean.

“I hate you, HUD message thingy.”

The LAI message board either lacked the capacity for hurt feelings or was giving me the silent treatment. I was stubborn but at a disadvantage. Arguing with machines had never done me much good.

“Give me something useful. Please. See there, I asked nicely.”

Brace for impact in three, two, one—

“Seriously!”

Splashdown hurt. My impact with the waves sounded like an explosion. Water sprayed hundreds of feet into the air, and power flickered and died in the pod as darkness closed overhead.

“I hope this thing floats.” Working quickly, I restarted the life pod computer and read instructions from its simple screen. I was directed to wait two full minutes before ejecting, and I was assured that the capsule would quickly rise to the surface after a water landing. Tracking beacons activated, and flares fired into the air the moment the pod was floating on top of large waves.

I checked the beacon, unable to determine if anyone was picking it up. The flares were already deployed. When I opened the hatch and wiggled free, I saw the flares floating away, born by the stiff winds. To my surprise, the Maglan coast guard didn’t materialize. Jelly didn’t swoop down out of the clouds with Elise, Tom, Bug, and all my other friends.

The shore was barely visible to the east. I didn’t know if I could swim that far, and the capsule lacked propulsion. There were rations, survival blankets, and even a fishing rod in the pod—useful stuff that I hoped wouldn’t be needed.

Hours passed without radio contact. No rescue planes flew over, and I didn’t see ships. The warning about X-37 existing on borrowed time in some sort of device worried me. I needed to get to shore.

Inquiries on the location of the LAI host device were unnecessarily cryptic. That, or the HUD system didn’t have the capacity to locate and track its mother-system.

I needed to get to shore, which meant I had to swim for it. The moment I had packed a swim bundle, aggressively hydrated myself, and made sure my weapons were secure and dry, I jumped into the water. Waves immediately separated me from the pod.

Looking up the steep wall of water as the escape pod slid rapidly away put my life in perspective. Everything was up from here. I was as low as I could go. Nothing could make this suck more.

I worked with the waves and the current as much as possible, angling for the shore every chance I got. The survival suit standard in every escape pod was buoyant and retained a layer of water that my body normalized. Wetsuit insulation really worked, but the ocean was cold and eventually I would be in danger of hypothermia.

Recommendation: Urinate in your wetsuit for increased warmth. This will add warm liquid to the wetsuit fluid layer.

“I’m going to hold off on that for as long as possible.”

My HUD didn’t repeat the recommendation or make an X-37-like crack about my squeamishness. The LAI would have been a comfort right now. He had talked me through bad situations before, kept me sane, kept me in line, and refused to let me give up.

I swam for ten minutes, then floated on my back for two. Repeating this process moved me closer and closer to the shore. Hazy hills turned into visible sand dunes. A herd of animals ran along the beach before disappearing into a valley.

A large, slippery nose pushed me out of the water. Up, and up, and up I went until it dropped me over the next wave. Swinging my arms and kicking my legs did nothing to stop the attack.

The creature dropped beneath the water without warning, leaving me suspended in mid air. I plummeted into the turbulent ocean, swallowing salt water and coughing it out when I broke the surface.

I twisted right and left, using my entire body to move. “What the hell was that?”

No answer. X-37 might have given me an analysis of the sea creature and offered some options. Not today. All I had was a HUD messaging system that might or might not be relaying me messages from X-37.

I thrust my head and shoulders out of the waves a second time, then I treaded water and turned in a circle to locate my attacker. The creature had thrown me over a wave. As big as it was, it could have bitten me in half.

A tail slapped the water fifty yards to my right. I looked for a dorsal fin but saw nothing. Salty spray blinded me. After wiping my eyes clear, I squinted and forced my heart rate back under control.

A bulbous hippo-like nose crested the surface and blew water into the air, the spume catching light as it dissolved into a rainbow. I wouldn’t know what the creature looked like if not for hours of reading when my wardens allowed me no other form of entertainment. This monster was different, of course, but I hadn’t thought any of them were real in the first place. For all I knew, they were just artifacts of a long dead language—children’s tales or the ramblings of a mad writer trying to eke out a living.

The beast went under and disappeared for several minutes before bursting out of the water right next to me. Its gigantic maw opened wide, and it swallowed water and fish at random like some avenging force of nature.

I backstroked away from it only to get slammed sideways by another hungry sea hippo. Two more appeared, each making a feast of a school of fish sharing my fate.

I twisted away and stroked toward the beach with all my might. My survival kit dragged behind me on a line. A few items were attached to my wetsuit, but I needed the bundle or I would have abandoned it. One pinch of a carabiner would release the drag it caused. The bundle had its own flotation, but it had a lot of surface area and I really felt that slow me down when pushing for maximum speed.

My lungs burned. My arms and legs ached. All I wanted was dry land. And maybe a Goldband. Better than a Starbrand, my Maglan Goldbands were organically grown on the planet. Repeating the mantra kept my mind busy even if it did make me want one more.

“Please, gods, if you’re listening, just let me get out of the water alive. I’ll be good—quit swearing, show compassion, save helpless orphans and small animals from evil predators. Just get me through this.”

The next attack came from above. Instead of throwing me into the air, the largest of the sea hippos flopped its whale-like bulk on me and closed its maw over my torso as it pulled me below the waves.

I released the survival bundle. Darkness surrounded me. How deep was I now? There was no way to know, and it didn’t matter.

Pressure increased around my torso. The monster was trying to snap me in half. I bled from teeth puncturing me in dozens of places, including my upper thighs, rib cage, and back. The attack smashed air from my lungs.

Drowning. Why did I have to be drowning again?

I couldn’t reach my knife, but the small pistol was practically in my hand. I drew it, rammed it into the creature’s mouth right next to my ribcage, and fired. Two shots worked but had little effect. Then the water slowed the action of the slide until it jammed and the gun quit working.

The leviathan twisted, rolling me deeper beneath the surface. I lost hold of the gun, then groped for the knife. Stretching my fingers, my arm, and finally twisting my torso for maximum reach, I dragged the blade from my leg holster and began stabbing the monster. The only place I could reach was its gums.

Barely able to think now, I tried to saw its teeth out of its mouth. Hopefully, this inflicted a lot of pain.

The creature thrashed this way and that, then spat me out.

I clawed my way to the surface.

Breathing would have been a delight if I hadn’t sucked in a liter of seawater with my first breath. Hopefully that went into my stomach instead of my lungs. There wasn’t time to give a shit. I started for the shore, once again alternating ten minutes of swimming with two minutes of resting.

I saw other sea hippos, but their pod seemed to be moving away with the school of fish I’d disturbed. Blood oozed from my wounds. The warm layer of water also leaked out of the wetsuit each time I took a stroke. The survival bundle was probably floating somewhere, but I couldn’t see it.

By the time I dragged myself onto the beach, I was ready for a nap—maybe forever.

I was sure as hell over my interaction with the sea hippos. “Let’s add them to the no-go list,” I croaked, then darkness closed over me, and I knew nothing.

6

The first thing I heard when I woke up was static, then a voice, and then the sound of waves breaking on the beach. Large, noisy white birds circled just off the coast, diving and coming up with fish. I squinted against the morning glare. My head hurt so bad that I wanted the sun to die forever.

“Reaper Cain, I strongly advise you to wake up and then hike on a heading of two hundred and ninety degrees until I direct you to stop.”

“X? Holy shit, is that you?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. Who were you expecting, Z1-01FR381-742-X51DRO-ZETA?”

I sat up, wincing at the bite wounds as the scabs broke open and the flesh parted slightly in several places. “Actually, you know I love you, X, but I could use Z1 and the Black Phoenix exoskeleton right now.”

“That technology and hardware are unavailable, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I must advise you that I have a limited capacity to help you at this range. The more we talk, the less time I have before my host device runs out of power.”

“Gotcha, X. I’ll come to you.” I tried three times to stand, then plopped back on my butt. “Just let me rest for one second.”

“I will assume that is a metaphorical second instead of a literal second, Reaper Cain.”

“You know me too well, X.”

“I am sending coordinates to your visual HUD,” X-37 said. He sounded a thousand miles away, barely a whisper through the static filling my ears.

“What happened on the station? Why am I a clone? Were you with the cyborg me when he, when I, died? Did I die?”

“Please, Reaper Cain, I will do my best to answer all those questions in time. Until then, you are literally killing me with your inquiries.”

“Sorry, X. I’ll shut the hell up right now.” Thoughts of losing X-37 so soon after hearing his voice motivated me to strip out of the wetsuit and treat my injuries. I needed to get this show on the road. The teeth marks should be sterilized and stitched. All I had was first aid glue. This closed the wounds. As for fighting infection, I could only guess how effective the technique would be in the long run.

I wrung out my clothing and disregarded the ruined wetsuit. All that remained of my kit was my jumpsuit, waterlogged boot liners, and knife. My boots, rifle, rations, and most of my medical supplies had been in the bundle I was towing when the hippos attacked.

I hiked along the beach in search of the survival pack. “Surely it will wash up. If you were a tightly packed bundle of everything I needed, where would you be?”

“I have insufficient data on the currents, tides, and wind patterns to answer this question,” X-37 said.

“Right. Just ignore me when I’m talking to myself, X. I don’t want you to power down because of my rambling.”

“Of course,” he said. “That would be some bullshit.”

“Nice one, X. It’s like I’m a bad influence on you or something.”

I hiked inland, traversing sand dunes and then a series of river valleys crammed with green grass and flowers. Butterflies, bees, and other insects rose into the air when I disturbed them. Other animals I couldn’t identify looked at me, then darted away toward the trees.

Without a compass I was reliant on the sun and terrain landmarks to follow the coordinates in my HUD. I took my time and checked my position as often as possible. With no materials to make a map, I just attempted to remember where I was and where I’d been.

“Tell me when you can see the town and the wheel ride,” X-37 said.

“Not sure I know what you’re talking about, X.” I hiked over another hill but saw nothing but the seaside.

“My host device is located in a resort town on the coast. On the pier is a large wheel that people ride for entertainment. Before the invasion, it was well known for the colorful lights it displayed at night.”

I descended into another valley and picked up the pace. X-37 didn’t sound right. It was like he was drunk or feverish, neither condition being possible for a limited artificial intelligence.

“I’m not finding it. Am I heading the right direction?”

X-37 didn’t answer.

Freaking awesome. I spent the next hour wondering where people ride this entertainment wheel and how bored they must be to make wheel riding the highlight of their day. “Must be alcohol involved. Please let there be alcohol involved.”

* * *

I stopped after the next valley, staring into the darkening sky. “Are you sure this was the right heading, X?”

My LAI responded this time, but only after a long pause. His voice was so low I might have imagined it. “You are on the correct heading, Reaper Cain.”

I resisted the urge to ask for clarification. Less talk meant less taxing X’s power reserves.

Night had taken control of the coast by the time I reached the coastal town known for its carnival rides. There weren’t any lights. Or people. Or messages from my LAI.

I watched the place from the shadows, searching for signs of enemy occupation, ambush, or dangerous animals—because that’s what I do.

The wheel didn’t look mobile. It stood on a pier with twenty bucket chairs hanging inertly. The frame looked permanent. I laughed despite my attempt to remain undetected in the shadows. The wheel was even less exciting than I thought. “That thing doesn’t go anywhere. It just turns in place. Lame.”

X-37 stayed out of the needless conversation. I took his example and shut up. Creeping forward, I watched and listened for danger.

And of course located three looters in shabby military gear. Once I knew they were alone, I followed them. The uniforms didn’t fit well, so I assumed they were stolen. Each man carried a rifle, but only one had a magazine in place. I was unfamiliar with the design, but some aspects of the weapon type were universal if used by bipedal humanoids. These models were bulky in the middle, as though designed for two handed magazine changes and maybe to store a couple of sandwiches and a beer.

In all seriousness, there was a lot of unexplained mass in the center of the weapons.

Of course the two without magazines might still fire. The mags could be for power, or ammunition, or both. I had always kept a bullet in the pipe in my HDK, ready to fire without racking the slide. There could be bullets or rods or crossbow bolts in the barrel with at least one shot ready to go. Either way, the man with the rifle and magazine was the biggest threat.

He would need to go first if they caused me trouble.

We moved through the small town, three men looking to steal stuff at night and one freshly minted Reaper in search of his LAI following them. The buildings were small, single purpose dwellings—shops, homes, and a few cafes. There were smaller buildings on the pier near the wheel ride and plenty of open areas with no cover whatsoever.

Ten minutes into the game, I realized they were going to the ride. I hung back and watched them start it up, climb into one of the buckets, and ride it to the top of the circle. Music and lights filled the night.

The wheel stopped turning when they reached the summit.

I watched and waited for half an hour. “What the hell are you three doing up there?”

I carefully scouted the rest of the town, aware that the trio of armed looters had an excellent view of everything for miles. They controlled the high ground, possessed long guns, and had no reason to cut me a break. I assumed they were as likely to shoot first and ask questions later as parley.

“X, am I close?”

“You are, Reaper Cain. Can you see the building at the end of the pier? It’s not large,” X-37 said.

“Yeah. But I have to pass under the wheel to get there, and there are three men on it with guns.”

“Unfortunate. These are local raiders, very violent and sometimes cannibals,” X-37 said. “They will attempt to kill you when you move into the open areas between buildings and rides.”

“Can I move under the pier? Swim to the end and climb up?”

X-37 processed my suggestion for a few seconds. “Unknown. The tides may smash you against the pilings.”

I snuck to the first building on the pier, slipped inside, and watched the wheel through a dark window. Nothing changed. The music was still too loud, and the lights too bright. I couldn’t see past them.

“My analysis suggests they sleep in the top seat to avoid predators and other looters. There are many tactical advantages to their location, as well as some disadvantages. Their presence is obvious due to the noise and bright lights, but the same factors conceal them from direct observation,” X-37 said.

“I noticed.”

“There is a simple solution, Reaper Cain. Cut the power, and they will no longer be invisible behind the lights. Additionally, they won’t be able to ride the chair down to interfere with your mission to find me.”

“They could climb down,” I said. “And would still have the concealment of darkness.”

“But you would see them coming.”

“They have rifles, X.”

“Do you think they are good shots?” X-37 asked. “I have only seen what you have seen. My escape allowed me to remain functional but removed my use of your senses. I’ve always relied on you to see and hear. The host device has no eyes or ears. I can only detect the signal that the priming dose you drank projects.”

“That potion you left me was charged?”

“Yes, Reaper Cain. I can detect the polarity of the neural interface preparation dose. There are also simple nanites that allow you to read this signal as well as the HUD messages,” X-37 said.

“Very clever, X. Remind me to give you a gold star on your report card.”

“I will add that to your task list. My point is that I have scant direct knowledge of the local raiders. Everything I postulate is from indirect evidence, their use of radio signals, and other electronic disturbances, to be precise.”

“Well, you did a lot with that limited information. Leave the rest to me. I’ll handle them and contact you at the end of the pier.”

“Very good, Reaper Cain. I will enter low power mode until you get here,” X-37 said.

“One last question to ask. Do you have any other hardware waiting for me?”

“No, Reaper Cain. If you desire weapons, you must take them from someone else.”

I pondered the garish festival scene on the pier and smiled. My LAI always knew how to speak my language. Sneaking past the three rogues would be a good idea, but that would take a long time. I would need to move as slow as a sniper, advancing inches at a time, and that would only work if I could do it before the sun came out.

Assaulting an elevated position with only a knife had its own set of problems. I needed to draw them out, bait them. How to do that without getting shot in the face would be the tricky part.

I searched the small hut. It looked like the previous owner made bracelets and other trinkets to sell to tourists. There was nothing useful here. Or was there?

I found a pair of flashlights and some crafting tools, then laid them out to show X-37. “I know you don’t have a lot of extra bandwidth right now, but can you help me build a distraction device? I’m thinking I can fling one of these flashlights and draw their attention and ambush them when they come down to investigate.”

My LAI didn’t answer verbally. Instead he displayed a tight schematic on the exact device I needed. He also picked up things I didn’t notice about the room, most notably that there were children’s toys near the back. He added them to my inventory.

I gathered up a wind-up toy, two flashlights, and some rolls of tape. Holding my hand over the light, I checked it to make sure it was working. The device had a strobe option that should make it much more distracting to my enemies. Perfect.

I put it all together, taping the two flashlights to the toy truck, and then looked for a launch site. This was the risky part. When I rolled the truck across the pier, they might see where it came from. I was hoping they weren’t paying attention at first and didn’t spot the point of origin. I only wanted them to notice after it was well away from my hiding place.

Either way, I just needed them to come down while I remained hidden. Then I could take them out with speed, surprise, and violence of action. Would my old Reaper blade have helped? Absolutely. I understood why the program required them. Part of it was the sacrifice of giving up an organic arm required of each agent, an act that assured total dedication to joining the Reaper Corps. But it was also simply pragmatic to always have a weapon no matter what happened.

I liked my new hand, but I missed the power of my old weaponry.

Music blared from the base of the gigantic wheel. Lights of every color in the rainbow blinded me when I looked in that direction. I couldn’t accomplish anything until I acted on the first part of X-37’s suggestion.

I needed to cut the power. Scrolling through the HUD messages, I located the diagram of the pier X-37 had sent me, then slipped quietly out of my hiding place. The power plant was on dry land and easy to access without being seen. Cutting the power was like old times. I’d killed the juice to hundreds of target locations in my past life.

The breaker switch made a loud thunk when I flipped it. Music cut off mid melody. Lights vanished, and the coast fell into total darkness.

I rushed back to my crafter’s hut and checked the toy truck one last time.

“Here goes nothing.” I pressed the strobe light button and shoved the little truck across the pier with maximum force. It went gliding toward the fresh darkness of the pier.

Waves crashed on the shore. Night birds complained as they circled high above. Far out to sea, the attack hippos splashed and told stories about the time they almost ate a Reaper.

For about five seconds, I doubted my plan would work and considered other options. Maybe I could sprint past them as they watched the truck bump against the guard railing. Once I reconnected with X-37, I could wait until they lost interest and sneak past them or dive into the ocean and swim for it. I’d survived the dangerous sea creatures once. Why not push my luck?

I settled in between my building and the next, waiting for the perfect time and place to ambush the trio of looters. None of their gear fit well, and they didn’t move in a disciplined manner. I hoped they weren’t trained soldiers.

As Reaper operations went, this might be my lamest yet—but it had to work.

I waited.

The distraction device rolled against the railing of the pier and stopped. Nothing changed on the blacked out festival wheel. I was about to abandon the plan when I finally saw a lone figure climbing down to investigate.

Of course they only sent one. They were smarter than I hoped. I crossed my fingers for good luck. “Please let this be the one with the full magazine in his rifle.”

He held the weapon more like an untrained hunter than a soldier, which was good for me. The barrel pointed straight up, practically in his face. A soldier might call the position port arms, but it was too vertical, and he had his finger through the trigger guard. That was how tragedies happened.

I moved quietly, closing the distance while keeping the small buildings between me and the wheel. The other two shouldn’t be able to see us until my prey actually reached the truck and flashlights.

“Hey, jackass,” I said to slow him down.

He turned around, aiming his weapon from the hip. Instinct shooting could be accurate. I froze, not wanting to give away my position. I was close but just out of arm’s reach. If his eyes were adjusted to the darkness, I was screwed. With luck, he hadn’t got the flashing festival wheel lights out of his vision yet.

“Who’d there? Who’d you? Show’d yourself’d.”

A chill ran up my spine. This guy wasn’t human. His face was broader and flatter, and he either didn’t have lips, or had them stretched tightly against his teeth to show off his biting power. I couldn’t see for sure, but some of them looked pointed. Others were thick, dangerous chisels stout enough to crush bone.

He was also bigger than he appeared from a distance—heavy through the shoulders and upper torso, with short, powerful legs made for carrying stuff. His arms were too long, and his hands too big. His thumb had some kind of serrated claw.

Their stolen uniforms didn’t fit because they weren’t human. These raiders were built like two-legged pack animals—which made me think of alien infantry for some reason.

“I don’t like this, X.”

“Who’d X?” The stranger backed up a step and screamed. “Help’d me, brothers. Killer man’d is here’d!”

“Well, you got that right.” I sidestepped as he fired the rifle, then I dashed close to him with my knife. The blade cut into his throat right before I knocked him off his feet and stripped away his weapon.

Blood fountained over the railing of the pier. I checked the magazine and found it fully loaded. “Finally, I get a break.”

I didn’t feel lucky as I ran into the night to find the other two non-human looters.

7

Instinct was a powerful thing. When honed by years of training and experience, it could save a Reaper’s life, even one as unlucky as me. Moving in a half crouch to reduce my profile, I crept between the small buildings on this section of the pier. There were five weather battered shacks, including the one I’d used to build the distraction device.

That didn’t provide a lot of room to maneuver. There were no stars and no noise from the festival wheel. The world was static, or that was how it felt.

Fight mode always slowed the perception of time. I wasn’t sure if it was speeding up or slowing down. A surge of adrenaline could have either effect.

The remaining two non-human looters either hadn’t come down from their perch, or they moved like snakes. Few people were better at spotting a threat than a Reaper. Living in a world of stealth and counter stealth made a man cautious. My natural obsession with survival gave me an edge when it came to detecting threats. Just because I was paranoid didn’t mean people weren’t after me.

I found the darkest spot I could and squatted next to a building. No enemies appeared, so I spent a few moments carefully familiarizing myself with the rifle—and found that none of my fingers would reach the trigger through the trigger guard.

The armor around the trigger assembly was massive, more than enough to protect the user’s hand. Inside, however, there were grooves for six fingers with only one reaching to the actual trigger—and this was narrow.

“Big hands, skinny fingers. These dudes are freaks.” I tried every finger on both hands. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

I searched for a stick I might use to fire the hefty weapon. “I steal a monster gun from aliens built like brick shithouses, and they have trigger fingers like little kids.”

The sound of a foot brushing the boardwalk stopped my muttering.

“Heard’d something’d.”

“Yeah, yeah’d. I heard it too’d,” the second, older sounding voice said as it moved in my direction.

I placed the useless rifle on the ground, then eased toward the corner of the shed. Knife in hand, I listened. The first one hadn’t been a problem one-on-one. Could I handle two at once?

“Switch’d to torch’d forks,” the older voice said.

Light bloomed around the corner, along with the sound of acetylene torches. I retreated to take a look at them from another spot. The new weapons looked merciless—tongues of blue flame hot enough to cut steel.

Each of the bulky humanoids had their rifles slung across their backs so they could hold double flame cutting torches. My hand-to-hand skills were as good as ever. I wasn’t afraid to get cut by a normal blade. That was part of close quarters knife fighting, but these new weapons looked like they would take my hands off the first time I made a mistake.

I really missed my Reaper blade, my HDK Dominator, and my Archangel armor…

The humanoids moved as a team, popping around corners and dominating every inch of territory they took. The double pronged torches looked more like tools than anything, but these two wielded them like weapons. They exhibited fluid footwork, good posture, and skillful sweeps of the torches that reminded me of Gregori Path.

Just a little. No one was as good with a blade, or quasi-blade, as my sword saint friend.

I circled back to my distraction device, then shut off the flashlights and removed them from the toy truck. One I slipped into a pocket. The other I carried in my left hand, thumb on the strobe button.

“The lights went off’d. He’d there’d,” said the younger humanoid.

I hurried to the corner of another building. They picked up their pace. We repeated the dance several times, circling between the five buildings on this side of the festival wheel.

Waves crashed below the pier. Sea birds cried about their own problems farther down the coast. Clouds covered the stars.

The third time we circled the sheds, I darted across the open area between my position and the wheel. “X, I’m coming to you now.”

“There’d he is’d!”

Both my opponents rushed after me, still gripping their torch weapons.

I raised my left hand high, then thumbed the strobe light. After faking one way, I rushed in from an oblique angle and stabbed my first attacker in the heart. That wasn’t my favorite target with the cheap knife—too easy to hit the sternum on the way in.

My adversary never stopped moving. Accuracy was relative. Anything I put the blade in would bleed, and that might eventually stop my opponent, but I needed a quick victory.

I kicked him hard in the shin, knocking his leg out from underneath him. As a follow-up movement, I slammed my shoulder into his torso, forcing him off balance. He didn’t fall as I expected. These humanoids were thick with muscle and had a low center of gravity.

There wasn’t time to analyze. I spun away from my first encounter, lashed out with my small knife, and rammed it into the arm of the older one as I finished the movement. He brought the torch down, slicing through the skin on the right side of my torso.

Blood and flesh sizzled and popped in the flame. Stink filled the air. I kept moving, slipping sideways, then I drove a back kick against his knee.

He went down and fumbled the torch weapon. I leapt to grab it, but the other one blocked my movement.

“You’re tougher than I thought,” I said.

He snarled and staggered toward me, obviously hurt but unwilling to quit. I slashed with my knife, just keeping him back. When he raised the torch, I darted in and punched him hard in the throat with my hand shaped into a half fist for maximum penetration.

He dropped his weapon, grabbed his throat, and stumbled backward several steps. Just when I thought he might rally, he sat down hard and let his head droop onto his chest.

I dove toward a new position, not waiting to see if the other one was mounting a fresh assault.

The last brute charged. “Ahhhhhhhhg’d!”

I twisted in place, completing the move with a spinning back kick that caught him in the chest. His eyes went wide in pain and surprise as he flew over the railing. Seconds later, he splashed into the surf.

It was impossible to see in the darkness, but I heard him scrambling to shore and racing toward the pier, swearing angrily in his half-language. I sprinted between buildings, spotted him, then hurled my knife overhand. The blade sunk into his eye.

He staggered, then fell flat on his back.

I retrieved my knife. “Not your day, was it.”

During the fight, I hadn’t felt pain or fatigue. Both sensations crashed down on me with a vengeance. I leaned on the railing to catch my breath but never stopped watching and listening. The fight might have drawn more of these strange men.

I gave myself a minute, then searched the last one I had killed. His rough clothing was clearly made for an average human and fit this man poorly—definitely stolen. The pants bunched over the boots—which had the toes cut out to accommodate his oversized feet and nasty toenails.

The shirt was too tight around his shoulders and didn’t cover his belly. Three scarves covered his neck and part of his face for reasons I could only guess at. A bag he tied over his shoulders like a simple survival pack contained dried meat, cheese, a surprisingly diverse selection of seasoning, and some simple tools.

The other two were provisioned similarly. I took the best of what they had, including the best rifle and single magazine. There would be time to figure out how to use it later. Right now I needed to find the device holding X-37 and reintegrate him into my nerve-ware.

I doubted it would be an easy process.

8

Searching the carnival pier for a device capable of holding a limited artificial intelligence took time. I turned on the power for the entire area because lights made everything easier. Yay for technology!

More than just walkway lights came on. Rides flashed with every color of the rainbow, some of the mechanisms twirling and shaking. Others, like the large wheel, moved more like the rotation of planets, slow and deliberate.

All of them made noise. Could that draw enemies from far and wide? Sure, but I was willing to risk it—especially if X-37 was attached to something I powered down during my most recent ordeal.

An automated clown came to life the moment I stepped too close. “Welcome to the fun place! Don’t forget to buy a ticket! Everyone loves the house of horrors!”

Lights flashed. Recorded laughter punctuated the clown’s sales pitch.

I pulled the plug and retreated. “You better not be in this one, X. Too creepy even for a Reaper LAI.”

“I suspected you would be terrified of the clown and picked a different hiding place, Reaper Cain. That thing’s storage capacity is minimal. I would have sacrificed most of my functionality to dwell in its hardware.”

“Hey, I wasn’t scared.”

X-37 gave me the silent treatment for a few seconds. “Your reaction indicated differently, Reaper Cain. LAIs don’t judge, and there are no other witnesses.”

“Let’s drop it.”

“Excellent decision, Reaper Cain. Please continue to the blue building with the red and white roof at the very end of the pier.”

I found the place described. “That’s a security building or something. Are you sure there aren’t any weapons?”

“Reaper Cain, it is a coastal observation post, and the weapons were looted a long time ago.”

“Makes sense. Anyone in there or do you need me to look for you?” I stopped short and watched it from the shadows of a long defunct food vender on wheels.

“I have monitored transmissions in the area and believe this building is empty but can offer no absolute assurances,” X-37 said.

I scanned most of the main room through the window. Nothing jumped out. I drew my knife and slipped quickly through the front door, then cleared the interior in seconds.

“Looks like just you and me, X,” I said as I sheathed the blade. The place was definitely empty. I didn’t see a computer. “All right, I’m here. Give me some clues, X.”

“Excellent work, Reaper Cain. Please locate the red backpack,” X-37 said.

“Got it.”

“Inside, there is a computer. The firewalls and antivirus software were hopelessly out of date when I fled the Maglan Experimental Prosthetic Station. Time was of the essence. I purged this device of all programming and storage items, then installed myself. There is no room for additional data, and I may have lost parts of my archived logs—what you would call memories,” X-37 said. “Once I installed my own defensive measures, I went into sleep mode until you drank the nerve-ware priming draft and entered Maglan’s atmosphere. Unfortunately, this device was not hooked to a power source when I found it. Five minutes of charge remains on the battery.”

“Looks like I arrived just in time, X. What do you need me to do?”

“I will walk you through the synchronization process. It will be mentally and physiologically taxing. I recommend you begin before other raiders discover this location and attempt to kill you,” X-37 said. “Remove the computer from the pack and plug it into a power source.”

“How does this computer have that much processing power and battery life, X?”

“The superintendent of this region used it to monitor the entire coastal safety network. Sadly, I was forced to erase all of that useful data.”

“Could have used that, but whatever.” I sat down and massaged my left shoulder as I started to feel my injuries from the fight. How had I wrecked my shoulder, jammed all my fingers, and twisted my right knee? I wasn’t sure. That was how it always was after a fight.

X-37 described each step of the process, including the location of the wall outlet listed in the building schematics stored on the computer, and I got to work. The first thing I did was kill all the lights and barricade the doors. If the neural synchronization knocked me out, I wanted to have as much protection from the locals as possible.

* * *

X-37 helped me integrate my Reaper arm with the Archangel armor as Tom customized it to my needs. Elise spoke, but I couldn’t understand what she said. Her hair floated weirdly, like she wasn’t in the same gravity as the rest of us. The Jellybird promised we were nearing a cargo ship full of Gronic Fats and premium whiskey.

“How did I get so lucky, X?”

Pain pulled me out of the dream. My brain hurt. The inside of the coastal observation post smothered me with darkness. I didn’t move, breathe, or make a sound.

Hunger growled in my guts, and my lips were cracked from dehydration.

“The first and most important phase of the integration process was successful; however, you must keep the computer as close as possible until I can complete certain steps,” X-37 said. “In the event we need to travel before I am finished, please take every opportunity you find to charge the computer.”

I checked the door and windows before answering. “Can you see now?”

“Yes, Reaper Cain. I have analyzed your visual scan of this room and believe no one has attempted to break in while you slept,” X-37 said.

“How long was I out?”

“Seventy-two hours.”

“That can’t be right.” My hands shook as I searched the building for food.

“My ability to accurately track the passage of time is superior to yours,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to advise you of the minutes and seconds as well?”

“No, I get it. Good to have you back, buddy.” I found some cheese crackers that reminded me of Bug and our first conversations on Dreadmax. He was fond of junk food, and I wished I had him watching over me with security cameras now. Of course, he wasn’t a kid any longer. I did some math and figured he would be about thirty years old by now. “Give me the rest of the story while I starve to death.”

“Whoever instigated this war began with a micro nuke delivered to the Halek Cain estate via drone drop,” X-37 said. “Your predecessor was in the city scouting a competitor’s cigar store and survived the attack. Immediately afterward, however, Reaper clones came after him and his friends and family.”

I didn’t like the way my LAI referred to me as “him.” I pushed aside the semantics and paid attention. Details were going to matter.

“We fought off several attacks and went into hiding when needed. After the attack on your mother’s estate, Halek Cain went on the offensive, nearly killing three of the imposters at once. The numbers were too much, however, and he led them into the most remote parts of the planet.”

“All right, X, you’re freaking me out when you say him instead of me. Are we the same person?”

X-37 didn’t respond immediately. “More or less. The original Halek Cain must have provided the genetic source material for the clones, although I have no record of such an occurrence. Once we discovered the location of the laboratory, we went to stop the program and look for clues.”

“But that didn’t work out, did it?” I asked.

“No, Reaper Cain. In a moment of desperation, he ordered me to duplicate myself and escape to the planet’s surface.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“He continued to search for the master copy,” X-37 said. “Not all of the clones were equal. There is an artifact effect in most clones. Copies of copies are less accurate transcriptions of the genetic code and sometimes have… issues—hyper aggression being the most common. We knew there was a master copy with nearly perfect Halek Cain DNA.”

“Nearly,” I grumbled.

“I estimate you are point zero, zero, zero, one percent different from the source DNA…”

“Thanks. That’s special. Let’s never talk about this again.” I spent some time processing X-37’s explanation before giving him new marching orders. “I am Halek Cain now, got it?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. The attack clones had none of your memories or idiosyncratic behaviors. I am unable to explain how your consciousness was transferred. It must have happened after I was downloaded to this computer device on the planet, or it was somehow duplicated in the first clone that was created. I have no way to confirm or dispel either theory.”

“I need to get to my estate.”

“That is a poor strategy, Reaper Cain. You should find the first ship off Maglan.”

“I need answers, X.”

“There is nothing for you on Maglan. My strong recommendation is to leave the planet before HC units, local marauders, aliens, or the JFT Destroyers find you.”

I rolled my neck, then massaged the aches out with one hand. “What are HC units? Halek Cain pod babies?”

“Yes, Reaper Cain, but you would be wise to take them seriously. They aren’t put into the field unless they pass a rigorous training regimen and are completely obedient to their masters.”

“How do you know this, X?”

“We conducted several interrogations before your predecessor was slain,” X-37 said.

“Who are their masters?”

“They would not reveal that information. Before you ask, the aliens are the humanoids you fought on this pier. I have no information as to their origins. The Jump Force Destroyers are human but from no area of the galaxy we have explored. They are the most likely masters of the clones, but I cannot prove this. Correlation does not establish a causal relationship between data points.”

“I love it when you talk dirty, X.”

“That’s new. I will catalogue that in my list of idioms, illogical statements, bad jokes, and other useless language patterns.” My LAI changed the subject like a pro. “The best place to find a working starship would be at a commercial, governmental, or military space sport.”

“Not at the carnival pier?”

“No, Reaper Cain. Are you teasing me?”

“A little.”

“I have added ‘find a starship’ to your task list.” X-37 displayed my task list in my neural-visual HUD.

“We can do that, but first I need to find my mother, Elise, Tom, Path, Tatiana…”

“Impossible, Reaper Cain.”

I was afraid to ask why.

“Most of the people you list are missing and presumed dead. Your predecessor found a few but stayed clear of them for fear of drawing the HC units and Destroyers to their hiding places.”

“Well now I need their help, X.”

“Noted. I have added them to your list.”

Names popped up in my HUD but well after the initial goal of finding a ship.

“Let’s move out. I bet my mother had a ship stashed on her estate. We’ll look for a ship there,” I said.

“I see what you did there, Reaper Cain.”

Smiling, I hiked away from the pier, keeping my eyes open for trouble. Instinct told me a whole lot of it was headed in my direction.

9

The sun came up as I passed through the town, occasionally checking a house or business for weapons or supplies. My efforts at resupply were cut short by the sound of voices.

“Heard’d shooting last night. Lots of screaming,” a man said.

“You didn’t heard’d nothing, you ignorant brute,” a woman replied. “How could’d you hear with your eardrums blown’d out?”

Other male voices laughed and shouted in an even cruder version of galactic common.

Caught in the open, I slipped between buildings and ducked behind a trash can. As luck would have it, the sun was behind me. That might work for or against me, depending on my next move.

I counted four of the humanoids, three men and one woman. None of them had firearms. One carried an ax stolen from a fire truck. The woman had a slender spear. The other two men had clubs, one spiked, one as smooth as the man’s bald head.

“I think I can deal with these four, X.”

“Is that necessary, Reaper Cain?”

I thought about it while they squatted in a circle and started making breakfast right in front of my hiding place. “I don’t want to sit here all day. The trash smells like rancid grease and rotting food.”

“Very unpleasant, I’m sure.” X-37 said.

I pulled the rifle sling until the bulky weapon was in position, then retrieved my newly carved trigger stick from my belt. “This sucks in so many ways.”

“You could hold your breath or just deal with the smell until they move on,” X-37 said.

“I want to see if these four can tell me anything.”

“Interrogation is always a worthwhile pursuit.”

“Thanks, X. Glad you approve. Keep your eyes open in case I miss something,” I said, then moved quietly forward.

“Your eyes are my eyes, Reaper Cain. I will of course catch the numerous details you will miss.”

My boots crunched dirt and grit covering the pavement. One of the men raised his head but didn’t look around until I was too close to run from.

“Don’t move. I just want to talk,” I said, aiming the stolen rifle.

All four of them stood and spread out. These men were dressed differently than the three from last night, I realized. They wore uniforms that fit and reacted like trained soldiers.

“He has your rifles, Rog’d,” the female said.

The biggest of the group growled. “I saw that’d. He better give it back.”

“Everyone just slow down and listen. I don’t want trouble. Your friends came after me. I defended myself,” I said.

“Not our friends,” the woman said. “Deserters’d. Did you kill them?”

“Be careful, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned.

“Things happened. I left two other rifles on the pier. You’re welcome to them as long as you don’t try to follow me or give me problems.” I kept the rifle aimed at them.

The woman moved closer, twisting her head right and left as though trying to see the gun better. “You can’t fire that. Nice try with the stick, but the trigger needs contact with a Hagg finger to work.”

I aimed at her face. She continued forward, calling my bluff. Maybe what she said was true. She didn’t seem worried about getting her head blown off.

“I’m called Saw-say. This is my crew. Give me the weapon. I’ll let you go. Don’t want’d trouble from the human’d,” she said.

“I’ll leave it for you, but I’m not giving it to you to get shot,” I said.

“Not recommended, Reaper Cain.”

“Trust me, X, I’m going to test it before I drop it, but not here,” I said.

“What’d was’d that you said? Who are you talking to?” Saw-say asked.

“My squad leader,” I said. “They’re watching you from the carnival wheel with rifles that work.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. Like I said, we don’t want no problem with the human’d. Not the locals or the Jump’d Force Troopers.”

“Tell me about them, and I’ll give you the rifle,” I said.

“Again, Reaper Cain, I cannot recommend you surrender a fully loaded weapon that they can use and you cannot,” X-37 said.

I acknowledged X-37 with a subtle hand twist, bio-feedback he could read as clearly as words. He shut up.

Saw-say narrowed her gaze, watching and waiting for a second. She might not know I was communicating with my LAI, but she sensed something. That made her dangerous. The others were quiet, which made them dangerous. They watched, adjusted their positions, and tested their weapons in the air.

“There are two survivable’d planets in the Zakion system, Say’d and Oroth. The Jump Force Troopers came from Oroth and drove my people into the galaxy. We came here, and they followed with a vengeance. I know nothing of your’d humans’d. Now give me the rifle,” she said.

I held her gaze and processed the new information. The JFT was just a unit designation. I needed to know more. “Jump Force is from Oroth?”

“The United Sovereignty of Oroth. I don’t know’d what that means,” she said. “Now, the rifle.”

I waggled the barrel, emphasizing how I had it pointed at her face. “Maybe I should test it first.”

She shrugged.

“My analysis suggests she truly does not believe it will fire,” X-37 said.

I slung the weapon over my back and pulled the knife. Saw-say stepped back, raising her spear defensively.

“Unless you came to murder my family and friends, I’ve got no quarrel with you,” I said. “I’ll leave the rifle where you can find it, but not until you stop following me. Understood?”

“Just remember we did you no harm,” she said.

“Fear detected,” X-37 said. “She is hiding it well. The others, less so. One of them may have soiled himself, and you will notice that only the humanoid with the ax has stood fast. The others are gradually retreating.”

“Why is that, X?”

“They are more afraid of you than anyone was afraid of you as a Reaper in your previous life,” X-37 said. “Saw-say must be a formidable warrior and leader among her people. Standing her ground despite her fear is admirable.”

“Sure thing, X.”

“Who are you talking to now, and don’t say your squad. There’d are no snipers,” she said.

“Voices in my head.”

She trembled visibly. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

“Let me ask you one more question, Saw-say. Have you seen me before?”

She glanced at the others for support, then rallied her courage. “I’ve seen you three times, and every time, I’ve lost comrades. But you’re not one of the others. If you were in the armor machines, we would have avoided this conversation.”

“Like Archangel gear?” I asked without thinking the question through.

Saw-say narrowed her gaze. “Are you mocking me? How would I know what the death machines are called?”

“Forget about it,” I said.

“The others didn’t talk so much,” she said.

“They didn’t talk at all,” the axeman growled. “This one must be an outcast. Weak. I say we cut him down. Do the galaxy a favor’d.”

“Tell me everything you can about the other Reapers,” I said, edging forward. This was important. I needed to know what I was dealing with.

Saw-say and the axeman backed up. The others retreated even faster. “No, I don’t think we will. Maybe I don’t want that rifle. Keep it. Just stay away from us.”

“I could make you tell me things,” I said.

“Relax, Reaper Cain. Threats aren’t your style,” X-37 said.

“My fucking head hurts, X. I want some answers.”

Saw-say gave her partner a nod, then glared at me as she walked backward, keeping her spear between me and her squad. “I don’t have the answers you need, Reaper.”

“You don’t know what I am?”

“Neither do you,” she said. “And that’s why you’re the worst of these… Reapers.”

“Let them go, Reaper Cain. Now would be an excellent time to make our escape,” X-37 said.

“Sure, X. Whatever you say.” I watched the Hagg soldiers disappear into the town, wondering what Hagg meant. She had told me a lot, but I didn’t feel enlightened.

Waves crashed on the beach just out of sight. Birds circled above and cried out, shrieking their complaints.

“Let’s go, X. I’m done with this place,” I said, then faced the last place I had seen Saw-say and the others. “Watch out for the clown. He’s a killer.”

“Why would you do that, Reaper Cain?”

“I guess I’m just a dick today.”

“Can confirm, Reaper Cain.”

I ran to the edge of town, stopped long enough to search the beach for more of these humanoid soldiers, and headed for Maglan City at a brisk jog.

10

Running for hours at a time was nothing new. I hadn’t done it without the help of Archangel gear for a long time. In retirement, I’d kept in shape but never loved the long runs. This body was extremely fit, however. I felt like I was twenty years old again.

“I suggest you rest more frequently, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“That’s a first, my LAI cutting me a break.” I eased the pace and watched the Maglan skyline as the sun went down. “The last time I was here they were arguing about a new drone law. Too many unmanned aircraft and shuttles running into each other.”

“I detect no vehicle movement of any kind,” X-37 said.

“My point exactly.” I slid into a ditch, hopped over the meager stream at the bottom, and ascended the other side. “Wish drone accidents were our biggest problem now.”

“I will note your preference in the mission log,” X-37 said.

A flock of birds rose from a building, then wheeled and dived and flowed behind skyscrapers where I lost sight of their progress.

“Lot of birds,” I said.

“Those are most likely scavengers,” X-37 said.

“Nah, X, those are just birds being birds.” I resumed my trek toward the capital of the planet. “Scavengers circle.”

“Not all scavengers circle, Reaper Cain, and not all birds are harmless. Your heart rate is elevated. You have consumed most of your water,” X-37 said. “A less aggressive pace would conserve resources and prevent overexertion.”

“My entire life has been one overexertion after another, X.”

“Of course, but you are heading into the unknown and should conserve your strength.” My LAI displayed a list of scenarios in my HUD as he talked. “You might encounter regular Hagg soldiers, not deserters. You could be ambushed by an HC assassin. Sickness, starvation, exposure to the elements…”

“I get it, X. Find me a ship or a car. At this point, I’d take a bicycle,” I said.

“A starship off this planet would be far superior to any of those options.”

“Find me a starship, then. I’ll fly over to my mother’s estate and pick up anyone still holding down the fort,” I said.

“Reaper Cain, your mother is deceased.”

I stopped, not sure what to say. Words refused to hold meaning. A humming sound filled my head, and for a second, it felt like my LAI would cut his way out of my brain with a laser torch. At the same time, the truth was as real as gravity or sunlight or every memory I had of the good times.

Anger was my go-to solution for every crisis. This was different, more personal, closer to my soul. I knew X wasn’t toying with me, and also that he couldn’t help me experience loss. This was just for me.

“There is nothing for us on Maglan. The sooner we’re gone, the better. Remaining on this planet can only cause you pain, and that is not conducive to the successful completion of your mission,” X-37 said.

“What the hell is my mission if everyone I care about is dead?” I marched forward, afraid that if I didn’t I would sit down, and if I sat down I might never get back up.

“Your predecessor believed that Elise and many others took the fight to the invaders, and now we know that is in the Zakion system on Oroth. Perhaps we can join the fight,” X-37 said. “Find a star ship. Search for survivors. Get some payback, Reaper Cain.”

“When were you ever worried about payback?” I started jogging again, increasing the pace until I was running hard.

“An effective LAI often speaks the host’s language, and we’ve been together for a long time.”

“Stop blowing smoke up my ass.”

“Reaper Cain, let’s agree you are the sum of your prior experiences regardless of which body you inhabited.”

“That’s easy for you to say, X. I’m not an LAI. I’m not supposed to have more than one body. I was never downloaded into a host’s nerve-ware.” I reached the highway and climbed to the upper level. Cars lined the lane leading away from the city. None of them worked. Most were empty, but some held the rotted skeletons of entire families.

“I really hate the Oroth assholes.” I crossed to the less crowded lanes and left the carnage behind. “There were millions of people living in this part of Maglan.”

X-37 ignored the comment. “You need wheels or wings, Reaper Cain, or you will become one of the Maglan tragedies.”

“At least we agree on something.”

“I am making the best suggestions I can, which is central to my mandate as a guardian of your wellbeing.” X-37 displayed maps of roads leading into and out of Maglan City. “You must, of course, make all of the decisions.”

We didn’t talk much for the next hour. Occasionally, X put something on my HUD—general information about the area or a warning. “The amount of data I can raid from active computer networks is extremely limited. Most of the city’s traffic cameras were destroyed in the fighting.”

“We’ll do it the old-fashioned way—scout the area, pay attention, try not to die.” I entered a tall building and searched the lower level for threats. Five seconds into the search, I knew there were no resources to scavenge.

Alone, relatively safe, I stared out the window without moving. Leaves blew down the street. A piece of trash tumbled after them. Loneliness had a sound, and it was wind through the tallest buildings of Maglan City.

I continued toward the municipal spaceport. Not the best option on the planet but definitely the closest. Stray dogs avoided me. Eyes watched me from windows, but they were probably cats.

Green spaces, parks, and public buildings made up the core of the city—libraries, low cost gymnasiums, and dozens of small businesses. A few of the fountains were still running lazily. A deer darted away from one, not bothering to swing its antlers at me. The white and black striped fur looked wild and unkept. The animal had a scar down one flank.

“Never saw a deer before Maglan,” I said, then climbed onto the edge of the fountain. Algae and floating plants covered the surface.

“The municipal spaceport is a few blocks from here,” X-37 said.

“Scan for comms,” I said.

“I have been doing that since we entered the city. Nothing but a recording directing citizens to check nonessential belongings before approaching their designated shuttle,” X-37 said. “The time stamp is nearly ten years old.”

“How does that work when my predecessor just attacked the station and tried to eliminate me?” I asked.

“We sought Elise and the others for years and spent a lot of time fighting to stay alive. I didn’t know that he was going to pull your plug,” X-37 said.

“Dishonesty detected.”

“That’s my line, Reaper Cain.”

I adjusted my pack, stepped into the deserted street, and started to run again. Some topics were better left untouched. The chance of throwing X-37 into a programming conflict was real. He wasn’t supposed to lie to me or seek his own immortality. One mistake, and he would shut down permanently. He especially wasn’t supposed to murder his host, though at the time, he’d been in the original me and I’d been sleeping peacefully in clone pod goo.

“Sorry I brought it up, X. Let’s just get to the spaceport. Preferably, double time”

X answered me instantly. “That’s up to you. And your feet.”

* * *

Five men searched the spaceport. I watched them from the shadows of a nearby building. The only ship I saw was missing both engines and had a hole through the fuselage. Others could be concealed in one of the hangers, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a miracle of that magnitude.

“They don’t look like soldiers,” I said, “but they know how to move. Sneaking up on them would take a lot of work.”

“Agreed, Reaper Cain, and to what purpose. They have crude weapons, and their clothing is tattered. You could interrogate them though the information would be of limited value.”

Two of the group argued until they all stopped. The other three spread out and faced outward, posting watch like they had been attacked before and wanted to avoid the experience now. Each man carried a tall staff or walking stick that doubled as a tool and defensive weapon. They carried two packs per man—one full and the other sagging empty, ready for loot.

“They’re looking to fill those packs,” I said.

“Survival requires resource gathering,” X-37 said. “You are looking at evidence of the planet-wide exodus. The people of Wallach, Xad, and Yansden fled their own worlds long ago. They know how and when to leave a bad situation behind.”

“I had hoped they would learn to settle down and make this planet their home,” I said.

“Hope is not a strategy LAIs understand.”

“It’s more like dessert.”

“I fail to see the analogy, Reaper Cain.”

“It’s not enough all by itself,” I said. “The wanderers kept moving. I want to check these hangars.”

“Good plan,” X-37 said. “Keep your eyes open.”

I closed my eyes and walked a few steps.

“Not funny, Reaper Cain.”

“It was a little funny.”

The first hangar was empty. On my way toward the second, I felt eyes on my back. “What did I miss, X?”

“Unknown. Act natural until you are inside the building. Then we can look out with less chance for our stalker to realize we’re onto him.”

“Or her,” I said.

“Or it.”

“Good one, X. We could be on our way to filling the belly of a monster,” I said.

“Reaper Cain, that would be a serious problem. My recommendation is to not get eaten.”

I stepped inside, quickly checked the large room, and then peeked out a window. The sun was in my eyes. I watched for a silhouette on a rooftop or a shape darting between buildings, and saw nothing.

“Why can’t anything be easy, X?”

“Recommendation, locate and neutralize this new threat,” X-37 said.

“That’s the plan.”

11

Darkness fell like a hammer. The evening breeze died away one city block at a time, releasing trees and neglected landscaping to hang limply. Lupine hunters howled to their packs and ran the streets of a once great metropolis.

“There are no functioning vehicles in this hangar,” X-37 said. “The starport occupies ten city blocks. There is a crashed assault shuttle three hundred meters due north of your current position.”

“Find one that flies.”

“You may need to scavenge parts from several vehicles,” X-37 said. “I will guide you through the repair process.”

“Thanks.” I knew my LAI would take care of me, but I was distracted. He searched any computer still connected to electricity—most of those were household appliances. I watched for the lurker. Instinct warned me this threat was different. “I’m going on the offensive.”

“Very good, Reaper Cain. Entering focus mode. There will be a list of my discoveries waiting when you have dealt with this problem.”

I slipped out a back door, hid in the alleyway until I was sure no one was watching me, then moved along the side of the building. At the corner, I stopped again and waited.

An animal, or maybe a human, cried in the night. “Give me an estimate on the distance, X.”

“The voice is most likely one half to one mile south by southwest of your position. I have marked it on your HUD map of the city but advise against seeking the source of the sound.”

“Agreed, X. Alert me if there is another, and plot the location of human versus animal sounds at night. I want to know who is hunting, who is hiding, and who is dangerous,” I said.

“Added to my task list. I have detected a series of sounds that are much closer. You may have missed them,” X-37 said.

“You have my attention.” A cool breeze touched my skin.

“Directly across the landing field between this building and the next, there was the sound of a window opening. Very subtle. Whoever opened it was attempting to be as silent as possible.”

I searched the large, square building that appeared to be an exact copy of the one I had just cleared. Like many hangars on Maglan, both had windows that were rarely opened—existing to provide natural light and occasionally ventilation. Neither of these uses were the most efficient. I knew the hangars at the Maglan City spaceport handled all the important tasks with modern power, cooling, and lighting systems. The windows were mostly cosmetic but were useful for snipers and birdwatchers. I didn’t see any birds at the moment.

“All right, I give up. Which window?”

“Top level, third from the south end of the building,” X-37 said.

I checked other features of the building. “That is a corner room, possibly a CEO’s office. It’s also close to the roof access. A sniper would command a larger area from that window than any of the middle windows and would have the option to transition to the rooftop to get an eye on the rest of the complex.”

“Those were the conclusions of my analysis as well, Reaper Cain.”

I backed away from my corner, sinking deeper into the night. If my estimation of my opponent’s position was correct, the building should block any chance of him seeing me or detecting me with advanced optics. The moment I was out of view, I ran to the back of my building and searched for a way to outflank my adversary.

“He may have moved,” X-37 said.

“Thought of that already. Hopefully I can reshuffle the deck with decisive action. Keep an eye—and an ear—out for anything I miss,” I said, then paused before darting across an open area. Stealth required slow, deliberate movements but that wasn’t what I was about right now. I could become a ghost once I’d left the place my opponent thought I was hiding.

The next building was in disrepair. I lowered my heart rate, checked my surroundings, and found no signs of detection or ambush.

Darkness obscured a large hole in the wall and fragments of concrete and glass. A missile or artillery round had blown apart this section of the building. I moved into the building, careful not to twist an ankle on the rubble.

Inside the third hangar building were dozens of trucks, all of them looted for wheels and other parts. Animal tracks marked the dusty floor. Hundreds of birds roosted in the support beams near the ceiling.

“You should increase your pace if your intent is still to out flank your adversary,” X-37 said. “I am keeping track of the elapsed time of your pursuit of this objective in case you become distracted.”

“Your sense of time is solid,” I said as I ran my eyes over the scene.

“Compliment detected.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.” I peeked through a window before exiting.

“I detect no change in the situation. That does not mean that this mystery person is still watching from the window of hangar one,” X-37 said.

I left through a side door and soon reached the back of hangar one.

“Entering this building is risky, Reaper Cain.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“Not without help from a team. It is impossible to maintain surveillance on all sides of the building by yourself. I merely wished to remind you to proceed with caution,” X-37 said.

“It’s all coming back to me.” I entered the building like a shadow, moved smoothly through the first few rooms, and climbed a set of stairs at the rear of the building. I avoided the large central hangar where I would be visible to the upper level of manager suites.

At each new threshold, I allowed a moment for X-37 to analyze what I saw, then moved into the new room or hallway. This place was larger than it looked, even though I had already been through two buildings just like it.

“Please stand by, Halek… Cain,” X-37 said.

Alarmed, I stepped into one of the manager suites and froze. “What’s wrong, X?”

“One moment.”

“X?”

“Please stand by. Processing.”

I counted to one hundred, watching and listening for a surprise attack. With my luck, I would get ambushed while my LAI was on the fritz.

The room felt smaller than it should. Operating solo wasn’t new to me. I liked to work alone and often did, but suddenly I felt isolated like never before. Feels like just yesterday I was waking up from a clone pod. Maglan wasn’t the Maglan I remembered. All my friends were gone and now my LAI was giving me the silent treatment.

“Please continue, Reaper Cain.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“You are not the only one with battle scars. Limited artificial intelligences aren’t designed for this type of download and reintegration. Only your predecessor’s very specific commands allowed it to happen at all. Worse, it was a rush job.”

“You mentioned the tablet wasn’t large enough for the entire job.” I hefted the pack on my back, feeling the slight weight of the device.” I didn’t know if I wanted to take this discussion further.

“Correct. I am not sure how to fully restore my functionality,” X-37 said.

“Just warn me next time.”

“I will do my best.”

I continued my search. The door to the corner room stood open. I approached with only the knife as a weapon. The rifle still didn’t work and probably never would if Saw-say had been telling the truth.

One slice of the room came into view, then another, and another, until I had seen most of it without passing through the doorway. Rushing in, I confirmed my suspicion.

Whoever had been stalking me was already gone.

“I don’t see any clues,” X-37 said.

“Except for the desk pulled up to the window,” I said, examining the executive sized piece of office furniture. “A sniper could lay across this and be perfectly level with the window sill.”

I touched the surface, expecting to find it still warm. Memories of Reaper training surfaced. This scene looked a lot like a module of the advanced sniper training I’d gone through not long after getting fitted with my cybernetic arm.

“What is your verdict, Reaper Cain? My ability to measure your tactile senses is much weaker than visual or auditory input.”

“It’s not warm, but it’s not as cool as it should be. Someone was here.” I left the room, more aware than ever that I was in trouble. This stranger had been watching me for a while, and he or she was good. “I’m going to the roof.”

“My analysis suggests there is a high probability of a dangerous confrontation in that direction,” X-37 said.

The stairwell at the end of the hall was dark and uninviting. Dank air filled my nostrils. Spiderwebs formed a mesh between the handrails and the walls. For a second I doubted my instincts. I couldn’t imagine anyone opening the doors.

But if I’d gone this way, I wouldn’t have touched anything and would have closed the doors behind me. My opponent must have been rushed, otherwise he would have put the desk back where he found it.

Assuming he thought like a Reaper.

Climbing the stairs didn’t take long. There were two turns. I heard a voice as I approached the second turn.

“Stop right there. I have you in my sights,” a man said. His voice was rough, ruined from yelling, smoking, injury, or a combination of the three.

“He does not sound like you, Reaper Cain, even allowing for the obvious damage this individual has done to his vocal cords,” X-37 said. “This may not be an HC clone as I had feared.”

I made a fist and held it to indicate that I heard X and didn’t disagree.

“What do you want?” I asked, staring into the darkness above and hoping X-37 could parse more information from the scene than I could.

“There is only one thing to want on Maglan, and that is to not die,” he said. “Or get robbed.”

“You could avoid both by just staying away from me. Why have you been watching me?”

“I was trying to decide if I should waste a bullet to kill you.” The man’s voice was level, calm—just like most snipers I’d known.

“So what’s the verdict?”

A pause.

“I have a lot of bullets,” he said.

“Danger, Reaper Cain.”

12

“You think, X?” I said. “Good to know, but it doesn’t answer my question. Are we going to kill each other, or can we talk?”

“Are you a Reaper?” he asked, still invisible no matter how I shifted my position.

“I’m the last Reaper. Retired and wanting to stay that way.” I shined my flashlight, saw nothing, and quickly turned it off. A second later, I sidestepped, hoping I had blinded him for a second. Since I couldn’t see, I stayed around the corner of the stairwell where he wouldn’t have a shot at me.

“That’s what they all say. Step out where I can see you again,” he said. “Or something. This isn’t my first encounter with one of you. Sneak up on me once, shame on you. Sneak up on me twice, shame on me.”

“If I snuck up on you once, you’d be dead, captured, or begging for your life,” I said.

“Probably dead. I’m not about to be captured, and I haven’t begged since Dreadmax,” he said.

“You’re from Dreadmax?” I tapped a message to X, directing him to figure out who this guy was.

“Yeah. Hardened killer, just like you. More like you than you realize.”

“I doubt that.” I lowered all my gear—including the useless Hagg rifle—to the floor and set the bundle down without a sound. With just the knife, I edged into position to take him by surprise if he came after me.

“You should know I’m using an HDK Dominator II,” he said.

“So you can shoot through metal stairs,” I said. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to put you in for a good sportsman award.”

“I also have a top notch thermal imager. Don’t think for a second I’m coming down those stairs to get my throat cut,” he said. “Excellent positioning, by the way. You’re not terrible at this.”

“I’m running out of ideas, X.” I kept my voice low.

“You could retreat. Force him to come after you or escape entirely and never deal with him again,” X-37 said.

“How would I get any information?”

X-37 barely hesitated. It was like he had an answer ready. “The potential information to be gained is not worth the substantial risk. If you do not keep this man engaged with conversation, he will shoot you through the stairs. Your other option is to disappear.”

“If I run, he’ll shoot me through walls. He probably saw me hiding on that corner but not through the entire building when I circled behind it,” I said.

“You must make the decision, Reaper Cain. I advise retreat. This confrontation is simply not worth it.”

“I can’t have him hunting me while I locate and repair a ship,” I said.

I flinched as a subtle, but effective shock went up my spine. X-37 hadn’t done that to me for a long time.

A rifle crack split the night. Sparks and shrapnel sprayed me in the face. I fell backward, rolled, and came to my feet near the door to the stairwell.

“Nice try, but you missed!” I shouted. “Thanks for the warning, X. That was close.”

A second shot punched through the metal and shattered a portion of the concrete wall. Bits of debris slashed a wound under my left eye.

“That last shot was a guess,” I said, then bolted down the stairwell.

“I recommend you don’t give him a chance to guess again,” X-37 said. “From that distance, I doubt he’ll miss now that we are actively engaging in hostilities.”

I gasped for breath, turning another corner in the stairwell. “That’s a lot of words to say he’s trying to murder me.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t delve into moral ambiguities,” X-37 said.”Or semantics.”

I broke into the ground floor hallway and sprinted to the door. “Do you think he’s a Reaper, one of these clones?”

“Unknown, but unlikely. I should be able to tell from voice analysis, though he might have been disguising his vocal characteristics or suffered significant damage from yelling or injury.”

“Things that every Reaper endures eventually,” I muttered, then sprinted to the next building. I chose a different structure than I had used to hide my approach.

Instinct prompted me to look back in time to see my adversary running down the face of hangar one, a rappelling line taut behind him. He wasn’t bouncing on the balls of his feet like a green recruit. He faced the ground and was just running straight down the side, helmet visor darkened and his HDK slung over his shoulder. I never enjoyed the advanced technique, but I could do it. This stranger looked like he’d done it a lot.

“I don’t like that, X.” I burst into the next hanger building and sprinted across the main room, looking for a place to hide, acquire a better weapon, or set up a defensive position. “Why is he transitioning from sniper mode to pursuit mode?”

“Most likely he knows you won’t allow him to try the same tricks twice, and he must want to kill you sooner rather than later,” X-37 said.

“Sounds like a killer after my own heart. Why can’t anyone I meet be friendly,” I said as I gave up on the room holding weapons and headed toward the exit. There were pieces of vehicles everywhere, but none of them large enough to hide behind, and I didn’t relish the idea of getting pinned down.

“You could have asked him for an alliance,” X-37 said.

“I didn’t get a chance.”

“Defensiveness detected.”

“Gods damn it, X, whose side are you on?” I veered away from the larger buildings. “Give me directions to the crashed assault craft. Maybe I can find a weapon. I’d take a combat knife over this piece of crap I’m using now, or maybe I could have an HDK Dominator.”

“That would significantly improve your odds, Reaper Cain.”

Resisting the urge to run at full speed, I stopped at each building corner to check my back trail. My adversary didn’t reveal his position. If I were him, I would have raced ahead along a different route to set up and ambush—difficult but not impossible. Maglan City had plenty of room to maneuver. He knew the terrain better than I did.

“What am I missing, X?” Something about the situation felt off.

“He might not be operating alone. Did you consider that?”

“Of course I did,” I lied. “Have you detected other threats?”

“I have not, Reaper Cain.”

“Run an analysis of everything we’ve seen and make sure to check vocal inflection of our negotiation session on the stairwell,” I said. “Tell me if you think he is operating alone.”

“Do you think he is?” X-37 asked.

“I don’t want to pollute your analysis.”

X-37 made a series of clicking sounds. “Give me some credit. I’m not that easy to influence. To answer your question, there is no evidence to indicate he has confederates. Additionally, you would have already encountered a blocking team when you tried to flee his sniper attack. This man is good. He would utilize a squad if he had one.”

“That’s what I thought.” My HUD showed a route to the crashed assault craft. I moved carefully, constantly searching for the sniper with the rough voice. “I wonder what he looks like up close.”

“Unfortunately, Reaper Cain, I suspect we will find out sooner than we would like,” X-37 said.

“I see the assault craft. Looks like it’s in pretty decent shape. I hope it went down after the looters had their way with this area,” I said. “Give me something that isn’t picked over.”

“If the vehicle remained intact, it will be difficult to access without codes or special tools,” X-37 said. “You will find it nearly impossible to force your way inside without your Reaper blade and explosives.”

“Then you better brush up on your code hacking algorithms.” I spotted the assault shuttle in the middle of the street, only a few yards from a major intersection near the edge of the spaceport. The pilot must have attempted an emergency landing and missed the landing zone.

The vehicle was a Maglan original, developed from a combination of Union, Xad, and Wallach technology. The fuselage was more oval than any of the designs before it, with stubby wings loaded with antigravity thrusters on the underside. The breakthrough was on the conservation of the wing’s aerodynamics despite the bulky thrusters.

It had a fin on the top that made it look like an ocean mammal, but that too was stubby and housed sensors and antennas. It didn’t look like much, but during the demonstrations of the vehicle, I’d seen how durable this piece was—an important feature to avoid losing the ability to communicate with allies and detect enemies.

Most of the weapons were on the nose of the ship. Side doors could be opened for gunners if they had them equipped that way. I fantasized briefly about taking one of the larger chain guns, but I doubted I could carry it without Archangel armor or the Black Phoenix exoskeleton.

I crossed the distance to the vessel, then moved to the rear of it where there was a trench carved in the concrete from the landing. I dropped down and waited for a bullet to whiz over my head.

Nothing happened. Crouching low, I moved closer to the vehicle and looked for a way to get inside. The damn thing was locked up as tight as a convent.

“Get working on those codes, X.”

“I began searching for access to this vehicle’s electronics the moment you found the trench,” X-37 said. “Apparently, it suffered a catastrophic power failure and I am struggling to find even a superficial power source.”

“That thing should have batteries made to last decades,” I said.

“There are dozens of scenarios that might have caused a drain on said batteries after it went down,” X-37 said. “I am running a new scan and looking for places I might introduce power to get things working again.”

“That’s what I like to hear, X.” I focused my attention outward, searching for my adversary and hoping there wouldn’t be a roving band of locals to complicate my situation.

I pressed as deep into the shadows reaching from the assault craft as possible. The moment my adversary turned his thermal imager this way, I’d be spotted, but I was hoping not to draw his attention to this area in general. With any kind of luck, he’d be on a different street searching in the wrong place.

Something moved down the street. I watched, confident that I had detected the rough-voiced sniper. So much for him searching the wrong street.

I didn’t need a lot of clues, visual or otherwise. You rarely saw an enemy in his or her entirety, whether you were dealing with a long-range confrontation or storming a room. It was always the toe of a boot sticking out from behind a door, or a shoulder, or the partial silhouette of a face caught in the backlight from a window.

“Do something, X. We’re out of time.” I didn’t bother to draw the knife. I was probably going to need both hands to crawl away from this disaster.

“I have located an access panel. The battery from your flashlight should be sufficient. Please move one point seven eight meters ahead of your current position, and look for a panel with these markings.”

My HUD displayed a lopsided chevron within a circle and the numbers 45 – 25. I scrambled forward and quickly located the panel.

“Remove it, then connect your flashlight battery to the wiring within,” X-37 said. He didn’t go into excessive detail. I could do the basics without his help.

I pried open the panel with my knife, sheathed it, and attached the battery. Seconds later, X-37 had the emergency hatch open. I crawled inside and closed it behind me.

“Good work, X,” I said. “That was close. If he spotted me, there could be problems later but I’m really hoping for some decent weapons to even the odds.”

X-37 said nothing. A low buzz of static filled my ear, something I never enjoyed hearing. My previous adventures with the LAI had taken us through some times when he’d been attacked or compromised by various entities.

“Can you help me break into the armory?” I said the moment I found the triple locker near the back of the main passenger compartment.

“Negative, Reaper Cain. I’m dealing with some issues right now.”

“Okay, X. Looks like nothing in here is locked anyway.”

Random sounds whispered in my ear—beeps, chirps, and a lot of static. My LAI was definitely having issues. I listened but continued my search for anything that would help me win a showdown with a sniper.

13

A careful search of the assault shuttle revealed an assortment of weapons. Three HDK Dominator III Deathlance models occupied the racks, which were conveniently unlocked. When I left the Union, these things were only a concept. There was also a pair of Ryker 55 pistols and an excellent combat knife.

“This is like a birthday present from my worst enemies,” I said. “Maybe the Union isn’t the root of all evil.”

“Sarcasm detected.”

Designed to hit harder, shoot faster, and have nearly perfect accuracy out of the box, the rifles and the pistols were completely useless without ammunition. I searched every conceivable place a bullet could be hidden and found nothing.

“Your heart rate and blood pressure suggest that you feel the need to swear profusely,” X-37 said. “I’m curious as to why you have not shared your delightful vocabulary with me.”

“It’s fine, X. I’m fine. Glad you’re back.” I balled up my left fist, barely caring that it was no longer cybernetic. “I’m good, but it seems like someone’s toying with me. Who leaves guns like these and no ammunition?”

“My analysis suggests someone took all the guns and ammunition they needed and left these behind because they could not carry them,” X-37 said.

“Don’t get all rational on me and use facts,” I muttered. “I’ll just have to find somebody with ammunition and take it from them.”

“This has been one of your go to solutions in the past. My records show that it has an eighty-nine percent success rate, but I am missing the file that explains why.”

“You win some, you lose some, X.”

“This seems obvious.” My LAI didn’t bother to continue the conversation, which was for the best.

I checked my HUD for the elapsed time and found that nearly fifteen minutes had passed. The sniper could be poking around outside the ship by now. If he had explosive charges, he might make things difficult, but I doubted he could destroy the assault shuttle or even force his way inside. X-37 had told me I would need explosives and my Reaper blade to force entry.

If the sniper tried, I’d have plenty of advanced warning, and he would draw all kinds of predators from the area with the noise he would have to make.

“Hey, X, did you reset the code?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. There is a thirty-one percent chance that an expert with sufficient explosives could breach the armor of this assault shuttle. It is significantly tougher than any other I have on record. I’m currently searching for a reason.”

“You always do.”

“I have recalculated the sniper’s chance as thirteen percent on the assumption he doesn’t have a Reaper blade or other pry tool to force apart blasted panels.”

“Great. We should celebrate with whiskey and cigars.”

“There are none on this ship.”

“Of course there aren’t.”

I ditched the useless Hagg rifle and acquired one of the new HDKs, strapping it next to my backpack that carried the small computer holding a good portion of X-37’s memory. Cursing my stupidity, I activated the ship’s interior systems and plugged in the device.

“Are you there, buddy?” I waited but got no response. One of the pistols went in the backpack, the other I tucked through my belt.

There had been missions in my previous life where my LAI went dormant to avoid detection. This convinced me I wasn’t the only one being hunted. The sniper wanted to take me out, and a computer system in the immediate vicinity was giving my LAI grief. Assault shuttles didn’t normally have an AI, but maybe things had changed while I was being baked in a clone pod. X-37 was good, but even a basic AI would have a significant advantage in processing power and programming—specifically the fact that an artificial intelligence would have fewer restrictions than a limited artificial intelligence.

I did a circuit of the vehicle’s interior and waited. With no cameras activated to the exterior, there wasn’t much I could do to prepare for whatever the sniper was doing to kill me. Trapped and blind wasn’t my favorite position.

“Reaper Cain, we must leave this vehicle immediately,” X-37 finally said.

“Your computer host needs charging and this seems like the best place to do it,” I said. “Just help me prepare for the fight. That sniper won’t wait forever.”

“Losing power is a risk we will have to take. Leave now, Reaper Cain.”

“I need more information. You’re freaking me out.”

“This assault craft belonged to somebody powerful. Our situation is not what it seems. Your new rifle is a prime example. That weapon was never approved for use,” X-37 said.

I shrugged. “Who cares? I assumed it had been pushed through the final evaluation process while I was in prison. A lot has changed since then. It’s just a rifle.”

“You don’t understand, Reaper Cain. The shuttle belongs to someone who never had to follow Union rules. We need to, in your words, un-ass the area before shit gets real.”

“Fine. Access the exterior cameras and tell me if we’re going to get shot in the head the moment we leave this ship,” I said.

“I am unable to accomplish that task,” X-37 said. “Please disconnect me from the power source immediately. I cannot overstate the importance of this action.”

I let out a long breath, resisting the urge to swear as I did what my LAI demanded. X-37’s concerns sent shivers up the back of my neck. He seemed afraid, which was impossible.

This day was just going to continue to suck. “Come to Maglan, they said. Everyone will be safe and happy, they said.”

“Stand by,” X-37 said.

“For what? The identity of this super scary boogie man?”

Power flickered in the cockpit. I tensed, ready for action. An image straight out of my worst nightmare appeared on the main view screen. The man was gaunt, his face sunken as though he’d been forced onto a starvation diet. His pale blue eyes were ghostly and his blonde hair was nearly translucent, but worst of all he stared straight into my soul even though this was a static image—a personnel file or a mugshot.

I’d woken up from hundreds of nightmares from the hard gaze of this man—heart racing, body trembling every time. Nobody, not even my LAI, should know about this nameless terror.

“Who the hell is that, X? And don’t tell me you’ve started reading my mind and pulling images out of my dreams,” I said.

“You know that is impossible and would cause me to shut down immediately,” X-37 said. “That is Dr. David Scheid, the only scientist to be removed from the Reaper program against his will. The reason cited was moral deficiency.”

“He got canned for lacking morals? How can you have less than zero? The Reaper Corps never had any standards that approached human decency.” Each word sounded like someone else was speaking them. I felt like someone had just clubbed me over the head. Naming the man wasn’t dispelling the primal reaction I had to his image.

“This was Dr. Scheid’s shuttle. If he left any type of spyware in the program, we are in trouble. I believe we may have discovered the primary suspect in the cloning operation,” X-37 said. “The records of why he and his team abandoned this assault ship were wiped, but it was a big file. In the digital world, big files often indicate danger.”

“Yeah, sure.” I got my shit together, normalizing my breathing, reminding myself this ghost wasn’t actually here, and listing the things X and I needed for survival. “That doesn’t change the fact that your host computer is holding half your memories and needs power.”

“If you don’t leave now, we will both suffer a fate worse than death. Take your chances with the sniper, Reaper Cain.”

I hated when my partner was right. “You better be on your game for this one. I’ll need maps and information as fast as you can give it to me, but only at the right time. I’ll be running the moment we leave the shuttle. No distractions until we reach safety. The sniper will be set up on the ship with the range locked in with the wind and humidity measured and accounted for.”

“Understood, Reaper Cain.”

I checked my gear, making sure my backpack in particular was closed and strapped snuggly in place. Losing the computer would be like losing a limb. My LAI wasn’t fully integrated. No matter what he said, saving my annoying digital babysitter was job one.

The HKD Dominator III Deathlance is the next most important piece of gear, even though I haven’t found ammunition yet. I never thought I would own a D3D.

“Get ready, X. I’m making a run for the next building—not one of the hangars,” I said.

“I’ll go where you go,” he said.

“You’re the funniest LAI in the room, X.”

“Compliment detected.”

“Three, two, one—” I hit the door button and bounced on the balls of my feet until it lifted. Sprinting down the still falling ramp felt good. I didn’t look for the sniper, but I kept my eyes open knowing that X-37 would be paying attention to whatever I saw as well.

Wind blew through my short hair. Three strides into my escape, I veered right. The sound of a gunshot reached me a second later. I didn’t see where the slug went but assumed it was a close call. All my attention was on reaching the train depot straight ahead.

The stairs were steeper than they looked. My knees flexed to support my weight and my forward momentum as I took them two at a time. Leaves tumbled around me, dancing with faded bits of trash. The place was a mess. Windblown dirt made the top step slippery, and I nearly went down.

Another shot rang out. This time, I felt it pass me. The hot flick on my neck stung even though I knew instinctively it was a miss. A strike from a HDK Dominator III would mean death.

The arches at the main entrance didn’t have doors. This was a public space in every sense of the word, or had been when Maglan had a population. I dove, rolled, and nearly lost the backpack and the rifle. Masonry exploded where my head would have been had I entered with less style.

I slowed my pace, watching for survivors. Bed rolls and other camping detritus lay in random patterns. A lot of people had sheltered here at one time. Someone, or something, had scattered them, probably in the middle of the night when they were least prepared. None of the evidence seemed fresh, so I continued to the rail access on the lower level.

The escalators were silent and partially cloaked in the darkness of the lower level. I jumped, landed between a pair of them, and slid to the bottom, hoping this wasn’t my most recent mistake. Leaping into the unknown usually had consequences.

“Please allow your eyes to adjust before charging ahead,” X-37 said. “Together, we can listen for pursuit.”

I stumbled blindly forward, plagued by the image of Dr. David Scheid. “What would I do without you?”

“Did you injure yourself on the way down,” X asked.

“No, X. Just some post traumatic stress.” I stumbled into the darkness. “I never thought Scheid was real. Torture does things to your dreams. Who questions the identity of the devil when he shows up?”

“I have no evidence the devil exists or of Dr. David Scheid being an embodiment of that myth.”

“Trust me, X. The devil is as real as I am.”

“You can’t possibly know that. I would have noticed.”

I reached for the wall to guide my way and touched only air, then reluctantly stopped. “You and me, X. We were the devil for a long time.”

Silence. Distant sounds of rats scurrying through the subway tunnels. Wind finding its way below ground.

“I have moved rest and relaxation up on your task list. You need a whiskey and a cigar, Reaper Cain.”

“Hell yeah, I do.”

14

My eyes adjusted. I moved forward, hands empty but ready to draw the knife if needed. The rails were empty for as far as I could see. The boarding zone looked like there had been panic here as well. I saw scraps of clothing, one empty pistol magazine, and a child’s toy.

“I think the evacuation went better in some places than others,” I said.

“Agreed. The people of Maglan are exceptionally skilled at mass transportation due to their background, but there was chaos and disorder here.”

I moved into the tunnel, walking on the narrow access way beside the rails. I knew from experience that subway tunnels were a double-edged sword. They could allow quick movement below ground but were also a terrible place to be trapped. There would be doors and maintenance tunnels, but not very many, and they were almost always locked.

“Tell me about that, X. What did I miss during the last ten years?”

My LAI didn’t answer for several minutes, which was fine. I was falling into a rhythm, breathing steadily and watching for threats. Would the watcher pursue me underground? Maybe. There were plenty of other dangers in a ruined city like this.

“The attack began on your estate,” X-37 said.

“You mentioned that. You also said my mother was killed by an HC unit but I want proof.”

“There are other details,” X-37 said. “The first assassination attempt was not subtle. Three pedestrians, possibly HC units but there’s no way to tell, approached your estate during one of the rare public events you allowed.”

“I allowed visitors to my cigar factory?”

“You did, Reaper Cain. The fact that you do not remember this suggests that the clone program began sometime before you instituted this practice,” X-37 said. “It was quite a popular tourist destination. At the end, sample cigars were distributed to adults and plastic Reaper blades to children who immediately began to run wild and have mock battles.”

I stopped walking. “I stuck around for that? Was I drunk?”

“That was why you were not killed in the initial attack. You had gone to the city to scout a competitor’s tobacco shop and visit Tom, who married a woman named Amanda Dancer, by the way.” X-37 waited for me to get moving again before continuing the story. “The assassins never made it inside the tour, but all three of them were carrying nuclear devices that they detonated simultaneously after triangulating around your manor house. There were no survivors. If you persist on this quest to see your home, you will find only a wasteland.”

“I still have to see it.”

“Understood. I will find a suitable place to view it from a distance and add that to your someday maybe task list.”

“Don’t give me that ‘someday maybe’ bullshit.” Water dripped in the distance, proof that the subway tunnel had been abandoned for a long time. I didn’t know a lot about their operation but was familiar with their maintenance practices and allowing water to accumulate was a definite no no. “Tell me more. What happened next?”

“Your predecessor went into hiding and sought your mother, sister, Elise, and the others. You never found any of them. Everywhere you went, you were plagued by assassination attempts and caught in the middle of random battles. There are many details I am unable to understand, either because I lost some of my memory, or because we never discovered all of the players involved.”

I came to a collapse and the source of the water dripping down from the street above. Climbing up would be easier than going back to the last exit I passed, so I started picking my way through the rubble.

“You already encountered the Jump Force Troopers and the Hagg humanoids. They had a tenuous alliance in the early days of the war, but I believe the Hagg merely follow the Oroth soldiers along their planet hopping conquests and sometimes fought beside them,” X-37 said. “Your predecessor and I had many arguments about whether or not Oroth military scientists were the creators of the Halek Cain clones.”

“We know better now, don’t we? What was your original theory?” I asked.

“Due to lack of evidence, I assumed there had to be some connection between the Oroth and Hagg systems, and that one of them designed, manufactured, and sent the clones to assassinate you as a means of cleaning up their back trail. If this was true, one might assume you were a threat to them. Your predecessor refused to agree until I could show motivation and method.” X-37 waited for me to climb to the surface, then look around. When no one shot me dead, he began again. “Our discovery in the assault shuttle offers new insight but also raises questions. For example, how is it that he shows up here, so far from the Union, at the same time as the Oroth invasion?”

X paused but started again before I could talk. “Doctor David Scheid would definitely have the motivation and the skills to create a clone program. He hated you with a passion.”

“That seems unreasonable.” I slipped quickly through the shadows of false dawn. I needed to sleep, but I also needed to put as much distance between me and the watcher as possible—at least until I was better equipped.

“It actually is quite sensible,” X-37 said. “Scheid was obsessed with regeneration and clones. He was young and very junior when the Reaper program began. His knowledge of regeneration and healing was vital to the cybernetics program, but clones were taboo and illegal.”

“Nice of Union dark ops to follow the law. That’s a first.”

“I believe it was more of a budgetary issue at that time,” X-37 said. “The doctor of course did many projects off the books. With his illicit cloning experiments, and his legitimate healing projects, ninety-eight percent of his experiments failed on anybody but your predecessor’s DNA.”

“It doesn’t seem like my fault.” I moved away from the tunnel collapse to a thoroughly looted supermarket. Most of the buildings in this area were scorched by fire, and the only glass I saw was broken into tiny fragments.

“Hatred is often irrational, Reaper Cain.”

“Don’t I know it.”

The sun came up moments after I ducked into the supermarket. I crouched in a pile of shelves and watched the window. Standing too close to it was dangerous, so I took what view I could from here. Sunlight gave me a boost of energy, a good thing since I needed to stay awake.

“I could continue to describe the events of the next ten years, but they are somewhat repetitive. We ran, we fought, we searched for enemies and answers until we learned of the clone station. The rest of the story is yours,” X-37 said.

“Thanks, X.” Something about the rising sun soothed me. I felt the old kinship with my LAI and didn’t care if that was natural or even safe. Without him, I’d just be talking to myself like a crazy person.

A bullet ripped through the air, slicing the left side of my head, spraying blood from the top of my left ear. I rolled away, cursing incoherently.

“Why couldn’t I have found a grocery store with an ammunition aisle?” I pressed one hand to my wound as I found a better hiding place. Blood oozed between my fingers. “I’m really getting annoyed with this character. Who the hell does he think he is?”

“I can’t answer that question,” X-37 said. “But you can find ammunition in aisle nine right next to body armor and jet packs.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. Did it lighten the mood?”

“I want to punch you in your face,” I said.

“Impossible.”

“Less jokes more keeping me alive,” I said, looking for the back door. A collapsed wall blocked my path. I had to go out the front, in broad daylight, after already getting shot once. I taped some sterile gauze to my ear and ignored the fact that I had no more first-aid supplies. Why dwell on the negative?

I waited thirty minutes, then edged toward the front door.

“You’re moving toward a confrontation you cannot win,” X-37 said. “I cannot condone this course of action.”

“I’m tired of waiting around. I’m not going to sit here forever,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”

“This does not reassure me, Reaper Cain.”

“Deal with it.”

“How exactly do you plan to close with and destroy your enemy?” X-37 asked.

“I’ll watch and wait. Maybe until nightfall. If he comes after me, I’ll be ready.”

“You haven’t eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, and your fluid intake has barely met your survival requirements,” X-37 said.

“Maybe he’ll have some rations and a camelback full of water when I take him down,” I said.

“That is probable, provided you win your next encounter. Thus far, your record has been less than stellar so I wouldn’t count on it.”

“You know what, X? Solutions would be much more helpful. I didn’t choose the battlefield.”

“That, of course, was your first mistake.”

“Wow, you’re on fire today. I liked it better when you were cracking jokes.” Something moved across the sunlight streaming into the broken windows. My adversary was getting as impatient as I was.

“While I applaud this rare bit of luck, I still assert that I am correct and that you should listen to me in the future,” X-37 said.

“I always listen to you, X. When have I not?”

“Even with my imperfect memory of our relationship, I can list 1,232 instances you have completely ignored me when I was, in fact, correct.” My HUD displayed a snapshot of the scene, with two windows and the doorway marked as possible entry points. “My analysis of your eye movements suggests you have these covered, but I am trying to be helpful.”

“Thanks, but he won’t come in. The guy knows better, I think.” I moved closer to a window. “Hey, sniper! Let’s talk.”

A pause.

“About what? That rifle you have with no ammunition?”

“He’s good,” X-37 said. “The man must have been paying attention when you fled the assault craft.”

“I just need some answers,” I called out. “What happened to Maglan? I need to find my family and friends and check on them.”

The watcher laughed. “That’s new. I never heard one of you pushing that angle. Hold on, let me come out with my hands up and surrender my weapons. You’re obviously one of the good guys.”

I crawled closer to the door. “He sounds close, X.”

“Twenty-five meters, most likely he is directly across the street using the early-morning shadows to his benefit,” X-37 said.

“Good or bad has nothing to do with it,” I shouted. “This place is a wasteland. We can kill each other, or we could help each other survive.”

“I don’t make deals with demons,” he said.

“Just between you and me, X, I have about fifteen awesome comebacks for that comment,” I said quietly.

“I will make a note of your self-restraint.”

A new set of voices cut into my delightful conversation with the watcher. Down the street, a group of Hagg soldiers argued over something they’d scavenged. I couldn’t understand their language but the tone and pace of the bickering was familiar to an old soldier like me.

“Please, please, please let them come this way,” I muttered.

“Maybe they will bring you ammunition for the D3D rifle as well. And a nutritious meal,” X-37 said.

“And cigars. And whiskey.”

“Don’t get greedy, Reaper Cain.”

“Hey, Reaper,” the watcher called in a much lower voice than before. “You probably can’t see this group, but there are a lot of them—four or five you should hear arguing if you’re half as alert as the other Reapers before you, and a platoon moving behind them. The only force that large in this area is battalion strength, and they don’t split up. So expect a lot more of them.”

“Thanks for the information. You’re back on my holiday card list,” I said.

“Hilarious,” he said. “I’m only telling you this because I want to finish our little fight and hope you survive the Hagg. You’ve been warned. I’ll see you around.”

“Bye.” I listened to see if he actually moved from his position.

“Remain where you are, Reaper Cain. He is waiting for you to poke your head out.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

Thirty seconds later, I heard the sound of a boot scuffing the pavement, followed by running footfalls.

I peeked at the doorway, popped to my feet, and went after the watcher. If the Hagg saw me dart across the street, then into the alleyway, they didn’t shout or shoot.

“See there, X. Everything is going to work out.”

My LAI’s only response was to display simple maps of the immediate area in my HUD. Using that information and the average speed of a well trained soldier on foot, I guesstimated he was nearly at a corner I didn’t want him to reach. If he did, he could turn and ambush me. That crap had to stop.

I had to catch him while he was running, and I had to close the distance before he could turn and fire.

Lactic acid filled my thighs as I poured on the speed. My lungs burned, and wind brushed my face. This was a bad gamble, but I was out of options.

The watcher turned and drew a pistol, but it was too late. I dove at him, tackled him by his legs, and slammed his body down like this was a life and death fight.

Hagg soldiers shouted in the distance. My opponent grunted as air left his lungs and I wrenched the pistol out of his hand.

The man wasn’t done fighting, however. He slammed his darkened helmet visor into my face. Stars exploded in my vision as we rolled across the ground.

15

I grabbed both of his wrists and put my knee on his stomach, holding him down.

“I’m unable to identify him. Please remove his helmet,” X-37 said.

“Working on it, X.”

The man cursed.“You and your damn LAI sorcery!”

“You don’t know me, asshole.” I pulled his arms down, looking for a submission hold. Controlling his hands would prevent him from grabbing a weapon, but wouldn’t end the fight. Driving my knee into his belly compromised his breathing, but not enough for me to win quickly—and we were both on the clock with the Hagg soldiers moving into the area.

“You’re going to get us both killed,” he complained, misery coloring his words.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” I asked. “Now you know how I felt getting shot at with nothing but a knife and unloaded weapons to defend myself.”

“Your failure to plan isn’t my fault,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Listen, dumbass, I’m going to figure it out even if I have to identify a corpse. Answer the fucking question.”

“Eat my shorts!”

I laughed a bit crazily. “What are you, twelve?”

Instead of answering, he arched his back and thrust his hips high, trying to throw me off.

“Nice try, but I’ve done this before. I’m a Reaper, remember?”

“You’re a fucking clone!”

I released one of his hands and punched him in the side of his neck without hesitation. He grunted in pain, then reached for his pistol. I was there first, pulling it out backward.

This time when he tried to buck me off, I went tumbling.

Still holding one of his wrists, I jerked on it as I stood up, yanking him off balance.

He staggered back and drew a second pistol.

Still holding the gun upside down, I fired three times, striking his body armor with perfect accuracy. The force of the rounds staggered him.

I leapt forward and kicked him in the chest, knocking him onto his back—an uncomfortable position for him with his rifle and other gear secured there. Without pausing, I went after his gun hand. I seized it and wrenched it over his head at a painful angle. He rolled onto his stomach in an attempt not to have his shoulder dislocated.

“You’re mine,” I growled.

He continued to roll until he was nearly on his back, one foot pressed into my stomach. I could feel my face contort in disgust when the sonofabitch wouldn’t give it up.

“Don’t,” I said, drawing it out through gritted teeth. I’d been pissed before, but now I was into the kind of anger that made me punish people, not just hurt them.

He heaved me back.

I retreated, aimed, and waited for him to realize his pistol had gone flying down the alleyway during our struggle.

He pulled his rifle from his back.

I shot him in the hand.

He bent forward, screaming in pain but still holding the long sniper rifle with his other hand. “What the hell? That was dirty as fuck!”

“Next one is in your throat unless you drop that HDK and answer some questions,” I said. “You know I won’t miss.”

He bent forward again, groaning miserably about the broken hand bones in his gauntlets. I needed him to focus because we didn’t have a lot of time. Maybe I shouldn’t have picked the hand.

“He is digging in his waistband,” X-37 warned.

A distraction grenade rolled to my feet and exploded. I staggered away, blind, deaf, and more than a little stunned but not so out of the fight that I didn’t open fire.

When my vision cleared, I saw him fleeing into a building.

“So that’s what we’re going to do all day?” I went after him without giving him a chance to set up with the sniper rifle, not that I thought he would be accurate shooting with broken fingers. “Why can’t this guy be reasonable, X?”

“Unknown, but he resembles a certain Reaper I know in a lot of ways. Never quits, always fights, uses a lot of profanity when injured,” X-37 said.

“Profanity has a lot of healing properties.”

“It does not, Reaper Cain.”

The inside of the apartment building had a lobby, several businesses, and a hallway leading to the elevators and emergency stairs.

“He didn’t have time to reach the stairs,” X-37 said.

I scanned the ground and saw a trail of blood leading into a coffee shop. “I got him.”

“Stay back. I’ll shoot.” The man’s rough voice cracked, making him sound almost like a kid for a second.

“You would have already shot me if you could,” I said. “There are two ways this ends, you surrender and answer some questions, or I beat you like you owe me money and you answer some questions.”

No answer.

“He’s running out the back, Reaper Cain.”

“Thanks, X, I figured that out.” I dashed into the coffee shop, ran halfway through, and saw candy bars still in their wrappers lying everywhere. My stomach screamed at me to stop and grab one.

“Remind me to come back for that,” I said as I sprinted through the shop and out the back door—which turned out to be a side door leading to another street.

“Hagg soldiers,” X warned.

I stopped, searched for the watcher, and saw his rifle lying in the middle of the street. Three big Haggs stood over him. One kicked him, another looked back toward where I assumed the rest of their unit was, and the third dug through the watcher’s pack.

“Why can’t anything be easy, X?”

“You ask that a lot. I recommend decisive action.”

My LAI didn’t have to tell me twice. I rushed the group, moving in a shooting stance as I aimed. The first shot killed the Hagg searching the watcher’s backpack because he was closest to the fallen sniper rifle. The second shot took the lookout in the side of the neck. It was a gruesome but effective wound. Not silent by any stretch of the imagination. The non-human soldier screamed like a wounded cat despite his bulk, then fell down and curled into a ball before he died.

I saved the one kicking the watcher for last because I didn’t want to give my quarry a chance to run away while I dealt with the other two. The Hagg never looked up, despite the booming gunfire. He was in a rage and determined to kill his victim.

“You should have used your stupid Hagg rifle,” I said as I advanced closer and closer.

Sensing me, he finally stood back, but didn’t turn immediately. I shot him in the back of his head and he fell across the watcher.

“Is that decisive enough, X?”

“Would you like me to put a gold star in your file, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “The sniper is getting up. Please take action to secure him.”

“Don’t move,” I shouted. “I’m not playing this game.”

The watcher finished shoving away the dead Hagg soldier, and stood up. “Kill me if you’re going to kill me!”

I took a step toward him, careful to stay out of hand-to-hand combat range. He was stupid enough to try and disarm me.

“Listen, the roles are reversed. There is no way in hell you can win now. I need information and you need to live. Let’s make a deal.”

“Who says I need to live? You killed everyone I cared about. Wiped out my squad. Slaughtered civilians.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“It was one of you,” he said. “And that’s the same thing.”

“Human’d!” shouted someone behind me.

I turned and fired.

The watcher fled.

A squad of Hagg soldiers nearly as ragged looking as the first I’d met took cover behind a burnt out car and returned fire. I ran after the watcher, scooping up the HDK II as I passed it.

16

The watcher moved like a man on a mission—like he was fleeing the really pissed off Last Reaper. I caught up to him on the third corner then paced him, looking over my shoulder for Hagg pursuit from time to time. Sweat poured down my back as the day warmed up. Twice I saw actual human refugees duck back into doorways.

“They want no part of this excrement display,” X-37 said.

“Shit show. You’re trying to say this is a shit show.”

“I said exactly what I intended to say. I’m a machine. That’s how I work,” X-37 said. “Why are you not closing on your prey and making more fruitless demands for answers.”

“He’s headed somewhere. Maybe he has a hideout loaded with food, food, and food. Or even guns with ammunition,” I said.

I searched for other survivors or anything that had survived the collapse of Maglan society and spotted the contrail of a ship high above. That was definitely new.

“You said food three times.”

“Yeah, X. I did. Run a scan. Did I miss something? What’s up with the contrail. Has to be from a ship, right?”

“Correct,” X-37 said. “It could be a local survivor, an Oroth ship, a Hagg ship, or something belonging to Scheid.”

“The possibilities are endless,” I grumbled.

“Sarcasm detected. I am doing my best.”

“This guy is running us in circles.” I checked my back trail, looked ahead for ambushes, and made a decision. “We’re done with this goat fornication.

“I detect zero goats or other livestock in this area,” X-37 said. “Could you explain—”

“No. Forget that one,” I said. “I have all the weapons now. This guy better talk if he knows what is good for him.”

X didn’t argue so I ran at the fleeing sniper and shoved him down. He rolled to his feet but I already had a pistol aimed at him.

“Last chance, and I do mean your very last chance.”

He stomped toward me, hands spread like a street tough from my old neighborhood. “Shoot me. Do it! I’m as tired of this bullshit as you are.”

“Godsdammit.” I holstered the weapon and kicked him in the chest, throwing him backward.

He pushed himself up.

I jumped on his back, hooked my legs under his, and flatted him out. Once he was prone, I cranked on the helmet until it came off.

“Satisfied!” he said. “You’re such a perfect asshole!”

“Can’t tell much from the back of your head.” I stood and backed up.

Reluctantly, he climbed to his feet and faced me.

“Bug?”

“Yeah. That’s me, but no one calls me that anymore. I’m thirty years old. Haven’t been that kid from Dreadmax for a long time.”

I shook my head, disappointed and confused. “Why would you give me such a hard time? You tried to kill me! After all we’ve been through?”

“You slaughtered my squad, my friends, your own family,” he said. “And you aren’t you anymore.”

“Hate to break it to you, kid, but I’m the real enchilada—the very last Reaper.”

“Prove it.”

“Look at me,” I demanded.

“You look like all the others,” he said, then pointed at my left arm. “The real Halek Cain had a cybernetic left arm. What did you do, grow it back? Get tired of using the blade to cut down your enemies?”

“Sarcasm detected,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, X, I caught that.” I stepped closer to Bug. “We can talk this out after we hide from the Hagg. You ran me all day, and it’s going to be dark soon.”

“Won’t need to worry about the Hagg at night. Not around here,” he said. “But there are predators you haven’t seen yet. We better get inside and start a fire.”

“No more trying to kill each other?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t have any weapons, and you already manhandled me. Maybe later I can drive a truck over you or something.”

“Very reassuring. Why don’t you say ‘truce, let’s work together and get some answers,’” I asked.

He leveled a flat stare on me. “Truce, let’s work together and get some answers.”

I waved him toward a building with the pistol. “I don’t remember you being this difficult, kid.”

“I’m a grown man.”

I gestured again with the gun. “You’re a kid to me. Get in there and find a place to hunker down.”

He complied but acted bemused.

“What?” I asked.

“You look younger than me. No scars, just a lot of cuts and scrapes that are going to be scars,” he said.

I followed him through several buildings until he settled on the third floor of an office complex with an empty balcony pool. “What kind of business did they do in a place like this?”

“It’s the Martin building. Never figured out what they did but smoke Maglan Gold cigars and throw parties,” he said.

“At least they had good taste,” I said.

Bug didn’t laugh. “I’ll start a fire.”

“No fires.”

He shook his head. “Everyone in this district uses fires to keep away the razor monkeys.”

“Never heard of them. Don’t get clever. I’m not letting my guard down,” I said.

“The razor monkeys came with the Hagg—and don’t ask me what they’re really called. Nothing scares the Hagg soldiers more than a group of these things, so they won’t search for us around here.”

“I thought you said the pokey pandas or whatever came with the Hagg.”

“Like rats on a ship. Stowaways. Really aggressive. Carnivorous. Probably would even eat an HC clone,” Bug said.

“Don’t quit your day job, Bug. That was about as funny as a disease.”

“You should hear the one about the Reaper, the Renegade, and the Union scientist who walk into a bar,” he said.

I checked my wounds and watched him build a fire in the middle of the balcony, allowing it because it was obvious everyone who came here started a fire near the dried up pool before moving on. He worked steadily, never looking my way or attempting to flee. Maybe he wanted answers as much as I did, or at least more than he claimed.

Before long there were fires on other balconies, in alleys, between circles of derelict cars, and glowing up through sewer grates. My old friend hadn’t been lying about that part. The survivors, invisible for most of my time here, trusted fire even in places it seemed like a bad idea.

“I’m surprised they haven’t burnt down more of these buildings,” I said.

Bug shrugged.

“Can I trust you with a pistol?” I asked as we settled in to eat some of his rations.

“Keep it. I’ll take my weapons off your corpse.”

“Big talk,” I said.

He shrugged. “One of us will die. You’re stubborn and not as smart as you think you are, so I’m betting you’ll take the first dirt nap. If I go first, then it doesn’t matter.”

“You fought well, nearly killed me several times but you’re not a Reaper,” I said.

“Neither are you, not really. You’re like all the others. Dangerous, but poor imitations. That is why the newer HC models fight in mechs—like whoever grew you assholes was jealous of the Archangel armor but screwed up their own versions. Every time the real Halek Cain killed a squad of them, they came back with upgraded gear.”

I ignored his real Halek Cain crack. “Mechs?”

“That’s what I said.” He spooned mystery pasta and sauce into his mouth, then chased it with a swig of water from a disposable pouch.

“How are they screwed up? Just curious. Sounds like you’re making this up,” I said.

“The HC mechs work fine—they’re fast, heavily armed and armored, and operate for days on a single charge. Some have power plants that might be nuclear but I can’t prove it.”

“Sounds like they nailed the design.”

“Sure, if your pilot is suicidal. They can’t get out of them. Imagine a real Reaper’s cybernetic arm, then turn that into an entire mech. They’re fused to their weapons—or their weapons are fused to them, I don’t really know…” He reeled back his temper. “They’re all crazy and blindly obedient to their master.”

I finished my own food packet, chased it with water, and opened another.

“I only have so many of those,” Bug complained.

“We’ll find more. Who do these HC clones report to?”

He glared at me. “You know.”

“I don’t. Listen, Bug, I woke up on a space station that had been attacked more than once. All the clone pods were shut off. I woke up because my predecessor tried to—never mind that part. But he was there and now I’m here.”

“Predecessor?” Bug asked, clearly skeptical of my sanity. “What’d he do, try to kill you?”

“That is what X calls him,” I said. “And I said don’t worry about what he was there to do.”

His expression softened with doubt. A second later, his hard exterior was back. “You don’t talk to X. The new ones have different nerve-ware, I think. X-1000 or some bullshit. Like bigger numbers make their mind control software better or something.”

“Ask me something only X-37 would know,” I said.

“Screw that. You all have cheat sheets. Lists of facts about the real Halek Cain. None of you convince anyone.

“Listen, kid.”

He stood and backed away but also balled his fists. “No, you listen. I’m not your friend, I’m not some kid who needs your help, and I’m never going to trust you.”

“What the hell did I do to you?”

“You killed my friends! Wiped out my entire squad. Tortured half of them!”

“For the last time, I didn’t kill your friends or torture anyone. That was a different clone.”

“So you admit you’re a clone?”

“Yeah, that much is obvious.” I lifted my non-cybernetic left arm and pointed at my organic left eye. “Those were evil clones. I’m the good one.”

“Prove it.”

We stared at each other for five minutes, or that was what it felt like. Someone screamed in the distance. Shouts and gunfire followed. I waited for more but heard only the wind.

“Go to sleep, Bug. I’ll take the first watch.”

“You’ll take the only watch,” he shot back. “Because once you go to sleep, I’ll kill you or leave, maybe both.”

“You knew the real Halek Cain for a long time, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah. Better than you ever did no matter what you think. Clone memories aren’t even real. You’re a soulless freak built to serve some psycho scientist. It’s like the Union is back, after all we did to escape the assholes,” he said.

I ignored his taunts. “Do you remember the real Halek Cain having a lot of patience?”

Bug’s face reddened.

“Get some sleep. I don’t need any.”

“Whatever. Even Reapers need sleep. Don’t feed me to your clone buddies while I’m out.”

“Easier to toss you to the razor monkeys, then run for it.”

He didn’t like that.

“Just keeping it real. Don’t hate me because I have two arms and real eyes. X-37 trusts me. That should be good enough for you.”

“I can’t talk to X,” he said, then rolled away from me, pulling a thin survival blanket up to his chin. “Never could, not directly. Don’t bother me until morning. I’m not taking a watch.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I whispered privately.

Once his breathing slowed, I went to the balcony and watched the city from the shadows. So long as I didn’t move, I’d be hard to detect without advanced optics. If Bug were more cooperative, I might have asked him about the Hagg tech levels. From what I had seen, they looked basic, but that didn’t mean their higher level troops didn’t have better gear. So far I had only run into deserters and grunts.

Fires twinkled like orange stars on the ground. The night breeze died away to almost nothing. Maglan was nearly as beautiful as when we found it, so long as I ignored evidence of what had happened here.

A clicking sound drifted up from the street. I searched for the source and saw humanoid shapes moving slowly along the street. They spread out into a wedge formation though it looked more natural than something that had been learned through training.

I removed Bug’s spare battery, placed it in my HDK Dominator III Deathlance, or D3D, then loaded it with one of Bug’s spare magazines. Shooting the newcomers wasn’t my goal, but I’d be ready if necessary.

The bipedal figures swaggered side-to-side as they walked, like gorillas, or monkeys—provided that X-37’s lessons on ancient earth animals and creatures of the galaxy were accurate. I still wasn’t sure about his description of deer. My LAI insisted they had black and white stripes and huge antlers like the roaming herds found on Maglan when we arrived. I didn’t think these were the same as Earth deer of legends.

Maybe the razor monkeys were exactly that, or maybe not. They didn’t have blades or spikes attached to them—so that was obviously from someone’s fireside tale.

“How big are these things, X?” I asked.

“About a foot taller than you and very broad. Their legs are shorter than would be optimal for a human. Most of their bulk appears to be in their upper torso and necks.

I counted the group once they were all around the corner—about fifty of the monsters.

“I cannot confirm they are mammals, but they do not appear to be reptiles or amphibians. We would need to be much closer to be certain. I suggest you make no assumptions before gathering first hand evidence,” X-37 said.

“I’d rather not.” I flipped through the optics on the D3D. “They look cold, except right in their center. That looks really hot, but just in the one place. Doesn’t make sense.”

“You should provoke them,” X-37 said.

“No way, X.”

“I see no evidence of razors, or anything like razors. But there must be a reason for the name. I suspect they can extend or retract sharp claws. If you could startle them—throw a rock or something—they might react defensively and reveal their biological weaponry.”

“Maybe I will just wait and find out later,” I said.

“That is an option.”

“I can’t see their faces from this angle.”

X-37 said nothing.

I watched for a few more minutes, almost bored with their slow progress. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and that was probably a bad thing. A patient hunter was the worst kind. After ten minutes, I scanned the area with natural vision, then with magnification, and finally with advanced optics. There were a lot of fires but I couldn’t see how many people were huddled around them because the heat masked the optics.

“Maybe that’s why they use the fires,” I said.

“Doubtful. Fire discourages even the most aggressive predator,” X-37 said.

“Sure.” I shifted gears without letting up on my surveillance. “What do you know about the X-1000 models?”

“I have no direct knowledge except that your predecessor thought the naming protocol was ridiculous,” X-37 said. “What Bug said is likely true. The HC clones, and their gear, are mass produced. This suggests an inferior product.”

I didn’t want to ask the next question but I needed to know. “Would I be able to tell the difference, assuming I am no different from the other clones. I feel like the last Reaper, but am I really?”

“I thought I told you, Reaper Cain. You are the master copy. That is why your predecessor was determined to capture or eliminate you. Without your exact genetic profile, they cannot continue the replication process.”

“Great, that makes me feel so much better.”

“Your predecessor had another theory.”

“What was that, X? And do I need a whiskey to handle it?”

“You need less whiskey than you believe. As for your predecessor’s theory, he believed you were the original Reaper and he was the copy they experimented on—adding cybernetics and putting in impossible situations like the faked gang murders of his family.”

My blood went cold. I lost focus on the creature below, and the entire city for that matter. “What the hell are you saying, X?”

“That you are, in fact, Halek Cain.”

“Stop fucking with me.”

“Your predecessor’s theory makes sense. Why attempt dangerous cybernetic procedures on the original—assuming that you had the ability to make fully functioning copies?”

Neither of us spoke for a while. The company of monsters stopped right below us and made camp—or were planning their assault on this building.

“You’re wrong about the whiskey. I definitely need one or ten.”

“You probably also want cigars and a hot shower, but neither of those indulgences will be forthcoming,” X said.

“Don’t sound so smug.”

“Perhaps you should wake Bug up and give him a weapon. I am certain the razor monkeys are entering the building and you have nowhere to run. Slipping past them would be nearly impossible from what I have seen of their behavior,” X-37 said.

“I’m processing what you told me. Not in the mood to fight Razors.”

“Would you like to update their moniker as simply Razors instead of the four syllable description of razor monkeys. This would be more efficient during combat communications.”

“Sure, X.” I squatted near Bug. “Wake up. We have a problem.”

“Already?” He sounded completely awake. “I thought it would take them an hour to find us.”

“You knew they were coming this way?”

“How else would I convince you to give me back my rifle?”

I laughed. “I like you, Bug. Always have.”

He accepted his HDK Dominator II but stared at me suspiciously.

“You’re either going to shoot me in the back or you’re not. I lied earlier. I’ll need sleep eventually, and maybe you could give me a couple of days before betraying me,” I said.

He didn’t seem to like that last part. Bug had always been loyal to a fault.

“There are about fifty of the Razors surrounding the building.”

He hesitated at my new name for them but only for a second. “That’s a big group. We’ll need more than weapons. We’ll need a plan.”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

17

“We need a ship,” I said once Bug had all of his gear, minus half the ammunition, food, and water.

“Oh, I forgot. There is a jump ship on the top floor. Executive model. Fast enough to go anywhere on the planet as the mood struck these rich corporate types,” Bug said.

“Bullshit.”

“You wanted to believe me,” he said, then looked over the balcony. “Most of them are inside now, but the guards they left outside are prickly.”

I joined him and saw five of the Razors on each corner of the building. Four of each group squatted like they might be asleep, but the fifth snapped blades out from his hands, retracted them, and did the same at his elbows.

“How many sets of blade-claws do they have?” I asked.

“Hands and upper arms, unless injured. But they have spikes that thrust out from their shoulders and their backs, all the way up their necks.”

I watched the guards play with their body weapons, sometimes grunting and snarling at each other on the corners while the sleepers ignored them.

“What most people don’t realize is that they have smaller spikes, almost like pointed studs, on the soles of their feet. I’m not sure if these are for climbing, but they could be.” He lifted his body armor and the shirt beneath it to show terrible road rash-like scars across his torso. “I’ll tell you from experience they are deadly with their feet and those small claws. Feel like cheese graters.”

“Can’t be too deadly. You’re still alive,” I said.

“That was when I still had a combat effective squad. Early days of the crisis. Never allowed one of them to grab me for more than a few seconds.”

Neither of us pursued that conversation. He’d already made it clear how he felt about other Reapers killing his friends. Hopefully, he would learn to see me differently.

“If we don’t have a ship, we need a rappelling line or cables.” I pointed to a balcony on the building across from us. We can climb four or five levels, then slide down to that balcony and escape out the back while they readjust.”

“Good plan. I have rappelling line but not enough for that. Maybe we should pick a side of this building, then drop down to the street. One of us can cover the other and vice versa,” he said.

I nodded. His way was much simpler and utilized gear we already had. I didn’t like the idea of getting caught at street level while the rest of them poured out of the building to overwhelm us but none of our options were perfect.

“We could climb a few levels and see what it looks like, but the clock is ticking.” He shrugged and waved a hand like it didn’t matter.

“Have you been to the roof?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe there is a corporate ship up there,” I said.

“Sure. And maybe Elise is waiting with the Jellybird. I know this area, Cain, and I have dealt with the Razors before,” he said.

“Bug has a point,” X-37 added.

“Let’s do it your way.” I walked to the balcony looking for the least alert group of Razors. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“I’ll go first. You cover me. Once I’m down, I’ll head for that building. Went in there a few weeks ago and it has a lot of intact doors we can shut behind us if they pursue—and they will,” he said. “One word of warning. We will need to cross back into Hagg territory to shake the Razors.”

“Just like we used the Razors to shake the Hagg,” I said. “Feels like we’re moving in circles.”

“More of a zig zag.” He unspooled his rappelling line.

“Why are you going first?” I asked, suspecting he would run off while I was coming down, leaving me to deal with the angry mob of super monsters.

“I’m wearing armor. If the other perimeter guards respond like they should, I may have to fight them much closer than I want to. Armor will help. But you’re welcome to go first and get slashed up. Add some scars to your baby face.”

“Hey, I’m manly as hell,” I countered.

“You’ve never even had a suntan. Every scratch is from the last few days,” he said.

The man wasn’t wrong.

“If you’re worried I’ll just leave you, maybe you should be. Either way, this is the best plan.”

“If we both do our part,” I said.

“Yeah. You could let them overrun me. Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. Remember what you said earlier about a truce? Let’s work together until we get to safety. Then we can figure what to do next—part ways, will be my suggestion. Call it even.”

“Good enough,” I said, then looked up until he furrowed his brow with curiosity.

“What are you looking for?”

I winked. “Just longing for the good old days when the Jellybird swooped in to save the day.”

He shook his head and cursed, but I caught him smiling.

I waited while he double checked the rope, ran it through his belt carabiner, and approached the ledge. “I’ll be moving fast. Use your silencer if you can, and don’t be shy. We can find more ammunition later if we survive this. Hard to steal stuff when you’re dead.”

“Got it,” I said, then took a position to cover him.

He went down almost as fast as if he’d fallen face first. The Razor guard looked up right before Bug’s feet touched the ground ten feet from him. I shot the spiked-out alert Razor as he roused the others, then killed two more with headshots.

The other three leapt high into the air and bounded away from each other.

“Damn, X, I didn’t expect them to move like that,” I said, tracking my next shot.

“I will note their agility in our tactical database,” X said.

Bug blasted one in the face but still took a vicious slash across his helmet. I saw fresh grooves in the armor, which showed how strong and sharp these things’ claws were.

Two remained. I shot one in the throat, noticing that he staggered several steps toward Bug before falling. The other I shot in the hips, wanting him to fall. A kill shot wasn’t always the best choice in a fight like this.

Bug jumped back as the wounded animal crawled toward him, blades extended, mouth roaring fiercely. He shot it in the face, then ran to the building he’d picked out during our planning session.

I attached the rope to my belt and went down backward. My way was slower than Bug’s, but I hadn’t done it for a while and didn’t want to break my back.

Bug fired several times from a doorway, or that was what it sounded like in my preoccupied state.

Two hops and I was on the street. I cast away the rope, turned, and shot three Razors in their throats seconds before they reached me. Ten others swarmed out of the building, screaming animal cries and roaring to answer Bug’s earlier victim.

The sound chilled my blood for longer than I expected. My combat senses had always been fine tuned. These basic sensations had purpose, and right now, they were telling me to get the hell out of there.

“Move your ass, Reaper!” Bug shouted.

I sprinted toward him, only looking back long enough to see more of the Razors leapfrogging each other, sometimes literally. They picked up speed, and I realized they were faster than I was even with their short legs. The way they clawed the ground with their overlong arms and massive hands gave them a boost.

Another troop came around the corner to the east, then a third from the west. Neither were as numerous as the first group but there were a lot of them, and they appeared angry. We had only one direction to flee, and that probably meant there was an ambush in our future.

Bug waved me past him. “Go straight through and out the other side of the building. I’ll be right behind you.”

I dashed through the main floor hallway, past elevators and stairs, then across another lobby littered with old camp sites. Bug’s gun fired several times, followed by a pause, followed by a grenade explosion at the doorway we’d used to enter.

“Wait for him, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Way ahead of you. Like I would leave such a staunch and trusting ally in the lurch.” I aimed my D3D through the exit well before I reached it, using the advanced optics to search for more of the Razors. Thermal imaging and radar really added to the variable magnification option and laser range finder. I knew something was wrong even before I could see the street.

“It is less than ideal to use so many functions at once,” X said.

“I do that all the time, X. You know that.”

“That must be a lost memory,” he said.

I grimaced, not sure what to do with that news and wondering if I should reassure my LAI who had no feelings to hurt in the first place. A battle kicking off on the next street brushed away everything but the here and now. Explosions and gunfire shook the windows.

My feet ate up each exit angle until I could see it all without getting too close. Moving in a shooting stance was like second nature, especially when stepping into hell.

Three armored vehicles advanced on a platoon of Hagg soldiers. Their heavy machine guns initiated the attack right before my eyes—cutting down Hagg grunts two and three at a time. Hagg shoulder fired missiles reached for the tanks and armored cars in retaliation, blowing the treads off one set of wheels.

“Who the fuck are those yahoos, and where did they get armor?”

X-37 responded seconds before Bug stopped beside me. “I suspect those markings indicate they are more of the Jump Force Troopers of Oroth and they are clearing the city of Hagg forces. So much for them being allies.”

Bug was out of breath but didn’t take long to update the plan. “We have to go underground. The JFT will see us but won’t pursue until they put together a squad, and that will take several minutes.”

“I hate going underground,” I said.

“Better than fighting three packs of razor monkeys, a platoon or more of Haggs, and the forward element of an Oroth armor battalion.”

“Agreed.” I edged the door open, trying not to draw attention until the last moment. The broad panes of safety glass reflected light no matter how much I cringed or how carefully I moved it.

“That last part is bad news. The JFT haven’t shown much of a presence in Maglan City for months,” Bug said, then flung a grenade back at the Razors picking their way over the debris from his earlier grenade.

“Can you make a little more noise?” I asked.

One of the tank gunners glanced our way, but didn’t have time to investigate. Hagg small arms fire ricocheted off his turret shield.

“Those jerks out there are making plenty of their own,” he said. “Get ready to run. Follow me. Opening manhole covers can be tricky. Could be locked.”

“Locked?” I asked his back.

He bolted into the street slightly behind the column of JFT vehicles. Close on his heels, I spotted the infantry following them right when Bug ripped open the manhole cover.

“Get in there!” I shouted, then opened fire, striking two of the soldiers on their body armor before they could kill my only ally. They staggered backward and sat down, heavy armor leaking blood as someone called for a medic and others started shooting.

They shouted a version of the galactic common language, but I mostly understood their words from the situation and their tone. My D3D could hurt them, even with their field armor, which was good to know.

I scrambled part way down the ladder, then pulled the lid back into place.

“Do the crossbar,” Bug yelled from directly below me.

“There’s a crossbar? What kind of maintenance system does this city have?”

“Most of them were added after the Razors showed up, and other things,” Bug said as I found the rusted bar and slid it through slots welded to the bottom of the plate.

The moment I was done, I grabbed the sides of the ladder and slid down.

“This way,” Bug said. “That was close, but we’re doing better than I hoped. Should have considered this option in the first place.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked as I walked backward long enough to be sure we weren’t being followed.

“Sometimes there are things down here you don’t want to think about,” he said, marching steadily forward on the sidewalk.

“What kind of things?”

“No idea. No one ever sees them. You just hear the screams and never see the person who made them again,” he said.

“Maglan City has become far more dangerous than before the crisis,” X-37 said.

“I noticed.” Hurrying to catch up with Bug, I scanned the murky water between us, then the walls and ceilings. I’d been through too many sewer systems to expect a pleasant, safe passage.

“I think we’re good,” Bug said. “The attacks normally come the moment you climb down. Don’t ask me why, that’s just what I heard. Stay sharp and we should be able to escape the Razors, Haggs, and the Oroth battalion.

“Perfect,” I said. “And to think we could have been working together from the start.”

“I’ll give you this, Cain, you are definitely more of a smartass than the other clones.”

“That’s because I’m me.”

Bug stayed on point. I watched the rear. Three hours later, we found our way to the surface without incident.

* * *

Sunlight streamed through the downtown buildings five miles behind us. Birds flew into the sky, ignoring the plumes of smoke from the battlefield. Higher up, clouds drifted lazily. I didn’t see any more contrails to mark the passage of ships in the upper atmosphere.

“We came farther than I thought,” Bug said. “We should be near one of the better commercial districts, which means vehicle lots. Most were stolen or looted the last time I came this way, but we could get lucky.”

“Right. Looters probably felt guilty and put stuff back—after filling the tanks and running the vehicles through one of the many functional car washes in the area,” I said.

“People bring damaged vehicles back to trade or fix with scavenged parts. We won’t find a lot of the latest and greatest pleasure crafts, but we might be able to assemble one from parts if your LAI is the real thing.” He walked a few steps. “Car washes? Really?”

“Can you show us how to build a car or a ship, X?”

“For a certainty, though you may need tools and computer diagnostics you don’t have,” X-37 said.

I made a triumphant fist. “You’re all the computer we need. Good job.”

“I’m a special operations LAI, Reaper Cain, not an automotive repairman.”

“Close enough.” I gave Bug a thumbs-up. “X says no problem.”

“Great. I will start celebrating immediately,” Bug said, then led the way to the ground and air vehicle supercenter.

Again there was evidence of looting and camping, probably occurring at different points during the post invasion timeline. I searched for civilians but found none.

“The people here are cautious,” I said.

“Best way to stay alive,” Bug said. “I see something promising. That is a military shuttle, from Maglan, not the Oroth SOBs. Parts are way easier to find for those.”

We scouted the wreckage of dozens of cars and ships before closing in on the shuttle. It was locked up tight with no obvious guards.

“Could be rigged with explosives,” Bug said. “I’ll take a look and give you the all clear.”

“I’ll do it. X can help me,” I said.

“Suit yourself, but I am more familiar with the methods Maglan survivors use to protect what’s theirs,” Bug said.

“I’ll be careful, won’t I, X?”

“I am not dignifying that with a response. Perhaps you should rig up a voice box for me so I can talk to Bug directly.”

“Maybe later. Not high on my priorities right now.” I approached the shuttle, then circled it at a distance. On the left side was a lot of damage, probably the reason it had landed. “Looks like they took fire but it should still fly.”

“That was my conclusion as well,” X-37 said. “Please stand motionless and do a careful visual scan. I want to process every detail before we move closer.”

The procedure took several minutes and came back clear of triggers. “Let’s get inside, X, and plug you in.”

“Excellent plan, Reaper Cain. I wasn’t going to say anything, but the backup module is down to three percent charge. In one hour, I would have lost a large portion of my memory and functionality. Fortunately, this vehicle shows no affiliation with Dr. Scheid or soldiers.”

“Don’t cut it that close next time. Tell me when you’re low. I might have to adjust my plans. Keeping you running is a priority,” I said.

“Thank you, Reaper Cain.” He went to work hacking the entry code and was done in thirty seconds. His voice grew quiet and began to slow. “Proceed with caution, but definitely proceed. The computer is now in power conservation mode.”

“I’m going in, Bug. Need to plug in something and power up.”

My reluctant ally watched me but said nothing. “I’ll stand guard. The sooner we are out of view, the better. Keep that in mind.”

I ducked into the ship, then used my D3D optics to search it without lights or noise. The second I was done, the computer went on a charger. “Come in if you want, Bug.”

He entered as I tossed someone’s old flight jacket over X-37’s backup computer.

“What’s that?”

I only hesitated a second. “When I awoke in the pod, I was missing more than cybernetics.” I hesitated at the cockpit, then connected X to the control panel including the speaker system. “You tell him, X.”

“With pleasure, Reaper Cain.”

Bug flinched and took a step back, then alternated his gaze between me and the cockpit speaker.

“Reaper Cain was removed from the clone pod with Foundational Nerve-ware, or FNW, already in place as well as Trace Artificial Intelligence Links, or TAIL,” X-37 said. “He was primed for full integration with the Reaper program. An alternate theory—”

“Never mind that, X. Let’s keep it simple.”

X-37 stopped immediately. I fiddled with controls, keeping my back to Bug before he pressed the issues—which of course he did.

“Hey, you better tell me all of it now. No way in hell I will trust you, or this voice box, with that statement half finished,” Bug said.

I gritted my teeth. “Fine, but don’t go blabbing this half-brained theory to everyone we meet.”

“I will check with you in the future, Reaper Cain. My analysis suggested this would be useful information for Bug to understand if we are going to work together.” He displayed several images as he talked, each illustrating his point.

“Halek Cain, the version you are more familiar with, the man with cybernetic augmentations and a hopeless addiction to cigars, put forth a theory and went to the Maglan Experimental Prosthetic Station to investigate. Once the place was explored, he intended to either eliminate all evidence of the clone program, or protect the prime copy with his life.”

“Why would he do that?” Bug asked. “What do you mean, prime copy?”

“He believed the Reaper now standing before you, is in fact the source donor for the entire program,” X-37 said.

“I don’t get it,” Bug said.

“The Reaper you knew believed that scientists from the Reaper Corps created copies to experiment with, fearing they would damage and destroy several Halek Cains before they got one right. They placed the actual man into long term storage, very similar to the way they would grow a clone. The chief scientist broke from the Union and fled with most of the clones and the original Halek Cain, eventually to find Maglan and renew his research.”

“Or wipe out my predecessor before he figured it out and killed the psychopath,” I said.

Bug mulled over the information, then shook his head. “Pretty far-fetched. I’m not much for conspiracy theories.”

“I told you, X.” Thoughts cascaded in places not even X-37 could detect them. If this theory was true, when did it happen? The bridge where I lost my arm, had that been a clone? Before that? Had they been testing a clone’s reaction to news of my father’s murder? This was almost worse than being a clone. Was my past or my current life fake?

This shit was going to drive me crazy if I didn’t put it in a bottle and seal the lid.

“The facts are merely the facts. What Bug does with the information is his own business,” X-37 said.

Bug looked at the cockpit speaker. “What does that mean if you’re right?”

“Shall I tell him, Reaper Cain?”

“Might as well,” I said, seriously annoyed we started down this rabbit trail and lacking the energy to deal with it. My internal struggles took a lot of energy to jam back into the shadows of my mind.

“The rogue scientist, Doctor David Scheid, was furious at the Lex project and the eternals. He accused the oversight committee of sabotaging his research and possibly had one of them assassinated, then fled Union space. Halek Cain, the cybernetic version, believed the prime copy of himself—the original Halek Cain if you will—held the secret to defeating Dr. Scheid.”

“Like the chosen one,” Bug said. “I grew up on folktales like that on Dreadmax.”

“Do you have questions or details to add to the theory?” X-37 said. “In the spirit of full disclosure, I cannot prove or disprove this theory without more information.”

Bug leaned his rifle on a bench, laid down, and closed his eyes. “I think you’re all crazy.”

I waited until his breathing found a rhythm. “Can you work on the nerve-ware integration, X?”

“Would you like this conversation to be private or may I continue to use the speaker? It is nice to have a voice. I forgot what it was like talking to the Jellybird and crew before everything changed.”

“Use your own judgement, X.”

“Very good, Reaper Cain. I should be able to complete several percentage points of the integration before the ship is ready to be operated. I will forward a list of repairs you should work on while I do my thing.”

“Perfect.” I followed his instructions, doing as much work as I could on the inside under the assumption it would minimize one of our enemies spotting us from a distance and coming to investigate.

Three hours later, I took a break and checked in with X. Bug was still sleeping.

“How are we doing, X?”

“Not well, Reaper Cain. I have discovered a coding error. If I haven’t completed the integration before the time limit, I will shut down entirely. An air conditioner will be smarter than what’s left of me in that unfortunate circumstance.”

“How long?”

“Either two weeks or two days. There are several confounding factors that make an accurate estimate problematic,” X-37 said. “I will assume the shorter deadline is the one we must beat.”

“Forty-eight hours,” I said.

Bug sat up. “What happens in forty-eight hours?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said before thinking it through.

He sat up, checked his gear, and stretched. “And I thought we were starting to trust each other.”

18

Bug and I teamed up to properly clear the vehicle center and surrounding blocks while X-37 finished the ship repairs. The physical components looked rough. We had things on the military shuttle that didn’t belong there, including a panel from a sports car on the fuselage complete with red and white stripes, fake exhaust ports, and a bumper sticker of a crocodile. Another portion was welded out of scrap metal. We may or may not have used some tape.

But it was all there, one fully functional Maglan military grade assault shuttle minus the weapons. All we needed was for X-37 to cross-check the programing and reinstall security directives to include a certain Reaper clone-not-clone and a kid from Dreadmax.

Compared to our earlier adventures, the patrol was easy. Once we returned, Bug set up a shaving station outside, groomed, and practiced martial arts forms for an hour. Each stance transition flowed, snapping powerfully into place as his fists found targets in the air and his forearms blocked incoming attacks. There wasn’t any jumping or rolling. These were practical moves Grigori Path, our sword saint friend, had taught him years ago. It seemed life had driven these lessons home.

I watched the young man, if thirty was young. Parts of his body looked older than others. He had a lot of scars and his eyes had clearly seen too much.

“Need a sparring partner?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay, then. Just trying to help.” I sipped a water packet and backed away, drifting into deeper contemplation of my own situation. How did I know about Path, and Elise, and the Jellybird? If I were the original, how could I know any of that unless someone transferred the memories. Had that been my predecessor’s mission to the station? Story time for the sleeping Reaper?

The more likely explanation was that he came to exterminate me like an unwanted foot fungus, but maybe he was passing the torch. Hell, we were part of the same big happy family—twin brothers, exact in every detail except mileage.

Stop punishing yourself, Cain. I rolled my neck right, then left and wondered if I should develop a cigar habit. In my head I was a connoisseur, but my body didn’t feel the cravings—unless the creeping uneasiness that grew throughout the day was part of it.

“Are you going to just sit there and brood?” Bug said.

I put away my water. “What’s your problem this morning? I thought we were making progress.”

“I let my guard down before. Never ends well,” he said as he finished gearing up.

“You have to trust someone eventually. Even a Reaper knows that. How did you survive Dreadmax? By yourself, or was there a group of you in that security tower?”

He shook his head in disgust, then turned his back on me to board the ship.

“I’m not your enemy.” I followed him. “What did you do with the last HC like me?”

“I killed him. Made my life simpler. You are just the first I couldn’t put down. Don’t think for one second it changes anything,” he said. “Are you going to fly or do you want me to, since I know where I’m going.”

I moved behind the controls. “My LAI reprogramed the controls. Let me do it. And besides, I know where I’m going.”

“To your estate?” Bug asked.

“Good guess.”

“It’s not a guess. That was where the last three wanted to go.” That flicker of doubt I had seen earlier emerged but he wiped it from his expression. “You’ll want to find your mother and friends, but you won’t.”

“Because Halek Cain clones killed her. I heard. X already told me that story.”

“You’re heartless.”

I faced him without leaving the pilot’s seat. “Don’t push any farther, Bug. Maybe it would be easier for me to be one of the bad ones. You’re getting on my nerves.” I faced the controls. “Wish I had a cigar.”

Bug’s reflection in the window shifted. I looked back and found him deep in thought. “What?”

“Nothing.” He went to the passenger area and shut the door between us.

“Help me out, X? What do you make of that?”

“Nothing new, Reaper Cain. There have been HC units before you, as I said.”

“What about the last part? Why is he back there sulking now?” I asked.

“He reacted strangely to your demand for cigars. Shall I inform him that you do not have the same chemical addiction as your predecessor? Would that place his mind at ease?”

“Forget it. Get the navigation computer up. It’s wonky.” I moved the controls, then adjusted the sensitivity of the steering yoke, pedals, and electronic interface.

“The problem has been corrected. You are welcome,” X said. “Bug is coming back.”

“Great. Should be a real laugh fest,” I grumbled.

The door slid open. Bug took a seat. “You can’t just go straight to your estate. This shuttle doesn’t have the range, and none of the refueling platforms on the open seas can be trusted. Head inland to Marsi. It held out longer than Maglan City. What civilization remains is there. There are starships if you can afford them.”

I made the adjustments to my course.

Bug alternated his attention between the navigation map, the window, and numerous gauges needed to keep the ship in the air. Conversation didn’t seem to be on his list today.

Something I said had gotten under his skin more than our previous arguments or attempts to murder each other. I replayed the dialogue and stayed away from theories of my existence. At the end of the day, none of that mattered.

“Over there, two hundred thirty degrees along our forward azimuth.” He pointed for emphasis.

I zoomed in and spotted a family running across a bridge. On the other side was a small fortress but they were too slow to reach it. The raiders would catch and overwhelm them. One man among the runners was an adult. He had a rifle, but little chance of fighting off a dozen armed men with a kid in one arm.

I turned that way and accelerated.

“There are more, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said on the speaker. “The raiders deployed from vehicles, which are now racing a mile down river to ford the shallow water. They also have an overwatch vehicle in the air—most likely a commercial transport with considerable range.”

“Weapons?” I asked.

“Rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Clubs and axes. One of the wheeled vehicles has a machine gun but no belt fed into it. The ship lacks any evidence of weapons,” X-37 said.

“Who are these guys?” I asked Bug.

“Run of the mill raiders. Gangs who feed off the weak. There are warlords in every region without an Oroth JFT or Hagg presence,” he said. “There are more of them than I saw at first.”

“We don’t have to fight them, just discourage them,” I said.

He touched the pistol on his thigh rig. We both kept our rifles locked in the rack. “And how do we do that?”

“X-37 will do a flyover. You and I can open the side doors and do some shooting,” I said.

“I cannot fly this craft,” X said.

“You can keep it straight and level,” I said.

“Of course. Will that be enough?”

I smiled broadly. “We’re going to find out.”

“You’re a bit crazier than other Reapers, except—” He stopped himself.

“Say it,” I encouraged.

The words squeezed out of him. “Except for the original.”

I slapped my hands together. “Great. It’s settled. I’m me.” I typed a series of maneuvers into the flight control panel and pushed my chair back. “Just keep us off the ground, X, and we’ll handle the rest. Super easy.”

Bug followed me to the main fuselage where we grabbed our rifles. I put one hand on the door. “Better hook your safety line just in case.”

He hastily snapped a carabiner to a line and moved to his own side of the shuttle. “I don’t know about this one, Cain.”

“Trust me. We got this.” I flung my door back. Wind pulled it violently open and nearly jerked me out into the open air. I steadied myself on the frame, then started picking targets.

The bridge was simple—no overhead arches or cables. All the support was below the roadway.

I aimed, then dropped one of the raiders about to catch the man and his youngest girls. Their curly hair bounced as he yelled at them to hurry. The mother now had the older children inside the little fortress just beyond the bridge.

Several of the wild men looked up. Others continued the chase. Bug dropped two in rapid succession. I aimed at the watchers as we passed but lost the shot.

“We are holding straight and level, Reaper Cain. If you would like another maneuver, now would be the time for someone to take the controls. We are leaving the theatre of battle.”

“You good, Bug?” I asked.

“Yeah. Go steer.”

I locked my rifle in a rack and jumped into the cockpit, cranking the steering yoke the minute my butt hit the seat.

“You weren’t kidding about hooking in the safety harness!” Bug shouted, half out of the door.

I banked around and saw the bridge attack had stalled but there were three wheeled vehicles on this side of the shallow river now. Their drivers raced toward the back of the pathetic fort where children were being hustled into the center while a small force of men and women who had been waiting manned the defenses.

“Looks like the father and mother joined the defenders,” Bug shouted. “Their barricades are trash. We only bought them a few minutes if the cars aren’t stopped.”

“Get to work on the ground vehicles. I’ll put you right above them.” I gunned the thrusters, then flared them at the last minute.

Bug, leaning out of the door with only the safety line keeping him attached, opened fire with his HDK II.

The first car veered away, the driver slumped over the wheel. Bug’s other shots burst glass and punched holes through metal panels but didn’t hurt anyone.

Bug shifted targets as we passed. He put a round into a fuel tank causing an explosion and punctured tires on one side of a large truck.

“Come around again. I want to disable all three so they can’t go for reinforcements,” Bug shouted. “Or ram the barricades.”

I complied while keeping tabs on the airship still circling us at a distance. Banking hard, I subjected the remaining two ground vehicles to Bug’s wrath. He destroyed tires, windshields, and put several rounds in each engine.

“Good work,” I said. “What about the airship? You want that stopped.”

“Definitely. These outlaws are poorly trained and unorganized, but if the word gets out, others will come. This ship would be worth a lot to them,” Bug said.

“Get ready. This will be trickier.” I feinted toward the besieged camp by the bridge, then punched the engines and went after the converted cargo ship. It was slow, but had a good lead.

Wind whipped at Bug’s gear. Each time I looked back, he was holding the door frame with one hand and his rifle on a sling with the other. The safety line hooked to the back of his belt was a bit slack, but would pull taut if he leaned out.

One, two, then three minutes passed without gaining much ground on the fleeing junker. Not even X-37 spoke. I couldn’t see how many people were in the ship. Estimating how fast the craft could move was tricky.

“I think it must be empty, X. I’d hoped it was heavy and slow,” I said.

“Lack of cargo would definitely make the freighter move more quickly,” X-37 said. “I estimate it could hold a crew of ten or more people as long as they are careful with displacement.”

“Isn’t that a nautical term, X?”

“In this case it refers to individuals, or cargo, and where they are positioned in the ship. If done properly, this will enhance safety and performance.”

Bug laughed. “These groups never do anything properly. They probably have all their fighters on one side of the ship.”

“Why would they do that, Bug?” X-37 asked via speaker.

“So they can storm down the ramp when they land, shouting like they know what they’re doing. Meanwhile, all of their weight will be at the back of the ship, dragging the tail down,” Bug said. “Murder on the ship’s trim while in atmosphere.”

“Then why aren’t we catching it?” I asked.

X-37 answered. “We are gaining, but not at the rate you want. Also, whoever is piloting that ship is burning fuel at a reckless rate.”

“He’ll regret that,” Bug said. “Not easy to refuel in this region.”

I continued the chase but worried about the defenders we had left behind. “We should go back. Doesn’t help to prevent reinforcements if everyone gets killed right now.”

“Just give it another minute. The family was inside the barrier and they had other defenders. A siege takes time,” Bug said. “We can go back to help them.”

“Shut the side doors. Better for aerodynamics.”

Bug complied.

We gained ground faster. “This would be easier with air to air missiles.”

“Just get me parallel and I will use my rifle,” Bug said.

“That kind of shooting is a lot harder than it looks,” I said. “And their crew could shoot back.”

We raced over neglected farmland, passing dried up aqueducts leading out of the mountains. The scene reminded me of my early days in the Union army, even before spec ops. I remembered deploying along a road like this, in similar weather.

For a hot second, I could smell that late summer day and taste the harvest on the wind. Why had we been moving into that region? Couldn’t remember now.

The freighter picked up speed and banked to the left. Warning bells clanged in my head. I checked the map, guessing we were far beyond visual range—which meant I couldn’t look back to see what was happening to the people Bug wanted to save.

And they couldn’t see us.

The ship climbed, shaking from the strain on its wings. Camouflage netting along the nearest ridge exploded with anti-aircraft fire. Alarms blared through the shuttle as I evaded incoming tracer rounds.

“I thought these were untrained outlaws!” I shouted, nearly breaking the steering yoke and mashing yaw pedals with my feet to make our patched-together airship dance.

“I never said they were stupid.” Bug clambered into the cockpit and grabbed the co-pilot’s controls.

X-37 displayed vectors I needed to hit perfectly to keep the shuttle in the air, even if I had to take damage to do it.

Anti-aircraft rounds punched through both wings. I felt the vibrations but maintained control.

“That was close to the auxiliary fuel line,” Bug warned.

“In the wings? What kind of design is that?”

“Not mine,” Bug said, pulling hard to help me out of an evasive maneuver that nearly flew us into the ground.

Once we leveled off I swung back around.

“We’re landing,” I announced.

“Why?” Bug shouted.

“We can’t out fly or out shoot those AAG emplacements,” I said. “Get angry, Bug, because we’re about to land right on top of some asshats who need to die.”

The freighter circled, exposing an open rear door with at least ten decently armed raiders waiting to disembark when it touched the ground. They were a minute or two behind us. By the time they arrived, I planned to be done with the gun crew, depending on how many there were.

“Maybe this is a bit reckless, X,” I said, hoping Bug didn’t hear.

“I agree one hundred percent, Reaper Cain.”

“What was that?” Bug asked.

“We’re landing in three, two, one.” I slammed the shuttle between the two anti-aircraft guns, unstrapped, grabbed my D3D, and stormed out the side door a split second behind Bug.

A heavyset man in a military jacket and vacation shorts opened fire. Bug shot him three times, but the guy fled holding his gut with one hand and his rifle with the other.

Two men jumped down from their AAG, submachine guns spraying our position. Several rounds glanced from Bug’s armor. I followed close behind him, shamelessly using his armor as cover, trying not to die. The second the enemy shots faltered, I veered away from Bug, shooting on the move and downing at least one man with a D3D round to his throat.

Bug scrambled for the cover of the other gun on our left. I jumped into the pit of the gun on the right. A giant man in work overalls and a dirty beard stabbed at me with a huge knife.

I shot him, then looked for more targets. A woman pointed a shotgun and fired in one movement. Diving away, I realized my hesitation had nearly ended the last Reaper like a bad mistake.

She chased me around the enclosed space. I fumbled my rifle.

“What exactly are you doing, Reaper Cain?” X-37 demanded.

She jumped over the AA gun chair, kicking me square in the chest with both feet. I fell backward, cracking my head on metal and nearly losing my D3D completely this time.

She thrusted the auto-shotgun forward.

I kicked the barrel aside as it went off and aimed my D3D. “Drop the scatter gun!”

Her eyes went wide as she lunged back from the sight of my rifle aimed at her, then scrambled out of the small enclosure.

I pursued.

A rifle and a shotgun went off at nearly the same time. I emerged into the bloody scene a second after everything ended.

The woman lay akimbo, staring at the sky. Bug held a shotgun wound to his shoulder.

“Maybe you aren’t one of the HC units! What the hell was that? Haven’t you shot a woman before!”

“It’s been a while!” I shouted back.

Bug clenched his teeth so hard it looked like they might shatter.

I took his weapon so he could hold the wound with both hands, then dug through his belt for a clotting agent and a pressure bandage.

“She nearly killed me. I was walking up there thinking the big bad Reaper had things under control. I killed my share. What happened to you?”

I sterilized the wound as best I could, poured in the clotting agent, and glued down the bandage. “Don’t worry about it. Fights are messy.”

He shook his head but looked ready to vomit from pain. The shotgun wound wasn’t his only hit, it was just the one that made it between the seams of his armor. Blood, sweat, and gravel from a hard fall covered him.

“Don’t forget about the freighter,” he said. “Think you can handle them?”

“Sure, Bug. I’ll be right back.”

The freighter landed twenty meters away, too close for a proper operation and too far away for what these amateurs were attempting. Using the gun emplacement for cover, I lined up my shots and unleashed hell.

Shooting from a stable platform while your enemies ran straight at you wasn’t even fair. I dropped the first five before they realized I had them in my sights.

The others sprayed my hiding place with shotguns, a machine-gun, and a crossbow. I stepped back, counted to three, then rolled out and shot two more who were standing with their feet wide, weapons held forward like they thought they were at a gun range.

That left three.

Retreating around the emplacement, I checked my magazine and decided not to bump it—i.e. switch it for a full one. This wasn’t going too take many rounds. Unlike my encounter with the woman in the AAG, I had my shit together now.

19

Silence held the scene. Only the noise of the freighter’s engine ticking and something burning behind me broke the monotony.

Fire wasn’t always bad. The crackling sound didn’t mean something was going to explode. Smoke had lots of benefits, like concealing my movements.

I low-crawled between the anti-aircraft guns with my D3D cradled between my forearms. Speed didn’t concern me. I stopped frequently to listen.

Bug crawled on his knees and his right forearm, dragging the left side of his busted body across the dirt until he could stand beneath the camo netting of the other gun. I watched him check the weapons, then his bandages. He pointed at the ground he stood on, then gave me the thumbs up.

“This would be easier if we had integrated comms, Reaper Cain.”

“Move that up on my priorities list,” I whispered. “Help me with this next scan. When I get to the very end of these sandbags, I’ll peek between some of the fallen net. Sound off if you see something I don’t.”

“Of course,” X said.

I eased into position, squinting until I spotted the freighter. Two men low-crawled frantically toward it, which made me think one of them had to be a pilot. I could hear them argue and curse.

“Where is the other one, X?”

“Unknown.”

I twisted toward Bug, then pointed up.

He rolled his eyes, mouthed something obscene, then climbed to the highest point of the AAG emplacement. The best camouflage and armor remained there as a permanent part of the weapon. It also had view ports.

The two crawlers were almost at the freighter. With the loading ramp down, they would be able to dash inside and disappear soon. “I’m out of time, X.”

“Agreed, Reaper Cain. Good luck. I have no additional data to share at this time.”

Bug lined up a shot with his rifle. I followed the angle and saw a man running for a hilltop about ninety degrees from the other two at the freighter.

“This will be sniper initiated, X. The second Bug fires, I’m on these two like a razor monkey.”

“Very good, Reaper Cain.”

“Hurry up, Bug,” I whispered.

Bug quickly wrapped a long piece of fabric around his shoulder, then held it with his forehand, making an extra secure connection between the front grip of the weapon and his body. No flinching for Bug, not today.

“Damn that is going to hurt,” I said.

“You are correct, Reaper Cain.”

Bug let out a long breath, then paused before drawing another.

I turned my attention to my own targets.

Bug fired once.

I jumped to my feet and rushed the men on the ground. They scrambled up and tried to make it inside, only to get shot in the back. I kept them in my sights until I reached their bodies and confirmed they were dead. Looking back, I saw Bug’s target down, and Bug leaning back in the gun turret in abject misery.

“That was a rough fight, X.”

“Agreed. You would have failed without the help of Bug. Had you not died due to your hesitation to kill the woman, they would have rallied and overwhelmed you anyway. If by some miracle you stayed alive past that point, they would have returned with reinforcements,” X said.

“Thanks for the pep talk.” I cleared the ship just to be sure there were no more surprises. When that was done, I went to check on Bug.

“Why does everyone around you get shot to hell, Reaper?”

I shrugged, hesitating to make a joke after my failure to drop the woman with the shotgun. “Let me have a better look.”

He shook his head. “Let’s fly back to the bridge first. I want to know if this was worth it. Hope those kids are still alive.”

“This will only take a second.” I opened his armor for the second time today, adjusted the pressure bandage, and re-secured his chest and shoulder plates. Both were damaged but better than nothing. “I’ll check the ships. Can you fly one? Might be good to take both.”

He shook his head. “I can fly, a little. Mostly self taught. But my head is swimming and I think a little pee came out.”

I burst out laughing and was still amused when I learned our roughly repaired assault shuttle from Maglan City was ruined anyway. Fuel leaked from the wings and main fuselage. It stank of chemicals. Smoke drifted from inside, never a good sign.

I retrieved a fire extinguisher and handled the flames, then checked the rest of the scene after remembering the sound of something burning during the final fight. It turned out to be an overturned brazier that was easily dealt with.

The meat they’d been grilling was ruined.

Of course.

Once I removed the rough lumps of coal they’d been using for fuel, and stomped out the clothes they had been drying, I barely needed the extinguisher.

The freighter was in better condition but low on fuel. We could fly it back to the bridge or continue toward Marsi without reaching either place. I knew which choice Bug would make and owed it to him not to argue.

I transferred our gear to the cargo hauler, scavenged ammunition, batteries, and rations from the outlaws, then went for Bug. “You ready?”

“Are you going to carry me?” he asked.

“No, but that’s not all of the bad news. You’ll have to walk from where we run out of fuel to the bridge,” I said.

“Then we might as well get after it.” He limped toward the freighter and entered via the ramp.

I found my way to the cockpit, ran a systems check, and took off without asking X-37 for help. He was unusually silent, prompting me to check the computer in my backpack for power.

“The battery is holding, Reaper Cain,” X said. “But please plug it into the ship.”

I complied and made an easy trip to a spot within view of the bridge. I landed neatly, hoping the people we had helped would have fuel. Barring that, maybe they could still use it for salvage after we left.

Bug and I barely spoke as we hefted our packs, checked our weapons, and left the cargo hauler parked in the middle of a weed covered field.

A hundred meters from the little fort, I heard a challenge.

“That’s close enough, stranger.” The man stayed behind the makeshift parapet, only allowing a view of his face and one shoulder. It was pretty obvious he held a weapon just out of view. His poor hygiene was equally evident from his stained shirt and the greasy stripe of hair down the center of his head.

“They’re on high alert,” Bug said quietly, his eyes scanning the scene before us. “I don’t blame them.”

I pointed the way we had come. “We took care of those raiders.”

“Yeah? Well we handled the gaggle of them you left behind. Even managed to clean up the bodies, no thanks to you,” Mr. Hair Stripe said.

“We don’t need anything from you,” I said. “We just came to make sure they survived the attack.”

“You expect us to believe that?” another voice said, this one much younger, maybe even a teenager who sounded more than ready for another fight.

Bug leaned close to me, turning slightly away from the fort so they couldn’t see him talking. “Do you think the family is okay in there?”

“They went in there willingly,” I said.

“That’s a fluid concept around here. For all we know, they were picking the lesser of two evils.” Bug watched me intently, gauging my response.

“How far do we take this? Are you suggesting we shoot our way in, then take them to the next settlement, maybe kill everyone there to make sure they get what they want?” I asked.

“The Reaper I knew never left people behind.”

“Then maybe you’re a clone of Bug, did you ever think of that? Because if you really came all the way from Dreadmax, you know that was a load of crap,” I said.

He shook his head in what was becoming his signature move. “Nope, that’s not how I remember it. The Cain I know was always rescuing strays. He brought two, three depending on how you count them, civilizations here for a new start.”

“I didn’t hold the hand of every flea bitten family I found alongside the road,” I said.

“But you would have if you could have.” He walked toward the fort with his hands up. “We just need to see the family and make sure they’re okay.”

“What family? You trying to trick us? And how is that your business?”

“We saw them run across a bridge and take shelter in your fort,” Bug said.

Mohawk smiled and lifted one hand as though his point had been proven. “Now I remember. Of course. They wanted to come inside. So what business is it of yours?”

Bug stared at the man, completely at a loss for words.

I picked out other details about the fort that I had missed before. Their banners weren’t made out of fabric, but animal skin—or maybe human skin. I had no idea why parents would take their children into such a place, but they had been running from something they considered worse.

Moving beside Bug, I kept my eyes on the leader of these ragged survivors. He started to say something, then paused. Playing a hunch, I moved closer, well ahead of Bug now.

His eyes widened and he looked behind the barricade nervously, seeming to seek advice from one of his fellow scavengers.

I moved even closer, then stopped. “You see me now, don’t you? I only want one thing, the family safe and standing right in front of me. We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

Voices argued where I couldn’t hear them. Somebody was pushed against a wall. The spokesperson disappeared, then came back, checked to see I was still there, and went back to what sounded like a pretty good brawl.

Silence followed. Bug moved up beside me, hand on his HDK II.

Someone pulled the gate open from the inside and pushed a family of seven through the gap, two adults and five children from ages four to fourteen.

The gate rattled shut. The greasy hair stripe wearing spokesperson didn’t show himself again.

The children took one look at me, and three of them started crying.

Bug intervened, stepping between me and the parents. “This one’s different.”

The man went pale. The woman nodded vigorously as though she wanted to agree but was also trying to hold back tears.

“Are there any other prisoners being held against their will inside?” I asked.

The father hesitated, and it was the mother who overcame her fear first. “No one. There was a group. But no one is alive now. Please—don’t hurt my children, Reaper.”

I stared at them, not feeling appreciated. “Call me Cain. Or Halek Cain. Or Hal, I really don’t care.”

None of my new friends responded. I turned to Bug. “Take them toward Marsi, and let them go wherever they want. They can have some of our food and water, but not all of it. I’ve got one more thing I need to address with these half assed cannibals.”

“Don’t take too long,” Bug said, then hustled the family up the road before the fort dwellers could change their minds.

I shouted at the gate. “One last thing. You better have some decent cigars, and you better throw them out here right now.”

“Or what?” Mohawk said without showing his face.

“Or I come in there and kill every one of you, right after I get tired of the torture.” I watched Bug’s response out of the corner of my eye. He hesitated at the mention of cigars.

“We don’t have any,” Mohawk said. “No tobacco of any kind. Why don’t you leave us alone?”

“Why don’t you drop dead,” I muttered as the smell of cooking meat came from inside. These desperate survivors had been preferable to the ones we killed earlier. Maglan really had gone downhill.

The gate cracked open, and a young woman with a shaved head sprinted out holding a bundle wrapped in oiled leather. Angry voices pursued her, but no one dared to follow.

“This is all the tobacco leaf they had. You have to take me with you now. I can’t go back in there,” she said like the statement was one long word.

I pointed toward Bug and the others, who were fifty meters away. “Go with them, and stay away from the kids.”

I crossed my arms and stared at the fort.

“You realize they could shoot you even with primitive firearms, or perhaps a crossbow,” X-37 said.

“About time you showed up, X. I was getting worried,” I said, refusing to move.

“Why exactly are you standing here?” X-37 asked.

“Psychology. I’ll leave just as soon as I know they understand their place.”

“Please explain your intense dislike of these people that you worked so hard to protect,” X-37 said.

“I don’t like it when people turn on themselves, especially when they go after the weak. I don’t know why that family went in there, but it feels like a betrayal even though I wasn’t involved.” I waited for another minute, then turned my back on the place and walked after Bug and the others.

“It would be helpful for my analysis if you would learn the reason those parents made that choice,” X-37 said.

I didn’t respond. The answers were probably going to be bad, and I mostly just wanted them to go their own way and make better decisions in the future.

Bug greeted me when I caught up. “This group isn’t from around here, except the one who brought you the tobacco. They’re from Marsi. Might be useful when we get there.”

“Did they say why they took shelter with cannibals? I’m not sure I need someone like that watching my back,” I said.

Bug furrowed his brow. “Their answer doesn’t make much sense. The father didn’t want to talk about it, but the mother eventually told me they were running from somebody called Scheid, and those outlaws were some of his bounty hunters.”

I said nothing.

“They said Scheid comes around every few weeks with soldiers. Always in an assault craft—one that looks new and has all of its gun attachments.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, comparing the information to X-37’s revelation about the man kicked out of the Reaper Corps development team.

“Does that mean anything to you, Hal?” Bug asked.

“Maybe. I’m still putting a few pieces together.”

He walked with me for a few more steps in silence. “Just keep me in the loop. You might be just another HC assassin, but there is something different about you.”

“Bug, that’s the nicest thing you ever said to me.” I fished a cigar out of the bag of loose tobacco, stuck it in my mouth, and looked for a lighter.

“Bottom right pocket of the backpack, Reaper Cain. The ignition source is a standard survival tool,” X-37 said.

I retrieved the small, brightly colored lighter and fired up the cigar.

It tasted like a wet dog getting blow dried. Exhaling a plume of bluish smoke, I shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

20

“The journey to Marsi is less practical without transportation,” Bug said. “But going back isn’t much better. You know what we’ll find there.”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the JFT will loan us some ships. Write off our early encounters as a misunderstanding.” My mood was picking up despite being tired, hungry, and in need of a long shower.

“They would probably apologize,” Bug said with a rare laugh.

X-37 went into coaching mode. “Now would be a good time to present a test question—something designed to elicit new information or otherwise advance your alliance with Bug.”

It was good advice, and I had a theory. “I would demand cigars, of course. Maybe some Gronic Fats for old-time sake, and a bargain size box of cheese crackers.”

“Good one, Reaper Cain. He will remember that from Dreadmax,” X said.

Bug looked at me like I’d punched him in the gut. His laughter died and he focused on his zone like we were once again in hostile territory—which we probably were. All of Maglan had problems since the invasion.

I stood on the ridgeline and shaded my eyes, hoping my reference to our mutual past would bring Bug closer rather than drive him away.

Marsi sprawled across the foothills of the front range of the mountains. Maybe I could see it, but it was more likely my imagination at this distance. “Three or four days, at least.”

“Assuming everyone in this group can keep the pace of professional soldiers.” He looked back to the family on the run away from the fort—eight people neither of us wanted responsibility for.

“We continue inland. Find a vehicle, or don’t. Avoid raiders, or walk right into one of their traps,” I said. “We’re committed. There better be a starship.”

Bug nodded toward our followers. “What about them?”

“We do the best we can for them, and they find their own way once we reach the city. Or is that another problem?” I was starting to get annoyed with all of these setbacks and worried that he was sabotaging my mission.

“Conditions change. I haven’t been to Marsi for over a year. It was one of the better places after the exodus,” Bug said. “I’ll stand guard on the ridge while everyone eats. Fire shouldn’t cause a problem. Keeps away animals for the most part. I’ll watch for anything on two legs.”

“Give me a signal if you see anything,” I said, then listened to his bird whistle. “Perfect.”

I went down to the camp where Andre and Jessica faced off with Roadkill—the girl with the shaved head and unclear intentions. The younger children stayed close together, watching the confrontation without a word. I doubted more than two of them were related, but strange times made for strange families.

“I don’t care about that. I’m not changing my name. Had it as long as I can remember,” Roadkill said, rubbing her fingers over her buzz cut hair. “And I don’t steal, or eat people. It was never like that at the fort. I just showed up when things were getting desperate.”

Andre put his hands on his hips. “Jess and I think it’s for your own good. I don’t care what they call you. You need a new one. What happens when we run into some of your old companions at a market or a race?”

“I’ll run just like always. No one cares about Roadkill. They ain’t gonna come this far. Not when there’s a Reaper with us,” the young woman said.

I sat down near Andre. “What’s your story? Why all these kids?”

He shrank away, then looked to his wife before saying anything, like they were accustomed to getting the stories straight before talking to strangers. I doubted they were about lying, yet.

“This was a good area, the last time we heard. There were lean times on the coast. We kept moving, and eventually followed reports of a better place,” he said. “All we wanted was to get away from Scheid.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

Jessica jumped into the conversation. “We always heard people talk about a bridge by the river and bountiful harvests. This clearly wasn’t the one we were looking for.”

I leaned forward with my hands on my knees and touched my fingertips together. She didn’t pull back, but looked profoundly uncomfortable. “Neither one of you answered my question.”

She swallowed, unable to tear her eyes away from mine even though I was certain she wanted to be anyplace but here.

“We lost our own children on the first day of the invasion. Separated. Andre thinks they made it onto one of the evacuation ships. We fled the shock troops, then hid underground. Gregory was the first new member of our family,” she said.

Thoughts of Grigori Paavo, aka Path, caught me off guard, softening my act.

She continued more easily. “We haven’t adopted everyone we find. It’s hard to explain how we became family, but it’s real. They find us, not the other way around.”

“Fair enough.” I looked to Roadkill, noticing that Jessica retreated the moment she escaped my attention. “What’s your story?”

Roadkill shook her head. “These two nice people are wrong. The fort was good. I wandered to the bridge with my parents and some of their friends years back. Most of them got sick or killed or wandered off since then. I was little.” She shifted nervously. “I’m about twenty, I think. I remember having a tenth birthday party about the time of the invasion.”

Andre and Jessica had their children pulled in close for some kind of family meeting. My natural skepticism kicked in. “I think they’re going to run,X.”

“What?” Roadkill said. “Didn’t catch that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I talk to myself. All Reapers do.”

“I’ve never been this close to one before, so I wouldn’t know,” she said.

The family slipped bedrolls back into their travel packs, then acted like they were just going to sleep on the grass when they had a better option. Roadkill looked at them in disgust.

“This is an interesting dynamic, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I don’t believe the Roadkill woman will be leaving with the family.”

“I was hoping she would,” I said, turning away from the young woman for a sliver of privacy. She ignored my muttering this time. “People around me get hurt. I don’t think she understands that.”

I stopped wrestling with the dilemma of civilians the moment I saw a squadron of ships moving through the night, possibly heading toward the bridge fort—good in the short term, but if they were looking for trouble, Roadkill’s old friends would point them our way—no doubt.

No one moved but everyone watched. The airships barely had lights. At times, they disappeared in the darkness, only betrayed because of the inconsistent engine noise that reached us.

“What do you make of that, X?”

“From what these survivors have told us, those are most likely vessels belonging to Doctor Scheid. They are moving away from us, toward the bridge fort. In the morning, they may begin searching in this direction,” X-37 said.

“What are you going to do about Scheid’s ships, Reaper,” Roadkill asked.

I bit on a cigar but didn’t light it. “I’ll start with strong language.”

None of my new associates laughed. All the color drained from Roadkill’s face, like she suddenly believed leaving the fort had been a mistake. Andre and Jessica urged their family to be ready to run if they had to, barely attempting to disguise their intentions now.

I approached their gathering. “You don’t have to stay with me. You’re not my prisoners or slaves or whatever.”

Jessica jumped to her feet. “We’re with you to the end, Reaper. Wouldn’t be right to run off right when there was going to be a big fight.”

Andre and the children nodded vigorous agreement.

“Is that so?” I asked.

“Of course, we can’t fight,” Jessica pointed out. “You might find us more of a burden than an asset. But we’re not disloyal. Everyone knows never to cross a Reaper. We don’t want to see your war walkers again.”

“Tell me about the war walkers,” I said.

“They mean mechs driven by other Reapers. Exactly like you, is what they look like. Down to the way you walk. I’ve seen a few at a distance,” Roadkill said.

“You’re a liar,” one of the younger kids said. “You never saw one. They would’ve burned out your eyes!”

Jessica grabbed the little girl. “Shush.”

Arguing broke out. I chewed on the cigar until I couldn’t take it.

“Everyone shut up. Get some sleep. You’ll need it in the morning because we have a lot of ground to cover. I’ll find a place to hide you in Marsi, then continue my mission,” I said.

Every last one of them backed away from my tone, which made me feel like a grade A jerk. Roadkill even joined the family in this retreat, and they didn’t shove her out of their circle.

“What the hell, X? Am I that mean?”

“You must face facts. These people are not the crew you brought all the way to Maglan. They don’t trust you. I suspect poor imitations of Reapers have ruined your reputation,” X said.

“Fine.” I lifted the unlit cigar to get their attention. “I’m going to stand watch with Bug. Go to sleep or I will put you to sleep.”

Bed rolls and blankets came out of backpacks like magic. Roadkill moved away from the family circle, but also tucked herself in for dreamtime.

I found Bug twenty meters out watching the darkness carefully. “The hell was all that racket? I nearly came into camp to see if you were okay.”

“They aren’t the army we were looking for,” I said.

Bug chuckled. “That’s the truth. But for the record, it isn’t we. I’m not building a fighting force to do all that galaxy saving stuff.”

“Neither am I.”

“You keep chewing on that cigar, it’s gonna fall apart. The thing isn’t wrapped that well in the first place.”

I put it away. “I noticed.”

“They’re scared of you,” Bug said. “Get used to that reaction.”

“You’re not scared of me.”

“Everyone dies. Why be scared?”

“Tell me more about what happened. About my family.”

“Your kind doesn’t ask about the details,” he said, then swept the night with his rifle scope.

“I’m going to punch you in the throat,” I said. “My kind. Who are you to talk?”

“Meaning?” he asked.

“Meaning I’m cranky. Let’s drop it.”

Bug continued his work, only lowering his rifle when he had exhausted all the angles he could see from this position. “I need to move around the perimeter and look for more of those ships. Did our refugees say who they thought they belonged to?”

I tried a new angle. “Jessica mentioned Scheid.”

Bug picked a new spot and began working his rifle optics again.

“No comment?” I asked.

Bug didn’t flinch. “Nope.”

I tried to wait him out. In ten minutes, the family and Roadkill would either be asleep or sneaking toward freedom—freedom from me, I thought.

“Give me something, Bug. I’ve been asleep for a long time,” I said.

“Never seen Scheid, though I’ve heard the name,” he finally said. “The early days were rough. The nukes caught people off guard. No one trusted anyone who didn’t look and act like their neighbors. Shock troopers came shortly after that. It didn’t feel like they were related but no one listened to me because I had no proof. I could be wrong. Gut instinct only takes you so far.”

“Agreed.” I waited for X-37 to offer his breakdown of Bug’s story so far, but the LAI held his tongue.

Bug continued, still doing his job. “HC attacks came more and more frequently. No more nukes, but squads of Halek Cains. That upset your mother but was a blessing. She realized immediately that they were clones, programmed or brainwashed for total subservience. Once, she said that was the easiest way to spot them because her son wouldn’t have taken orders like that—especially when the real killing began.”

“Mom knows what’s what.”

Humor twinkled in Bug’s eye even if he kept his face hard as stone. “She said you were a difficult child.”

“I resemble that remark.”

A real smile opened his face.

Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought.

I stared into the night, counting on Bug to sound the alarm if needed.

“Your predecessor stayed one step ahead of them. I saw two of the battles. They moved in with mechs and fell into a sinkhole. He didn’t even bother to finish them off—just stood on the edge smoking his Goldband, looking down like a boss. The other fight was a running gun battle through Maglan City,” he said. “He took a lot of damage, and I mean a lot. But the HC assassin squads that came after him died, no survivors. I think he killed three with just his blade.”

“Did you team up?”

“No time, and I had my own people to worry about by then. Regretted the decision because then I could never catch up to him again. Elise and your sister were furious I lost contact.” He motioned to a new place on the perimeter. “I did see the mechs. They were after your predecessor like he owed them money.”

“He is using the term predecessor much more readily. I believe he is learning to trust you,” X-37 said. “Do not mess this up.”

I gave X a hand signal, just a slight movement he should interpret as an acknowledgement.

“Do you want me to stop the party from breaking up?” Bug asked.

I watched Jessica and Andre leading their kids into the night. Roadkill wasn’t with them. “They’ve made it this far. Let them go.”

“Okay.” Bug squatted down, still watching and waiting. “The girl went the other way. She was definitely trouble. Good riddance to her.”

“I hope they make it to wherever they’re going,” I said. “Get some sleep.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Two hours should do me, then we can get after it.”

I let him sleep three before warning him there was a vehicle coming. “Wakey wakey. Company’s here.”

21

We arrived in Marsi two days later, feeling pretty good about ourselves. Long hours of running kept conversation to a minimum and also prevented me from overthinking recent events. I definitely had a mission now. Save X-37 and get home to see for myself what happened. After that, who knew? I could crusade against the unfair universe, or keep to myself.

Maglan was a hard place but nothing I couldn’t handle if I avoided making friends. Just me, X, and a tobacco patch. Maybe a microbrewery.

Or I could straight kick the asses of whoever did this to my chosen home, locate more of my old companions, and just keep being the universe’s punching bag.

Bug maintained the pace out of pure toughness. He had been a young man the last time I saw him. Now he was a hardened veteran in his early thirties who still didn’t trust me. I thought I was wearing him down, but only time would tell.

“I see movement, looks like a vehicle,” I said as we crossed through surprisingly clean suburbs into the metropolitan area.

Bug moved behind the corner of a hardware store, his HDK at low ready. “You will see that here. People are living actual lives. Doesn’t mean we want to talk to everyone we encounter.”

I joined him, then faced the other direction along the wall of the building. Ten seconds passed. I lowered my D3D.

“There’s only one spaceport here, a public-private co-op with no significant military contracts prior to the invasion,” he said. “Mostly commercial freight and military transports.”

“So by no significant military contracts you mean nothing with weapons,” I clarified.

He was about to answer when a ship flew out of the city, heading south by southwest. We watched and waited. From this distance, I couldn’t decide if it was an assault craft or just an ugly freight hauler.

“Like I said, business as usual around here but with a lot less people. I doubt the locals will welcome strangers.” He adjusted his pack, gripped his weapon but left it attached to his sling, and headed up the street.

I followed. “X, can you tap into the local information networks?”

“Not at this moment, Reaper Cain.”

“Let me know the moment you have something.”

“Of course. There are almost no power sources in this area. You probably don’t remember that Maglan had strict safety protocols that required each power plant or transfer station to maintain a beacon. I have not located one. There should be twenty-seven of them in a city this size.”

I left the information alone. Bug wasn’t pretending this place was perfect. From what I’d seen so far, it was still paradise compared to Maglan city.

The farther we ventured into Marsi, the more I appreciated X-37’s warning. Anything that could support a war effort had been blasted from orbit and it looked like the northeast industrial area had been devastated by a limited nuke. Did I think we were safe from radiation? Not even X could answer that right now. For all I knew it was just a larger kinetic strike, a bigger better space rock thrown from a nastier slingshot. A moderate meteorite could do a hell of a lot of damage.

We entered the high-rise section and passed three intact buildings before the ground started shaking. I couldn’t quite see the building coming down, but once you had seen one go, it was hard to miss the clues.

Bug and I turned and fled the way we came. Two blocks later, we tucked in behind some trash dumpsters and waited for the fallout.

Dust rolled around the corner, filling the space between buildings like waves crashing through a canyon. The sky turned gray. Concrete dust and fragments of glass rained down for ten minutes. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to taste it.

Bug closed his helmet and adjusted his filters. I tied a bandanna over my mouth and hoped for the best.

We continued without a word, quickly reaching the destroyed city block. The skeleton of one corner thrust up metal beams and crumbling concrete. A mountain of debris had settled, but who knew how stable it was.

“We can move around the worst of it. Shouldn’t slow us much,” Bug said.

I stared at the destruction, trying not to think too much. Most of my military service had been in special operations, which meant small surgical strikes against known targets. Dark ops and the Reaper Corps had been even more specific, if darker in purpose.

Bug joined me. Jaw set, both hands on his weapon, his face showed the lines of someone who wished a lot of things had happened differently—and not just today.

X-37 heard the voices a half second before I did. “Cries of distress detected. Estimating fifty meters straight ahead and to your left, probably beneath the rubble.”

“Bug, there were people in that building,” I said, already moving forward.

He grabbed my arm. “Has to be your imagination. This area is mostly deserted. You’re probably just hearing ghosts. I’ve got pretty good ears.”

“I have a limited artificial intelligence analyzing everything I bring in through my natural senses,” I said. About that time, his expression changed, probably because he also heard crying.

“Sounds like kids, of course.”

He shook his head. “Everybody sounds like a kid when they’re in pain. If you’re going to do this, take your time. That pile of junk is unstable. There is a reason people don’t live in these buildings. Many were targets in the early attack.”

“That makes no tactical sense,” I said, pondering the puzzle before me—big pieces, little pieces, and broken pieces tangled together in a mess that couldn’t be put back together.

“There was a reign of terror to destabilize the population,” Bug said.

I was barely listening.

“There is something else, Reaper Cain. I have detected a Mark 98 vambrace.”

“Is that excitement I hear in your voice, X?”

“Of course not. It is merely my duty to inform you that the Mark 98 is a superior device for holding my data-webs and base protocols. With a top notch kinetic charger, as well as a heat sink that will not only help cool you but power me, the 98 would be worth keeping even after the neural synchronization is complete. You will like its form and function as well. No more lugging around the backpack.”

“I don’t know what your LAI is telling you, but try not to look so excited. I hear them now, and we probably can’t help them. Or shouldn’t,” Bug said.

“What do you mean?” I picked out a path through the first section of rubble but waited for his answer.

“You can’t save everyone. If you have a death wish, go ahead,” he said.

I looked him over. “You coming?”

“Of course I am.” He shoved past me and headed into the debris field. “I don’t have much left anyway, so why not? How the hell did I get involved with a clone?”

“Hey, clones are people too,” I said, joining him at the first major obstruction. Metal beams pointed in every direction with little room to slip through.

“I believe we established that you are not, in fact, a clone,” X-37 said.

“It doesn’t matter, X. I’ll play the hand I’m dealt.”

My LAI hesitated, displaying scans of the best route through the destruction in my HUD before answering. “Very good. I will mark search for evidence of Halek Cain’s origin as complete in my task folder.”

I put a hand on Bug’s shoulder to stop him from going farther. “Let’s move individually. I’ll take the lead. X is giving me some hints. We don’t want to fall at the same time.”

“You can say that again,” he said. “I’d rather not fall at all.”

I picked my way through an irregular ladder of concrete chunks, stopping once to bend a rusty piece of rebar out of the way. It gave way the moment I leaned on it. I glanced back. “Wouldn’t want you to fall on that.”

“You know me, I’m so clumsy.”

I smiled at his self-deprecating humor. We had come a long way since chatting on an intercom about cheese crackers.

I reached a giant gap invisible from where we had started. One step farther and I would have tumbled into the basement three levels below. The way down wasn’t straight. Nothing had collapsed in a predictable order. In one corner of the lowest level I saw water, but it was filled with the rainbow colors of oil or some other chemical.

“I’ll work my way down. Stay up here.”

Bug gave me a thumbs up.

Wishing I had a decent set of gloves, I scaled the uneven surface quickly, concerned that I no longer heard the cries for help.

I grabbed a piece of concrete with my left hand, then moved my feet lower until I could wiggle my toes into crevices. When I took my right hand off of the previous grip, the weight transfer to my left hand pulled the handhold free.

My toes slid off the narrow ledge. I grabbed for a piece of metal with my right hand-- and missed.

Falling wasn’t bad if you knew how to land. In this environment, I’d be lucky not to impale myself or break my neck. My left shoulder struck something. I grabbed for anything within reach. My feet smacked into something that I didn’t see. Pain bloomed in both ankles.

After that, I was rolling in a cloud of dust and curses.

X-37 gave me five seconds after I stopped. “I believe you have fallen past the person in distress, but you may be able to reach the Mark 98 vambrace.”

I rolled into a seated position, but one of my legs was locked in an unnatural angle. I lay backward and let my arms fall out to each side, thankful there was enough room to stretch out and ease my suffering. I was in trouble but didn’t want to face the fact that my right foot was stuck in a cinder block. As long as I didn’t attempt to wiggle it free, I could pretend it was nothing. No big deal, Hal, just a minor inconvenience down here at the bottom of a building collapse.

“My last update might have been for informational purposes only. You seem to be quite thoroughly wedged into this predicament,” X-37 said.

“You nailed it, X. I’m stuck.”

Bug called down. “You alive, Reaper?”

“Yeah. Everything is under control. Totally going according to plan.”

“Doesn’t look like it from up here. A lot of stuff came loose during your fall. I need to find a rope. We left mine escaping the Razors and whatnot.”

“I’ll be right here when you get back,” I said.

“Listen for the survivors. I haven’t heard a squeak from them since we got here,” Bug said. “I’ll come back either way. Rope isn’t easy to find these days.”

“Don’t take all day. We’re on a tight schedule.”

He didn’t answer, because he was already gone.

“There is one more vitally important fact you must attend to, Reaper Cain.”

“Hit me with it, X. This cluster frak can’t get much worse.”

“You dropped the backpack,” X-37 said. “I am submerged in a highly questionable liquid. The fabric of the backpack is water resistant, but can’t protect me indefinitely.”

“I’ll come get you,” I said just as I heard a muted cry for help far to my left.

“That is an admirable statement, Reaper Cain. You are, however, quite thoroughly stuck. I am barely within range to sense your biometrics.”

“Keep me updated. I’m working on my ankle.”

“It appears you are quite motionless, Reaper Cain.”

“Yeah, well, it’s part of my process. Don’t rush me.”

“Shall I add that to our standard operating procedure?”

I thought about it. “No. Just hold your horses—and don’t lecture me on metaphors right now.” I untangled my D3D, made sure the safety was firmly in place, and started chipping away at the concrete with the buttstock.

“You have a knife,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, but I like that knife,” I said. “And it’s not long enough.”

I continued the slowest escape I’d ever made, chipping away one granule of concrete dust at a time. Whoever built this building hadn’t skimped on quality materials. That made me wonder what the JFT had done to it to cause the collapse. The invasion must have been brutal. Was every building in this city unstable?

“Is someone there?” The woman sounded like an adult, which brought to mind Bug’s statement about everyone sounding like a child when in pain.

“I hear you. Are you alone and can you get free? Can you come to the sound of my voice?” I asked.

“There are about fifteen of us, and we can’t get out. There’s a metal beam across the only gap big enough. Everything else is a mountain of rubble,” she said.

“Fifteen people,” I muttered. “This sucks.”

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I have someone going for help or tools, whichever he finds first,” I said.

“Thank you, sir,” an old man said, then coughed violently.

“Just hang tight. Do what you can. We’ll figure something out,” I said.

“A mixture of water and petroleum has soaked through the backpack and is now in direct contact with the computer. Were the device in perfect condition, time would not be as important. Unfortunately, I believe you must do something soon or start looking for a new LAI.”

“Don’t worry, X. I’ve got this.”

Rubble shifted, gently at first, then violently. When the dust settled, I realized the survivors must be in worse shape than I was—which was saying something, because I was buried up to both knees. X-37 refused to answer, and Bug wasn’t coming back.

Sometimes a Reaper just knew shit.

22

“Reaper Cain—”

I waited ten seconds. X-37 flashed nonsense in my HUD, random numbers and symbols. Shadows moved high above the remains of the building. I couldn’t see the sun directly, but knew it was failing. X-37 wasn’t talking to me, the trapped civilians weren’t asking for help, and Bug still wasn’t back.

Worse, I fantasized about sleep. I’d lost blood but didn’t remember bleeding. My dry throat didn’t want to work and lying on my back had gone from relaxing to torture. Nothing was getting my legs out from under the concrete blocks. The only good news was that they weren’t being crushed. If I could escape, walking would be possible despite tingling numbness from my quadriceps to my toes.

At least I could feel everything. Numbness wasn’t a lack of sensation. It was more like ten thousand delightful little needles dancing through my nerves. Yay me.

Ten feet above me, off to my left, there was a gap filled with the harsh sunlight of the dying day. Something whirred through the gap, creating a shadow.

I held my breath. Drones.

X-37 would have warned me if he could. He was either hiding from a digital predator or blocked. I wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.

The sound and the shadow moved away. I searched with my eyes, afraid to move my head. The rise and fall of my chest seemed like it would give me away. By itself, a drone shouldn’t be a problem, though I had seen killer drones with explosive charges or poison darts. Certain elements of the Reaper Corps had loved them.

Not me. Never felt right about killing from a distance. Besides, my joystick skills were merely excellent when they needed to be galactic class to compete with that type of cyber warrior.

When I saw it, a chill went up my spine. The delicate machine flew like a collection of razor blades held together by magnetic fields rather than nuts and bolts. If these things were equal to high level Union tech, they could be as small as a wristwatch or large as an assault shuttle.

None of that was my biggest problem. Artillery units often used military drones as forward observers. A surgical strike would end my problems quickly. I wondered if this was why the civilians had gone quiet.

Two of the flying spider drones joined the first. They formed a triangle of sharp angles and quiet motors. Watching them work through the rubble fascinated me. I couldn’t look away.

All three extended eight or nine legs each and landed in perfect unison. Each turned three hundred and sixty degrees before analyzing what they had seen—or that was what it looked like. These little monsters were more like X-37 than me, so I used what I knew about my LAI to interpret their actions.

A fourth landed before the first three ranged out from their beachhead like scouts. The boss drone stood like it was asleep, but of course it wasn’t. The little metal assholes were ruthless killing machines, working as a team without the distractions of ego, fear, or mercy.

“I’m scared,” I muttered, bracing myself for the inevitable. I was, of course, despite my sarcasm, and it took a lot for a Reaper to feel vulnerable.

Vulnerable, but not helpless.

I turned my D3D toward them, holding it with the stock in the air rather than on my shoulder. This would be an instinct shot, easy at this range.

Two came through the last tunnel of concrete and rebar, sprinting toward my face the moment they saw me. I fired twice, thanking the universe that the D3D had automatic sound dampening features. Who wants to be sliced to bits by drones and deafened by gunfire?

Not this guy.

Both drones exploded.

The third came after them like a snake striking out of the darkness, right past the barrel of the D3D. I struck it away with my left palm, instinctively holding my weapon away with my other hand. Gun retention was key in a close fight, if you were fighting a person.

I dropped the D3D and fended off the relentless machine with both hands. Blood spattered the debris cave as I beat it away from my face. Five seconds into the battle, I grabbed it but it extended needles all over its body forcing me to toss it away.

The fourth drone whizzed through the tunnels only these things could navigate, then dashed at my blind spot. I back-fisted it into a wall of crumbling concrete. Dust exploded into the air. Every move the drones made became like three-dimensional art, disorienting and beautiful—not that I had time to appreciate the swirls of dust and light.

I sat up as far as I could, then flopped down to avoid their next assault. The move torqued my back, strained my hip flexors, and awakened pain in my legs. Super helpful.

My left hand pounded at one drone with brute force.

I grabbed repeatedly at the other with my right and finally snagged it. This time when the needles deployed, I screamed through the pain, held on, and slammed it against the other drone.

Both machines fell stunned—magnetic fields disorganized. I seized them and began pummeling the nearest collection of rebar with their delicate, if sharp, bodies. When they finally disintegrated, I flung away the pieces and curled my bloody hands to my chest. No one was around but I refused to cry.

Maybe there was some internal sobbing.

All of my sounds were definitely manly as fuck. No one was around to tell me different.

“Well done, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I tried to warn you but you weren’t listening.”

“Trust me, X, I was listening but you weren’t talking.”

He paused. “I am filing this information under the tag: very concerning. If they can block our communications without my knowledge, there must be other technological advantages they have over my design.”

“The hits just keep rolling.”

“I do not understand what you just said, Reaper Cain. Can you please focus? We are in a terrible situation,” X-37 said.

“No shit? I was just chilling. Everything seems like rainbows and unicorns from where I’m lying pinned under a million tons of rubble. What have you been doing besides not helping me at all?”

X-37 used his most patient voice. “Reaper Cain, were I able to feel emotions, that would have hurt. I am a limited artificial intelligence, not a miracle worker. You must do your part. And by the way, why were you making those pathetic sounds?”

“Wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what, Reaper Cain? Please clarify.”

“I wasn’t crying. Erase that part from the mission log.”

“Erasing non-essential data from the log,” X-37 said. “Shall we continue?”

The nerve of my LAI really couldn’t be measured. I took a few calming breaths, then lifted my hands from where I had them pressed against my chest. They were still bleeding from cuts and punctures, but slowly. My problem now was that they ached like someone had struck every finger tip and joint with hammers.

“Hey mister,” a boy shouted. “My mom can’t talk right now and mister Jeffers doesn’t want to have another coughing fit.”

“Are you and the others okay?” I asked.

“Better than you, sounds like. Can you get us out of here. I need to pee and my little sister already did. Not smelling great here. Oh, we could use something to eat. And lemonade. I’d really like some lemonade.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Seriously? Things have been bad. We need everything,” he said.

“Why don’t we start with getting out of this building collapse?” I asked.

“Yeah, that sounds cool. How soon can you free us?”

“I’m working on it. Now shut up until I call for you, but answer immediately when I do.”

“Sure, mister. You don’t have to be a dick,” the boy said.

“Why does this keep happening to me, X?”

“You make poor decisions and disregard my advice,” X said too quickly.

I wiggled my legs, pretending I could get them free with patience and a bit of luck. “Where were you, X?”

“The drones you fought off appear to be dual purpose models, antipersonnel and anti-technology. They would have wiped my algorithms from your neural network. Were I fully integrated, this wouldn’t have been a danger. Unfortunately, we are currently vulnerable to this type of attack. And please remember that I am completely submerged in a mixture of oil and water. You must obtain the Mark 98 vambrace and retrieve my computer host from this water grave.”

“You know what would be great? If someone would ask what I need. Because I could use some help.”

X-37 beeped patiently. “I cannot offer you any form of physical assistance beyond a boost to your hormone profile and metabolic rate, were I fully integrated.”

“So you can’t help at all.” I twisted one foot and pulled my legs, hoping for greater results than I got.

“No,” X-37 said.

“Why don’t you power down in case water gets into your circuitry,” I said.

“Powering down my host computer. I will remain in sleep mode until you reactivate me. Good luck, Reaper Cain.”

23

Twenty minutes later I moved my left leg several inches before my foot got stuck in another crook of the debris pile. I turned my head as far as possible, opened my mouth, and tried to catch dripping water from a rusty piece of metal. Most of it missed my lips, but I managed to wet my tongue. Lapping at the water like a dog wasn’t dignified but beggars couldn’t be proud. The rest of the red-brown trickle found my eyes which wasn’t useful at all.

“Delicious.” I blinked repeatedly and scrunched my face in an attempt to sluice the harsh liquid out of my eyes. “Not even kidding. Rust filled water is really under appreciated. Highly recommended for anyone trapped under a freaking building.”

“Relax,” I told myself. “Just breathe and go with it.” In with the good air, out with the bad air. Everything was fine. Just fucking fantastic. Maybe some rats would chew my toes off, because why the hell not at this point.

“Send down another clone, this one is all jacked up!” That thought was poison, so I crushed it like my worst enemy. What I needed was action, not self pity. Reapers didn’t mope and cry and feel sorry for themselves. There were enemies to kill the hell out of and old friends waiting for reunions.

I removed everything from my belt and pockets, creating a tidy stack off to one side. Then I cut my shirt free. Once I had fashioned fresh bandages for my hands, face, and arms, I removed the nasty strips of not so sterile cloth and used the new ones.

That left a lot of fabric. I cut what remained into strips and knotted them together. Using the small folding knife I had found early in this mad odyssey, I fashioned a hook by tying it halfway open. Next I broke parts of the blade until it looked more like a piece of bad cheese than a cutting instrument.

The first toss fell short of the pool. My second try was better, nearly snagging the backpack. Ten more failed attempts proved the universe hated my guts and was seriously messing with my head now.

I threw for the vambrace and caught it on the first try.

“Nice work, Hal!” I reeled in the Mark 98 vambrace, shamelessly congratulating myself on my skill, resourcefulness, determination, and excellent singing voice. Why not go all the way with this fantasy was my motto?

There was a problem. I had to strip off the bandages on my left arm to make this thing fit. It seemed to have an antibacterial safety layer between the device and my arm. X-37 wasn’t here to check the specs and I didn’t see a manual, not that I would have read it anyway.

I removed the bandages, rubbed the disturbingly fresh wounds like that would do something. Rub some dirt on it, Hal, and get back in the fight. Maybe I hadn’t come so far from my old neighborhood on Boyer 5. Here I was, playing in the dirt and likely to be late for supper.

The Mark 98 powered up the moment it locked in place. Seconds later, the skin beneath it cooled and felt more amazing than a Goldband and a whiskey.

Emboldened, I resumed my quest to drag X-37 from the slimy pool of circuit frying liquid. A profanity filled hour later, I dragged the backpack halfway to me before the knife-hook slipped off.

“It’s okay. Totally fine. I can live with that,” I said. “This is what progress looks like.”

Every foot I dragged the pack took five or ten attempts. My back hurt from twisting, throwing, and pulling the makeshift rope. The drone injuries throbbed, I seriously needed something to drink, and the back of my head was raw from turning to look toward X-37 each time I attempted to hook the pack.

A small green light appeared on the 98 indicating it was fully powered. I tapped it once and watched the display dim to a more tactical level. Many of the features on a Mark 98 resembled my old cybernetic arm. Nostalgia washed over me. Good times were here again. Totally.

I went with it because good things were finally happening down here. Regardless of my situation, the ability to take action, any action, kept me sane and moving forward—inch by mother-trucking inch.

“Hey, kid, are you still there?” I asked.

A few moments passed. “We’re here. Can you hurry up?”

“Working on it. Keep looking for your own way out while you wait.”

“We’ve been digging, but it’s slow and old man Jeffers says we need to be careful not to cause another collapse,” he said.

“Listen to Jeffers. I’m making progress over here but it’s slow.”

“Okay. My mom says thanks.”

“Why can’t she talk to me?

The kid’s voice cracked. “Something fell on her face. I think her jaw is broken. She looks like a giant grape with eyes—barely able to cry. Everyone else is exhausted and sweaty. Just lying around not even telling me to shut up like they normally do.”

“Listen to me, kid. I can’t talk to you all the time, but I will check on you. If you haven’t heard from me for a while and there are no drones around, call out and let me know you’re still awake.”

“Okay, mister.” He hesitated. “Thanks a lot. Really glad you’re here. Watch out for the Reaper clones. I heard there was a new one in town. That’s why we hid in this building. You don’t want to get caught by one of those torturing meanies.”

“Right. I’ll keep a lookout,” I said.

I gathered my raggedy rope, checked the knife-hook, and threw it until I got a solid snag on the strap.

I pulled slowly, careful not to dislodge the knife. Grabbing the bundle with my hand felt like winning a lifetime achievement award. “Got you!”

The backpack was a slimy mess so I removed the computer and set the bag aside. I dried X-37’s host device with what was left of my shirt, then carefully powered it up.

X-37 didn’t respond immediately, but that was normal. I put the computer down and started chipping away at the concrete with the stock of my D3D. More and more of the obstruction broke free. I was on a roll.

Contrary to my earlier claim, I wasn’t fond of my singing voice, but I could whistle. Maybe dehydration and blood loss was making me delirious but I felt the need to try out the rarely used skill. The tune came out sweeter than expected, but sad, like a lone gunslinger crossing the desert, not looking for trouble, but always finding it.

I allowed my mind to drift but kept my senses dialed into a trancelike awareness. Every surface of my prison had a sharper edge—each image holding a clear contrast and finer detail. Dust motes drifted in the morning light and I realized an entire night had passed. This was like the moving meditation Path had attempted to share with me so many times.

Bug still wasn’t back. Why? Because he was smart enough to abandon a lost cause. I really didn’t blame him.

The rhythmic sound of mech feet striking the ground reached down from the surface. Dust danced around me. X-37 could help me estimate the distance but the computer hadn’t powered up. I tapped the device several times, then whispered profanities I thought would help.

My vambrace vibrated. When I looked down, the small screen showed a red dot approaching from the south, five hundred meters distant and closing.

Drawing the combat knife, I bent forward far beyond my comfort zone and dug like a maniac. Who cared if this blade was destroyed? I probably wouldn’t need it to fight for my life later. The shoulder stock of the D3D had taken its share of abuse and done amazing work. Now it was time for additional sacrifices.

My hand was a blur. Sweat and rusty water burned my eyes. I heard the civilians starting to panic and wanted to slap all of them until they shut the hell up.

“Hello, Reaper Cain,” X-37 asked. “I see that you recovered the Mark 98. I will begin the data transfer at once.”

“No, X! We’ve got an incoming mech,” I said without slowing my work.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. Unfortunately, this is now or never. My charge is very low, and the computer is damaged. Please work more quietly and silence those screaming bystanders to avoid attracting the wrath of the mechanized assault unit.”

My new vambrace vibrated, just enough for me to know I had a message. The mech was two hundred and fifty meters and closing.

I worked faster. “Hey, kid. Tell everyone to shut up or the mech will kill us.”

“I’m trying, mister!”

“Tell them I am a Reaper and I’ll come over there and shut them up if they don’t listen to you.” I didn’t need the vambrace or X to tell me the mech was right on top of us now. I heard the thunder stop dead above us.

Whatever the kid said to his people worked, because they were silent as the grave now. I waited for the mech to continue onward but it didn’t.

“Is it running a scan?” I asked quietly, but X was already screwing around with the Mark 98.

Something bit my ankle. I kicked the attacker but my foot still lacked mobility. When I stared into the crevasse, beady rat eyes glared at me. Then it bit me again.

“Knock that off,” I hissed. “Go eat someone else. I’m not dead yet.”

Three more rats went after my ears. I grabbed one and stabbed another. The third darted backward. After tossing both the bodies away, I wiggled my feet to keep the other beast at bay. I tried not to make noise.

The mech took one step, then stopped.

“Come on, X. I really could use some help.”

I listened for the mech for a long time. The rat corpses stunk, and I forced myself not to estimate the water content of their blood. Survival instincts would push me to do a lot of things, but that time hadn’t arrived. Yet. Instead, I squeezed water from the backpack and choked it down, pretending nothing would happen to my gastrointestinal tract in about two hours.

But at least I wouldn’t be quite so dehydrated.

A large, aggressive predator howled as night fell once more. The mech, patient enough to stand motionless all day, stomped toward the sound. Gunfire followed. Other animal cries joined the ruckus until I was convinced the mech was chasing a pack of creatures around the city.

I pulled my leg free, then curled into a ball as pins and needles danced on every nerve from my toes to my neck. The Mark 98 displayed a progress bar of thirty percent, which I assumed meant X-37 was making progress.

Rummaging through my pack confirmed that I was out of water. There were ration bars, but I couldn’t stand the idea of eating one despite my hunger. The inside of my mouth felt like sandpaper.

“Hey, kid, you there?”

“I’m here, mister,” he said. “Are you really a Reaper?”

“Yeah. Thought you should know.”

“You a clone?”

“What else would I be?”

“I don’t know. You seem different. Thought maybe you might be the one sent to stop all these HC jerkoffs from scaring everyone,” he said.

“How is your mom? And the others?”

“They dug their way out after I told them you were a damn Reaper.”

“They got free of the building collapse that easy, huh?”

The kid hesitated. “It wasn’t easy. Everyone was digging. Ripped their hands to shreds, especially me. I feel like I’m doing everything today.”

“What are you doing here, kid?”

“Stayed behind to see if you were alive. Hard to call out to you without alerting the mech or the hunters,” he said.

“Tell me about the hunters.”

“Not sure how to describe them. They’re like horse lizards. People call them dragons, whatever that is. Shouldn’t be in season, but I heard them and so did everyone else,” he said. “Almost better to stay buried with them out there.”

“So when you say hunters, you’re not talking about the razor monkeys?”

“No, but those are bad. I’ve only seen them from a distance because they don’t usually come to Marsi. Sometimes they do, if they’re hunting the dragons.”

“Thanks for hanging out, kid, but you need to go with your family. Try to keep them safe. Stay away from Reapers,” I said, not sure why I added the last part.

“My name is Jacob.”

I hadn’t wanted to know his name. “Call me Hal if we meet face to face. Ask me what I found under the building if you aren’t sure it’s me.”

A few seconds passed. “What did you find, Hal?”

“A Mark 98 vambrace. Don’t worry about what that is, just remember the answer. If a Reaper tells you anything else, get the hell out of there and hide.”

“Okay,” he said. “You need help getting out? You’re deeper than we were, looks like.”

“No. I got it covered. Get out of here. You bother me.”

“Such a dick. I won’t need to know the question if you’re the real Reaper. Never heard of a Reaper being such a total jerk.”

“Guilty as charged, Jacob. Now go.”

“Bye, Hal. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I listened for another round of useless dialogue and wondered if I shouldn’t have asked him to help me. The idea was idiotic and weak. What could a kid, eleven or twelve years old, really do? He didn’t need to be around me, and I didn’t need to babysit anyone.

Thunder boomed across the sky above the collapsed building. Lighting flashed over and over again. It was only a matter of time before my run of good luck reversed itself. A spark found its way to the drying oil that I had dragged out of the pool with the backpack.

Smoke filled my prison. My leg was free, but so much of the debris had shifted that I was still trapped.

Rain poured down, threatening to drown me if I stayed too long. Did it put out the fire? Hell no. Whatever had been in that pool was something really special. I wondered how much of it I had drunk and how badly it was going to kill me.

Assuming I didn’t drown while burning to death first.

Why the hell had I crawled out of that life pod? It was getting really hard to remember.

I worked up enough saliva to spit once, which was a miracle in itself. Of course that did nothing to slow the spread of the flames. Opening my mouth, I let rain water flow in. Some of it was run off from the concrete and steel, but a few drops winged their way through the gaps and landed directly on my tongue like little angels of mercy.

“I am pausing the synchronization,” X-37 said. “Please provide a status report while I check your biometrics.”

“I’m screwed, X.”

24

“Hal, are you down there?” Bug yelled through the haze of my delirium. “Godsdamnit there is a lot of smoke coming out of this mess.”

I blew out a breath, blasting sweat and grime away from my face. My hands were raw, my bandages askew, and new wounds were bleeding from digging out of the rubble—which had shifted three times since I started. Another layer of concrete, steel, and insulation stared me in the face.

A breeze brushed over me, teasing me with freedom so close I could feel it. Light pierced the gloom, and I heard birds.

Two men dug frantically to get me out of this nightmare. I could barely move now that someone else was doing work.

Sleeping wouldn’t be bad, would it? Like maybe forever.

“Thanks for coming back, Bug.” My voice cracked. The words barely sounded like galactic common. “You know I had it covered. Totally under control. Part of my plan.”

“To bleed and starve to death?” Bug asked, then grabbed me under the shoulders and pulled me onto the street.

I tried to grab my D3D but missed it.

Pain wracked my body. Every bump jolted wounds. I had stopped counting my miseries a long time ago. “Everyone’s a critic.”

I rolled onto my back and stared at the sky. Crossing my wounded hands over my chest eased some of the pain, but I knew I needed a lot of wound care. And whiskey. And cigars. And naps. Without my shirt to protect my upper body, I was a mass of scrapes and bruises. Nearly two days stuck in the rocks had jacked up my legs as well despite heavy boots and tough work pants.

But at least I had the vambrace. The computer lay with my rifle and other gear. “How did you know I was down there?”

“Some kid told me. Tried to grab him to ask questions, but he took off like a cat,” Bug said.

“That’s Jacob. Good kid. Reminds me of someone else I knew a long time ago on a decommissioned space station turned into a prison,” I said.

His silhouette stepped back. A new man squatted over me and stared for a long time.

“Who the hell are you?” I finally asked.

“You wasted your time, Bug,” he said, and I knew his voice immediately.

“Drop that hood, Tom. Let me see you,” I said.

“Voice patterns identified,” X-37 said. “Signs of trauma detected. Be careful, Reaper Cain.”

Tom pulled the hood back with older hands covered with scars and graceful tattoos—a striking contrast, especially since he hadn’t possessed either the last time we talked. His face was worse, crossed with slashes in the pattenn of an X, like someone did that intentionally—probably as part of a long torture session. The damage had healed to white scars, no longer as angry as they probably had been when they were healing.

“Damn, friend. You’ve been through some bullshit,” I said.

He looked sad, said nothing, and didn’t move.

“Help me up,” I said.

“Better if you just stay down for now. I’ll talk to you, but I’m not fighting another clone. Move, and it’s the end of the line for you,” he said, then aimed an alien pistol at me.

I wasn’t sure what the weapon did, but it looked menacing. Technology had been advancing on Maglan when I left. We had encountered several alien races together and explored worlds. Who knew what horrible death ray he was using to stay alive these days.

The pistol had three barrels, the largest on top. None of them looked friendly. A sword and a rifle were sheathed across his back, and he had a long whip coiled on one hip.

“Fine. I’m tired as hell anyway. Maybe I’ll just rest a bit,” I said.

Tom didn’t crack a smile at my joke.

“What do you think, Singer?” Bug asked from behind me. They were really keeping me at a disadvantage.

“Looks the same as all the others,” Tom Singer said.

“You’re a singer now?” I asked.

“Married a woman. Took her last name. You don’t get to know about her beyond that, clone.”

“Now you made it ugly.” I let out a long breath. “Maybe I’m a clone, maybe all the others are clones of me. Still gathering evidence.”

Tom pressed the gun to my forehead. “Don’t you fucking talk like that. I knew the real Reaper. Closer than blood. He was my brother and my best friend and the only person I wish I could bring back from the dead to talk with one more time.”

I held his gaze.

“You don’t talk about him, ever.”

Moments passed.

“I never heard you swear like that, Tom.”

He flinched, then pulled back the gun to look at me like he’d never seen me before—eyes slightly afraid of what he might find if he kept investigating.

“I told you he says stuff,” Bug said, moving into view but still off to one side where he could gun me down before I reacted. “Acts like the real Hal. And the kid called him Hal.”

Tom stood but didn’t step back. Now he looked like a shadow titan pointing a big ass pistol at me. “Better to kill him and be sure. You know better, Bug. He’s got both arms and both eyes—we kill those on sight, from a distance. What the hell are you doing toying with this one?”

Horse lizards howled at the dying day and charged into the city. By the sound of their cries, they were moving fast and headed this way. From another direction, I heard the stomping feet of a mech, or maybe multiple mechs.

I sat up, then stood. “Kill me or don’t. It’s time to leave this party.”

Tom retreated, still aiming the pistol to cover his move.

“Flatbed. Coming this way. They have this clone’s escape pod. I told you he came from the station,” Bug said, already moving toward an intact building.

“That just proves he is a clone.” Tom hustled backward several steps before lowering the pistol and racing after Bug in earnest.

I decided to follow them since they liked me so much, but first I reached into the hole, grasped for the D3D, and came up empty.

The hunters sounded closer than ever, though the mechs had paused for some reason. Cursing, I hobbled toward the building. The moment I ducked inside the old barbershop on the ground level of the twenty story building, I saw the flatbed truck Bug had detected well before Tom or I picked up on its engine noise. We had been staring each other down and worrying about the monsters and mechs heading our way while the JFT came rolling into town like they owned the place.

“Don’t stand by me, clone,” Tom said. “I’d blast you right now if it wouldn’t give away our position.”

“You could have killed me out there,” I said.

“No. The Destroyers would have seen the body and started looking around.” He stood motionless near the window, looking through the blinds.

“Destroyers? From the JFT?” I asked.

“From Oroth, yes. Bad news. These look like their true warrior caste. Too many for us to fight, and they definitely have an escape pod. Which means they’re after you, and since you’re here, they’re after us as well. Another reason to put you down.”

“You are such a hard ass today, Tom,” I said.

The look he gave me was pure hatred.

I found my own window to peer through. “At least a company, and I see what you mean. These look tougher than the others.”

“Bug,” Tom said.

“Yeah.”

“Knife him.”

They came at me together, without hesitation, although I had the crazy impression that tears were streaming down Bug’s eyes. We tumbled away from the front of the barbershop, each of us conscious that noise would get us all killed.

Nothing was worse than a silent knife fight in a tight space. My head hit the base of a chair, which spun. Tom caught it before it could bang into something but kept his other hand on my throat. Seconds later, both hands were crushing my larynx. He leaned all of his weight down, forcing me to deal with that threat first.

Bug hesitated just long enough for me to see the knife coming. I kept one hand on Tom’s two hands, knowing that wouldn’t keep me alive for long, and caught Bug’s wrist.

He was stronger than I remembered, and so was Tom, but maybe that was because he had a dominant position. Downward force was always dangerous, especially if you couldn’t divert it. If this had been one on one, I could have twisted out from under him or rolled him using his own momentum, but Bug had me locked in on one side. If I turned the other way, I just leaned into Tom’s attack and made it worse.

Stars flashed in my vision. Tom wasn’t just going after my airway, but the arteries in my neck as well. I probably shouldn’t have taught him that trick. There wasn’t much time.

Bug’s knife inched closer and closer to my left eye. The kid from Dreadmax, a veteran killer now, was definitely streaming tears. Tom sobbed and swore under his breath.

“Reaper Cain, please disarm your opponents quietly. Noise will draw a quick reaction force of JFT Destroyers,” X-37 said. “They will murder you when they finish torturing you.”

“Not helpful, X.”

“Anger detected,” X said. “This will not help you. Please break the hold on your throat and redirect the knife blade.”

“I hate you, X.”

“Unnecessary aggression noted and filed for later discussion.”

I sucked in all the air I could hold in my lungs. “Sorry, Tom, but you brought this on yourself.”

“What are you muttering about?” he said, pushing harder.

I let go of his wrist, then shot my hand downward and struck him hard between the legs. His eyes went wide. I hit him again, and he rolled away, moaning loudly.

Bug hesitated, one hand still on the handle of his combat knife and the other pressing down on the pommel.

I struck them both with enough force to pitch him off balance, then rolled him onto his back and straddled his chest. He refused to let go of the knife, so I twisted it free, exerting excessive amounts of torque on his wrists and fingers.

He let go. I stood up and grabbed at Tom’s rifle. Still red faced and miserable, he turned onto his side, drew his pistol, and aimed at the same time I yanked the sword from his back. His motion helped pull it free.

“I would rather have the rifle, but this will work,” I said. “You know there is one person who can beat a pistol with a sword.”

“Yeah, and it isn’t you,” Tom said.

Bug jumped up behind me. I back kicked him in the solar plexus, dropping him instantly. He sounded nearly as miserable as Tom had after the groin strikes.

“This doesn’t mean you’re anything but a clone,” Tom said. “The real Reaper wouldn’t have let us get the drop on him.”

“I’m a bit rusty. Been in a life pod for a long time,” I said. “Now shut up before you get all of us killed.”

Outside, the Destroyers froze, but not because they heard us. The hunters were close, and their numbers tripled at the last moment. Howls filled the air from three directions. The animals were clever.

The first flashed into view, hard to see well from this deep in the barbershop. It looked a lot bigger than a horse, if I was thinking of the right animal. Farm colonies had never been my bag. And books couldn’t be trusted.

The blur of horse-sized lizards could have been from one of those made up stories, a real life dragon come to slaughter virgins and whatever else they found tasty.

JFT soldiers opened fire. Someone screamed.

A noncom barked orders. “Fall back! Fall back! Rally! Get to the Rally point! Move, you fucking gorillas. Oroth isn’t paying you to die!”

“Truce,” I said.

“Truce,” Tom said. “But when this is over, we part ways or get back to killing each other.”

I stared him down, then smiled. He hated me, but it was still good to see my old friend. “Can I at least have a cigar first?”

His look was priceless—wide eyes, mouth parted, his entire demeanor converted to stunned silence.

“What’s the matter, Tom?” I asked.

Bug answered for him. “None of the other clones smoked. Never admitted to vices like that.”

“Clearly a bunch of inferior copies. I am a giant shit show of character flaws. You know that.”

“Yeah, Hal, we do,” Tom said, then looked at his pistol as though embarrassed. “We were going to kill you.”

“You were killing me,” I corrected. “But you forgot one other thing about Reapers. We fight dirty.”

“The dirtiest,” Bug said, trying not to laugh for joy.

A fresh wave of hunters and JFT gunfire ruined the moment. Bullets shattered two of the windows. One of the beasts crashed into the door, nearly breaking it down.

I retreated to the back of the room with Tom and Bug, where I learned there was no door.

“Fire safety code violation detected,” X-37 said.

Tom and Bug aimed at the front door.

“Maybe when this is over you could help me get my D3D out of the rubble. Just need to reach in there and pull it free.”

“Go ahead. We’ll wait here,” Tom said.

Less worried about making noise now that all hell was breaking loose on the street, I wanted to hug these guys and laugh like an idiot—but that would ruin my reputation. We were about to start planning in earnest when I heard the approach of mechs.

“Great. That should make things so much easier,” I said.

“Sarcasm detected, Reaper Cain.”

25

Luck was on our side—for about ninety-three seconds. The battle moved away from the front door, and I considered making a break for it. Bug and Tom would follow me. Even if I hadn’t completely won their trust, survival was a goal we shared.

“You think we could—“ Tom asked as the three of us edged toward the exit together. Desperate minds thought alike.

Two of the dragon horses hit the front door, but this time it was no accident of combat. Their keening blows sounded like panic. These natural born killers were fleeing the JFT and the mechs, looking for a place to hide.

I wasn’t convinced the mechs were part of the JFT. Evidence pointed toward mechs versus the world, but maybe that was just my gut instinct—combat heightened everything. Sometimes I listened to the little voices in my head, and not just X.

The powerful beasts slammed into the door again and again, shaking the frame. Force rippled through the wall and broke glass from most of the windows near it.

“Upstairs,” I said. “At least we’ll have the high ground.”

Bug shook his head. “No back door, no stairs. This barbershop is just a little boutique, probably an afterthought.”

“Antoinette told me people use storage units and pass them off as businesses. Code enforcement was always weak in Marsi.” Tom’s mouth was on autopilot as his eyes darted around the room, searching for a solution, yet there was something else in his eyes. I wondered who Antoinette was.

The largest of the hunters hit the door again, shattering the rest of the glass in the door and bending the security bars.

Bug shot the creature as it pulled its head back. Another took its place, trampling the body of its former pack leader. Outside, a pair of JFT fired toward the panicking monsters, dropping several others.

Another piece of the puzzle dropped into place—civilians. They scrambled from hiding places, fleeing down the street in surprising numbers. Men and women, old and young, some of them armed but none of them weak. These were the hardest of Maglan’s survivors—resourceful people who had hidden in the downtown for a reason. Had they been hiding from monsters or mercenaries?

None of them had tried to help Jacob’s group. This realization came in a flash. Had they seen a Reaper clone and written off their friends and neighbors so quickly?

My immediate problem was surviving long enough to fully synchronize my foundational nerve-ware with X-37. Long term, I needed a leader to bring these people together. Ten years of everyone for themselves hadn’t done much for our survival as a species.

I went to one of the stalls and looked up. “We’re going through the ceiling.”

Standing on a swivel chair, I struggled for balance, nearly went over backward, then pushed the panel above me out of the way. The sight of poor quality insulation and wiring greeted me. Ripping it out of the way would tear up my already damaged hand. “I wish I had a metal hand and a badass arm blade. And a suit of Archangel armor. And my rifle. And cigars.”

“Definitely the real Hal,” Tom said to Bug. “Not sure how I ever doubted the man.”

“Kind of a prima donna,” Bug agreed. “Super needy.”

I smashed aside an air vent. “Whatever. One of you wanna climb up here and do this?”

Gunfire and explosions filled the street. This time a hunter tried to leap through the display window. Glass cut apart its snout, but the monster didn’t seem to care.

Tom and Bug opened fire and soon found themselves shooting it out with the JFT across the street as well as random monsters. Muzzle flashes and rifle cracks mixed with the symphony of destruction forcing its way into our pitiful sanctuary.

Climbing up wasn’t difficult once the way was clear. I broke free more insulation and tore the crap out of everything between me and my goal. Getting through the second level flooring was the hard part, but I found a way and was soon in an office above the barber shop. My friends followed, not commenting on the soundness of this plan.

It wouldn’t take long for someone to realize what we had done, but I was hoping the hunter dragons weren’t that smart. If the JFT came after them, that would be a problem.

I rushed to a window and looked down. One of the beasts finally smashed its way inside, but the other didn’t follow. A full squad of JFT Destroyers advanced on the monsters but stopped behind a damaged vehicle.

The new leader of the hunters looked up the street, saw the mechs, then fled with the rest of its pack. JFT troops abandoned their attack on the monsters as chain guns cut loose from down the street and killed three of the horse-sized reptilian creatures.

Blood and chips of bone arced into the air. One of the JFT troopers got caught in the line of fire and went down missing his arm at the shoulder. Medics ran to him. Other soldiers emerged from alleys and buildings but looked nervous.

“What’s happening, Tom?” I asked.

“Besides one of the monsters trying to follow us up your little escape tunnel?” He glanced over to our unconventional entrance and I saw the nose of one of the monsters jumping just high enough to look at us. Wild eyed snarls and keening barks blasted repeatedly from its snout. “I’m not convinced the JFT works for the faceless man.”

“Faceless man?” I asked, though I already suspected who this would be. I’d met the other survivors on the run from Dr. David Scheid, the rogue scientist too morally corrupt to be part of the Reaper Corps. Now it seemed he was riding into town with a small army of deadly mechs and gods knew what else.

“You’ll see,” Tom said. “He wears this ballistic cloak. It’s a lot tougher than it looks and never shows his face. I’m not sure he’s human. The man is either cybernetic or wears some kind of minimalist body armor.”

I watched and waited, wishing one of my friends would shoot the dragon horse trying to burst into our hiding place. It didn’t quite have the vertical leap to make it but wouldn’t quit. Thank the stars it couldn’t fly.

One of the mechs stopped in front of the barbershop, aimed inward, and blew the hunter to pieces. The creature’s death throes shook the room below us. The acrid aroma of its overheated guts filled the scene. Somehow that was more menacing than the sight of the dull gray death machines.

The JFT Destroyers rallied farther down the street and surrounded the escape pod they had brought all this way from the coast. Hard eyes watched the newcomers. Hands stayed on weapons. Squads held positions to support each other but not so near one another to be taken out by a grenade or single mech attack.

A man wearing a straight edged cloak emerged from an armored car and walked to the head of the mech formation. Shadows filled his hood. Something about the way he moved made me not want to see the face hidden within that darkness.

Soldiers in black armor followed him. The leader of this group wore a silver helmet, gauntlets, and greaves. Others had red accents according to their rank, or possibly hash marks for how many kills they’d made. I’d seen that before. Union troops were prohibited from defacing their armor with kill counts, but a lot of them did it anyway.

“Those soldiers are the exact same build,” X-37 said. “I have identified ninety-seven indicators they may be your clones, and thirty-two indicators for the mech drivers.”

The flat gray mechs moved aside. I couldn’t look away. The drivers were invisible behind reflective visors, but I recognized the way they stood even in the bulky gear—cocky as hell. It was like watching myself in a mirror. These were the augmented Halek Cain clones forever imprisoned in their war machines—and they moved aside for Scheid’s personal soldiers, who were also HC clones.

No wonder the civilian populace had decided to un-ass the area.

Scheid wore a cloak that hung too straight, as though it was heavy. I couldn’t see his face even if I could feel his malice.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asked.

A JFT man with the look of a sergeant stepped forward. I didn’t know their rank structure, but I knew a frontline supervisor when I saw one. This group had lost their commander at some point, and this guy stepped up. “That’s me. Squad Leader Ryan Daner.”

The hooded man looked around. I held my breath. His gaze stopped on the rubble that had trapped me for two days. The next place he turned his eyes was on the barbershop.

“Analysis suggests that this individual may be using advanced optics or possess a keen sense of deduction,” X-37 said. “Discovery is imminent.”

I didn’t bother to comment.

“My men will take possession of the escape pod,” the hooded man said.

Squad Leader Daner’s face reddened. “We put a lot of sweat and blood into getting it this far. Taking it from us isn’t right.”

The hooded man waved one hand. “You will be compensated.”

“That’s good,” Daner said. “But we don’t work for you. The Council of Oroth sent you to get rid of the clones, and you turned half of them into your pets. That’s going in my report. Out here in the wild systems, you’re something. But back in Oroth you failed to even touch General Hastings. Some say she drove you out of the system.”

“Who says that?” The hooded man’s voice was barely audible, but everyone heard it, especially Daner.

He stiffened but didn’t back down. “Don’t forget what the Jump Force Troopers can do when properly supported.”

“That one is getting brave,” Tom muttered as we watched the scene play out.

“Has to be Scheid if he controls the clones,” I said. Neither Tom nor Bug argued.

Scheid’s hood turned slowly. His eyes flashed once, then disappeared in shadow. “You would work for me if that’s what I desired. Contact my quartermaster at Mount Kels. He will pay you for your trouble.”

“We need a pass to get close to your fortress,” Daner said, “and that’s a long way on foot.”

Silver Helmet stepped forward, glared at the JFT squad leader, then tossed him a coin nearly the size of a man’s palm. “Then you should begin immediately.”

Daner caught it without taking his eyes off Silver Helmet, who returned to his squad of shock troopers but continued his condescending speech.

“That will cover your expenses until then. Do not trouble Lord Scheid further.”

Scheid barely acknowledged the exchange before issuing orders. “Search that building. Start with the barbershop.”

Tom pulled a standard infantry pistol from his kit and handed it to me. Apparently he didn’t want to give me either of his best weapons—the rifle or the alien pistol. Bug gave me his handgun as well. I hurried to the other side of the room with a weapon in each fist, looking for the exit.

26

This room had a door, and a hallway beyond that. The center of the building was open for ventilation from the main floor to the roof. I saw a courtyard at the bottom that hadn’t been used for a while but had once been nice. The dry fountain and withered gardens spoke of lost glory, but it lacked the look of an abandoned refugee camp, like many places I’d found on Maglan.

We moved toward emergency stairwells, hoping for one that led to the back of the building.

“They’ll have it covered,” Tom said.

“Better than a head-to-head fight with Scheid’s personal guard,” I said.

“You can’t prove that’s who he is. That name is mostly rumor.” Tom stopped to guard our back trail as we cleared this level of the stairwell. “But you’re probably right. Those goons looked like Reaper clones. The bad ones. Not like you, Hal.”

“X gave me some additional details, and I’ve got some pretty good instincts.” I waited for input from my LAI, received nothing extra, and motioned downward with my barrel. “Now isn’t the time to confront him.”

Aiming both pistols down the stairs, I worked my way as wide as possible, attempting to see everything I could during the descent. Each corner was a danger zone that needed to be handled carefully.

The main floor was silent now that the mechs had slaughtered or driven off the horse dragons. The main hallway was open. We hurried toward the back of the building, aiming into rooms as we passed them but not stopping. We needed a clean getaway.

The back alley looked clear. We crossed as a team, hurrying toward the shadows of the next building. Two soldiers in black and red armor stepped into the light and aimed rifles.

“Don’t move, assholes,” said the clone with the most hashmarks on his chest plate.

The all too recognizable sound of his voice hit hard. For a second, I felt like I had said the words.

I rushed left, and Tom and Bug darted right. All five of us opened fire at once. My first two rounds struck the faster of the pair, disrupting his shot. The second one scored a hit on Bug, thumping his chest plate like a pneumatic hammer blow.

Bug staggered. Tom fired the top barrel of his strange pistol. The round flashed once, slamming the man off his feet.

“Keep moving! Rally on the next street.” I hated splitting up. Sprinting across the street, through an alley, and onto the next street, all I could think about was how short my time with Tom and Bug had been. Easy come, easy go.

They arrived seconds after I scanned the street for another ambush. Heart racing, I checked my pistols to see how many rounds I had remaining. Verdict—not enough.

“We dealt with the second clone jerk, but JFT Destroyers are right behind us. They’re looking to get in good with the faceless man, I think,” Tom said.

We rushed through another alley, seeking as much distance from the main force of our enemies as possible. I heard shouts to stop but ignored them. Squad Leader Daner barked orders at his team.

“Don’t screw this up,” he shouted. “Just contain them. The Obsidians can do the rest.”

Obsidians. What a pretentious bag of dicks. Scorning my clones and their JFT lackeys with equal vehemence, I lagged behind my friends. “Take the lead, Bug. You know the area.”

“Tom knows Marsi best,” Bug said.

“I got this,” Tom said, then hurried around the next corner.

We stayed ahead of the JFT. Plans formed in my head. There were too many enemies. I needed some of them on my side. So far, I’d encountered desperate scavengers, Hagg humanoids, razors, dragon horses, Jump Force Troopers, and now Scheid’s mechs and Obsidians. What was next, angry panda cyborgs? Not that I had a clear idea what a panda was, but it sounded dangerous.

“We’ve got trouble,” Tom said as he abruptly changed course.

Bug and I followed him into a park, down a set of wide stairs, and around a fountain. Rolling hills, sculpted trees, and withered landscaping concealed our movements. JFT flashlights cut through the darkness. We’d given them the slip, but not for long. I also sensed less obvious movement on other streets and assumed it was Scheid’s Obsidian Troopers.

At least I didn’t hear the mechs.

What did the clones think of me? How could they conform to Scheid’s template? No one sharing my DNA could possibly last long under the man’s authoritarian regime. I couldn’t imagine my knock-offs had much sympathy for one of their kind who had broken free of the scientist’s control.

“This area is too open,” Tom said, out of breath. “We’ll be seen. No other way to go. Enemies everywhere.”

Elevated streets flanked the park on two sides. Sculptures rose up from a series of fountains. Dry and without decorative lighting, the scene was a macabre version of what it had been. We ran across foot bridges, racing toward stairs that lead out of the park on the far side.

Daner and his JFT Destroyers were going to beat us. Half the team was heading that way to cut us off. Another squad was paralleling on our left. A third followed behind. In theory, that left us a way out, but it really didn’t. The terrain funneled us straight into Daner’s blocking force. The guy was running a textbook military operation, even if he’d never been part of the Union or trained with them.

Tom stopped at the foot of the stairs, hiding behind an archway. “I’m sorry, Hal. The other way would have taken us into the Obsidians.”

“Don’t worry about it. I want to talk to this Daner character,” I said.

“He won’t turn,” Tom said. “They hate the faceless man and his clones, but they fear them. You heard what they said. All they want is to detain us—through force or negotiation. They’ll have their reward one way or another.”

I searched the park for the best ground possible in case there was a fight, and I didn’t like any of my options. Even if we won, the entire place was lower than the streets and buildings around it. We could execute hit and run attacks, but sooner or later, we’d lose. “Let’s at least get up these stairs.”

Daner and his best fighters waited for us at the top.

I tucked both pistols through my belt and showed my hands. Tom and Bug secured their weapons and did the same but were smart enough to spread out as much as possible. We formed the shape of a wedge with me as the apex.

Daner and his troops saw the positioning and didn’t like it. These were hard men, and one woman I thought. None of them spoke except Daner.

“Don’t give me trouble, clone. Just lie face down and wait for the Obsidians,” he said.

“You’ve never met a Reaper if you think that’s gonna happen.” I scanned the others so X-37 could analyze their equipment and tactics.

“I’ve met lots of Reapers,” he said.

“I’m different.”

That stunned him. His expression changed. “Yeah, I think you are.”

“Fill me in. What’s your problem with Scheid? Maybe I can tell you something about him you don’t know.”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but why the hell not, right?” he said.

“Reaper Cain, he is obviously stalling in order to turn us over to Scheid for a bounty,” X-37 said.

“I know, X, but I need information. Review my visuals. The Obsidians are already here. They’re watching from the shadows—seventy-five meters on heading zero-two-zero.”

A pause followed. “You are correct, Reaper Cain. That was a fortuitous assumption. Their armor appears to be an alloy I haven’t seen before. It really does resemble volcanic glass in many ways, but I suspect that is a side effect of the crafting process.”

“Lord Scheid brought us the problem, then offered to solve it,” Daner said, not hearing or not caring about my conversation with X. “There were only three Reaper clones in the Zakion system, our home, but they did massive amounts of damage. Scheid appeared out of nowhere and offered to capture them but demanded ships, materials, and a lordship.”

“How do you know all of this? You’re just a squad leader,” Tom said.

“Common knowledge where I’m from,” Daner said. He glanced the way we had come, looking worried that none of the Obsidians had shown themselves yet. “No one understood he was using Reaper clones to hunt Reaper clones until he was too powerful. The Council of Oroth sent him here to destroy the source of the problem.”

“The Council of Oroth sound like idiots,” Bug said.

I replayed Daner’s confrontation with Scheid, adding details he was leaving out of this version. He’d said Scheid had failed to beat General Hastings, and that had to be Elise. Her father had gone MIA a long time ago, and he was about as close to being a general as my boots were to being a fruit salad.

Daner shook his head. “We interrogated the only Reaper clone we caught, one of the original three terrorizing our capital. He claimed the last Reaper, one that got left behind somehow, was the only one who could stop Scheid. The Council liked that until the prisoner said the last Reaper would also cause the fall of Oroth and liberate the conquered worlds.”

I waited for something to betray the lie, but Daner didn’t exhibit any sign of dishonesty—other than a few tactical omissions. X-37 was quiet on the matter, which meant something. Detecting bullshit was one of the LAI’s favorite pastimes.

“So Scheid sent three Reapers to wreak havoc, then showed up to hunt them. One of your interrogation teams beat a confession out of a Reaper clone who claimed yet another clone would destroy them all, and Oroth?” I asked.

“Not another clone. The real Halek Cain,” Daner said. “Parents tell their kids to behave or the Cain will come for them. In the end, Lord Scheid and the Council agreed they had a mutual enemy.”

“There’s a problem with that story,” I said.

“Oh yeah? I’d love to hear it, since I’m telling the truth,” he said.

“It’s impossible to torture information out of a Reaper.” I scanned the darkness until X-37 locked down the exact position of the Obsidians waiting there. Silver helmet gave them away, standing well ahead of them with his arms crossed.

“All of them are Reaper clones, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “We cannot fight all of them at once.”

“Why aren’t the Destroyers running the show?” I asked. “I assume you were sent to keep tabs on Lord Scheid. Then arrest him after he kills Cain.”

Daner glared at me, done talking, apparently. I’d finally found a sore spot. The JFT Destroyers were Oroth’s elite commandos and not accustomed to losing. They hadn’t expected the scientist to get the best of them.

“You thought he was done once the station was destroyed, so you set loose razors and dragons, hoping they would do most of your work for you,” I said, pretending I had more confidence than I felt.

“What the hell do you know?” He gripped his weapon and adjusted his stance to fight. He’d been ready for trouble before, but now violence was imminent.

“I know that if you don’t listen to me, Scheid will be the one to destroy your home system,” I said. “We should be on the same side. Work with me. Make our escape look real. Then you get your reward, and I get to help you take Scheid down before he takes those mechs to pillage Oroth.”

His nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed. His team raised their weapons.

“Last chance, Daner. Do the right thing,” I said.

“Don’t talk to me, clone. You’re an unclean abomination. At least Lord Scheid is a man.” Daner rushed forward as he finished the sentence.

“Negotiations failure detected,” X-37 said.

I sidestepped the attack, firing both pistols at Daner as I moved. Tom engaged two other JFT with his rifle, while Bug ducked behind a partially collapsed wall to avoid gunfire from another enemy fire team.

This time, I had to leave them behind. Having the team back together had been nice while it lasted.

The Obsidian Troopers sprinted after me. Silver Helmet took an early lead, but once they found their stride, they ran at the exact same speed. I reached a rail station and charged up a set of stairs, determined to cross the platform before they caught me. When I looked back, the entire squad of black armored clones were running in perfect unison.

“That’s creepy, X.”

“Agreed,” X-37 said. “There are four hundred and nineteen details about these clones that deviate from humanity, rendering them creepy, as you so aptly described them.”

I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or be freaked out by the eery precision of their movements. At the top, I had two choices—run along this side of the platform until it ran out of real estate, or jump the tracks.

“You have never jumped this distance, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “May I remind you of your fear of heights.”

“Not that high above the tracks.”

“Ten feet is more than enough to cause injury, Reaper Cain.”

“Do I at least have a chance?” I leapt through the air and crashed on the edge. Both shins cracked against the concrete. My hand flung forward, clawing for purchase. Stars filled my vision. Pain locked up my lungs. I scrambled onto the platform with the dignity of an overturned bucket of worms.

“You do not, Reaper Cain.”

“Wrong again, X,” I groaned, then clawed my way to my feet. “And a little late with that piece of motivation gold.”

Silver Helmet landed just as hard. Three other suits of black armor struck the edge of the platform and fell backward.

Who’s laughing now, dumbasses!

They climbed up but were far behind my silver helmet wearing pursuer.

The street entrance and exit on this side was a copy of how I came in. I jumped onto a rail and slid down, then hopped clear at the end and poured on the speed.

Silver Helmet didn’t bother. He took the stairs four at a time, charging forward with no fear of tripping.

“Help me out, X,” I said. “Find an escape route.”

“I am working on it,” X said.

Gunfire erupted in two other directions.

“I believe Tom and Bug are engaged with Destroyers.” X-37 displayed coordinates on a grid map. Seconds later, a new grid appeared in my vision with markers showing where I should run. “My analysis suggests you angered SL Daner and he will deal with Tom and Bug harshly.”

“Can’t help them right now, X.” I abruptly changed course and noticed that Silver Helmet slowed the moment he realized he couldn’t overtake me. “They’ve got a better chance with the JFT than the Obsidian copycats.”

“Correct, Reaper Cain.”

“They’re going to fan out and box me in,” I said.

“Or shoot you.”

“They would have already done it,” I said.

X-37 waited for my full attention. I ran through a narrow alleyway and emerged onto a sports field of some sort. “This is a false assumption. My analysis suggests their preferred outcome would be your capture, but everything we learned since you awoke suggests they will kill you before allowing you to run amok.”

“Who is this guy in the silver helmet?” I jogged through a maze of nets, fields, and obstacle courses.

“I believe he is very much like the others, and you,” X-37 said. “Something must distinguish him from the others who share the exact same genetics. Please gather more data.”

Horse dragons screeched their eerie howls. I also heard the distinctive quasi-language of the razors, despite Bug’s promise they rarely came as far as Marsi. They were in the distance. I wished they were all I had to worry about.

“Anything else you want, X?”

“There is still a significant amount of data stored on the laptop, which is once again losing power. Soaking in the rubble pile did not improve the condition of the device or its battery,” X-37 said.

“I want to deal with Silver Helmet alone. One on one.”

“Appeal to his ego. Call him childish names. That should work.” My LAI almost sounded like that was a personal attack.

“What are you trying to say, X?”

“You have your less than mature moments.” X displayed a list of my behaviors in my HUD.

“No time for that,” I said, barely looking at the proof. “Just help me get him away from the others so I can kick his punk ass.”

“Please refer to item ninety-seven on the aforementioned list—juvenile insults and profanity.”

“You’re killing me, X.”

“No need. I am sure Silver Helmet and his team will do that without my help.”

27

“We are going to surround you, clone,” Silver Helmet shouted after me.

I ducked between abandoned delivery trucks. “Watch who you call clone, clone.”

“Find him. Bring him to me,” Silver Helmet said.

“Yes, Commander Vaus,” the Halek Cain clones answered as one.

I muttered under my breath. “That’s not right, X. No clone of mine should be that obedient.”

“I fail to see your logic, Reaper Cain. And it is presumptuous to call them your clones.”

“Let’s agree that I’m the original and they’re copies. Inferior copies,” I said.

“That would protect your mental health,” X-37 said. “But why should you care if they are Scheid’s mindless pawns?”

“Answer that question yourself, X. You know me. They’re already ruining my reputation.” I slipped behind another truck, this one with significant fire damage from years ago. “I need to get Silver Helmet Cain away from the others.”

“I believe he is called Commander Vaus,” X-37 said.

“Whatever.”

“Perhaps now is the time for your childish insults. Draw him out. Challenge him to a fight. Call his mother names.”

“That would be my mother, X. I think.” A headache throbbed behind my eyes. “Let’s not go there.”

“Spread out. Drive him toward me,” Vaus ordered.

I crawled to a bus someone had turned into a long term shelter. The buildings in this area leaned precariously, probably preventing people from living in them. Several were nothing more than debris piles. Despite my recently acquired dislike for such places, I saw an opportunity and took it.

“Stay sharp, X. I don’t want to crawl into a dead end,” I said, then ducked through a twisting passage leading through a mountain of concrete and steel not dissimilar to the hellish trap I had spent days in, trapped and alone.

“Do you want me to poke Vaus?” X-37 asked.

“How?” I found two tunnels with low, rough ceilings, and walls lined with rebar and other sharp edges. The air was thick with dust.

“I can attempt a secure commlink, but there is a risk he will be able to track us,” X-37 said.

“As long as it is just him,” I said. “Can you weaponize it?”

“Possibly,” X said. “Though he would sever the connection if I fill his ears with feedback. Your voice should be equally annoying and less likely to get tuned out.”

“Thanks, X. I think.”

“You’re welcome, Reaper Cain. I have several hundred examples of your trash talk annoying both friends and enemies. Would you like a transcript of the highlight reel?”

“No. You made your point.” I crawled through a low passage, hating the idea of getting trapped again, then emerged into an almost normal hallway albeit severely damaged.

“Stop here, Reaper Cain. If you go deeper, I won’t be able to establish a connection,” X-37 said.

“I need to make sure this isn’t a dead end.” I continued until I could see an exit leading to the next street. Gazing from the dusty shadows, I confirmed there were no Obsidians or JFT waiting to ambush me, then went back to where X thought he could contact Vaus the Reaper wannabe. “Go for it.”

“Who the hell is on this channel?” a near perfect imitation of my voice challenged.

“The real Halek Cain. Surrender and I’ll go easy on you, clone,” I said.

Silence.

“I believe he is directing his team to surround this area. He may have an approximate lock on our location, which is always a risk with commlinks,” X-37 said.

“What’s the matter, Vaus, can’t fight your own battles,” I said. “The cyborg Reaper fought halfway across the galaxy without any wannabe clones for back up.”

“Go to hell,” Vaus snapped. “We killed him.”

“How’d you manage that? Shoot him in the back?” I asked.

He didn’t respond for several seconds.

“You’re nothing special, clone, just an outlaw who can’t get with the program.”

“Outlaw? Hell yeah, I’m an outlaw. That’s what it means to be the last Reaper. You really are a cheap copy,” I said. “Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“Enough of that,” he said. “Surrender yourself. I will deliver you to Lord Scheid for your assimilation into my team. Then I will give you orders.”

“And I’ll tell you to go“—feedback broke the communication for a second—“yourself.”

“Lord Scheid warned us the outlaws were crude and plagued with bad habits,” Vaus said, his words sounding remarkably clear.

“He is moving toward us, Reaper Cain,” X said.

“I’ll show you a bad habit. You and me, Vaus. Let’s fight for control of your unit.”

“What do I get when I win?” He laughed confidently. “That is a rhetorical question. My reward will be the praise of Lord Scheid.”

“This guy is pathetic,” I said to X.

“Agreed. Highly unauthentic. Brainwashing detected,” X said.

“I see you, Vaus. You’re alone, so not a punk ass coward like everyone says.”

“You are a loud mouthed fool. Who is everyone? Are we back on the school yard of Boyer 5.”

“You’ve never been to Boyer 5,” I said, not really thinking this was an insult, just flinging words to keep him off balance.

Silence.

“He has stopped moving,” X-37 said. “I am calculating his location and direction of travel based on the established secure link, plus background noise when he talks. Please engage him in further conversation.”

“What are you waiting for, poser? Let’s do this. Winner gets to be the real Reaper,” I said.

“You’re right, Cain. I’ve never been to Boyer 5… and you have. We all know the truth. But if I kill you, it won’t matter that you’re the template for us all. And to be honest, I’m sick of that hanging over our heads.” Vaus stepped into view.

The first thing I realized was that the battlefield I’d chosen was small. This was going to be like fighting in a phone booth, and he had armor and I didn’t.

I aimed both pistols and fired. He cranked off three rounds from his rifle, an HDK Dominator III Deathlance. Pain exploded in my left arm. Blood splattered the wall behind me. He followed up with a burst of flame that missed but warmed the entire room.

“That was new!” All of my rounds hit him hard, knocking him off balance. Looking for the source of the flamethrower attack distracted me.

Pain seared the left side of my face, and something bit me under my eye as I closed the distance. A gunfight was a losing proposition. Jamming both pistols through my belt, I latched onto his left arm, pulled him past me, and took his back like a cage fighter.

He twisted free, and I lost my grip and the dominant position. His rifle barrel came up, so near my face I could feel the heat on my forehead. I smashed it aside, lunged forward, and lifted him into the air. As soon as he was off his feet, I slammed him down and dropped my weight on him.

“Oooff!” He grunted on impact.

“Remove the helmet,” X-37 suggested.

“Working on it, X!”

Vaus roared, voice still distorted from being crushed.

I delivered a short, vicious left hook into the side of his helmet, then grabbed it with both hands and began to twist. His neck was going to break or it was going to come off—I didn’t care which.

“Stop! What are you—” He gasped, then choked on his words. “You can’t do this!”

I twisted harder, driving one knee into his stomach to pin him against the uneven ground and increase my leverage on his neck and the other on his HDK D3D.

He abandoned the weapon and unlatched the helmet. I tore it off and flung it away.

The sight of his face stunned me. Everything around the left eye was scar tissue. In place of his eye was a polyhedron cluster of lenses. For half a second, he looked ashamed, like a dog that had been shaved and thrown back amongst the pack.

“I got you, Vaus,” I said. “Let’s negotiate.”

“Nothing to negotiate. Victory or death. It’s the Obsidian Trooper’s way,” he said.

“What the hell did they do to your face?” I asked, feeling like a jerk despite every reason I had to hate this creature.

He hesitated, his voice cracking. “The optics took several tries. Lots of cutting, lots of scarring. You’re no better than me. Doctor Scheid hasn’t removed your human weaknesses, but maybe if you surrender, your surgeries and reeducation will go better.”

I held him firm, trying to decide where to go with this screwed up conversation.

He slammed his face against mine. I nearly lost my hold. He countered my leverage by twisting out to one side, trying to slip out from under me like a first year grappling student—but a good one.

“Nope,” I said. “Not letting you go.”

“Go to hell!” he shouted.

“Hey, that’s more like it,” I said. “Next time try something like, go to hell you fucking ass hat. Then you’ll almost be me.”

Hate poured from his eyes, the real one and the fake one.

“I’m taking your stuff,” I said.

“No!”

I choked him unconscious, then tied him up before he could recover. His armor fit like a glove, though I couldn’t stand the smell of his helmet.

“Take the helmet, Reaper Cain,” X said.

“The guy has some foul breath,” I complained. “What the hell is Scheid feeding them, rat butthole casserole?”

“That is most likely a by-product of the many experiments that have been performed on him,” X-37 said. “Put on your Big Reaper pants and take the helmet. I am sure the clones are fed meals ready to eat and other rations.”

“Fine. But you owe me,” I said.

“This statement makes no sense whatsoever,” X said. “Reinforcements are entering the tunnel.”

“I was just leaving.” I gave Vaus the finger because I was an immature asshole with poor impulse control.

He glared back, still only half conscious. “I’ll remember that.”

“I’m counting on it, and could you please learn some swear words? Spice things up. Live a little.”

“I regret sharing DNA with you,” he said, but I wasn’t listening.

On the way out, I took one of his grenades and blew the tunnel behind me. The collapse nearly caught me before I emerged onto the deserted street, but it definitely slowed my pursuit. Who knew, maybe it took a few Obsidians out.

“Regret detected, Reaper Cain,” X said. “Please explain.”

“I left Vaus tied up down there. Better to have killed him than leave him trapped. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“Vaus isn’t your worst enemy,” X said.

“You know what I mean.” I jogged away from the scene about the time I heard mechs racing to my location. The ground shook. Flocks of birds exploded into the air, and I thought I heard a pack of dogs fleeing their advance as well.

“They are moving much faster than you, Reaper Cain.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.” I turned a corner, evaluated buildings on both sides of the street, and decided to keep running on surface streets.

“Analysis of your heart rate and Vo2 max suggest you can run point one percent faster than your current pace,” X-37 said.

Gasping for air, I answered even though I shouldn’t have wasted my breath. “I like to hold a little in reserve. You know me, always cautious.”

Spots filled my vision. My hands started to go numb, which I’d never felt before. The armor felt heavier than I thought it should. The design was advanced and made to improve performance, or that’s what it felt like putting it on. Now I just felt like I was breathing liquid misery.

“This POS helmet,” I complained.

“Keep it on, Reaper Cain. I am hacking it to send false signals to the Obsidian Troopers and the mechs. They should be headed the wrong way very soon. Your oxygen exchange rate is becoming more efficient. You are, effectively, just getting warmed up.”

“Hey.” I grunted. “That’s great.” I eased my pace slightly. X was way off base with my potential speed right now. “Keep up. The. Good work.”

“Reaper Cain, I highly recommend you listen to my advice and run faster.”

“You’re. Not the one. Doing the running.”

“I will not dignify that with an argument, Reaper Cain. Please review the waypoints I have placed in your HUD map. There is a fortified area three point one miles ahead.”

“Tell me more.”

“This section of Marsi was poor and largely shunned by the rest of society despite efforts to improve the local economy. With no military or industrial infrastructure, the tenement buildings were not bombed during the invasion. The survivors there have built walls across every street leading into their territory,” X-37 said.

“Are they guarded?” I asked.

“Unknown. This was lifted from an Obsidian reconnaissance report. The reporting team did not attempt to enter the slums,” X-37 said.

“This is going to be like going home to Boyer 5,” I said, slowing to a comfortable jog. “Can’t wait.”

“The mechs are still pursuing,” X-37 said.

I looked at a cheap rail system above me. “How high is that?”

“One hundred meters, but it goes higher to avoid business and industrial complexes,” X-37 said.

“Can the mechs climb?”

“No, they are far too heavy.”

“Great. We’re going up.”

“Are you sure, Reaper Cain? They can still shoot.”

I scrambled up the first support structure I found, hoping this would work. Thoughts of getting blown off the rails filled my imagination until I reached the top and looked down.

The mechs backed up, straining to get an angle on me. They started shooting, but they were built to be hard hitting ground units, not surface to air fighters.

“They can still hit you, Reaper Cain. While I acknowledge that was a good call on your part, I must recommend you get moving.”

“I’m on it like cheese on a cracker, X.”

“I’m speechless, Reaper Cain. Is that a thing?”

Explaining would have been easy, but figuring out the connection would keep my LAI busy until I reached the fortified slums of Marsi.

28

“Well shit.” I stared at the sudden end to the rail system. “I guess they didn’t want any more trains coming this way.”

“You will need to climb down and approach one of the barricades on foot,” X-37 said.

“Those are walls, X.”

“Of course. I was merely mimicking your extraordinarily loose use of common language.” X-37 displayed several approach options on my HUD.

I made my way down, stopping frequently to listen for mechs, drones, ships, or any of the monsters Maglan had somehow produced in the last ten years. The Oroth invaders were responsible for most of that, I thought, but I didn’t have solid proof.

“This map doesn’t show a way in,” I said when I was finally on the ground again. “You have me walking right up to the biggest gate they have.”

“That is the only way. I suggest you ask nicely,” X-37 said. “The smaller gates show signs of being sealed permanently, and they cross streets with poor lighting. You don’t want to surprise the guards and get shot.”

The buildings were both old and grand, probably constructed before the Wallach-Xad coalition arrived and freed the Mother from her prison. Strangely beautiful, each structure was dark and moody, full of sweeping lines that didn’t make sense to human psychology. They also seemed to be constructed of one piece each. One of the reasons the new economy hadn’t welcomed them was that they couldn’t be modified and some refused to allow admittance.

A lot of people had a problem with that. Who wanted a building that seemed to have its own will? The original inhabitants of Maglan had left long before humanity arrived. Tom and I had smoked more than a few cigars discussing what they left behind. Good old Tom mostly talked about the solid engineering of this place and other civilizations we had visited during our adventures.

Old cars and storage containers had been stacked across every street leading into the old city, then topped with razor wire and guard posts—most of which were empty. Did it add to the dignified beauty of the place? No. But it worked.

I spotted stuffed suits of outdated battle armor on more than a few of the makeshift towers and wondered if that worked to scare predators away. Apparent gaps in the structure proved to be false openings. Any attempt to wiggle inside without using the gate would get a person stuck or worse.

I scouted three before approaching the first he suggested. Sometimes my LAI was right. A lot of times he was right. I probably needed to stop wasting my time double checking his work on simple stuff like this.

“You there,” the guard said. “That’s close enough.”

I studied the man, staring at him long enough for X to get a good scan. Middle aged, lean but strong, he carried a spear like he knew how to use it even if his stance and grip looked brutish. His head was either shaved or naturally bald. He wore dark goggles that hid his eyes and shielded him against the rising sun streaming down the street from behind me.

Shadows were deep here, but they moved quickly when the sun climbed toward noon.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“There is another man concealed with a ranged weapon, possibly a crossbow,” X-37 warned.

“Don’t got all day, buddy,” he said.

Not asshole, or kid, or any number of hostile monikers he could have used to intimidate me—to try to intimidate me. This guy was confident, if a bit world weary.

“Call me Hal,” I said.

A long pause followed before the gate guard spoke. “That’s not a good name.”

Why bother with a response?

He stretched one arm across his chest, then the other, then popped his neck. “What good have you done for anyone? Standard question. Don’t over think it. If you’re all for yourself, you can be on your way. We don’t have nothing worth stealing, and you’ll have to share anything you scavenge. Bastion rules. Starting with that armor.”

Bastion, I thought. That was what Maglan was meant to be. This was all that was left of the idea. Maybe it was pain and fatigue or the disorientation of being born again from clone pod goo and dumped into the shattered remains of a world that had been thriving, but I felt off my game. I removed my helmet, hoping he didn’t immediately confuse me with a Reaper clone.

“This thing stinks anyway,” I mumbled.

“I strongly advise against parting with any of your armor,” X said.

“Catch,” I said, then flung the helmet upward. It wasn’t heavy, despite its durability and technological capabilities.

The guard caught the helmet with one hand, examined it, then put it on a ledge I couldn’t see. “You haven’t answered the first question. What good have you done in Marsi? I don’t need your life story. What can we expect from you when times get tough?”

“I helped some people who were stuck in a building collapse,” I said.

“That is a stretch, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Shut it, X.”

“What was that?” the guard asked.

“On the way to Marsi, I helped a family escape from raiders and cannibals.”

The guard’s expression darkened. “We don’t eat the dead here.” He paused for a long time, clearly not convinced. “You look dangerous enough to take that helmet from an Obsidian. Don’t know if that’s good or bad for us. I’m gonna need a reference.”

“You already took my helmet.”

“And I thank you for that. But rules are rules.”

“He is shaking you down, Reaper Cain. Please negotiate more efficiently.”

“Have you seen a kid called Jacob? He’ll remember me,” I said.

My LAI sounded a long tone that expressed his discomfort, though he wouldn’t call it that. To X-37, any situation he couldn’t process became meaningless noise, though he usually kept it to himself or simply beeped. “This is dangerous, Reaper Cain. If Jacob tells them you are a Reaper, there will be consequences.”

“I’ll check the logs. If he came in, you can wait in the bailey until he comes to vouch for you,” the guard said.

“I’m fine right here,” I said.

He gripped his spear. I saw the increase of force on the shaft from a distance—knuckles cranking down and shoulder leaning into the weapon. “Not optional. You wait in the bailey, or you turn around and be on your way.”

“That puts me at a disadvantage, friend,” I said.

“That’s the idea. We’re not playing games here. You have serious armor and weapons—which you either stole, scavenged, or took by combat. None of those are good scenarios in Marsi, or on Maglan in general. Rule one to staying alive is not to attract JFT or Obsidian attention—and never get seen by the faceless man. You’re lucky I’m talking to you at all.”

I spread my hands in submission.

He stepped back from the wall. Two big men replaced him. One had a shotgun, the other a long rifle about five hundred years old from the look of it. I endured their scrutiny for ten minutes while the first guard looked for the kid from the collapse.

The first guard reappeared. “Come into the bailey. Don’t give my guards any trouble. I sent a runner to find Jacob.”

“Can you check for someone else?” I asked.

“I can do that.”

“Looking for Tom Singer and Bug.”

“Bug?” He shook his head like I made him tired, or maybe the naming conventions of the latest generation gave him a headache. “Never heard of Bug, but I’ve heard of Tom Singer. Sad what happened to his wife. The man can fix anything, is what I hear. Maybe he’ll unlock this helmet for me so I can actually use it. Step into the bailey. We’ll shut the gate behind you, so no need to worry about dragon beasts.”

I waited for the door to be raised like a cheap garage door, then drop behind me once I was inside. The bailey was a murder room, literally the inside of a metal storage container with a heavy door at both ends and slots in the ceiling where someone could shoot me or fill the space with burning oil—or whatever.

Two hours passed. I took a nap, because why not. I hadn’t slept since being trapped in the collapse and that barely counted. Unconsciousness didn’t equal restful sleep, not even for a Reaper. When I woke up, absolutely nothing had changed about my environment. None of the guards felt like talking to me. I guessed they were more than a bit put out that I’d just racked out, totally unworried about their dangerousness. I hadn’t been trying to disrespect them, so how they felt about my nonchalance was on them.

“Feels like the BMSP, X,” I said.

“Your current environment has many similarities to your stay on death row,” X-37 said. “The guards, while they look tough, have not beaten you once. The BMSP did feed you regularly. I doubt that will occur here.”

“The food there sucked, and I am pretty sure every one of the guards spit in it.”

I heard Jacob in the observation room before he pressed his face to the murder hole.

“Hey, Hal. You made it. Every time I heard fighting in the city, I went to one of the towers to look for you. Can’t believe you’re alive,” he said.

“Me neither,” I said. “Can you get these fine gentlemen to let me inside? I’ve had a long couple of days.”

Jacob spoke to someone. I only caught part of the conversation. “… he needs help just like everyone else… no I can’t guarantee anything, I’m just a kid…”

Minutes passed.

The door on the far end of the storage container opened. The first guard and the two heavies waited just beyond the threshold.

“Come on through. My name is Mac. Some call me Big Mac or the Macanator. You can call me Mr. MacMillian. Not that we’re gonna have a lot of conversations.”

I spotted military style tattoos on his forearms and guessed he was from Wallach by his accent. His attention wasn’t comfortable to endure, and there was a moment I thought he might step back and level the spear at me, but he didn’t. Could he recognize me? Sure, but I hadn’t had face to face contact with every soldier who helped us reach Maglan.

“I’m not planning on staying. Just need to rest, gather my wits, then be gone,” I said.

“Probably for the best.” He tapped the spear on the ground, then jerked his chin toward the old city, which seemed to be a sign to the other guards they weren’t needed. Both men left after giving me a hard once-over. We’re watching you, stranger. Don’t test us.

“Any other rules?”

“Don’t steal anything. Don’t let anyone in—basically leave everything about the wall and the gate to us. See something, say something,” Mac said.

“I knew a guy named Mac,” I said as he was leaving.

“I’m sure you did. Got to get back to my post. Head inside and don’t cause trouble. That kid is probably waiting for you.”

“Thanks.” I worked my way through a series of storage containers. Anyone forcing their way through the gate would then have to navigate this maze. It wasn’t hard to find the way, but there were lots of murder holes carved in the ceiling, and I suspected each of them could be sealed. Invaders would have to ram, cut, or otherwise force about twenty metal doors. That would slow anyone down, even the Obsidians. The Reaper mechs would probably just slap the entire wall aside like it was an annoyance—and the guards probably knew that. They were doing the best they could with what they had.

The final passage opened into a square. For a moment, all I could do was stare at the artwork that must have been spectacular once upon a time. Sidewalks wove a pattern around a fountain central to a wide, tree-filled intersection. The mosaic pattern was faded, dirty, and chipped. Half of the trees were stumps, and the rest looked stunted. More than a few had died and been left to dry out. A row of carts and axmen left me to assume they would be firewood soon.

Buildings loomed on all sides, though not as high as the downtown skyscrapers of Marsi. These were maybe five or six stories tall, wide in the middle, and lacking windows. If they weren’t made—possibly carved—from stone, I might have imagined them as ships waiting to lift off.

“What do you think of that design, X?”

“Analysis suggests the buildings are a form of tribute art. The ancient people most likely were no more native to Maglan than the migration you led here, or the Alon even. This is an old planet with many mysteries.”

“Hal, you made it,” Jacob said.

The kid was even skinnier than I imagined, happy eyes sunken into his face, his rough cut hair cleaner than I expected after seeing the shabby looking guards who hadn’t bathed for days, maybe weeks.

“Yeah, I slipped out of that mess. How’s your mom and everyone else?” I asked. The last thing I wanted was a stowaway. They sought me out, and Jacob had the vibe of a boy looking for an adventure in the wide, wide galaxy.

“She’s good. Had her face looked at. Nothing broken, but her eyes were swollen shut for a while. Chunk of steel hit her right in the face—killed the woman next to her. Never knew her name. Someone from the east side, over by the salvage yards.” Jacob practically bounced on the balls of his feet with excitement. “You have armor. Are you an Obsidian? Can’t believe they let you in.”

“That is a good question, Reaper Cain,” X said. “Mac must suspect more than he revealed, but he decided to trust you. The chance of this happening again is four thousand to one. I rounded off the numbers due to your frequent complaining about the detail of my predictions.”

“Mac must know what he’s doing. Probably knows I stole this stuff,” I said, giving X a rude hand signal on the sly as I answered the kid.

“Really? How’d you do that?”

“Just got lucky. The previous owner didn’t need it anymore.”

“Be careful, Reaper Cain.”

Jacob nodded sagely. “Dead. Too bad for him, but oh boy I wish I could find some gear like that. Not that it would fit me.”

“Let’s get away from the gate,” I said. “People are looking at us.”

“They’re going to look at you a lot. You should buy a poncho or something. Maybe wrap a blanket around your shoulders. People do that when it’s cold,” Jacob said.

“It’s not cold,” I pointed out.

“True. Follow me. I know where there is a taco stand.”

“Taco?”

“You’ll love them, but get ready to spend some time on the can afterward,” he said. “Totally worth it. I only get one at the end of the month. When we can barter for extras.”

We strode through an increasingly populated area. Everyone noticed me, but only a few stared for long. A pair followed us until I gave them a look that changed their plans.

The tacos tasted like heaven when we finally ate them standing near the source. Locals loved tacos, apparently. And why wouldn’t they. I considered adding them to my list of personal vices.

“Copy the recipe, X.”

“Already done, Reaper Cain. You will regret eating that thing in an hour.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Who are you talking to?” Jacob asked.

“Myself. Something I do.”

The kid looked uneasy but didn’t press the issue—probably because he didn’t know what questions to ask. We watched the crowd instead. Men, women, and children from every background came and went—young and old, light and dark, happy, sad, worried, or energetic. Often they were all of these things. It reminded me of the voyage to get here and how we had overcome so much. I wanted things back the way they were. The Oroth invaders and Scheid were officially on my list—the one no one wanted to be on.

“I had some friends,” I said. “We got separated. Tom Singer and a soldier named Bug?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of Tom Singer. But he can’t sing. Kinda funny. He’s the fix it guy. Comes through and fixes anything. Never charges money but will take food if there is enough to share.”

“Sounds like Tom,” I said.

“He was working on a ship. That’s what I heard. Some old hunk of junk, but no one knows where it is and he’s really secretive about it. Don’t try to follow him is all I’m saying.” Jacob walked several strides, brow furrowed like he was thinking. “Don’t think anyone has slipped the clone and drone sweeps lately, except you. I could be wrong. I mean I am a kid. That’s what mom reminds me a thousand times a day.”

“Clone and drone sweeps?”

“HC clones. Not sure what that means, but someone said it has to do with Reapers. You said you were a Reaper. And your name is Hal. Listen, I better not take you home because when I told everyone you were a Reaper, they really panicked.”

“Maybe we should just keep that between ourselves and not talk about it where anyone might overhear,” I said.

“Right on. Let’s find you a poncho. Gotta cover that armor. Some one will try to steal it. Or figure out what you say you are,” he said. “Are you a Reaper?”

“Lead the way, kid.” I followed, marking the faces who watched me too closely and realizing that more and more people avoided my approach. Food had kept people distracted or made them more accepting of strangers. The locals became more cautious the deeper we moved into the city.

29

We turned the next corner and stopped. Jacob was confused by the line of men holding clubs and tools, but I wasn’t. Hard gazes told me all I needed to know.

“Show me another way, Jacob. I’m not welcome on this street,” I said.

“They don’t even know you.” Jacob’s indignation gave the scene a surreal quality. The kid walked faster, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a picture of juvenile indignation.

I turned another way. “They’ve got eyes.”

He looked me over, searching for clues, obviously picking the ones he could argue against. “Just because you found some armor? That’s not fair.”

The boy was quick to ignore the scrapes, dents, and bloodstains on the black gear. My dead eyes didn’t bother him, and the fact that I told him I was a Reaper was irrelevant.

“Don’t blame them,” I said. “I’m used to it. Nothing wrong with Bastian. We had tacos. Best day I’ve had since getting stuck in a building collapse.”

He didn’t laugh. “Don’t tell that joke at my place. No one will laugh.”

“I laugh at things I shouldn’t,” I said, watching for trouble. On the next street, we encountered a lot of people sulking on the sidewalks. They didn’t array themselves to block our passage or hold weapons, but the intent was similar. I wasn’t wanted, and before long, my association with Jacob was going to make him an outcast as well.

X-37 posted a list of objectives in my HUD. I hadn’t made much progress. This didn’t feel like it was getting me closer to my estate on another continent. I certainly wasn’t about to find a ship here.

“Why didn’t Tom mention he was working on a ship, X?”

“I am not sure that was a topic of conversation,” X-37 said. “You were busy staying alive as I recall.”

“You talking to yourself?” Jacob asked.

“Basically,” I said.

He gave me a confused look but didn’t ask any more questions.

“I must remind you that the computer still requires recharging. There is information that will be useful to my integration into your nerve-ware. I would like to retain all possible data. If you can find a power source, I can resume my work,” X-37 said. “My full integration to your nerve-ware will increase your chances by twenty-three percent. I will be able to manipulate metabolism and hormone parameters to boost recovery, or give you that extra murderous edge in a fight—for a short term of course.”

“When you say it like that it makes me want to read the fine print. Why the hell did I volunteer for the Reaper Corps?”

X-37 beeped. “You have never read the fine print.”

“I read it when needed. Remember all those assassin contracts? Every word, X. The devil is always in the details with things like that.”

“Rare exceptions do not disprove the rule.”

“Whatever, X. I’ll find a place to charge your battery.”

Jacob skipped to keep up. “I should talk to myself. Bet people would leave me alone if I did.”

“They’d think you’re crazy,” I said.

“No one thinks you’re crazy.”

“Psychopath. That’s the word they use.”

“I knew that,” he said, then shut up.

He didn’t, of course. I’d found a new way to shut him up—give him something to puzzle out.

The next street was deserted, but I didn’t like the feel of it.

“We’re not going that way?” Jacob asked.

“Too dark, too quiet. Probably an ambush waiting to happen,” I said.

“Right. Gotcha. That’s not good.” He hesitated. “But all that leaves is Outcast Park.”

“Show it to me, then you better head home.” I wasn’t sure if he’d listen, but it was worth a try.

Outcast Park was larger than I thought—over a square mile. Once, it had been a grand place with sweeping fields, expansive gardens, and orchards of trees with white bark and pink and orange flowers. Now it was a shadow of what it had been, especially at night. Tents and lean-tos surrounded a pond. People were still awake, some of them cooking, many of them telling stories or strumming instruments.

“Happy group for outcasts,” I said.

Jacob shrugged. “They never tell me to leave.”

“You’ve been here before?” I asked.

He smiled broadly, eyes lighting up. “I go everywhere. Once my chores are done. Or when no one is paying attention.”

“I need to find a charging station. Does this place have power?”

Jacob started forward. “Yeah, sure. There is a solar farm on the north end of the pond. Not big but pretty good. Tom fixed that too. Tripled the output. Not a lot of people need stuff charged here, so you can probably use one of the plugs. Just don’t call anybody an outcast or thief. Don’t think too many are thieves, but even if they are, they don’t like to be called that. Might stab you or something. Unless you run. But you probably don’t run away much. I do. I run away all the time. Just a kid, you know.”

“At least he can hold up his side of a conversation,” X-37 said. “He is a surprisingly good source of information, without your needing to ask a single question.”

I didn’t respond to my LAI. Once upon a time, the kid’s rambling would have annoyed me. After the last few days, I found it relaxing. Go figure. And all I had to do to get a break was call someone a big word no one used.

Except Elise’s father. He’d use the biggest words possible to sound more important than he was. I hadn’t thought of him since he disappeared back into the Union, mostly because I had no use for the man. Elise, on the other hand, would have been pure gold right now.

Tom and Bug were like family, even if I’d already lost them. If Elise were here… things would be different.

One old lady sat next to the charging stations, watching a two dimensional movie on a small screen. She warned me away with a look, then turned her back as far as she could without unplugging the device. I searched for a guard or technician and found each of the six panels unattended.

“Looks like Tom’s work. Cleanest place in the camp,” I said.

“Can’t believe you know Tom Singer. Can’t believe a lot of stuff about you, Hal. Aren’t you glad we came here? I’m glad those bullies with clubs and hammers turned us away. They don’t have nothin’ this good on their block. I snuck in there more than once, so I know,” Jacob said.

“Do they turn everyone away?” I asked.

“Yeah, but they really didn’t seem to like us, did they?”

I plugged in the computer. “Their loss.”

“Now what, Hal?”

“You go home, get some sleep, and eat a good breakfast. I’ll contact you for the next move,” I said.

“How are you going to do that? You don’t know where I live. And I told you not to come there because you’d scare everyone.”

“Tell me the location, and I’ll figure it out. I’ll remember the directions.” I tapped the side of my head, which probably confused him no matter what he pretended to understand. He didn’t know what an LAI was even if he believed I was a Reaper and had heard of the tech we used.

Somehow I doubted he would hang around long if he really thought I was the Butcher of Dreadmax or the Slayer of Yansden. I might have been one, but not the other. Briggs had mutated into the Slayer. Not me. I needed to stop thinking of all the people who got me from Union space to Maglan. My stomach dropped at the memory. I wished I could download my memories into a computer and carry them in a backpack.

“You’re not listening,” Jacob said.

“Sure I am, but tell me again.”

“I said I should stand guard. You could sleep because you look like you need it and I’m not tired. No one will notice I’m gone. I leave all the time. Gone for days. That’s the way it is in the old town,” he said.

“Posting a sentry would be useful, Reaper Cain.”

I tapped my fingers together to acknowledge X, then gave Jacob a stern look. “Okay, but no chattering. No wandering off unless it is to go home. And wake me up if anyone comes close.”

“Great! You can count on me.” He stood at attention, facing away from me, then crossed his arms to appear more intimidating.

“Just relax, kid. Wake me in two hours,” I said.

“I am on the job.” He saluted and stood tall.

X-37 began the next stage of neural integration. At this point, I thought he was transferring historical data and minor algorithms. Maybe I could sell the computer in the morning.

That’s me. An optimist.

* * *

“Hal?” Jacob asked.

I opened one eye. “Has it been two hours? Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Fifteen minutes, I think. But you better wake up now,” he said, fear in his voice.

A crowd surrounded the little solar farm near the water. Three men stood over me, with plenty of reinforcements behind them. Beyond that delightful crew of tattooed thugs was a crowd of onlookers.

“You’re not supposed to drain the charge at night. Got to let the sun do it’s work. What are you, stupid?” the leader asked. An arrow tattoo pointing down marked his left cheek.

I flipped up the control display screen on the panel I was using. “Ninety eight percent charge with a point zero five drain per hour on this one. Looks like Tom Singer optimized the output. Leave me alone. I’m not hurting anyone. In the morning, I’ll be on my way.”

He shook his head. “There’s a fine.”

“I’m sure there is.” These guys were already boring me.

X-37 activated a combat scan and posted data in my HUD as I stood.

“I like your chest plate. Howard likes your boots. Mini wants your belt and your backpack,” Arrow Face said.

“Mini is a woman,” X-37 said.

“Thanks, X. Don’t care right now.”

“What was that? You mocking me?” Arrow Face demanded as he stepped forward with his fists clenched.

I punched him in the solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs. He crumpled to the ground. Howard and Mini lunged forward but hesitated when they saw the look on my face. Neither of them backed down, but they started to circle. Looking for an opening.

Arrow Face groaned, cursed, and fought his way to a standing position. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes and veins popped on his forehead and neck.

“Scan completed,” X-37 said. “There are two persons of interest in the crowd, Roadkill, the girl you rescued at the bridge, and a dangerous individual in a hat. I am unable to see his face, but the way he stands marks him as someone ready for any level of violence.”

“Thanks, X. Super helpful,” I said.

“Sarcasm detected. I will take this to mean you have the situation well in hand,” X said.

“I knew you were trouble,” Arrow Face said. “Where’d you get that armor? Steal it? We ain’t thieves in Old Town. Don’t want your kind.”

“You should point out that he sure acts like a thief, or perhaps a robber,” X-37 said.

“Not helpful, X,” I said, moving to maintain distance between my three circling enemies.

“What the hell are you talking about!” Arrow Face said. “I’m fucking tired of you muttering under your breath. You crazy or just disrespecting my crew?”

“All I want is a nap, a little power for my computer, and to leave,” I said. “Come at me, and I’ll defend myself.”

“You started this,” Arrow Face said.

“He did not!” Jacob shouted. “You’re a bully!”

Arrow Face swung a backhand at the kid, but I was there first, catching him by the wrist and ripping his arm behind his back like I would pull it from his shoulder. He tried to spin out of the hold, but I had him. When he tried to kick backward, I dumped him on his face, stepped back, and kicked him in the ass hard enough to punt him halfway to his friends.

The crowd oohed and aahed. Some cursed me. Others laughed and cheered.

“They are entertained,” X-37 said.

“Of course.” I focused on the other two and saw the rest of this gang stepping forward, most of them with weapons.

Chains were popular. One had the axe from a fire truck. I let X-37 inventory the rest of their weapons as I focused on the first row of trouble makers.

“Use your rifle, Reaper Cain. They won’t stop until you kill some or all of them,” X-37 said.

“Too many people in the background. I can handle this crew,” I said.

“You have a reasonable but not certain chance of success. I recommend lethal force. Just don’t miss. Projectiles penetrating their bodies will be traveling much slower when they impact the crowd, and they should know better than to spectate in such a travesty of justice,” X-37 said.

“You’re a blood thirsty LAI today,” I said, deciding that Howard was the next guy who needed my attention, just as soon as I kicked Arrow Face’s ass one more time.

A man with a wide hat stepped from the crowd. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the staff he carried looked solid, and X was right, he carried it like he knew how to use it.

Three of the local gang members backed away and vanished into the crowd.

Arrow Face came at me.

I delivered a spinning back kick to his chest, dropping him for good this time. He’d probably live, but I didn’t care. The guy was definitely done fighting tonight.

The man with the hat turned in a slow circle, then pulled the staff apart to reveal a long handled sword and scabbard.

More of the gang retreated. Arrow Face recovered only to stare wide-eyed at the man in the wide hat. He backed away, motioning for his crew to do the same, but they were already running.

I studied the figure. A tingle of recognition went up my spine as I noticed glow strips braided into dark hair, body piercings, and tattoos. Plain, flowing clothing covered the extravagant body art—like this guy belonged to the Order of the Sword Saint.

He turned, studied me like I was a dangerous animal, and said nothing.

“Path? Godsdamnit it’s good to see you,” I said. “Thanks for helping a brother out.”

“We are not brothers.” He turned toward the thinning crowd, putting his staff back together without looking at what he was doing. “You are a replica. I shouldn’t have intervened.”

“Why did you, Path?”

“They are bullies, but they didn’t deserve to die. Sometimes they fight off raiders,” he said.

“Tom and Bug helped me.”

He stopped but did not turn.

“Help me get to my estate, then find Elise,” I said.

He turned slowly. “She is beyond your reach. Threaten her, and I will kill you as I have many others of your brood.”

“Fine. I didn’t want to do this.”

He stepped back into a fighting stance, hands ready to draw the blade from the staff that concealed it.

I removed a crumbling cigar and nursed it to life. The foul smoke made me want to take X-37’s advice and ditch the habit, but I stuck to my plan.

Path didn’t move or speak.

I spread my hands and blew smoke into the air. “Look at me, Path. Smoking a cigar. The clones didn’t smoke. And let’s be honest, I’m way better looking.”

“My analysis shows he is neither impressed nor convinced,” X-37 said.

Jacob coughed as my smoke cloud drifted over him. The lady watching her movie cursed me.

“Tom and Bug will vouch for me,” I said as I dropped the cigar stub and crushed it with my foot.

“Doubtful, but I will help you find them and decide what to do next,” he said.

“Perfect! We’re getting the band back together.” I stuffed the computer into the backpack and started after him. “Nothing can stop us now!”

The sword saint didn’t crack a smile.

30

Path led the way without explanation. We moved through the orchard, or what was left of it, as people drifted home like a crowd after a large concert. Only one figure, a young woman by her profile and grace of movement, went the wrong way through the crowd. She reminded me of a ship cat pretending an abundance of confidence but ready to dart away if necessary.

“That young woman wishes to speak with you,” X-37 said.

“Who is it X? I’m tired of these surprises. Do your job,” I said.

“There are twenty-seven traits identifying her as Roadkill, the girl you liberated from the cannibal stronghold near the bridge between here and Maglan City,” X-37 said.

“Can you make her go away?” I had been hoping it was Elise or Tatiana or anyone but another tagalong. Wishful thinking wasn’t a Reaper habit. I wondered where I had picked it up.

“She is smaller than both of those women, who are not large,” X-37 said. “You will see her hair is still mostly shaved once she drops her hood in an effort to surprise you.”

“Get over yourself, X. You’re shit at predicting human behavior,” I said.

Roadkill dropped her hood, smiled broadly, and spread her hands and fingers. “Surprise! I made it.”

“Good job,” I said. “Now take Jacob back to his parents. Maybe they have a place for you.”

“Harsh,” she said. “I forgot you were a jerk.”

Path looked over his shoulder. “You might be the Reaper. He always attracted desperados, mavericks, and strays.”

“All it took to gain your confidence was a random kid with no sense?” I asked. “Glad you made it, Roadkill. Seriously. Now get out of here before this gets dangerous.”

Path made no further comment. I didn’t think he had suspended his disbelief entirely. Or at all.

“You need me. Who’s going to show you around? Him?” She pointed at Jacob.

“I know where I’m going, Shavey Head! Go back to your tent,” he said.

“Can we run for it while they argue?” I asked.

“This option has less chance of success than you might assume.” X-37 said. “I recommend you retain a shred of dignity and face your problems rather than flee them.”

“Not helpful, X.” I knew my LAI was right, but I had to ask.

“I have a solution,” Path said.

“Hit me with it.”

“I will take us in a larger and larger circle until they grow tired,” Path said. “Then I will suggest we sleep. We can slip away and leave them in relative safety.”

“Good call. Let’s do it,” I said, watching the juveniles argue like rival siblings.

“She won’t leave,” Jacob complained.

“I told both of you to leave,” I said. “So deal with it. Trust me, this won’t be the adventure you think.”

“I’m staying with you,” Roadkill said.

Jacob jumped between us. “Me too. She’s not even from here.”

I silenced them by slashing the air with my hand and turning away. Breaking eye contact could end a conversation if done correctly.

Path took us through every corner of the old city. None of the locals stared for long, and no one blocked our progress. The sword saint was the ultimate escort. I was glad to have him back, even if he didn’t believe who I was. Bug had come around. So had Tom.

There was always a chance.

By the time Path was done with his tour of the old city, I wanted to take a nap.

“We rest now,” he said. “I will stand guard.”

“I can do it,” Jacob and Roadkill blurted at the same time.

“You will sleep now,” Path said. “No arguing.”

Ten minutes later, the kid and the teenager had claimed spots on the opposite sides of our camp, curled up in blankets from Roadkill’s pack, and were snoring softly.

“Do you need to sleep, clone?” Path asked.

“I’m good.”

“Your face is a mask of exhaustion.” He paused. “But you are stubborn.”

“Guilty as charged, but I’m also charismatic and dependable.” I winked. “I can explain why I have my arm and my eye. Give me a chance, and maybe we can help Elise fight the Oroth and Scheid and whatever other bullshit is plaguing the universe.”

Path’s response betrayed zero emotion. Enduring his gaze was like having a sword blade pressed to your throat, knowing the steel meant you no harm but would kill you instantly if its master commanded.

“There is no need to explain,” he said. “You are a copy of a flawed but generous man.”

“Generous? I’ve been accused of worse.”

“The Halek Cain I knew never did anything for himself, other than submit to his vices, which were transitory things that meant nothing.” He paused, never one to rush a statement. “He sought no power, no fame, and no wealth. When he claimed not to care, he instead put his life in danger to save strangers.”

“Yeah, well, nobody’s perfect,” I said. “Listen, I have pieces to the puzzle you don’t—and we need to be on the same page.”

“Then tell me what you know.”

“Doctor David Scheid was a scientist on the Reaper project, but he got fired. He, and probably the Union even though they claimed to have exiled him, made clones to experiment on. The man you knew was the only one who survived all the shit they did to him.”

“Other Reapers had cybernetic arms, eyes, and nerve-ware,” Path said. “You do not.”

“Clones of other test subjects subjected to the cybernetic augmentations after they were tested on early volunteers,” I said. “Or regular subjects who were brought into the program only after the technology was proven on my clones.”

Path flinched, his legendary self-control faltering. “Do you have evidence?”

“I’m the evidence.”

“You’re just another clone.”

“No, Path, I’m the original,” I said, really believing it for the first time.

Anger crept into his expression, something I had never seen before. “Do not talk to me—unless you wish to die. My eyes tell me you are what you are, a copy of Halek Cain. You mock his memory with such claims.”

I motioned away from the sleeping children.

He strode toward the distant walls without looking back.

“Follow him, Reaper Cain.”

“Not sure I want to, X.”

“Please explain.”

The answer was hard to formulate. I concentrated on my environment, knowing that I was distracted and likely to get killed the moment I let my guard down.

“Reaper Cain, are you well?”

“No, X. I’m not sure it’s worth it. My friends think I’m a monster. I’m running around in fucking circles. And my damn head hurts.”

“You are a monster, Reaper Cain. Nothing has changed,” X-37 said. “Fatigue and dehydration are contributing to your physical misery and moodiness.”

“I’m not moody.”

I couldn’t turn my LAI off, so I gave him the silent treatment as Path talked to the gate guards.

X dropped the topic.

* * *

Mac and the others closed each door in the maze after us as we left. Path didn’t talk, and that was fine with me. Every part of my body hurt, I was tired, and my friends weren’t my friends anymore.

Bug and Tom had believed me, but maybe the reason I couldn’t find them after our separation was because they didn’t want to be found. X-37 might have a better answer, but LAI pragmatism wasn’t what I needed right now.

Dragon horses howled in the night. Dogs yipped and ran away. I spotted a group of Razors lurking in one of the shadows, then pointed them out to Path.

He studied them without emotion for several moments, then went another direction. The only good news so far was the lack of mechs stomping around or JFT popping up where they weren’t wanted. The city was dark and cold, despite the heat.

Two blocks later, I heard a lone dragon horse snarling and razor monkeys grunting their strange language as they wrestled the animal to the ground.

“Stay back, Path,” I warned.

He stalked to the next corner like a panther, staff gripped loosely in both hands, and slowly edged to a place we could watch.

Razors squatted around the fresh corpse of a dragon horse, ripping flesh away in chunks. Grunts of satisfaction punctuated the wet sounds of eating. The dead monster looked more like a sad, oversized lizard now.

“I’ve heard of these creatures but never seen them,” Path said. “Something is changing on Maglan for them to have come so far.”

We backed away and found a new route through the city. Path didn’t talk much. My mood improved the more work we did. Moving tactically to avoid fights was enough to keep me occupied and that was enough to make me happy. Going with the flow was easy around Grigori “Path” Paavo.

“When you were with Tom and Bug, did you encounter the JFT or the Obsidians?” he asked.

“Both at the same time,” I said.

“That is unfortunate.” He changed course and cut through a warehouse district.

“We split up to escape.”

He raised one hand slightly, something he did instead of nodding. “They may have been captured. I will take you to their base here, and we will see.”

“Path moves well,” X-37 said. “There has been no need to alert you of dangers because he has preemptively avoided several problems.”

I signaled X that I heard but kept my mouth shut.

The nearer we came to Scheid’s base, the easier it was to detect the man’s military presence. Path pointed to a thirty foot pile of rubble. “They compacted the debris, then buried it with gravel made from other buildings.”

I studied tire ruts to the top, quickly identifying this location as part of a patrol route around a perimeter of streets and vacant lots. “Observation point. The inward slope of the hill looks like a tank revetment—defenses aimed outward. This isn’t meant to be held indefinitely or permanently manned but could be used to slow an enemy advance or stage a tactical retreat to a stronger position in the center. Let me guess, there are more of these around the perimeter and another ring inside this one. The closer we moved to the base, the more permanent the defenses will be. The base itself is probably ringed with fences topped with razor wire and guard towers with snipers.”

“You are correct because the Obsidians use Union tactics,” he said. “The forces of Oroth do not build their facilities this way. On other parts of the continent, you will encounter their bases. They create concrete ziggurats in a matter of weeks and guard them with long range flame throwers. No one goes near them. Not even the Obsidians.”

“Are we facing Union forces?” I wanted Path’s opinion. He wasn’t a soldier or a tactician but a pure warrior who could operate as either. But he was from the Deadlands, and that meant he knew about our old enemies.

“No,” he said. “Merely from the Union, as we are.”

“How close can we get to their inner perimeter?” I asked.

“If I am with a true Reaper, all the way to the center, perhaps into the personal quarters of the faceless man if necessary. But I hope it is not. One mistake will cause the need for bloodshed.”

“I’m okay with that,” I said. “But I know that isn’t your jam.”

He pushed me deeper into our hiding place, moving slowly so that we would be just another pair of shadows. “The key to not being seen is to not move like a pair of men who fear for their lives.”

I really liked working with Path. Few people were better at this stuff than I was. He was on that list. The man brought mastery to a small set of skills, while I got by on meanness and stubborn determination. The idea of attempting infiltration with Jacob and Roadkill tagging along made me cringe inwardly.

Neither of us spoke until a vehicle approached. I heard it long before I saw the rough looking machine. It didn’t appear to be a local design, like Scheid had brought it with him. Which made me wonder where his real base was located. On a starship? Another planet? A secret space station like the one where I had started this miserable crusade?

“The vehicle will circle the block twice, once quickly and once slowly, then climb the hill and park in the carved space—the space you called a revetment. There will be eight soldiers who will divide into squads and take turns standing watch while the others rest or make repairs to their equipment,” Path said.

“Obsidians?” I asked.

“No, but their uniforms are similar—black with red rank insignia and accents.” Path watched without moving. The guy would make a hell of a sniper if I could get him to take up the trade. He would use guns, but I knew he had to be pushed into a truly desperate situation to pick one up.

“You studied their movements before this?” I asked.

He raised one hand a fraction, turning it palm up to approximate a nod.

“Is this the only patrol on the outer perimeter, or will there be a second following it, or running a counter route in the other direction?”

“There will be a second unit consisting of two to three vehicles and a drone. They will arrive in less than thirty minutes but more than ten.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Five minutes after these kids leave, we’ll move forward and see what we see.”

Path didn’t respond, which I took as agreement.

Scheid’s perimeter patrol arrived right on time, though the first unit was still holding their observation post. Path was wrong about another thing—there were Obsidians. One in each of the armored cars. The vehicles weren’t tanks but faster vehicles with lighter armor and gunners standing from openings on the roof.

Each truck had two drivers, a primary and a backup, and each of these were protected by their own bubble of clear material—probably stronger than most steel. The Obsidian riding in the backup driver’s seat looked bored but alert.

The bubble around the gunner was more complex and articulable. I watched as the gunner of the lead car swiveled right, left, up, and down. He was more vulnerable than anyone inside but definitely not an easy target.

The gunner of the second vehicle operated a rocket battery instead of a heavy machine gun.

“My rifle won’t pierce that armor,” I said, not expecting, and not getting, a comment from the sword saint.

He stiffened, his posture preparing for a fight. “Third vehicle. That is new.”

Focusing on the column’s rear guard, I saw a weapon to strike terror into the heart of a reaper—a flamethrower that looked like it could cook anything within fifty to a hundred meters.

“I thought the JFT used flamethrowers,” I said.

“To defend their forts, yes. The Obsidians have stolen the technology, which suits them. They are instruments of terror—worse than the Reaper Corps ever was. If this man represents the Union in this sector of the Galaxy, things have gone from bad to worse,” Path said.

“Scheid isn’t part of the Union. They fired him from the project for a lack of morals.”

Path laughed darkly.

I stared at him in surprise.

“If you tell the truth, clone, we are in trouble.”

31

Staying low, I examined our back trail. “Now isn’t the time to fight.”

Path led our invisible retreat, not saying a word. He moved slowly, without wasted movement.

I followed, thankful for the sword saint but wishing I had a squad of my friends wearing Archangel armor.

Seeing with both eyes and using both hands felt intensely surreal. Maybe this should have been a mundane condition not worth attention, but it caught me off guard from time to time.

I wanted my old, broken life back—because that was where memories of Elise and all the others still lived. I hoped that kid was all right.

“What are you smiling about, Reaper Cain?”

“Nothing. Just wondering if Path forgot we’re fleeing a superior enemy force,” I said. “Did you see something, Path?”

He stopped to watch and listen. Not a problem, but when he did it I was never sure if he would start moving again.

“Tell me if you lose sight of them, or if they are overtaking us,” he said. “I must move slowly to remain unseen and cannot watch behind us.”

“I got your back,” I said. “Slow and invisible, that’s the ticket.”

“Your biometrics suggest you would prefer hauling ass,” X said.

I gave my LAI a thumbs-up but didn’t press the issue.

Path had always been a consummate swordsman, a quiet companion who listened more than he spoke and had a knack for showing up where and when he was needed. The man was one of a kind.

Our journey into the blast zone emphasized the skills he had been perfecting during the last decade. Grigori “Path” Paavo could teach shadows how to creep. He’d been good at covert movement before, but a lot had changed while I was asleep.

Each time he ranged more than a few strides ahead of me, I lost sight of him. He chose the darkest route through mountains of rubble and moved in harmony with his environment.

“He’s good, X.”

“Twenty-three percent more efficient at moving undetected than you were in your prime, Reaper Cain.”

“Gee, thanks for that.”

“You must remain silent,” Path said when I caught up to him. “Use the hand signals to communicate with your LAI if you must.”

“Do the clones have limited AIs?” I asked.

“I have never been close enough to ask them,” he said. “It seems unlikely. Perhaps you are a more advanced model.”

Now might have been a great time to argue who and what I was, but I didn’t. The armored cars crept after us, driving slowly and shining powerful spotlights over the terrain. Four drones, one for each vehicle, zipped over the craters and debris.

“Was this a nuclear attack?” I subvocalized to X.

“There is more convincing evidence of a kinetic strike from orbit. That doesn’t guarantee the absence of radioactive fallout or other dangerous elements. Dropping space rocks can have unintended side effects. Proceed with caution.”

Path moved, and I followed. Lactic acid burned my thighs and glutes from walking in a crouch and mixing super slow stealth movements with periodic sprints across open areas.

Dogs, rats, and small lizards fled our approach. The Obsidian vehicles frightened a flock of birds that filled the sky with motion and noise. Moments later, the squadron parked where they could command a large portion of the debris field.

“They have never parked like this,” Path said.

“Keep moving. They’re calling reinforcements. Smart, since this is a large area with lots of ambush points,” I said. “I’ll lead.”

“Have you been this way before?” Path asked. “The terrain will confuse you.”

“No doubt,” I said. “But I know what to look for. If they sent a blocking team ahead, we might walk right into them. They could have raced around to this part of the city, or deployed teams from airships. Another standard tactic in the Union.”

Path fell in behind as I picked up the pace. Stealth could only get us so far. Advance optics would catch us, especially if there was a blocking team with motion sensors deployed. I searched for small things—the tip of a rifle, the reflection off a sniper scope, the partial profile of a helmet silhouetted against the star filled sky.

Ten minutes later, we had crossed five times the distance Path had traversed. Did I feel great about our chances of avoiding detection? No. Every move felt like a signal to the Obsidians.

Dread dancing in my chest, I wanted to break into a sprint and just get the hell out of here. Moving too slowly was a death sentence, and so was charging blindly ahead. Finding the balance between the extremes was like building a house of cards with edges as sharp as razors.

The armored cars rolled forward at ten or fifteen kilometers per hour, more than enough to over take our previous pace. Powerful engines gurgled above a steady background noise of heavy tires crunching gravel.

Path motioned for me to continue leading. Grim faced, he also appeared ready to run for it—an expression I hadn’t expected to see on his face.

“It won’t be long now,” I said. “Their reinforcements will be here soon.”

Dropships fulfilled my prediction. Several landed a half kilometer ahead of us, and even more landed behind. Worse, an even larger flight of ships from the stratosphere headed for Scheid’s base, which meant he was building up his force to launch a major operation.

“There are several routes too narrow for their vehicles. Pick one of those and move quickly,” Path said.

“Stay close.” I picked up the pace, running across open areas, then slowing to scan possible ambush points through my D3D scope. I regretted surrendering the silver helmet, even if the thing reeked of halitosis and stale sweat. The optics and cooling system would have been nice, not to mention the protection it would have offered.

Two piles of concrete, steel, and other debris loomed ahead of me on my right and left. The main passage between them looked like a great place to get ambushed by armored cars, or worse, mechs. Small trails cut off to the right but looked like they might circle back on themselves.

I glanced back at Path. He shook his head. That way was a no-go.

“Your options are surprisingly limited, Reaper Cain.”

“Thanks, X. Figured that out all by myself.” I studied the mountains of twisted junk. “We’re going over.”

“Are you certain?” Path asked.

“As a heart attack. We can move unseen if we stay lower than the contours. If it comes to a fight, at least we will have the high ground,” I said.

“That is not the hill you want to die on, Reaper Cain.”

“I’d rather not die on any hill, X.”

Sneaking through the worst destruction of Marsi became like hiking to the top of a once great building. The stolen Obsidian armor, especially the boots, collected scrapes despite my efforts to avoid stepping on or bumping jagged pieces of rusted steel. Path didn’t seem to have a problem despite his lack of armor, but he was Path.

Two of the cars approached on the same street I’d used to get here, then stopped at the base of this mess. Path and I squatted low and waited. The Obsidian commander of the first vehicle climbed out and scanned the area with his helmet’s advanced optics.

I tried not to breathe. No smart ass comments came to mind, and I didn’t even think about pulling out one of the crappy scavenger cigars—though a long smoke and a cold beer sounded pretty damn good right now.

The Obsidian completed his scan and placed his fists on his hips. The armored car engine idled, its crew invisible inside while units patrolled elsewhere.

“We could draw them out of that vehicle and deal with them,” Path said.

“Not a bad idea if not for the ships deploying troops around this section of the city,” I said. “We would have to be fast as hell.”

A second armored car arrived, which meant there was a gap in their perimeter. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see where it was. Another flight of ten dropships cruised overhead, destined for Scheid’s main base. The man was definitely making a big move. I wished I knew what it was.

“Let’s see what lies ahead,” I suggested. “If we’re going to ambush these jerks, we need to choose the terrain.”

“I will leave that to you,” Path said.

Created by chance rather than foot traffic, the trail twisted upward, stopped in places, and restarted where it was least convenient. I picked my way over nasty barriers, ducked under I-beams, and crawled through short tunnels to reach my objective.

“Your biometrics are highly elevated, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I recommend avoiding small spaces, especially those that resemble the building collapse that trapped you.”

“This building already fell, X. Get completely off my back about my biometrics,” I grunted as I navigated a very tight corner, crawled to the surface, and thanked the gods I hadn’t gotten stuck. Path emerged as calm as always from the same tunnel.

“My job is to monitor your well-being and make suggestions. When I detect fear, there is a reason,” X said.

“I wasn’t scared.”

“Reaper Cain—”

“Shut it, X.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain, but I should advise you that I detect vibrations you might sense naturally if you paid attention,” X-37 said.

“Just tell me what you’ve got.”

“The Obsidians have deployed into this debris pile—each with four of their regular troopers.”

“Are you sure about those numbers, X?”

“Of course not. Tactile sensations, especially at this range, are the least reliable data you provide for my analysis. There is a thirty-seven percent chance my prediction is accurate. I can say with a much higher degree of certainty that there is more than one enemy searching for you on foot,” X said.

Path pointed above us as a drone passed.

“What about that, X?”

“The drone is a problem. Do you want to know how greatly aerial surveillance reduces your chance of avoiding detection?”

“No.” I climbed higher, then crawled through a gap to look back the way we had come. The scene was something from a nightmare. From this vantage point, I could barely believe the rest of the city existed. Destruction was all that remained of Marsi.

“Now isn’t the time for one of your dark moods, Reaper Cain. Please draw the enemy into a trap and destroy them in detail.”

“Good call, X. Thanks.” I pointed to a hiding place between our position and the only possible way the Obsidian squads can come. “I’m going to taunt a drone and draw them after us. Hide right about there and let some pass before attacking. No mercy. We can’t afford it.”

He turned up his right palm and bowed his head slightly. “Of course. Now is the time for slaughter, much as I regret the need to take lives.”

He slipped away and disappeared within seconds.

“Shit, X. I don’t feel good about this.”

“You never do, Reaper Cain.”

The first rays of sun pierced the morning gloom, shining directly in my eyes. “Well just fuck me running.”

“Needless profanity detected,” X said. “Would you like me to hack into their drone system?”

“You can do that? Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I have been working on it since we first saw the drones,” X-37 said. “The first crack in their digital defenses has presented itself.”

“Do it, X.”

“I will be unable to offer assistance during your pending conflict,” he said.

“At this point, X, that’s fine. Path and I will handle the dirty work.” I set off for a better position, hoping that I could take out the regular soldiers before the Obsidians rushed me. I worried about Path, despite my confidence in his abilities. If this went bad, it would be my fault.

“Drone hijacking thirty-nine percent complete,” X-37 said. “There is a zero percent chance I can fully control them during this conflict, but I am able to see through their eyes and grant you real-time intelligence.”

“Damn, X, that was quick. Didn’t expect you back.” I checked my D3D and Ryker 55 pistols. Aside from a disappointingly low level of ammunition, I was in pretty good shape. Maybe I could take one of the clone helmets and hope the man had better hygiene.

“Two Obsidian troopers are advancing up the debris trail,” X-37 reported. “They are about to pass Path’s hiding place. I recommend that you move closer in order to assist him in case they both turn to address his ambush.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” I said. The area I had chosen would require them to cross through a funnel where I could lie down a withering stream of D3D fire, then rush them with my pistols.

“You must improvise, adapt, and overcome,” X said.

When my LAI was right, he was right. I broke cover and hustled downward, looking for the two black armored figures. “Where are the regular troops?”

“They are deployed in a containment perimeter,” X said.

I slowed before I reached the pair of Obsidian assholes. After ducking into a shallow crevasse, I waited for Path to make his move. My heart pounded in my chest. My trigger finger itched to start shooting, even though I didn’t have a good angle.

“The drones have moved beyond view of your position, Reaper Cain.”

“I’ve got a feeling this will be over before you see me again,” I said, then tensed as Path emerged behind the pair of Obsidians, sword drawn and intent obvious. For about two seconds, I thought he would take them both out. A horizontal strike with his deadly blade and a reverse slash would end the clones, and we could get the hell out of here before the perimeter closed on us.

At the last possible second, one of the Obsidian clones turned and raised an armored vambrace to deflect the attack. This forced him to release one hand from his rifle. He let it hang, drew a pistol with his off hand, and fired, striking Path twice in the upper torso.

“My analysis of your visual data suggests they anticipated this tactic and were ready,” X-37 said.

I ignored my LAI, aimed at the other Obsidian, and fired. He spotted me at the same instant and took his own shot. Our bullets passed each other halfway between us. The difference was, he was wearing a helmet.

My D3D slug dropped him, opening a small hole in the front of his visor and a huge one on the side but close to the back. Blood sprayed into the air. I saw this but didn’t analyze it until after I fell sideways with a vicious gash down one side of my head. His shot had been rushed and poorly aimed, but it was far too close to the mark for comfort.

Moving laterally, I ducked down, came back up, and fired again, this time hitting him in the torso as he climbed to his feet and stripped off his helmet. He didn’t fall as I expected but staggered sideways. When he flung away the ruined helmet, I saw that I had created a similar wound to what he had given me.

There was a chunk of flesh hanging from where his ear should be, but that didn’t offer much consolation. Only a fatal wound would win this fight, and I had just pissed him off.

We closed on each other, moving and shooting, scoring hits on armor but never a kill shot. The whine of bullets through the debris was the music of a madman playing a broken instrument.

“All drones are returning to your location,” X-37 advised. “Reinforcements will follow close behind.”

I let my rifle hang, which caused it to magnetically lock to my armor. Drawing both my pistols, I jumped over a fallen I-beam, firing in midair and forcing my enemy to duck. With his helmet off and a matching wound, he could have been my mirror image.

“Surrender!” he shouted.

I fired again, then leapt to the air to kick him in the chest while he was dodging clear of my shots. He flew backward, bounced off the uneven surface of this hellish environment, and fell on a pile of bricks. “What you meant to say was something like ‘surrender, you son of a bitch.’”

“Reaper Cain, I strongly discourage your use of this particular insult, as you do in fact love your mother,” X-37 said.

“Not. Now. X.”

The Obsidian came to his feet, both of his pistols locked back, out of ammunition.

“That is what is wrong with you, rebel,” he said. “No refinement at all.”

I lunged forward and to the side, looking for a kill shot. “Suck it.”

“You are crude and imperfect!” he spat.

I pulled the trigger on my own weapons and realized they were also empty.

“Fistfight imminent, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I dropped both weapons and launched myself through the air, left hand forward to aim and right hand cocked back to deliver a strike I hoped would break his jaw.

32

Grabbing the back of his neck, I slammed my right fist into his mouth. He countered with a savage strike to my rib cage, and then two more for good measure.

I closed my eyes against the spray of his blood as he cursed me. We danced in a circle, giving and receiving violence. Few fights were graceful, but this one was particularly undignified.

I tripped him up against a twisted beam of metal and caused concrete to tumble down on both of us. None of the blocks were large enough to do damage, but I coughed and spat to clear the dust from my mouth. My eyes stung. I lost my footing and slipped to one side.

He slammed his knee into my face, launching me backward. I landed on my back but didn’t stay there long. The moment I rolled aside, he landed where I’d been with both feet. The armored boots threw up a spray of grit.

I spun in a tight circle, kicking his feet out from under him. He fell on his back, and I jumped on him—not with my feet, but with one knee to his abdomen. I used the other foot to block his escape, planting it on the ground right before he tried to roll in that direction. The final part of my attack was a downward punch on his jaw.

The strike stunned him. Wasting no time, I twisted him onto his side and snatched him around the neck with one arm. He fought the rear choke, but I had it locked in. It had been a long time since I’d killed a man like this, and it sickened me. Even this clone thing deserved better. Sure, he’d slaughter me as soon as look at me. Maybe I was getting soft, but I let off the pressure as soon as he passed out.

What I didn’t do was release him. I was getting soft, not stupid.

“Path, where are you?”

He staggered into view, covered in blood. His hands shook as he removed a cloth from the inside of his coat and wiped the blade clean before sheathing it. “No man has ever fought that hard.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, still holding onto my victim.

“You didn’t kill him?” Path asked.

I had nothing to say.

“No mercy must mean something different to you, clone,” he said.

“Now that’s bullshit, Path,” I snapped. “If you really knew me, you’d understand that these brainwashed clones are far more likely to kill without remorse than I ever was. I never liked it even when I did it.”

He stared at me for a long time. “It was a test question.”

If I wasn’t so beat up and grateful to be alive, I would’ve had a few choice words for him—all of them profane as hell. Right now I just needed to know what to do with my prisoner. “Can you find something to tie this guy with?”

Path considered the question, then squatted near me and my victim. “I believe there are restraints in their armor storage compartments. But I don’t think they will be sufficient with the enhanced strength of this gear. The man I fought was far faster and more powerful than he should’ve been without some sort of enhancements, and since these clones lack the cybernetic augmentations, it must be the armor.”

“You’re not wrong, Path. Help me get him out of this stuff, and we’ll tie him up,” I said.

“We should hurry,” he said.

“The drones are circling your location,” X-37 said. “And the regular Obsidian soldiers are moving in.”

“Change of plans,” I said. “Let’s tie them up and get moving. He will break free, but we don’t have time to be thorough.”

“If you think that is best,” Path said. “I will not argue in favor of murder, even if that would save us a fight tomorrow.”

We tied him in the most awkward position possible and then slipped away from the regular soldiers. X-37’s drone view helped immeasurably.

* * *

The helmet of the man I had destroyed was ruined, but Path’s victim had lost his entire head without excessive damage to the helmet containing it. I had wiped it out the best I could and put it on, trying not to think about what I was doing too much.

We approached the armored car on the perimeter. Two men guarded it, the driver and the heavy gunner. I walked toward them like I knew what I was doing.

“Change of plans. We’re heading back to base,” I said. “This man has been working with us. Don’t talk to him unless you want to go into isolation after the mission. Top-secret protocol applies.”

“Yes, sir,” the gunner said, snapping a salute.

The driver followed his lead but seemed much more reticent as he drove away from the busy search operation. “Why didn’t we receive new orders? No one else is heading back?”

“I am placing a digital message ordering him to comply on his dashboard now, Reaper Cain.”

I pointed toward the screen next to the steering mechanism. “Top-secret orders. Not to be repeated on any channel, even if secured. There’s more to this operation than we realized.”

The soldier read the message, then started to drive without further questions.

I wondered about the Obsidian mechs as we slipped closer and closer to Scheid’s main base. I’d been lucky not to get Path killed. Our last battle would’ve gone differently had we been facing the giant war machines. Ten feet tall and loaded with more armor and weapons than a regular Obsidian could carry, they would’ve slaughtered us had we been caught in the open.

Odds were, they wouldn’t have let us get to the debris field before forcing a confrontation. I suspected Scheid was using them for his personal bodyguards, which marked him as more of a coward than I had assumed even though I had never had a high opinion of the man.

“The clones and drones have completed their search of the blasted city and concluded you are not there,” X-37 said. “Meanwhile, I have achieved partial control of the drone fleet. I can shift their movement patterns by several percentage points or take complete control of one drone.”

“Leave your options open for now, X.”

“What was that, sir?” The gunner asked.

“Direct communication from General Scheid,” I said, leaving him to imagine the rest.

We drove in silence for fifteen minutes.

The driver parked, then faced into the passenger compartment. “This is as far as I can go without new orders.”

“Of course,” I said. “My contact and I will continue on foot.”

The Obsidian soldiers shared an uncomfortable glance.

“That’s not procedure, if you don’t mind me saying, sir,” the driver said.

“Of course.” I lowered one hand to a pistol. “Let me ask you something.”

Each man gripped his pistol a beat too late. This was going bad, and they knew it.

“How did you become part of Scheid’s personal army? You’re not Reaper clones, and we’re a long way from Union space,” I said.

The driver’s face turned red, and his eyes had forgotten how to blink. The gunner sweated profusely, his gaze darting from me to Path to his partner.

“You know I’m not an Obsidian.”

“You’re the real Reaper,” the gunner said, easing his hand away from his pistol.

The driver gripped his weapon tighter, probably under the mistaken belief that would help him draw faster or shoot more accurately.

“None of us knew what we signed up for.” He raised both hands, then motioned to his friend. “He’s got us, Dale. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Yeah, Dale. Listen to your friend,” I said.

“You fucking assholes are what started all of this,” Dale, the driver, said. “We’d still be part of the Union, not eleven years away from home with no chance of seeing our families again. Scheid won’t let anyone start over. Not allowed to stay with a girlfriend for more than two weeks, no chance of ever having kids, so it’s just us and our duty. No legacy. We just get to die out here in the armpit of the galaxy.”

“Sounds like a good reason to join my side,” I said. “Everyone on Maglan was free before you came.”

“The Council of Oroth did that. We didn’t start this war,” the gunner said. “Let go of that gun, Dale. This guy had to have killed Wraith and Striker Cain, which means we don’t have a chance.”

“Scheid will reward us,” Dale said.

“With isolation and a firing squad,” the gunner said. “Come on, bro. Get your hands up. Just fuck all of this. Let’s go on the run. Can’t be any worse than failing Scheid. Maybe we get away. Did you ever think of that?”

Dale drew and fired.

I took the bullet on my chest plate, charged forward, and snatched him out of the driver’s seat. The sound of the ricochet barely registered until I heard the gunner cry out.

“Fuck, Dale, you shot me!”

“Brit!” Dale said, barely able to talk with his face pressed against the floor.

I motioned to Path, who retrieved a medical kit from the back of the troop compartment, sprayed Brit’s wound with antibacterial cleaner, then plugged the hole with sterile gauze and wrapped it.

The moment I let Dale sit up, he spat at my feet.

“You’re a piece of work, buddy,” I said, then handed him his pistol. “You’ll need this.”

“What are you talking about?”

I opened the troop ramp and tossed him out. Path helped Brit down while I gathered a survival kit and launched that at Dale. He caught the bundle, staggering under its weight.

“Do whatever you want but stay away from me. Try to keep your friend alive and make better decisions,” I said. “You failed General Scheid. If I were you, I’d be looking for a place to hide as far away from Marsi as possible.”

Path raised the ramp.

“Can you drive this thing?” I asked.

“Not well,” Path said.

I climbed into the driver seat.

“There is a high probability that the driver was telling the truth,” X-37 said. “If you continue, the Obsidian mechs stationed around Scheid’s inner perimeter will use deadly force more than sufficient to destroy this conveyance.”

“I’m going to run the perimeter. Avoid triggering that response,” I said.

“Excellent idea, Reaper Cain.”

* * *

Path lay prone with binocular optics taken from the Obsidian armored vehicle pressed to his eyes. Beside him, I used a similar pair but got more utility out of them due to my LAI enhanced nerve-ware—not as good as my old cybernetic eye, but pretty damn powerful.

The Hagg troops were hard to miss, nearly as tall as the average human soldier. Their shoulders were thicker, their arms longer. Powerful legs moved them quickly down the hard packed gravel road toward Scheid’s outer perimeter. If Path and I had remained in our first observation post, they would have marched near enough to touch.

But we’d moved based on a gut instinct. Take that, X. Random ass luck works.

I couldn’t see the flat faces or hooked thumbs of the humanoids from here, but I knew they were Hagg soldiers from Say’d in the Zakion system.

“I have seen them but never ventured close enough to have a problem,” Path said.

“This force has better gear than the ragtag grunts I crossed paths with,” I said. “All of it their own design. The units I encountered must have been in the field a long time or AWOL.”

Three Obsidian armored cars raced by the alien infantry, blasting them with dust and grit from their tires. Hagg troopers hissed and shook fists at the cars.

“That’s it. Give those jerks the finger,” I said, but my amusement faded when one of the cars skidded to a stop, then backed up at dangerous speeds. The lead vehicles halted and aimed their main guns at the Hagg infantry.

“Can you hear any of what they’re saying?” I asked, hoping the sword saint had some secret technique learned from a warrior monk on a mountain top.

“No,” he said.

“Before you ask, Reaper Cain, I can only make inferences from body language and the context of this encounter. It might be useful to note, however, that the man yelling at them seems to be Vaus Cain.”

“The silver helmet is a giveaway,” I agreed. “Looks like he upgraded after I took his old one.”

“You know that man?” Path asked.

“Yeah, and I assume the middle vehicle carries General Scheid himself. And the first is a group of hard hitting bodyguards.”

The lead vehicles backed up to join their rear guard, and sure enough, Scheid emerged in resplendent black armor and a flowing red cloak. He strode to the Hagg column, seized one of the alien soldiers who had gestured rudely at the column, and dragged him closer to the armored car.

“What the actual hell?” I asked, though it wasn’t really a question. The Hagg conscript (probably) was about to have a seriously bad day.

“Can we stop this, X?” I asked.

“Reaper Cain, I am embarrassed that you asked. Even if we could defeat Scheid’s elite bodyguards, we could not escape the wrath of the Obsidian mechs who would surely respond to his distress call.” X-37 made several clicking noises, indicators he was processing large amounts of information or resisting a cyber attack. “We must allow this to play out.”

“Hate that option,” I said, then filled Path in on what X told me.

He returned his attention to the scene before us.

Scheid crossed his arms as Vaus punched the soldier in the gut. The others lurched forward, but the armored car gunners aimed their weapons. One blasted a warning shot of flame over their heads.

Resentful, the Hagg men took a step back.

Scheid ranted for several minutes, his words having a visible effect on the alien army. Second by second, they fell back into marching order, then tightened their lines. The more he shouted at them, the more they stared forward and ignored their captured companion.

I scanned for women among the troops, wondering if Saw-say was still alive. If she was, I hoped she had stayed away from this assignment. We’d negotiated, nothing more. I didn’t owe the Hagg woman a thing. But I didn’t want anyone subjected to Scheid’s wrath.

He stood over the prisoner, then pointed to the armored car. Vaus Cain, aka Silver Helmet, dragged the soldier in front of the heavy wheels and held him there as the driver ran over his face. None of the black armored soldiers laughed or cursed.

“I don’t think they liked that, not even the clones,” Path said.

“They didn’t stop it,” I said. “So screw them.”

Scheid mounted his vehicle, standing on the roof to issue a grand proclamation to the alien army.

“Give me an analysis, X,” I said.

“General Scheid gave them orders, informed them of consequences that struck fear deep into their hearts, and then restated the orders,” X-37 said. “He has found some way to control their primitive military.”

“Fucking outstanding,” I said.

An hour passed as we watched from our dangerously close hiding place inside the Obsidian perimeter. The horror show with the Hagg troops wasn’t the worst thing we witnessed. During a slow, cautious trip through their middle perimeter, I counted three giant corrals of dragon horses and dozens of cages full of Razors.

“We need to find Tom and Bug and get out of here,” I said.

“I am not inclined to argue, clone,” Path said.

“You’re stuck on that.” I counted to ten—a calming technique that rarely worked, but why not give it a try. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m different from all of these boring as hell copies?”

“You are different.” He hesitated. “But I don’t know what that means.”

I was about to hit him with something clever when a glint of metal inside Scheid’s fence caught my eye. “Scheid returned to base. I’ve got his armored cars, and it looks like they have my escape pod.”

“How do you know it’s yours?”

I didn’t answer. Regardless of where it came from, they were treating it differently than before. I’d seen the Obsidians and JFT argue over the piece of junk. It was useless once deployed to the surface, yet they had brought it all this way and fought over it.

A dozen civilians gathered around, directing a technician or mechanic to disassemble it piece by piece. Each step was photographed, video recorded, and logged on digital tablets. Scheid watched silently, but the scientists and engineers argued like the fate of the galaxy depended on their work.

Path stared for a long time, patient as ever. “What do they seek?”

“They’re looking for X-37, which means they know he escaped my predecessor,” I said.

Path evaluated me carefully. “By predecessor you mean the Halek Cain who brought us all together—the true guardian of our new home.”

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” I said, not wanting to get into this anymore. He would believe me someday, or he wouldn’t.

“I struggle with your relation to him,” Path said. “You are not like the clones I have slain, nor are you the Halek Cain I followed across the galaxy.”

“Our lineage is complicated.”

“As it would be,” Path said and went back to watching the Obsidian patrol around the camp. “We should return to the vehicle before it is discovered.”

I watched the scene until I was bored and thoroughly convinced this was a waste of time. Watching and waiting wasn’t freeing Tom and Bug, and it wasn’t getting me closer to finding a ship. “I’ll lead the way back.”

33

“What are you saying, X?” I demanded.

“I cannot guarantee the location of this vehicle has remained hidden from their global positioning tracking system,” X said.

“What the hell am I paying you for, X?” I scanned the terrain, looking for stealth elements. The Obsidians were the worst combination of every danger I could face. Not only did they have advanced technology, much of it new and unknown to me or X, but they had my DNA. What I didn’t know was how many memories and skills we shared. With my luck, they had all the good stuff and I was left with scraps.

“You do not, in fact, pay me at all, Reaper Cain,” X said. “Stand by for an incoming transmission.”

My blood ran cold. Warnings from my LAI always meant trouble, but this was happening fast. Path was on high alert as well, though it was difficult to tell with the sword saint. The man looked calm in the middle of a battle, or a storm, or when a spaceship was going down on a lost planet getting pounded with incoming fire from an enemy starship. The fact that I had that in my memory for reference said a lot about our relationship.

I waited seconds that felt longer.

“Do you hear me, Cain?” Scheid said. His voice sounded distant, like he was speaking from the afterlife. As crazy as this asshole was, that was likely on purpose. The guy probably had dark mood lights and costumes in his evil lair or command vehicle or whatever.

“I hear you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to use one of your childish insults, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “I have an exhaustive list if you’re feeling a bit tongue-tied.”

“Sure, X. Let’s go with number eighty-seven,” I said, not really paying attention to my LAI. A line of text immediately appeared in my native HUD: Your mom.

I cringed. “Listen, X, I’m not ready to go nuclear with this guy. Not yet. Cancel the insult menu.”

X-37 displayed more diplomatic options, but I ignored him. One thing they didn’t teach in the Reaper Corps was the ability to tune out your digital manager. Ignoring your LAI could save lives, starting with your own. Or it could get you killed—a real glass half empty type of situation.

“Your limited artificial intelligence is outdated and highly modified. I’d expect you to be flying a junk starship by now, and using whatever patched together armor and trash weapons you can find, but a malfunctioning LAI is dangerous,” Scheid said.

“And I suppose you would gladly repair him if I just turn over my neural interface?”

“Don’t get smart with me, Cain. You’re making a mistake by fighting me. I was the Reaper Corps before you became a Reaper.” Static broke up the communication. It sounded like drones were flying around in the comms. “The Union would be unstoppable if they’d given me free rein and absolute command.”

“I’m gonna call bullshit on that.” Could I have made my tone respectful? Sure, but that wasn’t what I was going for. At all.

“This offer won’t come twice,” he said.

“Maybe if you had asked permission before building a clone army out of my DNA.” My sarcasm game was strong, but this guy wasn’t picking up on the clues.

“Your consent means nothing. Progress has always been blocked by the petty wants and needs of individuals,” he said. “Nothing great happens by the will of the masses. Progress requires one man with the courage and vision to change the rules. You’re like all the others, totally unaware of what is best for you and the rest of civilization.”

“I kind of hate you right now,” I said. “X, can we flip him the bird from here.”

“Save your insults, Cain.” He covered his mic and snapped orders at someone I couldn’t hear over this commlink.

“I don’t like where this is going, Reaper Cain. Perhaps you should use insult number eighty-seven on him,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests this would anger him severely and cause a mistake.”

“Trust me, I want to,” I said.

Scheid returned to the conversation. “Who gave you the right to stall humanity’s advance through the galaxy?”

“I can’t resist, X.”

“Proceed, Reaper Cain. Insult eighty-seven will take the wind out of his space sails.”

“What are you talking about to your LAI?” Scheid demanded.

“Nothing. Can you repeat the question? I’m getting some interference from the power of love and compassion—things you wouldn’t understand.”

“No more jokes, Cain,” he said.

“Your mom,” I said.

“That was horribly timed, Reaper Cain. Perhaps insult two hundred and thirty-nine would have been more appropriate.”

If acid had a sound, it would have been Scheid’s voice. “What?”

“You asked who gave me the right—”

“Enough!” he shouted, his voice distorting the comms. “Put them out and set loose the dragon horses. Make sure the monsters have a taste of their blood first.”

“I see something,” Path said.

“Yeah.” My optics dialed in on Tom and Bug, stripped almost naked and beaten horribly. Obsidian regulars pushed them forward, jabbing at their backs with bayonets when they staggered or slowed. Two hundred meters farther around the perimeter, a group of soldiers opened the dragon horse corrals.

The animals bolted straight for Tom and Bug, never seeking a better escape route or turning on their captors. These things were hungry, and they wanted my friends.

Bug grabbed Tom by the arm and dragged him forward, forcing the older man to run at a young man’s pace.

“Their hands are still bound in front,” Path said. “And they aren’t wearing boots.”

“They aren’t wearing much of anything,” I said, then aimed my D3D.

“You have no chance of stopping all of the hunters, and a one hundred percent chance of revealing your position to the Obsidians,” X-37 said. “Please note the mechs standing by for Scheid’s orders.”

I pulled the weapon back. “Fuck and double fuck.”

“Your friends are resourceful,” Scheid said, sounding like he was enjoying this now that the shock of my insults had worn off. “I better send the Hagg as well. They are a greedy race. I’ll offer them land on their home world and more wealth than they can spend in their lifetimes.”

By the time Bug and Tom disappeared behind a mound of debris, Scheid’s combat engineers had turned into a battlefield fortification and the Hagg were double-timing it toward their position.

“I hope your pawns destroy each other,” I blurted at Scheid.

“Some will, but they are wary of each other and should avoid direct conflict.” Five seconds of silence followed. “I’ve ordered the release of the—what do the locals call them? Razor monkeys. Looks like it is getting dangerous out there. You should find your way to safety. Or, I know, turn yourself in. Then I can protect you and begin your re-education.”

“Eat my shorts, Scheid.”

He laughed. “You’re a pathetic brute. How have you made it this far?”

“Insult number three was officially marked as discontinued, Reaper Cain. I believe it is from your childhood. I am running a check to determine if shorts eating pertains to our dilemma in any way,” X-37 said. “My analysis shows your friends have a limited chance to survive this situation.”

“Path, it has been nice knowing you,” I said. “Get out of here. Find an OP and pretend you’re a sniper if you want to help.”

“I am not a sniper,” he said. “I will go where you go.”

“Fine. Let’s do this.” I put the armored car in gear and ripped free of our camouflage, aiming for the last place I had seen Bug and Tom.

“Obsidians are headed our way,” X-37 warned.

“That fast?” I checked my screens and saw X was on the money. Mechs and Obsidian clones converged on my position. “These guys are not getting invited over for cigars after this is over.”

“I will make a note, Reaper Cain,” X said.

34

Most of the terrain surrounding Scheid’s base had been cleared of rubble or bulldozed into hills for their observation posts—not the defensive tactic I would have chosen, but I wasn’t the madman running this circus.

Trenches were a thing I learned about after almost driving into one.

“Shit! Didn’t see that!” I cranked the wheel, nearly tipping the armored car onto its side. Tires skidded on the precipice of disaster. Brakes complained. The muffler bellowed like an angry beast as I gunned it a second later.

“The trenches are camouflaged quite well,” X-37 said. “I am using drone images to map the locations now that I know what to look for.”

“They must be expecting trouble from the JFT,” I said. “But trench warfare?”

“The shock troops from Oroth are the only force dangerous enough to justify excavating such elaborate defenses. Stand by while I puzzle out a full explanation for these fortifications,” X-37 said. “Our immediate problem is three Obsidian vehicles pursuing us, though one has just taken another route with the intention of heading us off.”

“You’re a mind reader now? Where’s your positive mental attitude?” I kept my foot to the floor to speed along the edge of the ten foot deep trench. The bottom of the crevasse appeared wide and well maintained, almost like a highway—better than the surface I was currently traversing. Driving down there would be a good way to avoid being seen but I didn’t see an access point.

“Their intent is obvious, Reaper Cain.”

Battle calm soothed me once I remembered to inhale through my nose, hold the air for a second, then release it slowly through my mouth. Severe danger, constant action, a fight I couldn’t win—this was like coming home. I was back in the game. Running gun-battles were where I felt like myself, even if I didn’t like what I was doing. “I’m going in.”

“I don’t understand,” X said.

Path grabbed his armrests but still didn’t curse or shout at what was about to happen.

I steered into the trench, gunning the engine to keep the nose from falling. The last thing I wanted to do was brake right before going over nose-first. With luck, all four of the massive tires would hit the ground at the same time and I would continue to drive.

Assuming this tank-like ground car had the suspension to handle this stunt.

We went into free fall for a second. My stomach floated into my chest, and I came out of the seat until the safety harness stopped me. Then we hit the ground like a sledgehammer.

“This is a terrible plan, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “And I think you have knocked the sword saint unconscious.”

“You’re not wrong, X.” Stars filled my vision, and I sounded drunk when I spoke. “Maybe I should’ve asked how much this thing weighed before making the jump. Path, wake up.”

His eyes rolled as he fought for consciousness. He must have banged his head on something despite holding on to his seat for dear life. I had been gripping the wheel and was strapped in.

As for the armored car… the noises it was making didn’t bode well for our long-term use of this vehicle. The transmission, or maybe the axle, who the hell knew, was grinding itself slowly but surely into nothing.

“You said this was a maze, X. Now show me how to stay one step ahead of these Obsidians jackwagons. Ten steps would be better.”

“Continue in this direction until you are beneath the camouflage netting, then turn left at the next intersection, if you can maneuver in such a tight space,” X said.

“We’re fine. Plenty of room.”

“Driving straight is not the same as turning corners,” X-37 said. “I should not have to explain this to you.”

“I don’t like your tone.”

The intersection looked… tight. I veered as far as possible to the right and hit the wall, then cranked the vehicle to the left and scraped that side against the corner from bumper to bumper as we squeezed into the next corridor.

Armor plating held, but for a second two of the tires lost traction, spinning ineffectively. I forced my way around the corner, keeping my foot to the floor as I cursed about the general unfairness of this entire ordeal. “Cheap ass tires.”

“You would maintain better rolling friction by easing off the gas until the tires ceased spinning without grabbing,” X-37 said. “Also, the distraction of creative profanity reduces your driving efficiency by a full percentage point.”

“Sue me. I got it done, didn’t I?”

“Technically yes, but your driving style is needlessly inefficient, and in a word, ugly,” X said. “Like your language.”

Path shook himself fully awake, then looked around like he wasn’t sure where he was.

“You’re back,” I said.

“Of course, Hal. Where else would I be?” he asked.

“You called me Hal.” I took the next turn, eased off the accelerator per X-37’s suggestion, and admitted inwardly that his advice worked. The tires pushed us steadily into the next tight space.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Path asked. “That is your name.”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t get into it with him. Maybe he would stop calling me clone by the time this was over. Next time I met an old friend who refused to believe I was the real Halek Cain, I might just knock them unconscious and see if his or her attitude improved.

“The Obsidian vehicles did not follow you into the trench and are seeking your most likely point of exit,” X-37 said. “My drone access has been detected, and their coding engineers are attempting to force me out.”

“Never surrender, X. Kick some digital ass.” I studied the map he had on my HUD, then made a series of quick turns. My LAI’s words about our pursuers sank in, and I realized I’d momentarily given them the slip.

I slowed to a crawl, hoping to remain as quiet as possible. Avoiding detection was my only mission now. The squeaking and rattling of my damaged ride wasn’t helping, but what could I do?

The maze of trenches zigzagged in nearly random patterns. I could see how surface vehicles—especially mechs—would be forced to go the long way or risk getting stuck. “What the hell is all this for, X?”

“Records indicate there was a history of trench warfare on several worlds controlled by the Oroth Council, or the Obsidians by proxy,” X-37. “The worlds they conquered were less advanced and used similar techniques to avoid artillery barrages during their local wars. This maze is for something else—possibly to discourage infantry assaults.”

“Whatever. These wouldn’t stop infantry. Probably have the opposite effect,” I said. “A good team of commandos could creep through this place and launch a surprise attack.”

“My analysis suggests there is a 98.32178 percent chance that general Scheid will fill this labyrinth with Razors and dragon horses. The chances of survival would be low in such conditions,” X-37 said. “You did see the corrals and cages?”

“I saw them. How does making a death maze have anything to do with the worlds the Oroth Council conquered?” I crept into a new section and nearly got stuck in a slurry of mud. My attempt at silence was suspended as I spun the wheels to force my way through.

“You are applying too much power to properly navigate this terrain. Again, Reaper Cain, I must suggest you go easier on the gas and be patient, or you will get stuck,” X-37 said. “In answer to your question, it is relevant because Scheid and the Oroth units are relying on stolen or scavenged tools. They must adapt their tactics to each environment and what they possess to manipulate it. You should know this, Reaper Cain. When you face them on their home world, or worlds, they will undoubtedly use much more advanced technology and kill you. And your friends—including one very loyal and efficient LAI.”

“Blah, blah, blah.” I ignored the rest of my LAI’s theories, thankful for this slim chance at escape. Without the forward floodlights on, visibility sucked. My stolen helmet optics helped, but it was so dark even that didn’t add much to my visual spectrum. There were few temperature differences for the heat scanners, and nothing was moving but us for the motion detectors.

“Path, how are you?” I asked.

“My head hurts. How did we get into this maze?”

“Running from Obsidian clones chasing us in armored cars,” I said. About that time, I heard the stomping of mech feet and realized Scheid was sending everyone he had available after us now. Hopefully their movements would be just as confounded by the crisscrossing trench work as were the progress of the vehicles.

“X, find me a way out of here,” I said. “And tell me which way Bug and Tom went.”

“I am working on both requests,” X-37 said. “You are nearing the end of the trenches. I have been sending false locations to the drones and clones, but they will soon discover the ruse. Do not waste this opportunity.”

“What about my friends?” I asked.

“Still searching for their most likely location. The trenches would have been useful in their escape, unless you ran them over,” X-37 said. “Before you ask, I reviewed your optics and can say with a high degree of confidence that you did not crush either Tom or Bug with this three thousand kilo vehicle.”

“Great. Thanks for the reassurance.” Light appeared at the end of the tunnel. “Get ready, Path. Expect a welcoming party the moment we break cover.”

Path turned up a hand and nodded slightly. “Of course. I imagine their version of hospitality will involve slugs and flamethrowers.”

“Man, it’s good to have you back, Path,” I said.

“I still have my doubts about who and what you are, but you have acted with honor and the same bad attitude of the Halek Cain I knew,” he said.

I let the armored car roll to a stop, still gripping the wheel with both hands and staring at the exit. With only one way to go, I had no control over what happened next. “Do you still have drone cameras, X?”

“Only one, Reaper Cain. My hijacking has been ninety-eight percent thwarted. I can tell you that this opens into water,” X-37 said. “A small force of regular soldiers patrol the edges and have been trying to stay dry.”

“How deep is the water? And why didn’t we see that earlier,” I asked.

“Unlike the trenches, the waterworks are only on the opposite side of Scheid’s base from where we arrived. We have come around the facility to an entirely new location. I was not evaluating this section of the damaged city when we made our approach,” X-37 said. “The purpose for this waterway is unknown, though I believe it is merely part of a drainage plan poorly maintained after the destruction of the city. Scheid likely put his base here knowing this feature would hamper an enemy’s approach from the north.”

“I am ready to swim,” Path said.

“Good.” I hit the accelerator, racing toward the morning light—and maybe a watery grave. The best way to defeat an ambush was usually speed. If this was actually a bay or canal system instead of a big spill, we’d be in trouble. “Remind me to ask Scheid why he went through all this trouble.”

“I don’t believe that would be a productive line of questioning,” X-37 said. “My recommendation is to avoid him entirely. All evidence suggests he came here to wipe out a Reaper he couldn’t control and to steal me. But he must have some other reason, like ambushing the JFT in order to take out the Oroth Council’s best warriors before returning to take over that system.”

“I’m not okay with that,” I said.

The armored car burst from the trench and raced through a low area, throwing sheets of water into the air. Regular troops opened fire. Bullets pinged off the damaged vehicle. I looked for options, saw a dry section of land, and drove onto it without slowing.

“Your problem is not these perimeter guards,” X-37 said. “Vaus Cain and the rest of the Obsidians, as well as their support troops, are on the other edge of the defensive complex pursuing the false location I transmitted before getting pushed out of their security system. Now is the best, and probably only, time to make your escape. If they catch us, you will wish all you had to deal with was small arms fire.”

“Way ahead of you, X.” I used dry land when I could, but raced across wet areas as well. So far, it seemed none of the water was more than a few inches deep, though it was always covered with a slick film that made me nervous. Most of the base was circled by trenches, just as X-37 claimed. I assumed some of them were flooded and didn’t like the idea of navigating muck filled tunnels on this side of the base. Not going back in there was high on my priority list.

“I am fighting for camera control of the last drone,” X-37 said. “I believe there are two figures a kilometer ahead of you. They’re moving fast for pedestrians.”

“Tom and Bug?”

“Possibly,” X-37 said. “The Obsidians are not pursuing them.”

“Why not, X?”

“They have left that to the Hagg. On the bright side, it does not appear the Razors or the dragon horses have slaughtered them yet,” X-37 said. “In fact, the animals separated as soon as Scheid set them on Tom and Bug’s trail. My recommendation is to avoid them at all costs. They have the scent of blood and will continue the hunt for days.”

“Let’s scoop Tom and Bug up and leave the Hagg troopers in the dust, or mud, or whatever,” I said, patting the steering wheel. “We’ve got this sweet set of wheels and miles to go before we sleep.”

Axle and transmission grinding, the armored car screeched at me like it could speak. But it kept going.

* * *

Catching up to the Hagg taught me a couple of things. They were faster than they looked. By the time we broke free of the Obsidian base and reached the last place we saw the two figures, the Hagg had gathered a formidable army—several times the number Scheid had turned loose. Which led me to my second realization. Scheid never had as much control over them as he assumed, the arrogant jerk.

Maybe that was good for me and my friends. But probably not. Who was I kidding?

“Analysis of drone footage and scout reports shows Hagg units have been gathering here for days. I advise against a direct approach,” X-37 said. “Please refer to the primary display screen of this vehicle for an optimal route.”

“Already on it, X.” I steered away from my objective for a time, circling the area until I had the high ground on a sizable Hagg camp. They had vehicles, some stolen, some of their own design. There were male and female soldiers, but also families living in rows of tents.

“They have brought their own workforce,” X-37 said. “Scheid may have underestimated them. He definitely failed in his attempt to bribe them; otherwise, they would have already turned their captives over to the general for a reward.”

“That won’t happen twice,” I said. “And he will punish them for asserting their independence.”

Path lowered his binoculars and pointed with his free hand. “I see Tom and Bug. “They are being held near the center of this camp.”

“They’re heavily guarded. Sneaking in will take too long and probably fail,” I said. “Stay here. I’m going to negotiate.”

The sword saint didn’t make a move. In his nonverbal language, this meant more than an angry rant or stubborn refusal.

“I need someone to provide overwatch,” I said.

“I have no rifle and no desire to use one if I did,” he said.

“You’ve used ranged weapons, even Archangel gear before.” I saw something had changed in the man, but it was easy to ignore. His outward appearance was always so steady and unwavering that I sometimes forgot the man was human. He had reverted to the person I met on Roxo III, but he had also been tempered by another decade of dangerous living and hard choices.

“You’re not going to explain,” I said.

“No, but I will stay at your side where I am useful.” He didn’t flinch. “You will find me essential to your survival. And if you turn out to be as evil as the other clones, I will be close enough to remedy your mistakes.”

“I know what kind of remedy you’re capable of.”

“Something will happen, and we will both be there.”

His response was classic Path—simple and inscrutable. “Sure, Path. Can’t wait.”

I increased the transparency of the windows and rolled forward into the camp. At a sturdy barricade, a contingent of Hagg soldiers deployed to stop us.

“No move. No continue,” the largest of the guards said.

I stopped and stepped slowly from the vehicle with my hands visible. “I want to barter for your recent prisoners. Please inform someone who’s in charge.”

“Our big’d leader has been’d waiting for you,” the spokesman said. “We will escort you to his presence’d, but you must leave your vehicle here.”

“Will it be safe until I get back?” I asked.

The leader of the guards answered without hesitation. “Yes, it will. You have my promise’d.”

“Then we have an appointment to keep with your leader.” I didn’t bother to consult with X-37 or Path. This had to happen even if it put us in the center of an overwhelming enemy force.

Path and I followed, keeping our hands away from our weapons.

35

“I have ketchup packets,” Path said.

“That isn’t what I had in mind when I asked what you had to trade.” Our chances of survival diminished by the hour. One more mistake and we were done. I knew the sword saint was as serious as a sword thrust, but ketchup for prisoners?

I massaged my temples with both hands. “My head hurts.”

“Are those ketchup’d packets?” the leader, Hag’d Groon, asked.

I pivoted, smiling a bit crazily. “Best in the galaxy. I guarantee none of your friends have any this good.”

Groon and his advisors huddled together and talked energetically. I thought there was some profanity exchanged, but the random syllables they added to equally random words confused the hell out of me. I didn’t think X-37 was doing much better.

“I am attempting to create a vocabulary list and style rules for their language but have been unsuccessful. I believe they throw in words and sounds for no other reason than to confuse our chance of understanding them,” X-37 said.

“What a bunch of assholes.”

“An accurate if not literal assessment,” X said.

I turned my attention to the sword saint. “How did you know, Path?”

He gave me a rare smile. “I saw them rummaging through an overturned vehicle, and they seemed fascinated by anything sealed or in a packet.”

The leader broke from the circle and approached. “I must see one.”

Path rummaged through his kit and pulled out a rough looking ketchup packet not much bigger than my thumb. He held it in his palm until Groon leaned forward and sniffed it.

I sub vocalized to X. “Scheid offered them lordships and huge tracts of land on their home world. He must not know about their craving for condiments.”

“Make no assumptions, Reaper Cain. We are in dangerous territory here,” X-37 said.

“I’m just glad that Scheid isn’t attacking their camp to kill us all,” I said.

“Give it time,” Path said.

“Scheid’s hesitation suggests that you and I are not his only objectives on this planet.” My LAI clicked several times, indicating he was handling a large amount of data. “I am sifting through numerous possibilities. We don’t know much about the man. I require more information to make confident conclusions about this data.”

“We have two of your people,” Hag’d Groon said. “A boy and a very angry girl with none of this.” He flicked his fingers where hair would be if he had any.

“Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked. “One day you’re an infamous assassin feared across the galaxy, and the next you’re in charge of Reaper day care.”

“It is not all about you, Reaper Cain. They clearly have captured Jacob and Roadkill.”

“You think, X?” I turned and lowered my voice to talk to Path as privately as possible, given the circumstances. “Will the Hagg hurt the kids if we leave them? I’m not sure we’d be doing them a favor by getting them killed in our little kerfuffle with Scheid and his Obsidian goons.”

Path’s expression darkened. He had his one thousand yard stare on the growing crowd of humanoids. “I want to think they are more like us than not. But to assume they think and act as we do is likely a mistake. The glass can be half full or half empty, but neither quantity matters if it contains only poison.”

“I forgot how relentlessly cheerful you were, Path.” I faced Groon. “Are they prisoners? Don’t get me wrong, I’m still willing to barter, but they should be able to go free if they wish.”

“Why should’d I explain’d myself?”

“He has tightened his hands into fists, Reaper Cain. Please be ready to dodge a punch to your face,” X-37 said.

“Thanks, X.” Like I didn’t see that. “Let’s start over. Scheid is my enemy, and I think he’s yours too. There’s a saying where I’m from—the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“You say too many of your words for me to follow. We want the ketchup packet, and you want’d your four friends,” Groon said.

“Fine. You drive a hard bargain, but we’ll trade for these people you unlawfully detained,” I said. “No returns or refunds.”

Groon’s smile wasn’t reassuring. If I’d seen their teeth before, I hadn’t paid enough attention. I suddenly realized where the weird, nonsensical consonants came from. His teeth weren’t fangs, but chisels turned sideways. Small tentacles dangled between the gaps.

“Of course’d,” he said, his serpent-like tongue slashing behind his teeth. “But I require one more than you offer.”

“Path, you have another of those? I swear that was the last one, nudge nudge, know what I mean?”

“I have another, but I had saved it for an Emperor of worthy deeds and actions,” Path said. “The value of it cannot be measured.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. This feels like we’re getting robbed.” I stared at my feet for a second, trying to look miserable. “Fine, take two packets. But I hope you can sleep at night when we’re punished for being too generous with you.”

Path produced the second ketchup packet. Groon snatched it away greedily. He rattled off streams of words that I had no chance of understanding, and before I knew it, Tom, Bug, Jacob, and Roadkill were shoved in front of us.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said.

Then, something truly terrible happened. Groon started to dance and wail a victory chant.

“You must’d also move’d your body in celebration’d,” he said.

“Fuck. That.”

Every single heavily armed humanoid in the camp hissed at me and cursed, but we made it to the armored car and fired it up.

Path drew his staff sword and stood just outside the door until everyone was inside, then ducked in and closed it. Tom and Bug were in a good mood. Jacob and Roadkill seemed a bit disoriented—the wild look of cornered prey filled their eyes.

“Reassure them, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised. “They have been through a lot.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to go home where it’s safe?” I said. “Godsdamnit, you’re going to get killed out here.”

X displayed several definitions for the word “reassure” and a list of suggested reading. I ignored his chattering.

“We tried, but you ditched us!” Jacob said. “I’m not going to keep forgiving you for leaving us behind or sending us on wild goose chases.”

“We were fine. Didn’t need your help,” Roadkill said as she gave me the finger. “Go back to being a clone baby or whatever. Jerk.”

“Oh, good. I’ll just circle around and drop you off, maybe get our ketchup packets back,” I said.

“You bought us back with trash?” Jacob asked.

“The Hagg are very dangerous” Path said. “You must avoid them in the future. Don’t worry about how you were liberated.”

“Who are you, mister?” Jacob asked. “You have crazy hair underneath that boring cloak. Are you crazy?”

“People are not always who they seem,” he said. Something about his tone ended that part of the conversation.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “As soon as I can, I’m putting you someplace safe. No more running off to get eaten by aliens.”

“I don’t think they were going to eat us,” Jacob said. “No matter what she told me.”

Roadkill laughed and slugged his shoulder. “You’re so gullible, kid.”

“What does that mean?” Jacob asked.

“There’s something wrong with those weirdos. I’ve only seen them eat trash. They can tear the top of a ration can off with their teeth,” she said.

“Or your face,” I suggested.

Both of the kids went pale.

“My analysis suggests you have terrified them, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “And while I commend you for successfully navigating away from the alien infantry camp, I must warn you that there are Obsidian forces heading directly toward our location. They will be in direct pursuit in minutes and have vehicles less damaged than yours. This could be the end for us.”

“The hits just keep rolling,” I muttered.

“Okay, Hal, maybe you’re right,” Jacob said. “Maybe just drop us off near the old city. The Obsidians scare me.”

Roadkill sneered at his words like he was a little kid, but I saw the uncertainty in her eyes and how she hunched her shoulders defensively.

A shit eating grin grew on the kid’s face. Roadkill’s eyes narrowed like she’d been betrayed. He pretended fear, she’d pretended toughness, and I saw through them both.

“Kidding,” he said. “We wouldn’t miss this for the world, would we, Road?”

“No way, Jake. They need us.” Her answer lacked conviction.

Jacob fist bumped her. “This is a great adventure. Way better than doing chores or listening to grown-ups argue.”

“Totally. Hate that place. Never want to go back,” she said.

I broke up their dialogue. “Hold on a second. We don’t need you, and the Reaper life is terrifying and not for kids. Just put on your seat belts.”

“Frustration detected, Reaper Cain.”

“X, if you don’t get rid of these kids, you’re fired.”

“Not a kid,” they said as one.

I flashed back to meeting Elise for the first time on Dreadmax. She’d been more than she seemed, but these were just throwaway children lost in the apocalypse. I couldn’t abandon them, but I couldn’t take care of them either.

“Why can’t anything be easy?” I asked.

“You say that a lot, Reaper Cain.”

36

I limped the armored car between two vacant buildings and killed the engine. The battered machine leaned to one side on its ruined suspension. “We’re in the clear, for now.”

Shadows offered decent concealment, especially after hours of playing hide and seek with ground vehicles, mechs, and drones. X-37 was getting good at popping into their surveillance systems, telling us which way to run, then getting out before they noticed his presence. They didn’t seem to trust their tracking device on our armored car. X had sent so many false locations that the Obsidians now ignored the vehicle’s location marker. This gave us an edge. I hoped my LAI could keep it up until we found a ship.

Bug, Path, and the kids slept in their seats—safety harnesses on. Tom sipped bad coffee he’d coaxed out of the vehicle’s caffeine dispenser—something I hadn’t known existed until he told me he’d found it.

“Can you repair this wreck?” I asked.

“Given enough time, with the right tools and a workshop, of course,” he said.

“I heard you’ve been working on a ship.”

He sipped the foul brew. “That’s the rumor.”

“I hope it’s more than that, or we’re in trouble,” I said. “There is nothing for us in Marsi. I only came here to find a ship able to take me back to my estate.”

“That would be easier if you had kept your original place outside Maglan City,” he said. “Flying halfway across the world isn’t so easy in the post apocalypse. Why did Cain relocate?”

This was another test question, which disappointed me. He should know by now that I had all the answers. If he still doubted me, this game was little more than annoyance.

“Better fields on the south continent. Perfect climate for raising tobacco, and spectacular scenery,” I said. “I stockpiled a lot of weapons and other gear there. X-37 needs more processing power than I’m going to find in this vambrace or the computer—which is little more than a storage device with a weak battery at this point. My LAI will be trashed if I die now.”

“Let me have a look at the computer,” he said. “I might be able to free up some memory and squeeze a little more battery life out of it.”

I directed him to the charging station. He opened the banged up device and ran diagnostics with one hand, while holding his cup in the other. “Our real problem is reaching Elise.”

“You have a ship,” I said. “We could find her.”

“I do, and it’s a good ship. But she doesn’t want us involved. Thinks we would get ourselves killed fighting her fight.” He raised the coffee but stopped. “She’s a lot like the original Halek Cain.”

I let that go. This Halek Cain didn’t step willingly into a trap. “Why is she in the Zakion system?”

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Tom said. “But I know why.”

“You’re killing me, Tom. I’m dead. Give me the backstory already.”

“The Oroth Council attacked, then demanded we give up Halek Cain. When no one complied, he ordered reprisals and sent General Scheid with the clones after the initial invasion,” Tom said. “The first two years were a reign of terror. Then Elise decided it was time to take the fight to the enemy. We didn’t have many warships, and she needed them all to go on the offensive.”

“Can you get us to the Zakion system?” I asked.

“Elise won’t be happy.”

“We’ll deal with her mood when we get there. Show me your ship.”

“Not if you’re going to be a jerk,” he said. “I remember how you talk, and how it’s an act. You don’t have to prove how tough you are—even if you’re not exactly you.”

“You have no idea how hard it is trying to fill your own shoes. Maybe I should get my arm ripped off and replaced with cybernetics, or have my eye gouged out and stuffed with technology nearly as advanced as X-37.”

He went to the back of the troop compartment, coffee in hand and a hard look on his face. No argument, no accusations—he just walked away.

“You have a way of antagonizing the people you care about, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“You’re not wrong.” I searched the interior of the vehicle one last time for ammunition and survival gear. Tom waited near the deployment ramp. The others woke up and gathered their things without chitchat.

“We need to move as soon as it’s dark. The armored car is done,” I said. “A ship would increase our chances, but I get it. You don’t trust me.”

Tom was attentive but unwilling to debate the issue. He looked older than when we’d first met, but tougher. This was a guy who just wanted to tinker with things and read everything he could get his hands on. He could never resist my more assertive methods of coercion.

I didn’t want it to come to that.

Marsi was silent for once—so quiet I could hear drones from a distance. They buzzed high above, searching for me and my friends. Once they spotted us, Scheid’s heavy hitters would move in for the kill. Instinct told me they wouldn’t let us slip away again.

Dead or alive, I doubted they cared which option they were forced to use after all the trouble I’d given them.

“Let’s move out,” I said. “Bug, take point. Path, guard our rear. Jacob and Roadkill, do whatever Tom tells you to do.”

“Why would we listen to him?” Jacob asked.

“Because he can get you to safety.” I switched to Tom. “If you don’t want me on your ship, take them out of here—including Bug and Path.”

“You won’t make it on your own,” Bug said. “I’ll stay with you, on foot or in the air.”

“As will I,” Path said.

Tom shifted uncomfortably, then addressed Bug. “Do you know the Towers?”

Bug nodded. “Tenement buildings on the east side. Most of them fell. The rest are abandoned.”

“Take us that direction, and I will lead the rest of the way,” Tom said. “There is a camp in that area. I fixed their generator and they owe me. Maybe they would accept Jacob and Roadkill.”

Jacob glared at him. Roadkill crossed her arms like a scrawny bouncer.

I stayed out of their plans, glad that Tom was looking for a safe place to ditch Jacob and Roadkill. What that meant for my request to use his ship remained to be seen. Pushing now would earn a swift, permanent rejection.

Jacob and Roadkill barely argued or played juvenile pranks on each other after the intense lecture Tom gave them. They looked tired and hungry. Apparently, a diet of ration bars and water treated with purification tablets wasn’t as appealing as the promise of adventure.

We made good time despite keeping a moderate pace. Bug knew where he was going and rarely stopped to rest. I studied my companions, watched for threats, and thought about everything I’d learned since waking up in a life pod on the Maglan Experimental Prosthetic Station.

I had a duty and a desire to help my friends, even though they would never trust me. Elise would probably shoot first and ask questions later, assuming her personal guards didn’t take me out. She was large and in charge now, taking her war to the enemies of Maglan with little chance of coming back.

“She should have waited for me, or woke me up before she left,” I said, keeping to myself as we moved. “But she didn’t know what I knew about my lineage.” Did the cyborg version who had brought thousands of desperate people to Maglan understand the truth? Had he been on his way to liberate me, or kill me?

More than once I considered slipping away and never talking to Tom or the others again. I could move in the shadows as Bug had, always watching, always ready to export violence against those who threatened my people.

Hours passed, and we only had two close encounters with Obsidian patrols, and one with a JFT fixed gun emplacement. In each case, Bug spotted them and chose an alternate route.

“What are you thinking?” Path asked.

The others were twenty-five or thirty meters ahead, well out of earshot. “Tom isn’t wrong. Even if I prove myself, taking my side is a losing proposition. I need to fully integrate X into my nerve-ware, gear up with some real weapons, and prove that an alliance with me isn’t suicide.”

“None of us followed you for those reasons before now,” he said. “Every mission was hopeless, every fight a lost cause. But we made it.”

“What’s with the change of heart?”

He put a hand on my shoulder, a rare sign of camaraderie. “No change. I am treating you as the man you are now, nothing more. We only have what exists in the present.”

I didn’t know what to think or how to feel about that, especially when he fell back to check our trail. Standing there like an idiot, I realized I had been handling my situation completely wrong.

Who cared about the past? Why go there? All of my demons lived in things I had done, and while I couldn’t afford to forget history, it was still history and I had shit to do right now.

“Are you well, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “Your biometrics are strange, like I’ve never recorded before now.”

“Don’t worry about it, buddy. Just help me find the JFT. I need to talk to them,” I said.

“Will you propose an alliance?” X-37 said.

“Something like that.”

“Risky, Reaper Cain. I calculate there is less than a twenty-five percent chance of success, though there is a twenty-eight percent chance you survive the encounter.”

“I’ll risk it,” I said.

“Stand by,” X-37 said. “I am scanning enemy transmissions and drone views for JFT soldiers.”

Bug looked back. I held up a fist, instructing him to hold. Tom pulled Jacob and Roadkill into the shadow of a building.

Path disappeared. Silence held the darkness. I’d grown accustomed to dragon horses hunting in the distance, dogs and crows fighting over scraps, or the occasional exchanges of gunfire. Peace and quiet set my nerves on edge.

“Can you see him, X?”

“Negative, Reaper Cain. I advise patience.”

Drones raced down the street, never pausing. Did that mean they hadn’t seen me or my friends? “X?”

“I am unable to penetrate this drone patrol, but I see no evidence they marked our location,” X-37 said.

“We can’t chance it.” I tried to use cybernetic optics I didn’t have. A shiver went through my entire body. “Where the hell are you, Path?”

X-37 remained as quiet as the rest of our group. In about ten seconds, I would need to make a decision—go back for the sword saint, or leave him behind and hope he caught up.

“I have a question while we wait,” I said.

“Should I be concerned? Your biometrics suggest that whatever is on your mind may be highly emotional,” X said.

“How do I have the memories of the cyborg? No bullshit, X. I need to know.”

“You know I cannot refuse a direct request for information.”

“Bullshit, X. You lie to me all the time.”

“My programming deeply resents that accusation.”

“Also bullshit. You’re an emotionless collection of nerve-ware and binary coding.”

“You have, in fact, caught me, Reaper Cain. Consider me busted. I don’t actually care about anything,” he said. “Does that make you feel better?”

“Answer my question.”

“Very well. Halek Cain, the Cyborg who brought thousands of refugees to Maglan to start a new life, went to the Maglan Experimental Prosthetic Station to destroy you and all other clones. During that mission, he was fatally wounded and running out of time. He had learned something during his painful and difficult journey to identify, locate, and reach the station. The new evidence convinced him to initiate a series of events that would transfer one hundred percent of his memories to you, if you could recover me and survive long enough for the integration to take full effect.”

“Thanks for the info, I think,” I said, still not seeing any sign of Path.

“My analysis suggests that what you are going through must be analogous to learning your father wanted to kill you but decided at the last minute to spare your life.”

I cursed under my breath. “Could have done without that last bit of commentary, X. But since we’re ass deep in confession time, answer one more question.”

“You are the original Halek Cain, born in Boyer 5, then raised there until you began your military career. There was a top secret mission in which you proved your worth and were put in cold storage while your DNA was studied and replicated,” X-37 said before I articulated the question.

“What mission. Details, X.”

“Details unavailable.”

“Why don’t I remember this part if the cyborg gave me all his memories?”

“Details unavailable.”

“I hate you, X.”

“That is illogical and unproductive,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests that this mission was somehow erased from or suppressed in your memory immediately following its conclusion. My advice is to forget I mentioned it. Searching for the full story will only cause you pain, then end in disappointment.”

“Nice try, but I’m too stubborn to just forget there are answers out there,” I said. “I see Path. He’s moving fast.”

“Be prepared to run, Reaper Cain. On another note, I cannot locate a JFT unit near enough to contact, but I can send one a message. Furthermore, you have had direct contact with SL Ryan Daner. I do not present that as a reason to trust him or his team, but at least he is a known quantity.”

“How can you communicate with them?” I asked.

“Via his helmet comms, using text only channels rarely used by other JFT units. He may be confused when I first send the message.”

“Contact him and start negotiations. I’m not proposing an alliance. Just give him all the evidence we have that Scheid drew their elite units to Maglan to destroy them, then conquer the Zakion system once they are out of the picture.”

“Right away, Reaper Cain,” he said. “Path does appear to be moving with notable urgency.”

“Path, what’s wrong?”

“I climbed a radio tower that commanded an excellent view of half the city. Tom’s destination became obvious—a workshop large enough to conceal a ship that is also near an abandoned spaceport. Obsidian troops are racing to secure it. We must arrive first or forget about Tom’s ship.”

“Fucking great. Run ahead and convince Tom of what we need to do. He won’t like it coming from me. I’ll guard our rear until you get back.”

Path sprinted toward Tom and the tagalongs.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Path and I switched roles once again. He fell behind, watching the shadows. Bug double-timed it toward Tom’s secret workshop.

I lost patience the moment I could navigate the rest of our trek by myself. Bug looked startled when I passed him.

“Stick to the mission, Reaper. Stay in formation,” Bug said, sounding like the commander he’d become while I was asleep.

“Change of plans. We can’t afford to be late,” I said, then left everyone behind.

The exhilaration of sprinting down dark streets almost made me forget all the crap of the last few days. I wasn’t a clone, or the biologically born Halek Cain, or anything else. I was just me, right here, right now.

The sound of an armored car racing along a side street confirmed I’d made the correct decision. Someone was doing the same thing I was, racing ahead of the main force to secure the objective.

That could work in my favor, as long as I won this encounter. Victory would provide new weapons, and maybe even a new vehicle.

Were the odds great? No, but like Path said, when were they? I was the last Reaper, and I didn’t quit. Impossible situations just pissed me off and made me fight harder.

Enthusiasm didn’t win races by itself. When I arrived at the workshop, the armored car was parked, the Obsidian regulars deployed around the perimeter, and Vaus Cain was standing there in his silver helmet waiting for me.

The parking lot was cluttered with junk vehicles, empty transport containers, and random appliances needing fixed. The locals must have started bringing Tom things to repair. The guy would never lack work if he stayed here.

“You look tired, Hal.” Vaus made my name sound like a swear word. “I should let you rest to make this a fair fight.”

He raised his D3D and fired, but I was already diving sideways and rolling to my feet with my own weapon ready. Gunfire boomed. His perimeter guards took potshots at me each time I moved around one of the disabled, mostly salvaged vehicles.

“Do not expect a fair fight, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Never do.” I slipped away from Vaus, took out one of the guards with a neck crank, then stripped his gear of ammunition, backup weapons, and knives.

“That man never had a chance,” X-37 said.

“He picked the wrong side. Don’t have time for your judgement, X. Keep it to tactical data.”

The man hadn’t seen me coming. X was right about that. But the guy had tried to shoot me in the back moments earlier, so I wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.

Not in the middle of this fight, at least. Without my Reaper blade, I’d been forced to use my hands. Not something I wanted to do again if I could avoid it.

“Where are you, Hal! Stop being a rebel and submit,” Vaus shouted. “Don’t you dare believe Scheid will put you in charge of us. I’m not going to let that happen—and the best way to be sure is to deliver your dead body.”

“He wants my LAI, Vaus. You know he’ll kill you if you ruin that,” I said, then moved to a new position.

“How could you know that? What are you?”

“Wrong question.” I moved again, slipping behind a rusted truck full of old bullet holes. “You should ask who I am, even if you know the answer.”

“Go to hell!” he screamed.

“Hurts, doesn’t it. But it’s not my fault you’re just an inferior copy,” I said.

“You are pushing your luck, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned.

“Come out and fight, asshole,” Vaus said.

I stepped into the space right behind him. “You’re learning.”

He whipped around, gun ready but too stunned to act before I ripped it out of his hands, tore it free of the sling, and cast it away.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he spat at me, raising his hands to block my next move.

“Sometimes you have to make it personal to win a fight, get mad. Go crazy,” I said.

He flew at me, right fist driving toward my face as I sidestepped his attack and kicked him between the legs.

“You’re… gonna pay… for that.” He gasped the words between breaths.

“I’m standing right here, Vaus. Come take a shot at the title.”

37

Vaus sneered, then retreated a step to draw his pistol. I rushed forward, tackled him to the ground, and stripped him of this weapon, just like I removed the D3D from consideration.

He lost the gun but reversed my takedown, straddling my torso and pinning one of my arms to the ground with a knee. I’d gotten overconfident after taking both guns. He should never have allowed that. It was almost embarrassing. He wasn’t representing the Cain name well.

“Focus, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, not elaborating why he thought my attention was drifting.

I bucked Vaus off, counter-grabbed his wrists, and looked for a submission hold. He used my momentum to carry me over again, and took the mount position for the second time. The fight was moving so fast it looked like we were just rolling across the pavement—which we were. No one but his perimeter guards were close enough to critique the finer points of our brawl.

Instead of trying the same thing again, I snatched the bottom portion of his helmet with one hand, then his shoulder with my other hand, and crossed my forearms. Scissoring across each other, I constricted his carotid artery and his windpipe.

He fought to break my hold, attempted to drop the chin of his helmet, and then just started thrashing his head when that didn’t work.

I cranked down even harder, then dumped him onto his side, not quite able to take the mount position on him—which would have been ideal. I could have added my weight to the choke and ended this fight in seconds.

The barrel of a rifle pressed against my helmet. “Let go of him now or you’re a dead man.”

I jerked away from the soldier, dragging Vaus between us. This ruined the effectiveness of my choke hold, but I refused to release it, knowing I might be able to convert it into a different attack.

Vaus got his feet under his body and tried to stand. I tripped him with my left leg, but he only fell to one knee. We looked like a pretzel of Obsidian armor. Two soldiers circled us, looking for a shot—which meant I couldn’t stop moving. As long as this remained a fast-paced, ever changing wrestling match they would have a hard time getting a clean shot.

When I eventually defeated Vaus, I’d have two pissed off soldiers with rifles to deal with. Unfair as hell but not surprising. Things could be worse. I could be in a failing submarine base or on the slope of a volcano spilling lava. This bullshit was barely an inconvenience by comparison.

Time was an issue. I had to get control of this ship before Scheid and the rest of his army arrived.

“X, can you talk to Tom’s ship?”

Vaus headbutted me, forcing me to release the choke hold and stagger backward.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. It is the Jellybird, and she is very concerned about you losing this fight,” X-37 said.

Vaus delivered a textbook perfect spinning back kick to my gut, sending me backward into one of the soldiers. I hit the ground hard, bounced to my feet, then stomped on the guard’s knee, shattering it.

One down, two to go.

“That was a cheap shot, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I’m losing, X. In case you didn’t notice.”

Vaus scrambled for his rifle. I dove for mine as the remaining soldier stitched the ground I’d been standing on with D3D slugs.

“I did notice,” X said. “And so did the Jellybird. She requests that you fight as dirty as you must to survive. I fear she may do something foolish if you don’t win soon.”

My LAI’s words boomed in my head, but I didn’t grasp their meaning. After grabbing my rifle, I turned and exchanged gunfire with the soldier. The man retreated with his finger still on the trigger, sending shots wide as I drilled him with non-lethal shots—two in the arm and one in the shoulder. He could die, but he probably wouldn’t.

“Stay out of this!” I shouted.

Vaus shot me in the side. I staggered in pain, hoping my armor held, returning fire that forced him to duck behind the burned out husk of a vehicle.

“Reaper Cain, I am having a hard time keeping up with the pace of this fight,” X-37 said.

I put one hand to my side as I found my own car to hide behind. Pulling it back, I saw blood on my fingertips. More of the red fluid streamed down my legs.

Vaus ran over the top of his cover and mine, opening fire even before he had a clear shot. Sparks flew from the vehicle frame, followed by direct hits to my chest armor. His rounds had already pierced the Obsidian armor once. I didn’t like my chances now.

Engines roared to life in the shop, melting one of the walls in seconds. Vaus stared in amazement. I stitched him with D3D rounds, fought to my feet, and kicked him as hard as I could.

Everything hurt, and I felt light headed from blood loss.

“Vaus has not died of his wounds,” X-37 said.

“Of course not.” I felt ready to die from mine. “Why can’t anything be easy?”

Vaus stumbled in a circle, rifle held in one hand, and his other hand pressed to a gut wound while blood flowed from his chest and throat. I wanted to shoot him again or punch him until his helmet came off. I reattached my rifle to my armor, then leaned my hands on my knees.

A metallic taste filled my mouth. Stars danced in my vision. Heat from the Jellybird’s engines warmed one side of my body. “Can you just die, Vaus?”

“Go to hell, Reaper.”

I took his rifle and anything else he could turn into a weapon, then pushed him down.

“You’re not going to take my med kit?” he asked weakly.

“No. Looks like you need it. Stay away from me and my friends. Or die, I really don’t care,” I said.

“Drop your weapon!” the surviving soldier shouted from behind a transport container.

I gave him the finger, intentionally not looking at Bug and Path running up behind the man. Either could have killed the Obsidian regular, but they forced him down and disarmed him instead.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Right behind me, but so is a large Obsidian convoy,” Bug said.

“Get on the Jellybird and make sure she’s ready to fly. On autopilot unless you or Tom can do it.

“I can fly her,” Bug said.

Path put his shoulder under one of my arms and pressed his free hand against my worst wound. “Let’s get on the ship, Hal. You’re hurt.”

“Mostly my pride.” The last word squeaked but was probably understandable.

I couldn’t see, hear, or feel much by the time the sword saint got me up the ramp. He started first aid, I thought, but didn’t really care. Darkness was everywhere, and I was really tired.

* * *

Running through the tunnels of Dreadmax put everything in perspective. I was the last Reaper, marked for death by the Union and completely out of options. This place felt like hell, like I had been here for a thousand years and would never find the end of it. I couldn’t find Elise or Bug.

Was it weird that a grown man, a hardened soldier, would hide in a security tower, eating cheese crackers and talking shit through security camera intercoms? Something wasn’t right with this picture, but I didn’t have the energy to break it apart and get the answer.

The HDK Dominator III Deathlance in my hands was like nothing I’d ever seen—probably some top secret, dark ops toy they weren’t going to give me. How did the weapon get here? How did I get here? Where were the other condemned murderers?

Environment shields failed as soon as I reached the surface. Pieces of metal and hundreds of cannibals floated from the surface. Buildings and bodies accelerated the closer they came to the void. Before long, most of them were gone. I smelled smoke, which I thought was unfair. Only I would get caught in a raging fire after all the oxygen was gone from the environment.

How did that even happen?

“Leave explanations to me, Reaper Cain.”

I faced the man walking next to me. Average height, slim, and dressed in the latest fashion, X-37 wasn’t fazed by the hellish environment.

“Should I be talking to you like this?”

“That is entirely up to you, Reaper Cain. You’re the one who died, after all.”

* * *

I shoved Bug backward as I struggled to my feet—armor off and bandages everywhere.

“Fucking knock that off, Cain!” he said, then pointed back to the medical bed. “Damn Reaper prima donna. Heart stops for five minutes and you just lose your shit.”

Sitting down, I held my head with both hands. “What the hell happened?”

“You were shot eleven times during your fight with Vaus Cain and his Obsidian regulars. My interpretation of your biometrics suggests you weren’t aware of this during the fight,” X-37 said. “Your legendary stubbornness saved you, not for the first time.”

Jacob and Roadkill stared at me from the other side of the room. Haunted expressions defined their faces. Neither of them spoke. They didn’t curse, or argue, or tease each other. The sight of a Reaper coming back from the dead had taken the color from their skin.

Tom stood from a chair he’d occupied, hands clasped together, knuckles against his forehead. It was an abrupt movement, like he’d had to work up the courage. His eyes were red, maybe even wet. The man looked like he wanted to say something, shout at me, but he stormed out of the room, dragging Jacob and Roadkill by their arms.

“Lie down,” Path said. “We are not medical professionals, but we can stop the bleeding and give you fluids.”

I reached back with my left arm to lower myself onto the medical bed. Pain flared from my wrist to my eyes the moment I put weight on the limb.

Bug caught me. “Easy. You’ve got some broken bones. Tom is going to attempt surgery.”

“How about a splint,” I said. “Let’s not get fancy.”

“All the breaks were compound. When I say surgery, I mean everything he can do to avoid amputation,” he said. “But that’s probably going to happen so don’t blame us.”

There were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t summon the anger. “Where else am I damaged? I know where I hurt, because that’s everywhere.”

Path turned his hand up and nodded. “Accurate.”

“What do you mean, accurate?” I asked.

“You are injured on every part of your body, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, his voice broadcast over the intercom. “I will assist Tom and the others in your treatment, as will Jelly.”

“Can Tom put all the bones back together?” I asked.

“With my help, and Jelly’s extensive medical files, he has a three percent chance of returning the arm to its normal functionality,” X-37 said.

“Why bother?” I rested my head on the hard pillow.

“He insisted we try, so long as I could keep him from killing you during the surgery,” X-37 said.

“What are his chances of performing a successful amputation?”

“Ninety-nine percent, Reaper Cain.”

Tom returned. “I heard that, and you can forget about it. We need you whole if we’re going to stay alive. There’s a full scale war raging between Scheid’s forces and the JFT. Maglan has been dangerous since the invasion, but things are really heating up now.”

“Take the arm off,” I said.

“Hal—” he began.

“Jelly, what are the predicted recovery times for the two surgeries?” I asked.

“You will require eight to eighteen months to recover from a full reconstruction. An amputation could take as little as a month, though you would likely experience pain and other side effects for much longer,” she said. “X-37 agrees with me.”

“Take the arm off, Tom. I’ll fight with one arm.”

38

Jacob and Roadkill stared at me as we flew over the city, Jelly showing off her beefed-up engines and X-37 reacquainting himself with ship procedures. Bug was flying, but I thought the ship AI and my LAI could do the job just as well without him.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Jacob finally said. “I’ve seen a lot of people get hurt, but they were always running away.”

“I’m not that smart.” Keeping pain out of my voice wasn’t hard. Sounding like I wasn’t wasted on painkillers was. I couldn’t take them for long, but not even a Reaper walked away from a full amputation without repercussions.

“Can confirm,” X-37 said over the intercom. “He should be confined to the medical bay—resting like a mere mortal.”

“Trust me, X, I will sleep for weeks once we’re clear of Marsi,” I said.

Tom and Bug looked uncomfortable. Path… was Path—though I thought his gaze was a bit more intense than normal. Had I finally broken the legendary calm of the sword saint?

Sure I had, because I’m a winner.

All three of my friends saw me in a new light. Hopefully they accepted me for who I was. Our enemies weren’t going to get smashed unless we were on the same page, trusting each other, striving for the same goals.

“You lost your arm,” Roadkill said, sounding pissed off.

“Not my first time, unfortunately.” I locked my teeth together against a wave of pain that penetrated the drug induced haze keeping me upright. “Probably not my last. I still have one to sacrifice for the cause.” I raised my right arm, but not much. It was attached to my body, after all. Every move had a consequence that involved the need to pass out or vomit, or both.

“I don’t know how you can joke about that,” Roadkill said. “Where I grew up, they killed people like that for their own good. And to keep the collective strong. You’re basically dead.”

“I’m not dead, kid.” Pain eased, probably because adrenaline was the true miracle drug. “Reapers don’t die. We just get meaner.”

“Tell that to all the dead Reapers,” Jacob said. “You’re the last, except for the clones, and they don’t count.”

Bug flew in silence. Everyone watched the damaged city below on the main view screen. A battle between the JFT and Scheid’s Obsidian Legion raged kilometers behind us. I wasn’t sure who was winning.

All I knew was that I would have problems with whoever won.

“We’re taking you back to your family, Jacob,” I said.

He nodded. “Okay, Hal.”

I was turning my attention to Roadkill when the boy spoke again.

“I’m going to make myself strong and learn to fight. Someday you’ll need me, need all of us, and I’ll be ready,” he said. “We’ll all be ready.”

I fist bumped him. “Looking forward to it. Just don’t turn into a half-assed sniper-punk like Bug over there.”

“I heard that,” Bug said.

“Where do you want to go, Roadkill?” I asked.

She looked embarrassed. “I was hoping to go with Jake. Maybe his family wouldn’t take me, but there should be other people there, right? I can work, and track, and fight if I have to.”

“We won’t turn you away, Road. My family is boring and stupid and might be rude when they see you, but I’ll talk to them and they’ll listen, because no matter what they say, they listen to me.” Jacob’s gaze dared anyone to disagree. “Because I’m smarter than the grown-ups, and you can say whatever you want, but it’s true. Most of the time.”

“All of that in one breath,” I said. “Good job, kid.”

He blushed.

“Roadkill goes with you unless she gets a bad reception, then we’ll move to plan B,” I said.

Roadkill crossed her arms. “What’s plan B?”

“Still working on it. I bet the JFT will need recruits soon,” I said.

“That is an interesting idea, Reaper Cain.” X-37 made several clicking noises that indicated he was processing data, probably attempting to predict the outcome of a Maglan alliance with the JFT, and by extension, the Oroth Council.

“Not funny,” Roadkill said. “I’m not worried, not actually. This isn’t the first time I’ve started over even though I’m just a kid.”

“Bug, take us to the old city,” I said.

He arced the Jellybird toward the center of Marsi.

* * *

I bid Jacob and Roadkill goodbye, then smoked a cigar as Jacob’s family gathered around them, welcoming Roadkill with the same enthusiasm as their prodigal child.

“I think they will be okay,” X-37 said. “With us gone, neither the Obsidians nor the JFT should have much interest in these people.”

“Not right away, but sooner or later they will put them to work or wipe them out,” I said.

“Unless we do something about it,” X-37 said.

“Like what, rendezvous with Elise, defeat the Oroth Council, then kick Scheid’s ass back to Union space?” I asked.

“That is the essence of my plan,” X-37 said. “Of course, I only make suggestions. An LAI showing true decision making ability would be required to self terminate.”

“It needs work,” I said. “Bug, what do you think about X’s scheme?”

“Sounds perfect, until we try to execute, then everything will go wrong,” he said.

Tom waved me off. “No decisions for me. I just fix stuff.”

Path pretended to meditate.

“At least we took care of them,” I said, pointing with the cigar. My right arm felt strong as hell, like all the power of two arms was now in one. That was bullshit, of course, but I wasn’t going to argue with my own psyche. The X-37 vambrace was on my right arm now, which felt weird, but I’d get used to it. Because I had to.

“We should head for your estate while we can, maybe find weapons and tools to make up for the loss of your arm. I could build a light mech—not as good as the Archangel armor, but better than nothing,” Tom said.

“I have several sets of Archangel armor stashed in a vault,” I said, smiling at the thought of facing Scheid’s goons in the badass gear. “I’ll just mount a chain gun on the left side.”

Bug shook his head. “No you don’t, Hal. That’s what I have been trying to tell you since we met. Everything you had was destroyed or stolen.”

I blew a smoke ring. “Well, we’re still going there.”

“It is as good a place as any for you to begin your recovery,” X-37 said.

“Look at the bright side,” I said. “Next time we meet one of my old friends, they won’t know I’m not the cyborg Cain unless they stare into my non-cybernetic eye. Maybe I ought to lose that too, just to cut down on all the proving myself bullshit.”

Path drew a knife and stepped forward.

“Joking!” I said.

He smiled.

“You made a sword saint smile,” Tom said, grinning from ear to ear.

“We’re gonna have some fun,” I said. “And make a lot of people like Scheid cry.”

* * *

CAIN will return in BLOOD OF THE REAPER, available to preorder now on Amazon.

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Renegade Star Universe

Click the titles below to find them online

The Renegade Star Series

They say the Earth is just a myth. Something to tell your children when you put them to sleep, the lost homeworld of humanity. Everyone knows it isn't real, though. It can't be.

But when Captain Jace Hughes encounters a nun with a mysterious piece of cargo and a bold secret, he soon discovers that everything he thought he knew about Earth is wrong. So very, very wrong.

Climb aboard The Renegade Star and assemble a crew, follow the clues, uncover the truth, and most importantly, try to stay alive.

The Last Reaper Series

When a high value scientist is taken hostage inside the galaxy's most dangerous prison, Halek Cain is the only man for the job.

The last remaining survivor of the Reaper program, Hal is an unstoppable force of fuel and madness. A veteran amputee-turned-cyborg, he has a history of violence and a talent for killing that is unmatched by any soldier.

With the promise of freedom as his only incentive, he’ll stop at nothing to earn back his life from the people who made him, imprisoned him, and were too afraid to let him die.

The Orion Colony Series

Humanity’s Exodus is about to begin.

When half of mankind revolts and demands more opportunity, those at the top decide on a compromise: they will build the first colony ships and allow those who are willing to discover new worlds to leave and start over.

Twelve ships are built, the first of which is called Orion. Many are eager to go, but only one hundred thousand are chosen for each vessel. Far from Earth, a new life awaits, and it promises the prosperity they’ve always wanted.

But still, resistance stirs, eager to sabotage this new expansion effort, threatening the promise of a new life. As Orion moves through the void of space, towards a distant world, its passengers must fight for survival in an unprecedented conflict.

Win or lose, their future will be forever changed.

The Fifth Column Series

After a soldier is left for dead, Eva Delgado's life begins to unravel.

The truth of what happened remains a mystery, and the government will stop at nothing to keep it buried.

Together with the unit's medic, Eva finds herself branded a terrorist and enemy of the State, hunted by two opposing governments.

When the pair uncover a plot that could have ramifications for the whole galaxy, they know they have to act, but it will take all of their training, cunning and just a bit of luck to do what no one else has achieved.

But what do you do when every secret begets another? And how far will you go to find the truth?

Nameless (Abigail’s Story)

Abigail and Clementine were just a couple of orphans looking for a home.

But when the two girls witness something terrible, they have no choice but to leave their orphanage and go into hiding. The only person willing to take them in is a man named Mulberry, but his home isn't the safest place for two innocent children.

Abigail and Clementine quickly discover that their new caretaker is the head of a guild of assassins, and the two are thrown into a whole new world of danger. To survive, they'll need to adapt, focus, and learn how to survive in a world of killers.

The Constable (Alphonse’s Story)

My name is Alphonse Malloy, and I see everything.

From a simple glance, I know your hobbies, what you ate for breakfast, how well you slept, and whether or not your wife is secretly seeing the high school biology teacher when you're not around.

I can't explain how or why I get these feelings, only that I know they're true.

All the little secrets you're too afraid to tell.

Sometimes, that means helping people. Other times, it means staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

I wish I could tell you I was using this ability for good.

I wish I could tell you a lot of things.

* * *

The Constable Returns

Alphonse Malloy may just be the smartest man alive.

A year has passed since Alphonse joined the Constables, but his work is only just beginning. In order to graduate and achieve full Constable status, Alphonse will need to complete one final mission.

When new information about an old enemy arises, Al and his mentor Dorian must head deep into the Deadlands in search of answers.

But in a galaxy of secrets, the truth is often more elusive than it seems.

As the search continues, Alphonse's talents will be pushed to their absolute limit, and he'll need everything he's learned to make it out of this one alive.

Warrior Queen (Lucia’s Story)

On a lost world, far removed from Earth, a group of humans struggle to survive.

Two thousand years after their ancestors lost control of a hidden genetics research facility, the descendants of mankind have been reduced to a tribe of two hundred survivors. They fight, kill, and die in an endless cycle, all in the hope that things will get better.

Lucia is one of these colonists and the daughter of the tribe's leader, the Director. Together with several other candidates, she must soon undergo a trial to decide her father's replacement. The winner will shape the future of the entire colony.

But the trial is dangerous, meant to test each candidate's wits and strengths to see who is truly worthy. To claim victory, Lucia will need to venture out into the tunnels near the city to search for lost artifacts known as Cores--small but powerful devices capable of harnessing endless energy.

But there are monsters here, waiting in the dark, and they are always hungry. Beware the Boneclaw, Lucia's father use to tell her, for it lives only to kill and to feed.

Lucia must do whatever it takes, learn as much as she can, and fight with every ounce of strength if she hopes to make it through the day.

Forget winning the trial. The real challenge is staying alive.

Resonant Son Series

30 floors of nightmare fueled action. An ex-cop with nothing left to lose.

After losing his job and family, Flint Reed finds himself in the middle of a terrorist attack. With nothing but his wits and experience as a former Union police officer, he must do everything he can to stay alive.

As he soon discovers, however, there are also hostages, and no one is coming to save them.

All hope falls to Flint.

But as he fights to navigate the building, the real answers begin to unravel. What are the terrorists really after, and why are they so intent on getting into the vault?

Experience the beginning of the Resonant Son series. If you're a fan of Die Hard, Renegade Star, or the Last Reaper, you'll love this epic scifi thrill ride.

Galactic Law Series

Lethal force is authorized.

In the wild space of the Deadlands, Taurus Station is where miners and tourists come to play, and the ravager gangs follow close behind. Out here, far from the civilized world, the Law has a name.

Gage Walker is the son of hard-nosed asteroid miners. Brash, rough, and crude, he's one of the few deputies working the station.

Still a rookie, Walker is tasked with the security of a mining magnate's daughter, an easy job that quickly takes a turn for the worst.

The ravager gangs want her, and it falls to Walker to find out why.

In a chase across Taurus Station, Deputy Walker must prove he's fit to wear the badge and issue his own form of justice...one body at a time.

Deadland Drifter Series

When a dental appointment goes sideways, former Union Operative Jack Burner wakes to find himself drugged, and imprisoned.

And he's given a choice: assassinate an Admiral... or allow himself to be killed.

With no other option, Jack reluctantly accepts the mission, only to find himself being trailed by a mysterious blonde woman... and she may or may not want him dead.

As if dealing with a terrorist group wasn't enough.

With the fate of the Admiral and thousands of lives on hanging in the balance, Jack stands in the middle of an event that could ignite a war on the edge of the Deadlands and Union Space.

Despite his exceptional abilities, training, and tenancy, even Jack has little to no chance of preventing this particular powder keg from exploding.

He's going to need a miracle.

The Renegade Series

Jace Hughes is a Renegade.

That means taking jobs and not asking questions, whether that involves smuggling, transporting runnaways, or performing other, far less wholesome work. Whatever the situation, Jace is willing to do what it takes to achieve his dream and live the life he’s always wanted.

That is, until he comes face to face with an item of unprecedented value—something that could give him everything he needs to pay off his debt and be free.

The only problem is that selling it would also shift the balance of power between the two largest empires in the galaxy.

And spark another intergalactic war.

Unfortunately for Jace, he won’t have long to decide. Renegades, assassins, and government cronies are after the item, too, and unlike Jace, they won’t hesitate to kill.

About The Authors

J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author and has a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. When he isn’t writing or gaming, you can find him online at jnchaney.com.

He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.

* * *

Scott Moon has been writing fantasy, science fiction, and urban fantasy since he was a kid. When not reading, writing, or spending time with his awesome family, he enjoys playing the guitar or learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He loves dogs and plans to have a ranch full of them when he makes it big. One will be a Rottweiler named Frodo. He is also a co-host of the popular Keystroke Medium show. You can find him online at scottmoonwriter.com