Like clockwork, the cries of newly agitated subhumans returned, emanating from the empty buildings that lined the street.

Skyler ran.

Pumping his legs as hard as his injury would allow, he beat a direct path to the office tower. He could hear rapid footfalls behind him.

A quick glance over his shoulder—at least ten of them were in pursuit, and gaining. He forced his attention ahead and in doing so caught movement to his right. Another sub emerged from an old house and raced toward him. Skyler squeezed off a burst of bullets from his hip. The poor creature pitched forward to a sliding stop, utterly limp.

The deafening crackle of the machine gun brought a chorus of mindless howls from every direction.

Skyler pushed himself harder, lungs burning as he sprinted the last few meters to the building.

Thick planks of wood and pieces of sheet metal covered the entrance, with rows of razor wire nailed across it in haphazard fashion. With despair he ran past the barricade, circled around to find the side door in the same state, and kept running toward the rear of the building.

In back there was a small parking area secure behind a tall wrought-iron fence. An electric gate provided the only way in, but it had been chained closed and padlocked. Next to it was a small white ticket booth.

With panting, snarling sounds just meters behind him, Skyler angled toward the tiny structure. The booth’s windows were intact. Skyler fired a single round into the one facing him and watched it transform from a clear pane to thousands of tempered shards. He leapt at the last second with his gun held before him, shattering the glass in a shower of sharp bits.

There was no time to waste. Skyler stood up. Broken glass fell from his clothing and crunched under his feet. He ignored a few small cuts and aimed. A subhuman jumped through the open window even as he fired. Bullets tore through the creature’s chest but momentum carried the body straight into Skyler’s torso, driving him back into the far wall of the tiny shack.

Air rushed from his lungs. Something cracked, and pain lanced up his side. His head snapped backward and knocked into the wall with a deep thump. Stars swam before his eyes. Gasping, unsteady, he pushed the limp body off him and fired again at the next one. This sub had some sense of self-preservation and ducked away. Those that followed it slowed, too, and looked at one another as if deciding what to do.

Skyler grasped the opportunity and stumbled out the thin door of the booth. Inside the gated parking area now, he hobbled toward the building’s rear entrance, fighting to keep his balance the whole way. His torso burned, the pain growing with each movement.

Desperate now, he fired blindly behind him while studying the back of the building. He limped toward the double door in the center of the wall, ignoring the fierce agony coming from his ribs.

The doors were locked.

Skyler spun around and saw four subhumans scaling the gate. He hoisted his gun with a grunt. The weapon felt like it had a sack of stones tied to it. Searing pain flared along his torso with the effort but he could do nothing about it. Skyler aimed at one sub as it reached the top of the barrier. He pulled the trigger.

Click.

He fumbled for his last clip of ammunition, which he’d stuffed into his jacket as the Melville plunged toward Earth. The black metal case slipped through his fingers and fell to the ground.

For a split second Skyler welcomed his fate. He slumped and waited for the devolved human beings to come and tear him to pieces, as the disease had programmed them to do.

Something caught his eye to the left. He glanced and saw a stairwell tucked up against the side of the building, leading down into darkness.

He went for it, pausing only to grab the ammo. Each limping step toward the stairs produced a spike of pain in his ribs that felt like knives. He shouted through it as he slapped the clip of bullets into the center of his gun.

The stairs he took three at a time, more of a controlled fall than a descent. A door loomed at the bottom, and it was all Skyler could do to raise one arm as he reached it. He expected a hard impact, but his weight and momentum flung the door wide.

Skyler fell, hard. His cheek slapped against a carpeted floor that smelled of mold and something else. Something feral, like an animal’s cage. His vision began to blur at the edges and then grow dark.

He spun onto his back and aimed back up the stairwell even as the first subhuman crested the edge. Skyler squeezed the trigger and kept firing until the bullets ran out.

As consciousness began to fade, he was vaguely aware of crawling toward the door, reaching for it.

The rest was blackness.

Chapter Twenty-four

Darwin, Australia

5.FEB.2283

Well after midnight in the Gardens, a poorly named slum in southern Darwin, a caravan of armored trucks surrounded a crumbling old parking garage.

Half the vehicles skidded to a stop in the street outside. Black-clad police leapt out and moved into defensive positions. To anyone watching from the shadows their maroon helmets announced them as Nightcliff security, not that any doubt existed.

The other half of the caravan did not slow down. They followed one especially large truck adorned with a thick corrugated steal wedge bolted to the front grill. The truck’s electric motors surged as it smashed into the metal gate at the garage’s entrance. The old bars broke away from their brittle joints, clattering away into the darkness.

The vehicles flowed into the open hole like roaches. They barreled down the concrete spiral, spewing sparks whenever their rough-plated edges scraped the cracked sidewall.

Hardly dented from the first impact, the lead truck accelerated through the final corner and made short work of the feeble chain-link fence at the end. The barricade collapsed and parted easily, leaving nothing but a large door between the intruders and the interior of the building.

This door didn’t hold, either. When the ram hit it, the old wood splintered, sending a shower of debris into the warehouse and headquarters of Mr. Prumble, noted smuggler and a chief supplier of Darwin’s black markets.

As the mighty vehicle backed out of the way, police flowed into the hole.

Russell Blackfield enjoyed watching his elite do their work.

He entered behind them, carrying only a pistol. From inside he heard shouts of “clear” as his men fanned out through the building. Above, he knew they would be working through the upper floors, though reconnaissance said those were long abandoned. Worth a look anyway, he had decided during the planning session.

According to the intelligence Russell had paid for, Prumble kept a payroll of forty toughs, protecting the goods stored in this rank tomb of a hideout.

“So much for resistance.”

The massive room held no one at all, save for Nightcliff men. Someone tipped him off, Russell thought. He should have arrested the informants who sold Prumble out. Recoup the bribes, exact some revenge if it didn’t pan out.

His soldiers maintained a professional aggressiveness despite the lack of an enemy. Russell strode past aisle after aisle of organized merchandize, meticulously stacked. The urge to scatter it all required more self-control than he usually exercised.

At the very end of the last aisle in the room, he came across the only obvious hiding place—another room, retrofitted into the far corner of the underground space.

Five of his guards waited there, guns trained onto the solid metal door. It looked just like the giant refrigerator entrance in Nightcliff’s cafeteria.

“Open it,” he said to one of his men. The others fanned out on either side.

The officer grabbed the handle and his entire body jerked. Every limb shot straight out, except the arm connected to the door. He let out a sickening, guttural sound, and his hair began to smolder. Another officer had the presence of mind to hit his electrocuted companion in the chest with his rifle, knocking him away from the door.

The room plunged into darkness. Somewhere below, the hum of a generator faded.

Some of the soldiers had lamps on their helmets or attached to the underside of their guns. Within seconds they all came on. Russell removed a small, handheld flashlight and trained it on the victim.

Dead, or near enough. The scent of burning hair and skin filled the stagnant air. “For fuck’s sake, someone get him out of here,” Russell said, holding his nose.

Someone grabbed the cooked man by his collar and dragged him away.

“The power is out. Try it again,” Russell said. One of the men approached the door and tapped the handle with one finger. Nothing happened, so he gave the handle a full tug. It didn’t budge. He tried again, this time straining with effort. No movement.

“Enough,” Russell said. “Use the onc-rope.”

Another officer came forward with a coiled yellow cord. He unwound a length of it and stuck it to the door in an oval pattern.

Russell cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. “If you’re in there, Prumble, better hide under the desk. Assuming you can fit.”

A few of the men chuckled. Russell turned and led everyone back to the main entrance. The explosives expert arrived last, unspooling a thin blue wire as he moved. He crouched down next to Russell.

“Fire in the hole!” he shouted. After a pause, again, “Fire in the hole!”

Russell covered his ears.

The guard pushed the wires into a small object in his hand and pressed a button on the side of it.

The building shook. Brown dust shook loose from everywhere and filled the stale air.

Russell felt the explosion in his bones. His own clothing buffeted in the rapid shift of air pressure. Hell of a thing, that rope. He’d appropriated it from that immune scavenger’s ship. The bloke had said he fenced through Prumble, a delicious irony.

It took a good minute for the smoke and dust to clear, at least enough to see a few meters. Russell wanted no more time wasted and used a hand signal to indicate his men should proceed inside.

Two by two they entered, their lights making the thick smoke somehow worse.

“Clear!” Russell heard from the far end of the room.

Goddamn it! Not what he wanted to hear. Two well-paid informants, plucked off the street outside yesterday, had sworn Prumble was inside. Russell’s own watchers said no one had left.

Now Russell looked every bit the idiot. He made a mental note to find those two-faced tossers and dump them outside Aura’s Edge.

He walked into the small office. The portion of the door removed by the onc-rope had torn through the room, shearing off part of a large oak desk and badly denting an old file cabinet. Debris and papers littered the floor.

“Check that desk,” Russell said, “and be careful. I’ve smelled enough barbie for one day.”

He loved giving orders to no specific person and noting who took initiative. It served as a key method for choosing whom to promote.

“Those of you not in here,” Russell said loudly, “pack everything into the trucks. Nothing gets left behind.”

A chorus of unenthusiastic “Yes, sirs” resulted. They’d come for some action and were disappointed to find an empty building instead. “Whatever you can fit in your pockets, you can keep,” Russell added. The grumbling abated a bit after that.

“Some kind of ledger here, sir,” said one trooper, looking into the file cabinet. He handed Russell a spiral-bound notebook, filled with page after page of handwritten information.

“Paperwork, exactly what I dreamt of finding.” He flipped through the pages anyway. The scrawled notes were cryptic at best. Initials, abbreviations, numbers. The type of thing only the author could understand, and Russell guessed that was the point. He flipped to the end and found something peculiar.

The last entries all began with the same initials: “N. P.”

“Sat telem,” Russell read, sitting down in the worn leather chair. The cushion was rock hard—compressed by Prumble’s gigantic ass, no doubt. “What are you looking for, Platz, you old goat?”

The soldiers ignored him, stuffing their pockets with anything that fit.

Two of the Platz entries were marked as “Sat telem.” Satellite telemetry, Russell realized.

Why? What would I do with that?

Satellites. Military satellites. Orbiting weapons from an era long gone. Something Platz could use against the ground, against Nightcliff. Something that would give him the upper hand again. Russell felt a chill run through his entire body. Had he underestimated the goat? Could Neil really be that clever?

Even if wrong, this provided ample pretense to crack some skulls.

He closed the book, then smiled. It was time to call Alex Warthen.

Chapter Twenty-five

Anchor Station

6.FEB.2283

Tania pushed imitation eggs around her plate, creating artful yellow swirls on the purple plastic dish. The improved aesthetics did little to help the bland flavor.

Across the table, Natalie worked on a bowl of fresh fruit. “Any news from Platz?”

Scientists bustled into the cafeteria from all over the station, in for their morning meal. Tania had chosen a two-person table in the far corner, one that said “go away” to anyone looking for a breakfast chat, or so she hoped.

She shook her head. “He’s mired in some political fallout from a ‘security incident’ on Gateway. Wouldn’t tell me more than that.”

Guilt chewed away at her. She didn’t know why, but when Neil asked about the mission to Hawaii she’d left out all the horrible details. I’ve got the data, and I’ll start looking at it right away. The rest she’d kept for herself, a fire in her gut that she kindled whenever it started to fade, despite every instinct telling her to put the molestation behind her. Telling Neil would just make him fuss over her, and he would make justice a project. He had enough projects already, and this one she felt was hers to resolve.

“I heard some Darwinians managed to sneak in,” Natalie said. “Turned into a big tangle with Warthen’s guards. Jacobites, I’d guess. They’re always going on about ‘purging the heathens from Jacob’s Ladder,’ you know?”