“What if they think he’s the one who leaked the news?”
“Damien said that guy was dead.”
“Well, maybe he ain’t. Maybe it was your brother, and now they’re after him to shut him up. Maybe they thought your family friend here could track him down. I think they just want him dead.”
“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”
“But it makes sense, right? Otherwise, where’s your brother? No one’s seen him or his friend, right? I bet they’re both in trouble.”
“Or they’re over Danvar right now, diving and hoarding. Or they’re both shit-faced drunk. Either way, we should check with this guy you know. The two assholes who barged into my place were wearing kers from the north—”
“Who, Brock? I don’t know him. Only heard about him.”
“What’ve you heard?”
“Conflicting stuff. I heard he grew up in Springston and came from money. But a friend of mine says his accent ain’t like the Lords, that he had to be from up north. Supposedly he has a camp up there in the middle of the wastes. I know a guy, Gerard, who quit their group. Came back saying he couldn’t live that far from an adequate supply of *—”
“Lovely.”
“In fact … shit, Gerard disappeared on a dive a week or so after he got back. And nobody found his body.”
“We need to go talk to this guy.”
“To Gerard? I’m pretty sure he’s buried.”
“No, idiot, to Brock. His camp, you say it’s in the middle of the wastes? You know where?”
“Not really.” Marco chewed on a dreadlock. “It’s near the grove, I think. I remember Gerard talking about lavish campfires. West of the grove but south of some big spring. I only remember ’cause he was bitchin’ about having to haul barrels of water down from—”
An explosion of bells rang out as the front door was thrown in. Thrown in with violence. There was a shout, and then the stomp of heavy boots. Vic turned and looked for some place to hide, started to yell for Marco to c’mon, to get out the back door, but then two men with guns joined them in the workshop, silver weapons gleaming, one swinging at her and the other at Marco.
“Hey, whoa—” Marco said. He held up his hands, and Vic found herself staring down the barrel of one of those ancient and unreliable killing machines.
The two men looked down where a pool of light spilled on a dead man. The guy training a gun on Vic, a bald man with tats on his face, snarled at her, rage in his eyes, as he pulled the trigger. There was a click and a curse. She and Marco still hadn’t moved, were both rooted in fear and surprise. And then the other gun went off. And Marco moved for the very last time. One side of his skull erupted, his body sagging downward. There was another click, but Vic was moving now. Moving and screaming, staying in a crouch with her arms over her head, unable to breathe or think straight as she dove for the back door, another gunshot ringing out behind her.
30 ? Into the Starry Night
Palmer
There was no sun waiting on Palmer’s arrival. No people or encampments. Just the vast and jeweled clear desert sky.
Small gulps of that sky passed through Palmer’s sand-specked lips and filled his desperate lungs. He lay on his back, gasping, the sand collecting against his side and filling his windward ear and his hair as he breathed in the loud, laborious, grateful way a newborn does.
His friend Hap lay lifeless beside him, partly submerged in the sand. Somewhere, a cayote howled at this sudden scent, and the wind skittered across the dunes with the sound of a thousand snakes flicking their tongues.
Palmer scraped the sand off his tongue using his teeth. He spat out the grit and with it precious fluid. He turned to Hap, whose shoulder and knee were out of the dune. A boot as well, but not in the right place. Hap’s canteen strap could be seen on his shoulder. Exhausted but mad with thirst, Palmer slid his hand into the sand and floated Hap up the rest of the way. His visor beeped with a battery alarm. His suit was nearly dead.