Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Flyover Country

Laura Beegle
laura@beegle.org

(C) 2014 by Laura Beegle

For this and other stories, visit
http://www.beegle.org/laura/Stories

Chapter One

They say that on a clear day, you can see all the way to Nebraska from up here. I don't know about all that. I would have been much happier not thinking about that at all. I was clinging to the guard rails around a high power microwave antenna array about a hundred meters up in the freezing evening air.

The railing was in pretty good shape, considering the age of the tower. Some I'd worked on had been more hole than iron. Still, you coat any metal rails and steps in a sheen of water near freezing and it's going to be slippery. And don't get me started on the wind at that height. The giant wind farm turbines really love the constant wind, but I sure as hell don't.

A gust of wind shoved me a little and I shifted my feet, trying to get a better angle against the wind. Work boots have some traction, but not nearly enough that high up in the air. I tried not to think about the empty space between my perch and the hard, barren ground below. The sooner I could fix the damn coupling, the sooner I could get out of there. I had the housing opened and the broken coupling removed already. I just needed to slip the new one in place, run the diagnostic tool, and wait for the green light. Simple, right?

The eggheads in the cities can do a lot with automation, but when something physically breaks, it takes guys like me to come out and fix it. Sure, they have robots for some stuff, like repairing the giant self-driving farm equipment, but some things were just too damn expensive to automate. Take this job, for example. If everything goes right, the light turns green and I'm done. If it doesn't go right and the problem isn't the coupling but something else in the system, it takes a human to figure out what and how to fix it. At least for now. I'm sure they're working on ways to take all humans out of the equation, but until then, I can live outside the city walls.

My comms came to life. "Hey, Doc," said Kaden. His voice was casual, but I knew his impatience was growing. Mine would be too if I had waited around this long for someone. "Are you about done up there? We're freezing our asses off down here."

"You pansy asses have no idea how good you have it," I said back at him. I slipped the new coupling into place with a solid click and hooked up the leads to the diagnostic tool on my belt. I used to think it would be a good idea to bring the guns up to the top of the tower to see what I actually do while they're protecting me. I started small and tried to explain it to Kaden. Within about ten seconds, his eyes just glazed over. Seeing as how he's the smart one of the bunch, I decided a trip up to the top of the tower wouldn't accomplish much.

"Yeah, yeah," said Kaden, "well when you're done, me and the boys were planning to head over to The Kicking Mule. You in?"

"Hell yeah I'm in," I said. Who doesn't want a good beer and some fine ladies to share it with? Just the thought of that place made me feel a little bit warmer. I was thinking back to some lovely companions I had met there when the diag tool chirped to let me know it was done.

I glanced down just in time to see the light change from red to green. That was weird. I scowled at it and stared for a second, waiting. It should have only showed green, never red, if things were really okay. I stared, waiting to see if it was flaky, but the green held. I flicked the diag tool and wiggled the connections, but the green didn't waver. I shook my head and shrugged. Must be time for a new diag tool.

I put the antenna housing back on and locked it. I checked all the other locks and made a note about the time in my work log. I backed out of the maintenance cage via the access ladder and locked the hatch. It was all pretty basic security, but better to keep doorknob twisters out than to have to repair any damage they do. I backed down the ladder until I hit the platform. After that, I could take the stairs all the way down to ground level.

Back on the ground, I locked one more door behind me. I made a note of the time in my log. The locks and keys would, of course, record the time I spent on the platform in the logs on the antenna array. But, I learned a long time ago not to put too much faith in automation. I'd rather spend a few seconds making my own records than be put in a situation where I have to argue with the computer logs.

Still, the automation was nice in some ways. Once the logs from my keys were collected, they would be sent off to the telecom company in the city that had requested the work. Still more automation would process the logs, figure out if I had really done the work by probing the antenna remotely, and eventually pay me in city credits.

Of course, out here, city credits were about useful as an invisible unicorn. There were places that would trade city credits for hard currency. Back when the walls went up, the only hard currency accepted was gold and silver mostly, some diamonds. That was still the medium of most trade these days if you didn't barter for things. Trades from credits to hard currency always happened for a fee. That fee was a constant source of bitching and moaning among the folks outside the walls that got paid in city credits but lived outside. That group included me and the guys hired to keep me safe while I did my job.

Kaden and his team of guns were waiting for me at the bottom of the tower. They looked cold and bored. It had been a long day. We'd had three jobs that were all just as exciting as this one, which was to say: not exciting at all. Still, there's something to be said for boring. It's easy and safe and we're still getting paid.

A gust of wind came through, biting cold through my jacket. The cloudless sky made the cold in the air seem even more penetrating.

"It's about damn time, Doc," said Kaden. "What took you so long?"

"Quit your bitching," I said goodnaturedly. "You're getting paid by the hour, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Kaden. One of Kaden's guys, Steve, looked dumbstruck by my hourly comment. I chuckled.

Kaden turned to me to see what was funny. I nodded my head at Steve. You could all but see the gold coins in Steve's eyes. Kaden promptly smacked Steve on the back of the head.

"Don't go getting any ideas, dumbass," he said. "We are paid hourly, but it doesn't work like that. You can't just clock in and never clock out."

Steve's eyes got wider. "How did you know-"

"Because everybody's had that idea before, idiot." Kaden shook his head and motioned for us to start moving back to the vehicles. The scouts had a headstart on us and were already at theirs. "As soon as you tell somebody that they're getting paid for work that no one ever sees, they try to figure out how to trick the system."

The guns mounted up on their slingers and I was just a little bit jealous. Slingers are fast and mobile little vehicles somewhere between a motorcycle and a personal jet. They're too expensive for most folks to afford, but they are company issued to all hired guns. It's a hell of a nice perk for risking your neck day in and day out.

These slingers were matte black and a company asset tag was the only decoration. That makes it sound like the company is super concerned about security, looks, or both, but truth is that color is cheap and less visible on most tracking systems. The less visible the slinger is, the less likely the pilot is to be shot out of the air by some crazy lunatic with his grandad's surface to air missile. And when you get down to it, that kind of loss is just expensive.

But tonight, riding those things would be cold as hell. So my envy of the slingers was tempered by the knowledge they'd be freezing as they zipped through the air.

"Has anybody ever tricked the system?" asked Steve.

"Let me put it to you this way," said Kaden. "You know how much smarter Doc is than you?"

"Yeah."

"The city guys who you have to trick are about a hundred times smarter than Doc." Kaden added, "no offense, Doc."

I shook my head. "Hell," I said, "I would have said a thousand times smarter."

Steve just started at Kaden in disbelief, his mouth slightly agape. "Whoa," he said, "is anybody that smart?"

While the others got on their slingers, I walked into The Dung Heap and settled into the pilot's seat. It was also a company vehicle, but it was not the sleek and powerful machine the slingers were. The Dung Heap was a big lumbering vehicle that resembled a brown pile left by Cerberus himself. The lumpy brown exterior was not just for its aesthetics. It was a high-tech material hardened against EMP. Once powered up, The Dung Heap could sprout a truly impressive number of antenna and other sensors, but I wouldn't be needing most of them for the flight to the bar.

I flicked on the short range communications antenna so I could keep up with the conversation outside and punched the button to close the outer door. Screens and other heads-up displays blinked to life. The whine of the engine was quiet inside, but outside it's nearly deafening. City vehicles use the same tech to fly, but it's done a whole lot better. In the city, folks get mad if you make too much noise so the vehicles have to be kept under some mandated maximum. Out here, there's no one but us to hear it and no one to complain so the company doesn't bother to make vehicles like The Dung Heap quiet.

Over the radio, one of the other guns said, "I heard about one guy who tried to trick the system. He clocked in and then spent three days just drinking and kicking back, collecting credits."

I think it was Monty. He always had a story to tell about someone he knew. I believe he was one of the most well-connected people I had ever come across. He could get you damn near anything, it just took time. And gold. Sometimes, a lot of gold.

"What happened to him?" asked Steve.

"Dumb fucker got smoked by a bounty drone."

"What?" said Steve. "For drinking?"

"For ripping off a company, stupid," said Monty. "It's in your contract."

"Doc, you good to go?" said Kaden. I punched the last button to remove the last of the safeties keeping the truck from moving.

"Good to go," I replied. We eased our vehicles up off the ground. We headed toward The Kicking Mule at the best pace my crappy ride could go. The sun had well and truly set and the darkness was nearly perfect. Sometimes on the plains there's so much light still bouncing off the atmosphere that you lose track of dusk turning into true dark. I never gave much thought to it until I was over doing a job by the Badlands one time. The trees and hills made the dark seem to come much more suddenly and more deeply. Just one more reason the plains are where I prefer to be.

Now, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not afraid of the dark, but when you're out in the middle of nowhere, renegade drones and actual bandits are not just some number in a spreadsheet about risk. They're a real concern and have to be if you want to keep on living. As for the dark, there's nothing the bad guys love more than darkness to cover their movements. Put all that together and a healthy respect for the evils lurking in the dark is more than just a good idea, it's necessary if you want to keep on breathing.

We climbed our vehicles up to about thirty meters off the ground and headed north and a little east. The ground around the base of the antenna was deliberately barren to keep the weeds down and to give us a place to land without crushing the crops. This time of year, there weren't any crops yet, but come summer, we'd be grateful for that landing spot amongst all the wheat. As we zipped over the farmland, I could see the lights of automated farm machinery tilling away. In another few weeks, they would be done and the planting machines would take over.

Among the farm machine lights, smaller drones darted around. They were constantly monitoring and checking up on the bigger machines, part of the huge system of automation that was farming. I knew a guy who basically had my job but for the farm machines instead of network communications. I'm not sure I'd want his job. If I fuck up, communications just go around the broken antenna. If he fucked up, whole fields could be destroyed. There's plenty of buffer in the food system to take that kind of hit, but prices could be affected. If bread costs two credits more next year, it could be his fault. That's a lot to rest on one guy's shoulders and I wasn't sure I wanted that much responsibility.

Plus, I get to travel more. Working on farm machines you're pretty much tied to the area that those machines work. That's hundreds of square kilometers, but it's still a small area compared to the area I get to work. The downside to working all over is that now I have to sit in my lumpy turd of a ship for two hours before we're at the bar. But at least the day was over and we were all still in one piece. That was something worth celebrating.

Chapter Two

The Kicking Mule was jumping by the time we got there. The parking racks were full of slingers, both privately owned and company issue. The ground spaces were reserved for big dopey trucks like The Dung Heap. I set it down and flipped all the toggles to park the thing. Two minutes later, I grabbed my coat and was outside the turd. I tapped a button on my bracer and entered a code, locking the truck and setting its monitoring to alert me if anything went wrong.

Kaden and his team were already at the base of the parking racks when I got there. Now they were officially off the clock and they knew it. Steve and one of the scouts, Rachael, let out a whoop of freedom and led our group towards the door.

The Kicking Mule was one of the largest bars I had ever been to and certainly was the largest in Minnesota. It looked like a bunch of different buildings all stuck together with crazy glue, which was partly true. The bar had grown and changed over the years and the old parts had never been removed as the new parts were added. It towered drunkenly into the air and sprawled weirdly to all sides.

The sign for the place was actually three different signs, all from different eras that the bar was in operation. There was a neon sign with a cartoon mule kicking a startled looking cowboy. That was from way before my time. Someone told me that neon was popular about a hundred and fifty years ago. It was down on the oldest part of the bar, only about ten meters off the ground. The second sign was multi-colored LEDs with a much more elaborate graphic on the same theme. With the LEDs, the mule could smirk and wink at you before it kicked the cowboy. The final sign was a modern holographic on top of the bar that was visible for many kilometers in every direction.

As we reached the door, two guys came busting out, fists and curses flying. We stepped to the side and let them tumble out. They were followed by six or eight onlookers, cheering and egging them on. Steve joined the onlookers and the rest of us went inside.

The ground floor rambled over two heights, one here at the original ground floor and a step up to the newer bar. There were pool tables, darts, and dark corners for drinking around a table. The old and new bar didn't meet in anything like right angles. Where they would have diverged into wide open space, there was a column and wide spiral staircase leading up to a loft. The loft was over the old bar and open to the far part of the newer bar. In the two story space there was a old-west themed chandelier. It was draped with discarded bras and underwear of both genders.

The loft was not visible from the door to the old bar, but we could hear that it was packed. The bar closest to the door was relatively quiet and we got a shot and a beer each before heading over to a table. Standing by the table, Kaden raised his shot glass in a toast. "Good job today, guys. A toast: to living, and living free!"

"Living free!" we responded and tossed back the shot. It burned pleasantly on the way down and I could feel it working its magic relaxing fingers through my neck muscles. We slammed down the shot glasses and settled in around the table while Kaden got us another round of shots.

"So, Monty," I said, making conversation, "you going home to your old lady tonight?" Two of the other guys laughed and punched Monty playfully in the shoulder.

"Aww, hell no," said Monty. "She was on my ass like a hemorrhoid the last time I come home drunk." His eyes roved over the single ladies at the newer bar. The working ladies there were half bored and half interested in us as a new source of revenue. "Best just to not come home at all when I'm that way, you know?"

Rachael leaned my way and said, "we was giving Monty a hard time earlier. He ain't been back to see his old lady in a week now."

"Shit, Monty," I said, "you gotta get back and get on that. Sweet woman like Denise, she's gonna ditch your sorry ass for a man that pays her some attention."

Kaden returned with the shots and we all grabbed one. "All right you lazy bastards," said Kaden, "what are we drinking to?" He took one of the shots and sat down in the chair next to me.

"To sweet loving!" I said, raising my glass. "Wherever you can find it," I added.

"Sweet lovin'!" echoed the guns and we tossed back the shot. After the burn, the world started fuzzing pleasantly on the edges. We drank our beers and talked about everything except work. The music was a mix of country music from decades before and more recent stuff. We hummed along and lost ourselves in the delicious escape from work.

Some of the guys from the brawl outside came back in, bloodied and bruised. The two combatants were draped over each other smiling. They sat down at the old bar, each buying drinks for the other. Steve said something to them and made his way over to our table.

"You guys missed one hell of a fight," said Steve.

"What was it about?" I asked.

"Hell if I know," said Steve. "But it was a good one." He outlined the punches and throw downs for us. Monty had gotten up and was over talking to one of the ladies at the newer bar.

Things in the bar slowed down and speeded up in time with the music. Getting drunk has to be one of the most pleasant experiences in the world. Next to actual sex, of course. I let the music and the conversation flow over me while the alcohol did its work. More beers came and went, Kaden's guys came and went as they found more pleasant company and finished up with them.

A few hours later, I was well and truly committed to getting drunk. Kaden sat down heavily next to me. He punched me lightly in the shoulder by way of a greeting.

"How you doing, Kaden," I said.

"Doc, I've been meaning to have a word with you," he said with more gravity than I was expecting.

His tone concerned me, but it wasn't yet raising my internal alarm to get sober like a fight would require. "What's up, Kaden," I said.

He sat with his arms crossed over his chest, tipping his chair back on two legs while we watched the newer bar. The couples came and went, up the spiral stairs and back down after their business was completed. Like all bars, the patrons were men and women, and there were people interested in being in their company, for a small consideration. Kaden watched them with an intensity I had rarely seen. I could see the turmoil behind his eyes.

Drunk as I was, I could see the fight inside him. His eyes favored the available men at the bar, not the ladies. I understood immediately. We hadn't been working together for very long, maybe two or three months and he didn't know where I came down on this topic. His guns surely knew, but it was still an iffy thing outside the wall.

I put my arm around his shoulders and leaned in, "shit, Kaden," I said. "You know I trust you. I give a flying fuck who you sleep with. As long as you got my back when we're out on a job, you're okay with me." Kaden relaxed a bit under my arm. "You got that?" I shook him a little to emphasize my point.

"Yes, sir," said Kaden. He smiled slightly and set his chair down. He turned my way and nodded. "Thanks. And, don't wait up." He got up and we shook hands. He smiled, relief evident in his eyes, and he went over to the bar.

Kaden wasn't that much younger than me, maybe five or eight years, but it makes a difference sometimes. I've been around long enough to know that there are bigots, but you just move on. Kaden was young enough to probably take it personally if I was to request a new group of guns on finding out he liked guys. What I didn't tell him was that, inside the walls of the city where I trained, that we were even having that conversation would be seen as old-fashioned and backwards.

It doesn't take much to provoke the city folk into telling you how backward they think we are out here beyond the walls. Some of it's true and some isn't. But out here, we do what we need to do to survive. Sometimes, that's more violent or aggressive than the folks inside the wall would be comfortable with. That's why they're in there and we're out here. I have no illusion about the way life is around here, but I also know that life inside the wall is not the pretty utopia they would have you believe it is.

Kaden slipped upstairs when I wasn't looking. I ordered another round and eventually passed out at the table. At least, that's what I assume happened. I woke up and the bar was quieter. It looked like most folks had gone home or passed out. I checked my bracer for the time. It was 03:30 and I had a fierce need to pee. I stumbled across the bar to the toilets. Once done, I staggered out to The Dung Heap. One of the advantages of the big beast is that it's big enough to sleep in, when the job calls for it. Job or not, I was sleeping in it tonight.

Chapter Three

The sun came up and my bracer alerted me that it was time to get up. I flicked my wrist to shut it up and pushed myself up to a sitting position. The room spun for a second or two then settled down to beat on my ears and eyes. I groaned and winced at my own voice. Silently, I staggered out of The Dung Heap and closed it up behind me.

The Kicking Mule was a little more lively at 08:00 than it had been at 03:30. I used the toilets again and went to the bar to get some breakfast, a Bloody Mary, and a shitload of water. Kaden's guys were also rousing and collecting themselves. They looked a lot better off than me and I was suddenly very jealous of their youth. Twenty-somethings think they can take anything and live, and sometimes, they're right. But at least they knew better than to flaunt it. They sat and had breakfast with me, quietly.

Eventually one of them asked, "say Doc, what's the word on today? Got a gig for us?"

I wiped my hand on my pants and tapped at my bracer. The mysteries of the work queues are city controlled. I put my name in automatically for a job at 08:00 every day. Most days I get something in the next hour. Other days I might get nothing or three in the first minute, it just depends. If I don't get anything, I can widen my area to say I'll take jobs further away. That's okay for me, but it's more expensive for the company to have the guns go with me. I don't get to make the call for what's in and what's out, I just put in my availability and it matches my skills with jobs that need to be done.

There were two jobs I could take. The first was another one almost identical to the job we did last night, a blown antenna coupling on a microwave tower. Thankfully, it was that it was on a different tower. There's nothing worse than having to do the same job twice and only get paid once for it.

The other job had a red "danger" icon next to it. The job itself didn't look bad, it was a power converter replacement in a tunnel run. At least there would be no icy stairs. The danger designation came from the attached note. Bandits had been seen in the area by a passing observer drone. It was possible they were the source of the converter failure and would not take kindly to it being repaired.

"Got two options for you," I said. Knowing these guys and how quiet things had been, I predicted they would opt for the second job. Danger designations meant extra pay and guns get bored babysitting the likes of me. "Option one is a milk run, just like last night, but to the tower thirty klicks further south than that one."

There was some grumbling until Rachael, being the bright spark that she is remembered that I said there were two options. "What's option two?"

"Option two," I said around a mouth full of breakfast, "is a tunnel job west of here out by Devil's Lake." I waited a beat before dropping the "danger" part on them. "It's a red job," I said, shrugging. I tried to look surprised by their enthusiasm for the second job.

They whooped and cheered saying things like "finally a real job" and "it's about damn time we got some work to do". Around then, Kaden joined us at the bar. "Mornin', Doc," he said. "What's with all the ruckus?"

"We got a red job," I said, "if you want it."

He shook his head. "Ain't up to me," he said. "You pick the jobs and we watch your back, that's the deal."

"But…" I prompted.

He sighed. "But it sure would be nice to feel useful again. Plus the extra coin never hurts."

I clicked some buttons on my bracer and the red job turned orange with an icon that meant someone was working on it. In this case, that someone was us. I held my bracer aloft so the guys could see the orange and finished stuffing biscuit in my mouth.

"Okay, guys," said Kaden, "gear up and get to your slingers. We move out in fifteen minutes." While I didn't need the time to gear up before we left, I did need some time to look over the problem. A power converter failing could have a number of fixes, many of them I had the parts for, but not all. I paid for breakfast and went back to my truck to read over the full problem report and check my stock for any needed parts.

I sat in the main truck seat and looked at the consoles. The seat was very nearly in the center of the vehicle. Facing forwards, the flying screens and heads-up displays surrounded the seat and the manual flying controls. Turn the seat around and you were facing the diagnostic screens. The diag screens were closer to the seat because the controls there were more the more limited set for controlling drones and other recon equipment. Behind the diag screen were drawers of commonly used parts and tools, all secured for flight. There were two other seats I had never had to use, so I left them folded up and away all the time.

The full report, such as it was, was pretty vague. The report included photos of the presumed bandits which I put on the screen while I read the accompanying text. The people in the drone photos were highlighted with yellow boxes. They sure looked like bandits alright.

Downed power converter, tunnel DF-112E, offline since 02:15:03.
Note: possible aggros on location (job code red). Drone pictures attached.
No recent outages in this area; no recent aggros in this area.
Error codes prior to state 'down': EPOWER_TOO_HIGH ESHORT EUNKNOWN EDOWN

It also had schematics for the converter itself, a blueprint-style drawing of the tunnel and access hatches. I was studying the converter and the error codes. To me, it looked like some kind of power surge had hit the converter and blown it.

While I was looking over the report, Kaden stuck his head in the truck's open hatch. "Anything I should know before we take off?"

We would spend about an hour flying there, so we had plenty of time to talk details while in flight. I waved at the photo. The figures were dressed in black with caps and masks. There were three men and a either a slight man or a woman heading out from the tunnel entrance. They were carrying guns, but that didn't necessarily mean they were bandits. I carried a gun, too.

They didn't look like they were barricading themselves in and I didn't see any bags or packs that might indicate explosives. They had a few automatic weapons, but it seemed to be mostly handguns. I didn't feel particularly nervous about this one.

"My guess is a smash and grab or the converter got caught in the crossfire of something else," I said. "There was a surge before it went down, which could also be someone trying to tie in and get power off it."

Kaden nodded while staring at the photo on the screen, making his own determination of risk from the limited information we had. "Fair enough," he said. "I'll send some guys ahead to scout the area before we bring you and the turd into it."

I grunted.

"Ready in five?" he asked.

"Yup," I said. Kaden exited The Dung Heap and I put the report aside to focus on pre-flight checks. I closed the door, made sure communications were up, and prepped the engines for flight. I'm sure the eggheads in the cities that designed this beast could tell you all about the ingenious anti-gravity and magnetics that allowed the thing to operate. I could tell you that it was the most ungainly vehicle I had ever had the misfortune to operate for any length of time. Slingers are fast and responsive vehicles designed to be an extension of the pilot. The Dung Heap was built for utility first and everything else a distant second. That being said, if I had to crash to Earth in something, I would much rather it was the turd than a slinger. I had a much better chance of surviving a crash in this thing.

Over comms I heard Kaden's voice, "you ready, Doc?"

I flipped the last safety release and settled my hands on the controls. "Ready," I said. I watched in the heads-up display. There were only four slingers now. The two scouts had already gone ahead of us. We lifted gently from the ground and the guns surrounded The Dung Heap in the air.

Over the next hour, I gave the details of the repair to Kaden and he talked over some strategies with his guys. The two scouts, Rachael and Devlin, would head to the site, make some wide circles around, and scan for any hostiles. We would meet them two klicks this side of the site and discuss what they had found.

Recon was always tough in an environment as flat as this one. The enemy could see you miles away and, with some tech, even further than that. You never knew what kind of tech bandits had, if they had any at all. Some bandits were little more than crazy outsiders, no job, no home, just drifting from one robbery to the next. Sometimes they were far more organized, the hired guns of a credit trader or barkeep with delusions of grandeur. The second were more likely to have tech and more likely to be dangerous. Assuming they had some tech, the slingers could still get some idea of what we were facing before they were too far in to retreat to a safe distance.

Kaden decided on some variations in approach, depending on what Rachael and Devlin found at the site. My part in all of this was simple: don't get killed. All the plans had to revolve around keeping me and the truck safe enough to do the job and get out again. It was kind of nice having my own personal safety squad, but it did make me feel like a pampered city kid at times. This was one of those times. I tried to not let it get to me.

After about 45 minutes, Rachael's voice came over the radio. "DH-niner, do you copy?" DH was our designation for The Dung Heap.

Kaden responded, "DH-scout-1, this is DH-niner, I copy you. What's the situation?"

"No sign of the hostiles," said Rachael. "We did a standard sweep. Do you want us to expand the search?"

Standard search would be a ten kilometer radius around the point on the line we needed to repair and a much larger area scanned with sensors of various sensitivity. This time, the flat landscape was in our favor; if they weren't hiding in that area, they would need to come in from further out and it would give us a chance to see them first.

"Negative," said Kaden, "circle the target and watch it until we get there." To me, he said, "sounds like the bandits took off."

"Disappointed?" I asked, smiling.

"Hell no," said Kaden. "We get red pay even if we never encounter resistance."

We flew the next fifteen minutes in silence. Five minutes out, Kaden started giving orders to his guns about formations and who had what chores. With the bandits gone, it was a fairly standard flight pattern. Rachael and Devlin would land and secure the door to the tunnel, two more guns would fly ahead and patrol the landing area while Kaden and one other slinger stayed on me while I landed.

Terse status updates began to flow in from Rachael and the other guns ahead of us. All situation normal as far as I could tell. I relaxed a little, but I couldn't afford to lose my edge just because it seemed like the danger had passed. Relaxing too much could get you killed out here, so I stuck to the program and landed as if there were active hostiles outside.

I secured the truck on the ground and gathered the tools and parts I would need for the repair. My pants had a million pockets for all the little gadgets I might need and a bat-belt for all the really common stuff. I pretty much never took off the bat-belt since it also had my gun, extra clips, flashlight, and multi-tool. I put the extra tools and parts into a well-used backpack and slung it over my shoulders. Since this was technically a red job, I was also required to carry a second firearm. I opted for a second handgun since combat seemed unlikely and shoved it into a holster under my right arm. I adjusted my baseball cap and radioed Kaden that I was ready.

"DH-niner, this is DHP, ready to deploy," I said. We used to joke that DHP stood for "Dung Heap Prince", but it really stood for "Dung Heap Primary", as if that was much better.

"Roger that, DHP," said Kaden. "You are good to go."

Tell the truth, I felt pretty silly with all the procedures and protocol when there was no real danger, but the protocols had saved my life a few times, so I was willing to live with feeling silly now and again. I opened the door to The Dung Heap and was hit with a wave of cold, wet spring air. The smell of turned earth was almost overwhelming after the sterile and slightly metallic smell of the truck's air processors.

I stepped out and saw Kaden's guys watching the area, their automatic weapons following their sight. The door to the tunnel was only a hundred meters away. I headed for it at a slow jog while Kaden and Steve covered my progress. I might have my doubts about Steve's mental prowess, but on the job he was nothing but professional.

The tunnel carried power and networking between antennas and other junction points where data and power changed direction or medium. This tunnel wasn't far from a maglev line between Winnipeg and Denver. A lot of people questioned the cost of building tunnels for power and communications when the maglev lines were above ground. Some of the first high-speed network interconnects were done with above-ground wires. After the first wave of EF5 tornadoes downed major portions of the network thirty years ago, the cost to build tunnels didn't seem so high after all.

The access hatch to the tunnel was set into the top of a circular concrete pimple. Rachael and Devlin were on the far side of the pimple looking away from it, alert for anything strange in all that wide open space. We jogged up to the dome and Kaden moved forward to open the hatch. He twisted the handle and pulled back while Steve covered the opening. Steve inched forward and looked down into the darkness with his weapon and attached flashlight.

"Clear," he declared. Kaden moved out from behind the hatch.

"Rabbit," he said to one of the guns near me. "Stay here and help Rachael and Devlin guard the hatch." To the other he said, "Monty, you're up front with Steve."

"Yes, sir!"

Steve and Monty slid down the ladder into the tunnel. Once they gave the all clear, it was my turn. I didn't slide down the ladder, I just climbed down. I'm not as young as I used to be and I didn't need to hurry. The yellow LED safety lights were dim to the point of invisibility next to the light of morning in the plains. I moved away from the ladder to let Kaden get down and waited for my eyes to adjust.

The builders had done a good job on the tunnel. I expected it to smell musty or wet like an old basement. The air was stale and dry. There were fans to bring in fresh air and expel smoke, if necessary, but I didn't think we had to worry about suffocating. The broken component wasn't far from the tunnel entrance.

"That way," I said, pointing to my left. "About thirty meters."

"Lucky it was so close to the entrance," said Monty from behind me.

"If it was bandits," I said, "they wouldn't likely stray too far from their way out."

"Cut the chatter," said Kaden. "Steve, head out, stay close, two meter lead."

"Got it," said Steve. He walked gingerly ahead of me and I tried not to speculate on what we'd find. I did one tunnel job, before I was with this team of guns, where some crazy religious nutjob had convinced his followers that the tunnels were the gates of hell. They had committed mass suicide to block the devil from returning. It was something I hoped I would never see again. I shuddered involuntarily at the memory.

Just before we reached the downed converter, Steve threw up his fist in a sign to stop moving. We froze. I tried to hear anything dangerous over my heartbeat and breathing. I didn't hear anything, but there was an odd smell in the air. It was acrid, like burning rubber or wire insulation, with an undertone of something more familiar. Not more pleasant, mind you, but more familiar.

I was just about to turn to Kaden to speak when I heard it. From further up the tunnel, a tiny voice sobbed once then went silent. I saw Steve's light flash toward the sound, then survey the area around it.

There was a catch in his voice when he said, "you better get up here, boss."

Kaden said to me, "stay here." He pushed past me and Steve. Monty pulled in the distance behind me, still facing back the way we had come.

"Man," Monty said, "what is that smell?"

"Don't know yet," I said.

"Smells like the time my cousin burned the shit out of his arm with some old jet fuel he found," said Monty.

As soon as he said it, I recognized the smell. I had burned my hands several times in the power safety classes, but it never smelled as strongly as this did.

Monty pressed on, "Steve, what's going on?"

"In a minute," said Steve, a waver in his voice. He coughed to cover it.

I could hear Kaden murmuring and trying to calm someone down. It sounded like a little kid. What would a kid be doing down here? Bandits, sure, they do crazy things, sometimes evil things to people. But people, especially those with kids, know better and stay protected. They either stay inside the city walls or in big groups with their kin out here.

Steve's light was pointing down now, not shining on anything. I wasn't anxious to see what new depths the human race had sunk to, so I didn't try to get a better look at Kaden and the source of the sob.

"Come on, man," said Monty, "give me something. Was it big? Will they be back? Anything." He didn't sound scared exactly, but he was on edge.

Kaden's said, "probably won't be back. Monty, head on back and grab a safety blanket and rations from your slinger, okay? Then bring them back down here."

"You got it, boss." The nervousness had left Monty's voice as soon as he had something to do.

Kaden murmured some more and then said, "Steve, come help me with little Jeremiah, here."

Steve moved forward, his flashlight and gun now stowed over his shoulder and pointing down. I could see the boy now. He was sitting with his back to the wall and his knees pulled tight into his chest. He was hugging his knees and rocking slightly. His face was dirty and streaked with tears. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, both of which looked too big on him.

Just to this side of the boy were two bodies that I assumed were his parents. They weren't moving and I was certain they were dead. I couldn't see much beyond their general shape and I wasn't sure I wanted to. If it was bandits that hit these folks, who knows what they had done.

Steve stood between the boy, Jeremiah, and the bodies of his parents. He and Kaden helped the boy to his feet. Standing, he looked even more frail than he had when he was sitting. Kaden and Steve guided Jeremiah past me and a few steps closer to the tunnel entrance we had used. They stopped and let Jeremiah sit again. As he was sitting, he saw his parents and broke into a sob.

Kaden murmured to Jeremiah and he nodded. "Steve," he said, "sit with the boy, will you?"

"Yes, boss," said Steve in a quavering voice. He sat next to Jeremiah, between the boy and his dead parents, trying to spare him that sight again.

Kaden got up and came over to me. He sighed. "It was bandits, but that's not what killed these folks."

"What was it?" I asked.

"From the kid's story, his parents were trying to hook up a heater to the power converter to keep them all warm. It blew up and killed them."

"Blew up?" I said.

"That's how the kid described it," said Kaden, "but he's only six years old, or so he says. Once we get him out of here we can check the bodies and see if that adds up."

"Did he remember the bandits?" I said.

"All too well," said Kaden. "He said he was down here, crying, trying to think of what to do when the bandits came and took all their stuff. Blankets, food, clothing, everything. He says he tried to stop them, and unless his parents gave him that shiner, he probably did try."

My stomach felt tight. It takes a special kind of heartless asshole to rob a kid who just lost his parents and leave him for dead. I really wanted to punch something.

Kaden spat in a vehement whisper, "son of a bitch!" His breathing was heavy and his face was red. "Those goddamn bandits better pray I never find them."

"Damn straight," I said.

Monty returned with the safety blanket and some food and water for the boy. He ate a few bites, but kept nodding off to sleep. I wondered if he had been able to sleep at all after the traumas of yesterday. We decided to get him back to the surface while he was still mostly awake. Kaden and Steve kept Jeremiah between them as we walked back to the hatch. Unprompted, Jeremiah took hold of Steve's hand as we walked. The poor kid probably felt lost and scared. I know I would have at his age.

Once on the surface, the other guns looked with surprise at the small addition to our group. But, they kept the chatter off the main comms and kept watch until Kaden told them otherwise.

Kaden and I decided that, while the danger had probably passed, the safest place for the boy was inside The Dung Heap. I gave Steve the codes for the door, in case he needed them. He led the boy into the truck and showed him where to sit. I think Jeremiah was asleep before the truck's hatch closed behind them.

With Jeremiah taken care of, we still had to deal with the bodies of Jeremiah's parents and fix the power converter. Kaden set Rachael and Devlin to digging some graves for the parents. Monty and Rabbit got a couple of tarps from their slingers and we went back down into the tunnel.

Kaden and I followed Monty and Rabbit into the tunnel. The stale air felt heavy and restrictive now. While the tunnel was now less scary to navigate, it was filled with more dread. But I learned a long time ago not to procrastinate too long on doing something unpleasant. Waiting doesn't make the task any more pleasant, it just makes you dread doing it more.

The four of us walked the short distance to the bodies. No one said anything. I don't know about the other guys, but my emotions were on a pretty short fuse after this. And I didn't think my mood would improve over the next few hours. It was better to get this done and save any talking for later.

We laid out the tarp next to the first body and rolled it onto the tarp. It was the dad. His hands were a charred and mangled mess. There was still a warped bit of melted plastic from the heater cable stuck to his hand. I almost lost my breakfast over that. Dead bodies are bad enough, but the combination of smell and emotion made my stomach churn.

Rabbit and Monty wrapped him up with the edges of the tarp. They picked him up and hauled the grizzly package back to the tunnel entrance. Kaden and I repeated this process with the second body. As we rolled the woman, a charred electric heater tumbled out of her hands. Not knowing what else to do, we put the heater on the tarp with her. We wrapped her up, picked her up, and headed back to the entrance.

As we started walking Kaden asked, "you think that kid, Jeremiah, will ever be the same again?"

"I don't know," I said truthfully. "Sometimes kids bounce back, sometimes they don't. My niece lost her dad when she was six or seven and she never had that innocence again. She always seems a little sadder than the other kids."

We walked in silence for few steps. Kaden took a breath, like he wanted to say something, then stopped. He did this a few times, but I didn't want to rush him. There's nothing that needs to be said at a time like this that needs to be said in a hurry.

Finally, Kaden said, "don't tell the other guys, but I don't know what to do after this. I mean, I know how to bury a body, but what do we do with Jeremiah? If he was an adult, we'd give him some food and water, maybe drop him at the nearest town. But he's a kid."

I was a little surprised at Kaden's comments. I was sure he knew about the city-run orphanages that would take any kids from outside the walls, if the kids could get there. We could take Jeremiah down to Denver and they would take care of him. It would only be an hour or two out of our way to the next job. But something about the way Kaden brough up the issue made me think he was consciously avoiding the idea of taking Jeremiah to the city.

I waited a few more minutes to see if Kaden would expand on his question. When he didn't, I said, "we should take him to Denver. They have people there-"

"Hell, no," said Kaden quickly. "I am not going anywhere near a city." He said it with such venom that I winced a little.

We walked a few paces, then I said, "let's get these folks buried and the converter fixed. Then we can talk about what to do next. Okay?"

Kaden grunted in sullen agreement.

Once we delivered the woman's body to the tunnel entrance, Kaden and I went back down the tunnel to the power converter. As I suspected, there had a been a surge and short when Jeremiah's parents had tried to use it to power a completely incompatible electric heater.

I cleaned off the contacts and reset some circuit breakers and fuses. After that the problem was resolved. My diag tool blinked straight to green this time. I closed up the security panel covering the converter and replaced the lock that Jeremiah's parents had destroyed getting the panel open in the first place.

The repair itself took less than a half hour. Kaden and I walked back towards the entrance in silence. After a minute, Kaden said, "before we get back into earshot of the kid, maybe we should talk this out now."

"Alright," I said. "You don't want to take him to Denver, but I think that's his best chance at survival."

"I can't go back to a city again," said Kaden. "There's too much stuff there. I can't-"

He stopped and looked at me in the low light. His eyes were wet, but he wasn't letting himself cry. I didn't know what had happened to him in the city, but I could guess. The orphanages might be inside the walls, but that didn't mean they were civilized or non-violent places.

Today was the kind of day where everyone's emotions came close to the surface. I was no different. It was ridiculous to play with a boy's life just because one man couldn't hold himself in check for a few hours. I took a deep breath and pushed down my anger at Kaden, the bandits, the kid's parents, and at the whole situation.

"We have to keep Jeremiah's best interests in mind," I said. "If we don't take him to a city, we can try to find a local family to take him in. That's going to take time and there's no guarantee he'll be safe-"

"He may not be safe in the city, either," said Kaden.

I took a deep breath to try and maintain my calm. Yelling at Kaden wasn't going to help. "That's true," I said.

When I was in tech specialist school in the city, they did give us some basic training in negotiation. Being able to talk yourself out of trouble is a valuable skill. In this case, being able to stay calm and keep emotions at bay was the most useful part of that training.

"Let's just talk to Jeremiah," I said, "before we decide anything. He and his parents must have been out here for a reason. Maybe they had family in the area."

Kaden let out a breath I didn't realize he had been holding. He chuckled a little and started walking again. I followed after him.

"You know, Doc," he said, "you're a lot more reasonable than the last tech I worked with."

When we got back to the tunnel entrance, Rachael and Devlin had finished burying the bodies. We radioed Steve inside the turd to have him and the boy come out. The hatch opened and Jeremiah was rubbing his eyes like he had just woken up.

Kaden explained to Jeremiah that we had buried his parents and that they were in a better place now. Jeremiah looked at the two plots of freshly turned earth and nodded tearfully.

Kaden asked him where he wanted to go now and Jeremiah broke down in tears. He sobbed, "I don't know, mommy and daddy were taking us to the city for work when we ran out of money and couldn't pay any more."

Steve said quietly, "there's only two big cities around here, Denver and Winnipeg. The maglev a few klicks east of here runs between them. I think there's even a loading stop there for putting processed wheat on the train."

"He said they couldn't pay any more," I said, quietly. "It's a loading stop. They wouldn't have put people off the train at that stop, would they?"

Kaden grated, "who knows what those arrogant city bastards would do."

"Jeremiah," I said, "do you know what city your parents were taking you to?"

"Dember," he said.

I looked at Kaden who just scowled at me.

Kaden said, "do you want to go to the city, or do you want us to try and find you a home around here?"

"No," said Jeremiah, shaking his head, "no, daddy said we're going to the city."

I looked at Kaden. He could still decide to try and find a local family and I wouldn't put up a fight. We weren't getting paid to deal with this situation, just the power converter repair. Kaden's guys might balk at spending time on this kid at all. But, from everything I had seen of the guns so far, they wouldn't. It was up to Kaden to decide how much to let his visceral reaction to the city guide him.

Finally, he motioned me over towards the truck. There we were out of earshot of the kid and his guns. "I'm not going within standard police drone distance of Denver," he said. "I'll ask they guys if any of them are willing to go up to the gate with you. If they all say no, are you okay to take him alone? I know our job is to protect you, but we're way outside the regs on this one."

I nodded. "I can take him in alone," I said. "Just get me near the drone border and I'll take him the rest of the way."

Kaden sighed. "Alright, that's what we'll do then." He started back to the group, but I caught his arm.

"Thanks," I said, "for everything today. I owe you a beer."

"Damn right you do," said Kaden, "at least one." He smiled a little and headed over to tell the guns the plan.

Half an hour later, we had closed up the hatch, let Jeremiah say his goodbyes to his parents, and were on our way to Denver. It was only an hour or so from our location. The slingers could have made much better time, but they had to stay with me because I had Jeremiah.

Slingers were no good at transporting passengers. They were designed for one person and no considerations were made for anyone else being on the thing. The designers of The Dung Heap thought ahead a bit and put in two flip-down seats in the beast. There was one seat that was kind of plush that could operate the extra diagnostic displays and communications arrays while the driver was in the primary seat. The second seat was toward the front of the truck, shoved into a corner, and clearly an after-thought.

For now, I only had one passenger. Jeremiah was mostly quiet on the trip. He would occasionally talk about his parents or where they had been planning to go. It was young kid gibberish and I had no idea how much was true at face value and how much was child fantasy and interpretation of the truth. Kids had never been my strong suit. I had nieces and nephews, sure, but they were small humans I saw on holidays. I didn't really know how to interact with them. That's why I was grateful that Jeremiah was mostly quiet.

The flat land rolled past beneath us. The farm machines glittered like the foil plates my grandma used to scare birds away from her garden. The sun was shining overhead and it promised to be warmer than yesterday. Amid the brown earth and farm machines, we could see the silver ribbon of the maglev rail come into view. There were no windows in the truck, but the console displays could show the exterior view in camera mode. I rarely used that mode since I was mostly concerned with elevations, wind, and direction more than taking in the sights. But, on a day like this and with my young passenger, I made sure the camera view was always on.

About thirty minutes outside Denver, Kaden called for us to stop and land our vehicles. We chose one of the maglev pylon near us to land. It sprouted above the earth on a sleek white concrete pillar and widened at the top for the rail. The whole thing was about fifty meters tall. The rail and other pillars snaked off into the distance.

When we discussed this little side track to Denver, Rabbit had volunteered to come with me and take Jeremiah to the city. The plan was to stop outside the range of the police drones and Rabbit would get inside the truck with me and Jeremiah.

Police drone operators can be a little touchy and they get nervous if you approach the city with more than one vehicle. It's understandable. The cities get attacked by crazy outsiders all the time. I never heard a good explanation why except "economic disparity".

But, a single company vehicle shouldn't be too threatening. So, Rabbit joined me and Jeremiah in the turd for the last bit of the journey. He left his slinger with the rest of the guns. I wasn't sure what Kaden's problem with the cities was and I didn't ask. Plenty of folks outside the walls have their reasons for being there. Most of the time, those folks would rather have those reasons kept private. Rabbit didn't have a problem with coming into police patrolled areas with me. Whether that was bravery or inexperience, I couldn't say.

Once Rabbit was strapped into the spare seat, we headed into the city controlled airspace. Jeremiah was more talkative now than he had been the entire trip.

"My daddy says there's all kind of work in the city," said Jeremiah. "Not like the life we had out on the plains."

"Oh yeah?" said Rabbit, thankfully taking the job of talking while I flew.

"Yup, work with lots of money," Jeremiah said. "My daddy said the people in the city live like kings and most of them don't even know it."

I wanted to hug Jeremiah. I wanted to tell him the truth and, at the same time, shield him from the truth. Life inside the walls was a lot like it was outside. Different scale, maybe, but the problems were the same.

Rabbit looked at me and I shrugged. He turned back to Jeremiah and said, "yup, life is a lot easier in the city. You hold onto that when you get there, okay?"

"Okay," said Jeremiah. "Do you think there will be other kids there I can play with?"

"Yeah," said Rabbit, "I think there will be other kids."

We had tried to explain the situation to Jeremiah, but with kids that age, you never know how much sticks. We also warned him that, once we got to the city, other people would take him away and he shouldn't be scared. We were about to see how he dealt with that.

The radio crackled to life and an angry voice said, "outside commercial vehicle number TF-1159, you are ordered to land and submit to inspection before proceeding."

"Roger," I said. "Be advised, we have a refugee child destined for the city."

I flipped the truck from cruise to close quarters maneuvers. I slowly brought the beast to a halt, setting it down on the barren nomansland that differentiated the city patrolled area from the outside. Back when the walls had first been built, they only patrolled up to the wall. After a few significant attacks from the outside, they started patrolling outside the walls far enough to see an attack coming before it landed.

The Dung Heap settled to rest and I unstrapped from my seat. I went to help Jeremiah with his when we heard a voice over the comms.

"Pilot, exit the vehicle and keep your hands where I can see them."

Rabbit looked at me with fire in his eyes. He's a pretty laid back guy normally, which is why I didn't hesitate to have him along with me. He's not the kind of guy to get wound up over nothing. But, I could see that being ordered around by someone he didn't know was enough to get him wound up a bit.

"It's okay," I said. "I'll go out and explain the situation. Just stay here until they say to come out."

I steadied myself. I don't particularly like being ordered around myself, but I learned to cope with it over the years. I opened the hatch and yelled, "okay, I'm coming out now."

I stepped out of the relative darkness of the truck into midday sunlight. I held my hands over my head and tried to be slow and non-threatening.

And I completely forgot about the two guns I was carrying.

As soon as I was visible to the policy vehicle, they went ape-shit. "Get down on the ground, now!" shouted one cop. "Don't move!" shouted another cop.

I froze and cursed myself for forgetting that I was armed. City folk can be so uptight about carrying a pistol or two.

"Well," I said, "which is it?"

After an annoyed silence, a voice yelled, "down on the ground!"

I slowly lowered myself to my knees. One of the cops had darted forward and kept his gun trained on me. I started to reach forward to lower myself onto the ground when the cop shoved me forward. As I fell, the cop wrenched my arms around behind me and zip-tied them together. My chest and face bounced off the dusty ground and I felt my lip split open. The cop pulled my guns from their holsters and tossed them away.

"Easy," I coughed. "We don't mean any trouble."

I got a second chance to curse myself. The cop on my back growled, "what do you mean ‘we'? Who else is in there?"

Rabbit picked a hell of a time to speak up. Half an hour of near silence, then suddenly he gets all talkative.

"Hired gun," said Rabbit and rattled of his name, rank, and serial number. "We're escorting a refugee from-"

"I don't give a rat's ass!" bellowed the cop nearest me. He stood up and had his gun drawn on the truck's open hatch. "Get your lazy outsider ass out here, now!"

I was never more grateful for someone's self-control than I was in that moment. Rabbit could have drawn on the cop, and probably would have survived. He could have argued with him, or taken the boy hostage, or any number of unpleasant things. Instead, Rabbit swallowed his pride and walked out of the truck.

The cop grabbed Rabbit and pushed him down to the ground. Rabbit let it happen and let the copy bind his hands as well. At this rate, I'd be buying beers for half of Kaden's guns before nightfall. He looked at me with fury in his eyes. His scowl screamed that I had better know what I was doing or there would be hell to pay. I hoped like hell I did know what I was doing. It had been a while since I'd been to the city and I had never had a refugee kid in tow before.

"Anyone else?" demanded the cop.

"A boy," I said. I lifted my head to speak. "A refugee from-"

The cop's hand slammed into my face and my head bounced off the ground for a second time. My head spun and I tried to remember which way was "up". I swear I could hear Rabbit's teeth grinding.

"Bullshit," said the cop. "You're just a couple of lazy, inbred outsiders trying to get into the good life in the city." He scoffed. "You probably stole this transport. Yeah, I'm going to go run your vehicle code. Where's your ID?"

I was starting to get as angry as Rabbit felt. "Under the main seat, yellow nylon pouch," I grated. I didn't want to send the cop into The Dung Heap at all. I have some professional pride and a sense of ownership over my vehicle. But I figured he wasn't going to let me get the ID for him, so the best thing was to get this over with.

He must have motioned to one of his buddies because another cop came jogging up and went into The Dung Heap. Belatedly, I remembered to warn the new cop about Jeremiah. "There's a boy still in there," I said. "His name is Jeremiah and he's a refugee from the plains. We-"

"Holy shit!" I heard the cop's voice say from inside The Dung Heap. "There's a kid in here!"

Rabbit chuckled. Despite my anger, I had to admit, it was pretty funny. I had run into some real winners in my day, everything from city tellers of all varieties, to farm boys dumber than combines. But these guys had the communication skills of a pet rock.

"You think that's funny, asshole?" demanded Angry Cop. He leaned down to yell at Rabbit who laughed a little more before going silent.

"Yes, sir," said Rabbit, "pretty funny."

Angry Cop scoffed. "You know what I think? I think you stole that boy from some backwater town and you're bringing him here to sell him."

Rabbit sobered faster than I could blink. The angry blaze in his eyes was back. All the trouble I thought we had avoided was still on the table. There were still two cops back at their vehicle with automatic weapons pointed this way, never mind the trigger-happy Angry Cop and Doofus, his deputy.

"Easy," I said, as much to Angry Cop as to Rabbit. "We just want to see the boy safely to the city."

Doofus was guiding Jeremiah out of The Dung Heap. They started back towards the cop car. Angry Cop stomped into the truck and got my ID pouch. He then followed Doofus and the boy back to their vehicle.

They let us wait a good fifteen minutes while they checked my ID and the registration of The Dung Heap. My guess was they were also trying to get the story out of Jeremiah to see if we were telling the truth. Rabbit didn't say a word the entire time. He just lay there, actively holding his anger in check. Part of me wondered if he had ever dealt with city cops before. If this was his first exposure to them, it wasn't a very good one. But, truth be told, most of my interactions with city cops were just like this one, even when I was living in the city for my training.

After fifteen minutes, a police drone showed up, hovering over us. It was silent and threatening, like a turkey vulture crossed with a territorial rottweiler. Its smooth silver surface shone in the warm noon sun. The red and blue lights were flashing, but in the bright sun, it was hard to see them at all. It changed positions a few times, then held still for a minute. I guessed that the drone pilot, somewhere deep in the city, was talking to the cops here on the ground.

I looked over to see Angry Cop scowling and talking to the drone pilot. The way Angry Cop was staring off into space as he talked reminded me of my grandpap's stories about comms. My grandpap remembered a time when communications didn't have the easy interface they do now. Back in his day, you had to hold a device up to your head. When they first tried to get away from holding a device to your head, you attached a smaller device to your head instead. My grandpap said that when that first started, people couldn't tell whether someone was talking to you or into the device attached to their head. Something as obvious as talking on comms had to be learned by older generations. It was crazy.

A few minutes later, the drone flew off. Doofus and the other two cops got into the police vehicle. Angry Cop came stalking over to us. He tossed my ID pouch at me and reluctantly cut the zip-cuffs off my wrists. I let my arms drop to my sides and sensation flooded back into my shoulders and arms. He went to free Rabbit.

I didn't want to move right away. He had kicked my guns away, but I could still reach them in time to be a danger. I didn't want Angry Cop firing on me because he thought I was going for a gun. Plus, my arms hurt too much to move them right away. He cut Rabbit free and stalked back toward their vehicle.

"Get out of here, both of you," he snarled. "And don't ever come back to Denver."

I could hear Rabbit swearing under his breath, but he wasn't loud enough for Angry Cop to hear. The door to the police cruiser closed and it lifted off into the air with a hum. The cops turned towards the city and were out of visual range in under a minute.

Rabbit let the volume on his swearing increase until he was yelling in the direction the cops had gone. He was creative, too. I don't think I'll ever look at squid and drain cleaner the same way ever again. I pushed myself up to a sitting position and watched Rabbit add some gestures to his swearing.

When he had exhausted his curses, he spat in the direction the cops had gone. "Fucking cops," he said. He walked back in my direction and collected my handguns for me. I stood up and reholstered the guns.

"This your first run-in with city cops?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Rabbit, spitting again.

"Well," I said, "that's about standard for those guys. Not real bright and jumpy as a rabbit on meth, if you'll pardon the expression."

Rabbit chuckled. We ambled back to The Dung Heap and climbed inside. I started the pre-flight checks while Rabbit closed the door and strapped in.

"I guess that's why none of the other guys wanted to come with you on this little errand, huh?" he said.

I grunted. "Among others, I'm sure. The cities have a way of polarizing people."

There was a slight pause. "They do what?" said Rabbit.

"Polarize," I said. "Make people either love or hate cities. I never met anyone that didn't have strong feelings one way or the other."

"Oh, got it," said Rabbit.

I clicked off controls in silence for a minute, then Rabbit said, "I never heard that word before. Sometimes I forget how smart you are."

Internally, I kicked myself. One of the things I love about being outside the wall is that we're all just people out here. People argue and fight, but when it comes down to it, we're all in it together. I never felt like people were put above or below anybody else. At least, that's how my life went.

Sure, there were people trying to get more money, power, or prestige out here, mostly by bullying or intimidating people. They could be kings of their hill, but as they built it up, someone could just as easily come and knock it down. Still, most folks were just folks, working and getting by.

So, when Rabbit said I was smart, he was right. But I never, ever wanted that to be how I was known, especially not to the guns. They needed to believe I was someone worth protecting and it's more natural to want to protect people you can relate to. And, well, it's just no fun to work with guys who won't talk to you because they think you're too smart for them.

"I take that as a compliment," I said. I finished the checks and made sure Rabbit was ready before I lifted off. I angled us away from the city and back to where Kaden and the rest of the guns were waiting for us.

Chapter Four

It was a little after 14:00 when we met up with Kaden again. I landed the turd and Rabbit and I got out. I wanted to talk to Kaden about the next job a bit before we took off again.

We cleared the hatch and walked to where Kaden was sitting on his slinger. He and the guys were talking and eating some of their rations.

"How did it go?" asked Kaden.

"We dropped off Jeremiah," I said. "I hope they do right by him."

Kaden raised an eyebrow at the bruise on my cheek, but said nothing. He turned to Rabbit and said, "so, how was it, city-virgin?"

Rabbit looked like he was gearing up for another long cursing streak, so I cut him off before he got started.

"He can fill you in on the way," I said. "We have one more job today, if you're all up for it. It's a long haul from here, but it should be a milk run."

Kaden looked around at the guys and they all nodded. "Let's do it," he said.

I went back to my truck and got my own ration pack out to eat on the way. I started the takeoff process and sent the job information over to Kaden. I heard him giving orders to his guys before I closed the hatch for takeoff.

We lifted off, scouts in front, four slingers hanging back with me. I set the autopilot and started munching away on my rations. Kaden's voice came over comms on a private frequency, so it was just us talking.

"Anything happen with the city cops I should know about?" he asked.

"Just cops being cops," I said. I wasn't really in the mood to be debriefed, so I left it at that.

Kaden was silent for a minute, then he said, "the guys were glad for what you did, taking the kid to the city like that."

"I thought you didn't want Jeremiah to go to the city," I said.

"I didn't," he said, "but it was the right call. So, thanks."

"Don't mention it," I said.

We flew on in silence for a while, then Kaden switched back to the open frequency to goad Rabbit into telling us what he thought of city cops.

Three hours later, we had arrived at the second job. It was only a few klicks south of the last job involving microwave antennas. That was more than a little suspicious in my book. I had warned Kaden that I thought something was weird about this job. But without any more information or specifics on how it was weird, there wasn't much he could do but take it slow and cautious.

At least this time at the tower, it wasn't quite as cold. The day had been sunny and warm and some clouds had rolled in just in time to hold the heat. After scouts declared the area safe, we landed. I let the guns secure the area while I geared up for the repair.

When I re-read the job summary, I noticed a footnote that I had missed the first time. This tower was scheduled to be replaced by a remotely serviceable unit early next year. It didn't matter for this job, but it was the first time I had seen that notice on towers in my area.

Now, I say "my area", but it's not like there's any assignments out here. Jobs come up, anyone can take them if they have the training to fix it and if they can get it done in the requested time window. If not, the job parameters get changed to increase the people who are notified of the job in the hopes that somebody fixes it. Sometimes, the parameters changed how much the job paid to make it more enticing.

Here's another case where not-quite-bright Steve would probably try to play the system. You could just let a job get older and hope that it would get a bump in pay. But, there were other repair folks looking at the same jobs as you. If you didn't take it, someone else might. Even if a bunch of you agree not to take any jobs for a while to bump the pay, you have no guarantee the other folks will do that. So most of us repair folks will just take the jobs as they come.

Sometimes a job will get picked up by someone who can't finish in time. The job gets modified and someone else picks up the job. Now, the first guy might have been on his way to the job when it expired. There were stories of two guys wrangling for who had rights to a job. The most colorful of these stories often ended in fist fights. In extreme cases, there have been people shot over repair jobs. I know some of those stories are true, but most are just good stories.

Once this tower was replaced by an automated tower, that meant there would be less work available for me to do. The dismantling of the old tower and erection of the new one would be done by humans, but by construction workers, not folks like me. It was a little strange to know that your job was going to be obsolete in a year and knowing you still have to do it. Still, there would always be work for humans outside the wall, so I wasn't worried.

I opened the truck's hatch to the night. Kaden and I walked to the gate protecting the maintenance stairs of the tower.

"Good luck up there," he said. "Holler if you need anything."

"You got it," I said. I began the long climb up to the maintenance level. It's good to have a job that keeps me in shape. I got a little pudgy when I was in the city. It was too much sitting around in a classroom or lab. I tried to lift weights a few times or go running, but it just felt dumb. Where I grew up, you lifted heavy things because they needed to be moved and you ran because you were in a hurry or you were being chased. Running for fun or moving heavy things just to move them seemed pointless.

My last year there, I figured out a way around it. I quit my student job at the training center. Instead of helping people figure out what was wrong with their terminal, I went to work helping poor people move. The middle class could afford to hire robots to help them move; not so with some of the city's poor.

Taking that moving job was the best decision I ever made. I got some exercise and I got to meet a lot of different people. Most of the people in the training center were from the city. They bitched constantly about how little money they made and they were solely focused on getting more credits and more stuff.

If that's how you want to live, I'm not one to judge. But it wasn't how I was raised and I could never quite relate. I was raised that you had what you needed and no more. Any extra you had, you put aside for a rainy day. That was true of food, water, money, or whatever. When I found the job moving people, I learned a few things.

First, not everyone in the city was as rich as people outside the walls would like to believe. Some of the folks I helped were as poor as any of my neighbors growing up.

Second, despite their poverty, there were people in the city with the same attitudes on life as my family. They were tough and they got by. If I had never seen that, I would have a very different opinion of city folks.

Finally, I learned that automation is not the answer to everything. Our training classes taught us all about the automation that kept the factories, the farms, and most of the networks connected and running. We were told that automation would solve all the problems. We never talked about what people would do when the jobs disappeared. That's a long discussion I didn't have time for, but I knew in my gut that humans would always be needed. Beyond programming or designing automation and robots, so far, nothing beats having humans on the ground.

Consequently, I didn't mind the long climb up to the maintenance level in the growing chill. It was good exercise and gave me a chance to clear my head. Normally I don't think all that much about the city versus the outside. The events of the day had brought it all back to the front of my mind.

I got to the maintenance cage near the antenna array and went to unlock the cage door. It was set into the floor of the maintenance cage and opened away from the ladder that I had to climb to reach it. The green paint was mostly gone and the remaining metal was covered in rust. When I reached for the lock, something looked wrong, and I stopped.

The networked lock that would record my comings and goings was missing. In its place was an old-fashioned dumb lock that took only a metal key. On the flat flange where the lock passed through the metal for the hatch and the platform, someone had written "Lou" in stylized letters.

I stared at the lock and the letters for a minute. All the other locks to this point had been standard issue company locks. They were networked and used a combination of electrical and mechanical safeguards to keep unauthorized people out. In order to get here, someone would have to have company keys and access codes. Or, they would have to cut through the metal cage that protected the stairs, but I hadn't seen any cuts on my way up. So another company tech had been here before me.

We were a little late getting to this job, so I checked my bracer to see if the job was already marked as done. It was still marked as available, so no one had fixed the problem yet. This whole thing was weird. I made a note of it in my logs and took some photos, just in case this came back to bite me.

Satisfied I had documented things enough, I descended to the landing just below the maintenance cage. I dug through my backpack for the small pair of bolt cutters I kept in there. The company issued me a battery powered cutting tool for cases like this, but they were unreliable on a good day, so I usually left them in the truck. The manual bolt cutters had a far better track record in my experience.

I clipped off the lock and put the useless remains in my backpack along with the bolt cutters. If I ever found Lou, I was going to return the lock along with my fist. That kind of thing was just unprofessional and frankly, it stank of a dog marking its turf.

I climbed back up the ladder and pushed open the hatch. I stuck my hand up through the opening and something came whipping out of the dark towards it. I yanked it back down hard enough that I lost my grip on the ladder. I grabbed for the rungs in an awkward motion and caught myself a few rungs down, banging my knees against the metal.

I swore and got my feet more firmly onto a rung. Kaden's voice on comms said, "Doc, you okay up there?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I said. "Some asshole booby trapped the hatch."

"Don't move," he said, "I'll be up in a couple of minutes."

I really didn't want to be the guy who calls in the big guns over every little thing. Plus, it made me feel stupid. The different lock should have been warning enough. I blamed the long day for making me sloppy.

"No, it's fine," I said. "I'll be careful."

"Fuck that," said Kaden. I could hear that he was already on the move up the stairs. "You get killed out here and I'm the one that has to fill out all the paperwork. Plus, it looks like shit on my record."

A few minutes later, Kaden was standing one landing below where the ladder started. His gun was drawn and he scanned the platform below me for any signs of traps.

"I think you're clear to come down off the ladder," he said.

I grunted. "Should be," I said. "I was standing on it only a few minutes ago."

"Was that before you triggered the trap?"

"Yeah," I said. "Fair point." I climbed down the ladder and gingerly stepped off onto the platform. Nothing happened, so I relaxed a little and ventured a look up at the maintenance cage. In the middle of the cage's floor, there was a squat black cylinder.

Kaden came up the last flight of stairs to join me by the ladder. I gestured at the cylinder and I felt him tense beside me. His gun ranged over the entire maintenance cage, looking for more threats. A minute later, he relaxed a little and lowered his weapon.

"That seems to be the only physical trap," Kaden said. He looked at me with a mixture of surprise and scolding. "You find something weird and you don't think to tell me?"

I sighed. "Spare me the lecture," I said. "I know, I'll be more careful next time."

"Next time?" he said. "You're lucky to still have your head."

"What do you mean?" I pointed at the cylinder. "What is that thing?"

"We call them ankle-biters," Kaden said, "because they're not usually setup to take your head off. They're vicious anti-personnel weapons meant for close quarters. Inside the cylinder are hundreds of strands of spidersteel. The thing detects motion then spins up and whips a strand of spidersteel at whatever is nearby."

I blinked in horror. I was indeed lucky to have my head and my hand. Spidersteel only became popular in the last ten years. Before that, it was too expensive to really do much with. The stuff was formed in a bio-mech process that combined the tensile strength of spider silk with the strength and durability of steel. It was flexible and tough. In large sizes, it was replacing braided steel cables for suspension work. In small sizes, I had seen it used to make Faraday bags and small security ropes. It was awesome stuff.

And moving at high speed, it was deadly.

I had seen safety videos about it during my training when they were still figuring out how to make it cheaply and what to do with it. They showed us videos of what it could do. The intent was to scare us into not messing around with it on the job. They had this video of a cable four millimeters in diameter slicing through a full side of beef. It was impressive to say the least.

"Holy shit," I said.

"Yeah," said Kaden. "Whoever put this here really doesn't want anyone else coming around."

"Where do you even get something like that?"

"They were military only for a long time," said Kaden. "Now pretty much every arms dealer can get you one."

I shook my head. Just what I needed, more horrific ways to die. Kaden studied the device from a distance, looking for a way to disarm it. The bottom of the thing was visible between the holes in the grated floor of the maintenance cage. He cautiously approached it without going up the ladder. It didn't react at all. From the looks of it, my guess was that it was only deadly to the sides of the device but that from the top and bottom it was vulnerable.

He studied it for a minute then came back to where I was standing. He scowled and said, "we have a couple of options, none of them good."

"Okay," I said, "give me the bad news."

"We can EMP it, close range, small burst," said Kaden.

I shook my head. "Hell, no. Too dangerous. There's way too many other systems around here that would be fried in the process."

Kaden nodded, "yeah, I guess, but that's the easiest."

"What else you got?" I asked.

"So, I've never actually tried this, but a buddy of mine heard about it," he said. "That thing has a finite number of strings. We just get a stick or something and let it attack the stick over and over until it's out of strings."

"How long will that take?" I asked. The device was about fifteen centimeters in diameter and twenty centimeters tall. The strings themselves were maybe two millimeters in diameter. You could wrap a hell of a lot of strings up in there.

"I have no idea," said Kaden, "if it even works. Like I said, I never tried it."

"Is it safe for me to go have a look underneath?"

"Sure," said Kaden, "it should be."

I walked cautiously over until I was standing almost underneath it. The base didn't look like it was metal, but the casing was. The events of the morning had given me an idea. I walked back over to Kaden.

"I have an idea," I said, "but if I'm wrong, I could fry us and the whole tower."

"You never do anything by half, do you, Doc?" said Kaden. "What's the idea?"

"If the base of that thing is non-conducting, like I think it is," I said, "this will work and we won't get electrocuted."

"Okay," said Kaden, "let's hear it."

I explained my plan to him. The strings were conductive. At some point just as they were leaving the device, the would still be in contact with the device and exposed to anything outside it. We had access to high voltage power and conductive wires. My plan was to touch one wire to the metal casing and bait the device into firing a string into the other wire. Power would go between the two ends of the wire and fry the device in the middle.

That was the theory anyway. There were lots of ways this plan could go wrong.

Kaden listened to the plan and asked some good questions. We decided on some fallback strategies in case frying the thing didn't work. Mostly, they involved damage control and surviving the situation. I had some big, insulated gloves and non-conducting boots in the truck so we went down to get them. I considered getting a larger cable for this job, but the wire leads had to feed up between the holes in the grated floor, so they couldn't be too big.

Once at the bottom of the tower, Kaden briefed his guys and set them to patrolling the area while he and I went back up the tower to fry us an ankle-biter. I only had one set of non-conducting boots, so to add insult to this whole affair, we would have to stand on one foot while we did it. Fortunately, the power mains were within reach of the spot where I needed to stand. Kaden agreed that he would be the one to bait the device since his reflexes were better than mine if anything went wrong.

I pushed one wire up through the floor and touched the casing. Kaden pushed one wire close to the device, but didn't raise it far enough to trigger the sensor. He nodded to me and we both stood on the foot that had the non-conducting boot on it.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Ready," said Kaden. Using one hand, I hooked up the wires to the mains. Despite the chill air, I was sweating. Nothing in my classes had ever prepared me for this. I turned back to Kaden and said, "go!"

He pushed the wire up through the grate and I waited for the explosive contact with the spidersteel, but nothing happened. This was not a situation we were prepared for.

He pushed the wire up further and waved it around, but still the device didn't react. I disconnected the mains power from our wires so we could discuss it.

"It must have some other kind of sensors, besides motion," said Kaden.

"Like what?" I asked. "Heat?"

"Maybe," he said.

I handed him a small butane torch from one of my many pockets. Before we tried with the power leads, we decided to try baiting the device with the torch. Kaden held it near the floor grate and ignited it. There was a quiet whipping sound and a strand of spidersteel sliced its way through the steel railings behind where the torch had been. Successful test.

We got everything ready and tried again. Balanced on one foot each, I hooked up the mains. Kaden pushed his wire into position and ignited the torch. There was a flash of light and a loud pop as the ankle-biter died.

I disconnected the mains and gave Kaden the all clear. The black exterior of the booby trap was charred and smoking slightly. The cylinder was crumpled a bit from the heat. Just to be sure, Kaden ran the torch all around the thing, but it didn't react. I let out a long sigh of relief.

Chapter Five

We spent the next half hour cleaning up the dead ankle-biter and checking for any other traps. Kaden did most of the checking and I handled the watching him and naming parts of the tower that were supposed to be there. I never realized just how many parts of the antenna array looked threatening if you didn't know what they were.

Satisfied that there were no more traps, he descended the ladder out of the maintenance cage to let me go up to the job we came for. On his way down the ladder, he noticed the stylized "Lou" on the lock flange. He paused and recognition mixed with something else on his face. Without saying a word, he dropped down to the metal deck and gestured for me to go up.

"Shouldn't be more than a half hour," I said.

Kaden grunted. "I'll wait here," he said. "I don't like surprises."

I got to work pulling out the broken relay coupling. It was a pretty straight forward process and since I had just done one yesterday I was able to work quickly and without thinking too much. Kaden was holding the ankle-biter and staring off into the gathering darkness.

"Who's Lou?" I asked.

Kaden shook his head, but didn't turn around. "Later," was all he said.

I put the new relay in and went to attach the leads for the diagnostics. One of the connectors on my diag tool had been crushed. I guessed it happened when I nearly fell off the ladder and smacked into the metal rungs. I figured I could work around it and attach the separate leads manually. I leaned down to get a better angle on the connection and noticed some scratch marks around the relay housing.

This job was getting weirder. I pulled the new relay out of the housing and looked at the connectors. They looked normal to me, but until yesterday, I had never really looked inside one. I decided to not to risk it. I used my bracer to tell the system I was about to break something so it wouldn't create a job to fix it. Then I disabled one of the other relays. I took it out of its housing and compared the two.

I expected one to be different, but they looked identical. I studied them in detail for a minute or two making sure I had compared everything. I also took a picture of the relay slots and the scratches for the log book, just in case. Confused but at a loss for what else I could really do, I put the two relays back in and manually connected the leads of the diagnostic tool.

I punched the buttons on the diag tool and waited. Remembering the weird lights from last time, I watched the tool and tried my very best not to blink. After twenty seconds, it chirped and I saw the light go red then green.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I hadn't imagined the lights last time and it was happening again. What exactly was happening, I couldn't say, but this was something I needed to escalate.

I disconnected the diag tool and closed up the relay housing. I wasn't going to get any more useful information from here for now. I locked the housing with a new lock and descended the ladder out of the maintenance cage. I also locked the hatch with a new lock and turned to Kaden.

"All done," I said. "There's a whole lot of weirdness going on here. I have to write a report."

Kaden turned to me, still holding the dead ankle-biter. His face was solemn as he nodded. "Fine," he said, "I need to talk to the guys about something."

I grabbed my backpack and we descended the stairs. It had been a hell of a long day and it wasn't over yet. The guys gathered around Kaden and I retreated to The Dung Heap to write my report and make sure all my logs and pictures got routed to the right person next up the chain. I was about half-way done when Kaden pinged me that he wanted to talk when I was finished.

I finished up the report and sent it on its way. Now there was nothing more I could do until they got back to me. I exited the truck and saw Kaden surrounded by his guys and they all looked pissed off. No fight had broken out it seemed, so I reasoned that they weren't mad at each other.

Kaden looked at me and said, "we need to go see Lou." He gestured to the dead booby trap in his hand.

"Alright," I said.

"This is a personal mission for us," said Kaden. "You don't have to go. In fact, you can order us to stay, and-"

"No," I said firmly. "You say you need to go, then let's go."

A smile tugged at Kaden's lips, but his eyes remained angry. Whoever this Lou person was, they must have really done a number on Kaden and his guys. The other guns relaxed a little when I agreed to go along without argument.

"Okay," said Kaden, "you heard the man, let's go."

The guns mounted up on their slingers and I went back to the truck to get it ready for takeoff. Kaden sent me the destination. It was way further south than I usually go, south and slightly east of Kansas City. I settled in and let the autopilot take over. It was going to be a long ride.

You're not supposed to sleep while the autopilot flies, just in case something bad happens and you have to take over quickly. But it had been a long day and I didn't know what we were walking into. Better to get a little slightly hazardous shut-eye now than to risk being too tired to dodge a punch later.

The autopilot pinged me when we were about twenty minutes away from our destination. I was lucky to be able to sleep in the truck. It's possible to sleep on a slinger, but falling off is a much greater problem. I opened up the short-range communications frequency again.

"Did I miss anything?"

"Have a good nap, Doc?" asked Kaden. His voice was hard, but not angry, and I knew his anger wasn't directed at me.

"You bet," I said. I switched over to a private frequency. "You want to fill me in on this little expedition before we get there?"

The was a pause and I worried that I had torn open whatever wound was festering under the name "Lou" and the booby trap we had found. Eventually, Kaden said, "yeah, that's probably for the best." He paused again and I waited for him to continue.

"About a year ago, my guns and I were running escort for Lou," he said. "There's just no easy way to say this, but Lou is a piece of work. She doesn't care for anybody but herself."

"She?" I asked, unable to stop myself. Female techs were not uncommon, but I had assumed that Lou was a guy.

"Yeah," said Kaden, "Louisa Perez, but she told us to call her Lou. Anyway, about a year ago, we're on this red job over near the Mississippi. It was a tower, kind of like the one we were just at, but with more cover on the ground, more trees around the base. We're taking fire from some hostiles in the underbrush that just came out of nowhere, man. We're fighting, I'm telling Lou to hurry her ass up on the repair and she comes back with something smart. Next thing I know, Jerry, the guy next to me, he just-"

The radio cut out for a minute, but I let it pass. No stories like this end well for the people in them.

Kaden said, "Jerry fell, bullet in the head. Just like that, a guy I've known for five years, who I've survived this job with for five years, just gone. Well, we eventually fought back the hostiles, driving them off to wherever they came from."

"Shit," I said, "that sucks."

Kaden laughed without humor. "That ain't the worst of it," he said. "You expect to be in a few firefights in this job. And you expect to lose folks, even when you wish it wasn't so. But…" He trailed off for a second, then resumed. "So, we're there, at the base of the tower, still adrenaline pumped from the fight and pissed off about Jerry. And Lou comes banging down the tower stairs. She looks at Jerry and she says, how are we going to get his slinger back so we can turn it in so we don't get charged for it."

I swallowed. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach, and I wasn't even there for the firefight. "She said what?"

"Yeah," said Kaden, his voice tight, "like I said, Lou is a piece of work. Anyway, some choice words ensued and I took a swing at her. Nevermind that I've seen her hold her own in a bar fight, Lou used me trying to hit her as an excuse to get rid of me and my team. After that, we drifted around, working for different techs. I hoped I would never run into Lou again, but I guess it was bound to happen, sooner or later."

"You think Lou set the ankle-biter," I said.

"Definitely," said Kaden. "It's her style."

"She could have just tagged the tower and someone else could have left the trap," I said, not really believing it myself.

"Maybe," said Kaden, "but I'll lay good odds that she's the one behind the trap."

I let the radio lapse into silence for the rest of the flight in. We were going to a bar that Kaden said used to be Lou's favorite. It had some kind of striped large cat in its logo. We parked at the far end of the lot.

I set The Dung Heap down and left most of the easily damaged tools from my bat-belt in the truck. I made sure to bring an extra knife and my second handgun. I left the truck and closed and locked the hatch behind me. I met Kaden and his guys over by the slinger racks. They looked somber and determined. Kaden was carrying the blackened and crumpled ankle-biter.

We followed Kaden towards the bar. It was far less vertically inclined than The Kicking Mule. There were many doors into the sprawling bar, and it looked far more orderly than the Mule. Kaden chose a door and we went in.

The interior was split into neat sections. There were private tables in one corner, private rooms in another corner, pool tables and darts in a third corner, and TVs and couches in the fourth corner. In the center was a massive square bar.

I was surprised at the TVs. Most city TV didn't run cable out this far, and broadcast TV was a thing of the past even in my grandpap's day. It must cost a boatload of credits to get TV out here.

Our arrival in the bar went largely unnoticed and Kaden scanned the private tables until his eyes locked onto one near the private rooms. I followed his gaze and saw a woman that I assumed was Lou surrounded by her own squad of six guns. The guns were armed similar to us and I didn't really want to see them throw down with Kaden and his team. Not that I didn't trust him to hold his own, but there would be trouble with the barkeep and who knew how many guys they had, just waiting in the wings. A place that could afford TV with that many channels could definitely afford some hired guns of their own.

"Follow my lead," said Kaden, his jaw clenched. We fell in behind him and walked over to Lou's table.

The guns on the edges of the table sensed our approach and stood up, bristling, their hands drifting towards weapons. Lou's eyes snapped up see what had spooked her guys. Her brows furrowed when she saw Kaden, but she said something to keep her guns from getting more aggressive with us.

Kaden reached the end of the table and glared at Lou. He tossed the damaged ankle-biter onto the table. It bounced and rolled over the scarred wood before coming to a stop in front of Lou. A few strands of spidersteel had come unspooled and lay inert and harmless on the table.

Lou's eyes never left Kaden's.

"I think you forgot this," said Kaden. There was fury in his voice.

"Kaden," said Lou, "long time. What brings you to my territory?"

"Funny thing," said Kaden, "we were doing a job nowhere near your territory and guess what we found?"

Lou's eyes narrowed and she leaned slightly forward. "Was it Jerry's ghost?" she asked in mocking conspiratorial tones.

I felt sure that Kaden was going to go apeshit over that comment, because I almost did, and I had never met Jerry. He stood perfectly still, but I felt the temperature in the air go up as all his guys reigned in their anger.

"What were you doing up at tower IF-387, Lou?" he snarled. "That's way outside your usual territory."

Lou spread her hands and leaned back slightly. "Territories change all the time," she said. "Now, more than ever, I've got to protect what's mine."

"And fuck anyone that gets in your way, right?"

Lou leaned forward again, her eyes bright with anger. "Damn straight," she said. "Now I suggest you walk your posse and your new boyfriend out that door before I show you what happens on my territory."

I felt the guys getting ready for a fight. Kaden braced himself and said, "fuck you."

All hell broke loose for the shortest fight I had ever been in. Four of Lou's guys were still sitting around her table and couldn't get to the fight right away. Rachael and Devlin punched the guy to the left in the jaw and the gut at the same time. To my right, Rabbit feigned a right hook and kneed the guy in the groin while he was dodging the punch.

I expected the guys around the table to lunge out at Kaden and me, but instead they produced automatic weapons from underneath the table. As Rachael and Devlin were gearing up for another attack, Monty swore loudly. He and Steve had been watching our back. Rabbit dropped the guy he had attacked to the ground and froze at the sight of the automatic weapons.

I glanced over my shoulder and there were another six guys with automatic weapons aimed at our backs. Normally, bars don't allow automatic weapons at all. Lou had two squads of guns here, all armed to the teeth.

The chatter in the bar dropped to zero and even the TV was muted. Only the couples inside the private rooms were oblivious to our showdown. Their noises of passion filled the otherwise empty air. Well, that and Rabbit's guy who groaned and clutched at his balls.

"In my territory," said Lou, standing up and leaning on her hands on the table, "you get the fuck out of my face when I tell you to." She picked up the damaged ankle-biter and tossed it at Kaden. He let it bounce off his shoulder and clatter to the ground. Lou waved at us in a dismissive motion. "Get them out of here."

Her two squads of guys grabbed us and marched us none too gently towards the door. The insults started flying and the natural noise of the bar picked up behind us. I idly wondered what Lou did for the bar that made them tolerate two squads of guns and all the automatic weapons. I also wondered what she meant by "now more than ever" she had to protect her territory. What had her spooked to venture out into other areas?

The two guys on me shoved me out into the cold spring air. I stumbled a few steps but caught myself. When we were all outside, they slammed the doors closed behind us. We were left standing in the dark, humid night, no less pissed off than we had been going in.

Chapter Six

Rage is a funny thing. It can push you to make mistakes, to do things you'll regret for the rest of your life. It can also push you to make mistakes you regret just long enough for the hangover to disappear.

After the showdown with Lou, we went to another bar and bought bottles of bourbon and vodka. We went out into the dark night, away from everyone. We built a fire and shot at things that moved in the trees while we got shit-faced and tried to forget all our troubles. We drank to forget the day: to forget the ugly situation where we found Jeremiah and to forget being outgunned at Lou's. And we drank to remember Jerry and other lost friends. I never knew Jerry, but I knew how I'd feel if any of the guys in Kaden's crew ever got killed. They were good guys, one and all. You're never luckier than to have something like that.

The night trickled away as inebriation set in and the weight of the day settled down on us. After a few hours, I passed out next to the fire. When I woke to pee a few hours later, I saw Kaden sitting by the fire, just staring at it. Everyone else was still asleep. I watched him for a minute then moved to get up.

"Do you ever think about settling down, Doc?" he asked. "Giving up this life, going to a family somewhere who can use an extra hand and staying in one place?"

"Sometimes," I said. "Always on the move can be a tough way to live."

Kaden was quiet for a time, so I continued. "What keeps me out here is knowing that I'd go crazy after a while. I can't stay still for too long. I learned that in the city."

I stood and tried not to fall into the fire. "Plus," I said, "on a farm, how often do you get to stand on one foot and fry booby traps?"

Kaden smiled and looked up at me. "Thanks, Doc."

I nodded and headed for a secluded tree.

The next morning dawned muted behind thick grey clouds. We got up, buried the remains of the fire and collected the empty bottles. We may be drunks, but we're not animals. While we ate our rations, I flicked on my bracer to check for available jobs for the day.

There was one job listed, but above that there was an indicator for an urgent message waiting. It was from the controllers in the city that I had escalated the tower incident to. I headed to the truck to see what the story was.

The message itself contained the usual chatter of log messages about the incident changing hands and when someone modified it. The interesting update to the incident was from someone named Dylan Jones.

While we have had no other reports of similar tampering, two failures in relative proximity does warrant further investigation. Please contact me (Dylan Jones) or my secondary (Evelyn Evans) to arrange an on-site visit to tower IF-387. Red pay and overtime have been authorized for all involved personnel.

I had mixed feelings about the message. On the upside, they were taking my report seriously. On the downside, now I had to babysit some city controllers on a field trip. I called the contact number for Dylan Jones and got through almost immediately.

He was an average looking guy in his mid-thirties, if I had to guess. He was starting to go bald, but the hair loss hadn't made much progress yet. Behind him I saw a standard company cubicle wall.

They had given all the techs a tour of the company dungeon where the second level techs and above worked. Controllers were above techs by a fair amount. In theory that meant they had more training, more knowledge of the systems, and a bigger picture view of the stuff we all worked on. In practice, it meant I hardly ever dealt with them. The ones I had dealt with were almost uniformly dismissive of the role of the field tech, considering it grunt work with no thinking required. Sometimes, that was true. Other times, like frying the ankle-biter last night, thinking saved my life.

"Dylan Jones," he said, taking the call.

"Hi, I'm John Weaver," I said. I gave him my ID number and the case number.

"Oh, right," said Dylan, "hi, John. We need to come out and see the tower and possibly one other, MT-515. It's south and west of IF-387 on a different circuit. When can you meet us outside Kansas City?"

"Give me a couple of hours to get to you," I said.

We could make the trip in less time than that, but I didn't want to explain why I was so much closer to Kansas City than to the tower in question. In fact, I'd like to leave Lou and her "territory" concerns out of the conversation entirely.

"Sounds good," said Dylan. "You have a six-man security squad, correct?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

"They should be able to handle two more," he said. "Any concerns with that?"

"Not from me," I said, "give me a second to verify with the squad leader."

"No problem," said Dylan.

I muted the line so he couldn't hear me and contacted Kaden on a private comms channel. I didn't think he'd have a problem, but I don't like to make decisions for someone else. It's just not good manners.

"Kaden," I said, "we've got some controllers coming out for a site inspection of a couple of towers."

"Babysitting, duty, huh?" asked Kaden.

"Pretty much," I said. "You up for it? Don't need any extra guys to handle the load?"

Kaden scoffed. "Hell, no. We got this."

I unmuted the line and said to Dylan, "squad leader says they can handle two more."

"Sounds great," said Dylan. "Okay, I'm sending you the coordinates for the meet now. See you in a couple of hours."

The line clicked off and I looked at the location Dylan had sent. It was on the outside edge of the nomansland between the Kansas City wall and where the crops started. The map showed a small outpost there. I guessed that it was a supply shop and money changer. There wasn't a lot of traffic in and out of cities, hardly any, in fact, at least on the ground. But, there were enough people with jobs like mine that having a place to convert city credits to something else was useful. Places like that were also used as resupply depots getting manufactured things like hardware, ration packs, and water tanks out of the city and into our hands.

I went back outside the truck and gave the location to Kaden. We decided to head to the outpost and wait there for the controllers. We had plenty of rations and water for another week or two, but topping up wouldn't hurt. Plus, I knew Devlin had been wanting to send some of his city credits to parents. They lived outside the wall near Seattle and it was hard for him to get over there in person to give them coins.

We got the vehicles together. A few minutes later we were flying north and west to Kansas City.

Chapter Seven

The little trading post was empty of customers when we arrived. It was three building conspiring on the edge of a sea of farmland. One building was the money changer, one was the general store, and one was the barracks for the owner of the post and her guards.

This post, it turned out, was run by a shrewd old woman named Tanzania. While she must have had to answer the question a million times, I asked whether she was named after the ancient country in Africa. Turned out she was; her mother was friends with missionaries who went there and her mother thought the name was lovely.

I was happy to let Tanzania talk my ear off while we filled up on supplies. I asked Kaden to get two more sets of rations and water for our city guests. Normally I wouldn't have asked, but I suspected that being this close to a city made him uncomfortable. Having something useful to do might keep his mind off of it. From the look of relief he gave me, I think it was the right call.

Tanzania and I were sitting on the porch in rocking chairs while the guys bought stuff from the general store. The day was gray, but the air was warming up and the porch was comfortable. I took off my cap and leaned back into the chair.

"I see all kinds here, you know," said Tanzania. "Drifters, folks looking to get into the city, workmen such as yourselves. Why, I even saw a couple of city folks who were traveling up to Chicago by slinger, all by their lonesomes."

"That's either bold or stupid," I said.

Tanzania nodded, "that's what I told them. Don't know whatever became of them. Nice folks, if a little, you know, city."

"You get a lot of bandits out this way?" I asked to make conversation.

"Not many," she said, "on account of being so close to the city, I expect."

I let the silence linger for a minute. My grandpap always used to say that there were two kinds of people that were in a hurry, the young and the foolish. We had plenty of time before the city controllers showed up. The breeze here was soft and pleasant compared to some of the gusts you get on the northern plains.

"Alright, this might tax your memory some," I said, smiling. I liked giving her stories to tell. "What was the strangest thing you ever saw out here?"

Tanzania leaned back in her chair, thinking, a sparkle in her eye. "Well, now, that is a challenge." She thought for a long minute. "I do believe strangest was an honest to goodness circus come through here once."

"Is that a fact?" I said.

"Surely," she said. "They had all kinds of trained animals, jugglers, the whole thing. I asked them why they didn't travel by rail. They said the animals didn't like it. Can't blame them, poor things. Trains are so fast." She shook her head, remembering the pity she had for the animals. Then, something else came to her mind and she withdrew into her chair like it had dropped twenty degrees outside.

"You okay?" I asked, concerned.

"Oh," she said, "I will be." She rocked a little more and said, "I just remembered the scariest thing I ever saw out here. Strange, too, but more scary than strange."

I expected a story about bandits or some horrible attack on her outpost. She said, "it was a man, came through here, oh, about a month back now." She shook her head and rubbed her arms as if cold. "Yes, sir, there was just something not right about him. He looked right through you and just radiated some kind of cold. Hatred for the world, I guess I'd call it. Like, he'd be happy if the whole world just froze over and died. Met a woman here, too, to pick up supplies. Ugh, makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it. "

I asked about her garden by way of changing the subject and Tanzania was happy to take me up on that. She was telling me all about the flowers and vegetables she was planting this year when Kaden joined us on the porch.

"Ma'am," he said to Tanzania, nodding. To me he said, "Rachael spotted a city transport headed this way. Probably the city controllers we were waiting for."

"Oh," said Tanzania, "so soon?"

I stood up. "I'm afraid so," I said. "But we have surely enjoyed the comfort and company, ma'am."

"Well, now, don't be strangers," she said. "If you ever find yourself out this way again, you stop on back."

"Will do," I promised.

We headed towards the vehicles. We had landed them in the nomandsland about fifty meters from the supply depot. The guns were finishing up loading the new supplies onto their slingers and into The Dung Heap's compartments.

I looked towards the city. I could just make out the city wall in the distance. Much closer than that, I could see the city transport without a scope. It was sleeker than The Dung Heap, but not by much. The surface was smooth and the whole thing looked like a slightly rounded box. The transport made its way in and settled to the ground about ten meters in front of us.

After a minute, the side of the vehicle opened and someone armed with an automatic weapon jumped out. He swung the business end of the gun around, looking for trouble. Kaden's guys all exchanged amused glances. This was possibly the safest place we had been all week.

Satisfied, the guy behind the gun motioned to someone inside the vehicle and stood back to let them out. First out came a guy of average build that I recognized as Dylan from my earlier conversation. He was dressed in new green and brown fatigues and had a backpack in his hands. I recognized the backpack as the company issue field pack. It also looked brand new.

He saw me, smiled, and waved. He started walking towards me while his secondary got out of the transport. She was dressed the same as Dylan and carried the same new backpack. She had short brown hair and was only slightly shorter than Dylan. They both had handguns strapped to their hips, but I wouldn't be my life that they knew how to use them.

When he got closer, Dylan made the introductions. "Hi, I'm Dylan Jones." We shook hands. "This is my secondary Evelyn Evans."

"Call me Eve," she said and we shook hands. They both had soft city hands, but their grips were stronger than I expected.

"I'm John Weaver," I said, "but everyone calls me Doc. I'll introduce you to the guys after we get moving. I'd like to have as much daylight as possible at the tower."

"Sounds good," said Dylan. He turned and gave the thumbs up to the man with the automatic weapon back at the city transport. He nodded and the transport closed up and lifted off.

We trooped back to The Dung Heap. I didn't feel like telling the newcomers about the thing's nickname. I felt an odd mix of pride and shame having city folks around. Pride because this was my turf, my homebase, where I felt at ease. I liked living outside the walls and I was prepared for life out here. I felt shame having city folks around like I sometimes felt during my training. I knew what city folks thought of people on the outside and I never wanted to prove them right. But here we were, living up to their expectations. The newness of their gear made me notice how grimy and worn all my clothes and bags were. For their part, if they noticed, neither Dylan or Eve said anything.

"Did you train in Kansas City?" asked Dylan.

"No, sir," I said, "Winnipeg."

"Your family from around there?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I said, "born and raised on the plains."

We arrived at The Dung Heap and I showed our guests where to stash their gear. We went over a few basic safety items, but it turned out they had both flown in one of the trucks before. I thought maybe this wouldn't be so bad until they said it had been during a simulated field trip held inside the walls.

Once they were strapped in, I sat in the pilot's seat and went through the pre-flight checks. After a minute or two of that, I radioed Kaden that we were ready to go. We took off for the tower that the controllers needed to inspect and I set the autopilot.

We were going to have several hours to talk, so I started by showing Dylan and Eve pictures of the guns along with names. I didn't expect them to remember names, but at least they'd have seen pictures of the friendlies if anything happened.

After a while, I said, "if you don't mind me asking, what about this situation warranted a site visit?"

Eve and Dylan exchanged glances. Dylan said, "after your report, we took a closer look at some of the log data."

"Most of it, actually," said Eve. "Wasn't that fun?" Sarcasm dripped from her words.

"There were anomalies on more than just two towers," he said, "but all the status we could look at reported green. So, we don't yet know what's going on, but when reporting is unreliable, you have to go to the source."

I grunted. "Well, I'm glad I didn't raise the alarm for nothing," I said.

I didn't want to tell them about Lou and the booby trap, but there was no way to warn them about the dangers without telling them something. So, I took the easy way out and decided to tell them about it when we got to the tower. Remember what I said about procrastination. Never mind that now. Unpleasant conversations can wait until they're relevant.

The conversation drifted on from there. We talked about the places I had worked and the controllers told me about company politics that mattered to them. They started to relax, I think, which was both good and bad. I wanted them to be comfortable around me so they'd trust me, but I also needed them to keep their edge and be a little afraid of their surroundings. It was their first time in the field, after all.

"So, Doc," said Eve, "how did you get your nickname?"

"It's dumb," I said. "And it'll probably sound really dumb to you."

Dylan said, "can't be dumber than one of the other guys we work with. His nickname is Ice Age. He's old and always cold. Now that's a dumb nickname."

Eve just watched me, waiting to see if I'd answer.

"Alright," I said. "Back when I had just left my training program up near Winnipeg, I was out on a job with my first crew of guns. They were good old boys and didn't have a lot of exposure to the city in any form. Anyway, we were out on this job and conversation turned to a small town on Lake Superior that had the best fishing. I made the comment that I had been to that lake while on holiday from school."

A long moment passed. Eve prompted, "and? That doesn't sound that unusual."

"Well, exactly," I said. "To you or Dylan it doesn't sound odd, but it sounded plenty strange to the guys I was working with. They stopped and stared at me and said, ‘on what now?' I repeated ‘on holiday' and they just about lost their shit. Oops, pardon my language."

Dylan laughed. "You'll have to try harder than that to offend us with language," he said. "Eve swears enough to make sailors blush."

Eve scowled at Dylan in a good natured way and I continued. "Anyway, while they were chewing over the phrase ‘on holiday', one of them said, ‘yeah, like Doc Holiday, the gunslinger' and it was a laugh riot. I think me getting flustered over my language amused them, too, so they called my Doc Holiday or just Doc from then on. And, well it just kind of stuck."

"Was that this crew?" asked Eve.

"Oh, no," I said. "That crew, well, we lost a couple of guys a few months later to bandits." I smiled sadly, remembering them fondly. "After that, the rest decided to hang it up or go find other crews to work with. So, I got a new crew, introduced myself just like I did with you, and there you go. Origins of a nickname, I guess."

"How long have you been with this crew?" Eve asked.

"Going on three months now," I said.

"Wow," said Eve, "that seems like a short time to know someone before you trust them with your life."

I nodded. "It is, in a way. But when you're with someone day in and day out for months, you get to know them real well."

We talked about this and that for the next hour or two. When we were about an hour away from the tower, I started briefing Dylan and Eve about the layout of the tower, where the relays were, and what did they expect from me while we were on site. I wasn't yet sure what to expect from these two. They seemed reasonable, but when you put people in a stressful situation, that's when their true nature comes out. I didn't want to do anything or not do something that would add to that stress.

Dylan and Eve exchanged glances. Dylan said, "once you show us the relays, it will be better if Eve and I can take over. It will take too long to explain everything we're doing as we're doing it."

"Fair enough," I said. That was pretty much the answer I expected, but at least he was tactful about it.

I finished telling them about the tower and could no longer avoid the topic of Lou and the booby trap. Well, I could avoid it, but only if I wanted to risk getting them killed.

"There's one other thing," I said. "I'm not really sure how to say this, so I'm just going to come out and say it."

Eve and Dylan exchanged worried looks and then looked at me.

"The last time I was at this tower and noticed the strange behavior of the diag tool, there was some hostile action," I said.

"Yeah," said Dylan, "you said it was red in your report."

"Well, I didn't go into exactly the kind of hostilities we encountered," I said. Red reports so commonly meant bandits attacking for supplies or for kicks that if you didn't say otherwise in your report, it was assumed. I hadn't said anything in my report. Admitting that I had left relevant information out of a report on red action would have been grounds for a reprimand at least.

"What?" asked Dylan. His voice had a tinge of anger mixed with fear.

Eve's voice was steady, "what happened?"

"There was a booby trap," I said, "an ankle-biter, if you know what that is."

They shook their heads in silence, so I explained the device to them. I also told them how we disabled it. I think I might have been bragging a little with that part.

"That is fucking sweet," said Eve.

I chuckled. "I guess," I said, "but it doesn't seem that way when your adrenaline is pumping."

Dylan said nothing and I worried a little that he would write me up. But, I'd deal with that if it ever happened. We had killed enough time with preparations that we were ready to land. I guided the truck through the landing procedures. Kaden was on comms telling me and the controllers to stay inside The Dung Heap until they had checked out the area fully.

I secured the truck on the ground and we started gearing up for the climb. The controllers already had everything they thought they would need in their packs. I got my gear together and put it into my much more soiled backpack. I was still wearing both of my handguns since regulations required two in a red zone. I didn't know what the regs were for controllers, but I had one extra pistol in the truck.

I offered the extra gun to them. But they both refused it. Dylan said he wasn't trained on anything but his gun.

Eve said, "I will probably piss myself if I have to use one gun. I don't know what I'd do if I needed two."

Shrugging, I put the gun back in one of the drawers full of spare parts. I just hoped we didn't need any guns on this outing.

Kaden radioed that we were clear to come out. The sun was setting outside. Thanks to the clouds, it was still warm, but it was darker than it would have been if it was clear. Kaden was waiting for us and the other guns were on high alert around the area, training their guns on whatever caught their eyes.

Kaden led us to the tower. He let me open the doors, but insisted on going up the stairs first. We climbed the tower in relative silence. Kaden was focused on any possible threats and I was also looking for booby traps. I half expected city folks to not be able to climb the tower, but Dylan and Eve followed us without complaint and without getting winded.

Near the entrance to the maintenance cage, Kaden motioned for us to stop. He went up the last half flight of stairs and checked all around.

"Clear," he pronounced.

I started up the stairs after him, but Dylan touched my arm. "Hold on a second," he said. "Let me scan the area, just in case."

He stepped past me, holding a device at arm's length.

"What's that thing?" I asked Eve.

"It's a booby trap detector," she said.

I looked at her dubiously and she smiled. "Just kidding. It's just a scanner for EM radiation, radio, anything that might interfere with electronic devices. We use it to make sure faraday cages at work are doing their thing."

I nodded and let Dylan work the device around the area to his satisfaction.

Eve leaned a little closer to me and whispered, "kind of pointless, really. With all this high power stuff around, he's not going to see anything but noise."

"Why not say something?" I asked.

She shrugged. "It makes him feel better," she said. "He does the same thing before we touch any components that are marked as needed for forensics. In that case, it does matter, so I think it's just habit at this point."

I nodded and we waited until Dylan was satisfied. I moved forward and unlocked the hatch to the maintenance cage. The stylized "Lou" was still there, and I tried to ignore it. Just in case, I took out my torch and held the flame up through the hatch and waited for any booby traps to spring. I didn't really expect anything and I was right.

Kaden nodded and the city controllers and I climbed up into the maintenance cage. It was a tight fit with all of us in there. I showed them the two relays I had checked, the scratches, and then I climbed back down to let them examine the system without me in the way.

I tried to pay attention to the talk between Dylan and Eve, but they were quickly out of my depth with tools and terms I didn't know. I let them work and tried not to get bored. Kaden and his guys at least had something to do. Now that the controllers knew everything I knew and were safely here, I had nothing to do until it was time to leave again. At least while I was on this "special assignment", I was getting paid by the hour, too.

The controllers were at it for almost two hours. Occasionally they would ask for my help locating something or powering things off and on. But by the end of the two hours, I was climbing the walls I was so bored.

Finally, Dylan called me up into the cage for a pow-wow. It was petty, but I was gratified to see smudges of dirt and oil from the relay housings on both Dylan and Eve. Now it looked like they were actually doing work.

Dylan said, "we're going to need to check the other tower, too."

I nodded.

He pointed at the relays and at some of the cables and junction boxes to and from the antennas. "All of this is lying to city control," he said. "It is reporting green, and, as far as we can tell, it is green… for now."

I frowned. "What do you mean? Is it going to fail soon?"

Eve shook her head, "it's fine. All this equipment is physically fine." She pulled one of the relays out and pointed at the circuit board deep inside the thing. "We think someone tampered with the firmware on the boards of the replacement relays."

I started to worry a little. If they thought I was behind this, I was out of a job at the least. "Hey, I didn't-"

Dylan held up a hand. "We know," he said. "It's not just your repairs. Dozens of other towers have had failures of a similar nature in the last month. All of them were repaired by different people. The sudden uptick in failures is suspicious, but we haven't found any pattern other than it being relays and other connectors. Even the medium is different: microwave, fiber optic, copper twisted pair, all of them have had some component failures in the last month."

"Why do you think someone tampered with the boards?" I asked Eve, gesturing at the relay she was holding.

"When we query the relay for status, it returns more than it should," she said. "There's some side-channel information coming out."

Dylan said, "and if more is coming out-"

"Maybe more is going in?" I asked. Dylan nodded.

"I mean, we're flying a little blind here," said Eve. "I sent it a few commands to see what it might respond to. Mostly I got nothing back, but sometimes I got ‘malformed request' or ‘go away' messages. So, something is listening, we just don't know what it would do if we knew how to ask," she said.

I nodded slowly, taking it in. If they were right, this was serious stuff. It might even fall under the cyber-terrorism label they told us about at school. It would mean that someone, somewhere, could control all the relays I and others had replaced.

"What do we do?" I asked. The implications of this were well above my pay grade.

"At the very least," said Dylan, "we need to get back to your truck and make a report with our findings. Our team back in Kansas City may have an idea of what to do next."

"I'm going to replace the suspicious relay with one I brought from the city," said Eve. "I'll make sure it checks out and then we can close up here and head to the next tower."

I nodded and said, "I'll let Kaden know the plan."

Half an hour later, we had finished with the relay and were walking back down the steps to the ground. It still kind of blew my mind that someone was tampering with the firmware on the relays. It would be hard to do in the first place and even harder to get the relays distributed to the towers. Even then, the whole point of the network was to work around failures, so I didn't know what could really be accomplished by taking down a few connection points at will.

On the ground, Kaden said, "Doc, I want to go over the flight plan with you in about thirty minutes. We'll be going into new territory here and I want to move carefully."

"Sounds good," I said. I locked the last door to the tower behind me.

Kaden headed back to his slinger to prepare the flight plan. Dylan and Eve were already back at The Dung Heap. I followed them back slowly. I didn't want to rush them and there wasn't much for me to do while Kaden came up with the flight plan.

I was just about at the truck's hatch when I saw a flicker of light from out on the plains. We were slightly further south than I usually go, but the farmland here was only freshly planted around us. Beyond the lights of the tower and our vehicles, it was black. The sun had set while we were up on the tower and it was impossible to see very far into the fields.

I looked more closely at where I had seen the light and thought I saw movement. I whistled to alert the guns and Rachael came jogging over.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Probably nothing," I said, "saw a flicker of light out there." I pointed to where I had seen it. "About thirty meters out."

Rachael turned back to her fellow scout, Devlin, and motioned with her head. They jumped on their slingers and rode out towards the spot. I watched, but lost the black slingers in the night. A minute later, I heard gunshots. I hustled to The Dung Heap and closed the door. Protocol demanded I do that. If it had just been me out there, I might have waited to see if I could help. With the city controllers along, I needed to play it by the book.

I slammed the button to close the hatch and startled Dylan and Eve who were deep into something on their portable terminals.

"What's wrong?" asked Dylan.

"Nothing yet," I said. "Gunshots, so we wait inside for the all-clear from Kaden."

Dylan grunted and he and Eve went back to working. I listened in on comms to what was going on. After a tense minute of no communication, Rachael and Devlin reported back in. They said the movement had been someone on a slinger, possibly surveilling our group and our movements.

I could only think of one person who would be interested in our movements around this tower. Kaden wasn't kidding; Lou was a piece of work. Rachael and Devlin said they got some shots off, but the slinger was out of range too fast for them to get a look at the pilot. They were headed back to the group now and we should probably be ready to leave soon.

Kaden came on the comms and asked if I had been listening. I said I was. He gave me the all-clear to leave the truck.

"But, leave the controllers inside," he said. "I'm not convinced that was the only surprise Lou left for us."

I explained the situation to Dylan and Eve and they just nodded, deep in their work. I opened the hatch, left, and closed it behind me with my bracer. Kaden was on his way over to me with a map. It glowed slightly with Kaden's annotations. When he got to me, he had me hold one edge of the map while he showed me where he had marked out possible bandits, towns, and a path to get us safely to the next tower.

When he finished laying out the plan, I said, "I didn't realize the next tower was so far south of here." This trip had gone from a one day adventure to two or three days at a minimum. And according to Kaden's plan, we would be sleeping on the ground outside a communications tower that night.

"You think your controllers can handle being outside for a few days?"

I didn't hear impatience in his voice, but there might have been some in mine. "They damn well better be able to handle it. I'm already tired of coddling them." I sighed. "But, if there was a town in a similar radius to where we're sleeping tonight, I'd argue for that instead."

Kaden shook his head. "This town here," he said, pointing at the map near the tower we planned to sleep at, "died out last year. It was back when we were with Lou. These were our stomping grounds back then, so I remembered it."

Towns were fairly unusual out here. Usually it was just families, trading posts, or bars. Organized towns were less common. "What happened to it?" I asked.

Kaden shrugged. "Bandits got a lot of them in some big attack, then the rest just drifted away or died out."

I figured a history like that would freak out the city folk, so it was a good call to steer clear of the town. I sighed. "Well, here's hoping they brought emergency blankets."

Chapter Eight

Eve was far more enthusiastic about sleeping outdoors than Dylan. She asked all sorts of questions about snakes, spiders, and larger animals. She said she had seen them all in the zoo or museums, but had never seen them in the wild. Dylan asked questions about the likelihood of bandit attacks and where he could "do his business" and have it still be sanitary.

There was room for one person to sleep in The Dung Heap, but not more than that. I was going to let Dylan and Eve fight for it, but Eve volunteered to sleep outside with me and the other guys.

We got to the next tower without incident. Kaden and his guys set up a watch rotation. I got a chemical fire log from the truck's stores and set it to burning. Last night, we had been around trees, so we could use natural fuel. Here on the plains, there was far less to burn. Once the log was burning, most of us settled in around it to sleep.

Kaden's guys who weren't on watch stayed more to one side, talking quietly amongst themselves. I was slightly amused at the deference they showed our guests. Eve didn't seem to notice. She had gone from asking me questions about the world outside the wall to rehashing what they had found on the tower.

"What I still don't understand is how they're getting the modified relays into the field," she said. "That's not quite right. Getting them distributed at random is easy; getting them where you want them is hard."

"It's not totally random," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I get my supplies from one of about three different cities or outposts," I said. "And usually, I don't go all the way to the city. They're shipped out to supply depots near trading posts that can change credits to coins."

Eve's eyes moved rapidly while seeing nothing, deep in thought. "So, they wouldn't need to get the changes to the city at all, just to a supply depot. That seems easier. Then how to control which towers or other converters get serviced?"

"Can I have a look at the list of affected converters?" I asked. "Maybe they'll jog a memory if I worked on them."

"Sure, no problem," she said, "but it's in the truck. I remember a few of them." She rattled off three or four tower and tunnel IDs.

I didn't recognize them, but I don't have the whole system committed to memory. Something nagged at me about the two I had worked on.

"Well," I said, "we can look in the morning, but one thing about the two towers I worked on."

"What's that?"

"They were both scheduled to be replaced by remotely serviceable towers in the next year."

"What?" Eve looked slightly concerned at this news and propped herself up on her elbow to look at me.

"I only bring it up because you asked how you could control which towers got serviced," I said. "These towers are older-"

"And they still require humans to service them," Eve interrupted. "Humans are more likely to notice a problem, but it's also easier to slip modified parts to a human, especially when the parts spend significant time out of company control." She flopped back down to the ground. "Well, shit. That means this is a time-sensitive attack, whatever it is. Those towers are going away as soon as the new ones can be built. As far as I know, the new ones are already started."

I let her think for a minute. Finally, she said, "tomorrow, I need to look at a map and see if we can figure out what kind of attack could come from taking out the older towers and converters."

"Did you get your report in to be escalated?" I asked her.

Eve laughed. "Yes, but it went to Thomas over in security control and that guy doesn't move on things unless he thinks his ass is on the line."

This seemed important enough to start escalating the problem to everyone at the company. But I never understood how company politics worked. Sometimes it was better to trust the folks around you to do their jobs. These two seemed pretty level-headed, so I was willing to trust them.

"Don't worry," said Eve, "I tried to make Thomas realize it was important. I also sent it to some other folks in his group, just in case."

"Alright," I said, "we can look at the list of affected connections in the morning."

I rolled over and tried to go to sleep. It had been a quiet day, but a strange one. The cloudy sky gave me nothing to look at as I lay there. After ten minutes, I could hear Eve snoring softly. At least someone was going to sleep well.

Even though I knew better, every time someone mentioned replacing my job with robots, I imagined a robot version of me. Average height, average build, square jaw, short brown hair, and a baseball cap. For some reason, the robot always looked like a cartoon in my mind. It would mirror my movements, but wouldn't move without me. Kind of like a marionette.

Somewhere in there, I must have drifted off to sleep because the next think I remembered was the attack.

The attack came just before dawn. I didn't recognize it as fighting right away. My brain slowly worked out that the noises I was hearing weren't from my dream, but from outside. When I realized something was going on, my eyes snapped open and I turned my head to look around before I made myself a target by sitting up.

I saw Steve wrestling with a bandit near the edge of the camp. He was trying to yell, but I think the bandit had hit him in the stomach pretty good because he was barely wheezing out a warning. I looked around quickly and saw two other sneaking up on the still forms of Monty and Devlin.

I shouted an incoherent warning. Kaden scrambled up out of his bed, his gun at the ready. He must sleep lightly, because he was far more alert than I would have been. He pivoted up from lying prone to a firing position and shot at one of the bandits.

Apparently he still wasn't that awake. Kaden's aim was off and the bullet hit the guy in the arm. The bandit screamed and spun around before falling to the ground. The other bandit lunged down at Devlin who had just started to wake. Devlin rolled to one side just in time to avoid being skewered. But, he wasn't fast enough to avoid the knife entirely. It sliced down his side, opening a large gash. Devlin cried out in incoherent pain.

Kaden's gun barked again and the bandit near Devlin fell backwards to the ground, dead. I threw her emergency blanket aside and shook Eve vigorously until she roused.

"Time to move," I said.

"What?" she asked sleepily.

I put my hand under her shoulders and lifted. I yelled, "move!" Somehow that did the trick and she got up with my help. I heard more struggling and gunfire as we awkwardly sprinted the few meters to the truck.

The hatch was closed. Protocol would be for me to stay inside, but I didn't know what protocol was when two-thirds of the protected party was outside. If I opened the hatch, we risked exposing Dylan. If I didn't open the hatch, we risked me and Eve getting killed.

"Dylan," I said on comms, "I'm opening the hatch. Stay clear of the door."

I got no response. Son of a bitch was probably sleeping through this. I could feel Eve start to shake next to me. I looked back to see that she was watching out behind us and had her hand on her gun. I heard Kaden shouting orders. It sounded like there were only two left, but that was plenty enough to kill us.

I looked down and worked the code on my bracer. The hatch started to open. Just then, I heard Eve swear and she tackled me to the ground. I felt something go whizzing past my head. It bounced off the opening hatch and off into the tilled earth beyond the camp. Eve and I hit the ground with a dusty thump.

There was a little more shouting from the camp. Rabbit, by the sounds of the creative swearing, was the one shouting. I looked up in time to see him firing after one of the bandits who was hightailing it out of there. The bandit was on a slinger and I hoped it wasn't one of ours.

I scanned the area as fast as my eyes could adjust. The only people I saw standing were Kaden's guys. They looked alert, but were not actively fighting anyone. I took that as a good sign.

The hatch on the truck continued to open, but it was a little late for the shelter of the truck to make any difference. Eve and I pushed ourselves up off the ground and looked around more carefully to make sure we were safe.

Monty and Steve were bent over Devlin, tending to the knife wound on his side. Kaden and Rachael were checking the bandits to make sure they were dead. Rabbit was still cursing at the guy who had run away.

The truck's hatch finished opening. Eve glared and flipped her middle finger at it. "About fucking time," she said, her voice shaking a little.

We looked inside the truck to find Dylan still sleeping soundly. After exchanging annoyed glances, I shook him awake. I looked at Eve, "can you explain the situation while I go help with Devlin?"

She nodded. I grabbed the large medical kit from the back of the truck. I heard Dylan protesting sleepily that it was too early while I moved to Devlin. Steve and Monty had his wound bandaged to stop the bleeding. I set down the bag and reached in to get the liquid stitches.

I always thought the name was dumb, but then someone told me that they used to use actual stitches with thread to close people up. That's where the name came from. Real stitches. Everytime I heard the name now I shuddered. It was bad enough to need the liquid stitches, but thread and needle? That was just barbaric.

I gave the tube of liquid stitches to Steve and let them do the work. We all had basic medical training, it was company policy. In general, it was better to let the first people on the scene keep working. I looked up when Kaden and Rachael returned.

"All clear," said Kaden. "Three bandits down and the one that got away."

Rabbit heard this from the edge of the camp and started swearing.

"Rabbit!" said Kaden over his cursing. "Go up the tower with Doc and see if Lou tagged this one."

I looked at Kaden in surprise. He thought Lou was behind this attack. "Would she have-" I started.

"Absolutely," said Kaden. He ground his teeth. "Piece of work, I told you."

I stood up and went with Rabbit to the tower door. I was only on this mission because I was the only one with the keys to get us in. We started the long climb.

A few flights of stairs in, I looked down and saw that Dylan had left the truck. He and Kaden were arguing about something. They weren't sending it on comms, but I didn't need a crystal ball to know what it was about. To say it was animated would have been an understatement.

On the next flight of steps, I saw Eve join the argument. There were lots of jerky, aggressive hand gestures all around.

Just before the last flight of stairs, I saw the truck hatch closing with Eve and Kaden on the outside and Dylan nowhere to be seen. I sighed inwardly. What a tense situation needs is cool heads, not raging fights or demands. But, if this was Dylan's first brush with real danger, I could believe he wasn't at his best. Like I said, stressful situations bring out people's true nature.

Below the steps to the maintenance ladder, we stopped and Rabbit did a visual search for any booby traps. Rabbit gestured up at the black cylinder on the floor of the maintenance cage.

I nodded that I had seen it. "Another ankle-biter," I said.

"Must have gotten a bulk rate on the damn things," said Rabbit. He said something about Lou's mother and a bobcat's digestive tract.

We didn't have time to disarm the trap, but we just needed to see if the lock flange was tagged. I climbed the ladder. There was another non-standard lock on the hatch. I pushed it aside so I could see the lock flange. Cursing, but unsurprised, I took a picture of Lou's tag for the record. I snipped off the lock with the small bolt cutters and relocked it with a standard lock.

I sent comms to Kaden. "You were right," I said, "Lou tagged this tower, too."

Kaden swore, but his heart wasn't in it. "Alright," he said. "You and Rabbit get back down here. We need to have a talk about what we do next." Rabbit and I started the long descent and I had some time to think about this whole deal.

I was honestly a little surprised that Lou was dealing with bandits. While she was clearly a sociopath, she also struck me as a hands-on kind of person. Hiring bandits to kill someone is sloppy. About the only thing bandits have going for them as assassins is that they're cheap.

With bandits, you never know if they'll actually do the job and they're not exactly trained to kill. They do sometimes kill just for fun, so if you can get them to do it for you, so much the better. I've never actually hired bandits for anything, but some of the guns I worked with either had some attack them and spill their guts about the arrangement. Or, there was always the "a friend of a guy I knew" stories about hiring bandits.

Aside from it being kind of sloppy, Lou must be serious about keeping people away from "her" towers. Dropping booby traps and hiring bandits to kill us could not have been cheap or easy. It made me wonder how she knew we were here. I supposed there was a camera or other sensor at the base of the tower that activated when human shaped things were detected. Or, it might be old school like a bounty to the local bandits: keep folks away from my tower and I'll pay you so much per day.

Either way, this was not a good development for us. Beyond the obvious injury to Devlin, that argument I saw between Dylan and Kaden couldn't have been good. Worst case, he was demanding that we all go back to Kansas City and return him to safety. That would take time. If Dylan and Eve were right about the time-sensitive nature of the problem, a few days might make things substantially worse.

But it wasn't my call. Dylan was highest up the corporate chain of command, so what he said was law for us. We could ignore him, of course, but I liked my job or at least I liked the paycheck. So, whatever he decided to do after this morning's adventure would be what we would do.

Rabbit and I made it to the bottom of the tower and I locked up behind us. Kaden motioned for me to join him. Steve and Rachael were digging a grave for the bandits. Monty was cleaning out their pockets of anything useful and Eve was sitting with Devlin. The sun was just coming up now and it gave everything a rosy glow.

Kaden and I walked to the edge of the clearing around the tower's base. If Dylan had wanted to hear us, he could have easily with the equipment in the truck, but the distance was to make Kaden feel like he had some privacy.

"Dylan wants to go back to the city," said Kaden. "He says he has enough information to ‘pursue the investigation from somewhere more civilized'."

I sighed. "Well, it's his rodeo," I said. "We can make it back by late tonight and drop them both off-"

Kaden shook his head. "Eve is willing to stay and check out the other tower," he said. "She's convinced there's something there they won't be able to find from the city or somesuch. I honestly didn't follow most of her argument there. Too much techno mumbo-jumbo."

"Good for her," I said, "and good for the company if we get this worked out. But it doesn't change anything. Dylan is the primary on this outing, so we're obligated to do what he tells us to. If he says we have to take him back to the city, that's what we have to do."

Kaden smiled. "Eve has a different plan. I had my doubts about these two, but Eve can scheme when she wants to," he said. "She suggested that we take Dylan to Wichita."

"Why Wichita?" I asked. "That's not a walled city."

"No," said Kaden, "but it's a town big enough to have a station on the monorail. And, it has police drones. It's one of maybe half-dozen non-city monorail stops in all of North America with cops." Kaden smiled. "I wouldn't have have thought to look for it. Eve found it and told me about this plan. Like I said, Eve can scheme."

"I think she would call it ‘problem solving'," I said. I thought about it for a minute. Having police drones around wasn't the same as being inside a city, but it was a damn sight safer than being way out here. As if to punctuate my point, Steve rolled a bandit's body into the grave. It landed with an audible thump.

"Have you or Eve talked to Dylan yet?" I asked. "Is he onboard with this plan?" It would save us at least a day of travel if we could drop Dylan in Wichita.

Kaden shook his head. "Eve says she'll do it, after he calms down a bit," said Kaden. "She says she has some arguments that might work on him."

I shrugged. "Well, here's hoping it works."

While Eve was negotiating with Dylan, we discovered a problem we hadn't anticipated. Devlin could move with the liquid stitches, but too much jostling would break the stuff loose. Slingers are extremely responsive and agile vehicles, which also means that they can be a little bumpy to ride. If he rode his slinger, there was a good chance he would break loose the liquid stitches and undo whatever healing had already started.

Instead, we decided to have Devlin ride with me. I was willing to risk crashing The Dung Heap with too many people inside. It seemed like less of a risk than having Devlin ride his slinger. Of course, I would be wearing a safety harness, so it wasn't risky to me either way.

The Dung Heap could tow the slinger for a while until Devlin could ride again. I was fairly sure Eve would volunteer to fly the slinger, and I was equally sure that I didn't want her to. These were nothing like the sky bikes you can get in the city, and this outing had already gone a little sideways.

The liquid stitches tube says to wait a full day before doing anything strenuous. In my experience, about half a day is enough for most things. I figured that, by the time we got to Wichita, Devlin might be able to ride the slinger again.

It only took Eve about forty minutes to convince Dylan to go home via the Wichita station. The conditions were that we stay with him until he was safely departed onboard the train. That meant dealing with cops and being in a larger town than any of us really liked to actually get him to the station. But a few hours of hassle was worth the day and a half of travel we saved by taking him to Wichita instead of back to Kansas City.

We took off for Wichita. Dylan and Eve spent most of the two hour flight talking about what things Dylan should check on when he got back to the city. Some of the information they wanted really was easier to get with a fast net connection. Splitting them up might actually make analysis of the problem easier. And Dylan would be able to lean on the secutiry control team to take the reports seriously.

Wichita had some flight control and they contacted us as we approached the town. I wasn't really surprised. With all the police drones buzzing around, there had to be something keeping us from smashing into them. We convinced Wichita control to let us land. They were almost as hostile as the cops outside of Denver. Hopefully that was just someone having a bad day and we wouldn't have any more trouble.

The airfield was a large paved area with fading yellow and white lines indicating where to fly and where to park. There were dozens of other vehicles at the airfield. I had rarely seen that many vehicles in one place other than by a bar. There probably was a bar in Wichita, but I guessed that wasn't the main attraction.

From the air, the town had been fairly orderly in layout. There was a river running through the center of town adding twists to the grid. The silver ribbon of the monorail ran between the river and airfield. All the buildings looked brown from the air. That was not uncommon outside the walls, but a town this large was. It was strange to see a city-like cluster of buildings that were the brown of outside, not the glimmering steel and glass of city buildings.

After landing, we got Dylan and his stuff together. Devlin decided to stay in The Dung Heap and take it easy on his stitches. I left the mid-range communication antennas up so he could comm us if needed. Kaden and his guys met us at the truck and we walked towards the town.

Police drones buzzed over our heads. I knew they were taking our pictures and processing them, making sure we weren't mass murderers or otherwise undesirable. They took longer than I would like, but eventually they were satisfied and flew away.

"How do you deal with that?" I asked Eve.

She looked up at me, confused. I gestured to where the police drones had been flying a moment earlier.

She shrugged. "You get used to it," she said. We walked a few steps, then she said, "it's funny; if you're born to the city, it seems weird to not have them around. It took me almost a year to get used to them."

"You weren't city born?" I asked, surprised.

"Nah, my parents gave me up to a city orphanage when I was seven," she said. "They couldn't take care of me and I had some useful aptitudes."

I tried to imagine what that must have been like. It was hard to picture Eve as a child and even harder to imagine the kinds of emotions that must have been plaguing both Eve and her parents at that handoff. I pictured a lot of tears on both sides. "Do you ever see them?" I asked.

A shadow crossed Eve's face and she said, "they died less than a year after they gave me up."

"Bandits?" I asked.

"Probably," said Eve. "They were found outside a trading post by a field tech. He had the decency to report it and bury them. If he hadn't, I probably would never have known."

Growing up, I had known families that gave up their kids to the city. It wasn't a decision they came to lightly. Usually it was done with the best interests of the kid in mind. If a family has a hard year and can't feed a kid, it's better to give them up to a city than to let all your children starve.

Most of the families that had given up kids were too ashamed to ever contact their kids again. They were allowed by law to see what became of their children. When their kids had useful aptitudes, the kids got training and jobs and became useful members of the city. No one wanted to think about what happened to the kids that weren't smart enough to make it through city schools, didn't have any artistic talent, and couldn't apprentice to any crafts.

My parents were far from perfect, but suddenly my life didn't seem so bad. There had been a few lean years and more than a few hungry nights, but I always had my family. When I went to the city to study, it was by choice, not necessity.

"We're not all barbarians out here," I said about the tech that had found Eve's parents. "I'm glad you found out at least. I've seen what not knowing does to people."

"Yeah," said Eve.

"How about you, Dylan?" I asked. "Were you born in the city?"

"Are you kidding?" he said. He didn't even turn around to answer.

Eve laughed. "He's city born and bred and proud of it," she said. "And it gives him no end of amusement to call me a hick, even though I've lived five times as long inside the city as I did outside."

We walked on in silence for a while. The landing field was a fair walk from the town itself. We were finally starting to get to the busier areas. There were small shops and roadside stands selling all manner of things from clothing to food and tools. This reminded me of going to town when I was kid. Our family made the semi-annual trip to the local trading post. It was smaller, of course, but the energy was the same.

Having spent a few years in the city, I knew it could get far busier than this, but it still made me slightly uneasy. I was having a better time of it than Rachael, Rabbit, and Steve. They were born outside the walls and had never been to a city. Kaden was coping. I knew he had some rocky history with cities, so that was all I could hope for.

Monty, on the other hand, was having the time of his life. You could almost see the gold coins behind his eyes. He was the deal maker of the crew and with this many people, all wanting to make a deal, he was in hog heaven.

"Careful there, Monty," I said. "Some of these folks might have haggling skills to rival yours."

"I didn't say anything," protested Monty.

Eve laughed. She had a high, lilting laugh that was at odds with her low voice. "Has anyone ever told you about stock trading?" she asked Monty.

He looked at her in profound confusion. "What?"

"I have a feeling it would be right up your alley," said Eve.

"What?" he said again and I chuckled.

It was a warm spring morning. The sun was shining and I was feeling much better than I had a few hours ago. The ground had been paved here, but there was a fine coating of dirt and dust over everything. It billowed up and got tossed around as we walked down the street.

We made our way deeper into the town. The shops and stands by the side of the road were closer together now. Less light made its way past the three and four story buildings. There were also more people here going about their day. The monorail station was nearly in the center of town and the airfield was on the edge of town. Even taking the most direct route was longer than I had anticipated.

As we got closer to the station, I started to notice the looks people were giving us. Mostly I saw fear, sometimes mixed with disgust. Almost no one else in town was carrying a weapon of any kind. Kaden had made sure we would be able to keep our weapons all the way to the train station. It would have been hard to ensure Dylan's safety without them. Still, I got the impression that most folks only ever saw guns on bandits. That explained the fear, but I didn't quite understand the disgust until we made it to the train station.

The monorail station was a gleaming white and modern looking structure in the center of town. The silver rail dipped down from the standard risers to ground level just long enough to handle a standard train length. It seemed like even the train didn't want to admit to stopping in a town like this.

Local folks were dressed in their finest to travel the train or to meet someone coming off the train. Their pants were made of fine wool and linen. A few very wealthy folks had exotic synthetics from the city. While the pants and shirts were all in very muted colors, both men and women had brilliantly colored scarves and hats.

I felt suddenly self-conscious. Company issue work pants were brown and green camouflage and a dark brown T-shirt. Until that moment, I never noticed how close the colors were to the dirt that stained my pants and shirt. I hadn't bathed in over a week and looked like it. That wasn't uncommon for folks outside the wall, but this town was walking the line between being outside the walls and being a city. They certainly had a city attitude and it was strongest around the train station, their tether to the civilized world.

Dylan had booked his ticket before we got there, so he just had to checkin with the conductor and get his seat. We found the right car and he turned to us.

"Thank you for your protection," he said. It sounded like a the stilted formality that it was.

Kaden just nodded.

"Good luck," I said.

Eve waved and said, "I'll call when we get to the other tower."

Dylan nodded and climbed aboard the train. He found his seat and then we spent an awkward twenty minutes waiting on the platform "guarding" him until the train departed. Well, Kaden and his guns were guarding, I was just standing there awkwardly. Our agreement was to see him on his way safely and I knew he would hold Kaden to it.

To pass the time, I asked Eve, "what did you tell him to get him to agree to this?"

"I told him he would get back to the city sooner this way," she said.

I coughed in surprise. "Is that true?"

She shrugged. "It's technically true," she said. "Six minutes is sooner. And that assumed best flying time for the truck and the slingers, which we were not making."

"Huh," I said. "Well, if he's happy, I'm happy."

Eve nodded. "I can't really blame him for wanting to go back," she said. "He and his partner have a daughter, six months old. She's so cute. I don't know how he doesn't just spend all his time playing with her."

There was a sadness in her voice I couldn't place. "Do you have anyone waiting for you back in the city?" I asked, hoping I wasn't prying too much.

"Nah," she said, "it's just me. I have friends, and that's enough for me. How about you? Got a partner?"

"Nope," I said. "Maybe someday, but not right now. This life doesn't lend itself to strong relationships."

Eve nodded in understanding. We stood in silence for a few minutes and just as I was about to make some more useless small talk, the train sounded the final call. We watched the doors close. After a few seconds, it slid silently out of the station and away from Wichita.

I was relieved that half of my babysitting job was complete. The sun was now fully overhead and I had started to sweat without the constant wind of the plains.

Kaden gave the order to move out. He led our group down from the platform and we headed back towards the airfield the same way we had come. Before we had gone thirty meters, we heard a commotion to our right, back near the tracks. I feared something had gone wrong with the train, but it had already disappeared off into the haze of midday. The commotion was centered around a group of construction workers from the city and their guards.

The workers were surrounded protectively by their guards. The guards looked at the crowd without emotion but with a strong "don't fuck with us" look on their faces. The crowd looked like it was made up of folks from outside the town. At least, their clothes were older and they looked less like the travellers and shopkeepers by the rail station. There had to be twenty or thirty of them, all looking very angry at the construction workers. Some in the crowd were carrying signs. I couldn't make out what the signs said.

For their part, the construction workers were doing their very best not to look down on the protestors. They were dressed in newer work clothes. Their carefully schooled expressions made it clear that this was not the first time they had encountered protesters. They were alert, but didn't respond to any of the shouting.

Kaden paused to look. "What is it?" he asked.

"City construction workers," I said, "from the looks of it." I pointed to the source of the commotion. "And a group of people protesting. Not sure what about. I can't make out their signs."

The two groups moved closer now and we could hear the shouting. The protesters shouted things like, "go home" and "take your robots with you" and "jobs for people, not robots". It was getting louder as the group came our way.

The guards for the city workers was oblivious to what was in front of them, unless it seemed hostile. The were solely focused on getting their group to the transports in one piece. Unfortunately, that meant they were headed our way and bringing the protesters with them.

I'm all for a good protest and telling people what you really think of them, but I had had enough excitement today and didn't want to be in the middle of anything else while we had Eve with us and a timeline to worry about.

Apparently Kaden had the same thoughts. He shouted to our group over the rising noise, "okay, move it out, double time. I don't want to be here when the shit hits the fan."

More people were joining the protest now. Even some of the more prosperous looking folks from the town were starting to shout at the construction workers. We started pressing our way through the gathering crowd. We were packed together, body to body as we tried to navigate as a group.

Eve said, "wow, this is crazy." The volume of the protest was rising. The feeling in the crowd went from antagonistic but civilized to angry and violent in less than a minute.

"People get crazy when their jobs and thus, their lives, are threatened," I said.

"Yeah, but-" Eve started to argue.

There was a crash, a scream, and a column of fire. I caught sight of the fire out of the corner of my eye and flinched. Instinct took over and I grabbed the back of Eve's jacket in one hand and Kaden's in the other. I pushed and pulled us at an accelerated rate away from the fire while trying to duck. Kaden was already taking the lead on that, shoving his way through people.

The riot started in earnest after that. The guards for the construction workers opened fire into the air. There was more screaming after that and the sounds of fighting. If the rest of Kaden's guys were following procedure, they would be not too far behind us, snaking through the crowd in pairs to cover our rear.

Even if you're willing to push people to the ground in front of you, it's surprisingly hard to run anywhere in a crowd. We jostled our way towards the edge of the crowd, making two steps forward for every step we were pushed back to shoved to the side.

We were nearing the edge of the crowd when someone mistook us as being part of the construction group. We were still pressed in on all sides by bodies. Someone yelled, "there's more of them! Let's get them!" That's when the punches and rocks started flying.

I heard Kaden curse. I ducked my head under my arm and tried to pull in closer to Eve and Kaden. Eve was protecting her head with her arms, too. Fists rained down on our arms and Kaden exchanged punches with some of the rioters. Someone tried to grab the gun off my hip, but I stomped on his ankle with my boots. He howled in pain and fell to the ground, grasping his ankle. I felt Eve moving under my grasp of her jacket, but I didn't see what happened.

We were no longer making progress away from the riot. Getting out of this without serious injury to us or to others no longer seemed like an option. I was ready to start shooting when I heard a stream of creative cursing from behind me. I was never more grateful to hear Rabbit's style of swearing in my life.

"... and she eats them with fish eyes and goat testicles!" I heard him bellow. He fired his gun up into the air and that gave us a second to tighten our group together again. At least, the bodies now pressing behind us were not hitting us, so I guessed they were with us.

He seemed ready to fire again when there was whoop of sirens and a dozen police drones zipped into position over the crowd. The noise of the riot lessened a bit. Then the drones broadcast a voice down on the crowd. It was the voice of one of the drone controllers. He was locked safely away in a secure building somewhere in town, but the long arm of the law reached all the way out here.

"This is the police," said the voice, coming from all the drones at once. "Disperse immediately." Someone took this opportunity to hurl a rock at one of the drones. The drone pilot dodged it easily and enabled a laser sight onto the person who had thrown the rock. It didn't shoot, but left the light on the assailant to make a point.

"If you do not disperse in an orderly fashion," continued the drone, "we will be forced to fire upon you."

My limited experience with city cops was that they would open fire, without hesitation. Experimentally, I lowered my arms and looked at the crowd's reaction. Most people were either already moving away from the riot area or scowling up at the drones, daring them to make the first move.

Kaden nudged me and we started walking away from the crowd and towards the airfield. Rabbit had a few more choice phrases for the rioters nearest us, but we retreated. The rest of the guns were close behind us. Fifteen meters later, we were clear of the crowd and headed down one of the wider streets to the airfield. Behind us, I heard someone yelling at a drone and a single gunshot. There were muffled screams and the sounds of scared people moving quickly to be somewhere else.

The walk back to The Dung Heap was far less interesting than the walk in had been. I was no longer curious about this large town. I just wanted to get as far away from it as possible. As we walked, I caught sight of Eve's face and noticed that her nose had been bleeding.

"You okay?" I said. "What happened?"

Eve touched her hand to her face then swore when she saw the blood on her hand. "Some asshole tried to grab something off my belt," she said. "I lowered my arm to shove him away and someone's elbow hit me in the face."

"How about you, though, Doc," said Monty from behind us. "I saw that ankle thing you laid on that guy. Pow! Dropped him like a hot skillet."

"You guys want to save the war stories for after we're safely out of this… town," said Kaden. I think he was going to say something less polite about the town, but forced himself to be civil. One thing about the city is that you have to assume you're being watched all the time. Most of the time that doesn't matter, but it creeps some people out enough that they're willing to leave the city and face bandits, just to get away from it. This town was more like a city than it was like the outside.

"Not really," said Rachael. "Did you see the way Rabbit laid down the law on that big guy in the plaid shirt?"

"Aww, hell yeah," said Steve, "he was all like bam, pow." I didn't have to look back to know that Steve was reenacting the epic takedown.

Kaden shook his head, but I think I heard him chuckle, too.

We made it back to The Dung Heap without further incident. Devlin was up and pacing a hole in the ground when we got there. After seeing the blood and bruises, he stopped pacing and looked disappointed.

"Aww," he said, "what did I miss?"

"Less than this morning," said Kaden. "Let's mount up. I want to be airborne in five minutes."

Devlin, Eve, and I went into the truck and I prepped the vehicle for flight. Devlin might have been mended enough to ride his slinger, but we decided not to chance it. I heard Kaden radio into flight control and get us cleared to leave. A few minutes later we were flying south and west of Wichita.

Chapter Nine

Where I'm from, early spring means the snow has thawed, but the ground hasn't. It was significantly different this far south. The ground was bright green with newly sprouted crops and dark brown from the rain. At one point, we had to change course by twenty kilometers to avoid the worst of a thunderstorm. As much as I bitched about The Dung Heap being a flying turd, there were times when being safely inside it was a blessing.

We flew until sundown, then found a place to land at a power substation. I'm not certified to work on this kind of power, so I didn't visit a lot of these. There were giant rods and what looked like huge batteries or generators near to the ground. Outside the fence, there was a flat barren area large enough for the truck to land.

The rain had been through this area before we got there and turned the area around the substation into a gravel and mud mess. I swear The Dung Heap sank into the ground by an inch when it touched down.

I wasn't worried about booby traps here. Lou and I were the same kind of techs. We worked on communication equipment almost exclusively. I did some light power work and, according to Kaden, Lou did some minor monorail repair. So, this power station should be well outside Lou's "territory", which I felt sure was why Kaden had chosen it. Nevertheless, he insisted on taking a look around the substation before we left the truck.

Eve had spent most of the flight making notes about our trip to Wichita and writing automation I didn't understand. She said it would help when they got to the next tower to determine if the same bad firmware was in use there more quickly than at the last tower.

Devlin had spent most of the flight sleeping. Between the short sleep we'd been getting and the wound on his side, he probably needed it. He roused as we landed.

"Just five more minutes," he said sleepily.

Eve tried to suppress a laugh and it came out as a strangled cough.

I cleared my throat loudly and Devlin twitched awake.

"Wha- Don't mess with-" He looked around and relaxed. "Oh, cool. Where are we?"

"The Canadian power station," I said.

"What? Winnipeg?" said Devlin still waking up.

Eve laughed and I chuckled. "No, in what used to be Texas," I said.

"Oh," said Devlin, "cool."

Kaden and his guys finished the sweep of the area. He said over comms, "looks clear. Of booby traps, at least. It's a swamp out here."

I opened the hatch and the warm humidity of the air just about bowled me over. Another perk of The Dung Heap is the air conditioning. Far from a luxury, the truck was built to operate on its own internal air supply for up to a day, if needed. The truck had been designed in a far more paranoid time. I had yet to plumb the depths of its survival capabilities. If all went well, I would never have to care what it was capable of.

The hatch sunk down into the mud and I walked out to get a better look at things. The guns would have to sleep outside tonight. While this might be the best strategic location, it was shitty for actual comfort. The big power poles and batteries were sitting on a fairly clear concrete pad. But they were also behind a locked and electrified fence, to which I didn't have access.

"Well," said Kaden, "we can try to find somewhere else or we can suck it up. What do you think?"

I looked around and didn't like the thought of sleeping out here tonight. "Maybe we can find something else that Lou wouldn't have claimed," I said.

Eve squished up behind me and said, "is there a power tunnel near here? I mean, the converted power of this substation has to feed into something else, right?"

"If there was, I think the entrance would be inside the electrified fence," I said.

"I'm not willing to place that kind of faith in the wisdom of humans," said Eve.

We agreed to scout the area on foot and on slinger for no more than a half hour then call it quits and move somewhere else. It didn't even take half that time for Rachael to spot an entrance from the air. Three hundred meters from the substation was a half-buried dome hatch like we'd used when we found Jeremiah.

We tromped through the field and opened the hatch to make sure it wasn't filled with water or anything else unpleasant. It wasn't as dry as the last one, but it was a damn sight drier than the ground. We decided it was safer for all of us to sleep in the tunnel rather than leave one person back in The Dung Heap.

An hour later, we were settled into the tunnel for the night. Kaden's guys were going to take turns cruising the area on a slinger so they could keep an eye on the vehicles as well as on us. Eve and I were sitting against the wall wrapped in our emergency blankets, just killing time until we could sleep. Some of the guys were playing cards. Others were listening to music or writing letters to loved ones far away.

Eve watched it all for a few minutes in fascination. "This is the part I find strangest," said Eve.

I looked around to see if someone had dropped their pants or done something strange enough to be worth commenting on. It all looked pretty normal to me. "How do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, the work is done, there's nothing more to do until sometime tomorrow when we get to the next tower. But I'm not at home. I'm not at a hotel or anybody's home. I'm still keyed up and on alert in case more bandits attack. I guess I'm still working, in a sense," she said.

I had brought an electric heater, one with its own small internal power source. Eve stared into the heater like one might stare into a fire. It was odd, but I didn't say anything. Sources of heat at night have that kind of primal effect on some people.

"Out here, you're always working," I said. "Working to stay alive in one way or another. Whether that's fighting off bandits or working for a company, it's the same thing. We tend to mix work and play more freely than in the city."

Eve stared and didn't say anything for a minute. "Fewer walls," she said finally. "More whole lives."

"Maybe," I said, "but also harder and shorter lives. We play hard because today might be our last day."

Eve nodded and stared at the heater. I couldn't figure her out. She seemed tough and independent, which were traits I didn't usually associate with city folks. Maybe it was her early life outside, or maybe it was all an act. I wasn't sure I cared. Parts of me wished she didn't work for the same company as me. She was pretty and her laugh made me want to do anything to hear it again. And, I was pretty sure should would be a firecracker in bed.

I coughed and looked away. I tried to think of something boring like cold, barren plains in the winter. It helped a little.

"Do you think the protesters were right?" asked Eve, quietly.

I shrugged, grateful to get my mind off the track it had been on. "Depends, I guess. They're right to fear that their jobs are going away. But I don't think they're right to blame the construction workers for that. The workers are just doing their jobs, just like everyone else."

"Forgive me if this sounds naïve," Eve said, "but why don't people just get other jobs if their jobs are going away?"

"It doesn't sound naïve," I said, "it sounds like you're from the city."

Eve shifted and started to apologize, but I held up a hand to stop her.

"It's okay, I know that's the common answer in the city," I said. "But here's the rub: some people just can't adapt to changes quickly. Whether it's lack of brains or training, or good old-fashioned stubbornness, it doesn't really matter. Some people will never be able to adjust to changes in the world. It's not good or bad, it just is. When that comes up against people who want to change how the world works, you're going to have conflicts."

Eve nodded.

"Take me, for example," I said. "I have a fair amount of smarts, compared to folks out here. In the city, I was training for a mid-level menial job. I have some skills, but not a ton. If my job were wiped out tomorrow, I could probably train up for a different job. That makes me the exception out here."

Eve was quiet and thoughtful for a minute. "Wow," said Eve, "this leads pretty quickly to a serious Darwinesqe or Nietzsche-style world where the strongest and best survive."

"I don't know about Nietzsche, but the strong surviving is what we have now," I said. I stretched, feeling the bruises and exhaustion of the day taking hold. "Don't worry about it. This is how it's always been. My grandpap worked a thresher, that's a farm machine, that was fully automated before he died. He always said, ‘thank God for that machine; let the robots lose an arm.'"

Eve smiled sadly. Me telling her not to worry wasn't going to make her stop worrying, so I said goodnight and lay down to sleep.

The next morning, we packed up our sleeping things and headed back to the vehicles. The gravel and mud had dried to an oddly smooth grey surface. The sun was peeking through some clouds, promising a clear day for working. Devlin said he was feeling better enough to ride his slinger which should make our travel faster. We ate our rations quickly and set off for the final tower that Eve wanted to inspect.

The journey was uneventful. We made good time and landed just before noon at the tower. The ground here was barren and dry with scrub grass. In the distance, I could see the low walled squares of insect farms. I had heard about them, but I had never seen them.

Back in my grandpap's day, people ate bigger animals, things like chickens and cows. Chickens you still saw on farms out here, but we mostly ate the eggs and only had the bird when it stopped laying. Cows were something I had seen pictures of. When I was in the city, I heard that the super rich could get hand-fed beef from small farms inside the city walls. They were ridiculously expensive.

Most people just ate protein from plants or from insects. By the time we ate it, it was so processed that you couldn't tell it was from insects unless you checked the label. I had always wondered where the insects I ate came from. I had heard about the big farms for raising them, but had never seen one until now.

The communications tower we were there to inspect was similar to the ones I had worked on before. The maintenance cage on this one looked twice as big. The stairs that went up the tower also continued down into a power and network tunnel. I figured this must be a later design combining the two into one.

We secured the vehicles. Eve said she wanted to use The Dung Heap's transmitters to call Dylan and see if he had made any progress. I let her sit in the pilot seat to make the calls and waited by the truck's hatch. I wanted to be available for questions, but not eavesdropping on her call.

The call went through after a lengthy delay and the video was terrible. It was blocky and stuttered a lot. Eve frowned at it. Dylan was visible on the far end. He looked harried, but he was at least back in the cubicle I remembered from the last call.

"Dylan?" said Eve into the comms. "Can you hear me?"

There was a lot of distortion on the line and frames kept dropping out. "-can hear- city-"

Eve flipped some switches and dropped the video from the call entirely. The audio improved some.

"Say that again," said Eve.

This time the audio was almost normal but words were still dropping out. "I said I- hear you okay. City- lockdown, I don't know how long-. Someone- holding the city hostage-. Network, power, -thing. -a few hours ago."

Eve and I exchanged worried glances.

Dylan continued. "-get word out. -connection to other cities- must- restored. Higher ups- working- may have found-"

The audio cut out entirely.

"Dylan?" said Eve. "Dylan, can you hear me? Dylan, are you there?"

Eve leaned back in the pilot's chair.

"Shit," she said. "That's not good."

"Did I hear that right?" I said. "Someone's holding the city hostage?"

"That's what I heard," said Eve.

"We need to tell Kaden and the others," I said. I called everyone over via comms and we gathered outside The Dung Heap. They looked expectantly at me. I gestured at Eve and she told them what we'd heard.

"I spoke with Dylan," she said. There might have been a tremor in her voice, but it soon vanished. "The connection was bad, but we think he said that the city was being held hostage."

"Holding an entire city hostage?" said Steve. "How does that work?"

The others murmured their agreement and echoed Steve's near disbelief.

"Someone had cut network and power to the city," said Eve, raising her volume over the murmurs. "Networks and the power grid are built to be fault tolerant. One link breaks, everything flows around it through other channels."

"Then how-" started Monty.

"If you cut all the channels," said Eve, "you can take a city offline."

"So what?" said Rachael. "Can't it survive being off the network for a while?"

I said, "Dylan said they had cut the power, too."

"How long do they have?" asked Kaden.

"I don't know," said Eve. "This kind of thing… maybe it gets planned for at higher levels, but I was never told how to prepare for this. Or how to recover."

"What does it mean for us?" asked Devlin. "That's what's important here."

Rabbit snarled, "why you short, selfish, miserable excuse for a knife cozy. Think about someone else for a change."

"No," said Eve, "he's right. It doesn't change anything about what we're doing. In fact, we are probably in a very good position to help restore the connections."

Monty said, "no offense, but I didn't sign up to rescue a city."

"And no one is asking you to," I said. "We're here to examine the relays on the tower and replace the sabotaged parts. If that helps restore the city, great. If not, we don't have to do anything else." I turned to Eve. "Right?" I asked her. Technically she was in charge now that Dylan was gone, but I guessed we would agree on this.

"Exactly right," she said.

Kaden took a deep breath. "Well, that settles it then," he said. "Let's get up this tower and get it fixed." He started giving orders to his team.

Eve and I went back inside the truck to grab our bags. Before we left the truck, Eve said, "thank you for that." The quaver in her voice was back, but she swallowed it down. I think the city being in danger scared her more than she wanted to admit.

"It's the right thing to do," I said. I turned towards the hatch and she caught my arm.

"One other thing," she said. "You offered me a second gun before. Does that offer still stand?"

I smiled and got it for her. I showed her how to work the slide, the clip eject, and the safety. She put on the harness under her jacket and we grabbed our gear. We headed out to fix our small piece of the world.

I didn't seriously think we would find any of Lou's booby traps this far south. She would have to have some real ambition to come out this far.

Kaden, Eve, and I walked to the base of the tower. I reached to unlock the door and Kaden grabbed my arm.

"Wait," he said. "I think I see something."

He looked at the door lock from all sides. It looked like a normal lock to me, so I was surprised when he cursed.

"What is it?" asked Eve.

Kaden gestured at the lock. "It looks like it's wired to some explosives. My guess is any attempt to unlock or remove the lock will cause it to detonate."

I leaned in to study it without wanting to get too close in case Kaden was wrong about what would set it off. The lock did look thicker than usual. My guess was that was the explosives.

"Mind if I try Dylan's booby trap detector on it?" Eve said.

"Be my guest," I said, stepping back.

"I'm not a bomb expert," said Eve, "but I can think of a few ways this could be wired. One, old school electrical conductance. Cut the connection between the lock arm and the lock body and boom."

She was operating the EM detector over the lock and looking at the results as she talked.

"Two, wire to the lock mechanism itself. Try to unlock it with a key, and boom. Three, wired offsite via sensors for remote controlled boom."

"I know the locks communicate back to the cities about their state," I said. "That's how what I do gets logged and I get paid."

Eve nodded. She scowled at the EM detector and put it away. "Even if this tower is one of the broken network connections to Kansas City, the network still flows the other direction. That is, the lock signal from here would still get back to another city to be logged."

"Unless it was sabotaged, too," I said.

Eve nodded. "From what you've told me about Lou, she doesn't seem like the type to favor remote control boom. So, I'm guessing it's both electrical conductance and the lock mechanism that would cause it to go off."

"In that case," I said. I rummaged in my bag for a short piece of wire and my torch. It wasn't going to be as good as a soldering tool, but I guessed it would work. "Can we jumper around the lock opening with this?"

Eve stopped looking at the lock and looked at me. "Perfect," she said.

We melted the wire on both ends and stuck one end on the lock body and one on the lock arm. These things may be networked and smart, but in the end, they were still hunks of metal locking a physical thing. Satisfied in the connection the wire made, I gestured for Eve and Kaden to stand back while I used the bolt cutter. They obliged without argument. If it was going to blow, better one than all of us.

The bolt cutter snipped through the lock arm with ease. There was no boom, so now we just had to worry about remote control boom. I quickly took the lock off the door and threw the lock as far as I could out into the barren land beyond the tower. It thudded to the ground with a small puff of dust, but didn't blow up.

Eve let out the breath she had been holding. "Well, that was exciting," she said.

We opened the door to the stairs and Kaden went first. Scanning every level for booby traps took time. The broken clouds of morning had given way to clear skies. This far south, it was much hotter than I was used to. Now that it was after noon, the sun was still strong overhead and the air had heated up past comfortably warm. We shed our jackets, hanging them over the rails of the stairs. We could collect them on the way down so there was no sense in carrying them.

More than an hour later we were just below the level with the ladder into the maintenance cage. Kaden stopped in front of us and Eve and I waited. It had become routine and, since we had found nothing else so far, I felt a little impatient at the delay.

Kaden stepped up and forward. There was a whizzing and ripping sound then Kaden screamed. He staggered back and caught himself on the rails. He grimaced and lowered himself to the ground, breathing heavily. He was bleeding from his right calf.

Eve swore and dropped her bag. She started to dig around in it for the small medical kit. I moved forward and Kaden tried to grab his leg with shaking hands. His pants had been torn on the side and front. I used my knife to cut away the cloth.

Part of his calf muscle was just gone. The edges were rough and ragged like something had clawed it away. There was similar damage to the front of his leg near the shin. It looked like whatever had clawed at his calf had been a projectile, catching his calf first then slicing through the small flesh on the front of his leg, before firing off into the distance.

I used my comms to call to Monty. "Can you bring the big med bag from the truck up the tower ASAP?" I said.

I heard Monty swear then start to move. I cut off the pant leg from the knee down and wadded it up to use as a crappy bandage until the med bag got there. We had to stop the bleeding. Kaden gave a strangled cry as I put pressure on the wound.

"It's alright," said Eve, "Monty is on the way up with the med bag."

Kaden was sweating now and his breathing was shallow and ragged. He nodded and gritted his teeth.

"I think it missed the artery," I said.

"Well, that's something, at least," said Eve.

"Can you see what did this?" I asked.

Eve's eyes roved around the platform where Kaden had been injured and looked above where we were sitting on the stairs. "I don't see the actual thing that hit Kaden," she said, "but I think I see where it came from. On one of the rails outside the maintenance cage, there's something that looks like a motion detector, but it's too big to just be a sensor."

I grunted. "Can we get to it to disarm it?" I knew this kind of conversation could wait until we had stabilized Kaden. But it gave us something to do instead of stew in our own fear while Monty climbed the tower with the med bag.

Eve looked up again, moving around a little on the stairs to try and get a better look. "Maybe," she said, "but we'd have to climb on the outside of the tower structure. And, I'm not sure if the microwave dish is active. If it is, we're probably fucked."

"Embrace that optimism," I said.

Eve chuckled. It was the best I could hope for under the circumstances. Kaden grunted in pain. I touched his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

"Hang in there," I said.

Monty leaped up the stairs below us and tossed Eve the med bag when he was in range. Then he stood there gasping for air. I'm pretty sure he made that climb in record time.

"There should be a large area bandage," I said to Eve. "Towards the back, in the vertical pocket."

She flipped open the bag and looked through the packages in the back pocket I had indicated. Finding one, she pulled it out and offered it to me.

"I need your help for this one," I said. "Get up here as close to Kaden as you can. We're going to do a handoff."

She climbed over my legs and sat near Kaden's shoulder on the topmost step of the stairs. She was still holding the large bandage package. I adjusted myself while trying to keep the pressure on Kaden's leg steady. We would have to move quickly when I removed the makeshift bandage for a real one.

"Okay," I said. "It's going to look like we're making it worse. I need you to open the bandage and get ready to hand it to me. When I pull the old one away, I'll drop it and get the new one from you. Then I'll press it into place."

Kaden was fading on us, probably shock. He had lost a lot of blood into the recycled pant leg, but not that much.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yes," said Eve. She ripped open the bandage package and I dropped the old bandage. Kaden twitched at the change in sensation, but that was all the reaction we got. The wound looked terrible. I had seen gunshot wounds before, but this was far messier.

I pressed the bandage to the wound. It was like the liquid stitches for large areas. It had contact painkillers and something that helped stem the bleeding. Unlike the liquid stitches, we would have to remove the part of the bandage that couldn't be absorbed by the body as it healed. That would be days from now, so I just pressed the bandage into place until it started to stick.

"Good," I said, letting out my breath, but still holding the bandage in place. "Get me the tape," I said to Eve. "Front left pocket."

She climbed over my legs again and retrieved the tape. I had her help me hold the bandage in place while I wrapped Kaden's leg with the tape. The bandage felt more securely attached by the time we finished wrapping his leg. He had passed out before we had finished the bandage swap.

We put the rest of the tape back into the bag and closed it up. I looked down the stairs to see Monty watching us with obvious worry. He was biting his nails and his eyes followed our movements like a frightened animal.

"So?" he asked when I looked at him.

"I think he'll make it," I said. "We stopped the bleeding pretty fast, but it's a bad one."

Monty nodded.

"Steve and Rabbit are about the same height, right?" I asked Monty.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll get them up here."

"Good," I said. "We need to get Kaden down these stairs and lay him down inside The Dung Heap. If he stays out for very long, I don't want him to be vulnerable."

Monty called on comms for Steve and Rabbit. While they were getting up here, I turned to Eve to talk about the booby trap that had caused this disaster. She was holding Kaden's hand and saying calming things, even though he probably couldn't hear her. Through the dirt and blood, or maybe because of it, she was beautiful. I tried to capture that vision so I could go back to it later.

I touched her shoulder and she looked up at me. She wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffed.

"You want to talk about the booby trap now?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "We need to get rid of it if we're going to do this job."

She nodded and set Kaden's hand down beside him. She stood up and pointed up to the trap. I followed where she pointed and saw the device. It was strapped to the external structure of the tower, well out of reach of the stairs or maintenance cage. It was positioned to attack anyone trying to access the maintenance cage ladder or the upper platform of the stairs.

Eve pointed at the external railing leading up to the device. "I think if someone climbed up behind the thing, it could be disabled or destroyed," she said. "But that means climbing up the outside of the stairs. From below, the structure is too big to make a stealthy climb easy."

I nodded. The support structure was rows of triangles. Each row was smaller as the tower narrowed toward the top. Below the device, the rows were at least six feet tall. Even using the triangles for extra height, it was going to be tough to get into position without triggering the device.

"From above," continued Eve, "the climb is easier, but there's that." She pointed at one of the microwave dishes. Now, when I say "microwave", you might be thinking of the food preparation device. But these are much, much, did I say ‘much', more powerful than those. Picture it this way: you could take a whole, raw chicken, toss it in front of the dish and in the few seconds it took to make the arc, the chicken would be cooked. Not tasty, mind you, but cooked. I never did that with a chicken, but once with a small game bird. That was a long winter out in the badlands.

The microwave dish was in the safe path to the booby trap from above. "If the network is down, will it still be active?" I asked.

Eve shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know if that connection is down or not. We could verify if we had access to the maintenance cage."

I smiled at her. "I have an easier way to check," I said. I looked down to Monty. "Heads up," I said. "I'm going to try something." I waggled a protein bar, still in its metallic package, at Monty.

"Jesus, Doc," said Monty. "Is now really the time?"

I leaned back and hurled the bar up into the path of the microwave dish.

And nothing happened.

"What the-" said Monty.

"What was supposed to happen?" asked Eve.

"If it was active, the metal in the package would have sparked like crazy and then the bar itself would have exploded as the moisture was heated like that," I said and snapped my fingers.

Eve said slowly, "so this is good news. No boom, no microwave?"

"That's right," I said.

Steve and Rabbit clomped up the steps, slightly out of breath. Eve, Monty, and I got ourselves and the med bag out of the way so they could near Kaden and get him upright. He roused slightly as Steve and Rabbit lifted him. They put his arm over their shoulders and hoisted him by his belt. Kaden was apparently coherent enough to try and keep his leg up and avoid it bumping into things. He was a tough one, no question about it. With a wound like that, I would have been a screaming child or out cold.

We watched them go down a flight of stairs. Monty turned to us.

"I guess you need a new gun up here, huh?" he said.

"Yeah," I said, reluctantly.

"Well, this is a shitty way to get promoted," said Monty. "What's the deal with the booby trap?"

I explained it to him and the two ways we saw to disable the device. He listened carefully, nodding.

"What are we going to do when we get to the device?" he asked.

Eve and I exchanged glances. I hadn't thought that far ahead and apparently neither had Eve.

"Uh," I said brilliantly, "disarm it?"

"Like the ankle-biter? Is it metal?"

I shook my head. "No, it looks plastic." I looked at Eve and she just shrugged.

"Booby traps are not my specialty," she said.

"Let me put it this way," said Monty. "Can I shoot it?"

Light dawned on the two "smart" people on the tower. I looked sheepishly at Eve. She coughed and looked down. If shooting it would work, we didn't have to get close to it, we just had to have a good shooter and a clear line of sight.

"Yeah," I said, "that would probably work."

"Great," said Monty. "Let's do that and get this over with."

To get a clear line of sight and still be outside the device's range, Monty had to climb out onto the external structure of the tower, but it was far less perilous than our approaches had been. We watched him climb out on the hot metal structure. It felt a little silly to watch since we couldn't do anything if he fell, but we watched him anyway.

He got into position and braced himself. He set his large gun to fire a single shot at a time and took careful aim. The big gun would have more kick, but it also had more accuracy. After a few seconds, he squeezed off a round and hit the device. It exploded into splinters of plastic, circuit board, and a shower of small metal pieces.

Monty radioed down to Rachael on the ground. "What are those things?"

We could see her jog over to them from where she had been standing guard. "They look like ball bearings with the edges cut off and razors attached to the flat spots," she said.

"Nasty," said Monty. He made his way carefully back to our platform.

"Good shot," I said.

"Thanks."

Monty took the lead up the stairs and checked the maintenance cage for more traps. Seeing none, he let me proceed. I reached for the lock on the cage and checked it for an explosive like we had seen at the bottom of the stairs. This one didn't have a booby trap, but it was not one that I had a key for. I used the bolt cutters again and tossed the destroyed lock aside.

I pushed open the hatch to the maintenance cage and climbed up. Eve followed me and she set to working. I waited, feeling a little useless again. She connected her terminal and started her diagnostics.

"In case you need to hear the obvious," she said after a few minutes, "these relays have been sabotaged, too."

I grunted.

"The side channel I told you about earlier is going crazy with extra commands," she said. "It's kind of fascinating to watch, really."

"Do they tell you how to restore connections to Kansas City?" I asked. It might have come out a little impatient. But now was no time to lose sight of the bigger picture.

"Right, sorry," said Eve. I believe she might have blushed a little in her embarrassment. "Give me five or ten minutes to make copies of the logs so I can look at them later. Then we can replace the relay and go from there."

I looked off into the distance. I could see more of the insect farms from here. The stretched out like the endless wheat fields up north. It was quiet here with a slight breeze. The sun was swinging lower in the sky, just starting to tinge the clouds with color. The beauty made everything seem surreal.

"Okay," said Eve. "All done. Now I just need to replace the relay and we're good to go."

I nodded. As she started to work, I heard a commotion at the bottom of the tower. Monty and I looked over the railing to see what was going on. There were more people down there than there should have been. I saw slingers and people with automatic weapons. They were shouting at everyone to get down. That much I could hear without comms.

"Shit," said Monty. He tried to reach our people on comms but got nothing.

"What's happening?" said Eve.

"Keep working," I said. "Might be bandits, but I'm guessing it's Lou."

Eve went back to work without a word. I drew my guns. They weren't close enough for them to be useful, but it made me feel more prepared.

"Monty," I said, "what do we do?"

"Uh," he said, "I, uh, oh man! Why now? Why did Kaden get hurt now? He's way better at this shit."

We were looking nervously over the rail and considering our options when we heard boot clanking up the stairs. A voice came on our comms. It was Lou.

"Good evening," she said. "I warned you about hanging around on my territory. Did you listen? Of course not! Because that takes brains that you clearly don't have."

The boots were closer now and Monty took a shot at the stairs. I think it was meant as a warning rather than actually trying to hit something.

"Hurry it up, Eve," I said. I followed Monty's lead and fired vaguely in the direction of the boots coming up the stairs.

"Now, now," said Lou's voice, "stop all that shooting, or I'll have to kill one of your people down here." Over the comms, we could hear Rabbit swearing at her and a meaty thump. The swearing stopped. Lou's voice said, "he's not dead, but I guarantee he won't soon forget that."

The boots had stopped ascending the stairs while we talked with Lou. I was a little out of breath with all the adrenaline in my system.

"How about it, Eve?" I asked.

"One minute," she said.

"You may not have it," I said. She cursed but kept working.

I adjusted my grip on my guns. My palms we sweating and I wanted a good grip if I had to start shooting again and hoped to hit anything.

"Now," said Lou, "you give yourselves up, and I will endeavor to not kill any of you."

Monty shook his head. "Her word is shit," he said.

"What choice do we have?" I asked. "We can make a stand here and maybe we get out. They will definitely kill everyone else."

Monty was biting his nails again. "Dammit!" he said and stomped his foot in impatience.

"That's it," said Lou. "Lay down your guns now or I shoot one of your crew."

"Alright!" I said into comms. "We're setting them down now. Don't shoot anyone." I turned my head to face Eve. "Out of time, Eve."

The men with the clompy boots came up to the platform. I put my hands on my head and Monty did the same. He was glaring at me. I wasn't sure if he was actually pissed at me or if he was mad at Lou and the whole situation. If we survived this, he could curse me out later for taking over the negotiation.

There were three men on the stairs. I was going to mentally name them Larry, Curly, and Moe after some ancient comedy characters. But they all looked the same, so I named them Larry One Two and Three.

"Get on your knees!" bellowed Larry One. I complied but Monty didn't move right away.

"Do it now!" yelled Larry Two.

"Monty," I said, "what are you doing?"

"You'll have to take me standing," said Monty. He lowered his arms and prepared for a fist fight. I don't know if power went to Monty's head or if he just wasn't thinking straight. Maybe he just had a fierce pride that I had never noticed before now.

"Monty," I repeated, "don't, man."

"Suits me," said Larry Two. He lowered his weapon, feigned one way and clocked Monty with a roundhouse. Monty fell to the metal platform like a sack of potatoes.

It's funny the way the brain works. Even under the direst of conditions, the brain can notice things that are completely inappropriate. This one time, bandits were trying to rob us and Steve was mixing it up with one of them. As they were fighting, I noticed that Steve's fly was open. Yeah, just like that, my brain jumps out of the actual scary fight I'm in and notices someone else's pants zipper. In school, they talked about survival traits that let some animals live longer. I just want to know how long that quirk has been around and what the hell kind of advantage it could possibly give me to survive.

I had another one of those moments on the platform that night. The way that Larry Two had thrown that punch looked very similar to how I'd seen Rabbit throw punches. I filed that information away for later.

Larry One pushed me down onto the platform. I felt him wrench my arms around behind me. Apparently this didn't happen to Lou a lot because her guys weren't packing zip-cuffs like I expected. I felt him stick the end of some duct tape on my wrist and wrap it around several times.

Larry Three moved past us all towards the maintenance cage while Larry Two was taping Monty's hands. I looked over at the cage to see if Eve was okay. She was already kneeling with her hands on her head. Her company issue gun was far away from her. The harness and extra gun I had given her were nowhere in sight.

"Let's go," said Larry One. He lifted my shoulders off the ground and I put my feet down under me.

"Shit," said Larry Two, "what about this one?"

"You're the one who knocked him out," said Larry One, "you deal with it."

Larry Two swore some more and picked up Monty in an over the shoulder carry. The Larrys were big, and Monty is small is size, but he's dense. That could not have been easy. I suddenly had more fear of those big arms.

Larry One said into comms, "targets secured. We're coming down." To Larrys Two and Three he said, "get their gear, too."

We marched down the stairs and said nothing. I dared to hope that this was just a territorial issue and that Lou would let us go. But, I've lived on the outside for too long to believe that kind of thinking is realistic.

In the clearing at base of the tower, Lou had all of our team tied up. They had even dragged Kaden out of The Dung Heap and bound his hands in front of him. He was laying on his back, unconscious. I didn't see any blood on the bandage, so it seemed to be holding. Of course, that wouldn't matter if Lou decided to kill us.

Rabbit was also lying on the ground unconscious. He had a black eye and large bruise on one side of his face. Everyone else looked like they had put up a fight before being subdued. They glared daggers at Lou and her guys. Other than the Larrys, she had three men on the ground with automatic weapons casually trained on our group.

Larry Two dumped Monty next to Rabbit. Larrys One and Three pushed me and Eve down to our knees next to Steve. Then the Larrys joined Lou's guys in watching us.

"The gang's all here," said Lou. She walked in front of us, gloating and making sure we saw who was in charge.

When she got to the end of the line where Eve was, she stopped.

"Who's this?" she demanded.

Nobody said anything. Lou looked us over and gestured to one of her guys. He punched Rachael in the gut. She grunted in pain and doubled over, coughing.

"My name is Eve," said Eve, her voice trembling.

Lou's head whipped towards Eve at the sound. "Eve, is it? And how is it you came to be with these interlopers, Eve?"

Eve said nothing. Anger flared in Lou's eyes and her hand came hard and fast across Eve's face. Eve cried out in surprise and caught herself awkwardly without falling face first to the ground. Her lip was split and her nose was bleeding slightly. She blinked back her tears. Feeling helpless is one of the worst feelings in the world. Actually being helpless is a lot worse.

"She's my cousin," I said. "She wanted to see what the job was like before she goes to train in the city."

Lou looked at me and considered this. Slowly, she said, "no, I don't think so." She reached around Eve and felt her palms. "Definitely not," she said. "City girl, I think."

Lou walked back and forth in front of us again as she impressed us with her brilliance. "You already have a full squad of guns and a tech. Who would you need from the city?" She paused to make it dramatic. "Obviously, a controller," she said.

She stopped in front of me. "You have been a pain in my ass since I met you," she said, her voice lowered. "Why couldn't you have just gone back up north to your frozen wastelands to hide like a good boy?"

"Afraid of a little competition?" I said. The sting of the slap was radiating through my face before I realized I had been hit. Damn but Lou was fast. I tasted blood and spit into the dirt.

She leaned in close and hissed, "I am afraid of nothing!"

She paced a little more. The sun was on the horizon now, giving everything a reddish glow. Lou had a short black ponytail and a tattoo on the nape of her neck that I couldn't make out.

"I would really like to kill all of you," she said. "It would save me a lot of trouble to be done with it." She sighed as if she was enjoying the fantasy of killing us all. It gave me the creeps.

"But," she said, "if I kill you, then I have to train a whole new set of people not to fuck with me." She started pacing again. "And I don't have time for that. Instead, I'm just going beat on you a little, take your weapons, and leave you to spread the word about me. Just as soon as I'm done marking what's mine."

Lou stopped and motioned to one of her guys. She and her gun withdrew from the group then headed for the tower stairs. The rest of the guns remained behind to watch us.

I heard Eve swear under her breath. Her eyes followed Lou to the tower stairs.

"What?" I whispered.

She shook her head. Just then, one of the Larrys looked over at us. The Larrys were beefy, all arms and shoulders. They had short buzzed hair that might have been blonde if it hadn't been so short.

"No talking," said the Larry.

I considered that for a moment and decided to talk anyway. Lou and her guys were going to hurt us no matter what we did, so all I really needed to do was avoid death.

"Okay," I said, "then maybe you know the answer. How did you guys find us?"

"I said no talking," said the Larry with more force. I could see a muscle in his jaw working as he clenched his teeth.

One of the other guys who wasn't a Larry chuckled. Larry turned to him and said, "shut up, Vince."

I saw a chance to sow some discord amongst the ranks and I took it. "So there's a story here about how you found us," I said. "Was it monitoring? Local bandit watchdogs? What?" I didn't really care, but getting people off balance is always a good tactic in a fight.

"You shut up," Larry barked at me.

Vince had dark curly hair and it hung down and around his face. He chuckled some more and tossed his hair aside as he said, "it ain't his fault you put the tracker on the wrong guy."

I assumed he meant Dylan, but they had found us here. And Dylan left us almost two days ago.

One of the other non-Larrys laughed. His voice had an odd accent when he said, "just don't ever go gambling with him. He had a six in seven chance to get it right, and who does he pick? The one guy who's inside an EM shielded vehicle the whole time."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Somehow they had planted a tracker on me. With all the pockets and gadgets in my pants, they could have easily slipped something into one of the pockets and I would never have noticed. They probably did it when escorting us out of Lou's bar.

"Shut up, Jersey," said the Larry. "Next time, you do it." Jersey just laughed.

During this discussion, Rabbit started to rouse. I heard groaning and colorful epithets. Other than the sound of Rabbit's cursing, Lou's guns and us faced off for a while in silence. I debated the merits of getting them to talk versus my chances of getting punched. If they talked, they relaxed a little and lost their edge. If they weren't in a talking mood, well, sucks to be me.

"How long you all been with Lou?" I asked.

Vince turned to look at me. "Now, when someone tells you to shut up and they have a gun pointed at you," he said, "the smart thing to do is to actually shut up. So, I'm going to do you a favor and repeat it, in case you're hard of hearing: shut up."

That solidified Vince as the leader of Lou's guns in my mind. He didn't get rattled, he just told it like it was. Plus I think that was more English words strung together in a single sentence than any of the Larrys had managed up until then.

I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Steve slowly moving his hand towards his boot. I wondered if he kept a knife in there. I wasn't sure he was stealthy enough to free himself without being noticed. And even if he did, what then? Steve was not the sharpest tooth in the hound's mouth.

Before I could do anything with that observation, there was a loud curse from the top of the tower. Lou's guns tensed and Vince nodded. He gestured to one of the Larrys and they headed my direction. I felt Eve tense beside me. Whatever she was concerned about before, it had happened.

"What did you do to the relay?" asked Vince.

"Uh," I said, brilliantly.

Eve said nothing.

Vince leaned down to get in my face. "Where is it?" he demanded.

"I tossed it," I said. "Over the railing. It's probably around here somewhere, if it wasn't damaged by the fall."

I have been told that I'm a shitty card player. I don't know if adrenaline makes me lie more convincingly or if Vince was worse at cards than me.

Vince swore. He distributed the Larrys to search around the area.

I wasn't really sure what I was buying time for. I just didn't want to get to the part of the evening where Lou's guys beat on us before they ditched us. I didn't expect Steve to free himself. I certainly didn't expect Eve to turn on me.

"What are you doing?" she asked me, horrified. "You know very well what happened to the relay. I'm not going to let you put my life in jeopardy by playing dumb."

Vince looked between us, confused. I felt the same way. Eve was the one who had been last nearest the relay. Which meant, she had done something to it. Maybe she was hoping for this exact situation, to get a chance to fix it for real and restore connection to Kansas City. I had to hope she could scheme as much as Kaden said.

"Me?" I demanded, trying to catch up to her plan. "You're the one said this was going to work. This is the last time I work with city folk. You think you know everything."

I saw the slightest nod from Eve.

"I don't know everything," she bellowed, "but I know a lot more than you do about circuit repair."

"Oh yeah?" I yelled back.

Vince shouted over us. "Enough!" He looked back and forth between me and Eve. I tried my best to look pissed at her. She didn't hold back either.

"Fuck it," said Vince. He called the Larrys back on comms. He motioned to Jersey, then to Eve. "Grab her," he said. "I don't know what's going on. I'm taking them both up to Lou. She can sort it out."

They grabbed our bags and pulled us roughly to our feet. The march up the tower was long and silent. The sun had set now and darkness was creeping in. My arms had started to go numb from being pinned behind me for so long. I just hoped Eve knew what she was doing. If she didn't, I probably wasn't going to be able to talk my way out of this now.

Lou was waiting for us on the platform under the maintenance cage. She gave us all a look that could peel paint. I suddenly wasn't feeling as optimistic about this plan as I had been a few minutes ago.

"Vince," she said. "What the fuck? I told you to get me the relay, not bring these two idiots back up here."

"One of them knows where it is," said Vince. "They got into an argument about it." He dropped our bags on the platform. He motioned for Jersey to go back down and join the others.

Lou turned to face us. Her normally pretty face was contorted in rage. "So, where is it?"

"In my bag," said Eve. She nodded at her bag. "I'll get it for you."

"Oh no," said Lou. "I'm not letting you reach into a bag for who knows what."

Lou upended the bag on the platform. Tools and computer terminals, cables and half a pack of rations came tumbling out. On top were two relays for the tower's antenna. I half expected to see Eve's extra gun in there. Since it wasn't there, I had to hope she had hidden it somewhere inside the maintenance cage.

Lou reached down to pick up a relay and stopped before she touched it. She looked up at me and Eve, studying us. "No," she said slowly, "I don't want one of these exploding in my face if it's rigged."

She straightened and pointed at Eve. "Cut her loose," she said to Vince. He went behind Eve with a knife and cut the tape. Her wrists were red and raw where the tape had been.

"Now," said Lou, "get up there and fix the relay."

So far, Eve's plan seemed to be working. I just hoped things kept going our way.

Vince pushed me back to my knees while Eve grabbed a relay and some of her tools from the pile on the platform. She climbed the ladder into the maintenance cage and set to work. I really hoped she had grabbed the right relay. The Larry climbed the ladder to watch her from inside the cage.

This was Eve's plan, so I had to trust her. But, I couldn't rely on her plan being the only one to get me out of this. Now that Jersey was gone, it was three against one here if Eve's plan didn't work. I didn't like my odds. Lou was staring off into the darkness, but something told me she was still on alert. Vince was alternating between watching me and looking over the railing at the group below.

I had fifteen or twenty minutes to stew, coming up with escape plans while Eve fixed the relay. Most of my plans involved me falling to my death, getting shot, or letting Lou win. None of those were really appealing.

What was I doing out here, fixing communications for cities that barely cared if we existed. Once the remotely serviceable towers went up, even this job would vanish. These last few days were enough to make me want to hang it up. Maybe Kaden had been onto something when he asked me about quitting. But, that all assumed I could get out of here alive.

Finally, Eve declared that she was finished.

"About time," said Lou. She climbed the ladder.

Eve edged away from the relay area holding her hands behind her back. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were hunched, making her look small and nonthreatening. She edged over to where the Larry was standing. Lou went to examine the relay and I prepared for things to go sideways.

After a minute, Lou said, "all green."

"Yes," said Eve, "all fixed. Can you please let us go now? I'm from the city and I'm scared. I just want to go home." From the quaver in her voice, I couldn't tell if she was playing an angle or not.

Lou looked up from her diagnostic tool. There was gleam in her eye that I didn't like.

"It's all green," said Lou, "but it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be broken in a very specific way."

My stomach dropped. Lou knew about the sabotaged relays. More than that, she wanted them to be broken. I had seriously underestimated Lou and the extent of her ambition. If she wasn't behind holding Kansas City hostage, she was probably working with them.

Eve said nothing but she moved her arm slightly behind her. There was a gunshot and the Larry screamed in pain. He hopped to one side to take pressure off the foot that Eve had just shot. Lou's eyes widened and she ducked in time to miss Eve's next shot.

I got as much leverage as I could and hurled myself into Vince's legs. He stumbled and fell to the platform nearly on top of me. Vince may have looked skinny, but he was heavier than he looked. His elbow landed in my gut and I grunted in pain. I heard a few more gunshots both from nearby and from the ground.

I kicked at Vince's head, trying to knock him out, or at least to keep him too distracted to use his gun. After a few vicious kicks, he stopped struggling. Breathing heavily from the exertion, I turned myself around and got the knife off his belt. I might be bragging a little to say it like that. Moving around with anything like precision without using your arms is difficult at best. It might be more accurate to say that I flopped gracelessly in the direction of Vince's belt and squirmed around until I could actually reach the knife. Freeing my hands was almost as clumsy, but I got it done and took Vince's gun from him. I turned back to the maintenance cage, gun at the ready.

Eve was kneeling and crying in the center of the cage. She was holding her right arm close to her body. It was bleeding but it didn't look too bad from here. The Larry had his shoe off and was wrapping his bloody sock around the wound as a bandage. Behind Eve, stood Lou. She had her handgun out and aimed at Eve's head.

"Drop the gun," said Lou. There was anger in her voice, but she sounded a little rattled. I guess getting shot at by someone you thought was harmless will make you question your safety a bit.

"I don't think so," I said. Larry finished wrapping his foot and stood up awkwardly beside Lou.

"Don't make me kill your girlfriend," said Lou. To make a point, she pushed the muzzle of the gun more firmly against Eve's head.

I didn't really want to give up, but I didn't want to get Eve killed either.

"Suppose I drop the gun. What's your plan from there?" I asked.

"I put my relay back in then we all go our separate ways," said Lou.

"So I'm just supposed to let you hold an entire city hostage?" I demanded.

Lou looked mildly surprised. "You know about that? Well, it seems I may have underestimated you."

"The feeling's mutual," I said. "A city is a far bigger prize that a few dozen tunnels and towers."

Lou laughed. "Is that what you thought this was about? A turf war? I wanted people to stay away from my territory so they wouldn't notice the… modifications to the components."

"And you used booby traps to keep people away," I said.

"Highly effective," she said. "Usually. I'm irritated by the number of traps you seem to have destroyed in the last few days."

I hoped that my guys had won the fight at the base of the tower. It was as much as six on four if everybody was able to fight. I couldn't rely on that, though. So, I had to get Lou to make a mistake or agree to come out peacefully.

"Why's it so important that you put your relay back in?" I said. "Broken isn't enough?"

Lou sighed. "Just when I think you're smarter than you look, you say things like that. Let's see if your city controller friend knows why." Lou reached down and squeezed on Eve's wounded arm.

Eve struggled not to scream. "B-Because the side channel does more than just disable the relay for normal traffic," she sobbed. "I-It creates a separate network, invisible to all city monitoring."

"Very good," said Lou. She looked at me coldly. "Surely even a dull mind like yours can see the value in that."

I grunted. I wasn't going to play her game.

"Look, this chat has been lovely," she said. "But I really do need to get this relay replaced."

"I don't think I can let you do that," I said. Until I knew I could escape the tower safely with Eve, there was no way I was giving up my only leverage.

Lou must have had the same negotiating class I did in school. Or, she was just naturally better at weaseling her way into getting what she wanted.

"Look at it this way," said Lou, "you've actually finished your job here. The relay is fixed. You get to walk away with a clear conscience."

"P-please, Doc," sobbed Eve. "Please do what she says."

I felt a stab of pain for Eve. There is nothing more bitter than having your convictions put to the test and to be found wanting. She knew the full extent of what she was asking. To put her life before the millions of lives in Kansas City was selfish, but completely natural. Only the best of humanity can ever really make the choice to value the lives of others over their own. That's why we idolize them and name buildings or bridges after them. We want to remember what humans are capable of, even if it's only a relatively few number of people every generation.

I took a deep breath. I activated comms to my team so they would know what I was negotiating up here. "Okay," I said, "we leave you here with no further interference from us and you let us leave, our weapons and people intact. Deal?"

"Oh, look how reasonable you're being all of the sudden," said Lou. She tightened her grip on Eve, fearing some other trick. "Before I agree to that, I want to make sure you're actually holding some cards."

She flicked on her comms to both her team and mine. "Boys, what's the status down there?"

I nearly collapsed in relief that my guys had been able to make the most of our distraction. Kaden's voice was a welcome sound on comms.

"We have your people," said Kaden. "Let our people go, with no further harm, and we'll leave you to your tower."

I looked at Lou. She looked angry, but unsurprised. I wondered how long it would take for her to get a different team of guns to work with after tonight.

"Fine," said Lou. She hauled Eve up by her wounded arm. Eve cried out but tried to stifle it. "Take your city folk and go." She pushed Eve forward towards the hatch into the maintenance cage but kept her gun trained on Eve.

Eve stumbled a few steps then got control of herself. She climbed down the ladder awkwardly with only one good arm. I waited until she was behind me before reaching down to get my bag. I took a step forward to collect Eve's bag.

"Ah, ah," said Lou. She was pointing her gun at me now through the hatch. "That stays here."

It had been my last card and it wasn't enough. If I could have taken the modified relay, then the tower would stay fixed. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I backed away from the sabotaged controller. Putting myself between Eve and Lou, we walked to the stairs and started the long descent to the ground.

Back on the ground, the guys were the worse for wear, but in control of their weapons. Lou's guys were sitting on the ground. They had some bruises and bloody noses, but nothing too severe.

"We good?" asked Kaden.

"Good enough," I said. "We need to bandage Eve's arm then we'll be ready to fly out of here."

Kaden ventured a glance at Eve. She was nearing the point of physical exhaustion. Her eyes were glassy and she reacted slowly to sound and movement around her. She was still clutching her arm tightly and the bleeding had slowed considerably. Kaden's face softened with concern then hardened again. He nodded.

"We'll mount up here," he said. "Let me know as soon as you're ready to fly."

I wasn't sure how well he'd be able to fly with his injured leg, but I didn't ask. Monty had regained consciousness. He probably had a concussion, but there wasn't much we could do about that out here.

"Will do," I said. I walked Eve slowly back to The Dung Heap. I got the big med bag out and put a bandage on her arm. The wound looked like hell, but it had been on the outside of her arm, missing the artery. If it hadn't she likely would have been dead already. She would likely have a scar, but she wasn't going to die anytime soon as long as we got the bleeding stopped. As I wrapped the tape around the bandage on her arm, she put her other hand on mine. I stopped and looked at her.

"Thank you," she said. Her hand fell away. I saw her eyes flutter off into sleep. Okay, at first I panicked and thought she had died. But I checked her pulse and it was fairly strong. And she was still breathing, so I relaxed a little.

I strapped her into the chair she was sitting in and got the turd ready for flight. I radioed Kaden that I was ready and we took off for parts unknown. I followed Kaden's slinger until we were well outside the range of Lou's equipment. Even then, we decided to land and discuss our destination in person.

We quickly decided that we needed to get Eve to a city for medical treatment. Kaden was willing to cope with the scars, lost mobility, and possible complications from field medicine for himself. We were not willing to make that same tradeoff for Eve. We checked the map, Denver was almost as close as Kansas City to our location. It had the added bonus of probably being outside Lou's territory. And, since Kansas City was in distress at the moment, Denver looked like the best choice.

As we were announcing our choice to the guns, Rabbit said, "you sure that's a good idea, Doc? You remember what that cop said the last time we were there?"

Kaden looked at me sharply.

I held up my hands, trying to calm everyone. "It'll be fine," I said.

"What did the cop say?" asked Kaden.

"He said never to come back. I'm sure it's fine. It's just city cop bravado," I said.

Kaden scowled at me. I probably should have told him that sooner.

But, Denver was the right choice for a whole lot of other reasons, so that's where we headed. It would still take us almost two days to get there. It was nearly midnight now and we were all exhausted. Kaden found a grassland nature preserve not far from where we were. There were no towers, no tunnels, no farms, and no reason for anyone but scientists to go there. Less than an hour later, we settled the vehicles down onto the prairie. The new grass was sprouting up through the fallen, tan husks of last year's grass.

I moved Eve from her chair to the floor of The Dung Heap and put an emergency blanket over her. She looked like hell. Her pants and shirt were spattered with dried blood, both hers and Kaden's. Her arms and face were bruised and bloodied. I just hope she would be okay after all this. Only time would tell.

I closed the hatch to the truck and joined Kaden and his guys on the grass for the night. I had brought another chemical log from the truck to keep us warm. In the morning, we could see about cleaning up a bit and bandaging any small wounds. At that moment, the only thing I could think about was sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and clear. We got ourselves up and I went to the truck. I wanted to see if Eve was awake and to get the med bag. When I opened the hatch, I found Eve sitting in the pilot's seat. She was using the radio to try and raise Kansas City. She had tied a handkerchief into a sling and her right arm was resting in it.

"How's it going?" I asked. I tried to be quiet, but she jumped anyway.

"F-fine," she said, her voice shaking a little. "I can't get through to anyone. I was going to try one of the other cities next to see if they have any news."

"Our plan is to take you to Denver," I said. "Is that okay?"

Eve nodded, but tears streamed down her face.

"We can talk more later," I said. I got the med bag and went out to the guys.

"Did you ask her?" said Kaden. If Eve had vetoed going to Denver, we'd have to come up with a new flight plan.

"She says Denver is fine," I said. "She was trying to contact Kansas City and getting nothing."

Kaden nodded grimly. "How's she holding up?"

We'd all been through hell, but at least we had some experience with it. Having survived pain once, you're better at doing it again. Even with that experience, we were all frayed and somber. For someone like Eve, it would be much harder to cope with the physical and emotional pain.

"About like you'd expect," I said.

Kaden shook his head. "Shit, after last night, I'd expect someone from the city to be comatose in the corner," he said. "If she's operating the radio, that's more than I expected."

I smiled sadly. "Yeah," I said, "I guess it is."

We bandaged the small wounds and cleaned up as much as the circumstances allowed. In the middle of some grasslands, that pretty much consisted of cleaning our hands and faces in some water from our stores.

An hour later, we were ready to start the long journey to Denver. Eve sat silently for almost the entire trip. I think she dozed off a few times because I heard her jerk awake and yell incoherently for a second. Bad dreams, I figured. She was bound to have a lot of those for a while.

Out of nowhere, Eve said, "I should have stopped her." I turned to look at her and she faced me. "If I had been a better shot-" she started.

"Just stop," I said gently. I watched her face change from a scowl to despair. I guessed at the argument going on inside her head. "You can't change what happened. All you can do is try and change things now."

Eve scoffed as if the mere idea of changing anything now was out of the question.

"You don't have to save the world to change things," I said. "I mean, you changed us. Before me or any of the guys met you, we thought city controllers were all pansies."

"But, I-" Eve started to protest.

"Dylan is a pansy," I said. "You are not." She looked embarrassed. "And, you have to have changed your mind about yourself a little. When we first met, you said that if you ever had to fire a gun, you'd probably wet yourself. I didn't notice anything like that."

Eve laughed softly through her tears. "Yeah, I guess that's true," she said.

"We'll get you back to a city where you can try to save your city on your terms," I said.

Eve nodded and sniffed. I turned back to the flight consoles. We had limited network connectivity out here. It was usually just enough bandwidth to get data to and from various locks and monitoring systems. I was using some of that to get text status updates about the crisis in Kansas City. From what I could tell, there had been no breakthrough yet, so I didn't tell Eve anything. The last thing she needed to hear was that she had failed or that everyone she knew was in danger.

We flew until sundown. Kaden had found us a stretch of old highway that hadn't been converted to farms for corn or insects. We landed the vehicles and got ourselves situated. I figured the guys could use something to break the ice, so I pulled all but one of my chemical logs out of the truck. We made a pretty big bonfire on the pavement. I also pulled out the bottle of scotch that I jealously guarded.

Bourbon, rye, and vodka were easy to come by out here. But scotch had to be imported, and that was a rare thing out here. In the city, it could be had for a price, but it was too specialized to really have a market outside. I brought out the bottle and we passed it slowly around the fire, everyone taking a sip before passing it on.

A day and a few hundred miles made all the difference. We were no longer as keyed up as you get after an ordeal. Still nervous and wary, but not on the edge. Enough time had elapsed for the guys to start talking about it. The asked about who punched who and told stories of epic takedowns or vicious blows. Some of it was aggrandizing, but mostly it was a way to cope with the horrible things that sometimes happened on the job.

Eve had been silent through most of the talk. I answered when asked about something, but I didn't volunteer any stories. I didn't want Eve to feel left out. Surviving this mess was her victory, too, even if she dealt with it differently. And, even if it didn't feel like a victory.

After most of the scotch had been consumed. We were feeling better and sleepy. Steve was in a serious "I love you guys!" place giving compliments to everyone. He probably meant it, even if it was a little silly. He was going around the group telling them why he thought they were awesome. When he got to Eve, he looked a little embarrassed, but said, "Eve, ma'am, I heard you shot one Lou's stooges, and that makes you alright in my book."

Eve chuckled sadly and Steve moved on with his shout outs to his homies. I put my hand on Eve's shoulder to show my support and she jumped a little. She apologized, but I waved it off.

"Do you want to turn in?" I asked.

Eve nodded and said, "if it's alright, I'd like to sleep out here tonight with all of you. I-" She stopped, the words caught in her throat. I looked at her and she blinked back tears.

"There is safety and comfort in numbers," I said. "I understand. I'll go get the blankets."

The morning dawned bright and sunny again. We got up and around, had our rations then continued towards Denver. At the speed we were flying, we would get there just before sundown.

Eve spent most of the trip trying to contact Denver for information about Kansas City. I had given her the frequencies and the text status update sites I was using. She got excited around noon and it sounded like some kind of breakthrough had been made. I was happy for her. Something had to go right, and I feared it wouldn't be the handoff of Eve to the Denver city cops.

About an hour outside of Denver, I told Eve about the last time I had been to Denver. She thought it was sweet that I was willing to go that far out of my way for a kid. She wasn't worried about the city cops. I don't think she had a lot of experience with them when they were guarding the wall. But city cops were something she knew and familiarity was a lifeline to normalcy.

Once we got close enough to talk to Denver on the radio, Eve called into the company on the emergency line and was able to let them know she was coming. Unfortunately, because of the crisis in Kansas City, no one would be able to meet her outside the wall. She would have to get a ride in with the city cops. I cringed, but if Eve could deal with Lou, then I could deal with the cops again.

We landed on the edge of the city patrolled area outside the wall. Kaden insisted that I take someone else with me again so that he would be within the letter of his responsibilities to guard me. Monty drew the short straw and sulked into the truck.

Eve said goodbye to everyone and gave Kaden a gentle hug. "Thank you," she said, "for everything. I know it couldn't have been easy to have me and Dylan along."

Kaden smiled. "It's quite alright, Eve," he said. "You're welcome back any time."

Eve nodded and we withdrew to the truck. Monty was inside, already strapped in and looking impatient. The side of his face where the Larry had hit him was swelled up and red mixed with purple. I completed the pre-flight checks and flew us towards the city.

The wall rose up in front of us, growing larger like distant mountains. Every time I had seen city walls before I felt like they were keeping the city folks in, rather than keeping me out. With Eve here, it felt more like an arbitrary barrier, no more substantial than tissue paper. Things were different in the city, but they weren't so different that we couldn't find some common ground.

I had to admit that I was going to miss Eve. If things had turned out differently, maybe we could have had something together, even if it was just a roll in the hay. But, it would be good to settle back down to a normal routine of fixing things up north, drinking in the evening, and celebrating every day you were still alive.

We were about fifteen or twenty minutes away from the wall when the city cops came on the comms and ordered us to land. I advised them we had a city citizen that was returning. They laughed and said something about my parents that wasn't nearly as creative as what Rabbit could have come up with.

Eve looked at me a little surprised. "Are they always like that?"

"Who?" asked Monty. "City cops?" He scoffed. "Hell yes. Bunch of-"

"Now isn't really the time," I said to Monty before he could get started on a rant. To Eve I said, "you should probably have your city ID card ready. I doubt they'll believe you, either."

I had a moment of panic for Eve. I leave my company ID card in the truck. If Eve had left her ID in her backpack, she was going to have a hard time convincing them to let her in. I looked back at Eve to ask if she had her ID and she was fishing it out from under her grubby T-shirt. She had been wearing it on a chain around her neck, probably the whole time she was out with us.

"Right here," she said.

I relaxed a little and concentrated on landing The Dung Heap as instructed by the city cops. They were already on the ground waiting for us, weapons drawn. I secured the truck and announced on comms to the cops that I was opening the hatch.

"There are three of us," I announced. "We're coming out now, nice and slow, okay?" Monty and I had decided to leave our weapons with Kaden at the edge of the city's barren nomandsland. After my last run in with city cops, it seemed safer.

Apparently the cops didn't realize I had just quoted their orders before they gave them. One of them shouted, "come out now, nice and slow!"

Monty chuckled and went first.

"If I don't get another chance," I said, "I wanted to say that I'm going to miss you."

Eve looked up at me and smiled. It was the first real smile I'd seen from her in the last two days. She took my hand and squeezed it.

"I'm going to miss you, too," she said.

Before I could make any awkward attempt at a kiss, she turned and walked slowly out of the truck's hatch. I just don't understand women sometimes.

I followed her out and we stood still, waiting for the cops to tell us what to do next. The cop doing the talking said, "which one of you is the city citizen?"

"I am," said Eve. She smartly didn't raise her hand or move while she said it.

"You come forward," the cop said. "You others, get down on the ground."

Eve had started to step forward and stopped.

"No," she said, "there's no reason for that. There's no enemy here. We're all just people here."

"Ma'am," said the voice with impatience, "step forward so we can get you to safety."

"We're safe right here," said Eve. "There's no one else for kilometers in any direction. Can we please do this without the bravado?"

Monty and I exchanged glances. I wasn't sure this plea was going to work on them. There was furious discussion from the police, most of which we couldn't hear. Eventually, one of them said, "alright, we're sending someone out to get your ID so we can check it out."

"Fine," said Eve. "I'm going to take it off my neck now, okay?" She slowly reached up and removed the card and chain from her neck. She held the ID at arm's length.

One of the cops in full riot gear inched his way out towards us cautiously.

"He must be new," I muttered. Eve and Monty tried not to laugh.

The cop reached us and snatched the offered ID from Eve. He crab stepped back towards their vehicle. The other cops busied themselves checking the ID.

Minutes passed. I wondered if there was a reason these checks took so long, or if the checks took seconds and there was a mandatory waiting period on actually giving the results to anyone. I also wondered if maybe the cops just couldn't read that fast.

Finally, one of the cops, not the one in riot gear, gave the order to lower weapons. He stepped out from behind the vehicle and said, "ma'am, if you'll come with us, we'll take you to the city. Your friends are free to go."

Under her breath, Eve said, "now was that so fucking hard?"

She turned to me and gave me a one-armed hug. Monty took that as his cue to head back to the truck. Eve turned her face up towards mine and we had that awkward kiss after all.

Epilogue

The worst of the thunderstorm was past us now. They grew storms big on the plains and that one had been a doozy. We had all crammed into The Dung Heap to ride it out. I could say it was standing room only, but even that wouldn't have done the cramped quarters justice. Twenty minutes of that and you know what it feels like when your coworkers cough or pass gas.

As soon as the serious rain and lightning had passed, we opened the hatch to the truck. The air was colder and somehow less humid feeling than it had in the hours leading up to the rain. The sky behind the thunderstorm was still turbulent and dark grey. It was midday, but you couldn't really tell. There was more rain headed our way, but we had a window here and we decided to take it.

The simple white spire of the monorail tower rose up out of the plains like the rib of some long dead animal. The wheat was up past my knees now. The pale green of spring had given way to the darker green of summer, but it looked bright against the dark grey clouds. The green grass roiled across the vast open fields, making the land look alive and angry.

We moved quickly, my guns and me. We knew the job and we had a deadline with that next bunch of rain coming in. They fanned out around me, even though we hadn't seen bandits in over a month. I went to the smooth white spire to open it. I used my bracer to enter a code. The combination of the bracer's encryption keys and my code convinced the spire to pop open a small panel for me.

Inside was an array of circuits for network communication. The communication here was mostly for the control of the monorail itself, but it could also carry messages for the rest of the network, if needed. I hadn't needed that kind of emergency communication since that deal with Kansas City and Eve.

The thought of her still made my loins react in a most unprofessional way. I could still clearly see her face, her short brown hair. And I could still hear her laugh, clear and joyful, and so out of character for her. I realized I would love to hear that laugh again.

But, she was probably busy. The deal with Kansas City had been quite a blow to the illusion of self-sufficiency that some of the cities had. It was also an enforced test of their security systems, which had performed so miserably. I had heard that they eventually caught the guy behind taking Kansas City hostage. I wanted desperately for Lou to have been caught, too, but no such luck. If anyone deserved to be punished for that mess, she was among them.

Still, the city had recovered, or so I heard. I didn't really want to venture that far south again any time soon. The northern plains were beautiful in the summer and I was happy to stay there as long as I had a job.

Now that's a funny thing. Taking Kansas City hostage depended on humans to do the work of replacing parts in the communications and power networks into the city. But humans were the ones who had raised the alarm when they noticed that something about these replacement parts wasn't quite right. I would know, I was one of the techs who raised the alarm.

The towers and power relays involved in the hostage plot were all scheduled to be replaced by fully automated and remotely maintained systems by the end of the year. Including the ones I repaired, effectively putting me out of a job. After the incident with Kansas City, that plan was "put on hold while all the implications are considered". Or so said the company message on the topic.

I was pretty sure that the implications were more around making automated and remotely maintained systems less open to attack. But, if it meant that my job stayed around longer, so much the better.

I reached into the open panel and pulled out the circuit boards that had failed. There were backups, of course. Even with backups, the broken boards would have to be repaired or the whole communications box would have to be replaced entirely. Either way, that was my job for the time being.

Kaden watched the next batch of rain headed our way. He said, "looks heavy, but short."

"You know," I said, still working, "the network that we are standing next to can give you that information based on more than just your vision and intuition."

I was teasing him, of course. Kaden had been born and raised in the city, but never wanted to talk about it. He knew better than most of us what the network was capable of and how to get information out of it. I think he enjoyed using his other senses to gather information, not just to have it spoon fed to him.

I could feel Kaden's glare. I smiled to myself, but didn't turn to face him. He wanted to be indignant as much as I wanted to tease him.

Five minutes later I had replaced the boards. I hooked up my diagnostic tool to the port and started the validation process. I still hadn't replaced the tool since the night I damaged the connector falling down the ladder at Lou's first booby trap. Well, the first trap we encountered. I shuddered to think how many of those vicious things were still out there. Since then I had used some quick-dry, moldable epoxy to create a new connector housing. It worked okay and it was quicker than plugging in the ports manually every time.

The rain was getting closer now, the wind whipping around us. The tops of the wheat grass lashed each other in a violent dance.

"If you can hurry, Doc," said Kaden, "it would be appreciated. I don't really want to get soaked out here."

"Yeah, me neither," I said. "Two minutes."

About one minute in, the rain started. It started slowly at first, but with big, fat raindrops. They fell and splattered like water balloons thrown by pixies. After about ten seconds of that, the skies opened up and the rain came down in buckets. Kaden glared at me as if I had any control over how long the diagnostics took and like I wasn't out there getting drenched with him.

As soon as the diag tool blinked to green, I yanked the connector clear. I entered the code on my bracer and the panel closed. It slid neatly into place and the surface of the pillar looked seamless to the naked eye.

"All done," I said loudly, over the sound of the rain.

Kaden gave the order to move out over comms and we hurried back to The Dung Heap. The slingers that the guys rode were parked around the truck, but they were no shelter in something like this. So, we piled into the truck once more and closed the hatch.

I checked the weather map and it looked like the band of rain would pass us by in about ten minutes. After that, we'd be free to move west. We had one more easy job today, if we wanted it, west of here, getting into the Black Hills. After that, there was a sweet little bar out that way I'd been meaning to try.

Of course, as we were standing all packed in, dripping wet, and uncomfortable, that's when Eve decided to call. I debated not taking the call given the circumstances, but decided I would rather talk to her, even with an audience.

She was just as pretty as I remembered. She looked clean and relaxed with a boring cubicle wall behind her so I guessed she was at work.

"Hi Eve," I said. "Sorry about the eavesdroppers." I gestured to the mass of humanity packed in with me.

Eve laughed and smiled. "What are you all doing in there?"

"Duh, it's raining," said Steve, as if it was a stupid question.

"Ah," said Eve, nodding. "Kaden, how's the leg?"

"It's fine," he said.

"No it isn't," said Raechel. To Eve she said, "he limps a bit on that side when he's tired, but it's not bad."

"That's what I meant by ‘fine'," said Kaden. He was happier than I had seen him in a while, so he didn't mind Raechel telling his story for him.

Eve chuckled. "And Devlin, did your side heal?"

"I got this sweet scar out of it," said Devlin enthusiastically. He tried to lift his shirt to show the scar to Eve, but only managed to elbow Rabbit in the ear.

"Ow, watch it, Cheesegrater," said Rabbit.

Eve raised an eyebrow at the nickname.

"After the knife thing had healed, Devlin stepped on a nail in a bar we were at," I explained. "Rabbit decided he had so many holes in him that he could be a cheesegrater."

Eve nodded in understanding.

"How about you?" I asked. "How's the arm?"

"It's fine," said Eve. She waited long enough for everyone to see that she was making fun of Kaden. Then she smiled and continued. She lifted her shirt sleeve for the camera so we could see how well it had healed. "The doctors said that the bandage had done a good job, but it had been on too long for me to get away without a scar. It itches sometimes, but otherwise no problems." She pulled her sleeve back down and faced the camera again.

"I'm glad to hear it," I said. And I truly was. I had exchanged a few work related messages with Eve since we had dropped her off in Denver, but I hadn't had a chance to just talk to her. "How are things otherwise? Are you back in Kansas City?"

"I am," she said. "I spent a few days in the hospital in Denver. Then I played refugee for a few weeks while the crisis in Kansas City settled down. Eventually they started letting people back into the city."

"How's Dylan?" I asked. "Did he survive the crisis?"

"Oh yeah," said Eve, "he made it just fine. The only people who died were some of the people trying to riot and some elderly folks who died of dehydration or who had heart attacks from the stress."

I had been joking when I asked about Dylan surviving. I just couldn't imagine that being without water or electricity for less than a week would actually be dangerous. I felt like a jerk for making that joke now.

"I heard they caught the guy," I said.

"Yeah, they caught him," said Eve. "His capture was widely publicized. What happened to him afterwards was not." She shrugged. "It has been the latest and best conspiracy topic around here."

I smiled at the difference of a city. When I went to school in the city, someone had to explain to me what a conspiracy theory was. I was amazed that someone could live such a boring life that they had to fantasize about what other people were doing. But, it was an easy fantasy because no matter how much you tried, you could never actually prove anything. City folks were lazy in everything, even their pastime.

"So," said Eve, clearly stalling. "How long is the rain supposed to last out there?"

"Very subtle," I said. I looked at the weather map and the exterior sensors. It was still raining a bit, but not like it had been.

Kaden saw it over my shoulder and declared it was time for some fresh air. I opened the hatch and they started to unpack out into the open.

Monty said, "hey, before we go, what was that job you said I should look into? I couldn't remember the name of it."

Eve laughed. "Stock trader," she said. "You would have to go to school in the city for it."

"Stock trader," said Monty. "That's right. Gotta remember that. Stock trader." He muttered as he followed the guys out of the truck.

It was finally empty in the truck. Eve smiled at me and smiled back. "I missed you," I said. "At first it was nice to get back to a routine, but I've been missing your laugh."

"I've missed you, too," said Eve. "That's actually why I called."

"Oh please, no more site inspections to microwave towers," I said. She laughed.

"No, no more towers," she said. "I'm going to be in Winnipeg for a conference in a few weeks. I'd like to see you, if you'll be around then."

Since I choose my jobs, I could just take some that would put me close to Winnipeg when she was there. But, I appreciated that she gave me an easy out if I didn't want to see her.

"I can be," I said. She sent me the exact dates so I wouldn't forget.

"Good," said Eve, "I'm looking forward to it. I'll be sure to bring two guns this time."

I relaxed inwardly. It's easy to remember danger as being less scary than it was. It's only when you have to choose whether to face it again that your true feelings become clear. Eve might still be nervous about leaving the city, but she was not so scarred by her time with us that she wanted to stay in.

I smiled. "Sounds good," I said. "There's a great little bar near there call The Kicking Mule. There's nothing like it in the city."

Eve laughed. "With a name like that, I don't doubt it," she said, smiling. "I'll see you in a few weeks, then."

"Yeah," I said, "see you in a few weeks."

We lingered a moment and then said goodbye and disconnected. I sighed and prepared myself for the ribbing I was going to get when I told the guys the plans I had made with Eve. I opened the hatch to the truck and went out to join the guys in the fresh air.

The wind was blowing. And it felt good. It reminded me that I was alive and free.

Author's Note and a bad guy vignette

This story started from a combination of ideas I've had for stories over the years. I have always liked the engineer characters in sci-fi or adventure stories. They had a combination of brains and toughness that I admired. They also had to do technical work under less than ideal conditions. I wanted a story where the main characters could be those engineers.

More recently, I wanted to tell a story that made the kind of problem solving I do for a living more approachable and more exciting. Finding and fixing software bugs is intricate and fun, but reading about bugs requires technical knowledge and an understanding of the system where the bug occurs. That seriously limits the audience for any such story.

So I decided to combine the two ideas. I tried to make the technical problem solving present, but understated. And since I love adventure and action stories so much, the best way to make technical things more exciting for me is to add guns and have adventures across the land.

When trying to come up with a setting for such a story, I wanted a location where you could have an adventure without interference from authority. I had also been thinking about the real field techs of today who go out into the world to fix things. I remembered seeing wind turbines in the middle of farmland in Nebraska and wondering who had the job to trek all the way out to the turbine if something went wrong and needed to be repaired.

So I came up with a near future setting that concentrated most people into the cities and leave most of the country unpatrolled and lawless. As soon as I told my husband that my near future story had walled cities, he compared it to Judge Dredd. For my story, it was important that the area outside the wall was worth protecting, but to have very few people there. It couldn't be a wasteland and it wasn't a dystopian future inside the walls, it was just the future with good and bad.

In a couple of places, the characters start talking about the merits and drawbacks of automation. It's an interesting discussion and I wanted there to be some conflict between the people inside the cities and those outside the wall. But while that discussion or conflict was important to defining the two sides, I didn't want it to become the focus of the story. It's window dressing for the adventure.

Beyond keeping the story focused on adventure, I feel like a passing exposure to conflict is how most of us interact with difficult topics. Very few people I know grab onto a single cause and work tirelessly for that cause. Most people have opinions, donate money or time to causes they care about, and can talk about those causes, but they're not central to everyday life. They're just side notes and distant influences on life. I wanted to capture that feeling for my characters.

Speaking of characters, this is one of the only stories I've written in a while in first person. When I first started writing, almost all of my stories were first person. It is easier and more natural in some ways, especially when describing feelings and emotional reactions to things. I got away from first person because I wanted to show what the other guys in the story were doing. That works okay, but it's less personal. Since I wanted this story to be one guy's adventures on the job, first person seemed more natural.

This is also one of the only stories I've written in a while where I didn't have a pretty good idea of the plot and characters before I started. Usually I map out the characters, their full names, histories, general appearance, and so forth, before I start the actual story. This time I just started. I honestly didn't know if Dylan was going to survive the first bandit attack or not. There were a few possible stories there where he didn't survive. Monty and Eve also had a brush with death in some of the endings I came up with, but I like happy endings, so I went with that.

I wondered about the wisdom of getting Doc and Eve together. I wanted there to be some female characters in this story. My real life job is so overwhelmingly male that I get used to having all male groups or a single female and not thinking too much about it. On the first pass, the two city controllers were male. Shocked and horrified at myself for making all the technical folks male, I made one of them female. I also went back and made one of Kaden's guns female, too. Since there were so few females, I didn't want it to be a foregone conclusion that Eve would be a love interest. But, it just worked out that way. Doc is a nice guy and I wanted to see him happy.

After all that, there was a part of the story I didn't get to tell: the bad guys who were holding the city hostage. I tried for a long time to find a way to meet them, but it didn't work out. Being a first person story, if it didn't happen to Doc, we didn't see it. In some ways, it works better this way as a story about one guy fixing things alone in the world. It's hard to see the implications of your work and I think I got that feeling across. But, I also like big adventures with big stakes and saving the world. So I've written a scene for the bad guys below.

Finally, thanks and apologies for usurping your names or stories to my friend Doc from UMR and Kenya, my long time friend from high school.

The bad guys

The white stone buildings were barely recognizable as buildings in some places. Trees and weeds sprouted from the cracks between the stones while moss and vines covered the rest. There were paths worn into the underbrush by deer and smaller creatures.

It was just past noon and the sun was warm overhead. The man pulled his cap down to cut the glare from the white stones. He had never liked this place, but the boss insisted it was a good location for the operation. One more location to check and then he could retreat inside where he felt more comfortable.

The sentry was up on the corner of what used to be a great hall of some kind. It overlooked a flat, open area. There had once been a statue in the middle and stone walkways, but that had been long before the man was born. All he saw now was ruins that no one alive remembered.

The stairs up to the sentry's post were concrete, not decorative stone like the facades of the buildings. The man entered the relative gloom of the hall and frightened some birds that had been roosting just inside the hole in the wall. They flapped away on a rush of wings. The man ascended the stairs and made more noise than necessary. No sense in startling the sentry.

The sentry was standing at the corner of the building. There was a short tower at the corner, above the rest of the wall. He stood beside it and looked out across the open area. From here he could see the other sentries and had a good view to the encroaching trees beyond. He had a long rifle and wore the same green and brown fatigues that the man had grown so tired of seeing. He was sure that the sentry would correct his characterization of the weapon as a rifle, but it was long, not like a handgun, so it was a rifle in his mind.

"Just checking in," said the man. His grey wool pants and white linen shirt were fine in the city, but under this sun, they were a little stifling. He lifted his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow. Part of him wondered why he had ever agreed to this outing in the first place. He had no cause, no righteous indignation like the boss did. He just wanted to get paid and this had been the most ingenious plan he had heard of. It had its weak spots, to be sure, but holding an entire city hostage. It was bold and audacious and had the potential for greatness.

The sentry nodded in acknowledgement. "All quiet up here, sir," he said.

The man nodded and turned to leave. He understood that, because of this project's attack vector, the boss didn't want to rely on any kind of automated communication. But it still made him feel as though his talents were being wasted. Surely they could have found someone else to do the actual legwork here.

The man went back down the way he had come up. He walked back along the deer trail between the buildings. The insects were buzzing now, happy in their midday sun. The man pushed aside the plants and opened the hatch into the ground. The boss had said that the bunker had been built over a hundred years ago when the threat of nuclear war had been a serious concern. The man wasn't sure he believed that, but it didn't much matter to him.

The stairs descended in near darkness to a small landing. There was a green steel door with no handle, but a small window set to one side. He tapped on the glass and a face appeared. The face looked him over and pushed the door open from the inside.

The man descended further, enjoying the cool escape from the bright, warm sun up on the surface. The walls of the stairs were smooth concrete, untouched by time. The man's eyes had almost adjusted to the darkness by the time he reached the final door. He repeated the tap and human verification process.

The room beyond the final door felt like home. There were rows of terminals connected to the city network, large overhead screens, and people talking and working. Among them, the boss walked, stopping to look over someone's shoulder and always available for questions or decisions. It was the war room for their attack on the city that had caused the boss so much pain in the past.

The boss looked up and brightened. He said, "John, my good man, come see what we're doing now with the northern connections."

John wasn't sure that now was the time to be testing and selling access to the shadow network. In fact, he thought the attack on Kansas City had been an unnecessary risk. The shadow network alone was brilliant and would be the source of millions of credits, in time. There wasn't a criminal organization in the world that didn't want access to an untraceable, completely unregulated network like what they were building. To build that network on the back of the existing infrastructure, using the companies own techs against them, it was inspired.

But this frontal assault on Kansas City had been a mistake. John had told the boss so in no uncertain terms, behind closed doors. The boss had made it equally clear that the city must pay. The shadow network could proceed once this was done, but he would make the city suffer for what it had done to him.

John shifted uncomfortably at the memory of the encounter. John had never been one to rely on physical force to get what he wanted. In most cases, it was unnecessary. John considered it a failing on his part if he couldn't get others to do his wishes without force. The boss had no such reservations.

Still, things seemed to be going well for the boss and his personal vendetta against the city. John walked over to where the boss was watching a brilliantly adept young woman navigate the intricacies of networking and routing. She bounced around the nodes like she had been born to it. John mentally nicknamed her the Mermaid for how she followed the flow of data and turned it to her will.

"Isn't it wonderful," said the boss. "The stranglehold on the city continues while we amass millions of credits from the use of the shadow network."

John nodded his agreement and watched the Mermaid fend off an attack from someone within the city. Her automation and sense of what attack was coming next was inspiring to watch. She cackled with delight as the attacker faded off into nothing.

"Well done," said the boss.

"Very impressive," said John.

The boss looked up from the consoles at John. "We must not lose the stranglehold on the city," he said. "Our actions against the city have not gone unnoticed. If they get connection to the other cities back, they will be able to locate us, in time."

John already knew about this problem, and was angry that the boss had chosen not to implement the failsafe that John recommended. He saw it as taking too much time and effort for something that was shrinkingly unlikely. They could have added another layer or two of indirection in the network. Combine that with taking control of more towers and communication junctions than was strictly necessary and you increased the chances of success by a pretty large margin. The boss was unwilling to wait. While he might have been brilliant and inspired, the boss could be short sighted when it came to his revenge.

As if giving voice to John's fears, the volume from the operators in the room increased. The Mermaid said, "sir, the connection has been restored on one route."

"What?" demanded the boss. "Where?"

"It's a microwave tower, MA- something. Let me check where that is," she said. "Near Canadian, Texas, sir."

The boss was angry and the temperature in the air increased alongside his rage. He called to one of the other techs. "What's going on at that tower?"

"The relay went offline about half an hour ago, sir," he said.

"And you didn't think to tell me?" demanded the boss. His shadow towered over the area despite the low light. John stood back in case the tech further angered the boss. Guards on the edges of the room responded to the boss' anger almost as if they were an extension of the boss himself. They moved towards the boss, guns ready and muscles taut.

The tech sputtered and his eyes widened in horror. "It went offline," said the tech, "but the shadow network was routing around it. So, it wasn't a problem until-"

The tech's last words were lost to the gunshot that blasted through his head. John had to give credit to the techs behind him. They must have been terrified as the blood sprayed into the air behind them but they kept their focus on the problem at hand. The boss glared at the body and motioned for someone to clear it away. Faulty components must be removed from the system.

The guards came and hauled the tech's body away without a word.

"John," said the boss, "let's see what's happening at that connection point."

John took the seat vacated by the unfortunate tech. He looked at the screens, making some minor adjustments to their display.

"The tower is one of Lou's towers, sir," said John. "It looks as though the tower connection was restored a few minutes ago. We're trying to block the city's connection through it at the source, but it looks like Avery might be gone. I can't reach him on any of the usual channels."

The boss howled with rage and the entire room fell silent except for the clicking of keys.

"God damn it!" raged the boss. "Months of planning and one single connection could unravel it all!"

John felt smug that his position had been vindicated. Single points of failure were bad, but you could work to make them resilient. Multiple points of failure were far more terrifying, especially when any of the points of failure could take out the whole system. But it wouldn't do John much good if he showed the smugness he felt and got killed. He pushed it down and tried to do his job.

"Sir," he said tentatively. "I have Lou on the line."

"Louisa," said the boss, "you're causing me some grief here. Get that connection offline ASAP."

"Yes, sir," was her terse reply. "We had a skirmish here, but nothing I couldn't handle."

"I don't care for your excuses," said the boss. "Get it done."

"Yes, sir."

The connection through that tower disappeared almost immediately after that. John gave the good news to the boss, but he was not in the mood.

"How much got out?" he demanded of the room at large. "What were they able to transmit to other cities?"

The room came alive with people offering information to the boss as a way of placating him into not killing them. The boss wandered off to the closest tech offering some information.

John did his own investigation of the information transmitted. The controllers inside Kansas City had not been sitting on their hands for the past day. The information that got out was carefully constructed to be as informative and actionable as possible to other cities. It included the location of the base John was in and as much information as the city had managed to gather on the people involved.

John was on the list, of course, but more concerning was the precise location of this base. There were drones less than twenty minutes out that could make things very uncomfortable for them. Worse, they could bury the base in a ton of rubble and earth. The boss might have claimed that his room was a bunker, but it felt to John more like a glorified basement.

In the continuing chaos, John slipped to the side of the room. He made his way up and out of the control room as though he was on another routine patrol. As he ascended to the light, his mood lightened. Even if the shadow network hadn't worked here, the boss had proven that it could work. Maybe it was time for the apprentice to become the master.

John pushed his way past the last door and stepped into the afternoon sunlight. Tomorrow, he would start again. But this time, John was in charge. He tipped his hat to the boss and all the unfortunately people down under the ground. He had learned from their mistakes and he wouldn't make the same mistakes when he was in charge.

Table of Contents

- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Epilogue
- Author's Note and a bad guy vignette
- The bad guys