Chapter 1

They ran out of fuel in the ruined middle country between hell and the river.

It was the dark underbelly of the night and raining hard enough to float the ancient dead from their crude, shallow graves. Time was irrelevant, but even so it was 0136. And forty-eight seconds.

A warning light on the HUD flashed helpfully next to the clock, a little red exclamation point in a little red triangle.

In the driver’s seat, Anya ground the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw fireworks. When she looked at the gauges again the numbers were unchanged.

She squared her shoulders, exhaled through her nose, and slid out of the cab. Rain streamed cold and immediate down the back of her neck as she crouched, scraping wet blonde hair irritably out of her face.

The side of the Ranger was scored and grooved as if by massive claws, but that wasn’t what had fucked them. The long range recon vehicle could withstand anything short of a second apocalypse, but there was no armor plating on the damn auxiliary fuel tank.

The oblong pontoon of dull metal sported a collage of neat holes. It clanged when she rapped on it.

What an unyieldingly cruel twenty-four hours. What a fantastic glut of violence.

She reviewed: survived a truck bomb, killed her genetic duplicate, watched Aiden commit a war crime, shot Aiden, left him to die, and killed a bunch more people, including two hapless motor pool technicians and a handful of unlucky partisans who had looked at her and seen the enemy. Found Michael, who looked at her and saw a stranger. Met back up with Lily, who was mortally wounded.

To cap it all off, instead of coasting into Freeport on fumes just before dawn, they had broken down on this mildly irradiated patch of scrubland, in the middle of—

Anya straightened up fast.

Raindrops drummed on the roof and smacked into the ground like a billion tiny suicides. Hard to hear anything, even for her. Still. There had been something.

Off behind them, off east, a speck of white light bobbed erratically. They hadn’t passed any settlements, and this was dead country.

Anya thumped the side of the vehicle. After a moment the door slid open to reveal a small surprise: Lily, still not dead.

The borrowed black coat dwarfed her already spare frame, leaving her a hollow-eyed, curly-haired shadow even to Anya’s superior night vision. She slumped against the chassis, holding her bandaged side. “Why’d we stop?”

Look, Anya signed, pointing.

Rain streamed off her shoulders as she leaned painfully out and shaded her eyes. “Headlights.”

Anya nodded. Then she snapped her fingers to get Lily’s attention and pointed down at the holes in the fuel tank.

Lily took it in silently. The door frame creaked under her solemn weight. Her sharp-boned face and scarred, restless hands had not been schooled to stillness, and they betrayed her fear. “Empty? Or almost empty.”

Anya held up one finger.

Lily closed her eyes. A stain covered the side of her stolen uniform and continued down her thigh, black and horrible. Inside the cab her blood was everywhere. Windows, floor, seat, et cetera. Some of his blood, too.

“Ok,” she said. “We should—”

“Lily?” It came from the darkened passenger compartment. There was muted panic in it.

Her whole face and bearing shifted, softening as she retreated painfully back into the Ranger.

Anya turned her attention back to the soupy ground and uneven line of bullet holes, because she really didn’t care what they were talking about inside.

You have to find something to be about. Aiden’s voice. From a time before he’d done the great evil. After that everything else falls into line.

She crushed the memory as if it were his windpipe and swung back into the driver’s seat.

Michael was sitting up. His face was a vague pale shape in the dark. A part of her still loved that face, which made her feel uncomfortable at best and miserably sad at worst.

“What’s wrong.” Operatives did not ask questions. Once he came out on the other side, he’d have the privilege of relearning how to emote.

He’d always been so serious. But she seemed to remember a sense of humor, buried deep. She’d seen him smile — or at least she’d seen that face smile. Everything was all mixed up.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lily said, taking his hand. She pressed it to her cheek; nauseating. “We were followed. But they don’t know exactly where we are. Anya, is that right?”

Anya made a so-so gesture even though neither of them were looking at her. Who knew what their pursuit had seen before the weather got really bad.

Despite being given emergency first aid in a moving vehicle by a man in withdrawal from a truly spectacular cocktail of drugs, Lily was holding herself together admirably.

“Maybe they’ll pass us in the night,” she said, rallying with obvious effort. “We should figure out how much ammunition we have anyway.”

Anya had a different, better plan. She slung her rifle, handed Michael a pistol, and went out into the dark and wet again, closing the door on Lily’s next question. Too many questions.

She had not been created to answer questions. Her sinew and bone and flesh had not been engineered to sit patiently and wait for violence. She had been designed, grown, and decanted to do one single glorious thing.

Out in the dark an engine sounded. The light bobbed again as the vehicle crested a hillock.

Anya jogged through the storm until she found a good spot and lay down flat on her stomach, propping the rifle up and pressing her cheek against the stock. She could see passably in the dark, but she might as well have been staring down a well in which a single speck of light jigged and flashed.

The light increased in size. Anya waited until it separated into two individual motes.

She’d been trained for close-quarters fighting, but she could hit almost anything. If their identification numbers had been assigned for merit instead of in an arbitrary sequence she wouldn’t be anywhere near 23. They’d have to make up a new number that came before one, that’s how good she was.

Both lights were the size of a coin.

Anya made a minute adjustment to the rear sight, seething. Her gun, a fantastic and perfect HGW Longshot, languished in her room back in New Dallas along with its beautiful optics.

Well, at least the Coalition wouldn’t get it if she died here. She sighted, held her breath, and pulled the trigger.

The light went out.

They were ready for her when she arrived, but it hardly mattered. She shot the driver through the open window and for the next few seconds she was free. Weightless.

Her heart beat steadily, no inconvenient adrenaline coming uninvited to spoil her aim. Coalition bioengineering at its finest. The weapon was an extension of her body. She was a well-oiled machine, a killing thing.

Shapes moved in the black. Anya heard breath, smelled sweat. She fired and a body dropped into the beam of the remaining headlight face-down.

Keeping to the dark, she circled the vehicle, dropping a Regular with a shot through the neck as he jumped down from the back. Three was more than she’d expected, but even so the fourth did not catch her unawares.

She surrendered, throwing down her rifle in a panic as soon as Anya rounded the corner.

“We didn’t know! I didn’t—”

One round dead center in the forehead. Then it was over, and there was nothing.

The vehicle’s hood was up. It was still running, which was ideal, but it was making a sound that unsettled her. If she’d hit something important…

Something even worse occurred to her then: this was a Courser, not a Ranger. Had it followed them from the city, or had they blown through a checkpoint in the night?

Anya flipped over a body and squinted at the regimental patch on the shoulder. Delphi. They’d come all the way from Delphi. In a short-range pursuit vehicle.

Heart in her stomach, she hauled open the door, dragged the driver’s body out of the seat, and wiped his blood off the HUD.

The fuel tank was two-thirds empty. They’d already cycled in fuel from the auxiliary tank, which was completely spent. Anya couldn’t even voice her rage; when she tried it came out as a wheeze.

She shut the engine off. The unsettling noise likewise stopped.

Anya was supposed to be on R&R. They’d had two weeks of leave, and they were going to ride up to Lake Dallas to catch fish and fuck in a cabin. Aiden was going to prepare for the board, because the preeminent Molly Montgomery had made Major on the first try and so therefore would he. Anya was going to sunbathe and pretend to read Scott’s Founding of the Republic, despite its disappointing lack of pictures or dirty bits.

Now she was going to be court-martialed and Michael didn’t recognize her and Lily didn’t like her,. And there would be no fish, no cabin, no promotion board, no anything. Aiden was dead and she was alone.

She wiped her face — just rain — and turned the engine back on. It coughed, then caught.

Based on the logs in the navigation system the bastards hadn’t gotten a good look at them; LiDAR was piss poor in rain like this, and radar had identified four things that might’ve been their quarry.

They would’ve been fine without seizing this vehicle probably, but they also would’ve been walking.

Well. They’d still be walking. When this new transport ran out of gas too.

Anya drove slowly, coasting when she could to conserve fuel. When she got to within a few yards of the Ranger she flicked the remaining headlight off and on in a pattern Michael hopefully recognized. Then she opened the door and waited for him to shoot her anyway.

Semi-unfortunately, he did not. He looked at the other vehicle, then holstered the pistol and climbed stiffly back up into the cabin. Anya followed.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Michael was saying. For a second Anya thought he was speaking to her, but she ought to have known better. “I don’t feel it.”

“That’s bad. I should…I can look at it.” Lily wiped her forehead. She was greyish, sweating; great. “Anya?”

Anya gave her a thumbs up.

“We shouldn’t be just sitting here.”

Oh, she wanted to switch to a different finger. All of this was Lily’s fault. Technically. Uncharitably. We need to reduce weight in the Courser. There isn’t much fuel.

They stared at her. Michael blinked.

There was no paper anywhere and nothing for her to write with, so Anya mimed picking things up and throwing them, then jabbed her finger at the Courser. Then at Michael. Then at the vehicle again.

“Go on,” Lily said quietly.

Only then did he move. When he jumped down into the mud he almost fell the rest of the way. He shook persistently and his face was white as a sheet.

Anya patted her breast pocket, then mimed popping a few pills.

“It’s been twenty-four hours.”

She sucked air through her teeth. This was as good as he was going to feel for a while. Maybe days. Maybe forever, if it killed him.

“I’m operational. What are we moving.”

Together, laboriously, they stripped the vehicle. It was awkward work, since something was evidently wrong with Michael’s right arm. Maybe that’s what Lily had been fussing over.

A five-gallon jerrycan of potable water hit the mud with a smack. Then the spare tire and toolkit, and, after some sweating, the back seat. Coalition vehicles weren’t built for comfort and this one didn’t have room for cargo, so that was that.

Michael opened the medkit, then closed it again with a nod of satisfaction. Left-handed. Reconditioning changed a lot, but not that; he kept his right elbow tucked in close to his side, like a man Anya had once known who’d suffered a stroke.

“Why,” he said.

This one is also almost out of gas, Anya signed, not caring that it was pointless. We’re not going to make it. I’ll have to choose which one of you to carry and if I’m being honest, I might pick neither.

He was silent a while, both hands on the lid of the kit. “Were you always like this, or did something happen.”

Anya already knew he didn’t remember anything, so it shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. She held up two fingers.

“Two…years.”

No. The second thing he’d said. The second option. He still had the common sense god or whoever had given a stone.

Anya fought mingled irritation and fondness. There was an IED. A piece of shrapnel went into my throat. It wasn’t long after I lost you.

Instead of finger-spelling ‘IED’ she used Coalition battle shorthand. It would be too dark for him to see the scar, but she tipped her chin up anyway.

Michael nodded. When he drummed his fingers on the medkit the ones on his right hand moved in unison, not in sequence.

“I’ll get Lily,” he said, and left.

Anya followed him, and took her feelings out on the Ranger’s tires. Then she went into the driver’s compartment and put a bullet in the console too, and for good measure un-docked the steering wheel and heaved it out into the wet night like a discus.

She watched with arms folded as Michael helped Lily into the back of the Courser, where the seat had once been. He took his wet coat back and replaced it with the foil blanket from the medkit. He lowered himself down beside her and she fell into him with a soft whimper of pain.

Disgusting; Anya was going to vomit. Or maybe weep.

They did not have enough fuel to reach Freeport. Somehow Lily was still alive, but she wouldn’t be much longer without real medical intervention. The borderline supernatural force of will keeping Michael upright and functioning was surely finite. Anya herself was on a knife edge between a complete emotional breakdown and a second bitter extreme she couldn’t bear to examine.

Not the worst situation they’d found themselves in lately. Even when Lily lost consciousness again.

She fired up the engine and moved on.