CHAPTER 1
July 17
Maira Kanhai ran for her life.
The slap of her sneakers against the street seemed absurdly loud in the quiet night. She swerved and cut across a lawn. It had long since gone to weed. Her breath rasped in her chest. Each intake burned like fire. The dark silhouette of a fence rose ahead. She vaulted it without thinking.
Halfway over, her abdomen blared agony. The pain hit like a bolt of lightning. Maira’s whole body seized up. She hit the ground on the other side in a heap. The world went white. She wheezed brokenly, fingers digging into tall grass and dirt. Only sheer force of will kept her from screaming in pain.
Get up, Maira, she told herself. Get up and move or die.
She put a shaking hand to her midsection. It came away dry. No red in the moonlight. Her gunshot wounds, only tenuously healed, had not torn open again. Small favors. Maira wiped snot from her face and forced herself up to her hands and knees. From there it was a wobbling lunge back to her feet.
She spotted a house close by. Maira limped over to it and rested her hand against the siding as she kept walking. She glanced over her shoulder. The smoke column from where the aircraft had come down was still visible, a darker black against the night sky. It blotted out stars as it rose. She felt like she’d been running forever, but the crash site was still so close.
She paused in the shadow of the house to try to catch her breath. She strained to hear anything nearby. There were only crickets. No sign of her pursuer. That was less comforting than it might have been. Maira hadn’t seen it coming before the first attack either. That image was going to stay with her: the bulky shape looming out of the darkness, ax in hand. There was no humanity there. The mask saw to that.
Maira needed shelter, a chance to recover and make a plan. She was in no condition for a sustained chase. She slipped around to the front of the house as quietly as she could. A larger building sat across the dusty street. “Street” was actually a bit aspirational for this one. It was unpaved, and the collapse of civilization had not been kind to it. It was more of a rut through tall grass these days.
She paused at the front of the house and tried the door. Locked. There was no rusted remnant of a car in the driveway. Maira wondered what had happened to the people who lived here. Had they fled, seeking safety somewhere over the horizon? Had they found it? She shook her head to dash away the thoughts. She would never know, and right now it didn’t matter.
A rock through a window would get her inside. It would also bring her pursuer hot on her trail. Despite the fact that she was a trained Division agent, she was up against odds she’d never faced before. She had confronted threats in the past two years that had terrified her at the time, but had always overcome them with quick thinking and capable allies. This time felt different. Regretfully, she turned away from the house. She crossed the old dirt road, low and fast. There was a letterboard out in front of the larger structure. MARYNEAL CHURCH OF CHRIST, the permanent text read. Below that were words missing letters, like a gap-toothed smile.
MA G D AVE ME CY ON U ALL
Maira touched gentle fingertips to the words as she walked past. During the horrors of the Green Poison pandemic, they had been on the lips of billions. She had been raised in a different faith entirely, and she didn’t know what she believed anymore. She knew the heartfelt desperation behind that silent cry, though. Different words, perhaps, but always the same terror and sorrow.
Maira paused at the double doors leading into the building and glanced over her shoulder again. A slight breeze rustled the grasses. That was all there was, she told herself. No cold eyes watching her. The skin between her shoulder
blades itched in anticipation of a sniper’s bullet. These doors gave way at a push, with only a squeak of unhappy hinges. She glanced back one last time and hurried inside.
It was dark within, the air stale and hot. What little light eked in through the stained-glass windows picked out the silhouette of pews. The rows marched up to the front of the church and the podium there, a door on either side leading into the back of the building. Dust lay in heavy layers on every surface. Maira pulled a bandana from her backpack and tied it over her nose and mouth. A cough at the wrong time was the last thing she needed.
A skeleton lay sideways in the front pew, arms still wrapped about itself. It was surrounded by the stains of decay’s byproducts, marking the wood and floor alike. Such sights were commonplace. There had been no one to clean up the “mess” the plague had created. Victims rotted where they fell. The small favor was that now it had been so long the most distressing sights and smells were in the past.
Maira walked past the remains to the door on the left. It was locked, the knob rattling in her hand. She bit back a curse and hurried to try its counterpart on the right. That one turned, and she pushed the door open. Beyond lay pitch black. There were no windows in the room to let in even the pale light of the moon.
“ISAC–” Maira started.
She snorted at herself. ISAC wasn’t there. She hadn’t been connected to the SHD Network for months now. Exhaustion was making her fall back on old habits. There was no supertech at her disposal right now. She was going to have to solve this herself, with the limited resources that she had at hand.
First things first. She glanced at the stained-glass windows again. Striking up any kind of light in here was going to be a dead giveaway for those trying to find her. She had to find someplace safe to hide fast. Her body was battered to the brink, and adrenaline had carried her this far but would soon give out. Reluctantly, she stepped blindly through the doorway into the darkness beyond. She shut the door behind her, plunging herself into absolute darkness.
Maira took a few seconds to acclimate. There’s nothing dangerous here, she told herself. You’re fine. You’re going to be OK. Her breathing slowed, steadied. She made a mental list of the items that she had with her. It wasn’t much. This wasn’t exactly an adventure she had planned and prepared for.
Her handheld. Had she
left it behind or – no. It was there in her pocket, a solid weight. She pulled it out carefully. Dropping it and losing it in the darkness would be a) disastrous and b) entirely within her idiom. Better to just stay calm and move smoothly. Once it was in her hand, she thumbed the power switch.
The screen lit up. It was still set to the game she’d been playing the day before. The intro music, a cheerful jingle, started up. Maira’s heart lurched into her throat. Fumblingly, she turned the sound down as fast as she could. Silence reigned again. She froze, listening intently. Nothing. There was nothing. No one had heard that. It was OK.
Maira turned the glowing screen to the room she was in. Metal and white linoleum. It took her a few seconds to parse what she was seeing in the minimal light. This was a kitchen. The only windows had been boarded over. She could imagine the kind of functions it had once hosted. Bake sales, weddings, all those little country church functions. There was another door to the back of the room. To judge by the glint at the bottom, it led directly outside.
She walked over and made sure it was locked, then sat down with her back against the kitchen counter. She set the handheld down beside her so that the light shone upward. Weariness surged up in her, all-encompassing. All Maira wanted to do was stretch out on the cold tile and let sleep claim her. She shoved it away by force of will. There was one more thing she had to do before she could rest.
Maira pulled the watch out of her vest pocket. It was broken, to all appearances. A crack ran up the face, and blood stained the wristband. She had snatched it off the harness the masked killer had been wearing. It hadn’t been the only one there; there must have been half a dozen, some still glowing in shades of red and orange. Some kind of sick trophy display.
The watch presented a challenge. Maira didn’t have a brick or contact, of course, but the watch had certain minimal onboard functions of its own. She had a multitool with her. That was just who she was. Maira never went anywhere without something of the sort. She had her thumb drive – it was on the necklace she wore, same as always. Crucially, she also had her tablet in her backpack. The question was, would all of that be enough?
Maira set to work. Prying open a top secret government-issue watch was daunting for some people, but she had been born with the urge to fidget. During her time with the Division, she had taken the time to familiarize herself with the inner workings of their gear in a way that few agents bothered with. Luckily, it wasn’t really destroyed. These things had been made to survive a lot. Parts had come loose inside, but they just needed to be reconnected properly.
It came back to life with a gleam of orange light. Dull – it wasn’t properly connecting to the Network – but it was there. It was enough. She stuck her tongue out in concentration as she interfaced the watch with the tablet. It wasn’t a perfect replacement, but with just the right amount of know-how it could substitute for a brick. And as close as they were to the Core, there should be…
Connection. The dull light brightened. The watch came alive. Maira couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. She took a moment to pat herself on the back. Not everyone could have done this. She had access to elements of the Network again. It was a big step up from a few minutes ago.
A query scrolled onto the tablet screen: Authenticate Identity.
Maira held the watch up to her mouth. She was careful just to whisper: “Agent Maira Kanhai.”
Processing,
, it said.
Identity Verified.
The orange light went out. Maira froze. When the watch came back on, the glow had changed. Ruby red light washed across her face. There was no mistaking what it meant, but the text scrolled on anyway.
Agent Maira Kanhai, the tablet reported with a machine’s lack of mercy. Status: Rogue.
It was too much. It was exactly what she had feared. Maira pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the sound of an unwilling sob. There really was no one else to turn to. She was on her own, and she had no one to blame but herself.
She lowered her forehead to rest against her knees and struggled not to cry in the ruddy light of the cracked watch.
CHAPTER 2
August 2
Agent Brenda Wells crouched in the lee of a burned-out building. This was the tiny unincorporated town that lay nearest the Core. The Kansas sun burned hot overhead, and the summer heat had her sweating like crazy. She cradled her Honey Badger in one arm while she pulled out her canteen with the other hand and took a long swig of water. She indulged herself by drizzling a few drops onto her face before returning the container to its cradle.
“I see them,” Agent Miller said over the comms. He was up on top of one of the other buildings nearby, acting as their spotter.
“How far out?” Brenda asked.
“Maybe two klicks. They’re coming in fast,” Miller observed.
“Is it what we expected?” Brenda asked.
There was a pause. “More. I’m counting three upgunned semis and five technicals.”
“Well, that’s great,” Brenda said wearily. “They got reinforcements.”
“Change of plans?” asked Teresa from across the road.
Brenda wiped sweat from her face and debated internally. She had six agents. For the Division, that was a tremendous presence. Three cells had contributed members to this action. For that very reason, however, they were a resource to be shepherded. The Division had already taken too many losses over the past few years. They were being bled dry, and she couldn’t afford to waste any lives today.
They could fall back. In theory, the emplaced defenses closer to the Core would provide much-needed support and shelter. Unfortunately, those same defenses were still being repaired from a similar attack the week before. If they let the enemy get that far, the fortifications might suffer damage that they couldn’t fix.
Then there would be nothing to stop the next group to decide to come and kill or be killed in a Kansas cornfield.
Brenda ran through all of this in a matter of seconds. Her jaw ached from clenched tension. “We stick to the original plan. Just make sure you all bring your A game for this. This is not the time for dumb antics or being heroes. We hit them hard and fast, and we go home. Got it?”
A chorus of assent came back on the comms. Brenda checked the load on her Honey Badger one last time. The magazine was seated firmly, one round in the chamber. She glanced down at her feet. One ended in a combat boot, the other a sprinting blade. Her left leg was a prosthetic from the knee down. If people knew she checked that her shoes were tied and her leg was still attached before every firefight, they’d probably think she was silly. One time she’d watched a man run right out of his untied shoes, trip, and get shot three times before he could get back up. So now she always made sure, just in case.
“Fifteen seconds out,” Miller said.
“ISAC, silent count it out for me,” Brenda said.
A fifteen second timer helpfully popped up in the corner of her vision and began to tick down. Brenda fished a cell phone out of her pocket. It was the very definition of “nothing fancy” – in fact, it was a flip phone. For today, however, she didn’t need fancy. She flipped it open. There was a single number programmed in.
Brenda could hear the roar of the oncoming trucks now. Sticking her head out would be a great way to ruin the ambush, but she didn’t need to. It was easy to picture them. The weaponized semitrucks of the Roamers were twenty tons of steel and rubber, covered in jury-rigged armor and guns. As the would-be trucker warlords of the northern routes, these vehicles were their signature equipment. They had a way of staying in your memory. She focused on breathing calmly, steadily.
The countdown hit zero. Brenda hit the call button.
The rippling thunderclaps of sequential high explosive detonations washed over the area. Hard on its heels came clouds of dust flooding down the street. Brenda’s call had set off bombs planted all along the sides of the road the Roamers were coming down. No fancy SHD tech this time – that was becoming increasingly scarce, too precious to waste when plastique
and a pipe full of nails would do the trick.
Brenda pulled her mask up over her mouth and nose. “Move! Hit them now!” she barked into the comms.
Brenda came around the corner with her rifle held ready. The blasts had turned the world into a gray nightmare of swirling grit and burning vehicles. Chunks of the walls all around had been gouged by the payload of the pipe bombs. A flaming semi careened off the road and smashed into a ruined building. Blood painted the inside of the perforated cabin.
The door came open, and a man staggered out clutching a pistol. Brenda put a controlled burst of three rounds into his chest before his feet touched the ground. He flopped to the ground in a boneless heap. A flash of orange at the corner of her eye – ISAC warning her of another figure stumbling through the murk. She cut him down with a sweep of fire. He fell, screaming. A quick blast to the head silenced him.
To their foes, the world must have gone insane in an instant. A wave of hot iron had shredded them from both sides, tearing flesh and peeling metal. Within seconds more of them were dead to a barrage of precise gunfire. In the gray fog and chaos, how could they even start to fight back? They couldn’t even see the Division agents to try to return fire.
It was the product of layered advantages. An ambush allowed the agents to choose and shape their battlefield. Overhead, Miller watched with a sniper rifle and an infrared camera. It picked out the warm bodies of the Roamer gunmen from the chaos. That information was fed into ISAC, and ISAC triangulated each target and fed telemetry to every other agent involved in the battle.
The Roamers couldn’t see Brenda and her allies. It didn’t matter if Brenda couldn’t see them either – ISAC told her exactly where to shoot, carving humanoid shapes from the fog with glowing orange pixels. The Roamers were firing in a panic now, shooting in all directions blindly. Brenda ducked into the shadow of a shattered truck for cover.
“Threat detected,” ISAC commented in his monotone way. “Hostile vehicular mounted weapon.”
There was a .50 machine gun mounted on the back of one of the technicals. One of the Roamers climbed up behind it. They swung it into action, screaming in terror and rage. The rolling thunder of the weapon pounded the air. Blind-fired rounds hissed through the murk like angry hornets. One of the gunman’s allies was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She came apart in a spray of blood, chewed to pieces by friendly fire. The gunner didn’t even notice, continuing to sweep the battlefield with death.
“Agent down,” ISAC said. “Immediate medical assistance needed.”
Brenda cursed sharply. She pulled a grenade from her harness and eyeballed the distance to the .50 with a practiced glance. The pin came loose with a flick of her thumb, and she stood up and lobbed the device in a single motion. In a
blink she was back down again with her back to the cover, coiled tight. The grenade sailed in a lazy arc and slapped the Roamer in the chest. He had the presence of mind to look down and freeze.
The bed of the technical dissolved into a fireball, and both gun and gunner ceased to exist. Silence settled over the battlefield. Her ears were still ringing. She shook her head with a frown. She was going to be deaf by fifty at this rate. Brenda came to her feet unsteadily, her rifle still tucked into her shoulder. There was nothing. All remaining hostiles had been eliminated.
ISAC marked the fallen agent on her vision. She jogged in that direction, her breathing loud in the confines of the mask. The blade of her prosthetic clicked against the ground as she went. Two of the others had reached him by the time she got there. It was Lloyd. One of those blind .50 rounds had caught him right in the midsection. It had blown through his body armor like it wasn’t there. He was lying in a spreading pool of his own blood.
Teresa was desperately trying to bandage the front wound, while Constantin had his hands clamped to the exit. Blood pulsed between his fingers despite the pressure. Brenda dropped to her knees next to Lloyd. He reached out and caught her hand. His grip was wet with his own blood. Brenda held tight anyway.
Teresa was on the comms. “We need medevac now, we have an agent down!”
Lloyd was trying to say something. It was coming out choked with blood, spattering the inside of his mask. Brenda pulled it away with a free hand, wiped his lips. It didn’t do any good, just smeared the gore across his skin. She leaned in closer, trying to make out what he was saying. His hand tightened on hers, his nails digging into the skin on the back of her hand.
“I’ve got you, Lloyd. Hold on. You’re OK, you’re–” Brenda said.
The grip relaxed.
“Agent vital signs zero,” ISAC said. “Agent deceased.”
•••
Brenda scrubbed her hands furiously. Red sluiced down the sink drain. It came away in flaky layers. Steam rose in billowing clouds. She had turned it hot – that was the only way to really get blood off in her experience. Maybe it was too hot. The heat felt like it was cooking her hands. She pulled them from the stream of water and gripped the sides of the sink. The mirror in front of her had fogged up. It turned her face to a misty silhouette.
They had brought Lloyd’s body back to the Core. He’d be buried at some point.
“Small favors,” she said to her obscured reflection. “There’s no next of kin to have to write a letter to. Thanks, Green Poison.”
Her voice seemed loud in the confines of the bathroom. For a moment, she wondered if anyone could have heard her. Brenda couldn’t really bring herself to care. It might not have been the most appropriate sentiment, ...
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