The Wastelands
Ten miles to go. My Collective Cycler growls between my legs as I tear across a strip of desert at a hundred miles an hour. Half a ton of tough plas-steel machinery, plating, and onboard armaments in the form of a supercharged motorcycle, the Cycler is the staple of all Dune Striders. It’s mission-essential equipment, and it’s how we navigate the wastelands.
And right now, it’s the only thing between me and a dozen pissed-off Firebrand—career bandits who prowl the wastes, taking what they want. They’re crowded into a handful of hopped-up sand buggies and motorbikes and hot on my tail, and they’re none too happy I “extracted” a prewar artifact from them this morning—a prize with the potential to set them up for life. I’ve got it stowed on the back of my Cycler as I race back to the walls of the Monolith, and the Firebrand are chomping at the bit to take back their loot before I get there.
Brrraaat!
I hear it. I see it. Heavy machine-gun fire impacts the ground beside my Cycler, each round turning up sand as it arches my way. My gloved hands tense around the handlebars, and I swerve left to evade the burst. The Firebrand respond with a second volley on the other side, and I lean right to dodge the fire. I’ve fallen into range of their guns. They’re faster than most Firebrand. They must have advanced prewar tech powering their engines. That’s the only thing that can keep pace with a Dune Strider in these wastes. I’d know. This isn’t my first rodeo.
I look down at the Cycler’s electronic interface readout—RTB: 8 miles. RTB means “return to base.” In this case, I’m headed toward the Monolith, the Collective headquarters in this slice of desert. Outrunning the Firebrand is no longer an option; I’ll have to outgun them. Very few know what a Dune Strider is capable of in battle. That’s because when we fight, we leave no survivors. Time to fight. I prime my weapons systems with a series of buttons and keys integrated into the Cycler’s handles, expanding an offensive loadout menu on the center monitor.
Bwooossshhhkkkssshhh!
An explosion racks the earth beside me, nearly decoupling me from my Cycler. It’s a rocket-propelled grenade, by my account. They’ve brought out the big guns. I settle back in atop my Cycler and rapidly key through the on-screen menu: Gauss Cannons, Flame Projector, Ion Torpedo… There, Sonic Charge. On selection, the menu transforms into a rear-facing view feed from the Cycler, depicting the weapon’s projected pathway and field of detonation.
I lurch forward and maneuver my Cycler, dodging fusillades of machine-gun fire that patters the hard sand on either side of me as I line up the collective gaggle of Firebrand buggies and motorbikes in the screen’s rear-facing view feed. An orange digital box encloses around them and begins to blink, indicating the system is primed. I release the Sonic Charge.
A small cylindrical device drops from beneath the Cycler and skates back to the center of the pursuers, and then there’s silence. All sound within the immediate area around the Sonic Charge is vacuumed in like a black hole just appeared from the ether, and then it blows…
A series of devastating and concussive shock waves pulse from the point of detonation and obliterate seemingly all the Firebrand vehicles in one go, torqueing apart steel and bone alike in a clean and deafening blast that does its job and destroys everything it touches. I feel the edges of the waves lap at my back, sending tingles along my spine despite my protective jumpsuit.
RTB: 5 miles.
I sail ahead across the sands, monitoring the aftermath in my view feed. The blast sent a plume of sand erupting into the sky, and now it’s difficult to get a sight on any survivors. Then a single Firebrand motorbike emerges from the dust and carnage; it must have been far enough back to avoid the brunt of the blast. I count two riders, and one’s got a rifle.
The driver makes a move to throttle up toward my right. They’re close. Too close. I activate my Cycler’s wing-blades—three-foot, vibro-enhanced blades that extend laterally from either side of the Cycler—and I jump on the brakes, forcing a rapid drop in speed, which brings the Firebrand motorbike careening directly into a blade at full speed.
The blade cuts them like butter. Both the riders and bike are bisected asunder right through the hips, and pieces of bike and man skip forward across the sands, leaving behind a drizzle of blood and oil. I drift to a stop and scan my surroundings through my helmet’s narrow aperture. No survivors. I’m alone now, and I prefer it that way.
The Cycler purrs between my legs, and I give it a pat like it’s a good dog. I look back to ensure the artifact still rests in my saddlebags, note its peculiar imprint, and then speed off toward the tall, distant outline of the Monolith.
The Monolith
A dark spire of steel and stone, the Monolith stands at odds with the surrounding wastelands, as if boldly defying the decay of the rest of the uncivilized world. It’s the home of our Collective, which numbers in the hundreds. Hundreds of workers who labor dutifully in their assigned roles. Fulfill a man’s basic needs, and he’ll do his part. That’s the premise.
I walk through familiar, slate-gray corridors with my Cycler’s satchel slung over my shoulder. Its compartments contain everything I need to live on, from survival and hunting implements to mechanic tools, handy for ad hoc fixer jobs. Right now, it also contains my latest bounty—a peculiar prewar artifact, sophisticated technology from before the world went to hell.
I veer right and pass through a retracting metal door into the Monolith’s tech lab. The name tech lab is deceiving; the place is more a glorified chop shop, and a big one, with at least three dozen attendants always busily processing salvage and recycling what they can. The workers are like drones in their efficiency, extracting what’s useful and discarding what isn’t. It’s pedantic labor, but every one of us must serve the collective in our way. I pass them by as I traverse the factory floor and ascend a flight of stairs into the space above.
At the height of my ascent, I pass a threshold into a dimly lit and quiet room. Rows of candles line the walls, and a timeworn grandfather clock towers across from me, with its ticking hand lending a soft ambiance to the dim inside. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but each time I lay eyes on that tall and elaborate clock, it never fails to rouse my curiosity of what the world might have once been. Such antiquities seem so askew with the wastelands I know. I glimpse a figure sitting at a wooden desk in the far corner, tinkering on something or other with his back turned to me. In the time it takes me to blink, the figure is gone.
“Welcome back, Dune Strider.” A pale, elderly man garbed in gray robes appears from behind a nearby shelf. His piercing blue eyes set themselves on me, as if appraising what I have to say and what I have come to give.
“Abbot.” I respond in simple fashion, and I dip my head in greetings. With one hand, I procure the artifact stored inside my shoulder-strung saddlebag and hold it out to him.
“Never one to waste words. I see why the others call you Mute,” he says, referring to my Dune Strider call sign, more a nickname, really. All of us have them, and it’s always been that way among the Dune Striders. Most of us began as nameless orphans found among the wastelands. Without the Collective, we’d be nothing.
Abbot takes the cylindrical metal object from my hand and looks it over. To me, the artifact seems immaterial, apart from the telltale “Monolith-Systems” printed on its shell. Dune Striders are trained to track and recover any item bearing that insignia.
“What is it?” My curiosity gets the better of me.
Abbot pauses in his examination of the object and slowly turns his shrewd gaze up at me. I can tell he’s assessing me, judging. Then he says, “A conduit. A very old and important piece to a forgotten puzzle. One I am close to finishing.” Abbot then withdraws deeper into his study, leaving me alone.
The ticking cadence of that clock draws my eyes back toward it as I wait. I once asked Abbot why he preferred the company of such old things in his quarters, expecting him to profess some preference for austerity or the analog. Instead, he looked right at me and told me something else: “One must know their enemy.” I’d be lying if I said I knew what he meant by that.
When I turn to look back, Abbot is there again, holding out a stack of gold coins for me. I’m unnerved that I couldn’t sense his approach; the man moves like an apparition, but I silently accept my reward and stow the coins away. These are what goes for currency within the Collective and serve as our meal tickets. They’re different from the silver coins used as currency by the outlying settlements, and only we use them.
As I step to leave, Abbot says, “There is another matter.”
I set my eyes on him and fall silent.
Abbot continues. “Four days ago, one of your fellow Dune Striders, Ashur, deployed to White Sands to investigate rumors of prewar tech in the settlement. He is now forty-eight hours overdue on his return suspense.”
“Suspected status?” I ask. Dune Striders follow strict time lines with respect to mission parameters. The lack of reliable, long-range communication technology means we are beholden to deadlines, which raise alarms if broken. What follows is the presumption of KIA or betrayal on the part of the Dune Strider. In the latter case, the sentence is death.
“It’s thought that Ashur has deserted the Collective.” Abbot’s discerning, half-lidded eyes narrow into daggers as he gauges my reaction. Sending a Dune Strider to hunt a Dune Strider isn’t unheard of, but it’s extremely rare and generally is to confirm what’s already suspected: that the first Dune Strider was KIA on mission. In that case, it’s the job of the second Dune Strider to recover or destroy any Monolith technology at the site. We call those cleanups.
This is different. Abbot is asking me to hunt down another member of our fraternity. “You want me to kill him,” I say, giving voice to what I think is happening. “Send another.” I break eye contact, preparing to take my leave without a proper dismissal. Etiquette has never been my strong suit, and I’m still a bit keyed up from my previous assignment.
“I did send another. Bosch deployed yesterday morning in pursuit of Ashur. He was to return this evening and has not.” I feel a long, sinewy hand grasp my shoulder, and my eyes trace it back to Abbot. He continues in his inscrutable way, issuing me my orders, “Eliminating Ashur is your primary mission. Follow protocol as it pertains to Bosch—clean up or eliminate, if it proves necessary, at your discretion.”
I take in the gravity of the assignment and say nothing. Abbot withdraws his hand and turns away, continuing. “Creed will deploy as your backup when he returns from his current assignment. The two of you have forty-eight hours to complete the mission and return.” There’s a dark absolution to Abbot’s voice, like he’s giving an implicit or else. It’s a side of him I haven’t seen before, and this is an assignment I don’t like. I muster a simple response, the only thing I can think of. “As you wish.” Those words are my last as I head out on my way.
The Dunes
I rest on my Cycler, parked up at the peak of one dune among a sea of many. It’s almost a day’s ride between the Monolith and the White Sands settlement, and I spent the whole night covering ground, making sure to put myself ahead of the clock. I’m only a few miles out from my destination now, and I’m reviewing Ashur’s mission chit while I wait out the rising sun.
For: Dune Strider; Call Sign: Ashur
Mission: Investigation, Reconnaissance
Location: White Sands Settlement
Contact: Toller
Return Suspense: 48h
“Toller,” I say to myself, committing the name to memory. It’s commonplace for us Dune Striders to have contacts in the various settlements. For the right price, they deal out the information we need to execute our missions. For Toller to be named in the report means he must have been one of Ashur’s regulars, and that means he’s my starting point.
I begin to feel the sun’s warm glow come over me as it crests the distant horizon, and I realize it’s time to ready up for the ride into town. I stow Ashur’s mission chit in my saddlebag and pull my headgear from the end of the Cycler’s handlebars. My helmet is an old thing, itself a relic of some old war, brown and scarred with an opaque visor. I slide it over my head, kick-start my Cycler to life, and tear off over the dunes toward the White Sands settlement.
White Sands
The White Sands settlement is like any number of other frontier towns—sparsely populated, independent, and self-governed, which puts it a stone’s throw away from lawless. In small communities like these, everybody knows everyone, and they tend to look after one another. On some days, that’d be their strength, but I see opportunity. Their closeness means it won’t take me long to sniff out someone with information on Toller—or Ashur, by extension.
I walk the sandy streets with my olive drab poncho draped over my body—it’s an article which I usually keep slung back over my shoulders when mounted on my Cycler—in order to have a certain anonymity, at least for the moment. Most settlers aren’t especially inviting of members of the Collective on their turf, with our relative cleanliness, technology, and clothing being the telltale giveaways. So rather than blow my chances of getting the jump on Toller, I’ve hidden my Cycler on the outskirts of town and gone for the incognito approach.
My path into the town takes me through a market filled with merchant stalls, its vendors offering everything from mystery meats to “miracle” elixirs. Its foul, engrossing odors hang in my nose as I step onto the main street. Leaning against a wooden pillar, I scan the storefronts along the lineup of shoddy wood and metal buildings.
General Store… Hotel… Doctor… Cantina… Gunsmith… Fixer…
“Hey, mister!” I hear the tenor of a young voice and look down to see a boy, who couldn’t be more than ten, dressed in slacks and a weathered vest staring up at me. “You’re new here, aren’t you? I know everyone, even the traders that come and go, but never seen you before.”
“That’s right,” I respond.
“How about a tour of the town, mister? Only a silver.” I watch the boy put on something of a deceptive smile, baring a few missing teeth.
“No, I think I’ll manage,” I answer. The kid seemed every bit the part of a con man, through and through. They start young these days, but then I’m no saint, either, and someone plugged into the town’s affairs has their uses, so I ask, “You know everyone, eh?”
“Everyone worth knowing, mister,” he replies, giving his head a coy tilt.
“Anyone worth knowing come through here in the past few days?” As I ask it, I withdraw a couple of silver coins from my pocket. The boy lurches forward with greedy eyes, but I cut his gaze short by forming a fist around the coins, as a reminder that reward comes at a cost.
“Certainly, mister. A rider from the south came through a few days back. Didn’t stay long. Saw the fixer and left. Then, well, there was one other…”
I flick one silver coin out at the kid, which he catches and pockets immediately. “Go on.”
The boy resumes his story. “Another rider came around just yesterday, asking about the first man. Roughed up a few fellas in the cantina then paid the fixer a visit too. He left town after that. Good thing too. He was making folks uncomfortable.” That must have been Bosch; he always did have a mean streak. I’m not surprised to hear he used violence to advance his own investigation into Ashur’s whereabouts. Bosch could be a problem for me if he’s still out there.
I chuck the second coin to the kid and ask, “This fixer. He got a name?”
He looks back at me. “Well, of course, mister. But it’s stuck on the tip of my tongue…”
I don’t fish for any more silver, not this time. Rather, I grab the kid by the collar of his vest and jerk him forward.
“Toller, mister!” the kid yelps up at me.
I release my hold on him and cast my eyes down the street toward the fixer’s shop. All I hear from the kid now is his footfalls as he runs off down an alleyway… Well, now I know where to find Toller.
I notice myself catching a few sidelong glances as I cross the dusty street toward the fixer’s shop. If Bosch did stir up tensions here, I’ll need to be quick in my investigation. I press open a sheet-metal door and walk inside the shop. My eyes strain to readjust to the sudden darkness inside. As the room comes into focus, I see empty shelves, a barren counter, and tires and parts strewn helter-skelter over the floor—evidence of a fight.
I feel something slick underfoot as I step forward, and I pause to look down. It’s dun colored and difficult to discern, but as I kneel and run my finger across the floor, I make out the mystery substance for what it is: blood residue, and a good deal of it. Judging from the spread of it from here to the far wall, I’d guess someone, probably Bosch, got to Toller and tortured him, probably for information. Toller’s dead for sure if this is his blood.
But something on the floor catches my eye. It’s the arrowhead symbol of the Firebrand, as if etched there by a bloodied finger as a dying act. Was Toller one of them? It’s not uncommon to find Firebrand or Firebrand sympathizers in the various settlements, but in one so close to the Monolith? They’re getting bolder, making bigger moves against us.
A beam of light illuminates the room as the door behind me opens again. I turn to see three men, and behind them, I make out the shape of the prepubescent boy from before. I hear him say to them, “That’s him.” The trio close and lock the door behind themselves then move farther into the room, coming towards me. I take two steps back, creating space, and stop.
“You’ll pay for Toller,” the lead man says to me.
I don’t answer. I’m sizing up all three. The man on the left is armed with a dirty, fabricated pistol. Slim chance it works. The head honcho in the center has what passes for a blunderbuss—similarly fabricated, but better kept. The third man carries a large cleaver. It’s filthy, like him. He must be the town butcher.
“Got anything to say, you Collective drone, before we carve you up like your other man did to Toller?” their leader threatens aloud, but I hold firm.
So, Bosch killed Toller. That confirms one suspicion but creates a dead end for my investigation.
“Where’d you stash your bike? Bettin’ it’s nearby.”
I don’t much care to respond to that question, either.
“He’ll talk when he’s under the blade. They always do.” The butcher chimes in, giving his cleaver something of a wave. Dune Striders train for moments like these—split-second violence. It’s part of negotiating the wastelands… or part of surviving them, at any rate. Unseen to the group, my revolver is already drawn and trained on the lead man, safely concealed courtesy of my poncho. Unlike them, I don’t hesitate. I fire, and three loud blasts perforate the silence. All three men slump to the ground, dead with holes drilled through their foreheads.
I holster my revolver and step past their bodies to the door. And as I leave, stepping back out into that bright desert sunlight, I find the kid waiting just outside the shop. I doubt he was counting on me being the one to come walking out, and I watch his expression turn to a fear that paralyzes him where he stands. “You didn’t mention Toller was killed. The second rider, which direction did he leave in?”
“He… he… north, into No Man’s Land.”
I pass the kid a silver coin from my pocket and, with the whole town’s eyes set upon me, stalk right out of White Sands settlement.
No Man’s Land
The name’s well deserved. No Man’s Land is a death trap, a vast and unchartered expanse of land dotted by mines that’ve been here since the war. And above the cracked, dry earth sits a boneyard made up of exploded persons and vehicles. Going around means adding a trip through the mountains, and that’s days of travel I can’t afford. Ashur traveled through here, with Bosch on his tail. I’m going to have to follow them through it.
I remove my helmet and begin to crawl my Cycler forward. When it comes to minefields, slow and steady wins the race, and I’ll need my vision entirely unobstructed for this haul. It isn’t long before I sight the first grouping of mines. I steer clear but take note of their appearance. Each mine is bleached by the sun and layered in dust, camouflaging them within their environment. Any misstep or any failure to identify just one of those ancient devices, and my Cycler and I would be slag. I almost wonder if Ashur came all this way just to die.
I focus on the ground ahead of me as I press onward. The seconds turn to minutes, and the minutes become hours…
I estimate I’m halfway through now. I look to the horizon to gauge the sun’s height. It’s setting, leaving me maybe another two hours of daylight to spare, when something out there catches my eye—crows. They’re circling something. It’s worth checking out.
I steer around another patch of mines and head that way. First, the object of the crows’ interest appears as a distant gray blip on the ground. As I ride closer, I register the chrome visage of a Cycler, heavily damaged and pitched over onto the ground.
I calmly prime my own Cycler’s twin Gauss cannons as I cruise toward the wreck, preparing for an encounter with another Dune Strider—Ashur or Bosch. And I notice what the crows are circling. There’s a man some twenty feet out, prone on the ground.
I dismount my Cycler, scooping my helmet off the handlebar and setting it back onto my head. Its ballistic-grade visor dims the setting sun from my eyes as I carefully proceed on foot toward the downed Dune Strider. We all wear the same charcoal-colored bodysuits, and I can’t yet distinguish who it is. Then the body rouses, its head rolling in my direction.
“Knew… they’d send another.” It’s Bosch. And he looks like hell. His hideously burnt face gives the impression he’s been lying here for a day, maybe two.
I silently peer down at him and note the blood seeped into the earth beside him. He’s dying, slowly.
Bosch strains to speak, addled by dehydration and exposure to the elements. “Caught up with Ashur… right here. Tried to take him in the minefield.” His eyes close shut again. I pull a canteen from my belt and kneel beside him, cradling his head and bringing the water to his lips.
As Bosch draws a sip from the canteen, I note a measure of gratitude in his eyes, and he struggles to find his voice again. “What he’s got, it’s no artifact… Something else… He’s switched sides, joined the Firebrand…” I help him to another sip of water, and he hoarsely continues, “I got the old man in White Sands talking before I killed him… He said Ashur’s going to the Painted Desert… to join up with the Firebrand there… Hrrn.” His lids fall over his eyes, and he calmly bids of me, “Kill ’em for me.”
I gently lower his head and rise to my feet.
We both know what comes next. “Do it,” he says. I pull my revolver from its holster… and a solitary bang sends the crows flying.
The Painted Desert
Day has become night as I speed through the desert on my Cycler. I’ve been riding for hours since leaving No Man’s Land, and I’m now against the clock. The Painted Desert expands over a lot of ground. It’s a colorful blend of silt, mud, and rock landforms, and it’s rough to cover, even on a Cycler.
I’ve been tracing Ashur’s path by the tire treads left imprinted into the sands and silt from his Cycler. It’s barely visible to the naked eye, especially in the darkness, so I’m relying on the tracking technology in the console centered on my handlebar. It’s useful tech, and right now, it’s highlighting Ashur’s route for me to follow via flashing indicators.
I contemplate what Bosch said as I cruise along the desert: that Ashur had fallen in with the Firebrand. Seems his contact with Toller might have exposed him to the ideology, and now, instead of serving the Collective, he’s serving the enemy, hauling something for them. Whatever it was Toller gave him, it was enough to make him change sides. But why?
An hour later, I pull to a stop in front of the distant outline of a camp. It’s up on a rock outcropping, but my eyes are drawn to the Dune Strider parked down in the valley in front of it, in front of me. It’s Ashur, and he’s mounted on his own Cycler, helmet on, and looking ready for a fight, like he’s been waiting for me. The hunter and hunted come head-to-head.
There’s a good three hundred meters between us, but the tension is palpable as we stare each other down through our black visors, and the rumbling din of our Cyclers casts an echo throughout the dark valley. And I know Ashur is thinking what I am: kill or be killed.
I tighten my body against the chrome frame of my Cycler for the maneuver that’s going to come next, and I inhale and exhale a final breath. Then I punch it. I torque back the throttle fully around its axis, and my Cycler blasts forward at breakneck speed. Ashur does the same.
We go barreling through the valley right at one another. That’s when I deploy the wing-blades. So does Ashur. I go to evade and pitch a sharp left, launching silt and sand airborne as I negotiate the sharp turn. I glance back sidelong and see Ashur’s pulled the same feint, shooting off the other way. That first pass was to feel each other out. The problem when two Dune Striders fight is that tech for tech, we’re evenly matched. It’s skill that wins the day.
I stay on the move, spinning the back end of my Cycler around for another go at Ashur, and I see him lining up for another joust at the far end of the valley. We’re already bolting right at each other again, plumes of sand kicking up in our wakes, as I’m activating the Gauss cannons—two twin forward-mounted coil guns that harness magnetism to fire a salvo of destructive, high-velocity projectiles. I fire and watch as the ground where Ashur was just at erupts into clay confetti.
Miss.
He lurched left just as I fired, and now he’s closing the gap on me. As he does, I see twin streaks of flame lance forward from his Cycler. I try to hook out of the way, partially succeeding, but the sheer intensity of the fire manages to blast one of my vibro wing-blades clean off and scorches the side of my Cycler in the pass.
That round goes to Ashur. Our bodysuits are fire-resistant to a good degree, but I can feel the burns to my side. We each drive on to opposite, far ends of the valley and U-ey our Cyclers back around, whipping the rear tires through the silt to line up for another face-off.
I rack my brain for something useful against Ashur—some tiny observation or flaw in his technique that might shift the outcome my way. On the first pass, he split to his left; on the second, he also split left. He’s favoring that side… Maybe that’s it. I decide to dispense with Dune Strider tradition and attempt something new.
From opposite ends of the valley, we throw the proverbial pedal to the metal and gun it, and our two Cyclers go thundering at one another at full clip. I hit maximum velocity and feel the wind beating at my damaged bodysuit, and I steel myself to focus over it, over all the noise and static. Ashur’s coming up fast.
He’s going to come at me again with his flame projector. I can’t get too close. I lean forward into my handlebars and get the jump on the situation. I fire my Gauss cannons in a burst and from far out, this time. It’s too far out for me to score a hit on Ashur… but that’s not the point.
The cascading barrages explode the ground between us, launching sand and earth straight up. I lose sight of Ashur behind the sudden wall of dust, and that means he can’t see me, either. If I’m right, he’ll play this defensively and split to his left. I steer right for where I expect him to be… and I zero out my thoughts and buck my head low, because I’m going to ram him.
Dust, and more dust—it’s all I see as I rocket forward. Then it happens—there he is. My eyes register it for only a fraction of a second.
Ashur appears in front of me from the ether, and we collide at full tilt. I catapult from my Cycler as metal collides with metal and feel my helmet and body slam into Ashur. It’s all a blur from there. I feel myself soaring, skidding, and tumbling, and then it all goes black…
Light. Pain. My eyes snap open, and I startle forward out of pure instinct, gasping for air. Then my eyes begin to discern my surroundings from the amorphous brightness. I hear a voice over the ringing din in my ears, and a person’s silhouette comes into focus standing over me.
“Get the fuck up, Dune Strider. Die on your feet.” I know that voice. It’s Creed, my so-called backup. Am I hallucinating? Pain wracks my entire body as I dig for the strength to press myself off the ground, and I hear him continue. “Congratulations on completing your mission. I could barely recognize Ashur’s corpse. Too bad you won’t make it back to take credit for the success.”
How long have I been out? I try to stifle the massive throbbing in my skull and realize I’m no longer wearing my helmet. It must have busted apart right off my head. I find my way to my feet despite a swell of pain in one leg—I’m pretty sure more than a few bones are broken—and unbeknownst to Creed, I reach down beneath my now-tattered poncho, which has draped itself down over my body, to feel for my revolver. I don’t know how, but it’s still there.
“It’s gonna go good for me when I tell Abbot that I took care of Ashur after he got both you and Bosch. Nothing personal, Mute. You know how it is,” Creed says, squandering his chance to kill me to bluster about what he’s going to do, instead of doing it. “At least you’ll get to—”
I fire through my poncho, and Creed falls backward to the ground as a hole blows open in his chest. I watch his expression turn from surprise to fear as he looks down to the mortal wound and then up to me. I raise the gun into the stability of both hands for another shot.
Creed futilely lifts his arms to shield himself and sputters out the word, “No!”
I blast a hole between his eyes, and I’m done with him. Then I just… stand there for a moment, still working to gain my bearings in the dawning light. I look over and see the remains of someone grotesquely twisted out of shape lying in the sands some fifteen meters out. Ashur.
Guess Creed was right about one thing. Mission complete.
And I see the Cyclers—or what’s left of them. They’ve been hewn apart by the crash into twisted metal scraps… jumbled far and wide across the sands. Good of Creed to bring me another, I think, as I turn to see his Cycler just sitting there, waiting for me nearby. I limp over to Creed’s body and loot his canteen and gun belt, then I dig through his pockets for anything else useful. But as I go about it, I suddenly get the feeling that I’m being watched…
I slowly look up at where I remember seeing the camp from afar when I first arrived last night. And there, out on the distant rocky outcropping, I see the shapes of dozens of armed Firebrand silhouetted against the rising sun. They’re watching me, and I don’t have the first clue as to why they didn’t just do me in when they had the chance. Ashur fought and died for them. That was his choice. Maybe I’ll never understand why. But my mission is over. I’m going home.
I keep an eye on their group as I turn and stagger toward Creed’s Cycler. It’s a struggle to negotiate my burned and broken leg over the side of it, but with some exertion, I manage. I straddle the seat and settle in, tracing my hands along the handlebars until I’m comfortable at the controls… and then I trigger the ignition, and the Cycler roars and powers to life.
I gaze up toward the Firebrand one final time before I cast my eyes out in the direction of No Man’s Land. There’s a storm brewing on the horizon. I lift Creed’s helmet from the center console and set it over my head, lean some into the handlebars… and punch it for the skyline.
END
