After the Revolution: Chapters One & Two

called it Dallas. The truck's driver veered around the bloated corpse of a large dog lying in the middle of the road. Reggie gripped the truck bed with white knuckles and eyed the swaying amo belt of the twenty millimeter cannon like it was a coiled snake. The gunner, Mannie's cousin Alejandro, grinned down at the journalist. The suspension's a little focked, yeh. The Briton nodded and turned greener. When the technical hid another pothole, Manny supposed he should offer

a comfort in word to the man. That would be good business, but a louder part of him looked at Reggie's brand new boots and thought he can stand a little less comfort. The journalists would brag about this ride for months once he got home. Escorting reporters from the safety of Austin to the sundry hotspots of the Old Metroplex was not Manny's ideal career. Two years ago, he'd been working on a bachelor's in business administration from the

University of Austin. The plan had been to get a job with Ages Biosystems, then charm his way into a working visa and a gig in the California Republic. But the fighting had started up again and ruined all that. The culprit this time was the Heavenly Kingdom, a loose assortment of Christian extremist militias. They'd boiled out from the suburbs of the Old Metroplex and all but broken the

Republic of Texas. The Autonomous City of Austin had stabilized the situation with the help of an alliance of leftist Texan militias the Secular Defense forces. Beating them back had cost a lot in blood and time, and forced man to change every plan he'd ever had for his life. So he'd embraced the situation and started his own business, hiring on some friends as employees. Together they'd built the

best network of stringers in North Texas. His boys fed him video contacts and news updates, and he sold what he could to the big foreign media conglomerates. In a couple more months, he'd have enough saved up that he could fuck off, fly to Europe and apply for a refugee visa. Myons are pretty good as long as the war doesn't end too soon. The technical rolled to a creaky stop in front of a checkpoint that had clearly

been erected within the last few days. It was just a collapsible electronic gate and two sandbag emplacements on either side of the battered highway. A street sign nearby announced that they were on the edge of Richardson, formerly a suburb of Dallas and currently a forward position of the People's Protection Army. A local anarchist militia manny could see the p PA's red black triangle emblem stitched onto the

jackets of the soldiers guarding the checkpoint. One of the p p A men walked up to the driver's side window and started chatting with Philip. The driver. Phil and Manny's cousin Alejandro were both with the Citizens Front, a more or less a political militia from the suburbs of Austin. Both militias co existed under the broad umbrella of the

Secular Defense Forces. The SDF had been organized by the Canadian government to lump all of North Texas's palatable militant groups into a single package that could be conveniently armed. While the first guard talk with Philip, his partner did a circuit around the back of the truck. The man was big, bulging, with muscles so sculpted and prominent they had to be vat grown, and he moved with the twitchy ungrace of a man who replaced his nervous system

with circuitry. His weapon was a very old, very battered a R fifteen with an M two four three grenade launcher below the barrel. The latter was old U S military gear. The former had been someone's toy before the revolution gave America's half billion civilian guns a new riis on debt. The man moved back to the barricades when he had finished his lap. Reggie looked up at any and asked was he a was he chromed? Many smiled.

That was always one of the first questions as soon as any foreign journal saw a trooper with a large enough billed skin with an off shade, or who just moved a little too fast to seem completely right. Anything beyond basic aesthetic and medical modifications were banned in civilized countries like the UK. The real chrome, the implants that would let a man lift a truck or take a rocket to the belly that ship was locked up tight. A few national militaries even used the stuff these days,

not after the revolution. He's got some vat grown muscles, Manny said, in an off handed way that suggested such things were common aftermarket nerves too. Probably his stuff is low grade, that's why it's so visible. Reggie nodded. His eyes stayed locked on the big man. He was quiet for a while before he spoke again. You just live right alongside them, don't you, Manny shrugged. Everybody's got something out here and the wet wears. But lets us hold back the martyrs. They own the whole city if it

weren't or half fats like him. The journalists nodded, and his gaze stayed fixed upon the militiaman until a troubled look crossed his face. He glanced back to Manny. Are you a chromed Reggie asked. Manny smiled, I don't expect either of us as stock Sabienah, but I doubt I've got anything you don't. Reggie seemed somewhat comforted by this. Most of what I've read about the really heavy moths

says they cause a lot of well unstable behavior. That's why, that's why this city such a ship hole, Manny asked. The journalist had the grace to blush. Manny looked away for a moment. His eyes landed on the bones of three large public housing buildings. A barrel bomb had detonated

in the center of the courtyard. All three shared. It had peeled away the walls, some of the floors, and the resulting firestorm had burned up everything that wasn't concrete, steel, or rebar For just a moment, Manny felt bad about hoping the war hung on. In other six months, the old government blamed a lot on roided up veterans with military grade mods. He told Reggie, most was just propaganda, fear mongering. People were pissed. After twenty years of plague, disaster,

and poverty. Manny shrugged. It's true, though a lot of chromed up vets turned on the government. You can't make men into gods and expect them to keep fighting from men, Reggie pointed back to the bolding militiaman, I take it, muscles there is pretty far from a god. Nah, Manny laughed. He's just a guy with too much meat money. Gods don't man check points. The Brit was excited. Now. These were the questions he'd wanted to ask since they met yesterday.

Do you know where some of those people are? Reggie couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice. Could we talk to them? Manny didn't have any of those contacts, nor did he know any other fixers who did. He tried to let the Brit down easy. Most of those folks live ah on the road in between the civilized parts of Texas and the Republic of California. Oh. Reggie looked disappointed. The truck rolled past the wreckage of an old Catholic school. It bore signs of being fortified, destroyed,

re fortified, and redestroyed several times. The Brit was inches from asking another question when The gate man waved them on, and the battered Toyota farted its way into drive, belching and complaining, past a network of potholes until it hit a relatively straight chunk of asphalt. Only a few minutes now heife. Manny said, the p PA's forward position is about five minutes out. He'll be in the ship then, or at least should adjacent. The journalist's face washed over

in an even mix of anxiety and pride. One of the first lessons Manny had learned at this job was that phrases like the ship made rich gringo writers unreasonably excited. An excited journalists always called Manny the next time they were in country. Giving white kids in caffie as a lifetime of bragging rights for surviving a couple of days in his home killed his soul just a little bit, But Manny pushed down the anger and told himself that a chip on the shoulder was a lot less useful

than money in the bank. The Technical rolled off the old highway. Manny could see twenty three and Spring Valley Road and blasmed on a weather beaten bullets garred sign. The Technical pulled to the right. The guns swayed in its mount. Manny couldn't help smiling as the brit instinctively pulled away from it. They rolled up to what had once been a strip mall and was now a forward

operating base for the People's Protection Army. An old laundromat, a bookstore, and a half dozen restaurants now had their roofs ringed with barbed wire and machine gun emplacements. Manny could see a line of bullet hole stitched across three of the shops. None of the windows were intact, but otherwise the buildings had weathered the war rather well. Three M one howitzers were parked next to a taco shop that had once served the local college, kid's beer and

sheep grub. There was a flagpole out in front of the shop, and from it hung the blue and white starburst flag of the SDF. Three men in uniforms stood waiting as the old Toyota rolled to a stop and Manny and Reggie disembarked. Two of the men were officers in the p P, A Colonel Jacob Milgram and Major Deshaun Clark. Milgram was a boring, tight lipped nerdy type,

but Deshaun was one of Manny's favorite sources. He was an old infantry guy, a consummate rawler with a face full of scars and three published books of poetry to his name. He actually had a base of international fans, mostly in Spain. The third man was Hamid Mohammed, an adviser from Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds had been giving aid to the Sundry militias of the Secular Defense Forces for years now. Manny considered Hamid almost a local. He shook

hands with Jacob, since Manny knew De Shaun better. He met the man with a full embrace and used it as an opportunity to palm the major a packet of his favorite cigarettes. Deshaun gave him a wink and a smile. Manny shook Hamid's hand next, and then kissed him on the cheek. Hamid returned the kiss, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, Emmanuel, my friend, you really should get out of this business. One of these days you'll come up

here and it won't be safe. Manny frowned a little at the use of his birth name, but he didn't make an issue out of the matter. There's still a war on right, he smiled. At Hamid. He'll get that ship under control. Maybe I'll work a straight job again. Not too soon, though, he thought. The least this work can do was last long enough to get me out of Texas. Hamide smiled back, and Manny introduced Reggie to

the officers. The journalist was clearly awkward in that special way Manny had come to expect from new war correspondents. It was the norm for young writers to be intimidated by grizzled military men. Some of them got over that Manny had worked with a middle aged dr Spiegel reporter last week could probably take in as much incoming fire as Major Clark. Colonel Milgram led them into the militarized taco shop. A brief blast of nostalgia squeezed Manny's lungs.

The place had obviously been closed since the revolution. The drink specials and meal prices printed on the wall were given in U S dollars, a currency as dead as the last American president. Many recognized ads for bands and movies he remembered from his childhood. The glass facade had shattered years ago. The kitchen had been gutted and replaced by wall length screens displaying maps, of the city. At least a dozen uniformed men and women milled around the

space in small groups. He and Reggie sat down at a long picnic table with Hamide and the two officers. Reggie set his camera up on the table. It was just a small silver sphere, but Manny knew it could record everything happening around it at a higher resolution than the human eye, and orderly brought in three beers, shinier box from Austin and one dark brown tea and a glass cup for hamade. The brit raised his glass in a friendly salute, thank you for meeting with me, and

then he started to ask questions. Manny leaned back in his chair and enjoyed a long gulp of cold beer. If he wasn't needed to translate, he generally checked out during interviews. He used the free time to activate his deck and check in on the two stringers he had working right now. David Allenby was up in Addison today taking a Californian documentary crew on a tour of an STF training facility. He'd messaged Manny to let him know

they'd gotten through the checkpoints without any issue. Oscar Martinez didn't have any journalists with him. He was embedded with a Republic of Texas police unit, getting footage from inside a neighborhood that had recently been liberated from the Heavenly Kingdom. There were no new messages from Oscar. His last check in had been the night before. It was probably nothing, but it concerned Manning. Nonetheless, what if Oscar got a

better offer for his footage. He'd always been loyal before, but if that funk from the Guardian had gotten to him. I'm interested in the Abrams Road bombing, Reggie told the colonel, and Manny's attentions swung back to his reporter. That's an odd thing to ask about. The bombing had occurred two weeks back. It had been big news for a couple of hours. Manny had paid one of his contacts and Ross a Front for a video of a walk through of the wreckage. It had brought in about three grand profit.

The Abrams Road bombing was not a martyrdom operation. Colonel Milgram sounded almost angry, terribly sorry. Reggie said, you're right, of course, there was no driver, so no martyr right right, Deshaun Clark said. He pulled a folded piece of white paper out of his pocket, opened it up, and smoothed it out on the table. It was a map of the df W area, color coded to show the positions

of the various militias in the region. We operate eight checkpoints on that part of the Richardson line, DeShawn said, as he pointed to each one. Five of them border republ controlled territory. The traffic from there is mostly autonomous, and those vehicles slaved themselves to our traffic management system before they can enter our territory. The other three checkpoints border territory controlled by the martyrs. They don't see much traffic and they're all heavily manned. Reggie was quiet for

a few seconds. Manny could almost hear the gears turning in the journalist's head as he struggled to find the words for his next question. Would it be fair to say the autonomous checkpoints are less secure? Then, Deshaun smiled a thin, quiet smile amid grimace. Colonel Milgram responded in a terse voice, the autonomous checkpoints have fewer defenders, but they border Republic territory. The martyrs haven't pulled off an attack on one in quite some time. Was abrams Road

not on such attack. Reggie looked eager now like a hound, following assent, we don't know who bombed Abram's road. Colonel Milgram said, no one's taken credit, but we doubt it was the martyrs. Why the journalist asked, Manny leaned in a little interested in spite of himself, at where this was all going to lead, perhaps, Amid said, you should read a bit more about this heavenly kingdom. They reject all autonomous technology. They even use remote human pilots for

their drones, like it's two thousand and fucking three. That's why our skies are always clear. We jammed them. Reggie asked, is it possible they found some way to hack your defense system? Amid laughed, we bought this system from the Israelis. If you're telling me one of the Martyrs brigades has a hacker who can crack that, then I'm the King of Albuquerque. But something still went wrong, Reggie insisted, amid smile turned cold. This is war, mister Reggie. It's mostly

things going wrong. That's where the line of questions petered out. Reggie asked them for access to the security footage from the destroyed checkpoint, and Colonel Milgram agreed to send it over. We'd like to speak to the survivors as well, if possible, Mannie interjected, not waiting to see if the journalist would ask. He knew those men were all stationed behind the line now, which would make for a safer, easier rest of the day than heading up to the wire, of course, Colonel

Milgram said, with a smile to Manny. They said their goodbyes, and then Major Clark walked them out to their waiting Toyota. The Texas heat hit like an oven as they exited, and Mannie was glad they'd be spending most of the rest of their day in doors. Deshaun clapped a hand on Manny's shoulder as he lit one of his new cigarettes. It's good to see you, Emmanuel, he said, and then he smiled at Reggie, and it's nice to meet you,

my British friend. I'm sorry you've come to the front at a boring time, why, Reggie asked, Because this Deshaun gestured at the gun emplacements and loitering militiamen of the command post. This is not war, not really. Your job is to help your people, children of peace and plenty understand what is going on here. You must teach them the language of war, and to paraphrase a dead poet, the language of war is a language made of blood.

To be spoken, it must be earned. There was an awkward pause, A little of the blood drained from the journalist's face. Hugh Nutty, Old fuck, Manny thought, with more amusement than fear. Classic de Shaun, he said, and laughed. To ease the tension. The major bid them both a good day, hugged Manny, and sauntered off back to the command post. Smoke from his cigarette curled up into the air behind him as he walked. Manny's eyes lingered on it for a second before he turned back to Reggie.

Ready to go, he asked Jipper as he could manage. Three hours, a handful of interviews, and one short drive later, Manny and Reggie arrived at their home for the night. The Richardson Autonomous Project, once a Walmart, now a twenty two year old experiment and sustainable urban living. The project was the furthest island of civilization on the SDF side of the front. It's militias steadfastly refused to involve themselves in the region's greater conflicts. They'd been targeted a few

times by the Heavenly Kingdom. The SDF, by contrast, left them alone, so when a fixer like Manny found himself on the wrong side of the L B J Freeway after dark, he could usually trust the project to provide food, booze, and shelter for a price. Of course, sleeping arrangements in

the project were broadly communal. The bulk of the old walmart had been converted into an indoor meadow, with grow lights hanging from the rafters and a wide, lush field of native grass sprawling across most of the inhabited space. Fruit trees, bushes full of berries, cannabis, plants, and copses of bamboo lined the edges of the space. The center of the field was dominated by a large circular kitchen

surrounded by a handsome oaken bar. Table tables, gazebos, and sundry personal structures dotted the field, along with a pair of dance floors. Reggie's face lit up when he saw

the bar. By the time Manny had dropped off their bags and paid Charlie and the driver for the night, the journalist was already three beers in the brit wasn't precisely drunk or sober, but at that productive twilight in between, he'd unrolled a portable screen and had a holographic display up, looping four separate sections of the security footage Colonel Milgrim had sent over. The journalist alternated between typing furiously scrawling notes in his lurnal, and taking huge gulps of something

brown and foamy. He stopped working when he saw a Manny approach and waved him into the adjacent seat. Hey, brother, check this out. Manny pulled up a seat and the journalist directed his attention to a six second loop of footage from immediately after the bombing. It showed two man size silhouettes standing on top of an old garage. Many remembered the building. It stood maybe two hundred meters from

the Abrams Road checkpoint. One of the silhouettes had a rifle, the other held a short squat tube that Manny recognized as a camera lens. Notice anything, spotters, Manny said, Probably trying to get a kill count. No man, look at where he's pointed at. Kut's not looking at any post. He's looking straight back deeper into the old town, and I'll bet you he's high up enough to be staring right at Colonel Milgram's command post. Manny looked again. He

thought about the angle. Okay, so what, he asked, You think this was a probing attack for some big action. The journalist shrugged. Maybe it's something new, is what interests me. Two years of modern them operations that all look more or less the same, and now this weird one, an autonomous vehicle bomb from a group of fanatics who think autonomous vehicles of the devil. Yeah, Manny agreed, that does

seem weird. The bartender walked up and offered Manny his pick of the finest liquor in this particular war zone. Manny ordered a Shiner. It was the one beer drinker could find across both the Republic of Texas and the Austin Autonomous Region. He looked back at the looping footage. They both watched it twice more. Then Reggie spoke up again. What have you heard about pasta, Mike, he asked. Manny

stiffened a little bit at the name. He had heard it, of course, vague stories of rioting in Kansas, A fundamentalist uprising inside the southernmost territories of the United Christian States. He hadn't thought much about it at first, but two years ago Pastor Mike had moved to Texas, shortly before the Heavenly Kingdom had declared itself. It was hard to say what role exactly the preacher played in the organization, but he was certainly its most visible face. I know

who he is, Manny said. I know the Republic led him in because they thought his followers might provide a buffer against Austin's influence. I know that blew the funk up in their faces. Manny took a long drink and continued, that's an old story around here, the Republic using those gond fondling nut fucks to push back against the leftists. The journalist raised an eyebrow, and Manny instantly regretted his

crude response. He didn't really care about religion one way or the other, but whenever he came out to the front, it was hard not to get a little angry, especially after a drink. Sorry, he said, it's been a long day. Reggie looked down, coughed, and took a sip. He looked back at Manny, took another sip and said, you know, that's another subject I'd rather like to cover, what Manny asked, anti Christian sentiment in North America. Manny grunted and looked

down at his drink. The brit barreled on, You're not the first North American I've heard express anger towards Christians, he said, in California, Cascadia, the North American Federation. I've just seen a lot of hate. Look, Manny interrupted me. I'm a man of piece, I of everybody, but this continent has been torn apart and bleeding for the last twenty years. A lot of people hate Christians. The ones that don't hate Christians hate leftists, and everybody outside the

American Federation hates capitalists, hate, hate hate. Manny took a gulp of his beer and set it down a little harder than he'd intended. He looked Reggie in the eye and finished, There's exactly one thing all the broken bits of this continent have in common. Hate. The journalist arched an eyebrow at Manny and returned the gaze. He had the look of a man peering into the enclosure of a particularly exotic zoo animal. Manny wanted to resent it, but he'd been doing this job long enough to know

this was just how journalists looked at people. Reggie downed his drink. He reached a hand up to signal the bartender, and then looked back at Manny. Can I buy you another round? Manny shook his head, no, thanks, I'm tired and I don't want to drag us at the front tomorrow. He downed the last of his beer, bid Reggie a good night, and headed over to the spot of turf where he'd set up his sleeping bag and gear. He popped off his shoes, his pains in his shirt, and

rubbed himself down with a handful of wet naps. Then he grabbed a night shirt and swept pants from his bag and slipped them on. Manny considered clean pajamas a necessity. He fired up his deck again. Once he was swaddled in his sleeping bag. There was a juttering start, and then the corners of his vision were populated by a

series of small, partly translucent screens. Each one bulged with updates, friends asking about his weekend plans, spam from his college, notifications about the new video uploads, and headlines from the local news. David had messaged him twice more to let him know he and his journalists were headed back to Austin, and then that they'd arrived. Oscar still hadn't responded. Manny's initial concern was over his loyalty. I got that fucker

started as a stringer. If he sold that video and cutting me out of the deal, I'm going to going to But the longer he thought about Oscar, the more Manny worried something might have happened. He'd been working in Plano today, You're a very stable chunk of the front, but this far out, almost anything could happen. Many closed his eyes, sighed, and tried to purge the anxiety from his mind. There was nothing to do now other than get to sleep so he could wake up tomorrow and

make more money. That thought prompted Manny to pull open his banking app and check on the status of his savings account. The numbers glowed fat and happy, and the space in front of his head another five months in the field, maybe six, Then I buy that plane ticket. He started to think about the pictures he'd seen of Dublin and Berlin and Barcelona, all the places he thought he might live if this war would just hang on a little longer. He soon fell asleep and slept pretty

well until the first mortar landed. Chapter two, Rowland. He woke up suddenly aware of two equally pressing problems. The acids worn off and eight people are here to kill me. Both of these facts concerned him equally. He couldn't remember his name or where exactly he was, which made the impending kilty all the more concerning. He opened his eyes. His vision was blurry and unfocused. His head felt filled with sand Roland, Oh ship, that's my name. Roland wondered

how long he'd been asleep. He reflexively triggered his deck before the dim firing of a synapse reminded him that he'd permanently disabled his data connection well a long time ago, five million, two or twenty six thousand minutes. His hindbrain, what Roland called the acres of microscopic processors and data banks, spun into his blood. Spat the knowledge out, unbidden into his conscious mind. Roland tried to curse, but wound up spitting out a wad of brackish flim Instead. His eyes

settled on a quarter full bottle of fungus whiskey. He grabbed it, drained it and rooted around on the table where he'd found it until his digging turned up a sheet of acid. He ripped the sheet in half, ate one half and pasted the other on his sweat damp chest. Roland's brain didn't wait for the acid to do its job. Nanomachines couriered the lysurgic diethyl acid directly to his synapses. The drugs took cold in a matter of seconds. Asked,

had softened the world around him. His hindbrain's running commentary faded into a sort of generalized hyper awareness of the world around him. He sighed, relaxed, and remembered a woman hovered over him, her hands on his shoulders, her knees on either side of his body. Sweat dripped down from her short black hair onto his face and chest. Her pupils were the size of dinner plates. She smelled like acid and desire. She smiled, revealing a row of damascus

steel teeth. Roland pulled himself out of the memory. He felt the strike team advance. His hindbrain generated a map of the approaching assassins. They were still a solid minute from his hovel. There were six men and two women on the team. If he'd wanted. A micro second's focus could have told him which members of the group were vegetarians, where two of the team were on their minstrel cycles, and how recently each of their firearms had been cleaned

and oiled. But Roland didn't care about that information. He was trying to remember where he'd left his gun. The one room hut Roland occupied was best described as squalid. He knew he'd lived there for quite a long time, although he wasn't sure if the home was his in any legal sense of the word. It's one room held a filthy mattress, a hot plate, several dozen empty bottles of liquor, and a tinkling carpet of spent whippets. A

large knife was embedded in the door. Roland couldn't remember why he knew he'd had a gun at one point, even though he couldn't currently find it. He stood up, still wobbly from the massive dose of g h B he'd taken with his nightly tequila, and started kicking at the piles of bottles and drug paraphernalia in the hope that one of them might contain his gun. He found some bullets. After a few seconds search at the bottom of a folger's coffee tin that was half filled with marijuana.

Next to the tin was a large metal bowl of stagnant water. Roland glanced in and caught sight of his own reflection. His black skin looked ashen and clammy, unusually pale, he thought, but he didn't recall enough about himself to know if that was really true. His face was long and drawn, with wide, jutting cheekbones and apache uneven beard. His head was covered in stubble. The center of his

face was dominated by a crooked, heavily scarred nose. Roland had no recollection of why it was scarred, but he knew the injury must have happened back before the army filled with chrome. He turned away from his reflection and continued to search through the house, scattering food and crusted plates, empty coke bags, an old fashioned print pornography into even less organized piles. No dice that I pawn it, he wondered,

as his machine assisted adetic memory ward. With his profound intoxication, Roland was now conscious enough to remember that not remembering much was pretty normal for him, and he should really worry more about the assassin's coming to kill him. Oh shit right, The strike team was just fifty meters out now. He felt a gust of wind and in the same way felt as two of the men began to assemble a large sound cannon behind a rocky hill that faced

his hovel. He guessed it was a Callahan Mark thirty eight. Roland didn't know how he knew the weapon's name, but he knew it could burn out even his armored synapses with a few seconds of continuous fire. One man was on over watch for the Llahan team. He carried a

two bore Ruger Fauscion anti vehicular rifle. The mingling odors of fierce sweat and baby formula wafting off him triggered since memories of someone holding a newborn infant, Roland guessed the man must have a kid back home, a kid he's scared of leaving fatherless of some chromed out asset had phileas him. That was useful data. He filed it away in the chunk of his brain least likely to lose that information. Over the next four seconds. Roland's memory

was real good in four second chunks. Over the next pico second, he caught equally informative whiffs of the others. It was enough to suggest that two of the women in the main assault team were lovers, and they'd both had Millspeck's subdermal armor implanted recently. The acrid scent of

fresh suitures hung heavy in the air around them. Roland could also tell that one of the men in the assault party took heavy testosterone supplements, either because of a genetic abnormality or because he'd been assigned female at birth. The fourth man was moderately addicted to Ephedric's and writing into battle on a high stimulant wave. The last member of the assault team was the only one to give

Roland any pause. He could guess the man's height and weight six ft five hundred and forty pounds from the sound of his footfalls. Roland could smell the sig Sour five hundred submachine gun in his hands, but otherwise the man was a sensory blank, no sweat, no hydraulics, and black to thermographic sensors. The man was chromed not so heavily as Rowland, of course, but the competent and well armed squad he led might be enough to narrow the gap. We're in the shooting shit, shit, shit, did I leave

that gun? The static balance in the air changed as the Overwatch team warmed up their sound cannon. The assault team was close, now barely a hundred feet out, waiting in the cover provided by several large bowlders at the base of the rise that held Roland's ramshackle home. He

knew how this fight would go. They'd unleashed the Callahan for a good five seconds while the Killed Team moved into position and kicked in the door next the big bruiser and the two women would enter, while the remainder of the Assault team fanned out to cover the sides. Textbook post human Killed Team tactics. He thought he didn't actually remember any of the fights this conclusion was based on, but he'd clearly lived through similar encounters, and if he

trusted his body and hind brain, he would again. Roland finished searching the apocalyptic ruin that was his kitchen sink. The pile of plates had been large enough to hide a short barrel, a R ten, but his gun wasn't there either. Fuck nuts, he cursed. The profanity brought a tiny serotonin spike, and Roland felt himself calm down, even

as the noose tightened around him. His combat wet wear did most of its work in the moments before meat met metal, so Roland closed his eyes, slumped his shoulders, and relaxed while it cross indexed his memories of past firefights with his current sensory data. A moment later, Roland was presented with three potential counter assault strategies. He selected

the one that sounded like the most fun. The Callahan fired, blanketing his home and much of the area beyond it in a web of noise designed to assault and eventually fry the synapses of anyone dumb enough to stand too long in its wake. Payne lashed from Roland's inner ear and arked out to every nerve in his body. It would have been enough to leave a strong man curled on the ground, shifting his guts out, but Roland just

felt a distant ache. His experience of the damage was more akin to seeing the check engine light on a car than true agony. He was aware that if he waited too long, the sonic weapon would blow out the pain dampners on his spinal nerve gates. Lucky for him, the assault team didn't wait that long. Roland felt the big man arc his leg up to kick in the door. He crumpled in and Roland lunged left. This helped him

avoid the first spray of covering fire. As the chrombed man and both women barreled inside, Roland flung himself into the hovel's main structural support beam, which ran up the building's left wall. He hit it with the rough speed and force of a light truck going twenty miles an hour. His momentum carried him and half the left wall into the rocky ground outside. Roland's filthy little home tottered and swayed. It collapsed, first on the left side and then on

the right. As the whole structure failed. Roland was already up with a jagged piece of two by four in his hands. He the Ephedric's addict holding down the left flame. The man got two shots off, and to his credit, both hit right where Roland's original heart had been, and then Roland was on him. He shoved the wood into the meat of the man's face. It gouged off enough flesh to philippine glass and shattered the poor fellow's jaw. He went down hard. Roland smelled the familiar scent of

antihimiragic nanomachines. As they rushed to save the man's life, he caught a slight sour whiff of the cheap clotting agents in the man's blood. Roland guessed it was Traumax brand, which was convenient. Traumax had based their whole line off a piece of Brazilian military wet wear that itself was

based on a crude synthesis of horseshoe crab blood. The organs worked well enough unless you happen to be an amphetamine attitude suffered massive tissue damage, then your Traumax unit would flood your synapses with adenocene to knock you out rather than risk pushing more amphetamines on your stressed heart. Something in the smell of the man's blood set off a powerful sense memory buried deep in Roland's hipocampus vine slashing his face, boiling jungle heat in his is connecting

with the face of a heavily armed young woman. Her orbital bone broke into the blow. He smelled her blood meat the air, and she dropped, dropped, dropped. The memory flashed by, free of context, and the time it took the other man to hit the ground. It was frustrating to only remember the what of an action, and not the why or the after. It was like knowing how to ride a bike without remembering who taught you and when.

Only for everything. Roland found it somewhat unsettling. A twelve gage slug hit him in the first It dug deep, hit reinforced bone, and stopped. The little machines in Roland's blood were already cutting it apart by the time he stopped musing and bounded over to the other flank man. Roland chucked the two by four hard as he ran. The wood impacted above the assassin's temple with an audible crack, shattering the man's sphenoid bone. The battle drugs started to

trickle into Roland's synapses. Now a cocktail of endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and epinephrin concocted to make violence as addictive as a fat rock of crystal meth, Roland instantly wanted more. He knew he could trigger a greater dose by stomping on the downed man's skull and ending his life. He fought down the arge and instead grabbed the man's a a thirty two combat shotgun, and rolled for cover behind a

red rock boulder. He was almost fast enough, but either the overwatch man had some aftermarket parts, Roland hadn't smelled, or all the hardcore drug abuse had done long term damage to his reflexes. Maybe no more crack binges. Roland fought as a massive two bore slug to most of

his left shoulder out into the desert behind him. Roland belted out several funkwords as pain flooded the banks of his dampners, and just that second, with truly exquisite timing, the Callahan crew swiveled their weapon round and poured sonic fire at him from above. For refraction of a second, everything went dark. Roland's world was riotous, red pain, and little else. If his body had required the input of his conscious mind, he would have been in a real pickle.

During the milliseconds it took for his dampners to cut through the pain hayes, Roland's body dove ten feet to the left enough to take him out of the Callahan spray and behind and outcropping of rocks. Two rounds cracked into the rock above his head. Roland came back to himself as the shards cut into his skin. He glanced down at the ruin of his shoulder. His little blood robots were already hard at work rebuilding the muscles, bones

and sinews blown out by the giant's slug. A couple of seconds more and the limb would be usable again. But Rowland had a better idea. He used his intact arm as a flesh catapult and flung himself up over the boulder towards the callahan and its three guardians. The man with the two boar fired again. Roland had known he would, and his hind brain had already calculated the ideal emotions to avoid the dozen most likely shot patterns.

He sailed over the half pound bullets with ease and used the hand of his intact arm to rip his wounded arm free at the shoulder. Roland landed hard in front of the callahan. He swung his own severed limb like a club and knocked the barrel to the left. Then he laid into the gun's crew with a mix of pounding swings from the arm and stomps to the other men's knees and ankles. Bone shattered assens screamed the man with the two boar and the newborn child at

home wavered and broke. Roland had expected this. Many normal humans, even hardened veterans, found it nauseating and unsettling to see a man move as fast as he could move, add beating their friends half to death with a severed limb, and well, he'd predicted the guy would break. It's not your fault, buddy, Roland thought, as he watched the man run. Don't feel bad. He'd wanted to say that out loud,

but he was having trouble working his vocal cords. In roughly seven seconds, Roland had eliminated five out of eight threats in the killed team. His hind brain predictions had given him six more seconds at least before the entry team cleared themselves from the debris of his collapsed hovel. But the other post human, the man who'd shown blank on most of Roland's senses, had freed himself faster. Roland realized this when a trio of fifty caliber slugs burst

into his chest cavity. He dropped, avoiding the last three rounds of the burst, and rolled behind another pair of boulders with his severed arm in hand. The two female assassins were close to freeing themselves now Roland could hear them struggle out through the vibrations of their bodies in the red sand. He couldn't see the other post human, but he'd triangulated his most likely location. Unfortunately, the other

fucker had him dead to rights. If Roland broke cover, he'd be shot to pieces, maybe more pieces than his trauma organs could put back together. All right, Oh boy, do eat a bunch of lead and charge the bastards to play the meat rockets and run for a gun while they're blind. He suddenly remembered the spring loaded assault razor embedded in his left forearm, and then the twenty two millimeter grenade pistol buried in between his small intestine and his sigmoid colon. Did I remember to load it

before shoving it in there? But before he could take any action, the firefight was interrupted by an oddly familiar voice. Hey, Roland, has its swinging. Roland hadn't smelled or heard this new man coming. The voice was very familiar. Roland felt a name on the tip of his tongue, but it just wouldn't come. Weapons down, lads and lasses. I've seen enough to guess the end. Roland smelled frustration. Waft off. The

two women, now free and angry. The other post human smelled like nothing, but Roland felt him lower his weapon. Some gray, dead strand of memory pulsed in the back of Roland's brain, and he guessed that it was safe for him to stand up now. So he did and put eyes on the mystery man. The fellow had a lopsided, squarish jaw with a very deliberate five o'clock shadow. His nose was thick and bulby. His red hair was tangled into dreadlocks that were more the result of inattention than

stylistic choice. He was tall, muscular, but lean, with a bare chest that was covered in tattoos of black snakes. They writhed in time with the beating of his heart. He wore nothing but a pair of red leather chaps and a broad, calm smile. His bare penis swung pingulous in the breeze. Both of his palms were extended out front and visible. It was the kind of gesture one used to calm an animal. Roland synapses fired and misfired, and a string of fragmented memories ran through his mind.

He recalled a really good hot dog on a sunny day push ups in the mud, searing pain in his genitals, and the taste of shitty ditchweed. These memory fragments were all somehow tied to the man in front of him. It took Roland a moment, but as soon as he got a full look at those cold gray eyes, the man's name clicked into place. Oh ship, he croaked, Jim. Roland hadn't spoken to a person in months, at least maybe longer. He sounded more like a suffering cap than

an English speaking human, but Jim understood him. Yep, he said. Roland's sighed, looked at his separate arm and crudely shoved it into place. It had clotted a bit, and his stubb burned as the tiny robots in his blood got to work reattaching his once in future limb. Jim, he said again, sounding a bit less like a frog after a six day coke bench. You fucked up my house man. That's not cool. Roland didn't know how long he'd known Jim.

He couldn't even pin down the man's last name, but he was pretty sure they'd fought together back before the revolution, and he was certainly had had a threesome with a devilishly handsome spet s nas man. He couldn't remember that guy's name or why they'd all been in Panama, but he didn't expect that was the sort of experience past him would have shared with someone who wasn't a friend. You remember me, Jim asked, basically. Roland answered, good, because

I got a favor to ask. Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here. I hope you just enjoyed the chapter you listen to. I hope you enjoyed the chapters to come. If you would like to read the text version of this book either on the web or on your e reader as an e pub, you can find those on the website a t r book dot com. So again, the free ad free e pub and the text of every chapter will be on a t r book dot