“Cannibals?” Vic stayed away from the wastes as much as she could; there was a grove of trees up there and a couple sources of water, some nice dive sites, but the dunes were generally unsafe.
“No, a new outfit. One of our bomb guys hooked up with them as well. Word is they’re fast and loose with their coin. Haven’t taken credit for any attacks, but that don’t mean they aren’t trying. What happened to his face?”
“Looks like he was hit with something.”
Marco reached down and touched the dead man’s cheek. The flesh moved like rotten fruit.
“Fuck,” Marco said. “It’s like a sponge.”
Vic held her hand over the man’s face, careful not to touch it. She just lined her palm up over the damage. “Graham must’ve had his dive gloves on. He powered his suit up and shoved your friend here in the face, probably when he came back around the bench to threaten him.”
“You think he hit him with his suit?”
Vic nodded. “Would’ve powdered his skull. Turned it into sand. I think that’s his brains leaking out his nose.”
“Aw, fuck.” Marco stood up. “And he just left him here?”
“Well, either Graham took off in a hurry or Danger here wasn’t alone and Graham was hauled off. Weird of him to leave the place unlocked and unmanned like this. He’s weird about his shit.”
“Yeah, well it was weird of whoever took him to leave that kick-ass visor just sitting there on the workbench.”
Vic turned to see what he was talking about. “Don’t even think it,” she said, watching him reach for the set.
“Just want to see them.”
“A friend of mine might be in trouble.”
“So what’re we supposed to do? And what do you think Danger wanted? Your guy owe him money, maybe?”
“What do you think, you goon? You think maybe we’re not the only two trying to track down Danvar by following leads rather than bumping over the dunes with our sails flapping in all directions? Someone else thinks Graham knows where Danvar is. Or shit—” Vic stood up. “Maybe someone else knows that Graham knew where Palmerwent. Maybe we’re two steps behind…”
“No, no, no.” Marco paced up and down behind the workbench, shaking his finger at the dead man on the ground. “I’ve got it. Oh, fuck, I’ve got it. You were right. It’s north of here. There’s this guy Brock, the one I told you about, the one who’s been hiring up talent and throwing coin around. I bet that’s who financed all of this. Yeah.” Marco stuck the end of one of his long dreadlocks into his mouth and chewed, lost in thought. Vic gave him time. For all the grief she gave Marco, she had fallen for his brains before his good looks. “What if your brother didn’t discover Danvar?” he asked, reasoning something out.
“I’m listening.”
“What if they think he’s the one who leaked the news?”
“Damien said that guy was dead.”
“Well, maybe he ain’t. Maybe it was your brother, and now they’re after him to shut him up. Maybe they thought your family friend here could track him down. I think they just want him dead.”
“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”
“But it makes sense, right? Otherwise, where’s your brother? No one’s seen him or his friend, right? I bet they’re both in trouble.”
“Or they’re over Danvar right now, diving and hoarding. Or they’re both shit-faced drunk. Either way, we should check with this guy you know. The two assholes who barged into my place were wearing kers from the north—”
“Who, Brock? I don’t know him. Only heard about him.”
“What’ve you heard?”
“Conflicting stuff. I heard he grew up in Springston and came from money. But a friend of mine says his accent ain’t like the Lords, that he had to be from up north. Supposedly he has a camp up there in the middle of the wastes. I know a guy, Gerard, who quit their group. Came back saying he couldn’t live that far from an adequate supply of pussy—”
“Lovely.”
“In fact… shit, Gerard disappeared on a dive a week or so after he got back. And nobody found his body.”
“We need to go talk to this guy.”
“To Gerard? I’m pretty sure he’s buried.”
“No, idiot, to Brock. His camp, you say it’s in the middle of the wastes? You know where?”
“Not really.” Marco chewed on a dreadlock. “It’s near the grove, I think. I remember Gerard talking about lavish campfires. West of the grove but south of some big spring. I only remember ’cause he was bitchin’ about having to haul barrels of water down from—”
An explosion of bells rang out as the front door was thrown in. Thrown in with violence. There was a shout, and then the stomp of heavy boots. Vic turned and looked for some place to hide, started to yell for Marco to c’mon, to get out the back door, but then two men with guns joined them in the workshop, silver weapons gleaming, one swinging at her and the other at Marco.
“Hey, whoa—” Marco said. He held up his hands, and Vic found herself staring down the barrel of one of those ancient and unreliable killing machines.
The two men looked down where a pool of light spilled on a dead man. The guy training a gun on Vic, a bald man with tats on his face, snarled at her, rage in his eyes, as he pulled the trigger. There was a click and a curse. She and Marco still hadn’t moved, were both rooted in fear and surprise. And then the other gun went off. And Marco moved for the very last time. One side of his skull erupted, his body sagging downward. There was another click, but Vic was moving now. Moving and screaming, staying in a crouch with her arms over her head, unable to breathe or think straight as she dove for the back door, another gunshot ringing out behind her.
30 • Into the Starry Night
There was no sun waiting on Palmer’s arrival. No people or encampments. Just the vast and jeweled clear desert sky.
Small gulps of that sky passed through Palmer’s sand-specked lips and filled his desperate lungs. He lay on his back, gasping, the sand collecting against his side and filling his windward ear and his hair as he breathed in the loud, laborious, grateful way a newborn does.
His friend Hap lay lifeless beside him, partly submerged in the sand. Somewhere, a cayote howled at this sudden scent, and the wind skittered across the dunes with the sound of a thousand snakes flicking their tongues.
Palmer scraped the sand off his tongue using his teeth. He spat out the grit and with it precious fluid. He turned to Hap, whose shoulder and knee were out of the dune. A boot as well, but not in the right place. Hap’s canteen strap could be seen on his shoulder. Exhausted but mad with thirst, Palmer slid his hand into the sand and floated Hap up the rest of the way. His visor beeped with a battery alarm. His suit was nearly dead.
He reached for the canteen, saw that it was tangled, and pulled out his bloodstained dive knife. He cut the strap. A quarter full. He was too weak to ration and took great gulps. The water burned his parched lips. His stomach churned, was startled to have something to do. Palmer twisted the cap on and sat with his back to the wind, studying his dead friend.
It wasn’t the canteen strap that’d been tangled, he saw. It was Hap’s body. Palmer covered his mouth. The grumbling in his stomach grew worse, and he feared he might lose what little fluid he had just taken in. Hap’s leg was twisted beneath him. Where the thigh meets the pelvis was torn the wrong way. An arm was shattered, white bone pointing up at the stars. Palmer tried to make sense of this. He had seen bodies snared in the sand before, had seen them trapped in silent and peaceful repose. This was not that. This was a life that had met a violent end. His brain whirled as the clues fell together. His homing beacon was in a mesh pouch on Hap’s thigh. Palmer had found his friend a hundred meters down, right beneath the dip in that great bowl Brock’s men had dug, right where their dive had begun. Hap had made it back after all.