10. Tracks

. . .

Vance hunkered over the mess of human-sized tracks, piecing the story together. There'd been one hell of a ruckus in the carefully concealed scrapper campsite, but not like the others. One patch of blood, no body, signs of a struggle between two people. The wounded victim ran from the struggle, somewhere up through the brush on the hillside with a few dried out droplets of blood leaving trail. Vance figured the body was going to be up there. With no shame, he decided he wasn't in that much of a hurry to go look until he had to.

The Ghost hovered behind him, quiet since its assessment that something external had definitely overridden the Servitor's mechanical brain, setting it against its own people. The rest was lost in noise and fried circuity. It didn't offer an answer to Vance's unasked question, though he knew the Ghost saw it plain. The tracks he was looking at indicated a medium-sized operation, half a dozen people. The smaller the group, the quicker they could move. Fast strike salvage ops frequently operated in pairs, using a specialized cargo hauler that was transmat-capable if they could afford it – and if they couldn't at the outset, it was the first thing a successful team budgeted for. If they brought a third, it meant they needed a lookout in bad territory.

Six unique sets of tracks he could identify... they thought they had a serious score. Big doings. He knew for certain now what they were here for. Vance looked at the deepest footprints, the ones that circled the camp and its nearby natural cave in a steady pace at first, then led to the struggle, and finally the melee in the center. Yeah, those were Exo tracks, their metal bodies running on average heavier than most organics. He treated the realization like bare data, didn't spend any more thought on it. The rest of the camp got wind of something gone flaky fast – the ground told him at least one person bolted probably as soon as the struggle broke out. That might be a survivor. Maybe. His calculations suggested this one bolted for the old RAF aerodrome down in the valley... and the Warmind tomb nestled within it.

Two sets went towards the nearby cave in a tangle that spoke of a desperate charge – the cave being a good shelter-in-place option for flybys or bad weather. The heavy trail in, then out again. He felt sure there was gonna be a hell of a mess inside there, too. He grunted, soft as he could.

The last set seemed to try and follow the first to bolt. Lifting his head, he could see that one wavered off, deeper into the hills. Bad choice, that led towards the last Fallen camp. The one most distant, seemed still operational. They hadn't engaged. Once he'd seen a red line cut through the nighttime fog; a vandal on far away sniper duty.

And the unknown Exo, whose mind may have snapped just like the Servitors. The trail for him wobbled back and forth for a while before steadying. After cleaning up the three at the camp and cave, he'd gone after the two that fled. Well, there was gonna be a fifty-fifty. Did the survivors have enough wits to drop their pursuer, or was he gonna find more ripped up bodies down the trail?

He sighed and pulled himself upright, squinting up the hill. Well, he'd seen what he could from the camp. Time to check the corpses, see if any of them were Troy Monast. His gut instincts said they wouldn't be – the kid described a cagey sort of guy in both her encounters, the one with more common sense than the slick talker the Vanguard was still sitting on. Good odds he was the one that bolted when the fight broke out. He shifted the machine gun on his back and went up.

. . .

The Ghost had to run a DNA check against the City database info. None of the three pulped piles were Troy. The Ghost scouted the fourth one down the side trail itself, staying low in the yellow grass in the wake of the fleeing trail. He noted clinically to its Guardian that the body of that one was not only not their boy, but intact... save for the quarter-sized, seared holes in the forehead and back of the skull that said the vandal sniper wasn't letting anything close to their camp.

So that was comforting.

With a glance up at the veiled, hazy moon, he went down the trail towards the aerodrome. He still wasn't thinking about what probably had happened to the other Exo. What might be down there. He kept right on not thinking about it until both his helm and his Ghost told him he was about to trip on the poor bastard.

. . .

"Well." The Ghost hovered over the tableau, still half a kilometer away from the edge of the bombed-out RAF outpost. Rusted sheds were already in view on the horizon. "That's unpleasant."

Vance-17 said nothing. There wasn't anything he could say, no point to breaking the silence on his end. His thoughts clicked on, touched with unease and a morose kind of gratitude. Were he organic, he might have felt nausea. Nothing with any spirit should go out that way.

The scrapper Exo was slumped with his back against a jutting pillar of stone, some outlying bunker remnant that had remained standing in its place among the low hills that surrounded the west end of the zone. His blank, unlit face was turned up to the sky, half the steel jaw torn free from its synthetic ligaments. One eye was pulled out of joint. Fluids were still pooled underneath him; tacky and slick combining into a mess of lost oils. He stank like a burnt junkyard. No coming back from that; no reboot or recompilation for this one.

Scraped and shattered fingers, thick plated and meant for brute labor, still dangled from the peeling metal mess he'd made of his own throat. Torn it open, tearing at the vital connections and severing everything he could before jamming in a small charge usually used for loosening up dense scrap piles. The scorch marks went visibly down into the torso. Would be just enough to blow out everything upstairs, too. Just enough electromagnetism close to the cortex. He'd bought a one way ticket.

But before he'd done all that, he'd left his last testament on the stone, scrawled there by a piece of metal he'd torn out of himself. The words were in slashes and pulled scars; hieroglyphs of desperation.

GET IT OUT OF ME

OUT im so sorry

helpgetitoutoutou u

"Guardian." The Ghost hovered between him and the broken figure, breaking his assessing stare. Its voice was tactful. "Picking up life signs. A few hundred meters away."

He glanced up into its eye. "Getting close."

"To the tomb. Yes. In fact, I think the signals come from near its entrance."

There was the faintest of scraping sounds as Vance ground his jaw. "Fine."

"Are you all right?"

"Always." He unsnapped the machine gun and strode on.

. . .

The helm was confirming Ghost's warning, throwing up tracking information based on motion and heat. The figure ahead was scurrying between several of the bunkers just past the front gate. Vance had to make a choice – make a little noise and draw the figure out, or skulk up and possibly scare the crap out of them. Scared organics were unpredictable. Flaky. Not the optimal choice. He let his footsteps thunk just a little heavier than usual. It took a few moments, but the figure froze behind a scorched office. And then it bolted towards the guardian.

Vance-17 tightened his finger on the trigger just in case, smirked inside his helmet when the tall figure came into view. He was pale under the dirt, bundled in a long brown coat with no identifying marks. Not unusual for a scrapper. Or a faction brat trying to be clever.

"Oh thank God, thank Light, shit, thank everybody." Troy Monast sagged against the edge of the building and tossed him a jaunty, if weary salute. "Look, man, I'm just a salvager. We flew in a couple days ago, saw some possible goodies on the scans. I know we're out of bounds, I'm really sorry. I lost all my crew." Vance said nothing to Troy's genuine wail. At least he wasn't a heartless scrap of flesh. "Some of them were good friends. You on patrol, sir?"

Vance still said nothing. Let the guy spin out his story all he likes.

"You gotta be. Did you pick up our distress signal? Mikkel said he was going to try to fire it off, if he could get away from Baldwin-49." A green shadow passed across Troy's face, hinting at the story there. "Did you see Baldwin? Our Exo?"

Vance spoke, willing to use a single word to push the guy into talking more. "Dead."

Troy swore. "Goddamn. At least Mikkel's plan worked, and you look okay. God, I hope it's okay. I need to get out of here. Can you help me?" The face opened up to him, earnest. "I got a big deal here. If I can get some of it out tonight, it'll be great for the City. You won't believe the stuff around here. Golden Age stuff. I guarantee it'll be a benefit. To you, too, Guardian."

Vance shrugged. "I don't leave civs behind." Troy was a little cagey, but not a gifted talker. He spoke too much, would give up everything if prompted. He figured it was worth an easy push. "Hell happened out here? Mess at your camp."

The green shadow came back. "Man, I don't know if you want to hear it."

"Tell me."

Troy passed a hand over his face. "Come on. Let's get into one of these outer bunkers. I'll lay it out for you." He flickered his gaze towards the hills past the Titan. "That other camp of Fallen like to patrol around the fringes. They don't get close. And they shoot fast. Like they're pissy about letting anyone close."

Vance tilted his faceplate towards his Ghost, who whispered their shared thought through his helm.

"Or letting anything out."