Chapter 2: Scattered

Devan and Gabriel stood side by side on the top of the wall, looking over miles of dust and rocks toward the city they'd once called home. Haven stood between them and the setting sun, its huge shadow stretching back and almost engulfing the well-hidden Wastelander outpost. Devan lifted a tanned arm to shade her face, then moved her sky-blue eyes upwards to her brother. Bent forward the way she was, her twin towered over her by almost a foot, but in reality the difference was no more than an inch. They shared the same copper hair – Devan's reaching to her chin, Gabriel's in dreadlocks back from his face – and were of similar build, both tall, muscular and without a spare ounce of fat on their lean bodies.

Gabriel raised a hand to a cord around his neck, fingering a rusted key. It had once opened the door to their home in Haven, and he kept it against the day they would return. He had thought he would make the journey once the Baron had been eliminated, but with this new Metalhead threat his command needed him. Devan often went backwards and forwards, though, sharing her hard-earned desert expertise with the Underground: she had even given Torn leave to use their old home as a den, a decision Gabriel whole-heartedly supported. She had known he would, of course – as twins, they didn't often see things differently. Except for symbols, he mused. Gabriel himself carried weapons given to him by their deceased parents: his father's Peace Maker and his mother's long knives. He also had five other knives from men who had died while under his command, all of them friends, and a lizard tooth from Devan's first kill, inscribed with their shared birthday. In comparison, his sister said she didn't need tokens.

Gabe glanced down at her. She had returned her gaze to the horizon, and was frowning. He followed her eyes. "Sandstorm." She nodded. "I'll go," she said lightly, giving her brother a quick, tight hug before swinging down into the passageway below. "Tam!" The lanky soldier looked up from his maps. "Devan?"

"There's a sandstorm heading for the meeting place. Tell Torn I'll come straight to him." Tam grinned, already pulling out his communicator. "Give him hell from me, Dev," he said, and the red-head smiled at him before heading down to the supply room to stock up.

On the wall, Gabe looked out into the twilight and sung in a deep, dark voice the rhyme they had known since birth.

"The sun always rises,
The rain will soon come.
Onward we go,
For those who have fallen,
And know this:
You will be avenged."

The communicator crackled. [Torn? Come in, Torn. We need a sign.]

Ashelin reached over to pick up the device. "Hey Torn, the com's working." The Underground leader lifted his head from his hands, giving Ashelin a quick grin as he took it from her. {Torn here.} They heard laughter. [Give the password.] {I don't need to give the password. What's going on?} [Devan said there's a sandstorm headed for the meeting place, so she's coming straight to you.] Torn rubbed his eyes. {Anything else?} [That's it. Be safe. Out.] The communicator clicked off, and Torn twisted to stuff it in his rucksack. "If Devan leaves now, she'll be here within an hour." Ashelin gave him an odd look and stood, studying his back and not bothering to point out that she obviously knew that already - the Governor was the only reason the red-head was allowed within city walls. Ashelin watched Torn's muscles shift as he reached for his gun; he was gorgeous. "Torn..." He turned, and she looked away, thinking the better of it. They could wait. "Nothing."

Sandra stood side on to the wall, an empty hall stretching out between her and the painted practice target she aimed to hit. The tall blonde lifted her gun, shot, kept shooting, then grunted when every bullet found the centre. It was a good outcome, but her heart wasn't in it - and the reason stood a few paces off, reloading a battered but efficient Blaster.

Steff had been practicing in the range long before Sandra arrived, and hadn't taken a break in the two hours since. She looked mechanic; shooting, reloading, shooting, reloading, changing guns every half-hour or so, then shooting some more. "Steff?" She ignored her. Sandra growled and started towards her friend. "Steff! Talk to me." The woman blinked at her and slipped her gun away, a dazed frown on her face. "I—," she started, then abruptly cut off as McCaw opened the door to the hall and slipped in. The lean, dark spy paused, taking a long look at both women, before walking quickly over to pull Steff into a close hug. She tensed, but he held her tight. "Hey, gorgeous," he said in a soft voice. "I know something's bothering you – don't try to deny it – and I am dying to know what it is. Are you going to tell me?" The smaller woman buried her head in his long curls for a few seconds, but eventually Sandra heard a muffled laugh and she stood straight, shaking her head. Steff still looked pale to her team-mates, but other people probably wouldn't notice and her voice sounded stronger. "I don't think I'm going to tell anyone. Are there any orders from Hammer?"

The door swung closed behind Jak as he entered his room in the palace. The only light came from the full moon shining in through two windows on the east side, but that was bright enough to illuminate the renegade as he threw himself full-length onto a wide bed in the middle of the floor. His face was still. Keira. The thought beckoned up the same warm, heartening feelings in him as always before - but that was the problem. They were exactly the same feelings, neither more nor less. The two of them had gone through so much in the last few years that he had expected something else to be added, something that made her more than a friend. It hadn't come. And why did he see Steff instead of her when he closed his eyes? He barely knew Steff. We've only talked once. Jak squashed the urge to roll over, forcing himself to lie straight on his back. The challenge briefly took his mind from the two girls, and what he wouldn't even admit to himself – that Steff's hazel eyes had affected him, that his behaviour afterwards had served as an escape. He kept catching himself glancing in her direction. The way she looked... He was restless, frustrated, and furious at feeling frustrated. His eyes narrowed, blue turned silver in the moonlight. I want Keira, not some goddamn agent from the Underground! Not Steff! What has she done to make me fantas... to make me want her?

"Jak! Oi, Jakky boy!" Daxter dashed in the suddenly open door, leaping up to pirouette lightly on Jak's chest. The ottsel didn't deign to notice his friend's glare. "We are summoned by the great and merciful Torn, the tattooed wonder, to meet on the wall. Come!"

Devan rose from her position among the rocks, shaking dust from her cloak. It was a cold night with a bright moon - if she had turned back, she would have been just able to see the pillar of rock that hid Gabriel's outpost. Haven's ring-wall rose high above her, tall and black in the shadows, stretching up towards the sky like the castles of long ago. She almost felt the old dread at being so close, within reach of Krimzon Guards who would bring her defenceless before the Baron. Although the dictator was long gone, his memory made Devan check her weapons – she reached to secure the small throwing spears on her back, the spiked mace looped at her belt, to ease her pair of long knives in their scabbards. The daggers hidden on her body didn't need checking; she could feel them there, keenly sharp and eager for the fight. The dusty red-head glanced back a single time, sky-blue eyes calm, then walked silently on towards the city.

Jared stared numbly at the darkness, his young body bruised from the rattling of his crate over the Wastelands' rocky ground. He didn't know what carried it, only that every day it moved forward, jarring, hurting. He didn't know what had happened to his mother after she saw him on the viewscreen, only that she was probably dead. He hoped not, and a few tears leaked out at the thought - tears that were coming less and less as his capture by the Arys stretched out. He should have been rescued by now, he thought dimly. Rescued or killed. Why am I still alive?

Torn leaned forward over a wide map of the city and Wastelands, eyes sharp. "You," he said, indicating McCaw with a slight nod. "The Arys army is somewhere south of here. I want you to meet up with my agents and see if there is some means of reasoning with these people. If there isn't, you're to slow them down any way you can. One of the Wastelanders, a—" Torn cut off sharply as the hallway door opened, then allowed himself a small grin when the very woman he had about to name walked in. The others tensed, seeing her weapons, but he waved a hand to relax them. "This is Devan. McCaw, she'll be with you." The tall spy nodded at her, dark eyes gleaming, and Sandra cast a discerning glance at the equally tall red-head. She looked tough, but McCaw wasn't one of the things muscle could stop. Watch yourself, Wastelander, or he'll make you trip over your own bootstraps. "Sandra, Tess, Steff and Daxter – you'll deal with the new recruits. Keira, you know what you're doing, but make sure to see Vin about the shield wall." Torn paused, eyeing Jak. "The rest of you, prepare for battle."