PROLOGUE
1
San Alamos was a quiet little town on the westernmost edge of the charted territories. Beyond the border lay only desert, a vast and barren terrain where nothingness reigned, according to legend. The morning sun rose brilliantly against the eastern horizon, casting a pale pink and orange glow on the desert floor. The air was still cool after the night's chill, but that would soon change, after the desert had a chance to bake beneath the twin suns' merciless heat.
A lone woman stood alone at the edge of town, peering out over the desert, hands on her hips. The wind whipped the purple cape she wore back and off her shoulders as the dust of the desert swirled in a massive vortex about her tall, slender frame. Her face was shrouded almost completely by a white mask, save for her eyes, shielded by a pair of black goggles. Her skintight jumpsuit was white, broken at her waist by a golden belt, an empty holster at her left hip, and a black case to her right. Her hair, long and golden, spilled below her purple fedora, and clashed brilliantly against the flowing cape. Her hands were the only place on her entire body where flesh was visible, with only a simple band of white gold on the middle finger of her left hand.
As she stood there, the young woman lifted the flap of the case on her right hip up and pulled out her binoculars. Placing the tool to her eyes, she peered out over the desert once more, using her middle finger to adjust the focus several times as she scanned the horizon. The inspection turned up precisely what she had expected: there was nothing out there. At least not where she could see it.
She returned the binoculars to the case and snapped the flap into place.
Several moments later, the woman spun on her heel and stalked back into town. The dirt road was empty, the buildings old and weathered, and it seemed the whole town was badly in need of a fresh coat of paint. It was early enough that the town businesses—the bakery, a small general store with a meager selection, and the Rocky Top Saloon and Inn—had yet to opened their doors for the day. The whole town totaled less than two hundred people, and existed only because a wealthy businessman had moved his family out here to get away from the crime-ridden world that existed to the east, in the major cities of Gunsmoke. That had been about forty-six years ago.
Somehow, the man had managed to build a life out here, dug a deep and plentiful well with enough water to last half a century, invited a small caravan of settlers to join him, and thus San Alamos was born. He even brought in a high profiled sheriff worth his weight in gold that helped to secure peace and happiness for all the town's citizens.
She moved through town as though she knew where she was going, though she hadn't really been here for more than a single night. Her arrival had coincided with twilight, and she'd been exhausted after traveling nearly three days without much more than a few hours rest. She ate a light meal at the Rocky Top and slept on a bench just outside the general store. Money was short and she couldn't squander a single double-dollar on the luxuries the inn offered. She knew she'd wake up long before the innkeeper showed, and she had her cape for warmth, so sleep hadn't come all that difficult. She'd gotten six hours, off and on through the night, occasionally stirring at nearby sounds of an unfamiliar world. Being a light sleeper had its advantages.
Her bike stood where she'd left it on the side of the general store, though she paused briefly in mid-step when she realized that she had a visitor. An adolescent boy, probably fourteen or fifteen, loomed wide-eyed over the handlebars as he inspected the vehicle, sleek, a mix of chrome and black steel with a red stripe along the side. Her rifle was still in place, she saw, and would come free for no one but herself, just as the bike would start for no one but her. Tipping her fedora slowly to one side, peering down the rim at the boy, she drew a slow breath, and finally started toward him.
"What are you doing?" Her voice had a sharp edge to it.
The boy froze, his hands having just come to rest on the stock of the rifle. His eyes lifted toward her, and he stumbled back when he saw her. She started toward him, fists clenched at her side. He was a scrawny kid, tall for his age, a head of thick red curls and an explosion of freckles. His lanky arms dropped to his side as he stared at her. He wore only a pair of overalls that were much too big for him. A red handkerchief drooped from the pocket at his chest.
A rush of anger forced her to start toward him—toward the bike actually, but he didn't know that. His eyes widened as he spun about and darted off down the alley between the general store and saloon, to a series of small houses beyond.
Her fingers caressed the soft leather of the seat as she shook her head in disgust. "Fucking kid," she muttered under her breath, and slipped the black case from her waist to return it to its place on her bike. The she scanned the main road again and saw someone else, a small woman in a light blue dress and a pale yellow bonnet, with long, strawberry blonde hair flowing radiantly out the back. She trudged slowly up the road, carting a heavy-looking box that obscured her line-of-sight, weaving unsteadily in both directions, occasionally shifting her weight to one foot, turning on her hip to get a look of the path just in front of her. The tall woman lifted one leg to straddle her bike as she watched.
The young lady with the box sidestepped a rut in the road, gave a little hop onto the wooden walk in front of the general store, and laid the box, with great effort, onto the bench there, where the woman had slept. She sifted through the pocket of her dress to find a ring of keys. As soon as the door was unlocked, she retrieved the box and backed into the doorway.
The woman on the bike sat there, staring off at the rising haze of a dust just outside of town. Her eyes located movement up the road and narrowed. Men, perhaps a dozen or so, approached on motorcycles, whooping and hollering. They didn't seem to be the social type. They wore a collection of long, leather trench coats, rounded helmets flared at the brim and a spike at the crown, dark goggles, and heavy boots. She could see easily that they were a group of misfits ranging from powerful bulk and scrawny weasels, and they were each armed to the teeth. Drawing a deep breath, she leaned forward on the handlebars and waited.
2
A year ago, Karma Saverem had left the only world she had ever known, taking with her a broken heart, fading memories, and a burning desire to find the missing pieces of a forgotten past. She had vacated paradise, New Hope, as it was called, only to discover a world of pain that existed far to the south. Her mother had said she had brought the family out here once or twice, when she was just a baby, but that was far too long ago for Karma to remember.
She scarcely remembered her father, and her brother had ventured out into the world when she was eight years old. All that she had, for the eleven years following, had been her mother and Auntie Mims, and even that life had been too good to last. Eighteen months ago, the plague had come, taking both of the older women from her, leaving her alone for the first time in her life. Many people had suffered from the disease. Her mother and Auntie Mims had been two of the six women taken, along with an aging man and a boy Karma's own age. Several children, too, had fallen ill and died during that dark period.
With the only family she had left suddenly gone, Karma felt there was nothing left for her in New Hope, that she was suddenly alone in a world where she didn't belong. So, determined to set forth on a new path, she moved south to see what she could see of a world she knew only from stories of the past.
The stories had been bad enough. What she learned of Gunsmoke firsthand only strengthened her resolve to continue on, to better herself in ways that no one else could. Often, during her childhood, her mother actually wept for the people. For so long, Karma had wondered why. She didn't wonder anymore. Still she refused to shed a single tear on these poor, broken fools.
The desolate landscape wrought poverty and distrust and worse things to its inhabitants. Crime had reigned supreme since the beginning, when Project SEEDS had crashed, a massive failure, a terrible waste of man, machine, and money, all at once. Man, machine, and money. Her mother had once said those were the three things that made the world tick, but a combination of which had created a massive, ticking time bomb. Karma had never understood until she'd set off on her own, but for the past year, everything her mother had told her of the outside had proven to be true.
Karma hated seeing people suffer, even if it was a result of their own stubborn ways.
3
The men halted in front of the old general store, dismounting their bikes in a flourish, still hooting triumphantly as they prepared to throw their weight about as though they owned the whole town. The woman on the bike narrowed her eyes and watched as they shuffled on into the building. Never once did they look her way, and she was positive that she had not been seen.
She noted that they were heavily armed, and not at all timid about brandishing their weapons as if they were royal scepters. The general store was no place for a lone woman to be when men like that came calling.
With a soft sigh, the woman rose from her bike, settled her fingers against the stock of her rifle, and easily pulled the weapon free.