1991

There was Albert Weil before Minister Okita cleared his throat: body tense with excitement, quizzing himself over and over for the pointed questions that the oversight committee would surely have for them. Though he expected an uphill battle to persuade them their proposal was worthwhile, he had every confidence that he, Touma, and Sergei could bring them around.

Then there was Albert Weil after Minister Okita cleared his throat: realizing there'd be no questions, no chance to defend a single word or line of blueprint. Four men and two women who had no idea what anything on those pages really meant had already made up their minds.

"I think we have enough information," Okita said. He consulted his watch for the sixth time since they'd convened—consider the possibility that that's pointed at you, Albert.

Doctor Isogai and Minister Uchiyama looked up from their packets; Major Williams and Agent Foster in turn looked to General Garvey. Garvey and Okita practiced their neat trick of synchronizing their thoughts via eye-contact which Albert wanted desperately to understand the principles behind.

"You mean to reject our proposal," he said.

"At this time, we're going to have to, yes." Garvey's finger tapped through the thick sheaf of pages into the particle-board of the table. "Understand, we all recognize that you boys have worked out something impressive here." Nods, muttered agreement from the other five.

"Very impressive. But excepting this—" Okita paused to flip through the pages of his packet. "Excepting this 'Master System' for droid coordination, this work is out of scope."

Albert felt Touma's elbow nudging into his rib; he both admired and resented how quickly he'd been able to put his smile on.

"We're grateful for your consideration."

And with that, he stood up, Sergei following suit. Albert was unmoving as lead without, raging within. There were a few things said back and forth, muffled by the roaring in his head.

"Excuse me!" he shouted, springing up from his chair at once. Touma put a firm hand on his shoulder and mouthed 'Not now.' He shook the hand off, took a step towards the table. "I need a clarification. How is it that the evolution of mankind is out of scope? Or if there is a scope that it's out of, isn't that the wrong scope?"

"With all due respect to the three of you," Garvey said, "the 'evolution of mankind' is overselling it."

The general's smirk. Okita sitting there watching impassive. Isogai scandalized, Foster folding her arms over her chest, face of 'I wish I'd brought popcorn.' Albert felt himself blinking obsessive-compulsively for the first time since he was seventeen.

"If you'd excuse us," Touma said, trying to turn Albert, who would not be turned. No more.

"Four-and-a-half years we've kept the world in the dark, why?" Albert jabbed a finger at Garvey as his lips parted. "You can't trot out the Soviets anymore. Their project imploded and took their government with them. The only thing more amazing than the CIA keeping the robots secret through all of that is that you Americans were stupid enough to want that!"

"Albert, that's enough," Touma pleaded.

"Watch your mouth, Weil," Garvey said, eyes dark, voice darker. "However brilliant you are, the foreign policy concerns attached to this project go well over your head. Even if that weren't the case, that doesn't entitle you to spend taxpayer money on some science-fiction boondoggle."

"I'd respect you more if you'd at least tell us straight that we're building tools for control and death. As it is, you're no better than the men I climbed the Wall to get away from." Albert's mouth was rage-dry, but he found enough saliva to spit on the floor.

"Did you just compare me to the God damned Reds, son?" Garvey said through clenched teeth. Albert paused to consider that—he couldn't honestly say that any one of the men or women sat before him were evil, just ordinary people without the will or the wits to break chains of command. Other people in other rooms did to them what they were doing to him now. His head knew. His heart still burned.

"Peace, please," Sergei said, his thin voice heard for the first time all session. Even the imperturbable Okita looked curious. "The Soviet way was that Party men directed every aspect of the project. But they were not scientists. Here, you recognize this and let us handle details. I am grateful for this. But maybe it is still hard to see our way? Maybe there is an alternative."

"What do you suggest?" Okita asked.

"Keep the proposal. Read it slow, maybe this time think not of making a machine like a man. Think of adding the machine's power to the man."

Touma brightened. "Exactly, cybernetic enhancement. The applications for defense are limitless." Just like that, the air changed. The six faces across the table opened. "Most of this work can be modified to that end easily."

"I think we can at least agree to give the matter further consideration," Okita said. Garvey nodded; of course everyone else followed. "Very good. Doctor Sidaikhmanra, if you could stay to discuss this 'Master System' in more detail?"

Touma made the apologies, led Albert away. Anger evaporated off slowly.

"I'm sorry."

"You nearly got yourself taken out back and shot."

"But just like I told you, they weren't even slightly interested."

"We've hooked them in with the cybernetics angle. Baby steps."

Albert studied Touma closely. Light, faith, certainty. He had even imbued Sergei with these things to some degree. You don't mean to leave me alone, but you have, he thought.

Pieces began to fall into place without him willing. A measure he'd devised in those quiet, desperate moments when all seemed folly and only rebellion could change it now became an inevitability. It would be treason, but that was old hat. It would mean likely never seeing Touma or Sergei again; that stung to imagine, but he hoped that on the other side of it, they'd understand.

"Let's just hit the arcade tonight, clear our heads." Touma was clapping him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, I need that," Albert said, chuckling weakly as he ran his finger through thinning hair. Photographic memory raced through memos, blueprints, reports. He had enough to force the issue. Tonight, they would go out, and he would simply fade into the Tokyo streets. By the time anyone realized he was truly gone, the deed would be done.

2163

When his parents first announced that they'd be leaving Savannah for the Arcadian Colony at Albany, years of dullness and misery opened before Jacob's eyes. Now, he hummed to himself, spreading feed for the chickens. Oh, sure, the first two months had been awful; he missed his friends, being able to walk to the convenience store, beach days down Tybee.

Dylan, who'd played drums in the band Jacob sang for, drove his old beater out to the country for a few days to visit. One evening, sitting on a fencepost watching the feeding, he started slapping his thighs—a polyrhythm tracking the pecks of two of the chickens near him.

"It grooves," he said.

After Dylan left, he made a point of looking for the pleasure in things, and was surprised how easy it was to find.

"Jake, dinner's on," Mom called through the window.

"We're not waiting for dad?"

"Not tonight."

Jacob paused and looked north to the wooded knoll. Flashes of Dad and the other men from the Colony gathering up at the foot of the hill not long after dawn; Pastor Tyson grim-faced, holding a hunting rifle; low voices and refusals to bring along their curious children. Distant gunfire.

"Jake! Before it gets cold!"

"Coming!"

He threw a few fistfuls of grain and seed faster, thought better of it and dumped the rest of the hefty burlap sack out on the ground, tucking it under his arm and jogging in through the open screen door to the smell of roast beef, broccoli, mashed potatoes. Mom sat ready for prayer; Dad's seat was empty, plate covered with aluminum foil.

The front door creaked open and rattled shut while they were praying, footsteps came slow to the kitchen. Mom opened her eyes just in time to catch Dad going straight to his seat.

"Hands."

"Right." He turned to the sink, washed up, then sank heavy into the chair, heaving a sigh. "I'm beat."

"Did it go well?" Mom asked.

"Well as you can expect. Nobody got hurt, though Buck Green's dog got spooked and ran off. Buck's still out there looking for him."

"Oh, but his daughter loves that dog!"

"Mm." Dad gathered himself, uncovered and tucked into his dinner.

Jacob's eyes flit from Mom to Dad as he chewed a too-big chunk of roast, the quiet lengthening.

"What did it look like?" he asked.

"Jake." Mom's voice firmed up. "Maybe some other time. Let him get his mind off it."

"But—"

"Besides, once you finish your meal, you still have some Bible study to get to, don't you?"

"Already did it."

Mom pursed her lips, a throat-noise told Jacob to let it lie, and Dad's face said the same. Dinner passed with his parents talking around the obvious. Jacob, being an active teenage boy, finished his plate well ahead of them, rinsed it, and went to take his shower. The hot water and electric light made him grateful that his parents had chosen Albany over any of the more hardcore Arcadian colonies that forbade even basic plumbing.

Later, while reading a book, he heard his parents talking in hushed tones, muffled by walls and distance. He knew what they discussed, though. He turned out his light, stared at the darkness where the ceiling would be, and imagined having been asked to go in his father's place.

He'd had no intention of falling asleep, but he did; the hard tap against his window woke him with a start. He slid it open, poked his head out; Isaiah Tyson, the pastor's son, was rearing back to throw another pebble. He grinned, dropping it and bending down to pick up what by moonlight looked to be an unlit gaslamp. As Jacob climbed out his window, he stifled a laugh to a snicker.

"What's funny?" Isaiah asked, not waiting to start the trek to the glen.

"Just thinking . . . sneaking out with friends to go into the woods at night? Guess I'm country now."

Isaiah rolled his eyes. "You'll be country when you stop saying things like that. Come on, we're probably holding the others up."

The 'others,' it turned out, were surprisingly few. Three boys were milling about at the woods' edge: Hank and Marcus with gaslamps of their own, Hunter with a flashlight, showing his own recent emigration from the city.

"Where's everyone else?" Isaiah asked.

"Chickened out or got caught, probably," Hunter said, shaking his head.

"Doesn't seem like anybody snitched, though." Marcus let out a yawn. "Where we going?"

"They popped it by the brook," Isaiah said. He took point as always. Every boy in the Colony followed his lead instinctively, not because he was the pastor's son, but because he was the best at everything. He was the smartest, the best athlete, and most importantly tonight, he knew the land like the back of his hand. Jacob still had to mind each foot, watching for thick, ancient tree roots and the shelves of earth they held up.

"Did your old man say anything about what they were like?" Hank asked.

"No. Anyone else's?"

Jacob and the other boys all answered "No" in unison. It seemed harder to say anything after that. The night stretched, the woods repeating themselves, the only measure of time their footfalls.

"I hear the brook." Isaiah picked up the pace. Babbling waters rose through and over the chorus of crickets. They scrambled down the slope, each following the light ahead of him.

Isaiah gasped.

"You okay?" Jacob called out on instinct, but Isaiah was stood upright, stock still, his lamp held out before him. A pair of eyes stared back, and none of the boys could breathe. None could say how long it took before they understood what they saw.

The wide, unblinking eyes were set in a skull the top of which had been blown away to reveal gnarled metal and shredded wire. The skin of its face, uncanny smooth where it remained, was pockmarked with buckshot, or had been torn off to reveal something gleaming beneath. Its mouth was open as though calling out.

It embraced the body that lay atop it, skinless, rusting, a hole blown through its back. A dark fluid was smeared about the ragged lower rim, and though the shape of its limbs put Jacob in mind of tractors and harvesters, their limpness put ice in his stomach.

Isaiah took slow steps closer.

"My old man, he told me stories," he said, his voice trailing off. "How they looked like people. I always thought they were just stories, you know?"

Nobody responded. Isaiah was wading slowly in the shallow brook now.

"Isaiah, what—" Jacob looked to the other boys, wondering why nobody else was reacting. They snapped to as if woken from a dream.

"Come on man, this is creepy, let's go," Hunter said.

"Just a minute," Isaiah said. "I just want to . . ." He knelt next to the two tangled bodies. He reached out with his free hand and touched the plated hulk. Jacob felt a tightness in his heart as he looked on, dreading what might happen. Wasn't this always how those horror stories went? The dead robot comes back to life when touched and goes on a rampage? But he didn't speak; nor did Hank, Marcus, Hunter. They all wanted to see what Isaiah wanted to see.

He leaned over to the face that had first arrested them, and caressed it as though it was a beautiful girl. Hard to tell in the lamplight, but Jacob thought Isaiah's fingers trembled as they traced the skin. He touched his own face just as slow, tremulous.

"All right, we can go now," he said, standing up and wading to the edge of the brook.

"Holy shit, finally. I'm gonna have nightmares anyway," Hank whimpered. The other boys huddled together in a close knot on the way home; they looked at Isaiah like a god and were just as unwilling to approach him. Jacob kept to his side.

"It felt so real," he murmured.

Jacob nodded. He'd felt it himself, watching those steady hands quake.

"You going to be okay? You look shook up."

Jacob was shocked to realize that Isaiah had asked him, not the other way around.

"It's just . . . it looked like the big one was, I dunno . . . trying to—"

"I know. Don't think about it too much."

Miles of warehouse overlooked the Savannah River, dilapidated sentries from before the Cataclysm. Most had been plundered decades ago, a few served as garages for container trucks and their keepers.

"I must be drunk, you're too pretty to be here," a man called to the bleach-blond walking past, his silver tooth flashing. She checked him and the warehouse number painted on the concrete from the corner of her eye, kept walking.

The number she wanted was ten minutes down, rusting corrugated door half-open on three men busying themselves with suspension racks of human-shaped droids.

"Gentlemen."

Preston: hair white whipping, grin vulpine, reaching out to embrace her.

"Been too long. Guys, meet our infiltrator, Marty Sy."

One of the approaching men was tall, athletic, with a full head of hair and the easy benevolence of a saint. The other was roughly her height, wire-lean and balding, giving off curiosity intrusive as a raven's. They shared their greyness, the pinpoint light in their eyes, and the vigor of their limbs.

"Glad to have you on board," the taller man said, offering his hand. "My name is Sigmund Doppler. I've been an admirer of your environmental activism. Do you prefer Martinique or Marty?"

"As long as she doesn't ask us to call her 'Dynamo'," the shorter man said. "Eusebio Cain."

Marty shrugged off the arm Preston had over her shoulder and lightly knuckled his chin. "Marty's fine." The names took a moment to sink in, but they did so deeply.

"Something wrong?"

"Just . . . surreal to actually meet you two in person," she said. From the faint embarrassment on Doppler's face and amusement on Cain's, she thought better of elaborating. "Uh, so—"

"Set your things down somewhere. Now that you're here, we may as well discuss the plan," Cain said.

Marty made for one of the long steel-top tables lining the furthest wall. She passed a high-clearance armored truck, gun rack laden with pulse rifles. As if sensing her reservation, Preston fell in step with her.

"Nice, right?"

"Guess we're not going for stealth."

"Don't need to for this job, the Church doesn't have as much sway in North America, and there's a new war breaking out every few days. We'll just look like another merc squad until we get there."

"I guess." Marty lowered her voice. "Who's fronting this? The droids must cost—"

"Doppler, out of his own pocket."

A relief; you're always on somebody's hook, but the hook of someone right there with you is almost as good as your own.

The table Cain and Doppler leaned over was strewn with papers; diagrams and notes. A large, hand-drawn map had pride of place.

"This bunker is at the center of Exclusion Zone Beta," Cain said. "As far as our sources go, nobody—not even the Cardinals of the Remnant—know what's underneath it, except that it looks like a laboratory from before the Cataclysm. Before we even get to the bunker, we have to break through the electrified fence wrapped around the Zone, and cross sixty-seven kilometers of open desert. Most of the facility is sunken underground. It has reinforced concrete walls and reinforced steel doors, six gun nests, trapped dead-end hallways, and a garrison of forty power-armored Vigils. It's one of the most secure buildings in the whole world."

Like millions of kids, Marty hadn't grown up with television and what she knew of the legendary Doctor Cain was based on rumors and newspapers, but the relish he took in the telling gave his rebellious furor form.

"To crack it, we've made an arrangement with two other digging crews that we'll meet up with later. All three crews together total eighteen humans, thirty-five combat droids, and two large labor droids."

"So we're outnumbered on manpower," Marty said. "You trust these people?"

Doppler snorted, met eyes with Cain.

"We'll get to that. Preston, we're eager to hear what you've come up with."

Preston, glazed over until his name was spoken, straightened up, brushed a lock of hair from a face he hardened, and cleared his throat. He was still obviously the youngest, least serious person in the room, despite these efforts.

"Right. So the trick to this is that the garrison works in shifts, because of the EZ radio blackout. Every three days, ten of them head into the town just outside the Zone, report in to their bosses and take some R-and—R. At the same time one shift heads out, the last off shift goes back in. This happens at the same time every three days, and there's a short window where you've got two separate groups of ten that aren't in the bunker."

"How short?" Marty asked.

"No more than twenty minutes. And really, the best thing would be to hit them in the Zone when they've just passed each other but they're too far apart to help each other. For that, we'd have to clean up the first group in less than seven minutes to engage the ones returning to the bunker in time. The other thing is, as soon as they see us coming over the horizon instead of their people, they're going to send a telegraph on their hardline to the Remnant's airbase down by Tucson. They've got some old pre-Cataclysm remote-controlled Hunter Killers that can be on us in half an hour. And before you ask," Preston said, watching Doppler's mouth open slightly, "the hardline's buried pretty deep. No way to get to it without being noticed."

Marty had to admit, even if it was just a little bit, Preston had matured since their two jobs together. She resisted the urge to pat him on the head.

"So, we take down the two shifts, leaving us with thirty Vigils. They'll figure out something's up if we take too long, so we rush them after that. All three crews send up their combat droids, use the trucks as cover. We don't need to take out every gun nest, just the two on the north side. We break in, secure the halls as quick as we can, and then it's up to you."

Marty noticed Doppler and Cain studying her face as Preston shuffled papers, revealing the diagram of a vault security system: heavy door, seven mechanical tamper-triggers hooked up to explosive charges. No drawing of the triggers themselves, but a written description that rang familiar.

"I can handle this, but the timeline sounds tight. Is there anything I should know about Exclusion Zones messing with my tools? I know about the radio thing, but—"

"Preston said you were familiar with them," Cain said flatly, glaring as the young man raised his hands.

"I said she's hit the Church before. Nothing about Exclusion Zones."

"You—ugh." Cain touched his temples and closed his eyes. "Fine. No, it shouldn't affect your work. Anything electronic will go haywire after an hour or so of unshielded exposure, but if we're at this that long in the first place, we'll be blown to smithereens anyway."

"Now, we owe you an answer," Doppler said. "We've agreed to split profit three ways between us and the crews of Sundar Chatterji and Ephraim Wallace."

Those names meant nothing to Marty, but Cain rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if by reflex. "And?"

"And they hate our guts," Cain said.

"So we're, what, hoping for enlightened self-interest?"

"Hell no," Cain said, sweeping his hand over the table. "I've kept all this from them, so they're reliant on us to know what they're up against. They'll wait until they're sure we've got the bunker locked down before they stab us in the back, which means we can prep for it and focus on them when the time comes."

Tight timelines, a million potential mistakes, enemies on all sides, and an unknown prize. Martinique Sy, you are a damned fool for considering it.

"You'll want to think things over, I'm sure," Doppler said. Cain looked as though his foot had been stepped on, but nodded and walked back to the rack of droids he'd been inspecting. Preston clapped Marty on the shoulder and excused himself to grab lunch in town.

"I must admit, I was a bit surprised when Preston recommended you. This isn't your usual line." Doppler kept his eyes on the papers; he wasn't just making small talk, but most of his mind was on other things.

"Well, the Remnant Church doesn't have a great reputation in Legazpi, so no love lost there. And environmentalism doesn't pay these days, so, here I am, getting funding."

His 'ah' was the sound of a man disappointed, but telling himself that was unfair. It gave voice to her own reservations. There was no version of this where people didn't die. To the families of those they planned to kill, she was a terrorist; sticking 'eco' in front did not ease her doubts.

When they'd left Savannah two days ahead of the rendezvous with Chatterji and Wallace, they'd had the windows down, easy talk spilling from the cab of the truck. When they'd spent two hours at the rendezvous with no sign of the others, the talk had quieted. Some asking around revealed that yes, two big trucks like theirs had passed through that morning; no, they hadn't stopped in anywhere in town.

They drove without sleep, fast as they could without forcing a sheriff to take notice—windows up, hardly speaking. Marty had the wheel as the town at the edge of the Exclusion Zone came into view, still as the dust-bitter air.

"Guys, what are we looking at?"

Sigmund damn near felt Eusebio grinding his teeth next to him while the old adobe buildings hemmed them in. Bodies sprawled face-down in the street, on the porches, some in Church-issued powered armor, some civilians. One corpse's powder-blue jumpsuit signaled his allegiance to Chatterji. A droid seemed to stand unmoving until he realized its weight dangled from its hand, death grip puncturing the wall it was pressed up against. Something had torn through its back and chest, splattering pale blue coolant fluid.

Two pairs of eyes studied Eusebio in the rear-view mirror, but neither knew what to say.

"Quite a thorough betrayal," Sigmund said, softly. Eusebio swiveled on him, darkening. "So what now?" The critical moment; Eusebio was close to bursting. Sigmund had not been here with him in over a decade, but he remembered Esther saying before she first introduced them that he was at his best when challenged. Sigmund did not let his eyes wander, nor let himself blink.

"Now we improvise," Eusebio said, finally taking a breath. "Preston, did you count the Vigil casualties?"

"Ten powered suits."

"Then the first part's done. This just accelerates our . . . Shit."

Knots of men and women—bearing guns, bearing clubs and knives; blood-streaked and black-bruised—appeared from the side alleys, answering the rumbling summons of the truck. When they'd circled it, a stocky, sun-aged woman stepped forward, tapping the driver's side window with the muzzle of a shotgun.

"Step on out, nice and slow."

They were made to line up against one side of the truck and surrender the keys.

"This doesn't have to be ugly," Eusebio said.

"That all depends on what we see when we open up the back." The woman handed the keys to a man next to her.

"Hope you want to see combat droids, then."

Sigmund felt Marty and Preston stiffening, but their experience won out and neither registered shock on their faces. The crowd, on the other hand, shaded from fury to amazement to confused murmuring.

"He wasn't kidding," the man called from the back, voice trembling. "They're packing crazy ordinance."

"That's it," the woman said, shoving her shotgun in Eusebio's face. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't blow your head off after all the trouble we've had with your kind today. You folks pick fights with the Church and it's us that end up getting the raw end of it. The Bishop'll—"

"Ma'am," Eusebio said, "who do you think hired us?"

"What?"

"The crews that came through here belong to Sundar Chatterji and Ephraim Wallace, and we knew they'd be coming with a lot of muscle to do some digging in the Zone. We were hired to run them down."

"Now wait just a—"

"Some job you did, assholes!" came a voice from the crowd.

Sigmund had forgotten that the man whose anger needed such careful handling and the man who could steer the anger of others so deftly both lived within his friend.

"Not our problem. The price was for their hides, not some protection job. Now, you going to hold us up while they get away with the goods, or let us go? If nothing else, we can get you some revenge."

The stocky woman was not quite persuaded, but she'd lost the crowd. Insults flew with the spittle, and the matter of blame had shifted from complicity to failure. The woman fired her shotgun into the air to quiet the others.

"Just kill 'em, and don't show your faces here again," the woman said, waving those blocking the truck's path aside. Sigmund heard the back door of the truck slam home.

"That's the plan." An easy nod to the others. "Let's roll."

Back in the truck, they were gripped by nerves. The last length of paved road gave way to dirt, and a long stretch of black wire fence rose up before them. A broad section was missing: they found it mangled a few meters beyond. Plumes of smoke billowed over the horizon.

"What now? Should I turn this thing around?" Marty asked.

"No!" Eusebio barked. He noticed he'd startled the youngsters and eased back into his seat. "No. They wouldn't have still been hiding if the action were that long ago. We can catch up."

"But the other crews have no reason to play nice now," Preston said. "I don't like our chances."

"They don't care much more for each other than for Sig and I. If they're cocky enough to turn on us this early, they'll turn on each other."

More death and wreckage before them—one armored truck had rammed another. A man of the Vigils had been crushed between them. Sigmund had heard stories of men in Church powered armor stopping speeding cars with their hands; the young man had probably been raised on such hero stories, he thought. The other nine Vigils had managed to bring down men, combat droids, and a heavy earthmoving droid nearly as large as the truck Sigmund looked out from.

Was it just his imagination, or was one of them still breathing, body broken, eyes wide staring as they passed? He swallowed bitter spittle.

"Perfect," Eusebio said. "No blue jumpsuits."

"So?"

"So all those dead people were Wallace's. Chatterji left him to handle this and went on alone. That means we'll have a free-for-all at the bunker."

Sigmund wasn't the only one struggling to take comfort in that. Marty kept adjusting her grip on the steering wheel, while Preston's grin had been flattened.

The bunker came into view; smoke danced, bullets streaked, an explosion reduced one of the gun nests to so much shrapnel. The twin of the earlier labor droid sat a smoldering wreck meters from the surface face, soaking up fire from the defenders that remained on behalf of three huddled men. Sigmund held his breath as Ephraim Wallace turned to the sound of their approach and recognition lit upon that humorless face. He did not level his gun nor order his men to do so.

"Shit, incoming!" Preston said, suddenly tearing away his door and leaping from the rushing truck. By the time Sigmund thought to call out to him, he'd landed smoothly and was loping straight at the bunker. Marty shouted 'Rocket!'; Preston threw what looked to be a blinking point of light at the Vigil hefting a launcher on his shoulder, who was abruptly hidden behind an explosion, then conspicuously absent. Preston had already dove for cover behind the remains of what must have been Chatterji's truck.

"Whew. That recommendation's already paying off, Sig," Eusebio said, wild-eyed and chuckling nervously. "I think that's our cue to deploy."

Marty pulled the truck to a halt sidelong towards the bunker and the three of them slipped out on the protected side. The back door of the truck flew up and the combat droids began jumping out, one stopping to hand each of them a pulse rifle.

Fitting, Sigmund thought, to use forgotten technology in pursuit of forbidden technology.

"Uh, Doctor Cain?" Marty called tentatively. Eusebio was shuffling to the edge of the truck's cover towards Wallace's knot.

"Fancy seeing you here," he shouted over the din.

"Chatterji—"

"Turned on you. Lot of that going around."

To compare Wallace's face to a stone wall was generous, aesthetically, but undersold its opacity.

"So kill me."

"Eusebio," Sigmund said, reaching across Marty to grip his friend's arm.

"Fuck your stoic cowboy death," Eusebio said, spitting in the dirt. "Let's crack this place like we planned."

"Right. Around twenty bogeys left, my guess."

A few rounds of machine gun fire rattled into the armored siding of the truck; then cacophonies of return fire from Preston and his droids. Sigmund was immediately aware of every sound, the acrid smells, the shadow of death close at hand; he surprised himself with how calmly he crawled to the edge of the truck and threw off shots of his own. Eusebio laughed and mouthed to him: 'Welcome back.'

A brief lull. Wallace nodded to his men and they rose as one.

"Wait until we get a signal you—"

One of Wallace's men caught a bullet through the head and fell limp; Wallace himself rushed for the open maw of the bunker; the other froze and took a shot through the neck as his boss disappeared into the darkness. He wasn't as lucky as the other; Sigmund watched him grasp at the hole in his neck while it stained his hands red. The light in his eyes was replaced by the false glimmer of his frightened tears. The straining in his throat went on forever.

Preston raced back to fetch them; the gun nests were silent, and seventeen droids stood in formation, guns trained on every possible egress. "Let's move in."

Chatterji must be close to the goal, Sigmund thought as they crossed the threshold, droids leading the way. The lights embedded in the ceiling of the gently descending concrete hall were all out, and the echoes of gunfire were distant, sporadic. The eyes of the droids lit the way, brilliant beams casting the corpses of man and machine in ciaroscuro.

Footsteps racing towards them, unintelligible shouting. A figure with a machine gun rounded a corner, shining a scope light straight into their faces, blinding them. While Sigmund shut his eyes tight and recoiled, he heard the droids' arms actuating to aim and fire.

"Shit, put your gun down, man!" Preston shouted. The droids fired. A man let out a clipped shout and fell.

"Preston?" Sigmund called, still blinking away the blind.

"Shit. Shit! Why didn't you lower your weapon, you panicky . . ." Preston sighed. "It was Walla—hold on, someone else is coming."

"Unidentified intruders, this is Sergeant of Vigils Raul Guzman." The voice of a man holding back pain. Sigmund figured he was held together only by the drugs his armor was pumping into him. "Your comrades are dead. Stand down your droids, surrender your weapons, and you'll be allowed to leave unharmed. If you do not comply, incoming Hunter Killers drones will target this location."

Eusebio's faint smile of triumph drew dark valleys around his mouth.

"That's generous, Sergeant," he shouted. "So generous it makes me suspicious. If you want to save your remaining men so badly, you surrender to us."

No response. Preston sent a flashbang and seventeen droids in; after the cacophony, eight stood waiting over the corpses of two men, a woman, and their fallen comrades.

"These guys are tough," Preston said.

"They believe they're fighting on God's side," Sigmund said.

"For all that belief is worth." Eusebio shook his head. "Come on, we're running out of time."

They didn't hear another voice as Preston led them through the winding labyrinth towards the central chamber. Only when they passed through did anyone call out to them, and Sigmund realized why Sergeant Guzman had been desperate to head off further violence.

Emergency footlights showed six of the Vigils, stripped of their armors, hastily bandaged, breathing but capable of little else. They lay surrounded by the dead of Chatterji's crew, Chatterji himself pinned to a wall by a length of steel rebar driven through his heart. The Vigils watched the new arrivals with primal fear. Preston's droids fixed their sights on them but for one that walked back out the way they came.

"I'll post a watch outside for HKs. What do you want to do about them?"

Eusebio scratched at his chin. "Marty, get to work, we're still on a timetable here."

"We should evacuate them," Sigmund said. "They're no threat, we may still have time to—"

"Anyone care to tell me how long ago you wired for the HKs?" Eusebio asked, looking from face to face. "Anyone? No? If we have the time, we'd like to—"

"We heard you," a woman with eyes like small burning coals said, groaning and clutching her side. "Go to Hell. None of us are going to abandon our post."

"Eusebio, listen, I understand you hate the Church for—"

"You heard them, Sigmund, they don't want to leave."

Preston looked faintly amused by the whole thing; if Marty felt any way about the matter, she wasn't going to let on. Sigmund nodded and walked to the woman.

"Is there anything I can do for—" The woman grabbed a fistful of his shirt and jerked him down. Their foreheads touched.

"Bring my friends back. Everyone that died today because you had to have a look in that vault," she said. "But you can't. So walk away right now. Spare everyone who's gonna die if you dig up something horrible."

Eusebio's bitter laughter echoed off the walls.

"Hey, how long till you've opened the vault?" Preston asked.

"Three minutes. Why?"

"We've got incoming. Five minutes out, tops."

"We'll make it."

Relief was followed closely by guilt as Sigmund looked at each of the Remnant warriors accepting their fates. He worked himself free of the woman's weakening grip and stood by Eusebio, who was looking at the heavy door—seeing what, he could only guess. There was no time to guess once Marty gave the thumbs up. The door was ripped free, opening on a lightless chasm, the droids holding it aloft to shut the way behind them. The grim faces awaiting death disappeared as Preston hauled he and Eusebio down into the black deep, weightless for longer than he could ever recall being. Eusebio pulled a light-tab and they advanced a short way into the hall.

The world shook. Preston and Marty shouting, falling; the groaning of metal succumbing, the clattering of debris; Eusebio's pale light tab showed Preston landing with Marty in his arms, both unconscious. Ragged-edged metal, wire, and earth rained down over top of them, drowning out his voice.

In his past life, Xavier—No, you had your time as Xavier. Let it go. You are X now.

In his past life, X had done some soldiering and in the course of it spent time in bunkers under fire. The rumbling that woke him from suspension brought those (false) memories surging up.

For that to be his first experience with the world in what he registered as nearly thirty-six years was not encouraging. Even less so was the secondary din that came not from above, but from within the lab. Some unknown party had found their way down into the lab eighty-nine years before, but had been careful to cause little noise and less damage, and had retreated quickly without ever finding him. This was not that.

Well, you didn't think you could hide here forever, did you?

The quiet seconds after the din were shattered by a woman's animal-scream of pain. Each nerve ending sparked with desire to leap into action.

What good could you do? Everything you thought you knew was a just so story told by your father to make you a good little boy.

Are you even sure you're awake now?

The screaming stopped, leaving the uncertainty. Times he had stepped out the capsule and wandered the lab, he'd seen the thick titanium-alloy door separating his world from the furthest outsiders had come. Only the loudest sounds came through holes time-cut into structure. Crashing, screaming, gunfire: the periods the world put at the end of sleep.

Thousands of seconds passed. The door ground in its frame; slowly, steadily, its halves were being forced apart. Vestigial impressions of a racing heart filled his chest where no such organ lived. He willed his other senses to waken gradually. Lumens, degrees kelvin, air-flow, odorant parts-per-million, and pH rendered tersely in his mind morphed into the darkness of closed eyes; cool, stagnant air; ozone from damaged electronics; stale synthetic saliva in his mouth.

Four voices approaching; they would soon be in the same room. He pushed lightly on the capsule door, opening a crack to listen.

"—appear to be converging in this direction." A man's voice, aged but full, colored with reverence.

"Never seen anything like this." This one younger, casual, his words punctuated by a grunt: adjusting a heavy load, perhaps?

"I doubt anyone has." The years had been harder on this man's body, but there was something immediately resonant in his tone that X struggled to place. A beam of white light fell on his face through the glass pane in the capsule lid. Footfalls froze.

"Whoa," the young voice said, moving cautiously. "There's a person in here!" Someone was taking deliberately measured breaths through the nose close to the young man but not speaking—the woman who'd screamed earlier?

"This could be it," the reverent man said.

"Only one way to find out."

"Wait, we shouldn't just—"

"This thing's already open, see? Let's have a look."

The lid of the capsule swung wide, thudding upon the floor.

"If this is a robot, it's a pretty good imitation of a human."

"Our tall friend here is an android."

"We can't be sure of th—"

"Think about it: you said yourself all the computers built into this place were unlike anything you've ever seen."

"That's true, but—"

"And whatever was going on here was enough to make it a prime target for the Cataclysm. He was the target, because he's the next step of . . . of everything!"

Suddenly, X remembered where he had heard that certainty and fire. When he—when Xavier—had been at his lowest, he had met a preacher far from home, giving aid and voice to a shattered people. He had taken one look in Xavier's eyes and understood the burdens he carried. He'd laid a hand on his shoulder and through but a few words gifted him that certainty and fire that people call purpose. This man, too . . .

"Suppose you're right. What if we—that is, what if the world isn't ready for this?"

"Doesn't matter. If the world rejects him, then it's the world that's wrong. No, he's exactly what I've been waiting for."

"Is—" The woman, stifling a groan of pain. "Is he even alive?"

For the first time in years, X opened his eyes and slowly sat up in the capsule. Two older men, a heavily cybernetically enhanced young man, a young woman missing her legs below the thighs hanging from his back, four pairs of boggling eyes.

"Yes, I am. My name is X."

"Cardinal Vakenuz will see you now." The secretary studied Eckhart with all the reverence due an unpleasant smelling mold. She usually didn't care for status games, but considered it might be worthwhile just this once to point out that she was, herself, a Cardinal of the Remnant.

She stepped through the door, hearing it close behind her. Vakenuz sat hunched over a desk, pen scratching steadily away at paper even as he looked away to consult others. A ragged but immaculately-folded woolen sheet lay on a long wooden pallet on the floor, and a small bookshelf held nothing but a copy of the Remnant Bible and several volumes of commentaries. The whole space was lit by two candles. It seemed a fittingly spartan place for so many ambitious careers to end, if the rumors were true.

"There is a leak in the security committee." Vakenuz said, setting his pen down. "Dorji has information that ought not be generally available until we announce it to the Collegium this evening. I know you are innocent, as you are the only member of the committee I hadn't informed."

When he spoke so bluntly, it made getting upset about the content seem foolish.

"That information being?"

"Exclusion Zone Beta came under attack roughly two hours ago. They wired for Hunter-Killer support from the Tucson airbase, but the telegraph line went dead shortly after."

That seemed as likely an explanation as any for the motives of whomever had abducted Cardinal Hossein. "So we don't think there were any survivors."

"The Hunter-Killers performed a punitive strike on the site based on that assumption," Vakenuz said. "We cannot know for certain what became of our people or the attackers until we have a team on the ground to investigate."

"All right. I appreciate being looped in, but if you know I didn't leak it, and we don't have the info to act, what am I doing here?"

Vakenuz gave a thin half-smile: it made him seem positively tolerant.

"You have a sense of appropriateness and procedure, Cardinal Eckhart. Neither Dorji nor I are gifted with such tendencies, but I respect this about you, and prefer to work with you so that you might moderate my fervor."

"Thank—"

"Dorji, on the other hand, prefers to have his latitude. While we on the security committee cannot act due to lacking information, he will turn this situation into a matter of public perception and push a response through quickly. He has stolen the initiative from us." Vakenuz's stare and stiff posture made Eckhart self-conscious that she might be slouching. "I will propose that you be given the leadership role in any such initiative, and he will have no choice but to accept."

"I'm sorry? I thought he had stolen the ini—"

"Your reputation for prudence and apoliticism is renowned both within the Church and among those secular authorities with whom we deal."

"You mean I'm a non-threatening nobody."

"I mean that you are possessed of rare virtues. Your appointment will signal good faith to all knowledgeable parties, and will force Dorji—and whatever heretics it turns out we are up against in this matter—to accept your involvement or else turn public opinion against them by petty refusal."

"Fine. What do you get out of this?"

"Doubtless, Dorji will expect periodic reports from you. These reports should arrive on my desk before they arrive on his."

"Right."

"That will be all for now. I will see you at the assembly."

The walk back from Vakenuz's chambers to her own gave Eckhart time to speculate about just what the diggers may have found if they'd safely gotten under the bunker at Beta. She had tried to pull Cardinal Hossein's records to get a sense of what the White Veil was all about; it was sparse enough to be useless. All she could think was that that level of secrecy suggested something world-shaking.

It was not quite world-shaking, but certainly surprising, to find Cardinal Tshering Dorji standing in her chambers with his hands folded behind his back, studying the framed photo on her nightstand.

"I like this photo," he said. "Your nieces?"

"Yes. Though that was taken five years ago, they've grown so much I hardly recognized them when I went home last year."

"It's good that you get to see your family periodically," he said. "I've only got the one brother and his family back in Nepal. Makes it difficult."

Eckhart nodded, cleared her throat.

"Vakenuz is mad that I know about the Exclusion Zone Beta thing."

"How did you find out?"

"A little bird told me you pulled Hossein's records. Vakenuz has a string of closed-door meetings after that, so I knew something was up. I cornered Archbishop Wolfe at the commissary and heavily implied I knew something, let him fill in the rest."

"Good choice," Eckhart said. "Wolfe is . . . suggestible."

"'Suggestible', I like that."

I'm sure you do, she thought. "So, what can I do for you?"

"Based on what I've heard, we should probably assume these attackers survived, dug up something big, and will turn up publicly with it soon. I want us to have a response ready for when that happens, and I want you to be in charge of it."

That was two marches Dorji had stolen on Vakenuz in one day.

"You've got a sense of appropriateness and procedure. Vakenuz and I play things looser, but while he wants to be left to his crusades and inquisitions, I find it useful to have someone like you keeping folks accountable. And everyone who needs to know knows that you're as fair as they come."

"Deja vu."

"Hmm?"

"I said 'What about you?' What are you wanting from me in return?"

"You know Vakenuz well enough to know he's going to have a response of his own if the rest of the Church doesn't do what he wants. I'm hoping you'll keep your ear to the ground about that and help me stay ahead of him."

"I'll do my best."

"That's what I like to hear. Sorry for barging in, I'll just—"

"Wait, just one question. Do you . . . does anybody know what's down there? Under Beta."

"The White Veil is its own separate feifdom, really. Even I'm not privy to that stuff."

"Right. Thanks anyway."

Dorji reached for the door handle, let his hand drop.

"Look, I genuinely believe that nobody knows for sure, but I hear that the White Veil folks have theories."

"Like what?"

"Like that the special Exclusion Zones are sites directly related to Doctor Light and Doctor Wily." He and Eckhart both crossed themselves vigorously. "So if the attackers made it into that facility alive, they probably found a gift from God."

"Or a gift from the Devil."