“Ada, can you get a name or address from the person’s ident key?” I knew that was unlikely with the extreme privacy protections places like this employed, but it was worth a try.

  “Sorry, Joe, local customer is all I can tell from the system. Regular web is still out, so I can’t do any cross references for a possible match.”

  “Okay, let’s head out then, if they’re on foot, they couldn’t have gone far.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “You may also want to restock essentials before you leave, Joseph. They also have a supercharger station if we can spare a few minutes.”

  I already had one foot halfway out the door before grasping what my AI had suggested. I offered a meek “Duh” before going back inside.

  Ada brought the GMC down to the entrance. I plugged it into the charger and loaded it up with way more than we needed. It was obvious to me now that opportunities like this might not be that frequent. I just hated that a computer had to be the one to suggest it.

  Sumo watched me as I grabbed every pork flavored sausage pack in the freezer. I also added an armload of nice-looking steaks in the everwrap section. These would keep nearly indefinitely because of the way they were packaged. Ada fed some information to the Audit bot to keep it from sounding the alarms and trying to slam the broken doors when we exited. I was back on the road in fifteen minutes, much better equipped than I had been, and with a solid half charge on the battery pack.

  She came into view within ten minutes. A lone woman pulling a red wagon with several grocery bags. I knew she could be armed but pulled alongside her anyway. My helmet was off to hopefully appear somewhat less frighting to her. Still, she flinched noticeably as she finally saw the nearly silent truck easing up beside her.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Leave me alone, I…I don’t have anything,” she said nervously.

  She was thin, probably late twenties, with a bookish but pleasant face. “I can help you get where you’re going. I’d just like some information.”

  She stopped walking and narrowed her eyes at me. The doubt on her face rapidly turning to fear. Her eyes darted to the dog, which made her pull back more than she had to the beat-up, old truck. “You aren’t from around here.”

  It wasn’t a question, and judging by her southern accent, she wasn’t from around here either.

  “No, ma’am. I’m not, but I’m harmless. Do you work back there at the base?”

  “At the facility?” she said, moving a bit farther off the road. “You had business there? What, with ADI?”

  Apex Defense Industries, or ADI, was a group I was familiar with. I hadn’t known that was who was contracting at the base, but it made sense. The group’s parent company, Hammer Industries, was a significant player in the defense industry. “In a way,” I offered in way of explanation.

  The woman had walked again, one of the wagon wheels squeaking and wobbling badly as she pulled it. Her eyes were fixed on something invisible directly in front of her; she refused to look my way. I pulled the truck down past her and stepped out to meet her.

  One look at the guy getting out of the truck in a battle suit and she panicked and sprinted into the woods. The child’s wagon kept rolling several more feet until it rolled to a stop near my rear bumper. I motioned my head in her direction and Sumo took off after her. This was not how I wanted the conversation to go, but, well… shit.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  She was crying. Her hair had fallen into her face, and her clothes were a mess of mud, twigs, and leaves. Sumo followed a few yards behind her. I sat on the tailgate of the pickup drinking a canned espresso and enjoying the view. The dog perp-walked her up close before sitting down and gnawing at an itch on his underside. He’d done his job. Now it was my turn.

  “Why did you run?”

  She shook her head, wiping tears away with a dirty sleeve. It was obvious this woman had already been through a lot. And yes, I was being an ass, but I’m not exactly known for my people skills.

  “I only wanted to talk,” I said as calmly as I could. I offered her a bottle of water from my new stash of supplies. She accepted it with a shaky hand. Anyone could see she was terrified of me and the dog. “I’m sorry we frightened you. My name is Joe. Any chance we could start over?” I offered an outstretched hand to her.

  She took a deep drink as she looked warily at my hand. She made no move to accept the handshake. I believe the simple act of touching me would have meant defeat to her. I let it fall to my side and looked off toward the nearby valley nonchalantly.

  “I’m Carol,” she said in a voice so low I could barely make out the words. Ada enhanced the sound, though. Good, we had the meager basis for a conversation.

  “Hello, Carol. I’m sure you’ve been through hell out here. I’m just looking for some information on one of the buildings back at… at the Hammer Industries site. I’ll leave you alone, but can you answer me that one thing?”

  Her head cocked slightly; a shadow crossed her face. “What building?”

  “J-7”

  The look on her face was telling. “I can’t help you.” She looked back at Sumo, clearly contemplating another escape. Giving out information on the local Hammer Industries Apex complex was a deal breaker, as far as this conversation was concerned. I knew the NDA agreements that dark sites like this one operated under. Even the end of the world would not void the penalties for any associate talking about it.

  “I have to get back home,” she said, easing now alongside the truck.

  I stayed seated, still not looking at her specifically. “You have family waiting?”

  She stopped moving. Anger flashed in the woman’s eyes; I could sense the rise in hostility even before glancing toward her. Whatever progress I had made in building trust seemed to vanish. She forced her emotions back down but still looked like a tea kettle whose whistle was malfunctioning. “Yes. I mean, no, they just won’t let me back in if I’m gone too long.”

  “I have her name,” Ada said quietly inside my own thoughts. “She is Carol Reynolds. She is thirty-two from Georgia, divorced. She has shared custody of one minor child. I list no advanced degrees of note; no residence nor place of employment.”

  Good to see that there were apparent internet connections coming back. Ada’s info was useful, but mainly in explaining the woman’s motivation. A single mother getting food for her child was a perspective on the apocalypse I could appreciate. Carol’s last statement had my full attention, though.

  “Who are ‘they?’”

  Ten minutes later, the truck eased to a stop near the makeshift barricade. I counted five men, all armed; several carried their weapons with the practiced look of former soldiers. I nodded to them and looked at my passenger, Carol, again who simply stared forward. She said some of the men in her community had decided to blockade the subdivision to keep out looters and such.

  Ada found an online aerial map of the subdivision, and it was clear there was only one way in and one way out. Carol was clearly afraid of these men. “Do they have your child?” I asked quietly, making a show of raising my hands high before I stepped out.

  She glanced at me with a look of surprise. She still hadn’t confirmed any family to me. She shook her head before looking back straight ahead. She was terrified, but it was no longer because of me or the dog.

  “Let the woman go,” one man yelled. A tall, lanky man with a disappointing week’s worth of beard trying to fill in the gaps of an already unattractive face.

  “Drop your gun and surrender your key fob,” another said as I stepped out and lowered the visor of my tactical helmet over my face.

  Immediately, targeting reticles appeared over each of the men, and threat indicators showed more weapons in two nearby houses. “Sumo has another at your seven o’clock position,” Ada said.

  The men’s demeanor changed now that they realized they were facing someone in full battle kit. I snapped my rifle back into the maglock on my back and approached the group. Ada identified each man. All had former military or government credentials. That made sense; this was a base town. Security and paranoia would be part of their DNA. Despite appearances, this was not a typical middle-class neighborhood. It was a clandestine community full of what I considered to be the dark underbelly of the industrial-military machine.

  “Greetings, gentlemen. Just dropping off my new friend, one of your neighbors I found down the road.” My hands were still up. My helmet’s speakers modulating my voice in what Ada knew to be non-threatening tones and volume.

  “That’s far enough,” one of the younger men said, shoving a rifle barrel past the makeshift barricade and toward me.

  “His anxiety level is approaching dangerous levels, Prowler.”

  “No shit,” I whispered. Looking over, I saw Carol was still just sitting in the truck, staring straight ahead. I had no idea what might have gone on between her and these men over the last week, but I had a strong feeling it wasn’t good.

  “We’re going to need your truck, Son,” an older man said in a relaxed tone.

  I turned to see who was talking. He was mid-fifties, holding the barrel of a rifle that was propped against some steel drums. That one was relaxed, confident. He was going to be the one to watch.

  “You see,” I began, “that’s what I like about these little communities up here. Everybody shares, right?”

  “Just give us the key fob and start walking, or you’ll be sorry.”

  I was already sorry I’d wasted this much time. Coming here might have been a mistake. I saw the calm man give a subtle signal, obviously, to the sniper at my rear. “Takedown,” I said to Sumo before lunging to one side at a speed that few men would believe possible. I heard my partner tearing into the hidden threat just as a bullet whizzed through the space I’d previously occupied. It caught Sketchy Beard in the throat, and he flew back from the impact, his body dead before the brain even realized the danger. These dumb fucks have no clue on firing angles, I thought as my body went on autopilot.

  My pistol was instantly in my hand and firing. A flechette round shredded a fat man aiming a shotgun at my head. I did a body roll toward the truck, dropping the pistol and coming up with the rifle. As I brought the MK4 Rattler to bear on the remaining men, the look of shock and fear were plastered across every face. They knew the damage a pulse rifle at close range could do. All of them eyed it, then me, then at the blood-soaked dog coming at them from the other side of the truck.

  I could now see other people emerging from houses farther back in the neighborhood. This little scene was obviously not the normal way things went down around here. One man dropped his weapon and ran; another turned, lowering his rifle toward my partner. I punched a carnage round into him, separating his head from his torso. A bullet caught me in the shoulder. It bounced off the armor but fucked up my shot at the calm man who still seemed to be smiling. Ada alerted me to the house and the window the shot had come from. I brought the rifle up and pointed it in that direction while keeping my eyes locked with Mister Smiley, the lone man remaining in front of me.

  “Hey, stupid, you want everyone to die?” I fired blindly, trusting Ada to help me with the targeting. A muffled grunt came from the direction of the house, followed by a woman’s scream.

  The man in front of me now had his gun up and the smile was gone, but not the arrogance. I could still see the smugness behind his eyes. He reminded me of all the high-ranking government assholes I had dealt with in my work. The spooks, the consultants, the shits that could force even superb commanders to make stupid, irrational decisions. They operated outside the law, unleashed from the bounds of human decency. Motivated by power, greed, or sometimes just a psychopathic need to inflict harm. Decisions that got some of us killed. I hated every motherfucker like him.

  I wanted him to raise the gun. I prayed he would be stupid. He apparently preferred to keep breathing. Slowly, he nodded and placed his rifle on the ground with one hand. The other raised partially in a display of surrender. He then shouted to each side, telling his men to stop firing.

  I trusted nothing this man did and assumed he was not done playing his part just yet. I bent a finger subtly motioning for Sumo to takedown with prejudice. The dog happily obeyed. Mister Smiley would still be breathing in a few minutes, but he would no longer be a threat. Not to me nor anyone else in the area. As Sumo cleared the barricade, I saw the asshole’s expression go pasty white.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I volunteered several of the people now out on the front lawns of their homes to help dismantle the roadblock. I’d half expected Carol to flee back to the safety of her own home, but she came and stood beside me. Her face shined with a new expression, a confidence I hadn’t seen before. She walked over to where Smiley was sitting; Sumo had done a job on him. His back rested against a large metal trash bin. She kicked him hard, then spat on him. He began to wretch and we both turned away.

  “I take it you aren’t friends,” I said, taking off my helmet.

  She shook her head. “Government asshole. He proclaimed all the resources here as community property as soon as the shit went down.”

  “Did that include the women?”

  She just glared, but it was obvious things were heading in that direction, if not there already.

  “Being single in this neighborhood wasn’t safe, even before the attack. Do you know what happened? These guys took all the local routers offline, said we could be tracked, so I haven’t even been able to reach out to my son.”

  I nodded, unwilling to say more out here. Judging by the expression on the formerly smiling man, someone she had called Murphy, he was not well loved. No one was bothering to tend to his wounds. The deep cuts Sumo had left were weeping dark blood. I shrugged; he was no danger to anyone now. I left him with the trash. Carol was walking ahead, pulling her wagon full of groceries. I quietly asked Ada to secure the truck and then for Sumo to guard our own supplies. I turned to follow Carol; I was determined to get the information on the pharma lab. She walked just a few houses back from the entrance and turned into a modest two-story home.

  She motioned me inside, much of her hostility toward me gone. I carried in as many of the groceries as I could manage into her kitchen. Another woman was there holding a kid’s baseball bat. She and Carol hugged, then she turned to look at me. “You’re Sergeant Kovach.”

  So much for all my attempts at privacy, I thought.

  I was too stunned to even speak for a few minutes. I let the two women catch-up first. Soon I learned the other woman was Carol’s neighbor, Damiana Voss. Ms. Voss had been previously assigned to Dr. Reichert’s team as something like an administrative assistant, but that didn’t quite fit her assertive demeanor.

  “Reichert’s not here, is he? I mean, was this where…”

  Damiana cut her eyes toward Carol, then shook her head. “No, this is just a research site.”

  I could tell she was lying. This was a bio-weapons facility, and I was probably one of those weapons. At least partially built here.

  “I need to find the pharma labs for building J-7.”

  Realization seemed to dawn on the other woman. She looked at Carol. “The Bio lab’s on the east side.” Looking back at me, she asked, “How long do you have?”

  Damiana was attractive, brunette, glasses, with a runner’s body and a look that could likely freeze men in their tracks. I wanted to be aloof, say something witty. None of that came out. The truth was quickly becoming too frightening for me. “Just over a month.” I’d taken the last of my meds the previous day. “Assuming I keep my stress levels in check.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, that speeds it up, right? Could have been worse. I’m sure some of them were due within days of the attack.”

  “So, can you help me? Do you know where the med packs would be?”

  She began unpacking the supplies her friend had brought. “Maybe, but no guarantees.” She stopped what she was doing and turned to face me. “But I want something in return.”

  I motioned behind me. “I just got rid of your local thugs. Isn’t that enough?”

  Damiana gave a grim smile. “They were just a nuisance, Kovach, not a serious threat. Murphy is the only one with any brains. He was most of these guys’ boss at Iron River.”

  “Iron River?”

  “Yes, Hammer Industries, Iron River Research Center.”

  “Oh?’ I said questioningly.

  Her face broke into a smile. “Yeah, Murphy was co-director for one of the main labs in J-7”

  No fucking way. Jesus H. Christ. Joseph Kovach, you are an imbecile. I struggled to regain some control. “So, what is it you want from me?”

  “If we help you get your meds, you take us with you.”

  Before I could object, she continued.

  “We aren’t safe here. Not just because you killed all those guys either, although more of them are here. Murphy will regroup and come at us hard for bringing you here. Carol needs to find her son. He was spending the week with his dad down in Atlanta. I just need to get somewhere…” she trailed off briefly. “Somewhere else, somewhere safer.”

  She moved around the counter to look at me. “Most of the rumors I’ve been hearing. Well…I’m not sure any of us are safe here anymore.”

  I hadn’t planned on going anywhere except maybe out of the immediate blast zones. Maybe to see if Deb’s sister had survived. I sure hadn’t planned on taking stragglers with me. Still, whatever had killed those people back in the labs was out here, maybe more than one. People in this subdivision knew the dark horrors Iron River held, and now they were all scared. I had to consider Voss’s offer.

  “My truck is on its last legs. The batteries are ancient. I just need to get some doses of my meds and reunite with my squad.”

  “What about your father?” Damiana asked.

  She obviously knew a great deal about me. I pinged Ada to see if she could feed me the intel on Damiana.