A premonition alerted Steele, making his hackles rise. Steele ducked behind the wall, peeking up to see motion behind the bank. Something metallic shoved broken lumber out of the way. Steele saw it clearly then. That was what Jones must have been warning him about.

  The bipedal robot was upright like a man. Instead of hands, it had a buzz saw on the left and a blinking red orifice on the right: the nozzle to an integral pulse rifle. The buzz saw had a wicked blade, able to cut through just about anything. That included BPC armor, flesh and bone. He’d seen people shredded in seconds, splashing far too much blood onto the killer robot.

  Steele eased his head behind the concrete wall. Bipedal robots could track through sound, regular sight, infrared vision and chemical odors.

  Steele started crawling along the base of the wall.

  After crawling thirty yards to a place out of sight of the combat robot, Steele climbed to his feet. He was a youngish thirty-eight. He had washed-out blue eyes that made many people uncomfortable if aimed at them.

  It was impossible to shed blood, to kill others, and remain the same. Mike Steele was a killer. There was no doubt about that. But he wasn’t a murderer. He fought for a cause, a noble objective.

  Steele wanted to live free like his heroes. His father had fed him a diet that included William Tell, the Swiss crossbowman who had fought the lowlander Austrian knights. There was Daniel Boone the Frontiersman and George Washington, who as a boy could not tell a lie.

  Such heroes of Western Civilization were alien to the corporation CEOs. Steele wanted his son and whatever woman he eventually married to live free and raise their children in the type of society that had originally made America awesome.

  The Corpocratists had other ideas, starting with a hatred of people having their own guns and government.

  Steele had a set belief: better to die on your feet with a gun in hand against insane odds than die on your belly in an internment camp as some sadistic guard beat you to death.

  That was the essence of the Western States of America—a big middle finger to the Corpocratists, the ones who tried to rule the planet.

  Since the Nuclear War of 2050, soverists all over the world had risen up in resistance against the corporations. From the Russians, the English and the Australians to the Koreans, free people had made a stand…as belated and hard pressed as it was.

  “Sir.”

  Steele whirled around as he raised his assault rifle. Voice recognition took over. Sergeant Jones stood inside a broken doorway in the shadows to his left.

  First Sergeant Jones was older than Steele by four years, making him an ancient forty-two. The sergeant had gray grizzle, leathery skin and the squarest of jaws. A lens from the helmet covered the sergeant’s right eye. He cradled another RPG.

  “Did you see the walker?” Jones asked.

  Steele nodded before waving his hand toward the next street. It was time to set up a kill zone. They had to destroy the “walkers,” as the sergeant called them, if they were going to get the governor out of Reno.

  She had returned from the east, from occupied territory. In the east, she’d spoken to resistance people who had been up in one of the orbital stations. Steele wasn’t supposed to know that, but he did. High Command needed the governor’s specialist intelligence so they could make a commando strike against one of the orbitals.

  If the WSA was going to survive, it needed to get its hands on some orbital nukes. Otherwise, it would be game over in another year or two.

  Steele anticipated High Command might choose his team for the orbital-strike mission.

  A few minutes later, Steele and Jones made it to the rendezvous point. Fifteen soldiers waited for them. There were another one hundred and thirty-six effectives in the strike company scattered throughout the area. Hopefully, the governor already headed for Lieutenant Martinez’s rendezvous point. There used to be a battalion’s worth of soldiers under Steele’s command. Three years of heavy fighting had winnowed them down to the last survivors, the hard-to-kill killers, those with the unteachable skills that made them a deadly menace to the enemy.

  “On your feet,” the sergeant said.

  The men rose silently, collecting their equipment.

  Steele spread out a map on an old table. This place looked as if it had once been a restaurant. Three years ago, he would have used a tablet. Enemy electronics had jumped light-years ahead of them, playing havoc with their equipment. It had mandated a return to older ways.

  Steele waited. No scouts reported a sign of robots—there was just the one walker he’d seen earlier. Maybe this was an opportunity to put some separation between them and the enemy. That would be even better than a kill zone.

  Soon, they headed out, weaving through the rubble past broken buildings. Reno was a shell of what it used to be. The western states used to have an air force of sorts. Old, mothballed but refurbished drones had taken on the Corpocratists’ fighters and held their own for a time.

  The orbital stations with their lasers had changed all that. If the WSA could grab a few of those, maybe they could tip the balance the other way.

  Steele didn’t dwell on that too much. Many people on their side had started giving up lately. The odds had become too long, the bipedal robots too deadly and becoming too numerous to withstand.

  Steele prided himself on staring facts in the face. But sometimes a man needed faith. Certainly, life without honor was no life at all.

  Steele gave the sergeant a small signal.

  “Halt,” Jones said.

  The men must have heard more in the sergeant’s voice. They fell out, most of them slumping onto the ground to grab what rest they could while they were able.

  Jones stepped near. “Trouble, sir?”

  Steele pointed into the distance at a soldier waving a blue flag.

  “It’s the all clear signal,” Jones said.

  Steele nodded.

  “So…?” Jones asked.

  “The walkers should have attacked us by now. We toasted several hunter-killers. It’s beginning to feel as if the Corpocratists are holding back on us.”

  Jones gave him a longer than normal stare.

  Steele imagined the sergeant was thinking, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  The colonel considered that as he dug a handkerchief out of a pocket. He mopped his sweaty face. It was hot like the middle of Central California where he’d grown up, not as it should be up here in the mountains.

  He recognized that he was dead tired. Despite taking plenty of vitamin C, he recognized the onset of altitude sickness. It always took him a few days to acclimatize to the higher altitudes. Lots of vitamin C normally counteracted the sickness.

  Steele looked back the way they’d come. The walkers should have sent out scouts, at least, sniping at them, making this a running fight. He craned his neck, looking at the soldier in the distance wave the blue flag one more time.

  The colonel looked around. It suddenly felt wrong because… No birds flew in the air. No dogs barked. No cats scampered from view.

  Steele wiped his face again. It was hot. But why was he sweating this much?

  He examined his men. They all sweated heavily. Sergeant Jones was sweating profusely.

  Tentatively, Steele sniffed, testing the air.

  “What is it, sir?” Jones asked.

  “Does the air smell funny to you?”

  The sergeant sniffed, his big nostrils flaring. Jones looked at him sharply. “Bastards,” he said. “They’re using gas instead of bullets.”

  The big man reached for his kit, no doubt to dig out a gas mask. As he did, Sergeant Jones crashed onto his knees.

  -43-

  Steele inhaled, listening to the sound of his harsh breathing as he tried to escape the trap.

  The world swam before him as he staggered. He wore a gas mask. So did Sergeant Jones beside him. How much gas had he inhaled before he donned the mask? Were his men dead or simply unconscious?

  Steele concentrated, forcing himself to focus on the present task. He had to warn the rest of the company. If the gas had reached the others, he and Jones would have to find the governor and carry her to safety.

  The colonel stumbled over a rock with his left foot and sprawled onto the ground. He couldn’t see the immediate ground very well due to the gas mask. Wearing these masks debilitated soldiers faster than normal. Sometimes, the actual gas had less effect on well-trained troops than having to wear masks for hours on end.

  Big Sergeant Jones hauled him effortlessly to his feet.

  “Sir,” the sergeant shouted, his voice muffled by the mask. “Are you okay?”

  Steele took a wide stance as he lowered his head. The enemy wanted the governor. They used bipedal robots and now gas. That must mean they wanted her alive. That was worse than wanting a person dead. The Corpocratists played filthy games with drugs, shock treatment, and hypnosis. The Corpocratists loved to degrade their enemies.

  Steele balled his hands into fists, the nails digging into his palms. He’d taken off his gloves some time ago. By force of will, he tried to counteract the gas in his system. He was groggy. It was hard to think. But he’d be damned if he simply slumped over unconscious.

  “Let’s go,” he said in a slurred voice.

  “I’m right behind you,” Jones said.

  Steele forced himself to take the first step. The second was easier and the third no trouble at all.

  The two WSA soldiers moved through a street in Reno, one big like a club, the other lean like a rapier. Each was deadly in his own way.

  “Mike,” the sergeant said.

  Steele kept trudging.

  “Mike,” the sergeant said again, grabbing him.

  Steele turned around, staring at the big man.

  “What’s the plan?” Jones asked. “We’re just walking. The others are back there.”

  Right, right, what was wrong with him? The gas is affecting my thinking. I have to save the men.

  Steele cradled his assault rifle, moving past the sergeant as he headed back the way they had come.

  “Hey,” Jones said, grabbing him a second time. “What’s the plan? Where are you going?”

  “The men…” Steele said.

  “You going to fight off the walkers all by your lonesome with that peashooter?” asked Jones.

  “No. The two of us are.”

  Something in the way the sergeant stiffened alerted the colonel. He spun around and saw it right away, a walker with its sickening lurching step. The thing must have tracked them.

  Steele hit the ground, aimed the assault rifle—

  “Slow down,” Jones said, as the big man lay beside him, bringing up his RPG.

  Another walker appeared from around a building’s corner.

  “We have to slip away,” Steele said. One walker they might be able to disable, but not two in the open like this.

  Jones grunted his agreement.

  At that point, it was too late. The first walker must have spotted them. The robot aimed its pulse-orifice “hand,” firing a whiny red bolt. The robot was not only fast but also accurate. The energetic pulse melted the barrel of the assault rifle.

  Steele shouted in alarm as heat radiated from his rifle. He rolled away before the intense heat burned his palms. He rolled, leaving his now useless weapon on the ground.

  A whoosh and a streak of movement told of the shape-charged grenade leaving its launcher. The missile sped fast, but never made it to target. The second walker’s pulse-orifice glowed red, and a bolt of energy struck the swiftly moving grenade. It exploded, thrown off course.

  “Go left!” Steele shouted. “Get out of here!”

  As the colonel scrambled off the ground, he sprinted to the right. He dug out his sidearm, hurdled debris and thudded hard enough so his teeth clacked together. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the dreaded walker beginning to pick up speed as it started running after him. The robot had a springy manner similar to a Thompson’s Gazelle from the nature shows.

  There was no outrunning a walker. Steele knew that in his thinking brain. His gut instincts were another matter. He had to get out of here the way a rabbit had to flee a wolf.

  “Balls!” he snarled.

  The colonel slid to a stop, turned around, went down on one knee and raised the heavy pistol. He aimed at the sprinting walker. The other one chased Sergeant Jones.

  Behind his gas mask, Steele ground his teeth. There was one chance to stop this thing, and that was hitting the eye-ports in the metallic head. The eye-ports led to the guiding computer circuitry. Such a shot was easier to say than do, though, but it was doubly so close than far away.

  The robot raced at him, the pulse-orifice aimed at his body. The—

  Steele cocked his head to the left. The walker lacked a buzz saw “hand.” That was weird. It had clackers instead of a buzz saw, two metal pinchers like a great big bug.

  Why doesn’t it fire at me?

  A primordial fear welled up in Steele. He didn’t want to die this way. He hated the robots. He hated that his side was losing the war. He—

  “Die!” he shouted. He pulled the trigger deliberately, firing each shot at the head.

  One bullet after another sparked against the metal head. It didn’t slow down the walker any. The shots didn’t knock the head back as it would if this was a movie.

  “Just one lucky shot,” Steele whispered. He pulled the trigger—click.

  He was out of bullets.

  The walker was almost on him. The instinct to get up and run away was nearly overpowering. Instead, with his thumb, Steele clicked a button, ejected the magazine, and began the process of inserting another.

  The walker reached him then. The robot stood six feet one, a metallic skeletal nightmare. It stared down at him as he looked up at its red eyes. There were marks on the metal head where the bullets had struck. At least he’d made a few dents. That was better than nothing.

  The robot used its metal pincers and plucked the pistol out of his hands.

  Steele rose to his feet with an animalistic growl. He launched himself at the walker. It swatted him with the integral rifle, sending him flying, rolling over on the ground.

  Steele tried to get up as his ribs throbbed with pain from the strike. Had the thing broken some ribs? Before he could stand, the walker tore the gas mask from his face, hurling it to the side.

  The two combatants were face-to-face.

  Slowly, with his left hand, as Steele kept eye-to-eye-port contact with the thing, he reached for his belt, for a grenade there. Maybe he could destroy it as he died.

  A snick sounded, and a piece of metal slid aside from the walker’s chest-plate. This was a new development. A nozzle poked out. Green gas jetted, some of it reaching the colonel’s face.

  Steele’s eyes widened with understanding. He held his breath, and realized bitterly that it was too late. The world swam before him. He grabbed the grenade, trying to yank out the pin.

  The walker plucked the grenade from him, hurling it away.

  That was the second-to-last thing Steele remembered. Hitting the ground with his right cheek was the last thing.

  -44-

  Steele was so terribly groggy, and he felt sick as his gut churned.

  “Is this the colonel?” someone asked.

  That clicked a relay in Steele’s mind. Time had passed. Slowly, he peeled an eyelid open.

  A gruff Corpocratist—a sergeant by the insignia—ran a gloved hand over his hair. Steele realized the soldier tried to grab his hair, but it was too short for a grip. The soldier put a gloved hand behind his head, forcing it up.

  For a moment, Steele groggily eyed the Nevada governor standing behind the soldier. Steele wanted to groan, but was too exhausted. He could barely concentrate as things were. They had her. They…

  The governor wore a blue Corpocratist jacket over her shoulders. Underneath, she wore dusty, dirt-stained garments and had streaks of grime on her face. She was a tall woman in her late thirties and was professionally attractive. It had helped her win reelection as governor last time.

  Someone out of Steele’s narrow field of vision handed the governor a wet rag.

  The governor smiled as she accepted it. She wiped her face clean, handed back the rag and accepted a comb. She began to comb her long dark hair as if she was at home before her vanity.

  “Excuse me,” the sergeant asked in a deferential way. “But is that the colonel?”

  The governor handed back the comb and glanced at Steele. She nodded. “It’s him.”

  “I wouldn’t ask, but we have to capture the colonel,” the sergeant explained. “I was told that’s critical.”

  The governor put her hands on her hips. “I already told you it’s him.” She turned to an unseen person. “I’m starving. Do you have anything to eat?”

  Steele didn’t hear the reply, as the sergeant set the back of his head down on the pavement. The governor walked out of sight. Something about her manner seemed out of place. Was she fraternizing with the enemy? No. It seemed worse than that. It…

  Steele forced his neck muscles to obey his will. Slowly, he turned his head, staring into the unmoving face of Daniel Leatherwood, one of his elite team. The Apache sniper lay beside him. Was Daniel dead?

  Steele saw the nostrils twitch. That meant Daniel inhaled ever so slightly.

  With another act of will, he turned his head again. It felt as if the world revolved in a weird panorama. Ruined buildings merged into clouds in the sky, which merged with the sun, which—

  His head stopped moving. He saw an unconscious Sergeant Jones beside him. The soldier was laid out like a big game animal. Maybe they were all laid out like that.

  What does it mean?

  Steele’s eyelids fluttered as he tried to make sense of things. The governor—the Corpocratist need for his capture—the…

  What little strength Steele possessed dribbled away as darkness descended over his thoughts.