Under Dark Sky Law (5 page)

After approaching the gates, a pair of armed
guards looked her up in the roster, scanned her vehicle, and
scanned her retinas for identity. They looked like new
recruits—they were overly formal and gruff. It was hard to hear
intonation over the static from their gas mask communicators, but
she thought she could hear fear in their voice. From their body
language and the slight shudder in their words, she guessed this
could be their first day out of the domes, and they were terrified
of their gas masks slipping and inhaling some of the toxic air in
the domes. They used to make the dome soldiers practice taking off
their masks and breathing for a few minutes out in the pits or
flats, but the practice had been deemed barbaric and dangerous by
most states. It was a bad move in Xero’s opinion, but it would give
her an advantage if another civil war broke out between her people
and the dome drones.

After sitting through more pointless
inspections and unnecessarily rough handling from some of the new
recruits, she was finally led inside to the center of the compound
to the commanding officer’s inner domain. One of them pushed her
roughly into a battered and uncomfortable metal chair that stood in
front of an oversized steel desk. They were lucky she was in a good
mood—out in the pits Xero was the boss, and she didn’t care for
being shoved around like a nobody. People had died for less, but
she held her tongue for the moment.

A man with camo pants, a drab olive shirt,
and a military cap walked into the room and put his hands on his
hips, just above an impressive array of laser holsters.

“Well if it isn’t Anastasia,” he said. “Damn,
you really went all out today—you look like the secretary of my
dreams. If I didn’t know what a dangerous bitch you really are, I
would ask you to get down on your knees behind the desk there and
give me some sugar!”

Xero stared back at him, giving him dead
eyes.

He swallowed and pulled at his shirt collar.
“Damn girl, don’t take things so seriously, lighten up a little for
god’s sake,” he said.

A broad smile spread across her face and she
stood up. “Had you there for a second, didn’t I?” she said.

He laughed and released a lungful of air.
“Bitch, you fucking scared me. These noobs around here might not
have any idea, but I’ve seen some of the shit you’ve done. Even I
don’t wanna tangle with that kind of mess,” he said.

“Sanchez, you never change,” she said and
gave the man the sort of rough hug two old army buddies give after
surviving one too many battles.

“Good to see you. There’s some shit going
down on the opposite end of the flats. I’m pretty sure it’s all
localized, but I’m still glad we’ve got you on the convoy today. I
did a stint out in Texas earlier this month, and some of them
runner’s are just straight up idiots. Thought I’d never make it
back to Arizona in one piece with those morons along for the ride,”
he said.

She stepped back and rested her ass on the
edge of his desk. “Speaking of morons, what kind of an operation
are you running here?” she asked.

Sanchez put his hand on the back of his head
and ruffled the buzz cut poking out from under his hat. “Oh, you
mean the new recruits? Yeah I’m not happy about this either. I’ve
asked HQ time and again not to put any raw dome soldiers out at
this post, given how highly contaminated this place is. It’s
getting to the point where even I have to wear a mask if we’re out
there too long. Ever since they passed that law last year
forbidding anyone from doing field shock runs, it’s harder to train
these assholes. And I don’t have to tell you how tight things have
been politically—it’s getting nearly impossible to pull more
flatties into the service, even if it means getting them out of
this hellhole,” he said and paused, looking her up and down a few
times.

A strand of the blond wig fell across one of
her eyes. “What? You think I know something?”

“I know you run in a lot of circles, and I
know you’re one clever bitch, so yeah, maybe you do,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Sanchez, I run with the
pits crews—they trust us even less than you guys. We’re the lucky
ones that have more freedom out in the pits because we can survive.
They hate us here, and I’m visible enough as a Grease Weasel that
unless I’m incognito, everyone recognizes me. Why do you think we
have our base of operations here by that god awful river? We need
to stay away from the main population as much as possible,” she
said.

Sanchez gave a small, awkward laugh. “You’re
right, I was just wondering if maybe you’d gathered some intel,” he
said.

She shook her head. “I was hoping you had
more info—transmitters work for shit down by the river, and all I
heard was that there was some kind of skirmish on the other end of
the dome,” she said.

He walked around the desk and took a seat in
a much comfier looking office chair. Xero swiveled and dumped
herself back into the uncomfortable metal contraption on her
side.

He folded his hands and rested his elbows
against the table. “From the looks of things, it’s just another
political uprising—like I said, they’ve been real restless lately.
I’ve got work crews fragmented all over the place, which is why
we’ve got so many of these goddamn idiot recruits all over the
place at the base today. Don’t worry, we’ll have a few old timers
on the convoy back to the Phoenix dome. Hey, speaking of which,
where’s the rest of your crew?” he said.

She sighed. “Oh, you haven’t heard? A few of
my regulars are injured, and they had to stay behind on this
mission. HQ approved a run with diminished staff, since we’re just
heading out to Yuma. I’ve got one more guy that’s supposed to be on
his way. We had a little trouble down by the waterfront last night,
which I think is probably related to whatever this uprising is
about. He’ll be along later after business is taken care of,” she
said.

Sanchez looked suspicious, but he nodded, and
Xero was thankful he was willing to let it go. He was wise enough
to know that some things were best left unexplained. She trusted
the man, but only so far, and vice versa. He was still a dome
drone, even if he was one of the better ones. The ones that came
from the flats always had a little more perspective on just what
it’s like to live life on the fringes, but in some ways they were
still unstable—you never knew if they might turn on you when the
time was right.

He leaned back again and put his feet up on
the desk. “Well Anastasia, your transformations never cease to
amaze me,” he said. At one point he had seen her out in the pits,
in her natural environment, in her normal clothing and make-up.
He’d almost shat himself when he saw the florescent green
Mohawk.

She rolled her eyes. “You always have to call
me that. You know I don’t go by that name anymore,” she said. A lot
of the personnel only knew her official name, but she’d spent
enough time in the trenches with Sanchez that it felt weird to have
him call her that.

He stretched his arms back farther over his
head. “You know I have to go by the books around here. Can’t let
them think we’re fraternizing or something like that,” he said and
winked.

“Right, heaven forbid,” she said
sarcastically, but it really was a big problem. She was pretty sure
they basically lopped off your dick in the decon process if you
fucked anyone from the pits. He widened his eyes at her, partially
in jest, but there was some genuine fear there.

She smirked. “Don’t worry, I don’t kiss and
tell,” she said.

He put his feet back on the floor. “I know,”
he said and paused. “Alright, enough of this chit chat. Let’s get
this show on the road before any other shit hits the fan.”

CHAPTER 6

She was visibly more comfortable once they
were out of the flats and back out in the wilds. Even though
technically the air was worse, she was more accustomed to the
particular mix of dust and pollution out in the pits, and there was
another critical difference—everyone out there knew she was the
boss, and you’d have to be completely stupid to fuck with her in
her own territory.

Sanchez was at the wheel of the black
tactical vehicle, a full-face gas mask pulled over his head. “Yeah,
you know these budget cuts are murder—we can’t even get the
clearance to oxygenate and filter the whole cabin while we’re
driving anymore. It’s total bullshit. You can barely see the road
clearly with one of these things on,” he said over the mask’s
intercom.

Xero was wondering how much of it was budget
cuts, and how much of it was dwindling resources. From the looks of
the river running through the flats, shit was not going well on the
environmental front. Maybe things would change in her lifetime
after all.

“You want me to drive?” she said.

He scoffed. “Nah, I’ve gotten used to it, and
my CO would have my head if he knew I surrendered a vehicle to a
runner before being processed in the dome. Be thankful we won the
fight to let you guys hang onto weapons prior to an actual supply
run. We’ll be there shortly anyway,” he said.

After too many expensive hunks of cargo had
gone missing they had reevaluated the weapons policy, and three
years ago they’d finally agreed to let lasers get issued to the pit
runners. It made runs that much more fun. Usually she only got to
play with lasers when they were on illegal missions inside the dome
where laser tracking was far less controlled. She loved new toys,
especially ones that go boom.

“Thanks for the weapons upgrade, by the by. I
haven’t actually gotten my hands on one of these babies yet,” she
said and patted the shiny white laser gun on her hip. “I bet this
thing could smoke someone on the other side of the desert.”

He nodded. “Fuck yeah! I don’t know how we
can afford these new upgraded lasers when we can’t afford oxygen,
but I’ll take it. Just be careful—they’re powerful enough that
there’s actually some recoil on them, like the old six shooters,”
he said.

She smiled and leaned her head up against the
window. “Won’t be a problem for me. I learned how to shoot with
real weapons, long before these plastic things became the norm. Any
true weapon’s specialist should know how to handle a real gun,” she
said.

“Damn right,” he said. “These kids nowadays
get to cheat. Any bastard can pull off a half decent shot with some
of these fancy lasers.” She had seen his skills with old school
weapons, and he had the ability to back up his words with action.
He wasn’t as good as she was, of course, but still, not bad. Good
enough for her to trust him to cover her back in a firefight at
least.

The desert in this area was peaceful, but so
barren that it made her sad. The saguaro cactus in this area hadn’t
had enough time to recover and adapt properly to the influx of
pollution like they had further south in the remains of the
national forest. The lack of vegetation made for a very different
desert than it was down in the Tucson pits where the cactus and
Palo Verde had managed to grow and mutate in response to the
environmental challenges. She usually just accepted how things
were, but there was something about the destruction of her desert
that hit home. Still, even through the insulated walls and tinted
windows of the car, she could feel the heat of the desert reaching
through the windows, and she smiled at being able to escape the
chill sulfuric air of the flats.

Her eyes were focused on finding the last
bits of scrubby bushes clinging to small bits of the landscape when
the back of the vehicle reared up and tipped them towards the
windshield.

“Fuck!” Xero said, cursing at herself for
letting her guard down.

The vehicle teetered on its nose for a few
minutes before giving way to physics and completing its pitch
forward. Thank god for seatbelts and safety cages. They landed
upside down, but uninjured, and the vehicle seemed to be
maintaining its shape under the weight of its own bulk.

Without any further words, they looked at
each other and jumped into action. They released their seatbelts
and got to the new bottom of the vehicle with limited awkwardness
and no injuries. The vehicle was sinking into the sand, wedging the
door shut.

“Watch your eyes,” Sanchez said, and fired a
shot into the windshield. Safety glass sprayed around the interior
of the car, and they scrambled out through the new opening in the
glass. They assumed tactical positions on either side of the
vehicle, and she was extremely happy that she had Sanchez with her
instead of one of those idiot recruits. They knew how each other
worked, and they knew that the other could be trusted to react
properly in an attack. It was the next best thing to being with one
of the Grease Weasels.

There as another of the tactical vehicles
wedged behind their toppled vehicle, and from the plates and
government markings, she knew it was one of theirs. At first she
thought perhaps it was just one of the new recruits not knowing how
to drive through the thick sand, but when she saw a skeleton exit
the driver’s side of the door, there was no doubt about what was
happening. Hot sand seeped into her shoes, and she was immediately
pissed off at her impractical attire. She kicked off the pumps and
left them in the dust.

She took aim with the new laser at the place
where the skeleton’s Calaca suit had a flaw in the armor. It was
only a miniscule gap—right at the joint between the throat and the
clavicle notch. She squeezed the trigger, ready for the realistic
recall that Sanchez had warned her about. Her shot hit its mark and
the skeleton’s head exploded clean off its torso. Xero was a
seasoned combat veteran, but the decapitation even took her by
surprise. She’d never seen something like that from such a small
laser. Sanchez hadn’t been kidding. This thing was probably strong
enough to pierce a Calaca suit, albeit likely with far less
dramatic effects than she’d just seen.