The vacation rental Frida had acquired for them as a base of operations turned out to be a modern, auto-fabbed dwelling built into the side of a rocky hill and surrounded by a well-manicured copse of pine trees. When Juliet climbed out of the SUV and took in the scene, she felt instantly at ease, the cool, pine-scented air triggering some kind of stress relief in her primal self. The driveway was rough gravel, and her steps crunched as she hoisted out her duffel bag and started toward the house, leaving Barns and Hawkins to wrap things up with the driver.
The house was constructed from extruded materials—white metallic polymer and molded glass—with a peaked metallic roof made of the same stuff. Though the color was bright, in the shade of the trees, it blended nicely with the rocky hillside, and the glow of warm lights through the windows gave it a very appealing, welcoming look. Juliet liked the vibe. She went inside, admired the cozy gas fireplace and long, deeply cushioned couches, then promptly claimed one of the bedrooms, chucking her duffel on the bed.
The others were getting settled as she explored the kitchen, finding the fridge stocked with deli meats, cheeses, coconut yogurt, two cold but cooked rotisserie chickens, and lots and lots of energy drinks and beer. Juliet took out one of the chickens and a can of beer and proceeded to slice off chunks of cold meat while waiting for the others to finish looking around.
Barns was the first to join her, sitting at the counter and frowning. “Beer? Thought we were going into town.”
“Really? You’re judging me? It’s one light beer, and it looked too damn good.”
“Well, toss me one, then.” He wriggled his eyebrows, and Juliet laughed, turning to the fridge and pulling out another can. “And gimme one of those plates. I’m starved.”
Juliet complied, but as she slid the plate in front of him, she held up the carving knife. “Ask me to cut you some chicken, and I’ll start with removing one of those stubby fingers.”
“Chill out, killer,” he chuckled, holding out his hand for the knife. Juliet flipped it, caught the blade, and slapped the handle into his meaty palm.
Dora entered the kitchen from a different exterior door and caught Juliet’s eye. “The SUV’s in the garage, along with my netjacking rig. Guess they couldn’t get it through any of the exterior doors. Rather you parked outside; I want to disable the garage door so we don’t have to worry about people sneaking up on me when I’m in the rig.”
“Sounds good.” Juliet drained her beer, crunching it into a little ball with her cybernetic hand, and then tossing the aluminum ball to bounce off Barns’s forehead. She caught it on the rebound and couldn’t help laughing as his weird cyborg eyes regarded her. “Sorry,” she said, after her initial giggle, “first aluminum can I’ve had in a while.”
“Whatever. I owe you one, though.” With that, he tucked a considerable piece of cold chicken into his mouth and stood up. He gestured toward the garage door and raised an eyebrow.
Juliet also stood. “All right, Dora, we’re gonna head into town. You and Hawkins need anything, just hit us up on comms.”
“Roger,” the compact, short-haired woman replied as she unpacked a large, carefully wrapped data deck from her hard-shelled case. She didn’t even look up as Juliet and Barns walked through the door into the garage.
“Where’s Hawkins?” Juliet asked, scanning the surprisingly large space. It reminded her of garages you’d see in vid streams featuring happy families—room for two cars, tools lined along one wall, and everything neat and tidy. The “SUV” was old and built for offroading. It had a soft top stretched over a rollbar that could be removed, big knobby tires, and paint that had not been babied—scratches and dings galore.
Dora’s pod sat in the other parking spot, looking like a grownup version of Juliet’s dream-rig. A thick cable connected it to the power and sat-net lines, and Juliet could hear the thing burbling as its built-in refrigerant cooled the interior gel. When Dora did her netjacking, she’d lower her body temp to protect her brain as the specialized data port in her skull interfaced with the network.
“Perimeter sweep. He’ll find a spot to camp out and keep an eye on things.”
Juliet had been so engrossed in her thoughts about Dora’s rig that she almost forgot she’d asked about Hawkins. She looked at Barns for a second until it clicked, then nodded. “You wanna drive?” She gestured to the SUV.
“Shit yeah.” Five minutes later, they were rolling down the gravel road, heading out of the foothills to the newly rebuilt highway that would take them into the town proper.
Juliet scanned the countryside and caught her first glimpse of one of the massive reclamation machines in the distance. Barns saw where she was looking and pulled the SUV to the side of the road so they could watch it for a minute. The thing looked like a factory on treads. She watched as the great, automated monstrosity rolled into the side of an ancient concrete building, grinding it under its treads and gobbling up the metal, concrete, plastic, and everything else, processing it in its maw and leaving a streak of freshly turned, soft soil in its wake. “Jesus Christ,” Barns whispered. “Where’s all the shit go?”
“I’m not sure . . .” Juliet’s words trailed off in wonder.
Angel was quick to fill her in: “Those machines have vats of nanite-enriched chemical solvents that can break down just about any substance. The machine grinds up materials, sorts them by density and chemical composition, and then feeds them into various processing tanks. The end results are pellets of raw materials that can be unloaded and used in the construction of new buildings and roads.”
“My PAI just told me they break them—”
“Yeah, my PAI is giving me a science lesson right now, too,” Barns chuckled. He put the vehicle back into gear and started down the road, and the rumble of the enormous machine faded.
“How big is the Colorado Protectorate compared to the old state?” Juliet subvocalized.
“It's much smaller. It’s just about a fifth of the size,” Angel responded. “A large part of the remainder has been claimed by the Midwest Territory, which is owned and governed primarily by corporations based in Chicago. Still, more was abandoned as uninhabitable after the wars, but the Protectorate has plans to attempt reclamation using automated systems much like the machine you just saw.”
“Crazy.” Juliet’s mind started to turn down dark roads again, thinking about war and devastation, but those thoughts were cut short as they rounded a bend and came onto a straight road leading to the new highway. She could see Boulder’s larger buildings off to the left in the valley-like depression of a wide canyon that seemed to lead right into the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
Barns picked up speed, and soon, the old SUV hummed along the highway amid other vehicles in relatively light traffic. Juliet could easily pick out Boulder’s single megastructure—it was shaped like an inverted pyramid and featured lots of glossy black solar panels and open levels boasting veritable jungles of greenery. It was almost alien-looking in the shadow of the mountains, and Juliet smiled for the first time in a while, pleased by the beauty and form of something built by people. It might have taken multiple disastrous wars to bring it about, but she liked how Boulder looked.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Where we going?” Barns asked as they passed into the city proper.
Juliet sent him the address of the farmers' cooperative where Tanaka had observed Ghoul’s caravan stopping. “We’ll start there.”
“A co-op? We buying veggies?”
“Nah, but I wanna scope it out. Might lead to my contact.”
“Huh.” Barns knew better than to ask her about her contact; the team had all been briefed on the compartmental nature of any intel on this job, and it wasn’t really anything new to them. “Be nice if you’d give me an idea of what to look for. I mean, when it comes to watching your back.”
“Just don’t let anyone who sets off your heebie-jeebies get close to me without me knowing.”
“My heebies, huh?” He snorted, turning to eye her with his implacable, strange, multi-lensed cyborg eyes.
“You must be able to see through just about anything with those optics. Can you tell when someone’s lying?”
She was half-joking, but he nodded. “If I pay enough attention, I can see micro dilations in blood vessels, contractions of muscles, concentrated blood flow, even heart palpitations. 'Course, it all means jack-shit to me, but my PAI has some algorithms it can run. If I watch a person long enough for a baseline, yeah, they won’t be getting any lies past me.”
“Oh, shit.” Juliet laughed. “That means you know I’m bluffing whenever I reject your constant attempts to get into my bunk.” She couldn’t keep her voice straight, and they both laughed.
“Nah, I think you’re quite sincere, but that’s okay; you just don’t know old Barns well enough to know what you’re missing.” He often came onto her, but it was a blunt, joking kind of thing, a lot different than Leo’s behavior when they’d first met. Barns made the same kinds of comments to everyone, including Hawkins and Applebaum, which made them somehow acceptable to Juliet. Like Hawkins or Dora, Juliet had no problem punching or slapping the big mercenary upside the head, and the matter would be dropped.
She eyed his twin handguns jutting out from under his arms—they were high-tech versions of old-school Colt .45s made by a company called Coldsteel Forge, and he often bragged about how only a few hundred were produced yearly. “What caliber do those pistols shoot? I forgot.”
“Ten-mil, but super high-pressure. I’ve got armor-piercing rounds ready to rock. I can put a hole through most body armor.”
Juliet nodded. She’d seen him shoot, and he was as good with a pistol as most operatives with rifles. “Surprised you didn’t try to bring that cannon.”
“To the grocery store? Trying to get me in trouble with the boss?” He nodded toward her belt. “Besides, you’ve got that damn monoblade. Not like we’ve got anything to worry about.”
His mention of the sword and assessment of its capabilities made Juliet wonder, so she asked, “Have you done many jobs with the boss in the field? Or does he usually hang back?”
“Lots and lots. He used to run point. I was kinda bummed when he stayed back on Luna.”
“Baby steps. He’s better, isn’t he?”
“Oh yeah.” He nodded and turned down a wide street with large, warehouse-style buildings on either side. “Shit yeah,” he muttered again, scanning the buildings.
Juliet pointed ahead and to the left where a big, seemingly handpainted sign read “FRONT RANGE HARVEST CO-OP.” “Here we go.”
Barns pulled the SUV into an empty spot on the street, and Juliet hopped out, smiling and nodding at a pair of women who walked by, toting cardboard boxes full of fresh vegetables. There were quite a few cars parked along the warehouse front, and she saw five or ten people milling about near the entrance, but everyone looked relaxed, and she only saw a few sidearms. She felt a little overdressed with her pistol and sword, but she wasn’t going to take either off in a strange city. She looked across the hood to Barns and said, “Why don’t you post up across the street? Smoke a cigarette or something and watch the entrance.”
“Sure, if you buy me some chocolate or a cookie, and if they have any local—”
“Beer?”
“Yeah!”
Juliet laughed and nodded, then unzipped her jacket, suddenly feeling warm in the bright sunlight. She shrugged out of it, tossing it onto her seat, then started for the co-op. She wore a plain, form-fitting, black tank top, and the sun on her shoulders felt great. She’d never been to Colorado before, and she really liked the climate, though she knew she’d feel differently when the sun went behind the clouds. “Yeah, never mind how cold it would get if a storm front moved in.”
“Colorado used to get a lot more snow than it currently does. In decades past, it would be strange to come here in December and not see thick snow on the ground.” As Juliet considered the implications, Angel added, “Not that it’s unlikely they’ll see snow soon, even now. Weather experts are predicting several weeks of it in January and February.”
“Gotcha,” Juliet said, now wondering if her comfort in a tank top was a bad thing. As far as she knew, though, climate alarmists were becoming less and less shrill as the terraforming reactors around the globe worked to repair centuries of damage. Wasn’t Athena to thank for those? She couldn’t remember and didn’t want to get distracted by another side discussion with Angel.
“Welcome in,” an older man with very white hair said, handing her a pamphlet. “It's our newsletter.”
“Oh, uh, thanks.” Juliet took it, smiling, as she stepped into the warehouse. The space inside reminded her of a cross between a supermarket and a swapmeet, and she was surprised by the number of people milling around. She smelled spices, food cooking, and all sorts of pleasant things, like candles and soap, as she slowly walked further into the place, letting her eyes scan the crowd. There was a certain hard edge to the faces around. She saw a lot more beards than she would on Luna or in Tucson, and now that she could get a better look, she realized almost everyone was packing at least a pistol.
She meandered around, walking up and down the aisles and following her nose to a bakery section; if Barns wanted something sweet, she figured she might as well buy something for everyone. She wasn’t exactly sure what she hoped to accomplish other than scoping the place out, but she thought she might ask one of the employees about the commune where Ghoul was living and working. If they made regular stops, she thought Tanaka’s idea of meeting her there was a good one.
When she found the bakery, she gravitated toward a big display table of cookies and was suddenly struck by their wonderful, home-cooked nature. Not a single one was in a plastic clamshell, and the ingredients were listed in plain English on the store-printed labels. “Holy cow, Angel, they really cooked these from local stuff.”
“I see that, and did you notice the aisle of locally brewed beer? Your teammates will be happy this evening.”
Juliet picked up a cardboard carton of “everything” cookies and began reading through the ingredients. They sounded good but also a little too busy for her, so she set it down and reached for some chocolate-chunk ones. That’s when a sharp, masculine voice spoke up behind her, “That thing for real?”
Juliet froze, annoyed with herself for being so distracted, and slowly turned around. A man in a well-worn black leather jacket and jeans regarded her, and his hand rested on the hilt of a plain katana. The grip and the well-worn scuffs on his belt told Juliet he’d been carrying and using that sword for a long time. His stance told her a lot more—he was ready for a fight. If she were slow or stupid, and if he had any speed at all, he could cut her in less than a second. There were quite a few people around, but something in the man’s posture, something about the energy coming off him, seemed to trigger something primal in the bystanders, and they began to clear the area.
Juliet very slowly moved her hand to the hilt of her sword, turning it carefully to expose the marks Tanaka had given her. “Real as real can be, friend.”
He had a thin layer of stubble on his hard, weathered face, and his cold, silver eyes settled on her tattoo. He was probably Tanaka’s age, around forty, but he looked like he’d had a lot harder life. His eyes narrowed as he read the kanji on her forearm, but he didn’t back off. “Anyone can make a tattoo to say anything.”
Juliet tried to warn him again, this time speaking with an edge, letting Lacy Blake slip in behind her eyes. “I’m not here looking to kill anyone. If you’re looking for an easy upgrade to that old sword, this isn’t it.” A few people had lingered nearby, but the entire bakery began to clear out at the sound of her voice. The man swallowed, his eyes flicking down to Juliet’s boots, up to her sword, and then up to her face, meeting her eyes with his, and that’s when she knew she had him; he wasn’t going to try her.
“Right. Well, watch your back.” He took a step back, and as soon as he’d shifted his weight, making it impossible to beat Juliet in a first strike, she whipped her monoblade free and, in a fraction of a second, held its flickering, holographic edge just a centimeter from his stubble-covered neck.
“Was that a threat?”
He’d frozen in place, standing like a statue, and Juliet saw sweat bead on his forehead. “Um, no. God, no.”
“Send me your ID.” She didn’t have to ask Angel to ping his AUI with a query.
“Sent,” he said, barely opening his mouth. “Jesus. Take that thing away from my neck.”
“I have his information—Charles Books. He’s an operator for hire who works in this region.” Juliet glanced around, saw quite a few eyes on her, and then lowered the blade, still standing ready.
“I took what you said as a threat, Charles. If we cross paths again, I’m not going to be nice. Get out of my face.” She put her meanest Lacy Blake snarl into her words, and he didn’t waste any time hot-footing it out of there. Juliet sheathed her sword and turned back to the table, picking up a box of chocolate chip cookies. She tried to smile as she glanced around again—everyone seemed to have relaxed at Charles’s abrupt departure. “Barns,” she said into comms, “watch the guy in the black jacket who’s coming out like a dog with a tail between his legs.”
“Yeah? What am I looking for?”
“Just see if he talks to anyone and clock his vehicle.”
“Got it.”
She was heading to the local beer display when a woman cleared her throat behind her. Juliet was tense, and a small part of her had been hope-dreading running into Ghoul at the co-op. So when she heard the woman clear her throat, she almost convinced herself it would be her when she turned around. It wasn’t, though, and it wasn’t a threat. It was a well-tanned woman wearing a co-op apron with her hands in her pockets. She must have seen something in Juliet’s eyes because she stepped back and pulled her hands out. “I’m cool!”
Juliet smiled and nodded. “Sorry. That creep put me on edge.”
The woman nodded, narrowing her eyes and exposing deep crow’s feet. “So he started it? Was he threatening you?”
“You could say that, yeah. I’m fine.”
“Well, I just wanted to make sure everything was all right; some of the shoppers were a little freaked. We see violence here now and then. Can’t get away from it these days, but, for the most part, we try to keep everyone civil around here.”
“That’s my intention, too. I just want to pick out some beer, then I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh?” She smiled and gestured toward the rows of colorfully labeled bottles in the long refrigerated aisle. “I can help you narrow it down. I’m something of a connoisseur.”
“I’d like that.” Juliet held out her hand. “I’m Lucky.”
“Lucky?” The woman took her hand in a firm but pleasant grip. “I’m Frances.”
After shaking her hand, Juliet sighed and shook her head, trying to look exasperated. “Hey, while you help me find a good beer, think you could tell me a little about, um, Aspen Refuge? I have an old friend there that I want to surprise, but I’m a little nervous. I heard it’s kind of a commune. That right?”