"This is where we're staying?"

Carl, still standing besides the parked up Mustang, as if scared to leave its side, shrugs. "They said someone'll meet us at Fort Jones. And this is Fort Jones."

Around us, the village -- nothing more than a set of shacks -- looks dead. What a strange little relic of a place. Even in the moonlight, I can tell no real thought has been put into the "village's" construction. No real streets. Just buildings sporadically sitting on dirt, some sagging in on themselves as if their wood was rotting. Probably was. "It's like a train went off its tracks," I remark, "and its wooden carriages tumbled into the desert. And then people moved into them, like insects moving into fallen logs."

"Was an outpost town, I think. Frontier stuff. We're steeped in history here, my friend. So... I guess that's cool?"

"Town?" I scoff. "Sure. Town." I just about see what he means, though. It was one of those towns that had sprung up overnight when the need for it arrived. Like a goldrush town -- short-lived, used up, abandoned and left to rot. The skeleton of a town.

"Mister Connor?" comes a high voice from... somewhere. "Mister Connor, is that you?"

There's a lady in the doorway of what might have once been a saloon, its big swing doors open, orange light glowing from somewhere deep inside. Long hair trails around her shoulders, but other than that, she's just a tall silhouette against the light.

"Hey!" says Carl, striding towards her. "That's my friend you're after, Mister Sammy Connor. I'm Carl Antone." He raises out a hand and the shadowed lady takes it and shakes.

"I heard there were two people due, but uh... Why are you here, Carl? You his chauffeur? Surely not his bodyguard?"

"Manager," Carl says as I reach them. "I'm his manager. I'll be doing the negotiations on his behalf."

"... I see."

"And who the hell are you?" I ask.

She offers me her hand but I don't take it. She reeks of the Storm Bureau and I have no interest in getting their stench onto my skin. Not if I don't have to. She's svelte and young and pretty, a typical pickup for the bureau.

"Elena," she says, dropping her arm. "Come on in and we'll talk. There's a bedroom ready for you both, for when we're done."

"Bedroom? Surely this ain't where you guys are operating from. A bunch of shacks in the middle of nowhere? We're still two hundred miles out from no-go zone."

"More like one-fifty, now," she says, sighing. "It's... moving, again. I'll reassess the situation in the morning, and if it's safe to travel, I'll take you to the base."

The unease is back full strength now, wrapping itself tightly around my chest, finishing with a bow that reads: Susie.

"I want to go tonight," I say.

"Well that's not happening, Mister Connor," Elena says, turning and stepping into the slatted building.

"Sammy," I say, as Carl and I follow. "Call me Sammy, or I'll lose my mind. I hate that formal shit."

"Whatever you say, Mister Connor."

"Well what do you know?" says Carl, taking in the large fire-lit room.

We're actually in a saloon. A crooked old man with a beard is leaning against the bar; dozens of green and brown bottles sit on wooden shelves behind him. He has three patrons, all sitting together at a table and playing cards together. It's like we've just stepped back in time, back into the wild west. There's even an old piano sitting in the corner just waiting for someone to slam its out-of-tune keys.

Elena walks up the old man and orders three beers.

"I usually drink something harder," I say.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"My beer's as heavy as a quart of gin," says the old man cryptically, pouring a brown slag from a tap into a handled glass, then passing it to me. He pours two more.

We take our drinks, following Elena to a table in the corner.

Elena eyes Carl cautiously. "I'm really not sure how much I can say in front of your friend, Mister--."

"Sammy," I say. "Say, you got some dirt just below your left eye." I reach across with a finger. "Here, let me..."

She leans back, avoiding me. "That's a mole. But thank you. Now, as I was saying, I'm not sure how much I can say in front of your friend."

I don't really care if Carl's with us, or up sleeping in his room. But I like that the lady is confused. Unsure of herself. Clearly, she's not been briefed for us properly -- and that gives me the upper hand.

"He's my manager," I say, keeping her off balance. "And either he stays, or we both go."

"Cheers to that," says Carl, a huge smile forming. He takes a long gulp of his beer, then starts spluttering it back up. "Holy shit, this tastes likes rum, not beer."

I try it. He's right. It's strong enough to clean old leather. "Not bad," I say." Then I lean back in my chair and look at the agent. "Are you sure that's a mole?"

"I'm quite sure. I've had it all my life."

I shrug. If I'd met her under other circumstances, I'd probably tell her how much it suits her. "So, what are we going to do about Carl?"

"I should put in a call."

I sense her reluctance. She'd already have made the call it if it was that easy. But either there's no reception here, or else the phone line's down completely. "Sure, go for it," I say, calling her bluff.

She scowls into her beer so that her reflection chastises her. "Fine! Fine, okay. Let me start by asking you a question. Why are you here? You've been gone years, Mist-- Sammy. Why are you back now?"

Oh, money for one. I'm all out and doing tricks in bars just to get a drink. And Susie, of course. Because I never stopped loving her after she ripped my heart out and screwed her high-heel into it. "I want to help. I was a storm guard once, and now my friends are dying. Not to mention all the other deaths. The normal people we swore to protect."

She nods, satisfied. "What do you know about the plague?"

"Plague? Is that what it is?" My mind flashes back to thoughts that I can't really remember; of being a baby found beside a thousand corpses by a man with long-beaked mask. Thoughts I've created myself, that leak into my dreams.

"It's what we're calling it. But the truth is, we don't know. It's not radiation, and it's not anything natural."

"I read in the news," Carl says, "that you're trying to get to the center of the uh... of the plague. That you think you'll find whatever's triggered it there. Maybe be able to stop it or create an antidote.

She nods. "Right. So, as you know it's spreading like a fog air-borne, but low to the ground. A huge area of infected air that's growing in the strangest of ways. Not steadily, but erratically. Some days, like today, it might grow a hundred miles symmetrically -- in every direction. Other days, it doesn't move at all. Some of that is down to our work -- we've encased parts of it, twisted the land to trap it, or kept air streamed to make its movement almost impossible."

"Erratic isn't nature's way," I say.

"You tell that to my sister," Carl says.

"Right, we don't think it's natural. We never thought that."

"So, something in the middle of the fog is generating it?"

"Maybe? We can't get close enough to find out. We send in vehicles, they stop responding to us after a few miles. Never see or hear from them again. We send in people and..." Her voice trails off.

"And they end up like the Pitt twins," I say.

"Why did they go in?" Carl asks.

She shrugs. "We don't know. We've lost four Storm Born, and we shouldn't have lost any. They were all briefed not to enter. I mean, why would they? Unless they're suicidal. But we've got video footage of the twins leaving their posts... Just, wandering into the mist, blank faces and black eyes. Almost like they were sleepwalking."

"The fog was calling to them," I say, mostly to myself. I take a long sip of my drink and enjoy the cool burn.

"Something like that."

"Where's Susie?"

She frowns. Then, she understands who I mean. "Oh, Autumn?"

Autumn. I forgot she uses that name nowadays. Always wanted a superheroine name, but nothing too on the nose. Something pretty. Like autumn rain. "Yeah, her."

"She's fine -- Autumn isn't needed, seeing as the fog isn't near the coast. Not yet, at least, So she's just here as an adviser, offering her expertise."

"And what's your role, Elena?" Carl asks.

"Dogsbody for the Storm Guards," I answer. "Wants to work her way up the ladder, 'cause there ain't no more glamorous job in the world, than whoring yourself out for Storms, right, Elena? The fame that comes just through association with them."

She scowls at me, her face reddening, and I like the way it looks on her. She grabs her beer as if considering throwing it. "Ass," she says, in the end.

"Yeah. I am. But you can do better than be used by a company like that."

"They're not a company. They're a multi-governmental agency."

"Sure." I tap my empty glass on the table. "How about another round, and we'll discuss what you'd like me to do about all this."

"And negotiate payment for services rendered by my client," adds Carl.

"They've got a lot of money," I tell him. "Take them for all you can. Maybe you can own a bar and a restaurant."

Elena ignores us. "You know what we want. We've been dealt a joker, with you getting back in touch. An unforeseen opportunity that we need to take. We want you to go inside of it. To find out what's generating the poison."

I laugh. "We don't even know if I'll live if I go in."

She grins, "Well I for one am willing to take that risk." Then, she gets up and heads to the bar.

"She's sassy," says Carl.

"Yeah. I like her."