Chapter 25

Bringing the tank back saw them return just after sunup to the Desperados base camp. They settled the metal leviathan in a hanger built specifically for it, and Jon retired to rest. The neural link to pilot the machine taxed him more than he expected. Turned out having someone else rattling around in his head was more exhausting than some of his combat training had proven to be.

The Desperados wanted some time to tinker with the hardware and softs running the machine, and that gave him some time to rest and recover. They supplied him with a modest tent of his own at the edge of the camp. An average sized group. It could sleep four adults side to side if they didn’t want for personal space. A large queen-size mattress sat inside, along with a small dresser covered in his bags, and a couple of MREs piled up in the tent’s mouth.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” Dez said from the tent’s mouth.

He jolted awake, glancing down at his feet at her in the tent’s mouth. The mid day sun pressed down on her, highlighting her dark brown eyes. Confusion flitted through his mind for a moment until he remembered they agreed to taking a short rest period, then taking the tank out to a makeshift range to test out the weapons and put it through some maneuvers.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His black prosthetic hands were cool against his skin. He knew it was because they didn’t make their own body heat, but it felt nice in the somewhat stuffy interior of the tent. He pressed himself up off the foot of the bed, tugging his boots on and looking up at her as she watched him get ready.

“What?”

She shook her head, “Nothing.”

“Do you always creep on mercs who help you out?”

“Only if they’re cute, broody and have a history of betrayal and loss but still insist on not being dicks,” she said.

He glanced up, confused and embarrassed. Was he embarrassed? Why and how? These thoughts began rattling around, vying for dominance in his mind like rubber balls hurled at light speed. “What?”

Dez bit back a chuckle, pointing at him. “That face? That’s why. Man, I wish we had the link. To see your thoughts right now.” She clucked her tongue as she shook her head with an amused grin. “I’d pay good money for that.”

He stood up, stretching out. The servos and motors in his prosthetics humming a soft tune as he did. Dez posed an enigma to him he didn’t know how to process. Though they had shared the same head space together for several hours. She knew him better than anyone else at this point. Emotional spillover between the two of them seemed highly plausible. They had spent time as almost one mind for an extended duration.

She slapped his arm on the Desperado patch as he stepped out into the midday sun. The sun shields on his eyebrows slid into place, giving his lenses some relief from the glare. The two of them fell into step in a comfortable silence, exchanging glances with each other when they thought the other was not looking. Both noticed.

As the others in the camp passed them by, they all greeted him like he spent his entire life there. It reminded him a lot of being back on bases, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. Like being back among troops. This small tribe of nomadic badlanders. Somehow, they felt like a family to him. He realized that just now, and a part of him wondered if that was part of the drift from the link with Dez. This was her family, and he spent time inside her head and feelings. Did they feel like family to him too because of the link they shared? Or because they treated him like their own?

Dez slapped him on the shoulder, almost knocking him off balance. “You’re brooding again. I know that look. Spill it. What’s on your mind?”

He sighed. And here were some drawbacks of the drift. Having someone expertly read his tells. He sucked in a short, slow breath. Relenting to the request. “Fine. If you must know,” he began. “I was just thinking about how this place felt like a home. Like a family. And I’m not sure if it was because so much of being here reminds of being in the army, or if it’s just the drift over from your own memories and feelings.”

Dez nodded, listening with a thoughtful expression. “Why not both? Sounds like it’s a little of you and me both kicking around in there.” She said, poking his temple.

He supposed so. He did genuinely remember his past when dwelling on the feeling and didn’t want to discount that her own feelings could paint his own. Yet, they were still his own. For a man trained to set aside feelings, this was far too much feeling. The thought made him laugh, drawing a confused brow wrinkle from Dez, who wasn’t privy to his mental musings without the Hammer’s softs linking them.

“What? What’s funny?”

He shook his head. “Just noticing something uncustomary for me.”

“Which is?” Dez said, trying not to look like she was trying to pry something out of him.

“Just that I’m doing a lot more feeling of late. More than I allowed myself to. And acknowledging those feelings. I use to just-”

“Box it up and put it away for later. The mission comes first,” she finished for him, then blinked, glancing around, startled. A result of the drift again. “Yeah,” she said distantly, “I remember.”

He could only bring himself to acknowledge his former mindset with a smile and nod. They resumed walking, a little slower this time, and had circuited the camp rather than going straight for the tank hanger. A fact some Desperados noticed, secretly gossiping about. No doubt there’d be a full on rumor that Dez and he were a thing soon. The two of them reaching this mental junction simultaneously, glanced at each other suddenly and stopped again.

“Look, we’re just-” she started.

“Allies. Coworkers. Acquaintances. Friends?”

“Right,” she said, “I mean, you can’t spend that much time knocking around in someone’s head without getting kind of close. That’d be awkward otherwise, right?”

“Of course. I mean, we only know each others deepest, darkest secrets.”

“Hopes and dreams,” Dez said.

“Biggest successes and worst failures,” Jon said.

“And we both like to blow shit up,” Dez said with a serious face, but the two of them smirked in unison as soon as the words left her lips.

“Can’t forget shooting the shit out of corporate mechs,” Jon said.

“Oh, and stealing their shit, too,” Dez said.

“Of course, it’s just a tax write-off for them, anyway. They’ll just expense it.”

“Right, like if some rando lunatic with a hate fetish for your company comes along and microwave lasers a production facility,” she added with a grin.

“Exactly.”

The two of them stopped, glancing into each other’s eyes now their nervous banter energy had drained out, leaving them to just confront the reality in front of them.

“Hey,” she whispered, her gaze falling to the toes of her dusty boots. “Is this real? Is this a thing?” She reached across the no-man’s-land between them, grasping for his prosthetic fingers.

His gaze fell to his hands as the haptic feedback sensors communicated the touch. “I think so,” he choked out as his breath caught in the back of his throat. He shook his head. “It’s kind of confusing. I feel like a defragging drive.”

“There’s still so much of you floating around in my head. Like a phantom that I can’t exercise,” Dez said, the gap between them narrowing. Her dark eyes rose to meet his own, and he felt pinned in her gaze. Uncomfortable and unbelievably anxious. Adaptive combat he could do. Interpersonal relationships were not his expertise unless you counted cultivating assets, and he didn’t want to treat her like an asset. She’s not a tool to be used. To him, she was the realest thing he ever experienced besides his own existence. Something they shared.

She untangled her hand from his, reaching up to caress his face. Her hand felt soft against his skin and realized he grew so used to how cold his own hands felt against his skin that her touch felt like she burned away right through his skin. It sent shivers through his body. He didn’t realize how much he could need something he never had until just then. He reached up to hold her hand against his face when someone cleared their throats several paces away and behind them.

He lifted a hand and placed it on her chest, near her sternum. She glanced down and then back up to him. A dirty joke pleaded for release, but to her credit she bit it back. Clearing her throat, she nodded to his hand, “What are you doing?”

He frowned as his brows knit together. “Trying to remember what it was like to touch someone.”

“Your hands have feedback sensors right?”

Instantly they both swiveled in place to see who it was. They found Mary with a sheepish expression. She didn’t want to be interrupting, but it seemed important. “I uh-needed to tell you, Dez, the perimeter sensors picked up the Wolf Pack. They’re sniffing around again.”

“Fuck,” Dez said, ripping herself away from him and marching after Mary, who shot Jon an apologetic look. For his own sake, he was a little relieved at the impromptu interruption. It gave him a chance to breathe and get himself grounded. For an instant, he thought he could lose himself at the moment, and somehow he still felt guilty about that. There was still work to be done. He mentally admonished himself for losing track of the mission. How could he have almost forgotten about Sam? Noriko? Polanco?

He sucked in a quick deep breath, then broke into stride, marching after the two of them. The trio made their way to the tank’s hangar. As they walked, Dez asked Mary if the Wolf Pack was sniffing around because they somehow knew about the stolen tank. The conversation settled into uncertainty since the perimeter hadn’t been breached. For Jon’s sake, it sounded like a botched attempt at scouting the Desperados camp. Maybe they felt like storming in and stealing the tank from them would be easier than trying to lift it from the warehouse.

Dez perked up at the opportunity to put the tank through its paces against live targets instead of the test range. Jon had his doubts, but since the link made operating the tank second nature, he concluded that most of those doubts were residual tendencies held over from not being able to download knowledge of operation and the skill to use something to be the point of being an inherent expert. While they powered the tank up, the clatter of weapons’ fire echoed in through the open garage doors. He and Dez sped their preparations up.

Reports poured in from the Desperados, responding to the incursion. So far, the Wolf Pack was only probing the perimeter. Jon got the feeling they were just testing the defenses for a weak point, though.

“We need to get out there and end this fast,” he said.

Dez gave him a thumbs up as the two of them started the neural link. Jon’s heads-up display flickered as his implant reconfigured all the data it displayed to him and altered it to the tank’s status. Together, he and Dez integrated with Hammer’s operating system, turning them into the tank’s brain. Dez focused in on the secondary gun and defensive systems, while Jon assumed navigation and primary weapon control. The thin metal doors on the garage rolled open as the Hammer roared out of its new home.

The tank’s sensors picked up the Wolf Pack vehicles, cutting across the desert at top speed. The optics package zoomed in on the lead car, the cross hairs center mass. It was an older model, with patchwork parts holding it together. It made Jon think of the scavs, like it was something they had cobbled together. It occurred to him that the scavs were just the city version of the outriders, like the Wolf Pack. Rogue elements that fed and consumed whatever they could.

Jon frowned at the images from the tank’s optics when it settled in on and highlighted the old Type 22 heavy machine gun on top of the car. The outriders remotely rigged so the big gun so it could fire from an internal passenger, exposing no one. Being a heavy caliber weapon meant it posed a risk to the Desperados, not riding along in an old battle tank. Dez opened fire with the secondary gun, punching holes into the lead Wolf Pack car. The force of the impacts were so strong the car flew into a violent roll, pieces of it ripping off and flinging everywhere like a giant metal pinata after being knocked off its string.

A memory buried deep in Jon’s mind of a time he went skiing in Europe surfaced at the site of the car sprawled out across the desert floor amidst all its pieces. He recalled a time he got too brave, took the hill with those little bumps that he always forgot their name, and wound up tumbling down the slope in a heap, his gloves, skis, rods, and hat all strewn around him. As he picked himself up, some of the Europeans above him on the lifts called out “Yard sale!” at him, laughing. Since Dez was seeing his thoughts and memories with him, she couldn’t help but blurt out in laughter, too.

“You’re right, that does kinda look like that!” she whooped with a grin.

After dwelling on it for a moment, he had to admit it was kind of funny. The past and the present. He remembered being humiliated when it happened, but now it was just funny. Maybe it was just the neural drift from Dez’s own emotions? If that were the case, he could live with that, too.

The pair of them swung the Hammer around in a wide arc to allow them to take on the Wolf Pack forces and try to pull their attention away from the Desperados camp. Sure enough, the rogue outrider cars swung wide from the camp to pursue the two-and-a-half decade old battle tank. A loud bang and the hiss of a rocket engine resonated from behind them, and instinctively Jon lurched the battle tank into a swerve to avoid the impact. They could both see the rockets plume as the warhead cut through the air to their right before losing altitude and detonating into the desert.

Jon guided the Hammer around in a soft, sloping right turn, pivoting the main gun to take advantage of the turn that would bring him back around. As the Wolf Pack slowly fell into view, he selected the foremost vehicle and centered the reticle square on the car’s grill. Satisfied with the aim, he fired the shell. The tank’s 120 main gun hurled its shell like Zeus hurling a bolt of lightning. When the massive fireball that erupted from the muzzle of the main gun faded, Jon had just enough time to see the car as it used to be, just as a hole grew in the car’s grill before it exploded.

Two nearby cars caught in the shrapnel and blast hurled them onto their sides in uncontrolled rolls. Small arms fire danced harmlessly off the reinforced ceramic composite armor skin of the tank. The Wolf Pack would need something much heavier than small arms to do anything to it. The optics system swiveled to pick up on a Wolf Pack car that raced up from the flank.

A man in sun faded rags climbed out of the passenger side, eying the hatch to the tank. It was a cute thought, short-lived as it was. The anti-personnel gun swiveled to greet the would be boarder. The medium caliber machine gun barked, the brass and links jingling off the side of the tank as it roared along the desert-scape. The man climbing out of the car disappeared in a storm of lead, torn to shreds in a bloody cloud that faded into the wind.

The driver of the car swerved to slap a sticky explosive onto the side of the tank.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Dez said.

Before the driver could make contact, she triggered a portion of the reactive armor exploded outward, shredding the rest of the car and blowing holes through it like it just took a battleship sized shotgun spread. Jon whipped the tank around, creating a long billowing plume of dust and dark exhaust fumes as the battle tank drifted into a wide banking turn. Dez worked the secondary gun, chewing up the remaining Wolf Pack pursuit until the shredded wreckage of their cars coasted to slow stops.

Small fires littered the landscape, and several wrecks burned around the Hammer. The main gun swiveled with the primary optics, surveying their handiwork. Jon let out a held breath approvingly. They drew the attackers away from the camp and field, testing the weapons and defensive systems.

“As field tests go, that’s a solid success,” he said. He surveyed the area for a moment longer than decided it was time for them to be getting back.

“Wait,” Dez said. “We don’t have to go back just yet. We still have to finish that talk. And don’t think you can weasel out of it. I’m in your head, remember?”

He sighed, realizing she’d caught him in the perfect trap. Relaxing into the pilot’s seat and the cross harness, he glanced down at her. “Ok. What is it?”

“You. Me.” she said, then glanced up at him. “Us.”

“Look, Dez, I don’t really have a life that lends itself well to romantic entanglements.”

She laughed, and that caught him off guard.

“What?”

Shaking her head, she suffocated a chuckle. “Nothing, it’s just have you heard yourself sometimes? Here we are linked in this tank, sharing thoughts and feelings to make us the most efficient combat construct in thirty years, and you’re going on about how you don’t like to be vulnerable.”

“That’s not what I-”

She shot him a look that cut him off. “Stop trying to ignore that I can see into your head. It’ll make this go so much easier.”

“Then you already know why I’m doing that.”

“I do. I just think it’s a shit answer. Maybe it’s the drift, maybe it’s because we’ve been working together. I don’t know. You’re in my head now. Even outside of this tank, it’s hard to ignore you’re the only person who knows me this well, and vice versa.”

“Dez, I can’t.”

“Why? Because you think your war with Haltech is a suicide mission?”

And there it was. The dark storm cloud that had been following him around this ever since he set foot down this path. Somehow, deep down, he always felt that this would only end with him dead. Just another casualty in a meaningless struggle. His only consolation had been that he could stick it to the corporation and make them hurt where it counted before punching out.

“You gave up, didn’t you? On living, I mean,” Dez asked him. “You pushed through all that pain and trauma, making peace with yourself because you didn’t want to live through the end.”

Jon sat in silence, unable to respond. No words formed for him. His mind was a reeling, chaotic mess. He forced himself to nod slowly in acknowledgement. It was all he could manage after being stripped so bare.

A quiet silence settled in on the tail end of her words, his mind spinning. He gave up, and being so focused on his mission, on his fight with Haltech that he didn’t care. He refused to face that. Exhaustion gripped him, and seeing so much go wrong almost broke him. Almost.

“You’re right. I gave up. But that was only because I convinced myself I couldn’t do any good. That I was just fighting a losing fight. A long road to defeat. But I changed my mind.”

Dez’s lips tipped upwards, even as his thoughts betrayed him. “Go on,” she said encouragingly.

He sighed, rolling his eyes. For someone in his head, she was having fun stringing this along.

“I saw you guys out here thriving. And that what I’d been doing was actually helping. More than that, I’ve felt like I could actually belong with you guys.”

“You do,” she cut in assertively.

That made him smile softly. “Maybe you’re right. That’s why I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to lose anyone fighting my fights anymore, and I want to make sure I see the end of the attack.”

“So, you’re ready then?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think so. As ready as I can be, anyway.”

She grinned, “Good. This is cause to celebrate.”

She climbed up out of her seat, the cross strap restraint harness falling off her shoulders as she climbed up to sit in his lap, looking down at him with those large brown eyes. She traced a finger down the side of his face, her fingers teasing in and out of scar tissue and his augmentations. They both felt an overwhelming need to be close. Drawn together like opposite polarities. She shivered as she touched his face, and he could tell she was feeling the sensation as well.

She leaned forward, her eyes heavy lidded as she kissed him. The two of them embraced as one. Two broken shards of the same soul brought together in the heart of a war machine.

#

Jon hopped out of the Hammer’s access hatch after they parked it and powered it down. Both he and Dez could not suppress the pleased grins plastered across their faces. Deep down, part of him railed against this miniscule bit of happiness he found for himself. It warned him he needed to stay wrapped up in his rage and sorrow.

He realized that while those were effective walls; they weren’t viable long-term solutions. Dez had helped him realize that. He wallowed in his own misery for so long he forgot what not doing so felt like. As his feet hit the sunbaked dirt inside the tank’s garage, he imagined it felt just like that. Letting go and embracing something besides his drive for revenge was like landing back on the ground.

Dez grabbed his wrist, dragging him towards the open-sided trailer that had the bar in it. As he took a stool at the counter, she glided over it with practiced ease, fetching them two bottles. She popped the tops, then glided back over the counter top to drop into a stool next to him. She wore that pleased look on her face, and he could guess with near certainty that she was happy with how things were going. To be fair, he couldn’t argue with her. They got the tank, field tested it and proven to the other outrider tribes they aren’t to be fucked with, and soon, they’ll take a shot at Haltech.

In the outrider community, that would make waves. Succeed or fail, the Desperados would enshrine themselves as a tribe not to be dicked with. They could exist in peace, and if they had to fight back? They could drop the Hammer on any of their problems.

Dez settled onto her barstool and shot him a look while nudging him. “Hey, Mr. Broody, better beam your ass back to Earth with the rest of us.”

He blinked and glanced at her. She softened into a smile once she had his attention. “Sorry, guess my mind was wandering away from me.”

“About what?”

He pursed his lips, trying to figure out how he wanted to frame his response, “Just reflecting. I’m not the same guy I was a year ago.”

Dez’s brow popped up in curiosity. “Oh? You can’t drop that and leave me hanging.”

He squirmed, uncomfortable for a moment with the attention solely focused on him. “Just that for the longest time, I used to pour myself into my work. Then after Sam died, and Haltechs attack on me doing this?” He swept a hand up and down himself, showing the augmentations. “Well, it gave me plenty of anger and sorrow to wrap myself in. And for a while, that was fine. It was like being numb out in the cold. But I’ve let go of a lot of that and I feel like I’m better for it.”

Dez nodded, “Yeah. Bouncing around in your head, I got to see some of that. It’s good seeing you more comfortable with yourself. Like you’re walking without the weight of the world on your shoulders.” She play punched him in the artificial tricep. “It’s a good look, tinman.”

He nodded, a faint smile teasing at his lips. It was a good feeling. His only regret was how short-lived and how late it’d come to him. This time, Dez really punched him.

“Hey. Stop it. Seriously,” she said.

He laughed, nodding. “Force of habit.”

“Use your words. You’ve got friends here. Family. You don’t have to hold that stuff in now. Especially after we shared head space in the Hammer.”

“Right. Just lamenting that it was unfortunate it took me this long to get here. I only just found all this. This peace, you, the Desperados. Acceptance. And I might not have it for long with what we’re planning to do.”

“Haltech,” Dez said.

The name itself carried a sense of dread and weight to it. Like a darkness that threatened to suffocate all the light it found. Jon saw that distant look in Dez’s eyes. He’s not the only one that company had ground down and beaten into the dust. Their Badlands operations had routinely run afoul of Outrider tribes, and the Desperados were no strangers to skirmishes with them.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“We’re going to need more than the tank if we hit them, y’know.”

She was right. “Yeah. I know. But it’s no use trying to figure that out until we know how we want to hit them,” he said.

She tipped her sweating beer bottle back, then stared into its green glass thoughtfully. “So this other guy. He’s going to be bringing his own people, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You trust him?”

Jon shrugged. “Mutual enemies make for strange alliances. Haltech tried to burn him to. So we have some commonality. Besides, I spared his life. So technically, he owes me for that.”

She smirked. “You sure have lived a colored past.”

He grinned over the mouth of his own bottle. “You have no idea,” then tipped it back.

A runner came up and whispered something into Dez’s ear, then ran back off. She turned back to him. “We’re as ready as we’ll get. Call your man and give him the coordinates. Once we have everyone here, we’ll start talking plans.”

“I’ll need to jack into your tower relay.”

She gestured towards the relay, “Tell ‘em I sent ya.”

Jon finished his beer, then lifted the bottle in salute before heading off toward the tower trailer. It had four large brace legs that deployed from the front and back into the ground to help stabilize it. The main tower rose from the center of the control shack in the middle of the trailer. The dish itself was a wide telescoping radial number that rose a few meters above the trailer.

Stepping around parked cars and tents, Jon worked his way to the tower. Climbing the small set of metal steps into the control shack, he reached the terminal and plugged in. Since there aren’t any signal towers in the badlands, they had their own to hijack a satellite and shoot signal or data wherever they needed. With a little luck, he could still use some of the old Government ciphers from when he was an agent to slide in as an unrestricted user on someone’s satellite OS.

The wait for the system to pass the hash. He shifted, hoping it wouldn’t be rejected. Data started flowing, and he grinned. He didn’t need to piggy back the signal long. Just long enough to pass on a solitary message. He pulled up Masri’s contact information and sent a direct message.

“Masri, it’s time. Coordinates attached. Bring it all.”

The trigger pulled on the gun of fate. He leaned back with a curious feeling. He never expected to be siding with a known terrorist to attack a corporation on US soil. In fact, if he asked himself a year ago if he ever thought he’d be where is now? Odds are the urge to lose himself in laughter would consume him. While in the system, he noted a passive rider, investigated the user logs, and noted it was Raven. He smirked, pleased that she’d noticed the activity using the cipher they created together.

He sent her a ping, and she responded by setting up an encrypted channel between them. Her avatar icon popped up as she started a holocall through the connection. When he answered, she leaned close and whispered.

“You have to be fucking crazy. You’re lucky I caught this and segregated this. Are you trying to bring them down on you?”

He shrugged. “Possibly. But I had faith you’d see it first.”

Raven huffed and leaned close to her terminal. “What are you doing, Jon?”

“Nothing yet. But something big soon. Don’t want to spill too much. Give you plausible deniability and all that.”

“Right. Bet its something stupid that I’ll not want to know about. Look, be careful whatever you’re up to. One of my guys went missing when you went off grid after Roth fell apart.”

“Rebecca and the others?” he said.

Raven’s expression softened, “They’re safe. In the wind. Haltech won’t get them.”

It was a minor consolation. He couldn’t save everyone in that tower. Not from being liquidated as Haltech employees. But he could try to make it right by kicking Haltech in the dick so hard they reconsidered their life choices.

“What happened to your man, who went off grid?”

Raven shook her head. Doubt and indecision played across her features for a moment. “Hard to say. I checked his place out. Cleaned out, no sign of foul play. It’s like he just disappeared. I don’t like it.”

“Who was it?”

“Snyder.”

“Wait, the guy that was running your outfit?”

“Yeah.”

Jon leaned back. This can’t be good. “Send me everything you have on him. I’ll look into it.”

Raven’s brow perked, and she folded her arms. “What interest is it to you?”

Jon shook his head. He had that feeling again. The one where something felt off, but he couldn’t place it yet. He needed more data. “Got a hunch. Not sure what it is yet.”

Raven passed on a digital file that downloaded.

“Alright, I’ll cut into this when I get a chance. And keep your head down over there. It might get hot in there soon.”

She nodded, “Good luck, Raven out.”

Disconnecting from the terminal, he stood up as the cable retracted into his hand, the small cover flipping back into place once it wound its way back in. Stepping out of the trailer, he saw Dez leaning against the frame with folded arms and an expectant look.

“So, all set?”

“Yeah, just waiting for the rest of the party to show up. Then we can talk about how we’ll conduct the festivities.”

“Do you plans these kinds of parties often?”

“Not since I got out of the service. I tried to make big fights happen without my direct involvement if I could help it. Being involved meant leaving a trail. It was usually best that I didn’t. I’m ready to be involved. This is one fight I need to be in.”

“That makes two of us. So. This other contact of yours, how long till he joins the party?”

Jon could only shrug, since he figured it was best to keep as far away from Masri as possible to eliminate the odds of the man being taken out of play before he needed the man. Dez and Jon joined the rest of the Desperados around a fire as the camp cooked a meal. The next several days saw an uneasy tension settle in as everyone prepared themselves for the coming storm. Some passed the time by cleaning weapons. Others tuned their cars. Some drank, and some ate. Others told old war stories, while still others remained silent and went about their routines.

‎ on kept mostly to Dez, indulging in the situation’s novelty without losing himself from reality. He knew the time would come when they would need to march for war, but it would happen when it happened and not a moment sooner, so better to enjoy what he had while he could. Dez knew the weight pressing in on Jon’s shoulders, did her best to keep his mind off what was to come by keeping his present too busy. For a short fraction of his life, he even debated just walking away from it all.

Masri and his troops arrived in a caravan of troops drew into view on the horizon west of the camp. A small haze of dust lingered at the rear of the convoy. They were just small specks in the distance, but an educated guess put them as old surplus army trucks. Purchased in Night City most likely if they used former Los Angeles coast line for insertion.

“Looks like your friends are on their way, huh?” Dez said from the hood of her car. She swung her feet playfully as they waited.

“Yeah. Looks that way.”

“You don’t sound excited?”

He shook his head. “Just not used to anything going right. I guess I’m waiting for the bait and switch to bad news.”

Dez smirked, biting back a laugh. “You are far too serious, tinman.”

Her new pet name for him might have bothered him previously, but after reflecting on it, he realized she was giving him a compliment. Her mother used to read Oz to her as a child. Her favorite character was always the Tinman. She recognized him most in the world. People with metal skin, but lacking a heart. Reflecting on that, it was a small wonder she’d chosen the name for him.

They passed the remaining time it took Masri’s convoy to arrive by setting up a reception area and planning out where to put the vehicles and personnel inbound. Dez and her people were exceptionally adept at planning an expansion to their camp. She credited the experience with sometimes having meetings with passing tribes. After a few more hours, the trucks that first appeared in the distance were closing to within a few hundred meters now.

Jon could zoom in with his retinal implants and see Masri seated in the passenger seat of the lead troop truck. He wore the same outfit he wore in Iraq and a beret this time. Clearly, this meant that Masri was coming ready to work. As the troop trucks drew closer to the camp, Desperados stood ready to direct them where to park. Dez turned to Jon, blinking.

“You’re pretty fucking crazy, you know that?”

“What?”

“You brought an international terrorist to the table? And a bunch of his people?” she said. Dez jabbed a finger at Masri accusingly.

He folded his arms and nodded, mildly pleased. “Yep.”

Dez’s brows furrowed. “This isn’t what we signed on for.”

He glanced at her, his own bewilderment apparent. “No? We’re about to conduct the largest attack on the largest military industrial corporation in the world. Who better to help us pull it off than one of their own formerly funded war projects?”

Dez blinked. “Wait, what?”

Jon couldn’t help the amused smirk. “Yeah. Haltech used to finance and supply this guy. Paid him to cause trouble, then they send in troops and put the insurgents down.”

“That’s.... that’s illegal though, isn’t it? It has to be. Right?”

“Not when they make the rules,” he said.

Dez cursed in Spanish several times, pacing a tight circle. “This can’t be happening. Is this why you’re so hellbent on tearing them down?”

“It’s part of it. Yeah. They poisoned what’s left of the country. If they get their way, they’ll dismantle what’s left of the nation’s government. There won’t be much of a United States left at that point. Not that it matters. They all but make the rules as it is. Congress is just their sock puppet to keep people compliant. I thought if I could kick Haltech hard enough, maybe it would derail their plan or slow them down,” he sighed and shook his head uncertainly.

Dez looked at Masri. “No. Absolutely not. This isn’t ok. I’m not ok with this. But if you think this is how best to do it? I’ll listen to the plan. But I get the option to pull out if I don’t like it. Got it?”

He nodded to her, “That’s fair, and more than I deserve if I’m being honest. Ready a tent for a war summit. We’ll discuss tactics and try to pin down a plan.”

Dez lingered for a moment, something unspoken behind her expression, but she refused to give it voice. Instead, she turned with a huff and marched off to help with the intake. Jon sighed, realizing that however brief his honeymoon with happiness was, it still took the edge off of what he was about to face down. Leaning into just taking the good with the bad. And not holding onto the bad longer than he needed to.

Sucking in a deep breath, he let it out slowly. It was time to put his game face on to deal with Masri and get this show rolling. Taking the first step always felt the hardest. His foot always felt like they strapped it down with cement blocks and lead weights. Even with the enhanced strength and speed his augmentations provided, there was an almost spiritual weight that pressed in on him.

The feeling that taking this step would set him down a path he couldn’t turn back from. There was still time. He could tell Masri the window had closed. Stay in the badlands with Dez. Carve out some happiness for himself. He could do that.

He turned back to the east, towards Capital City. Geographically, they stood in what remained of the Kansas plains. Though it long since lost any value in being called Kansas after the mass exodus to the super cities. From here in the wastes of the badlands, though, he could still imagine Capital City’s skyline on the horizon. Steel, glass, and neon light pollution. A sprawling testament to man’s dedication to produce, consume and destroy all at the same time.

He thought of all the people trapped in the city’s grind. The way it swam along like a shark in the water. Devouring those who couldn’t swim ahead of it, or those who tried to swim too fast and drew its attention. The Corporations had grown that machine, that system. And now they were going to hurl it loose against the world.

His sense of duty got the best of him, and he cursed under his breath. His happiness mattered less than his obligation to set things right. He possessed the training, skills, and drive. This wasn’t some foolish fantasy about saving the country. Just making the bastards burn and enjoy the ride doing it.

Happiness be damned then. He gave a nod to the imagined skyline of Capital City. He return with an army to liberate it from Haltech. And he used their own rules to do it.

“Agent Masters,” Masri said. His thick farsi accent recognizable even after the self-imposed exile he placed himself in.

Jon turned back to face the man and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming. I know you didn’t have to.”

“We’re both dead men as far as Haltech is concerned. And more will follow if we do nothing.”

More will follow. That was a certainty. And it burned him to know that. Haltech wouldn’t stop, not while they could continuously make money on conflict and war. “So, what did you bring me?” Jon said.

“My best men and every volunteer I could bring. We bring our own weapons and gear, and they have been training since you last saw me. We have dedicated every waking moment to the day we would return to the devil’s lair and slay the massive beast of rot.”

Theatricality aside, Jon appreciated their commitment. “Thanks. We’ll need every man, I think. What about hardware? Are these troop trucks all you have?”

Masri glanced back at the half century old military transport trucks. They were well kept if heavily outdated. He nodded, a glint of pride beaming in his eyes. “Indeed, we wanted to spend our finances wisely so we could afford the journey here.”

Well, you went to war with the army you have, not the one you wanted. A little more diversity would have been ideal. They possessed a sore disadvantage in the air. He frowned. Most of those troop trucks just had tarp tops. Haltech’s aerial craft would chew his forces to pieces.

“Come on, I’ve already got the others setting up a command area for us. We’ll need to talk shop.”

The two of them approached a hastily pitched olive drab field tent. It smelled musty, like they had packed away it for a while. Inside the tent, Desperados went about placing elements for the others to use like chairs, and a holotable and terminal. The table was an older model, with signs of age and multiple repairs. Most of the parts didn’t match factory spec, and he was pretty certain a good deal of it actually came from various near models.

Dez patted the projector lens affectionately. “It’s not the best or newest, but it gets the job done.”

“Thanks Dez, it’ll do nicely.”

She gave him a stiff nod, still looking uncomfortable with Masri following him into the tent, then dropped into a folding chair and kicked her feet up. “The floor is yours, tinman.”

Jon cleared his throat, “Right,” tugging the connection cable from his palm and jacking into the terminal, he uploaded everything he had. Building schematics, a map of the block Hatlech’s tower stood on, and a rough route into the city. Using his hands, he scaled the image down so everything shrank.

“This is our target. Haltech HQ corporate tower. When I first started this fight, I thought if I knee capped their ability to build war mechs I could slow them down, but I didn’t realize they activated one of their subsidiary companies and produce through those.”

“Like a hydra. Take one out and more rise in its place,” Masri noted.

“Exactly. That came back to bite me in the ass later. In the city I removed BioPharm mech control antenna and Haltech just boosted BioPharm through their own parent signal. No matter how many little stones we kick over, there’s always another to replace it. But they only have one corporate headquarters. The AIs controlling their plans and calling the shots sit here.”

He pointed to the tallest building on the city block map. “We take that out, we remove the heart of the beast.”

“So you mean to assault the largest corporate office on the eastern seaboard of the US?” Masri asked, looking half amused, half impressed.

Jon shrugged, “Yeah.”

“Have you not considered just delivering a warhead to flatten the building?”

“No,” Jon said sharply.

Dez stood so fast the folding chair scrapped along the ground and collapsed as she stormed out of the tent. Jon apologized and asked for everyone to wait for him as he jogged after her. Reaching for her hand, he tried to tug her to a stop, but she yanked her arm away.

“I fucking told you! They’re just here to burn everything down. We agreed Haltech was the problem. Not nuking half the fucking city!”

“And we aren’t going to. There are plenty of everyday people in there just doing their grind and trying to make ends meet. I’m not after them. I’m after the AI’s and the bastards who put them in play. And Price, because fuck that asshole.”

Dez nodded, her bottom lip pursed out as she scowled. Crossing her arms, she shook her head. “I still don’t like it. The shit he’s done?”

“Dez I’m no cleaner than he is. I’ve destabilized regions. Raised armies and laid them low. My hands are just as dirty. I’m not vocal about my exploits because that would make me a terrible agent if I was,” he said.

“But you aren’t an evil man. You were just following orders. Bullshit orders, but you got out. He’s his own boss, and his first instinct is to just blow half of Capital city up.”

“His idea. But I call the shots. And we go with my ideas. Besides, I think I understand Masri pretty well. He was just trying to do what he thought was best for his people, and Haltech used him like they do everyone and everything else. As soon as they got what they wanted out of him they sent me and their goon squad after him to silence him so no one else knew how dirty their own hands were.”

The hardness in her eyes faded as she looked back into the tent from where they stood, looking at Masri with fresh eyes. The edges of her mouth relaxed, and she turned to face him. “They sent you to assassinate him?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“He’s not the one who got my friend killed. He’s guilty of some things, sure. But not what they sent me after him for. I couldn’t kill the wrong guy.”

She laughed and leaned into his chest, wrapping her arms around him. “An agent with a conscious. No wonder they blew you half to hell. No room for the unwicked in that snake pit.”

He tensed at first, but then he relaxed into her hug. Laying his arms across her shoulders for a moment, he gave her a gentle pat. “We’re doing this for everyone, not just ourselves. We can’t let whatever it is they’re trying to pull go through. We get in, smash the place and send that company back to the stone age.”

“But how?”

He smirked, nodding towards the tent. “I’ll tell ya in there. C’mon.”

Back in the command tent, Jon reconnected to the terminal and resumed his presentation. “As I was saying, we’ll be attacking Haltech corporate HQ. We don’t have the forces to hit them head on and pull off a win. But we have enough to make them think twice about ignoring us on the slide. We force them to commit to the fight and pay attention to us. To accomplish this, we send the Hammer right up the middle and hit their ground lobby. This will draw all their drones and ariel units into the fight. Masri, tell me you’ve still got those Haltech anti-air munitions?”

“We do,” Masri said with an approving smile.

“Good. Your people will be on air defense. Right now we lack air support assets ourselves, so they’ll hit us their hardest. Try to press their advantage. The tank will help, but the principal focus is on making enough noise to draw their attention so we can send in a secondary team to infiltrate the building.”

“These rooftops here would make suitable firing positions to cover the units on the ground,” Masri said, pointing several buildings around Haltech. Jon tagged them with a waypoint marker.

“Good. Pick your teams and see to it rounds are evenly distributed. I also need a squad of your best hand-picked men to accompany into the tower.”

“I’m going with you,” Dez said as she stood up. “Not debatable.”

“I need you in that tank. You’re the second most experienced person we have who has operated it. Bring the boom.”

Dez scowled for a minute, but he gave her his best pleading face he could manage. She relented with a sigh and rolled her eyes, sitting back down. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Dez, the Desperados will be our cavalry. Fast and light. They’ll move with you in the Hammer. If it gets heavy, pull your people back. We’ll use the Hammer and Masri’s trucks to extract our forces. Remember, we only need to get in and make enough noise and flash to draw their attention so me and my team can get inside. Once we’re in, you guys are to start falling back.”

“What happens once you get in?” Dez asked.

“I find where they keep their AI’s cut this virus loose on then and then wreck house.”

“How?” Dez asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“It may best you don’t know,” he said with a reassuring smile. It was the best bluff he could come up with. He knew he didn’t want to use a bomb. Not with employees trapped inside just doing their jobs. They were just simple cogs trapped in the machine. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to say until he got inside and had a look at his options, which knowing Haltech wouldn’t be very many. The company isn’t known for vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

“I’ll probably something spur of the moment and poorly thought out, though. But I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I reach it, I guess.”

Dez shifted uncomfortably, but put on a brave face at that. He felt a twinge of regret. The notion that this was going to be the end of a lot more than just his fight with Haltech. The idea of cutting bait and running came back to him again, beating loudly in his ear to the tune of his heartbeat.

He took a deep breath and did what they had trained him to do from day one. Take his feelings, put them in a box, and cast them into the abyss to be forgotten. The mission always came first, and of all the missions he ever took on, this was the biggest. His feelings for Dez couldn’t jeopardize that. There were too many lives riding on this to back out for his own selfish desires.

“Anyone have any input? Last-minute issues?”

“There’s a solar grid close to here. I think they got a few older gen skyjumpers we could steal.”

“Who’s the corp?”

“Toranaga,” Scruffy with the scorpion tattoo said. Jon recognized him from the tank raid.

“Do it. Take some of Masri’s guys to help you out. They should have some experience conducting isometric raids, and the extra bodies will help keep our injuries minimal.”

Scruffy nodded and filed out of the tent with a lieutenant that Masri waved to follow. The last details such fell together pretty seamlessly. The tension between Masri and Dez cooled off a little after Jon’s chat with her outside the tent, but there was still an underlying issue between Jon and Dez. That neither one of them wanted to lose each other, but both of them knew it was possible.

“I know you’re dumping me in that damn tank to protect me,” she pouted as she stood next to him on a rocky ledge near the camp. The moon was full, and the sky was a black velvet canvas speckled with glitter of different sizes. In the badlands, light pollution is a null factor. The sky was as clear as it was in the days when Man first began walking upright. Looking skyward, Jon was certain he could pick out some of the nearby planets if he had access to some kind of astrometric charts.

Glancing down from the sparkling heavens to Dez, he smiled ruefully. “Yeah. Sorry. I can’t risk you getting hurt. I know you want to help, but if I have to look over my shoulder to make sure you’re ok, I’ll be too distracted. At least in that tank I’ll know nothing Haltech has can hurt you.”

Dez stood in silence for a long moment after that before turning to face him. She looked irritated. “And what about me? I’m supposed to just be ok with you rushing off into hell? Knowing that you used to think it was a suicide mission?”

His gaze fell to his feet, and he suddenly found himself very interested in the dirt in front of his boot. He knew he was being selfish, expecting her to stay locked inside the Hammer. But he also knew she could do their best work from within it. Dez circled around in front of him, lifting his chin with her hand. His eyes fell into those dark brown doe eyes.

“Hey. I get it. This is new to me, too. And if the situation reversed? I’d want to keep you inside that tank, too. But the situation is what it is. So I’ll pilot the Hammer. One one condition.”

She waited for him to acknowledge her. “You have to promise you’ll do everything you can get out of that tower in one piece.”

He didn’t want to lie to her. He didn’t think he could make this promise. His lips didn’t move for a long moment as the words fought violently in the back of his throat for dominance. Both parts of himself warring for control. To agree, and to be honest. What did he ultimately want? He wanted her to be ok. He wanted to leave the world in a better state than he received it.

“This fight? We’re going to lose people. We’re taking a ragtag misfit army up against the top military industrial complex company in the western world. I can’t let one of those people we lose be you.”

Dez’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t say yes.”

He needed her safe. If he had to lie to her to keep her safe, then so be it. He leaned his head forward to rest against hers, closing his eyes. “Yes. I promise.”

She squeezed on his hands, then gave him a soft nod. They spent the rest of the evening in silence, allowing the weight of the attack to press down on them. Jon did his best to stay optimistic about it, but his fear that Dez would endanger himself was ever present in the back of his mind. He just had one last problem to solve, and then they could strike. How would he tag his group of rebels and attack the largest corporation in the country and keep everyone else out of it?

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