By nightfall, Paladin's troops had retaken and solidified control over the Defense Center, but most units were still separated in their own little pockets of resistance against the Reorganization's own troops and their apparent co-conspirators, the Red Faction. "Don't worry about this place," Paladin told Jack, "You're their objective. All you have to do is survive."

Paladin ordered a series of attacks on enemy positions—on the apartments and schools turned into headquarters for the rebels, and their desperate barricades that clogged the arteries of the city. Artillery from the Defense Center took direct aim at their targets and thundered with precision, the rebels themselves firing back with weaker artillery, but to no effect. Paladin's agents looked for these rebel artillery batteries, singling them out for raids by their special forces.

Under the cover of night and chaos, Neruz led Jack and Singer through a secret route. They left the hideout, and at the foot of what should have been the alley's dead end, Neruz pulled out some bricks, opening up a crawlspace to the other side. From there, Neruz led them through the winding spaces of the Shade District, all the way until a two-story apartment building. Just beyond it, and across the gravel road, was the least-guarded section of Samarin's outer defensive wall. It was a great hodgepodge of interlocking chiseled stone in some places, and poured concrete in others. They entered the apartment building, and in a janitor's closet, Neruz uncovered a hatch. He distributed skateboards improvised from pipes and planks, and took the lead into the dark beyond.

With their bellies on their boards, they tugged on a rope to pull themselves deeper into the tunnel. The generous number of wooden supports they passed under gave some confidence in the integrity of the tunnel. The candlelight from the oil lamps nested on the front of their boards flickered precariously. There was a weak flash, and then darkness. "Fuck," Singer uttered from the rear. His lamp had gone out. Neruz passed an oil-soaked stick backwards to Jack, who lit it with his lamp, then passed it back to Singer, who relit his lamp.

After an hour-long ordeal, they reached a chamber. It was just big enough to accommodate all three of them if they were crouched and curled-up—which they were. Though their legs wavered from the lack of movement, it was still a welcome respite from the claustrophobic confines of the tunnel. Neruz covered the tunnel behind them with the skateboards, covering them with dirt and mud to disguise the tunnel. "You're not doing it right," Singer said. He tore down the dirt that Neruz had already padded, and went to collect dirt from different places in the chamber. "Dirt ain't th' same consistency everywhere. Y'gotta treat it like it's art," he remarked. Neruz grew confident with Singer's performance in his little test.

They left the chamber and went through another hole, where they climbed up an incline with the help of a rope. After a minute, Neruz pushed out a thicket of branches and leaves, and they emerged from a bush. The darkness of the forest was in front of them, and Samarin's walls were behind them. Separating them from the wall was a 200-meter dash across a moonlit field of tree stumps, bloodied stakes, barbed wire, and calcified artillery craters.

Neruz looked back towards the wall—We've come 300 meters… on a hundred-kilometer journey.

They entered the forest. "Ah! This place!" Singer remarked. Turned out it was a popular smuggling route, one which he took the initiative to lead them through.

After getting their bearings, Singer led them to a trail frequented by those in the Coyote business. There, they bumped into a guy with a family in tow. As shadows in the night do usually meet, they jumped out of their skin the moment they saw each other, though not long after, Singer realized that this was the guy who owed him a notable sum. In lieu of money, he got him to pay him back with updated information: the locations of Parasol checkpoints, bandit camps, military movements, and other smugglers on the road. His smuggler friend took the whole 30 minutes to recite every single detail about the lay of the land ahead.

The patrols were numerous, and bandits filled the gaps. Their hundred-kilometer journey doubled to two hundred kilometers from the circuitous route they would have to take. They would have to avoid Parasol's checkpoints in case they were rebel-controlled by now, but that only left them with the more uncertain factors.

"Bandits"—so they were called.

"'Bandits', they are not," Neruz remarked about Jack's inquiry, "It is patently clear. In a land of plenty such as this, who would turn to true banditry? Not even strife in Azerkal made the roads so dangerous. Any you meet are but political mercenaries paid to set the stage."

Samarin smoked even as they left for the horizon. The gunfire had become suggestions in the distance, though the cannonfire remained clear enough in their enunciation.

After over a week of travel, and having barely avoided getting clamped between bandits and a checkpoint, they encountered another one of Singer's acquaintances: an arms dealer who went by Lourde. A carrying pole playfully pivoted about his shoulder, with a box of munitions hanging off one end, and a box of firearms hanging off the other. He tipped his boonie hat for the trio.

"Care for a selection of mediocre-yet-reliable ballistic weaponry?"

"Nah thanks man, y'know how I roll," Singer said.

"Not on my honour," Neruz said.

"What's it cost?" Jack asked.

Neruz and Singer snapped a look at him. Jack snapped a sharp look back. It only took them a second to understand his quiet insistence.

"For you, a friend-a Singer's, nada," the dealer replied. He winked in Singer's direction. Singer pfshed and nodded, his face twisting with annoyed lines—a certain dealer's all too happy to pay off his debt as soon as possible, and a certain smuggler's too keen to reserve favors for better emergencies.

Jack perused the selection, a mix of gunpowder and air weapons. Something caught his eye, and he sunk his hands under the pile of guns. What came out was an air rifle with a barrel that seemed needle-like against the rest of the body, extending far beyond shoulder-to-fingertip. A 6-shot revolving cylinder rested in front of the trigger, sticking a bit out to the left. The dealer showed him how to operate the crank pump, which manifested as a small cashbox-sized mechanism hanging off the right side of the weapon, just forward of the buttstock. A small air bottle remained under the barrel, where the shooter's supporting hand would be. A small scope along the top encouraged the shooter to keep at a distance.

Along with the rifle, the dealer gave him a hundred rounds of ammunition—more steel dart than bullet—and two extra air reservoirs. "Each one's good for the first 10 shots—fair by the 14th, and dirt-shit terrible by the 17th," the dealer explained, "Recharge often, and when you can."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

They parted with the dealer. The barrel unscrewed partway for travel, and Jack capped the ends with leather drawstring pouches to keep mud and dirt out.

"What made you decide?" Neruz asked.

"I'm tired," Jack replied, "People beat me down and—what am I supposed to do? Take it lying down?"

"I suppose not."

Jack eyed Singer. "Hey. Singer," he called. Singer turned around, and once his gut faced Jack, he took a breath-stealing punch to it and fell to the dirt. "That's for before," Jack said. "Guess I owed ya that one, huh?" Singer replied with a weak breath. Jack extended his hand and pulled him up.

"I'm not sure how accounting's done, but consider that one downpayment. The rest'll be in installments."

"Yeah, yeah—"

They continued down their route, through the forests and through the plains, far from cities, towns, and counties. Jack insisted on learning the ways of the wilds and free men, asking Neruz and Singer how to climb trees, ascend and descend with ropes, set traps, hunt, and cook frontier food. On some particular days, he'd ask either of them to teach him their specialties, like how Singer could hit anything he saw—or pretended to see—with a sling, or Neruz's strange affinity for throwing things.

As with all skills that take lifetimes to cultivate, Jack met with failure on a business schedule. It took Jack 4 days to learn how to sling a rock roughly in some direction, though he did often still accidentally release the stone straight up, or even backwards. He had more success with throwing things, but only insofar as most people already have a natural affinity for throwing things—one at a time, and at stationary targets. Neruz's skill came in throwing one object with speed and precision, doing so at moving targets, and perhaps most dauntingly, throwing multiple objects with independent trajectories with only one hand.

Realizing that Jack might engage in combat very soon, Neruz and Singer agreed to teach him how to fight close-up. They had very little time left—2 days' journey to the border—and so they went and gave him a sturdy stick and taught him the top dirty tricks in the book.

What's better than pocket sand? Pocket ash. The Boiler Nomads taught Neruz about the wonders of wood ash, as it contained two major "compounds", so they said: calcium carbonate, and potassium hydroxide. The earlier would simply irritate the eyes, and can be washed. However, the latter would react with water in the eyes and cause mild chemical burns.

As a stick user, himself, Singer emphasized a simple rule: attack whatever part of the dude was closest. If the weapon's closest, hit the weapon. If the weapon's out of the way, hit the hand. If the hand's out of the way, hit the guy. If the guy's out of the way, then there's nothing in your way.

By happenstance, Neruz had made sure that Jack trained left and right-handed throwing equally, though this only meant that he was equally as bad on either hand. Nonetheless, "You don't have to land a good hit. You only have to remember that normal human beings will instinctually avoid projectiles. Herd them in any direction you please, like this," Neruz explained. He tossed a pebble just past the left side of Singer's head, causing him to duck right and trip on a rock.

Two days passed. Jack had made good on refining his new skills in that time. They'd reached the border, but there's no real border here. There were no lines nor flags delineating Parasol's and Azerkal's territories. Here was just a staggered flux of camps being set up and torn down, all trying to out-maneuver each other in some strange, bloodless wargame.

They followed the trail through the jungle.

"Somethin' ain't right," Singer said. He crouched down by a tree. Neruz looked over and saw an encircled cross etched into the foot of the tree. "Smugglers' signs?" he asked. "Yeah, this one's sayin' a no-go up ahead."

Upon hearing that, Jack crouched down and screwed the barrel back onto his rifle. "There ain't no other trail than this one," Singer continued, "S'either we doubl'in back or we push on."

There was a scream, then a gunshot. It came from up ahead, just over the trail's incline. Everyone got to hiding behind something. Another gunshot. Singer kept low and climbed the incline, stopping right before the peak. He looked over, then looked back and signaled the other two to join him.

"Oi, Jack, how good's the scope?"

"Well, it… works, I guess."

"Good 'nuff. Can ya take a peek over the top? I can't make out what's goin' on, branches in the way."

Jack shifted to the side, closer to the vegetation. He crept up, trying to keep himself in the shade as much as possible. He pulled his rifle up to the front and looked down the scope. Blurred branches and leaves shifted about, concealing the trail beyond the steep downslope. However, for a moment, he saw something. The branches and leaves shifted, and for a moment, a view flashed of what was beyond.

"I think I see a body," Jack said, "It's not moving. Clothes look red. I think it's blood. I'm not sure if there's anything else moving besides those branches in the way."

"Think ya can make anything else out?"

"Give me a moment."

Unerringly, he waited, never taking a moment to take his eyes off the scope. He only allowed himself to blink. Even with the scope, the body looked somewhat tiny. He couldn't see the face, but it was long hair, and the clothes looked like a woman's dress. Momentarily, the leaves shifted again, and there was a second body—a man, also probably dead. It looked like blood was pooling from around his head.

"Second body. Looks dead. Still don't see anything moving," he announced.

"I don' think any'd disagree—this's a trap," Singer said. The others murmured in disconcerted agreement.

"Even if we sought an alternate path, I'm certain such paths are occupied by bandits from the same employer of these ones," Neruz remarked. The others murmured in disconcerted agreement.

After an exchange of glances, they inched forward. In hindsight, advancing as a row of three in a jungle wasn't good maneuvering. After taking just three steps over the top, Singer looked down. The dirt's color was off by a shade.

The ground collapsed. They rolled down to the foot of the slope, sliding, skidding, tumbling head-over-foot. Jack held fast to his rifle, and as soon as they reached the bottom, he urged himself to stand. Left in a spinning daze, he struggled to maintain balance, managing to get by, crouched on his knees. That's when he saw a bandit show up in front of him—wearing green trousers streaked with olive and black, and a simple shirt, dyed the same. A net covered his body, local vegetation woven throughout the mesh.

The man raised his hand, and under the foliage camouflaging his hand, there was a pistol. At the same time, Jack raised his rifle. "You don't have to land a good hit," he remembered Neruz's words. He fired a shot, and the man ducked away, panickedly firing off his own shot. The bullet whizzed past Jack, and he, too, flung his body out of the way, landing on the ground with his arm. Just as Neruz and Singer got their weapons out, bandits came out of the bushes, all armed with automatic firearms.

Outnumbered three-to-one, a hail of gunfire washed over them.

Jack opened his eyes. From the dirt, he looked to Neruz and Singer. They all looked at each other, as if confirming they hadn't gone to hell together. The bandits all laid dead. In their place, soldiers appeared, sporting firearms inherited from the Old World, and wearing fatigues that made them seem like floating heads. Their faces were hidden behind dark mosquito nets draping down from their helmets. They kept their weapons ready as they approached the three, unaware of their intentions. Jack let go of his air rifle and slowly raised his hands. Singer spat out mud as he tried to get up.

"Azerkari na karda," Neruz said. The soldiers lowered their weapons. "Ex," he continued. The soldiers pointed their weapons all at once.