his foot got caught in a rut in the ruined roadway.
“Careful there, Poindexter,” Edwards growled, grabbing the scientist’s elbow and yanking him out of the pothole.
A few paces ahead, Domi stopped in her tracks and stared up at the spindly struts of the Administrative Monolith, watching as tar-feathered carrion birds circled around in its updrafts, nesting in the jutting metal bones that had once held a nearby structure together. Domi’s ruby eyes scanned the broken glass of the last remaining windows, searching for movement among the wreckage. As if on cue, a gull came swooping out of one of the shattered windows, its feathers a smoky gray, its impressive wingspan reaching almost three feet. The gull shrieked its ugly call as it took off, a pinkish morsel of bloody meat held in its claws.
As Domi watched, a trio of black carrion birds swooped down at the gull, chasing it through the jagged teeth of buildings that were all that remained of the once-proud ville. The birds flew around one of the lopsided building shells, disappearing from Domi’s sight in a clamor of ugly squawks.
Harrington peered up from the plate of the Geiger counter at the noise, taking in the abandoned ville as if for the first time. “This is weird,” he commented.
“What’s that?” Edwards asked, glancing back at the scientist as he climbed a mound of rubble that had once been a residential block.
“This place,” Harrington said. “Like walking through a cemetery.”
Domi shot Harrington and Edwards a look, hushing them immediately. “People coming,” she said, indicating one of the wrecked structures that abutted the ruins of the Administrative Monolith.
Edwards’s hand automatically went to his hip, pulling free the Heckler & Koch USP he had strapped there. “Keep your head down, Harry,” he ordered Harrington, his voice low.
A few paces ahead, Domi had pulled her Detonics CombatMaster .45 from its hidden holster at the small of her back. The handgun, finished in silver metal, looked large in her tiny, milk-colored hand. Domi scampered forward, leaping over the potholes that marred the road, making her way toward the crooked doorway of the building shell where she had detected people. She moved like something liquid, each motion blending effortlessly into the next as she sped toward the door. Edwards chased after her, his long strides struggling to keep up with her swift progress.
As Domi reached the open doorway, its lintel hanging at an awkward thirty-degree angle, she saw a figure moving within, its features hidden in the shadows. Warily, Domi waited at the door until Edwards caught up with her.
“On three?” Edwards proposed, mouthing the words without speaking them aloud.
Domi nodded, and watched as Edwards counted down on extended fingers.
When Edwards’s count reached zero, the two Cerberus warriors rushed through the doorway, guns held out before them, scanning the lobbylike room where they found themselves. The floor was littered with rubble and, when they looked up, they saw that the ceiling had almost entirely disappeared. Just its edges remained, clinging to the scarred and pitted walls of the higher stories. The whole structure had sunk by at least two stories, and so they found themselves on what was in fact the third or fourth story, despite being at ground level. There was no one inside the room, and the two warriors made their way swiftly into the next room, Domi taking point as Edwards covered her from beside the doorway.
The movement was so quick that Domi almost missed it. In fact, it most likely would have been missed by anyone else; only Domi’s eerily heightened senses caught the motion before it disappeared from her field of vision. The figure was rushing from the room, a foot visible for a fraction of a second as it ran through the crumbling archway of the next door, the dust of rubble puffing up in its wake.
Domi initiated pursuit, shouting, “Stay where you are. We mean you no harm.” It seemed a curious instruction. Technically, it was Domi and her team who were trespassing here, and yet they hadn’t expected to meet with anyone else after the ville had been destroyed.
Domi dashed toward the doorway, and another of the gray-feathered gulls came swooping out, shrieking an ugly cry as it flew at her. Domi ducked, and the confused bird flew on, flapping its wings and ascending into the open area above through a gap in the broken ceiling. Behind Domi, Edwards tracked his pistol on the bird as it disappeared, before returning his attention to her progress.
Ahead, Domi rushed through the next doorway, leaving the corridor behind her. She found herself face-to-face with a half-dozen people dressed in the ragged clothes of Outlanders. They were huddled around a fire that had been set in an upturned canister, warming their hands as they cooked several rats and birds at the ends of greasy sticks hung over the yellow flames. Domi cursed herself for missing the cooking smells—the breath mask had hidden them from her, obscuring the natural senses that she relied upon.
The room itself was a vast open area. The floor was tiled in terra-cotta, a swirling pattern like sea spray created using a series of darker tiles within the mosaic. The tiles had been cracked by the earthquake that had shaken the ville weeks before, and a number of them were missing, now just crumbled to dust. On the far side of the room stood a counter at roughly chest height, indicating that the room had probably been some kind of reception area just a few weeks before. Now it was simply a corpse, the rotting remains of a once magnificent building.
As Domi dashed forward, she became conscious of something coming at her from behind, and she moved just swiftly enough to avoid a harsh blow to the back of her head. She spun to face her attacker, seeing the tall figure dressed in a dark, hooded cloak with a lighter pattern in the weave. The lighter pattern was almost undetectable now, so much dirt had become ingrained in the man’s clothes.
“Submit,” the hooded man spat, following through on his first attack.
Domi ducked as the cloaked man lunged at her again, inexpertly driving a heavy fist toward her face. As the man’s fist sailed over her head, Domi rushed at him, barreling shoulderfirst into his gut and knocking him off his feet. The man fell backward and became tangled in his cloak even as he struggled to right himself. Leaping back, Domi held her gun on him, instructing him not to move. The whole attack and rebuttal had taken less than four seconds.
Behind Domi, Edwards was making his way through the doorway, the black barrel of his Heckler & Koch nosing into the room before him. “Everything okay in here?” he asked.
“Just peachy,” Domi said. “Fuckwit here tried to ambush me.”
Edwards glanced at Domi’s would-be attacker sprawled on the cracked tiles. “Looks like you had it covered.”
Domi’s red eyes flicked to Edwards for an instant, and he saw that her expression was one of irritation. He ignored it, turning to assess the other people in the room.
“Now, why don’t you nice people tell us what the shit is going on here?” Edwards asked, striding toward the group huddled around the fire.
For a moment, no one answered. Edwards glared at them, his snarl visible through the transparent cup of the breath mask. Then, keeping his movements slow and smooth so that everyone could see just what he was doing, Edwards lowered the Heckler & Koch until he had it held loosely at his side. Still, he left the safety catch off so that he could fire it at a moment’s notice.
Then, her voice timid, a woman with ragged ginger hair and dirt-caked clothes spoke to Edwards, her pleading eyes wide. “Are you the new baron?”
“What?” Edwards spit. “Shit, no. The barons have
