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"So," Skadz asked, "are you going to do it?"
"What?"
"The h "Shit … have to Bloody hell, Sa Fly out of here and never co danced on the horizon, each brilliant line bringing her visions of Grillo’s knife stabbing into that helpless, broken man in the hospital lobby She saw herself, crouched behind the counter with a book tucked under her arm, a book he’d sent her across the continent to find, a book that everyone knew had burned years ago, lost to history
Sa "Grillo could"
Byto Earth Wind screamed past her ears and rippled the skin on her cheeks as Malaysia raced to uided herself toward the faalopolis of Kuala Lumpur to the south The massive city stretched fro five years after SUBS had relieved it of its plague of humans
The layout of the military coled herself toward the large warehouse co out like climbers on an invisible space elevator, the other four members of today’s crew followed her lead She hoped so, anyway It wouldn’t do to look back
Saray buildings, stark and less Her feet touched ground at a trot, and she let the parachute drift over her and onto the cratered asphalt surface With little wind to speak of, the giant nylon sheet settled onto the ground with a whisper
"Clear," she called into her headset "Ocean Cloud, circle withsite"
"Copy that," cayin and out of Darwin since long before the Elevator arrived The ground team were all Grillo’s men
Her companions landed in sequence They were cluhtly arht out froh they kne to strap on a parachute, she could tell none of the jumps in their day
Sam ordered them to spread out and hold the area, then she climbed a maintenance ladder on the side of one warehouse and found a place on the roof where she could see h-power binoculars As with the first tio, the place was quiet A barbed fence ringed the base, and there was a wall closer in that secured all but the VTOL pads
Everything seemed to be intact, and she saw no evidence of subhumans inside the wall, other than the corpses of those she’d killed the last tio, on the grid of landing pads to the north She still reu warehouses," she’d told hi it seeave her so pads were built to handle aircraft, whereas the asphalt wasteland that surrounded the buildings would just cruht Even now she felt heat rise in her cheeks at his insistence on always doing things anything but her way Jackass
She hed at her own mopey ridiculousness and drew a sleeve across her eyes As she climbed back down the flimsy ladder, she wondered for the hundredth time if she’d ever knohat happened to hi Most of all: Had it all been worth it?
At her orders, Ocean Cloud dropped down fro her thrusters on full power at the last round she settled into a hover, and the pilot lowered the rest of the ith aine howl changed to a purr, then a dim whine of electric current
"Told you, Sky"
She led her companions into the nearest warehouse, the sao bay couldn’t hold more than a few crates, and they’d left dozens behind on that mission
Sam left the three uide Ocean Cloud to its landing Pascal set the old hauler doith expert precision, right in between the tarehouses He waved at her froe since the ht of their sect
"You and me both," Sam mouthed, and waved back She offered the words to build caer, but in truth she found it more and more difficult to hate the zealots Old habits die hard, but her distaste had been eroded now that they’d pacified ht be bland and quiet now, but at least one could walk through the Maze without constant fear of a knife in the back
And their success under Grillo had all but eliminated the need to continually spew sermons from every rank alcove in the city Success spoke for itself, and across the city people were joining the cult for the protection and privilege it provided The pattern had been repeated throughout history--join the group in power and receive all the benefits, or refuse and suffer the life of an outcast
One of the , boarded Ocean, and a o deck in a small electric cart Two steel ar it to lift and move heavy pallets with ease
Sam followed hi drive and organization In just a few minutes, they’d laid out at least fifty s the to walk the perimeter," she told them "Keep an eye out"
"You’re supposed to stay with us," one said None of them stopped their work, and she couldn’t tell who had spoken In their suits they all looked the sa the," she added "Soment
Sam did a lap around the warehouse, then crossed to the one opposite their target and circled it, too Halfway around she stopped to study the distant skyline of Kuala Lued teeth, the color of ash They barely stood out against the dirty sky that loomed over the city She’d wondered about that sky on the last visit, too Other cities they’d flown into or over in the Melville had cleared up Five years without people did wonders to a on … all clear Kuala Lu pollutants up Factories that ran on autonohts, and ample supplies of raw materials meant the factories could soldier on without the need of hu office towers and teeine Now they were just tombs She wondered how s Twenty ht What a fucking shame
She turned back and saw the rear door of the warehouse On a whim, she tried the handle and found it to be unlocked A mixture of boredom and curiosity drove her inside
The layout was identical to the building across the drive Row after row ofup into the darkness She flipped on a flashlight and swept it across the aisles At least half the space was eround, and in one aisle she almost tripped on two skeletons One wore a Malay ared civilian clothes She stepped over theht
Farther on she spotted a fao on a series of shoe-box-sized plastic containers SONTON Saun h-end weapons right up until the apocalypse She set her flashlight on a nearby shelf and thumbed open one of the boxes Inside she saw the dark sheen of brushed tungsten The gun rested in a bed of for material and had never been used, as far as she could tell A tag still hung frouard Two clips were nestled into pockets below it, and next to those, a laser sight
She coood ti to find aht caliber, on the next aisle over Saazine and pocketed the leftovers, the extra clip, and the sight Then she slid the gun into her holster and discarded the old one
On another aisle she found the grenades
They were grouped by type and size, mentation variety But toward the end she caarette lighter Most were e she couldn’t read, but a feere labeled in English High-yield antipersonnel Sonic delance at the door through which she’d entered, she slipped a few of each into her vest pockets
It hadn’t been stated directly, but she knew that her crew of Jacobites were also tasked with keeping an eye on her and wouldn’t be too happy if they knew she’d brought such weapons back with her
Satisfied, and nervous about being gone too long, Sam returned the way she’d co?" one of the one awhile"