Shadow Box

Kane smiled bitterly, shaking his head as Rosalia walked over to join the group, having finally found a family to take care of the last of her young charges. “I’m not a Mag,” Kane told Señor Smarts. “We’re not Mags.”

The man smiled again in a display of yellowing teeth. “The way that the three of you took command here, organizing and taking care of the local people, tells me different, señor. If you are not Magistrates, then you almost certainly trained to be, at some point in your past.”

Grant flicked a warning look at Kane, as if to tell him it wasn’t a topic of conversation worth pursuing.

After a moment, Kane spoke again. “Any idea what happened to the rest of your crew? Where Carnack disappeared to?”

“I’m sorry, Señor Kane.” Smarts sighed. “I was unconscious for quite a while. When I realized what had happened I felt it my duty to help out. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Very admirable,” Grant muttered before he stood up and took Kane to one side. They stood together, looking at the devastation outside the open church hall doors for a few moments, and then he spoke to Kane in a low voice. “This doesn’t change anything. That hybrid DNA is still in the hands of their extended clan. We can’t ignore that just because these two helped out.”

Kane nodded, a haunted look in his gray-blue eyes. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said quietly.

“You reckon the girl knows anything?” Grant asked.

“I’d guess Smarts is Carnack’s majordomo,” Kane reasoned. “If anyone knows the location of the gang and the DNA, it’s him. But Rosalia is more than she seems. I’d dismissed her as a—” he shrugged “—companion when I first saw her, but the way she came at me with that sword yesterday afternoon—she’s trained and she’s deadly.”

“We’ll take both of them back to Cerberus,” Grant suggested. “We can interrogate them there, see what we turn up.” He glanced back at the Mexican in the loud shirt and stained velvet coat, and at the dark-haired enchantress who stood beside him. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll be more forthcoming after all that’s happened.”

Kane chewed at his lip thoughtfully for a moment. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” he told Grant.

As the two ex-Mags were striding back to where Brigid taped gauze to Señor Smarts’s head, their Commtacts came to life and the three Cerberus teammates heard the voice of Dr. Mohandas Lakesh Singh inside their heads.

Lakesh was the nominal leader of the Cerberus exiles, although his suitability to that role was somewhat contentious. Their early meetings with Lakesh had shown Kane, Grant and Brigid that the accomplished cyberneticist had orchestrated a Machiavellian plan to destroy their lives in Cobaltville, albeit for the greater good, and his methods had often proved to be supremely devious. However reluctantly, Lakesh had conceded his single-minded control of Cerberus and its exiles undermined the united front necessary to battle the Annunaki and the threat they posed to humankind.

Lakesh’s mellifluous voice piped directly to their ear canals with crystal clarity. “It seems that we may have an additional problem, and I wondered how the three of you would feel about taking a little detour to look into it?”

Kane held up his index finger to let his companions know that he would deal with the transmission. “Kane here,” he said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Decard has just got in touch with us from over in Aten,” Lakesh explained. “He’s stumbled across something on one of his regular patrols, and he thinks we might want to take a look.”

Decard, like Kane and Grant, was also an ex-Magistrate. He had been adopted into the strange culture of the hidden city-kingdom of Aten, out in the wilderness of the California desert. His path had crossed that of the Cerberus crew on several occasions. Initially hostile, the people of Aten had come to respect the Cerberus exiles, and Decard had proved himself to be a faithful friend and valuable ally.

“Did Decard say what it was?” Kane asked, aware that the ex-Mag wasn’t one to jump at shadows.

“He seemed mystified,” Lakesh explained, “but the report he gave describes a group of people who apparently have no independent will. He called them ‘mindless, soulless wretches.’”

Kane considered this for a moment before responding. “Don’t want to be callous here, but is that such a big deal?” he asked.

“It is when the same people were vibrant and very much alive just three days earlier,” Lakesh told him, “or so Decard indicates.”

“Okay,” Kane agreed. “We’ll arrange transportation and get over there before dawn. Warn Decard that we’re bringing a couple of stragglers with us, and we might need to use his hoosegow.”

“I’m sending Domi over there now via mat-trans,” Lakesh replied. “She’ll pass on the message and meet you close to Aten. Take care.”

“Will do.” Kane signed off. He turned to the others, who had been able to hear the whole conversation on their own Commtact. “Well, troops, looks like we’re moving out.”

Señor Smarts, who had only heard Kane’s half of the conversation, smiled tightly. “Leaving so soon?” he said in a patronizing tone.

“Yeah,” Grant growled, reaching for the man’s elbow and helping him up, “and you’re coming with us, Charlie.”

Kane looked across at Rosalia the dancing girl and smiled. “You, too, Princess.”

Chapter 4

The five of them skulked through the alleyways of Hope, hidden in the shadows of the ruined ville. Kane walked close to Señor Smarts, leading the party, the Magnum handgun held tightly in his hand. Behind him, Grant accompanied Rosalia, pulling her by the elbow, his own pistol hidden under the folds of his leather duster. Brigid brought up the rear a few paces behind the rest of the group, her handgun drawn and held low, muzzle pointing to the ground.

As they made their way to the outskirts of the shantytown, Rosalia’s eyes flashed with anger. She pulled from Grant’s grip and strode ahead, catching up with Smarts and Kane. She glared at Kane. “Where are you taking us, Magistrate man?” she demanded.

“We’re needed elsewhere,” Kane replied laconically, while Grant reached for the woman’s elbow once more.

Rosalia pulled away and glared fiercely at them both, standing in place until Brigid caught up. “After all we have done for you,” Rosalia snapped, “you still treat us like…criminals?”

Grant suppressed a laugh when he heard that. Kane looked at him sternly before addressing the dancing girl.

“We need that hybrid DNA,” Kane explained, “and right now, the two of you are our only link to finding it.”

Brigid made eye contact with Rosalia and Señor Smarts as she joined them. “We all have a lot of admiration for what you both did back there,” she told them, indicating the buildings ruined by the quake. “You stepped in to help when it was needed. We don’t need to be enemies. Perhaps we can reach a mutually beneficial agreement with regards to the DNA.”

Smarts reached up to scratch at the gauze that had been attached to his head before stopping himself with a pained intake of breath through his teeth. “This puts us in a difficult position, señorita,” he lamented, his eyes warily watching the shadows around them. “It would be inadvisable for Rosalia and I to engage in dealings that might be considered traitorous to our group,” he added quietly.

Kane nodded in understanding. “Would that still hold true outside of ville limits?”

Smarts considered this for a few seconds, smoothing down his pencil-thin mustache while, Kane noticed, Rosalia’s dark eyes scanned the alleyway in a predatory fashion. “Perhaps,” Smarts said eventually, “we would reconsider our position if placed in such a situation.”

Kane smiled. “Then let’s keep moving.”

“And where exactly is it that we are going, Señor Kane?” Smarts asked.

“Just a little walk in the desert,” Kane explained. “Friends out there need our help, but you can just watch if you want.”

Rosalia looked at the half-moon rising in the sky. “It is almost midnight, Magistrate man,” she told Kane, “not a good time to be walking across the desert.”

“Gets mighty cold out there,” Smarts added.

Along with his companions, Kane had arrived in Hope from the desert. The three of them had used the interphaser to jump close to the ville location, but they had still been forced to walk the last eight miles for the sake of appearances as much as anything else. That had been in the daytime, in the rising heat. At night the temperature in the California desert dropped significantly, and the chill wind could catch a traveler unawares.

“There’s never a good time to cross the desert,” Grant said practically, tilting the pistol in his hands so that it caught the light for just a moment. “Hence the argument’s over.”

“I think not,” Smarts told them. “We could borrow a vehicle from one of the people here without too much trouble.”

“By ‘borrow’ you mean steal?” Kane asked. “We don’t do that.”

“Señor Magistrate,” Smarts argued, “many people here have lost their homes, their loved ones, some even their lives. The loss of a cart, an automobile would be of little—”

“Doesn’t matter.” Kane silenced him with a firm look. “You have legs, so we walk.”

Rosalia smiled. “We have reconditioned Sandcats,” she said, “ideal for desert travel.”