Shadow Box

“Where are the others now?” Kane asked.

Decard placed an arm around Kane’s shoulders and pulled him toward the closest opening of the bivouac. “Let’s talk about that outside,” he said quietly.

Leaving Grant, Domi and the Incarnates to watch their prisoners, Kane and Decard stood outside the tent waiting for Brigid to join them.

“Her temperature’s running at 108,” Brigid said as she walked out of the tent, brandishing a pocket thermometer that the Incarnate medic had loaned her. She sounded astonished. “She must be burning up inside.”

“Not burning,” Kane said solemnly, “melting. Can a body even take that kind of temperature?”

Brigid nodded slowly. “The human body can take greater extremes than we give it credit for,” she said, “but I don’t like her long-term chances, especially with the baby.”

Decard interjected at that point, all humor drained from his face. “The other two went like that,” he said quietly, “first they were walking about like they’d been concussed, then they sat down, mumbling and drooling.”

“And then?” Kane prompted.

“They’re dead, Kane,” Decard told him.

“Shit,” Kane spit as he noticed the mounds of earth where Decard and his team had buried two bodies. “What have you stumbled on here?”

Decard shook his head. “We’re four miles from Aten,” he said. “Far as I’m concerned, this is the very limit of my jurisdiction. I called Cerberus in because I don’t have the time or resources to deal with it. Figured maybe you do.”

“That’s mighty brave of you,” Kane growled.

Decard looked away, refusing to meet the man’s gray-blue eyes. “We look after our own, Kane,” he said, “that’s the rule of the Outlands, and you know it. These freaks get closer to the city and I’ll do what I have to, but I’m in way over my depth here.”

“What if it’s a plague,” Kane said, “an airborne virus, something you can’t just pretend doesn’t exist? What then?”

Decard paced across the sand for a moment, head low, absorbed by his thoughts.

“I’ve got four people and two prisoners,” Kane urged. “We need manpower, and your people are on the scene, Decard. Will you help us?”

Decard’s gaze swept past Kane and Brigid, and he looked off into the distance. “None of this can be brought back to the city,” he said quietly. “No prisoners, none of the infected. I am not having this spread through Aten.”

“None of us wants that,” Brigid assured him.

“I’m out here with a twelve-man team,” Decard said. “You get me and them and that’s it. Okay?”

Kane nodded. “You just keep your gun loaded.”

“Don’t worry,” Brigid told them both. “We’ll find out what it is. No one else needs to get hurt.”

BACK INSIDE the bivouac, Rosalia was peering at the far end of the tent, watching the pregnant woman rocking back and forth on her heels. “What is wrong with that lady?” she asked in an urgent whisper.

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Domi said. “Friends of ours found her wandering the desert, figured we’d be able to help.”

“And what is it that you do?” Smarts chipped in politely.

“None of your nose,” Domi said, flashing him her feral smile.

Leaving Grant with the prisoners, Domi made her way to a small, tan-colored rucksack to the side of the tent and rummaged through its contents. A moment later she returned with a Sin Eater handgun in a black leather holster. “Thought you might need this,” she told Grant. “Brought one for Kane, too.”

Grant shrugged out of the right sleeve of his coat and clipped the wrist holster to his right forearm. The Sin Eater was the official sidearm of the Magistrate Division, and the weapon with which Grant and Kane felt most comfortable. Less than fourteen inches in length at full extension, the automatic handblaster folded in on itself to be stored in the bulky holster just above the wrist. The holsters reacted to a specific tensing of the wrist tendons, snapping the pistol automatically into the user’s hand.

The trigger of the Sin Eater had no guard; the necessity for any kind of safety features had never been foreseen when the weapon had been assigned to the infallible Magistrates. While both Grant and Kane were schooled in numerous forms of unarmed and armed combat, the Sin Eater was an old friend, a natural weight that their movements accommodated, like wearing a wristwatch.

Smarts watched with amusement as Grant finished clipping the Sin Eater in place. “I said you were Magistrates, did I not, señor?”

Grant looked at him, no hint of amusement or pity in his features. “Why don’t you help yourselves out here and give us the information we want about the hybrid DNA. You can see that you’re nothing more than deadweight to us right now. You give us the info and we’ll let you walk out of here, no questions asked.”

Smarts nodded slowly, considering the offer. “I would need to discuss this with my colleague, you understand?” he said, indicating Rosalia.