Phosporescent hexadecimal scrolls through Ashlock’s dreams.
When she wakes, the chronometer pulses 3:44. Cold water on her face, her boots, her jacket. She’s out pacing the mist-wreathed docks by a sliver of moon.
Nobody nice is out at this hour, but they don’t hassle Ashlock (she does kung fu). Down a wharf, she kicks splinters into jetsam.
This was an easy job: they should have come out with cash, not data. They’re lazy sometimes, arrogant, but not stupid.
Somebody dumbed it up for them.
Styrofoam hunks bob around the pylon, striped with broken barcodes. Hexadecimal teases Ashlock, just out of reach.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Zoe’s got the graveyard watch, which means the rest of them should be sleeping. Malcolm comes to check on her anyway.
“Any movement?”
“Some to the northwest, around four,” she says. “Sentry guns didn’t have too much trouble.” She hands him the field glasses; through them, faint protrusions resolve into zombie limbs chewed by chaingun.
Malcolm peers at gray flesh, black blood. “You’ve been skipping rations, Zo.”
“I’m fine. The kid can use a little extra.”
“You need to eat. Keep your strength up. One day the guns may not hold.”
“I’ll eat,” Zoe says with grim relish, “when I’m dead.”
Wednesday, September 1, 2010