The two female assassins were close to freeing themselves now. Roland could hear them struggle out through the vibrations of their bodies in the red sand. He couldn’t see the other post-human, but he’d triangulated his most likely location. Unfortunately, the other fucker had him dead to rights. If Roland broke cover, he’d be shot to pieces, maybe more pieces than his trauma organs could put back together.

Alright, old boy. Do we eat a bunch of lead and charge the bastards? Deploy the meat rockets and run for a gun while they’re blind? He suddenly remembered the spring-loaded assault razor embedded in his left forearm, and then the 22mm grenade pistol buried in between his small intestine and his sigmoid colon. (Did I remember to load it before shoving it in there?) But before he could take any action the firefight was interrupted by an oddly familiar voice.

“Hey Roland, how’s it swingin’?”

Roland hadn’t smelled or heard this new man coming. The voice was very familiar. Roland felt a name on the tip of his tongue, but it just wouldn’t come.

“Weapons down, lads and lassies. I’ve seen enough to guess the end.”

Roland smelled frustration waft off the two women, now free and angry. The other post-human smelled like nothing, but Roland felt him lower his weapon. Some gray, dead strand of memory pulsed in the back of Roland’s brain and he guessed that it was safe for him to stand up now. So he did, and put eyes on the mystery man.

The fellow had a lopsided, square-ish jaw with a very deliberate five o’clock shadow. His nose was thick and bulby. His red hair was tangled into dreadlocks that were more the result of inattention than stylistic choice. He was tall, muscular but lean, with a bare chest that was covered in tattoos of black snakes. They writhed in time to the beating of his heart. He wore nothing but a pair of red leather chaps and a broad, calm smile. His bare penis swung pendulous in the breeze. Both of his palms were extended, out front and visible. It was the kind of gesture one used to calm an animal.

Roland’s synapses fired and misfired and a string of fragmented memories ran through his mind. He recalled a really good hot dog on a sunny day, push-ups in the mud, searing pain in his genitals, and the taste of shitty ditch weed. These memory fragments were all somehow tied to the man in front of him.

It took Roland a moment, but as soon as he got a full look at those coal-gray eyes, the man’s name clicked into place.

“Oh shit,” he croaked, “Jim?”

Roland hadn’t spoken to a person in…months, at least. Maybe longer. He sounded more like a suffering cat than an English-speaking human. But Jim understood him.

“Ayep,” he said.