“He’s got some vat-grown muscles,” Manny said, in an off-handed way that suggested such things were common. “Aftermarket nerves too, probably. His stuff is low-grade. That’s why it’s so visible.”

Reggie nodded. His eyes stayed locked on the big man. He was quiet for a while before he spoke again. “You just…you live right alongside them, don’t you?”

Manny shrugged. “Everybody’s got something out here. And the wetware’s what lets us hold back the Martyrs. They’d own the whole city if it weren’t for half-vats like him.”

The journalist nodded, and his gaze stayed fixed upon the militiaman until a troubled look crossed his face. He glanced back to Manny.

“Are you, ah, ‘chromed’?” Reggie asked.

Manny smiled. “I don’t expect either of us is stock sapien, eh? But I doubt I’ve got anything you don’t.”

Reggie seemed somewhat comforted by this. “Most of what I’ve read about the really heavy mods says they cause a lot of, well, unstable behavior. That’s why…”

“That’s why this city’s such a shit hole?” Manny asked.

The journalist had the grace to blush. Manny looked away for a moment. His eyes landed on the bones of three large public housing buildings. A barrel bomb had detonated in the center of the courtyard all three shared. It had peeled away the walls, some of the floors, and the resulting firestorm had burned up everything that wasn’t concrete, steel, or rebar. For just a moment, Manny felt bad about hoping the war hung on another six months.

“The old government blamed a lot on roided-up veterans with military grade mods,” he told Reggie. “Most was just propaganda, fear-mongering. People were pissed after twenty years of plague, disaster, and poverty.” Manny shrugged. “It’s true though, a lot of chromed-up vets turned on the government. You can’t make men into gods and expect them to keep fighting for men.”

Reggie pointed back to the bulging militiaman. “I take it muscles there is pretty far from a god.”

“Nah,” Manny laughed. “He’s just a guy with too much meat-money. Gods don’t man check-points.”

The Brit was excited now. These were the questions he’d wanted to ask since they’d met yesterday. “Do you know where some of those people are?” Reggie couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “Could we talk to them?”

Manny didn’t have any of those contacts, nor did he know any other fixers who did. He tried to let the Brit down easy. “Most of those folks live, uh, on the road. In between the civilized parts of Texas and the Republic of California.”

“Oh,” Reggie looked disappointed. From the bed of the truck they could see the wreckage of an old Catholic school. It bore the signs of being fortified, destroyed, re-fortified, and re-destroyed several times.