Will, Bigsby, and Nadine all cursed at the same time. Roland thought it was cute. It tugged at his heart strings a little. He missed being part of a close-knit team. Some of his stronger memory fragments involved really good times he’d had during and after the war. He remembered blowing up an armored school bus with a guy named Mike, and throwing rotten oranges at a government sniper with Jim. His brain also brought up snatches of late-night drinking sessions and watching cartoons on an old projector in the desert. When he closed his eyes he could smell the burning manzanita smoke of their campfire. Pain tugged at his heart, but he was jerked out of his reverie by the sound of an explosion.

It was big, and close enough that everyone in the APC heard it, even though Roland’s hindbrain put the distance at over seven miles away.

“VBIED,” Bigsby and Azime said at the same time.

“Real big one,” Azime added.

Roland could tell that the explosives-rigged vehicle had been an E-Series Mercedes truck, but he didn’t bring that up. No one liked a know-it-all.

Bigsby’s mouth opened and closed, the tell-tale sign of someone having a subvocal conversation through their deck. Roland could’ve read his lips, but that would’ve been rude. Instead he looked over to Sardar.

“If the gig gets called on account of war, you wanna go get shitfaced in Austin with me?”

The kid blinked, and then replied. “I mean, of course. But I’m pretty sure bossman’s gonna want us to do the job even if it’s hot out there.”

Roland growled a little, without thinking, and Sardar cringed.

“I did not sign up to defend against an active invasion. I’m here to fuck up property, not people.”

“Jim says that’s still the plan. You fuck up the property,” Bigsby grunted, “my fam and I are here to fuck up the people.”

A red hot cherry of anger bloomed in Roland’s heart. “That wasn’t the deal,” he said, “and Jim knows it. One of you call him and loop me in on your screen. I’ll set this right.”

“Call him yourself,” spat Bigsby.

“He can’t,” Sardar pointed out. “He’s got a dead deck. No signal at all. True null.”

“Why the hell would you go null–” Azime started to ask. Bigsby interrupted her.

“It doesn’t matter why this asscopter’s null. I’m on with Jim, and he says you’re under contract still. We’ll make sure you don’t have to kakk anybody.”