"Lobby," Clarke reported. "Dark. Reception pedestals and kiosks over to the left. Nobody here."

"Dogs?"

"Not yet."

Lubin's working fingers played along the edges of the breach. "What's this?"

She leaned closer. In the boosted half-light, something glimmered from the torn cross-section like a thin vein of precious ore. Frayed bits protruded here and there from the shattered substrate.

"Mesh of some kind," she told him. "Embedded in the wall. Metallic, very fine weave. Like thick cloth."

He nodded grimly. "Faraday cage."

"What?"

"Shielding. From the effects of the pulse."

Like a handclap from God, the lights came on.

Empath

Instantly Clarke was snow-blind. She brought up the H&K, waved it wildly in no particular direction. "The lights—"

"I know."

From somewhere deep in the building, the sudden hum of reawakened machinery.

"Jesus Priestpoking Christ," said an omnipresent voice. "You always have to make things so damned difficult. The door was open, you know."

"Achilles?" Her eyecaps were adjusting; objects and architecture resolved from the whitewash. But the fog wasn't entirely in her caps. Dust from the explosion hung in the air, bleeding contrast from their surroundings. Scree fanned out across the floor from their makeshift entrance. Polished stone paneling on the opposite wall, a good ten meters from the breach, had cracked and fallen in a jagged heap.

"Or you could've just landed on the roof," the voice continued. "But no. You had to storm the battlements, and look at you now. Look at you now.

"You can barely stand."

Ventilators whirred in the distance, tugged wisps and streamers of suspended dust into grilles in the ceiling. The air began to clear. Lubin swayed by the wall, favoring his injured leg. The lights had returned color to Clarke's sight; the gore on Lubin's body glistened shocking rust and crimson. He looked flayed alive.

"We could really use some help here," Clarke said.

A sigh from somewhere, from everywhere. "Like the last time you came to town. Some things never change, eh?"

"This is your fault, you fucker. Your dogs—"

"Standard-issue post-pulse security, and did I tell you to go up against them blind? Ken, what got into you? You're damn lucky I noticed in time."

"Look at him! Help him!"

"Leave it," Lubin insisted, barely above a whisper. "I'm all right."

The building heard him anyway. "You're far from all right, Ken. But you're not exactly incapacitated either, and I'm not stupid enough to let down my guard to someone who's just broken into my home by force. So let's work this out, and then maybe we can get you fixed up before you bleed to death. What are you doing here?"

Lubin started to speak, coughed, started again: "I think you know already."

"Assume I don't."

"We had a deal. You were supposed to find out who was hunting us on the ridge."

Clarke closed her eyes, remembering: The rest of the plan doesn't change.