I try to breathe. The delivery is here, just as the General promised. But if the General is dead, who the hell had made me that promise? Who the hell have I escorted across the plains?

Something laughs inside my head. You brought one version of her. But what of all the others? The General Ortiz who died in the wreck, the one you murdered in the desert? The one you left for the Seekers…

‘Here.’ Falco is back, tossing a handful of metal pieces down onto the table. I stare at them. I thought she’d understood that I was asking for more than money. ‘Next time, Doc, don’t bring the filth to my bar. If you were anyone else, I’d kill you for it.’

‘Falco—’ I begin, but the other woman seizes me around the neck in a tight embrace. As she does, I feel something slide down the front of my shirt, landing hard and heavy against my belt. A weapon.

‘Whatever you’re into, be careful,’ she hisses.

I squeeze her back, before letting go. Then, I have no choice but to pick up my hat and my kit and follow the soldier out of the airlock, the gun cold against my belly.

* * *

‘Where are we going?’

I know it’s useless to ask, but at the same time, I can’t just passively follow a quartet of Accord soldiers through the streets of Tiger Town; not when every third person spits in our wake.

‘The goods are being held up ahead,’ the lead soldier says evenly. ‘We did not deem the bar a suitable place for the transaction.’

I glance at her, looking for any trace of deception. For all her stiff words, the soldier is young; she can’t be a day over sixteen. Had she once been a Minority Force candidate? Had she been weeded out from the ranks of children for being too weak, for having too much of a conscience, for being unable to bear the mental pressure of enhancements? Her black hair is neatly clipped at the neck and ears and shaped flat on the top, her uniform correct to the last button. I feel like a desert toad next to her, dusty and croaking, my breath hot with benzene. And all the while, beneath my vest, the gun thuds against my belly…

‘How many boxes did you bring?’ I ask.

‘Four,’ the answer is immediate. ‘Corporal Toulio has the details.’

‘Eight packs of immune boosters,’ one of the other soldiers reels off. ‘Sixteen of antibiotic compounds. One crate of bandages. Five hundred analgesic ampules. Thirty packs of assorted sterile dressings…’