Chapter One
Nolan Garrett had stared down far too many gun barrels in his life, and every time he’d been certain it would be his last. Looking up into the leering, sweating face of Two Square and watching the way the blaster pistol quivered in the rat-faced man’s unsteady grip, Nolan felt the cold grip of dread squeeze his heart. One twitch of the little drug pusher’s trigger finger and Nolan’s brain would be splattered across the wall of the filthy alley.
A single thought flashed through his mind. What a shitty way to die.
Not in battle with the Terran League, as he’d pictured so many times. No death being blasted to shreds by a mech’s explosive shell, torn to pieces by Jackboots’ machine gun fire, or crushed to a bloody pulp from some orbital HALO jump gone wrong. He’d die here, in some dumpster-cluttered back alley behind a crappy peeler bar, with Shimmertown’s glitzy lights, blaring music, and the stink of the muck-covered lane as his final resting place.
“Come on, Two Square, there’s no need for this.” Nolan’s hands quivered as he gripped the arms of his wheelchair—was it fear, or just his body’s way of reminding him how badly he needed another hit of Blitz? “You know I’m good for what I owe you. I’m just waiting for my disability comp to come in and—”
A heavy fist crashed into Nolan’s jaw. The impact snapped his head to the side, sending painful twinges down his neck, and knocked him out of his wheelchair. Stars flared bright in his vision for a moment and the world whirled violently around him. When the spinning slowed, Nolan found himself lying on the ground, the muck cold and slimy on the side of his face and soaking into his shirt. The stench of the garbage trickling from those rusted green metal dumpsters lining the alley turned his stomach and set his skin crawling.
Once, Nolan might have fought. He’d have taken on Two Square and his three goons and left all four bleeding and unconscious in the nearby dumpsters. But now, he couldn’t even pick himself out of the mud and climb back into his wheelchair. Between his useless legs, the pain throbbing in his jaw, and the body aches and muscle pain that set in as he came down from his Blitz high, he could do nothing but grit his teeth and try to refocus his vision on the drug pushers.
“That’s the third time this month you’ve said that,” Two Square growled at him. “Waiting for that IAF pension check to come in.” The rat-faced man leaned down, until his long, sharp nose was a few inches from Nolan’s. Close enough to get the full effect of his fetid breath and dark brown teeth. “You want another hit of Blitz, you pay for it. Just like everyone else.”
“And I will!” With effort, Nolan struggled to lift his upper body from the muck. His attention locked on Two Square. The three thugs standing around the alley were little more than hired muscle. He just had to convince Two Square to give him a taste—even just a tiny bit of cheap shit like Gunk or Whisperdream—to keep the shakes at bay. “The moment the Imperial Office of Veterans Affairs opens tomorrow, I’ll be sitting in line to get my check. But I just need a little something!”
He hated the plaintive, pleading whine of his voice. Silverguards didn’t beg for anything, especially not from people like Two Square. But Nolan hadn’t been a Silverguard for more than a year now. Hadn’t been anything beyond useless and aimless. The grenade that shattered his spine had stolen far more than just his legs. Now, the crap Two Square peddled was the only thing keeping him close to sane.
“Please!” Desperation edged his voice. He could feel the tremors already setting in for real, his hands twitching with that irritable, irresistible urge to get high. The sweating and muscle pains weren’t far behind. Then the anxiety and fear would kick in, pushing back sleep and leaving him alone in the dark, quiet hours of the New Avalon night punching ghosts and wrestling with the memories of who he’d been, what he’d lost. Not just comrades and friends, but the life he’d had before a knuckle-sized fragment of shrapnel ended everything. He needed to forget that, to drown those memories beneath a wave of Blitz. It was the only thing that had kept him from eating a bullet far too many times to count.
“You know the rules, Nolan.” Two Square shook his head. “No credits, no Blitz. Until you get paid and can pay me—”
Nolan reached up and seized Two Square’s collar, dragging the man closer. “Just a little hit!” His voice came out in a hoarse, rasping whisper. The need held him in a grip so strong he couldn’t hope to break free—it consumed every thought, filled every fiber of his being. “Anything will do!”
A disgusted grimace twisted the man’s rat face and he recoiled, tearing Nolan’s muck-soiled hand from his shirt. “You piece of shit, you stained my shirt!” He brushed furiously at the horrible, greenish-brown muck that had passed from Nolan’s hands onto the shimmering bright green fabric of the T-shirt he wore beneath his purple leather vest. “This is a Mascavado! Do you have any idea how much this cost? Now you owe me triple. For the Blitz I sold you on credit, for my fuckin’ shirt, and for making me hunt you down in this shithole!”
Without taking his eyes off Nolan, Two Square snapped slim fingers at his goons. “Show him what happens to junkies who fail to pay their debts.”
The first kick landed squarely in Nolan’s spine, just a few inches above the spot where the shrapnel had severed spinal nerves a year earlier. Pain exploded along the muscles of Nolan’s back, and a moment later a boot to the gut knocked the air from his lungs. He cried out, only to get a kick to the face. Blood gushed from his nose and split lip. He tasted metal and saw stars, and the pain only got worse as Two Square’s goons laid in to him. Nolan had no way to defend himself; all he could do was shield his face with arms too weakened by withdrawal to fight back and pray to whatever god wasn’t listening that the beating stopped before he wound up dead.
“Hey!” A new voice shattered the blinding pain, echoing as if from far away. “Get the hell off him!” The voice was strong, commanding, powerful. A woman’s voice, accompanied by the thump, thump of heavy booted feet racing toward him.
The blows suddenly stopped, leaving only the throbbing, searing, stabbing anguish of bruised flesh and bone. Through the pounding of his pulse in his ears, Nolan only faintly heard the sound of Two Square and his goons racing away, pursued by whoever his rescuer had been. Heavy boots splashed past him, kicking up muck that spattered his face, but he was beyond caring.
Relief flooded Nolan, but it was short-lived as wave after wave of pain washed over him. Nerves left raw and ragged by withdrawal from his last dose of Blitz fired on overdrive, flooding his brain with thousands of signals—every one utter torment. Agony swallowed him whole, numbing his mind so much he couldn’t even take stock of his injuries to see if the beating had broken anything serious. He was too weak to do anything but lie in the muck of the alley and draw one labored breath after another.
Despair flooded him. He’d come to Shimmertown looking to score something, anything, to dull the pain, to erase the memories. But Two Square had found him, somehow, despite his attempts to dodge the dealer. Now, the pain was worse. Worse still was the knowledge that his credit had run out. Two Square wouldn’t give him anything else, not until Nolan paid what he owed. And the bastard would make sure every dealer in Shimmertown and the Grove District knew not to deal with Nolan.