The rifle stock thumped gently against his shoulder. The barrel drifted in the wake of the scope, automatically homing in on targets on its own accord. Posten squeezed the trigger and the green figure illuminated in his sights threw its arms back and hit the dirt.

Posten frowned and again took aim. The weapon was a technological marvel but it took getting used to. With the cluster of moving targets it felt natural to let the gun do the aiming but it tended to target the nearest object. He supposed he might have been better off letting the weapon take the lead but he was desperately trying to hit the MPD special ops, not the fleeing scavengers. Fighting with the aiming mechanism meant his shots veered off, hitting stray targets. Three shots fired and he had yet to hit what he was aiming at.

He wished he could have used a regular scope but he wasn't in a position to make requests. His employers had given him a few practice shots, but not at this many moving targets and not under the cover of darkness. Their initiation had happened too quickly for that.

Posten had arrived at the meeting place at the appointed time and found a dozen ragged men inside the warehouse glaring at him, each trying to look harder than the last. Six other men toting submachine guns regarded them from behind shaded facemasks. The leader drew the warehouse door shut on screeching hinges and began lecturing, passing out bars of dried fruit as he paced. He paced through shafts of sunlight streaming through the roof, telling them not to bother asking questions because they would get no answers. As Posten and the others wolfed down their food, he saw two of the helmeted men bringing a kettle to a boil over a large fire. He smelled some kind of stew and he began to salivate.

"You will be well-fed and well-armed," the pacing man said to the ragged crew, some of whom were scarred over their eyes like Posten was. "If the mission is a success, you keep the spoils. Insubordination will not be tolerated. Infighting will not be tolerated. Flight will not be tolerated. If any of my men see any evidence of this," he said with finality, "And we will drop you. Remember, you all have been wronged by the MPD. We are not your enemy."

Such macho posturing did little to impress Posten, but the promise of a hot meal in his stomach? For that he'd swear allegiance to anything and anyone and suffer a thousand shallow cuts.

Or so he thought.

His loyalty wavered seconds after they sprung the trap. They had the drop on the MPD guards, but the ground team didn't advance quickly enough when the long range shooters laid down their suppressing fire. Then they failed to seal the exits. Posten watched through the scope as fuzzy green shapes escaped one after the other. They were scavengers, but it was only a matter of time before the special ops regrouped and hit back. One crazy son of a bitch stood in an open window and sprayed the hillside with alarming accuracy. Posten felt a ricochet whine past his hand and ceased fire.

He was scurrying through tangled block an exit when a flash-bang grenade detonated outside the walls and, in a brief instant, illuminated the scene. In that burst of white light, time froze like an old photograph, and Posten glimpsed of a pair of huddled figures stealing off into the night, arms entwined. Turning away to recover his blasted senses he stumbled and fell on his ass. He wanted to doubt what—or rather who—he had seen. But he couldn't.

It was her. Delia Reichman. The one who had destroyed his life.

In those next moments the chaos was complete. A volley of gunfire erupted from the building and the attackers fell back, not prepared for the counter-offensive. Posten raised his rifle and the scope was a flurry of green shapes darting this way and that, the crosshairs leaping from one to the next as the tip of the rifle twitched like a dog's on a confusing scent. The air was alive with shouts and cries from within and outside the structure. It was impossible to tell who was who.

He had to decide and quickly. Though the body count was unclear, he guessed the mission had been a bust. At least a handful of MPD escaped, probably more, and the charge had been annihilation. How would his new employers would react to that failure? Surely not reward them with more hot meals. And he held in his hands an invaluable weapon in his fight for survival. If he slipped away now, right now, who would be the wiser?

And then there was the girl.

Without another thought, Posten shouldered the rifle, ducked, and ran after the couple. Provided he wasn't shot in the back in the next twenty seconds, he would find her trail.

He meant to bring her home.