The old man stared at the credit sticks, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he slapped his hand down to cover them before anyone could take them back.
Every city that had survived the Flares had their own form of currency these days, but you could only reliably expect to spend them in those cities. TechCorps credits were better. Since the conglomerate sprawled across the Southeast, you could usually use TechCorps chits to buy fresh fish in the insular communities that dotted the shores of the Gulf of Mexico or pay for a night of sin and self-indulgence up in D.C. as easily as you could buy goods in Atlanta.
Usually.
Only one type of money had more value—clean credits backed by the powerful trade association that operated out of Baton Rouge and dominated the Mississippi with their river boats and barges. Those credits could get you anything, anywhere, no hassle and no questions asked.
The man pulled out a reader and checked the balance on each stick. Apparently satisfied, he retrieved two more keys and tossed them on the counter. “No food. No ice. We got running water. You want anything else, get it at the bar down the road.”
“That’ll do.” Knox swept up all three keys and turned toward the door, waving Nina out in front of him. As soon as they were back outside in the thick night air, he cast her a look. “What happened to charming?”
“Roll over too easy, and you look desperate. Desperate means no other options. No other options means trouble.” She grinned. “Plus, I don’t like being cheated.”
Knox bit back a snort, but the urge to laugh died when he glanced at the trucks.
“Hello, Lieutenant Knox.”
For a horrible moment, Knox wondered if full neural degradation had crept over him. Surely he was hallucinating the grizzled old soldier wielding a sawed-off shotgun and a smug smile. There was no reason for a piece of his past like Sergeant Benjamin Boyd to be standing in this tiny speck of nowhere, eyeing Knox like a prize that had fallen into his lap.
But a hallucination wouldn’t have dragged their teams from their vehicles. The mercenaries gathered in a loose circle around them weren’t pointing their guns at Nina’s team or the Devils, but tension crackled through the air, and it wasn’t from the gathering storm. Knox could feel the potential for violence like a sudden gust of wind.
Then Boyd’s gaze slid to Nina, and Knox’s shock splintered. He stepped between them, dragging Boyd’s attention back to him. “Actually, it’s Captain now. A lot can change in seven years.”
“Right, right. Command of your own squad.” Boyd’s eyes gleamed. “How’d that work out for you?”
The mockery underlying the question might not be evident to Nina, but Knox felt it in his bones. He and Boyd had always scraped each other’s tempers, all the way back to Knox’s earliest days in the Protectorate. At first, the friction had been the natural result of Knox’s idealism clashing with Boyd’s pragmatic cynicism. But as the Protectorate slowly beat the hope out of Knox, Boyd’s resentment had shifted to something deeper.
Neither of them had fit in the Protectorate. Neither of them liked the job, but Knox had figured out a way to play the game, climb the ranks, and carve out a little bit of control. Boyd, on the other hand, had never been able to stomach taking an order he disliked. His attitude and his mouth had held him back while Knox excelled.
Until seven years ago, when a mission had gone sideways and Boyd had turned up presumed dead.
Seven years. Seven fucking years, without the benefit of implant maintenance.
Fuck, Boyd should be dead.
The fact that he wasn’t jackknifed hope through Knox, along with apprehension. Boyd was fully capable of denying him answers out of spite. Knox had to be careful, play this just right.
And, like Nina had said, he couldn’t let Boyd sense his desperation.
Planting his feet, Knox hooked his thumbs through his belt and gave the man a lazy once-over. The years hadn’t been kind to him—he looked old. Plenty of Protectorate soldiers looked a decade or more younger than their biological ages, thanks to the benefits of constant metabolic maintenance and cutting-edge medical care.
Boyd looked like the decades had caught up with him—and then run another lap around him. Deep grooves bracketed his eyes, his skin was sallow and leathery, and his hair had gone almost completely silver. There was a glassy, glittery look to his eyes, the look of a man