MIST ISLE.

The dark figures disturbed the haze in ones and twos, slicing through the black and gray roiling fog that permanently blanketed the region. The numbers of bodies appearing and disappearing increased, followed by the growing sounds of thousands of footsteps. Mist swirled around the silhouettes, dancing in circles as if alive until it eventually lost its form. A few moments later, it was as if the procession had never come through.

Elise tilted her head to the side and stared at a metal sign hanging off only one corner of a leaning pole: BROOKLYN BRIDGE, with an arrow pointing to the top left corner of the sign. Behind it, an ominous structure full of wires and beams and stone poked through the fog.

It had taken almost a week for the Elfreth to move down the skypath highway across the Long Island Sound, down the length of the peninsula, through the mostly-submerged Hamptons, then west down the lower Suffolk path until they reached the outskirts of New York City. It took another day to navigate through Queens, but now they stood on the east side of the East River entering the dreaded Mist Isle, better known during her time period as Manhattan.

Today was the first day they entered the haze, originally created by a frequency EMP bomb, dropped during the Core Conflicts in the middle of the twenty-fourth century. The lingering effects of the bomb now manifested as an unnatural, permanent fog. It prevented all frequencies from penetrating inside or out, effectively creating a surveillance and communications dead zone. It would hamper the Elfreth, but would completely mask them from the Co-op as well. A more than fair trade-off, and a necessary one.

A shriek pulled Elise's gaze out into the ocean. She saw a tall dark object in the distance, a lone broken tower rising up from the water just to the south of the island. A dense flock of large creatures shaped like pterodactyls circled above it, their high-pitched cries piercing the otherwise quiet night. There seemed to be a nest of some sort at the top of the jagged point. Something about the building pulled at her memory.

She squinted at the flying creature. Some idiot hadn't brought back dinosaurs, had they? Who knew. Elise had been in 2512 for less than a year and she had already seen things more terrifying than she could possibly have dreamed existed, from humanoid snakes to packs of seemingly intelligent lions to centipede bears; the geneticists of the future must have gone to town with mutations. It made the twenty-first-century biologist in her nauseous.

Elise studied the lonely building again and then realized why its shape seemed so familiar. It was a decapitated statue of a woman with one arm raised, cut off at the elbow. She could see a hole through the body of the statue where its heart would be.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." The words came out so softly Elise almost didn't realize she had said them. They were from another time, long past and probably forgotten, except perhaps saved on some chron database server somewhere. There was meaning behind those words, a spirit of generosity and community. Words that no longer had a place.

She shivered as a gust blew in from the south, pushing such a thick bank of fog over the Statue of Liberty that it disappeared. It came in so quickly, everything around Elise darkened several shades in a blink of an eye, as if a cover were pulled over the world. It was strange, this fog. When the wind blew, she could see the mist move, yet it didn't move. Then she realized that there were two layers of fog here, one that reacted to the air, and one that ignored it completely. The scientist in her wanted to investigate further, but the Oldest in her had more urgent matters on her mind.

In the distance, thunder rumbled first from the west, then the east, and then all around, as if each of the clouds loaded with acid rain and lightning were echoing in a chorus. The crackling increased, soon followed by lightning dancing horizontally across the sky, streaking from heavy cloud to heavy cloud. The storm would be upon them soon, and when it was, it would be unforgiving. The world she lived in now didn't know how to treat its inhabitants in any other way.

A shadow appeared through the mist until she could just make out Rima's face. "Oldest, the last of the tribe is gathering at the base of the bridge. Eriao says we are too exposed and recommends we cross tonight or find shelter. However, Oldest Franwil demands a pause."

Elise gave the Statue of Liberty one last sorrowful look. "Stay standing as long as you can, old girl." She turned to Rima, who stood waiting with a chalkboard in hand. "We camp for the night on this side of the river. Tell Eriao to find an open area closed off on at least two sides, either by the river or a building. Two-hundred-meter perimeter guard. Why does Franwil need a pause?"

Rima scribbled furiously on her chalkboard and nodded. "The Oldest is with the kowrus. Moma is giving birth now."

Elise sighed. Another problem to deal with. "Take me to her," she said, following the girl back to camp. They passed the team of guardians watching the rear and continued up the length of the procession, turning in to a side street near the front. Elise found the herd of kowrus mewing in an open field just off the main road, attended to by half a dozen women. Oldest Franwil was elbow-deep inside the pregnant mare. Sasha was by her side, trying to soothe the struggling animal. The girl was often at Franwil's side now that Grace and James were out traipsing through space.

The old woman looked up and shook her head. "She cannot be moved. The foal needs to be turned and delivered. Leave us if you must."

Elise scanned the area. They were completely exposed out here, standing just off a main street that saw heavy traffic. Thank Gaia the fog obstructed the views of most of the natives living in the nearby buildings, especially with both Franwil and Sasha here. A raid right now would be upon them before they even knew it was coming. If something happened to James's sister ... Elise shuddered; she couldn't even finish that thought.

A kowru was a valuable animal, and the pack was critical to the tribe's survival. The problem with this species was it had an extreme pack mentality. If one of them couldn't move, the entire herd would refuse to leave. That meant they had to deliver the foal soon or risk losing the entire herd.

Elise had delivered her first foal as an intern at the Prin Ridge Ranch in Montana as a teenager, before she learned how to drive. She wiped her hands and rolled up her sleeves. "Allow me, Oldest. Rima, tell Eriao to bring a team of guardians. Sasha, we need more clean water. Boil some now."

A team of guardians arrived a few minutes later and took up position around them. Elise was grateful for the additional security. For the next hour, they coaxed and comforted the mare. The stress of their journey must have made it particularly difficult for the expecting mother.

The now-blazing fire nearby had to be a beacon to every predator within a kilometer. No sooner had the foal been delivered and taken its first step, One Huang-"One" being the title for a guardian who commands a team-pushed for them to leave. He barked out several orders and stamped out the fire. "Apologies for rushing you, Oldest, but the tribe encountered raiders from two directions. We are skirmishing with the ones to the north now. Another tribe previously undetected is moving in from the east. I must take you to safety."

Hastily, she picked up the newborn foal and carried it in her arms. The guardians closed rank around her and sprinted toward the encampment. Gunfire erupted around them, kicking up stones and dirt, the popping sounds bouncing between the buildings and lingering in the air. To her right, one of the guardians fell and came up limping. Another had to help carry him to safety.

Elise looked to her left and checked on Oldest Franwil. A burly man was carrying the elderly woman as if she were a child. A long spear landed a few meters to their side, sticking up from the ground. More echoes of small-arms fire bounced in the air. A rain of arrows dropped nearby. Another guardian took one to the arm, but she didn't lose a step. Fortunately, the rest of them reached the encampment unscathed.

A minute later, they had entered the defensive barricades erected by the wagons and vehicles. The guardians swooped and corralled Franwil into a large tent. Elise was pleased that her pulse had quickened only slightly.

"My, how this future changes a person," she murmured, taking a deep breath. If something like this had happened a year ago, she would have suffered a heart attack by now. Now these dangers felt like nothing more than an irritating part of her new reality. She looked down at the foal still in her arms. Well, not everything in the world had changed. She ordered Sasha to fetch a blanket to swaddle it.

She looked over at Rima. "What about the mother?"

"Moma is being well cared for," she replied. "Do not worry, Oldest, we're not leaving something as valuable as a kowru unattended. If you'll excuse me, I wish to join the guardians and help beat back the raiders." She bowed and hurried out of the tent. The girl still had some wild child left in her. Elise prayed for her safety.

In the distance, the popping sounds increased and the shouting grew louder. The fighting did not seem like it would end anytime soon. Elise got up to make the rounds and see to the rest of the tribe. It seemed that most had made it here without too much trouble.

Elise checked the individual groups huddled around small fires. The constant threats of attack were wearing the Elfreth down. Back in Boston, the Elfreth only had to worry about the Co-op. All the tribes had a shared history after generations of coexistence would unite to fight a common enemy. Now they were in foreign lands. Their enemy was the Co-op as well as every other wastelander tribe that believed their territory was being infringed upon. Everyone was their enemy. How many fronts could the Elfreth face before it broke them?

Elise peered out the tent cover into the sky. "Hurry home, James, or there might not be anything for you to come back to."

SEVEN.

BULK'S HEAD Locating black market salvagers was a delicate task. Folks in this business didn't advertise their trade and hated inquisitive strangers. ChronoCom hunted illegal time salvagers relentlessly, so those who prospered in this field were either very skilled, highly secretive, or protected by a powerful organization. Usually, it was all three.

The death rate of black market time salvaging was extraordinarily high, often a factor of ten higher than chronmen. Chronmen spent five years at the Academy and were supported by the full weight and technology of the agency. Even then, their odds of surviving past their first year were only around 70 percent. Seventy percent of illegal salvagers, usually rusks hoping to earn quick scratch, did not survive their first year.

And if the job didn't kill them, the auditors usually would. Unskilled salvagers left behind traceable ripples. Those footprints were all an auditor needed to track down exactly what had happened and correlate it with events in the present. Illegal salvagers might get away with a few jumps, but eventually, auditors would catch up to them. The ones who did survive and prosper were usually Academy-trained operatives, often former chronmen within the higher three tiers. They were the ones who were not only skilled in combat, but also familiar with the agency's systems and methodologies, and usually still had contacts within the agency to obtain a steady supply of miasma.The only way to buy access to these skilled black market salvagers was to work underground connections and bribe for the information, which for a newcomer at Bulk's Head was expensive.

It took James days of futilely working on rumors and leads before he got his first break. Word of his inquiries must have spread after the way he threw scratch around at several different establishments. Eventually, on the morning of their tenth day at Bulk's Head, he received a hit. A boy approached him as he was sitting alone at the Drink Anomaly and held out his hand. The boy, likely no older than ten or twelve, demanded James buy him dinner. When James refused, the boy told him that naming a collie Collie was stupid and lazy and that James better buy him a meal. James signaled to the waitress and bought the boy all he could eat and drink for the rest of the night.

That bit of information could mean only one thing. Only a few people were aware that James's old collie-the one that was destroyed by ChronoCom when they attacked the Farming Towers-was named Collie. It had been a running joke among some of his tier.

He watched as the boy ate his fill and got drunk off two drinks. Before the boy passed out, he handed James a piece of paper. On it was an address. It took only a few more minutes of asking around to find out that this address was located in the Puck Pirate section of the colony. Well, James did want to attract a salvager's attention. It seemed he had attracted the biggest one.

James finished his drink and looked at the young courier passed out on the table. He debated whether he should leave the boy there. If he was lucky, he would wake up with a splitting headache tomorrow. If he wasn't, he might wake up without a kidney.

Feeling parental, James grabbed the back of the shirt and hauled him to his feet. "Let's get out of here, kid."

He smacked the the boy a few times to rouse him and then escorted him out of the bar. They walked all the way across Bulk's Head until the boy's head cleared a bit. James honestly wasn't sure where the Puck Pirate section was, so he had the boy lead him there. When they arrived, he bought the boy a bag of water and sent him on his way.

James was accosted by three security guards as soon as he neared the Puck Pirate security zone. When he provided his credentials, he was blindfolded and led around for another ten minutes. He had a sense that they were descending to the lower levels after having made dozens of turns. They could be walking him out to an airlock for all he knew. Finally, they took his blindfold off, and he found himself standing in front of an ornate metal door at the far end of a long hallway.

He inhaled; the air here was much cleaner than that in most of Bulk's Head. An important or rich person must live here. The guards spoke with someone through a comm next to the door, and then it clicked opened. James was greeted by a familiar face.

Hubbs had been two years from earning out from ChronoCom when he was caught smuggling miasma regimens to the Puck Pirates on the side. When the monitors tried to take him in, he killed three squads and a Tier-3-he was a Tier-1, after all-and then fled to Bulk's Head, far enough from ChronoCom's grasp not to make it worth their while to get him back. He had been running the Puck Pirates' salvaging operations ever since. Currently, he was hovering at number nine on ChronoCom's most wanted list.

"Black abyss, James fucking Griffin-Mars," Hubbs exclaimed as he waved James into his extravagant quarters. "I thought you were dead until you started poking around my neck of space. Poked a giant in the eye by now or something. You always were a little broodier than the rest of us. Heard about your split with the agency. Rumor has it you broke a few time laws."

No sooner did James walk ten steps into the room than he found two burly men on either side of him. He didn't miss a beat as he eyed both men up and down, making note of the weapons in their hands. One had a close-range ion hand cannon and the other an exo-chain.

"Are these guys really necessary?" asked James.

Hubbs shrugged. "You know how it is, can't trust anyone these days, can we? You blue with this?"

"Blue," James replied.

Exo-chains were the bane of exo wielders, and moderately rare due to the fact that exos were expensive and not common in regular armies. Once an exo-chain was attached, it prevented the wielder from activating his exo. If the exo was already on, it prevented the creation of new coils and leashed the wielder to the chain's length.

James didn't trust Hubbs to be completely unarmed, but he had little choice in the matter, especially since he was here for a favor.

The exo-chain, a red lasso made of energy, struck his body with a jolt and latched onto him. Hubbs, holding on to the handle, led him into a small waiting room. He signaled for James to sit on a settee and walked to a small bar on one end of the room. He took out a decanter and two glasses. "Whiskey drinker, right?"

A shudder coursed through James as his body suddenly tightened. His mouth dried up and he found himself having trouble formulating words. One drink could very easily slip into a binge. He shook his head. "I'm on the job."

Hubbs paused and then looked back at James. At his hands in particular. He nodded. "I appreciate a man who can keep them separate." He poured himself a glass of a dark red liquid and brought a glass of water to James. He sat down on the couch opposite him and leaned back. "What can I do for you? Looking for work? I run a top-notch operation. We can always use another Tier-1."

"I'm actually recruiting."

Hubbs looked surprised. "A couple months out of the agency and already growing an operation? Color me impressed. Didn't think you had the entrepreneurial chops. Funny, thought I would have heard of a new player in this exclusive market."

"I'm not working the market." James mulled over the next thing he was going to say. "I need things salvaged."

"Why don't you just do it your..." Hubbs stopped. "You miasmaed out, didn't you? How badly?"

"Next jump, perhaps. The one after, definitely."

"I see." There was an awkward silence, and then Hubbs slapped his knees with his hands enthusiastically. "Very well then, a client. Even better. Tell me what you're after and I can give you a quote. Can't guarantee I'll be the one jumping, though. I am expensive."

James took a deep breath. This was the part where he expected to get thrown out of the room. "That's the thing, Hubbs. I'm not hiring. I'm recruiting for a cause."

He told the ex-chronman as much of the story as possible without giving away the details, glossing over Elise and Sasha and focusing on how they might be able to cure the Earth Plague. He watered down the conflict with the Co-op and avoided telling Hubbs how little resources the Elfreth actually had, especially that they couldn't keep a salvager on retainer. Instead, he tried to appeal to Hubbs's concern for humanity's greater good. Hubbs was already wealthy. What could he acquire to fulfill his life even more? Why not fight for a cause? Why not create a legacy that would outlive him?

James knew early into his pitch that he had failed. He watched as Hubbs's eyes glazed over and his face seemed to melt. James continued anyway, the words tumbling out of his mouth faster and faster. "When we succeed," James concluded, "you will go down in the chronostream as one of the most important and influential people in history. What do you think?"

There was a pregnant pause. Hubbs didn't move from his spot. He didn't reach for his drink. He didn't even seem to be breathing. He just stared at James good and long before he finally spoke. His words didn't inspire any confidence.

"James Griffin-Mars." Hubbs smacked his lips as if rolling the name in his mouth. "I have killed men for wasting less time than you did just now." He put up a finger. "Well, this explains why you have that massive bounty on your head. I haven't seen anyone debut on the bounty list that high since someone offed the CEO of Burning Storm. I didn't think the rumors were true, about you breaking the first Time Law, but it seems I was wrong to believe that you couldn't be that stupid."

James opened his mouth to respond when Hubbs silenced him with a hand and picked up the exo-chain. "I'm talking and you're not going to interrupt. In fact, you're done talking. The smart thing to do right now is to hand you over to ChronoCom and collect that fat reward, except for the fact that the one on my head is still larger than yours, so collecting the bounty could get awkward.

"You're toxic, James Griffin-Mars, and your being here puts the colony at risk. But because we have history-I still remember what you did covering for me on Venus-I'm not going to turn you in or kick you out of the colony. Not yet. You've got thirty days to finish your business at Bulk's Head. That should be plenty of time for every other salvager here to turn you down, and that's what's going to happen once you pitch your moronic cause. After those thirty days, you're gone, understand?"

James nodded.

"Now get the fuck out of here. Forget you ever saw me. One more thing," he called after James as the two burly men led him out the door. "Don't cause any problems in my backyard. You get only one strike here in Bulk's Head."

James was unceremoniously hustled out of the Puck Pirate section of the colony with a warning to never return. That meeting pretty much went exactly as he'd expected. The illegal salvagers, especially, had long abandoned the moral directives ChronoCom professed in saving humanity. It was a lost cause, but one he had to embrace.

He returned to their quarters and found Grace Priestly busy with her own project. She looked up from her work as he walked in, downtrodden. She nodded when he told her how the meeting went. "Shot down by the Puck Pirates' main salvager? Might as well flame out starting at the top. Maybe one of the smaller operators will see the nobility of our quest."

James snorted. "I doubt it. The whole meeting was pretty humiliating."

She shrugged. "The Puck Pirates' salvager was never going to say yes to you anyway. He just wanted to know what you were doing here on Bulk's Head, probably wanted to make sure you weren't trying to muscle in on his business. Now that he knows you're on a quixotic quest that's doomed to fail, he'll probably just leave you alone."

"Now that you put it that way, I somehow feel even worse," he grumbled. "What's a quixotic quest?"

She smirked. "You are, James."

He walked over to her table and looked at the fast-scrolling vid. "How is your new criminal empire doing?"

"Fantastic." She beamed, rubbing her hands together. She was clearly having too much fun at the moment. "I have a large deal in the works between three parties for a chron database access hack. Playing them off against each other at the moment."

As one of the brightest minds in history, she had quickly become the scourge of the information market on Bulk's Head. Since Grace started with only few contacts and assets to barter with, she began by brokering small deals. A tech needed a V1 apropros extender, a collector wanted a twenty-second-century organic portrait, a mercenary needed repairs on his flak armor, and a smuggler needed a way to sneak into Europa Orbital Port, and Grace would somehow tie all of these clients together so everyone got what they needed. All for a small fee, of course.

In under a week, she moved up to bigger and more lucrative projects: business mergers and classified information, and even brokered a kidnapping exchange. In a frighteningly short span of time, she somehow managed to worm her way deep into the highly volatile and lucrative underground trade network and grow a fair-sized information brokerage within the colony.

"For now, I have some information to expedite your search." Two messages appeared in his AI band. "Someone owed me a favor and provided me lists of salvagers and doctors for you to hit up. Pay them a visit and see if any would consider helping our cause."

James went over the lists of nineteen salvagers and forty doctors and cross-referenced them with the list of Bulk's Head alliances he was cobbling together. Seventeen of the doctors were indentured to various crime syndicates or gangs. They would be protected and off-limits.

That left just a few independents. He had to persuade them to accept what limited scratch they had to come pay Sasha a visit on Earth. James was not beneath kidnapping them outright, though that was a sordid business. Kidnapping skilled technical and medical labor was considered one of the more heinous crimes in the solar system. James wasn't ready to go that far yet. However, for Sasha, he was starting to consider it.

Grace also sent him an updated figure of how much scratch he had to work with. He grimaced. "That's it?"

"I need the rest for cash flow. You need scratch to make scratch," she said defensively. "When I'm done getting what I need, you can use the rest."

James spent the remainder of the day visiting three salvagers and seven of the doctors on the list, confirming they weren't interested in coming to Earth. The cheapest doctor quoted five times the scratch he was allocated, and the salvagers didn't even bother asking a price. Most just laughed, some even harder when he tried to appeal to their humanity. One of the salvagers threatened to kill him for being too stupid to live.

James spent over an hour with the last doctor, at one point simultaneously pleading and threatening to get the poor man to come to Earth, half promising riches and half making death threats. He couldn't help it. His sister's life was on the line, and no one seemed to care a whit about it.

By evening, he was so frustrated, he wanted to break something. Disheartened, he dragged his exhausted body back to the residence. This was a fool's errand, one that kept him away from Elise and Sasha. That's where he belonged, not here in the middle of the Ship Graveyard begging criminals to join a hopeless cause.

He stood outside the door to their residence and thought about telling Grace just that. They should just abort this. They both should be somewhere else. He should be at home protecting his loved ones. She should be working on the cure to the Earth Plague. He worked up the courage to tell her to pack up and walked in the door.

Grace hadn't moved from the table. She saw the look on his face when he stormed inside and focused her attention back on the vid. "You look exhausted. Get some sleep."

"Grace," he began. "We should reconsider-"

"Pet." Eyes still glued to the screen, she pointed at the bed. "The answer is no. You still have the majority of the salvagers and doctors to talk to."

"We're wasting our time here."

She tore her gaze away from the screen and spoke to him in a measured tone, as if talking to a child. "The TIs have a saying: before making decisions of consequence, count the stars. Why don't you do that first thing in the morning?"

"I don't know what that means."

"It means get some rest and do your damn job, for space's sake." She stood up and folded her arms. "James, I'm speaking to you as the High Scion right now. Call it a day and get some rest. You'll have better luck tomorrow."

"Yes, Grace."

"Call me High Scion. I'm revoking your first-name privileges until you stop sniveling."