“So what happens when they get him there?” Ricky asked.
“That I don’t know. But it won’t be anything good. The shifters are a nasty bunch.”
“This core,” Ryan said. “Can you get us there? Can you guide us to it?”
“Sure.” Union smiled at each member of the team in turn. “You seem like good people. If we watch one another’s backs, we might be able to get where we’re going.”
“Might?” Jak scowled. “Not sound very sure of self.”
“Here’s the thing.” Union winced. “A lot can happen between here and the core.”
“Can’t be worse than what’s happened so far,” J.B. said.
“Actually, it can. The Shift becomes more active the closer you get to the core.”
“Why is that?” Mildred asked.
“Because the core is the source. It’s what causes the changes in the Shift in the first place.”
Ryan stared at her. He still had the feeling he was talking to someone else entirely. “How do you know so much about this core? Have you been there?”
Union smiled, but it didn’t last. As Ryan watched, her expression turned grim and stiff; all warmth fled from her pale gray eyes.
Not only that, but the color of her single braid slowly changed from chestnut brown to black.
It was as if she had reverted to her original self, the one whom Ryan had first met in battle. She gazed at him with that same disdain as before, and he wondered if she would likewise go back to not answering his questions.
Surprisingly, she did not. “I lived there once.” She looked down at the ground. “I have been broken ever since.”
“And you’re going back… Why?” Ryan wanted to know.
When Union looked up, her eyes were narrowed, her face seething with intense emotion. “To fix myself,” she told him. “To put my life back together again.”
With that, she put her hand on the longblaster at her hip and marched away, storming off in the direction she’d identified as that of the core of the Shift.
For a moment, Ryan and his team just watched her go. She’d given them a lot to chew on and left even more mysteries for them to consider.
“So.” J.B. took off his spectacles, blew on them and cleaned them with the hem of his shirt. “None of us has any better ideas, do we? Other than following her, I mean.”
No one said a word until Ryan spoke up. “I don’t like her and I don’t trust her, but she’s all we’ve got.” The one-eyed man shook his head. “I hate to say it, but she might be Doc’s only hope.”
“Crazy woman,” Jak said. “One minute one way, next minute different way.”
“Yeah,” Ricky agreed. “Kind of like the Shift, huh?”
“She said the shifter muties are linked to it,” Mildred stated. “Maybe she is, too.”
“All right then.” Ryan watched Union go a moment longer, then gathered his backpack from the ground and shouldered the straps. “Let’s catch up before she leaves us behind.”
The rest of the companions followed his lead, pulling on their packs and getting ready to move out. In the years they’d been together, they’d followed him into danger countless times, and now here they were again.
“Okay, people.” Steyr Scout longblaster in hand, Ryan nodded at his friends. “Expect the unexpected. Don’t trust her for a second.” He raised an index finger emphatically. “But as long as there’s the slightest chance she can help us find Doc, don’t give her a reason to turn against us.”
“Treat crazy woman like family.” Jak grinned. “Not problem. Fit in this group.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” J.B. told him.
“Less talking, more walking,” Ryan said, and then he set out after Union at a rapid clip. He didn’t have to look back even once to know his companions were following close behind him.
That evening, Union and the companions set up camp at the base of a tall, sandy hill sheltered by an array of smaller hills.
Was it a safe location for the night? Union had no guidance to offer, but she didn’t seem worried about it. At least Krysty wasn’t convulsing on the ground from Shift-induced headaches, which was a positive sign.
The general conditions seemed positive, in fact. The night was warm but not stiflingly hot. The moon was full and shining down from a cloudless sky with abundant radiance.
Everything was quiet, calm and blissfully normal. The lava channel they’d been following had ended a few miles back, and there wasn’t a spike to be seen in any direction. If Jak hadn’t known any better, he might have believed they weren’t in the Shift at all.
As he ate a hunk of deer jerky from his pack, he felt relaxed for the first time since entering the Shift. The rest of the group seemed to be on the same wavelength—except for Ryan, who patrolled the perimeter relentlessly, and Krysty, who looked as if she expected another head blast at any moment.
Then there was Union, who seemed to be out of step with all of them. Where some people might have settled in the middle of the group, getting to know everybody, Union stood thirty yards from the farthest edge of camp, looking up at the night sky.
She didn’t look or act as if she wanted to be bothered, but Jak decided to bother her anyway. She was beautiful, and tough, and mysterious, with moods that seemed to change with the wind, and he wanted to get to know her.
Besides, he knew she had a friendly side; he’d seen it in action before. With any luck, maybe that side would come out to play, and they would have a nice talk.
Or not. When Jak sidled up to her, she looked at him for all of one second with the usual frigid disdain, then returned her gaze to the sky. She even folded her arms across her chest and turned her back to him, leaving no room for misinterpretation of her rejection of him.
That was not going to keep Jak from pressing his luck. “Stars not change in Shift.” He sank one hand into a pocket, keeping the other wrapped around the grip of his Colt Python, and stepped up beside her. “That one good thing anyway.”
Union sniffed but didn’t answer. She didn’t turn her back to him again, though.
Jak figured that was some kind of progress, so he might as well keep talking. “Where from originally?”
“Not here” was all she said.
“Better place?” Jak asked. “Or worse?”
For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer, but she finally did. “Just different.”
“Right.” Jak nodded and shifted his gaze to another quadrant of the sky. The stars were unusually bright that night, glittering like diamond dust scattered over black velvet. “Ever been New Mexico?”
She looked at him for a moment with a quizzical expression, then looked back up at the sky. “Have you ever been to Corpus Christi?”
“Texas?” Jak frowned. “Why? That where you from?”
“Does it matter?” Union shook her head as if she thought he was an idiot. “What do you care?”
Jak refused to let her annoy him. “It called curiosity. They not have in Corpus Christi?”
Suddenly, Union whirled