SUMMARY

Mutants have stolen a thermonuclear warhead. The government has coerced Miller into hunting it down. The trail takes him into a vast and frozen wasteland called the Nuclear Dead Zone. Few go in, even fewer come out.

This place makes Hell look like Elysium.

EXCERPT

No Blood knew something was wrong as he hovered the Speeder and let it drift slowly down the broken overgrown runway of the abandoned airport. Dawn was breaking and fog covered the lower-lying areas. The Hydrate leader watched three coyotes race out the open doors of one of several hangars before heading to the side of the building, disappearing into the dead weeds and tangled vegetation. He angled toward the particular hangar and stopped forty meters in front of the structure.

“Where are your boys, Trango?” No Blood asked. “I see a vehicle inside, but no mutants.”

“Right,” Trango said. He leaned forward, peering through the pitted windscreen.

“You can stand down the weapon,” No Blood said, directing his order to Blinder who sat in the copilot’s seat manning the controls of the Super Bee. Looking at Trango, the Hydrate leader said, “The coyotes have left. There’s nothing alive in there, I guarantee it.”

“Goddammit,” Trango breathed. He thumbed the keys on a handheld communications link.

“You’ve been pinging for the past hour and a half,” No Blood spoke from the corner of his mouth, “I’m telling you, they ain’t here.” He looked at Blinder. “Wind it down, we’re going in and check out the place.” Grunting, the Hydrate twisted his body and climbed out of the seat, causing Trango to step back.

“If they’re still here, they’re dead,” No Blood said, his face close enough to Trango’s that he knew the Web was getting the full effect of his breath. “But keep pinging if it makes you feel better.”

The Trailhead backed another step. “Goddamn, I don’t understand.” Trango slipped the device into a pocket on his combat vest. “Those were my best Webs.” The mutant again leaned forward and gazed through the windscreen.

No Blood grunted and worked his way around Trango. He opened the flight deck door and barked, “Karillo, ground party.” The Hydrate leader grabbed his shoulder-holstered AutoMag from where it hung on a bulkhead stanchion and pulled it over his arms. The mutant took great pleasure in wearing the weapon that once belonged to Trills.

The sound of the Speeder’s turbines wound down. No Blood sensed the big machine had settled on its composite skirt. “Let’s go see how bad it is,” he said to Trango. The Hydrate led the way out of the cockpit and down to an egress hatch.

One part of No Blood enjoyed Trango’s anxiety over the fact that his Webs were, so far, MIA. Another part of him felt even more anxiety than what he saw on the Web’s human-like face. If the mutants Trango assigned to meet them there with the bomb were missing, then the bomb was missing. There was a slim chance that Trango’s Webs could have been attacked by animals, not coyotes, but a pack of rad-wolves maybe, in which case the bomb could still be inside the hangar, inside its case, waiting for them to load it onto the Speeder and get it and them the hell out of the southern rat hole. That was a possibility, No Blood’s logic said it was, but another part of his brain told him what they would really find. The Hydrate leader knew that when he walked into the hangar he would look around and say, “This is fucked-up.”

No Blood and Trango exited the Speeder preceded by three heavily-armed Hydrates who spread out in order to check out the surrounding area. No Blood didn’t bother pulling his AutoMag out of its holster.

A dirty TracJet was parked off to one side, just inside the hangar doors. The vehicle’s doors were open and dried blood covered the back of the machine like peeling red paint. The sun had struggled over the southeastern horizon and light poured in through the open hangar doors. No Blood saw a smaller vehicle parked near the back of the cavernous building. It looked like a combat jeep. Two mangled forms lay meters apart in the center of the trash-strewn concrete floor. Blood was smeared in a wide area around the remains, as if someone had tried to mop it up, but stopped in the middle of the gruesome task. The head was missing from one of the bodies and the other body’s head was so badly chewed and mutilated that No Blood couldn’t tell if it belonged to a mutant or a human. Shreds of clothing and chunks of flesh were scattered around the area, which was heavy with the stench of death.

No Blood looked around and said, “This is fucked up.”