The heavy tracked crawler ground to a shuddering halt where the cracked asphalt of the old military highway dissolved into the ash flats.
Arthur Vance adjusted the strap of his charcoal carbon-weave coat. Then he climbed down from the transport’s steel running board. The dry, stone bite of the outer wasteland hit his throat right away. A mixture of crushed dark rock, dried salt water, and the rotten-egg undertone of raw heavy-duty runoff. Two miles to the north, the jagged dark shape of Sector 4 rose against the slate-gray clouds, its concrete stone retaining walls stained with decades of dark oil and rift slow leak.
A massive black shape thudded down onto the gravel beside him. Grimm shook his thick charcoal coat, the black glass bone plates running along his spine clacking softly with the movement. The hound exhaled a low chuff of hot air, his broad chest expanding as he surveyed the outer edge. His left ear, notched from an old street brawl in the lower academy kennels, flicked forward toward the distant wire fences. Without waiting for a command, he leaned his six-hundred-two-pound bulk against Arthur’s left thigh, his cold snout bumping against the holster of the ARC-7 Mag-Carbine before settling heavily across the toe caps of Arthur’s steel-toed boots.
