Page 91 of The Sterling Acquisition
Chapter thirty-two
Sanctuary
Orion
Heatpulledhimfromsleep like rising floodwater—slow at first, then all at once. Orion surfaced to find himself sprawled across the van’s passenger seat, his shirt soaked through with sweat and his skin feeling like it had been stretched too tight. The engine wasn’t running. Pale dawn light filtered through the windows, painting everything in soft grays and golds.
He pushed himself upright, wincing. His mouth tasted like copper, and the persistent ache low in his belly made him want to curl up and whimper. Instead, he focused on breathing through his nose until the worst of the wave passed, leaving him shaky but temporarily functional.
“You’re awake.”
Dante’s voice came from the front seat, calm and professional as always, but there was something underneath it—a roughness that hadn’t been there before. Orion twisted around to look at him andfound Dante sideways in the driver’s seat, his shirt pulled up to expose a thin gash along his ribs. He was pressing something small and silver against the cut with steady hands.
“What—” Orion’s voice came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again, willing his focus away from the strip of exposed skin on Dante’s abdomen. “What are you doing?”
“Medical glue.” Dante didn’t look up from his work. “Nothing serious, but infections in the Static Zones aren’t something you want to gamble with.”
“You want me inside you. You want me to ruin you.”
Orion bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and forced his mind back to the present. “Where are we?”
“About ten miles deeper into the Static Zone. Everything takes loner to navigate out here because of the lack of maintenance,” Dante looked at him, and something about his expression made Orion pause. The operative looked tired. His usually perfect appearance was disheveled, his hair falling across his forehead, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. “We need gas. And I need to figure out where the hell we’re going.”
He gestured toward the dashboard, where the hand-drawn map was spread out next to the fuel gauge hovering just above empty. Orion leaned forward to get a better look, his body protesting the movement with another wave of heat-induced dizziness. This one was stronger than the last, a tide of warmth rushing from his core outward until he could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. He gripped the edge of the seat to steady himself, waiting for it to recede.
Dante’s nostrils flared, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. “You’re getting worse.”
“I’m aware,” Orion bit out, refusing to acknowledge the way his body instinctively leaned toward Dante. “It comes in waves. This one’s already passing.”
Dante’s eyes lingered on him, something unreadable in their depths, before he turned his attention back to the map. Orion could see the muscle in his jaw working as he focused on the task at hand.
The map was more detailed than he’d realized. The glitched Alpha marked not just the major routes, but smaller paths, settlements, and what looked like resource points. Gas pump symbols were scattered throughout, each accompanied by other markings—some he recognized, others completely foreign.
“See these?” Orion pointed to a cluster of symbols about twenty minutes away, according to the scale. A gas pump sat next to what looked like a pound sign, surrounded by small circles. “What do you think that means?”
Dante studied the marking for a moment. “Pound sign... that’s probably a Null community.”
“Nulls?” Orion had never heard the term before.
“Better than trying our luck with the Berserker settlements.” Dante pointed to another gas symbol marked with what looked like a stylized claw. His fingers were still trembling, and Orion noticed a thin sheen of sweat on his brow despite the cool morning air.
Orion noticed other symbols too—what looked like an ohm sign near some of the gas signs—but he pushed that worry aside. “Do you know anything about Null communities?”
“Theory, mostly.” Dante started the engine, and it turned over with a reluctant cough. The answer was careful, measured in that way that meant he was working from briefings rather than experience. “Gensyn describes them as post-Adjustment anarchic communities of people who never developed designations. They’re insular, suspiciousof outsiders, especially corporate representatives. They have their own governance structures, resource allocation systems.”
The recitation sounded like something straight from a corporate manual, but then Dante continued in a quieter voice: “No central authority, no standardized currency. They operate on barter systems and mutual aid principles. Theoretically stable, but completely outside corporate oversight.”
“I can’t wait to taste every inch of you.”
Orion pressed his palms against his thighs and tried to focus on the landscape rolling past the windows. It was like nothing he’d ever seen. In SVI territory, any plant life was either carefully maintained corporate landscaping or something marked for removal. Weeds were eradicated. Trees were trimmed into submission or cut down.
Here, everything was wild.
Vines heavy with morning dew climbed the skeletal remains of billboards. Wildflowers burst from cracks in abandoned concrete. A massive oak tree had grown straight through the roof of what might once have been a gas station, its branches creating a green canopy over the rusted pumps below.
“Incredible,” Orion breathed, watching a family of deer pick their way delicately through the ruins of a strip mall. “It’s...”
“Beautiful,” Dante said softly, and when Orion glanced at him, there was something almost wistful in his expression. “And completely impractical. No wonder the corporations wrote off the Static Zones.”
