Allan slowly brought the jeep to a halt as he approached the edge of the vehicle repair center. If the pillar of smoke rising silently into the air wasn't enough of a clue that something was seriously fucked, then the hole in the wall of the nearest building and the smear of blood on the ground certainly was. Allan listened for any signs that the slaughter that had occurred here might still be going on, but he could hear nothing.

"Jesus," Johnson whispered.

"Come on, we need to see if there are any survivors," Allan murmured, turning off the engine and stepping out of the jeep.

The others reluctantly followed. Two more doors opened and closed, the sounds falling flat in the still air of the desert. Allan pulled his pistol out again, wondering if he should even bother, but he found that his hands felt awkward if he wasn't holding some kind of weapon in them at this point. With Johnson and Lucy backing him up, he moved towards the small collections of structures. They were approaching from the back.

Allan approached the hole that had been made in the wall by what must have been brute force. He peered in, pistol out, ready to retreat at a moment's notice. The room beyond was empty. This building seemed to be a storage bay. Shelves and crates lined the walls, taking up most of the interior. A clear path had been forced through. Shelves were toppled over, crates broken open, their contents spilled across the floor.

"What, did he just walk in a straight line through here?!" Johnson whispered.

"Come on," Allan replied.

They went into the hole, stepping over the scattered tools and spare parts, and up to a corresponding hole in the far wall. Allan peered out into the area beyond. It looked like the station was essentially a collection of buildings built around a pair of landing pads that glinted dully in the high sun. There was one building to their left, two across the way, and one more to the right. Immediately, Allan spied a pair of corpses on the landing pad. Both of their necks had been crushed and they each lay in a pool of blood.

"Check the buildings," Allan murmured.

"Okay, I am not splitting up," Johnson said.

"I don't think he's here anymore," Allan replied. "Will you just go? You can run away if you find him. He doesn't seem that fast."

Johnson heaved a sigh, but turned to the right and made for that building. Lucy said nothing and made for the building to the left. Allan moved across the landing pad, constantly scanning his surroundings, not quite trusting his instincts. While he did feel that the killer was gone, no longer at this location, the situation was so strange that he knew he could be wrong. But then what? What was he doing here, anyway?

If they actually did run into the killer, then he'd probably kill them. They had no way to physically stop him. They'd have to pick up some armor-piercers and those weren't exactly lying around, waiting to be picked up by a desperate Investigator. He was putting not only his own life in danger, but two others as well. As Allan reached the first of the two buildings opposite the one they'd come into, he stopped for a moment.

Just for a second, he actually tried to make himself leave. To turn around, gather up the others, get into the jeep and just drive for Lansing. But it wouldn't come. He simply could not do it. He shook his head and moved into the first building. Judging by the fact that the two buildings he'd come to were identical, Allan figured that they were both garages as he looked around the interior. It definitely looked like a regular garage.

A pair of jeeps occupied the center of the area. Around the exterior of the room was a ring of tables, workbenches, lockers, and shelves. Everything had a gritty, worn feel to it. The whole area felt very used and lived in. Allan did a quick sweep of the area, then stepped back outside and moved on to the second building. He wasn't really sure what he was looking for or what he was expecting to find, only that it was standard operating procedure to check out the area. He moved to the second garage and opened it up.

There were more bodies inside. Base personnel, no doubt. He wondered, briefly, what a vehicle repair station was doing way out in the middle of nowhere, and realized that it was because they were out in the middle of nowhere that it existed. It'd be a huge pain in the ass to get stuck out here where there were no roads and civilization was spread thin, where you were lucky if you could find a single outpost every twenty miles.

He wondered if it was independent or government funded. Not that it mattered anymore. It seemed likely that everyone was dead. Besides the corpses, there was only one thing that seemed out of place. A large, sliding door at the back was open and there was a large, empty space in the center of the room. The scattering of tools and spare parts, as well as a foldout table that had been set up, seemed to indicate that there had not long ago been a vehicle there. In a flash, Allan realized the killer must have taken it after murdering everyone here.

He turned and left, spying the others stepping out at the same time.

"Anything?" he asked, heading back towards the initial storage room they'd first come through.

Lucy was shaking her head. "No. Everyone in there is dead."

"Same," Johnson said. He looked pale and sick with fear.

As they headed back to the jeep, Allan took a moment to really take stock of the man. He was thin but looked like he still had some wiry muscle packed onto his narrow frame. He wore a sleeveless blue jumpsuit and his head was shaved bald. His eyes were wide with apprehension and he kept looking around constantly.

They got back into the jeep and Allan fired up the navigational database once more. Going off the assumption that the killer was, for whatever reason, going to continue along the same path he had been, Allan tracked a route along that heading. After another thirty five miles, he saw that there was another outpost, meant for storage.

"Okay, here we go," he said, firing up the engine and setting off once more.

"Where are we going?" Johnson asked warily.

"There's a storage facility along the route the killer's taken so far," Allan explained. "Maybe we can catch up."

"He's got a good lead on us," Lucy pointed out as they pulled out from behind the facility and began driving across the wastelands again.

"And why aren't we just getting out of here? Letting the guys with big guns and ships take care of this nonsense?" Johnson asked.

"It's our responsibility with the radio dead. We can't just...give up," Allan replied, his voice hard and edged, brooking no argument.

A long moment of silence passed, and Allan decided to try and get some information. "So, Johnson, what the hell happened back there, at your base?"

Johnson was silent for a long moment, staring out at the miles of desert. When he began speaking, he continued looking out the window.

"The bastard came out of nowhere. I'd been living out there for five months already. We'd pretty much gotten the routine down. It was a normal day. Then, out of nowhere, our generator goes dead. So we go to investigate. He was waiting for us. I managed to run and hit the distress call while he was fucking murdering the others. We fought, but had just a pistol, nothing else. Didn't do anything. I...panicked. I hid." Johnson fell silent for a moment and despite everything in his record, Allan could tell he was disgusted with that action, even if it had saved him.

He began speaking again. "I hid in the vents in the dorms building. I'm pretty sure he knew I was there but...he never came for me. Then you guys showed up."

"Why didn't you come out when we arrived?" Allan asked.

"I didn't even know at first. I started hearing voices but I thought I was just imagining things, and even so, I was fucking pissing my pants in terror. When I heard the gunfire, I knew people were there. And I decided, well, maybe it was my chance to take the jeep and get out."

"Why was there even a jeep there? I didn't see a garage and it didn't seem like your base was rated for any vehicles," Allan asked.

"Heh, me and Mills put in for that one. We wanted to be able to drive around, do stupid shit out in the desert..." He looked back into the jeep, a smile on his face, but it slowly faded. "And now Mills is dead. They're all dead," he murmured.

Allan was silent. They drove on for another few moments.

Johnson seemed to come out of his thoughts. "What about you? You don't exactly seem like the most stable of men. I've gathered that you're SI, but...something's a little screwy about you, if I'm being totally honest."

Allan sighed. "I lost my team yesterday and they slotted me in with this one to check your base out this morning."

"Wait, your whole team died and they immediately put you on another one? Like, literally within twenty four hours?" Johnson asked, incredulous.

"Yep."

"Jesus, why?"

"I'm not sure. My commander told me something was up and everyone was out on call...hell, she's not even supposed to be here," he said, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder at Lucy. "Maybe it was this black-armored bastard. I've been kind of out of the loop lately."

"So...is that all?" Johnson asked after a long moment. "You just lost your team?"

"Yeah," Allan managed.

"That's not what I hear," Lucy said, speaking up.

Allan sighed.

"What do you mean?" Johnson asked.

"He's a bit of a spook story around the base. He basically hasn't taken off his armor for a few months now. I heard he kind of lost it after his girlfriend broke it off with him."

"That's not true!" Allan snapped.

"Which part?" Johnson asked.

"I take off my armor...I just like to have it on. It makes me feel...safer. And yeah, my girlfriend...left me a little while ago. It was ugly and I didn't handle to well, so fucking sue me for not handling a bad break up perfectly," Allan muttered.

Silence fell once again. "I'm sorry," Lucy murmured.

"Don't be," Allan growled.

They kept driving.

* * *

"I think there's a chance that he might not even have hit the base," Allan said. He could see it clearly on the horizon now: a low line of structures that were more than likely the warehouses that housed whatever equipment or resources that might be stored there.

"Why?" Johnson replied.

"I don't know why he was at your base, but he had to steal a vehicle from that repair facility. I imagine the base personnel tried to stop him. But now he's got a vehicle, maybe he'll just drive right on by without stopping."

"He's a fucking psychopath!" Lucy cried.

"Yes, that's true. But something changed. I don't know what or why, but when he was attacking us, he was very slow, very deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. Then, after you hit him with the car he just...left. He could have easily killed us all," Allan replied.

"I think you're reading too much into it," Johnson said.

They fell silent as they came upon the final approach to the storage facility. There were no immediate signs of death and destruction. There were nine warehouses lined up with perfect symmetry, each on their own metal platform in the dirt. They were wide enough to drive in between and Allan did, guiding the jeep towards the open space beyond. As he brought the nose of the vehicle out, coming up onto one of a long line of separate landing pads set in between two long rows of warehouses, Allan knew that he'd been wrong.

"Jesus fucking Christ, man," he whispered, stopping. "How...why is he doing this!?"

There were around a dozen bodies spread out along the length of the landing pads. Allan could see no vehicles, jump ships, or cargo vessels, but that didn't mean there wasn't one there earlier that had been stolen by the killer.

"Oh, fuck is that him?" Johnson whispered, staring past Allan, out of the driver's side window.

Allan snapped his gaze over but relaxed. Whoever it was was much smaller in frame than the killer and their gait was less purposeful and more shocked. They seemed to be stumbling among the bodies, stopping occasionally. Allan turned the vehicle and began driving slowly among the row of landing pads, avoiding the bodies out of respect, and pulled up next to the survivor, who was a man who looked to be in his late twenties and wore what might have been a security uniform. He was undamaged and had a dazed look on his face.

He didn't seem to notice the jeep until it was practically next to him. When he saw Allan get out of the vehicle, a look of rage came over his face.

He reached up and grabbed Allan's shoulders. "Did you fucking do this?!" he demanded.

"No, listen, my name is Sergeant Allan Gray. I'm with Security-Investigations." Allan tried to be calming, but his mind was spinning. He wasn't sure what the hell he was doing, what he was supposed to be doing, or what he could even do. He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts, which seemed adverse to being gathered.

"Someone in power armor has been attacking outposts in the area. He's killed almost everyone he's come in contact with at the previous two outposts. We're going after him," he said, clinging to the notion that they had to hunt this bastard down.

"I'm coming with you," the man said, already heading for the jeep.

Allan got back in and as the newcomer slammed the door shut behind him, he activated the nav-database again and began hunting. Almost immediately he saw another structure ahead of them, less than two miles away: a starport.

"Fuck," Allan snapped, taking off again.

"Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on? I go out for a little drive to clear my head and I come back and fucking everyone is dead," the survivor said.

Johnson and Lucy spent the next few moments catching him up to speed on everything that had occurred so far. The more he listened, the angrier he seemed to get.

"What's your name?" Allan asked.

"Redford. Mark Redford. I'm...I was head of security for that storage facility," he replied through gritted teeth, his face red with fury.

Up ahead, the domed shape of the control tower for the local starport was visible. Allan pressed the pedal down harder.