Lobo Malo

Chapter 1 - Nags Head

Nags Head, North Carolina
1923 EST

"Come on, you little bastard, boot up," growled Paxton Gregory as he stared at the small LCD screen. He'd been working all day on the microwave repeater tower, patching power leads, recalibrating servo motors for the tower's solar power collectors, and practically reinstalling the control software from scratch. It might not be in the same league as making a strike on some malcontent's outpost, but keeping the repeater up was absolutely vital for Division operations throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. "They also serve who stand and keep the computers running," his instructor at the Ranch had once told him.

Lines of boot sequence instructions began to scroll up the screen and the long expected beep indicating a successful startup briefly filled the small communications shed. Gregory smiled as he closed up the console. Another job completed. With the repeater back up, the brief loss of coverage in the region had been restored. Now, he could relax, maybe sit down and enjoy the local community for a little bit. It wasn't like he would be leaving Nags Head right that instant. The world just didn't work like that anymore. The locals would put him up for the night and he'd be back on his way to Durham in the morning. Till then, he could enjoy the idyllic barrier islands of North Carolina.

The sound of an air raid siren shattered his train of thought. "What the hell?" Gregory shouldered his backpack, checked his sidearm, then slung his rifle across his chest before leaving the comm shack. As warning systems went, using an air raid siren wasn't necessarily the worst idea he'd seen. It beat the hell out of tin cans on a string, which was what a lot of communities could cobble together these days. As he shut the door behind him, the settlement's "local" Division agent Letitia Sutter came over the comms.

"Gregory, are you done with the repeater?" she said with barely controlled urgency.

"Just got it fired up. What's going on?"

"Some of the natives are restless. Looks like a group of MacCrae's thugs coming down from Kitty Hawk. We could use an extra hand."

"I'll help as best I can, but I'm not Tactical," Gregory warned even as he checked the chamber on his rifle.

"Long as you can avoid hitting me or De La Cruz, you'll be fine. Get up by the main gate."

"Copy that. On my way." It was strange for him, even now, to find himself this close to a combat situation. Six months after Black Friday, and the attending collapse of civilization, Gregory could only think of a couple instances where he'd had to use his sidearm, much less the rifle he'd been issued in Savannah. Sure, he regularly cleaned and serviced the weapons he'd been issued. He put in the required number of hours at the range every week, maybe a little more than was required some weeks. But he was supposed to be in the Analytics branch. He examined data, considered raw intelligence, and fixed computers.  Lots of computers.  Laptops to server farms, he'd gone from Georgia to North Carolina over the course of the winter and throughout the spring, seemingly a one-man fire brigade sent out to tackle the toughest jobs. He'd never been in the military, certainly not the police or any intelligence organization. A more unlikely Division agent could hardly be found.

"They also serve who stand and keep the computers running," Gregory muttered to himself as he came into the courtyard behind the main gate. Or what was left of the main gate. Rifle rounds whipped past him as Gregory slid down roughly behind cover. He looked over at De La Cruz. "What do they want?" he yelled over the gunfire.

"Same as always. Free food and nobody to give them any trouble." De La Cruz raised his rifle over the top of a pile of bricks, letting off a short burst. "Looks like all of us are going to be disappointed."