She woke then, her eyes defocused from the drug-induced sleep. Her voice was a whisper. "I was… dreaming."

Ryan's voice dried in the back of his throat.

"I dreamed that you… that you got to me in time, Travis. I mean Quicksilver."

Ryan squeezed her hand gently.

Miranda smiled. "You get him?"

Again, Ryan wanted to lie, wanted to tell her that Burnout was a twisted mass of charred chrome. He looked into her eyes, saw the agony and couldn't deceive her. He shook his head. "We lost him. He used the shale rock slide to escape."

Miranda laid her head back into the folded tarp that Dhin had given her for a pillow.

"But we'll get him," Ryan said. "You and me. We'll get him together, and we'll make him pay for this."

Miranda smiled, making her cracked lips bleed. "No lies, Quicksilver, not… for you and me. I'm not gonna make it." A wracking cough got hold of her then, and blood came out of her mouth in a fine mist.

Ryan stroked her head gently, feeling the blistered skin under his hand. "You rest now. Save your strength. You've come this far, and we're going to patch you up better than new."

"Even if I… stay alive. I'm not gonna be… in any condition to…"-Miranda's breath came in hacking gasps-"fight Burnout," she finished.

"Shh," Ryan said. "Burnout and I are tied together by the Dragon Heart; we'll meet again."

Her eyes clouded. "Travis," she said. She was becoming delirious. "Travis, thanks for… helping me get out."

"Ssh, Miranda."

"It was because of you that I… left Fuchi. I have you to… thank."

Miranda smiled again, and the blood from her mouth ran down her cheeks. "It's been quite a ride period." She laughed, a choking rattling sound that started another coughing fit.

"Try not to talk." Ryan felt cold anger swelling inside him.

She sighed, the sound bubbling in her chest. "Promise me… one… thing."

Ryan's vision blurred from his anger. "Anything."

She motioned him closer, and as he leaned in, she whispered, "Promise that it won't… have been for nothing." Miranda collapsed into unconsciousness.

Ryan clenched his fists, gritted his teeth. "I promise," he said, his voice flat, cold. "Burnout will pay, and the Dragon Heart will reach its resting place. I promise you that, Miranda."

Ryan wiped his eyes as Dhin landed the Phoenix II. As the DocWagon parameds swarmed in to take her. It was going to be close, they said. She was in a coma now; brain-death imminent.

Ryan concentrated with his astral sight, looking for her aura as the parameds worked on her, but it was faint and growing weaker.

The anger clawed inside him like a trapped beast, and his whisper was a harsh, barren sound in his throat. "If she dies, Burnout will pay."

In blackness, deep below the surface of Cat Lake's still waters, Burnout clung to a huge rock, waiting patiently in the lake's icy womb. Several times during the afternoon, he'd resurfaced to fill his air tank, careful not to be seen.

Ryan Mercury.and his team seemed to have left, but Burnout didn't want to take any chances. Lethe didn't either, and he touched the Heart and used its power to mask Burnout's presence.

Finally, after six hours had passed, Burnout decided the danger had passed. Ryan and his team weren't coming back right away. He released his hold on the rock, and pulled the limp form of the shaman from its resting place under two large rocks. Together, they drifted to the surface.

Burnout broke the water's mirror like some technological nightmare leviathan, a robotic grim reaper. He looked nothing like a human anymore. Any remaining flesh had been ripped and soaked to gray, wrinkled patches that clung to small portions of his metal frame. To his banded synthetic muscles.

As he reached out to grab the shaman's body, he caught sight of his forearm in the morning light. He'd had the name Burnout scarred into the flesh as a reminder to himself of everything he'd lost, but even that was mostly gone. Now the "out" had been scraped away, and all that remained of his name was the "Burn." It seemed fitting.

The Kodiak's body bobbled up beside him, and he quietly pulled it ashore. He stopped on the rocky shale bank in the shadow of a large boulder, all senses alert. The evening air hung chill and gray over the surface of Cat Lake.

The taint of cordite was fading, but still clung to the trees and rocks. A subtle reminder of death and destruction.

There might still be danger, and Burnout was taking no chances. Ryan had come at him like the pro Burnout knew him to be. If the Kodiak hadn't stood by him, Ryan would have beaten Burnout, and this small lake would probably have been his grave.

Burnout reached behind his back and grabbed hold of the dysfunctional cyberarm that hung, bent and twisted, just over his head. His estimation of Ryan's physical strength went up another few notches. Even accounting for the centrifugal force involved, no mere human would have been able to bend the titanium struts.

With a grunt, Burnout finished Ryan's work, and ripped the arm off at the base, leaving a jagged stump. Without looking at it, he tossed it over his shoulder to land in the lake with a quiet splash.

Without a word, Burnout hoisted the Kodiak's body onto his shoulder and fought his way back up the slope. Lethe was silent during the two-hour climb, and Burnout was glad for it. He was thinking about the Kodiak's sacrifice. He was no criminal like the old lady, and though Burnout hadn't actually pulled the trigger that had caused his death, he felt no less responsible.

"The Kodiak chose his own fate," Lethe said.

Reading my mind?

No response.

"I know," Burnout said. "But I drew Ryan here. He came for the Heart."

"You did not ask for the Kodiak's help. He gave it willingly. You are not to blame."

"I don't blame myself," Burnout said, his words acid with vehemence. "I blame Ryan Mercury." He reached the top and stood. "But I am not without responsibility in the matter."

Standing on the rim of the cliff, the dead man's body at his feet, Burnout looked around. The trees were bent and broken, trunks chewed from heavy gunfire. The once peaceful place looked like a war zone.

He walked to the tower and stepped inside the cabin resting under the tower's protection. With a minimum of excess movement, Burnout gathered all of the Kodiak's magical trinkets and supplies, the deerskin cloak the old man had worn, and took them all outside.

He walked to the long, rickety ladder that led to the top of the tower and hauled everything up the hundred meters to the open platform at the top. A small perch, the tower top was a simple platform empty except for the swivel chair someone had bolted to the wooden planks centuries before.'

The chair was rusted into a position facing eastward, and was covered by the skin of a cougar. Burnout remembered the Kodiak killing that cougar so many years before. This had been the Kodiak's favorite place in the world. He had told Burnout that there Bear often showed him mysteries that ground-bound followers could never hope to see.

From this height, Burnout looked far into the next valley, seeing the sunset peeking its fiery eye just below the last tatters of the storm clouds. Brilliant streaks of blazing red burned the sky, like tongues of fire.

Very fitting.

Burnout went back down the ladder, pulled the shaman's body over his shoulder, and then returned to the top. He set the dead man in the chair, propping the soggy body upright so his faceless head looked into the heart of the setting sun. Then Burnout laid all of the shaman's possessions around him, and finally covered the old man with the deerskin.

He climbed back down the ladder, went into the cabin, and began a fire in the old shack's potbelly stove. When he had a nice blaze going, he took some kindling and ignited the shaman's bedding. Then he stepped back out into the morning air just as the roof of the shack caught fire.