The heavy steel door of the third cargo car was wide open.
Arthur Sterling stood in the doorway, the harsh and toxic wind of the wasteland whipping his ruined suit jacket around his broad shoulders. He stared into the pitch-black interior of the train.
He did not see mountains of glowing silver Merit Energy. He did not see the vast, liquid wealth he had just risked his life and his entire empire to steal.
There was no light. There was only a suffocating, putrid stench that hit him like a physical blow. It smelled like unwashed bodies, human waste, and sheer, concentrated despair.
Arthur's dark eyes adjusted to the gloom.
It was full of people.
Hundreds of them. They were packed into the dark, stifling space like cattle being shipped to a slaughterhouse. They were starved, their cheekbones jutting out harshly against their filthy skin. They were dressed in nothing but tattered, grease-stained rags.
