Jordan Summers - [Dead World 01] Read Online Free PDF

debating whether to ignore his gibe. Her shoes were sticky from the crimson pool. The unknown's lifeblood dried quickly in the sun's
harsh rays. Soon he'd be nothing but a hard shell, not worth recycling.
    Bannon approached, his head bent as he looked at her backup. "McCallan was a good man." He paused. "They all were. And you wonder why no one
wants to work with you." His biting tone hit its mark.
    "Screw you, Bannon," she snarled, checking
the charge on her weapons. "I get the job done. If you guys hadn't taken your sweet-ass time getting here, I wouldn't have been left to clean up your mess."
    "Mess? Is that what you call
this bloodbath?" Ban non crowed, looking around at the carnage, his mallet-sized fists resting on his hips. "That's rich
coming from someone who got their nickname from all the blood
they manage to spill. If it were up to me, you wouldn't be on this team."
    "But it's not, is it?"
    Bitterness infused his tone, "No, the commander
wouldn't allow it. Not his precious little—"
    "Leave him out of it," she snapped, cutting
him off.
    Bannon sneered, his thin upper lip curling in disgust.
"Next time, try waiting for backup.'"
    Red glanced at the
soon-to-be-recycled body on the ground.
Her stomach churned with barely contained rage
as she fixed Bannon with a flat stare. "'If I'd have done that, my body would be right next to
McCallan's and we wouldn't be having this conversation."
    "That's a chance I'm willing to
take."' He grinned, causing the scar on his chin to split
obscenely.
    Red bit back the reply forming
on her lips. Bicker ing with Bannon, the
bastard, was always a waste of her time.
He'd been a prick ever since she told him she didn't fuck outside of her species and refused to sleep with
him. He wasn't going to change anytime soon.
    There were reports to fill out
and weapons to check. The cleanup recycling crew would arrive on scene any moment. Once they got here, she'd be able to leave.
Until then, Red would try to be civil.
    The unit worked around her, documenting the crime
scene. Lasers measured distance, while DNA scanners attempted to identify the
unknowns' bodies. So far, trace found soil
samples from the Republic of Arizona in two of the unknowns' shoes.
    Red raised her hand, flipping open the navcom on her
wrist to reactivate voice capabilities. The mobile A.I. unit, or navcom, linked
by satellite to the main compunit at headquarters, allowing her instant access
to information.
    The screen glowed eerily, then blanked.
    "You've broken me again," the unit's
artificial in telligence told her in a
slightly nasal sounding female voice.
    Red punched button after button and grimaced.
    "Hitting me repeatedly will not fix the
problem."
    "Shut up, Rita," Red said, addressing the
unit by the name she'd given it as a child. Her grandfather had the unit custom
made for her. Instead of upgrading to the latest navcom model, Red insisted
that Rita be re paired. She knew one day the tech department would run
out of parts, but until then, she'd keep the old girl running.
    "I sense foreign material on your boots,"
the ma-chine piped up again.
    "I know.
Not now."
    "Are you talking to that machine again?"
Bannon asked, drawing the attention of several team members.  "No one has talking navcoms anymore—except you. Why don't
you upgrade your equipment and come into this decade
like everyone else?" He laughed. "Forgot
who I was talking to for a minute."
    Red scowled.
    Bannon pressed the button on his navcom.
"Listen,"   he said. Other than a bleep, there was no other sound.
"You know what that is?" he asked.
    "No," Red said.
     "It's the sound of progress."
    Murmurs started around her. Red heard them as clearly as if they'd
shouted.
    "How many dead rookies does this make ... She's losing i t...
I don't want to be around when she ex plodes  . .. She acts like the navcom is a real person
... How did she ever pass the psych test?" Red bristled
un der the onslaught and pressed another
button. For some reason she