Carlo's hand went for his holster the instant he heard the voice. The voice's owner was faster. A Unity pressed against his temple.
Samir ca back to herself. The color had drained completely from her face. She pulled herself off the floor and threw her arms around Carlo, sobbing into him.
"I figured you were here to shut her up. Tell what's going on."
The gun ca away from Carlo's head.
"Vito. What are you doing in here?"
The tent flap opened again. Jackie.
"Nobody heard anything, Vito."
Vito pointed toward Samir with the pistol.
"Bring your sister. Sowhere we can talk."
Carlo didn't argue. He patted Samir's back gently, but she was already past gentle. She gripped him tighter and the sobbing got louder, filling the tent.
Jackie watched the two of them and muttered to Vito with mild exasperation:
"We went through all of this and now we look like corpo debt collectors showing up to take soone's house."
Neither Vito nor Jackie rushed them. They waited until Samir had cried herself out.
Outside, the Badlands wind moved through the camp. It sounded more like crying than she did.
Eventually the tears stopped. Samir got up in silence, like soone walking toward sothing she couldn't avoid.
Carlo put a jacket around her shoulders and walked with her to Max's transport.
When Samir saw Max her eyes went to the floor. She couldn't look at the man who had raised her, couldn't look at the Serpents' leader. She kept her head down and spoke quietly.
"I sold everyone out. It was all . I'm the one who got Katja, Kiki, Xinyu killed..."
She said the nas one after another. Her voice kept rising. Then she broke entirely, covered her face, and her body swayed like she was about to go down.
Carlo caught her. He was shouting before his hands had steadied her.
"It is not Samir's fault. She was conned by that piece of garbage. He worked her for information. She had no idea she was being played."
Max already knew Samir wouldn't sell out the Serpents. Every person in the clan was family to her. The fact that she could na every victim from mory told Max this girl was more broken by it than he was.
"Ahem. I hate to interrupt, but our first priority is dealing with the threat inside the camp."
He watched Samir trembling and holding herself together, and kept going.
"And to be clear, I'm not talking about Samir. From what you've both said, it sounds like there's soone else. Can you walk through all of it?"
He gestured for everyone to sit. Jackie brought four plastic chairs over. Vito waved his away and dropped onto a crate of C7 explosive.
"Take your ti. The night isn't going anywhere."
When Carlo and Samir finished the whole story between them, Vito let out a slow breath.
There were good reasons Nomads avoided Night City. The place wasn't just dangerous and foul. The people inside it had more angles working than anyone raised in open country could easily account for.
Carlo ran the Serpents' Night City business. He ca in regularly to move unusual cargo for gangs and off-the-books weapons dealers.
Back around the ti he'd first run into Vito, Carlo and his partner Cala had been hunted by the Night Wraiths. Cala took several rounds. She'd survived the ripperdoc, but she wasn't getting out of bed for a while.
During that stretch, Samir stepped in as Carlo's new partner. The two of them ran deliveries into Night City together, and now and then they'd pick up sothing small and drink sothing decent and call it a reward.
One day, Samir t a man who called himself a Nomad. His na was Simpson. He looked the part and he was easy to talk to, funny, relaxed, the kind of person Samir found herself opening up to without thinking about it.
Simpson was a good listener. He agreed with most of what Samir said, only pushing back on small things that didn't matter, and even then he'd usually co around to her side by the end.
Before long, Samir and Simpson were together. He called often. They talked about Nomad clan life, the Badlands, all of it. She didn't notice she was being worked.
Carlo had been around Samir that whole ti. Simpson had fooled him too. The man's cover was good. Then the Chaos Blades started moving against the Serpents, Carlo and Simpson had never been close, and the contact just dropped off.
Then one day Samir found Carlo just back at camp. She told him she wanted to leave the Badlands with Simpson.
Carlo asked why. She said Simpson wanted to take her to Night City. That he found Nomad life too suffocating, and Night City felt like more freedom.
Carlo didn't want his sister following so blond stranger to Night City. He ran deliveries there often enough to know what the life expectancy looked like.
He talked her out of it. Then a few days later, Simpson ssaged Samir. He said he'd had a falling out with his clan's people and wanted to co to the Serpents instead.
Samir didn't hesitate. She told him where the camp was.
The day of the raid, Carlo fought his way out with the modified weapons he'd bought from the Gunfire Children's Clinic, took down six Chaos Blades himself, forced a path, ramd the armored vehicle blocking the exit, and opened an escape route for the clan.
In the chaos, Carlo thought he glimpsed the person driving the armored vehicle. It looked like Simpson.
Two days ago, Simpson had ssaged Samir again. He told her to leave with him. For freedom. And he told her the truth, that he was Night Wraiths, and that he'd found a way out, a new life in Night City.
Samir locked herself in her tent after that. The rest of the clan assud she was still shaken from the raid. Only Carlo noticed sothing was wrong.
He hadn't put it together until Vito showed up and the drive to the Aldecaldos gave him enough ti to think it through.
Vito told Jackie to take Samir and Carlo back to rest. He needed to talk to Max alone.
Max wasn't thinking about the explosives anymore. He lit a cigarette, and for a mont looked several years older than he had.
"Samir was a good kid even when she was small. A Badlands scorpion got her once. Her friends didn't believe her because the things are nearly extinct out here.
She was in pain all night but she was afraid she'd wake the clan if she cried, so she pulled the blanket over her head and bit through it and let the tears go quiet. Carlo was the one who found her. By the ti I got there her whole ankle had gone black.
That's just who she is. Always thinking about everyone else. Gives herself away without ever aning to."
Vito lit his own cigarette and sat down next to Max. He gave his forearm a quiet pat.
"I know this is hard on all of you. But Samir wasn't involved in the supply runs, was she?
The camp raid is one thing, that's done, that's on Simpson. But the cargo intercepts, that's harder to put on her unless you were telling her the shipnt details every day and she was passing them along to her boyfriend every day. You're not that careless, are you?"
Max went still. The cigarette burned down to his fingers. He didn't notice.
There was still a mole inside the Serpents.
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