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WATCH_DOGS™

//n/Dark Clouds

^{A novel by John Shirley}

^{Inspired by the Ubisoft Game}

CHAPTER ONE

He had been on Aiden Pearce’s trail for weeks.

Walking along the waterfront in an early November mist, under a reticent sun half-shrouded by a silky gray screen of clouds, Mick Jeremiah Wolfe was glad to be back in Chicago. Despite the cold and the mistrust and the frustration, it felt right to be here. He’d grown up in “Back of the Yards”, the neighborhood fringing what had been the old stockyards, and Wolfe felt Chicagoan from his ice blue eyes to the bottom of his booted feet. He still wore the Army boots, and Delta Force jacket—but the Special Forces jacket was shorn of its shoulder patches and insignia. They’d taken all that away from him, after the dishonorable discharge.

Six years “in-country”—first Afghanistan, then Mali and Somalia. Three Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, Two Silver Stars. And then… a dishonorable discharge for being stupid enough to listen to the low but insistent voice of his own conscience…

He should have gone with major league cynicism like the other guys.

It is what it is, he thought. For now.

Just find Aiden Pearce…

Wolfe was walking along North Lake Shore, striding along between the freeway and the old red brick buildings, hands in his pockets against the sting of the rolling mist coming off Lake Michigan. Wolfe stretched, a little, as he walked along, trying to look like a relaxed guy out for a good stretch of his legs. The rolling mist tried unsuccessfully to cloak the cars humming between him and the giant inland sea they called a lake. To his left were the old brick tenements that had been turned into upscale condos, apartments with doormen. That view of Lake Michigan was worth money.

The north wind was picking up, out there, clearing up the mist, ruffling the waves. There were sunken ships concealed within the Great Lakes, Wolfe knew; well preserved ships, some of them going back two hundred years. They were unseen monuments to the sunken dead.

And not so very far from here, inland, was another kind of monument to the lost dead: in a Back of the Yards cemetery lay the bones of his father, Colin Wolfe, killed by a bomb blast. Murdered, all those years ago. And why? Because he hadn’t bought into the universal cynicism. Killed—and by whom? The triggerman had been shot two weeks later by another thug, in a stupid fight over a woman. There wasn’t even a hope of revenge for his father… who’d made the mistake of listening to his conscience…

Only a fool listens to his conscience…

Wolfe glanced up at a light pole, and saw a ctOS camera just under the lamp, swiveling to watch him go by. He smiled at it, giving it a mock salute and continued on his way.