Embedded by Dan Abnett

drooled along the gutters and stood on the road surface.
      "Back behind the barrier, please," said a middle-aged man wearing the high-vis vest of civil defence.
      Falk didn't blink.
      "No, I'm going to my ambulance," he said.
      The man hesitated, but regarded Falk's lack of medcrew uniform dubiously.
      "Is that rain-top regulation?" Falk asked, gesturing to the garment the man was wearing under his vest.
      "I was in a hurry," said the man.
      "My point exactly," said Falk, and pushed past him with a confidence born of fifteen years of being an arrogant dick.
      He walked up the pavement, past a foam bowser and a trio of emergency transporters. The hatch ports to the carry-bay and equipment lockers were wide open on all three. He leaned in as he walked by one of them, and helped himself to a high-vis vest from a locker hook, clipping it on around his body as he moved on. The heat from the fires wafted to him with each swell of wind. He could hear emergency cutters. Civil defence workers passed him, going the other way, talking emphatically into their celfs. A hopter droned overhead, thrumming the air, lost and found in the rising smoke.
      Falk wiped the lenses of his glares and slipped them on, selecting snapshot . He started to blink off shots for general ref. He rounded a corner, got a wall of heat in the face, and saw a crowd of rescue workers engaged in urgent activity. He stepped back. They were SO staff, firefighters, paramedics. Some were shouting, others were running up with carry-kits from the transports. There were bodies on the ground. Falk couldn't get a good view, or blink off more than general shots, but there were definitely bodies. Three or four, wound in plastic blankets, surrounded by kneeling medics.
      He wanted a better look, and considered fronting his way into the huddle, but there was a difference between bluffing your way past a police line and obstructing lifesaving procedures that even a fifteen-year arrogant dick could recognise.
      He moved around, and approached firefighters working a gutting blaze with pressure jets, but the sheer heatwash turned him away. He found quieter space for a moment, a storehouse section that had been knocked down but not burned by the blast. He wiped the dirt, sweat and spray off his face with the tail of his shirt, and polished his glares.
      "You shouldn't be here," she said, coming up behind him.
      Green hiker girl was carrying a first aid box, and wearing a luminous SO armband and a sly smile.
      "Neither should you," he replied.
      "I don't care about me," she said.
      "Neither do I," said Falk, "so go away and I'll pretend I didn't see you."
      She kept showing him the odd little smile, and he found that curious.
      "You saw it newsflagged?" she asked.
      "I heard the blast."
      "Me too," she said. She looked at the vest he was wearing.
      "That's deep cover, huh?"
      "Obviously nothing like as well researched as an armband and a medi-pack," he replied.
      She showed him the digital brooch she was also wearing, pinned to her collar.
      "Slightly more authentic," she said.
      "And a really bad idea," he told her. He began to walk away. She followed him.
      "Why?" she asked.
      He considered explaining, then decided he didn't care enough and had better things to do, like losing her. It was a little disconcerting she was suddenly being so coy with him when she hadn't wanted a bar of him during the trip out to Mitre Sands.
      Then he got it, and felt stupid it had taken him so long.
      "You looked me up," he said.
      "I'm sorry, what?"
      "You looked me up, didn't you? After the tour. Now you know who I am."
      She grinned.
      "So what?"
      "So nothing," he said.
      "Yes, I didn't know who you were. I didn't know you'd won all those sparkly press awards. So what?"
      "So suddenly I'm interesting, am I?"
      "Oh, get over yourself. It just amuses me that the great Lex Falk has turned up