Read Halo: Contact Harvest for Free Online Page A

walk.” Avery twisted the cap off the gin and took a generous swig. Then he added to himself: While I still can.
The bottle only lasted an hour. But others were easy to find, as one night of drinking became two, then three. Gut Check, Rebound, Severe Tire Damage: names of clubs filled with civilians eager for Avery’s money but not the slurred stories of how he’d earned it—except for a girl on a low-lit stage in a dive off Halsted Street. The pretty redhead was so good at pretending to listen, Avery didn’t mind pretending it had nothing to do with how often he’d tapped his credit chip against the jeweled reader in her navel. The money drew her freckled skin and smell and lazy smile closer, until a rough hand fell on Avery’s shoulder.
“Watch your hands, soldier boy,” a bouncer warned, his voice raised above the club’s thumping music.
Avery looked away from the girl, her back arched high above the stage. The bouncer was tall with a substantial gut that his tight, black turtleneck could barely contain. His strong arms were padded with a deceptive layer of fat. Avery shrugged. “I’ve paid.”
“Not to touch.” The bouncer sneered, revealing two platinum incisors. “This is a class establishment.”
Avery reached for a little round table between his knees and the stage. “How much?” he asked, raising his credit chip.
“Five hundred.”
“Screw you.”
“Like I said. Class .”
“Already spent plenty…”Avery muttered. His UNSC salary was modest—and most of that had gone to help with his aunt’s apartment.
“Aw, now see?” The bouncer jabbed a thumb at the girl. She was slowly sliding backward on the stage—her smile now a worried frown. “You gotta talk nice, soldier boy.” The bouncer tightened his grip on Avery’s shoulder. “She’s not one of those Innie sluts you’re used to out in Epsi.”
Avery was sick of the bouncer’s hand. He was sick of being called boy. But having some civilian puke insult him—someone who had no idea what he had actually gotten used to on the frontlines of the Insurrection? That was the last straw.
“Let me go,” Avery growled.
“We gonna have a problem?”
“All depends on you.”
With his free hand, the bouncer reached behind his back and pulled a metal rod from his belt. “Why don’t you and me step outside?” With a flick of his wrist, the rod doubled in length and revealed an electrified tip.
It was a “humbler” stun device. Avery had seen ONI interrogators lay into Innie prisoners with the things. He knew how debilitating they were, and though Avery doubted the bouncer had as much skill with the humbler as an ONI spook, he had no intention of ending up jerking around in a puddle of his own piss on this class establishment’s floor.
Avery reached for his drink, resting at the center of his table. “I’m good right here.”
“Listen, you jarhead son of a—”
But Avery’s reach was just a feint. As the bouncer leaned forward to follow, Avery grabbed the man’s wrist and pulled it over his shoulder. Then he yanked down, breaking it at the elbow. The girl on the stage screamed as ragged bone tore through the bouncer’s shirt, spattering blood on her face and hair.
As the bouncer howled and dropped to his knees, two of his partners—similarly dressed and built—rushed forward, flinging chairs out of their way. Avery stood and turned to meet them. But he was drunker than he’d thought and missed an opening blow to the bridge of his nose that snapped his head back and sent his own blood arcing toward the stage.
Avery reeled back into the bouncers’ crushing arms. But as they rushed him out the club’s back door, one of them slipped on the metal staircase leading to the alley. In that moment, Avery was able to twist free, give much better than he got, and stagger away from the noise of approaching sirens before a pair of blue and white sedans deposited four of the Zone’s finest on the club’s doorstep.
Stumbling along Halsted’s