The van glided through the back streets of Rahway, straddling the border of Sector 13. The gloomy dawn resembled twilight. The ancient buildings flanking the road cast dark shadows. Rico knew this part of the sprawl as the Dead Zone. Nobody lived here but ghouls and wandering gangers and the odd slag on the run. There was no power and no water but what people found for themselves. The badges didn't hardly know the place existed, and that was probably good for them, the cops. The fog from some long-ago metaphysical catastrophe rolled forever through the streets. Devil rats, some as big as small dogs, peered from the alleys and out of the windows of abandoned buildings. The only light came from the fires in metal storage drums or seeping down from the sky through a pall of dark clouds.