Chapter Eleven

 

J.B., now also cleansed of the skin dye, felt terrible, and his eyes hurt from the constant squinting he was having to engage in to try to bring his surroundings into better focus. The century-old adhesive of the fresh bandages Mildred had applied to his facial lesions itched, but he knew better than to scratch. The last thing he wanted to do was endure a double dose of Doc's aimless chatter before he even had a full cup of coffee sub.

 

The group of friends had gathered in the late morning for a meal of water and eats from their supply packs. They were sitting in one of the common areas inside the mall. Arriving early due to being awakened at dawn by chronic aches and pains of travel, Doc had scoped out a wide bench and claimed it for his own, and for the use of his companions as they began arriving at the spot at the agreed-upon time.

 

However, sitting with Doc at your elbow came with a price, as J.B. was reminding himself.

 

"Alas, friends, but the fates have provided for us while spitting upon our unprotected brows simultaneously," Doc was saying. "Normally the loss of John Barrymore's spectacles would be the cause of dire calamities indeed. Now we are within the protected walls of a virtual village of shops, including that rarest of rarities, a genuine optician."

 

"What wrong with this picture, Doc?" Mildred asked, her clear voice thick with annoyance.

 

"I was getting to that, Dr. Wyeth. No, unfortunately, we do not possess the necessary currency to purchase the needed services of the aforementioned ocular physician," Doc said, and added, "So, we are fucked. Put succinctly."

 

"Don't say 'fuck,' Doc. It sounds all wrong coming out of your mouth," Krysty protested.

 

"There's always a way," Ryan said. "We're not out of ideas yet."

 

Krysty squeezed Ryan's knee. "I know that tone, and you know better than to even think of trying to walk in there and take a pair of eyeglasses for J.B."

 

Ryan assumed a look of mock hurt. "You don't think I could get away with it?"

 

"Mebbe, mebbe not. First J.B. would have to take the eye exam so we'll know what kind of lenses he needs. He said the eye doc told him he needed jack up front before doing the examination."

 

"Makes good sense. Payment in full before you get started, otherwise whoever it is you're examining may decide he doesn't like what you've got to say and bolt."

 

"Even if you bullied Dr. Clarke into doing the exam, he's got thousands of different kinds of glasses in his office. No telling which set of lenses J.B. needs," Mildred added. "Besides, I kind of liked the guy."

 

 

"Shit!" J.B. snorted. "The prices he's charging are ridiculous."

 

"That's a carry-over from the good old days," Mildred interjected. "Us doctors always demanded top pay for our services."

 

"What we do now?" Jak asked.

 

 

"Pay the man what he wants, I guess," Ryan said, polishing off the last of his portion of the powdered-eggs self-heat for his morning meal.

 

"Still think just go in, take them," Jak muttered. "Take them all. Find a pair that works."

 

Mildred threw up her hands. "Jak, the going rate is the going rate. Clarke's talentsand his apparent ready supply of glassesare rarely found. I never met an eye doctor wandering around in Deathlands, have you?"

 

"Can't say as I ever have," Ryan said. "Where did you get your first pair of specs anyway, J.B.?"

 

"I was just a kid," the Armorer began to say before a very small man stepped in front of him with an excited look.

 

"Pardon me, yes, I overhear you have a problem, no?" the unfamiliar voice piped up. "I have the answer, yes!"

 

Ryan's hand shot out like a steel baton and grabbed the little man by the throat. The fellow was dressed to the nines in a tiny pair of dress shoes, green pants and matching jacket, bow tie and a dramatic black cape draped over his shoulders.

 

"You listening to our private conversations, runt?" Ryan said as the little man tried to pull away.

 

"Define listening, uh-huh. Air is free. Mall is open. I pass by, I hear. You no want people hearing, keep mouth shut, understand?"

 

J.B. gave a short bark of laughter at the dwarfs logic. "Yeah, Ryan, understand?"

 

Jak narrowed his ruby red eyes at the struggling dwarf.

 

"Your white-hair no like Lucas."

 

"He doesn't like eavesdroppers," Mildred said. "Nor do I."

 

"Is okay. I no like him, either," the dwarf replied.

 

Ryan unclenched his hand and released the little man. "You planning on making some kind of point, Lucas? Or are you purposefully trying to piss one of us off enough to get yourself chilled?"

 

"Make you offer. Good money to be had. Mall credits enough to take care of any problems," Lucas replied, adjusting his cape.

 

"Oh, yeah? How?"

 

"The pit. Combat in the pit, winner take all."

 

"What, a fight?"

 

"In the pit, that's right, yes, fight, yes. One against another. Two go in, one comes out. Beat the champion and the winner gets a shopping spree, up to a thousand mall creds on anything he wants to buy in Freedom. No blasters, blades or other nonprojectile hand weapons, yes. Anything goes."

 

"Sounds like a bargain-basement version of the Big Game," J.B. mused.

 

Dean gave a barely noticeable shudder as the Armorer's words triggered the memory of the gladiator-style killing games held in the ruins in the once prosperous Las Vegas, Nevada. Until a few months ago, the youngster had been a student at the Nicholas Brody School in Colorado, where Ryan had left him for a period of proper education.

 

The kind of learning Ryan had paid for hadn't come cheap in the hellish world of Deathlands, but he had known his son would need some formal schooling before returning to the harsh realities of daily survival. Knowledge was just as useful a weapon as a good blaster if a man was educated enough to use it, and Ryan wanted his own flesh and blood to have the opportunity to be as culturally aware as he had been during his own childhood.

 

Unfortunately things had started to go wrong at the Brody School soon after Ryan left his son.

 

The school hadn't been able to live up to what its reputation and secure grounds promised. More and more often, Ryan was seeing that so much of anything relied on the strength of a single vision. Sometimes the vision was for the greater good, like the school and the desire to educate, but more often, the vision was yet another nameless, faceless land baron who had grabbed enough power and clout to swing his weight around.

 

Like the five men locked in the power struggle for the land and villes surrounding Las Vegas.

 

Dean and nine of his classmates from the Brody School in Colorado had been kidnapped by one of these men, Baron Vinge Connrad, to serve as young warriors in his fight against his competition.

 

At the same time, Ryan and his friends had been on their way to retrieve Dean after many long months of travel. He had desperately missed his son and decided it was time for the boy's studies to come to an end. Before they reached their goal, they themselves inadvertently came upon the sadistic and primitive way of settling who would be the leader of the Vegas villes for another year, having been forced by circumstances to be warriors for a different baron.

 

"If this is like the Big Game, I could probably handle any two-bit gladiator they throw my way with one arm tied behind my back and my other thumb up my ass," J.B. announced.

 

"Right. You can't even see well enough to squat down and take a proper shit, J.B.," Mildred retorted. "No way are you going in for any gladiator games."

 

"I don't recall asking for your permission, Millie," J.B. replied.

 

"She's right. I'm not having you cut down by a lucky punch from some hardass," Ryan said firmly. "But without your glasses, you're a definite liability to be carrying around. Got to change that triple fast."

 

"Thanks a whole heaping lot for the vote of confidence," J.B. said, with an annoyed sneer.

 

"He has fire, yes, even blind, you say? Would do well, would do well," the dwarf interjected. "First battle scheduled today for noon. Need to sign on as contender now, yes."

 

"Quiet, squirt," Ryan said, cutting off the little man. "Doc said it best"

 

"I always do," Doc quipped.

 

"We could be in a lot worse shape. Matter of time J.B. broke his glasses anyway. At least there's a place here to fix them. So, I say we're not leaving Freedom without two pairsone to wear and one to keep as a backup in case this ever happens again. And the most immediate solution to the problem seems to be this fight in the pit the shrimp's babbling about."

 

"I don't care, Ryan. John is not going to get himself killed over a pair of eyeglasses in some stupid hand-to-hand battle," Mildred protested. "We've got to find another way."

 

"I know, Mildred, I know," Ryan said impatiently. "But who said anything about J.B. being the one doing the fighting?"

 

 

 

BEFORE STEPPING into the pit, Ryan eyeballed the arena from above.

 

The walls plunging downward were sheer, with grooves cut into two sides. He guessed it was a forty-foot drop to the floor below. The actual fighting arena was open and wide, with curved walls to prevent any attempts to crawl up and out of the battle.

 

In the few hours since he had agreed to the challenge, word had spread throughout Freedom like prairie fire in the dry season. He'd been told all of the seats to the pit match were sold out, "seats" being a term for spots to stand around the protective railing and watch. Already a sizable sum of jack had been generated through pay-per-view sales via the mall's antiquated closed-circuit television system.

 

Money had even been made from Ryan himself, since he'd been forced to pay a substantial entry fee as a pit challenger. His new manager, Lucas, had kicked in additional funds to complete what Ryan needed to satisfy the demanded sum.

 

"Case you run. Case you chicken out, call off match before it begins," Lucas explained. "Refunds expensive. I'm counting on you. Do good."

 

"Don't have to worry about my turning tail," Ryan replied, gesturing at the open hole in the center of the mall, "What the hell was this thing, anyway? I doubt any predark malls had gladiator bouts between shopping stints."

 

"Used to be stage," Lucas said. "Live shows. Raised and lowered from the basement for special effects, scene changes. Worked for a long time till motors gave out. Now floor don't go up no more. So, gutted most of the innards and ripped out the old floor. Sloped the walls. Made a dandy pit for the brawl. One-on-one or big fight. Doesn't matter. Sometimes stuntmen come in on cycles. Motor bikes. Ride them around and around, high up the walls. Like magic show! Fall sometimes. Best part."

 

"Centrifugal force," Ryan said. "Holds them up."

 

"Whatever you say," Lucas replied, not understanding the terminology, but wanting to keep his new warrior happy.

 

"Am I going to have to chill this guy?" Ryan asked bluntly.

 

Lucas sniggered. "You'll be the one who decides, friend Ryan. My guess is yes. To stop him, you have to put end to his feeble life. I shall meet you down there in but a moment. Must go pay more fees, see to betting, wagers. Money to be made."

 

Ryan turned and entered the access door that led to the backstage area of the arena, heading for the room assigned earlier to use as his place to prepare for the fight. Dean was standing in front of the door, waiting for him.

 

Ryan nodded to his son as he pulled on his tight black gloves. He clenched his fingers, enjoying the sensation of warmth and protection inside the comforting second skin of leather. He shrugged out of his long coat, his previously dislocated shoulder reminding him of the injury he'd suffered back in the Barrens. Ryan mentally debated keeping his long white scarf with the weighted ends, but decided to leave it behind, choosing instead to keep himself as unencumbered as possible.

 

Once the SIG-Sauer was unholstered and the exterior layers of clothing removed, Ryan was dressed in a black T-shirt, heavy jeans, combat boots. Simple, tight apparelthe better to keep a foe from finding a handhold with. He kept his hidden flensing blade under the back of his shirt and the deadly eighteen-inch honed panga on his hip.

 

"How do I look?" he asked Dean, who'd been watching. The room they were inside was once a dressing room when the stage was used for less deadly performances of music and song. The door of the room had been taken off the hinges, allowing a partial view of the site of the fight to come.

 

"Like a hot pipe, Dad. Aces on the line all the way down. This won't take long," Dean said. The boy seemed quite sure of this, much to Ryan's hidden amusement.

 

"Wish I shared your confidence, son. It's not always skill. Many a time luck plays a big role." Ryan did a deep knee bend and frowned at the loud pop that cracked out of his joints. "Knees aren't what they used to be," he noted ruefully. He stretched out his arms, extending them and moving them from side to side. His dislocated right shoulder twinged again.

 

"Nothing is what it used to be," he muttered.

 

Luras walked into the room through the open doorway, followed by the tense figures of Krysty and Mildred.

 

"Your women, they say they stay in here, near pit itself. Boy already here. Too many. Against rules," the little man said firmly.

 

"Don't worry. My boy's going back up to the top to watch. The women are healers," Ryan explained. "I need them close. Might need their help triple fast after this fight."

 

Lucas pondered Ryan's words. "Doors will be sealed to the pit floor. They cannot help you until match is over."

 

"Understood."

 

"Boy will take females' blasters with him to top. They stay, okay, but unarmed."

 

Krysty and Mildred both took out their pistols and handed them to Dean, who was already weighted down by Ryan's heavy SIG-Sauer. The boy didn't complain. He accepted the hardware and departed the way Mildred and Krysty had come into the dressing area.

 

"Hurry back, lover," Krysty said, giving him a quick peck on the lips. "There's more where that came from."

 

"You can count on it."

 

Ryan took another deep breath and looked at a large clock hanging on the wall. High noon. Time to go. He stepped past them to the reinforced door leading out to the pit floor itself. He lifted the handle, and the door swung out into the arena. A loud cry of excitement was ignited with his appearance as Ryan ducked slightly and strode through the opening.

 

Instinctively he looked up. The bright stage lights used for illumination prevented him from seeing into the upper reaches of the stands. As he moved farther toward the center of the pit, the voices above got even louder.

 

Across from Ryan, a twin to his own exit door was recessed into the wall.

 

The door opened, swinging out. Ryan continued to stare, waiting for the first look at his foe. A canopy overhang cast a dramatic curtain of black over the entryway, allowing for a resplendent entrance.

 

Like everyone else around the pit, Ryan was waiting. He wasn't expecting death himself to come gliding out of the shadows.