Chapter Seven

Swimming…Ryan was splashing and swimming in the cool green water of the nameless lake, odd columns of red rock rising upward like the weathered pylons from some ancient temple. The water soaked his clothing and filled his boots, weighing him down like sticky lead, draining his strength, but there was no way to get them while swimming, and he was tiring fast.

A raging fury filled the man and his exhaustion faded away to be replaced with a hard determination. Not gonna get aced out here in the middle of nowhere! Now move, you nuke-sucking bastard! Get some dirt under your feet and quickly find the convoy before it’s too late! He raged to himself. Some small part of his mind said that it may already be too late. The Trader could be lying on the side of the road chilled by the stickies, or worse, the convoy had taken off and now was miles away. But he ignored that. Ryan had fought bigger men than himself, stronger, meaner, yet always won because he did not quit.

Unfortunately, there were only sheer rock walls in every direction he turned, unclimbable cliffs with no place to get out of the water larger than a spent brass. Then he caught a glimmer of white and instinctively started paddling in that direction. Could it be a sandy beach? A predark wreck? But as Ryan got closer, he saw there was an adobe ville sitting on a pebbled shore. Oddly, there was no wall surrounding the cluster of buildings, which naturally made him think it was a predark town that had somehow survived skydark. Yet there weren’t any telephone poles sticking out of the ground or cars parked along the curbs that he could see from this angle. Strange.

His rage was starting to ebb away, his strength fading when Ryan felt the toe of his boot scrape ground under the green water. Barking a short laugh of relief, the man dragged himself out of the lake and flopped bonelessly on the bed of pebbles. The smooth rocks were hot from the sunlight and the soothing warmth seeped into his aching body like a healing balm.

Catching his breath, Ryan rose from the stony beach and checked his weapons before stiffly walking toward the adobe ville, diligently searching for any signs of muties or coldhearts. He had been caught once with his pants down. Never again.

In spite of the heavy cloud cover, the day was hot, but there was a cool breeze coming off the desert carrying a faint taste of snow from the nearby mountains, and Ryan gratefully drank in the delicious sensation. The place seemed deserted, and there was nothing dangerous in sight. Yet he was oddly apprehensive. Then it hit him. The buildings were adobe, dried mud bricks, with wooden poles sticking out of the sides to support the red clay tile roofs. But most of them reached four, five, even six stories tall.

Which was flat-out impossible for adobe. The mud bricks couldn’t take that much weight unless there was another structure underneath supporting them.

This was a fake, Ryan realized. Someplace made to look primitive to hide the real buildings. Could it be an underground cache like the Trader used, or something else?

Warily, the twenty-year-old man drew his Colt .45 autoblaster and worked the slide to chamber a round.

The sound of metal on metal was reassuring, the tiny noise seeming to echo along the sterile white streets.

That was when he noticed one building that seemed different from the rest. It was a little blurry, as if seen by tired eyes, or through a faint mist. Triple weird.

Advancing closer, Ryan studied the structure. It was a three-story adobe building, red-tile roof, wooden shutters over the windows and a weathered door with some kind of a glowing symbol set into the lentil.

A sort of circle with an oval going across sideways with a large star set off center to the left.

There was a moment of disorientation and Ryan found himself standing in the middle of a weedy road, the sound of engines growing steadily louder. Then a war wag came over a low hillock, closely followed by several more. He could not believe it. That was the convoy! But…but hadn’t he just been in a lake?

With a squeal of pneumatic brakes, War Wag One came to a rocking halt and the side door was thrown open wide.

“Well, nuke me!” The Trader laughed in delight, stepping into view. “Look who we have here!”

“Never thought I’d see your sorry ass again, Cawdor!” J.B. chuckled, lowering the barrel of his Remington Bolt-action. “Nice to have you back….” The wiry man stopped talking and squinted through his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Behind you!” the Trader bellowed, swinging up a blaster and firing.

Ducking, Ryan swiveled to see a white mist rise from a depression among the weeds, then a nest of ropy tentacles lashed madly about as a creature pushed through the weeds, the plants turning brown and withering at the passage of the hellish thing.

Snarling in rage, Ryan grabbed for the Colt at his hip, but found only bare flesh and rumpled blankets.

Then there came the sound of a toilet flushing, followed by running water. With a supreme effort of will, the man opened his eye to see the bedroom of a redoubt. A dream. It was just that damn dream again, he thought.

“Morning, lover!” Krysty called, sticking her head out of the bathroom. There was a toothbrush in her hand and her smile was foamy. She was dressed only in pants and boots, her new bra hanging off a doorknob. “Nice to see you moving! I was thinking about setting the mattress on fire, but wasn’t sure even that was going to work.”

“Probably not,” Ryan growled, taking his eye patch from a bedside table and slipping it back into place.

“But I know of another way that would have gotten me awake trip-fast,” he said with a gentle smile.

“Yeah, I thought of that, too.” She chuckled, walking over, her full breasts swaying from the rolling motion of her full hips. Bending over, Krysty planted a long, minty kiss on his lips, then pulled back.

“However, I’m starved and want some breakfast. Lots to do today.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” Ryan admitted, feeling a rumble in his gut from the mere thought of food. Suddenly his desire for the woman was gone, replaced by a different kind of hunger. Throwing off the blankets, Ryan set bare feet on the floor and reached for his pants. There was a time and place for everything. He and Krysty would get some private time later on, but right now, there was work to be done.

After a hurried breakfast of beef stew, canned bread and black coffee, the companions went directly to work on the wags. They broke only for lunch, and by late afternoon, the job was completed.

Stepping back from the predark machine, Ryan wiped his sweaty forehead and studied the last weld on the final cage. It looked good, but he had to make sure. Grabbing the hot metal with a gloved hand, the one-eyed man shook it hard, but the gridwork stayed firm and unyielding. Done and done. They were ready to go.

After ascertaining that the cyborg’s LAV was safe to move, the companions dragged it into the garage and shoved it out of the way in a disused corner. Then J.B. and Jak rigged the egg-smooth vehicle once more, this time adding a coffin full of live brass to the mix. When the wag detonated, the entire garage level would be filled with a maelstrom of shrapnel. To be honest, J.B. didn’t know if that could chill Delphi, but it sure was going to be spectacular! Half of the Armorer wanted to see the staggering blast, but the rest of him wanted to be as far away from the maelstrom as possible.

When that was accomplished, the companions really got to work. The best of the civilian wags were carefully chosen and completely disassembled. Then everything not actually needed to make the machines move was meticulously removed. Each vehicle was reduced to bare framework, then rebuilt, the engines raised higher than the lake outside and the exhaust pipes altered to go straight up. Next, the companions added a reinforced fuel tank, an entire row of nuke batteries and a single seat for the driver.

Then the crude speedster was surrounded by a strong cage made of blaster barrels removed from the stores of Kalashnikovs. The hollow bars were set with care at what the companions sincerely hoped was a couple of inches farther away from the driver than the reach of a hunter.

There were still a few extra Kalashnikovs remaining, so the companions each took two, and everything else in the armory had been either set with a trap or destroyed by the arc welder.

“Wish we had the time to add some spikes to the cage,” J.B. said wistfully, running a handkerchief along the sweatband inside his hat. “Or make them stronger. If a weld pops, a bar could come loose, and then we’d be easy pickings.”

“Not so easy,” Jak replied, checking the load in his Colt Python, then closing the cylinder with a click.

Holstering the blaster, he jerked a wrist and a knife appeared in his palm. The freshly sharpened blade gleamed like sin in the moonlight.

Tucking a toolbox between the row of nuke batteries, the man shrugged. “Yeah, I know,” J.B. hedged uncomfortably, strapping down the sturdy case. “But still…”

“Don’t worry, John, the doors will do,” Mildred stated, tying a cloth around her hair. Knotting it tight under her chin, she made sure every beaded lock was safely tucked away. If a hunter got a fistful of hair, at the very least it would be incredibly painful as the creature ripped it out by the roots, and at the worst, deadly as it hauled the driver into range of their claws and fangs.

“Sure as hell hope so,” J.B. said softly. Normally he would have argued to wait for another day or two, so that he could add some refinements, but unfortunately, time was against them. The longer the companions waited, the farther Delphi got from the redoubt. Or worse, the sooner he’d jump to the redoubt, see that his spare parts were gone and attack from within, driving them out to the muties’

waiting arms.

On impulse, the Armorer touched the implo gren in his munitions bag. One shot. That was all they’d have. One fragging chance to ace the cyborg. Grimly, the man donned his fedora. So he’d bloody make it count if he had to shove the damn thing straight down his throat first.

Seeing his dark expression, Mildred wanted to offer him some comfort, but continued lashing down her med kit to the metal floor right next to the Kalashnikov. Back in medical school, a wise dorm mate had once compared the male of the species to brewing beer: sometimes they just needed to be left alone.

True words.

Over at the fuel pumps, Doc was holding a gurgling hose over a partially filled bucket. Slowly, the trickle of fuel slowed to a dribble, then stopped completely. All out. Hanging up the nozzle, he lifted the bucket by the handle and carried it to the last speedster. Using a cardboard funnel, the man carefully poured in the few pints of clear fluid.

Sitting behind the wheel, Krysty turned on the paper for a few moments to check the fuel gauge.

“How much juice did we achieve, dear lady?” Doc asked, setting the bucket aside and vigorously wiping his hands dry on a clean rag. Shooting a blaster with juice on your skin was a fast way to lose fingers.

“That put me at a little more than half a tank,” Krysty said, frowning. “You sure there’s no more?”

“Mayhap in another redoubt…” Doc answered guilelessly.

She grunted in reply. “Fair enough.” After battling the droid, there had not been much fuel left in the main tank of the redoubt, so the companions split what little there was equally among them. Hopefully, it would be enough to get them through the jungle and far enough away from the hunters. On open ground, the creatures were relatively easy to ace. But in their natural environment, they were death machines. There was no doubt in her mind that the gorilla-like muties would have aced Ryan if they had been allowed to enter the pool. That had been a foolish mistake by Delphi. Many fights were lost because somebody acted stupe, more than anything else.

Climbing into the lead speedster, Ryan closed the hinged hatch and dogged it shut with a sliding bolt. The crude door was painted a bright yellow, oddly marking its exact position in the resilient cage. Wrapping a cloth around his own hair, Ryan strapped himself in place. Turning on the engine, he checked over the few gauges still attached to the skeletal remains of the dashboard. Oil pressure, temp, power, everything looked good. Then the man revved the engine hard a few times trying to make it stall, but the machine refused to flood or choke.

The others started their own engines, filling the garage with noise and exhaust fumes, the wall vents struggling to clean the atmosphere until there was a brisk breeze blowing through the level. Each seemed satisfied with his or her speedster, except for J.B., who still wished for something other than the Volvo SUV. It was a good wag, but relatively new and he had hoped for something older.

The Trader always said that old metal ran better, and it was true. The flashy models produced just before the Big Flash all had electric carburetors, fuel injectors, built-in comps, and the like. So even if they somehow survived the Nuke War without getting fried by the EMP blast of an atomic blast, the fancy engines were a real nuke-in-the-ass to maintain, to his mind. Cruise control, automatic seat adjusters, kill switches, theft alarms, low-jacks, and all of that technodrek had to be ripped out before you could even start to rewire the engine to make them run smooth. And there had always been a few speedsters that simply could never be made to work, until a gunner for the Trader had come up with a snazzy little bypass gimmick made from assorted bits of junk. With one of those, the Trader could get any wag to run.

Removing his glasses to polish them on a sleeve, J.B. grinned at the recollection. Dark night, I haven’t thought about Hoban in years.

“Everybody hot?” Ryan called, glancing around.

Hands gave curt waves as the companions did a last check on their speedsters, making sure that all of the food and general supplies were lashed down tight, the rapid-fires loaded, spare ammo tucked away safely, along with the grens. Each person had an AK-47 set in a pressure-clip on the floor, far from the questing hands of the muties, yet readily available to them if the need should arise. But more importantly, every speedster had a rubber mat glued to the floor under the driver.

“Ready and willing!” Krysty answered, working the clutch and gearshift on what had once been a Nissan. “Just say the word!”

“Then let’s roll!” Ryan shouted, shifting into gear and starting forward.

Forming a ragged line, the six speedsters rolled into the exit tunnel, maneuvering easily past the series of antirad zigzags.

“Half a league, half a league onward!” Doc sang out over the noisy engine of the Saturn SUV. It wasn’t a very powerful wag, but for some reason he felt drawn to the machine. He had no logical idea why.

“Aw, stuff it, ya old coot!” Mildred shot back. “You know I hate that damn poem!”

“Hate Tennyson, madam? Impossible!”

“Mebbe just hate you!” Jak added, trying not to smirk.

Looking over a shoulder, Doc flashed his oddly perfect teeth. “Now that I believe!”

The massive blast doors at the end of the tunnel loomed. Braking to a halt, everybody got their rapid-fires ready, as Krysty hopped out to tap in the exit code on the wall keypad and press the lever.

She immediately raced back to her speedster, and was safely inside the locked cage before the doors parted to expose the wall of water.

Anxiously, Ryan touched the fresh bandages under his shirt as he waited to see if any of the muties would come out of the rushing barrier. But nothing happened. The one-eyed man stomped on the gas pedal.

Shooting forward, he literally flew through the pounding water and was airborne for several seconds before dropping into the lake with a resounding splash. Veering away from a boulder, he jogged to the left just as Krysty burst into view, closely followed by J.B., Mildred, Doc and Jak.

The lake was chest-high on them, completely covering the tires. Choppy waves smacked the engines, making them sputter and cough, but then they surged with life.

Steering wildly, the companions did their best to avoid the assorted obstacles submerged in the shallow lake, and Mildred clipped a boulder hard enough to rattle her teeth. But the physician held on to the steering wheel with both hands and got the little speedster back under control before it smashed headlong into another large rock.

Watching out of the corner of his eye, J.B. whistled in relief. That had been close. Too damn close.

Shaking the spray from his face, Ryan searched for hunters waiting for them in the trees or bushes, but then the shore was upon them. Bracing for the impact, the man jounced up the mossy slope and went flying again for a moment before landing on top of the bamboo stand, sending out broken pieces in every direction.

Angling past a tree, he plowed into a bush, and a rear wheel slipped in the greenery turning him abruptly back toward the lake. Savagely twisting the steering wheel, Ryan fought to stay out of the water and managed to angle back into the bushes to careen off a banana tree in an explosion of bark. Fruit fell from above like green and yellow rain as Ryan rejoined the others rocketing through the dense jungle. J.B.

gave the man a game thumbs-up, and Krysty nodded, then they were among the banyan trees. Hanging vines were everywhere, and the companions concentrated on their driving. Even shouted conversations were pointless over the six engines and the steady rustling of the plant life smashed aside by the steel cages.

Colorful birds exploded from the trees at their approach, and the little monkeys ran away, screaming and waving their arms in an almost human manner. Running over a hissing snake, Ryan dodged a large flower that turned to follow the speedsters, then something heavy landed on top of the cage, and a hairy arm clawed for his face. Hunters!

Leaning away from the limb, Ryan flipped a switch on the dashboard and the entire cage crackled with fat blue sparks. On the dashboard, a meter showed the first line of nuke batteries in the rear of the speedster draining slightly, but nothing serious.

With fat blue sparks crawling over it, the mutie blindly tried for the man, missed and accidentally touched the door. Now the second set of batteries surged, completing the circuit, and the mutie shrieked as it burst into flames from the massive electric shock.

Shifting gears, Ryan smelled ozone and cooked flesh, as the aced mutie tumbled away. Unfortunately the gas gauge was dropping at an alarming rate. Every time he fried a mutie, the power drain made the engine slow. But there was nothing that could be done about that now. He would just have to stay low, stay fast and trust that the welds were strong enough to hold.

A snarling mutie leaped from a bush, all four arms spread. Dodging the creature, Ryan saw the other companions in their speedsters darting about. Jak had an aced mutie on the front, partially blocking his view. The albino teen was fishtailing the speedster in an effort to get the smoking corpse off, but was having no luck.

A large mutie was clinging to the side of Doc’s cage, holding on with both feet while four hands grabbed for the old man’s long, flowing hair. Ryan could see the scholar stabbing the button on the dashboard, but nothing was happening. Fireblast, he thought, something had to be wrong with the bastard wiring!

Quickly angling in that direction, Ryan bounced over some exposed roots, nearly losing his seat, then saw Krysty slam her speedster into Doc’s wag, crushing the mutie between their two cages. There was an electrical shower as their cages touched, sizzling sparks zapping the creature. A gory ruin, the charred hunter hung on with a single arm, then fell away to disappear in the clouds of bluish smoke pouring from the exhaust pipes. Only the arm remained to sway to the motions of the racing speedster.

A stuttering burst rang out, and Ryan turned to see Mildred trigger her rapid-fire at a hunter perched on top of her cage. Bleeding from a score of wounds, the mutie thrust downward with a stick, knocking the Kalashnikov from her grip. The AK-47 hit the floor and tumbled to the rear of the speedster, lying on top of the nuke batteries.

Stomping on the accelerator, Ryan went cold at the sight. If the metal blaster made contact with the terminals, Mildred would be fried alive!

Shouting a war whoop, Jak turned his speedster, streaked along an earthen mound and fired a single shot from his Colt Python. The Magnum round hit a tree branch ahead of the crouching physician, the wood exploding into splinters. Dropping free, the branch hit the bleeding mutie across the face, fangs and blood gushing from the brutal impact. As the mutie fell off, J.B. ran over it with his speedster, grinning like a madman.

Then Mildred slammed on the brakes and the Kalashnikov flew to the front of the cage and dropped onto the dashboard. Snatching the weapon with one hand, she rammed it back into the clip on the floor, then shifted gears to accelerate to full speed.

There were spaces among the trees now, and occasionally Ryan could see open sky. They had to be reaching the end of the jungle. He had no fragging idea what lay beyond, but without the cover provided by the trees, the danger from the muties would be eliminated.

Suddenly a rock bounced off the cage near Ryan, stony splinters peppering his face. Cursing vehemently, the man veered away from the attack, then realized his mistake and spun back again just it time to avoid a barrage of rocks thrown by other muties.

From somewhere there came the sound of shattering glass as a headlight was destroyed. Doc cried out in pain. A fist-size stone shot through the opening of a cage to hit the back of Krysty’s chair, nearly throwing her into the dashboard. Suddenly they were out of the jungle, barreling along an uneven grassland that stretched to the horizon.

Loud cries from the furious Hunters could be heard coming from the jungle, but they were growing fainter with every heartbeat. The muties were not allowed in the lake, so maybe they were also not allowed out of the jungle? That made sense. What good were guard dogs if they could run away?

A low earthen mound sent Ryan airborne over a ravine, and he landed with a jarring crash on the other side, nearly losing control of the vehicle. The terrain was getting rougher, wild and jagged. With no other choice, the one-eyed man slowed his speedster. Unexpectedly, a blaster fired. Ryan turned to see Jak shaking his head vehemently and heading to the west. He was puzzled for a moment, then understood the teen was still following the trail of Delphi from the redoubt.

Downshifting the gears, Ryan and the others followed the albino youth through the churned countryside and onto a smooth grassland. Young trees dotted the landscape, but they were few and far between, and easily avoided. Slowing for a minute, Jak studied the ground, then took off again, the others staying in his wake.

Squinting at the grass, Ryan caught a glimpse of the signs of an old campsite, then it was left behind.

Fireblast, had there been four cook fires? That could mean fifteen or so people traveling with the cyborg.

Ryan wanted to go back to look for more details about the weapons and wags of the cyborg’s convoy, but they were still too close to the mutie to risk stopping.

Checking the fuel gauge, the man grunted at the needle trembling near the quarter-tank mark. Half of their juice was already gone.

High above the racing speedsters, thunder rumbled in the turbulent sky, and there came the faint smell of sulfur. Ryan fought the urge to increase his speed and stayed close to Jak. If they lost the trail now, they would never find it again after an acid rain. On the other hand, if they were caught out in the open, after the storm there wouldn’t be enough of the companions left to stuff into an empty cartridge.

Casting fast glances to the other companions, Ryan saw that they comprehended the situation and wanted to stay on the trail. There really was nothing else to do but keep moving and hope they outpaced the coming rain.

Concentrating on their driving, the companions sped along the untamed grasslands, listening to the distant thunder and waiting for the first sprinkling of fiery death from above.