Zero City

by neetha Napew

  “Four, maybe five, hours of light remain,” Doc said. “Not nearly enough for my plan. Gentlemen, I suggest Jak stays with Dr. Wyeth to bring her up to date, while John Barrymore and I drop off our guest, and then reconnoiter a few stores to see if we can find some barbed wire for the internal defenses.”

  Something moved in the cloudy sky and the companions drew their weapons, dropping into combat crouches. The lone sting-wing circled overhead, then moved off.

  “Here,” Doc said, passing the teenager the G-12. “The Uzi and my LeMat should be sufficient protection for this brief sojourn. But if there is trouble here, you will need the extra firepower.”

  Accepting the rifle, Jak weighed it judiciously. “Feels light. Ninety rounds?”

  “Eighty,” Doc said. “I was a bit overzealous eliminating your unwanted passenger.”

  “Shot him, not me. No complaints.” Jak laughed, resting the stock on his hip.

  “Thank you. Most kind,” Doc said, wiping off the blood on the front seat before climbing into the wag. “Tomorrow morning, we shall go back to the redoubt and load up on all the fuel we can find. Then we go hunting.”

  “For the muties?” J.B. asked, starting the engine.

  “Better,” the old man replied, then explained as they drove off.

  WIPING THE DIRT off his hand, Gunther breathed in the rich fragrance of the greenhouse and stopped for a moment to admire the beautiful green plants surrounding him in rows upon rows. The shafts of corn were thickly golden, with rich chaff almost bursting to get out. The new tomatoes were small, but growing steadily larger, and the carpeting of soybeans underneath the tall plants was so thick the leaves had a bluish hue.

  “Excuse me, Baron,” Leonard said from the doorway. “Important news.”

  “Report,” the baron ordered, gently turning a leaf to inspect the underside for any signs of infestation. “Will you look here? That old book we found was correct. Mixing cigarette tobacco and soapy water completely killed those aphids. How clever the ancient gardeners were.”

  The teenager stepped closer. “We have been invaded.”

  Retrieving shears from a wicker basket of implements, the baron snipped off a ripe tomato and placed it reverently in a cushion of clean cloth. A special treat for his own dinner this night.

  “I do not hear blasterfire in the streets,” he said calmly, noticing a meal worm on the stalk. Savagely, he crushed the insect, then wiped his fingers in the rich dark loam beneath the plants. Waste not, want not.

  “We found the jolt dealers in the ruins,” Leonard said hurriedly. “The muties got them.”

  The baron tilted his head in thought. The air of the greenhouse was rich, almost pungent with the smell of life itself. “Good. Some of our most recent arrivals had warned us of their coming. Now the problem has been corrected. Did we get much in the way of tools and blasters?”

  “No tools, but cases of autofires and a hundredweight of ammo.”

  “Are you serious? This is excellent news.”

  “But when the convoy arrived, the last truck, the one carrying the corpses, rammed through the barricade, killing two of our sec men and destroying the big machine gun.”

  “The driver did this?” Gunther demanded, power flowing into his voice as the last gossamer traces of tranquility faded from his demeanor.

  “No, sir. We found him five hundred yards down the tunnel, shot through the back. All drivers and sec men have been accounted for. Nobody is missing.”

  “You are my right hand, Leonard,” the baron rumbled, his fiery hair flexing and rearranging itself about his shoulders. “There are three possibilities, so we shall start with the most obvious. The fight occurred inside the tunnel, the worst possible location for an attack, so it wasn’t a traitor. They would have waited until the trucks were in the ruins, far from our retaliation. So what does that indicate?”

  “A corpse,” Leonard said.

  “We think alike, son. Yes, the guards must have been lax checking the bodies again, one came awake and killed the driver. But it would take a truly exceptional man to accomplish such a task. Our drivers are chosen for their physical strength.”

  “And loyalty.”

  “Fear and hunger make all men loyal.”

  “So where should we start looking for the corpse? Returning through the tunnel would be impossible without a wag. So he must have taken refuge within our ville.”

  Gathering the basket of produce, Gunther stood towering over his adopted son. The boy’s hair was red, almost as red as his own, but it was flat and lifeless, the similarity to himself only cosmetic.

  “Alert all of our sec men,” the baron commanded. “Find the intruder before nightfall.”

  The words “or else” weren’t spoken, nor was it necessary. Leonard understood. Invaders were either spies, assassins or thieves. There were no other possibilities, and all were automatically sentenced to the Machine.

  Gunther continued, “Check the market square. That is where he, or she, will most likely try to mingle in with the citizens.”

  “Then that is where we shall capture him,” Leonard said confidently, snapping his heels.

  “Exactly. And capture him alive. If this man is an advance scout, we’ll need to know the plans of the enemy.”

  “Then he goes to the Machine,” Leonard stated, bowing his head.

  “Eventually,” Gunther stated coldly, then he frowned. “Did he steal the blasters of the sec men?”

  “No, Father, which means he has a blaster of his own.”

  “And a good one. Keep a close watch on the gaudy house. Wild men with good blasters may seek the comfort of a slut where a single bullet buys them hours of pleasure. In fact, arrest all strangers who visit the house tonight. Unless I miss my guess, we’ll find our invader among the immigrants.”

  IN HER OFFICE and bedroom behind the bar of the gaudy house, Madam Patrica took the canvas bag from the hunchback’s eager hands. She was suspicious of what could possibly be inside. The gimp had been only gone for a day. If there was a cache of blasters within a day’s walk, surely the baron and his army of sec men would have found it by now. They did regular sweeps through the ruins, and every inch of the ville was checked, re-checked, cataloged and indexed. That Leonard had a mind like a rat trap and remembered everything he ever saw or heard. Damn him. No cheating on your taxes with the baron’s adopted son doing the tally. Frigging bastard could even add and subtract.

  “Okay, let’s see what you got for me,” Patrica said, loosening the ties. Right off, the bag itself was of some value. There wasn’t a hole in the fabric, and the buckles still worked. She shook it and heard a delicious metallic rattle of steel on steel. Perhaps it was a bag full of blasters!

  “You like.” Harold beamed, bobbing his head as if in church. “Good stuff. Best! I take Laura now.”

  “Not yet, boy,” she stated. “Not until I see in what condition the blasters are. And how much ammo. We had a deal, remember?”

  Harold smiled so wide he drooled. ‘”Member. Good stuff. You like.”

  It took every ounce of control Patrica possessed not to gasp in wonder when she opened the canvas bag and found it full of predark medical supplies in perfect condition. It was a baron’s ransom of technology, more than enough to buy half of Alphaville.

  “Bah, useless.” She forced herself to curse, rummaging a hand through the surgical instruments. The flawless steel felt as smooth as silk. “Where are the blasters? I don’t see any blasters in here, just some old junk.”

  “Better,” Harold said, feeling confused. “Fixes people. Is better!”

  “I said blasters, didn’t I, boy?” Patrica stated, crossing her plump arms across her flabby breasts. “Is this a blaster?”

  “Better,” the hunchback whispered, his fleeting dreams vanishing under her stern gaze.

  The madam dropped the pack and kicked it into the corner.

  “Useless. I can’t do anything with this. Now go get me some blasters.” Patrica reached out and
shook the man. “You savvy blasters? Revolvers, pistols, boom sticks. Get me blasters, or I put Laura to work tonight!”

  Harold shook off the hand and stood to his full height. “No,” he said in exacting pronunciation. “She no work here!” He grabbed the madam and lifted her off the floor, her shoes wildly kicking to find a purchase. “She no work here! Wife!”

  “Yes,” the fat woman gasped in terror. “Of course. Laura no work here. I was only teasing. Joke. A joke! No work here. Never work here. Okay? Okay?”

  “Okay,” Harold growled, his face a mask of feral madness. As effortlessly as if he were holding a child, and not a four-hundred-pound woman, he returned her to the floor.

  Wheezing for air, Patrica retreated behind her desk and started to open a drawer with a machete hidden under a towel, then thought better of the action and slowly slid the drawer closed. The desire to kill had been plain on his face, and the woman wondered if her game was worth the chance of reward. One wrong move and he would smash her apart. In that instant, her decision was made. Whatever the gimp brought back as payment next time, she would accept as enough and then kill him. He was a golden goose, but one with the fangs of a tiger.

  “I go get blasters. Magnum 16s. Remytons. One bag full blasters.” Harold started for the door, then stopped and glared at Patrica, his hatred clearly visible. “You obey deal,” he growled, rubbing a forearm across his wet jaw. “Or you no friend!”

  Shaking more with rage than fear, Patrica watched the door close, the handle ripping out of the wood as the hunchback stomped away in barely controlled fury. A wave of outrage swept over the madam, and her gaze shifted to the spot where he had dared to lay a hand on her as if she were one of the sluts working upstairs, just another common whore! That was where the gimp would die, his guts spilling out onto the floor, screaming and weeping for his life as Patrica hacked away at his limbs until the misshapen body was reduced to flesh and bones.

  Striding to the wall, she opened a battered cabinet and withdrew a knotted leather whip, a specialty item reserved for the baron himself when he visited on tax day. Her back twitched in memory of those awful hours. Expertly coiling the banded leather, Patrica cracked the whip and cut a chunk of wood the size of a plum out of her desk.

  Leaving the office, the madam closed and locked the door carefully, then lifted a fat leg and started to climb the stairs for the next level, the long length of the bull-whip trailing behind.

  “Party time, retard,” she wheezed, the knotted tip bouncing off every step as she waddled higher and higher.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Soaring from their honeycombed nest, the winged muties swirled in the cloudy sky to hide the location of the home as the First One had taught them so long ago. The moon was full, but the clouds heavy and the light was perfect for a hunt tonight.

  Then a scout cried out and swooped to the ground, sailing over the still body of a dead male. The passage of his wings ruffled the corpse, scaring away the lizards feeding on the lifeless form.

  Furious, the whole flock took up the cry of his demise, the ruins reverberating from the high-pitched squeals of rage. Swarms of creatures swooped down to snatch scurrying lizards and grind them alive in powerful jaws. The tiny squeals of pain were music for the tasty meal.

  Staying above the fighters, lost amid the breeders and the young, the First One was silent in her thoughts as she winged over the ruins, studying a broken skylight. A hunter was dead, and there was a new hole. A connection was made in her mind, and she called for fighters to investigate. Abandoning the lizards, dozens of the muties poured into the insurance building, smashing the skylight apart in their mad rush to gain entrance. The creatures spread across every floor like locusts, and down the staircase to the lower levels.

  The largest of the beasts went straight to the bottom and sailed around the basement, searching for any sign of the prey. But the air was stale, with no blood smell or sweat to spark the killing urge. This was another empty place like the rest of the hunting ground. No food here.

  Soaring above the ruins, the great First One studied the sand and stone of her domain. The soil between the stone hives was still radiating away the heat of the day, and prey could easily mask its presence on the ground. But that would only last for a short while, and then the screaming flesh would be easily visible with nowhere to hide.

  Peeping a command to the rest of her flock, the leader winged off between the towers of stone, black eyes scanning the night for the telltale glow of living flesh. She didn’t understand how the two-legs could kill a fighter or evade the flock, but so much the better. Food always tasted better after a hunt.

  Screaming a challenge, the First One banked to the left, folding both wings to dive for the ground, soaring beyond the stinking waters where hundreds of prey walked. Enough meat to feed the folk and the young hatchlings for a week! Unfortunately, the blinding columns of sunlight were moving through the sky, and it hurt the old mother to even glance in that direction. But the slaughter from the previous dark time had taught the fighters a new trick. Perhaps this night the hated two-legs would fall before the flock and the feasting could truly begin.

  SITTING IN A CHAIR on the second floor, Mildred sipped a cup of stale coffee, the Heckler & Koch caseless rifle balanced across her lap and a primed LAW at her feet ready for instant use.

  Below was an irregular plan of mismatched drapes and curtains. That was J.B.’s idea. They had found enough barbed wire at a local hardware store to crisscross the central area of the building twice. So they put one layer at the topmost level directly under the skylight to help fend off falling glass, and the other on the ground level. The lower spiderweb of steel they carefully blanketed with the drapes to block any possible light from below, and hopefully to hide from the muties the fact there was a basement. Mildred didn’t care how bizarre their biochemistry or physiology was. They had heads the size of a toaster and thus couldn’t be very smart no matter how many folds their brains might have. Small was stupid, end of discussion.

  Suddenly, the skylight brightened and the woman realized the storm clouds had to have parted, finally allowing moonlight to seep through. The physician debated awakening J.B. so he could shoot their position with his sextant, but she declined. It didn’t matter where this zero city was. Location wouldn’t help their predicament.

  Basked in the reflected moonlight, the government building was eerie in the silence, without even the drip of water or creaking wooden floorboards to disturb the thick silence.

  Time passed slowly and steadily, the physician relaxing in the comfortable office chair, conserving her energy and thinking about her odd life and where it has taken her, daydreaming about what might have been, wishing and hoping...

  With a start, Mildred jerked awake, the blaster tight in her hands. Damn, she’d fallen asleep in spite of the military coffee. The woman glanced at her wrist chron and saw hours had passed. Listening intently, Mildred tried to hear what had awakened her from such a deep sleep. There was no commotion from below, which was a good sign. J.B. was asleep next to Dean just in case the boy had any more trouble breathing.

  A tiny noise came, sounding like a mouse running across the floor, fast and fleeting. Only it wasn’t coming from below or behind. In horror, Mildred glanced up and saw a dark shape outlined in the frosty glass of the skylight, the maze of barbed wire between them blurring any possible details.

  Reaching out, she tugged on a piece of string tied to the railing, the other end securely wrapped around Jak’s forefinger.

  Soon there came an answering tug in a two-three-two pattern, meaning the teenager was awake. She tugged one-two-one, and he replied in kind, showing he understood the situation. The men would be awake in seconds to guard Dean, but the physician was the first line of defense should the animals breech the glass.

  Releasing the string, Mildred stood slowly and raised the blaster toward the distant skylight, flicking off the safety. The blood was pounding in her veins, and Mildred seemed to have pr
eternatural senses. She knew it was only a fear-induced adrenaline rush, but it still seemed as if she could almost see the winged muties on the rooftop, prowling around, searching for an opening, a hole, any way to reach the human food inside.

  Controlling her breathing, Mildred aimed the blaster, slid the fire control to full-auto and waited for the sound of shattering glass.

  LONG PINK TONGUES lolling from the desert heat, a pack of wolves padded through the stone forest of man. The flat-faced mountains rose into the distant sky, and when the soft sand gave way to hard slabs of black rock, their claws clicked on the odd material. The evening wind was blowing steadily from the east, the smell of old blood fueling their fury and forcing them onward. A pack of man had somehow slain all the males of their pack, and the stink of the skinned flesh wafting through the night ignited a savagery in the wolves that bordered on madness.

  The two-legs in the iron forest had taught them to herd man to them in exchange for food. The wolves liked the game and feared the two-legs with their boom sticks. But this was a matter of blood. The killers had to be killed. It was the way of their world, the law of the new jungle.

  And over the years, the wolves had learned to attack man from behind, or strike from the shadows, and the deadly boom sticks would only make noise, but nothing more. And without the stick, man was easy food.

  Furry ears pricked upward as a faint trace of smoke in the air made the wolves snarl in response to the possibility of fire. Then the lead female growled and the rest kept moving, warily stalking around a corner. Smoke was the scent of man. The prey was near.

  Suddenly, a breeze washed over the animals, carrying the reek of rotting meat, and they froze motionless, recognizing a familiar danger. Nostrils flared, eyes darting, they sought the source of the stench when there was a blur of movement and a young bitch fell over with her head gone, warm blood pumping from the gaping neck wound.

  Snarling wildly, the wolves formed a hasty circle, baring their fangs as they faced in every direction. The wind washed over them again with an odd snapping sound, and another tumbled over dead. The pack went wild, darting around in a circle trying to find the unseen attackers. However, nothing was visible and the numbing stench completely blocked their ability to sniff out even a general direction.