by James Axler
“What in the…Who the frag is that?” Big Joe demanded hotly. “And how did they know about the diamonds?”
“Holy fuck, it’s them!” Tiger Lily cried out. “They’ve got a working radio!”
“And know our frequencies?”
“Must have an autolock,” the new voice growled in displeasure. “Scorpion to armored vehicle. All right, outlanders, let’s talk. We saw you go back to help the pilgrims, and that buys you a lot of my goodwill. But don’t test it too hard. Our blasters are hot, so unless you like the taste of lead, stay right where you are.”
“Fair enough,” Ryan replied, brushing back his hair. “By the way, I see that you’ve made some changes to this version of War Wag One. Looks good.”
There was no reply, only static.
“Is Eric still with you? Mildred says hello.”
“Yeah, I thought that I recognized that voice,” Roberto growled, the words thick with dark memories. “I swore to chill you the next time we met, Cawdor.”
“Yes, you did,” Ryan said, his hands poised to engage the second engine and throw the big wag into reverse. “But that was a bastard long time ago.”
“I wasn’t thinking any too clear at the time,” Roberto admitted honestly. “I had to blame somebody, and Gaza was aced, so that left only you.”
Again there was only static, and a full minute passed, then another.
“Hot blood cools over time, and since then I’ve heard good things about you from folks I trust in Two-Son ville,” Roberto continued, his tone softening. “I’m willing to call it quits, if you are. We’ll never be drinking buddies, but my finger is off the trigger. Savvy?”
“Fair enough,” Ryan said, shifting into neutral and killing both engines to save juice. He was glad the matter had been settled peacefully. And who knew? With a little bit of luck, he might be able to get some fuel from the fellow, although exactly what the companions could use for jack was pretty limited at the moment. No, wait, they had the brand-new Fifty cal, but no ammo. That should get them at least a hundred gallons.
“Care to do some business?” Ryan said into the mike, trying to sound casual. “We could use some fuel and—”
“Sorry, none to spare,” Roberto answered curtly. “Goodbye, Cawdor. Scorpion out.” Black smoke puffed from the louvered exhaust of War Wag One, and it started to lumber around a corner.
“Shit,” Jak drawled, giving the word two syllables.
But then the convoy of wags stopped and the radio crackled on once more.
“Mebbe we can do some business,” Roberto said smoothly. “Did you say that Mildred was still with ya?”
“Yes, I’m here!” The physician shouted to be heard.
Turning, Ryan passed her the mike.
“What is the nature of your medical problem?” Mildred asked, grabbing her med kit. “Was somebody touched by a stickie?”
“No, nothing like that. Here, somebody wants to talk to you.”
“Hello…Dr. Wyeth?” a young woman asked.
That caught Mildred totally by surprise. Doctor? Nobody had called her that for many years. “This is Mildred Wyeth,” she said carefully. “Do I know you?”
“Oh no, but I’m so honored to finally meet you, ma’am!” The other person sounded thrilled. “My name is Shelly Bolivar, a black healer from Two-Son ville.”
“A…What was that again?”
“A black healer,” Shelly said proudly. “After you left, we decided to start calling ourselves that in your honor, ma’am.”
“Did you, now,” Mildred muttered, not quite sure if she was pleased about that or not. “So tell me, how do you save a man from choking if his tongue is swollen and has completely blocked the throat?” She had taught that skill to the locals, using the most basic terminology.
“You cut a breathing hole in the throat between the second and third rings,” Shelly replied promptly. “Then insert any kind of a hollow tube, as long as it first has been immersed in boiling water for longer than you can hold a single breath. I really am a healer, ma’am.”
“I guess you are, at that,” Mildred said with a grin, feeling an unaccustomed rush of pride. “So, what do you want to talk to me about?”
“Please, ma’am, I have heard—we need to know—are you really a freezie?”
Freezie, contemporary slang for a cryogenic test subject. Mildred looked at Ryan, who nodded. “Yes, it’s true,” she said. “I was born before skydark.”
Excited murmurs could be heard in the background over the radio.
“Then we really do need to talk,” Roberto stated, taking over the conversation. “I give you my word as a trader, you’ll be free to leave whenever you wish.”
“So, what is this about, anyway?” Ryan asked suspiciously. “Why do you need a freezie?”
“Follow me outside of the town, and I’ll tell you,” Roberto said as War Wag One started moving again.
STAYING HIDDEN IN THE shadows, the two men watched the four war wags roll away from the carnage-filled parking lot and disappear into the ruins. With a sigh, they dropped the load of tree branches and rubbed their stiff arms. They had been afraid to move with the trader so close by. Rumor said that he had some kind of predark machine that let one of his techs hear conversations from miles away. It was probably mutie shit, but then again, with somebody like Roberto Eagleson, it never hurt to play it safe.
“What are we gonna do now?” Billy asked plaintively. “Everybody is aced, and we got no horses!”
“We still have the radio,” Delacort said, patting the pocket of his leather jacket. “But we have to wait for Pete to contact us. Can’t ever call him first.”
“Why?”
Not having an answer for that, Delacort slapped the boy up the back of the head. “Shut up, and do as you’re told! All we have to do is wait until dawn, we can call then and ask for instructions.”
“D-dawn?”
“Don’t sweat it,” Delacort said, draping a friendly arm over the shoulders of the smaller man. “There aren’t any stickies left in this rad pit. Those outlanders chilled ’em all.”
“Hopefully,” Billy mumbled uneasily, glancing at the crumbling buildings. “Hey, think he’ll let us have that redhead for a while? It’s been a long time since I rode me some crimson.”
“Probably not,” Delacort said, drawing a wheelgun and rotating the cylinder to check the load. Five live rounds, all of them predark brass, no homemade reloads. “If Roberto is taking on coldhearts as outriders, we gotta play this triple smart. No torture or rape. Just wait and watch until the time is right, then ace ’em in the dark.”
“Fast and silent,” Billy whispered, pulling a long, thin knife from a tapered sheath on his belt and examining the edge in the silvery moonlight. His grandpa had called the thing a stiletto, and it was so sharp that most folks never even knew they had been stabbed until they saw the blood. And by then it was much too late.
“Fast and silent,” Delacort agreed, smiling tolerantly at the small man. Billy was not very smart, almost a feeb, but there was nobody faster, or better, with a knife. “After that, amigo, we join up again with Broke-Neck Pete and head for Cascade!”
“Cascade,” the boy exhaled, his face shiny with excitement. That was where the blood would really flow. Gallons and gallons of it, rivers and lakes, wide oceans of red-red death. Mine, all mine! He could practically hear the screaming now.
Chapter Nine
Assuming a loose combat formation, Ryan followed the other three war wags out of the city and into the crumbling suburbs. Their goal was soon obvious, a large burned section of land where nothing grew anymore. The field was large and flat, with nothing a mutie, or coldheart, could use for cover to get close to the machines.
Parking in a protective circle, each of the wags could train their blasters on the other to ride in their defense if necessary. The fact that the UCV was completely unarmed bothered Ryan and J.B. a lot, but there was nothing they could do about it at the moment.
Leavi
ng Jak and Doc to guard the vehicle, the rest of the companions walked over to War Wag One. The promise of an adversary was spent brass, but the only real commodity a trader possessed was his rep. Roberto and his people would not touch the companions this night. The following day was another matter, but that was many hours away.
As the companions approached the wag, a side hatch loudly unlocked. The door swung down from the curved chassis amid the sound of pumping hydraulics to reveal a short flight of steps built into the thick slab of steel.
As it touched the ground, a small blond woman strode into view, a black scarf wrapped around her neck against the evening chill and a massive wheelgun balanced on a hip. She looked like a child armed with the blaster of a parent, but from the confident way she walked, Ryan was of the opinion that the diminutive woman was more than capable of handling the oversize manstopper.
“So you’re Ryan,” she said as a greeting, thumbs hooked into her gunbelt. “Well, I’m the second in command, Jessica Colt.” Without waiting for a response, Jessica started up the stairs. “Come on, the chief wants to see you in the galley.”
“Far away from the control room,” Ryan said, to gauge her reaction.
Briefly, Jessica paused at the comment but kept walking.
Passing a wall vent, Krysty caught the scent of living greenery. In the middle of a burned field? There had to be some sort of air-cleaning system working. That certainly made sense. With this many people stuffed inside a steel shell, the wag would soon smell like a gaudy house on free shine night.
“Big wag,” Ryan said, maneuvering past an ammo bin. “How many crewmen can you carry?”
“Enough,” Jessica replied vaguely, quickening her pace.
Pushing aside an accordion door, the woman entered the galley with the companions close behind. At the far table, Roberto was spooning sugar into a mug of something that steamed. A few tables over, a crewman was disassembling a .50-caliber machine gun, laying out each piece on a clean white cloth as a prelude to a thorough cleaning.
“Watch out for that recoil spring,” J.B. said in passing.
The crewman looked puzzled for a second, then realized the other man was joking and smiled in reply. The big Fifty didn’t have a recoil spring. That was a joke expert gunners played on newbies. Drove ’em crazy until they figured out the truth.
“Here they are,” Jessica announced, resting a leg on the corner of the table, a boot dangling free. It did not seem to be a very comfortable position. Then Ryan saw that it put her gunhand only a few inches away from her blaster. His estimation of the woman went up a few notches.
“Help yourself to the coffee-sub,” Roberto said, lifting his mug to take a sip. “There’s some sandwiches, too, if you’ve got strong teeth.”
“Mebbe later,” Krysty said, pulling out a chair and turning it around before sitting.
Leaning against the wall, Ryan could see a plump woman washing plastic dishes in a small sink, a teenager using a towel to dry. The two people looked so much like each other, they had to be relatives. Mother and son, most likely.
“All right, we’re here,” Mildred said, resting both arms on the table. “Now why do you need a freezie?”
“First, let me ask you a question,” Roberto said, leaning back in his chair and sipping the steaming brew. “Anybody ever heard about a place called Cascade?” There were only negative responses.
“All right, for a deuced long time, my people have been hearing the damnedest rumors,” Roberto said, cradling the mug in both hands. “Wild stuff about a predark city that wasn’t destroyed during skydark, or by the rioting afterward. The name changes from coast to coast, but the name we hear most often is Cascade.”
“The lost city? Dark night, we hear that sort of crap all the time,” J.B. said, crossing his arms. “The streets are paved with bullets, it rains shine, and all the woman are naked and double-jointed—”
“No,” Roberto interrupted sternly, his expression darkening. “These are tales of a predark city that never fell and managed to maintain its tech. They have libraries full of books, and they can make all sorts of things that we can’t. Including new steel.” He paused. “Not just smelting of scrap, mind you, but turning wagloads of rocks. They know how to make steel. A tough, more resilient material than anything that ever came out of the Deathlands.”
“You wouldn’t be telling us this unless there was some sort of proof,” Ryan said slowly, testing each word as if it were a crumbling bridge under his boots. Was the trader talking about a predark city…or a redoubt?
“Yeah, I got proof,” Roberto said, reaching under the table and pulling into view a small cardboard box, the lid stained with what looked like plant sap and blood. Cutting the string with his panga, Ryan removed the lid and folded back the layer of oily cloth. Instantly he stopped because there lay a brand-new revolver, the metal shiny and smooth.
“So some gunny never got off a shipment before the Big Bang,” Ryan muttered, “and now is claiming to be able to make blasters. Unless you got better than this—”
“Turn it over,” Jessica said, unwrapping a stick of gum and folding it into her mouth. “Go ahead, have a look.”
He did, and there was no maker’s mark.
“Be a triple bitch to remove that,” J.B. said hesitantly, pushing back his hat. “Mind if I take it apart?”
“Go right ahead,” Roberto said. “But there is no serial number. And I don’t mean some gleeb filed it off, there never was one.”
Weighing the blaster in his hand, J.B. looked hard at the weapon. He’d never seen anything like it before. The blaster had a conventional J-frame, like a Smith & Wesson, but the barrel was hexagonal like a Webley, and there was the double-action trigger of a Glock.
“Seems heavy,” the Armorer muttered, and suspiciously opened the cylinder. As expected, it was chambered for Magnum rounds, which meant it could fire both .38 and .357 bullets, doubling the type of ammo you could use. However, there were nine chambers…just like Doc’s hogleg LeMat.
“This is impossible,” J.B. whispered, turning the weapon over and over, spotting a dozen other small bizarre details. It was as if something had taken all of the good aspects of every wheelgun ever made and combined them to create the ultimate blaster. Taking it in his hand, J.B. felt the butt snug against his palm and marveled at the balance. It was damn near perfect!
Studying his friend, Ryan could see the man’s obvious confusion. “Mebbe some master gunny took apart a lot of damaged blasters,” Ryan started, then stopped. This nameless blaster was no homemade Frankenstein, cobbled together out of whatever was handy. This was a masterpiece. The gun metal was blue to reduce reflected light and thus not give away the shooter’s position. The works had nylon bushings, so it would never have to be oiled. This blaster seemed to be made for combat in the Deathlands. Now how the frag did some predark whitecoat invent a weapon for a specific world that didn’t yet exist?
“We’ve traveled the cursed earth from one side to the other, from the Washington Hole to the Western Islands,” J.B. said. “And I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Never?” Mildred asked.
“Never. You could buy a whole ville with this,” J.B. said, aiming the blaster at the wall and dry firing it a few times. The hammer only traveled half the usual distance, cutting almost a full half-moment off the firing time. Sweet.
Unable to stop himself, the Armorer pulled out some tools and took off the grip. Inside was a massive recoil spring, bigger than any he had ever seen before, along with a spring clip to hold two spare rounds.
Looking over his shoulder, Krysty gave a low whistle. “Wish mine had one of those,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many times it would have come in handy.”
“John, could you make one of these?” Mildred asked.
“No,” he said bluntly, the word seemingly ripped out of his guts. “This is far beyond anything I could ever do.”
Wordlessly, J.B. offered the blaster to Ryan, but the one-eye
d man waved it aside.
“Okay, you’ve got us convinced that somebody is making new blasters,” he admitted. “But an untouched predark city is a mighty long jump off that short a cliff.”
“Well, a factory needs mechs and techs, running water, electricity, mines for ore, coal for smelting…You don’t whittle a blaster out of wood like a soup bowl. A whole lot goes into making a new wheelgun, especially one like this!”
“If it isn’t a predark city,” Jessica added, “then it’s close enough.”
“Sweet Jesus, is that the plan?” Mildred demanded, rising from her chair. “To find this city, and steal everything you can carry away?”
Confused, Roberto looked at Jessica, but she only shrugged in return. Steel? Oh, she meant jack! Damn, she really was an old-timer. “I have no intention of harming these people in any way,” Roberto said. “We want to trade with them. If they’re willing, I’ll make Cascade our new home base.”
“Better us than Hammerstein or Broke-Neck Pete,” Jessica added. “They’d jack the place to the walls, then burn it out of existence.”
“Pete is bad crazy,” the crewman working on the Fifty said unexpectedly. “And meaner than a mutie on wolfweed.”
“Fair enough,” Mildred muttered, somewhat mollified. If the city had a hospital of some sort, hell, of any sort, even a country doctor’s office, or a veterinarian, think of the instruments she could get! She blushed. The allure of so much wealth was almost irresistible. God, even I’m thinking about jacking the place!
“Where did you find it?” Ryan asked. The blue-steel blaster lay in the middle of the table, the anchor for their thoughts and plans.
“At an abandoned campsite,” Roberto said. “Along with a journal penned by a sec man from Cascade. He was doing a recce of the outside world, trying to find out how much things had changed. Changes in the language, new words being spoken, crazy stuff like that. Unfortunately, he got aced by some mutie ivy.”