He spotted lines across the dirt path where tires had crossed and steered after them. The whirr of the electric motors, far quieter than any sound made by an ethanol engine, gave him a little confidence they might pull off an ambush. Ambush. Kevin grumbled. It’s going to be at least six on two, probably worse than that. He thought about standing behind the counter of his own roadhouse, protected by the armor of The Code. An attempt at Wayne’s cocky ‘king of my domain’ smile formed on his face as the fantasy played out. This… this ‘assault’ mission was as bad an idea as he could’ve gotten―except for maybe trying to sell void salt in Glimmertown.
His smile faded to a stone face.
Tris pointed. “Look. Scrap of black cloth tied to a tree branch. Go there, left.”
Kevin spotted it a few seconds later. About thirty feet off the ground, a strip of fluttering fabric trailed in the wind. The tree it marked stood at the crook of a fork in the path. He eased the car through the turn. After a mild hill, the road dipped down for a long stretch before rising to another, higher, hill on the far end. A handful of rusted vehicles, too far gone to be recognizable, littered the center of a mud pit on the right. Marks on some rocks at the side hinted it had once been a small lake.
He stomped on the brakes as the Challenger crested the distant hill. Down at the bottom of the hill, three bandit buggies had parked by a group of dirt bikes. Over twenty people in tire tread vests and black pants or skirts congregated in front of the vehicles. Another man, in a clean black bodysuit that appeared to be some manner of super-modern light armor, walked up to a huge mohawked man. He carried himself with an air of authority, helped along by slate grey hair and tall, prominent cheekbones.
An Enclave hovercraft about the size of four Challengers put together waited a short distance behind the man in the strange armor. One white helmet protruded from an open-topped turret near the front, which bore a multi-barrel rotary cannon, probably in 7.62mm.
The Enclave emissary approached a stack of long, grey boxes, and shook hands with the large man. “A pleasure, Golem? Is it?”
“You one strange dude,” said Golem. “You say we ain’t gotta give you nothin’ for this shit?”
“No payment is necessary, friend. All we ask is that you keep doing what you have been doing, and we will continue to bring you weapons.”
“Works for me.” Golem grinned.
“We’ll see you next month then.” The Enclave man shifted to walk back to the hovercraft, but stalled when he faced the hill―and the Challenger.
Kevin flicked the master arm switch.
The man in black gestured at the car and looked at Golem. “It appears we have a guest.”
“What are you doing?” asked Tris.
Servos in the M60s on the hood chirped to life.
“Trying not to fuckin’ die.” Kevin sucked in a breath and held it. “Turret boy’s all yours.”
He pressed his right thumb into the button mounted on the steering wheel, causing both guns to breathe flame and lead. A second after opening fire, he let off the brake and weaved the car side-to-side as it rolled down the hill. Bits of retread went flying, as did blood and flesh. Bodies spun and collapsed. Ethanol tanks on the dirt bikes burst into flames, throwing off brief orange flashes and loud whoofs.
Tris slithered half out the passenger window; a second later, she fired. The rotary gun started to spin up, but slowed to a halt as the helmet rocked back and fell out of sight. Kevin let off the button and the M60s went silent. She sat on the side of the door, keeping her AK trained on the pile of bodies. Kevin brought the car to a stop, threw it into park, and got out.
“Guess we’re not talking,” said Tris, over the roof.
Kevin approached the carnage, .45 out. The level of similarity in the bandit’s clothing unsettled him. Too much like uniforms. Enclave bastards are feeding it… hoping we kill each other.
“Kevin!” yelled Tris, a second before two near-simultaneous gunshots rang out.
He took a lurching step forward, twisting with a hit as if someone whacked him in the back of the left arm with a pipe. A grunted “oof” came from behind him, followed by the whir of the rotary cannon spinning up again. Kevin whipped around, raising the .45 to the rear as a gout of orange burst from the front of Tris’s AK. The white helmet in the turret fell out of sight for the second time. The Emissary seemed stunned from the effect of two 7.62 bullets mushroomed into his chest; a fancy plastic-bodied pistol dangled from his hand.
Kevin lined up a shot at the Emissary’s exposed head as the man gasped for breath. He flopped to the ground the instant Kevin fired, as if something warned him. Before Kevin could fire again, a spray of dirt from approaching bullets made him duck behind bodies.
“She’s supposed to be dead,” wheezed the emissary. “Kill her!”
Tris swung the AK away from the hovercraft at the Emissary, but wound up diving to the ground as another man in the same thin armor whipped around the rear end of the hovercraft and squeezed off a burst from a compact rifle at her. She landed on her front, clutching a bullet hole in her right arm.
“Shit.” She made a noise halfway between whimper and growl.
Kevin popped up, managing to fire twice at the man who shot Tris. One slug hit in the chest with a loud slap, the other caught him in the throat and knocked him over, gurgling. A third man exited a door on the right side of the hovercraft, training a compact rifle on Kevin at the same time the Emissary raised his pistol. Kevin jumped into the pile of bodies, pulling Golem up as a human shield. A handful of rounds, plus three pistol shots, struck the big guy’s chest. Two bullets made it all the way through Golem with enough force to smash painfully into his armored jacket.
Tris’s AK went off again, and a small explosion came from the hovercraft, accompanied by the muted sound of an alarm leaking from an open hatch.
Boots scuffed, at the speed of a run.
Kevin peeked up, but ducked another spray of fire that kept him pinned until the roar of hovercraft fans started. He counted three seconds and looked again. The Enclave soldiers had gone back inside, and a dense whorl of greasy black smoke emanated from a patch of ventilation slats near the left rear corner. With a grunt, he heaved himself upright and ran to Tris. She struggled to her feet, AK hanging limp in her arm with her left hand clamped over her right bicep. Blood streamed between her fingers.
“I’m okay, it’s a clean through. Don’t let him get away!” She climbed into the car window.
Kevin ran around and got in. The hovercraft’s air cushion inflated, and seconds later, it zipped away in reverse. The smoking corner seemed less high off the ground than the rest. He jammed on the accelerator, steering after it while Tris forced breaths in and out past clenched teeth. The AK lay across her lap, wobbling about with the bumpy terrain. The hovercraft ducked past a rocky outcropping, sliding along a curvy road flanked by trees and canyon-like walls, which gave him little chance to open up with the guns. Each time he tried to line up a clear shot, another natural barrier got in the way.
“What the hell is a Gladiator doing this far east?” Tris lifted her hand to peer at her arm and the already-intact skin. “One good thing about a tank top, he didn’t rip my shirt.”
“By that logic, you should consider the loincloth thing again.”
She held up a bloody middle finger.
Kevin grumbled as he pulled a tight left turn. “Giving away guns to local bandits, that’s what they’re doing. Probably their ‘Plan B.’ Virus isn’t killing us fast enough, so they’re stirring the pot.”
“Kevin… you can’t let him get away. He recognized me. If he gets back to the city…”
“I’m trying… I’m trying.” He drove a little faster than he felt comfortable with given the treacherous turns. Tires skidded in the dirt as he took a hairpin right. “Gonna have to get in front of that monster and do the grenade trick. The 60s aren’t going to bother its armor.”
“Right.” She winced.
Ten minutes later, th
e road straightened as the terrain leveled a bit. Dirt gave way to paving. He leaned on the accelerator, nudging the Challenger up past 130. The enormous hovercraft went from leaving them behind to rushing up on his front bumper.
Crap, the big ones aren’t so fast. He flashed a manic grin. If I had real guns on this thing, I could go hunting.
At both rear corners, boxy pods extended and flipped over, revealing a quincunx of holes containing bright red warheads. Kevin slammed on the brakes and swerved to the right, skidding into the dirt and throwing up a huge cloud of dust. He looped in a circle once to kick up more before straightening out and flooring it back the way they came.
“Where are you going?” yelled Tris. “He’s getting away!”
Kevin looked back and forth from the windshield to the rearview screen for about six seconds, until the Challenger slipped behind a wall into the swerving roads. “Missiles, Tris. They have missiles as big as my leg. This car isn’t equipped to deal with shit like that.”
She grabbed his right arm with two hands, shaking. “They’re gonna know I survived. Nathan’s going to come after me.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “Please… we can’t let them go. Do you like your car more than me?”
Yes. Wait. Do I? He pondered losing one or the other, and couldn’t decide which one would suck more. Wayne’s right. I’m screwed.
He put his left hand on top of hers. “Tris… Missiles. If they hit us with one of those, there won’t be anything left of you or the car… or me.”
Her lip quivered.
“If I thought we had any chance in hell of taking that thing out… it’s like twice the size of the hoplites.”
She covered her face in her hands and sniffled.
That’s not manipulation. She’s scared shitless. “Hey.” He slowed to a stop and took her hand. “You said yourself they won’t go too far east, right? We can lay low for a while until they give up. Besides, they’ll have no way to find us. There’s a lot of land to cover and they got nothin’ to go on once we get the hell out of here.”
“What if I’ve got like a tracker inside me?” She swallowed.
“If that was true, it wouldn’t have surprised them you were alive.”
Tris exhaled, seeming calmer. “True. Okay.”
The drive back to the site where they’d ambushed the bandits seemed ten times longer than the chase. All the while, the Challenger bucked and bounced over the uneven road, Tris fidgeted with the AK. She didn’t look up until the clearing full of bodies came into view. Kevin parked by six identical boxes stacked in a pyramid. For a moment or four, he stared at the dead.
They’d have thought nothing of killing the two of us. He clenched his right hand. Dammit, this is exactly what the Enclave wants.
“It wouldn’t have been much of a fight the other way either.” Tris slipped her fingers around his fist. “You had to.”
“Yeah… he who fights fair dies first.” He shoved the door open and climbed out.
He undid two plastic clamps and lifted the lid of the topmost box. Inside lay six rifles of a type he hadn’t seen before, packed in foam. Kevin pulled one out and looked it over. A straight magazine descended from the butt, behind the trigger. Boxy housing encased a thick barrel and included an integral scope. At first, he thought it useless due to there being no crosshair, but when he sighted through it, a red dot appeared in the middle of the lens. He swiveled and trained the weapon on trees and rocks; the scope zoomed in and out as if sensing the range to the target on its own. The effect kept the perceptible relative distance the same whether the target was thirty or three hundred yards away.
“Holy shit.” He popped the mag out to examine the ammo, but it was empty. “Crap.”
Tris’s hair trailed off to her right as she walked around the front of the car and stood nearby, casting a mournful glance at the former bandits. Kevin unstacked the crates, checking each. The sixth box contained ammunition, which appeared to be standard 7.62 x 51, and fit the fancy rifles. He closed up the cases and stared at the Challenger’s trunk.
“Aw, crap.”
“What?” Tris, squatting amid the dead, paused from her rummaging to look at him.
“This shit ain’t all gonna fit in the car.” He grumbled. “Screw it, don’t need the boxes. Padding takes up too much space. Anything useful over there?”
“Should I pull a Bee?” She tilted her head.
Kevin opened case one and plucked the rifles out. “What does that mean?”
“Strip them and collect every scrap of everything?”
“Nah. I don’t wanna be out here too long. Plus they’re a damn mess. Weapons, tools, useful stuff. We can tell Bill where this is if he wants to send people to take their skivvies.”
“Okay.”
A little under an hour later, Kevin set the last box of ammo in the trunk and eased it closed. He lifted his weight up on his hands to force the latch to click. Fifteen of the rifles wound up in the back seat, tied down with seatbelts. The rest, and the ammo, filled the trunk. Kevin smiled and dusted his hands off. There’s my roadhouse.
Tris came up behind and wrapped her arms around him. He turned to face her, unsure what to say to the mixture of horror and fear in her eyes. She clung to him for several minutes before trembling faded to slow breaths.
“Needle in a haystack.” He kissed her on the lips.
“Yeah. Let’s hope.”
Reluctant to pull back, she held on to him, fingers clutching the thick sleeves of his jacket. His confidence the Enclave wouldn’t bother with her seemed to soothe her eventually, and she let go. He cast another glance at the buggies and bikes, all ethanol-eaters, and not a scrap of space in the Challenger for salvage.
Damn, I miss the Marauder.
Kevin drove back to Nederland in silence, pulling up to the dump trucks fourteen minutes later. At that hour of the day, four men and two women stood watch. One person on each side climbed down. Soon, both trucks started at the same time and the heavy gate opened. He waved in greeting at them and drove straight to the red house.
Bill emerged from the front door, rifle over his back, and walked up as Kevin shut down the car and got out.
Kevin set his hands on his hips. “Good news and bad news.”
Zoe crept to the edge of the porch, half hiding behind a strut that used to hold a screen, and curled her toes over the first step. She’d traded the rifle for a battered teddy bear. Kevin felt a little better inside that the kid wasn’t armed.
“Alright,” said Bill.
“Seventeen bandits won’t be bothering you anymore. We stumbled into a deal of some kind… with the Enclave.” He smiled. “That’s the bad news.”
Bill covered his mouth.
Tris, arms folded, trudged over. “They had a Gladiator. Enclave got away.”
“That’s a lot of hardware for a meeting with nomads.” Bill whistled.
Kevin kicked at the ground. “Yeah, they were handing over weapons. Probably hoping ‘the unclean ones’ kill each other.”
Tris blinked. “Why don’t we leave the rifles here, these people need them more than we do.”
Bill raised both eyebrows.
Kevin held up a finger in a ‘one moment’ gesture to Bill and turned to Tris. “What’s sitting in the car right now is enough hardware to pay off the rest of my roadhouse.”
She waved an arm at the town. “But… these people need help defending themselves from bandits. Six of them died yesterday.”
“That’s tragic.” He exhaled out his nose.
Tris focused her dark blue eyes on him. The look on her face questioned what kind of person he was. A tear running down each cheek made him look away, right into wide-eyed Zoe staring at him. He couldn’t reconcile the innocent blonde sprite with the memory of her shooting at bandits―and nearly being shot herself. Would owning a roadhouse be worth it without Tris?
What the hell is wrong with me? Old daydreams played in his head, showing him the future he’d wanted for so long. I expected to wind
up like Wayne. Old and only a wobbly android for company. Tris sniffled. He looked at his boots. The stubborn coot’s happy like that.
Kevin grumbled. “Alright, alright. But I’m keeping one.” He grinned like a little boy. “That scope is too damn cool.”
35
The Whole Conscience Thing
An hour past sunrise, forks scraped over a few minutes of silence. Kevin stirred the dust-hopper hash into the fried potatoes, mushing it all together. Ann, sitting across from him, had spent the past few minutes going over details of the Nederland farm project with Bill. She’d been entrusted to manage the entire food production effort of the town and supervised a team of nine people. The oversized jackrabbits had become a nuisance when they chewed in through a retaining wall and attacked the crops, though it had made hunting them easier.
Zoe, at the right end of the table, mimicked his mash-up of the food and continued staring at him. She’d traded the denim dress in for a torn green tee shirt and shredded black jeans, which let both of her knees show. Kevin made eye contact with her, but she didn’t show any noticeable reaction.
Tris, at his right, kept glancing at him as if she wanted to say something, but only smiled. He couldn’t help but grin back at her. Charity had, in the near term, made for a fun night―though keeping it quiet enough not to disturb their hosts had been a challenge.
“What?” he asked, low.
She pushed hash and potatoes around her plate for a few seconds. “I… do you think we could check out Omaha?”
His mood plummeted. “I dunno. Major city… Infected… seems like a suicide run with no guarantee there’s anything worth finding.”
Zoe shifted her gaze to Tris for a second before looking back at him.
“What if it’s really the cure?” She sulked at her plate.
“There might be some coin in it for you,” said Bill.
Kevin gave him a disbelieving look. “How’s that?”
Bill glanced at Zoe. “Omaha is sort of on the way to Chicago.”
The little girl shrank in on herself. A second later, she crossed her arms on the table and put her head down.
The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 32