Prodigal's Return

by James Axler

  “Better keep those wags on the main road,” Ryan directed, ruffling the tuft of hair between the ears of his stallion. “That’ll be the least bumpy, and Mildred says we have a couple of folks hanging onto life by their fingernails.”

  “Doc and Jak will stay in front as a vanguard,” Krysty added, checking the flint in a borrowed handblaster, “while the rest of us sweep along the sides, and scout for anything we can scav.”

  The oddball blaster was a collection of twelve small barrels that fired all at once. Sailors in the South Pacific had called such a weapon a pepperbox; she could only assume because the discharge peppered you with a dozen .18-gauge miniballs. It took forever to load, but at close range it should chill anything.

  “There’s nothing here but dirt and dreams,” Library muttered with a scowl, hunching her shoulders to adjust the crossbow slung across her back to a more comfortable position. Her left arm was in a sling, a knife lashed to her wrist, the blade extending just past her busted knuckles.

  “That may be true, dear lady,” Doc said, loosening the LeMat in his holster, “but that dire combination is perfect cover for muties and coldhearts alike.” His M-16 combo rapidfire was down to its last magazine, so he had a spare .78 musket tucked into the gun boot alongside his saddle. The ammo pouches in his canvas gun belt bulged with powder, miniballs and spare flints. The familiar weight was an oddly reassuring sensation.

  “Want me to ride with you some?” Library asked, glancing sideways. “Two weapons are better than one.”

  “How true. Are we assembling a new edition of Bartlett’s, madam?” Doc asked, clearly pleased.

  “Life goes on,” she answered with a shrug, then winced and massaged her wounded hand.

  “You two take front,” Jak said, reining around his new horse. “I take rear with Cordelia.” His former mount had been chilled by a flapjack, the corpse unfit even to eat. However, this mare was a killer, and had aced a stickie all by herself, caving in its head with both hooves and then pounding the body into mush. Generally dumber than rocks, the other stickies got the message and wisely stayed away from the deadly mare, and the horses she had been protecting.

  “After last night, call me Della,” Cordelia stated, clicking off the safety of the Mauser in her gun belt. There had been a movement in the second-story window of a shop, and she could have sworn she’d heard a soft hoot. With a flutter of wings, an owl took wing into the sky, and she released the blaster, easing down the hammer.

  “Can’t do that,” Jak said.

  “And why is that?” she asked in a dangerous tone.

  He grinned. “Was gonna call on you tonight.”

  Snorting a laugh, Cordelia shook her head. “Whitey, you tie me into all sorts of knots.”

  “Not yet,” Jak replied, kneeing his mount into a gentle trot. “Need to wash first!”

  “Della, you better ride him soon, or I will,” a woman said, removing the dirty scarf from around her neck to expose a wealth of cleavage.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Cordelia muttered, riding off to join Jak at the rear of the convoy.

  Trying not to openly laugh at the suggestive comments, Ryan and the other companions moved away from the convoy and onto a secondary street. In silence, the four of them rode for a while until they could no longer hear Doc’s booming voice quoting a long poem about love, lust, lubricant and a woman named Nell.

  “Okay, we’re out of listening range,” Mildred said, brushing back her beaded plaits. “Now, what are we really looking for?”

  “Dean,” Ryan replied. “If the coldhearts are hidden in the ruins somewhere, he would have left us a marker to warn us away.”

  “You mean, now that he knows we’re nearby,” Mildred corrected. “So, what exactly are we looking for? The acid rain would have washed everything clean.”

  “Not on the inside of a window,” J.B. replied. “Trader taught us this trick. Draw a six-point star, then rub out the section that points where you want others to go.”

  “Saved my ass more than once,” Ryan admitted grimly, scanning some windblown debris in a yard. The timbers almost resembled a star, but not quite.

  Farther down the street, the companions found a stretch limo. The undamaged windows were tinted dark green, and clearly reflected their somber faces.

  “Airtight,” J.B. said, rapping a window with a knuckle.

  Experimentally, Ryan rammed the stock of the Galil into the glass, but it didn’t break or even crack. Flipping the rapidfire, he discharged a single round, and the lead deflected off the bulletproof hard plastic.

  “Dark night, we’re not getting inside that without plas-ex,” J.B. stated, pulling a pipe bomb from his munitions bag. “Only got three of these, so I don’t want to waste one recovering nothing better than a pair of shoes. See anything good inside?”

  “Let me check.” Pressing her face against the window, Mildred could vaguely see a skeleton slumped in the rear seat. The man was wearing a pinstripe business suit, with a neatly combed toupee still perched on top of his skull. A diamond stickpin glittered from his collar, and a gold watch was on his wrist. Nearby lay an open briefcase full of papers, documents and stacks of cash.

  “Nothing in here but Jimmy Hoffa,” Mildred stated, tossing off a two-finger salute to the deceased passenger.

  “How could you possibly know his name?” Krysty asked, puzzled.

  “I don’t, but where’s the fun in that?” she admitted with a wide grin.

  “Sometimes your sense of humor makes no damn sense at all,” J.B. stated with conviction.

  “Sometimes?” Ryan asked, stressing the word.

  Climbing back on their horses, the companions followed the road to a traffic circle and rode around it twice, looking into shops and burned-out office buildings. Small purple lizards darted in and out of rusty storm drains. A condor flew by overhead, its shadow skimming along the debris-filled street, and from far away came the sound of Doc belting out a song about marching through Georgia.

  “He making that up?” Ryan asked curiously.

  “No, it’s a real song from the Civil War,” Mildred answered with a grimace. “But it seems kind of rude to be actually singing it in the state of Georgia.”

  “Who knows this is Georgia anymore?”

  “Good point.”

  “Hey, there’s a police car over there,” Krysty announced, pointing into an alley. “Might be some weapons we can scav.”

  “That’s not a police car, but a county sheriff’s patrol car,” Mildred said, veering her horse toward the vehicle. “They use a star for their badge!”

  After galloping over, the companions left their horses at the mouth of the alley, then proceed deeper into the shadows.

  The patrol car was parked alongside a cinder-block wall, the tires long gone to the insect population, but the windows were closed and intact. Apparently it had remained airtight over the long decades, because there was a skeleton dressed in rags sitting behind the steering wheel, the regulation mirrored sunglasses still balanced precariously on the bony bridge of where there had once been a nose.

  “Crap, that’s a five-point star, not a six,” Mildred said, pointing at a badge hanging from the tattered uniform.

  “I see a 9 mm Glock in the holster,” Krysty said excitedly, then scowled. “Along with an open can of soda in the cup holder.”

  “Useless then,” J.B. stated, turning to walk away. From bitter experience, he knew the sugary fumes of the carbonated beverage would have severely corroded the inner workings of the weapon, especially the springs, rendering it useless.

  “Mebbe the spare ammo is okay,” Ryan said, going to the trunk and using the panga to pop the lid. Inside, safe from the evaporating soda pop, was a host of items: nylon rope, a fireproof blanket, a first-aid kit, road flares and a plastic rifle box containing a Remington pump-action shotgun, an M-16/M-203 combination and a dozen mixed boxes of ammo, including a couple boxes of standard 9 mm brass for the Glock. Plus, there were a dozen 40 mm grens
for the M-203. Even better, everything was in the original airtight plastic wrapping.

  “Jackpot!” J.B. cried, and began happily distributing the wealth.

  “God bless the sheriff’s department,” Mildred said, slinging the Winchester over a shoulder and tearing into the first-aid kit.

  Most of the medicine inside was simply too old to risk using, even in an emergency, such as the ampoule of adrenaline and the antihistamine pen. But there were a lot of clean bandages, and a myriad of small Mylar packets containing aspirin, muscle relaxants, and some of the old-fashioned silver-based antiseptics. Those would still be good in another hundred years! There was an assortment of surgical instruments, medium forceps, scissors, two scalpels as sharp as the day they had been forged, and three packs of dissolving sutures with needles already attached. There was even a stethoscope, and an untouched box of latex gloves. No more bare-handed surgery!

  “We’re back in biz.” J.B. smiled, filling the loops of the strap for the scattergun. Along with the double aught buckshot, there were a few deer slugs, and two bright red-orange cartridges that he knew contained steel slivers. They were designed to blast open a wooden door, and the damage they did to a norm, or a mutie, had to be seen to be believed.

  “Save a couple of those twelves for Doc,” Ryan directed, stuffing the fireproof blanket into his saddlebag, along with the nylon rope.

  “Already did,” Krysty said, patting a bulging shirt pocket. Then she added, “You know, if this wag was missed by other scavengers, do you think we should check on their headquarters?”

  “Good a place as any for Dean to leave us a message,” Ryan said, returning to the horses.

  Easily locating what had once been the ville common, the companions found city hall, and discovered the sheriff department right alongside the main courthouse. There was no mistaking the stout brick building with iron bars covering the small windows.

  Unfortunately, there were no other patrol cars parked near the structure, so they went inside. It was readily evident that the place had been gutted to the walls ages ago, and nothing usable remained. Even the wooden gun racks were missing, probably now the prized decoration in some baron’s bedroom.

  “What do you think, lover, wall or floor?” Krysty asked, resting her M-16 combo on a shoulder. The rapidfire felt a lot heavier with a full magazine and a 40 mm gren in the launcher.

  “Wall,” Ryan stated, easing his finger off the trigger of the Galil. “That’s where I’d stash a spare blaster…or a message.”

  Going into the office of the sheriff, Ryan swung aside a portrait of General Robert E. Lee on the wall to reveal a built-in safe. He wasn’t surprised in the least. Nearly every police station had a small safe to store important documents, critical evidence and an emergency weapon or two.

  Eagerly, Mildred loaned J.B. her new stethoscope, and he expertly twirled the dial, listening for the clicks. In only a few minutes, he had it open. The steel box was empty, aside from a black metal keypad.

  “No way,” J.B. whispered, hesitating a second before tapping the access code to a redoubt onto the alphanumeric pad.

  For a long moment nothing happened, then there came the muffled sound of hydraulic pumps building pressure, and the office wall broke apart, the thick veneer of plaster crumbling away as the blast door of a redoubt slid aside to reveal the standard entrance.

  “What is a redoubt doing in the middle of nowhere?” Mildred demanded, stepping over the threshold. As she did, the wall vents came to life, issuing a steady breeze of clean, warm air.

  “Somebody important must have lived in town,” Ryan theorized. “A retired general, or kin to the President. Something like that.”

  Since the entrance to the redoubt was hidden inside a brick building, the companions fully expected the garage level to be empty. But they were wrong. The entire space was stacked high with rows of wooden packing crates.

  “Wonder what this ident number means,” Ryan muttered, running a finger along the military code stenciled across one crate.

  Going to a workbench, J.B. got a crowbar and pried off a lid. Inside were mounds of fibrous packing material, and buried beneath was a smooth metallic dome, with two large red crystal eyes.

  “Dark night, these are filled with spare parts for sec hunter droids!” he said, pushing aside the cushioning to find the steel torso of the armored machine, then the arms, wheels, a buzzsaw, and finally, the pneumatic hammer that could smash through any civilian-made door, dent the armor in an APC, or crush a person’s head in a split second.

  Squinting at the rows and stacks, Mildred did some fast calculations. “If there is one droid per crate, then these hold a total of…three…six…nine—four hundred and two sec hunter droids,” she finished, her voice fading away at the end. That was a veritable army of the blasted machines!

  “Just sec hunters?” Ryan asked, shifting the packing material with the barrel of the Galil. “No spider droids, or high-rollers?”

  “Nope, only hunters,” J.B. replied, working the pump on the scattergun to eject the buckshot cartridges and replace them with the ones containing the stainless-steel slivers, and his only deer slug. After those crazy red eyes were shattered, the machines were relatively easy to avoid. As long as you didn’t move, cough or breath too hard. Their hearing was extremely acute.

  “At least we’re ready if there’s a working droid in the place,” Krysty said confidently, cradling the M-16 combo. “This 40 mm gren should blow the damn thing to pieces.”

  “Just make sure you’re far enough away for the warhead to arm,” J.B. advised, studying the floor for any sign of scoring from the treads of a droid. “Or else the gren will only bounce off and do about as much damage as a well-thrown rock.”

  “Eighty feet?”

  “Make it a hundred, just to be safe.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Doing a fast recce of the garage level, they then worked their way down to the armory. As expected, it was completely devoid of weaponry, like most redoubts. However, this one was packed solid with nuke batteries. Roughly the same size as a conventional car battery, a nuke battery delivered a lot more power and never became drained. None of the companions had any idea how they worked. But it was primarily because of nuke batteries that the companions ever got a predark civilian, or mil, wag running again after a century of neglect.

  “Do these go inside a sec hunter?” Mildred asked.

  “Never noticed any there before,” J.B. answered truthfully. “But then, I never really looked. Just aced the tin bastard and ran away, in case another was coming.”

  Going to the cafeteria-style kitchen, the companions found a large whiteboard prominently on display to announce whatever was the special for the day. Hoping against hope for a message from Dean, Ryan grunted in disappointment that there was no note, but then admitted it only made sense. There were just two ways into this particular redoubt, and they had been the first through the disguised entrance in the sheriff’s office since the blast doors had been plastered over. What had he been thinking?

  Briefly checking the pantry and walk-in freezers, Krysty found them barren. Even the saltshakers were empty. It was as if the redoubt had been built purely to store the spare parts for the droids, then been forgotten.

  As the companions continued their recce, it was soon apparent no one else was present, norm or machine.

  “Okay, enough stalling,” Ryan stated. “Time for the real reason we’re here.”

  Summoning the elevator, the companions piled inside and ascended to the middle level. As they rose, the silence among them become more and more pronounced, until it was almost a tangible presence.

  “Lover, have you given any idea to what we’re going to do if this mat-trans is also deactivated?” Krysty finally asked, her animated hair tightening into fiery ringlets.

  “Stay with the convoy until the travelers reach their destination,” Ryan replied gruffly. “Then barter a deal with Alan for a couple of the wags.”

  �
�We going to become traders, like the Trader?” J.B. asked, a smile slowly forming. “Dark night, I like that idea!”

  “We could always go to Front Royal,” Mildred suggested hesitantly. “Your nephew would be delighted to have us stay.”

  Ryan scowled. “And work as his sec man? No, thanks. He’s the baron. I’d just be in the way.”

  With a musical ding, the elevator reached the floor, and the doors opened wide with a soft sigh.

  “If this mat-trans is off-line, then we check one more before hitting the road,” he stated. “Just one more. Then it looks like we choose a redoubt to use as a base, one that has enough equipment, tools and fuel to build some proper wags for a trader: a hundred feet long, twenty tires, lots of steel armor, bathroom, kitchen, blasters, rockets, flamethrowers, radar, radio, the works.”

  “We sure as nuking hell know how to do that,” J.B. said, grinning as they walked along the corridor.

  “That redoubt down in New Mex, the one that Jak likes to call Blaster Base One, had a ton of blasters and brass,” Krysty stated, her hair starting to loosen again and gently move. “Plus, the local baron loved us. Make a great place to start our circuit of the Deathlands.”

  “Doc might leave us,” Mildred said simply. “He wants to get back home more than anything else. That is what is keeping him sane. If we’re not traveling through the mat-trans system, he’ll keep going from redoubt to redoubt until he finds one that is working and lets him go back in time, or until he dies of old age.”

  “That’ll be his decision,” Ryan said, pushing open the door to the comp room. Then he softly added, “But I’ll miss Doc, sure enough.”

  The dozen comp stations seemed to be functioning normally, a low hum filling the room. A spectrum of lights blinked on the bank of control boards, with the rows of meters flickering in the safe zone. Only a single monitor was active, the monotone screen scrolling an endless deluge of binary code.