by T. K. Malone
“Anyone knows that. Is that what Jake told you? Hell, everyone knows that. What you need to know is how to get them onside; how to get them to respect you.”
“And how do I do that?”
Kelly shrugged. “Just be your badass self.”
Teah took a slug of Jake’s whiskey. They were standing out the back of the meeting hall, waiting to make a grand entrance. She could hear the buzz from inside but couldn’t judge the mood.
“When will Wesley and the rest of Cornelius’ merry band of convicts arrive?” she asked him.
“When? Tomorrow, I expect. A day behind us. I don’t anticipate any more. They’ll ferry them up to Max’s and then him n’ Trip’ll guide them over the ridge.” Jake leaned back against the wall.
“Hides well, Trip,” Teah said, leaning back, as well.
“What d’ya mean?”
“How long’s he been answering to you?”
Jake arched his eyebrows. “Really? You think that’s it? You think I’m in charge of something? We’re just folk who’ve banded together for a cause. Trip doesn’t answer to me, nor I to him. We just…think along the same lines. Maybe it was because he had a shit upbringing, I don’t know.”
“Is that what you bunch are? A band of brothers?”
“And sisters…”
“How long have you been watching me?”
“How long?” Jake pursed his lips. “Since you were dumb enough to stumble into that pipe. Most stiffs wouldn’t have bothered—your partner didn’t. Most would have just ignored the call, let the carnie die. But not you. Sure, you shot ‘em up by day, but not cos of who they were or where they came from but because of what they did.” He scoffed a laugh. “You were the closest we could find to a stiff with a conscience. He was a believer, Lester—a believer.”
“In what?”
Jake lit a smoke and took a puff, then passed it to her. “Fate. He reckoned the right one would come along, and then we’d approach him or her to join our little group. But, man, we got so much more than we bargained for that day.”
“The accident wasn’t supposed to happen?”
Shaking his head, Jake took the smoke back and drew on it long and hard, appearing to gather his thoughts. “What was supposed to happen that day was simple: Connor gets himself arrested, Charm gets more leverage over Zac, and the AI was to have secretly been tested out on little Connor. We were then to sell the package on, get access to the Meyers' computer network, and finally trigger the AI.” He shrugged. “It was a way in, a small price to pay to save the world. Then, well, then the AI fought to be born and it all went tits up.”
“Zac would have sacrificed Connor?”
“Zac and his gang would have been eliminated if the first plan had succeeded.” He looked closely at her. “But we can keep that to ourselves.”
“Eliminated?”
“Meh! He’d have found out Connor was being held at the Meyers' retreat and gone in, all guns blazing. That would have had a sad outcome for all concerned.”
“So, nukes gone, smugglers gone, Meyers—whoever they are—gone too. A handy result for Charm.”
“That man’s all about results. Shall we?” and Jake pushed himself away from the wall and offered her his hand.
“What am I supposed to say to them?”
Jake shrugged. “I dunno. Tell ‘em everything’ll be all right. Tell them to expect a bumper crop of squash next year.” He kicked open the meeting hall’s back door. “After you.”
“Squash? You fuckin’ sure?”
The smile Jake gave her was a rare sight indeed, one that made his buggy eyes pop out even more. “What about the truth—you think about that?” He disappeared through the doorway.
“Truth?” Teah muttered to herself. “You wouldn’t know what that was if it hit you.” She lowered the rim of the cattleman, its shade somehow comforting, and tipped her head as she followed Jake in. The heat inside hit her straight away, followed by the stench of straw and sweat, of stale ale and spilled wine, but when she looked up, she was in nothing more than a small, wood-planked room, another doorway directly opposite, and a bucket standing in one corner.
“Wanna puke?” Jake asked.
Teah took a breath. “You a mind reader?”
“Ah, that I’m not, but you clearly know what to expect,” he said as he nodded toward the far door. “The raised table, the packed hall, upturned and expectant faces hanging on your every word. Who wouldn’t be a bit nervous?”
Teah sneered at him. “You shittin’ me, Jake? That ain’t what’s got me nervous. Tellin’ them they’re all going to die, that’s what’s makin’ me sick to my stomach.”
“You want me to go get your new friend Kelly?”
Teah spat out a nervous laugh. “One step too far for her. No, I’ll manage.”
Jake spread his arm out toward the next door. “After you, then.” Teah went through it and into the stifling hall.
“Don’t forget to tell them that Briscoe’s dead,” he shouted after her, and Teah’s heart stopped.
In the packed hall she made her way to a short flight of wooden steps and climbed up onto the stage. The same table Briscoe and Trip had sat behind was there, the same pole she’d been tied to still in front and center, the same crowd that had bayed for her blood now sitting below and before her. They were all ominously silent.
She hesitated but then pulled out a chair and sat, dead opposite her pole. Jake came up and sat next to her. Now, she thought, now is the time to pull out all the stops. Now is the time to make a difference.
Teah stood.
“Spike Briscoe is dead,” she announced.
Jake nudged her. The preppers had left. Though she’d have liked to have thought she’d won them over, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been more popular when she’d been tied to the pole and about to swing. She leaned against the back of her chair and kicked her feet up, dumping her heels on the table with a thump. Jake nudged her again, hip flask in hand.
“Well?” he said as she grabbed it.
Teah took a quick slurp. “Well, twice I’ve been here, and twice I’ve come with the news that folk have died. Can’t say I’d be too keen following me, myself—death seems to stalk my shadow.”
“Sure does,” said Jake.
“So, will they fight with me?”
He arched his eyebrows. “With you? More likely behind you.”
“Behind?”
“Behind has been a tactic for a long while. Trained soldiers behind the raw recruits—someone’s got to shoot the deserters.”
“You think Cornelius’ band of convicts’ll run?”
Jake took the hip flask back. “Some will. Have you ever been in a large-scale firefight? Yeah, well, I suppose you’ve probably been in a few; shall we say exciting situations? But a full-on few-hundred versus a few-hundred, well, that’s some chaotic shit you have there. You can’t tell where death’s coming from, just know its barking in yer ear. Nope, they won’t all fight. Some’ll shit themselves, some’ll clamp up into a ball and whimper, and some’ll run.”
Teah said nothing, only nodded. Sitting with Jake now, the man who had for so many years been her enemy, was odd: odd that it didn’t feel strange, odd that it felt right. Though she was a good distance away from trusting him, his presence somehow reassured her. When she’d announced Briscoe’s death, there’d been uproar, but her tale of how it had happened had silenced them, until she’d told them they had to forge an alliance with the very folk who’d killed him. Only when Jake had tugged her sleeve and reminded her that at least one had been on the payroll of The Free World army had they then begun to swing around to the common hatred she needed.
“Fodder,” she grunted, and lit a smoke.
“Best not to tell Cornelius that that’s the plan.”
“He’ll know. He’s one sharp tool.”
“Then we better hope we can make his desired outcome happen.”
“Where is he now, anyway? I thought he’d have been
here.”
Jake took out his own smoke. “He’ll be catching up with his spies. Don’t worry ‘bout Cornelius, he’ll have his own men here. No doubt they’d made a bargain they thought was foolproof—one they’d never have to pay back. Would have loved to have been there to see their faces when they saw him bowling up the street toward them—priceless.”
“Is that all you guys do?”
“What?”
“Scheme?”
Jake grunted. “It’s what the underdogs do. We ain’t got a choice.”
She took a draw on her smoke, feet still up on the table, cattleman down low. Her eyes were drawn to the entrance doors just before they burst open, and a young boy entered. He hesitated, as if unsure what to do next, but then saw Teah and Jake and made a mad dash for the table.
“You Teah?” he said, gasping for breath.
“Yeah,” she replied, shifting her legs down and sitting up. Something about the boy made her nervous. Sweat had begun to flow from him, as if he was boiling up in the heat of the hall. He shifted around uneasily, clearly on a knife-edge. Eventually, though, he jumped up onto the stage, and without asking, grabbed Jake’s hip flask, taking a long swallow before spitting it all out and choking.
“What’s your name, boy?” Jake asked.
“Abel,” the lad managed, between coughs.
“Well, Abel, now you’ve drunk my whiskey, maybe you’d like to tell us what you’re doing here.”
“The lookout on the ridge… They…they just radioed in.”
“So?”
“There’s a firefight going on down near Lester’s mine. Said The Free World Drones are attackin’—”
“The Black City Riders,” Teah whispered. “Zac’s gang.” She stood up, sending her chair flying back.
Abel fervently shook his head. “More than that, Miss Teah. They reckon there are civilians with them.”
“Civilians?” but even as she’d said it, a dread feeling shivered through her. She hesitated, then shoved her way past Jake, round the table and grabbed the startled boy. She knelt beside him. “Show me.”
Outside, the sunlight blinded her for a moment, until she tilted the cattleman down. A Jeep squealed to a halt right in front of them, Cornelius looking out at her from the driver’s seat.
“I believe we have a situation,” he said, then pushed his emerald glasses tight to his eyes and grinned. “Need a lift?”
6
Zac’s Story
Strike time: plus 11 days
Location: Lester’s Mine
The mine had filled with the explosion’s aftermath of suffocating smoke, beams of flashlight piercing it briefly only to be lost to its swirling density. Next to him, Renshaw coughed, the raking sound seeming to signal others to start. “That was no drone,” he gasped between rasps, and Zac knew he spoke the truth. He scrambled up, pushing against Renshaw’s body, and staggered toward the entrance.
As the light from outside fought to claw its way into the cave, it slowly revealed a silhouette. Zac dropped to one knee, the fumes overpowering him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from what appeared to be a man holding some kind of missile launcher. Wordlessly, the apparition beckoned Zac toward him, and Zac nodded, straining to get up. Hesitantly, he staggered to the cave’s entrance, the smoke barely clearing. He could see enough of the apocalyptic sight then before him, though, enough to remind him of his return to Black City.
The land was ablaze with countless small fires amidst the twisted metal of The Free World drones that lay all around, as if every single one had fallen from the sky to explode upon the ground. It may have been a strange and unexpected sight, but the man now standing before him was even stranger still. Despite the odd smudge of soot marring his immaculate porcelain-like skin, the man embodied a pure beauty. His eyes, though, were pools of undiluted madness, outdone only by the crazed grin he wore, an image Zac immediately took to be that of a psychopath.
“The right tools, Mr. Clay—I presume you are Zac; you certainly resemble your file—are essential in order to get the job done.” He threw him the missile launcher, which Zac caught before staggering back under its unexpected weight.
“Heavy, isn’t it?” the man said. “That’s the batteries. Kirk, by the way; my name.”
“Kirk,” Zac said, regarding the peculiar weapon. “So, not a missile launcher.”
Kirk laughed. “Good God, no. What use would a missile launcher be against a swarm of drones. It is a swarm, isn’t it? Not a flock. I can never remember. Either way, no. For want of a better description, it’s an EMP cannon, and believe it or not, a lightweight version. Fortunately for us—well, you—The Free World army definitely wouldn’t be expecting this type of technology in the hands of… How would you describe yourself? Bandit? Ruffian?”
Struggling for words, Zac could only shrug as he wondered just who this savior was. Kirk’s grin broadened to a gleaming-white smile. “Though their assumptions are quite a way off the mark, I believe Spike Briscoe has more primitive versions in that innocent-looking stockade of his. Cunning, is Mr. Briscoe.”
Zac felt someone draw beside him.
“Kirk?” Connor said, his voice filled with confusion.
“Kirk?” Sticks repeated, joining them.
Zac glanced at his brother. “You know him?”
Connor nodded. “From the compound. Charm’s head of security.”
Kirk was now nodding. “Indeed, indeed, that’s me. Though now charged with distribution.”
“Distribution?” Zac asked.
Kirk lofted his thin eyebrows. “Yes. I imagine you’re familiar with the term.” He peeked into the cave. “Do I have to do everything myself?” He disappeared into the lingering smoke. “It’s bad enough they’ve dumped a body in here,” his voice came from within the murk. “It smelled disgusting, but I could hardly move it. I mean, what if they’d sent someone back to dispose of it? What then?”
Zac stared at Connor, who returned the stare. “Is he?” Zac asked.
“Unhinged? A little bit.”
“A lot,” Sticks muttered.
“I heard that,” Kirk shouted back, and as he did so, smoke began to surge out of the cave.
“What the fuck?” said Zac, and he took a step back and watched in confusion.
When the smoke finally stopped billowing out, Zac saw there was now light coming from within the cave. He glanced at Connor, who merely shrugged and went back in. Following him, Zac drew alongside. “A little bit more information about him would be nice,” he muttered under his breath.
“He doubles as a waiter,” Connor told him.
Zac checked his stride and shook his head, then looked to Sticks for help. The soldier looked as bemused as he himself felt.
The smoke had now cleared enough that Zac could see dazed people moving around, coughing their lungs up as if the new, clean air was somehow abhorrent. They all looked in a sorry state, which was hardly surprising given what they’d been through. Many cowered against the sides of the shaft, as though expecting the worst was yet to come. Even Noodle, Billy, and Loser were quiet, confused looks on their faces as they all stared after Kirk, then at Zac as he went past them on his way to investigate the mine further.
He met Renshaw coming toward him through the remnants of the smoke, his men stirring and falling in behind him.
“Who the hell was that?” he asked, hooking a thumb behind him. “And what the hell is that?” He stared down at the EMP cannon. “And what the fuck happened out there?” This time he pointed over Zac’s shoulder.
“Short version?” Zac asked.
“Short version.”
“Kirk, EMP cannon, and problem solved.”
Renshaw nodded and fell in behind Zac as they cut a path through his men.
Overhead, small, widely spaced bulkhead lights came on, then a breeze flowed from the depths of the mineshaft. He was no expert on such places, although he’d spent a fair amount of his youth rifling through the make-do storage mines in Christma
s—the odd bottle of hooch his prize. The hewn and wet rock held up by weathered and worn, timber uprights and beams didn’t surprise him, nor the greasy mineral-filled puddles, but what did was how relatively clear and tidy the mine appeared to be.
“Hold on,” Renshaw said, pulling Zac back. “Before we follow him too far, we need to secure the perimeter—make sure nothing was backing up those drones.”
Zac struggled to break away from Renshaw’s grasp, but then realized his words held value. “Your men?”
“I’ll need some of yours.”
“You seen it out there?”
Renshaw glanced toward the entrance, appearing to be in two minds. “One gun? All those drones?” He slowly shook his head.
“I guess the army’s got access to weapons we can’t even imagine,” Zac said. “Take who you need, but if I find out my men ended up holding all the forward positions…”
Renshaw tensed, but then soon grinned. “Most?”
Zac hefted him the EMP cannon, enjoying seeing Renshaw stagger back under its weight.
“Chances are, if the explosion didn’t get the bikes ‘n truck, that beauty would have fried their circuits. Best get set to stay the night here.”
“How does it work?” Renshaw said, looking the weapon up and down.
Zac shrugged. “I’d point it at ‘em and see what happens.”
Behind Renshaw, more folk were stirring, Byron Tuttle amongst them, now making his way toward them. Judging by his soot-smudged face, he must have been near the entrance.
“EMP cannons have been around for a long while,” he announced. “The Free World army developed them a fair few years ago, to counter tactics employed by insurgents. Of course, terrorists wouldn’t have access to countless drones, so that weapon of Kirk’s must have been developed for use directly against the Eurasian front.”
Renshaw glanced at Zac. “I’ll go set up the perimeter,” he said, a mere glance Tuttle’s way, clearly showing his disinterest in Byron’s history lesson.
“Russians and Chinese, eh?” Zac said, though with little enthusiasm, and carried on down the mineshaft, relieved when Connor and Sticks accompanied Byron, absorbing his lecture as they all followed him.