Lex recognized the compliment. “You’ve given this a lot of thought,” she noted.
“What use is a mind if you don’t use it?” Rikki rejoined.
“What’s it like?” Lex inquired. “This place you’re from.”
Rikki sighed. “You’d enjoy it. We all believe in the ideal of loving our neighbor and serving the Spirit. We may argue about various issues, but overall our relations are harmonious. Far better than anything I’ve seen anywhere else.”
“It sounds like a dream come true,” Lex said.
“Would you like to go there?” Rikki asked her.
Lex brightened. “Would they let me come?”
“They would welcome you with open arms,” Rikki confirmed.
“Especially if you had a sponsor in the Family.”
“What’s a sponsor?”
“Someone in the Family who vouches for your integrity.”
“Who—” Lex began.
“I would,” Rikki said quickly.
“You’d do that for me?”
Rikki nodded and stared down the hallway.
Now the exit to the alley was even more appealing.
Lex wanted to flee the library, the leave St. Louis far behind. Rikki’s home seemed too good to be true. She wanted to live to find out for herself. “What’s this place where you’re from called?”
“The Home.”
“The Home?” Lex giggled. “Where else would the Family live, right?”
Rikki grinned.
“You must have a lot of friends there,” Lex stated.
“Many close friends,” Rikki affirmed.
“Tell me about them,” she urged him.
“Most of my closest friends are Warriors like myself,” Rikki said. “You’ll meet them. There’s Geronimo, who took his name after an Indian chief of long, long ago. One of them is named Hickok, the Family’s supreme gunfighter.”
“Is he better with guns than you?” Lex interjected.
“Much better,” Rikki acknowledged. “His expertise with guns, particularly handguns, is sensational. We have a Warrior called Yama, and he’s good with every weapon. Teucer specializes in the bow. Others excel with different weapons.”
“What are you best with?”
“A katana,” Rikki said. “My instructors felt I was the best martial artist in the family. Consequently, I qualified to possess the katana.”
“What’s a martial artist?”
Rikki stared at her. “Someone skilled in hand-to-hand combat and with Oriental weaponry.”
“What’s hand-to-hand combat? Punching somebody’s lights out?”
Rikki chuckled. “My answer was rather simplistic. A martial artist is adept in the science of unarmed and armed combat. It’s more than just knowing how to punch somebody’s lights out. It’s a way of life, a discipline in which you become the ultimate master of yourself. A perfected martial artist is at one with his Maker, with the universe, and with himself.
Sublime control enables you to live without fear. You achieve an inner peace, and this is reflected in your relations with others.”
“This is all a little over my head,” Lex admitted.
“I can teach you if you want,” Rikki offered.
Their eyes met, and a mutual tenderness was silently shared.
“You never did tell me,” Lex said after a bit, “why you picked such a strange name?”
“It was the logical choice,” Rikki said. “The Founder of our Home encouraged all of his followers to learn from the mistakes humankind had perpetuated in the past. He was afraid we would lose sight of the stupidity behind the war. So he started the Naming at age sixteen. All Family members, when they turn sixteen, are allowed to pick any name they want from any of the books in our vast library. This way, the Founder hoped, we wouldn’t forget our roots. At first, they used only the history books. But now any book is okay. I took my name from a story concerning an animal known as a mongoose.”
“A mongoose?”
“Small animals,” Rikki said. “They were used in a country called India to protect their families from deadly snakes known as cobras.”
“So that’s why you took the name!”
“Yes. It fits my chosen profession,” Rikki stated.
They lapsed into a short silence.
“What about you?” Rikki finally asked. “I’ve told you a lot about myself. Tell me something about your life.”
Lex shrugged, her green eyes betraying a hint of sadness. “What’s to tell? I was raised by my mom and dad in the northwest part of the city. When I was fifteen, one of the sisters nominated me to become a Knight. I was thrilled. I thought it was the biggest honor there was.”
“Now you don’t think so?”
“No!” Lex said, her voice hardening. “They fed me all that garbage about women being superior to men when I was young, and I believed it. I ran roughshod over the studs like all of the other sisters. But something happened.”
“What?”
“The older I got,” Lex said bitterly, “the more I realized how sick the situation was. I mean, here we have all of these women bossing the men around like the males are the scum of the earth. No love. No deep feelings.
No caring. Just the sisters and their sex toys. I knew the studs didn’t respect us. In fact, I suspect they downright hate us. And I grew real tired of the whole trip.”
“Is that why you wanted to leave the Leather Knights?” Rikki inquired.
Lex nodded, her red hair bobbing. “I just knew there must be a better place somewhere else. I planned to sneak out of the city, and my friend Mira agreed to come along. But you saw how far we got.”
“How do the other residents of St. Louis feel about the Knights?” Rikki probed.
“They have to tolerate it because the Leather Knights protect them from outsiders,” Lex detailed. “A lot of the people have what you might call normal families, but the sisters look down their noses at any woman who shares her life with a man. And the sisters never miss a chance to feed their lies to the little girls. Believe me, if a girl is told year after year that all men are scuzz, that men only want one thing from a woman and the only way to keep them in line is to make them into slaves, then the girl starts to accept all of this as true. I know. It happened to me.”
“Do any of the other sisters feel the way you do?”
“Lots,” Lex replied. “But they’re too scared to defy Terza. They know what happens to traitors.”
“Why is it,” Rikki asked, “one sex is always trying to dominate the other? Why can’t men and women learn to live in a state of mutual cooperation instead of antagonistic bickering?”
“How do the men and women get along at your Home?” Lex asked.
“We have our problems,” Rikki said. “But from what I’ve seen, we relate much better than many men and women elsewhere. I don’t think either side views the other as some sort of sex object. We’re taught in the Family school to always seek for the inner beauty in every person. Having big breasts or a handsome face isn’t a social advantage in the Family.”
“I can’t wait to see this Home of yours,” Lex declared longingly.
“You will,” Rikki promised. He stood and stretched his legs. “It’s time to go.”
“Where are we going?”
Rikki pointed down the hallway. “After Blade.”
“Can’t we give him more time?”
“No,” Rikki said. “I’ve waited too long as it is. We’ll search this building from top to bottom, every square inch. Do you have any idea where he could be?”
“You mean if they caught him?” Lex pondered a moment. “He might be in the holding cell, or maybe they’re going to feed him to Grotto. Or Terza could be playing fun and games with him.”
“We’ll try the holding cell first,” Rikki advised.
Lex took a deep breath and straightened. “I’m right behind you,” she said, although she silently wished she were far away at Rikki’s Home, where it was safe, where the me
n and women weren’t constantly at each other’s throats, where everyone tried to love one another.
Funny.
She’d assumed she was too mature to believe in fairy tales.
Lex shrugged her shoulders and stuck to Rikki’s heels as he retraced their steps into the gloomy interior of the structure.
Chapter Sixteen
The gunfighter was in his element.
Hickok had been reared in the placid environment of the Home. He’d attended the Family school as required of all youngsters and teenagers, and been taught all of the profound spiritual truths the wise Elders knew.
Although he perceived the validity of a doctrine such as “Love thy neighbor” intellectually, he found the practical applications left something to be desired. How was it possible, he often asked himself, to love your neighbor when that neighbor might be a scavenger intending to kill you and rob you, or a mutate bent on tearing you to shreds? He discreetly distinguished a flaw in such a philosophy. To him, it never made any sense for the spiritual people to allow themselves to be wiped out by their benighted brethren. There was only one viable alternative: the spiritual types, such as the Family, had to protect themselves from the manifold dangers proliferating after the unleashing of the nuclear and chemical holocaust. Early on, Hickok discovered his niche in life. He didn’t think he was qualified to become a teacher or a preacher, but he knew he was more than competent to defend those who were spiritual from those who weren’t.
Warrior status fit him like the proverbial glove.
Because he devoted his entire personality to whatever interested him, Hickok rapidly became one of the Family’s top Warriors. His ambidextrous ability with handguns insured his prominence. And because he never fretted over the fate of the foes he downed in a gunfight, because he sincerely believed the Elders when they instructed him to accept the fact of survival beyond this initial life for anyone with the slightest shred of spiritual faith, he entertained few compunctions about pulling the trigger. In short, Hickok was one of the most proficient, and most deadly, Warriors in the Family. Some, such as Blade, insisted Hickok was the most deadly.
The Russians might have been inclined to agree.
Hickok spun and fired at the three soldiers coming through the glass doors. The AK-47 bucked and chattered, and the trio of troopers were struck before they could bring their own weapons to bear. They were catapulted backward by the impact of the heavy slugs tearing through their chests. The glass doors were hit too, and they shattered and crumbled with a loud crash.
There was no time to lose!
Four soldiers were still advancing from the direction of the hedgerow, and three were sprinting toward the gunman from the parking lot.
Hickok darted into the building, dodging the prone bodies blocking the doorway. He ran to the receptionist’s desk and ducked behind it, straddling her unconscious form.
Footsteps pounded outside, and a moment later the seven soldiers raced into the receptionist’s area.
Someone shouted orders in Russian.
Hickok tensed, wondering if they would look behind the desk or mistakenly suppose he had taken one of the corridors.
The footsteps tramped past the desk.
Hickok counted to three and rose, the AK-47 cradled at waist level.
The seven troopers were ten feet off and heading down one of the corridors.
“Peek-a-boo!” Hickok shouted.
To their credit, they tried to turn and shoot instead of diving for cover.
Hickok squeezed the trigger and swept the AK-47 in an arc. The soldiers were rocked and racked by the devastating hail of lead. Only one of them managed to return the gunman’s fire, and he missed, his pistol plowing a shot into the desk in front of the Warrior.
Two of them screamed as they died.
All seven were sprawled on the tiled floor when the AK-47 went empty.
Hickok tossed the gun aside and vaulted the desk. He ran to the glass doors and leaped over the three dead soldiers.
About a dozen people from the park, civilians by their attire, were tentatively congregating outside the Headquarters building.
Hickok charged them, drawing his Colts, hoping none of them was armed. They frantically parted as he jogged past, and then he was crossing a paved road and entering a large natural area with high, unkempt grass and a row of tall trees. He bypassed two children flying a kite and reached the safety of the trees.
No one was after him. Yet.
Hickok kept going, and once beyond the row of trees he paused to get his bearings.
That was when he saw it.
Whatever “it” was.
Off to his left, towering over the surrounding landscape, was a gigantic obelisk. The top portion was missing, apparently destroyed during the war, leaving a jagged crown at the crest.
What the blazes was it?
Hickok headed to the right. He spied a stand of trees 40 yards distant and made for them. He knew the soldiers would be after him in force, and he had to find a refuge quickly. But where? He didn’t know the layout of the city. Were there any safe areas, sections of the city inhabited only by descendants of the original Americans? Or had the Russians imported their own people to populate the city? And what about the ones he saw in the park? Were they Americans or Russians? For all he knew, he could be alone in a city where every person was an enemy.
The gunman reached the trees.
Hickok dropped to his knees, holstering his Pythons, gathering his breath. He saw a road yonder, past the trees, and beyond the road a long lake or pool.
Where the heck was he?
Frustrated, he slowly stood and walked to the edge of the road. Directly ahead was the pool. To his right was a wide, cleared space filled with pedestrians. To his left, the road seemed to branch out and encircle another pool. The air had a misty quality about it, and he wondered if he was near a large body of water.
Which way should he go?
The Red Army would be sweeping the area any minute. He decided to gamble, to mingle with the masses, hoping he could lose himself in the crowd. He walked from the trees and ambled parallel with the long pool.
A young man and an attractive woman, seated on a blue blanket with a wicker picnic basket by their side, glanced up as he approached.
“Hi,” the youth said.
“Howdy,” Hickok greeted them.
The woman gawked at the gunman’s waist and nudged her companion.
She whispered to him and his brow knitted in consternation.
Hickok was five feet from them.
“Nice guns you have there,” the youth commented nervously.
“I like ’em,” Hickok said.
“I thought guns were illegal,” the youth stated.
“Not mine,” Hickok assured him.
The youth and his lady friend exchanged hurried whispers.
Hickok passed them, his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt.
“Say, mister,” the youth ventured.
Hickok stopped and looked over his left shoulder.
“We just heard some shooting,” the youth said. “Was that you?”
Hickok scrutinized them, debating whether he could trust them.
“I’ve never seen anyone dressed like you before,” the youth remarked, rubbing his hands on his jeans as he spoke. “You stand out like a sore thumb. It’s none of my business, you understand, but if you’re looking for somewhere you won’t stick out, go around the west end of the Reflecting Pool, past the Lincoln Memorial, and go south. You’ll come to Independence Avenue, and on the other side is West Potomac Park. They don’t bother to cut the grass or trim the trees there and it’s a real jungle.”
“Why are you tellin’ me this?” Hickok demanded.
“I can put two and two together,” the youth said. “Gunshots. A stranger with a pair of revolvers.” The youth lowered his voice. “I may not be with the Resistance, but that doesn’t mean I like the Reds.”
Hickok grinned. “Thanks, pard.” He waved and w
alked toward the far end of the Reflecting Pool. What a stroke of luck! If he could reach West Potomac Park, he could lay over for a spell and figure out how to return to St. Louis. That was going to be the tough part. Evidently, they’d flown him from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., in just one night. The feat sounded impossible, but then he didn’t know how fast one of those Red copters could fly. What was it General Malenkov had said? St. Louis was 860 miles from Washington? Did the Red Copters need to refuel en route?
Seemed likely to him.
More people were in the vicinity of the Reflecting Pool, enjoying the sunshine, idly strolling or chatting with friends. Several kids were floating wooden boats in the water.
Hickok realized he was attracting a lot of attention; nearly everyone was staring at him, a few going so far as to stop and gape. The residents he saw wore cheaply constructed clothing of an indeterminate fashion.
None wore buckskins. And none packed hardware. That youth had been right on the money. He did stand out like a sore thumb.
The gunman reached the west end of the Reflecting Pool and paused, gazing at the edifice before him. The Lincoln Memorial, the youth had said. The structure was immense and impressive, with a massive dome and elaborate columns. Unlike the obelisk, the Lincoln Memorial hadn’t been damaged during the war. A red banner with white lettering was suspended above the portal. The sign was in English: “Lincoln, Champion of the Proletariat.”
Hickok absently scratched his chin.
What the blazes was a proletariat?
“Excuse me, comrade,” intruded an insistent voice.
Hickok swiveled to his right.
A stocky man in a blue uniform and carrying a nightstick was approaching.
“Howdy,” Hickok said to him.
“What play are you with?” the man asked.
Play? Hickok casually placed his right hand on the right Python.
“I’m Dimitri, Capitol Police,” the man said, smiling, revealing even spaced teeth. “I saw a play last year at the People’s Center. You know, the old Kennedy Center. It was about the reign of Napoleon, and the costumes were fabulous. What play are you with?”
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