by Ric Beard
Lucian’s message had come in via drone early this morning, and after accidentally nodding back off for an hour, he’d wakened with a jolt and rushed to rouse Moss and get his take. He didn’t know this Lucinda Proctor from Eve, but Moss had already stressed her importance, and he didn’t want to nod off a second time and piss off the man in black.
By the time they were back on the road heading down the valley, en route to Blacksburg, it already felt like the truck’s seat had formed a groove to fit his cheeks. That wasn’t to say he didn’t feel like he had saddle sores; if he’d been told the damn truck had any shock absorbers whatsoever, it would’ve been news to him. But in an hour or so, he was promised another solid meal and a little better sleeping arrangements than a bedroll, assuming things didn’t go sideways when they caught up to Lexi. If they didn’t, he’d be leaving for home the next morning.
Shit had probably already gone sideways. Lexi’s been chomping at the bit to cause trouble for months. If he had a nickel for each time she said she wanted to just go find Sampson and ‘put things in order…’
Moss slammed on the brakes, and Sean jerked the wheel to avoid the crushing the B.C. They inched forward at a crawl, and Sean tapped his throat mic.
“Yo.”
“Truck ahead,” Moss responded. “It’s echoing off the rock wall on the right at the top of the hill. Listen up, Stone.”
“Yeah.”
“No matter what happens, you don’t stop. Put the gas down on that beast and roll hard for Blacksburg. Stay on this road, and you’ll see a wide intersection in about half an hour, turning north. No trees around the turn. Can’t miss it. Roger?”
“If you say so, dude. Why expect trouble?”
“How long have you been in the MidEast? Were you paying attention last night?”
Duh.
“Good point.”
The road had been so clear between OK City and the farm, he’d almost lost grasp of where they were operating. Traffic had been nonexistent. Lexi and he had encountered their fair share of trouble over the last three months, usually with hunters who didn’t understand they were on their side or raiders working on their own who didn’t tend to bow to people like Sampson. To Lexi’s disappointment in each case, Sean had talked them out of trouble. He might not have time to talk from the cab of a truck if people decided to make trouble on the road.
“Here it comes. If they pass, let them. We’ll just roll on by.”
“Mind our own business,” Sean agreed.
“Roger that.”
“Except if it’s Sampson’s guys, they’re going to recognize this truck. There are only so many functioning ones…”
“Which is why I told you to keep going.”
Expecting to see one of the old, military-style troop carriers, Sean pulled himself over the wheel to peer out the windshield when the machine breaking the road’s horizon line was a low riding, wide, new military vehicle constructed of black steel, with tinted windows and a windshield with angular framing. The wide side mounts for external riders gave the impression the machine had wings.
“Shit.”
“Right,” Moss said.
That’s right! He was OK City military…or pretending to be.
The metal monstrosity slid the wheels on one side into the grass to get its wide chassis around Sean’s truck as it passed. There was no evidence of deceleration, but it wasn’t like the thing had brake lights. Swiveling his head as the truck passed at high speed, Sean eyed the second row of seats and his heart thumped.
Was that…
A glance into his side mirror revealed a plume of dust as the beast spit gravel and dirt and spun around so fast, Sean thought it would fishtail. There was no sign of instability, though, as the military assault vehicle regained the road and accelerated. The triangular eyes carved into the sloped front end that were its headlights sped toward the truck’s tailgate like an angry hornet just as Sean looked up and saw the Black Cat tear by him, hauling ass in the other direction.
His foot raised from the accelerator as he eyed the wide rearview mirror.
“Don’t watch,” Moss said. “Drive!”
The Cat accelerated as Sean began his descent down an elongated decline edged by high shrubbery, thick oaks, and tall pines on both sides. He couldn’t help but check the mirror. Moss’s prototype swerved into Sean’s lane—well, there weren’t really lanes—behind him, traveling in the opposite direction, and his eyes bulged as he grasped Moss’s plan.
Chicken.
The dangerous game would inevitably lead to the smaller prototype’s destruction if the driver of the assault vehicle didn’t swerve to avoid.
Too late!
Sean cringed as the two vehicles came together.
The front end of the Black Cat suddenly lurched into the air, sparks igniting on its back end as it used the sloped front end of its adversary vehicle as a ramp! As Moss’s ride slung into the air, a flash of lightning bolts emitted from the vehicle on all sides. The truck swerved wildly before coming back under the driver’s control on the side of the road.
The way Moss’s vehicle spun around would have been a defiance of physics if not for the multi-directional tracks that guided it as it swung and zoomed back up the highway toward Sean. The truck’s doors swung open, but they slammed shut again as a barrage of gunfire emitting from the Black Cat forced the men to huddle inside.
“Woo-hoo!” Sean slammed the wheel with a palm and tapped his throat mic. “What the hell was that?”
“Electromagnetic Pulse. Of sorts. It’s really meant for anti-personnel. It seems to have worked, for the moment, though.”
“Okay, bud. I want one of those Black Cat thingies.”
“It’s possible that could be arranged. Were those friends of yours?”
“Man, I only got a glimpse, but I’m pretty sure it was Carson.”
“The guy from the warehouse?”
“That’s the guy.”
“Damn, he moves fast. How’s they beat us back?”
Sean shrugged. “Maps?”
“I guess he didn’t take kindly to your pointing your weapon at him. That’s a special forces vehicle. Someone on high is after us.”
“It was a lot more than just pointing that weapon, and you’re right. Alexandra Bingham knows I’m alive. Shit! I knew letting him go was a bad idea, and I did it anyway. I always seem to bring trouble along.”
“You have allies, Sean. Trouble begets trouble. Keep your speed up. We need to get to Blacksburg.”
Sean peered into the rearview and nodded at the prototype vehicle. Then he returned his eyes to the road ahead, to find another angry hornet sitting sideways. His foot jerked instinctively and kicked the side of the brake pedal.
“Shit!”
“Evade!” Moss yelled. “Swerve!”
Sean swung the wheel as he braced himself for impact with an oncoming oak.
Chapter Fifty-Three
SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA
53
Grit pattered against Mathilda’s ankle-length skirt as the wind turned its breath toward the alley between the two rows of unpainted dwellings facing one another across the rocky road. To the east, the sun appeared to balance on the peak of a foothill, signaling the beginning of the day that might be the end of them all.
Dancing on the edge of sleep, existing in that place between the real and dreamland, the rumbling of a truck engine had snapped her reins and yanked her from the edge of slumber. A sleepy wobble into the road revealed only the blanket of night…no truck.
Unable to keep her legs still most of the dark morning, she’d finally given in and rolled out just in time to step into the first glimmer of the sunrise.
The rumbling truck now atop the rocky road was real as the wind blowing her denim skirt.
Teetering against the breeze next to the gate, Mathilda shaded her eyes against eastern daylight while the truck with the rusted green grill and the big, bug-eyed headlights, kicked up clouds of dust as it plowed downhill towar
d the town like a beast on the prowl. She spied Satan’s own harbingers of demise in the bed, gripping the railings in the same way they had before, with the same rifles slung over their shoulders, their barrels aimed at a cloudless sky.
Jake fidgeted next to her now, picking at his fingernails in that ever-annoying way he did. But today, it wouldn’t be a bother. There were greater worries afoot. The enforcers were going to ask about the missing man, and when she couldn’t spin a good enough yarn, well, they’d put a bullet in her head and work out amongst ‘em which girl to deflower and drag off to the mines. At least, they’d think they would.
They might use their guns today, but there would be no young girls. No, sir-ee!
No, she’d shooed all five over the Northeastern ridge, across the fields to yon cave in the foothills that she found all those years ago, when she’d been a wee one, herself. There was a pond, lots of tree cover, and she’d sent enough food with them to last a week or so if they stretched it. Worst case, they could slaughter the horse. Demi would know how.
The truck eased up short of the gate, and the men filed off the bed, their boots crunching rocks as the driver’s door needing a drop or two of oil squeaked open and the man Jake had spoken to the day before dismounted.
“Howdy,” Mathilda said. A whole night’s practice went into saying it the right way, but when the word croaked out, she was sure it’d sounded loose. The man didn’t answer as he stomped toward them. Perhaps he hadn’t heard over the howling wind, which was now whistling a two-tone tune as it kicked up dust and pushed it across the white road.
She figured how much pain they’d endure would be equal to how much weight this driver gave to the man they misplaced. Although it took a special kind of evil for men to run around and do what these men did to folks, they’d probably still look out for each other. But if the man that Nina woman put into the ground wasn’t popular, maybe they’d get out with just a dead old Mathilda.
“Where’s my brother?” The man said.
So much for that idea. What kind of an idiot loses his own—
Mathilda feigned her best surprise, putting a hand to her chest and swiveling her head toward Jake. Then she gawked back at the leader.
She widened her eyes for effect. “Your brother, you say?”
The man thrust a finger into her face as he stopped. “Don’t mess with me, woman. I asked you a straight question. He stick around for one of your girls? Something happen to him? Tell me straight.”
“Sir,” Jake said, holding up a hand.
The finger changed directions. “I didn’t ask you nothin’, man. Shut your trap or I’m gonna fill it with dirt.”
Jake pinched his lips so fast Mathilda thought she could hear the meat slapping together.
“Where’s my brother?”
“No idear.”
White light flashed across her eyes as he cracked her one with his knuckles, spinning her around and causing her knees to buckle. The wind rushed out of her chest, and the white powder kicked up by the wind stung her eyes. Blinking the girt away, she pushed herself to her knees.
“You boys fan out. Search every hut. Find him.”
The sounds of crunching gravel split in different directions, but Mathilda couldn’t make headway against the wind enough to clear the pebbles from her eyes. Men sauntering past on their ways to the doors of the rickety one-room shacks her people called home. A pair of brown boots stepped onto the unit at the end where the woman had killed the driver’s brother the day before. But no one lived there. That was her mama’s place, vacated when she’d gone to Jesus of the black lung the year before.
That was why she’d been so angry, really. That Nina had killed that man in her mama’s house. It wasn’t reasonable, she’d only been defending herself, but it was what it was. The man turned the knob, and Matilda’s eyes suddenly jerked to the right. Her head cocked to the side as her forehead wrinkled.
Hm.
Sitting back on her knees with her butt on her heels, eyelids feeling like they could fill a pail with sand, she allowed two handfuls of dirt to wisp into the wind on either side of her as she gasped at the sight between her mama’s house and the one adjacent.
A horse. A cart.
Chapter Fifty-Four
TIME TO MAKE SOME HOLES
54
Nina’s temperature was past melting. Jenna and Scruff had been taken, and she’d spent too much time already letting others decide her destiny. No one else would get in her way until she knew Jenna was alive or dead, and she’d set her own eyes upon her to confirm it.
Two rat-ridden months trekking this shit-eating country side, avoiding these enforcer fucks in the interest of catching the head of the snake unawares he had enemies. Incognito. Two dirt-covered months, passive…while people abuse other people and steal their food and weapons. After those two months, we found a way in via Lawkeeper Jones and then that went to shit, too! Well, I’m sick-and-fucking-tired of passing by in the shadows while these assholes throw women around in the streets… Not enough I get kidnapped by a dick farmer and run across psycho teen…
She’d listened carefully as the truck engine shut off, and the man climbed down from the truck overflowing with assholes. The angle had been pretty shitty, standing about two steps inside the door, peering out the window into the assault of the early morning sun. Even with her SmartGlasses’ filter against the sudden burst of yellow glare, their upper bodies were shrouded in a foggy darkness. She saw Mathilda punched to the ground clearly enough, saw the fear in desperate eyes as they flicked from home to home.
It’s go time, bitches.
Nina set her jaw. When the men fanned out, she stepped back, out of the light cast inside through the window. She peered down at her pulse rifle.
She tapped the meter on the stock. Power.
She thumped the slots next to the discharge coil. Vent.
She thumbed the power level to red. Red is dead.
Beneath the stock, she checked the meter representing the capacity of the surprise she had for the some bitches beneath the pulse ejection tube.
Time for a little field test.
Standing in the shadows, the thump of boots stomping onto the loose boards of the stoop outside caused her heart to jump up another notch. Shadows of the feet appeared beneath the door, and Nina raised the rifle, pointing it at the ceiling, as she began chanting in her mind, psyching her adrenaline up for a run at death.
Today is for me, you sons-a-bitches. There will be no reading of your rights. There will be no hand ties or rides in the back of apprehension vehicles. Today, I am your justice, cunts.
The door crashed open, slamming into the back wall and rattling the hinges. Nina took a long step forward, planted her foot, brought the other one up, and slammed its heel into the center of the intruder’s chest. She flicked the safety on the pistol in her right hand and clutched the rifle under her armpit on her left..
Time to make some holes.
Chapter Fifty-Five
WHERE ARE MY FUCKING FRIENDS?
55
The first man took two flailing steps backward as his arms swung wildly out to his side. His thick body plunged off the stoop and pounded hard onto the dirt road, puffing a plume of white dust into the air. His rifle rattled across the gravel as he heaved to capture his wind.
Front kick, courtesy of Lexi Shaw.
Nina shoved in her earpiece and paced to the door, clutching a weapon in each hand. Squeezing the trigger and punching a pulse bolt into the chest of the man heaving on the ground, she turned.
“Nina Glass. Assault targeting. Assess using threat level to civilians. Engage.”
A grid formed on the lens covering her left eye as the light filter dimmed the glare. A square shot out of the corner of the lens and clicked rapidly along each grid segment until it locked her first target and surrounded it in blinking red.
Taking cover behind the four-by-four post holding up the roof of the front stoop, Nina leveled the rifle. A burning orange l
ight flashed from the launcher beneath the barrel of her pulse weapon and impacted the chest of a man aiming his carbine at one of the townspeople he’d dragged out to a porch across the way. Nina pushed herself more tightly into cover against the pole.
The man swiveled toward Nina as his weapon tumbled from his grip, but she wasn’t worried about him.
He was done.
Reaching to his chest, the tops of his fingers disappeared into the gaping hole the plasma round ate into his torso, spanning out from the center of the wound. He held up his fingers, gaped at their disintegrating tips, and opened his mouth, but his scream was silent as he tumbled to the ground.
One dead asshole…
Nina jerked her head around the pole, and the glasses targeted in the span of half a breath. She pivoted toward the next target. The pistol in her left hand sent a blue light screaming toward a young guy on another porch, but Nina only heard the thud of his body and a grunt because she’d already turned to level her rifle on the next target and fired.
Two dead assholes… three…
The driver raised an antique pistol Nina made a mental note to collect later as she rolled to the ground, came up on one knee, and blew his arm off in a melting mess of electric orange. The wind carried his screams down the dirt road as he stared at the disintegrating stump.
Bleed out, prick.
Springing across the gravel to a porch across the way, she rolled up on one knee behind a pole on that side. A bullet pinged off the pole and sent splinters into her cheek.
She spun around backwards, pivoting from knee to knee, and killed another man across the way.
Four…five…
Bullets rained around her and blades of wood cracked out of the stoop. Nina clenched her teeth as she dove over a corpse she’d created and into the open door beyond, rolling easily to her feet but unable to stand straight for the sudden shock of pain in her side.