by James Axler
The middle-aged man smiled gently. "Nothing, my son. Nothing."
Rising from his chair, the baron started to pace the room. "The searchlights, which keep away the muties, also attract more people. Both good things. However, a larger population means more noise, and more activity, which attracts the muties. It's a vicious circle. Our only defense weakens us and makes us more of a juicy target. For ten months, we've been walking the razor's edge. I took the ville from the monster who controlled it before. There are no more random beheadings, no more rape or cannibalism. We have greenhouses and grow enough food for an army. We have trials, and gaudy houses. The population has tripled since I took over. Tripled!"
Gunther stopped at the mirrored wall and toyed with the teakwood box for a moment before replacing it on the shelf. "We have over a thousand people here, son. That's bigger than most predark cities. Clean food, and we burn wood to make charcoal to purify the mountain water. Nobody has gotten ill from the river for months. But we must have those blasters to kill the bats! If the lights should ever fail during an attack, our people would be slaughtered."
"We could use alcohol bombs to set fire to the whole city," Leonard stated, then, seeing his father's darkening face and lashing hair, quickly relented. "Perhaps not."
"Not if we want the weapons. And that has always been the twix, and we must soon decide. The bats or the blasters. It seems we can't have both." Strichland paused, knowing this request wouldn't please his adopted son. But it was time for him to learn that running a ville was often bloody work. "Get the old man."
Leonard stayed in his chair, breathing heavily, then stood and saluted. "I understand. Yes, sir."
Going to the door, Leonard stuck his head outside. Minutes later, two burly sec men dragged a scrawny man into the room. They efficiently tied the near corpse to a stout wooden chair, and upon a signal from Leonard went back outside.
Drawing a revolver, Gunther extracted every bullet but one. Spinning the cylinder, he aimed and pulled the trigger. Harvin jumped involuntarily at the click.
The baron spun it again. "My patience is gone, old man. Tell me where the weapons are."
"Never," the former baron said.
"Then where are the bats hidden, or how can we control them? Colored flags? Special clothes? Some odor, hand signals, whistles?"
For a brief instant, Gunther thought the former baron registered surprise, but then realized it was just a tick brought on by the starvation and torture.
"Tell me!" Strichland shouted, dry firing the revolver again and again.
"Never tell you." Harvin cackled, smiling toothlessly. "Took my ville, but you can't keep it. Keep it. That's a joke. Hee-hee."
Leonard lashed out and slapped the bound man, teeth and spittle spraying across the room. "Obey my father, or die!"
Bleeding freely, the former baron sat there with his head tilted. Then ever so slowly he turned to stare at the hated usurper, the fire of reason burning bright in his face.
"You have trained the little bastard well, thief. He's a most fitting son for a traitor," Harvin said in a clear voice. "And while you managed to steal the ville, you'll never keep it."
Then madness welled within the man. After so many months, he simply couldn't hold the secret in any longer. "Only Harold and I know how to control the guardians!" he shrieked insanely. "And Harold's dead! Which leaves me. Eventually, the muties will get past whatever you're using to stop them, and then it's your day in the barrel."
"You lose," he said, sneering in triumph. "Can't keep it."
Father and son stared in astonishment at each other, then both slowly smiled.
"Excellent." Gunther sighed. "I knew keeping that gimp around would pay off."
"Thank you so much for helping us," Leonard said, feeling a wonderful rush of power from the terror of the old man.
"No, impossible," Harvin whispered, going deathly pale. "You told me months ago that Harold was dead. Showed me his corpse!"
"A corpse," Gunther corrected with a smirk. "An invader who resembled your friend, nothing more."
"No…"
"Harold lives," Gunther stated, coming closer. "And now that I know he has the secret, I have no need of you." Cracking the cylinder of the blaster, the baron loaded every hole.
Sweat began to run off the man. Harvin pleaded,
"No, wait! I can tell you where the weapon caches are! And how to get past the traps!"
"Don't care." Closing the blaster with a snap of the wrist, Gunther spun the cylinder for no reason, placed the muzzle to the old man's chest and shot him dead.
Feeling ill, Leonard stared at the corpse. He had been an enemy of the ville and deserved to die. It was a job to be done, and he did what he had to. Yet there was an odd, almost sexual energy to the act of murder. This contradiction confused him greatly.
"Send out a dozen…no, twenty sec men," the baron ordered. "And tell them not to come back until they have Harold in custody, alive and unharmed. Mind you, he's useless chilled."
"The sarge may be outside the walls," Leonard suggested. "We've had trouble finding him before."
"Then send fifty men, with bolt-action rifles from my private armory and ten live rounds."
"Ten!"
"We can afford it. Besides, if he is out among the muties, our troops will have to defend themselves, and every dead mutie is a point in our favor." Then he added, "But first and most importantly, find Harold!"
HAROLD MOVED through the dank pipeway with the surety of a bullet in a barrel. Feeder pipes lined the main conduit, with rusty water dripping constantly from the corroded openings. His footing was treacherous as the curved walls were slimy beneath his hands, but this was the way back home, and every step made his heart feel lighter. He had something better than blasters. He had a doctor's bag. That saved lives. Lots better than killing. The voices in his head agreed wholeheartedly and complimented him constantly, sometimes painfully loud.
He had really tried to take the big blaster off the top of the war wag, but he couldn't figure out how to free the ammo belt. After dragging it behind him for a block, Harold had tossed it away. Besides, the long dangling belt was too noisy. Never sneak in here with that.
Scampering noises sounded from the darkness ahead of him, and Harold quickly reached inside his shirt and blew on the silent whistle. He felt a stab inside his ears as always, and the scampering sounds quickly departed. The man had no idea how the broken whistle could chase away rats. The voices suggested they had a better range of hearing than humans, but his chest started to pound as he struggled to understand the odd words, and the voices soon ceased, replaced by soothing silence.
After a while, the drain branched into a full six-way intersection, and Harold carefully jumped across the gap into the next tunnel. Staying to the left, he counted aloud on fingers and toes until reaching his right pinkie toe, and climbed a ladder set into the concrete wall. Pushing aside the iron grating, he eased out of the storm drain and glanced around to make sure nobody could see him.
Over by the big tunnel that went under the dead river, twin searchlights swept the sky. The air was foggy with the reflection of the powerful beams. Climbing out, the hunchback eased the grating quietly back into position, then, staying close to the wall of cars, he kept low until finding the faded orange bumper sticker. There were no others like it anywhere on the wall. One had been similar, and in a fit of brilliance he had removed the bumper so as not to become confused between the two. But then Harold spent days trying to figure out if he'd removed the correct sticker. Life was so confusing sometimes, and the voices in his head didn't always help, even though they said different.
Grabbing the handle of the Pontiac, he eased the back door open, lifting it slightly so the metal wouldn't squeal. Stepping inside, he carefully locked it behind him and started the labyrinthine return to the ville on the other side. From this point onward, Harold knew he was safe. Nobody could follow him through the wall. Not even the rats.
Chapter Eleven
> The cloudy yellow sky was just beginning to lighten in color, slashes of fiery orange streaking across the murky gray atmosphere as dawn struggled into existence. The front door to the government building opened on freshly oiled hinges, and Ryan stepped onto the broken sidewalk.
"Good enough," he declared as the rest of the companions joined him outside. They had spent the night in hurried preparation, blocking the exposed stairwell solid with office furniture, doing the same to the elevator shaft and nailing all of the office doors shut, and driving extra nails through the middle of the wooden panels so that anybody trying to crash through would be badly stabbed. Forming a semicircle across the lobby was a six-foot-tall barricade of metal file cabinets stuffed with books, and backed with the couches. It made a pretty good fire wall, and helped muffle any lights or noises. There was still a lot of work to be done, but it was a good start. Purely precautionary, but experience taught hard lessons over the years. Better safe than dead, as the Trader always used to say.
Unfortunately, Dean was no better by morning, if anything a bit worse, and the necessity of reclaiming the med kit had been escalated to a priority.
Walking over to the garage, Jak knelt on the sandy ground, running his fingers over the faint indentations across the ground. A breeze ruffled his snowy hair as the Cajun stood and walked into the street.
"One man, big," he said. "Walks funny, mebbe wounded. Came from down block."
"He came from the ville," Ryan answered curtly. "Can you track the Hummer?"
Snorting, Jak glanced over a shoulder, his ruby-red eyes deadly serious. "Track through monsoon for Dean."
"Who's to stay?" Krysty asked, shifting her backpack.
"J.B. and Doc," said Ryan, sliding the Steyr off his shoulder and checking the clip.
Ramming the cylinder back into the blaster, he slapped the bolt. "J.B., think you can fix that skylight before we get back with the wag?"
"No problem," the Armorer replied, half of a cigar clenched between his teeth. He discovered the cigar in a humidor in some executive's office, and for the hundredth time since the previous night he started to light the thing, but forced his hand away. "Found some replacement glass for the windows and such in the basement. Won't take me more than a hour."
"Good. Doc, take the roof as lookout. Stay sharp, but don't fire at anything, even another of those damn mu-ties."
"Until young Master Dean is mobile," Doc rumbled, "we shall be the most devout of cowards."
"J.B., when the roof is done, spell Mildred. Make her get some sleep. She's got to be rested and alert."
"Just in case," J.B. said. "I understand. No prob. Get the med kit and chill the bastard who stole it from under our noses."
"That's my plan."
"Wind is increasing," Krysty warned as thunder rumbled softly in the mottled heavens. "And the damn tracks are half-gone already."
"Got go," Jak urged, stepping away.
"J.B., Doc, if we have any live company when we return," Ryan said, his voice implying it was highly unlikely, "we'll use the standard a-b-c codes."
"Gotcha." J.B. clearly remembered when they first invented the alphabet code. If one of their group showed up with strangers, how could the rest know if the newcomers were okay or armed aggressors? The solution was as simple as the problem was basic. If the companions identified themselves, or the stranger, with any name starting with the letter a—Alfred, Alexander, anything like that—it meant there was no danger. All clear. If they used a b name, it meant bad news. They were being forced to comply with the folks they were with. And if they used a c name, it meant the whole thing was crap, kill everybody, including the companion.
"Godspeed, sir," Doc said solemnly. "My prayers go with you."
"I don't think your God would approve of my plans for today," Ryan said, turning to the street.
Down the block, Krysty stood attentively on the corner, while Jak was inspecting the crumpled ruin of a mailbox.
"Freshly sideswiped," he said, then studying the ground and faced north. "Hummer went this way."
Spreading out so they wouldn't present a group target to any snipers, the companions followed the main street until Ryan found a clear set of tracks in some smooth stretch of sand.
"East," he said, the butt of the Steyr resting on his hip.
Cutting through a brick-lined alleyway, they disturbed a nest of green-skinned lizards who turned as pale as sand and scattered at their intrusion. Climbing over a low mound of rubble from a fallen cinder-block wall, they proceed across a bare parking lot, the ancient black macadam partially hidden under the windblown sand and tufts of dead weeds sprouting from the many cracks in the black surface. The lot was edged with a short concrete wall, the kiosk smashed under a fallen telephone pole. No tracking skills were needed to spot the fresh tire tracks in the churned masonry.
"Did he know the Hummer was tough enough to take the wall," Ryan asked, "or was he driving with the lights off?"
"Headlight switch is clearly marked on the dashboard," Krysty said, watching the rooftops for any suspicious movements. "Especially at night, they glow. No wait, shit, I busted one of them yesterday."
"Even so, scared we following," Jak offered, not sounding convinced by the suggestion. Then he pointed. "Ammo box."
Ryan walked over and picked up the green metal container. It was from the redoubt. "Must have lost it when he took the wall."
"Rolled down street. Couldn't do if driving all over place," Jak said thoughtfully. It was an unusually long speech for the normally monosyllabic Cajun. "Damage to box?"
Ryan turned it over in his hands. "Dents and scrapes, but it wasn't hit by the Hummer if that's what you mean. Army ammo boxes are tough, but the five-ton wag would flatten this like a soup can."
Resting a hand on her canteen to stop it from bouncing as she walked, Krysty started toward the intersection. "Then he went this way."
For the next ten blocks, they proceeded quickly, following a set of disappearing tire tracks to a scraped wall, and through the center of a department store, the huge glass window on one side stoved in, and the other side busted out.
"Driving like a lunatic," Ryan observed, treading carefully over the glass shards. "Must have known he was safe by now. We only had the one wag."
"Afraid somebody else might see him?" Krysty suggested. "Mebbe he's a solo who just wandered by, or a rogue living in the ruins, avoiding the sec men of the ville."
"Excited. First time stealing," Jak said, brushing off his knees. "Kid, mebbe."
"Who got past a trap from J.B.?"
The Cajun shrugged in reply.
Too many questions, not enough info. Ryan hated mysteries. Give him a good standup fight any day. Checking a side street, the Deathlands warrior saw that the soft surface was smooth and untouched. "Nothing," he reported to the others.
"Over here," Krysty said, stepping through the ruins of a wooden fence. "Our thief was driving like he was being chased."
"Muties?" Jak suggested, staying close to the woman.
"Or the wolves. Mebbe he was driving like this so the wolves could follow him to the muties," Ryan said slowly, keeping a watch on a dark hole in a broken wall. "Give them something to feed on and leave him alone."
"Like pets?" Jak looked disgusted.
"Not all muties are bad," Krysty said sharply, her animated hair moving about her shoulders and face.
Following the tire tracks through the sand, Ryan took point, and, rounding a corner found himself before a block-long three-story building. It was a school of some kind with a tilted flag pole standing in the front, and an empty parking lot to the east side. The front and side of the structure was marked with bullet holes, the ground churned from explosives, but smoothed again by the wind. The windows were gone, blackened holes with the sky visible where a roof should have been.
Taking refuge around the corner, they used the mirror in turns to study the building. The tire tracks of the Hummer led straight to the side of the building where a gaping d
oorway stood more than large enough to drive the military wag through.
"Garage?" Jak asked.
Ryan nodded. "Looks like."
"I think we found them," Krysty said confidently. "Looks like a public school. Definitely not private. Those are always surrounded by high walls to keep out the riffraff."
"Must have been a hell of a fight," Ryan added, imagining the battle in his mind. "Blasters, Molotov cocktails and some C-4 bombs. Went hand to hand over there."
"Are those arrows in that fence?"
"Check. Somebody ran out of ammo."
"Five, six months ago," Jak mused. "Depending on rain."
"Think the defenders were fighting the muties?"
Baring his teeth, Ryan exhaled and tried not to think of the passing of time. "Muties? Well, I sure as hell hope there's nothing else in this hellhole that can attack a third-story window."
"Don't seem to be any sec men on patrol," Krysty commented, angling the mirror. "Area looks empty."
"No snipers or lookouts," Jak agreed, studying the rooftops while unfolding the foil on one of his precious last sticks of Army chewing gum. He folded it in two and started to chew with his mouth closed. Breakfast had been cold wolf, and his tongue tasted as if something had died there.
"Let's take no chances," Ryan told them, the hairs on the back of his neck stirring. He slicked them down with a palm. Something was wrong here; he could feel it. He just didn't know what exactly. "Tracks leading to a burned-out school with nobody around. Smells bad to me. Could be a trap, and we know these folks are tricky. We'll do a tight perimeter sweep, single file, two-yard spread. If there's no activity, we go inside."
"If this is a trap," Krysty stated, taking her weapon in a double hand grip, "then they'll want us alive, which gives us a tremendous edge in chilling them. Because we're only interested in the kit. Don't give a rat's ass about them."
Jak held up a restraining hand. "Wait for wind," he said slowly. "Cover sound of boots. Wait…now."
Moving fast through the ruins outside the parking lot, the trio kept low. A lizard eating a tarantula darted away at their passage, but nothing else responded to their presence. No barking dogs, no gunshots, no cries of alarm.