“How do you mean?” Blade probed.
“The Dragons control Miami,” Ted stated.
“Ernestine mentioned the Dragons,” Hickok brought up. “She said the head honchos are mutants.”
Ted nodded, his lips compressing.
“Only the leaders of the Dragons are mutants?” Blade stressed.
“That’s what everyone says,” Ted replied. “But very few have ever seen them. They’re called the Masters, and they formed the Dragons about four decades ago.”
“How many Masters are there?” Blade queried.
“I don’t know,” Ted said. “Only the top Dragons have contact with the Masters. No one else meets them and lives.”
“Go on about the Dragons,” Blade prompted. “You said they control Miami. How?”
“Drugs mainly,” Ted said.
“Drugs?”
“Yeah. You know. Grass. Coke. Other hard stuff like heroin, opium, and morphine. You name it, the Dragons supply it. Getting high is a way of life nowadays. Everyone does dope,” Ted disclosed.
“Not everyone,” Clara amended bitterly.
“We didn’t want our children to have their minds destroyed by the drugs,” Ted said. “So we up and left Miami and homesteaded this place.
It’s been rough, but we’re making a go of it.”
“I’m puzzled,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi interjected. “These drugs you mention. Why do so many people use them?”
“Like I said. They do it to get high.”
Rikki gazed skyward. “High?”
“Yeah, man. High means to feel good. To get a buzz on. To pack up all your cares and woes,” Ted elaborated.
“I still don’t understand,” Rikki said.
“Have you ever used drugs?” Clara inquired, staring at each of the Warriors.
Blade shook his head. “The only drugs we know are those used by the Family Healers, and they’re all medicinal herbs.”
“Do your people drink alcohol?” Ted questioned.
“The Tillers concoct a home brew for special occasions,” Blade answered. “But no one in the Family drinks on a regular basis, if that’s what you mean. The Elders would not tolerate alcoholism.”
“Well, that ain’t the way it is in Miami,” Ted revealed.
“Those who don’t do drugs do the booze. Findin’ a sober person is next to impossible.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Blade said.
“A little,” Ted admitted. “But not by much. You haven’t been there. The rotten pushers are everywhere, and every pusher is a Dragon.”
“What’s a pusher?” Hickok wanted to know.
Ted did a double take. “A pusher pushes the dope.”
“They sell the drugs,” Clara clarified.
“How many pushers are there?” Blade asked.
“Thousands,” Ted replied. “And they’re just the lower-level Dragons.
There’s a whole chain of command from the pushers to the Masters.”
“Do you know how many Dragons there are, all told?” Blade inquired.
“No,” Ted admitted. “But if you wanted a guess, I’d say there’s seven thousand Dragons, maybe more.”
Hickok whistled. “Whew! That’s a heap of opposition.”
“We’re not here to deal with the lower-level Dragons,” Blade said. “The pushers are none of our concern. We’re after the Masters.”
“If you want my advice,” Ted offered, “I’d say go home. Go back to where you came from. There’s no way you can take on the Dragons. Not with just three of you.”
“We’ve tackled tough odds before,” Hickok observed.
“Are there others like yourselves?” Blade queried. “People who don’t like the Dragons, who don’t like the drugs?”
“Some,” Ted responded. “But not a whole lot. Most of the decent people left ages ago.”
“What about the authorities?” Blade asked. “Doesn’t Miami have a police force?”
“Yeah,” Ted said, his lips curling downward. “The Narcs.”
“How effective are these Narcs against the Dragons?” Blade asked.
Ted snorted. “Effective? You’ve got to be kidding! The Narcs are in league with the Dragons.”
“How can the police force be in league with the Dragons?”
“I might be able to answer that,” Clara said. “It all goes back to the war.
An aunt of mine told me the story when I was a young girl. The federal government, as you probably know, resettled in the Midwest after evacuating a lot of folks from the east. The state governments fell apart.
Florida was no different than the rest. With the government gone, the police and the sheriff departments broke down. Miami was a wide-open city. There was no one in control. The drug gangs took over.”
“Where did these drug gangs come from?” Blade inquired.
“They were always around,” Clara said. “Even before the war. The drug business in the United States was a big operation. A lot of the drug smugglers used Florida as the entry point for the drugs they brought in from other countries. Miami was a hot spot of drug activity. But before the war, at least, the authorities kept a lid on it.”
“And after the war, with the collapse of the government, the drug organizations moved in to fill the vacuum,” Blade deduced.
Clara nodded. “You’ve got it. For forty years after the war, according to my aunt, there were three or four major drug dealers fighting for the upper hand. And then the Masters showed up.”
“From where?”
“No one knows,” Clara said. “The Masters took over the largest drug gang in Miami, and within a couple of years they had wiped out all their opposition. They named themselves the Dragons, and they’ve ruled Miami ever since.”
“The Dragons control all of the land from Fort Lauderdale south,” Ted added. “Alligator Alley is their boundary line.”
“Alligator Alley?” Blade repeated.
“The Everglades Parkway,” Ted explained. “It runs from Naples in the west to Fort Lauderdale in the east. Anything south of the Parkway is in Dragon territory.”
“And they rule it with an iron fist,” Clara went on.
“They pass laws. They appoint people to posts like mayor or councilperson. And they set up their own police force, the Narcs.” Ted laughed bitterly.
“What’s so funny?” Blade questioned.
“The Narcs,” Ted responded. “The Masters have a warped sense of humor. You see, before the war, back in the days when there really was law enforcement, the Narcs were the police who went after the pushers and the dealers. The Narcs were the tough officers who put the drug-runners out of business.” He paused. “But after the Dragons took over, they made drugs legal. All drugs. They set up a system of big-time dealers and thousands of pushers. And they made it illegal for anyone to interfere with the drug trade. If a pusher tried to sell crack or smack to Leo or Ernestine, and if I tried to stop it, I’d be arrested by the Narcs. They’re the so-called official police force, hand-picked by the Dragons. And the Masters must have named them Narcs as a play on words.”
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, who had been listening attentively, gazed at Ted.
“What did you mean earlier about getting high? What is this ‘high’ you speak of?”
“Getting high. Getting stoned. It’s all the same,” Ted said. “The drugs do things to your head, to your body. They make some people feel good, but there’s always a price to pay. The drugs can destroy the mind and the body. They mess up your head. The strong stuff makes you hallucinate.
You can go off the deep end just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“Why do people use drugs?” Rikki asked.
Ted shrugged. “They like the buzz they get. They like to escape from reality.”
“This is most bewildering,” Rikki confessed. “Why would anyone want to escape from reality? Attuning our souls to cosmic reality is one of the purposes of our very existence.”
“You’re a weird one,” Ted remarked
.
“Ted!” Clara said.
“Our souls should be devoted to perceiving the nature of spirit reality,” Rikki elaborated. “Without a spirit anchor, our lives are like a piece of dead wood floating on a pond, tossed every which way by the currents and the wind, without direction, without purpose.”
“Are you a preacher of some kind?” Ted inquired.
“I am a martial artist,” Rikki answered. “A perfecting swordmaster. I have devoted my life to the principles of Zen and the Circles.”
“What in the world is Zen?”
“Zen is the art of finding your true spirit center,” Rikki detailed.
“Through Zen, we attain a state of intuitive enlightment.”
Ted shook his head. “I never heard of it.”
“We believe in the Bible,” Clara mentioned. “Do all of you practice this Zen?”
“No,” Blade replied. “The Family Elders encourage each one of us to seek our own spiritual path. We are not forced to follow any one religion.
We have Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, and others. Many follow the teachings of the three blue Circles. Rikki happens to prefer Zen.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Ted said.
“No.”
“You haven’t told us exactly where you’re from,” Ted noted. “And I can understand the reason. The less we know, the better. But why are you here? Why are you after the Masters?”
“Because the Masters are after us,” Blade divulged.
“You’ve had a run-in with the Masters?” Ted queried in surprise.
“Not yet,” Blade said. “Let me explain. A while back we were in Las Vegas. We became embroiled in a mob war. And before we left, we heard a story, a very interesting story, about the Dragons. We were told that the Dragons intend to eradicate our Family. After the Elders were informed, they decided to send three Warriors to Florida to see if the story was true.
If so, we’re to prevent the Dragons from carrying out their threat.”
“We’re gonna kick us some butt,” Hickok said, grinning.
“How did you know the Dragons were based in Florida?” Ted questioned.
“We’d heard about the Dragons several times before,” Blade disclosed.
“They have a formidable reputation. From what you’ve told me, I suspect their drug dealings extend to other areas of the country. Some of the rumors we heard were incorrect. For instance, I was told that all of the Dragons are mutants, but now we know that’s not the case.”
“Why are the Dragons after your Family?” Clara asked.
“We don’t know,” Blade said, his tone lowering, “but we’ll find out.”
Clara studied the trio for a moment. “Do the three of you always work together?”
“Sometimes we go on runs together,” Blade said. “The Warriors are divided into Triads, and Hickok and I usually work with a friend named Geronimo. Bui Geronimo is overseeing the Warriors in our absence to give him the added experience.”
Hickok chuckled. “That was my idea. Since I’ve been picked to head the Warriors whenever the Big Guy is in California, I figured Geronimo should be my second-in-command. He didn’t like the notion of being left behind.”
“Rikki has been with us to Denver, St. Louis, and Seattle,” Blade mentioned. “He knows the score.”
“It sounds like you’ve been everywhere,” Ted commented.
“We get around.”
Ted leaned forward. “What’s it like out there? We never hear much about the outside.”
“The country is divided up into factions,” Blade expounded. “As Clara pointed out, the government of the United States reorganized in the midwest and became known as the Civilized Zone. It’s one of the largest factions in terms of area. The Civilized Zone includes the former states of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, the northern half of Texas, New Mexico, and portions of Arizona. Denver, Colorado, is the capital.”
“What about the other factions?”
“The state of California survived the war intact,” Blade said. “California has a standing army and a navy. They’ve been able to protect themselves from the scavengers, raiders, and looters. In fact, the governor of California proposed the formation of the Freedom Force.”
“What’s that?” Ted asked.
“The Force is the special strike squad set up to deal with threats to the Freedom Federation.”
“The what?”
“Maybe I’d better back up a bit,” Blade stated. “The Civilized Zone, California, and five other factions have banded together into the Freedom Federation.”
“What five other factions?” came from Clara.
“There are the Flathead Indians in Montana, the Cavalry in the Dakota Territory, and three groups from Minnesota—the Clan, the Moles, and the Family.”
“So you’re from Minnesota?”
“Now you know,” Blade said. “Anyway, as the head of the Warriors and the head of the Force, I spend my time bouncing back and forth between Minnesota and California.”
“And when he’s not at the Home, I handle runnin’ the Warriors,” Hickok interjected.
“Lucky us,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi quipped.
“What about the rest of the country?” Ted inquired.
Blade sighed. “It’s a mess. Barbaric. Savage. The Russians control a corridor in the eastern half, sort of a belt from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. Chicago is under an autocratic group called the Technics. St. Louis is the territory of a biker gang, the Leather Knights. And Houston is run by androids.”
“Androids?”
“Artificial men and women,” Blade divulged. “They treat humans as inferior life-forms.”
“Incredible,” Ted commented.
“I don’t know about the rest of what was once America,” Blade said.
“Any area not under the control of a faction is designated as part of the Outlands. And as far as the rest of the world is concerned, all we have to go on are a few rumors.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Clara observed.
“What?”
“If you heard about the Dragons in—where was it?”
“Las Vegas, Nevada.”
“Yes. Why didn’t your Federation just send in an army to take care of the Dragons? Why are only the three of you here?”
“Good question,” Blade said. “There are several reasons. First, I didn’t inform the other Federation members about the threat from the Dragons.”
“Why not?”
“The threat was directed against the Family. I relayed the information to the Family Elders, and they agreed we should deal with the situation ourselves. The Federation has enough problems to deal with. Secondly, we couldn’t be sure the report was legitimate. We had to confirm the Dragons existed. Third, the Warriors are pledged to defend the Family and the Home from all danger. This is rightfully our job.”
Clara nodded.
“So we were dropped off by one of the Hurricanes,” Blade concluded, “and here we are.”
“What’s a Hurricane?” Ted queried.
“It’s a jet with the ability to take off and land like a helicopter,” Blade detailed. “California owns a pair. They’re at my disposal as head of the Force, and I use one of them to shuttle to the Home at least once a month.”
“I’ve always wanted to fly,” Ted commented.
“So what’s your next move?” Clara asked.
“Tomorrow we go into Miami.”
Clara frowned. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourselves into.”
“There’s no turning back,” Blade said. “We have a week before we rendezvous with the Hurricane at our pickup point. Thanks to you, we’ve verified the Dragons exist. Now we need to find out why they want to destroy our Family. We have to track down the Masters.”
“And then?”
Hickok answered for the Warriors by grinning and placing his hands on his Colt Python revolvers. “We teach these critters the error
of their ways.”
Chapter Four
“What do you make of it, pard?”
“I don’t know,” Blade responded.
“Should we intervene?” Rikki asked.
“Not yet. Let’s listen and see what’s going on,” Blade directed. He stared over the rusted chain-link fence at the dilapidated, weed-choked playground bordering the alley.
“Why are they chasin’ him?” Hickok wondered aloud.
Blade’s eyes narrowed as he watched the gang of ten youths pursue a solitary boy of ten or twelve around the playground. No one else was in sight. The gang consisted of older youths, 16 and up. They were attired in black leather clothing, some with miniature metal spikes adorning their shoulders and sleeves. Their hair was invariably past their shoulders and dyed different colors. One female member sported hair arranged with alternate stripes of purple, orange, and yellow.
Hickok had noticed her too. “Do you see that one? It looks like she was stirrin’ paint with her head.”
The gang was laughing and taunting the younger boy, circling him and shoving him, preventing him from fleeing.
“What’s the matter, Stevey?” declared a hefty youth with a Mohawk haircut as he stepped in front of the panting boy.
Stevey halted, breathing deeply, obviously afraid.
“Didn’t you hear me, Stevey?” Mohawk demanded. The gang formed a loose line enclosing the boy.
“Let me go!” Stevey blurted out.
Mohawk laughed. “Did you hear Stevey? He wants us to let him go.”
As if it was a great joke, the gang cackled.
Mohawk poked Stevey in the chest with the index finger of his right hand. “You ain’t going nowhere, chump!”
“Please!” Stevey cried. He was a skinny boy who barely filled his tattered jeans and green shirt.
“Please!” Mohawk mimicked the boy.
“I want to go home!”
“You want to run to Daddy and Mommy!” Mohawk snapped. “Well, your ass is ours!”
“I haven’t done nothin’!”
“Oh?” Mohawk gazed at his peers. “He says he ain’t done nothin’!”
Some of the gang snickered.
Miami Run Page 4