Zero City

by neetha Napew

  “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 doorway 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.

  Reaching a ditch opposite the garage, they slid in and splashed quietly through the brackish runoff water, which reeked of sulfur. Using the mirror first, then chancing a direct look, they could see the Hummer parked amid the cold ashes and burned timbers of the building. The wag was a lot more battered than when they had last seen it; the sides scraped, the radio antenna gone, with the spare tire flat and hanging loose on the rim bolted to the chassis.

  Ryan pointed left and right. The others spread out and approached the garage from converging directions. At the doorway, they took positions, listening for sounds, then charged in with blasters at the ready. Jak took the grease pit, Krysty the office, Ryan the tool room. The garage was completely deserted.

  Chewing steadily, Jak went under the chassis of the wag, while Krysty stood guard and Ryan circled the wag, looking for trip wires. In the cargo area, he found the longblasters from the pawnshop, but the med kit and the big M-60 were nowhere in sight, which was expected. Those items were the most valuable.

  In a few moments, Jak came back out. “Clean. You?”

  “Same,” Ryan reported gruffly. “The thief just took what he could carry and left. Probably planning on coming back and getting the rest. We can’t wait for that. Could be days before he returns.”

  “How did he start it?” Krysty asked. “Ah, took the radio fuse and inserted it into the ignition. That was stupe.”

  “Yeah, might have shorted out the engine and blown the whole electrical system,” Ryan countered. “It’s what you do in an emergency situation.”

  “Mebbe was for him,” Jak suggested pensively.

  Sliding in the proper fuse, Ryan hit the ignition and checked the gauges on the dashboard. “At least we know why he abandoned it here. She’s out of gas.”

  Krysty gratefully slid off her backpack, the contents sloshing as it hit the ground. “We got that covered. Doc was smart to hide the extra fuel in the lav.”

  She refueled the wag, as the others kept guard, watching the shop and the steel girders above them for suspicious movement. Some yellow papers blew among the wreckage, then lifted away on a breeze into the sky.

  “Done,” the redhead said, capping the container and placing it in the rear with the rifles.

  “Drive?” Jak asked.

  “We’re too close to the river,” Ryan said. “May as well leave the wag here out of sight of the sec men on the wall. Krysty, take all of the fuses and let’s do a perimeter sweep for footprints.”

  Sure enough, only a few yards away they located tracks marked with black soot from the burned-out school. Following the footprints across a football field and through a dry creekbed, they reached the edge of the river. The clouds overhead were a vile green, slashed with fiery orange. If a storm was coming, it was going to be hell on Earth, and that made them move faster.

  Reaching the concrete dockyards, they noted that the sluggish river from yesterday was now churning madly, whitecaps crashing on the embankments as the water rushed into the east.

  “Scuffle, no, slipped,” Jak corrected, scrutinizing the stony concrete. “Check water.”

  Krysty leaned over the edge. “No sign of a... Wait, there’s the M-60! Oh crap, the barrel’s bent. Must have hit something on the way down.”

  “Useless,” Jak agreed, scanning the river. “No sign kit. Must kept.”

  Feeling the pressure on him, Ryan glanced east and west along the river, both directions equally barren of tracks. Every second made the thief farther away, and increased the risk for Dean. Fast decisions and fast action were called for. And if he had to gamble, so be it. This close to the ville, the logical place to look was the tunnel. Maybe he was a refugee, or a guard. The med kit could be only a hundred yards away in the hands of the sec men, pawing th
rough the instruments wondering what they were.

  “Let’s go,” Ryan said, heading toward the east.

  Following the embankment, they reached the concrete apron that capped the top of the tunnel they had observed the previous day. Long ago, a fence of some kind had skirted the apron to keep the curious from going over the side. But nowadays there were only a few gutted metal posts to show where the safety barrier had once stood.

  Crawling on hands and knees to reduce their exposure, the companions started to creep across the apron when Krysty paused and snapped her fingers for attention. She jerked her head to the left, and they followed her toward a low rise in the concrete.

  An iron grille covered a hole in the concrete. On the other side was a pipe with a ladder going down and out of sight. But more importantly, off to the side, a smudged footprint was cut in two by the grating. Ryan touched it with a fingertip, and the ash came off easily.

  “Ha,” Jak whispered in triumph.

  Looking it over closely, Ryan couldn’t see an exterior locking mechanism, or even hinges. Sliding the sling of his rifle over a shoulder, Ryan braced himself and tried to lift the grating, but it refused to budge. Krysty and Jak joined him at the task, and the trio put their backs into it. But the grille didn’t move an inch. The companions backed off a few yards.

  “That’s where he went,” Ryan said bitterly. “But without explosives we’re not getting in. Either it weighs a ton, or else there’s some trick to holding it in place. Magnetic seal, mebbe. Or hydraulics.”

  “Six inches of thick metal, I’m not sure even a gren would do the trick,” Krysty countered. “Plas-ex, sure. But J.B. has all of that.”

  Ryan frowned. “Didn’t think we’d need any on a hunt.”

  “Window no good,” Jak said, jerking a thumb. “Use front door.”

  After a minute, Ryan nodded his agreement. There didn’t seem to be any other way into the tunnel without alerting the whole ville to their presence. The thief had effectively blocked any possible pursuit from this direction.

  Going to their bellies, the companions crawled forward over the predark concrete, the rough material scratching at their clothes and scraping exposed skin. They stopped at the edge when voices could be heard, men complaining about eating vegetables and some bitch named Patrica. Gently putting down his rifle, Ryan unearthed the plastic mirror and looked around, then withdrew.

  “Same as yesterday,” he mouthed. “Two guards armed with muzzle-loading longblasters, one with a handblaster on his belt. Searchlights on either side behind a sandbag wall. No sign of the med kit.”

  Krysty looked at the low buildings nearby, and discounted them. The thief couldn’t live that close to the ville and stay hidden for very long. And he headed straight here, so the med kit was in the ville somewhere. Probably in the hands of the baron by now, or whoever ruled the place. They knew nothing of what was on the other side of the wall.

  “If they don’t have it,” Krysty whispered, “then where did the thief go?”

  “Let’s ask,” Jak suggested, drawing a gren from a pocket, a predark pineapple from WWII. The color coding showed it was a concussion grenade, used for distractions and evasions. Useless for battle, as the kill range was less than a yard, it was perfect for taking prisoners.

  “Might lose one,” the Cajun said callously, wiggling the pin free. “Mebbe two, but only need one.”

  Considering the matter, Ryan reluctantly vetoed the idea. “Still too damn noisy. If there are more guards inside the tunnel, we’ll have a major fight, with reinforcements coming from the ville. We have got to be quiet.”

  “I say jump them,” Krysty said, drawing a sleek stiletto from her boot. “Toss a blaster far down the road, and when they start forward to investigate, we take them from behind. Knife in the lungs and nobody makes a sound.”

  “Can’t breathe, can’t scream,” Jak agreed, nodding.

  “Sounds good.” Ryan drew his panga, the curved blade streaked with dried blood from the previous night’s interrupted dinner. The sight shocked the man, as he had never gone so long before without cleaning the weapon. He had to take his mind off Dean and concentrate on killing the sec men. Then a familiar rumble sounded from the ruins, and a horn beeped in warning.

  “Shit,” Ryan whispered. “Convoy!”

  The distant rumble of engines became louder, until around the corner lumbered an old WWII jeep jammed full of men. Behind it was a flatbed truck piled with mattresses, and lastly a battered U.S. Mail truck, the driver wearing a gas mask.

  “Exhaust-pipe leak?” Krysty guessed.

  Scowling, Ryan said nothing, and Jak continued to unwrap the electrical tape from the handle of the gren.

  The convoy of predark vehicles pulled to a ragged stop in front of the tunnel, and the drivers got out. The tunnel guards walked over to greet the newcomers, and soon the two groups were smoking pipes and swapping canteens. From the reactions, some of the containers didn’t contain water. The desert breezes carried away most of the conversation, with only scraps audible to the companions.

  “...bodies slashed to ribbons...”

  “...blasters...”

  “...muties had a real party last night...”

  “...enough for a new greenhouse...”

  His ruby eyes going wide, Jak curled a lip in disgust. Krysty turned slightly pale, and Ryan felt sick to his stomach. The local baron was using people as fertilizer in greenhouses? Part of him acknowledged the intelligence of the notion, turning liabilities into assets, but the whole thing was a bit too close to cannibalism for him.

  Ryan motioned for a retreat, and the companions crawled back to the river some fifty yards away, where they could converse in private.

  “Gaia, eating their own dead,” Krysty said.

  With a curt hand motion, Ryan interrupted. “Doesn’t matter. This is even better than questioning the guards. This is our way in and out of the ville. Everybody agrees the thief must have sold the kit to the baron, right?” Brisk nods answered the question. “Okay, then, so do we. Here’s the plan.”

  “HEY, HARRY,” a driver called out, leaning his long-blaster against a truck, the hot engine under the battered hood ticking loudly as it cooled. “You gotta see this!”

  Puffing on his corncob pipe, Harry started over as Trevor began to unfold a glossy sheet of paper. “What-cha got, Trevor?”

  “Found this on the wall of a brake shop. Not bad, eh?”

  A smile growing wide, Harry gazed at the naked woman, dressed in lace and bound in leather. He whistled in appreciation. “Goddamn, that’s hot!”

  “ ‘Darla Crane,’ “ the driver read off the back. “Gotta love them redheads.”

  “Nyah, blondes do it for me,” George said.

  “Long as they don’t carry knives,” Phil added, leaning against the tiled wall and tapping his pipe out in a palm. “Pass her over, boys, give me a gander.”

  “Just don’t drool.” Harry laughed, ambling closer.

  “And give it back!” Trevor added angrily.

  Just then, the sound of a roaring engine broke the silence of the predark ruins.

  “Another one of ours coming in?” George asked.

  Dropping the poster, Phil grabbed his blaster and cocked the hammer. Only the Wolf Pack got bolt-action blasters, and nobody had autofires anymore. But these muzzle-loaders still killed at a hundred paces, even if they did make enough smoke to blind a man.

  “Ours?” Trevor asked, drawing his revolver. As a driver, he got special considerations from the baron. “Hell, no. We’re lucky to have these three rolling at the same time. Damn rust buckets are always breaking down.”

  The noise drastically increased, and a huge vehicle erupted around the corner, sand and dust spraying off the tires as it spun in a circle in the intersection. The driver seemed to be lost, confused or insane.

  “This way!” George called out, buttoning his fatigues while waving a hand. “Run for the tunnel. We’ll hold off the wolves!”

  Obed
iently, the wag started forward and they caught sight of the driver, an albino with snow-white hair and eyes like rubies.

  “Mutie!” Henry screamed fearfully.

  Now the driver spun the vehicle in a figure-eight pattern, kicking up a tremendous dust cloud. The sec men covered their faces with neckerchiefs as the desert wind blew the choking cloud over the tunnel opening.

  Then the driver slammed on the brakes, the nose of the wag dipping toward the ground and the wheels squealing in protest. As it bounced to a halt, the albino drew his mammoth blaster, the long barrel gleaming in the dim daylight. The driver fired twice, the sounds echoing down the tunnel. Oddly, the slugs hit the tunnel wall, cracking the tiles but nothing more. The pale stranger stomped on the accelerator, the big wag spinning its tires in the sand, raising an even bigger cloud than before as it sped away, zigzagging wildly back and forth down the road.

  Leveling the museum-piece rifle, Harry eased back the iron hammer, checked the flint and pulled the trigger all in one smooth motion. Flame and smoke thundered from the pitted muzzle of the two-yard-long blaster. In spite of the moving target, the miniball scored a direct hit on the military wag, but only ricocheted off the armored side. Then the wag took a corner and was gone.

  “You muck-eating idiot!” Phil cursed, slapping down the flintlock rifle. “He wasn’t going to stop with you shooting at him!”

  “He was a mutie!” Harry replied hotly. “Whiter than milk! Probably a stickie from the waist down, or something even worse!”

  “Don’t care if he was part blood rat. Stop the wag, then kill the driver, fool! How many times have I told you that?”

  “Son of a bitch!” George coughed, brushing out his bushy beard. “Let’s go get the bastard!”

  “No need to chase him,” Phil said, holstering his revolver. “He can hide from the wolves during the day, but when night falls and the bats start hunting, he’ll come crawling back. Tomorrow, his ass is ours.”

  “And then we’ll make him pay,” Harry added grimly.

  “Yeah.” Wiping the sand off his pockmarked face, George gave a guttural laugh. “They don’t all have to be alive. Baron needs corpses, too.”