Zero City

by neetha Napew

  “Never considered the possibility he wouldn’t believe us,” Ryan said, sounding annoyed. “Stupe.”

  Spotting an Uzi on the table, Krysty checked it over to make sure it was a 9 mm, then slid the spare ammo clips in her bag for J.B. Ryan slid his panga into its sheath and took the Uzi itself.

  “Well, we can’t uncover,” the woman said. “It would take forever to get the strips right again. Want to try and capture another one alive? Mebbe we’ll have better luck with the next guy.”

  “Don’t believe in luck,” he said, awkwardly setting the Uzi for full-auto with one hand. “Besides, we can’t risk it. The baron or a sec boss has got to notice that something is odd soon, and then it’s show time.”

  Moving to the front of the store, they took positions near the front door and watched the street and corner. Dust devils danced along the gutters, a steady stream of sand blowing past them. It was like looking at a river.

  “Gaia!” Krysty said, spinning on the man and staring at his face in frustration. “We are idiots!”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Everything is going according to plan.”

  “Your eye.”

  Ryan touched his good eye, then scowled under his mask. “None of them have patches. They’ll spot me for a phony immediately.”

  “Just a minute.” The redhead went into the back room, then came out and checked behind the counter. “Ah, knew there had to be some in stock. Here.”

  He took the item and unfolded them. Sunglasses. They would cut down his vision, but it was their best bet. Sliding them on, he tucked the ends under the wrappings and shook his head violently.

  “They’re not coming off,” Krysty said, brushing back her loose strand of hair again.

  “Good.” Peeling back the rags on his wrist, Ryan glanced at his chron. “Too long. They’re taking too long.”

  “Prime the pump?” she asked, raising her shoe box.

  “Use this,” he said, giving her the Uzi. “You shoot, I’ll do the rest. Haven’t seen any women guards yet.”

  “Agreed.” Stepping outside, Krysty fired a burst into the air, and Ryan yelled as if gut shot. Then the woman peppered the front of the bank with the rest of the clip, and they ducked back inside the store.

  Seconds later, armed men poured into the street by the dozens. Some hit the ground while others spread out in a defensive pattern.

  “A lot more than we bargained for,” Krysty whispered, dropping the exhausted blaster.

  “The more the better for this job,” Ryan countered grimly.

  “What the hell is going on?” demanded a sec man in bare feet.

  “Where are the sentries?” a sergeant asked gruffly, cradling a longblaster. “Phil, Kaja, check the tunnel!”

  The couple jogged over and returned just as fast.

  “They’re all dead, Sarge!” Phil reported.

  “Shot and stabbed,” Kaja added.

  Suddenly, the door to the liquor store swung open, and out came two sec men with cloth covering their faces as protection from the storm.

  “Hey, guys, see anything?” a sergeant shouted over the noise of the storm.

  “No, sir,” replied the big guy in sunglasses. Then a tremendous blast filled the alleyway and sandbags cannonballed out, slamming into the stores across the street, smashing windows.

  “Rockets!” a sec man shouted, and he started to fire wildly at the rooftops. A dozen more joined in shooting at anything and everything. But the weapons jammed constantly, and frantic hands struggled to clear the clogged mechanisms. But opening the breeches only made matters worse.

  Deadly calm, Krysty and Ryan moved through the shouting crowd, their shoe boxes softly chugging. Sec men fell over, clutching their chest and bellies, blasters dropping.

  “Snipers!” the corporal cried as a dead man collapsed at his feet. “Brewer, get on the roof and kill anybody you find!”

  “Sir!” But the sec man took a single step before he also fell.

  With the wind howling, another blast ripped apart the alleyway, spewing out chunks of vehicles, a flaming wheel rolling through the crowd of sec men. Stepping out of its way, Krysty shot the corporal in the throat to stop his commands.

  Killing four more, Ryan reached the bank and kicked open the door. There were only a few people inside, and behind a teller’s cage was the youth from the platform in the ville. Only now he was dressed in a clean black uniform dripping with weapons, but it was his carriage and bearing that showed he was in charge, the new Baron Strichland. Their gazes locked for a moment. Registering shock, the teenager frowned and reached for his fancy blasters.

  “Goodbye, Leonard,” Ryan said, firing three times.

  But the bullets slammed to a stop in midair directly before the startled teenager, a spiderweb of cracks radiating from each impact point. Ryan cursed and retreated outside fast. Fireblast, this was a bank and the kid had been standing behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. His one chance to end this matter permanently had gone to hell.

  Only a heartbeat behind, sec men burst out the door, and Ryan shot the ground at their feet. The buried charge went off, blowing them to pieces and showering burning gasoline across the front of the building. The desert winds fanned the flames, but instead of extinguishing the blaze, actually seemed to feed the fire with every gust.

  Retreating amid the enemy, Ryan knew that was a specialty of J.B.’s, mixing thermite with a Molotov to create an unstoppable chem fire that lasted for minutes even underwater. Nothing but time could kill those flames.

  Just then a section of the road exploded, harming nobody, merely throwing sand at the sky. Everybody moved away from that location and the street under them now erupted in a series of blasts, pieces of bodies flying everywhere.

  “Rockets!” one man cried, dragging a broken leg. “Run!”

  “Land mines!” yelled another, clutching a bleeding arm. “Nobody move!”

  Right on schedule, the alley thundered again as lightning flashed, and Ryan and Krysty moved through the shouting men, their weapons chugging steadily, bodies dropping in their wake like harvested wheat.

  A corporal standing too near realized what was happening and turned his blaster on the pair. He got off a hasty shot, missing Ryan completely and hitting one of his own men. The one-eyed man chilled the corporal and met with Krysty on the far corner away from the burning bank.

  “I’ve got six rounds,” the woman said.

  “Four,” he replied. “Time to go.”

  “Check.”

  Placing their last few shots on just officers, Ryan and Krysty backed away from the baron’s army, and paused to stand directly on a smooth patch of sand between a bare metal mailbox and hydrant.

  “Hey! The sniper ran this way!” Ryan shouted, waving to the sec men. Several caught the call and passed along the news to the others. Soon a crowd of the men was coming their way.

  “This way! Hurry!” Krysty added, waving.

  As the sec men got near, the companions took off fast at a run. Thinking they were chasing the sniper, a dozen sec men charged and reached the smooth section of sand almost exactly as the big ticking bomb buried there detonated.

  The men on top of the explosive charge simply vanished, the thunderclap and fireball knocking the rest to the ground covered with flames. Shrieking, the human torches dashed about amid their brethren, setting others on fire, spreading terror until the troops started firing on one another in confusion.

  Dropping their stolen jackets, Ryan and Krysty disappeared unobserved into the dying storm.

  SMASHING HIS FIST onto the Plexiglas shield of the teller’s cage didn’t dislodge the jammed rounds, and Leonard savagely turned upon his troops.

  “Boxes! They used boxes!” the young baron shouted. “I saw it! Blasters inside boxes with strips of cloth to hold them in place!”

  “Smart,” Sergeant Jarmal grumbled, bandaging a wound in his arm. He had a good suspicion it was from his own men, but that was a matter for later. The sec men had jus
t gotten their butts kicked and were burning for revenge on the faceless enemy.

  “DeLellis, what is the death toll?” Leonard snapped, pointing at the man with a clipboard.

  “Sixty-four, my lord,” the corporal reported, brushing sand from his face to read the hastily scribbled list of names. “Mostly officers. Which leaves us thirty.”

  “Wounded?”

  “Nothing serious. Only minor flesh wounds. The snipers killed damn near everybody they hit.”

  The troops murmured uneasily at that news.

  “Stack the dead. We’ll bury them later. No sec men go into the Machine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about the wags?” the baron asked, crossing his arms and trying to radiate a positive attitude he didn’t really feel.

  “Gone. Along with our extra water and all of the fuel.”

  “Well, we don’t really need any fucking fuel without vehicles, do we, Lieutenant,” the youth snapped.

  “Corporal, sir.”

  “Not anymore.” The baron walked among the men. “You’re a corporal now. You are a sergeant, you’re a corporal and you are a lieutenant.”

  Beaming faces spread through the motley crowd, and the weary bodies sat upright, holding their bolt-action pieces with renewed determination.

  “Let’s kick ass, sir!” a private cried.

  Tolerantly, Leonard allowed the familiarity from the lower class drone. Odd, how quickly he was learning to think like his father and consider them as merely workers, tools to be used and discarded, nothing more.

  “Jarmal, you’re in command now,” the teenager finished.

  The grizzled veteran had seen this coming and wasn’t thrilled by the battlefield promotion. The commanders of the sec men had a bad habit of dying in the Strichland reign. “Thank you, Baron. May I suggest we stay here until the storm dies, and then we go home?”

  “What did you say?” the youth whispered, staring at the older man with a near deranged expression.

  Jarmal sighed. With his wife and children still in Alphaville, he had to follow the little lunatic straight to hell if need be. Afterward would be another matter. Alphaville needed a strong baron, but not another madman in charge.

  Then again, people died in battle. Even barons sometimes.

  “I said we should attack immediately,” the CO corrected.

  “Absolutely!” Leonard cried, then he pointed to the nearest men. “You, you and you! Rip this place apart and find some boxes and rags. Private, you’re the quartermaster. Gather the weapons from outside and field-strip the autofires until you have enough clean blasters for everybody.”

  “We each get an autofire, sir?”

  Leonard took the Desert Eagle from his left holster and tossed it to Jarmal. “Everybody,” Leonard stated. “Then we go after this bitch and her one-eyed lover and blow them to hell.”

  The sec men cheered and got to work with a fever.

  “One eye?” Jarmal asked, checking the load on the huge blaster. “Isn’t she with Harold?”

  “Apparently not. When that man tried to shoot me, his sunglasses slipped and I saw he wore a patch on the left side.”

  “Oh yes, and one more thing, Captain,” Leonard added, brushing his hands across the Plexiglas.

  “Sir?”

  “Send some men to the supermarket and see if we have any wolves still alive. We’ll use the beasts to track this pair to their bolt-hole and take the battle to them this time.”

  “Still want the redhead alive, sir?” Jarmal asked slowly.

  “No,” the young baron said without hesitation. “No prisoners. Kill them both on sight.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Resembling freshly unearthed mummies, Ryan and Krysty slipped into the government building and Doc closed the heavy glass door tightly, sliding the wedge of wood under the jamb to help it stay firmly in position. Overhead, the storm was noticeably weaker. Thunder rumbled again, but the lag between noise and lightning was increasing. The Deathlands tempest was almost finished.

  “How’s Dean?” Ryan asked, uncovering his mouth. “Can we leave yet?”

  “I do not know, sir,” Doc said, offering a canteen. “Dr. Wyeth is spoon-feeding him broth, and most of it stays down.”

  “Most? That doesn’t sound good.” Ryan took a healthy swig of the tepid water. “Damn.”

  Yanking down her mask, Krysty accepted the canteen and took a long pull. “Whew. Thanks,” she said gratefully, stripping off the cloth holding the shoe box on her arm.

  “You seem undamaged,” Doc said, pleased. “May I assume the mission was a success?”

  “Shit, yeah.” Ryan coughed, also removing his box. Holstering the blaster, he flexed stiff fingers.

  “Excellent.”

  Doc returned to watching the street outside as the man and woman raised quite a dust cloud while unwinding the intertwined rags covering them before reaching clothes. Feeling pounds lighter, they climbed over the barricade of file cabinets and started downstairs.

  “Any problems?” J.B. asked, rising from a chair, a napkin tied around his throat and an open MRE envelope in his hand.

  “Went like clockwork,” Krysty announced, dropping the stack of ammo clips on a table. “Found these for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is that spaghetti?” Ryan asked, amused for some reason.

  The Armorer blinked at the odd question and checked the foil package in his hand. “No, corned-beef hash. Want some?”

  “Mebbe later.” Maneuvering through the sea of tables, Ryan reached the bedsheet tent and scratched on the cloth.

  Mildred came out, stooping to clear the fold. “You’re back. Thought I heard voices. Any damage that needs mending?”

  “Just bruised and tired,” the big man replied. “How’s Dean?”

  The physician glanced backward. “Stable, nothing more. I’ve done everything possible. It’s a waiting game now.”

  Cawdor took her shoulder and squeezed gently in understanding. She shrugged, apologizing for not being able to do more.

  “How many dead?” Jak called out. The albino teen was lying on a crude bed of sofa cushions with his boots off, an arm draped over his face to keep out the lantern light. The first rule of surviving combat, after not getting shot, was to always grab as much sleep as possible.

  “Thirty or so,” Ryan replied, going to a punch bowl full of water and washing his hands and face. Krysty joined him, and the water was almost black when they finished.

  “Any chance you were followed?” J.B. asked, finishing his meal. He tilted his head to listen for any noises outside, but only heard the soft moan of the desert wind and Doc humming that damn Caruso opera song again.

  “They were too busy dying to worry about us much,” Ryan stated confidently, using his wet hands to brush back his unruly crop of black curls. “We hid and waited at a couple of locations, never saw a soul.”

  “Besides, we did a loop into the desert twice,” Krysty said, drying off with a piece of a yellow towel. “Went over a few walls, and through that burned-out high school. Nobody could follow that trail.”

  “Unless they got dogs,” Mildred agreed.

  Lowering his arm, Jak sat up and frowned. “Or wolves.”

  “Those were trained wolves,” Mildred said slowly. “And we never met the females of the pack.”

  “Think any are still around?” Krysty asked, instinctively going for her blaster.

  “Sure as bastard hope not,” Ryan grumbled, taking a pencil stub from a pocket and drawing a map of the ruins on the smooth stone floor. “But just in case, we better concoct a battle plan. We got them scared, but when the sky clears, the baron and his men will come boiling out of that bank hot for revenge.”

  “We can set up an ambush,” Krysty said. “Certainly enough locations in these ruins for us to stage one hell of a firelight.”

  “Thirty to five? Bad odds.” Jak frowned, lacing his shoes.

  “Agreed,” J.B. said, disposing of the remain
s of his meal. “So how do we change them?” With explosives, J.B. knew no master, but strategy was Ryan’s field of expertise.

  He stabbed a finger at the crude map. “We’re here, the baron there. So we send out Jak in the Hummer to swing past them real slow, dribbling oil out of a puncture can.”

  “Breadcrumbs,” the Cajun said, rubbing his unshaved chin.

  “Exactly. You leak a trail away from us and into the desert dunes.”

  Mildred paused for a moment, listening to the sleeping boy, then said, “These guys are pretty smart. Do you really think they’ll fall for that old trick?” Then her expression changed. “Oh, I see, they’re not supposed to believe.”

  “Right. But the baron will still have to check it out anyway, just in case,” Ryan said. “I estimate he’ll send ten, mebbe half his men after Jak to double-check.”

  “I’m bait,” the teen said, slowly grinning. “But not trap. Lure away driving slow, hurry back.”

  “Could buy us another day,” Mildred said, massaging the back of her neck. “And hours count at this point.”

  “Still leaves the rest for us,” Krysty stated.

  “I’ve done the best I can with this building,” J.B. said, coming over closer and sitting on the edge of the fountain basin. “It’s tight, but I sure don’t want to have a major fight here.”

  “Not here,” Ryan countered. “We’ll make it a fallback.”

  “We can’t move the boy,” Mildred reminded them.

  Adjusting his eye patch, Ryan frowned. “Not that kind of a fallback. There’s a ton of weapons in the pawnshop. We choose a good location and arm it with the useless blasters. Then mine the place with boobys. Jam the barrels of the blasters so they explode.”

  “Yeah, might work just fine,” J.B. added, glancing at the kitchen he had converted into a weapons lab. Bottles were stacked everywhere, several of them bubbling away softly, steadily building pressure that would soon demand to be released.

  “Yeah,” he repeated with a smile. “I got some stuff brewing that will ace the bunch of them if we can gather them in one tight area.”