“Agree, but it is done nonetheless.”
Gunny and Lucas both looked at the deck. They knew it only too well. “Let’s keep moving. They know we’re here.” Gunny returned to the others, helping Josh, the medic, and Jed to their feet.
“They knew we were here the second we arrived,” Gunny clarified.
In emphasis, Josh pulled Jed’s arms behind his back and slapped on a pair of handcuffs. He nodded to Andy. The robot grabbed the cuffs with a mechanical hand. He wouldn’t let go until ordered to.
Chapter 4
Most of the smoke had cleared from the casino. Diego made one last pass through the bodies to make sure he didn’t leave any credits behind.
“What’s the haul?” Josh asked.
“Seventy-six credits!” Diego claimed proudly.
“I found another thirty,” Lucas added. “Plus sharpened leaf springs and chunks of pipe. These guys were armed with whatever trash they could find, almost like prison flunkies.”
“I almost feel bad that Squatch killed a bunch of them,” Josh said as he moved slowly. Andy pushed Jed in front of him.
Josh turned and faced Jed. “Tell us where we can find Crak Snackpole.”
“Stack Clackmore,” Gunny mumbled.
“You know I won’t tell you, mainly because I don’t know. He comes and goes whenever. And secondly, I won’t tell you because you suck. You bring a robot into my establishment? You’ve got some jumbo coconuts and just as much intelligence.”
“I feel like I should be offended by that, but I’ll take it as a compliment because we’re dragging you and your backwards traditionalist ways into the sunlight.”
“Backward? It’s what the majority of the people want! Mayor Snackpole does what’s best for all of us.”
“WHAT?” Josh cried, wincing and holding his side. “Snackpole is the mayor?”
“Of course.” Jed looked calm, like someone who believed what he was saying.
“Is he a little weasely looking guy?”
“I’m not telling you anymore. You put your hands on my junk, you bust up my place, kill my customers, and give me a nice slice for my troubles. I hate you guys.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I hate you, as well. You’ll always be number two.”
“Mack Crackpole,” Gunny said to himself as he checked the feel of a number of the leaf springs, throwing them all down in disgust. He’d stick with his billy club.
“I’ll lead the way,” Josh said, making a face as he stood up straight and walked slowly but steadily through the storeroom and onto the landing with the steps leading up and down. He looked over the railing. “If Squatch went into the pool scum, how come there isn’t a spot where he hit?”
Gunny joined him at the railing. “It ain’t fungus. It’s an Ocean Slime, a creature. See the undulations and the edges?”
Josh groaned. “What a horrible way to go.”
“At least the Slime put out the fire.” Gunny snorted as he laughed. “Never get too close to your boys. It makes it too hard to watch them die.”
“That’s a lesson I know,” Josh replied before pushing past Gunny and heading down the stairs to the fourth deck.
The others fell in behind him. Lucas took responsibility for Jed, pushing him close to the front. The mercenary thought they would be most intimidating by parading a captured leader before them. Psychological warfare. Lucas smiled to himself as he pushed the injured man forward.
Andy sulked at the back of the group. Doctor Carroll joined him. “I don’t like this mission either,” she told him. “But if we don’t do it, who will? Look at the people we’ve run across. Miserable, afraid, under the sway of one power broker or another. We have to get the factory up and running so the people can see first-hand that technology isn’t an evil. It’s just a tool that we use to keep moving forward in life.”
She quickly scanned the ship. Still no emanations of any sort. It made sense that Traditionalists would live in such a place.
Diego whistled softly as he walked in the middle of the group. He could see over everyone and he had a pocket full of credits.
On the fourth deck, the first room they found was twenty feet square and lined with bookshelves, long since emptied. A barrel full of ash in the middle of the room testified to what happened to the books.
Josh glanced at it, noted that there wasn’t anything else in the room, and continued through. The others walked past the barrel, one by one until Doctor Carroll reached it, looked inside, and sighed. “I is well read,” she mocked, glaring at Jed. “You’re number two alright.”
The robot took note, but didn’t say anything.
Josh walked through a doorway to the next room. A piano still stood in twenty by twenty, wood-paneled and darkly decorated lounge. Most of the piano keys were smashed down. There were no benches or chairs in the room, but there was a good view through the glass portholes which were surprisingly clean.
“What do you think they use this for?” Josh wondered. Gunny shrugged and shook his head. Diego opened the piano top, saw nothing he could take inside, and closed it.
They walked through to the next small, but wide room, twenty-feet deep by thirty-feet wide. There was a main desk behind which a single woman sat. She looked at the party curiously, without fear.
When she spotted Jed, she frowned.
“And who might you be?” Josh said, adopting his usual smooth and debonair approach when meeting strangers.
“I’m the receptionist,” she answered coldly.
“For who?” Josh pressed.
“If you have to ask, then you don’t belong here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” When the robot appeared in the doorway, she stood and put her hands on her hips.
“Snack Packpole,” Gunny said as he worked his way back to the library. Josh watched him go before turning his attention back to the receptionist.
“We want an appointment with Mister Crak Snackpole.”
“Then you should have gone through him. I can’t make you an appointment.”
Diego leaned over the others to see that the desk was empty. There was nothing to write on.
“What will it take for you to make me an appointment to see Crak.”
Lucas smirked.
“I can’t.”
“What kind of receptionist doesn’t make appointments? I think ‘won’t’ is the what you mean.”
“Can’t is what I mean.” She stood defiantly. Her hands on her hips. Gunny came back into the room and slapped a half-burnt piece of paper onto the desk. On it, in charcoal, he’d written the word ‘appointment.’
“There. We have an appointment.”
“If you wanted to see the mayor, then you needed to go through him.” She pointed to Jed.
“We were trying,” Gunny said with a smile. “But the directions got all fouled up, then there was a little chaos, some people got killed, blah, blah, blah. We won’t bore you with the details.”
Jed looked at the floor, his shoulders hunched forward as the pain of walking was wearing him down.
“And you say I have no tact.” Josh waved the sergeant away. He was only too happy to leave. They were wasting time.
“I think you should come with us,” Josh threatened. Doctor Carroll put her hand on Josh’s shoulder and moved in front of him. She showed the receptionist a picture of Phineas Slog.
“Is this Crak Snackpole?” she asked.
The woman shook her head. The doctor looked at Josh. He scratched his chin in thought. “This is messing with my mind.”
“We’ll leave you to your job,” Doctor Carroll said, turned, and stopped. “I’d like to see Mister Snackpole, please. What do we need to do?”
“Find an empty room on the second deck and make yourselves at home. He’ll come to you.”
“Do you have any idea when that would be?” Doctor Carroll asked, still smiling at the receptionist.
“No,” she replied earnestly.
“Let Crak know that we’re waiting, pl
ease,” Josh said, leaving the woman in peace. She watched them go before sitting down behind her desk resuming her statue-like pose.
“Good call on the picture,” Josh told Doctor Carroll as he passed. She nodded slightly. As she passed the burn barrel, it made her sick to her stomach.
Barbarians, she thought, thinking she would never get cold enough to burn books, especially when embracing science to find other means, technological means to sustain the human condition. Without knowledge, what remained to be kept alive? Barbarians.
Josh led the way, getting stronger by the minute. He gave the thumbs up to the medic. “Feeling great, Buck.”
Down the stairs and onto the third deck. The sense of urgency weighed on him the closer they got to the waterline. He hurried through the door, counting on the others to keep up.
Joshua entered the main lounge, a room of roughly fifty feet by forty feet deep. There were a number of people milling about. Some were seated, some looking out the windows, and others were standing in small groups talking. Coughing and smoke covered faces suggested some of the people had come from the casino above.
As the group entered, Joshua had had enough and pulled his sword, carrying it openly. Gunny had his billy club in one hand and the pistol in the other. Diego shifted his shield to his back and carried his spear in two hands.
Lucas pulled his short sword and smiled darkly. He’d missed out on too much of the action. He didn’t join this group to be a robot’s nursemaid. Lucas gripped a knife in his second hand, just in case someone needed to be stabbed and the sword was too much for the job.
Doctor Carroll drifted to the back of the group, staying close to the robot who she felt was more of a kindred spirit than any of the others.
The disgruntled townspeople didn’t threaten Josh or the others as they passed through on their way forward to continue their exploration of the ship.
The locals glared at the robot as they traveled by. Andy nodded pleasantly to each of people on both sides. He continued through the door and Doctor Carroll closed it behind her.
There was a wide corridor with rooms on one side.
The first door they opened showed a small room, ten feet by ten with a single metal gurney in the middle. Trays surrounded it that contained various medical instruments. There was a stand with tubes, an empty bag that may have once contained blood, a couple hanging bags, about a pint in size, with clear liquid inside and clear tubes hanging from them.
The smell was overwhelming. “There’s no power, right?” Josh asked.
Doctor Carroll checked her data pad. “None.”
“Isn’t blood supposed to be refrigerated?” the Ranger said. It wasn’t a question. “Destroy it all.”
“You want to take care of it?” Buck asked Gunny, pointing to his backpack.
“Are you stoned? You want me to use my fifty-credit bottle of booze to burn the room?” Gunny held up his hands and walked away.
“Fine.” The medic entered the room, opened the porthole, and tossed the metal instruments into the ocean. He sent the bags and tubes through as well, leaving only the gurney when he finally left.
“Good enough,” Josh replied before entering the next room, a fifteen-foot square meeting room with a sketchy wooden table surrounded by eight chairs. A stench came from the table covered in puke and blood.
“What the hell is this?” Lucas said, disgusted by what he was seeing and smelling. He was fine with a straight up fight, but the creepy stuff was enough to send him running.
Josh and Gunny didn’t answer. They kept their weapons in their hands as then continued to the next room.
“What’s the hurry?” Doctor Carroll whispered to Andy.
“I do not know.” The robot spun his torso so he faced backward. He aimed his railgun at the doorway behind, just in case the enemy surged through behind them.
“Don’t fire that thing in here!” the doctor warned. “You’ll kill us all.”
Josh and Gunny opened the unlocked door and looked into the next room. It was luxurious and relatively clean, adorned with furniture and a king-sized bed that looked enticing. It looked like someone lived there, someone with enough horsepower that no one messed with his room.
“Crak’s quarters?”
“I don’t know,” Gunny replied. “But I can’t say they aren’t. He entered the room. Diego went with him.
Josh grabbed their prisoner by the throat. “Are these your quarters, Jed? Are you torturing people down here?” Josh growled.
They heard a pop from inside the room.
“Dammit!” Gunny sounded angry. Josh slammed Jed against the wall so he could look inside. A thousand needles had been launched in a cloud from a trap above the dresser. Gunny pulled a couple from his exposed skin, but the vast majority had gone into his bullet-proof vest. He brushed his arm down the front to knock most of them away.
Diego had taken the brunt of the blast. He was half-sprawled across the bed, peppered by needles. The shield on his back hadn’t protected him as he’d been facing the trap.
“And then there were six,” Josh said wryly. Gunny snarled and punched the wall. “I knew it had been too easy. Stay frosty, people!”
Gunny rummaged through the tall man’s pockets taking the credits he’d risked his life to gather during the casino fire. He moved him into the bed and left him there. “Heads on swivels!”
The group’s mood turned dark. They’d lost two people and were barely one step closer to accomplishing the mission. Josh grumbled as he propelled Jed forward. Crak’s number two looked afraid as Josh forced him through the next door and into the room.
“What do you know about this room? Whose is it?” Similar to the previous luxury suite, but even nicer, well apportioned with a fine king-sized bed. Gunny bounced Jed into the doorframe as he entered and carefully searched the stateroom for traps. There was a small head, a bathroom in this room. Gunny opened the door and recoiled from the stink.
A body hung within, coagulated and dried blood trailed down the legs to a drain in the floor. A thousand cuts disfigured what had once been a man. He was barely recognizable as human. Gunny stepped away, only to grab Jed and drag him to the head. “Who did this?”
Jed struggled to get away, but he was handcuffed, and Gunny’s anger tightened his grip on the man’s arm.
“You did this,” Gunny declared and forced the man’s face closer to the corpse. He whimpered and struggled weakly. Gunny knew that Jed didn’t have the stomach to torture someone like that.
“No. Crak did it, didn’t he?” he whispered.
Gunny hauled the man backward, throwing him at the doorway. He fell in a heap and curled up in a ball.
With a quick knife cut, the body dropped to the floor. Gunny pulled it from the bathroom and placed it in the bed, under the covers. With his knife he carved Kilroy into the wall over the bed, signing it, ‘Gunny.’
“We need to find that scumbag so I can end him. He’s not anti-technology. He’s pro-Crak Snackpole, deprivation master. They follow him out of fear. If we can help the people so they don’t fear him, the cult will implode.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Josh asked.
“I can’t imagine what you’re thinking, but I’m sure you’re doing it charismatically.”
“If I wasn’t such a nice guy, I’d give you the finger.”
“I’m sure I would be swayed by it, so now that we’re through all that, what are you thinking?”
“Security. We help the people fight back. We’ll never find the Crak-meister without the help of the locals, and we won’t get their help as long as they’re afraid.”
“Continue exploring the ship?” Lucas asked as he flexed his fingers around his weapons.
“Clean out the rat’s nest,” Josh said in a low voice.
“I hope that’s not literal. I hate rats,” Lucas replied.
The group looked at him before turning and heading aft on their way to the second deck.
When they arrived at
the first room, it was empty but still smelled of smoke.
“Where they’d go?” Doctor Carroll asked.
Josh didn’t know and didn’t care. He held his sword before him and plowed ahead to the stairs, stopping to look for an ambush before continuing through and heading down.
The others followed without question. Josh barreled through the door and into a large area that appeared to be used as a dining hall. Barrels and crates abound, along with tables and rough-hewn wood chairs. A contingent of eight men carrying bows and spears were eating. They stopped and looked at Josh as he walked in.
“Any of you have anything to say?” he demanded, rushing at the table, brandishing his sword. They returned to eating. His anger dissipated as they ignored him. The others spread out as they entered the great space. The men stopped mid-bite when the robot rolled in behind the silver-suit clad scientist.
With a single roar, the men leapt into action, charging the robot. The ones on the opposite side of the table vaulted it while the others twisted in their chairs, coming to their feet with swords already in hand. Andy surged forward, slamming into the group. Doctor Carroll dove to the side. The warriors of the group were galvanized to action.
Josh hacked a man who got too close. Gunny broke kneecaps to keep the men from getting leverage to use their weapons. Lucas yelled his battle cry and jumped into the fray, swinging his sword like a scythe across the backs of the unwary.
It was over in moments. The eight men lay dead or moaning in agony. Andy rolled across two of them on his way from the combat zone. Lucas finished the injured. Josh was torn on whether to stop him, but his hesitation was the answer. It was over before he could say a word.
“If Snackpole doesn’t have his enforcers, which looked like this bunch, then if someone doesn’t do as he wishes, he’ll have to deal with them himself. You know the type. The biggest bullies are the biggest wimps,” Gunny explained.
Josh nodded and turned toward the door leading to crew berthing. The six continued forward.
“Hey, we’re not waiting for Slack Crakpole, are we?” Gunny asked.
“No, but just in case he has an appointment, and I use that term loosely, with someone else down here, then we’ll take care of this right now. He could be in there if his boys were out here.”
Cruiseliner Hades 7: A Lost 77 Worlds Tale Page 4
