On the plus side, it was fuckin’ great alcohol. Hell of a kick, and despite a hangover that was like someone took a hammer to your forehead, it at least got people on board.. we weren’t making gas, we were making alcohol.
That was the first step, but that’s not to say we didn’t start on the other items, as well.
Food was still a concern – especially since we were growing faster than I had originally expected. With some of the larger tenements hitting two or even three thousand people each, we were already well over three times that at a bit more than nine thousand people. Bear in mind, this was all of what, three years? Four? After Me, Ry, Pug, and Fathead basically walked out of the main arkscraper area, into the Bronx. I liked having all that wide open space in the parks, but increasingly, we were using up more and more space to live in, and we needed to use more and more space to grow food in, too. Fortunately, we had more than a few people who “knew” gardening, and they ran gangs that pretty much kept the rest of us in food.
We also needed more weapons and ammo than we already had. Occasionally, we would find rifles and handguns in houses or other buildings that we knocked down, and these were stored at the headquarters. There was a problem I never thought about, though – ammunition was specific to a gun. No, I don’t mean that one gun had to have it’s own special ammo – but the bullets were different sizes. What? Fuck off, I’d never had or even held – or SEEN - a gun before finding the safe house, and even then, we had military-grade hardware that was nice and consistent. Over time, we ended up taking those oddball calibers to the tenements, along with the guns that shot them, and traded them for components so that we could reload the 9mm and 300 Blackout that we were stockpiling for our own needs.
We found other weapons as well – lots of rifles and pistols with weird clips (yeah, mags, fuck off, I know now but then, I only knew what I heard) that only held 6 rounds each, despite looking like they could hold two, three, four or even five times that. What the hell? What kind of idiot uses a smaller mag when bigger ones are available? Then we lucked out - there were apparently some stores that sold NOTHING but guns and ammo, and, just like the safe house, they’d been locked up pretty tight. On the plus side, we had Fathead, who as it turns out, also “knew” how to pick locks. He showed me first, and while I could do it, I didn’t have “the touch”. Ry, though, Ry was a fucking natural. It was like he was some sort of demon who could just sense the guts of those locks.
Ry got us into four different gun stores that had been locked up tighter than an arkscraper. We nearly tripled the amount of 9mm ammo we had for the handguns, and picked up another couple hundred thousand rounds of 300BLK for the M26’s. Apparently it was a popular round for quite a while, before things fell into total shit in the New York City area.
Like with the other stuff we found on occasion in houses, anything that didn’t fit with our chosen weapons got ditched – well, traded or sold, really, to tenement gangs. We were able to slowly piece things together to flesh out our existing “armory” though – more 9mm pistols (and then the magazines didn’t match.. FUCK!) and rifles that could shoot the 300BLK ammo. That was kind of funny actually; the M26s were ridiculously simple to use, but there was an older kind of rifle that was even simpler – it didn’t have the second barrel (Damn, I forgot to mention, the gun stores also had a ton of shotgun ammo that we were able to use in the underslung shotgun breaching barrels in the M26s, which would be even handier when we would start our offensive) that the M26 had, and it took the same magazines. There were lots of different parts for it, and I could never figure out if it was an “MSR” or an “AR15” because the books and other docs we found seemed to use the name interchangeably. I didn’t give a damn what they called it through; as long as it shot the same ammo and didn’t blow up in anyone’s hands, it was good enough for me. When we finished raiding those places, we had enough semi-automatic weapons to arm almost all of the nearly 2500 fighters we had.
There was another place though, that was almost as good as the safe house for how much useful stuff we got out of it – not so much food, but a ton of uniforms, and guns and ammo – not as much ammo, but WAY more guns. That’s what expedited things for my overall plans.
Remember I said there was talk about putting together some sort of arkie-specific police? Well, we found a police stations (they used to be called precincts, stupid name if you ask me), that were locked up just like the gun stores… but oh my god, the shit we found inside! Not so many of the M26 rifles, but they had the newer M34’s that the army was still using. Those were similar in appearance, but wow, what a change. The ammo was the same as the M26, but each one had a couple of hundred round mags with them. Good thing too, these things had a rate of fire that was nearly twice as fast as the M26. We didn’t find just a dozen or two… there were 250 of them there, and we collected another 2 million or so rounds that we could use with them – or with the M26s we already had. I don’t know what the hell those police were using that kind of weaponry for, but I didn’t care, either – it was ours, now.
Fathead’s comment about needing transportation made a lot more sense now; for something this important, it was critical we moved the stuff out, right away – and using eight jeeps, we loaded up the rifles, gear, and ammo and took it all back to headquarters in one trip.
We were getting closer and closer every day to the next stage in my plans, but we still weren’t quite there, yet.
I decided it was time for me to tag along with some of the shopping crews that Tonka was sending out – since it was one of the few tasks I hadn’t participated in, yet.
I took off all of my newer gear – boots, pants, top, shirt, pistol… but not Rage. That stayed with me. I changed into way shittier looking clothes – rags, really, but the covered up the fact that I was eating pretty well, and they gave me some cover for Rage. I hustled over to the group that was leaving next – they were headed towards my old gang’s area, and I didn’t want to hold them up. By this point, with over nine thousand people in my little empire; these people had no idea who I was, they just knew that someone not in their regular gang was tagging along.
It was slow going – I wasn’t used to walking half a day or more to get to where I wanted to go, and I REALLY wasn’t used to pushing and pulling a home-built trailer full of trading material with a dozen other people, but then again, this wasn’t going to be a regular trip, either. We left before the sun came up, and it was high in the sky by the time we got to the trading post. I kept my mouth shut, and let the gang leader (some guy named “Deke” who, by the way, *did* know who I was, and who I’d “strongly encouraged” to act natural and treat me like a new kid in his gang… or else) do the negotiating. This trip, we were looking to pick up more trade goods (some of those cheap little LED lights with rechargeable batteries in them), some processed meat, and of course, some cash. We had a nice little stash in a safe we’d found and reset the combination for, and which was sitting in the basement of the headquarters.
Deke haggled with the clerk, and the rest of us sort of milled around, with me as the “junior” gang member babysitting the trailer we’d hauled everything here in. Tenement soldiers were all over the courtyard we were in, and…
Oh fuck. I knew that soldier, his name was Chuck. I’d interacted with him a bit when I was still in Pip’s gang. He shouldn’t be this close to home, he should be back in Manhattan!
I was trapped to some degree; Chuck was always good to me – but he hadn’t seen me in probably five or six years.. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me.
Then, he looked straight at me. “Hey! Kid!” Shit.
“Yeah?, what you want?? I ain’t done nuthin’ wrong.” Best to act defensive, maybe he’d let it slide, decide he didn’t know me after all.
“I know you… you’re.. Jamie? James? Kid, I thought you were dead!” Ohhhhhh this was going to be difficult. I had no problem killing, even someone who’d been friendly with me. The problem was that this was happening in a courtyard, surrounded b
y other tennie soldiers, and if I off this guy, I’d be a dead man soon after.
“Uhh… James, why?” Let’s try playing this straight and see where it goes.
“Kid, it’s me.. Chuck. Damn, you’re way older than the last time I saw you!”
“Yeah, I think I ‘member you… didn’t you used to be a soldier for another tenement?” Crap. Okay, maybe if I can put him on the defensive, maybe he’lll shut up about me.
“Yeah, I was, but they got taken over… I got hurt, but then the tenement leaders were gone, so I freelanced, until I ended up here.” This guy sounded like a real push-over; most people who got injured got more cynical and sarcastic, more closed off - he seemed pretty easy-going, TOO easy-going.
“Huh. Shitty luck I guess.” Dammit, there goes my last idea for getting out of this without shit hitting the fan.
“I’m surprised to see you kid, I heard you…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “I heard you offed Pip, your gang leader. Z’at true?”
I could feel my heart rate skyrocketing. This was NOT good.
“Yeah, I killed him, so what?”
“That was some impressive shit, kid. He was one bad dude. Treated you guys all like shit, glad you made it out. Heard you took a few other people with you, but I don’t recognize any of these guys.” Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad after all.
“Yeah, started my own gang.”
“Started hunh? “ He squinted at me suspiciously. “Because the way Deke’s talking – and I’ve seen him here and elsewhere before, but never with you, and I know he runs this crew… that means… he’s a gang underneath you.”
Fuck me, this was NOT where this discussion was supposed to go!
“It’s cool man, I’m not ratting on you. I been watching, and everyone else in your ‘gang’ is checkin’ everything everyone else, never you. That… says lots. Anyone used to watching gangs like I do gonna know straight up something ain’t right.”
I had to take a gamble, or this was going to get used against me.
“Chuck, I know who you are. You think you know me, you ain’t got no idea who I am now or why I’m here. Just fuck off - I got secrets, ain’t telling, but those secrets will hurt you if you push.” Maybe a little bit of a threat would help him get the hell away.
His whole face changed… which was not a good thing. I thought for a second I’d seriously fucked myself and he was going to pop me right there with that big honkin’ musket of his.
“Young man, you are not the only person in this discussion with secrets, and of the two of us, your secrets are impressive, but are nothing compared to mine. Don’t threaten me boy, or you’ll lose out bigger than you’d ever think.”
I was fucked, royally. This guy wasn’t talking like a guard, he was talking like a gang leader, and it sounded like he’d just found a great opportunity to kill off some competition.
I jammed my hand inside my pocket to yank out Rage and off this guy, before he could spill his guts to anyone else… and just as quick, I found myself on my ass, and my head bouncing off the concrete. Rage was still tucked away, and I was seeing stars floating around Chuck’s face as he leaned over me.
“It’s all good, the kid’s fine, he just needs some air, chill… probably just working too hard and too stressed about seeing tenement guards for the first time.”
Then, since he was leaning over me, he muttered under his breath… “Some Fuckin’ gang leader you are. I’ve been watching you kid, for years now – I have a proposition for you, but we’ll talk over the next few months since I’m still not entirely sure about you.”
He reached into his uniform shirt and pulled on a chain that was around his neck… and inside his fist, not visible to anyone except me as I lay on my back, looking up at him as he knelt next to me, was something that scared me to death: US Army dog tags. No-one but NO-ONE was stupid enough to fake or steal some, and people that left the army had to give theirs up. That meant.. he was a soldier in the army. That was bad enough. What made it worse? The silver bird on the dog tags meant he was an officer. We *ALL* knew to steer way clear of those guys, they were bad news. I’d only heard stories; I’d never actually MET an officer – well, apparently I had, but I had no idea at the time.
I shut up, thinking fast. This guy obviously had something going, but there was no way he’d joined the army since I’d seen him last. There was no way he’d just let people know who he was – other tennie soldiers would kill him just to have the rat gone.
That meant he was out on the streets, on purpose. Why the hell would he do that?
I don’t know, but, better to keep this guy close; I don’t want him to fuck up any of my plans.
“My bad, man, sorry. Let me up. I’ll… I wanna know what you’re talking about. Not promising shit but I wanna know. Hit the Hudson bridge, pound on the barriers till someone answers, then tell them you want to see the Boss. They’ll get me.” I figured at this point, I was a dead man if I didn’t level with him – I never even got a finger onto Rage’s hilt and he laid me out like I told him in advance what I was gonna do.
He laughed and helped me up, although I note he still had a hand on the knife on his belt while he did so. “’The Boss’ huh? I figured you’d be one of the ones at the top, but didn’t expect you’d be the one at the VERY top.”
Deke finished his haggling and his gangers were loading up what we were taking. He came over and muttered at me half-heartedly, “Get up and get back to work, you lazy shit.” I was far too preoccupied to remember later to tell him his acting needed serious work – then again, I was the guy right at the very top, five or six “boss” levels above him, so I suppose I can’t really blame him for not wanting to get too hard into the acting.
Who the hell was ‘Chuck’?!?!?
Chapter 8: Infil and Exfil.
The preparations for execution of the first (okay, getting set up as a power in our own right was ‘first’; getting ready to make it known that we were a power was the second) major step of my plan were getting closer every day, but I was utterly preoccupied with trying to figure out who Chuck was. I didn’t know what his deal was, but now he knew who I was, and knew that I was the leader. I didn’t know how much more he knew, but it only made sense to assume he knew everything.
I continued to stockpile everything we found, ranging further and further out – at this point, based on some maps we’d found in “gas stations” (goddamn things didn’t have any fucking gas we could use, though), my little empire stretched all the way from I-95, north into what used to be called Yonkers (I still laugh every time I say that), Mt. Vernon, and New Rochelle. I hadn’t made much progress into the area south of I-95; that was still a bit too close to the arkscrapers for comfort – that was getting into the area that you could fairly easily see from the tops of the ‘scrapers. I didn’t bother fucking much with the edges; I wanted MY turf – and I got it.
I had solid control of that turf, too. Ranging patrols throughout the borders I’d staked out – Redskinny was sort of a ‘security guard’ for the border area, and his guys were a notable chunk of our fighters. Not all, not even half, but still a big chunk. I didn’t really trust anyone, but I DIS-Trusted him less than a lot of other people, since he’d proven himself time and again. Every time we had a border incursion, he either slaughtered them (quietly, with blades, now, where possible!) or added them to our growing population. Those ranging patrols used the jeeps – see, I TOLD you I had plans, big plans, and I was smart – to move around pretty quickly. Radios were getting easier to find and use, but I didn’t trust them. Anything I could hear on the radio? Anyone else could, too. Direct communication was a little smaller, but for now, it made more sense.
We made another big change, too, but I want to talk about Chuck, first – because he’s a part of the reason why we made the change.
I wondered how long I’d have to wait until Chuck showed up – it was maybe a day or two after I’d first re-encountered him that I had a kid come running up the stairs to my sp
ace in the headquarters, out of breath.
“Boss, guy… says he wants to see you… says his name’s Chuck.”
I got that nervous feeling in my stomach again – taking me all the way back in my head to when I always scrambled to get out of the way of Pip so he wouldn’t punch or kick me. “Fine, let’s go.” I always had Rage with me – but you knew that already. I grabbed Fury, too… but you don’t know that sexy bitch, do you?
Fury was the first M34 we put rounds through. Why Fury? Fuck, you’re stupid. Ever heard something shooting 1800 rounds per minute? That’s… 30 rounds per second. (Sorry, I ain’t good at math really, takes me a bit, still.) With a 100 round mag that was standard for them, that’s barely over three seconds. We never did find any belted ammo for it, but apparently it would do that, too. Fathead said that the closest machine gun ever built to shoot anywhere near that was something like a hundred and fifty years earlier, during the second world war – some guys on the other side of the world came up with some crazy gun that shot 1200 rounds per minute.
Rage & Fury Page 7
