The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Kevin climbed onto a barstool. “Usual… and one for her.”

  “Oh, dammit… there it goes.” Wayne shook his head, causing his hair to dance over his shoulders. “She’s got you already.”

  “It’s a tab.” Kevin stared at the ceiling and grumbled. “I got some .50 Browning in the trunk, bout sixty some odd rounds.”

  “Ween make it?” Wayne raised an eyebrow.

  “Nah, salvage.”

  Wayne’s interest seemed to melt out of his face. “So you don’t know how old it is… or if it still works?”

  “Looks in decent shape. Signs of hand loading on the brass. It’s not prewar.” Kevin stretched. “Need something else for her to wear. Got anything?”

  “Possible.” Wayne turned to shout into the alcove behind him. “Bee.”

  The robot woman tottered into view. “Yes, boss?”

  “Two burgers.” Wayne indicated Tris with his thumb. “We got anything in her size in the back ta wear?”

  Bee shuddered with a spasmodic twitch, made a noise much like a sneeze, and walked like a normal human around the bar. Her fluid motion lasted about three more steps before her left leg seized at the knee.

  “Christ, Wayne. You ever gonna fix that? Almost seems cruel.” Kevin cringed.

  Bee’s right eye glowed red, projecting a grid of laser light on Tris.

  “Ain’t got the parts or the knowhow.” Wayne shook his head.

  “Bee r-r-r-ight b-b-b-ack,” said Bee, as she convulsed in place and bent forward at an angle. Her black hair slid off her neck, exposing the B-19-C. “Pain detected. Ouch.”

  Tris moved up behind Bee and pushed the destroyed shirt up. After a moment of prodding at the imitation skin on the android’s back, a square panel rose out and opened. Inside, flickering light illuminated a cloud of smoke around something whirring.

  “You know what you’re doing in there? Kill Bee, and your ass belongs to Wayne.” Kevin cringed around as Tris stuck her fingers inside the machine.

  “I only had the intro courses on robotics… Everyone gets it in high school. Been awhile.” Tris made a series of contemplative noises. “When was the last time you had her serviced?”

  “Serviced?” Wayne raised an eyebrow. “Case you hadn’t noticed, little lady, this ain’t the sorta place what’s got android shops.”

  Tris grumbled. “Got a star driver at least? Maybe a toothbrush?”

  “A what?” asked Wayne.

  “Really?” Tris sounded annoyed. Kevin chuckled. “It’s a screwdriver with a tiny tip that looks like an asterisk.”

  Wayne looked past Kevin at the source of her voice. “What the fuck’s an asterisk?”

  “Isn’t that a bird?” asked an old woman in the back.

  “That’s apteryx,” said Tris. “Dammit.”

  Wayne, mouth half open, stared at her for another few seconds before shifting his gaze to Kevin, who returned a ‘yeah, I know’ glance.

  “Guess that’s some ‘o that fancy book learnin’ eh?” Wayne slapped the counter. “Be right back with them burgers.”

  “Need a charge too.” Kevin’s back muscles tensed at a loud, sizzling spark from behind him.

  “That did not feel pleasant,” said Bee.

  “Port Three,” yelled Wayne from a room separated from the bar by a camouflage curtain.

  Tris mumbled. “All the connectors are loose. It’s a wonder you can move at all.”

  Kevin stood, wanting to be as far away from Bee as possible when she exploded. He jogged to the door, keeping an eye out for any members of the New gang, but the porch was empty. He walked around to the Challenger’s driver side door and punched 4-1-9-4 into the buttons under the handle. The door clicked. He ducked in long enough to hit the release for the trunk as well as the charging port on the front right fender. After closing and locking the door, he retrieved the belt of .50 Cal ammo from the pile of salvage in the back. Kevin draped it over his shoulder, glancing around for any sign of trouble. Seeing none, he slammed the trunk and walked along the passenger side to where the small panel about the size of an old gas hatch tilted outward a few inches behind the wheel well. A light push on the near side levered it open the rest of the way, and he drew out a few feet of wire in clear plastic insulation, which he plugged into a bank of sockets by the porch stairs.

  The scent of ozone floated out from under the hood within seconds. He squinted up at the roof of solar panels, which accounted for most of the cost of starting a roadhouse. The people in Amarillo charged through the nose for them, since as far as anyone knew, they were the only source. Not that the world had many cars left, but the ones that remained needed charging.

  They control the power. They control us all.

  He shook his head and tromped up the stairs followed by the clattering of ammunition. Wayne, three unfamiliar men about his age, a dark-skinned woman with an explosion of dreadlocks, and one ancient man all looked up as the tin can door chimes rang. Tris remained forearm deep in Bee. From that angle, it looked like she worked an old ventriloquist dummy, her arm was in so far. The android emitted a series of disturbing phrases like: “Oh, that feels wonderful,” “Please do that again,” and “Yes… yes… that’s the spot.”

  Kevin resumed his place on the same stool he always tried to sit in. Third in from the left. Whenever someone else sat on it, he’d give them the squiggy eye until they moved. Once, he’d gotten into a fistfight over it. Brass hit the counter with a clatter that got everyone looking again as if the treasure of a dragon’s hoard had landed on the wood. On top of the stink of stale beer and fart, a weak trace of cooking meat drifted by.

  “Hmm.” Wayne picked up one end of the belt, appraising the bullets like a jeweler. “Don’t look in too bad o’ shape.” He shook it, listening to the powder move. “Four per bullet.”

  “Fuck you too, Wayne.” Kevin chuckled. “You’re gonna sell it for twelve each. There’s a reason I never got a .50 mounted on the Challenger.

  “Seven and I’ll throw in clothes for the little woman.” Wayne winked.

  “I’ll pay fer her duds if’n she changes out here,” said the old man.

  “Seven and the clothes,” said Tris, sounding unamused.

  “Seven.” Kevin reached out to shake. “Plus whatever you pick off the old horndog’s corpse.”

  The elder squealed. “Easy, I ain’t want trouble.”

  Tris snuck a smile over her shoulder at Kevin.

  “Done.” Wayne shook.

  “The meat is ready,” said Bee, still bent forward at a ninety-degree angle.

  “Sec.” Tris tried to reconnect an uncooperative copper-colored ribbon cable and snarled after a few seconds of it not fitting in place. Eventually, a loud snap came from inside Bee, and she shot upright. “There.”

  The android woman convulsed in place and her head thrashed side to side.

  “Oh, shit. What did you do?” Kevin leaned back.

  “She’s rebooting.” Tris raised a hand. “Calm down.”

  “I’m about to re-boot someone’s ass if you broke her.” Wayne rested his elbows on the counter, sniffing the air. “I smell smoke.”

  “You sure that’s not my dinner?” Kevin grinned. “I’m not paying for charcoal.”

  Bee stood up straight, turned to face the bar, and smiled. “Operational.”

  Tris lunged after the android to close the panel as it walked off with only a faint limp in its stride. Bee rounded the bar and hurried into the kitchen past the camo curtain. Tris slid onto the stool at Kevin’s left.

  “Can’t do much for that hip actuator. All the parts are worn out and dirty. Someone needs to take her apart and clean everything, replace that actuator, and put her back together. I think the frequent shocks are also giving her memory read errors, and her gyroscopic stabilizer is on its last legs.”

  Wayne leaned back, his upper lip twitching. “What in the hell language was that?”

  “Got me,” said Kevin.

  Tris leaned forward, speaking a hai
r over a whisper. “Wayne? Do you know anyone with any kind of high-tech gear? Someone who might be able to umm… There’s a data port on Bee. Standard interface connector.”

  Wayne drifted back two steps to fill a pair of mason jars with his homemade beer. “You mean like the one you got?”

  Tris sat up, lowered her hands to her lap, and stared at the bar. “Yeah.”

  Kevin moaned and rubbed his face.

  “Aw, relax.” Wayne set the drinks down in front of them. “Ain’t got no reason to stir up trouble for you two.”

  Bee reappeared with a plate in each hand, setting a burger and fries down next to each beer before speed-walking back through the curtain.

  “Great.” Kevin forgot all about everything when the smell of the deer-rat-something meat reached his nostrils. He battled his growling stomach’s urge to eat the whole thing in four bites.

  “So…” Tris lifted her head to look at Wayne. “Know anyone with the gear necessary to take data out of a cranial implant?”

  A light came on in the armory room past the bar, revealing a handful of rifles and shotguns on pegs behind a security cage.

  “One… if they’re still even there.” Wayne scratched at his goatee. “Pack ‘o Enclave dissidents supposedly set up shop under the south end of the Golden Gate.”

  At hearing ‘Golden Gate,’ Kevin drew a sharp breath, which launched a small piece of bread down his throat. He choked for a second before squinting at Wayne with one eye wider than the other and wheezing, “Fuck that.”

  “But―” said Tris.

  “He’s got a point. Area’s near Enclave H.Q.” Wayne glanced to his left as the light went off in the armory. “Even ignorin’ that, it’s a bad, bad area. The Boatmen more or less own it.”

  “If the area’s so bad, why would these people go there?” Tris ate a fry.

  “Keeps the Enclave away,” muttered Kevin past a mouthful of burger.

  Bee emerged from the curtain and set a pair of women’s jeans and a medium-sleeved shirt seemingly made of brown leather on the bar in front of Tris. Kevin chuckled.

  Tris put her hand on it. “It’s softer than it looks. What is this?”

  “Dust hopper,” said Wayne. “’Less you want long-sleeved flannel in a man’s size.”

  Kevin surrendered to the wonderful flavor. His gut won, and he devoured the last half of his meal in two huge mouthfuls. This batch of Wayne’s beer had odd fruity notes. I don’t want to know.

  “Can you get there?” Tris picked up her burger as if she’d never seen anything like it. After a tentative sniff, she nibbled.

  “No point in goin’ there. There’s no way they put anything useful in that implant of yours. I’m gonna grab a run, earn some coins, and get the hell off the road while I’m still alive.”

  She lowered the food from her face, her expression mournful. “But you don’t―”

  “Wanna save the world? Pff.” He shook his head. “Better people ‘an me have tried, and we’re still fucked. Not my stone to haul.”

  Tris’s expression made her seem disinterested in food, but she kept nibbling on it.

  “Two for the charge. Six for the food.” Wayne twitched an eyebrow at Tris. “So, what’ll you be doin’? Might find a use for you ‘round here if you ain’t got plans.”

  “She still owes me a grand.” Kevin tilted his head back and chugged the beer. “She’s with me till she pays it off.”

  Tris rubbed her hand over her abdomen where the bomb had been. She peered past a drape of hair at him, her eyes sad sad, but a hint of a smile on her lips. “Yeah.”

  “Rooms.” Kevin started to reach for his pocket.

  Wayne held up his hand. “I’ll take it off the books.” He reached under the bar and held up two keys.

  Kevin took his, while Wayne set the other on the bar by Tris’s plate, as her hands were full of food. She glanced from the key to Kevin and shrugged.

  He slid off the stool to his feet. “I’m so damn tired, sleeping feels like work.”

  “That, my dear”―Wayne grinned―“is why he’s so set on gettin’ hisself a ‘house of his own. The hours be regular like.”

  “Hmf,” said Tris.

  “See ya in the morning,” Kevin muttered.

  He trudged across the room full of tables, went past the bathrooms, and dragged himself up a flight of stairs at the end of the little hallway. Ten rooms occupied the upstairs, five on either side, behind doors painted dark green. One small window at the far end let a feeble breeze in. A handwritten sign hung next to it on the wall reading: “No pissin’ out the window.” He went door to door until the key worked in the third on the left. Inside, a plain eight-by-ten-foot room waited with a single bed consisting of a naked metal frame, a mattress, and box spring with a tattered excuse for a sheet.

  Paradise.

  Door locked, deadbolt flipped, he shrugged off his armor and boots. Content, he let gravity take him face down on the bed.

  He didn’t even smell the mold.

  16

  Little Black Box

  Gentle pressure on his left shoulder, accompanied by a series of light shakes, pulled Kevin from the depths of an exhaustive sleep. Tiny needles of pain stabbed his eyelids as they fought a seal of dried crumbles that glued his eyelashes together. Through the meager gap they afforded without the intervention of a hand to wipe crud away, he stared at a blurry bare breast hovering inches from his face. Interest died faster than the Infected from his dream. A black scuff mark to the right of the nipple gave away the owner.

  Bee.

  “Wayne told me to wake you before you gotta pay for another night.”

  As fried as he felt, the voice sounded almost human. Kevin moaned and worked his right arm out from under his weight to scrape the sand from his eyes. “Ngh. What time is it?”

  The android breast rose out of his field of view amid the whirr of electric motors. “Wednesday June 15th, 2072. 10:54 a.m.”

  He pushed himself over on his back, muscles leaden and stiff. “’Nother hour.”

  Bee’s arms whirred as she crossed them. “Suit yourself, but past eleven, he’ll bill you for the room again.”

  Mercenary cocksucker. Kevin grumbled and reached an arm out. “Alright, alright.”

  “Good morning, Kevin.” Bee grasped his hand and pulled him upright, catching him by the shoulders when his balance failed. “Oversleeping is as bad as not getting enough.”

  “Yeah. So what’s for breakfast?” He rubbed his fingers around his eyes before snapping them open and taking a deep breath. “Smells like grease.”

  Bee tottered to the door. “Eggs, bacon, coffee. Two coins.”

  “Wayne can call it bacon, but cutting dust hopper meat thin doesn’t make it bacon.”

  Kevin snagged his armor and shrugged into it before taking the key from a small nightstand made out of an old footlocker on end. The stairs clonked and banged as he tromped down to the first floor and walked into a cloud of misery seeping out of the men’s. He clamped a hand over his mouth as his eyes watered and forced his way into the stench to relieve himself. Furry black something grew up and down the walls around the toilet. Kevin decided to work on long distance marksmanship. After, he hurried down the short hall to the main room.

  Tris’s white hair grabbed his attention first. She sat at the bar, with her back to Wayne. Her new ‘rabbit-leather’ shirt fit quite well, though if her bust was as big as Bee’s, it would’ve been a second skin. The katana remained on her back. In addition to the jeans, she’d added a belt with a holster that held the Beretta. Only the black shoes remained from her Enclave uniform. Their all-terrain soles would likely be helpful, but Infected loved to grab ankles when a person went down.

  Nervousness melted out of her when she looked his way. The two men that had been there when they arrived seemed more interested in the last few crumbs of their breakfast than Tris, and the old man who suggested a striptease for a discount was nowhere to be seen. Kevin approached the bar, stared at the red
LED clock behind it showing 11:01, and set the key down.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Wayne chuckled as he slid the key toward him. “Wasn’t gun’ta.”

  “Hey,” said Tris.

  Kevin glanced at her belt. “What’d that cost?”

  “Two.” Wayne hung the room key on its nail in the cabinet behind the bar. “She bought it herself.”

  “What?” Kevin glared at her. “You have money?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I used to.”

  “Paid her twenty coins for fixin’ up ol’ Bee. She’s been zippin’ ‘round here like almost new. Only seized up once all mornin’ so far.”

  Kevin climbed onto a stool, set his elbows on the bar, and held his head in both hands. Tris rubbed his shoulder. The scent of eggs and thin strips of unidentifiable meat came in from between them as Bee set two plates down.

  “I told him to put the other eighteen in your account since I owe you.” Tris eyed her plate.

  Wayne grinned at Kevin. “Took the lib’tee of assumin’ you’d be coverin’ her food again. She did wait fer ya ta be down.”

  Kevin teased a fork at the eggs for a few seconds. “No sense takin’ her last coin. She earned ‘em. We’ll work some kinda payment plan out.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes.

  Wayne set a stack of coins, nickels and pennies, in front of Tris. “Sixteen. Two fer the belt, two fer breakfast.”

  “Thanks.” Tris collected them, shot a smile at Kevin, and kept eating.

  “Since H-Burg turned to crap on ya, figger you might be interested in an iffy little run that walked in the door an hour ago.” Wayne set his hands on the bar and locked his elbows. “Your cut’s two hundred and fifty.”

  Shock sent a few crumbs of egg down the wrong pipe. Kevin choked and pounded a fist into his sternum. “W-what is it?”

  “If your reaction to pay like that is any indication, probably too dangerous.” Tris picked up a piece of ‘bacon’ and sniffed it.

  “Eat it,” said Wayne. “S’good for ya.”

  “It’s only dangerous if you drag-ass. Do it quick and it’s easy money.” Wayne looked around before ducking and whispering, “Takin’ a box of void salt to Glimmertown.”