by James Axler
“The museum’s just on the right,” Clarissa said.
J.B. adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose. “Looks like a big gaudy house.”
“It might have been at one time,” Clarissa agreed. “If ‘mall’ is another word for ‘gaudy house.”’
Doc cleared his throat. “In my day a mall was a large area, usually lined with shade trees and shrubbery and used as a public walk or promenade. But I believe in later years it was used to describe a large retail facility containing a variety of stores, restaurants and business establishments, often housed under a single roof.”
“They had stores for wags and blasters in predark times?” Dean asked.
“No,” Clarissa answered, “but they had lots of space inside for a museum.”
“Why no one else find?” Jak asked.
“The museum is cleaned out, but not by people looking for wags. It’s all in storage belowground.”
J.B. nodded. “If the people who ran the museum knew skydark was coming, they might have moved the museum pieces to protect them from damage.”
Clarissa picked up her pace. “This way.”
They started down a ramp that led to a large roll-up door. A sign on the right read Deliveries Only.
J.B. pointed to the sign. “I guess we’re just going to have to break the rules.”
Doc shook his head. “On the contrary, John Barrymore. Whatever we find down there will help us deliver Ryan, Krysty and Mildred from a life of slavery.”
J.B. gave Doc a thin smile.
Clarissa lifted the large roll-up door until there was a foot-and-a-half gap between the bottom of the door and the pavement. “That’s all I can open from the outside.”
“More than enough,” Jak said, rolling into the garage.
Dean crawled through on all fours.
J.B. slid under the door on his back, not wanting to roll over his blasters.
Doc got to the ground more slowly than the others, the joints of his knees crackling and popping in protest the closer he got to the ground. “I do hope that you intend to provide us with a more dignified way of getting out of this place.”
Clarissa said nothing, following Doc inside and rolling down the door behind her.
There was a long line of loading docks where goods would have been loaded and unloaded from transport wags almost every day of the year. But now it was vacant for the most part, except for the far corner of the garage.
“That’s the stuff down there,” Clarissa said.
“Dark night!”
“What?” Jak asked.
But the Armorer didn’t answer. He was already running toward the small cache of ancient items stored in the far corner of what was basically a concrete bunker.
The others followed.
There wasn’t a LAV among the collection, but there was a decent-sized wag—the one Clarissa had stolen from Baron Fox—that would suit their needs with a little bit of work.
“That’s a P-39,” J.B. said, standing in front of the green World War II fighter airplane.
Dean came up behind J.B. “What’s a P-39?”
J.B. pointed to the winged relic. “That is a Bell P-39 Airacobra. It was made in this part of the country and used by the air force for ground attack in World War II.”
Doc tapped the aircraft’s wings with his swordstick. “Don’t tell me it’s almost as old as I am.”
“Not quite, Doc,” J.B. answered. “Just about 150 years old.”
Jak looked at the old machine skeptically. “Not know how to fly.”
J.B. shook his head. “Not interested in flying. If I was, I’d use that helicopter over there to land right inside the compound. No, the P-39 just happens to be armed with four .50-caliber machine blasters and a 37 mm cannon.”
“Hot pipe!” Dean exclaimed.
“Hot pipe, indeed,” Doc echoed.
“If we can find some ammunition for those blasters in these stores and secure the blasters onto the transport wag Clarissa stole—” he pointed to the wag “—we’ll be able to rescue Ryan, Krysty and Mildred in style.”
“Easy say,” Jak said with a bit of a smile. “Harder do.”
Clarissa piped up then, agreeing with Jak. “That’s right. You’re talking about all of this as if it’s as easy as changing a round in a blaster.”
J.B. was about to say something to the woman, but was cut off by a wave of Doc’s hand.
“My dear lady, I believe our albino friend is merely teasing his friend. The fact that what John is proposing is extremely difficult is only more of a reason why he will succeed. I have seen this man do some astounding things with blasters and wags, and I have learned never to doubt his word. I’ve also seen that look in his eye. This metal bird’s big blaster will not only provide the means for him to rescue his friends, but it will also provide him with no small amount of pleasure. There is a light in his eyes, and he is eager to find out what a round from a 37 mm cannon can do. And, quite frankly, I am rather curious about that myself. So you see, our weapons expert will not fail. He will succeed and he will do so gloriously. There is simply no other way.”
J.B. had stood back while Doc spoke, and now that he was done, J.B. nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“So, instead of telling the weapons master why something will not work, I suggest you begin opening crates over there and help out in the search for tools and ammunition.”
“All right, I believe,” she said. “Where should I begin?”
“Open all the crates. Any tools you find, bring them to me.”
“All right, let’s do it,” she said.
They began opening the crates and lockers piled on the loading docks, first with their bare hands, and then with hammers and crowbars after Dean found a few of the tools stored in a locker.
“This looks like it might be something,” Dean later called out from a corner of the underground garage.
J.B. stopped his work on freeing the P-39’s cannon and walked over to where the boy was hunched over a wooden crate marked with a symbol that looked like an exploding rock. He looked down into the crate over Dean’s shoulder, and even though he could only see the base of the shells, he knew exactly what he was looking at.
“Those are the 37 mm cannon shells,” J.B. stated. “Take them out and line them up on the concrete.”
Dean began to lift the heavy munitions out of the crate and set them down on the loading dock. Each shell weighed more than a pound, was an inch and a half in diameter and over four inches long. When Dean was done, there were sixteen shells lined up in a row and with the shells gone, the belt that fed them into the cannon was discovered in the bottom of the crate.
The Armorer picked up a few of the shells, examining their seals and general condition. “They’re in good shape. If half of them fire, it’ll be more than enough.”
“John Barrymore, come here,” Doc shouted.
J.B. hurried to Doc’s side. He was sitting on a pile of smaller crates that had the same stencil mark on them as Dean’s crate. “What is it?”
“A gift.”
J.B. reached into the crate and pulled out a belt of .50-caliber rounds for the P-39’s machine blasters. The belt and shells still had an oily sheen on them. He pulled the belt from the crate and began walking the length of the loading dock until the end of the belt appeared and he could see both ends clearly. Then he placed the belt on the floor and began pacing out its length. It took him nine steps to get from one end to the other. “The whole nine yards,” he said with a gleeful smile.
Doc gave him a confused look. “I am afraid I do not understand.”
“The belt is twenty-seven feet long and full of ammunition. It’s as much as you can load into one of these machine blasters. In the Pacific Arena in World War II, pilots would use the expression ‘I gave him the whole nine yards’ to say that they used up all their ammunition against the enemy.”
“How do you know that?” Clarissa asked. She’d come over to join J.B. and Doc, al
ong with Dean.
Doc turned to the woman and said, “There isn’t anything having to do with blasters and bullets that J.B. does not know about. Even the most insignificant and trivial bits of information are stored within his brain, sometimes to the exclusion of other, more valuable bits…as we have just been witness to.”
“It also means,” J.B. said, realizing Doc was just having some fun, “that we’ll be able to use two of the machine blasters rescuing Ryan, Krysty and Mildred.”
“And my sister,” Clarissa added quickly.
“Yes.” J.B. nodded. “And your sister.”
That seemed to please her to no end.
“Now that we’ve got the ammunition,” J.B. said, “let’s see if we can get the old bird to give up the blasters.”
KRYSTY ATE her breakfast in her room under the watchful eye of a young sec man who looked harmless enough. His gaze never wavered from her body the whole time she was eating, and Krysty couldn’t be sure if he was doing his job or simply getting an eyeful.
She decided that if he was enamored with her, then maybe she could use that to her advantage.
“That’s a nice blaster you’ve got there,” she lied. It looked like a Smith & Wesson Model 18, but the different metal shadings betrayed its status as a remade. It was a .22 rimfire that wasn’t good for much more than plinking cans off fence posts, but the young sec man seemed proud of it.
“Thanks,” he answered. “It’s been a friend to me.”
“I had a Smith & Wesson myself,” she said, unzipping the front of her jumpsuit, as if she were warm.
“Really?”
“Yes, a .38-caliber Model 640.”
“Wow, that’s a big gun for a…”
“For a what?” she asked. “For a woman?”
“For such a pretty one, at least.”
“A woman’s got to protect herself. There are a lot of bad people out in the Deathlands.”
“I’ve seen a few of them.”
“But when they brought me here, they took my blaster from me.” Krysty drew the zipper a little lower, exposing her full breasts enclosed in a lacy bra. “I know I can’t ever have it back, but I’ve been wondering what they might have done with it.”
“Oh, it’s likely in the armory with the others,” the sec man said, licking his lips like a dog. “They brought all the outlanders’ blasters down there. I’ve seen some of them. Quality stuff.”
“The other sec men haven’t taken them for themselves yet?” Krysty said breathlessly.
“No.” He shook his head. “Everything that comes into the farm like that belongs to the baron. He’ll probably have a shooting contest in a few days to see who deserves to have the best blasters. Then the rest of us will upgrade with blasters being used by more senior sec men.” He looked at his remade .22. “Maybe I’ll have to give up my crippler for a man-stopper.”
“Where is the armory?”
“Down in the basement of this building. It’s right next door to the nursery.”
“And who has keys to it?”
“Baron Fox, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Sec chief Grundwold does, too. And the armory’s quartermaster, of course.”
“No one else has a key?”
“There might be a few others.” He shrugged. “The lock’s mostly to keep people from wandering into the room by mistake. The door’s not all that strong, so if someone really wanted to get in, all they’d have to do is break down the door.”
Krysty nodded, sat up straight in her chair and began zipping up her top. “That was a great breakfast,” she said, smiling. “But the company was best of all. Will you be bringing my lunch?”
“I could try and get the duty if you like.”
“Oh, yes, I’d like that very much.”
“Consider it done.”
“See you then.”
The young sec man smiled as he lingered in the room, finally bumping into the door frame on his way out.
REMOVING THE 37 mm cannon from the nose of the P-39 was proving more difficult than J.B. had thought it would be. The engine was behind the pilot’s seat and drove the propeller by way of a long extension shaft. That allowed the nose of the aircraft to house the cannon, firing directly through the propeller hub, along with a pair of .50-caliber machine blasters sitting in the top part of the nose. The blasters had been easy to take out, but the gearing and shaft driving the engine proved to be an obstacle to the removal of the cannon.
“How’s it coming, J.B.?” Doc asked.
“I don’t think we’re going to be raiding the farm tonight, Doc.”
“Stubborn,” Jak observed, coming up alongside Doc.
“That’s a good word for it.”
Doc rested an arm on the plane’s wing. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Something to eat would be nice. And a warm cup of coffee sub.”
Doc, Jak and Dean all turned to look at Clarissa.
“Are you boys good with those blasters?”
Doc sighed. “Must you ask?”
“Okay, then, do you like fish?”
“Haven’t had any for a while,” J.B. said.
“Well, there’s a spot below the falls where you might be able to shoot some for dinner.”
“Shooting fish in a barrel?” Doc asked.
“Something like that.”
“Doc stays with me,” J.B. commanded. “You two go with her. We’ll need enough to get us through today and tomorrow.”
Jak and Dean followed Clarissa out of the underground garage.
“And Jak…” J.B. called out.
The albino turned.
“I don’t want to hear anything about the ones that got away.”
Jak unholstered his .357 Magnum Colt Python. “No worry. Fish not escape.”
WITHOUT PURVIS LOOKING over the crew, work in the orchards was almost pleasant for Ryan and Brody. They were pulling weeds again, but no one was pushing them hard, since most everyone’s thoughts were on the afternoon’s contest.
At morning break, an older man approached Ryan, standing over him and Brody as they drank some much needed water.
“I know what you did to Purvis,” the old man said.
Ryan was cautious. “He a friend of yours?”
“No, sir! He was no friend of anyone on this crew, especially the women.”
“So I gathered.”
Brody was growing suspicious of the old man. “You got something to say, old-timer?”
“Only this.” He paused and licked his lips with his tongue. “The women, them over there—”
Ryan looked to where the old man was pointing and saw six women huddled together in a circle. Two of the women waved at him. Ryan waved back.
“They’re grateful for what you done, and they want you to know they’ll be cheering for you today.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said.
“And they wanted me to give you this.” He held out his fist, turned his fingers over to catch the sun, then opened his hand. In his palm, a shiny bit of metal glinted in the morning sunlight.
“Brass knuckles,” Brody said.
“I’ve been keeping them in case Purvis ever wanted to roll me. I wouldn’t have stopped him, but I might have at least broken his nose.” The old man laughed then, a dry, wheezing sort of laugh.
“Weapons like this are allowed?” Ryan asked, taking the brass knuckles from the old man and slipping them over the fingers of his right hand.
Brody nodded. “The others will be trying to bring everything they can in with them, too, from spikes to knife blades.”
“What about the sec men?”
“They’ll be looking the other way.”
Ryan nodded, pressing his brass-ringed fist into the palm of his left hand. It would certainly do some damage, and it was comfortable enough that he could still hold a sword or club in his right hand while the knuckles were on his fingers. “Thank you, to you and the ladies.”
“No, thank you,
” the old man said. “Today’s been almost like a holiday without that bastard Purvis around. So even if you get chilled in the arena, you’ve already done us a good deed.”
“You’re welcome,” Ryan said. “I guess.”
CLARISSA BROUGHT Jak and Doc down to the river where the water ran fast in a swirling froth of water and foam.
“There are fish here?” Jak asked.
“Not here.” Clarissa gestured across the river. “There’s a whirlpool on the other side. With the lower water level, the fish get trapped inside it, swirling around and around. We’ve tried to catch them all sorts of ways, with our bare hands and with sharpened sticks, but the fish are too fast.”
They began walking across the river, the water being just low enough for them to be able to make it on foot—if they were careful.
“And we’re supposed to shoot them?” Dean asked.
“Do you see any other food around?” Clarissa responded with her own question.
“No, but I—”
Suddenly Dean’s voice was gone as he slipped on the rocks and fell under the water.
“Dean!” Clarissa shouted.
He was hanging on to a jutting rock with both hands, the flow of water trying to push him downstream. “I can’t pull myself up,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of water in the process.
Jak took off his coat and extended his left hand to Clarissa. “Grab hand!”
She took it.
He then extended his arms and took one sleeve of his jacket in his right hand. He swung the jacket toward Dean so the other sleeve fell near the rock he was clutching.
Dean reached for the jacket, which was fluttering in the flow of water, but when he let go of the rock with one hand, he was nearly swept away by the river. He was forced to grab hold again with two hands.
“Jak, look!” Clarissa screamed.
Jak glanced downstream and saw what looked like rocks moving against the flow. “What is it?”
“A mutie fish,” she shouted. “A big one, muskie or salmon, maybe even a mutie sturgeon.”
The fish was getting closer, its huge mouth open wide to catch everything the river sent its way. It scooped up dead fish and other refuse without ever having to move more than a few dozen feet left or right. If Dean let go, he’d be swept away by the water into the fish’s belly in seconds.
