Eldon waved at the window. “We got a clear shot at the truck, let’s move.”
“I got somethin’ here worth a bit. If we can take them out, let’s take them out.” Kenny kept his back against the doorjamb with his left arm covering the kitchen and his right aiming into the main room.
Eldon grumbled. “Crazy mother…”
“Got one in the basement here.” Kenny shifted his attention back to the kitchen.
Eldon spun at the sound of crunching glass. Two more nibblers climbed in the broken window by the bathroom. Eldon fired at the one on the left, sending him flying back out the window in a spray of blood and brain matter. The other surged forward, his body driven beyond human limits by old combat drugs. He came in with an erratic jerky sprint too fast for Eldon to retrain and fire.
The nibbler loped in with a right-handed whomp, hand covered by a glove bearing six-inch blades on each finger. Eldon blocked with his rifle, throwing his weight forward into the thing’s chest. The stick man sailed into the air and onto his back. A hasty three round burst chased him to the ground, but he made a quick roll to the left and sprang back to his feet.
Kenny sighted over his pistol, weighing the odds of winging Eldon. Before he could decide, the squeak of the trapdoor made him turn. Another one crept up, using the hatch as a shield. It shifted its weight up onto the floor from below, hiding behind the panel of metal for cover.
In the front room, the other nibbler wailed, charging at Eldon with his arms flailing to the sides and body fully exposed. He almost managed a shocked look when Eldon lunged and walloped him across the face with the butt of his rifle. The hit sent the nibbler into a backflip that became a six-foot slide along the floor, ending with a crash into the post of a table. Eldon followed with a rapid tactical walk, painting the floor red with a series of shots to the chest. The nibbler convulsed, arching his back and gurgling as blood seeped from between his jagged teeth. One final round through the forehead finished him.
Kenny fired into the trapdoor and succeeded only in shattering tile off the top of a metal plate. The nibbler peeked around the side with a crossbow, but another shot past the corner made him duck a shower of tile fragments.
He fired twice more with his left to keep the nibbler down as he stowed the other pistol and shrugged the rifle off his shoulder. Once he brought it to bear, he unloaded into the trapdoor. Blue fire roared as the heavier weapon reduced the hatch to a work of modern art and flying shrapnel. Riddled with stretched holes, it thudded closed, pushing the dead nibbler under it down the stairs. For a moment, all was silent save for the sound of the cannibal’s body thumping over wooden steps.
Eldon shouldered into the doorway behind him. “This better be fuckin’ worth it man.”
“Gotta grab my tools to unbolt it.” Kenny pointed at the machine. “I’ll be right back.”
Eldon grabbed Kenny’s arm. “I got a better idea.”
He took a vibro knife off his belt and approached the ancient thing.
“Careful! If you fuck it up it’s worth shit.”
Eldon shot him a look as if he could punch him. “Oh, I’m all about careful.”
As he squeezed the rubber handle, the sonic inducer in the tang came to life, filling a space just beyond hearing with an irritating presence that sent chills down the spine like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The muscles in Kenny’s back tensed at the effect of the noise, and he wondered if this was what dog whistles felt like to dogs. Eldon studied the steel counter and made four quick swipes. Kenny cringed with each dull clack as severed pieces of bolt fell to the floor. When Eldon lifted himself out from the cabinet, a wisp of acrid smoke rose from the blade as the grime boiled off, filling the air with the scent of four hundred year old burnt grease.
He gave Kenny a satisfied look. “That’s how you do it.” Eldon elbowed the machine and it slid an inch on the counter.
Kenny flailed. “Don’t dent it!”
The power cord ran into a tubular conduit that led off to who-knows-where. The insulation cracked off in flakes, exposing the wire at a touch.
“You gonna take the whole counter apart?”
“Fuck it. Cut this.” Kenny held up the cable.
After Eldon sliced the wire, he flipped the knife over his finger and slid it back into the sheath on his belt. Kenny pulled at the machine, grunting.
“Damn, it’s heavier than it looks. Gonna take both of us.”
Eldon shook his head. “No way man, area’s not secure. Them damn things hit us while we’re luggin’ that we’re done.”
Kenny sagged. “Maybe you’re ri―” Something to his right caught his eye. “Hold on…”
Against the wall by some shelves, an old hand truck propped up a stack of old boxes. After tossing a decomposed pile of decayed cardboard boxes off it, he dragged it over.
“At least help me get it to the floor?”
Eldon looked around, listening. He eyed the perforated trap door. “Gimme a second, gonna check for survivors.”
He stuck his boot under the mangled flap of metal, kicking it open. Blood streaked the bare wood in a trail to the dirt floor below, where a dead nibbler lay sprawled in a twisted heap. The cellar was empty save for a concrete stairway in the far wall that led outside.
After helping lower the thing, Eldon took point while Kenny lugged it along behind.
Eldon stared at the truck. “I ain’t liftin’ that damn thing into the bed.”
Kenny leaned on the hand truck to catch his breath, laughing. “Don’t have to.”
He pounded a button on the side of the tailgate, sending a hydraulic lift whining into position. Eldon’s baritone laugh echoed through the desert as his friend rocked the ponderous find onto the metal flap.
he quiet lasted about forty seconds after they got back into the truck. Hot or not, Eldon had decided it better to put his DuraFib armor on. With the last of the fasteners secure, he banged his fist on the armor and relaxed into the seat.
“You’re gonna tell me that piece of scrap metal was worth risking an ass full of pointy teeth?”
“Yeah.” Kenny grinned. “Lucky for me, all I gotta do is call somethin’ antique and people throw credits at me.”
Eldon shook his head. “Still can’t believe people are dumb enough to pay for this shit.”
“Dust cloud.” Kenny eyed the rearview.
Eldon turned, peering through dirt-streaked glass. A raider buggy closed in from behind. Little more than a triangular frame of metal tubes with two large tires in the back, two small tires in the front, and a crazed nibbler sitting on a gas tank in front of an engine; it looked like one errant rock could destroy it.
“Hah.” Eldon opened the sunroof. “What do you think, flip or fireball?”
“Does it matter? If you flip that fucker there’ll be a fireball.”
“True enough.” He stood up in the seat and leveled his rifle. “Hah. He must know what a rifle is, he’s weaving.”
Eldon sighted in on the front axle and matched the back and forth movement of the approaching cart. He fired, but the slug did not get enough of a bite to destroy it, instead leaving a gouge as it ricocheted up through one of the rear struts as if it were a large noodle.
The nibbler’s mouth was open, probably screaming, but neither Kenny nor Eldon could hear anything over the un-muffled engine. Eldon cursed under his breath and took aim again. Sensing his impending demise, the nibbler accelerated hard, and abandoned the weave. The straight line worked to his disadvantage as Eldon’s next shot hit the right front tire dead on.
The dense indirium slug tore through both sides, deforming the glorified bicycle tire into a warped oval as it sent the solid rubber strip spinning into the air. The front axle failed, the other tire flew off, and the pointy front crumpled into the ground. Like a plow, it scooped a torrent of dirt and small rocks that pelted the nibbler’s face. Seconds later, it hit something hard, and the buggy flipped into an end-over-end roll. Eldon lowered himself back into his s
eat amid the warm glow of a blooming fireball.
“Two shots this time, you must be tired.”
Both of them laughed. Kenny drove a little faster than he was comfortable with over this terrain, as a smoke plume like that would surely attract more problems. Scavengers or mutated bio weapons, neither one of which presented a pleasant option. He checked the navigation computer and steered towards the area formerly known as Elkhart, Kansas.
After another two hours of calm, Eldon broke the silence, noticing the lack of excitement in Kenny’s face. “What’s on your mind?”
“Katherine.”
“You thinkin’ she maybe got exposed to something at work?”
Kenny shook his head. “Can’t be, she was an accounts receivable clerk at a manufacturing company. Never went on the factory floor, worst risk at that job was a fat ass from sitting all day.”
“Just don’t make sense.” Eldon shook his head.
“Whenever I’d come out here, she’d always have a fit. She tried everything from begging me not to go to threatening to leave… which almost worked.” He gripped the wheel and twisted as if wringing out a cloth. “I called her this morning before we set out; to tell her I had a good lead on a big payoff.”
When the pause grew intolerable, Eldon prompted. “And?”
“She seemed happy, like she wanted me to get killed out here.” He shook his head. “It’s the only way she’d get Alyssa.”
Eldon shook his head. “No way man; they’d put her into the system first.”
“Oh yeah, that’s so much better. Give her to a pair of strangers instead of her own mother.” Kenny’s eyes darkened.
“The way she was last time I saw her, bitch was a stranger. Fuck, man, she threatened her own kid with a knife for callin’ her a junkie.” Eldon tried to sound reassuring.
Kenny relaxed, though he still drove too fast. “Inflated sense of one’s own importance or something like that. Side effect of the drug, it wasn’t really her.”
“Yea, I heard about it. The military abandoned E-14 because of the side effects like violent paranoia, voices, aggression and shit. It’s just evil.” Eldon glanced around in search of danger. “Well, you’re not gonna get killed on this run, so stop thinkin’ on it. If you find this thing you’re after and it pays off, you can get her treatment… if you still think she’s worth it.”
Kenny shot a long meaningful stare out over the land in front of them, wondering if it was possible to get back the Katherine he used to know. She had always been a cheerful and woefully naïve woman captivated by the mystique that was Kenny. The dichotomy of his Wild West affect with all of the high tech gadgetry he used had made her curious, and his personality had charmed her the rest of the way.
“Her parents were kinda pissed at me for years.” Kenny chuckled. “They had a real problem with Alyssa being a flower girl at our wedding.”
Eldon grinned. “That’s a little old fashioned. Damn.”
“They didn’t think very much of me before we got married… They probably blame me somehow for what Katherine’s become.” Kenny slowed, realizing they would roll if he hit a big enough rock.
Eldon ran a hand over his head. “I still can’t wrap my brain around that, man. How does an office chick get her hands on military boosters? Shit, man, they don’t even make you high, just smarter for a few hours; and the teardown phase is a bitch.”
“I wish I knew… I wish I knew.”
Several hours later with the approach of night, Kenny decided to take a break. The desolate area contained little in the way of food, hence it attracted little in the way of predators. Moving to the cargo bed, he grabbed a carrying case out of the storage bay and pulled out four cylindrical devices about a foot long and an inch around. He tossed two to Eldon and walked towards the front right.
“Ten meters out, set for zero point two?” Kenny looked at the truck in the direction of where he thought Eldon was.
“Sounds good, maybe zero point one, in case one of those damn roaches shows up.”
Chuckling, Kenny activated the proximity detector. A six-inch metal spike snapped out of one end while the other sprouted a series of panels and antennas. He adjusted the sensitivity setting to 0.1, and jammed it into the ground. At 0.1, it would go off if something the size of a housecat or larger approached. If anything came within 25 meters of their camp, half the Badlands would hear it.
They had about six hours of driving ahead of them if everything went well; the map showed them being on course, provided they did not encounter any serious changes to the terrain on their way.
“I’m gonna bring us in here, from the southeast. We’ll drive around and give the city some distance and then come back at it.” Kenny traced his finger along the holographic map.
“What’s with the loopty?” asked Eldon.
“About 18 miles north… right about here”―Kenny poked the map ―“took a nuke during the war; it’s still a little warm. Where we’re going is out of the rad zone, but I still don’t want to drive through any contamination.”
“Alright man, but if my piss glows in the dark, remember, I know where you live.” Eldon’s serious glare lasted only seconds before they both broke into laughter.
The city of Elkhart looked nothing like it did before the war. It looked nothing like a city at all. Little more than a field of rubble remained, well within the grip of nature. The center of town still had a few standing walls more robust than the rest, though nothing much beyond a story tall.
Kenny chose one of the streets that still looked passable. An orange light on the console lit up, indicating elevated levels of radiation, but they were low enough not to be a major concern. Eldon eyed the light with unease as Kenny zoomed the map in as far as it would go and compared it to the one on the NetMini in his hand.
“It’s either that building or that building.” Kenny pointed at two piles of rubble.
As they disembarked, Kenny took his rifle, but kept it in his hands instead of favoring his pistols first. He preferred the look of handguns, but the prize was too big to take chances. If he shot something, he wanted it to die―not get pissed off.
“What are we looking for?” Eldon paused, staring at the rubble crunching underfoot.
“If it was my shop, I’d put it in a safe. Look for some kind of armored vault or something like that.”
“Right. So you gonna tell me what the hell it is?”
“It’s an old gun. A gold plated commemorative revolver. A collector’s item back then, probably worth a million credits now.”
“Well, shit.” Eldon searched with renewed enthusiasm. “Now I know why you keep coming out here.”
Half an hour of fruitless searching passed before Eldon caught a glimpse of fast movement and turned to aim at it. Once he saw it was Kenny waving, he lowered his rifle and jogged over.
“Find something?”
“Yeah, but not what I wanted to see.” Kenny whispered. He pointed at the ground.
A footprint in the dirt, with a texture implying the foot that made it was missing skin from the underside, and had several exposed bones. The dirt had a shiny layer, as though the ground had been painted over with snot that dried.
“What the hell?” Eldon’s eyes widened.
“Probably rad-ghouls given where we are, but it might be a zombie.” Kenny’s voice carried no hint of humor.
“What?” Eldon’s whisper came out as more of a squeak. “Are you messin’ with me? Fuckin zombies?” He got louder and louder with each word.
“I dunno, heard stories but never saw one. Don’t forget there’s a NIP 18 miles north of us. Between that and the slime, my credits would be on rad ghouls.” Kenny squinted in the direction of the impact point. “Let’s get on with it; I don’t wanna stick around here any longer than we have to.”
“Ghouls, zombies, what the fuck is the difference?” Eldon scanned the area. He had that look in his eyes as if he were back in the thick with ACC everywhere.
“If you want to
get technical, the rad ghouls came from some gene-modding cheesedickery trying to make soldiers resistant to radiation. The ones around nowadays are even more mutated, but they are still alive. There’s only one real problem with them.”
“Oh, only one?” Eldon’s tone was almost petulant. “Don’t tell me―they hog the beer?”
“Radioactive. If we run into them, don’t let blood splash on you when you shoot them. Heck, don’t hit it with a knife, don’t punch it. They’re kind of squishy, just get the hell away from them and blast from a distance.”
“They glow in the dark too?”
“Only their eyes. Blue. The rest looks like a guy with no skin that’s been covered in warm snot.”
“You couldn’t say slimy? Had to say warm snot…” Eldon shivered as he resumed searching.
“I felt it once, not by choice.”
“Ugh.” Eldon spat off to the side.
“Zombies are supposed to be dry, not radioactive, and ain’t alive. Never saw one but some people you may run into out here claim they’re real. Opinion varies among undead or some kind of nanobot or cybernetic system that keeps them going.”
Eldon shook his head. “I saw a psionic once, creepy shit. Still not buying the zombie thing.”
Kenny shrugged. “This girl that worked with Katherine swore that she saw a ghost once. Prior to 2204, no one believed that psionics were real and now they are a proven fact. Who knows what else is out there?”
“I don’t wanna think about it. I like my reality understandable, and as normal as possible.” He forced a chuckle. “Ok, so rad ghouls…”
Their search took them further towards the other building. Once they moved past a line of broken concrete that traced the path of a long gone wall, Kenny’s eyebrows lifted.
“This looks like it. Debris kinda fits an old clothing store, place used to be a military surplus shop.” Kenny whispered.
“Why are we whispering?”
“Rad Ghouls have excellent hearing.”
Eldon hesitated. “Wait just a damn second, didn’t you say they have no skin?”
Virtual Immortality Page 12
