by Alex Bobl
I approximated their combat potential as four and a half, knocking off half a score for not taking us seriously, which they should. I squinted at the truck. Inside, a red-haired raider fiddled with the tripod, oblivious to the world. The driver, grim and broad-faced, chilled out in the cab with his feet on the running board and one hand on the door, puffing on a cig. Six men in total, counting the female. Six of us... having said that, Wladas didn't count as much.
Apart from the driver, all the raiders had pump-action shotguns. All wore faded tank tops over combat pants with holsters and ammo belts, and muddy combat boots. Raindrops glistened on their bronzed bulging muscles, including Kathy who stared at the ferry crew grinning and playing with my machete.
"Wong," I whispered praying he understood Russian, "I'll take the leader and the girl. The two on the left are yours."
Wladas groaned. The Chinese didn't move. I had no idea whether he'd heard me.
"We'll knock them out and deal with the rest. Wladas, you stay aside. Don't get involved. Just wait." I nodded to Wong, and he darted off.
Simultaneously, Georgie kicked the approaching Kathy in the leg but then collapsed, knocked down by the African. That gave me enough time to bash the leader across his kidneys and follow up by a knee in his groin. Kathy moved toward me raising my machete but doubled up, stopped with a well-aimed kick in the guts. The blade fell from her hand. Georgie behind her kicked her in the ass and jumped on top of her, forcing her onto the ground and pounding her ribs.
By then Wong had knocked the swarthy raider down with two short blows, avoided the other one's punches and slid behind his back, grabbing his ponytail and aiming his elbow at the small of the raider's back. The man screamed while the Chinese rushed to the truck.
The vehicle reminded me of an antique Studebaker with its rusty corrugated cab, three axles and high trailer sides. The Chinese did it by the book. First thing, he forced out the driver choking on his cigarette. Then he jumped into the truck. The red-haired raider raised his gun and wailed as his elbow joints were snapped. Immediately, Wong got hold of the gun.
I leaned over the African, snatched his shotgun, then undid his ammo belt and threw it over my shoulder. He wheezed trying to move and I had to pistol-whip him to calm him down again.
"Georgie, let the girl go! Pick up their guns. Jim - tie them down," I turned round. "Wladas, help Grunt up. Then get into the truck, both of you. Move it!"
I jumped onto the running board and checked the cab and the truck. Wong sat on a truck bench smiling, the gun butt resting against his thigh, his foot pressing between the red-haired raider's shoulder blades.
Jim squatted next to Kathy, now free from Georgie's grasp, and started tying her hands behind her back.
"Where did you get the rope, man?" I jumped down.
"In the cab," he drew the ends tight with a square knot and moved over to the African.
Georgie removed the raiders' guns and holsters and threw them into the truck to Grunt and Wladas. Then he started searching the raiders' pockets wiping blood off his smashed-up lips. I wanted to stop him but reconsidered. One of McLean's men could have had a knife or a blowpipe. If they wriggled free and used them...
I glanced at their combat boots, then to my own disposable footwear.
"Wong? Come here!" I started removing my shoes. When the Chinese approached, I motioned him toward Kathy, "You two are about the same size."
The smile never leaving his lips, the Chinese straddled the French girl's back and started removing her clothes. Already conscious, she cussed in English, rolling her eyes and calling us cretins and motherfuckers. She must have thought we wanted to rape her as she struggled under Wong's weight. I failed to notice him punch her as the girl jerked and quieted down.
By then the African had come around again and showered us with all sorts of Russian expletives. It sounded strange coming from a foreigner. The red-haired raider groaned in the truck.
"Do shut them up, will ya?" I said as I stripped two more raiders to equip Wladas and myself. By then, Jim had strapped and gagged the rest. He unearthed an ancient first-aid kit from the depths of the cab clinking bottles and vials in the truck as he tended to Grunt's sores and scratches.
Opposite them on the bench Wladas sat in his prison clothes.
"What're you waiting for?" I asked him.
He startled and began pulling on some pants. I turned to Georgie who was rummaging through our trophies in the back of the truck.
"What have we got left?"
"Three twelve-gauge semi auto Remingtons with loads of ammo," he pointed at the guns and the ammo belts confiscated from the raiders. "Three eight-round Colts and a non-recoil mounting," Georgie nodded at the tripod on the cliff by the cab. The Chinese had already climbed the roof of the cab and surveyed the area through a pair of the raiders' field glasses. We had to go before it got dark.
"Have you found the gun itself?"
"Sure," he patted an under-seat box to his left. "The gun's here and the shells in the box opposite."
"Now. We'll leave the raiders here and go to town. How far is it?"
"About thirty miles," Georgie winced and felt the growing bruise on his swollen cheekbone.
"That far?"
He shrugged. "We'll have to follow the coastline. Can't make it any shorter because of the rocks. It's quite a detour."
"Get in the cab with me. You can show me the way."
We closed the truck's back flap. Soon the vehicle rolled along the cliff drop leaving the tied-up raiders behind.
* * *
The night closed in fast. The stars crowded the sky clustering into strange constellations. To the left of the drop, the black ocean loomed, jagged rocks gaping under the headlights. Waves smashed against the boulders and dissipated in clouds of silvery dust and foam.
"It's been two hours," I glanced at a large alarm clock welded to the dashboard. "How much further is it?"
"Not far," Georgie to my right mumbled, half asleep.
I could use a few Zs myself. All the stress and exhaustion started to show. Had I still had my implants installed, I'd have thought nothing of it. They could keep you awake for seventy-two hours.
"You shouldn't have left them the knife," Georgie grumbled.
"Do change the record."
The crane operator rubbed his face, patted his cheeks and winced at his injuries.
"Why should I? It would have been better to have used the gun on them. Now Kathy and Fumba will bend over backward to hunt us down."
Apparently, Fumba was the African's name. According to Georgie, he used to be a clones' slave driver at an opium plantation back in Africa until he headed a revolt against the local authorities and consequently was deported to Pangea.
The track in front of us inched uphill. I dropped it into second. The truck roared and struggled to climb the steep slope.
"In order to hunt us down," I spoke, "they need to get back to town first."
"Did it ever occur to you that McLean will look for them?"
"His best team?" I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The engine growled good and loud, pebbles hammering our undercarriage. "It did. But not now. Not for another day."
"McLean will go apeshit. He cares for his men. Then there's the truck and the guns. I suggest we split."
I shrugged. "As you wish."
The Studebaker cleared the ridge. Far below lay a bay flooded with light. I stopped, opened the door and stepped onto the running board.
"Nearly there," Georgie got out his side.
Grunt's voice called from the truck, "See the beacon?"
He pointed west to a single black cliff in the sea. On its summit stood a spiraling pillar, thin and incredibly tall. Its end throbbed with a bright white light.
"What's the source of the light?" Wladas said.
Wong jumped on top of the cab and raised his field glasses. We kept looking at the beacon. This was no human work. The shape was like nothing on Earth.
"Did the Forecomers b
uild it?" I asked.
The next moment, I nearly fell off the running board and grabbed at the open door, squatting, my eyes shut. My head exploded. I could see New Pang's filthy side streets, sewage ditches running along the squat slums made of planks and clay brick... Then I saw clearly a two-story building, its first floor high with slotted shutters; the second floor small with tiny windows glazed with a kind of cloudy film. Music and voices came from inside. A shop sign hung above the door - I knew that it pictured an open seashell with a flame inside. A lopsided inscription read-
I couldn't remember what it read. I knew the house was a hotel, probably the biggest in the whole town.
But how the hell did I know it? Had I been in New Pang before?
Had I been on Pangea?
The thought knocked me senseless. Impossible. I couldn't have known the place from before.
Now I knew it. I had to get to town. Straight to the hotel, immediately.
I glanced at Georgie, stood up and got back into the cab. I slumped in my seat clutching at the steering wheel. My hands shook. My decision to go to the hotel kept growing, as if the sight of the nightlit city had triggered a preinstalled code, very much like that Information software.
Preinstalled by whom? Who had downloaded the Information program and my memory of this place?
"Where d'you think we can stay?" I asked Georgie, by then back in his seat. "Any hotels in New Pang?
Grunt heard my question and popped his head through the door.
"There're a couple but we can't afford them. Rita's, for one..."
"Who's Rita?"
"The owner of the Seashell."
The red letters on the shop sign flashed before my eyes. That was it. I had to get inside this Seashell place. So apparently, my visions made sense. I didn't take my eyes off the cluster of far-away windows glowing on top of the cliff. At a distance, the houses looked clean and tidy. Wish that they were... I knew the place. The Filthy Slums, the hotbed of a recent plague epidemic that had ravaged New Pang taking out two-thirds of its population.
Now it was my own memory, not Information. The city had no sewage system, and the locals poured their waste into ditches that traced the slopes opening into the ocean. On a calm day the stench in the bay made one reach for a gas mask.
"What do you use for money? Can you show me?"
Grunt exchanged glances with Georgie who searched his pockets and placed a coin under the windshield, dull and yellow with a large 5 on it.
"Five rubles," he explained. "Riggers mint'em, fucking gangsters. They own whatever gold there is. Never mind. This should be enough for a night," he shook his head. "Then you should run before McLean finds you."
The ease with which he'd parted with the coin could be explained by the fact that he'd expropriated it from the raiders. Surely he'd found more in their pockets.
"Mark, what's he saying?" Wladas climbed over the side of the truck jumping off.
"Our friends from the barge will go their way. We'll go ours," I hung out of the cab. "Wladas, Wong, it's up to you. You can go with them if you wish."
The Chinese glanced at me and went on studying the shore through his field glasses.
Grunt and Jim slung the guns across their backs and prepared to jump down.
"Well, Mark," the captain leaned across the side of the truck and stuck out his hand. "Nice meeting you, man," I shook his hand and he jumped down.
"We'll go by the river," Grunt adjusted the holster on his belt. "We've got no business in the city tonight, that's for sure."
"Wladas?" I said. "What have you decided?"
He looked aside. I nodded to the sailors and shut the cab door.
"If you really need to go to that hotel," Georgie spoke, "take a right from the fork under the hill and keep driving. Make sure you keep your back to the beacon. When you enter Broadway - that's the biggest street in town - go three blocks and look out for a two-story house to your left. You'll see the shop sign."
He opened the cab door.
"Well, nice meeting you." He wanted to add something but reconsidered and slunk off.
I sat up glancing into the side mirror as Wladas climbed back into the truck. I started up, shifted into third, gunned the engine and rolled downhill toward a nightlit New Pang.
Chapter Five
The Trigger Code
The truck rattled down a dark lane and rolled out onto an intersection with its back to the bay and the beacon. The streets were dug up in places. Lengths of water pipes heaped up along trenches snaking past sandstone walls and squat houses.
It looked as if the town had embarked on some large-scale renovations - most likely, building a water pipeline. I was forced to take a detour to bypass more dugouts and finally reached the main street after ten more minutes of driving around, guided by the beacon.
I glanced into the back window. Wong and Wladas sat on the bench on the truck's right-hand side keeping an eye on the road.
The truck droned past the houses. The Broadway lamplights emitted the same white glow as the beacon. Could be some gas or special liquid but it could also be the mixture of some weird local tree saps or something discovered by local tinkerers. I vaguely remembered something about the rainforest stretching between New Pang's eastern borders and the desert: I thought I'd heard of one or two local plants suitable for that purpose. But my memory refused to help, and Information wouldn't oblige, eighet.
As Georgie had said, Broadway was indeed broad and paved with stone, sloping gently upward away from the sea, and wide enough for three trucks like ours to pass each other leaving enough space for pedestrians. No trenches there.
I steered toward a two-story house at the end of the block, with brightly lit windows and a red sign over the front door. I drove past it and stopped in front of the next house, then reconsidered and backed up, parking the truck in a tiny side street by the wall of the Sea Pearl. I killed the engine and heard a bunch of drunken voices bellowing the old Russian anthem - something about the unbreakable union of freeborn republics. I got out and with a quick "Come on, then" headed for the front door.
I couldn't have cared less about the drinkers. All I wanted was to get inside. One hand already on the door handle, I looked up at the bright letters of the hotel sign. My eyes stung; I blinked. Something went off in my head again - it felt as if the memory chip, removed before the trial, woke up and started testing neuro chains. I almost expected to see a 3D model of my nervous system. Then the illusion faded. The hollering inside grew louder coming from the bar in the right wing of the first floor. I pushed the door and walked along a hallway leading to a brightly lit room. No vacant tables; faces blurred behind blue clouds of tobacco smoke. I walked past. The other two followed me in silence.
At the end of the hallway I discovered two doors and a staircase. One door, scratched and padlocked, seemed to open into a utility room. I walked past it and reached for the next door - fancy and carved with a chest-high sea shell design. Wong took the steps to the next floor, bent over the rails and nodded. Wladas in the hallway shifted his feet, nervous. He had no weapon: the Chinese upstairs had both guns, one across his back and the other training everywhere. I had the spare handgun. I pushed the door and walked in.
I had no idea why I did so. It must have been a knee-jerk reaction. There was a lamplit desk by the back wall; to its right, rows of shelves housed large clay pitchers, their mouths tied with pieces of clean muslin and sealed with seal-wax. Had to be the establishment's stock of liquor. On top of the shelves stood figurines made of stone, wood and even glass.
A ladder leaned against the shelves. On it stood a tall woman in a floor-length dress: her black hair in a bun, her face in the shadows.
"What do you want?" she said in a low voice hoarse with agitation. "I've paid up already. McLean promised me that-"
She reached for a fat figurine which looked much like a piggy bank and turned to the light. "I thought we'd discussed everything. He did promise that-" She froze, breathless. Her large d
ark eyes glinted with fear on a broad face.
I closed the door behind me, walked to the desk and looked around. To my left was a bare wall. A derelict strong box stood behind the door opposite a wooden cabinet. Next to it, window curtains were open a crack.
I walked around the desk to the window and looked out. The Studebaker stood at arm's reach. She must have seen it and mistaken us for McLean's raiders. So now she went up the ladder to get her piggy bank...
The woman stood on the ladder, figurine in hand, staring at me without blinking.
"I need a room for three," I said in a low voice. "For one night."
I took out the fiver and dropped it onto the desk. The woman's face relaxed. She looked away, blinking, and very nearly fell down the ladder. I caught her, one arm under hers and the other round her waist, and helped her to her feet.
She recoiled, then pulled herself up. Clenching the figurine she squeezed herself between me and the desk, rearranging the front of her dress. She sat up onto a stool and raised an already businesslike face.
She had to be just over forty. Puffy eyelids, crowfeet, her eyes tired and disillusioned. It was as if she wanted to get rid of me but couldn't, so she put on a stern face waiting for me to speak.
"So what about that room?" I said.
She studied me, her hands on the desk.
"And?" I was losing patience. I was hungry and sleepy, in reverse order. "I can take my custom elsewhere!"
A thought struck me. This woman didn't have to be the owner. She was no Rita.
"A ruble per head," she finally said. "Dinner in the room?"
I nodded. She opened a drawer and brushed the coin into it in a practiced motion.
"Dinner is two rubles," she handed me a room key with a white ball on the key ring.
The white ball - which had to symbolize a pearl - bore a large number 3 and felt like a piece of plastic.
