Thunder Road

by James Axler

  “Yeah, there have been stories lately about some guy on a killer bike. Word gets around, ’specially when it’s someone with something unusual that we haven’t heard of before.”

  “So the rider isn’t known to you, then?” Mildred asked.

  He shook his head. “Nope. Thing is, though, none of us knows everything about everyone else. That’s just the way we like it. But I don’t reckon that this guy does know any of us. With the word that’s been buzzing, if someone knew who he was, then it would have gotten around.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you know even less than we do.” Mildred husked. “And yet you’ve got the balls to call us crap.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t get my lungs full of tear gas.”

  “Yeah, but your mouth’s still full of shit.”

  The black man whirled to where the new voice had originated. The friends had watched her approach on a bike that seemed to glide across the sands, and had figured that she was with the black man. His reaction gave lie to that notion.

  “Shit, Rounda, you should have let me know you were here. No, scratch that, you haven’t got the manners.”

  “Manners my ass,” she said as she dismounted the bike. It seemed to be of a light aluminum construction, with storage pods and a small, motorlike propulsion unit that was far too quiet to be a combustion engine. She seemed too heavy for the bike, but it bore her weight well. She was fat, but not in a flabby way. Her camou clothing hung loosely on her, but they could still see that she carried too much weight for her frame. Despite that, she was solid, and there was a hardness about her face as she fixed the black man with a stare that told him not to mess with her.

  “I knew we should have taken that fuck-ass alarm from the bitch last time we saw her. Nice girl, but got trouble written all over her. I hate trouble, ’specially when it means I have to work with you and that hard bitch Bryanna. Bet she ain’t too far away if you’re here—” she paused to give him opportunity to answer, but took great delight in cutting him off as he opened his mouth “—and of course, I bet you haven’t thought to check if we’re out of range of any intel that laughing boy and crew may have trained on us?” She scanned his face, then grinned. “Thought not. Never mind these guys, how the fuck are you still alive, then?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Howard hunched over the monitor board, his shoulders tight with tension, so much so that the strained muscles were visible to Krysty through the material of his uniform. His hands, as they rested on the console, were almost white, drained of blood as he gripped so hard, trying to control his temper. One thing was for sure—Krysty wanted to get as much space between them as possible before he next spoke.

  And yet, as he whirled toward her, and she tensed for the explosion of anger, preparing to defend herself if necessary, it was not with the wild glare of fury that she had expected. Instead, for the first time since he had brought her to the bunker, his eyes registered some kind of emotion. But instead of the raging temper that she had expected, they were almost like those of a child: confused, hurt and not understanding.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, his voice cracked and small.

  “You launched a defensive move, and it seems to have worked,” she said as gently and evenly as she could, adding to herself that if the bastard had hurt any of her friends, his chilling would be slower than she had originally envisaged.

  A small smile flickered across his face, quirking his mouth. It flittered with barely time to register before it was replaced once more by apprehension. “Yes…yes, that’s it,” he muttered, “that’s what I was doing. And it did work I think…Sid, Hammill, status reports.”

  Hammill’s voice sounded first. “Visual contact still not possible. Thermal imaging suggests that the subjects have retreated out of range. Audio backs up this supposition. There is nothing that the long-distance mikes can pick up.”

  “Systems back up initial reports.” Sid’s smooth voice cut in. “You’ve driven them back, Howard, but beyond the range of land reconnaissance. With the current wind speed and direction, it will be 5.3 minutes until the gas clouds clear sufficiently for visual contact to be resumed.”

  “So what the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime?” Howard hissed in an exasperated tone.

  “There isn’t anything,” Krysty said softly.

  “But there should be.” His tone had traces of a peevish whine that made her want to hit him. He was being a petulant child, but then she knew that already, from the way he had looked when he had turned to her.

  “Why?” she asked as mildly as she could. “You can’t control the weather conditions out there. You opted to use a nonoffensive gas, and it takes time to clear. All the sec systems tell you that they’ve retreated, and there are no signs of anyone having bought the farm, so that’s okay, isn’t it?” She stepped forward, tentatively put out a hand and stroked his arm.

  Howard looked down at it, bafflement crossing his face, soon replaced by a happiness almost as childlike as the peevishness of a few moments earlier.

  “I suppose so,” he said quietly, stroking her hand with fingers now returning to their natural flesh tone, the tension draining. “It’s just that, in the old videos, there’s never any problems like this. The gas would have cleared much more quickly. That’s what it’s always like, you see,” he added, looking her in the face, “it’s never like the old videos, and I sometimes wonder if this is a world where I can fit—if this is what my mission is all about, or if I’m a man who is out of time.”

  “Times have changed, and this is a different world than before skydark. Mebbe that’s why things don’t behave as they used to. But people are different. People don’t change. Not fundamentally.”

  He smiled. It almost reached the eyes. “No, you’re right.”

  Over his shoulder, she could see that the monitors were clearing. The armored wag was still there, and the sand was mussed and disturbed. But there were no corpses. For that she was grateful. In fact, there was no one in sight.

  “Look,” she said, turning him.

  Howard moved to the monitors, studying them intently. His hand thumped down on the console.

  “Damn! They must have gone on the far side of the dune. I’ll have to use the spycams.”

  Krysty frowned. What the hell were they?

  “YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER than us, and you always have. But we need to be together if we’re to stand a chance.”

  Rounda kissed her teeth. “Same old bullshit. Only it’s not you speaking, is it? It’s that bitch Bryanna and her stupe ideas about a revolution.”

  The black man shook his head. “We need to band together against any threat to our existence,” he said.

  “Like you’ve ever had any threat to yours. Fuck’s sake, that’s why we live like we do. We go our own way, even from each other, and let the rest of the stupes fuck each other over. I mean, look at us—we can’t even agree, and that stupe bitch wants us to band together? Under whose flag? Whose ideas? Hers, I’d guess.”

  Doc spoke softly, but his words carried over the still night air. “Madam,” he began, addressing Rounda, “I have nothing but the utmost respect for your views. Indeed, that is all we seek. Anything other than a temporary alliance under conditions of adversity would be less than advantageous to any of us. However, I fear that this situation may as such. So I would request that you put your differences to one side for the moment. After all, that was why we took the liberty—indeed, the risk from our point of view—of sending out a signal for you.”

  Rounda smiled. “Say, you’re kinda cute, aren’t you?”

  “Madam, this is hardly—”

  “Don’t sweat it, sweetie, I could eat you for breakfast. But I won’t.”

  Doc didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. He was about to speak when Ryan stepped in.

  “Listen, you know about the rider? And you’ve seen what he’s done here tonight, and in other places. You know what he’s capable of. Well, he’s got Krysty. Sh
e left us the piece of tech we called you with. She needs help, and it’s more than we can give against his tech. So we figure that mebbe you’d like to help her.”

  “She’s a redhead, right?” Rounda said. “Strong, got real balls?” She waited for Ryan’s nod. “Yeah, I remember her, and so does this asshole if he uses his brain for once instead of waiting for Bryanna to do his thinking for him. Come to that, she must have sent him in first. She ain’t far away. Call her in, fuckwit, and let’s get this sorted,” she added, turning to the black man.

  Instead of the argument that Ryan had expected—and indeed, that the fat woman was spoiling for—the black man merely raised his hand and beckoned.

  Seemingly from nowhere, three land yachts came out of the darkness. If they were powered by gas, then the engines were quiet. It was more likely that they worked on stored solar energy, as there were batteries and airfoils at the rear of each. Triangular and three-wheeled, they had sails that were angled to catch the slight breeze and assist the engine, draining less energy. Carrying pods for weapons and stores, they were of the same lightweight material as the bike used by Rounda, and the sails were almost transparently luminescent in the night air.

  Two of the yachts were manned by two personnel. The third was occupied only by a woman in a khaki vest with almost as many pockets as J.B.’s, and tight white pants that shone almost as much as the sail above her. Her head was circled by a silver cord that was only marginally lighter than her almost platinum-blond hair, pulled back into a tight ponytail that seemed to stretch her face into the tight set with which she faced them. She was far from happy, and it wasn’t hard to guess from the way she glared at Rounda that this was the “bitch” Bryanna.

  More immediately worrying for Ryan was that they were now outnumbered. The new arrivals made it seven to their five. Sure, his people were crack shots, and these people weren’t exactly on triple red—in fact, the black man had let his blaster drop completely during the argument, as though he had forgotten he even carried it—but they were open and exposed. In a firefight, if it came to that, some of his people were bound to buy it. And he didn’t like that idea.

  Even less he liked the look of the guys on one of the yachts. One was a lean, dark man who was dressed in old denims and a T-shirt with the picture of a guy called Jerry Garcia on it—Ryan recalled the name from something Mildred had said once about being grateful when you’re dead—and although he seemed relaxed, there was an aura about him. Less subtle was the guy behind him. He was younger, smaller, but perhaps a bit stockier in build. He was bristling, the aggression showing visibly, and barely contained. He carried a crossbow, and it didn’t take much to see that it was already primed. As was he. It was obvious that he could explode to anger with the slightest provocation. Flicking a glance to J.B., he could see that Armorer had also noticed it. He had no doubt that the others were also aware.

  The last of the yachts held a man who seemed older than the rest, with thinning gray hair, his frame almost emaciated. A woman almost as thin sat with him, her long chestnut hair flowing over her shoulders and framing sharp features. Both of them had blasters that were visible, but holstered. They seemed calmer, less on edge, but that could be illusory.

  The truth was that these people were less allies right now than more potential enemies. And they seemed all too keen to fight among themselves, which was exactly what seemed about to happen as the guy with the crossbow got off the land yacht and strode toward Rounda and the black man. His every step seemed to be a threat, and Ryan noticed the fat woman go on the back foot, prepared for trouble.

  “Robear, you need to calm down,” she said, holding up her hands.

  He brandished the crossbow as though it were a club. That was something of a relief to Ryan, as at least he didn’t intend to start firing. The one-eyed man looked around at his people. He could see from their expressions that they shared his own sense of bewilderment at this turn of events. These people were supposed to come to their assistance; instead, it was starting to look as though they were getting caught in someone else’s battle, never mind their own.

  Unaware, seemingly, of their presence, Robear had launched into a diatribe of his own.

  “You! I should have known you’d show yourself here. I don’t know why you bother, you never do anything but snipe at us. Okay, so you don’t agree with what we’re trying to do, but that’s no reason to just—”

  “Agree with you?” Rounda gasped. “Agree with Bryanna, don’t ya mean? When was the last time you had a thought of your own, Robear? Instead of letting little Miss Perfect over there do all your thinking for you,” she added, waving her fist toward Bryanna.

  The ice queen in the white pants said nothing, but merely raised an eyebrow before speaking in tones far more calm and measured than any of those around her.

  “Robear, leave her be. She’s entitled to her opinion, even if it is absurd. It’s not her fault she can’t understand why we need to band together. The old ways are passing, and she’ll pass with them. It’s more important we see why we’ve been gathered here. Well?” she added, turning to Ryan.

  “Shit, lady, I wondered when you were going to get to us,” Mildred said. “Can’t you do your infighting later?”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was talking to you,” she said offhandedly. “I was talking to your leader.”

  “I might take the lead, but I like to listen to what my people have to say,” Ryan said in tones that were as icy as the way she looked. “I value the people I travel with, and trust their views.”

  His eye locked with hers. She had heard of him, of course. She knew the others, noticed that the red-haired woman was absent, the one she knew best, but this was her first encounter with the one-eyed man whose reputation preceded him. She took in his curly hair, the scarred yet handsome visage, the tautly muscled body…but most importantly, she took in the aura that surrounded him. He was not a man to cross, of that she was sure. She had to admire the redhead’s taste, if nothing else.

  “Very well,” she said finally to Mildred. “Perhaps you are right. This is not the time to be arguing among ourselves.”

  She turned her attention back to Ryan. “Perhaps you should tell me why you called us.”

  Ryan sighed. “I’ve already had to tell laughing boy, there,” he said, indicating the black man. “I don’t see why, with all your tech, you couldn’t have been monitoring what he said. Come to that, you must have heard of this bastard mystery rider who’s been blasting this area.”

  “Perhaps I want to hear it again, to see if you’re consistent and telling the truth,” she murmured. “And perhaps I’m doubtful about how dangerous this man could be to us, rather than you mundanes,” she added.

  “Reckon you need wait longer,” Jak interjected.

  Ryan shot him a puzzled glance, Bryanna one of anger at the interruption. But both followed the direction of his hand. Drifting low across the desert surface, approaching at speed, came a small fleet of aircraft. As silent as the land yachts, they were like the parasail that the friends had seen in use before, except now there were four of them, each manned by two people. The flyweight open-steel tubular frames held the seating and the propelling fan, along with the small combustion engine that powered this fan, in a sling beneath a ribbed arch of a synthetic fabric that shimmered in the gray light. They seemed too flimsy to hold the engine, fan and two people, but the strength of the materials was obviously much greater than at first appeared.

  It was only as the parasails were skillfully glided in formation to land a few yards apart, and a farther few yards from where the tech-nomads and the friends were already gathered, that the puttering of the small engines became audible, only to die out as the parasails gracefully hit the sand and the power was killed.

  “Rival group?” Mildred asked in a less than friendly tone.

  “Internecine warfare is all we need right now,” Doc added in a tone that was equally sardonic.

  Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances. Neither was
sure what the word was that Doc had just used, but they knew exactly what that meant.

  However, it was obvious from the attitude of the parasail people as they left their craft that they had no real ax to grind. The first to the group was a tall, thin man with very fine features that were only accentuated by dyed green hair that looked oddly pearlescent in the night light, and showed ears that were pointed. Ryan—unlike the others—had never seen the man before, and wondered if he was a mutie of some kind.

  Whatever he was, he showed no signs of hostility toward Bryanna, bowing as he approached.

  “Bryanna, I should have known you would respond to the call. And Rounda,” he added, bowing also to her.

  She returned the greeting. “So you’ve got a few people in your little cult now, Corwen,” she said, indicating the seven who followed in his wake.

  “Cult is a strong word,” he said softly. “We just want to do our own little thing and be left alone.”

  “Then why did you come here?” she questioned.

  He shrugged. “We believe in helping others. Besides, from the location it was obvious—”

  “You mean you’ve heard about the rider?” Ryan interrupted.

  Corwen looked at him, his head cocked on one side. “You must be Ryan Cawdor,” he said. “We’ve heard stories about a man on an incredible motorcycle who has been chilling people in this area. None of us has seen him thus far, and in truth, none of us wish to. We just want to be left alone.”

  “He’s not the kind of coldheart who wants to leave people alone,” Ryan said softly.

  Corwen nodded. “Unfortunately, we have been of that opinion. Avoiding him seemed the lesser option. You may call it cowardice. We call it wishing to live in peace.”

  “I wouldn’t judge,” Ryan replied. “You have your own ways, and that’s okay. But I’d say that there might come a time when you have no choice.”

  Corwen looked toward the people who had arrived with him. “I suspect that you are about to tell us that such a time has arrived. I notice Krysty Wroth is not with you. And as we approached, I noticed signs of combat over the dune,” he added with a wry smile. “It doesn’t take much to add that up and see a whole heap of trouble.”