by Cedric Nye
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” the muscular man screamed into the ground as he cupped his injured crotch with both hands, and writhed on the ground in agony.
Jango crouched next to him, and screamed along with him, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” he screamed in the man’s ear.
So profound was the man’s agony, though, that he did not hear or respond to the taunt, so Jango stood back up, and drew his steel rod from its scabbard on his back.
With three lazy swings of his new stick, he burst the three men’s skulls. He wiped their brains and blood from the rod on one man’s shirt, and then put it back in its scabbard.
31
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” Jango screamed again, just for the fun of it as he looked over at Ian, and then down at Jarvis, who still knelt where he had fallen. The knife maker had been shocked into immobility by the sudden turn of events.
Ian felt a secret elation at what had just happened. Now Allison would be safe, and the world was better off without the four men in it. They were cruel, cold, and violent men who had been known to take women against their will on several occasions. He knew that the rich men upstairs would just send more men down, though, and that there would be retribution for the four deaths. He knew that meant that many people in Bartertown would suffer.
Jarvis stood shakily, and looked at the four dead men on the ground. “Fuck, man,” he gasped, “you are mad as a hatter!”
Jango looked at him curiously, and asked, “Why do you say that? Is it madness that I excel within the limitless bounds of the rules they chose to live by? People like this,” he kicked one of the dead men for emphasis, “they think that they are hard because people fear them. They don’t understand that the fear they inspire is because they are part of a group. People do not fear a soldier, they fear an army. Fear is a weapon for such as these. They use your fear to keep you quiescent and following orders. They cannot use fear against me, though, because fear is my truest friend.”
He leaned over, and began looting the bodies for weapons, and anything else of value. He made a pile of their gear, and then tied most of it up in a parcel using one of the dead men’s shirts. The pistols went into his backpack, and he awkwardly hefted the four rifles as he stood.
“Well, we’ve done enough damage down here, Ian. How about you take me somewhere so I can trade all this shit in for some coin of the realm, and maybe score a shotgun!” Jango finished happily.
With a stunned Jarvis, and a thoughtful Ian in tow, he made his winding way out of Bartertown, and back upstairs. Once they reached the top of the ramp, he turned to Ian and said, “Lead the way to the money-changer, amigo.”
32
While Ian led the way to the closest thing to a currency exchange that they had in the Center, he tried to explain what would happen in Bartertown as a result of the four deaths. “Man,” he said, “you don’t understand how it is here! Those guys have a boss, Mr. Elam, and that guy is one of the bosses here. He runs the protection racket, and when he finds out that four of his guys were killed, he will send a bunch of guys down there and a lot of people will be hurt and even killed.”
Jango stopped dead in his tracks, and asked Ian, “Doesn’t Vanessa do anything about this shit?”
Ian looked everywhere except at Jango for a moment, before finally meeting his eyes and saying, “Vanessa is barely staying alive. She is in no position to help people in Bartertown. Everyone in the Consortium is against her, people are trying to kill her, and all because she thinks everyone should have an equal say. She tried to get a supply line going to Bartertown once, on her own dime. Those thugs killed the workers, and stole the supplies!” The red-haired man seemed almost in tears as he told the story.
As difficult as it was for Jango to understand emotions outside of his own tempestuous mind, he began to understand that things were not as they seemed in the Convention Center, and that Vanessa’s position was even more tenuous than he had thought.
Ian finished with, “Vanessa tries to do what she can, but it is too little, and way too late. The rich guys were dug in right from the start. They have most of the guns, and most of the gun-hands. What can you do with odds like that?”
Jango started smiling, as his body began to thrum with the familiar music of potential mayhem. “What can we do?” He murmured, and then repeated, “What can we do?”
33
They continued on until they came to a huge set of double doors that, to Jango, had the feeling of outside doors to them.
He turned out to be correct. When Ian opened the doors, Jango was amazed by what he saw. In the open space that had to be several acres in size, there were forges, large covered looms for weaving, and many different kinds of shops for the making of almost anything he could think of. There were even store-fronts all around the perimeter selling food, clothing, and more. The entire area was a riot of colors, smells, and sounds. Trees grew tall and lush, flowers bloomed, and bird-song filled the air. It seemed like the complete opposite of what Bartertown had been.
“Holy crap!” Jango exclaimed. “Am I hallucinating?”
Ian laughed out loud, and said, “No, man. Everyone reacts like that to Builder’s Square when they see it for the first time. This is basically an up-scale version of Bartertown.”
Jarvis had gone still and silent as he took in the beauty of the place. He had tears in his eyes as he imagined being able to bring his family up here into the fresh, clean air of Builder’s Square, and out of the dangerous and foul depths of Bartertown. He imagined Timmy, his youngest child, growing healthy again. He suddenly worried that he had lost the diamond in his pocket, and reached in to make sure it was still there; it was. He sighed in relief.
Ian led them to a large, sturdy building with the words “Currency Exchange” blazoned on the front in tall gold-colored letters.
Upon entering, Jango was struck by the resemblance to how he remembered banks had been. There was even the soft sound of elevator music playing in the background. He grinned, and then elbowed the silent Jarvis, “Gimme that diamond. I will change it for you. Fuckin’ bankers. They will be less likely to try to cheat me, I think.”
Jarvis fumbled in his pocket, and slowly passed the precious stone to Jango, who then walked up to a counter and stood in front of a thin-faced man of indeterminate age.
“How can I help you today, sir?” the man said in rich, mellifluous tones.
“I want to change some goods to scrip.” Jango replied as he dumped the rifles on the counter, and emptied the shirt full of pistols and belongings beside them.
“Oh, and I need to change these as well.” He set three of the diamonds on the counter.
The banker’s eyes widened, and he exclaimed, “Yes, sir! I can help you with that.”
Jango’s eyes glinted, and narrowed. “You had better not try to screw me over, mister, or I will pull your nuts off.”
The banker paled, and stammered, “No, n-n-no! We are a reputable place of banking, sir!” He nervously began adding up the value of the items, starting with the diamonds.
He swiftly forgot to be nervous as he happily exclaimed over the diamonds as he appraised their value with a jeweler’s loupe, and a scale.
“The diamonds alone are worth nine hundred thousand Tags, sir.” The man said after several minutes.
Ian whistled aloud, and Jarvis staggered in a small circle, and then went to sit down in a chair that was set near the entrance. He sat down, hung his head in his hands, and wept silent tears of joy.
After all of the items had been appraised, the total value came to just under one million Tags. The banker counted several banded and marked stacks of scrip into a large canvas bag, and then handed it to Jango. “Thank you very much for your business, sir!” He said brightly, “Please come back and see us any time.”
34
Jango grunted at the man, and walked over to Jarvis. He kicked the silent Englishman’s worn boot, and said, “Wake up, man.”
He took out stack after stack with the markings “
$25,000” on the bands until only twelve stacks remained in the bag. He handed the bag to Jarvis, and put most of the rest in his pack.
He made a “come here” gesture at Ian, and said, “Give me that bag of smoke, man. I am sick of seeing you cup your hand over it and look around all nervous-like.”
Ian gave him the baggie of tobacco, and Jango handed him a stack of Tags.
“Jesus!” Ian exclaimed. “This is way too much.”
In answer, Jango turned and walked away.
Once back out in the open air of Builder’s Square, Jango stretched, and started thinking about what he should do next. He was already getting bored with being stuck inside with all of the human drama, and he was considering trying to talk Vanessa into leaving with himself and the baby. He could go back to killing goobers and jacks, and Vanessa could raise the baby. It was a win/win situation in his mind. He could not know that Vanessa would never leave the Center while people were being preyed upon by the consortium of rich men who held the throats of the people in an iron grip.
Jango was able to detach himself from feeling anything for people, and as a result, he often missed many of the subtleties of human nature.
“Excuse me, mate?” Jarvis interrupted Jango’s thoughts.
“What, man?” He responded curtly.
The Englishman looked embarrassed, but he screwed up his courage and spoke, “Would you be willing to hold on to most of this money for me until I can get your knife made, and my family moved up here?” He asked.
Without a word, Jango unslung and opened his pack. Jarvis slipped the bag within, and it was done.
“Thank you,” Jarvis said before turning away, and heading back to the bitter truth of Bartertown.
As if no time had passed, Ian said, “So, when Elam and his cronies send an army of armed thugs down to Bartertown, a lot of people will be hurt.” Jango’s face remained expressionless, and Ian began to wrack his brains for a way to get this man to do something, because, instinctively, Ian knew that the man standing in front of him was capable of doing what Vanessa and all of her security force could not; he could make a difference. Ian reminded himself that this man, if the stories were true, had burned Ash Fork to the ground, he had killed and burned his way across half of the state of Arizona. Then Ian remembered; everyone knew that he hated anyone who hurt children.
“Some of those thugs like kids,” Ian said nonchalantly. He felt Jango go rigid beside him, and felt a palpable heat begin to rise off of the man’s body. An acrid smell filled the air, redolent of lightning and the smell of a locked ward in a mental health facility. Ian’s heart started banging against the inside of his ribs as he wondered if this course of action was wise.
“What do you mean by, ‘like kids’?” Jango asked in a woman’s voice.
Ian shuddered at the sound of the voice coming from the hard man’s mouth. The woman’s voice sounded like blood pouring from an open wound, honey, flowers, and poison all mixed together. He felt his bowels clench in fear, but he answered anyway. “They are pedophiles, man. All of the scum just gravitated toward the Consortium, because by working for them, they basically get to do whatever they want, and indulge in their darkest desires.”
Ian felt himself jerked around to face Jango, and then he felt his feet leave the floor as he was lifted by the front of his uniform.
“Where, oh where can I find these boys?” Jango asked in the same sex and violence voice.
“They all live in the same place!” Ian shouted in fear, “They all live in what they call ‘The Barracks.’ They keep women captive there; they drink booze, torture, rape, and all kinds of other shit. They are evil, man, pure evil.” The pressure on his uniform relented, and he sighed when he felt his feet touch the ground again.
35
Ian produced a full-color map of the Convention Center, made before the Z-Virus hit, and he proceeded to show Jango exactly where the thuggish security forces of the Consortium dwelt. It was a large area with many separate rooms, but only two ways in and out. Ian showed him the ways in, and told him that they were not heavily guarded because everyone lived in fear of reprisals, so no one dared to go there any way.
In his normal voice, Jango asked, “Where can a man buy a shotgun, and some gasoline around here?”
Eyes wide behind his glasses, Ian pointed back into Builder’s Square, and then led the way to a building back behind the tree-line. It had a sign that just said, “The Weapon Shop” hung on the front of the gray concrete building.
They entered the dimly lit building, and Jango wasted no time in finding what he wanted. He approached a large man with long hair who stood quietly behind the counter, and asked without preamble, “Do you have a Remington 870, and two gallons of gasoline.”
The large man’s eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch, and the left corner of his mouth quirked up in the shadow of a smile, “Got a hot date, or what?” He asked.
Without waiting for an answer, the man went into an area in the back, and then returned after a few minutes with a darkly-shining Remington 870 Express in 12 Gauge, and a large plastic gasoline can. “All I have are the three gallon containers, mister. I hope that’ll do.”
Jango smiled broadly, and commenced to stripping and checking the shotgun. When he had put the long gun back together, he asked, “How much?”
The man mused quietly for a moment, and then said, “Well, I guess that depends on who you have a date with.” He continued, “See, the way I figure it, you are hangin’ with Red, there, and he is on the pay-roll of the nice young lady, Vanessa. Now, if you are plannin’ on having a date with Miss Vanessa, then I am going to have to charge you the farm.” With those words, he started to pull a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from behind the counter.
Jango reached across the counter, and grabbed the man by his hair, jerked him forward, and twisted the shotgun out of his large, ham-like hand.
“Get up,” Jango muttered, “Vanessa is my sister. The people I need to see ain’t her or hers, get it? Now, how much?” he asked the man again.
The big man slowly straightened up, licked his lips, and said, “On the house, if you are going to visit the other side. The Consortium thugs?” He said it as a question, and Jango nodded.
The man smiled, and said, “On the house then, stranger. If you need anything else, just let me know. The name’s Dan.” He finished.
Jango cracked open the double-barreled shotgun, took out the shells, and handed it back to him.
“Thanks, Dan,” he mumbled as he took eight shells out of his backpack, and fed them into the shotgun one at a time. After he had loaded seven, he worked the forestock to feed a round into the breach, and then added the eighth round.
He then took out a white phosphorous grenade, and duct-taped it to the handle of the gas can.
Both Dan and Ian paled when they saw the grenade, but remained silent.
When Jango finished his preparations, he stood up, and said, “Thanks for the gear, Dan.” Then he was out the door, and gone.
36
Moving fast, Jango reviewed the route to The Barracks in his mind as he moved through the hallways and corridors of the massive structure. He paid no mind to the people who he encountered along the way, his singleness of purpose made all non-combatants irrelevant.
People seemed to sense his coming, and he found the way clear. People shuddered at the sight of the grim, barely-human creature that ghosted past them. He was death made flesh; and as death, he walked among them.
In less than fifteen minutes, he stood before one of the portals which led into The Barracks.
He readied himself, drew the shotgun from its scabbard on his back, and then burst through the unlocked doors.
He immediately dropped the gas can when he came through the double-doors, and took in the entire area at a glance. Probably an acre in size, it had been turned into something from Caligula’s reign.
Everywhere that Jango looked, he saw evidence of forced-sex and perversions beyond normal man�
�s ken. There were tables with whips, cruciform monstrosities with straps to bind, and the smell of blood and semen permeating the air.
His jaw clenched, and then released when he saw that he was in luck, and that most of the men seemed to be engrossed by some spectacle as yet unseen by Jango.
Without preamble or pause, he fired the shotgun into the men’s backs as fast as he could work the action. The buckshot rounds decimated their ranks, and threw them into a scrabbling pandemonium that allowed Jango time to empty his pistols into their stumbling, tightly gathered ranks.
Unlike zombies, these men did not need to be shot in the head in order to incapacitate them, and by the time Jango had exhausted all thirty rounds in the magazines of his pistols, and replaced the empty mags with full ones, there was little in the way of opposition left.
He picked off the few survivors, and killed the wounded. It was then that he saw what they had been so engrossed in watching. A man was tied to a chair, naked, with a wire cage strapped to his head. In the cage were what appeared to be several large rats.
He strode forward, and tore the cage from the man’s head, only to find that he had already died. Perhaps he had died from shock. Jango found himself saddened by the man’s undignified death, and he looked to find an outlet for his grief.
He stalked from room to room around the perimeter of the huge area, and in almost every room, he found a victim of the men and their twisted tastes.
When he had rounded up every one he could find, he bade them take up the weapons of the dead men. Then he led forth his broken army.
At the large double-doors, he stopped, and ushered everyone past until they were all out of the now-barren Barracks.
Once the room was empty, but for the dead, Jango pulled the pin on the incendiary grenade, let the handle spring loose, and then flung the can high and far into the place of pain and death.
