Shatter Zone

by James Axler

  With judiciously placed rounds, Ryan and companions started picking off the things while the men pulled the sopping rag fuses from the Molotov cocktails and simply poured the oily contents onto the crawling stickies. Then the rags were lit and dropped onto the sodden attackers.

  Bleeding, hooting and set ablaze, the remaining stickies finally jumped off the vehicle to start limping down the street in an effort to escape from their human tormentors.

  “No survivors!” the driver shouted from inside the bus, and with a grinding of gears, the wag lurched into movement. “Chill every one of the rad-stinking freaks!”

  As the armored vehicle banked into a turn, the men on top started to rain additional Molotov cocktails upon the street, creating a wall of flames. Blocked in that direction, the wounded stickies dashed into a nearby alleyway, only to stop as they reached a dead end, a brick wall twenty feet high. As they turned to leave, the armored wag angled into the mouth of the alley, the sides scraping along the cinder-block walls and throwing off sprays of bright sparks.

  “Chill ’em all!” the driver bellowed, starting the wag rolling forward. “No survivors!”

  Unable to zero in on the stickies anymore with the wag in the way, the companions took this opportunity to reload.

  Hopelessly trapped, the terrified muties started to climb the brick walls in a desperate effort to escape. But the snarling men shot them with arrows until the feathered corpses dropped to the predark asphalt, then more Molotovs were unleashed. Black smoke rose from the twitching inhuman forms, but, not satisfied, the snarling driver rolled the wag all the way into the alley, crushing the burning bodies underneath the spiked tires. Reaching the end, he shifted the gears and backed out, then rolled back in again, before finally retreating into the wartorn street.

  Stopping in the middle of the intersection, the driver nosily set the brake and killed the rumbling engine. Pulling a lever, the driver threw open the side door with a squeal of rusty hinges. In tight battle formation, a grim group of men exited the vehicle, armed with axes, and went into the gory alley to make sure each and every one of the crackling stickies was permanently chilled.

  “Blood for blood,” a gruff voice announced.

  Turning from the sight of the slaughter, Ryan saw the driver step off the machine and start to approach.

  There was no denying it, the driver was bigger than Ryan, taller by almost a full four inches. His hair was close-cropped, too short for an opponent to grab, and his face was covered with small scars. His boots were the pebbled hide of a desert lizard, and he was wearing the ancient blue uniform of a civie police officer, although now there was a screaming eagle embroidered where the badge had once been located. A military gunbelt rode low around his waist, the big-bore revolver shiny with oil, the ammo pouched heavy with powder and shot for the black-powder wep.

  Studying the array of scars, Mildred recognized the marks as second-degree burns that had been poorly treated. The physician was willing to bet there was a lot of scarring among the sec men using the Molotov cocktails.

  “Blood for blood, could mean a lot of things,” Ryan said carefully, resting the Steyr on his shoulder. His grip was loose, the barrel pointing away from the stranger, but Ryan kept his finger near the trigger. Just because the companions had helped take out the muties didn’t mean the two groups were friendly yet. Even coldhearts would sometimes help people trapped by muties, then jack and ace them afterward. But as the Trader always said, it was easier to make deals than bullets. It never hurt to talk first. Especially if you had a gren in your pocket.

  “Is that so? Well, it means a truce here,” the man said, rubbing a scarred hand across his jaw. “You fight by our side against the stickies, and no sec man can raise a hand against you, until you break the baron’s law. You savvy?”

  Returning from the alleyway with bloody axes, the group of armed men started to gather behind the driver. They watched the companions with interested expressions, but the axes stayed tight in their grips, ready for fast action if it was deemed necessary.

  “I savvy,” Ryan repeated, then clicked the safety on the longblaster. “Blood for blood.”

  At the noise, the mob of sec men visibly relaxed.

  “The name is Stirling,” the big man said, jerking a thumb at his chest. “Steven Stirling, sec chief for Two-Son ville.”

  Ryan nodded at that. Two-Son, Tucson. Made sense. There followed a brief round of introductions, during which Stirling looked hard at Jak, then shrugged as if accepting that the albino was just a pale norm, and not a mutie.

  “Hell of a war wag you got there,” J.B. said politely, going over to the machine. This close, he could see that the strips of armor were actually the louvered gates taken from the predark stores. The LAV could have driven through the armored bus without slowing down, but the bus would be a juggernaut against mercies in civie wags.

  “Yeah, she does the job,” a grizzled sec man said, puffing out his chest in pride. “Aced a lot of stickies with the Metro.”

  “Good name,” Jak said with a friendly nod.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m just glad that we could help,” Krysty added honestly. “There are few people I’d let stickies get hold of alive.”

  “Well, I know a few.” Stirling snorted in dark amusement. “Fragging things have chilled more of my men with their clubs and spears than I want to remember. Now they’re leaping off the rooftops onto us! Blind norad, it’s like they’re getting smarter every nuking month.”

  “Yeah, about that…” Ryan started, when a low moan came from the top of the war wag.

  “Corporal, who was hurt?” Sec chief Stirling demanded, looking in that direction.

  “It’s Daniel, sir,” a burly sec man replied from behind the sandbag wall.

  Adjusting his glasses, J.B. saw there was a red-and-white stripe sewn on the shoulder of the man’s police uniform. The other sec men had only a white stripe there, while Stirling had a blue one, as well. Badges of rank for sec men? Interesting. Hadn’t seen that in a long time.

  “Is he burned badly?” Stirling asked, flexing his scarred hands. There was no emotion in the words.

  “No, sir,” the corporal replied. “A stickie touched him on the neck.” He pointed at Doc. “The wrinklie blew off the stinking mutie’s arm, but the hand is still attached, and, well…”

  “The suckers are leeching out his blood,” Stirling finished in a barely controlled growl of anger.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pulling out his blaster, the sec chief opened the chamber of the revolver and checked the load. Closing it with a snap, he cocked back the hammer. “Okay, I’ll do him myself. A blaster is a lot faster than slitting his throat.”

  “No, wait!” Mildred interrupted, hugging her med kit. “I’m a healer. Maybe I can save his life.”

  Murmurs rose from the rest of the sec men, softly counterpointed by a low groan of pain.

  “Can you now?” Stirling muttered suspiciously, then he shrugged. “Well, I’ll be nuked if I can figure out any way you can make him worse. What’s your price?”

  He turned to face Ryan. “Or do I talk to you?”

  “Mildred is in charge of healing,” Ryan answered bluntly.

  The sec chief curled a lip. “And you’re in charge of the chilling,” he said, not posing the statement as a question. “Yeah, I can see that. Fair enough.”

  He turned. “Okay, Healer, what do you want for saving him? If you can, that is.”

  “A week’s food and bed in your ville,” Mildred replied, trying not to show her annoyance. These days, nobody did something free, unless it was to rob you afterward. If she didn’t ask for payment, they’d never allow her near the wounded man.

  Rubbing his jaw, Stirling chewed that over for a minute. “Done,” he said at last, and gestured toward the wag. “Get moving.”

  Passing her MP-5 to Doc, Mildred clambered up the steps and entered the bus. With slow and steady moves, Doc checked the safety on the rapidfire, then crad
led it in his arms, letting it stay in view as a warning, but deliberately keeping his finger off the trigger.

  “Einstein, Carstairs, Clay!” Stirling barked. “Check our fallen and make sure they’re chilled. Call out if anybody is still sucking air.”

  “Yes, sir!” Clay said with a salute. “Should we bury the bodies here or…” The teenager left the sentence hanging.

  “Burn them,” the sec chief ordered. “The stickies would only dig them up later. We don’t feed them our dead, boy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Be sure to save the boots and blasters! Those don’t grow on trees, you know!”

  Gathering a clinking sack of Molotov cocktails, the three sec men hurried off to their grisly task.

  “Now, about you folks,” Stirling said, turning toward the waiting companions. “How the frag did you get so deep into the Zone without horses or a wag? Or is it broke someplace?”

  “We used boot leather, my good sir,” Doc said, tapping his shoes with the ebony stick. “The essence of primordial locomotion.”

  Crossing his massive arms, Stirling frowned. “Come again?”

  With a curse, Ryan drew and fired the SIG-Sauer, the blaster only a blur.

  Before Stirling could react, there was a hoot of pain and a stickie dropped from the underside of a theater marquee. It hit the cracked sidewalk and sluggishly started to rise again. Both the companions and the sec men cut loose with their weapons in unison, and the humanoid creature was torn apart by the banging fusillade.

  “Tricky bastards,” Stirling muttered, starting the process of purging and reloading his black-powder revolver. “If only we could find their nest, we’d ace all of them in one shot.”

  “Stickies have nest?” Jak asked incredulously. Just how smart were these local muties?

  “Bet your ass they do, and it’s well hidden,” Stirling said with a bitter laugh. “We’ve searched for years and never found their nest, and it’s gotta be a big one. We have more stickies than scorpions, and we got a lot of scorpions.”

  Abruptly stepping to the side, something crunched under the teenager’s combat boot. “One less,” Jak said matter-of-factly.

  Just then there came a blood-curdling shriek from the top of the wag, and something went flying over the roof. The object landed on the sandy street with a smack, the sucker-covered fingers twitching grotesquely a few times before the hand went still.

  “She did it!” the corporal shouted, leaning over the top of the sandbag wall. His face was a mixture of delight and astonishment. “The lady healer did it! Cut the suckers off, easy as peeling back a scab!”

  “He…he’s going to live?” Stirling asked incredulously.

  “Hell yes!”

  The rest of the sec men broke into cheers as Mildred stood into view wiping the ooze and blood from her hands with a cloth. A couple of the men on top of the war wag started laughing and pounding on the physician in congratulations until it almost seemed like they were beating the woman.

  “Son of a bitch, she saved him,” Stirling whispered, pausing in the reloading. “The baron is going to throw a party when he hears about this!”

  “Why is that?” Doc asked, arching a silvery eyebrow.

  Giving a crooked grin, a sec man started to laugh. “Daniel is his son.”

  “The boy’s a bastard, sure enough,” Stirling admitted, ruefully rubbing his chin in embarrassment. “But still the only son he’s got, and heir to the ville.”

  “And your baron sends him out to fight stickies?” J.B. asked incredulously.

  The chief sec man shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Glaring angrily at the war wag, another sec man grimly added, “Good thing, too. Nobody wants a baron who faints at the first sight of blood.”

  Radiating suppressed fury, Stirling gave the man a hard look and he immediately went quiet. The companions noted the incident, and naturally assumed there was some sort of trouble in the baron’s family.

  As the son of a baron, Ryan could understand that problem better than most. Sometimes, Mildred and Doc talked about democracy, the republic, congress, parliament, and other such predark things. But these days only the strong ruled, and their successors were normally chosen at the end of a working blaster and not by the will of the people. Smart was good, but a baron had to be strong for the sake of his ville.

  “Enough already!” Mildred finally shouted, pushing back the gang of joyous sec men. “I’m not a drum, you crazy bastards!”

  That only brought louder gales of happy laughter. But the sec boss called a halt to the boisterous congratulations. Rubbing her stinging shoulders, Mildred gathered the med supplies and started down into the lower level of the bus.

  “That was mighty good shooting there, rist,” a blond sec man said, coming over to address the companions. “You’re faster than even the baron with that fancy blaster!”

  “You heard my name before,” Ryan said in a voice as cold as a grave. “And unless you want to breathe dirt, stupe, you’ll be triple-wise to remember it.”

  The blonde bridled at that, but when he meet the gaze of the warrior, the man hunched his shoulders and moved deeper into the crowd.

  “Pay no attention to Porter,” Stirling said, tucking his weapon away. “He’s young and got a big mouth, but he don’t mean no trouble.”

  “I do,” Ryan said bluntly, ending the discussion.

  A few moments later Mildred hopped out of the vehicle and rejoined the companions. Oddly, her face was a somber study. The woman didn’t feel like celebrating in the least. Ten people had died in less than an hour on this street, and she had only been able to save the life of one. Mildred felt physically tired and emotionally exhausted.

  “You, you and you!” Stirling barked, pointing at some of the sec men. “Clear the dead muties off the wag and get ready to roll.”

  Hefting their axes, the sec men got busy chopping, the sound of metal on flesh making the intersection sound like a butcher shop.

  “Where’s your ville?” Krysty asked, looking into the desert. “Mebbe an oasis somewhere in the dunes?”

  “Not far,” Stirling answered cryptically. “Walking distance.”

  Keeping a straight face, Ryan said nothing at that. He had the feeling the ville would have been described as being walking distance away if it was on the other side of the continent. The Two-Son ville sec men might allow a strange healer into their war wag to save a friend, but no bunch of armed outlanders was going to stroll into their ville unannounced.

  “All done, Chief,” a sec man reported, his ax dripping clear ichor. “Stickies are a lot more cooperative when they’re in pieces.”

  “You got that right.” Stirling grunted, scanning the war wag. It was streaked with gore and burned black in spots, but there didn’t seem to be any serious damage to the machine. Just to my troops, he added to himself sourly.

  “Gill, front and center!” Stirling barked, looking around until he spotted a middle-aged man.

  “Sir?” the sec man replied, approaching quickly. His uniform carried the marks of a corporal. He was holding a crossbow and there was a large quiver slung across his back. Only two arrows remained.

  “You’re the new driver,” Stirling said, motioning with his head. “Get the Metro moving, and stay out of the shadows.”

  “Me?” McGillian asked in surprise, then broke into a smile. “Yes, sir!”

  Ambling into the bus, the fellow stored away his crossbow, then got into the driver’s seat and started to work the controls. The engine misfired a few times. Frowning in consternation, McGillian fiddled with something on the dashboard controls. In rough order, the rest of the sec men climbed on board the bus. Only four stayed on the street with their sec chief. But Ryan saw that they all carried blasters. Smart.

  Suddenly the heavy engine of the war wag rumbled into life. Bursting into a triumphant grin, McGillian shifted gears and the mammoth machine started to roll along the predark street. Yes!

  “Okay, move out!” Stirlin
g commanded, starting to walk alongside the slowly traveling wag. “Corporal, make sure the catapult is ready for action. Everybody else stay razor-sharp until we’re behind stone! I’m not losing any more sec men today.”

  Which does not include us, Ryan mentally noted, sharing a look with Krysty. She nodded in understanding.

  With the spiked tires digging into the loose sand, the Metro began to move smoothly along the predark street with Stirling and his escort at the side, and the companions right behind. Notching fresh arrows into their crossbows, the guards on top of the war wag rocked to the jerking motion of the machine as they studiously watched the shadows and rooftops for any suspicious movements.

  Under his breath, Doc muttered something in Latin and Mildred hushed the scholar. Friendly didn’t make the sec men friends.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Staying alongside the rumbling wag so they could have a good view of what was ahead, Ryan and the companions easily kept pace with the lumbering vehicle.

  “Stirling, that word Porter used before,” Ryan called, shifting his backpack to a new position. “I never heard it before. What is a ‘rist’?”

  “Eh?” Stirling seemed surprised by the question. “Well, it means outlander.” Even while talking, his eyes moved on a regular sweep back and forth among the predark buildings, endlessly searching for enemies. “It is an old word, from before skydark.”

  “Rist,” Doc said, mulling it over as he started to clean the LeMat. Could the root of the word possibly be tourist? When skydark hit, the people of Tucson would have banded together, family with family, the outlanders would have been the folks without kin, those just visiting the town. The tourists. Now it was a derogatory word for stranger.

  “Tourist. So much for the legend of Southern hospitality,” Doc murmured, packing each chamber in the firing cylinder individually.

  “This is the west, not the south,” Mildred shot back, pulling out a handkerchief to mop the sweat off her neck. “Besides, who could possibly be called a tourist anymore?”

  After a few minutes Doc closed the cylinder with a solid click and holstered the blaster. “Indeed, madam, I stand corrected. We are all outlanders now, strangers in a strange land.”