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© 2016 Matthew S. Cox
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ISBN 978-1-62007-059-8 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-067-3 (paperback)
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orry and relief made for strange bedfellows―stranger still when the bed is only big enough for one. Civilization, such as it was, ended fifty-one years ago. A war started on some forgotten day in August of 2021 ended forty-five minutes later amid the smoky haze of nuclear fallout and blind panic. Most people never even knew what hit them.
The driver curled and uncurled black-gloved fingers around the rubberized steering wheel. Clouds of dust whipped past the windows and billowed into a plume that made the rear viewscreen in the middle of the console useless. The silt invaded the air vents, tainting the fragrance of sweaty leather with earth. Pale blue bar graphs on the pieced-together dashboard reassured him the vehicle had enough juice left to finish the job. Loose spiral wires of red and yellow snaked among gauges, wobbling with every motion. The steady vibrating thrum of four electric motors stoked his adrenaline. He grinned at the large red LED numbers in the center of the console behind the wheel: 86 MPH. The six flicked to a seven or a five every few seconds. He’d go faster, but road crews hadn’t existed for a hundred years, and the last thing he needed would be to smash an e-motor out in the middle of nowhere.
The lack of bullets flying at him so far had him on edge, not to mention how wide open the road seemed. He sped past the occasional tangle of metal on one side or the other, a former vehicle picked to the frame by scavs. This far out in no-man’s land, he should’ve encountered at least one bandit party―especially with the valuable cargo in the passenger seat. He glanced at the unassuming metal can and patted it. A broad smile distorted skin covered with days’ worth of beard and road dirt. Gloves creaked over the wheel.
People tended to hear things, even in Wayne’s place. The scavs would know he was coming.
The iron sights of two hood-mounted machine guns wobbled from the occasional dip or pit, nothing that would threaten the solid tires. Flickering brass glinted as the ammo belts danced in the wind. He’d gone cheap, settling for 7.62 instead of going whole hog with .50 Cal. Anything heavy enough to need ordinance like that couldn’t catch this car.
He glanced again at the innocent-looking can. The payoff from this run would be another big step toward his dream, but the closer he got to reaching it, the more it felt like he’d never get there. Sure, the smaller guns saved him about three hundred coins, and with any luck, they wouldn’t kill him.
Glowing light pierced the dust cloud behind him. He squinted at the rearview screen, mounted where the radio had once been. No one needed those anymore. Two leather-clad figures on motorcycles fanned apart out of his wake. On the right, a little speed-machine with a couple of sub-guns in the handlebars; to the left, a larger cycle, a retrofit Harley with electro-motors and a rotary gun mounted to a side car.
Damn shame if I have to torch that Harley. Screw the Ninja.
His finger poked a small, square red button on the edge of the four-by-six-inch display screen. It flickered with static for a split second before a grainy feed from a trunk-mounted camera replaced the wide-angle rear view. A hair-thin green crosshair formed across an image flecked with mud. He flicked a toggle switch and one of many tiny pushbuttons on the side of the steering wheel lit up orange. He hovered his thumb over it and weaved to avoid a spray of fire from the smaller, more maneuverable Ninja. The biker’s attack ended a second later when he swerved in a desperate attempt to stay upright.
The driver grinned. “Watch them potholes, son.”
A quick shift of the wheel lined up the crosshair with the Harley as the giant rotary cannon on its sidecar spun up. I hope you go to hell for makin’ me do this. The driver pushed the thumb-trigger. In the trunk, mounted assault rifles barked to life: an AK on one side and an M-16 on the other. Muzzle flare blew like dragon’s breath from his taillights. As usual, the ‘16 let off about six rounds before it jammed. The AK continued chattering for a few more seconds until he released the button. Bike and sidecar burst into a fireball. The e-Harley veered off the road into an end-over-end tumble.
The Ninja’s engine wailed as its rider pinned the accelerator. A lone square headlight surrounded by dingy green rushed in on the rear view camera, hoping to get close enough for a ‘can’t-miss’ shot. The driver stomped on the brakes, chirping the tires and causing the small bike to smash into the rear bumper. All four tires threw off plumes of white smoke. A heavy whump landed on the roof a second before the bandit rider slid onto the hood in a flailing, gangly mass.
“Hmph. Ethanol.” The driver shook his head at the rearview. “That’s gonna burn hot. Damn waste of parts, even if it is a Ninja. Fuck it.”
The bandit pulled a revolver from his jacket and pointed it at the windshield. The driver cut the wheel and reversed hard. A shot went high as the bandit sailed off the long hood and fell onto the road. The driver straightened out of the turn and continued in reverse another few seconds before slamming on the brakes. He flicked the Challenger into drive and stomped on the pedal. Sand flew in torrents from all four wheels before the car caught traction and took off like a streak, straight at the prostrate figure. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of the old revolver as the man wobbled up to one knee. For a nanosecond, two men stared into each other’s souls.
A thudding clank rocked the undercarriage as all four-thousand some-odd pounds of car crushed flesh into pavement. The driver slowed and steered back around, stopping near the body. He waited a few minutes, staring at scraps of shredded leather fluttering in the wind while breathing the smell of molten tires. Once he felt confident no threat remained, he got out.
A pair of submachine gun mechanisms welded to the Ninja’s handlebars excited him, until he realized he’d found some H&K thing chambered in .40 cal. Despite having no guns that could use it, he still took the twenty-six rounds. The revolver looked in working order, albeit banged up. On the way back to his car, he pulled a leather belt full of .357 shells out of the semiliquid mass he had run over. Gun and bullets went into a bin he kept in the back, joining a handful of grenades, knives, and tools.
He fell into the driver’s seat, his weight barely noticed by the bulk of his rebuilt Challenger. Aside from the dirt, for a sixty-year-old frame, it looked mint. Granted, all the exposed wires and add-on tech inside was quite a far cry from what the designers originally planned on when the thing had a gasoline engine. Electric motors had been a novelty before the war, but now gasoline joined a long list of ghosts humanity may never see again. One more forgotten thing of the past, and only fools still used air-filled tires. Some die-hards clung to ethanol for the sound and fury, but the Roadhouse network made charging cheaper. He shut down the weapons to save battery life before returning to his delivery. The solar-powered trickle charger in the trunk could take twelve to fourteen hours to help him limp back to a waystation, and he’d rather not be exposed that long.
/> The driver brushed a smudge of dust from the rear-view targeting monitor, leaving finger trails of clean plastic. He offered a moment of silence for the death of a Harley, humming some song his dad used to put on in the truck all the time. He leaned back in his seat, arm draped over the wheel at the wrist, tapping one foot to ancient music that played only in his mind.
“Nice shot, man.”
he road stretched out to the horizon, so straight it seemed like a crease upon which the world could fold. Vigilance returned as the relief of surviving another ambush faded. He flicked the rear view back to the wide-angle. A faint chirp came from the camera in the plastic bubble on the back window. It seemed silly to have a third tail light in the window; the housing proved much more useful as a camera, not that anyone paid much attention to signals or lights these days. Within an hour, a bullet-riddled sign caught his eye. Artesia settlement, a mile away.
Within a few minutes, he slowed and turned onto a cracked and battered side street past a handful of crumbling RVs, trailers, and a half-dozen huts. He drove through the dead town, following a little-used back road that took him to a desolate outcropping of rocks a quarter-mile farther down with a single armored door. Ten paces away, the matte-black car whirred to a halt amid a rolling cloud of beige. Listening to the barely audible electric hum of the wheel motors, he waited. A narrow slit in the door pulled to the side, revealing eyes. They regarded him for a few seconds and the metal plate slid closed with a clank. The driver took hold of the innocuous silver can and got out. Clanks and squeaks emanated from the armored door, which opened a few seconds after he reached it. Warm air carrying the fragrance of stale humanity and wood washed over him.
“Took ya long ‘nuff,” said the old man in the doorway. Brown-white hair and beard fluttered in the wind for a moment of silence. “That it?”
“Yep.” The driver patted the plastic lid like a drum. “Got the coins?”
Wrinkled hands clasped the metal can, failing to pull it out of the driver’s grip. Yellow eyes widened. “You’ll be understandin’ if I wan’ ta check it first.”
“Fine, old man.” The driver kept his grip on the can until both of them were inside.
Tattered coats, boots, and pipes hung along the length of the narrow entryway. Coils of rope and hose hung on one side opposite spindles of wire and twine. With some reluctance, Kevin surrendered the can to the shaking arms reaching for it and put one hand on his .45. The old man ducked deep into his burrow, scurrying off like a squirrel with the world’s last acorn. After nudging the door closed, the driver followed.
A single naked light bulb hung from a wire above a wooden table in the center of a room bedecked with maps. Pre-war radio equipment sat on a longer table against the wall in back, next to a massive shell―the kind of thing once fired from tanks. The driver stiffened, staring at it, relaxing a touch at the lack of wires connecting it to a button.
“Heee!” The old man squealed and spun in a circle with his prize. A plain steel cylinder with a plastic lid―an old coffee can. He set it on a workbench, opened it, and inhaled the sickly sweet scent of pipe tobacco. “Tis the stuff.”
“I watched Gil load it. Could’a told ya it was real. Don’t much like gettin’ shot at for bullshit.”
The old man more or less ignored him, grabbing one of a dozen pipes from his wall and wiping it out with a grimy finger. He moved to the canister and set about packing the bowl.
“Care ta join me?”
The driver looked down at his boots, letting the air out of his lungs. “Nah, thanks. That shit’ll kill ya.”
Yellow eyes gazed at the driver’s scuffed body armor, a red leather jacket with Kevlar panels sewn in here and there. He glanced at three pistols, two knives, and the face of a man who just got shot at to deliver tobacco across the Wildlands. “Heh. Kill ya. Yeah, I s’pose it would at that.”
He set the pipe down and shuffled around a corner, deeper into his subterranean nest. The driver’s hand tensed around the .45. At the scrape of coins sliding over a metal desk, he loosened the grip, but only a little.
“Thousand?” asked the old man.
“That’s right.”
The elder emerged from the hallway, carrying a burdened cloth sack, which he tossed to the driver. “Yanno, boy. They used ta use bits o’ paper for curn-cee when I was teeny. Lot easier ta carry than these.”
He caught the sack, moved to the table, and opened the pouch before poking a finger at the contents. “Yeah, but coins don’t rot.”
“Also, usta-be ‘at the different size ones were worth different ‘mounts. Now, coin’s a coin.”
You told me that last month… and the month before that. “Ya don’t say.”
The old man shrugged and went back to his beloved pipe. “Sure’n you don’t wanna ‘ave some?”
Minutes passed as the elder smoked and the younger counted. Satisfied at the amount, the driver cinched the bag closed and tucked it into a satchel. “Yeah. I’m sure. Need ta be gettin’ back.”
“Much obliged.” After a handshake, the elder followed him to the exit and sealed the door behind him
The driver stood in silence, staring at the old hermit’s place, pondering the bizarre kinship that occurred between two people who didn’t trust anyone. That’s gonna be me in thirty years. He flopped in behind the wheel and secured the coins in the glove box. A thumb swipe across six blue rocker-switches on the shroud over the instrument panel brought the car to life.
He laughed. As if I’m gonna live that long.
n hour and change later, the Challenger rolled to a halt in front of Wayne’s Roadhouse in Hagerman, tucking in between a battered pickup truck and a flotilla of e-bikes. The bikes all bore the same mottled crimson sheriff-star logo. The word “New” filled the middle of the star by virtue of it not being crimson. A number of the gang congregated on the porch, lounging about on the disintegrating remains of a few old sofas.
Cautious stares lingered on the driver as he got out and locked the car. He ignored them; they were far more interested in fighting with the “Olds” over borders than bothering freelancers. Inside, the room smelled of food, beer, and fart. A dozen or so people sat scattered at tables and booth seats along the right wall. Wayne’s only waitress, a jittery black-haired android everyone called Bee, waved at him. One artificial breast hung out of her torn shirt, and her tight leather pants didn’t leave many curves to the imagination. Not that anyone really imagined much about a machine anyway. Probably why Wayne didn’t waste a new shirt on her.
A man’d have to be real lonely to get off on a plastic tittie.
She followed the driver to the bar, leaning on it in a pose reminiscent of an Old West prostitute. Her smile might have been reassuring if not for the patches of visible metal on her cheek and the sporadic twitches shaking her body. Every so often, a bad one would come hand-in-hand with a spark and trace of burnt silicon in the air.
“Need anything, hon?”
“Got any burgers?”
“Y-y-yeah.” Bee, in the throes of a violent spasm, grabbed the bar in an effort not to fall. “Little bitta deer, and some other furry critters. Won’t even taste the tire marks.”
“Fine.”
She headed off toward the kitchen in her herky-jerky stride, strands of dark hair wobbled back and forth over the “B-19-C” on the back of her neck. Wayne emerged from a camoflague curtain behind the counter a few seconds after the brim of his cowboy hat. He was a head taller than the driver, and a decade or so older. Something like fourteen years ago, he’d been a driver himself. His ice blue eyes narrowed, and he pulled his thick moustache as if trying to figure out what to make of the man slouched over his bar.
“What’s with all the News out front?” asked the driver.
Wrinkles deepened at the corners of Wayne’s eyes as he laughed. He turned and held a mason jar up to a spigot on the wall behind him. “Buncha Olds are holed up south of here a ways, down by Carlsbad.” He set the improvised glass, full of thick, brown
beer, in front of the driver.
“Why do they give a dust-hopper’s ass where ‘Mexico’ starts anymore?”
“Damn fine question, Kevin,” said Wayne. “Best I can figure is men need to have somethin’ to fight over or they ain’t happy. Squabblin’ over the borders o’ two countries what don’t no more exist seems like as good an excuse as any.”
“Heh. I’m fixin’ to be happy when I stop fightin’.” Kevin fished the pouch out of his armored jacket and dropped it on the counter.
The clatter of coins attracted every eye in the room, except for Bee’s.
“Finished that hermit delivery. ‘Nother hundred today.”
Wayne pulled out a worn ledger and set about counting. He slid a hundred coins to a separate pile, pulled ten out of it, and then another three. The mass of nine hundred coins went back in the pouch.
“Ten percent?” Kevin sat up as Bee put a plate in front of him, a burger and fried sweet potato strips. “Thought you said five.”
A creak came from the counter as Wayne leaned his weight onto an elbow. “Read the fine print, boy. I get five percent commission on posted jobs, minimum ten coins. Gil contracted you to collect a thousand for his ‘bacco. Your share o’ that contract’s a hundred. Roadhouse gets ten percent facilitatin’ fee, an’ you jes’ paid me three for the food. Nine hundred goes to the seller.”
Kevin ate a fry, grumbling the whole time. “Where’s that leave me?”
After adding a ‘deposit’ line to the ledger under Kevin’s name, Wayne pointed at a number: 9918.
Kevin smiled. “One more run.” He gathered the burger.
Bee was right; he couldn’t taste the tires.
Feminine grunting, accompanied by several heavy sets of footsteps and a woman yelling grew louder out front. The scent of meat filled Kevin’s nostrils; nothing else mattered.
“Get off me,” shouted a young woman, before emitting a long, straining groan of exertion.
Thump. Something hit the wall and the porch rattled with the clomping feet of several people.
One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1) Page 1
