Eden’s Twilight (30 page)

Endlessly racing around each other in the thick smoke, War Wag One and
Roadhog
charged through the dark cornfield, smashing aside the green stalks, their machine guns chattering constantly and gren launchers thumping steadily. Explosions filled the night, but the laser stayed mute and no missiles or rockets were launched. Those big punch weapons were wisely being saved for a clear target.

Pelting into the next kiosk, Ryan, Krysty and Doc found only dying people and a flamethrower, the butane pre-burner softly hissing below the main barrel. It was a top-notch weapon against people, but utterly useless against a war wag. However, the closet yielded the unusual prize of a Stinger missile. Designed to destroy airplanes, the device had a fantastically long range, and more importantly was a heat-seeker and should be able to zone in on the hot engines of the hidden war wag.

“Gaia, this damn thing is useless!” Krysty fumed, shaking the Stinger.

“Indeed, madam,” Doc agreed dourly. “It could just as easily terminate Roberto instead of Pete! It has no way of knowing which wag we want chilled!”

“Not if we launch it close enough,” Ryan replied, fumbling fingers turning on the old circuits. There was a long pause, and for a moment the man thought the built-in comp was aced, or maybe the batteries, but then the indicators came sluggishly alive, the ready lights flashing brightly.

Returning to the outside, Ryan, Krysty and Doc stared into the swirling fog, trying to find
Roadhog,
when a shot rang out from farther down the wall and the Stinger was jerked out of Ryan's grip to tumble away and detonate harmlessly in the chemical fog.

Spinning in unison, the three companions triggered their blasters, but the soft lead rounds merely impacted harmlessly on the brick exterior of next kiosk. It was larger than other guardhouses, with no door in front to allow access to the wall, and wide sheets of steel were bolted to the brickwork as additional protection. There were two .50-caliber machine guns jutting from firing slots, along with a flamethrower, and what looked like a missile pod on the roof. Its honeycomb was missing, the torn electrical wires sparking and crackling with power. This was Cascade's main defense post.

Just then the disfigured face of MacIntyre briefly appeared in the blasterport, his mottled skin covered with ugly blisters, one eye completely closed from a sagging fold of seared flesh. Instinctively, the companions dived for cover just as a .50-caliber machine gun cut loose, sending out a stream of hot lead and sizzling tracers. The rounds ricocheted off the granite top of the wall, missing them by only inches, then tried to track after them, but apparently the kiosks had been designed to prevent people in one from firing upon the other. A seemingly wise precaution against invaders that had just bitten the locals in the ass.

Crawling back into the kiosk, Ryan, Krysty and Doc used their M-16 rapidfires to send a hail of 5.56 mm rounds at the sheriff, but the perfectly imbalanced tumblers did even less damage to the armored brickwork than the soft lead rounds from the blasters.

“We will never ace him from here,” Doc snarled, slapping a spare clip into his M-16. “Krysty and I will keep him busy while you use the stairs and get him from behind!”

“Got a better idea,” Ryan growled, standing with the flame
thrower in his hands. Shoving the fluted muzzle out the blasterport, he squeezed the firing lever and a roaring stream of jellied napalm lanced out to completely engulf the other master kiosk, liquid fire dripping off the brick and entering through every tiny crevice. Screaming horribly, MacIntyre covered his face with both hands and fell from view.

Waiting a precious minute to make sure the sheriff wasn't faking, the companions rushed over to the master guardhouse and looked in through a firing slot. The walls were lined with rapidfires and missile launchers, as well as wooden racks filled with grens of all types. A dozen aced men were lying on the ground, their blistered hands and faces showing how they had painfully bought the farm. But there was no sign of Sheriff MacIntyre.

“Bastard escaped again!” Ryan raged, pounding a fist against the brick wall.

“The man is a Houdini!” Doc grumbled hatefully.

Krysty started to reply when she was nearly overwhelmed with an imposing sense of danger. Moving her blaster slowly, she tried to feel the direction of the approaching trouble, but she could barely concentrate from the noise of the blasters, grens and those damn sirens! Gaia, she thought, I wish they would just shut the fuck up! But the howling continued unabated.

 

B
ARELY SLOWING
, the rear doors of
Roadhog
opened and Helga jumped out carrying a CeeGee launcher. Landing in a run, the woman raced away from the war wag, a second launcher bouncing uncomfortably on her back. If the little doomie was right, all she had to do was to stay right there, and when Roberto rolled into view she would put a missile straight through his fragging windshield and end this death dance once for all.

But as she assumed a firing stance, Helga felt her animated hair flex wildly as if there was danger nearby, and she swung
around to face the murky ville. She could only dimly see the high wall through the dense clouds, but her gut told her that was the source of the real trouble. Without hesitation, Helga aimed the CeeGee and blindly took aim.

 

“K
RYSTY
?” Ryan asked, reaching out a hand.

Without answering, the scowling redhead fired a long burst from her M-16 into the smoke. As the clip emptied, she dropped the rapidfire and added the five rounds from her S&W revolver.

Tensed for combat, Doc could see nothing, then something detonated on the ground, creating a fireball that momentarily pushed back the cloud bank to expose the aft end of
Roadhog.
Instantly, Ryan triggered the flamethrower, and covered the armored war wag from stem to stern in blazing napalm.

 

S
ILHOUETTED IN THE FLAMES
,
Roadhog
became starkly visible, and from out of the fog came a shimmering beam of translucent power that struck the armored prow. Superheated in under a split second, the bolts and welds broke and the armor cracked free, even as the headlights exploded and the Plexiglas viewports fogged into impenetrability.

Cursing vehemently, Broke-Neck Pete charged for the exit, but the little doomie reached out to cling to the man with a death grip. Savagely, Pete backhanded the child away, and he hit the bulkhead hard, his thin skull audibly cracking from the cowardly blow.

But even as his eyes closed in death, a smile touched his lips as a single moment later, Roberto fired the laser once more, this time sweeping it across the cornfield, cutting off the tufted tops of the cornstalks and neatly slicing
Roadhog
in two.

The massive stores of hoarded ammo and fuel promptly ignited, banishing the night in a hellish explosion that rocked the cropland in a trip-hammer blast, the powerful concussion
nearly shaking Ryan and Krysty off the distant wall. Fiery streamers shot high into the sky, grens and land mines detonating in wild pandemonium, spare rockets whizzing out in every direction, creating a staggering display of military firepower unseen since the fall of civilization.

Not completely satisfied, Roberto launched one last salvo of missiles at the smoking pile of wreckage, but the double explosion of the powerful C-4 warheads was barely noticeable among the staggering cacophony of the cooking ordnance.

Driving the dented war wag to the front gate, Roberto stopped the armored vehicle a few yards away from the suspiciously smooth sand in front of the wide portal.

Experimentally, Jak flashed the headlights and beeped the horn a few times. Surprisingly, the gate swung ponderously aside and there stood Mayor Spencer holding an oil lantern. The woman was soaked to the skin, and her right arm was in a sling, her hand covered with thick white bandages. Close behind her was a mob of armed men wearing flak jackets and carrying a wide assortment of blasters, but all of them were either teenagers or wrinklies.

With a hydraulic sigh, the side door to War Wag One cycled down and Roberto stepped into view, Jessica and Quinn flanking the big man, rapidfires filling their hands.

“All right, you win,” Spencer stated bitterly. “The village belongs to you. Come on in.”

Roberto nodded. “Thanks. But if you think I'm feeb enough to drive my wag through the gate, then you've been smoking wolfweed,” he replied. “You folks can generate electricity, and I'm betting live brass that there is enough hard current running through the entrance to fry a kraken like a catfish.”

There was an uneasy stir among the villagers.

“That's pretty smart for a busrider,” the mayor said grudgingly.

“I can say the same thing for you, too, Baron.”

“Baron? I am not some inbred noble!” she responded hotly. “But a duly elected representative of the people!”

“That sounds pretty fancy,” Roberto said in forced politeness, rubbing his sore leg. “Me, I'm just a trader. And you're the…president?” It was the only term he knew for a politician.

“Mayor,” the woman supplied proudly.

“Fair enough. The name is Roberto Eagleson.” He paused. “But you already know that from your spy.”

Scowling darkly, the mayor said nothing for a long minute.

“Etta. Henrietta Spencer,” she finally replied, then quickly added, “And you should know that the whole damn village is mined. Packed with enough TNT and dynamite to blow us to the moon!”

“Better a clean death than to fall into the hands of stinking busriders!” an old man shouted from the crowd, brandishing a BAR longblaster. Other oldsters muttered in assent and shifted their grips on their weapons, preparing for battle.

“Sounds like a mighty wise precaution,” Roberto replied, crossing his arms. “However, now that Pete is aced, we control the bridge and tunnel. So while we can't get in, you can't get out.”

“Stalemate,” Jessica stated gruffly.

The mayor snorted in reply. “Why should we leave? Don't need to leave. We've got plenty of stores! Enough to last for decades!”

“Well, you suckered us here with a lie and a spy,” Roberto said bluntly, trying to look mildly apologetic. “With the obvious idea of jacking my wags. Now, the plan worked so slick that I'm guessing that this was not your first time.” He smiled tolerantly, like a parent to a misbehaving child. “Which tells me the ville is dangerously low on supplies.”

“Except for blasters,” Quinn added. “Damn, you folks got a lot of heavy iron, I'll give you that!”

The crowd took heart at the compliment, which was the general idea. Brass was a lot harder to make than a fair deal.

“We can defend ourselves,” the mayor replied smugly, trying to sense if this was some sort of trap to make her reveal her defense secrets.

“As can we,” Roberto said, patting the scarred hull of the war wag. “I'm sure that you've seen our laser in action. We made it ourselves.”

“Bullshit!”

“And why should we lie about that?” Jessica demanded.

Spencer did not reply, considering the matter.

“None that I can think of,” she conceded honestly.

Now that the conversation was heading in the right direction, Roberto went to close the deal. “You're tough, we're tough, everybody here is harder than boiled steel. Fair enough. That means it would be triple stupe for us to fight anymore, so…let's talk.”

Suspicious again, the mayor frowned. “About what?”

“Business,” Roberto said with a smile. “My business is buying and selling things. Blasters, brass, shine, juice, tech, books, food, you name it, I have it or can get it for you.” The trader walked forward, letting them see his pronounced limp. “Everybody needs something. Mebbe we can cut a deal.”

Another slow minute passed, then a second.

“What kind of a deal are we talking about here?” Mayor Spencer asked warily. “What do you want?”

As he had done before a thousand times in his many journeys, Roberto Eagleson spread his arms wide. “What have you got?”

 

A
ROSY DAWN SLOWLY CAME
over the Blue Ridge Mountains, the sky gradually changing to a rare clear blue, carrying the promise of a better tomorrow.

Standing on the sooty edge of the wide hole, Mildred kicked a piece of charred wood into the smoldering rubble and tried not to weep. Gone, it was all gone.

“You okay, Millie?” J.B. asked gently, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“Yes, John, I'll be fine,” the physician replied woodenly, unable to take her sight off the terrible destruction. The village hospital had been hit by a missile and burned to the ground. There was nothing remaining of any conceivable use to anybody but the gravediggers.

The remainder of the night had been spent in lengthy negotiations between Roberto and Mayor Spencer, and then the careful exchange of goods scrupulously watched over by numerous armed guards from both sides. Cascade got all of the food that Roberto could spare, while he received ammunition, fuel, a lot of books and a laundry list of assorted items that the mayor wanted: seeds for crops, fertilizer, batteries, salt, whiskey, something called Freon, silver jewelry and good-quality bedsheets. The last two items the trader privately knew were essential for making fulminating guncotton, a tremendously powerful explosive, as he used the same things for the same purpose himself. The locals also agreed to build a new bridge over the gorge at Mud Lake. A wooden bridge that could easily be burned by either side if it was deemed necessary.

Blood had been spilled on both sides, so there was an awkward peace between the trader and ville that could change at any moment, especially if the locals obtained some major firepower. He would have to make sure that they did not. Scott Gordon and
Big Joe
had already agreed to establish a post in the field of clover to monitor any visitors. The bridge over the Barrier River was already down, accidentally destroyed by a random missile, which saved him from blowing it apart and pretending that one of Pete's crew had done it as a last act of revenge on the ville.

Personally, Roberto wanted everything to be square and on the level. However, Cascade had lasted a hundred years by stealing from other traders, an unforgivable sin from anybody else except these isolated hermits. Jacking outlanders would be a hard habit for them to change. Cascade was a ticking time bomb, but one packed with the most priceless treasure of all,
knowledge, so Roberto accepted the gamble. Taking risks was merely part of the job of being a trader.

Washed and cleaned, the UCV was parked in the town square taking on the last of their cargo. As the companions' part of the deal, they got the UCV completely refueled by the local juice extracted from coal, and the war wag was packed solid with cases of preserves, an encyclopedia, a LAW and a well-cushioned box full of pigeon eggs. In exchange, the mayor got the radio and the radar. It was considered by all to be a fair swap.

“So, where are you folks headed?” Jessica asked, ambling over to rest a boot on a park bench. “Don't have to go solo. You're more than welcome to roll with us.”

“Thanks, but we need to see some old friends at Front Royal,” Ryan said, closing the rear doors and dusting off his hands. The man was moving stiffly from the layers of tape wrapped around his chest to hold the broken rib in place. “They'll want to know about Cascade, maybe set up some regular trade. Front Royal could send over food and raw materials, and Cascade could use their machine shops to convert the metal into needed engine parts, chains, gears and such.”

“Any sign of MacIntyre?” Jak asked, leaning heavily on a longblaster in lieu of a crutch. His left boot was off, the sprained ankle swaddled in bandages.

“No, he's long gone,” Jessica snorted. “Along with a lot of explosives. The mayor has ordered him to be shot on sight.” She shrugged. “I guess nothing ticks off a former thief more than getting jacked.”

Checking the seal on a keg of black powder, Doc barked a laugh. “Cervantes would most certainly agree, dear lady. He said that to steal from a thief is not a crime, merely irony.”

“Guess that all depends on whether or not it was your stuff in the first place,” she noted pragmatically.

“Too true, dear lady! Well said!”

“Anyway, the chief wanted to say goodbye, but he's busy
with the mayor,” Jessica said, scratching the back of her neck. “Now if the truth be told, I won't mind seeing you disappear over the horizon. You folks attract trouble the way blood does stingwings.” Then she grinned. “But I wish you luck, and if we ever cross paths again, the first shot of shine is on me.”

“Good to know,” Ryan said with a smile, and they shook hands.

As the companions dutifully climbed into the UCV, J.B. took his turn behind the steering wheel and Ryan went to the gunner seat. After checking the gauges and controls, J.B. shifted the main engine into gear and started for the front gate and the tattered cornfield beyond. It was a long journey to Front Royal, but there was brass in their pockets, food in the backpacks and juice in the wag. In the Deathlands, that was as good as life ever got.

However, in the far distance, dark clouds were beginning to gather over the Blue Ridge Mountains, heralding the approach of a storm. The high winds were increasing and sheet lightning was already slashing at the jagged mountain peaks.

 

S
TUMBLING OUT OF THE SEWER
, Sheriff Dale MacIntyre collapsed on a rock on the shore of Mud Lake trying to catch his breath. There was a cloth tied around his head to cover his ruined eye, every inch of his body was bruised, and he was bone-weary, too damn exhausted to run anymore even if chased by the Devil himself.

At least I got out of the city, the sheriff reminded himself, shrugging off a backpack full of stolen canned goods and ammunition. When Roberto and his coldhearts took over, the very first people they would have hung would be the mayor and the sheriff. Maybe his ancestor had been the hero of skydark, but Dale was a lot more practical. Unless he got something out of it personally, the man saw no reason to help anybody else.

Just then, MacIntyre saw a flicker of motion out of the
corner of his eye. He spun with his blaster ready, then paused in horror at the sight of the massive hellhounds, the tentacles sprouting from their muscular backs waving as if tasting the air.

Growling softly, the bioweps started forward, but then stopped abruptly at the sight of the badge on the man's uniform. A star! That was the symbol of the Makers. This was clearly one of their creations, or perhaps even a Master himself!

Sweat dripping off his blistered face, his blaster hand trembling, Sheriff MacIntyre could barely believe it when the giant monsters bizarrely cowered on the ground like a pair of obedient dogs and softly whimpered. What the fuck is going on here? he thought.

“Sit,” the man said on a whim.

Incredibly, the hulking things did as he commanded, then patiently waited for further orders.

His heart hammering painfully in his sore chest, MacIntyre walked hesitantly toward them and reached out a hand to let the monsters sniff his scent. Then he scratched both of the things behind the ears and was rewarded with a low purr of pleasure and a friendly lick.

“Good boys, good dogs,” MacIntyre said gently, already thinking of ways that he could use the massive escorts now that he was out in the world. The sheriff had always wanted a hunting dog, but none had survived the long winter years in Cascade without ending up as a roast on somebody's dinner table. Even the damn pigeons had been eaten almost to the point of extinction.

However, the sheriff now had two faithful companions, and from the looks of them, these were real killers. Whatever the hell they were. Obviously muties of some kind. Their former owner had to have gotten himself killed and they'd gone wild, but not feral, and had simply attached themselves
to the first person they encountered. It was pure luck that it had been him.

Retrieving a flat-bottomed canoe from where it had been hidden in a pile of dead bushes, the sheriff loaded the supplies and started across Mud Lake, the two hellhounds obediently following, the sludge rising to their chests, but not sticking to their smooth coats.

Once he found a new village to use as a home base, the sheriff planned to track down the one-eyed man and repay the man for removing his eye. Then MacIntyre would turn what remained of the bastard over to the dogs for their dinner. That should be hugely entertaining, the sheriff thought. For about three or four seconds. Roberto was the key. He would have to die first. But after that, the death of the one-eyed man was assured.