Game Slaves (19 page)

“
How
many?” I asked, slipping the truck back into gear.

“Well, all the execs, a'course, and the troops. Plus other
key
personnel like me who know their way around. And the better women. The younger women, then, maybe, is what I hear. . .”

“What you hear?”

“Hey, man, I
bought
my place. I had to
pay
. Sweat and blood, brought in more metal than any other two scrappers.”

“So how many of the current citizens building that wall are going to get a place to live, inside, once it's done?”

Screw shrugged. “Less than
they
think.” He chuckled harshly. “One man out of ten or fifteen? Less. The younger women stay. I wish they'd hurry, I'd get my pick. And the kids mostly stay. But the completion of that big metal fence is a death sentence for most. An' Kode's got 'em all tricked into hurrying. What a cool scam. They think the ones who get their section done first are first to get on the housing list.”

I let that sink in. Sure, the wall might be months or years away from completion, but that project had an end date. It would insulate the residents. I could not imagine any city, in these days or the past, from Jerusalem to China's great wall,
not
wanting some kind of massive barricade to protect itself from the outside.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Screw took his gun off safety. “You do a good job. Got the tat. You're company meat. So I can get you a spot.”

“You lying to me?”

“Not at all.”

“Did you tell that to the last guy? The one whose blood poured out at the weigh-in?”

“Course I did. But he didn't do a good job, did he?”

Right then, three mounds exploded on our right, and the wooden slab to the left tipped down.

Man, was I glad weapons were so scarce. If the attackers had been armed, we'd have had no chance. It was a grinder of an ambush spot. There were a dozen of them and only three of us.

Three of us and, you know, one big truck.

I gunned the engine, hard, gave it everything it had, and lurched forward in third gear. This made the tires spin like mad, racing to catch the tranny. The whole beast sank a bit in the sand, then plowed out as if kicked in the rear.

I had good timing. So did our attackers. They came at us like they'd done this before. Screw was trying to steady his weapon to fire out the door, but that stubby thing would only be good at close range.

I could hear Mi up top, chambering one round, then the next, splattering each head down the line, but now the distance between us and the horde had closed.

Up close, they were foul. Solid black eyes, like sharks'. Their skin covered with white sores. Teeth filed to points. Scars everywhere, as if when the feeding frenzy started, one bite was as good as another and anyone was fair game
.

I still had my foot pegged to the floor, coaxing every bit of fuel through that engine.

Screw had shot none. It looked to me like Mi was three for three and lowering her sights on number four. Still, there were eight, maybe ten of the ragged, nude men screaming, bearing down.

I spun the wheel left, hard, still full on the gas. I had to keep the RPMs high, redlining. If the engine stalled, I'd die by teeth. So would Mi, but not for many, many months.

The truck fishtailed, missing the horde. But better yet, the trailer acted like a whip, snapping around, cracking an arc as its flat-grate side became a two-ton guillotine. I would have liked to have felt it a bit, to have gotten the visceral satisfaction as the rusted edge collided with all their frail bones and meager flesh, but I was still spinning cookies, flogging them into splatters and splinters.

Soon my foot came off the gas.

I heard one more shot from up above.

Then I kicked open my door and climbed down. All the hidey-holes in the sand were empty. The ground, while sporting deep, circular tire marks from my spins, was much less bloody than I expected it would be.

In the real world, apparently, blood soaked into porous sand very quickly. And it didn't gush in buckets like the artists would make you think.

But also, out here, even though these opponents were no more than animals, I felt something strange. An ache started in my heart and went straight for my gut. I heaved, almost throwing up the chow I'd had a few hours ago, then forced it back down.

Phoenix, getting sick at the sight of blood? And not much blood, at that?

Strange.

Something, however, finally brought me back. It was Mi, climbing down, and you know what she said in my ear?

“I got seven of them.”

“Seven?”

“Yeah, seven shots, seven scavengers. You only got six with your truck stunt.”

I just stared at her. Apparently, the sickness wasn't in her gut too.

“So?”

But I already knew what she'd say.

“I guess my stats are still higher, sweetie. Accuracy for sure. And I'm definitely winning on total kills too.”

 

I made quick work with the boom, strapping and hoisting as much old car as the trailer would carry. Mi was on watch for a second attack, and Screw had the scrap wrapped tight in just a few minutes.

When he turned, Mi was pointing her rifle right at his forehead.

“No moves,” I told him. “Not the sawed-off or the hideaway you got in the small of your back.”

“You know about that?”

“Hand it over,” I told him.

“It's just for show,” he said, producing a small revolver. “Ran out of shells for it way back.”

He wasn't lying. The gat was empty and corroded. I was pretty sure he still had a blade or two tucked under his gear, but that wouldn't do much good with Mi keeping her sights on him. He'd seen what she could do. And anyway, I just wanted to have a talk now. One in which he knew for certain he should not lie.

“Tell me about the tattoo on your hand,” I ordered, and leaned against the cab.

“You want to do that out here?” he asked, licking cracked lips, eyes darting as if the ground would come to life again. “Why don't we get on the road . . . ?”

“Out here,” I demanded. “I'm not sure you've got a round-trip ticket.”

Now he knew I meant business. And yes, I'd sure leave him.

The problem was, and Mi knew this, we only had half of our gas left. We
had
to return to Redwood. Anything in any other direction would be past the point of return, especially now that we were hauling a wealth of heavy scrap on the trailer. We'd need every drop to get back in.

“What do you want to know?” he asked. “It's the same as yers. Same as anyone who was in service.”

“In what?”

“To the company. I did my tours years ago. 'Fore you were born.”

“I don't get it,” Mi said. “Like military tours? As a goon trooper?”

“Whatever. You sign over or they banish your family. They keep you alive. You get protection. Five years ago all of Redwood had scavs in the alleys and the troops would only answer in BlackStar neighborhoods.”

I had to think about that for a moment. The timing. It clicked. “So something changed, didn't it?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, we were getting nothing from the shipments. Barely any food, bad ammo, shelves were bare. We always had good water and some electric, but we were gonna be written off. I think supply had pretty much abandoned this outpost. Trucks rarely came. So no gas shipment. No metal trade. Begging in the streets and no way to control the hordes. The cannibals were all over us.”

“So what happened to all the regular animals out here?” Mi jumped in, waving a hand. “No hunters around. Shouldn't these plains be full of deer or whatever?”

“We ate 'em!” Screw smirked. “What you think? No gas left? Sheeesh. Hunted night and day, millions of us. Fished out all the rivers and ponds. Sweetie, everyone was
starving
. For a long time. It's crazy how those old morons thought the world could live nice without fuel.”

“So now they all retreat to virtual reality.”

“Better than real reality.” He liked to spit when he talked. “Plus, we had it comin'. Everyone was warned. Peak oil came and went. Then gas was ten bucks a gallon. Next week it was fifty. Five hunnerd. No one drove. No one flew. Couldn't sell a car for a dime. I know the history. No cops, so cities got lawless. But screw 'em, had it comin'.
We was warned
, over and over again.”

“So you signed your butt over to BlackStar?” I pointed at his hand again.

“Yep,” he said. “Ate good enough. Had to beat down my neighbors from time to time, got to show them who was law. Took a wife. Took another when she wouldn't work. Got a good deal for my daughter. It worked out for old Screw.”

I could almost hear Mi's finger squeeze her trigger a little tighter.

“But that's same as you.” He pointed at my hand. “Yer no different. Not a bit. They own you too, you got the mark. It's where you learned to kill and where your chickie got her eye. What were you, corporate trooper? Something high up, not like a store cop or wall guard. Assassin? Private hunter? Makes no difference to me, let's have some road-trip fun with your little betty and get back on the throttle toward home. Deal? I'm willing to pay.”

 

Twenty minutes later, I was driving back down the same route we'd taken to the automobile graveyard. Following safe tracks, a trail I knew didn't have traps or holes along the way.

Mi was right next to me, in the cab now.

On the trailer, well, I'd already forgotten we hadn't gotten paid from the wall job two days before. This would more than make up for it: two old cars, a lot of scrap, plus a bit more that we'd piled on top.

“Think he'll make it back?” Mi asked.

I shrugged. “Not really my concern. He used you as bait. That offended me right away.”

“Awwww.” She smiled, purred a little more, and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “He might be able to walk out,” she guessed.

“It's nine hours over dead terrain by truck. That's days on foot. No water or food, unless he wants to eat the scavengers. But who knows? Maybe he's that tough.”

I didn't want to think about him anymore. Screw got what he deserved. We'd left him behind. He'd bullied and killed for years. His time had come. We'd gotten the drop, and he'd been dropped off the back.

“Most important,” I said, “I think this evens us up.”

“Does not,” Mi answered sharply.

“Seven for you, seven for me.”

“Your last one is
not
a confirmed kill,” she reminded. “Screw was just a simple abandoning. You don't even get a quarter of a point for those.”

“Seven to seven,” I argued, just to kill time.

“Seven–six in favor of Mi the Magnificent,” she replied.

“Seven–seven.”

“Seven–
six
.”

It was going to be a long drive.

We got paid. I was worried the clerk or his guards would have some kind of wanted poster on us, but it went smoothly. I just told them Screw hadn't made it back. It was the truth. They didn't ask anything, eyeing our rusty-metal haul.

The worst part was turning in those company-issue weapons. The guards pointed shiny new rifles at us while we—very reluctantly—handed over the battered single-shot Mi had used. Then Screw's shotgun.

BlackStar, as far as ruling went, had the system down. They even searched us for unspent ammo before handing over the stack of chits.

So we were back to being unarmed. Mostly. I'd dropped something in an alley on the drive in. Not much, but metal makes kings. Maybe even just a scrap of it.

Reno, York, and Dakota met us in the alcove we'd decided to use as our rendezvous. Twenty minutes later, as night fell on the last day of our third week out of the tank, we scaled a brick column and climbed in a second-story window. The sash was wood and the glass broken, but I thought it was likely a fire escape route at some time. The lifesaving steel ladders and platforms had long since been pulled off, melted down, and put toward building the city wall.

The darkened building was eerie. Here and there we'd see the remains of a camp: A pee-stained piece of foam padding that was probably used for a bed. Plastic wrap that once held food. A candle or an old, discarded game controller strap—these straps were as common here as the last century's wallet, cell phone, or car keys. Simply designed, the straps had electrodes that touched the user's head. A battery pack. Wireless sat-link. And that was about it.

Ever since meeting back up, Dakota had been staring at me. I mean, every single chance she got. I saw confusion in her eyes.

“Look.” York was at a blown-out window, pointing across the street. The opposite building obviously had power, lights. It also had a Rooms for Rent sign on the lower level.

We all went to where York stood, Dakota edging up to me the whole time. Something was clearly on her mind, but she just didn't want to blurt it in front of the others. What had she found while Mi and I were away?

Across the alley, in every one of the lit windows, we got a really nice slide show of what happened when the sun went down.

In one of the top rooms, a mother fed two kids out of plastic bags. The meal looked like chunks of dirt. I had no idea what it was, but when she was done with the packages, she put them carefully away
. Maybe they were worth something at the store. Then she and the kids all slipped game controllers over their heads, and away they went.

Window after window, it was the same thing. Whether they were in the gaming verse watching TV or listening to music or visiting a Caribbean island, who really knew?

The thing was, they were
all
doing it. We could see fifty windows, and behind them, the only people not plugged in were those using the bathroom or eating a meal.

“So they work sixteen hours on the wall,” Reno guessed.