Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1) (23 page)

The masked man shook his head. “No, but that was two days ago.
We’ve been on scout and too busy to check in.”

Scout? Check in? Aren’t you based here
?
Annette wondered. She didn’t bother to ask out loud. She knew she wouldn’t get an answer.

“Hurry up!” Jackson shouted, “He’s getting away.”

Annette looked out over the road. He was more than a kilometer away now, a little speck approaching the damaged bridge.

Annette set up the bipod.

“You talked to this one?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Jackson said curiously.

“Tell me about him.”

She had seen too much anonymous death. No one’s death should be anonymous, even this guy’s.

“He was the leader of the scouting mission. A real bandit. Bragged about all the women he was getting being part of the cult.”

Annette snorted and got into a prone position behind her weapon.

“Does he have a name?”

“Brett.”

Brett looked so much closer through the lens of the scope. Annette could see him panting, his chest heaving noiselessly as he stood partway across the bridge, looking back up the road to see if he was being pursued. He turned and hurried toward the center, then slowed to a careful walk. He slung his rifle on his back and spread out his arms, bending his legs slightly to lower his center of gravity.

“Can’t let you live Brett. Nothing personal, but you can’t take what I have.”

Annette let out a slow breath, her body still. The wind blew fairly hard over the bridge, coming at a slight angle from her vantage point. The crosshairs climbed up and to the right. Brett was halfway across now, right in the middle of the narrow section.

She squeezed the trigger. The report of the rifle slammed her ears.

There was a second of waiting as the bullet sped to its target.

Brett pitched off the bridge and plummeted into the canyon. Jackson buried his face in his hands.

Annette rose to her knees and looked out across the canyon, feeling empty. Killing was easy. The thinking that came afterwards, that was hard.

But she had an excuse not to think just now. This wasn’t over. She turned to the sentry. A white, smiling mask looked back at her.

“So where do we stand?” she asked.

“I think we can come to some sort of arrangement,” the sentry replied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Pablo lay on sheets so
aked with sweat, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling as Jessica cooled his forehead with a damp cloth. She looked at Marcus and Rosie standing in the doorway, her face mournful.

“He’s burning up,” she said.

Marcus turned to leave. “I’ll go get The Doctor.”

Rosie gripped his arm.
“Ahmed’s already been here. Says there’s nothing to do but wait it out. I’ve been giving him willow bark tea for the fever but it’s not helping, nothing’s helping,” Rosie said, her eyes filling.

A lump rose in Marcus’ throat. He and his wife clutched each other as Jessica continued wiping Pablo’s brow. The boy let out a weak cry.

Marcus clutched his wife tighter. He knew what Rosie was thinking because he was thinking it too.

Dear God, don’t let us
lose another child.

He tried to reason with himself that this wasn’t his child. This was a child of a stranger, a child from the Burbs. He’d seen B
urb children die all the time from disease or beatings or getting caught in the crossfire.

Nothing he could tell himself convinced him. He’d played ball with Pablo. The kid had laughed at his jokes. And he knew—it was too obvious not to know—that
for the past couple of days he had been reliving the time when he had his own children. After the briefest initial resistance he had fallen into the wonderful illusion that he had a family again.

He couldn’t accept losing Pablo, yet he knew that
dozens of people died every flu season. Back in the Old Times there was a cure. These days you kept them cool, gave them willow bark tea, and prayed for the best. There was no cure these days.

Then he remembered—that
blanket antiviral The Doctor traded for! Wouldn’t that work?

“What?” Rosie asked.

“Huh?”

“What’s that look about
? You have an idea?” Rosie asked.

Yes, he had an idea, but no hope. How could he ask The Doctor for his medicine? He’d need it sooner or later.

Pablo needs it now, and there may be no later.

“What is it?” Rosie insisted.

“Nothing,” Marcus said, pulling away, “I got to get back on duty.”

He found The Doctor at the treatment station inside the warehouse. His face was drawn, pale, and he moved stiffly as he wrapped a bandage around a head wound. Ahmed treated a patient on the other side of the room. He and The Doctor had their backs to each other.

“You should be lying with the wounded, not treating them,” Marcus said.

The Doctor’s voice came out
hoarse and ragged, “Too much work to do. I gave myself some stims.”

“You’re going to keel over if you keep this up.”

“Yes, mother. So what are you doing here?”

Marcus
tried to get the words out and found that he couldn’t. Instead he caught himself doing some terrible mathematics. If Pablo didn’t get the medicine, he’d probably die. If The Doctor kept the medicine, it would save his life once but eventually his disease would kill him. If the Righteous Horde broke in here they’d kill The Doctor and all the other adult males. They’d spare the children and use them as slaves. So if he got the medicine to cure Pablo and the cult broke in, would he be doing the child a favor or not?

“I’m busy, Marcus,” The Doctor sighed.

“Um, just wanted to tell you I set up scavenger patrols to watch the water. Clyde’s got the situation on the wall under control. Abe is still holding out at his compound.”

The Doctor shook his head and put a heavy hand on Marcus’ shoulder.
“I’ll deal with that rat bastard later. You better get back to the wall and see how Clyde’s doing.”

Marcus hesitated again
. At last he left without saying anything.

Approaching the wall he saw
Abe’s men still guarding the gate, their boots sunk into mud made up from the blood of their victims, both guilty and innocent. A pile of ladders lay nearby. Clyde stood on the wall overseeing the M60 crew as they tried to unjam their weapon.

“How did you get the ladders?”
Marcus asked when he joined them. Most had been pushed over in the last fight.

Clyde grinned. “Hook on the end of a rope. Don’t expect it to delay them long. Soon as we got them up they started pulling boards off of houses. Hear that?”

Marcus listened. The sound of hammering came from the Burbs. He peeked though a gun port. Enemy riflemen looked back at him from windows and around corners. The machine gun and its protective mantlet had been pulled to the far end of town, where the mass of men with machetes and spears sat and rested. A group of riflemen stood nearby watching them.

“Got it,” one of the M60 crew said, yanking a cartridge out of the ejector.

“Strip it and clean it,” Clyde ordered. “Looks like we have the time.”

“What about our other machine gun, the D-whatever?” Marcus asked. How Clyde kept all these acronyms straight he’d never know.

“The DShK-4? Almost out. I only let them fire a couple of bursts to test that mantlet. If things get bad I’ll let them open up.”

“Don’t be stingy with the ammo. If it saves New City it’s worth using every last round.”

Clyde grinned. “Remember the early days when we had heaps of 12.7×108 mm? That beautiful machine saved us a dozen times over.”

Marcus no
dded. That was back when the remnants of the old city-state militias still prowled the land, looking for loot now that their homes had been obliterated. Once about fifteen years ago they’d even been threatened by some bandits who claimed they were a division of a national army. What a sad, sad, joke that was.

“You think they’ll attack again today?” Marcus asked.

“From what that scavenger said they’ll have to. They might wait until nightfall, though. What’s happening with Abe?” Clyde lowered his voice as he asked this question. The Merchants Association members at the gate weren’t far off.

“I don’t know. Looks like he’
ll protect his own and nothing else. He’s smart enough to realize that if the wall falls he’s a dead man, though. That’s why he sent this bunch. The thing is, he’s so scared the scavengers will rob him that he’s putting the whole city at risk.”

Clyde’s mouth made a grim line. “He’s not entirely wrong, you know. My patrols arrested a couple of guys breaking into a house not far from yours.”

Marcus slapped a palm to his forehead. “Oh great. That’s just super. What did you do?”

“Hunted up a couple of members of that so-called Burb Council and told them I wanted to shoot them. They didn’t object so I shot them.”

“That’s not going to help with goodwill.”

“
Like it’ll make a difference after what these Merchants Association idiots did.”

Marcus sighed. “
No, I guess not.”

“Get some rest,” Clyde said. “You’ll need it soon enough. Try and get The Doctor to get some rest too.”

“Yeah,” Marcus turned to step away and then stopped and thought a moment. He knew he couldn’t rest, not while that kid was dying in his spare bedroom. He looked at Clyde. He had never really liked him with all his middle-aged bravado and paranoia, but they’d been through it all together. Met as refugees when The Doctor first found this place and decided to start a new home after the last city-state had fallen. They’d built this place together, made countless hard decisions together, grew older together. Life doesn’t give you many people like that. Should he ask him?

H
e took Clyde by the arm and led him a little away from the M60 crew. In a whisper he unburdened himself on him, telling him about Pablo, about how he felt, and how the boy would die if he didn’t get that little vial from the Old Times that sat somewhere in The Doctor’s medical cabinet. Clyde listened without interruption, once waving away a guard who approached to ask a question, and took it all in without a word until Marcus finished.

“Damn,” Clyde said
at last. “That’s tough. If you ask he’ll give it to you, you know that right?”

“Yeah,” Marcus nodded sadly
. “That makes it tougher.”

“
Sorry buddy, I don’t know what to say,” Clyde shook his head and raised a hand toward the machine gun and the dead bodies littering the base of the wall. “I’m better at this stuff. It’s a lot more clear-cut. All I can tell you is to do go with your heart.”

Marcus nodded and left. He felt better for having told someone even if it didn’t give him a good answer. Clyde had given the best answer he could
—to follow his heart. The problem was, his heart was telling him two different things.

The Righte
ous Horde waited until dark to attack. They brought up the machine gun and raked the top of the wall. The weakened metal burst in dozens of places, sending citizens and associates tumbling off the catwalk. The men with the ladders came next, covered by the riflemen behind. Despite having taken all the enemy ladders earlier in the day, the defenders faced even more in the night.

Desperate, Clyde ordered the DShK-4 to hit the line of riflemen. The crew poured
an steady fire down the line, mowing a third of the men down before the final heartrending click told Marcus that gun would not fire in this battle again. It was enough to break the enemy rifle line into confusion and give the defenders on the wall the chance to fire on the oncoming horde. For once the M60 didn’t jam and shot down entire swathes of the crowd. Roy and his assistants threw the last of their Molotov cocktails. The scene was lit in the garish yellows and reds.

The cult’s machine gun focused on the DShK-4, spattering bullets around their gun loop. The enemy crew’s accuracy was frightful and the citizens on that section of the wall fled for their lives and bullets punched through metal and panged off the machine gun.

It didn’t matter. The DShK-4 was out of ammo and the damage had already been done. The emboldened defenders savaged the crowd of half-starved men trying to scale the wall.

Still they came, scrambling up ladders and dodging the falling bodies of their com
rades. A few made it to the top, hacking at arms holding guns, jabbing at faces peering over the wall. Clyde was everywhere, his M16 blazing as he emptied clip after clip into the crowd. Marcus moved about the wall too, calling up familiar scavengers to help in the fighting, and then hurrying down to the gate to keep the scavengers away from the gate when the pounding of a dozen hammers told them this was a danger point too. The Merchants Association guards at the gate looked as afraid of the scavengers there to help as they were of the cultists there to conquer. Marcus had to impose himself between the drawn guns of both sides to keep the peace.

The gate buckled in several places. Marcus hurried back up to the catwalk, ignoring the agony in his back, and got the M60 crew to move directly over the gate, tip their gun to point directly down over the men with the hammers, and fire into them.

The M60 took that moment to jam again. Almost weeping with frustration, the crew tossed the gun aside, pulled out sidearms, and exposed themselves to pump .22 and .38 rounds into crowd at the gate.

The enemy riflemen concentrated on the M60 crew and took out two despite their Kevlar, but once again the damage had been done. The men with the hammers fell back.

The whole assault started falling back. The riflemen fired into the crowd, their own people, and the mass of humanity moved back to the wall.

Clyde snapped another clip into his M16 looked at Marcus with wild eyes. “Both machine guns out, no more Molotov cocktails,
we better hope these guys break soon.”

Everyone ducked as the enemy machine gun raked the top of the wall again. A hole sprouted in the metal barrier next to Clyde’s head and the bullet panged off his helmet. The Head of the Watch fell dazed into Marcus’ arms.

“Look!” a guard said, pointing toward town.

Marcus saw the muzzle flashes on the shore along two sides of the peninsula. He grabbed Clyde’s binoculars
from the case on his belt and put them to his eyes.

Cultists on rafts made of planks of wood and corrugated iron were paddling along the water to both sides of the peninsula on which New City stood.
They kept up a steady fire into the city while the scavenger patrols Marcus had set up returned fire. Men splashed into the water, boats bobbed along the current empty of their crews only to be replaced by more boats.

“These people are organized. They’ve taken hal
f the Burbs apart,” Marcus moaned.

One cluster of boats was approaching shore, too close to his own home
for his liking.

Clyde groaned and sat up.

“You OK to take command here?” Marcus asked him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, getting up with the help of one of the guards.

“Good,” Marcus said. He grabbed his rifle and headed down the steps just as the roar of the crowd outside told him they were making another charge.

Marcus couldn’t worry about that now. He had to check on Rosie and the kids, and find out what was happening with this new danger.