The Saffron Malformation (84 page)

             
“Yes.”

             
“Good,” he nodded.

             
“I don’t think she should go either,” Rachel said.  Quey and Ryla looked at her and she added, “Who can run this place if something happens to her?”

             
“She has a point,” Natalie agreed.

             
Quey looked at Ryla and said, “She does at that.  But we need two to a car and we’re taking two cars so that means four people, a driver and a shooter.”

             
“I’m the best shooter here,” Rachel boasted.

             
“That may be,” Quey said, “But you’re also pregnant and as I said this has the potential to get all manner of ugly.”

             
Rachel sat back in her chair as if she’d been slapped.  Finally she nodded.  “You’re right,” she conceded.

             
Silence lingered heavily in the room for a spell before Ryla finally said, “I’ll get the cars ready.”

             
Quey nodded and said, “Then I guess Reggie and I ‘ll come up with some bit of brilliance in case this is some sort of trap.”

              Ryla took Quey’s sheet to the second floor.  After beginning repairs on the other cars she linked his e-mail into her computer and began to download and decompress the files Rain had sent.  It was going to take a long time to look through everything and sort what they could use from what they might use and what was worthless.

             
After a while Rachel came to see if she could help.  She sat in the chair beside Ryla’s and began scanning through e-mails and files.  There was enough that was plainly marked, research that was easy to discover and documents that read plainly enough.  There were bank records and detailed diagrams of facilities and pylons all over planet.

             
Rachel sighed, “We should just upload all of it.”

             
Ryla looked at her.

             
“It’s more complete, I’ll give it that,” she said.  “But it’s just more of the same.”  She looked over at Ryla, staring blankly at her and asked, “How do you do it?”

             
“Do what?”

             
“Deal with all of this so well.  Everyone else is freaking out, at least a little.  Even Quey is showing signs of fraying, but you’re…” she looked away, back at the screen in front of her.

             
“I turn off my emotion chip,” Ryla said.

             
Rachel looked at her and they shared a bit of a laugh.

             
Ryla’s smile faded with the echo of their laughter.  “I’m afraid,” she said softly.  Rachel looked at her.  “I’ve never been afraid, certainly not because someone else might be in trouble.”

             
“Rain is your friend.  It makes sense,” she said with a shrug.

             
“I want her to be okay,” the slight woman’s voice, usually so full and sure despite its light nature, wavered as she spoke.  Rachel took her hand and pulled her close, hugging her and stroking her hair.

             
She tried to find words of comfort but anything she might say seemed meaningless.

             
“Is that your baby?” Ryla asked.

             
Rachel smiled.  He or she was moving around pretty good in there.  “Yeah,” she replied.

             
“You want to see it?” Ryla asked and Rachel peered at her.

             
“There’s a full medical facility in the second basement, complete with an imager.”

             
“Maybe another time,” she said, thoughtfully.  “I sort of like the mystery for the time being.”

             
Quey found Leone in the penthouse, sitting at the kitchen table with Amber in a chair pulled close beside him and he offered the boy a glass of whiskey.  Leone looked up at him, uncertain, then accepted.  He took the booze in fast, shooting the liquid back in one swallow that twisted his face and made him cough.  When he set the glass down, Quey filled it again and settled in the chair across from him.

             
“Slower,” he said, and sipped from his own glass.  “We’re just lookin to dull the edge, not pound it flat.”

             
Leone looked at him and smiled.  This time his sip was no more than a few drops.

             
“I give you that because I’ve got nothing to tell you.”  The boy looked at him, Quey could see how heavy his blue eyes were with uncertainty.  “No words for making all this waiting easier or even bearable.”  Quey took a sip and watched as Leone did the same.  “When she comes back you don’t tell her about this,” he warned with a sly smile.  Leone laughed lightly and nodded.

             
Reggie sat alone on the first floor.  He’d collected some guns he meant to take, one rifle and a pair of handguns for each of them, and began breaking them down on one of the tables in the restaurant.  Cleaning his weapons had always soothed his mind, giving it something to focus on besides what was coming, and it helped to pass the time.  Whatever was waiting for them at the address Render sent to Quey, he was fairly certain it was one form of trap or another.

             
Still, it felt good to have a purpose and he was glad he could put his skills to use doing something decent, especially considering what he’d used them for last time, on south continent.  He started breaking down another rifle and tried not to think about it.

             
Before Quey came along dragging this whole mess behind him, Reggie had been a listless drunk, for the most part.  Sure, he still kept in shape and pretended he had a life but in truth he spent more hours at Nails and Tails than he did anywhere else, and the ratio was getting worse all the time.  This mess, trying as it may be, had given him what the war had taken, a place in the world.  At Railen’s he was the drunk veteran at the end of the bar, he was the Regulator and it was ass he was handling.  Since leaving Fen Quada burning in the rear view he’d become an important man again.  A man who Regulated guns and lives.  A go to man if trouble came sniffin’ about.  A man who’s opinion mattered.

             
Reggie’s mind mulled over things quietly, in the back ground, leaving him to focus on his guns.  Maybe one day he’d figure out what it was inside him that needed a situation such as this but the why of it wasn’t going to affect what was coming and what needed to be done.  And maybe for now that’s why he was doing it.  Because it needed doing and he was capable.

             
His hands worked steadily as he slowly cleaned and carefully pieced his weapons back together.  He could have done it fast, could have broken them down and put them back together again three times already if he’d wanted to, but he had six hours to kill so where was the rush?

              Time has a strange way of moving when you’re waiting for it to pass.  It seems unbearably slow and then suddenly it’s gone.  Quey was on the rooftop watching as the brood gathered and started off down the highway.  He sat a spell, watching the waste.  He looked down at where the Once Men had gathered near the river, the ground black with charred bodies and littered with the singed remnants of their camp.  After a while he went back inside and found Reggie on the first floor, sitting alone in the restaurant with a table full of guns.  They sat at a table and looked over the satellite images of the place they were supposed to head for in the not to distant.

             
“It’s a bad spot for an ambush,” Reggie said solemnly.  “No high ground, no cover.  A tree here or there but that’s not going to do you any good.”

             
“Think they’d just wait for us to get there and blow it up?” Quey pondered.  He was hoping the big man would say no.  Instead he simply shrugged.

             
“The repairs are complete,” Ryla said and they looked to her, then to each other.

             
Arnie was already in the garage as they entered.  He was standing beside one of the idling cars, watching it.  Reggie handed Quey one of the duffle bags and then headed over to where Arnie stood.  He clapped the man on the back, said something to him, and they both moved toward the car.

             
Quey looked at Ryla and said, “You’re up for this?”

             
“Yes,” she replied simply.

             
“And you’re sure you can drive?”

             
“I have done it many times before.”

             
Quey nodded and they started for the other car.

             
When the door opened on the far wall Arnie and Reggie took the lead and sped out into the waste.  Ryla handled the car better than Quey had anticipated, following close behind Arnie.  They rolled over the rough terrain at a modest speed until they came to the road and then both Arnie and Ryla jammed their feet down on the accelerator.  The cars roared down the highway and with a bit of a clang, as neither was in prime condition.  Ryla had gotten them running, but that was about as much as she could do for them.

             
They continued along for a dozen or so kilometers before Reggie shouted for Arnie to stop.  Arnie slammed his foot on the break and Reggie yanked the wheel, sending the car off the road.  Ryla slammed on the break as well and the car protested.  She gripped the wheel in both hands, desperate to keep control as they passed the other car on skidding tires.  In the end she lost it a bit and the back end of the car swung away.  She turned into the spin and held tight until it stopped, sideways across the crumbling lanes of the old road.

             
Ryla looked out her window, back the way they’d come and to the other car just off the road.

             
“Go go!” Reggie was shouting at Arnie but their car was stuck in the sand.

             
Quey opened his door and stepped out.  He started around the back of the car but then he saw Reggie frantically signaling him to get down.  Quey stood, staring until the big man leaned out the window and shouted, “Pothole.”

             
His eyes widened when he looked to the road and saw a fresh bit of tar amidst the crumbling concrete.  Arnie shifted into reverse and finally got a bit of traction.

             
Quey ducked around the other side of the car and shouted, “Ryla!”  He felt the shockwave ripple through the air, compressing his ribs and shuddering the car.  The vehicle knocked into him as it slid sideways more than a few dozen centemeters and sent him tumbling to the ground.  His ears were ringing and everything sounded far away as he struggled to his feet and opened the passenger’s side door.  At first all he could see was blood.

             
Reggie grabbed Arnie’s head and pulled it down just in time.  The explosion shook the car as it was backing away and sent bits of road into the air.  When they sat up again they saw the damage to the other car, the driver’s side was torn up fairly bad and Reggie knew it hadn’t been one explosion but two.  He’d seen this before, in the war.  You dig a hole in the street and set your explosive inside.  Then you cover it with a bit of tar and another explosive.  The bomb on the surface is meant to stop vehicles, then the other goes off, and that’s the bad one.  The one the brood had buried here, Reggie could tell, was a jumper.  That meant it sprung up a bit before going off and judging by the look of the other car, it was full of shrapnel.

             
Reggie signaled for Arnie to pull ahead and he did.  The big man stepped out as Quey climbed into the passenger’s side to help Ryla.  The brood would want to stay hidden but they’d want to be close.  He had a pistol in his hand, even though he didn’t remember getting it.

             
Arnie just stood watching as Reggie scanned the area.  Then the big man’s eyes widened.  He saw them closing in from either side of the road.  They were moving fast, meaning to flank them.  There was no chance here.

             
Reggie gripped Arnie’s head and forced him to watch as he spoke.  “Help them,” he shouted slowly.  “Get them back.”

             
Arnie was confused, even as he watched Reggie run back to the car.  He didn’t know what was happening until the big man shifted it into gear and took off down the road.

             
Quey had pulled Ryla out of the passenger’s side of the car and laid her flat on the pavement.  He was trying to figure out what to do when he saw the other car race away and gaped.  Reggie wasn’t the sort to abandon his crew… but that wasn’t what he was doing.  As a matter of fact it was just the opposite.