The Doctor was not entirely happy. Certainly the ridge was their ultimate objective, as Magee would surely have agreed, in days gone by, but his truck resolutely ground on, chuffing round the switchbacks of the farmers' access road. At least they were now out of the reach of that thing in the sky! But she would have preferred to bring along the rest of the column. No good could come of leaving them among the bedlam that was erupting along that half-dried river below.
Perhaps Magee hoped to gain control of the sky-weapon. That would be a prize indeed, if it proved to have any staying power. Better even than the now-defunct microwave, perhaps. That man had always dreamed of empire.
The problem was, the Doctor reflected, that there was likely not much left of the known world for imperial scope. The Eastsiders were scattered tribals rapidly re-inventing all things Indian, rightly recognizing cowboy culture as ultimately tied to a vanished industrial system. Magee's "Rogue Valley Volunteers" had hit the resource wall and scattered, with about a fourth of them right here in the fight. Who knew what was going on in Port Land? She suspected: not much. They'd displayed surprisingly little reach. And from the scorched south, from whence one might have expected a hundred million Pilgrims, no more than two hundred thousand had ever come north, by her count.
That left this shrinking band of idealistic gentleman farmers, which Magee had no hope of befriending (it was not his style) and less of exterminating (they were proving resourceful). Not much future in pacification campaigns here. And without someone's cooperation, the big laser would have no meaningful reach.
Trust Magee not to be thinking that far ahead. Other things being equal, now would be the time for the Doctor to head out. East, perhaps. Or West. Find a boat, get south of the Equator. If such a thing were possible for her.
But the Doctor had a problem; she was tied to electricity. Regulated and in sufficient quantity. It had begun to run out in Roseburg, and would run out here if they could not breach this fort. Life, for the Doctor, lay within this mountain. Despite the continual jouncing, she frowned; stupid LAV! Its engine should be running so that she could plug in.
The vehicles suddenly halted; she could feel the tensioned tow cable slackening. Freed suddenly from the need to grip the steering yoke with both hands, she reflexively reached for her left wrist and tugged aside the unobtrusive fold of darker "skin" there. She found the tiny still-green glow of the LED reassuring.
Someone banged on the hull. It would likely be Magee; they now had few Volunteers with them. The Doctor rose from the driver's seat to a half-crouch, undogged the driver's hatch, lifted it slightly, and peeked out.
Yep, Magee. And he had somehow found time to climb into his armored suit.
Standard Army issue, the suit had once harbored electronic and nanotech wonders, including a power pack for its exoskeleton, but these things had gone the way of history during the Undoing, falling victim to electromagnetic pulses, of whatever origin. With its titanium VR goggles stripped away, the suit was still handy as full-body armor, but debilitatingly heavy. The Doctor marveled that Magee could still manage it; he looked almost like a slow-moving deep-sea diver. In one hand he carried his cumbersome AA-12E. With the other, he waved and pointed to the chain-gun's barrel overhead and then to the rock face nearby. What had he seen to shoot at there?
Magee walked toward the short cliff as the Doctor watched, fascinated. There was a distraction; someone shouted some sort of war cry on the right and threw a Molotov cocktail at Magee, which fell short, bursting and burning with a dull red glow on the road berm. Magee shouldered his weapon nonchalantly and fired one round, observed the effect for a few moments and lumbered on.
Reaching the mountain wall, he turned, made sure the Doctor was still watching, and patted the stone. Yes. There was something of a rectangle there. A door, then. She dropped the hatch and dogged it, then made for the gunner's position. Crank the turret; crank the gun; rack a HESH-T; reach for the duct-taped trigger.
Anyone watching might have wondered why the Doctor did not bother to put on the hearing protector muffs still on Mullins' head. Perhaps, if she knew they were watching, she would have. Protective coloring meant much in this game. But the Doctor's needs, though always and everywhere urgent, were few.
:::
Karen, sitting beside Marleena, glanced over and met her eyes, steady and ready. Both the babies had fallen asleep; time to unhook them and pack them up. It would soon be nightfall and time to roll. With an almost silent matched pair of wet "plops," the mothers became individuals again.
As she struggled with her little boy's swaddling, Karen wondered, not for the first time, how she'd drawn this particular billet. The crew she'd assembled consisted of none of her old friends, excepting Juanita and Errol. Nearly everyone present was from Roundhouse. A stronger division of labor between the sexes, at Roundhouse, might account for it; these were, except for two small boys, almost all women and girls that had, until this war, never held a bow, let alone a rifle. Now they would be carrying, each of them, some weapon; and might have to learn to use it on the run. It was hoped that some of those fighting outside might trail and join them, but the hope carried as much freight as any terror; one look at Juanita's clouded expression told all.
One of the urchins, the one she'd shown to make and demonstrate a blanket roll, stood in the doorway. "Beg pardon, ma'am, all heads counted and all things inventoried."
"Right," replied Karen, distracted by a strip of cloth that would insist on covering Allyn's nose and mouth. "How many commons?"
"Two axes, two shovels, two buckets, six tarps. Mr. Errol is showing us where to find things."
"I trust these tarps don't fall apart when handled and are not blue?"
"No ma'am," he grinned. "Never seen daylight, and we painted them brown and green like you said."
"Right, so we'll be right there and then we'll all head for the stairwell together."
"Yes'm." He turned to go.
The floor beneath them vibrated. Dust floated free from the ceiling overhead, and a dull thump resounded more in their chest cavities than in their ears. The boy turned to face Karen again, trying to hide his fright.
"You're right," Karen answered his unasked question. "That wasn't up top, that was second level, by the doors."
Another thump. A flourescent tube in one of the ceiling fixtures popped and showered Marleena and Arda with tiny diamonds and white powder. Marleena snatched up the baby and backed away from the spot. Karen practically tossed little Allyn into his bag on her left hip, then drew the revolver whose holster was now part of that bag. Juanita and Marleena took up their bows.
Feet came running down the stairwell; Karen and the young Roundhouser, bow drawn, stepped into the hall to meet them.
It was Guchi, carrying a shotgun and looking grim. He pulled up in front of Karen. "Mrs. Allyn, they're working on the sally port with that gun. You're not going to be able to go." Another, louder thump punctuated his report.
In a way, Karen was relieved. "Well, then ... " She waved the High Standard meaningfully.
Guchi wasn't finished. "But, uhh, follow me?"
Another raucus thump. White dust plastered their hair as Karen followed Yamaguchi to the refectory's "garderobe." He gestured grandly at the toilet seat.
Not intended for human waste disposal only, the chute was a steel-lined tube through the rock of the mountain, slanting away toward Hall. How it had been used before the Great Undoing, no one remembered, but Ridge had appropriated it as the best means of getting everything compostable down to the great heaps of Hall Farm. Only the dead had been spared this indignity, being carried down ceremonially by ox-cart. The pipe diameter was fifty centimeters, so it was a doable route, though steep.
"Really?" Karen wrinkled her nose, though she was not fastidious by nature. Not the best environment for a newborn, surely.
"Well, yucky, yeah. But we last raked it out about a week and a half ago. Not everybody's been living up here since, so I figure an hour's work for one strong kid. Depends how fast we can bring up the buckets."
"It's latched on the outside – at Hall Farm – right?"
"Yes, but that should yield to some dexterity. It's not really a security thing. Though, maybe – " he shrugged – "it should have been."
Thump. Dust motes leaped from the walls.
"Umm. Okay." Karen holstered the revolver. She looked round. The youngster she hoped might still be in the doorway, had, it turned out, gone her one better, and was standing by her elbow.
"Ma'am."
"Want to do something particularly awful and be a hero?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am." The kid grinned. "Name's Griff."
"Mmh? Oh, to tell your friends where you ..."
"No, ma'am. To remember me by for all time. I'll get me some rope and a bucket."
Thump.
:::
"This
here thing," said Mary disgustedly, "is no more than a
gahdam pearl-handled cyanide pill." She unloaded the tiny
"gambler's gun," dry-snapped it experimentally in the
direction of the entryway, then reloaded it.
"Here; take this one, then." Avery drew the sawed-off and
tossed it to her.
"Hey! That's more like it.
But what if I'd dropped it?"
"Well, that
would have been risky. But you didn't. Here's extra shells, too.
Throw me the little one." Avery caught the derringer and turned
back to the console. The room shook. Both their wheelchairs
transmitted the shock of the explosion to them. "How many do you
make that?"
"About fifteen. They'll be
comin' in, my lad. The doors are good stuff, but not that good."
Avery glanced at the destruct button. "We may have to
pull the plug soon, then. Where's Selk? Are we in business or not?"
"He went to take a peek, I think. Wups – here he is."
Selk, at the south window, began making gestures. There being
no agreed-upon engineering sign language at the Creek, his efforts
were randomly understood, but Mary, quicker on the uptake than Avery,
undertook to translate.
"The nasties have, he
says, divided their forces. Some are still along the road – out in
th' open, and worth goin' after! The scope?" She swung around
and looked. "Oh, better. Best signal we're going to get."
She gave Selk a thumbs-up.
Selk was clearly about
to reply in kind, but instead made a small "o" with his
mouth and sank slowly out of sight from the narrow window.
A man whom Mary had never seen before appeared, crossbow in
hand, drew a knife, and bent towards Selk's location. Mary, in
supreme anger and frustration, pointed the sawed-off at the window.
She resisted pulling the trigger, however. Nothing that could be
fired from a shotgun, let alone "pheasant" loads, was going
to reach a foe through nine inches of quartz.
"What's up?" asked Avery over his shoulder, as he reached
for the three great dials.
"Sonofabitch
effin' got my boy! Now he's standin' right here starin' at me through
th' window! Is there a way you can cut him up with that effin' great
cheese slicer?"
"No, there's a stop
built in, to keep it off our position evidently. I'll just have to
hope I can hack up some trucks instead." Avery twiddled dials
minutely. "Sorry about your engineer," he added softly.
"Good man."
The enemy soldier seemed
distracted. He backed away from the window, looked down, and withdrew
a screwdriver from his abdomen. With his other hand he explored his
middle for a moment, then looked at his darkened palm, then again at
the screwdriver. He threw it away, obviously cursing, and then walked
aimlessly off.
"A damned good
man," said Mary, putting her hand against the wall where Selk's
poor body must be.
:::
This, thought
Magee, is more like it.
He stepped through the stinking air where the cleverly-made
(and surprisingly strong) door had been, and found himself in an
artificially-lit interior. No sooner than he had taken four laborious
strides forward, however, than he was rocked back by a blast from
nearby – buckshot, by the feel of it.
Yet more
acrid smoke soured the air.
Huh – black
powder shotshells. More evidence of manufacturing activity. An
exciting prospect. A brief image of himself explaining the advantages
of a joint venture tickled his imagination, but then the suit took
another bruising hit. Even with the blast-protection plugs in his
ears, Magee found himself developing a headache. He'd better locate
and neutralize the threat, before they thought to aim for his
visor.
There – the sound of another shell being
racked into a chamber. A woman near a service area of some kind –
stairwell and elevator shaft. Just like old times. The weapon was
still at her shoulder and aimed, as he expected, a little higher than
the first two shots. Magee turned away, almost staggering as the
balls, still clustered together, pounded the back of his helm. He
swung back to return fire, only to see his assailant cut down by a
blast from behind him.
"My lord, are you
well?" The Doctor, suited up and armed with her own AA-12,
stepped through the wreckage of the sally port. To make herself heard
without suit radios, she was shouting. Three of her young interns
drifted in behind her, armed with crossbows, and a fourth carried
Wolf's old AK-47. These were all of the invading force that had made
it to the farmers' inner sanctum; but with the two suits and the
super-shotguns, Magee felt confident.
"Very
well, m'dear, just a mite slow." Magee shook his head inside the
helm, trying to clear the ringing from his ears. "It looks like
there are a number of floors. Let's clean up this rat's nest quickly.
One of you young'uns make sure of that casualty and collect her
weapon; I'll go upstairs'n the rest of you work from here down,
hm?"
"It is good, my lord." The
Doctor, shotgun at the ready, glanced round. "A welcoming
committee of one. Interesting; perhaps they have concentrated their
powers in the valley." She strode heavily toward the descending
staircase, then stopped by the elevator door. She reached into a tool
bag at her waist and retrieved a pair of wire snips.
"Something good?" asked Magee.
"New
wiring, run from floor to floor along the handrails. Perhaps internal
communications; more likely they have a suicide bomb rigged."
She snipped, then replaced the tool. Rummaging round in the bag, she
found and displayed a round object about the size of a baseball.
"Boys?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied
one of the interns.
"Two of you take these
flash-bangs and work your way down with me; make sure there are no
nasty surprises, hmm?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Gunner and one other stay here, turn up that table for
cover and watch the elevator and the exit."
"Yes, ma'am."
She turned back to Magee,
who had already set foot on the first step of the ascending
staircase. "My lord, should you go adventuring alone? I worry
about you."
"Aww, y'nice, m'dear, but
I've always been the luckiest man alive, y'know that."
And most of your luck has been me. "Yes, my
lord. Have a good time, and we will clear the rest of the facility
and join you as way permits."
Magee's
bespectacled eyes, through the slit in the faceplate, smiled.
:::
Whatever
was causing the great geyser of mud, rocks and steam, which the two
men had wondered at, suddenly left the Creek and tore up along the
stream's bank at an angle, making off deliberately along the Road
with a roar and a rumble. In its absence there fell, locally, a
remarkable stillness, though, in the distance, guns occasionally
popped.
Armon stood up and scanned the smoking
scenario, a salvaged crossbow at the ready. "I think
everything's gone east from here, including whatever the
eff that was."
Wilson, still carrying the broken twenty-two, emerged from the
shattered woods. "Agreed; let's inspect this battlefield an'
then follow."
He walked, gingerly negotiating the slanted,
crumbling ditches, toward the cluster of burning vehicles. He'd
quickly found that stepping near the northern edge of the little
trenches invited a broken ankle.
The first
tractor, he sadly realized from the color of it remains, had once
been Deerie. And the contents of its shattered cage of smashed steel
plates had likely once been Jorj, poor man. Next to Deerie's small
crater stood its massive cousin, bigger than any example Wilson had
ever seen. It had evidently burned – was still smoking. Most of its
steel was blackened by soot from, by the smell of it, diesel fuel.
Diesel was not part of the experience of most Creekers, but
Wilson had been, years ago, one of a team of small boys assigned to
pull apart fuel tanks and oil pans to get at the last uncollected
drops. It had not been pleasant work, largely because so many
vehicles had, by then, been overgrown with blackberries and invested
by bald-faced hornets and paper wasps. He wrinkled his nose. He then
noticed that the roof of the Cat's armored cage had been sliced in
parallel to the strange ditches. What ... ? A wrecked truck nearby,
he realized, had presented to him a similar puzzle. Was this
something to do with Selk's pet project? A new respect for the little
scurrier seeped in.
Armon, scanning east and west,
worked round to the other side. "Hey, Wilson!"
Wilson winced; the guy could never absorb protocols. "Report;
describe."
"Aw, just come see, okay?"
Wilson, checking behind him as he rounded the corner, followed
Armon's voice to find him standing on the Cat's tracks by a burnt
armored door, hanging open.
A man lay half out of
the doorway, covered with second-degree burns and soot. He'd been
apparently unable to escape the flames, as there was a shackle round
one of his legs, chained to something in the interior.
"Jeeah, Wilson, he's still breathin." Armon turned the
unconscious man over.
Aside from the extensive
burns, he'd also been shot, from close range. Wilson counted the
holes. At least nine, including once to the head. Limitations
of the twenty-two.
"So, what do we do?"
asked Armon.
"Got that knife?"
"Well, yeah ... "
"So, put
him out of his misery."
"Umm?"
"Ever do sheep?"
"Uhh,
yeah."
"Same thing." Wilson pointed
to his own throat.. "Here to right here. Nothin' to it."
A sound nearby drew their attention. Swiveling round with the
cocked rifle in one hand, like a long pistol, Wilson spotted the
source. Someone sat under a blasted tree, using its trunk as a
backrest. A hand waved in the gathering twilight.
Abandoning protocol himself, Wilson ran to the sitter.
"Emilio! What ... ?"
"Please. With
me, sit a little. Talk business, yes?"
Emilio's other hand, Wilson could see, covered a pattern of holes at
his waist, and was bloody. He reached for the wound.
"No. It is no good. I tried to make sure of that man and collect
his weapon, which was immensely foolish of me. And now he has, I
think, relieved me of my pancreas."
"Godammit, Emilio ... "
"Shh. Order
of business. First: several good people have died here; Mrs. Perkins
is one, Mr. Jorj another. But they all performed well. Second: I
have rescued that man's shotgun from the flames. There ... are still
two shells. Mr. Armon, I see, has come with you; give him that. It
will be ... an improvement over the crossbow. Third, some of the
enemy have passed Hall and assaulted Ridge; but they are very few, I
think, and the doors are strong. The bulk of them have gone east for
some reason and we are fighting them ... I think ... you should go
there. Fourth; is that ... broken rifle loaded, and do you have ... spare
cartridges?"
"Yes. And yes."
Armon came up, wiping the knife blade with and handful of
vegetation. Wilson handed him the shotgun.
"Fifth,
then: With me, trade rifles. But do not waste it as I did – aim
always for the head." Emilio smiled, but very briefly; Wilson
would have willingly witnessed almost anything but that smile.
"Emilio ... we can ... "
"You
cannot. You may trust me that I have no remedy and little time; be
reassured, the bullet is in case any straggler follows you. I cover,
yes? Go; go now, Jeeah with you; dark is coming."
"I'll remember you to Mrs. Molinero."
"You will surely do so, my good friend."
(To be continued)