Sunchild

“Jak?” he called.

“Clear out back.” The albino slid through the kitchen door, the .357 Magnum Colt Python still in his fist, red eyes still darting side to side, aware of any movement in his peripheral vision.

Ryan rose to his feet. “Guess we’re okay to rest up here, then.”

He went to the side of the diner and opened the window. He could see the rest of the group, plainly visible despite their best attempts to seek cover in the sparse scrub. He gestured to them to come on, thankful that the diner hadn’t been occupied. He judged that the weather had to be harsh in this part of the country, as the land was wind and rain blasted. The forest on the gentler slope of the hill could only have grown because the sheer rock face acted as a weather break.

Truly a rock and a hard place.

The others had now gained the safety of the diner, and were glad to be out of the rain, which had increased in volume from a gentle spray to a hard shower that beat on the duckboard exterior of the building.

“It’s just as well this was here,” Mildred said as she divested herself of the outer layer of her clothing. “I’d guess we’ve all had a few layers of skin softened. It’s just a matter of how long we had until it started to peel.”

“Or how long it’ll take until it starts right now, unless we can wash it off,” Krysty added, shrugging off her coat and pulling her hair back from her face. The sentient red tresses clung tightly to her, and not just because they were damp. They could sense the damage being caused by the rain.

“We have attained shelter. To hope for ambrosia and nectar would be too much, would it not?” Doc asked wearily, seating himself at a padded bench seat by the window. No one replied directly, and it wouldn’t have mattered, as the old man was off in a reverie, distant from his friends.

“Mebbe not that, whatever means.” Jak smiled slyly. “But one thing for sure—this place not that deserted.”

Ryan furrowed his brow and cast a curious glance at Jak. “Meaning?”

“Someone use place sometime. Why else running water?”

“You’re kidding,” Mildred said. “That would be too much to hope for.”

She headed past Jak for the kitchen area at the back of the diner, while J.B. called cautiously, “Watch what kind of water it is, Millie. If the supply is rainwater, well…”

Mildred poked her head from the kitchen door, good-natured annoyance puckering her features. “Give me some credit, John. Of course I’ll test it first…on you, if you like.”

As a joke, it wasn’t even that funny. But the tension of the passing day needed some kind of diffusion, and Mildred had supplied the safety valve.

On examining the water supply, Mildred found that a water-purification unit had been rigged in a storage tank that stood in an attached outhouse. It was a system cobbled together from pieces of salvage, but the filters appeared to have been changed recently, as there were only a few crystals attached to the copper pipes used to electrolyze the acid from the water.

Ryan agreed with Mildred that this suggested a ville somewhere near, and one that had a good working knowledge of predark tech. Certainly, someone with a good knowledge of chemistry had rigged the filtering system and kept a mains supply maintained from a nearby reservoir or river, which suggested a small pumping system of some kind. The water pressure was erratic, but constant enough to indicate good maintenance on the pump.

The positive aspect of this was clean water to drink, and also to shower. The rest rooms of the diner-roadhouse were supplied with showers, and the group took the opportunity to wash the acid rain from their skin. Once this had been done, Mildred tackled Doc’s wounds. The deep scratches on his hands had ceased to bleed, but needed dressing. Searching the scavenged medical supplies in her med kit, Mildred found antiseptic and some bandages. Hoping that she would strike it lucky, she searched for the first-aid kit that all such diners would have carried by law before skydark. Cursing, she found that whoever used the diner had also used most of the first-aid kit, and there were only a few bandages left. The seal on the package had long since been broken, probably for several decades, as the adhesive on the small bandages was no longer of any use.

Doc was grateful for the bandages she could supply, and Ryan allowed the old man to rest while he organized watch. It was imperative that they take turns standing guard, as it was now apparent that the diner was in use as a way station, perhaps on a trading route.

It was while J.B. and Dean were on watch that the Armorer made his discovery.

The diner was lit by a small oil lamp that they had found in the kitchen, along with fuel to keep it going. There was a small generator, which again suggested that the roadhouse was in semiregular use, but it was empty, and they could find no fuel to run it.

The oil lamp was better. It enabled them to have just enough light to see what they were doing, without advertising their presence to the immediate area.

Dean took the kitchen and one side of the diner as his territory, while J.B. took the front and other side. They patrolled between the windows, keeping low and watching for movement outside. It wasn’t difficult, as the terrain was so flat and open.

After a short while on watch, J.B. decided to poke around the area of the front diner where the others weren’t sleeping. Although the front seemed to be in little use, judging from the way the dust and dirt seemed undisturbed, it seemed unlikely that, by the sheer law of averages, whoever used the kitchen and rest rooms didn’t, at some point, use the front.

And if they used the front, then there was a chance that they may have inadvertently left behind some clue as to their origin or position in the terrain.

If there was such a thing, then it wasn’t immediately obvious, and so the Armorer began a methodical search of the benches and tables of the diner.

Most of the seats were padded and covered in a PVC plastic that had originally been a bright orange check but had now faded to a dull pattern that was barely discernible. The covering was cracked in places, and it creaked when J.B. leaned on it or moved it to run his hand down the cracks between seats and cushioning.

But it was worth the effort. Down the back of one bench was a scrap of paper, much folded and worn. Taking it back to the light and straining his eyes, the Armorer could see that it was a hand-drawn map. It was crude, and with no indication of scale, but with ville names and travel routes written on it.

And just to help them, it even had their own location clearly marked.

“I MUST ADMIT this is surprising,” Doc remarked the following morning after taking the map from Ryan. “I would have put us much farther east.”

The one-eyed warrior nodded. According to the map, they were right in assuming that they had arrived to the north of the Deathlands, but were wrong in assuming that were still on the remains of the Eastern Seaboard. Although the lush vegetation they had seen on the gentler slope of the hill resembled the kind of growth they had seen to the east, they were in fact far to the west of the country, well on the way to what had once been Seattle.

It was an area of intense memory. Seattle was the area where Ryan and J.B. had traveled in a war wag to meet up once more with Trader, their old mentor, and his companion Abe. It was the area where Ryan and Trader had almost been ransomed into marrying the hideous daughters of a deranged baron before Abe and J.B. had rescued them.

And now they were back. On a different trail, and a long way down the line, Abe and Trader had gone from their lives once more.

“From the Illuminated Ones’ point of view, it could still make sense to be based here,” Mildred said. “In the old days, there were a lot of military bases along the line from here up through Canada to Alaska. The redoubt may only have been one in a chain. Besides which, it’s near enough to Washington, without being too near….”

She left unspoken her point that the redoubt and surrounding area were still habitable, whereas the hole in the world that had once been the capital of the old United States was still too rad-blasted for anything other than mutie bacteria to dwell.

“So which ville do we head for?” Krysty asked. There were two on the map, equidistant from the diner.

“This one looks the better bet,” J.B. said, pointing to a ville that was marked but wasn’t named. From the scrawled lines, it looked as though the city was belowground, using the network of surviving tunnels and sewers that had proliferated before skydark.

“It’s certainly where whoever owns this map comes from,” Ryan mused, “and it looks like whoever they are is part of what’s left of the Illuminated Ones.”

He indicated the map. Around the edges were scrawled numerous slogans and words: “Kallisti = Kaos;” “The future lies in the hands of the hidden past;” “Dreams are reality;” “The sun people are the shining ones.”

“If the ‘sun people’ are illuminated by that sun, then I suspect that may be right.” Doc sighed. “Why do these philosophies always seek to be self-aggrandizing?”

Dean gave him a puzzled stare. “Doc, sometimes I wish you made more sense. But mebbe you can tell us what this ville means.” He stabbed a finger at the other marked ville on the map—Samtvogel.

“That’s not English, is it,” Ryan stated rather than asked. Unlike most dwellers of the Deathlands, Ryan was at least aware that there were other lands outside of his own, and that there were other tongues.

“German,” Mildred replied before Doc. “It means—”

“Velvet bird,” Doc finished for her. “A most curious name…and with a most sinister edge.”

“It certainly doesn’t feel right,” Krysty said, her hair weaving about her. “I’d opt for the underground ville any day. Doc’s right, there’s just something…” She tailed off.

“No ville’s an easy option,” J.B. said quietly. “Always trouble around every bend.”

“Which is exactly why we should follow our gut instincts,” Ryan said decisively. “We’ll head for the ville that seems to be old Seattle.”

THE NIGHT’S REST in the diner had restored their energy, and although it was disappointingly bereft of any food, it was still good to eat from a proper table, even if it was only self-heats. They spent some time checking their supplies and cleaning their blasters, then hit the blacktop, heading farther east for the outskirts of the ruins of Seattle.

A breeze blew across the arid plain, breaking the heat from the sun that beat down from a now cloudless sky. The blue was tinged with a pale orange glow, the remnants of the chem clouds that carried the acid rain.

It was good weather for such a trek: not too hot, but neither numbing with cold. The rain, hopefully, would stay away. It would take a sudden increase in the speed and intensity of the wind to bring chem clouds scudding from beyond the horizon, but there was no such thing in the Deathlands as even or predictable weather conditions.

JAK SLOWED, a frown crossing his scarred features.

“Hear that?”

Ryan turned from his position at the head of the line. “I hear nothing…yet. What is it?”

Jak concentrated. “Wag. Going fast.”

J.B. looked around. “Dark night, we’re sitting targets here.”

Ryan looked around them. The Armorer was right. They were on the asphalt ribbon that stretched to the horizon in either direction. The hill from which they had descended was like an anthill in the distance behind them, and there was little around except sparse scrub and a few sickly trees, bent over and half-dead from the acid rains.

“Fireblast, where the fuck do we go?” he muttered.

As he scouted around for defensive cover, the wag came over the horizon, shimmering against the asphalt and seeming to hover above it as it careered toward them, the sun behind it making them squint against the glare to follow the wag’s progress.

The nearest cover was a small stand of scrub bushes 150 yards to their left. A smaller group grew to the right.

“Split into two, divide their fire,” Ryan snapped. “J.B., you take Mildred and Dean and that patch—” he indicated the smaller crop “—Krysty, Doc, Jak, over here…” With that he took off for the sparse cover, knowing that J.B. would already be halfway to his own patch.

The one-eyed warrior knew that he could trust J.B. to follow tactics close to his own. They had learned together under Trader, and knew the only way to handle a situation like this. Perhaps, if they were lucky, whoever was in the wag would pass by without stopping. There was no way they could actually have been missed, standing out against the empty road, or maybe the driver of the wag and his passengers would be friendly.

But the only thing it was wise to assume or expect was hostility. Anything other than a firefight would be a bonus.

Ryan hit the ground with the Steyr already unslung, settling the stock into his shoulder as he lined the sight against his eye. Without looking, he knew that Jak had his .357 ready, Doc had the LeMat poised and Krysty had the Smith & Wesson .38 in her hand.

On the other side of the road, J.B. had his Uzi set to rapidfire, while Dean and Mildred had their blasters ready for use.

The engine of the wag rattled, coughed and died. On the last rattle, the rear exit door descended. It was a six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, probably ex-military. It was armored, with opaque glass on the windshield and side doors, and nothing along the side. Instead of standard military colors, it was painted in red, blue and green swirls that offered no camouflage and just made it stand out in the arid, dull landscape. Not that there was anywhere to hide.

With a massed cry, six figures emerged from the rear of the wag. All were carrying rifles of the type J.B. had found in the redoubt armory, and were dressed in one-piece suits that fitted closely to their bodies. Although of a uniform design, the suits were of varying bright colors. That two of them were female was obvious from their body shape, but their faces were hidden behind the opaque glass shields of silver helmets.

They were unlike anything any of the companions had ever seen before, and the surprise this caused gave the anonymous attackers just the edge they needed to take the offensive.

The air crackled as pulses of laser light shot from the crystals at the end of the rifles, searing heat into the dirt and scrub that raised clouds of smoke and left small trails of fire.

The weaponry may have been impressive, but the attackers were poor shots. While the pulses of rapidly fired laser bursts ate into the dirt in front of them, both Ryan and J.B. opened fire. Taking the man nearest to him, the Armorer loosed a quick burst from the Uzi. It wasn’t the optimum distance for accuracy with the weapon, but it was enough to tear into the man’s orange suit at knee level, the material ripping and spraying red as blood spurted from entry wounds. He pitched forward, his high-pitched scream of agony muffled by his helmet and his rifle flying off to his right as he threw out his arms to cushion his fall.

Ryan opted for one of the middle two, a man in a dark blue suit and the tallest of the attackers. A head shot would have been the optimum for a quick kill, but the one-eyed warrior had no way of knowing if the opaque glass on the helmet was bulletproof. A chest shot would have been difficult because of the way the man was holding his laser rifle, so Ryan aimed lower, for the abdomen. He squeezed gently on the trigger, channeling all the tension and adrenaline into the perfect shot.

The blue figure stumbled backward, doubling over and dropping his rifle, his hands instinctively flying to his stomach as though to stem the flow of blood that spread across the material of his uniform, turning it red.

Of the remaining four, two dropped to their knees and shot a steady beam of laser fire that scorched up a trail of earth on either side of the blacktop, each headed for the scrub where the two defending parties were covered.

“Shit, time to move,” J.B. exclaimed, knowing that the laser would at the very least set their scant cover alight, even if it didn’t actually touch any of them.

Mildred was out of cover, rolling to the left of the scrub and coming to rest with her elbows braced on the ground, her left hand locked to her right at the wrist, steadying her aim as her finger began to move on the trigger. Three shots barked from her blaster. It was too swift for a perfect aim, but she was close enough to the moving targets to cause two on her side to cease their fire and duck while Dean and J.B. took the opportunity to leave the now burning scrub and assume firing positions.

The same was happening on the other side, except that it had become a race between Jak and Doc to see who could come up and fire first. Doc was surprisingly swift for such a frail-looking man. His deceptive strength was matched by a burst of speed that saw him roll and aim in a fraction of a second.

But the albino was quicker. Death had always been Jak’s trade. Hunting animals or people, it amounted to the same thing. The Colt Python barked fractionally before the roar of the LeMat, causing the two attackers standing to their side of the road to dive haphazardly for cover that wasn’t there.

Things were now equal, and also stalemated. With no cover for either side, it was a firefight that could only end in complete annihilation for one side. There was nowhere to run and hide as the laser rifles crackled their beams of intense light and heat, failing to find range because of the fire from the more conventional blasters.

There were more of Ryan’s people firing, but they had the problem of reloading, while the laser rifles seemed to have an indefinite life.

Automatically, Jak and Krysty had fallen into firing alternately to allow each other and Ryan more loading time, also covering Doc while he reloaded the LeMat.

On the other side of the road, J.B. kept up short bursts of Uzi fire while Dean and Mildred alternated shots with their blasters.

“Time for a little change,” the Armorer muttered to himself as he laid down the Uzi and extracted the M-4000 scattergun. J.B.’s favored shot from the blaster were barbed fléchettes that would cause considerable damage, even at this range.

Covered by Dean and Mildred, and pushing his fedora back on his head, J.B. lined up the M-4000 and let fly with the scattergun. The barbed metal charge spread out in the air, scratching the paint on the side of the wag, scraping the opaque glass on the helmets of the nearest two attackers and tearing into their flesh. The thin material of their uniforms was no defense against the charge, and both went down beneath the hail of hot barbed metal.

Whether they had been chilled was unimportant. It brought the brief and bloody firefight to a close as one remaining male attacker kept up a covering fire while the remaining woman hurriedly gathered the laser blasters, throwing them into the rear of the brightly colored armored wag. That done, she climbed in and helped pull in the man whose knees had been ripped to shreds, and who had been attempting throughout the firefight to edge toward cover.

The man covering their retreat edged toward the rear door, pausing only while the woman assisted one of those wounded by the fléchettes to struggle into the wag.

With one last covering blast, the man climbed into the wag, the door slamming shut as the engine coughed into life. The wag shot forward enough to complete a tight turn before screeching past them and back down the blacktop the way it had come, disappearing toward the horizon.

Ryan and J.B., on their respective sides of the road, had already signaled the firing to stop, and the retreat had been carried out with only the bare minimum of cover to stop the laser blaster taking accurate aim. It was pointless to waste valuable ammo on a retreating force.

The companions regrouped on the blacktop, looking down at the corpses of the chilled attackers.

“What do you make of that?” Ryan asked.

“Not see sec like that before,” Jak said, gesturing at the corpses.

“Or blasters like that. They’re impressive when they work,” J.B. added. “No idea of how to shoot in a firefight, though.”

“Perhaps just as well in the circumstances,” Doc added. “Interesting that they should take such care to recover their arms, do you not think?”

Krysty looked down the road, where the wag had vanished over the horizon. “They came from the way we were headed,” she said quietly.

Dean pursed his lips, shaking his head. “Hope they don’t come from the ville we’re headed for, then.”

“You hold that thought, son,” Ryan said. “Because we’ve got to press on, see what we find.”

Chapter Six

The map found by J.B. in the diner showed them that the remains of the blacktop was the main route from the redoubt to the remnants of Seattle. With the sparse vegetation surrounding, Ryan felt uneasy that his people would be exposed and in the open as they followed the route. On the other hand, at least it would be easy to see any other traveling parties.

They continued the route in silence, the clear sky an orange blue that shimmered under the rays of the sun as it beat down on them. What would be better—the acid rain and a cooler temperature, or the humid heat of the blazing sun? Ryan thought.

He watched with concern as Doc seemed to wilt visibly in the heat, his overstressed body finding the blazing heat hard to handle.

Dean and Jak dropped back in order to help Doc, with J.B. bringing up the rear and not allowing the party to straggle too much. They were still tight enough to adopt defensive positions with speed, if required.

But so far the route march had been uneventful.

Over the past half mile, the level of plant life, cover and vegetation was growing thicker and more verdant, the previously empty horizon becoming crowded with the skeletal remains of buildings. They were now overrun with mutated growths, bizarrely colored flowering plants with thick, toughened stems growing up around the concrete. Ryan went over the advantages and disadvantages. The cover would protect them from the elements and hide them from any potential enemies, but it would also hold unknown hazards and hide any potential enemies from them.

Casting his icy blue eye to the melting heat of the sun, feeling the sweat run down his forehead from his soaking hair, he reckoned that right then the shelter from the sun was worth any amount of hazard. Besides, the fact that they were reaching the ruins meant that they were approaching the outskirts of Seattle, and their destination.

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