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  “Wake up, my dears! Time to work!” the baron said, going to the external winch and releasing the cable.

  With a bang, the rear doors of the APC slammed aside and two of his wives came running around the machine, with blasters in their hands. As the wife in charge, Allison would stay with the APC, and Della would keep a watch on Shala, to make sure the newlywed didn’t run off during the scavenging. Which meant the task was middle-wife work.

  “I’m sending down Carol,” Gaza announced, wrapping a length of the greasy cable around an arm. “Latch the hook on to anything you can and we’ll haul the stuff up here for sorting. Pay special attention for weapon lockers. Those will be large boxes resembling a green plastic coffin. If you find something big, I’ll send down Kathleen.”

  Shifting the boxy Ingram rapid-fire to hang out of the way across her back, Carol nodded dumbly. The small brunette was on point for the recce. Understood.

  With Allison watching from the turret atop the APC, Kathleen helped Carol loop the woven steel cable around her body, under the arms and between her legs for reliable support. It was a long fall onto hard rock.

  Gaza stayed with the winch and kept a hand on the control box, taking his cue from Kathleen when to spool out some slack. Careful of her balance, Carol eased herself over the side until she was dangling freely. The loops shifted position as the metallic length fully supported her weight, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought they were coming off. But then the steel hook cinched firm and the cables tightened securely about her clothing.

  Glancing up at Kathleen, Carol waved a hand to show that everything was okay. Turning toward the APC, Kathleen wiggled a finger at her husband, and Gaza began feed out the cable nice and slow. Long minutes passed as the woman descended into the city, and the main reel was getting low when Kathleen made a slowing gesture. He complied, and then after a few more yards she clenched a fist and the baron cut the power and set the brake.

  Staying in the cable, Carol unlimbered her rapid-fire and looked over the area for any immediate dangers. Black birds were eating the ancient corpses, but no other creatures were in sight. However, she made a mental note to stay clear of the sewer grates and any dark shadows.

  Releasing the catch on the heavy steel hook, Carol slithered out of the cable and loosely attached it to a piece of salt-corroded machinery sticking out of the ground. Whatever its original purpose, the thing would now function well as an anchor. Checking the spare clips in her belt, Carol glanced at the cliff and got a reassuring wave from Kathleen, her husband standing nearby with a longblaster held at his waist. Good enough.

  Wary of her footing, Carol headed through the jumble of smashed concrete and sparkling salt crystals to reach the ruins and slipped past a collapsed piece of a building, ducking to avoid having a lamppost hit her head. Once on the street, the woman weaved through the posed corpses, marveling at the amount of metal they wore as ornaments. It was on their wrists, fingers, ears, and one female even seemed to have it in her tongue and nose. She had to have been very bad for her husband to torture her like that.

  The corner was free of cars, and Carol paused at the entrance of the parking lot, listening hard, her rapid-fire balanced in both hands. On the other side of the fence, the mil wags were parked in a paved lot, and more corpses in fatigues lay on the hard ground, with blasters and clipboards scattered nearby.

  The wisps of smoke moved eerily over the streets, the grinning bodies staring out through the closed windows with sightless faces. Carol shivered from the feeling that thousands of eyes were watching her every move. But her unease grew from the shadows of the tall buildings, most of them higher than anything she had imagined—five, six stories tall reaching toward the very stars. Carol fought the urge to say a prayer to the ancient ones and beg pardon for entering their lost world.

  And the carrion birds were everywhere feeding on the dead. Although she knew the scavengers were terrible cowards alone, they were brave in a group, and might attack if provoked. The sooner another wife came down the better.

  Swallowing hard, the woman squared her shoulders and started for the nearest truck in the convoy. The mil wag was huge, many times larger than the APC, and the rear doors had flopped open, spilling out the cargo. At first she thought they were food packs, those MRE things her husband spoke about so avidly. Checking inside the vehicle, she found even more of the objects, hundreds upon hundreds of small green squares. Then Carol realized they were actually cubes. A big rig full of plastic cubes! Thousands of them! She had absolutely no idea what they could possibly be.

  Listening to the moan of the wind, Carol lifted one and held the cold cube in her hand, half expecting it to vibrate or radiate warmth. But the cubes were as inert as the sec men guarding the convoy.

  Reluctantly exiting the truck, Carol went past a couple of empty Hummers and started for the tank. A corpse lying across the top, halfway out of the hatch, showed how to gain entry. But she already knew how to get inside such a war wag, where the live shells would be stored and how to release the catches holding the ammo in place.

  Then she slowed, realizing that it was pointless to raid the big machine. Each shell was almost too big to carry, and even if she got it to the APC, there was no way to shoot the ammo. Forgetting the heavy brass, Carol went to the rear of the tank and rapped on the spare fuel cans strapped to the side. She was rewarded with an answering slosh. Fuel to spare!

  Dragging a can over to the cable, she attached the hook and watched as it was hauled upward and out of sight. As the empty cable started snaking downward once more, Carol got the next two fuel cans and sent them up together, the winch handling the load effortlessly. Good, this would save a lot of time. Choosing the next target, the woman headed directly for the APC sitting on top of a smashed Hummer, a pile of corpses wearing camou uniforms crushed beneath the war wag. Even from here, she could see the sealed plastic tubes of the LAW-givers amid the wreckage. Those were the best. PreDark rocket launchers that could destroy even the largest war wag. With only one of those her husband could ace the Trader from a safe distance. Those she had to have immediately.

  Then she could do the LAV 25. Since it had a rapid-fire and a 25 mm cannon mounted on top, there should be lots of linked ammo stored inside. Mebbe even fresh chems for the smoke-generators. Her husband would be delighted over such a find. But this was more than she could carry. There was so much to take!

  Turning toward the cliff, she fingered a message for Kathleen to come down. Standing dangerously close to the edge, the busty woman nodded and stepped out of sight. Returning, Kathleen slipped over the edge and the cable started extending with the woman dangling at the end.

  As the woman landed, Carol helped her loose from the hook and they returned to the park. Kathleen went to explore the APC as Carol started straight the Hummer.

  Passing the tank, Carol heard an odd sound, almost like empty ammo shells jingling in a pocket. Curiously, the woman turned to see a machine of some sort came out of the war wag and start toward her. Its body was composed of chrome rods, the domed head fronted by two enormous red crystal eyes and both of its weird flexible metal arms tipped with scissors. Was it some sort of device for farming, to harvest crops? Born and raised in the desert ville of Rockpoint, Carol had never seen anything vaguely similar before and couldn’t even hazard a guess to its purpose. However, it was still working, so mebbe her husband would want it for parts.

  As she approached, the machine suddenly reached out and she automatically jerked backward, the scissors snapping closed only a hair away from her throat. Carol had actually felt the passage of the metal on her skin.

  Snarling a curse, the woman unlimbered the rapid-fire and hosed the preDark device with a stuttering stream of 9 mm rounds. At this range it was impossible to miss and almost every round hit the sec hunter droid but merely bounced off its armored body.

  Now the droid charged again, the twin scissors closing with a loud crunch, and she saw that the barrel of her blaster was cut off at the
magazine. Nuking hell, it was a guardian of some kind! Firing wildly, the panicked woman could barely control her weapon without the aid of the barrel and she hastily backed away, trying to shout for help, the impulse returning unbidden after so many years of being rendered mute.

  Then her weapon jammed, and as the droid reached for her face Carol turned and ran blindly into the street, bouncing off the dead cars and rattling the ancient occupants. Then cutting through a courtyard, she ran through a feeding flock of buzzards, hoping the birds might distract the machine. Screaming in outrage, the carrion-eaters erupted into flight, and while the urge to look was strong, Carol dared not risk a glance to see if the trick worked.

  Pelting down the street, the woman zigzagged through the rubble and dashed under the crashed lamppost. Unable to hear anything but her own rushed breathing, she scrambled up the rubble, feeling a rush of relief that the cable was still hanging in place waiting for her return.

  Rushing for the hook, Carol tripped and landed hard, losing her blaster and a hand went straight onto a cluster of salt crystals, the sharp prisms stabbing through the soft part of her palm like a glass daggers. Writhing in agony, she pulled her hand loose just as the jingling noise came again from behind. It was here!

  Blasters started shooting suddenly from above, the rounds hitting everywhere nearby. Safe for the moment, the woman reclaimed her rapid-fire and savagely yanked the arming bolt of the boxy 9 mm Ingram SMG, finally freeing the bent casing caught in the ejector port. Firing as she turned, Carol saw only the brief flash of mirror-bright steel as the scissors stabbed into her chest.

  Searing pain filled her world as she saw her own blood gush onto the machine, then the second scissors reached for her throat. Everything went chaotic as she went flying sideways to land on the ground, then rolled away until eternal blackness swallowed her whole.

  Casting away the headless torso, the sec hunter droid swiveled its lenses skyward, easily finding the APC on the ledge. It waited a full minute for an order from the soldiers operating the U.S. Army vehicle, but when nothing was received on the proper channels, it immediately switched to defense mode. Cycling out a pair of secondary arms equipped with pliers, the droid grabbed on to the dangling hook and started to climb steadily arm over arm.

  Now from above and below small-caliber rounds hit the droid, then a nearby section of the rock face exploded thunderously as a LAV rocket slammed into it. Shrapnel ricocheted off its primary hull in a hundred places, but nothing penetrated.

  Then the damage around the smoking blast crater began to spread, the cracks yawning wide in every direction. Large pieces of the rock started to fall away, causing a minor avalanche. Then there came the roar of a diesel engine and the cable began to move as the APC departed the weakened section.

  Gripping even harder, the droid continued to climb even as it bounced and slammed off the crumbling face of the cliff. More than once it was sent spinning away, sailing over the city, only to come crashing back against the rock with brutal force. An eye cracked, distorting its external view, and a secondary hydraulic system went off-line from the pounding, but the droid accepted the damage as minimal and continued toward the enemy.

  The droid was only a few yards from the top of the cliff, when the APC stopped moving. Redoubling its ascent, the sec hunter clawed its way onto the desert floor and stood just as the 25 mm cannon atop the LAV 25 roared into life. The explosive rounds detonated on its hull in strident fury, smashing both primary and secondary systems. Forced backward from the sheer force of the continuous detonations, the sec hunter tried to get out of the way and it suddenly was falling.

  Unacceptable. Reaching out for the blur of rock with every arm, the machine found the cliff was just outside its range, even with the longarms fully extended. Sending out a radio signal for immediate assistance, the machine emotionlessly tried to find a solution to the problem when it hit a pile of broken concrete with triphammer force and abruptly ceased to process information.

  INSERTING A FRESH ammo clip into his AK-47 assault rifle, Baron Gaza snarled a guttural curse as the tumbling machine crashed into a million pieces, wires and gears flying wide and far. Then there came a crackling electrical explosion from within the wreckage, and an oily cloud of dark smoke rolled skyward.

  “Try to chill me, will ya?” he shouted, firing a burst at the destroyed remains. The pieces jumped and danced from the incoming barrage of rounds, but no other result was achieved from the expenditure of ammo.

  A grunt caught his attention, and Gaza turned to look at Allison still in the turret of the APC, an arm draped across the 25 mm cannon, its multiple barrels visibly radiating heat. He arched an eyebrow and she asked a silent question.

  Shrugging in response, Gaza went back to looking at the city below, now searching for any sign of Kathleen. Studying the littered street, the man saw a movement in the shadows and started to swing the Kalashnikov that way when a breathless Kathleen raced into view, her arms cradling a LAW rocket launcher, the plastic tube fully extended for immediate firing.

  Scanning the desert above, she looked quizzically at the baron, until he pointed downward and his wife tracked to where the droid lay smashed amid the salt and concrete. Exhaling deeply, Kathleen sadly shook her head over the incident, then started back toward the convoy in the parking lot.

  There still was a lot of ammo and fuel to harvest before it would be time to sing the passing of her beloved sister. Business came first, then mourning and, eventually, sweet revenge.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Caught by surprise by the rain of muties, the companions were forced to withhold using their blaster out of fear of hitting one another at such close quarters.

  Even as Ryan ducked and dodged out of the way, the hooting stickies charged. With his back to the rock wall, the one-eyed man fired the Steyr only inches from the face of a mutie, the muzzle-flash washing over the distorted features and seeming to drive it away more than the 9 mm round that punched through its head.

  Rushed from both sides, Jak dropped the cumbersome Winchester and jerked both hands straight out. With hard thuds, knives slammed into the throats of the two stickies, cutting off their terrible cry. Then, grabbing the Winchester again, Jak raced between them, firing at another heading for Mildred from behind. At the noise, the woman turned and fired, the combined impacts to the head killing the creature.

  Shoving the Webley into the belly of a rushing creature, Doc fired the big-bore handcannon, blasting open its abdomen. But as the mutie was thrown backward, the blaster went along, pulled from his grasp by even the brief contact to the gelatinous ooze of the dreaded stickie.

  Firing his shotgun twice from the hip, J.B. blew two of the muties into each other. They fell in a tangle of limbs, then stood again without any problems, their damn secretions obviously not adhering to their own kind. Slicing out with the bayonet on the end of her Remington, Mildred tried to gut the monster, but the blade went in only so far before becoming bogged down inside the guts of the creature. As the sucker-covered hands went for her face, Mildred triggered the blaster as a distraction, then shoved the Remington as hard as she could, making the stickie stagger away as it took the weapon along, buying a few feet of precious distance.

  Free for a moment, the companions unleashed a hellstorm of lead, peppering the hooting creatures in the head and driving them from the cliff. But even as the companions scrambled for some combat room, the surviving stickies started forward again, already altering their naked bodies to meld with the scenery. One male standing on the pavement and the salt was morphing into black asphalt on the left and sparkling crystals on the right. The effect was more than disconcerting. Standing amid the rubble of the ruins that circled the preDark city, the chameleonic muties were fragging difficult to track properly.

  “Force them into the open street!” Ryan shouted, shouldering the Steyr and fanning the creatures with a hail of 9 mm rounds from the coughing SIG-Sauer. “Jak, light ’em up!”

  While the others formed
a ragged line to discharge volley after volley of rounds to drive off the creatures, Jak pulled out the Molotovs and started to throw them. The first hit the ground between the two groups to keep the muties at bay, but the next two bottles arced down directly onto the creatures, the glass shattering as it hit the ground, and splashing them with the fiery contents.

  One stickie caught a Molotov in the chest and the bottle just stayed there, the burning rag fuse hanging impotently. Then Dean triggered his Browning, shattering the glass. Burning fuel engulfed the stickie, and it hooted wildly as it started running about blindly. Coming through the pool of fire, the creature headed for Krysty. The woman dodged frantically and it collided with a rusty mailbox, instantly trapped by its own resinous secretions. Even as it burned alive, the skin was turning bright orange and red to match the colors of the fire.

  Incredibly, one more stickie fell from the cliff to land near the companions. Moving fast, Doc threw a fistful of salt into its face, and Ryan grabbed a bent curtain rod from a pile of junk and used the pole to beat the stickie into the growing pyre.

  The stench coming from the frying muties was horrendous, their anguished hooting getting louder all the time, but the companions stood their ground with blasters at the ready until the thrashing creatures finally succumbed into quiet death.