Perception Fault Read online

  The older man pointed his sawed off, double-barreled shotgun at the new threat, following the unwritten law of the land that stickies were to be chilled on sight. The blaster boomed, a cloud of pellets ripping into the mutie’s side, but not stopping its advance for an instant.

  The second man’s reflexes were a bit slower, as he was still bringing his rifle into play, when the stickie barreled into him. One second, the albino teen was staring at his own death, the next the man was on his knees, a guttural scream bursting from his lips as the mutie behind him slapped its hand over his face and brutally yanked his head back, hard enough for the vertebrae in his spine to crack at the impossible angle forced upon them. It was just as well, too, since what happened next would have also put the man on the last train to the coast, just more agonizingly slowly.

  The stickie pulled its hand away from the man’s face, the skin and flesh on his forehead and cheekbones peeling away from his skull with wet, tearing sounds, as if the creature was removing a mask to see who was underneath. Blood sprayed from his ruined head as the stickie twisted the bloody skull ninety degrees to the left, then let the twitching body drop, raising its head to snarl at the other two men.

  But Jak had corrected his aim by then, lining up the Python’s sights on that hideous face and squeezing off another round. The slug hit the stickie right in the nose, obliterating it as the hollowpoint round mushroomed inside the skull, plowing through and punching out the back, spraying blood, bone and brains everywhere. Still, the stickie took a step toward the pair of men, its shattered mouth opening and closing in its ruined face before the grizzled coldheart let fly with his second barrel, pulverizing the rest of the mutie’s face and sending it toppling over, dead.

  His chest heaving, the older man turned back—to find himself staring down the barrel of Jak’s blaster. The empty shotgun less than useless in his hands, the man raised his arms, letting the weapon clatter to the ground at his feet. “C’mon, kid, you can’t chill me after we both faced that.”

  “Shut mouth.” Jak had used the distraction of the stickie to move inside the half room, and now had his back against the wall.

  “Please, I don’t have another blaster—just let me go, and I’ll git back where I came from.”

  “Said shut mouth, fucker.” Jak hesitated for a second, considering whether he should take the man prisoner so they could find out what was going on around here. He made up his mind, the muzzle centering on the man’s forehead. “Get on knees.”

  The man collapsed to the ground. “Black dust, no.”

  “Shut fuck up.” Jak stepped out from the wall, then caught a flicker of movement to his left as a shadow dropped over him. Whirling, he was bringing the .357 around when he saw a strange pattern appear in his vision, an oval of fine crosshatching right in front of him.

  The rifle butt smacked into his forehead above the right eye, laying the skinny albino out full-length on the ground, the pistol flying from his grasp.

  He heard snatches of conversation between the grizzled man and someone else. “Runty little fucker, ain’t he?”

  “Son of a bitch got the drop on Larssen and me ’fore a stickie jumped us, tore his face off. Larssen told me there’s another one thataway, a woman. Let’s grab her, too. Now that we got her kin, she’ll deal.”

  The last thing Jak saw was the grizzled man standing over him, holding his Colt Python in his hand, before the world swirled and faded around him.

  Chapter Three

  Where did he come from? Krysty wondered as she slowly raised her hands, the S&W revolver dangling on her index finger by the trigger guard. Beneath the counter—stupe not to check there first, was her conclusion.

  She felt the pressure of the blaster barrel lessen as her captor stepped away. “Set the blaster down, then turn around slowly. Try anythin’ dumb, and all you’ll get’s a third eye in your forehead.”

  She complied with the orders, turning on her heel, and she heard a small gasp as the man took in her features.

  With her long dark crimson hair framing a gorgeous face featuring high cheekbones, a sleek, straight nose, full lips and deep green eyes that glinted in the sunlight like cut emeralds, Krysty had a good idea of what the typical man’s thoughts turned to when he first saw her. And that was before they got a look at her body, with its full breasts, narrow waist, long, lithe legs and strong arms. She was any man’s wet dream, and she was well aware of it.

  While growing up in Harmony, her mother, Sonja, had drilled it into her that her looks would draw attention, most of it unwanted. The elder Wroth had summed it up this way: “Give any man long enough, my child, and he will begin thinking about you with his smaller head rather than his larger one.” Mother Sonja had taught her how to read a man’s intentions through body language—the majority of them were absurdly easy—and how to turn just about any situation to her advantage. It was the job of her other closest living relative, Uncle Tyas McCann, to teach her how to protect herself from these unwanted advances, and he had taught her very well indeed.

  Krysty faced her captor with her head held high and her back straight, which, of course, just happened to show off her high, firm breasts to great effect underneath her dark blue jumpsuit, the zipper lowered down the middle just enough to give a tantalizing glimpse of the creamy-skinned wonders underneath. She watched the expression change on his face, saw his lust war with whatever orders he had been given, and simply bided her time.

  “Oh, girlie, the boss will certainly want to see ya, I garan’tee. But first—” his mouth curved open in a knowing leer, revealing several missing teeth, and the remaining ones spotted with yellow and brown “—I best make sure ya ain’t hidin’ any other weapons. Don’t try nothin’ stupe, and ya might even enjoy it.”

  Krysty’s face might have been carved from white marble for all the reaction she showed. The man placed his blaster at her stomach, promising a horrible, gut-shot passing if she tried anything. He ran his dirty hands over her lower legs, up her shapely thighs and between the vee of her sex, lingering there much longer than necessary, his callused fingers pinching hard. Krysty’s lips tightened, but she made no sound at all.

  “Strong, silent type, huh? The boss likes ’em to scream—I’m sure he’ll enjoy breakin’ you in, bitch.”

  Krysty didn’t deign to make eye contact, but she did speak. “Just get it over with.”

  “Go fast as I please, girlie. No fire-haired whore tells me what ta do.” His hands spidered upward, across her muscular midriff, heading for her breasts. “Almost there, sweetheart.”

  Krysty’s eyes flicked downward just as he grabbed the tab of her jumpsuit zipper and pulled it down, the material parting to reveal more of her breasts, supported by a simple white bra. His eyes were solely on those round globes, and she felt the pressure on her abdomen lessen a bit as he licked his lips, his free hand just inches away. “Course, mebbe you and I could cut a deal right here—”

  The moment his hand touched her skin, Krysty moved. Her left hand swept down and across, catching the man’s blaster hand and shoving it aside. At the same time, her right leg shot up, the chiseled metal point of silver-toed cowboy boot sinking deep into the man’s genitals. The man’s grin was replaced by a wide-open O of shock as the brutal assault on his privates short-circuited his brain. His trigger finger spasmed, sending a bullet into the floor as his other hand moved to cup his injured parts. He sank to his knees, retching once, a globule of vomit spraying from his lips to splatter on the floor.

  With her right hand, Krysty had snatched her blaster off the counter and brought the butt down on the back of the man’s neck, laying him out with one ferocious blow.

  Zipping up her jumpsuit, she turned to the doorway just as a shadow fell across it. She saw a flash of white hair and relaxed for a moment, thinking it was just Jak returning, except he was moving oddly, his feet dragging, almost as if—

  “Don’t move, or he gets a bullet in the head,” a voice said from behind her and to the left. Sta
rtled, Krysty half turned, watching both the speaker and the man who had one arm curled around Jak’s throat, holding him up, the teen’s.357 Magnum blaster pressed to his temple.

  Gaia, give me strength, she thought, raising her hands for the second time in as many minutes, just as a profusion of blaster shots erupted in the distance.

  DOC HADN’T EVEN FINISHED bouncing in the dirt before J.B. leveled the M-4000 autoshotgun and let loose a hailstorm of death. The razor-sharp steel fléchettes passed over Doc’s outstretched body, arrowing through the knees of both coldhearts and sending them crashing to the ground, tormented screams bursting from their throats as they clutched their bloody, crippled legs.

  The old man hadn’t been idle, either, hauling his massive LeMat single-action blaster out from under his coat and pointing it at the third man, who was standing stock-still on the other side of the wall, staring at the bloody tableau that had unfolded before him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a huge gout of blood. Eyes rolling back in his head, he collapsed onto the wall, a smaller trickle of blood leaking from the round hole in the top of his skull.

  “Upon my word.” Doc kept his blaster pointed at the two wounded men as he started to clamber to his feet. In seconds, J.B. was at his side, hauling him back down behind the wall while keeping his M-4000 aimed at the pair, both of whom had stopped rolling on the ground and stared back at the companions with hate-filled eyes.

  The Armorer waved at the building across the street even as he shook his head. “Dark night, Doc, you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Doc grinned, showing his peculiarly even, white teeth. “While I will admit that my diversion may not have been well planned, it did do the trick, did it not?”

  “These triple-stupe bastards aren’t what I’m talking about.” J.B. jabbed a thumb at the other side of the wall. “Remember the longblaster out there? Next time, think of something better than playing the hero—sure way to get a bullet through the brainpan.”

  “Perhaps, but I got the distinct impression that these brigands were not coming to kill us, but to capture as many alive as they could.”

  “Black dust, Doc, I swear that third guy came within an ass-hair of hitting you with his blaster.”

  Mildred had come down from the building and run across the street in a crouch to join them, looking at their two prisoners with distaste. “What were you thinking, showing yourself like that?”

  Doc shrugged. “I saw a course of action and took it. In hindsight, I concur that may not have been the most prudent avenue to pursue, but it got the job done, so to speak.”

  The black woman shook her head, her beaded plaits swaying back and forth. “I swear, Doc, you take more words to say ‘I fucked up’ than anyone I know. What about these two?” She indicated the pair with the barrel of her blaster.

  “See if you can patch them up long enough to— Look out!” J.B. shoved Mildred aside and brought up his shotgun even as Doc’s LeMat boomed. The slug smashed through the first prisoner’s breastbone, sending splinters of bone along with the slug crashing into his heart, stopping it instantly. The crude blaster, tape wrapped around its handle, fell from his hand.

  The other coldheart had launched his own diversion by trying to grab Mildred. J.B. didn’t waste a shot on him, but instead brought the M-4000’s stock around in a short arc, cracking the man in the side of the head. He fell over as if someone had cut his spinal cord, collapsing in a sprawled heap on the ground.

  “Damn, J.B.” Her blaster out, she checked the man for weapons, then checked his neck for a pulse. “You killed him. Must have crushed his temple with that little love tap of yours.”

  The Armorer grimaced as he bent over to examine the corpse. “Didn’t think I hit him that hard.”

  “You don’t know your own strength, John Barrymore.” For some reason Doc found that statement absurdly funny, slapping his knee as he laughed so hard he nearly choked, coughing and spluttering. J.B. glanced at Mildred in puzzlement, but she returned his look with a shrug before craning her neck a bit to peer cautiously over the wall.

  “Shouldn’t we be finding the others?”

  J.B. checked his chron. “Haven’t heard any signals—no gunshots or other signal calls yet—but it’s only been about three minutes since they left. Let’s give them two more, then poke around for them. Ryan’s still out there after the sniper. We better leave him a chance to take the coldheart out before we risk our necks going anywhere.”

  The boom of the sniper rifle echoed all around them, making heads turn toward the no-man’s land on the other side of the wall. J.B. frowned. “Or we might have to go a bit sooner than planned.”

  AS HE RETURNED to consciousness, Jak had the strange sense he was floating over the ground. Then there were the noises—voices nearby—a man, no, two men talking, and a woman whose voice sounded familiar.

  The rest of his awareness came back between flashes of pain. First was his swollen head, with a large lump on his forehead that he couldn’t touch for some reason. His cheek was wet, too, although he didn’t know if that was his blood or someone else’s. Also, there was a band of unyielding pressure around his throat, constrictive enough to allow just a bit of air to get through. Lastly, he felt a warm circle of metal pressed against his temple, and the distinct odor of cordite every time he inhaled. His eyes fluttered, but he had the sense to remain as still as possible, trying to pick out what was being said around him.

  “Blind norad, we got a live one here!”

  “Good-lookin’, too. All right, step away from Henney there, and don’t do anything stupe, or your kid gets it.”

  There was a startled cough of surprise, and Jak’s mouth twitched as the thought of what the expression on Krysty’s face had to look like right now. When she spoke, her voice was lower and rough.

  “My kid? You got a funny sense of humor if you think I’d lay claim to that puling whelp. Little bastard’s been nothing but trouble since I found him six weeks ago. Now the son of a bitch’s got me trapped and cornered, so you can have him for all I care. I just want to get out of this in one piece.”

  “I think that’s something we can talk about later, but just in case, I’ll gonna keep your little buddy here. Koons, get in here and see if you can rouse Johnny.”

  Jak heard footsteps approaching from outside, and another person entered the room, crossing in front of him to behind the counter.

  “Ah-ah—don’t even twitch toward that blaster. See where this is pointed?” Jak felt his head being wrenched back and quickly closed his eyes in case the other man was looking at him. The circle of metal pressed hard into the skin over his temple, but Jak hadn’t heard the hammer being cocked—yet. “I’ll vent his head if you move the wrong way. Come out from over there and stand right here. Dammit, Koons, you almost let her get the drop on us.”

  “Thought you had her under control, ya stupe. I got my own problems right now. Johnny ain’t looking too good—breathin’ shallow and fast. Got a lump on his head the size of my fist, seems like.”

  “Shit.” The man hawked up a wad of phlegm and spit. “You lay Johnny out, bitch?”

  “He didn’t know how to keep his hands to himself.”

  Jak felt the man behind him shift his weight. “Nukeshit, I knew this was gonna be more trouble than it was worth.” Cracking open one eye, he peeked out through his lashes to see Krysty with her hands up, standing in the middle of the room. Sounds of movement came from behind the counter as the second man tended to the third one.

  “If we don’t get him back pronto, he’s gonna die. Might not make it anyway.”

  Jak opened his eye farther, willing Krysty to look at his face, to know he was conscious. At last she did, but betrayed no reaction upon seeing his intense stare.

  “All right, let’s bind these two and take them both back. If there’s more, the other team should take care of them. We got enough.”

  “Look, can’t you just let me go?” Krysty stepped forward, her hands h
eld out beseechingly.

  “Nukin’ hell, bitch, stay right where you are, or I’ll pull this trigger and spray his brains all over the room!”

  While she moved closer, Krysty arched one eyebrow at Jak in an unspoken question. Jak rolled his eyes, indicating what he thought of her query.

  Krysty shrugged at the threat. “All right. It’s your funeral.”

  “What—” was all the coldheart got out before Jak’s right hand shot up and grabbed his captor’s hand, levering the large blaster away from his temple before he could shoot. At the same time, the albino lowered his head against the man’s forearm, gagging for a moment as his air was cut off, then powered it backward with all his strength, slamming the back of his skull into the man’s nose. His right leg shot straight out ahead of him, then snapped backward, smashing his heel into the man’s knee. Lastly, a twitch of his left wrist had dropped a narrow, leaf-bladed throwing blade into his hand, the tip of which adroitly found its way into the man’s abdomen, under his rib cage, penetrating deep into his stomach.

  Separately, any of the attacks would have been disorienting or crippling at the least. Together, they were an onslaught that spelled the man’s doom. Too stunned from his crushed nose to squeeze the Python’s trigger, he let his hostage go as he found himself falling to the right, his crippled knee unable to support his weight. The heavy blaster was plucked from his hand as he toppled over, suddenly aware of the sharp flash of pain blooming in his side, draining all his strength away as if it was leaking out along with his blood. The last thing he saw was the weird albino kid leaning over him, a thin, dripping blade in his pale hand, and those eyes, those slitted, red eyes, underneath that shock of white hair gleaming like some kind of demon….