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  “They had told us not to enter the forbidden zone,” Doc rumbled, then he hawked and spit the salt dust from his mouth. “Their chief must be insane with rage over this transgression.”

  As if in reply, one of the Core threw a spear, but it traveled less than a block, then arched down into the street and out of sight.

  “Think that’s Alar?” Dean asked, hitching up his belt.

  Krysty frowned. “Sure as hell isn’t Kalr,” she stated.

  On impulse, Ryan brought up his Steyr and worked the arming bolt. Almost immediately, the Core scattered, diving into the loose sand and out of sight.

  “Think they read my mind?” Ryan asked, still looking through the crosshair scope of the Steyr. The walnut stock felt gritty beneath his cheek, and his view of the desert was misty from the still rising salt mist. He could taste the air, and it was thick and foul as swamp water.

  “I think they just saw the sunlight glint off the long-blaster and figured out lead was headed their way,”

  J.B. said. “Any doomie able to read thoughts at this range would have known we were planning on escaping and have stopped us.”

  “Fair enough,” Ryan said, then fired twice at a movement below the sands. “But now they’re not so sure, and that could buy us some time to get off the roof.”

  Heading to the door of the rooftop kiosk, J.B. checked the lock and found it was open. The stairwell beyond was pitch-black, and the air carried a stale, almost metallic, odor.

  Readying their weapons, the companions lit candles and entered the kiosk to start descending into the bowels of the dark skyscraper.

  Chapter Seven

  With Ryan in the lead, the companions started down the stairs in single file, the flickering candles throwing distorted shadows in the walls. Almost immediately they encountered another dried corpse, this one wearing a silk suit with a PalmPilot personal computer still clutched in its hand.

  Kicking aside the body, Ryan kept onward, the SIG-Sauer steadily searching for targets. Just because everybody in the city was long chilled sure as hell didn’t mean the place was safe. Mebbe the bodies weren’t desiccated from the radiation and salt, but from some mutie that sucked them dry.

  A soft moaning could be heard, and Ryan froze in the darkness as his combat instincts flared. Then he felt the gentle breeze moving against his face and realized it was only the desert wind moving through the city, and blowing into the broken windows. What glass hadn’t been broken when the nuke quake dropped the city down a couple of hundred feet had to have sure as shit broken when the dome collapsed.

  Reaching the tenth floor, the door to that level was propped open by a woman in a flower-print dress. Beyond they could see an office with cubicles and desks. A rustling noise, very reminiscent of bats, could faintly be heard.

  At the noise, J.B. swung his Uzi machine pistol out of the way and pulled out his S&W scattergun, racking the shotgun for immediate action. The Uzi threw a lot of lead, but bats were small and fast, often carrying rabies or the black cough. The only cure for that was a bullet from a friend.

  Quickly passing Dean her candle, Mildred pulled out her flashlight and pumped the leverlike handle on the survival device a few times to charge the battery inside, then clicked the switch. A pale yellow beam came from the flashlight, but it was still stronger than the dancing flames of the tallow candles.

  Playing the beam about, the woman saw the papers on the desks fluttering from the breeze coming through the smashed windows.

  “Nothing,” Mildred reported succinctly. “It’s clear.”

  Accepting the recce, Ryan continued downward, but kept a watchful eye on the high ceiling above them for any suspicious movements. Bats and rats were a constant danger in any preDark ruin and…Fireblast, these weren’t ruins! He had better remember that. This dead town was unique in his travels, and nothing Ryan had ever seen before had truly prepared him for this.

  The stairs ended at the mezzanine level, but the door was locked. J.B. tricked the mechanism easily enough, but then the portal refused to open more than a few inches as something was blocking it on the other side. Holstering his weapons, Ryan put his shoulder to the door and shoved hard, digging in his heels until the portal finally moved enough to create a gap for them to squeeze past.

  Stepping through, he found what had been in the way—more bodies. The carpeted floor was covered with corpses of every age and sex. Umbrellas and packages dotted the human morass, thin, dried arms with clawed fingers rising from the sprawled bodies like bare autumn trees, with jewelry and watches glittering in the candlelight.

  Kicking the dead aside to make room, Ryan got the door fully open and the rest of the companions joined him in the hallway of death.

  A soft glow could be seen from the end of the hallway, and Ryan proceeded with extra care. Some of the dead were so well preserved, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they rose and attacked. No wonder everybody was twitchy.

  “They died waiting for the elevator,” Dean reasoned, feeling slightly rattled by the blank, eyeless, faces.

  “Ghastly,” Krysty said, her animated hair strangely still about her features.

  “This is Dantain, nay, surreal,” Doc rumbled, as he walked among the men, women and children. “It is like something from a nightmare!” Then he added in a small voice, “Or is this a nightmare, and I’m not really here?”

  “Easy, Doc,” Krysty cautioned in a soothing tone, taking his arm and squeezing to reaffirm the man’s hold on reality. “Easy there. Everything is fine. They’re long gone and we’re alive.”

  “Are they, madam?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “Are they indeed? Or is it perhaps that they are alive, and we’re the ethereal ghosts?”

  “Doc, watch that hallway!” Ryan barked, pointing at a random corridor. “Cover our flank!”

  For a split second, it seemed as if the ploy wouldn’t work. But then the confusion left the scholar’s lined face, and he smoothly drew both the Webley he’d acquired at Rockpoint and the LeMat to stand guard.

  “None shall pass here, old friend,” Doc stated firmly, every trace of madness gone from his voice and stance.

  Surreptitiously glancing at the two people, Mildred nodded in approval. Ryan returned the gesture and proceeded along the crowded passageway, swiveling to avoid the outstretched hands of the gnarled dead. No matter how muddled he ever got, Doc always came back if there was real trouble. His brain may be somewhat damaged, but his spirit was still strong as steel.

  Reaching the balcony, Ryan went to the ornate railing and studied the main floor illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the smashed front windows. Bodies were everywhere, on the curved steps leading to the main floor, propped against the walls, sitting on a sofa near the reception desk. A delivery man was cradling a large bouquet of dried flowers with a satin banner proclaiming Happy Birthday. A mail carrier was crumpled on the floor before the open honeycomb of mail slots, undelivered envelopes piled at his shoes. Assorted others lay on the floor, limbs mixed, briefcases scattered, their loose clothing fluttering from the breeze.

  Maneuvering down the carpeted stairs proved to be impossible, and the companions had no choice but to walk on the dead, the husks crushing into crumbling dust under their weight. Reaching the marble floor, Ryan and the others stomped their boots to get rid of the clinging dust, the vibrations causing several of the nearby bodies to fall apart.

  Zigzagging through the corpses, Jak went to check the guard’s weapon in its holster. But the leather was stuck to the revolver, and the albino teen had to yank hard to get it loose. As the gun came free, the guard tumbled to the marble floor and broke apart into pieces, his head rolling along the floor to careen off other corpses until coming to a rest near the phone booths.

  Inspecting the blaster, Jak pulled the trigger and the weapon stiffly clicked, nothing more. Cracking the cylinder, he frowned at the .38 shells eaten through by crystalline deposits.

  “Dreck,” the teenager declared, tossing the useless wea
pon onto the reception desk with a clatter.

  “Any ammo exposed to the air would be dead from the salt corrosion,” J.B. stated, tilting back his hat. “But if we find any ammo still wrapped in plastic, I’m willing to bet that would be as good as ever.”

  “Like the gunpowder in our ammo in the redoubts,” Dean said confidently.

  “Actually, no,” J.B. said. “Gunpowder loses its ginger over the years. Especially crude stuff like the black powder that Doc uses.”

  “Nonsense!” Doc snorted, patting his LeMat. “Black powder is infinitely superior, sir!”

  J.B. gave a snort. “Most of the weapons we find in the redoubts use cordite. Not the nitro-cellulose mix in the twentieth-century blasters.”

  “It’s worse for the blasters,” Ryan added, glad for the break from the endless dead. “That’s why we have to clean so much, but the stuff really lasts.”

  “The modern propellant for guns was cleaner,” J.B. continued. “But only lasted ten, twenty years on the shelf. However, cordite, under the right conditions, lasts a hundred. Sometimes more.”

  Reaching out with his ebony stick, Doc shoved the weapon off the desk. “Anybody seeing that would know somebody had been here recently,” the scholar explained. “If the Core is not here yet, they soon will be.”

  “Take no chances with them,” Krysty ordered, blowing out her candle and tucking it away. “I’ve seen what they can do in your mind. Shoot them on sight, and ignore anything standing behind them. It’ll be an illusion.”

  “Not prob,” Jak stated, sliding the Winchester off his back and working the lever. The greater range meant better protection from the mind muties.

  Just then, an explosion occurred far away, closely followed by the shattering of glass. Even though she knew better, Mildred half expected the sound to herald police sirens and the wail of an ambulance. But there was only the thick oppressing silence. With a shiver, the woman finally came to understood the term “graveyard quiet.” This wasn’t a city; it was a cemetery.

  Going to the empty frame of a window, Ryan surveyed the area outside. Lines of cars were jammed end to end, trucks parked atop smaller vehicles, a motorcycle lying tangled with a baby carriage, the adult and infant grinning corpses.

  “Nothing sight,” Jak announced from the window across the lobby, the lever-action Winchester rifle held ready at waist level.

  “Mebbe another fuel truck,” Mildred guessed. “Or a car near the first one caught fire and set off its fuel tank.”

  A warm breeze blew through the broken windows, and Krysty sniffed a few times. “That fire is close,” she warned. “Couple of blocks.”

  “Nuking salt has dried everything like tinder,” Ryan said scowling deeply, glancing at the lobby of the building. “This whole city could ignite if the wind is right.”

  Suddenly, Jak gave a sharp whistle and raised a hand, clenching it into a fist. Instantly, the companions stopped talking and assumed a more aggressive stance, blasters raised.

  The teen stood motionless against the marble wall, looking intently into the street full of cars and trucks. Black smoke wafted through the air, making it difficult to see very far. Then they heard a noise of metal on metal, and the smoke thinned for a moment for Jak to see something metallic moving among the preDark vehicles. A shiny dome with rotating red disks.

  Holding his breath, Jak watched with a pounding heart while the machine pushed a crashed truck out of its way and turned a corner to vanish from sight.

  “Dark night, a sec hunter droid,” J.B. exhaled in a whisper, standing behind the teenager.

  “And this one is in perfect working condition,” Ryan growled, “unlike that wreck we found at the redoubt last week.”

  “Just great.” Mildred sighed, glancing up at the ceiling and the world beyond. “We’re trapped in a burning city, with a sec hunter, and Gaza and the Core in the desert above.”

  “Looting the city is no longer an option,” Ryan stated as a fact. Nobody disagreed, so he continued. “First we score some water, and then get some heavy iron. We’re going to need more than blasters to handle a sec hunter.”

  “Then how get out pit?” Jak asked, still watching from the empty window frame. “No building near enough to top for us to try jump.”

  “We’ll figure that out after we’re armed better,” Ryan said, then turned.

  “Okay, Dean, what should we do first?”

  Knowing he was being tested, the boy scrunched his face in concentration before answering. The rest of the companions waited patiently while he chewed the inside of a lip.

  “Water coolers in office buildings like this are always useless,” Dean started. “They drip and are always dry. Luxury hotels are good, they have those little minifrigs locked in the better rooms. Always some bottled water there.”

  Stone faced, Ryan said nothing, so the boy continued, feeling the pressure to come up with the correct answer fast.

  “Got it!” He grinned. “Hot pipe, I’m a feeb. A supermarket! Normally, we don’t bother with supermarkets since they were always looted during the rioting after skydark.”

  “But this city was never looted,” Ryan finished. “Good call.”

  “Occam’s razor,” Doc rumbled, reaching out to tousle the boy’s hair. “Always try the simplest answer first. It is often correct.”

  Dean shifted away from the praise, then smiled back.

  “Okay, I’m on point,” Ryan ordered, serious once more. “J.B., cover the rear with your Uzi. Krysty, keep that .475 ready for the droid if it appears.”

  “Done,” the redhead said, pulling back both of the curved hammers on the massive double-barreled elephant rifle. “Only a couple of rounds left.”

  “Then make them count, lover,” Ryan told her. “Without implo grens or something equally big, a sec hunter could chew us apart like an MRE snack bar. We shoot and run for high ground. They don’t go very fast on stairs and that gives us an edge.”

  “Be nice if Gaza arrives and we could trick him into fighting the droid for us,” Mildred said, checking her Remington longblaster. The bayonet at the end glistening like a polished mirror, and she suddenly went cold realizing that could easily give away their position.

  “Hold a sec,” she said, setting the stock on the floor, and pulling out a butane lighter. Lighting a candle, she played the flame along the edge of the blade until it was a dull black. Satisfied, she tucked away the other items into her satchel and shouldered the weapon.

  “Ready,” Mildred announced.

  Nodding in reply, Ryan slipped out the broken window on the opposite side of the office building from where the sec hunter had been seen. He had been going to mention that to the healer, but it was better that she caught it herself. When they first found Mildred, she had been useless aside from her medical skills. She’d been born and raised in a world where the biggest danger was overeating and boredom. But she had learned fast.

  As they walked along the sidewalk, the friends could see salt dust everywhere, coating vehicles and corpses like snow. The tallest buildings blocked the sun, casting deep shadows across the rest of the city, brilliant slashes of light showing between the high rises. Ryan could guess that it would be pitch-black at the base of the cliff until high noon. That would be a good place to hide during the afternoon, and he filed that thought away. Right now, he had to stay razor.

  The streets were empty of traffic in the middle of the blocks, but packed solid at every intersection. The inhabitants of the city were everywhere, sitting hunched behind the steering wheels, sprawled on the sidewalk holding packages and briefcases. Ryan saw that some poor bastard was lying on top of an awning covering a greengrocer stand, the vegetables long turned into shriveled, inedible lumps.

  “Must have fallen from a window,” Krysty guessed, hitching her heavy blaster.

  “Makes sense,” Dean agreed, stringing his crossbow as he walked. The silent weapon might catch a droid by surprise, and the cold iron quarrel in his quiver would pack a lot more penetra
tion punch than a soft lead 9 mm slug.

  As the group passed through a collection of crashed vehicles, Mildred gave a soft cry as she spotted an ambulance. Rushing to the rear doors, she found them locked, then cursed in remembrance that they were always locked to keep thieves from looting the medical supplies. Rushing around, she checked the driver’s-side door and then the passenger’s, but the ambulance was sealed tight, the EMTs inside still wearing their seat belts and grinning at her from across the ages.

  “Good locks,” J.B. said, testing one briefly. “Sorry, Millie, we’d need to blow them open, and that would give away our position to the droid.”

  The physician peered through the salted windows at the equipment cabinets in the rear; the supplies in there were priceless, irreplaceable! To be denied the tools of her trade by the thickness of a sheet of glass was intolerable! But Mildred turned her back to the treasure trove of healing supplies and strode away, trying not to cry from sheer frustration.

  Stopping at a phone booth, Ryan picked up the telephone book, but it crumbled into dust at his touch. He had expected that, but hoped it might last long enough to give them the address of a supermarket, or a mall.

  A hissing sounded from an alleyway and the companions spun about with their blasters ready. Then they saw a limousine slowly tilting as its hundred-year-old tires finally expired under the onslaught of fresh air.

  “No rats, no muties, no looters,” Krysty said. “If it wasn’t for the Core hot for our blood, I’d say we take the place as a home. It would be very hard for anybody to invade from the cliff.”

  “We could make a hell of a ville wall with all these dead cars,” J.B. said, pushing back his fedora. “Remember the ville defenses at Zero City?”

  “Not really,” Dean said stiffly.

  Cradling the Winchester in his good hand, Jak bumped the boy with a hip. “Think not,” the Cajun snorted. “Near dead whole time.”