He did not live to finish the job. A team brigade of Quazis and Moofs, led by my Brothers, sprang me free.
That takes teamwork. I know the Controllers said otherwise, said that we were smash-crazy subverts like the Anarcanes, with no pledge to Fun City. But if you ever listened to them, salt your ears. Teams never smashed unless they had to. When life pinched in Fun City, there was nowhere to jump but sideways into the next bloc. Enter with no invitation and… things worked out.
I catch a shine of silver down the Strip. A cognibot is stalled with scanners down, no use to the shave-heads who sit in the Pylon and watch the streets.
I point it out, thinking there can’t be many shave-heads left.
“No more law,” goes Jade.
“Nothing in our way,” goes Slash.
We start down the Strip. On our way past the cog, Vave stops to unbolt the laser nipples on its turret. Hooked to battery packs, they will make slick snappers.
We grab flashlights from busted monster marts. For a while we look into the ruins, but that gets nasty fast. We stick to finding our way through the fallen mountains that used to be pyramids and block-long hives. It takes a long time.
There is fresh paint on the walls that still stand, dripping red-black like it might never dry. The stench of fresh death blows at us from center city.
Another alley cat pissed our bloc.
I wonder about survivors. When we send our minds out into the ruins, we don’t feel a thing. There were never many people here when times were good. Most of the hives emptied out in the fever years, when the oldies died and the kiddy kids, untouched by disease, got closer together and learned to share their power.
It keeps getting darker, hotter; the smell gets worse. Bodies staring from windows make me glad I never looked for Ma or my brother. We gather canned food, keeping ultraquiet. The Strip has never seen such a dead night. Teams were always roving, smashing, throwing clean-fun free-for-alls. Now there’s only us.
We cross through bloc after bloc: Bennies, Silks, Quazis, Mannies, and Angels. No one. If any teams are alive they are in hideaways unknown; if they hid out overground they are as dead as the rest.
We wait for the telltale psychic tug—like a whisper in the pit of your belly—that another team gives. There is nothing but death in the night.
“Rest tight, teams,” Jade goes.
“Wait,” goes Slash.
We stop at two hundred sixty-fifth in the Snubnose bloc. Looking down the Strip, I see someone sitting high on a heap of ruined cement. He shakes his head and puts up his hands.
“Well, well,” goes Slash.
The doob starts down the heap. He is so weak he tumbles and avalanches the rest of the way to the street. We surround him, and he looks up into the black zero of Slash’s gun.
“Hiya, HiLo,” Slash goes. He has on a grin he must have saved with the silver bullet. It runs all the way back to his ears. “How’s Soooooots?”
HiLo doesn’t look so slick. His red-and-black lightning-bolt suit is shredded and stained, the collar torn off for a bandage around one wrist. The left lens of his dark owlrims is shattered, and his buzzcut is scraped to nothing.
HiLo doesn’t say a word. He stares up into the gun and waits for the trigger to snap, the last little sound he will ever hear. We are waiting, too.
There’s one big tear dripping from the shattered lens, washing HiLo’s grimy cheek. Slash laughs. Then he lowers the gun and says, “Not tonight.”
HiLo does not even twitch.
Down the Strip, a gas main blows up and paints us all in orange light.
We all start laughing. It’s funny, I guess. HiLo’s smile is silent.
Slash jerks HiLo to his feet. “I got other stuff under my skin, slicker. You look like runover skud. Where’s your team?”
HiLo looks at the ground and shakes his head slowly.
“Slicker,” he goes, “we got flattened. No other way to put it.” A stream of tears follows the first; he clears them away. “There’s no Soooooots left.”
“There’s you,” goes Slash, putting a hand on HiLo’s shoulder.
“Can’t be a slicker without a team.”
“Sure you can. What happened?”
HiLo looks down the street. “New team took our bloc,” he goes. “They’re giants, Slash—I know it sounds crazy.”
“No,” goes Jade, “I seen ’em.”
HiLo goes, “We heard them coming, but if we had seen them I would never have told the Soooooots to stand tight. Thought there was a chance we could hold our own, but we got smeared. “They threw us. Some of my buds flew higher than the Pylon. These boys… incredible boys. Now 400th is full of them. They glow and shiver like the lights when you get clubbed and fade out.”
Vave goes, “Sounds like chiller-dillers.”
“If I thought they were only boys I wouldn’t be scared, Brother,” goes HiLo. “But there’s more to them. We tried to psych them out, and it almost worked. They’re made out of that kind of stuff: It looks real, and it will cut you up, but when you go at it with your mind it buzzes away like bees. There weren’t enough of us to do much. And we weren’t ready for them. I only got away because NimbleJax knocked me cold and stuffed me under a transport.
“When I got up it was over. I followed the Strip. Thought some teams might be roving, but there’s nobody. Could be in hideaways. I was afraid to check. Most teams would squelch me before I said word one.”
“It’s hard alone, different with a team behind you,” goes Slash. “How many hideaways do you know?”
“Maybe six. Had a line on JipJaps, but not for sure. I know where to find Zips, Kingpins, Gerlz, Myrmies, Sledges. We could get to the Galrog bloc fast through the subtunnels.”
Slash turns to me. “What have we got?”
I pull out the beat-up list and hand it to Jade, who reads it. “JipJaps, Sledges, Drummers, A-V-Marias, Chix, Chogs, Dannies. If any of them are still alive, they would know others.”
“True,” goes Slash.
Jade nudges me. “Wonder if this new team has got a name.”
He knows I like spelling things out. I grin and take back the list, pull out a pencil, and put down 400 BOYS.
“Cause they took 400th,” Jade goes. I nod, but that is not all. Somewhere I think I read about Boys knocking down the world, torturing grannies. It seems like something these Boys would do.
Down the street the moon comes up through smoke, making it the color of rust. Big chunks are missing.
“We’ll smash em,” goes Vave.
The sight of the moon makes us sad and scared at the same time, I remember how it had been perfect and round as a pearl on jewelrymart velvet, beautiful and brighter than streetlights even when the worst smogs dyed it brown. Even that brown was better than this chipped-away bloody red. Looks like it was used for target practice. Maybe those Boys tossed the Bridge at Base English.
“Our bloc is gone,” goes HiLo. “I want those Boys. It’ll be those doobs or me.”
“We’re with you,” goes Slash. “Let’s move fast. Cut into pairs, Brothers. We’re gonna hit some hideaways. Jade, Croak, you come with me and HiLo. Well see if those Galrogs will listen to sense.”
Slash tells the other Brothers where to look and where to check back.
We say good-bye. We find the stairs to the nearest subtunnel and go down into lobbies full of shadow, where bodies lie waiting for the last train.
We race rats down the tunnel. They are meaner and fatter than ever, but our lights hold them back.
“Still got that wicked blade?” goes Slash.
“This baby?” HiLo swings his good arm, and a scalpel blade drops into his hand.
Slash’s eyes frost over, and his mouth tightens.