Viper looked from Athalia to me and back, angry and suspicious. “If this is a trick, you’re both dead, and not the easy way.”
Athalia gave me another dirty look, then dropped into her stance and raised her fists. “If it’s a trick, it’s on both of us.”
Viper squared up with her. “Alright, sister. Fine. You think you got god on your side. Prove i—”
She moved while he was still talking — a blur of grey robes — and caught him with a roundhouse kick that snapped his head around and sent a rope of spittle halfway across the settlement. Two teeth followed, but didn’t make it quite that far. Viper spun, his face bouncing off Vargas’s knees where he hung from the post, and almost went down then and there, but at the last second he caught himself and reset, fists balled. His pals hooted and hollered all around him, laughing at his pain and questioning his manhood, while the villagers backed away uneasily from the swirl of violence.
Which was just what I’d hoped would happen.
I looked around. Absolutely no one — not the villagers, not the raiders, not even the guys on the posts — was paying any attention to me. I edged back until I was out of the circle and drew the nine I’d taken off one of the dead thugs in Sleeper One.
I was almost tempted to let Athalia finish her fight with Viper, because it was a thing of beauty to watch her. The big man’s punches were like freight trains, there was no denying it, but Athalia was never at the station when they pulled in. A punch would arc for her head and she’d sidestep it or duck it and nail him as he stumbled past. Sure, her fists weren’t the cinderblocks of bone and scar that his were, but when one shot out, it hit him in his weak spots — throat, solar plexus, floating ribs. Her kicks caught his thighs and his knees, buckling them and making him bellow in pain. He was a mountain of muscle and fury. She was a grey cloud swirling around him, and I could see the lightning building up in her. But I couldn’t wait for the strike, because I knew we wouldn’t live long after he fell, no matter what Viper had promised.
I was between and behind two of the shotgun boys now, and had clean shots on two more. I raised the nine and fired, once to the left, once to the right, tight and controlled, like snapping my fingers. A nine mil may not be the biggest bullet in the world, but when it travels less than six feet to enter the back of a head, it makes a hell of a mess coming out the face. They both dropped to their knees, gobbling their own blood.
The rest were turning now, but still unsure what was happening.
I popped my third target as clean as the first two, then swung and fired at the fourth — and the old nine jammed.
“Shit!”
The last two shotgun boys raised their weapons at me. One–Eye and One–Ear drew their pistols. I cursed myself for not cleaning the gun more thoroughly before we’d set out. Of course those filthy mutants had shit quality weapons. Of course!
But just as all those street sweepers and automatics started pointing my way, Athalia leapt high and delivered a snap–kick to Viper’s ear that plucked him up off the ground and dumped him flat on his back ten feet away. The impact was enough to distract the others, and I racked the slide and cleared the round just as Athalia landed and charged One–Eye, shrieking like a banshee.
“Shoot her!” shouted One–Eye.
“Shoot the shooter!” shouted One–Ear.
I dodged left as gun barrels criss–crossed in confusion. Athalia corkscrewed down and swept the legs out from under One–Eye, taking them both below the line of fire as the guys with shotguns opened up on her. One blast blew over her head and cut One–Ear in half. His killer’s guilty look lasted for less than a second before I drilled his skull. It exploded like a blood sausage.
Another load of shot blasted my way and I threw myself down, but not before I caught a pellet or two. I ignored that shooter, since he was already digging in a pocket for another shell, and rolled up aiming at One Ear. I pulled the trigger.
Again, nothing.
Another misfire.
It would take me all of two seconds to clear that dud round, but that was about 1.75 seconds more than I had to live. Athalia was grappling on the ground with One–Eye. She couldn’t save me, and One–Ear had me in his sights, gloating at me with a smile that was more gums than teeth.
And then he just went away.
It wasn’t poof, vanish, like in a traveling magician’s show. No puff of smoke. Just a little red mist, and One–Ear folded in around his middle and flew sideways behind a rock. I cleared the bad round from my gun, stepped around the rock and shot him in the face, just to be sure, then turned to help Athalia finish off One–Eye. He was already finished. Athalia had him in an arm bar and was driving his nose out through the back of his skull with the heel of her steel–shod boot. One–Eye spasmed once, then lay there like wet laundry.
Then I remembered there was still one more guy with a shotgun, but as I turned to face him, he was done too.
Funny thing about bullets, especially when they’re traveling at mach something or other — the crack you hear isn’t the gunshot. That’s the noise they make breaking the sound barrier. The actual gunshot, it comes along slowly by comparison, about as fast as a little boy tracking a caterpillar. So I didn’t hear the gunshot that killed the shotgunner until the he was already on the ground with his jaw missing.
Athalia rolled behind one of the posts that held the raiders’ victims and peered anxiously in the direction the mysterious shots had come from. She looked at me.
“Friend of yours?”
I step behind the post that held Vargas. “I hope so, but I’m not going smile and wave until I find out for sure. Maybe they’re just a terrible shot.”
“Don’t worry,” croaked Vargas. “I’d know that shootin’ anywhere. That’s Angie.”
I froze.
Angie.
The name plucked my heart like a guitar string.
– Chapter Three –
I holstered my pistol and drew my knife, then cut Vargas loose as Athalia did the same for the villagers on the other two posts.
Vargas slumped to the ground, hugging his ribs and wheezing like a concertina. “Thanks, buddy… I—”
He stopped as he looked up at me, frowning. Then he called me by a name I recognized, but which fit me the way a grown man’s boots fit his five year old son.
“Was… was that you on the radio a few hours back?”
“Yup. Why?”
“’Cause we heard you were dead. You and your whole team. Killed by mutants.”
“Mutants? No. It was robots. I… Who told you that?”
“You did. ‘Bout three days ago. Your dying words.”
Now I was really confused. I didn’t remember that at all. And the bodies in Sleeper One had been dead a week at least. Why would I have called in about it two days ago?
“I’m sorry. Got some gaps in my memory. I—”
“Forget it. Who am I to look a last minute rescue in the mouth? You’re here and you saved my sorry ass. That’s what counts.”
I slid the knife back in its sheath and knelt to check his wounds, which were many. I got out my first aid kit. “How’d you get yourself in such a mess in the first place?”
“Heh.” His laugh sounded like dry sticks rubbing together. I gave him some water from my canteen, and he continued. “Me and Angie and Ace were lookin’ for Sleeper Base One like General Surgrue ordered, just like you and your team were, and we split up to cover more ground.”
“We found it,” I said. “The base, I mean.”
“Glad to hear it. Wish to hell I had. I…” He winced as I got to work with the peroxide and the bandages. “I found these jackasses instead. I was so busy scannin’ the horizon for that damn bunker I tripped over ’em campin’ in a ravine. They was lickin’ their lips as soon as they saw all my gear, and they lit out after me like a pack of dogs. Still woulda’ given ’em the slip, but I got snake bit and had to stop and bleed myself.”