She accepted the weapon gingerly as he ensured she had it pointed up and downrange.
“So where is Park?” she asked dryly.
He took the weapon back, put it into the shoulder holster and handed her the rig. “There is no Park,” he said as he easily hefted the weapon-stuffed duffel. “See ya.”
“Where are you going?”
He looked at her for a moment and cocked his head to one side. “That stuff,” he noted, gesturing with his chin at the body armor, “is really supposed to go under your clothes. I’m heading up to somewhere on Charles or Princess Anne Street that has a good view,” he said, throwing the strap of the duffel across one shoulder, “then I’m going to smoke a whole pack of Marlboros waiting for the Posleen to show their heads. Then I’m going to die.” He smiled warm and quietly, as if asking her to deny the reality of that statement.
She smoothed the stomach of her armor unconsciously and went through a series of rapid mental readjustments. “Can I come with you? Maybe I can reload or something.”
“I sincerely doubt that there will be time to reload,” he answered, “but you would be extremely welcome. Now, to find a good spot on Charles Street,” he said, turning up the hill.
“How about Worth’s?” she suggested.
Bill Worth sat at ease in the rear of his store, a Franklin stove removing the last tinges of chill from the evening of this truly wearisome day. The large front room of the shop was redolent with the scent of old books and fine antiques. It was the scent of home.
He was spending what he considered to be his last few moments perusing an early edition of Moll Flanders that included some tracts not usually found outside of the editions published during Defoe’s era and sipping a Cóte d’Azur ’57 he had traded the previous year for a prototype Colt Peacemaker. As in all good business deals, both parties felt they got the better of the bargain.
He had just reached a condition of maximum comfort, his sockless loafers perched on an ottoman, his wine close at hand, when the door to the shop jingled as, most unexpectedly, a pair of customers entered.
“Feel free to look around, gentlemen,” he told the pair of soldiers, officers if his “Uniforms and Insignia of the United States Armed Forces” was any judge. “However, I prefer not to sell anything today. I have decided to maintain my collection intact for old sake’s sake.” He chuckled at the reference neither of the soldiers would possibly recognize.
“Hi, Mr. Worth, it’s me, Kenny Young,” said the younger officer, truly a babe-in-arms as it were.
“Ah, yes, young Mr. Young,” he said with another breathy chuckle. “The uniform befits you. I thought you were studying engineering?”
“I’m a military engineer.”
“Ah! A Pioneer! Bravo. Where are you based?”
“Here, Mr. Worth. That’s what the local Guard unit is, Engineers.” Lieutenant Young smiled faintly. It was a well-known fact that Bill Worth hadn’t set foot outside of the five or ten blocks of what he termed “historic Fredericksburg” in years.
“Ah, yes, somewhere up Route 3 isn’t it?” asked the shopkeeper, quizzically.
“Yeah, about a mile from here,” chuckled the lieutenant.
“Ah. Terra Incognita, indeed. So, to what do I owe the honor of your presence on this most gloriously unpleasant evening?”
“Well, we need to find out about the tunnels. We were told you might know something about them.”
“Yes,” commented the local historian, with a nod of his head. “Well, it would really be Ralph Kodger, you need to talk to about them…”
“But he’s…” noted the lieutenant.
“Dead, yes, but a great historian in his time. Or perhaps Bob Bailey…” continued Worth.
“… who…” said Young.
“… moved to Kansas, yes, I see you’re ahead of me here.”
“Do you know anything about them? Where the openings are?” asked the engineer.
“What their structure is?” asked the other soldier.
“And you are, sir?” Bill asked politely. The older soldier was obviously impatient, one of those people who feel it necessary to continuously rush about as if life wasn’t always exactly the same length.
“Captain Brown, sir, Charlie Company commander,” said Captain Brown, shortly. “We hope to hide some of the women and children in the tunnels and blow up, well, the city basically, to cover our tracks. We wondered about a ’50s-style bomb shelter, but there aren’t any. So we’re back to the tunnels. Unless you know where a bomb shelter is.”
“A valorous endeavor indeed,” commented Worth, setting down his Defoe and walking to the desk that was the center of his domain. “Might I ask a few questions?”
“As long as you’re quick,” snapped the impatient commander.
“How are they to survive?” asked the shopkeeper. “The women and children that is. Without air, food or water? There won’t be much room for that sort of thing, I would suppose.” He rummaged in the top drawer of the desk and extracted a pad of what appeared to be parchment.
“It turns out that the paramedics have been using a Galactic medication called Hiberzine that can put a person in suspended animation for months,” said the lieutenant, excitedly. “Public Safety has plenty of it; we can pack in as many as can fit. Resources are not an issue.”
“Ah, and how do you intend to blow up the city?” Mr. Worth asked, beginning to doodle on the pad.
“We’re going to fill some of the buildings with natural gas, basically,” answered Captain Brown. “It’ll do the job; do those centaur bastards anyway. Now, I’m sorry, but if you don’t mind, we need to find somewhere to stash the women and children. If you’ll excuse us?”
“Actually, I think you might consider my pump house,” Worth noted with a world-weary laugh, continuing to sketch.
“We need something larger than a pump house,” said the captain, assuming he meant one covering the well for a house. “Thank you just the same. Come on, Lieutenant.”
“Captain,” the storekeeper drawled, finished scribbling rapidly on his pad, “would something like this suffice?” He held up the sketch. “A two-story underground pump house for an industrial plant? Three-foot-thick concrete walls? Fifty feet long, thirty feet wide? Two levels? Underground?”
“Jesus,” whispered Captain Brown, snatching the pad. “Where is this?”
“By the river,” Worth answered with a dry smile.
“You own this?” asked Lieutenant Young, peering at the well-drawn sketch.
“Yes, I bought it several years ago and fixed it up,” answered the storekeeper.
“Why?” asked Captain Brown, curious despite himself.
“Well,” answered Bill Worth, with a sigh, “it’s got such a beautiful view of the river… Captain, if I offer this made-in-heaven facility for your little plan, can I pick which building you blow up?”
“Are you sure about this, Captain?” asked the first sergeant of Charlie Company as Second and Third platoons assembled in the parking lot of the Fredericksburg Executive Building. A seven-story block of unimaginative ’70s architecture, it had all the aesthetic appeal of a brick, creating a modern eyesore among the pleasant stone seventeenth- and eighteenth-century buildings that predominated in the city center.