“We’re doing enough as it is.”
“But Gremlin likes the Family. Gremlin wants to do more.”
“Don’t tell me you’re falling for his bull?” Ferret asked.
“Lynx makes sense, yes?”
“Lynx hasn’t made sense since day one. Can’t you see he’s trying to manipulate us again? He’s scamming us, Gremlin.”
The humanoid glanced at the cat-man. “Are you, yes?”
“Would I jive you guys?” Lynx replied with an earnest expression. “Oh, sure, I might kid you every now and then. But what are friends for?”
Gremlin nodded and stared at Ferret. “There. You see, yes?”
“Did you happen to notice he didn’t answer your question?”
“Sure he did, yes?”
“I give up!” Ferret declared in disgust. He walked to a nearby boulder and took a seat. “If the two of you want to go off and slay dragons, be my guest. But I’m staying right here at the Home.”
“What can one run hurt, yes?”
“It can get us killed,” Ferret reiterated irritably.
Lynx came off the log in a rush and moved over to the boulder. “Not if we stick together and cover each other’s backs like always. We’re the best Triad in the Family and here’s our chance to prove it.”
“You two go prove it.”
“Does this mean you’ll let us go off by ourselves to get racked?”
Ferret glanced up. “That’s a low blow, even for you.”
“Don’t be such a party-pooper. Come with us.”
“No.”
“Please, Ferret,” Gremlin chimed in. “For me, yes? We should always stick together, no?”
A look of severe exasperation etched Ferret’s face as he gazed from one to the other. They were as dear to him as life itself, his closest comrades, the brothers he’d never had. The mere notion of them being harmed was almost more than he could bear. Life without them would be empty and lonely. Under the circumstances, and even though he knew Lynx had outmaneuvered them again, his options were limited to just one. “All right,” he capitulated wearily. “I’ll go on the damn run to New Orleans.”
Lynx impulsively embraced Ferret, then spun in a circle and whooped at the top of his lungs. “Look out, world! Here we come!”
“You did the right thing, yes,” Gremlin assured Ferret.
“Did I? I hope so,” Ferret said. He didn’t bother to add that, soon, they could all be pushing up daisies.
Chapter Two
He stood on the western rampart, his hands clasped loosely behind his broad back, a veritable giant of a man attired in a black leather vest, green fatigue pants, and combat boots. Dark hair crowned his handsome head.
His brooding gray eyes stared absently at the cleared field to the west of the 20-foot-high brick wall on which he was perched. Around his slim waist were strapped a pair of matching Bowies snug in their brown sheathes. His bulging muscles radiated an aura of sheer power even when at rest. To a casual observer he might have appeared to be a statue, a bronzed superman sculpted by an artist who intended to invest the piece with the strength of a Hercules. Not one of those mighty sinews so much as quivered as the giant contemplated the personal problem he faced, a dilemma that could be summed up succinctly in two words.
Not again!
His impending departure for New Orleans in the morning had aggravated a raw emotional wound, had angered his wife, Jenny, and caused yet another spat related to his prolonged absences from the Home.
Not that he could blame her. Or his son, Gabe, who had been upset to learn they wouldn’t be going fishing tomorrow as he had promised. If only they could appreciate his position!
What other choice did he have?
He was, after all, the head Warrior. The safety of over a hundred lives and the guardianship of the 30-acre compound in which they all lived were ultimately his responsibility. And he would protect both with his dying breath, if need be.
The Home and the Family. Both had come into existence shortly before the outbreak of World War Three, which had occurred 106 years ago. The Founder of the Home and the family, a wealthy, idealistic filmmaker named Kurt Carpenter, had wisely foreseen the impending Armageddon and taken steps to ensure his ideals survived his lifetime. Carpenter had expended a fortune to have the Home constructed, then instituted a social system designed to ensure individual liberty while maximizing human potential.
The Founder had realized the necessity for a security unit and created the Warrior class, just as other group needs were met by the formation of other appropriate classes: the Tillers, the Weavers, the Healers, the Elders, and others. Each performed an important function, and none were considered superior to any others. Carpenter had despised inequality and hypocrisy in any form, and he had taken concrete steps to promote freedom for all while hopefully eliminating the rise of the vulture class, those who enjoyed lording it over their peers, those the Family dubbed vile power-mongers.
Only one power-monger had arisen within the Family in its entire history, but the same could not be said of the outside world, where demented dictators and repressive city-states had arisen to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the United States government.
The giant frowned, thinking of all the enemies the Family had faced, all the foes who would gladly destroy the Home without so much as a second thought. There were the Technics, the Superiors, the Soviets, the Dragons, the Gild, the Peers, and many more. If not for the Warriors, the Family would have long since been eliminated. And one of the keys to the Warriors’ success lay in their resolve to meet any and all threats head-on, to venture wherever, necessary to terminate menaces as the danger arose.
“Why let the enemy come to them when they could take the fight to the enemy?”
His question prompted a sigh from the top Warrior. As if his post at the Home wasn’t enough of a reason for his constant absences, he also served as the leader of the Freedom Force, the elite strike team consisting of a volunteer from each of the seven factions comprising the Freedom Federation. The Family had found allies as well as enemies far beyond the brick walls, and six of those friendly factions had joined with the descendants of Carpenter’s followers to form the Federation.
So was it any wonder he spent so much time away from his loved ones?
If the safety of the Home and Family was imperiled, he had to deal with the threat. If any Federation faction was attacked or came up against a danger they couldn’t handle, he had to handle it. His responsibilities, sometimes, intimidated even him. But he wouldn’t shirk them as long as breath remained in his body. He had pledged to perform his duties faithfully, and a man could be measured by the value of his word.
Just two days ago he had arrived at the Home after spending a week in Los Angeles, where the Force was based, planning to spend the next 14 days with Jenny and Gabe and attending to routine business at the Home.
How was he to know that only last night the man assigned to monitor the shortwave radio they had confiscated from the Russians would receive a distress call from, of all places, New Orleans? Ever since one of the other Warriors, his close friend Hickok, had picked up an SOS from Seattle almost two years ago, the Family had regularly monitored the shortwave band for emergency signals.
Last night they’d hit pay dirt.
Which figured!
If perfect timing were gold, he’d be a pauper. Everything seemed to happen to him at the worst possible moment. He often suspected that the infamous Murphy hovered over his head simply waiting for the ideal opportunity to zap him.
Such as now.
Jenny and Gabe might not have objected so strenuously if the distress call had been received in another week or two—after they had had time to be together and savor the experience of being a family again. But coming so soon after his return to the compound from the Free State of California, the emergency request had thrown a monumental monkey wrench into his home life.