He sat up on the wood plank covered with a thick blanket that had been his bed. On the floor, a plate with a roll-like thing that Dan had brought over. Cheese, or something like cheese. No meat.
Meat was rare, Dan had said. But there was soy.
He took a breath.
Day One, he thought. He cleared his voice, wondering if Halek was around. That sound brought a jumble of noises, as gun parts were pushed away and a chair scraped the floor.
Halek walked back to him.
They sat at the table again after Halek had gone to get Dan.
Dan’s face seemed set. No repeat of the handshake. No smiles. They sat down facing Raine as if this was an important meeting.
Dan let Halek start.
“You’ve got to do a… service. ”
Raine nodded. “Sure. Of course.” He took a breath. “A service. Mind telling me what the hell a ‘service’ is?”
“Easy there Ark man,” Halek growled. “This is the Hagar Settlement. You can be tossed out as easily as Dan dragged your ass in here.”
Dan put a hand on his brother’s beefy forearm. If they ran this place together, Raine thought, then Dan was the brains and restraint… and Halek got what was left over.
Though from the look of the guns all around, Halek did pretty well putting bits and pieces together to make weapons.
“It’s the code here. Hell, not just here. All the outer settlements, and Wellspring-”
“Wellspring?”
“It’s a city,” Dan said. “Or, what we call a city. No one survives here without help. And without everyone helping each other, you might as well just let the muties have you.”
“A service…” Halek repeated, getting Dan back on track.
“To stay, Raine, you have to do something that helps the settlement. And then to keep staying, there will be other things. It’s either that-”
“Or leave?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Tell him, Dan. Tell him what it is.” Halek leaned close. “What he’s got to do.”
“So I talked with some of the others here. They got something for you. We lost someone on a patrol a few days ago. Never came back. He was on the road that runs northeast from here. It goes a way out, ultimately turning into a jumble of rock and rotting buildings. With the disappearance, we are down a man.”
“So-what do you want me to do?”
“You go check out that road,” Halek said, a gleam in his eyes. “Bandits are always trying to creep close to us, especially of late. It’s like they’re getting ready for a raid on us. We need to watch all the main roads here-so you check it out.”
Raine saw Dan watching him. His easy manner-the smiles, the “welcome to the future” stuff-gone.
Is this why he rescued me?
“We’ll set you up with a buggy. Won’t be much.”
“It’ll run. That’ll be enough,” Halek said.
“Right. It will run,” Dan said. “We have a radio. Not too reliable. But you can communicate. When the wind’s right, at least. Keep your eyes peeled for deep ruts, stray boulders… you don’t want to blow a tire out there or crack an axle. You go out there, and if you see signs of bandits, you radio it in. Then we’ll come out and-”
“We’ll rub the bastards out,” Halek said.
“Weapons?”
Dan looked away. Raine guessed that he and his brother had discussed that issue as well. “You got that rifle I gave you.”
“Maybe something else?”
Dan looked at Halek.
“Shit. Damn. Okay. I can give you a handgun. Think there’s a piece of what you used to call a Glock in it. Fires. 44s. Your people stockpiled a ton of them. God,” he said, shaking his head. “What we could really use is some serious shell power against the bandits. RPGs, you know? Yeah, I’d give anything for a crate of them.”
“Okay. And I call in if I see something?”
“Yes,” Dan said. “And Raine-do this and you can, well… stay here.”
“For a while,” Halek added.
“For… a while.” Dan’s expression relaxed a bit. “Also, the buggy is yours. And the guns.”
“If you come back,” Halek muttered.
Dan ignored his brother. “We’ll be-guess what you’d call them back in the pre-asteroid days-friends.”
Halek spit on the ground. The future wasn’t turning out too friendly.
“When do I leave?”
“Now. If there are some Wasties out there, we best find out sooner rather than later.”
Raine stood up.
The sudden move made his head turn a bit dizzy. Fiery specks in his eyes. He didn’t react, though. Didn’t want to give Halek the satisfaction.
“Then-let’s do it.”
Raine sat down behind the wheel of the small buggy.
“Look familiar?” Dan asked.
“Yeah. Think you have pieces here of a Humvee mixed in with-God-could be a Mustang?”
“Cars? Lot we don’t know. About your days, your stuff. Okay, the tires have been reinforced with an extra layer of steel cord. Takes a lot to puncture them. But I won’t kid you, it’s not much of a vehicle, even by our standards.”
Raine could believe it.
Dan leaned into the buggy.
“Use that radio. See anything, let us the hell know.”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
“We don’t have a map to give you. It wouldn’t be too accurate anyway. Just head northeast once you’re through that end of the settlement. You’ll see what looks like a road. Forty miles out, and then back. Maybe you’ll see nothing.” His eyes did nothing to convince Raine that he thought that was a possibility.
Dan reached behind his back to his belt buckle and pulled out a knife.
“Take this. You never know. I’d give you more…”
Raine took the knife, looking at the five-inch blade. Serrated. More of a fisherman’s blade than anything else. But it looked nasty and sharp.
“Thanks. I appreciate it. My first road trip in the new world. Feels like, I dunno, a driving test.”
Dan nodded and grinned. “Yeah. Well, guess it is a test.”
He backed away from the vehicle.
“Time you’re off.”
No key. Just a switch to start the engine. Raine threw it. The unmuffled roar made hearing any other words from Dan impossible.
Though Raine could see that he mouthed something.
Good luck.
With that, Raine started pulling away from the collection of metal buildings, heading down one of the dirt roads to the way out of the settlement.
THIRTEEN
Raine took the smoky, coughing buggy slowly through the streets of the settlement. He noticed that people came out of their podlike buildings to gawk at him.
Drawn to the sound, or the fact that he was a stranger? Looking at his suit and knowing he was from the past?
No one smiled-though he saw a kid staring, his face smeared with what looked like oil. Raine wondered… did everyone here work at keeping the settlement’s buggies running?
The boy’s eyes widened. Then he smiled. Raine smiled back. His father pulled the boy close.
Guess it’s not a good idea to get too close to me, Raine thought.
Though I’m still not sure why the hell not.
He followed the winding dirt street as it funneled to an entrance. The barrier-it was a stretch to call anything this crude a “gate”-was constructed of chunks of metal, girders, seemingly anything that could be piled together to make the settlement secure.
Two guards, gun barrels held high, waited at each side of the way out.
They didn’t react as he went by.
Okay, he thought. He wasn’t the most popular person in the Hagar Settlement. Maybe a few good “services” would change that.
But even if he could change their opinion of him, he couldn’t help but wonder, Was this his life now? Was this where he’d stay?
If not, where do I go?
And more to the point: What the hell do I do?
He looked at his buggy’s compass, a plastic sphere that might have been stolen from a kid’s bike. He turned and it spun, showing northwest… north… northeast.
He kept his foot on the accelerator, trying to ignore the way the buggy bounced and jostled over the rubble.