SEVENTEEN
To enter the settlement, Raine had to pass between two jutting cliffs. Armed men in Mohawk hairdos looked down at him, black smears under their eyes, their heavily muscled arms sporting swirling designs.
Stole a few tattoo tricks from the bandits, it would appear.
Or maybe they were ex-bandits? Recruited for security?
He passed under great pipes that crossed from tanks on one side of the dirt entrance road to the other. A girder let guards walk across, looking down as Raine cruised in slowly.
No one tried to stop him.
Not yet.
Then he saw a formal gate-not just a collection of twisted razor ribbon and abandoned car parts, but a real mesh gate.
There were more guards here, except these wore a brown outfit as if they worked for Shell.
Back when there was a Shell. And an Exxon and all the other fossil fuel companies now turned fossils themselves.
How’d the Outriggers get so lucky to have this franchise in the desert?
Maybe a question he’d get to ask the settlement’s boss-Rikter.
That might take some doing, though, as the gate remained closed. A guard spoke to him from the other side.
“Your business, stranger?”
Stranger…
Seemed to be a powerful word here. You were either part of a settlement, connected to one group or the other-or you weren’t. That left two options:
Bandit or
Stranger.
Neither was a particularly welcoming label to be given.
Then there was the-so far-elusive Authority. Though Raine hadn’t seen any sign of anything that one would call “Authority.” Right now, the only thing that meant authority out here was a gun. There was a lot of “authority” pointed at him at the moment, so he chose his words carefully.
“I’m from the Hagar Settlement-”
The two guards looked at each other. A dismissive look, as if the Hagars weren’t thought much of. Easy to see why, when looking at the refinery-sized proportions of this place.
“-and I have something for Rikter. From Dan Hagar.”
Not much of a reaction to that, either. Raine held up the sealed pouch that he was to deliver. Then, to help their decision-making, he decided to put a bit of fear in them. After all, even rough, tough-ass guards didn’t want to screw up. “It’s for Rikter. I’m sure he doesn’t like being kept waiting. Let him know I am here.”
Another look-a lot less dismissive this time. One of the guards reached down and picked up a radio handset. After a few moments of hushed conversation, they looked back at Raine. Finally one guard said, “Okay.” They started opening the gate. As Raine pulled through, the first guard said, “Head straight until you see that large dome, the main tank. Across from that is Rikter’s compound. He’ll be there.”
Raine nodded.
And then he heard the gate close behind him.
Inside the fence, he passed the Outrigger Settlement’s residents, all staring at him, some pointing at his vehicle.
It made him wonder about the other day, when he had driven out of Hagar for the first time. Was it him they had pointed at, or his car? He imagined your status was definitely connected to the level of wheels you drove.
He saw a big blackish-gray tank looming ahead, an oversized ball that dominated the compound. Ladders stretched up one side to a flat top, with an antenna rising meters above the whole settlement. Definitely some communication capabilities here…
Across from it, a square building. More guys with guns outside.
Raine stopped his buggy.
One of the guards smirked. As Raine walked up, they openly grinned and nudged each other as they looked past him at his ramshackle vehicle. “Not much to look at, hm?” Raine asked. “But you should ask the bandits out there”-he pointed-“what they think of it.” The guards sobered up a bit at this.
“I’m here to see Rikter.”
The guard nodded at the door, and Raine entered. • • •
A man stood there looking at rolls of blue paper-like schematics or architectural drawings-that filled a long table.
Another man in a hard hat nodded, standing beside him.
For long seconds Raine stood there, the message from the Hagars in his hand.
“Get the damn pipe fixed. Right here.” The first man jabbed a finger down at a spot on the drawing. “I don’t care where you get the parts from, got it?”
The hard hat left, and Rikter finally looked up.
“Yeah. What they want now?”
Rikter was massive. Unlike a lot of the people Raine had met since his emergence, he looked well fed. Access to some private stock that only the fat cats got to munch on?
He also had two swirls on the side of his cheek, similar to the ones he had seen on the guards on the ride in. Tribal markings of some kind? The mark of the Outrigger boss?
Fuel equals power. Back before the asteroid, and apparently now. If you got some, no matter how little, it meant something. The Outriggers were clearly sitting on something.
Had to be a cache.
He wondered why the Authority, if they were as powerful as everyone made out, didn’t simply take it from them.
Unless-the Outriggers ran this on behalf of the Authority.
How large was the Authority’s spread?
So many questions…
Raine cleared his head-it was becoming a habit-and spoke. “The Hagar Settlement was attacked. People need medical supplies. It’s probably all in here,” he said, holding up the pouch.
“And who the hell are you?” Rikter came from behind his desk, sizing him up. “You’re not a Hagar.”
“No. I’m not.”
A nod. “So? Where’d you come from?”
“Is that important?”
Rikter grinned. A few missing teeth. Dentistry a lost art? Lose a tooth and it remained lost.
Like limbs. Eyeballs.
That glimpse of the gaps in Rikter’s mouth reminded Raine of where exactly he was. This wasn’t Earth. Not the Earth he remembered. Might as well be on another planet.
What happened to the great plans to preserve civilization? The great Ark Project?
Was this the result? He hadn’t had a lot of time to think about the situation, but it was becoming clearer:
There’s something wrong with all this.
“Let me see,” Rikter said, extending his hand and taking the envelope. He unwrapped the cords holding it tight, then read it. “Didn’t peek, now did you?”
“No. You saw that it was sealed. I’m just here to pick up some supplies.”
“This the deal, hm? Could be we got something here. Let me talk to some of my people. You wait here, ’kay?”
“Sure.”
And Rikter left him standing in the office while he went out.
Raine didn’t hesitate: he looked at the charts on the table.
No small operation, and the hand drawn plans showed expansion in the works. Business must be good. Financed by Rikter walked back in.
“Like our plans?”
Raine looked up. He had two men with him.
“Looks like things are going well in the fuel business.”
“Always need fuel in the Wasteland. You know, if we can only get up to speed, we could even get some planes back in the air. Be helpful”-he took a few steps closer to Raine, the two men with him following-“to have planes.”
“No flying?”
Rikter looked at the two men with him, then back to Raine. “What? I mean, the Authority has a few hovercraft. And here and there you see a balloon vehicle, though they’ve been outlawed. But-jets?”
He laughed.
It occurred to Raine in that moment that Rikter somehow knew… knew where he came from. And that meant he was in trouble.
Gears started falling into place. But by the time they clicked, the two men had quietly moved to either side of him, each the equal of Rikter. Big guys, arms that turned giant valves on fuel pipes, hands that steered girders and metal into place-and now suddenly had a new job.
They latched onto his arms.
“As you can guess, I accept the Hagars’ deal. I’m having the medical supplies sent on to their settlement now. And you, according to the deal, Ark survivor, are mine. To deal to the Authority, I suppose. And I thought today was going to be a nothing day.”