“ If I do Mutant Bash.” Man of his word? His word seemed to change daily.
Black nodded. “And I’ll be quiet as well. Though the day will come, stranger, when you and I will deal with each other.”
Raine heard a noise from down the hall. One of the other drivers limping his way down. He and Black stood there, quietly, as he passed. The man was not so quiet as he passed Raine.
“Fucker.”
He kept limping down the hallway.
“Another new friend,” Black said.
“I see.”
“You show up at the studio on the east side of the city, near the mutant pens. About seven tomorrow night, an hour before the show. You do that, and the Authority will just see you as some other lucky guy who wandered in from the Wasteland…”
“And about to die in the arena.”
“That,” he said, adjusting his hat, “will be up to you. I know one damn thing, Raine-I’ll sure as hell be watching.”
And with that the sheriff walked away.
Raine went to a table in the back of the bar and sat down. His aches now mixed with a numbing fatigue as his body screamed for rest. Despite that, the race and the move he pulled off to win-and then the threat from Black-had his mind in overdrive.
Sally had a full bar. A skinny guy with a domelike head and jittery moves helped her. When she got a break, she walked back to him, two drinks in hand.
“You won.”
“Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?”
“Not that anyone expected it.”
“Not even you?”
“Can I sit?”
“Your bar, right?”
Sally sat down, the place full enough that she had to lean close to speak to Raine.
“Heard Starky took a nasty spill.”
“About as nasty as they get when the person’s still able to walk away from it. Except he didn’t walk away.” Raine took a sip of the drink Sally had brought over. “He got carried.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, you know, the funny thing is that when I was in there, I kind of forgot what you said he did to your driver. But I could see how he operated. Taking drivers out right and left, even if he didn’t need to in order to win. And suddenly I wanted to take him out. I wanted to win.”
“So-more races?”
Raine shook his head. “The buggy’s a wreck. Besides, Clayton has other plans for me.”
“What does he want you to do?”
Raine nodded toward the tube television suspended over the bar. Had to be over a hundred years old and still working. Pretty amazing.
“Going on Mutant Bash TV.”
Without thinking, Sally’s hand covered his as she said, “No. You can’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“You ever see a Bash?”
He shook his head.
“You have to fight and kill mutants, or at least get past them. Each setup is different, like a puzzle, only you have mutants coming out from all over. If I could, I wouldn’t even let it be shown in the bar. But they’d tear the joint apart. I don’t even look. You can’t do it, Raine.”
“I wasn’t given an option. It’s this or the Authority. Guess you figured out that they’re looking for me, hm? And since Wellspring is my only option for now, especially without wheels…”
Sally leaned even closer.
“ They know about you. Someone will be coming. Not sure when.”
Raine raised his eyes. “You mean Enforcers?”
“No.” She lowered her voice even more. “The Resistance.”
“You’re with-” He looked around. “Okay. Good to know that. I got something for them. And maybe I can find out what I’m supposed to be doing in this world. Other than races and bashes.”
“I don’t want to know too much, but I was told you will be contacted. Won’t help, though, if you’re dead.”
Raine drained his glass. He noticed some of the men closer to the table looking over, perhaps flashing on the fact he was the out-of-the-blue newcomer who’d won today’s race. No one smiled.
Cost them money, he imagined.
“Don’t have much choice, Sally. Tomorrow night at eight.” He laughed. “A star is born.”
She didn’t laugh back.
“If you do it, win, Raine. Do whatever you have to… to stay alive.”
“Always do.”
She looked around.
“Like I said, I don’t know much about the Resistance. Don’t want to know much-not healthy. But I do what I can, and I’m sure of one thing: they sure as hell can use someone like you.”
He nodded.
“Another drink?”
He shook his head. “No. That bed in the storeroom still free?”
She hesitated, and he wondered whether another offer might be on the table. Then the moment passed as she smiled.
“Sure. Rest up.”
The possible offer… vanishing with the idea that he might be a dead man.
And as Sally walked away he thought…
Not if I have anything to do about it.
THIRTY-FOUR
Captain John Marshall, his vision blurry from blood and sweat dripping down his face, looked up at the man standing in front of him.
He had been drugged for his transfer here, but he now knew where he was.
That much, at least, was clear.
Inside Capital Prime, inside its prison-with who knows how many other political prisoners. The ones still alive.
Or had they all been killed?
The man before him, dressed in a black officer’s uniform and flanked by two Enforcers, waited until he felt Marshall’s eyes on him.
“Tomorrow you will meet the Visionary. Quite an exciting moment for you.”
Marshall looked right into the man’s eyes. “The Visionary can kiss my-”
Before the word was out, an Enforcer smacked him with the back of his hand and sent him flying to the ground. Another Enforcer put his boot on Marshall’s back, keeping him pinned there.
“You think this is a joke, Marshall? You think that we, the Authority, can permit scum like you to create problems in this world? There is much work to be done, and we’ve just started. You, and whatever is left of your Resistance, will not stand in our way.”
“Fuck you.”
Now the other Enforcer’s boot was kicked into Marshall’s side, knocking the wind out of him. Marshall gasped, choking to get air back in his lungs, still with a heavy boot stepping on his back.
“Y’know, it’s too bad you won’t cooperate. The Visionary could have use for someone like you. We have… openings.” The man paused. “Let him up.”
The boot came off, and now the only thing holding Marshall to the ground were the spears of pain he felt all over his body. He guessed the plan was to leave him in such battered shape that in the morning he’d just stand-if he could-in front of the Visionary, listen while the Visionary asked his questions…
And tell everything.
Marshall wondered how far they would go to get information from him. How much pain, how much time?
He had been tortured once. Captured by a small antigovernment tribe in the hills of Waziristan. Old school, they used their knives to keep him in agony for days.
They had been real amateurs. It doesn’t quite work that way, he had wanted to explain to them. You got to go back and forth until it becomes clear to the subject that there was only one thing they wanted. For the dance of pain and remission to end. Nothing else mattered-the lives of friends, the safety of other soldiers, the mission, and even the fate of the goddamn world-you just wanted the pain to stop.
In the morning a squad of Rangers had parachuted nearby and raided the cave dwelling. The terrorists were dead in minutes; he had said nothing.
But now?
How long could he hold out?
One technique taught in Ranger school and drilled into the covert ops leaders was that you had to stay in the goddamn moment. Don’t think about the past, of warm beds, meals, lovers… and don’t think about the future, about what you want, how you want this to end one way or the other.
Concentrate on the small details in that moment.