48

 

Kinsker knew he needed to save this stabby mess somehow. He had stood on the side of the road with Faust and fifty-eight Hangers all waiting on him as he peered through a brass telescope. He had seen his whole plan come apart. The smooth woman and her crew were riding out of the mountains with their strange flat-bikes, and his forty Hangers—Forty of them!—had been nowhere to be seen. Not even one of them in pursuit of the foreigners as they drove out of his mountains.

He’d made the decision then, much to Faust’s obvious displeasure. He would keep the remaining men together, and they would let the flat-bikers ride to the Floating City. Then they would seize the vehicles and attack the city itself. Together, as a group, and after the damnable blonde had what Borss was after.

They stood at the shore, the Floating City and its defiant steel walls in the distance. They had spotted the flat-bikers on boats, moving out to the walled compound, but when they arrived at the very edge of the road, ready to collect the vehicles, they were gone. All of them. The Hangers had spotted the smooth woman and her team on board the fast boats the Floaters used as attack and defense vehicles. Kinsker had seen them up close. There was no way the Floaters could have gotten a single flat bike on the tiny boats. And there had been just the three boats. They must have loaded the bikes onto some broader, flatter boats, but he didn’t see them anywhere.

He crept around the edge of the big stone monument that bordered the edge of the broken road, careful to keep the bulk of his body hidden from view. The Floating City’s spotters were always alert, and they would be looking for the Hangers to pursue the woman—especially once she told her story of encountering them in the mountains, and whatever fate had befallen Ruck.

Doubt crept into Kinsker’s head. Had Ruck and all those men faced off against the smooth woman and lost? Had he and the others split off, perhaps back up toward Innsbruck?

No, Kinsker assured himself. Ruck would have wanted the woman. If anything, he would have disobeyed me, and attacked them, thinking he would be a hero.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he became. Ruck had screwed up, and the smooth woman had lost only a single flat-bike, while Ruck had cost the Hangers forty hawgs and their riders.

No, I cost us that. That is how the others will see it. We need a win. We need the bikes, the prize, the woman and the Floaters.

“What are we going to do, Kinsker?” The irritation in Faust’s voice was obvious. He was angry that he’d lost his chance to shine, and he blamed Kinsker for Ruck’s failure. As if Faust, in Ruck’s place, wouldn’t have made the same mistakes—or worse.

Kinsker ignored him. The more he thought of the boats he had seen the Floaters use, the more he realized how impossible it would be for them to get the flat bikes loaded and back to the city before he and the Hangers had arrived.

No, he thought. They didn’t take the bikes to the city. They moved them somewhere else.

“Kinsker?” Faust prompted.

“Shut it. I know where they took the bikes. Two miles north, along the shore, is a place where men used to store huge machines, before the cataclysms. Machines that could fly through the sky like birds.”

Faust’s expression said he had never heard of such a place. It was deep in Floater territory, and only Kinsker knew any of that area. Faust frowned and then said, “Like down in the ruins, we saw that big metal tube with the chairs in it.”

Kinsker remembered when they had scavenged in the ruins of Rome, two years previously. They had indeed checked out the city’s abandoned airport by the coast. They had found little of use, but the sight of giant metal bird carcasses had been thrilling.

“Exactly. Just like that. The Floaters have a place like that north of here. Two miles.” Kinsker pointed. “They took the flat bikes there. No way they could have gotten them on a boat that speedy-fast. So we ride for them now, while they’re least expecting an attack. Before they have a chance to get the things to the city on one of their larger boats.”

“And then?”

“Then you’re gonna stay there, so you can kill anyone who comes back from the Floating City. The rest of us are going to ride out on Floater boats and set the entire city on fire.”

Kinsker walked back to his hawg and kick-started it, the engine growling loud, as if in anticipation of his coming victory. The rattling generators out at the Floating City and the buzzing of their boats would drown out the noise of the hawg, so Kinsker had no worries about the sound travelling across the water.

“I don’t get to join in on the attack?” Faust shouted over the engine’s grumbling.

Kinsker throttled the bike, its engine drowning out Faust’s words, then he turned and sped off down the road. Fifty-eight other engines sprang to life, and the Hangers slowly turned their bikes and followed their leader. Faust was left standing in the road.

Ten minutes later, Kinsker saw he had guessed correctly, as six of the Floaters—skinny bastards with short blonde hair, and hardly any clothes, just short pants, and sleeveless shirts, with no shoes—wheeled the flat bikes inside a fenced off area. He could see one of the men trying to close the chain link gate when he had heard the rumble of the Hanger’s bikes approaching. Kinsker was two hundred feet from the gate when a second and then a third Floater rushed to the first man, helping him close the stuck gate. It was just a fifteen-foot-tall wall of wire with a few metal poles lending support. They swung the gate into place, and quickly fumbled with a lock to secure it.

Kinsker sped toward the gate. The floaters had just about gotten the lock fastened, when he rammed into the wire mesh at 50mph. The front bone spike on his hawg slammed into the metal chain so hard, the gate snapped back, flinging the bodies of the three Floaters in the air. The metal wall snapped open and swung and clanged against the inside wall of the fence.

Kinsker held his handlebars, and pulled the big bike out of a slight wobble, but he stayed up and raced into the confines of the fenced-in field. The ground had been covered with hard, flat concrete, and the Floaters had kept its surface free of plant life. It was some of the best riding Kinsker had ever experienced. The three Floaters ran for their lives.

But they wouldn’t make it far. Kinsker leered as he revved the hawg’s engine and chased after the skinny men, running them down one at a time. He thought he’d add their faces to his vest.