Swiftly exiting the Citadel, Ryan and Krysty found a sec man waiting for them with a pair of saddled horses. Vaulting onto the animals, the two companions took off at a full gallop through the ville, and soon reached the front gate.
Fifty armed sec men were waiting there, the Metro poised at the barrier, its badly tuned engines rumbling and coughing, black smoke blowing out the tailpipes.
“East by southeast!” Ryan shouted, reining in his mount.
“About a hundred yards along the wall,” Krysty added, “if the mutie runs straight.”
“Open those gates!” O’Connor shouted, nudging his horse in the rump with his boot heels. The Winchester was tucked into a holster attached to the saddle, clinking bags full of Molotovs draped behind the one-armed baron.
As the gate lumbered open, Gill turned on the headlights of the Metro, flooding the area with white light.
“Turn those off!” Stirling yelled furiously. “We want to track this fucker, not make it run away to the mountains!”
Instantly, the headlights winked out and darkness returned.
Grinding gears, Gill got the war wag rolling and proceeded through the gate, radiating noise and fumes. In loose formation, the baron and his sec men followed close behind, the companions bringing up the rear.
Riding alongside the baron, Ryan said, “Jak should take the lead. There’s no better tracker.”
“The man could follow piss in the ocean,” J.B. declared confidently. The munitions bag was resting on the saddle, the Uzi hanging free at his side, ready for action.
Holding the reins tightly, O’Connor waved his hand in consent.
Bending, Jak chucked the reins and his mount put on a burst of speed as it moved in front of the ponderous Metro. The albino teen had gotten the best of the horses, a young palomino mare, bridle-wise and strong. The beast was well-trained, and he felt himself starting to match her movements with his own body.
As the mare galloped along the bottom of the wall, Jak strained to detect any sign of the escaping mutie. He didn’t have to try very hard for long. The horseback riders were doing a sweeping arch around the ville to reach the eastern point of the perimeter, while the stickie was running pretty much in a straight line. That gave the advantage to the mutie. But the horses were a hell of a lot faster, and Jak actually saw the stickie run down the side of the wall and charge across the shatter zone toward the ruins.
“Banzai,” Jak muttered, remembering the word from when the companions had once jumped to Japan. Hell of a place. Sheer heaven for any blademan.
The unshod hooves of the palomino made dull thuds on the sandy street of the predark city as Jak carefully slowed the horse to a trot. He didn’t want to get too close, or the stickie would attack, but he didn’t want to fall behind and lose the mutie, either. This was a razor walk. One wrong move and the blood would flow.
Thunder rumbled overhead as Jak scanned the street with a sinking feeling that the mutie had somehow given him the slip. Then an inhuman footprint in the sand made him turn down a side street, and a moist handprint on a brick wall sent him along a dark alleyway.
Squinting to see in the midnight shadows, the albino teen drew his Colt and eased back the hammer. If the stickie knew it was being trailed, this was a perfect place for an ambush. But the teenager knew that he couldn’t risk a light of any kind. Sound and smell, that was all he had to go on for the moment.
Unfortunately, the approaching storm was covering the sound of suckered feet running, and the faint smell of a chem storm was masking the rank body odor of the unwashed stickie. Suddenly, a flash of lightning split the night, and the teen saw a flicker of movement on a rooftop, hand and footprints dotted along the side of the stucco wall. Shitfire and honeycakes, it had taken to the rooftops!
Having no choice, Jak kicked the mare into a gallop and circled the crumbling predark store. He reached the other side of the building just in time to see the leg of the racing stickie vanish around a corner.
That was when Jak noticed the street was clear of sand. Instantly, the teen reined in his mount. The hooves of his horse would sound like blaster shots on the hard pavement. Having no choice, Jak then slipped out of the saddle and proceeded as quickly as possible on foot. Now with both hands free, Jak holstered the Colt and swung up the MP-5 rapidfire. If things went to hell, he wanted to ace the mutie as fast as possible. And from a distance. One swipe of its hands could remove his face.
Only then did he remember the bandage on his scalp. Could the mutie smell the dried blood? Did it know he was near? Jak had to remember that these were smart stickies. All of the years chilling stupe muties was working against him.
A fluttering piece of thread on a splintery wooden fence told of the mutie’s passage. Warily peeking over the top, Jak saw the thing standing in the middle of an open field piled with mounds of rubble. Poised motionless, the stickie just stood there, seeming to wait for something. Mebbe another stickie? Then thunder rolled in the sky, and it darted into a dark alcove to vanish from sight. Easing his stance, Jak fought back a grin. Smart, but not smart enough.
Climbing over the fence, the teen crept across the slippery rubble, his heart pounding louder than the building tempest above. Reaching the alcove, he found it oddly blocked by a closed wooden door. But he had seen the stickie… This had to be it! The nest! There was no other possible explanation for the mutie going to the trouble of waiting for thunder to mask the sound of the closing door.
Staying low to the ground, Jak moved into the middle of the nearest intersection and impatiently waited for the rest of the sec men to arrive. A few minutes later, the hulking Metro rumbled into view, filling the street with its imposing bulk and noise.
Close behind, Stirling appeared, leading the small army, along with the palomino mare. “Lose something?” the man asked, offering the bridle.
“Don’t need,” Jak spoke urgently. “Found nest.”
“Where?” the baron demanded, pulling out the Winchester.
As the teen quickly explained, all of the sec men got their blasters out and started to check loads for the assault. From the top of the Metro, there came the squeak of rope as pulleys hauled the wooden arm of the catapult, the plastic milk box at the end jammed full of Molotovs.
“Hell’s fucking bells, no wonder we could never find them,” a sec man stated, studying the nondescript building. “We kept looking for rad pits or blast craters, some kind of covered hole in the ground, when the bastards were hiding in plain sight.”
“Mighty clever for muties,” another sec man agreed nervously, tightening the grip on his crossbow. The arrow, or rather, the quarrel, was tipped with a barbed head, the kind used to catch fish. Once it went into a stickie, there would be no way the mutie to get it out without ripping itself apart in the attempt.
“Bah, nothing clever about ’em,” another sec man rejoined. “Just a bunch of feeb stickies. Dumber than rists.”
Inserting a clip into the rapidfire, Mildred couldn’t believe her ears. They’re just stickies. That could easily be the death song of humanity.
“Okay, let’s burn the place down,” Stirling growled, taking a butane lighter from a shirt pocket.
“Sorry, but we can’t do that just yet,” Ryan stated firmly.
Pulling out a Molotov, the sec chief paused in the act of flicking the lighter alive. “And why not?” he demanded.
“Because, we don’t know if they are all in there,” Krysty said, checking the load in her S&W .38 revolver. Tucking away the blaster, she looked up at the old dilapidated building. It was just a half-fallen down ruin located among many others, indistinguishable from the rest. That fact didn’t make her feel any easier. According to Mildred, nonmutie spiders built traps to capture their food alive. As did monkeys, and some lizards, snakes, birds… There were a lot of animals besides man that knew how to hide and ensnare their enemies. And this had all of the earmarks of a trap.
“You mean, there could be several nests,” O’Connor huffed, the leather saddle creaking from his weight. “That’s a hellish notion.”
“The windows are white,” Cauldfield said in annoyance, sliding off his mount to lash the mare to the bumper of a predark car wreck. “We could smash those open, but then they’d know that we’re coming and escape out the back door.”
Stroking the neck of his stallion, a sec man snorted. “Back door? Just how smart to you think these nuking things are?”
“Smart enough to know which building is the armory and try to set it on fire,” Ryan retorted. “Too damn bastard smart, that’s how smart.”
“Dark night, this is like facing Kaa all over again,” J.B. said, removing a strip of duct tape from the arming handle of a thermite gren.
“Kaa,” the baron repeated. “The king of the muties? But that’s just a stretch, a tall tale to frighten the littles. No mutie ever raised an army to fight norms.”
“Oh, yes, he most certainly did,” Doc stated resolutely. “We were there. We saw it all.” Lightning flashed in sinister harmony to the stark pronouncement.
“So you think this Kaa is back?” the sec chief asked as the thunder echoed among the predark buildings. The pause between the light and the sound were getting constantly closer. The storm was fast approaching.
“No, Kaa is gone forever,” Ryan stated bluntly.
“Okay, so he had a son, or brothers,” the baron relented. “Or whatever made Kaa smart is happening again.”
“Evolution,” Mildred said unhappily. “Life finds a way.”
“Then what’s the plan?” Cauldfield demanded petulantly, sliding a longblaster from the holster set next to his saddle.
“Got no choice,” Ryan said, lifting the saddlebags and draping them over a shoulder. The leather pouches clinked in a satisfactory manner. “We have to know if this is the entrance to the nest, one of several nests, or even if the muties are there at all.”
“Yeah, and how you gonna do that?” a sec man demanded hotly, protected by the shadows of the coming storm.
Sliding off his horse, Ryan scowled as he recognized the voice of Porter.
“How? That’s simple,” he said, turning to face the old building. The dead-white windows seemed to stare back at him like the eyes of a corpse. “We go inside and find out.”
Silence engulfed the sandy street, with only the puttering of the war wag and the shuffling of the nervous horses to disturb the night air. Even the storm seemed to be holding its breath.
“We…go into the nest?” Cauldfield repeated weakly, his voice strained to a hoarse whisper.
“Yeah, but we can’t take everybody,” the baron said, grabbing the saddlehorn and lowering himself to the ground. “We might as well shoot off fireworks first than do that.”
“We six travel together,” Ryan stated bluntly.
“I expected no less,” O’Connor said, then he gave a chuckle. “You’d make a mighty good baron.”
Ryan shrugged off the comment.
“Well, frag that drek,” Stirling declared roughly. “No offense, but I’m not letting my baron go into a nest of stickies with only outlanders for companions.”
“Didn’t think you would,” the baron said with a half smile. “I’ll take along six men, as well.”
“Lucky thirteen.” Mildred sighed, using a strip of cloth to tie the beaded plaits off her face. “There’s an omen for you.”
“Well, let’s get started,” the baron said, slinging the strap of the Winchester around his neck. “Steven, you stay here with the rest of troops. Get ready to give cover fire if we come out running.”
“What? I’m not one of the six?” the sec chief demanded. “No way, sir, I—”
“Save it,” the baron snapped, cutting off the discussion. “These things took my arm, and I want to return the favor. Besides, one of us has to stay with the war wag.” He paused. “For the sake of the ville. Savvy?”
A long minute passed. “You’re the baron,” Stirling said reluctantly, then added, “My lord.”
“Glad you remembered. If I don’t come back, then Daniel is in charge,” the baron said, clumsily taking his own saddlebags full of Molotov cocktails. He couldn’t light and throw the firebombs at the same time, but the baron had a strong feeling that wouldn’t be a problem tonight. Death was in the air, thicker and more pungent than any acid rain. It was almost a tangible thing blanketing the predark ruins.
The sec chief said nothing.
“Steven, will you stand by my son?” the baron asked in the rumbling darkness.
“I…yes, I will, my lord,” the sec chief promised. “He’ll ride the eagle throne, and I’ll chill anybody who says different.”
Stepping closer to the sec chief’s horse, the baron offered his hand and they shook. “Good enough, old friend.” Then he added in a tense whisper, “Just watch your six for Cauldfield.”
“He’ll be the first man I chill if you don’t come back,” Stirling answered softly, casting a glance that way. “He wasn’t my childhood friend, and I don’t owe him jack, or shit.”
“So I have gathered.”
Choosing only the most loyal sec men, Stirling picked six to accompany the baron. Nervously looking at the predark structure, the troopers climbed off their horses and handed the reins to friends, then proceeded to double-check their handcannons and longblasters. A few of the sec men exchanged weps, so that the people going in would have a better blaster. One corporal passed over a handcannon to a cousin already armed with a homie scattergun.
“I want that back,” he stated gruffly, emotion tightening his throat.
“No prob,” the other sec man said, tucking the blaster into his wide belt.
“All right, let’s move out,” Ryan said, drawing the SIG-Sauer. “I’ll take point.”
“Like hell,” the baron growled angrily. “I always take the lead.”
As a chill wind blew along the street, Ryan patted the blaster. “This shoots barely louder than a cough. How about your longblaster?”
Leveling the big-bore Winchester, the one-armed baron started to object, but then considered the logic of the man with the silenced blaster going first. He didn’t like it, but accepted the hard reality. Blind norad, O’Connor wanted to do some chilling tonight! It was like a hunger in his belly.
Readying their explosives and blasters, the companions started across the street when a sudden flash of lightning cast the world into stark relief for a single long heartbeat. It made the building strangely resemble a human skull. Then the diffused light faded and darkness returned.
“If you hear explosions…” the baron added over a shoulder.
Stirling grunted. “We’ll come running. Yes, sir.”
“Good man. See you in Hell, Steven.”
Detouring past the field of rubble, Ryan went stealthily by the snowy windows and up a short flight of granite steps to the front door.
“I thought the stickies used the side door?” a sec man asked, both hands worrying the stock of his longblaster.
“Which is why we’re using the front,” Ryan whispered back, watching the roof for any unnatural movements. “Now, pipe down. This is a recce, not a bloody gaudy house orgy.”
Going to the door, J.B. quickly checked for any boobies, but it was clean. He picked at the lock with a couple of steel probes. The rusty tumblers were stubborn, but finally yielded.
As the weathered portal swung aside, there came a dry exhalation from the building carrying the smell of mold, decay and something else. This was a sharper smell, nasty and unclean.
“Stickies,” the baron breathed, thumbing off the safety of the Winchester. “By gad, this really is their fucking nest.”
Pointing at two men to stay and guard the exit, Ryan led the way inside. The dank air was thick enough to chew, and the norms pulled neckerchiefs over their mouths as if caught in a sandstorm.
As the front door closed, candles were lit. In the dancing light, the norms could see that the peeling walls were bowed slightly, as if sagging under tremendous weight or just from sheer age. The terrazzo floor was cracked and stained, and the front desk of the office building was coated with layers of thick cobwebs. Apparently, this had once been an office complex. A directory on the wall listed all of the companies here, a single plastic headstone for the hundreds of people who had once worked here, now long gone, deader than the grit under their boots.
Judiciously, Mildred scanned the list of names, but none of them were familiar. Then again, any of them could have been a covert front for some government agency from of her time.
Going to the left, Ryan easily located the side door that the stickie had used to enter the building. Jak pointed at the loose sand mixed with the dust on the floor. Multiple tracks overlapped one another. Ryan frowned at that. These weren’t enough footprints for a horde of stickies. If this was their nest, it hadn’t been here for very long. Mebbe only a couple of months. Were the stickies moving around in the ruins? Just how smart were these bastard muties?
Following the trail, Ryan watched for traps as he slipped through the still building, the accumulated cobwebs covering everything like a blanket of freshly fallen gray snow. The detritus of time lay heavy over the office building, solemn and implacable.
As the group of companions and sec men returned to the lobby, Ryan saw marks along the wall where the stickies had gone around the stairs and climbed directly up the wall to the landing on the next level. Were the stairs a trap?
Relaying his suspicions to the other with sign language, Ryan studied the marble stairs for a minute, then slowly started to ascend. Almost instantly, a stickie lunged out of the gloom with both hands raised for a chill.