Rage

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.

This was no road. Barely a path through the hills ahead.

The buggy chewed up miles. Surprisingly, the odometer worked. Had they built it or simply ripped it out of some century-old vehicle? The last working item from an infamous Pinto that didn’t explode into flames?

A Mercedes?

It was old school-nondigital.

Just like this bizarre future.

The landscape changed, turning flat, endless. But Raine still had to keep his eyes ahead for any deep pits and large rocks. How much abuse could this vehicle take?

The hills that surrounded the settlement area gave way to a broad empty plain. Could be called a desert but for the fact that it was dotted… not with the stone monoliths like you’d see in Monument Valley… but man-made monoliths.

Pieces of buildings.

Stray, curled chunks of rusted and burnt metal that could have been anything a hundred years ago. At one point he swore he saw what looked like the forward half of an oil tanker. It reminded him of videos he had seen way-back-when, of Robert Ballard diving down to the Titanic in a minisub to find just half a prow, looking like it had been sliced like so much cheese.

Could have been.

Who knew?

Looked like hell had taken place here. Or, perhaps more accurately, as if hell had simply been dumped here.

Thrown to this spot by… Apophis? By whatever Apophis did. Or was it all here already and this was merely what was left?

Eyes forward again, he narrowly missed a foot-tall boulder right in his path, a path that grew increasingly more vague.

He looked at the odometer as the number to the right kept rolling-too slowly by he thought.

Twenty miles so far.

Halfway.

He didn’t think he ever felt so alone in his whole life.

And Raine thought that considering what he’d seen, what he’d done… that was saying something.

The handset of the radio clipped to the dash crackled.

He picked it up, amazingly grateful for its sound.

At first it was nothing intelligible-just the hiss. Some squawking noise. Until he heard words.

“-this? Come in, Raine.”

He pressed the button. There must still be some towers out there to get that much range. Amazing how good a bit of old-fashioned tech could feel.

A goddamn two-way radio.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

More hisses. Not the most reliable form of communication, apparently. He looked around to see if the signal might be getting cut off by a nearby hill.

“-mileage? See anything?”

Raine pressed the Talk button again.

“I’m at about mile twenty… twenty-one.” He looked around again. “And seen nothing yet.”

“-again? Couldn’t get-”

Raine repeated the message.

He thought it sounded like Dan Hagar-but he couldn’t be sure.

“Good. Halfway there. Got a-”

The word dropped out. Then:

“-for you when you get back. Good-”

Raine waited. Then responded. “Thanks.” And, remembering two-way radio protocol. “Over.”

He had another thought then, one that actually came from his training, his background, his experience: Are these people in over their head?

Did he happen to get picked up by people whose days-out here, at least-were numbered?

One didn’t get to choose his rescuers, that was for sure.

But he was starting to grow increasingly curious about the world beyond the Hagar Settlement. About the city. About the Authority.

Realizing that this was no tour of duty.

This was it.

This was life. • • •

Driving became increasingly a matter of swerving left and right to avoid the boulders, still catching the stray rock that would send one half of the buggy flying up before it landed. Then it was apparently the other side’s turn.

Another glance at the odometer: 34… 35.

Five miles. At this speed… maybe twenty minutes.

With nothing seen. Nothing to report. He remembered the relief he felt as a young lieutenant leading his squad in the Pakistan mountains, hoping-without letting the men know-that they’d find absolutely nothing.

Except they often did. And he grew to squelch that thought. It jinxed the whole deal. Almost became a guarantee that you would see action.

Once you start wishing.

But that thought came now. It was natural.

And naturally, the jinx still worked.

Because ahead he saw… smoke.

Smoke. Fire. Humans.

He slowed his buggy.

Could be they had heard him already, this piece of chugging metal, kicking up its own cloud of dust and sand. But there was nothing he could do about that.

He threw the switch to kill the engine. He reached out and grabbed the handset again.

“Dan? Halek?”

He took his finger off the button. Nothing, not even the semi-reassuring hiss of static.

Could be… nothing and no one was ahead.

Maybe there could still be spontaneous brushfires in this world.

Except he hadn’t seen much in the way of brush.

He looked at where the smoky plumes rose and then got carried away by a steady wind. He took another look around at the terrain, and suddenly, surprisingly, he was in reconnaissance mode.

It felt good to be thinking in a way that was familiar.

After all these years.

He grinned at that.

Something familiar.

Okay-he could get closer, see what was happening.

It occurred to him he could just turn around, too. After all, he had nearly reached the forty-mile mark. Say he saw nothing. At least retreat until he could radio back to the settlement.

But that wasn’t how he was wired.

Slippery slope, he thought. Lying to those depending on you. Then lying to yourself.

Raine took the rifle and the handgun. When he got out, he put the knife at his back.

You never know.

And only then did he start moving toward the smoke, hugging close to the massive boulders, crouching as low as he could.

It didn’t take long. Soon he was close enough to hear voices. Bits of English, though with an accent that years of living out here had shaped into a strange kind of Creole, a bandit patois. But the words-understandable.

“I got ’er. I decide.”

Then laughter. Then a scream. Must be the prisoner’s voice. High-pitched. Female. The voices sounded drunk-unless too much sun and throat-slitting made you sound that way.

“ We’s decide. Together. Our clan, our property.”

Grunts. The sound of others agreeing. The word “property” sounding way too complicated for the bandits in whatever state they were in.

Raine looked for a way to get closer. He’d have to climb, work his way through a jumble of rocks, where any pathway could easily turn into a dead end, and any false step easily turn into a signal.

But he needed to know how many were there. He needed to see what was what.

Then get back. Try the radio again, or get to a spot where he could use the radio.

He wasn’t trying for any goddamn heroics here. Not his first day in futureland.

But he would do his duty.

He squeezed through a V-shaped opening in the rocks, moving sideways. Slowly, taking care not to trigger any scraping noises. He heard the scream again. They had a woman up there, and it sounded like party time in the Wasteland.

Then someone yelled after one loud shriek: “Maybe’s we gonna eat you? You like that? We get hungry out-”

The bandit couldn’t finish the rest of his threat since they all became convulsed with a mixture of laughing and coughing. It made Raine apprehensive. How many of them are there? Still, if he was going to report back, he’d have to see how many there were.

Doing his duty.

His goddamn duty.

He pressed on. The vee made by the boulders opened up, and he could see he was only meters away from the smoky plume, a bonfire. He paused. Slid out his handgun. Finger clenched on the rifle.

Raine licked his lips. The sun felt so incredibly warm. Beads of sweat formed on his brow and rolled down, stinging his eyes. He blinked. After time to adjust, he felt ready. He took a breath and leaned forward, hoping he could steal a look before anyone noticed he had crashed their party.

Just slightly forward… and this was where he knew he had to take his time. He’d seen too many grunts on street patrol take cover, then stick their whole head out too far, too fast.

And he had seen heads disappear.

Closed coffin for sure.

He would tell his squads, then later his squad leaders-the young second lieutenants who thought they could change the world: “Take your damn time.”

At this point, at this… “juncture, gentlemen”… go slow.

One error would be an error too many.

He caught movement, the bandits standing, passing around a liquid. A few with rifles over their shoulders. One with a handgun.

Five.

They were gathered around something; the source of the screaming.

I should back away, Raine thought. He’d seen them here. What Dan wanted to know. Yeah, you got bandits on this road. Armed. Drunk. With a prisoner.

But there was the voice of the girl, the prisoner. Raine couldn’t see her unless he leaned forward. Doing that, he’d be exposed if anyone turned.

In his world-his old world-there were times you backed away, and times you didn’t.

Old Brooklyn street rules. Sometimes you had to stand up.

No matter how bad it looked.

He leaned forward again, taking care that his gun barrel didn’t scrape the stone.

And he saw that the bandits had gathered around a wooden cage. Makeshift. Just some sticks lashed together, enough room to stand up.

Something to transport someone, he thought.

The sun… a steady stream of sweat. He blinked.

Inside, a woman. Though almost of indeterminate sex in her own version of a Wasteland costume. Layers of cloth, a turban-like headgear. Her face smudged with dabs of color, black and red. Different from the bandits that held her.

Might that be the factor? Was she from some other bandit clan?

A prize? A hostage? Something to be bartered?

From the looks of things, they had other ideas for now.

The one with the handgun came close to the cage. He was bare to the chest, his face markings-wild swirls of color-stretched all the way down to his upper torso.

That bandit pointed his gun at the woman-no more than a girl, now that Raine looked closer. Couldn’t be much more than a teen.

“You will die if’n they don’t pay.”

A few others gave out a bellowed, “Yeah, yeah. Die! ”

They laughed.

So funny.

But the girl didn’t blink. Instead, she leaned close to that bandit, her young face, still unburned, and unwrinkled features barely visible through her painted face-and she spat in his face.

Dead on target.

And the man didn’t even pause to wipe the spit off.

He raised his gun at the girl, who, amazingly, didn’t flinch. Her screams replaced with silence, her eyes wide, scanning her captors, as if she were trying to figure if there was any way out of this.

Now, Raine told himself.

Or never.

To help, he would have to come out of his hiding spot, this wedge of stone, and get his guns ready, all in one move. His body still didn’t feel back to normal. It felt like parts were still sleeping.

Goddamn duty.

He pressed down, ready to spring out. Tightened his muscles.

And he moved.

The first shot went wide of its target. He stumbled getting to the level ground of the enclosed area around the fire.

But that shot got the attention of the other bandits, and they turned away from the girl… and right toward him.

The four with rifles started leveling their weapons, as if Raine had turned himself into a shooting gallery.

But they moved slowly, stupidly, getting their guns in position.

Save for the girl’s tormentor with his handgun. Drunk or not, he moved fast.

He fired a shot that Raine thought missed completely.

Until-delayed reaction-he felt a spear of pain on the side of his right leg. He didn’t look down but he felt the wound. And even without looking down, he knew he was dripping blood onto the ground.

Couldn’t let anything else distract him now.

Two guns. One in each hand. Like out of a movie. No aiming. Christ, no getting any cover.

He fired each gun simultaneously, doing his best to target the bandits without raising a gun site to his eyes.

He caught one bandit with a shot to the gut, sending him to his knees. Then another blast took one down in what had to be an amazingly lucky shot to the chest.

Two down.

By then Raine heard bullets ricocheting around him. They, too, were firing quickly now.

The bandit by the cage stuck his arm out and actually took aim with his handgun. And despite the new pain in his right leg, Raine rolled forward. He felt bits of gravel and dirt dig into the wound. A flash of white light exploded in his eyes, only to clear just as his roll ended.

Down on his knees, closer to the bandits.

Raine fired his rifle at the handgun bandit, once, twice-both times hitting. The bandit’s wide, wild eyes turned dull.

Then Raine quickly wheeled to the right, seeing the stupefied expression of another bandit trying to take aim at the moving target he had become.

It was no contest, and Raine fired a shot right between the dumb bastard’s eyes.

Now the last bandit tried to take a bead on Raine as he moved through the dirt, rolling, smearing a blood trail on the sand. Until, popping up from one painful roll, he fired his handgun at the last bandit. A shoulder wound.

All his training helped.

That, and maybe the fact that, unlike the bandits, he hadn’t drunk any of what was in the bottle.

That last bandit, wounded, bleeding, looked at the bodies and started scrambling away.

Always a mistake.

Though he was able to put some distance between him and the mayhem, it now gave Raine a chance to really aim. Too easy: a single shot in the back.

And the five were all dead.

Raine kept kneeling there.

Until he heard the voice. “C’mon. You there. Shooter man. Get me out. Now, now!”

He turned to the girl in the wooden cage, remembering why he had started this melee to begin with. She was urgently waving to him, imploring him to free her. “C’mon! Hurry!”

“You’re welcome.”