Chapter
6
Oira,
19 Oraa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar
Thursday,
7 July 2007, Native Regional Reckoning
Huntington,
West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector
Jason Fox arrived late in
the afternoon at his new home in a heavy, pounding rain, sliding his ship up
under the concrete and steel of a green bridge that looked to connect the
downtown area of the abandoned city of Huntington with a series of houses on
the other side. The skimmer was
protected from the rain by the bridge, and to his relief, there was no one
under that bridge when he got there.
He’d been worried that maybe there were squatters there, but then again,
in a city this size, all the squatters were probably in abandoned buildings and
houses. Many of the houses he’d seen
when he flew over had chimneys, so that was probably where most of them were
living…if there were any. This city,
like all cities in the Appalachain Forest, had only been abandoned about three
years ago, so most of everything was still in moderately good repair. He’d noticed that the streets were riddled
with potholes, and all the grass in the city was heavily overgrown, but aside
from that it looked almost like there were still people living here. It was an eerie ghost town that would look
alive if there was electricity.
It was a park of some kind,
where he was parked. Thick grass was
all around, and he was up against a floodwall that had once protected the city
from the river. Further to the east was
what looked like a small ampitheater built out over the water, and there were
picnic tables and parking lots just inside where gates breached the wall. It had to be some kind of riverfront
park. Jason opened the hatch and
stepped out with a pair of binoculars, then used them to scan the opposite
bank, what had once been the state of Ohio.
He saw the houses over on that side, but he could see no activity out
there. From the way it looked, at least
for now, he had the place to himself.
Carefully, Jason checked the
radio channels, and then the proximity sensors, for signs that they noticed
he’d landed. He’d given no destination,
and the last communication he’d made was with Columbus flight control about
twenty minutes ago. Their sensors would
show that he’d descended, but unless they had a satellite overhead or were
using a ship’s sensors, they’d have lost contact with him at about 500
feet. Ground-based sensors had the same
line of sight issues as old radar when it came to hilly terrain, because Faey
sensors weren’t all that good at penetrating thick rock. Not the kinds they used for tracking air
traffic, anyway. Space-based sensors
didn’t have to worry about mountainous terrain, so they had the perfect vantage
point. He’d descended under that level
some 50 miles upriver, then flown down here literally skimming the surface of
the water. He’d flown under most of the
bridges easily, except for one at a place called Point Pleasant, which looked
to have been damaged by something and had been partially collapsed.
Aside from that, everything
looked eerily normal.
With a sigh, Jason shut down
his precious ship, then went back into the cargo hold and pulled the portable
PPG out of the habitat module. That
device would power all his Faey-based equipment easily, acting like a portable
power generator, and it wasn’t so large that it would be detectable by Faey
sensors. He jacked it into the cabin’s
power system and isolated it from the rest of the ship’s power system, which
allowed him to bring up the radio, television, and other cabin systems except
climate control without activating anything else. The skimmer’s computer was connected to its own always-on backup
PPG, so the computer had no trouble controlling the active cabin systems. He kept an ear out for the regional command
and military comm traffic, listening for any references to him as he pulled out
his railgun and inspected it for any damage, then fitted it with sights and the
scope, a scope that was both a laser sight and a telescopic sight. He also tweaked its operating system to have
it chamber and recharge the firing capacitors faster, which effectively allowed
the weapon to fire as quickly as the reload mechanism could chamber the next
round. That was effectively as he could
pull the trigger. Both of those actions
were governed by the software that operated the weapon. Jason glanced down at the little ammo case
he’d been carrying with it. Inside that
box was 1,500 rounds of ammunition, as well as five extra clips. Each clip held 30 rounds; the rounds
themselves were actually quite small, around the size of a .22 caliber
bullet. The size and shape of them
would even allow him to manufacture them without a replicator, since they were
fairly simple. All he needed was a
molcular sprayer to get the laminated titanium on them. He had two sprayers, and he had a good stock
of titanium in his box of junk.. He
could make the rounds out of any
magnetic metal, even the sheet metal of a car.
He could make a mold of a bullet in about 3 minutes with some wax, and
he could use that mold and a molecular sprayer to take sheet metal as fuel and
just spray the metal into the mold, like pouring water. Coat them with titanium, and he was ready to
go. The sheet metal in one car would
make a few hundred thousand rounds, so he wasn’t all that worried about getting
ammunition for his railgun. He’d need
to restock his titanium, but a visit to a hospital would help there. He seriously doubted that scavengers had
taken all of the surgical instruments out of them, and many of them were made
of titanium. If worse came to worst,
he’d cross over into Faey territory and visit a home supply store. They had replicators on premesis, which they
allowed people to use to replicate raw materials for a fee. The lack of a replicator was his one glaring
deficiency, but they were just too big, and consumed too much power.
By the time he was done
altering his railgun (he’d set the reload time like that on purpose to make
sure it was going to work properly, though the weapon was capable of literally
firing as fast as the trigger could be pulled), the rain had stopped, and the
sun broke through a hole in the clouds and painted the muddy water of the Ohio
River a golden brown. Jason opened the
hatch again and stepped out, breathed in the warm air, muggy from the rain, but
it was the sweet smell of freedom that filled his nose with its intoxicating
perfume. He put a plasma pistol in the
waist of his jeans, hidden behind his back by his denim overshirt, then affixed
a carrying strap for his railgun and slung it over his shoulder. It was time to go out and see what was
about. He went down the steps and
touched the remote of his skimmer, which caused it to retract the stairs and
close the hatch, sealing itself up. The
lightly armored hull would repel anything a squatter could conceivably throw at
it, unless they had some plasma weapons, anyway. It was invulnerable to gunfire, but it was more than vulnerable
to metaphased plasma weaponry.
He had to walk a while to
get to the floodgate, and decided that a bicycle might be handy for a while,
til he could find something better. He
came out behind what used to be a Red Lobster, its faded sign hanging
precariously over a street that went along the floodwall. He kept going up towards the town, and it
was when he got up there that he noticed the first signs of habitation. Some
abandoned cars had been pushed to block some streets, most of the glass windows
of the stores along—he had to look at a fading sign at the corner—3rd
Avenue were broken out, and whatever had been on display in them was gone. Shopping carts and other debris were piled
up in intersections to impede traffic, and he had to climb over a couple of
them to continue up into the city. He
came up through what had looked like a plaza of sorts, and when he reached 5th
Avenue, he saw his first citizen of this abandoned city. It looked like about a thirty year old man
wearing faded, dirty jeans and a black tee shirt, with a denim jacket over it
despite the summer heat. He had the
hood of a car open that was parked a bit further up 5th Avenue, a
green Buick Century with four flat tires that had been parked at the side of a
street, yanking on something.
“Excuse me! Hey, you, I need some help!” Jason called,
turning towards the man, going around a large overgrown bowl of sorts that held
an overgrown shrub. He opened his mind
just enough to hear the man’s surface thoughts, so to better get a grip on what
the man might say…and what he wouldn’t say.
Sure, it was cheating, but he needed all the information he could get.
The man whipped out from
under the hood with some kind of car part in one hand, and a revolver in the
other. His hair and beard were brown
and unwashed, and his face was smudged with dirt. Jason saw the fear in his eyes, sensed the rise of panic in his
mind, and that made him react. Jason
turned and dove behind the potted shrub as the man brought up his revolver and
fired. He heard the bullet ricochet off
the huge pot just before the loud report of the gun. Jason got up to his knees and unslung his railgun, keeping
crouched behind the large pot, but he could hear the steps of the man as he
fled back up the wide, four lane street, and heard his terrified thoughts as he
fled. Gotta get back to the hill!
Gotta get back to the hill! he thought over and over and over, and
from the sound of it, that was when he’d feel he was safe.
Holy shit! Were they really that
paranoid around here?
“Ok, important safety tip,”
Jason breathed, trying to get over the scare.
God, that had been close. If he hadn’t have been eavesdropping on that
guy, he might have gotten himself shot.
Why was he so afraid? What was around here to be afraid of? Jason stood up when the man was over a block
away, then did what he should have done in the first place. He swept the area around him with his gift,
searching out other active minds, the very trick that Jyslin and Maya had once
tried to use to find him, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Jason was a very strong telepath, and his
ability to seek out and detect other sentient minds had a range of nearly a
mile. He wouldn’t be able to make out
any thoughts, but he’d know that they were there.
There were 73 responses, and
they were concentrated mainly to the east, down towards where the maps had
shown Marshall University to be located.
There were eight people in his general area, moving in pairs, and all
four sets of those paired responses were moving in his general direction. They were coming to check out the gunshot,
he realized, find out what was going on.
Jason looked around, and saw
that he was beside a public library. He
raced up to its rotating door, then found it jammed. The window had been broken out of a handicap access door, so it
was a simple matter to duck in and run into the building. It had been ransacked, and moldering books,
decaying in the unconditioned air, were littering the floor. There was a check-in desk immediately in
front of him, and he jumped over an access gate and knelt behind it, waiting
for the first of those patrols to arrive.
It took about five minutes,
then he saw them. Two men on bicycles,
each with hunting rifles slung over a shoulder and pistols in holsters on their
belts. They had hand-held radios as
well, very nice ones for that matter, and one was using it. “Yeah, Jim, we’re at the library. Nothin’ here.”
There came the distant
sounds of several gunshots.
“We’re up by the park,” came the response. “Whoever it was got up the
hill. Lucky bastard.”
“You need to learn how to
shoot, Jim,” the man called with a chuckle.
“Why don’t I practice on your ass, Trev? It’s big enough.”
Hmm…that sounded odd. Both of them weren’t really thinking about
anything interesting, just bored and a little tired from biking around. One was waiting to get his shift over so he
could go home. They weren’t much
help. Jason needed more information,
but he also wasn’t going to hang his butt out where they could shoot it
off. He crept around the desk and
through the access gate that kept people at one time from running out with the
books. He crept on all fours through
the broken window, mindful of the glass, then got behind that same planter as
the two rode up to the edge of the street.
He unshouldered his railgun, then rose up and aimed it at them. “That’s about far enough, gents,” Jason
called loudly. Both froze, then one
went for the pistol holstered in his belt.
“Keep reaching if you want to keep your head,” Jason snapped as he read
their thoughts. They were shocked,
surprised, and now they were starting to become afraid. They couldn’t see him, had no idea if he was
armed or not, but both of them were pretty sure that he was. “Both of you, hands up.” They complied, as the one on the left
started immediatley wondering if he was fast enough to grab for his pistol and
shoot, but the fact that he was still on his bike would make it really hard for
him to turn around. “Now then, both
feet on the ground.” They
complied. Jason swept the area with his
power, and found the closest pair of rovers was three blocks away, moving away
from them. That was good. He slipped around them, coming into their
view, and both immediately locked their eyes on his railgun. Both of them registered surprise, and the
one that was now on his right noted to himself that Jason’s clean clothes and
hair meant he had to be new, and that he’d gotten his hands on a Faey
weapon. He relaxed just a little, as
his mind saw the potential for having him join their gang.
Gang. He read more and more of the man’s thoughts,
and saw that he was a member of a gang that held most of downtown and Marshall
University. They defended that turf
from squatters out in the hills, who snuck in to steal anything that might be
of use, tried to get in and steal the dwindling supplies of gasoline or canned,
nonperishable food that the gang had managed to amass.
“Well now, it’s nice to
finally meet someone who didn’t shoot at me first,” Jason said in a grim tone,
motioning with the barrel of his railgun.
“You, pull out your pistol with two fingers, and drop it on the ground.”
The one on his left slowly
reached down for his pistol, then he started preparing himself to lunge for
it. His mind told Jason that he was
betting that this newbie didn’t have the reflexes or the killer instinct yet to
shoot him. Jason replied by firmly
shouldering his weapon and aiming it at the man’s nose. “Carefully,” he warned. “If you think you can move that fast, maybe
you can get your finger up fast enough to plug the hole I’ll put in your forehead.”
Fear rippling through his
thoughts, the fellow decided that going for it wasn’t such a good idea. He pinched the butt of his revolver between
two fingers and pulled it out, then dropped it to the ground. “Good boy.
Now the rifle, one hand on the strap only.” He complied, then Jason nudged his rifle at the other man. “Same thing, slim. Pistol first, real
slow, then rifle.” The man, holding the
walkie-talkie, realized that he had it, and that he could warn the others of
their situation just by pressing the transmit key. “Well, let’s start with the radio,” Jason said, looking him in
the eyes. “No reason to invite anyone
else to our little party, is there?
After all, we’re not here to shoot each other up. At least I’m not. So drop it.”
Disappointment welling
through his mind, the man dropped the radio to the ground, then carefully
relieved himself of his pistol and rifle.
“Very good, gentlemen,” Jason said.
“Now scoot back from your toys, but don’t take either foot off the
ground.”
“How you expect me to do
that?” the one on the left, the taller of the two with greasy long black hair
tied in a tail, asked.
“Shuffle,” Jason answered,
bobbing the end of his weapon. “Back.”
They shuffled backwards
awkwardly, for the bikes between their legs didn’t want to cooperate, their
hands still up. Jason used his foot to
hook one rifle, then used it to sweep all four weapons out from in front of
him. He did not reach down for
them. Jason backed up a few steps, then
sat down on the concrete edge of a raised earth bed, the kind of thing that
probably once held flowers. It was
about fifteen feet across and the lip was about two feet off the ground. Jason lowered his weapon slightly. “Now then, gentlemen,” Jason said in a
reasonable tone, openly listening to every thought they had, “as you’ve
probably guessed, I’m somewhat new around here. I decided that I’d had just about enough of the Faey, and decided
it was about time to take a little trip.
As you can see, I managed to grab a few toys,” he noted, bobbing his
railgun meaningfully. “Now, since it’s
obvious that people aren’t that friendly around here, you’re going to tell me
all about who’s around. You see, all I
really want is a nice quiet place to move in and be left alone, and you two
gentlemen are going to tell me where the best place might be.”
“I ain’t sayin’ shit,” the
one on the right said. He was kind of
portly, with brown hair and was missing one of his front teeth. His face was a bit round and reddish, either
from sun and wind or some kind of medical condition, and he had close-set brown
eyes and a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap covering dirty hair.
“Hey Mike,” someone called over the radio.
“That’s me, I have to call
in,” the man with the Reds cap said, though his thoughts betrayed that
statement.
“You just came down with a
case of technical difficulty,” Jason told him bluntly.
“They know where we are,”
the other said, the one called Trev.
“Sure, but they don’t know
you’re in trouble,” Jason said with an evil little smile.
“If you don’t let him
answer, they’ll come looking for us.”
“Fine. Let’s just wait right here for them. But while we’re waiting, you’re gonna tell
me all about what’s going on around here.
You know, all the juicy gossip, like who lives where, what places I should
avoid, that kind of thing. I’m sure
you’re just the veritable tour guide to the stars around here.”
The man Trev—probably short
for Trevor—frowned, and his thoughts told Jason that he was very worried, that
Jason was way too comfortable. That
confidence had the man rattled.
“Hey Jim, this is Mike,” someone called. “What you need?”
“Swing
out towards First Street and check the roadblock on Washington, then pull back
in.”
“Sure,
we’re not far from there.”
“Aww, ain’t that too
bad. I guess someone else thinks he’s
Mike too. Too bad that other guy
believes it,” Jason told the other man with a sly grin. “Nice try.
So, start talking, and don’t be shy.”
Jason listened, with both
his ears and his mind, as they started talking. Their words were meant to get
him killed, but their thoughts painted him a pretty stark picture of what was
going on. The city itself was
controlled by three gangs. This one,
led by an evil-natured man named Joe Bueller, controlled downtown. There was a smaller gang that controlled the
eastern part of the city, and a third gang that controlled the west. Beyond the city there were no gangs, just
individual squatters and small groups that laid claim to this or that piece of
territory. Some of them, mainly the
gangs, were armed. The Faey had
collected up most of the native weaponry, but in a state like West Virginia,
where just about everyone owned a
gun, even they couldn’t get them all.
They’d missed quite a few, and one of the first things those who had
avoided the evacuation had done was tear apart the cities to find them. In pawn shops, in residences, in one case an
overlooked State Police armory, there were guns out there, and the squatters
had managed to get their hands on them.
The Faey hadn’t bothered trying to collect up the ammunition, so there
was plenty to go around. Those State
Police weapons were in the hands of the gang that controlled East Huntington
and the towns of Guyandotte and Barboursville, that gang’s territory. They had a few M-16’s with mostly nine
millimeter pistols and shotguns, but the gang here in downtown had managed to
loot some street weapons out of an abandoned police warehouse, where those guns
had been evidence in crimes. These two
didn’t have machine guns, but some of the guards out there did; Uzis, Tek-9’s,
and some other street weapons. Joe
Bueller kept those guns closer to the seat of his territory, which was a bar on
4th Avenue not far from the Marshall University campus. Joe Bueller’s gang had twice the people as
the other two, but their position in the middle didn’t allow him to kill off
one without the other invading from the other side. The gangs on each side hated each other even more than they did
the gang in the middle, so there was no chance that they’d join forces and
crush the ones in the middle. So it was
a balance of power that kept things from going all to hell. The gangs maintained their members through
the food they’d collected and what their foraging parties could find, or steal,
out in the wilderness areas. They were
banded together for mutual protection, but unlike what Jason might imagine,
they also took anything they could from anyone else, and killed them if it came
to it. Both of these men had killed
people before, Jason discovered as he read their thoughts, both in defense of
their territory and out on raids to take food or valuable equipment from
individual squatters out in the hills.
Those squatters out there were very careful to keep hidden, because if a
gang’s raiding force found out where they were living, they’d attack them. So most individual squatters were
semi-nomadic, moving from place to place, and were as nervous as rabbits. Groups of squatters were out there, and
their locations known, but they were too well entrenched or had too many people
in them to make a raid on them successful.
Those people had literally walled themselves into defensible
positions. Joe Bueller would love to
kill them off and take their stuff, but he’d lose too many men trying to take
their camps, and those were men he couldn’t afford to lose if he wanted to
protect himself from the other gangs. So
Joe Bueller’s policy was to have his foragers simply go out and ransack houses
out in the rural areas, and kill anyone they came across—at least after they
got them to take his raiding forces to where they kept their goods.
Neither of these guys liked
Joe Bueller, but he had a major mean streak and the loyalty of most of the
people in the gang. Nobody really liked
him, but he kept them all alive and fed, so they overlooked his violent temper
because they were afraid they’d be overrun and killed by another gang if he
wasn’t there. In general, just about
everyone was going to act the way that first fellow did. These people didn’t trust anyone that they
didn’t already know, and thanks to roving groups of people like this gang who
went out to steal anything they could get their hands on, they’d shoot first
and ask questions later.
Fear was the watchword out
here in the wilderness, it seemed. And
those remaining behind had quickly degenerated into bands of vicious thugs who
took by force anything they could, from anyone weaker than themselves.
Such a pitiful, sorry
remnant of what their once proud nation had been.
Jason glanced down the
street. So, that single guy had come
down to scavenge a car part…probably for a vehicle he either had or thought he
could get running. He’d noticed a lack
of cars on the streets. When they were
evacuated out, the people were allowed to keep their automobiles. So that hadn’t left too many behind, just
those ones that nobody had cared to bring along, or ones that had no real
owners. Oh, he was sure that there had
been cars galore to be had on the lots of auto dealerships, but that was only
so many. And after three years, even
with such a limited number of cars out there to be had, those places that had
gasoline had to either be empty by now, or that gas had turned to varnish and
was unusable.
Well…he had to find a new
place to park his skimmer. He wasn’t
about to leave it down here. He wasn’t
going to get involved in these ridiculous turf wars. Though it was apparent that the opportunities to scavenge weren’t
going to be as plentiful as he’d hoped, on the other hand, he already had just
about everything he needed. He had
enough food to last himself a month, and that should be enough to figure out
how he was going to get himself set up.
If it came down to it, he’d just go to Faey territory and buy himself a
major stock of food. He had no qualms
against buying from the Faey; they may be the conquerers, but they weren’t
commanding him.
Hmm…there was an old
interstate south of the city. He
wondered if an overpass bridge over that highway was enough to hide his
skimmer. It would have the vertical
clearance, that was no problem, since his skimmer was only a little higher than
an old semi rig’s trailer. Maya had
told him to keep the skimmer under a bridge over a river, one with lots of
concrete and steel. An overpass would have lots of concrete, but
maybe not enough steel.
It wasn’t like he had much
choice. He had to find a place for his
skimmer, he wasn’t going to lose it. It
meant so much to him, and it represented a part of his freedom, as much as his
dad’s old Cessna had meant freedom for him before. He was willing to face down the entire Faey military to keep
it. He would fight to keep possession
of it. It was just that simple.
No, there was an easier
place to park it…the other side of the river.
He just had to make he wasn’t going to be bothered. Well, that could be done.
Blowing out his breath, he
stood back up and looked at the two men, who were now repeating themselves.
Their thoughts told him that they had no more viable information. “Very good, gentlemen, I think you’ve told
me enough,” he said calmly. “Probably
more than I ever wanted to hear,” he sighed.
“Disgusting. To think that we’ve
come, we’ve come to this. Fighting like wild animals over scraps. I thought Americans had more dignity than
that.”
“Fine for you to talk,
waltzing in here with your full belly and nice clothes,” the one named Trev
spat vituperously. “You ain’t got no
idea what it’s like being out here.”
“Fine. Go to the Faey,” Jason told him with cold
eyes. “They’ll take care of you. All you have to do is live under their
rules.”
“That’s worse,” he growled.
“Then you deserve the life
you’ve chosen. Just don’t bring others into
it. Kill each other, leave those who
want to stay out of it alone.”
“I didn’t say nothing about
anything like that!” he protested.
“I’m not an idiot,” Jason
said coldly. “It doesn’t take a genius
to piece together how you work. Well,
you’re a big fan of turf, aren’t you?
Well, here’s a new one for you.”
He quickly bent down and picked up the radio, and he keyed it up. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he
said steadily into the microphone.
“Welcome to the new world.”
“Who is this? Get off the
channel Terry! We got no time for your
jokes right now!” someone said immediately.
“Oh, this isn’t Terry. This is the new kid in town,” Jason said as
he backed up and sat back down. He set
down his railgun, and both immediately started planning on lunging for the guns
laying on the ground. The shorter one
was about half a second from it before Jason reached behind himself and brought
out the plasma pistol, then levelled it at them. Both of them seemed to know exactly what it was, and both of them
froze, their thoughts both fearful and angry.
“I have your boys Trev and, what’s your name?” he asked the other man
calmly.
“I ain’t tellin you shit!”
he shouted. “We’re at the library! We’re at the library!”
“Yes, we do happen to be at
the library right now,” Jason agreed pleasantly. “I have your boys here standing with their bikes between their
legs and their hands in the air. You
need to send someone down here to come get them. I think they’ll need help getting home.”
“Who the fuck is this?” someone called over the radio. “Whoever
you are, you’re the stupidest son of a bitch I ever heard of! We’re gonna come down there and chop your
fuckin’ head off!”
“Don’t worry too much about
me, neighbor, I’ll be just fine,” Jason said, leaning back a little. “See, I just got here a couple of hours ago,
and I find out that the place I picked to live is nothing but a war zone. Well, I didn’t come here to get into a war. I came here for peace, and quiet, and
solitude, and I won’t have a bunch of idiots screwing up my good time. So, ladies and gentlemen, here are the new
rules. See that river right over there
to the north? That’s the point of no
return,” he told them. “Anything that
goes over that river won’t come back. Ever.
This is your side of the river, ladies and gentlemen, and that side is mine.
So all you people over on the Ohio side of the river, I suggest you
clear out. In one hour, I’m taking
possession of that side of the river, and I won’t be held responsible for
anyone I catch on my side of the line.
Do we understand one another?”
“You got some real fuckin’ guts, punk, I’ll give you that,” a new
voice called. From the thoughts of
those two, he knew that this was Joe Bueller.
“It’s not guts, Joe my man,
it’s just plain old tiredness,” Jason answered. “See, I got really burned out after living under Faey rule for
three years, and I’m at the point where I just don’t give a fuck anymore,” he said with narrowing
eyes. “I came here to get away from the
Faey, to find a new life, and I’ll be damned if a wannabe warlord with
delusions of mediocrity is going to piss in my Wheaties. Different rules are in the game now, Little
Joe. I’m the new king of the hill. Now, if you want to do something about me,
why don’t you just try to cross my bridge?
I’ll even let you get to Ohio.
But remember my warning, Joebob; you cross my bridge, you don’t come
back. Understand?”
Jason sensed the approach of
two people, coming from the west, up 5th Avenue. They were about four blocks away, and they
were approaching fast. Jason glanced in
that direction, then stood up and picked up his railgun. “Off the bikes you two,” he ordered, though
he had the radio still keyed up. “And
if either of you lean in the direction of the guns, you’ll lose anything that
goes in that direction.
Understand?” They quickly got
off the bikes and backed up. “Good, now
turn around, kneel, cross your ankles, and put your hands on your head.” They complied. “Very good. Now, if
either of you value your hides, you’ll clear out,” he told them as he
shouldered his railgun, then collected up their rifles and pistols. He stomped on the tire of the smaller bike,
bending it to the point of unusability, then picked up the larger bike and
mounted it. “Oh yeah, Joe,” he called
over the radio. “Trev here thinks you
look sexy in leather panties.”
“You son of a bitch!” the
one named Trev shouted hotly.
“Don’t see why, myself. I’ve never thought beached whales in dead
cowhide were particularly attractive,” Jason mused conversationally. “Guess I’m just weird that way.” He unkeyed the radio and put his foot on the
pedal. “Well gentlemen, I hope you’re
not too inconvenienced. I’m off to
claim my side of the river. I suggest
you find a new line of work. Oh, and
have a nice day,” he added, then pedalled off quickly.
It wasn’t easy riding with
three rifles slung over his shoulders, but he managed well enough. He didn’t have to far to go, and all he had
to do was beat the first patrol back to the park. The closest of them was the one moving in from the west, and they
were going to go to the library first, to try to catch him. He was already halfway to the park by the
time they got there, threading his bike between two burned-out cars on 3rd
Avenue. By the time those roving guards
had reached the other two and found out what was going on, Jason was already on
the far side of the floodwall and riding back to his skimmer. By the time they were at the street leading
to the bridge, Jason was back inside his skimmer and had it powered up. The skimmer wasn’t visible from the top of
the bridge, so Jason just leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his
head and waited, using his telepathic ability to keep track of what was going
on out there. He let those two get
about halfway across the bridge, as Joe screamed and yelled over the radio for
them to find him, then brought up the skimmer’s engines and lifted off the
ground. He urged the skimmer forward,
out over the river, quickly overtaking the two bicycles above. He punched up some speed and came out from
under the bridge, then swung the entire ship around as he rounded the edge of
the bridge, establishing himself right in the middle of the end of the iron
gridwork that acted as support for the bridge’s weight.
The two bike riders saw that
blue monstrosity appear at the end of the bridge, and one of them fell off his
bike, rolling on the bridge several times.
The other slid to a halt, his wide face fixed with shock and a little
terror. Jason flipped on the external
speaker and fixed the headset on his head.
“That’s right,” he called.
“Mine’s bigger.” He picked up
the radio he’d pilfered and keyed it up.
“Go ahead and tell them, boys,” he called over that radio. “Make sure they understand.”
“He’s—he’s—he’s got a fuckin’ plane!” he heard the one still on the bike reply.
“That’s right, boys and
girls, I’ve got a plane,” he affirmed over the radio. “And what do you know, I know how to fly it. So, let’s make this clear one more time,
people. That side of the river is
yours, this side of the river is mine. Anyone crossing my bridge is going to get
the shock of his life.” He engaged the
skimmer’s defensive weaponry, which caused gunports on each side of the ship to
open, and the barrels of MPACs to extend.
“Tell them what you see,” he prompted over the radio.
“He’s pointin’ guns at us,” the mounted guard said in a frightened
voice. “Guns mounted on the plane.”
“Now that everyone
understands exactly what’s going on,” he said over the river, urging the
skimmer forward just a little, “we can come to a mutual understanding. That understanding is simple, Little
Joe. I own this side of the river.
Come over here, and you won’t be going back to your side. And believe me, I have no intention of going
on your side.”
“Are you crazy buddy? You stole
a Faey plane! They’re gonna come after
you!” Joe said fearfully.
“Let them,” Jason said
coldly. “I told you before, Joe, I don’t fuckin’ care anymore. If they want this plane back, they can bring
their bony blue asses down here and try to take it from me. I’m not going to be afraid of them
anymore. No more. It’ll be quite the
show for you guys on that side of the river, I’ll wager.”
“Buddy, you are crazy,”
Joe said grimly.
“If that’s what you think,
then you’d better not push things,” Jason growled. “Because I will make
sure that anyone that comes on this side of my river never gets back across the
bridge. And if you’re thinking of
trying to sneak over here and harass me, well, you never know, I just might
snap and burn Huntington to the ground in a psychotic fit. I certainly have the means.” He blew out his breath; he was getting just
a little angry. “Anyway, that’s the
deal. I won’t bother you, you won’t
bother me. I’m willing to be a quiet
neighbor, but I won’t ever help you, and be assured that I will never take sides. You’ve made your way be killing other
people, other Americans, for what you
have. No matter how bad you think
things were, you made them worse by turning your back on your fellow man. So go ahead and fight your stupid war, but
keep it on that side of the
river. As far as you should be
concerned, that land on the other side of the river is the far side of the
moon.”
He turned off the radio,
blowing out his breath again, then realized those two were still there. “Go back to your side,” he called over the
loudspeaker. “And never come back.”
The one still on his bike
turned and pedalled furiously towards the other side of the bridge, and the
other one didn’t even bother trying to get his bike back. He just got up and ran for the other side.
That went moderately
well. Now they understood that they
were dealing with someone with vastly superior firepower, and seemed crazy
enough to use it. Jason withdrew the
skimmer and slid it back under the bridge, parking it on a little street that
went under the bridge. He didn’t want
to live out of the skimmer with it being exposed to the other bank of the
river, so he needed to go back to that little town to the west of the bridge
and find a house to occupy. It had to
be close to the skimmer, but out of the direct line of sight of the opposite
bank. He could tell by using his talent
to sweep the far bank that they were well away from the bank of the river, but
he also didn’t want to run the risk that someone he thought was far enough away
happened to have a very accurate gun.
It was almost sunset, so it was best to just wait until it was dark.
He didn’t have long to
wait. He watched the sun set in the
west as he listened to the Faey traffic control frequency, listening for any
sign that they were coming for him, then he shut down the portable PPG, picked
up a backpack and a flashlight, and headed out.
Protected from view by the
dim murk of sunset, Jason crept along several streets just off the riverbank,
inspecting houses. He ranged several
blocks from the bridge on both sides, until he found the house he was looking
for. It was about a block and a half
from the skimmer, facing away from the riverbank with a block of houses hiding
it from the riverbank. It was on the
corner of 2nd Street and Oak Avenue, a large three story brick house
with two chimneys and several nice windows that faced away from the
riverbank. The door was unlocked but
not broken, and the interior made it obvious that the place had been pillaged. But the rooms were large and spacious, and
the place had plenty of room for him and all of his stuff. It even had an attic and a full sized
basement. The place seemed defensible
enough as well, placed on a corner which allowed him a good view of the surrounding
area. It was the tallest house on the
block as well, giving him an unobstructed view of the other side of the river
if he was atop it.
He stood on the large porch,
his mind already working. It would take
about a week to get everything set up to his satisfaction, and he’d have to
work mainly at night. He seemed to
recall a pair of night goggles in that gear he bought, now that he thought of
it, in the camping gear. They’d let him
see as if it was bright as noontime outside.
He bought so much, so fast, it was kind of hard to remember exactly what
he had. Maybe a detailed inventory was
in order. If anything, he’d have the
time.
The first step, obviously,
was securing the skimmer and the bridge itself. There were any number of things he could do to make those more
than untouchable by anyone but a Faey.
He also had to take into account the possibility of one of the
Huntington gangs using boats to cross in unexpected areas. After those were secured, he’d have to
secure the house and the area surrounding it, then devise a means of alerting
him when people approached using the other two bridges across the river, both
to the east and to the west. His talent
was more reliable than anything else he had available to him, but he did have to sleep.
He was confident. No two-bit gang boss was going to interfere
with him now. No way. He’d chosen this place to set up, and damn
it, he was not going to budge. This was his
place, and he was not going to give it up.
Not to Joe Bueller, not to the other gangs, not to the Faey, not to anyone.
This was his territory, and he would defend it to the death if that was
what it took, because he was not going to move. This was his home, that was the line, and God help anyone who
crossed it.
Pugnacious, yes, but he’d
been feeling a tad aggressive since the epipheny that led him to find his
freedom. But he did mean it, oh
yes. It was better to die free than to
live a slave.
Kaira,
26 Oraa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar
Wednesday,
13 July 2007, Native Regional Reckoning
Huntington,
West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector
The sun was warm, maybe a
bit too warm, but Jason really wasn’t all that worried about that. Gently biting his tongue, he worked out in
the yard of his new house, lining up with mechanical efficiency a little purple
flower in the flower bed outside his house.
He was more than open about
where he lived now. After all, the
gangs in the city across the river had no intention of ever bothering him
again, the chatter on the radio he’d stolen made that abundantly clear. They’d tried, that was for sure. He couldn’t fault them for tenacity, but no
matter how clever they were, they were no match for Jason Fox.
Obviously, the first attempt
was using the bridge, for it was the fastest way across the river. Joe Bueller had sent four men armed with
their precious machine guns over that bridge the day after Jason arrived, at
dawn. What they didn’t know was that
Jason had been working all night on defending that bridge, and he was more than
ready for them. They rushed across the
bridge on foot, knowing that the skimmer was parked under the bridge near where
it joined to the ground, intent on capturing that prize for whatever might be
inside it, before the Faey came to retrieve it.
They never got off the
bridge.
They got very close to the
edge, and then every piece of magnetic metal they owned suddenly slammed to the
ground. Their Uzis and Tek-9’s were
ripped from their hands, their belt buckles yanked them to the ground, metal
pocket knives tore holes in their jeans, and one unlucky fellow had his
earlobes ripped when his earrings suddenly slammed to the ground. It took them a few minutes to disengage
their metal objects, for all four had to take off their pants and squirm out of
them due to metallic objects in their pockets, or rivets in the pants
themselves. They all tried to yank
their guns off the bridge, but found them stuck fast. When Jason appeared on top of a house near the bridge, railgun
prominently displayed, they all turned and ran back for the other side of the
bridge. Jason used binoculars to look
over on the other side of the bridge after getting down off the roof and saw
Joe Bueller himself, looking through binoculars back at him from the top of a
building on the other side. Jason blew
him a kiss, which made him start silently shouting and throw his binoculars to
the ground.
Later that day, Jason came
out, collected up the items left behind, protected from snipers by the
curvature of the bridge, then retreated back out of sight.
Oh, the joys of plasma
magnets.
The next attempt was by
boat. Bueller sent over three men in a
boat in the middle of the night, and they were very good. They used oars instead of a motor, and got
across the river and to the far bank.
They quickly moved towards the skimmer, moving stealthily and covering
each other, until they were all up to the skimmer. The stairs were down, but the hatch was closed. They seemed nonplussed at that, for the
access panel beside the door was open, waiting for someone to come along and
open the door. One of them whispered
that this was way too easy, and the other two agreed. So they all got back and looked around, then carefully touched
the access panel with a stick they’d found laying nearby. Nothing happened. A few other careful tests displayed nothing untowards, so they
calmed down a little and tried to get the door open.
A few seconds after they
tried again, the entire area around the skimmer suddenly became alive with
electricity. Arcs of electricity danced
around the skimmer, impacting the bridge, the ground, and the three men, making
their hair stand on end and causing their muscles to lock in electrocution
paralysis. The lightning storm lasted
almost five seconds, then ceased as quickly as it began. All three men collapsed to the ground with
smoke wafting up from their clothes, though all three were very much
alive. A little while after they’d been
hit by the skimmer’s theft prevention system (which was standard on most
skimmers), Jason came out and stripped them naked, then left and hid a discreet
distance away. He waited for them to
wake up, then came back with his railgun as if to finish them off. The three naked men scrambled back down to
the river and jumped in their boat, then started the engine and raced for the
opposite bank. Jason let them get about
halfway, then he allowed them and the men watching from the far bank to see his
railgun fire. There was that familiar BEE-yah sound followed up by the loud bang, like the crack of a large whip,
but the round was already buried twenty feet in the opposite riverbank, below
the water’s surface. It had gone right
where Jason had aimed it, through the neck of the outboard motor and through
the back of the boat. The round struck
with such speed and force that it didn’t shatter the boat, it simply punched a
hole in it. The outboard motor,
however, had the neck snapped in half from the impact, which broke the
propellor away from the motor. The
three men looked back in surprise, and saw the outboard motor suddenly start to
smoke. They saw the dissipating
corkscrew smoke trail that led back to the far bank, and it didn’t take them
long to make the connection. They
jumped up and jumped overboard just as another corkscrew trail simply appeared, hitting the outboard motor
squarely, then igniting the gasoline in it.
The boat caught fire immediately, and illuminated the heads of the three
men as they swam frantically for the far shore. Jason lowered the railgun and looked on with satisfaction, then
simply went back to his house.
That taught them that they
weren’t getting anywhere near the skimmer, so, since Bueller wasn’t dumb, he
knew that the only way to get past the skimmer’s security system was to have
the owner shut it off. The next attempt
was the next night, as a group of six, armed with more machine guns, crossed
the river by boat a goodly distance east of the skimmer, then made their way to
the bridge on foot. After they got
there, to the little town of Chesapeake, which was where Jason had set up shop,
they fanned out and started searching for his house. He let them come in, let them get close to his house, and then he
activated his countermeasure.
The little town of
Chesapeake suddenly began to vibrate. There was no other explanation for it. The ground buzzed like an angry hornet,
which spooked the invaders, and caused them to retreat back towards the
bridge. Or at least try.
One by one, they all went to
set foot in the street, and when they did, they found their feet sinking into the asphalt. Whatever it was didn’t affect the ground or
the concrete under the asphalt, just the asphalt itself. They all found themselves ankle deep in what
was supposed to be a solid rock surface, and much to their horror, the now
permeable asphalt street clung to their feet like thick mud, making it
extremely hard to pull a foot out of it.
It didn’t help that every single one of them had fallen when the ground
had grabbed their feet, so they all had their hands in it as well, and most had
their knees down in it too. Jason
observed from the window of his house, and when his talent told him he had all
six ensnared, he shut off the device that was causing a rare effect called liquifaction. It was a phenomenon where a solid material became semi-liquid
when exposed to a certain frequency of sound or vibration. By setting his emitters to a specific
composite frequency, it allowed them to induce liquifaction into the
asphalt—specifically the tar that glued the asphalt together—but cause no damage
or harm to any other material. When the
device was shut off, the asphalt instantly hardened, entrapping them all within
it.
He gave them a few minutes
to struggle frantically, then came out of his house. He was carrying a baseball bat, a pair of large pruning shears,
and a portable radio/CD player. All six
were trapped within two hundred feet of each other, and he would be visible by
all of them by setting up at the corner leading to the bridge. He did so, putting the radio down and
turning it on, filling the street with the gentle melodies of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. He then put down the baseball bat, and snapped the pruning shears
shut a few times. “Good evening,
gentlemen, and ladies,” he had told them, nodding at the two women and four men
calmly. “I seem to recall warning you
not to come over here. Well, I’m going
to have to do something about that, I suppose.” He had shouldered the shears as he stood up. “I know I said you’d never go back if you
came over here, but I’m really not into murder. It’s not my thing. I’m
the kind of guy who much prefers letting you drag your asses back over that
bridge thoroughly humiliated. Death
isn’t much of a life lesson, you understand.
So, let’s commence, shall we?”
They were probably afraid he
was going to torture them or cut off their noses or something, but when he
started on the first person he reached, a middle-aged woman with tanned skin,
some wrinkles, and dark hair, they understood.
Jason used the shears to literally cut the clothes off her body, took
her weapon, then used those shears to cut the hair off her head. What he left behind was so laughably uneven
that only a shaved head was going to fix it.
She screamed bloody murder as he cut off her hair, and continued to
curse vituperously after he moved on to the next person. He had gone right on down the line,
systematically stripping each person, then cutting off their hair. When he was done, he collected up their guns
and the scraps over their clothes, then wandered back to his house. He left them stuck out there all night, and
went back out in the morning to get them out.
He activated the harmonic emitters he had buried around his house and
allowed them to pull themselves out, then marched them all to the bridge after
forcing them to remove their shoes and socks.
He made them march over that bridge naked as they day they were born and
with their hair cut off with pruning shears…so needless to say, they were a
sorry looking lot indeed.
Joe Bueller had an absolute
fit, he heard over the radio after he sent the invaders packing. Not only did they fail, but they also lost
four more machine guns, and they were running dangerously low on them.
With that afternoon came the
culmination of Joe Bueller’s temper.
Twenty men and women launched from boats at the park and motored over in
what could only be called an armed assault.
They landed about a quarter mile east of the bridge, then stormed
towards Chesapeake with Joe Bueller himself leading them. Jason’s skimmer’s
sensors picked them up and relayed the alert to his remote, and Jason just
sighed and closed the book he was reading and went to deal with them. Instead of going outside, he instead went to
his basement, then waited for them to get close enough. Once they were, he simply activated the last
and most effective of his personal safety measures, yet another sound-based
concept. It was the same basic idea as
the itchers he’d had Symone plant on the armor of the Marines that last day,
but since he didn’t have the materials to build a bunch of individual ones, he
instead went with the idea of a speaker.
It was located atop the steeple of the church down the block, and when
he activated it, it emitted a hypersonic frequency that would create a similar
effect. The closer they got to the steeple,
the worse the itching would get. Jason
had a damper going down in the basement, which was why he retreated to it.
He waited until they were
literally on top of the church, and he turned it on. He had a camera up there as well, so he had the opportunity to
see it in action. He felt it against
his skin as well, despite the damper, as a feathery touch all over him. Those outside, however, suddenly felt like
they were dipped into vats of live fire ants.
He watched with clinical interest as they all suddenly went wild,
squirming, thrashing, most of them dropping to the ground and rolling around,
doing anything they could to make it stop.
He let them endure it for about five minutes or so, when they started drawing
blood clawing at themselves, then he shut off the speaker. He picked up one of their radios and keyed
it up. “Fun, wasn’t it? That was the low setting. Want to see high?
“No, I don’t think you
would,” he added when Joe Bueller went for his radio. “Now that you’ve done went and put yourself on my side of the
river, it’s time for one of those important life lessons I’m so fond of handing
out. All of you out there on my street,
start stripping. All of it.”
“You son of a bitch, there’s no way in hell—“ Joe Bueller started,
but Jason simply turned the speaker on again.
His transmission was cut short when he dropped the radio and started
rolling around on the ground again. He
let it go on for about a minute, then turned it back off and brought the radio
up to his mouth again. “Temper, temper,”
he chided lightly. “Face it, Joebob,
you’re not getting out of here with your clothes. Now, you can continue to fight and be an idiot and make everyone else suffer with you, or you
can behave like a good little madman and start stripping. And if you do do that, I’m fairly sure that
they’ll all be really unhappy with you when you do manage to get back on your
side of the line. Now, all of you,
start stripping. You have one minute,
and the clock is ticking.”
Everyone else immediately
started tearing off their clothes. They
did not want to go through that
again. Joe Bueller, however, seemed
unwilling to do so. He got to his feet,
his shoulders huffing as he seemed to be trying to control a violent temper
tantrum. The others started shouting at
him—Jason couldn’t hear it, his camera was video only—and Joe Bueller suddenly
reached down and snatched up his M-16.
Jason quickly got to his feet and reached for the button on his remote
as he whirled around and brought up the barrel of that weapon, his intent
obviously to cut down his own people. Jason realized he wouldn’t have time, that
the hypersonic speaker wouldn’t stop him in time. He had to take direct action.
Jason had never attacked
another before in earnest, but Jyslin had taught him well. She had taught him how to attack and take
control of a human mind, and he executed that attack instantly. He drove a spear of consciousness into Joe
Bueller’s mind, and felt that mind instantly yield to the power of the blow;
human minds, which had no active talent, were defenseless against a
telepath. In an instant, he was inside
Joe Bueller’s mind, and he moved at the speed of thought. His power sought out the part of Joe
Bueller’s brain that dealt with motor control, and then wrapped his power around
it to smother any activity.
Joe Bueller’s muscles locked
up, even in the act of pulling the trigger.
The others looked at him with strangled expressions, then their eyes
furrowed in confusion, for he was standing as still as stone, though his own
eyes were wild and almost frenzied.
Jason brought the radio up
again. “Would one of you kindly relieve
Mr. Bueller of his gun?” he asked grimly.
“I assure you, right now he can’t move or speak, so it’s perfectly
safe. What I’m doing to him will do him
harm if I keep it going for too long, so do it quickly.” A young, rather pretty woman rushed up and
ripped the rifle out of Joe Bueller’s hands, then trained it on him. “That’ll do, young lady,” Jason snapped,
even as he reached deeper into Bueller’s mind.
He touched on the man’s memory, then carefully wiped out the last few
seconds, the part that would allow Bueller to remember the attack and realize
that Jason was telepathic. Then he
touched one of the baser functions of his brain and caused Joe Bueller to pass
out. The portly man collapsed to the
ground in a boneless heap. He’d remain
unconscious for about an hour or so, but that was more than enough time. “When he wakes up, he won’t remember what
happened,” Jason told them. “But we
digress. All of you, strip. And when you’re done, strip Bueller. The clock is ticking, ladies and gentlemen.”
He watched the monitor as
the nineteen men and women quickly stripped bare, then two of the bigger men
dutifully pulled the clothes off Joe Bueller.
Bueller, it turned out, was noticably fat, where all his followers
looked undernourished. “Very good. In the brown house on the corner behind you,
you’ll find a wheelbarrel in the garage.
Someone go fetch it, then dump Bueller into it. I’m not going to make you carry him. As fat as he is, that’d be cruel and unusual
punishment.”
One of the men rushed over
and pulled the large, dirty wheelbarrel out of the garage, then four men hauled
Bueller up—none too gently either—and dumped him in the wheelbarrel. His arms and legs dangled out of it.
“Very good. Now, this is the third time you’ve come and broken the rules, people. I’m losing my patience. I’ve been accommodating this far because I
know that you just couldn’t resist the temptation, and I really don’t like to
hurt people. But, now that you see just
how forbidden this fruit is, I do hope you’ll realize that it’s out of your
reach. I’m growing tired of being
merciful, people. Next time you come
over here, I send you back in a box. Do
we understand each other? Just nod if
you do, I’ll see it.” Every one of them
nodded. “Good, good. So, who’s rolling Bueller back over the
bridge? Raise your hand.”
They all looked at each
other, then one man raised his hand.
“Ok, you who raised your
hand, put your shoes back on. You’ll
chew your feet up trying to roll that heavy load up the bridge.” They all watched the man put his boots back
on, the young pretty lady who’d pulled the gun from Bueller’s hands trying to
cover herself with her hands. Jason
found that amusing for some reason, like the stubborn denial of truth. When he was done, Jason disengaged the power
to the speaker. “Alright, all of you,
march. Up the bridge, leave everything
behind. I will be watching, so don’t
get any ideas. Oh, and have a nice
day.”
That was the last time he
heard anything from Joe Bueller’s gang.
The gang in the west end, after hearing about Jason, certainly made
their own attempt, but their four man raiding party, riding in on bicycles in
the middle of the night, had the bad luck of getting there after Jason had time
to dig into his box of junk and scrape together the parts to build a proximity
sensor that automatically activated the hypersonic irritater. Jason simply moved his bedroom down into the
basement. They too left Chesapeake
naked, but unfortunately for them, they had a mile’s hike to get back to the
west end bridge.
Needless to say, Jason had
quite a collection of guns and bicycles now.
But, things looked to be
calming down. He still had the radio
the gang used, and from what he’d pieced together, Joe Bueller had met with an
unfortunate end soon after getting carted back over into Huntington. He wasn’t sure what happened, but odds were
that one of the people who’d had the business end of that M-16 pointed at them
took serious offense to the idea that Joe Bueller was going to shoot them because he was angry. He had no idea who was in charge now, but
the last couple of nights he’d heard sporadic gunfire to the east. It seemed that Bueller’s replacement was having
a territorial issue with the gang that controlled Guyandotte and Barboursville.
As long as they kept it over
there, he really didn’t care what they did.
Today wasn’t like any of the
other days, though. He didn’t know
exactly when it was, but he knew that his physical appointment had to have come
and gone, so they knew that he was not in New Orleans. Well, they knew that
already, but now they knew that he hadn’t come back. So, it meant that from here on out, he wasn’t going to be
overlooked. He still listened carefully
to the Faey traffic channels, listening for any hint that they had a transport
or search party out looking for him, because he knew that they were going to
start looking for him soon. If they had
any logs or records of his flight path from the space-based sensors, they were
going to know where he was, and were probably going to send a detachment out to
find him pretty soon. Many of the
defenses he had up around his skimmer and his house were intended for the Faey
as much as they were for the gangs.
He’d have many more up, but he simply didn’t have the parts to put
anything else in place, not without starting to take apart some of his other
equipment. That simply wasn’t going to
happen. He would simply have to rely on
what he had. He was pretty sure that
the sonic emitter on the steeple of the church was going to be very effective. It was going to make it clear to the Faey
that he wasn’t about to budge, but it would be effective.
That morning, he had done
what was necessary. He had emptied his
skimmer out of all gear and equipment, then shut it down. He didn’t even leave the security system on,
since the threat of it would most
likely more than suffice. From this day
forward, they were going to be looking for it.
The plasma signature of his smaller PPGs may or may not have showed up
on their sensors, so he shut down the largest one, the one that came from the
habitat module, and relied on the small ones to power a piece of equipment by
itself, and only when it was needed. He
had one on his Faey transceiver, so he could monitor traffic frequencies, and
also used that one to power his portable stove. He relied on portable lamps for light.
He’d gone out to do some
scavenging of his own yesterday and today.
There were lots of houses on his side of the river, as well as a K-Mart
and Walmart a few miles west, which had been all but stripped bare. He wasn’t after what most others were after,
however. He scavenged some furniture
and some decent dishware (which required extensive cleaning before it was
usable), and also hunted down some supplies and equipment to get his house back
in proper working order. Things like
flashlights and batteries were long gone, but Jason found lots of light fixtures
and light bulbs at the Lowe’s home improvement store just past Walmart. He scavenged some of those things, then used
it to repair the wiring in the house.
After severing the house from the unused power grid, Jason was able to
get the electricity back on in the house using one of his smallest PPGs and a
simple generator he built out of his rapidly dwindling supply of spare
equipment. Generating electrical power
was something that was considered child’s play to the Faey, and that tiny
module with its slapdash generator could probably power the entire city block
by itself. The lack of running water
had Jason concerned, so he went through the plumbing section in Lowe’s to try
to come up with some ideas. A water
tank with a portable pump, maybe. He’d
have to dig up the water line and break into it, then hook up the water tank to
it. Wastewater wasn’t much of an issue,
since the house was connected to the city’s sewer system, and that gave it
somewhere to go. Purifying the water
was another issue, but not a hard one to solve, for the habitat module had a
water purification system installed in it.
He could take that out and install it somewhere in the water line.
Getting water and power back
up in his house were important, but it was also important not to draw too much attention to himself. The Faey would know exactly where to go if
they saw a single house with lights on, given his background in
engineering. Getting the power back on
in a house would be child’s play to him, and they knew that. He’d already addressed that problem,
however, by scavenging some very heavy drapes that weren’t in too bad of shape
from several houses. They weren’t
exactly going to match his hodgepodge furniture, but he wasn’t doing this with
an eye out for fashion. He was not going to live in the dark. He just needed to take certain precautions.
Jason looked up as a gust of
wind blew past him. Wind. It was always blowing out here, most likely
because of the river. With a little
work, he could get a windmill of sorts up that could generate some electricity,
get the whole block some power. And the
water system was still intact, it just lacked the power to operate…well, and
qualified technicians to watch over it.
But, he could tap into the river’s water and set up a very small
purifying plant of sorts, a single large tank with one Faey water purification
system on the intake valve. Rework the
piping to close off the other blocks…he shook his head. There was no reason to do any of that except
for maybe the challenge of it. It might
be fun though, give him something to do.
Having things to do was important right now. Keep his mind occupied.
The game with the gangs across the river was entertaining, but very,
very short. In a way, that was very
good, because he didn’t feel like endlessly scrapping with them. It did, however, keep his mind occupied,
kept him from worrying too much.
Kept him from dwelling on
the past, and that was past was his friends.
He hoped Tim was doing alright, and as much as he hated to admit it,
Symone, and Jyslin…and also Maya now.
He’d never thought he’d be worried about Faey, but Jyslin and Symone,
they were friends. Friends. Jyslin was more than a friend, he had to
admit. Yes, he had Faey friends, and he was strongly attracted
to a Faey. But fate had written a
different set of circumstances.
Everything about Jason that made him what he was wouldn’t allow it, and
if he changed to allow it, it was making him something other than what he
was. He’d realized that before he left,
realized that by bending for Jyslin, he was turning his back on his highly
regarded principles, and those principles defined him. Maybe he was too proud, a bit too arrogant,
but that pride was a part of him, and without it he would be lesser of a man. He’d been so infatuated with his telepathic
talent that he had bent over backwards to justify fraternizing with Jyslin just
so he could explore this strange, exciting power. And even now, he had to admit that he liked Jyslin and Symone, that he did care about them. It was hard for him to rationalize that, for
they were Faey. He was having feelings for the enemy. He hadn’t wanted to, but it was so easy to
see Symone and Jyslin as something other than Imperial agents after spending so
much time with them.
Yes…Symone and Jyslin were friends.
Ok, he admitted that to
himself. Finally. He did find,
though, that it didn’t change his mind all that much. They had made decisions that placed them on the other side of the
line he had drawn in his own mind, and so had Tim for that matter. But then again, Tim wasn’t really ready to
do something like what Jason had done.
He would be too afraid, and despite not liking the Imperium, he did like the luxuries of his position.
Tim hated the Imperium, but not on philosophical
grounds, only on personal
grounds. If they treated him well, he
would be content. If they did not, he
would not be. Jason couldn’t really
fault Tim for that, though. He was a
generous man, with a good heart and a kind disposition, but he, like most
humans, was more concerned with his personal well-being than the state of the
human race as a whole. That attitude
stemmed from the feeling of hopelessness that almost every human felt, knowing
that there was absolutely no way to escape from Faey domination. So Tim, like so many people, was just trying
to make the best of it he could. Many
saw his relationship with Symone as selling out—those who didn’t know Symone,
in any case—but those who did knew better.
Sometimes one just had to close one’s eyes to certain boundaries when
two people who were meant for one another managed to meet. He had no doubt that Tim and Symone would be
together until death parted them. May
God see to it that that was seventy years down the road.
Despite their political or
philosophical views, they were still his friends, and he would always care
about them.
Wiping his brow, he looked
at his little flower garden and nodded.
He’d found the plants at Lowe’s growing wild in a grassy patch in the
parking lot. They’d somehow managed to
take root and grow in that patch, until Jason dug them up and brought them
home, that is. It took a while to
separate them, and he wasn’t sure they’d all live, but they looked a heck of a
lot better in his front yard than they did competing for sunlight with the
weeds that were overgrowing them. After
he was done, he pulled an ancient manual grass mower out of the garage of the
house beside his own, one of the old, old rotary clipper styles, then proceeded
to mow the lawn. Yes, it would make the
house stand out, but he just couldn’t stand to see that knee-high grass any
longer. It took him about an two hours
to mow around the front and side yard, since the grass was so high, then
another hour to mow the back. He went in
for a drink and to check the Faey traffic radio, then came back out and started
raking up the clippings.
About halfway through, he
started hearing it. It was distant,
faint, but approached rapidly. It was
an engine, a gas engine, and from the sound of it, it was a motorcyle. It got very close, and from the sound of it,
it passed by on Route 7, north of his street.
It got to about the bridge, then it seemed to turn around. Jason swept out with his power and touched
on a single mind, the rider of that motorcycle. The thoughts of that mind told Jason that it was specifically looking
for him, but had no hostile
intentions. Jason realized that the
magnet trap was still active, and he fished in his pocket for the remote that
would turn it off in case whoever it was went up over the bridge, but by the time
he had the remote out, he spotted the motorcycle and the rider.
It was a woman wearing a
pair of dirty blue jeans with black chaps over them, and a white tee shirt with
a black leather vest atop it. She wore
no helmet, but did have on a pair of old-fashioned goggles. Her hair was very, very long, black and
straight, and it looked tangled and dishevelled from her riding about. She looked in both directions, then spotted
him and turned her bike towards him.
She was riding a Harley Hog, a massive machine that most women wouldn’t
dare to ride, due to the motorcycle’s great weight. But this woman seemed to have no trouble with it, coming to a
stop on the street right in front of him, then putting a booted foot down for a
moment before turning off her machine.
She kicked the stand down, then leaned back on her bike and raised her
goggles. She was a surprisingly lovely
black woman, without the wideness that was pattern in people descended from the
cradle of civilization. There was a
delicate fineness about her features, with her high cheeks and sharp chin, and
a slight slant to her eyes that hinted that this woman had some Asian ancestry
somewhere in her bloodline. But the
mixture of Asian and African lineage gave her the best of both worlds, for this
woman was both beautiful and tall. He realized that when she stepped over the
bike and stood before him. She was
easily six feet tall, maybe a bit more, and possessed of a figure that was
perfectly proportional to her height.
Her thoughts were guarded, but were also hopeful.
“Well, you must be the new
guy,” she said in a distinctive Southern drawl. “Welcome to the neighborhood, sugah.”
“Excuse me, but who are
you?” he asked.
“Temika,” she answered. “Temika Daniels, sugah. I just rode down from Chilocothe and heard
that someone done went and kicked Joe Bueller’s ass. Ah just had to come meet you.
Maybe kiss you, I hated that vicious bastard.”
“Well, nice to meet you. I’m
Jason Fox,” he said, extending his hand.
She looked at it, then gave him a nervous glance.
“Sorry, sugah, I don’t like
tah touch people,” she hedged. “It
ain’t no offense or nuthin’, I promise.
Hope you understand.”
Curious, Jason opened
himself to listen to her thoughts. She
was very worried about touching him,
or just about anyone else, for that matter. She didn’t want it to
happen. He had no idea what it was, but whatever it was, Temika was
quite fearful of it. It wasn’t an
irrational fear, it was an almost cold, logical fear. Odd.
“Might you see fit to offer
a gal a drink? It gets dusty out on the
road,” she said hopefully.
“Just water, I’m afraid.”
“Sugah, that’s about all
there is,” she laughed. “I heard you
just come from outside, it certainly shows.”
Jason gave her a second
look. “Hold on. You wouldn’t be the Temika Daniels who
played for the Volunteers, would you?”
She laughed. “I’m surprised anyone remembers that,” she
said. “But yeah, sugah, that’s me.”
“Surprised to see you out
here,” he said. “Come on in, I’ll get
you some water.”
“Well, it wasn’t entirely my
choice,” she told him as she followed him.
Jason closed his mind again; he had a strange feeling that this strange
woman could potentially be a friend, and he didn’t want a stray word to slip
and make her suspicious. “Ah
bitch-slapped a blueskin cause she got in mah face, and got hauled to one of
their ‘re-education centers’,” she grunted.
“Had a mindbender mentally rape me with a cattle prod, then they sent me
to a farm. Ah was never much of a
farmer, so Ah skipped out a few days after Ah got there. Mama always said my temper’d get me in hot
water,” she said with a chuckle. “Ah
been out heah for about two years or so.
I do pretty well for mahself. Ah
get by running stuff back and forth for some of the more friendly people out
heah. Between what Ah can get doin’
that and what Ah can scavenge, Ah get by.
Long as Ah can get gas for my bike, Ah’m as happy as a pig in mud.”
“You trade?” he asked,
looking back at her as he opened to front door.
She nodded. “They ain’t all like Jim Bueller and the
gangs in Huntington, sugah. The peoples
up in the hills, they more friendly, if’n you approach them the right way, you
understand. Cause Ah got a bike and the
nerve to run the roads, Ah do fairly well enough deliverin’ stuff from one
place to anothah. The Becketts up in
Fort Gay send eggs to the Prices ovah in Ona, who send a jug of milk down to
the McMarrins in Wayne, who send some meat back to the Becketts. That kinda thing, you see.”
“And you’re the delivery
girl.”
“You bet, sugah,” she
grinned as she sat down at the kitchen table, where he motioned. “Ah also shuttle information around, keep
everyone in touch with what’s goin’ on.
Every gang and the unfriendlies around heah would just love to shoot me
off mah bike, but they ain’t managed it yet.
They lost count of the raids Ah done ruined when Ah spotted them
slinkin’ up into the hills.”
“How many people are out
there?”
“Not as many as it sounds, sugah,” she answered. “Once you get out of the bigger towns, you can go twenty miles before you see a single soul. The towns are where the stuff is, though, so that’s where most people come. If they lucky, they get shot. If they not, they become those bastard