“First we score some water, and then get some heavy iron. We’re going to need more than blasters to handle a sec hunter.”
“Then how get out pit?” Jak asked, still watching from the empty window frame. “No building near enough to top for us to try jump.”
“We’ll figure that out after we’re armed better,” Ryan said, then turned.
“Okay, Dean, what should we do first?”
Knowing he was being tested, the boy scrunched his face in concentration before answering. The rest of the companions waited patiently while he chewed the inside of a lip.
“Water coolers in office buildings like this are always useless,” Dean started. “They drip and are always dry. Luxury hotels are good, they have those little minifrigs locked in the better rooms. Always some bottled water there.”
Stone faced, Ryan said nothing, so the boy continued, feeling the pressure to come up with the correct answer fast.
“Got it!” He grinned. “Hot pipe, I’m a feeb. A supermarket! Normally, we don’t bother with supermarkets since they were always looted during the rioting after skydark.”
“But this city was never looted,” Ryan finished. “Good call.”
“Occam’s razor,” Doc rumbled, reaching out to tousle the boy’s hair. “Always try the simplest answer first. It is often correct.”
Dean shifted away from the praise, then smiled back.
“Okay, I’m on point,” Ryan ordered, serious once more. “J.B., cover the rear with your Uzi. Krysty, keep that .475 ready for the droid if it appears.”
“Done,” the redhead said, pulling back both of the curved hammers on the massive double barreled elephant rifle. “Only a couple of rounds left.”
“Then make them count, lover,” Ryan told her. “Without implo grens or something equally big, a sec hunter could chew us apart like an MRE snack bar. We shoot and run for high ground. They don’t go very fast on stairs and that gives us an edge.”
“Be nice if Gaza arrives and we could trick him into fighting the droid for us,” Mildred said, checking her Remington longblaster. The bayonet at the end glistening like a polished mirror, and she suddenly went cold realizing that could easily give away their position.
“Hold a sec,” she said, setting the stock on the floor, and pulling out a butane lighter. Lighting a candle, she played the flame along the edge of the blade until it was a dull black. Satisfied, she tucked away the other items into her satchel and shouldered the weapon.
“Ready,” Mildred announced.
Nodding in reply, Ryan slipped out the broken window on the opposite side of the office building from where the sec hunter had been seen. He had been going to mention that to the healer, but it was better that she caught it herself. When they first found Mildred, she had been useless aside from her medical skills. She’d been born and raised in a world where the biggest danger was overeating and boredom. But she had learned fast.
As they walked along the sidewalk, the friends could see salt dust everywhere, coating vehicles and corpses like snow. The tallest buildings blocked the sun, casting deep shadows across the rest of the city, brilliant slashes of light showing between the high rises. Ryan could guess that it would be pitch black at the base of the cliff until high noon. That would be a good place to hide during the afternoon, and he filed that thought away. Right now, he had to stay razor.
The streets were empty of traffic in the middle of the blocks, but packed solid at every intersection. The inhabitants of the city were everywhere, sitting hunched behind the steering wheels, sprawled on the sidewalk holding packages and briefcases. Ryan saw that some poor bastard was lying on top of an awning covering a greengrocer stand, the vegetables long turned into shriveled, inedible lumps.
“Must have fallen from a window,” Krysty guessed, hitching her heavy blaster.
“Makes sense,” Dean agreed, stringing his crossbow as he walked. The silent weapon might catch a droid by surprise, and the cold iron quarrel in his quiver would pack a lot more penetration punch than a soft lead 9 mm slug.
As the group passed through a collection of crashed vehicles, Mildred gave a soft cry as she spotted an ambulance. Rushing to the rear doors, she found them locked, then cursed in remembrance that they were always locked to keep thieves from looting the medical supplies. Rushing around, she checked the driver’s side door and then the passenger’s, but the ambulance was sealed tight, the EMTs inside still wearing their seat belts and grinning at her from across the ages.