Halfway through the crumpled vehicles, Ryan heard a faint moan and walked closer to a black limo to touch the hood. The metal was vibrating slightly under his fingertips. How the hell could the horn still be operating a hundred years later? Unless the engine had a nuke battery for a power source. But that was for mil wags only, and not even every one of them got the unique devices.
Studying the driver and passengers, Ryan deduced it was some sort of a gov wag, loaded with the barons of their day. Oddly, there seemed to be movement amid the passengers, and he instinctively swung up his blaster as protection. A black millipede crawled into view from under the jacket of a corpse, then several more from the other corpses. The bugs were everywhere inside the limo, and Ryan could only guess that the things had been attracted by the mag field of the still working horn. For some reason, they were drawn to mag fields the way a shark was to blood in the water. Mildred had tried explaining it once, but the whitecoat jargon was out of his league. However, the fact remained that bugs liked mag fields.
Away from the traffic jam, a lifeless mob of people filled the sidewalk and street in front of a movie theater, and the companions had no choice but to walk on the dead, the desiccated bodies crunching under their boots like autumn leaves.
Heading for the cliff, Ryan turned a corner and stopped. The intersection was clear of traffic, the bodies of police lying before the side streets full of cars, and some sort of a mil convoy parked forever at a stoplight. Motorcycles flanked an unmarked armored truck, the driver and passenger both openly carrying shotguns. The local cops had been holding back civilian wags for the mil wags to get through.
“Must have been important folks,” Krysty said, looking under the vehicle for any more millipedes.
“Or they were carrying something important,” Dean suggested, checking the fallen motorcycles. “Prob just gold, or some other useless stuff.”
The boy knew that far too many folks had wasted precious time and effort busting open armored wags only to find them stuffed with jack, jewelry or pieces of silver. Totally useless. The paper jack was too stiff to use for wiping your ass, and silver was too soft to make ammo.
Of course, J.B. knew how to make explosives from preDark money and silver coins. But he and Ryan were the only folks still alive who could do that. Dean knew most of the procedure, but it was damn tricky and one mistake put you on the last train west in a fuck lot of very small pieces.
“Gold okay,” Jak replied, surveying the rooftops fort any signs of stickies. Many times, he had made reloads with gold bullion from a bank. The yellow stuff was just as good as gray lead for bullets, almost as if they were the same stuff, only different colors. Nothing wrong with finding a load of gold.
Going to the cab of the armored truck, J.B. tricked the lock and cracked the door a hair, allowing the century old air to escape in a whispery sigh. Its passage made the two corpses slump forward slightly as if suddenly tired.
As the ancient death fumes cleared, the Armorer swung open the corroded door with a squeal of hinges and reached in to remove the keys from the ignition and toss them to Ryan. The other man made the catch and started for the rear to check inside.
Climbing onto the step of the front cab, J.B. carefully removed the shotguns from the crumbling hands of the dead men. Working the stiff pump to eject the shells, he got ten before the second shotgun gave a loud crack and jammed solid, the pump no longer able to move in either direction. Eight of the shells cracked apart into dried powder and shot when the Armorer gently squeezed the plastic housing, but the two remained firm and he lovingly tucked those into empty loops on his belt. Checking the seat, he found a box of ammo, but spilled coffee had splashed onto the cardboard and over the decades the brass base of the shells had crusted over, making them useless.