Huth was standing close enough to get a look at the prosthesis at the end of his other arm. It wasn’t carved of ivory, or any other natural material. Every finely sculpted finger had two articulated joints, the thumb had one, plus the knuckles, and there was a small knurled knob on the back of the wrist. As he watched, the big man tightened down the knob, which made the fingers and thumb contract in a death grip around the mug’s handle.
Mug in fist, the driver danced some more; he was very light on his feet for a man of his size. After a minute or two, he stopped and pulled the end of a length of plastic hose out a side window. When he opened the metal clamp on its tip, a clear fluid sprayed into his waiting tankard.
“We are gonna have so damned much fun!” he shouted to the cloudless sky.
Then he called up to the whores, “Dance, you sexy devils! Show these good folks what you can do!”
The trio began bucking their pelvises and rotating their hips with more enthusiasm.
“For those of you who don’t know me,” he told the crowd, “I’m Big Mike. Also known as Mike the Drunkard.” He tipped back the mug and began to swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He didn’t stop until he’d emptied it.
“Ya-hoooie!” he said. “Everybody belly up! Come on, now, don’t be shy. It’s fill-’em-up time!”
Hath, who had no cup, was shoved, elbowed and punched out of the way by those who did.
The boom box on the roof stopped playing for a second, then the same song started over again automatically.
Mike the Drunkard used his real hand to backslap and goose the spectators as he topped off their containers. And the whole while he jabbered at them. “Oofa, are we going to partay!” he said. “Get this bus a-rocking in no time.” He made a lewd crotch thrust at his own drained mug before refilling it.
In short order, Big Mike had everybody around the bus drinking, dancing and laughing. Everybody but Huth, who stood at the edge of the crowd, leaning dejectedly on the handle of his shovel. When Mike scrambled back up to the roof of the bus, he turned down the volume on the boom box.
The song started over for the fifth time. By now, all the people knew the words of the chorus and shouted along. To them, 1999 meant predark. Happy days.
Times of plenty, of relative order and safety. A golden step.
“Right about now,” Big Mike said to them, “you’re probably asking yourselves, where does this big old sexy magic man come from? And where did he get all the chiller joy juice he’s giving away?”
“Tell us.'” someone yelled back.
“Yeah,” another person chimed in, “tell us!”
“The answer to both questions is Slake City,” Mike said.
It took a few seconds for this information to sink in. Gradually, the residents of Byram ville stopped dancing. They stood like statues beside the bus, glaring at the big man.
Mike raised his good hand. “Now, I know you’ve heard it’s a wasteland over there. But that’s a rumor started by some of the people who are already there. They’re greedy bastards. They want to keep all the sweet stuff for themselves.”
“That’s Baron Jolt’s turf,” said a man standing up front, “and as far as I’m concerned, that raping, chilling bastard can have it.”
“Everybody knows Slake City’s nothing but a nuke slag heap!” another man said. “The background radiation turns you into a pile of pus and sores inside of a month.”
“Nah-nah,” Mike said, shaking his head. “That’s how it used to be. Not anymore. The place is all cleaned up. It’s safe as mother’s milk. And Baron Jolt is long gone. We got real jobs there, now. It’s fat, I’m telling you, just like before skydark. People are eating regular, getting drunk regular, living out of the chem rains in clean shacks with good shithouses. Slake City is starting over again, and the folks who get in on the ground floor are going to have the edge. Have a chance to get baron rich. That’s why I’m here. Slake City needs folks like you. Enterprising, right thinking folks who know an opportunity when they see one.”