While the crowd considered this, Mike the Drunkard clambered from the roof and quickly refilled all the empty cups.
It was then that Huth took note of the massive bracelet around the bus driver’s left wrist. Dull silver in color, its surface was filigreed with solid-state circuitry. The sight of the ornament made Huth’s mouth drop. Pulse pounding, he fought to get a closer look, though it meant absorbing numerous blows to his head, back and arms.
“How did you lose your right hand?” Huth called out.
“Got it caught up the wrong ass,” Mike said. Everybody laughed. Everybody but Huth. The former chief whitecoat of FIVE, now latrine engineer, used the handle of his shovel like a lance, clearing a path to the front of the crowd. He held up the pocket of his lab coat to the big man. “Do you know what this means?” he asked.
Big Mike squinted down at me four letters stitched in red. “Can’t read too good,” he confessed.
Huth reached out and tapped the metallic wristband. “I came from the same place as that.”
Big Mike stared at Huth’s gap teeth, his dirt-caked face, his unspeakable pants and dismissed him with a “Yeah, right…”
“I know what it’s used for,” Huth went on, frantic to get his point across. “You’ve got bands just like it around your ankles, too, don’t you?” The big man’s eyes narrowed. “So…?”
“Did it hurt much when they lopped off your hand?”
Mike the Drunkard seized Huth by the collar and dragged him and his shovel up the steps into the bus. Inside, it smelted like a cross between a distillery and a bear pit. The rear seats had been removed to make room on the floor for a pile of badly stained mattresses. A half-dozen fifty-five-gallon metal drums of joy juice were securely strapped to the floor. The drums were all stenciled with Baron Jolt.
Huth endured a brutal shaking, then the big man held him close and growled into his face, “How do you know about my hand? Who the fuck are you?”
“I crossed over ahead of the people who did that to you,” Huth said. “My coming to this world was an accident. I was lost in the wilderness and then I ended up in this place, in very sorry circumstances. My name is Dr. Huth. I am somewhat famous where I come from. Maybe the others talked about me? Or mentioned my name in passing?”
“Nope,” Mike said.
“One thing’s for certain,” Huth continued, “you have become their puppet. Those laser cuffs can turn you into a victim in a hurry. Without hands and feet you’d be a big lump of warm, helpless meat that anyone could play nasty with. How much chain did they give you? Fifty miles? A hundred miles? Go one step farther, break the transmitter’s signal, and zap! All fall down.”
“You better not queer my pitch here,” Mike warned, poking Huth hard in the chest with a huge finger. “I got a quota to make.”
“Take me back with you. Take me back to my people.”
Mike gave him a dubious look.
“That’s all I want. Really.”
The big man’s eyes glittered. “No problem,” he said. “You can ride with me all the way to Slake City.”
Overjoyed, Huth started to throw his shovel out a window.
“No, keep that,” Mike told him. “It’ll come in handy later. I got to go outside now. I got to make my closing pitch before these triple stupes start to sober up.” He dug under a seat and removed a big yellow plastic tub. He patted the tight-fitting lid and said, “The deal clincher.”
Huth remained inside the bus while Big Mike stepped out and addressed the crowd. “I’m looking for a few good folks who aren’t a-scared of rumors,” he said. “And I’m willing to sweeten the pie a little. I know you’ve all got a taste for what’s in here.” He opened the tub and showed them the heap of white crystalline powder it contained. “This is the real thing, people. One hundred percent pure jolt. It’ll make you feel ten feet tall. And you’ll screw my pretty sluts like a pack of slag heap weasels. Don’t push, now. One at a time, now. Come and get it.”