The guy guarding the cart finally made a move, took a big swing at one of the thieves. And missed. The other two were on him before he could get the ax back up to block. They didn’t hit him with the pointy ends. That would’ve been too merciful. Instead, they shattered his left elbow and right collarbone with the flat sides of their ax heads. His arms hanging limp, the poor bastard staggered against the wall and slipped down to his butt.
The thieves didn’t bother finishing him off. He was already done for. Unable to lift another piece of ore, he’d earned his last cup of water.
None of the slaves standing around the other sledges did or said anything. They watched the thieves push their sledge over to the wounded man’s cart and take every piece of ore he had. Even though the slaves knew the three bastards would surely victimize them next, they were relieved that it had happened to someone else this time.
Everybody down here was crazy, J.B. realized. And with good reason. The bastard place was death row with festival seating.
The thieves started shoving their loaded cart back toward the mine entrance. In so doing, they had to pass J.B. and Dean. The Armorer took a good, long look at them. All three wore overcoats so greasy it was impossible to tell what their original color had been. Their side pockets bulged with dead rats, the tails sticking up stiff as sticks. From their expressions, they thought they had surviving Ground Zero all figured out. They didn’t collect ore for water or hunt the dark tunnels for food. They stole it, which meant they lived longer because they didn’t spend as much time in the high rad zones.
One of them, a guy with long, matted hair pulled into a ponytail and a wispy chin beard, looked into their cart. An appraising look. Just to see how the ore collection was going, for future reference. All he saw in there was Gabhart, unconscious.
“What are you looking at?” he demanded of the man in the fedora and wire-rimmed spectacles.
“Dog shit, walking,” J.B. replied.
At once, Dean had his ax up and ready to strike. J.B. rested his, nice and relaxed, on the rim of the cart. He smiled at the thief. He already had his moves worked out, although he figured that after he dropped this one, the other two would light out in a hurry.
The Armorer’s stance clearly unnerved the pony-tailed guy. The usual reaction to threat was tension and retreat, not gleeful anticipation. The other thieves seemed uninterested in backing up a confrontation over personal honor; there was nothing in it for them—the cart was empty. Though he had been insulted, Ponytail didn’t push the matter any further physically. “Hey, I’m just making the best of a bad situation,” he snarled back. “Just like you’d do if you had any balls.”
“We got nothing for you scabs,” J.B. said. “Fuck off.”
“We’ll be back,” Ponytail promised over his shoulder.
“Looking forward to caving in your head.”
“J.B.,” Dean said, “the colonel is waking up.”
Gabhart stirred in the bed of the cart. He moved his arms and opened his eyes. “Damn, I dreamed I was already dead,” he whispered. “It was a happy dream.”
“Come on,” J.B. said, “let’s get you out of there.”
He and Dean helped the colonel to a seat on the floor of the tunnel, propping his back against the wall.
“We need to know more about these manacles,” J.B. said to him. “How do they work? What sets them off?”
Gabhart stared at him blankly for a moment, and J.B. thought he was going to pass out again, but then he spoke. “They’re linked to the satellite’s ground position locator, which divides the planet surface into grids. A comp somewhere in the Slake City compound controls which grid sectors trigger the cuffs. When you cross into one of those sectors, the lasers automatically fire. The slaves at Ground Zero have one activation setting. Slave catchers have another. Ours is on either side of the road and outside the mines perimeters.”
“Can we get them off without setting them off?”