The sec man’s skin was cold and clammy to the touch, although his face was flushed.
J.B. frowned. “You feeling okay?”
The sec man gave a short and unconvincing laugh as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Should be able to take my liquor better’n that,” he muttered.
J.B. examined him in the light cast by the lamp over the table. The man’s face was flushed, but not in the way he would have expected from the alcohol. There were also signs of a rash on his forehead and under the growth of beard on his cheeks and chin.
The Armorer grabbed the sec man’s arm and pulled up his shirt.
“Hey! What the fuck—” the sec man began, stopping dead when he saw the beginnings of pustules running up the inside of his forearm. “What the hell are those?” he whispered.
J.B. leaned in close to him. “You say you were through here a couple of weeks ago?” he questioned, and when the man nodded, continued, “I think you’d better come with me, my friend.”
“Where to?” the confused and drunken sec man muttered as J.B. led him out of the bar. Ryan, catching the Armorer’s eye as he moved past, made his excuses to Conroy and left the trader, joining J.B. outside. “Trouble?” the one-eyed man questioned. J.B. said nothing, but rolled up the man’s sleeve. In the harsh glare of the bar’s neon sign, it was easier for the two men to see the full extent of the infection.
“Fireblast,” Ryan breathed. “Mildred’s not going to like this.”
“No one is,” the Armorer replied. “This is where we move, right?”
“Triple sure on that,” Ryan agreed.
RYAN WAS RIGHT. Mildred was far from happy when they led in the infected sec man.
“Go get Hector—and now,” she said to Doc, who rushed to rouse the sleeping healer. Hector entered the med building in Doc’s wake, and was grim faced as Mildred showed him the infected sec man.
“If he’s been carrying this to other villes,” he began, but Mildred cut him short.
“No time to worry about that now. You need to get Robertson in on this right now. If outsiders are getting it, then not only is it being spread across the land, but your ville stands right in the line of fire for reprisals, ’cause it isn’t going to take this boy’s employer long to work out what’s happening.”
“Shit,” Hector cursed, “all hell could break loose. You’re right,” he concluded, “I should go now.”
The healer turned and left. Mildred looked stonily at Ryan.
“Time?” she queried.
Ryan nodded.
“Krysty,” he said over his shoulder, “go and get Jak and Dean, and get them to gather everything then come over here—and triple fast. We’re leaving right now.”
“Should we run out on them at this precise point?” Doc asked. “They will need our help.”
“They won’t need anyone’s help unless we get moving and find the Gate, see what they know,” Ryan snapped.
It seemed like hours but had to have been only a matter of minutes before Krysty returned with Jak, Dean and their collected belongings.
“Any chance you were seen?” Ryan asked.
“No chance. Time to take care,” Jak answered decisively.
The one-eyed man nodded, then outlined the situation to the group. The knowledge that Hector was talking to Robertson—the knowledge that the first outsider had contracted the pox—would be incendiary. Chaos would break loose, and in this chaos was their chance to slip away unnoticed. The offer Trader Conroy had made Ryan and J.B. would only add to any confusion that would come in the wake of the notice of their departure.
Their route of escape wouldn’t be easy. They wanted to go to the southwest, and the med building was situated to the east of the ville. They would have to negotiate their way around the edge of the ville without being noticed by the sec patrols.
Fate was to once again help them when they were in need.
With Ryan and J.B. now gone from the main drag, the bar sec was reduced—particularly the area where Conroy and his crew had taken over one bar for the night. The hired mercies had been drinking for several hours, and had pleasured themselves with the sluts they had hired. This was where it began to get difficult. The women were used to any kind of sexual act or kink, but when one of the mercies began to wave a broken bottle around and suggested its use as part of a floor show with one of the women, she could see herself not getting out alive, and retaliated by grabbing a bottle and breaking it over his head. Blood streaming, the sec man pulled a remade Walther PPK and chilled her on the spot. The sight of one of their compatriots being chilled caused the other sluts to forget they had been hired, and to fight back.