James Axler – Bitter Fruit

Burroughs stopped ten feet away and pinned Ryan with his gaze. “Sergeant,” he bellowed without looking away.

“Sir,” the machine gunner responded.

“I should know this man.”

“Sir, you do. Ryan Cawdor. He’s in our files.”

Burroughs nodded. “One eyed. General description. I thought so. We didn’t have a picture of this man before.”

“No, sir. Already been remedied.”

“You used to ride with the Trader,” Burroughs said to Ryan. “Son of a baron along the East Coast or something, if I remember correctly.”

Ryan returned the level gaze full measure. “You’re the man with all the answers.”

Burroughs didn’t reply.

“Got one question for you, though.” Ryan kept his voice loud enough so that only J.B. and Burroughs could hear. “You given any thought to how you’re going to get back to that wag before me or one of mine put a bullet through your head?”

MILDRED RAN, trying to follow Jak in the darkness. The albino teen had dropped his torch, as well. Her hip bumped painfully against a workstation, sending a computer crashing to the floor.

The computer shattered when it struck the hard surface. White-hot sparks of electricity peppered the darkness. Bullets cut through her former position, striking the metallic shells of other computers and the tables in rapid succession. Some of them were purple tracers, flashing by in a blur.

A hand plucked at Mildred’s sleeve. She whirled, bringing up the .38.

“Me,” Jak said in a harsh whisper. “Find door. Follow.”

“I can’t see a thing.”

“Follow wind, then.” Jak kept pulling at her, not hesitating in the slightest.

“Where are they, dammit?” a voice bellowed above them.

“I’m tracking them,” another man answered. “Goddamn thermal imager’s all fucked up from the torches they were carrying.”

Mildred’s mind was screaming at her, demanding to know who the people were who were trying to kill them, and where they’d come from. She was certain they hadn’t entered through the door she and Jak had used. She kept the questions to herself, following Jak’s lead as best she could. Now that her senses were searching for it, she could feel the breeze moving through the room.

“Down,” Jak urged, tugging her into position beside an overturned computer table.

The gunfire around them had almost abated, but was replaced by the noise of men hurrying, shoving through furniture with careless abandon behind them. Mildred hunkered down as Jak had requested, knowing the albino teenager would stick and wouldn’t leave her there. She blinked her eyes rapidly, willing her night vision to register.

Flashlights, honest-to-God hand-held units that had to run off battery power, threw beams across the interior of the computer center. Mildred marveled at their presence. Only a few years ago by her personal clock, things like batteries were taken for granted, necessary nuisances available in every convenience store. In the Deathlands, though, they were seldom seen. For someone to be using them so readily meant their pursuers had a stockpile of them or had the technology to construct their own.

Neither theory left her feeling comfortable.

“Split up,” the first voice commanded. “Two-man units. Don’t try to apprehend them yourselves. Call for backup.”

The orders and the man’s tone indicated a military or law-enforcement background that Mildred was familiar with from her previous life.

“We don’t find and neutralize these bastards, Burroughs is going to have our asses in a sling.”

Mildred recognized the name from the journal entries. A flashlight beam whipped over the table above her and drove her further into hiding. Perspiration dripped down her face, soaking into the collar at her neck. For just a moment it highlighted Jak as he stole up behind a man closing on Mildred’s position. His face was grim and unforgiving, and he held one of his leaf-bladed knives in a fist.

“Clancy!” a man yelled from the direction the flashlight had come. The light tracked back.

This time the view was of the man dumbly looking down at the gouts of blood staining his uniform blouse from his slashed throat. Jak was already in motion.

“There, goddammit! Somebody take that fucker out!”

Mildred stood up from the table, the Czech pistol in a two-handed grip. As soon as the blade along the barrel leveled with her target, she snapped off three rounds.