“Must’ve had a lot of crips,” Dean said.
“Not very PC to say that,” Mildred chided. “Politically correct, Dean. ‘Crips’ is not a good word for people who are disabled in some way.”
“But everyone calls them crips, Mildred.” The boy shrugged.
“And everyone once called black people like me ‘niggers,’ Dean. Saying it doesn’t make it right.”
The anger was cold and unmistakable, making the boy drop his head and mumble an apology.
“ANOTHER DOOR,” Ryan reported to the others as they reached the top of the winding ramp.
“This should be the level with the main entrance,” J.B. said. “And even I can smell that meat roasting.”
“Buffalo,” Jak suggested.
Krysty laughed. “Now you’re bluffing us, Jak. Granted it’s meat, but it could be snake or gator or possum.”
“Buffalo,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Soon find out,” Ryan said on the wide landing in front of the sec door. “Got to be real close to us.”
The simple push bar worked smoothly, and Ryan inched the door open.
Now the cooking smell was almost overwhelming, and he found himself salivating so hard with anticipation of food that he spit on the floor.
“Here we go,” he said. “Soon as the door opens, we all fan out on both sides and keep on triple red. Can’t see anyone through the crack. Some smoke wreathing by.”
“I’ll set the sec lock in case it slams shut on us,” J.B. said.
Ryan nodded. “Right!”
He pushed the door open and erupted into a wide, open area, with a ceiling at least forty feet above. Ryan moved right and flattened himself against the wall, while the others poured out, blasters ready.
A heavy pall of cooking smoke billowed a few yards in front of them.
A disembodied voice came from behind the smoke.
“Who de fuck’re you?”
Chapter Six
Ryan had drawn an instant bead on the voice, homing in on it toward the right of the mushrooming cloud of smoke. He held his fire for a moment.
“Who de fuck’re you?”
The owner of the voice had silently moved several paces to his right. Ryan adjusted his aim, his friends doing the same thing.
Then, bewilderingly, the same voice came from two different places at once.
“Who de fuck’re you?”
J.B. gestured with the Uzi, indicating that he could put it on full-auto and spray the whole area behind the dense white smoke.
Ryan shook his head, pointing for everyone to spread out a little more on both sides.
The smoke billowed around, rising in wraiths toward the high ceiling of the redoubt. From the design of that section of the complex, Ryan guessed that they were standing in the main entrance area, with the huge sec doors hidden somewhere beyond the cooking fire.
“Hear you. Gonna come get yer.”
This time the voice was to the left.
“Guards of the Redoubt warn you to fuck off out of here, right now.”
Ryan glanced at J.B. and held up two fingers of his left hand. Though the voices were identical to an uncanny degree, it was obvious now that there were at least two men behind the screen of smoke.
Since they hadn’t yet opened fire, it was a fair bet that they weren’t going to. A man who came to talk did some talking. A man who came to shoot did some shooting.
Well, that was what the Trader used to say.
“We don’t mean harm,” Ryan called.
He glimpsed someone moving and heard shuffling feet. This time both voices spoke from close together, in perfect unison, like a simultaneous echo.
“How do we know that, outlanders?”
“Because I don’t tell lies. That meat smells real good, and we haven’t eaten for a spell. Mind if we join you?”
There was a long pause, as though Ryan’s words had to be translated before they made sense.
“Join us?”
“Sure. Why don’t you show yourselves, and you can see us and we all know that there’s not going to be any blasting.”
“We could fuckin’ blast you clean off Deathlands.”
“Sure you could. But we don’t want to play the game of who’s got the biggest and strongest.”
A giggle came from the smoke barrier. “Bet we got fuckin’ biggest and strongest blasters.”