“The stickies on the highway called their leader Kaa,” Krysty explained. “I heard a rumor that he used to be a pet here in the baron’s zoo.”
This last bit of news seemed to excite the scabbie. “Don’t know him by that name,” it said, “but I might know who you’re talkirT about. Never saw him myself, and neither has she, no matter what she lets on. We heard about him from the others who been here longer than us. The way the story goes, the baron used to have a patchy-colored mutie he called Three Eyes or Zit He called him that on account of he had an extra eye in the middle of his forehead. Zit’s eye opened up for the first time right here in the zoo-I heard a cannie spouting off about it once. Said he was in the next cage and the eye was as clear as glass and it cried blood. And when Zit looked through it, just trying it out, he killed four stickies on the other side of the zoo. They started shaking, their eyes bugged out and then they shit themselves and died.”
“From what I hear, nobody said nothing to Knack-erman about what that eye could do,” the scalie said.
Everybody hates Knackerman.
“Story goes that Zit had himself an inside track with the baron,” the scabbie went on. “He’d act real mean to muties whenever there were norms around, but when he was alone with his own kind he’d be different He knew lots of things because he could read. He’d tell them all about the rebellion and the Mutie War and the slave heroes. He even made them remember the heroes’ names. We all still say the names. Coupe. Marrowbone. Peltier. Balwan.”
“Zit did some bad things for the baron,” the scalie said, “chillin’ muties and all. Some say he had to do it, to stay on the baron’s good side. Others say he was a murdering, blowhard liar, that he was just using everybody to get a better deal for himself. They said he’d never come back if he left.”
“You figure he’s going to sack Willie ville with that army?” Krysty asked. “Or is he headed somewhere else?”
The scalie beamed at her. “Oh, he’s comin’ here, all right And he’s gonna do more than sack the place. He’s gonna set all his people free. No more torture. No more starvin*. No more gettin’ worked to death. Our babies are gonna be born free!”
“He’s gonna get blasters to those that can handle them,” the scabbie said. “Then we’re gonna take Deathlands from the norms. Nobody in this damn zoo and nobody in the fields has a drip of sympathy for them. If Zit or Kaa, or whatever he calls himself now,
us the chance, we’ll show them norms what the
eiiww. tiL**œAp feels like.” With that, the mutants moved to the opposite sides of their cells and spread the word through the bars. In a matter of minutes, the zoo was rocking with cheers and shouts.
THE SUDDEN SURGE of noise roused Jak from a deep sleep. Eyes still shut, he drowsily stretched his arms. Something wet, hot and scratchy slapped the side of bis face.
Meat breath gusted over him.
Jak looked into the face of his cell mate. The mutie mountain lion’s eyes were slitted with pleasure as it washed his cheek with its bristling tongue.
“Stop,” the teenager cried, trying to hold the beast at arm’s length.
“First it cleans you, then it eats you/* a swampie shouted gleefully from the next cell.
The mutie lion whirled away froni Jak, throwing itself at the bars. The startled swampie jumped back so hard that it crashed into the opposite wall. The swampie was a little gnomclike creature, dressed in a ragged scrap of an overcoat and gum boots. It had the typical feral teeth and wide nose of its subspecies. Swampies weren’t big, but they were a sneaky bunch and mean.
Jak steeled himself for another attack from the lion.
When the beast looked back at him, it got that happy expression on its face again. Its tongue lolled out, and its eyes narrowed to slits. Jak noticed that it had some