“1\vo moons over Willie ville,” Doc muttered, squinting against the sun’s glare.
“Get your drawers up quick, Cawdor, or I’m going to put a brand-new hole in your behind,” Murchisson said.
Ryan turned as he lifted his sopping-wet pants, keeping the shackled leg out of the sec man’s view.
“All right,” Murchisson said to the others, “get over here where I can get some water on you.”
J.B. started to take his shirt off as soon as he was hit by the spray, but Murchisson stopped him. “Naw, you three don’t need no deep cleaning. You’re not going nowhere near any norm folk. You’re going to be chained up with the slaves in the fields. The muties don’t care how bad you smell.”
Murchisson hosed J.B. down from head to foot, splashing the water right on the shackle.
Ryan could almost see the light bulb go on over his head.
“Wait a minute!” Murchisson said. “Keep the blasters on them boys. Something isn’t right.”
The head sec man ducked down and looked at the shackle. “What’s this here? An ankle cuff with no chain? Who put that on you?”
J.B. didn’t answer.
Murchisson took it off his ankle and held the tab end up to the light. “Man, you could almost shave with that edge,” he said.
“One-eye’s got one, too, Murch,” another sec man said. “Good thing you caught them, boss, or we’d be cranking up the elevator, too.”
“What were you going to do with these?” the sec chief asked after Ryan, too, had been disarmed. “Cut somebody’s throat?”
“Mebbe.”
“Should of cut your own last night, Cawdor,” Murchisson told him. “You made a big mistake there.
Elijah’s got special plans for you. Says he’s going to make history with your chilling.”
GILL AND HYLANDER STARED through the glassless front window of the semitractor cab. The view from the berm blasterport was due south, down the empty six-lane highway. Nothing moved on the valley floor or on the hillsides. The sky was clear and blue, the sun hot. There was no wind to speak of.
“What’re you two so worried about?” asked the sec man standing behind them. “Aren’t no stickies out there.” He paused for effect, then added, “Of course, they could be just over that far rise.”
“Why don’t you stuff a rag in it?” Hylander said, getting up in the guy’s face.
“Come on, Pedro,” Gill said, taking hold of his shoulder. “Let’s get going. It stinks in here.”
He and Hylander hopped down from the cab to the tarmac and checked their weapons. They each carried a Beretta Model 12-S 9 mm machine pistol. The 12-S looked like a five-dollar caulking gun with a pistol foregrip and a 32-round stick mag jammed underneath. The classiest parts of the blasters were the black web nylon shoulder slings, and they had seen better days.
“At least we got a fighting chance,” Gill said to Hylander as they shouldered their packs and walked away from the berm. “That’s a hell of a lot more than poor old Lester.”
“Did you see the look on his face?” Hylander said. “Man! He was sorely tore up.”
“Not half so bad as he’s going to be by tomorrow. And that’s okay with me. It’s that stupe’s fault that all our butts are on the line.”
“Yeah, he should’ve caught that old-timer’s rad-blasted swordstick.”
They started moving at a leisurely pace, testing the waters, so to speak. If there were stickies around, it figured that they’d be lying in close to Willie ville. Gill and Hylander could see a long way off, better than two miles, and that was how they liked it. After they’d traveled a mile or so, they stopped to recce the terrain. Standing on the concrete center divider, they scanned all around, and saw no sign of one stickie, let alone five thousand.
“Looks good to me,” Hylander said, wiping the sweat from under his mustache with the side of his finger.
“One thing’s worrying me, though,” Gill stated.
“What’s that?”
“Wasn’t any traffic on the road yesterday, except for One-eye. And there hasn’t been any this morning, either.”
“It happens like that sometimes. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”