“Want one?” J.B. asked.
“No, thanks,” Ryan replied. “I know of a hundred better ways to kill myself.”
The Armorer shrugged and went back to enjoying his smoke.
J.B. was Ryan’s oldest friend. They had been brought together on the legendary Trader’s once-thriving caravan of war wags years earlier, and soon found their personalities and talents to perfectly complement each other. While Ryan was the Trader’s designated war captain, J.B. and his love of weapons made him the perfect lieutenant.
Weaponsmith, Armorer, Master Blaster, Gunsmith-he wore the designations with quiet pride and calm efficiency. A living, breathing cache of knowledge of all forms of weaponry and how they could be used most effectively, J.B. used his eidetic memory to keep himself and his companions safe and whole. His mastery of guns and their specs was invaluable to anyone attempting to traverse Death-lands.
He was still learning, but it was the rare weapon indeed he hadn’t read about or held in his own hands. Traveling with the Trader had provided him the opportunity to spend time in every backwater town and ville Deathlands had to offer, and in all of them a new blaster could be traded for or, at the very least, handed over for a closer look in exchange for his own.
Those had been days of wonder for J.B., instilling in his heart a wanderlust he’d never been able to shake. There was always something new around the corner, and even with no guarantees of it being friend or foe he wanted to see what the world had to offer for himself.
Under five foot nine, with a slim build that gave no indication of the wiry muscularity beneath his clothes, J.B. was approximately forty years old. His actual age was unknown to his friends, and even to the Armorer himself, since his family hadn’t believed in celebrating birthdays. He wore a multipocketed brown leather jacket, dark trousers that were also lined with more pockets, heavy combat boots and a battered, well-traveled fedora.
Perched on his nose was the new parr of wire- rimmed glasses, obtained back in Freedom, along with darker news concerning his deteriorating vision-news from the mall optician the Armorer had chosen to share with no one until he became a potential liability.
The doctor had called the disease glaucoma, and the current sad state of what passed for eye care in the ruin of Deathlands offered no cure or treatment. “A matter of time,” he told J.B. with a sigh. “Only a matter of time.”
When that day came, when his pale gray eyes no longer could be trusted, J.B. had already decided he would take care of cutting his own losses.
But for now, his vision was clear, even if the new frames pinched like a vise. He groaned, and removed them to temporarily relieve the aching pressure.
At a first glance, J.B. looked like a runty man, unhealthy and malnourished. His complexion was sallow and dank, and from close-up faint acne scars from his teen years could be seen on his cheeks and forehead.
In another time, J.B. Dix would have been seen as a man of no consequence.
J_x>oks could be deceiving.
The compact man was a walking arsenal, capable of massive amounts of carnage when he chose to unleash his full capacity. The obvious signs were in the mini-Uzi hung low over one shoulder, the trigger at waist level for easy use, or hi the Smith & Wesson M-4000 scattergun he carried in his left hand, an extremely deadly weapon that didn’t fire ordinary rounds, but instead held eight Remington 12-gauge cartridges, each with twenty flechettes, or even in the fighting knife sheathed at his hip. But his clothing and boots also contained a wealth of hidden equipment: fuses of varying lengths and a tight ball of plas-ex, coils of wire and packets of shiny lock picks, an invaluable folding minisextant, and spare ammo and blades.
J.B. took another puff from his concise cigar. “Yeah, I don’t come across these as often as I’d like. Nothing like a good smoke.”
“Or a good case of lung cancer,” Mildred muttered.
The woman behind J.B. was his companion and lover, Dr. Mildred Wyeth, a time traveler from the period before the nukecaust that ended the civilized world. Like the Armorer, Mildred was a prized companion. Intelligent, compassionate and an astute judge of character, she was a trained physician and former pioneer in the field of cryonics and cryogenics.