“You okay, Mildred? You look kind of sick,” Dean said, peering at the black woman through the bars of the cell.
“Stickies are enough to make all of us feel queasy,” Ryan said.
“Stickies don’t scare me, it’s the people,” Mildred replied, running a free hand down her jacketed arm. She suddenly felt cold. “I know you’ve already been face-to-face with those chilly-crazy bastards, Ryan, but all I’ve seen running rampant so far is a horde of rioters and looters. It’s almost like they were waiting for an opportunity like this to tear the mall down from the rafters.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is, Mildred. The more people you cram together, the more trouble you invite.”
“We keep crawling back up, and knocking ourselves down again and again.”
“No keys in desk,” Jak reported.
“Not surprised. Guard usually has them on a ring on his belt,” Dean said.
“Why not tell us?” Jak demanded, slinging out a pale hand and slapping the cell bars next to Dean’s face.
“I was hoping for a spare set, stupe,” Dean said. “Got to be a second set of keys somewhere in case the first set gets lost.”
“Well, guess we’ll have to blast,” Ryan said. “We sure as shit don’t have time to wait for the sec man on duty to come back with the keys.”
While the rest of the group had been talking, J.B. had also returned from the desk search. He bent down for a closer look at the sec lock on the cell door.
“Oh-oh,” J.B. said.
“What’s ‘oh-oh’? That’s a phrase I’m not used to hearing out of you, J.B.,” Ryan demanded.
“We got a problem. This isn’t your ordinary cell-door lock. Been modified.” The Armorer pointed a finger up to a box in the corner of Dean’s cell that appeared to be some kind of ob unit. “There’s a charge in the lock mechanism,” he explained. “Don’t use the key and you break a circuit. My guess is, there’s enough high ex in that box back there to envelop the entire cell and whoever is dumb enough to be standing in front of it.”
“Meaning what?” Mildred asked.
“Like I said. Oh-oh.”
“Can’t you bypass the lock?” Ryan asked.
“Mebbe,” J.B. replied, taking off his fedora and running his fingers through his closely cropped hair. “I know how to, anyway”
“Good!”
“Just never done it before on a deal like this.”
“J.B., there’s a first time for everything.” The radio at Ryan’s waist crackled, and then an annoying squawk came out.
“Your radio’s on?” J.B. asked. “Had to turn our sets off. Sec men screaming, yelling. Couldn’t understand a damn thing.”
“Mine’s on another channel. So’s Krysty’s. Did that to escape the other racket. Jak didn’t have a unit,” Ryan replied as he took the compact box off his belt.
“Not want one,” the albino noted.
“Ryan here,” the tall man said, speaking into the comm unit.
“What’s the holdup, lover?” Krysty replied, the alarm bell ringing under her words. “Doc and I just had to shoo away an angry mall tenant who came rampaging in here. Seems his vintage-clothing depot was ransacked and he’s mad, threatening to pull his shop out and report us to the mall managers.”
“How’d you get rid of him?”
“Told him to go tell somebody who cared.”
“Good girl. We’ve hit a snag.” Ryan went on to explain the problem.
“Gaia! If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Krysty said, her voice still clear despite the static.
“J.B.’s going to crack the door. Rest of us are coming back up front with you. No sense in all of us getting caught in the middle in case something goes wrong.”
“Right. Krysty, out.”
Ryan reached in through the iron bars with his hands and arms, drawing his son close for a brief, tight hug.
“Hang tight, Dean. J.B.’s the best in Deathlands with this kind of rig. You’ll be out before you know it.”
As Ryan broke the hug and stepped back, J.B. was already sitting on the floor, his legs crossed under his body. From his leather coat he’d taken a small metal box and a stained cloth. In the cloth was a series of shiny metal tools resembling surgical weapons. The box held his lock picks.