Unfortunately, before the brawl could really get under way, Brack decided to stack the odds in his buddy’s favor by taking out the small .22-caliber handblaster that Jak had spied earlier. The younger boy had slunk to the back of the gathered group watching the fight and was now aiming the pistol at the back of Jak’s skull.
Most of the teen onlookers were viewing Jak and Dex warily circle each other, reacting verbally when’s Jak’s knife bit first, cutting a red slit across his opponent’s stomach. The blustering arcade guard was already on the horn, summoning a mall sec team to break up the fight.
The only one keenly watching Brack’s progress was Dean. The other member of the arcade-machine-hogging duo was now boldly preparing to shoot the blaster.
Dean was too far away to prevent the chilling without responding with the same kind of force about to be unleashed on his friend, so he pulled his own blaster and shot first.
The first salvo from the Browning went high, racing like a fleeing man into the screen of a colorful vid game. The bullet shattered the exterior protective shield, going into the true vid screen and entering the very guts of the amusement comp’s brain. Sparks flew, from both the point of entry and from the jury-rigged wall socket the arcade game was plugged into. Modified to handle four games on a single outlet, the aperture erupted into flames.
For an instant only the four games on the same circuit were affected. Then every piece of electronic gadgetry in the arcade was shorted out one by one, and the room plunged into near darkness.
Brack fired the .22 blindly at the same instant Dean squeezed off a second shot of his own, catching the boy in the throat. A fine red mist sprayed out from the exit wound. The bullet Brack had shot went wild, hitting the disputed Mortal Kombat game in the coin box.
Seeing in the dimness with eyes like a cat, Jak swung out an open palm and caught the second knife-wielding teen in front of him across the face once, twice. The slaps sounded like the cracks of a ringmaster’s whip. Immediately the boy’s eyes lost their mock killer sheen and started to glaze over in dismay. He started to cry and Jak pressed his attack, back-handing the boy with his knuckles for a third blow to the face.
“Drop knife,” Jak said matter-of-factly. “Or I’ll gut from balls to nose.”
The boy did so.
“Now, drop your blade, boy, or I drop you,” a new voice said.
Dean was no longer serving as Jak’s backup. As the albino turned to slowly face the speaker, he found his friend was standing with his hands in the air. A trio of Freedom Mall sec men with long blasters was waiting for Jak’s next move.
Jak opened his hand, and the knife fell to the carpeted floor.
He could see Dean being relieved of his Browning Hi-Power.
“Guess this means we lose our memberships, huh?” Dean said.
“LOOKS LIKE we’re working for you now,” Ryan said to Rollins.
All of Ryan’s inner circle, except for Dean, were standing before the seated black sec leader.
“Glad to have you on board,” Rollins replied, his face an unreadable mask. “I got the word from Mr. Morgan. I understand you two worked out a deal.”
“If you want to call it that.”
“You want sec jackets? Armor?” the leader of the security force asked.
“Not really. We’re not going to be strolling around busting local problems at gaudies or hassling cart vendors,” Ryan told him. “We’re here to help you with any stickie attacks and to mebbe assist in the training of your greener men.”
“Well, that would probably be two-thirds of my current squad.”
“How big a crew are you running, honestly?” the one-eyed man asked.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You want my help, I need to know.” Ryan gestured to the others around him. “We all do.”
Rollins stood. “Let’s talk while we move. I’ll show you the armory and the training areas.”
As the group followed the big sec man, he picked up where he’d left off in the conversation. “There are twenty full-time sec men and ten reserve. Usually we work active sec details on the exterior of the mall, and the surrounding areas in and around Freedom’s perimeter during daylight. Day exterior shifts run twelve hours, from eight in the morning to eight at night.”