Sixteen-year-old Jak Lauren had all the hard, bitter experience of a man twice his age. An albino, with fearsome ruby eyes and a shock of bone white hair, he favored bladed weapons over blasters, though he normally carried a .357 Magnum Colt Python. He bore scars from dozens of near fatal encounters, the least of which curved up from the corner of his mouth and across his high-planed face.
Jak had buried two sets of families during his young life—his folks back in Louisiana and his wife and infant daughter in New Mexico. He hid the tragedies behind a taciturn mask and an eerily calm, almost detached manner.
Ryan Cawdor and John Barrymore Dix had been companions for nearly two decades, since they traveled with the legendary Trader in a pair of huge war wags. The weapons dealer had been their undisputed leader and mentor, even something of a father figure to Ryan.
J.B. had served as the Trader’s armorer and gunsmith because of his knowledge and skill with weaponry. A broad-brimmed, bullet-holed fedora sat at a jaunty angle on his head, and wire-rimmed spectacles were perched on the bridge of his bony nose. His multipocketed, voluminous coat almost swallowed his short, slight frame, but it also concealed a 9 mm mini-Uzi machine pistol and a Smith & Wesson M-4000 shotgun, which fired eight rounds of razor-edged, needle-pointed flechettes. His quiet, taciturn manner was in direct counterpoint to his ability to kill efficiently, an ability learned at the knee of the unrefuted master of the art, the Trader.
The Trader had earned a considerable fortune by uncovering hidden stockpiles of weapons and fuel and using them to barter his way through Deathlands. He had been a fearsome figure in his day, a reputation he fully lived up to and enjoyed. Not too long before, after beating a case of rad cancer, he was reunited with his former lieutenants. His long illness had changed him; he was sometimes confused, sometimes irrational, but always a dangerous man to cross. Everyone had tended to tread lightly around him, but the Trader’s weathered skin had become so thin, it was anybody’s guess as to what he might choose to take offense.
He had resented that Ryan was the group’s leader, and that the younger man no longer showed him the deference he believed he was due. Though there was no denying that the grizzled veteran of Deathlands had gotten the group out of many a tight spot, he’d also gotten them into just as many, due to his temper and ego.
The last tight spot had been several months ago on the Western Islands. The Trader and Abe, the former main gunner of War Wag One, had apparently sacrificed themselves to save Ryan and the rest of the group from an enemy attack.
A few years before, Ryan would have searched high and low for the Trader and Abe, either to rescue them or avenge their deaths. J.B., though he rarely spoke of it, felt guilty about not doing so. But Ryan had new responsibilities, goals other than just drifting from one firefight to the next.
One of those responsibilities was embodied by his eleven-year-old son, Dean. The issue of a brief encounter between Ryan and a woman named Sharona, Dean was almost a miniature version of his father, with thick dark hair and bright blue eyes. The fierce warrior named Ryan Cawdor grew used to being called “Dad” and was totally devoted to the boy. A few months before, he had enrolled Dean in the Brody School in Colorado. He had only recently been reunited with him. While his son had received an education, Ryan had been more determined than ever to find a place in Deathlands where the boy could be raised in relative safety.
He had never truly believed he would find that safe place, but now a twinge of regret came to him, along with the memories of the beautiful valley of Ti-Ra’-Wa and his banishment from it, and he could see her own memories of the place reflected in Krysty’s eyes. And yet he knew they were not of that place and didn’t belong there.
The manner in which he and his companions frequently traveled was to use the gateway chambers to make mat-trans jumps. The gateways were hidden in subterranean military complexes called redoubts, which were positioned all over the continent, even in other countries.