“Could be. Means heading right into the heart of the chem storm.”
“Can’t outrun it, anyway.”
“True. Least the rain’ll clean the wag up some. Let’s go. I’m driving.”
Chapter Twenty
“Think this is God trying to send us a message, Ryan?” The tinny voice of the Armorer crackled faintly in his ears through the intercom.
“How’s that?”
“He’s decided that He doesn’t want us to go to this meet with Trader.”
The rain pounding on the outside of the LAV-25 was deafening, the thunder from the heart of the chem storm a constant sullen threnody.
Ryan laughed. “You mean that if He’s all-powerful, then how come He doesn’t come and tell us outright? A letter written in the dirt by some infinite and eternal moving finger.”
“Right. ‘Dear Ryan and J.B., don’t go to meet Trader. Lots of love and all good things, God.’ That kind of message. Why doesn’t He do that?”
“Instead of double-crazy women and lions and stampeding buffalo and now the grandfather of all bastard chem storms? Give us a straight-out message.”
They’d managed to get across the slender strip of open ground, where a flash flood could’ve done them some serious harm. Ryan peered through the ob slit, under the darkening sky, picking a path toward the trail that wound up the flank of the mountain ahead of them.
Just before the rain hit, Ryan checked the condition of the pavement ahead, seeing the marks of wheeled vehicles on it. He warned J.B. that there might be some kind of human habitation farther up the trail. But the weather washed out all thoughts of that, the storm so powerful that Ryan had to close all of the vents and ob slits on the wag.
EVEN WITH ALL the precautions, the air inside the LAV began to taste damp.
“Acid,” J.B. commented, having removed the cans now that the engine was turned off.
“Yeah.” Ryan nodded, aware of the futility of the gesture in total darkness. The Armorer was correct. There was the unmistakable taint of acid rain, a bitter, nitrous flavor, unlike anything else in Deathlands.
It was overlaid by the flat odor of ozone, from the electricity that cracked and hissed outside.
There was no serious threat to either of the men, as long as they stayed snug inside the armawag. The large wheels, with their rubber-compound tires, would keep them safely earthed. Even so, Ryan was aware of the short hairs on his arms, and his nape, prickling with static.
“Rad counter’s showing yellow,” J.B. said.
Ryan glanced down at the tiny instrument in his lapel, seeing that the usual green glow had been replaced by a pale golden light, an indication that the acid water that was vomiting out of the heart of the vicious chem storm had been contaminated from one of the skydark rad spots.
The thunder seemed a little fainter, the pounding of the rain slightly less hard.
“Passing?” Ryan asked.
“Guess so.”
THEY BOTH TOOK the chance to get some fresh air. The last few leaden spots of rain were still dripping off the overhanging branches of the larches that lined the road on the right. To the left was the misty expanse of the valley, the trampled turf streaming with a river, two feet deep.
“Wonder if God has any more of his cryptic messages waiting for us,” Ryan said. In the aftermath of the chem storm, the temperature had dropped by twenty degrees and his breath feathered out in front of him.
J.B. was on the brink of the drop, looking down. “That was one bastard of a storm, Ryan. Reckon we were lucky to make it through the last couple of hours.”
“Trader used to say that a man who claimed to be lucky was one of two things.”
The Armorer turned to him, smiling. “Right. Said he was either triple stupe or he really was lucky.”
Once back inside, J.B. took over driving, while Ryan sat perched on damp top of the big wag, locking his feet on the rungs of the steel ladder to hold himself steady. The Steyr SSG-70 rifle was within easy reach, in case the tracks he’d spotted earlier turned into real trouble.