Ryan gritted his teeth.
That was, if he’d still had a weapon that could reach out and touch somebody at one thousand yards.
Chapter Eight
Giggly Jane’s jungle boots made no sound as she scampered over the broken ground of outer Moonboy. What the nukecaust hadn’t swept away, human scavengers had long since torn asunder. The concrete foundation slabs of the upscale executive homes every one a 3,500-square-foot palace fit for a baronhad been painstakingly cracked and plundered for their metal pipes and wiring. The resulting rubble had been left in scattered heaps, or dumped out of the way into the craters of waterless swimming pools.
Giggly Jane and her fellow pack members moved quickly, single file, from rubble heap to rubble heap. Just ahead, beyond the last piles of concrete, shanties of all sizes spilled out from the sides of the handful of surviving buildings. Some were cozy lean-tos for one made of a single piece of corrugated steel; others were flat-roofed and big enough to sleep a dozen or more.
As they drew closer, Giggly Jane could see the rude dwellings were deserted. Though no tangles of corpses decorated then- packed dirt floors, the air hung thick with a maddening perfume of death.
Irregularly spaced, six-foot-long blotches of brownish slime stained the earth; in other places, much wider areas were discolored. From these patches rose the dizzying scent. She felt a powerful urge to throw herself down and roll on them like a dog.
The Right Reverend Gore signaled for the group to split up, then moved off to the right with the scoped longblaster. Spadecrawler and Egregious Jones continued straight on, while Giggly Jane turned left, according to plan, cutting through the empty lots until she reached the remnants of a street.
Despite what the scrounger had told them about the chill capabilities of these muties, Giggly Jane had no fear of what lay ahead. Her bravery was due partly to the wormholes the oozie protein had already bored in her infected brain, and partly to her excitement at the promise of blood and booty. She already knew what she was going to do with her share of the spoils. True to the freewheeling, gather-no-moss, cannie lifestyle, Giggly Jane planned to use every crumb of it to trade up for better blasters and bigger knives.
At the edge of the ruined street, she carefully placed her .36-caliber handblaster beside a big chunk of concrete. She wasn’t going to need the reproduction Colt to play her role in the assault. Though she was an excellent shot, her real forte was diversion, which would allow her three comrades to get into perfect position for an ambush. She shrugged out of her dress and let it fall around her boot tops. The sun blazed against her bare back, buttocks and legs. As she stepped out of the garment, her dirt-and-sweat-edged breasts swayed, and their silver nipple rings and antiqued death’s-head ornaments tinkled sweetly.
Hell’s bells.
After fishing the Tactical One-Hander knife out of a dress pocket, she concealed the serrated blade in the top of her right boot. It was the only tool she requiredGiggly Jane had never learned to eat with a fork. Naked but for the boots, she set off down the lane of asphalt sand, following its sharp curve to the right until the center of Moonboy came into view.
In the middle of the street, some three blocks away, she saw the collection of strange machines and counted five figures in black. They weren’t holding any weapons. Though their eyes weren’t visible through the smoke-colored visors, the figures appeared to be looking at her, so she stopped in the middle of the road and did an impromptu little dance. Hands held high over her head, torso wriggling, legs spread wide, Giggly Jane bubbled over with laughter as she pumped her hips enthusiastically.
Of course, her wild, erotic contortions were a total sham. She had zero interest in performing actual sex with anyone.
Ever.
Because cannie girls just wanted to have fun.
THE SUN REFLECTED OFF the nasty, lopsided patch of white scar tissue on top of Spadecrawler’s head. The damned gruesome thing looked as if it was getting bigger, Egregious Jones thought as he shadowed four steps behind, spreading like a rad cancer.