“We aren’t going to be the only ones thinking like that,” Mildred warned.
“Kind of planned on that,” Ryan said, breaking into a ground-eating stride. “Some of the other groups will think of it eventually. Be best mebbe if we were already set up and waiting for them. I don’t think any of the Five Barons have made any converts tonight. Could be we can offer to let them throw in their lot with us. The Mirage is close to the wall on that side.”
“Mebbe,” J.B. said. “Even if we made a way across the wall, chilled our way through the sec men keeping watch there, we’d still have to find a wag and get enough of a head start on the barons that they couldn’t catch us.”
“I know.” Ryan nodded. “But Trader always said no matter how many beers you drink”
“you can only take one piss at a time,” the Armorer finished.
Mentally Ryan plotted a course toward the Mirage that would take advantage of as much cover along the way as possible.
A FEATHERY WARNING brushed the back of Krysty’s skull. She halted, Doc and Bernsen just behind her, ducking in the jagged crack they were using to creep up on the Las Vegas Convention Center. Her hand stayed tight around her .38 as she scanned the uneven terrain for any sign of Jak or whatever had tripped her psychic alert.
Jak had been less than twenty yards in front of them, but he’d disappeared as quick and traceless as morning mist getting hit by full sunlight.
Thirty yards away the convention center looked as if it had been through a war. Bullets and rockets from past encounters had left scars and gouges on the cracked exterior. If any of the windows had survived intact, Krysty wasn’t able to see them.
The thing that made the convention center attractive was its proximity to the eastern wall surrounding the sunken center of the ville. She’d already spotted the men making the rounds on top of the wall, armed with blasters. The sounds of battle and dying, the crash of weapons and the growls of beasts, the smell of foliage thick and sweet with blossoms and otherworldly scents filled her physical senses.
Boots crunched on the rocky terrain only a few yards away.
Freezing into position, knowing sudden movement caught a person’s peripheral vision faster than anything, Krysty waited, barely breathing. She saw the sec guard only a few heartbeats later, then he was gone, and the feathery touch inside her head disappeared with him.
She let out a tense breath, surveying the grounds in front of their position again. Three wags were parked near the entranceway to the convention center. She guessed that some of the sec men on top of the wall had driven over, then went up stairs on the inside.
Looking back over her shoulder, she waved on Doc and Bernsen. From the repeated scans she’d made of the sec men on the wall, their interest was primarily on what was going on in the pit.
Jak rose up out of the darkness by the first wag as Krysty reached it. Tense and nervous, she put the .38 on him before he realized who it was. Her finger had taken up the trigger slack.
“Me,” the teenager said. “Was inside for a bit.”
“What’s it look like in there?” Krysty asked.
“Empty,” Jak answered, coming closer and speaking in a whisper. “Most sec watching pit.”
“Is there a way to get to the top?”
Jak nodded. “Way to get to top. Way underneath, too.”
“Underneath?”
“Yeah. Place to park wags. Lots of dead wags already there.”
“We’ll take a look,” Krysty said. “See what we have to work with. Let’s check the wags out here first.”
They split up. Doc and Bernsen went through one of them while Krysty and Jak took the other two. All of them held ammo and assault rifles, supplies and spare jerricans of fuel.
Jak’s wag turned out to have something extra tucked away in a large red toolbox. “Krysty.”
She crossed over to him, watching him drop the toolbox on the ground. Someone had put a lock on it, but the youth had gotten rid of it by simply slicing through the plastic grooves. When he opened it, she saw small grease-paper-wrapped blocks placed neatly inside.