James Axler – Zero City

Unexpectedly, twin rods of light erupted from the ruins, the beams steadily sweeping across the sky, casting lucent circles on the bottoms of the cloud banks overhead.

“Searchlights,” Mildred breathed, amazed. “I’ll be damned.”

“Mebbe just machines,” Ryan said thoughtfully. “Comps still trying to fight a war over for centuries.”

J.B. checked his chron. “Too irregular,” he said, winding the timepiece and returning it to his pocket. “Those are hand operated.”

“People,” Jak stated with a smile. “Folks gotta eat.”

“And we have goods to trade,” Krysty said confidently. “I would guess it’s about a three-, four-day walk from here.”

“Only be a few hours in the Hummer,” Dean offered hopefully.

J.B. rubbed the back of his neck. “It is fixable.”

“Sounds good,” Ryan said, hitching up his belt, a finger feeling the new hole in the strap to make it smaller. “We’ll rest up tonight and leave at first light.”

“It is odd, though,” Krysty remarked thoughtfully. “Why would anybody advertise their presence these days? Likely to get you attacked.”

“Could be throwbacks,” Mildred suggested. “Savages still doing a job their great-great-great-grandfathers were supposed to. And now it’s a religion to them.”

“Or slaver trying to lure in fresh merchandise.” Doc scowled. “Great Scott, what a disagreeable notion.”

“Cannibals,” Jak added, a knife appearing in his hands as if from nowhere. The teenager flipped the blade and tucked it away again.

So many questions, with only one way to get any answers. Ryan turned away from the city. “We’ll find out in the morning. Come on, we have work to do.”

Chapter Three

On the far side of the dead river, the darkness descended upon the large ville, sealing them in for the night like the lid on an iron pot. Bobbing points of light came from the dozens of bright lanterns held by the sec men patrolling the outer wall, the lamps giving off an odd bluish light from the burning alcohol-soaked wicks. A stationary series of crackling pitch torches dotted the repaired main streets and the baron’s huge mansion.

Closing the wooden shutters on the glassless windows, the blacksmith shut down her forges, letting them cool for the night. The glassmakers did the same, but banked their kiln to keep it warm until the following day. The prisoners assigned to sewer digging were unwrapping the rags from their hands used in lieu of gloves and washing the stinking grime of their toils off tired bodies.

Behind a barricade of pungi sticks and barbed wire, the shine gang ate its dinner and tossed lumps of black coal into the dull reddish fire underneath the huge distillation vat of the still. From the top, the coils of copper angled downward, leading to rows of painfully clean metal barrels waiting to be filled with alcohol for the next day—juice for the vehicles and fuel for the lanterns. And the dreaded Machine.

Murmuring voices came from the patched houses of the full citizens, joining soft conversation from the patched tents of the immigrants yet to be rewarded by full status. The crack of a whip sounded from a three-story building secreted among the ruins yet to be reclaimed by the workers. Downtown, happy laughter sallied as a family celebrated the birth of a child. A singing drunk fell to the ground in front of some sec men, who stepped over the man and kept walking. A husband and wife were screaming at each other, with the neighbors listening for any good details. And faint tinkling music drifted out from the well-illuminated gaudy house set prestigiously between the market square and the barracks of the sec men.

But from one tiny oasis came an endless barrage of cursing and grunting. A partially built greenhouse towered above the streets, the framework roof draped in folds of protective canvas.

Straining from the load in their grips, the two men shuffled away from a huge rock pile, their bare hands desperately clutching a tremendous granite slab.

“Easy, dammit, Felix,” the tall man cursed. “Not so fast. Nearly tripped me!”

“Blow it out your ass, Ben,” the other retorted. “This thing weighs a ton!”

“Do we have to finish this now?”

“The sec men says we don’t get fed till this wall is up,” Felix grunted, the smell of dinner a tantalizing torment in the air. He tried not to think about baked potatoes smothered in fried onions with all the mushroom soup he could eat, and failed miserably. The baron may beat a person at a whim here, but a person was fed! “First thing they taught me when I arrived here, no work means no food.”