His shaved head gleaming in the firelight, another man laughed. “Don’t matter. The ville is ours. They just don’t know it yet.”
“Yeah,” Wu-Lang added, finishing off the champagne. “Can’t understand it, though. He hated the place so much he risked traveling through the Deathlands solo. But when we ask for info on the defenses, he clams.”
Baldy snorted in contempt. “Dying to protect a ville you hate. Just so your old baron gets a chance to reclaim it from the new boss. Never heard of such a crazy notion.”
Reaching into a wheelbarrow placed conveniently near the campfire, Jimmy tossed in some more books and stirred the blaze with the poker. “He lasted long enough under the knife before talking.”
“Crazy don’t mean weak,” Rev stated, reaching into the canvas duffel bag lying at his boots. Finding a carton of cigarettes, he ripped it open, destroying most of the packs, the smokes tumbling to the asphalt. He chose one from the jumble, tucked it between his lips and lit it with a stick from the fire. Rev drew the smoke deep into his lungs with satisfaction. Lighting up a predark cig usually tasted like smoking a turd. These were wonderful.
“And he knew where the old baron had all this shit hidden away,” Wu-Lang continued. “I have never seen such weps before!”
“And the foods, the clothes!”
“It’s the shits,” Rev agreed, smiling as he blew a smoke ring. “The absolute shits.”
A soft whistle started to keen from a copper teakettle on the fire, and the cook deftly removed it using arc-welding gloves. They would be wanting coffee soon, and he needed the fire high to get that huge pot boiling before they whipped him for taking too long. Sure would be great when the folks at the ville were hooked on jolt and he had some slaves of his own to beat.
“Where the hell are those guys, anyhow?” Wu-Lang asked, picking his teeth clean with a dirty thumbnail. “Isn’t it time for shift change?”
“Yeah, it is,” Rev said, frowning.
“Might have found another supply of booze,” a fellow with a big mustache suggested. “And they’re testing it for quality.”
Cig dangling, Rev stood and hooked his thumbs into his gun belt. “Kick their ass if they do. This be a military op. We ain’t partying yet. And guards stand rotation.”
“If you say so,” Jimmy said, tending to his business.
“Mebbe the wolves got them.”
“Lots of them around here.” He laughed. “Or those flying muties the sec man told us about before he chilled.”
Holding aloft his rifle, Samson squealed loudly. “I got the cure for muties right here, boys!”
A slightly drunken chorus agreed with the giant wholeheartedly.
“Hate wolves,” Wu-Lang muttered, reaching out to take a cig from the loose pile on the ground. “Hate the way they taste, too.”
Rev offered the man a light from a burning stick. “Shuddup. They’re our key to the ville.” He turned his head to watch the searchlights sweep the sky. “Fighting wolves means some of them got to get hurt. Mebbe hurt bad. When we offer to sell predark drugs in exchange for protection from the wolves, the local baron will shit himself inviting us inside the wall.”
“What we gonna call the jolt this time?” Harlan asked.
“Tell them it’s painkillers.”
Samson patted a small wooden crate at his side. “Or, ah, antibiotics,” he said stumbling over the long word.
“Either way, one taste and we own them.” Wu-Lang smirked.
“Aye, it’s a good plan,” Brian agreed, giving a snaggletoothed grin. “Our best yet. Putting it into the water supply thins down the jolt too much. Some of the stronger folks don’t get hooked, and we have a fight on our hands.”
“Takes longer to cook, too.”
“Time wasted working when we could be drinking and fucking.”
A skinny fellow with a feverish expression lowered an adult magazine, the pages brittle and yellow with age. “Think of all their women. Clean women! And they got to do whatever we want or no jolt.” Harlan rubbed his crotch and resumed looking at the old pictures. “For as long as they live.”
“Or least, still warm,” Wu-Lang added.