James Axler – Zero City

“Excuse me, Baron,” Leonard said from the doorway. “Important news.”

“Report,” the baron ordered, gently turning a leaf to inspect the underside for any signs of infestation. “Will you look here? That old book we found was correct. Mixing cigarette tobacco and soapy water completely killed those aphids. How clever the ancient gardeners were.”

The teenager stepped closer. “We have been invaded.”

Retrieving shears from a wicker basket of implements, the baron snipped off a ripe tomato and placed it reverently in a cushion of clean cloth. A special treat for his own dinner this night.

“I do not hear blasterfire in the streets,” he said calmly, noticing a meal worm on the stalk. Savagely, he crushed the insect, then wiped his fingers in the rich dark loam beneath the plants. Waste not, want not.

“We found the jolt dealers in the ruins,” Leonard said hurriedly. “The muties got them.”

The baron tilted his head in thought. The air of the greenhouse was rich, almost pungent with the smell of life itself. “Good. Some of our most recent arrivals had warned us of their coming. Now the problem has been corrected. Did we get much in the way of tools and blasters?”

“No tools, but cases of autofires and a hundredweight of ammo.”

“Are you serious? This is excellent news.”

“But when the convoy arrived, the last truck, the one carrying the corpses, rammed through the barricade, killing two of our sec men and destroying the big machine gun.”

“The driver did this?” Gunther demanded, power flowing into his voice as the last gossamer traces of tranquility faded from his demeanor.

“No, sir. We found him five hundred yards down the tunnel, shot through the back. All drivers and sec men have been accounted for. Nobody is missing.”

“You are my right hand, Leonard,” the baron rumbled, his fiery hair flexing and rearranging itself about his shoulders. “There are three possibilities, so we shall start with the most obvious. The fight occurred inside the tunnel, the worst possible location for an attack, so it wasn’t a traitor. They would have waited until the trucks were in the ruins, far from our retaliation. So what does that indicate?”

“A corpse,” Leonard said.

“We think alike, son. Yes, the guards must have been lax checking the bodies again, one came awake and killed the driver. But it would take a truly exceptional man to accomplish such a task. Our drivers are chosen for their physical strength.”

“And loyalty.”

“Fear and hunger make all men loyal.”

“So where should we start looking for the corpse? Returning through the tunnel would be impossible without a wag. So he must have taken refuge within our ville.”

Gathering the basket of produce, Gunther stood towering over his adopted son. The boy’s hair was red, almost as red as his own, but it was flat and lifeless, the similarity to himself only cosmetic.

“Alert all of our sec men,” the baron commanded. “Find the intruder before nightfall.”

The words “or else” weren’t spoken, nor was it necessary. Leonard understood. Invaders were either spies, assassins or thieves. There were no other possibilities, and all were automatically sentenced to the Machine.

Gunther continued, “Check the market square. That is where he, or she, will most likely try to mingle in with the citizens.”

“Then that is where we shall capture him,” Leonard said confidently, snapping his heels.

“Exactly. And capture him alive. If this man is an advance scout, we’ll need to know the plans of the enemy.”

“Then he goes to the Machine,” Leonard stated, bowing his head.

“Eventually,” Gunther stated coldly, then he frowned. “Did he steal the blasters of the sec men?”

“No, Father, which means he has a blaster of his own.”

“And a good one. Keep a close watch on the gaudy house. Wild men with good blasters may seek the comfort of a slut where a single bullet buys them hours of pleasure. In fact, arrest all strangers who visit the house tonight. Unless I miss my guess, we’ll find our invader among the immigrants.”

IN HER OFFICE and bedroom behind the bar of the gaudy house, Madam Patrica took the canvas bag from the hunchback’s eager hands. She was suspicious of what could possibly be inside. The gimp had been only gone for a day. If there was a cache of blasters within a day’s walk, surely the baron and his army of sec men would have found it by now. They did regular sweeps through the ruins, and every inch of the ville was checked, re-checked, cataloged and indexed. That Leonard had a mind like a rat trap and remembered everything he ever saw or heard. Damn him. No cheating on your taxes with the baron’s adopted son doing the tally. Frigging bastard could even add and subtract.