Trader had told him about them.
“Better, thanks, Finn.”
On either side, rows of cases were stacked one above the other. He knew that J.
B. Dix had a few precious booklets and pages torn from mags that showed some
blasters from before the Chill. Now those blasters were in front of him and he
read the names on the cards.
“Colt. Remington. Walker. Sharps, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, Le Mat, Luger,
Catling, Maxim, Walther, Browning, Kalashnikov, Thompson, Mannlicher,
Schmeisser, Uzi, Mauser, T6-karev, Webley, Deringer and Deringer, Tranter.” His
voice faded in wonder at this staggering array of arms. “J.B. could stay here
all his days, Krysty. This is what his life is all about. Blasters in all shapes
and sizes. Look at ’em. Just look.”
He never even noticed the tiny vid camera hidden in the shadows near the
ceiling, its tiny lens darting from side to side, following the movements of the
group.
Just as they’d raided the clothes stores, so everyone took their pickings from
the section of the museum beyond the arch, where there were rows and rows of
greased and oiled blasters in all sizes and shapes and calibers; grenades and
bombs and mines and rockets; bayonets and gren launchers; strangling wires and
bazookas; machine guns and poison pistols.
Hunaker replaced the broad-bladed dagger that she’d broken fighting the Sioux in
the Darks; barely a week earlier, it seemed like a dozen lifetimes. On J.B.’s
recommendation, she took a 9 mm Ingram submachine gun that pared everything down
to the minimum. Despite its small size, the light bolt action gave it a
staggering rate of fire close to fifteen hundred rounds per minute. The card
said it was the model 12. She also took a supply of the stick mags.
Okie kept her M-16A1 carbine with the collapsed stock, adding to it an IMI
Mini-Uzi submachine gun. It weighed just over six pounds and was less than
fifteen inches in length.
Krysty liked the clean, silvered finish on a Heckler & Koch P-7A 13 pistol,
which fired a 9 mm bullet out of a thirteen-round magazine. Because of the large
number of rounds it held, there was a special insulating block in front of the
trigger to absorb heat from the gas that retarded the slide opening. J.B. nodded
his approval of her choice.
Finnegan and Hennings both went for the fifteen-round model 92 Beretta pistol
with frame-mounted safety, firing a 9 mm round.
They both liked a whole rack of dull gray Heckler & Koch submachine guns with
built-in silencers and fifty-round drum magazines; they fired single, triple or
continuous bursts of 9 mm bullets. The card said it was a development of the
famous HK-54A2 model of the 1990s.
Ryan watched J.B., strolling around the rooms of new guns, hands behind his
back, lips moving as though he was silently praying. But he wasn’t. He was
simply comparing the various qualities of the blasters ranged all around him.
“Can’t do much better than what I’ve got,” he finally said, watching the others
carry armfuls of ammo down to their dormitory.
He pulled out his Steyr AUG 5.6 mm. “Nice Browning Hi-Power over there. Might
take a Mini-Uzi like Okie got. Useful if we meet a mess of muties. And a new
knife or two. Mebbe stock up on grens, huh?”
There was a polite cough from behind. The men spun, each dropping instinctively
into a fighter’s crouch.
“My apologies, gentlemen, if I caused a shimmer of nervousness to trickle
through your bodies.”
“Just fuck off, Doc,” said J.B., relaxing, pushing back the brim of his crumpled
fedora, fumbling in his pocket for one of his favored cheroots.
“I have taken the liberty of arming myself, if you have no objection, so I can
be less of a weight for you to bear on our little jaunts.”
“Jaunts?” exclaimed Ryan. “What kind a blasters you got?”
“An uncle of mine, a dear, sweet man, once owned a handgun of some rarity. A
weapon for the connoisseur. Also, in the right hands, one to blast off the balls
of a demented stickie, if I may be excused a lapse into the vernacular.”
“You may, Doc. You fuckin’ may,” said Ryan, smiling.