“Same as before?” Mildred asked quietly as they reached the doorway. Jak gave her a brief nod, his stringy white hair snaking across his scarred face, red eyes glinting through, before disappearing through the doorway as Mildred swung around to provide cover with her ZKR.
They repeated the same procedure and found this building also empty.
“If planting plas-ex, then in Ryan’s place,” Jak commented as they exited the blockhouse.
BACK AT THE SYSTEM of pipes that traveled the distance between the well and the refinery, Ryan, Krysty and Doc were dividing up the territory. It wasn’t easy, as the pipes took in both the well and refinery areas, and also the storage tanks for the final product, which stood some distance apart. There was nowhere to hide within them, as they weren’t housed in buildings, standing open in the sun. But they could provide cover for anyone who wanted to stand surveillance on whoever may come along the pipe system. So the open nature of the ground left Ryan, Krysty and Doc with a problem—recce it without being an open target. The only good thing was that, by the same token, anyone who may be opposing them would have the same problem.
“Doc, you take the route from the outbuildings to the tanks,” Ryan said as he sized up the problem, and the trio stood by the wag. As he spoke, the one-eyed man used his SIG-Sauer to indicate the nearest set of buildings, which were just about to be scoured by J.B. and Dean. Doc nodded briefly at that, understanding that Ryan had given him the nearest point to begin as he was the least swift of them.
Ryan switched the point of the SIG-Sauer barrel to the far buildings, and indicated the point where Jak and Mildred were about to enter their recce position. “Krysty, you take the pipe system from that point. We work our way toward the tanks. I’ll take it from there,” he continued, indicating a third position out to the farthest side from the refinery buildings, where the pipes came from the derrick. It was the greatest distance, and also the most open.
“Okay, lover,” Krysty said softly, “we meet at the storage tanks, and stay calm. In that tangle of metal we don’t want to make any mistakes, right?”
“Yeah, that would be kind of embarrassing, at the very least,” Ryan said with the hint of a smile. “One more thing—let’s just try and hold back on the blasterfire unless necessary. These pipes’ll ricochet, and I don’t think Baron Silas here will thank us for ripping holes in his system when that’s what we’re supposed to be stopping.”
He looked over at the baron, who, with his sec man, was standing against the wag, allowing the one-eyed man to take control. Just as though it were a test, which, in a sense, it was. Their first real test for Baron Silas Hunter.
Ryan glanced back to Doc, who was cradling his LeMat percussion pistol ruefully. “I shall endeavor, my dear Ryan, to refrain—if necessary, then I shall use the ball alone,” Doc said. “After all, the shot would cause more damage—although that is, of course, its primary intent.”
“Fair point,” Ryan said. “Just stay triple alert, triple red, and keep moving as fast as possible, just in case there are any fuckers hiding among all that metal.”
The trio parted to begin their search.
Doc moved toward the nearest buildings, half running to conserve energy under the hot sun but also keep up speed. He could hear the movement of Dean and J.B. within the building, but as attuned as they all were to the sounds of one another, he could tell that they had so far found nothing, and so could devote all of his attention to traversing the pipes.
The metal was dull and dusty, but still acted as a conductor to the heat, and as soon as Doc moved into the snaking maze of pipes, he could tell that the heat had increased. It was an oppressive, dull and heavy heat that seemed to weigh down upon his brow, making him sweat harder and forcing a band of pressure around his forehead, making his skull ache and his eyes seem heavy and unfocused.