Coasting to a stop at an intersection jammed with rusted cars and overturned buses, Dean throttled down the muffled engine and peeked around both corners. Only a block away, he spotted the machine limping down the middle of the left road, traveling between the line of dead vehicles. Retreating slightly to be less visible, Dean watched as it went past the next intersection, then took the following right turn.
Pursing his lips, the boy gave the call of a desert eagle, and the rest of the companions rolled into view with their bikes bristling with weaponry. Holding up two fingers, the boy gestured to the right, already moving after the slow machine.
Soon the others were in hot pursuit, zigzagging their bikes between the ancient cars, avoiding the potholes and open manholes. In passing, Ryan noted that the rims of the manholes weren’t ringed with rust. So somebody had been checking the sewer systems very recently. Maybe those corpses on the vista outside the metropolis weren’t the only pirates to get past the jungle apes.
Straight ahead, Dean darted into an alleyway, and Ryan followed close behind, trying to catch up with him. Increasing their own speed, the companions reached the father and son moments later just as they were going by a group of lizards tearing apart the bloody corpse of what appeared to be a large bat.
“From the sewer?” Krysty asked, swerving to the far side of the alley.
“Makes sense,” Mildred answered, keeping her blaster pointed at the reptiles. “Bats love tunnels.”
“And hate the sunlight.”
“Leave darkness food,” Jak said hesitantly, the soles of his combat boots tapping the ground to keep the slow-moving bike upright. “Or something scare out?”
“Those manhole openings are too small for a droid, or an ape,” Ryan declared, pulling the vented wand from the straps across his chest and resting the muzzle on the chrome handlebars. “But just right for people.”
Using his butane lighter, the Deathlands warrior ignited the propane preburner of the flamethrower and drove one-handed, the other supporting the wand and hose of the flamethrower.
As the motorcycles cut through the rear of a gas station, the alleyway ended on a major boulevard divided by trees on a grassy median. Checking both ways, neither Ryan nor Dean could see a sign of their prey. The road was clear for blocks in either direction, only a few scattered vehicles stalled in the street, none of them large enough to house even a single droid.
“Either it’s hiding, waiting for us to leave,” J.B. said, flexing his hands against a cramp, “or the base is somewhere close.”
“Could be there,” Dean suggested, pointing with the Browning.
Catercorner from the intersection was a large plaza, floored with colorful ceramic tiles and some weird metallic structure standing fifty feet high.
“Busted?” Jak asked, staring at the towering maze of coiled steel dotted with hundreds of tiny rectangles.
“That is the double-spiral of a DNA helix,” Mildred explained. “The basic building block of life.”
The teenager frowned. “Supposed look that?”
“Yes.”
He snorted. “Damn.”
“Blessed Mother Gaia,” Krysty said softly, her hair flaring out in response. “Look at the middle building!”
“Well, I’ll be nuked,” J.B. muttered, removing his fedora, only to replace it again. “There it is in plain sight!”
Fronting the tiled plaza were three great buildings of chrome and glass set in an equilateral formation. Alongside the faded name of each mirrored monolith was their corporate logo, just an artistic squiggle designed to be attention catching. But the logo in the middle got the full attention of the companions.
“That’s the symbol we found written in blood,” Ryan said grimly, “in the gateway when we arrived here. This is where the chilled whitecoat was trying to tell us to go.”
“Or avoid,” Krysty said warily, revving her engine. The machine shuddered once, then smoothed out again. “We were never sure which it was.”
“I’m betting on directions, not a warning,” J.B. said, studying the rooftops along the intersection and plaza for snipers.
Nervously, Mildred clenched and unclenched her hands. “Somewhere inside there is a gateway,” she said softly. “The way out.”
“No sign of any droids,” Ryan added gruffly. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not here. Waiting for us.”