Clarissa put her hand on Jak’s arm. “No, we need him alive.”
“Why?”
“My sister and the others are chained to the dungeon wall. We’ll need keys to unlock and set them free.”
Jak nodded, then reached inside his coat for one of the leaf-bladed throwing knifes he kept hidden on his person. He balanced the knife in his throwing hand, mentally counted to three, then rolled past the corner into the hallway and came up onto his knees to make the throw. The knife sailed straight and true, catching the sec man in the right bicep and involuntarily forcing open his right hand. The blaster fell to the floor with a heavy clang, and Jak got to his feet, his huge Colt Python leveled at the sec man’s chest.
The sec man grabbed at his wounded arm with his left hand and tried to kneel to pick up his longblaster.
“No,” Jak said.
“Give us the keys for the dungeon,” Clarissa yelled as she came up behind Jak, “and he won’t chill you.”
“Fuck you, you snow-headed mutie freak!”
Jak squeezed the trigger and blew off part of the sec man’s right foot.
“Where are the keys?” Clarissa demanded.
The sec man was too busy writhing on the floor and screaming in pain to answer.
Jak pushed the barrel of the Python against the man’s genitals.
“Tell me where the keys are,” Clarissa said softly.
The sec man stared at Jak’s big blaster in horror. “There’s a master key in my right pocket.” He fished inside his pants with a trembling hand and produced a key on a Lucite fob that had a picture of the falls on it in all its predark glory.
Clarissa took the key from him. “Thanks.”
Jak raised the Python to the sec man’s head. “Lose lot blood,” he said to Clarissa. “Die anyway.”
She nodded.
Jak looked at the sec man. “Not mutie.”
Then he pulled the trigger.
RYAN AND MILDRED were back outside the front doors to the main building looking for Krysty and her captor.
The courtyard was in shambles and utter chaos. The bloody remains of several sec men were strewed across the ground, several of them in the very circle Ryan had fought the day before. Muties ran through the compound, eating fruit, brandishing weapons and generally making up for years of hunger and near starvation.
There were sec men still in the complex, but they all seemed to be trying to escape out the front gate, like rats jumping off a sinking ship. It was obvious to them all they’d lost the battle, and now they were just saving themselves.
“Where are we going to find Krysty in all this?” Mildred asked.
Ryan scanned the complex. “I know from experience,” he said. “There are a hundred places to hide out in.”
“She could be anywhere.”
And then Ryan saw something, a familiar flash of titian hair, and he knew that their search was over.
“You can stop looking,” Ryan said, pointing. “She’s found us. There.”
Mildred followed the line made by Ryan’s finger. “That’s the baron’s new sec chief. Name’s Fillinger.”
Fillinger stood on the roof of the main building with Krysty in front of him. Her hands were bound behind her back, and he had a large blued blaster pressed to the side of her head.
“One-eye!” the sec chief called.
Ryan looked up but said nothing.
“I got something you want.”
Ryan said nothing to the man on the roof, but just under his breath he muttered to Mildred, “He’s too far for me to try with the SIG-Sauer.”
Mildred gauged the distance, wind, the slight movements of the target and shook her head. “He’s got Krysty too close. If I’m a fraction off, she’s on the last train west.”
“I want to make a deal,” the sec chief shouted.
The last thing Ryan wanted was to make a trade or strike some deal for the lives of his friends. Trading blasters and goods for food and shelter was one thing, but trading humans for those same items was just plain wrong. But this wasn’t just any human the sec chief was holding hostage; it was Krysty. His friend and lover. He’d listen to the man’s offer, and try to figure out some other solution in the meantime. “I’m listening.”