“So which ville do we head for?” Krysty asked. There were two on the map, equidistant from the diner.
“This one looks the better bet,” J.B. said, pointing to a ville that was marked but wasn’t named. From the scrawled lines, it looked as though the city was below ground, using the network of surviving tunnels and sewers that had proliferated before skydark.
“It’s certainly where whoever owns this map comes from,” Ryan mused, “and it looks like whoever they are is part of what’s left of the Illuminated Ones.”
He indicated the map. Around the edges were scrawled numerous slogans and words: “Kallisti = Kaos;”
“The future lies in the hands of the hidden past;”
“Dreams are reality;”
“The sun people are the shining ones.”
“If the ‘sun people’ are illuminated by that sun, then I suspect that may be right.” Doc sighed. “Why do these philosophies always seek to be self-aggrandizing?”
Dean gave him a puzzled stare. “Doc, sometimes I wish you made more sense. But mebbe you can tell us what this ville means.” He stabbed a finger at the other marked ville on the map—Samtvogel.
“That’s not English, is it,” Ryan stated rather than asked. Unlike most dwellers of the Deathlands, Ryan was at least aware that there were other lands outside of his own, and that there were other tongues.
“German,” Mildred replied before Doc. “It means—”
“Velvet bird,” Doc finished for her. “A most curious name…and with a most sinister edge.”
“It certainly doesn’t feel right,” Krysty said, her hair weaving about her. “I’d opt for the underground ville any day. Doc’s right, there’s just something…” She tailed off.
“No ville’s an easy option,” J.B. said quietly. “Always trouble around every bend.”
“Which is exactly why we should follow our gut instincts,” Ryan said decisively. “We’ll head for the ville that seems to be old Seattle.”
THE NIGHT’S REST in the diner had restored their energy, and although it was disappointingly bereft of any food, it was still good to eat from a proper table, even if it was only self-heats. They spent some time checking their supplies and cleaning their blasters, then hit the blacktop, heading farther east for the outskirts of the ruins of Seattle.
A breeze blew across the arid plain, breaking the heat from the sun that beat down from a now cloudless sky. The blue was tinged with a pale orange glow, the remnants of the chem clouds that carried the acid rain.
It was good weather for such a trek: not too hot, but neither numbing with cold. The rain, hopefully, would stay away. It would take a sudden increase in the speed and intensity of the wind to bring chem clouds scudding from beyond the horizon, but there was no such thing in the Deathlands as even or predictable weather conditions.
JAK SLOWED, a frown crossing his scarred features.
“Hear that?”
Ryan turned from his position at the head of the line. “I hear nothing…yet. What is it?”
Jak concentrated. “Wag. Going fast.”
J.B. looked around. “Dark night, we’re sitting targets here.”
Ryan looked around them. The Armorer was right. They were on the asphalt ribbon that stretched to the horizon in either direction. The hill from which they had descended was like an anthill in the distance behind them, and there was little around except sparse scrub and a few sickly trees, bent over and half-dead from the acid rains.
“Fireblast, where the fuck do we go?” he muttered.
As he scouted around for defensive cover, the wag came over the horizon, shimmering against the asphalt and seeming to hover above it as it careered toward them, the sun behind it making them squint against the glare to follow the wag’s progress.
The nearest cover was a small stand of scrub bushes 150 yards to their left. A smaller group grew to the right.
“Split into two, divide their fire,” Ryan snapped. “J.B., you take Mildred and Dean and that patch-—” he indicated the smaller crop, “—Krysty, Doc, Jak, over here…” With that he took off for the sparse cover, knowing that J.B. would already be halfway to his own patch.
The one-eyed warrior knew that he could trust J.B. to follow tactics close to his own. They had learned together under Trader, and knew the only way to handle a situation like this. Perhaps, if they were lucky, whoever was in the wag would pass by without stopping. There was no way they could actually have been missed, standing out against the empty road, or maybe the driver of the wag and his passengers would be friendly.