“Hate that shit, though,” one of the twins muttered.
Doc cleared his throat noisily. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, that would seem an eminently reasonable point of view. I wouldn’t be averse to chilling a few of those scum-suckers myself,” he said quietly.
“You?” One of the twins laughed, his voice rising to a screech. “Old man, you couldn’t fart your way out of a vine leaf!” He prodded at Doc with the barrel of his blaster, a dirty and grease-covered shotgun that even J.B. couldn’t recognize in its seemingly poor condition.
In relieving the party of their blasters, the sec men had been slack enough to leave Ryan his panga, J.B. his Tekna knife, and Doc his lion’s-head swordstick, making the mistake of assuming it was to aid his walking. A mistake the twin was to regret, as Doc stepped back, sweeping the big sec man’s feet from beneath him with the stick and then drawing the sword in one fluid motion, the speed of which took the sec men by surprise.
“Could I not?” Doc asked softly, the point of the sword pressing into the grounded man’s throat.
Ryan tensed, sensing the sudden increase in tension around him. The blasters of the sec men rose just a fraction, fingers almost audibly tightening their grip. Harvey’s smile vanished, to be replaced in a fraction of a second by a roaring laugh.
“I’ll be damned,” he roared. “Can’t remember the last time Dee was bested like that, let ‘lone by someone like him,” he added, indicating Doc with a nod of the head. “Guess you people are as hot as I thought.” The laugh vanished, and his tone dropped almost to a whisper. “So tell me why I shouldn’t just chill you all right now.”
“Because it’ll waste your time. You want to go after those fuckers who’ve got your kids,” Ryan replied.
“Good answer. But to chill you will take just a few seconds.”
Ryan smiled, slow and with a vulpine grace. “You sure about that?”
Harvey shook his head. “No. Tell you what, Cyclops, I don’t reckon on you being part of that scum. I’ll worry about why you’re here later. Give you a straight choice—a firefight now, or help us track that scum and mebbe not get chilled later. Sound fair?”
“No,” Ryan answered slowly, his gaze traveling over his friends and the gathered sec men. “But I don’t see that we’ve got a say.”
“Knew you’d see it my way,” Harvey said.
“Just as well. Take you anytime,” Jak said softly, but with an underlying menace.
Harvey eyed the albino speculatively. “You know, mutie, I reckon you’re just about mean enough to pull it off. Which is why I want you with us rather than against us.”
“Feel good ’bout that?” Jak asked in the same tone. “How you know we not turn?”
“Would you, Cyclops?” the sec chief asked Ryan.
“Mebbe. Mebbe not right now,” the one-eyed warrior replied carefully.
“Mebbe when not look,” Jak added.
Harvey gave a rueful grin. “I really like your spirit, especially as the odds are less than even.”
“Usually that way,” Jak said, his red eyes unwavering on the sec chief.
Harvey considered that. “You people got a lot of balls. Just mebbe we’ll get along fine. But we’ve got unfinished business. With us?” He waited until Ryan, casting his eye around his companions, nodded assent. “Good,” the sec chief murmured quietly, almost to himself.
Under his direction, with a guard still covering them, the companions retrieved their blasters from where they had been forced to let them drop, and the party assembled on the path. Under Harvey’s lead, with Ryan and Jak close behind, a sec blaster still half-raised toward them as a deterrent, they set out at a rapid pace.
“They’ve got some lead on you,” Ryan told Harvey, continuing with what they had seen and when. The sec man listened in silence.
Finally, he said, “Those poor kids’ll be chill meat by now anyway, Cyclops. But the least we can do is give the poor lil’ fuckers a decent burial. Not to be burned and eaten by that mutie shit…no offense,” he added, nodding toward Jak.
“No,” the albino answered in a neutral tone belied by his expression.