“What—” Mildred murmured, rising.
“Shh,” Jak hissed. The albino had heard the noise before the others, partly because he found it almost impossible to sleep in the underground ville. He was already stationed at the flimsy partition, keeping watch.
By now, the feet had passed on their way to Harvey’s quarters. The echo had died as they approached, revealing that there were two sec men running close together. One was Rankine, and as he passed without noticing Jak, the albino saw that the sec man’s face was grim and set.
“Trouble. From outside,” Jak added. “Rankine smelt forest.”
“Didn’t notice they had patrols out there,” Ryan mused. “Mebbe the children being chilled has spooked them. Something’s certainly spooked Rankine.”
“So do we wait for them to come to us?” J.B. asked. ‘”Cause if there’s an attack—”
“Then we stand and fight,” Ryan finished. “We’ll wait.”
Not that they had to wait for long. Almost as soon as they had fully risen and armed themselves, Bodie appeared in the entrance to the unit. He paused, taken aback by their readiness.
“Alien wants to see you,” he panted, short of breath from having run. “Now.”
They followed the fat sec man through the tunnels until they reached the main hall. The tunnels were alive with ville dwellers on their way to and from the armory, taking up blasters that some of them looked uncomfortable handling. For J.B., this was a bad sign. If you didn’t feel happy with a blaster, then you shouldn’t be given one, lest you end up being more of a danger to yourself than the enemy.
When they reached the hall, Alien was seated at the table, with Harvey standing in front, leaning over the table and jabbing at a map while talking in low undertones. Jenna was with them, and looked past the sec chief to where Bodie led the companions.
“Ryan Cawdor, if there is a time for you to repay our hospitality, then it’s now,” the baron said swiftly, not standing on ceremony. “Tell him, Harvey.”
The sec man acknowledged the one-eyed warrior with a brief nod, swinging the map around on the table so that Ryan’s party could see it clearly.
“We post two-man sentry teams at four compass points in a one-mile radius around the entrances to the ville,” he began by way of explanation. “Nothing much happens, but you can’t be too careful. I’ve been expecting something since we took back the children, but this is nasty. Rankine and Wilson took the southeast point here—” he jabbed at the map. “—which is right in line with Samtvogel. That fucker Sunchild wasn’t chilled when Four-eyes there shot him, and he’s madder then hell. Used his mutie blood to get some stickies under his control, and a group of stickies and Sunchildren are headed this way.”
“Got stickies here? What like?” Jak asked hurriedly. The mutie stickies shared some characteristics that were common, but as time went on there were generations that became more mutated, in strange and bizarre ways.
“Fuck it, Whitey. Stickie’s a stickie to me. You muties may be able to tell each other apart, but I can’t. Just know they’re coming.”
Jak’s face grew whiter at the insult, but he stored his hatred for later.
“Okay, so we know the Sunchildren may all be armed after the raid, but we can assume the stickies won’t be. Where the fuck do they come from?” Ryan continued, trying to figure where the stickie community would be, and thanking their luck that they had avoided them on their way to the ville.
“Does it matter where? Just chill the fuckers,” Jenna muttered.
“Mebbe. But if we know where they come from, we can be ready for any second wave,” J.B. said softly, in a voice like that of an adult explaining something to a stupe child. He ignored Jenna’s look of pure hatred and continued, “The last thing we want is to be taken by surprise.”
“Surprise is that there are any,” Harvey answered. “Must be a nomad band looking for a new land. I haven’t seen any around here since I was a kid.”
“Let’s hope they haven’t left any at Samtvogel, then,” Ryan said. “So what’s your plan?”