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his upper left shoulder, but its looseness suggested that it was removable.
Burroughs stopped ten feet away and pinned Ryan with his gaze. "Sergeant," he
bellowed without looking away.
"Sir," the machine gunner responded.
"I should know this man."
"Sir, you do. Ryan Cawdor. He's in our files."
Burroughs nodded. "One eyed. General description. I thought so. We didn't have
a picture
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"No, sir. Already been remedied."
"You used to ride with the Trader," Burroughs said to Ryan. "Son of a baron
along the
East Coast or something, if I remember correctly."
Ryan returned the level gaze full measure. "You're the man with all the
answers."
Burroughs didn't reply.
"Got one question for you, though." Ryan kept his voice loud enough so that
only J.B.
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and Burroughs could hear. "You given any thought to how you're going to get
back to that wag before me or one of mine put a bullet through your head?"
MILDRED RAN, trying to follow Jak in the darkness. The albino teen had dropped
his torch, as well. Her hip bumped painfully against a workstation, sending a
computer crashing to the floor.
The computer shattered when it struck the hard surface. White-hot sparks of
electricity peppered the darkness. Bullets cut through her former position,
striking the metallic shells of other computers and the tables in rapid
succession. Some of them were purple tracers, flashing by in a blur.
A hand plucked at Mildred's sleeve. She whirled, bringing up the .38.
"Me," Jak said in a harsh whisper. "Find door. Follow."
"I can't see a thing."
"Follow wind, then." Jak kept pulling at her, not hesitating in the slightest.
"Where are they, dammit?" a voice bellowed above them.
"I'm tracking them," another man answered. "Goddamn thermal imager's all
fucked up from the torches they were carrying."
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Mildred's mind was screaming at her, demanding to know who the people were who
were trying to kill them, and where they'd come from. She was certain they
hadn't entered through the door she and Jak had used. She kept the questions
to herself, following Jak's lead as best she could. Now that her senses were
searching for it, she could feel the breeze moving through the room.
"Down," Jak urged, tugging her into position beside an overturned computer
table.
The gunfire around them had almost abated, but was replaced by the noise of
men hurrying, shoving through furniture with careless abandon behind them.
Mildred hunkered down as Jak had requested, knowing the albino teenager would
stick and wouldn't leave her there. She blinked her eyes rapidly, willing her
night vision to register.
Flashlights, honest-to-God hand-held units that had to run off battery power,
threw beams across the interior of the computer center. Mildred marveled at
their presence. Only a few years ago by her personal clock, things like
batteries were taken for granted, necessary nuisances available in every
convenience store. In the Deathlands, though, they were seldom seen. For
someone to be using them so readily meant their pursuers had a stockpile of
them or had the technology to construct their own.
Neither theory left her feeling comfortable.
"Split up," the first voice commanded. "Two-man units. Don't try to apprehend
them yourselves. Call for backup."
The orders and the man's tone indicated a military or law-enforcement
background that
Mildred was familiar with from her previous life.
"We don't find and neutralize these bastards, Burroughs is going to have our
asses in a sling."
Mildred recognized the name from the journal entries. A flashlight beam
whipped over the table above her and drove her further into hiding.
Perspiration dripped down her face, soaking into the collar at her neck. For
just a moment it highlighted Jak as he stole up behind a man closing on
Mildred's position. His face was grim and unforgiving, and he held one of his
leaf-bladed knives in a fist.
"Clancy!" a man yelled from the direction the flashlight had come. The light
tracked back.
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This time the view was of the man dumbly looking down at the gouts of blood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]