Bravado's House of Blues (21 page)

I drew breath to scream. The sound of a thousand little explosions, followed by the sound of air and flesh being shredded, stopped my scream.

Amazonia lurched to the side, smashing her metal-clad hooters into my chest with a painful grinding sensation that made me think of broken ribs.

Pain registered in her eyes. A split second later she rolled off of me, bellowing in pain. In a blink, she was up on her feet, one arm dangling useless at her side. “What the hell!” she said, staggering to the right, giving me a clear view behind her.

Magenta stood across from us, her feet shoulder width apart, her hands wrapped around one of my flechettes with the perfect shooter’s grip.

“I never liked you,” she said and pulled the trigger again. Amazonia’s face disappeared in a haze of red. I rolled to the left, hoping that that hurking large armored woman would not fall on me again. As it was, she staggered back, careened off a broken chair, and fell to the ground twitching.

A second armor-clad woman appeared in the doorway, a laser rifle held loosely by one hand. She glanced from Magenta to me, then to Amazonia’s twitching corpse. She gasped, letting the laser fall from her grip, where it swung loose by the long strap over her shoulder. For a split second she covered her mouth with both hands, muffling a wail.

Magenta swiveled toward her and pulled the trigger. Hundreds of tiny needles sliced into the second woman’s upper body. Several pinged and rang as they bounced off the metal breast cones, but the rest shredded her thick, rough-spun shirt and most of her left shoulder. She stumbled backwards out of the door.

“Oh, Goddess,” Magenta said, falling to her knees, the pistol held loosely in her left hand. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

I climbed to my feet, uncertain. I wanted to go to her, pull her into my arms and make her feel better. Another part of me, the part that sounded remarkably like Grandfather, wanted me to run away and hide. It was strange, these conflicting emotions.

The fact that we could die at any moment was of no consequence. My immediate and overwhelming urge was to protect her. It may have been the most powerful and conflicting emotion I’d ever experienced.

Shut it, old man, I said in my head. I limped over and dropped to Magenta’s side, placing on hand on her shoulder. She let out a gasping sob and turned, flinging her arms around me.

She cried for a brief moment, the hard flechette pressing uncomfortably against my back. After a moment, she sat back, wiped her face with her wrist, and gave me a watery smile. Her eyes were like two pools of warm chocolate. “You smell fertile,” she said, tears streaking her face. “Sorry we’re gonna die now.”

The feeling in my chest swelled, and I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with broken ribs. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

“You saved my life,” I said, my voice hoarse.

She kissed me on the forehead and grinned. “Come on,” she said, standing. I let her help me up. I wasn’t used to having so much of my person exposed to angry metal-clad attackers. I was feeling a bit more vulnerable than I was comfortable with.

Magenta adjusted her wig and pushed me on the shoulder. “Get your gear,” she said, pointing to the pile she’d cut from me.

I limped over, sure there was something vital broken in my nether regions, and fished out the comm-link. I slipped it over my left ear and then bent over the lifeless body of Amazonia. She looked angry even in death. I couldn’t fathom the life she and her people had led.

I took her knife. Magenta was obviously a whiz with the flechette. As no one else had appeared in the doorway, I hobbled over that way and tapped on the comm-link.

“You there, old man?” I asked into the ether.

“About time,” Grandpa’s voice sounded in my ear. “You got trouble, boy. Looks like a group of muties attacked the Femme-Bot camp a few minutes ago, but the Femme-Bots are holding their own.”

I pulled myself around the door frame as a scream sounded ahead of me. Several yards down a long hall, a large mutant ferret was dragging the kicking body of the second Amazon warrior away. I flipped the knife, catching it by the tip of the blade and flung it toward into the mutie. The blade sunk hilt deep into its furry body, but it didn’t fall over like I’d hoped. It did, however, give the warrior a chance to bring her laser to bear. She shot three bursts into the wounded ferret. It lumbered back a couple of feet, already dead, but two more of its friends chose that moment to arrive. Big, furry eaters. Not even sure of the original genus, other than hungry.

“Muties,” I called out, looking around for another weapon. “Need a hand here, Magenta.”

“Hang on.”

The warrior fired one final long thread of light, slicing off one of the new attackers’ limbs, and catching the second one a glancing blow, forcing them both to scamper back. The singe of fur and the crackle of cooked flesh barely registered over the sounds of battle outside.

“Magenta,” I cried, hiding my body behind the door frame, but looking down the hallway. “We’ve got to go.”

Her hand on my arm startled me.

“You okay?” Grandpa whispered urgently into my ear.

“Just jumpy,” I said. Magenta had taken the time to slip on her panties, a small pack and her wig before she crept up beside me. She also wore my holster with the second pistol, and the bandolier of cartridges. She looked hot.

“Who are you talking to?” Magenta asked.

“My grandfather,” I said. The muties hadn’t returned to the hallway, but the warrior was not looking so good. “Come on.” I grabbed Magenta’s hand and pulled her away from the door. “That way is blocked. What’s her name has that way covered. Let’s look for another exit.”

“Claudia,” she whispered. “She wasn’t nice to me, either.”

“Right.” We ran back into the main warehouse where my pack poked out from a scattering of tables and chairs. I pulled it out of the rubble, slung it over my shoulder and pulled Magenta along toward another doorway. “Hope this leads somewhere,” I said as we jogged.

The universe is a wacky place, but sometimes it gives you what you need. We careened around three bends, through two doors, and voila . . . sunlight.

We stood at the door, listening and catching our breath. For the longest time, the sound of gunfire and screams almost drowned out Magenta’s crying.

As I watched the landscape, trying not to vomit with the overwhelming empty sky above us and the smell of burning flesh coming from upwind, I was once again startled as Magenta slowly caressed my exposed shoulder.

“The laser burn on your back is healing fast,” she said, a hint of awe in her voice. “Might not even scar, by the looks of things.”

“Most of the shot had been absorbed by the ablative qualities of the enviro-suit and the exoskeleton,” I said with a smile. “Plus, I heal fast.” I had been modified over the years for more than longevity. Thanks, Mom! I healed at an insane rate. Needed to consume huge amount of calories, however.

“Plane’s east of your position about three klicks,” Grandpa said in my ear. “Femme-Bots are getting an upper hand on the vermin, so you have a decent shot of making it.”

“And Dad’s head?”

“That silly robot head?” Magenta asked me.

I nodded slowly. “Yes. It belongs to my dad. I’d really like it back.”

“Oh.” She poked her head around the edge of the wall and pointed to a small pile of crates. “It’s in a crate. Big Bertha said we could retrieve the memories with the right equipment.”

“I got a load of crates on a flatbed truck south of your position about sixty yards,” Grandpa informed me. “Battle has moved past that point. It’s now no-man’s land. If the chickees survive this attack, they’ll be carting your father’s head back to Portland.”

I was glad Magenta couldn’t hear his side of the conversation.

“Great,” I said, looking around for things that wanted to kill me. “Got it. We cut past the line of battle to get his head in a stack of crates, open it and make for the plane?”

“I could just drive the truck,” Magenta said to me with a smile.

“She sounds like a keeper,” Grandpa said, his inflection all grin and smarm.

“You can drive?” I asked. “You’re amazing.” I may have sounded a little too eager. Grandpa made puking sounds in my ear.

“You up for a run?” I asked. She squeezed my hand and nodded.

We ran.

As we cleared the side of the box store, we could see the aftermath of one battle. Broken women, discarded wigs, and dozens of rats, some topping four feet in length, lay scattered across an open square. Magenta started to slow, but I pulled her hand and she turned away with a sob.

I could feel the pressure of the sky pressing down on my head and the panic began to swell up from my belly. No magic juice to hold back the terror this time. A wall loomed to the front and left of us. I steered us in that direction. It seemed to be away from the noise of battle, but I just needed something to lean against for a moment or I was going to drop and curl into a ball.

The cold of the brick sent a wave of goose flesh over my body, but the roughness of the surface held my attention long enough to center my brain. Magenta squatted to my left, breathing hard, and clutching the pistol. I squeezed my eyes shut for almost a full minute before my equilibrium settled.

When I opened my eyes, Magenta had her wig cocked to the side, scratching her scalp as she watched the horizon. It made me smile for some reason.

“Almost ready,” I whispered, hunkering down beside her. I flipped the satchel around to sit on the ground in front of me and opened the top. I pulled out a bar of chocolate, snapped it in half and handed Magenta her share. I took a bite and chewed slowly. I could feel the calories flooding my body.

She sniffed it and lightly touched her tongue to the dark square. For a moment, doubt filled her eyes, but she looked at me and I nodded.

“If you hold a piece of it in your mouth, it will melt,” I told her, mindful of her poor dental hygiene.

The tiny corner disappeared into her mouth, but was quickly followed by the rest, as she crammed the whole thing into her maw.

“Careful, there,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t choke.”

Like the pheromones I carried, the chocolate had a distinct purpose, and scent. I had not realized how sensitive the rodent family was to smells. But, the waft of chocolate must have been strong enough to alert the hunting pair of big-and-furries because before I had finished my piece, a roar erupted from our left, and two huge walls of pain sprang at us.

I brought the laser rifle up, catching one of the critters with the stock. It diverted the forward momentum enough to not bowl me over, but the rifle didn’t survive. A horrid crack told me I’d broken the housing.

The second beastie, something like a giant badger, only with more teeth, flew over me and onto Magenta. She got one arm in front of her face, which prevented her from having it chewed off. Her other hand brought the pistol up to the side of the beast. The muffled whump of the flechettes exploding into the furry mass barely registered a sound.

The badger moaned and fell on top of her. I picked up the satchel and swung it around, catching the second mutant in mid-leap. It careened into the brick wall and rolled back onto its legs, stunned.

I dove over Magenta and her badger, pulled the pistol from her hand and fired it into the recovering badger. It staggered back as the needles shredded its snout and one eye. A second shot stopped it from moving forward, but it continued to growl deep in its throat.

Magenta moaned as I pulled the first badger off her. Her arm was a bloody mess. I grabbed a pair of stockings out of the satchel, wrapped her arm in the nylon, and hefted the pack onto my back. I reloaded the pistol, held it in one hand, and hefted Magenta to her feet by her good arm. “Come on, gorgeous,” I said with a grunt as she slid back to the ground. “We move, or we die.”

I lifted her again, and this time she stayed on her feet. With me steering her from one shattered building to the next, we managed to find the truck. It had been ransacked, crates shattered and equipment destroyed. Magenta pointed out the crate that had held my father’s head, but it was empty.

Muties had ransacked the truck. Great. Now what did we do?

Okay, we leave the ruins of Pasco and head to the plane. Push comes to shove, we nuke this joint.

We ran past several buildings, each hiding the bodies of fallen from both sides. But the battle had moved north of our position. It was creepy scampering from hiding place to hiding place, and seeing nothing living.

The final sprint crossed the most open of all the spaces I’d covered. I screwed up my courage, made sure Magenta was steady on her feet, and we made the dash. Automatic weapon fire echoed behind us somewhere, and the screaming of beasts and humans broke over us in a wave of anguish.

The door to the plane stood open, a welcoming hole into freedom. Behind us, a pack of teeth brayed out their hunting cries as some very large furry thing broke into the open. Behind them came several heavily armed women.

The Amazons fired at the critters, some of whom turned to fight. A few kept pursuing us. As we leapt over one line of fallen stonework, Magenta’s wig fell to the side. For a split second I considered going back, but a large rat sailed over the wall behind us. Magenta shot it several times with my pistols, so we stumbled onward.

We fell into the plane. A cat with six legs and two heads leapt onto my back, pushing me forward. The door slid shut and the AI calmly called for us to buckle in. I rolled to the side, getting a series of slashes to my left calf before Magenta blasted one of the heads. The cat screamed, ran to the back of the plane and began running in circles. Magenta shot it several more times before it collapsed. A large body crashed into the side of the plane, followed by automatic weapons fire.

“We are leaving now,” the AI informed me.

I helped Magenta get strapped in and collapsed into my own seat, fumbling with the straps. Gravity fell on top of me like a truck as the vertical lift-off applied several G’s to our bodies.

“That hurt, a lot,” Magenta said when the pressure finally lessened and we could move.