"Very well." Clarke stepped to one side and wheeled over a large device that appeared to be a high-tech pair of binoculars mounted on a bracket between two enormous steel drums, one per side. He rolled the unwieldy apparatus up to J.B.'s face and lowered the binocular section until it was even with the Armorer's eyes.

"Is that bad, not being able to see that line?" J.B. asked.

"No. I wish you still had your other pair of spectacles so I could compare your vision with and without them, but we'll have to make do."

"What's this hunk of metal I'm peeping through?"

"This is a corrector, Mr. Dix. I am going to switch by hand various kinds of lenses inside this device until you are able to see the eye chart more clearly. This is a much quicker way and can be handled without putting on and taking off a thousand pairs of gla.s.ses. We'll start with the right eye. Each time I change the lenses, let me know if you can see better, or if the lens has decreased your vision even further."

Several minutes pa.s.sed, with J.B. informing Clarke which lens worked best. The small man made notes on a sheet of paper as he worked. Finally he opened both sides of the binocularlike device and allowed J.B. to peer through at the same time.

"This is great," the Armorer said enthusiastically.

"I can see even better than I could with my old gla.s.ses."

"I'm not surprised. Vision changes over time, Mr. Dix. Still, twenty-forty vision in one eye and twenty-thirty in the other with corrective lenses isn't very good eyesight."

"Good enough for me."

Clarke wheeled the correction mechanism back to the corner and took up his seated position in front of J.B. once more.

"Now comes the hard part," he said. "I have to find an existing pair of lenses and frames. I have no way of manufacturing or cutting the gla.s.s myself."

"Actually I need two pairs. How do you get gla.s.ses, anyway?"

"I buy them. I have a standing offer of jack for any pair of prescription gla.s.ses in decent condition. One fellow brings in pairs by the dozens." While talking, Clarke picked up an eye patch from the table.

"What's the patch for? I thought we were finished," J.B. asked.

"It's not a patch, it's an occluder. I'm going to run an accommodative and convergence test. At your age, you need to know what kind of physical shape your eyes are in, and a few more tests will give you a complete exam," the optician replied. He paused and shrugged. "Well, as complete as I can do anyway. We might as well finish. You are paying for the package."

"Guess so. Go ahead, then."

A reader card was moved up to each of J.B.'s eyes while the test was conducted. Clarke then used a pocket pencil flash to see if his patient's pupils responded properly by constricting.

"Mmm," Clarke said. "Your left eye, which is your strong eye, isn't responding according to procedure."

"What does that mean?"

"I want you to be honest with me. Your future eyesight may depend on it. I need to know when you first noticed that your gla.s.ses perhaps weren't as effective as before. Take firing with your blaster, for example. Are shots you were making previously now taking longer to line up? Are they as accurate as before?"

"Well, I suppose I noticed some vision loss a year back. Mebbe two. Hard to say."

"I understand. On a day-to-day basis, one doesn't notice such things," Clarke replied. "Describe what you are seeing right now."

J.B. snorted. "Well, I see you."

"You're looking directly at me. Use your peripheral vision. What's to the left? No, dammit, don't move your head!"

J.B. froze, angered by the doctor's outburst, and angered by what the optician had stumbled onto, a deep secret the Armorer hadn't even dared admit to himself.

"II Doc, I don't know," J.B. whispered. "I can't see to the left all that well."

Clarke kept his voice modulated, professional. "To the right?"

J.B. hesitated before answering, "Even worse."

"Yet straight on?" Clarke stepped out and faced him.

"I see good. Perfect with those lenses you tried out."

"The loss of some of your peripheral vision, is it like looking down a tunnel at times, Mr. Dix?"

"Yeah. Exactly. Some days it doesn't bother me at all. Other times I have to be careful. Hasn't been life-threatening yet."

"I fear it will be depending on when it flares up and what your situation entails. Have you told anyone about the problem? Your lady companion?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why worry her? I use my eyes constantly. Last thing my friends need is a half-blind buddy d.o.g.g.i.n' their heels," J.B. said, and then he glared at the blurry image of Clarke he could see before him. "You know what this is, don't you?"

The doctor hedged. "Without proper testing, I can't be sure"

"So, do the test!" J.B. snapped.

"I can't. I would need a measurement of the intraocular pressure of the eye to be able to say for sure. The process is called tonometry, and it involves a special probe and I don't have the device. Even if I did, I'm not sure how to perform the test correctly. Your cornea would have to be anesthetized, for one thing, and such procedures are beyond me."

J.B. sighed deeply, dreading what else the optician had to say and needing to hear it all the same. "So, what's causing the problem?"

Clarke stood up and opened a cabinet, removing a well-worn green hardcover book with full-color ill.u.s.trations of the human eye. He pointed to various ones as he explained. "High pressure inside the eye causes damage to the optic nerve, Mr. Dix. Understand, your eyes, all of our eyes, have a remarkable drainage system. Fluid comes in and goes out from within the eyeball, keeping the pressure consistent and higher than that of the outside atmosphere so the eye doesn't collapse."

"Like diving, when you're underwater. Come up too fast, you get the bends."

"Yes. Like that. What has happened here is that your drainage system has gotten clogged. Continual pressure creates a subsequent loss of the visual field, which is what is creating your 'tunnel vision.'" Clarke hesitated, and licked his lips. "This condition is called glaucoma, and it sounds like you've progressed beyond the early stages."

"Dark night." When J.B. spoke the words, even he was aware of the black humor the epithet now held.

"It's not your fault, Mr. Dix. The process is gradual and insidious. You might have decided your continual loss of sight was due to age or old gla.s.ses. It's not like you woke up one morning completely blind and had to deal with the problem that way. From what I've read, and the other cases I've encountered, there isn't a d.a.m.n thing you could have done to stop it from happening." J.B. stood up, pacing the room. "No cure?"

"There were medicines once. Eye drops. Even surgery. All lost. I can tell you what needs to be done, but I can't help you in doing it. New gla.s.ses, yes. Those, I can find. Surgery or medicine, no. I'm not trained and I don't have the drugs."

"Yeah, pulling the gla.s.ses off a dead man's eyes doesn't take much in the way of brains," J.B. said angrily.

"I perform a service," Clarke said. "You don't have to get nasty about my methods. There are no longer any one-hour eyegla.s.s-manufacturing stores. I'm telling you like it is. Without more tests, I'd still be guessing to the extent of the damage. From the journals I've studied, this disorder is so highly individualistic that treatment had to be specifically tailored to each patient's condition."

"There's got to be something I can do to stop this," the Armorer said.

"Well, there is to a small degree. Existing nerve-fiber damage is irreversible, but you can try and slow down any further injury. Some people have higher than normal pressure in their eyes due to their blood pressure, alcohol abuse and stress. You need to keep the pressure down as best you can manage."

"My blood pressure is okay and I'm not an alky, but I tend to spend a lot of my life under stress," J.B. stated, still standing and pacing.

"I can tell you that one characteristic of the disease is that pressure within the eye is caused due to changes in the rate of aqueous-humor formation"

"What's that?" J.B. asked, cutting the man off.

"The fluid buildup, Mr. Dix," Clarke said patiently in the warmest vocal register he could summon up.

"It fluctuates during the day, usually high in the morning, less as the day goes on and it declines during the night. When you're sleeping, it declines even more."

"Guess I should look into joining the freezie program," J.B. remarked bitterly.

"Temperature doesn't affect the pressure one way or the other," Clarke said, misunderstanding the reference.

"How long? How long until I go completely blind?"

"There's no way of knowing. A year? Ten years? Twenty? All cases are different. With treatment, we could end this immediately. Without it, who can say?"

J.B. pondered this for a long moment.

"Well, a man I used to know once told me, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' I'm still one of the best shots in Deathlands and by G.o.d, that's something. And I still see pretty d.a.m.n good, too, or I will once you fix me up with some new specs."

"Yes. I can do that."

The Armorer pulled out the twisted remains of his other pair. "Why don't we find some that look like these."

"I'll do my best."

J.B. reached out and caught the shorter man by the shoulder, turning him.

"And Dr. Clarke? This is our little secret."

The doctor shrugged. "Very well."

Chapter Fourteen.

The wooden sign that ran along the length of the storefront was painted in bright hues of orange, green and blue, with cutout sound-effect icons such as Pow and Biff and Zonk decorating the corners in a three-dimensional effect.

"Kollector's Kloset," Dean read.

"Yet another example of the wretched spelling to be found across Deathlands." Doc sighed from his vantage point next to the boy. "Eventually I fear the human race will ultimately regress to painting pictographs in dyes made of blood and dung on dank cave walls."

"And fighting with clubs and stones, eh, Doc?" Krysty said.

"Why not?" Ryan said thoughtfully, allowing himself to see the philosophical side of life after his pit battle. "The world's got to run out of ammo sooner or later. Then we're all reduced to fighting in bearskins."

" Indeed," Doc agreed.

"I don't think the guy who runs this place is that stupid, Doc. I think the owner is trying to make some kind of statement," Krysty said.

None of the group could see inside the store very well, since the front display windows and door were covered in layers and layers of old faded paper posters, featuring drawings of colorfully attired characters with names like Wolverine and Batman. It was hard to fully read any of the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the collagelike display. It seemed that once one poster had served out its time in the shop's display, the owner merely pasted up another on top instead of taking down the earlier one, giving the windows a curious checkerboard pattern of overlapping designs.

" The X-Men ," Dean read off one poster. "Mutant Hope In A World Gone Mad. Twenty Monthly t.i.tles For Your Reading Excitement, Only From The House Of Ideas. What a load of c.r.a.p. Those guys in the funny suits are norms. They sure aren't like any muties I ever saw."

"Nor are any of those women," Krysty added.

"Mutant t.i.ts," Jak said.

"Wait, I have heard of this Batman," Doc said. "He was what they once called a superhero. His costume was worn to strike terror in the hearts of evil men."

"No kidding?" Ryan said. "Was he a fancy sec man or what?"

"No, no, Ryan, you misunderstand. Batman was a fictional creation who appeared in comic books for the delight of the under-eighteen set."

"Meaning?"

"Children's entertainment," Doc said succinctly.

"We've got time," Ryan mused, glancing at his wrist chron. "You want to go in for a look, Dean? Better than standing out here in the mall with our thumbs up our a.s.ses waiting on J.B."

"Yeah! All right," Dean eagerly agreed, "That would be a hot pipe, Dad!"

Before the boy could open the door to the store, Ryan held out a hand. "Hold up. The window's so crowded, we can't see in. Let me take a quick look first."

He pulled open the gla.s.s entrance and stuck his head through. He felt half-silly doing a recce inside a place obviously designed to be a spot for what Doc had told him was the entertainment of half-wits and children, but he knew from hard experience that nothing was ever as it seemed in the Deathlands.

Still, his eye wasn't ready for a sight such as this.

From floor to ceiling were off-white cardboard boxes filled with magazines, wall pegs adorned with packaged miniature toys and games, racks of compact discs and black vinyl LPs, and an array of other colorful debris that Ryan didn't even pretend to recognize. Even the surface of the drop ceiling was adorned with more of the posters as seen on the front of the establishment. As Ryan stepped through the gla.s.s door into the mora.s.s, a tinkly bell jingled overhead to announce his arrival.

"Wasn't kidding about the closet part in the name of this place, lover," Krysty said, walking in close behind him. "Going to be crowded in here."

"Feel anything?" Ryan asked, hoping Krysty's latent psi abilities might pick out any dangers hidden behind the crowded piles of boxes.

"Just claustrophobic. Only danger here as far as I can tell is mebbe having something fall on you."

Ryan glanced back and grinned. "You break it, you bought it, darlin'."

"Wow," Dean breathed, his eyes open wide. "Look at all this stuff!"

Ryan pressed forward, allowing the others to come inside the small pathway that wound its way along the store's contents to the back counter.