"The fines? h.e.l.l, not much. I'll go ahead and waive them to show my good intentions. Consider them paid," Morgan said, tearing up a sheet of paper with a flourish.

Ryan wasn't buying the show. "What about the damages?"

"Nothing I can do to help you there, I'm afraid," Morgan said as he pulled a stack of whisper-thin sheets out of a wire-mesh basket on his desk and flipped through them. Finding the one he wanted, he put down the rest and handed over the single d.a.m.ning piece of paper to Ryan.

"Fireblast!" Ryan spit as he saw the list of figures and the combined total at the bottom of the list. "That's a lot of jack."

"Some of those vid machines are d.a.m.n near irreplaceable, Cawdor. Any good comp equipment is usually salvaged for something of more value than mere entertainment, and to find full units in working order takes time and lots of money. Lucky for your boy, the arcade owner is a forgiving sort once he feels that proper justice had been meted out."

Ryan gave Morgan a thin smile. "All about greasing the palms, isn't it?"

The bearded man nodded. "Perhaps. To be honest, I like to quote a phrase from an old predark song called 'Hotel California.' "

"Been there. Hot as Hades. Unless you're wanting to build sand castles out of radioactive dirt, I can't advise the trip. Besides, I thought this was the Carolinas."

"The theme still applies. Besides, if you've been there, I'm sure you know most of California fell into the ocean when the bombs. .h.i.t. Now, the song sort of goes, a person can check in, but he can never check out. During my tenure here as operations manager for the Freedom Mall"

"Thought you said you were the administrator," Ryan snorted.

"Like you told me earlier. t.i.tles. Words. Barons. Kings. Means the same thing. But during my stay here, I've seen what I've just said come into play hundreds of times. I look at it as providing employment. Running a compound this size takes people, Cawdor."

" 'Mr. Cawdor,' to you, Morgan. I want my boy and my friend."

"And I want to be hung with a c.o.c.k the size of my forearm, but it isn't going to happen," Morgan retorted, his elegant face flashing with anger. "This isn't some little ville on the edge of nowhere, my one-eyed friend. Nor is it a place where you can come swaggering in and do whatever the h.e.l.l you please."

"Is that a fact?"

"The fact is thislike it or not, Freedom is a civilized patch that has been carved out of the southeastern h.e.l.lzone. We've got all the tenants we can handle and a waiting list of thousands who'd like to live here on a regular basis instead of just pa.s.sing through from one pesthole to the next. Those with the jack give up on permanent residence and just visit here for extended stretches. Any way you want to debate it, people want to stay in here and visit the mall because they can't find what we have to offer anywhere else on the remains of the North American continent."

"What, high prices? Overcrowding? Sec men with fancy green jackets and a bunker mentality?" Ryan asked. "Or that snazzy pit with the broken-down droid used in staging your own gladiator bouts for the unwashed ma.s.ses? Pretty sad."

"No, no, no," Morgan corrected. "What we offer to them, besides access to food, clothing and shelter, is safety."

"That's debatable. What about those stickies on the outside trying to get in that I keep hearing about?"

"Yes, well, no location is perfect. Which is where you come in."

"I was told the muties want to come in and spend some jack and have a hot meal along with the rest of us," Ryan said laconically. "Seems to me you're missing out on the almighty stickie dollar. p.i.s.s-poor thinking for a businessman like yourself."

Morgan burst out laughing, his amus.e.m.e.nt coming in a series of mirthful snorts.

"Believe me, Cawdor, if those dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had the brains to understand the concept of legal tender, they'd be more than welcome to come in and spend, spend, spend. Unfortunately stickies are about as bright as a bag of dirt. Only thing on their mind is burning and killing, not necessarily in that order."

Ryan turned to leave. "Well, thanks for the chat. I guess I've got some selling to do, see if I can come up with the jack to bust Dean and Jak out of your jail."

"There is another way."

"How so?"

"Work for me. Your entire group. Work off the debt. The mall will make good with the vid-game owner, and in exchange you join my sec squad for thirty days. You've got a rep. Let's see how you earned it."

"No."

"Best offer you're going to get tonight, Cawdor. And if you have any ideas about trying to take your son and friend out of the Wings by force, you're sadly mistaken. Even if you could get to the cells, there are b.o.o.by traps designed to kill if you try opening doors without proper authorization."

"If you're so d.a.m.n strong and all-powerful, why do you need me?" Ryan finally said, growing fed up with all of the blunt goodwill. He was beginning to wish for the more traditional baron who smirked, pranced and bragged a blue streak. At least those types were men that Ryan could take their measure and figure out where he stood.

Morgan shook his head. "Ease up. I'm getting to that. Let me give you some background first. See, your timing is most fortuitous. There's death in the air of Freedom. Bad enough keeping the peace from within, but now the stickies are becoming stirred up. A group like yours enters, and we take notice. I quizzed that Adrian scavie that came in with you, and he told me a few things. If your son hadn't f.u.c.ked up in the vid arcade, I would have been coming to you with an offer anyway. Now I can make the offer, and it's one you can't refuse."

"I don't like being pushed," Ryan warned.

"Who does?"

"Why me?"

"I know you're not exactly a teenager. A man lives to be your age, he's got something on the ball. That's why I'm willing to make this deal. Frankly I need your help. Good sec men are impossible to find, much less keep. They tend to have this annoying habit of following the money. I pay a decent wage, but once some dumb-a.s.s baron gets his panties in a wad, off they go to fight yet another private little war."

"I'm not a sec man."

"Now you are. Better still, you're an intelligent sec man. Freedom exchanges information with other villes, other barons. Your face and name aren't unknown in this region. Amusingly enough, since you've never left any of your past adversaries alive, there has been no bounty placed on your head."

"I'm not laughing."

"Well, I found it amusing."

"You seem to know a lot about me."

"I know a lot about anyone who comes into Freedom, or at least I try to."

"You can't know everything. Can't know what I'm thinking about right now."

"I could hazard a guess." Morgan eyeballed Ryan carefully. "What's with you, Cawdor?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you look and act the role of a gunslinger, but your vocabulary and carriage belie the brains of an educated man."

Ryan snorted. "Doc Tanner's the one for book learning. Not me."

"That preening fool? Far as I've been told, he wears knowledge like a suit of armor, verbosity aimed at keeping the rest of us poor, slack-jawed yokels out of the loop. No, you're smarter than you let on, Cawdor, otherwise you wouldn't have survived Deathlands as long as you have."

"What do you know about survival? You hide in this back office, away from the mall floors, away from the outside. When's the last time you felt real sunlight, Morgan?"

"Been a few months, but haven't you heard? It's dangerous outside. Skin cancer. Rad sickness. Who needs it? Not me," Morgan replied in a salesman tone. "That's why people come to Freedom to shop, to live, to deal. We're a stronghold, Cawdor, with a movie palace, places to eat, things to buy, places to stay. Safe, wholesome entertainment, minus a few gambling dens, bars and the after-hours gaudies."

"Yeah, men gotta have their drinks, cards and s.l.u.ts."

"d.a.m.n straight!" Morgan said. "All any man could want is in here."

Ryan licked his lips. "Even as big as this place is, you can only stay back here for so long. Outside world will come in soon enough and stomp you flat."

"A year ago I would have told you that was nonsense, Cawdor. Now I'm not so sure. I don't have a problem with outside. I just don't want to deal with it. Why do you think malls were built in the first place, back in the predark days of consumerism?"

"I don't know. Greed, I guess." Morgan shook his head. "Wrong. Protection. Downtown areas were getting too dangerous. Muggings, rapes, theft. People were afraid to go out on city streets to buy their needed goods. Mail order was fine for some items, sure, but man needs to go out on his own, do his own hunting and gathering, and malls such as Freedom were built in response to his needs. Or her needs. Malls were traditionally a female haven. s.e.xist, I admit, but I'm just repeating what I've read."

Ryan gestured toward the bank of vid screens. "Looks like you have eyes everywhere."

"Once upon a time, we did," Morgan corrected, standing up and walking over to the wall. He hit a few control keys, switching the screen images, as well as the angles they were showing, as he continued to talk. "I'm being honest with you here, Cawdor. Very few people know the extent of how Freedom has backslid in recent months. Only the key people in my sec squad are aware of this, but all of these screens used to be fully functional."

"What happened?"

"Most of the exterior cameras are down, and some of the interiors ones are shoddy and in need of replacing or repair. We were using thermal cameras for the outside perimeterh.e.l.l, we even had a miniature long-range TV op system on the roof with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, laser range finder, tilt pedestal and night vision."

"Had?"

"Yes, had. All of them gave us good visibility in all ambient light conditions, day, night, smoke or haze. Now we're lucky to even have the two regular cameras up and functioning. Freedom's starting to fall apart at the seams. We have investors, money men from up north, looking to do something to alleviate their boredom. This seemed like a solid plan. Renewal of the past, protection for the future."

"Sorry, but it still sounds to me like you need techies to fix your problems," Ryan said. "And you'll get your sec men if you're willing to ante up the jack."

"No. What I need are competent men and women capable of fortifying Freedom. Word is out. I'm hiring qualified mercies. But word travels slow, and now I'm making do with a few good men and a lot of cannon fodder with itchy trigger fingers blowing the heads off visitors who try and steal from merchants instead of arresting them so we can confiscate their possessions and jack. A dead man is of no use to anyone."

"Have to disagree with you there, Morgan. In fact, the thought has crossed my mind that there's nothing in here to keep me from gutting you like a fish or putting a bullet in your head. By the time your sec man outside could squeeze out from behind the desk, you'd be a dead man. That could solve a lot of problems."

"Oh, really? Chilling me would just result in the deaths of your son and your friend. Understand, I'm trying to be polite here, but if you f.u.c.k with me, Freedom is the last place you'll ever see againalive, at least."

"Didn't say I was going to do it. Just said what was keeping me from doing it? Could take you hostage."

"Enough with the theories, Cawdor! There is a stickie situation to be dealt with, yes! But I'm being honest with you. I need your help in handling them. Your people"

"They aren't my people, Morgan," Ryan countered, cutting the mall administrator off in midsentence. He rose to his feet and began to pace in front of the overblown wooden desk as he continued to speak. "What they are to me are my friends, and my friends do as they please."

"Surely they have loyalty to you?"

"Uh-uh. Stop right there. Big difference between loyalty and ownership. You speak of them like they were my slaves or something. Not even close. We travel together because we care about one another and don't have to worry about waking up with a blade in our backs. I know trust is a double-hard thing to find anymore, but I guess that's what holds us together. We trust one another."

"Then I 'trust' they'll stand by your request for a favorfor your son's sake, and for the albino's."

Chapter Twenty.

Despite Morgan's lament over a lack of good help, the sec men in the holding pens knew their jobs. Ryan's blaster and panga were both taken at the front desk, and he was carefully patted down in a full-body search, where the thin knife hidden at the base of his back was also revealed and taken until his visit was over.

"For your own safety," the alert sec man said.

"Prisoner gets hold of a weapon, might use it on you first. It happens."

Ryan felt naked after being relieved of his weapons before being allowed in to see Dean, but there was no other way to gain access. He was taken to a screened room divided in halves by a thick woven mesh similar to fencing he'd seen around outdoor sec areas. On the other side of the visiting room, a door opened and a pale Dean walked out, alone and unescorted.

Ryan pressed close to the wire and realized he could see and touch Dean, but only though the half-inch hole of the strong metallic material. What was obviously a one-way mirror dominated a side wall. Ryan suspected the sec man who had admitted him into this visitor's center was keeping watch from behind the gla.s.s.

"Knew you two were going to get into trouble the minute I laid eyes on you last night," Ryan said gently, his mouth turning upward at the sides as he fought back a relieved smile. "They treating you okay?"

"Extra special," Dean said. "Jak, too. Hot food. Clean bunk. No creeps or pervs. Nicest cell I ever been stuck in, far as cells go."

Morgan had been honest about that much of the forced bargain anyway, Ryan thought to himself.

Ryan gestured to the chairs, one per side, and father and son sat down facing each other.

"Quiet in here," Ryan observed.

"Not in the cells. Some drunk keeps singing all about moons. .h.i.tting eyes and big pizza pies."

"Every place like this has got a drunk, Dean."

"I guess."

"You want to tell me what happened?" Ryan asked. "Take it slow and don't leave anything out."

"Not much to tell," Dean said. "We were in the vid arcade, watching some guys play a game"

HAVING WATCHED the same two boys play Mortal Kombat for about a half hour, Dean decided to wade in for a try first chance he got. The opportunity came when the game finally became vacant after a particularly enthusiastic Dex had run out of the needed tokens and left with Brack to find more.

"Want to take me on, Jak?" Dean asked as they stepped up to the machine.

"No contest. Hand-to-hand. Beat you good," Jak said confidently.

"Not if you don't know the right moves. Got to punch these b.u.t.ton, move these levers. And you don't know s.h.i.t about comps," Dean bragged.

"Like you do."

"Like I do, yeah."

"Back Florida, pressed wrong b.u.t.ton, screwed everything up. Ryan p.i.s.sed good," Jak retorted, referring to a past mat-trans jump where Dean had decided to apply his magic touch to one of the gateway's operating system's keyboards and had sent the stressed comp banks and hardware into a series of fiery shutdowns. Ryan had been furious, picking Dean up with both hands and slamming him down b.u.t.t first on a table for a conversation that still made the boy feel guilty.

"I still know enough to beat you at this," Dean said insistently.

"Take best shot," Jak replied.

Each of the boys put their tokens in the twin vid slots and was offered a menu of choices of fighters from which to make a selection.

"There's a girl on here, Jak."

"You pick her," the albino retorted. "I'll try go easy on girl."