Before they could do so, however, the two players who had been dominating the machine for most of the night came over.

"You guys took our vid game," Dex accused.

"Not yours." Jak replied. "Ours."

"See, you newbies, you don't understand," Brack said slowly. "Certain games are off-limits when the arcade champions are in the house, and guess what, Spooky? I'm here, and that's my vid game you're standing in front of."

The larger of the two moved to push Jak aside. The albino effortlessly sidestepped the attempt, grabbing on to the outstretched arm and tossing the attacker over his shoulder. The teen who had been thrown flew helplessly into the heavy plastic-and-metal side of another of the game consoles, hitting it a.s.s first. His breath exploded out of him with a grunt of pain.

Dex quickly scrambled to his feet, his cap now off, his hair tumbling into his eyes. In his right had he held a knife, four-inch blade with a short bone handle. It wasn't a predark weapon, but one manufactured from the remains. Black electrical tape was wrapped around the handle to help hold the steel of the cutting edge in place.

"Come on, you creepy little s.h.i.t! You want a piece of me?"

Jak brightened. "Knife fight. Okay. Bored comps."

"Hold up, Jak," Dean said. "This is stupid. If he wants the game, let him have it. Dad will be triple p.i.s.sed if we get into trouble."

"Your dad, not mine. Too late, Dean," Jak replied. "Watch back."

Jak took off his brown-and-green camouflage jacket and pulled his own sharpened blade, switching it swiftly from the right hand to the left. He kept his luminous red orbs focused on his challenger, watching his foe's eyes. Jak had been in enough hand-to-hand brawls to know to never watch the other's man knife, you always watched the other man's eyes.

Unfortunately, before the brawl could really get under way, Brack decided to stack the odds in his buddy's favor by taking out the small .22-caliber handblaster that Jak had spied earlier. The younger boy had slunk to the back of the gathered group watching the fight and was now aiming the pistol at the back of Jak's skull.

Most of the teen onlookers were viewing Jak and Dex warily circle each other, reacting verbally when's Jak's knife bit first, cutting a red slit across his opponent's stomach. The bl.u.s.tering arcade guard was already on the horn, summoning a mall sec team to break up the fight.

The only one keenly watching Brack's progress was Dean. The other member of the arcade-machine-hogging duo was now boldly preparing to shoot the blaster.

Dean was too far away to prevent the chilling without responding with the same kind of force about to be unleashed on his friend, so he pulled his own blaster and shot first.

The first salvo from the Browning went high, racing like a fleeing man into the screen of a colorful vid game. The bullet shattered the exterior protective shield, going into the true vid screen and entering the very guts of the amus.e.m.e.nt comp's brain. Sparks flew, from both the point of entry and from the jury-rigged wall socket the arcade game was plugged into. Modified to handle four games on a single outlet, the aperture erupted into flames.

For an instant only the four games on the same circuit were affected. Then every piece of electronic gadgetry in the arcade was shorted out one by one, and the room plunged into near darkness.

Brack fired the .22 blindly at the same instant Dean squeezed off a second shot of his own, catching the boy in the throat. A fine red mist sprayed out from the exit wound. The bullet Brack had shot went wild, hitting the disputed Mortal Kombat game in the coin box.

Seeing in the dimness with eyes like a cat, Jak swung out an open palm and caught the second knife-wielding teen in front of him across the face once, twice. The slaps sounded like the cracks of a ringmaster's whip. Immediately the boy's eyes lost their mock killer sheen and started to glaze over in dismay. He started to cry and Jak pressed his attack, back-handing the boy with his knuckles for a third blow to the face.

"Drop knife," Jak said matter-of-factly. "Or I'll gut from b.a.l.l.s to nose."

The boy did so.

"Now, drop your blade, boy, or I drop you," a new voice said.

Dean was no longer serving as Jak's backup. As the albino turned to slowly face the speaker, he found his friend was standing with his hands in the air. A trio of Freedom Mall sec men with long blasters was waiting for Jak's next move.

Jak opened his hand, and the knife fell to the carpeted floor.

He could see Dean being relieved of his Browning Hi-Power.

"Guess this means we lose our memberships, huh?" Dean said.

"LOOKS LIKE we're working for you now," Ryan said to Rollins.

All of Ryan's inner circle, except for Dean, were standing before the seated black sec leader.

"Glad to have you on board," Rollins replied, his face an unreadable mask. "I got the word from Mr. Morgan. I understand you two worked out a deal."

"If you want to call it that."

"You want sec jackets? Armor?" the leader of the security force asked.

"Not really. We're not going to be strolling around busting local problems at gaudies or ha.s.sling cart vendors," Ryan told him. "We're here to help you with any stickie attacks and to mebbe a.s.sist in the training of your greener men."

"Well, that would probably be two-thirds of my current squad."

"How big a crew are you running, honestly?" the one-eyed man asked.

"That's on a need-to-know basis."

"Don't give me that c.r.a.p. You want my help, I need to know." Ryan gestured to the others around him. "We all do."

Rollins stood. "Let's talk while we move. I'll show you the armory and the training areas."

As the group followed the big sec man, he picked up where he'd left off in the conversation. "There are twenty full-time sec men and ten reserve. Usually we work active sec details on the exterior of the mall, and the surrounding areas in and around Freedom's perimeter during daylight. Day exterior shifts run twelve hours, from eight in the morning to eight at night."

"What about inside?" Krysty asked.

"Different kind of sec man. We're more of a presence in here to remind our guests to behave. Day patrols on the mall interior are on a light duty roster. Most of our hard labor comes after dark, both on the inside after people start drinking and the outside when the muties get restless. More often than not, people on the inside of Freedom have no clue there's a problem outdoors, and that's the way we want to keep it."

"How does the night shift break down?" J.B. asked as all of them stepped into former mall loading dock that had been taken over with targets, tumbling mats and exercise equipment. A few sealed wooden cases of weapons could be seen in a corner, locked up in a fenced-in area. Some of Rollins's regular sec squad were working out.

"If you work days, the shift is longer 'cause there's lower stress. Work nights, you can go from eight to four in the morning, or from midnight to eight. There's some overlap. That's on purpose since it falls at the same time we tend to have the most problems. Stickie activity usually hits between midnight and 200 a.m., although they've been known to come earlier and try again later."

Ryan leaned against a rack of barbells. "Okay, here's the way we're going to do this," he said. "We'll all stay on the night shift with patrolling and training. I don't give a rip for day duty if the action always comes after sunset. Give us a few days to get acclimated, meet your men and we'll try playing school. J.B. here can talk hardware. I'm on tactics with J.B. Jak over there might not look like much, but he's the finest hand-to-hand fighter I've ever known. All of us have been involved in close-combat fights with stickies before and survived, so it's not impossible. Stickies might be scary to some, but they're also triple stupe. Usually you can outsmart them."

"What's standard armament for your sec men?" J.B. asked.

"M-16 long blasters. M-16 A-2s to be exact."

"Chambered to take 5.56 mm rounds?"

"Right."

The M-16 was the traditional weapon of the smart sec man or hired mercies. The effective range of the now cla.s.sic Army blaster was just under 350 yards. The weapon could be fired in four modes on single shot, semiauto, automatic or full cycle. Capable of firing close to a thousand rounds of ammunition per minute, keeping an M-16 on full cycle would empty a full 30-round magazine in under two seconds.

"Got a few extras of the M-16 if you want them, but there's not much ammo. We're lacking in that department. Haven't gotten a new supply in months."

"Which explains why the blaster-and-ammo store we went to earlier had been closed," Ryan said.

"We had to confiscate his stores. The man was paid, of course."

"Of course."

"Been meaning to ask you, Dr. Wyethwhy do you keep carrying around a target pistol? We could fix you up with an autoblaster with no problem," Rollins remarked.

Mildred hefted the ZKR 551 6-shot Czech revolver and sighted an imaginary target as she replied, "I've always been a believer in staying with what you know, and I know this revolver. Know how it feels, know how it shoots. I can draw, aim and fire without even thinking and hit my target time and time again with this blaster. Switch to something new, even with an increased bullet capacity, and by the time I learn it as well as I know this gun, I'd probably be dead."

"I see. Very well, the"

Mildred wasn't finished. "I like simplicity. The double-action revolver is a self-loading design, allowing the operator to c.o.c.k the hammer and rotate the cylinder simultaneously, and then release the hammer with one trigger pull. Or if I choose, I can thumb-c.o.c.k this baby like an old single-action revolver. And I always know how many bullets I have. With an auto, you have to count."

"Not if you have enough clips."

"Outside, extra ammo isn't usually an option. A revolver is easy to operate. The ammo in the chamber is clearly visible and never, ever misfires. If a sh.e.l.l jams, you just keep pulling the trigger and rotate the cylinder to the next sh.e.l.l. If you keep trying to blast away with an automatic, you have to stop, eject and remove the dud by hand," she said as she replaced the blaster in her holster.

"Give me a good automatic any day," Rollins told her.

"To each his own. Like I said, the extra shots don't mean much in that kind of situation. My pistol has a smooth trigger action, again adding to accuracy. And in a pinch, I can fire a variety of bullet loads, even though this one's been chambered to take a Smith amp; Wesson .38-caliber round. Try doing that with a 5.56 mm auto."

"You make it sound d.a.m.n near perfect. Although that hand cannon is bulky and takes much longer to reload compared to an automatic. Autoloaders help, but you still lose seconds opening up the chamber, lining up the bullets and closing shop. And we both know the velocity falls short of an autopistol. High muzzle velocity will always provide the maximum penetration."

"Why, Mr. Rollins, perhaps you know more about guns than you're letting on." Mildred said with a smile.

Rollins returned the grin. "Could be."

"What have you got stockpiled?" J.B. interrupted, an uncharacteristic twinge of jealousy making him speak up.

"Not as much as I'd like. We did have more, but a lot of the good stuff has been used previously. Mr. Morgan had more blasters and ammo on order from a baron upstate who was open to trading, but they never arrived."

"Hope the stickies didn't end up attacking a convoy and getting the d.a.m.n things."

"You and me both."

Chapter Twenty-One.

Downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was a mora.s.s of skysc.r.a.pers and smaller buildings aligned in a boxy grid network. During the boom years, it was known as the city that tobacco built, and locals wore the label with prideuntil smoking became a habit less and less tolerated by the general public. Harvested crops went unsold, and advertising avenues continued to dry up, until finally the use of tobacco in the United States became an almost underground movement.

The tobacco companies found their salvation in overseas sales. Asian companies, as well as the former Soviet bloc countries, had always had a l.u.s.tful gleam in their respective eyes for the various brands of American cigarettes. When the big business of tobacco found their own country was more than willing to cast them out, and the special interests and bought-and-paid-for friendships had evaporated with the prevailing political climate, there was no looking back.

And Winston-Salem was never the same again.

That part of North Carolina hadn't been struck with the explosive force and precision of the mighty earth-shaker bombs during that cold January in the year 2001, nor had nuclear devices been detonated anywhere nearby. Some chem warfare had been launched farther down at the base of the Triad area, but of a form and fashion that only killed off the surviving humans in rapid fashion while leaving the buildings and machinery and other nonliving constructs intact. The primary stickie base in that part of Carolina was located way downtown in a ramshackle old tobacco warehouse on Liberty Street. The large double doors were padlocked shut, but there was a private back entrance that allowed full access to open s.p.a.ce within, a wide-open s.p.a.ce that housed an entire community of the freakish mutants.

Many of the muties were quiet, half-sleeping from inactivity and boredom, loath to step outside into the sunlight. A more active splinter group was seated in a semicircle made of old recliner chairs and sofas.

"Norms," one of the stickies said in a thick, halting voice.

A period of time pa.s.sed while damaged, rad-altered and inbred brain cells tried to shake themselves into providing enough energy to fire the necessary pinp.r.i.c.k burst of electricity for another coherent thought. Five minutes pa.s.sed, maybe six. There were no complaints. Many stickies had no concept of time. Sunup and sundown was the extent of how their own internal biological clocks ticked. Stickies needed very little sleep due to their higher body metabolisms. The only thing fast about them were the killing rages they could be induced into by high stress and fireworks and explosions.

The same stickie spoke again. "Normssuck," he declared.

"Yeah, Howie," a second mutant agreed, his words articulated with more care and speed . "You said it. Took you long enough, but you said it for all of us."

Other stickies now began to speak, their comments overlapping and interrupting.

"Drove the norms out of the city, but they still want to stay in the mall."

"I hear the mall's nice."

"Norms like it. Norms like nice things. Nice soft things."

"Mmm. Norms are soft."

"Norms are p.u.s.s.ies."

"Could go for some norm p.u.s.s.y." Stickie laughter rang out in the warehouse. Rough s.e.x with a norm was always a treat, and they knew the mall was full of succulent norm flesh. More discussion created a s.e.xually charged atmosphere, and one or two of the slower stickies were aroused and turned their attention to more immediate fulfillment. "Yeah. Yeah," one of the pair breathed as his right arm worked. He looked at himself with approval as he tugged and pulled to create the enjoyable feelings. The second stickie involved in self-gratification wasn't paying heed. He was involved with his own pleasure, preferring a softer, gentler touch that left him unaware of his surroundings.

"I don't believe this," a new voice said. Unlike the others in the room, this voice was hurried, with the words almost rushing out and stepping on top of one another to get what was needed said as quickly as possible. "Playing with yourselves again? If you're h.o.r.n.y, go find a mutie s.l.u.t. Just spare me the sight of you guys flogging your logs for the amus.e.m.e.nt of your fellow muties."

Norm and Budd came out of the small office near the semicircle of furniture. Once the office had been used for the dispatcher to check in and send out truckloads of tobacco, but now it was a base of operations for the new leaders of the stickie horde.

The pair had been living in Winston for many weeks now, and as the scarred human had predicted, the two had managed to align the stickie population into more of a coherent fighting force than ever before, even raiding convoys for weapons. Any qualms about Norm's ancestry had been dismissed by his sheer ugliness and by the long-haired Budd's willingness to back his friend up to the table.

Politics weren't a stickie pastime. As long as they got to spend time burning and chilling, they were content to take Norm's lead.

"See, Budd?" Norm said, his voice dripping with disgust. "This is why stickies are the joke of Deathlands. When you could be plotting to take over, you're too d.a.m.n busy holding j.a.c.k.-.o.f.f. contests."

"Got someone for you to talk with," one of the members of the half circle said slowly as he zipped up his pants. "Show you."

Norm and Budd followed the stickie to a corner room in the warehouse.

"Who is it?" Norm asked.

"A scavie. Has information to sell."

"Never heard tell of that, a man willing to rat out his kind to a mutie," Norm said. "Could be a trick."

"Perhapshe wants to live." Budd said. "Man wants to livemight do anything. You should know."

Norm's lidless eye glared at the stickie. "He should still know better."

Budd stopped before exiting the room. "What about you, Norm? How do you fit in?"