Neutron Solstice

Chapter Seventeen

Once inside the doors, Doc Tanner closed his eyes, standing still, hands folded in front of him. Like a pilgrim reaching the shrine of a blessed saint, he seemed transfixed with a deep religious awe. "Lordy," was all he said.

"What is it, Doc?" asked Finnegan.

The old man smiled with an infinite gentleness so unlike his frequent grouchiness that Finn took a startled step backward, "Should have said to me, 'What's up, Doc?' That would have been right. But forgive me, Finn. I know I ramble on."

"Tell us 'bout it, Doc," urged Ryan.

"Something wrong with him?" asked Jak Lauren, who'd been leading the way.

"Nothing's wrong, young man. Nothing. It's just that I can recall things you..." He shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. "Got a speck of dust in 'em. No, it's just walking in this establishment brings back such a flood of memories. Oh, my dear Emily! How she... Give me pause, gentlemen!"

Ryan, J.B. and Finn looked away, embarrassed by the old man's weeping. Jak Lauren and several of his tatterdemalion gang looked on, bewildered.

All around them, the dusty lobby of the Adeiphi Cinema, West Lowellton, silently waited.

Doc pulled out his kerchief with the swallow's-eye design and raised it to his beaky nose to snort into it with a bellow of noise. Sniffing, he looked around at the others. "Your pardon, gentles all. You cannot possibly imagine how, after all this time... Oh, such an eternity! It still has that flavor. Warm velvet plush, overlaid with dust. A little sweat. Darkness and flickering lights. Laughter and tears. Popcorn and Babe Ruths. And magic. That above all. I can still savor the magic."

"You remember vid-houses, Doc?" asked Ryan. "There hasn't been one open in Deathlands that I know of in a hundred years."

"I heard of one up in Jersey," said Finn. "Then I heard it was a gaudy porn-place."

The interruption gave Doc a moment to recover. He looked sideways at Ryan. "Very nearly, my dear Mr. Cawdor. But shall a butterfly be broken on a wheel or an old dog taught new tricks? No."

"Time's wasting," interrupted Jak Lauren. "Blood's flowing and there's dying."

He led the way into the interior of the building. As with the motel, Ryan was fascinated with this living artifact from the prenuke past. A pinhole glimpse of the dead America.

Ryan had noticed a small plaque on the outside wall, telling the world that "The Adeiphi Cinema was opened officially on September 24, 1989, by Senator John J. McLaglen."

It was a squat, rectangular building, with a faintly Spanish or Moorish look to it. Pale fawn stucco had weathered down to near white. A marquee awning, with vertical slit windows above it, had once held news of forthcoming attractions. On one side Ryan had seen a glass cubicle where he guessed tickets and food and cigarettes had once been sold. A peeling, faded notice warned, "The Surgeon General has determined that the more you smoke, the faster you die."

There were around thirty of the gang around the building. Ryan had been impressed with Jak's grasp of military security. They had been escorted back from the Holiday Inn, with guards ranged on either side of them, covering a couple of blocks in each direction. They carried a bewildering range of battered blasters, most of them either handguns or old hunting rifles that had their origins in Spain or Czechoslovakia. Pistols came in all shapes and sizes, virtually all showing signs of having been welded or having the bore enlarged. In the first couple of minutes Ryan spotted Colts, Pumas, Pythons, Brownings, Enfields, Webleys and Smith & Wessons, with a few Russian Stechkins and Makarovs. Predictably, because of the comparative ease of making ammo, there were some very old Colt Navys and Walkers.

Lauren's renegade unit was comprised mainly of men and a lesser number of women, between the ages of fifteen and thirty, with some of them older. They all looked scruffy, in patched clothes. And all of them looked as though they never quite got enough to eat.

The one characteristic that they shared, and that set them apart from most of the population of Deathlands Ч those that weren't muties, that is Ч was an alertness, a hair-trigger readiness; jumpy and sharp, their eyes were constantly on the watch. They were a bunch of ordinary people doing the best they could. Ryan thought then about what Jak had told them about his hopes and plans, and once again felt how much he wanted to help the snow-haired lad. Bat still at the core of his heart was Krysty Wroth. As he followed the slight boy through the swing doors into the auditorium, he was already calculating. How many men? Day or night? Frontal raid or try to sneak in? Whatever happened, there were men and women in the old cinema who would be dead within twenty-four hours. You didn't slice through someone's carotid artery without some of their blood splashing all over you.

"Quiet!" yelled Lauren, holding up a hand for silence. "These them. Got good guns. Help, we help 'em get women away baron. This is big one, friends. We hit hard and mebbe win forever."

There were about a dozen of what Ryan figured were the top hands in the outfit. All had the killer look around the eyes and mouth. It was immediately obvious that they didn't much care for having four strangers suddenly in their midst.

"Why the fuck we need 'em, Jak?" asked a tall woman whose lower jaw was disfigured with a livid scar zagging across her neck.

"You don't need us, lady," replied Ryan. "Way I see it, if you keep alive and Tourment doesn't get no stronger, in about fifty years you might be able to put a real fucking fright up him."

There was a general relaxing of tension, and some of them laughed openly. The woman spat on the floor and turned away in obvious disgust.

"I don't like a bad winner, lady, but I sure hate a fucking sore loser," added Ryan, pushing it deliberately, knowing that this wasn't a place to back off even an inch.

"Let it lay, Zee," snapped Jak. "We voted and they're in."

"These women he got... mean a lot to you, brother?" asked the woman, still not beaten.

"Do muties shit in their pants?" he replied, getting a bigger laugh and even a grudging half smile from Zee.

Jak shook his head. "That's enough. There's some serious talk to go down. We know his place. Even got plans from city files. What we didn't have was blasters and mercies. Now we got 'em."

Finnegan didn't much like that. "Not fucking mercies, kid. We go where we want and chill who we wantto chill. You need us more'n we need you, kid."

Suddenly there was a flicker of light, and Jak was in a classic knife-fighter's crouch in front of Finn, the blade dancing from hand to hand, faster than the eye could follow.

"Don't call me kid, fatso."

Ryan knew better than to try and step into a scene like this. Finn, despite his chubby, amiable exterior, was a bloody-handed killer and was quite capable of drawing on the boy and spreading him all over the far wall. If that happened, things would get hot. "Don't call me fatso, kid."

Jak was balanced on his toes like a wind-blown feather, watching Finnegan, red eyes locked on the older man's face. "You got balls, fatso."

"Kids like you, they got lotsa gall but no fucking sand. I could drop you before you could use the knife, kid."

Lauren grinned wolfishly. "Sure you could. You're here cause you're good, fatso. Heard you chilled some sec men this morn. You draw, you mebbe hit me, but you're on your fucking back looking up at sky, wondering why you wanted to be a prick."

Ryan could see a real risk, after the first combustible moment, that they might talk each other into killing each other.

"That's it," Ryan said, feeling the ripple of disappointment around him. For a kid of fourteen, Jak Lauren had some serious respect from his people. They really thought he could take Finn.

Maybe he could. Ryan wasn't going to find out.

"It's gone noon," he said, showing his chron around. The place was badly lit, with a row of flickering lamps, in glass bowls with swimming fish engraved on them. At one end of the sloping room was a massive maroon curtain with golden tassels draped across it. From what he recollected, Ryan guessed that there would be a screen behind it.

"Sure has. You're right, Ryan." The slim knife disappeared as quickly as it had sprung to his hand. Though Ryan was watching him intently, he hadn't seen where the boy had hidden it.

"We talk about how we do this?" asked J.B., moving casually against the right-hand wall. It was second nature for the Armorer to seek out a position where he had his back against something solid.

Jak half bowed to him. "Sure. Talk plan. Can't go until after dark. They're too ready. Tourment's no fool. Before talk, we'll show something to you. Rare. From before the quick sick came."

"Food?" asked Finnegan, omitting the "kid" this time.

"Sure. Always ready. Talk. Then go in and get the prisoners."

Ryan spotted something in the use of the word. Something that meant more than just Lori and Krysty. "How many prisoners, Jak?" he asked.

"Three."

"Three?"

"Yeah. Night 'fore last. Mephisto sec men snatch squad got lucky. Picked up my father. This time tomorrow Tourment'll have killed them all."

"Then let's get to it," suggested Ryan.

The boy nodded, solemn-faced, the cascading white hair framing his skull like a silver halo.