LITMIR.BIZ

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Ryan said. “They’re clean.”

      “You’re right,” Phyllida replied. “We were outside this structure, tracking down the violator who planted the device. I understand it went off.”

      “Yeah,” Ryan said.

      “Then I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” Phyllida told him. She sounded genuine, her voice tinged with regret.

      J.B. spoke up from behind Ryan’s shoulder, his eyes watching the strangely garbed women carefully. “You use the mat-trans often?” he asked.

      “No, never,” Phyllida told him. “But we had hoped to, as stories had been passed down for generations regarding its purpose. As I was telling your companion here, the device was out of commission for a very long time. Our people only achieved functionality again barely a day ago.”

      “Then someone blew it up,” J.B. said drily. “That’s mighty inconvenient.”

      One of the other Melissas spoke up, the honey-haired one called Charm. “William was a fool.” She spit. “He should have been driven out of Heaven months ago.”

      “Heaven?” Doc asked with obvious surprise. These women dressed like angels, but surely...

      Phyllida turned back to him and smiled. “Heaven Falls,” she said. “Where we live. We’ll show you, if you like, once we’ve assessed the damage to the mat-trans. It won’t take long.”

      “Heaven Falls.” Doc rolled the name around in his mind. “It sounds, well... It sounds heavenly. Does it not, Ryan?”

      The one-eyed man looked from Doc to Krysty and the others, judging their expressions. When he met with Mildred’s chocolate-brown eyes he saw her nod subtly. She wanted somewhere to check Ricky over more fully. A ville could be it.

      “I think we’d like that,” Ryan said finally.

      Together, the group made its way back through the redoubt to its heart, where the operations room and the mat-trans waited in their state of disarray.

      “The bomb was set here,” Ryan said. “My friend tried to disarm it, but we ran out of time.”

      “Placed the fire blanket over it to douse the flames,” J.B. said, as if in consolation.

      Kneeling, Phyllida lifted the soot-streaked blanket and swept her hand through the mess underneath. It was still hot, but she didn’t seem to be bothered. Behind her, two of her companions were lamenting the shattered armaglass walls, while the other two checked the equipment in the control room.

      “No signs of additional damage,” Adele said as she worked one of the consoles.

      “All clear here,” black-haired Nancy confirmed, running a boot-up sequence on another console on the far side of the room.

      Ryan and his companions watched in silence, and he felt almost violated by seeing other people operating the mat-trans controls. The companions had no clue as to how the system worked, but seeing strangers working the equipment felt threatening and very wrong.

      After a few moments Phyllida straightened from the smoke-blackened tiles of the mat-trans floor and stood at her full height in front of Ryan. She was a beautiful woman, statuesque with the flawless skin of youth. Women like this didn’t usually exist in the Deathlands; it was a demanding environment, one that wore away at people, and at women most of all. Seeing these Melissas, as they called themselves, made Ryan feel uneasy, as if he was being tricked somehow.

      “Thanks for everything you did to stop the fire,” Phyllida said.

      “J.B. here—” Ryan began, but Phyllida interrupted him.

      “You’re all to join us at the Home,” she said. “I’m sure that the Regina will want to thank you personally when she hears of your heroics.”

      With that, the Melissas ushered the group from the control room and out into the corridor. Within minutes they were outside, following the dirt track that led from the redoubt door.

      * * *

      ITWASBEGINNINGto warm up outside. They were in a wooded area, lush grass lining the steep slope that led toward a blue, cloudless sky. Surprisingly, the usual chem clouds were absent here.

      Though she had been outside briefly, Krysty wore a broad smile as she stepped into the sunlight again. She looped her arm through Ryan’s and pulled him into a sunny spot that was brightly illuminated on the dirt-and-tarmac path. “It feels good to be alive,” she told him, and Ryan knew what she meant. She had had no chance to express her concern for him in front of all these strangers, and her comment now was a veiled reference to how pleased she was that he had survived the bomb blast. Giving away too much about relationships, or much of anything else, wasn’t smart when you were around strangers.

      “Your friend likes the sunlight,” the honey-haired Melissa observed.

      Krysty remained on the path, twirling joyfully with her arms outstretched, a few feet from the redoubt’s entrance.

      “She does at that,” Doc agreed, “and her name is Krysty, though forgive me if I have already forgotten yours, foolish old man that I am.”

      “Charm,” the woman replied, flashing Doc her perfect smile.

      “How very appropriate,” Doc replied.

      The companions were allowed to keep their weapons, which boded well. In fact, allowed was too strong a word for it—the Melissas simply showed no interest in discussing their blasters just as long as they kept them holstered. Jak retrieved his Colt Python from where he had dropped it close to the redoubt entrance, and that was the only occasion where blasters were ever mentioned in conversation, wherein Linda instructed him to keep the weapon out of sight at all times. That was also when the subject of the late William came up.

      “I’m sorry that you had to witness that,” Phyllida told Jak.

      “Not see much,” Jak told her.

      “The man was a violator,” Phyllida explained sorrowfully. It seemed that she regretted not that Jak had seen it so much as that their society had deviants at all.

      “Violation is a disease,” she added. “It eats away at our love, fracturing the world we try to build. I’m proud of what I do for the Home, even though my contribution is small.”

      “What is it you do?” Ryan asked her.

      Phyllida thrust her shoulders back proudly, like a soldier showing earned medals, and gestured to her white-robed companions. “We are Melissas,” she said. “We protect the Home from factions that would destroy it, both from outside and within.”

      “Then you’re sec women?” J.B. queried.

      Phyllida looked at him and shrugged. “I haven’t heard that term,” she said, then remained silent, unsure of how to explain it to these strangely garbed outlanders.

      Ryan and his companions followed as the white-robed Melissas led them up through the trees, following some unseen route they knew only from familiarity. There were flowers dotted here and there, more of them as they moved closer to their destination, brightening the surroundings with little oases of color: here a patch of magenta, there a line of red and white and blue. Occasionally, J.B. caught Phyllida and the others looking up at the sun, and he guessed that they were using it to navigate, the same way he did when he arrived at a new location.

      Not far into the journey, Ricky stumbled and Mildred was forced to stop the group while she rechecked his wound. When he lifted his shirt, Mildred saw that the wound was still weeping blood; a darkness that was almost black had spread across the gauze she had used to patch him.

      “Is your young friend going to be all right?” Adele asked with evident concern.

      “He’ll be okay,” Mildred said, but there was worry in her tone.

      Linda spoke swiftly, almost cheerfully. “We have a medical faculty at Home. Perhaps your

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