LITMIR.BIZ

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a big city, Ryan,” Krysty said. “Isn’t that kind of a tall order?”

      He grinned.

      “When isn’t it?”

      * * *

      THEY HEADED OUT. Ryan decided to keep going the way they had been, southwest, in the general direction of the immense half-collapsed rectangular structure.

      Krysty had misgivings about that. She was in her own way even more attuned to the natural world than their former wild child Jak, who was now ranging out in front of the rest scouting for danger—a job he insisted on doing despite his discomfort in urban surroundings. Being in the middle of the steel-and-concrete corpse of a great predark city felt unnerving enough, though the greenery bursting out through cracks in the rubble as if to reclaim it in so many places kept her from feeling cut off from Gaia.

      The corner they approached was apparently an entrance. It consisted of blocky shapes tiered outward and upward from a corner cut out of the giant building. The doors had once held glass, long since blown out, leaving rusting metal frames like cage walls.

      A colonnade ran down the building face along the street to their left. The street itself remained more or less intact. It was still passable, anyway, in spite of being heaved and broken in a crazy quilt of angled planes. And still passed, she reckoned, to judge by the fact that little more than sprouts and tufts showed through the network of innumerable cracks.

      The space between it and the facade had obviously been a broad walkway. Now the pavement was gone, replaced by neat rows of cultivated plants—potatoes, beans twining up stakes, green vegetables, rows of shoulder-high corn along the edge closer to the structure where they wouldn’t deny the other crops light. It all looked terribly vulnerable to Krysty.

      “I wonder where everybody is,” Ricky said from behind her.

      As they approached the vast derelict—or ruin, she corrected herself, because somebody pretty evidently still occupied it—they had fanned out into a V formation, with Ryan at the point, Krysty at his left side and J.B. to his right. Mildred walked just behind J.B. Doc followed Krysty. Jak zigzagged cautiously ten yards ahead of Ryan. Ricky brought up the rear in a line behind Ryan.

      “Somebody’s spent a lot of time tending that garden,” he said. “Like the one behind us. And somebody keeps the junk from building up in that place we took our break. So where are they?”

      “Laying low,” J.B. said. “They likely heard blasters. Decided to duck and cover until whoever was having the disagreement sorted things out.”

      “Think they’re inside that thing?” Mildred asked uneasily.

      “Seems likely,” Ryan said.

      Jak crouched up the concrete steps to the entrance, well over to the right so he wasn’t walking right up to the open, Cubist cave mouth. He glanced inside.

      “See nothing,” he called back softly.

      “Ryan?” Krysty asked.

      “Drive on,” he said firmly.

      “You sure that’s wise?” Mildred asked.

      “No. If we were wise, we wouldn’t be here.”

      “Where else would we be, then, Ryan?” Doc asked.

      “If I knew that,” Ryan gritted, “we’d be there. Right. We walk in like we own the place.”

      “Won’t somebody spot us?” Ricky squeaked.

      “Son,” J.B. said, “somebody has. You don’t think people survive in a place like this without keeping close watch on everything that goes on in their immediate area? Especially intruders coming into it.”

      Ryan led the way boldly up the steps. Jak slipped around and inside the building, trusting his superior senses and reflexes to alert him to any lurking dangers—especially ambushers—and get him out of the jaws of any trap before they slammed shut.

      Inside was cool and dark, especially after the hot dazzle of the downtown street. Coils of razor wire were positioned at both sides of the entrance, at angles to leave the way in and out clear.

      “Looks like somebody likes to be able to shut the place up tight,” J.B. remarked. “Keep unwanted guests out.”

      “It is not working on us,” Doc said.

      J.B. shrugged. “Mebbe we’re not what they had in mind.”

      “Huh,” Mildred said, sniffing the air. “It doesn’t smell like sewage. Much. Other than us, I mean. We have got to get cleaned up. I know everybody these days has a super immune system, but if we don’t want any little scratch to give us pseudomonas, so that our legs swell up and go gangrenous and have to be cut off—”

      “Enough,” Ryan said. He halted them just inside the lobby.

      “Anyway, it seems like a good sign,” she finished.

      “People live,” Jak said. He crouched in an area right of the entrance, where a picnic table and some chairs had been set in what might have once been a kiosk. Its enclosure was now just metal uprights to hold long-vanished glass.

      “Yep, they do,” Mildred said. “Somewhere. The question is, do any live here?”

      “They do,” Krysty said. “I smell food cooking. With onion, garlic and basil.”

      Her stomach rumbled as she said it.

      “Mebbe they’ll invite us to join them for lunch,” Ricky said.

      “Or to be lunch,” J.B. suggested.

      Other tables and chairs sat on a tile floor, dark gray on lighter gray down the central strip that ran from the door, mixed shades of blue and gray to the sides. It looked as if the area was used for socializing. A dead escalator rose at the far end to a second story surrounded by a rail.

      “Ryan, look,” Krysty said as they advanced. She pointed at a giant square doorway that opened to their right.

      Like several others, it spilled yellow daylight onto the floor tiles. Through it they could see what looked to be another farm or garden. A hole in the roof—or a roof that was missing entirely—allowed the life-giving sunlight in.

      “Huh,” Ryan said.

      “Nobody home,” Ricky stated.

      “Waiting and watching to see what we do, likely,” J.B. said.

      “So what should we do, lover?” Krysty asked Ryan.

      He had reholstered his weapons when they ducked into the building across the intersection. Now he cupped his empty hands around his mouth and hollered, “Hello! Anybody here? We’ve reached this ville and we’re looking for work.”

      A blaster shot fired from the railing toward the escalator was his reply.

       Chapter Four

      “Mebbe they don’t like outlanders,” J.B. said.

      “You rad-sucking fool, Tyrone!” a man’s voice shouted from the gallery. “Why’d you give us away?”

      “They’re mercies!” another voice yelled back defensively. “We can’t let Hizzoner’s blasters on Angels turf!”

      “Back outside!” Ryan yelled, racing toward the doors, which fortuitously were open.

      As the companions turned to sprint the few steps back to the outdoors, another shot cracked out. Tile splintered to Ryan’s right. Then another blaster spoke and another.

      “More right!” Jak yelped. Meaning other enemies were appearing in the doorway to the odd interior garden plots.

      “Hold your breath!” J.B. shouted. “Poison

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