Chapter Thirty-Four

 

 

 

There were so many questions after the wag had rumbled away into the freezing night.

 

The underground monarch hadn't just given Ryan drugs. There was a parcel, neatly wrapped and itemized, of ammunition, including both the rare caseless rounds and the antique .36s for Doc's Le Mat.

 

A whole rucksack was filled with food, mostly canned meat and vegetables, as well as some dried fish, and a supply of Eau-clenz tablets, which claimed to make any kind of water safely drinkable. A small shrink-wrapped box of self-lights promised to get even the dampest of wood burning brightly. But it was the drugs that brought Mildred running from the side of the unconscious man. She took the package, which was wrapped tightly in the neatly cut remnants of a black plastic garbage bag, and tore it open, looking down into her cupped hands as though she'd just encountered the Holy Grail.

 

"Fucking-A!" she whispered.

 

It was a bubblepack, stamped and coded, of twelve miniature syringes, each containing a measured dose of the antibiotic. Mildred read quickly though the instructions, lips moving, totally ignoring the waiting trio of friends.

 

Krysty broke the silence. "Well?"

 

Mildred nodded slowly, her face breaking into a smile. "Pardon the aptness of the expression, but this is just what the doctor ordered."

 

 

 

THE NIGHT PASSED. Ryan took turns on watch with Doc and Krysty, allowing Mildred to spend all her time by the side of her patient. A cold front had come south over the state, slicing down from Canada, dropping the temperature to something like forty below.

 

The only good thing about the lethal chill was that it kept everything out of sight and under cover. It was only necessary to slide the door open and peer out every once in a while, waving away the frosty plume of your own breath to see what was happening. The streets were utterly deserted. Once the wind blew an old can past, and it rattled and echoed with a strange, sharp intensity.

 

During the time, Ryan told his companions something about Harry Stanton and the rambling palace of the underworld king.

 

Mildred was only listening with half her attention. The instructions had said to give the injections every six to eight hours. She'd given J.B. two at once and then a third two hours later. His breathing seemed slower and easier, and his temperature had fallen a little.

 

But, as she said, there was still a bitterly long row to hoe.

 

Doc was the most interested in the story of the endless rooms of prenuke memorabilia. But all of his questions passed Ryan by. He wanted to know about certain books or movies or songs.

 

"Sorry, Doc," Ryan replied, shaking his head. "If you want to go there after this is all down and done and see for yourself, I guess Harry is the sort of guy who'd be delighted to see you."

 

"You trust him, lover?" Krysty asked.

 

"You know about me and trust."

 

"Sure, but as far as it goes? Will he give us up to the scalies?"

 

Ryan rubbed his hands together, trying to massage some warmth into his fingers. "Don't know, Krysty. I asked him about how he survived, living quite close to the edge of the muties' turf."

 

"And?"

 

"Said he believed in living and letting live. Long as they didn't step on his toes, he tried not to step on theirs. But I think the fact that he knew Trader and even knew me years ago gives me an extra card in the game."

 

"The wag," Krysty said.

 

"What about it."

 

"Think he might sort of lend it to us to go after the boy?"

 

"Stanton's got the biggest collection of wags I ever seen."

 

"Saw," Kiysty corrected.

 

"I ever saw. But I can't imagine him being so filled with kindness that he'd lend us something like the recce wag I came in."

 

"Be good against the scalies."

 

Ryan nodded again. "Yeah. But he did give us a map, showing as much as he knows about the layout of their headquarters. It's right up against the river on the west side. He reckons there could be as many as five hundred of the bastards there."

 

"Take some doing."

 

"I know that, lover."

 

"When do we make our move to rescue Childe Harold from that dark tower?"

 

"Dean. Not Harold, Doc. The kid's name is Dean."

 

The old man half smiled. "It was a literary allusion, my dear friend. But let is pass."

 

"Sure. Depends on J.B.'s health. If he stays the same, I'll go day after tomorrow. If he starts recovering, we could maybe even try tomorrow night. If he doesn't make it, we'll go as soon as feels right. Can't wait too long. Not with the boy in the hands of the scalies."

 

 

 

"TIME IS IT?" Ryan asked.

 

"About an hour off dawn," Krysty replied.

 

"Doc on watch?"

 

"Yeah. If it gets any colder, he reckons his breath'll freeze right in his mouth."

 

Ryan laughed quietly. "Might be the only way known in the universe to teach Dr. Theophilus Tanner to keep his mouth shut."

 

Krysty wriggled under the pile of stinking covers, alongside him. "Mildred says J.B. is holding his own against the infection. She's given him another injection, and she'll try another at first light."

 

"What a shitting stupid way to go and buy the farm. Bitten by an insect! I reckon J.B. must have had better than a dozen serious blaster and blade wounds. An insect!"

 

"Not quite as cold under here," she whispered. "You got all your clothes on?"

 

"Sure."

 

"Want to try getting out of some of them, lover?"

 

"Won't be my breath that gets frozen if I do, Krysty."

 

"Maybe find somewhere hot to put it."

 

"You gaudy slut."

 

Krysty giggled, fumbling at the buttons at the front of his trousers. "That's me. Any act, no matter how disgusting, for a handful of jack or a fistful of creds. You name it and I'll do it."

 

Ryan was kissing her, and he whispered something in her ear, making her laugh out loud. "You filthy bastard perve, Ryan Cawdor."

 

"You said anything."

 

"I didn't mean that anything. Anyway, we don't have either the honey or the blindfold."

 

"Or the deaf-mutie with the hand bells."

 

Krysty was kissing him in tiny, fragile little pecks, all across the side of his face and neck while her fingers reached their destination. He was uncomfortable on his side, trying to find a way into her tighter pants.

 

"No hand bells?" she said. "Gaia! What a shame. Have to just do it in the boring, old-fashioned way. Nevermind."

 

"Don't mind at all."