Perception Fault

“Upon my word.” Doc kept his blaster pointed at the two wounded men as he started to clamber to his feet. In seconds, J.B. was at his side, hauling him back down behind the wall while keeping his M-4000 aimed at the pair, both of whom had stopped rolling on the ground and stared back at the companions with hate-filled eyes.

The Armorer waved at the building across the street even as he shook his head. “Dark night, Doc, you trying to get yourself killed?”

Doc grinned, showing his peculiarly even, white teeth. “While I will admit that my diversion may not have been well planned, it did do the trick, did it not?”

“These triple-stupe bastards aren’t what I’m talking about.” J.B. jabbed a thumb at the other side of the wall. “Remember the longblaster out there? Next time, think of something better than playing the hero—sure way to get a bullet through the brainpan.”

“Perhaps, but I got the distinct impression that these brigands were not coming to kill us, but to capture as many alive as they could.”

“Black dust, Doc, I swear that third guy came within an ass-hair of hitting you with his blaster.”

Mildred had come down from the building and run across the street in a crouch to join them, looking at their two prisoners with distaste. “What were you thinking, showing yourself like that?”

Doc shrugged. “I saw a course of action and took it. In hindsight, I concur that may not have been the most prudent avenue to pursue, but it got the job done, so to speak.”

The black woman shook her head, her beaded plaits swaying back and forth. “I swear, Doc, you take more words to say ‘I fucked up’ than anyone I know. What about these two?” She indicated the pair with the barrel of her blaster.

“See if you can patch them up long enough to— Look out!” J.B. shoved Mildred aside and brought up his shotgun even as Doc’s LeMat boomed. The slug smashed through the first prisoner’s breastbone, sending splinters of bone along with the slug crashing into his heart, stopping it instantly. The crude blaster, tape wrapped around its handle, fell from his hand.

The other coldheart had launched his own diversion by trying to grab Mildred. J.B. didn’t waste a shot on him, but instead brought the M-4000’s stock around in a short arc, cracking the man in the side of the head. He fell over as if someone had cut his spinal cord, collapsing in a sprawled heap on the ground.

“Damn, J.B.” Her blaster out, she checked the man for weapons, then checked his neck for a pulse. “You killed him. Must have crushed his temple with that little love tap of yours.”

The Armorer grimaced as he bent over to examine the corpse. “Didn’t think I hit him that hard.”

“You don’t know your own strength, John Barrymore.” For some reason Doc found that statement absurdly funny, slapping his knee as he laughed so hard he nearly choked, coughing and spluttering. J.B. glanced at Mildred in puzzlement, but she returned his look with a shrug before craning her neck a bit to peer cautiously over the wall.

“Shouldn’t we be finding the others?”

J.B. checked his chron. “Haven’t heard any signals—no gunshots or other signal calls yet—but it’s only been about three minutes since they left. Let’s give them two more, then poke around for them. Ryan’s still out there after the sniper. We better leave him a chance to take the coldheart out before we risk our necks going anywhere.”

The boom of the sniper rifle echoed all around them, making heads turn toward the no-man’s land on the other side of the wall. J.B. frowned. “Or we might have to go a bit sooner than planned.”

AS HE RETURNED to consciousness, Jak had the strange sense he was floating over the ground. Then there were the noises—voices nearby—a man, no, two men talking, and a woman whose voice sounded familiar.

The rest of his awareness came back between flashes of pain. First was his swollen head, with a large lump on his forehead that he couldn’t touch for some reason. His cheek was wet, too, although he didn’t know if that was his blood or someone else’s. Also, there was a band of unyielding pressure around his throat, constrictive enough to allow just a bit of air to get through. Lastly, he felt a warm circle of metal pressed against his temple, and the distinct odor of cordite every time he inhaled. His eyes fluttered, but he had the sense to remain as still as possible, trying to pick out what was being said around him.

“Blind norad, we got a live one here!”

“Good-lookin’, too. All right, step away from Henney there, and don’t do anything stupe, or your kid gets it.”

There was a startled cough of surprise, and Jak’s mouth twitched as the thought of what the expression on Krysty’s face had to look like right now. When she spoke, her voice was lower and rough.

“My kid? You got a funny sense of humor if you think I’d lay claim to that puling whelp. Little bastard’s been nothing but trouble since I found him six weeks ago. Now the son of a bitch’s got me trapped and cornered, so you can have him for all I care. I just want to get out of this in one piece.”

“I think that’s something we can talk about later, but just in case, I’ll gonna keep your little buddy here. Koons, get in here and see if you can rouse Johnny.”

Jak heard footsteps approaching from outside, and another person entered the room, crossing in front of him to behind the counter.

“Ah-ah—don’t even twitch toward that blaster. See where this is pointed?” Jak felt his head being wrenched back and quickly closed his eyes in case the other man was looking at him. The circle of metal pressed hard into the skin over his temple, but Jak hadn’t heard the hammer being cocked—yet. “I’ll vent his head if you move the wrong way. Come out from over there and stand right here. Dammit, Koons, you almost let her get the drop on us.”

“Thought you had her under control, ya stupe. I got my own problems right now. Johnny ain’t looking too good—breathin’ shallow and fast. Got a lump on his head the size of my fist, seems like.”

“Shit.” The man hawked up a wad of phlegm and spit. “You lay Johnny out, bitch?”

“He didn’t know how to keep his hands to himself.”

Jak felt the man behind him shift his weight. “Nukeshit, I knew this was gonna be more trouble than it was worth.” Cracking open one eye, he peeked out through his lashes to see Krysty with her hands up, standing in the middle of the room. Sounds of movement came from behind the counter as the second man tended to the third one.

“If we don’t get him back pronto, he’s gonna die. Might not make it anyway.”

Jak opened his eye farther, willing Krysty to look at his face, to know he was conscious. At last she did, but betrayed no reaction upon seeing his intense stare.

“All right, let’s bind these two and take them both back. If there’s more, the other team should take care of them. We got enough.”

“Look, can’t you just let me go?” Krysty stepped forward, her hands held out beseechingly.

“Nukin’ hell, bitch, stay right where you are, or I’ll pull this trigger and spray his brains all over the room!”

While she moved closer, Krysty arched one eyebrow at Jak in an unspoken question. Jak rolled his eyes, indicating what he thought of her query.

Krysty shrugged at the threat. “All right. It’s your funeral.”

“What—” was all the coldheart got out before Jak’s right hand shot up and grabbed his captor’s hand, levering the large blaster away from his temple before he could shoot. At the same time, the albino lowered his head against the man’s forearm, gagging for a moment as his air was cut off, then powered it backward with all his strength, slamming the back of his skull into the man’s nose. His right leg shot straight out ahead of him, then snapped backward, smashing his heel into the man’s knee. Lastly, a twitch of his left wrist had dropped a narrow, leaf-bladed throwing blade into his hand, the tip of which adroitly found its way into the man’s abdomen, under his rib cage, penetrating deep into his stomach.

Separately, any of the attacks would have been disorienting or crippling at the least. Together, they were an onslaught that spelled the man’s doom. Too stunned from his crushed nose to squeeze the Python’s trigger, he let his hostage go as he found himself falling to the right, his crippled knee unable to support his weight. The heavy blaster was plucked from his hand as he toppled over, suddenly aware of the sharp flash of pain blooming in his side, draining all his strength away as if it was leaking out along with his blood. The last thing he saw was the weird albino kid leaning over him, a thin, dripping blade in his pale hand, and those eyes, those slitted, red eyes, underneath that shock of white hair gleaming like some kind of demon….

Jak opened his throat with a slash, and the man’s eyes dulled, glazing into the sightlessness of death. Blaster in hand, he turned to see that Krysty hadn’t been idle while he was freeing himself. In one graceful bound, she had leaped on top of the crooked counter just as the third man’s head had popped back up at the commotion.

“Trey—” he began before Krysty’s muscled leg lashed out in a devastating front kick, the silver point of her boot catching him right in the lower jaw. The crack was loud in the silence as the bone shattered under the impact. The man spun and fell to the ground, clasping his hands to his ruined face as he rolled around, grunting and whuffling in pain. Without pausing, Krysty jumped down behind the counter, there was another crack, and then silence. She came out from behind it with her blaster in hand.

“Let’s go.”

“Works for me.” His voice was hoarse, and Jak stepped carefully as a brief wave of nausea hit him, making him see stars and blackness for a moment.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, let’s get back camp. Seen men and stickies. Warn others.”

“Stickies? Where?”

“Pulled guy’s face off next building. Blew its head off ’fore his buddies got drop on me and brought here.”

“Shit, we better get back double-quick. Come on.” The tall redhead and the lean, white-haired teen slipped out of the room and back toward the campsite, leaving only the dead and dying behind.

Chapter Four

Knife gripped between his teeth, Ryan squirmed into the small tunnel, which seemed solid, if tight enough that his shoulders brushed the walls on both sides. He wouldn’t shoot from here—the position was too confining—but it would give him enough cover to scan the area ahead and try to spot the sniper.