Sunrise

“There’s no such thing as a vice-vice mayor!”

“There is now.” Darla silenced my further objections with a kiss.

I split our forces into three groups. I’d gutted Ed’s defensive force, commandeering five Bikezillas and seventy soldiers from him. Two groups left at dawn, traveling across country. My group would take up a position on the hilltop at the northeast corner of Highway 20 and Highway 78. We could hide amid the stumps and deep snow up there and observe the ruins of the bank on the east side of Stockton. The second group with Darla would swing wide around Stockton, hiding behind the car wall on the south side of the city. We took the portable shortwave and the transceiver from Longhouse One so the two groups could coordinate. The third group—five Bikezillas loaded with food—would leave an hour after us, taking the direct route to Stockton. They were supposed to follow the directions on the ransom note and leave the Bikezillas at the ruined bank. Then they would hightail it back to Speranta on skis.

The plan went off perfectly. We all got into position, the Bikezillas with their ransom of food parked just inside the bank’s mostly collapsed brick walls—and nothing happened. We waited, and waited, and waited. After a couple of hours, I set up a watch schedule and went to check on the scouts I had posted. There was nothing I could do but try to stay calm. I wasn’t, of course, but I thought I did a pretty good job faking it.

Late that night I had fallen into an uneasy slumber, when Trig Boling shook me awake. “Lights, Mayor,” he said, “on the road below us.”

I leaped up and crawled to our forward observation post, taking the binoculars from the soldier posted there. Trig was right behind me. The lights were almost directly below us, approaching the intersection. Five or six hooded lanterns or flashlights leaked just enough illumination, I could see that a group of about twenty people was moving along the road toward the bank.

“Radio Force Two. Tell them to get ready,” I murmured to Trig. He crawled away, back to the main part of our camp.

I waited another five minutes until they were well clear of the intersection below us and crawled back to camp myself. I picked up the shortwave mike, mashed the lever, and said one word: “Go.”

“Roger,” Darla replied.

My name is Alex, not Roger, I thought. Some people deal with tension by breaking down; others get angry. I think of stupid jokes.

We mounted our Bikezillas—six of them—and whooshed almost silently down the hillside in the darkness. It took almost a minute to drag the Bikezillas across the snow berm onto the road, and then we were flying toward the group on the road. I could see their lights now, even without the binoculars.

Each Bikezilla switched to attack mode—the back two riders kept pedaling, one of the front riders managed the steering and brakes, and the other lifted a rifle, ready to fire. Four riders on each load bed also prepared to fire. We hugged the south side of the road—Darla’s group would do the same—so that we could fire at anyone in the middle of the road without hitting each other.

The men in the road didn’t notice us until we were close—less than 150 feet away. Some of them turned, holding guns. “Freeze! Drop your weapons!” I bellowed. Three of them turned to aim at me, but without any light, I was only a voice in the dark. Rifles boomed from the west—Darla’s group. I couldn’t see them, but the muzzle flashes were clearly visible.

A short, chaotic battle ensued. Rifle shots seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. They had lights, and we were in near-total darkness, but they returned fire at our muzzle flashes. Some of the Reds ran; we shot at them, but without lights they melted away into the darkness, and I was sure we didn’t hit them all. I hoped they wouldn’t show up on our flanks. I hoped my mother had the sense to throw herself flat if she was out there. People fell on both sides, and the reports of the rifles were augmented by screams and moans, a chaotic symphony of suffering.

Someone yelled, “We surrender! We surrender!”

I bellowed, “Cease fire!” A few more rifle shots sounded. Then everything fell quiet.

A new voice rang out, “Shine a lantern over here.” It was Red.

When the light swung onto him, I saw that he had one arm wrapped around my mother, holding her tightly against his body. The other hand held a knife at her throat.

Chapter 77

“Mom!” I yelled.

“Alex!”

“While this reunion is no doubt touching,” Red said, “I have business to attend to. You are going to allow us to walk over to that bank, pick up our food, and bike out of here. Or I will give your mother a very messy tracheotomy.”

I looked around the battlefield. There were only nine or ten Reds left. I had almost fifty soldiers with rifles backing me up, and there were more in the darkness on Darla’s side of the battle. A sudden stab of fear nearly paralyzed me: what if she’d been hit?

Behind me a couple of our guys—field medics—were scurrying around treating our injured.

“No,” I shouted back at Red. “You’re going to put your weapons down, come back to Speranta, and stand trial for your crimes.”

“This knife is so sharp, it will not only part your mother’s trachea and jugular, it will also sever the sternohyoid, omohyoid, and thyrohyoid muscles. It may not cut her spine, but in any case, her head will be left flopping, co

I thought furiously for a moment. What would convince Red to let my mother go? He had an ego as large as his body was small—particularly where his knives were concerned. “Let’s raise the stakes.” I laid down my rifle and drew my belt knife. “You think you’re the knife god? Let’s find out. You and me, knives only I win, I get my mother. You win, you get Speranta.” I knew there was no way Darla would honor that promise, but I thought Red might believe it.

“I was told you elected your leader. Like they did in the dead age, the fat age.”

Keep the pressure on his ego, I thought. “You and I both know that this is an age for the strong. You kill me, and there’s nothing stopping you from claiming my place, from ruling over my greenhouses. My people.” I stepped forward, letting the light from the lantern hit my knife.

“You’d stand as much chance against me in a fair fight as a strawberry in a blender,” he said.

“So what are you waiting for?” I stretched my arms and neck and took another step toward him.

“You’ll face me one on one? Knife to knife?”

“I give you my word.”

Red threw my mother to the road and leapt, drawing his gladius midair and coming down on top of me in a flurry of knife blows. I tried to block his gladius with my hook, missed, and it bit into the back of my forearm. The scrape of the blade against my bone sent icy shivers up my spine and fiery licks of flame up my arm. His other knife slashed at my eyes, and I ducked, taking the blow on my forehead. Blood ran into my eyes, turning the world into a confused patchwork of red and black shadows.

I stabbed toward his stomach, but he was ready for me, throwing his hips backward to dodge the blow. A knife flashed from somewhere, cutting my right wrist on the inside, where the tendons and arteries run. My fingers loosened involuntarily, and my knife fell to the snow.

I was hopelessly outclassed. Darla stepped into the circle of light, raising her rifle, but he was on top of me again. If she shot him, the bullet would likely hit me too. Shadowed forms moved in the darkness. The gladius swept down, and I saw it barely in time to step inward, toward the strike, and throw my hook up. My hook caught his wrist, not the blade, slicing deep into the joint. The gladius fell, clunking harmlessly into the padded shoulder of my coat on its way down.