There was movement in the night, and I turned toward the sound. Before I could say anything, the street light Pop had installed two years before lit up, and I was looking into startled eyes.

  “Lassiter?”

  His face was pale.

  “What are you doing out here this late?”

  He looked around a second, and his shoulders slumped. “I was meeting a girl.”

  I laughed. “No need to feel guilty about that. I snuck out to see Neave quite a few times. Who’s the lady?”

  “She’s a new girl,” he said. “She came in with the last group of refugees.”

  He was staring into the light, almost mesmerized. “I never thought I’d see that again.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “At least until I made the trip out to the plant yesterday.”

  I heard gleeful exclamations from various places around the compound and grinned. The house had lit up like a beacon, over past the barn. The bunk house where we used to house the guys that worked for Pop was also lit. I had gone through earlier and turned on all the switches so that the effect would be all the more drastic.

  Neave came out of the house with a broad smile on her face. I went to meet her.

  She looked at all the lights and back at me. “This is why you were fiddling with the switches earlier today. I wondered what you were up to. You knew this was going to happen.”

  The last statement was accompanied by narrowed eyes.

  “Spriggs wanted to surprise…”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “But he…”

  “Don’t you blame that poor wonderful engineer.”

  I raised my hands. “Surprise!”

  “Hmph,” she said and turned around.

  Her act would have fooled me if I couldn’t see her reflection in the glass of the door as she went back inside. If she’d been smiling any wider, her head would have split in two.

  I turned back to find Lassiter was gone. For a moment I wondered which girl he was sneaking out to see. I didn’t remember any that lived out to the east of us. Most of the refugees had been expanding the settlement to the west, away from the city. Pete’s farm was the only one to our east and we had moved all the civilians out of the place. It was manned by a Farmer’s Guard. We would have left the place altogether except it had four silos we could still use for storage.

  I shook my head and headed toward the house. People were beginning to come out under the street lights, and I already heard someone playing music. I’m not sure if I could imagine a better day than this. Then I heard a sound that proved it could get even better. The heating unit on the side of the farmhouse kicked on.

  Cheers began to sound from various places around the farm, and I smiled. Then I eased back out into the darkness. Someone would have to be on patrol around the perimeter, and I would let the others enjoy their time as the lights filled the night.

  I kept my eyes turned outward so that the lights wouldn’t kill my night sight. Slowly, I made my way around the stone perimeter wall listening to a celebration going on inside the square. There was music playing, something I hadn’t heard for a very long time. At least music that was recorded. Grady could pick at a guitar and several of the others played various instruments but it had been a long time since we had heard music like this.

  A shadow moved ahead of me coming from the other direction. There was a slight jingling from the metal studs on the vest he had found as they hit the metal belt buckle.

  “That you, Grady?”

  “I knew these damn studs were a bad idea,” he said. “They aren’t that loud are they?”

  “May as well carry a neon sign.”

  “Bite me.”

  I laughed.

  “I’ll take the patrol if you want to go join the party,” he said.

  “Never was much for parties,” I said.

  “Me neither.”

  “You should go see if Deli wants to dance,” I said.

  “I take it you noticed?”

  “Yeah, you’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”

  “You’d think she wouldn’t want anything to do with a fella after what she has been through. I was afraid to even ask her until she got tired of waiting and just kissed me.”

  I chuckled. “Then go on in.”

  “She’s out at the dam,” he said. “Doc is out there doing his check-ups on the folks out there, and she went with him. I think she wanted to use those showers.”

  “She’s doing pretty good as a nurse for Doc, too.”

  “True,” he said. “But I’m thinking the showers are a big part of it.”

  “I can’t blame her there.”

  “So you go on in and spend time with that wife and daughter.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Sound off if you need anything.”

  “You got it, Boss.”

  I crossed through the north gate into the farm and made my way back to the house. I had an idea and needed to make a few preparations.

  Twenty minutes later, Neave came through the front door with Allie in her arms. Allie was so tired her head kept nodding. I reached out, and she handed the baby to me.

  “Left you something in the back.”

  “Oh?”

  I followed her to the back room where she saw the steam coming from the door across the bedroom.

  “Oh, my,” she said and crossed the room.

  As she went through the door, articles of clothing began to fall.

  “Oh, you beautiful, wonderful man.”

  Across the room was the garden tub filled with steaming hot water. Alongside was a bowl with three apples and some wild flowers.

  I grinned. “Now, little lady, let’s leave mommy to her bath.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god…” Neave muttered as she lowered herself into the hot water.

  Something as simple as a hot bath can be taken for granted until there aren’t any more of them. And they were few and far between in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 20

  I heard a power saw as I walked toward the barn. Rounding the corner, I stopped and cocked my head to the side.

  “What the hell are you doing, Pop?”

  He was building a platform of some sort.

  “We need more horses.”

  “And you’re building what?”

  “See, you put the mare here…” he was pointing at the inside of the u-shaped platform.

  “Oh, hell no,” I said realizing what the platform was for.

  “He’s the only one that isn’t a gelding.”

  “You’re going to breed the mares to that fat lazy pony?”

  “You have to use the cards you are dealt, son.”

  “You know what?” I raised my hands. “I’m not going to have anything to do with this one. You’re on your own.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not taking part in your whacked out plan today, Pop.”

  “The only other way is to do the job manually and fertilize the mares, artificially.”

  “I’m damn sure not doing that, either,” I said. “I think Jimmy and I are going out to look at this turret Curtis told us about. Maybe put up some signs to keep folks from getting killed.”

  “You sure you don’t want to help…”

  “I’m damn sure,” I answered and turned toward the paddock where Dagger was already at the gate, waiting.

  I heard Pop chuckling as I walked away. I just shook my head as I saw Wandrey at the other end of the field. Some of the kids had found some hair coloring. His mane was rainbow colored and his tail was the same. I was pretty sure there used to be a cartoon that looked like that but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what it was called.

  Gary was next to the watering trough but he didn’t have his customary five gallon buckets.

  “Gee,” I said.

  “Sure is nice to have the power back on, Zee,” he said. “I haven’t had to carry all those buckets of water this week.”

  “I’d say.”

  “Do you know what Pop wanted me to do?”

  “What?”

  “He said we needed to ‘milk’ that damn pony. I said it was a boy, and he said it wasn’t really milk we needed.”

  I snorted.

  “That’s what I said,” he replied. “Now, I love you guys like my own family. But, not just no…Hell no.”

  “I guess that’s when he started building the platform behind the barn?”

  “Yeah, and I’m not helping with that either. If he’d have asked for help with that first, yeah. But, no, he wanted me to jerk…”

  “You wanna go with me and Jimmy?”

  He took a breath. “I saw you over there with Pop. If you’re trying to get me to…”

  “No,” I said. “I told him hell no, too. We’re going out to check on that turret that shot Curtis.”

  “Now, that, I’ll be glad to do.”

  “Alright.” I grinned. “Why don’t you go see if Grady wants to join us? Then go jerk o…I mean catch one of the horses and saddle up.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  I laughed. “Who knows? We might find a stallion out there somewhere and not have to witness the creation of a bunch of half-pony, half-horse abominations.”

  “Half breeds aren’t that bad,” he said. “My Uncle used to have a couple. They were really good barrel racers.”

  “It’s not the half breed part I’m thinking about. Just look at him.”

  He looked across the field at the pony and started laughing. “I see your point.”

  He was still laughing as he rounded the corner of the barn—on the opposite side from Pop—to go find Grady.

  I shook my head and turned back toward Dagger. “You would have made a damn fine dad.”

  He snorted.

  “Yeah,” I said as I unlocked the gate. “I never thought I would be one.”

  He pushed me toward the tack shed with his head.

  “I know you don’t want to witness this, either,” I said. “Maybe we can get the hell out of here before he goes and tests the damn platform.”

  “What platform?”

  I turned to find Jimmy standing behind me.

  “The one Pop is building to breed the mares to the pony.”

  “I see. Pop asked me to come help with something but I told him you had already made plans for us to go out.”

  “And you’re lucky I did.”

  “Okay,” he said and jumped over the fence to go catch a horse.

  Sometimes his lack of emotion wasn’t as obvious, but I really noticed it in a funny situation. I missed my brother’s sense of humor. Damn the corporations and their wars. Or hostile takeovers, as they used to call them.

  I had Dagger saddled, and Jimmy had Kennedy out of the lot when Gary showed back up with Grady in tow.

  “Thank God you sent Gary to get me,” he said. “Pop has some hare-brained idea about the horses. You’ll never guess what he asked me to do.”

  Gary and I were still laughing as we rode out of the farm.

  Some things I just won’t do. Even in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 21

  “This has got to be the place,” Gary said. “There’s what’s left of the fence.”

  I nodded. “Curtis said they went in about a hundred feet before the turret went active.”

  “What, exactly, are we going to do about the thing?” Grady asked.

  “I guess we should figure out where the sensor range is and put up some signs.”

  “I’m not going in to test it,” Grady said. “How do you suppose we’ll find out the range?”

  Jimmy dropped from the back of Kennedy and walked up to the fence.

  “I doubt even you could dodge turret fire, Jimmy.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  He apparently found what he was searching for and bent down to pick up a log. I doubt any of us could have lifted the six feet long piece of a tree. He set his feet and with the log held straight up in front of him, strode forward three steps to hurl the log forward. I remembered a time very long ago when Jimmy and I had watched what some folks called Scottish Games. They used to call what he was doing the Caber Toss. If any of them had been Agents, they would have undoubtedly won the games. The log sailed forward.

  Then the ground rose and bullets slammed into the log.

  “Close to a hundred feet,” Jimmy said. “Curtis was close.”

  “Damn it, Jimmy,” I muttered.

  He was looking at the firing turret with his head cocked to the side.

  “What is it?”

  “That isn’t one of our turrets.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “That’s a Teledyne weapon.”

  “What the hell would a Teledyne turret be doing this far into Obsidian territory?” I asked. “I could see finding old JalCom stuff in the area, but Teledyne was strictly west coast.”

  “Regardless,” said Grady, “It’s a live turret. Do you think we could keep throwing stuff in there until it runs out of ammo?”

  “As long as this place is unmanned, whatever it is.”

  “I think I’ll just turn it off,” Jimmy said and walked forward.

  I looked at Grady who shrugged.

  “He’s just going to turn it off,” Grady said.

  Jimmy stopped just out of range and started looking around.

  “Uh, Jimmy?”

  He held his hand up and kept examining the area.

  “There it is,” he said. He walked to his left, staying just out of range of the sensors.

  I looked at Grady who shrugged again.

  “He’s just going to turn it off,” Grady repeated.

  I sighed and watched as Jimmy stopped to kick a rock. It flipped back and a control switch rose from the ground. I could see the number pad atop the switch.

  “Great,” I said. “It needs a code.”

  Jimmy punched in a long series of numbers and the keypad lowered back into the ground where the rock flipped back over to hide it. He turned and walked toward the turret.

  “Wait…!”

  But the turret didn’t fire.

  “Holy shit, Zee,” Gary said. “He did it.”

  “Damn it, Jimmy,” I said, then muttered under my breath, “He’s going to give me a damn heart attack.”

  We followed him inside the perimeter. I kept a wary eye on the turret.

  Jimmy reached into a compartment behind the gun and did something. The turret sank into the ground.

  “That should do it,” he said.

  “How did you do that?” Gary asked.

  “The program they were uploading into my head is an assassin. He knows all of the Teledyne codes. He specializes in high priority targets, and there are master codes for anything they kept behind security.”

  Gary was quiet as he listened to the answer, then nodded. Surprisingly, he didn’t ask anything further. Jimmy had said all that really needed saying, but the youth was usually filled with questions.

  “That hill over there is probably an entrance to whatever this turret was guarding,” Jimmy said.

  “Let’s go see what it is,” I said.

  “I’ll take point,” Jimmy said. “If there are any Teledyne forces inside, I’ll be better equipped to deal with them.”

  “Not arguing,” I said and drew my .45. “I got your six.”

  He nodded, and I followed my brother around the hill.

  He stopped and looked at another rock for a couple of moments.

  “Another keypad?”

  “No,” he said. “That’s a trap.”

  He reached past the stone and pulled on a sprout of a tree. There was an audible hum and the mound split right in the middle and opened up like a dome folding down. Inside was a platform.

  “There’s the keypad,” Jimmy said.

  “You think?”

  He just looked at me. I really missed my brother.

  “Never mind,” I muttered. “Let’s see what’s inside this place.”

  Jimmy punched in the long series of numbers again, and the platform jerked as it started sinking. It descended for a long time. We had to be down a hundred feet by the time the lift stopped. You could see the daylight from the hole above until the top closed back over the elevator.

  The wall straight ahead of me opened and my mouth dropped open. The room on the other side was enormous.

  “How the hell did Teledyne build something like this right under the noses of Obsidian?” Grady asked.

  “This took a lot of planning,” I said, stepping from the lift into the warehouse-sized cavern. “Those look like weapon containers.”

  “A lot of damn containers,” Grady said.

  “Stay here for a minute,” Jimmy said and moved off into the warehouse so fast I could barely follow him with my eyes.

  “Damn it, Jimmy,” I muttered.

  “You can say that again,” Grady said. “I swear he freaks me out when he does that.”

  “He freaks everyone out when he does that.”

  “If those are rifle crates, there’s enough to arm every man, woman, and child on the farms.”

  “And then some,” I said.

  I saw a shadow move and Jimmy was back from his recon. He was carrying something.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Grady asked.

  “That is the most awful and glorious thing I’ve ever seen,” I said. “How many of them are there?”

  “The whole back half of the cavern is filled with them.”

  “If Teledyne’s are anything like Obsidian’s, they’ll suck. But they’re good for decades and they’ll keep you alive.”

  “They can’t be that bad,” Grady said.

  “Some of them were edible,” I said. “Some, not so much.”

  Who would think a former grunt would be this happy to see a warehouse of MREs? It could only happen in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 22

  “Those rifles are going to be a game changer,” Grady said. “We can really do some training with those.”

 

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