Chapter Thirty-Three

 

 

Ryan took up a position behind an overturned truck nearly a hundred yards from the Mirage. Over the years trees had thrust insistent branches, trunks and roots through the wag's body, anchoring it to the ground while at the same time pushing it inches upward.

 

The Mirage was incredible. Small falls, probably less impressive than they were before the nukecaust had claimed the ville, jetted from the fifth floor, pouring into cracked basins that held some kind of return system that was only partially working. Lit by sporadic underwater neon lights, the white frothing overflow leaked out into the jungle.

 

It had taken the group long minutes to cover the distance. In that time they'd had three encounters and had lost Clingdon to a slimy, tentacled creature that had been wrapped up on a spit of land trailing from a broad pond on the east side of Las Vegas Boulevard. Fielding had died during an ambush by members of the blue team coming up from behind and to the side. The companions had dropped three enemy gunners before they'd managed an escape.

 

"How do you want to handle this?" J.B. asked. He slipped off his wire-rimmed glasses and cleaned them quickly on a handkerchief that looked miraculously dry.

 

Ryan mopped sweat from his brow and looked back over his ragtag army. Mildred, like the Armorer, was calm and collected, but the three remaining men appeared shaken, on the verge of spooking at every sound around them.

 

"Front door looks inviting," Ryan said, taking his binoculars from his gear, "but there're already some takers on it."

 

J.B. lifted an eyebrow. "Missed them. Damn, they must be good."

 

"Lots of other entertainment going on," Ryan commented dryly. "Missing them is understandable. And they are good."

 

Turning to face the building, J.B. put his glasses back on. "How good?"

 

"Good enough that I've only managed to lock on to their shadows a couple times."

 

"What's their color?"

 

"Green. Mebbe. They've made themselves hard to see."

 

"If they're green," J.B. said, "they've got no casualties that I've noticed."

 

Ryan nodded. The Armorer had been the first to notice the different-colored lenses used by the sec men on top of the wall. When they'd left the dead Thompson twin behind, a harsh, bright light had shone onto the area a few minutes later, splashing the corpse. Shortly after that, J.B. had pointed out the sec man waving the flash with the red lens, aiming the beam back at the big window in Bally's where the barons watched the game.

 

J.B. had been keeping count automatically. By his count, the purple team had taken the most damage with seven people gone. With four of their teammates dead, Ryan's red team was running a close second in casualties.

 

"Mebbe they're better than I was thinking." Ryan focused the binoculars and got a chance to watch the last three green-team members race into the Mirage. "They're boys."

 

"Boys?" J.B. echoed.

 

Ryan nodded. "From the looks of them. Saw some faces that time. Young. Mebbe early twenties, but I'm putting my jack on them being teens. No later."

 

"What are boys doing out here?" Mildred asked. "The blue team had some young among them, but they were all men."

 

"Don't know." Ryan kept careful watch over the entrance, but didn't see any of the green team again. "But they move like a unit. Solid. Working point, wings and slack, everybody keeping covering fire over everybody else."

 

"Just like Trader set up his operations," J.B. stated. "One of his commandments on War Wag One. 'Thou shalt cover thy neighbor's ass.'"

 

"Sec squad?" Mildred asked.

 

"From the look of them," Ryan answered.

 

"Don't see them as volunteers," Mildred replied. "Unless they got some kind of special arrangement that's going to get them out of here."

 

"We were promised," J.B. said. "Mebbe they got promised, too, and believed it."

 

"Stupid if they did," Mildred said. "But they're young. Maybe they just don't know any better."

 

Ryan put away the night glasses and took up the Steyr. "Two reasons that group went into the Mirage. One, they're hunting the high ground like us, mebbe going to take a chance at that wall if they can. Two, they've got something waiting for them that their baron set up."

 

"There's only one way to find out," J.B. said.

 

"Yeah." Ryan stood and pointed at a window on the second floor. "We go in from the side. Second floor. We've already seen some of these buildings are booby-trapped. That one's an obvious choice."

 

J.B. silently agreed. "What about those boys?" Ryan kept his face hard. "If they get in our face and raise their weapons, blow them away. No other way about it. Them or us. Me, I'd prefer it be us." He stepped into the nearby shadows and moved toward the building.

 

 

 

DEAN FELT AS IF he'd stepped into another world. His clothing was still damp from the short run through the cascading falls spraying down from the fifth floor of the Mirage. He ran a hand through his hair and brushed it back in wet curls.

 

Conor still walked point, a rifle cradled in his arms. The boy craned his head, taking in the sights.

 

Dean knew it wasn't safe to be gawking, but he didn't blame the other boy for it, either. After walking through the entranceway, they were confronted by another jungle that had evidently overgrown its boundaries in the decades since the skydark.

 

Paths twisted in different directions between the trees and foliage. Some of them were just ruts made by small animals able to get under the lower branches of the trees. Others, though, were man-made, tall and cleared out, the ground pounded bare of grass in patches.

 

A few of the trails had been tramped down recently. Dean spotted the machete marks on the tree trunks and saw the amputated branches that still showed meat in places. The trees themselves weren't indigenous to the area. Dean recognized them as banana trees and palms. But they were mixed in now with spruce and oak.

 

The ceiling was eighty or ninety feet overhead, and it was hard to see through the darkness. Occasional brief movements let him know the branches held winged night predators.

 

"Tighten it up," Louis called out. "Conor, cut your lead to about ten yards and hold up at corners. That way we can back you up if you need it."

 

"Right."

 

Dean kept his blaster before him in a two-handed grip. If someone or something jumped out from behind the trees, getting the pistol away from him would be harder with both hands on it.

 

A few yards farther on, they came in sight of the front desk. Dean had stayed in motels before, from honest-run little places operated by a family, to bigger establishments that held roomers in the second or third floor over the stage areas where gaudy sluts pandered their wares. He'd never seen a front desk as big as the one he gazed at.

 

Lazy tendrils from dozens of plants crawled across the pitted surface of the desk. Behind it, track lighting with subdued illumination played over the huge glass front of an aquarium. Dean was certain it measured over fifty feet.

 

Dean shivered as he stared into the cold, menacing eye of a small fish that coasted against the glass wall. Whether it was physically possible or not, he had the feeling the eye was staring right back at him, could see him in the dark and gazed with a chill and hungry limited intelligence.

 

"Bloodthirsty little bastards," Green said. "Did you see the teeth on that one?"

 

Curiosity partially satiated, the group moved on under Louis's command. The hallway closed them in more tightly, and none of them saw the trip wire.

 

Conor's foot caught it. "Hey," he started to protest, almost stumbling over the wire.

 

His next words were swallowed by a deafening blast Dean struggled to maintain his balance, watching Conor fly through the air, the closest of them to the explosion that ripped the front desk to shreds and smashed the front of the aquarium.

 

Tons of water shot out of the broken glass wall, splashing over all the boys in a tidal wave of soaking force. Dean went down, losing traction and his footing at once. His hand slipped across the wet carpet, but he managed to get a finger hold on a hole that had been worn through the material down to the concrete foundation.

 

As he tried to shove himself up to his feet, a sharp agony started in the side of his neck, lighting a flame in his brain. He reached up to just above his collarbone, searching for the source of the pain. His fingers slid over a small, scaly body that wiggled fiercely in his hand.

 

Dean's stomach twisted in sudden sickness at the realization of what had him by the neck. He pulled, but the teeth were clamped on tight, making his flesh come with it. Blood spilled down the side of his neck, then tracked down onto his chest beneath the vest.

 

"Bastard biter's got me, Louis!" Moxen yelled. "Help me!" One of the carnivorous fish had fastened onto his face. Scarlet lines trailed down his cheek and across his lips. His eyes were wide, filled with fear.

 

Holding on to the fish with one hand, Dean holstered his blaster and reached for the knife he'd been given. One swipe, and he hacked the fish apart just behind its oversize jaws. The teeth remained embedded and fixed.

 

Louis crossed over to Moxen and sliced the fish off, inserting a knife blade just behind the bulging eye and twisting it. The jaws popped open, releasing Moxen's face. Louis tossed the dying fish away.

 

After removing the fish head from his neck, Dean surveyed the other boys. Many of them were screaming and cursing in fright. A chill ran through Dean as he realized how deadly the fish could have been if they'd remained in their own element.

 

Enrique Green shuddered on the floor as if he were having some kind of fit. The boy's mouth gaped open in a silent scream. The wound in his leg released a spreading pink stain into the inch-deep water littered with flopping fish.

 

Dean crossed over to Green, intending to help the boy to his feet. When he rolled him over, a sucking noise caught his attention. He glanced down and saw three fish working at the boy's side. They'd opened a large wound just below the rib cage.

 

Managing to grab one of the fish, Dean watched in horror as another one ate its way into Green's insides. "Oh, shit," Dean said, throwing the first fish away. He cut the second fish off, leaving the head and ignoring the sudden streams of blood squirting out that showed arterial flow.

 

He tightened his fingers and rammed them into Green's side, tearing the flesh with the pressure he exerted. He touched the sharp fins of the fish's tail, gained almost an inch on it as he watched the ridge of flesh that showed the fish's passage inside Enrique, moving across the boy's stomach. Another surge, and the fish was lost to him.

 

"Damn, Enrique," Dean cried in frustration. He felt a scaly body slip next to his leg and drew away. Tears filled his eyes, brought on by the helpless rage he felt.

 

The fleshy ridge turned abruptly, crawling up to Enrique's chest. It slowed when it reached his solar plexus.

 

"Dean," Green stammered, blood gushing from his mouth, spraying with his words, "it hurts. Hurts bad." Before he could utter another word, convulsions seized him. He died, choking and heaving, trying to get up. Then his head relaxed, and his eyes remained open wide.

 

"Fuck," Perry said.

 

Dean looked up and found the youth standing only a few feet away. The rest of the boys appeared bloodied but intact. Conor looked the worst, bleeding down the side of his face from a large gash across his forehead. Moxen and Handley were stomping fish still flopping in the shallow water.

 

"Dean," Louis said quietly, "he's dead."

 

"I know it," Dean said. "Fish got him."

 

"Got to go," Louis said. "No place for us to stay here."

 

Dean nodded. He picked up his strewed gear and arranged it for quick access, certain he was going to need it. He felt bad about leaving Green lying there, but it had to be done.

 

"Conor, do you feel up to taking point again?" Louis asked.

 

The boy hesitated just a moment. "Don't see how you could trust me after that. Got Enrique chilled, too."

 

"Did you see that trip wire?" Louis asked.

 

The boy shook his head.

 

"Neither did the rest of us. Shit happens. All we can do is our best. I don't think you'll get any complaints from us." He looked around the group meaningfully.

 

All the boys shook their heads.

 

"Can you do it?" Louis asked.

 

"I can try," Conor replied.

 

Louis nodded. "That's all we're asking. Ready when you are."

 

Conor took a deep breath, raked his gaze around the others looking for any last-minute changes of mind, then turned and took up his position.

 

Dean followed reluctantly, feeling that no matter where they went in the building, none of them were safe.