Krokodil Tears

'The game ain't over 'til the whistle's blown.'

The cowboy was sobbing now, the gunbarrel shaking against his flesh.

'That cracker-ass pussy ain't gonna do it,' said one of the Maniax, turning away in disgust. 'Never no good entertainment out in the sand.'

Kenne was shaking all over. He lowered the gun, and it hung limp in his hand, barrel to the floor.

'Just a bloody buggering knee-trembler, eh what?' Jitters jumped up and down, face red with excitement.

Jessamyn picked up her perrier and finished it. The moment was over. Magda poured her another drink. Later, she would pick up the misshapen bullet from the floor. It would make a nice souvenir for her charm bracelet.

Kenne turned, and staggered towards the door, his chest heaving as he cried. A dark stain was spreading from the crotch of his Levis.

'Got your arses whipped in Nicaragua, and now you've lost it all in bloody buggering Arizona,' Jitters shouted, keeping up with the broken American.

'Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's bleeding light, what so proudly we turn into spineless gibbering jellyfish with no dickybirds at the twilight's last gleaming…'

Kenne struck out at the drunk, but Jitters stepped back.

'Whose broad bums and shite cars through the perilous night, as on the ramparts we cowered in abject and pathetic fear was so chicken-livered streaming…'

The cowboy was nearly out of the door now. People were back to their drinking, drugging and whoring.

Tcherkassoff was on the video-juke, with 'Siberian Sayonara.'

'Oh the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in the air made us manufacture chocolate in our underpants through the night though our god-rotted yellowstain rag was still there…'

Kenne sagged against the doors.

'Oh, say does that star-strangled banner yet flap…'

Jitters leaned close and spat at the cowboy.

'O'er the land of the Yanks, with their heads full of…'

Then, the explosions started.

VIII

As the mortar-flashes lit up Dead Rat, Holm Rodriguez signalled to his soldiers to move in. They were all people he could trust, unlike that Angelino pendejo Manolo. This wasn't a surgical strike, this was a massacre. All well and good, and he had no real objection to anything that rid the world of a townful of sandrat trash, but it was a pretty inelegant manoeuvre.

He sent Mostyn out on point, giving him Lucy Cheadle as back-up. Mostyn's M-29 spat, and somebody rolled down the dunes. The soldier gave Rodriguez the thumbs-up. First kill. That gave him dibs on the scav, not that there would be much worth looting in this sandhole.

Susie Terhune's crew laid down some heavy fire. Buildings started burning. The incendiary charges Manolo's experts had set up earlier in the day went up on schedule. By the time they got to town, most of the heavy stuff should be over.

Despite his bulky Kevlar Hell-and-Back suit, Rodriguez moved fast. He jogged every morning with lead weights slung on his chest, back and thighs to get him used to the extra poundage of the armour. The IR visor of his helmet showed him the desert as if by the light of an overcast day.

His team looked like a gang of astronauts in desert-camouflage kit.

'Ve-hickle coming,' Lucy Cheadle's voice crackled in his earchip. 'Cyke, two riders. Can't be our girl. The reading's wrong.'

'Take them.'

'Done, sir.'

The cyke came up over a dune, and Mostyn and Cheadle caught it in a crossfire. It exploded in mid-air, and the two riders somersaulted to the sand. Haggett got in there with his bayonet, and speared the two as if they were straw figures.

'Down and out,' Haggett shouted.

That had lost them precious moments.

'Come on, team,' Rodriguez ordered, 'let's move it. We're expected at the Silver Shuriken in 78 seconds. Manolo will ream our butts if we're off-schedule.'

The soldiers jogged at full speed, M-29s jiggling in their arms. Rodriguez thought they must all look like big, hairless teddy-bears romping over the dunes.

They tore in formation down the main street, firing at anyone in sight. The gas station was an inferno. Someone dashed out of an alleyway, pumping a shotgun. Haggett's sandy expanse of chest was splattered red. 'I'm hit, I'm hit,' he said, sinking to his knees, his communicator crackling as he faded. Mostyn reacted, and brought the sumpsucker with the shotgun down with a burst of fire. It had been an old-timer, with a long white beard and a Gabby Hayes hat.

They jogged round a corner, and found themselves in what passed for the town square of Dead Rat, Arizona. There was a disused town hall, an abandoned Sheriff's office, and a still-operational five-customer gallows. And the saloon.

'Make the play,' Rodriguez shouted. 'Now!'

Mostyn and Cheadle humped themselves up the stairs, and crashed into the Silver Shuriken, guns discharging.

IX

She would have to learn to trust her new senses. There had been people out in the desert. And now they were in town, and she had to assume they were after her. It was just like the good old days. Cops and Ops and Soce Workers, all after her pretty little head.

Part of the ceiling had come down, and everyone was panicking.

'Magda,' she said, 'give me a gun.'

'Sure thing, honey, take your pick.'

The older woman pulled out a tray of handguns, and used it to push the glasses and drinks off the bar. Jessamyn picked a Smith-and-Wesson semi-automatic pistol, and jammed a couple of extra clips into her waistband.

'Good choice,' said Magda, taking a Colt Python police special.

Some of the sandrats were milling around. Some of them weren't, because they were dead.

'Guns on the house,' Magda shouted. 'Come and get 'em.'

Jitters and Curtius Kenne had been knocked flat by the first blast. They stumbled to their feet. Kenne had a proper grip on Jitters's gun now. One chamber, one bullet.

Doc Threadneedle tugged her sleeve. 'Remember, don't be too confident. Jitters' revolver was just a pop-gun. Your underflesh won't stand up to depleted uranium or armour-piercing rockets, and you still burn and bleed like the rest of us.'

Magda ze Schluderpacheru was unslinging a rocket-launcher from under the bar, and passing it across to the Maniax. Jitters was trying to wrestle his gun out of Kenne's grip.

'You got your Colts, yankee bloody doodle. Give me my gun back.'

Two hefty figures in combat suits thundered through the doors, spraying the saloon with fire. The pointman steadied and looked around.

He saw Jessamyn and took aim. She was right. This was all for her benefit.