seeing him when he first arrived, arguing in a barking manner with a group of similar individuals. His friends had left him alone at some point, and now he wanted to share his ideas with the rest of the patrons.
Wentworth waited a beat before replying.
“Yeah?”
The response seemed to confuse and anger the youth even more. The kid’s eyebrows knotted as he searched for a response. “Doncha know this ain’t no derelict bar?”
Wentworth spent another few seconds examining him before responding, wondering if he should point out that this was Visitor’s wing. “No, I didn’t.” He turned back around, hoping the idiot would leave.
It took the kid a while to respond but when he did it was clear he wasn’t going to let things lie. “Hey, donchou turn your back on me, derelict!” There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor as he got up.
Wentworth turned his head around and the youth stopped in his tracks, halfway between their two tables, staring at him, chest heaving as he breathed through his mouth. Something in Wentworth snapped.
With the sudden burst of adrenaline he stood up, hearing the table and chair clatter and the cutlery shatter. All of his pent up frustrations exploded at once. Maybe it was the kid’s vacant gaze. Maybe it was the ‘derelict’ epithet. Or maybe it was just the mouth breathing. Whatever it was he found himself standing with his pistol drawn and pointed at the kid’s skull before he had a chance to think.
He immediately regretted it. He’d upped the ante when he should have been talking his way out of it. He was only helping this idiot cause trouble. But it was too late to back down. In the background he heard the rest of the patrons as they caught on to what was transpiring. He held the pistol in a firm grip, willing the kid to back off, watching his eyes through semi-polarized lenses.
One’s eyes are nearly impossible to control; they’re hardwired to the brain. The kids were wavering. They ticked to his left.
The silence lasted a split second. Other patrons were still scrabbling out of their chairs by the time it was done.
The kid blinked twice in confusion. Then his eyes widened in pain. He began shrieking.
He looked at the bartender, and pulled his money clip out. “Sorry about the dishes. Let me cover that.” He glanced around the bar. Mostly foreigners like himself, but a couple of locals were there, cigarettes dangling from long holding stems. The wary gazes were split between him and the kid. “How about I buy a round for the house, seeing as how I interrupted their meals?” He lay another wad on the counter, and saw a slight nod in response from the bartender.
He picked up and holstered his pistol; there was still no round in the chamber; then pulled the duffle bag from under the turned-over table. The kid was whimpering pathetically now, rolling back and forth on the floor while clutching his bicep, the forearm hanging at too-straight an angle. He pulled a couple more bills out, and dropped them on the writhing form. “I hope that’ll cover his medical expenses,” he said to the bar at large.
Then he vaulted over the wrought iron fence, and disappeared down the service corridor.
Saxony grunted as he lifted the crate up to the loading dock, Jeremy took it and put it on the forklift’s palette. Despite cool air he was sweating.
“Oy, gents!” The two of them glanced over. Approaching them was a foreigner dressed all in black with a duffle bag over one shoulder. “Is this here Anderson’s shipment?”
“Who?” asked Jeremy.
“Anderson, I just rode with him outta Steeltown.”
“Sorry guy,” said Saxony, “This is nothing but farm crops we got here. You’re with one of the highway traders?”
“Yeah, I was just supposed to be guarding for him, but then one of his kids sprained his ankle, so now I gotta help him unload. It’s a big shipment, whole bunch of electronics.”
“You must mean for Gizzer’s shop?” said Jeremy.
“Yeah, that sounds about right — is this loading bay C1?”
“No guy, this is C2. Only local stuff in here. Any highway merchants, they all go over to the other side — C1 should be the first. Hey, you know you can even cut through Complex, there’s a door just over there.”
“Nah, I just came from there — it’s locked on the other side, I was hoping maybe this was the right place. Guess I just gotta go for a little walk, then.”
“Uh, locked? Shouldn’t be,” said Jeremy, “Tell you what, the keys are just over there in the key box, how ‘bout I go open it for you.”
“That’s alright, you guys are busy. I’ll just take the long way around, if I can squeeze past you. Thanks, though.”
“Sure. No problem, guy.”
Raxx was underneath his truck inspecting things when he heard Wentworth’s voice.
“I come bearing gifts.”
“Oh, hey man.”
Awkwardly he crawled out from underneath. Wentworth had laid his duffel bag on the hood and was rifling through it. “I saw this stuff for sale and I thought of you.” He pulled out a large black vest with large shoulder pads and covered with pockets and handed it to him. “Try it on.”
Raxx slipped it on over his sweater. It was heavier than it looked and a bit loose, but comfortable enough. “Nice, what is it?”
“Fragmentation vest. It beats the hell out of those football pads of yours. Won’t stop heavier calibers, but it’ll keep you safe from most rifles and explosives. Here’s the other thing.” He handed over a longarm made of slick, moulded plastic, with a drum magazine and a bull-pup design. “It’s a proper combat shotgun with a constant recoil system. Fully automatic, twenty round mag, and a hell of a lot nicer on your shoulder. I’ll show you how it operates later.”
Raxx hefted it. It was much lighter than his old shotgun but it looked well made. “Well, thanks man. Did you get anything for yourself?”
Wentworth shrugged, “Just this.” He held up a piece of tubing roughly thirty centimetres long with a trigger at one end. “It’s a grenade launcher. But it’s rusted all to shit, and Lord knows where I’m going to find some ammunition for it.” He shrugged. “I got it free with the other stuff.”
“How much it set you back?”
Wentworth grinned. “Enough. Don’t worry about it though, I figure I owe it to you for having my back so many times.” The smile left his face and he stared out at the horizon. “Listen, I don’t know about you but this place is starting to feel a bit too civilized for my tastes. Plus I can’t stop staring at that tower in the distance. What do you say we go check out those ruins east of here?”
“Yeah, sure thing. And yeah, I know what you mean, not much is happening here. But first I got something for you, too.” He grinned widely and wiggled his eyebrows. He went around to the back of his truck, gesturing for Wentworth to follow. “Here put this up against your ear.” He handed him a black disc connected to a wire. Wentworth listened while he picked up a similar unit. “Breaker-breaker-one-niner,” he said.
“I got the idea the other day while we were listening to the radio. Radio’s easy enough to do, you don’t even need expensive parts. Now we can talk when we’re on the road.”
