William Dietrich - Getting back

"We're also running low on things to throw or shoot," Amaya added quietly.

Daniel nodded. "Where's Raven?"

"Here." She came out of the shadows. She was bruised, and a hand was wrapped in a bloody bandage. "I keep trying the transmitter, but it's still jammed. We're awfully close to the ocean, Daniel. Maybe the Cone doesn't have an edge, at least not here. Maybe the coastline extends farther east elsewhere. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the only way it's going to work is to get back the activator."

"You mean make a deal?"

"I mean we may be fighting to save something I can't promise will work."

He regarded them somberly. "Do we give up?"

Then they heard Rugard's voice, calling ftom the plaza.

"Dyson! You in there? You still alive, you son of a bitch?"

What a balls-up, blood-spattered, rubble-strewn, humiliating nightmare of a mess! Damnation! Rugard Sloan had felt like a goddamn Genghis Khan when he came up with his siege tower idea, straight out of old movies-well, it was the weasel's idea, but same thing- and then that bitch and her thief companion had started spitting furniture at him like they'd packed an atomic cannon! Where the hell had that come from? Stuff flying off the roof like it was being put into orbit! The hastily erected tower had toppled, he had a dozen people dead or seriously wounded, two dozen more crying about minor injuries, and a whole army that was thoroughly spooked. Rugard wasn't certain a single convict would follow him if he led another charge across the plaza. The Warden was desperate, as desperate as he'd ever been in his life. He just hoped the fugitives he'd trapped were desperate too.

"Dyson! You too hurt to answer?" He kept edging farther out into the plaza, keeping a wary eye for a sudden rock or bolt.

If he couldn't get in, Rugard reasoned, they still couldn't get out. That was his key. He could starve them, or maybe smoke them: start a fire at the base that might choke them where they stood. But maybe there was an easier way: a way he should have tried from the beginning.

"Dyson, you come out where I can see you! You come out and talk like a man!"

"You coming to surrender?"

Rugard looked up. The voice had floated defiantly again from that third-floor window and he could see Dyson's head up there now, a pale balloon in the firelight from the rim of the plaza. He'd love to put an arrow or a rock in the middle of it, but that wouldn't do what he wanted to do.

"I'm coming to gut you all like pigs!" the Warden replied, hoping his bluster masked his frustration. "I'm coming to put your heads on poles! I'm coming to set a fire that'll roast you all like hamburger! Unless you listen to reason!"

It was quiet for a moment as they digested this. Then, "We're not giving you the transmitter, Rugard! We've beaten the best you can do and we'll beat you again! Let us go! Someday, maybe all of us will get back."

Rugard hesitated. The problem was, Dyson didn't sound scared enough. Not that he doubted he could beat him if they came to grips with each other, but he wanted more fear. That's when he knew he had his opponents, when they mentally gave up. There was a disquieting chance that this guy had a martyr complex, and that gave Rugard pause. The truth was, any man could be dangerous if he was unafraid to die. Yet what choice did the Warden have? The others wouldn't follow him much longer.

"I'm not a man of violence, Dyson!" he now yelled. "I'm just a man of order. Of organization! I didn't want it to come to this! I just want what's rightfully mine! So I say we end this before any others get hurt. You and me! One on one!"

"What?" Dyson's voice was quieter now.

"You heard me! You got the guts to back up your big mouth? You willing to fight for all these people you led into a trap? I'll fight you for the transmitter alone. At dawn! I win, I take it back! You win, we let you go!"

The face disappeared from the window. Somebody had pulled at him. Raven, it looked like. She knew what a mean sonofabitch the Warden could be. And Dyson was weak for her. He was afraid she'd talk him out of it.

"You and me, Dyson, to the death!" he called. "Your choice of weapons! Then it's over for everyone! You man enough to face me alone? You man enough to come away from that woman of yours?"

Nothing. Silence. If nothing else his challenge was winning his own followers back, he felt. Rugard wasn't asking them to do what he wouldn't do. Rugard was going to fight for it himself.

"Dyson!" He was getting impatient. "You willing to end this thing?"

Then the head came back. "No!" Daniel shouted. It echoed over the plaza. "You win, you get the transmitter. I win, we get the activator and free passage. That way, somebody gets back. And the bloodshed stops."

Rugard was taken aback a bit. Give the fugitives the activator? Gamble everything? He didn't like the strength of Dyson's voice.

"You and me at dawn, Rugard!" Daniel continued, the challenge coming down defiantly, almost mocking. "Spears! Winner gets the other's machine, and free passage! Winner takes all!"

Damn him. The Warden was quiet, absorbing his surprise at the acceptance. They must be desperate because the transmitter still didn't work. And yet that just drew them into his trap, didn't it? The fight was still his way out, his key to escape. Because Rugard Sloan could take a pissant like Dyson any day. He could chew up little men like that with hardly a breath, his domination complete. And then leave all these cretins behind.

"All right then." He said it absently, almost to himself. Then he raised his voice. "All right then! You be ready, boy! Dawn! To the death!" He swaggered as he left the plaza, a swagger for both Dyson and his own men. He knew he could take him, take him easily.

But he'd have to be careful. Rugard glanced back. Men without hope were dangerous.

Ethan shook Daniel awake. Light was filtering through the broken windows of the battered tower. Dawn was near.

Surprising himself, Daniel hadn't brooded on his decision but slept. Slept well: the battle had left him exhausted. He'd pushed aside Raven's fear before it became his own. Now it was almost morning. His last day in Australia if he won the activator, signaled for help, and left with Raven.

Or his last morning ever.

"It's time, mate." Ethan stood back to let him get up.

"You're starting to sound like Oliver, you damn Australian."

Ethan smiled. "Oliver came back last night you know, after you were asleep. Through some tunnel under the city, like a little mole. Pretty shaken when he got here. I don't think he's used to what big groups of people do to each other."

"I'm not used to it either."

"Do you want some breakfast?" It was Amaya.

"No, I'm not hungry." The statement made him chuckle at a memory.

"What?" she asked, looking at him strangely.

"Outback Adventure's screening lady. She asked me what I'd want for my last meal."

She looked sad. "And what did you say?"

"That I wouldn't have an appetite."

He walked to the window. It was light enough that he could see the tired convicts sleeping around the edges of the plaza, keeping them penned. He didn't see Rugard.

It will all be over in fifteen seconds, one way or another, a trainer had said. He turned back. "I need a good spear."

"I'll find one," said Ethan.

"And I'd like to say goodbye to Raven."

"I'll find her," Amaya said.

He sat by the window, still waking up, enjoying the growing pink splendor of the dawn in the direction of the sea. Such a lovely place, Australia. He should be concentrating on tactics-It wouldn't hurt to know how to run, the instructor had told him- but his mind was so crowded with memories it was impossible to think about the fight. Microcore, the tunnels, the clearing where he'd awakened in Australia, the wrecked transport, the climb up the monolith. It seemed like a dream.