David Robbins - Houston Run

“Tom! Hold up!”

Lynx mustered a feeble smile and slowly turned, keeping his injured right cheek on his off side.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” stated the newcomer.

Lynx, his nerves tingling, stared up into the piercing blue eyes of a giant Superior.

Hickok’s hands were flashing blurs as he brought up the Gaskell Lasers in his hands and squeezed the triggers.

The lead android was hit in the head, twin beams of light boring through his eyes and out the rear of his cranium. He tumbled to the floor.

The gunfighter pivoted, going for the charging storm troopers, mowing them down, littering the hallway with mutant and human bodies contorted in the throes of death. Armed with only their steel batons, the troopers were no match for the gunman. And when Blade added his Gaskells to the fray, the onrushing black tide was decimated. Twenty-one troopers were on the floor, dead or dying, when the rest broke, retreating through the same door they had used to enter the corridor.

Hickok shot one last trooper in the back of the head, then straightened, listening to the moaning and groaning coming from several of the prone troopers. “I don’t get it,” he commented quizzically. “Why’d they try to take us? All they had were those stupid batons.”

“Primator demands total obedience,” Blade noted. “Even if it costs them their lives.”

“Pitiful. Just pitiful,” Hickok remarked. “Dyin’ for a bucket of bolts is about as dumb as you can get!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Blade urged.

“I’m with you.”

The two Warriors dashed to the stairwell door. While Hickok covered the corridor, Blade checked the stairwell, confirming it was empty. They took the stairs two at a stride, descending to the landing below the lobby without encountering more troopers or Superiors. As they reached the landing, the Intelligence Building filled with the grating howl of klaxons.

“Took ’em long enough,” Hickok stated.

Blade cautiously opened the stairwell door. No Superiors. No troopers.

He moved forward. “Where do we find our weapons?”

“There should be a Weapons Room about halfway down,” Hickok disclosed.

There was, with the door bearing a large sign printed in green letters.

Blade tried the knob. “It’s locked,” he informed the gunman.

Hickok was keeping his eyes on both ends of the hallway. “Where are all the blasted Superiors? How come we haven’t seen anybody?”

Blade bent over, examining the lock. “This detour of ours could be working in our favor. They probably expect us to make a break for it, to exit the building as quickly as we can. So they’re undoubtedly covering all the exits and converging on the lobby like they did before. They don’t know we know about this room, so there’s no reason for them to have guards posted here.”

“Will the lock pose a problem?” Hickok queried.

“Not at all,” Blade replied, stepping back and drawing his right knee up to his waist. He twisted and kicked, his foot striking the door next to the knob. There was a rending crash and the door flew inward.

“Piece of cake,” Hickok said.

The Warriors entered the Weapons Room, Blade flicking on the light.

“Will you look at this!” Hickok exclaimed, marveling.

Blade scanned the room, surveying rack after rack of varied weaponry.

There were hundreds of weapons in all: rifles, shotguns, revolvers, pistols, bows, knives, swords and more. The metal racks were arranged in neat aisles.

Hickok started down the nearest aisle, eagerly searching the racks.

Blade took the next aisle. He was a third of the way along it when Hickok gave a shout.

“Bingo!”

“Did you find your Pythons?” Blade inquired.

“Nope. I found your pig-stickers, pard,” Hickok replied.

Blade quickly retraced his path and hurried down the first aisle, Hickok was standing in front of a large rack of knives and swords.

“These are yours, aren’t they?” he asked.

Blade stopped, a smile creasing his rugged features. “They sure are.”

The Bowies were in their sheaths, and the sheaths were affixed to hooks on the square rack.

“Now where the blazes is my hardware?” Hickok muttered, moving off, resuming his hunt.

Blade placed the three Gaskell Lasers he carried on the floor, then removed his belt. He proceeded to rethread the belt through the loops on his green fatigue pants, aligning the first Bowie on his left hip and the second on his right. As he was securing the belt buckle, Hickok began cackling like crazy. Blade grinned. He could guess why. Stooping, he retrieved the Lasers, slanting one under his belt and keeping the other two in his hands. He headed for the door, idly scrutinizing the weapons on the racks. At the end of the aisle he paused, noticing a big, gray metal box in the corner to his right. He walked to the box and lifted the lid, curious as to its contents.

Hand grenades.

Dozens and dozens of hand grenades.

“Whoa!” Blade exclaimed, then raised his voice. “Hickok!”

“Right behind you,” responded the gunfighter.

Blade glanced over his right shoulder.

Hickok’s cherished Pythons were strapped around his waist, and he held a Gaskell Laser in each hand. “I found my Colts,” he said.

“I gathered as much,” Blade mentioned. “But why are you still packing those Lasers? I thought you’d prefer your Colts over anything.”

“I do, pard,” Hickok confirmed. “But I’m not no idiot. I tried usin’ my Pythons on one of those silver coyotes before, and even head-shootin’ the mangy cuss didn’t seem to faze him much. But these popguns,” he said, wagging the Gaskells, “do the trick real well. Near as I can figure, those androids are almost invulnerable. You can stop one if you bust its legs or crack its skull wide open, but a bullet doesn’t do much damage unless you hit the right spot. These Lasers, on the other hand, seem to fry their brains, or whatever they’ve got in their noggins. I’ll stick with these popguns until we split this place.”

“I may have found something that will help us,” Blade divulged, moving aside so the gunman could see the contents of the metal box.

Hickok stepped up to the box, whistling in appreciation. “Will you look at all those! And it isn’t even my birthday!”

Blade knelt and placed the Gaskells by his side. He removed one of the grenades. “Now the odds are more even.”

“Yep. All we have to do is find Lynx, Gremlin, and Ferret, then fight our way out of the city past hordes of androids and troopers, and travel hundred and hundreds of miles over hostile territory until we reach the Home,” Hickok quipped. “We could do it in our sleep.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Blade said, cramming grenades into his pants pockets.

“About what?” Hickok asked, resting his Gaskells on the floor and following Blade’s example.

“About getting to our Home,” Blade said.

“What about it?”

“It won’t be as difficult to reach as you think,” Blade stated.

“How do you figure?” Hickok inquired.

“The Civilized Zone is our ally, right?” Blade mentioned.

“Yep. So?”

“And which former States are now included in the Civilized Zone’s territory?” Blade prompted.

Hickok pondered for a moment. “Let me see. Wyoming. Kansas and Nebraska. Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and part of Arizona,” he added.

“You missed one.” Blade said.

“Oh. Yeah.” And Hickok suddenly grinned. “Northern Texas!”

“That’s right,” Blade affirmed. “And if Androxia was once called Houston, then we know we’re in southern Texas. So reaching freedom isn’t a matter of traveling over a thousand miles through enemy country. All we have to do is head north and find the Civilized Zone’s lines, and I’m positive they’ll help us reach the Home. At the most, we should only have several hundred miles to travel.”