David Robbins - Citadel Run

“I had no idea you were such a philosopher,” Yama remarked.

“You can’t help but think about the way things are,” Lynx said as they walked past a row of jeeps. “Not if you have a mind, anyway.”

“I’m amazed the people put up with it,” Yama stated.

“What choice have they got?” Lynx rhetorically queried. “The Army has all the guns. The Doc backs up Sammy with the Genetic Research Division, not to mention his other toys. A lot of people don’t much like the status quo, but there ain’t too much they can do about it. You dig?”

“What about the rebels?”

They were ten yards from the sidewalk. “There aren’t enough of ’em. They’re like a bee stinging a bear. The bee can irritate the bear no end, but there’s no way that bee can ever whip the bear.”

Yama scanned the crowded sidewalk as they drew nearer. No one was paying any special attention to them.

Lynx slowed. “Stay real close to me,” he said. “We should be able to make it, no problem, provided none of these dummies saw my picture in the paper.”

“I’ll be right beside you,” Yama promised. To play it safe, he pulled a fresh magazine from his right rear pants pocket and replaced the used clip in the Wilkinson.

Lynx walked right up to the sidewalk, never breaking his stride. When he was still a foot away, he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Make way!” he shouted. “Coming through!”

Yama was startled by the reaction of the pedestrians.

The people on the sidewalk stopped, only a few inadvertently bumping into others as the traffic flow abruptly ceased. A narrow space was cleared, and Lynx and Yama strolled across the walk to the west parking lot. No sooner were they clear of the sidewalk than the flow of people resumed.

“Incredible,” Yama commented.

“It’s no big deal,” Lynx said as they continued bearing west. “You just gotta understand how the people feel about us, about the Doc’s menagerie. They’re scared to death of us. We’re allowed to go where we please, when we please. Even the military is afraid of us. Give ’em another hundred years and they’ll probably make us their gods.”

“And you want to give up godhood?” Yama grinned.

“A slave by any other name is still a slave,” Lynx declared harshly.

“Enough of this yappin’. Where’s the thermo?”

“The trucks we’re seeking should be to the southwest,” Yama replied.

They walked in silence. Lynx alert for soldiers, Yama scouring the vehicles for the munitions trucks he’d seen earlier.

“Can’t you find ’em?” Lynx questioned after a while.

“There are so many trucks,” Yama answered, “and they all look alike. I came across five soldiers loading explosives into some trucks. One of them said they had tactical units capable of firing a thermo a mile or more,” he quoted from memory.

“Keep looking,” Lynx urged. “If we can find ’em, we’ll give the Doc something to remember us by.”

Very few troopers were still in the parking lots. Most were either asleep in preparation for rising early the next day, or else enjoying a wild night on the town, one last fling before going into combat.

Yama stopped, something tugging at his mind.

“What is it?” Lynx asked.

“I think we’re close,” Yama said, studying the nearby vehicles. “I have the feeling I’ve seen this row of trucks before.” He walked south along the row.

“Take your time,” Lynx urged. “I didn’t have a hot date tonight, anyway.”

Yama turned, facing some supply trucks he viewed as vaguely familiar.

“These may be the ones.”

“Keep watch,” Lynx directed, and darted between two of the trucks.

Yama could hear Lynx moving around in the backs of the trucks as he went from one to the other, hunting for the thermo they needed. About thirty yards to the south a trooper came into sight, moving in the direction of the Biological Center.

There was a thump and a crashing sound from within one of the supply trucks.

“Are you all right?” Yama called as quietly as he could while still making himself heard.

“Fine!” was Lynx’s muffled response. “Tripped over a damn crate!”

Yama chuckled. He glanced at the Biological Center, thankful he was out of that horrid edifice, and wondered if the manhunt for Lynx and himself was still in progress. Probably. Would the Doktor be notified and hasten back from the banquet to personally oversee the search? Possibly.

If so, and…

There was a whoop of delight from one of the supply trucks. A moment later. Lynx appeared. He was toting a large, rectangular metal box on his right shoulder. The box was at least five feet long and two feet wide.

Tucked under his left arm was a narrow wooden crate two feet in length and only nine inches wide.

“You found it?” Yama asked.

“Yep. We’re in business, bub. Now let’s find us a jeep. Do you know how to-drive?”

“I do,” Yama assured him.

“Good. Let’s get crackin’. They’re bound to find Shep soon, if they haven’t already, and when they do they’ll know we’re out here somewhere. They may order a general alert, and If they do this place will be swarming with Army types, cops, and G.R.D.’s.”

They hurried, baring to the south, passing trucks and flatbeds and several tanks and even some halftracks. But no jeeps.

“There’s gotta be jeeps around here someplace,” Lynx said with a touch of annoyance. “This thing is starting to get heavy.”

Another fifty feet and they discovered a dozen jeeps parked in a neatly ordered row.

“Find one with the keys in the ignition,” Lynx suggested. “There’s bound to be at least one.”

There was. The seventh jeep Yama checked had its keys in the ignition, ready to be driven off. The green jeep was outfitted with a roll bar, but it lacked a roof. A snap-on canvas top was rolled up behind the two front seats.

Lynx clambered into the back and deposited the metal box and the wooden crate on the floor. “Whew! I had no idea a tactical unit weighed so much!”

Yama sat in the driver’s seat. “Which way do we go?”

“Do you know where Pershing Boulevard is?” Lynx inquired.

“Just south of this parking lot.”

“Yep. Drive to Pershing and hang a right,” Lynx directed.

Yama started the jeep and slowly drove south, turning on the headlights as he left the parking space. He care-fully negotiated the many rows of parked vehicles before he reached Pershing Boulevard.

Lynx leaned forward. “Don’t drive too fast,” he advised, “and don’t drive too slow. Either way, we’ll have the cops on us. Stay at the speed limit.”

“What’s a speed limit?”

Lynx pointed at a white sign with black numbers near the parking lot exit to Pershing. “You see that sign over there? It says the speed limit is forty-five. That means you don’t drive this heap over forty-five miles an hour. Got it?”

“I comprehend,” Yama said. He’d seen a few such signs on his trip from the Home to Wyoming and been puzzled as to the purpose of a sign in the middle of nowhere with only a number on it. Most road signs and highway markers, after a century of abandonment, had blown over, rusted out, or faded to the point of illegibility. He turned the jeep right onto Pershing.

The vehicle traffic, like the pedestrian traffic, was very heavy, although it seemed to Yama the volume was slightly less than when he had arrived in Cheyenne.

“Keep headin’ west until I tell you,” Lynx said.

Their jeep traveled a mile from the Biological Center before Lynx recommended they turn down a side street. The traffic density thinned considerably, but the pedestrians still jammed the sidewalks on either side.

“Hey, Yama,” Lynx said at one point.