James Axler - Desolation Crossing

Krysty was beginning to get a headache.

DOC WAS GETTING along just fine. He was in the wag at the rear of the convoy. If he looked out of the ob slit at the back of the wag he could just about see Ryan and Jak as they weaved in and out of the dust.

“I did not know that young Jak was such an accomplished rider,” he said to himself, “though I would imagine he’s a wow on one of those—dammit, what were they called…Ah! Skateboards. Yes.”

When he turned back to face the interior of the wag, he took in both the view and the warm fug of people forced to live close together. Too close. There were two other inhabitants, one of whom was currently trying to sleep. Her name was Raven, and when he had expressed surprise at her being a redhead, and not jet-black, she had looked at him as though he were insane. Doc, of course, was used to this, and let it slip over him. As of yet, he did not know from whence she had derived that charming name, but no doubt he would elicit this information sooner or later. When her temper improved.

“She’s not normally like this,” said the other inhabitant of the wag, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “It’s just that we’re not really letting her sleep. Tarran, the guy you replaced, he was real quiet. Never used to talk to me much at all, which was a pain in the ass as it gets real lonely and dull on some of these drives. We used to have an old tech disk player, and I’d play some old tunes from before skydark. She used to moan about that, too, so I gave it to Ray in the end. You’d like Ray. Not just ’cause he’s old, like you. But ’cause he never shuts up. Talks kinda odd, like you.”

“Yeah, like you don’t,” Raven moaned from the bunk. “You don’t get me talking nonstop when you’re trying to sleep.”

“No, you had other things on your mind…” The driver spun to face Doc briefly, so that she could lock eyes, convince him of her veracity, before turning back to the road. Her name was Ramona, and she was dark where Raven was pale. “I tell you what, Doc, her moaning used to wake me up. Sometimes she’d let Tarran play with her pussy while she was driving. Damn near could have driven us off the road. Worse, the bitch used to let him drive sometimes, swapping while the wag was still in motion, and suck his dick while he was driving. Damn unsafe.”

“You wouldn’t have said that, you saw the size of his dick.” Raven giggled, her anger subsiding. “No way something that small could have caused any accidents.”

Doc was beginning to get used to the girls. They obviously liked to bicker. Perhaps it passed the long hours on the road. They had both slept, and changed shift, in the time that Doc had been in the wag. And both had questioned him on the connection between Eula and J.B. Both being equally disappointed when he had been unable to offer even the slightest of theories.

“Both begin with an R,” he said by way of nothing. “That’s interesting. Does LaGuerre do that on purpose, I wonder? In the same way that most of his convoy crew are women?”

“Ya know, I take it back,” Ramona replied. “Doc, you’re way crazier than Ray. ‘Begin with an R,’” she said, imitating his tones badly. “What kind of a question is that? You wanna know something about Armand, baby, then you just ask outright.”

“Very perceptive, I must say,” Doc said, amused. “But nonetheless, it was a genuine question. Is it something to do with the way his mind works that he places in the same wags operatives who have identical initials?”

“Man, how many ways and how many words can you use in that question?”

“Whoa—okay, keep talking, this is sending me to sleep all right,” Raven added.

Their words may have been harsh, but their tone was not, and Doc pressed the matter.

“It’s all to do with psychology, madam. Are you familiar with that term?”

“Not as familiar as I hope to be with you, you old hunk o’man, you, sweet talking me like that,” Ramona mocked. “Si-wha’? Listen up, the only reason we’re both on this wag is because we’ve been with Armand the longest, and this is the wag with the jack. He trusts us.”

Doc eyed the interior of the wag once more. There was one seat up front, for the driver. Another at the rear, for the sec man, which he occupied. The bunk on which Raven lay was along one wall, with a makeshift kitchen area—no more than a hotplate and a small icebox—at the foot. A small comm unit and some tech reception equipment was on the wall opposite. An old safe with a combination lock was beside it. The rest of the space in the narrow wag, apart from an even more narrow channel they all used to negotiate the interior, was taken up with the stock that could not have been fitted into the front wag.

“It’s a combination safe,” Doc noted. “You may not know the combination.”

“Yeah, we do,” Raven said, obviously not as bored into slumber as she had made out. “Someone got to know it other than Armand, in case he buys the farm before we get to destination. He changes it every time. Don’t know how he does that, though. Guess he trusts us, but not that much. Must do some, otherwise we could just take the bastard and blow it with plas ex.”

“A fair point,” Doc conceded. “LaGuerre seems to be a deeper thinker than perhaps—if you will excuse me—he appears.”

Both women laughed.

“Armand ain’t exactly what you’d call sharp in some ways,” Ramona mused, “but in others he is, kinda. Guess he’s like all of us, he’s good at some shit, and, well, shit at other shit.”

“His secret, seemingly, is that he knows the dividing line,” Doc suggested.

Ramona thought about that for a moment, pausing only to swear at a particularly deep fissure in the road that she nearly missed. Then she said, “I guess you could say that about anyone, honey. And ya know, you’re right. Most of the driving crew have always been women. ’Cept Ray, but I kinda don’t know about him, sometimes. Quartermaster and sec have always been male. Quartermaster, couldn’t say why. Sec, I guess it makes sense. Most guys are stronger like that. I know I couldn’t have beaten Tarran in a fight of any kind, and Raven there always got herself pinned down…But mebbe that was different. Anyways, Armand does like to use women more than most traders I’ve seen. Course, as we’re all so grateful for work and jack, and it does mean the boy has pussy on tap….”

It gave Doc a mental image that was far from her intent, and for a moment he was transported into a world of surrealism. But Doc was feeling sharp at the moment, and was determined to stay as such. Shaking this from his head, he asked, “And that would include the young woman Eula?”

Both Raven and Ramona laughed at that, the former so hard that she almost fell from the bunk, cursing as she caught herself in time.

“You have got to be shittin’ me, Doc, baby,” Ramona wheezed between gasps of laughter. “Think if he dared to pull it out near that one she’d damn near whip it off with her knife. Mebbe not right off, just leave him something as a reminder of what a bad boy he’d been.”

“Something about her that is real scary, though,” Raven said quietly. “Tell you, Doc, me and her over there have been together in this convoy for some time now, and we get on okay. Hellfire, everyone in here gets on okay with one another, really. That’s what Armand likes. A happy crew does good work, he says. What the sneaky fuck means is that a happy crew ain’t gonna slit his throat and run off with his jack. Anyway up, Eula comes in, and things ain’t quite the same anymore. She don’t talk none.”

“I would suppose that would make you distrust her, as you all seem to be a little on the garrulous side,” Doc murmured.

“Honey, I dunno what that word means, but it ain’t nice, I can tell,” Ramona said. “Ain’t true, either, if it means what I think. ’Cause you ain’t met Reese. She don’t say more than five words a year, and mostly that’s to tell you to fuck off.”