James Axler - Thunder Road

Station Browns ville had no old predark rail depot from which it could have derived its name. There was little in the way of old railroad that had even traversed this section of the Deathlands, as they knew too well from past experience. The origin of its name was a mystery, except that it rang some distant bell in Mildred’s youth.

It was of no matter. Like the ville they had originally stumbled upon, Station Browns was, in effect, little more than a way station for passing trade. And as there was little that passed this way, it was as dirt poor as its neighbors. The little they had gleaned about it indicated that it was little more than a pesthole ville, with a gaudy house that paid its way and a nice line in home brew that traveled well. There was a kind of rivalry between Station Browns ville and a ville called Casa Belle Taco, which had a similar trade. But there was enough distance between them for horny and thirsty convoys and travelers to keep both in business.

On the third day out, both Jak and Krysty felt prickles of unease within them.

The albino, his hunting senses as sharp as they were, could find no reason why he was feeling that way. There was no scent, no sound that he could put a name to, yet he could feel that out there, somewhere just beyond the limits of his senses, there was someone—something?—watching them.

For Krysty, it was much the same. Except that she did not have to rely on empirical evidence. Her ability to sense danger was almost infallible, and it was sounding alarms in her head that were impossible to ignore. Yet the landscape was deserted, and the sense seemed to fade in and out, like a badly tuned old transmitter picking up white noise that was almost—but not quite—decipherable. When it was strong, it was impossible to ignore it. Yet just as quickly it would fade out, before returning with a great intensity. And so she kept quiet about it, figuring she would wait until she could pin it down a little better.

It was nonexistent when they got their first view of Station Browns ville. Across the flat plain, it was still several miles away—a good two or three hours by horse-drawn—and the ville looked to be undamaged.

It was only as they got closer that the truth became apparent.

HIS SUSPICIONS HAD FIRST become aroused as he sped away from the folks in the horse-drawn wagon. Regular types, the sort who could help to build a new world. That was what had come to mind. But why? That was what had nagged at Thunder Rider all the way back to base. What had made him think that of a random encounter that lasted only a few seconds? He knew there had to be something else, a trigger that had started that thought. The question that faced him was how to discern what that trigger might be.

Back at base, he had the technology that could help him. In the lab, there was a brain wave decoder. It had been built for him, and in truth he did not fully understand the principles on which it worked; but in essence, it took his brain waves from the memory sector of his brain and translated them into images that were digitally recorded, so that he would be able to study them in detail. The persistent nagging made him hit the throttle even harder: there was no way he could rest until he had laid his mind to rest.

When he reached base, he docked the bike, leaving maintenance and refueling until later, and went straight to the lab. The LED was simple to set, and he selected the decoder option, plugging the headset into the jack on the console before carefully positioning it on his skull. Seating himself, he relaxed, taking deep breaths as he had been taught, before punching the key that would set the program in operation.

The trick was to think about anything else other than what you wanted to capture. If you tried too hard, and bought it to mind, then you would be dragging it from the memory center, making it hard for the computer to scan and collect.

He diverted himself by thinking about his favorite video. The one where the cowboy found the underworld kingdom ruled by the ice queen. She was merciless to begin with, but only in the protection of her people. She had taught him that to do good, you had to be prepared to sometimes do things that would be bad…unless, of course, you were doing them to people who would do even worse. His sister had told him of that old saying “you can’t make an omelet without breaking an egg.” He knew what they were, of course, but he wondered what they tasted like. He had never seen one, other than in pictures.

The console hummed and a monitor screen flickered to light, a message appearing to tell him that the scan of the area was complete, the images captured. Letting his mind wander had worked, as he hoped it would. Sometimes he found it hard not to think of the things that concerned him.

He took off the headset, unplugged it and put it carefully away. He was mindful of the fact that he was fortunate to have this legacy of equipment with which to execute his mission, and he did not wish to waste or damage it with carelessness.

The computer program did it all for him. He had merely to key in the sequence to play, and then watch. The events of the past two days played out before him. He hit the key to fast forward to the relevant section, not wishing to view all of his life over again so soon. When it came to that section, he marked it on the toolbar: where it began, where it ended. He cut it out and played it over and over again, switching the angles, enhancing the image, zooming in and out. He wanted to try to catch as much of a view of the inhabitants of the wagon as he could.

It was far from easy. They had adopted defensive postures that were so accomplished that little of them could be gleaned. However, he could tell that there were six of them. One of them was small, pale. He had white hair, as did another. One was dark-skinned. And one…For a moment his breath was taken away. A flash of hair, a brilliant red, waving in a nonexistent breeze, as though alive of its own accord.

It could not be…He saved the best images he could and left them on screen. Each of the six images centered on one of the people hiding behind the wagon.

Swiveling in his chair, he went to another monitor. This archived all the reports, visual and verbal, that had been collected by the base’s intel-gathering equipment since the time of the Long Night. There was, in truth, very little. This system had been designed for use in the days before the darkness, and it had a vast capacity for memory. It was a sign of how things had degenerated that only a fraction of its vast storage capacity was in use. This made it simple for the search facility to scan intel for correlation with the people on the screen.

The search bought several matches, recorded over a period of time. There was precious little to go on, as there were very few facilities capable of broadcast and communication technology in these days. But these sparse mentions added up to a picture, one that Thunder Rider had noted while he had scanned the outside, preparing for his entrance.

This group of people—who seemed to have added and lost a few members over time, but remained with the same core nucleus—had, like himself, been pillars of right. They were the kind of allies he sought.

More…The vision of the red hair floating in a nonexistent breeze stirred something within him. It was something new, something that he had never felt before.

He was determined. When he had completed maintenance and refueling, when he had rested himself, then he had to find them.

He had to find her.

THEIR FIRST INDICATION that all was not well came with the burst of fire that seemed to erupt from nowhere, kicking up the sandy soil a few yards ahead of them. The horses reacted, moving erratically enough to throw off balance those who were in the back of the wag. It was as well that the horses had proved themselves calm to the point of stupidity under fire, otherwise Jak, currently at the reins, would have dropped them with a slug to each head. As it was, he was able to pull them around, giving those in the back the chance to find their feet and grab their weapons.