James Axler - Playfair's Axiom

Ryan ducked out of the line of fire, popping the magazine from the well of his own rifle to stick in a fresh box. It was his next to last, another worry he couldn’t allow to distract him now.

Krysty and Mildred knelt, flanking the supine J.B. Krysty was furiously ripping open the plastic wrapping of an ancient package of fuzzy white scavenged Sno Balls that was among the last of their remaining edibles.

“I know you’re the expert,” Ryan said, with more of a rasp to his voice than usual, “but are you sure what J.B. needs is a quick dose of century-old snack food?”

“Sucking chest wound,” Mildred snapped without looking up. “I need to cover the holes before his lung collapses.”

Ryan nodded, then turned back to the rubble-parapet.

The two sets of attackers were keeping their heads low now. Ryan positioned himself at the northwest side, where he could keep an eye on both. The heat beat him into the ruins with increasing anger as the sun rolled up the sky, a patch of brightness in the roiling mustard-colored clouds that now stretched horizon to horizon.

They don’t have to make a move on us, he thought. Just wait for us to run out of water. Or for the acid rain to start scouring the flesh from our bones. Whichever comes first.

With quick glimpses over his shoulder, Ryan kept track of what his friends were doing. Jak lay by the gap at the stone circle’s south side with his .357 Magnum Colt Python propped on his pack in front of him, covering the curved structure that led from it. Doc kept watch to the west, cautiously peering up over the low wall for brief periods, then ducking and shifting left or right unpredictably. For all that he acted sometimes like a half-crazed old man, he was cunning as well as intelligent. And he very seldomly lost focus in a combat situation.

Another look out over the wrecked cityscape. No movement.

The river smell was thick here. The humidity felt as if it were climbing right up out of the ground around them. A stench of old corruption and decaying flesh likewise began to rise. It told Ryan that plenty still lived here in this cubicle concrete wasteland. The last decay byproducts of a million or so chills in the big nuke had burned away long since, he knew. Any decomposing organics were recent.

Where there’s life there’s death, he thought, with a certain bitterly appreciative humor.

From somewhere far off came a rumble of thunder, rolling around among the surviving structures. “Storm’s coming on,” he said.

He glanced back. The women had J.B.’s jacket and shirt off. He was propped up against Krysty as Mildred wound duct tape tightly around the makeshift patches of plastic wrapper that covered the holes in his chest and back, and the pads of relatively clean spare clothing folded up for bandages. Ryan winced.

“That tape’s gonna sting when it comes off,” he said. “I don’t envy J.B.”

“I’ll settle for being alive to feel the sting, Ryan,” J.B. said weakly. He had a bit of a wheeze to his voice. Ryan glanced back at him, startled. The wiry man gave him a thin smile.

“You hush up, now,” Mildred said sternly. “Save your breath. We’ve gone to a lot a trouble to keep it from leaking out.”

Ryan’s lips twisted in a brief smile as he looked to the north again. This time he glimpsed a flicker of motion, left to right, behind heaps of rubble on the street’s far side. He started to raise his rifle, then halted the motion and regretfully lowered the longblaster.

No target, he thought. He didn’t have a single round to waste on shadows.

“The nuke-suckers are starting to get restless,” he said. “Make a move soon, mebbe.”

“Okay, I’ve got it from here, Krysty,” Mildred said. “Why don’t you take J.B.’s scattergun and help watch our little friends out there.”

“Good idea, Mildred.” Ryan heard the crunching of footfalls on dust-covered rubble as the redhead took up position between him and Doc.

Time passed. The day got hotter. The clouds grew thicker, more clotted, more orange and threatening. Occasionally one of the other set of besiegers would pop off a shot as if to remind the companions they were still out there. None of Ryan’s crew was stupe enough to shoot back.

At a soft-voiced request from Mildred, Doc helped her shift J.B. up close to the short wall on the west side, where there was some shade. Doc had a surprising wiry strength to him. The Armorer had lapsed into unconsciousness again. Mildred poured water on a hankie from her canteen and bathed his face.

“How’s it look?” Ryan asked her.

He could feel her shrug. “I’ve done all I can do. Doesn’t seem to be much internal bleeding, thank God. He’s tough, but I don’t give him even odds of living to nightfall if we can’t get him some kind of better care by then.”

“Dear lady,” Doc said softly, “do I understand you give any of us even odds of living until nightfall?”

“You got me, Doc,” Mildred said. She was too depressed and worried even to rise to the bait. Under normal circumstances she and Doc spent plenty of time sniping good-naturedly at each other.

“You know,” Doc said, “one would certainly think the base of the elevator shaft and the stumps of the structural members in these collapsed buildings should have survived the blasts. Yet many have become little more than mounds.”

“Elevator probably went to a basement level,” Mildred said.

“But structural members usually survived at least partially, even near ground zero,” Krysty said. “I’ve seen pillar stumps standing right next to craters.”

Ryan bit down on a caustic remark about wasting air on speculation that wouldn’t load bullets in a blaster. Under the circumstances idle chatter was far preferable to thinking too deeply about their situation.

“Why don’t you take over the scattergun, Mildred?” Krysty asked. “You’re more comfortable with it.”

The physician shrugged. “Sure.” Krysty passed the weapon, then drew her more-familiar Smith & Wesson 640.

As she did, a storm of blasterfire erupted from the north. Bullets struck sprays of concrete powder off the top of the low circular wall and whined mournfully overhead as they tumbled through the thick, hot air. A short burst from an M-16 snapped over Ryan’s head like a sail in a brisk wind.

“Get ready for it,” he said during a lull in the shooting. “They’re nerving themselves to make their move.”

“No doubt they sense the immediacy of the impending storm,” Doc said. “I can smell the rain and sulfur already.”

“Hear that?” Jak called from the south wall.

“Hear what?” Krysty asked.

Ryan was switching his vision back and forth between the scavvies lying up in the weed-grown field to their west and the forted attackers to the north. Though the western bunch weren’t firing, he was pretty sure they weren’t sharp enough to have backed off and left without him or one of his sharp-eyed friends spotting them. Apparently they were biding their time and awaiting events.

“Whine,” Jak said. “Triple high. Like giant mosquitoes, you know?” He winced and shook his head. “Not like.”

“I can’t hear it,” Krysty said.

Mildred and Doc said they heard nothing out of the way, either. Of course with the blasters cracking off from not so far away that was perhaps not so surprising—the wonder being Jak could. But he had the sense of hearing of a white-tailed deer.

Ryan heard a loud rattle from his left. He risked sticking his head up to scope it out. Flashes and billows of smoke were coming from the pancaked structure.

“Black-powder blasters,” Ryan said. A ball sailed over his head. “Shooting at us.”

“They want to help the other bunch crack us,” Krysty said. “Then roll in, take them down, get all the swag themselves.”