Route 666 Anthology Page 9

  Erika squeezed off two shots. The nearest biker toppled from his machine, fell hard onto the road. His machine skidded onto the sidewalk, sent up a shower of sparks, before slamming into a building.

  Then the other two were gone, only the sound of their engines left behind in the empty air.

  Byron ran back to the square. The body of a fourth biker lay across his machine, his face caught in a snarl of surprise, dead eyes staring up at the Statue of Liberty. Gus was standing beside the wide-open doors of the Hideout. Chet was nowhere in sight.

  Just as Byron reached the entrance, he heard the sound of an interceptor coming up the ramp: the Machete’s engine; he’d know it in his sleep in the middle of a sandstorm.

  Three interceptors stacked like peas in a pod. Last in meant first out. The Machete’s chromium-bibbed nose appeared in the entrance. Through the sun-glazed windshield, Byron could just make out Chet’s broad face, his shock of blond hair.

  As the Machete began to slide past him, Byron wrenched open the hatch.

  “Don’t you worry now, Byron,” Chet called. “I’ll take real good care of her.”

  Byron took hold of Chet’s checked shirt in both hands, pulled hard. Chet came out like a feather plucked from a turkey, went sprawling down onto the sidewalk.

  “No-one except me drives my car,” said Byron. He slid into the driving seat, closed the hatch behind him.

  The interceptor had stalled. Byron touched the starter. The Machete’s engine growled into life.

  A hand appeared on the window, then Chet’s face, red and angry. “Goddamned tractor driver!”

  Byron slid the Machete into gear; it surged forward. On the rearview, he saw Chet stumbling after him, shaking his fist. Byron grinned, shifting up through the gears as he slanted across Times Square.

  The Machete scorched down Broadway. Intersections went past in a blur, one after another. But the road ahead was still empty.

  A glance at the dash to check his systems and he saw bad news. The fuel tank was full. But both his machine-guns were low on bullets—Gus hadn’t had time to reload.

  Almost at the edge of town, as he went screaming past the abandoned gas station, Byron caught sight of the two Sharks. They were still way out in front but he knew he could catch them before they reached the interstate. There’d be enough slugs to handle a couple of sandsucking bikers.

  Closing rapidly. But the bikers were weaving, fast and foxy, hunched over their machines like real pros, not giving him an easy target.

  The road curved. A dune of banked-up sand took them out of his sight for a moment. Byron rounded the curve to find a thick cloud of smoke boiling up in front of him.

  Goddamn passives, he thought. Overriding the impulse to brake, he kept his foot down on the gas and accelerated on into it. Vision was reduced to a swirling greyness all around him. Byron steered on instruments and instinct.

  Tendrils of smoke whipped away to either side as the Machete burst back out into bright sandside glare. The road ahead was empty. Where the hell were the bikers?

  They came roaring towards him from out of the desert, one from his left, the other from his right. Trying to get him in a cross-fire. If he’d braked for the smoke-bomb, they’d have sliced him up into dog-meat.

  Byron sent the Machete swerving left, placing one of the bikers in his sights. Fired. The biker pirouetted out of the saddle as the bullets caught him.

  Bullets thudded into the side-visor. Fracture marks spiderwebbed through the glass. For an instant, Byron expected the armaplas to shatter, tensed automatically against the tearing impact of the bullets even as he swung the Machete to the right to face the oncoming biker.

  The armaplas held. The biker centred in the sights. Byron fired.

  The machine went over onto its side, slid across the desert. The biker was flung clear, landing on soft sand. As Byron drew level, the biker struggled onto her feet—dark hair tumbled free about her shoulders. There was a gun in her hand.

  Byron fired again. The biker slid to her knees, the gun dropping from her hand, a bright bandolier of blood appearing across the front of her leather jacket. Then she crumpled head-first into the sand.

  Chet’s voice boomed from the com. “Got them both, huh? Take a gold star.”

  Rear-view showed the rainbow-patterned G-Mek. And, behind it, closing fast, was Erika Graf.

  Byron pulled up by the side of the road, flung open the hatch. Waited while first Chet and then Erika drew up beside him.

  Chet’s grin was back. “For a while there I was afraid I was going to have to kiss goodbye to that triple bonus.”

  Erika said, “Consider it kissed.” She stared across at Byron, clearly knowing reality when it smeared itself across her windshield. “We’ll need a couple hours or so to help Gus get the truck loaded.”

  “No,” Byron said, “we leave all that stuff behind. It’s mostly junk. And it’s Transcon’s junk, not ours. We leave right now-just pull out.”

  “What about Gus?”

  “Gus can ride in the Machete.”

  Chet’s face was clouding slowly, like one of those storms they had back out on the Eastern seaboard. “What’s the matter with you two? The sand-suckers are all dead. You think they had time enough to mail a letter home to their momma?”

  Erika said quietly. “Chet. They were looking for us. Now maybe they com-called the rest of the Sharks and maybe not. But if they don’t report back—soon—then conclusions get drawn.”

  “Yeah,” said Byron, out of patience. “You know what conclusions are, Chet?”

  Chet turned, the smile finally wiped from off his face. And something ugly in his blue eyes. “Now listen up, tractor-driver—”

  “Chet,” called Erika. “No time now for anything but motion.” She gestured back down the road towards Morgansburg. “So let’s get moving.”

  It was evening when they came back into Times Square. The light was already beginning its fast fade into desert darkness. And the air was cooling towards the chill that would come with full night.

  Erika, leading the way, slowed suddenly and said into the com, “Trouble.” Ahead, the doors of the Hideout were wide open.

  The three Ops crossed the empty square, swung past the Hideout. Looking through the gaping doorway, Byron saw the pool table, a figure sprawled across it: Gus, his bald head looking like some huge pink pool-ball. There was a red stain on the floor beneath,

  “Sand Sharks,” Erika said.

  Chet swore. “Where the hell they get to?”

  Four roads led out of the square, arrayed like the points of compass. Looking around, Byron saw headlights gleam on at the end of each of them.

  “Been waiting for us,” he said. He released the safeties on his 6 mms.

  The three Ops pulled back into the centre of the square, began to circle the Statue of Liberty. The headlights advanced steadily towards them. Finally, at the rim of the square, they halted.

  Four routes out, and Renegades blocking each of them. Two cars across Broadway, two more in each of the roads to either side of it. Only one guarding the remaining exit but with the single headlight of a bike beside it.

  “I count eight of them so far,” Erika said. “Seven Renegades, one biker.”

  “Eight,” confirmed Byron.

  “What in hell they think they’re doing?” demanded Chet. “Just sitting out there.”

  A new voice on the com, a sandpaper whisper. Byron recognized it immediately: the Sand King. “Ops. Said I’d see you again. That you’d pay for what you did.”

  Byron cut in transmit. “Hello there, Shark Boss. Come for another lesson in road warfare?”

  “This time,” the voice rasped, “it’s your turn to sit and take it.”

  Erika said, “Only eight of you. How come? What happened to the rest of the tribe? They chicken out?”

  Cold silence from the com.

  Then Erika chuckled. “Your reputation’s shot to pieces. That it? After the convoy hit, they started thinking maybe you just we
ren’t quite the real article any more, huh?”

  Rage came into the cracked voice. “They’ll come back when we’ve paid you off. Meantime, eight of us are plenty. We’ve got you penned, Ops.”

  Fading daylight and the glare of the headlights made it difficult to pick out the Sand King’s car. Then Byron spotted a familiar silhouette blocking the exit directly across from Broadway, flanked by the lone biker. He punched up the magnification on the scan, got a grainy image of a silver-grey car; a chain gun poking out of the turret-blister.

  “Judgment Day,” the Sand King said. “The sand’s gonna get your bones and your blood.”

  Byron swung around the Statue, shifted down the gears. As the Sand King’s car came into view again, he put his boot to the floor. The Machete surged forward.

  “Erika, Chet,” he shouted into the com. “Get clear.”

  “Byron!” Erika called out.

  “See you in Denver.”

  The exit loomed in the windscreen. A pair of glaring headlights was already moving towards him: the Sand King. Byron kept on straight towards them, ignoring the biker alongside it. He sighted his 6 mms. Pressed the triggers.

  A ten-second burst from the left-wing mount. And then impotent clicking sounds from both guns.

  A glance at the dash. Empty. One hell of a time to run out of bullets, right when he was playing hero. The Sand King was coming straight at him, turret weapon pumping out lead. And the biker was slanting in towards him too, firing his machine gun. Slugs ricocheted off the armaplas windshield.

  Byron swerved left, out of the line of fire. Both the Sand King and the biker swung after him, the biker reacting fractionally faster. Immediately, Byron went right again, aimed the interceptor straight at the biker.

  The biker turned, trying to get clear.

  There was the sound of metal clashing against metal and a sudden jarring impact as the Machete side-swiped the machine. The biker arced through the air.

  The Machete whipped straight across the Sand King’s path. Bullets whined overhead, grazed the roof. Then the Machete was past, and curving back around the edge of the square.

  Rearview showed the Sand King coming around onto his tail. The turret shifted, tracking him. Byron sent the Machete weaving crazily across the square. The chain gun spat. The boarded-up windows of Pete’s Diner disintegrated.

  Lines of bullets were stitching all across Times Square, intersecting with the cold light of lasers. There was the furious chatter of machine-guns, the throatier pulse of autocannon, the whine of shells. Chet and Erika were making their break for Broadway—and the other six Sand Sharks were surging out onto the Square, closing on them.

  Ahead of him, Byron saw Erika’s laser strobe and cut open an oncoming Renegade with surgical precision. Then the Cobra slewed half-around as a shell hit the offside wing, crumpling one side as savagely as if it were made of cellophane.

  “Erika,” Chet screamed. “Baby, you all right?”

  Silence from the com. The Cobra was out of control, locked into a spin which was taking it towards one corner of the square.

  A Renegade passed directly in front of Chet’s G-Mek. The autocannon flared. The Sand Shark took a hit right in the windshield, veered left.

  The good side of the Cobra slammed hard into the wall of the Morgansburg Mutual Loan Association. And then the driverless Sand Shark car crashed into the Cobra’s undamaged side, sandwiching the car against the building. The snout of Erika’s laser-cannon was left poking out of the wreckage like a finger pointing back along the edge of the square towards the Hideout.

  “Erika,” Chet called again. “Answer me, baby!”

  The Sand King and two other Sand Sharks were tight on Byron’s tail. The others swung to target Chet. “Chet,” Byron yelled into the com. “Watch yourself.”

  No answer from the com.

  The G-Mek came around to face two of the approaching Renegades, accelerated forward. Missiles converged on it. The G-Mek rocked from side to side as it took direct hits from both sides at the same time. Pieces of the bodywork tumbled off onto the ground. Smoke was pouring from under the hood.

  Incredibly, it kept on moving across the Square.

  “Chet?” Byron called. Impossible to believe there was anyone left alive in that.

  The G-Mek was still riding straight for the two oncoming Renegades. Too late, they tried to swerve away. The G-Mek met them head-on. The three vehicles disappeared in an explosion that shook Times Square, rocked the Statue of Liberty on its foundations.

  Chet. Byron gave him a silent salute.

  The Machete accelerated straight towards the cloud of smoke that was rising up from the wreckage, as if it were heading through it for the nearest road out. Once into the smoke, Byron turned for Broadway.

  The Machete roared down Broadway, towards the edge of town. Behind, almost breathing into the rearview, came the Sand King and the remaining two Renegades.

  Erika. Gus. Chet. Everyone dead except him. And grief would have to wait until later, assuming there was going to be a later.

  Empty guns.

  Running. That was all that was left to do.

  Byron had walked this town, knew Morgansburg better than he knew the streets around his PZ apartment block. And the Machete’s V–12 engine could leave these Renegades fading into the horizon. So, lose them in the backstreets, then make a break for the interstate and Denver.

  Right at the next intersection, then immediately left, then right again. At every turn the Machete was gaining distance, opening up a real gap. Almost out of range already.

  A pain-filled voice on the com. “Chet? Byron?”

  Can’t be, thought Byron. Not alive. “Erika?”

  “Byron? That you?”

  “Yeah.” He whipped the Machete left at an intersection, bullets zipping the air behind him. “Erika—how’re you doing?”

  “Hurting. All over. Can’t move. Cobra’s wrapped real tight around me—what’s left of it. Think maybe I still got power, though.” She started to laugh, broke off almost immediately with a grunt of pain. “What’s going on out there? Where’s Chet?”

  “Chefs dead.” Another right. “And I’ve got three Sharks breathing down my exhaust.” The Machete screamed straight through the next intersection, as Byron tried to think. Erika still alive. Three Sand Sharks on his tail. And nothing left but his goddamned passive.

  One oil-layer to take out three Renegades.

  “Byron.”

  Bullets from the Sand King’s turret weapon sent shards of concrete ricocheting up from the road. Byron took another right, said, “Still here.”

  “Don’t leave me alive for the Sharks, huh?”

  “Hey, baby!”

  “Please. Finish it before you get clear.”

  No way he could tell her both his guns were empty, not with the Sharks maybe listening in on their com frequency. No way he could say anything at all to her.

  Erika still alive. And all he could do was run.

  No.

  All at once it came together in his mind, forming with all the clarity of a scene from a holomovie. Yeah—but he would have to work it just right. Everything would have to go just right.

  You’re Byron Shaw, he told himself. The best goddamned Op there’s ever been. So go do it.

  He brought the Machete back onto Broadway, slowed deliberately, giving the Sharks the chance to catch up to him. Then he roared back towards Times Square.

  The Machete shot back into the square and tore across it, slanting between the Statue of Liberty and the still-smouldering wreckage of Chet’s interceptor and two Renegades. As if Byron was planning to head on out the far side.

  Rearview showed the Sharks right behind him. Two of them practically on top of him, the last—the Sand King—only slightly further back.

  The Statue came up. Byron slammed down hard on the brakes. Brought the Machete spinning right around. The screams of tortured rubber echoed across the square.

  The Machete screeched to a halt facin
g back towards the three oncoming Sand Sharks, but tucked in behind the Statue.

  All three Sharks had already started to brake desperately, weaving from side-to-side to avoid Byron’s non-existent bullets. But there was no room to swerve clear. Instead, they were funnelled across the square between the frowning bulk of the Statue and the pile of charred metal that held Chet Kincaid’s G-Mek.

  As they screamed past him, Byron hit the stud for his passive-weapon. Twin nozzles projected from the Machete’s rear, a double spray of oil jetted out into the Renegades’ path.

  The oil layer hit the ground directly in front of the Sharks and became a slick running arrow-straight across the Square, towards the corner where Marvin’s Bar & Grill met Connors’ Real Estate.

  Wheels touched oil, locked into skid. Then two of the Sand Sharks were gliding towards the Hideout.

  Only two. The Sand King had screamed to a dead-halt millimetres from the gleaming oil-layer.

  Byron cursed, slammed the Machete into reverse, gave it all the power he had, sent it hurtling rearwards, straight at the Sand King. Had to hit just right. No room for nearly; either it was perfect or it was nothing at all.

  Metal hit hard against metal. Byron felt the impact ring through the Machete, felt his safety-harness pin him tight against the seat. The Machete’s engine died.

  On the rearview, Byron saw the Sand King’s car shoot forward onto the oil slick. Saw it slide steadily across the square, wheels churning uselessly as they tried to get a grip.

  “Go,” Byron snouted. “Go, you sand-sucker, go.”

  One of the other Renegades was still drifting on towards the entrance to the Hideout. The other had slowed, almost come to a halt.

  There was the crunch of metal as the Sand King’s car went into the becalmed Renegade. Bumpers locked. With dreamlike slowness, the two vehicles drifted on together across the square.

  “Erika!” Byron was shouting into the com, over and over. “Erika. Answer me.”

  Nothing. No response at all. Which meant that Erika Graf was either unconscious or dead. And that there was now no way—no way at all—that Byron’s gamble could pay off.