Cupcake, who continued to surprise me with her skill sets, climbed into the driver’s seat and slid the nine-millimeter once carried by her husband into a wall mount that hadn’t been there last time I checked. “I got this,” she said and started the big engine.
“Oh. Well. Good then.” I hated driving the diesel. My Berger chip wasn’t programed for the gears, and it was always hit or miss for me. I shoved the IP uplink onto the floor of the cab and against the front wall. The uplink instantly changed color to match the filth and for all intents and purposes, it disappeared. I grinned up at Mateo. “It’s got Chameleon skin!”
“Of course. Did you think I’d put you in danger?”
“I think you want the Simba and keeping me safe is the best way to accomplish that,” I said, sounding sour.
Mateo chuckled, a noise like rusty crowbars grinding together. I settled in to ride shotgun. Literally. A cat sprang to the dash. Spy. In charge.
Cupcake pulled out of Smith’s Junk and Scrap, bouncing onto the old mining road. In the side mirror I watched as Mateo reset the alarms, the tire and track shredders, and other auto-defense measures. The rest of the cats were sitting in lines on the driveway, watching the warriors set off on an adventure. Or maybe it was a cat funeral, in case the travelers didn’t make it back.
The old maps said Charleston, West Virginia was only sixty-seven miles from Smith’s, but the condition of the roads (bad) and the condition of the bridges (worse) always made it a perilous three- to five-hour drive on roads infested with bandits and unprotected by lawmen on the take. I’d had to fight my way out before.
We made it to Naoma and turned up the rutted remains of West Virginia 3—Coal River Road, which followed the Big Coal River. Not so big since the damage to the atmosphere, but also not so well contained. Over the years, seasonal floods had washed out the asphalt in places, and the state had never repaired it; trees and bushes had intruded, narrowing the old road. It was slow going, but the big tires and the powerful engine pulled us through gullies, across small creeks, and over piles of brush.
As we crossed one particularly harrowing section of washed-out road, Cupcake asked, “Is it gonna be this way the whole trip? I can drive this rig through most anything, but this is nuts.”
“Once we reach I-64 the road surface will be fine, because the state keeps the main transport system in good repair,” I replied. “But, yeah, there’s a lot of bad road and postwar crazy country in between.”
She shrugged and steered the big truck into the brush to allow another vehicle to pass us. The road opened up after the next curve, and she worked through the gears, getting us up to speed, the windows down, cooler air blowing our hair, saving the air conditioning for later in the day. Cupcake started to sing, bellowing out an old R&B song, the melody, key, and beat, all questionable. Cupcake couldn’t sing worth a lick, but she got high points for enthusiasm and volume.
We made it through what was left of Sundial, Stickney, and Montcoal without mishap, but just outside of Sylvester we rounded a bend to see a massive dead tree across the road. Three armed men on the other side. A car in the brush.
Cupcake reacted, too fast to be human. Slammed hard on the brakes. Opened the exhaust valves at the top of the compression stroke. The jake brake barked, like firing a gun. The flatbed started to slide, but she maneuvered it into a rocking stop in a cloud of dust and exhaust.
As the truck slid and bounced, Spy dove onto the dash, her mouth wide, showing her fangs through the windshield. She hissed at the armed men on the far side of the barricade, their weapons in full view. Two other cats joined her, leaning into the silk-plaz, quivering.
Dust billowed around us and into the cab.
I took in everything.
Three more men stepped from the brush, five yards away. Shotguns positioned, ready to fire. Not the Law. No uniforms. Dirty, sweat-stained clothes. Ancient sneakers or boots. Six against two. This looked bad.
The silk-plaz windows were down. We needed them up. But we needed to be able to fire. Mateo had said we have defense or offense. Not both.Bloody hell.
Cupcake said, “Let me handle this one.”
“Go for it.” I slapped open the overhead panel, and the refurbished M249 Para Gen II Belt-Fed, AI Integrated Machine Gun rotated up from below the window and into place.
Cupcake rolled her eyes. An honest-to-God eye roll. I hadn’t seen one of those since before the war started. “Good God. You never heard of the delicate art of negotiation?” she asked.
“I’ve heard of it. I never saw it work against armed men.” There wasn’t time for me to put on protective equipment. This was going to hurt if I had to fire. I set the auto-target for the man in the middle. He froze as the targeting sights lit him up like a Christmas tree.
I jutted my chin toward the brush where the car was parked. Tied to a tree were two crying women who looked the worse for wear.
“That’s what we’re facing.”
Cupcake looked at the women and back at the men. She gave a cat-worthy snarl. “Over my dead body.” She leaned out the window. “Hey. Move the frickin’ downed tree or my partner will shoot you boys to hell and back!”
They repositioned their weapons, ready to fire.
Cupcake leaned back in and said, “What’re you waiting for? Fire that damn thing.”
I fired.
The man in the center died instantly, a splash of red across the asphalt. Moving faster than anything human, I swiped off the auto-target. Swung the big gun right. Took out two more men. Hot brass bounced and scorched my bare skin. My eyes burned from nitrocellulose and gunpowder.
Cupcake leaned out. Fired three times. A fourth man fell. The two others vanished into the brush.
