Remember Tomorrow (17 page)

Didn’t she just reckon. Torn between playing along for group safety and stopping things right now, the woman allowed Buckley to take her hand and lead her to the locked room. He fumbled with the key and led her inside. Krysty stood by him, not quite sure what course of action to take, shuddering when he took her hand and placed it on him.

“No, you’ve got that wrong,” she said softly, trying to humor him and keep him calm as she let him drop from her hand.

“Wha’? Wha’? You stayin’, you does what I’s say,” he mumbled, grasping her by the arm. It was a tight, hard grip, his fingers biting into her flesh. She flexed her muscles and drew back her free arm to punch him. That was when the blastershot rendered the air.

Buckley seemed to snap out of the alcohol-and lust-fueled trance that he had been in and lumbered from the room, leaving Krysty behind him. Whatever happened of a night in Nagasaki, blasterfire was still obviously unusual.

Krysty ran after him, to find half of the ville had gathered outside the hut. The rest of the companions were there and Buckley had already pushed his way in by the time that Krysty arrived. Over the wailing of the wounded man, and the shouting of the other two ville dwellers, she could hear Mildred try to explain what had occurred.

Oddly, she noticed that none of the ville dwellers were ready to take arms against the outlanders, which she would have expected. From the looks of the other companions, she could see that they, too, found that strange.

Buckley shut up the yelling fat couple by striking both of them so hard that they fell to the earth.

“Dammit, you was told to be good, not to fuck them over. We’s needing them—y’all knows that.” He turned to the crowd, searching with his eyes for the companions. “One-eye,” he yelled, “you and your people come stay in the big house, where y’all and us can’t do any more damage. The rest of you keep the fuck quiet. We’s got some huntin’ to do,” he added cryptically.

The rest of the ville stood and watched as the companions detached themselves and followed the ville chief. It was uncanny the way the ville dwellers just stood silently. Mebbe the sinister import of his words was the reason.

We’s needing them…
Whatever he had meant, it had ensured their safety.

But perhaps only temporarily.

After Xander and Grant had departed, J.B. stood in the entrance hall of the armory, waiting for old man Budd to make the next move. He had seemed to be okay with the idea of J.B. working with him when the baron had been present, but the Armorer could feel the air grow frosty as soon as the double doors to the outside closed.

“Guess you’d better get yourself a room. Mebbe go into the ville and get some more clothes and shit—you didn’t bring much with you,” Budd rasped, his tone cutting beneath the words.

“I had things with me. Mebbe Grant can get them to me,” J.B. said, trying to remain neutral.

“Mebbe…Esquivel!” the old man yelled, turning away and calling for the sec man. After a few seconds, the Hispanic guard wandered into the hall.

“Yeah?” he muttered, taking the opportunity to cast a closer eye over the Armorer.

“You wanna take this guy and get him some shit, ’cause he’s only got the clothes he stands up in,” Budd said. It was an order rather than a request.

“Yeah, sure,” the sec man replied laconically. He beckoned to J.B., and together the two men left Budd standing in the hall, glowering after the departing Armorer.

They walked out into the early evening, the air still humid and stinking. They quickly moved past the enclosure that surrounded the building and into the main body of Duma.

J.B. was glad to be back among people going about their everyday business. There had been an atmosphere inside the armory that he was sure he had felt before, but not being able to remember much of anything made it difficult for him to pin down what had been going on. Here, outside, he felt much more at ease. The ville was packed with people buying and selling, arguing and fighting. Scuffles erupted on every corner, quelled by the distinctively dressed sec force. It was an edgy, hustling ville, but it reminded him obliquely of so many others he had seen, even if they were barely remembered.

“So what do you need?” Esquivel asked, interrupting J.B.’s train of thought.

“More clothes, I guess. Another pair of boots. I dunno what was in the bags that Grant still has.”

“You don’t know?” Esquivel eyed him suspiciously. The Armorer had assumed that everyone at the armory knew how he had come to Duma, so he filled Esquivel in on the details as they walked the streets, dodging wags and running children. As he talked, J.B. was aware of a few stares thrown at him, some hostile and others merely curious.

“News travels fast, even if you didn’t catch it,” he finished, indicating the latest passerby to stare curiously at him. “You’re a trading ville, they certainly ain’t looking at me ’cause they’re not used to outlanders.”

“Yeah, guess there were a few loose mouths from the secure unit,” Esquivel murmured by way of reply, adding cryptically. “Just hope they don’t get known to Grant.”

“So what’s the problem, then?” J.B. prodded. Adding, when Esquivel looked blank, “Why am I so fucking important or weird that people are staring?”

“It’s not every day that someone turns up at the bottom of a well,” the sec man replied. But the tone of his voice and the way he wouldn’t meet J.B.’s eyes suggested that it wasn’t the whole story. It seemed to the Armorer that he would have to watch his back.

The two men entered a trading post that was little more than an old house with the front windows knocked out and replaced by a sheet of old Plexiglas, cemented into place. Inside was dingy and dirty, and smelled of old rubber and leather, along with tobacco and alcohol. It was more like a bar than anything else. A small, gnome of a man of indeterminate age was bent over a counter, meticulously sewing the upper of a work boot to a new sole cut from an old tire.

“Yo, Boney, heads up—you got a customer,” Esquivel said as they entered.

“Go fuck yourself, asshole,” Boney replied in a tone that underscored the insult with good humor. The sec man laughed and gestured to J.B. to look around at the merchandise on offer.

The Armorer pored over footwear, looking for something hard-wearing but still supple enough to leave his feet in one piece if he had to march long distances. He paused for a moment. Why had he made that stipulation to himself? It was like another isolated piece of the puzzle, with nothing to fit around it.

Esquivel watched him with interest while he searched. J.B. only noticed after he’d found a suitable pair of boots and looked up to see the sec man studying him.

“Something I can do for you?” J.B. queried, keeping his tone flat.

The sec man shook his head. “Just wondering how much you really remember, I guess. Not every day we get such an enigma.”

Boney looked up from his work, no longer ignoring them. “E-what? Shit, you just make that up, Es?”

The sec man smiled. “Just something I picked up from those old predark books Budd’s got. It gets kinda boring sitting around there all day, otherwise,” he added almost apologetically. “Means a mystery, something you can’t quite fathom out.”

The man behind the counter looked at J.B. for the first time. “Don’t look much of that to me. Just some poor dude got caught in a rockfall and got lucky, came out alive. Lucky the only thing you lost was memory—and mebbe that was a good thing. After all, you don’t know what you might have done before,” he added.

J.B. slammed the boots onto the counter. “I’ll take these,” he snapped, bringing the conversation to an end.

“How you gonna pay for them?” Boney asked. “Way I figure it, you ain’t got no jack and I don’t give credit.”

“Here,” Esquivel murmured, pushing forward a handful of jack. “Budd’ll take it out of what the dude gets paid.”

“So he’s working in the armory, then?” Boney grinned, having established what he really wanted to know. “The rumors are true?”

“Depends what the rumors are,” Esquivel drawled, “but ain’t no rumor about the way Xander treats shit that gets out of hand.”

It was an obvious warning and J.B. was intrigued to see the way that the relationship between the two men, which had previously been that of long-established friends or acquaintances, suddenly changed.

“Whatever you say, Es,” Boney muttered coldly, taking the jack. He returned to his work without another word and the two men turned to leave the shop. They were stayed by a woman who flung the door open and barged past them to the counter, slamming down a pair of damaged boots, heels and soles coming away.

“Listen shithead, I had to work two nights to pay for these, with a piss-poor lamp, trying to work out why the crankshaft on Xander’s personal wag was fucked. Probably some asshole like you who fucks it up in the desert,” she flung a look over her shoulder at Esquivel. “Last thing I want is to blow hard-earned jack on shit that falls apart in a week,” she added, gesturing to the boots.

“Honey, you could earn some jack making me hard and then blowing it,” Boney said with a sleazy grin. “And then you’d have all the boots you want, without having to get on your back. Ah, I dunno, though…” He looked across to J.B. and Esquivel, winking to bring them in on his little joke.

It didn’t work on the woman. Without warning, she hit him with a right jab that knocked him backward. He stumbled and fell into the shadows at the back of his store.

“Don’t try that shit on me, asshole. I ain’t got a price, ’cept for putting back together the pieces of old tech that you assholes can’t work properly.”

Boney lifted himself to his feet—J.B. could now see that he was only about five feet in height—and rubbed his jaw ruefully.

“No need for that, Ella-Mae,” he said sadly. “I’ll replace the goods. But the offer still stands.”

“I ain’t for sale,” she hissed.

“Shit, babe, everyone’s for sale one way or the other. I sell myself for boots and shoes so’s to get by. You sell yourself for fixing stuff—”

“But I ain’t selling my pussy,” she interrupted.

“You be the only one who ain’t,” he answered, but without any rancor or judgment. “It’s a seller’s market and there’s always men who want pussy. You could do a whole lot better—”

“Mebbe my idea of better ain’t the same as yours,” she snapped. “This is over. Just give me the boots.”

Boney took another pair and placed them on the counter. She turned and made to leave without casting another glance at him. But she did come face-to-face with J.B. and Esquivel, who were still standing by the door.

“Yeah, and your problem is?” she rapped, as they were slow to move out of the way.

“No problem, just curious,” J.B. said softly.

“’Bout what?” she snarled.

“’Bout why you’re so pissed at everyone. And mebbe about a few other things.”

“Yeah? And mebbe I’m more than a little curious about you—a man who comes out of nowhere, claims to have no memory and just mebbe is some kind of legend to the likes of Xander. That’s a bit convenient for you, isn’t it?”

J.B. shrugged. “Mebbe. But I’m not making it that way. That’s other people.”

“Tell ’em that when it blows up in your face,” she said in a softer tone. “Mebbe they won’t see it that way.”

J.B. paused, then nodded. “It’s a fair point, Ella-Mae.”

She smiled. “Yeah, and if you want to discuss it some more, then come and see me sometime. Laughing boy here knows where I am,” she added, gesturing to Esquivel before leaving the store.

All three watched her go, then Esquivel indicated to J.B. that they, too, had to leave. As they departed, Boney was still rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.

Out on the sidewalk, Ella-Mae had disappeared into the crowds. J.B. looked out for her dark, curly hair tied up on her head and the oil-stained jeans and cotton shirt that she had been wearing. But she was only about five-four and easily vanished among the people crowding the streets.

“She’ll be around, dude,” Esquivel said. “She’s always around.” When J.B. shot him a questioning stare, he continued. “See, in some ways this place ain’t run like other villes. Trade is what we’re all about and anything that can be traded is. I mean everything. And everyone.”

“So what Boney was saying about pussy?”

“Is about right,” Esquivel told him as they walked on to a store that sold linens and cottons, where J.B. could pick up a change of clothes. “See, I don’t actually come from here. I was in a convoy, fell out with the trader running it and figured that I’d do a little sec work until I could find another convoy. Mebbe I never will. Been here a long time now and it’s hard to get out. There’s a lot of good things here, but…I dunno, gaudy sluts are gaudy sluts and other women don’t wanna do that or don’t have to or whatever. Most guys wouldn’t want their old lady to be one. But here, it’s like who can get the most jack any way possible and every woman will sell it—her old man may even sell it for her. That was kinda weird at first. Everyone doing it. Thing is, Xander actually expects it and if you don’t get your old lady to sell her pussy to any passing convoy, he gets kinda pissed at the way you’re turning up the chance to make jack, specially as he gets a cut.”

J.B. shook his head. “Can’t say it seems familiar to me. But Ella-Mae doesn’t sell herself?”

Esquivel shook his head. J.B. added, “Then how the fuck does she get away with that?”

“What you heard her say about the wags? She’s the best mechanic I’ve ever seen. She’s got an affinity for old tech in the same way that you—if you’re who Xander thinks you are—have an affinity for blasters and shit. Girl’s a natural and that’s bought her ticket out of doing what she don’t want.”

“Must have been a gamble telling Xander that,” J.B. mused.

“Yeah, well, ain’t many who can cross the big man and come out of it in one piece, y’know?” Esquivel said with a wry grin. “Listen, we better stop this. Mebbe too many ears to hear this kind of shit, y’know what I’m saying?”

J.B. looked around at the passing residents of Duma, going about their business, and the passing traders from convoys, looking for some action during their down-time. There was a certain sharpness, wariness about the place, something J.B. felt certain he’d have to tune into if he was going to survive in Duma.

They picked up a change of clothes, Esquivel paying in the jack that was Duma’s currency, and headed back to the armory.

“You’ll be eating with Budd tonight and I’ll tell him how much the clothes and boots amounted to. He’s gonna have fun with that,” Esquivel smirked.

“Yeah, what’s going on?” J.B. asked after a moment’s pause. “Soon as Xander left, the old man seemed to change.”

“You’ll find out soon enough, dude, without me telling you,” was all the sec man would tell him.

Back in the armory, J.B. found where he would be sleeping. It was an airy, well-lit room at the back, on the upper floor. While he had been out, Grant had seen to the delivery of the Armorer’s bag and as he checked it he felt sure that none of the ammo or grens had been taken from him. His own blasters—the Smith & Wesson M-4000 and the Uzi—had been returned, as had his Tekna knife. Oddly, though, he noted that he had supplies of ammo for other blasters. Did this mean that he hadn’t been traveling alone? If so, what had happened to the people he had been traveling with? Come to that, who were they? And if he had been alone, did that mean that he had carried other blasters with him that had been lost along the way?

He also found a mini-sextant in among his belongings, and just holding the thing in his hand felt right. It also sparked a feeling of unease within him. It held within it a secret about who he was and what he had been doing. It was such a familiar object and yet even though he thought long and hard about it, he couldn’t recall anything about how he had obtained it or the last time he might have used it.