Playfair's Axiom by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction Suspense
ISBN: 9780373626076
Publisher: Gold Eagle
Published: 2011-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

“NOT A VERY prepossessing catch,” Ryan said. He stood over the stunned cannie, tapping the aluminum bat on the scuffed toe of one boot.

“Is he still breathing?” Doc asked. He stood on the other side of the mouth of the alley where they’d waited for Mildred to lure the cannie kid they’d been shadowing the past half hour. He still had his sword stick clutched near the tip with both hands to use as backup in case Ryan missed his stroke. But the one-eyed man had come through again.

Mildred bent over and pressed fingers to his neck. “Got a pulse,” she said.

“Carry my bat, Krysty?” Ryan asked.

“Anytime, lover.”

He looked at her, then blinked. He laughed and handed over the bat. They’d found it up in an apartment west of where they had chilled McKinnick the day before. Jak had said that they likely faced more close-in work and suggested they find some bashing weapons. Blades could get stuck in an enemy, and sometimes the most important thing to do to an attacker was just physically push him off you, so that you could bolt for it. Or so you and your buddies could chill him; whichever.

Given Jak’s extreme fondness for knives, of which he carried at least a dozen, mostly concealed about his person at any given time, they took his advice to heart. So Ryan had the ball bat, Krysty a side-handle baton, Jak an ax-handle. Doc carried his sword stick, which he could wield with great skill. Mildred preferred to rely on the steel-shod butt of J.B.’s shotgun, which was designed for such work, unlike the precision tool that was Ryan’s Steyr longblaster.

Ryan knelt by the semiconscious youth’s shoulders and slid his hands under. “Whew,” he said. “He smells awful.”

Mildred hunkered down to grab his calves. She recoiled at once.

“Ew! He’s all shit down the backs of his legs!”

“Want me take?” Jak asked. It wasn’t that he was suddenly all-come-over solicitous for the freezie doctor. It was just that he, like the rest of them, was nervous about being caught on the streets by the cannie kid’s pals. Or worse. He urgently wanted to move.

“Hell no!” she said firmly. “Thanks just the same, Jak. I hate these bastards, but I’ll do what I have to. And I’ll be damned if I give in to squeamishness about simple body wastes.”

This time she helped Ryan pick up the limp form with perfect coordination. Ryan was surprised by the sheer deadweight of the slight youth. Still, deadweight or not, there wasn’t that much to him: he was all sharp bone, barely covered by parchment-looking skin. Plus Mildred was strong for a woman, if not to the degree Krysty Wroth was.

“Sometimes,” Mildred said as they hustled the nowmoaning youth toward the hidey-hole they’d picked out earlier, “living in these Deathlands just gets the better of me.”

“It does all of us, sometimes, girlfriend,” Krysty said with a sympathetic smile.

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