Take the All-Mart! by J. I. Greco

Author:J. I. Greco
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Evil Universe Media
Published: 2011-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10: TO THE RESCUE?

The Wound parked at the bottom of a hillock, Trip sat on the hood, leaned back against the windshield, smoking and staring all contemplative into the churning maelstrom of the All-Mart’s looming expansion front only fifty feet away and growing closer, inch by slow inch.

“We don’t even know if she’s alive,” Rudy said from under the car.

“All-Marts don’t kill.” Trip flicked the cigarette at the All-Mart with a sharp snap. It arced away and fell a little short, landing on his lap instead.

“You assume.”

Trip sprung up and slid off the hood. The cig butt fell away and he batted at his jeans with both hands until he was sure he wasn’t on fire. “Their original business model was to get market share. This one will have the same, meaning it just turns people into nanochine-filled zombie consumers.”

“Bad enough,” Rudy said between turns of a ratchet. “And begs the question, if we find her... how we gonna un-zombiefy her? Ask the nanochines to leave?”

“Yeah. Politely.” Trip leaned against the fender, lit another cig. “Look, how the fuck do I know? We’ll figure something out. You done under there yet?” he asked Rudy’s hikers.

“Yeah. Give me a hand?”

Trip bent down, grabbed Rudy’s ankles, and pulled. Once he was far enough out, Rudy sat up, slipping the ratchet into his bandolier and pulling a rag out of a thigh pocket. “We’re all set.” Rudy wiped his hands on the rag. “The anti-theft electric shock system will now, instead of delivering a semi-lethal shock of juice, give off a constant low-power, high-oscillation buzz-charge through the frame.”

Trip had gone back to leaning against the fender. “Is that why my ass is tingling?”

Rudy stuffed the rag away and got to his feet. “I refuse to speculate about anything involving your ass.”

“Wise choice.”

“Anyway,” Rudy said, leaning against the Wound next to Trip, “it should — maybe — discourage the All-Mart’s nanochines from trying to break the car down into raw materials. Provided we don’t stand still for long.”

Trip smirked. “And the nanochines don’t interpret the juice as a dinner bell.”

“There is that.” Rudy took out his calabash and held it between his teeth as he reached into the open passenger window to grab the tobacco can from the back seat. “But in that case, you’ll have access to the off switch through your mind-machine interface.”

“Won’t be using it.”

“Yeah, right.” Rudy chuckled in disbelief, stuffing tobacco into the pipe with his thumb.

“I’m serious.” Trip’s hand sank into his jeans back pocket to pull out the RATpack antenna. He held it up to show Rudy. “I’ll be jacked in to this instead.”

“A WOLFpack antenna?” Rudy asked, throwing the can back into the car and lighting up.

“RATpack, actually. One of a pair.” Trip blew on the jack plug then snicked it into his socket. He felt it power on. “Roxanne has the other one. It should have pretty decent range. We get within twenty miles, we should get enough of a signal I should sense her, enough to get a general direction, anyway.

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