Part 10 (2/2)
J.B. STEPPED OUT of the small entrance to Dr. Clarke's office. Clarke had also kept a piece of the past, retaining the Lenscrafters sign his facility originally used.
The visit to the eye doctor took only moments. The prices quoted for the man's services, including a pair of eyegla.s.ses, were well beyond the group's current financial status. Another solution would have to be sought, but not until all had gotten some much needed rest.
Silently the group walked back to the Freedom Center Station. In a former life, the boarding hotel and apartment building had served as a ”hub” store, one of the name-brand anchor shops that ensured a large crowd of excited customers would continue to come out to buy on a regular basis. Mildred recognized the logo of the place immediately.
”Sears. Where America Shops For Value,” she said dryly.
Once the rate was paid, and three rooms were secured, the companions went their separate ways. Each couple got a room, with Dean, Jak and Doc getting the third.
Usually a room alone meant time for lovemaking for Ryan and Krysty, but exhaustion had combined with the still fresh memories of Pharaoh Akhnaton's mind games to still their pa.s.sions. They mostly succeeded in cleansing themselves in a lukewarm shower, and were asleep within seconds of lying down together, their bodies intertwined tightly.
Chapter Eleven.
J.B., now also cleansed of the skin dye, felt terrible, and his eyes hurt from the constant squinting he was having to engage in to try to bring his surroundings into better focus. The century-old adhesive of the fresh bandages Mildred had applied to his facial lesions itched, but he knew better than to scratch. The last thing he wanted to do was endure a double dose of Doc's aimless chatter before he even had a full cup of coffee sub.
The group of friends had gathered in the late morning for a meal of water and eats from their supply packs. They were sitting in one of the common areas inside the mall. Arriving early due to being awakened at dawn by chronic aches and pains of travel, Doc had scoped out a wide bench and claimed it for his own, and for the use of his companions as they began arriving at the spot at the agreed-upon time.
However, sitting with Doc at your elbow came with a price, as J.B. was reminding himself.
”Alas, friends, but the fates have provided for us while spitting upon our unprotected brows simultaneously,” Doc was saying. ”Normally the loss of John Barrymore's spectacles would be the cause of dire calamities indeed. Now we are within the protected walls of a virtual village of shops, including that rarest of rarities, a genuine optician.”
”What wrong with this picture, Doc?” Mildred asked, her clear voice thick with annoyance.
”I was getting to that, Dr. Wyeth. No, unfortunately, we do not possess the necessary currency to purchase the needed services of the aforementioned ocular physician,” Doc said, and added, ”So, we are f.u.c.ked. Put succinctly.”
”Don't say 'f.u.c.k,' Doc. It sounds all wrong coming out of your mouth,” Krysty protested.
”There's always a way,” Ryan said. ”We're not out of ideas yet.”
Krysty squeezed Ryan's knee. ”I know that tone, and you know better than to even think of trying to walk in there and take a pair of eyegla.s.ses for J.B.”
Ryan a.s.sumed a look of mock hurt. ”You don't think I could get away with it?”
”Mebbe, mebbe not. First J.B. would have to take the eye exam so we'll know what kind of lenses he needs. He said the eye doc told him he needed jack up front before doing the examination.”
”Makes good sense. Payment in full before you get started, otherwise whoever it is you're examining may decide he doesn't like what you've got to say and bolt.”
”Even if you bullied Dr. Clarke into doing the exam, he's got thousands of different kinds of gla.s.ses in his office. No telling which set of lenses J.B. needs,” Mildred added. ”Besides, I kind of liked the guy.”
”s.h.i.+t!” J.B. snorted. ”The prices he's charging are ridiculous.”
”That's a carry-over from the good old days,” Mildred interjected. ”Us doctors always demanded top pay for our services.”
”What we do now?” Jak asked.
”Pay the man what he wants, I guess,” Ryan said, polis.h.i.+ng off the last of his portion of the powdered-eggs self-heat for his morning meal.
”Still think just go in, take them,” Jak muttered. ”Take them all. Find a pair that works.”
Mildred threw up her hands. ”Jak, the going rate is the going rate. Clarke's talentsand his apparent ready supply of gla.s.sesare rarely found. I never met an eye doctor wandering around in Deathlands, have you?”
”Can't say as I ever have,” Ryan said. ”Where did you get your first pair of specs anyway, J.B.?”
”I was just a kid,” the Armorer began to say before a very small man stepped in front of him with an excited look.
”Pardon me, yes, I overhear you have a problem, no?” the unfamiliar voice piped up. ”I have the answer, yes!”
Ryan's hand shot out like a steel baton and grabbed the little man by the throat. The fellow was dressed to the nines in a tiny pair of dress shoes, green pants and matching jacket, bow tie and a dramatic black cape draped over his shoulders.
”You listening to our private conversations, runt?” Ryan said as the little man tried to pull away.
”Define listening, uh-huh. Air is free. Mall is open. I pa.s.s by, I hear. You no want people hearing, keep mouth shut, understand?”
J.B. gave a short bark of laughter at the dwarfs logic. ”Yeah, Ryan, understand?”
Jak narrowed his ruby red eyes at the struggling dwarf.
”Your white-hair no like Lucas.”
”He doesn't like eavesdroppers,” Mildred said. ”Nor do I.”
”Is okay. I no like him, either,” the dwarf replied.
Ryan unclenched his hand and released the little man. ”You planning on making some kind of point, Lucas? Or are you purposefully trying to p.i.s.s one of us off enough to get yourself chilled?”
”Make you offer. Good money to be had. Mall credits enough to take care of any problems,” Lucas replied, adjusting his cape.
”Oh, yeah? How?”
”The pit. Combat in the pit, winner take all.”
”What, a fight?”
”In the pit, that's right, yes, fight, yes. One against another. Two go in, one comes out. Beat the champion and the winner gets a shopping spree, up to a thousand mall creds on anything he wants to buy in Freedom. No blasters, blades or other nonprojectile hand weapons, yes. Anything goes.”
”Sounds like a bargain-bas.e.m.e.nt version of the Big Game,” J.B. mused.
Dean gave a barely noticeable shudder as the Armorer's words triggered the memory of the gladiator-style killing games held in the ruins in the once prosperous Las Vegas, Nevada. Until a few months ago, the youngster had been a student at the Nicholas Brody School in Colorado, where Ryan had left him for a period of proper education.
The kind of learning Ryan had paid for hadn't come cheap in the h.e.l.lish world of Deathlands, but he had known his son would need some formal schooling before returning to the harsh realities of daily survival. Knowledge was just as useful a weapon as a good blaster if a man was educated enough to use it, and Ryan wanted his own flesh and blood to have the opportunity to be as culturally aware as he had been during his own childhood.
Unfortunately things had started to go wrong at the Brody School soon after Ryan left his son.
The school hadn't been able to live up to what its reputation and secure grounds promised. More and more often, Ryan was seeing that so much of anything relied on the strength of a single vision. Sometimes the vision was for the greater good, like the school and the desire to educate, but more often, the vision was yet another nameless, faceless land baron who had grabbed enough power and clout to swing his weight around.
<script>