Part 17 (1/2)
”Boot's fine.”
”Doc would hate these,” Dean mused, gesturing to the door. ”Dumb a.s.ses can't even spell girl right.”
Finally Jak got fed up with trying to accomplish his feat by hand, and took out one of his throwing knives from a hiding place in his camou jacket, running the sharp blade along the sole of his right boot, barely cutting back the surface. The layer of black rubber peeled away like a piece of masking tape. Putting the knife back in its hiding place, he took one edge of the tread and pulled back until he revealed a second layer.
Hidden between the layers were four thin, flat golden wafers. The pale-skinned albino flashed them at Dean like a hand of playing cards.
”Jak! I didn't know you had a stas.h.!.+” Dean breathed, all of his swagger gone. He was seriously impressed by Jak's revelation.
”Weren't supposed know,” the older boy replied. ”Not much stash, unless kept secret.” Jak went on to explain that he'd thought he'd have to give the cash up when they entered Freedom, but Ryan's victory over the sec droid had taken care of all the immediate financial worries.
”Have these long time,” he said.
”More willpower than me. I'd have spent it when I got it,” Dean replied.
The albino used a fingernail to flick the four wafers into the palm of his other waiting hand, stacking them into a thicker whole. He looked up at Dean and smirked as the gold glinted in the bare white light bulb of the bathroom.
”Now, let us in to play,” Jak said. ”f.u.c.kers.”
THE DISPLAY OF THE GOLD was effective. The insolent guard stepped aside and pointed them to a back office, past the many working vid games crowded into the arcade.
”Boss is back there. Name's Templeton. He'll fix you up.”
As true children of Deathlands, both Dean and Jak had never seen anything like the darkened chamber. There was no interior lighting to speak of. All illumination came from the many vid screens. The noise they had heard coming out into the mall pa.s.sage was busy and louder inside; electronic bleeps, boops, explosions and screams mixed with each machine's dozen digitized soundtracks for a staggering variety with differing intensities.
”Used some comps back at school with games, shoot-'em-ups, wag-driving simulations, mystery hunts, but they were nothing like this,” Dean breathed.
”You forgetseen these kind games before,” Jak said, speaking as loudly as he could in order to be heard over the noise.
”No way. Where?” Dean asked.
”Redoubt. Western Islands. When Trader and Abe still with us,” the albino replied.
Dean looked at his friend curiously. ”You funnin' me, Jak?”
”No.”
Dean scratched his head, eerily mirroring the motion and posture of his father when puzzled. ”I swear I don't ever recall seeing a vid arcade in a redoubt. Seems I'd remember a hot pipe like that.”
”I know. Specially since one game blew a.s.ses sky-high.”
Now Dean was truly perplexed. ”What are you talking about?”
Jak sighed. He wasn't much for talking under the best of conditions, and the last thing he wanted to do was to try to enter into a detailed description about the past in the middle of a electronic maelstrom like the Freedom Mall's vid arcade. How to summarize one of the stranger redoubts the group had ever visited?
The underground installation had been small, tiny even, with only a mat-trans chamber and an upstairs series of rooms containing administrative offices, a small cafeteria, smaller armory, stripped-down living dormitories and secured nuke power plant. No elaborate maze or top secret labs, just enough in the way of supplies and room to house a staff to keep the mat-trans gateway open and properly functioning.
The redoubt's setup didn't even possess the usual military design. There was no sense of permanence in the evacuated rooms.
Adding to Doc's voiced theory of rotating s.h.i.+fts in charge of operating the redoubtwith living quarters located somewhere outsidewas an amus.e.m.e.nt center, filled with a dozen sophisticated arcade-quality video games. Jak remembered Dean being so excited, the boy had to be physically restrained by Ryan when the arcade was first discovered.
In fact Dean and Ryan both were as physically and mentally exhausted as could be at the time, what with having to endure three mat-trans jumps in a row ”That's it!” Jak cried.
”What?” Dean replied, struggling to make himself heard over the noise.
”You and Ryan took triple jump. First, all came to Western Islands from Maine. Then you stuck in chamber, door accidentally closed. Activated cycle. Jumped back to Maine. Ryan used LD b.u.t.ton, went after you. Then, both jumped back to Islands. Triple-fried brains, make you forget arcade. Memory loss caused by jumps,” Jak said excitedly.
”Makes sense, I guess. I do remember something about jumpingand Dad coming back to get me. Yeah, you're probably right, Jak. Good thinking.”
The albino was pleased. ”Thanks.”
”Still don't explain how our a.s.ses almost got blown out of our britches,” Dean added.
Jak had an answer for this, as well. ”Happened later, when you and me went to play gamesjust like this time, only n.o.body else in arcade.”
The games in the redoubt had been set up for quarters, twenty-five cent pieces, not game tokens. Luckily some of the brightly decaled consoles had several spare quarters in their coin-return slots. What appeared to be a broken paper roll of coins had been dropped on the carpet. Dean's eyes fell on a garish oversize console half-shaped like an Indy racing car molded out of brilliant crimson plastic.
”Grand Prix,” Dean read off the brightly lit gla.s.s housing, p.r.o.nouncing ”Prix” as ”p.r.i.c.ks.”
”Some kind p.o.r.n game?” Jak mused, until he realized it was a race-wag simulation.
”Never been behind the wheel of a souped up wag like this,” the younger boy said.
”Never been behind wheel of wag at all.”
”Want to give it a spin?”
”Okay.”
After an unsatisfying racing adventure that resulted in their cras.h.i.+ng of the comp-generated automobile, the two boys quickly went through the other games. While Dean enjoyed each of the challenges, finding the situations both challenging and fun, Jak became less and less enchanted as they took turns trying the systems out.
By the time they reached a gaily decorated red, white and blue console emblazoned with a banner announcing s.h.i.+eld Of Freedom, Jak totally lost interest in make-believe and was sitting by the console on the floor, leaning his back against the wall and idly watching as Dean carefully read the game instructions.
Jak turned his head to stifle a wide-mouthed yawn when he saw that the lower panel of the back of the machine had been removed, and wired into the game's starting mechanism were two scarlet-and-blue implosion grenades.
Two implode grens in a confined s.p.a.ce. A b.o.o.by trap, left behind in the redoubt for the supposed Russian invaders to come after the holocaust. The soldier or self-appointed patriot who'd set the trap up had indulged a twisted sense of humor by placing the bombs inside a patriotic, flag-waving type of game.
The albino moved in a white blur, his fine hair swirling out like a wispy fan as he leaped to his feet and s.n.a.t.c.hed Dean away, pulling the boy behind him and out of the constricted interior of the game room, pulling the boy from the vid controls even as Dean pushed down on the red Start b.u.t.ton to begin playing.
A startled ”Hey!” was all Dean had a chance to utter as they half jumped, half fell out of the room and into the corridor outside the arcade. As they hit the floor, the interior of the redoubt's game room flashed once with a bright artificial light, and gave off a m.u.f.fled crumping noise as the dual gren implosions tugged at their clothing and tried to pull them back inside the vortex.
Both were lucky. Jak's forehead was cut by a piece of flying gla.s.s from the vid game's shattered screen, while Dean suffered from a brief bout with temporary deafness when his eardrums were injured by the blast.
”d.a.m.n,” Dean said after Jak related all of the particulars of their previous encounter with arcade games, ”I don't remember any of that. Not even being deaf.”
”It happened,” Jak said firmly.
”Don't doubt it,” Dean replied. ”Dangerous stuff.”
”Dangerous enough to stop playing more vid games?” Jak asked, half-hoping to get back to their room before it got much later. Doc would be sleeping, and his slumber was usually deep.