He centered his front sight on the distant man’s head, which was no wider than his front sight, took a deep breath, and let half of it out, willing himself to stillness. He took up the slack on the trigger and watched his sights. There, there was the heartbeat making his sights twitch. His heartbeat was causing the front sight to bob high right, then dip low left, high right, then low left, and after every beat it would pause and re-center.
No need to rush. He took several more easy breaths, trying to slow his heart rate even further, then held his breath, pressed his finger against the trigger, adding about a pound of pressure, waited for the exact moment, and then pulled through the final pound of trigger weight in-between heartbeats.
The big rifle bucked in his hands, the empty case bouncing off the opposite side of the door frame, but his sight picture had been perfect, the trigger had broke clean—he knew it was a good hit even before he looked across the street and saw the speck of a man slumped face down behind the belt-fed.
Early didn’t have time to admire his work, but even so he was truly delighted with the shot, and scampered down the stairs like a much younger man. He was surprised there was no return fire. Perhaps, because it was just a single shot, they weren’t sure from where it had been fired.
“We good to go?” Ed asked as Early reached them. Mark was standing on his own but the pain was causing him to make faces.
“For the moment,” Early said. “They’ll probably want to stick somebody else up on that gun but we’ve got a tiny bit of free time.”
“We’ll go across the road two-by-two,” Ed told them, “and then bounding overwatch on the far side between the buildings.” He nodded at Mark. “I’ve got him, you two go first.”
Jason and Early were crouched low running across the narrow grassy median when a few wild shots cracked above their heads from the cluster of Tab vehicles. Jason hunched lower and ran faster, but the gunshots caused something unexpected.
Right in front of them was a low wall enclosing a parking lot and right before they reached it the Tab who’d taken cover behind it since his nearby IMP had been destroyed stood up, leveling his rifle in their direction. Whether he’d been hiding there, scared, or looking to ambush someone would forever be the question, but as he fired a quick burst past Jason’s ear the teenager on the run shoved his carbine at the man and fired four shots. Two hit their mark and the man went down backwards, arms akimbo.
Jason was too busy to be scared at how close he’d come to dying. He and Early took cover behind the same low wall, their eyes toward the congregation of Tab vehicles. There was no more shooting, and no one came running or driving their way. After a pause of about a minute, Ed and Mark dashed across the road as fast as they could. The gamut of expressions dancing across Mark’s face made it clear how much pain he was in, but he kept up with Ed. As soon as they were across the road Jason and Early pulled back and the foursome took cover in the alley between two buildings.
“Why aren’t they coming after us?” Jason asked as they waited for Mark to catch his breath. He’d peered around the corner but saw no sign of pursuit.
“Maybe they’ve decided to sit out the rest of the war,” Early drawled.
“They’ve got a lot of wounded to deal with,” Ed said. He nodded at Jason and Early to head out.
They jogged down the alley and took up positions on the far side. Beyond it was a big parking lot, then a lot full of collapsed, heavily vandalized U-Haul trucks, then a series of low attached buildings. They made it to the buildings without incident. Early shoved open a splintered door and they entered a tan brick edifice that appeared to have been used for light industrial machining back in the day. They were peering out the grimy front windows when someone called out behind them.
“Golf ball.”
The four men spun around and saw a figure silhouetted in the back door, hands up and empty.
“Who the fuck are you?” Jason said.
“Outlier,” Seattle replied. “What’s left of it.” He had a long suppressed rifle slung across his chest. “Why are you heading this way?” He’d been working his way north and west.
“Because north is out,” Ed replied. “Lot of pissed off people. We need to cross over the freeway without any more drama and disappear.” He pointed out the dirty window. Across the street was an old office building dating from the 1930s, a cube of red brick. “Far side of that building, isn’t there railroad tracks, and a bridge over the freeway?”
“Yeah, but they’ve got drones up,” the man told them.
Ed didn’t think they had a lot of options. “They can’t be everywhere at once, and I don’t know how long they want to follow us. I’m thinking instead of wasting their time following a handful of guys they’ll keep their eyes on those tall buildings until they make sure that there aren’t more of us hiding in them. If we can get far enough away I want to head north and jump back in that Six Mile Relief sewer line, then the drone won’t matter.”
Seattle shrugged. “Better than my plan.”
“What’s your plan?” Jason asked him.
“Try not to get shot.”
“That’s a good plan too,” Mark said, listing slightly. “Wish I’d thought of that.”
Weasel wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and the Tabs they’d so violently molested, as quickly as possible, so he considered jumping on the Lodge Freeway and taking it north. However, he had concerns. The first was he knew the freeway was an “approved travel corridor” through the city. While that meant it would be relatively clear of debris and abandoned vehicles, it also meant they’d have a much higher chance of encountering additional Tab forces in their own vehicles, which was the last thing he wanted. The second was that it angled too far to the west.
As he floored the Growler and it took off through the parking lot he tried to pull up the map of the city he had in his head after years of crawling around its ruins. The hospital was on One Way, Woodward Avenue, maybe ten miles north of where he was, and Woodward was just a quarter mile or so to his east, but he wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to take that street all the way up. It was wide open. He knew if there were any Tab forces in the area, or if there were any more surprise Kestrels in the air, that they’d be a juicy target roaring up Woodward.
Before he’d cleared the parking lot he decided to head north on the service drive to the next major north-south street, and take that up until it hit either the city limits or it ran into Woodward. “How’s he doing?” he shouted over his shoulder.
“I gave him a shot for pain but he’s still bleeding badly,” Sarah told him. “I’m afraid that if I don’t do something, go in there and try to stop the bleeding, that he’s going to die before we can get him to the hospital. How long will it take us to get there?”
Weasel barked with a bitter laugh. “Theoretically? Theoretically only ten or fifteen minutes, but who the fuck knows, we’ve got the whole city after us. I thought RoadRunner took out all the Kestrels, so I’m afraid of what we’re going to run into around the next corner, you know?”
Diesel engine of the Growler roaring loudly, Weasel swerved around potholes and random piles of rubble in the street. Sarah was still atop Quentin trying to tend to his wounds and was being tossed around the back seat.
“Can you drive any smoother?” she yelled at him as Weasel veered widely around a twelve-foot motor boat upside down in the middle of the street.
He turned his head to stare at the boat as it went by then shook his head. “This fucking city, man,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I’ll try,” he called back to her. Out the windshield maybe a quarter mile up there was an intersection with dark traffic lights hanging inert above it. He wasn’t positive but he thought he’d be able to turn right on that street and take it north almost as far as he needed to go. And it was a much more minor road than Woodward, so maybe they’d avoid detection.