The Collector

At the sound of the car pulling up, Doctor Death Defying turned his chair to face the diner entrance. Now early morning, Jet had contacted him less than an hour ago once he had got back into range on the small portable radios the Killjoys kept clipped to their belts. It wouldn’t be long before he returned, but that sound was not the van pulling up.
“Pony,” he whispered to his friend who was sitting near to the window.
The young man leaned forward in his seat as the doctor indicated with his head that something was happening outside. Rising to his feet, Show Pony stood back from the window and peered through the blinds.
“Three guys,” he announced. “Tumbleweeds or Bin Rats from the look of it.”
“They coming over?” Death asked.
“Looks like it,” Pony replied, rising to his feet.
He knew what Death wanted him to do – cover Party Poison. As he headed over to one of the long booths in which Party Poison lay still unconscious, now moved from the counter that had effectively served as a makeshift gurney as he was treated, he grabbed an old tablecloth and threw it over the young man.
Doctor Death Defying didn’t know how many times he’d asked Party or Jet to put up a closed sign. Despite being so far out in Zone 6, too many people still rolled by and stopped at the diner on Route Guano expecting it to be functioning. The fact that it appeared to be in good condition with a motel and gas station only served to encourage them. But, he reflected, it was a double-edged sword. If people thought it deserted, they might just decide to try to move in as they had done some years earlier. There seemed no easy option.
A rattling alerted Death to arrival of the three men as they tried the door only to find it locked.
“Hey!” one yelled, banging heavily on the door once more. “We just wanna fill up on coffee!”
Pony picked up a pair of bright blue framed sunglasses and settled them on his nose. The pair watched and waited to see what the three men would do.
“Hey!” the man yelled again. “Open up!”
“Get rid of them, Pony,” Death grumbled. “Don’t want them here when Jet gets back.”
Pony nodded, reaching down to a holster hanging off the back of the doctor’s wheelchair and plucked the bright pink ray gun, raising it to shoulder height as he headed for the door.
“We’re closed!” he shouted through the door.
“Only if we say you are!” the angry reply came as the man raised his leg and kicked hard at the door without success.
Pony stepped forward and unlocked the door as he kicked it again. Flying open unexpectedly, the door slammed back of the first booth and half way back colliding with the man who had fallen through, crashing to the floor, huffing with pain as he planted his face into the smooth black floor.
Doctor Death Defying held a gun on the man on the floor while Pony offered a sweet smile and pointed his at the man standing behind.
“We don’t have any coffee!” Death announced angrily as the first man groaned, still dazed.
“Where’s the third guy?” Pony took a step back, alarmed as he realised that one man was missing.
“Always check your rear-view mirror,” came a sly voice from the side door of the diner.
Pony turned his head at the sound behind him and inhaled sharply as the third man stepped into view holding two guns, one trained on each of them.
“So, now,” the third man sneered. “Very slowly lower and drop your weapons.”
Neither Show Pony nor Death Defying had a choice; with three guns trained on them from different directions, they were outgunned. Pony bent his knees to lower himself closer to the ground before both he and Death allowed their guns to clatter to the floor.
“Now back away from the door and give me jazz hands,” the man instructed as his companion picked both himself and the guns from the floor.
Pony and Death, with very few options open to them, raised their hands into view; neither man making any move that would give away the position of the still unconscious Party Poison.
“What do you want?” Death asked getting immediately to the point, with a hard expression fixed on his face.
“Well, I’ll start with that coffee,” the man who had surprised them – who Death Defying presumed was the leader – grinned at him maliciously.
“Then?” Death pressed.
“You have rooms, we need rooms, we get rooms and you get to live. Everyone’s happy,” he explained simply.
Death Defying turned his electric wheelchair without saying a word, only to have the man race to his side and grab his hand from the controls.
“Where are you going, old man?” he asked harshly, leaning over and crowding the doctor’s personal space.
“Coffee,” he growled. “It’s behind the counter.”
“How about I go?” the man shook his head in mistrust. “I don’t know what else you have behind that counter.”
“Please yourself,” Death replied refusing to be intimidated by this Zone Punk.
“Hey, I could use a few slammers,” called the man who had crashed through the door. “Check what they’ve got!”
“You got alcohol, old man?” the leader sneered.
“You got eyes, Punk?” Death Defying jeered in reply.
Quickly holstering one of the guns, the leader slammed a fist into the doctor’s cheek, forcing his head to the right and jarring his neck. Pony leaped forward to go to his aid only to pull up sharply as a gun was pushed into his chest.
“I think you both need to relax a little before one or both of you gets really hurt, don’t you?” the man who fell sniped, apparently keen to offer himself for the task.
“I’m okay,” Death nodded toward Pony who was taking slow, deep angry breaths – furious with the intruders.
While both men were more than capable of handling themselves in a fair fight, unarmed and surrounded as they were, now was not that time.
Stepping behind the counter, the leader found the coffee pot on the hotplate just over half full. His nose crumpled at the smell.
“This is coffee?” he frowned as the acrid smell assaulted his senses.
“No one said it was good,” Death Defying replied simply.
“Where’s your alcohol?” the man growled.
“Don’t have any.”
“Where is your alcohol?” the man repeated slowly, his tone growing increasingly aggravated.
“We don’t have any,” Death repeated, in a similar sounding tone.
“I’m growing tired of you, old man!”
Death Defying narrowed his eyes at the insolent man. It infuriated him that there was nothing he could do to put this punk in his place, but for the time being, at least, he wasn’t going to risk anyone’s life to satisfy his own anger.
“We have coffee, no, strike that, we have lousy coffee and very little else.”
“Where are your supplies?”
“That comes under the category of ‘very little else’,” Death Defying snapped back.
“I’ve had enough of your attitude, old man!”
Moving out from behind the counter, the leader stalked back towards the doctor, gun raised and arm extended. As he approached the radio crackled to life and a familiar voice filled the room.
“Hey, D, what’s the gravity like there?” Jet’s voice asked cheerily.
The leader turned a deep suspicious frown toward the man in the wheelchair.
“Who’s this?” he asked,
“A regular,” he shrugged.
“Regular, eh?” the man frowned. “You better answer him then.”
“It’s not necessary,” Death Defying bluffed.
“I say it is, old man,” the man cocked the gun in his hand and trained it at Death’s head. “And don’t try to warn him, just get rid of him. Tell him your closed,” he sneered.
Death Defying suppressed the smirk and replaced it with a scowl, giving the impression that his ruse had been uncovered. Picking up the receiver, Death pressed the transmit button.
“Hey, J,” he answered trying to appear as if he was trying not to sound nervous. “Gravity’s low today man. Systems failure, kitchen’s out of action.”
“Sorry, man, that’s bad news. What about the party?” he asked cryptically.
“Nah, not on the horizon yet, J. Maybe another three days? Got to get supplies, you know?”
“Shame, could have been just what we needed. No worries, let me know if you need anything. See you around.”
“Yeah, look after yourself and that van,” Death Defying quipped.
“I will, you too,” Jet laughed, as he signed off.
Death Defying lowered the receiver, his message sent, unbeknownst to their attackers.
“Nicely done,” the leader commented smugly.
Yeah, Death Defying mused, that’s what I thought too.
*
Jet took in a deep breath as he pulled another gun from the rucksack behind him and tucked it into a second holster that he was now strapping around his hip and securing to his right thigh.
“I take it back,” Red raised her eyebrows.
“Take what back?” he asked, his brow lightly furrowed as he checked the battery packs on both guns, although he knew they were fully charged – they always were, he was very careful when it came to the weapons.
“Your codes, they don’t suck nearly as much as I thought,” she grinned at him.
“No, you were right the first time,” he chuckled. “Only one word of that was code, the rest was on the fly.”
To Jet’s surprise, this seemed to impress her more even than her previous assumption.
“So, what’s the deal?” she asked, wondering if she had caught the entire message herself.
“What did you catch?” Jet asked, as he considered something.
“Okay, so you saw the mystery car outside the diner and you needed to check in casually. Gravity is your code word for danger and he’s confirmed it by saying gravity is low, which is kind of the wrong way around, you know.”
“That’s the point,” Jet replied. “It’s unexpected, it’s not flagging any responses they’re listening for.”
Red offered an almost grudging smile of appreciation at their ingenuity. Her initial impressions had been way off base.
“It’s how we’re still alive.” Jet offered, noticing her expression.
“Well, it ain’t good looks and charm,” she grinned, poking him in the ribs.
Jet turned a disbelieving eye towards her.
“You’re really annoying!” he replied, still taken aback by her directness and familiarity.
“So, do I get a gun?” she asked brightly?
“Do you even know how to use one?” he smirked. It was a genuine question but he expected it to irritate her.
She seemed to be giving it some genuine consideration before finally shrugging in apparent indifference.
“I can,” she replied, “but I prefer a proper fight to a gun battle.”
“These three have got guns,” he countered. “Your fists won’t help much against that. Even Kobra uses a gun.”
“How do you know they’ve got guns?” she asked. “And for that matter, how do you know how many there are?”
“Doc said so,” he answered without going into detail. “Do you want a gun?”
“Do you trust me with one?” she asked surprised by the question.
“No,” he replied simply, pressing an unpainted white gun fresh from a BLI vending machine into her hand. “Just don’t shoot any of the good guys.”
“And just how will I know?” she asked, inspecting the gun and making sure the safety was off.
“They’ll be the ones with the guns trained on them,” Jet replied dryly. “Oh, and a guy with red hair, maybe.”
“I think I can just about remember that,” she pushed the door to the van open and jumped down. “Plan?”
“Stealth, ambush, kill.”
“Simple,” her smile broadened as Jet joined her outside the van. “I like it.”
“Ready?” Jet checked with a quick glance.
“Ready,” she nodded.
*
The population of Dust Bowl had recently grown over thirty percent as occupants of Battery City’s grossly overpopulated slum areas began to spill out into the Zones. The streets were unusually busy, but he had arrived after dawn and – just as in any town or city – people were heading to work.There wasn’t much in the way of work there other than the BLI factory, which churned out machine parts and, of course, batteries. BLI knew better than to risk their more sensitive products to the Zones and so all the pharmaceutical laboratories and factories were housed well within the walls of the city itself.
Parking the trans am in an old underground garage on the outskirts of Dust Bowl, Ghoul had made the rest of the way on foot. It may have seemed that he might be recognised, but the trans am was much more noticeable than a man on his own trudging through the streets.
Ghoul lowered his head and walked briskly through the heat of the morning sun until he reached the bakery on Six and Twenty-One. The town streets were laid out in a simple grid system with even numbers running the length of the town and odd numbers, the width. It made it far easier to navigate than using names.
Pressing the button on the intercom for the door to the apartment above, Ghoul waited until a familiar voice and face greeted him on the monitor.
“Come in, babe,” Candi Crush called cheerily as the intercom buzzed briefly allowing the door to open.
Slipping through the door, Ghoul headed downstairs to the basement rather than upstairs to the apartment. Within moments he was greeted by Candi’s long-term boyfriend known as Ice Diamond.
“Ghoul, come in,” he nodded as he opened the door for the Killjoy. “Candi’s got what you need, she’ll be down in just a minute.”
“Thanks, Ice,” Ghoul took a deep breath. “I can’t stay, I gotta get back as soon as I can.”
“What’s wrong?” Ice asked. “Who’s the Ademen for?”
Ghoul frowned deeply with concern. “Party.”
“Party?” Ice raised an eyebrow. “Ademen’s strong stuff. He’s really ill?”
Ghoul nodded bleakly. “I didn’t want to put it on vox when I spoke to Candi, but yeah, he’s really not in a good way.”
“Huh!” Ice commented. “That’s too bad.”
Ghoul’s brow furrowed at the almost indifferent sounding response, but the reaction was short lived. Without warning, not even a ghost of a sound behind him, a muscular arm had wrapped itself tightly around Ghoul's chest, pinning his left arm and grabbing the right. At the same time a chloroform soaked cloth was clamped hard over his nose and mouth. Ghoul’s eyes flew open in panic as he was dragged backwards in an attempt to disorientate him and prevent him kicking to get free. The shock of the attack had made him gasp in surprise and having already taken in a lungful of the drug, his head was swimming. Struggling despite his weakening muscles, Ghoul refused to give in easily but despite his efforts the fight was over in seconds and Ghoul sagged in the man’s grip.
Allowing the Killjoy to slip unconscious to the floor, the man bagged the cloth before stuffing it into his pocket and removing the latex glove that had covered his hand.
“Well done,” the man laughed, looking down at his prize. “We still need Party Poison and Jet Star, but it seems at least one of those will be easy prey.”
“Payment?” Ice growled impatiently.
The man gave a condescending laugh as he pressed a thick wad of carbons into Ice’s hand.
“The price doubles with each one you get. If that isn’t incentive, I don’t know what is.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get them. We already got two of them for you!” Ice laughed greedily as he examined the money in his hands, not even sparing the unconscious Killjoy at his feet a second glance. “We’ve known them a long time. They trust us.”

Notes