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A door slammed, and the rear opened, the door rattling up. A long
black rod slid in with an electric hiss, and a butcher screamed. He lunged away
and into Anna. Her cloak slipped, and the Harvester gasped.
Anna jumped on him, driving him to the ground. She dragged him up,
and the shotgun grabbed him, jerking him into the truck.
The man stared at Anna. He opened his mouth. She raised the cattle
prod before his eyes.
“Tell him to keep going. You’re staying here with us.”
“I . . . I’m staying back here, Dolf. Let’s get g-going.”
The trapdoor slapped shut, and the driver ripped out grinding gears
and cursed the transmission.
“You ain’t gonna make it,” the Harvester said. “Give it up
and they’ll go easy on–“
“I had a taste of the Party’s mercy,” Anna said, smiling as
she shook the cattle prod. “This is gentler.” She glanced at the driver.
“When we get in the city, make a ruckus.”
Grinning, the man nodded. “I scream, you scream, we all scream
for ice cream, yeah.”
“Hey,” Anna said. “Let’s see what toys our boy has.” She
pulled off his belt and the Harvester whimpered. She gave him a sharp look.
“Problem, bud?”
"Booby-trap.” He tongued a latch in his neck yoke, and the
armor fell away. “It’s safe now.”
“Nothing like loving your own skin,” the shotgun said.
The Harvester grinned. “Got a gross of poppers.” His chin
pointed at a sack of tiny black balls.
The van roared into the police shelter rocking from the speed of
the truck, the crack of bombs, and the need to dodge broken concrete pylons.
“Where the freek are they getting new armaments from?” The one
with the sniffer rod bounced and cursed.
“Just a few household chems,” the driver quipped, leaning into
a new turn around a barricade. “My kid–he’s sperm donated by the president
from an egg and the Captain’s number three concubine–he put together some
soup last night that burned for over an hour. The whole blockhouse was puking.
He got the recipe from the anarchists’ cookbook.”
“Where the hell did he get that?" The sniffer ducked as a
bullet ricocheted off the windshield. “It’s been outlawed for seventy
years.”
“Library,” the driver shouted.
Shocked, the sniffer stared up from the floor. “You let your kid
to there? It’s in a dead zone.” He frowned. “I thought the Party burned
all the books.”
"They did.” The truck slowed for a checkpoint, then roared
ahead. “He found here, in the police library.”
They stopped at the final check, then drove through to the pens.
Packed behind laser wire and armed guards, hundred of people stared up with
dull, hungry eyes.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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