Lucy convinced the sheriff to help look for Sonja. It took some browbeating, but the man finally caved in when Lucy invoked her position as Queen Elizabeth's aide. The sheriff's reluctance was based on the fact that he thought chasing after a stupid Valley Dweller was a waste of time.
"Let her go back to where she belongs, and good riddance to her," the lawman grunted.
When Lucy had the sheriff sorted out, we decided to spit up. Lucy and I would ride together, while Tonya and the sheriff teamed up. They would ride in a horseless contraption the sheriff called an 'any terrain vehicle'. I watched Lucy as she saddled one of the mules, she seemed competent and experienced. I guessed I was staring at her a little too long, because she put her fists on her hips and turned to face me.
"I knew this was how it was going to be," she said crossly.
I looked at her, a confused frown on my face.
"Pardon me?" I asked.
"Yesterday, I met a man from the slavery days, and today, he has me saddling a mule to take me away from home. Where will I be working Master, the house or the fields?"
I was thunderstruck for a few seconds, until I saw the corner of her mouth twitch, and suddenly realized she was shining me on.
"Neither," I said, trying to sound lecherous. "I keep healthy, fine looking wenches like you for my personal enjoyment."
Lucy broke out laughing at my reply. When she finally stopped giggling, she returned to cinching up her saddle. She was determined to keep me off balance with her remarks.
"Maybe we can pretend that's the case tonight," she said seductively.
I enjoyed the flirtatious banter with Lucy, as it distracted me from worrying so much about Sonja. We made short work of preparing our mounts and preparing for our trip. I insisted we take at least three days worth of food, even though it was only a day and a half trip if we went all the way back to the university in the valley.
When we were ready to mount up, I took my pistol out of my saddlebag, inserted a loaded cylinder and strapped on my holster. I loaded my stage gun with double-aught buck and slung it diagonally across my back. Lucy watched me with big eyes as I assembled my weapons.
"You are so nonchalant and casual while handling things designed for killing. Are you the same way when it comes to using them?" she asked.
I shrugged. Lucy did not seem overawed or frightened by my guns, she just seemed curious.
"I'm never blasé when it comes to gun fighting, but I don't hesitate to shoot if it becomes necessary. I would rather be the one lamenting having shot someone, than the one planted on Boot Hill."
Lucy digested that for a second then shocked the hell out of me when she replied.
"I can understand that. Maybe you can teach me to shoot one day."
"No problem," I said, "matter of fact, once we find willful Miss Sonja, we'll fill the scatter gun with rock salt and use her hind end for a target."
Lucy was an excellent horsewoman, who rode western style. She was also a boon companion, with a wicked sense of humor and a delightful flirtatious way about her. I liked the hell out of her. We rode out of town on the same road I'd arrived on just yesterday. I was not at all happy with Sonja for putting us through this ordeal. I was at a loss whenever I tried to apply logic in my dealings with the Valley Dwellers. I shared my frustrations with Lucy. She had some insight that made a heck of a lot of sense.
"Liz says that most of the valley people are victims of their own success, in that the genetic modifications have robbed a significant percentage of the population of drive and initiative. They don't think about how to make tomorrow better, instead they dwell on how much better things were yesterday. With each new generation, the malaise increases. According to Liz, they are going to fade away into oblivion, still yearning to manipulate what is unchangeable.
"The mindset among most altered people is why Liz dropped out of their society and started this one. The outlanders already had small towns set up on the same principle as the city states, so Liz's challenge has been to meld towns, villages and clans toward a common purpose. As you can see, she has done an extraordinary job of that. Liz is a visionary and an extraordinary leader."
The more I learned about these outlanders, the more I agreed with them. That was very troubling to me, because I considered myself as loyal as an old dog, and I owed some allegiance to the Pleiad, even if I thought they were headed for ruination. I guess that was something I needed to work on when I returned to the valley. One thing is for certain, Sonja's little ploy was not going to provoke me to return a minute sooner than I wanted. If necessary, I would deliver her as far as the Larson's ranch, but I was coming back.
Once we cleared the cultivated fields in close to the town, Lucy took a side trail that she said was rougher, but shorter than the main road. We had been traveling about two hours, and were a good ten miles from New London, when a device on Lucy's belt started chirping. She snatched it off her belt and held it to her mouth.
"State your emergency, Sheriff Greer," she said into the device.
The thing in her hand continued to emit an occasional chirp, but despite repeated attempts to get the sheriff to answer, no voice came out of it. Lucy frowned and held the thing in front of her, parallel to the ground. She swung it back and forth in an arc from north-east to south-east. On the second sweep, she stopped with the instrument pointing towards the east-north-east. She looked at me somberly and explained her actions.
"These devices are not as sophisticated as the Valley Dwellers' vid-phones, but they have an emergency paging feature with a homing beacon function. Sheriff Greer activated his emergency alert, but he isn't answering his radio. According to his beacon, he is about five miles from here in that direction," she said, pointing north-eastish.
My heart flopped in my chest, because Tonya was with the sheriff.
"Try calling Tonya on that thing," I ordered.
Lucy shook her head negatively.
"Can't," she said, "the units are not compatible."
That was news not to my liking. I aimed my mule in the direction she pointed and nudged him forward.
"Nothing to do but go find them then. Lead on, we can be there in forty minutes if we hurry," I said, my voice much calmer than I felt.
The outlands of California were much different than the bad lands of Colorado and Wyoming, because there was much more water here. Where much of the high plains of where I was from were semi arid, the plains here were green and teeming with wild life. Part of the area was even forested with small stands of redwoods and lodge pole pines. To take my mind off Tonya, I asked Lucy about it.
"Why do the people in the valley call these the outlands? This area seems perfect for farming and settlement."
"It's getting there," Lucy said. "Looking around now, you wouldn't believe that a hundred years ago, this was all barren tundra. It is also still slightly contaminated with the fallout from the Bison River Nuclear Power Plant meltdown. If we get a better handle on what the weather will be like, we might start farming here in a few years. Right now, run off from glaciers and mountain snow melt keep the springs and creeks flowing all year. But if the temperature rises another degree or two, the glaciers will be gone and snow will stay on the mountains for less of the year. If we don't start receiving more rain, this area will revert to high desert for most of the year."
We picked our way down a big game trail through one of the small forests, and exited the woods a hundred yards from the main north-south road. I stopped her when she started to ride out to the road.
"Check where they are before we expose ourselves," I said softly.
Lucy did another check with her multipurpose little device and indicated toward the north.
"We are within four hundred meters of the Sheriff, Jeremiah. What do you want to do?" she asked in the same tone of voice.
"Let's dismount and work our way north on foot. We'll stay in the wood line until we spot them or the road curves away from us," I replied.
Leading the surprisingly light-footed mules, we skirted the edge of the woods, moving as quickly and quietly as we could. It took us only about ten minutes to spot the sheriff. He was face down on the edge of the road, about fifty yards from where we were. There was no sign of Tonya or his strange horseless contraption.
I had to physically restrain Lucy from running over to the unmoving lawman. I spun her around towards me and away from where he lay.
"Take out your stunner and cover me, Lucy," I said forcefully. "Stay right here and keep a sharp eye out. Alert me to any danger you see."
Lucy was in shock, but she gathered her wits enough to agree to what I said. When I had her in a good covering position, I unholstered my revolver, edged my way out of the woods and rushed, bent over towards the sheriff. When I was within reach of him, I dropped down to the ground and lay prone for a good minute, carefully studying the woods opposite where we lay. I knew as soon as I dropped to my belly that I did not need to hurry on Sheriff Greer's account. His oddly twisted neck and dull, unfocused eyes made that obvious to even the casual observer.
I holstered my pistol, reversed my stage gun until it hung by its sling in front of me, and then gingerly rolled Greer onto his back. I gasped at the sight of him, because the front of his shirt was slit in a number of places and drenched in blood. His face was battered beyond recognition and his neck was broken. Someone had made a sporting production out of killing him. I took a quick look around then hurried back to where Lucy was kneeling.
"Is he dead?" she asked.
I nodded as I pulled a blanket out of my bedroll.
"If you can reach New London on that thing, call someone out here to pick up you and Greer's body. I'm going to see if I can figure out what happened here," I said.
Lucy was operating in a daze, but she was still functioning. She took out her communicator and made a call directly to Liz. I left her to explain what had befallen the sheriff, and went over to cover his body with the blanket. That unpleasant chore done, I started looking around where he lay, trying to make some sense of what happened, and maybe find a clue about Tonya. As sorry as I was for what had happened to Greer, I was ten times happier that Tonya wasn't lying there beside him.
It did not take long to find where Greer's carriage had stopped. At least four people had set upon the man, judging by the signs on the driver's side of the carriage. I could plainly see where they dragged and beat him. The other side of the vehicle's wheel tracks showed a scuffle with a like number of people. There were also pieces of torn cloth scattered around and the ground was splattered with dark red blood. My heart sank at that sight.
I walked up the road a few dozen yards and found the tracks of two other vehicles and a couple of horses. The tracks ran from the road to a stand of trees and back. It appeared as if the Juicers (the only group I knew of in this time that could mount violence to this degree) had lain in wait and ambushed the sheriff. The only thing I couldn't figure was how they got him to stop in the first place. From where I stood, I could clearly see the tracks of the vehicles and horses leading off to the north. Based on the time that had elapsed since Lucy's communicator started chirping, they had less than a two hour head start.
I turned around and walked back to where Greer lay. Lucy was standing over his body, but had not moved the blanket covering his face.
"Liz has activated a detachment of the militia, it'll take them five or six hours to assemble and get here," she said.
Her voice was stronger and more controlled now, so I thought she would be fine.
"That's too long. Tonya will be fifty miles away by then. I'm leaving now to try and catch them. You stay here and wait for the militia and then sent them after me," I said.
Lucy gave me an inscrutable look and shook her head.
"I'm not staying here alone, and there is nothing I can do for the poor man anyway. Besides, you are going to need me and my communicator."
I did not argue with her, because leaving her here alone was an ill conceived idea anyway. The bunch I was chasing might not be the only juicers in the area, and I did not need another woman to go missing on me. When we retrieved the mules, I was surprised when Lucy unwrapped a cloth from around the weapon I took from the juicer two days ago. She turned the weapon on its side and fiddled with a small metal knob for a second, then slung it over her shoulder. When I looked at her inquisitively, she shrugged.
"I'm the one who researched these old particle beam rifles. I even found one in our museum's archives to familiarize myself with. This one has about a quarter of a charge left on the power supply magazine, so it will fire at least fifty more times."
The juicers had made no attempt to conceal their trail, so we were able to follow it at a good pace. The horse tracks were indented and spaced in a manner that told me the horses were walking, so I was not worried about them running away from us. We followed them for another twelve miles before the sun set. For the last four of those miles, we were traveling due east. Lucy identified the slightly overgrown road we were on as the old caravan route between Paradise Valley and Casadega.
"The caravans now use a route that passes through New London. That makes sense when you consider that we outlanders do all the trading now. The city people simply do not want to be bothered with something as mundane as trade."
It was harder and slower following the tracks at night, but I managed to find them often enough to know we were still behind our quarry. I was surprised when we were still traveling an hour and a half after full dark. I had figured they would make camp near dark and yet if that were so, we would have surely caught up with them by now. Two hours later, that question was answered when the tracks turned onto a small side trail that was little more than a couple of ruts in the ground.
I had us dismount, then we walked our mules into a small thicket. I ground tied the mules and motioned for Lucy to follow me. Two hundred yards down that trail, we spied a small cluster of low square concrete and metal buildings. A number of the buildings had lights shining through their windows, and there was much foot traffic between the two largest structures. I found us a good hiding spot and we hunkered down to observe the camp.
It took me only thirty minutes to get a rhythm of the comings and goings, and to spot the three ill concealed guards. I have to admit, what I saw and heard during that half and hour chilled the marrow of my bones. All Lucy's banter about slavery was being played out in real life right in front of us as the Juicers abused a number of normal looking women at every turn. The women were obviously frightened and were quick to jump at the Juicers demands. Yet the strong and brutal juicers still struck and kicked them at will. It was the most disgusting conduct I had ever witnessed.
I was almost frantic searching for a sign of Sonja and Tonya, when I over heard two Juicers talking as they walked between the buildings. One of them laughed as the other rubbed her jaw.
"That big one put up a hell of a fight before she gave in huh, Gail?"
"Yeah," the other Juicer answered, "but did you see her go at it when we finally got her down? She might have fought, but that girl sure knows how to love another woman," said the one named Gail.
The other woman gave a braying laugh and punched her friend in the arm.
"Her prissy little friend wasn't bad either. I love those reluctant acting ones who end up being screamers. I think she is a good candidate for the treatment, given her genome type."
I was getting angrier by the minute, and my anger made me coldly detached and calm. It took me five minutes to work out a plan. When I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I signaled Lucy and we slipped back to where our mules were located. Once there, I laid out my plan. When I finished, Lucy was looking at me as if I were insane and tried to talk me out of it.
"Why don't we go find the militia detachment first, Jeremiah? There must be twenty five of those monsters in there. You don't have a chance by yourself."
We had lost contact with the militia when we took to this disused caravan route. Our best guess was that they were some hours behind us. Yet, even if they arrived in the next fifteen minutes, I did not see them being much of an asset.
"The militia is not going to be much help unless they are armed with something besides the standard stunners. I've seen at least half a dozen of these cretins wearing the diffusion vests. If we can make them scatter in smaller groups, the militia can pick them off at will, or once we get these kidnapped women out of here, they can even assault this place. Regardless, though, I'm going in there and get Tonya and Sonja now."
Lucy had no choice but to reluctantly agree. I briefed her and put her where I wanted her, not really counting on her to be of much help anyway. I tried to lighten the mood a little by teasing her some as I told her what I needed her to do.
"Okay my little slave girl, here's what your master needs you to do. I want you to watch my back while I enter that big building. Aim low when you fire, and try for a wounding shot. Don't stay in the same position for more than three shots in a row. These abominations are not human anymore, Lucy, consider that when you have to shoot at them."
Lucy looked determined as she nodded her head and adjusted something on the rifle. I kissed her and slipped off into the underbrush, headed towards one of the lackadaisical guards. The way I figure it, this was the most dangerous part of my plan, because I was going to try to neutralize the guard silently. I pulled my hunting knife out of its sheath and crept up behind the unsuspecting guard Indian style. It bothered me not a whit that in all likelihood, the short statured guard was probably a woman. I think that what ever witchcraft made them so muscular must have also changed them into pseudo-men anyway.
I set myself behind the guard and impatiently waited for her to present me with an opening. My chance came when the doors of one of the buildings to our left crashed open. When the guard turned her head and attention in that direction, I sprang forward, slapped my open hand over her mouth and drove the blade of my knife into the side of her neck.
She made a gurgling noise from her throat and her hands came up to ineffectually grab at my hand covering her mouth. I locked my left forearm and raked my knife blade across her throat again. It was over in only seconds, as the lifeless body sagged in my grasp. I quietly lowered the guard to the ground and cleaned my knife on her shirt. I had just killed my first woman, yet I felt no more remorse than I would have in killing a rabid dog.
I stood in the guards place and held my breath, praying someone did not raise the alarm. After a couple of uneventful minutes, I took a deep breath, drew my pistol and rushed towards the door of the biggest building. Hardly breaking stride, I turned the door handle and slammed the door back on its hinges. I had hoped for the element of surprise at my entrance, and for a few seconds I achieved that. Only I was the one surprised. Actually, surprised was too mild a word for what I felt as I saw at least eight naked, heavily muscled, mannish looking Juicer women writhing around on the large mattresses with Tonya, Sonja and two other normal looking women. The Juicers appeared to be having much more fun than the normal women.
I pointed my pistol at the ceiling, thumbed back the hammer and pulled the trigger. The weapon roared loudly in the confined space of the room. The women all jumped and a couple squealed in fright. Before any of them could move, I cocked the pistol again and pointed it at the biggest of the Juicer women.
"Freeze or I will blow a hole through the first person that moves," I yelled.
Eleven of the women did exactly as I ordered. The twelfth scrambled to pick up one of the beam rifles lying near her. My second bullet enforced my threat as I shot her in the right thigh. Her scream convinced the others to stay still. I recocked my Colt and leveled on the big woman again. I walked into the room a few more steps until my back was against the wall, away from the windows and doors.
I turned some of my attention to the normal women, Tonya catching my eye first. Tonya was trying to smile, but her face was bruised and scratched and one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut. In fact, all of the women sported welts and bruises all over their bodies.
"Tonya, grab that rifle and cover these creatures. If they move shoot them. You other three normal women find something to wear pronto, and let's get out of here."
Tonya nodded and snatched up the beam rifle that the woman I shot had been reaching for. Tonya stood up gingerly, made sure the weapon was armed, and pointed it loosely in the direction of the Juicers. The other women looked dumbstruck, so I kicked some clothes in their direction and chivvied them into picking them up. I was back at the door in less than a minute from kicking it open.
I peeked out the opening, just in time to see five or six armed Juicers come boiling out of the second building down from where we were. Without giving it a thought, I raised my pistol and rapidly emptied my last three rounds towards them. Two of those armed with particle beam rifles tumbled to the ground, but my third round went astray.
I ducked back out of the lighted door way just as a bolt from a beam rifle blasted a gout of concrete off the building. I opened the flap of my ammunition pouch and fished a fresh cylinder out of it. I had just switched out cylinders when I heard a sharp buzzing noise. I jerked my head up just in time to see Tonya with the beam rifle raised in a firing position. Ten feet in front of her, the largest and most muscular of the Juicers was slowly pitching backwards. There was a hole no bigger than a twenty-two caliber slug between her eyes, and smoke was wafting up out of the hair on the back of her head. When I caught Tonya's eye, she shrugged and gestured with the barrel of the rifle.
"She moved," was all Tonya had to say.
By now, Sonya and the other two women were at least acting semi-lucid. I pointed to some rope and manacles lying on the floor and addressed them.
"Take some of these restraints they were using on you and tie up these harridans. Don't worry about being gentle, just truss them up tight. Tonya, if one of them so much as flinches, send her to hell to join the one you shot."
Tonya nodded. Her hawk like stare never wavering from the suddenly intimidated looking Juicers.
"My pleasure," she said.
Tonya's deadly tone of voice made it instantly obvious she meant what she said. Her reaction towards retribution to the abuse she'd suffered was the first sign I'd seen of real spunk among the Valley Dwellers. But then again, Tonya was one of the unaltered, so her responses weren't filtered by generations of medical voodoo.
The new cylinder I had loaded in my pistol was filled with six rounds instead of the standard five I traveled with. I had one more loaded cylinder on my gun belt and eight shotgun rounds in a pouch sewed to the stage gun's sling. As long as Tonya remained angry and vengeful, I had one staunch ally. I prayed I had one more in Lucy, watching my back. I strode across the room and checked for another way out. There was a back entrance to the building, which opened up into the inky dark night.
My original plan of grabbing Tonya and Sonja and leaving the rest to the militia went out the window when I saw how abused the women who had been there for awhile were. I had seen at least six or eight more, and was not about to leave them. I went back to the front door and assumed a prone position on the floor so I could peek out with out becoming a target. There was a flurry of activity as more Juicers were arguing about how to deal with me. The Juicers were mean, strong and even angrier than normal, but they weren't soldiers, so finding a plan was eluding them. I sighed and rose to my feet, my back pressed against the wall next to the door jamb.
I looked back into the room and saw that all the Juicers were tightly hogtied. Tonya seemed more focused with every passing minute, so I figured she'd follow my directions.
"Tonya, take the other women out the back door when I say go. Hide in the edge of the woods and shoot any Juicer that gets near you."
Tonya hesitated a second, but nodded.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
I gave her my most confident boyish smile and answered.
"I'm going to do what any good soldier in the Glorious Army of Northern Virginia would do when he was outnumbered and outgunned," I said cockily. "I'm going to attack..."