satellites

Adam walked quickly, his hands jammed deeply into the pockets of his jacket. The jacket itself was buttoned from bottom to top, including the seldom used throat button which held the flipped-up collar tightly around his neck. He tucked his chin down and pulled his shoulders up as far as he could.

Skivvy had actually pulled the tail of his coat up over his head, and held the corners across his chest, forming a miniature tent over his head.

The temperatures had gone from a comfortable fifty down to below freezing in a matter of two days. It had begun snowing the morning before, and hadn’t let up since. The snow collecting on the freeway was now almost eight inches deep and beginning to become a hazard, and in many places snow drifts had collected to waist-height. They had found shelter in an old van the night before, and neither of them was much looking forward to another night outside, but their options were looking slim as dusk quickly approached. They had consulted a map, but there were no charted settlements between them and their target, the town of Charleston, which was at least another six hours. It wasn’t going to happen tonight.

Apparently Charleston had discovered some way or another to power their motor vehicles (at least the smaller ones) and now it seemed that every commune in the tri-state area wanted to open up channels of communication with them. Which included the Roadhouse, hence why Adam and Skivvy were stuck wading through the snow in these frigid temperatures.

He heard Skivvy’s crunching footsteps beside him stop. Adam stopped, somewhat annoyed (if it’s another goddamn pressed penny machine, he thought) but Skivvy was looking down into a gully beside the road. There were lights.

“Hot damn,” Adam stuttered. He thought he had never been so relieved in his life.

+

As it turned out, picking their way down the steep slope had a whole slew of issues all its own. There were plenty of slips and trips and near neck-breaking plunges (Adam was reminded of his father’s professed dislike toward taking busted-up kids to the hospital) but after twenty harrowing minutes they stood at the bottom of the gully.

They approached the town, which was really more of a hamlet; there were a few dozen huts in rings around one larger building, which Adam presumed to have originally been a highway maintenance building. The presence of the maintenance building meant that there was probably a maintenance road as well. They’d look for that on the way back out.

There was warm orange candlelight coming from the windows of the huts, creating a comforting glow in the graying evening. A man emerged from the opposite side of one of the huts. He had a hunting rifle in his hand, but he never pointed it at them.

“Who goes there?” he demanded.

Skivvy suppressed a snicker at the cliché line. Adam smiled and stepped forward, his arms spread out beside him in what might have been surrender or bravado.

“My name is Adam. This is my companion, Michael. We’re traveling diplomats, and we’d appreciate it if you could just put us up for the night.”

The man took a step forward.

“C’mere into the light where I can see you two better.” They did. The man, an older fellow who looked like he could handle himself, gave them each a once over. He seemed to have found whatever he was looking for and nodded. He stuck out his hand.

“Name’s Rick. Welcome to Satellite Community 12-D.”

+

Rick heated up some water in his hut for tea. It was surprisingly luxurious for such a modest exterior. There was a main living space, decorated with rugs and pictures and featuring a sofa and an armchair, a little table off to the side with two chairs, and in the back was a bedroom. Adam assumed there was an outhouse somewhere around town.

“Now, you said this was a ‘satellite community’?” Skivvy asked as Rick handed him a mug.

“Yes sir, that’s the official story. But we like to call this place Starksville. Because, well, you know.” Rick handed a mug to Adam.

“Thanks. What exactly is this place a satellite of?”

“Technically Charleston.” Adam and Skivvy looked at each other.

“You know, that’s where we’re headed,” Skivvy said.

“Oh. Really now.” Rick was studying his tea.

“Yeah,” Skivvy continued. “Isn’t that a bit far?”

“Closer than anything else.” Rick looked markedly uncomfortable. They finished the rest of their tea in silence.

“Well,” Rick said, standing after they had finished, “As you can see our homes are a bit small, but I can house one of you here if the other doesn’t mind coming with me to my neighbor’s.”

Adam looked over at Skivvy, who had already drifted off to sleep.

“I’ll go,” Adam said, stood up, and shouldered his bag and his field surgeon’s kit.

+


Rick knocked at the door. After a brief pause, there were several clicks and sliding sounds as bolts were thrown. These people are scared, Adam thought. The door opened and there stood a man who couldn’t have been much older than Adam was. His brow furrowed slightly and he glanced at Rick.

“He’s a traveler, needs a place to crash. Is it alright if he stays here with you for the night?” Rick said.

The man looked Adam up and down the same way Rick had. After a moment he smiled and his body loosened; Adam hadn’t realized it had been tense at first. The man stepped aside and allowed Adam to enter his home.

Adam looked around. It was somewhat sparser than Rick’s place, but it was very cozy and well-kept. He realized he was probably staying with a married couple. Rick and the new guy were talking quietly by the door when a little girl rushed into the room. She looked to be maybe four.

“Daddy, who’s at the--” She stopped when she saw Adam, clutching a stuffed bear tightly to her chest. Adam smiled and crouched down. He took off his bags and set them aside. He was now at her eye level. She looked a bit uncomfortable, but no longer scared.

“Hello there, miss. My name’s Adam.” He held out his hand.

“I’m Maddy,” she said quietly. She took his hand.

“Well it’s very nice to make your acquaintance, Maddy. Let me ask you something. Do you like candy?” he asked as he produced a chocolate bar from his jacket’s inner pocket.

Her eyes widened as she reached out for the candy bar.

“Make sure you let it last, so you can share it,” Adam said as he placed the candy in her hand.

“What do we say, Maddy?” her father asked from behind Adam.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” she said, hopping up and down. She ran back into the back. He heard her talking to Mommy, now.

Adam had been aware of the man standing behind him, probably ready to bash him with a chair if he posed a
threat to his daughter. Adam gave Maddy the candy as much to pacify her as the man behind him. He turned.

The man’s hand was extended, and there was a pleasant grin on his face.

“My name’s George,” he said.

“Adam. You have a beautiful daughter.”

“Thanks. She gets it mostly from her mother. And I really appreciate you giving her some candy. It’s so hard to find nowadays, and, well, I don’t recall if she’s ever had any more than once.” George’s voice cracked slightly.

“It’s no problem,” Adam said. “I don’t really eat it much. So you guys farm, then? I noticed a lot of empty space behind the town.”

“Yeah, we do. Just pulled in our crops a week ago. None too soon, I’d say, from the looks of things.”

“You can say that again. It’s not exactly conducive to my profession, either.”

“I can imagine,” George chuckled. “You missed dinner, but we have some leftovers if you’re hungry. We can talk while you’re eating.”

“That would be delightful,” Adam said, his stomach growling.

+

George’s wife, Rita, had joined them at the small table while Adam ate. Maddy had gone to bed.

“When I first met Rick,” Adam said between bites, “he said that this town was ‘technically’ a satellite of Charleston. Why only technically?”

Rita and George looked uneasily at each other.

“If you don’t want to get into it, I’ll understand.”

“No, no,” Rita said. “It’s not that. It’s just that we’re a little unsure. We’ve never really liked the way Charleston did its business, which is why this community sprung up out here. However, while we were setting up, we still needed protection. So we paid what was basically a tribute, some of our crops, to Charleston, in exchange for protection. We’ve been paying for nearly nine years now, but this year . . .” Rita trailed off.

“This year we decided enough was enough,” George finished. “They pulled their guards out and left. We . . . we don’t think it’s for good.”

“What, you think they’ll attack you?” Adam asked.

“Not attack, per se. That’s never been their style. They tend to only harass you if they don’t like you, but that could entail any number of things. Maybe just torching our storage, maybe our homes. I really couldn’t say.”

“How long ago did the troops leave?”

“About a day after we reaped our harvest and informed them we wouldn’t be sharing this year,” George replied.

“Well, I’m sure you know that we’re heading to Charleston on business. We could try to use some leverage to get you a break.”

Rita’s face brightened.

“You’d do that?” she asked excitedly.

Adam nodded. But he knew that if Charleston was full of the kind of people he was beginning to imagine were there, then there would be little anyone could do to stop an attack, if it was indeed an attack they had in mind. Adam thought it’d be more like a slaughter.

+

Adam was sleeping soundly when suddenly he sat up stiffly. He stopped, listening, but all he could hear was the oppressive silence around him. He was beginning to lay back down when he heard a strange noise carried on the wind. At first he couldn’t place it, the strange rhythmic thumping. Something in his head recognized it, though, and that something, after struggling for a moment or two, broke free. It was an engine. It was a dirtbike engine.

He swung his legs off the couch and began to pull his boots on as he looked around for his shirt. He had slept in his jeans. Suddenly there was another noise overtop of the engine, and this time he recognized it instantly: gunfire. He quickly looped his gunbelt around his waist, went to his bag, grabbed three extra clips, and jammed them in the back of his pants.

By this time George had come out, clutching a terrified Rita’s hand.

“What’s going on?” he rasped.

Adam shrugged apologetically and opened the door.

The town was ablaze. Men in dirtbikes zoomed through the town, kicking up great plumes of snow. Some tossed Molotov cocktails, while still others sprayed the area with Uzis. Through the flames, he saw Skivvy emerge from another house, his hair in a tangle, also naked from the waist up. They met eyes. Adam pointed to the maintenance building in the center of the town and Skivvy nodded. They went separate ways.

The maintenance building was made of brick and steel, and therefore was safe from all but the luckiest cocktails and bullets. They had to get everyone in there.

“The building! Get in the building!” Adam screamed to the panicked citizens. Bullets raked through the snow toward him. He rolled sideways and fired, dropping the biker. “Come on!” he continued.

With Skivvy doing the same, occasionally firing back with his MAC-10, it was only a matter of minutes until everyone had made it inside the buildings. Skivvy and Adam met up just inside the door.

“We’ve got to get back to our rifles,” Skivvy panted. Adam nodded.

“Let’s go.”

It took him ten seconds at a full sprint to make it from the building to his hut, but he managed to discharge the remaining rounds he had on his person, dropping two. Skivvy dropped another three with his machine pistol, which brought the remaining bikers to about seven.

Adam burst into the hut to see George and Rita had not left yet.

“I can’t find her!” Rita was screaming. “Why would she hide?”

“She’s scared,” Adam said, not looking at her as he grabbed his gear and threw it out the open door. He picked up his carbine and yanked the action.

“I’m sure she’s around--” A cocktail crashed into the side of the hut, engulfing the entire wall in flames.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Adam said softly.

“But Maddy . . .” George threw up his hands dejectedly. Rita was sobbing.

“She probably already got out,” Adam said a bit more strongly. He felt sick to his stomach. “Come on.” He grabbed both of them by the arms and dragged them out of the house before they could respond or fight back.

He barely had them out when something in the house caught fire and burst (propane or something like it, Adam thought) blowing out the wall entirely. The house tilted, and then collapsed straight down.

Rita was screaming, and George was pale and slack-jawed. A bullet whizzing by Adam’s ear, though, brought him back to the matter at hand. He dropped to a knee and begun firing. Coordinated with Skivvy’s fire from his AK, they managed to kill another four. The rest rode off, defeated.

Adam turned back to see George and Rita trying desperately to reach into the fire on the other side of the remains of the house. The fire was too hot, though, and neither of them could get their hands into it. Adam circled around and saw what they were reaching for.

Sticking out of the rubble was a blackening hand, a child’s hand, and beside it a burning teddy bear. Adam turned away and vomited.

+

It had stopped snowing and the sun had come out. It was back above freezing, thankfully, as Adam and Skivvy walked the lonely highway towards Charleston. Adam could not have been more unaware of the weather, though.

Amidst the burning, screaming, dying, there was promising: Her death won’t go unpunished. I swear it.

Including Maddy, only four people had died. From a statistical standpoint, the battle was a resounding victory. Most of the intended victims had survived, and most of the intended attackers had died. In addition, there was a working bike left, which had been rigged to run on vegetable oil. But none of that mattered when you considered that the dead were parents, siblings . . . daughters.

He had told Skivvy about a mile out of Charleston that he intended to avenge Maddy and the others who had died. He told Skivvy that he’d understand if he couldn’t help him. But Skivvy only nodded. We’re in this together.

They didn’t have a precise plan, yet, and they wouldn’t until they could see the layout of the city. But there were two things they had agreed upon: no innocents would die by their hands, but the whole city would feel their wrath nonetheless.

They had been walking for hours, now, and finally the city of Charleston crested the horizon. The community didn’t encompass the entire ruined city, only a section of it. The rest, as far as Adam could tell, was ghost town. Adam spotted something out of place for a city skyline.

“Silos,” he murmured.

“That must be where they keep the food,” Skivvy said. “The government’ll really feel the pinch if something were to happen, wouldn’t you say?”

Adam was smiling, and it didn’t make Skivvy feel entirely comfortable.

+


“I’ll need to see your papers, please,” the stone-faced guard said. There was a wall of junked cars surrounding the city, the spaces filled with concrete. The single break in the wall faced the highway, and was where Adam and Skivvy stood face to face with about a half-dozen guards with automatic weapons.

Adam pulled his identification out of his back pocket, unfolded it and handed it to a guard. Skivvy did the same, handing his to another. Adam wasn’t really sure what they’d be looking for, since this was the first official contact they’d had, and the guards wouldn’t know their official ID from a page of the dictionary. Nonetheless, the guards seemed satisfied and handed back over the papers.

“Go ahead in. I’ll have a man take you to the commissioner.”

“Thank you,” Mike said. Adam smiled and nodded curtly. They were pointed towards a guard with an Uzi, who gestured for them to follow.

The city wasn’t as big as they’d originally thought, but it was still bigger than the Roadhouse was. It took them nearly ten minutes to reach the commissioner’s office.

“In ‘ere,” the guard grunted, jerking his head towards the door. Adam and Skivvy entered.

“Well hello!” a plump man sitting behind a beat-up desk said. He stood and circled the desk, and shook their hands vigorously. “I assume you came to investigate the bikes, eh?”

“Yes sir,” Adam said dryly. “But if it’s all the same to you, we’ve been walking all day, and we’d really appreciate a little food and a good night’s sleep.”

The man’s smile faltered, but he quickly recovered.

“Of course, of course! I’ll have an aid show you to some rooms right away.” He rang a bell, and a few seconds later a meek-looking woman entered the room.

“Rebecca, dear. Please show our guests to some rooms, and see that they’re fed properly.”

“Yes sir,” she said quietly with a bow. “If you’ll follow me . . .”

“Seems like we’re doing an awful lot of following,” Skivvy whispered to Adam.

“For now,” Adam replied. “But you know that’s not our style.”

+

The room they were shown was very sparse and utilitarian, but it was comfortable enough. The food they were served wasn’t very fresh or very good, but it was filling. And the attention they received was decent, but mostly they were ignored. Which was perfect for their plans. Adam had had no desire to speak about the bikes, since he already knew what they ran on, and since he planned on riding one home tonight.

Adam sketched out as best he could the general area between the two main silos and their room. They had gone on a walk earlier in the evening, and managed to locate the garages for the bikes (which were heavily guarded) and an armory, which was in actuality very lightly guarded. The plan was to leave their rooms at approximately midnight. They would proceed to the armory and sneak in, if at all possible. Adam thought it would be; Charleston’s government seemed to be mostly concerned about their precious motorcycles. Adam supposed they thought no one would ever try to attack Charleston without the proper weapons already in their possession.

After getting plastic explosives from the armory, they would proceed to the silos. There they would set the explosives, get close to the garages, and detonate it. Adam hoped the guards would be distracted enough for them to steal two bikes. Vegetable oil was easy enough to find to not worry about fuel until they put the burning city far behind them.

“Seems like a good plan,” Skivvy said. “Did you account for the Skvarla factor?”

“That’s why we're starting so early.”

“What about the Mason factor?”

Adam held up his weapons.

“Then let’s be off, shall we?”

+

Adam cracked the door. The streets were empty in front of their building. He half-expected there to be a guard posted, but it seemed that they didn’t really deem the two wandering diplomats to be much of a threat.

“It’s clear,” Adam whispered. They ran out into the street, turned left, and ran towards the garages.

They stopped a few blocks away behind a wall, and Skivvy did a quick head count as he peeked out.

“There are four guards, all armed with automatic weapons.”

Adam nodded.

“Is there anywhere for us to stash our gear?” he asked.

“I see a few dumpsters a block down, but that’s about it.”

Adam wrinkled his nose.

“I suppose it’ll have to do.” They stole down the alley and quickly located the dumpsters. They were about a
hundred feet away from the garages, and completely shielded from view. Perfect. After they tossed their bags in the dumpsters (mobility was capital for this operation) they retraced their steps back toward the street.

A perpendicular street led them away from the garages and towards the armory, and beyond that the silos. They stopped a good distance away and surveyed the situation. There were two guards, one on either side of the door. And there were Adam and Skivvy, no silenced weapons.

“Piss,” Adam muttered.

“Do you know how to throw a knife?” Skivvy asked.

“Kind of, but even if we get right up on them, that’s still like fifteen yards.”

“Well, I don’t have any other ideas, do you?”

“No, not really. But that still leaves the issue of the second guard,” Adam replied.

“I’ve got a plan for that, I think. I’ll take off across the street and get around the corner from them. Then, if you can draw them out and take one with the knife, I can get the other one.” He spun his butterfly knife open.

“Okay.” He clapped Skivvy on the back. “Let’s rock.”

+

Adam watched Skivvy sprint across the open road. The guards had both turned to look at something that Adam couldn’t make out, and Skivvy took the opportunity to book it. Now the guards were starting to turn back, and Adam wasn’t sure if Skivvy could make it. He put his hand on the butt of his pistol.

Skivvy put on another burst of speed, moving faster than he ever had before, to Adam’s best recollection. Still, it didn’t seem like enough. Skivvy dropped to the ground and baseball-slid the remaining five feet and up against the wall. The guard turned back and looked over his shoulder, confident that all was quiet tonight.

Now came Adam’s part. He picked up a stone from the ground and tossed it to himself a few times. He put it down and selected a larger one. He positioned himself with his back pressed to the edge of the wall and threw the rock blindly around. It landed in the middle of the road with a dull knock.

“What the . . .” he heard faintly. Now he could hear footsteps. He readied his knife, twirling it in his fingers of his right hand. He still wasn’t entirely sure he could make the throw, but if he didn’t, he and Skivvy were up shit-crick. The footsteps stopped. The blade stopped in its arc, and Adam snatched the grip (he had learned a long time ago that holding the tip only made the knife less stable). He spun his body around his left shoulder, stepping out into the street. His arm was trailing behind him, and now he whipped it around as hard as he could, hurling the knife sidearm. He felt his shoulder pop, but the knife flew true. The guard looked up towards Adam just in time to catch the blade fully in his throat.

The guard dropped, attracting the attention of his partner, who immediately began to run toward his fallen comrade. Skivvy stepped around the corner, catching the man with his hand over the guard’s mouth and jammed his knife under the guard’s arm twice in quick succession. The second guard slid to the ground.

Adam was already at the first guard, searching for anything useful. He found a ring with a half-dozen keys on it, the guard’s ID, and of course his knife buried to the haft in the guard’s throat. His shakedown finished, he grabbed the guard by the boots and dragged him to the door of the armory. Skivvy did the same. Adam quickly tried the keys and found the one he needed, opening the armory. They dragged the bodies in and closed the door.

Skivvy felt around for a lamp, and, feeling none, tried the light switch on impulse. Halogen bulbs flickered to
life.

“They must have gennies running on vegetable oil, too,” Skivvy muttered.

Adam didn’t hear him. He was too busy rummaging through boxes of weapons.

“Hell yes,” he said after a minute. “Here we go.” He pulled out three blocks of C4 and detonators. He dumped out an ammo bag and filled it with his findings, and then grabbed a few grenades, both smoke and fragmenting. Skivvy put a few in his pockets.

“Think we should take some better weapons?” Adam asked.

“Not really. If it comes to the point that we have to use them and we’re not already leaving, we’re pretty much fucked.”

“Fair enough.”

They left the armory and crept down the empty streets toward the silos.

+

They met no more guards until they reached the buildings a block or so away from the silos. After a quick count, there were easily a half-dozen, but it was impossible to be sure with their erratic paths that often took them out of their line of sight.

“I was afraid of this,” Adam whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Adam closed his eyes for a minute, thinking. He reopened them and dumped out his ammo bag. There were six fragmenting grenades and four smoke. He set one of the smokers aside and put the rest of the grenades into the bag. Then he picked up the C4 and detonator, studying them for a moment. He remembered DPM explaining to him a long time ago how C4 worked. You set the timer on the detonator for how much time you wanted, then stuck the prongs of the detonator right into the C4. Adam was fairly sure he could do that much. Piece of cake.

He smashed the bricks of C4 together, molding them into a lumpy ball about the size of a cantaloupe. He pressed an entire detonator into the side of the ball, and then took the loose wires and jammed their prongs in as well. He set the timer for thirty seconds (but was careful not to trigger it yet) and placed the ball inside the bag along with the grenades. He smashed the other two timers.

“Okay,” Adam breathed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. One of us—and I mean you, you’re stronger—is going to hammer throw this bag, hopefully getting it in between the silos. Before that happens, I’ll set the timer and prime a smoker, and toss that in. Then you take the bag and do your thing. Da?”

“Da,” Skivvy said. “That’s pretty far, man.” He squinted. “I’d have to be out in the road to get a clean shot.” Adam nodded, pulling an extra grenade from his pocket.

“Diversion, anyone?”

Skivvy smiled.

“Let’s get crackin’.”

+

Skivvy strode out into the street, counting backwards in his head from twenty-six. He was at twenty-three when he heard Adam grunt and an object whiz over his head. He began to spin in a circle, centrifugal force lifting the bag.

At twenty, he heard a shout as a guard noticed either Skivvy or the metal sphere that Adam had thrown. He wasn’t sure which. Smoke began to seep out of the bag. At seventeen the grenade went off, and the guards were momentarily diverted. By fifteen he was content with the force of his spin, and prepared to let go. He knew the greatest danger was releasing the hammer (in this case, a bag) the wrong way. He took an extra second to get his bearings, and by thirteen he released the bag. After a three-second arc, smoke trailing, it thankfully landed squarely in the ten-foot gap between the silos. Skivvy booked it back to wear Adam was hiding.

“I hope the detonator didn’t get fucked,” Adam said.

“I guess we’ll know in ten seconds,” Skivvy replied.

+

Ten seconds later, the guards frantically trying to discern what was in the bag, there was a blossom of fire, followed by several secondary explosions as flaming grenades detonated. The bases of the silos peeled back and crumbled, and the silos fell inward. They struck each other and collapsed straight downward onto the flames. Something must have been combustible in the debris, because seconds later there was a second fireball rising into the sky.

“Hell yes!” Skivvy whooped, smiling. Adam laughed and they shook hands. Guards ran past the alleyway they were hiding in, from the direction of the garages.

“Alright,” Skivvy said. “You get our shit, and I’ll see about wrangling up a few bikes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Adam said. They stood and ran down the alleyway. Skivvy doglegged to the left into the
street toward the garages. Adam continued straight until he hit the main road and then turned right, heading for the dumpsters a few blocks down.

Adam skidded to a halt as a man with a handkerchief around his throat stepped out into the road. He was grinning at Adam. He had a leather gunbelt slung across his hips, and a revolver hung in the holster.

“Howdy,” the man said. “Name’s Connors.”

+

Adam smiled back.

“Well Connors, I certainly hope you’ve got something to back up all the theatrics.”

Connors scowled.

“You better stay in line, boy. I’m the fastest around here. Faster’n a punk like you, at any rate.” Connors smiled again. “But hell, you’ll find that out soon enough.”

“I bet,” Adam said. For some reason he knew that this man was dangerous, but he also knew that Connors was underestimating him.

“You’re dealin’ with the top dog here, my friend. I’m in charge of all this, you know,” he said, extending his arms to the city. “Maybe not directly, but when you control the military--”

“The military,” Adam interrupted.

“Yes, the military,” Connors mocked.

“Starksville . . .” Adam couldn’t get his mouth to speak any more.

“You mean 12-D? So, you ran into ‘em. They had it comin’, you know. They needed us, but they got cocky. I hear they got a coupla regular gunslingers protectin’ them. We’ll just have to--”

“Fuck you, Connors. I hope you can haul iron as well as you can work your Goddamn mouth.” Connors recoiled as if struck, but quickly regained his composure.

“Well let’s just get to it, then,” he sneered. He reached down and loosed the catch on his holster.

Adam reached around to the holster at the small of his back and did the same. He turned, putting his right leg forward, the butt of his gun facing Connors.

They were still. Connors snarled at Adam; Adam stared daggers at Connors. Somewhere in the distance
there was another explosion, but it was far away. The world lacked any meaning aside from Connors and the familiar weight at Adam’s back.

Connors’ fingers danced beside his holster. Adam remained still. He had regained his composure, but he still had his face twisted in disdain. He wanted Connors to underestimate him more. It would make killing him even better. The thought never crossed his mind that he was underestimating Connors; something inside of him told him exactly what Connors was capable of. Killing civilians, maybe. Killing children, maybe. But he didn’t have what it would take to beat Adam.

Connors’ shoulder tensed and his hand shot up the side of his holster, gripping the butt of his revolver. That was as far as it ever got.

The second he saw Connors tense, his arm automatically swung back. His hands latched onto the grip and he hopped backward slightly as he brought the gun up to bear and fired.

The bullet tore through Connors abdomen, and he reeled backwards and fell. Adam began to walk towards him. Connors’ revolver had slid from his holster, and he reached for it. Adam put a bullet into his elbow; Connors roared in agony.

“Scream, fucker, scream; it won’t save your soul.” Adam had reached the supine form of Connors. He planted his boot in Connor’s throat. The scream cut off in a wet gurgle.

“This is for Maddy,” Adam said, and squeezed off three more rounds into Connors’ face.

+

Adam dashed to the garage, his bags and rifle slung across his shoulders, Skivvy’s gear in his hands. Skivvy was already sitting astride a dirtbike in front of the garage, another propped up against a wall.

“What kept you?” Skivvy asked.

“Later,” Adam said as he thrust the gear into Skivvy’s arms. The guards were starting to gain control of the fire.

Skivvy slung his gear on his back and kicked the engine to life. Adam mounted his own bike and was momentarily overcome by the complexity of the machine. He took a deep breath, and the old adage proved true. He started his bike.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Skivvy yelled over the roar of the engines.

Adam nodded, twisted the handgrip, and they left the burning city of Charleston.