RJ walked in and threw a bag of food on David's chest. He started awake and was instantly in a bad mood. He looked in the sack and made a face.
"You were expecting maybe veal?" RJ asked sarcastically.
"What's that?" David looked around him. It was almost dark. He'd been asleep for hours, and apparently RJ had been gone all this time. "Where were you? What were you doing?" He was a little angry. He could have been lying here dead for all she cared.
She sat on the end of the bed and smiled at him. "Always with you it's questions." She shrugged. "I believe I have found a good ally, among other things."
David stiffened. "You can't just go about the streets stopping people and asking them if they'd like to help us destroy the greatest power in the universe!" he said hotly. "Some people might not like that. Not to name names, but the Reliance, for one."
RJ shrugged, as if the Reliance bothered her only a little. "If they were the strongest power in the universe—and please try to remember that the universe is a very big place—they wouldn't still be fighting with the Aliens, now, would they?"
"Uh, I really hate it when you do that, RJ." David got out of bed and stormed to the bathroom. Once inside, he held his head in the hope that it would stop that rocking motion. He closed the door and screamed at her. "I hate it when you get technical about shit like that!" A few minutes later, he walked out of the bathroom looking fairly relieved. "One thing's for damn sure, the Reliance can sure as hell tromp our butts. And if you're going to run around telling them right where to find us . . ."
"Relax already, David," RJ said lightly. "The man was a midget."
"So?" David obviously saw no significance in this."What's a mij-jet?" He fumbled over the unfamiliar word.
RJ looked at him in disbelief. "Are all civilians so ignorant? A midget is a little person."
"So. It's a little person," he shrugged. He didn't believe in fairy stories.
"Why do you think you don't know what a midget is? Can't you ever just put two and two together?"
"A work unit's ability to think is not overly important to a Reliance overlord. I think I do pretty well considering that I didn't have anywhere near the education that you had. I didn't get the breaks that you did . . ."
"Excuse me, ass-bite, but in my job I got shot at . . ."
"Just tell me the significance of this man being a midget."
RJ nodded. He was right. The key to the Reliance's power was ignorance. They gave the people just enough knowledge to do the jobs the Reliance wanted them to do—no more and no less.
"All people with what the Reliance has classified as 'defects' are hunted out and killed. Being a midget is a birth defect. Usually such 'defective' persons are convicted of rape, theft, or murder, and then executed. If they are allowed to reach adulthood at all, that is. Obviously, defective babies are usually stillborn. The people just stand back and let them do it, because they don't trust anyone that's different. That's human nature."
David nodded slowly in reluctant agreement. He remembered how the villagers had reacted to his new ideas.
"This Reliance policy will help us out quite a bit here in Alsterase," RJ announced. Clearly, David was lost again. RJ sighed. For an intelligent man, he could sure be dense at times. "If the Reliance is out to exterminate anyone who's different, then those who are different aren't going to feel very charitable towards the Reliance, now are they?" She sighed.
Light dawned, and David nodded. "So they'll be more likely to join us."
"Well, at least we can trust them not to hurt us." Suddenly, RJ's head jerked towards the door. She tensed. David noticed that the arm started to jerk more, and suddenly she was on her feet.
"What's wrong?" he asked, puzzled.
RJ pulled her blaster.
"What's wrong?" Alarmed, David climbed out of the bed.
"Quick!" RJ ordered. The door flew into splinters, and the biggest man David had ever seen stepped into the room. He dwarfed the man they had encountered in the bar last night. The giant threw a piece of the door at RJ, and her blaster went flying.
David had never seen a GSH, but he knew instinctively that this was one. He'd heard stories about them most of his life, but he hadn't really believed them. The stories were of manufactured beings capable of great feats of strength. Stories told by the same people who talked about gnomes and fairies. Yet here it was, the monster behind the stories. David was terrified. He knew his life was over. Then he realized that the man wasn't paying the slightest attention to him; he was after RJ.
RJ went for the second blaster, but before she could free it from the loops of chain, the giant was upon her. He bashed her head with his fist, the blood flew, and RJ fell to the floor. He lifted the still dazed woman up by a loop in her chain, and threw her against the wall, and still he paid no attention to David.
David saw only one hope for them. He started across the room for the bike. The GSH pounced on RJ once again. David had no idea how much punishment RJ could take, but it couldn't be this much. She had to be unconscious, maybe even dead. He was, therefore, stunned to see the GSH fly across the room and land at his feet, effectively blocking the way to the bike.
RJ ran at the man.
"Are you nuts!" David yelled, jumping smartly out of her way. "He's going to kill you!"
RJ wasn't listening. She hurled herself headlong into the monster's stomach.
"He's going to kill you, and then he's going to kill me," David mumbled as he resumed his trek towards the bike.
All mumbling stopped as David was thrown to the ground by the impact of an incredible weight. He lay where he'd landed, and dazedly watched as RJ jumped up off him, quickly disengaging the chain from her body. She whipped it out at the GSH. It hit the monster's head with a thud. David heard the thing fall, although he didn't really see it, and he was sure it wouldn't be down long.
David crawled the short distance remaining to the bike, where he fumbled to free the rocket launcher. Apparently, RJ had been more worried about losing the damn thing than about having to actually use it. He wasn't having much luck getting it off. She had the chain around the monster's neck, pulling on it for all she was worth. David fumbled with the strings holding the weapon, and the next time he looked, RJ was being choked with her own chain. David pulled frantically at the launcher, and it came loose with a jerk that set him on his butt. He aimed, but RJ was in the way. Then the giant made a fatal mistake; he threw RJ across the room. David fired. The kick sent him crashing into the front wall of the apartment. He saw the rocket hit the monster square in the chest and propel him through the exterior wall before it detonated. When the smoke cleared, there was a gaping hole in the wall, and no GSH.
David tossed aside the launcher and crawled to where RJ lay, the chain still around her throat and blood running from her nose and mouth.
"Don't be dead," David prayed. He poked at her to see if she would move."Are you OK?" he asked.
RJ opened her eyes and stared at him in disbelief as he unwrapped the chain from her neck. "Oh, yes, I'm fine," she croaked out."Never felt better. In fact, think I'll go dancing!" By the end of her speech, she was screaming at him.
David sighed with relief. She'd be fine. David got unsteadily to his feet and reached down to RJ. After a moment, she let him help her up and tilted her head back to slow the nosebleed.
The fat manager finally managed to shove his way through the small crowd that had gathered at the now door-less doorway. Shaking his head and clicking his tongue in obvious disapproval, he surveyed the room.
"The use of rocket launchers in the rooms is strictly against the rules—ten unit penalty." He crossed to the hole in the wall, and looked out. "As for that," apparently indicating the remains of the GSH which were on the street below, "it will cost you fifteen units to be paid immediately. After all, we can't have a corpse plastered all over our doorstep. I'm trying to run a classy place here, you know."
"Why you . . ." David raised his fist threateningly.
"Get the man his money, David," RJ ordered.
David lowered his fist reluctantly, and dug the money out of the pack on the back of the bike. He walked over and counted out the coins.
"And two units for dripping blood all over the room," the fat man said, his hand still extended.
"I ought to . . ." David started to raise his fist again.
"Take your money, and these people, and get out," RJ said as she took the two units out of David's hand and handed them to the manager.
Satisfied, the manager scurried out, herding the crowd out as he went.
"Come on, people! Party's over for now," he urged.
"We're going to have to leave Alsterase for a while," RJ said almost conversationally as she disappeared into the bathroom.
"Why not leave it for good?" David asked. "Last night I almost got killed; today you almost got killed. I think we should take the hint and get the hell out while we still can." He followed RJ as he spoke, but she shut the door in his face, and the lock clicked. "RJ, you need help."
RJ's voice floated out the door. "The last thing I need, my friend, is an amateur trying to help me."
David looked around the room helplessly. The devastation was complete. The bed, dresser, and footstool were broken, the door was gone, the walls were busted at irregular intervals, and a big chunk of the back wall was missing. They, especially RJ, were damned lucky to be alive.
RJ didn't feel very lucky. She looked in the mirror. Her nose was set to one side, and the angle was all wrong. She checked to be sure that the door was locked because she would never be able to explain this to David. She grabbed her nose between her thumb and forefingers, and with a twist, re-broke it. Ignoring the fresh gush of blood, she forced it into place and held it several seconds.
The bleeding stopped, and when she removed her hand a moment later, her nose was as good as new. Grimly ignoring the pain, she moved on to her other injuries. She took the two teeth she held clenched in her left fist and forced the roots back into the already-healed gum. When the bleeding stopped and the teeth were firmly rooted, she moved to the cracked ribs—six at least by the feel of it. Fortunately, they seemed to be in place, or close enough, and were already healing, so she left them alone. Her injuries cared for, she started to wash off the blood, but thought better of it. It was going to be tough enough to explain her miraculous recovery. She left most of the blood.
Satisfied, RJ pulled a black wallet out of her hip pocket and opened it. Inside were three tubes, each four inches long and filled with small white pills. On the other side were a small knife and a syringe. She took one of the tubes out and dumped a pill into the palm of her hand, then threw it down her throat. She took meticulous care to return the wallet to her pocket precisely as she had found it.
She hurt more than she would ever admit, and her damn arm felt like it was about to jerk out of its socket. By morning, though, she would be fine; all thanks to that little white pill.
When RJ came out of the bathroom, she flopped straight down onto the broken bed.
David gave her a worried look.
"Ask me if I'm OK again, and I'll split you," she said. She covered her face with her hands, as if still warding off blows.
Silently, David pulled her boots off and covered her with a blanket. It was dark now, and the temperature was dropping. It was going to be a cold night, especially since they were practically sleeping outside.
"RJ, that was . . . was that a GSH?" David asked hesitantly.
RJ started to make a flip remark, but decided it would take too much energy. "Yes, David, that was a Genetically Superior Humanoid—a GSH."
David sat heavily on the end of the fallen bed. "I always thought they were made up. You know, old wives' tales. Like the little people, but you said there are little people, too."
"Take my word for it, they're real enough." She spoke through her hands, the warmth felt good on the new tissue.
"They say that they don't feel heat or cold as we do," David said.
"They don't," RJ agreed.
"They say their bones are as strong as steel, their skin impervious to almost anything."
"Except rockets." Her small attempt at humor fell flat."True."
"They say that they never get sick, that they don't age."
"They don't."
"Why are they after us?" David asked in a frightened whisper.
RJ thought that was a very good question. Why had the GSH come after them? It was a sure bet that it hadn't just happened to single them out for abusive treatment. They didn't have the emotions necessary to carry out free thought. Then she realized her error. The dead Elite. Elites had wrist coms. All Reliance enforcement personnel did. He was in pursuit, so his would have been on—SOP. Naturally, he would have been linked to someone in Alsterase. Of course, that other person would be another Elite. GSHs were classed as Elites, and while they very rarely wasted a GSHs talents on Earth assignments, it would probably seem necessary in Alsterase to have a backup that could handle almost every situation. The dead Elite would have given his backup a complete description of her. The com would have provided a complete blow-by-blow of the action, and RJ knew the conclusion the GSH would have drawn. Even the Secondary had known, just before he died. That's why the GSH had ignored David; RJ was the target, the problem. And she wouldn't have been hard to find.
Impatient, David asked again, "RJ, why did that thing come after us?"
"I . . . I made a mistake. I was careless. I should have known he'd be linked. I . . . was . . . careless. I . . . made . . . a . . . . mistake." She repeated herself in a tone of total amazement. It was as if she had made an impossible discovery.
"You sound surprised," David laughed. "You aren't infallible. No one is."
"I have to be." RJ took her hands from her face. Her expression was grim. "I just don't make that kind of stupid mistake."
David could have understood it if she was mad at herself. She wasn't. She seemed confused, as if she just really couldn't accept that she could have made a mistake at all, much less a stupid one.
"Oh, come on, RJ," David laughed in disbelief. "I don't know what this mistake was, but I'm sure you've made mistakes before, and I'm sure you'll make them again."
This enraged RJ. "What makes you so damned sure of that?" She demanded hotly. "People like you make mistakes, not me!"
"You know, I haven't said this before, RJ, but you are, without a doubt, the most pompous, egotistical jackass I have ever known." David stood up from the bed.
"I love you, too," RJ said, and blew him a kiss.
David ignored her and started to pace. "You made a mistake anyone could have made . . ."
"Well, I don't think just anyone could have made it," RJ said with a grin.
"That's exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about!" David steamed. "God, don't you ever listen to yourself? Have you always been this arrogant, or did you have to work at it? That . . . thing . . . almost killed you tonight." He stopped pacing suddenly, obviously struck by inspiration. After a moment, he continued, "I saved your life tonight!"
"You saved yourself," RJ said flatly.
"Yes, all right. But, by saving myself, I also saved you," he repeated smugly.
"OK," RJ conceded. "I admit that things looked pretty bad." She shrugged and rolled on her side, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable.
"Bad!" David repeated in disbelief.
"I still had a trick or two up my sleeve," RJ stated calmly.
"I can't believe you! The thing was strangling you with your own chain. You were bleeding out of every opening in your skull. How were you going to get out of that? This I want to hear!"
She didn't answer. She was asleep, or at least pretending to be. "Bitch," David swore. He dug through the rubble till he found the sack of food RJ had brought him. In spite of the way it looked and smelled, it tasted pretty good. After eating, he threw the sack across the room, shut off the light, and slid into the bed beside RJ.
"Thanks for maybe saving my life," RJ mumbled.
"Bitch," David swore again.
She just laughed and went back to sleep.
He wondered just how badly she was hurt. RJ tossed and turned and moaned in her sleep, and David felt helpless. He didn't know what to do for her, and wasn't sure she would let him do it if he did. She was such an insufferable hardhead.
In her tossing, RJ rolled against David, reminding him again that she was female. Still, David felt nothing even close to desire. It wasn't that he was a gentleman, or at least no more than any other red-blooded man of his age and health. If she were any other woman, he would have done everything in his power to seduce her. But she was RJ, and he had no urge to possess her. To him, RJ was just a guy with an extremely attractive body and a great set of tits. For David, sleeping with RJ was like sleeping with your dog. It was warmer than sleeping by yourself, and gave you someone to turn to if you had a nightmare.
What they had was far more important to David than sex, even more important than love. He made a silent vow to whatever powers might be listening that he would never let anything come between them. That he would not let friend or foe, man or woman, or even their cause, separate them.
When David woke up he heard the shower going. He was freezing cold, and that damned woman was taking a shower! He knew from experience that there was no hot water.
"You're insane!" David screamed at her.
The man in the apartment next to theirs apparently didn't appreciate the noise.
"Keep it down, you assholes!" he yelled, throwing something solid against the wall.
"Bite me!" RJ screamed back. She walked out of the bathroom drying herself. Modesty was not one of RJ's strong suits. But then, having been in the military all of her life, she was used to showering in communal, coed showers.
David took a good look at RJ. She looked to be in the peak of health, not a scratch, not a bruise, not so much as a skinned elbow. Even the sparkle in her eyes seemed genuine. She wasn't hurt, not even a little. That just wasn't possible. Was it?
"You'd think you'd never seen a woman before," RJ mumbled.
"I've never seen anyone heal so quickly," David said defensively.
"Oh. Well, now don't you feel like an ass?" she mumbled to herself.
David smiled. It wasn't very often that he got the better of RJ. He enjoyed it when he did.
"Part of my training included learning how to take a hit, to roll with a blow, how to pull out of a punch so that it does the least damage." She watched David from the corner of her eye. Was he going to buy that?
At first he frowned. Clearly, he was finding that hard to swallow.
"There was a lot of blood coming from my nose and inside my mouth where he loosened a couple of teeth. But besides being a little sore"—which was a lie; her only symptom this morning was a dryness in her eyes which was caused by the drug—"I feel fine. I have taken worse beatings." That was a lie, too.
This time David smiled; he believed her.
RJ sighed with relief. She dressed quickly, topping her ensemble off—as usual—with the chain, oblivious to the dried blood which now covered it, and was coming off in flakes as she wrapped it in her usual fashion. She took the bag off the back of the bike and went through it, checking the armaments inside. Satisfied, she added the pistol gleaned from the dead secondary to the assortment of weapons and explosives.
David helped her, and they dug through the wreckage till they found both blasters. RJ put hers in her holster, then helped David to customize the shoulder harness he'd used for the gun he'd lost in the bar, making it fit the blaster. They grabbed their jackets and bag and left. They were halfway down the stairs when David realized they had forgotten something.
"What about the bike?" David said, stopping in his tracks.
"What about it?"
"You don't plan to walk, do you?"
"I've got a truck." RJ started walking again, and David followed.
"Where did you get that?" David asked.
"We'll find one," RJ said with a shrug.
"You mean STEAL one!" David shrieked.
"Shush," RJ hissed. "Only Reliance bigshots get to own cars. The rest are used by the military or in farm work. Not even an Elite can buy a car or truck. They're too rare, and too expensive. There are several vehicles in Alsterase. Now, use your head, where did they come from in the first place?"
"They must be stolen," David answered.
RJ clapped.
"Well, it's different stealing from the Reliance," David said in a harsh whisper. "You're going to steal from someone who stole from the Reliance, and that is altogether different."
"Then consider it borrowing," RJ said in disbelief.
"It's only borrowing if you ask," David pronounced self-righteously.
RJ decided to ignore him.
But David didn't want to be ignored."It's wrong. That's all. Anyone who steals from the Reliance is on our side, and we shouldn't take from them . . ."
"If this is too big a moral dilemma for you, perhaps you would prefer to walk!" RJ screamed, fed up.
"Shush, shh!" David slapped a hand over her mouth. He nodded his head. "All right, we'll do it your way, but I don't like it."
"No one says you have to," she said with a shrug.
They walked up and down the streets for what seemed like hours to David. By the time RJ found what she was looking for, the streets were already filled with people. She walked around the red Reliance farm-issue truck, kicking the tires and checking out the paint job, then she popped the hood and checked the engine.
"Damn it, RJ! You're stealing the damned thing, not buying it," David whispered nervously.
RJ slammed the hood. She gave David a wicked grin. "I like to know what I'm stealing." She took hold of the driver's door handle and gave it a heave. The door opened. She jumped in and opened the passenger door, setting the bag and rocket launcher on the seat as David crawled in. He closed the door and looked around in awe. He had never seen such a machine from the inside.
RJ was under the dash, taking her time hotwiring the vehicle.
"Could you please hurry up and do whatever it is you're doing?" David said anxiously. "We're going to get caught."
"So?" RJ sneered. She had never hotwired a vehicle before, and while she understood the principle, she was having a little trouble putting it into practice. It was made more difficult by the fact that the new "owner" had attached several safeguards to stop people from doing just what she was trying to do. "If someone comes, I'll just kill them." She might have been ordering lunch by the tone of her voice.
"I'd rather not have to kill someone over a car, if you don't mind, RJ. Did anyone ever tell you that you can't just kill every one that pisses you off?"
"Yes." She had finally succeeded. She touched the two wires together and the engine roared. "I killed them." She laughed at her own joke.
"Very funny, RJ. Now, could we just go?"
"OK, OK, don't get your shorts in a knot." She got into the seat, closed the door, and they were on their way. As they pulled out, RJ saw the owner come running out of one of the buildings. She waved wildly at him and roared off.
Whitey Baldor chased after them, screaming till he ran out of breath. He finally gave up. Hands on knees, he watched till they were out of sight. He recognized that pair. Two nights ago that woman had kneed him in the balls so hard that he still hurt. Then she'd knocked him cold. He'd been out for something close to three hours. Whitey laughed, shaking his head he turned back toward his apartment. He laughed again and looked back in the direction she had gone. "God-damned gutsy bitch."
"I've always wondered how they could see out of these things," David ran his hand over the glass. "I still don't have any idea."
"Keep your hands off it; you're smearing it up. It's one-way glass. Because of the way it's made, the driver can see out, but from outside you can't see in."
"When I was a kid I used to think they drove through some form of magic. Later, when I stopped believing in magic, I thought they used something like a view screen," David said. "It's kind of a letdown to see it's something so simple."
RJ nodded. It was funny what people would make up to explain things they didn't understand. The Reliance didn't tell them anything, so they had to make up their own answers. In a way it was ingenious, even if they were mostly wrong.
"I still don't understand why they do it this way," David said. "I mean . . . what's the purpose?"
"Ah, my friend, that is because you have yet to understand the Reliance. The glass in Reliance vehicles is one-way for the same reason that Reliance police wear masks over their faces. Intimidation. People fear the unknown, the unseen. From outside how do you know whether there is one man in this vehicle or five? You don't. When a man covers his face with a mask, how do you know whether he is in a good mood or a murderous one? You don't. How do you even know he's human? You don't. The point is that people expect the worst. Therefore, there are always five men in the truck, the men is always in a murderous mood, and you're never sure that they're quite human. They scare us, so we imprison ourselves."
"Slaves to our fear." David's voice sounded far away. He himself was scared. He crossed his arms and put his fists in his armpits to hide his nervousness. He didn't know exactly what RJ had planned, and as she said, you tended to fear the unknown. Slaves to our fear, he reminded himself. I won't be afraid. It wasn't as easy as it sounded.
He imagined a whole patrol could swarm down on them at any moment. His palms were sweaty, and his mouth was dry. RJ sat there as they traveled along through the maze of David's imaginary policemen and hummed a tone-deaf tune which seemed to be in time with the jerking of her right arm. Humming and jerking, jerking and humming. After an hour, David could stand it no more.
"Would you please stop it!" he screamed.
"What?" she asked, obviously not understanding what he meant.
"All that humming and arm-jerking," he said.
RJ was momentarily taken aback; then she was mad."I can stop the humming, but I can't stop the arm jerking. I wish I could. It's a side effect of battle fatigue. Unless I concentrate on it, it jerks. Not enough to be debilitating, just enough to be annoying."
Now David felt like a real ass. "I . . . I'm sorry," he stammered. "It's just that . . . well, do you have to be so damned . . . happy?"
"I'm sorry, David; in future, I will try to be more morose." With that said, she started right back humming again.
It wouldn't have been so bad if she could carry a tune, but she couldn't have carried a tune in a bucket.
"Hum hum hum hum huuum huum hum hummm."
He couldn't take it any longer. Two hours of RJ's offensive humming was enough to drive a man to suicide.
"Shut up!" David screamed at the top of his lungs.
RJ clicked her tongue. "My, my. Are we feeling a bit testy today? Humm?" She smiled pleasantly. She was infuriating.
"You are without a doubt the worst hummer I've ever heard in my life. In fact, I've blown farts that were better," David said truthfully. To his surprise, RJ seemed upset by his criticism.
"Yes, well, there's not much chance to hear music standing in mud up to your neck or crawling through a jungle on your belly on some plague-infested outer world," she hissed.
David was intrigued. It suddenly dawned on him just how much RJ must know. She had the answer to every question he had ever asked about the Reliance. She had told him that she had fought on the outer worlds, but he had never realized just what the meant till now. RJ had traveled through space in a spaceship. She'd walked on other worlds, come face-to-face with aliens.
"Tell me about the outer worlds." His voice was as eager as a child's.
RJ hesitated only for a moment. No one had ever really been interested in where she'd been or all that she had seen, and she found herself willingly spouting all she remembered of the outer worlds. She told him of Trinidad, the planet with five inhabitable moons. Of Ufora, the jungle world where the rivers could change daily, and where new plants could spring up in a single day, making it impossible to follow the same trail twice or to locate a missing man. She told him of Urta, Deaka and Sheows and the ultra-modern cities Earth-descended humans had built there. She did her best to explain about their seasons and their different plant and animal life. She even explained the customs and fashions of the native intelligent life forms which had been encountered on two of Trinidad's moons.
"They believe that these moons were once one planet, and that it was split in two. That's how they explain that the same primitive being wound up on two different worlds. Their cultures are identical. Their language is even almost the same. From what the archaeologists can dig up, both cultures are the same age. So, it's a sure bet that no one transplanted them from one moon to the other. The experts maintain that the two moons were once one planet that split somehow. I find that difficult to believe, however. The likelihood of anyone's surviving such a cataclysmic event is pretty slim."
"So, how do you explain it?" David asked curiously.
"I don't," RJ said with a broad smile. "What's the point? They exist as they are. The Ingits don't ask why, so why should we?"
She spoke on, telling him about Deakard, the planet of their alien enemies. The Aliens called themselves Argys, meaning "Peoples of the Red Star." They held four planets called Arg, Varg, Garg, and Farg. She explained to him that the Reliance didn't want Deakard, and that the Argys didn't want Earth.
"See, they're in the same spot we're in. They've used up all their home planet's resources. Deakard isn't even fit to farm. We don't have any metal ore left, no petroleum products, nothing of real value as far the Reliance is concerned, but we still have soil and air. Deakard doesn't even have that. They manufacture their own air, and grow all their produce on another planet, importing all their food. On Earth, we may import metals and plastics, but we export wool, cotton and wood products. Not to mention the occasional shipment of meats and vegetables that can't be grown on the outer worlds. Deakard sucks its worlds dry."
"So why do they stay there, why don't they move to their other worlds?" David asked.
"For the same reason a good share of the Reliance bigshots stay on Earth. They're safe on Deakard, just like we're safe on Earth. Because they've got nothing there that we want, and we've got nothing here that they want, the home worlds are safe worlds. The fight is over the colony planets that are still rich in mineral content. Mostly, they fight over a planet called Stashes, because both planets claim it."
"What's so special about Sta . . . ashes?" David asked, stumbling over the name.
"It's got the highest mineral content of any of the planets, and that's about it." RJ sounded far away. "It's a big, hot rock of a planet. Very little water, and half of that's poison. The animal life is aggressive—so is most of the plant life. The air is barely breathable. Breathing it for a period of three months cuts your life expectancy by ten years. Some can't breathe it at all. I saw one man die after being exposed to the atmosphere for less than ten minutes. On Stashes they say that if the enemy doesn't get you, it's a sure bet that the planet will."
She saw she wasn't boring David, so she kept talking.
Stories unwound of battles fought on worlds so distant it was hard for David to fathom. She told him of technology he had no idea existed. She opened his mind to a new and wondrous universe filled with fantastic machines, horrid alien beasts, and beautiful and dangerous places. Battlefield after battlefield was spread before him. Battle after battle. RJ had seen it all, up close and personal, and he began to understand why human life was so cheap to her. Sometimes he could see a picture of it so vividly in his mind that he was almost sick. Other times he seemed to be drawn into the fever of the battle, to feel the adrenaline of those who fought.
She had been so many places and done so many things that he found himself wondering just how she had squeezed all of it into her short life. Even if he stretched his imagination to its fullest he couldn't believe that RJ was any more than twenty-five.
RJ was a good and articulate storyteller. There was, however, one thing she hadn't talked about that David was intensely curious about.
"Just what is a GSH?"
"As you already know, GSH stands for Genetically Superior Humanoid."
Clearly, while David knew what GSH stood for, he had no idea what a Genetically Superior Humanoid was.
RJ sighed. "Well, they take a human embryo . . . Do you know what an embryo is?"
David shook his head no.
RJ sighed again and went on indulgently."It's a baby before it's born—when it's just first made."
David nodded, but made a face that said that this was the most gruesome thing he had ever heard of.
"Anyway, they take this embryo . . . by 'take' do you think I'm saying that they take it out of the mother?"
David nodded his head.
"Well, they don't. God! You're hard to explain anything to! You don't even know a simple word like embryo. What the hell do you call them, little baby seeds?" RJ said, her patience wearing thin.
"We don't talk about making people," David said with equal disgust. Didn't she understand that the populace had been deprived of any but the most basic knowledge for centuries?
"OK. They take the Mommy stuff, and the Daddy stuff and mix them together in a petri dish; embryos result. Then they use a process called gene splicing." She wasn't even going to try to explain gene splicing to David. "Through this process they take out qualities they don't want, and put in qualities that they do want. They use chemicals, too. To put it simply, they shape this embryo into the person that they want it to be. In the case of a GSH, they build the perfect soldier. They grow them in a special solution in vats, and when they are old enough they're born. In other words, they take them out of the vats. Then they feed them growth hormones and information till, within a year, they are fully grown and know all that they will ever need to know."
Something still puzzled David.
"How does the Reliance control them? What's to keep them from doing whatever they like?"
"Good question. It would seem that such beings could easily take over and probably would, but they can't. When they are still in an embryonic state, their minds are altered. First, all emotions except loyalty are removed. They are then brainwashed so that their only loyalty is to the Reliance. They aren't capable of anything else. They eat, sleep, live, breathe and kill for the Reliance. Obeying orders, and completing their assigned task gives them a sense of accomplishment which is as close as they get to happiness.
"Then there's the box planted in the base of their skulls. If they show any signs of rebellion at all, this control box can be detonated. It literally blows their brains up inside their skulls. The box blows of its own accord when the GSH reaches the age of fifty. The Reliance is afraid that after that, their conditioning might wear off. They couldn't have that. There is no escape for them. They must serve the Reliance. So you see there is really nothing superior about them at all. They are slaves just like everyone else. Worse, really, because they have no free will."
"You sound like you're sorry for them!" David said in disbelief.
"I . . . just think it's wrong, that's all. Here is this thing that could have everything and the way it is it has nothing. Take for instance the GSH who tried to kill us last night. He went after me exclusively, because logically you posed no major threat. So he ignored you and never realized that you were the real threat. If I were the GSH, I would have killed you first, because it would have been easy. Then I could have given all my attention to the Elite without having to worry about where you were. Sometimes the most logical thing to do is something illogical. Emotion causes you to think illogically." RJ finished with a shrug.
David laughed."You're twisted."
She took it as a compliment.
Towards nightfall, the fuel gauge cranked over to empty, and RJ pulled into a Reliance fuel station. David thought he would die, but RJ acted as if she belonged there. The attendant filled the truck while she went inside and got a couple of sandwiches and some bottled soft drinks. David didn't dare breathe till they were three miles down the road.
"Are you crazy?" David breathed at last.
"Where did you think we were going to get the alcohol to run this thing, David? Squeeze it from a tree maybe?" RJ asked sarcastically.
"I thought we'd steal it late at night when no one was around. I had no idea that you would be blatant enough to pull into the damned Reliance fuel station in broad daylight! You even went inside to get sandwiches, for God's sake!" David screamed.
RJ just grinned.
"It's not funny, RJ."
"I guess you'll never understand, will you? Those people who run that station are just class-two work units. Only authorized Reliance personnel drive vehicles. Therefore, if a vehicle pulls in, it must be Reliance. Right?"
"OK. But the way you're dressed . . . ."
"They wouldn't care if I were buck naked and had 'The Reliance Sucks' painted in bright red letters across my butt. Don't you see? They service the vehicle, not who's driving it. All they do is fill the cars and trucks, and give you a sack lunch if you need it. They're not expected to think, so they don't."
"But what if another Reliance truck had pulled in while we were there?" David asked.
RJ started to say something.
"No, wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. We kill them, right?"
"You're getting better," RJ cooed.
"You're sick, you know that, RJ? Real sick."
"Hand me a sandwich," RJ said, pointing at the sack.
He did.
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it? Just kill it!" David said hotly.
"Hand me my drink," she said, through a mouth full of sandwich.
He handed it to her after opening it.
"What happens when you don't kill someone? What happens when they kill you?"
"You quit worrying about it," RJ grinned crookedly.
David shook his head in disbelief. Not a damned bit of sense arguing with her about it, she wasn't about to change her mind.
They drove for another hour then pulled off the road and parked. RJ pushed a button on the dash and almost gave David a heart attack when the seat flipped out of its own accord to make a bed. He and RJ marched in separate directions to relieve themselves, and returned almost simultaneously.
RJ took off her chain and boots and lay them in the floorboards. Then came the blaster.
David just sat there.
"What's with you?" RJ asked, wondering if he was still mad over the fuel station thing.
"I thought I'd take first watch," he said with a smile."After all, you did all the driving."
"No one needs to take watch, David. No one's going to find us." She took off her shirt and hung it on the steering wheel.
It was a strange thing to notice, made even stranger by the fact that he hadn't noticed till now. The golden-brown color of her skin, which he had attributed to time spent in the sun, wasn't a suntan at all. There were no tan lines on RJ's body. Her color was natural, and he had never knowingly seen anyone naturally colored this way.
"Is that your natural color?" he asked, thinking perhaps it was a side effect of being exposed to something on some alien world.
"My hair?"
"No, your skin." To his surprise, RJ looked nervous.
"Why?" There was a suspicious tone to her voice.
"I've just never seen anyone colored like that. I thought it was a tan, but it's everywhere." He blushed as he said it.
RJ sighed with relief. Just farm boy curiosity, nothing more than that. "Where I come from a lot of people are colored this way." She turned off the lights and lay down, covering herself up with her jacket.
David was satisfied with her answer. He just didn't understand why it had made her so uptight. She must have thought he was coming on to her. Now he was really embarrassed. He took off his own boots, weapon and shirt, then lay down and covered up with his jacket. He purposely lay as far away from her as possible. If she had thought he was coming on to her, she could stop thinking so now. David knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. RJ had filled his head with too many things to think about. He looked out the window at the full moon.
"RJ?"
"What?" It was obvious, from the tone of her voice, that she wasn't ready for more questions.
"Are there people living up there?" he asked.
"Up where?" RJ asked with an indulgent sigh.
"On the moon."
"There's a spaceport there. All spaceships dock and take off from there. Everything goes from here to there through a matter transporter, and vice versa. It saves the ships having to use the energy and fuel to break away from Earth's gravitational pull. Not to mention the stress of re-entry." She was glad she had already explained matter transporters to him, otherwise she would have, no doubt, had to explain it now."The station itself is really very impressive. It spreads across the surface of the moon like some great spider, its tentacles occasionally catching and holding a ship so that it can be loaded or unloaded." For someone who had been reluctant to answer his question, she now seemed only too happy to fill him in on all the details. "You can see Earth from up there. It's quite a sight. I've seen grown people weep when seeing it for the first time. It is lovely, but it's the space view of Deakard that I have imprinted on my heart. It lies there in the heavens cold and black and distant. At just the right angle, you can place it so that both of its red suns are behind it. The light catches on the silver of the buildings that cover its surface, and makes for a glittering effect which almost, but not quite, overcomes the sinister look of the planet. I've never been to the surface of the planet of course, but someday I hope . . . I would like to see it again."
When she spoke again, her voice was wistful."There is something in seeing it that I can't quite explain. It stirs the senses. You seem to smell things you have never smelled, see things you have never seen, hear things you have never heard, and want things you have never wanted before. For me, it was as if I had never really been alive before. As if I had been asleep all my life, and then I woke up and realized that I hadn't really done any of those things. It was as if a new day had dawned, and I could do anything I wanted. I guess it was at that moment that the seeds of rebellion were planted in my heart, because I knew I wanted more from life. And I knew the Reliance wasn't going to let me have it." RJ suddenly seemed to realize she was rambling. "We'd better get some sleep."
The next day, shortly after noon, they reached their destination. The road had been cut through the mountain so that it ran between two cliffs. They made their camp at the very top of the cliff so that the whole roadway could be seen. They hid the truck in a clump of bushes. RJ set the weapons out in a pattern on top of the ridge. David helped her as she tied a rope around a tree and went down the side of the cliff to set explosive charges; this process took the rest of the day.
Then they waited. One day passed, then two, then three. When, on the fourth day, David was eating yet another burnt dead animal and crunching on some weed RJ said was wholesome, he'd had enough.
"Are you sure that this is a supply route?" David asked for the five-billionth time in four days.
"Yes, and don't ask me again." If David was getting tired of waiting, RJ was just as tired of his constant bitching.
"We've been sitting on this cold-ass mountain for four days, and not one truck has gone by. Not even a small one," David said. He threw down the rest of the meat. "Just what the hell was that before you burnt it to a crisp?"
"Some sort of bird," RJ picked the meat up off the ground and started eating it—bone and all.
"I really hate when you do that," David said, making a face.
"I know. That's why I do it," RJ said flippantly.
David stood up and started stomping away. "That's it! I've had it with waiting for nonexistent convoys in the middle of nowhere. I've had it with trying to live on things that weren't even good before you burned them, and I have really had it with you!"
RJ said nothing; she ignored him.
David turned abruptly around. "Did you hear me?"
"No. I was trying to listen to the convoy." She pointed down the road.
He could see them.
There were a few moments of pandemonium as they went to their respective positions.
The two topless four-wheel-drive vehicles were positioned one before and one behind the huge cargo truck. The vehicles held a full company of soldiers.
"Must be some good shit," David said excitedly.
"Shush," RJ ordered, and there was no doubt that it was an order. She held the detonators in her hand, waited for just the right moment, then—BOOM! The first two charges sent rocks as big as the vehicles raining down into the road. Now they couldn't go forward. The mountain shook so hard that for a second David thought they were going to go down with it. BOOM! She blew the second set of charges. Now the road behind the convoy was blocked as well.
David saw RJ pick up the rocket launcher. That was his cue. From behind his rock, he started firing. Not at anybody, just firing. That's all he had been told to do, and he soon found out why as the bullets and blasts started to bounce off his rock. He tried to make himself as small as possible behind it as shreds of rock rained down upon him. "Holy shit!"
While they were all shooting at David, RJ made her move. She jumped out of hiding, aimed, and fired. The rocket hit the uncovered vehicle in the front. There were no survivors. RJ hit the ground before anyone had a chance to fire at her and crawled on her elbows and her knees over to where David was.
"You knew they were going to shoot at me," David accused.
RJ gave him one of her crooked grins.
"You did a very good job. Being a target isn't as easy as it sounds." She jumped up and took off running.
He wished that she would tell him what the hell she was doing. David didn't know what else to do, so he shot his gun, although all he was hitting was the trees above him.
RJ fired, but this time all but one man jumped clear before the rocket could hit the uncovered car. RJ discarded the rocket launcher, and pulled out her sidearm. She checked quickly to be sure that David wasn't watching. In an apparent suicide attempt, she took a running leap off the top of the cliff. Landing with both feet on top of the truck, she shot three men before the truck stopped shaking, then jumped to the ground. RJ calculated quickly that there were seven men left.
The first three were easily dealt with. They had taken cover from the "snipers" on the ridge, but hadn't counted on fire from behind. RJ had no qualms about shooting a man in the back. Dead was dead—it didn't matter how they got that way. The fourth man stumbled into her, and wound up with a face full of fist. The fifth heard the fourth's cries and came to help. He got a blaster bolt in his scalp for his pains.
David couldn't see RJ. Even up here the smoke was getting thick. No one was shooting at him anymore, so he crept out of cover on his knees and elbows. He traded his blaster for the rocket launcher when he came to it. In his opinion, bigger was always better.
The man had lost his weapon after one of the blasts. He felt helpless; the smoke stung his eyes so that he couldn't see. If he coughed, they'd find him. He wasn't sure, but he thought one of them was down here with them. If he could just get his hands on a gun! How many of them were there? How many of his people were dead? He didn't know. He had a bad feeling that he was going to die today, that they were all going to die today. When he saw the woman, he did what any good Reliance man would have done. He pounded the metal bar—his only weapon—into her head. She went down to her knees. Then he put a stranglehold on her and waited for her to go limp, but she didn't. Instead, she stood up, with him hanging on for dear life.
She plucked him off her back and pitched him against the truck as if he were a toy. The dazed man looked up into the laughing eyes of his opponent. He was gripped by cold fear; the thing he fought wasn't human.
"Go ahead, freak, kill me," he spat at her. "Someday they'll do away with all of you, and people like me . . . ."
She went ahead and killed him.
David peered cautiously over the edge. Through the smoke he saw RJ, then he saw the man crouching behind what was left of one of the four-wheel-drive vehicles, his weapon aimed at her. David didn't think, he aimed the rocket launcher and fired. It's safe to say he didn't get the result he wanted. He missed the man and hit one of the vehicles. The man fell back, temporarily stunned, and a big hunk of the vehicle landed on RJ pinning her underneath it. David dropped the launcher and ran down the mountain as quickly as possible.
"RJ! RJ!" he screamed, running towards her. He knelt beside her. Only her head, shoulder and one arm were sticking out. Her eyes looked blank. David buried his head in his hands. "Oh, my God! What have I done?" He wept.
"You mean besides throwing a piece of car on top of me?" a pained voice cracked. Her eyes blinked.
David was only a little relieved.
"RJ! You're alive!" Clearly, from the tone of his voice he was sure she couldn't remain that way for long. Maybe the kindest thing would be to give her the blaster and let her end it.
"I'm not squashed, David, I'm just pinned," she said, ignoring the look of doubt on his face. "Push on that corner up there, maybe you can rock it enough so that I can pull myself free."
David put his weapon down. He put his shoulder to the chunk of twisted metal and pushed for all he was worth. "It's not budging," David said frantically.
"Keep trying. If you could just move it a little, I could get out," RJ was insistent, so David kept trying.
RJ felt him before she saw him.
"David." She pointed with her free hand.
David saw the wounded man trying to sneak away, but he didn't care. The important thing now was to free RJ.
The man started to run.
RJ was frantic. "Leave me, I'll be all right. Get after him."
"But, RJ, what could it matter? Let one get away."
"You don't understand, he knows what I am. He'll tell the Reliance . . ."
David didn't have to hear more. If RJ thought it was important, it must be. He nodded and took off after the man.
When David was well out of sight, RJ put her hand on the edge of the chunk of metal. She braced herself, took a deep breath, and threw it off of her. She stood up slowly. "Ugh! That smarted." She rubbed at her ribs and back, took one of the pills, and sat down to give it a few moments to catch. In a matter of seconds she felt fine.
She was torn. If she left David to catch the man, he might lose him, and then the man would get back to the Reliance and tell them what she was. If she got up and went after him herself, David would become suspicious. There was no way around it; she'd have to take her chances that David could catch the man. Besides, it wasn't really very likely that they would believe what the soldier had to say anyway.
The man had been hurt by the blast, and David easily overtook him. David leaped, caught hold of the man's heels, and the man fell to the ground with a thud, face first into the dirt.
The man kicked out of David's grasp and jumped to his feet. David got up as quickly as he could. He expected the man to flee again, but he didn't. David didn't see where he got it, but suddenly the man had a knife in his hand. He lashed out at David and David barely stepped out of the way in time. David silently thanked RJ for not listening to him when he said he knew how to fight. She had taught him some basic martial-arts techniques, and one of the things she had taught him had just saved his life. Another trick she had taught him allowed him to use the soldier's failed attack to bring him down. As the man passed, David brought his knee up, kicked out and landed his foot just below the guy's knee. The soldier hit the ground hard.
"Why fight for the Reliance?" David asked. "Why not put down your weapon and join us?"
The man rolled quickly into a sitting position. He looked at David. David had no weapon, but he did."Die, Rebel." He jumped up and ran at David.
David wasn't ready. He managed to grab the hand that held the knife and keep himself from being stabbed, but he wound up on the ground with the soldier on top of him.
The soldier smiled. He smelled blood—David's.
They wrestled with the knife, but David realized that the man was much stronger than he was, and better trained. In a minute his strength would give out, and the man would stab him. David knew he wasn't going to get out of this through strength or skill. That left only one thing.
"RJ! RJ!" he screamed, looking at an imaginary personage."Go ahead! Shoot him!"
The man's head swung around to look and his grip slackened just for a second.
A second was all David needed. He forced the knife back into its owner, and blood poured from the wound like water from a faucet. Quite by accident, David had managed to sever the man's external carotid artery.
The soldier looked at David, a look of sheer terror on his face. He knew he was dying, and it was because he had fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. His limp, lifeless body pitched forward, landing on David like a bag of wet sand.
David had to work at getting out from under the body. When he did, he couldn't hold what little lunch he'd eaten. He couldn't believe what he'd done. True, he had cut Cobal's dead hand free of the manacle, and he had shot the GSH with a rocket launcher sending him flying through the wall, but nothing had prepared him for this. Nothing could have. The man had looked at him as he died. David had seen his life drain from him. He was covered in the man's blood. It smelled sickeningly sweet; he'd never forget that smell. He watched where the blood pooled up in the dust at his feet as it dripped off his clothes, and then he threw up some more.
He had hunted this man down, and he had killed him. Nothing could be the same now. The man had run, and he had chased him down and killed him. Why? Because RJ had told him to, that was why.
RJ! RJ was still trapped under the chunk of car.
He raced back as fast as he could, sighing with relief when he saw RJ sitting on a rock, rubbing her ribs, a pained expression on her face. He ran up to her.
"How did you get out?" he asked.
"Did you get him?" she asked, not looking up. If she had, the answer would have been obvious.
"Yes," David said hotly.
"Good," RJ replied.
"Good," David repeated, sounding sick. "A man is dead." He looked around him in disgust. "A lot of men are dead."
RJ's answer was to get up and limp over to the truck.
"Don't you feel anything?"
"Hungry." RJ sighed as she turned to face him. "We are fighting a war, David. It's us against the Reliance. This was partly your idea, if I remember correctly. These men fought for the Reliance. That made them our enemies. You can't win a war unless you kill the enemy. That's just one of the rules of this game."
Logical. David gave her an angry look. How could she be so damned cool about the whole thing? People were dead, and the hard, cold fact was that his companion didn't give a damn as long as she got what she wanted. Sure, RJ had killed a lot of people, but that didn't excuse her complete detachment from the whole thing. David knew that no matter how many men he killed, he would never get used to it.
RJ opened the doors to the truck, then smiled. She was apparently very pleased. "A shipment of the new Z-27 Laser sidearms."
She looked at David. "So, now what do you say, David?"
"I don't know if it was worth it," he said, looking at his blood-covered feet and the carnage all around them.
RJ snorted angrily. "OK, Mr. Conscience. Why don't you jump on your high horse, ride up to the top of the cliff and get our equipment and the truck. I'm sure your conscience wouldn't allow you to dig through the pockets of these dead men and take all their units."
David nodded and left gladly. RJ placed some charges at the bottom of the rubble pile, got behind the truck and detonated. She was good at this. A path was cleared wide enough to get their truck through.
"God damn it, RJ! Tell me when you're going to do that!" David screamed from atop the cliff. "I might have been in the blast area for all you know."
"Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch," RJ grinned. She went about the tasks of picking pockets, making sure the dead bodies stayed dead, and picking up the soldiers' fallen weapons. She had just finished when David arrived with the truck.
"You sure you can load these crates?" David asked indicating her leg.
"I'll have to, won't I?"
"I could do it myself," David offered.
"It would take too long. I'll be fine. When the convoy doesn't call in, the Reliance will send a reconnaissance team, and they'll no doubt be Elite. May even have a GSH with them."
David had never worked so fast in his life. The truck bulged with its load. They covered it with a tarp.
"Maybe we shouldn't take all of them."
"Ah, you worry too much," RJ took a can of spray paint and started to paint her name on the roadway.
"Do we have time for that?" David sounded worried and more than a little irritated.
"Always," she said with a smile. Finished, she threw the spent can down, got in the truck and they sped off.
"I still say we shouldn't have taken them all. It looks like we're carrying something we shouldn't be," David said.
"Our first drop is close. We'll leave the top layer there. That should make us less conspicuous and get some weight off the axle." RJ obviously wasn't worried. She started to hum.
David gave her a hard look, and she grinned.
"OK, OK, I'll stop."
"RJ, just how did you get free?" David asked curiously.
"One of the alcohol tanks on one of the vehicles exploded. By a stroke of luck, the explosion pushed up the piece I was trapped under just enough so that I could get free." It was so absurd that he bought it without further question.
RJ took a coin from her pocket and bent it over yet another link of chain. Coins on her chain, like trophies on a shelf.
David shook his head and looked at the blood on his clothes.
The Z-27 Laser sidearm was smaller and, unlike the bulky plasma blasters, had no kick. It was deadly accurate, and RJ was very pleased to have them to add to her hidden arsenals.
David was surprised and impressed by the piles of supplies RJ had scattered across the countryside. In old mine shafts, under the floorboards of abandoned buildings and in holes in the ground covered with plastic tarps and tree limbs. Apparently she had planned to do more than raid supply trains long before she met him.
By the time they returned to Alsterase, they had hidden all but one crate of the weapons.
They struggled up the stairs with the crate.
"I still say you're nuts," David whispered. "If we get caught with this crate of lasers . . ."
"We're not going to get caught," RJ said as they struggled around a corner.
"We're carting them around in broad daylight. Anyone could see us," David whispered back urgently.
"How will anyone know what's in this box?"
"Oh, I don't know, RJ," David said sarcastically, "but they might read the side of the box right here where it says 'Reliance Arsenal, Z-27 Laser sidearms'."
"No one pays attention to what's written on a box," RJ said, shrugging it off. Just then, they met the manager. His immense bulk made it all but impossible to get up the narrow stairway.
"Oh, how lucky for us! You're back!" he said flippantly."You'll be happy to know your room's just like you left it, no door, gaping hole in the wall, etc. So, what's in the box?"
"Just what it says, Z-27 Laser sidearms," RJ answered.
David squirmed. If he could have reached her then, he would have punched her in the mouth.
"Yeah, sure, everybody's a wise guy." The manager gave her a patronizing laugh. "I'm telling you right now, if that's a dead body . . ."
"What if it is?" RJ said, poking him in his fat stomach with a finger of her free hand.
"I'm not cleaning it up," the fat man said heavily.
"Our room is well enough ventilated that it shouldn't bother anyone."
Turning to David, RJ continued in the same sarcastic tone, "Come on, honey, let's take Irving home." They continued their trek up the stairs.
The manager shrugged and started back down.
"Do you delight in making me squirm?" David spat.
"Well, you are kind of cute when you do it," RJ answered with a smile.
Finally, they reached their room and gratefully set the crate down. They looked around. As promised, their room was just as they had left it. Gaping hole in the wall, everything totaled, door gone. What David couldn't believe was that the bike was there, and seemed to be in one piece. He supposed they had gotten their bluff in. David ran and threw himself on the broken bed.
"Guess there really is no place like home."