clenched, confrontational—and her features were gnarled like a knot on an oak tree. Whatever he’d done to piss her off, he had to have hit a hot button, indeed.
“So.” Jak shrugged. “What do next?”
“Next?” Union’s glare deepened.
“Not want fight.” Jak reached out as if to shake hands, then jerked his hand away. “Whoops, forgot! No touching!”
Union’s eyes twitched as she stared at his hand. “I just… I don’t…”
“Not worry about it. Just want be friend.”
Union shook her head as if to shake away a fly that was buzzing around it. Her braid flicked, and Jak noticed it had changed from white to auburn. “Which one?” she said, rattling the words off quickly.
“What that supposed mean?” Jak asked.
This time, she spoke just as fast but a little louder. “Which one do you want to be friends with?”
Jak still wasn’t tracking. “Which one what?”
“Of us,” Union snapped. “Which one of us do you want to be friends with?”
“Only see one.”
“Then, you’re blind. Or just plain stupe.” Raising her left hand, she held up four fingers. “This is how many of us there are in here.”
“Four.” Jak was only a little surprised. The way she acted, changing gears so dramatically, had already primed him for the truth. “Four women, one body.”
“Now you’re in the ballpark, son.” Union grinned and nodded. “Still want to be friends, now that you know my secret?”
Jak stuck out his hand again. “Hell yes. More interesting this way.”
Union laughed. This time, she took his hand and shook it.
Doc no longer wondered if the muties were crazy. He knew it to be true without a doubt.
The entire group of them—fifty strong and then some—sat cross-legged on the sand between two tall hills. They’d been there for hours now, or at least it seemed that way, sitting quietly in the light of the full moon and flickering stars.
Doc sat in the middle of the crowd, seething with a mix of utter boredom and strong curiosity. The muties seemed to be waiting for something, but he couldn’t guess what, and no one would tell him. Even his babysitter, Ankh, wouldn’t explain the scene; he just sat beside Doc with the Winchester aimed at the old man’s belly, finger curled around the trigger.
Was it some kind of ceremony? The muties all sat in a cluster, facing the same direction, and remained silent in a way that might be considered reverent. But how could it be a ceremony without some kind of rites?
Maybe, Doc thought, they were just praying or communing with whatever gods or forces they worshipped. Or perhaps it was simple meditation or some form of regenerative rest they’d evolved since the nuclear scrambling of their DNA during skydark.
Whatever it was, he wished they’d leave him out of it. He’d just as soon catch forty winks in the lee of a dune or gaze up at the starry sky and remember simpler times. Things had been so much sweeter back then, with his family around him, the apocalypse nowhere in sight and no crazy muties to kidnap him from the handful of friends who barely made his life worth living in the Deathlands.
Doc sighed, losing patience, and immediately felt the muzzle of the Winchester poke his ribs. Glancing over, he saw Ankh’s steady gaze boring into him, pitiless and unyielding…yet still the closest he had among the muties to an expression that was friendly on any level.
Ankh was Doc’s only hope, at least for now. Somewhere out there in the Sandhills country, Ryan and the others had to be searching for him, but they were nowhere in sight at the moment. He couldn’t depend on them to rescue him anytime soon; it was up to Doc to keep himself alive and well until that could happen.
Now, if he could just survive this exercise in tedious nonsense, he might have a chance.
Just then, he got a kink in his lower back from sitting cross-legged for too long. Grunting, he twisted and stretched, trying to work out the kink, but it only got worse.
Leaning forward, he reached back under his frock coat to knead the sore spot. But the act of reaching set off a chain of pressure points that led to a sudden spasm in the middle region of his back.
Doc cried out. He couldn’t help himself. When he sat up straight, the spasm only worsened, and he cried out again.
Ankh rammed the Winchester barrel into his side, but it didn’t make any difference. Doc could no more control his response to the pain than he could single-handedly defeat the mutie band in unarmed combat.
“Stop it!” Ankh hissed. “If we miss it, you’re a dead man!”
Doc scowled and braced a hand on the ground. “I can’t help it! I’m having a back spasm.” Pushing up, he got to his knees. Getting up and stretching might break the cycle of pain, if he didn’t get shot first.
“Get down!” Ankh snapped. “Get down now!”
Doc ignored him and got to his feet. Towering over the seated muties—many of whom were gaping up at him with expressions of great irritation—he straightened his back and spread his arms. The vertebrae in his spine cracked as he rolled his head from side to side, limbering up his neck. Then he leaned back slowly, extending the lower vertebrae, working to loosen up the cramp.
Gradually, he felt the spasm in his middle back let up. Leaning farther still, he heard—and felt—a midback vertebra crack into place.
Just like that, the spasm stopped. The pressure lessened, and Doc could think clearly once more.
Just in time to see the landscape before him dance with shimmering, shivering light.
“By the Three Kennedys!” he said softly, gazing raptly at the sight.
As one, the muties rolled over and lay flat on their backs in the sand—all except Ankh, who was on his feet, jamming the Winchester into Doc’s gut.
“Down!” the mutie snapped. “Do as you’re told!”
But Doc was lost in the vision of dancing, multicolored light. It was like an aurora of the northlands, curtains of radiance flowing and glowing hypnotically in the night. He tipped his head to one side, entranced by the beauty of it, unable to look away.
That was when Ankh finally realized the blaster wasn’t going to bring him down. Swinging it over his back by its strap, he launched himself at Doc like a cougar, throwing all his weight against the taller man.
And it worked. Doc went over backward, plunging toward the sand, with Ankh coming down on top of him.
“No!” As Doc toppled, he pinwheeled his arms, instinctively trying to halt
