The Price of Freedom Read online

  Good for an undertaker, maybe, I thought with a laugh, before realizing I probably had a concussion.

  I stood up and stretched some more, trying to loosen up my body and regain some clarity. There had been a nuclear war. Check. Teledyne was probably no more, but the boss had given me a mission. Check and check. In Philadelphia. Damn it. I doubted the air transport system had survived the nuclear war intact, so getting to Philthydelphia—my ex-wife’s name for the city—wasn’t going to be easy. This would require supplies and weapons, and in the aftermath of a nuclear war, it would probably take weapons to get the supplies. As I didn’t have either—or even a method of transportation, anymore—I was pretty screwed.

  Worse, the nearest town where I might acquire some transportation—the mighty metropolis of Scappoose, Oregon—was three miles up the road, and I didn’t feel like walking three miles. Where there is confusion, there is opportunity, and my window of opportunity to easily acquire the things I needed was rapidly closing. In the aftermath of the nuclear attack, people would go into self-preservation mode and would start stocking up on all the things I wanted. Time was passing, and I didn’t have the time it would take to walk to Scappoose.

  Making it even more worse—worser?—was that I’d driven through there a number of times, and I couldn’t remember a single store where I could purchase anything other than knives. I would probably have to go to St. Helens—another 10 miles up the road beyond Scappoose—to find the closest store that carried any firearms. And, at this stage, “purchase” was probably no longer an option. Everyone would be grabbing all the ones they could find—even the people who “hated guns.” If I was going to get any weapons, I would have to take them. That thought didn’t fill me with any sorrow—I had the training to do it pretty effectively—but any time you have to take a weapon from someone who’s armed, there’s always the chance they’ll be a little quicker than you, or that something will go wrong.

  I sighed. Standing on the side of the road, not doing anything that would help me achieve my goals, probably proved I had a concussion. I needed to get moving, and I needed to do so now.

  There were still a few cars going past, so I tried to flag one down. Five cars passed me without stopping, so I tried standing in the middle of the road, waving my arms. Five more cars went past me, including two cars that sped up to run me down. After diving out of the way of the second one—causing more abrasions to my already battered body—I gave it up as a bad idea. Apparently, the drivers had other things on their minds besides stopping to help a fellow traveler who’d just been robbed. They thought they had it badly, but they didn’t have to figure out how they were going to get across country to kill a bunch of Obsidian officials at a secret facility. That would probably have guards.

  Hell—they had it easy. If they’d only known.

  I gave up on catching a ride when I turned and saw the sign to the boat basin. While a car would be faster, a boat would certainly do. I also wouldn’t have to worry about traffic accidents slowing me down, which was a plus.

  I followed the road downhill, alternately walking as quickly as I could and jogging when I was able, which was less often than I wanted. I made it to the bottom of the hill and found a large marina on the left and a smaller boatyard with an office on the right.

  The marina on the left had at least 50 boats tethered to a large dock, any one of which would have met my transportation needs. About half of them even looked ocean-worthy. While I didn’t want to drive a boat all the way to Philadelphia, I realized I needed to keep my options open until I saw how bad things were. A large offshore fishing boat caught my eye, and I took a couple of steps toward it, then realized I probably wouldn’t be able to start it. Like cars, boats that size needed keys.

  While I might get lucky and find a boat the owner had left the keys in, I didn’t have time to search all the boats looking for keys. I turned back to the office. A sign offered a variety of services, including powerboat and sailboat sales. Perfect. I jogged over to the office and found the door locked. There didn’t appear to be anyone inside or around—aside from a few people over on the dock—so I stress-tested the door with my Size 12 boot.

  The boot—driven by my augmented body—won out. The door frame splintered, and the door sprang open. The building held a small shop with a variety of items for use on the water—everything from flotation devices to fishing gear to motor repair. There was also a key box behind the counter, so I headed in that direction. As I went around the counter, I saw two binders labeled “Powerboat Sales” and “Sailboat Sales.” While having a sailboat would ultimately be helpful when gas got hard to find, I didn’t know anything about sailing, and I needed something faster to get to St. Helens; I grabbed the powerboat binder and opened it on the counter.

  Inside, there was a list of the boats for sale, ordered by length—everything from a 72-foot-long motor yacht on down to a 17-foot runabout. The second one from the bottom caught my eye—the 20-foot “Speedster.” I had no idea what it looked like, but if it was aptly named, I’d be happy. There’d be a time to secure a larger boat later if I needed one; right now, time was of the essence, and “Speedster” won out. It was listed as #26, and I turned to the key box, only to find it locked.

  I tilted my head and looked at the box for a moment, trying to decide the best manner of breaking into it. Hoping a quick search under the counter might reveal a key for the box, I turned around to find a large, burly man with shaggy red hair and a beard pointing a shotgun at me from the remains of the doorway. I put my hands up.

  Some people are able to move quietly in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Four

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

  “Someone just stole my motorcycle, and I’m looking for alternate transportation to St. Helens.”

  “Looks like you’re trying to steal a boat,” he noted.

  I bit back a sarcastic comment about his overwhelming powers of observation—he was pointing a shotgun at me, after all—and shook my head. “I’m not looking to steal one, so much as borrow one for a bit.”

  “Like I said, you’re looking to steal a boat.”

  “Well, you may not know it, but we just had a nuclear war. For all I know, it’s still going on. My mom is in St. Helens, all by herself, and I need to get to her.” I thought it was pretty good for a spur-of-the-moment lie.

  I didn’t think the man’s frown could get any longer, but it did. “Your mother, eh?” He peered at me, and I nodded, trying to look as angelic as I could in my torn and bloody clothes.

  “You look like a homeless person,” he said, “and I doubt your mom lives in St. Helens. I think you’re just trying to use this opportunity to steal a boat.” He walked into the store and motioned toward the door with the shotgun. “Get out.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. “You can’t help me out? I only want a little one and—”

  “I said get out,” he said, putting the gun back to his shoulder and aiming it at me. “I don’t want to have to clean your blood off the wall behind you, but I will. Now, get out!”

  I shrugged. “All right; I’m leaving,” I replied. I started walking toward the door, and he relaxed slightly. That was all I needed. As I walked past, I suddenly dove toward him, underneath the barrel of the shotgun. I slapped it up and then punched him in the groin.

  The gun fired; it was hideously loud in the enclosed space, especially to my augmented hearing. I grabbed the gun with both hands, ripping it away from the man as the nausea hit him, then clocked him in the forehead with the butt. He went over on his back, holding his groin, and collapsed to the floor.

  I stepped back as I reversed the gun, pumped the next round into the chamber, and aimed it at the man. “I need transportation,” I stated, “and I am going to take a boat. You can either help me, or I can kill you and do it myself. I’ve killed lots of people in my life, and I’m already having a bad day, so one more death won’t matter much to me right now. Wh
at’s it going to be?”

  For a big guy, he tried his best to look small and non-threatening. “Help…you,” he mumbled through the pain and nausea.

  “Awesome,” I said. “Now, first issue. Where’s the key to the key box?”

  “In my…pocket.”

  “Good. Why don’t you get it out and slide it to me gently?” I asked.

  He complied, although he only managed to slide it about halfway to me. In order to pick it up, I would have had to get close enough to him that he would have been able to kick me. Whether that was his intention or not, I didn’t know; all I knew was that, in the state I was in, I didn’t want to wrestle with him. It was my turn to motion toward the doorway with the gun. “Slide over toward the door.”

  He took a second to do so, confirming my guess that he’d been hoping to kick my legs out from under me. I fired the gun at the floor next to his feet, and he jumped away from me as I pumped the next shell into the chamber. “That’s for your bad idea,” I said, “and that was your last chance. Do anything else to piss me off, and the next one goes into your gut. Got me?”

  “Yeah,” the man replied, not bothering to argue his intentions.

  “Good.” I picked up the key and went around the counter. “On your stomach, facing the door.” The man complied, and I set the shotgun on the counter. Trying to keep one eye on the man, I opened the key box. Apparently, the shotgun blast next to his feet had convinced him I meant business, because the man didn’t move as I took the key for #26. I took a quick glance at the binder again and also pocketed #5, the 64-foot Nordhavn. Not because I needed it, but because “why the hell not?” I had never heard of a Nordhavn, and the guy had pissed me off with his earlier stunt.

  “All right,” I said, picking up the shotgun, “you’ve earned the right to live a little longer.”

  The man muttered something to the floor which wouldn’t have been audible to most people. I wasn’t most people, and I clearly heard him say he would have killed me if I wasn’t holding the shotgun.

  “Too bad I am holding it then, isn’t it?” I asked. “Speaking of which, I need some more shells. How about you give me the rest of the shells for the gun, then I will leave you to do whatever the hell you were doing before I showed up.”

  The man sighed and got up, then he led me to a small two-room house behind the office. “Stop!” I ordered as he started to walk up to the door. His suddenly helpful attitude had me on edge and made me think he either had another gun inside or was planning something once we entered. As his desired end state with both of these was my demise, I wasn’t a fan of either. “I’ll go first,” I added.

  I walked around him to the door of the house, giving him a wide berth so he wouldn’t be tempted to attack me. As I reached for the door, he sprinted back toward the office. Having already seen that the gun was loaded with slugs—at least the one I’d fired through the floor had been—I didn’t waste a shot on him, but turned and entered the house. I didn’t see anything useful in the front room—a combination kitchen and living room—so I moved quickly to the back, where I found a gun safe, standing open, in the bedroom.

  Unfortunately, there weren’t any other long arms—I’d been hoping for a rifle—the only remaining weapon in it was a 9mm pistol. Still, that was more than I’d had before. What was truly annoying was the lack of ammo. At the bottom of the safe was a half-full box of shotgun shells and on a shelf at the top were two magazines of rounds for the pistol and a half-full box of .223 ammo.

  Considering the man was in charge of security for at least 20 boats that had six-figure price tags on them, I thought he was woefully under-armed, even if he had an AR-15 to go with the box of rifle bullets. It was even worse when it was measured against being prepared for a nuclear holocaust. I was still going to have to go to St. Helens, and I doubted I could go across town armed as I was, much less cross-country.

  I loaded the pistol and threw the rest of the shells and bullets into a small plastic bag lying on the floor. I looked around the room and grimaced; the man was a pig. There were more things on the floor than on the small table or shelves, including a variety of empty food containers. It was amazing the place wasn’t infested with insects. Then again, maybe it was. I didn’t wait around to find out; I left the house after checking outside to make sure the man wasn’t trying to sneak up on me.

  Not seeing him anywhere around, nor wanting to track him down, I went down to the dock to find my new boat. As the Speedster was the second smallest boat, it was fairly easy to find. It was down at the end, past all the really big, expensive boats. I whistled as I passed #5; the Nordhavn was gorgeous. It was also more of a yacht than the fishing vessel I’d been hoping for, but it was a great-looking piece of machinery. It was greatly outside my price range on any day other than the start of World War III. Happily for me—as far as the boat went, anyway—today was that day, and I now had the keys to it.

  Smiling cheerfully, I continued down the dock to #26, where my other new boat waited. Of course, on my salary—and with my alimony payments—I couldn’t have afforded this one, either, but today it was also mine, just the same. You’d be surprised how little they pay corporate assassins these days.

  I untethered the boat and flipped the mooring lines into it, then jumped into the open cockpit. Even though it was small compared to the other boats on the pier, it was a really nice boat—the kind executives like to drive around when they aren’t in their Nordhavn’s, I guessed—with wood all over the place, including the steering wheel, the instrument panel, and the throttle knob. I almost felt like I needed designer sunglasses to drive it.

  I turned the key, and the motor fired up on the first attempt, which was nice, because I could see it was time to go. The man was running toward me from the office, holding a rifle—apparently the AR had been stashed there.

  The boat started forward as I advanced the throttles, and the bow came up as I started to accelerate. Having the bow up blocked my forward vision, but it came back down into trim as I hit about 20 miles per hour. I was going about 25 when I whipped past the man as he came onto the dock. I gave him the finger, and he fired a couple of shots at me, but they were crossing shots, and I didn’t think he had much chance of hitting me. If the lack of ammo was any indication, he only had the rifle for show.

  A bullet smacked into the side of the boat just behind me. I was right—he did miss—but not by much, and I ducked as I jammed the throttles forward, throwing a wave of water over the “No Wake Zone” sign as I sped off. The boat quickly reached 40 miles per hour with the throttle as far forward as my augmented arm could push it. He fired another couple of times, but they all went wide.

  It doesn’t pay to taunt people in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Five

  I slowed a little after I was out of range and had gone around a small curve in the river. While 40 miles per hour isn’t that fast on land, it seems like a lot more on the water. Unfortunately, rifle bullets are much faster, and I had seen one of them skip past before I made it to the river bend. I’m sure the people I raced past in the corner of the river wanted me to go slower—their yells and rude gestures assured me of this point—but I had somewhere I needed not to be, and I wasn’t really worried about rocking their boats too much, especially since none of them appeared armed.

  I flipped on the radio and played with it a little but couldn’t get a station. I hadn’t really expected to find anyone still transmitting—and I knew the atmospherics were probably crap right now, too—but not being able to find one drained me, as if it made the whole nuclear exchange somehow more real. I turned it off, far more dejected than when I started.

  There were a number of anchorages and piers along the left side of the Multnomah Channel—the port side, I guessed, since I was in a boat—and all of them had activity going on. Whether that was people trying to get away from the city or to find somewhere defensible, I didn’t know. As long as they stayed out of the way and didn’t try to st
op me, I didn’t have any issues with them. Hell, if the Boss hadn’t given me a mission, I would have been very happy to grab one of the floating houses I saw and anchor it somewhere inaccessible with some friends until everything calmed down. It was inevitable there was going to be disruption to society, at least for a while, and—while there truly is opportunity in chaos—there was also going to be a good chance of dying while things were in flux.

  All things considered, I wanted to avoid that outcome.

  I passed Scappoose and continued downriver, going through a number of switchbacks that slowed me down. Although St. Helens might have been 13 miles as the crow flew, my route resembled that of a drunken crow, at best. The map I found in the glove box showed I would have to travel closer to 17 miles, which would take additional time I didn’t feel I had. I passed a few boats going in the opposite direction as I approached St. Helens; we moved to opposite sides of the river and watched each other closely as we passed, before proceeding on.

  Happily, in addition to the map of the area, I also found a chart of the waterways, so I was able to figure out the closest point of approach for the superstore in St. Helens. Yes, I knew it was owned by one of the other corporations, but I didn’t figure any of the corporate snitches would be watching to see if I used it today. And besides, I really needed the supplies if I was going to complete my mission. They could fine me afterward…if there was still a corporate management able to do so. The chairman hadn’t thought there would be—he had told me this was my last mission, after all—so I suspected shopping there wasn’t going to be an issue.

  I pulled the boat up onto a small beach close to where the Scappoose Bay merged into the Multnomah Channel. There was just enough rope onboard to run a line to the closest tree, so I wasn’t worried about the boat drifting off. I grabbed the key, just to make sure it didn’t drift off with boat thieves either. Well, aside from me, that is. I left the shotgun in the boat but brought the pistol and magazines, figuring I’d need a free hand to push the cart as I “shopped.”