Pickers 1: The Find (2 page)

There were three motorcycles parked in the entrance hall. It was behind the back wall of a shop that had been looted long before. They had spent several hours knocking a hole in the wall big enough to get the ATVs through, then Maxine had stayed behind to stand guard.

They must have left tracks on the road up the hill from the centre of the dead little town. It was just their luck that the four riders had been in the area to find them. They'd roared in too fast for Maxine to draw them away from the shop, so she'd taken them for a run through the tunnels to the dining room. The riders had dismounted to chase Maxine on foot because she had led them through one of the narrower doorways. They couldn't have known how wide the corridor beyond it was, or that they could, with work, have got the bikes into it.

Maxine studied the bikes. One of them was a battered road machine, missing its aerodynamic fairing and with chunky treads hand cut into its slick tyres. There was a rifle case slung over the seat, she added it to her bags. The second bike had a makeshift side-car welded to its frame. The side-car was a cuboid frame with sides and a bottom tacked into it and a makeshift seat. The passenger had been squeezed in, apparently with their legs either side of a jerry can full of fuel. Maxine shuffled some of the rubbish in the bottom of the side-car, but found nothing of value. She unscrewed the cap on the petrol tank and sniffed. As she'd thought, it was running on alcohol.

The last of the bikes was much more interesting to Maxine. The chunky white off roader didn't have a fuel burning motor, but was electric powered instead. A motor integral with the frame drove the rear wheel through a chain, whilst the front wheel had a big hub, suggesting another motor was housed in it. Her own electric bike had been damaged on the last leg of the trip, and she had ridden to the bunker on the back of her sister's ATV. Perhaps this one could provide spares to repair her bike, or be a straight up swap.

Raiders didn't take great care of their rides. Under the dust, the two alcohol fuelled bikes were held together with twine and good luck. The white electric bike was in better condition, they must have found it recently, She decided she would take it, they'd even left the key in.

Maxine mounted up and kicked the stand back. The bike responded to the slightest twist of the throttle and she did a quick circuit of the other bikes. This one might even be better than what she already had. Heading out through the gap in the wall, she wove her way through the shop to the street. They had left tracks going into the building, and the raiders had left more. If there were more of the gang out there, as promised, they'd find this place easily enough. She listened, and soon the rasp of engines came to her. It came from downhill, the same direction as the raiders' tracks led off in. The street ran straight down to the town square, where there were already two bikes circling.

The bikers didn't appear to spot her, and soon left the square, heading back toward the heart of the noise. The whole gang would be down there soon enough, just in time for Veronique and Tony to appear on their ATVs. They'd need something to block the narrow street just long enough to put a safe distance between them and the gang. She knew just the thing. Spinning the bike, Maxine raced back into the shop.

Maxine didn't have to get further than the top of the tunnel to the lower levels to see the flare of one of her thermite bombs. When Veronique and Tony arrived in the entrance hall, backlit by more thermite, Maxine was strapping the bike with a side-car to the rear of the electric cycle. They pulled up either side of her, not at all surprised that she had found her own ride and wouldn't be sitting on the back of one of their vehicles for the return journey. "We're going to have to take the high road out of here. Can you load that stuff into one of the trailers."

As Tony put Maxine's salvage into his trailer, she engaged the drive on both wheels of her bike to pull the motorcycle and side-car out of the building. She lined it up pointing down the hill and used straps to lock the handlebars straight. Just in time. There were more bikes in the square now, and just as the ATVs pulled up beside Maxine, one of the bikes at the bottom of the hill stopped, and its rider pointed in their direction.

There was one last thermite bomb in the box in Veronique's trailer. Maxine wedged it into the trailer, laying the jerry can on top of it. "Go! I'll meet you on the track up the hill!" she shouted, waving Veronique and Tony away. The ATVs set off, as fast as their loads and the incline would let them. On her new bike, she'd catch up with them long before they turned off the road into the forest.

Maxine looped the fuse release string around her right hand, then kicked the selector for the bike's gear box into neutral. She pushed it, forcing it past the point where the inertia of turning the chain held it back from moving. Once it was rolling, it picked up pace quickly, passing walking speed and reaching jogging. Maxine stopped, and clasped the string with both hands. It suddenly went taut, and tried to jerk out of her grip, then, just as abruptly, was loose.

Bikes were lining up at the bottom of the hill, and two cars had entered the square. They'd be coming up this way soon. Maxine ran up the hill to her new bike.

Even in sunshine and facing away, Maxine could see the flash of the thermite igniting, its light changing the colour of the street around her for a moment. She looked around to see a secondary explosion, as a plume of burning fuel rose into the air and fell across the road surface. She twisted the throttle, engaging both wheels for an extra pull up the slope.

Trailing fire and still, somehow, travelling straight, the bike and side-car carried on toward the waiting bikers at the bottom of the hill. Realising, almost too slowly, what was bearing down on them, they struggled to restart their engines or pull their rides out of its path. The fuel tank split, and another rush of flame grew around the vehicle. Finally, the strapping holding the handle bars straight broke, and it slewed to the right. The edge of the tyres dug in and it tipped over, a burning barricade not quite blocking the single lane street and keeping the gang from taking off after the people they had spotted further up.

The road crested, then headed downhill again to a cluster of houses that had been a completely different village, back when people had lived there to be territorial. The road surface was less broken up in the lee of the buildings, so the ATVs could turn off it without leaving the obvious tracks that had given them away at the bunker. Just before they disappeared down the side street and onto the forest track beyond, Maxine caught them up. She slowed to match speed with her sister.

Veronique looked across. "New wheels. Good job."

"Bad luck that they turned up. For them, really. But good luck for me to find a nice new bike. Did you get what we came for?"

"I won't know until I can plug all the drives in to my computers and see what's on them."

"Papa won't be happy if the trail ends here."

"Papa will just find another treasure for us to chase after. Go on ahead and tell him about the gang. We'll have to break camp as soon as we get there because of them."

There was fire just over the hill. A thin smudge of sooty smoke was rising straight up in the warm, still air. Maxine, Remy decided, had been burning things again. The girl had a prodigious talent for mending things, but she needed it, considering how often she broke them on other people.

His children were going to be fine, he told himself, ignoring the fluttering fear the smoke raised in him. They had survival talents passed down from him and supplemented by experience in the wild lands. Nonetheless, a fire suggested they had encountered resistance, so a rapid departure was likely to be called for.

Remy already had the wagons almost ready to roll. The turbines had charged the batteries and everything but the loading ramps on wagon two had been stowed. Now, he was sitting in the captain's chair on top of wagon one looking in the direction he had sent his family several hours before. He couldn't see the town- he could barely see over the tops of the trees around the wagons, in fact- but there was a short stretch of road that he could watch through his field glasses.

Two familiar shapes crested the rise in the road. The four wheeled all terrain vehicles- stubby electric things with big balloon tyres- they used on exploration and salvage runs. They each had a rider, which made him frown. One of them should have a passenger, Maxine had headed out on the back of Veronique's ATV. A moment later, a motorcycle came over the hill after them. He couldn't see in great detail, but the body language of the rider was unmistakably that of his younger daughter. Maxine had found herself another toy, which was good. She had been moody ever since her last bike broke.

Remy pushed himself out of the chair with his shooting stick. Kicking a lever on the roof unlocked the seat. Its legs folded backwards and the back collapsed forwards until it sat in the recess built for it. He hobbled over to the ladder on the side of the wagon, tossing the stick down before himself. Getting down the ladder was a performance. He was glad his children didn't see it.

The damage to Remy's right knee was healing, but not as fast as he would have liked. Embarrassingly, for all his years adventuring in the wilderness, he had injured himself taking a tumble down a short flight of stairs whilst shifting booty from their last pick. It had forced him into the observer role for this one, not enjoying waiting for his family to return. Remy was used to being there with them, directing and protecting them. He was getting old, possibly too old for running around the wastes rescuing what was left of the pre collapse technology.

There was still a wait before the youngsters arrived. The track through the forest was rough, and didn't run straight, and the ATVs didn't run fast when pulling the trailers. So it was Maxine who arrived first. She did a circuit of the trucks on her new bike, then pulled to a halt beside Remy's open door. "Bonjour Papa."

"Bonjour cherie. A good result?"

"Raiders. We had to leave early, but Vee and Tony got the hard drives."

"Go back and tell them we leave as soon as they get here."

"Bien." With a twist of the throttle, Maxine accelerated away, front wheel waving in the air.

The ATVs trundled in a few minutes later, Maxine nipping at their tails like a sheepdog. She rushed ahead of Tony as he lined up behind wagon two, to get up the ramp ahead of him. The back wheel raised off the floor under braking, and she kicked it around to line the bike up beside her old ride. She waved Tony, and then Veronique in to park snugly side by side. As they loaded the ramps and closed the doors, she tied the bike and ATVs down. Her work bench folded down from the wall, and she used the saddle of Veronique’s ATV as a stool. She lifted the leather satchel from the trailer and started going through it.

When the wagon lurched into motion, Maxine had the big semi-auto pistol on the bench. She tutted. Tony was driving, he could never get the motors in the wheels to start smoothly. The uneven acceleration stopped after a while, and she started stripping the pistol.

Sadly, the cellar had not rendered up any wine. But it did, after clearing everything out, provide somewhere to test fire guns.

The big semi automatic had been in very good condition, considering it had last been used before Maxine had even been born. She had dismantled it and found the hardened blood and corrosion that had made the slide's movements so rough. It had been a simple job to clean it up and reassemble it so that the action was smooth again. Apart from the unnecessary filigrees and nickel work, it was in as good a condition as it had ever been.

On the other hand, the ammunition Maxine had picked up was an unknown quantity. She had broken open the shells and tested some of the powder. It burned as well as she could have hoped, given its age. After mixing it, very carefully, and adding in some of her own powder, she had repacked the ammunition. It was better than anything available in the wasteland, but she wasn't ready to pull the trigger on its first test fire.

Weighted down by masonry, Maxine's test bench was set up so that the pistol pointed at a pile of dirt that had come through the collapsed ceiling of the cellar. Feeding a single round into the chamber, she trailed string around the nearest wall and halfway up the stairs. She had ear protectors around her neck, and pulled them on after shouting, "Test firing!" She didn't know if any of her family were in the building, but a warning was good form, just in case. She pulled the string, drawing the trigger back slowly,

The gun fired, loud in the confines of the low ceilinged cellar. Even with her ear protectors on, it still echoed in Maxine's head. It shook the rafters as well, bringing dust and old plaster- and probably rat and mouse droppings- down on her. She shook the debris out of her hair as she walked back to the bench.

The pistol was still in one piece, as she had expected. After a search, she found the ejected shell and studied it. It was deformed just as she would have expected. She was happy with her work, and didn't feel the need to dig through the dirt for the slug. Unclamping the gun, she slapped the magazine in and chambered a round. Holding it two handed, she pointed it at the pile of dirt and pulled the trigger.

The recoil was harsh, and the gun rose even as Maxine tried to hold it down. It hurt to fight it, and she winced at the kick. More dust and detritus showered or drifted down from the ceiling onto her head and shoulders, and she tried to shake it off.

Maxine had been prepared to be disappointed by the pistol. It was a show-off's gun, big and noisy, made for the sort of person who would never really need to use it. Sure, a single round could stop almost anything in its tracks, but you'd have to be accurate first time, because of the pause between shots whilst it was waving around. She had a plan to fix that, though.

In the rifle case she had picked up, there had been bits and pieces from three guns. There was no way to piece the jigsaw together to make even one serviceable gun. But there were parts she could reuse, amongst them a stock she was going to use to brace the pistol.

She had work to do.