Winter's Edge: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Outzone Drifter Series Book 1) (14 page)

“I’m sorry, but I need the storeroom, the one your two friends are in,” Arturo said, an apologetic look on his face. “The
dueno
plans on storing some things there.”

“Today?” Brogan asked, placing his coffee cup down on the table.

“Yes, in the next couple of hours.”

“What’s he putting in there? Isn’t there enough room without having to move the guys out?”

Arturo shook his head. “He’s getting thirty cases of beer delivered. Even if there was enough room…well…” Arturo spread open his hands, letting his voice trail off diplomatically.

“It would be a helluva temptation for our two boys,” Brogan said, grinning. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“If anything went missing, there would be trouble—for all of us,” Arturo replied. “No more job for me, either.”

“Well, we can’t have that….”

Brogan considered things a moment. “How about we put another bed in our room? It’s about big enough for one more. I’ll move out and take a single.” He turned to Staunton. “Dan, you got any objection to that?”

Staunton shook his head. Seeing as the Fletcher brothers didn’t have any money, Brogan could see him trying to figure out how much extra it would cost him. “No, I’m good with that,” he said. “It’s not like we can let the boys get turfed out on the street.”

“You will have to pay for the single,” Arturo said, starting to look relieved. “I can’t give it to you for free.”

“Sure, so long as you give me a good rate. How about I come see you after breakfast and we discuss it?”

Arturo seemed happy with the arrangement. A moment later, he left the room.

“Dan, I know you’re a little tight for money,” Brogan said as soon as the door closed behind them. “Just keep paying what you’re paying now. I’ll sort everything out with Art.”

“You sure, Frank? I don’t mind covering some of the cost.”

“I’m sure. Don’t worry about it.”

The deal suited everyone. The Fletcher brothers got to room somewhere more comfortable, and Brogan got the privacy he needed to move his own plans forward.

After breakfast, Brogan had his talk with Arturo. Knowing that the hotel was currently only half full, he told the clerk he hoped they could swing a deal. The group liked it here, he didn’t want them to have to move out and find someplace else to stay.

Arturo had smiled at this, and the two shortly came to an arrangement where Brogan continued to pay his half of the double and a little extra for his private room. This was the Outzone. Business was a lot more flexible than in the Strata State. As long as the hotel made a little extra on the deal, everyone was happy.

An hour later, Brogan moved his gear into his new room at the end of the hall. Stepping inside, he realized that it was exactly the same size as the one he’d shared with Staunton, the only difference being it had one large bed. Arturo had made sure to take good care of him.

Later that afternoon, Brogan left the hotel. After spending some time wandering about the Barrio T, he headed up to Divisadero Boulevard, a two-lane avenue that marked the northern boundary of the district.

Over on the far side was New Harlem. One of these days he might explore it, preferably with some company. Today wasn’t that day. As for Kill City, the district at the northeast corner of the city with its constantly warring motorcycle, punk, Aryan, black, and Latino gangs, maybe he’d leave that for another lifetime.

At a store outside the entrance to a small market, he bought the cheapest Chinese pre-war phone on display. The vendor, a chubby black man with long dreadlocks, opened up the back, and with surprisingly dexterous fingers inserted a new SIM card inside, demonstrating to Brogan that everything worked. Brogan got him to load a couple of dollars’ worth of credit onto the
prepago
phone, then paid for everything.

After leaving the store, he headed south again. Fumbling with the phone’s unfamiliar settings, he finally managed to switch off its predictive text handling and typed a simple message onto the screen:
It’s Frank. Any news?
Then he tapped in the number he’d memorized and punched the send button.

Brogan decided to head back to the hotel through the tiny Barrio Asiatico, tucked into the northwest corner of the Barrio T, a small neighborhood of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos, though the latter elected mostly to live in the Latino areas, perhaps because of their shared colonial heritage, or simply because of the fact their language shared so much Spanish vocabulary.

Down the main thoroughfare, food stalls set up to either side of him sold a plethora of offerings. There were stir fried noodles with a bewildering variety of sauces to choose from, clear-brothed Pho and wonton soups, and thick
adobo
and
pochero
stews bubbling in large steel cauldrons, familiar to him from his time on the Luzon Front where he had spent two years fighting the Chinese. Though it wasn’t yet dinner time, the rich aromas wafting under his nose made him hungry as he strolled by.

His new phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out to see he had received a message back from Cole. Taking a peek at it, he saw a long string of numbers on the tiny screen. He quickly switched it off and put it back in his pocket.

The Barrio Asiatico backed onto a rundown street named Quebra Calle. Though dangerous at night, it was safe enough during the day so long as you kept your wits about you.

Quebra Calle, “Broken Street,” was the place to go to get any common household item fixed. In tiny one-room stores, a variety of businesses catered to repairing just about every object imaginable, ranging from lamps, torches, radios and cookers to pots and pans and even things such as knives, forks, and spoons.

Items would be either fixed on the spot or a customer would be told to come back in a couple of days and a new part would ready, fabricated out of plastic, rubber, wood, or metal, whatever served best. Brogan reflected on how, in the Outzone, necessity trumped all other forms of encouragement to recycle and nothing went to waste.

Dusk was approaching and the stores were starting to close. Many had already boarded up their windows and pulled down steel shutters over the entranceways. Near the end of the street, a skinny young boy about twelve years of age drew up alongside Brogan and stared up at him. “
Amigo
, you want to buy a watch? I got a good one right here,” the boy said brightly, pulling out a cheap digital watch from his pocket and dangling it in front of him.

Brogan glanced down at it a moment. “Sorry kid. I got no use in telling the time these days.”

The boy skipped across to Brogan’s other side, forcing him to slow down. “Come on, mister. I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I just want to get a bowl of soup. How about it?”

Brogan came to a halt. The kid was impudent. He stared up at him with sharp, clever eyes, reminding him a little of the boy who had taken them to the Valiente on the day of their arrival. He had the same innate street sense. The same hustle.

Brogan put a hand in his pocket and fished out a coin.

“Here. Go get yourself something in Chinatown,” he said, placing the coin into an eager, outstretched hand. “Keep the watch. Maybe you’ll find someone who needs it.”

“Thanks, mister!” The boy jumped in front of him before he could move. He held the watch up to Brogan’s face. “Take it,” he insisted.

Too late, Brogan saw the boy’s eyes dart to one side and look past him. Before he could turn, the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed hard against the back of his neck.

“Don’t move,” a voice rasped in his ear. “Or I blow your brains out the top of your head…
Pablito, saca el pistole
.”

The kid pocketed his coin, giving Brogan a cheeky grin, then, leaning forward, he pulled back the Velcro cover on Brogan’s holster and pulled out his Glock. After quickly examining it, he stuck it behind the waistband of his ragged jeans.

“Nice,” said the voice behind him. “What else you got?”

“
Amigo
, please,” Brogan said, his voice trembling. “I’ll give you everything. Don’t shoot. I…I got a wallet inside my jacket…you want me to get it?”

“
Vigilarlo bien, Lito
. Okay, mister, take it out, nice and slow.”

Brogan reached his left hand inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. Turning his head, he reached back and passed it over the top of his shoulder.

“No—give it to the boy,” the voice hissed at him.

Brogan pretended not to understand. He continued to turn, pivoting on the ball of his foot in a slow natural movement, then let the wallet slip from his fingers. The man’s eyes instinctively followed it down.

Brogan ducked his head to one side, out of the line of fire, and with a burst of speed he stepped in, hooked his left hand over the top of man’s forearm, and pulled it in close to him—trapping it so that the gun pointed away from his body. Using his momentum, he swung his right elbow into his assailant’s face with a vicious snap.

The man’s head jerked back. He desperately tried to pull his arm free, but Brogan had clasped his other hand over the barrel of the gun. He twisted it hard, pointing the muzzle to the ground, then tore it out from the man’s grasp.

Brogan straightened up. With a clubbing motion, he slammed the pistol into the side of the man’s head and sent him tumbling to the ground. Stepping over him, he placed a boot down on his neck. Hard.

The thief lay on his back gasping, looking up at Brogan in astonishment, barely able to comprehend what had just happened. It had been a risky move, though one Brogan had practiced many times. It required a little luck. Seemed like luck was on his side today.

Spinning around, Brogan saw the boy fumbling to take the Glock from out of his waistband. Brogan knew he was far too scared to use it. He leveled his newly acquired pistol at the kid’s head.

“Don’t even think about it,” he growled.

Brogan beckoned to the street urchin with his hand. Hesitant, the boy stepped forward and gave him back his weapon.

“Go fetch my wallet,” he ordered, keeping the gun aimed at him.

Brogan looked down, and got his first chance to observe his assailant properly. He was skinny, unshaven, with a frightened expression on his face as he lay on the street, Brogan’s boot nestled firmly under his chin.

As the kid handed him back his wallet, a small crowd gathered around them. A shopkeeper wearing a dirty apron came out of a nearby store. He made a cutthroat motion across his neck.

“Kill him,” he said, looking down at the thief, a grim look on his face. “These people are bad for business.”

Brogan shook his head. “If that’s what you want, you kill him.” He handed the shopkeeper the pistol and lifted his foot off the thief’s head.

The shopkeeper examined the gun. It was an old Beretta M9 semi, dating back to the 1990s. After making sure there was a round in the chamber, he pointed it down at the thief.

The thief raised both his hands off the ground, an imploring look on his face.

“Please,” he said, in a barely audible whisper. “Spare me.”

The shopkeeper stared down at the man, his eyes cold and emotionless. He squeezed the trigger and fired two shots into the man’s chest. With a low groan, the thief’s head flopped to one side and his eyes closed.

The shopkeeper handed Brogan back the weapon. Flipping the safety on, Brogan put it inside his jacket. A present for the Fletcher brothers. Glancing around him, he noticed the boy had fled. He was nowhere to be seen.

It was time to leave. Brogan nodded to the shopkeeper, then walked quickly away. When he turned the corner at the bottom of the street, he realized how lucky he’d been. It had been a risky move to disarm the thief. However, with Cole’s coded message on his phone, he had no choice but to take action. Brogan clearly wasn’t affiliated; that made him an agent. Once the thief saw the message, he would have sold the information to one of the city gangs. In the Barrio T, it wouldn’t take long to find Brogan, and in no time at all, it would be dinner time for the rats, meatballs on the menu. Lesson learned. He wouldn’t be that careless again.

Back at the hotel, he went up to his room, locked the door, and slid across the bolt. Peeling off the back cover of the phone, he took out the SIM card, then replaced the battery and powered the device up.

From his backpack, he took out
Dark Star
, the paperback novel Cole had given him, and a notebook and pen. There was no desk in the room, so he sat on the bed with his back to the wall, resting the notebook across his knees, and got started.

The message began with three numbers: 737. This was the offset position in the book that determined where he would begin the decoding sequence from.

He turned to page 73, line 7 in the book:
In the late November of 1937, the Soviet merchant vessel
Kolstroi
shipped anchor in the port of Rostock…
Brogan skimmed down the page. The book looked interesting, a spy novel set just before the outbreak of World War Two. He had to smile at his friend’s choice of reading material. Perhaps he would try reading it later, for real.

Next came a series of numbers grouped in fours: 0501 0105 0303…. Carefully, Brogan transcribed these numbers onto a blank page ripped out of the notepad and began creating what the protocol called a “code flimsy.” The first two numbers in the group related to how many lines down to count from the offset, the next two digits representing how far along the line to retrieve the assigned letter.

It wasn’t a complicated process, just old-fashioned and painstaking work.
They must have some patient gang-bangers in Winter’s Edge,
Brogan thought to himself, amused as he worked through the code; for each group of numbers, referencing the book to find the correct letter, then in capitals, scrawling it down on the flimsy. It took him over twenty minutes to decode the entire transmission.

When he had finished, Brogan read the message through from the beginning:

PERPS NORTH OF TWO JACKS. TRAVELING BY MOTORBIKE WITH RECENTLY TAKEN WOMAN CAPTIVE. APPEAR TO BE TAKING HER TO THE DEVILS QUADRANGLE--SLAVERS TERRITORY. TOO DANGEROUS FOR YOU THERE. SUGGEST YOU WAIT UNTIL THEY RETURN SOUTH AGAIN. NEXT TRANSMISSION 3 DAYS.