Hell Road Warriors

“West,” Jak replied.

Mildred’s lips quirked. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a little grease monkey in coveralls?”

Everyone looked over at the engineer LAV. A short girl with curly brown hair covered by a bandanna was perched on top, half in and half out of the engine compartment wrenching away. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but her big brown eyes, full lower lip and dimpled chin were something to look at. She currently had a smudge of grease on the tip of her nose. For the past twenty-four hours Jak’s ruby-red gaze often strayed to whatever wag she was working on, and she seemed to work wags 24/7. He lifted his chin at the mechanic.

“Name’s Seriah. Yeah.” Jak nodded at Ryan again. “West.”

“Mildred?”

“What the hell, west. The weather’s nice. The food is good. The people seem friendly.”

J.B. stared hard at Mildred. “Six seems real friendly.”

Everyone stared at the Armorer’s comment.

Mildred stared in wonder. “J. B. Dix, are you jealous?”

J.B. snatched up his shotgun and stomped away without another word.

Ryan looked around the circle. “We got five votes west. In a while I’ll—”

“It’s unanimous.” The Armorer stomped back just as quickly. “West it is.”

Mildred stepped toward him. “J.B.?”

“Doc?” J.B. reached into his pocket and held out what appeared to be six beige wine corks.

Doc took the objects and exposed his gleaming white teeth. “These are suspiciously of a 16-gauge conformation.”

“They’re high explosive. Those pigs got me thinking. Can’t just shoot them full of holes. That’s an ounce of HE. Should shatter some bones.”

“Thank you, J.B. I shall refit myself this instant.” Doc set about reloading his LeMat.

“J.B.?” Mildred questioned.

“Walk?” he asked.

Mildred slid her arm in his. “I’d love to.” The two of them walked off in a circuit of the wag camp.

Ryan took Krysty’s hand. “Let’s sign up.” They walked back to the circled wags. People were checking loads and prepping to go. Toulalan watched the proceedings. His sister Cyrielle and Six seemed to be doing most of the directing. Toulalan stood by his personal wag. It was a Chevy Silverado, lovingly maintained, with a camper mounted in the bed. Unlike a lot of the vehicles it was almost miraculously free of bullet strikes.

Ryan had taken an informal survey of the convoy’s vehicles. They currently had twelve wags rolling and four motorbikes. The big rig, the engineering LAV and Toulalan’s home on wheels were the most spectacular. Ryan counted three armed wags—a pair of pickups and an El Camino, sheathed in sheet-iron chicken armor with post-mounted machine guns in the truck beds. An old ambulance was stuffed with Diefenbunker med supplies. Six’s jacked-up Crown Victoria was almost unrecognizable under the added-on plate. The rest of the vehicles had been repaired, rebuilt and remodified so many times the lines of their original pedigree had been lost. The convoy consisted of about seventy-seven souls at the moment, not counting Ryan and the companions.

“Impressive collection,” Ryan said.

Toulalan smiled delightedly. “Merci. We’re quite proud of it!”

“Is your next destination another bunker?”

“Indeed.”

“So how come no one has cracked these Diefenbunkers before?” Ryan asked.

“Long before skydark, there was the cold war. You’ve heard of it, no?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, well, the Diefenbunkers were built for the cold war, but when she was won, they were deactivated. They became museums. After skydark, why go to a cold bare hole in the ground? The few who did, found the massive blast doors locked to them. The Diefenbunkers were placed out in the countryside. There was no time for historical expeditions when most were simply trying to live one more day.”

“But you cracked one.”

Toulalan smiled slyly. “My father did. Would you like to hear the story?”

Ryan nodded.

“Val-d’Or means ‘Valley of Gold.’ We were a mining town, and in our valley far from the horror that fell. Of course, regardless, in the nuclear winter, many died, the ville contracted. But being a mining town we knew construction. The ville was also fortified. We dug a system of tunnels beneath the ville to survive the winter. Again, many died, but still many lived. Our forests were thick with timber and thick with game. Rivers and lakes abounded. Come the new hard freeze, huge herds of animals migrated south before it. There is always a great culling and smoking of meat. We survived on that, in some ways better than other villes farther south. We were far enough north not to take much radiation or be faced with the horrors it brought with it, but south enough that we could reap the benefit of the freeze without being hit by it, except only once every few years.”

“But you cracked your bunker.”

“My father found a cache of papers. They were—how do you say?—eyes only, for the mayor of Val-d’Or and few of the civic leaders. There was a flurry of activity at the Diefenbunker, construction, top secret, right before skydark, but the local people were never aware of it. That convinced my father there might be something down below the earth besides empty desks and concrete.”

“How did you get in?”

Toulalan thumped his chest proudly. “The men of Val-d’Or have always been miners! My father figured the bunker must be like, oh…” He pointed at the LAV. “More heavily armored on the top than the bottom. A thick foundation, yes, but not hardened against the nukes like the top, no? He sank a shaft down and came up underneath. It took three years of effort, whenever that effort could be spared, but in the end my papa broke inside! I was with him!”

“What did you find?”

Toulalan kissed his fingertips and grinned. “Potatoes!”

Ryan blinked. “Potatoes?”

“Seed potatoes, actually, preserved for the future. There was a vast storehouse of them. The people weren’t pleased. Oh, there were blasters and medical supplies, a machine shop and much that was useful, but the men of Val-d’Or had survived since skydark as miners, hunters and fisherman. We weren’t farmers. Many said we couldn’t afford the time to take up the plow. Our spring and summer were for catching as much meat and fish as possible and smoking it for the long winter.” Toulalan smiled in happy memory. “My father joked that we lived half our lives underground like potatoes anyway. In the end he convinced them. We planted. There was trial and error, but that first season there was a crop. The seed potatoes had been modified, with the conditions of the new world in mind. They were hardy, resistant to the cold and matured quickly to take advantage of the brief warmth.”

“And suddenly you had a surplus,” Ryan surmised.

“Yes, no longer were we dependent upon hunting, fishing, trapping and the always uncertain migrations. We had a food staple, and we now had time for other things. We built more. Learned more. The seed bunkers also contained a number of other vegetables, and more importantly, hemp. It grew like, well, a weed in the short spring. We cleared forest and planted that, too. With that we had hemp seed oil and seeds to supplement our diet, textiles and paper. Hemp oil can be used directly to fuel diesel engines. We’re very busy underground during the winter, spinning, pressing manufacturing. We still hunt and fish, but now we mine once again, as well. Val-d’Or has gold, silver, zinc and lead. Whoever stocked the Val-d’Or Diefenbunker had put a great deal of thought into local survival.”

Ryan glanced back at the Borden Diefenbunker. “No seeds in that one.”

“No, instead there were bays for armored wags, and equipment and spares to repair them. There were also many, many blasters.” Toulalan shot Ryan another pointed look. “And a strange chamber of glass.”

“We saw that.” Ryan shrugged. “But it was the beer and pizza that grabbed our attention.”

“Mmm.” Toulalan nodded, but his eyes were seriously trying to read what Ryan was really thinking.

Better men had tried and failed. Ryan changed the subject. “So each of the bunkers seems to have been stocked differently.”

“So it seems. We have used the radio at Val-d’Or and tried the Borden one, as well. No other bunker responds. The computer links between them fell long ago. We don’t really know the disposition of the other bunkers. But whatever their function, they must be a treasure trove. We decided an expedition west would be the best course. We would head for Borden. If successful there—” Toulalan grinned again “—we would make an attempt for Shilo Diefenbunker in Manitoba.”