Skydark Spawn

“Thank you, Baron,” she said, kissing his foot again with zeal. “Thank you.”

She was beginning to slobber over his toes. Fox pushed her away with his foot and slid it back into its slipper.

Next along the wall was an old blond woman who’d lived on the farm for years. She’d been one of his best producers, giving him twins twice and always producing strong, healthy offspring. But after her last—the thirteenth she’d given the farm—she simply stopped producing. Although she kept on rutting, she’d carefully avoided getting heavy. When Fox brought her into his office for an explanation, she’d simply said, “Enough!” Her declaration made Fox laugh. Retirement wasn’t an option for a functioning breeder. A woman bred until she couldn’t anymore, and when she was done, she was sold into slavery or traded for a blaster.

As Fox approached her, he smiled and said, “And how are we today?”

She looked up at the baron with an expression of contempt, then lowered her head and spit on his slippers.

Fox stood there looking at the stain and shook his head. “As charming as ever, I see.”

“Fuck you!”

Fox’s fist shot out and caught her in the right eye. Her head snapped back and slammed against the brick wall she was chained to. Fox stood impassively as she swung her arms and legs to strike back at him, knowing the chains were too short to allow her to touch him. He let her continue her futile attempt to hit him and when she was tired out, he struck her again under the left eye. This time, instead of fighting back, she fell unconscious onto the cold concrete floor.

Fox reached over and put a hand on her bloated belly. She was six months along and everything seemed to be progressing normally. Her fighting spirit would probably produce a similarly spirited offspring that would net him a top price at auction—a couple of blasters or a few barrels of diesel at the very least. The thought put a smile on the baron’s face.

He started toward the next breeder when a sec man appeared at the door. It was Kingsley, his number-three sec man after Grundwold and Fillinger.

“It’s the outlanders, Baron,” Kingsley stated. “They’re approaching from the north, heading toward the farm.”

“Is Grundwold still following them?”

“If he is, our lookouts haven’t seen his party.”

“Good,” Fox said, “then the outlanders probably haven’t noticed them, either.” Grundwold’s men were the best sec men the farm had, and their talent for stealthily following travelers had once again given Fox an advantage over passing travelers. In addition, he had several options as to how to get his hands on the outlander women. “If they approach the front gate looking to trade for food or lodging, let them in and bring them to me. If they pass us by, give them a polite wave and leave them for Grundwold and his men to handle farther down the road.”

“Yes, Baron,” Kingsley said and was gone.

AFTER AN HOUR’S WALK along the road, the companions came upon a huge steel fence topped with barbed wire. On the other side stood row upon row of neatly trimmed trees, all covered in green leaves and spotted with a magnificent bounty of ripening fruit.

The friends stopped on the roadway, admiring the view.

“Ah.” Doc sighed. “Now, that is what a farm should look like. A virtual cornucopia of all good things to eat.”

“It looks almost predark,” Mildred commented.

The farm was indeed well kept, Ryan thought. And the wire fence was an absolute necessity considering the number of hungry muties lurking in the area. Still, something about the fence didn’t feel right to Ryan. He scanned the length that ran parallel to the road and saw something hanging off the fence a few hundred yards south of their position.

“After that gopher meat, one of those apples would sure taste good,” Dean said. “You think they’d miss any apples if I climbed over the fence and picked us a few.”

“No,” Ryan commanded. “Don’t go near that fence.”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Krysty asked.

“Not sure.” Ryan headed south toward the object hanging from the fence. As the friends neared, it became obvious that it was the remains of a mutie. It was facing the fence as if in the middle of a climb with its hands and feet tangled in the steel weave. There was little flesh left on its bones, and what there was had been burned and charred black.

“An electric fence?” J.B. asked.

Ryan had never actually seen an electric fence, but he knew they’d existed, especially around military installations in predark times. “That’d be my guess,” he said.

“If it’s electric, why don’t I hear any hum?” Mildred asked.

“Maybe it’s not on right now,” J.B. suggested.

“It would seem to me that such a massive fence would require an equally massive amount of electricity to electrify it,” Doc said. “And since electricity is currently harder to come by than gasoline, where would so much electricity come from?”

“You’d like a few of those apples, too, wouldn’t you, Doc?” Mildred chided.

“Look there,” Krysty said, pointing in the direction they had come.

Ryan turned and saw a couple of muties behind them several hundred yards down the road, as if they’d been following the group. After they’d stopped, the muties moved off the asphalt and were approaching the northern corner of the fence, staring at the fruit on the other side through the heavy steel weave. Then the first mutie suddenly grabbed the fence and started to climb.

“Nothing happen,” Jak said, as the companions friends moved toward the muties for a closer look.

The second mutie scrambled up the fence behind the first, but when they were both halfway to the top, Ryan suddenly heard a dull mechanical thrum slowly rising in volume.

The fence was being charged with electricity.

When the current reached them, the mutant’s bodies jerked and spasmed wildly, every one of their muscles twitching and writhing uncontrollably. The air was tinged with the sweet and pungent odor of burning flesh and the sound of sizzling meat. Orange-and-blue flames began to shoot out from the hands and feet of the muties, as well as from their other body parts that came in contact with the fence. The muties’ hair and eyebrows burned away like flash powder, the ashes falling to the ground like dirty snow.

“Why don’t they just let go?” Dean asked.

“Can’t,” Mildred replied. “Their muscles are in total spasm. They can’t control them to release their hold on the fence.”

And then the hum suddenly stopped. The muties fell limp against the fence, their burned hands and feet curled around the steel mesh, refusing to let go. Their flesh had developed a hard outer shell and was producing tendrils of acrid gray smoke.

But the muties were still alive. They were gasping for air and groaning in pain, helpless to free themselves from their agonizingly slow death.

“It’s a terrible way to be chilled,” Mildred commented. “The electricity isn’t even the thing that kills you. It paralyzes your heart, shuts off your breathing and boils the fat under your skin so you’re cooked to death from the inside out.”

It was a horrible way to die.

“Maybe they can turn the power on at will,” Mildred suggested. “And at different sections of the fence, wherever it’s needed.”

“Or it’s governed by motion sensors, turning on the fence whenever motion’s detected.”

“Which may or may not mean that someone knows we’re here, people,” Ryan said, knowing he’d just put the friends on triple alert. “But let’s just continue on as if we’ve seen nothing new here.”

The companions began to move.

The muties continued to smolder on the fence.

FARTHER ALONG, the friends saw their first sec man patrolling the inside of the compound. He was armed with a longblaster, and wore a good pair of boots. Behind the sec man, about thirty people worked a row of trees, pulling weeds, trimming branches and picking fruit. They all looked to be healthy and well fed. A few of the women looked to be pregnant, but they were still able to help with the farm work.

Within a few moments of the friends’ appearance, the first sec man was joined by a second, who came riding up in a small white wag that had an engine that ran without making a sound. There was a heavy blaster set up on a swivel mount on the back of the wag that gave the weapon a 360-degree radius of fire.

The first sec man waved to the friends as they walked along the outside of the fence. Ryan returned the wave, and the others followed suit. But while the first sec man remained where he was overseeing the workers, the second sec man in the white miniwag matched their pace, following them all the way to the farm’s front gate.