Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (23 page)

      
The shop door opened and closed.  Helen decided to confront him.  She stood up, sending one round into the ceiling to let him know she was armed, "Pop."

      
"Hold it!  Hold it!  We were just looking for you.  Where did you go?"  Tumult had left his motor-gun in the hall.  He hadn't known she had a gun.

      
"We?  I saw the attack pack move off," She could hardly keep the gun from shaking.

      
"The first group is looping around to secure the area.  They're coming back."

      
"Yeah, right," Helen commented sarcastically.  "I'm going the rest of the way alone.  It's only about five blocks.  Why did we stop here in the first place, so close to our destination?"

      
"Like I said, to secure the area."

      
She wanted to believe him but knew better.  "Thanks, but I'm going the rest of the way alone.  How did you find me?"

      
"You left your dog outside the door."

      
Helen shook her head realizing her stupidity.  "Just get out."  She extended the gun.

      
"Okay.  I'm leaving."  He eased out of the shop, letting the dog in as he closed the door behind himself.

      
Helen waited a minute before going to the door.  As she turned the knob it burst open on her, the door slamming her in the forehead.  A hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed her gun hand, yanking her into the hallway.

      
Tater did not misread this sign.  She lunged at Tumult.  By then, he had twisted the gun from her grasp and shot three rounds through the darkness at the animal.  Tater hobbled backwards and collapsed in the hall.

      
"You bastard!  You shot my dog," shrieked Helen, incredulous.

      
He yanked her back into the shop and closed the door.  "You shouldn't have had the thing jump me.  Besides, that mutt would have interfered with our intimate moment, unless you're into the animal thing."

      
"What's your brother going to say?"

      
"Like I said: Our family shares.  Even if he did mind, we don't exactly get along anyway."

      
Helen kept backing away from him, groping around in the dark for something to defend herself with; she knew he couldn't see any better than she could in the murk.  She found a table lamp and swung at him.  The lamp struck him on the forearm.  "You bitch!" he swore, but the strike also knocked the 22 revolver out of his hand.  He grabbed Helen's wrists and spun her to the floor.  Tumult clumped both her wrists into one grasp and pressed them down above her head.  His remaining free hand unzipped her jacket and in one motion stripped all the buttons off her blouse.

      
Helen, with clinched teeth, "Get your damn hands off me!  I'm warning you!"

       
He opened her jeans and wrestled them down to her thighs.  "
You're
warning
me
?  You're in no position to warn me."  He unhooked the front of her bra and began massaging her breasts.  "You know, I've always appreciated these.  They're the first things I noticed about you.  I see they're perky from the cold."

      
The shop's showcase window exploded as Tater burst through it.  She dove for Tumult's throat with all her teeth bared.  During the struggle with the beast, Helen groped about the floor in search of the 22 revolver.  Finding it, she called Tater off.  The animal staggered to the edge of the room and lay down.  Much of the blood remaining on the enemy, belonged to her.

      
Helen tugged up her jeans with the other hand as she approached her adversary who still lay on the floor.  "Your rule, as I recall, is shoot African-Americans and maim whites.  I can live with that."  She leveled the 22 at his crotch and fired.

      
"You whore."  The bullet missed his genitalia and struck the edge of his upper thigh.

      
"Let's go, Tater."  Helen quickly pulled her clothes together and left.  The dog didn't follow.  "Come, Tater."  Tater lay motionless on the floor, her eyes glazed.  She had used every ounce of strength to rescue Helen; none remained for herself.  "Oh, Tater."  She went over to her dog and looked.  Tumult began to move toward her.  "Hold it right there, buster!  Another move like that and I'll empty the rest of this gun on you."

      
That stopped him, but Tater was wrecked: One bullet had caught her in the neck, another in her lower rib cage.

       
Helen lifted her pet with a grunt, and left.  Forty meters down the hall the unmistakable vroom of a motor-gun revving up echoed through the empty corridor.  Helen realized she had forgotten to dispose of his weapon before leaving, and maybe she hadn't maimed him. 
I should have shot the bastard three times
.  She picked up her pace.  Her arms began to burn already from carrying Tater.  A hail of motor-gun balls sprayed the corridor, stray ones shattering showcase windows on both sides of them.  Helen and Tater turned the corner as balls whizzed by into the shop at the end of the hallway.

       
Helen scurried across a glass-enclosed walkway that led to the shopping complex on the other side of the square.  She checked for open doors--finding none.  Her arms sagged with the weight of the dog.  Helen gave up looking for an open room and frantically bolted down two flights of stairs and left the building onto the street.  Her first intention was to race to the warehouse. 
Think this time
, Helen said to herself. 
That bastard knows where I'm going.
  More cautiously now, she prowled up Chatham Street and circled  back to Quincy Market.  She waited on the glass walkway she had crossed before.  From that vantage point she could view any shadows moving in the courtyard or hear Tumult approach from the corridor in either building.

      
It was a relief to put the dog down.  Her arms hung limp by her side as she rubbed each elbow in turn.  Helen kneeled over Tater.  She felt overwhelming sympathy for her pet.  It crossed her mind that if she wasn't carrying the dog she could have outrun Tumult to the warehouse.  After all, he was shot.  She knew something kept her clinging to the animal: Tater was the last vestige of her son's life; she was another being with a shared love for Barry.

      
Helen stroked Tater's head, "You're a good pup."  The dog only blinked but she had heard it.  Helen took off her jacket and girdled Tater's midsection.  She wrapped the animal's neck with her blouse and hugged her bloody pet.  "You'll be all right.  I'll take care of you now."  As she said it, from her crouched position with arms about the dog, Tumult appeared at the end of the courtyard.  He followed her trail, scanning the ground for sign.  Helen looked down the hall and saw the drops of blood. "He trailed us," she whispered to herself.

      
Tumult stood just below the glassed walkway.  The man looked at the pecks of blood leading toward the stairway to the side.  Helen raised the revolver and clicked off three rounds through the glass just as the Virginian had instructed her.  "Pop!  Pop!  Click.  Click."

      
After the shattered panel fell, Tumult stood below in the opening holding his face; a bullet had struck his nose.  To Helen, the rest happened in agonizing slow motion.  Tumult pulled his hand from his bloody face and yanked the starter cord to his motor-gun.  The stream of balls began shattering the entire glass enclosure, strafing back and forth across the walkway.

      
Nuggets of glass hailed down on woman and dog, engulfing them in a shower of pointy teeth that pricked with every hit.  Helen leaned over Tater to shield her from the rain of glass as she crawled and tugged, staying low to the concrete floor that provided refuge. 

      
The only remaining garment Helen had on her upper body was her bra.  Tiny lacerations tattooed her back.  She was paralyzed by the shower of glass that pummeled her.  Finally, small hands grabbed her and tugged her forward.  Thad had run off from Tumult's attack pack and circled back.

      
On hands and knees, pulling Tater, Helen crawled toward the main building.  Crystal nuggets cut her hands and knees.  The glass enclosure gave way to cool, fresh air.  Helen felt the warm blood from the plethora of cuts as they pooled together and oozed down her side in streaks.  The shooting had finally stopped when Tumult emptied his ammo hopper.  He clutched his face as he headed back in the direction of Bunker Hill.

      
In the hollows of the building, Helen patted Tater's head and rested against the wall.  Thad began taking his jacket off to put around her.  They were about five blocks away from the wharf.

      
"Ya found her!" Butch declared.  He had made his escape from the attack pack by claiming he had to go to the bathroom and sneaking off.  When the rebels had gone to look for Butch, Thad ran away to distract them.  Leg-men from the pack raced after him.  When they saw they couldn't gain on the boy, they dropped their guns and ammo to lighten their load.  It was still no use, Thad knew he could outrun the larger leg-men.  And he did.   

      
Now, with lacerations of his own on the back of his head and neck, Thad stood over Helen; she was shaking from the encounter.  He had overcome his own fear to save her.  Helen knew that.  She got up and hugged the boy.  "Thank you."  He looked away and responded with a jittery smile; she had very little on.

      
Butch picked up Tater with a grunt, "Gotta go."  They headed toward Union Wharf.

      
At Union Wharf, Chaos, Max and Captain Thomas of Regular Army discussed the possibilities of getting out of the city.  The Wizard had set up the meeting with Thomas; unbeknownst to Chaos and Max, Thomas had been the officer in charge at the Dixville site.

      
"We've got a ship in the harbor loaded with supplies and munitions," said Thomas.  "If you can get it out of the harbor and back to the North Country, you can have it."

      
"It's not that simple," Chaos corrected.  "If we all get on that ship it would only take one missile to take us out.  A pilot with computer-enhanced imaging could fly in this stuff.  They only need to launch one missile."

       
"You're right," the Captain replied.  "But the boat is loaded with top-of-the-line weaponry and an array of hand-held missiles.  Not only that, but there are eighty-seven Guards on that boat who know how to use the stuff and want to join your resistance.  Most of them are from the North Country.  We've been able to get information, even with the communication blackout the military imposed.  There's
more
Guard who have gone AWOL and would like to join.  It's just a matter of locating them and letting them know."

      
"I still think we should split the munitions up in a bunch of different boats," Chaos persisted.

      
"Agreed."

      
At that point Max had only listened in on the discussion.  He spotted Helen entering the warehouse, now carrying Tater.  The boys and one of Chaos' scouting packs followed.  "Helen!"  He ran over and offered to carry the dog but she refused.  With Thad's jacket around her shoulders, she defiantly staggered in with blood-streaked hair.  She saw Chaos but continued to a table where she placed her pet.  The stunned group encircled her, all asking questions at the same time.  Helen ignored them.  "Somebody get me a medical kit.  I've got to fix her."

-

Chapter 13

      
Helen sat in an office just beyond the warehouse.  She had washed her hair and cleaned up, finally finding time to sit and relax behind a large desk.  She instinctively reached to her shirt pocket to find the picture of Barry.  It was gone.  She remembered the photo was in the shirt left at Quincy Market in the struggle.  Helen had an uncontrollable urge to return to the site.  She would be without a picture of her son until she returned home.  If she made it home.  Helen got up from her chair to see Chaos.  As she opened the door, she was surprised to find someone opening it at the same time.  It was Captain Thomas.  A rebel had told him Helen's son was at Dixville.

      
He fumbled, trying to find the words, finally telling her about his part in the massacre.  Captain Thomas' pathetic apology wasn't the way she envisioned her first meeting with the murderer of her son.  Oh, she knew it was an automated ambush, but some soulless son-of-a-bitch set it up.  Helen couldn't look at him; she was uncertain how to feel and still numbed from her ordeal with Tumult.

      
"I just wanted to give you this."  Captain Thomas handed her a memory disk.  "I copied the imaging off the AutoMan.  Do as you wish with it; it's about time everyone knew what really happened that day."  His hand shook as he held it out to her.

      
"What is it?"

      
"Compressed imaging of the Dixville Massacre."