A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

Settlements that grew up around a mine or a desert oasis, thrived for a while, and were then abandoned when the precious stones, metal, or water ran out. I’d never figured out why Cicada City came to be here. But now it was just another ghost town. The people were all gone. The tumbleweed hadn’t yet rolled in and the window shutters weren’t banging in the wind, but it was only a matter of time. It was eerily quiet. I stood alone on the main street as the super-sized clock on the town hall clicked towards midday. High noon.

The little hammer struck the bell twelve times and the sounds were carried away on the breeze. Do the clocks in ghost towns still strike the hour? Maybe they keep going until the power runs out or they suffer a mechanical failure.

There was movement at the other end of the street. Colonel Damian Hodge. We stared at each other for a moment. We started walking to close the gap. We stopped when we were about shooting distance apart.

“Where is she?” the Colonel asked.

“Where she’s supposed to be,” I said. “With her husband.”

The Colonel stared at me, his eyes dark malevolent slits. I think I was supposed to be intimidated. I was too scared for that. His hand was hovering near the pistol in his holster. I didn’t know if I could outdraw him. I didn’t want to find out.

“You should never have come here,” the Colonel said. I guess he didn’t want to find out either.

I shrugged. “From a distance, it looked like a nice little town.”

“It ends here for you,” he said.

“The old cliché? A shoot-out on the main street, just you and me.”

“Not exactly,” he said. He raised his hand and signalled. There was a quiet shuffling and some metallic clicking sounds. The street behind Colonel Hodge filled with people and robots. I didn’t count them but it looked like every one of the M-9000s were there, as were the mercenaries and the stooges. Casey nodded a greeting when I spotted him.

“Are all the townsfolk going to come and stand behind you with their pitchforks and their hoes?” the Colonel asked, his lip curled into a sneer.

“They’re all gone,” I said, “and the hoes went with them.”

There was some muttering behind the Colonel and he sil-enced it with an angry glance. He turned, giving instructions to Deke and a couple of the others, sending them to search the town; telling them to look for Pattie Brennan, for anyone. Then he turned his attention back to me.

“You’re outnumbered,” the Colonel said. A master of understatement.

“I hope you brought everyone with you,” I said.

If it seems like I’m dragging this out, stalling for time, I was. Waiting for the hands on that big-ass clock to tick around to twelve-fifteen.

When it came, it shocked everyone. Including me. It felt and sounded like an earthquake. The ground shook under us and the windows of the buildings around us rattled. And there was a boom! like a battleship smashing into the side of a mountain.

“That sounded like it came from the house,” someone behind the Colonel said.

“It was just the bunker,” I told them.

I was hoping Harmony evacuated any last remaining people before detonating her explosives. I’d told her to sound the fire alarm and the contamination alarm. I’m sure she did.

Colonel Hodge’s face had turned an unhealthy shade of scarlet. “I am going to destroy this town and everyone in it!”

“There’s no one here,” I said. “You won, the town’s yours Colonel.”

The mini search party returned. Deke confirmed to his boss that I was telling the truth. Everyone had packed up and moved out. Someone else pushed through from the back of the crowd and whispered something else to the Colonel – news from back at the compound, telling him that the bunker had been destroyed. I watched the Colonel compose himself. It took him a moment.

“You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, Quincy,” he said. “But I’m not sure why.”

“I just don’t like you very much,” I said.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he said. “I won’t make that mistake again.” He gave the signal and one of the creepy grey skeleton robots marched forward. It had some sort of energy weapon in a holster at its side.

“Do you think you can outdraw a robot?” the Colonel asked. The smug sneer made a return visit to his lips.

I knew I couldn’t outdraw a robot. But I could out-think a despot. I took a step back, making it look like I was scared – that part was easy. My heel pressed down on the trigger mechanism hidden in the dirt. A bright flash and a smoke-bomb exploded in front of me. This was my cue to exit.

“Did he blow himself up?” I heard Deke ask.

“No, you idiot. Find him!” the Colonel shouted. The crowd behind him dispersed nosily.

I was running down a narrow alley between buildings. The Trekker was waiting for me behind the butcher’s shop again. I jumped in and hit the ‘start’ button. I activated the Trekker’s fake engine sound and turned it up loud. It was supposed to be that of an antique V8. I didn’t know what that was, but I loved the noise it made. Crank it up and it too can rattle windows in their frames.

I wanted the Colonel’s men to hear me and to know where I was. The plan was that they would chase me. Away from the town. I didn’t want the final showdown to occur here, because I wanted the townsfolk to be able to move back into their homes when it was over. The Colonel had a lot of robots with a lot of guns – and that was going to result in a whole lot of destruction. As my momma used to say: Take it outside, boys. Outside of Cicada City in this case.

One of Colonel Hodge’s mercenaries fired her gun into the air, signalling to the