Lucky had had himself a very difficult week. And he told Billy exactly how he felt about it.

"You motherfuckin' pus-drippin', black-toothed, murderin', skunk-faced, pig-shit, cock-suckin', dick-brained, ass-fuckin' asshole, cunt-tooth—" he paused for breath and Billy took advantage of the moment of silence to crack his captive on the side of the head with his gun.

"Shuddup," he muttered.

Lucky went out. He awoke once or twice. He looked up into the starry sky and could tell by the jolts and jumps that he was being carried in some kind of car. Before he got a chance to heap some more abuse on his captor, Billy hit him again.

When Lucky came to again it was broad daylight and the three-wheeler that Billy drove was making its way through the broken streets of a city. Lucky sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around him. Ahead of him, dominating the skyline, was a tall, windowless tower. It had been sheared off well below the summit. A smoky black fire burned atop the tower. It was a symbol of something—something that Lucky had never seen but he had sure as shit heard of. ¦

The shock hit him as hard as one of Billy's blows. He was in Leatherman's capital city.

"Hey," he said. He mustered all his willpower and tried to be nice. "Whatthefuck am I doing here?"

"Shuttup, shrimp."

"That's not nice," said Lucky.

Billy took him straight to the big house. There was the usual bunch of Stormers guarding the front door and the usual crowd of officials and favor seekers in the dozen or so anterooms that you had to go through before you got to Leather's office.

Billy pushed Lucky ahead of him. The stinking 'lep paid no attention to the people who were waiting ahead of him and no one, of course, raised a finger to stop him from barging all the way up to the door of Leatherman's lair.

Lucky looked at all the tough-looking guys with guns and realized he didn't know a one of them. These Stormers and 'leps were the guys that Bonner and Beck and the rest of the crazy riders he knew back home did battle with. Those guys didn't seem to think much of these guys, but they looked pretty tough to Lucky.

"What the hell am I doing here?" he whined. All he wanted at that moment was to be back in his bus station with his engines. How had that violent world outside his oil-smeared lair managed to intrude and carry him off?

"Shaddup," said Billy. Lucky shrugged. He was used to that response from his smelly captor.

Billy knocked on Leather's door. Snotty opened it.

"What?" demanded the head Radlep.

"Got Lucky," said Billy.

"Uh," grunted Snotty. He pulled his head back in behind the door. "He got Lucky," he said to Leatherman.

"Bring him in," said Leather.

Lucky was shoved into the round room. "Hey, Lucky, ain't seen you in a while."

"Hey, Leather," squeaked Lucky.

"Soo, how's the best mechanic on the big C?"

"Fine," said Lucky. He rubbed his nose and wanted to say: "I'll be seein' you. Leather. Gotta split."

"Remember when you used to take care of that old Cordoba I had?"

"Yeah," said Lucky without much enthusiasm.

"Those was the days," said Leather, leaning back in his chair. " 'Course, I come a long way since then. Done fine."

"So I heard."

"So, Lucky, whatcha been up to?"

Lucky thought this was a pretty stupid question from the President of the Slavestates. You'd think that a man like him would have known what was up with anybody of any reputation on the big C. Certainly he knew that Lucky had been working in Chi-town and that he took care of the riding machines of the very men who made Leather-man's life a little, well, on the tough side.

"Oh," said Lucky, "this and that."

"I guess you been working for the riders."

"Well, Leather, you know how it is in Chicago ..."

"Yeah," said Leather, "I know. Chicago is nice, but it ain't the Cap."

"Hell," said Lucky emphatically, "no place is the Cap." He meant it, too.

"Yeah," said Leatherman, smiling broadly. "So I guess that folks in Chi are a little broken up these days . . . You know, real upset. Sad, you know?"

Pissed off was more like it. Lucky thought. That lousy 'lep had dragged him away from a lot of work. A lot of riders had pulled their bikes in for work recently. They weren't ready and Lucky could hear them blaming him. "I don't know about broke up . . ."

"How come? Close friends 'n all. They always said that they never seen any better."

In spite of himself, Lucky swelled with pride. He was proud of his reputation. "Hey, Leather, I'm good, but you know, I got the touch. That's all it takes, the touch. You got the touch, you got the magic." He waggled all his fingers at Leatherman to show what the touch looked like.

Leather vaulted forward in his chair. "You? Who the fuck was talking about you?"

"You wasn't?"

"Fuck no. I was talking about Bonner."

"Bonner?" Bonner. Lucky sure would like to see Bonner come through that door all guns blazing. Lucky swore silently he would give the guy free service for a year . . . well, six months maybe.

"Yeah, Bonner. I bet all the riders are real sad he got took down like that."

"Bonner!? Bonner got took down? By who?"

Leatherman's face darkened. "Listen, you little prick, I sent two 'leps into Chicago. One got you, the other was s'posed to kill Bonner. You ain't heard nothin' about it?"

"News to me." Lucky wanted to laugh in the big man's face. He sent a 'lep to get Lucky and he sent a 'lep to kill Bonner, as if one man was equal to another. How stupid could you get? A 'lep was a tough mother, no doubt about that, but Lucky almost got away from his. And I'm a little shrimp with a gimpy leg, he wanted to yell. One 'lep, one, against Banner? Man, Lucky wanted to say, you ain't living in the real world.

"Wait," said Leather, "you ain't heard nothing about this?"

"Hey Leather, your man there, he dragged me off before I got a chance to hear what was going on."

"Could be technical," muttered Al. He had to say something.

"You, Al," barked Leatherman, "find out what the hell happened."

"Yes, boss," said Al, getting out of there as fast as he could.

"Snotty, show this little fuck why we brought him here in the first place."

"Come on, pimple-prick," said Snotty, grabbing Lucky roughly ,by the shoulder and pushing him towards the door.

Leatherman swung up out of his seat and followed them. He decided he would go with them.

Chilly, Leatherman's Radlep driver, saw the boss coming and pulled Leather's fancy jeep up in front of the door. Snotty shoved Lucky into the back seat and climbed in after him. Leatherman took his customary place next to the driver.

"Where to, boss?"

"The garage."

"Check," said Chilly and slammed the powerful machine into gear. He didn't bother to look for, or avoid, any vehicles or people on the streets. It was a fact of life in the Cap that if you saw Leatherman coming you stopped and got out of the way. Chilly drove fast. Their passage across the city was marked by the sudden squeal of old brakes and pedestrians diving for safety.

The garage had a rusty sign in front of it. THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART. No one ever did find out who Art was but it was obvious that he must have been quite a man before the Bomb hit. A very important guy if his house was anything to judge by. Planks had been laid on the wide steps that led into the vast building and Chilly pushed the jeep up the incline, driving through the shattered doors straight into the building.

The jeep tore across the vast entrance hall and made a sharp left, turning down a wide gallery. The building had been clumsily cored. Walls had been knocked down to clear a huge space. Here Chilly brought the jeep to a sharp halt, the heavy machine skidding a few feet on the pock-marked marble floor.

Lucky stared.

"So what do you think?" said Leather, climbing down from the jeep.

Lucky was deeply moved. It took a few seconds for him to compose himself. Finally, pulling together his thoughts, he told Leather what he thought:

'' Un-fucking-believable.''

"Yeah," said Leather. "I know."

Lucky tottered a few steps. He had never seen anything like this.

Parked in the center of the huge room were three giant vehicles crudely built but so enormous that they dwarfed the little mechanic. His expert eye saw the roots of the vehicles immediately. Someone had started with a big bus body and grafted it onto a different cab. One of the machines, mostly Greyhound Sceni-cruiser, ended in the blunt cab of an old Mack truck. The whole thing—from nose to tail—had been armored. Great sheets of metal had been welded to the sides of the mammoth creature. Slits had been left open at various points for men within to shoot out of. A heavy-caliber machine gun poked from the very front, where a heavy square turret had been built up from the roof. There was another at the rear. Another, lighter machine gun protruded from the space next to the driver in the cab. Two T-beam girders had been welded to the front of the machine, making the whole behemoth a formidable battering ram.

The machine in the middle was more or less the same except that buried inside it was a large gas tank. This fueled the flame thrower that stuck out of the turret instead of the machine gun.

The third, the smallest of the giants, was an extended armored car. It, too, bristled with guns. It had a built-up ram on its prow. The entire body had been covered with coil upon coil of razor wire.

"We call that one Porky. Short for 'porkypine,' " said Woolcott.

"Who built them?" asked Lucky.

"We did," said Leather. "Built to kill. That's what for."

"Whaddya gonna do with them?"

"We're gonna take out Chicago," said Woolcott. "You oughta thank us for getting you out."

Lucky was, in that moment, grateful. The whole abduction, the risk, the danger he now found himself in was worth it to see these things.

"They're beautiful," he said reverently.

"Yeah," said Leather, "real cute. Just one problem. They don't work."

"They don't?" said Lucky.

"That's why you're here, Lucky. You're the best. You gotta make 'em go. Get started."

"But wait, what about the guy who built 'em?"

"Dead," said Leatherman. Leatherman had put a lot of time and money into building these things over the years. When it turned out that the engines couldn't push them at more than a snail's pace he got pissed off and shot the designer.

"Listen up. Lucky," he said, "I know you can fix these things. Don't go stalling on me. I'll give you anything you need, as many men as you need, spare parts, the works, but you gotta have 'em ready soon. If they ain't ready to go in two weeks you are dead meat. Got it?"

Lucky gulped. Two weeks? He was gonna have to take these things apart and put 'em back together again just to figure out how they were made. Two weeks?

"I said 'got it?' "

"Listen, Leather, I don't know if . . ."

"I ain't gonna ask you again, okay?"

"Leather . . ."

"Maybe you'd like it better if I ordered Chilly there to take you out and blow your brains all over the sidewalk. Maybe we just do it now and save everybody a lot of trouble. How does that sound to you, Lucky?"

"I got ii. Leather."

Leatherman smiled. "Good. I knew you'd end up seeing it my way. Now get started."

Leatherman swung up into the jeep and Chilly roared away through the wide halls. The building echoed with the powerful engine for a minute or two, then the sound faded.

Woolcott smiled at Lucky. "Now you don't mind if I leave a couple of Stormers here to keep you company, do you?"

Lucky said he didn't mind.

"Good," said Woolcott. He turned to the Stormers. "Listen, if the little guy needs anything get it for him. If he tries to get away, shoot him."

The Stormers nodded.

"Lucky," said Woolcott, "you are going to eat and sleep with these babies. No fucking off. Get the job done and Leatherman will treat you nice. Hell, he might even not kill you."

"Swell," said Lucky.

Woolcott got on his bike and roared out of the gallery, leaving Lucky to his jailers and the company of the giant machines.

They were marvels. With a kerosene lamp in hand, Lucky made a careful tour of inspection. He started with the driver's cab. There was plenty of room up front, but the visibility was bad. There was nothing more than a six-inch-across slit for the driver to see out of. Next to him was ample room for the front gunner. There was a crudely cut door at the back of the cab that led into the main body of the beast. There was not much in there. Firing steps for the men who operated the cannon, a few handles on the steel walls so the men within would have something to hold on to as the thing crawled over the ground. There was plenty of room inside. Lucky figured you could put eighty men in there.

The insides of the other two tanks were much the same. The only difference was that the one with the flame thrower had a well-armored gas tank bolted to the floor and a pump to get the gas up to the nozzle of the fire gun. Lucky wouldn't care to ride in that one in a combat situation. All that gas surrounded by a lot of bodies ... it just wasn't safe.

The undersides of the creatures interested him. As he slunk around beneath them he could see that he was going to have major drive-shaft trouble. The engine was far forward, under the hood of the cab, and it stretched all the way back to the rear axles.

"Pretty fucking stupid," muttered Lucky. Already, though, a plan was forming in his brain.

"Look," he shouted at the Stormers, "I'm gonna start it up, okay?"

"Sure," yelled one of them. He turned back to his card game.

Lucky chose to start the biggest one. He slid behind the wheel of the giant and scoped out the controls for a second. Everything looked more or less right. He flexed his fingers and said:

"Okay, let's see what you got."

He hit the starter and the old Mack engine growled a little, grumbled, and then died.

"Come on, honey," whispered Lucky.

He started it again, gave it a touch of gas, fiddled with the choke, and the big engine boomed into life. It gave off one loud backfire that upset the Stormers and then ran fairly smooth.

Lucky cocked his head to hear the engine better. "Missing on a couple, but nothing that can't be tuned out . . ."He took a deep breath and stood on the clutch and tried to ease the stiff gear into first. The clutch was a tough one and so was the box. There was a grinding sound and the giant machine gave an enormous shudder. The engine died.

"Frigid bitch," hissed Lucky.

He tried it again and this time managed to grind the gear into first. There was a terrible sound of clashing gears and metal scraping on metal. The behemoth eased forward an inch.

"Good girl," said Lucky in a soothing voice.

Gingerly he touched the gas pedal. There was no reaction from the engine. The whole machine continued to creep along.

Lucky was used to cars moving a little faster than this. He gave it a little more gas. No change.

"C'mon, hon, you're doing about an inch an hour here."

He tried a little more pressure on the accelerator. Nothing.

"Okay," he said, "let's play a little rougher ..." He pushed the pedal to the floor and the machine picked it up to just below a walking pace.

Lucky's laughter cut through the bellowing engine. "What a fucking fart-mobile. This is a pussy in wolf's clothing. It don't do nothing! Nothing!" The mammoth machine crept along, her big tires crunching over a few old and musty pictures that were scattered on the scarred floor. Lucky bounced up and down in the seat, stamping on the gas pedal, running through the gears. As he shifted he got a little more out of the thing but that was it. To his delight he found that the gear with the most power was reverse.

"Fan-fuckin'-tastic," he shrieked, "you can go ass backwards into Chi-town! What a bunch of morons!''

He backed the machine into place and climbed down from the cab. He wiped his eyes.

"I never seen anything so fuckin' funny." He giggled some more.

The Stonners put down their cards and came over to him. "What's so funny?"

"That thing. Look at it, man. Big, mean, tough, slugger. And it puts out the power of a baby carriage. Whoever built it hung too much weight on too weak an engine. The gear box is all wrong and the first time you go up a hill or over a bump you're gonna lose your transmission."

The Stonners shrugged. It wasn't their problem.

"And the fuck built three of them! What, did he figure he'd made one mistake so he'd see how he'd do on another? Jeez, what an asshole!"

"The little one goes a little faster," said one of the guards.

"Oh, I bet it goes like greased shit," said Lucky, laughing again.

"I wouldn't laugh if I was you," said one of the Stonners.

"If you was me you'd know motors like I do and then you'd bust a gut, man."

"I might not know motors but I know Leather.

And if you don't get these things running then it's your ass, little man, your ass."

Lucky stopped laughing. The Stormer might have a point.

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