Free Domino Falls by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due Page B

be the finest woman left in the world.
    If I’m dreaming, please don’t let me wake up. Ever.
    â€œThought you were on guard duty!” Darius called to her. She was definitely following them; he hadn’t been sure, until now.
    â€œThat was yesterday!” she called back. “Every day’s brand-new.”
    She was flirting. The truck drove on and seemed to pull Darius with a tug of heat. Laughing, he dropped back to Dean. They pounded fists across the roadway.
    â€œDibs,” Darius said. “She wants me.”
    â€œNo way. This is war.”
    Yep, the old Dean was coming back. Darius might let Dean have Jackie if she could repair whatever was broken in him. He’d like to think he would, anyway.
    When the convoy stopped, the crew leader parked beside her white pickup and waved Darius and Dean off the road. The freeway was bisected by dirt paths on either side, and one of them was Claremont Road. A cloud of dust brought them to the perimeter of a sun-faded farmhouse set back about fifty yards. Fields on three sides, woods on the other. There was already some fencing up near the cow pastures, but the path to the woods gaped open.
    The crew leader, a thirtyish, sun-broiled Gold Shirt, looked as if he lived in the weight room. He wasn’t particularly friendly, but Darius didn’t need him to be. The freakfest had burned off people’s manners. The crew leader tugged what looked like a pile of leaves out of the bed of his truck.
    â€œHomemade ghillie suits,” the crew leader said. “Sniper’s paradise. While we put up the fences, you watch our backs. Getyourself downwind, and the freaks won’t smell you or see you. First, we need to see if you can shoot.”
    â€œCool beans,” Dean said.
    â€œHell to the yeah,” said Darius.
    Dean’s uncle Bucky, a deepwater fisherman and hunter, had taken Dean out every other weekend during hunting season, teaching him everything he knew about tracking, trapping, and shooting. Dean had never said if Uncle Bucky had been bitten too, but his silence said it all.
    Dean had taught Darius everything he could. Dean had the practice, but Darius had the eye.
    Darius eased the loose-fitting bodysuit over his shoulder. Dean mirrored him, and they grinned at each other. The suits were painted standard green, but the twigs and leaves looked real enough to fool his own eye, although some of it was fake plants and AstroTurf. Someone had spent serious time on the ghillie suits.
    The fence was being built for a farmhouse that looked like it belonged to several families, with bystanders spilling from the porch. The farmhouse already had fencing, but the crew had come to fortify it like the fences along the roadway toward town.
    If you lived in Domino Falls, the government protected you. Darius wondered what the protection cost, or if everybody got treated the same.
    â€œFirst we gotta make sure neither of you knuckleheads will shoot us in the back,” Jackie said. Beyond the farmhouse, in the open field that had already been burned away, Jackie sashayed over to a shooting range with aluminum cans on rows of wooden poles.
    Darius took extra time to appreciate her easy walk as she led them. Her faded blue jeans were about a size too tight. Dean wasstaring too. They grinned steel at each other. Back off, she’s mine. Darius hadn’t thought about the possibility of a girl in so long that he’d forgotten how nice smooth skin and scented hair could be.
    Sonia and Kendra were spoken for. Ursalina was unavailable. But Domino Falls was a world of possibilities. Jackie probably liked shooters, so he was about to shoot the hell out of those cans.
    A crowd was gathering to watch the new guys. The sole Gold Shirt was Jackie’s red-haired brother. Two others were teenagers about their age, and three were in their thirties and forties.
    â€œWanna borrow my bow and arrow, chief?” one of the boys said.
    â€œWe burn our