Free Pickers 1: The Find by Garth Owen Page A

visions of the world before, back when there had been abundance. They looked like nothing Maxine had ever seen. She imagined they bore little resemblance to the world that had led the occupants to build this bunker, either. Under the windows were long tables laid out with the pretty and pointless possessions the rich folk hiding here had felt were important. An array of big watches caught Maxine's eye. There was a pile of pashminas and shawls in silk and cashmere beside the watches. She wrapped one of the soft wool scarves around her fist and picked up the heaviest, most unnecessarily knurled of the watches.
    Beside the doors, there was an override switch for the room's lights. Maxine turned the lights off and stood beside the switch as the battering on the door began to splinter the chair barring it. It gave way, finally, with a creak and crack, and the door pushed open. Two figures entered, back lit from the atrium.
    "She be here?" the nearest one said.
    "Must be. None else to go to."
    "Why no lights?" said a voice from the balcony.
    "She hide. We find her."
    "We find her, we do her good." the nearest one said. He added a high pitched scream to the end of his statement.
    Maxine had kicked the side of his knee with the flat of her foot, tearing ligaments and separating the bones with a horrible pop. As he started to topple, she punched him hard just behind the hinge of his jaw. The watch wrapped around her fist embossed a circular wound as it dislocated his jaw. She moved quickly, pulling him down and simultaneously pivoting around him to drive the tip of her boot into the solar plexus of the man beside him. Her second victim staggered backwards, and she grabbed his outstretched hand. Doing a bizarrely graceful pirouette, she twisted his arm, wrenching it so hard that it popped out of the shoulder socket.
    A blood coated, barbed arrow head suddenly sprouted from the chest of the man whose shoulder Maxine had just torn apart. She had been planning to push him backwards onto the balcony to distract the two others she knew were out there. But one of them had panicked and, trying to shoot her, had skewered his companion instead. Now he was just dead weight, and he dropped to his knees.
    That was annoying. Maxine had choreographed the next part of the fight around using him as a shield and distraction. No matter. She spotted the throwing knives in the band around his left arm. Drawing one quickly, she threw it underhand at the nearest figure outside the doors. He had been struggling to reload a cross bow, but he dropped it when the blade lodged just above his collar bone. Her aim wasn't as good with her left hand as her right, she thought, so she drew and threw another knife for good measure. This one sank deep into the left side of his chest. He staggered backwards and tipped over the balustrade. There were two thuds as he hit statues on the way down.
    The last of the quartet who had chased her into the trap was standing at the top of the stairs, holding up a machete. He waved it around as Maxine stepped out of the room and made a show of adjusting the watch wrapped around her fist. She nodded toward the doors. "One of them in there is still alive. You can take him and get out of here if you want."
    "Bitch!" was the carefully considered reply.
    Maxine feinted a jab at machete man's chin. He flinched and stepped back. His foot slipped over the edge of the top step and he fell backwards, flailing his arms around, hopelessly striving to get his balance back. There was a crack as his head hit the corner of a step, then he rolled down the stairs like a bundle of rags. Somewhere along the line, he managed to impale himself on his own knife.
    Grimacing, Maxine turned away from the atrium. She had offered him the chance to live, the idiot. She liked fighting enough, but she preferred not to kill unless she had to. Which reminded her, one of them was still alive.
    With the lights back on, she stood over him as she removed the watch from