Free Tomorrow War by Mack Maloney

the equivalent of $10,000 in gold. This included four sets of earrings, several rings, a tiepin, a Relox twelve-jeweled twenty-four-carat watch, and a bag of gold coins.
    These items were now locked in a small strongbox fitted into the leg pocket of Y’s battle fatigues. He was dressed, in his opinion, as a bummy air merc. His fatigues, borrowed from one of the Unit 167 Sea Marines, were slightly frayed and torn in a few places. He was wearing a crappy beret and an ancient weapons belt that could barely hold his pistol holster.
    Zoltan and Crabb were dressed similarly. Zoltan was carrying a huge twin-barrel Thompson machine gun; Crabb was lugging a 4.57 Magnum triple shot.
    They left the Bug on the beach and began walking toward the lights of the Pit. The sun was just going down, and the sky was a beautiful crimson-red. The sounds that mixed together were the crash of waves, the wind in the palms, and the roar of jet engines warming up. All were shaking the early-evening air.
    “I wonder what kind of booze they got around here?” Y asked, still rather puzzled by his infatuation with demon alcohol lately.
    “Probably that crappy Scottish stuff,” Crabb replied knowingly. A standing rule at his Chicago club was that no Scottish liquor of any kind could pass through the doors. In this world, booze from Scotland was the worst.
    “The ambient vibes tell me that the liquor here is actually very good,” Zoltan said, touching his hand to his forehead. “And so is the food.”
    They topped a sand dune and came upon a roadblock. It was manned by two guards in a small armored personnel carrier commonly known as a Gnat.
    One man was sitting next to the vehicle’s top-mounted machine gun; the second was throwing a net into a small tidal pool nearby—no doubt fishing for his supper.
    They barely raised their heads as Y, Zoltan, and Crabb made their way down the path toward them. The man fishing took a quick glance and went on about his business. The man at the machine gun actually yawned. Y decided already these two would get a gold ring from him, and not much else.
    “Peace!” he greeted them with an upraised hand. “Friends here …”
    Crabb and Zoltan looked at him like he was from outer space.
    “What do you think, you’re in a cowboy movie here?” Crabb asked him.
    Crabb stepped up and looked at the man fishing.
    “We want to get to the Pit,” he said. “What is the quickest way?”
    The guard shrugged. He was Fijian—far from home. But not that far.
    “Many, many ways to get to town,” he said, finally snagging a couple of sunfish.
    Crabb looked back at Y and stretched out his palm. The OSS man stalled a moment.
    “Is it too late to hypnotize these guys?” Y asked Zoltan.
    The psychic just rolled his eyes. Y just shrugged, then finally came out with two rings and the tiepin. Together they added up to a substantial amount of gold.
    “I asked what’s the quickest?” Crabb said, displaying the rings.
    The two soldiers looked the bribe over and then smiled.
    “Over the next two dunes, around the mine field, then a half mile north,” one said.
    Crabb was suddenly displaying the gold pin.
    “OK, now,” he said. “How much for a ride?”
    Ten minutes later the Gnat was rumbling through the very muddy main street of the Pit.
    The place was very aptly named. It featured what might have been the largest collection of Quonset huts on the planet They were lined up for a mile along the main muddy drag, and some of them went at least a dozen blocks deep.
    These plain tin houses were not used just for living areas. Many were converted into bar rooms, gambling halls, and brothels. The neon around these structures was so bright, Y noted that there was no need for streetlights. And indeed, there weren’t any.
    The red, orange, and yellow glow was nearly blinding. The muddy streets were thick with vehicles of all descriptions. A few air bikes fluttered high above. The land traffic included mercs of all shapes, sizes,