11. The Blue to the Rescue

"Ah, yes, Mr. Dice Quaid. You are indeed a clever man. I am even more impressed," Vladimir paced in front of a big bay window that offered a picturesque view of stone formations and wasteland outside of his compound.

Dice watched the man move—more like slither—side to side. The next few minutes would be important minutes.

The two spoke in the billiards room of Vladimir's estate. The drug lord paced with a cue stick in his hand. His son—the kid with the spiked blond hair and nose ring—held his own cue stick and silently shook his head in disapproval.

Dice stood between a pair of Vladimir's goons, one dressed in an old Italian designer suit with a pastel blue shirt underneath that made him look like some stereotype drug runner from the 1980s. That guy held an UZI. The second was bigger and dressed in drab coveralls but sported an interesting girlie tattoo on his neck.

Vladimir waved the cue stick to punctuate his thoughts.

"So, you have come here to offer me a—what? Oh yes, a 'designer drug' of some kind that comes from Agatha Dwiddle's stock. Tell me, Mr. Dice, where is this special drug now?"

Dice folded his arms. This was the clever part of the plan.

"It's nearby."

Vladimir smiled.

"Very good, Mr. Dice. You are so good at all this."

Vladimir glanced about at his men and told them, "You should all watch how this man does things. This is a real man. This is a man of great…of great…oh yes, of great wisdom. He has walked back here to this place even after he caused my man Daven to be killed, because he is so certain that he has a very strong chip with which to bargain. Very well then, Mr. Dice. Let me show you my chip of bargaining."

Another goon—this one dressed in green army fatigues—entered from the hallway. He escorted a short woman with striking black hair and big innocent eyes.

"Ah yes, Elena, come and meet the man who has come to save you."

Elena, clearly confused but seemingly unharmed, turned her eyes to Dice.

"Wh-who are you? Are you…wait, you were a friend of Yuji's, weren't you?"

Dice tipped his head.

"Um, that's right missy, we met a ways back."

Elena said with great hope, "Did Yuji send you? Has Yuji come back for me?"

"Ah, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, um, I'm thinking Yuji is in orbit about now."

Dice remembered Marlene's rather firm and well-proportioned frame.

Yeah, I'm betting that could send a fella into orbit all on its own.

Elena cast her eyes to the ground.

"Yuji…"

"Fear not, young Elena, for Mr. Dice here has come to try and bargain for your release."

"That's right," Dice returned his attention to the matter at hand. "So, whatdya say you let Elena go with me and I'll get you that Super 2 Heroine stuff that'd be good for your business."

"A designer drug," Vladimir repeated what Dice had told him.

"Dad," the kid with the spiked hair—Tommy—grunted, "Just let the girl go. I'm not going to marry her. I don't love her."

Vladimir ignored his son.

"Mr. Dice, there are two problems for which I do not yet see solutions."

"Oh? Gee, what is that?"

"First, I do not yet have the shrike power cells you were sent to get. Second, Elena's father, Jordan, still owes me a debt. This is, of course, why I…why I…why I took his daughter in the first place."

Elena grew angry.

"My father is a loving, peaceful man! He brought you food from the mountains and just because the weather destroyed some of the crop you went and took me! He doesn't owe you a thing!"

"Food?" Vladimir rolled the word around on his tongue with curiosity. "I take it, young Elena, you never accompanied your father to his harvest, hmmm?"
Dice slapped a hand over his eyes.

"Oh brother, don't tell me."

Elena gasped, "What? What is it?"

"Of course," Dice shook his head. "So, let me get this straight. Old Agatha Dwiddle has got herself Pa's scavengers to be growing and harvesting opium poppies so she could sell them to Second Earth. You and Agatha used to work together, isn't that right? Of course it is. But you split up and became competitors. So you would need your own bunch of farmers and mules for your own heroine."

Elena stumbled, "What are you saying? What do you mean?"

"I'm saying," Dice finished, "you're father does a lot more than herd goats around. He brings Vlad here the opium he needs to make heroine."

Elena wobbled with light-headedness then shouted, "No! That's not true! My father is a wonderful man! We graze our goats and weave sweaters and cook mutton and sing songs! We don't run drugs!"

Dice turned to Vladimir, "She probably really doesn't know, you know?"

Vlad agreed, "Yes, Jordan always said he wanted to protect her…her… um…her innocence."

Dice chuckled, "Yeah, well, Yuji took care of her innocence a few nights ba-- "

All eyes stared at Dice.

He rephrased, "Um, I mean, yes, it's nice of her father to keep her in the dark. So, you see, she doesn't know anything about any of this. Why don't you just let her go and we'll all be friends? And I can give you that designer drug and you won't even need Elena's folks anymore. Whatdya say?"

A commotion broke out in the hallway.

Two more of Vladimir's thugs came in, both in leather jackets and carrying Ak-47 assault rifles. One hauled a container that caused Dice's heart to sink when he saw it. The other grappled with a redheaded woman in a lab coat as she grunted and groaned in his grip.

Vladimir gloated, "This designer drug, hmmm? And a chemist, too?"

"Sheena!" Tommy—the kid with the nose ring—shouted and stepped forward.

"Easy there, my son, this is not your place."

"Tommy!"

The fear and desperation in Sheena's eyes faded for just a moment at the sight of her love.

Dice blurted, "You were supposed to hide in the hills until I finished working things out!"

"Well," she sheepishly admitted, "I thought maybe I could catch a glimpse of Tommy and, you know, be sure everything was okay."

Vladimir laughed a big, hardy laugh and slowly clasped his hands together in a mock clap.

"Oh, so very good, Mr. Dice! You are a clev…clev…a smart man. But not as smart, I dare say, as myself. Your friend here has given herself over to me and all of the chips of which you were to bargain are now in my hands. That would about sum it up, would it not?"

Dice nodded.

"Yeppers. That about sums it up."

"No! Dad!"

The kid with the spiked hair marched fast across the room toward Sheena. One of the henchmen intervened, keeping the boy from Agatha's granddaughter.

"Tommy! I love you!"

Vladimir scowled, "What? What is this?"

Dice informed, "Oh come on, Vlad, you mean you didn't know? Your boy and Agatha's granddaughter have been making with the whoopies. A real Romeo and Juliet thing."

"No! This is forbidden!"

Tommy, held in check by a guard, shouted, "I love her, father!"

The drug lord shook his head violently.

"No! This cannot be! Dwiddle is my sworn enemy! You cannot be with this girl for that would make Agatha family! This is a trick! By Agatha! She has deceived you, my son."

"I love her, father. And she loves me. We've been seeing each other secretly for a year now, sneaking out and meeting at the old depot."

Sheena burst, "That's right!"

Everyone looked to her in anticipation of more words. She shrugged and grew silent.

Vladimir paced again, this time faster. His fingers twitched. His brow furled.

Uh-oh, this guy is about to blow his top.

Vlad smashed the cue stick over his knee, creating two smaller cue sticks.

"No! My own son? No! You will do as I say, boy! You will marry Elena so that you can be a man. As for this trollop who has deceived you, I will drop her at the Blue nest in the mountains!"

Tommy's face corkscrewed in horror and anger.

"No you will not! I love her! I will not marry Elena."

Vladimir pulled an automatic pistol from his waistband, cocked the slide, and held it to Elena's temple. Dice took a tentative step forward but was halted by the poke of a cold rifle barrel in his back.

Vladimir, clearly crazed, shouted, "You will disavow this trollop and marry Elena, or I will kill this peasant girl and her blood will be on your hands!"

"No Father!"

"Stop you monster!"

"Please don't shoot me!"

The shouts and screams and grunts of anger and fear filled the room to the point of torturing Dice's eardrums. Everything seemed ready to explode and no matter what happened Dice felt certain a bullet would find its way into his chest.

Just as Vladimir appeared ready to pull the trigger, the ground trembled.

Everything stopped.

The big plate glass window rattled.

Dice felt a wave of relief fall over his body.

"Oh thank God," he said. "The Blue."

A massive Tank Beetle smashed into the outer wall of the billiards room, shattering the window and collapsing the outer wall into splinters of wood and plaster. A cloud of dust billowed forth and the hissing scream of the angry Blue filled the room.

The guards opened fire on the beast, trying to hit the core but their weapons were old Earth weapons, not the high powered rifles developed specifically for the Blue and employed by Second Earthers.

With the guards distracted, Dice waded into the chaos. He marched over to Vladimir in fast, lumbering steps and smacked the drug lord in the chin. The fellow fell backwards over his desk.

The green-fatigued henchman that had escorted Elena into the room was knocked off his feet by the rampaging Blue and crushed under one gigantic foot. Elena, next in the path of the beast, screamed hysterically but appeared frozen in place.

Dice swooped her into his arms, threw her over his shoulder and carried the girl out of the thing's direct path. At that moment, bad guy bullets found the core not from skill but from sheer volume: they had emptied one hundred rounds at the invader. One was bound to hit.

Vladimir struggled to his feet but before any one could react to Dice's move, a new threat emerged: a half dozen Blue parading onto the grounds.

"To the Shrikes!" the pastel-wearing goon shouted in a Russian accent.

"You idiot," Vladimir sneered. "We have no power cells!"

Tommy—the kid with the spiked blond hair—made his own move.

While the two guards flanking Sheena gaped out through the hole in the wall at the gathering uglies, Vladimir's boy grabbed his girl's hand and led her toward the exit. Sheena, to her credit, did not forget who had brought her. She waved to Dice who—with Elena still over his shoulder—followed.

The guards moved to the hole in the wall, reloaded their weapons, and began firing, disregarding their captives in favor of the new danger.

Dice appreciated the way in which the monstrous Blue made everyone forget all about everything else. There was something about the threat of being rolled into a human dumpling that made things like the drug business, profit, and petty differences fade away.

With that in mind he paused for a moment, grabbed the container that held the two important vials from Vlad's desk, and handed it to Sheena.

"I don't want this! I hate this stuff!"

"Take it, missy, if you know what's good for us. Now run!"

The fugitives bolted from the billiards room, leaving behind Vladimir and his henchmen as they fired round after round at the approaching mass of Blue.

The four jogged along a hallway.

"Okay kiddies, does anyone have a plan?"

Tommy and Sheena stopped. Elena banged on Dice's shoulder, a clear sign that she wanted down. Behind them, on the far side of a couple of walls, they heard the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire as well as the roar of Blue. Dice knew they did not have enough time to get into a deep discussion.

Tommy insisted, "We're just going to run away!"

"I see, yeah," Dice scratched his head. A Blue howled somewhere far away.

"Well, kid, listen. We need a plan. I've got a car outside, let's take it somewhere where we can hide out for a spell and think of where to go from here. Right?"

They all nodded, except for Elena. Her eyes appeared distant and angry.

She mumbled, "My father…a drug runner. When I get home I'll give him a piece of my mind!"

Dice thought he should console her, but before he could one of the walls of the hallway smashed down. A Blue chopper with one of Vlad's men in its mandibles crashed through.

"Okay kids! Let's go!"

The foursome raced out the rear of the house onto the dusty grounds of Vladimir Zhukov's estate. Gunfire echoed all around. Shouts. Screams. Howls.

Dice pointed to the Land Rover parked in the middle grounds.

"There's my car! Let's all—"

SMASH.

A huge Double Boat Blue crunched one of its massive, elephant-like legs onto the vehicle, smashing it as flat as surely as if that leg were a junkyard crusher.

The red-eyed devil howled at the four escapees, but a round of shots from one of Vladimir's mercenaries drew its attention in the other direction.

Dice stared at the flattened vehicle.

"Now that just screws the pooch."

"C'mon," Tommy yelled as he led Sheena off to their left. "The stables!"

Dice and Elena followed. The kid led them to a cluster of small buildings that included one well-kept stable area and a maintenance shed.

"I'm not so good with the horses!"

Elena answered Dice; "You can ride with me."

As they past the maintenance shed, Dice saw something familiar. He stopped and grabbed the five-gallon gas container that had started his journey into the insane. He then joined the others in quickly saddling two horses.

"Elena," Dice asked, "Your father said he knew of somewhere I could get gas. Do you know?"

Tommy answered before she could.

"The hidden fuel depot. That's where Sheena and I have been meeting. It has tons of fuel. Everyone around here knows to raid the depot for gas. Problem is, the Blue know to look there for people too."

"Well, seems to me the Blue found us here anyway and I damn well need some gas. So get us there, kiddo."

Dice spied a weapons locker in the stable room and took a moment to retrieve a rifle for himself as well as two clips of ammunition. Not much, but it would do better than nothing.

Tommy and Sheena got onboard a chocolate colored mare while Dice joined Elena atop a black and white stallion. The four galloped away from Vladimir's estate and off into the wastelands in search of a gas station.