Chapter 17

The truck sped off with Nancy driving. She was definitely pushing things beyond her skill level, but she hadn't killed them, yet, so she was doing fine. The cops rushed to join the parade, and they were soon pressing close to the truck. The cops were in sedans, so the only people who could shoot were those riding shotgun. Those women in the back seats couldn't shoot because there was too much danger of hitting their companions.

George, on the other hand, did not have this problem. He lay down in the bed of the truck and tried to draw a bead on the nearest car. Everything was bouncing around so much that it was hard to hold the rifle steady, but he figured that he might as well shoot. Hell, he might get lucky! Things seemed to settle down a little and George fired. His bullet didn't hit anybody, but it drill a hole in the windshield of the pursuing car. The driver flinched, and, at this speed, that was enough to twist the car sideways in the street and cause it to roll over.

The car coming up behind was too close, and the driver had no time to react, so she piled into the underside of the first car. It may have been an electric car, but flames shot everywhere. That was the hydrogen bottle for the fuel cell letting go and spraying hydrogen where sparks could reach it.

The driver of the third car managed to avoid plowing head on into the burning vehicles, but the car still smashed sideways into the other cars and came to a painful stop. All the cops bailed out of the third vehicle, but there was no escape from the fire for the people in the first two cars.

Otto banged on the partition separating them from Nancy and finally got her to slow down. She was as shook up as everybody else, but she did manage to drive home without crashing the truck. They parked inside the building and everybody came down to hear the story of the trip. This was the first time that they knew of the fight with the cops, but they were thrilled by the daring escape. Like most adventures, it was a lot more appealing to those who didn't have to live through it.

They looked carefully and found only one bullet hole in the truck. Well, it's always better to be lucky than it is to be good! Everybody admired the rifles and pistols and was anxious to get a chance to try them out.

George told of the fact that the cops found them probably because they had set off an alarm. Jack asked, "How long have you been using those keys. You know that the coding on them goes bad after a few weeks, and that may be what happened to you. You need to steal some new cards."

Hey, Jack provided some information that was not known by anybody else. They could believe it, because all of the women had had a credit card go bad because the magnetic strip had pooped. OK, they would have to steal another master key card from the next cop they killed. In fact, they would collect all that they could find so that everybody would have one of the cards.

It was time to eat, so everybody broke for that pleasant chore. After dinner, the men and Nancy went to the range to try out the heavy rifles. Otto was enthralled with the M14 and took only a few minutes to get it zeroed in. He didn't fire much longer because he didn't want to waste ammunition. Joseph and Nancy tried out the Mausers and were startled at the increase in recoil. They steeled themselves to the impact on their shoulders and settled in to learning to shoot them and getting them zeroed. Actually, that didn't take long and they were busy practicing with the new rifle.

George and Otto set their rifles aside and practiced with the new pistols. Otto found that the Glock fit his hand more comfortably, but George found that the Ordu was better for him. Both men practiced with the pistols for a while and decided that they were OK with them, but they preferred the rifles. They left the range so that someone else could use the ear protection and have access to the firing line. A couple of the women moved in there to practice with the .22s.

George went up to watch TV with Helen while Nancy continued to shoot her new rifle. They were watching the news when a further report came out on the shooting of the mayor. She was badly injured, but expected to live. Nobody knew at this date how long she would be in the hospital. Her right kidney was pretty badly messed up and the doctors had decided to replace it. They had searched through the slaves and found a good match, so he was sacrificed so that they would have a fresh kidney for the mayor.

This was followed by an op ed piece on organ transplants. The important thing, as far as George was concerned, was that they take an organ from a living slave to do the transplant, and they just dump the slave down the disposal chute after the operation is over. He groaned, "Oh, Goddess, I hope Lena doesn't see that and connect it to her colon transplant."

Just about that time, there was a scream from down the hall, and George knew exactly where it had come from. He rushed to Jack's room and found Jack trying to comfort Lena. She was crying hysterically and mumbling, "They killed some poor slave just to get me a new colon. Oh, Goddess, that makes me feel so bad. I'm gonna kill every one of the bastards for doing that. It hurts me as much as it hurt the man who had to die so that I could live!"

George rubbed her shoulder and said, "Please calm down, Lena. We'll get the bastards that did that. It may take a while, but we will get revenge for all of the slaves who have been murdered just to supply transplant parts. I feel as bad as you do about it, and I swear to you that the monsters will die as horribly as we can manage!"

Lena stopped crying and said, "George, I'm going to hold you to your word on that! I just hate to wait on doing it." She turned back to cuddling with Jack, and everybody else left the room.

As they went back to their own room, Nancy joined them. "What was that screaming that I heard just as I started up the elevator?"

George explained, and Nancy was livid. Right then, she wanted to go out and shoot every surgeon that she could find, but Helen reminded her that not all surgeons did transplants, just those that specialized in the practice. Nancy calmed down enough to get hold of herself, but she was still irate. "George, we have got to increase our attacks on the system. There must be many other things going on just as bad as this that we don't even know about. We may not be able to pick out the senior perpetrators, but we have to do something!"

"I agree with you. I'm going to call a meeting for some suggestions and ideas. In fact, let's do it right now." The three separated and went through the building to notify everybody that an important meeting was to be held in 15 minutes. They were all directed to the dining room where there were enough chairs for everybody.

When they were all assembled, even Lena and Jack, George called the meeting to order and said, "By now, you all know about the discovery that we just made about how transplant material is found. I know that we were all horrified by the disclosure, and we want to do something about it." George was interrupted by a chorus of agreement and he had to wait a minute or so for everybody to calm back down. "OK, I'm glad to see that we are all in agreement. I called this meeting to discuss things that we could do in response. Let's keep this discussion orderly, but I would like to hear suggestions about what we can do to put pressure on the government and the upper class."

The suggestions abounded, but most were impractical for one reason or another. A popular idea was to fire-bomb the hospital, but George quashed that by reminding them that there were a lot of sick people in the hospital from the lower classes, and they didn't want to harm them, willy-nilly.

Ima came up with the best suggestion. She suggested that they attack a restaurant that was popular with the upper class, but do it so that the workers could escape. Her suggestion was to station snipers at the front and back doors to shoot any of the upper class that showed up, but to hold off on the workers from the restaurant. She proposed that they throw Molotov Coctails on the roof after they had everybody bottled up inside. Any upper crust who tried to get out could be shot, but any worker could be passed.

Otto pointed out that was a good idea, but they were bound to be attacked by the cops somewhere along the line. Ima said that extra shooters could be stationed around to take care of any cops who showed up. Irene asked about the firefighters, but the consensus was to shoot them, too, since they were agents of the establishment. They decided to treat medical workers on a case-by-case basis.