11.
 They hussled her down a linoleum hall. The hall was plain and unadorned, though the woodwork looked antique, with all sorts of routed balls and turrets in the doorways. They entered a large room; storeroom, Taxi thought. Anna flicked on the electric light — so they must have a good energy source, Taxi supposed. The room had a concrete floor, cold to the touch. It had row upon row of broad shelves, each framed in wooden panels and having a sliding door on one side. There must be fifty or more such compartments, Taxi thought.
“This will be your hiding place for now,” Moira said, pushing Taxi into a little closet full of folded linens. Taxi felt Moira’s hands pushing against her butt, unnecessarily, she thought. But she turned, cat-like, and got comfortable. Aside from the helium drive bottles, she thought of the assault rifles carried by those clunky Lincolns; those would fetch a damn good price in any reasonably sophisticated town market. ‘Course, you could easily get killed carrying shit like that, so it was a dangerous world out there, in here, didn’t matter. She kept her gun handy as she rested on the fragrant linens.
“It should be comfortable in there,” Moira whispered. “We’ll be back in a short while and you’ll look like one of us in no time.”
Taxi waited, gun in hand. She let herself catnap a little bit, using one booted foot to hold the sliding door shut.
After a bit, she felt a tugging at her feet. She heard women whispering.
She slammed the door open, rolled out, lay on her back, and held the .45 in both hands pointed in their faces.
The women inhaled with fright and swept back in a pack. Then they giggled and relaxed. Taxi tucked the gun in her belt and sat up on her knees. She pointed to her gun and knife. “Anyone touches these, you’re history. Understand?”
They nodded excitedly, giggled like little girls. Jen held out a long gray dress made of fine cotton, whose hem swept the floor. Jan held up a blouse white as fresh surf along the Malibu Run. “First we have to bathe you,” Moira said and they all giggled.
They took her to another building, which they said was the Young Women’s Home. As a compromise, they’d put a gray blanket around her shoulders. “Quick,”Moira said, we don’t want the young men to see you. She glanced worriedly up at the building across the horseshoe. “They’re probably in the fields working, but one or two might be sick in their beds and happen to look out for a breath of fresh air.”
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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