Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1) Read Online Free

lights and one of these little radios too. What do you want in trade for all that?”
    “Now wait a minute,” Abe cut in. “I’m calling unfair competition. You can’t trade a radio that gets one station but not the other.”
    “Overruled,” The Doctor said without looking at him.
    “Why?” Abe asked. “ We have rules about fair competition. This hurts my station’s listenership.”
    The Doctor turned to him . “The rules about fair competition only state that you can’t discriminate with who you trade with and you can’t coerce a trade. You know that.”
    “But this—”
    “Overruled,” The Doctor said. He turned to the stranger as Abe seethed. “What do you want for these?”
    “I’ll take a kilo of flour and six Blue Cans.”
    The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “You have too many radios for them to be expensive, and I’ll have you know that I don’t have a shortage of gauze and florescent lights.”
    Marcus didn’t say anything. Actually they needed those lights pretty badly, and they looked in good enough condition that probably half of them worked.
    “I’ll give you a kilo of flour and two Blue Cans,” The Doctor said.
    “Kilo and three.”
    “Done.”
    The Doctor held out a hand. The old man didn’t take it immediately.
    “I’ll take that or something else.”
    “What ?” The Doctor asked.
    “ A spot to pitch a tent inside the walls.”
    “It’s only open to citizens, as I told you. You’d have to get nominated for associate status by a citizen and then voted in by a majority of the Citizens Council. And since you’re a stranger. . .”
    “I heard that you let in people when there’s danger.”
    “What danger would that be?” Marcus asked.
    The old man made a sour face.
    “Countryside’s getting bad. Some damn cult calling themselves the Righteous Horde.”
    Everyone behind the table perked up. This wasn’t the first time they’d heard about this new group. All the rumors had been vague, though.
    “What do you know?” Marcus asked.
    The stranger looked at him.
    “What’s it worth to you?”
    Marcus fished into his pocket and held up an old silver-colored coin with a stamp on it.
    “A meal token to $87,953. It’s a bar in the Burbs.”
    “I’ve been there,” the stranger said, holding out a hand. Marcus gave him the coin. “The Righteous Horde came out of the north last year. You probably heard The Skullsplitters got wiped out. That was the Righteous Horde’s work.”
    “Perhaps we should give them a citizenship medal,” Abe laughed.
    “You wouldn’t get the chance. Convert or die is the way they work. They’re sweeping the countryside, getting everybody. Scavengers, tweakers, settlements, everybody.”
    “What do they believe?” The Doctor asked.
    “Who cares? Some mishmash from the old radical sects with the idea that they’re going to purify the world and start a new paradise.”
    “How many fighters?” Marcus asked.
    “Don’t know. Word is they have a few thousand.”
    Marcus felt a chill. His glanced at the wall, that wall that had been almost breached half a dozen times before by forces nowhere near as large.
    Abe leaned forward, his mouth a grim line. “What else do you know?”
    The scavenger gave a nervous look over his shoulder in the direction of the mountains. “Last I heard they’re about fifty miles east of here and coming this way.”

 
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    Jackson Andrews drew the bucket out of the creek and poured the water into the large metal drum on the cart next to him. Bending again, he got another bucketful and repeated the motion. He looked inside the drum. Almost done and about time too. The breeze coming off the cove was chilly this morning and his hands were numb.
    A couple of more buckets and he was done. He placed the bucket back on the hook from which it hung on a tree branch and clapped his hands on his sides to get some feeling back in them. He really needed to get some gloves before winter set in.
    Jackson looked out