End Program

by James Axler

  The baron ducked back, covering his head even as the jerrican exploded. He felt fiery spines of metal lash against his arms and back. All around him, his people were suffering from red-hot lacerations, while the burning remains of the can landed in a flaming streak inside the ville walls.

  “Blast him!” Hurst commanded. “Shoot him down!”

  Beside him, the sec man working the rotary cannon snapped at the twin triggers, sending a stream of bullets from the high wall out at the retreating biker. The heavy cannon had been acquired from a military helicopter that had been grounded a hundred years before, and its rotating chamber spit its stream of bullets at a rate of four thousand rounds per minute. Its lethal issue carved a path in the ground, kicking up dust as it tracked the retreating biker speeding away until suddenly his bike was caught, erupting in a fireball.

  But already, the second attack wave was approaching. More bikers followed in the wake of the first, coming at different angles, with passengers setting light to their missiles on the move, launching blazing tangles of kindling toward the high walls. Flaming missiles smashed against the walls, sending out great splashes of fire as they struck. Others cleared the top of the walls, hurtling over before crashing back down to earth in great skidding bursts of flame, sending fire in all directions. One missile caught the top of the wall where Mildred and Doc had been stationed, and they reared back as Rog, the sec man who had shown them to their position, was caught in the explosion, lighting up like a human campfire.

  “Drop and roll!” Mildred shouted, hurrying toward the sec man as he danced on the spot, screaming and trying to remove his burning clothes. “Put out the flames! Somebody get this man a blanket!”

  Confusion reigned in the ville as great scorching meteors hurtled through the air, a third wave of attack as the ville folk tried to defend themselves. The sounds of blasterfire echoed through the night, like branches snapping all around, but it was accompanied by the deep drumbeat of heavy artillery, as the Gatling guns and rotary cannons were brought to bear on the attackers.

  * * *

  WAITING OUTSIDE, HIS engine idling, Niles watched as pillars of smoke twisted into the night, coloring the dark sky a shade darker. Fire dotted the ville walls and issued from within, the great cleanser, the great leveler.

  Even here, a quarter mile from the closest fire, Niles fancied he could feel the heat brush against his synthetic skin, warming the plates of metal that replaced his skull, his ruined limb. For a moment he smiled grimly, watching the flames and the smoke rise higher, the last great funeral pyre to humankind’s failed ambition.

  Around Niles, the other members of his gang were bringing their bikes back around, ending their circling as they converged on the spot where he and Amanda waited. There had been losses already—a rider and passenger had gone up in flames when their missile had exploded too soon, caught by a well-placed bullet from a ville sniper, two more died in return fire. But still they were strong—nineteen riders and a handful of armed passengers, raring to wipe Heartsville off the map forever.

  Why?

  Niles didn’t ask that question. There had been a reason, years before, when he had hit the road, searching for fuel and the freedom that came with it. But that was before the accident, before his rebirth at the hands of the surgeons of Progress. Now all he could really remember was how much hate he had, hate for all of humankind.

  All he desired—all he yearned for—was to chill the human scum.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The sound of motorcycle engines droned through the air like a swarm of angry hornets.

  Fire licked the ville walls. Inside flames were scurrying across the ground and a number of the buildings.

  The ville folk were working their blasters, firing from high positions over the walls or using the fortified nooks to take potshots at the bikers as they came around again for another attack.

  A temporary field hospital had been organized in the ville square, its volunteers dealing with early burn victims who had been caught up in the first wave of flaming missiles.

  Ryan, Krysty and Ricky were with a number of people at the north wall, taking shots at the bikers as they hurried toward the walls with their burning missiles. But those attacks had ceased now, and word came through that the bikers were amassing before the main gates.

  Ryan ran across the ville square, the Steyr Scout longblaster in his hands, Krysty and Ricky just a couple of steps behind him. He dashed through the field hospital, ducking into and then out of one of the bivouac-style tents that had been set up to give the patients some privacy as those who knew some healing techniques did what little they could to help them.

  Ryan ran past the main square, sprinting at full speed toward the main gates. He could hear the sounds of the bike engines, and something else too—great thuds as missiles were tossed against the towering gate. The Gatling guns raged in reply, sending lethal streams of bullets out into the wastes that surrounded the ville even as flames raced toward them from the burning walls.

  Another missile struck the gate, and the companions watched as it shuddered and cracked, the dazzling light from the fire beyond bleeding through the narrow splits. Then another flaming object came hurtling over the gates, rushing through the air with an audible whoosh of wind before crashing to the ground twenty yards from Ryan. He watched as the roof of the triplet school bus began to burn, the acrid tang of sizzling paint almost immediate in the air.

  They were forty feet from the gates when they saw something else hurtling over the wall to their left side. The operators of the big blasters were trying to track it, rotating the weapons as swiftly as they could even as it launched over the wall and into the compound itself. The thing landed with a howl of joyous laughter—it was a bike, suspension rocking as the rider steered it out of a skid and righted his balance.

  The rider was laughing, blasting shots from a revolver in his hand, picking off the sec men at the walls like shooting at a duck gallery. Three sec men tumbled from their high positions on the walls, while a fourth cried out in pain as his shoulder exploded in a red blossom of blood.

  Ryan ran, firing a quick shot from his Steyr—an unwieldy weapon in this instance, designed as it was for distance work—shooting the longblaster from the hip. The biker’s face turned to a red splatter, a spray of teeth flying through the air as he howled in sudden agony. He had lost control of the bike by then, and it raced onward before slamming against the exterior wall in a violent crash.

  Ryan, Krysty and Ricky kept moving, watching grimly as a second bike leaped over the wall. How the nuking hell are they doing that? Ryan wondered.

  * * *

  AT THE GATES, J.B. and Jak had seen the whole thing. The bikers had brought a ramped length of wood with them that they had carried tied on the back of one of the quad bikes. The wood sheet was long and narrow.

  Even as the Gatling guns sent lead slugs toward them, the bikers had moved swiftly, setting up the wooden sheet on the run, balancing it between two quad bikes and holding it up at a forty degree angle in line with the wall. Then, as the quad bikes slowed, one of their two-wheeled companions had sped up and raced toward the wooden ramp, hitting it at some velocity and using it to launch himself up and over the wall.

  The Gatling guns roared, cutting into the first biker as he leaped. He had misjudged his trajectory, and went crashing into the top of the wall by the gates before sagging back under a hailstorm of bullets.

  But the next rider managed to jump over the wall, skimming the top by a matter of inches before plummeting into the courtyard of the ville, where Ryan had ultimately ended his attack.

  The next ones came faster, one had barely left the ramp when the second hit it, twin bikes hurtling over the wall one after the other. J.B. ducked back as the next sailed by overhead, squatting and rolling out of its path.

  The bikes’ headlights whizze
d overhead like shooting stars as the bikers vaulted the walls.

  Beside J.B., Jak called out a warning, spying the second bike coming straight toward the Armorer. J.B. sank down on his back and held the M-4000 shotgun toward the heavens, squeezing the trigger twice. The first shot missed the bike by a good ten inches. But the second caught the vehicle as it hurtled above J.B.’s torso, and he turned away as fire erupted across the bike’s belly—even as it cleared the wall and went dropping back earthward.

  The bike he hit veered wildly off course as the rider was pushed up in his seat by the explosion. Bike and rider landed together on their flanks, the bike crushing and mangling the rider’s right leg as it pressed on top of him.

  The first rider was still alive however, which left Jak and a number of the fast-acting sec men to try to take her out before she created any more havoc within the ville itself.

  Buildings and crops were burning, great spots of flame dotting across the ville. Jak pulled the trigger rapidly. Bullets spit from his MSG90, joining a barrage of shots from the sec men’s longblasters. Jak had snagged the battered Heckler & Koch MSG90 longblaster from the sec men’s stores. The weapon featured a scope and had a 20-round magazine.

  The female rider sped off, her long black tresses whipping out behind her like the wings of a crow.

  Jak slung his longblaster and leaped, determined not to lose the woman. He dropped from the high ledge that ran along the wall, his alabaster skin showing like a ghostly blur in the moonlight. In a moment, he was on the ground, landing in a crouch that he turned effortlessly into a run, tearing after the bike as it wove down the alley between two nearby buildings. Jak took the most direct route, running straight at the single story building to the right and kicking out at the very last moment so that he literally ran up the wall. Speed and determination carried him five feet off the ground before the tug of gravity caught up, and by then Jak was high enough to reach the roof with both hands and pull himself over.

  An instant later, Jak was sprinting full speed across the low roof, his head cocked as he tracked the motorcycle by the furious sound of its engine.

  * * *

  AN EXPLOSION SHOOK the north wall. Close to the impact, Ryan, Krysty and Ricky were thrown to the ground. Thirty feet away, a weak spot had been created in the wall, and a great chunk began to topple forward, hunks of it crumbling away as a second explosion ripped through it.

  People were stationed there, professional sec men and residents just trying to defend their homes, caught up in the explosion and its aftermath. Two people died in the explosion, while three more were crushed by the wall when it toppled.

  “Wall breach!” somebody cried, and the sounds of blasterfire redoubled.

  The roar of twin-stroke engines grew louder in the aftermath of the explosion. Ryan’s head was reeling but he forced himself to move, turning to watch through the dust haze churned up by the ruined wall. Three figures appeared, riding high on their motorcycles, standing on the footrests as they bumped over the debris and into the ville.

  “Ricky, Krysty—come on,” Ryan commanded, pulling himself back to his feet. As he did so, the first of the bikers aimed his outstretched arm at the nearest sec man and blasted, unleashing a vicious burst of buckshot from the end of his limb with a cacophonous boom.

  * * *

  JAK SPRINTED across the low rooftop, following the roaring sound of the motorcycle engine. Below him, he could hear shots ringing out as the female biker blasted locals with a handblaster. The shots sounded blunt and abrupt in the tight confines of the alleys as she sped from one into the next to generate as much fear and chaos as she could, and Jak grimaced as he heard another innocent scream in agony over the growl of the throttle.

  A gap between rooftops was just ahead of him—five feet across and appearing as a patch of blackness on the moonlit roof. Jak leaped without slowing, resting one hand on the longblaster that hung across his back to stop it striking him and throwing his balance.

  He landed, then hurried across that roof, cutting the corner and leaping to the next roof and then down into the alley Painted by a narrow strip of silver moonlight eking between buildings, the alley was just four feet wide.

  Jak stood resolute, whipping around the weighty longblaster as the bike screeched around the corner, the rider’s foot stomping on the ground, tires spinning to grip the loose dirt as the vehicle turned. The bike roared forward, its rider clutching a blaster in her right hand, pressed hard against the handlebars as she steered the sharp turn at speed.

  The bike was eight feet from Jak and, that close, he could see the rider. She was young with a wide jaw and a mean smile, black hair splayed out around her as it caught the breeze She looked surprised as Jak brought up the muzzle of his weapon and began to fire. The bullets raced toward the bike in a cough of propellant, drilling through the front tire, handlebars and across the biker’s chest in an instant.

  Still firing, Jak leaped backward, driving himself flush to the wall as the bike and rider went screaming past. The bike skimmed past him, engine roaring, missing his knees and feet by a fraction of an inch. The rider was shaking atop her motorcycle, a line of dark holes running up her torso, the familiar shocked expression on her face that Jak recognized from so many gunshot victims.

  A moment later, the vehicle slapped hard against a building, overturning and throwing the rider high into the air. Jak watched the grim spectacle, training the longblaster on his target as she was thrown against the highest reaches of the building, where wall met roof. She tumbled down a moment later, her bike still revving below her, crashing into it to create a mangled mess of human and machine.

  Jak turned away, knowing his job was done. He dropped the magazine from his weapon and reloaded. Seconds later he heard laughter coming from behind him—a woman’s laughter, playful and mocking.

  * * *

  INSIDE A GARAGE located behind the baron’s buildings, two mighty war wags rumbled to life. The war wags had been converted from predark vehicles. One had been a sec van, a bulky square vehicle with reinforced walls and bulletproof glass that had once been used to transport money between banks. The other was a converted camper van, twenty-three feet in length with twin sets of wheels at the back. The camper van had been remodeled, its chassis strengthened and the exterior reclad in sheet metal leaving only the narrowest of slits through which driver and passengers could see. Both vehicles had been fitted with blaster turrets on their roofs and automatic machine gun barrels fixed in place on their hoods that could be operated from the passenger seat, as well as a few extras specific to each vehicle. The sec truck included an antitank rocket launcher poking through a gap in its back door. The war wags had been converted to run on alcofuel, which could be distilled on site, and as their engines started up they reeked with the sweet tang of alcohol, so strong it made the eyes water.

  The war wags were operated by three-or four-man crews who could work the armament as in coordination with the drivers. The crews were relentlessly drilled. Right now, the drivers were strapping themselves in while their crews took up their positions inside. Then the war wags powered ahead in a blaze of headlights, tires screeching as they exited the garage and rolled toward the ville gate.

  The sec men were ready at the flaming gates, and even as more bikes vaulted over the wall, the ville gate was drawn open and both war wags thundered out in single file, hurrying from the ville like bullets from a blaster.

  The ground itself seemed to shake as the war wags flew through the open gate. Both vehicles were heavy, granting them a top speed of just fifty miles per hour. The drivers floored the accelerators and diverged as they exited the ville walls, with the armored truck going to the right while the camper peeled off to the left. There were plenty of targets out there—a whole cluster of bikers had been circling the ville and at least fifteen of them were amassed at the main gates when the war wags emerged.

&
nbsp; The sec truck drove straight for a group of bikers who blasted shots from their light weaponry as they retreated from the approaching behemoth. One biker reacted too slowly, and both he and his bike slammed into the war wag’s grille before being tossed high over the hood.

  To the left, the six-wheeled camper van took a wider curve, rounding on the bikers, herding them closer to the ville walls to give the faster-moving vehicles less room to maneuver. Then the top cannon began to blaze, twin barrels blasting out .50 caliber bullets in silver streaks that churned up the ground and drilled holes in those bikes that didn’t weave out of the way fast enough.

  The bikers fought back, blasting at the truck with handguns and custom-built cannons that had been fixed to their bikes. A few used physical attachments that had been grafted to their bodies in place of missing limbs.

  The fight was on.

  * * *

  JAK TURNED BACK, swinging the longblaster around on its strap with both hands. The female rider was there, captured in the mangled ruin of her motorcycle, blood staining her clothes and streaming down her face. She was laughing at him, her eyes fixed on Jak’s as she stood up amid the wreckage of her vehicle, chrome and flesh torn together like some hideous nightmare.

  And then she began to run at Jak, leaping to extract herself from the ruined motorcycle, issuing that awful, throaty chuckle like a taunt.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A biker was using a machete to hack at everything and everyone he passed, wielding it low to the ground and using his bike’s speed to his advantage.

  Ryan watched as the biker hacked through the lower leg of a sec man, speeding onward but still framed in the Steyr’s crosshairs. The sec man’s right calf exploded in a splash of blood.

  Ryan inhaled, held the breath for a moment, then slowly let the breath out, squeezing the trigger on the exhale. The Steyr bucked against his shoulder, sending a single 7.62 mm bullet toward the bike’s rider. Ryan watched, his artificial eye magnifying the impact, as his bullet cut through the man’s forehead and he lost control of his bike.