End Program

by James Axler

  “Okay, change of plans, people,” J.B. said, hefting the newly acquired, mirror-finished blaster in one hand. “Let’s retrieve our weapons and get Ryan into surgery. Mildred, you’re up.”

  Mildred did a double take. “I’m what?” she asked J.B.

  “Somebody’s got to get that eye out of Ryan’s skull,” J.B. said as the companions hurried across the lobby and out of the building. “You just got volunteered.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “I can’t remove a man’s eye, J.B.,” Mildred insisted as the companions moved stealthily down the open streets of Progress, keeping to the shadows between buildings. “Not even an artificial one.”

  “Why not?” J.B. challenged as he and Krysty carried Ryan’s deadweight between them. “You’re a doctor.”

  “I’m a doctor, but what you’re asking for is a specialist operation,” Mildred told him. “I’m not qualified to—”

  “No one is qualified anymore, Mildred, my dear,” Doc interrupted wistfully.

  Mildred shot the old man a withering look. “Still, I can’t do it,” she insisted.

  While Ricky and Jak checked up ahead, J.B. turned back and fixed Mildred with a hard stare. “I can fieldstrip a blaster, Jak here can throw a knife that’ll pierce a man’s heart and Krysty can take on the power of a titan.. But none of those abilities can get Ryan through this. Yours can.”

  “J.B., you know I’m not a surgeon and that my skills in that area are limited,” Mildred said.

  At that moment, Ricky and Jak used frenzied hand signals to indicate it was safe to step out from the shadows and get across the street, so long as they moved quickly. The companions moved in single file, hurrying to the protection of the next building where they hoped to not be seen. Behind them, back at the building that housed the council room, several sec men were beginning to congregate after the attack in the elevator.

  “You said it yourself,” J.B. told Mildred as the other companions slipped through an open side door of the building. “That we didn’t let go of one of our own. That Ryan had done everything he could to keep each one of us safe. And now it’s our turn to help him.”

  Mildred shook her head uncertainly as she disappeared through the door. “I don’t know, J.B.. If I could ever do this, it would take years of practice and mentoring.”

  “Two things we don’t have,” J.B. told her, struggling to get Ryan over the two steps that led into the door.

  Krysty turned pleading eyes on Mildred as she helped lift Ryan over the steps and up into the building. “What would you need, Mildred, to perform the operation?”

  Mildred shook her head, started to say something, stopped, started again. “Surgery requires a sterile environment. And I can’t be interrupted.”

  “They got sterile rooms here,” J.B. recalled. “We get our blasters back and we can protect you while you get this sucker out of Ryan’s head.”

  “Our blasters?” Mildred looked at the Armorer. “Are you planning on starting a war with these people?”

  “We’re already in a war,” J.B. replied. “This thing—this virus—it’s been put inside Ryan and those bikers, mebbe others too. It’s reprogramming human minds to chill people wherever it finds them.”

  “Like soldiers in a war,” Doc muttered, shaking his head.

  “You figure how to get the evil eye out safely,” J.B. told Mildred. “The rest we can figure as we go along.”

  Mildred shook her head with resignation. “Why do I get the feeling I’ve just been buffaloed?” she said. “This is every neighbor’s barbecue I ever attended, I swear. As soon as people hear you’re a doctor, they start asking you to look at their aches and rashes for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing,” Krysty told Mildred. “Ryan’s already paid, well in advance and well above the going rate.”

  “Yeah,” Mildred agreed, looking back at their unconscious friend. “Yeah, I know he has.”

  * * *

  THEY FOLLOWED THE corridors until they found the storeroom where their weapons had been placed. There were few people in the building, and it proved easy enough to avoid them or bluff their way through. Progress had proved to be an open and friendly place the last time the companions had visited, and there was no reason to suspect that anyone outside that council chamber would realize that they had a whole nest of vipers loose in their midst.

  While Krysty and Mildred ushered Ryan toward the operating rooms in the lower level of the building, J.B., Doc, Jak and Ricky went to the storeroom to gather their weapons.

  The room had been left unlocked and unguarded.

  “Trusting souls, aren’t they?” J.B. observed as he pulled open the door.

  J.B. snatched up his satchel and his weapons, setting aside the blaster he had acquired from the Progress sec man. The others did likewise.

  Once they were all rearmed, J.B. instructed the group on what they would do next. “Jak, I want you and Ricky to take Mildred’s and Krysty’s weapons back to them. I’ll keep hold of Ryan’s,” he said. “Doc, you and me are going to find out what we can about this setup.”

  Doc shook his head in sheer astonishment as Jak and Ricky departed. “You do know that you are asking the impossible from Mildred, do you not?” he said.

  “The impossible’s only the impossible until someone proves different,” J.B. said. “Have a little faith, Doc. Millie won’t let us down.”

  * * *

  JAK AND RICKY dashed through the white-walled complex until they reached the lower level where the operating rooms were located. There were a few locals down there but, like the rest of the ville, it was underpopulated and had an empty and almost sterile feel to it.

  Jak tried the nearest door, but as he did so he heard a hissed whisper call to him from along the corridor. It was Krysty, standing in the recess of a doorway. She wore a surgical mask tied around her neck, pulled down from her face, and when Ricky and Jak reached her she explained that Mildred was already prepping Ryan for surgery.

  “I brought your blasters,” Ricky said, handing Krysty her Smith & Wesson .38 along with Mildred’s ZKR 551 target pistol.

  Jak twitched nervously, spinning to face the far end of the white-walled corridor.

  “Jak?” Krysty prompted.

  “Trouble coming,” Jak whispered. “Look.”

  At the far end of the corridor, four robed figures appeared, electrified batons strapped to their belts. It was immediately clear that they were the local equivalent of sec men and they seemed to be checking the corridor and the ones that bled off it, possibly searching for something.

  “They’re after us,” Ricky said. “They must have found out what we did in the elevator.”

  “Stay back,” Krysty whispered, her emerald eyes fixed on the sec men. Maybe—just maybe—they would pass without checking the operating room.

  Everyone hunkered back into the recessed door, watching tensely as the four sec men trudged down the length of the corridor. Although they appeared casual, they were checking every room, trying the doors to confirm those that should be locked were locked, peeking in the reinforced windows that looked into the operating rooms behind. As soon as they saw the companions the jig would be up

  Then, Ricky stepped out from the shadowy recess with a determined stride. He drew his blaster, the long-barreled Webley Mk VI, from its hip holster, before the sec men spotted him.

  “Yeehaw! Come on, muchachos!” Ricky shouted, blasting a shot into the ceiling. “We’re having a party!”

  Even before the last words had exited his mouth, Ricky turned and ran down the corridor in the opposite direction from the sec men. A split second later, Jak slipped out from the cover of the shadows and chased after his friend.

  “Plan?” Jak asked, sprinting after Ricky.

  “Distract them,” Ricky replied, “and
give Mildred a chance to do the op.”

  Jak nodded, gesturing to a break in the white-walled corridor and urging Ricky to turn left. Behind them, the white-clad sec men took the bait, hurrying after Ricky and Jak, drawing their batons and calling for them to halt. Twelve inches in length, the white batons were held in hip slings, and they sparked with electricity as they were drawn.

  Krysty watched the men whip past from her hiding place, and she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Checking the corridor once more to confirm that no more sec men were coming, she ducked back into the operating room.

  Mildred paused and looked up as Krysty walked in. Ryan laid spread out on the gurney, tied down by the two straps across his body with dressings over his face to frame the artificial eye. Mildred had a scalpel poised deathly close to Ryan’s face.

  “What is it?” she asked, the scalpel catching the overhead light. “I heard a shot.”

  Krysty wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of antiseptic that now dominated the room. “There were four sec men out there, but they’ve gone after Ricky and Jak.”

  “Will they be okay?” Mildred asked, retrieving her weapons from Krysty.

  “Gaia, I hope so,” Krysty said.

  As she spoke, the doorknob to the operating room rattled and then the door swung open, revealing the fourth sec man—clean shaved with blond hair and long sideburns—holding one of the shock batons. The man looked surprised when he saw Krysty standing just a few feet from him, the surgical mask now drawn up over the bottom half of her face.

  * * *

  JAK AND RICKY raced down the next corridor, the footfalls of their pursuers loud to their ears. As they reached a T-junction, Jak peered back over his shoulder to judge how far away the sec men were. Three had followed but the fourth had to have turned back.

  Dammit! Jak thought.

  * * *

  IN THE OPERATING room, Krysty and Mildred found themselves suddenly face-to-face with the blond-haired sec man who had doubled back. The man’s brows arched in surprise as he saw Krysty’s emerald eyes staring at him from above the line of the surgical mask.

  Krysty didn’t hesitate. She drew her Smith & Wesson .38 in a single move, firing from the hip and sending a lead slug straight into the man’s belly. The sec man doubled over with the impact, clutching at his guts with one hand as he stumbled backward, the baton sparking like lightning in his other hand.

  Raising her blaster, Krysty took a step toward him and fired, sending a second bullet into his chest.

  “Krysty!” Mildred bellowed. “We need to keep this area real clean. I can’t have blood flying around.”

  The sec man sank to the floor, dragging a tray of metal implements down with him, but he was struggling to get up. Krysty fired again, delivering a .38 bullet right between his eyes.

  “Clear!” Krysty called back, nodding at her handiwork. For now, anyway, she mentally added.

  At the surgical table, Mildred began her painstaking work while Krysty found a cart and wedged it before the door. No more surprises, she thought.

  * * *

  RICKY AND JAK frequently checked behind them to be certain that their pursuers had not lost sight of them. If those pursuers should lose them, they might head back to the operating rooms where they would discover Mildred performing her desperate operation to remove Ryan’s artificial eye.

  Up ahead, the corridor came to a dead end, but Ricky kept running, ignoring any of the bisecting corridors.

  “Where go now?” Jak asked as they trotted toward the waste bin at the end of the corridor.

  “Do you want to know the secret of a good prank, amigo?” Ricky asked cheerfully. “It’s when you make your victim think he has a chance. Trust me.” Ricky had played a lot of pranks on his family and friends back when he had been on Monster Island. Out here with Ryan’s crew, such opportunities were infrequent and he clearly reveled in this chance to have some fun, ignoring the inherent dangers of the situation.

  Fifteen feet away, the three sec men were running toward them, batons drawn, the crackle of electricity sparking in the air.

  “Stop where you are,” the lead sec man called, thrusting his baton out before him. A lance of electricity flew from the baton, arcing through the air in a lightning streak.

  Jak ducked, and the blast missed his head by six inches, leaving a dark, smoldering patch on the blank wall behind him.

  “Prank’s over,” Jak hissed, raising his Colt Python and blasting a bullet at the lead sec man.

  The sec man seemed to watch the bullet as it raced toward him, drawing the baton across him with a sweep of his arm. A trail of blue-white static flickered in the air like stars on the night sky, and the bullet exploded as it touched them, melted shards clattering to the floor.

  Ricky shook his head, grabbing Jak by the arm. “Prank’s not over yet,” he insisted, and he bolted to the right.

  Jak followed, pulled along by Ricky’s grasp. The youth had his escape route all figured out. As the sec men had advanced toward them, Ricky had spied the doorway in the side wall, just three steps ahead. In a swift movement he had the door open and was rushing inside, even as another crackle of electricity lit the corridor behind him.

  They were in a storeroom, in reality little more than a cupboard.

  Jak looked around, slamming the door behind him. “What now?” he asked.

  “Window,” Ricky said, gesturing to a small, boxy window on the far wall of the room.

  Jak nodded as Ricky ran to the window and started working the catch. Located in the gap where two shelves met in the room’s corner, the window was obscured and easy to miss. Jak had not been here before but Ricky clearly had. He had spent enough time in Progress to go off on his own and map the parts he visited.

  As if reading his thoughts, Ricky turned back and smiled. “I came here a few times to get some privacy,” he explained. “I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw the corridor again. Lucky, huh?”

  Jak nodded grimly, turning back to the door, his Colt Python poised in a two-handed grip. He looked for a lock, saw none, improvised by shoving a heavy box from one of the shelves so it landed before the door. Behind him, Ricky worked the catch on the window, forcing it open as wide as it would go.

  The window was just wide enough for Ricky to squeeze through and, since the storeroom and operating room were in a semibasement, the window opened out at ground level.

  As Ricky disappeared, something crashed against the door of the storeroom. Jak kicked out at a shelving unit, pushing his shoulder against it to start it rocking. Then he turned and wriggled his shoulders through the window as, behind him, the shelving unit toppled over, spreading its contents across the room.

  The window had been tight for Ricky, but it wasn’t as bad for Jak. Behind him, the door crashed open, stopping abruptly as it struck the fallen box and the toppled shelving unit that now lay teetering on top of it. It left an open four-inch gap between door and frame. A sec man’s face appeared in the gap, snarling when he realized his path was blocked. He pulled back.

  Jak clambered through the tight gap of the window, wriggling. As his feet slipped out, the door behind him was shoved wider and the shelf screeched across the floor. The sec men were inside a moment later, slipping between the gap—now a little wider than a foot—and into the messed-up storeroom.

  As Jak cleared the window, Ricky leaned down and poked his head through it, grinning as he peered inside.

  “Too slow, lazy boys,” he taunted. “You’ve got to move fast if you want to stay in this game. Let’s go!”

  He whipped back from the window as one of the electrified batons swung toward his head.

  * * *

  SCALPEL IN HAND, Mildred leaned over Ryan, trying to relax. Her breathing was rushing, her heart drumming hard against her chest.

  Ryan’s e
ye was open, the artificial lens staring at Mildred, a cold, red light gleaming somewhere deep within the pupil.

  Watching from the end of the gurney, Krysty held her breath as Mildred held the bottom of the eye down and pushed the scalpel blade slowly along that lower curve, making the first incision following the line of the eye. There was no effort to her movements, no force exerted. The scalpel blade was so sharp she didn’t need to push to make it cut.

  Ryan lay in silent oblivion, unaware of the operation.

  * * *

  JAK AND RICKY RAN, the younger lad confidently leading the way.

  Through the window, across the pavement and into the next building. This building was taller, roughly three stories with a sloping roof in a perfect semicircular arc and a line of windows very high up its otherwise blank facade. Ricky scrambled toward a door located by the north corner, jiggled the lock and slipped inside. Jak followed, checking the empty, nighttime street behind them for any sign of their pursuers.

  “They won’t be able to get through that window,” Ricky assured him, “but they’ll be able to see where we went and they’ll probably follow soon enough. By then, we’ll be long gone. Then we can double back and meet with the others.”

  Jak nodded, not liking the plan.

  The interior of the building was gloomy and it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust. While they did, Jak’s other senses were working to compensate—the smell of oil and burning solder played in his nostrils, the sound of metal scraping against metal. He was trying to recall the map he had made in his head when he had explored Progress a week before, but coming out through the storeroom window had got him all turned around. Something nagged at him though, some old danger sense.

  “Where we?” he asked quietly, straining his eyes in the gloom.

  “Storage hangar,” Ricky told him confidently.

  They walked ahead, letting the door slam shut behind them. The door echoed like a slamming coffin lid. The hangar was dark and sounded lifeless, apart that was from that eerie scraping of metal against metal. There was another sound too, like chains clashing as though swaying in the wind; heavy chains.