by Ryder Stacy
Back in the Oval Office, Zhabnov squeezed down into the presidential chair and picked up one of the eight phones on his cluttered desk. Blue for the KGB, green for his own military hierarchy and red for the premier. But Vassily didn’t like to be bothered. He had a whole empire to rule. One just sent him boxes of charts for his staff to study. Charts and graphs showing how Zhabnov was meeting—or exceeding—goals of his five-year grain-and-corn exportation plan. That was a little difficult; the crops were subject to such sudden changes of weather here in America—that damned west wind, and the titanic twisters, as the Americans called them.
The operator’s eager voice chimed in. “Yessir, Mr. President?”
“Killov!” he said.
When Killov hung up the phone he was—he hated to admit it—impressed with Zhabnov. The fat fool had a good idea for a change and for Killov’s help he had offered a commitment to get more neutron bombs. Killov liked the idea of rapidly expanding the use of the Mind Breaker. After all, it could turn out to be the ultimate weapon that would finally give the Russians complete control. Some 120 years ago, America had had a war in Southeast Asia—the Vietnam War. The then-president of the U.S.A., Johnson, had said that in order to win that war, the United States had to win the hearts and minds of those people. They didn’t, and the United States lost a war for the first time. Now we are stuck in a war of attrition with these American rebels, Killov thought, only we have the means, thanks to the Mind Breaker, to rule the hearts and minds of every American. Send the useless overpopulation of shiftless slaves from the occupied areas out to fight Rockson and his bandits. Give them the will, the fanatical devotion to Mother Russia, to decimate their own countrymen.
The meeting was two days later. The customary tour of the Rose Garden led by Zhabnov, with all the scientists, technicians and military and KGB top hats, infuriated Killov as a waste of time. But once inside the White House meeting room, they quickly got down to business. Zhabnov’s top scientists showed charts in front of the long conference table, charts that detailed the ever-growing research and experimentation results of the Mind Breaker machines. Killov proudly stated that a fortress city of the Americans had been decimated by neutron bombs, when one of their Freefighters was captured—his mind had been probed and the information had been obtained instantly. That man, Preston, hadn’t survived the ordeal for more than a few hours. However, later prisoners and experimental subjects did survive attempts to make them loyal to their Russian masters. Two months ago, they had only achieved a twenty-four percent success rate, but now American slaves could be programmed with simple loving devotion to Mother Russia—or dogs, bananas, anything—with a forty-seven percent success. The programming was permanent as all memories of being an American were burned out of their cortex with the burning laser needle probes.
A woman captive was paraded before the assembled chamber. A very attractive woman of about thirty. She was told to turn slowly about. She was naked. It was unmistakable that she was one of the star-patterned American Free Women who had defied mental re-education by other means. Yet here she was, obeying every command of the scientist, Melnitsky, who had programmed her. He asked her a few questions.
“Who are you?”
“Georgina Zhukov, proud soldier of the Soviet Occupation Forces.” Her full, melon-shaped breasts, with pointed nipples, bounced slightly as she continued to turn. Her strong legs were tan and supple, meeting in a light blond bush at the top of the thighs. There were murmurs of pleasure.
“And what do you think of the American Freefighters?” She looked suddenly angry, her face reddening. “They should be strung up, butchered, fed to dogs.”
“What would you do to achieve this?”
“I would give my life for Mother Russia,” she replied, giving the clenched-fist salute of the Blackshirts. Killov now stood up and the room hushed. His cold, calculating look as he circled the naked woman brought a chill coursing up Zhabnov’s spine. The man was so thin and gaunt, his face so pale, those eyes staring unblinking. Killov’s tight black uniform with the red death’s-head gleamed in the ceiling chandelier’s many lights—a calculated controlling presence.
Killov walked directly in front of the American female and stared at her from about six inches. “Would you kill the Ultimate American? Would you kill Ted Rockson?” The woman began to respond, “Yes,” but then she blinked, seemed to jerk, swallowed hard and stared forward, saying nothing. A strange series of expressions marked her face, her lips parted and she vomited all over the charts around her. She grimaced painfully, foaming a green bile at the mouth, whispered, “Never” and collapsed like a stone onto the floor. She was dead.
Zhabnov stood up, enraged. “Killov, what was that about? Why have you disgraced these proceedings?”
“I have merely demonstrated, Mr. President, that the Mind Breaker has its limits at present. Limits that my staff of technicians—” he proffered a palm toward his side of the table—“will remedy. Your scientists are good, of course, Mr. President, but they haven’t been able to totally submerge the will of these Free Americans. This obsession they have with Ted Rockson permeates their very being. It requires a KGB approach. We have the resources and the equipment in Denver to go beyond this mere fascination with Mother Russia your scientists have so far accomplished. The test is whether or not these Americans can forget their superstitious belief in this Rockson. He is the key.”
Zhabnov looked around the table, saw general acquiescence to Killov’s words even from his own forces and decided to seem gracious in his defeat. “Ah, Killov, I see what you mean. By all means I will instruct my staff to cooperate with the KGB in this matter.” He turned to his audience, radiating benign rulership. It had done the trick, no one could say that he was not cooperative. They applauded, as a matter of fact. Killov too.
Later, Zhabnov sat at his desk almost gnawing his knuckles in anger. He would have to have the scientist that prepared that little embarrassing demonstration executed. Imagine bringing their defective work—that American girl—and then letting Killov ruin their display, making Zhabnov look stupid. It was a humiliating defeat by Killov. They would all talk.
He tapped his finger by the white phone. He really shouldn’t execute his top scientist, he really shouldn’t. He decided! Politics takes precedence over a man’s utility. Order in the ranks must be preserved. People under Zhabnov must know what failure meant, otherwise . . . He picked up the executioner’s phone and ordered the arrest of Melnitsky and his family and their immediate execution.
Thirteen
Century City was low on meat. Several hunting expeditions were called together to go out to the wild country to the west and bring back deer, elk, even bear for the freezers of the butchering rooms. Rockson and the toughest woman in the Civilian Brigade didn’t have to be in one of the hunting parties, but Rock loved the hunt, as did Rona. Besides, he needed some non-combat time, some R&R. He had fond memories of the wild, craggy land to the west of Century City, from his survival trek at the age of sixteen from Tremain, Utah, the city he had lived in after the murder of his parents by a Red Death Squad. Tremain had been destroyed like Westfort—only with poison gas. As a child he’d had only the legend of Century City to go on when he began his solitary march without food or water, with just a rusting .45 pistol—pre-cataclysm—to find it. The going had been unspeakably harsh the first few weeks out of Tremain. The little water he had found was only through cutting the bases of cactus and sucking out moisture. He had been growing weaker, and then, then he had come to the western portion of the great hunting land of Western Colorado. A low-rad area resplendent with snow-capped peaks, salmon rivers, wild grizzly bears, tall pine trees such as he had never seen before, with flaky red bark—under which was a juicy, edible sap. The forests contained all sorts of edible plants and berries, cattails, wild maize, clover, mutant pegamen-mint. How he had gorged himself, then used a round to bring down an elk that strolled to within forty feet of him. What was that phrase? “Where the deer and the
antelope play”—that was it. The Range—that’s what the Freefighters called the rich woods, in memory of the song. Here were beaver and caribou and possum and raccoon. Here was life.
Rona and Rock loaded up eight pack hybrids and provisions and sacks to preserve and protect meat and set out along the forested west entrance to Century City. They had two 30-30 superscope rifles and boxes of ammunition, plus their standard side arms and Liberators, just in case. Rona rode ahead of Rock, joyous to be with the man she loved. Pines were abundant, and chipmunks darted about the feet of the horses, playing games of derring-do.
After several miles, the trail passed directly under a waterfall that protected a large ledge, which spray bounced off, giving the riders below a misty shower. Under the waterfall was a cave filled with Indian drawings, scratched into the dark rock with phosphorescent paints that depicted other hunters in other times—glowing reminders that the Freefighters weren’t the only survivors out here. There were the Indians. The elusive, seldom-seen Indians. They had always owned the wild. They still did. Occasionally the Freefighters would find one of their dead, wrapped in ceremonial beads, high atop one of their burial platforms in the mountains. Smelling abominable, pecked at by birds, that’s the way the Indians wanted their dead—given back to the environment. To the birds of prey went their flesh and blood, to be eaten, to soar up to the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit that helped all men survive told them to wait. To wait until the Russians died as they inevitably would because of their hatred of nature and all things natural.
The Indians occasionally picked off a straggling Red soldier, plunging arrows deep into a Red neck or chest. Indian war cries would echo through the wilderness while the Russians hit the leaves in fear. But they were will-o’-the-wisp, and as swiftly as they came, they were gone again. The Freefighters had great respect for the Indians. The Indians had been defeated but had never surrendered. Rona pointed out the different paintings on the outside rocks as they passed, the echoes of the unshod pack horses making a cacophany of rhythms in the underpass. They came out of that wonderful dark chamber beneath the waterfall cool and damp and headed back into the brilliant sun. A hawk was circling slowly overhead. Perhaps some Indian was “buried in the sky” nearby. Perhaps it was just catching the winds, soaring on rising currents of cool mountain air. The birds in the thick ponderosas started a trilling song of twit-ooo. Those would be the high sparrows. He knew their plaintive cries well. They were like a clock always calling an hour and a half before sunset. Some called them the clockbirds. Some said they were the spirits of the dead Indians. Their hollow, throaty calls penetrated one’s soul, made one think of profound things like mortality and joy.
Why did the Russians destroy so much of this bounteous world? Were they so fearful, so cowardly that they had to lash out in their fear? Rockson had heard it said that the U.S.A. back before the strike was fearful and materialistic too. Rock could hardly grant that credibility. It was said by some historians that both sides hadn’t negotiated fairly. Both had wanted that “edge” over the other. And so it had happened. But the inescapable culpability was with the Reds. For despite the fact that the negotiations had bogged down, the United States hadn’t launched. They hadn’t plunged the world into a radioactive nightmare that only now, a century later, was beginning to repair itself. Only now were mothers welcoming a new birth—not fearing the hideous, mutated fetuses that had had to be hacked to death in the early years to end their screaming cries upon entering the world. Rockson know of such births from his high-rad childhood. He had seen the faces and bodies of these infants of the atomic age. His own brother had been one—and he had watched as his father lit the funeral pyre that cremated the little two-headed, clawed corpse.
Rock shuddered. Such thoughts were not for sunny days in the mountains with a beautiful woman. But he couldn’t forget his childhood, couldn’t forget how far mankind had slipped back. The Russians in their respirators, behind their lead-impregnated glass windows in their fortress cities, the mutations, the radiation soot, the acid storms, the dead zones, the brutal occupation—all couldn’t be forgotten. His mind must stay aware of the truth at all times, for the next fire fight, and the next—until America was free. And women fighters like Rona. They were not to be wed. The love they shared could only be fleeting, momentary. The next minute might bring loss, separation, horror. Best to live and love day by dangerous day.
The look on Rona’s face as her horse pulled alongside Rock’s bespoke her concern. “Rock, what are you thinking? Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, forcing a smile. Then it became natural as her warm eyes softened the hardness around him. He suggested that, as they had made good time, they stop in the cliff overhangs just to the left of the trail up ahead. There would not be such good shelter on the steeper trail an hour ahead. And there were the Russian drones to consider.
“Oh, I agree,” she said, winking. “And we can make love all the sooner.” Soon they were encamped and watching the green-tinted sunset.
Their lips met, opened. Her lips were soft as petals and full. Tenderly he pulled down her blouse to expose her firm, upturned breasts and cream-colored aureoles—a common mutation in this area. He cupped her smooth globes in his hands, then his fingers searched lower. She helped him, slithering nimbly out of her hiking pants. She pressed her hot nakedness against him, trembling, moaning softly. She reached down and grasped his hardness, so thick and powerful that she gasped. She was ready. He rolled on top of her, spreading her strong, long legs. He probed her lightly with his hardness and then sank in fully. Around them the nightingales sang out their love song and the glowbirds twittered and fluttered amber as the Freefighters’ lovemaking intensified.
They slept well and secure that night and awoke to a brilliant sunrise tinted orange. Overhead the stars were still visible in the thin air for a while, then faded as the dark orange sun rose higher, turned pink, then a glaring, brilliant white. They held each other in their sleeping bags, then rose, packed their trail gear and headed on.
The going was rougher after a few hours. The tangle of brush yielded less and less to their machetes and the slope became steeper. Rockson tried to get a compass reading but the needle squiggled around in its casing as if searching madly for true north. Magnetic interference. He squinted in the direction they were going, saw what looked like an impassable butte ahead—a sheer rock wall of perhaps four thousand feet—and took out the Shecter light binoculars. He swung the lenses slowly in a half circle and discovered a huge vertical crack in the apparently-solid facade of the cliff ahead.
“We can keep going this way, for now, anyway. There’s a fissure on that rock wall—we can use it to ascend the peak, practically like a ladder.” She took the binoculars and looked. She handed them back again, frowning.
“A ladder for a mountain goat—but I’ll help you if you stumble.” Laughing, she rode ahead, taking the lead. Halfway up the hill at the base of the mountain, there was a roaring stream. He caught up to her as she was forging it, grabbed her belt loops from atop his hybrid and pulled her down into the foaming water. They rolled about, splashing and laughing like children. She looked at him with wide-open eyes. He was so open now. His face more relaxed than she had ever seen it. Oh God, why couldn’t they be in a world together where there were no Russians, no death. So the two of them could always be together in happiness. The air in the mountains was so dry that soon their outfits were dry and together they began the ascent up the escarpment, via the jagged fissure.
“This formation has shifted recently,” Rock said, looking uneasily at the chipped fresh rock revealed before him. He ran his fingers over it. “Granite with mica—good old American rock. Igneous extrusion.”
“I’m impressed, Mr. Geologist,” Rona said with a smirk as big as the sky. “Now let’s get climbing. Last one to the top buys the beers at the next diner.”
Of course there were no diners—or anything else out this way. Diners, they knew, were places the old Americans us
ed to stop their vehicles at along the highways that once connected every part of the U.S.A. Curious metal structures like the old railroad cars. The people would sit on rotating stools or in booths with a big picture window and eat something called hamburger, which was ground meat of buffalo. Perhaps the buffalo were tastier back in the twentieth century, Rock thought, as the hybrids began stumbling slightly as the slope steepened. Nowadays, buffalo were hardly palatable. Rockson had seen the rusted-out carcass of a diner once—on the way to Century City, during his long trek from Tremain. He quickly shifted his thoughts. The day felt too good, Rona looked too beautiful to bring it all up again.
They ascended slowly, carefully. They needed these heights to re-plot their position since the compass was all but useless in these magnetic hills. The view from the top was breath-taking. They were a little to the north of where Rock expected—explaining the unfamiliarity of the place. To the south was the familiar Kennedy Glacier. It was blue-white with streaks of pink running through it like veins. There were billowing clouds of steam where it abruptly ended—hot springs. The Roosevelt Hot Springs they were called. Usually they were controlled, predictably boiling up—with many different temperature pools to soothe weary travelers in mineral-salted baths. But sometimes, in the periods of new and full moons, it was believed, their nature changed violently. They became gushing geysers of deadly boiling rock magma, lighting up the night for miles in a spectacular display of nature’s fireworks. Rock hoped for their sakes that the springs would be pleasantly lukewarm.
He saw a way to breach the mountainside to the south—a way for the pack horses to easily move on. And he saw something else, as he peered through the binoculars: grizzlies, the prize they had come for—bear meat, savory bear meat for the kitchens of Century City. And the pelts which would be turned into winter coats capable of withstanding the most frigid temperatures. They were out there, tearing about. Dimly he could hear their roars. A group of ten or twelve, at least, in the next verdant valley. Ten feet tall when they stood up and mean as a sackful of rattlers. Rock watched them frolic through his binoculars—if tearing apart trees was frolicking—looking for honey, no doubt, or tree termites. They clawed away at rotting trunks, literally tearing the wood apart, growling, sticking their long tongues into the cracks in pursuit of a snack. But those bears wouldn’t mind a little human meat. And they could smell you a mile away when you were upwind. Fortunately the wind was blowing the opposite direction. Rona reached over and grabbed the binoculars from Rock, and stared out into the next valley.
