by Ryder Stacy
“Now, here on this viewer, Mr. President,” Myovsky said, pointing to a large video screen, “you will be able to see the attack just as the pilots see it from the air. A camera has been mounted in the nose of one of the jets carrying the bomb.”
“Wonderful,” Zhabnov said. “How innovative of you, Myovsky.” He’d have to remember this man. Myovsky, smiling broadly, turned the viewer on and an image of the landscape from ten thousand feet burst onto the screen. Zhabnov watched in fascination as the rolling hills, the mosaics of fields, of green and then black, passed the watchful eye of the camera. The jets found their target and dived, the angle of the camera banking sharply to the right. Zhabnov saw the bombs fall and then the camera turned sharply away as the jets tore ass.
In Union City, one of the largest Free Cities, the shotgun-pistol factories were chugging away, as over sixty thousand people went about their daily business. Suddenly the air-raid sirens went off. The women and children hit the shelters as the men ran to their anti-aircraft stations. They had never been attacked before but they were prepared. They hit one of the jets, but then two more dropped gleaming bombs. How large they wouldn’t know until . . .
Blinding light, vaporization, atoms in acceleration stripped down to their mesotrons. Then nothing. Nothing at all. No city, no life, no survivors. And more radiation filling the poisoned skies.
Zhabnov watched the bombs falling. The screen suddenly burst into blinding white overexposure. He threw his hands over his eyes, cursing. Frantic aids came running with cold compresses as a doctor was called from the security station. Myovsky stood as white as a ghost several feet away.
“Mr. President, I-I had no idea it would be so bright. I—”
“Fool!” Zhabnov shouted, seeing a bright red dot in front of each eye. The doctor came rushing in and quickly examined Zhabnov.
“It should be all right, Mr. President. Radiation can’t pass through a television screen. Still, perhaps you should come into the hospital for some tests.”
Zhabnov stamped out, furious, his hands over his eyes. Myovsky stared, frozen, at the departing president. He wondered if he would survive the next twenty-four hours.
Thirty-Six
The Freefighters marched wearily on. The memory of the costly encounter with the Reds was still fresh in their minds, the wounds were still fresh on their bodies. Most of the men were back in form from the attack, except Perkins whose lung didn’t seem to be healing well at all. He coughed a lot and tried to feign health. But his ghastly pallor and extreme fatigue were too obvious to ignore. Lang, too, was having problems from his burnt leg resulting from the fiery crash of the drone. It had seemed to be healing at first but now, on the fifth day, the leg was showing signs of deep infection, turning a ghastly purple color. Slade had done everything he could for the badly hurt men. Now it was up to God. They couldn’t turn back, so Rock moved forward, the injuries weighing heavily on his mind.
They passed more of the forty foot towers every few miles, the structures mysterious and haunting and totally inexplicable. The ground grew increasingly dark, moving from gray to charcoal black. Nothing lived here. Not a weed. Not a thorny cactus. Not a bird flew overhead. The place was what had been called in the old days overkilled.
“Must have dropped ten or twenty of the big boys right in this one area,” Detroit said, riding up alongside Rockson, “to make it so black like this. Not that I have anything against the color black,” Detroit said, smirking. “It’s just that I think it’s a better color for skin than dirt.”
“I doubt anything will ever grow here again,” Rock said, shaking his head in disgust. “The very atoms of the ground look like they’ve been burnt.” He took a counter reading. The rads were rising rapidly. Rock stopped the force.
“Men, it’s getting super hot in this dirt here. Goddamn needle’s off the meter. We’ll have to suit up in Shecter’s anti-rad outfits, and this time let’s put those leadsynth shields around the hybrids’ hoofs.” They attached the odd-looking, hoof-shaped shoes that Shecter had created for the ’brids when it became too radioactive even for them. The men tied the shiny coverings around their ’brids’ feet and then donned their own lightweight suits. They remounted, taking out their gamma-reflector blankets and wrapped themselves in the silver-foil plastic. Not bad, Rock thought, as they rode forward. He already felt cooler as the blanket reflected the sun’s blistering rays as well as the rads from below.
They rode for hours in single file, the hybrids keeping up a slow, plodding pace. Even their powerful bodies were beginning to tire from the endless journey. And they had seen the deaths of their fellow ’brids. Heard their death screams. It didn’t set well in them at all. They knew that something terrible had happened and now felt a trembling anxiety inside their dim animal minds that something even more horrendous was about to occur. The men sensed the skittishness of the ’brids and treated them with kid gloves, speaking quietly and hardly using the reins at all.
Rock knew they couldn’t go on much longer like this. But there wasn’t a drop of shade or cover in sight. They were down to extremely low water rations as it was. He scanned the horizon with his binoculars. Black, black, gnarled twisted terrain as if the moon had fallen onto the earth.
“Wait!” Rock threw his arm up. The Freefighters pulled in on their reins as the hybrids came to a slightly confused stop. Rock focused the binocs in on some—what was it? It appeared to be some sort of bunker house about two miles off. The expedition veered to the left and made for the artificial structure. Rock’s senses went on full alert, his ears picking up, his eyes narrowing. He felt something ahead. Very close. He loosened his shotgun pistol in its holster, not taking it out but leaving his hand resting lightly on top. Detroit, directly behind Rock, recognized the motion from years of missions with Rockson and loosened his own gun, looking reflexively at his grenade belt to see what was readly available.
There was a flurry of motion just ahead of them. A hatch seemed to open out of the very earth; a round segment of blackness falling open. A small, totally bald humanoid-looking creature jumped in front of them, holding a weapon.
“Stop! I command you to cease motion,” the pasty-faced, midget-sized man yelled out in a squeaky voice.
“What the . . . ?” Detroit exclaimed, going for his .45. The strange man, dressed in a white lab coat, now stained and gray, his head as smooth and shiny as an egg, raised his weapon to chest height and fired. A broad black beam shot from the pistol and instantaneously enveloped Detroit and his reddish colored brid. The hybrid fell over onto its side as if dead and Detroit rolled off as the ’brid hit the ground in a motionless heap. The other Freefighters reached for their pistols.
“Wait!” Rock threw his hands in the air. “We are friends,” he yelled down at the little man who again raised his weapon which Rock realized was similar to the particle beam Brady had brought back. “We are Americans like you. One of our men found one of your people about a month ago. He was hurt pretty bad and—”
“Vorn? The quantity you speak of,” the bald-headed creature asked, “was that his designation? Vorn?”
“Yes, I think that’s what Brady said,” Rock answered, trying to remember the details of Brady’s tale. He glanced over at Detroit, who seemed to be stirring slightly and then immediately back at the pint-sized stranger who grew nervous and fingered his weapon. “Yes, Vorn!” Rock said firmly. “He told my man he’d been attacked and then died. He gave our first expedition his weapon. A particle-beam disintegrator. We’ve come nearly a thousand miles to find you and to have you share what knowledge you have of such weapons with us so we can kick the goddamned Russians out of America,” Rock said in one long breath, wanting the creature to hear their story before it started firing again. It seemed extremely agitated, trembling bug-eyed as it listened to them suspiciously.
The Technician lowered his pistol slowly until it was pointing at the ground. “Americans,” it muttered to itself. “We are Americans, yes. We . . .” it tried to remembe
r just who it was and why. “We are the Technicians,” it said suddenly, looking up at Rockson, who sat still on his hybrid, not wanting to frighten the man. He glanced around at the Freefighters and motioned with his eyes to move their hands away from their pistols, which they reluctantly did. Detroit groaned and sat up, rubbing his head. The hybrid, too, shook its hind legs and tried to rise. Whatever level of force the Technician had fired with had been extremely low. The creature continued, “We are, were descended from the original crews that manned these silos.” It swept its arm across the nearly flat plain around them. Small, circular grooves could be seen everywhere. It had been a missile base—and a big one. “A number of ten megaton Soviet missiles hit this area, turning it into . . . this.” It looked around at the black nothingness.
“I’ve seen,” Rock said dryly. He let his hands fall back to the saddle. The little man looked up again, its eyes suddenly bright as if taking in Rockson and his band for the first time.
“Americans. Yes, we are all Americans. Come, please, all of you must subtract yourselves from your riding animals and accompany me. Down—into the silos. I am Ullman.” It raised itself up to the height of its three-and-a-half foot tall shoulders and looked at them through nervous eyes. “It is much more comfortable down there, although, I’m afraid we can’t provide sustenance.”
“Sustenance?” Rock asked, looking over at Slade, who as well as being the expedition’s doctor had been chosen for his abilities as a linguist.
“I think he means food, Rock,” Slade said.
“Well, then, please share some of ours,” Rock said, pointing to the pack ’brids. “We shot three boar several days ago and have enough for a feast. If you have water.”
The creature’s eyes lit up wildly at the mention of food. “Yes, water.” It smiled weakly. “Follow me!” It led them forward down a slowly sloping ramp hidden from view by the black, sooty ground until they were right on top of it. At the bottom stood a corrugated steel door. The creature pressed a button barely a quarter inch in diameter, built specially for its long, narrow fingers, and the rigid gate raised itself, silently disappearing into the cement ceiling. They entered, single-file, down the four foot wide and about eight foot high cinder-block tunnel, the ’brids’ big bodies barely able to squeeze through.
“May need some Vaseline on this one,” Detroit yelled up to Rock, who led his palomino just ahead.
“Yes, that was Vorn, your people found,” the Technician said, walking about five paces ahead of Rock in the dimly lit tunnel. Some sort of built-in fluorescent shone down every forty feet or so. The things looked ancient. They had been burning dimmer and dimmer for a century. The large-headed Technician was dwarfed by Rock who stood nearly three feet taller than it. He felt like he was walking behind a four-year-old child. Yet the creature exuded a tremendous intelligence, a controlled mind.
“Vorn was our best hunter. I should say our only hunter. We are, if you’ll pardon the equation, E = mass x food factor, divided by age x .4367.”
“What was that?” Rock asked, grinning ever so slightly. Ullman stopped suddenly and stared at Rockson as if he were mad. Then he laughed out loud.
“Ah yes, I see, of course, you can’t know our terms. We speak English, but we’ve probably elaborated on it over the years. We’re all mathematicians and physicists and have spent so many years together—our whole lives—that we’ve developed a kind of mathematical slang. I’ll have to recalculate my grammar. We haven’t had many guests around here. Not one in a hundred years. We’ve been alone out here in the middle of this wasteland, developing our science—and dying.”
“Dying?” Rock asked as the Technician led them to a much larger open bunker, walls of cinder blocks piled a good twenty feet high. An old American flag still hung on one of the dusty walls, twenty shades grayer than it had begun but still the U.S. flag.
“Here. Attach your animals here,” Ullman said, pointing to a long, metal railing that nearly surrounded the room, separating it from a three-foot walkway that a century ago must have been patrolled by some sort of guard. “My people await upstairs in the Computer Analysis Chamber. That’s where we sustain life.” Ullman looked up at Rockson. “Yes, dying. We have not reproduced in this generation. And now we are reduced down to thirty-one of us, and our last food. It is a pitiful state to be in. We were sitting up there together, watching the end of our race in slow motion when your presence set off some of our alarms.”
“Well, I don’t know about the end,” Rock said, “but I don’t think you’ll die while we’re here. We’ve got enough grub to feed a small army and one of the best cooks this side of the Rockies. By the way, I’m Ted Rockson, representative of Century City.” He proffered his hand to the small man, who reached up and took it. Rockson introduced each of the Freefighters, who waved and smiled. Even Detroit managed a lopsided grin as he rubbed his head from the slightly painful effects of the black ray.
“I am apologetic for using the Particle Beam on you,” he said, looking over at Detroit, who lashed his hybrid to the three-tiered metal fence that circumnavigated the chamber.
“My fault, pal,” Detroit said. “I shouldn’t have gone for my gun so fast. Thing packs a nasty hangover,” he added, rubbing the back of his head.
“Yes, but at that frequency no permanent damage is done. I assure you.” Rock glanced down at the Black beam pistol that hung like a child’s toy on the Technician’s hip. Shecter hadn’t even discovered that function. How many levels of operation were on the damn thing anyway. The Technician led them all forward. He was taken with Rockson’s ways. The man was obviously a hardened warrior, yet gentle too. Ullman trusted Rockson instantly. He and his people would share every bit of their knowledge to help this man.
Ullman led the Freefighters into the silo complex and started toward a rung ladder that disappeared straight down into the ground. Rock whistled as he looked down the silo shaft. It was some thirty feet in diameter and stretched from the concrete base two hundred feet below to the steel hatch one hundred fifty feet above. Piping and electrical circuits ran like spider webs along the edges of the cylindrical, metal tube.
“This is where the missiles were?” Rockson asked.
“Yes, that is a positive theorization,” Ullman said, stopping and stepping back from the ladder. He walked over to the Americans who stared in awe at the home of one of America’s missile fleet from a century before. They had never seen the actual launching mechanism for one of the big ICBMs and were somehow bizarrely fascinated.
“You haven’t got a few old spares lying around, do you?” McCaughlin asked. “Can you imagine, Rock? If we could get our hands on ten or twenty of these babies, the Reds wouldn’t know what hit ’em. Probably ain’t got no more defenses against missile attack. We could take out Moscow, Leningrad . . .” His voice trailed off in wishful tones.
“Unfortunately, I must reply in the negative,” Ullman replied. “All the missiles were shot in the first hour of war. And from our information, which you are welcome to assimilate, the Soviets were able to shoot most of the U.S. strike from the skies, using technology similar to this.” The Technician pointed to his pistol.
“So that’s how they were able to survive the attack,” Rock said softly. “All our data indicated that they shot down the missiles with some, sort of super-elaborate anti-missile system.” Shecter would be fascinated. It seemed to be extremely important information though Rockson wasn’t quite sure why.
Ullman again started down the long silo ladder. Rock had McCaughlin and a few of the other men carry big sacks of food from their kitchen supplies in backpacks. They came shakily down the metal ladder, hanging on for dear life as the big loads of food, including two boar, shifted unnervingly on their backs. It would be the height of absurdity to have traveled a thousand miles, to have fought off mutants, Reds and everything else in this Godforsaken part of America, and then be killed falling off a ladder. The sheer possibility of having gravestones with epitaphs that read, “He died missing a
rung” made them move with unusual caution.
They came to the bottom of the long, black metal track of rungs and started across a vast underground warehouse, filled with electronics and equipment of long ago.
“As you can see, Ted Rockson,” Ullman said, pointing around as they walked across the immense concrete floor filled with every kind of furniture, lamp, wire and fuse, “we’ve let the place deteriorate. Factors have gotten quite bad over the last ten years.” Ullman opened the Computer Room door and the others of his people shrank back in horror when they saw the large, dirty creatures that followed closely behind their leader.
“It is all right,” Ullman said reassuringly. “These are not negative quantities. They have food.” Whatever misgivings or childhood fears the Technicians had of the other beings quickly vanished when they heard the word food. They stirred in their plastic chairs and moved in their blankets spread out on the floor of one of the most advanced computer rooms in the world.
“Here, men, put the chow down here,” Rock said, pointing to an unoccupied corner of the room. “McCaughlin, why don’t you and Erickson get a fire going out there in the big storage room. Got to be all kinds of old wood furniture you could use to get something started.”
“I can just use the stoves, Rock,” Erickson interjected.
“To barbecue a whole hog on a spit?” Rock asked with a grin. “These people need some livening, not to mention fattening up,” Rock said, sweeping his hand around the roomful of lethargic Technicians who did indeed look as if they were at death’s door.
“Oh, you want that kind of dinner?” Erickson said, opening his eyes wide. “I got you, Rock. Archer,” he yelled out, “you’re needed on work detail.” The huge bowman rose and accompanied the other two to gather wood for the bonfire that Erickson already had visualized. As the three men were the largest Freefighters in the expedition, they made quite a sight; their 250 to 300 pound bodies, over six and a half feet tall, barely fit through the Technicians’ small entrance.
