by Jack Yeovil
In Cuba, when he had been shot in the chest and had been in surgery for twelve hours, they had given him enough morph-plus to deaden the pain of torture by flaying. He had had bad dreams, and never really been able to shake them off. He would find himself standing alone in a beam of bright white light like police interrogators use, uncomfortably strapped into a white, fringed, spangled clown outfit. He was sweating like a pig, and his clothes were sticky, and he was mumbling his way through a song he could barely remember, trying to do his old act despite the pains shooting through his legs and arms. The lyric of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” hovered just beyond his mental grasp, and he was repeating the title over and over again like a mantra, gabbling “are you lonesome tonight, are you lonesome toniiiiight, are you lonesome toniiiiiiiight?” The worst of it was that he was weighed down by heavy pads on his stomach, his buttocks, his thighs, his arms, his legs and under his chin. No matter how he fought, he couldn’t get free of the weights. They weren’t just fixed to him by tape or wire, they were growing out of him as if he had spent twenty years guzzling brews and downing cheeseburgers by the faceful. There were drugs in him too, not just the medical anaesthetics, but a potent mixture of everything illegal that could be injected, snorted, inhaled, infused, swallowed, skin-popped or poured into his ears. Since Cuba, that nightmare had come back to him too often.
Raimundo was weaving about on his skimmer, paddling with his huge foot like a kid on a push-bike. Elvis hoped the dinosaur would be okay in the fight. He’d seen too many gung-ho junkies get death rather than glory.
The dawn was breaking over the Cape. Working with Captain Marcus, Elvis had formulated a plan of attack, trusting that the Josephites were too stretched to maintain a proper defence perimeter around the Cape. The base was too large to be kept secure by anything less than a regiment, and the NASA fences were in a state of severe disrepair. Marcus’s intelligence showed that most of the old observation posts weren’t even manned most of the time.
The Captain was leading the bulk of their forces, using the captured armoured transport as a Wooden Horse-cum-command centre. They would attack the main gates. Those Suitcase People best adapted to swimming were circling around to come at the Cape from out of the sea, striking up at the sea wall from the almost unpatrolled beach. And Elvis was to lead a spearhead force up the Indian River whose main task was to draw fire away from Marcus’s column.
There were docks on Merritt Island and the instep of the Cape, and the river ran between them. Actually, the river had swollen to such an extent that the narrow causeway separating it from the sea was more or less permanently underwater, a swirling mass of long grass just breaking the surface, and Merritt Island was just another lump in the swamp, but the docks still rose out of the salt marsh. They would provide good cover, and a fine fall-back point.
Aside from Raimundo and a few of his Suitcase People, most of Elvis’s team were indentees from the compound, transplanted blacks and Cajuns, rallying behind Shiba. Some bore the marks of the change, but they were less far along than Raimundo, Marcus or the bestial swamp creatures that had responded to their call.
Raimundo was still fidgeting, eager to get into the scrap. The saurian had crossed bullet bandoliers on his chest, and was packing a rocketlauncher and a chaingun, both specially adapted so he could work them with his thick, clawed fingers. Stoned or not, he wasn’t what Elvis would have most liked to have come angrily after him.
The indentees were another matter. Elvis couldn’t work them out. He wondered why they hadn’t scattered into the swamps when Marcus overran the compound. He wondered why they were so quietly acquiescent to the mutations that were overtaking them. He also noticed that they looked at him much as ’Ti-Mouche had done, with a strange combination of awe, reverence and fear.
He didn’t feel magical this morning, although for some reason he had packed the battered guitar into the skimmer’s lockers. It was like a totem. Other guys wore lucky medals or carried two-headed coins, he knew. He had never been battle-superstitious before—after all plenty of two-headed coins had to be prised out of the stiff, dead fists of lucky soldiers—but this wasn’t like the other actions he had seen.
There was a warning buoy up ahead, bobbing in the water. Elvis signalled to Raimundo to halt, and the dinosaur just managed it, their small force settling behind him, back-paddling to keep themselves out of the marker’s range.
Elvis watched the buoy’s flashing lights. It sent out an all-clear every thirty seconds. He could shoot the thing, but that would shut it off, giving just as clear a warning as its alert signal would. There was nothing for it, they would have to trip the thing. After all, the whole point of the Indian River thrust was to make the Josephites think this was the main attack, and to have them concentrate their defences on the South perimeter.
He drew his Colt and took a sight at the buoy. He thought he could blow out the blinking red LED.
Elvis looked around. Raimundo and the others understood. Once this shot was fired, the attack would be on. There would be no way out except victory.
He cocked the pistol.
There was a mass of clicks as safety catches were flicked. Raimundo heaved his shoulders and hefted the rocket tube. A couple of ’gator men slipped off their skimmers and into the water, their weapons floating above their backs in sealed polythene bags.
The disc of the Sun was entirely above the horizon now, staining red the waters beyond the Cape. Insects buzzed above the marshland. In the distance, Elvis could see the remnant of a rocket gantry, and barely make out a dark shape beside it.
The LED flashed. Thirty seconds. It flashed again. If he took it out the instant it winked off, they would have an extra thirty seconds. Some of them could hit the docks by that time. Allowing for a sleep-heavy response time from the defenders, who would either have just woken up or be at the end of a gruelling night shift, they should all be over the docks and penetrating the restrung fences by the time the Josephites had anybody in the field.
Thirty seconds. Flash.
With a prayer, Elvis shot the buoy. It exploded in a geyser of water, raining transistorized parts.
Thirty seconds.
Elvis’s people surged forwards, and hit the dock.
An alarm klaxon sounded on the Cape.
Elvis was on the docks himself, hauling up a couple of indentees. There was some light equipment in the skimmers. He wanted it assembled before the welcoming committee turned out with garlands and gas grenades.
The indentees’ hands moved fast, slotting together the artillery like child’s assembly toys.
Raimundo charged the fence, bringing a section down. The klaxons were nearer now, and Elvis heard boots hitting concrete, engines starting up.
Raimundo roared. The shooting had started. There were whistles, and the shells started to fall.
Fully awake, fully alert, Elvis ran towards the fence, firing from the hip at the advancing black figures.
An indentee next to him took a direct hit and fell in bloody chunks. Red threads crossed the concrete.
They ran across the firing grounds. The smell of cordite was thick in his nostrils. There were dead things on the ground. Suitcase and regular people, meticulously butchered.
What the hell was going on here? And where was Krokodil?
A jeep rumbled towards them, someone with a machine gun standing up in the back and firing wildly. Raimundo launched a rocket at the ve-hickle, which turned up in the air above the explosion, spilling burning people.
There were a lot of Black Hat Josephites now, all armed, all firing.
Elvis found some cover behind a lump of concrete and sniped at them. The Donnys and Maries shrugged off direct hits and kept advancing, but the ordinary Christian Soldiers died like anyone else.
Raimundo had a Donny in his claws, and was chewing his head. The big lizard must be developing a taste for Walton meat.
By his watch, they had been in battle for nearly two minutes. Elvis had promised to keep up the attack
for fifteen before Marcus struck.
Bullets impacted with the concrete, spitting up dust and shards. Someone was trying to get a fix on him. Elvis made a quick calculation, and tossed a frag grenade. That put the sniper out of commission.
Twelve and a half minutes to go.
A ’gator man rolled past screaming, one foreleg gone, most of its skull exposed.
If you got killed, Elvis supposed, twelve and a half minutes was forever.
“Jesse Garon,” he prayed, “get me through this…”
RIGOLETTO: BILDUNGSROMAN.
Brother Tozer handed him a headset. Without putting it on, he could hear the tinny reports of gunfire from the surface. Roger Duroc made a snap decision.
“Tozer,” he said, “seal the bunker.”
The Brother was taken aback. “But Elder, we can resist the attack. There’s no threat to us..”
“Do what I say.”
VANQUISHER: BRANDYWINE.
“But thou wil’t be abandoning our faithful up there.”
Duroc slapped the security chief across the face. “Seal the bunker.”
Tozer shook violently, but brought himself under control. He whispered orders into his lapel microphone.
CHEYENNE: PEPPERPOT.
“This is nothing to be concerned with,” Duroc addressed the technicians. “Please continue with your work.”
Sister Addams transmitted another codedword to Keystone, and received the correct answer.
ATROPOS: NOCTURNE.
She had been at her console all night, and there were smudged circles under her eyes. Her left hand was twisted in her ratty hair as her right flew over the keyboard.
SPOTLIGHT: SEARCHLIGHT.
The guards rushed past, their raised rifles clattering, and took up positions by the elevator. A lead shield, used during take-offs, was painfully grinding across the shaft.
Duroc could hear the noises of battle above, tinnily from the headset. There were about a hundred Josephites, most of them Waltons, up there. He mentally wrote them off.
After all, sacrifice was what this was all about.
BUCKAROO: COUNTY CORK.
The surface forces should be able to hold off the Suitcase People long enough for Addams to complete the code sequence. After that, the Needlepoint System would get a thorough work-out. The Suitcase People could run from the thin beams, but they couldn’t hide. Gavin Mantle’s lonely corner of Hell would be getting overcrowded.
CANDIDE: CANDYMAN.
Simone was with him. Duroc was glad of that. He wouldn’t have wanted to cut her loose on the surface, to take her chances with the mutants. For some reason, she was important to him. The girl was terrified, but that was only to be expected.
Fonvielle stood over Addams’s console as the Sister went down Machsler’s list of keywords.
ICE CREAM: CONE.
The Commander’s job was nearly over. Duroc wondered whether it was worth the effort of tidying him out of the way. It was so nearly over.
ARROWROOT: HEXAGON.
Duroc wondered who had formulated the codes. They seemed random, at once trivial and suggestive. Each triggered a different function in Needlepoint’s vast repertoire of responses.
MAMIE: LEXINGTON.
On the big board, the satellite’s readings were clusters of different-coloured lights, each signifying a capability no longer dormant. It was quite pretty. Instruments of mass devastation were always aesthetic triumphs, Duroc mused.
PONDEROSA: BANDERSNATCH.
The freight elevator was rising to meet the lead shield. Tozer’s men were yanking wires from the works. They were burying themselves in the bunker on the assumption they could get out later. Tozer himself was dishing out instructions, but didn’t look happy about them. Like Addams, he was one of the Church’s compromises: he possessed skills necessary to the mission, but along with them a degree of independent thought not to be found in the typical Black Hat Josephite. Most of the worshippers here would swallow battery acid upon the direct order of an Elder of the Church. Fools.
Duroc picked up a headset, and listened to the course of the topside battle.
MOM’S APPLE PIE: CRANBERRY SAUCE.
Orders and cries for help flew between wired-up Josephites. The human ones died easily, but the Waltons were hardier, more dangerous. Screams and explosions, shouts and gunfire. None of the bunker staff were concerned for their topside comrades. They all had their work to do.
COCONUT SHY: ERASMUS.
Duroc gathered that the invaders weren’t all mutants. They were well armed. He wondered whether GenTech were in on it. That could be a more than momentary nuisance.
CARTWHEEL: JONQUIL.
Simone was sitting quietly, her hands in her lap, trembling.
“They’re here,” she said.
“What? Who?”
Duroc looked at the indenture girl. She seemed to be seeing more than him. This must have something to do with the strange shapes he had been glimpsing out of the corner of his eye. She could see them more clearly.
“The ghosts…”
Elvis dropped a frag grenade into an airshaft, but it bounced back out. Shutters had closed the aperture. He kicked the grenade like a soccer ball, and it exploded in the air above a Marie Walton, spreading her out on the concrete like a throwing.
He had heard rumbling from underneath the firing ground. Whoever was down there was fortifying themselves pretty heavily.
Three minutes to go before Marcus struck.
Raimundo was a berserker in battle. His chaingun chattered in one hand, while the other lifted a Donny to his forest of teeth, and his feet tore at a fence.
Elvis knew he had lost a lot of his people in the first wave. He had expected that. In the main, they had died well.
He’d been scratched by flying shrapnel, and was bleeding.
A Donny came at him, smiling placidly. Elvis sprayed the creature with bullets, using his burpgun. It staggered back under the multiple impact, its skin and clothes exploding as each slug slammed into its unreal body. It jitterbugged twenty yards backwards, and fell. It was still kicking, but it couldn’t stand up.
A trio of Maries, their hairdos wobbling, took down an indentee with a toadish cast to his features and tore him apart with immaculately manicured bare hands. When he was sure the indentee was beyond help, Elvis tossed a frag into the grouping, and threw himself down as they blew up in a cloud of flame and flesh.
A halftrack went head to head with Raimundo. The saurian got his arms hooked under the ve-hickle and lifted it up off the ground. Its treads flapped loosely as Raimundo tore the machine apart. A Donny, the life ripped out of him, flopped in the driver’s seat. Raimundo tore away iron plating to get to the tasty morsel.
A Josephite Black Hat rolled by like a wheel. Was there a wind rising? No, it was a spidercopter.
Hovering over the base, it laid down covering fire, seeming not to care whether defender or invader took it. The nose nozzle squirted burning napalm, and the flames spread.
Elvis signalled to Raimundo. They would have to put the copter out of action before Marcus hit.
One minute, ten seconds.
Elvis bent over and ran towards a half-assembled field mortar. There was a dead indentee by it. He hunted around for the missing struts, but couldn’t find them.
Raimundo roared, and stamped over.
Elvis would have to pull a bluff. He took a rocketshell and dropped it into the mortar tube, then made a great play of fiddling with the sights, taking an eyeline on the spidercopter’s nose.
The pilot saw him, and the copter eased forwards. A marksman hung out of the door, trying to draw a bead on Elvis. He signalled the pilot to take the craft lower.
Elvis twiddled with the sights, bringing the useless weapon to bear.
Forty-five seconds.
The spidercopter was just fifteen feet off the ground now, and the marksman would have a clear shot.
It was close enough.
Raimundo reared up, and
pulled the marksman out by his ankle, biting his foot clean off. The man hit the hard ground like a potato sack, and Elvis heard bones splintering. Raimundo trampled him with a horned heel, all the while reaching for the spidercopter’s runners with his arms and jaws.
The pilot tried to take the ve-hickle up out of range, but the two-ton dinosaur hung on, shouting obscenities in Spanish.
The copter tipped up, its blades slicing dangerously near Raimundo’s head. His skin was thick, but he’d need six-inch durium plate if the blades got to him.
Josephites fell out of the copter, crunching against the ground, screaming. Elvis took an automatic rifle from the dead indentee, and shot at the durium-laced plexibubble. The transparent material didn’t shatter, but whitened where the bullets hit. The pilot was struggling with the stick.
Raimundo’s tail lashed the ground, finishing off fallen Josephites. He had a dozen shallow bullet wounds up his spined back.
Fifteen seconds.
There was a wrench, and the copter came out of the sky. Its blade ground into the concrete and snapped, spinning away. Raimundo heaved, tossing the heavy mass as far away from him as possible.
The copter rolled over twice, its bubble cracking in half, and exploded.
Raimundo was hurled off his feet, and Elvis was sure the dinosaur was extinct, but he rolled in a surprisingly neat ball, his tail tucked over his head, and came up roaring defiance.
“Freakin’ A, maaaaann! The chopper ees come a cropper!”
Five seconds. Elvis shot a running Josephite, bringing him down. He was holding a grenade, which went off as his fingers relaxed.
“Righteous, guitar maaaan!”
Raimundo was triumphant, indestructible.
“Less kick som’ Black Hat ass, homes!”
Now.
ZOOT SUIT: AARDVARK.
Addams was on the ball. She kept going, despite the press of ghosts crowding around her console position.
Fonvielle stuck by her, ready to protect the Black Hat from the ghosts if their mute, motionless threat turned to action.
