by James Axler
Arcadian raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite a radical change of opinion, given your comments to Andower. He was, incidentally, a little upset by your reaction, Doctor. He expected more understanding from a man like yourself.”
Doc felt insulted by this, but kept his true feelings masked. With a shrug, he said, “You must understand that, during the recent past, I have seen much butchery without purpose. One either becomes hardened, or one has an instinctual reaction before intellect comes to the fore. I have had time to reflect. This is not idle butchery. It has purpose, and if Dr. Andower was in any way offended, then that is unfortunate.”
The baron paused for a moment, weighing Doc’s sincerity, before continuing on another tack.
“It took my men some time to work out how you effected an escape—”
“Hardly escape,” Doc demurred. “I was searching for more of your artifacts from the past, that is all.”
Arcadian eyed him wryly. “Searching, perhaps, but not for that alone, I think. But we won’t argue about that, Doctor. What I would really like to know is how you were sure about the connection between my palace and Andower’s section house. Had you some prior knowledge?”
Doc chuckled. “Were that I was that smart. If so, then I would not have been so easily found and returned. All old buildings of this type have cellars. Cellars that could have housed more from the past. I had no idea that a tunnel system existed, and if I had, then I would have taken my friends with me, and not left them here. I intended to have a look around, then return before I was even missed.”
Arcadian nodded, but said nothing for some time. Absurdly, Doc felt that the baron could see right through him, and would think that he was lying. Absurd because, to all intents and purposes, Doc was being straight. He was looking for more than artifacts of the past, but not for a route out.
“Very well,” the baron said finally. “You’ll return to your companions. I think no real harm has been done. If anything at all, you have done little except to expedite your fate a little sooner than I would have wished.”
He clicked his fingers and two sec men, accompanied by Schweiz, entered the baron’s chambers. Doc realized that they had to have been waiting throughout the discussion, and when he looked at Schweiz he could see—even though the sec chief’s eyes were shielded by his dark glasses—that he wasn’t believed.
The sec chief gestured to Doc to move, and with a quizzical glance at the baron, the old man rose. Arcadian wasn’t even looking at him. Having summarily dismissed him, he had taken up some papers that had lain at his side, and was now seemingly engrossed in them. Whether this was genuine, or merely to prove a point, it nonetheless left Doc with little choice but to follow the sec chief.
Schweiz led Doc and his two-man guard out of the baron’s chambers and toward the area where the companions had been billeted the previous evening. As they approached the corridor housing the rooms, Doc noted that there was now a heavy sec presence both at the end of the corridor and dotted along its length. Two armed men stood to either side of one of the doors.
“This is what you’re responsible for,” Schweiz said with a heavy attempt at irony and sarcasm. “I bet your friends are real happy about this.”
“Perhaps not.” Doc shrugged. “But what does it say about you that it just took one old buzzard to outwit all of you?”
His tone may have been mild, but he could see that he had hit a nerve from the way that, even behind the protection of his shades, Schweiz winced. He suppressed a smile.
Without ceremony, the sec chief opened the door of the room and pushed Doc in, slamming it behind him.
“Ah, you may be wondering what I thought I was doing,” Doc said without preamble as he found himself facing five people—seated or standing—who were viewing him with a mix of exasperation, relief and anger.
“That would be a good place to start,” Ryan said, with what Doc considered to be admirable understatement.
And so Doc began to explain himself, starting with the desire to find out more about Arcadian, an itch that just had to be scratched. He told them about the tunnel, and what he had seen down there. Then he told them about Andower and his experiments. His tone went cold and hard as he described what he had witnessed, yet he tried to keep any kind of judgment out of his account. That could wait, for now. It was more important that he relay, while it was still clear to him, the structure of the sectors as outlined by the whitecoat, and what he had told Doc about Arcadian’s motivations. He finished by telling them of his capture, and of his recent audience with Arcadian, including his view of the experiments as relayed to the baron.
“So he thinks that you approve of the way in which he runs things?” Ryan questioned.
Doc smiled and shrugged. “I can only hope that my limited thespian skills were enough to fool him. I felt like he could see through me, but he gave no indication. I feel that may be irrelevant, though. He already had plans for us. All my actions have achieved is the accelerated precipitation of those plans.”
“That can’t be helped,” Ryan said. “It was a stupe bastard thing to do, Doc, and I don’t know what you were thinking. But at least we’ve got a bit more background on what goes on here. And face it, if Arcadian was going to do this shit, better we face it now than later.”
“You do not think I have made matters worse?” Doc asked.
Ryan shook his head. “No. I don’t think they could get worse as such. All that could happen was that we could suddenly be made aware of just how bastard bad they were. What Arcadian wants to do with us is the trade-off that Toms talked about. He wanted us back here for a reason. Whatever he wants from us, he was going to take it sooner or later. Better sooner. At least we’ll know what we’re facing.”
“We already do, thanks to Doc,” Mildred said softly. “And it makes my blood run cold.”
“Doc,” Krysty said in an equally quiet voice, “you told us what you said to Arcadian about his lovely little ville, but what do you really think? You’re the only one who’s seen enough of it to judge.”
Doc sighed, rubbed his eyes and looked at them. “I think that, without doubt, Arcadian and his little acolytes have the potential to be the greatest threat to this land since the nukes hit home. I have seen barons who are more bloodthirsty and more prone to meaningless violence. Victims of their own stupidity and emotion. He is not like that, and that in turn is the very thing that makes him all the more dangerous. He is driven not by personal ambition centered on greed, but rather by ideology. True, his ego demands that he think he can achieve this, and he wishes to be feted for it. But that is not what drives him. The chance to build an empire that will bring the world in line with his vision, and to run that world in a way that is best—” he spit this latter word with venom “—is the end in itself.”
“Then surely such a man can be reasoned with,” Krysty reflected.
Doc’s laugh was hollow and sad. “Reason is only in the eye of the beholder. To him, anyone who does not agree or see things his way is wrong, and there is no counter to such a belief. He is the worst kind of butcher—at least the other butchers we have seen are powered by nothing more than their animal lusts. They delight in their sport, but have not the sensibility to see that what they are doing is anything other natural. Arcadian, on the contrary, wants to master nature, and brings the intellect of ideas to bear on bending it to his will. Those vile experiments are disgusting, and he knows it. Yet he ignores it in the belief that the end jus tifies the means. Such a belief is a relentless juggernaut. The sector headed by the whitecoat Andower is the grossest kind of concentration camp.”
Mildred caught the bewildered glances of the others, who were unfamiliar with the term and explained.
“Jails and camps where those who were considered inferior—by whatever criteria the madmen controlling them set—were herded together then worked till they bought the farm, were used for medical experiments or were just chilled. To make a better world,” she added with sneering irony.
“Succinctly put, my dear Doctor,” Doc affirmed. “And I fear that this is what Arcadian has in mind for us. I have little doubt from what Andower said to me that he has some vague ideas—if nothing fully formed—that we have differences to those others who have passed through here. Tales are passed around, of course, but although he probably has no real indications as to the unusual histories of both Dr. Wyeth and myself, still he knows that we have experiences and knowledge that passes beyond the norm. The question is, how will he choose to extract these things?”
Silence fell over the group. They were still seated in the same room in which Doc had been returned to them, but somehow it seemed a different place. The guards outside seemed more ominous. One room, one exit: an army of sec between themselves and the outside world. An outside world that was contained in the center of a ville that they now knew to be surrounded and sectioned off by rings of defenses.
Whichever way it was looked at, this wasn’t a situation from which an easy solution presented itself.
It was Ryan who eventually broke the silence.
“This coldheart revels in his little world, and I figure his trade-off with Toms to make us part of it is because he has definite roles in mind for us,” he said coldly. “So we need to find out what they are. No way he wants us to buy the farm yet. Wouldn’t even chill us if we tried to break out, not unless it was necessary.”
“I am not so sure about his chief boy, Schweiz,” Doc interjected.
Ryan grinned. “I figure he’d love it, but he’s far too scared of Arcadian. We can’t break now, so we’ll have to bide our time, watch our backs, and wait for the chance.”
“If gives one,” Jak muttered sullenly.
“He will,” Ryan stated. “He wants something from us, even if he’s not sure what it is just yet. He’s got to give us some rope to find that out. We’ve just got to make sure we wrap it around his neck, not our own.”
J.B. scratched his head, took off his glasses and polished them in a gesture that always denoted he was deep in thought.
“Guess you’re right,” he said slowly, “though it isn’t like the bastard is giving us any choice.”
“Won’t be the first time we’ve had to just follow the stream and hope we can pull ourselves out,” Ryan concluded. “Best thing we can do now is try to get some rest, so we’re ready when it starts.”
Easier said than done. Each of them retreated into his or her own private worlds and tried rest in preparation for what was to come. But the not knowing, both in terms of time scale and event, was unsettling. They could face any fight if they knew who or what they were fighting.
But the unknown? How could you prepare for that?
THEY DIDN’T HAVE to wait long. It seemed like days, but was only a matter of a few hours before they heard the door to the room being unlocked. Schweiz appeared in the doorway, flanked by a phalanx of heavily armed men.
“Okay, time for you to move,” he snapped. Then a grin split his weasel-thin, unpleasant features. “Arcadian’s got plans for you that he wants to talk about. He still ain’t had your blasters off you, as a show of faith, but you must know that any attempt to go for them will get you blasted out of the building. And don’t think I wouldn’t welcome the excuse.”
“My dear boy, I would expect nothing less from you. Although I notice you only have the temerity to say it when your lord and master is not within earshot.”
Schweiz was fuming as he and his men parted to allow them through, and Ryan shot Doc a warning glance. Arcadian may not want anything to happen to them yet, but Ryan didn’t trust the sec chief’s temper to hold.
The short walk from the room in which they had been held to the baron’s quarters was conducted in an uneasy silence. Schweiz ushered them into Arcadian’s presence, then stepped back, flanked by four of his men, so that they maintained a presence that was a respectful distance from their leader, but close enough to act swiftly if any of the companions looked as though they were about to act.
Arcadian was sitting as they entered, leafing through a sheaf of papers. He beckoned them to sit, almost without looking up, then finished what he was doing before lifting his head to survey them in silence. It may have been genuine, but to Doc it seemed like an act designed to unnerve them, to soften them up for what he was about to say.
“So,” Arcadian said finally, “I have little doubt that Dr. Tanner has told you what goes on in Arcady. Or, at least, a part of what goes on. He doesn’t know the whole of it, as he hasn’t seen all of our experiments at work. But he does have some notion of what we’re aiming for. I won’t bandy words with you, nor seek to be untruthful. I wanted you here, and I’m glad you are here. Your reputations precede you, and give me cause to believe that your skills and capabilities can do little but enhance the progress of my ville as we work toward the perfect society. I want you to work with me, not against me. And I want you to work of your own free will.”
“Do we really have a choice?” Ryan asked. “We’re here. Surrounded by your sec,” he added, indicating the men at their rear.
Arcadian considered this. “You may have a point. Certainly, if you made a break for freedom, it would be simple to stop you. The fact that we found Dr. Tanner proves we can sweep this ville with relative ease. But if you choose to run, then a firefight would only take out some of my men and lead to your demise. After all, we outnumber you too heavily for such an option to be viable.”
The manner in which he considered their fate was grimly amusing, but Ryan pressed on.
“So if we say no?”
“Then you’ll be held until you see sense. And you will.”
Ryan looked the baron in the eye. There was a steel and ice there that betrayed a will that wouldn’t be refused.
“What do you have in mind for us?”
All were curious to hear what Arcadian had to say. With little option other than to go along with him, they would need to make their own plans as soon as possible.
But what they did hear was surprising. With the ville broken up into sectors, the baron proposed to split up the group, so that they would be sent to those sectors in which their attributes would best serve the whole. Jak was to be sent to Sector Three, which specialized in the study of instinctual behavior, and how this may be modified to fit a structured social order. Jak’s face didn’t change, but a warning sounded in his head. Modification sounded suspiciously like something that would try to force him against his own will and better instinct. Triple red for that.
Doc and Mildred were to be billeted together in the sector dealing with psychological and behavioral experimentation. Doc’s momentary relief at not being sent back to Andower and his whitecoat hell was tempered by the notion of brainwashing that went along with the notion of psychological experimentation. He looked across to Mildred, whose own expression was shielded from the baron by her plaits as she inclined her head. Only Doc could see that she was also uncertain. But as their eyes locked for a second, he knew that they were in a better position than Jak, as at least they had each other should the need for backup arise.
Ryan and Krysty were to be sent to that sector of the ville that dealt with selective breeding programs.
“I do this not just because of the superb physical con dition that both of you share,” Arcadian emphasized. “Some of the people in this sector are muties, like yourself,” he directed toward Krysty, “and we’re very interested in harnessing certain genetic traits. Also, I feel that your physical prowess can useful in the training of adolescent specimens that need coaching to the pitch of perfection.”
It didn’t sound the kind of thing that either of them felt comfortable with; it did, however, betoken a certain amount of physical freedom that could be turned to their advantage.
Which only left J.B. After expressing how difficult it had been to place him according to his talents, the baron merely stated that he would be positioned where it was the most appropriate. His failure to be more explicit was noted by all of them. J.B. fought hard
not to let his concern show, but feared he may be getting the rawest deal in terms of immediate danger.
“Now, as you agree to my terms, Schweiz and his men will allot you to your new quarters. I hope our work together will be productive,” Arcadian said before dismissing them by dint of returning to his papers.
As they followed the sec out of the room, all thought the same thing—no matter which sector they were in, their first move would be to find a way of keeping in contact with the others.
Question was, how hard would that prove to be?
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
They were given no chance to communicate before they were separated. The sec that flanked the companions were joined by Schweiz as they moved down the staircase and into the lobby of the old building, guided through the display cases by the sec chief as he indicated that more of the heavy guard swarming the building be added to the group. Any attempt to speak was silenced by the barking of the sec chief, who was obviously relishing the power given to him by the baron. They had to endure the stares of those who worked on the ground floor of the building. It was a small thing, but to be viewed like caged animals rankled all the more because they could do nothing about it.
It was only when they were at the open space in front of the huge double doors that Schweiz stopped them. Quickly and efficiently, eyeing all the while their weaponry and their stance, he separated the group into its constituent parts of two duos and two singles, allotting to each a small sec party.
“This is where you get to say your goodbyes,” he said to the still assembled group. “If I was sector leader, I’d take those bastard weapons off you as soon as you arrive. They have the authority. While you’re still in this sector, then Arcadian has the final say. I’d give you no chances. He might take your compliance at face value, but I don’t. So this is where you part company, and we take you to your sectors.” Then, as he could see that the friends were about to communicate, he held up his hand and added, “Hey, guess what, people? I changed my mind. Take them out.”
