by James Axler
Mildred chuckled. “Coming from you, that sure as hell isn’t an assurance.”
“Perhaps not,” Doc murmured, “but all jesting aside, I fear that your desire for something else to occupy you may soon be about to bear fruit.”
“Yeah, I can feel it, too. And that explosion was no accident. That was a gren, unless I can’t tell what they sound like anymore.”
“I would concur with that.” Doc looked around them at the vacant lot. “I note that there are a number of people absent. Those I would associate with those in control of this sector, rather than those who are inmates like ourselves.”
“I don’t like you using that word about us, Doc, but I guess it’s right. And I guess you are, too. I wonder what’s going down.”
“I suspect we will find out soon enough.”
Doc’s words were prophetic. Within a few minutes he was astounded to see Jak approaching from the other side of the quadrant.
“What are you doing here in daylight? And how—”
“No time,” Jak said brusquely before rapidly taking them through the events of the previous night, and his realization that they weren’t being watched after all.
“So we could have just walked out at any time,” Doc said sadly.
“If you could avoid sec,” Jak added. “But sec were shit, anyway.”
“Never mind that crap,” Mildred snapped, “what are we going to do about John?”
“We need get Ryan and Krysty. They know some who join us.”
“There are some here,” Doc said, his eyes immediately scanning the area for Cloris or Hamilton.
“Good,” the albino stated. “Need to move fast.”
Doc caught sight of the pair he sought. They were clustered with others he recognized, in agitated discussion. “Come,” he said simply, moving toward them and beckoning Mildred and Jak to follow.
They approached the group, which was absorbed by its own arguments. As the companions closed on them, they could hear snatches of the conversation. Hamilton and Cloris were attempting to rally the others into a fighting force. “There will never be a better time. There may never be another time,” he heard the woman tell them.
“I fear she is correct,” Doc said, approaching them without any niceties. “Our friend has come from another sector, and he has this to tell you.”
He beckoned to Jak, whose eyes scanned them and saw little to inspire in the way of fight, but who nonetheless repeated his words of a few moments earlier. When he had finished, Doc appealed to them.
“I know you find the prospect of fighting a difficult one. Arcadian and his cohorts have traded on this, and have ingrained it for that reason alone. But I fear you have no choice, now. If you do not join with those who are rising around you, you risk being classed with your oppressors and swept away with them.”
Hamilton looked at all three of them in turn. “A persuasive argument, but one that takes no account of one small fact. We have no idea—any of us—how to rise up. What do we do?”
For a moment the three companions were nonplussed. While a revolution brewed around them, they were faced with potential allies who had no idea what to do next. It was obvious, given their background, yet perplexing.
“Find sector leaders, chill or take prisoner. Any weapons, take. Anyone opposes, chill. All move on center eventually, take down baron. Follow them. Simple,” Jak rapped out after a moment’s thought.
“That’s it?” Hamilton asked.
“Do it. Rest follows,” Jak shrugged. “We need go,” he added to Doc and Mildred.
“Look, the lad has put it in simplistic terms, but he is right,” Doc said quickly. “You need to take control of this sector. I do not think anyone outside the sector leaders will oppose you, and there was little in the way of armament here that I could see. Weight of numbers will carry it. This can be relatively nonviolent, but you must join with other sectors.”
They group looked nervously, one to another.
“We don’t have much choice,” Hamilton said doubtfully. “We’ll do our best.”
“That, my friend, is all any of us can ever do,” Doc said, grasping him by the arm. “Now, I really must go.”
With a last look back at Cloris, whose eyes met his for a second and somehow assured him that, despite Hamilton’s doubts, they would manage, Doc hightailed it after Jak and Mildred, who were already moving away.
“Wait,” he yelled.
“Hurry up, dammit, there isn’t any time to waste,” Mildred yelled back, the crack in her voice betraying her concerns.
The sector beyond the board area was deserted. Most of the dwellers were gathered around the vacant lot. Of those who led them there was no sign. They moved without fear and with a minimum of caution across the sector and the wasteland between. Once across, they entered a sector that neither of them knew. Its purpose was a mystery to them, but the fact that it had been sec-controlled was made obvious by the way in which the dwellers were rebelling. Some had blasters, others improvised weapons. They were breaking windows and smashing the interiors of some buildings. A mob was gathered around what had to have been the sector leader’s building, and the lampposts and vid posts were festooned with what at first appeared to be ragged bundles. It was only when they drew near that they could see that these were corpses—the sector leader and his staff, clothes ripped where they had been flayed until they chilled. If that hadn’t worked, then hanging them by their necks would have finished the job. The building behind the corpses began to bellow smoke and orange flame as the fires started within began to spread.
The mob surged away from the fire and turned in direction until it was able to move toward the center of Arcady. Jak, Mildred and Doc weren’t known here, and suspicious glances came their way from some of the mob. Now wasn’t the time to try to convince them that they were on the same side. Moving away as those suspicious faces were swept from them by the tide of humanity, they moved into the deserted side streets.
“This way…” Jak led Mildred and Doc through a maze of streets that were littered with debris, but were otherwise deserted. Within a short time, they were crossing over into another sector. “This is where Ryan and Krysty were,” Jak panted as he ran. “Mebbe still here.”
Instinct told him to head for the center of the sector. If any pattern at all could be discerned, it would be that the sector leaders would be the first targets. The sounds of a rabble told them that this was correct, and within a few streets they were at the edge of a brawling mob.
Those who lived in this sector were partly slave and partly master. Their duties were sometimes divided, and so now were their loyalties. Standing on the edge of the mob, it was hard to tell who was on which side. To just wade in would have been futile. But this mob impeded them, and it was impossible to see if their companions were in the midst.
A sudden burst of blasterfire rent the air, and brought the fighting to a halt, even though some pockets took longer to subside. Standing on the steps of the central building, a young man held a SMG above his head.
“You know me,” he yelled, “and you know him.” An older man was thrust out onto the steps, his hands bound behind his back. “Alex doesn’t run this place anymore,” the young man yelled. “None of us do. We’re free. So I suggest we stop fighting among ourselves and take down the coldheart bastard who started this. To the palace…”
The air was filled with yells of agreement, excitement and plain confusion. Yet as the young man descended the steps, the old man left, now strangely forgotten; in his wake, the crowd began to move.
Mildred, Jak and Doc cut through the throng. They had spotted the unseen hand that had thrust the old man out into view.
“You’ll never get away with this. Arcadian won’t let you ruin his plans,” they heard the older man say as they approached. A familiar voice answered.
“Not our fight to get away with, old man. And I figure Arcadian won’t have a say in anything before too long.”
“Ryan,” Jak yelled. The on
e-eyed man and Krysty emerged from the building, blasters in hand.
“Am I glad to see you,” Krysty said warmly.
“Hell, yeah,” Mildred agreed. “But we’re one short, and he’s in big trouble if Jak’s right.”
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
J.B. unleashed another burst of fire from the mini-Uzi, then ducked. A blast of random fire from a number of weapons exploded in the air, pitting the brickwork around him, tearing out chunks that rained down on him and covered him in a choking dust that made his eyes stream and clogged his lungs. This had been going on for long enough to make him realize that his cover was poor, and he needed to move soon. His own fire was almost as random, as it was getting harder to see well enough to pick targets.
He was lucky that he had been able to get this far. It was only the poor quality of the sec that had enabled him to find this space. Yet, ironically, it was their poor aim that would force him into the open regardless of their accuracy.
He had rolled away from the gren blast and come up running. A quick look around had shown him there was nothing except the blank facades of buildings all around. He could have tried to get into one, but that would have left him exposed by the maze of corridors and his lack of knowledge. Further exploration had been strangled at birth by the sudden fire from behind him. The gren had drawn nearby patrols to him. Cursing his luck, he had dived for a brick shelter that he hoped would give him cover and access to a building. Despite his misgivings, it was now the only option other than the open of the street.
Fate was kicking him in the balls. The brick shelter had been originally built as a garbage storage area, and he found himself hemmed in, with nothing but a blank wall at his back.
The bastard coldhearts were obviously trying to reduce the brick to rubble and dust in their eagerness to drive him out, blinding and choking him in the process.
Then it came to him. The drain cover he had walked over, seen when he was placing the gren. Dark night! It had to be the one Doc had talked about. If only he could reach it. The dust in his throat and in his eyes was the answer. Not that he could create such a smokescreen in such a way, but…
Rummaging in his bag, he found a gas gren. Keeping a good supply of ordnance and relying on a stupe sec force used to blind obedience was a winning combination, and the sense of impending doom that had settled on him now began to lift.
His only problem would be launching the gren, as it would mean coming out into the open for a moment. Given their lack of marksmanship, this was perhaps less of a risk than it would have been in other circumstances. He had only reached a couple of hundred yards from the portico, and now that seemed an advantage rather than the drawback of a few moments before.
Should he wait for a lull in the fire? As the noise and dust gathered around him, he figured he was best just going for broke. The gren was tear gas, and so he quickly tied a kerchief around his face after soaking it from his water bottle. The water was stale and brackish as the bottle had been neither needed nor heeded since their arrival, but that didn’t matter. It would serve its purpose.
Counting to ten, steeling himself, and knowing that he had one chance and little time, J.B. released the pin from the gren, stepped out and tossed it into the air before stepping back until he heard it detonate.
The firing ceased as the sec forces gathered close by were hit by the cloud of tear gas. Checking to ensure the mini-Uzi had a fresh load, J.B. hit the sidewalk at a run, firing into the crowd of choking, blinded men to clear them. He didn’t—couldn’t—think about them firing back.
Through the portico and into the square, his eyes streaming, his nose filled with staleness but little gas, J.B. could see that there were no sec here, only the unidentifiable remains of those caught by the original frag blast. A crater in the middle of the square showed where the gren had blown. Just off-center was a dark hole. The drain cover had been blown off by the blast. It sure as hell saved him precious time in wrenching it off.
J.B. was down the ladder leading to the underground complex in less time than it took him to whip the kerchief from his face and wipe the tears from his eyes. He hit the bottom at a run, headed toward Arcadian’s palace.
He could only hope that he wouldn’t find himself alone there.
“SIR, IT DOESN’T LOOK good,” the radio op said nervously. The baron had been hovering over his shoulder for some time, making him sweat as the messages came in. In both sectors where the sec had been deployed, there had been nothing but setbacks. The men in Sector Eight had fallen back and were being driven toward the center sector at a speed that almost had them falling over their own asses. Meanwhile, Dix had seemingly vanished into thin air after decimating the sec in that region. Andower was gone, and the sec that had been detailed to the sector were now in disarray as those inmates of the sector who still had the will and were able were now emerging into the daylight.
“Sir, what should I do?” the radio op reiterated, turning to the baron. “Sir, if we do nothing, then the other sectors, now that they have no one to keep them in line—”
Arcadian grunted and waved his hand dismissively. “They are no threat. They think we can see their every move. Beside which, most of them are happy. Why would they wish to join this futile rebellion? No, draw the sec back here to quell those who are on the march. The rest will be able to look after themselves for a while. They recognize the greater good when they see it.”
That, thought the radio op, is just what I’m worried about. Particularly if they think like I do.
“F IREBLAST. I—” Ryan stopped dead, the others in his wake. The sight that greeted the companions was one that almost defied belief, even after all the things they had seen.
The street ahead of them was quiet, now. The sec men who survived had pulled back, and all that remained were the chilled corpses of those that J.B. had blasted on his way into the square. Except that some, it was clear, had needed more than the fire of the Armorer to end their lives.
This had come from those who now shuffled aimlessly around among the debris, men and women who had spent too long at the mercy of Andower and his experiments. Blank-eyed, dripping blood from wounds that were open, experiments that hadn’t quite worked, they wandered in random directions. Some were psychological victims, their only outward signs of damage being the slack jaw and blank stare. Others, horribly, were victims of the good doctor’s experiments. A woman with wings stitched to her back flapped them in a desultory manner while nibbling on something that may have been a dead sec man’s ear. One man had an extra arm grafted to the center of his chest, the flesh hanging gray, dead and gangrenous. Another had an extra leg over which he was stumbling.
“Perversion. There is worse than this, and thank heavens it cannot be seen,” Doc muttered savagely.
“We can’t let them—” Mildred began.
“No,” Doc cut in preemptively. “Let them slip away. It’s for the best.”
“But they’re innocent victims,” Mildred said softly.
“True. But what life for them? Besides, have you forgotten that J.B. needs us?”
“John looks like he’s doing okay on his own,” she answered. “You’re right, of course. Prolonging suffering is no answer.”
“Then I suggest we try to follow John Barrymore’s trail,” Doc stated.
“Not hard.” Jak sniffed. “Figure he’s headed back the way you did.” He moved ahead toward the portico, stopping only to indicate the carnage in the square. The others followed, pushing away the shambling hulks that came close. The creatures flinched in the face of live opposition, revealing the treatment by which they had been conditioned.
“To Arcadian’s palace,” Krysty whispered as she looked at the dark hole in the center of the square. “What was that old saying about frying pans and fires?”
“John all over.” Mildred sighed. “Guess he’s going to need all the backup we can give him.”
THE ARMORER CLIMBED the stairs at the end of the long cor
ridor, his heart pumping and his eyes now clear. He knew that behind the door at the top of the stairs was the high hall of Arcadian’s palace. He was in the heart of the beast, and he knew that there would be a heavy sec presence. He would need to come out blasting. In his mind, he ran over as much detail of the hall as he could, trying to select the best cover that would be available.
It was only when he reached the landing and tried the door that he realized that events may have run ahead of him. The noise that penetrated the thick oak of the door led him to believe that a search for cover may not be necessary.
MARTHA FOUND HERSELF swept up with the mob as it moved out of the eighth sector and surged toward the center of Arcady. Miraculously, the mangy hound wound around her, never losing sight, and not succumbing to the fighting that sporadically broke out.
This had decreased as they had moved into adjacent sectors. The sec forces were on the run, heading back toward the center. Their only fire was defensive, attempting to cover their rear guard, but too wild to really do any harm. Those in the sectors they had passed through had been initially confused, but had soon decided which side of the fence they came down upon. A few attempted to fight the rebels, driven by fear of what would happen if they joined with them. But they were small in number, and were soon either beaten or succumbed to the mass. Most found themselves swept up by the hysteria and the promise of a new future.
The mob of which she was a part converged with one that came from another part of the ville. For a moment, as they crashed into one another, it seemed that combat would ensue. But recognition of fellow rebel factions led to a joyous union as they swept toward the center. Joy: that was exactly what she could feel from them, and within herself. A giant weight that had been crushing them was being cast off, and it felt good. What might come after was scary, as it was unknown. That really didn’t matter right now. In fact, now was really all that counted.
As they moved into the central sector, there were more sporadic outbreaks of fighting. Some of those who felt themselves fortunate to have made it to this level were unwilling to risk that status. Again, they were few. Most realized that status was a thing of the past. Or were just caught up in the moment. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the rebel forces were now in the ville, led by a young man brandishing an SMG, exhorting them onward.
