by David Coy
“What’s wrong with her?” Mahoney asked, his brow tight.
“She’s having a seizure, you dumb bastard! Get her off the glass!”
Mahoney just stood there looking at her, unsure if he wanted to touch her. “What kind of seizure? From what?”
“Step back!” the younger said and slung his rifle. Moving quickly, he took up a gather of Rachel’s cottons at the shoulder and behind her knee. “Help me, Mahoney. We don’t want this one damaged.”
Together they lifted her off the glass by her clothes like a sack. Donna saw the trail of blood that rained down from her and worried that so much blood so fast could only mean a serious wound, perhaps a severed artery. They deposited her face down a few meters away.
“Turn her over, you idiots!” Donna yelled.
Bothered by the order, Mahoney rolled her, still twitching, onto her back. A piece of glass the size of a finger was stuck in her cheek and she was bleeding from wounds to her chest, neck, and legs.
“Shit!” Donna said. “Untie my hands! I’m a nurse!”
Still gun-shy from the last experience of untying hands, Mahoney was unsure what to do. He stared at her. “No,” he said. “She ain’t hurt that bad.”
“Yes, she is! Untie me!”
“No.”
“It might be okay,” the younger said.
“Forget it,” Mahoney said, unwilling to bend.
“What’s going on here?” a strange voice said.
They turned to see a blue-robed Council member standing behind them. He looked tall and scholarly. A wisp of a blond mustache framed his thin upper lip. The mercenaries came to attention.
“This one’s having some kind of fit, sir,” Mahoney said.
Council Member Ryder took a step closer and looked down at Rachel’s face. “Is this the woman?” he asked Mahoney. His voice was smooth and confident. He gave Donna the willies.
“I believe so, sir. Yes,” Mahoney answered. “We were just taking her in when she fell over into those glass articles there.”
“I see.”
“Should I go for help?” the young soldier asked.
Donna said, “I’m all the goddamned help she needs if you’d just take these things off me.”
Ryder considered her. “Not just yet,” he said. Then to the soldier, “Go. And hurry.”
The soldier was gone like a shot, sprinting full speed through the jumble, dodging equipment and crates. Donna watched him go and thought to herself that here was the quintessential drone; a real soldier’s soldier, and shook her head. What a shame.
“Language like that could get you in very deep trouble around here,” Ryder said easily to Donna.
“So?”
“So I thought you might like to consider not using it. Especially in the presence of a Council Member.”
“I’ve been using it ever since I landed on this ball. Maybe it’s something in the water. I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s just your sinful nature. I don’t know, either.” Donna chuckled and shot Ryder her wry grin and let her eye flash. “Oh, I’m sinful all right. But that’s not news to you, now is it?”
“No. I know all about your little outlaw group. Tell me. How does it feel to be prisoners of the righteous?”
“Just about how it feels to have a big, unwelcome stick up my ass.”
Ryder drew a long breath through his nose. “You lack prudence in addition to being sinful.”
“Well, the way I figure it is, you’re going to do whatever you want to me. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I’ve got very little to lose.”
“You’re wrong there—quite wrong,” Ryder said.
“Really? The worst you can do is kill me.”
Ryder sniffed and let the word out through a slack mouth that barely moved. “Really?” he said.
The soldier ran back carrying a folding stretcher followed by a youngish doctor in a gray lab coat. Rachel had lapsed into her sleep state after the seizure and was now limp and motionless. The doctor cut her cottons with scissors where the bleeding was the most profuse and applied compresses to the cuts, taping the pads down or tying them. Donna could see that none of the wounds were life threatening and felt somewhat better. He left the glass piece that had penetrated her cheek in place, he said, until he could take it out in the clinic. They wasted no time getting her on the stretcher; then the soldier and the doctor carried her off.
“Take good care of her, doctor,” Ryder said after them.
“What about us?” Donna asked. “Don’t you want to take good care of us, too?”
Ryder smiled. When he did, his mouth formed a peculiar hole with teeth in it. “Take these two to the impound,” he ordered Mahoney.
“Get moving,” Mahoney said in a too-loud voice.
As John watched them carrying Rachel away, he had the overpowering urge to follow them. He let it go and started to move under the mean little nudge of Mahoney’s rifle.
* * *
The interior of the monolith had been transformed. Its smooth and sensual walls and floors were still there, but the beauty in them had been lost. The space had been transmuted into a strange blend of organic forms overlaid with manmade fixtures, and the natural beauty had been scratched and scribbled out by man’s idiosyncratic pencil. Angular steel doors had been installed over the gentle oval portals leading to the interior chambers. Cables stretched and sagged overhead. Some made raised black scars on undulating walls. Lifts that ran here and there over the smooth floor left dark rubber smudges in crazy quilt patterns throughout. The oddly pleasant scent they had come to love when they lived there—though no doubt still present—had been masked by the smell of plastic, rubber and human bodies. High capacity halogens hung from hundreds of fixtures casting harsh, irregular light over the entire interior.
“I hardly recognize the place,” John said to Donna’s back.
He desperately wanted to know where they’d taken Rachel. The grim thought occurred to him that he might not ever see her again. The weight of that horrid idea felt like a heavy stone on his chest. A step or two later he felt panic and fear beginning to twitch deep down inside. The panic part was starting to loosen his normally steadfast grip on reality.
He stopped cold and turned. “Where are you taking us?” he blurted at Mahoney. “I’ve got a right to know.”
“You’ve got shit,” Mahoney said. “Get moving!”
“No. I’m not moving. Where’s Rachel?”
Mahoney looked around. They had walked into a canyon of stacked crates and were virtually hidden from view.
“You know,” Mahoney said. “I could beat the shit out of you right here and call it an accident. In fact, I’ve been wanting to beat the shit out of somebody all goddamned day.”
“Why don’t you just beat your dick?” Donna said.
“Okay. That’s it,” Mahoney said angrily. “I’m gonna have a piece of you two right now. I don’t give a shit.”
He put his rifle down and pulled a thin black baton out of its holster. He skipped up at John, raising the stick as he came.
All John could think as Mahoney stepped closer was how thoughtless the attack was.
When Mahoney was close enough, John kicked out smartly with his right foot and connected with Mahoney’s groin. A dull thud echoed in the crate canyon. The baton stopped in mid-air. A long, deep, moan came from Mahoney’s diaphragm. He sank to his knees and fell over on his side. He lay there for a moment, then began to roll slowly from side to side, his eyes shut tight. “Nice one,” Donna said. “Now watch this.”
She stepped up next to the fallen man and looked over at John with her eye ablaze. Then she smiled down at Mahoney.
“This is for being such a dumb sonofabitch,” she said. “If you worked for me, I’d fire your ass.” Then she bit her lip in determination, jumped straight up in the air, bent her knees and stiffened her body. She came down like a solid stump with her knees together square in the middle of Mahoney’s chest. There was a sickening crack an
d a hoooof of escaping air. She fell over grinning, like a child playing a silly game.
“Christ!” John said.
Getting to her feet, Donna said with a smile, “That’ll teach
him. That’ll teach him.”
John looked at Mahoney. The impact must have crushed his ribs and lungs and certainly damaged his heart. He wasn’t moving. She’d probably killed him with that vicious dead fall.
Donna was down on her butt, scratching at Mahoney’s pockets with her hands, trying to get to the key. John looked at her for a moment, dumbfounded. It wasn’t a matter of speculation whether or not Donna Applegate was a cold-blooded killer—it was now an established fact.
“Got it!” she said, pulling the straight little key out of Mahoney’s shirt pocket. She got up and backed toward John with it. “Turn around,” she said.
They had the cuffs off in seconds. John tossed them between the containers.
“We can’t leave him here like this,” John said, gesturing at Mahoney’s body.
Donna looked around, thinking.
“Help me with this container,” she said.
They hauled one down off a stack, opened it and dumped the contents out on the floor. Then they hefted Mahoney’s body into the crate, closed the top and pushed it out of the way.
“There,” Donna said with another grin. “At least he’s out of sight. If he’s not dead, he soon will be. Grab the rifle.”
They crept back the way they’d come and peered around the last stack of containers toward the opening. It was easily a hundred meters away. The jungle was framed by the enormous arched portal like a scenic painting. Donna was suddenly filled with a desperate longing to be in that painting.
“I can live there,” she said solemnly. “I’ll find a way.”
“That’s some hope,” John said. His thoughts were focused on finding Rachel. The thought of leaving her in the hands of the Council angered him beyond reason. Putting words to the next thought that formed, he said, “The first thing is to get the hell out of here until we can plan something.”
“Getting out’s the easy part,” she said stepping out into plain view. “We just walk out. Come on.”
She was right. No one took notice of them. They were background noise, unrecognizable against the bustle. They weren’t broadly known to begin with; even the Council member had had to ask who Rachel was to be sure. There were other faces moving by on foot or on a lift that he’d seen before, and who had seen him, but those few sparks of recognition were without import and brief.
They walked briskly, but not too fast. Donna nattered meaninglessly and gestured at John the whole way, somehow synchronizing their level of activity with their surroundings and deepening the camouflage. When they walked by the woman Rachel had greeted, she looked up and smiled.
Dodging the lifts flowing in and out, they walked up the ramp and headed straight for the jungle’s edge. Once they were outside, John had to hold back the impulse to run. On the way, they went by the huge bulldozer again. Habershaw was still leaning on the railing, stuck in that bent-leg position, looking down at them. This time, John lifted a hand in a cautious greeting. Habershaw hesitated, then lifted one in return, crowning the silent exchange. When Habershaw cupped his hands to yell down at them, John cringed.
“Come on up!” he said. “You can hide in the rig! Go around the back. They can’t see you from there!”
They continued on as if they hadn’t heard him. “Should we take him up on it?” Donna asked.
“It’s probably better than sleeping in the jungle,” he replied.
They went around the back, saw the open-air elevator, got in and shut the gate. John pushed the button which started the three-story climb with a lurch. When they got to the top, Habershaw was there to greet them. He turned the elevator off and locked it in place.
“There,” he said. “If they want to come up, they’ll have to climb up. This way. Hurry.”
“You don’t have to do this,” John said.
“Save it,” Habershaw said.
He ushered them along the catwalk on the backside of the rig. It ran nearly the entire length and terminated at the cab.
Donna noticed the two spots of blood seeping through the
back of Habershaw’s shirt.
“What happened to you?” she asked. “You’re bleeding.”
“Got attacked by something really nasty,” Habershaw said over his shoulder.
“I’m a nurse,” Donna said. “You should let me look at it for you.”
“That’s a deal,” Habershaw said.
He kept them moving until they were safe in the rig’s little living quarters. John recognized the Oiler, Lavachek, asleep on one of the bunks. Their footfalls caused him to come awake and snap around. “Who’s this?” he asked, blinking.
“Friends,” Habershaw said.
“Yeah, but who are they?” Lavachek wanted to know.
Donna and John exchanged looks with Habershaw, waiting for him to make the introductions. John adjusted the strap on the rifle, just to draw attention to it.
“These two were with Joan when she died,” Habershaw said to Lavachek and put out his hand to each in turn. “Bill Habershaw.”
“Donna Applegate.”
“John Soledad.”
“We’ve never officially met.”
“No.”
“This is Greg Lavachek,” Habershaw said pointing.
Lavachek sagged and shook his head. “I don’t like this much,” he said. “Being with these people could get us killed.”
Donna saved Habershaw the breath and spoke up for him. “That’s fairly ungrateful,” she said smiling broadly, “considering I saved your life last year, digging that ugly parasite out of your back and all.” She said it with a big smile, but John saw her disconcerting eye flash in anger.
Lavachek swung around and put his feet on the ground and his hands on his knees. “I remember you all right,” he said.
“Do ya?” she asked pleasantly.
“Yep.”
“That’s good. Now remember this,” she said stepping closer to him.
Oh shit, John thought.
“Don’t give me any grief, and we’ll get along fine. Don’t give this man here any grief, either. Do you understand?”
Lavachek snorted.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I didn’t say nothin’.”
Donna raised her booted foot high; and before Lavachek could move, brought it down on his sock-covered instep with a clomp! Lavachek’s mouth dropped open.
“Wrong! The answer was yes!” she yelled as John pulled her away. He put his body between her and Lavachek, now holding his foot with both hands.
“Okay. Okay,” John said.
“Say yes, you dick!” she said to Lavachek around John’s shoulder.
“Hey! Hey!” Habershaw said. “Let’s all just settle down, here.”
“You’re crazy, lady!” Lavachek finally got out.
“Well, you figured that out, did you?” Donna asked, relaxing a little. She yanked away and straightened her clothes.
“It’s okay,” John said to her.
“Then tell that bastard not to screw with me.”
“It’s all right,” John said gently. He tried to soothe her by rubbing her arm. It felt as tight as a wire. Donna was looking at Lavachek like a terrier focused on a rat, daring it to move.
Habershaw puffed air. “Well,” he said. “I could make some coffee.”
Donna settled down enough to drink the slightly reheated coffee from a dirty and unceremoniously delivered cup. Lavachek wisely treated Donna like a walking land mine, avoiding her gaze even after she cheerfully thanked Habershaw for the coffee. They nursed their warmish drinks in the stuffy little cab. Donna wanted to close her nose off to the odor of dirty bed clothes and socks that saturated the air. The musky scent was just so typical of two men living in tight quarters. Two women wouldn’t tolerate it, even under these conditions. She took a
step closer to the door where the air was a little sweeter.
Habershaw seemed to read her mind. “Little stuffy in here,” he said. “The shelters aren’t ready yet, and Lavachek here don’t know jack shit about personal hygiene.”
He slid the door open a little more for her.
* * *
“So they questioned me when I got back to the rig, but not much,” Habershaw went on as Donna changed his bandages. “They didn’t seem too interested. I guess they figured since they had the bomb and captured you, there wasn’t much left to worry about. It wasn’t much of a uprising, was it?”
“No,” John said. “Not much.”
Habershaw’s head bent down toward the floor, and there was a moment of silence. It came back up with a fake smile. “I thought about cranking up the rig and running a couple thousand meters of dirt up against that hole, sealing the bastards in.”
“You’re crazy,” Lavachek said, holding his tongue on the word too, which he almost added.
Habershaw ignored him and continued, grinning. “But I figured they’d just find another way out somewhere and come boiling out like ants to get me.” He laughed a shallow laugh. “Then they’d make me clear the damned hole, then kill me.”
“Life ain’t fair,” John said. “We have a saying in my family…”
“‘Nobody’s keeping score’,” Donna finished for him, then added, “except me.”
She taped down the last bandage and pressed it with her hand. “There. That’ll do for now.”
“Thanks. You’re not the only one,” Habershaw said. John’s thoughts drifted to Rachel, and the grinding impetus to do something—anything—began to build in him again. He didn’t want to shift attention away from the implied memory of Joan Thomas, but he had no choice.
“How are we going to get Rachel out?” he asked Donna. “Who’s Rachel?” Habershaw wanted to know.
“John here, and Rachel are a pair,” Donna said for John.
“I see,” Habershaw said, letting the memory of Joan pass to the living. He breathed in long through his nose. “Well, you two can’t go looking for her. Lavachek and me’ll have to do it.”
