by James Axler
“And who’ll be in charge then? You?”
“Not me.” Fixie laughed. “No one will be in charge.”
“You are referring to a state of anarchy?” Doc asked.
“We’re making a paradise here,” Fixie said. “Who needs tyrants in paradise?”
Doc couldn’t argue with his logic, though history provided far too many examples to the contrary. “So when will the device truly be ready? Tomorrow must be an overly optimistic deadline, but…”
“No, it’s not.” Fixie popped up from the hole in the floor, shaking his head. “If anything, it’s overly conservative. Not that I was going to tell him that.”
Doc frowned. “You can get it done sooner?”
“You better believe it, Theo. We’ll have the system online within the hour, barring unforeseen failures. I told you, I’ve been working on this for a while now.”
“Dribs and drabs, you said.”
Fixie shrugged. “I might have been playing it down a little, now that you mention it.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Krysty reluctantly smoked another of Hammersmith’s joints, but the pounding in her head kept getting worse.
The reason seemed pretty clear. She and the rest of the team, and their prisoner, were hiking the last few miles to the core. The landscape-warping and animal-mutating forces emanated from there. According to Hammersmith, the core represented the greatest concentration of those forces in the Shift. So it was to be expected that they would break through whatever relief she had found in Hammersmith’s drug.
But the fact remained that she had to work through the pain, no matter how bad it got. They were too close to finding Doc, if he was still alive, for her to hobble the team in any way and jeopardize the rescue.
Thinking back to her earlier seizures, which had occurred much farther from the core, she dreaded the onset of more pain at that level. To ward it off, she tried placing herself in a meditative kind of state, focusing on peaceful thoughts and maintaining an even keel in all ways.
It helped, at least, that Ryan was by her side. His presence always calmed her in even the most extreme situations.
His arm brushed against her now and then as they walked, just enough to remind her that he was there. That he would do everything in his power to keep her from suffering, no matter what it cost him.
“Not far now,” said Hammersmith, who was guiding the group, walking in front between Jak and Ricky. “Everybody keep alert from here on out.”
“Thought you said way back,” Jak stated. “Keep us off radar.”
“We are, Casper,” Hammersmith snapped. “But you never know when one of those mutie bastards might happen to be out having a smoke or taking a piss when you least expect it, do you?”
“Jumpy?” Jak asked. “Nervous ’bout going home?”
“Not a bit, you pasty-faced bastard.”
“Not worry. We got back.” Jak chuckled. “Sides and front different story.”
“Up yours,” Hammersmith snarled.
Krysty managed a small smile in spite of the rising pain in her head. A little friction wasn’t a bad thing on the way to a fight; it helped take the edge off, took their minds off the danger just enough.
It was better to focus on Hammersmith’s trash talk than the real wild card in their midst: Union. Taking her with them had the potential to blow up in their faces. It was impossible to predict what she might do at the core, which crazy or malicious whim her split personalities might decide to indulge.
J.B. and Mildred had eyes and blasters on Union at all times. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her mouth was gagged. But Krysty wouldn’t bet jack that she wasn’t still a threat. If an opportunity presented itself, Krysty couldn’t imagine that Union would pass it up.
Suddenly, Hammersmith slowed his pace, gesturing for everyone to do the same. The group eased along a winding path through a maze of small hills, casting long shadows from the almost-setting sun.
They emerged in an open space, a broad, sandy flat centered on two big hills some fifty yards away.
“This is it,” Hammersmith announced. “Welcome to the core.”
“Not see anything,” Jak said. “Core invisible?”
“Underground.” Hammersmith pointed an index finger downward. “It’s inside an old military base that survived skydark. My old stomping grounds.”
Immediately, Krysty realized he had to be referring to a redoubt. She looked over at Ryan, who kept his poker face firmly in place but met her gaze with the same instantaneous understanding.
“How get in?” Jak asked. “Underground bases not have back doors.”
“This one does.” Hammersmith pointed at a spot near the base of the closest hill. “I put it there myself a while ago, in case I needed a way in. Be fucking prepared, that’s my motto.”
“Motto sound familiar,” Jak said sarcastically.
“I’ve got another motto just for you,” Hammersmith said, and then he gave Jak the finger.
Jak laughed. “Better watch. Might cut off for souvenir.”
“Bite me.” Hammersmith then headed for the two nearby hills.
Jak and Ricky, both grinning, fell in step on opposite sides of him. Ryan and Krysty were next in line, but when they started forward, Krysty faltered.
“You okay?” Ryan looked at her with concern.
Krysty nodded. “I’m fine, I’m good.” She gestured at the men ahead of them. “Let’s go get Doc.”
“Tell me if you need a rest.”
“I will.” Krysty flashed her best “all’s well” smile, though Ryan probably knew all wasn’t well. She’d faltered because of a bolt of pain in her head, the biggest one so far that day. She forced it down with all her strength, determined not to burden the group, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last.
And she wasn’t sure she’d be the kind of asset the team needed her to be once the last of the drugs wore off and the flashes of pain came stronger than ever. But Doc needed her, and she wouldn’t give up until he was safe…if she was physically able.
“Come on,” she said, and then she started forward again, this time without faltering. Meanwhile, the pounding in her head grew ominously more intense.
* * *
J.B. JABBED THE barrel of his Mini-Uzi in the small of Union’s back, but she wouldn’t walk forward.
At first, he thought she might be making some kind of play to get herself free, but when she turned her head, giving him a look at the side of her face, he changed his opinion.
Union actually looked scared. Her eyes were wide with panic, her lips quivering slightly.
J.B. jabbed her again. “Get moving!”
But she just stood there. Up to that point, she’d marched the whole way with erect defiance, as if the bonds were a badge of honor. Now she looked terrified of going the rest of the way.
Mildred, the other half of Union’s escort, poked her with the barrel of the ZKR revolver. “What’s the problem?”
Union shook her head emphatically. She couldn’t speak with her mouth gagged, but her body language told the story.
Whichever personality was in charge at that moment, she didn’t want to get any closer to the core.
Briefly, J.B. considered peeling off her gag to find out exactly what the problem was, but there were too many ways for that scenario to go sideways. Besides, they didn’t have time to waste; the rest of the group was already up ahead, crossing the flat.
“Just go.” J.B. jabbed her harder with the Mini-Uzi. “It’s not as if you’re going in alone.”
Still, she resisted. The fear on her face blossomed, expanding like a mushroom cloud.
They had to catch up to the others, or the mission could fall apart.
“Walk. Now.” J.B. raised the blaster and pressed the barrel against the back of Union’s head. “Or I pull the trigger and leave you here to rot.”
He had no intention of killing her in cold blood. Her braid was white, which told him an innocent personality—Carr
ie—was in the driver’s seat. But he needed her to believe him.
“Dead serious, girl.” J.B. pressed the barrel tighter against her skull. “Get moving or die.”
Union shivered violently, then suddenly stopped and stiffened. When she turned to look back at him, the fear in her eyes had been replaced by ice, and her braid had changed to black.
Taryn was back in the saddle, as frigid and defiant as ever. She needed no further encouragement to start walking; she spun on her heel and followed the footsteps of Ryan and the others without hesitation.
J.B. shared a look with Mildred, and they both shook their heads. Then they hurried to catch up with Union before her next unpredictable move.
* * *
HAMMERSMITH LED THE group to the base of the nearest hill, then circled behind it. Halfway around the hill, he stopped and kicked sand off something on the ground.
As the sand cleared, Ricky saw there was a round metal hatch at their feet—an actual predark manhole cover cast from iron. The middle of the Sandhills was no place for such an object, so Ricky guessed it had to have been repurposed from somewhere else…maybe within the redoubt.
“Somebody give me a pry bar.” Hammersmith reached out a hand and snapped his fingers impatiently. When no one gave him what he wanted right away, he sneered at the team. “You mean to tell me none of you bastards has a pry bar?”
Ricky shrugged. “Doc’s swordstick might have worked.”
Hammersmith shook his head. “How’d I ever let myself get mixed up with you morons?” He hunkered down, squatting by the cover, and fluttered his fingers overhead. “How about loaning me a rifle, then?”
Ryan handed him Union’s Heckler & Koch. “Safety’s on.”
Hammersmith scowled. “Really?” He jammed the barrel of the blaster in a groove along the rim of the cover, then got to his feet and leaned on the weapon. “We’re about to find out.” Grunting, he pried at the cover, pressing the longblaster ever downward until the metal disk finally rose from its cradle.
Ricky and Jak rushed over and lifted it the rest of the way clear, dropping it in the sand beside what was now an open hole in the ground. Then everyone crowded forward.
Ricky saw that a ladder led down the uncovered shaft into pitch-blackness. Whatever waited down below, he couldn’t see it.
“This is it, guys.” Hammersmith lowered himself into the pipe, stepping on the first rung of the ladder. “The secret entrance, such as it is.”
As they all adjusted their packs and weapons to fit through the access shaft, Ricky looked at Union, anticipating a problem right before Mildred mentioned it.
“She can’t get down the ladder unless we untie her,” Mildred said.
“Do it,” Ryan told her. “Hurry up.”
Mildred untied Union while J.B. kept his Mini-Uzi trained on her. The second her hands were free, Union reached up and whipped the gag out of her mouth.
“Hey!” J.B. snapped.
“Deal with it, asshole.” Union tossed the gag over her shoulder and headed for the hole with her usual imperious stride.
Ricky made sure he entered the shaft in front of her, and he noticed Jak pushing in behind her. If Union tried something on the way down, she’d have both of them to contend with, not just Hammersmith.
She entered the shaft after Ricky as if she was the one in charge. Her boots clomped quickly on the rungs above his head, making him feel as if they’d stomp on his head if he climbed down any slower.
“Careful!” Hammersmith’s voice came from not too far below. “There’s a little jump at the bottom, and we’re almost there.”
Shortly after he said it, Ricky heard Hammersmith’s feet land on solid ground a little ways down. Ricky slowed his descent, and sure enough, he ran out of ladder after another half-dozen rungs.
Jumping off, Ricky landed as Hammersmith had done. Just as he touched down, Hammersmith fired up a battery-powered lantern that lit the surrounding space.
Looking around, Ricky saw he was standing in a square, dirt-walled room, no bigger than fifteen feet on each side. Other than the ladder and lantern, the room was empty; a single doorway was cut in the wall opposite the ladder, framing a rectangle of absolute darkness.
As the others came down after Ricky, the room quickly filled. The whole group was now crowded in a confined space underground, too close for any kind of comfort.
“Everyone follow me.” Lantern in hand, Hammersmith headed for the doorway. “The access point for the core facility is—”
Suddenly, Krysty cried out. As everyone looked her way, she fell back against the dirt wall, clutching her head.
“It’s coming!” Her face contorted, she thrashed back and forth. “The biggest one yet!”
As she said it, Ricky felt a faint tremor underfoot. The tremor quickly became a strong rumbling, sending dirt trickling down from above.
Ricky wasn’t claustrophobic, but a frightening image suddenly seized his imagination. What if the walls collapsed, burying him and the others underground?
Krysty’s cries seemed to give weight to the image. “We’ve got to get out of here! It’s coming! It’s coming!”
Chapter Forty-Six
The fizzing in the back of Doc’s head went off the charts just before the ground started shaking.
All this because Fixie had flipped the master switch on the equipment in the mat-trans chamber. As promised, he’d gotten Hammersmith’s system ready for activation within the hour. There had been no unexpected failures, and he’d brought everything online in short order.
But whatever the system was doing to fulfill its programming, Doc’s head had reacted badly. The fizzing, which had been strong since he’d arrived at the core, shifted into high gear and pushed into his eyes.
By the time the earth started moving, the fizzing had turned to crackling. The noise was so loud that Doc couldn’t quite tell if it was still inside his head or part of the quake.
Groaning from the surge of noise and feeling, Doc doubled over in the middle of the room. Then he stayed that way, planting his hands on his knees and taking slow, deep breaths against the tide.
The whole time, Fixie was too caught up in fine-tuning the system to notice Doc’s reaction. “The nuclear batteries are working! The power flow is steady!” He ran from console to console along the room’s periphery, adjusting controls and seemingly taking no notice of the earthquake in progress.
Doc’s body flooded with heat from head to toe. The sequence of physical responses was familiar from before, when he’d first tuned in to impending changes in the Shift, but they seemed faster and more intense this time. That fit with what Fixie said the system would do, converting the entire region into some kind of Garden of Eden. It made sense that Doc’s reaction to such a major transformation would be extreme.
That, however, didn’t make it any easier to handle, and the quake itself didn’t help, either. The tremors got so strong, they nearly knocked Doc over. He stumbled forward and caught himself on a stepladder under an open ceiling panel, barely staying erect as his body flared internally with what felt like blazing white light.
“Fixie!” Doc had to shout to be heard over the loud rumbling of the quake. “Is this what is supposed to be happening?”
“This and worse!” Fixie shouted. “It’ll take a lot of tectonic activity to reshape the entire Shift!”
An especially strong tremor rocked the chamber, and Doc braced himself on the stepladder. “What if you bring down this entire facility?”
“What if?” Fixie spun dials and laughed. “More like when! The forces we’re unleashing will be especially strong here, at the epicenter.”
Clenching his teeth, Doc wrapped his arms around the ladder and rode out the waves that were buffeting him from within and without. He felt completely disoriented on every level, overwhelmed with fever and motion sickness.
Lights flashed from control panels and displays around the room, bathing him in flickering rainbows. The ground shook harder, as if trying
to shake him loose from his anchor. He hated to think how bad it would get, if this was just the beginning.
“Sorry, but I cannot help you anymore.” Doc swung himself around to the other side of the ladder, closest to the door. “I need to…need to go…”
“Anywhere you go within the Shift will be the same,” Fixie said. “Nothing but upheaval now. You’re as safe here as anywhere for the time being.”
Doc cried out as the white light burned like a nova inside him. His gorge rose, and he felt as if he was going to throw up at any moment.
Gathering all his will and strength, he let go of the ladder and aimed himself at the door. He had to do something, had to get out, in spite of what Fixie had said.
Doc stumbled across the floor as it bucked underfoot. He nearly fell once, then twice, but managed to stay upright and cross the distance to the door.
When he had almost reached the exit, however, the quake suddenly surged. The fiercest tremors yet rocked the mat-trans chamber, sending him toppling forward, completely out of control.
Before he could hit the floor, however, someone darted through the doorway and caught him. The save was just in the nick of time; Doc had missed hitting the floor face-first by inches.
As his rescuer lifted him by the shoulders, Doc finally got a look at his face…and instantly wished he hadn’t. The first thing that caught his eye was the red-and-white-striped candy stick hanging from the corner of a crimsonfaced sneer.
“Dear, sweet Hammersmith.” Exo’s high-pitched voice cut right through the crackling in Doc’s head and the rumbling in the room. “What the fuck have you gotten yourself into now?”
Doc recoiled from Exo’s rancid breath as it gusted in his face. “We were just… We were…” He dug deep for the smart thing to say and came up empty. “It is fixed.”
“Good boy, good boy.” Exo shook Doc like a rag doll. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go kill that guy over there.” With that, he tossed Doc aside, slamming him into the wall, and marched toward Fixie with purposeful steps, unaffected by the lurching of the earthquake.
