James Axler - Deathlands 43 - Dark Emblem

by Dark Emblem [lit]

  "That depends on the definition. I could say yes, and be telling the truth depending on how closely you want to analyze my meaning."

  Tanner grabbed Welles by the lapels of his lab coat and snarled into his face. "Double-talk! Babble! I have heard your kind before, sir, and I know enough to not waste my time on your attempts to stonewall. Enough of your mendacity!"

  "Geez, he sure talks funny, doesn't he?" the blond nurse said.

  Tanner spun and pointed a finger at her. "Ignoramus!"

  The automatic door to the room slid open as the man in a hospital dressing gown approached, causing him to shrink back in surprise. In 1896, doors weren't known for opening by themselves. The shock of seeing the doors, combined with the presence of two large men standing in the hallway outside the door, was enough to keep him rooted in place.

  "I feel positively light-headed," Tanner remarked in a casual tone, reaching out and holding on to the frame of the open door for support. Behind him, he smelled the breath of the man who had identified himself as Welles. As he turned to tell the overweight doctor to back off, Tanner felt a stinging sensation in his left buttock.

  Tanner spun clumsily to face Welles, who was holding a syringe.

  "You're much too active for a dead man, Dr. Tanner. I think you need some more bed rest."

  "You bastard-" he managed to croak, before falling backward into the arms of the waiting security team.

  "What do you think, Nurse?" Welles asked the blonde as they watched the security men gently place Tanner back in the hospital bed, only this time, strapping him down with an assortment of nylon belts.

  "I don't know, Doctor. He seems awfully stubborn."

  "He'd have to be, to survive the trawling process. Still, I wonder if we have indeed obtained our puppet-and if so, how many of his strings must we cut before he allows us control?"

  Chapter Three

  In the ebony night of the stairwell, Ryan and the others knew they were going to be forced to fight on instinct alone.

  In the wink of an eye, Ryan had coaxed his mind to visualize his companions' positions. Unlike J.B., his memory wasn't as crisp as a photograph, but Ryan's powers of short-term observation were still formidable.

  This was going to be dirty and intense. They were too close to one another to risk the use of blasters. One ricochet could injure the wrong party; one stray bullet could mean the unintentional chilling of a friend. The only advantage they had was obvious- their foes were at the same disadvantage in the raven black, for even the eerie catlike eyes of Jak Lauren needed some kind of ambient light to function in the dark.

  The trusty panga leaped silently into Ryan's right hand, a quick movement of practiced skill.

  Unseen by Ryan, J.B. pulled his own blade from its sheath, while Doc armed himself with the exposed steel of his lethal swordstick.

  Two of Jak's customized leaf-bladed throwing knives were in his pale hands, one implement in the left and the other deadly cutter in the right, both now invisible in the darkness. When it came to combat in tight quarters, the albino was equally at home using his left or his right hand.

  Ryan's keen ears caught a "thwipping" sound, followed by a scream and a wet gurgling. Jak had unleashed one of the knives, and yet again, Ryan was both impressed and astonished by the lithe albino's uncanny skill in a knife fight.

  "Cut me cut me hurts hurts cut me-" Then the cry was cut off, terminated by a wheezing sound and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting solid ground.

  Then, all was still, until a series of shots rang out, a burst of leaded death.

  Knowing none of his people would have made such a stupid and costly mistake, Ryan lunged toward the white flash he'd spied from the barrel of the weapon, grateful the fool behind the long blaster hadn't thought of fitting the weapon with a flashhider for night firing.

  Raising his own blaster from his side, Ryan followed through and squeezed off a bullet, a second round coughing with deadly authority, catching the figure in the dark.

  Ryan stood, holding his breath, waiting, listening. After sixty seconds had passed, Krysty spoke.

  "I think we're alone, lover."

  Taking out his lighter, J.B. thumbed the sparking wheel and held the flame high, looking around at the carnage.

  Ryan stood from his crouched position and warily walked up to the fallen bodies.

  The first corpse spotted was tangled in the stairwell's guardrail, a mess of limp arms and legs, along with a steady dripping of crimson. J.B. looked up impassively from the slain figure.

  "Mutie," the Armorer said tersely.

  Using the light provided by the lighter, Jak had crossed and found the second one he'd taken out blindly with his throwing knife. "Mine too," the albino said. "Stickie."

  "No surprise there. Rarely see norms runnin' with muties-old Lester being the exception," J.B. noted, referring to the scarred human leader who'd taken up with a local band of stickies and led them in a fatal assault against the norms of Freedom Mall.

  "And you, Ryan," Krysty replied in a teasing tone, picking up the fallen extinguished torch and holding out the tip end to be relit by J.B.'s lighter.

  Ryan glanced over at her in the faint light given off by the tiny flame, knowing she was referring to herself, to her own mutant traits, and he gave her a half smile in return. "Yeah," he replied. "And me."

  Then he calmly observed the results of his shots in the flickering light. The first one had wormed into the front of the stickie's right shoulder and out the back in a spray of gruesome red. One of the creature's wide unblinking eyes was missing where the second one had struck home, boring its way through to the back of the head.

  The stickie's hands-typical of the breed-were open in death and ghastly, with long fingers ending in amazingly strong suckers. J.B. could attest to the power of the mutie's fingertips; he still had scabs on his face where he'd been attacked days earlier. The coin-sized facial wounds were nearly healed now, but for days after the injury the Armorer had been forced to keep bandages on his face.

  Choosing not to wear a shirt, the dead mutie was bare-chested with the usual stickie trait of no apparent body hair. He wore a pair of tattered dress slacks that had already turned dark with blood from his wounds. Jak's kill was in similar shape, except the knife had caught the mutie in the throat, puncturing the carotid artery and causing a fountain of the pinkish stickie blood to spray. Some of the blood had peppered Doc, but the man hadn't bothered to make mention of the unwanted shower, since Jak's actions may have saved his life.

  The albino retrieved his thrown weapon and wiped the blade clean on the stickie's clothing before returning the knife to an inner hiding place inside his camou jacket.

  "Wonder what brought them down here, Dad?" Dean asked. "I thought all the stickies in this part of Carolina were out smashing through stuff at the mall."

  "Could be they've started exploring now that they've burned down part of Freedom. Guess we'll never know for sure."

  "Cowardly bastards. They've probably been hid- ing in the dark, waiting for a chance to jump someone," the boy said.

  "Alas, I fear you are correct regarding our attackers, young Dean," Doc said softly. "Makes one wary, and sends one sliding backward into childhood, alone in bed at night and frightened of the hidden terrors of the night."

  "Were you scared of the dark when you were a kid, Doc?"

  "Of course not," Doc replied, then laid a finger alongside his nose and winked. "But my mother was an understanding parent and allowed me to keep a candle burning in the window all through my slumber-both for illumination for weary travelers, and for my own youthful peace of mind."

  "These muties look like rouges-not part of Lester's band. Not smart or organized enough," J.B. said as he busily emptied the dropped Uzi of the clip of 9 mm bullets. The fighting in Freedom combined with other gun-battles had eaten into their supply of badly needed ammunition. "Triple-strange to see a stickie carrying a blaster, though. Usually they prefer to stick to using their hands."

>   "Was that a pun, J.B.?" Mildred asked in a voice tinged with mock amazement.

  The Armorer looked back at her blankly. "Huh?"

  "'Stick to using their hands?' Get it? 'Stick to? Hands? Stickies?'"

  J.B. stared at the black woman. She finally gave up on him getting the joke. "Shit, John, I've said it before and I'll say it again. We've got to work on your sense of humor."

  "Don't got one," the weapons specialist told her stoically.

  "That's what I mean," Mildred retorted without missing a beat.

  "Guess here in Carolina the local stickie population decided to change their habits, Lester or no Lester," Ryan said. "Running into these two answered any doubts I might've had about passing back through this part of the Deathlands. I do intend to get up to Front Royal, but not using this route. Too dangerous without enough ammunition. Even if these stickies are wolf-heads from Lester's mutie army, there're probably plenty more farther up in the hospital complex."

  "So. We go back down?" Jak asked, rocking back and forth on his booted heels impatiently.

  "Yeah," Ryan said thoughtfully. "Yeah, let's go back to the gateway. I'd just as soon get the hell out of this pit of a stairwell and on our way to another locale before we get any more surprises."

  No one disagreed and they all fell in step with Ryan as he took the relighted torch from Krysty and led the way back down. At the bottom, the landing was well illuminated by the strip lighting shining through the hole from the chamber where the cryogenic complex and mat-trans unit were both housed. Ryan extinguished the torch and placed it back against the desk where they'd found it.

  "My father always told me, put your tools back where you got them," Doc said in an approving tone.

  From this side, the hole itself remained an inelegant affair, blown open previously by the wild-eyed Alvis Alton during his quest for hidden riches. Al-vis's timing had proved to be both a blessing and a curse. He'd been able to assist Ryan and the others when they arrived in the hidden complex through the mat-trans unit, but at the same time he'd brought down a horde of stickies with the noise he created when he set off his explosives.

  Back into the first hallway and nothing; past the silver doors leading to the cryo units, the inhabitants of the cylinder-like tombs within sealed away never to awaken again, their pods having failed at one time or another during then- long sleep, causing irreparable brain damage to some, death to others.

  From the trip taken mere moments before, J.B. knew that the seemingly daunting maze of rooms and hallways was actually laid out in a simple rectangle shape, and after passing the cryo lab a suite of empty hospital beds would be next on the agenda.

  "Sure would be nice to grab some sleep in there, lover," Krysty remarked to Ryan as she stifled a yawn and looked at him with her eyes at half-mast while passing the beds. "Can't remember the last time I had a good night's sleep. There's a bed in there for each of us, and curtains for privacy. And they're large enough to share."

  "I know. Too bad we can't risk it," Ryan replied. "I'm about to drop on my feet myself, but it's only a matter of time before another pack of stickies comes across this place. Like I said back on the stairs, I'd just as soon get the hell out of this pesthole and be on my way before that happens."

  "Sometimes I wonder about the paths we've chosen," she said tiredly. "But I guess it beats the alternative."

  "Anything beats the alternative."

  "Want me to reopen it, Dad?" Dean asked as the group converged on their final destination back at the mat-trans control room.

  "Go ahead, Dean."

  The boy keyed in the universal code of three-five-two and the vanadium-steel door obediently slid upward, allowing them entry into the low-ceilinged room. Wider than tall, the control center for the mat-trans chamber remained as white as a Colorado snowfall. A crisscrossing of bold black lines gave the floor a neutral checkerboard pattern. A single desk also painted white held a comp unit, keyboard, mouse and wide-screen monitor station. It was the only furnishing in the room. A star-burst pattern ran across the nearly black screen.

  The door, off to the far left, was made of painted wood with a simple bronze doorknob. They stepped through, feeling more secure now with the first vanadium steel door locked, and walked back into the hexagonal chamber.

  This mat-trans chamber located beneath the hospital was the traditional shape, but a low ceiling tapered to a central point, and the taller members of the group had to duck crossing the center of the room. Groupings of mat-trans disks hung overhead, open to the world and close enough to reach up and touch. A smooth floor made of a clear substance held the series of lower mat-trans disks suspended and waiting, as if sealed in Lucite blocks.

  Waiting until all were seated, Ryan closed the chamber door and quickly stepped across to take his place between Krysty and Dean. The gray gloominess of the walls increased as the mists from the top of the chamber began their descent, swirling in a mass of growing opaqueness that would soon obscure the room mere instants before unconsciousness would claim them all.

  Once the mat-trans chamber was in full vibrant bloom, Ryan had to close his eye against the blinding light. For some unknown reason, this chamber was much brighter than the norm, with a piercing bank of white that slid past his eyelid and into the very core of his being. He ducked his head between his knees in an effort to shield his face from the brilliance of the white. The warmth of the light came from all sides, washing down from the ceiling and splashing up from the floor, caressing him in shimmering tones that seemed to be coming from inside, instead of outside his body.

  The thickness of the fog increased and, when combined with the luminance of the chamber, made the haze much more apparent than usual.

  Mildred snuck a peek before slamming her eyelids shut.

  " 'Purple haze, within my brain...acting funny, but I don't know why,'" Mildred sang softly while strumming an air guitar.

  "What's with the movements?" J.B. whispered, his eyes squeezed tight to keep out the white light. His spectacles were tucked safely away inside one of the pockets of his leather jacket. "You keep poking me in the ribs with your elbow."

  "I'm playing the guitar, J.B.," Mildred replied, her eyes closed. "Jimi Hendrix. Purple Haze. Before your time."

  The Armorer considered this for a few seconds. "Oh. Okay."

  Unlike most of the companions, all of whom subconsciously held their breath as the eldritch process of matter transfer began, Mildred always breathed deeply, taking the ion-charged atmosphere down into her lungs. She honestly believed it helped with me dispersal and recalibration of her individual molecules when they were broken down and reassembled on the other side, at their eventual destination.

  Plus the deep breathing aided in calming her nerves. Matter transfer was almost routine now, but she still didn't like the process. Too many variables were involved to avoid the eventual happenstance of an error beyond their control, and when that happened, she could only pray it wouldn't be a fatal one.

  '"Excuse me, while I kiss the sky,'" she sang, and then the white was replaced by darkness and blissful unconsciousness.

  Chapter Four

  Ryan was dreaming, adrift and helpless in the suspended state between living and dying that the mat-trans journey created within the souls of sentient, conscious beings. The only way the human mind could hope to effectively survive the experience of total molecular disassembly and reassembly was to reject the reality of what was happening during a jump and enter instead into a waking dream cobbled together of truth and fiction, past and regret.

  In layman's terms, one could always count on a gateway journey to give a man triple-bad nightmares.

  In Ryan's current case, he was running flat out, putting his back into it, arms pumping, legs straining, running, running, running. The air in that part of Front Royal tasted electric and sharp, and to his young eyes-young? eyes?-gave a dark and fearsome aura to everything in sight, alternating their colors between black and blue as a maze of storm clouds raced across the
evening sky.

  The drawbridge was up, so he had to stop before plunging headlong into the moat. His legs flew out from beneath him, and he fell hard to the cobbled surface of the road leading to the drawbridge. Gasping for breath, he quickly examined his lower ex- tremities and gave particular care to his left kneecap, which had suffered the brunt of his sudden landing. The fabric of the trousers was torn away from the knee, revealing shredded flesh and blue blood.

  Blue blood? the boy thought stupidly, looking at the bodily fluid in numb surprise. He might be royalty of a sort because of his father's position of power in this southeastern pocket of Deathlands, but unlike some of his relatives he rarely flaunted the elevated seat he currently held as a son of the late, great Lord Titus Cawdor.

  And since when did he think of himself as a boy?