James Axler - Deathlands 43 - Dark Emblem

by Dark Emblem [lit]

  "It's biting me!" Soto screamed. "Blast it! Blast the fucker!"

  Krysty fired another volley of shots, and this time one of the bullets found a home in a vital organ of the creature. The clawed hands went slack as it fell from the helpless and kicking Soto.

  At the back of the stairs, J.B. reached into a pocket and took out a third gren, his fingers flying as he set it for yet another ten-second fuse.

  "I'm sending down another package," he yelled as he pulled the ring and opened his hand, releasing the gren on its deadly path.

  "J.B. Wait-" Ryan called, a fraction of a second too late.

  "What?" the Armorer asked tersely, before continuing the countdown. "Nine-"

  "We've got company."

  Above them glowed three pairs of eyes.

  "Dark night," the Armorer said, disgusted.

  "Going to get darker," Jorge replied.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mildred had awakened in her quarters before dawn, much earlier than she would have liked, but she was a person usually unable to fall back asleep once she was roused from slumber. Without getting up from the bed and keeping busy, she knew she'd end up missing J.B.'s presence at her side and staring at the ceiling even as fatigue continued to rest upon her weary bones.

  What had awakened her? The room was surprisingly cool, the stone construction within the fortress not holding any of the previous day's heat.

  Her bladder twinged as if in answer.

  "Too much wine," she said aloud, and then giggled. "Drink too much and you have to prime the pump."

  As she padded barefoot down the stone hallway toward the washroom of this section of the fortress, she strode past Doc's room.

  The door to the old man's quarters was hanging open. Curious, Mildred looked inside, and immediately realized from the taut bedspread and perfectly centered pillow the bed hadn't yet been slept in, nor had someone lain on top for a quick nap.

  Unlike herself, Mildred knew from the many times they'd shared a campsite together that Doc was a man who could sleep through anything.

  So where was he now? Worried, she took a moment to retrieve her clothing, shrugging into the blue dress Jamaisvous had given her the previous morning, since it was close at hand. She also picked up her blaster, holding it at her side as she started looking. Her search led her to the control room of the oddly configured mat-trans unit that Silas Jamaisvous had modified in the bowels of the mighty fortress.

  Her eyes went first to Doc, who was standing next to the mat-trans chamber, the door of the booth open and the handle gripped in one hand as if he were saying a silent prayer before entering. Doc wore a guilty hangdog look, like a naughty pet caught in the midst of shredding a favorite sock or shoe. He twisted his swordstick in his other hand.

  Mildred then directed her intense gaze at Jamaisvous, who was sitting at a control center with his back to her. Various comps, vid screens and readouts were actively chattering and blinking away in front of him.

  "What in God's name do you think you're doing?" Mildred demanded loudly.

  He turned and gave his unexpected guest a quick smile. "What am I doing, Dr. Wyeth? What I've been doing for two long years now. I am conducting an experiment. You were not expected nor invited for this final phase, but you are more than welcome to watch."

  Mildred took one step forward, and a sec man in green pants and black T-shirt stepped into view from his hidden vantage point next to a tall comp data bank.

  "Garcia?"

  "Lopez."

  "Sorry, I get you two confused."

  "That's okay, Dr. Wyeth. I have trouble telling your people apart, too."

  Mildred started to stride forward once more, and the sec man lowered his weapon in reply.

  "Uh-uh. You may watch, but don't think of interfering," Jamaisvous said easily.

  "What are you going to do, Doc?" Mildred asked.

  Jamaisvous spoke instead. "Dr. Tanner is going to add the final piece to the puzzle of chron-jumping. I've given him a series of medical injections to counter some of the temporal side effects, and now we're going to try to trawl him forward and back in tune. If this works, everybody wins."

  "And if it doesn't, Doc ends up dead. Or worse."

  "I do not think my life could get much worse, Dr. Wyeth," Doc replied sadly. "This is my decision."

  "Uh-uh," Mildred replied. "You need to think this out."

  "He has made his decision," Jamaisvous snarled, spinning toward the woman. "Imagine waking up, Mildred, and discovering you had no human companionship to welcome you into the future. I wish I had been a freezie instead of a trawl. I had to shoot myself forward just to survive the coming war, only unlike Dr. Tanner, I used another mat-trans chamber as a destination point. Chamber-to-chamber time trawls are a hell of a lot safer in case anything goes wrong."

  "You lied."

  Jamaisvous continued to speak, paying no attention to Mildred's accusations. "I made it there alive, but I was the only one, and when I checked the rest of the redoubt, I discovered all of my fellow sleepers were mutants, ugly little demons waiting, sleeping and dreaming their dark thoughts."

  "The chupacabras...1" Mildred asked with dawning realization.

  "Yes. I sent some of them back, you know. Back in time, right from the source of the first redoubt in El Yunque," Jamaisvous said with a smirk. "I was only able to do this six times before the power fluctuations from the failing nuke generator started to create massive problems."

  "What kinds of problems?" Mildred asked, her mind racing as she tried to think of a way out of the situation in which she now found herself and Doc trapped.

  ' 'Most of them were computer related. It takes an infinite number of calculations to accomplish even a simple same-time mat-trans jump. When you add the complication of a temporal destination, even more juice is needed. The chupacabras, as the locals dubbed them, would not have been my first choice as test subjects, but since I was there and they were the only other living creatures at my disposal, I made do."

  "You made do by sending violent, murderous creatures into the past?" Doc asked in tones of disbelief.

  Jamaisvous shrugged. "Frankly I was curious to see if such moronic boobs would survive a reverse time-trawl intact. The information stream I beamed into the quantum interface and bounced back for a picture never did function correctly-then again, the masters of Chronos never perfected the chronal window for temporal peeping, either."

  The whitecoat turned back to Doc. "As I recall, that was another reason for their delight in you, Dr. Tanner. They'd somehow managed to keep the window open into your particular time and locale, actually getting some video footage of you and your wife doddering around the wooden sidewalks of Omaha"

  "I know," Doc replied quietly. "I have seen the tape."

  "The goatsuckers... You said you sent them back?'' Mildred prodded, wanting to keep him talking, wanting to extend the situation before Doc crawled into the waiting gateway.

  "Right! And from published reports of the time, I was even more successful than I could have dreamed. Amusingly enough, the media of the 1990s deemed the genetically created chupacabras a living creature designed for war, as having extraterrestrial origins."

  "You're right," Mildred said. "Soto and Jorge, from Old San Juan, had researched those accounts, too."

  Jamaisvous gestured with both hands, adding a visual commentary as he talked in the clipped manner he assumed when spewing information. "Imagine! Savor the irony! Packs of EBEs-extraterrestrial biological entities-flying over the islands of the Caribbean! Bug-eyed Martians wanting a beach vacation! All of them, racing around the Puerto Rican countryside in then- flying saucers, taking time out to suck the blood from goats and cows in some arcane ceremony. Utterly hilarious."

  "None of them were ever captured or found?"

  "Of course they were! The United States government, the 'aboveboard' contingent, knew something strange was going on after they took away a pair of the beasts from the island to the mainland for observati
on and autopsy, but their response was predictable. Taint the evidence and ridicule the believers, while destroying or distorting any real proof."

  Mildred realized where this was leading. "They could tell the chupacabras were genetically engineered creations, couldn't they?"

  "Of course! And here's the kicker. They took what they could learn from the two animals and used what they thought were alien strands of DNA to make their own living, breathing chupacabras! Next thing you know, we have a paradox. Take into account the eternal question of the chicken or the egg? Doesn't matter any longer, for you no longer needed the egg in the first place! Which came first-the future or the past? Damned if I can say for sure, but it certainly makes for top-notch entertainment."

  "I'm not a geneticist, but this sounds far-fetched even to me."

  "Not when invoking chimeric DNA, Dr. Wyeth."

  "What?"

  '' 'A fearful creature, great and swift of foot and strong, whose breath was flame unquenchable,'" Doc said from his position at the opening of the gateway, pulling up specs from the depths of his incredible memory.

  "Sounds like he needs a bottle of mouthwash," Mildred retorted. She'd heard Doc's lengthy dissertations on these topics before, and the end result was always one of two things: either Doc's yammering drove her to distraction or bored her to tears. Now, she welcomed it, knowing as long as she kept the discussion going, the odds were greater of holding these two off until Ryan returned, hoping the one-eyed man would never allow Doc to take such a risk without knowing more about the boundaries.

  "The Chimera was a mythical fire-breathing monster, with the great head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a hissing, striking serpent," Doc continued. "Held to be unconquerable, with the ability to spit bolts of fire...until Bellerophon rode winged Pegasus up and over the beast, shooting her with arrows from a safe distance with no risk to himself."

  ' 'You know, I used to enjoy mythology until I met you," Mildred said wearily.

  Jamaisvous laughed in delight. "She's right! Count on you, Dr. Tanner, to ruin all the fun. But, he's correct in his words, Dr. Wyeth. The term 'chi- meric' does indeed come from mythological origins and, in this instance, refers to certain combinations of DNA. Take genetic material from one animal, and place it in another. Shake well, and see what surprise combo you've come up with this tune."

  "Playing God," the woman said with a frown.

  "I agree. I also postulate that if man has reached the heights of such creation and manipulation of life, then man has become godlike."

  "I don't agree," Mildred said. "I've always believed there are limits, and lines that should not be crossed."

  "This from an expert in the field of cryonics? What about the eternal body and soul debate? The morality of freezing the dead for eventual reanima-tion? Dr. Frankenstein would have heartily approved of your field, Mildred."

  "There's a big difference between trying to preserve existing life and creating anew, Silas," Mildred pointed out.

  "Perhaps, but it doesn't matter here. Like yourself, Dr. Wyeth, genetics aren't my specialty, but I'm a fast learner and have spent quite a few nights going through the existing videotapes of the many processes that led to the creation of the mutants known as chupacabras. Here a protoplast, there a hybrid and boom-a single cell containing the chromosomes of both parent cells. I believe vectors were also used, a vector being an unsuspecting DNA molecule into which foreign DNA can be easily inserted."

  "There goes the neighborhood."

  "Yes. Once you've added the new element to the old, you then have an entirely different creation that is fully accepted and taken up by the confused host cell."

  "All you're describing to me is pantropic science," Mildred said. "I've seen it and experienced the horror of it firsthand. Why the government didn't think a nuclear conflagration was sufficient punishment for the world is beyond me, but the artificial creations generated by the distortions of nature make me sick to even call myself a member of the human race."

  Jamaisvous laid a hand over his heart. "Spoken like a true patriot, my dear. Still, Dr. Tanner and I have an appointment to keep, right?"

  "Yes," Doc replied.

  Then, Mildred surprised them all. She raised her pistol and fired a quick shot into the heart of one of the comps on the table next to Jamaisvous, followed by a bold lunge for Doc, which was doomed to failure by the equally quick reaction time of Garcia, who pulled a small black-and-silver handheld device from his belt and shoved the suddenly sparking gadget against Mildred's body.

  The last thing Mildred saw before being plunged into unconsciousness was the electric-blue strike of a compressed lightning blast.

  "You COULDN'T BACK OFF, could you? I'm sorry, Dr. Wyeth. Sorry for both of us." The leader of the El Morro Fortress glared down at his guest, all pretense of polite host long lost. The tazer Garcia had used to subdue Mildred emitted faint crackling sounds as Jamaisvous, who'd taken control of the woman's target pistol, idly caressed the hammer of the firing mechanism. "I suppose I should kill you to insure my plans of succeeding, but I'm a fair man, so what I do depends on you."

  Mildred held her ground. "What a load. You live to brag and talk. Kill me and you're back to expressing glee to your own reflection in the mirror. I'm sure the locals don't exactly comprehend the full import of what you've got set up here."

  "A parry of ego, eh, Dr. Wyeth? I can handle being alone. I've been alone before. I kind of like it."

  Mildred got to her feet, realizing part of one breast was exposed by the low-cut blue dress. She lingered as she pushed herself up, allowing Jamaisvous a long look at her cleavage.

  "There's always room for discussion, Silas...and nobody likes being alone," she said in her huskiest voice.

  "Please, don't come any closer. I hate heroes, especially misguided, oversexed ones. I daresay none of us wants any more shooting in here, what with such delicate and irreplaceable equipment lying about," Jamaisvous said. He waved an impatient hand at Doc. "Go ahead, Theophilus! We can't get started until you're encased inside."

  "I beg you, Dr. Jamaisvous, do not hurt my friends," he implored.

  "That's entirely up to them, isn't it? Now go. Fly."

  Doc did as ordered, stepping into the gateway and closing the door with a soft click.

  Mildred, her racing heartbeat belying the fine sheen of sweat on her face and forehead, stepped over briskly, not caring if she was shot, and began to pound on the blue armaglass of the gateway chamber with both fists. From within, if he skewed his eyes, Doc could make out her faint, shadowy outline.

  "Doc! Don't do it! Doc!" she screamed, even as the tendrils of mist began to form and collect inside the chamber like a damp embrace from an old friend. "He's using you! Using you as a test subject, you crazy old fart! He doesn't care if you live or die! Doc!"

  There was an incredibly bright light from inside the sheltered chamber, filtered by the colored armaglass but still as bright as the noonday sun. All of the secondary lights and comp banks in the room dimmed in intensity as the light within the mat-trans unit reached blinding levels. Mildred closed her eyes and still was blinded, finally having to turn her back to the light to save her overloaded visual receptors.

  Then, he was gone again. There was no fading or even the sudden violent changes in the air and gravitation fabric as the last time he'd been taken by time trawl.

  He just ceased to be.

  Doc Tanner...wasn't.

  "The chron jump is now in progress," Jamaisvous announced calmly. "First stop-tomorrow."

  Mocsin, Montana, 2095

  Doc TANNER STARED UP toward the voice that had just threatened to kill him, his eyes falling on a kind of stepped pyramid, approximately twelve feet high, wide at the bottom and tapering off to a smaller, flat top, upon which rested a wide, high-backed wing chair draped in the stars and stripes of an American

  Sitting in the chair and on the flag was a man, dressed in a dingy robe of purple silk, with a dirty white fur collar. Purple silke
n pajamas could be glimpsed beneath the folds of the half-open robe. The man was wearing black knee-length riding boots whose sheen caught the reflection of many candles. He was fat, but not grotesque, although the potential for obesity of an incapacitating manner was present in his fleshy face and build. A white scarf, brighter and cleaner than the fur collar of the gown, was wrapped around his throat.

  Short, white hair topped the man's head, which craned down as he peered intently at the kneeling figure of Doc Tanner with mild curiosity. The room was silent as he stared Doc down. Pausing only to take out and light up a ridiculously large cigar with an odor even more cloying and sweet that the burning pots of incense, he finally decided to speak.

  "Who the fuck are you?" the fat man asked, blowing out a plume of smoke.