James Axler - Deathlands 43 - Dark Emblem

by Dark Emblem [lit]

  "Armageddon."

  "Yes. I suspected but never really knew for sure. Word had gone out among the power elite, and the puppet masters can rarely keep a silent tongue in their empty heads. You were supposed to be trawled backward in an attempt to alter the future time line. Too bad you were too damn arrogant to stick to the bargain."

  Doc felt his heart ache with agony. Every word out of Jamaisvous's mouth was a reminder of what he had lost.

  No, not lost.

  What had been taken from him, boldly snatched away even as he had been snatched like a flailing rag doll and tossed into the unforgiving winds of a cyclone.

  "You are the reason for your eventual downfall, Tanner, not I."

  And then, Tanner's remorse and grief were transformed into a new mass of emotions, and the driving one pulsing through his brain and heart was hate. He pulled on the captured foot harder, trying to twist it into a painful position.

  Jamaisvous swayed on his feet, stomping down again and again on Doc's forearm and wrist to release the insanely tight grip the man had on his ankle. Freeing himself, the self-appointed lord of El Morro Fortress stumbled toward the mat-trans chamber, ready to flee and abdicate his domain. He looked around, his eyes narrowed to slits as he tried to find the lost blaster, but he didn't see it. What he did see was Dr. Tanner determinedly crawling toward him.

  "You just don't get it, do you?" Jamaisvous snarled. "You never did." And then he lashed out at the crawling figure, using his good leg as support to raise his other, bleeding leg in a kick and driving home the point of his polished dress shoe right into Doc's chin, snapping the man's head back and causing his upper body to go high before slamming down painfully face-first to the hard floor.

  "Sorry to chat and run, but I really must make this important date," Jamaisvous said in a breathy voice, and followed up the statement with a peal of hysterical laughter. "For, 'I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!' So late! Too late!"

  Nearly unconscious, Doc still managed to drag himself up to watch as Jamaisvous entered the mat-trans chamber and pulled closed the armaglass door. Now, even as the cycle began, and the burst of light erupted within the room and the peals of fog came slithering out from the shimmering metal disks that broke down the molecules of whatever, whoever was inside, Tanner made it up to his side, using one arm to prop himself in a secure position while his other hand splayed awkwardly on the desktop next to him.

  His fingers felt, searching until they came across the plastic surface of the keyboard. Doc pulled it toward himself, twisting his hand in the mire of cables behind the monitor linking the comp, pulled it hard, using what was left of his fading strength along with his body weight.

  Then, with a final Herculean effort, Doc yanked down, bringing the central processing unit and monitor onto the hard floor, where they both erupted on impact into a mass of sparks, impacting at precisely the same moment that the long figure standing inside the mat-trans unit ceased to exist...at least, at this particular location at this particular time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "Shit."

  "What?" Krysty asked. The Armorer was almost always a study of grace under pressure. For him to allow himself the luxury of a curse meant he'd hit an unexpected block.

  "Shit, shit, shit. This will take a moment," J.B. replied, fishing through his jacket pockets for the needed implement as he continued to speak. "This is a mag lock. Not the hardest kind to navigate past, but they can be triple-damn annoying minus the proper tool. I need an electric wand to reverse the polarity. Once that's taken care of, we'll be on him in no time."

  "You got one of those wands?" Dean asked.

  "Please," J.B. said, sounding offended.

  "Sorry."

  "No time, indeed. No time is what I fear the most, John," Mildred murmured, lost in her own inner thoughts. "I never should have allowed Doc to participate in Jamaisvous's mad experiments."

  "I imagine you didn't have much of a choice. Doc's his own man. Always has been," Ryan said. "He'd be willing to try anything to get back to his wife and kids."

  J.B. twisted the end of the cylinder-shaped handle of the wand he was manipulating and pushed at the locked door. "Wrong frequency," he said to himself and took out a second device, working with it and trying to keep focused.

  "How much longer?" Mildred asked.

  "Ease up, man's workin' on it," Ryan said.

  "What, now you're preaching patience to me, Ryan?" Mildred retorted.

  Ryan grinned. "Guess so."

  "Got it," J.B. announced. The Armorer had brought forth the necessary tool on the third try and had inserted it into the join between latch and door. Using both hands he twisted it back and forth, and was now rewarded with a loud ka-thak, indicating the sliding sec door was loose in the frame.

  Ryan gestured with his chin and Jak stepped up to cover him as he slid the heavy door into the recessed area in the stone wall. "Anything?" he asked the albino, who was positioned better to look inside. Jak shook his head no.

  The one-eyed man held up a hand and counted silently with his fingers. One...two...three, and he stepped inside, Jak and Krysty both backing him up.

  Inside, the control room appeared immaculate at first glance, same as before until one looked closer and saw the disarray of a dropped file of sheets of paper, along with a splattering of blood on a comp keyboard and farther down on the floor itself, a prone Doc Tanner, who was still bleeding from the nose.

  "Gaia, Doc. Are you okay?" Krysty asked as she and Dean both knelt next to the elder man.

  "How do I look?" he asked weakly.

  "Like hell," Dean said.

  "Perfect. Exactly how I feel, my boy," Doc replied. "Is Jamaisvous...?"

  "Yeah, he's gone," Krysty replied.

  Inside the shining blue of the tinted armaglass chamber, the unique heavy vapor created during and after a jump was dissipating and only a few sparks of electrical energy were zipping about, lightning blasts among the dunning clouds. Even through the thick armaglass, Ryan could see the gateway was empty. Running over, he pulled open the door anyway, lifting up the latch and pushing it inward. The unholy arid smell of burned ozone mixed with wet cloth that was always left behind after a jump assaulted his nostrils.

  Ryan felt his teeth grind in frustration as he realized another odor was mixed with the gateway's stench-the bitter smell of defeat. Jamaisvous was gone, long gone, the empty floor tiles creaking, mocking Ryan, as they cooled.

  "Go after bastard," Jak spit, stepping up the steps into the chamber behind Ryan. "Use button: Last Destination. Follow him."

  "Not a good idea," Mildred called from outside the gateway interior. She was standing next to a flashing comp monitor screen on the lower floor where the control readouts were downloading.

  "Worked before," Jak insisted as he left the chamber.

  "Won't work. Not this time." The stocky woman was leaning over one of the flat tables and staring at a monitor. Despite the uncertainty of the situation, J.B. shot her an approving look. Since she was still wearing the antique clothing provided by Jamaisvous, Mildred was displaying a generous sampling of cleavage in the low-cut dress.

  Mildred didn't notice. Perhaps if she had, the whitecoat's words on dressing to attract your man would have come back to her.

  Symbols and numerals flickered on the comp's monitor screen, creating row upon row of single-spaced coded information. "I think Jamaisvous expected us to try and track his moves. If we go after him, there's no telling where we might end up."

  "Or when," Doc added disdainfully. He was now standing, leaning on Dean and on his swordstick, which Krysty had retrieved from where it had been thrown across the room.

  "Exactly, or when. I'll have to try and shut down the system, reboot and keep my fingers crossed everything comes back on-line. Otherwise, we're either going to have to go native and share the island with the chupacabras, or else find a boat and sail back to Deathlands."

  "Doubt there's many of the chupacabras left," Krysty
said. "We found the nest. They were coming out of the redoubt in El Yunque."

  Mildred pointed a finger at a block of blinking numbers in the upper right corner of the monitor. The numbers were in a constant state of motion, the numerals flickering as they changed back and forth. "He's using some sort of randomizer here. I don't know all the redoubt codes and destinations, but even if I did, we'd be rolling the dice with little chance of following him."

  A beeping sound caught the woman's attention and she crossed over to the fallen CPU and monitor that Doc had broken. The screen was still functioning despite the large crack running down the face.

  "What happened here?" she asked, kneeling as best she could, trying to avoid cutting her bare knees on the broken plastic and glass. "Doc?"

  "Pulled it down...trying to get back to my feet."

  "I think you might have done more than knock over a computer," she said,, tilting her head for a better look at the comp. "This one was acting as the guidance system for Jamaisvous's destination. He didn't enter a code manually at the gateway. He was operating it from a preset in here. You took it offline at the same time he jumped out of here and it switched over to the back-up system, the same one running the randomizer."

  "Meaning what, Millie?" J.B. asked.

  "Meaning Jamaisvous is going to make his chron jump, but when or where I have no idea. I'd say wherever he ends up, it won't be where he thought he was going."

  "What about us?" Dean asked. "We stuck here?"

  "No. Like I said, I'll have to try and shut all this down. Doc, you can help me. Once we reboot and bring it all back on-line, any presets should be erased."

  "Do what you have to do, Mildred," Ryan said wearily. "When you think the system is safe, we'll try another jump."

  "Any danger of our boy Silas popping back here?" Krysty asked. She was standing next to the open door of the gateway.

  Mildred shook her head. "There's always a possibility, but I doubt he'd return here so soon. Besides, we keep the door open and he can't reuse this gateway anyway."

  "If does, take care of him," Jak said, grinning. "Take care of him good."

  A DAY PASSED before Mildred gave the word they could use the mat-trans chamber and be on their way. She'd changed back into her usual clothing, leaving the gaily colored dress and the shiny baubles behind. Her target pistol had been recovered from the control room undamaged. There would be little or no use for finery where she was going, and after Jamaisvous's treatment of Doc and betrayal of the others, including the poor locals who called Puerto Rico home, Mildred had no interest in hanging on to memories or souvenirs.

  Save one.

  Dean watched with interest as Mildred touched a small button on the front plate of a desktop comp. A drawer slid out of a recessed area when summoned.

  In the drawer tray rested a single compact disc. The disc was silver and clean, with no identifying marks or words. The woman carefully removed the disc from the drawer between thumb and forefinger, taking care not to touch the shining surface, and placed it snugly within a waiting nondescript jewel box cover.

  "What's on the disc, Mildred?" Dean inquired. The boy had seen both computer disks and CDs with recorded music during his education at the Brody School in Colorado, and knew they were used for information storage and retrieval.

  "Got pretty good with comps at Brody's," the boy said casually, peering over Mildred's shoulder.

  "So you've told me before," the woman replied.

  "I liked the games-some of them were on discs like the one you've got. Smoking fun. In one, you beamed in a mat-trans and got to go round blasting hell out of muties in old redoubts and space stations on other planets. My fave weapon was the B.F.G."

  Mildred bit. "Bee Eff Gee?"

  "Big fucking gun," Dean said. "Totally bitching boss blaster."

  "That's one thing that never has changed with computers," Mildred sighed, remembering her own weekend addictions to the role-playing fantasy worlds a good game could provide. She'd never been too fond of the violent ones, but instead liked the ones that featured puzzle-solving to advance.

  "So, is that a game?" Dean asked.

  "No, I'm afraid not. This disc contains Jamais- vous's listing of all the mat-trans units, both in and out of Deathlands," she replied. "A greatest-hits catalog of the world's gateways. In his haste to make a retreat, he must have forgotten to take it with him. He's encrypted the list, and I don't have his password to access the codes, but in the future, with Doc's help, maybe I can circumvent his security tech and we'll have our personal guide to Deathlands and beyond."

  "Waste of time," Ryan said, stepping next to the duo. "That just adds weight to your load."

  "You think?" Mildred replied. "You honestly think so?"

  "Yeah," the one-eyed man replied without hesitation. "Wouldn't have said so otherwise."

  Mildred held the disc high in one hand and pondered for a moment, before tucking it inside the lining of her denim jacket. "No offense, Ryan, but I hope to make you eat those words someday."

  "Suit yourself," he said, and walked back over to where Krysty and Doc were standing together. The older man was trying to show her something on the comp, but between his own shaky memory and the redhead's lack of interest, neither seemed to be enjoying the demonstration.

  "I knew the code, once upon a time," Doc said bitterly as he stared at the blue armaglass of the mat-trans unit. "I knew it like my own address, knew it like the date of the births of my children. No longer."

  "What code is that?" Krysty replied, having no- ticed Doc's intense frown as he glared at the gateway.

  "The gateway code. The numbers that would enable me to return to my sweet Emily."

  "You mean, you could have programmed any one of the mat-trans units to take you back?"

  "Once, alas, yes. I could have, although let me add that some mat-trans chambers are more inclined to be taken for a temporal spin than others, but I could have attempted them all until I found the correct vehicle to allow my passage."

  "How did you know the code, Doc?"

  "I reached past Cerberus's yawning maw and down his heated throat and down farther even into his vile stomach and I pulled it out, dear girl."

  "There's a lovely image," Krysty said.

  Doc cocked an eyebrow, giving his lined face a quizzical, yet stern look. "Computers. When I was a younger man with a far keener intellect, I adapted to their encrypted uses in a most timely fashion while being held prisoner as a member of Operation Chronos. I never did learn to type worth a damn, I fear, since I kept looking at the keyboard, but I was a demon with that little track-ball thing. A rodent, I think they called it."

  "A mouse, Doc," Dean said, stepping next to Krysty. The younger Cawdor had been listening to the conversation, but not wanting to be accused of eavesdropping he decided to join in with his full presence.

  Doc gave the boy a quick toothy smile. "Yes, a mouse! Well done, lad! Your knowledge is growing by leaps and bounds! Yes, Theo Tanner was greased lightning with a mouse."

  "I don't get it," Krysty said, running a hand through her flaming red hair. The prehensile locks responded in kind to her grooming, arranging themselves around her shoulders. Used to the way the redhead's hair acted and reacted like a living thing, neither Doc nor Dean commented.

  "Get what, dear Krysty?" Doc replied, looking blank for a second.

  "The code, Doc. Did you forget or something?" Dean asked.

  "Or something. When I was sent forward into the future, my physical form suffered in transport. Overnight, I aged thirty years in body, if not in soul, and much of my earlier keenness was damaged as well. Short-term memory loss, young Dean. I remember more of the horrors, but less of the routine day-today details. As for the gateway code that I ripped out of the innards of that black project, now all my mind gives up is a fleeting number, here or there, with no order, rhyme or reason."

  "Well, hell Doc, if you had the code, why didn't you use it?" Ryan asked bluntly.

  "I tried, Ryan
, God knows I tried my best," the old man replied in a whisper.

  "Well, I was thinking," Ryan began. "All this with Jamaisvous might have been avoided if I'd been quicker on the draw. I still can't believe you didn't want us to know you were going to try and trawl back to your wife and kids while we were gone, Doc."

  "I feared you might try to stop me."

  "No. Your choice. You would have had my vote no matter what you did."