"Dr. Yentil said you might need some help on this one," Lt. Quint said, gloved hands deep in the pockets of his surgical gown. A bazooka was strapped to his back, still wrapped in sterilized shrink plastic.
C'est la vie! "This is a savage place," I agreed. "But even if this was early autumn, I wouldn't accept help from a catskill eagle covered with stardust."
"Says you."
I had no response for that, so merely shrugged. Actions speak louder than words. Ask any mime.
"There are a hundred of them," Onyx said in a clipped British accent that I always found so amusing even though he really was from England.
I patted my pocket. "Brought an extra gun."
Relaxing, they all drove off in separate cars, except for Minnie who jacked a taxi and gave Ordinary a ride home.
"Muffins?" he asked from behind the wheel.
"Doughnuts," Guy growled, as if offended by the very suggestion of a muffin. Minnie stared at him hard and long. "Okay," he said finally. "Doughnut flavored muffins."
Guy nodded. "You're on."
As they drove away, I wondered what Sophocles would have thought of their conversation, then shook such happy thoughts from my noodle as I concentrated on the dirty work at hand. There was a dog in there with my name on it, and I wanted it back. Bronze had the stones, but could he throw them hard enough? Time to find out.
There was a doorperson at the front door, and he made a move to open it for me. I was having none of that and slammed him to the ground with my old one-two combination attack that had so amused Billy Pep when I totally failed to be a professional boxer. The ninety year old man dropped like a sack of bones and
I walked over his twitching form muttering quotes from Flambert and Neitzsche.
Inside, the restaurant was empty except for a single table stacked high with money, drugs and dog biscuits. Another clue? Could be. But no amount of hush money could stop the small vices of these running mates in their pastime. No chance of that.
Sporting a smooth even tan as if he had been painted, Joe Bronze was a giant of a man, dressed in nice clothes that matched and everything. He arched an eyebrow as I approached.
"And who do we have here?" he asked, stroking the tiny dog cradling in his arms.
Oh hell, I could instantly see that he loved the dog, maybe even Biblically. The pooch was now the sole source of kindness in his embittered life, and might end his crime wave once and forever. But that was not my job. I was here to get the mutt. Dead or alive.
So I shot it.
Bronze gasped in horror, and tossed the dead dog at my feet. Success! I scooped it up and stuffed it into a pocket designed for just such a purpose.
"I'll be going now," I said.
"To Hell!" Bronze roared, as the Navy SEALS rappelled down from the ceiling surrounding me in an instant.
I drew two guns and waited for Onyx to arrive and start the fun. But then I spied him leaning on the counter and chatting with a pretty teenager chewing bubble gum at the cash register, one hand under her dress. Oh crap.
I dropped my guns. "Come'on ya, nancy girls!" I sneered, trying to put a Flemish spin on the words to make them doubly strong. "Fight me like men!"
The SEALS smiled as only sailors can, and parted to admit a goliath of a human being, if he was and not simply a shaved gorilla in a Seersucker plaid jacket, porkpie fedora, and Tom MacCann wingtips. His hands were the size of Laramie, Wyoming, his face the grizzled visage of moonrock after a week of hard
drinking. Big brain, though.
"Me kill!" he bellowed, throwing his arms wide.
I wasn't sure if that was an invitation or a threat, so I played it safe, drew my extra gun and shot him in the head. The monster man fell over dead, and I leapt upon the corpse finishing him off with my devastating left-right-left-left-right combination of punches. I could lift 900 pounds in the weight room, even if nobody was watching, and I let him have it all.
The dead man had no chance.
When I was done, the Navy SEALS were already backed into the corner, pleading for their lives while swearing they would stop hiring out to crimelords and stick to overthrowing small governments and harassing commies. I heartily approved, and waved them off. Judge not, least ye become a judge. Thank you,
Roy Bean.
"Next time, Pensive," Bronze growled, his fingers raking across the surface of the antique linoleum table, gouging out wide strips of asphalt and plastic.
"Trim your nails, small change," I sneered just like Columbo doing his impersonation of Judge Dee pretending he was Nero Wolf dressed as Ellery Queen.
Bronze had no possible comeback for that, and merely glowered as only a noble mass-murdering drug lord could. Still he was better than his idiot son, Marcus, the part-time pimp and literary agent.
Exiting the restaurant, I bandaged the dog's wound, ripped down some power lines, used the electricity to jump start its little heart and brought the pooch back to life. Easy pie. Then I licked a stamp, stuck it on the dog's head, scribbled an address in its fur and stuffed the puppy into a mailbox. Done and done. Case closed. Time for sex. And maybe another beer,
too. But the good stuff this time, no more Amstel, or Black 'n Tan. I wanted a freaking Budweiser! As Voltaire always said, singing frogs can not be wrong. Wise words.
At the curb, Onyx was sitting in his car waiting for me.
"Pensive, you the man," Onyx said, in a mock inner city accent.
"No, you da man," I said duplicating his mock accent perfectly.
A passing liberal heard the slur and was so outraged he hit me with an organic wicker purse full of fresh vegetable yogurt, but I did not retaliate. It was not a day for violence. I had quite enough of that in my everyday life.
"Pens, you are the best sidekick I have ever had," Onyx said, starting to drive away in his solid gold Rolls Royce.
I gave him a thumbs-up the way airplane pilots did in the old movies just before a deadly aerial battle - then realized what the bastard had said and shot him in the head.Me, the sidekick?
Going out of control, the Rolls crashed into a telephone pole, and a bloody battered Onyx passed me an envelope with trembling hands. And I opened it. And looked inside.
And gasped. It was the Good-Dog Manuscript.
I started to ask him, where and who, but just nodded and slid it into a pocket. Now Yentil and I could afford that cabin in the woods and learn how to yodel while I sipped decaf champagne from her slipper, and she nibbled low-fat jack cheese off of my bulging biceps. Love is a many splendored thing, and I was one of them. Ah, wilderness.
-THE END-
"As is well known, turnabout is fair play," Nick said, tying a rag around a bottle of vodka he had found stashed under the console. The weight felt reassuring in the palm of his hand. Then he bit back a curse when he remembered that he didn't have a lighter, or any matches. Damndamndamn! "So if Bob wants to rip on something of mine, I won't squawk. Well...maybe just a little."
The clock on the wall was ticking louder every second, the hum of the electrical machinery building steadily as if getting ready to explode into white-hot shrapnel.
Stay calm, kiddo, calm, goddamn it! "Now machines have always been a favorite subject of mine to write about," Nick said, his heart pounding. "Mostly because I understand machines; computers, cars, chainsaws, waterpumps, handguns, jackhammers, vacuum cleaners, etc. I have a tin-ear for music, but by God I can fix a Volvo!"
He paused for a laugh, but there was only an eerie silence radiating from the Sound Effect booth. "Then one day, the nice folks over at Wizards of the Coast called and asked me for a funny Gamma World story. Hey, no problem. Easy pie. They gave me a month, but I wrote it in a week!"
A ceiling tile shifted, and Nick brandished the pitiful letter opener. "As I said," he whispered licking dry lips, "I like machines."
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
MAGNIFICENT! Hobart scrolled on his main monitor.
Stepping from the bushes, I was forced to agree. A beautiful rainbow
was shimmering in the misty air straight ahead of us. Hobart always noticed things before I did, but then he did have radar.
Walking closer, I heard the boots of my powerarmor clank on something hard instead of thumping on dirt and saw we were walking on a prewar road of smooth concrete. Hadn't seen one of these in a while. The concrete strip cut along the edge of a high cliff, a beautiful blue water lake to the right, the low
waves cresting over the roadway to cascade down the other side in a steady rumble.
As I watched, a fat trout leapt from the lake and caught a crow in its fanged mouth. The black bird screamed, wildly flapping its wings, as the carnivorous fish gracefully dove back into the water with its living meal and vanished from sight.
With a flick of my wrist, I opened a small service panel in Hobart's thick metal arm and checked the indicators. "No radiation," I announced with a sigh of relief. "For a moment I was afraid we had walked straight into another nuke crater. Just like that one near Seattle."
IT'S CALLED SETTLE NOW, he scrolled politely, the words repeating as a whisper in my earplug.
"Yeah, right," I said with a weary smile. "Sorry. I keep forgetting."
WELL, THE WORLD HAS CHANGED A LOT SINCE YOU ESCAPED FROM THAT CRYOGENIC FREEZER UNIT LAST YEAR.
True enough. I had been visiting a cousin who worked at a military lab when the nuclear warhammer fell. We each grabbed a cryogenic chamber to ride out the atomic firestorm, and I awoke 500 years later in another section of the country. Where my cousin was located now, or even if she was alive, I had no
idea. Digging my way to the surface I found a brand new world, most of it delighted to try and eat me. Or worse, put me in chains. According to the history records, during the Cataclysm some sort of genetic virus had been unleashed to infect the flora and the fauna of Earth, mutating most of it into new species, some benign, some deadly; intelligent lizards, animated plants, giant spiders, devil bunnies, you name it. Next came the bonus of hard radiation from the nuclear holocaust of the Three Day War. Then add all of the bizarre technology left over from the Shadow Age, and anything was possible these days. Here I was, Jason Montgomery, a video store clerk from the 20th
century, walking around in my 22nd century suit of sentient powerarmor in the 25th century. Welcome to Gamma Terra.
In the beginning, I did a lot of running away from stuff until accidentally finding the H*O*B*A*R*T class powerarmor in a moldy junk yard. What the letters stand for was long gone into the mists of time, and my buddy wanted to discover their meaning just as much as I would like to find my lost cousin. Or go home. But that was impossible. This was my new home, for better or worse.
Careful of my footing, I stole a glance over the edge of the cliff. Whew, that was a long way to the bottom, bare rocks jutting up from the misty stream below like the teeth of a dead dragon. "Hobart, could we survive such a fall?"
Mathematical equations briefly scrolled on all three of the monitors set above the faceplate of his helmet. NOPE. WE'D BE SPAM IN A CAN, PAL.
So Hobart did have limits. That was important to know. Maybe the ancient techs of the Shadow Age clearly weren't as amazing as all the old legends claimed.
Something odd about the falling sheet of water caught my attention, and studying the overflow I noticed the side of the cliff was smooth and gently curved like the string on a bow, with patches of concrete visible amid the dense array of leafy vines covering the titanic structure. Hey, this was no cliff, but a dam! The thick carpet of greenery successfully masking it as a natural waterfall. Hmm, the ancient gov of Washington had erected dozens of dams across the state, most of them blown to smithereens by the nukes. But this one seemed in excellent condition, almost pristine, aside from its ivy toupee. "An intact dam," I mused. "Maybe, a hydroelectric dam?"
COULD BE. MOST DAMS WERE CONSTRUCTED TO BE POWER PLANTS.
Listening to the falls thunder over the top of the concrete barrier, I felt my heart start to beat faster. Wow. This could be of incredible use these days when a lot of folks used candles to see at night, and ice was only a myth. A steady supply of electricity would be the hallmark for returning civilization
to this whole valley. There would be refrigeration for food, heat in the winter, hot water for baths, electrified fences to keep out the nasty mutants, lights, machines, computers! Heck, electric was civilization, even more so than fire.
"This is a dream come true!" I cried, spreading my arms. Hobart's massive limbs exactly copying the motion, but on a much grander scale.
THAT IS, he scrolled hesitantly. IF THE WATER HASN'T GOTTEN INSIDE TO RUST THE MACHINERY AND GENERATORS SOLID.
"Only one way to find out," I agreed reluctantly, slowly glancing about. There was no sign of a door, or any windows under the dense growth of ivy, but there had to be an entrance somewhere. "Guess the first thing would be to find some way inside and check to see how bad things are."
THEN OPEN THE FLOOD GATES TO MAKE THE LAKE WATER RUSH THROUGH THE SLUICES, INSTEAD OF OVER THE TOP.
"You know how to do that?"
CHECKING ONBOARD ENCYCLOPEDIA...YES, I DO.
"Great," I said, rubbing our gauntlets together. "Okay, let's go see, what we have."
COULD BE OCCUPIED ALREADY, he warned.
"Then we apologize for intruding and leave."
FAIR ENOUGH.
Watching our steps, I carefully waded through the overflow, fighting against being pushed towards the deadly edge of the dam before eventually reaching a dry area where a large clump of ivy afforded some protection from the steady wash. Then Hobart gave a beep. I glanced at the array of controls arched around me. Was he overheating? Low on power?
INCOMING! THREE O'CLOCK!
I spun around, my huge metal fists raised and ready for action. With a whine of servo-motors, Hobart turned me around to face in the proper direction.
Bursting out of the bushes came a creature that resembled a cougar, or a leopard maybe, but twice the normal size, with two extra legs and a writhing nest of tentacles sprouting from its torso. Another mutie and it didn't look friendly. As I raised Hobart's arm to fire his laser, its square goat-like eyes narrowed in raw hatred and it charged. Fast. Faster than I thought anything not rocket propelled could move. Twenty meters, ten....
Palming the control in my gauntlet, the Bedlow laser stabbed out twice, the scintillating energy beam shimmering into visibility as it cut through the moist air. In spites of its speed, I caught the thing once in the shoulder, and snipped off the tip of a tentacle. But a split second later, it hit us
like an express train on steroids. Hobart went over backwards, a dozen indicators on the control boards flashing red, the vid displays on all three of the overhead monitors turning into scrambled hash.
AYE CARUMBA!
Swinging a leg thick as a garbage can, I almost kicked the beast in the head, but it nimbly dodged out of the way, raking its claws along our side. I scrambled to my feet, firing the laser wildly, searing potholes in the concrete, sections of the runoff water exploding into steam. But I scored no hits.
WARNING, Hobart scrolled along the three monitors, the word repeated as a whisper in my earplug. SENSORS INDICATE DAMAGE TO MY DURALLOY HIDE.
"You mean this thing can actually hurt you?" I asked incredulously, dancing about trying to keep the mutie in front where I could see it. I fired the wrist laser again, and missed completely. Fast. This thing was really fast!
GIVEN TIME, THIS MUTANT COULD RIP ME APART, he scrolled in a serious font. THEN YOU.
Firing again, I used a word that had made my mother wash my mouth out with soap when I was a kid.
AN INTERESTING VISUAL, BUT HARDLY APPROPRIATE AT THIS JUNCTION.
Snarling and hissing, the leopard dove forward. I sidestepped, trying for a karate chop to its neck like they do in the movies. But I was no Jackie Chan and only slammed Hobart's metal hand into his own leg.
HEY!
Then the creature leapt on our back, wrapping its tentacles about Hobart's arms and head. M
y pal revved his stabilizing gyros to keep us standing while the cat savagely raked its claws along the outside of the powerarmor, seeking a quick kill. A lot of the pinhead camera lenses were now covered with fur, two of my monitors showing only fuzzy tan. Swell. I was half blind, and the cat was too close to use the sonic Screamer cannon built into Hobart's helmet. The feedback would have scrambled me like an egg in the shell.
Reaching out with my gauntlets, I grabbed the mutant and tried to throw it away. Now the writhing nest of tentacles began beating at the powerarmor and ripping off loose items. My canteen went flying, followed by the handaxe, then our bag of trade goods, books and spare ammo flying everywhere.
Flexing my muscles, I put on the squeeze, and the cat's weird eyes started to bulge.Take that, kitty! Then its tentacles rose and stabbed downward, denting Hobart in several places, one barbed tip actually piercing the shell of my buddy. I could only make an inarticulate noise as I stared at the foot of tentacle wiggling about inside the helmet only inches away from my face.
Before I could shout a command, Hobart went into action. The power gauges blazed with a surge of electricity as several hundred volts from the synergy cells of his atomic batteries were shunted to the outside of his armor. Crackling tendrils of blue crawled over the beast, igniting its fur. The cat yowled in pain, releasing its hold on us.
As Hobart raised a gauntlet, I palmed the switch in the gauntlet and fired the laser on its widest setting, maximum power. The beam caught the beast full in the face, its bizarre eyes instantly cooking white. Screaming insanely, the mutant crouched low in shock, then dashed away, colliding into trees and rocks as it raced back into the forest.
WELL DONE!
"Medium rare at best," I grunted, trying to catch my breath. However, there was a steady stream of cold air through the ragged hole in the armor, and a spot of sunlight on my denim shirt. A chill went through me that had nothing to do with the outside temperature. I grabbed the S&W .357 Magnum revolver
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