Deathlands 068: Shaking Earth

by James Axler

  At his feet the cloth erupted with a chattering roar. Strips were blasted upward. The Eagle Knight screamed as bullets lanced up through his thighs, his scrotum, his balls, to smash his pelvis, jelly his bowels, rip his lungs to hissing shreds. He did a wild death dance and fell backward.

  Like a mutant monster from some drowned basement in the City in the Lake, J.B. surged free into the afternoon air, his Uzi smoking in one hand, the little razor-edged Tekna knife he’d used to win his way free in the other.

  He sprayed bullets at Mendoza’s uniformed sec goons. A couple fell, others fled.

  Ryan’s friends were popping through the fabric like mushrooms through bizarrely striated soil after a rain. Jak hauled Doc to his feet with surprising strength and wheeled, his right arm whipping forward. A khaki-uniformed sec goon screamed, dropped a leveled 1911 .45, clutched as if to hold back the blood diluted by clear aqueous fluid that jetted from the ruin of his eye, around the bare-steel shank of a throwing knife. Even as Doc brushed at his coat with the hand holding his swordstick, his right hand came up and his big ungainly LeMat boomed. A sec man aiming a lever-action carbine at him dropped, clutching the hole smashed through his belly by a .44-caliber lead slug, as if the pressure could squeeze out the intolerable pain.

  Mildred had cut her way free with a scalpel, Ryan wasn’t sure where she’d carried it to get it into action so quickly. She took her side-on target shooter’s stance, blasted two quick shots from her Czech-made ZKR 551. Two more of Don Hector’s sec men went down, each with an identical, perfectly circular hole in his forehead, punched by her flat-tipped, wad-cutter bullets.

  Five Ax was free, too, hauling Don Tenorio out of the rip he’d slashed in the cloth with his own knife. The alcade looked stunned but showed no injury. Five Ax shoved his baron downslope toward the beach, away from Hector’s camp on the far side of the hill. He snugged the butt of his machine pistol to his shoulder and fired three sputtering suppressed bursts into the place where the fallen tent was mounded over the big oak conference table. Ryan guessed he reckoned Don Hector was underneath.

  “Here comes everybody!” J.B. shouted, slamming a fresh mag into his Uzi and firing a blast down the hill’s far side at the valley sec forces starting to swarm up it. “Time to cut stick and go!”

  Mildred grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled on him. “Take your own damn advice, you crazy sawed-off fool!”

  Stuttering thunder split the afternoon air that reeked with burned propellant, blood and spilled guts. Everybody without exception fell down flat on their faces, including the sec forces surging up the landward slope of the hill.

  “By the Three Kennedys!” Doc exclaimed with his cheek to a red stripe faded pink. “Are new volcanoes being spawned about us?”

  The Armorer looked back toward the lake and uttered a ringing rebel yell. “No, that’s Ma Deuce her own bad self, singing the sweetest song this child ever heard!”

  He reached down and snatched up his battered fedora.

  “Five Ax!” Ryan yelled. “Take Tenorio and go!” He jammed his SIG-Sauer into his waistband and unslung his rifle as the Browning on the boat fired another burst. The rate of fire wasn’t slow, but the noise was unbelievable. It wasn’t just noise; Ryan could feel the muzzle-blast pounding the skin of his cheeks like a brisk wind from at least an eighth of a mile away. The thumb-thick bullets threw up tan-earth geysers higher than his head where they raked the hilltop. The Jaguar Knight gunner was smart enough to fire well away from the tent, where he might chill his baron or one of his friends. It didn’t matter; Hector’s sec boys were still hugging the planet, except for those still on their feet on the same side of the hill as the terrible bullet-sprayer. They in turn were rabbiting over the hill and into the scrub as fast as said feet could beat.

  The companions coalesced into a clot around Five Ax and his baron as they retreated downslope. Ryan brought up the rear, the Steyr raised almost to his shoulder. As they reached the foot of the hill, a dark face peeked up over the crest. Ryan yanked the butt to his shoulder and pulled off a snapshot. To his amazement the .308 bullet caught the sec man right at the top of his forehead and flipped the cranial cap right out of his skull. It wobbled in a crazy arc through the air and out of sight, hair and scalp still in place.

  “Splendid shot, Ryan, my boy,” Doc said, reaching a hand to help the one-eyed man clamber over the railing of the Paloma as he came slogging through shin-deep water.

  “Pure triple-stupe luck,” Ryan said. But he was grinning fit to split his head as he said it.

  THE BIG, WHITE WATER WAG growled away from the shore at moderate speed, so as not to tumble the somewhat dazed survivors around the deck. Nobody expected any of Don Hector’s people to get in the line of fire of the Browning heavy machine gun.

  Not any of Hector’s people did. A lone figure came pelting down the slope, dark hair flying wild and free, torn and soiled white robe hanging off one shoulder.

  “Come back!” Don Hector shouted after them in Spanish. “It was not my doing! My underlings betrayed me, they acted against orders—please, please, Don Tenorio, believe me!”

  He tore off the robe, threw it aside. Wearing only a loincloth, he fell to his knees in the dirt and began to weep and tear his hair, imploring forgiveness so loudly they could hear him plainly over distance and the engine noise.

  “That’s enough out of you,” Ryan said as Doc translated to the group standing raptly by the aft rail. He cinched the shooting sling of his Steyr around his left forearm, raised the cool steel buttplate to its home in the hollow of his shoulder, bent his eye to the scope, brought the crosshairs together on the middle of that muscular, hairless chest. He sucked in a deep breath and let it halfway out, mentally calculating the motion of the boat—not too hard, since it was mainly up and down; the cruiser was driving directly away from shore. His finger squeezed.

  The SSG barrel was yanked skyward as the shot cracked off.

  Ryan looked around, his lone eye the color and temperature of an Arctic winter sky and no more friendly. Don Tenorio’s small soft hand was still clamped on the barrel.

  “No, my friend,” the alcade said. “That’s not the way.”

  “He was ready to chill you in cold blood, the coldest,” Ryan snapped, not caring he was speaking to a hetup baron in the midst of a knot of that baron’s sec men with their own blood running high. “Don’t you have the sand to let me do what’s crying to be done?”

  Don Tenorio put both hands on the younger man’s broad shoulders. He had to reach way up to do it. At the contact, Jak growled low in his throat and started forward. Krysty lifted a hand. The albino boy stepped back, but his ruby eyes still smoldered. Five Ax had reflexively brought up his MP-5. Now he let the fat barrel fall offline and turned away, looking shamefaced.

  “Ryan, mi hijo, listen to me,” Tenorio said. “I don’t care about Hector. If his life was mine to take now I’d snuff him out, be he awake or asleep, in blood hot or cold. He’s earned far more deaths than you or I could ever give him. But my people aren’t strong enough to rout the Chichimecs by ourselves, and Hector’s people won’t follow me any more than mine will follow him. We need him.”

  Ryan glared at him a moment longer.

  “Mebbe you do have what it takes to be a baron, after all,” he said. “But you sure picked a fine nuke-blasted time to show it!” He turned and stalked forward.

  * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  The armory was lit by electric lights, away up near the ceiling of the vault. Not bright but steady. The companions looked around in surprise as Don Tenorio ushered them in.

  “We have scavenged generators, which we have modified to burn the alcohol we distill,” the alcade explained.

  “You don’t use them at your residence,” J.B. pointed out.

  Tenorio shrugged. “Except for the radio room, it’s not necessary. Here, we find it useful to be able to see to work. The ventilation system is helpful, as well.”

  They were in the b
asement level of a building fronting on the plaza of the step-pyramid. The structure hadn’t been submerged at the base, although its upper two-thirds had been sheared off and fallen into the next street over, obstructing it. The armory level had been sealed and waterproofed, so that no dampness had seeped in.

  Jak gazed around at the racks of rifles, mostly Garands and FN FALs, with a few racks of BARs thrown in. “Sweet,” he said.

  “This building was a headquarters of a special operational branch of the federal judicial police,” their host explained. “Apparently they were created to cooperate with the American government in prosecuting the war on drugs.”

  “I was wondering where all the weaponry your people and Hector’s tote was coming from,” Mildred said. “When I visited here I was told in no uncertain terms that private firearms ownership was major illegal.”

  The alcade smiled. “And such proscriptions worked about as well here as elsewhere, as well as the war on drugs, for that matter. You’d be surprised what we’ve found in private dwellings. Nevertheless, as you surmise, our heavier armament comes from military and paramilitary police arsenals such as this one. They tended to be very well built and sealed. We’ve successfully salvaged several that were altogether submerged.”

  “Nasty work,” J.B. said.

  “Dangerous and difficult. But highly profitable. Don Hector pays handsomely for the weapons and munitions we provide him.” His voice took on a tint of irony at the mention of his rival baron.

  Ryan, who had been admiring the collection of blasters as raptly as the others, suddenly swiveled his head to stare at Tenorio. “You sold him those wrist-mounted lasers. His people never found them.”

  “Yes, we did. And I have often wished we had not. Did he tell you otherwise?” The older man chuckled dryly. “I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Why’d you sell blasters like that to a crazy man the likes of Hector?” Mildred asked.

  “We didn’t realize fully what they were.”

  “How’s that possible?” Ryan asked.

  “Come with me,” the baron said. “I shall explain.”

  He led them to a stairway down, where he once again switched on the heavy flashlight he carried, powered by a scavenged D-cell battery. Through muted echoes and weirdly shifting shadows they descended.

  “While the computer equipment in this facility was functional when we found it, the disks contained no data. We surmise that this joint facility was used in part to conduct off-budget research on behalf of some agency of the United States government, possibly the famous Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, possibly the DEA, possibly someone altogether different.”

  Ryan glanced back at Doc, whose eyebrows were raised in comical surprise. The nineteenth-century professor had intimate experience with a supersecret and off-budget U.S. government research project: the Totality Concept and its Operation Chronos, which had snatched him from his own time and hurled him a hundred years forward to the end of the twentieth century.

  They descended into another cool, musty chamber. Tenorio switched on the overhead lights at the entry and clicked off his flashlight.

  “Dark night,” J.B. breathed. “This is a real treasure trove.”

  The alcade smiled at him. “I see you appreciate the equipment here.”

  The Armorer all but stumbled forward, half dazed, like a latter-day wine fancier who had stumbled into one of the fabled lost cellars of Cali. “Bridgeport…Clausen lathe…looky here—an old Monarch toolmaker’s lathe, I mean it was old when they laid this place down. A real jewel. And this—”

  He paused by a box-shaped object the size of a small wag, ran his hands over its red and white exterior. “This here’s some kind of multiple axis CNC machine—a living steel mill.” He sighed and removed his hands from it as reluctantly as he might have from a lover’s skin.

  “I’d have no clue how to work this baby, even if it still runs. This is stuff outta legend.”

  Mildred moved to his side, put her arm around his waist. He took off his spectacles and polished them reverently.

  “You are knowledgeable indeed, Señor Dix. Even though the machines are functional—” he walked to the Monarch, a relatively small machine, gray-enameled and with smooth, almost melted-looking contours, switched it on, engaged the clutch; the head spun, motor purring with cat-smooth power “—none of us possesses any but the most rudimentary skills at machining.”

  He gestured. “There are devices here more advanced even than the tabletop CNC mill that has so impressed your armorer, machines whose functions we can but dimly guess, if at all. It was down here that we found stored a dozen peculiar objects, like bulky plastic armlets.”

  He switched off the lathe. “In those days we were quite naive, more enthusiastic than wise. This structure was among the first we explored extensively, since it was one of the very few not flooded. We were excited by the rich trove of weapons stored above. Those at least we understood—perhaps I need not tell you that by disposition and education, we were traders and explorers, not fighters. We have some skill with weapons now, and knowledge of them. It was gained, as you might imagine, by sheer brutal experience. In the end, we happened to mention our find to Don Hector, then a young village alcade himself, a man obviously on the rise, with intellect and vision. He made us an offer for the mysterious objects. Because we needed resources to expand our toehold in the city, we accepted.”

  “And he figured out what they were?” Ryan asked.

  “One of the cases had a manual in it. Can you believe how naive we were?”

  “‘Every weapon has a manual,’” Mildred said.

  “How’s that?” J.B. asked.

  “Nothing. Just a quote from an old movie.”

  “We also discovered a number of energy cells subsequently,” Tenorio said. “We sold them to Hector.” He shrugged. “What could we do? They only fit the laser weapons. And Hector was our friend then, already helping to protect us from raiders. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. One which we thought would endure.”

  “What happened, Don Tenorio?” Krysty asked.

  Jak snorted. “Power.”

  “Of course your young friend is right, señorita. From what began as a defensive alliance of independent settlements in the valley, he saw he could begin to weld himself an empire of sorts. And also…”

  The alcade’s words trailed away, as if his spring had wound down. He looked older than they had seen him look before.

  “And also what, Don Tenorio?” Doc asked.

  Tenorio shrugged. “Perhaps it’s nothing. But he also began to be first interested, then obsessed, with the traditions of the valley.”

  He looked at them. “The ancient traditions, from the days before the Spanish arrived—of human sacrifices to monster gods. It has always seemed to me that the change in his character dated from the time he began to delve into them.”

  Ryan and Krysty shared a glance. “I can believe it,” she said. “There’s much dark power in that one.”

  “There is power and there is darkness, surely. More than that, I cannot say. But come.”

  He led them through the large chamber, which was crowded by mechanisms mostly unfamiliar to Ryan. From the rapt but puzzled expression on J.B.’s face, the one-eyed chiller could tell his friend didn’t recognize them, either.

  “We’re gonna have to hog-tie him to keep him from spending all his time down here,” Mildred said with a twinkle in her eye. “This is pure toyland to him.”

  “Won’t work,” the Armorer chortled, rubbing his square work-hardened hands. “I’m an escape artist.”

  “Have to get our host’s permission first,” Ryan reminded him.

  Don Tenorio glanced back. “You are all my honored guests for as long as you might choose to stay. This was so before you saved my poor life not once, but twice. But I hope you will forgive me if I consider ways I might make use of your extraordinary skills and ingenuity, to our mutual benefit. I would be happy to provid
e Señor Dix total access to this workshop, for instance, and such assistance as he might prefer, if he would be willing to share whatever knowledge he can glean about the purpose and workings of these mechanisms with us.”

  J.B. looked at Ryan, his eyes seeming to swim behind the round lenses of his glasses. He reminded Ryan of a kid who’d had a spotted puppy trail him home and was now beseeching his daddy, “Can I keep it?”

  “You are going to have to keep him sedated to keep him away now,” Mildred said.

  “See no reason to say no,” Ryan said, “for as long as we stay.”

  “And I hope that is a good long time,” Tenorio said. “In particular, I wish to speak to Don Ryan concerning such matters this very evening. But now I have something else I would like you to see—our pet mystery.”

  At the far end of the high-tech wonderland of a workshop was a plain metal door, enameled olive drab. Aside from the relative absence of nicks and weather-fading it was absolutely as generic as a door could be. So why was Ryan suddenly licking his lips to moisten them and feeling a slight acceleration in his pulse?

  Tenorio threw open the door. This time a light came on by itself. Inside the door was a small vestibule, then a much larger, more imposing door.

  Also a very familiar sort of door.

  There was a big sign beside the second door. Peligro, it said in big red letters, and also Danger. And below, in English and Spanish, was a warning: Tezcatlipoca Redoubt. Secured Facility. Authorized Personnel Only. Intruders Will Be Killed Without Warning.

  Below it was a simple keypad. Also very familiar.

  “We have not yet mastered the sequence to allow us entry,” Don Tenorio said through the pulse thunder in Ryan’s ears. “Someday, perhaps even with your assistance, we shall learn what lies beyond this door.”

  WHEN THEY RETURNED to the cabin cruiser, which was moored in a drowned street next to the plaza, there was a message waiting that had come in by radiophone. The scavvies’ talkies wouldn’t function deep in the bowels of a building, with all that structural steel around. Once aboard, the alcade listened to what his bespectacled and ever-serious chief aide, young Ernesto, rapidly told him. Then he approached his guests.