by James Axler
"Could have a prisoner, use him as bait. Making him talk."
"Shall we not inquire further?" Doc said. He didn't wait for Jak's reply. He cupped his hand in front of his mouth and shouted through it into the darkness, "What is your situation?"
"I'm caught in a cave-in," the voice said. "My legs are pinned and there's a block edge against the inside of my groin. It's too heavy to move. If I try, it will sever my femoral artery. Please help me…"
"Whoever he is, he has some knowledge of anatomy," Doc said. "An educated man, perhaps. A rarity in these wild parts and unhappy times. Shall we take a closer look?"
Jak scowled and shook his head. "No."
"We can be circumspect, my dear Mr. Lauren. Just a reconnoiter. If we do not like what we see, we are off."
They worked their way around the edge of the bubble, picking a path of least resistance over the slick planes and treacherous edges of the ceiling's glassfall.
"Cover badge," Jak said, as he put his hand over his own.
When Doc did the same, the bubble was plunged into pitch darkness, except for a muted glow of green on the ground about one hundred feet in front of them.
They watched it intently for several minutes.
"Nothing's moving," Doc said at last.
Jak uncovered his badge and nodded.
"Are you still there?" Doc called across the rubble.
"Yes, I'm here."
Doc and Jak closed in on the man's position. As they did, there was an explosion of scurrying tiny feet. Low dark forms scooted away in all directions. Like shadows, flitting at the corners of Doc's eyes, the fleeing rats were almost too fast to follow.
They found the man almost completely buried in glass block. His head, his arms and one leg stuck out of a collapse that had come from the wall and ceiling above. A block of at least a hundred pounds straddled his hips and held him down. Doc and Jak shone their badge lights onto his face. The man had no front teeth. There were old bruises on his eyes and cheeks.
"Are you cut anywhere?" Doc asked him. "Once we start lifting off the glass, it could release pressure on a wound and you could bleed to death."
"I don't know. I can't tell. I've been pinned here for a long time. My arms and legs are asleep."
Jak and Doc set aside their axes and working carefully, lifted the glass from his body. His torso and limbs were covered with a myriad of shallow cuts and gashes, but none of them serious.
Freed, the man stood shakily.
"Thank you, thank you," he said. "I didn't think anyone would help me. Before you came, others passed by and did nothing. They stood over me and then walked on. They left me to be eaten by stickies or rats. This place is wicked and evil. And it's full of wicked, evil people."
"Do you know something of human anatomy?" Doc said. "You used a medical term a moment ago."
The glass-fall survivor's eyes lit up and he started to say something, then changed his mind. When he spoke, his words were guarded. "Medicine? Oh, no. Not really. I just pick things up here and there. My name is Huth, by the way."
After Doc had completed the introductions, he asked, "Where are you from?"
"Out east," Huth said. "I've been wandering on my own for quite a while, now. Never thought I'd end up in a place like this."
From its shape and cut, the jacket Huth wore looked like the remains of a lab coat. The uniform of a scientist. Doc had very bad associations with coats like that. He glanced at the lapel. Something had been embroidered there, just over the pocket, but the threads had all been picked out.
"How did you come by that jacket?" he said.
"Oh, this? The same place I got the pants and shoes. The garbage dump over in Byram ville. Some poor guy died in these pants. I don't know the story about the coat. I just picked it out of the rubbish pile before it burned up."
The story satisfied Doc.
"Is it just you two working on a sledge?" Huth said. "If it is, maybe I could join you. We could combine forces."
"We already have a third person," Doc told him. "Why are you working alone?"
"I had some trouble back at the camp. Made some rather unpleasant enemies, I'm afraid." He indicated the bruises on his face.
"And you did what to deserve that?"
"It was my fault," Huth said. "There was a misunderstanding and it got blown out of all proportion. I said something to the guards that I shouldn't have said. A lie to gain their trust. I was just trying to find a way to get out of here, but it didn't work. In fact, it backfired completely when my fellow laborers took what I'd said for the truth. What about my joining you? The guards allow as many as five people to a cart."
"Let me talk about it with my friend here." Doc and Jak withdrew slightly, and conferred in whispers.
"We could use a fourth on the sledge," Doc said. "He could help us fill it faster."
"Not like him," Jak said. "Has bad smell."
"Everybody down here has a bad smell, lad. It is the stink of fear. I say we take him back to Mildred, and then have a vote. The majority will decide. How about that?"
"Still don't like his smell."
"KEEP BACK!" Mildred warned, brandishing her pickax. To show she meant business, she swung the tool in a short, quick arc against the rim of the cart, making the steel clang and sparks jump.
The situation wasn't good.
In her brief time in the mines, Mildred recognized two distinct kinds of robbers. The sneaky kind, who usually worked alone. They walked past a cart and tried to filch a chunk or two of glass on the run. And the barefaced kind, who always worked in groups. They attacked without provocation in order to drive you away from your load, which allowed their accomplices to move in and help themselves.
The bearded, filthy man who taunted Mildred by spinning out of range and skipping away wasn't the sneaky kind. He was part of a four-thief pack. His pals watched with amusement from beside their sledge along the far wall. Their cart was nearly full. A feat that had been accomplished without their leaving the cart loading area. Like a mosquito, the bearded guy kept darting back to test her reflexes. A huge mosquito, clad in foul smelling rags and strips of black plastic bag. The guy was over six foot four, and his face had been mutilated by spiral brands on his forehead and cheeks, Deathlands tattoos. A tuft of black hair sprouted from the tip of his nose.
Mildred knew she would have shot him if she had been armed. Shot him dead, just for smiling at her like that. Her temper was barely under control, her nerves fraying. She found the idea that she was going to have to use lethal force to defend 150 pounds of nuke rubble that was slowly killing her both absurd and infuriating.
She had already witnessed some pretty hairy fights over much smaller quantities of ore. The struggles had all been between men, because they made up ninety-five percent of the slave population. In the mines, the strong victimized the weak. To the four thieves, Mildred, a woman, was the easiest of easy targets. A pushover, in fact. It was only a matter of time before they made their play on her. Mildred bent and with her left hand scooped up some of the fine glass dust that collected in the corners.
She hadn't given away the fact that she had fighting skills. All she had shown them was a few measured swipes of her ax. Demonstrating that she was willing and able to inflict bodily harm.
When they all started to move toward her at once, spreading out to close in on all sides, Mildred let her body relax. The axes they wielded had short handles, just like hers, which meant they'd have to get in close to land a blow. She had the cover of the cart, and a wall to protect her back. Those were the only strategic points in her favor, aside from the fact that the thieves were only after ore and she was trying to save her life.
The tattooed giant came at her first, waving his ax, again taunting her by offering his animalistic face as a target and then skipping out of reach. Mildred ignored him. She had to let the enemy come to her in order to save her strength. If they could wear her down physically, they would concave her skull. She held her ax in her right hand, point
down, ready to block or strike.
A fat, sweaty bald guy, who outweighed her by close to one hundred pounds, closed in with a sideways shuffling gait. Like the tattooed man, his clothing consisted of a heap of tatters, fabric and plastic. The maneuver was intended to move her away from the cart, either by intimidation or brute force, so the others could plunder it. The fat man edged closer, trying to get her to take a swing at him. He was willing, it seemed, to take one for the team. With the thick coat of blubber that protected most of his body, Mildred realized that doing him sufficient damage was going to be difficult. The fat man was smiling at her, too. As if she didn't have a chance. As if this was fun.
The other slaves, the non-thieves, watched the proceedings in sick fascination.
She could expect no help from them.
Mildred had drawn an imaginary line on the tunnel floor. It was the distance she knew she could cross in a single step with power; it defined her killing range. When the fat guy sidestepped over the line, Mildred flung her left hand up at his face. A cloud of twinkling dust scattered into his eyes and up his nose as he gasped in surprise. The powdered glass cut him like ten thousand tiny razor blades.
"Unnhhh!" he cried, covering his eyes as he staggered back.
Mildred power stepped, bringing her ax up side arm, and two-handed it into the center of the fat man's throat. The point made a wet, slapping sound as it sank in to the start of the handle. She turned with the man as he gagged, ripping the curved ax out of his neck.
Blood jetted from the gaping hole where his Adam's apple had been.
He clutched at his ruined throat, his mouth opened wide, but no scream came forth.
Mildred used her momentum, planting her feet and twisting her torso. Uncoiling from her hips and legs, she backhanded the flat end of the hammer in a tight arc that ended at the base of his unprotected skull.
Bone crunched sharply and the fat man jolted forward. His knees buckled under him.
From the way his face hit the floor, Mildred figured he was dead before contact.
His friends figured the same thing.
"You bitch!" Bristle-nose cried. "You chilled Bucky. We're gonna pound you to a pulp!"
"You're going to need a longer handle than that if you're going do it from over there," she said.
"Get the bitch!"
Mildred moved into her original position, the wall to her back, the cart protecting her left flank. She guessed that a three man charge was coming next. An attack from all sides, which she couldn't turn away. But what the thieves had just seen her do to their friend Bucky made them cautious. They didn't want to get too close. They took short swings at her, their blows coming up way short. Mildred didn't overreact, didn't commit herself. She didn't retreat, either. To do that would have given them an opening.
The stocky robber with running sores on his cheeks tried to edge in along the right hand wall, close enough to land a blow.
Though Mildred saw it coming, she was barely able to duck the right handed, sidearm blow. The man's ax point crashed into the wall. Mildred countered by bringing the flat of her ax down onto his wrist. Something snapped. The robber let out a shriek and released his ax handle. The weapon clattered to the floor as he jumped back, clutching his forearm.
"She broke my wrist!" he moaned.
Mildred was on him before he could take another step and before the others could recover from their shock. She swung the square end of her ax head against the side of his skull, a single two-handed blow to the temple that sent him sprawling. He hit the floor flat on his belly, arms and legs splayed, and didn't move.
Mildred could see he wasn't breathing.
The thieves could see it, too.
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," the third robber muttered out of the corner of his mouth. His long, greasy hair was plastered to the sides of his narrow head.
"Shut up, dimmie," Bristle-nose growled. "When we chill her and take her ore, it means double water rations for us. Come on. She must be getting tired. Let's take her out before she recovers."
Mildred was feeling the effects of her exertions. The ax definitely seemed heavier than a few moments ago, but she was so pumped with adrenaline it didn't matter.
Two thieves were down for the count, and the others were still coming at her. She realized she was going to have to kill them both. And the only way she could do that was to exploit her relative maneuverability, make them get in each other's way.
Bristle-nose moved along the far side of the cart; Greasy-hair came next to the wall. They closed in, with axes raised to strike.
Mildred let them come. They were trying to time their blows in unison, figuring she couldn't deflect both, so one would have to land. When they struck, she darted away from the wall, under the arcs of their swings. She hip checked Greasy-hair as she passed him. Already committed and off balance, he slammed into the wall, then bounced into Bristle-nose.
For a split second, his back was turned toward her, his arms locked up in his companion's.
Mildred brought the hammer down behind his left ear, which protruded from between the oily plaits of dark hair. Again, she struck with the flat end—she couldn't risk getting the point stuck in his skull.
A light blow to the mastoid would have just knocked him out.
It wasn't a light blow.
Blood and bone sprayed across both Bristle-nose and the wall.
As Mildred retreated, the huge robber surprised her by throwing his partner's limp body on top of her. Her feet tangled and she went down hard on her behind.
Before she could get up, the bearded guy had her throat in his huge, powerful hand. He squeezed her neck, closing her airway and shutting off the flow of blood to her brain. He held the point of his ax raised high over her head. He was grinning at her again, showing off his corroded yellow-and-brown stump teeth.
"This is for Bucky…" he said.
WHEN DOC AND JAK heard the hubbub, they were within a few strides of the sledge-loading area.
"That's Mildred," Doc said.
Jak dropped his bag and broke into a dead run. His speed was truly amazing. By the time Doc exited the side tunnel, the albino was already halfway across the main tunnel. The older man's heart skipped a beat. A big, filthy man was leaning over Mildred, holding her pinned by the throat while he prepared to strike a killing blow. As fast as Jak was, he couldn't close the gap in time to stop the tragedy.
The teen realized that, too, and didn't even try. Instead, he threw his ax, timing the toss with a forward lunge, putting his full body weight and momentum behind it. The ax sailed end over end in a whistling blur. It spiked into the top of the big guy's head with a solid thunk.
The ax hit so hard that it drove the tattooed man off his feet and sent his face smashing into the wall. The ax tumbled from his fingers. Mildred rolled away and catlike regained her feet as the man's legs buckled under him. His cheek and nose slid down the glass, leaving a wide smear of blood.
"Close one," Jak said, looking at the broken heads of the four corpses that lay around their sledge.
"Too close," Mildred said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Thanks for the help."
Jak grunted.
Unable to free the ax point from Bristle-nose's skull with a straight pull, he used the sole of his boot to try to lever it loose. It wouldn't come out. The ax was buried past the handle.
"Shit," he said, letting go of the ax and allowing the head to drop to the floor. He left his ax where it was and picked up the one the dead guy had dropped.
The chilling Jak and Mildred had performed made a big impression on their fellow slaves. They were so impressed that during the fight none of them had moved to steal the robbers' ore, which sat in an unattended sledge. Now that the battle was over, none dared make a move for it.
"Those were some very bad men," Huth said. "They were the ones who knocked my teeth out." He pointed at the nearly full cart and said, "Aren't you going take their ore?"
"Divv
y up," Jak said to the milling slaves.
The laborers looked at him, then at one another in astonishment.
"Go on, do what he says," Mildred told them. "The thieves stole it from you in the first place. Everybody take a chunk until it's gone."
For Ground Zero it was a very unusual proposition.
Instead of dog-eat-dog, every man for himself, it was more like all for one, one for all. The very prospect of decent, humane treatment made some of the slaves start crying—those who could still remember what their lives had been like before Slake City.
"Who's the tall, skinny geezer?" Mildred said as the redistribution of wealth began.
"His name is Huth," Doc said. "He wants to join our efforts to fill the sledge."
Mildred shrugged. "The more the merrier."
Chapter Thirteen
"What are you doing!" Krysty cried in disbelief. "We've got stickies all around us!"
Ryan stopped hacking at the wall with his hand ax.
"Is it the spores?" she said. "Ryan, are you seeing things?"
"Watch for the stickies," he told her. "If they rush us before I'm done, I need you to keep them off me."
With that, he resumed his wild attack on the nukeglass, making dust and splinters fly. He used the pointed end of his ax to chip out a wide, crusty hole around the buried part of the piece of Unistrut. He hadn't lost his mind. He had a plan. In a close quarters fight against dozens of stickies, he knew that the axes would be next to useless—they had too short a range. Clonking the muties on their bald, flabby heads meant letting them get close. Getting close to a stickie's suckers meant big trouble.
He needed something longer, something that would allow him to take advantage of his height, weight and strength.
With a last whack he cracked loose the U-channel. All five feet of it tumbled to the floor. At the end he'd just freed was a big, oblong clump of glass. Kneeling, he rested the clump on the floor and used the point of his ax head to clip off the excess material. He cleaned the nukeglass from that end of the Unistrut, scraping it right down to the metal. This gave him an all steel handle, two feet long.
