Perception Fault

by James Axler

  “Come on!” she panted in the heat. Glancing back at Ryan, she whirled to face him while putting her back against the door and shoving. “Come any closer and you’ll regret it!”

  Ryan sat back on his haunches and showed his blaster, careful not to point it directly at her. “Strange way to thank the man who just saved your life.”

  “Are you shittin’ me? Have you seen the army running around these fuckin’ hills? You haven’t saved me at all, stupe! By getting’ in the way, you’re just in for a world of trouble.” She didn’t let up on the door at all, but kept straining at it, jerking at the handle. “Why won’t this fuckin’ thing move?”

  “If you give my friends a minute, they’ll get us both out.”

  “Sure, and you’ll end up ransoming me to my father instead of them—don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  Ryan frowned. “Girl, I don’t even know who you are.”

  That stopped her, just in time for Ryan to hear J.B.’s voice outside. “Ryan, you alive in there?”

  “Yeah, but the doors are jammed. Can you bust them?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Ryan heard fading footsteps, then a strange whine, like metal rasping on metal, then a clink on the other side of the door. “So, who are you?”

  Puzzlement clouded her features. “You really don’t know?”

  Ryan poked the body of the driver next to him. “I know you’re important to these green shirts, since they went to a lot of trouble to capture you alive, but other than that, you’re just another outland woman to me.”

  “Just another— I’m Rachel Carrington, the daughter of Josiah Carrington, the leader of Free Denver.”

  Ryan nodded. “And the green shirts are fighting against your father, right?”

  “Yeah, lousy traitors. They want what my father’s spent his whole life building. They just think they can come in and take over. Not if I can help it.”

  J.B.’s voice sounded from outside. “Keep away from the door.” The engine of the other mil wag revved outside, followed by a sudden jerk on the frame of the upside-down 4x4. The engine revved again, and with another lurch, the door tore away from its hinges, letting in bright sunlight.

  Ryan motioned toward the door. “There you go.”

  “You’re letting me go?”

  “I don’t kidnap people for ransom. It looked like you were in trouble back there, and I thought you could use some help.”

  She stared at him for long seconds. “Who are you?”

  Ryan grinned. “No one of consequence.”

  Her expression changed from exasperated to puzzled. “I very much doubt that.”

  J.B.’s voice sounded from outside. “Company’s almost here, Ryan. You coming out, or fixing to stay in there for the rest of your bastard short life?”

  “You can go with us, or take your chances with the green shirts outside. It’s up to you.”

  “Choice like that isn’t any choice at all.” She scooted to the opening, scooping up the dead gunner’s blaster as she did so. But instead of pointing it at him, she extended a tanned hand, still oozing blood from a scraped knuckle. “Let’s go.”

  Taking it, Ryan was surprised by the strength in her wiry form. “Thanks.” He got up and glanced at J.B., who was regarding the woman with his habitual expressionless face. “J. B. Dix, Rachel Carrington, Rachel, J.B.”

  Dropping the metal cable and hook, which began retracting into the winch at the front of the mil wag, the Armorer nodded, receiving a curt one in return. “Rest of the group’s about two minutes behind us. This gully’ll be swarming with them soon, and I’d rather not be here when they arrive.”

  Ryan eyed Rachel. “Let me guess. If they were taking you that way—” he pointed in the direction the Hummer had been driving “—I’d guess your ville is back that way, right?” He jerked his thumb back the way they had come.

  “Yeah.” She saw J.B. about to ask the obvious question, and spoke first. “I got cut off from my unit, and it was either light out this way or try to break back through the enemy line. I thought I’d like to live another day, rather than kill myself trying to get back.”

  “But if we reach the ville, you can get us inside, right?”

  “Yeah, if we can reach it. There must be a hundred of those bastards between us and them.”

  “Then you might not like the idea I got in mind. Come on.” Ryan ran back to the wag. “Move over, Jak. Rachel, find a hole in the back. And everyone put on your green shirts right now!”

  Jak grimaced as he climbed over the gearshift. “Where? More here, be assholes and elbows ever’where.”

  “Just move. Get in the turret with J.B. if you have to. Take the shotgun if you head topside.”

  Both men spoke at the same time. “How am I supposed to shoot with him—”

  “Too crowded aim anythin’—”

  “I don’t care if you have to reach under each other’s legs to pull the trigger, just figure it out!” Ryan slammed the driver’s door shut and spun the wheel. Already sluggish with six aboard, the off-roader moved even more slowly with another person, the engine developing a nasty rattle as he maneuvered the way around and started heading back the way they had come. “J.B., how much ammo left in the Fifty?”

  “About a hundred rounds, which I’m going to need if you’re doing what I think you’re doing.”

  “You got it.” Ryan raised his voice to be heard over the growling engine. “Everyone get out your blasters and be ready to lay down a curtain of lead when we see the coldhearts. Should blow right through them before they can get their acts together, make a run for the main gate or entryway or wherever Rachel’s going to tell me to go.”

  In the back, he heard Rachel ask Krysty, “Is he always this nuts?”

  Krysty cocked the hammer on her revolver, her expression calmly grim. “I have a hard time deciding between just nuts and plain bat-shit crazy sometimes.”

  Ryan just grinned as he pressed the gas pedal to the floor. In all respects, she was probably right—it was a crazy idea, but he also knew the almost incalculable value of surprise, and that was his ace in the hole. All they needed to do was punch a hole in the line and squirt through, and they’d be inside the ville in no time. Assuming the people they faced didn’t have RPGs or mortars or any of a dozen other things that would end his little surprise run before it began.

  The mil wag slowly but steadily picked up speed, until the speedometer needle had crept up to a shaky fifty miles per hour. The rattle from the engine had grown louder, and Ryan prayed to the invisible gods of machinery that it would last a few minutes longer. It wouldn’t do to have them coast to a stop right in front of the approaching enemy force.

  “Ryan, I do hope you know what you’re doing,” Doc said as he readied his ponderous LeMat to shoot out of the passenger window.

  “Trust me. I’ll be the last thing they expect. Besides, how many wags can they have left?”

  He thought he heard Rachel mutter something in the back, but couldn’t make it out over the wind and the engine noise. Glancing down, he noticed a red warning light flickering on the instrument panel, and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  “All right, we’re coming up on the last turn! J.B., aim for any wags that look like they could come after us! The rest of you just keep shooting to keep their heads down. If you chill one, great, but we’re really just looking for a distraction. Here we go!”

  Chapter Eight

  The opening to the canyon was covered in shadow, and Ryan felt a brief chill wash over him as they shot through it and into the hot, bright sunlight beyond. When he did, however, his jaw dropped, and the thought that his plan might not have been the smartest crossed his mind.

  The entire hillside was covered with green shirts—more than a hundred, coming down the hill in loose units. Scattered among them were several mil wags, apparently serving as rally points, since each one had a large group clustered around it.

  Ryan’s packed Hummer burst out o
f the rocky valley like a rabid wolf among sheep, sowing panic and confusion from the moment it appeared.

  J.B. started the carnage with a touch on the trigger of the .50-caliber blaster that sent a short burst into the nearest vehicle, the bullets carving through the warm bodies of the sec men and into the armor-plated hood and windshield, reducing the driver and passengers to blood-soaked meat. One of the bullets had to have hit something incendiary or explosive, because there was a dull whump and the wag suddenly erupted in a large fireball, tossing the rest of the nearby green shirts through the air, many of them also on fire.

  The explosion made every head on the hill look their way. Cranking the wheel hard left, Ryan gunned the engine, trying to reach the top of the hill as fast as possible. The crack of multiple small-arms fire roared in his ears as Krysty, Mildred, Jak, Doc and Rachel unloaded on the nearby soldiers, caught flat-footed with no cover except the featureless, unforgiving ground.

  The roaring mil wag, bristling with weapons, rampaged through the herd—a herd armed with blasters, but a herd nonetheless. Although a few managed to draw or aim their weapons, they were either cut down by bullets or mowed down by the vehicle itself, Ryan plowing through them in his relentless quest to reach the top.

  J.B.’s machine gun stuttered out its relentless death song, hammering another mil wag trying to make a run at them, this one unfortunately topless, especially for the men inside. They didn’t make it within fifty yards before the heavy slugs turned the driver and passengers inside to bloody corpses. The Armorer put another short burst into the front grille, the burst of steam jetting from under the hood confirming another one down.

  By now other vehicle-mounted blasters were coming into play, with streams of bullets kicking up dirt and grass near the fleeing wag. Ryan jogged the wheel left, trying to zigzag up the slope, but almost put them into the side of the rocky escarpment for his trouble.

  “Almost out. Mebbe fifty shells left!” J.B. shouted from above.

  “Keep hitting them—we’re almost there!” Ryan was hunched over the wheel, trying to will the shrilling engine to carry the wag the last dozen or so yards to the top. Bullets spanged off the armor, small pings of blasterfire interspersed with heavier ponks of automatic rifle round ricocheting off the armor plate.

  “Shit!” Jak pulled himself back inside from the turret, clutching his bleeding arm. “Bouncer got me!”

  “Doc, cover fire!” Ryan could see the top of the hill now, but the engine was making unhealthy grinding noises. Doc’s LeMat boomed, and he heard screams from outside, followed by a more ominous lack of noise—the .50-caliber blaster on top wasn’t firing anymore.

  “I’m out!” J.B. shouted.

  “We’re over!” Ryan exclaimed.

  Unfortunately, although they had crested the hill, they were far from being out of danger. The other side leading down to a refinery was not choked quite as much with fighters or wags, but there was enough to make them pause, all of them charging up the hillside. In the distance, on the other side of the mob, was a ville wreathed in smoke and fire, behind what looked like a long wall made of some kind of crushed ruins of cars blocking the streets, forming a ten-foot-high barrier. How his group could reach it alive, Ryan barely had an idea.

  “Hold your fire!” he hissed at his group just as the nearest green shirt reached the window.

  “What the hell’s going on over there?”

  “Ambush by people from the hills. We got wounded we’re bringing back.” Ryan nodded at Jak, who picked up on the cue, and moaned loudly, clutching his arm.

  The soldier drew back at Jak’s appearance. “Never seen him before.”

  “New conscript—just got him in our unit last week. Look, they need reinforcements quick. Get over there and help them. We gotta fly!” Ryan released the brake and stepped on the gas, letting gravity help get the overloaded wag moving.

  “Make a hole! Wounded coming through!” the green shirt shouted after them. Men and wags moved out of the way as the vehicle began to descend the hill.

  “Pretty clever, Ryan,” Mildred acknowledged while reloading her Czech target pistol and snapping the cylinder shut.

  “Yeah, well, we aren’t even close to out of the woods yet.” Ryan heard shouts and shots from the top of the hill and grimaced. “There goes our cover. Hang on!”

  He tromped on the gas, and the 4x4 leaped forward, sending slower green shirts tumbling in his wake as the steel fenders clipped their legs and waists. The confusion worked in their favor again as the men either froze, wondering why one of their own seemed to be attacking them, or looking to their commanding officer as to what to do about the marauding vehicle.

  Ryan and his crew were able to make it halfway down the hill before any kind of organized action occurred around them. But when it came, it was heavy. Everyone was forced to duck for cover as it seemed every blaster on the hill opened up on them. Ryan felt the jolt as both tires on the right side were flattened, but he kept going, knowing the standard wheels on a mil wag could travel up to thirty miles, even when punctured. The vehicle listed to the right for a few seconds, then the tires on the left side were shot out, as well, and it leveled off.

  They roared down to the bottom of the hill, and Ryan hung a hard right, aiming for the barricade.

  Rachel leaned forward, so close Ryan felt her breath on his neck. “Hey, Ryan, how you gonna get inside? You’re driving an enemy wag and dressed in enemy clothes.”

  “That’s where you come in. Since you’re the baron’s daughter, I figure once they get a look at your pretty head, they’ll welcome us with open arms.”

  “If they don’t blow you to pieces before you get within a hundred yards of that wall.”

  Right then the engine hitched, knocked loudly and stopped working with a jerk that made the whole wag shake as it coasted to a stop—still at least a hundred yards from the wall.

  “Fireblast! Everyone out. Head to the abandoned buildings over there.”

  Rachel grabbed his arm. “No, we run for the wall, full-out. With me in the lead, they’ll give covering fire. We go into the old refinery, we’re all dead!” When he turned to ask her why, she said, “Stickies live there. When you get to the wall, look for the pink metal. That’s the ground entrance.”

  “Okay, everyone out, move, move, move!” Ryan spilled out of the driver’s seat, grabbing his Steyr. He hurried to the wag’s back fender, tearing off the green shirt and throwing it away, his Sig Sauer a reassuring weight in his hand. “Krysty, Mildred, Rachel, get out and head for the wall. J.B., you all right up there?”

  “Don’t freak.” When Ryan spared a glance at his old friend, he nearly sat down in surprise. The left side of the Armorer’s face was a mask of blood, covering his forehead, eye, cheek, nose and jaw. J.B. jumped from the turret just as a burst from the nearest green shirts thunked into the back of the Hummer. “Shrapnel sliced my forehead. Looks worse than it is. Here.” He thrust the M-4000 into Ryan’s free hand. “Can’t see shit.” He took his precious glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. Better. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

  Ryan shoved his blaster into his belt and checked the load on the shotgun. “You and everyone else haul ass to that wall. I’ll hold them off for a minute, then be right behind you.”

  “See you there.” J.B. readied his mini-Uzi and moved toward the front of the wag. Ryan holstered his Sig Sauer and snugged the butt of the shotgun into his armpit. An enemy wag roared up and skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust, inadvertently providing cover for Ryan and his people from the other green shirts. The turret swung over, with what looked like an M-60 light machine gun on top, the gunner about to lay into the companions’ wag. It hadn’t quite gotten aligned when Ryan poked the M-4000’s muzzle out and unleashed a firestorm of hell.

  The blaster bucked hard in his grasp, and Ryan realized when half the magazine was gone that this one was loaded with double-00 buckshot. The scything cloud of pellets enveloped the wag, taking out the gunner in the turret, shred
ding both tires and starring the thick windshield. After the bellow of the M-4000 had died away, he still heard loud booms coming from the other side of his wag, and saw large stars appear in the already-shattered windshield. Ryan ducked his head under the vehicle to see a familiar set of combat boots near the front wheel.

  “Jak!” Ryan retreated back to the hood to find the albino youth aiming his .357 through the window of the open passenger door, squeezing off shots with one hand, despite the recoil jacking his hand back every time. “What part of ‘haul ass to that wall’ didn’t you fucking understand?”

  The albino teen fired one last shot and ducked down to reload. “Bullets left. ‘Sides, run faster than you.”

  “Well, I hope you run really bastard fast this time, ’cause I think we got everyone who’s left out there on our tail now.” Ryan peeked up above the top edge of the door, and immediately ducked as a hail of gunfire nearly clipped his hair.

  Jak smirked. “Bet you not do that again.”

  Ryan raised his Sig Sauer and fired several shots in the direction of their enemy, and was rewarded with what sounded like a shout of pain. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and put a hole in the gas tank so we can make a distraction to get the hell out of here? Leave that hand blaster with me. It’ll give them something to think about, at least.”

  Jak flipped the large weapon around and offered it to Ryan butt-first. “Five left. Don’t scratch the finish.”

  “Only if I lay the barrel alongside your triple-stupe head. Get down there.” A blaster in each hand, Ryan kept watch as Jak hit the ground and slithered under the wag. Sounds of metal on metal could be heard, followed by the youth swearing loudly. Ryan snapped off the occasional shot, wondering where the nuking hell the backup fire was from that stupe wall. Finally, Jak’s feet appeared from under the front of the wag, but he didn’t come out yet. After a few more seconds, and with a strangled curse, Jak rolled out from under the vehicle, spluttering and wiping gas from his face.