by James Axler
“Close but no cigar,” Ryan said.
“Exactly. I never intended to desert you. I just wanted to see their faces again. One more time. And now I know that can never happen.” He ripped the chain from around his neck and threw the capsule across the room. “What is done is done. And there is no way in this or any other universe to change it.”
“Time travel is only possible in one direction?” Mildred said.
“Or not possible at all,” Ryan said. “Perhaps all we can do is jump universes and enter new time lines.”
“We would be falling into our whitecoats’ trap if we hypothesized from a single instance,” Doc said. “There are many explanations for what happened, none of them verifiable.”
“What happened to the mutie hunters?” Jak asked.
“One was chilled by an enforcer. The other time-jumped at the same moment I did. Because his chamber is vacant, I presume he stepped out of the machine, to another elsewhen.”
The room lights dimmed again. This time they nearly winked out altogether, and they took a long time coming back up.
“I doubt the power in this redoubt is going to last much longer,” Doc said. “We should return to the island before it fails us entirely. Before we do, however, there are some things in the galley we should gather up and take with us.”
AFTER A MEAL OF STEAKS, ham, lobster, a wide variety of starches and vegetables and a full fruit pie per person, the companions and the islanders lingered over cups of fresh brewed coffee and predark cigars.
Ryan quickly tired of the replays of the battle and who did what to whom. He left the dining hall and, after finding a map of the redoubt floorplan, worked his way down to Magus’s skybox.
Puffing on his stogie, he stepped to the wide window that overlooked the islet. He was surprised to see movement. A few of the muties were still running around over the heaps of dead. He picked up a pair of binocs from a low table and had himself a better looksee.
With closer view, he could see right away that they weren’t all muties. A pack of swampies was chasing a norm around and around the islet. The norm wasn’t much bigger than the muties, practically an ankle-biter, himself, and he had a long, hangdog sort of face.
It was a race he couldn’t win.
Ryan found the controls for the sound system and turned up the Wagner to max. He watched through the binocs until the little man was pulled down from behind and disappeared under falling cudgels.
Then he returned to the party.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1836-3
APOCALYPSE UNBORN
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