by Ryder Stacy
The other end was a nonstop series of questions asked so fast that Rock could barely understand “Yes, things went well, sir. No, no casualties. Yes, the camera we brought to film the attack functioned perfectly.” Rock waited a few seconds for the voice to stop and catch a breath. “Sir, instead of going over all this on the phone, why don’t I come up and talk to you in person . . . good.” Rockson put the phone back down on its mount. “I’ll see you later after you get a look at the Red prisoners we brought in, including a top brass.”
“All right Rock. And listen, I know—know what you mean. We do lose track sometimes of just what we’re fighting for and why. But don’t think that means we have forgotten—we haven’t. Not a man in this city or I’ll wager any other city. That’s what defines us, Rock. Makes us different from the Reds. We fight in the name of life. They fight in the name of death.”
“Thanks Rath,” Rock said simply and headed toward the elevators and Dr. Shecter many levels below, in the bowels of Century City, built entirely beneath a mountain. He pressed his thumb into a lit glass square and the stainless steel elevator doors opened and shut the moment he entered. Rock descended the eighteen levels rapidly, the bottom dropping out of his stomach. He stepped out into the main level of the science section of Century City, and, as he strode down the antiseptically clean white floors, (Shecter was a stickler for cleanliness), he realized that he hadn’t bathed for nearly three weeks and probably smelled like hibernating bear. Ah well, Shecter would have to put up with the earthy odors to assuage his curiosity.
Far down the curved hall, Rockson suddenly saw Shecter, his tall lean frame half stooped over in his omnipresent neck-to-ankle white smock, sliderule and calculator in his breast pocket ready for service at a moment’s notice. Funny, the man has no title except scientist, Rockson thought, and yet everyone snaps to it, even he, Ted Rockson, when the doctor called for them. But after all, everything in the Free City had been made by the man: the power sources, the hydroponics, the weapons. The man was still churning out his technological innovations daily even at the age of seventy-eight and appeared to have no intentions of slowing down.
Dr. Shecter firmly shook Rockson’s hand. “Good to see you back safe and sound. I had a funny feeling about this mission. But I’m glad to see that I was wrong.” His fierce brown eyes stared straight into Rockson’s own multi-hued eyes. He was one of the few who could or dared try. “Well?”
“You should have seen the attack. Those beams—they’re beyond weaponry. I can only think of the word punishment,” Rock said, “to describe the damage created by those black beams.” The two men walked about a hundred feet back down the hall to Shecter’s office where the scientist sat down behind his immense mahogany desk with as many drawers as he had ideas and every one of them neatly expounded, coded, and filed for future investigation. Rock collapsed in one of Shecter’s overstuffed armchairs, resting his six foot three inch, two hundred twenty-five pound frame of steel-sinewed muscle for the first time in weeks. He glanced around at the doc’s collection of scientific gadgetry that adorned the walls of the office. Models of the Liberator automatic rifle now in use by freefighters throughout America and Century City’s main export to the other hidden cities. Miniature versions of his thermal engine which channeled steam and heat rising up from beneath the bedrock of Century City and turned it into enough energy to power Century City’s living needs and industry. And oddities as well. Things in jars, floating in murky liquid that gave Rock the creeps. He’d seen some strange mutations in his day, but Shecter seemed to have gathered the most hideous ones and kept them on perpetual display. Embryos with scales and puckered little faces out of a nightmare, snakes with feathers and nearly human features, a bird the size of an eagle, black as midnight and covered with icepick sharp spikes. Things half hidden behind the clouds of liquid in which they were encased. Rock pulled his eyes away with a shudder.
“You like my collection?” Shecter asked, stoking and lighting his pipe. The sweet smell of cherry tobacco wafted across the room like a perfume. One of the few privileges of power that Shecter had taken—to take one of the hydroponic tanks for the growing of tobacco—a product he swore he needed in order to think. Nobody had dared object.
“Like isn’t the word,” Rock said, leaning back in the chair and letting his whole body just relax into the plush softness. It was only when he let his defensive systems down for a moment, his radar, that Rockson realized just how wound up he was. “I’m horrified and fascinated at the same time. I don’t know if I’d want the damn things staring down at me all the time.” Rock grimaced, looking up again at beady black eyes peering out of countless containers.
“These are my friends, Rockson. These are the inhabitants of our new world. Many of them will die out there. But some will survive. Oh yes, of that you can be sure. The world is changing, perhaps faster than any of us realize. The radiation that was laid down around the globe a hundred years ago is just now beginning its second stage of ‘mutation-evolution’ as I like to call it.”
“Mutation-evolution?” Rock looked across the wide folder-covered desk at the brilliant scientist whose head was nearly enshrouded in a halo of smoke. “I’ve never heard you use that expression before.”
“It’s something I’ve been musing over for the last several years Rock, and only just now am I starting to formulate a theory as to just what’s happening out there. You see, there are two distinct stages in the mutation process from radiation. First, comes the immediate mutations caused by radiation. The next generation that is born—human, lion, plant life, whatever—will produce many disfigured and usually unviable creatures. Most of these will die out. These generations, those that survive that is, will also produce mutations similar to themselves, and most of these will die. But after about three or four generations, roughly a hundred years, the survival quotient starts evening out. Those mutations that remain have not just survived—they have become a new species adapted to life in this post-nuclear world. Those are not monstrosities,” Shecter said, sweeping his hand toward the shelves containing the creatures. “Those are the new inhabitants of the earth, Rock.” He looked at the Doomsday Warrior with an intense expression. “The old days are gone forever. The old species are extinct. People still think in terms of returning to the old days. Recreating things as they were. This is all a pipe dream. I don’t talk about it too much. People need their illusions. But that’s not how it’s going to be. We’re heading into a new phase in the history of the earth. For the first time, every creature on this planet will have evolved not from the hand of God, but from the hand of man. The atomic hands. We have repopulated the earth with our own ‘monstrosities,’ as you call them. But now they are the animals of our world. Just as you, Rockson, with your blue and violet eyes, your white streak of hair down your scalp, your strength and almost extrasensory perceptions. You are an adaptation of the human species as well—to deal with this strange new world. My people are dying out.” Shecter looked down at his own skin and pinched it. “This flesh is not made for the world of today. There are two distinct species alive at this moment, Rock. Two human species. Just as Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man competed for survival a hundred thousand years ago and the more equipped and intelligent survived. So today there are two species: Homo sapiens and homo mutations. The first is dying out; the second will take its place. I am extinct,” the scientist said with stinging sarcasm. “Your people will live and rule the earth. The Russians don’t even realize it but their days are numbered. Their bodies which are protected from the radiation have not evolved as the freefighters have out in the hotter zones of America. The Reds need elaborate survival gear to operate: masks, anti-radiation pills, decontamination. You can’t go on like that forever. It’s all just a holding action. In another hundred years, mark my words, there won’t be a Homo sapiens alive on this planet. You, the homo mutations, will rule.”
Rockson didn’t know if he liked the sound of all this but he knew and respected Dr. Shecter as the m
ost intelligent man he had ever met. The man was not in the habit of shooting off with half-baked ideas.
“Ah, but enough of all this endless speculation. Speculation is for old men like myself who have time to sit around and ponder the imponderables. It is men like you who act, make things happen. How did it go, Rock?” He leaned forward, putting his knobby elbows on the shiny desk and waited. “You said successful—how successful?”
“The mission was one hundred percent successful,” Rock said simply. “I’ve never witnessed anything like it. It wasn’t a battle—more like a shooting gallery. The Reds must have thought the Christian Gods were rising from the grave and extracting vengeance. We let a few get away so they could scare the shit out of Zhabnov and Killov. Let those two fine gentlemen stew in their own juices for a while.”
“Effective—good. I trust the cameras were mounted before the attack and you filmed the whole thing so we can perform a computer analysis of every shot—any problems—”
“I think we got most of it. One camera about halfway through took a piece of shrapnel from a nearby Red tank shell and got blasted. But we got enough to provide some entertainment for you and your science staff,” Rock said drily. “Hollywood style.”
“Hollywood—what’s—oh, of course. You and your history studies. Hollywood was where the ancients made movies for the masses. Right?”
“Yes. That whole part of the country—California, where the Hollywood studios were all located, was, as you know, hit so heavily with nukes that the San Andreas fault opened up and the whole damn thing sank. A second Atlantis. Why I’ve—”
“We’ll have to discuss it some time, Rock,” Shecter said abruptly, cutting Rockson off. “Did you have the film sent to processing? I’m dying to see the damn weapons in action, after puttering around with them here in the lab for months.”
“McCaughlin was going to take them to the Audio Visual Section immediately. Give them a call.” Shecter made a quick buzz to the film lab and was told the prints were ready and had come out clear as a bell.
“Reserve Screening Room two for me,” Shecter said over the phone. “And chairs for twenty and—let’s see, a big pot of coffee. I and my staff will be going over these films all night, I’m sure.” He hung up with a smile. “It’s looking good, Rock, very good.” Shecter was beaming. He felt personal pride when the machines and labs of Century City were all functioning at one hundred percent. Woe to the lab worker or technician who stripped gears on a valuable piece of machinery or overexposed some important film or let a petri culture accidentally become contaminated with bacteria-ridden air. Then the science staff of Century City quaked in their proverbial boots, as Shecter was notorious for outbursts of temper when everything was not “just so.”
The two most important men of Century City, possibly in all of America, walked side by side back down the slowly curving corridor to the elevators. Though nearly the same height they were contrasts: the man of science, stiff, stooped over with a slow deliberate gait of one always deep in thought; and of the man of action, the warrior, straight as an arrow, every step purposeful, every sense on alert. Rockson felt slightly strange as he walked alongside the great scientist. “Not human!” The words had a strange ring to them. So he and the rest of the “mutants” were an entirely new race. What did that mean? All his life Rock had thought of himself as a member of Homo sapiens, the human race—the sentient life form on the earth for fifty thousand years. Now, in a few sentences from Shecter, he had found out he was not, after all, who he thought he was. It felt strange. As if he were suddenly from another planet. But as he let the words sink into his bones he knew Shecter was right. He hardly ever saw normal wildlife in his treks anymore. Even when he was younger there had been the occasional deer, moose, bear that resembled the pictures of the creatures from before the war. But now. Now, one out of a hundred was a normal. The rest were all mutants: horned, tusked, spiked, multi-headed. It was the normals who were the odd ones now. And somehow that made Rockson closer to those murderous beasts out on the plains and wastelands of America than to Shecter and the other “normal” humans. He was one of the atomic freaks of nature who would inherit the world.
They walked to elevator bank five and took the ride up twelve levels. Shecter at his age didn’t like the gut-wrenching speed the elevators moved at. In case of attack or emergency the closely packed underground city had to be able to react quickly, and instant accessibility to every section of Century City was vital. As they passed the floors, three to a level, in a whiz of motion, Rock thought about the origins of Century City: how the vast underground fortress of fifty thousand had started as two thousand rush-hour commuters, driving through a mountain tunnel of Interstate 70 about four hundred miles southeast of Denver, Colorado, had been sealed inside by atomic explosions that collapsed the entrances at both ends of the two mile structure; how they had organized and survived; how they had dug out after several weeks to see Red troop planes overhead dropping its occupation army; how the commuters had hidden and expanded the tunnel, using the machinery from their cars and their knowledge—and by the grace of God there had been knowledge aplenty in the tunnel: engineers, doctors, scientists, even a hydroponics expert. Nearly half the original inhabitants of the tunnel had died from radiation poisoning, from fear, from unknown causes. But the strong survived and reproduced and even, after a time, prospered. The name Century City was given to the tunnel as it slowly grew and reached out into the mountain above it to create more living and work room for the survivors. Century City—for it would take one hundred years for America to be free again and the inhabitants would make sure that that day came. And after one hundred years it still survived and was the greatest threat to Red hegemony in the world.
They arrived at their level and headed quickly to the screening room where Shecter’s staff was already seated, note pads on laps, sharpened pencils in hand. They stiffened slightly as their mentor arrived and took his seat at the front of the oval-shaped film auditorium. The lights dimmed and Rock began narrating the film, explaining the action that was occurring. Shecter heard Rock’s explanation of each maneuver but was more interested in later shaky hand-held close-ups of the damage to the tanks and trucks.
“Ah, just as I thought, Rock—some metals are more easily cut through. Look, there’s still pieces left of some of the armored vehicles, the most modern of the Red mobile units—magnalloy. It appears to be slightly more resistant to the total destructive force of the particle than the other metals.” His staff were madly scribbling in their lined notebooks every word from Shecter’s mouth. “If the Reds find out that magnalloy is less damaged by the beams, they’ll put every scientist from Red Square to the Crimea on double duty to come up with a defense. We’ll be one step ahead of them and find out how to neutralize their neutralization.” The science staff chuckled appreciatively, though Rock failed to see the humor.
The lights came on. Shecter shook Rockson’s hand. “Good show. Now, it’s up to us to go over these films with a fine-tooth comb.” Rock exited the theater as Shecter’s strong voice demanded “Show them from the beginning, gentlemen . . .”
Five
Colonel Killov popped another Benzedrine pill into his narrow hawklike mouth. He had been up for days now taking the little yellow pills every three or four hours, sitting alone in his eightieth floor suite of offices at the top of the monolith—the center of all KGB operation in America, located dead center of Denver, Colorado. He was obsessed. Obsessed with one man—Ted Rockson—the so-called Ultimate American, as the peasantry called him. Rockson had dared attack him, had dared to hurt him. But even more, had dared to challenge the power of the man who saw himself as the most powerful and ruthless man in the world. And like Captain Ahab, he could think of only one thing—revenge. He looked even thinner and tenser than usual, his ramrod-straight body nothing now but bone and gristle, his black eyes wide and cold as the vacuum of space. He had been taking more and more of the pills lately, ever since his run-in with Ted Rocks
on several months earlier. His body trembled with an almost invisible shaking as he stared out the dark windows at the Rocky Mountains off in the distance, their black peaks silhouetted against the purple sky, writhing with pink and orange waves of atmospheric electricity.
Killov slammed his fist down on the black-marbled plastisynth table that curved around in a semicircle facing the ten foot high polarized picture windows, his gaunt face skull-like in the growing dawn.
“No one must know. No one must ever speak of what happened that night out on the Utah Plains,” Colonel Killov, the supreme commander of all KGB forces in America muttered half madly to himself, not even realizing he was speaking. “No one must ever know of this defeat of mine out in the desert by a band of brigands.” His mind couldn’t stop returning to the scene of the battle. It had to be Ted Rockson and his men who had attacked Killov’s squadron of attack helicopters, destroying all the gunships save his alone. He remembered the carnage and the black beams that the small band of freefighters had shot up at the choppers just when it seemed their fate was inevitably sealed by death. Killov had had many nightmares about those few moments.
“If I hadn’t had that last second urge, that slightest caution to hang back as the fleet of black death’s-head helicopters went in for the kill, I’d—” The rest of the thought remained in his mind, unspoken. He would be dead. Burned into a pile of smoldering, glowing metal like the others. The freefighters had come up with a fantastic new weapon, the likes of which Killov had never seen. How could they have made it? Their hidden cities couldn’t be that advanced—could they? Capable of producing technologically advanced weaponry far ahead of the Russians? It didn’t seem possible. And yet he had seen the evidence for himself. Had barely escaped with his life. Vassily and Zhabnov, the fools, believed that the freefighters were just ragtag groups of unshaven mountain men, but Killov knew. Perhaps he was the only one who truly understood that, for the first time in a century, the Red rule was threatened here in America.
