by Ryder Stacy
Rockson and the barn door of a man Archer hit the edge of the woods and tore into the shadows and leafy covering of the trees. We should have a chance in here, Rock thought as he and Archer zipped between the dark trees, ducking their heads beneath low branches. Rock couldn’t help but smile even in the midst of fleeing the Reds. They had already taken out nearly a quarter of the fleet, and the Russians hadn’t bothered to stop and check out the cave. His plan appeared to be working. Small forest creatures flew off around them, squealing and hiding in the thick twisted weeds of the forest as the two Americans ran as fast as their legs could carry them. The further they got from Kim and the president the better. Overhead they heard the loud whir of the copter engines. The Reds weren’t about to give up so easily on this one.
Explosions went off about fifty yards behind them. Sounded like the crews were tossing grenades, just dropping them straight down as battleships of old would drop their explosive canisters to rouse hidden submarines. Rockson heard a loud thud to his right. Archer had caught a branch right in the face as he had turned to catch sight of the explosion lighting up the woods behind them. Rock stopped and reached a hand down for the immense man in his oversized fatigues that were always ripping at the seams. Archer opened his eyes and saw Rockson looking down. He instantly realized how stupid he looked and smiled.
“Come on big fellow,” the Doomsday Warrior said, helping the freefighter to his feet. “It happens to the best of us.” The two of them once again hit cruising speed into the lengthening shadows as the sun began to fall lazily from the ocean-blue sky. Just a little more. Just let them not find us for another five minutes and we’ll be free. Rock was sure of it. The thick trees of the surrounding mountains would make a perfect getaway for them. Ahead was a clearing, lit up with golden light from the warm rays of old Sol. It looked all right. Rockson stopped at the edge of the woods. About a hundred yards of lillies and daisies until the next patch of woods. The Reds seemed to be far behind them, still trying to flush them out.
“Come on.” Rock raised his arm. “Fast!” The two men took off across the open field like jackrabbits pursued by a fox. They had gone about thirty feet when the Doomsday Warrior heard a sound. Something? From above. They both dove to the ground as a large rope net dropped down from the trees. The net hit Archer, tangling his arms then his legs. He fell over on his side, roaring like a wild beast. Rock felt the net fall over his back, and he shot forward wriggling, avoiding entanglement. He reached the edge of it and came to his knees, pulling his .12 gauge shotpistol up ready to spit death.
“Please don’t try that,” a cold voice said. Rock looked up. A Russian officer, a captain with a big red star on his brown cap, was holding a .9mm Special Service revolver aimed right between Rock’s blue and violet eyes. On each side of the officer were nearly ten regulars, their Kalashnikovs pointed at the crouching American. Rock shrugged and let his pistol dangle from his fingers. He stood up slowly as troops tied the net around the furiously struggling Archer.
“Well, now, I may be mistaken,” the mustached officer said with a sneer. “But this looks like the notorious Ted Rockson—the ‘Ultimate American.’ ” He spat the words out contemptuously. “I’ve seen your picture enough on every brown wall in every military headquarters in this filthy country. You don’t look so tough right now.”
“Oh I’m not tough at all,” Rock said smiling. “I’m just a pussycat. He’s tough.” Rock pointed down at the snarling and frantically flailing Archer who was trying to rip the net apart with brute strength, hard even for him, with two-inch cable totally surrounding his massive body. Rock’s hands were cuffed behind his back, and he was marched into one of the choppers hidden in a second clearing beyond the next row of trees. Archer was carried in, still bound up in the net on a long metal pole, four men at each end.
“Looks like your fighting days are over, Rockson,” the officer said needling him. “After Intel gets hold of you and puts you in one of those Mindbreakers, that I’m sure you’ve heard about, I don’t think there’ll be much left up there.” He pointed to Rock’s head with the muzzle of his pistol.
“Oh, yes, the Mindbreaker. I’ve already tried one, thank you,” Rockson said through clenched teeth. “Quite a lot of fun. You should really take a spin in one yourself someday.”
Half a mile behind them in the dusk of the now set sun, with jagged clouds passing overhead creating a maze of darkness below, the freefighters with Kim and the president slipped unnoticed down the back side of the mountain. Three choppers still burned just down the forward slope. Rock had done his job. God help him now.
Seven
The fleet of choppers pulled into their landing field at Fort Dobrynin near what had once been Chicago. But the Windy City had been hit with two twenty-megs and was now just a pair of immense craters filled with a swampy scum in which nothing grew. When the Reds had moved in a century earlier, they had built a fortress, one of the biggest in the Midwest about ten miles outside of the decimated metropolis swarming with cancer-ridden rats. The helicopters came to a full stop on a two-mile-long runway equipped to take even the Intercontinental Voyuz Stratojets that could carry up to five tanks in their gargantuan bellies. The needle-shaped control tower off to one side of the runway gave them directions, and they wheeled off to the special security sector of the field.
The Red Army command of the fortress had been radioed about the capture of the Doomsday Warrior, and the entire complex was abuzz with excitement. If it was indeed Rockson, the top brass of the one hundred thousand man Russian force would all be sitting pretty. They marched out from the control tower, twenty of the highest officers, their uniforms pressed for the occasion, their rows of medals glittering on their chests, to personally direct the prisoners’ entry into the fortress.
The freefighting mutant was taken from the lead chopper hands cuffed behind his back, steel shackles around his ankles. The Red captain who was now in command of the attack force had heard too many stories of the man’s uncanny ability to escape every Russian trap that had been set for him to allow even the slightest opportunity. It would be his head for sure if Rockson made a getaway. A dozen Red troops stood around their prisoner, subs aimed at his chest and back. There was no way in hell he was going to get out of this one. Archer was another story. The man was too big and too strong to even shackle. He looked as if he could snap chains with his teeth. The captain decided to keep him in the netting, screaming his version of curses: animal growls ands grunts.
The Red command stood about fifty feet from the slowly spinning rotors of the choppers and smiled broadly as Rockson was marched up to them.
“So it is you, after all,” the top commander of the fortress, General Pushkin said. “We weren’t really sure they had captured you.” He held a large wanted poster up next to Rockson’s face with the words Wanted Dead Or Alive, 500,000 rubles Reward written on it below a sketched drawing of Ted Rockson, and then looked again at the Doomsday Warrior. “Unmistakable—the white streak down the middle of the head—the mismatched eyes—only one man could look like that.”
“If I’d known I was so famous I would have given an autograph party long ago,” Rock said, spitting the words in the general’s face.
“Guard him well,” Pushkin snarled to the guards. “And don’t harm a hair on his mutant head—this man is worth his weight in plutonium.” The brass watched with smug grins as the Doomsday Warrior was marched past them and into the large debriefing room just to the other side of the airport fence.
The intelligence chief, Colonel Pastrok, sat at a large wooden table with a single chair on the other side. The guards pushed Rockson roughly down, one of them hitting him with the butt of his Kalashnikov on the freefighter’s shoulder.
“Name?” the colonel asked with a false smile. He offered the American a cigarette from a Russian pack—Sputnik filters.
“John Doe,” Rock answered. “And I don’t smoke except from a gun.”
“Come now, we know you’re Ted Rockson.
Let’s not play games with one another.” The interrogator’s face had a silver dollar-sized purple birthmark on the left cheek which contrasted sharply with his otherwise pasty flesh. His eyes narrowed as he spoke. “The more you cooperate the less painful it will be for you. That I promise you—as an officer of the Imperial Russian Army.”
“I trust you Reds as far as I can sight my rifle,” Rock said dryly. “There are graveyards of Americans who listened to your bull. I’ve seen too much to even think of cooperation. Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with. Otherwise I might just escape from here.”
“Kill you.” The officer laughed. “Oh no, Mr. Rockson, that will never do. You’re in for quite an extended period of interrogation. Or should I use the less glamorous term—torture. When we can get inside that mutant head of yours I’m sure we’ll find out wonders—not to mention the location of half the Free Cities in this hellhole of a country. Your capture may well signal the beginning of the end for your rebel forces. Take him away for now,” he commanded the guards. “Put him in Maximum Security Cell Three. I don’t want any other prisoners anywhere near him. Clear out the whole block. Just have this Rockson and that foul-smelling creature that was captured with him put in there. Separate cells. I want ten armed guards in there at all times. This man is not what you would call a normal prisoner.”
“I’m touched,” Rockson said. The Doomsday Warrior knew that his chance for escape would come—not now—but it would come. They would make a slip, be lax for just one moment, and Rockson would move. He was marched down a long hallway and taken by elevator down to one of many cellblocks in the military prison. Even through the thick walls he could hear the screams of other prisoners. The Reds seemed to love the sound of pain—it was music to their ears. He was pushed into a cell and the steel-barred door slammed shut behind him, locking with a loud click. The guards stepped back, and the chief of security leveled his Tokarev .65 pistol at Rock’s head.
“As long as you’re here, don’t try anything. I’d rather shoot you than let you escape. You understand? I won’t hesitate. I can never let you escape. Never!”
“I’m scared,” Rock quipped through the inch-thick steel bars. “I promise, cross my heart, to be good.” The Doomsday Warrior looked around his cell—solid as they come. A video camera on the ceiling swung slowly around, transmitting pictures of every foot of the cell and its occupant to technicians in a control booth several floors above. Man, they really weren’t taking any chances with him. Rock heard a noise, a moan, and rushed forward against the bars. About thirty feet down the cell-block Archer was coming to. They had apparently shot him full of drugs before daring to release him from the netting. The huge man stood up wobbly and saw Rock. A smile crossed his black-bearded face.
“Rockssssonnnn,” he howled. He seemed overjoyed that Rock was still alive. Archer had a kind of magical belief in the Doomsday Warrior’s ability to survive. If Rock was around—anything was possible.
They were fed after a few hours, not too tasty, but food nevertheless. Rockson wondered if it were drugged but then shrugged his shoulders and ate the meat and potato stew down. Whatever they were going to do—they would do. Archer gobbled down his helping in seconds and held the bowl out through the bars for more. The food dribbled down over his dark beard but he took no notice. The Reds looked on in disgust as if at a savage. Which he probably was, Rock thought. But he’d take savages like Archer, who, in spite of his appearance, had more of a code of ethics and honor than any Russian in the whole damned country.
Several hours passed, with the guards smoking cigarettes and playing cards at a small table in the center of the corridor that ran past the rows of green-painted cells. At last another officer came in, a dark-complexioned man with almost platinum-white hair. He was accompanied by a dozen armed guards.
“You,” he said, pointing to Rockson. “Time for some fun.” Rock was led from the cell still in his cuffs and leg chains. Archer let out a roar of protest. Suddenly he felt alone, frightened, and paced the cell wildly, pulling at the bars with all his strength, making the entire side of the cell vibrate violently. The guards stepped back knowing he couldn’t—but somehow afraid that the seven-foot freefighter with the huge black eyes could rip his prison cell apart. They pulled back the safeties on their rifles and looked at one another nervously.
Rockson was marched through several long brightly lit hallways to a large room filled with what were obviously torture implements. A white-smocked man stood rubbing his hands together in delighted anticipation of the time they were about to spend together.
“Ah, Mr. Rockson, so glad you could make our little party,” the technician of pain said. Although his neck-to-ankle smock had been washed and bleached, Rock could see flecks of pale red: blood from the torturer’s past victims.
“And I’m so glad I could come,” Rock said, his blue and violet eyes cold as tempered steel. “I hope I’m not too late. Have all the guests left?”
“There’s always room for one more,” the flabby technician of pain said with a smile of his thick blubbery lips. “Please do be seated.” The guards brusquely threw Rockson down on a long board and cuffed his hands to hooks on each side. Rock breathed out deep, going into a semi-meditative trance where his mind could detach from the pain his body would feel. He felt no fear. Just a longing for Kim—to touch her soft skin—taste her lips one more time before leaving the world of the living.
“Now, what kind of pain would you like to begin with? An appetizer as it were or the main course?” the pale technician asked in a low voice. “Somehow I feel that tonight we should give you a demonstration of the full range of our—accessories.” He snapped his fingers at two of his assistants similarly attired in the gray smocks, pointing to a long whip across the room. It hung on a wall which was filled with every type of crude instrument of pain from bullwhips to hammers, knives to scalpels, masks with spikes inside of them, bludgeons, needles, and shiny mechanical devices that looked quite incomprehensible and quite dangerous.
“Whips are so old-fashioned,” the torturer said in apology, “but they do hurt.” He took the cat-o-nine-tails lined with small razor-sharp spikes only about a quarter of an inch long. “These are special—made of—oh well, why talk about it when it can so easily be demonstrated.” The short, squat Red pain tech pulled the whip back and then swung it forward with all his might across Rockson’s back. Hundreds of small metal teeth ripped through the Doomsday Warrior’s khaki shirt and into his flesh, making scores of small razor cuts. But the mutant skin didn’t bleed. The cuts had not reached his protected arterial and nervous system set inside the skin nearly half an inch deeper than the average Homo Sapien’s. Still, the pain was intense. Rockson pulled his consciousness up from his body into his mind. He was floating—floating free of the physicality that was Ted Rockson. The cat-o-nine bit into the broad muscular back again and again, cutting the shirt to tatters. Cuts covered the Doomsday Warrior’s flesh, and at last blood began creeping out through gashes that had been torn two or three times.
“Ah, I’ve struck paydirt have I?” The torture tech laughed with a satisfied snort. His jowls of waxy dough rippled in flesh waves beneath the stubbly chin. The man enjoyed his work.
“Has the party begun?” Rock asked, his face pressed against the blood-soaked board.
“I’m bored with this,” the torture tech snapped angrily, wanting Rockson to grovel beneath him. He tossed the now red whip to one of his assistants who caught it and returned it to the wall. “Bring me the prod—yes the prod will make a nice main course.” The assistant took down a long cylindrical-shaped device and brought it over to Rock’s tormentor who turned a dial on the pain machine up to the red—danger—level.
“I don’t see why we should waste time with preliminaries.” He smirked at his victim, lying still below him. “I’ll just set it at maximum and see what we can get out of you.” He placed the tip of the amplified electric cattle prod at the small of Rock’s back. The muscles in the Doo
msday Warrior tightened into knots of pain, his back arching upward and jerking spasmodically. He felt the pain, but as an object, an illusion, and did not let it take his spirit.
“Mary had a little lamb,” Rock muttered over his shoulder. The torture tech reached forward again, this time touching the shiny tip of the electric spike just below the base of Rock’s neck. Again, pain, like a lightning bolt, surging through him. His head rocketed back and forth on his neck like some kind of bouncing doll out of control. He was in another place, another dimension where the normal laws of the body no longer applied. He placed himself beyond pain and stood back as one might watch a movie of one’s own death. The torturer pulled the prod back and glared down at his captive.
“And its fleece was white as snow,” Rock spat out through clenched teeth. Maybe if he could make the pain dealer angry enough he’d make a mistake and kill him. The days, weeks, of torture would be destroyed—all the information they hoped to get from Rock—gone in the corpse of his body. Rockson would get the last laugh yet.
“Hey I hear most of you pain freaks get your kicks from raping dead babies. Is it true?” the Doomsday Warrior asked his torturer through a blue haze of pain. The tech’s face grew red as an overripe beet, and he slammed the prod down against Rock’s head, hitting the Doomsday Warrior on the back of the skull full force. The blow Rock absorbed easily—then came the electricity directly into his brain. The pain was unbelievable. Even he couldn’t escape it now. It filled every fiber of his consciousness, every path he turned to escape. A low groan fell from his white lips. The torture tech held the device against Rock’s skull for nearly ten seconds, when one of the Red Army officers present jumped up shouting.
“Don’t kill him, you fool, or it’s your life, too!” The tech pulled the prod angrily away and looked down at his prisoner. Rockson let his senses settle back into their proper modes and then opened his eyes, staring up at the expert of pain.
