by Ryder Stacy
Then he found Rockson. He bent down as Rockson struggled, pinned like a bug. “Like my special sandbox for American heroes?” Killov snickered, and took a steely grip on Rock’s long black-and-white locks and pulled hard, tilting the American’s head back.
“Look at me when I talk to you! You’re not so big now, are you, Rockson?” The black, beady eyes flashed in triumph. “That’s a new type of quick-setting material called silica-40 that you’re trapped in. Do you feel like a fool, Rockson? Admit it.”
Rock didn’t reply. Killov stood up, then Rock felt the hard edge of a steel-tipped boot—Killov’s boot—against his chin. Numb and bleeding, Rock twisted and struggled. The sucking sands gave a bit. Killov was surprised. He reached for his sidearm, but fumbled.
Rock had summoned a power he didn’t even know he possessed, a mutant strength born of desperation and anger, and he had somehow overcome the tons of weighty sand. Rockson crawled out of his living grave as Killov backed off, muttering, “Can’t . . . be!” He lifted his pistol and fired. But Killov’s sidearm was jammed by Rock’s throw of sand—accurate and lucky!
Now the fight began tooth and nail—over the half-buried alive bodies of the brave men Rock had brought to this hell. Rock vowed they would not die because of his mistakes. And he wouldn’t die!
The opponents grappled and rolled about. Killov was amazingly strong, though he should have been a pushover. Perhaps, Rockson thought as they struggled, the KGB madman was charged up with some sort of stimulant. Indeed, Killov’s eyes were bloodshot, red, like a world afire. His breath was like acid against Rockson’s face. “You die,” the KGB head snarled, and his long metal-replacement fingernails raked Rock’s shoulder. They felt like icepicks.
“Not yet!” Rock smashed a fist into the man’s yellow teeth. Rotted-out stumps fell out; the thin and cracked mashed lips uttered a groan. Killov pulled away and again tried his jammed weapon. This time it worked.
After the loud report of the pistol came flaming pain. Rock had been hit in the shoulder. Then the Luger misfired again. Desperately, Rock dived at Killov’s legs and tried to topple the man. He succeeded, but not before another solid hit of an explosive bullet hit his chest, inches from Rock’s heart.
Killov had mortally wounded him. Rock knew that. He’d pass out in another second. But not before Rockson killed the man. He had to save his men, even if he died.
Rockson smashed Killov with his good fist, sending the man’s head to the side with a snap. As his entrapped men cheered, Rock smashed in the rib cage of the bastard with the butt of his gun. It had fallen to the side when Rock had hit Killov’s jaw.
The madman lay twitching now. Red blood gushed out of Killov’s lips and he sagged, wide-eyed. Rockson felt a lack of breath, a searing pain. He couldn’t stay conscious. Before he passed out, he jabbed at the KGBer’s face one last time and a piece of flesh tore away.
Rock, in his last moment of consciousness, saw that it was not Killov. His opponent was someone else, a man wearing a mask.
He had been fighting an impostor!
Rockson passed out just as Archer repeated his commander’s feat and smashed out of the silica trap. He couldn’t awaken Rockson, so Archer broke the others out of the sand trap.
Chen examined Rockson, and said, “It’s real bad. We’ve got to get him to a hospital. Quick!”
Detroit had one end of the stretcher upon which Rockson lay, and McCaughlin the other. Chen ran ahead of them, frantically waving the medivac helicopter in for a landing.
“This is Rockson,” Chen explained as he ducked under the heliblades. “Get him to Century City. I’ve given him five units of whole blood, but he’s bad. The chest wound is the worst. Get Schecter on the horn as you fly Rockson in—nobody else, understand?”
The heli pilot nodded and shouted “Okay” as the stretcher was attached alongside the heli’s fuselage.
“Me go in heli,” Archer shouted, pushing Chen aside.
“No!” Chen exclaimed, pushing back the tear-faced mountain man. “The heli will fly faster with just Rock aboard. Get back, Archer, and watch the blades!”
The heli took off at a steep angle, its jet engine flaring out a burst as it went into overdrive.
Scheransky came running and joined the four other men watching the heli leave. Then the Russian defector sagged down on the ground. He looked at them all, and said, “How bad is he?”
“He’s dying,” Chen lamented. “Unless our prayers are answered, Rockson will die before he gets to the emergency room at Century City Hospital.”
Up in the air, two medics were pumping drugs and sealing wounds on Rockson. “Jeez,” the bearded one exclaimed, “get the fibrillator. He’s stopped breathing. He’s in cardiac arrest. God, Rockson, hear me! We need you! Hold on! Hold on!”
One
On another continent, seven thousand five hundred miles to the south, in Peru’s fabled Inca fortress called Machu Pichu, Killov, the real Killov, stood at the very top of the rebuilt Temple of the Sun. He admired again, as he did every morning, his “new” capitol. Machu Pichu had been born again as Killov City. And he was the new Montezuma—or whoever the hell the Inca god-king had been. He turned to face a stone-hewn platform. It was always a thrill to look at and touch such a wonderful object. This dark obsidian stone bed was the very altar at which the noble Incas had decapitated and disemboweled over more than a thousand willing sacrifices a day. The stone pallet was worn from the running of so much blood.
The Incas had offered sacrifices to appease the gods, but all that sacrifice had, Killov knew, failed to stop the Spanish conquistadors from sacking the Inca Kingdom. The Incas had taken last refuge in this city, as Killov had. The great stone temples and residences on the Andean Peak were half wreathed in mists in this warm dawn-time. One could only get a glimpse of the hacked-down jungle that had grown up to cover it over. Now it was clearing, and crews of Killov’s men continued their job with earth movers and weed burners. They had cleaned up most of Machu Pichu in a mere twelve months.
When they had first arrived, one couldn’t even see it. Then, it was just a ruin. He’d almost despaired at its condition. But Killov had selected Machu Pichu as his new capitol for a good reason: there were secrets here, the power secrets of the Incas—secrets that enabled the ancient Indians to raise hundred-ton stones and fit them perfectly into place. With such power Killov could regain his life. He could defeat the Americans. So he had cleverly set up a double of himself to delay and confuse the worldwide search for him. The false Killov who roamed the Re-United States of America was a brilliant invention. The false Killov would lead Ted Rockson on a merry chase! Smirskov, the double, was buying Killov time while Killov reconstructed his power base in this ancient power place. While Killov gathered strength.
Now, as Killov ran his hands on the cold slab of stone, he thought, “I will not be a fool like the Incas!” They had come here and perished—isolated, despairing. They had been unable in this high-altitude, rocky terrain to eke out a living on the poor farmland.
They had also failed in their attempts to use the local tribes as slaves—so the recently discovered ancient “Codex of Machu Pichu” related. The Incas had let the local Indian tribes slip away. Well, Killov had anticipated the need for slaves to do his bidding, to work and die for his greatness. He’d discovered from overflights by his seven Spoor-97 air transports the exact locations of populous Indian villages. He’d believed he could make the populous tribes of the lowlands hereabouts useful, if he was clever.
Killov, by means of air-dropped land mines, had the perimeters made secure for a thousand miles. Then, upon landing his men, who were dressed much like the conquistadors to make the local natives think they were gods, he’d rounded them up.
Now the captive Indians slaved among his men who worked the high-tech equipment. Sometimes an Indian slave fell under the crushing tire of a tractor or backhoe. So what? There were so many of those little ones. The Indian men were cheap labor. The women and children nati
ves were used for recreation by his men, as toy-things to abuse to their heart’s content!
The native slaves actually seemed to enjoy receiving pain from the “gods” the KGB forces were mistaken for! Killov sighed as he sat down on the altar of blood now and watched the city reappear out of the mists. Yes! All around the Sacrifice-Pyramid on which Killov sat, the ancient city was being reborn!
He had dreamed of this. Killov had seen it all like this in his mind’s eye. A spanking-clean, new capital city, devoted to the arts of pain and death—devoted to the ultimate destruction of the universe. Killov’s lord, the Dark One, had bid Killov to be the instrument of the world’s purgation. So be it!
Killov took up his binoculars and scanned to the south city-wall. It was already totally rebuilt. The slides where ancient Incas had slid the decapitated carcasses of their sacrifice victims out of the city to the massive, waiting jaws of the jaguar-gods were clearly visible. Those jaguars, which wore emerald collars, ate the bodies to keep the city clean. The slides were now mossy, not coated with blood and torn skin. But when the first slave workers were too worn out to work, they would be sacrificed, as in days of old . . . for the Dark One. And for the amusement of Killov’s men.
Killov laughed. Why not begin now? It would be good luck to christen this brilliant, warm sunny day with the blood of sacrifice. Surely some of the slaves were too tired, too worn to be of use. But first he would need a little pep-me-up. He snapped out orders on his wrist radio to the doc, who was always less than two minutes from Colonel Killov, waiting with his bag of drugs. That was a standing order.
Sure enough, as Killov stood up, he heard the rapid footfalls, the huffing and puffing of a man climbing the huge flight of steps of the pyramid. Doc Carter was climbing up from a lower area, where he’d been waiting the call.
“Good,” Killov smirked, “I need you, Doc, I need an IV right here and now. I need the enervo-dexagon drug! Fifty ccs! I want to fully enjoy what I’m about to do! We will have sacrifices this morning, Doc, but it’s no kick to kill when you’re not high!”
“K-kill?” the white-haired, depressed-looking Vermont country doctor stuttered. His face was heavily lined, with bags under the eyes.
“Sacrifice,” Killov smiled, “is cleansing. You will watch and learn! Now the drug! Give me the new one, the enervo-dexagon! Get it into me quickly! I need a boost!”
“Again? But it’s too soon. It could k—” Then Doc Carter shut up . . . better that the bastard devil did die from the drug, right here and now. Maybe, the doc thought, I should kill him. But Killov was cunning. He would know by his eyes, by his trembling, if he delivered a lethal dose. Oh, how he wanted to. To stop this man who killed everyone in the town of Bennington, Vermont, and made Doc his slave would be a great act of courage—courage he didn’t have.
With trembling hands, Doc Carter set up the porta-stand for the intravenous feeder. Then, as Killov made a tight fist, the doc found one of the few unscarred places on Killov’s arm and stuck in the IV needle. He fed the drug into the IV.
“Good, feels good! Don’t you see it, Carter?” Killov’s eyelids fluttered. “A new empire! I can see my new empire spreading out right before my eyes! These old Inca walls will be totally rebuilt; the glory of Montezuma’s city will be enhanced with high-tech additions. I have the vision, Carter, old man, and that’s all I need. That, and the force of will, the willpower of a Hitler. No! I have five times that force!” Killov lifted his unencumbered arm and plucked at the doc’s lapel, extracting the white gardenia there. He crushed the flower in his hand and snickered like a hyena as the drug fed down the tube and hit his bloodstream.
The doc stepped back and was about to say, “Why do you crush my flower?” But he knew why: madness! Killov should be dead. Any ordinary addict would be dead; but drugs seemed only to energize the KGB madman. It was as if Killov wasn’t human. When will he die? Carter thought. When can I go back to being a country doctor in Vermont, treating kids with scrapes on their knees, and old ladies with chilblains? Maybe never.
Killov smirked as he opened his fist to let the crushed petals fall. The doc was puzzled by his health . . . no, more than that, Carter was frightened. Killov had kept Carter as his private physician—since the doc was picked up in that small Vermont town on a KGB slave raid. They had needed a few women—and a doctor. Carter was commandeered for the glory of the New Soviet Order. He should be happy he was alive! Yet he wasn’t. The doc looked positively mournful as he worked to adjust the flow of the IV solution.
Killov watched the fluid drip-drip, felt the energy of a god flow into his brain. Life wasn’t worth living without energy, without powerful drugs . . . wonderful drugs . . .
Killov caught the doc’s brief, fearful glance out of the corner of his eye and smiled.
Good that he fears me! The doc can’t understand why I’m so healthy. He doesn’t know about my source of renewal, out beyond the galaxy. The Dark One helps his friend . . . always. Praised be his unmentionable name! The Dark One will help build this city, Killov thought, and I shall make it capital of my new Dark Empire!
Killov sighed and just enjoyed it as the drug continued dripping down from the bottle. The drug sent streams of what would to others be toxic thrills. These thrills of sexually-arousing sensations coursed through the emaciated loins of Killov, master of death and torture, giving him the energy he needed.
“Now,” Killov said, “I am ready to have some fun, Doc. Fun for me, and for my hard-working men, too!”
Killov spoke into his wrist radio: “Tekkamaki! Bring those women slaves that are over working with the bricks in Section B up to the Pyramid of Pain. They are pitifully inept little creatures. Round them all up. They must be prepared for the blood christening of my reborn city. Be quick about it, lackey, or you’ll join them!”
Shortly after giving his order, Killov caught a glimpse of the group of five little naked women, all trussed together, elbow to elbow, being herded up to the top of his pyramid. They stepped quickly, either unaware of their fate, or perhaps eager to be sacrificed to Killov—the God.
He saw that one of the five was particularly beautiful. “Let that one die first,” Killov ordered. “Put her down on the altar.” Tekkamaki stepped back as soldiers pushed her forward.
Her head fit snugly into the indentation on the cold stone. Killov had the IV disconnected. Then he took out his long KGB blade from its belt hasp. He raised the sacrificial knife above the whimpering woman. “Perhaps for the first time in 2000 years there should be fresh blood on this altar!” He looked up into the deep purple sky.
“For you, my master,” Killov said, and plunged the knife down into her chest, between her swelling little breasts. Not a neat cut. She screamed, and her body heaved, but the soldiers held her down. In a death rattle, she began kicking her legs up to heaven. Tekkamaki, the Japanese servant, stared on, impassive.
Killov heard the doc vomiting.
“You’re a wimp, Doc!” Killov said. “Watching this will do you good. Bring on the next one.”
Two
“He’s coming out of it now, thank God,” said Schecter. “That was a pretty close one for Rockson—his closest yet.”
The blond nurse, Charity Birdell, said, “But is he going to be, you know, crippled? Will he need cyborg implants?”
Schecter chortled a bit. “Naw, don’t think so, though I don’t think cyborg implants are such a bad thing.” Schecter slapped his metal legs. “I sure wish I could replace Rockson’s brain with a more logical one sometimes, you know. He takes way too many risks.”
Nurse Charity shrank back at the very idea. The young raven-haired nurse with a too-tight uniform protested. “Really? What’s wrong with Rock’s brain? He’s a brilliant, wonderful man—and so handsome.” She looked down at Rock angelically.
“Mebbe so, mebbe so.” Schecter winked at the buxom nurse. “You’ll have plenty of time to check out his health tonight. I want you to keep a watch on Rock; not that he’s in any danger, thanks
to my surgical skills. Give him a sponge bath, if you want. I never finished cleaning him off, ’cept around the wounds.”
She blushed, “I—I guess I can do that.”
“The man is a glutton for punishment,” Schecter said as he moved to the door. “Rockson’s obsession with Killov has led him to take chances he has no reason to take. The damned KGB rat doesn’t even matter anymore.”
Charity started dabbing Rockson’s forehead with a sponge. “There were times when the very survival of this city,” she said, “depended entirely on Rockson. We’re all alive because of his obsessions, because of his irrational hunches, Doctor Schecter.” She seemed inflamed at any criticism of her hero.
“Sure, Nurse. I’m just joking, don’t you know that? Thank God he’s alive, that we got him in time. I’m recommending the medivac heli’s team for a medal from the council, for stabilizing Rockson and getting him here so fast.”
“Well,” Nurse Birdell said, “as long as you were just kidding . . . are you sure he’s okay? He sleeps so soundly.”
“Any ordinary man, I’d say he was sleeping too much,” Schecter admitted. “But Rock here is the most recuperative of all the mutants that are replacing us normal human beings. He sleeps off injuries that would kill anyone else.” Schecter chuckled and shook his head. “Once I patched his holes, stopped the blood, he started mending. He’s a walking self-repairing macho-machine.”
Charity’s chest swelled in a long sigh. Schecter left the room as she kept watch over her hero. Rock had been Charity’s heartthrob for several years . . . ever since she’d transferred from Pattonville Medical to this top-notch medical lab. She’d come to Century City to work with old Doc Schecter. For Schecter was more than a doctor; he was an inventor of medical miracles. He had invented his own cyborg legs—after his own legs were blown off, years ago. Schecter also revolutionized surgery with his micro-laser scalpels that were partly computer directed.
