by James Axler
"Adam likes him, Ryan. Oh, yes. Precious. His precious, Ryan. Boy that young. Pretty. What he wants most," Larry had said in a dreem-induced haze.
It was at that moment that Ryan Cawdor had made the conscious decision that Adam Traven was going to have to die. Not because the sick twist was a control freak and a master manipulator into dominance and submission with a taste for young boys. No, a man's vices were his own.
Where Adam Traven had gone wrong was bringing Dean's name into it.
After earlier skirmishes, the final battle had come inside the tall observation tower that overlooked Boss Larry's domain.
Larry had proved true blue in the end, when he had willed his 450-pound body to topple forward and crush the slender, effeminate Traven beneath his magnificent bulk in a violent showdown. By the time Ryan dragged Traven out, the self-styled cult leader was nearly smothered to death. His skinny body was slick with blood from the eight rounds he'd pumped into Larry from underneath, but the huge boss hadn't budged.
After pulling Traven free, Ryan helped the self proclaimed "master" along to judgment day with some well-placed bullets from his blaster.
Larry Zapp had been the genius behind Greenglades ville. With his passing, Ryan expected Greenglades Theme Park to have fallen into complete disrepair.
"What kind of name is 'Larry' for a baron, anyway?" Ryan mused aloud.
"Could've been worse. He could've been Boss Moe. Or Boss Curly," Mildred said with a wide smile. Then she laughed aloud. "Or God help us all, Boss Shemp."
Everyone in the room looked at her blankly.
"I must admit, madam, that your reference is arcane even to one as learned as I," Doc said. "Who is this Boss Shemp?"
"Forget it," Mildred said, wiping a tear of laughter from one eye. "Too silly to try and explain. Seeing is believing when it comes to the Stooges. Mama never could understand why I thought they were so funny—of course, most women didn't care for their unique brand of comedic talent. Maybe we'll find one of their old comedy vids some day and I can show you."
"They were…clowns?" J.B. asked blankly, looking at Mildred for confirmation.
"No, they were stooges," Mildred replied, and lightly rapped J.B. on the top of the head with the palm of her right hand. "Now spread out, you mugs! I'll be right behind you when I'm done in here."
"Sometimes, Millie, I don't understand you at all," J.B. muttered, walking past the still-giggling woman until he faced the steel sec doors at the end of the control room. The small man raised his weapon in a combat-ready stance and turned back at Ryan for the nod.
"You up for this?" J.B. asked.
"Feeling better all the time," Ryan replied as he unholstered his own blaster. "Everybody stay alert. I doubt there's anything out there, but this is no time to get sloppy."
"Dad?"
Ryan turned to Dean. "What?"
"I used to always open the sec doors, remember?"
Ryan looked at J.B. "Fine by me."
"Okay, son. Go ahead."
The green lever that was present in almost all of the gateways was in the down position, showing the doors were locked shut. Dean grabbed the lever and slowly began to lift it upward. A sharp intake of hydraulics hissed obligingly, and the door began to open smoothly. When the door was two feet off the ground, Dean dropped to his knees and carefully peered out.
"Nothing. Corridor's clear," he reported as he got back on his feet and activated the lever to bring the doorway open to full access.
Ryan took the lead, and the others joined him in stepping outside the doorway, finding themselves in a wide, curving passage with an arched roof. It was about twenty feet wide, and the ceiling was roughly fifteen feet at the highest point. Concealed strip lighting flickered, casting gray shadows across the expanse of the corridor. When they had last traveled along this passageway, things were deserted, but still in order.
The same mold and signs of water damage that had been inside the mat-trans control room were also evident here. Ryan glanced back over his shoulder. A familiar sign to all of the gateway travelers announced: Entry Absolutely Forbidden To All But B12-Cleared Personnel. The warning hung lopsidedly in a broken frame next to the door.
"I'll take the point. Krysty, you're behind me. Then Dean, Doc and Jak," Ryan said.
"I'll bring up the rear," J.B. stated, acknowledging the order of their usual skirmish line, with the addition of Mildred, who had come out after checking the computers.
"Hot," Jak said, taking off his outer jacket and tying the sleeves around his waist. The albino's one word summed up the situation for all of them, and the youth was used to living in areas washed with humidity. The interior of the redoubt was much warmer than before, and Ryan knew it wasn't going to get any cooler as they approached the way outside.
"Some fresh air would be nice, lover," Krysty murmured to Ryan. "I'm about to roast in my boots."
Less than two minutes later, the party faced a huge pair of sec doors that stretched from floor to ceiling. The decorator's choice of color for the doors was a shade of green that reminded Ryan for a moment of the dream he'd experienced while jumping. Sea green. Before seeing the ocean for the first time, Ryan had been under the fallacy that the waters were blue.
"Nothing's ever what it seems in Deathlands," Ryan said aloud.
He stared at the small control panel of letters and numbers for the vanadium-steel sec doors, then punched in the usual code of 3-5-2 and waited for the door to respond.
"Dad, you want me to—?"
"Quiet, son. I think you've done enough for one day, don't you?" Ryan said, peering down at Dean's excited, then rueful, young face. "Everyone stay ready—triple red. We still don't know what's behind this door."
Everyone watched the doors and waited.
Nothing.
Then, after long, sweaty seconds of anticipation, the hydraulics for the doors hissed to life. Like a great gaping mouth in the middle of a yawn, the doors slid ponderously upward into their ceiling slot, revealing the interior of a gaping maw. Ryan had half expected to see trapped water pour in, but was relieved to see Mildred's hypothesized flood had passed on.
Beyond the doors was an identical passage, except this one was damaged even more. The floor was littered with cracks ranging in size from hairline to three feet across. Evidence of a past onslaught of water was visible, but so was structural damage and chunks of debris. The room was nightmarish in the flickering light of the damaged tubes, making movement seem slower in the steady strobe.
The concrete walls, normally cool and dry to the touch, felt warm and damp. Either something had happened above in Greenglades—something drastic enough to affect even the highly protected redoubt— or the redoubt had been discovered by parties unknown who had blasted their way inside.
Neither scenario was one Ryan found comforting.
Above them along the arched roof were sec vids, but the rectangular cameras were dead. Before, the little gadgets had been quite active, tracking their every step with tiny red electronic eyes.
"Automatics are down," J.B. said. "Last time, we triggered them when we stepped out into the corridor."
"Explains the heat," Ryan agreed. "What juice left in this redoubt must be on bare life support. Emergency lights and oxygen, and that's about it. No extra power for air-conditioning." He turned and looked at Mildred, who had just rejoined the group. "Farther along we get, the more I have to agree with you. This place has completely shot its wad. Atomics must be down to nil."
After closing the sec doors, the companions made their way slowly down the dirty corridor to a slight bend, which would then lead around to where the stairs and elevator would normally be in the standard redoubt layout.
"Bad smell," Jak commented.
"Right on. This goes beyond mildew and moisture," Mildred agreed. "Smells like rotting meat."
"Not much longer now," Ryan said. "As I recall, around this corner is—"
There was a popping sound from underf
oot, which stopped him short.
On the floor in front of him was a human arm, curled back at a broken angle around the corner. Ryan held up a warning hand for the others to wait and glanced around the side, darting his head out, then back to safety like the tongue of a snake. In the brief look he'd gotten, he'd seen that the arm was attached to a corpse, facedown on the dirty floor. He had stepped on one of the dead man's pasty, brittle hands with his right boot.
"Lock and load, people," Ryan said softly. "There's more of them chilled around the bend."
"Dark night," J.B. muttered over the sounds of everyone preparing their weapons for potential battle.
Ryan swung the SIG-Sauer around the corner, peering intently along the line of sight. The wide room on the line to the elevators looked pretty much as he remembered, except for the new addition of a mass of rubble that had fallen down from above, twisting the staircase into an unclimbable mass of metal and totally blocking the ruin of a stairwell. The flat landing area at the top, which contained the doorway to the second stairwell, was also wrecked and jammed with broken concrete.
"All clear," Ryan said, recognizing the irony of the phrase. While there were no live sec men or hostiles to challenge them, the absence of the stairs was going to prove a daunting obstacle.
As they came around the corner one by one, Mildred took note of three more bodies, all in twisted postures with small entry and large exit wounds. "Well, we know this wasn't due to rad poisoning, like we've seen take down stiffs in other redoubts," Mildred said in her best clinical voice.
She bent at the waist for a closer look. "They're not in military uniforms, and they all died from gunshot wounds. From the condition of the bodies, the feel of the skin and the heavenly aroma, I'd guess these boys have been getting ripe for at least a month or more."
"This just keeps getting better and better," J.B. muttered. "How did these guys get down here in the first place?"
"And who chilled them?" Ryan added.
"Chilled each other," Jak responded. "Trapped, had argument. Way bodies fall and positions, they got in fight and everybody lost."
"Give me a hand, here, John," Mildred said. She was kneeling, attempting to turn over one of the corpses.
The Armorer complied, and together they flipped the body onto its back.
The sight would have been sickening to most, but it was a familiar one to all of the group. They'd looked down on many a dead man during the time they'd traveled together. The corpse's features were nothing special: flat nose, thin lips, hair that appeared to have been dyed blond, but now had a greenish tinge. He looked like a hundred other dead men Ryan had seen over the years. He wore a black leather jacket with lots of tarnished buckles, a red T-shirt, jeans and brown boots.
The only unusual thing was a patch sewn on the front breast pocket of the jacket. It was round and about two inches in circumference. The entire circle was black, with a white patch in the center.
"Looks like a skull wearing a cycle helmet," J.B. said.
"Yeah, but check the eyes," Mildred replied. "There are little red dots in the eye sockets."
"Looks like Jak wearing a cycle helmet, then," J.B. amended.
"Screw cycles. Two wheels good way to get shot," the albino snorted. Jak was correct. While a cycle gave one speed and more mobility than a wag, a rider was pretty much a deaf and dumb target, since the engine noise shut out any sounds, and one's eyes were naturally on the road.
Jak eyed the patch. "Don't look like me."
"Sure, it does. Just picture yourself with your hair all tucked up under the helmet," J.B. said.
"Wonder what it means?" Ryan mused. "I checked out the others. All four of these stupes have that same patch. Two on a jacket, one on the back pocket of a pair of jeans and another on a neckerchief. They must've been together at one time until somebody drew down on somebody else."
"Hot pipe, Dad! We're in luck," Dean yelled from across the room. Ryan squelched a quick flash of annoyance over the fact the boy had gone off alone, and turned to look at what he was talking about.
Dean was standing at the elevator, but the boy wasn't alone. Next to the youth Doc was focused on the black elevator call button.
"Young Dean is right, my dear fellow," Doc said to Ryan, who had quickly joined them. "The elevator appears to be operating, and I do believe it is currently on this floor of the redoubt."
The rest of the group approached for a closer look. The recessed button was indeed lit and glowing.
"Shall I put my best finger forward?" Doc asked.
After getting the nod from Ryan, Doc pressed the call button for the elevator. The doors obligingly slid open, revealing the empty, coffinlike cabin inside.
"I guess no one wants off on this floor," Mildred said quietly. "Last stop to oblivion."
None of the group ever relished stepping into a redoubt's elevator. Too many things could go wrong. Too many things had gone wrong. Still, it was the most direct way up and out. The dull gray walls offered scant comfort, but they also promised access to the surface, a promise that was enticing despite the danger.
"After you, ladies," Doc said, bowing deeply at the waist and gesturing grandiosely toward the elevator's interior.
"Thanks, I think," Krysty replied, her red prehensile hair curling slightly at her nape as she walked inside. No one but Ryan noticed the shift in her almost sentient tresses. Krysty's hair was about the only outward manifestation of her latent mutant abilities, and responded to her moods. The way the strands were tightening, Ryan knew she was nervous about entering.
They all were.
Mildred and J.B. entered, followed by Jak and Dean. Ryan gestured to Doc, and the old man stepped in, accidentally stepping on Dean's booted foot. "Pardon me, young Cawdor. I fear it is getting a bit crowded in here."
"Don't worry, Doc. Think of it as being cozy," Krysty said.
Ryan glanced a final time over his shoulder and placed himself in the last clear spot at the front of the elevator car.
"Going up?" Doc asked.
"Why not?" Ryan replied. "But when we reach the top, I want everyone on a triple red." He unholstered the SIG-Sauer pistol to back up his words. The rest of the group followed suit with their own weapons.
Doc, by nature of his position in front of the controls, had taken on the unofficial role of elevator operator for this trip. He pressed the Up button. The doors slid smoothly shut, and after an almost unnoticeable lurch, the elevator begin to rise.
"Wonder what took out the stairs, Dad?" Dean asked.
"Good question. I was wondering that myself."
"High explosives, mebbe," Krysty offered. "Or I guess there could've been a quake around here. Even swamplands aren't safe from earthquakes. Not anymore."
Overhead the fluorescent tubes flickered once, twice, then exploded in a series of sharp pops, like the echoes of a small-caliber pistol being fired in rapid succession. Sparks filtered down from above as the elevator car shuddered. Hidden machinery gave off a terrific squawk, and all was still.
As the last spark fell brightly to the floor and died, the confined room went dark.
"Fireblast," Ryan hissed. "The elevator's out."
Chapter Three
"Everybody stay still," Ryan ordered. "Give your eyes time to adjust."
"No place to go but up," J.B. said, peering at the ceiling.
"I know. We're going to have to climb out of the car."
"Sweatbox in here," Jak said. "Go out. Climb quick."
"Dean?"
"Yeah, Dad?"
"Come over here. Let me give you a boost. I want you to feel along the upper panels of the ceiling. There should be some kind of an access hatch."
Ryan squinted with his single eye. Vague shapes were beginning to become apparent in the gloom as they moved and shifted in the blackness. His son shifted position with Krysty and Jak and ended up standing next to him. Ryan knelt and cupped his hands, offering a step onto his back for the boy.
&
nbsp; Dean placed one foot in his father's hands and used his hands to brace himself on the knotted muscles of Ryan's shoulders. The youth's weight wasn't much, and Ryan was able to lift as the boy carefully balanced himself. He reached up and gripped Dean's upper thighs with both hands, further stabilizing him.
Ryan waited as Dean felt around the roof. No one spoke. The only sound was everyone's breathing, which was starting to become more labored in the stifling heat of the elevator car. Then there was a distinct clack, followed by a slight raking sound.
"Got it," the boy said.
"Good. Now come down."
Dean did so. "J.B?" Ryan asked.
There was another shifting of the mass of bodies, then J.B. was next to Ryan. "You going up?" the Armorer asked.
"Not much of a choice. Dean opened the door, now I've got to take a look outside."
Ryan removed a tight pair of black gloves from one of his long coat's pockets, then shrugged out of the garment, accidentally slapping J.B. across the face and knocking his spectacles off as he struggled to free his left arm.
"Dark night, Ryan, be careful!"
"No space to move," Ryan muttered. "You should've kept back."
"How the hell was I supposed to do that? Just nobody move until I find them," J.B. replied.
"I've got them, John," Mildred said. "They flew back and hit me on the hand. They didn't have room to fall to the floor."
Carefully, Ryan also took off his long white scarf with the weighted ends and bundled it up into a tight ball. The extra clothing would just get in the way of what he was about to do.
"Here, Krysty," Ryan said, handing her the still slightly soggy bundle and his rifle. His callused fingers brushed against her warm skin. "I'll be back for these in a minute."
J.B. leaned down and interlocked his fingers together as a stepping-stone, unconsciously duplicating Ryan from before. The one-eyed man took a deep breath as he pushed his hands into the gloves, then stepped up into his friend's offered hands. The Armorer lifted as Ryan extended his arms above his head and gripped the edge of the hatch Dean had opened, pulling himself up and out of the car.
