by James Axler
“The ground must have sunk during a nuke quake,” Mildred guessed, tugging on a beaded strand of hair. “Then ground water filled it over the years.”
Ryan scowled at that. A nuke quake? Now there was a nasty thought. Quickly, he checked the rad counter on his lapel again, turning in different directions, and grunted in satisfaction when it registered only the unusual amounts of background rads. The tunnel wasn’t hot.
“At least it’s fresh water, which means we’re not going into the ocean,” Krysty said. Then she frowned. “That is, unless this leads to one of the Great Lakes. Those are oceans!”
“Ocean, lake or reservoir, makes no damn difference,” Ryan said bluntly. “We can’t use the mat-trans, which leaves this as the only way out.”
“Could be boobie,” Jak said, scowling. “If Chronos put here, want us leave this way.”
“Fully armed?” J.B. countered, patting his bulging munitions bag. “That makes no sense.”
The teenager shrugged. “Whitecoats never make sense.”
In wry remembrance of a hospital administrator, Mildred barked a bitter laugh at the comment. Doc said nothing, but his personal opinion on the subject was clearly readable on his somber features. If Operation Chronos gave them weapons, then it was a trick, and the guns were simply there to lull the companions into a false sense of security so that they’d be caught off guard when the real trap was sprung.
“Even paranoids have enemies,” Doc said softly.
“The Hummers and the LAV can go through water this deep,” Ryan stated with conviction. “No prob there.”
“Although if the water gets any deeper, they both sink like stones going to Hell,” Mildred added truthfully.
“I say we take the LAV,” J.B. countered. “I like having some armor around me. Reminds me of the days we rode blaster with the Trader.”
Resting the stock of his blaster on a hip, Ryan almost smiled at that reference. “Fair enough. We’ll recce the wags, and if the LAV is usable we take it. If not, that big GMC truck we saw will do.”
“Truck?” Jak drawled out of the side of his mouth. “No armor a’tall.”
“But plenty of room for cargo,” Ryan replied. “The 4x8 truck was wedged in pretty good among the other wags, be a triple bitch to get out. But the smaller, 4x6 was in the clear. Tires were flat on the LAV, but that we can fix.” Everybody in the group was becoming a pretty good mech out of sheer necessity.
“Okay, a truck, and a couple of the Hummers as escorts,” J.B. nodded. “But we try the LAV first.”
“Fair enough,” Ryan said, then scowled. In the sputtering light of the dying underwater flare, something large moved within the murky shadows. Taking a hesitant step closer, he blinked, unsure if he had actually seen anything. The flare was throwing crazy shadows everywhere.
“You know, I could have sworn…” Mildred started hesitantly.
But the physician was cut off as shiny wetness reared up from the water. Backing away, the companions stared at the giant thing, whatever it was, some form of amorphous mass, sort of like a gigantic jellyfish. There were no details, no eyes or ears or fins, only the smooth shimmering body that constantly changed shape.
“What is this Hellenic kraken?” Doc whispered, a hand on his LeMat.
The blob turned toward the scholar and a ripple of shimmering light moved through its body, briefly revealing a bizarre metallic framework inside the creature. As the flexing array of struts moved, the translucent body followed.
Sniffing, J.B. made a face. “Ozone,” he said. “Just like—” His eyes went wide. “Just like a Cerebus cloud!”
As if knowing the word, the front of the impossible thing split apart as if slashed with a hot knife to reveal a red gaping maw lined with stubby protrusions. With an echoing roar, the inhuman guardian charged.
“Ace it!” Ryan snarled, firing the SIG-Sauer from the hip. But the soft lead rounds smacked into the jelly and simply passed through to hit the brick wall behind and ricochet away.
Suddenly the four rapidfires began to pepper the shapeless thing, but the combined hail of hot lead had the exact same effect as the subsonic 9 mm Parabellum rounds.
“Fireblast! We can’t even touch the thing!” Ryan raged, frantically reloading. Exactly like a Cerebus cloud. The nuking creature had to be another guardian of the redoubts! Just some type they had never encountered before. Or was this the trap?
Releasing the Uzi to hang from its shoulder strap, J.B. pulled around the S&W M-4000 pump-action shotgun, and unleashed its fury. Loaded with steel slivers instead of buckshot, the barrage of fléchettes cut deep into the quivering mass and struck the moving framework inside at several points. A few of the twinkling lights died, several flared brightly. The titanic guardian now swiveled toward the Armorer.
“Keep firing!” Krysty shouted, throwing herself toward the keypad. Mother Gaia, that metal framework was some kind of skeleton for the creature. It was a nuking cyborg!
Moving fast, Krysty slapped in the memorized code, and in a muted rumbled, the massive adamantine slab started to slide across the entrance.
Instantly, the black guardian seemed to dive into the water, only to flip its backside over the top, then repeat the process as it rolled with frightful speed.
Moving with the closing door, the companions stayed behind the protective metal, constantly firing their weps, as the guardian loomed ever closer.
Holstering the SIG-Sauer autoloading pistol, Ryan clawed for a gren, uncaring what kind it was. Jerking out the ring, he flipped the handle and threw the bomb hard at the shiny mass. The mil sphere smacked into the guardian and bounced off to hit the brick wall and splash into the water. Incredibly, the cyborg lurched to the opposite side of the tunnel as if it knew what a gren could do. Flattening itself against the bricks, it began undulating for the narrowing opening in the blast door just as a fireball blossomed under the water. Steam and muted thunder expanded to fill the tunnel and a whole section of the guardian turned gray and pebbly, closely resembling rotten meat.
The blast door was almost shut, but the concussion pushed through the crack to shove the companions backward, the searing heat singeing their hair and clothing. Covering their faces, the companions hastily retreated down the tunnel, getting off a few last shots until the door boomed shut. The thermal wave was abruptly cut off.
“Thank God.” Mildred sighed, leaning wearily against the wall. “This has really been one hell of a—Oh shit, look!”
There on the floor inside the redoubt was a small piece of the guardian, black tendrils stretching from its shaking form to the blast door. The cyborg had obviously tried to get through the closing portal and a chunk got nipped off. But even as the companions started closer, the bent skeleton inside the blob reared upward and a new red mouth formed to howl in unsuppressed fury.
“Fuck!” Jak snarled, triggering his rapidfire. But the rounds went through the jelly and hit the blast door to come back and ricochet down the zigzag access tunnel.
Snarling a curse, J.B. tried the scattergun again, but missed the smaller skeleton completely. In response, the cyborg folded itself into a ball and started rolling forward.
“Elevator!” Ryan shouted, turning to run as fast as he could. Hot nuke, they needed some combat room to tangle with this thing, and the narrow access tunnel was about as bad a place for a firefight as he had ever seen. There was no room to dodge, and nothing to duck behind for cover.
Dashing down each leg of the zigzag tunnel, the companions maintained a constant barrage at the rolling guardian. Doc tried a gren, but it bounced off the jelly and landed behind the cyborg to harmlessly detonate in its wake.
Erupting into the garage, the companions spread out through the collection of wags, heading for the elevator. They didn’t know what Ryan had in mind, but they trusted his combat instincts.
Reaching the door to the stairs, Krysty started to reload the rapidfire when she saw Ryan across the garage scramble over a civie wag. Veering sharply around the i
mposing LAV, Ryan went straight for the fuel pump. Yanking the hose free, he squeezed the control in a short burst and made a puddle on the concrete floor. Now that he knew the rate of flow, the one-eyed man flicked his butane lighter to life and knelt to ignite the fluid. The condensed fuel immediately caught, the bluish flames dancing above the dwindling pool of predark juice.
Suddenly the guardian rolled into sight from behind the LAV, and Ryan squeezed the handle again, wideopen this time. A powerful lance of fuel shot out of the nozzle to touch the shrinking puddle and instantly burst into flames. The guardian paused at the sight, and Ryan lifted the makeshift flamethrower to sweep the burning column across the pulsating cyborg.
The creature was covered in flames, its red mouth appearing once more, only this time to keen in unmistakable agony. Sluggishly, it tried to move away, but Ryan advanced to the end of the hose, arcing the spray high to keep the rain of fire centered on the horrid thing. The outer skin was already gray and pebbly, and thick ooze was dribbling from the cracked expanse. Greenish smoke was rising from the cooking jelly, the air vents in the walls of the redoubt audibly increasing their suction in a valiant effort to clear the atmosphere.
The skeleton inside the jelly tried to roll away, but the cooked flesh began to crumble. The lights inside the darkening mass took on a frantic pace and then winked out. Sagging to the floor, the cyborg lay quiescent. Not trusting the thing, Ryan kept the flames on the bubbling mass until there was nothing left but the charred and slightly melted frame of its skeleton.
Releasing the hot handle, Ryan tossed it aside and sagged against a Hummer, gasping for breath. The fragging handle on the hose wasn’t designed for that kind of punishment and had conducted the heat right back to him. His hands felt as though they’d been cooked to the bone. It hurt to move them even a little bit.
Somewhere an alarm began to clang, and the water sprinklers in the ceiling cut loose with white foam to quell the blaze. Not water this time, but fire-retardant foam that would smother a grease fire.
Rushing through the bubbling downpour, Mildred and J.B. went to check Ryan, while the others hurried directly into the supply closet. Seconds later they emerged with sledgehammers and proceed to loudly make sure that the bastard skeleton would never function again. As the blaze died away, the ceiling slowed its outpouring of white foam until it stopped completely. However, the hammering continued for quite a while.
“How bad,” Ryan asked through gritted teeth.
“You’ll be fine,” Mildred said as she started to rummage through her med kit. “I know that it hurts, but there’s no permanent damage. And I have an ointment that’ll fix you up in a few days.” Opening the tube, she got busy.
“Don’t…have…days.” Ryan grunted at the application of the salve. Then his face eased and he sighed in relief. “The mat-trans is dead, there’s a cage in front of the deeper, and a guardian at the exit.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mildred said angrily. “Somebody does not want us to leave this redoubt alive.”
“Which is why we have to get out immediately,” J.B. stated, resting his sledgehammer on the sticky white floor.
“How can we?” Krysty asked, her soaked hair struggling to move under the weight of the foam. “The minute we open the blast door, the other half of this thing is going to attack.”
“Or worse, my dear lady,” Doc noted, pulling out his sword. Experimentally, he prodded the smoldering mass on the floor, but invoked no response.
Krysty scowled. “What do you mean?”
“While our Stygian blob has joined the choir invisible,” Doc said, sheathing the blade, “its pater familias will most likely be waiting to ambush us.”
“You think it’s that smart?” J.B. asked, removing his glasses to wipe them clean.
“Quite right. A Cerebus cloud is, so we would be fools to evaluate this with any less intelligence.”
“Mebbe try again?” Jak asked, tilting his head at the fuel pumps. “I’ll do next.”
Rising slowly, Mildred went to the pump and wiped the faceplate of a gauge clean, then rapped it with a knuckle. “Plenty of juice left,” she stated.
“No need,” Ryan stated, carefully flexing his hands, and wincing slightly. “I have a better idea.”
* * *
Chapter Seven
The sun was just rising over the horizon, casting a clean pearlescent light across the world, highlighting the deadly orange clouds of chems and toxins that crackled with thunder.
A dry wind drove twirling dustdevils across the ground, the miniature tornadoes spinning madly and then vanishing when they reached the strip of hard-packed dirt that formed the local highway.
Sitting on their silent two-wheelers, the Rogan brothers rolled along the road, handkerchiefs tied over their lower faces to hold out the ever-present dust that always carried the taste of some ancient foulness. The big men and their bikes were streaked with dirt, the halogen headlights resembling a line of full moons moving through a cloudy night. The Rogans passed a lizard sleeping on a rock without disturbing its slumber. There was only the soft crunching sound of the ground compressing under the weight of the motorcycles as the four coldhearts moved toward the little desert ville ahead.
The landscape around the ville was rippled, as if molten stone had cooled suddenly in the act of expanding. That was a common enough vista in the Zone, the telltale aftermath of a skydark firestorm hit by rain. Nuke-scaping, the wrinklies called it, although nobody but them really knew why anymore.
Reaching a deep ravine, the Rogans reduced their speed and rolled single file across the ramshackle bridge. The bridge was almost choked solid with tumbleweeds caught in corroded supports, and they had to maneuver through the obstructions carefully to avoid going into any of the holes in the predark construction. At the middle of the span, the brothers pulled weapons just a heartbeat before an old man dressed in rags rose from behind a tumbleweed barricade. His dirty hair was a wild corona of filth, and a rag was bound around the shriveled face, a wide scar bisecting the features straight across the middle. The disfigured oldster was armed with a long metal pole that had a broken bottle lashed to the tip. The jagged glass gleamed in the growing morning light.
“Hold it right there, outlanders!” the man commanded in a surprisingly powerful voice for such a scrawny frame. “If you want to cross my bridge…” Just then, he spotted the brothers. He stopped speaking and gasped, the spear shaking in his wizened hands. “What in the nuking…it’s you!”
Never slowing the advance of their black bikes, the Rogans opened fire with their new blasters, the stuttering rapidfires tore the old man apart, blood flying everywhere as the 5.56 mm rounds drove him backward off the bridge.
“Nice to be remembered.” Edward snorted, glancing over the rusty side to watch the tumbling body disappear into the thick river mists below. The run-off water from the nearby mountains had always made the bridge slightly cooler than the rest of the desert, and thus a favorite spot for folks to sit in wait for pilgrims.
“Frag that noise, and reload,” John commanded, circling the hidden campsite of the deceased hermit. “We’re going to need every brass ready when we hit the ville.”
“Can’t disagree with that.” Alan chuckled.
Robert said nothing as the tires of his motorcycle rolled over the dropped spear, the glass shattering below the resilient military tires. It had been nice seeing Crazy Winston again, even if it was only for a split second. Childhood friends became enemies as adults. Such was life. The triple-stupe bastard should have known better than to aim a weapon at them. The last time they had removed only his nose; this time they took everything. Robert shook his head. Some people just never learned.
Leaving the dilapidated bridge behind, the Rogans crossed long miles of empty countryside, carefully veering past an old rad pit that didn’t glow anymore, but was still deadly, and completely avoiding a low hillock bearing the graves of their parents. Let the dead bury the past. They were concentrating on the future.<
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With the coming of the dawn, birds were winging low across the sky, afraid to rise too high and risk being chilled by the toxic clouds. From somewhere far off came the brittle cry of a screamwing, closely followed by the guttural moan of a howler. The Rogans moved their hands closer to their longblasters at the noise, and fervently hoped the winged mutie and the groundpounder were fighting to the death over something tasty. Screamwings were triple fast, but could be chilled if a person stayed alert. Howlers, on the other hand, were nightmares, all but indescribable and insanely deadly. There were strange new muties roaming the Deathlands these days, creatures unlike anything ever seen before in memory or myth. Some people believed these odd muties had always been around, and were only now wandering into populated areas. John Rogan fervently hoped that was the case. Because if there was something creating new muties…
Cresting a low swell in the dusty ground, the brothers saw their halogen headlights wash across the tan wall surrounding a deserted ville. The pitiful barrier was made of adobe bricks, sun-dried blocks of mud. Each brick was about the size of a shoebox, and the wall reached nearly six feet in height, its top layer sparkling from all of the broken glass embedded into the material. The front gate was a thick wooden door, just wide enough for a person on horseback to ride through. The barrier was formidable, but swung aside at the moment, the opening flanked by crackling torches set into the adobe wall, inviting all to come inside. Softly in the distance could be heard a tinkling piano and female laughter.
“Dempster,” John pronounced hatefully, slowing his bike.
The other brothers followed suit as they slowly rode through the gap in the defensive wall. There was a rocking chair for a guard, but nobody was in sight.
“Trusting souls,” Edward said in disgust. “The idiots are still offering a friendly hand to everybody who passes by. What a bunch of feebs.”
Dempster was pretty much as he remembered, little more than a double row of shacks surrounded by a mud wall. The last time the brothers had been here, the wall was only four feet tall, so the civies were making progress, just not a hell of a lot of it.
