by James Axler
"Great. How many more of these do we have?" Mildred asked, looking at the dull green gren. The color said it was HE, high explosives, with no shrapnel. Not a very good killing device. But enough of them could bring down an army.
"One each," J.B. answered, reaching into his munitions bag and passing them around. "The rest are hidden upstairs in case we had to fall back."
"Sufficient unto the day," Doc declared, both hands busy resetting the hammer on his LeMat to fire the shotgun blast first. "These days, there is no such thing as overkill."
"Agreed."
"Best check wag, too," Jak suggested, tucking his gren into a pocket.
At that moment, something thumped onto the sidewalk in front of the store. Everybody stopped eating as plates and drinks were cast aside and blasters were grabbed.
"That wasn't some empty brass shells," Ryan stated, SIG-Sauer in hand as he went to the door.
"Too heavy and solid," Krysty agreed, peeking outside through the blankets covering the display window. "Gaia, there's a blaster laying on the ground!"
"Browning Hi-Power?"
"Looks like."
"No way Dean dropped his blaster." J.B. frowned, unfolding the wire stock of the Uzi.
"Well, somebody did," Ryan snapped, easing off the chain and darting into the night. With his blaster sweeping for targets, he let his eye adjust to the darkness and glanced around.
Krysty joined him on the sidewalk, with the rest staying inside and covering them from the doorway. Ryan jerked his head to the left. She nodded and he went to the right, but only got a few feet. There on the broken concrete was a familiar metallic shape. Rushing over, he scooped up the weapon. It was a .38-caliber Browning Hi-Power in near mint condition. The odds of somebody else having one of these were astronomical.
"It's Dean's," Ryan said, looking at the roof. Nothing was visible.
"Shit," Krysty swore, craning her neck. "Any blood?"
"No." Placing two fingers in his mouth, he whistled sharply twice and waited. No reply. "We got trouble." They hurried inside and J.B. closed the door, keeping a hand on the busted lock.
"Okay, something is wrong," Ryan stated, grabbing his Steyr and working the bolt. "Dean might have dropped the blaster, but no way he is also asleep on guard duty. Krysty and I'll hit the rooftop. Mildred, J.B., are the anchor here. Doc and Jak recce the ground, then join us topside."
Everybody moved without discussion.
Grabbing a canteen, Mildred poured water over the grill to kill the coals and went behind the steamer trucks. They would give decent protection and offered acceptable vantage of the front window and the door to the stairs.
"We'll fire a round if there's trouble," J.B. said from the doorway, but Ryan was already charging up the stairs.
It took them only seconds to reach the top of the building. Ryan and Krysty burst out of the stairwell, blasters in hand. But the roof was empty, only a warm wind from the desert blowing steadily over the bare concrete.
Frowning, Ryan gave a pigeon coo and listened for an answer, while Krysty moved to a prominent dark spot on the white concrete. She didn't have to touch it to know it was fresh blood. The redhead eased back the hammer on her revolver and whistled sharply three times.
Scowling, Ryan gave an answering coo and they moved out in a crisscross pattern, blasters searching for targets. A minute later, they met at the far corner.
"Anything?" Krysty asked in concern.
"Nothing," Ryan stated grimly. "Think he fell off?"
The woman looked at the three-foot-high wall edging the roof and thought of the five-foot-tall boy. "No."
"Better tell the others."
A nod. "I'll stay here and keep a watch."
"Check." As Krysty sprinted for the door, darkness enveloped them, something large blocking the weak moonlight shining through the dense clouds overhead.
"It's the mutie!" Ryan shouted, the Steyr belching flame and thunder.
A few yards away, Krysty was briefly illuminated by the muzzle-flash of her booming handblaster. Under the double assault, the shadowy figure was hurled backward and over the edge of the roof to disappear.
"Fireblast!" Ryan growled, working the bolt on the rifle and slamming in a fresh clip.
"Creature did the same thing back at the tunnel," Krysty agreed, thumbing fresh shells into her own blaster.
A snarl sounded from the sky above them, and a dimly seen shape flashed by their left side, then the right. But the man and woman held their fire, waiting for a clear shot. Did the animal understand blasters could be emptied? Just how smart was this thing?
"Circling, trying to confuse us into thinking there's more than one," Ryan said, impressed in spite of the situation. "Must be smarter than it looks." Then something juicy smacked onto the metal door of the raised stairwell, and they both heard a steady sizzling sound.
"Blood of the mother!" Krysty shouted, shying away from the dissolving metal. What the hell was that, acid rain? Triggering another round, she kept moving to make herself more difficult to hit when more blaster shots split the night as the rest of the companions poured out of the doorway.
"Watch out!" she cried, bending out of the way of a raking claw. "Damn thing spits poison!"
Standing brazen before the mutie, Doc and Jak now realized why the woman had been bobbing about and quickly followed her example of shoot and dodge.
Bleeding from a score of minor wounds, the frustrated beast spread its wings and took to the air, diving toward Ryan. Leveling his blaster, he stood there until the very last moment, then triggered the Steyr, the muzzle-flame reaching out to touch the beast. There was an audible crack of cartilage, and the creature hit the rooftop, roaring with pain. The left wing drooped impotently while yellow blood poured from the ghastly wound.
Angling about to avoid hitting Jak, Doc waited for a clear shot and placed each slug from the LeMat with extreme care, each impact making the mutie reel crazily. The percussion pistol took minutes to reload and prime. These nine shots were all he had before reduced to his swordstick, and he highly doubted the lethal efficiency of a steel blade against a mutie the size of a gorilla.
As Ryan moved in for the kill, the thing spit loudly. Jak tackled Ryan from the side, and they hit the roof as fluid smacked onto the ventilation fan. The sizzling noise of the acid eating the metal sounded like bacon frying in the darkness.
Ryan grunted his thanks, as they stood and fired both weapons, going for the throat and groin. Krysty and Doc joined them, forming a ragged line, and volley fired at the darting beast. Unable to escape into the air, it spit again and again as the barrage of blasterfire hammered steadily. But its motions were becoming slower as the beast weakened, the useless wing dragging on the roof slowing it considerably. Slashing out with its good wing, its talons narrowly missed Krysty. She stood her ground and fired, blowing out an eye. Now the beast screamed insanely and charged. They broke before the rush, folding away on both sides, then stepping in again. The animal was trapped in a killing box, with every blaster firing from all sides.
A knee buckled, it spit randomly, an arm drooped limply, blood pooled around its clawed feet. It slashed out a clawed wing, and that one drooped as the cartilage was smashed. Pain overwhelming sense, it continued to rush the humans, but the deadly blasters never ceased, one person reloading while the one alongside kept firing, until finally the broken, bloody thing collapsed, pale yellow blood pooling around the riddled corpse. Then Ryan stepped close and cut off its head with his panga.
Jak rubbed a painful spot on his hand where a tiny drop of the poison had splattered on his bare flesh. "Stab again."
Ryan slid his rifle barrel underneath and flipped over the mutie.
"It's a bat," Krysty stated, reloading quickly and watching the sky for any other of the monstrosities. "A night feeder."
"Bastard tough mutie," Jak said, reloading quickly.
"That's no mutie," Ryan stated, shoving a fresh clip into the Steyr. "See that golden blood? Means its from a
predark lab."
"Another biological weapon," Doc grumbled, plunging out the charging holes of his LeMat. The chore was normally done sitting at a flat table. He fumbled with the placement of a copper-coated percussion nipple. "Damn them all to hell."
"Good thing Dean gave us a warning," J.B. said. "If that thing had caught us inside with no room to maneuver, we'd be in its belly by now."
"Where Dean?" Jak asked, concerned. Piss-colored blood and spent shells were splashed about, but there was no sign of the boy.
"Don't know. He wasn't here when we arrived," Krysty said, pocketing the spent brass of her revolver.
"Dean!" Ryan yelled. "Dean!"
Only the wind whispered in reply. Ryan took in a deep breath and let it out slow. "Well, he's got to be around here somewhere," he said. His hand had trouble holstering the big autoblaster, then an icy calm took the man as if he were in the middle of a firefight, and it slid smoothly into place.
"Mebbe he's hiding, or fell over the edge," Krysty suggested, glancing at the dark streets. Gaia, what a grisly thought.
"Any sign of him on the ground?" Ryan asked, but their replies sounded strange to him as if somebody else had asked if the boy was dead, but not him. He felt oddly distant from the conversation, as if he were speaking to them from over a great length of pipe.
"Not a sign of him," Doc stated, forcing a neutral expression as he holstered his blaster and buttoned down the flap. "Don't worry, it is only three stories onto soft sand. If the lad did tumble, he probably has no worse than a broken leg."
"Jumped another building," Jak suggested, as pragmatic as always.
"Logical," Ryan admitted, unclenching his fist. "I'll check the roof to our west."
A sharp whistle cut the night.
"Here!" J.B. shouted, waving from the east side. "Over here!"
The companions rushed to the edge of the roof. The Armorer pointed across the alleyway to the next building. The rain-pitted expanse of concrete was empty except for a skylight. But one of the milky-white glass panels in the framework was broken, and lying nearby in a splash of red blood was Dean's knife.
Chapter Eight
Tossing Krysty the rifle, Ryan backed away a few steps and charged. At the last moment, he jumped over the low wall and sailed across the gulf of the alleyway to land heavily on the concrete roof of the next building. He went to one knee, but was up again in an instant. Going to the hole in the skylight, Ryan listened for any sounds before cupping his hands and shouting the boy's name. There was no answer.
He turned and barked, "Mildred!"
The physician reached into her med kit and tossed him a small object. Ryan made the catch one-handed and squeezed the charging handle on the tiny flashlight a few times to power the miniature battery inside. It was old and weak, but a hundred times better than a candle. Playing the beam through the hole, he saw an open area directly under the skylight with a balcony on four sides. A staggered staircase of iron lace spiraled down into the building and out of range of the weak beam.
"I'm going in," he said, stuffing the flashlight into his belt. "Meet you on the ground floor."
"On our way," Krysty shouted, already heading for the kiosk.
Carefully testing the skylight for strength, Ryan knew it would never hold his two-hundred-plus pounds. Carefully wiggling the rest of the glass shards from the frame, he tossed them aside. Then, grabbing the part of the framework directly attached to the concrete roof, he carefully lowered himself down. The angle was awkward, but he held on tight. Lowering himself as far as he could, Ryan swung his legs back and forth until he had sufficient momentum and let go.
Pain racked his back as he scraped over the railing, and he landed sprawled on the soft carpeting of the topmost balcony. Scrambling erect, Ryan pulled out his blaster and flashlight. Anything could be inside this place. Just because the roof was untouched didn't mean the front door wasn't wide open. He couldn't chance being caught unprepared.
Playing the beam around, he saw that the central area was squared off by the fancy iron-lace railings. An open framework elevator shaft of the same material stood nearby. Moving along the floor, he noted the array of closed doors with tarnished nameplates lining the balcony. Every one was closed with no signs of busted wood on the jamb showing a forced entry. Lush plastic plants in oak stands adorned the corners, and a squat copier stood reverently in an alcove near a brace of soda machines.
"Dean!" he shouted, his words echoing slightly down the halls. "Son, can you hear me?"
Dead silence. Ryan shook that word from his mind. Negative thoughts would only slow his reflexes. He had to concentrate on finding his son.
Still holding the SIG-Sauer, Ryan placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled once loudly. No response. With a growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach, the man moved past the elevator and started down the open stairs, shining the flashlight everywhere. At the third story, he encountered an iron grating padlocked shut. Ryan hesitated for a moment, then leveled the 9 mm blaster and shot off the lock. The cough of the silenced weapon was lost in the crash of the exploding metal and seemed to endlessly bounce off the plaster walls, the noise somehow making the building seem even more empty than before.
Two more gates blocked his progress, and by the time he reached the ground floor, the rest of the companions were already waiting in the spacious lobby. The area was well lit by the strong light of the lanterns. Wide couches surrounded low tables piled with magazines, the pale walls decorated with ornate paintings of landscapes and running water. Velvet ropes formed a maze to traverse before reaching the massive reception desk, where a tiny sign sternly announced that no smoking was allowed.
"We heard shots," J.B. said urgently, the Uzi held steady in a combat grip.
"Locked doors," Ryan replied, clicking off the flashlight and returning it to Mildred. "Any sign of Dean outside?"
"Not a trace. You?"
"No."
Shoving aside the soft ropes, Krysty strode behind the reception desk and glanced underneath. Wounded, the boy could be hiding anywhere.
"Lavatories are clear," Doc announced, bursting out of the ladies' room, his frock coat spreading wide in his wake like the wings of some terrible prehistoric bird.
Mildred yanked open an unmarked door and jumped back, almost firing as a collection of brooms and mops piled out, nearly hitting her. "Janitor's closet," the physician reported. "Also empty."
"Dean!" Ryan shouted through cupped hands. The name echoed throughout the old building.
A great rage was building within the man, the fury tempered with the dire possibility the boy was dead and gone. Crossing the lobby past a brace of telephone cubicles, Ryan kicked open the first door. Inside were only chairs, desks dotted with coffee cups and a huge easel covered with a meaningless pie chart showing the excellent performance of something somewhere.
"Okay, we do this systematically. I'll take the left side with Krysty. Jak with Mildred, J.B. stay here and cover us with the Uzi. Doc, sweep outside again."
Scratching her cheek with the barrel of her .38, Krysty spoke. "Remember, that mutie flew. If it wasn't alone, and another grabbed Dean…"
"Then there's nothing to be done," Ryan stated coldly, his features set as if cast in an arctic glacier. "We can't track an animal in flight. So concentrate on what can be done. Search this place room by room."
"Over here!" Jak cried, partially masked by the shadows of the reception desk.
Grabbing a lantern, Ryan shone the light in the direction of the call. The pale teenager was kneeling at the iron-lace railing that cordoned off the middle of the lobby. "Central access not stop here! Down another level!"
In a second, Ryan was already alongside the Cajun, leaning over the railing and shining the lantern around. A chrome-and-steel kinetic sculpture made of sharp panes and angles rose from the dusty center of a dried fountain. Dozens of small tables dotted the floor around it, and lying amid them was a crumpled human body, limbs splayed, a trickle of blood dr
ibbling from his slack mouth.
"Dean," Ryan said softly, almost dropping the light.
"Still bleeding," Mildred stated quickly. "That means he's alive."
"How do we get there?" Krysty demanded, looking around. "The enclosed stairs stop on this level. Where are the ones leading to the basement?"
"This way!" Doc shouted, gesturing with the LeMat.
Staying at the railing, Ryan gauged the distance, then jumped over the banister. He landed next to the boy, missing the granite rim of the fountain's basin by only inches. The others arrived minutes later, charging out of the enclosed stairwell. They maneuvered through the rows of tables and found Ryan kneeling solemnly alongside his son.
"There's no pulse," he announced woodenly, holding the boy's small wrist in his hand.
Pushing the man aside, Mildred expertly placed two fingers on right side of the lad's throat just under the mastoid bone. "There's a pulse," she said, resting a palm on his forehead. "But it's weak and fast, and the skin is clammy."
Already her tone was shifting from concern to impartial. Never think about the person you were treating. Concentrate on fixing the injuries—later on there would be time for celebration, or mourning.
"He's in shock." Ryan frowned, having seen enough in his life to recognize the symptoms. "Got to keep him warm. Krysty!"
"On it," the redhead said. Placing the Steyr on a table, she shucked the bearskin coat and passed it over.
"More," Mildred said, tucking the fur over the boy.
"Done." Krysty holstered her blaster. "Jak, cover me."
The Cajun followed her into the darkness, and soon there came sounds of smashing wood and ripping cloth.
Glancing around, Ryan saw they were in the center of a food court, rows of garish plastic signs proclaiming delicious snacks long decayed into dust. Rows of plastic tables encircled the fountain with the weird metallic sculpture. On the other side of the court was the iron-lace framework of the elevator, adjacent to more public rest rooms, phones and drinking fountains.
