Captain Wargo trembled and coughed, blood appearing at the corners of his mouth. He opened his ayes, which looked haunted. “Don’t,” he croaked.
Blade leaned closer. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t go after the seeds.” Wargo coughed some more. “They don’t exist.”
“Then why did your Minister go to so much trouble?” Blade asked.
“Why lure us to Technic City and force us to come here? Why?”
“The mind-control gas,” Captain Wargo disclosed as a crimson streak gushed from his right nostril.
Blade and Geronimo exchanged astonished looks.
“The gas was developed by the Institute of Advanced Technology for the Defense Department at the outset of World War Three,” Captain Wargo elaborated painfully, wheezing between words. “They planned to use it on the Soviets, but New York was hit before they could transfer the canisters of the gas from here to a military installation.” He paused, gathering his breath. “The New York branch wired the Chicago branch of the shipment’s readiness minutes before New York was hit. The canisters have been in the underground vault since.”
“What does this gas do?” Blade probed.
“Makes a person susceptible to any command they’re given,” Captain Wargo said. “The Minister… intends to make more of it. Use it on the Freedom Federation and the Soviets.”
“He wants to conquer the world,” Blade observed.
“For the greater glory of the Technics,” Wargo stated. “Needs samples to duplicate, like your SEAL.”
Blade placed his right hand on Wargo’s chest. “The SEAL? What does the SEAL have to do with it?”
Wargo was slipping fast. “Make… machines… tanks… from the same substance…”
“Why are you telling us this?” Geronimo asked.
Wargo’s eyes fluttered. “Least I could do.” His eyes widened, and for a moment he was mentally alert and in full possession of his faculties. He stared at Blade and, unbelievably, laughed, a hard, brittle tittering.
“Besides… doesn’t matter anymore… does it?” His body straightened and fluttered, he gasped once, and died.
“I can’t say as I’ll miss him,” Geronimo remarked.
“Me neither,” Blade confessed. “But we owe him for telling us about the mind-control gas.”
“So what do we do now?” Geronimo questioned.
Blade stood. “We get out of here.”
“Now you’re talking!”
“Go through Kimper’s clothes and gear,” Blade directed. “We’ll need all the spare magazines and ammunition for these Dakon IIs we can find.”
“Got you.”
The two Warriors searched Wargo and Kimper and found a total of six spare magazines and four boxes of ammunition.
“We’ll each take three magazines and two boxes,” Blade told Geronimo as he crammed one of the magazines into his right front pocket. He loaded his pockets, then crossed to Private Kimper and crouched next to his body.
“What are you doing?” Geronimo asked.
Blade unfastened the pulse scanner from Kimper’s right wrist. “It looks like this gizmo is still on,” he said. The screen contained a network of black lines.
“Do you know how to read it?” Geronimo queried hopefully.
“Not really,” Blade admitted. “But…” He paused. Small, white blips had sprouted on the screen along its outer edge. They were swiftly converging inward the center. “I think company is coming.”
“Zombies?”
“Who else?” Blade rose and hurried to the large hole in the wall.
Geronimo followed. “We don’t want a canister as a keepsake?”
“The stairs may well be intact on the lower levels,” Blade said, “but we’re not going to bother finding out. We’re going up. And fast.”
“I like a man who knows his mind.”
They reached the corridor and raced back the way they’d came. Blade saw additional white blips appear on the pulse scanner. If he was reading the thing right, the Zombies were moving toward the room they’d just vacated. And there didn’t seem to be any blips corresponding to the hallway they were in. If he was correct, they’d reach the hole allowing access to the level above them without being attacked.
They did.
“How are we going to get up there?” Geronimo asked as his helmet lamp swept the opening 12 feet overhead.
“Easily,” Blade said, slinging his Dakon II over his right shoulder.
“Oh? Are we going to fly?” Geronimo quipped, studying the hole.
“One of us is,” Blade responded. Before Geronimo quite knew what had happened, Blade stepped behind his companion, grabbing Geronimo by the back of his belt and the fabric of his green shirt at the nape of his neck.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Geronimo demanded.
“Relax and enjoy the trip,” Blade told him. His bulging arms lifted Geronimo and swung his friend down and up, twice in fast succession, gathering speed with each swing. “Get set,” he advised.
Geronimo, marveling at Blade’s prodigious strength, clasped his Dakon II and grinned.
A third time Blade swung his fellow Warrior, and then he heaved and released his grip.
Geronimo was propelled through the opening, landing on his stomach with his legs suspended from the hole. He used his elbows to crawl to his feet, then looked down at Blade. “And how are you going to make it?”
Blade gauged the distance. “It’s too high to jump.”
“You’d best hurry,” Geronimo cautioned him.
Blade glanced at the pulse scanner. “I agree.” White blips were moving his way. He unslung the Dakon II.
“I’ve got an idea,” Geronimo said.
“Make it fast,” Blade stated. The blips were much closer.
Geronimo placed his Dakon II on the floor and removed his shirt.
“Here!” He held onto one sleeve and dropped the shirt through the hole.
Blade scanned the corridor behind him, then looked at the shirt. The other sleeve was dangling about nine feet over his head. An easy jump for one of his enormous stature.
Footsteps pounded in the hallway to his rear.
Blade whirled, his helmet light illuminating four hissing Zombies closing in, four more of the detestable deviates with a craving for healthy human flesh. Blade blasted them with the Dakon.
The Zombies danced spasmodically as they were struck, then fell.
More blips filled the pulse scanner. Blade reslung the Dakon, crouched, and leaped, his arms stretched to their limit, his fingers clamping on the shirt and holding last. “Pull!”
Geronimo was nearly upended. The weight was almost too much for his arms to bear. Crouched at the rim, he sagged, about to pitch forward, but caught himself in the nick of time. He gritted his teeth as his arms strained to raise Blade a couple of feet, hoping the shirt would hold. The Family Weavers had constructed his clothing, and their garments were renowned for their durability. But Blade felt as if he weighed a ton!
“Hurry!” Blade prompted him.
Every muscle on Geronimo’s stocky body quivered as he rose an inch, then several more.
Swaying below the hole. Blade waited, his body taut. If Geronimo could get him close enough to the rim…
Something suddenly encircled the Warrior’s legs.
Blade looked down, dumbfounded to see a Zombie clinging to his ankles. The creature’s teeth were exposed as it snarled and snapped at his leg, tearing into his fatigue pants but missing the skin underneath.
Geronimo felt the shirt wrench to one side, and he glanced down.
Blade twisted, striving to extricate his legs, hoping the Zombie would not succeed in taking a chunk out of him. An insane idea occurred to him, a desperate maneuver to disentangle his legs and reach the level above. He balled his right fist and lashed downward, his left hand bearing the brunt of his massive weight, and crashed his fist into the Zombie’s hairless skull.
Staggered by the blow, the Zombie released its g
rip and glared up at its dinner.
Which was exactly what Blade wanted.
The giant Warrior drew his legs up to his chest, then lashed his feet down, deliberately driving his boots onto the Zombie’s slim shoulders. In the instant his soles made contact, Blade pushed upward, using the Zombie as a springboard, uncoiling and springing through the hole in the floor to sprawl beside Geronimo.
Geronimo tumbled backwards, landing on his posterior. He yanked on his shirt and smiled at Blade. “What? No full gainer?”
“Let’s go!” Blade said, rising.
Geronimo hastily donned his shirt, and they fled, retracing their route, following the trail of their footprints in the dust. They arrived at the door leading to the stairs and paused, breathing heavily, leaning on the walls.
“Didn’t we leave this door open?” Geronimo asked.
Blade couldn’t recall. He shrugged and tugged on the door, grateful it flew open so readily.
Until he saw what lurked on the other side.
The landing was jammed with Zombies and the stairs were packed with more.
“They were waiting for us!” Geronimo cried.
Blade leveled the Dakon II as the front row started toward them. They were overwhelmingly outnumbered, and outrunning the monstrosities would be impossible at this close range. He could only hope to sell his life dearly, and he would have done so had not a very peculiar event transpired.
One of the Zombies uttered a weird, gurgling noise, and the effect on the assembled mutations was instantaneous and bewildering. They abruptly ran off, the majority heading up the stairs in a confused panic, while a dozen or so bolted past a startled pair of Warriors flattened against the corridor walls.
“What was that all about?” Geronimo nervously inquired after the last Zombie was lost to view.
“Beats me,” Blade said. “But whatever it was, I like it! Let’s get to the SEAL.”
They walked through the doorway to the landing.
Geronimo bent his neck, craning skyward. “I can see the top!” he exclaimed. “And there isn’t a Zombie in sight!”
“Good riddance,” Blade commented. Now nothing would stop them.
Or so he thought.
There was a rumbling roar from directly below, and the very tunnel shook, the stairs vibrating and the landing the Warriors occupied shimmying.
Blade, nearest the railing, leaned over the edge for an unobstructed view of the vertical shaft. The… thing… his helmet lamp revealed caused the short hairs on the back of his neck to rise, his skin tingling, and he unconsciously stepped away from the railing, staggered.
“What is it?” Geronimo asked, moving toward the railing.
Blade grabbed his friend by the shoulder and shoved, sending Geronimo in the direction of the steps. “Go!” he shouted, forgetting Geronimo could hear the slightest sound in his helmet earphone.
“But…” Geronimo protested, his left foot on the bottom step.
“Go!” Blade yelled.
Geronimo, disturbed and alarmed, took the stairs two at a bound.
“Come on!” he urged Blade.
But Blade had other ideas. He would delay the… thing… until Geronimo reached safety. It was the only way one of them would get out alive. He stepped to the railing and gazed downward.
Just as the thing gave another deafening roar and rushed toward the landing.
Chapter Sixteen
“Turn in there,” Hickok directed.
Spencer immediately complied, pulling the four-wheeler into a parking lot.
Hickok scanned the lot, noting a lot of civilians and trikes and other vehicles, but the Technic police weren’t in evidence.
Good.
“Pull into that parking space,” Hickok instructed the Technic.
Spencer parked between two other four-wheelers, one of them red, the other brown like his. “What now?”
“We sit here,” Hickok said. He needed time to think. They were about three miles from the Central Core. Dozens of Technic police and military vehicles had passed them along the way, but the security forces were all headed toward the Core. Most likely, the Technics believed he was still in the vicinity of the Core. And they undoubtedly had their hands full cleaning up the mess he’d created with the truck. Not to mention the reaction the Minister’s death would create, the turmoil it would stir up.
“How long?” Spencer inquired.
Hickok glared. “Until I say otherwise. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Spencer said feebly.
“Turn the other way,” Hickok instructed him. “Count the trikes for a spell.”
Spencer twisted, his back to the gunfighter.
Hickok quickly reloaded the giant cartridges in his right Python, keeping the revolver out of sight between his knees. As he was slipping the last cartridge into the cylinder, he suddenly realized something was missing. He’d forgotten Blade’s Commando! He’d left it on the floor of the truck! “Damnit!” he declared in annoyance.
Spencer turned in his seat. “What did I do?” he asked in a fright.
“Nothin’, idiot!” Hickok said. “Turn around or else!”
Spencer obeyed.
Hickok sighed, pondering his next move. He had to bust out of Technic City. The question was how! How to get past a mine field and an electrified fence with enough juice to fry him to a cinder? How to elude the scores of Technic police and military types on his tail? And how to reach the safety of the Home, alone and on foot? This wasn’t turning out to be a piece of cake after all.
What to do?
Hickok idly surveyed the buildings surrounding the parking lot on three sides. One of them, a two-story structure with pastel walls, supported a billboard on the side visible from the lot. A beautiful woman was seated in an elegant restaurant, a bowl of soup on the table in front of her, a heaping spoonful close to her red lips.
A siren wailed in the distance.
Hickok absently read the billboard as he deliberated.
“THE FINEST DINING IN TECHNIC CITY! AT A PRICE YOU CAN AFFORD! KURTZ’S ON THE MALL, AT 64TH AND THE DIAGONAL!
SHRIMP… $125. STEWED WORMS… $90. WORMS A LA KING… $110. A DELECTABLE TREAT FOR THE TASTE BUDS! RESERVATIONS ARE—”
Worms?
Hickok’s mind belatedly registered the menu advertised. He read it again.
Worms?
“What’s that mean?” Hickok demanded.
“What’s what mean?” Spencer responded, watching the traffic.
“That!” Hickok declared, pointing at the billboard.
“Can I turn around now?” Spencer wanted to know.
“Turn around!” Hickok stated, still pointing. “And tell me what that is all about.”
Spencer shifted and gazed at the billboard. After a moment he looked at the gunman. “You’ve never seen a billboard before? Where are you from?”
“I’m talking about what’s on the billboard,” Hickok said, correcting the Technic.
Spencer seemed puzzled. “It’s called an advertisement.”
“I figured that out for myself,” Hickok declared archly. “I want to know about the food.”
“Oh,” Spencer said, as if that explained everything. “Well, shrimp is a seafood. We get ours from the Androixians—”
“I know what the blazes seafood is!” Hickok cut Spencer short. “What about the worms?”
“Worms are these creepy-crawling things which live in the ground,” Spencer explained. “They—”
Hickok’s flinty blue eyes had narrowed. “Are you doin’ this on purpose?”
“Doing what on purpose?”
“I know what worms are,” Hickok said, peeved. “Why are they on the menu?”
“I’m not certain I follow you,” Spencer said. “Worms are on the menu at every restaurant and diner in Technic City.”
Hickok was shocked. “You mean to tell me you folks eat worms?”
“Do you mean to tell me you don’t?” Spencer replied.
“But worms!
How can you eat worms?” Hickok asked, nauseated by the mere idea.
“Worms are quite tasty,” Spencer said. “You should try them sometime.”
Hickok grimaced. “Not on your life.”
“Everybody eats worms,” Spencer detailed.
“Not where I come from,” Hickok said. “I’ve never heard of anybody eatin’ worms. What a bunch of cow chips!”
“What kind of food do you eat?” Spencer asked.
“Our Tillers grow a heap of vegetables,” Hickok said, “and we have some fruit, but our meat is usually venison.”
“What’s venison?”
Hickok squinted at the Technic. “You’re puttin’ me on.”
“We don’t have venison,” Spencer said. “What is it?”
“Deer meat.”
“What’s a deer?”
“You’ve never seen a deer?” Hickok queried incredulously.
“No. Is it some kind of animal? Animals are illegal in Technic City,” Spencer disclosed.
“What about dogs and cats?”
“They’re popular,” Spencer commented, “but, personally, I don’t like them as much as worms.”
“You eat dogs and cats?” Hickok questioned him.
“You don’t?”
Hickok studied the billboard, perplexed. He could understand eating dogs, because feral dogs were a rare family fare. But worms! Revolting! He gazed around the parking lot, stared at the crowded avenue beyond, and perceived a spark of sanity in the notion. Technic City contained millions of people, all fenced in like cattle, herded into a limited area and forced to live out their manipulated lives subject to every whim of the totalitarian regime controlling them. With so many mouths to feed, and with scant dietary resources, the Technics had supplanted the typical prewar fare with the one food source capable of breeding faster than rabbits; with an abundant animal readily available at any time of year; with a creature easily cultivated and processed: worms. When you looked at it logically, Hickok grudgingly admitted, the idea sort of made sense.
Another siren sounded from afar.
Hickok dismissed the worms from his mind and concentrated on his escape. He glanced at Spencer. “I want you to tell me everything you know about this buggy of yours.”
New York Run Page 17
