Chapter Twelve

"She's not breathing!"

Ryan registered Mildred's words, watching as the woman slipped her hand under the back of the redhead's neck, tilting Krysty's head back. Then a bullet slammed into the door beside Elmore's head, the thunder of the shot following closely on its heels.

Elmore stood frozen, seemingly stunned by the events taking place in the building or the fact that he'd been shot at.

Knowing he was about to lose his only bargaining chip with the sec chief lying in wait outside, Ryan stepped forward and grabbed the back of Elmore's shirt and jacket. He yanked, pulling hard enough to throw himself and the man onto the floor.

More rounds cut the air above them as they fell and knocked the shelves from the back wall.

Reacting automatically, J.B. kicked the door shut, then fired across the street, drawing more blasterfire. He moved smoothly away from the window long enough to reach out and bolt the door again. "Dark night, that was close."

Ryan left Elmore where he lay, knowing the Armorer and Doc would keep the man covered. Crossing the floor in two long strides, Ryan dropped to his knees beside Krysty. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Mildred worked frantically, hooking a finger and running it down Krysty's throat. "She acted like she had a seizure of some kind, then keeled over." She brought her finger back out of Krysty's mouth. Specks of saliva and blood showed on Mildred's finger. "There's no obstruction. As far as I can tell, the airway's open."

"Then why isn't she breathing?"

"There's no reason for her not to be that I can see." Mildred brushed the prehensile red hair from Krysty's mouth. "You hear me, girl? There's no excuse I'm taking from you for you not breathing. You're going to breathe." She kept Krysty's head tilted back, then looked at Ryan. "Need you to do CPR on her while I breathe for her."

"Fireblast!" Ryan stared into his lover's eyes. They were both open, pools of green gazing emptily up at the ceiling.

"We haven't lost her yet, Ryan," Mildred told him in a strong voice. "You hear me?"

"I hear you. Get on with it." Ryan straddled Krysty and placed his hands together over her heart, measuring with his fingers the proper distance along her breastbone. CPR wasn't anything new to him. He'd been taught by Trader while on War Wag One. A crewman got shot up or hit by electrical defenses on some of the redoubts they'd excavated and emptied didn't mean the Trader was going to accept losing that man.

"Count it down for me," Mildred ordered.

Ryan pushed against Krysty's diaphragm, willing his lover to start breathing again. When finished his reps, he pulled back and let Mildred breathe for her.

"It's that fucking witch," Elmore said hoarsely. He remained on the ground and spread-eagled, evidently not wanting to chance any movement on his part as going for a weapon.

"She's dead," Ryan growled.

"Two kinds of dead where they're concerned from what I've been told."

"And who told you?"

"Man named Donovan," Elmore said.

"Do it," Mildred ordered, pulling back and breathing hard.

Ryan returned his attention to the CPR, taking care to use enough force to make Krysty's lungs work without breaking any of her ribs. Puncturing a lung with a broken rib would have made matters even worse. Unless she was already dead. Even as he thought that, Ryan forced it from his mind. He wasn't about to accept that.

Mildred took over again.

"Who's Donovan?" Ryan asked.

"Project leader I worked for at the Heimdall Foundation." Elmore watched their efforts.

"He knows about the Chosen?"

"Studied them a lot. His mother was a breeder, one of the children they stole away. She managed to escape before she died, had Donovan in a ville and managed to live out her life. He doesn't have no love for them, that's for sure, but he knows they know things that most folks don't know."

"What's happening here?"

Elmore shrugged. "The Chosen got this way about those powers of theirs. They can swap memories with each other."

"My dear chap," Doc interrupted, "would you have us believe that these women are able to do that through some clairvoyance talent?"

"Don't know about that. I'm not even sure what clairvoyance means. But I know what I've been told. And Donovan told me he'd seen it done. That he came upon a dying Chosen who was performing some kind of ritual with a younger Chosen."

"Incredible."

"Ain't the half of it," Elmore assured him. "Got lots of stories about the Chosen, and Donovan told me the truth was even more unbelievable. And I'm a guy been over the mountain to see the elephant in my day."

Mildred pulled back from Krysty's face, her own features stained with perspiration. "It's okay," she said hoarsely, "Krysty's breathing on her own again."

Beneath his fingertips, Ryan felt the flutter of his lover's heart. As that registered, her eyes pulled down to his, focusing with effort.

"Lover," she said weakly.

"What happened?" Ryan asked.

"They're moving out there," J.B. called from the window. "Trying to fan out to get position on the front door. If they have a couple grens, they could come knocking real hard."

Ryan knew that, and his mind raced with the possibilities and problems that occupied his attention. Survival was first and foremost, but that meant Krysty's survival, too, and at the moment that appeared tied to Elmore.

"Phlorin's still inside my head, Ryan," Krysty replied. "She was talking to me. She made me go blind here, then stopped my heart to show me she could." She reached up for Ryan, trembling. "We've got to get her out of there. Can't stand not having my head not be my own."

"We will," Ryan replied, but fear touched him because he knew he didn't have the first idea how they were going to do that. The old woman was as dead as he knew how to make her. "Can you move?"

"Yes." Krysty nodded, then acted like she instantly regretted the effort. "I'll manage."

"Good enough." Ryan turned his attention back to Elmore as Doc continued questioning him.

"What would be the purpose of such a memory transfer?" the old man asked.

"The Chosen are broken down into groups," Elmore answered. "Donovan could tell you more, but I can tell you that. This woman was one of their scouts. An explorer. That beaded pack with all the designs on it told me that. The explorers don't travel back to their ville very often. They aren't allowed to. They get sent out to find what they can and make sure the information gets back to the others."

Ryan listened to the sound of Krysty's breathing as he went to join J.B. at the window. He took advantage of the cover the windowframe offered and scanned the area. Naylor's men were in motion, but there were few places for them to go.

"I asked Donovan about it once," Elmore said, "and he told me that if another Chosen comes up on a dead one soon enough, mebbe even within a few hours after, then they could still force a transfer."

"Then what happens?" Krysty asked, her voice cracking with emotion and exhaustion.

Elmore shrugged. "You mean what do they do with the information? Take it back to the others, I guess. You'd have to talk to Donovan about the rest of it."

"He knows about things like this?" Ryan asked.

"Only person I know of that would," Elmore admitted. He looked uneasy about saying that, and Ryan knew the man was wondering if he'd said too much. "Finding Donovan ain't easy."

"Saw a map once with Heimdall Foundation marked on it," Ryan said, laying the ace on the line. "A few days west of here, traveling by foot."

"He won't be there," Elmore said. "And that's assuming that map and your memory of it are right."

"Where'll he be?"

Elmore looked imploringly at Ryan. "Mister, I don't want to die. And if you turn me over to the baron's men out there, that's surely what's going to happen."

Ryan couldn't argue with that, and there wasn't time to investigate the matter between the two men any further at the moment. "Where's Donovan?"

"It's spring," Elmore answered reluctantly. "He'll be up in the mountains making sure of the water supply to the Foundation. Staying hidden like they do takes a lot of water to run things."

"If we take you out of here," Ryan said, "you can take us to Donovan?"

"Hell, yes."

Ryan looked at the man. "You try to fuck around with me, I'll chill you the first time I know it."

"Sure."

"Cawdor!" Naylor shouted from outside.

"I'm here," Ryan shouted back.

"We can still deal," the sec chief roared.

"Don't know about you," Ryan said, "but I'm kind of shy on trust at this end."

"One of my men got jumpy," Naylor explained. "Didn't mean nothing by it."

"A man under your command who doesn't follow orders isn't worth having," Ryan responded. "Man will never be able to carry his own weight, much less work into the position of being an asset."

There was a pause. "I see you've had some training."

"Enough."

"What about the man I want?"

"Make you another deal," Ryan said, "since you seem so keen on changing the one I thought we had."

Naylor paused, and the silence drew out. "Tell me," he said at last.

"Trot out the man who fired that shot," Ryan stated. "Then I want you to execute him in front of me."

"What?"

"You heard me. Call it a show of faith." Ryan glanced at J.B., making sure his friend was comfortable with the idea.

"Man might not feel so bad about chilling some poor bastard," the Armorer said, "who's already been wounded or is dead. Stake him out there, shoot him a couple times, make it look good."

"That's fine," Ryan said. "Every minute we get here gives Jak and Dean that much more time to get to the other end of that tunnel."

"You can't be serious about asking me to chill one of my own men," Naylor called back.

"I'm serious about it. If you don't want to chill him yourself, get him to that clearing and I'll chill him for you." He lined up the Steyr, gazing through the scope and sifting through the shadows he spotted around Naylor's position.

"I can't do that," Naylor said.

"That's too fucking bad," Ryan told the man. "Because you're not getting the man without doing it."

"Don't take the high hand with me, Cawdor. I've been looking at that building, noticing how much wood is in it. If you don't get burned to death in a fire, you'll at least be smoked out. Give me the man, and I'll make sure you get out of here alive."

"Mebbe there's something you haven't been considering," Ryan said laconically. "You walked into this situation and ended up between my people and the coldhearts. What makes you so sure you can just walk right back out of here when you get ready?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Turn your back on me, and I'll chill you and your people every time I get a shot," Ryan promised. "I figure my chances here look better if you're trapped over there. The coldhearts waiting to pick up the pieces won't be quite so anxious to come back in here."

"You're triple stupe!"

"I don't see the coldhearts charging in here," Ryan said. "And I don't think it's just because of the number of people I've got holed up in here with me." He put the Steyr's crosshairs over the first of two men he'd spotted. Only a sliver of the man's face was visible behind the wag wreckage where he took cover. The second man was attempting to scale the wags, avoiding the pockets of acid rain left in the dents in the rusted metal. Ryan put a round through the face of the first man, then managed a body shot to the second man before he could reach cover.

The first sec man flew backward, his brain pan emptied in a violent gush over the men behind him. The second sec man stretched out atop one of the ruined wags, his flesh sizzling in the pool of acid rain gathered on top. His hoarse screams echoed in the artificial canyons as he struggled to get out of the water.

A fusillade of shots slammed against the front of the building, driving Ryan to deeper cover. He took a moment to glance at Krysty, noting in satisfaction that the redhead was moving more smoothly now. Her face still contained pain and fear, and it hurt Ryan to see it.

"Stop firing!" Naylor bawled. "Stop your bastard firing or I'll shoot the next man pulls a trigger myself!"

The blasterfire stopped, but the sec men challenged their chiefs decision with curses and questions. "Let's chill all those stupe bastards in there and be done with it," one man yelled. Most of the others agreed with the sentiment.

"Well," Ryan demanded during the lull, "how do you want to handle it, Naylor?"

"Fuck you, Cawdor."

"Something to think about," Ryan said. "We sit here chilling each other, those coldhearts out there may decide to pitch in and help."

"You think we can trust each other?" the sec chief asked.

"Mebbe a little more than before," Ryan said. "At least this way you know we aren't going to hesitate or back down."

"You're a hard man."

"You haven't seen hard yet," Ryan promised. "We end up stuck here past sunset and you haven't made up your mind, I intend to find out how good your men are in the dark. Of course, me and my people will only be a few predators out there among a bunch of others. You spotted all those skeletons out there, didn't you?"

Naylor didn't say anything.

"The coldhearts look like they've been feeding on human flesh when they had to or when they could get it," Ryan pointed out. "And they don't look to have been too particular about disposing of the leftovers. You can bet this place turns into a regular feedlot at night. And this close to rad-blasted areas, a lot of those night feeders are going to be muties. Mebbe some you haven't seen before."

"Dad." Dean's voice drifted up from the hole in the floor.

"Yeah, son. Come on through." He drew the SIG-Sauer and kept his finger on the trigger just in case Dean wasn't coming alone.