Ryan was tied to a metal chair with a cane seat. He was stripped naked, his hands bound behind the back of the chair, wrists pulled low so that his posture was slouched, his shoulders wrenched if he tried to move on the seat. It was a simple torture tactic, and one that didn't take a lot of effort while becoming quickly effective.

 

 "It's quite simple, you murdering son of a bitch," Murphy said quietly, wiping the blood from the rings on his fingers after slapping Ryan backhanded. "You just tell me all about yourself, and I release you from the seat before your balls strain through the little holes. Uncomfortable, isn't it?" he continued, as Ryan tried to move on the seat and ease the pain that was starting to spread into his groin.

 

 Ryan breathed deeply, using his iron will to control the pain. The scar that ran under the eye patch, from the empty socket and down his cheek to his jaw, was white and puckered, the flesh drained of blood as he gritted his teeth. He was storing up the resentment. If he ever got the chance, he'd finish Murphy. But he'd rather get out. One of the things the Trader taught him was the uselessness of bearing grudges. Concentrate too hard on that, and you wouldn't notice the enemy creeping up behind you.

 

 Murphy watched Ryan through slitted eyes, trying to work out how far he could go. The one-eyed man was sitting beneath the only light in the room, directly above him. Murphy stood half in a pool of shadow. Behind him, obscured from Ryan's view, was an armed soldier. Murphy could watch his prisoner's reactions with clarity, but Ryan could see little beyond the pool of light in which he sat.

 

 "You won't get anything from me," Ryan muttered, spitting blood from his torn mouth.

 

 Murphy nodded. "You're a big man. You've proved to me how hard you are. Now let's get real. That kid, he looks like you, One-eye."

 

 Ryan looked up. Slowly, trying to mask his concern.

 

 It didn't work. Murphy grinned at him slyly. "Yeah, figured so. Your sprog, right? How'd you like him to be tied to the chair? I figure he's only…what, twelve? Thirteen? Maybe his balls ain't dropped yet. It'd be interesting to find out."

 

 Ryan winced. In his mind he tried to weigh up the options. What would it lose them at this stage if he told this scum who he was? The redoubt seemed inbred and isolated, so the chances of them hearing about him were low.

 

 A chance he would take to save Dean the pain.

 

 "Fireblast, you win this round, fucker. What do you want to know?"

 

 "Who you are. Why you're here. How come you can use the mat-trans. And the old guy is…"

 

 Ryan's brow furrowed. Why were they so interested in Doc?

 

 "LOOK LIKE SHIT," Jak said quietly.

 

 "Feel like it, too," Ryan replied, stretching out on the bed, his legs apart to ease the pain that throbbed into his groin. The act of speaking opened up one of the cuts in the corner of his mouth.

 

 Krysty took a pillowcase from one of the beds and wet it under the faucet before using a corner of it to dab gently at the edges of Ryan's mouth.

 

 J.B. looked up at the sec camera over the door. They were all back in the room in which they had originally been confined. He pushed his fedora back on his head and scratched idly along his hairline, frowning.

 

 "Got an idea, John?" Mildred asked quietly. She had been the most subdued since they had all awakened on the beds, and had so far kept quiet about her dreamlike experiences. The others had shared some details in order to try to work out what had happened to them.

 

 J.B. shook his head. "No, I was just wondering what exactly it is they want from us."

 

 "Guess find out soon," Jak commented, indicating Ryan with a curt nod of the head. "What they do with Krysty and Mildred?" he added.

 

 "I'm sure they'll have thought of something," Mildred said bitterly.

 

 Ryan raised himself on one elbow and told them exactly what had happened to him. When he had finished, Doc rose to his feet. He made as though to strike a lecturing pose, leaning on his cane, until he remembered that Murphy's men, once bitten, had taken it away from him.

 

 Doc cleared his throat. "Their behavior is most perplexing. I think we can agree that our experiences while unconscious were an attempt to in some way play with our most primal fears, possibly with the notion of reducing our resistance."

 

 Krysty nodded. "For some reason, it didn't affect Jak and myself in the same way as it did the rest of you. Perhaps there's some kind of mutated gene running in us that—"

 

 "What they used to call psychological warfare, but taken up a notch," J.B. interrupted. "I saw some old vid once about it. They've got so much stuff in this redoubt, most of it in some kind of running order. Why not a comp of some kind that could show us our fears?"

 

 "It worked all right," Ryan reflected. "I tried to hold out, but when Dean was threatened, I just caved in."

 

 "You shouldn't worry about me," Dean cut in angrily. "I stand or fall as one of us like everyone else. Don't treat me like a kid."

 

 "Point one, youare still a kid. Point two, Ryan's not saying he did it because of that. Are you, lover?" Krysty waited for Ryan to acknowledge before continuing, "The point is simply that he couldn't hold out because something in his mind wouldn't let him."

 

 "And that worries me," Ryan said, looking at J.B., who returned his gaze.

 

 "I'm with you there. If we get a chance to break, what's it going to do to us all?"

 

 "May I offer the suggestion that the only way to find out is to actually make that break?" Doc mused slowly. "I would hazard a guess that part of the effect is simply to make us doubt ourselves."

 

 "That makes sense," Mildred said with a nod.

 

 Jak shrugged. "All talk, need action. Mebbe make some?" He glanced at Ryan.

 

 The one-eyed man was about to answer when the door to the dormitory swung open, and Murphy stood in the doorway, flanked by two sec men. He had obviously learned a lesson from Panner's death, as both sec men had their blasters trained on the prisoners.

 

 He pointed at Mildred. "You're next." He crooked his finger and beckoned her. "Come on, baby. Time to answer a few questions. If you answer them right, then you may get a reward." He leered at her, and the two sec men flanking him broke their impassive stares to smile cruelly.

 

 The black woman stood without a word, and walked out of the room, between the two sec men. Murphy closed the door, but not before muttering "You just be good" in a sneering tone to those left behind.

 

 MILDRED WAS TIED to the cane chair, just as Ryan had been. Murphy stood on the edge of the pool of light, partly shrouded by shadow.

 

 "So what comes next?" Mildred asked with a bravado she didn't really feel. Despite her efforts to quell the uneasiness in her and keep the fear at bay, it crept up on the corners of her mind. Such had been the strength of her dream state under the trank darts that she almost believed Murphy was wearing a Klan hood in the shadows.

 

 "It's quite simple. We want to know all about you and your friends. Particularly the old fart."

 

 "You'll have to ask him about that. I don't know squat about him. And what could there be about a black bitch to interest you?" she spit with sarcastic venom.

 

 Murphy stepped forward into the light. Despite her better intent, Mildred flinched.

 

 Murphy laughed with sardonic glee. "Oh, I love it. The geeks in R&D are gonna love the way their gadgets worked. Don't worry, I ain't gonna violate you as part of the interrogation. We don't know enough about how rad-blasted your genes are to risk that. But I always say that there ain't nothing that works like good old fashioned pain."

 

 With a backhand slap he jerked Mildred's head back, the rings on his fingers ripping her flesh. She kept her head back to one side, breathing heavily and trying to conquer the sudden flash of pain and anger.

 

 Gently Murphy took her chin in his fingers and pulled her head around until he was looking her in the eye.

 

 "Now, when I had you stripped, we found medical supplies in your pockets. I'd swear that you were a medic of some kind. Is that so?"

 

 "You're a clever mother, aren't you?" Mildred answered through the taste of blood, mustering as much sarcasm as she could.

 

 Murphy smiled to himself. "Thought so. That being the case, you won't want those hands of yours damaged in any way, will you? Like losing those nails, for instance?"

 

 Mildred's stomach lurched. She remembered a book she'd read when she was at college: a history of the French Resistance in World War II. There had been a chapter on Odette, the spy dropped by British intelligence who had been captured by the Gestapo. Part of the torture she endured was to have her fingernails and toenails pulled out by pliers, each one wrenched out by the root, so that the exposed nail bed would remain uncovered. It was, in many ways, such a small thing to do. Yet the pain had been almost unendurable, leaving her unable to walk or use her hands properly for months.

 

 If this happened to Mildred, not only would it be more pain than she could stand in her current psychological condition, but it would also be a great obstacle to her in any escape attempt.

 

 Fighting the conditioning, she figured that this was the equivalent of using Dean against his father. What could she lose by telling them about herself at this stage?

 

 "Well?" Murphy queried. Mildred was unaware that she had been silent for so long.

 

 "Okay," she said finally, "I'll tell you what you want to know, although you may not believe it."

 

 IT WENT AS Murphy would have expected. A little pain, the promise of more, and they crumbled. He had to hand it to R&D—the short-term effects of their machines were damn good. Even the mutie woman had given in pretty easily. He hadn't expected it, but had guessed the way to get at her when he mentioned the one-eyed man and noticed how her hair coiled tight around her neck and head. Damn giveaway, those mutie traits…

 

 The albino hadn't been so easy. He was taciturn and as stubborn as hell. When Murphy first leaned over him to threaten him, the insolent little fart had spit in his face.

 

 By the time Murphy had finished with him, the albino's hair was running red with his blood, and he had a few more scars on his face to match those that already crisscrossed his pale skin, now hidden beneath red weals and livid scabs.

 

 And still he'd got nothing from him. Not even his name. That was okay; he knew that from the others.

 

 The only one he hadn't questioned had been the old man. For reasons best known to himself, the Gen had wanted to do that in his office. All they had was a name: Doc Tanner. It didn't seem much, but when Murphy made his report, Wallace had been excited.

 

 The Gen had a plan that he didn't want anyone else to know about yet. That was plain to Murphy as he and the two sec men assigned to the prisoners escorted Doc Tanner to the Gen's office. Murphy studied the old man. His eyes, set in a wrinkled and tired face framed by his flowing white hair, seemed to glitter with the same mixture of cunning and madness as Wallace. The thought of the two of them in the same room made Murphy shudder, and he was glad when the Gen ordered him to stay outside.

 

 The corridor was almost deserted. The maintenance tasks were completed, and the whole redoubt was still on yellow alert, with everyone at their designated posts. Murphy was pleased, as it gave him a more than reasonable excuse to dismiss his sec men, dispatching them back to their posts, and stand guard himself.

 

 In the empty corridor, Murphy was able to stand guard and also eavesdrop, thankful that Wallace was inclined to raise his voice when excited.

 

 And boy, was he excited…

 

 WALLACE FLICKED through Murphy's report as Doc Tanner was left alone with him, standing in the middle of the room with a distracted air as the sec men left.

 

 "Sit down, Doctor," Wallace said without looking up.

 

 Doc took a seat opposite the Gen, remarking, "I would assume that there is some particular reason why you wish to interview me yourself, and outside the confines of the hellhole in which my companions have been interrogated."

 

 Wallace looked up. "Oh, yes, Dr. Tanner. I couldn't risk you being harmed. Not before recycling."

 

 Doc shuddered. There was something about the way Wallace looked at him as he said it that made a lizard crawl slowly and coldly down his spine.

 

 The Gen looked down at the report, then picked up a sheaf of paper.

 

 "There are things about our lives here that only I am aware of, Doctor. We are the only true Americans left, you know—"

 

 "I can think of some native tribes—remnants of whom survive—who would argue that point," Doc interrupted. Then he added with a gracious gesture, "But I am interrupting you. Pray continue."

 

 Wallace suppressed his anger and forced a smile before continuing. "In this base we have managed to keep the traditions of the U.S. Army flying high like the Stars and Stripes. We have maintained the American way against the scum outsiders. We were entrusted by our forefathers to keep the research pure, and to maintain the mechanism that this base was created for. Thanks to the great plan, we still have access to many pre-sky-dark records."

 

 "I am surprised that you use such terms, as cut off as you are," Doc interpolated.

 

 "We sometimes have contact with some outsider scum in an attempt to keep our gene pool healthy, and thus we have a tendency to pick up some of their slack speech habits. It's regrettable, but inevitable. And please refrain from interrupting me," Wallace added with a warning glare that shot an electric jolt down Doc's spine. There was barely disguised psychosis behind the man's gaze.

 

 "My apologies," Doc muttered.

 

 "Very well. As I was about to say, we have records of before the great war between the Reds and the democrats. It is unfortunate that, as time progresses, we find ourselves moving further and further away from the technology of the preskydark era. The good book says recycle, but sometimes there aren't things to recycle with. We improvise, but that is all."

 

 Doc wondered idly if there was a point to all of this. Then Wallace's words brought him up short.

 

 "Some of the old comps still work, however, and through them we can access the records of the Totality Concept as a whole, and not just our own role as weapons R&D. And so it was of some interest to me to find out that you were Dr. Theophilus Tanner. The name seemed to me to be familiar. My father, the Gen before me, had an old family tale about my ancestor who was involved with another branch of Totality, a thing called Operation Chronos. Is that familiar, Doctor?"

 

 Doc reasoned that it was pointless to lie or bluff. "Of course it is," he said as calmly as he could, but already the memories were beginning to flood back, the horror and pain dragging him to the brink of insanity. "You know about the madness that lay at the root of it, the way in which I was dragged away from my beloved Emily and my children and how I was flung forward into the chaos and evil that stalks the Deathlands."

 

 Wallace studied the papers in front of him in an offhanded manner, seeming not to notice the hysterical pitch creeping into Doc's voice.

 

 "As a matter of fact, the last reference to you just states that you were projected into the future." He looked at Doc curiously over the top of the paper. "Did you know that you were the only success? Quite remarkable."

 

 "There are other words for it."

 

 "I'm not really interested in your opinions. Only your survival. It just so happens that a vital component in one of our machines has broken down for the last time. There are no repairs that can be made to it, so we need a replacement part. You can be of some use to us."

 

 "I? How can I be of use?" Doc scoffed. "An old man out of time, prone to fits of melancholy and madness? What do I know of machines?"

 

 "Perhaps more than you know," Wallace said softly. "As soon as you and your companions arrived, I knew you would be of some use. Your great age brings the necessary wisdom. The fact that you are who you are is an unexpected bonus. For that reason you will live. If you agree to help, then your companions will also live. If not…" Wallace shrugged.

 

 Doc's face cracked wryly. "You hardly give me a choice. So be it."

 

 Wallace nodded. "Good. I will get Sarj Murphy and his guard to escort you back to your companions until we're ready for you."

 

 As the Gen bellowed Murphy's name, and the chief sec man opened the door, Doc wondered what horrors awaited him.

 

  

 

 Chapter Seven

 

  

 

 "Stupe move. Never give anything."

 

 Jak's sharp opinion was echoed by Dean, who shook his head when Doc, safely returned to the dormitory by Murphy, told them of the outcome of his interview with Wallace. It amused Doc that Murphy, obviously still remembering Panner's fate, had kept his blaster trained on him from five yards distance, not allowing the old man any scope for an attempted assault.

 

 "I disagree," Mildred said. "The crazy old buzzard has done nothing more than buy us time, but at least he's done that."

 

 Doc inclined his head. "I shall accept that with the graciousness that you no doubt intended," he murmured.

 

 "You're both right," Ryan snapped. "It was stupe in some ways, but what else could Doc do? What we need now is to work out how we get out of here."

 

 The one-eyed warrior surveyed his friends. His biggest concern was the lasting effects of the psychological weapons they had endured. Physically they weren't in too bad shape. His balls still hurt like hell, but the rest of his wounds were nothing more than abrasions and bruising. Running and fighting would make his balls feel like they were about to fall off, but he could stand that if it was a choice between resting them and being chilled.

 

 J.B. and Mildred were in a similar condition. Minor abrasions, nothing more. When Ryan mentioned his own injuries, J.B. winced, so he, too, may be slowed by the injuries inflicted by the cane seat. They would have to take that into account. It could make the split-second difference between escape and buying the farm.

 

 Dean had been left more or less alone, his "reward" for telling Murphy who he was, Ryan figured. Doc was okay. That was a weird one. What did these coldhearts have in mind for him? Old tech could mean anything, if it was still working.

 

 Ryan looked across the room at Krysty, who was lying on a bed, trying to get some sleep. She was bruised and had a split lip where Murphy had whipped her with that ring hand he loved to use. Ryan idly wondered if he would have an opportunity to cut it off and ram it up the sec man's ass before they left. It was only a passing thought. Revenge was a luxury they couldn't afford.

 

 It was Jak who worried Ryan most. He was a born fighter, with reserves of stamina and strength that belied his slender frame. But Murphy had enjoyed working on Jak. His face was marked with new scars and scabs, his lips swollen and one eye totally obscured where the flesh had puffed and discolored. His body had mostly been left alone, but he, too, had been tortured on the cane chair, and at one point he remembered being cut loose and kicked across the floor of the interrogation cell. Mildred had examined him and had found no evidence of broken bones, but she was concerned that he might have a hairline fracture of at least one rib that could cause problems.

 

 Jak caught Ryan's stare with his one good eye. He seemed to know what Ryan was thinking.

 

 "We break, leave me if slow us up."

 

 "You know better than that, Jak," Ryan said, but it was what he would have said in the circumstances. It was what any of them would have said.

 

 But he'd be damned if he'd do it.

 

 Ryan sank back on his bed. Now to wait.

 

 It was Wallace's move.

 

 IT WAS HARD to know how much time had passed. No one had a wrist chron, as they had all been taken away, and the seconds dragged. J.B. in particular found his fingers itching without blasters to strip and clean, ammo to indent and grens to check. Jak was lost without his leaf-bladed knives to clean and practice throwing.

 

 The only members of the party who seemed not to notice the time passing were Mildred and Doc, both of whom were lost in their own thoughts. Mildred was still trying to exorcise the ghost of the Klan that now haunted her dreams, while Doc was lost in some reverie of jumbled memories, the labyrinthine twists of which only he could follow.

 

 Ryan mentally ran through methods of escape. Every scenario he could imagine was played out in his mind, trying to weigh the odds and take into account their debilitated physical condition and lack of weapons.

 

 Each time he came up with the same observation— things were going to be tough, and chance would play a big factor in their success or failure. Ryan had been a fighting man long enough to know how big a role chance could play…for either side.

 

 If only he could think of a way to shorten those odds in his favor…

 

 His train of thought was cut short by Dean's sudden complaint about his grumbling stomach.

 

 "I guess it is some time since they last fed us," Krysty replied. "Time does fly by when you're having fun, doesn't it?"

 

 Ryan grinned. "Guess Dean's just a growing boy."

 

 "Aw, Dad…"

 

 "Ah, but you must feed the inner child," Doc chided, joining in the ribbing. "After all—"

 

 But Doc's comment was to be forever lost as he was interrupted by the click of the lock, and the door swung open. Murphy was standing in the doorway, a small blaster in his left fist. J.B. noted that it was 9 mm Beretta, and was blue rather than matte black. Not standard Army issue, most likely an heirloom handed down Murphy's family line. It looked pristine. Murphy may be a bastard, but J.B. couldn't help admiring the care he took of his blaster.

 

 It was something the sergeant had to have imparted to the sec men under him, as the two soldiers flanking the man also had blasters that looked to be in pristine condition. Whereas the sec men they had previously encountered had been armed with 9 mm Heckler & Koch MP-5 K blasters, these sec men had Uzi's. The H&K was a handier blaster, more compact, but J.B. had a soft spot for the Uzi. Always reliable, and quite deadly at short range.

 

 Especially if well maintained. And these blasters were gleaming. If the rest of the armory was this well maintained, then J.B. would have given anything to see it.

 

 Murphy, surveying the room, had noticed J.B.

 

 "Mr. Dix," he said, "I must apologize for the manner in which you were questioned earlier. In war there is no time for niceties. And we've been at war for a long time now. I have to say, boy, that you are a man after my own heart. You care about your weaponry, and realize that the key to any effective defense is the maintenance of a good armory. I salute you, sir."

 

 "Nice words, but they don't get me shit," the Armorer replied.

 

 Murphy bellowed a loud belly laugh. "Right on! Okay, you people, face up. Your belongings are to be returned to you—without your weapons, of course—and the Gen will give you the lowdown on our outfit and why you're needed…especially you, old man," he added, nodding in Doc's direction.

 

 "You need all that firepower just to talk to us and tell us that?" Krysty asked.

 

 Murphy inclined his head. "Lady, you may be a mutie, but even you should have worked that one out I'll bet Mr. Dix here has it sussed."

 

 J.B. fixed Murphy with a stare. "If you mean what I figure, mebbe it means that you respect us too much to take chances."

 

 "Damn, but you're a sensible man." Murphy smiled. "It's a pity you're not one of us. I could really work with someone like you. Okay. In five minutes you'll be ready to move out."

 

 With that, Murphy stepped back and nodded to his right. Two orderlies with the slack jaws of inbreeding shuffled forward carrying piles of clothing, which they flung into the room. One of them grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut.

 

 "Hurry up y'all, just five minutes," was Murphy's parting shot as the door slammed.

 

 THEY WERE READY IN LESS.

 

 All were glad to get into their familiar clothes, rather than the standard-issue Army underwear they had found when they had first awakened. Doc greeted his frock coat like an old friend, but bemoaned the lack of his walking stick.

 

 "Not expect everything," Jak remarked as he hunted through his patchwork jacket for any of the leaf-bladed knives that might have been overlooked.

 

 The sec men had been as thorough as could have been expected, once bitten.

 

 Now they had their wrist chrons back, Ryan noted that it was almost five minutes to the second when the door burst open, and Wallace walked into the room. He entered without taking any precautions, and with the air of a man who was used to his every word being obeyed. In his own kingdom he had no need to be careful. Behind him Murphy and a troop of four sec men kept the Gen covered.

 

 "Listen up, people," Wallace intoned. "We need your man Dr. Theophilus Tanner to assist us in our work, which must continue for the day when the Reds will rise again. Make no mistake, those Russkie Reds are cunning bastards and may just be lying low. In return for the doctor's help, you'll be allowed to stay here and stay alive. There's always a need to recycle, and you'll all be useful sooner or later—"

 

 There was something about the way he said it that made Mildred shiver. Back in the preskydark days, when she was involved in cryogenics, many of the medics and technicians she had worked with had used such terms, and in a similar tone of voice.

 

 "In the meantime I want you to see the facilities we have here. Just so you people know what you're up against. Now follow me."

 

 Wallace spun on his heel and waddled out of the room. As he passed Murphy, the sec chief gestured with the Heckler & Koch he was grasping. Sizing up the other four soldiers, J.B. saw that two of them clutched H&Ks, and two were holding Uzis. All five blasters were trained unwaveringly on their captives.

 

 There was a boastful and proud quality to Wallace's voice that fired hope in Ryan's heart. He was so keen to show them how strong he was that he might unwittingly reveal a weakness. A quick glance at J.B. and an almost imperceptible nod of the Armorer's head showed that he had had similar thoughts.

 

 Ryan led the way out between the sec men, who were well spaced by Murphy in order to insure that any attack couldn't be focused on more than one armed man. The group fell into their normal recce pattern, with J.B. staying back while Jak took the middle, Krysty and Dean in front of him, Mildred and Doc behind.

 

 In front, Wallace had already embarked on a long-winded lecture about the history of the redoubt, and how it had served as a research-and-development unit while still fulfilling its main purpose as part of the Totality Concept. Ryan listened with interest to this part of the lecture. Over the years he had picked up shreds of information here and there about the Totality Concept, and also about the various weapons and operations that had been part of it. He was also interested in the way that Doc fit the pattern, his interest having been piqued by the information they had discovered at Crater Lake.

 

 In many ways, this community reminded him of Crater Lake, the old scientific complex under an extinct volcano that had housed a community of inbred, mutated whitecoats. Except these people were insane in a more dangerous way, and still had a strong military discipline that would make them difficult to best.

 

 As Wallace led them through the redoubt, both Ryan and J.B. tried to keep a mental note of where the corridors led. It looked to be laid out in a similar way to most of the redoubts they had visited, but there were extra sections and more levels. They went down five levels, enduring the hostile gaze of the redoubt inhabitants, going about their daily business, as they passed. All the while Wallace kept up his litany of praise for the work his ancestors had started and that his people were continuing.

 

 "…and this is where we softened you up for interrogation. There are eight obs rooms in all, each one equipped similarly. Which was quite convenient, when you think of it, as there are seven of you…" He allowed himself a laugh. "As you know only too well, the techniques developed here are far ahead of anything you outsider scum may have."

 

 He stopped them as he reached this point in the lecture. They were in the obs room where Dr. Tricks was collecting data spilling from a chattering printer. She looked around at them and raised an elegant eyebrow. Krysty looked her up and down with a perusing eye. She wouldn't have expected to see such physical perfection in an environment where even the muscle-bound sec men and their seemingly healthy chief showed some signs of mutation or inbreeding. Was she a mutie in some way that she didn't understand?

 

 Trick had caught the end of the lecture. "There is one thing," she purred at Wallace. "For so-called outsider scum, they've proved rather adept at traveling. I'd love to know how they've learned to use the mat-trans, especially as our people have never quite worked it out."

 

 Wallace glared at her. "You know why," he snapped. "They have Dr. Tanner, and you know what is to be done with him."

 

 Tricks smiled. Krysty felt a shiver ran down her spine, and her hair snapped tight to her head, coiling protectively around her. She suddenly felt very afraid for Doc, and wondered at what cost he had bought their temporary reprieve.

 

 Wallace led them through the redoubt. They moved down another level to the R&D labs, where the advanced armory was maintained. Here he showed them the remote-control trank tank that had taken them out in the corridor, and other mobile and remote-controlled weapons. J.B. was interested despite himself at gren fixers and large-caliber blasters mounted on tracks. There were flamethrowers and laser weapons that looked as though they might, at one time, have been deadly, but were now just highly polished junk.

 

 Ryan and Jak exchanged a look. It was easy to see how the weapons had been allowed to descend to this degree of tidy disrepair by taking one look at the maintenance techs, many of whom were slack-jawed and drooling, or showing signs of too much inbreeding. The mutie genes were less obvious among these personnel —certainly nothing like the chilled maintenance man with the stickie heritage—but there was a large degree of insularity that had led to a mechanical repetition of tasks rather than understanding what they really meant.

 

 Ryan found that interesting. If they were used to a mechanical routine, then anything that threw them off might cause confusion rather than spur them into the same military and drilled action that he knew the sec men would be capable of. That was a good sign.

 

 On the eighth level they passed a laboratory that was sealed off by double-glazed and reinforced fire doors with a comp coded sec lock similar to those used on the electronic sec doors in the corridors.

 

 Strangely Wallace became reticent when they reached this point. All of a sudden he clammed up on them.

 

 "This level is where the mechanism is maintained. It was the great work for which we were trained and for which we all live. This is the work in which Dr. Tanner can help us."

 

 "Aren't you going to tell us what this is?" Doc queried.

 

 Wallace shot a venomous glance at him, and Murphy stepped forward to prod him in the ribs with the H&K.

 

 "Shut up, you old fuck. You'll find out soon enough."

 

 "Strange that you're so quiet now, though, isn't it?" Mildred asked Wallace.

 

 "There are things about the mechanism that must be kept secret for now," he said sharply. "We'll move on."

 

 It didn't escape anyone's notice that the garrulous fat man had something nasty to hide. What it was, no one could guess. One thing was for sure, it was a worry as to what was in store for Doc.

 

 Where Wallace led them next put all such thoughts out of their minds. They went up several levels, then through a maze of corridors.

 

 "And this, people, is the armory," Wallace announced proudly.

 

 Despite himself, J.B. whistled softly at the array of weaponry and ammunition on view. Boxes upon boxes of rifles, grens, ammunition, gren launchers and mortars were carefully stacked around the base of the armory walls. Hanging on racks were the in-service weapons—

Uzi, MP-5 K, M-60 machine guns, grens primed and ready for use, boxes of ammo for the greased and gleaming blasters and a variety of smaller handblasters.

 

 It was rare for an armory to still contain such an array of blasters and grens, let alone in such perfect working order and condition. The armory was a credit to Murphy and his forefathers.

 

 Jak tried to move forward to get a closer look inside the armory, but he was nudged back into place by the barrel of an Uzi. He glared at the sec man with his good eye, hatred flashing across his scarred features.

 

 "Watch it, mutie," the sec man growled.

 

 "That's enough," Wallace snapped.

 

 The sec man clicked his heels to attention and looked straight ahead. "Sir, my apologies."

 

 "Very good," Wallace murmured before turning his attention to J.B. "Mr. Dix, I understand from Sarj Murphy's report that you are the weapons expert in this little band."

 

 "Mebbe," the Armorer replied guardedly.

 

 "Come now, there's no need for modesty. A good man with a gun is always needed."

 

 J.B. raised an eyebrow. It was a long time since he'd seen or heard anyone refer to a blaster by its preskydark name.

 

 "You notice my use of the termgun ." queried Wallace. "I find it less crude thanblaster , the scum outsider term for weaponry. Too basic, too all-encompassing," he mused, shaking his head.

 

 J.B. caught a glimpse of Jak out of the corner of his eye. The albino had an expression on his face that spelled out his opinion of Wallace. It wasn't good. Ryan, on the other hand, was seriously considering the possibility that Wallace was so far gone into insanity as to just wipe them out where they stood.

 

 The big man seemed to taper off, lost in thought. Then suddenly, as though snapping back from worlds unknown, he said, "Okay, Sarj, take them back to the dorm and contain them. I'll consult the techs on the mechanism and inform you when I require Tanner."

 

 He looked at them with a detached disdain that bordered on contempt. Then, without another word, he spun on his heel and left them standing in front of the armory.

 

 Ryan watched the man waddle around the corner of the corridor, then turned his head to Murphy. The sec chief was also watching Wallace with a look of bemusement. He caught Ryan watching him, and immediately blanked his face.

 

 But not quickly enough for Ryan to wonder about his loyalty to Wallace.

 

 "Right, people, move out like the Gen said," Murphy barked, gesturing with his blaster.

 

 They turned and allowed themselves to be marched back to the dormitory. All kept their eyes wide for any sign of slack on the part of the sec men, any opportunity, no matter how slight, that might enable them to mount an escape bid.

 

 There wasn't even the whisper of a chance. Murphy's men marched them efficiently back to the dormitory and locked them in.

 

 "HOW CAN THAT GUY Wallace be so stupe?" Dean asked in amazement. "He's shown us the layout of the entire redoubt and where the armory is."

 

 "It doesn't really appear to make sense," Krysty mused. "It's hardly great sec."

 

 "It doesn't, but then why should it? Wallace is crazy. This whole redoubt is riddled with stupidity. You know that, even if you don't know why," Ryan said to Krysty. The blue of his one eye burned into her.

 

 Krysty screwed up her face. "You're right there, lover. I've got a really bad feeling about the whole situation."

 

 "So better do something," Jak added.

 

 Mildred moved over to the door and looked up at the sec camera that surveyed the room.

 

 "Yeah, but what?"

 

 "YOU, SOLDIER, get that damn door open."

 

 The soldier on guard outside the dorm snapped to attention as he heard Murphy storming toward him.

 

 "Sir?"

 

 "Don't you ever pay attention when you're at your post, soldier? What does the good book say, son? Vigilance is the sacred duty of the Sons of Sam. If the old fart is dying, then the Gen will have the both of us on a fuckin' charge. And I'm not patrolling the rad-blast wastes for a month just because you're a fuckwit."

 

 "Sir," the soldier replied uncertainly to the stream of vitriol, "but what is it, sir?"

 

 Murphy was carrying a Heckler & Koch, which he cranked up level with the door.

 

 "Monitor, son," he said shortly. "The old bastard is writhing on his bed and the medic isn't getting far. Might have a better idea if the friggin' sound worked properly, but all I can make out is friggin' static. If the old fart dies, I'm dead meat, and without anyone to succeed me yet. Open the bastard door, boy."

 

 "Sir…"

 

 Leveling his Uzi, safety off, the guard punched the lock code into the door and turned the handle. He flung the door in and adopted a combat stance, rapidly counting the figures standing in front of him.

 

 Six…and the old man was lying on one of the beds, moaning softly and clutching his guts. Damn, why hadn't he heard anything? He didn't want Murphy on his back.

 

 Seeing that all of the captives were in plain sight, Murphy rushed into the room, sweeping his blaster in an arc to cover them.

 

 "Okay, what's going on here? What's the matter with Tanner?" he asked, barely keeping the panic from his voice.

 

 Mildred turned slowly from where she had been leaning over Doc. "Appendix, I think. Unless you have the right medical facilities and allow me to operate immediately, then he'll probably die."

 

 Murphy focused on the last three words and panicked.

 

 "The hell you'll operate," he shouted. "We've got our own medics. Think we'll trust some outsider?"

 

 Ryan shrugged. "Okay, you get one of your inbred muties to do it and kill Doc off. Doesn't bother me."

 

 Murphy opened his mouth to snap back a sarcastic answer, then considered his options.

 

 "Let me take a look at him," he said, the nervousness now apparent in his voice.

 

 The sec chiefs indecision infected the guard standing in the doorway. Twitching slightly, and training his blaster on the largest grouping of prisoners—the trio of Krysty, J.B. and Dean, who stood to the left of the bed—the guard ignored Jak.

 

 An upbringing in the swamps hunting nervous and sensitive wildlife had given Jak the ability to move without seeming to do so.

 

 Murphy's attention was locked on the bed, where Ryan and Mildred stood over Doc. The guard had his attention focused on the trio clustered to the left-hand side of the room. The forgotten silent albino teen glided around the room until he was just behind the guard, in the man's blind spot.

 

 Ironically it was the sudden awareness of something being out of place that made him look around.

 

 Too late. The plates from their last meal were still piled on a plastic tray, with the plastic cutlery heaped beside them. Remnants of the inedible meal still dirtied the surface of the plates. Pieces of stringy meat from an indeterminate animal, covered in a tasteless goo that passed for a sauce, were hard and stuck fast on the surface of the plate that Jak picked from the tray and in one fluid motion flicked toward the guard.

 

 The albino was small and wiry, but years of practice with his knives had given him an incredible strength and dexterity in his wrists. He also had an unerring eye for distance, even with his vision reduced by his injuries. Instinctively he weighed the plate in his hand and directed it with the required amount of force.

 

 It may only have been made of plastic, and had an edge that was blunt, but it was also a thin plate. Tilted to a forty-five-degree angle and propelled at great speed, it had no problem in crushing the guard's septum as it hit him on the bridge of his nose. Jak was about six inches shorter than the guard, and had also crouched slightly when throwing the plate. The upward trajectory drove the septum up and into the frontal lobes of the guard's brain.

 

 Consciousness ceased almost immediately. His motor functions were a little behind, and as the guard went down, his trigger finger twitched. A spray of shells left the Uzi, scattering in an erratic arc as his dead arm was jerked around by the recoil of the blaster.

 

 "What the fu—?"

 

 Murphy never finished the curse. Blind instinct told him to hit the deck as the spray of fire flew across the room. As he went down, he cracked his head on an iron bedstead. Perhaps he would have considered it unlucky to have hit the very spot that Ryan's weighted scarf had injured earlier, but he should have considered it good luck. If he hadn't been rendered unconscious, he would most certainly have been chilled.

 

 Leaving him in an attempt to save time was something that Ryan thought he might later regret, but at that moment, the one-eyed warrior was concerned only with getting his people armed and out.

 

 "Good throw, Jak," Dean called admiringly as J.B. retrieved the Heckler & Koch, checking the downed sec chief for spare ammo.

 

 "Teach you sometime," grunted the albino as he tossed the Uzi to Ryan with one hand while searching the dead guard for additional ammunition and weapons.

 

 Doc stuck his head over the edge of the bed. When the shooting began, he had immediately ceased his agonized groaning and thrown himself over the side of the bed, taking cover beneath.

 

 "I would assume it is safe to come into the open?" he asked innocently before baring his gleaming white teeth in a wry grin. "By the by, was my performance of an acceptable standard?"

 

 "Oscar winning, Doc," Mildred replied. Then, noticing Doc's inquiring look, she dismissed the comment. "Before and after your time at the same time, Doc."

 

 The old man nodded solemnly. "A temporal reference, I have no doubt."

 

 "Stop talking in riddles, you two," Krysty said as she joined Ryan. "Any other weapons on the coldheart bastard?"

 

 Together they surveyed the paltry sum of J.B. and Jak's trawl through the pockets of the sec men—Murphy's blue 9 mm Beretta and a pocketknife from the sec chief, and a Glock 17 from the dead guard.

 

 J.B. examined it with interest. "Not usually a predark sec blaster," he mused, rapt in his subject. "Mebbe another heirloom, like the blue Beretta. Kept in good condition. Which one would you prefer, Millie?"

 

 "I'll go for the Beretta," Mildred said decisively, taking the blaster and judging the weight in her palm. "Much more accurate over a longer distance," she added.

 

 "You take this." Ryan took the Glock and handed it to Krysty. She sighted along the snubby barrel in order to gauge the weapon.

 

 Jak picked up the pocketknife and examined the blades and attachments before flicking out the one that he could inflict the most damage with. "Hope get better stuff soon," he said.

 

 It left both Dean and Doc without weapons. Ryan would rather that all his team be armed, but in the circumstances the available weapons had been distributed as well as they could be. He and J.B. switched the H&K and Uzi as each preferred the other's blaster. Mildred had been a champion shootist in her prefreezie existence, and Krysty was no slouch.

 

 They had gone about the task of distributing the available arms in an unhurried manner, but all the while they were aware of the camera, unblinking, that watched over the scenario as it was played out.

 

 Only seconds had passed, but each second was valuable.

 

 "Let's move out," Ryan ordered curtly. "I'll take point. We're heading for the armory. If we've got any chance of getting out of here, then we need to be armed. Mebbe get our own weapons back."

 

  

 

 Chapter Eight

 

  

 

 They moved out into the corridor, which was deathly quiet. There was no alarm, and no signs of life.

 

 "Same as before," Mildred breathed gently, almost afraid to break the silence.

 

 "Seems to be Wallace's favorite tactic," Ryan commented. "Try to give us enough rope for a lynching."

 

 "To hang ourselves," Krysty murmured, unconsciously correcting the one-eyed warrior whilst suppressing a shudder.

 

 Ryan could feel the tension in her as she followed directly behind him.

 

 "Get any feelings about this?" he asked.

 

 "Only bad ones. But that's all I've had since we've been here, lover—you know that."

 

 "No harm in asking," Ryan murmured. "J.B., what do you think?"

 

 "Wallace's not as stupe as he seems," the Armorer whispered from the rear, covering their backs as they proceeded down the maze of corridors. "Our own nerves'll screw us over in this quiet."

 

 "An astute point, my dear John Barrymore," Doc said at a more normal volume, which, in the exaggerated silence, sounded like a shout. "The good Gen's apparent stupidity in showing us around was perhaps just the pompous pride and illusion of a man who has had his own way too long. He thinks he is invincible, and so has no need for security within the confines of his own kingdom."

 

 "What does that mean?" Dean asked, puzzled. "You mean he's got too confident 'cause he's got no enemies in here?"

 

 "Precisely, young man."

 

 "I wouldn't bet on him not having too many enemies in here," Ryan commented, remembering the expression on Murphy's face when they stood outside the armory.

 

 No one added a comment. The atmosphere was too tense for speech. In the outside, in the mutated jungles and scrub of Deathlands, there was usually some sound, some sign of life. But in here, there was only the oppressive weight of silence, hearing strained to catch the tiniest of sounds, the slightest of giveaways as to what Wallace's plans may be.

 

 With no obstructions they were able to progress rapidly from level to level, taking the elevators.

 

 Jak was unhappy about that. "Bastard stand on roof, we chilled," he commented, shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot as they entered the empty car.

 

 "Yeah, but it's the fastest way. I'll take a look," Ryan replied. He gestured to the service door in the roof of the elevator with the barrel of his blaster. Krysty moved underneath and cupped her hands. Ryan put one boot firmly in the stirrup she had made, and boosted himself up to the roof. He pushed up hard with the tip of the blaster and flicked open the cover. The black maw of the elevator shaft gave nothing away. Unwilling to waste ammo, Ryan paused, expecting some fire in reaction to the movement…if the roof of the elevator was covered.

 

 Nothing. J.B. glanced at Jak, who nodded and flicked open the knife he had taken from Murphy. With silent grace he vaulted into Krysty's still cupped hands as Ryan hit the floor of the elevator. Before the one-eyed man had the chance to put his second foot on the floor and regain his balance, Jak had lithely disappeared through the opening, his white hair flashing in the gloom as his camou jacket blended into the darkness.

 

 He was gone for only a few seconds, during which time his movements sounded as nothing more than a skittering on the elevator roof.

 

 Just as lithely, just as silently, Jak slid back into the car, dropping to the floor with an almost noiseless impact.

 

 "No." He shook his head.

 

 "Mebbe they expect what we're going to do," J.B. said.

 

 Mildred agreed. "They'll be watching us every step of the way with those damn cameras. It must be obvious. Wallace could lay a trap for us at any place."

 

 "Mebbe we should confuse the stupe and head straight for the outside. He can see us going but mebbe won't have time to change his plans," Dean added.

 

 Ryan shook his head as he hit the elevator button for the level that housed the armory.

 

 "If we had our usual blasters and ammo, then that'd be a good move. But with all we've got? And not knowing what's on the outside of this redoubt? We'd have to be triple stupe."

 

 "Instead of double stupe by going right where he wants us?" Dean retorted.

 

 As the elevator ascended, Ryan glanced sharply at his son. He was the leader by virtue of his experience and by the consensus of the others. If there were to be challenges, then it was the wrong time for divisiveness, especially from his own son.

 

 Dean returned his father's glare with an equally heated expression of his own.

 

 Ryan's anger retreated into amusement. The boy could have been him. There was so much of Ryan Cawdor in his son that he would have to watch him in a few years. The lad would want to assert himself.

 

 But that could be dealt with when the time came. Right now they had to get the hell out of this fireblasted pesthole.

 

 Ryan grinned. "You know I'm right. You said it yourself, son. Heading for the armory is only double stupe. That's one less than heading for the outside."

 

 Dean shrugged. "Mebbe you're right," he said grudgingly.

 

 The elevator shuddered to a halt at the right level. As the door slid open, the levity of a few seconds earlier was forgotten. Split into two, the friends flattened themselves against the sides of the car, taking advantage of the scant cover provided by the control panel and intercom on each side of the elevator doors.

 

 The corridor in front of them was empty.

 

 Moving out in formation, falling into position with familiarity, they headed down the corridor.

 

 When they reached the unguarded armory, they received a shock that was more jolting than a surprise attack. The doors to the armory had been left open, and after J.B. had run an expert eye over them to check for any booby traps, Jak made his way inside while the others surveyed the corridors.

 

 Jak reappeared with a baffled expression.

 

 "What is it?" Krysty asked.

 

 "Better see for self," Jak replied.

 

 J.B. and Krysty entered the armory.

 

 "Well, what can you make of that?" Krysty whispered, bemused.

 

 J.B. shrugged. "Not worth thinking about—just act on it."

 

 He moved forward to the collection of objects that had been the cause of their bemusement. The walls and floors of the armory were, for the most part, stripped bare—with the exception of a small pile of blasters and ammunition that lay in the center of the floor.

 

 J.B. hunkered down and poked at them with the end of his blaster, in case there was any hidden trap. As he had expected by now, there was no catch. The pile consisted of the weapons they had possessed when they entered the redoubt.

 

 "What is it?" Ryan whispered, glancing over his shoulder at the armory.

 

 "Expect the unexpected," J.B. replied cryptically.

 

 Ryan furrowed his brow and looked at Doc, who shrugged.

 

 "John Barrymore—as elliptical as ever," Doc told him.

 

 The Armorer ignored the comments from outside and concentrated on the blasters in front of him. Ryan's weighted scarf was neatly coiled, and the SIG-Sauer and panga were gleaming, while the Steyr SSG-70 had been greased and loaded. His M-4000 was similarly overhauled, and the Uzi was ready for action. His knife was gleaming and freshly whetted. Best of all, his minisextant, which he had thought lost, was in the pile. He pocketed it before proceeding to examine the rest of the blasters—Mildred's ZKR, Krysty's Smith & Wesson 640, Doc's lion's-head swordstick and LeMat blaster, Dean's Browning Hi-Power, Jak's .357 Magnum Colt Python and—best of all—the full collection of leaf-bladed throwing knives, all freshly whetted.

 

 J.B. allowed himself a small smile, knowing how the taciturn Jak would be pleased to have these returned to him, but wouldn't show much sign of his pleasure. He called over his shoulder.

 

 "Wallace's up to something strange. All our blasters are here, all cleaned and loaded. Come and get them."

 

 They collected their weapons one at a time, gradually gaining confidence as the guard in the corridor increased in firepower. Yet at the same time they were all puzzling over the central problem—what was Wallace's intent in leaving nothing but their own weapons in the armory, all in full working order.

 

 It was almost as though he wanted them to escape, despite the noises he had made about needing Doc.

 

 There had to be some kind of warped thinking behind it all, but it would have been foolish not to take the opportunity to get their blasters back. J.B. finally emerged from the armory when everyone had collected his or her weaponry.

 

 "Feels better," Jak grunted, adjusting to the change in weight the knives made in his patched jacket as it hung on his lean frame. Like the others, he had discarded the weapon he had acquired earlier.

 

 They all agreed with Jak, but saved their breath, concentrating instead on staying razor keen for the slightest indication of Wallace's plans.

 

 Whatever they may be…

 

 "REMEMBER WHAT the good book says, Sarj—never shoot till you see the whites of their eyes, or eye in Cawdor's case. It's all metaphorical, of course."

 

 "Yes, sir," Murphy answered, wondering what on earth the fool was babbling about. He thought that Wallace's idea to let the others go by making them believe they were escaping and then snatching back Tanner at the last moment was a complete crock of shit. The Gen might believe that he was the cleverest man in the whole of Deathlands because of some insane hereditary right, but Murphy was sure that the outsiders wouldn't be fooled for a second. They were too battle scarred, too clever to fall for it.

 

 It galled him immensely that he had let them escape from their dormitory cell—even more so that he had lost a perfectly good man in the process. Of course, the most galling aspect was that they had taken the initiative before he had had a chance to effect his own fake escape opportunity. There was no way that he had intended to put his own man at risk, let alone himself. His head still ached, but not as much as his wounded pride. Given half a chance, he'd wipe out that one-eyed bastard and his bunch of muties and scum—the old fart included.

 

 But the work had to continue. The machine demanded a sacrifice.

 

 Murphy and Wallace stood in front of a bank of monitors in an anteroom to Wallace's office. The Gen wore his prized .44 Magnum pistol with the eight-inch polished barrel. It was a family heirloom and spent most of the time locked away in the safe that hid behind a picture of Elvis on the wall behind his desk. It was only worn in times of the most intense redoubt activity.

 

 The anteroom was the only part of the redoubt that wasn't covered by a sec camera—even the Gen's own office had a camera to survey what went on inside. The anteroom was also the only part of the redoubt that had monitors for every single camera. The sec operations were concentrated on three monitor rooms that had some overlap between them, but didn't cover the entire compound.

 

 Murphy had spent many a sleepless night pondering this when Wallace first showed him the anteroom. In the end he decided that it had to have been a preskydark directive to concentrate base power entirely in the hands of the Gen. After all, he who knew everything had ultimate power.

 

 And now he was standing here, watching the outsiders make their way toward the doors that stood between the redoubt and the outside world.

 

 The room was completely dark, lit only by the flickering images on the banks of screens. Third row down, fourth screen along, the outsiders made their way into the frame. Their body language was tight and intense.

 

 Wallace's face was illuminated by the screens, his jowls cast into shadow and the pudgy flesh under his eyes lit almost white.

 

 "They're getting closer," he said, almost to himself, pointing to the screen. "A remarkable facility for remembering direction there, boy. It's a pity we've got to let them go."

 

 "Why can't I just chill them?" Murphy asked, looking at the Gen rather than at the screen.

 

 Wallace turned sharply. "You questioning my orders, boy?"

 

 Murphy winced at the way the man's eyes bored into him. "No, sir, just curious."

 

 Wallace sighed and spoke in the tone of voice he used for the severely mutated and inbred maintenance techs.

 

 "Tanner is extremely important if the mechanism is to survive and prosper. The other outsiders could be extremely dangerous if allowed to stay. In order to separate them, it is necessary that the outsiders be allowed to escape. Any attempt at chilling them could lead to a last stand, and the possible elimination of Tanner. This would be an extremely bad thing. Do you follow me, mister?"

 

 Murphy chewed his bottom lip. There was a screwy logic to what Wallace was saying, but there was still a good chance that the old fart could get chilled. He was sure that if that happened, he'd be next.

 

 The outsiders moved across one screen and disappeared onto another, third on the right on the next row down. They were nearing the exit ramp.

 

 Wallace nudged Murphy in the ribs.

 

 "Go get 'em, boy," he said softly.

 

 Murphy managed a sickly smile.

 

 DEAN PUNCHED IN the code on the last automatic door. It opened smoothly. They were still alert, still expecting sec men behind every door.

 

 But there were none. All that lay ahead of them was the gentle incline of the exit ramp, leading up to the reinforced doors of the redoubt.

 

 "Too easy," Mildred murmured, "just too easy."

 

 "I hear you, Millie," J.B. replied quietly.

 

 Ryan didn't bother to ask Krysty what she was feeling: just one glance told him. He signaled to Dean to raise the door while he went flat to the floor, covering the gap at the bottom of the door as it began to rise.

 

 A blast of warm air, swirling with dust and grit, hit him as the door began to rise. He screwed up his eye against the stinging spray and shouldered the Steyr, ready to pick off any enemies as soon as they appeared.

 

 The door rose higher, and the wind became a gale, became a virtual hurricane. One thing had rapidly become clear: it was a bad time to mount a recce on the world outside the redoubt. It was about to get worse.

 

 ONE OF THE SIDE EFFECT of the shift in topography that had followed the early days of skydark was that many new valleys had been formed. This was one of them. The shifting of tons of earth, rock and clay had damaged some of the lowest levels of the redoubt, but had generally left the structure untouched. If nothing else, that was a tribute to the skills of the engineers who had designed the military complexes.

 

 However, there was one thing that had happened as a result of the earth shift: A small series of honeycombed caves had been formed that had intersected with the air ducts and bore holes that had been engineered for the redoubt. For several years these had been closed off, but when the air was clean enough for them to be opened once again, the military personnel had soon discovered the uses to which they could be put. Guarded by a set of sec cameras, they acted as a useful secondary route out of the redoubt for any raiding parties. This had been of particular use when early outside settlers had laid siege to the main door of the redoubt.

 

 Although such tactics hadn't been necessary for some time, Wallace was a keen student of history.

 

 Murphy cursed this aspect of his commanding officer's personality as he led the small troop of sec men through the narrow maze of tunnels. The dust hanging in the air was choking and bit at their eyes. Some of the men were coughing heavily, and Murphy suppressed the urge to vomit as the dust caught in his craw.

 

 It was typical of Wallace to think of such a labyrinthine plan. Let them raise the outer door, then ambush them from above, making sure to pick them off or drive them away while separating Tanner.

 

 Murphy kept up his stream of invective as the troops reached the mouth of the cave, suspended on a ledge over the entrance to the redoubt. He indicated to his men to fan out onto the rocks on either side.

 

 He heard the door start to rise above the howl of the wind. It was a metallic sound as the edges of the metal door caught on the reinforced-concrete-and-steel frame.

 

 Murphy lifted the barrel of his Uzi and kissed it for luck.

 

  

 

 Chapter Nine

 

  

 

 "Fireblast! This is the last thing we need!"

 

 Ryan's angered roar was lost in the howling of the dust storm as it hit them full force. J.B. jammed his fedora firmly on his head and inched toward Ryan, every step impeded by the sheer force of the dust and grit as it whipped around the lenses of his glasses and hit him in the eyes, drying and scratching them.

 

 "Can't go back now," he yelled into the one-eyed warrior's ear. "Have to fan out and take whatever cover there is."

 

 Ryan nodded his agreement, although without any degree of enthusiasm. J.B. was right, but Ryan knew that the Armorer was suggesting this course of action for the same reason that he would adopt it: there was no option.

 

 He gestured with the Steyr, and the group moved out with the ease and practice that came with long survival in the chilling fields of the Deathlands. Ryan went first, squinting against the dust storm to identify any kind of cover. He saw it in the form of a small hummock of earth with a sparse covering of grass. He headed for it, waiting for an attack from any source.

 

 The swirling dust made everything disorienting. Ryan rolled behind the hummock, taking cover and sighting over the spare blades of grass with the Steyr.

 

 There was nothing.

 

 Looking back toward the entrance of the redoubt, he could see that it had either sunk into the earth, or the earth had risen around it, so that they were in a small enclave that rose at a fairly steep gradient. He had guessed as much from the pull on his calf muscles as he ran.

 

 Despite the opaque air, filled with dust and grit, it was possible to see that a bright sun burned down on the enclave despite the cooling effect of the wind. It illuminated the dust in rays of light and enabled Ryan to get a better view of the rock face that lay above the redoubt entrance.

 

 While he had been scanning the area, Mildred and Jak had moved out to seek cover. He lost sight of them in the shadows and frowned. It wasn't good practice not to know where his friends were stationed.

 

 The storm was so noisy that he couldn't call to them if necessary. Krysty and Doc moved out, then Dean and finally J.B., bringing up the rear. They should all be undercover, in a rough V shape, radiating from the entrance to the redoubt. From there, they'd move together at the head of the enclave and group together.

 

 Which would be a whole lot easier if not for the dust storm.

 

 Ryan scanned the rocks above the redoubt. It all seemed calm and empty, but his eye pierced the opacity of the storm with a burning suspicion. If this was regular weather for this stretch of land, then it wouldn't surprise him if the local baron and his sec men were out patrolling their land.

 

 His sharp vision saw the glint of a blaster barrel as it caught a glimpse of sunlight that filtered through the dust. A fraction of a second later came the sharp crack of Mildred's ZKR.

 

 Obviously Mildred had the same suspicions.

 

 Chips of rock joined the grit and dust in the swirling air, and the barrel disappeared.

 

 The staccato rattle of a Heckler & Koch MP-5 K cut through the howl of the storm, the short burst kicking up chunks of dry earth and pebbles from around the sparse cover Mildred had been able to find.

 

 The spray of bullets fanned in such a way that Ryan was instantly aware that they had come from the opposite direction to that in which Mildred had fired her blaster. So they were covered from above by a group of sec men in a formation similar to their own.

 

 Tactically it was almost a stalemate. The problem was, they were underneath the other group, closed in.

 

 "Dad! They're moving down!"

 

 Dean's yell cut through the storm, and Ryan was aware of his son as a blur across the floor of the enclave, tracked by sprays of H&K and Uzi fire that crisscrossed. It was only because of his speed in changing direction that Dean was able to attain cover about twenty yards from where his father was positioned.

 

 "What the hell are you doing?" Ryan yelled at the boy. "Never break cover."

 

 "There wasn't any, and they were moving behind me," Dean snapped back. "And they're sec men from the redoubt!"

 

 For a fraction of a second, Ryan was taken aback, wondering how they got out of the redoubt and into position. No point wasting time thinking about that, though. They were there, and that was enough.

 

 He whirled, his hand snaking to the panga on his thigh and clutching the handle as he became aware of a shuffling sound behind him.

 

 The panga was raised to strike when a flash of white hair and red eyes made Ryan drop the weapon to his side.

 

 "Closing in," Jak said, hunkering down beside Ryan. The Colt Python was in his fist, looking huge and heavy in that small hand. "Moving in like pincer. Their land, too," he added meaningfully.

 

 Ryan nodded. "How many?"

 

 "Count seven, mebbe eight. No more."

 

 "Even numbers, then. More or less. Okay, we've got to get through that channel before they can close us down," Ryan said, indicating the narrow inclined path leading out of the enclave.

 

 Jak pursed his lips. "Move quick, shoot fast. Sec men slack enough for us see, so mebbe chance."

 

 It was a good point. Ryan looked back over the hummock. There was a sporadic crackle of Uzi and H&K fire punctuating his brief discussion with Jak. He could see that J.B. and Krysty had moved up to join Dean and Mildred so that they were only twenty yards away.

 

 There was no sign of Doc.

 

 "Where's Doc?" he whispered.

 

 "Lost in storm?" Jak mused. "Let me look." Then he disappeared from Ryan's side and into the swirl of dust and grit.

 

 And into someone else's trouble.

 

 MURPHY'S MEN HAD the advantage of old tech radios that kept them in touch. The compact devices spluttered and buzzed in the rad-riddled air, cutting out where old transistors began to fail, but they gave Murphy an edge he knew Cawdor and his people didn't have.

 

 This should be simple. And if the outsiders just happened to get chilled by accident as they recovered Tanner? Well, that was just too bad, wasn't it? As long as Wallace got the old fart, he wouldn't moan too loudly.

 

 Murphy raised the radio to his mouth. "Pergolesi, can you hear me?"

 

 "Yes, sir," came a tinny voice, crackling over the static.

 

 "Try and pick off Cawdor. Chill the one-eyed fucker."

 

 "YES, SIR… And fuck you, too," Pri SecClass Pergolesi muttered as he slid the radio into the pocket of his combat vest. He raised his H&K and took sight at the one-eyed man. How the hell did that madman Murphy expect him to pick off anyone in these conditions with the first shot? And face it, that was all he'd get before fire was returned.

 

 He saw the blurred figure move around as he started to squeeze the trigger, unaware of the sun glinting off the H&K's snubby barrel.

 

 The crack of the ZKR and the whine of the bullet as it took chips off the rocks in front of him made Pergolesi fall backward, swearing to himself. He heard the radio squawk in his pocket and the chatter of H&K fire from the other side of the enclave.

 

 Damn, Murphy would have his hide for this.

 

 MURPHY WAS TOO CONCERNED with his mission going to hell to worry about Pergolesi at that moment. After ordering return fire from the other point of his patrol, he directed his men to form into a pincer and close on the group in the enclave, forcing them toward the narrow exit from the small valley. It would be relatively easy to pick them off from there.

 

 "Leave the old fart to me," he yelled savagely into his radio. "I can't trust any of you mothers to get it right, can I? Shit, if you want something done, you just have to do it yourself… Now jump!"

 

 He slid his own radio into a pocket and checked the clip on his Uzi. It was full. He kissed the barrel again, even though it hadn't brought him much luck first time around, and left the cover of the rocks.

 

 One thing Ryan had been correct about was that Murphy and his sec men were used to the conditions, each generation having been blooded in the enclave by their forefathers as they learned the hard art of defending the redoubt and the mechanism. Despite the discomfort of the conditions, each man moved confidently across the terrain, making much better time than any of the outsiders.

 

 For his own part, Murphy was down on the floor of the enclave before Doc even had a chance to move out. The conditions and sudden blasterfire had a bad effect on Doc, taking his fragile psyche back to the psychological battering of the trank darts and comp torture. As he shielded his eyes from the dust storm, he felt as if he were back in the dark, wind-battered tunnel with Lori…or was it his beloved Emily?

 

 "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…or does it, indeed? Are you, perchance, the Snark my friend, or merely a Boojum?" Doc, quietly chuckling to himself, asked the figure that gradually took shape in the dust.

 

 "Madman," Murphy muttered dismissively, raising his Uzi to barrel whip the old man into submission.

 

 Like many another enemy, he had underestimated the seemingly old man. Despite his apparent fragility—both of mind and body—Doc Tanner had reserves of whip-cord strength that could, in an emergency, prove to be of use as a surprise.

 

 Murphy brought the barrel around in a down-sweeping arc, aiming for Doc's jaw. As the old man brought his lion's-head swordstick up to parry, the barrel of the Uzi was deflected, hitting the edge of a rock and sending a painful jolt up Murphy's forearm until it hit his elbow. The weakened joint buckled, and Murphy yelped in pain and surprise.

 

 Doc rose to his feet, drawing the LeMat pistol and pointing it in Murphy's direction.

 

 The sec chief stumbled as he tried to regain his balance and level the Uzi. It was only blind fortune that saved him. A bit of grit from the floor of the enclave caught in a crosswind and whirled viciously between the two men, catching Doc in the eyes. It disturbed his aim enough for the loud and resounding explosion of the shot to discharge harmlessly over Murphy's head as the sec chief regained his poise. He crouched, coming under Doc's outstretched arm with the stock of the Uzi turned toward the old man, angled upward as he drove forward.

 

 The stock caught Doc under the ribs, driving the air from his lungs and jarring his heart. Doc's eyes widened, his mouth grotesquely distorted as he exhaled every breath of oxygen within him. The only thought he could muster was to try to start breathing again as he hit the rocks and the dry earth in a sitting position. He dropped the LeMat and swordstick, his arms clutching at his aching guts.

 

 Murphy pressed home his advantage, bringing the barrel around to crack Doc's jaw. A light went out in the old man's eyes as he slumped into unconsciousness.

 

 Shouldering his Uzi, sticking the LeMat into the waistband of his camou pants and stowing the sword-stick in his belt, Murphy leaned over and picked up the old man with a strength that made Doc's deadweight seem like a feather.

 

 He was paying little attention to the fighting that was sporadically breaking out at the head of the valley, and so didn't notice the white wraith that drifted toward him…

 

 JAK WALKED PAST the sec men as though they weren't there. Their attention was focused on attaining the head of the enclave. As a result they weren't expecting anyone to go through their ranks in the opposite direction, heading back to the redoubt.

 

 Jak had spent his whole life hunting or being hunted, and so found it simple to take the scattered rocks and the opaque storm as cover, flitting across the ground and blending with the rocks and hummocks along the way.

 

 The gathering of sec men at the head of the valley, and their attempt to stop the group attaining open ground beyond, wasn't his problem. Like the rest of the companions, Jak trusted the abilities of the others implicitly, and knew that they would either overcome the obstacles or perish in the effort. Life was that simple.

 

 His task now was simply to find Doc and try to get him back to the others.

 

 Jak's impaired vision meant that he heard the fight before he saw it, and he zeroed in on the noise. He heard Doc's loud exhalation, Murphy's grunt of effort and the crack of the Uzi on Doc's jaw. Small noises told him that Murphy was in no rush to finish his business. The scufflings were unhurried, and Jak crouched low to the ground, moving noiselessly across the earth. He paused behind a hummock to see Murphy heave Doc over his shoulder and turn back toward the redoubt's entry door.

 

 The albino teen leveled his Colt Python, sighting along the silver barrel. He cursed silently through gritted teeth as Doc's swaying and unconscious form blocked his line of fire. He wouldn't risk hitting the old man.

 

 Holstering his blaster, Jak moved out from behind the hummock and across the enclave with a fluid and silent grace.

 

 Murphy was slowed considerably by carrying Doc, and so Jak was able to catch up on him quickly. Like magic, a leaf-bladed knife of lethal sharpness sprang into his hand seemingly from nowhere. It would be simple for him to spin the unsuspecting sec chief as he reached the redoubt entrance and chill him before taking Doc back to the others.

 

 He was within three yards of Murphy, poised as the sec chief fed in the sec code to open the redoubt door, when he heard the slightest noise behind him.

 

 Jak whirled to come face-to-face with an ancient, battered and home-repaired blaster. The black hole at the end of the barrel was pointing straight between his eyes.

 

 "I've got no love for that bastard, cully, but if you don't put that knife away now, your brains are going to be just so much water on the soil."

 

  

 

 Chapter Ten

 

  

 

 If, as he suspected, they were evenly matched in terms of numbers, then why the fireblasted hell were they suddenly getting volleys of blasterfire coming from behind them?

 

 Ryan ducked behind the hummock, uncertain of which was the greater enemy. The new blasterfire was coming from the head of the enclave, and by the manner in which it flew over the heads of the group, kicking up no dust or earth around them, it was clear that it was aimed at the sec men from the redoubt. There was no chance that the newcomers' aim could be that bad.

 

 No one survived long in Deathlands without the ability to shoot at least reasonably.

 

 Ryan cursed the dust storm that seemed unwilling to relent for even a second. The fragments of stone and earth whirling through the air stung his good eye, wormed their way under the patch that covered the empty socket and bit into the dead flesh. A line of sandy deposit formed, which irritated the long scar that bit into his cheek, from empty eye to jaw.

 

 Worst of all, the clouds of dust, earth and stone moved around in the air, obscuring the movements of his enemies coming from the redoubt, making it impossible to see where these newcomers were positioned.

 

 Ryan made a head count—there was just enough visibility in the air to enable him to do that. Doc was missing, and Jak had gone in search of him. Two down.

 

 To his left he could see Krysty behind an outcropping. She was trying to pick off sec men, using her blaster sparingly in the poor visibility to preserve ammo. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed that her mane of red hair wasn't so much being tossed by the storm as fighting against it, whirling wildly around her head.

 

 A few short yards away, Dean was taking cover behind a grassy hummock. His Browning Hi-Power was a good defensive weapon, but not the best blaster for these kinds of conditions. He, too, was using his blaster sparingly, trying to pick off the opposing sec men as they appeared through the confusion caused by the storm.

 

 On the opposite side of the enclave, Mildred and J.B. were almost completely obscured from his view. He knew they were slowly moving toward his position, as their blasterfire was gradually changing direction.

 

 He caught a glimpse of J.B.'s fedora, and the glint of a stray ray of sunlight on his spectacles. The Armorer was grim faced, the battle to maintain a defense in the face of the prevailing conditions etched into the concentration on his visage. He was walking in a low crouch from a small crop of boulders toward a pile of bare earth and rock that couldn't even be graced with the title hummock. It would be barely enough to cover him, but it would suffice.

 

 If he ever got there.

 

 Through the obscured floor of the valley, Ryan caught a glimpse of someone moving parallel to J.B. along a small rut that was cut into the almost sheer hillside. No human being should have been able to move along the rut as this man did—he ran almost heel-and-toe with a grace and poise that wouldn't have disgraced a mutie goat, even presuming that a mutie goat would be able to keep its balance on such a narrow rut in the first place.

 

 The man was about five-two or -three, and dressed in a collection of rags that seemed to swathe rather than clothe him. The layers could hide any number of weapons, although from what little Ryan could see the man was, at the moment, unarmed.

 

 He was about a hundred yards behind J.B. when Ryan first caught sight of him. But while the Armorer was stumbling slowly across the terrain, the man on the narrow ledge moved swiftly and was sure of foot. He seemed to pay no attention to the storm raging around him, nor to the blasterfire that echoed and ricocheted around the enclave.

 

 He was single-minded about his target.

 

 As the man drew level with J.B., Ryan raised the Steyr and tried to draw a bead on the Armorer's ragged pursuer.

 

 It was then that he felt the cold metal on his neck, a round, hollow shape pressing into the carotid artery. Not enough pressure to hurt, just hard enough to know that it was there.

 

 He smelled the stale breath before the whispered words echoed in his ear.

 

 "I wish you no harm as yet, my friend, but if you don't drop your blaster, then your blood will fertilize this tainted earth for no avail."

 

 "DARK NIGHT," J.B. muttered under his breath as he stumbled yet again on the treacherous floor of the enclave. Trying to reach the head of the small valley was an option that now seemed like no option at all. His spectacles were covered with dust, and his eyes stung. He held the Uzi across his chest as he ran, ready to spin the blaster in any direction should the need arise.

 

 But what direction? The storm was making everything a disorienting experience. So far he had been able to make out Murphy's sec men in the fog of dust and grit. He had a bearing for where Ryan was holed up at the head of the small valley, and he made for it. Millie should be somewhere behind him, and he had heard Dean call out at some point. The youngster was like his father—keen to take responsibility for his companions, expecting the same of them in return.

 

 A shower of pebbles and earth from above and to his right snapped J.B. back from the reverie into which he had unwittingly fallen—a sign, perhaps, of fatigue.

 

 The Armorer spun to his right, pulling the Uzi into position and squinting into the storm. He would fire if he was certain, but he didn't want to chill Dean or Jak by accident, and that was exactly the sort of move they might pull.

 

 J.B. had expected to see either of those two, or more likely one of Murphy's sec men whom he could chill in an instant. The very last thing he had expected was what appeared to be a flying bundle of rags that leaped from off the seemingly sheer face of the valley and hurtled toward him with a shrill scream that cut through the whirling howl of the dust-storm wind.

 

 It was impossible and had to have been a trick of his reflexes blunted by the storm and shock, but it seemed as though the bundle of rags increased its velocity through the air in order to beat him to the punch.

 

 The Uzi was level with the flying figure as it cannoned into him, an arm knocking the blaster to one side. J.B.'s finger flexed instinctively on the blaster's trigger, sending a hail of fire to bite ineffectively into the side of the enclave.

 

 The Armorer didn't notice the waste of precious ammo. He was far too busy trying to fight off the flying bundle, which became a whirling dervish of muscle as it hit him, slamming him to the ground so that his spine jarred and the breath was squeezed from painfully constricted lungs. J.B. felt as though he had to have lost a couple of ribs, the pain was so sharp as he tried to draw breath.

 

 The ragged bundle was now on top of him, pinioning him to the earth. The strips of old clothing were wrapped around the figure in such a way as to obscure its true size. It could have been a small man, or a fat-bellied giant. Certainly the impact on J.B. had made him sure it was the latter at first, but now he wasn't as sure. As the figure lay across him, and the shock of the impact died down to a throbbing throughout his body, J.B.'s instincts kicked in.

 

 The figure wasn't much taller than he was. Their faces were level, and he could feel the other's feet on his own as the attacker lay on top of him. The weight of the attacker wasn't crushing him now that they were hand-to-hand, so he guessed that his assailant was probably about the same build and weight as himself.

 

 The rags were layered and swathed around the figure's head and face so that only the eyes were showing. They glittered with determination and not a little madness as they bored into J.B. And yet there was something in them…

 

 It wasn't a total surprise for J.B. when the voice that emerged from the swaddling was female.

 

 "If you value your life, at least for the short time to come, then you will not resist me."

 

 The voice was sibilant, hissing with a cleft-palate lisp that made it sound even more threatening than the circumstances dictated.

 

 The eyes and voice had momentarily hypnotized the Armorer to the extent that he didn't, for a second, feel her hands as they darted across his body. His knife was unsheathed with a practiced ease, and the Smith & Wesson M-4000 was slipped from its secure moorings. The pockets of ammo that were located all over his body were also probed.

 

 "You will come with me now, away from this hole and into the valley. It is… milder…there. We wish to talk with you."

 

 J.B. found himself nodding agreement with the biting voice even though all his instincts were telling him to fight back, his muscles refused to respond, almost paralyzed by the hypnotic tones.

 

 Suddenly the woman on top of him stiffened, her muscles contracting. Her eyes lost contact with his for a fraction of a second before J.B. heard a dull thud, and the eyes closed.

 

 He felt instantly as though his strength were restored to him, and he rolled the unconscious body off him.

 

 MILDRED WYETH WAS starting to feel really angry. As if it wasn't bad enough that the idiot Murphy's sec men had them pinned down, and this damn dust storm made it impossible to see more than two feet in front of your nose, now it seemed as though a third faction had joined the fray. She had no idea who they were and where they might have come from. Neither did she care. They were another obstacle between the companions and freedom. Holding the ZKR with the poise and assurance that had made her an Olympic silver medalist in predark times, Mildred made her way from cover to cover, knowing that J.B. was in front of her, and—hopefully— Doc behind. How the old man would cope in these conditions worried her. His fragile psyche had taken a battering in the past few days. Sure, all of them had been victim to the same method of torture, but Doc was closer to the edge than most. Hell, most of the time he was well and truly over that edge. And yet the old man had shown time and again reserves of physical and mental strength that had astounded her.

 

 But right now she had herself to worry about. To her right a small pile of gravel littered the earth.

 

 She looked up sharply, leveling the ZKR where she expected to see one of Murphy's sec men. Instead she saw a bundle of rags head past her, tripping along a narrow track that a rat would have trouble keeping a footing on, let alone a human being.

 

 "Well, I'll be…" she murmured to herself. The figure was heading toward J.B.'s cover. If she squinted hard enough, Mildred could just make out the Armorer's fedora and a blurred shape beneath that could be his darkly clad body merging into the cover he had taken. She saw him move off into the open, heading for the next piece of cover.

 

 Then she saw the ragged figure gain ground on him with a sense of purpose.

 

 "Shit, John, do I have to get you out of everything?" she whispered before setting off at a brisk trot in pursuit of the ragged figure.

 

 A sudden volley of shots from above diverted her attention from what was happening in front of her. Spinning on her heel, Mildred dived for cover…except that there wasn't any, the sniper had caught her out in the open.

 

 She hit the ground hard, taking the impact on her shoulder and using it as momentum to pitch and roll. Her heavy coat, pockets burdened, slowed her fractionally as she came up on her knees, holding the ZKR in front of her in a two-handed grip. From the manner in which the ground had spurted around her as she fell and rolled, she had calculated that the sniper would be to her left and about twenty feet up.

 

 Her eyes raked the face of the valley, trying to locate the sec man before he had a chance to get his eye in and chill her.

 

 There…she could see the barrel of his H&K resting on top of a rock, his head clearly visible.

 

 She took aim. The sec man had taken off his protective helmet in order to get closer in to his blaster, resting the stock against his cheek. His sparse, cropped dark hair was rippling in the howling wind.

 

 Mildred ignored the spray of earth around her that joined the storm-tossed detritus as the sec man blasted at her, trying to get his aim right. Gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes to sight along the ZKR, Mildred got him perfectly within her range. Breathing deeply and slowly to try to counter the adrenaline rush in her guts, she applied a gentle but firm pressure to the trigger of her blaster.

 

 She was quick but wasn't careless. There was no way she was going to waste the two shots that could save her life.

 

 Mildred squeezed off the two rounds. The first caught the sec man on the scalp, making him jerk to one side with pain and surprise. The second had originally been intended to hit him just beneath the right eye—exposed, as he had been sighting her through his left. However, the shock and jolt of the scalp wound caused him to move in such a way that his head shifted toward the line of the bullet, which caught him just beneath the nose. The lead ripped through his top lip, breaking open his palate with a splintering of bone and a pulping of soft flesh. The bone splinters ricocheted around the sinus cavities as his nose powdered under the impact. Bone shards followed the bullet as it drove into his brain.

 

 Mildred didn't have time to watch him die. As soon as she saw him spin for a second time, she knew that he was already dead. By the time his corpse slumped over the rocks and slid down the face of the valley, dragged down by its own deadweight, Mildred was already headed toward J.B. and the ragged figure.

 

 It had taken only a couple of seconds to dispel the danger to herself, but it was long enough for the ambulatory bundle of rags to catch up to the stumbling Armorer and throw itself at him.

 

 Mildred prayed that the howling winds would drown out her footsteps, even though she ran with as light a step as she could manage. The figure was now on top of J.B., facing in the opposite direction to her, so at least it couldn't sight her as she tried to make ground.

 

 She cursed the bundle of rags for being so shapeless and flowing. There was no way she could risk a shot as the rags spread out over the prone Armorer, making it impossible for her to delineate where the attacker ended and J.B. began.

 

 The hissing sounds of low speech reached her ears when she came within range. Why wasn't John trying to fight back?

 

 Without breaking stride or pausing for thought, Mildred tossed the ZKR in the air, catching it by the barrel and preparing to use the butt as a club. As she came within a few strides, she was sure that the bundle of rags could hear her, as it seemed to suddenly pause and incline its head.

 

 But Mildred was quicker, bringing the butt crashing down on where she thought the skull would be located under the rags. She felt some satisfaction as the slumping figure fell off J.B. He looked up at her like a man waking from sleep.

 

 "What was that about, John?" she asked by way of greeting. The smile on her face, however, faded quickly as she felt the pricking of a sharpened blade penetrate through the thick coat on her back and draw a bead of blood in her lumbar region. The warm blood trickled across and down, mixing with the sudden cold sweat.

 

 "Drop the blaster, missy. I don't think Tilly is going to be too happy with you when she comes around—if you haven't broke her bastard skull."

 

 Mildred raised her hands and let her pistol fall to the ground.

 

 She looked at J.B., who was still seemingly dazed, and shrugged.

 

 "Some days you just shouldn't get up. Am I right?"

 

 KRYSTY STAYED behind the rock, keeping as much of the open space as she could see through the swirling dust clouds. Through the roar and howl of the storm she could hear scattered shooting and the yelling of voices. Roughly estimating the size of the enclave from what she had seen so far, she figured that it wasn't that large, which made it all the more frightening that she couldn't see what was going on a few yards in front of her. But she had heard Dean's shouted exchange with his father, and watched the boy zigzag past her to find cover. She knew that Ryan was waiting for them at the pass out of the enclave, and wondered how they would all get to somewhere they couldn't even see.

 

 Her ears were sharp enough to detect the distances between the different sounds of blasterfire and movements that she could hear in the enclave. Sharp enough to tell when someone was running toward her.

 

 Krysty whirled to face the direction of the sound and leveled her blaster.

 

 "It's me," Dean whispered as he appeared through the curtain of the storm, his Browning raised and on the defensive.

 

 "Gaia! I nearly chilled you, Dean," Krysty replied, dropping the blaster from its targeted spot over Dean's chest.

 

 "Had to move quickly. They're gaining ground on us all the time," Dean said breathlessly as he slid in next to her behind the rock. "Dad's waiting at the pass, Jak's gone back to try and find Doc 'cause he's gone missing. Don't know about J.B. or Mildred. This storm is slowing us up."

 

 Dean reacted with concern when he saw the way that Krysty's fiery red hair was moving about, coiling in tendrils about her head, neck and shoulders.

 

 "Something wrong?"

 

 She nodded. "Not sure what. But something other than what we're prepared for."

 

 "Murphy's sec men know this land well—and seeing as they got outside before us, I reckon it's not too hard to see how they could get the upper hand on this terrain. We should expect anything from them."

 

 Krysty smiled at Dean. He was learning fast, but still hadn't quite caught up.

 

 "Trouble is, I don't think it's Murphy's men that we've got to look out for."

 

 Dean frowned. "Then who?"

 

 "Good question, young'an. Mebbe I can give you an answer."

 

 Both Krysty and Dean froze at the voice from behind them. Sure, it was possible that one of them, in the noise and confusion of the storm and the fighting, may have missed the sound of an approach from the rear, but for both of them to miss it entirely bespoke a silent enemy to be reckoned with.

 

 "Now, if you want to draw more than one more breath, I'd suggest that you drop those there blasters and turn around real slow, like."

 

 Dean and Krysty both complied, the woman's hair curling tightly and protectively to her neck.

 

 "Say, looks like you're a mutie, lady," said their captor wonderingly.

 

 "Does it make a lot of difference?" she asked, her voice tight with the tension that coursed through her.

 

 "Mebbe, mebbe not," the voice replied. "Guess it doesn't matter a damn. Not really. Just curious. Now, if you'll be so good as to turn around…"

 

 "Guess we don't have much choice," Krysty muttered as both she and Dean turned slowly to face their captor.

 

 He was a giant of a man, nearly seven feet and at least four hundred pounds. The homemade blaster he held in both hands was a gigantic weapon fashioned of what seemed to be two old motorcycle exhausts welded together and bound with wire. The stock appeared to be a burned and scarred old lump of timber, and the trigger was like a rusty old nail.

 

 It seemed to be the sort of device that would explode in its user's hands when the slightest pressure was applied to the trigger. The trouble was, with a blaster that size, the surrounding area would also get wasted. And that included them.

 

 "Okay, now that we're all friendly, like, I suggest we get the hell out of here before that hell-spawn catch up with either us or you—depending on who they're after."

 

 "Oh, it's us all right," Krysty said.

 

 "Well, now, I guess that's not up to me to decide." There was something about the way he said it as he looked them up and down that made Krysty's skin crawl. Then he continued in a less disturbing tone of voice. "Those sure are nice blasters you got there. Be a shame to waste them, so why don't you just pick them up by the wrong end and carry them stretched out in front of you, like."

 

 He waited until they had done so. "All right, so let's move on out of here."

 

 "What if the sec men from the redoubt attack us now?" Krysty asked.

 

 "Then you get chilled. So the sooner we head out, the better." The giant chuckled cheerfully to himself.

 

 "That makes me feel so much better," Dean mumbled as they began to walk.

 

 The sounds of blasterfire and shouting decreased in frequency and volume as they trudged the few hundred yards to where Ryan was waiting at the head of the only track out of the enclave. Like them, he was covered by an antique and home-repaired blaster.

 

 Ryan exchanged questioning glances with Krysty, who tried to convey to him in a simple gesture that she couldn't figure out what was going on, either.

 

 J.B. and Mildred emerged from the opaque blanket of swirling dust and dirt, carrying between them what appeared to be a bundle of rags. The giant covering Krysty and Dean shook his head and clicked his tongue softly.

 

 "Wouldn't like to be them," he said softly.

 

 Krysty took one look at the face of the man with the bayoneted Lee Enfield who stalked behind Mildred and J.B. and agreed silently.

 

 Before the Armorer and Mildred had a chance to say anything, Jak emerged from the storm, followed by a squat man whose blaster was trained in the middle of Jak's back.

 

 "Okay, let's move out," said the man covering Ryan, his eyes darting sharply across the dust-shrouded enclave.

 

 They all noticed that Doc was missing. Jak shrugged as their eyes asked the question.

 

  

 

 Chapter Eleven

 

  

 

 Doc emerged from unconsciousness with a groan. It had been a coma so deep, albeit short, that for minutes he had been aware of nothing. Not even blackness.

 

 The old man realized that his mouth tasted of the sour salt that was dried blood. His eyes felt heavy, and his head ached in a strangely throbbing manner. He opened one eye cautiously, and the reason for the throbbing became obvious.

 

 Doc was hanging upside down over Murphy's shoulder. At least he assumed it to be Murphy, as it was the sec chief who had rendered him unconscious.

 

 Next he was aware of both an artificial quality to the light and the absence of both wind and grit scouring his skin.

 

 They were back in the redoubt…

 

 "I'll say one thing for you, old fart—you've got damn good powers of recovery for someone your age," Murphy said, failing to keep the admiration out of his voice as he felt Doc's weight shift on his shoulder. "Though from what I hear, you aren't as old as you look…or maybe older, if you want to be strictly accurate."

 

 Murphy chuckled and stopped, lowering Doc until the old man was back on his feet. Doc took an uncertain step to try to regain equilibrium. Murphy, sensing that, unlike earlier shams, Tanner was really at a loss to fight back, helped the old man to steady himself.

 

 "I would thank you for your kind assistance, if not for the fact that it is you who is responsible for my current condition," Doc muttered as he gingerly felt the side of his face that ached. It was already swollen.

 

 "Don't worry, I didn't hit you hard enough to break anything. The Gen would have me recycled if I'd harmed you permanently in any way," Murphy said grimly. "You're a very important person to him, so I had my orders. And we always go by the regs down here."

 

 There was something in the way he said it that made Doc start. Was that irony in his tone? A suspicion that may be worth filing away for later.

 

 Doc bowed mockingly—and regretted it instantly. "I always believe on congratulating a craftsman who knows his art," he murmured.

 

 "Better believe it, bub. I could've harmed you without blinking," Murphy said, this time without a trace of irony, as he examined his rings, rubbing the skull ring with a kind of pride. "I know just the right amount of pressure or force for any blow."

 

 "That I can only too well believe," Doc replied ruefully. Then, looking around him, added, "I would assume that you were instructed to bring me back at the expense of my companions because of whatever madness Wallace has in mind?"

 

 Murphy adopted a rueful expression rather than protesting Doc's words.

 

 "I take your point," Doc said simply. "You need have no fears about any form of resistance from me at this point. In the words of old vids, it would be futile."

 

 Doc's eyes strayed to Murphy's waistband, which held both the LeMat and the swordstick.

 

 "Then let's get going," Murphy said, gesturing in front of them.

 

 "Yes, let us," Doc added with a theatrical lack of enthusiasm before starting to walk down the corridor, Murphy's footsteps echoing a fraction of a second behind his own.

 

 WALLACE WAS SITTING behind his desk, agitated and fussing over piles of paperwork when Doc entered his office, preceded by a brisk knock from Murphy. The sec chief brought up the rear, closing the door behind them.

 

 "Sir, prisoner Tanner," he barked.

 

 Wallace looked up from the paperwork, his hands freezing over sheets the relevance of which had ceased to be of importance many decades before. Like everything else in the redoubt, it was something Wallace did as a ritualistic task.

 

 "Prisoner?" he replied softly. "Dr. Tanner is our guest, our honored guest. Without him there can be no hope for the mechanism. He was sent as a sign that there is still a point, a purpose to our existence. He is a sign that our work can still continue."

 

 Doc raised an eyebrow. "And what, pray tell, is this work that I can help you to continue? Why me?"

 

 Wallace smiled. It had that cold, leering quality often ascribed to the shark, but no shark could convey the sinister undertone of madness in Wallace's eyes.

 

 "You will see in time, Doctor. But first—" he turned to Murphy. "—I must deal with the guard. Sarj Murphy?"

 

 "Sir?" Murphy clicked ostentatiously to attention and stared fixedly at a point three feet above Wallace's head. The sudden hardening of the Gen's tone was a grim foreboding.

 

 "Your men were a disgrace out there today. Dead or missing, you are the only one to make it back."

 

 "What?" Murphy's mask slipped for one second, and genuine confusion showed through. "But that can't be possible, sir. These outsiders could never best us in the conditions. We know them, they don't—"

 

 "I fear there was a third party to the slaughter today," Wallace mused. "The valley dwellers—mutie and inbred scum," he added in an aside to Doc, who merely nodded sagely and refrained from adding the view that Wallace might well to consider whether his description could be applied to his own men. "The valley dwellers must have had a scavenging party in the vicinity. They must have intervened."

 

 "How do you know that?" Murphy asked heatedly. If the Gen had this knowledge when they were in the field, why hadn't he passed it on?

 

 Wallace indicated the hidden vid room with an inclination of his head.

 

 "Why didn't you let me know?" Murphy asked.

 

 The Gen's face hardened into a scowl. "Remember who you are and where you are, Sarj. The regs have ways of dealing with impertinence. There are prescribed punishments."

 

 Murphy breathed deeply, slowly, to control his temper. "Sir, I apologize," he said carefully. "But to what purpose was this knowledge kept from me?"

 

 "It always pays to have a little training," Wallace said blandly. "I was interested to see how you'd cope with an assault on two fronts. You were found wanting, my friend."

 

 The tension between the two men had escalated to a point where Doc was almost forgotten. Doc took this opportunity to stand back and observe, filing away character traits exposed in the argument for future reference. Who knew? It might be of use in any escape attempt he could contrive.

 

 "Good men died because you wanted a training exercise based on a random factor?" Murphy railed. "Good sec is based on the elimination of the random factor!"

 

 "No such thing," Wallace snapped back. "Look at the failure of one part of the mechanism. Random. The arrival of Tanner. Random…"

 

 He turned and looked at Doc, a sudden vacancy in his eyes, as though he were searching for something— some strand of meaning that had somehow escaped him.

 

 Then he grasped at it. "Tanner…" he said vaguely, and then with a more assured tone, "Yes, Doctor. Forgive me, I have been neglecting you. You have work to do, and we must prepare you for this. You are our honored guest, sent to us to aid in the war against the Reds."

 

 "But that all ended a long…" Doc tailed off. Yes, it had. But not for Wallace, Murphy and the other inhabitants of this redoubt. And who was he to argue with them? Had the world of his beloved Emily, and of the whitecoats who had kept him captive at Operation Chronos, ceased to be real to him just because they had moved on in time and space?

 

 These men were as much prisoners of memory as he was—the difference being that at least his memories were his own, and not the half-remembered dreams of ancestors distorted through time.

 

 Wallace, seeming not to hear either Doc's tailing off or the long pause that had followed, rose to his feet.

 

 "Please, Doctor, follow me and all will be made clear."

 

 Doc fell into step behind the waddling Gen as Wallace left his office and headed along the corridor toward the elevator. Murphy left a short gap, then fell in behind his prisoner.

 

 Doc wasn't sure whether Murphy's caution in being a few steps behind him was actually a defensive measure or intended to impress Wallace. It would be futile of him to attempt any kind of escape at this point, not until he stood some chance of retrieving his LeMat and swordstick.

 

 As they progressed along the corridor, Doc noted that the redoubt had returned to the semibustling life that had marked it when they were first given the Gen's guided tour. Mechanics and orderlies went about their tasks, sec men moved through the lower orders in their patched, faded and much altered uniforms with a sense of purpose that was as much self-importance as anything else.

 

 Although the redoubt would appear at first glance to be a fully working military operation, Doc was aware of a kind of torpor in the air. They moved, they bustled, but almost as though through water, or in slow motion, as though they had forgotten why they were doing this.

 

 The only one who seemed to know was Wallace. Whether it was the original purpose, he—at least—had a clear idea of what he was doing, what they were all doing.

 

 They were silent in the elevator as it moved to another level. Silent still as Wallace led Doc past the laboratories where the psychological torture had taken place. From the corner of his eye, Doc saw Dr. Tricks noting results from a monitor onto a clipboard. She looked up as they passed. For a fraction of a second her eyes caught his. A gorgeous, melting brown eye with a narrow eyebrow that was momentarily raised.

 

 She was truly beautiful, out of place in this pesthole. Yet it was she who was responsible for their torture. Doc was sure there was a metaphor in there if only he could grasp it.

 

 It was that thought that occupied him until they reached the door that had remained closed to them on the earlier tour. It was an unassuming door, remarkable for nothing except that very fact. Perversely that made it stand out all the more in a redoubt where everything else was clearly marked and delineated. Doc shuddered. What terrors could lurk behind that bland exterior?

 

 Wallace reached for the sec panel at the side of the door, his index finger poised to tap in the code. Then he paused, finger still in midair, and turned to Doc.

 

 "Dr. Tanner," he began, a note of genuine inquiry in his voice, "during your time at Operation Chronos, I understand that you learned a lot about the Totality Concept. Am I correct?"

 

 Doc demurred. "I picked up a little knowledge…" Which was always a dangerous thing, echoed a small voice inside him. He was unsure what to give away, what to intimate, what to lie about.

 

 "Did you ever hear of a project called Operation Rat King?" Wallace asked.

 

 Doc paused before answering. Across the seared and frazzled synapses of his time-tossed brain, he struggled to access any memory, to decide whether to lie.

 

 "I cannot recall for certain," he replied, trying to hedge any bets.

 

 Wallace pursed his lips meaningfully and nodded slowly. At length he said, "I would have been surprised if you had answered in the affirmative, Doctor. It was part of the Totality Concept that was kept ultrasecret."

 

 "I thought that applied to all of the experiments in that maddened scheme," Doc commented.

 

 Wallace graced him with the kind of smile usually reserved for drooling idiots or small children about to be chilled for their stupidity. "That's just the point of view I would expect from your case history, Doctor. I do hope it doesn't mean that you intend to be awkward and noncooperative. That would be most unfortunate for all of us."

 

 "I do not see that I have a choice," Doc said mildly, attempting to mask the acidity in his tone. "It would help if you explained a little more."

 

 "Of course, of course. Some of the finest military, tactical and philosophical brains of the time were brought to bear on the problem of how to outwit an enemy that had the equivalent of our military power in software and hardware. The answer, it was decided, lay in lateral thinking rather than the harsh, cold logic of the computer."

 

 His voice adopted the singsong tone of a man reciting a text learned by heart, a text that he couldn't really know the meaning of, yet felt compelled to repeat to the bitter end.

 

 "To this end it was decided that the way forward lay in the sphere of the biocomputer. Thus was constructed the Moebius MkI—the Rat King."

 

 A feeling of revulsion swept through Doc, churning at his guts and making acid bile rise to his throat. The wordbiocomputer was pregnant with meaning. As for the termrat king , Doc suddenly remembered an incident from his past.

 

 It was the middle of March, 1881. It had to have been then, at the cusp of winter and spring, as the young Theophilus Tanner had just turned thirteen. The woods outside South Stafford were still sparse and bare, the foliage not having budded in the crisp air, air that frosted on his breath as he walked through the woods, trying to memorize the periodic table, reciting to himself.

 

 It was before noon, and the sounds of wildlife were small. Few birds sang, and the scufflings in the undergrowth were negated by the sound of his own boots crunching on the dry earth.

 

 "Phosphorous… What is phosphorous?" Tanner muttered to himself, trying to recall the correct symbol and match it to the element. He shook his head at the stubbornness of the answer, and so was easily distracted by the strange squealing sound that seemed to emanate from a hollowed-out tree trunk about thirty yards to his left.

 

 He paused, furrowed his brow and strode to the tree trunk to investigate.

 

 The squealing seemed to separate out into more than one voice the nearer he got, it sounding for all the world like several animal voices in chorus.

 

 Curious, apprehensive and perhaps just a little scared at what he might find, Tanner leaned over the hollow trunk so that he could see inside.

 

 What he saw gripped him with both awe and fascination. Half a dozen rats were at the base of the tree, struggling and squealing in high-pitched squeals that blended into an awful harmony. Their bodies thrashed together, unable to separate and escape from each other because their tails were knotted, entwined in a spiraling tangle that ascended into the empty space above them.

 

 The knot was so tight—each movement making it tighter—that Tanner knew that nothing short of amputation would separate them. It would also probably kill them.

 

 Yet, bound together in that manner, death was already an inevitability.

 

 Doc came back to reality with a shudder and a cold wave of nausea as he became aware of Wallace tapping in the access code and the door opening.

 

 Back in the woods outside South Stafford, the young Tanner had run away and left the rat king to die.

 

 This time he knew that he wouldn't be able to run.

 

 "THOUGHT SAID storm less?" Jak asked truculently as they emerged from the pass and into the main body of the valley.

 

 "It is less. I didn't say by much, did I, cully?" With which the man laughed so hard that the belly overhanging his ripped and patched camou pants shook and wobbled. The pants looked like those belonging to the sec men, and Jak figured that they were a trophy of a previous encounter.

 

 "Tell the little shit how you came by them, Mac," the now conscious bundle of rags said, noticing how Jak was eying his captor's attire.

 

 "Mebbe I will," Mac said, with the air of someone about to launch into a well-rehearsed and much told story. "Y'see, the insiders have always reckoned on how they were so good, and how all the old tech they still have makes them better fighters—"

 

 "But they don't know the conditions, right?" Ryan interrupted, in no mood for self-congratulatory stories.

 

 Mac glared at him. "You're damn right, One-eye. You know that, too. I was watching you. They was fancy moves when you came from the inside, but you didn't know how to deal with the storm."

 

 "Not surprising," J.B. commented. "Never seen anything quite like that."

 

 "Shut up and keep carrying," the bundle of rags grumbled. She was still suspended between the Armorer and Mildred, who glared at her, but managed to refrain from comment…for the present.

 

 Krysty surveyed the land around them. It appeared that they were still in a valley, but a much larger one. The enclave formed around the entrance to the redoubt was a small indent into one side of the valley. Sheer rock walls ascended to a height she estimated at about 100 to 150 feet. The rock curved out in a wide parabola beyond her range of vision, but she figured that the valley as a whole had to be at least thirty square miles.

 

 The dust storm had abated. The sprays of dust and dirt were irritations rather than major problems, and the wind had died down from a gale to a small zephyr that plucked at their clothes and drove grit into their skin. But parts of the valley were obscured by more intense storms, small pockets of violent rage that scoured the land. The skies overhead were a puckered and constantly moving mixture of purple, red and blue, the dark clouds of a chem storm breaking up and reforming under the buffeting of the winds and letting the sky above shine through.

 

 "I'd guess that you don't get much farming done around here," she murmured.

 

 The giant who had captured Krysty and Dean, and was still guarding them with the homemade blaster, registered almost comical surprise.

 

 "How the fireblasted hell did you know that?"

 

 Krysty suppressed the urge to smile. "Just look at the skies and the storms. It's obvious. Guess we could always give you a few instructions on how to mebbe make more of the land. After all, you must have realized that we don't come from…the 'inside,' did you call it?"

 

 Mac scratched his chin with the barrel of his blaster and furrowed an already well-creased brow.

 

 "Guess we could do with some help. Trading's hard down here. If we could mebbe—"

 

 "You fool!" The growl came from the female bundle of rags suspended between J.B. and Mildred. She was now fully conscious, but had decided that letting them carry her would disable them in conditions they weren't used to. Mildred winced as the harsh voice cut through the surrounding noise of the storm.

 

 "Don't listen to their lies," she continued. "They came from inside—it's some kind of trick. It must be. They can't beat us in any other way, so they want to infiltrate and subvert from within. They want us to take these asswipes to our bosom so that they can smite us like a viper. No, there is only one thing awaiting them— the ritual."

 

 Ryan and Jak exchanged glances. The mention of a ritual meant only one thing to them—a slow and painful chilling.

 

 Mildred dropped her end of the bundle of rags. The woman hit the ground with a hissed, squeaking sound that was part shock and part outrage.

 

 J.B. let go of his end of the woman and looked at Mildred over the top of his glasses, scratching his head and pushing back his fedora.

 

 "Hell, John, if they're going to chill us anyway, why should we give a shit?"

 

 There was a momentary stunned silence, then roars of laughter from their other captors while the female rag bundle fumed in silence.

 

 It could be the one chance they needed. Jak spun on his heel, ducked underneath the barrel of Mac's blaster and aimed a straight-edged blow at the man's gut. He felt his hand sink into the soft, fatty flesh before striking a wall of solid muscle.

 

 Mac wasn't as slow as his bulk would have them believe. Even as Jak ducked underneath him, he raised the blaster just enough to let Jak come underneath, confident that he had enough muscle strength to withstand the blow, and then brought the barrel down sharply at the base of Jak's skull.

 

 Jak's white, flowing hair was stained red as the sharp metal edges of the badly filed barrel tore the skin at his nape. The blow wasn't hard enough to render him unconscious, but it was enough to stun him and send him momentarily to his knees.

 

 Before he had a chance to recover, Mac followed up with his fist, grabbing Jak's hair and bunching it, using it as a rope with which to pull the albino up level with his face. Then he thrust Jak away from him, and the small albino looked even more waiflike and lost as he sprawled in the dust, clinging onto his senses.

 

 "Don't fuck with us," Mac growled, his previously lazy demeanor now lost. "We don't have much, but what we do have we hold to."

 

 "Okay, okay. Joke's over. We'll go with you and no trouble, all right?" Mildred said hurriedly as she went over to examine Jak.

 

 "Too slow." Jak grinned ruefully as he picked himself up.

 

 He glared at Mac. "Thought just fat. Won't make mistake again."

 

 Mac returned the glare with a grudging respect. "You're fast. I'll make damn sure you don't get the chance."

 

 Jak, Mildred and J.B. were now grouped together under Mac's watchful eye. The ragged bundle that was called Tilly now stood at the back of the group, keeping a watchful eye on their rear. Krysty and Dean were covered by the giant, while Ryan had the dubious pleasure of having two of their captors covering him, although, in truth, neither seemed to be taking too much care about how he was covered.

 

 They followed a two-lane blacktop across the valley, the tarmac distorted and warped by the shift of the earth underneath, so that whorls and dips caused them to stumble. Their captors, however, seemed to know every little dip.

 

 Which was why they thought they could be slack with their prisoners, Ryan thought. But it didn't explain why they weren't bothered about attackers.

 

 "Mind if I ask a question?" he said laconically over his shoulder.

 

 "You can ask, One-eye. Doesn't mean you'll get an answer, mind."

 

 "Seems fair. I was just wondering why you're not keeping watch for an ambush."

 

 The question was met with a degree of laughter that Ryan hadn't met anywhere else in the Deathlands.

 

 "Excuse me my impoliteness," Mac, who seemed to vie with Tilly as unofficial leader of the group, said through the tears of humor that rolled down his cheek. "Seems to me that you don't know this place at all. Mebbe we were wrong about you."

 

 "Mebbe you were," Ryan replied. "Still haven't answered my question, though."

 

 "True, true. See, this place is a pesthole. No one much comes here. No one would want to. Mebbe we get some traders once in a purple moon, but mostly that's by mistake. There's only us and the insiders live here. No one else wants to settle here."

 

 "Then why are you still here?" Dean asked, the first time he'd been moved to speak.

 

 Mac shrugged. "Born here. Live here. Die here. That's the way of things."

 

 "We get by," Tilly said. "We'd get by a whole lot better if the mother insiders would leave us alone."

 

 "Why don't they leave you alone?" Krysty asked.

 

 "You tell me, you're one of them," Tilly spit.

 

 Krysty sighed. "If we were one of them, then why were they shooting at us? Why did they want us dead?"

 

 Tilly moved in what might have been a shrug. "Everyone falls out with everyone else. People fight."

 

 "For no reason?"

 

 "There are 'no reasons,' " Mac snapped. "Now cut out the talking and let's move it." He scanned the skies. "I think we're in for another bad one, and I want to get back before it starts."

 

 TRULY, DOC BELIEVED that reason had deserted him this time, perhaps for good.

 

 "You realize that you are in that state that most people ascribe to me? The state of insanity, I mean?" he asked Wallace in a soft, almost disbelieving tone.

 

 Wallace looked genuinely puzzled. "But, Doctor, even with your record of awkwardness and dissent, I would have believed that you would be astounded in these postskydark times that the Totality Concept still operated, still clung to its meaning."

 

 "Meaning?" Doc's voice rose to a screech as he whirled away from Wallace toward the glass partition that separated the Moebius MkI from where they stood. He flung out an arm. "You really believe that has meaning?"

 

 He stood, not expecting an answer of any coherence and not really listening, his eyes glued to the monstrosity that he couldn't truly comprehend.

 

 The slack-jawed, moronic tech stood beside him, still tapping in the codes and keeping the mechanism ticking over. That had to surely be all that it could do. What else was there now? The military-industrial complex for which it was designed had long since crumbled to dust, and any answers it might come up with were for questions that were no longer asked.

 

 Doc pressed his face against the glass, breath misting and obscuring the image that seared on his retina. But not enough…no, never enough.

 

 Behind the glass lay the rat king. At last he understood why Wallace—and the hellish whitecoat minds that had conceived the Totality Concept—had used the term.

 

 In the middle of the sterile floor space stood a master computer. Its terminals were attached to a series of cables that snaked across the floor in six different directions. The screen attached to the mainframe was constantly filled with a series of 3-D images and strings of words that Doc's eyes were unable to translate from blinking lights into coherent sentences. Although, looking at where the images and words had surely to emanate, coherence was the last thing that occurred to Doc.

 

 For the six different directions terminated in six padded chairs. In each chair was something that had once been human, but was no longer—six very old men, their clothes almost perfectly preserved in the sterile atmosphere, but hanging off them where they had become emaciated. They were fed and watered by a series of intravenous tubes that coiled away toward a central bank of a smaller mainframe, located in an antechamber of the room, presumably, Doc imagined, to try to cut down the amount of outside interference in the sterile room.

 

 The six once-human men were blank eyed and staring, their mouths fixed in rictus grins of what could have been agony or ecstasy…or some inhuman mix of the two. Muscle wastage made it hard to tell, as their faces were little more than skulls with skin clinging, papery and thin, to them. Their wrists and hands were painfully thin as they poked from the end of immaculately laundered and starched sleeves.

 

 Two of the men wore Air Force uniforms, one an Army uniform, another the attire of a general in the Marines, and the last two were garbed in suits that were conservatively but tastefully cut in a preskydark fashion. Doc recognized the style from some of the high-ranking security and government officials who had visited him during his brief sojourn in the late twentieth century.

 

 The most horrific sight, however, wasn't their emaciated forms, but what had been done to their skulls above the brow.

 

 Tn his native Vermont, Doc had been familiar with the practice of trepanning, whereby a Jiole was drilled in the skull, or some portion of the skull removed, in order to relieve pressure on the brain. It was a medical practice of dubious worth, and was also used by some cultists and followers of ancient religions as a path to release the mind and induce euphoric states. Often, it resulted merely in drooling idiocy, which was, Doc supposed, a euphoria of sorts.

 

 What had been done to these men looked like trepanning on a larger scale. The snaking cables that ran from the mainframe terminals ended in electrodes that were directly attached to portions of each man's brain. It appeared to Doc that the cables disappeared into a network of small holes drilled in the skull.

 

 "And this is what you have in store for me, is it?" he asked, turning back to Wallace.

 

 The Gen nodded. "Uh-huh. You see Secretary of Defense Sethna?" He indicated a figure in a suit whose only defining characteristic left was that he was of a darker skin than the others, possibly an Asiatic origin. "Well," Wallace continued, "he's dead…basically."

 

 "Are not they all?" Doc queried.

 

 Wallace smiled. "Depends what you mean, Doctor. We try and keep them going, as it's the interaction of them all that makes the mechanism work. We recycle body parts, but in this one it just looks like the brain finally gave out. Now, there's no way we could find any part comparable to that…until you arrived."

 

 Doc turned back to the glass and looked at the rat king. "Madness," he muttered. "Sheer folly and madness."

 

 Whether it was a comment directed toward Wallace's plans, or the minds that had originally conceived the rat king was lost as Doc felt a needle plunge into his arm.

 

 He turned to face the drooling, cretinous tech, hypodermic still in hand, as the blackness and welcoming respite of unconsciousness overwhelmed him.

 

  

 

 Chapter Twelve

 

  

 

 The two-lane blacktop came to a sudden end where the tarmac rose into the sky for a height of twenty feet at an angle that suggested a sudden eruption from the earth had pushed it upward. The ground on either side was divided by a chasm that yawned to a width of twelve feet or so at its widest, narrowing to three or four feet in places.

 

 "End of the line?" Ryan asked as they came to a shambling halt.

 

 "Hell, no," Mac said, gesturing across the divide with his blaster. "We just jump it."

 

 Jak gave him a questioning look, particularly at his drooping stomach.

 

 Mac laughed without humor. "Mebbe I'm just fitter than I look."

 

 "I'm not sure that I'm that fit," Mildred said uncertainly, peering over the edge of the chasm. It descended into a darkness that suggested no small depth.

 

 Mac shrugged. "It's okay by me, missy. You fall down there and get chilled, it just means one less for the ritual. No skin off me."

 

 "Nice to know you care," Mildred muttered laconically.

 

 The giant with the homemade blaster gestured down the divide, swinging the giant pieces of metal as though they were weightless.

 

 "No way we're jumping here. If we go down a little, then it'll be easier."

 

 "Suits me," Mildred replied. "Lead the way, big man."

 

 Much to her surprise, he did. Turning his back on them, he wandered along the edge of the chasm like a man leading a Sunday-school outing.

 

 J.B. and Ryan both furrowed their brows, exchanging puzzled looks. Their captors were certainly a contrary mixture. On the one hand, they had kept the group under a close guard with their blasters, yet they were seemingly slapdash about such elementary precautions as turning their backs on their prisoners. Like the sec men in the redoubt, they had spent too long in an enclosed atmosphere—one underground, one trapped by the valley and the freakish weather conditions—to have any conception of outside enemies and their tactics.

 

 Ryan surveyed the surrounding area. The storm had died down to a bluster at this point, the dust on the ground stirring in the small eddies and whorls of the wind. Denser clouds obscuring parts of the valley bespoke of areas where the storms still raged. There was no sign of life, and little cover. The trees were few and far between, stripped bare of life and standing starkly in the landscape. The earth was flat; if not originally this way, then it had been pared down years of storms and harsh hurricanes and zephyrs scouring its surface.

 

 "How do people live in this?" Krysty asked softly, mirroring Ryan's thoughts.

 

 "They don't," he replied quietly. "They exist."

 

 "Isn't that what we all do?" Mildred queried.

 

 Ryan's face cracked in a grimace that could have been grim humor. His scar was puckered white by the elements.

 

 "Some mebbe exist more than others," he said.

 

 The only reply was a shove in the back. The one-eyed warrior, acting on instinct, spun. Tilly stood in front of him, the tip of a long and wickedly jagged hunting knife touching the end of his nose.

 

 Her voice was sibilant and all the more threatening for it. "Philosophy doesn't grow crops, doesn't appease the gods. It does nothing but make you sit on your spreading ass all day doing jackshit. And it may get you cut up if you don't shut up and follow Tod."

 

 If nothing else, at least Ryan now knew that the giant had a name. The one-eyed man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and turned to follow the giant along the lip of the chasm.

 

 Mac laughed in the humorless, grating way that was beginning to act as an irritant, and gestured with his blaster that they should follow Ryan.

 

 Dean and Krysty fell into step, followed by Mildred and J.B. Jak stayed back to last, dragging his heels and eying Mac with barely disguised hatred.

 

 Two of the other captors exchanged looks over their blasters, one of them shivering. Mac grinned wryly.

 

 "You don't say much, whitey," he directed at Jak.

 

 "Action better," Jak replied.

 

 "You ain't shown much," Mac said shortly.

 

 Jak shrugged, then turned his back and followed his companions. It left Mac with a turning stomach and a foreboding that things weren't perhaps to be as simple as he had hoped.

 

 Farther down the way, Tod had come to a halt. The giant waved the heavy blaster in the general direction of the gap between the two sides of earth.

 

 "Guess this is about the narrowest stretch," he said, spitting over the edge. "It's no ravine at best, but this is as narrow as it gets."

 

 J.B. took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. He peered over the edge and across at the far side.

 

 "What's to stop us going across first and then waiting to attack you on the other side?" he asked.

 

 Tod grinned lopsidedly, revealing a row of broken yellow teeth. "This…" he said simply before turning and taking aim with his giant blaster at a small piece of scrub that was twenty yards across the gap.

 

 The blaster exploded with a deafening roar that drowned out the background howl of the storms for a second. It belched blue smoke and flame as it discharged a load of shot from the large barrel. The recoil from such a charge had to be enough to break an average man's arm if the blaster was held one-handed, as Tod held it, J.B. thought.

 

 The giant didn't even seem to notice that the weapon had fired.

 

 Twenty yards away the scrub disappeared in a puff of what might have been dirt, but might simply have been the splintering wood of the bushes disintegrating as the mixed load of the charge hit it with tremendous force. The width of the barrel showed in the wide spread of the charge, which pockmarked the ground around the small scrub area.

 

 Some of the debris that made up the load could be discerned as pieces of metal glittering in the weak sunlight that filtered through the dust and chem clouds. Nails, pieces and shards of metal from other weapons, household objects from predark times…anything that could be pared down to pieces small enough to load in the blaster.

 

 Dean whistled, low and soft.

 

 "Point made," J.B. said simply. He had deliberately asked the question in order to try to provoke such an action. Casting an eye around the other captors and their homemade and home-repaired blasters, he made a rough mental assessment of their collective firepower.

 

 It was always useful to know. There was never such a thing as wasted information. You never knew when your life might depend on the minutest scrap of knowledge.

 

 "Cool," Tod said, grinning inanely through his broken teeth as he plucked another cartridge from one of the large pockets on his coat. He snapped open the large blaster, which operated on a simple hinge, like a modified shotgun, and pushed the cartridge into the breech. It was a lumpy concoction of metal wrapped in bulging cardboard that shouldn't, in all logic, have worked. J.B. figured that one day the blaster would just explode in the giant's face.

 

 "Let's cut out the target practice and showing off, and just move," Tilly said flatly, her eyes burning contempt from her layers of rags.

 

 Krysty stared at her defiantly. "Lady, you've got a real problem. You're calling all the shots here, so why don't you lay off? What is it with you?"

 

 "Oh, shit, bad question," Mac whispered to the other two men with blasters. Still they didn't break their silence, just shaking their heads sadly while keeping their blasters ready and aimed.

 

 "You want to know my problem?" Tilly roared, springing forward with a suddenness, violence and grace that took Krysty by surprise. Before Krysty had a chance to move, Tilly had thrust her face into hers.

 

 Ryan stiffened, keeping his eye on the men with blasters. Mildred shook her head almost imperceptibly.

 

 She, for one, would be interested to see what happened. Like J.B., she believed that all information was useful. It was just that sometimes she wanted different information.

 

 "You want to know what's the matter with me? You really want to see why I hate you and your kind?"

 

 "My kind?"

 

 "The insiders," Tilly spit back. "You want to see what your kind has done to me? Just because I didn't fit what you wanted from your gene pool—not that it stopped your sec men fucking me afterward, like pigs."

 

 Tilly began to unwrap the rags around her head. Her eyes burned brightly with hatred, and also with something that Krysty felt sure was self-loathing.