His jaw shook at that, and a raspy wheeze of a giggle left him.
“But I do think… I’m taking the change… well.”
Gus cringed. “You’re going to have to wear more deodorant, Josh. This ain’t working anymore.”
Rogan appeared genuinely puzzled at that, before squeezing his eyes shut in understanding. “Pass me one of those. Please.”
Gus hesitated before doing as asked.
“Thank you,” Rogan said. With trembling fingers, he popped the cover off and extended the stick.
“You wanna do that later?” Gus asked. He nodded at the monitors. “We got other things to do here.”
“Just wanted to show you,” Rogan said. “What I’ve been… eating. All this time.”
And to Gus’s horror, Rogan bit into the deodorant as if snacking on a chocolate bar. The research assistant chewed loudly, enjoying the mouthful. He sized up the stick before licking around the edges of his bite.
That was a sight Gus knew he would remember in his dreams.
“It’s not…” Rogan explained, “as bad as you might think.”
Gus shook his head. “Yeah.”
“I wasn’t always like this, of course. It was just… cornflakes didn’t do it for me anymore. I used this brand and, one morning, when I decided… to put some on…”
“You decided to eat it.”
A guilty-looking Rogan inspected the stick, and for a moment, Gus thought the man was going to lose it.
“Yes,” the research assistant finally said, with a surprising amount of control. “Yes. Exactly that.”
“Why the sudden urge to eat deodorant, Josh?” Gus asked.
“I’ve pondered that myself. The smell drew me in. Smell is closely associated with taste, you know. Regardless, it’s what I crave these days. What keeps me… going. Without question…a side effect. Of the multiple TI shots. The ample food provisions here… no longer appealed to me. Considering what I… could be ingesting… I think… this is acceptable.”
Rogan looked at Gus. “I’m not… a bad person,” he explained. “I saved… you. After all. And I’ll save your companions. On condition.”
Gus knew he wasn’t going to like it. “What’s that?”
“I’ll… tell you later.” The research assistant smiled, then said, “I’ve exhausted the med lab’s supplies of chemicals… trying to cure myself. Turns out… I’m not a very good scientist. This place… is yours. It’s perfectly safe. Any spore that… might’ve been active has long dispersed and perished. We’ve established that it can’t survive long. In that form. If you wish… Whitecap, and all within her…is yours.”
Gus stared at the sick man.
“If you… can repel the barbarians,” Rogan finished with a sick smile.
“You got any weapons?”
“None.”
“Don’t you have an armory or something?”
“Three, in fact. With a surplus of munitions. But I don’t have the authorization.”
“Or the codes,” Gus finished for him.
“Or the codes.” Rogan half-shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’m not that great a shot anyway. You have anything else? Pipes or heavy wrenches? Axes? Bats?”
Rogan stiffened in his wheelchair. “Bats?”
“Bats?” Gus asked with hope. “You have any bats?”
“We have… a batting cage. In the LE section of the complex.”
“What’s LE?”
“Leisure and Entertainment.”
“Oh. Okay. So you have bats there?”
“Aluminum ones.”
It took Gus a second to absorb that.
“Where?” he finally asked.
43
Carson lay in the trunk of one of the cars.
It was dark, and his legs hurt like unholy fuck. The Leather had taken a hammer not only to his toes, but to his knees as well. He wasn’t a doctor, but the way those ten little piggies had popped apart… well, he figured the shivers he was feeling were from the onset of some serious infection.
The worst day of his life was venturing out to Matheson by himself and getting caught by those masked cocksuckers. He should have killed himself before letting it happen. The only thing worse than his current physical pain was the knowledge that he had doomed the rest of the islanders to an existence of servitude. Or death. Or worse.
Carson wasn’t a particularly pleasant man, nor was he particularly optimistic, but he tried to be fair. Thought things evened out on their own if you gave them time, though he didn’t always have the patience to wait. This time, however, as his lower legs throbbed, and a disturbing cold gripped his lower back, he didn’t think things were going to even out. Not this time.
Sooner or later, they’re going to open this trunk, he thought before the hurt of his ruined legs tried to short-circuit his tortured brain. And when they did, he was going to claw for the nearest set of eyes or balls he could find.
Just so they knew there would be no breaking him.
Just so they’d kill him. And that would be the end of it.
So when he heard what sounded like a muffled grunt immediately followed by cries of distress, Carson lifted his head and paid attention.
A short scream of pain, then a crinkling of bone.
Someone growled and huffed, as if throwing a punch. The smack of bare fists and a curt grunt followed, then a startling slam of meat upon thin metal.
Another scream, and that sound was snuffed out.
Then nothing.
Wires of light bled through the trunk’s seams, but not enough to see anything. Carson’s eyes were wide yet saw nothing. He heard plenty, however. A low shambling step, of someone moving around outside.
The steps grew louder.
Carson blinked, wondering what the hell was going on out there, and heard nothing more. Until a weight landed on the rear bumper of the car, causing the vehicle to sag.
“Hey!” Carson shouted. “Hey!”
The weight lifted from the rear bumper.
“Hey! Who’s out there?”
No answer. Nothing for the longest time, or so it seemed to the trapped man.
Then the release of the lock.
The trunk popped open, allowing precious light to enter. From nearby headlights, but light all the same.
A shadow stood over him, blocking the glare, but what flared around the figure was blinding enough for the mechanic. He shielded his eyes and was so surprised that he’d forgotten his original plan.
“You Carson?”
A woman’s voice.
He peeked out from behind his hands. “Yeah.”
Carson squinted, studied her from chin to chest, where his voice failed him.
There was a bloody hole close to where the heart should be.
“Well?” Collie asked. “You want out of that fucking trunk or not?”
*
Some twenty minutes later, the EV returned with Carson in the backseat. The driver steered the machine straight on through, causing the Leather inside the entry tunnel to jump out of the way. Heads turned as the EV drove by, slowing to a stop outside of the locked security room.
The Vulture appreciated that kind of loyalty.
The driver, wearing a bulky leather jacket and generic zipper mask, got out of the vehicle and with a grunt pulled Carson onto the floor. The Leather dragged the mechanic by his arms to the Vulture.
That it was a woman, no one cared. There were several in their ranks, equally as vicious as their male counterparts. Or ever more so.
The Vulture ignored her as she propped up the crippled man against one leg.
“Open this,” the Vulture said to Carson, indicating the door’s keypad.
His features contorted, Carson looked from the Vulture to the door. “I can’t reach it,” he seethed.
The driver manhandled the mechanic upright, but failed to get him any higher. A second Leather stepped in, and together they got him onto his knees.
Which wer
e broken.
And Carson wailed upon impact.
The Vulture sighed in frustration. He glanced around, looking for a chair before setting his sights on his last meat puppet.
“Bring him here,” the leader ordered two of the Leather. They brought Top Gun face-to-face with the Vulture.
“Hands and knees,” the Vulture instructed, and the two Leather made certain the meat puppet obeyed.
The Vulture turned to Carson. “Sit on him.”
The mechanic’s pained face twisted into a question.
“Sit,” the Vulture whispered, close to losing patience. He hefted the automatic ST1X as a warning.
Carson screamed as he was positioned on top of Top Gun’s back. The Leather who had fetched Carson from the trunk steadied him, then produced a straight-blade combat knife from her boot. She placed the knife to Carson’s ear, gripping the blade underhanded, as if about to pick away at a block of ice.
No one gave the knife a second thought. In fact, the Vulture approved of the gesture with a single nod.
Carson’s head hung low, very much aware of the blade at his ear. Sweat ran freely down his profile, and he lifted his gaze to consider the keypad.
“I can’t open this,” he said.
“Open it,” the Vulture said calmly.
“You need a code.”
“Then break the code.”
Carson shook his head. “I can’t break the code. I’m just a mechanic.”
Silence then, as the Vulture stared at the back of the mechanic’s head. “Then bypass it. Take the thing apart. Or be blown apart.”
With that, the masked leader pointed the ST1X at Carson’s back. Carson fumed and fidgeted, while the female Leather kept him on his human bench.
“I don’t even have a fucking screwdriver, you moron,” Carson rumbled.
The female Leather reached down with her free hand and grabbed the mechanic’s wrist. Keeping him in place with her other (with the blade now at his collar), she extended his hand to the keypad and flattened it against the lower edge of the console.
The Vulture watched her force him into position. “If he doesn’t do anything in the next five seconds, you may cut him.”
The female Leather didn’t appear to hear him. Still holding onto Carson’s wrist, she stepped out from behind him, as he no longer needed her for balance. Her hand slid up the back of his and paused for only a second… before she punched in a series of numbers on the keypad, the bright characters stretching across a digital display.
A confused Vulture looked at the female Leather.
In the same second, the security door slid open, whereupon the female Leather spun and punched her knife through the Vulture’s neck. There was a choking spurt of blood, a reedy gasp of air, and even though the Vulture wore a mask, there was no mistaking the surprise in the man’s eyes.
And in the split instant before his knees gave out, the driver grabbed the ST1X, flipped it about, and unleashed a killer light show.
Six of the nearby Leather were cut apart in an instant, their bloody torsos flung back by the unexpected burst.
Collie dropped back to the doorway and lit up three more of the Leather, blowing apart their heads in a startling display of tracer fire, rags, and brain matter.
That drove the remainder of the pack to take cover. Collie released two more short bursts. Dozens of bullets flashed and crackled across the hide of one of the EVs in a charred line, the force of the blast shoving the vehicle a foot away.
Carson fell with a yell, tumbling off the meat puppet who was still on his knees while screaming, “Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus!”
Collie swung the weapon upon the puppet.
“I’m not with them!” the man pleaded.
She wavered, but only for a split second. Shadows were moving in the garage.
“Get him in there!” she roared as she shot a Leather popping up from behind a parked vehicle. The masked man flew backwards as if he’d been hit by rockets, his crossbow flying from his fingers.
One of the Leather swung his crossbow around the corner of the security booth and fired.
The bolt grazed the material not a hair away from Collie’s left ear.
She blew her attacker’s hands off at the wrist, and the man fell back, screaming.
The freed meat puppet grabbed Carson by the shirt collar and fell into the booth. Collie followed, releasing another burst as she shuffled inside. She got one foot across the threshold when a crossbow bolt nailed her to the doorframe.
The impact surprised her, stunned her even, and she released a grunt. The bolt had sunk into her chest, to the fletching. She slid down the wall just a bit, hearing the scree-scraw of a barbed head dragging over the booth’s steel hide. There was no pain, just the brief disorientation of being knocked off-balance.
Two Leather rolled out from behind EVs, while a dozen more popped up from behind the vehicles where they’d taken cover. Collie lifted her battle rifle with one hand and blew away one figure before strafing right and shredding two more in shocking burps of meat and fabric. The remainder of the crossbowmen once again dove for cover.
But those already on the floor took aim.
One bolt took Collie in her knee, dropping her to the concrete. A second bolt pierced her chest, breaking a rib and puncturing a lung right up to the shaft’s flights. A third bolt zapped her left shoulder, rocking her back.
The remaining Leather shouted.
Carson and that human stool hauling him into the booth were screaming at her. Collie caught some movement through the wide pane of laminated glass. Shadows darted along the face of the booth, just barely visible through the sheet of gore.
A Leather wielding a medieval spear appeared around the corner, poised to stab.
Collie whipped up the battle rifle and drew an explosive line up the figure’s center. Bloody firecrackers erupted from his back.
“Get in here!” the human stool screamed at her.
She tried to stand when a bolt nailed her right shoulder.
She spun with the impact and took two more missiles to the chest, each one driving her against the doorframe. Another bolt missed her face by an inch, while two more bounced off the booth. Everything was becoming slippery. She attempted to lift the rifle, but her right arm refused to respond, and she knew in an instant it was as fucked up as her left.
Two Leather popped up behind an EV, already aiming those jacked-up medieval needle-spitters.
Collie knew she couldn’t get either one in time. So she slid her ass across the doorframe, into empty space, and let the impact of those two incoming bolts blast her backwards—into the booth.
She landed on her back.
“Jesus Christ!” Carson screamed.
Two leather-bound bastards holding, of all things, battle axes appeared in the open doorway.
Collie couldn’t lift her rifle up when she was standing, but now that she was flat on her back she had no issue angling the gun upwards a few inches. She blasted the attackers, cutting both across the knees, causing them to collapse and grab for stumps that gushed scarlet.
“Hit that button,” she shouted.
The man-stool launched himself at the door controls. He hit the red button.
The door slid shut, just as the shadows outside converged upon the closing portal. They didn’t make it. The booth was once again secured.
His hands shaking, the man-stool pulled off his mask, revealing a lightly bearded face that had completely shit itself of all color.
Someone smashed a club against the laminated glass, and all three of them flinched.
Collie pulled herself to a sitting position. “I’m getting fucking tired of these nut sacks.”
She discarded the ST1X and crawled toward Carson, who wormed his way out of her path. She flicked a switch on one of the computer terminals and hauled a wheeled office chair over to sit on. She collapsed onto the furniture with a gasp. A considerable amount of blood spattered the white floor as she leaned over a keyboard.
/> The monitor demanded security clearance.
“Authorization,” Collie seethed in a furious voice. “You want a code?”
Her fingers nimbly punched in a series of characters. The monitor flashed red, and next to the terminal a plastic cover popped up, revealing a second red button—one specially made to withstand a heavy impact. A klaxon blared to life overhead, warning all individuals to move their asses. The remaining Leather surrounding the booth glanced up at the mechanical sound.
“Here’s a fucking code for you,” Collie said. She hammered the waiting button with the ball of her fist.
The world outside the booth erupted into cleansing flame.
For a full ten seconds.
The figures battering the glass fell away as if the floor had been yanked out from under them. There was no screaming from beyond, only that muted roar of fire jetting from unseen vents above and below.
“Decontamination box,” Collie wearily explained to the two men staring. “‘Course, the doors are usually closed when this happens. And I… skipped hosing them down with heavy sanitizer. Figured a shot of the red and heavy was better. Thoughts?”
Carson didn’t reply.
The human stool beside him didn’t say a word, either.
“Good,” Collie said. She eyed one, then the other, and then noticed the crossbow bolts sticking out of her body. She inspected the flights and focused on the human stool.
“You’re one of the slaves?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“You gonna give me a hard time?”
The man met her eyes. The ST1X was on the floor, within easy reach if he wanted it. There were even a few rounds remaining.
“Not me,” he muttered in pure mental exhaustion.
The flames continued washing the window and the parking garage outside.
“Thought so,” Collie muttered.
And went back to watching the fire.
44
Gus hurried along a concrete hallway, a hidden passage that linked several of the underground amenities in the commercial sector. A single rail of light overhead lit the way, illuminating a bare concrete floor and walls. Every fifteen feet or so, the ceiling light winked on as he raced along. Rogan would be watching where he could, the assistant explained, but the back passages didn’t have the same extensive surveillance system in place. He also mentioned that his memory was failing him. He promised Gus to do everything in his power to help him repel the barbarians, as the assistant kept referring to them, but for the most part… Gus was on his own.
Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King Page 30