Amazon Gate

by James Axler

  On the third night, as darkness fell, Ryan and Doc conversed with the Gate queen.

  "I would hazard a guess that we are headed toward the area where the old capital was once located," Doc said, studying both the map he had taken from the redoubt and the faded parchment that Gloria carried. He indicated a location on both, each in turn, with a long, bony finger that trembled slightly in the cold night air, despite their closeness to the main fire.

  "That's where the main nukes would have hit," Ryan said quietly. "It's still a complete no-go area, what little of it is left. Trader had never seen it, but like he used to say, 'You don't have to see the shit to know that it smells.'"

  "Picturesquely put, my dear boy," Doc murmured with a wry grin of amusement, "and probably just about accurate. There was the strong smell of corruption stinking out those corridors, the corruption-of-power madness, the insanity of pointless violence and the acquisition of power for the sake of it, with no goal or reason other than to glory in the utter futility of being master of the void."

  Gloria cast a puzzled glance at Ryan. "Is he always like this? I'm sorry, honey, but I can't understand a word you say," she added to Doc.

  He gave a look of infinite sadness. "Madam, if you had seen the void, you would understand. I could see it in those whitecoat eyes. If nothing else happened in the days of skydark that was good, then at least it cleaned out the canker eating at their souls."

  "Doc," Ryan said, trying to bring the old man back on track, "if we're not going to the old capital, then where are we headed?"

  Doc looked blankly at the one-eyed warrior, for a short moment lost somewhere inside the hell that he carried within him, the things that he knew but would rather had never crossed his consciousness.

  "To oblivion, dear boy," he said softly. Then, in a stronger voice, "Inevitably, as must all men. But right now I would say we were going to scout around to the northwest of the continent. Strange, is it not, how everything seems to pull us this way. I remember a story from the whitecoats, a rumor only half-heard through an office door, but nonetheless…"

  Doc, however, was not to repeat the rumor right then. There was a more pressing problem, as evinced by the sudden sounds of argument that cut him off and caused them to look around.

  "Mildred…" Ryan whispered.

  "Margia…" Gloria replied in a resigned tone.

  "IT'S ABOUT TIME you came out with what you meant, lady, 'cause I'll tell you one thing—you wind a spring too far and it snaps. You pull that elastic too taut and it snaps. And that's me, girl."

  Mildred squared up to the blond armorer, shrugging off Krysty's hand as she tried to restrain the angry woman. Margia had finally taken that one step over the line. And it was the simplest trigger of all: Mildred's color.

  Mildred Wyeth had encountered race hatred and discrimination all her life. Her father had been burned to death in his chapel, a victim of racism. Racism hampered her career as a doctor, despite her success. In the days before skydark, she often wondered if she would have achieved greater success if she had been white. Waking up from her freezie state to an alien world, it might have been an unreasonable dream, but not beyond the bounds of probability, that the harsh demands of a postholocaust world would cause the survivors to forget about race and band together to try to survive. Instead, she found merely that survival increased the tribalism and hatred.

  Margia had drawn this inference from J.B.'s oblique answers to her questions about Mildred. And having judged that now was the right moment, she chose to bring this card into play. Passing Mildred where she sat with Krysty and Tammy, the blonde paused to mutter a comment about Mildred sitting too close to the fire, in case she got burned, like her father, adding, "but then, I suppose J.B. likes burned meat."

  It was at the same time both banal and vile, and it certainly had the intended effect. Like the last straw on the cliched camel's back, it broke the line of resistance that Mildred had kept up for days. The reference to her father, along with the racial slur, was well timed by the blonde.

  And now they stood face-to-face, Mildred seething with anger, Margia retaining a detached and almost ironic calm.

  "What do I mean?" she said with a deceptive sweetness. "Why, Mildred, I don't bother to hide things."

  "That's true," Mildred snapped. "I don't know exactly what you want—to make me look bad in front of John, in front of everyone. To take him for yourself in some way I don't understand…just to play some motherfucking stupid game for all I know. But you've gone too far now."

  Margia had expected the strike, and was ready for it. Mildred jabbed with a straightened hand, fingers rigid, powering the blow from the elbow so as not to telegraph, aiming for just under the blonde's ribs with an upward thrust. If the blow had struck home, it would have driven the breath from her body and been a hammer blow to her heart, despite the hard muscle that ridged her torso.

  But Margia was quicker, her anticipation adding fire to her reflexes. Her right arm swept down, deflecting Mildred's arm by redirecting its own momentum, and she shot forward her left arm, with her hand turned palm up, driving it into Mildred's face.

  Mildred snapped her head back before the full force of the blow could hit her, but still there was enough for her to see stars as the heel of Margia's hand brushed against her. Mildred toppled back, and knowing that she couldn't prevent her fall, she relaxed into it so that she would be floppy as she hit the earth, and would not jar or break anything. She hit the ground, tensing her calf and thigh muscles to propel herself back upward, but found that Margia had already anticipated this move.

  Instead of staying on her feet to deliver the next blow, as Mildred had expected, Margia had followed Mildred down, dropping to her knees so that she caught Mildred on the way up, her bony knees smashing into Mildred's ribs, driving her back to the earth and pinning her there. The blonde's hands snaked out for Mildred's throat, and there was a gleam in her eyes that bespoke of blood lust.

  It was only because Mildred was a fraction quicker than Margia thought that she managed to prevent the grip taking hold on her throat. Mildred brought her hands up, pulling her arms together so that they wormed in between the blonde's. She pushed her arms out, taking Margia's forearms away from her prone body, and turning her hands so that her palms gripped around the blonde's forearms in a viselike grip that pinched the flesh and felt hard bone beneath. "You won't beat me," the blond armorer whispered, her voice husky with excitement. "You'll tire before I do."

  And although she desperately refused to admit it to herself, as this would destroy her own fighting confidence, Mildred knew deep in her gut that Margia was right. Mildred was a good fighter, learning from her companions and adding this to her basic drive and determination, but for all that, she knew that she was ultimately no match for an Amazon warrior who had been born to the life and trained almost from birth. Margia would be stronger over the distance, have more stamina, and would have an almost genetic disposition to combat.

  Mildred was in deep trouble, and she knew it.

  By this time, members of the Gate had started to drift toward the fight. An internal skirmish of this sort was rare among the tribe, and rather than any sense of urgency there was an over whelming feeling of curiosity among the onlookers. Krysty desperately wanted to intervene, but a shake of the head from Tammy told her that it would be a breach of protocol that could endanger the status of their entire party.

  Dean, Jon and Petor had also homed in on the fight, after hearing the initial argument.

  "Shit, Mildred doesn't stand a chance," Jon said matter-of-factly.

  Dean shot him a sharp glance. "Mildred's a good fighter," he replied. "Margia's gonna have to be good to take her out."

  Petor shook his head. "Doesn't matter how good a fighter she is. She sure as shit ain't el loco, and that's what Margia is."

  Jon agreed. "That's the problem. She'll keep going until she wins, even if all the flesh is flayed from her hide. She just gets this wild fire in her. I've seen her before."<
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  "Then why isn't anyone stopping her?" Dean asked, indicating the Gate members who were gathering around the fight.

  "Two reasons," Jon said softly. "The first is that you never interfere with a fight between two women… not in this tribe. It's the worst breach of law you can think of."

  "Hot pipe! I can't let that get in the way of stopping this," Dean said angrily, moving away from Jon and Petor and moving toward the fight. "I can't let Mildred get—"

  Petor grabbed his arm. "Second reason, Dean— Margia is an evil bitch, and you know that she won't rest until she's either the victor or the vanquished. This'll run until she dies or emerges victorious, and believe me, my friend, if you get in the way she'll take you out, as well."

  Dean made to pull away, but found Petor's grip was firm. Jon took Dean's other arm. "Believe him," Jon said simply. Dean looked on helplessly while Margia pummeled Mildred. She had beaten away Mildred's arms, loosened the grip that Mildred had on her forearms, and was swinging punches and chops at the prone woman. People were slow to make their way from the corners of the camp, or from over by the fire, and Ryan, Doc and Gloria were nowhere to be seen. Neither was J.B., who was at that moment in the armory tent, putting the finishing touches to his Uzi, which he had lovingly stripped and cleaned.

  But there was one man who was close enough to the fight to see almost immediately what was going on, and one man who had no one to tell him not to intervene.

  Not that mere words could ever stop Jak Lauren when he was determined to see something through.

  Jak had been outside the camp when the fight began, having just taken a walk in the surrounding scrub to feel the cold night air on him. He had sharpened his eyes and hearing in the gloom, taking in every movement in the undergrowth. Sharpened so much, in fact, that it went beyond the immediate area, and beyond the five senses into something that could reach out beyond. Almost as if he could scent trouble on the air.

  Which is exactly what happened. Jak turned suddenly back toward the camp, sensing a change in atmosphere. For a fraction of a second, he paused, assimilating in his subconscious all that his senses were telling him. And then he began to run. Mildred was by now almost insensible. Margia had landed a chopping blow to the side of her neck that had made her see a whirl of colors in the night air, a thousand firecrackers exploding in her head. Despite all she had experienced over the years, Mildred had always firmly believed that the idea of exploding lights and fireworks in the head were a cliche. Now she knew that wasn't so, and knew at a moment when it was imperative that she remain alert.

  But somehow she couldn't. The blow had stunned her severely, and caught a nerve cluster that spread a deadening effect up her face and into her head. It was almost as though her head were becoming disassociated from her body, and would no longer respond to her commands. She wanted to lift her arms and defend herself, but they stubbornly refused to obey. She was painfully aware that this left her completely open to attack, and Margia was keen to exploit that.

  The blond armorer landed blow after blow, not in a hurry, but with the calm assurance of one picking her spot. She had caught on quickly that Mildred was incapacitated, and that it was now merely a matter of taking her time and finishing the job properly.

  A chance that she wouldn't get because of her arrogance.

  Jak came streaking through the crowd, white hair flowing out behind him, his face pale and ghostly in the distant light of the campfire. He shouldered aside the Gate members who blocked his path, unheeding of their dissent, and took in the situation at a glance.

  He jumped, launching himself into a flying drop kick that hit Margia on the side as she was about to land another blow. Her arm was raised, and Jak's combat boots hit her under the ribs and in the soft hollow of her armpit. The blonde grunted in shock and pain as she was driven sideways onto the ground, and off Mildred. Jak rolled beside her and got to his feet as she gathered herself and rose to attack the new threat.

  "Fight one, fight all," Jak said simply, arms hanging loose by his side, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to fight but unwilling to give away anything by his stance.

  Margia's eyes glittered with animal hatred and anger. "You little shit, you'll learn," she grated, launching herself at the albino.

  Jak was ready for the assault and adjusted his balance so that he could take the brunt of her attack side on. In her sudden flaring anger, she had lost some of her cunning, but Jak was still calm and collected. He countered her blow and used her own force against her to drive her back to the ground. She snarled as she sprang to her feet once more, her hand snaking down her thigh to where she had her panga sheathed.

  Jak was ahead of her. He moved into her with the speed and slither of a snake, palming one of his leaf-bladed knives and using a swift downward motion to cut through the straps that held the sheath to her thigh. The panga dropped away from her thigh before she had secured her grip on the hilt. While she tried to fasten her grip, tilting her body slightly to snake her hand farther down, Jak took advantage of this sudden shift in balance to upset her totally, driving one combat boot outward so that it caught her bare ankle, barely protected by the simple thonged sandal. She yelped in involuntary pain as her ankle gave way beneath the driving force, and she crumpled to one side.

  Jak followed her down, the knife in his palm. He secured her at the shoulders with his knees, locking his feet around her knees so that she couldn't kick at him from behind his head.

  He held the knife to her throat. She was completely silent, although her eyes gleamed with a desire to kill him.

  "Give one reason why not," Jak said softly.

  "Because I say so," a voice answered from behind.

  "Not enough," Jak said in a louder voice, over his shoulder.

  Gloria stepped around until she was in his view. Ryan was with her. Jak knew that the one-eyed warrior would back him, as he would back any of his people, but he was also aware that Ryan would show deference to the Gate queen, as they were her guests. "Because she's my sister, and as much of a bitch as she can be, and as stupidworks as any man, she's still blood."

  Gathered around the scene, both Dean and Krysty started when they heard that. Both, in their own ways, had wondered why Margia could get away with so much in a society that otherwise wouldn't have tolerated her attitude. Now it was clear: she was under the queen's sufferance.

  Jak looked Gloria squarely in the eye, leaf-bladed knife still at the blonde's throat. Then, with the barest of nods, he slipped the knife back into its secured hiding place and rose from the supine woman.

  "Check Mildred," he said simply, turning to where his companion lay, starting to recover full consciousness while she was tended by J.B., who had ignored the continuing fight to come to her aid.

  The encampment returned to normality quickly. Margia was led off by her sister, and the companions took Mildred back to their billet to tend to her. There was a subdued atmosphere, despite things continuing as on a normal night, and a gradual silence descended on the city of canvas and plastic. So it was with some surprise that Jak, not yet asleep, heard his name called softly from outside the tent. He looked at his companions. They were sleeping, and as usual Jak was the only one still to be awake. Sleeping was always hard, for when the dreams came they were violent and he was helpless as his wife and daughter were killed time and again in front of him.

  So sometimes Jak didn't sleep, and was glad of distraction. He rose and went out of the tent.

  Gloria stood before him, framed by the light of a still burning lamp.

  "Thank you for not chilling my sister," she said simply.

  "Your tribe—you deal." The albino shrugged.

  Gloria didn't answer. Instead, she just smiled her lopsided smile and held out a hand. "Come on, honey," she said in a soft, sibilant tone, "come and join with me this night. I want you."

  Jak took her hand without a word and followed her back to her tent. Once inside, she turned to kiss him, and he felt a charge run through him as
their lips met, a feeling like stepping off into the void of infinity. It had been a long time for him, and it had taken someone like Gloria to awaken those instincts within him once more.

  DEAN HAD AWAKENED when Jak had moved in the tent and watched Jak and Gloria leave. He also saw something that they missed: the figure of the blond armorer, limping heavily, lurking in the shadows of the tents. Remembering what Jon and Petor had told him, and figuring that being bedded by her sister would add to Margia's hatred, he decided that he had to put his father in the picture as soon as morning came.

  Things could get very difficult, if Margia wanted it that way…

  Chapter Nine

  They sat around the fire, the entire tribe gathered together—apart from those who were on watch—joined by Ryan and the companions. They sat in the flicker of the dying flames to hear Gloria as she spoke in a resonant and singsong voice, relating the stories that were passed orally from generation to generation of Amazon queens.

  "At the time before the great darkness, they came in droves to tell of the secret gateways that were around the country. They were all, in their manner, defectors from the path of darkness who wanted to come into the light. They mapped the path for us, us who would be the inheritors and who would have the chance to right all wrongs and build once again.

  "But there were those who would be against us and would seek to maintain the old ways. They would be illuminated under the moon of dark and would stay that way for many generations before coming once more into the newborn light.

  "And yet still they would be shadow, for they would shadow the old ways in both the figure and the literal. And this would be the way that we could find them…"

  Silence descended. All that could be heard was the deep, rasping breath of the Gate queen as she started to surface from her trance. The rasp diminished as her breath became more regular and she neared the surface of her consciousness.