Crater Lake

by James Axler

  The boy nodded. "Long as bastard sec men don't try push me around. Can't take that, Ryan."

  The older man patted him on the arm. Then he zipped up the front of his trousers and went out, motioning for Finnegan to follow him and receive the message from the albino boy. And so on, down the line. Doc went last but one, ready to explain the orders to his beloved Lori, whose own very limited vocabulary meant she always had to be last in the line of message passing.

  During the afternoon, around D on amber, they set off to explore the Wizard Island complex. Doc went with Lori, Finnegan with J.B., and Jak and Krysty with Ryan. To leave their quarters they had to stand beneath a vid camera and request permission to have the main door opened. After a delay of several minutes, the request was granted.

  They found very quickly that the promise of more or less free access was a myth. They were allowed to wander where they wanted through the main living areas, where they met and talked to more of the scientists. But when they tried to move into areas marked with black circles split with yellow triangles, there were always guards to prevent them, warning them off with the laser weapons, harsh, flat voices croaking threats.

  "Any attempt to enter research sections topmost negative prevention deterrent force."

  As far as they could judge, it seemed as if most regions of the vast building had been given over to research. During the introductory speech from Dr. Ethel Tardy, she had made it clear that the complex existed as it always had—for scientific work into military possibilities. The scientists worked as their fathers and mothers had worked, and their fathers and mothers, back to their fathers and mothers before the long chill had begun. Each generation had trained the next, handing on the torch.

  Several times Tardy had mentioned a mythical government that had given birth to Wizard Island, and was still somewhere out there, waiting, gathering strength, like a wounded beast that would one day be whole again. She had referred to this as "Central," using the word with the same kind of awe that a primitive native would reserve for his most feared deity.

  One thing that Ryan immediately found odd was the complete lack of anything from before the terminal war of 2001. In fact, there seemed nothing in the whole complex that was older than a year or so. He asked the first of the coated scientists that they saw that afternoon.

  "Nothing old? Define your terms, stranger."

  "Nothing more than a few years old."

  The man was stooped with only a few tendrils of pale hair pasted across a skull that showed the scars of surgery. Ryan noticed that the man's ears were reversed so that they faced backward.

  "A few. What is a few?"

  "Five," Ryan said, seeing that this absurd game of chopped logic could go on forever.

  "Is there anything here older than five years? Yes, I can answer without hesitation that there is."

  "Any books?" Krysty asked.

  "Books? Define your terms. What precisely is a book, young woman?"

  "Something you read."

  "Ah." A wintry smile flitted for a moment across the sallow face. "The tag here that bears my name. Dr. Darren Canting. Can you read that, stranger?"

  "Course I can."

  "Then the question does not compute. You ask if there is anything you can read. You say you can read my identification pass. Ergo, you can read something that is here."

  "Thanks, Doctor," Ryan said. "We'll be on our way." He led the other two along a lateral corridor and up a gentle slope.

  "He's fucking crazy." Jak was about to spit his disgust on the spotless floor, then changed his mind. "Like fucking swampy with head blown off. They all like him?"

  As the day wore on, it became increasingly obvious that the Wizard Island complex was filled with some of the Crater Lake strangest men and women Ryan and his friends had ever seen.

  Dr. Tardy had said there were sixty-one of the descendants of the original scientists left. What she hadn't mentioned was that hardly a single person could qualify for the word normal.

  They didn't seem like the muties who haunted the hotter parts of Deathlands, but they showed all manner of physical oddities.

  There were dwarfs of both sexes, one of whom pulled himself along in a spidery frame, powered by one of the silent motors that ran the inflatable boats. His head shaking, he smiled at them so radiantly that the room seemed to light up.

  A giant, at least eight feet tall, with the lumpy features of acromegaly, was assisted past them, almost being carried by a pair of sec guards. A young woman, face and skull totally devoid of hair, saw them watch him. "Dr. Vayr is our most brilliant astrophysicist. His intelligence quotient is below eighteen in all other matters."

  Ryan nodded his understanding. "It's often the way, isn't it? I knew a man couldn't fart his way out of a wet paper bag, yet he could flick ear wax into a plastic cup at twenty paces. Every time. Never missed."

  The woman smiled blandly and went on her way.

  "Why did you say that? To the woman with no hair?" Krysty asked when the woman was out of sight.

  Ryan shook his head. "Because I wanted to see just what sort of zombies we're dealing with. Fireblast! There's every kind of freak under the sun. It's like giving little kids a bag of stun grens to play with. Are they really just carrying on with their fucking research, like they say? There's got to be more, lover."

  Jak's interest rose when they met two girls. Both were about eighteen, with long hair the color of prairie wheat and eyes as blue as the Kansas sky. Both wore lab coats of pale cerise, belted around their trim waists. Behind them there stood the enigmatic figure of one of the sec men, carrying several items of clothes over its arm and a mop and pail with the other arm.

  "You are the strangers everyone speaks of?" the taller of the two girls asked.

  "Your hair is white as paper," the other said, reaching out tentative fingers to touch Jak's mane.

  "You never go out?" the boy asked.

  "Out?"

  "In fresh air. Up top. Above lake. Don't you ever go?"

  They both shuddered dramatically, giggling, then clung to each other. "Externalizing quadruple negative, stranger," the first girl sniggered.

  "We work. Research for Central. That's all."

  "What's your specialty?" Krysty asked.

  "I'm Dr. Louella Hall," the shorter of the two told him. "I work on neural destruction from airborne alkaloid disseminators."

  "And I'm Dr. Angie Pflaug. My work is research into neural-directed laser personalized missiles for low-intensity termination of selected targets."

  "I'm Jak Lauren, and I fuck pigs," the boy said with a low bow.

  His words set them on another dreadful fit of giggles, piercing shrieks of laughter that grew louder and increasingly shrill. They held on to each other for support, eyes squeezed shut, tears flowing over their smooth cheeks. At the first meeting, Ryan had thought these two might have been the only normal scientists in the complex, but as the laughter went on, scraping at his ears, he realized they were just as weird as the others.

  "What's that smell of…?" Krysty began, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "Oh, Gaia!"

  Ryan looked where she was staring and exhaled a sigh of revulsion. The laughter had affected the two young women to such an extent that both had lost all control of bladder and bowels. Their legs were streaked with the vivid evidence of their joint failure. Without another word, they tottered away down the corridor, leaving the mute sec men to put the clothes down and mop methodically at the mess they'd left behind.

  Ryan, Krysty and Jak waited a while, then moved away in a different direction.

  Later, when they met up for their last meal of the day, they all had similar tales of the complex's strange menagerie of scientists. The clocks showed that it was around C in the green. The food was identical with the middle meal, but there seemed to be less of it.

  Finnegan tucked into it with such eagerness that he managed to snap the bowl off his plastic spoon, leaving a jagged end. He held it up silently for the others to examine. Ryan
shook his head.

  "Too weak, Finn, I guess."

  "Better'n fucking nothing," the portly blaster replied.

  "Give it here." Finn passed Ryan the broken spoon. "Look."

  He drove the broken end into his own arm, against the soft material of the coveralls. The plastic was so brittle that it splintered again, doing no damage at all.

  "Anyone lend me their fucking spoon when they've finished eating?" Finnegan said, grinning.

  JUST BEFORE GREEN D, the door of their quarters hissed open and in toddled Dr. Ethel Tardy, accompanied by a limping man with an artificial plas-limb where his right arm should have been. They were accompanied by four mutie sec men, holding their laser guns at the high port.

  "May Central be with you," the diminutive woman scientist said.

  "Hi, there," Ryan said, staying seated on his narrow bed.

  "You have seen what you wished, visitwise?" she asked. "Monitoring reveals you have."

  "We've been allowed to see what you wanted us to see. Not anything else."

  Doc backed up Ryan. "Why can we not have unlimited access to all aspects of Project Eurydice? What is there for you to hide?"

  The cherubic smile vanished, and the woman frowned. "Visiting personnel take care. Imperative cooperation with us or—" The sentence dangled between them unfinished, the threat as clear as a knife blade.

  "What do you want, Dr. Tardy?" Krysty Wroth asked, trying to ease over the difficult moment.

  "It is time for questioning. To find out about the rest of you."

  "Why do you say 'the rest of us'? What do you know?" Ryan asked.

  The smile came flickering back, hanging on the soft little cheeks, never reaching the pale eyes. "We know about Dr. Tanner. He is someone… but that is not for you. Only Grades Delta and above. But we wish to know more about the rest of you. Him first." She pointed a stubby finger at Jak. "He will come with us."

  "What for?" Ryan asked, finally standing. He noticed the way the muzzles of the laser blasters swung toward him.

  "We make decisions, stranger." The smile had gone again, fast as the dew off a summer lawn. "There are all blood tests. Encephs. Bone marrow scrapings. Sight and hearing. The usual for strangers on Wizard Island."

  "Don't like the sound of that," the albino said, poised on the balls of his feet, hands hanging loose, his body relaxed, ready for action.

  "Me, neither," J,B. said, rising.

  "Resistance is negatived. The blasters are set on level two. Scorch flesh only. If put up to twenty, instant death." She smiled. "Ugly termination."

  It was a tense moment. Ryan was aware that every one of his six companions was razor-ready, needing only the flicker of a signal for him to attack, regardless of the opposition.

  "I'll go with 'em," Jak said, quietly stepping forward. "No point in getting chilled now. Wait chance, eh?"

  "Sure, kid," Ryan said.

  "Take care, Jak," Lori said.

  Finn gave him the thumbs-up signal, getting a nod from the young boy.

  Ryan realized how young and slight Jak was, seeing him as he moved to stand next to one of the sec guards. In the coveralls and sneakers he seemed to be about ten years old. The jagged scar at the corner of the lad's cheek tugged up the corner of his mouth, making it look as though he were giving them a wry grin. His white hair floated like a mist around the nape of his neck.

  "Wise, decisionwise," Dr. Tardy said. "Come, Dr. Avian."

  The other man hadn't spoken, had merely observed what was happening. Once he lifted the false arm to scratch at the tip of his nose with a creaking finger. Now he reached out with it and tugged Jak by the sleeve.

  The albino jerked away automatically, knocking into the nearest of the mutie guards. He retaliated by swinging his gun toward Jak and squeezing the flat black trigger. There was a brief burst of blue light, dazzling and intense. Jak yelped in pain, grabbing at the side of his ribs where a small strip of cloth was scorched and smoldering.

  "Fucking bastard!" he shouted, pushing the crippled scientist away so that the man staggered and fell, bringing Dr. Tardy down on top of him. There was instant chaos in the living quarters.

  A mutie sec man raked a line across the plastic floor in front of Ryan and the others, leaving a burned strip as a warning against interfering in the fight.

  Helpless, they could do nothing but watch the fourteen-year-old take on the other three sec guards, without benefit of a weapon.

  The blasters gave only the faintest hum and crackle when fired. From the floor, Dr. Tardy squeaked an order to the muties not to use their weapons. With so many people crowded together, she knew there was a good chance "innocents," such as herself, might get injured.

  "Minimum force! Subdue the stranger!"

  But the stranger wasn't about to let himself be subdued.

  Over the years, Ryan Cawdor had seen men and women who had lethal skills in hand-to-hand fighting, but he'd never seen anyone quite as good as Jak Lauren.

  The boy dropped to the floor, pushing out with his fingers, kicking at the knees of the nearest guard. There was the clear crack of bone snapping, and the mutie toppled sideways, landing with a crash on the plastic tiles. The guard's helmet rolled off, revealing, for the first time, the face of one of the scientist's sec men.

  It was the face of a slobbering idiot—rolling eyes behind the glittering visor, and a mouth that opened and closed like a landed fish. Only the faintest mewing sound could be heard.

  The creature came up on one knee, hands snatching at the broken joint, spittle trailing across his chest. Jak glanced sideways, measured the distance and kicked once more, his foot striking the base of the mutie's broad nose. Cartilage split and bone splintered. Jagged shards were driven deep into the front of what passed for brains in the sec man.

  The guard flopped back, legs kicking and flailing, blood trickling from his open mouth where the rictus of dying agony had made him bite through his own blubbery tongue.

  Jak wasn't interested in the man behind him. He jabbed with a clenched fist at the solar plexus of the second sec guard, doubling him over like a fawning courtier. The breath whooshed from the mutie's lungs, and he fell to his knees, gagging. A thread of yellow-green bile wormed from under the rim of his helmet. As he bent over, he exposed the nape of his neck for several seconds.

  Jak needed only a couple of those seconds.

  Using the board-hard cutting edge of his left hand, the white-haired boy chopped down at the helpless creature. Doc Tanner winced at the sickening sound of vertebrae cracking. The mutie's voice box gave a shriek of electronic feedback as he fell, mortally wounded, to join his partner on the blood-smeared floor.

  The third guard backed away, waving the laser blaster helplessly, head turning back and forth, waiting for orders. Dr. Tardy had gotten to her feet, ignoring her companion who was having problems with his prosthetic arm. She chattered into a tiny lapel mike, too quietly for Ryan to hear what she was saying. It didn't need a giant intellect to guess she was calling up reinforcements to take the boy.

  "Hit the mutie fucker, kid," Finnegan yelled, hands opening and closing as if he imagined himself squeezing the throat of the sec guard covering them.

  "Set on twenty!" the little woman screeched, fists clenched in impotent rage.

  "Watch him, Jak!" Ryan warned, seeing the third sec man fiddle with the dial control on the side of his weapon, then push the slide from two up to twenty.

  From scorch to destroy.

  But Jak was too quick. He came in like a dancer, perfectly balanced, red eyes glowing ferociously. As the mutie clumsily leveled the blaster, Jak batted it aside with one hand. There was a brief crackle from the gun, but no stream of luminous death. The force of the blow was enough to send the stubby weapon spinning into the air. It landed with a hiss, and a microsecond stream of deep blue light spat from the muzzle. The beam hit the wall to the left of Krysty's bed, blasting a smoking hole in the concrete. Fortunately for everyone, after that single brief pulse of laser power,
the gun lay still.

  Standing with legs slightly apart, the guard turned to watch the flight of his blaster. That gave Jak all the chance he needed. With dazzling streetfighter speed, he kicked hard, his foot crunching between the sec man's thighs, pulping the scrotal sac against the sharp edge of the pubic bone.

  "Malfunction has ensued malfunction has ensued malf— "

  The voice box was activated. The tone was calm and measured, at odds with the figure rolling helplessly at the feet of the white-haired boy, hands clutching his groin.

  For a few fluttering heartbeats, it looked as if Jak was going to do it. The guard covering the others hesitated, head turning, blind-visored, seeking orders. Dr. Tardy stood away from the door, face pale as death at the sight of two of her precious sec men down and dying and a third crippled.

  Then the backup force arrived.

  Through the door came a dozen or more black-uniformed muties, all holding blasters at the ready. They fanned out and covered the single skinny young boy.

  Ryan sucked at his teeth, knowing the cord of Jak's life was a heartbeat away from being severed forever. One word from the woman…

  "Negative termination." she said, panting as if she'd run a hard race over a plowed field.

  The cripple was finally on his feet, wiping sweat from his high forehead with his normal hand. He leaned forward in a curiously reptilian manner, studying the albino boy.

  "He is m-m-m-m-most interesting, Dr. T-T-T-Tardy," he stammered.

  "Indeed he is, Dr. Avian. I have never seen or heard of such skill and control, lethal wise."

  Ryan relaxed. They weren't going to have the kid turned into steaming spray and spilled guts, after all.

  "You will go to Control, boy," she lisped to Jak.

  "You're going to chill him?" Ryan asked. If the answer turned out to be yes, he would let them take Jak and watch for a chance to go after them and save the kid.

  "I don't read you."

  "Kill him. Waste him. Send him to buy the farm. Terminate him?"

  Jak stood, watching, his chest hardly moving more than normal, despite having put down three armed men, two of them for keeps. The other sec men kept their blasters on full power, covering Ryan and the rest.