by Ryder Stacy
“Sure,” Rock replied slipping the thin chain that came with it around his neck so it hung down over his chest. “Anything else?”
“That’s it for this time around,” the chief scientist said, rising and shaking hands with Rockson, who had also risen. “I know you’ve got to move, so I won’t take up any more of your time or bore you with more of these gizmos.”
“It’s never a bore to talk with you, Dr. Shecter,” Rockson said with deep sincerity as he shook the man’s hand. It was a surprisingly firm grip for someone his age. “I wish we could spend a whole day going over your latest inventions and theories of de-evolution. I find them all quite fascinating.”
“Good luck, Rockson,” Shecter said. The Doomsday Warrior turned and headed off. Somehow there was a strange feeling in his chest as if he might not ever see the man or this place again. Something about the mission was filling him with a Kierkegaardian brooding feeling.
It took Rockson only an hour to choose his team. They’d have to travel fast and light. He picked Detroit, of course; and Chen, the martial arts teacher of C.C., and long time fighting partner of Rockson. And he also chose Archer, whose sheer seven-foot strength could make up for a lot of problems when the shit hit the fan. Their ’brids were already fully supplied by the time they met at the outer stables. The four men were excited, wide-eyed and flushed, filled with excitement as they were always were when heading out on a mission. Only Rockson was drawn and pale. He felt something, a darkness that he had rarely felt before in his life. A trembling of the soul.
The guards opened the wide camouflaged gates to the north of Century City and the four men rode out on their snorting hybrids. They headed out down the mountain slopes with a white sun blazing down threatening to burn them all to a crisp. The Freefighters headed out into a nasty world, a world that had absorbed the shock of nuclear war and threw it back at mankind in a thousand ways. And Bitch Nature could really dish it out!
Eight
The mountains were staggeringly beautiful even to the jaded men who had seen it all before. There’s something about the beauty of pure nature that makes it always new, eternally shimmering, an electric current to the soul. Especially in a world of mega-death and vast patches of terrain that were little more than ashes and burnt soil. Thus, these rebel American fighters felt the beauty even deeper, sharper, perhaps than citizenry of the old days might have. It had a poignancy to it just because it was surrounded by so much death.
“Makes you want to just sigh, roll up your trouser legs and get a fishing line and snooze beneath those snow jeweled peaks forever,” Detroit said as he rode alongside Rockson down the momentarily wide deer trail that led down the upper slopes.
Archer and Chen rode together ten yards behind, but both men were silent, Chen because he had little to say as was usually the case, and the giant Archer because he was a near-mute and preferred, like the Chinese American, to just take it all in. Talking was not his strong suit.
“You can say that again,” Rockson replied with a wry grin. He gazed at the towering peaks, the blankets of firs, coating all in a loving embrace. But as much as he tried to relax and allow the majestic Rocky Mountain sights to soothe his soul, he couldn’t. The dark cloud that he had felt since the messenger had come and alerted them two days before hung over him and grew thicker by the hour. Rarely had his mutant senses felt quite so alert. His whole body was tingling.
They made their way across high slopes for a good part of the day and then began descending slightly as they headed northeast. Pattonville was three hundred and fifty miles to the north and east, a good ride through fairly treacherous terrain. Rockson figured five days if they were lucky, a lot more if they weren’t. The ’brids could move their asses when the weather was right and they weren’t in ornery moods, both of which so far seemed to be the case.
In late afternoon, they passed a whole mountainside filled with goats; big dudes with horns the size of diesel truck springs. They were presided over by an oversized mutant goat, all black and as big as a small bull. The dominant male of the flock looked down at the passing hybrids with scorn, standing on an outcropping, his body rigid as his reddish eyes glared down. He was perhaps daring them to even try to take over his territory or steal any of his females. None of which any of the Freefighters was ready to fight over. They passed by just a few hundred feet below as the other goats ran wildly in all directions bleating like an out of tune choir.
“FOOOOD,” Archer bellowed as he started to unsling his huge crossbow from around his back.
“No, pal,” Rockson laughed, turning around in the saddle and shouting to the bear of a Freefighter. “Don’t have time for all that. We’ve got enough supplies,” he said, patting the side of the saddle bag. Shecter’s field tech boys had loaded them up with high energy concentrates that took up little room but packed a hell of a lot nutritionally. They just didn’t have time to play around with hunting scenes. Rock knew that Archer hated the energy packs. But he could afford to lose a few pounds on the road, hitting the scales at something over 425 lbs. He’d live.
“SHHIIIIT!” the near mute growled with disgust letting the crossbow fall back again just as his eyes had connected with a big fat sucker of a goat. That goat saw what was in his eyes and went tearing off over the rise.
They rode on for several hours without stopping. The men knew the routine. Lunch was on board the ’brids, just chewing on whatever they could dig out from the food bags. Water jugs were tied up alongside too. They were mobile and self-sufficient. Had better be!
Rockson was just starting to feel his mood lighten slightly for no particular reason other than they were at least making decent time. Then his eyes caught a darkness in the skies ahead. His heart skipped a beat. He took out his field binocs and focused in on the dark mass some twenty miles ahead, without slowing his ’brid Snorter, whose big legs clomped effortlessly down the mountain path. It took a few seconds to get the glasses adjusted just right. And then his heart skipped a few more beats.
The sky was a churning sea of blackness, a sheer malevolence of clouds extending in all directions. It was like a thing alive, boiling and extending out with pseudopods of black moisture down to the earth. Mini-tornado funnels came out of its guts and spiraled down to the earth below. A mega-blow, a black rain. Rain whose acid drops could eat away at steel, let alone human flesh. Bitch Nature.
“We’re into the shit, boys,” Rockson said, holding up his right hand in the stop signal. “We got us an acid-blow coming on fast.” The rest of them could see it now too, could feel the sudden change in air electrical currents. Rock dismounted slowly, not wanting to spook either the men or the steeds, though they had been through this before, and should feel spooked.
“Where should we set up?” Chen asked as he walked alongside Rock, his ’brid’s reins in his hands.
“A clearing will be better than beneath any of these big sucker trees here,” the Doomsday Warrior replied, looking around. He had seen the dark acidic drops eat right through branches sending them flying down to the ground.
They found a basically flat sandy area which would be good, as it would absorb the death-rain and began taking out their alumnisynth space blankets. Acid-repellant. Another of Shecter’s inventions. Before them, any man caught out in a blow who couldn’t get into a cave was dead meat. Storms like this had made travel, particularly for long distances, extremely hazardous. Rock could remember the salutations that Freefighters had given to each other whenever they had departed on missions, as little as ten years ago:
“May the acid rains not burn you.”
He smiled inwardly, he hadn’t heard that expression for a long time. But now although they were never 100% safe, Shecter’s acid-proof snap-together tents afforded them a fair degree of safety. Assuming the things didn’t get blown right out of the ground. The men broke out their sections of blanket. Each could be used singly if a Freefighter was out alone or all four could be joined at the seams to create a small square tent. It took th
em only minutes to get the thing up, slamming the tent poles into the ground, attaching the different corners and sides with nylon cord.
But they could hear it now, the black rainstorm growing closer. It had sound now, as it came in like a freight train from hell. A roaring, chomping thunder which crackled with danger. The ’brids grew nervous and the men had to keep patting them and slipping them pieces of synthetic sugar to keep them cooled out.
But at last the whole structure was assembled and Rockson made a quick circumference of it, slapping at the silver coated thing, hitting it hard at the corners to make sure it was storm worthy. It was.
“All right, let’s get in,” he said glancing up at the mountain of black and brown clouds that was closing in fast now just miles away. He could hear the bleats and howls of the woods animals as they ran in terror from the impending blackness. Poor bastards, he knew what the fates of most of them were likely to be. They led the ’brids inside, putting blinders over their eyes which generally seemed to cool them out. But the big creatures were quite skittish now, apparently set off by the cries of the forest dwellers.
“Hold ’em tight,” Rock told the others. “If one of those suckers breaks free and stampedes out through a wall—we’re all cooked goose and I mean cooked.”
The others laughed, but lightly and not with much conviction. They led their mounts in one after another, making the ’brids kneel slightly to get through the opening. Rock led his mount in last and closed up the tent wall behind him. It sealed easily, a velcro-material, self-adhesive, so that not a fraction of an inch of space was open to the outside.
He had barely sealed them in and set up a lantern in the middle of the tent when the first real winds hit them broadside. The tent rippled and shook like it was going over already before the brunt of the storm had ever arrived. But Rockson knew the thing was designed to give a lot. Nothing stiff and rigid would have survived even a few minutes of a “mega.”
“Get the ’brids down,” Rock shouted over the sounds as he touched the front knees of Snorter’s legs and the hybrid obediently kneeled down on all fours, just as happy to curl up and take the weight off. The others followed suit although Chen’s steed seemed less relaxed about the whole affair. His regular ’brid, which he had ridden for several years had been seriously gashed by a wolf just months before. It was alive but still recuperating in the veterinary stables in C.C. This one was supposedly well-trained, but they could sense its anxiety as it made funny noises from deep in its throat. And why not?
Then the shit exploded from the fan as the storm came tearing right overhead. The droplets of acid came gushing down in a waterfall onto the top of the tent and cascaded down all around them. The screams of the forest animals nearby rose to a crescendo as they were burnt horribly. It took time to die from the acidic rains. They burned the outer portions of the flesh first. It took minutes, sometimes many minutes for the sky-acid to reach any vital part of the animal. A torture of nature, as hideous as anything that man had ever devised.
The winds came ever stronger, and they could feel the tent billowing all around them, the tent poles stretching sideways and flexing hard. If he had ever prayed that Shecter’s inventions would hold out, now was the time. Rockson closed his eyes and sent out a silent call to whoever was up there to spare them, not for their own lives, but because of the terrible importance of their mission. But the winds only spoke back louder, howling like ten thousand lions just outside their tent walls.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the near darkness as Chen’s ’brid which had been down on its crouched legs suddenly got spooked by all the noise and thunder. It rose up before any of them realized what was happening and bolted right toward the left side wall of the alumna-tent. Chen was on top of the situation, leaping forward and grabbing for the reins. But not before the ’brid had managed to slam its front foot right through one of the velcro seals. A burst of the wet, hissing acid came pouring in on the left back corner of the tent as they all watched in horror. The ’brid let out a neigh that was deafening as its front leg was hit with a bucket full of the stuff. Chen as well took a stream along his right arm.
But even as the storm seemed to sense the opening in the tent and came blowing in hard from around the side, hoping to take them all out, Rockson leaped forward. He managed to swing the opened section closed again, taking a few very painful drops on his own flesh. They wrestled the ’brid to the ground and Detroit whipped out his canteen, pouring water all over Chen’s arm and then the ’brid’s right leg.
They could see the blackened flesh on the Chinese-American, as if he had just received third degree burns from wrist to elbow. The ’brid’s leg hide was actually smoking, though as they doused it with water it extinguished. The water didn’t stop the pain, but at least it washed off the dark acid and stopped it from burning any deeper.
The ’brid made all kinds of noises but apparently it had gotten the message that heading outside wasn’t exactly the best thing to do.
So they sat down again, Chen gritting his teeth hard against the pain. The storm went on for what seemed like an eternity. But at last, after actually what was only about fifteen minutes, the intense winds began dying down and the rain definitely lessened. Another five minutes and it had passed them, rolling off to the south, to see what destruction it could cause there. Rockson waited a few minutes as he knew the residual drops outside were just as deadly as anything that fell from the sky in the midst of the storm. Thank God the stuff evaporated quickly; too unstable to sit around for long.
But at last he swung back the tarp siding and walked gingerly out. It was over. This blow anyway. They brought the ’brids out. Once in the clearing light of the late afternoon they could see just how badly Chen’s arm had been burned. Salve was put over it and the ’brid’s leg. It soothed it and would help with heeding but it sure as hell didn’t do a lot for the pain. There was nothing more painful than acid rain on the skin. The Chinese martial arts master didn’t say a word, just gritted his teeth. He glanced down occasionally at the arm as Rockson treated it. Chen looked on as if with detached interest like an intern seeing some new disease at a hospital. The wounded ’brid made a hell of a lot more noise when it was treated, wanting everyone to know it was in pain. It was not a silent sufferer.
Nine
The acid storm had left a terrible trail of death and destruction. Trees were smoldering like they’d been hit by lightning, vegetation was scorched down to the earth. The acid rain wasn’t prejudiced, it would burn every goddamned thing. But it was the animal life that had fared the worse. Smoking corpses, husks of things lay strewn everywhere like a battleground of wildlife. Goats, deer, bears, snakes, birds, all lay in grotesque death poses frozen in eternal sculptures of pain. They were blackened, feathers and hides burned completely off. Those who had received many minutes of the acidic waterfall had their whole bodies burnt open, chests smoldering, hearts and lungs black like overdone burgers on a suburban barbecue.
It was hard for the Freefighters to even look at it all as they rode slowly through the Rocky Mountain slopes. The death went on for miles. The legacy of the nuke war a hundred plus years earlier was still being felt. For these storms were a direct result of the thousands of atomic weapons that had gone off. The earth’s axis tilting, the greenhouse effect setting in and—these mega-storms were one result. These rains of terror.
Archer kept wanting to stop and grab hold of some of the smoking remains, figuring it was all precooked and why not. But Rockson explained patiently to him as he rode alongside the Freefighter that the acid had collected in the carcasses. One bite and he’d have smoked mouth, gums, tongue, and everything else. At last the bear of a man got the message and ripped out some vitapacks which he chewed on angrily, frustrated over the waste of so much well-done chow. But he kept looking down at the vast death picnic with something approaching lust in his egg-sized eyes.
Chen’s arm was still a mess, sealed with antibiotsynth gel and wrapped up. But it was clear tha
t the burns hadn’t gotten deeper than about a quarter inch. He would have scars but no lasting nerve or muscle damage. The martial arts master never even referred to the wound or the pain that he was surely feeling. His ’brid, on the other hand, which had also been bandaged up seemed to enjoy making a commotion, favoring the leg and letting out loud whinnies every few minutes when it felt a surge of pain stream through the foreleg. Chen patted it along the side of the neck and whispered in its furry ear each time it got riled up. That seemed to cool it back down again. The man’s sensitivity to animals was rivaled only by Rockson’s, who had a kinship with wildlife since birth.
They rode on into the darkness as the moon was strong tonight and illuminated the night terrain. The storm seemed to have swept all the usual mists and fogs right out of the way so the air was clear, crisp with a fragrant odor. They slowed down at the top of a long flat plateau, on the other side of which the mountain dropped suddenly and precariously down again. Rockson could see vast ruptured plains stretching off as far as the eye could scan. And no clouds in the sky. He was bone-tired.
“We’ll stop for the night,” the Doomsday Warrior said, raising his hand and dismounting. They quickly got their gear out and made a fire for warmth as the night air was cold, dropping once the sun had disappeared, into the teens. Detroit disappeared into the woods surrounding them and they heard the sharp crack of a grenade going off. The three Freefighters jumped to their feet, fearing the worst as they reached for their weapons, and started toward the explosions. But before they’d gone more than a few yards the black Freefighter emerged from the woods holding the bloody carcass of a sabre toothed raccoon, a good-sized one that must have weighed fifty pounds.
“I saw him and happened to have a grenade with me,” Detroit smirked as the others relaxed, seeing he was okay. “Couldn’t resist—though I’m afraid I did mess him up a little.” He held the red-soaked creature up by the tail.