by James Axler
“Shifters?” J.B. walked over to stand beside Ryan. “The muties, you mean?”
Union looked bored beyond belief. “Yes, of course. After living here for so long, they are in tune with this place. They have learned how to read it. How to ride it.”
“Ride it?” Ricky chimed in. “You mean like riding freak spikes punching up from underground?”
“That is one example,” Union said. “The shifters know what is going to change and when. Then it is a simple matter of being in the right place at the right time.”
“Must be nice,” Ricky said. “Stand where a rock wall’s about to rise up so you don’t get shot.”
“Also explains how they got away with Doc,” J.B. stated. “Must’ve ducked down some rabbit hole or other that opened up in the nick of time.”
Ryan nodded. The past two days were finally starting to make sense. But one question haunted him like the ringing in his ears after a big explosion.
If the Shift could change at any time, and the shifters knew how to use its changes against outlanders, how could Ryan and his team ever rescue Doc?
“So what do we do next?” Ryan asked. “What do you recommend?”
“That depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.”
Ryan hesitated. He hadn’t shown her his cards yet, hadn’t liked or trusted her from the start. But if she might be able to help, maybe the time had come for full disclosure.
“The shifters took our friend,” he said. “We want him back.”
Union’s only answer was her usual chilly stare.
“That’s the only reason we’re still here,” Ryan continued. “We can’t leave him behind.”
Union narrowed her eyes. “How do you know he isn’t already dead?”
“We don’t. But if he is, we might be looking for one more thing around here.”
“Which is?” said Union.
“Payback.” Ryan nodded curtly. “So are you going to help us or not?”
Union looked around at the group, turning from one face to the other. When she spoke, her voice was different—brighter and bouncier than before. Her expression changed, too, from a cold stare to a warm smile. “Of course I will help you find your friend.”
Ryan was caught off guard. Union suddenly seemed like a different person.
“Perhaps, in turn, you might be able to help me.”
“In what way?” Ryan frowned as he realized Union’s voice and expression weren’t the only things about her that had changed. Somehow, the single braid that hung from her left temple had changed color from black to chestnut brown.
“You’ll see soon enough.” Union smiled. “For now, let’s just say we’re traveling in the same direction.”
“What direction is that?” asked Krysty, who’d appeared at Ryan’s side.
“Over there.” Union pointed where they’d been headed before the latest attack, along the lava channel. “That way.”
“What in that direction?” Jak asked. “More shifters?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it.”
“Why that? Mebbe you and shifters friends?”
“Never,” Union stated. “But I know what’s in that direction, and I’m sure it’s the same thing they’re heading for.”
“So what is this thing you’re trying to reach?” Mildred asked.
“The core of the Shift,” Union replied. “If your Doc is still alive, you can bet the shifters are taking him there.”
“So what happens when they get him there?” Ricky asked.
“That I don’t know. But it won’t be anything good. The shifters are a nasty bunch.”
“This core,” Ryan said. “Can you get us there? Can you guide us to it?”
“Sure.” Union smiled at each member of the team in turn. “You seem like good people. If we watch one another’s backs, we might be able to get where we’re going.”
“Might?” Jak scowled. “Not sound very sure of self.”
“Here’s the thing.” Union winced. “A lot can happen between here and the core.”
“Can’t be worse than what’s happened so far,” J.B. said.
“Actually, it can. The Shift becomes more active the closer you get to the core.”
“Why is that?” Mildred asked.
“Because the core is the source. It’s what causes the changes in the Shift in the first place.”
Ryan stared at her. He still had the feeling he was talking to someone else entirely. “How do you know so much about this core? Have you been there?”
Union smiled, but it didn’t last. As Ryan watched, her expression turned grim and stiff; all warmth fled from her pale gray eyes.
Not only that, but the color of her single braid slowly changed from chestnut brown to black.
It was as if she had reverted to her original self, the one whom Ryan had first met in battle. She gazed at him with that same disdain as before, and he wondered if she would likewise go back to not answering his questions.
Surprisingly, she did not. “I lived there once.” She looked down at the ground. “I have been broken ever since.”
“And you’re going back… Why?” Ryan wanted to know.
When Union looked up, her eyes were narrowed, her face seething with intense emotion. “To fix myself,” she told him. “To put my life back together again.”
With that, she put her hand on the longblaster at her hip and marched away, storming off in the direction she’d identified as that of the core of the Shift.
For a moment, Ryan and his team just watched her go. She’d given them a lot to chew on and left even more mysteries for them to consider.
“So.” J.B. took off his spectacles, blew on them and cleaned them with the hem of his shirt. “None of us has any better ideas, do we? Other than following her, I mean.”
No one said a word until Ryan spoke up. “I don’t like her and I don’t trust her, but she’s all we’ve got.” The one-eyed man shook his head. “I hate to say it, but she might be Doc’s only hope.”
“Crazy woman,” Jak said. “One minute one way, next minute different way.”
“Yeah,” Ricky agreed. “Kind of like the Shift, huh?”
“She said the shifter muties are linked to it,” Mildred stated. “Maybe she is, too.”
“All right then.” Ryan watched Union go a moment longer, then gathered his backpack from the ground and shouldered the straps. “Let’s catch up before she leaves us behind.”
The rest of the companions followed his lead, pulling on their packs and getting ready to move out. In the years they’d been together, they’d followed him into danger countless times, and now here they were again.
“Okay, people.” Steyr Scout longblaster in hand, Ryan nodded at his friends. “Expect the unexpected. Don’t trust her for a second.” He raised an index finger emphatically. “But as long as there’s the slightest chance she can help us find Doc, don’t give her a reason to turn against us.”
“Treat crazy woman like family.” Jak grinned. “Not problem. Fit in this group.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” J.B. told him.
“Less talking, more walking,” Ryan said, and then he set out after Union at a rapid clip. He didn’t have to look back even once to know his companions were following close behind him.
Chapter Thirteen
That evening, Union and the companions set up camp at the base of a tall, sandy hill sheltered by an array of smaller hills.
Was it a safe location for the night? Union had no guidance to offer, but she didn’t seem worried about it. At least Krysty wasn’t convulsing on the ground from Shift-induced headaches, which was a positive sign.
The general conditions seemed positive, in fact. The night was warm but not stiflingly hot. The moon was full and shining down from a cloudless sky with abundant radiance.
Everything was quiet, calm and blissfully normal. The lava channel they’d been following had ended a few miles back, and there wasn’t a spike to be seen in any direction. If Jak h
adn’t known any better, he might have believed they weren’t in the Shift at all.
As he ate a hunk of deer jerky from his pack, he felt relaxed for the first time since entering the Shift. The rest of the group seemed to be on the same wavelength—except for Ryan, who patrolled the perimeter relentlessly, and Krysty, who looked as if she expected another head blast at any moment.
Then there was Union, who seemed to be out of step with all of them. Where some people might have settled in the middle of the group, getting to know everybody, Union stood thirty yards from the farthest edge of camp, looking up at the night sky.
She didn’t look or act as if she wanted to be bothered, but Jak decided to bother her anyway. She was beautiful, and tough, and mysterious, with moods that seemed to change with the wind, and he wanted to get to know her.
Besides, he knew she had a friendly side; he’d seen it in action before. With any luck, maybe that side would come out to play, and they would have a nice talk.
Or not. When Jak sidled up to her, she looked at him for all of one second with the usual frigid disdain, then returned her gaze to the sky. She even folded her arms across her chest and turned her back to him, leaving no room for misinterpretation of her rejection of him.
That was not going to keep Jak from pressing his luck. “Stars not change in Shift.” He sank one hand into a pocket, keeping the other wrapped around the grip of his Colt Python, and stepped up beside her. “That one good thing anyway.”
Union sniffed but didn’t answer. She didn’t turn her back to him again, though.
Jak figured that was some kind of progress, so he might as well keep talking. “Where from originally?”
“Not here” was all she said.
“Better place?” Jak asked. “Or worse?”
For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer, but she finally did. “Just different.”
“Right.” Jak nodded and shifted his gaze to another quadrant of the sky. The stars were unusually bright that night, glittering like diamond dust scattered over black velvet. “Ever been New Mexico?”
She looked at him for a moment with a quizzical expression, then looked back up at the sky. “Have you ever been to Corpus Christi?”
“Texas?” Jak frowned. “Why? That where you from?”
“Does it matter?” Union shook her head as if she thought he was an idiot. “What do you care?”
Jak refused to let her annoy him. “It called curiosity. They not have in Corpus Christi?”
Suddenly, Union whirled to face him, and she looked upset. “I’m not from there. Will you just stop?”
Jak was taken aback by her change in attitude. “Okay.” He scratched his pale chin. “Stop what?”
“Antagonizing her!” Union snapped.
“Her?”
“Her!” Union’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t care about you. About any of you.”
Jak nodded as if he had the faintest clue what she was talking about. “What she care about, then?”
“Us.” She touched her fingers to her chest. “Just us.”
“What you mean, ‘us’?” Jak pulled his hand from his pocket and pointed a finger at her. “Only see one.”
Union took her face in her hands. As she shook her head, Jak stared at her single braid, the one that hung from her left temple. He wasn’t sure, but it looked bright white by the light of the moon, not the usual black.
“Now, wait.” Jak started to reach over to comfort her. “Not want you get upset.”
Before he could touch her shoulder, she suddenly yanked her hands from her face and lunged at him. The next thing Jak knew, Union had one hand on his .357 and the other wrapped around his throat.
“No touching!” she gritted.
Jak winced a little as she tightened her grip on his throat—not that he was in any danger whatsoever. She’d caught him off guard, and she was strong, but no match for his battle-honed fighting skills.
“Same go for you.” His voice was strained as her grip tightened again. “Stop touching or I make stop.”
She squeezed a moment more, then released him and let go of the .357. “Consider that your one and only warning! Hands off!”
“Works both ways,” Jak told her.
As Union glared, she looked to him like a changed woman. Her body language was very different—twitchy, clenched, confrontational—and her features were gnarled like a knot on an oak tree. Whatever he’d done to piss her off, he had to have hit a hot button, indeed.
“So.” Jak shrugged. “What do next?”
“Next?” Union’s glare deepened.
“Not want fight.” Jak reached out as if to shake hands, then jerked his hand away. “Whoops, forgot! No touching!”
Union’s eyes twitched as she stared at his hand. “I just… I don’t…”
“Not worry about it. Just want be friend.”
Union shook her head as if to shake away a fly that was buzzing around it. Her braid flicked, and Jak noticed it had changed from white to auburn. “Which one?” she said, rattling the words off quickly.
“What that supposed mean?” Jak asked.
This time, she spoke just as fast but a little louder. “Which one do you want to be friends with?”
Jak still wasn’t tracking. “Which one what?”
“Of us,” Union snapped. “Which one of us do you want to be friends with?”
“Only see one.”
“Then, you’re blind. Or just plain stupe.” Raising her left hand, she held up four fingers. “This is how many of us there are in here.”
“Four.” Jak was only a little surprised. The way she acted, changing gears so dramatically, had already primed him for the truth. “Four women, one body.”
“Now you’re in the ballpark, son.” Union grinned and nodded. “Still want to be friends, now that you know my secret?”
Jak stuck out his hand again. “Hell yes. More interesting this way.”
Union laughed. This time, she took his hand and shook it.
Chapter Fourteen
Doc no longer wondered if the muties were crazy. He knew it to be true without a doubt.
The entire group of them—fifty strong and then some—sat cross-legged on the sand between two tall hills. They’d been there for hours now, or at least it seemed that way, sitting quietly in the light of the full moon and flickering stars.
Doc sat in the middle of the crowd, seething with a mix of utter boredom and strong curiosity. The muties seemed to be waiting for something, but he couldn’t guess what, and no one would tell him. Even his babysitter, Ankh, wouldn’t explain the scene; he just sat beside Doc with the Winchester aimed at the old man’s belly, finger curled around the trigger.
Was it some kind of ceremony? The muties all sat in a cluster, facing the same direction, and remained silent in a way that might be considered reverent. But how could it be a ceremony without some kind of rites?
Maybe, Doc thought, they were just praying or communing with whatever gods or forces they worshipped. Or perhaps it was simple meditation or some form of regenerative rest they’d evolved since the nuclear scrambling of their DNA during skydark.
Whatever it was, he wished they’d leave him out of it. He’d just as soon catch forty winks in the lee of a dune or gaze up at the starry sky and remember simpler times. Things had been so much sweeter back then, with his family around him, the apocalypse nowhere in sight and no crazy muties to kidnap him from the handful of friends who barely made his life worth living in the Deathlands.
Doc sighed, losing patience, and immediately felt the muzzle of the Winchester poke his ribs. Glancing over, he saw Ankh’s steady gaze boring into him, pitiless and unyielding…yet still the closest he had among the muties to an expression that was friendly on any level.
Ankh was Doc’s only hope, at least for now. Somewhere out there in the Sandhills country, Ryan and the others had to be searching for him, but they were nowhere in sight at the moment. He couldn’t depend on them to rescue him anyt
ime soon; it was up to Doc to keep himself alive and well until that could happen.
Now, if he could just survive this exercise in tedious nonsense, he might have a chance.
Just then, he got a kink in his lower back from sitting cross-legged for too long. Grunting, he twisted and stretched, trying to work out the kink, but it only got worse.
Leaning forward, he reached back under his frock coat to knead the sore spot. But the act of reaching set off a chain of pressure points that led to a sudden spasm in the middle region of his back.
Doc cried out. He couldn’t help himself. When he sat up straight, the spasm only worsened, and he cried out again.
Ankh rammed the Winchester barrel into his side, but it didn’t make any difference. Doc could no more control his response to the pain than he could single-handedly defeat the mutie band in unarmed combat.
“Stop it!” Ankh hissed. “If we miss it, you’re a dead man!”
Doc scowled and braced a hand on the ground. “I can’t help it! I’m having a back spasm.” Pushing up, he got to his knees. Getting up and stretching might break the cycle of pain, if he didn’t get shot first.
“Get down!” Ankh snapped. “Get down now!”
Doc ignored him and got to his feet. Towering over the seated muties—many of whom were gaping up at him with expressions of great irritation—he straightened his back and spread his arms. The vertebrae in his spine cracked as he rolled his head from side to side, limbering up his neck. Then he leaned back slowly, extending the lower vertebrae, working to loosen up the cramp.
Gradually, he felt the spasm in his middle back let up. Leaning farther still, he heard—and felt—a midback vertebra crack into place.
Just like that, the spasm stopped. The pressure lessened, and Doc could think clearly once more.
Just in time to see the landscape before him dance with shimmering, shivering light.
“By the Three Kennedys!” he said softly, gazing raptly at the sight.
As one, the muties rolled over and lay flat on their backs in the sand—all except Ankh, who was on his feet, jamming the Winchester into Doc’s gut.
“Down!” the mutie snapped. “Do as you’re told!”