Gorgon Child

by Steven Barnes

  Dimly, Miles heard a crackling sound, accompanied by the distant sensation of pain in his right hand. He looked down, and winced: without conscious volition, the hand had whipped out and smashed into the plasterboard and plywood. Splinters of wood and pieces of wire ripped at his skin. He didn't give a damn.

  He fought to dampen the killing flare as it burst to life in his mind. Too late: it was there now, but it didn't matter anymore. The straights wanted war? Then war they would have.

  Miles stalked from the room. His body ached with his efforts to control. This was no time to Berserk. Too many lives were in the balance. His people needed him to remain clear-headed. Cold. Calm.

  God, but he wanted to kill. He steadied himself. Perhaps the situation could still resolve peacefully. Perhaps.

  The Mercs were not public servants. They were basically bounty hunters, operating in the legal no-man's-land created by America's dozens of bankrupted municipalities.

  Unless lethal force was used against them, they had to use "restraint," a word often applied in a manner which would have shocked Mr. Webster.

  The crabs. The battering rams. Gas. Fire.

  Death.

  He ran halfway down the rickety wooden stairway and peered down at the front door. Its frame was almost totally obscured by a hastily rigged jumble of wooden beams, wire, and metal braces.

  Six exhausted NewMen clustered at the bottom of the stairs. They had only makeshift weapons: spears and knives, and homemade firebombs. All of it was pitifully inadequate to cope with the threat to come.

  The walls and floor rumbled as an armored battering ram backed into position across the street. "Dammit! It's coming down!" he screamed, voice hoarse. "Fast, hit your positions!" The NewMen emerged from the hall above, Minotaur ahead of all of them, carrying an axe. His eyes were fever-bright, but his shoulders were slack. There just wasn't much energy left. How could there be? His men, and the few humans who had joined them, were all exhausted and underfed. For four long days they had creathed bad air and drunk nothing but filtered urine.

  For perhaps the last time he assumed the role which had once come so easily to him. Throwing back his shoulders md transmuting fear and fatigue into anger, he snarled savagely. Once again, he was Miles Bloodeagle, NewMan, Gorgon, the leader they loved and had followed unto death.

  He raced down to the ground floor as the rumbling stopped, and the patchwork wooden door began to buckle. Something sharp and metallic crushed the center, chewing through the barricades. It hissed and whined and spit splinters at them.

  ' -Crabs!"

  The first of the Merc 'bots wriggled free, landed, and found its balance on six stubby, gleaming metallic legs. Its video stalk probed, craning for its first victim. Minotaur raced into the fray, screamed as his axe blurred into an arc.

  The crab's stun nozzle was even quicker. It spit a capacitor dart, a charged particle which traveled only a hair slower than a bullet. The projectile punched through cloth and skin, lanced into bone. One thousand volts jolted into Minotaur's nervous system. The NewMan's arms and legs splayed wide. His teeth ground tight and splintered. Blood jetted from his mouth as he dropped to the ground. His body thrashed spastically.

  With obscene delicacy, the crab walked over the Minotaur. Its eyestalk swiveled for another victim.

  With hormonally amplified agility and speed, Miles vaulted down the stairs, snatching a length of pipe from another NewMan on the way. He smashed the pipe into the crab's eyestalk, somersaulting in midair as he did. A barbed capacitor dart missed him by less than an inch. He struck again and dropped to the floor as the crab's thermal scan found him. Its second dart struck the wall an inch above his left ear. Miles whipped the club sideways, crunched into metal again and again. Its oval body armor cracked with a shriek. The crab spit sparks, hissed, and died.

  Miles forced his arms under the paralyzed Minotaur's, and dragged him back as a second crab began scrabbling through the hole. And a third. And a fourth.

  Even for Miles's huge and desperate strength, the inert Minotaur was a burden. His body still twitched reflex-ively. Miles panted, cursing venomously as he dragged Minotaur around the corner, deeper into the building. He had to stop and get his breath. The crabs crawled in through the shattered door, probed the air with their slender video stalks. They scampered up the walls as the NewMen fled.

  A video eye fixed on him, and the crab's nozzle orifice came up. He dove into a side room. Panic clouded his mind but conditioned reflex made him roll off his shoulder. As he moved, he struggled for thoughts to form. There had to be a way—

  Tear gas foamed through the shattered door in a great dark cloud. This was a different mixture from the rocket gas, and his ancient mask filter was useless against it. His chest clinched until his ribs creaked. Every breath felt like inhaling fishhooks. He sagged weakly against the wall as the first crab clacked around the corner.

  Its eyestalk found him in the misted air. Miles hissed at it as its ejector homed in on him.

  And then . . .

  The floor buckled, like a ship's deck peeling back from a ram.

  Miles laughed hysterically. Overkill. One thing that he could count on from DeLacourte was overkill.

  The floorboards gave way, twisted and groaned as they split. Metallic claws reached through, gripped the wood. The beams shrieked as they were pried away.

  What . . . ?

  A human form pushed through. A huge man, extraordinarily broad across the shoulders. Gas masked and gloved. For a fleeting instant Miles thought, Gorgon! They've broken every primary rule and come for us .. .

  Then Miles heard the voice and knew the truth.

  "Move it!" The man's words were muffled by the mask. "We don't have much time. Killinger is backing up the gas with another assault. He's not taking any prisoners."

  "Warrick?" Miles gasped through the pain.

  The masked figure nodded. "Get your wounded down into the carts. Move.'" The Scavenger leader shifted. His automatic shotgun jerked suddenly, zoning in on the crab. The movement was so smooth and quick that Miles was shocked.

  The robot exploded into fragments. Gears, wires, chunks of plastic, and green fluid oozed down the wall in an oily slop.

  The hole in the floor widened. Through the haze Miles saw six Scavengers in full body shields. Warrick hurried to Miles and ripped off his mask. What? I thought- Miles clawed at him, panicked as the unfiltered gas rushed in. Miles was strong, even for a NewMan. Gas, fatigue, and starvation had weakened him, and the big man batted hands aside easily.

  A second mask was clamped into place, and Miles could breathe—

  BREATHE!

  —again.

  The dark face behind the mask nodded, and helped Miles to his feet. With a movement so fast that Miles could barely track it, Warrick spun into a crouch and fired. Miles turned in time to see another crab's fragments spatter wetly against the wall.

  "We can hold them for five minutes. That's it. Get your people OUT!"

  Miles took another deep, cleansing breath, clapping the man on the back. There was no option but to trust Warrick to hold the breach.

  Five minutes. The NewMen were known to have no weapons. It was all that had kept them alive. The Scavengers were well armed, and the sounds of the weapons would register quickly. The Mercs would reply with deadly force.

  Five minutes. Warrick was an optimist.

  Miles leapt up the stairs, taking them three at a time. "Quick—everyone who can walk carry someone else. We have ninety seconds. Move/"

  He saw a slender Scavenger, bundled tight but moving like a dancer, pass out gas filters from a clutch at her belt. It wasn't whole body armor, but it gave the NewMen a fighting chance.

  His mind raced, a hundred considerations intermingling at the same moment. How many. Where. How long . . .

  And mixed among the survival imperatives was the trace of a memory, bubbling crazily, inappropriately to the surface.

  What had he heard? That three years ago the Scavengers had fo
ught a war of their own against horrible odds. Nerve gas had been used against them. Little wonder that they were now prepared for gas attack.

  There was no more time for thought as he reached the top of the stairs, and repeated the message: "Out! Everyone—"

  But there was no need. Three Scavengers were already there. The wounded were hoisted up on shoulders and stretchers, and hustled toward the stairs. Another explosion tore his footing from beneath him, slammed him against the wall. Smoke belched up from the lower floor. Miles fought back to his feet and continued on.

  Just two minutes since the floor had ruptured.

  Four minutes to go. Not all of the NewMen had received the new gas masks: there simply weren't enough to go around. Those in obsolete equipment convulsed in the grip of the gas. Their muscles contracted fiercely, and they spewed vomit into their faceplates.

  What kind of gas was that bastard Killinger using? Something outlawed by the Geneva Convention, no doubt. Can't use it to kill enemies of your country. Only against your own citizens . . .

  At first he thought that the top floor was clear. Then he heard a voice: "Miles ..."

  Shit. Richard.

  Forgotten somehow, Richard lay against the wall. Miles rushed to him, got under him, and hoisted him to his feet. Richard's stump was oozing, and he looked at Miles with eyes that were beginning to fog. "No, Miles. Don't worry . . . about me. Just go."

  "To hell with that." He silently completed the response: You're not dying here. I won't have those damned crabs climbing over you, picking at you . . .

  Richard wasn't a NewMan, but was a decent-sized human. weighing over a hundred and eighty pounds. Fatigue burned every muscle in Miles's body. But if he left anyone behind, anyone, he wasn't fit to be their leader.

  He paused for a moment and listened to the countdown timer in his head. Three minutes left.

  With a grinding howl a second truck pushed up to the door Doors slammed. The sound of quick, purposeful movement.

  To defend without killing was the challenge. If Warrick and his Scavengers killed any of the Mercs that would be ""murder." A clear license for Killinger. There was no room for error.

  Miles helped Richard down the stairs. His shoulder and whole body ached. He rested on the second floor, watching the evacuees stream past as Minotaur's voice echoed in his mind: Why dey hate us so much?

  "Everyone! Everyone out!" He rested Richard against the wall for a moment, and scanned the rooms. Not one of them, human or NewMan, would remain to be paraded in front of the cameras. None would be shamed, tortured, killed in the observation camps.

  His heart thundered, each breath sandpapered his lungs. Staggering, Miles searched the first floor. The rooms were empty.

  Somehow, he made it back to Richard. All strength had fled his limbs, and he couldn't get the wounded man up, just couldn't. Perhaps a moment of rest . . .

  Richard's blood-rimmed eyes, blinking through the mask, stared up at him. "Save yourself ..."

  Gorgon!

  No physical strength remained, but Miles fought down to the dregs of his emotional reserves.

  He was halfway down the stairs when the first Mercs burst through the door. Warrick would have to kill now, and that would be the beginning of the end for the Scavengers—

  Then Miles saw something that brought a warrior's oath to his lips.

  Warrick scooped up the smoldering ruins of a crab and hurled it at the first two Mercs who clambered through the door. The first jerked his machine pistol up to block the hurtling mass of smoking metal. In that moment, the first blocked the second's field of fire. Warrick moved.

  He covered the ten meters to the door in three giant strides. At the end of the last stride Warrick launched himself. He twisted like a circus acrobat so that the forward momentum propelled him feetfirst into the first Merc. It was all much too fast to comprehend, let alone avoid. Warrick's booted feet struck the first Merc in the stomach, smashing him backward into the second. Both flew into the door as a third armored head poked through.

  Bullets couldn't penetrate that armor. A blow from a human being should have done nothing but stagger an armored Merc back a step. Then balance would be regained, lethal retaliation following a moment later.

  Miles distinctly heard the crack as armor split under the impact of the fastest human movement he had ever witnessed. The second Merc's armor wedged into the door, blocking it. The first rolled out of the way and rose, groping for his machine pistol.

  Despite the fatigue and fear, fascination nailed Miles where he stood. Somewhere in the flash of that first engagement, Warrick had disarmed the Merc. Where? What?—

  Miles ran the sequence back, the battle computer in his mind working automatically. Now he remembered the flash of Warrick's leg as it flickered out, the edge of his heel accelerating to invisibility as it cracked against the back of the gun hand. The gun did not fly from the hand—the movement had been too quick. The Merc's fingers simply opened, numbed by the snap.

  Through shock armor? What kind of human being was this?

  The Scavenger leader turned and screamed, ' 'Get OUT!!''

  Miles stood, still frozen as Warrick faced the armored Merc. The Scavenger would die now, torn to bloody pieces. He simply couldn't . . .

  Could he?

  The Merc swung a huge, armored arm at Warrick, and the Scavenger leader slid back, balanced as delicately as an ice skater. There was no way Warrick could injure a man protected by shock armor. What was he trying to do?

  The Merc saw his opening. He twisted, the augmented speed and strength of the armor powered the move. The hips pivoted and the reinforced plastic-shod foot spun up, zoning in at Warrick's midsection.

  At the last instant Warrick moved. Not quickly at all. He swayed as if the rest of the universe was moving in slow motion. The Merc's foot slid by him with barely a quarter inch to spare. It struck the wall with the force of a wrecking ball, crushing through plaster and wood. For an instant the Merc stood there, looking like a tilted "Y." Then Warrick kicked the Merc's standing leg from under him. The Merc went down in a split, screaming as the armor's perfect joints accommodated where his body could not. His butt hit the floor, his legs spread as wide as any ballerina's.

  Miles winced: every muscle in the Merc's groin had to have been ripped out. The second Merc had almost pulled himself out of the hole. Warrick torqued in with a thunderous spin kick, driving him back into the door.

  Miles finally broke the trance and lowered Richard into the floor tunnel. Warrick followed, dragging the gigantic Minotaur.

  Scavengers from underneath helped him lower Minotaur down into the dark recesses of the tunnel. Miles could see nothing down there, but he followed. What choice was there?

  He slid down a rope ladder, almost turning his ankle on an old subway track. He crouched, taking in the surroundings quickly: an ancient transport tunnel. Six large handcarts were already rolling away along a rusty monotrack.

  Warrick landed in the dusty tunnel in perfect balance, and snapped, "Move it out." They moved, Miles too overawed by this man to bow to his own fatigue.

  He looked back down the tunnel. "They'll be after us in a second."

  Warrick shrugged. "That woman said your building wasn't safe." He pulled a black, teardrop-shaped transmitter out of his pocket and depressed a trigger switch. There was a soft whumpf from above. That sound sharpened into a ragged creak, then a groan, as explosive-sheared timbers gave way. A blinding cloud of dust belched down the tunnel after them as the house collapsed.

  The cloud dissipated, and Warrick wiped his faceplate. "I'll be damned." He grinned brightly. "They were right."

  Chapter Two

  The Scavengers

  10:17 P.M.

  A half-dozen motorized carts slid through the darkness, humming silently along their tracks. Each carried two or three wounded NewMen.

  Warrick and Miles remained at the rear, behind the wounded and the advance guard. They listened for the telltale clacking of a crab, watched
for the ominous silhouette of an armored Merc.

  The only sound was the distant creak of the tracks. The only shapes were the sinuous forms of the cats that haunted the underground. They slid by in the darkness, their eyes glowing, before vanishing into the gloom.

  Pushing his exhaustion away, Miles observed the silent Scavenger leader. The man sat quietly, squatting on his Haunches. He was fully as large as a NewMan, and, from what Miles had seen, incredibly fast, even by Gorgon standards.

  And Warrick's fluidity of movement was . . .

  A flush of heat washed through Miles, one he swiftly repressed. "Who are you?"

  "We've traded. You know who I am."

  "That's not what I mean. Where do you come from?"

  Warrick spoke without turning. "What difference does it make?"

  Perhaps none.

  In spite of the danger, Miles felt incredibly comfortable around this man. They were Warriors together beneath the earth, with every passing moment widening the margin of safety for the wounded. He overcame a wave of dizziness. It was improper for a Gorgon to show weakness before a normal human. Especially a human who had risked so much for him.

  "Why did you come?"

  Warrick said nothing.

  "I don't think you came out of obligation. Or because we have traded together. Not solely."

  Still, Warrick did not reply. But he did turn to face Miles. Fervently, Miles wished that he could see past the mask, to read his expression more clearly. Warrick reached into his pocket and retrieved a pair of square foil packages. "You talk a lot."

  He handed one to Miles, and unfastened his own face mask. Warrick's face was very dark, almost African, unusual for an American. His hair was chopped short, and came down on his forehead in a slight widow's peak. A dark, neatly trimmed beard covered much of his face. His eyes were piercingly dark, black perhaps, or dark brown. The face was not classically handsome—it was the face of a warrior, a survivor of countless battles. He peeled foil away with his teeth and took a deep bite from a concentrated food bar.