Sunchild

by James Axler

  "It is here," Alien said, fixing J.B. with a friendly but rock-steady stare. "It is because we make it so."

  There was an undertone that made Ryan cast a glance in the direction of the sec men. Both Harvey and Downey were seemingly unconcerned, but the one-eyed warrior noted that both had shifted their weight as they were seated, so that it would be easier for them to reach their blasters.

  Jak had also spotted that, and by instinct had moved his own body weight so that he could move with speed and reach his concealed leaf-bladed knives with ease.

  Before there was any chance for tension to break the surface, Doc leaned over the table. He addressed his question to the baron, but his eyes were on Jenna as he spoke.

  "The question still remains unanswered. Is there any of the poisonous old tech still on the premises, the rancid remnants of a bygone and perhaps best forgotten age? Some relic of that pernicious evil known as the Totality Concept?"

  Alien scratched at his beard. "I don't know what you mean by that, old man, but we do have some pieces that we try to get going. It's all useful if it can be made to work."

  "Then I would be most grateful if you would let me and my companions view it at some point for interest's sake," Doc remarked, sitting back.

  "Mebbe," the baron answered noncommittally.

  But Alien's answer wasn't important. Doc had already discovered what he wanted to know, and watching him the others also drew their own conclusions. Doc hadn't idly brought up the name of the Totality Concept, the umbrella under which many government black operations had been carried out before skydark. He had spoken the name in the hopes of eliciting some kind of reaction.

  The baron hadn't recognized the name at all, and had seemed genuine in his bemusement at the use of the term. But then, Doc hadn't been watching the baron: his eyes had been kept firmly on Jenna. And he had seen her sharp features harden as the words were spoken. The raven eyes had fixed on him, met his full on and tried to fathom his intent.

  There was old tech here. Old tech related to secret government projects of the past. And maybe there was something that would link this ville to the main body of the Illuminated Ones, and the place in the north they were searching for.

  THE FIRST INTIMATION that they may be in for a rocky ride came later that night, when Harvey and Downey led them—at Alien's behest—to the quarters where they would sleep while they were staying in Raw. The baron had assumed they would stay with an open-ended invitation that could be construed as either friendly or a threat: there was a possibility that he had no intention of letting them leave.

  Once they were alone in the comfortable quarters, they discussed what they had seen. Krysty's feeling that she had encountered another mutie with seeing power was echoed by the unease felt by both Doc and Mildred. And when Dean told them of what he had seen at the furnace, Mildred was quick to add this to the way Jenna had dismissively talked of her as a black.

  It seemed certain that the real problem would be Jenna rather than Alien. How much did the baron's wife sway him, and how much of the loyalty of the sec force belonged to her rather than her husband?

  "If there is old tech from the whitecoats, and she has her hands on it, then I shudder to think…" Doc mused, shaking his head and causing his mane of white hair to cloud his features.

  "Play along for now, find out the real score, then get the hell out," J.B. said, polishing his spectacles.

  "It's the only way," Ryan agreed. "Besides, I don't see as we have other options at the moment. Until we know the layout here, we can't break for it. And they're not putting us under immediate danger. If they felt like that, then we would have bought the farm by now."

  "That woman, though…" Krysty shuddered.

  Jak was pacing the floor. "Closed in. Feel like in trap here. Nowhere run."

  Ryan agreed. "But that's why we need to bide our time. Mebbe scout around."

  "Mebbe," the albino whispered.

  ALTHOUGH THERE WAS no differentiation between day and night this far below ground, there did appear to be some consensus on what constituted day and night, as it wasn't too long before the tunnels and basements that comprised the ville subsided into a silence broken only by the insomniac, and those whose tasks kept them working through the night.

  The companions had fallen to sleep, the rigors of the past twenty-four hours having taken their toll. Ryan and Krysty were entwined beneath blankets, and Mildred and J.B. also slept close together. Doc was mumbling in his sleep, whimpering and turning in a turmoil of nightmare.

  But at least he was sleeping, Dean wasn't. Not any longer. A gentle rustling, a soft padded footfall was enough to wake the light-sleeping youth.

  Dean didn't move. If this was an intruder, then the young Cawdor wouldn't give himself away. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the poor light, letting darkness form substance and shape.

  "Jak?" he whispered, as the shape became recognizable.

  "Quiet," the albino returned, his voice little more than a breath.

  Dean silently and swiftly rose from his bed. "What are you doing?"

  His eyes adjusted to the dark, and the pale face and white hair of Jak Lauren were almost incandescent in the lack of proper light. With his dark camou clothing, it seemed as though Jak were nothing more than a disembodied head.

  "Take look around…safer then," the albino teen replied, his eyes as sharp and red as twin fires in the ice of his face. His scarred visage was expressionless.

  "Think we've got something to fear?" Dean queried.

  Jak shrugged, but his eyes told another tale.

  "Me, too," Dean said simply. "You want to go on your own?"

  Jak nodded. "This time."

  He knew that he would be quicker, quieter, safer without the less experienced youth; but he would never say so. However, for all his exuberance, Dean knew his own limitations in some areas, and so just assented.

  "Be careful. I know, I didn't have to say it," he whispered as he returned to his bed.

  But Jak was already gone.

  RAW STANK WORSE than any another ville that Jak had seen since leaving the bayous. It was partly a stale, old smell left over from the predark days, when parts of the ville had been old sewer tunnels for Seattle. The ingrained ordure in the brick and concrete had survived the nukecaust, and would probably survive the end of the rest of the world. Jak's sensitive nose was clogged by this smell above all others, and he just figured that the inhabitants of the ville were used to it.

  There were other elements to the smell. Sweat and blood, urine and feces, birth and death: all were collected together with no real outlet. On top of that, the smell of cordite; of the grease used to keep blasters in working order; the sickly sweet smell of the dyes used on cloth; the tannery and the blacksmith; old food and rotten vegetable matter, and something else…

  It was a smell that Jak recognized too well. The sweet-and-sour smell of human flesh, roasted and charred. That had to come from the furnaces, from the disposal of the chilled children that they had helped return to the ville. And yet, Jak was puzzled. If the furnaces had a proper outlet for their smoke, as they surely had to if the ville wasn't to be permanently smoked out, then why did this smell linger so long? The other smells staying around he could figure: the air was fresh if not clean, so there had to be some ventilation shafts down here. But the furnace needed to have had a direct outlet built for it.

  So why the smell? More than that, it didn't have the other elements that Jak would expect. There was no wood smoke mingled with it, and he remembered Dean telling them briefly that the furnace was wood fired. There had been something else the young Cawdor had wanted to say, but he had held his tongue.

  Jak was naturally suspicious and cautious. It couldn't even be called second nature, as it was so much a part of him. It was why he was alive despite the things he had seen and lived through; it was why he was here now, and not some pile of bleached bones picked clean by scavengers.

  It was why every nerve and fiber in his body was sc
reaming at him that there was something very wrong in the ville of Raw.

  This feeling, mixed with the claustrophobia he was beginning to feel beneath the ground, had driven him out to explore the tunnel system that comprised the ville. He wanted to know how the ville was constructed and get advance notice of any little surprises that Alien may have waiting for them…not that he distrusted the baron that much. There were no alarms ringing in his brain when he saw him. His wife was another matter.

  Jak was used to redoubts. They were deep underground, but the rooms were generally large, well constructed and were connected by corridors that were also expansive. Another thing about redoubts was that they were all constructed along fairly similar lines, so that it was easy to get a general picture of the layout.

  Raw was different. As a patchwork of cellars and basements, service tunnels and railways and sewers, it worked as a winding and labyrinthine construction of tunnels and rooms, some spacious but most constricted. Narrow so that you couldn't go more than two abreast, or low so that you had to stoop, they were connected by makeshift shafts and stairways that had been hacked out at strange angles. Sometimes it seemed that you were going back on yourself when you were still going forward. There were sharp angles and blind corners; niches where ambushers could hide, and great stretches where there was no cover. And there was little light. This was perhaps less of a problem for Jak than for the others. His eyes were sensitive to light, and he could register the lower levels much better than any of his companions. Even so, in places it was still too dark for him to feel that he could proceed without the utmost caution.

  It was quiet now. Most of the inhabitants of Raw were asleep. He passed curtained-off partitions where the sounds of snoring and deep breathing could be heard. Once, he paused as he heard the sounds of moving bodies. He continued on only when he realized it was a couple taking the rare opportunity to make love, the woman's small cries reassuring him that the inhabitants weren't ready to jump out and attack him.

  The living quarters of the ville seemed to be similar in every section he visited. Like the quarters they had been given by the baron, the private areas were little more than holes in the walls of the tunnels, small anterooms and sectioned basements that were protected from the run of the tunnels by a few scraps of material or a few pieces of old boarding. Not for security, but only for the lowest level of privacy. There was probably nothing to steal, as it didn't look like a rich ville.

  But it wasn't poor. The people weren't ragged, the food seemed plentiful and everyone had been clean. There was a communal shower system where the companions and the sec men had cleaned up after eating and before retiring. And the baron had hinted that they had some old tech.

  There appeared to be no particular hang-up from the baron or from the ville dwellers about personal possessions. Things that people would buy the farm for elsewhere didn't even seem to be a matter of interest here. There was space, and privacy seemed assured by these flimsy defenses.

  It was so alien to Jak and the others that it worried him more. Everyone seemed peaceful and happy, yet that smell was driving him crazy as he tried to reconcile it, to trace it.

  Because he was sure now that it wasn't the furnaces that caused the lingering odor.

  Jak had no idea where he was in the ville. There had been so many spiraling and strangely constructed connecting passages that he was disoriented. But he knew he was leaving the furnaces to the rear of him as there had been a minute change in the temperature. As he moved through the ville, Jak noted the pipes that took heat and water to the different areas, the hot water dispensed from taps let from the pipes at regular intervals. These pipes were at the mercy of the pumping system, and the farther he got from the furnaces, the cooler the pipes became as the water pressure lowered, pushing the heated water less and less.

  He had passed close to the furnaces at one point, feeling the heat increase as the system worked to its optimum. But here the pipes were more sluggish, the air around cooler. And yet the smell of charred flesh was fresher and stronger.

  Raw had a secret, one that promised to be a triple-red threat for Jak and his companions.

  The narrow and low tunnels connecting the different sections of the ville made Jak feel hemmed in and made his nerves jangle. There was nowhere for him to hide, and no routes for a quick escape if he was discovered. The tunnels were either long with nothing leading off except at either end, or else they had the small, partitioned living units that were full of potential enemies.

  This tunnel had nothing. Nothing except the closed door that stood at the end of the corridor formed by the low enclosure.

  Jak felt the pit of his stomach grow cold. It was the first time he had seen a door during the whole of his exploration.

  The albino stopped in his tracks and hunkered down against the wall, keeping each end of the tunnel under watch. So far in his exploration he hadn't come across any sec men. Come to think of it, he hadn't even heard any moving about within the ville. Could it be that there were no sec men within the underground ville itself, but only stationed at the farthest reaches, to protect the hidden entrances from intruders?

  If so, then there was a very good chance that Jak would come across some sec men very soon. From the drop in temperature, and the extent of tunnel he had traveled without seeing any living quarters, he was pretty sure that he had to have hit one of those extreme reaches of the ville.

  Given time, he could find his way back to the sleeping quarters the companions had been allotted. But did he have time? With no wrist chron to measure how long he had been exploring, he had only his instinct—blunted by the lack of natural daylight—to aid him. This told him that he had been roaming the ville for several hours, and he wouldn't have time to find his way back before the inhabitants were generally awake and questions would be asked. Even if he had seen nothing, any sec chief worth his salt would assume that Jak had discovered any secrets that may be hidden.

  So, with retreat and perhaps another night's exploration denied, Jak figured he may as well press on. Whatever was behind the door ahead, he would need to know if he and his companions were to make it through their stay in Raw in one piece.

  IT WAS the general rise in background noise that awakened Ryan. The people of Raw in the partitioned units around were getting up and beginning to go about their daily business. Their muted voices and shufflings were enough to disturb the light sleep that had kept the one-eyed warrior alive for so long.

  He opened his good eye, the light from outside the curtain filtering through in the artificial morning. Just as the lights were dimmed when night came around, so the ville dwellers' lamps and the lighting that lined the tunnels had beckoned the dawn of the new day. The lamplighter shuffled past their curtained partition, tunelessly humming some dirge to himself.

  Ryan gently disentangled himself from the arms of the still sleeping Krysty, moving his body from under her where she had lain across him. She murmured to herself and opened her eyes sleepily.

  "Morning?" she husked, her voice dry and clogged from sleep.

  "What passes for it," Ryan replied, rising from the bed. The sounds of his own rising had caused the others to stir, and Ryan made a quick head count, a reflex that he couldn't prevent.

  He was glad he had done it. "Where's Jak?" he asked quietly.

  JAK LAUREN PADDED down the tunnel. Despite his heavy combat boots, his footfalls were quieter than the echo of someone else's footfalls. As he reached the door, he cast a wary eye around the lintel. There were no alarms or booby traps that were visible. Extending a hand, he traced around the lintel with his fingertips, barely touching the edges. There were no wires of any kind.

  The door was made of beaten metal, the hammer blows that had shaped the old sheets into a flat door still visible, the welded edges rough. There was a lock set into the door beneath an old wooden lever handle. The fact that it was a wooden handle reassured him that there was little chance of the handle itself being electrified.

  Jak
brushed the handle with his fingertips. Nothing happened, so he took a tentative hold of it, and gently started to depress the lever.

  It was then that the sound of someone approaching reached out to him. They were still some way off, but in the silence of the tunnel, broken only by the shallow sound of his own breath, it was loud enough for Jak's sensitive hearing to discern that whoever it may be was approaching him slowly, with a shuffling walk that suggested lameness. The newcomer was also singing to himself and stopping every few yards.

  Jak doubted that it was a sec man. It sounded too slapdash and without stealth. Someone carrying out routine tasks within the ville, without doubt. But still someone who may be armed and who could raise an alarm. Outside, Jak would have taken no chances and chilled whoever it was. But in here, where could he hide the body? And whoever it was would, as a routine worker, be missed.

  There was nowhere to hide in the tunnel, not even to position himself so that he could ambush the newcomer. He would have to try to get through this door and hope that he could deal with whatever was on the other side.

  The trouble was, when he depressed the lever, nothing happened. The door stayed fast. He pushed at it, gritting his teeth as he exerted pressure yet tried to control that effort so that the door wouldn't suddenly explode inward with a noise that would only attract the attention he was trying to avoid.

  The door refused to move.

  The shuffling and humming were getting closer.

  Jak cursed to himself. The smell of sweet, burned human flesh filled his nasal cavities as he leaned up against the door, and through the thick soundproofing of the metal he could just about discern some quiet whimpering and shuffling.

  He was no doomie, but he had a bad, bad feeling about whatever was hidden behind the door.

  That would have to wait until later, though. Right now, he had to get back to his friends without being seen. And with the shuffling growing louder, approaching the bend at the far end of the tunnel, that was going to prove difficult.

  Jak looked at the walls and ceiling of the passage that stretched in front of him. There was nowhere really to hide.