by Ryder Stacy
“Buuurrrn ’eem, Roooocck,” he said, whipping an arrow into the slot of his wide steel-wire crossbow.
“Detroit—your magnesium grenades—heave ’em up fifty feet or so. You’ll be our long-range artillery—so you’re going to have to take out a lot of ’em!”
“It’s barbecue time, Rock,” the short but ripplingly muscular black fighter spat, ripping two grenades from the twin belts across his barrel chest.
“Go! Go!” the Doomsday Warrior yelled out as the three men took the lead of the panic-stricken group. Rockson glanced around to make sure Kim and her father were all right and saw them, completely surrounded by his men in the center of the defensive concentration. They were as safe as they were going to be.
Detroit pulled the pins from his two pineapples and heaved first his right then his left arm straight ahead. The two balls of super-concentrated high explosives soared through the air like the throw of a left fielder trying to cut off the runner at home. They hit the ground and lay there for a second or two as if they were duds. Then they both went off simultaneously, sending up a cloud of steaming plant life in steaming geysers.
The team took off, the men pulling their circle in at the flanks so they became a moving wedge, protected on each flank by the ’brids, which were stronger and better able to break free of the constant entangling tendrils of the field’s murderous plant life. Detroit pulled another two grenades and threw them about fifty feet ahead of the first while Archer released an arrow to the right where an entire tree was holding its long spiked branches out and waving them at the fleeing Freedomfighters, trying to snatch something, anything. The arrow buried itself in the thing’s trunk just feet above the ground and burst into a white-hot flame, roaring instantly with a furnace-like whistle. The flames must have sent some sort of message to the thing’s primitive nervous system, as it reared back and emitted a high-pitched scream that the men couldn’t hear—but the hybrids reacted to it with alarm, rising up on their hind legs and windmilling their front hooves at the air as if fighting off an invisible enemy. The flaming tree pulled back, its very roots lifting up out of the ground as it rushed through the field—a blazing bonfire.
Chen kept an eye on the closer of the plant attackers, taking the very lead of the wedge. His almond eyes scanned the growth in front of them, waiting to sense the tiniest movement. There—to the left, 15 feet ahead. He flipped one of the five-pointed throwing knives and caught the base of a clump of beetle-jawed spider plants. A thousand green legs shot off in every direction, severed by the quite powerful explosion of the small device. A swarm of hook-beaked crows with shining purple-black feathers came soaring down from above, a good two dozen of them. They emitted caws of hunger as they extended their three-inch-long talons, their reptilian eyes sighting fresh meat. Two of Chen’s whizzing saw blades came up to greet them, sending out a blast that ripped wings from bodies, plucking the murderous flock’s feathers from their very sides. Half-cleaned birds dropped down onto the fleeing Freefighters, ready for the oven. A branch from a willow tree reached over and tried to grab hold of the Chinese destroyer, but Chen treated it as he would any other opponent. He sidestepped the snapping thick-barked branch and lashed out a sidekick. Twelve feet of the branch cracked and fell to the ground, bleeding a thick green fluid with a swampy odor.
As if suddenly alarmed that they were about to lose their meal tickets, the plant life, the flowers, the spiked groundhogs all closed in with renewed fury. But the humans fought back just as savagely, every man in the unit firing away at anything that came near him. Leaving a trail of green and brown slime behind them, the Freefighters somehow blasted their way back to the edge of the prairie. With the last man out on the soil where the plants couldn’t reach, Rockson turned and looked back. A hybrid had been caught and tripped by a grove of giant hyacinths, their tiny teeth tearing away at the poor thing’s stomach and chest. But everyone else seemed safe. Kim rushed over to Rockson and leaned against him, wanting to feel his strength in her moment of terror.
“You were right, Rock,” she said softly. “I was wrong. And a man died because of it.” Her eyes began glistening with moisture.
“There’s no time for tears,” the Doomsday Warrior said, cupping her chin and kissing her lightly on the lips. “Every man here could be dead at any moment. We all know that. Many have died. Many more will die. And many of them have died because of orders I gave—and will give again. It’s a war, Kim. Men . . . and women . . . die in wars. So—no tears. None of us has the luxury of guilt.”
Rockson said a few words of prayer as the Freefighters stood around him, just yards away from the edge of the field whose occupants continued to writhe around in a fury of displeasure. Rock couldn’t see Balboni’s body from his vantage point. But if there was anyone up there listening—he would know who they were talking about.
“Take this man,
Into your world
And know that he was a brave fighter
Who gave his life so that others might be free.
And tell the bastard we’ll miss him.”
The Freefighters mounted their still-skittish hybrids, whose nervous mouths were filled with a bubbling yellow foam of pure fear. They were happy as hell to be away from the cursed place and took off at a gallop as Rockson veered the force off to the right. They’d have to circumnavigate the deathfield. it would take them perhaps a hundred miles out of their way back to Century City. But there was no option. Not with a jungle trying to kill them at every step. Within minutes the killer plants were just a bad, bad memory in every man’s mind.
Balboni’s body lay there, the hands twitching slightly from the nerve-contracting effects of the poison that the plant, which had half-digested his face, had injected into him. That plant was dead now, in pieces around its intended victim, blasted apart by Rockson’s shotpistol. But others lived. Others were hungry. From beneath his back, the green grass began shooting up like spikes protruding from an iron maiden. They entered the flesh all along his spinal cord and sank their razor-edged suction cups into the arteries along his backbone. The green jaws poked long curved drinking spears into the still-pumping bloodstream. And they drank, sucking the slowly cooling blood into their root systems. A thousand vampires fed on the Freefighter’s body until there wasn’t a drop left to drink. Then the vines closed in for the flesh.
Two
“Pow, right in the—?” a hidden voice screamed down from high in a fir tree.
“Kisser,” Rock yelled up. “It’s all right, boys, it’s just me, Rockson, and a few of my friends. Thought we’d stop in here for a little brunch.” The thick needled branches of the tree parted twenty-five feet up. First a rifle barrel, then a face poked through.
“Damn, it is Rockson. Didn’t know where the hell you’d gone off to this time. It’s all right, boys,” the sentry shouted off at the other trees. A dozen rifles lowered, a dozen Freefighter guards relaxed and eased back down on their wooden plank stations.
“Well, just head on in,” the guard yelled down, “They’re using the Western ’Brid Tunnel now for the main entrance. Still ain’t got the old one cleared. Maybe never will. You take care now.”
Rockson led his party past the towering trees and along a narrow path that the hybrid horses tried to gallop down, having to be restrained by their riders. They knew they were home—rest, food, and whatever other mammalian dreams the strong-footed creatures held treasured in their brains. Rockson glanced around at the work crews still patching up the exterior of the mountain beneath which Century City lay. The neutron bomb dropped by Colonel Killov’s air force had nearly decimated the subterranean world, destroying almost a third of its facilities, including its hydroponics level, hospital, archives, and some manufacturing sectors. Thousands of its citizens had been lost or severely wounded. But Century City had been born out of a disaster much worse than this—the nuke war of a hundred years earlier. Like the phoenix, she would rise from the ashes again and again—until there were no more ashes to rise fr
om.
Still, it gave Rockson pause to see just how much the city he had lived in for years had changed. As they rode up to the entranceway to the mountain, several of the camouflaged guards recognized him and came running down to greet the Doomsday Warrior and the others in the party.
“Who’re your friends, Rock?” asked Patterson, Jr., a freckle-faced teen with two front teeth missing from a recent run-in with a party of Reds, pointing to the somewhat bedraggled and tired-looking Langford and Kim, who was riding alongside trying to ease his discomfort. While in captivity in the Octagon in Washington, Killov’s psychotic goons had had a little fun with Langford. And though none of it had caused permanent injury, still, his mind was in a state of semi-shock from the experience. He wore a dazed look on his face as if trying to remember some long-forgotten event.
“That’s the president of this country,” Rockson said with some pride. “Goddamned guy’s been through hell and back over the last few years. Tougher than me—by a long shot.”
“He don’t look too good,” the teen said, with the honesty only those who don’t know any better can spit out.
Rockson put his finger over his lips, not wanting Langford or Kim to hear. “Quiet,” Rock whispered brusquely. “He’ll be all right. You’d be hanging off your saddle if you’d just made the journey he did. So, get back up in your post and do a decent day’s work out here, you hear me, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” the youth said, his face nearly draining of blood. To be reprimanded by Ted Rockson was not his idea of the best way to start a day. He rushed back up to his station and with the help of another guard on the other side of the camouflaged entrance, the two of them pulled on long cables and slowly the thick netting slid aside.
Rockson rode through into the dimly lit chamber, glaring up once again at the offending guard. He knew why he’d gotten so angry, though. Because it was true. The president did look like shit. No one was saying it. Everyone, especially Kim, was acting as though things were just fine. But Rock knew the look. Perhaps Langford’s body was all right. But in his eyes—and consequently in the brain behind them—something had gone out. Some fire that had fueled the man all these years. Years of trekking back and forth across America, trying to rouse its populace, trying to restore the democratic ways of old. And it had worked—for Langford had become the most well-known man among the non-slave American citizens in their hidden cities, in their farms far from the reach of Russian patrols. Like Ted Rockson, Langford was a legend. And in the Re-Constitutional Convention held just months before, which delegates from all the free cities had attended, Langford had won by a landslide—the first freely elected American president for a hundred years.
And now . . . Rock couldn’t bear to look the man right in the eyes, to see the signs of defeat, of old age, creeping in. It wasn’t his fault. How much can a man take? How much pressure can his heart, his veins stand? How many thoughts and fears and paranoias and crushed dreams can his brain withstand before it crumbles like a wall beneath the grinding tides of life? Rock silently prayed that the man would fight his way back once more. For they needed him. Every man and woman in America needed him. The symbolism of a president—a leader, a spiritual and moral guide, was a thousand times more powerful than the biggest mortar shell, the most destructive anti-tank cannon.
The work teams were still bustling along the blasted rock tunnel that Rockson and the expeditionary force slowly moved down atop their whinnying ’brids, which were growing more and more impatient by the second for the warmth and safety of their corrals. The amount of work accomplished in the few weeks Rockson had made his cross-country foray to snatch the president was amazing. Nearly all the rubble that had littered the inside of the Freefighting city had been cleared. Much of the power had been restored, and emergency lights had been strung up along the thoroughfares that had been used previously as secondary routes but were now bustling highways. Men and women pushed and pulled dollies and wagons filled with everything from freshly hewn rock to be dumped into the bottomless chasm at the northern side of the city to crates of Liberator rifles—still being turned out, albeit at about half their pre-nuke-hit rate. But Century City’s main industry—the production of the automatic .9mm rifle—could not stop. For it was these weapons, shipped out by pack team across the length and breadth of America, that were the guerillas’ main weapon against the Reds. Many of the smaller towns and villages which had managed to remain free often had only old shotguns or pistols in their armories. Thus, Century City, under the scientific and production tutelage of Dr. Shecter, had become the cornerstone for the rearming of America. Her work couldn’t cease for a moment.
They came to the debriefing chamber where the party dismounted, the hybrids taken away by stable-boys to be cleaned and fed. They all entered the side chamber where a taped voice told them to disrobe and go through the normal decontamination procedures. Rock told Kim to go across to the other side to the women’s decon rooms. Then he disrobed, walked into one of a row of high plastisteel booths, stood in the middle, and closed his eyes. He had been through it so many times that now it was really just a nuisance—though he could remember back to the first days when Shecter had had them installed—and demanded that everyone go through them when they had been out of the city for more than 24 hours. The invigorating spray of soap and water that slapped into the flesh like a masseur’s pounding hands. Then the ultrasound and the violet waves of light rippling down his body.
At last the speaker above him pinged, the door slid open with a whisper of air, and Rock stepped out and into the set of freshly laundered and pressed civvies—khaki slacks and shirt and deck sneakers that lay waiting for him, automatically deposited by conveyor belt on a low table next to the decon booth.
Rath was waiting, pencil in one hand, writing pad in the other, as usual. Century City’s Intel chief was nothing if not enthusiastic about his job. Too enthusiastic, as far as Rockson was concerned. “Let’s—,” he began.
“Not right now,” the Doomsday Warrior said, brushing past the man. “I’m just not in the mood.”
“It’s regulations, Rock. You know that. All incoming forces shall receive an initial debriefing of at least basic successes and failures of their missions. Military Manual—Section 4, Para—”
“Rath,” Rockson said, slowing just slightly and looking the security chief square in the eyes. “I’ve just ridden more miles than a snar-lizard has teeth. I’ve been shot, stabbed, blown up, bitten, spat on, punched, and things I can’t even remember—but they still hurt. So not right now. If you need something to do—go talk to the president of the United States,” Rock growled, pointing back toward the decon room. “And see that his daughter, Kim, gets first-class—and I mean first-class—treatment. Okay?”
“The president—you got him?” Rath asked, his eyes widening. Not a one of the council that had sent Rockson out on the rescue mission, Rath included, had really thought it was possible.
“Yeah, got him—and the man’s got problems. So keep your people’s noses out of his face and get the medical and psych units on it right away.” Rockson turned to head out to his room where all he wanted was a few hours of uninterrupted shuteye.
“One thing before you go,” Rath said. “I’ve got to tell you that from our sources’ accounts—which are admittedly often exaggerated—from around the country, Killov’s Blackshirts have taken from 60% to 75% of the Red Army fortresses. There’s an emergency meeting about the Soviet’s little civil war—tonight, in three hours. Should I—”
“For Christ’s sake, yeah, wake me,” Rockson spat out, heading through the newly hung, slightly off-center door that led to the main thoroughfare. “Though I wish you hadn’t told me until later. Even in my goddamned dreams I’ll be worrying about what the hell to do next.” He gave a grudging smile to Rath, who returned it, and then quickly headed off to find the president.
Rath slid the pencil back in his pocket and the pad behind and under his jacket. Even Rath understood that one did not
go up to the president of the United States and start interrogating him like some corporal just back from shooting up a few Russian tricks. The Intel chief pulled out his best diplomatic smile and hung it like bright laundry across his countenance.
Rockson moved through the main square of Century City, looking around this way and that at the repairs that were taking place. Nearly the entire ceiling had been stabilized and some of the machinery of the smaller factories, if not their walls, had been pulled together. The whole underground city had the raw unpolished look of bare rock, since it was sculpted right out of the granite. It looked much as it must have when the original founders—those thousands of people in cars and buses and trucks inside the Interstate tunnel in Colorado—were trapped by the nearby detonation of a nuke. They had carved their home from the walls of the tunnel, burrowing right into the side of the rich iron-ore mountain for living and storage—and eventually science and hydroponics, along with all the myriad departments that now existed within the hidden mini-metropolis.
Rockson greeted all those who recognized him as they scurried past, waving, managing a smile. These were his people—the workers, the fighters. Not the top brass, not the decision makers, just men—men ready to rip down walls with their bare hands, or pick up a rifle and take on a Russian convoy. Men the Doomsday Warrior had been fighting next to for many years.
He walked along the ramp ways, since the elevator system was still largely nonfunctional except for medical needs and priority movement of equipment. He’d have to look around, see how the rebuilding was progressing—particularly up in Shecter’s sci labs. But later. Everything later. At last he reached his room, thinking that it would perhaps be occupied by one of the wounded from the cave-in of the city. They had been commandeering rooms when he left. But he gingerly opened the door—and there was no one. It was just as he had left it. A bare concrete square with a bed, a mirror, a small plywood closet for his things. Not that he had many things, but the occasional oddity or object of beauty he found on one of his endless missions. A set of horns, a yard long and gnarled and curled into a complex weave of curved bone, poked out from one wall. It glowed a dim but piercing red, almost into the infrared spectrum. He had found it months before and couldn’t resist its hypnotic beauty. Sheeter’s lab boys, who inspected everything that was brought in from the outside—be it fur or feather, rock or shell, and catalogued them in the city’s rapidly expanding scientific computerized information center—couldn’t figure out how the hell it gave off the glow it did, or how or why the animal who had possessed the horns had used them.