Starr pondered the sheriff’s words as the streetcar shimmied through the darkness at 20mph. For the time being, stopping Oleg was the obvious path. “One more thing. What did you whisper in Oleg’s ear yesterday morning at the riot?”
“A little something between me and him.”
“Fair enough.” Starr sat back in his seat and took a deep breath. “Before he leapt from the window he said the rules had changed. That he’s not trying to protect a king. He called this the middlegame. I’ve played a little chess, and the middlegame is when most of the pieces are spent.”
The low rumble of the diesel engine filled the cabin with white noise and fumes. Lickter switched on a large fan in the roof above them, drawing away the bulk of the noxious gases. “Well we still have most of our pieces.” He thumped the dash. “Plus we got this baby, and I haven’t even shown you the best part.”
~~~
As they entered a straight away, a flash of color darted across the tunnel and disappeared around the corner a hundred yards in front of them. “Did you see that?”
“We got him.” Lickter accelerated.
“But it was moving too fast. You think there are two of these cars down here?”
“Hell, there’s a whole fleet.” Lickter whistled. “That could make things interesting.” They hit the turn without slowing down, causing the car to rock on its rails. The armored sides clipped the stone walls, shooting sparks across the windshield.
“There.” The same colored flash disappeared again as the tunnel dipped downhill. They were gaining.
“Tutorial time. Listen up.” The streetcar bucked as they crested a rise before following the rails down a steep grade. “This thing is armed.”
“Armed?”
Lickter grinned, slamming his fist into the dash. Starr jumped back as the dash unfolded in front of him. A metal bucket seat swung out over the stairs, blocking the front entrance. Inside the cavity of the dash were two handles, each with triggers. “I only found it on accident, but those triggers operate machine guns. And trust me, they’re loaded. But I don’t know with how much, so go easy.” Starr’s eyes grew wide, causing Lickter to chuckle.
Jerking suddenly, the streetcar plunged into standing water. Starr caught the bucket seat in his gut as Lickter bounced off the control box. “Sorry about that.” The car chugged steadily through the two feet of water. “Right. Eyes forward. You good?”
Starr crawled onto the seat, struggling to catch his breath. “Where did he go?” Finally the front end of the car pointed back uphill. As the lights stretched into the distance they caught him. “A hand car?”
Lickter slowed to a stop. Oleg and two other students were struggling to move the car further. “Fast down hill, not so much up.” Lickter flicked the spent toothpick from his teeth. “Man the guns. Dead or alive, I don’t much care.”
Starr gripped the handles and felt bloodlust surge into his body. But something stopped him—a nagging sensation, a taste in his mouth. “What’s that smell?”
“Crap on a crust, boy. Get back!” Shoving the accelerator handle forward, Lickter swung out his arm catching Starr in the chest. Hurdling down the center aisle of the car Starr glimpsed oily flames closing the gap between them and Oleg. He struck the floor at the same time the flames struck the windshield, engulfing the car with thick smoke.
With a violent whoof the rear end of the streetcar bucked against the roof of the tunnel, a second fireball erupting beneath them. The grating of steel on rock pierced through the roar of the explosion as the car surged cattywampus up the grade.
Black fire curled around the front entrance. It licked the dash, bubbled the paint and filled the cabin with a choking smoke that reduced breathing to a matter of drinking rubber.
“Ideas!” Lickter screamed from beneath his hat, shielding his face from the heat. Starr climbed to his knees, the floor beneath him getting hot. Clutched in a burning vice, there seemed to be little choice. He tore his jacket off. Holding his breath and with his eyes closed against the smoke, he lunged for the machine guns. “They’ll cook off!” Maybe so, maybe not. He pulled the triggers. A thumping emanated from the roof of the car, both guns working, but firing blindly.
Then the right handle shuttered, a premature explosion killing the gun. “Dammit!” He tried to hold the other trigger down, but the heat overwhelmed him. Before crumpling to the floor he slammed his fist into the dash. As he did, gears rattled and shook beneath him. He winced, expecting the engine to blow. Instead, a muffled pop reverberated upward into the cabin. Suddenly the firestorm engulfing them withdrew as if seized by a funnel cloud, and with a few final snaps the flames went out.
Coughing violently, the two men tried to expel the molten air from their lungs as the smoking hot metal frame of the car creaked all around them. Starr staggered to his feet, clutching his chest. Unable to draw a breath, he gaped like a fish out of water. Through the soot smeared windshield he watched a struggling Oleg crank an engine to life on the handcart and putter slowly away, out of the range of their headlights and once again into the shadows.
Lickter continued to engage the streetcar’s engine the entire time. But like them, it sputtered for life. Starr’s vision popped and spun. He pulled air into his lungs like honey through a strainer, but nothing helped. He was suffocating. They continued to inch forward and up the hill, the car off its tracks and at a diagonal. He collapsed back onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The fan blades spun amidst the black smoke, blurring in and out of focus. He closed his eyes.
Somewhere between unconsciousness and death, his autonomic responses began to pump oxygen into his body. In spastic gulps he came to, seizing oxygen into his lungs and scrambling to his feet. “Sheriff.” He coughed out the word as he shook the man’s shoulder.
Slowly Lickter raised his head. “I’m here.” He looked through the windshield. “Damned if Oleg is.” He flopped back against his seat, one hand still on the controls. He jammed the same handle as before, attempting to straighten them out.
“What happened?”
Lickter shook his head. “Don’t know. Fire grenade maybe.” The car lurched free from the wall and gradually corrected course until the front wheels grabbed the rails and pulled the back ones in line.
“And that is?” Starr tested the surface of the tractor seat, finding it too hot to touch.
“Carbon tetrachloride.” Lickter pressed his hand to the side of his head, trying to shake out the cobwebs. “Suppresses fire by removing oxygen from the air.”
“And you know about—”
“Don’t ask. How did you—”
“One of these buttons.” Starr pointed at the dash, not daring to touch anything. “I wonder if this contraption was meant for fighting fires. It sure held up back there.” They regained a cruising speed of around 15mph.
“And the machine guns?” Lickter coughed.
“For dealing with the bad guys who start the fires?” Starr shrugged. “What now?”
~~~
Oleg removed the twin tanks from his back and laid them on the platform next the nozzle of the flamethrower. “Well done, Rasputin. Carbon tetrachloride,” he nodded. “We have found worthy foes.” He crossed his legs and closed his eyes. Having shut off the diesel engine again, he listened to Pilot and Ulysses rhythmically working the handcar. Darkness encased him.
Deeper into the darkness he swam, until all evidence of the outside world extinguished. Floating to the surface on the other side he found himself at his work station in the bowels of Mendeleev Hall, Saint Petersburg State University. The door at the far end of the lab swung open. He jolted, nearly dropping his instruments. Frantically he swept the scattered parts from his workbench into a toolbox. He clutched the nozzle he’d been working on, flashing his eyes madly about the room.
Finally he shoved the metal object into his pants, tucked into the cleft of his cheeks. Evidence. Evidence! The footsteps drew closer as he straightened his space, his mind clutching for a cover story. He kicked
the toolbox further underneath the bench and yanked open a drawer. He pulled papers and a compass from it as the steps rounded the corner.
“My friends.” He looked up with a nervous smile on his face. “To what do I owe this honor?”
The two stonewall foot soldiers stepped aside as an officer of the imperial guard split the gap between them. “To your treason against Mother Russia.” With a gulp he clutched his cheeks tighter around Rasputin’s nozzle.
“Professor, which way?”
Oleg snapped instantly into the present. The hand car had stopped at a three way juncture. He tasted the spongy moss trailing down the walls, the moisture seeping from above. He breathed deep, hocked a loogie and let it slide down his throat. Tinged with both copper and salt, the mucous spoke to him. “Left. No, wait.” He turned his head and held his breath. An engine chugging in the distance disturbed the air and vibrated the floor. “They survived.”
He reached past Pilot and flicked a switch at the base of the fulcrum, sparking a blue floodlight to life. “We’ll go trolling.”
“Are you sure—”
“Shhh.” Oleg stood. He twisted the light until it shown fifty meters down the passage to the right, glinting off small pools of water and slow drips from the ceiling. A distinct hiss echoed toward them from the depths. “Go straight.”
As the two students began pumping the handcart more vigorously than they had before, Oleg opened a metal box welded to the platform and pulled out a flare. Cracking it on the side of the car, he chucked it into the middle of the junction before switching off their light. With a smirk he watched the shimmering red light disappear as they eased around a bend. “Turn left at next junction.” He closed his eyes, this time envisioning fire raining down over the city of Austin.
SEVENTEEN
None of This is Real
“Got any water left?”
Starr grabbed the canteen by its charred strap and carefully unscrewed the cap. Steam burst from the opening. He held it at arms length and sloshed its contents. “It’s hot, but it’s water.” He handed it to Lickter.
Gingerly the sheriff poured some down his throat and handed it back. He muffled a swear as Starr finished the warm water off. “The map?”
Starr tossed the canteen over his head. “Must have burned. I left it on the dash.”
“That figures. Got any idea where we might be?” Lickter slowed to round a bend. A darkened passage slipped past on the driver’s side—the third they’d passed.
Starr took what remained of the nicest suit jacket he’d ever owned and used it to cushion the hot metal of the bucket seat before crawling onto it. “Not the foggiest.” He studied the buttons and switches inside the hollowed-out dash. Freshly coated with soot, the paint had bubbled and cracked. “I wonder what else this thing does.”
“After that last one my curiosity’s been tempered a bit.” Lickter let up on the gas. “You see that?”
Starr wiped the inside of the glass with his sleeve. “A flare?” The two men looked at each other.
“I can’t think of one appealing reason Oleg would leave us a trail, can you?” Lickter asked.
“Think it’s a trick?” They chugged closer at a crawl, illuminating the scene with their headlights.
“It’s a junction. Tracks in every direction. What do you think?” Lickter stopped just short of the flare.
The same feeling as before swelled in Starr’s gut. The same feeling he’d felt as Oleg opened the restaurant door and stepped into the crowded street. The same feeling he’d felt when trapped underground with two thrashing stingers as thick as his thigh.
“Turn off the lights!” He gripped the machine gun handles in front of him.
“The lights?”
“Do it!” Starr shrieked. “Back up! Get us the hell—”
But before Lickter could flick the switch, a giant, armored arachnid thundered into the junction, slashing at the flare. An angry hissing filled the cramped subterranean space as the monster thrashed wildly in the bright beams. Its multiple sets of eyes—empty orbs, endless chasms into the monster’s mind—absorbed the light. “Good God!”
It reared, a dull blue sheen rippling across its segmented body. Venom dripped from its stinger as it stabbed its pincers into the floor of the tunnel. In a spasm of terror Starr squeezed the triggers, the right remaining lifeless as the left jumped to life. “Go! Go!” Lickter had already turned the key and flipped the handle for full reverse.
His shoulders shook as the gun rattled off seven bullets per second, splintering rock and showering the tunnel with sparks. Clutching the stone with its pincer, the scorpion contracted into the space between wall and ceiling and scurried forward with blinding speed as two more monsters crashed into the junction behind it. “Holy hell, boy! Shoot the damn things.”
Losing track of the first one, Starr kept the guns aimed at the junction. Gritting his teeth and pumping bullets into the same space, he tried to pulverized the very air—tried to slay every nightmare, every haunting failure, every broken dream he’d ever felt—until the tunnel clouded over with smoke and debris.
With a tortured rasping of armor on armor, the streetcar rocked violently. Tipping sideways, it grated against the rock wall showering sparks and dust. “It’s on the roof!” Like a tin can in a tiger’s mouth the car’s plating dented inward in several places. Suddenly a black claw jutted through the fan, mangling the blades and jamming the motor in a cacophony of screeching gears. Lightning fast, Lickter drew his .38 and rolled off all six rounds through the sundered ceiling.
Like a bucket of water over hot coals, the scorpion hissed and sizzled. Releasing its grip, it clung again to the roof of the tunnel, but kept pace with the streetcar. “Starr!”
Jerking to, he realized the gun had stopped firing, the ammo exhausted. From the shroud of dust and smoke in front of them one of the scorpions emerged, still intact, a leg from its fallen comrade dragging from its mouth. “Time to start trying those other buttons!” Starr studied the dash, searching wildly for clues. He wasn’t even sure which button he’d hit before.
The streetcar tipped, threatening to buck off its rails. Lickter had it at full reverse, flying blind back the way they’d come. Slamming into them from the side, the monster whipped its stinger across the windshield, etching it deeply. Thin ringlets of smoke rose where the venom cooked the carbon soot, fusing with the glass. In front of them the wounded scorpion gained ground, swinging the superfluous leg in its pincer like a club.
Good God, none of this is real. With a jolt the second scorpion reached them, slamming the harvested appendage down on the cowcatcher welded to the front bumper. The impact lifted the back of the car, causing the rear wheels to slip. Slashing with its pincers it shattered the right headlight, rendering the car a gimpy Cyclops. “Now or never, boy!” Lickter barked.
A pair of switches protected by trigger guards caught Starr’s eye. Without further thought he flipped the guards and hit both at once. Instantly a low humming rose in pitch and intensity until panels on both sides of the windshield sprang outward, ejecting monstrous chainsaws—conveyor belts brimming with jagged teeth and squealing from years of neglect. The first scorpion barked, reeling and slamming its stinger against the small window that shielded Lickter from instant paralysis.
Extending outward, the metal teeth tangled the creature’s foreleg and ripped its belly downward. Buckling inward, the two halves of the monster slammed against the side of the car. Finally the dead husk tumbled into the shadows as they continued in reverse at full speed.
Crazed, the remaining scorpion slammed the dead limb into the windshield, a hairline crack spreading slowly across Starr’s field of view. Again and again the scorpion brought the armored pincer across the glass, cracks increasing in size and number.
Pushing everything out of his mind, Starr focused again on the dash. One more miracle. At the very bottom a similar trigger guard and switch remained untouched. With a flick the streetcar bounced. Sparks flew upward from the
ir front end as the cowcatcher flipped forward and dragged against the ground. Great.
As Starr prepared to mash his hand down on every button at once, more gnarled racket burst from beneath his feet. One last boring machine, a disk for cutting at ground level, emerged from the hollow behind the cowcatcher. Hissing, the scorpion jammed the lifeless limb into the teeth. A foam of green blood and black sinew exploded onto the windshield.
“Brakes!” Starr screamed. This time the two men were on the same page. Lickter flipped the reverse handle at the same time he put his full weight into the brake. Nothing to grab, Starr tumbled from his seat, glancing off the pole behind him. Simultaneously a gargling hiss erupted as the crunch of armor slammed into the boring wheel. The streetcar rocked onto its back bumper, the front colliding with the top of the tunnel.
After temporarily grinding to a halt, the metal teeth freed themselves. With a grinding like eggshells in a blender, the tunnel burst into froth and foam and armored shrapnel. Finally the front of the car slammed back down, and all was still save the twitching stinger, leaking the last of its venom across the cracked windshield.
Starr sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head. He felt dizzy from both the blow and the accumulating diesel fumes. “I swear, I’m never eating crawdads again.”
~~~
A large schematic covered the entirety of Oleg’s work space. Studying the locations of the city’s moonlight towers, he checked them methodically with a grease pencil until all but a few were accounted for. He set the pencil down and rolled his head slowly, popping his neck several times. With eyes closed, he drank liberally from his flask of purified water. Almost there.
He imagined what his daughter might look like today. How tall was she, how beautiful? Had she kept her blond hair? Did she wear it long like her mother? All of this is for you.
The bronze horn in the wall behind him shifted. The echo of scuffling feet descended from his academic office, growing louder until he spoke without turning. “Report.” When no one responded, he spun to take in a sight that both surprised and titillated him. “Miss Lickter, pleasure to see you.”
The Austin Job Page 13