James Axler - Deathlands 43 - Dark Emblem

by Dark E

  Lopez never even had a chance to use his rifle as the slug from the SIG-Sauer punched through his forehead, lifting the red headband from his hair, along with a bloody chunk of his bony scalp.

  Even as Ryan was taking the most direct method of reasoning with the sec man blocking their path, J.B. was following through on his own end with the Uzi, lifting the half-hidden machine pistol from under his jacket and sending a string of steel-jacketed bullets in a wavy pattern across the midsection of the backup sec man. Two of the slugs struck true, into the sec man's muscled torso.

  At such close range, neither bullet stayed in the body, but instead hurtled out the back of the falling figure with enough energy to strike the stone wall behind the sec man. One went into the wall and stayed, the other ricocheted off and buried itself in the stone floor.

  Unlike his brother, Garcia was able to fire off a few shots from his Tec 10, but they went high and wild, sailing over Jak and Dean, plucking at their hair. They also passed over Krysty's red head, since she had used her full body weight to shove the two boys to the floor.

  She hadn't worried about the use of her own pistol. If Ryan and J.B. had failed in their attempt to take down the twin sec men, the group of friends would have been chilled faster by the autofire than a succeeding hail of returned fire would have allowed anyway.

  The firefight was over in a handful of seconds.

  Ryan stood calmly, not looking back to see the status of those behind him, but keeping his eye on the fallen sec man in front of him. "Everybody okay?" he asked.

  The voices of his friends and family chimed out in affirmative.

  Stepping forward lightly, Ryan nudged Lopez with his toe, but it was obvious that the sec man wouldn't be moving ever again. On the other end, Garcia took a few more seconds to die, but no parting words of defiance came from his lips as he blew bloody bubbles of saliva. A spreading pool of red was on his chest and pouring out from his back where he lay in wet vermilion.

  Ryan held on to the SIG-Sauer, having reloaded the clip outside El Morro. "This is getting bloodier by the bastard minute. I want to find Doc and Mildred and get the hell out of this place in one piece." "I agree, lover," Krysty said. "Seems sunny Puerto Rico has lost all of its appeal."

  "WHAT WAS that noise?" Jamaisvous asked, having sent the sec man ahead before bringing Mildred out from the control room of the mat-trans unit. He paused, and sealed the gateway and comps behind him with unbreakable vanadium steel.

  "What noise?" Mildred replied.

  "Gunshots. I heard gunshots." Jamaisvous was moving now and gestured with the barrel of his weapon for her to step ahead of him. He kept the heavy Czech target pistol leveled at Mildred's head, the pleated braids of her hair clacking gently against the barrel of the blaster every time she took a breath. His right hand was now handcuffed to her left, and he used the handgun with the ease of the ambidextrous as he moved her along.

  "Going somewhere, Silas?"

  The man in the long white coat jerked Mildred closer, startled by the sound of Ryan's voice. "Caw-dor. Back from chasing chupacabrasT'

  "Yeah." Ryan stepped forward, backed by J.B. and Jak. Krysty and Dean hovered as closely as they could, their weapons also ready if Ryan gave the word. "Your mutie buddies back at the redoubt send their regards."

  "How nice. You'll have to thank them for me."

  "You okay, Millie?" J.B. asked softly.

  "Can't complain," she said. "Some piece of shit stole my pistol."

  "Borrowed, Dr. Wyeth. Borrowed," Jamaisvous replied, tugging her arm back harshly and making her wince.

  "Where's Doc?" Ryan asked, his voice tight with menace. Mildred started to answer, but Jamaisvous jammed the muzzle of the target pistol against her skull, which silenced her but drew forth a dangerous, almost imperceptible growl of anger from J.B.

  "I honestly don't know. Quite a span of years for him to choose from, actually. I sent him forward and I sent him back and back again and forward, with this being the final stop. He should be arriving inside the chamber any moment now, but I imagine after four chron jumps he's not going to be feeling all that peppy, so I wouldn't count on an assist from the good Dr. Tanner anytime soon." Jamaisvous paused. "I was about to take Dr. Wyeth in search of some medical supplies, just in case he does make the trip in one coherent piece."

  "Oh, yeah. Right. You're a real concerned guy, Silas." Ryan's blue eye was alert and watching, waiting to find a chink in the mad doctor's armor so he could take him out without hurting Mildred.

  "Thanks, I'm sure. Hey, I make the effort. I want to be acknowledged, okay?"

  "As what, an asshole?" Mildred asked.

  "Shut your mouth," Jamaisvous whispered, his face close to her own. "Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you."

  "Your play," Ryan said. "What do you want to do, here? Make the wrong move, and we'll chill you so fast you'll be dead before hitting the floor."

  "I wouldn't want that, Cawdor. Not when I'm so close. So, in old-world vernacular, what say we play 'Let's make a deal."'

  Ryan smiled back wolfishly. "I don't negotiate with crazy sons of bitches like you, Silas. Always come out on the short end of the stick.''

  "Who's negotiating, Cawdor? Mildred lives, I live, we all live! Hell of a deal, I think, and best of all, we get to posture and preen and fight another day." As he spoke, Jamaisvous was slowly working his way backward to the heavy steel door leading to the mat-trans gateway and control room. "I've been working toward an agenda for the last two years, and your arrival only accelerated my plans. In fact your timing was perfect."

  "What are you talking about?" Ryan asked.

  "He lied, Ryan," Mildred said tightly. "He was never placed in cryo suspension. He's a time traveler, just like Michael Brother and Doc."

  "Guilty as charged, Cawdor. And like your precious Doc Tanner, I want to go back home, but unlike him, I have the means and the wherewithal to carry though with the plan!"

  His back now up against the door, Jamaisvous reached behind with the hand cuffed to Mildred's and keyed the entry buttons, and in reply, the door slid upward into the ceiling. Backing into the doorway of the room, he shoved Mildred forward and hit the lever that brought the door slamming back down.

  The same door cut the chain linking the manacles, expediently freeing Mildred and Jamaisvous from each other without the worry of using the key.

  The Armorer was at his lover's side in an instant, his usual poker face animated with concern. "You okay, Millie?" he asked.

  "Fine. Have to get held hostage more often," she remarked. "Actually seems to have got a rise out of you."

  "Have to admit one thing, lover," Krysty said to Ryan as she helped J.B. pull Mildred to her feet.

  "What?" Ryan barked back as he glared at the door.

  "Jamaisvous does have style."

  "Fuck him and fuck his style," Ryan snorted, glaring at the reinforced metal door leading into the control chamber for the mat-trans chron unit. Despite his glowering, the door remained shut. Ryan had heard the sound of an auto lock being thrown from the other side, the bolt sliding solidly home once Jamaisvous had gone through.

  Furious beyond reason, the one-eyed warrior pulled his SIG-Sauer from his holster and was about to unleash a hail of 9 mm bullets into the lock when Mildred screamed out shrilly for him to stop.

  "What? He get to you?" Ryan snarled, his eye sweeping up and down the physician's body, taking in the new clothing Mildred was wearing. The blaster swiveled in his hand, the muzzle pointing from the door to Mildred's midsection. The one-eyed man's face was a study in barely contained scarlet rage, the flush of heat brightening the scar stretching down his cheek.

  "Screw you, Ryan," Mildred retorted hotly. The handcuff was still attached to one of her wrists and the shiny metal caught the light in the room and cast off a series of quick reflections, accenting her words. "I yelled for you to put on the brakes because a stray bullet could end up blasting one of the mat-trans comps behind the door. The last thing we want righ
t now is to have lead flying through some of the operating machinery. It's not worth risking our only way out of here for Jamaisvous."

  "Isn't it?" the tall man said, barely repressing his anger as he spit his reply from behind clenched teeth. "Isn't it?"

  "Easy, lover," Krysty said from behind Ryan. "There's Doc to think about, too-he might be in there."

  Ryan didn't acknowledge Krysty's admonishment, choosing instead to glare at Mildred and hold her equally intent gaze for a span of five seconds before allowing himself to wind back his nerves a notch.

  "Okay. Okay. You're right, Mildred. My anger got ahead of my brain,'' Ryan said tersely, discarding the matter and hoping the woman wouldn't press him. Mildred remained silent, and Ryan gratefully turned his attention to his longtime friend and partner.

  'J.B.?"

  "On it," the Armorer replied, pushing past with his lock picks already in hand. The smaller man knelt and examined the lock from behind his spectacles. He didn't move, as he studied the mechanism he was facing. "Shit," he finally announced, settling back on his haunches.

  "What?" Ryan demanded. "This can't be any worse than fixing that mat-trans unit back in Greenland!"

  J.B. threw up his hand and gestured at the mag lock. "Want to bet?"

  Crater Lake, Oregon, 2096

  Doc TANNER WAS playing with his balls.

  At least, that's what Ryan Cawdor called the oddly perfect metal orbs his companion was manipulating with his fingertips. Both Doc and Ryan had thought the twin spheroids lost back in the inferno of Jordan Teague's manse during the fiery destruction of the pesthole known as Mocsin, but one of their companions had recovered the chunks of metal from the corpse of an overeager sec man and turned them over to Ryan for safekeeping.

  Now, weeks after the fact, Ryan had remembered the balls weighing down the left-hand pocket of his long coat and gave them back to Doc. Upon their return, the man's lined face had lit up and his eyes watered with shining tears, making Ryan feel more than a bit embarrassed.

  "Hell, Doc, they're only a few hunks of metal," Ryan had insisted.

  Doc wasn't to be swayed. "Not to me, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you."

  Now that he had them back in his hands, Doc was as happy as a child with a new toy. Everyone had queried Doc as to what the things were, but the odd-speaking man had been evasive. He preferred to call them his "spheres to the past, present and future." Ryan wasn't sure what Doc meant by that designation, but as far as he was concerned, the old man was welcome to call them whatever he wished, since he'd been right about the gateways: the matter-transfer units; the physics-breaking reality of the transfer of matter, both nonliving and organic; point A to point X and back to point Q without the worry of having to travel in a straight line to get there in the quickest possible fashion; a genuine way out of a situation minus the dangers of overland transport by animal or wag or foot.

  Such high-concept science fiction was the last thing Ryan expected to find hidden in the heart of the secret underground military labyrinth he and his friends had stumbled into, deep in the dark hills of the lands once known collectively as Montana. All the talk of murderous fog with claws and teeth guarding over a great treasure meant nothing to the one-eyed man, since he considered himself by and large to be a stone-cold pragmatist.

  It turned out that the treasure lurking high in the Darks was one of the original gateways, guarded by the scientifically created demon dog of hell itself, Cerberus. Ryan pondered the memories of the chill of the wind in that frosty piece of hell, the wet coldness like a damp shroud draped across his scarred face and decided if he had any choice, any choice at all, he'd never go back to that particular desolate chunk of death-strewed landscape. It was the land of the breathing fog, contracting and expanding, alive with cloudy gray tendrils of mist and muck that elongated away from the central mass, the towering mist with the strange pulsating light located inside the center. If a man got too close, tentacles would come slithering out, impossibly fast, and once they touched flesh, the fog became solid, pulling prey into the central body away from gaping human eyes.

  Then came the smell of burning ozone, and the sparks, and the inhuman shrieking.

  The fog was alive, somehow, and sentient.

  There was no way of getting past the swaying mass safely. If one wanted to go forward, one had to figure out a way to punch a hole and go through the thick mist.

  Until seeing it for himself those long months ago, Ryan had taken the descriptions of the fog he'd been given back in Mocsin as exaggeration. The one-eyed man had been confident that once he came face-to-face with...it, getting past would be a simple matter of running through or climbing around.

  Now that he was standing in such near proximity to the storm cloud, Ryan realized with a mix of awe and fear that he was confronted with a primal force that functioned beyond his own understanding of natural laws and science.

  "We could try some grenades," someone suggested.

  "Might do," Ryan agreed. "No other trail. No way under it. Damn thing hangs over the edge of that sheer cliff. No way over it, and we can't go back with Strasser's men after us, that's for damn sure."

  "And what's to stop the fog from reaching upward into the air as well?" Doc had added softly, his normal baritone pitched higher in a singsong tenor voice. "And pulling us down, down, down into the shimmering abyss?"

  Ryan was quiet as he pondered the options. "Blow it," he ordered.

  High-ex and incendiary grens were hurled into the gray mass. Noise and fire came whirling out, along with some minor bits of shrapnel made up of rocks and ice, and still the fog hovered, stopping at the bend of the trail, a huge wall of sheer mist.

  "Fireblast," Ryan muttered.

  "No, not fire, nor blast. Antimatter, Mr. Cawdor," Doc had replied, inspired by the epithet. "I believe that might do the trick. Implode, and the foul fiend will be undone-it will separate from its source."

  "Implo gren. Turn that chiller inside out. Yeah," J.B. had agreed. "Good idea."

  Two of the small bombs were hurled into the mass. Twin hollow booms came bursting out, followed by an elaborate sucking sensation as the grens imploded, pulling all surrounding matter inward into a vacuum of limitless, impossible smallness. The fog began to uncoil, the spectral tendrils now nothing more than dropped bits of string fluttering outward and dissipating; disappearing into frail streamers that crumbled in upon themselves.

  Then the hellish fog was gone. In front of them, past the edge of the ravine, was the sanctuary they sought. Inside the nondescript building built flush against the mountain itself, and unknown to all of them but Doc, was the gateway, the path out of the Black Hills and into a new situation, a new part of Deathlands, a direct line on a one-way trip hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of miles away.

  Ryan shook his mind free of the memory of that early discovery, and moved on to the next. Considering how his group of friends had already begun to grow acclimated to the process of matter transfer, coming across a sterile scientific stronghold like the Wizard Island Complex for Scientific Advancement was no big deal. The hidden secrets of Deathlands were beginning to be told, and with each new revelation came numbness, disbelief and finally, acceptance. It was hard to dispute the nose on your face.

  "Pandora's box," Doc answered him in a whispered voice.

  The words took Ryan out of his reverie. "Who's Pandora? She kin to the Emily you keep talking about?"

  Doc sniffed. "No, Pandora has no ties to my own beloved Emily, and I should ask how you know her name, but I suspect I have begun my old habits of babbling in my sleep."

  Ryan looked over and met Doc's blue eyes. "Might have heard tell of her that way, yeah."

  "I shall endeavor to keep quiet from now on," the old man replied. "As for Miss Pandora and her box, well, it is better known as 'the gift of all.' The revenge of the gods upon all mankind. She was a laughing, beautiful creature set upon this mortal plain by Zeus, who also gave her a shining box filled with all things evil and harmful to man an
d bade her never to open it, while knowing the foolishness of such a decree."

  "Yeah, most women are powerful nosy," Ryan agreed with a smirk.

  "And, alas, her curiosity was unstoppable and she flung open the lid unleashing the terrors and plagues within and filled our world with all that is vile, unclean and dark. Still, good Pandora was able to slam the box closed in time to keep a single bit of good within."

  Ryan scratched his arm and nodded. "Bit of good in everybody, I guess. Even Trader used to believe that, with the added homily that it paid to keep a watch on that bit of good by sleeping with one eye open at all times."