by James Axler
Fighting to keep his face swept of all but the most neutral of expressions, he thought, can he patch into my psyche? Is he some kind of weirdo mutie precog, a mind reader?
He rejected the thought almost at the same instant as it flared up in his mind. Strasser was as superficial in his thought processes as his men were in their search for concealed weaponry. Inside trial skull was a warped and twisted brain that simply homed in on and struck at the most obvious chink in a man's or woman's armor.
A guy had one eye? Threaten to rip out the other.
It was as simple as that.
Ryan said in a voice stripped of emotion, "That won't do you a hell of a lot of good, Strasser. Frankly, once you'd achieved that you've achieved all."
"Give the sucker to me. Let me work on him. He'll squeal."
Ryan's glance flicked to his right. The room they were in was, he guessed, the lower-level annex, a part of the old bank vault system, although little remained to show it. The concrete walls had been stripped and were untidily whitewashed. In the center of the room was a block of wood, coffin-sized. Straps attached to rings set into it hung down almost to the concrete floor. Ryan could not tell what kind of wood the block was made of because of the discoloration, the reddish brown staining that was a crusted veneer on the flat surface, a rusty seepage down the sides. So much blood had drenched that block over the years that it had soaked deep into the wood's heart.
On metal hooks around the walls hung an assortment of implements: knives, saws, meat spikes, a number of what looked like old cattle prods. In one corner, near where stairs disappeared down to what was almost certainly the main vault itself, stood a small generator, a jumble of wires piled near it. Ryan saw there were electric wall sockets at intervals around the lower part of the walls; hence the hand-cranked generator, he supposed: if the mains were acting up, they could always switch to that.
More stairs were beyond the wood block, linking the room to the street-level floor above. There were five sec men by the stairs. The man who had spoken was one of these: a squat, barrel-chested guy with fingers like sausages, a bulbous nose that contained more than its fair share of destroyed blood vessels and heavy-lidded eyes. He was licking his lips, looking at the two girls. That one gets off on agony, Ryan thought bleakly.
But Strasser flicked a hand at him, an irritable motion. He turned to Ryan.
"So what is this deal? It seems to me, Ryan, you've lost your bargaining position."
"You don't have the train," Ryan repeated calmly. "I have the train. Sure it won't nuke up, but she'll blow. Nice firework display and you're gonna have your work cut out sifting through the wreckage for anything worthwhile."
"But you I have, and the Trader I have." Strasser showed his teeth in a wolfish grin.
"No," said Ryan. "You don't have the Trader, either. You put 'em all to sleep, right? When are they gonna wake up?"
Strasser opened his mouth, shut it again. He rubbed his nose gently with a bony finger.
Ryan said, "What are you gonna do when they dowake up? Keep putting 'em back to sleep again? How are you gonna know when they wake up, anyway? You got guys peering through the windows at them, waiting for the first twitch? Listen, when those guys wake up they're gonna be mad, they're gonna start doing bad things. How many men do you have out there, Strasser? Not a regiment, I'd guess." He added, "Maybe you have too many guys out at the mines."
"You've been busy," said Strasser softly.
"Shit, you can't keep something like that under wraps," scoffed Ryan.
"It's nothing that can't be coped with. A minor disturbance."
"Crap! This place is falling apart, Strasser. Too many years under one owner. The longer I'm here, the more the smell of rot and decay is stinking up my nostrils. Teague's been pushing stuff out east, hasn't he?"
It was not in fact a question. Strasser knew exactly what Ryan was saying, and his eyes darted nervously to his men at the bottom of the stairs.
He muttered through his teeth, "You're digging yourself deep, Ryan. Way deep. Deeper by the second."
To Ryan everything had become crystal clear. Strasser was getting out. The revolt at the mines had been the final straw. He'd probably been waiting to get rid of Jordan Teague for months, maybe years.
Strasser was standing beside the blood-soaked block. He was running a hand thoughtfully across its surface, backward and forward, staring down at the motion of his hand, his thin lips pursed. An altar, thought Ryan suddenly. An altar devoted to Strasser's own particular god of pain and torment.
He doubted that many of Strasser's sec men knew their leader's plans. An inner circle, perhaps, but not these suckers here. Maybe the guy with the red nose and the sausage fingers. He looked to be a kindred spirit.
Ryan said, "No deeper than I have to. I told you we can still deal."
The squat guy said, "Lemme have him. I tell ya..."
Strasser swung around on him, face contorted.
"Silence!"
Ryan leaned back against the whitewashed wall, folding his arms.
Suddenly Strasser pointed at two of the guards. "Downstairs. Go fetch..." He didn't finish the sentence but just jabbed a finger at the steps that led downward. The two guards grinned at each other as they clumped across the room and disappeared, their boots echoing off bare concrete.
J.B. glanced at Ryan, raising an eyebrow. Ryan shrugged. He looked at the two girls and Koll. All three expressionless, waiting, biding their time. He was glad that these three were left. He knew their worth.
He said, more to keep the pot boiling than for any other reason, "How long you been waiting to give Teague the heave-off?"
Strasser chuckled.
"Ever since he did the same to Dolfo Kaler. Did you ever hear of Dolfo Kaler?"
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"Before your time, Ryan." Suddenly Strasser was almost chatty. He had the air of one who was prepared to chew the fat for a while. Ryan wasn't sure he liked that. The guy was pleased about something. "Kaler had a stake in Mocsin. He wasn't as big as Jordan, but he had power, contacts with the East. In the early days. But he had this thing about the Darks. He thought there was something up there." Strasser lifted his arms in a shrug. "Maybe there is. A lot of people seem to believe so. Maybe one of these fine days I should take a look around. Kaler didn't find it, whatever it was. Crawled back with nothing and got his head blown off for his pains. Jordan Teague made out that Kaler had the Plague and just blew him out. That's when Jordan took over completely. It's long been in my mind to..."
But what was in Cort Strasser's mind was lost as the sound of booted feet once more rang out, metal studs thudding on concrete out of view below. Strasser had half turned as the noise started up. Now he swung around again on Ryan, fingering the black silk stock at his scrawny throat.
He said, "It has already occurred to me, Ryan, that it will take time to squeeze you dry, and I'm aware that your close colleague Dix doesn't gab much. Therefore I thought of turning my attention to your three companions, the ladies especially." His voice had become syrupy. "And then I thought, no, you're all the same. Closemouthed. Stupidly loyal. Stupidly stubborn. The women might well take less time to crack, but even so I'm not in the mood to linger. And then I set to wondering how, uh..." He frowned slightly, tapping the tabletop with his fingers. "Well, let me see — how detached you were, Ryan, how, uh... indifferent you could be to the sufferings of an entirely neutral party. The thought fascinated me, Ryan. After all..." his tone was now pensive, even mildly quizzical, as though he were pondering some minor domestic problem that still needed handling with a certain amount of care "...we live in violent and selfish times. Every man for himself and the hell with the rest. That surely is the philosophy of anyone faced with an unpleasant and painful situation. Even so, it did occur to me to wonder if the age of, uh... of — what's the word I'm seeking?" He snapped his fingers a couple of times, frowning down at the tabletop, then glanced up at Ryan, his eyebrows raised. "Gallantry? Yeah, that'll do.
Gallantry. Excellent word. Nicely old-fashioned. Yes, I did wonder if the age of gallantry was not entirely buried beneath the ashes of the Nuke. It seemed a good opportunity to try a small experiment."
He glanced to his right, toward the doorway that led to the vaults. When he looked back at Ryan, his expression and tone of voice were almost apologetic. "It won't take long. Ten minutes at the most, I should imagine, once we're under way. And of course I may be making a stupid mistake, a wild error of judgment. I may well be wasting your time and mine. We shall see."
The two guards appeared, hustling a third person up to the top of the stairs and out into the room, each holding an arm.
The shock of recognition was for Ryan far greater than the panic burn that had flared through him when Strasser had glibly talked of taking his good eye out. But the jolt he felt inside him only made itself manifest by a slight quiver of his eyes, plus the freezing into stunned immobility of his features for maybe a half-second.
But it was enough for Strasser. Unholy delight glowed in his eyes. His thin lips split into a reptilian grin.
"You know her, Ryan! A friend of yours!" His voice was thick with gleeful malevolence. "Well, that does make it easier."
It was the flame-haired girl, Krysty Wroth.
* * *
Ryan thought, How did he know? How did the bastard know! And then he thought, know what, for Christ's sake? Looked at objectively, she's nothing to me. Less than nothing. I don't even know her. Up until this morning I wasn't even aware she existed. So okay, he's all set to torture and humiliate her, probably — knowing Strasser — in the most gross and obscene and bloody way, but so what? So fucking what?
Angry, his face set, feeling strangely betrayed, he stared at the scene in front of him. Strasser grinned like a malignant ape, the guards gazed lustfully at the girl, and the girl herself, a gag in her mouth, her rich red hair scraped back into a tightly knotted pony-tail, tensed her body against the two-handed grip of her captors. Her face, Ryan noted automatically, was expressionless. There was no way of telling what she was thinking either from her features or from her eyes. It looked as if she had somehow blanked herself out, consciously wiped herself clean of all emotion. If this was so, he wondered how long it would last.
He was attracted to her, deeply attracted. There were depths to her he had rarely seen in other women, a fact that had been clear to him in the few hours they'd been together and had talked. There'd been a possibility that she was worth pursuing. That had ended when he'd learned the shattering news that most of the Trader's people on this trip were dead, nerved out, her among them. And that had been that. What did they used to say? "Ships that pass in the night" — yeah. No big deal. No heavy stuff. Nothing. Forget it. It had not only never gotten anywhere, it had never even started.
The momentary ache had been for something that might have been, and that was only maybe, anyway. So forget it.
And now here she was, alive.
He was aware that the squat man with the red nose had been saying something to Strasser, something about him, his face alive with ghoulish glee.
Strasser chuckled. "Never mind Ryan. He's in a dream. This one'll soon wake him up. The way she'll be screaming will be enough to waken a dead man. Strip her."
Ryan watched, blank faced, as the squat man said, "With pleasure!" and walked toward the girl. He placed both hands on her breasts and began clutching at them, squeezing them roughly. Anger and loathing flared in Krysty's eyes.
Strasser said severely, "No time for that, Kelber. I promised Ryan this would not take long."
Kelber said, "Shit, sir. Won't be nothin' left to have fun with once we're finished with the bitch, reamed her out."
"Alas, no," said Strasser. "It does seem a shame, all things considered. She's certainly a delightful-creature. But you are so right, Kelber, there will not be much left in the, ah... organic sense once we're done. But what must be must be."
"Couldn't we just use the prod?" said Kelber. "You know I'm good with the prod, sir. Got it down to a real fine art. You know I can make her jump, and it won't damage the merchandise." As an afterthought he said, "Well, not too much, anyway."
"No prod, Kelber," said Strasser, wagging a bony finger at him as though at a naughty child who must be indulged only up to a certain point. "I know you're a devil with the prod, Kelber. But no prod."
Ryan discovered his mouth was dry and he swallowed, tried to bring spit up into his throat. All this was solely for his benefit, he knew; a cruel and ghastly jest. A sickening parody of polite and civilized behavior that only someone like Strasser would get off on.
Kelber went quickly to work, himself clearly bored with all this funning around that his master enjoyed. He pulled off her boots, unzipped the green jump, and, while the two guards held her, stripped it off. By this time Krysty was kicking, struggling. But the two guards were beefy. They merely held her all the tighter, laughing at her struggles.
Kelber unzipped the one-piece body sheath underneath and peeled it slowly downward, first revealing her breasts, full yet firm, hanging free, then her taut stomach and the softly swelling roundness of her lower belly, the titian triangle of hair at her thighs sharply etched against the whiteness of her skin. He dragged the body sheath off finally and tossed it aside.
"Such a pity," murmured Strasser. "All things considered. Tie her down."
The sec man turned her and shoved her facedown toward the block, then pulled her forward along it so that her breasts were squashed under her weight against the rusty wood, her wrists thrust forward and shackled by the straps, her pelvis jammed down just above the end of the table, on the lip, so that her legs dangled over the side. Or at least would have dangled if she had only been quiet. But she was kicking wildly, violently, the heel of one foot clubbing up into the jaw of the guard who was trying to grab it. He yelled, clutched at his mouth, tears of pain suddenly running down his face, blood spraying out from between his lips. It looked as if he'd sunk his teeth into his tongue. Strasser angrily gestured at the rear straps and the two guards sprang forward from the front and controlled her, yanking her legs apart so that her buttocks involuntarily arched, rising into the air, exposing the cleft between the legs. The guards finished strapping her into position, and the guy who had been kicked breathed hard, sniffing explosively, glaring at the twitching figure of the young woman.
Okay, Ryan thought, whatever is going to happen I can't let happen. Who she is, what she is, none of this matters, none of it applies. It's no good saying so fucking what if she gets it, because I don't mean it, and I wouldn't mean it even if it was someone else strapped to that bloody altar.
He took a step forward and instantly the guard beside the doorway swung his M-16 up, his finger tight on the trigger.
Strasser said, "Ah, Ryan," as though meeting him casually on the street. "Yes?"
"Look, I dunno what all the fuss is about, Strasser. Sure I know her. She was on the train. We picked her up: she was having trouble with some muties. Other than that..." He shrugged.
Strasser said, "How interesting," and turned away.
Ryan turned to glance at J.B. It seemed to him that J.B.'s face was blanker than he'd ever seen it. He turned back. Only Strasser and Kelber were near the block now. The guards, including the one with the blood-smeared mouth, were fanned out around the room, rifle-ready. He could not have reached any of them before; now it was the same situation in spades.
Pay your debts, said the Trader. Always pay your debts.
To repay the vast, the immense, debt he owed the Trader, Ryan often thought that he would have to be in a position to give the Trader his life back, would have needed to say to him, "You're dying, for God's sake. Probably some kind of rad cancer that's eating away your gut, your bones, everything. But something can be done, and something's gotta be done." The Trader would have said, "Fuck it, I ain't going to no quack, Ryan," and that would have been that. And now he was spark-out in War Wag One, maybe slumped in a chair, maybe sprawled out on the
metal floor, and wholly at the mercy, whichever way you cut it, of Cort Strasser.
And what did Ryan owe Krysty? He owed her his life. Simple as that. He could suddenly feel the sticky's slimy pads on his face, the immense sucking power causing his cheeks to expand away from his own bones. Could actually feel it, a tactile rerun, as though hundreds of tiny needles were stabbing and slashing around inside his cheeks, his mouth, his jaw, a fierce agony that would not cease until the flesh was ripped off of his skull leaving a scarlet ruin of dripping bloody pulp.
He felt himself trembling. He leaned back against the wall. Sweat was oozing out of his pores.
Strasser snapped his fingers. Kelber patted a breast pocket of his black jacket, inserted a hand, fished out a small box. At the same time the guard by the upper doorway turned and disappeared the steps to the floor above.
"Now pay attention, Ryan."
Strasser took the box from Kelber and held it to his ear, shook it gently. What he heard seemed to please him. He looked around as the sec men's boots hammered on the steps above and the guy reentered the room. He was holding a tall drinking glass. Strasser nodded to Kelber, who took the glass, then carefully opened the box. He tipped the contents into the glass. From where he stood Ryan saw a flutter of something small and dark, heard a faint clatter as whatever it was hit the bottom of the glass. Strasser took the glass and gazed at it critically, holding it up to the naked light set into the ceiling above him. A satisfied smile slithered across his face. He turned to Ryan and stepped toward him, still holding the glass up. Ryan caught a flicker of frenzied movement at the bottom.
"Fascinating insect mutie," he said. "Some kind of cross between a borer beetle and a termite. Much the same, I suppose, but this little beauty has certain characteristics you don't find in either."