by James Axler
“Sit down,” he said evenly.
Michaela chose a position where she could see all of them. She looked around, knowing that her apprehension had to be obvious. As her eyes met Krysty’s, the Titian-haired beauty gave her a quizzical stare and her hair relaxed slightly. Ryan noticed this and the two of them exchanged glances, his eyebrow raised in a mute question. Krysty’s almost imperceptible nod made up his mind as he began to speak.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” he said in a controlled, even tone. “None of us knew whether to believe you. For our own reasons, some of us have had an impaired judgment of late, and where we could always trust our instincts before, it’s been a little difficult. And face it, your story could be another plan from Ethan, trying to get someone on the inside of us.”
“I understand that,” Michaela said hesitantly. “Don’t think I hadn’t thought of that one myself.”
Ryan nodded. “What we were going to do was agree to what you proposed, but not go the whole way with you. We’d play along, but hold back, so we could chill you if you were a spy, and turn the whole thing back on that son of a diseased gaudy slut.”
Michaela chewed her lip. “That’s as good a name for him as I’ve ever heard anyone come up with,” she commented.
“Mebbe. Point is, we were only going along with you to a certain point, and we weren’t going to let you know that—”
“So why has that changed?” she asked, puzzled. She wasn’t alone. Jak had noticed the exchange between Ryan and Krysty, but Mildred and Doc hadn’t been able to see it, and so were also looking perplexed.
Ryan shrugged. “One of those things. Just something about that way you are right now tells me—tells Krysty—that you mean it. One of those things you can’t explain, you just know. And we haven’t been listening to those instincts lately. We’re going to have to if we’re going to get out of this in one piece. All of us,” he added meaningly.
“I won’t let you down,” Michaela said solemnly. “I can’t—it’d be letting myself down, too.”
“Then we’d better get some rest. You can bet that bastard’s going to have us up early in the morning to prepare for his jack fest hunt,” Ryan said bitterly. “It might not begin until the sun is high, but if he’s got people paying big time, then they’re going to want to view the merchandise…and he’s going to want to show it off.”
RYAN’S WORDS WERE prophetic. It was still early the next morning when the door to the hospital was thrown open and Horse entered, accompanied by a party of five sec men. Included among them were two that Ryan recognized from the hunting party that had initially brought them to the ville. One was the giant who had accompanied Jak. He was the only one who had the grace to look embarrassed about what had happened; the only one who looked on them as anything other than merchandise.
He sought out the albino and spoke in low tones so that they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Sorry it has to be this way.”
“Not your fault,” Jak returned.
“Still sorry,” the giant said. “One thing.”
“What?”
“The hunt goes through some rough territory, with mutie fuckers. Normally they avoid us, but mebbe if you stir them as you go, they won’t be so keen on those following. See?”
Jak nodded, his lips parting in a cold smile of acknowledgment. “Good tip. Thanks.”
“Better than nothing.” The giant shrugged.
Horse yelled at his men to get the companions out and into the sec compound where they would meet those who were to hunt them. Jak kept his secret to himself—no need to risk any of the other sec overhearing. He could tell Ryan and the others when they were alone. But he was grateful for the comradeship shown by the giant sec man, and he figured that mebbe Pleasantville could be a good place, if Ethan’s influence was removed. Mebbe they could do something about that if they got out of this in one piece.
There was no time for further thought, as the companions were hustled out of the hospital, leaving J.B. behind with Mildred and Michaela. As the door closed on them, leaving a sec guard outside, the two women exchanged glances full of hope for those who had to fight, and full of resolve for the tasks they had to undertake.
Meanwhile, the four companions who would be the prey in this lucrative hunt were marched across the ville to the sec compound, through a throng of ville dwellers who had lined the streets, with stalls and banners, turning the event almost into a carnival. A carnival of carnage, with a scent for blood tainting the air. There was cheering as they approached each section of the crowd, and they were greeted as conquering heroes rather than those about to die.
“Creepy fuckers,” Jak mumbled, eyeing the crowds balefully.
“Perhaps.” Doc shrugged. “But you have to see that they view this in a completely different way from us…of necessity, in many senses. We can only see that this is some kind of barbaric bloodsport in which we, the unwilling participants, are to be hunted down for the pleasure of a few bloodthirsty and rich barons. Which, I may add, is the way these things seem to have been since time immemorial. Need I mention the Romans, the feudal systems of medieval Europe…” He noticed that Jak and Krysty were giving him blank stares, although Ryan—who had read of such things in books—seemed to know what he referred to.
“The point is that the people of this ville do not see things in that way. To them, we are heroes. Our baiting at the hands of these barons and traders will bring in enough jack and trade to insure that their children eat, and that they are fed, clothed and warmed for another year. Yes, we are heroes in a bizarre manner, and so this procession in which we are treated thus should not be viewed as that incongruous.” He nodded emphatically, probably to himself, glad that he had made his point.
The other three—and some of the sec guard who had overheard what the old man had to say—looked at him askance as they continued on their way.
“Hell of long way to say they glad we about to chill,” Jak said simply.
“That wasn’t actually what I was trying to say,” Doc replied testily.
“That’s what it sound like to me,” Jak responded sullenly.
“Not the point at all—” Doc began, before Krysty interrupted him.
“What is it with you two?” she asked. “We’re about to be hunted like wild animals and you’re arguing about nothing?”
“It isn’t ‘nothing,’ as you put it, my dear,” Doc said hotly, “if we are to understand why this is happening to us—”
It was Ryan’s turn to interrupt. “Doc, we don’t have to understand why it’s happening, we just have to know that it is. Now shut the fuck up and save your energy.”
The one-eyed man’s attention was suddenly taken by one of the sec escorts, who laughed as Ryan spoke. Cawdor swung around to face the man, who was a blonde with a long, plaited beard and a heavily developed musculature.
“You think something’s funny, scum?” he yelled.
“Yeah, I reckon you are,” the blonde replied in a lazy, arrogant drawl. “You’re about to be chill meat, and all you can do is argue. Now shut up and get moving,” he added, prodding Ryan with the muzzle of the Glock he was carrying.
A red mist of rage descended over Ryan, and the Ryan who could be so calm and calculating in these situations, biding his time for revenge, disappeared, replaced by a frustrated man who had reached his breaking point.
Even before a look of shock swept fully over the sec guard’s face, Ryan had taken a firm hold of the Glock’s muzzle and wrestled it from the man’s grasp, wrenching it upward, then driving it backward with as much force as his minimal back lift would allow, the blaster’s butt now angled slightly upward from before, so that instead of driving back down into the man’s chest, it hit him in the mouth.
It had been too quick, too unexpected, and the sec man had been too slow. The metal of the stock hit him firmly, mashing his lips against his teeth, cutting them so that blood began to flow into his plaited beard, running down the line of the plait as it
soaked into strands of hair. Driving through the useless defense of his flesh, the stock splintered his teeth and drove through his gums and jawbone, forcing splinters of tooth into the flesh, breaking the jawbone with a crack.
The red mist evaporated, and Ryan stood calmly, letting the Glock fall to his feet. The force of the blow sent the sec man staggering backward, careering into the man behind, who tried to catch him, the momentum proving too great and also making him veer backward.
Like a line of dominoes, four sec men crashed onto the ground, to the jeers and laughter of the crowd, watched impassively by the companions. Ryan shook his head. It was a suicidal stupe move to make at this time. What the fuck had gone through his head, if anything?
The remaining sec force converged on the one-eyed man, some of them with the stocks of their blasters raised to club him to the ground.
“No!” Horse yelled. “Don’t touch him! Ethan wants them unharmed.”
The sec guards stared at their dreadlocked boss with a barely simmering resentment. The blonde climbed to his feet, last of all, shaking his head to clear it and spreading droplets of blood around him.
“I’ll get you for that, you one-eyed spawn of a shit-eating gaudy slut,” he mumbled almost incoherently through the bloody ruin of his mouth. “If you come back from the hunt, then I’ll be waiting.”
“I’ll be back,” Ryan murmured, leaving the rest unsaid.
“Come on, let’s get these shitters to Ethan before anything else happens,” Horse snapped, his dark eyes boring hatred at Ryan. There was nothing he would have liked better than to let his men take out the one-eyed man for that humiliation of one of his men—made all the worse because it was in front of the ville’s people—but he knew that he couldn’t let that happen. There was much riding on this hunt, and his job was to answer to the baron, who would have been displeased to find his hunt prey a man short.
Despite the grumbling that emanated from the massed sec men now surrounding the companions, the guard backed off and the procession continued until it was in sight of the sec compound.
“What the fuck has he got in store for us now?” Ryan wondered out loud.
“You’ll see,” Horse replied, turning to eyeball his man. He wasn’t supposed to have heard Ryan, but he couldn’t resist acknowledging the query with a look that spelled danger. He knew something they didn’t, and the odds were short that it was bad.
There was no further time to ponder this, as they entered the compound and were in view of Baron Ethan and his clients, who were looking forward to a good hunt. A stand had been built in the center of what had previously been the training arena, and on this stand stood Ethan, flanked on each side by three men, all of whose clothing suggested that they had wealth, if not taste. The wire encircling the compound was a heaving mass of spectators, waiting to see what would unfold.
Horse and his guard led the companions up to the stand, until they were situated directly in front of the baron and his guests. Ryan cast his eye over the six. All were male, and three of them wore old combat uniforms under their rich brocaded robes. Scavenged jewels and gold dripped from them. Ryan had little doubt that these were traders rather than barons. Their inability to shed the uniforms in which they traversed trade routes in convoys reminded him of Trader, his old mentor, who would have had a similar dislike of shedding familiar garb. These three also looked battle-scarred and tanned by hours of exposure to the chem-addled sun.
By contrast, the other three men on the stand were like Ethan. They were clean, polished and looked as though they no longer had to do a day’s work, even if they once had…In fact, one of them looked like a second or third generation baron, with the slightly glassy, vacant look of a bloodline that was a little too in-bred.
The barons wouldn’t be too hard to evade, he figured. They probably didn’t hunt for themselves, but had others to do their work. No, the real danger would come from the traders, who were still combat-practiced and could prove to be a difficulty.
Ethan held up his hands in a gesture for silence, and the muttering that had buzzed in the background since the companions had entered the arena now ceased. He turned to the men flanking him.
“Gentlemen, these are the hunters and hunted that I told you about. Take a good look at them. Fighters and survivors, ready to do anything to emerge triumphant. Dangerous prey. Something a little special, a little different from the norm…I know you initially signed up for a stickie hunt, but as I told you, the farm was breached and the bastards escaped.”
That explained the wild stickies that had first brought them into contact with the baron and his men. Jak was momentarily angry with himself: his suspicions had been correct and he hadn’t put the pieces together. But the flash of annoyance vanished quickly. There were other things to consider, as the baron continued his speech.
“But perhaps this was a good thing. Without it, we wouldn’t have found these hunters, who between them cleaned up the herd of creatures you would have been hunting. That was what gave me my next idea, and that, my friends, is why you have had to pay just that little bit more, but it will be worth it.”
He gestured to Horse, and before the companions had a chance to move, they were grabbed by two sec men apiece, pinioned so that they couldn’t move. At another gesture, they were taken to four stakes that were driven into the ground and tied securely, one to each stake. These wooden monoliths had been carefully situated so that they weren’t visible from the entrance to the compound, being obscured by the stand on which the baron and his guests were seated. The companions had no notion that they were there, and no chance to prepare to struggle against the sudden sec movement. As they were tied, the sec guards took pleasure in making their bonds painfully tight; the blonde spit a gob of blood and phlegm into Ryan’s face when he had finished securing him.
“You and me, One-eye…if you get back,” he said with a sneer before stepping away.
Baron Ethan left the stand and walked over to the stakes, walking up and down in front of the four well-trussed companions before turning to his guests and speaking in a clear, ringing voice.
“I could have sent you out to hunt these people, but if I had done that I wouldn’t be fulfilling my role as your host. For, without wishing to insult you, these fighters would probably win the day and chill you to insure their escape. That would be bad business, would it not? Your surviving relatives and sec forces would seek recompense and revenge…However, I have thought of something that would be infinitely more entertaining for you than chasing these people.” He paused, then smiled with a vicious evil that ran chills down the companions’ collective spines. They had been sold out, and they knew it.
“What if,” Ethan began, “they were to hunt each other? Would that not be a fine spectacle? I have watched them, and I consider the albino to be the swiftest and most vicious of them. So what if the other three were to hunt him down? He would have to chill his friends to survive. They would have to chill him to win their freedom, and also to prevent him chilling them. Delicious, is it not?
“You, my friends, can follow and observe this ritual. And, if you wish, you can hunt down the survivors like mad dogs needing to be shot before they can damage anyone else—”
“You are mad, and a fool,” Doc yelled. “Do you really think that we would hunt each other like animals for your sport? Death is better than such dishonor.”
Ethan nodded. “Wise and noble words, Doc. And truly, I believe that you mean them with sincerity. But consider this…” He produced from a pocket a small crystal, which glittered in the sun, suspended on a leather thong. “What if you had no choice on the matter? What if your free will were taken away, and you truly believed yourselves to be what I told you—each the enemy of the other?”
“Sir, you claim to know of hypnotism?” Doc breathed.
Ethan didn’t answer. His cold, vicious smile was answer enough.
* * *
Chapter Eight
Jak’s red eyes scanned the sec guard and the cr
owd that stood beyond the baron. In the harsh light, it was difficult for his pigmentless eyes to see clearly, but he could hear all right. There was a muttering among the crowd after Ethan’s pronouncement that could be nothing other than shock. Certainly, the sec men he could see—including the giant who he could call friend—looked as astounded as the crowd. This was something that no one had known about.
And it changed everything.
The assumption had been that they would have to outwit the baron, his sec force and the paying guests who wanted to hunt them. That would have been difficult, because of the weight of numbers, but not impossible. Now it was a completely different game. Jak would be set free and then pursued by his friends, who were to hunt him down as though he were a mad dog. He knew what they were capable of, and although he didn’t want to chill any of them, his first thought was that this was exactly what he may have to do to insure his own survival.
Jak’s eyes adjusted to the sun, and he could see the faces of the sec men clearly. The blood-splattered blonde who Ryan had injured was smiling. To him, there was a certain symmetry to the idea, and he was relishing it. Jak could also make out his giant friend. The bald man was tight-lipped, his eyes hard. He didn’t have to say anything to let Jak know that he thought the idea was sick. He’d tried to help by giving Jak a tip about the wild muties in the woods. There was nothing he could do to help his friends now except watch them buy the farm, each for the other.
Even Horse, the supposedly loyal sec chief, seemed to be unamused by what was occurring. His face was set, his large brown eyes dead, his dreads hanging still and framing his high-boned face. The entire set of his body screamed that he was uneasy with this plan. But possibly for different reasons…