Perdition Valley

by James Axler

  “Smoke from ville give cover,” Jak declared confidently, as an acrid breeze wafted over the group. He flinched at the fleeting smell of cooked flesh, and forced the distraction from his mind. He had to stay razor. Cyborgs were tricky.

  “Besides, shooting through this smoke would massively reduce the power of the laser,” Mildred declared, resting an M-16 combo on a shoulder. “The beams work on color absorption.”

  Easing around a cactus, Ryan only grunted in reply. A long time ago, the Trader had taught him that a green laser was pretty much useless against a green target. That’s why predark mil lasers seemed to shimmer. They were rippling through the entire visible spectrum every few seconds. No matter what camou you wore, or the color of your armor, the predark lasers chilled every time. If they managed to hit you. Experience had taught Ryan that a smart person could outmaneuver a droid, or a comp, every time. As with everything else, it was the person behind the blaster that made a wep deadly.

  “Rainbows that chill,” Krysty said angrily. The bastard concept seemed unnatural and made her uneasy.

  Her hair radiating outward against the reeking breeze, the woman changed her grip on the M-16 combo. There was only one ammo clip left for the rapidfire, and no more 40 mm shells, but it was still a deadly wep, and the neckered-down 5.56 mm mil rounds had a lot more punch than the loads in her .38 revolver.

  Askance at this tech talk, Lily nervously shied away from the other people. How did they know such things? Had she escaped from her crazy brothers only to become surrounded by more stinking tech lovers?

  Passing by the destroyed front gate of the adobe fort, Doc glowered at the stone well in repressed fury and fingered a pipe bomb. If the scholar had learned anything from his short fight with the Coldfire agent, it was that there was no such thing as too much firepower.

  Had his fight with Delphi really only happened a few hours earlier? Doc wondered. It seemed incredible. Just for a moment, the tall man fought the urge to toss the pipe bomb down the well just to make sure the hated cyborg was indeed chilled. Then he thought better of the action and shoved the explosive bit of plumbing into his frock coat. There was no sense wasting precious munitions merely to soothe his jangled nerves. Doc was covered with cuts and bruises, his ribs busted. He knew that Delphi was dead. That ended the matter.

  As the strange tracks abruptly ended, the others took guard positions while Jak knelt in the loose sand. He studied the tracks of the war wag. The deep impressions ended in the middle of a flat plain, as if the machine had simply ceased to exist.

  “Not see anything like,” Jak muttered, taking a handful of sand and letting it trickle through his fingers to test the composition.

  “Did it fly away?” Ryan asked, scanning the sky overhead. The roiling storm clouds rumbled in dark harmony.

  “Mebbe,” the teen said, rubbing the old bandage on his hand. On impulse, he yanked off the cloth and saw with some satisfaction that the wound was healed. “But didn’t roll anywhere, that’s for sure. Not even backward over old tracks.”

  “You already thought of that, too, eh?” J.B. said, pushing back his fedora.

  The teenager shrugged. “Sure. Old trick.”

  “But not done this time,” Ryan stated. “It’s just bastard gone.”

  “Mebbe it flew away, like one of the Harrier jumping jets Mildred told us about,” Krysty suggested.

  “Not possible,” the physician countered. “A jump jet kicks out a tremendous backwash, makes a real mess of everything nearby. None of this sand has been disturbed in any way.”

  “The wag flew into the sky…like a stingwing?” Lily asked softly, holding on to her new Webley blaster with both hands as if it were a protective talisman.

  “We’ll explain later,” J.B. answered brusquely, then his tone softened at the raw terror in her face. “It’s just a trick,” he added, smiling. “Nothing dangerous or special. Don’t worry about it.”

  “If you say so, sir,” Lily replied in a hoarse whisper. But the young woman shuffled her new boots nervously in the sand, clearly dismayed by all of this casual talk about forbidden things. Machines that flew?

  “Mebbe wag not go, still here,” Jak said softly. “Delphi using predark weps, have pix…” He left the sentence hanging ominously.

  “Time travel?” Ryan asked, narrowing his good eye in concern. Studying the tracks, he fought back the urge to wave an arm through the air above them. “Doc, is that possible?”

  “I have no idea whatsoever,” the old man conceded in a strained voice. He licked dry lips. “Because, if I did know how to effect a time jump, I would no longer be here, my friend.” Then there flashed in his mind the image of the Indian shaman, warning Doc to stay near Ryan. The one-eyed man was the key home. And the doorway will only be open for a single moment. When the chance presented itself, Doc would have to move fast. Only by risking everything, could he gain back everything. The wallet on his hip suddenly seemed to be hot, and weigh a million pounds. Emily…

  “How sure are you that Delphi is aced?” Mildred asked, easing the rapidfire off her shoulder to point it at the crumbling fortress. A dustdevil twirled and danced madly along the front of the ruins, the morning breeze making a hollow moan as it blew through the slagged holes in the adobe walls.

  “Most assuredly, madam,” Doc replied, coming out of the somber reverie. “Crushed to a pulp.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I don’t really care how the wag vanished,” Krysty said, her hair tightening in reflection of her dark thoughts.

  “Yeah, it’s where the damn thing went that concerns me,” Ryan noted, warily glancing toward the western sky.

  The snowy Mohawk Mountains stood imposing against the receding night, the thin sunshine dappling the eastern facade making it appear that the range was moving. Resting the stock of the Steyr on a hip, Ryan stared at the colossal range, distant and forbidding. Here and there flicked the yellow light of volcanoes, and a thick fog moved among the rock formations between the ground and the polluted clouds.

  Somewhere up there was another redoubt. The problem was that their last jump through the mat-trans units had been controlled, rigged to bring them here to the Zone for a confrontation with the Rogans. Or the intelligent stickies, or mebbe even Delphi himself. The deathtrap had failed, the cyborg chilled. But if the robotic war wag got back to the home base of Coldfire, more agents would be sent after Doc. Straight-on, or nightcreeps, either way, the companions were going to be embroiled in never-ending combat, with their supplies of predark ammo dwindling fast.

  “We could go back to Two-Son ville,” Mildred suggested hesitantly.

  Adjusting his glasses, J.B. frowned. “Don’t like that fragging idea,” he stated gruffly.

  After a moment Ryan unfortunately agreed. On the surface it sounded like a good plan. Get behind a big thick wall, and have an army of armed sec men ready to help defend them. But if the companions went back to the ville, the Coldfire agents, Overproject Whisper, Chronos, TITAN, whatever these bastards called themselves, could strike whenever they wished. The odds would all be in their favor. But if the companions started doing blind jumps once more, the odds would be even. Aces and eights. A fair fight.

  “How far away are those?” Krysty asked thoughtfully.

  Pulling out his sextant, J.B. ran a few calculations. “Roughly a hundred miles. Give or take a rad pit or two.”

  Frowning deeply, Ryan stared at the mountains without seeing them. If they decided to jump, that would mean telling Lily about the redoubts, the greatest secret in the world, and the lifeline of the companions. And while it was true that Lily had helped fight against the Rogans, the woman was still an outsider. Blood for blood? Yeah, but that only went so far.

  “Don’t worry about it, lover,” Krysty said, resting a warm hand on his bandaged arm. “She’s gone.”

  Suddenly alert, the companions looked around fast, but there was no sign of the young woman.

  “By the Three Kennedys!” Doc exclaimed loud
ly. “Did she also vanish into thin air?”

  “No, girl run into dunes,” Jak said, pointing at the featureless ground.

  Everybody stared hard at the sand, but aside from the undisturbed tracks of the predark war wag they couldn’t detect any footprints.

  “You sure?” Ryan demanded curtly.

  “Yeah. Left when we not looking.”

  “Three o’clock,” Krysty said, squinting slightly.

  Just then a familiar shape appeared in the distance, then vanished into the smoky dawn, moving at a frantic run.

  “She ran away?” Doc rumbled, holstering the blaster. The man started to say something more, but stopped himself. The dichotomy of past and present had been solved for him.

  “Lily was getting rather twitchy hearing us talk about technology,” Mildred said, rubbing her jaw. “And she really didn’t like the motorcycle.”

  “So you think she might be from a ville that still has a taboo about science?” Krysty asked.

  “Makes sense.”

  “A technophobe? Sadly, that does indeed make sense, madam,” Doc stated, a strange expression in his eyes. Taking in a deep breath, he exhaled, shaking himself like a dog coming out of the rain. “Then so be it. It is much better that Lily took her leave of us now than after we had visited a redoubt.”

  “I have to agree,” J.B. added succinctly. Mildred and Doc used the word technophobe, but the Trader had always just called them simps. Damn fools who’d rather die than learn how to repair a wag or to can food. The Armorer had no time for such stupes.

  “Okay, let’s get the horses and the bike, and get out of here,” Ryan commanded, slinging the Steyr over a shoulder. “The sooner we’re out of the Zone, the better.”

  “It’s going to be a long trip,” J.B. said, glancing at the mountains. “We’ll need to find some rope and hammers to use as climbing gear.”

  “Fuck that,” Ryan stated roughly, heading around for the decimated Indian ville. “Delphi was smart, and that redoubt is far too obvious a bastard goal for us not to be a trap. I’m willing to bet live brass it’s been rigged somehow to chill us as soon as we enter.”

  “If we got that far,” Krysty agreed. “We’re heading east?”

  “Damn right we are.” Ryan declared. “We’ll travel cross-country, get out of the Zone. Then find another redoubt and jump.”

  “Moving target hard to hit,” Jak said with a grin.

  “And if Delphi or some other cyborg is waiting for us in the next redoubt?” Mildred asked pointedly, hitching up her med kit.

  “Then too bad for them,” Ryan said confidently, patting the gren in his pocket. “But we won’t try for the redoubts at Shay Canyon, or in Dulce. We’ll circle south and try for the one on the Grande.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Pity that we can’t take the bike,” J.B. noted pragmatically. “It’s too bastard fancy. Anybody who sees the thing will tell everybody they can. And that kind of news spreads triple fast.”

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I know. And we can’t leave it for Lily to use. That would only place her in the crosshairs of Coldfire.”

  Reaching the arroyo, the companions mounted their horses, with the two smallest people, Jak and Mildred, sharing a mount. Ryan took the bike. The electric engine was sluggish, but the two-wheeler still moved, at least for the moment.

  However, if Ryan knew anything about the Deathlands, they only needed to squeeze a few miles out of the machine before reaching someplace they could safely dump the bike. If it was left intact at the rill, eventually someone would discover the predark machine and ride away, utterly delighted at the incredible find. Then Coldfire would track the moving vehicle, and probably jack the rider to torture the poor soul for info about the companions that he didn’t have. Ryan had done a lot of dirty tricks to throw enemies off his trail, but sacrificing innocent lives wasn’t one of them.

  Riding the horses alongside the ever-slowing machine, the companions reached a glassy area that made both J.B. and Ryan’s rad counters start clicking. Getting off the predark motorcycle, Ryan emptied the storage compartments, then sent the machine rolling across the fused earth to tumble into the blast crater and smash apart on the glowing rocks at the bottom.

  “Nobody will try for it now,” J.B. stated confidently, patting the neck of his mount.

  “And the radioactivity should scramble the GPS unit just fine,” Mildred added with a nod.

  “Hopefully,” Ryan said, stuffing MRE packs into the saddlebags of Jak’s mare. “But I’ll feel better when we’re a hundred klicks from here.”

  Distributing the rest of the supplies to the other horses, Ryan finally mounted up behind Krysty astride the roan stallion. Making a crude sling with a handkerchief, the one-eyed man rested his aching arm while his companion pressed her knees against the animal, urging it into an easy canter. It was still early in the day and they had a long way to travel.

  As the sun rose behind the rumbling clouds, the heat of the desert steadily increased. Stingwings and vultures appeared, the creatures attacking one another when food could be found rotting on the sands. A flash of light made the companions dive for cover, but it proved only to be a reflection off the fused glass of another rad pit.

  It was noon when they passed a group of Indians trudging through the sand dunes, carrying their belonging on their backs.

  Slowing his mount, Doc gave a wave, but the friendly gesture wasn’t returned. The children shied away nervously from the silver-haired man.

  Lowering his arm, Doc sighed at the cold response. Obviously his welcome had been worn thin with the arrival of Delphi and the slaughter of their tribal council. Which was hardly surprising. He wanted to tell them the cyborg was chilled, but it seemed unwise to push the matter. Fair enough.

  Kicking the horse into a gallop, Doc rejoined his friends, and the companions rode into the rising sun, leaving Perdition Valley behind forever.

  Epilogue

  The humid air was still along the nameless river, the surface of the water smooth and undisturbed from submerged rocks.

  A few birds flew high above the peaceful valley stretching between the opposing cliffs, and occasionally a fish would jump from the river to snatch an insect darting among the flowering plants growing along the riverbank. There were no muties in sight, and not a single rusting scrap of evidence that humanity had ever existed. The quiet river chasm was a sylvan paradise, lost somewhere deep in the heart of the savage Deathlands.

  With his boots crunching on the loose dirt, a filthy Sec chief Stirling slowly moved among the large rocks dotting the moist landscape, and listened to the trickling murmur of the nearby river. The damnable river that had saved his life.

  For the past few days the sec chief had been living like an animal in the wild, sleeping under bushes and eating whatever he could chill with a thrown knife. The grasslands were full of fat gophers. But unwilling to risk a fire at night, Stirling had to consume the damn things uncooked, and raw gopher was no can of beans in his opinion. Mostly, Stirling slept. He was simply too weak to travel very far before collapsing again.

  The sec chief had been carefully tending his wounds, washing off the dried blood in a small creek of icy-cold water, when the stickies arrived. A whole nuking swarm of them. The bastards had to have caught the scent of his blood on the wind and rushed over to feed. Alone, wounded and low on ammo, Stirling had no choice but to run. Taking shots when he could dare to pause for a moment, Stirling tossed away the heavy longblaster when there was no more black powder, and was about to drop the med kit when the ground disappeared from under his boots. Tumbling through the air, the cursing man hit the river hard. The impact had to have knocked him out, but the cold water shocked him awake again, and a disoriented Stirling fought for an unknown length of time to simply not drown in the swift currents. Eventually, he made it to the shore and dragged himself out of the mud utterly exhausted. Sleep took him, and the battered man didn’t care if he ever woke again he was so tired.

  W
hen the sec chief came to, it was morning instead of afternoon, and a bright sun was shining down warmly. His clothes were streaked with mud, but there was little blood, and he didn’t smell like the ville shitter anymore.

  That was when he noticed that a fat bullfrog sat on his chest. As Stirling watched, the frog lashed out its long tongue to snare one of the flies buzzing around the man, and swallowed it whole. With a rumbling stomach, Stirling ignored the whole cycle of life and grabbed the frog to twist its slimy neck and wolf it down. After a while, he felt nauseated, then better, more alert, and he rose to start his lone trudging along the foot of the imposing cliffs.

  Hugging the med kit, Stirling swatted at the flies and shuffled along with no idea where he was heading. An unclimbable cliff rose sharply to his right, and the lazy river flowed a dozen yards away, just past the buzzing weeds. Fish swam in abundance in the quiet river, and the sec chief was looking for a long stick to make into a spear.

  As he traveled, a rock broke off the face of the cliff and plummeted to wetly smack onto the ground. Obviously this was a recent fissure and the ground was still setting into place. It would be safer near the river, but the soft ground made walking difficult, so Stirling chose speed and stayed on dry ground. If a rock aced him, so be it. The hungry man was in a foul mood. He was stiff, itchy, tired, filthy, unshaved, and couldn’t take his mind off the faceless bastards who had gunned down his troops. But more than life itself, the sec chief wanted Delphi in blaster range. One clean shot was all Stirling needed. Just one shot and the grinning whitecoat with the silver slippers would have a new definition of hell.

  Walking along the riverbank, Stirling instantly paused when he heard a low moan coming from the reeds. Clumsily drawing his handblaster, Stirling proceeded closer until hearing the moan again. Somebody was in the weeds. He thumbed back the hammer, wondering if it was one of the stickies from the previous day.

  Unwilling to leave a live enemy behind him, the wounded sec chief shuffled closer and parted the flowering reeds with the barrel of his blaster.