James Axler - Deathlands 43 - Dark Emblem

by Dark Emblem [lit]

  "What's that panel of numbers and letters by the side of the door?" a woman's voice asked him, mere moments before the event that he knew was soon to occur.

  "Control codes," Doc heard himself reply. "Sadly, at the time of what is called skydark, all of the relevant documentation and comp disks have been wiped clean or destroyed or have quite simply vanished. So we have no way at all of understanding what any combination might do."

  "Makes me nervous, Doc," the woman said. "Going into this strange-looking room and closing the door to wake up somewhere else. Makes me claustrophobic."

  Doc watched himself give the woman his most reassuring smile. "Nonsense, my dear," he told her. "As long as I am at your side, no harm shall come to you."

  He had turned to look down at the attractive woman standing outside of the mat-trans chamber next to him, one of her hands curled tightly in his own. She was around average height, five foot six or so with the lean build of a woman used to moving. Her golden shoulder-length hair was streaked with the first tints of the eventual waterfall of gray to come. Against the blond hair, her deeply tanned face and neck looked even darker than they truly were, but the sun had been kind and her face remained relatively wrinkle-free, despite her age of forty-three and continual exposure to the elements.

  Another blonde. Doc hadn't felt an attraction to any woman since Lori Quint's untimely demise, but this one was different. Where Lori had been headstrong and pumped with the self-aggrandizement of youth, this woman was mature and cautious. Doc liked that, liked the white flash of her smile and the calm assessment in her dark eyes.

  Susan "Sukie" Smith, originally from Rice Falls,

  Wisconsin, had a past as tragic as his own, maybe even more so in terms of loss and heartache. Now, she was on her way out west seeking her sister in hopes of reclaiming the last remnants of her scattered and mostly dead family.

  She wore a divided blue skirt with a few patches over well-worn riding boots, along with a dingy white blouse and a jacket that matched the blue in the skirt. A necklace of rough-cut turquoise and pewter around her long slender neck completed the ensemble.

  When they'd first met, she had the advantage on Doc with an autopistol and a hankering to fire, only to come forward after they'd talked to collapse before him in a tumble of unconscious limbs and bright red blood. He later learned the wound had been given to her by a man who she hired as a guide. In return for her injury, she'd chilled the man with his own blade, and had been going it alone until encountering Doc.

  The spark of attraction had been there between the two, and Doc had delighted in engaging in a sprawl of days of consensual lovemaking and leisurely travel in some of the most beautiful country he'd ever seen. Now, Sukie was at his side in front of the mat-trans chamber, along with all the other members of Ryan Cawdor's group of survivalists. There had been no hesitation in letting her accompany them- if the woman was good enough for Doc, there would be no disputing her place in the group of friends. Although hardened by the harshness of her life, she was friendly enough, although still sticking close to Doc.

  Like most people at first, she was attempting to grasp the complexities of the matter-transfer process. Doc had explained the process to her as best as he could, promising her that he'd spent more time than he cared to tell within the various six-sided armaglass chambers jumping to and fro and he was still in one piece.

  So, she'd agreed, and entered with the rest of them, Krysty, Jak, Dean, J.B., Mildred, the Trader and Abe-both of whom were traveling with the companions at the time-and Doc himself, who felt slightly guilty since none of them actually liked jumping, and he was the one who usually came out on the other end suffering the most. Yet he still had to put on a brave face for his lady. Outside in the ruin of the anteroom next to the chamber, Ryan had waited until all were safe and seated inside before stepping into the booth himself and closing the door.

  Once closed, the door triggered the auto mechanism of the mat-trans and the incredible process, so familiar to everyone, began once more.

  Familiar to all but Sukie Smith, who sat stiffly next to Doc, her face a twist of worry as the metal disks began to hum like a thousand stirred bees and the swirling mists fell around their shoulders like a gentle cloak, gray-white mists that started high before falling to the floor and wrapping around each form inside the chamber.

  Doc had promised that no harm would come to her, as long as he was alive to be her champion, and Sukie had smiled weakly in return.

  The humming grew louder and the light of the chamber became brighter and Doc closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn't dream, and if he did, that Sukie would be in whatever mental confabulation his slumbering mind conjured.

  "No."

  A simple word, said very clearly and distinctly came from the woman at his side.

  The transitional phase of the mat-trans jump was almost complete, and Doc had to struggle to open his eyes to focus on what he'd heard and the implications of the single spoken syllable. Across from Doc and Sukie, Ryan saw what was happening, even as he battled to keep his own eye open. J.B., his vision dulled by the removal of his specs, also tried to react, but found his body numb and impossibly slow to respond to the mental commands he was issuing.

  Sukie Smith, who'd buried a quartet of husbands during her rough struggle to survive in Deathlands, who'd endured all the hell an attractive woman faced in a lawless land of cruel men and still managed to retain the capacity to love, who'd encountered a curious older man with a lilt in his voice and the flowery speeches of a true romantic and for a week of her hard life bought into the fantasy of being swept off her feet, now stared into the unfathomable face of the unknown and was frightened to death.

  Fear pumping into her lithe body, she was already up into a crouch and lurching clumsily toward the closed mat-trans chamber door, her mouth working soundlessly with only a few words escaping to the ears of those sitting around her, and all could hear and make sense of only two: "Doc" and "sorry" and "sorry" and "Doc." They were spoken over and over like a tape on auto-loop, even as her very atoms were scattered to the four winds on a subatomic level.

  The future Doc Tanner watched all of this from outside the gateway, saw the door open a crack, saw the world erupt, saw Sukie die from the other side.

  This time, when he felt the tugging of the temporal leash trawling him to yet another locale, he was more than relieved.

  Doc OPENED HIS EYES and realized he was slumped on his feet against the side of a wooden wall. His legs were tingling with needles of pain, and he could barely stand. Flakes of chipped white paint stuck to his jacket and the side of his face as he leaned for support, his presence hidden away by the shelter of an empty doorway, and struggled to fight back grief for Sukie, grief and guilt that were already intermingling with new emotions brought on by what he was now viewing from the span of a single muddy street away.

  He gave an audible gasp when he first saw himself, his wife, his children.

  "So young," he whispered to himself. "Too young."

  There was no stopping the tears now, and his vi- sion blurred and the scene ran like melting paint. The out-of-body experience was taking a great toll physically, but mentally he felt numb. Dead.

  He wanted to run to them, to grab up Rachel in his arms and spin her in a circle and never stop holding her, spin her as she laughed and laughed, like she always did-like she always had-until she squealed for him to stop.

  But he knew there would be no such reunion, for how could he confront himself? The Theo Tanner walking down that wooden sidewalk with his wife and children had no clue, no concept of the disaster soon to befall, and even if he was forewarned, how would it change the future?

  Then, with the clarity of old, the acute mental sharpness he'd once possessed, he recalled words he'd once read on a monitor screen during his captivity with Operation Chronos, words that had haunted him greatly with their implication then, and even more so now as each syllable came rushing back with the fury of a hurricane:

  T
emporal anomalies are not clearly understood, nor easily explained. Evidence is limited as experiments have not proceeded far or fast. Most experts hypothesize that time is multistranded. There is at any one second millions upon millions of time possibilities, an infinite choice of parallel futures, any or all of which will persist. Thus, it is believed that the classic example of a person traveling back into the past to alter his own present is false. He will alter only one of the parallel streams, but his own present will not change. He could be killed in the past, but his own time stream will not be sullied by the disturbance. But in one universe, he will cease to exist. That is all that is known.

  "That is all that is known," Doc whispered.

  Then, he knew what he had to do. Whether or not the theorists at Chronos were correct in their extrapolation and understanding of how the time stream worked, he still had to warn himself. However, before he could reach his family, he felt his teeth begin to hum, a hum that stretched through his skull and nasal cavity.

  The chronal transport process was beginning once more.

  Doc took a single step forward and felt his metabolism start to slow, freezing into place as if his very bones were made of ice, and his skin frosted on. He tried to call out, cursing himself now for playing coy and not immediately going up the steps to his own front door and grabbing his young face in his hands and screaming: "It's over, Theo! Everything falls apart! The center cannot hold! For I am you and you are me and right now, in this reality, we are both separate entities and by God, you must do all in your power to prevent this Dickens-like apparition that has appeared on your doorstep from coming to pass!"

  He had done none of these things. Hesitation had cost him dearly once more. When the trawl of the mat-trans unit finished locking and sucked him away from that plane of existence, he welcomed the nightmares to come. He hoped for them to never end as eternal punishment-the dark dangerous visions of the dead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "We've got seven seconds," J.B. said tightly, his voice even as it measured out the unstoppable countdown he'd started when setting the fuse on the grenade. His eyes were wide behind the lenses of his wire-rim spectacles as he continued to list the numbers backward to the eventual zero and its explosive conclusion. "Six, five."

  "Let's gamble these ugly bastards haven't learned to count. On two from J.B., everyone go flat," Ryan said, tensing his body in preparation as he spoke loudly over the verbal countdown.

  "Four, three," J.B. continued softly, continuing to count even as Ryan had given the order. "Two-"

  Jorge, Soto, J.B., Ryan, Krysty and Dean dived to their knees and stomachs like dropped stones. Seeing their prey suddenly collapse into horizontal positions, the waiting trio of chupacabras, who had activated the weird bioengineered hypnotic spines along their backs the moment they had been spotted, interpreted the movements as a sign of submission, and sprang forward with their wings open to hungrily attack.

  As such, all of the horrid mutations were facing the brunt of the explosion when it came rushing upward in a hot spray of dust and debris. Miraculously none of the companions were shaken from the stairs, but there were multiple creaks and groans from the stressed metal of the framework they all hung onto.

  "They weren't below. Got above us somehow," Jorge said softly as the dust settled.

  "The vents," Ryan said, coughing. "The bastards are probably spread all over the redoubt."

  "Then we need to seal this entire complex," Soto said, limping from an injury sustained earlier during the fighting.

  "If we live long enough to get to the door," Jorge replied pessimistically.

  "Oh, we'll live that long, no problem," J.B. snarled. "I've got to have a long talk with our prissy friend back at the fortress before I can take time enough to die."

  J.B.'s THREAT WAS PROVED to be true. There were a few more sporadic attacks from random chupacabras, but now all in the group were prepared to deal with the creatures and their methods of murder. Soto used his rusty revolver to take down one, while Jorge's long blaster was good for two more. At one point, Soto looked incredibly sad, remarking to all, "I find it hard to believe my people spent so much time frightened of these creatures."

  At the exit back into the cavern, J.B. took the last of the four grens and set the time for thirty seconds, tossing it inside as Ryan reversed the code and brought the massive vanadium steel door sliding down with a ring of finality.

  Outside, the sun had come up.

  Ryan sat at the wheel of the Jeep, turned the ignition key, and was rewarded with the thrum of the small wag's engine firing into life.

  "Now, we settle accounts with Jamaisvous," he stated.

  THE TRIP BACK to Old San Juan was speedy and uneventful, except for the discovery that the injuries inflicted upon Soto's foot were worse than he'd let on. He apologized profusely for being unable to accompany the others to El Morro, but Ryan would hear none of it, and insisted Jorge stay with his friend.

  "There's enough of us here to take care of business," he told the two men.

  When the group of companions reached the imposing fortress, all was quiet inside. No table had been set for breakfast, and other than the cook and her daughter, no sec men-or, for that matter, no Doc Tanner or Mildred Wyeth or Silas Jamaisvous-were to be found.

  "Gateway," Jak suggested, and they traced then-steps back along the path taken mere days before when Jamaisvous had led them up into the living quarters of the fortress.

  "Halt, Cawdor!" a voice rang out.

  The barrel-chested sec guard stood firm at the open hallway leading to the inner bowels of the fortress where Jamaisvous had installed his modified gateway and temporal laboratories. The hefty Tec 10 blaster was held ready, a silent deterrent backing up its master. There was nowhere to duck for safe cover in the hall, a tidy piece of extra security that the guard seemed well aware of from his position.

  "Hold up," Ryan said to the others. "I don't think we're welcome."

  "Where's Luis?" the sec man asked.

  "He ate something that didn't agree with him," Ryan said blandly.

  "Que?"

  "Forget it."

  The guard sneered. "Where is the rest of your merry band of chupacabras hunters?"

  "They're back at home with their families," Krysty replied. "Glad to be alive and proud to have accomplished something to help their people instead of cowering up here in this fortress."

  "They're all scared. Too frightened to come up here to El Morro. Frightened the chupacabras is going to come hopping out of a rathole and bite them on the ass!"

  Ryan's visage managed to grow even more defiant. "So you say, but I didn't see you volunteering to go tramping around in El Yunque either."

  "I was not assigned. My duties were here."

  "Sure, much easier to let someone else take the risks, isn't it?" Dean said.

  "You watch your mouth, boy, or I'll-"

  "You'll what?" Ryan challenged. "Which one of the matching set are you, anyway?"

  My brother is busy. You have no right to be here. Unless you want to take this beyond words, I suggest you back up. Now."

  Ryan felt the anger flare inside his brain, but he kept it under control, leashed. "Step aside, Lopez. I've got business with your boss."

  The guard frowned. ' 'Dr. Jamaisvous left strict orders not to be disturbed."

  "Your precious doctor has been playing you and your people for fools," Krysty said. "We just got back from ground zero for chupacabras."

  Lopez looked at the long-limbed redhead with a confident smirk. "El chupacabras doesn't exist. Old tales told to children to frighten them into bed."

  Ryan jerked up his bandaged hand to the fresh scabbing on his face. "I didn't get these cuts shaving, Lopez. Nor did any of the rest of us. Every scab and bruise you see on us came from one of those mutie sons of bitches, and your master, the mighty Dr. Silas Jamaisvous is the one responsible for unleashing them on San Juan."

  Lopez wasn't convinced. "You lie. How is this possible?''<
br />
  "I'm not saying he did it on purpose-mebbe he screwed up somehow when he came to San Juan and took over this fortress. But I do know he's the one behind the chupacabras problem, and I want to discuss it with him. Now."

  "My brother has been as polite to you as possible. I think words are not going to convince you, Caw-dor." On that note of menace, the second of the twin sec men, Lopez's brother, Garcia, stepped around the comer behind the group, his matching Tec 10 leveled and ready.

  Ryan kept his cool on the surface. Things were going south triple fast, and every second they spent in pointless debate with Jamaisvous's watchdogs was a second more that could spell disaster for Doc and Mildred, neither of whom had been found in the upper levels of the living areas of the fortress.

  Caught in the makings of a cross fire, Ryan had no choice. Trusting his comrades in arms to match his movements, he pulled the SIG-Sauer in a practiced fast draw the most hardened of the mythical old Western gunslingers would have been envious of and squeezed the trigger. A single 9 mm bullet blasted out of the end of the pistol, the explosive sound muffled to a large degree by the baffle silencer.