gamma world Sooner Dead

by Mel Odom

  A handful of ’Chine remained active inside the compartment, and they shot wildly, obviously still in distress over the EMP grenades. The fire had all but gone out, but flames still clung to the wooden tables and chairs bolted to the floor. The garish light the flames provided rendered the burned and twisted mechmen even more horrible.

  Bracing herself in the doorway, Hella fired into the surviving creatures and watched them go down, glad that they didn’t have to use another EMP grenade. She didn’t know if she could keep her senses about her if they did.

  Satisfied that the opposition was all dead, Stampede took out his comm link and shoved it into his ear.

  Hella did the same.

  “All right, Red, let’s see if we can save what’s left of this tub.” Stampede went back through the door, and Hella followed, grateful to have his voice back inside her head.

  The river had gentled out some as they got farther from the falls. Hella gazed out at the turbulent water and couldn’t believe they’d survived the assault. The ferry remained at risk, though. A sandbar or a riverboat sunk during the flooding or any time before, and they would be in the current themselves. Hella didn’t think she had the strength to save herself if she ended up in the water.

  Stampede led the way to the ferry’s stern. Hella couldn’t remember which stern had faced the north and which had faced the south bank. In fact, if it hadn’t been for knowing that the river ran west, she’d never have known north from south. All along the banks, trees and brush grew rampant.

  At the railing, Stampede opened a compartment built into the wall, ignoring the blood that stained most of it, and pulled out an anchor and chain.

  “If you try to drop anchor in the river, the current will tear the ferry to pieces.” Hella hung onto the railing and willed her stomach to be more settled.

  “I know. But our luck isn’t going to hold forever.” Stampede let the metal, three-forked anchor drop to the deck and fed a length of chain out after it. When he was satisfied, he started swinging the anchor overhead. A moment later, he threw the anchor into the trees lining the north bank.

  The chain jumped and juddered in Stampede’s hands like a live thing, and in the forest it ripped through trees and brush. Just when Hella was certain the anchor was about to tear loose a final time and drop into the river and maybe become a hazard for them, one of the tines hooked something solidly.

  Stampede grunted in pain and effort as he held on to the chain. He set himself and Hella knew he was using his power again to tie himself to the ferry’s deck. Anyone who didn’t have Stampede’s power would have slipped. Anyone with less than his strength wouldn’t have been able to hold on or would have had his arms torn from his sockets. Anyone less stubborn wouldn’t have endured the agony that he went through.

  Screaming in pain, Stampede held the chain in a death grip. The ferry stopped rushing forward and started slipping sideways in the current, edging closer and closer to the bank. Finally, after several minutes had passed and Hella didn’t think that Stampede could hang on one second longer, the ferry’s bottom touched the riverbed.

  Then Stampede hauled on the chain, fighting the current till it finally bucked them to the side and the ferry rested wedged up against the bank.

  “Tie the chain to the cleat.”

  Hella slid across the deck on her knees, grabbed the chain, and wrapped it several times around one of the mooring cleats passengers used to tie onto when they needed to float vehicles that wouldn’t fit on the ferry across. “Okay.” She scooted back as Stampede let go the chain. She half expected the links to slither free and whirl around in lethal arcs.

  Instead the chain remained taut, and the ferry stayed in shallow water.

  Stampede slumped to a sitting position on the deck and flexed his cramped hands.

  For a long moment, Hella and Stampede just sat there and listened to the river race by them. She checked the magazine in her rifle to make sure nothing had jarred loose. “Do you think any of the ’Chine are still alive?”

  “Not on this ferry.” Stampede pulled his rifle around and slipped in a fresh magazine.

  “What about the ones in the water?”

  “Even if there were any that could swim, they either drowned by now or they’re a long way from here. Even with the hive mind powering dead bodies, they’re not getting out of the river any time soon.” Stampede looked at her. “Those EMPs do anything to you?”

  Only because Stampede would know that she was lying if she said no, Hella told him the truth. “They made me sick.”

  “You still sick?”

  Hella sat quietly and took stock, but the weakness and nausea she’d felt were more memory at that point than anything noticeable. “No.”

  “Not like you to be sick.”

  “I know.”

  “Anything permanent?”

  She shook her head because she didn’t think that was the case.

  Stampede forced himself to his feet. “Let’s go see if Pardot’s cargo survived the trip. I don’t think he’s going to be happy if we’re the only ones that made it. And I wouldn’t know where to start looking for it if we lost it overboard.”

  Inside the passenger compartment, a canvas-covered object lay in the middle of a group of dead ’Chine. The mechmen’s cause of death was a mixture of things: antipersonnel flétchettes, bullets, and burns from the incendiary grenade. Stampede and Hella dragged the dead things away; then Stampede slipped his belt knife into the rope that held the canvas in place.

  Gingerly they pulled the canvas back and found a metal man lying there.

  Stampede cursed and stepped back. His hand slid around the grip of his rifle in smooth reflex, and he pointed the barrel at the metal man.

  “Wait.” Hella slid forward for a closer inspection. “This isn’t ’Chine. Look at it. This thing looks more like a man than any ’Chine I’ve ever seen. There’s nothing human about him.”

  In fact, the figure was beautiful. Every feature, every limb, everything about the man was perfect. His silver skin glistened in the glow of Stampede’s flashlight. He was bald, his head perfectly shaped, and he was more handsome than any man Hella had ever seen. He was curled into a fetal position, as if he’d gotten afraid during the recent battle and had willed himself to go to sleep. He had no garments, and he wasn’t immodest in spite of his nudity because there were no obvious genitalia, but Hella recognized him as male.

  “Do you think it’s some kind of statue?” Stampede sounded irritated.

  “I don’t know.” Cautiously Hella prodded the metal man with her fingers. When she made contact, her whole hand buzzed, like she’d touched something carrying electrical current. She jerked back and Stampede dropped a big hand on her shoulder and yanked her back further.

  “What happened?”

  Hella gazed at her hand but couldn’t discern any damage. “Shocked me.”

  “It’s carrying voltage?”

  “Yes. Not enough to hurt you, but it got my attention.”

  Stampede gazed around the bobbing ferry. “Nothing aboard this thing carries voltage.”

  “The Wroths use it back at their house. A waterwheel to turn a generator so they can use metal lathes and other tools.”

  The metal man remained inert.

  Puzzled, Hella reached for the thing and touched it again. She was prepared for the shock and didn’t immediately break contact.

  “Current still there?” Stampede peered at her.

  “Yes.”

  Stampede dropped a hand onto the metal man then frowned. “I don’t feel anything, and I’m as soaked as you are.”

  Hella took her hand back and felt the residual tingle. She curled her fingers into a fist then morphed her hand into a gun. Everything worked perfectly. She looked at Stampede.

  He shook his head. Drenched and covered in blood and ’Chine fluids, he looked bedraggled.

  A beam of light suddenly blazed through the window.

  Hella and Stampede slid into positions at the do
or and peered out into the night.

  A line of figures huddled on the riverbank. Moonlight glistened from rifle barrels. None of them moved like ’Chine. One of them held a bull’s-eye lantern and played it over the beached ferry.

  Stampede raised his voice. “Are you Wroths?”

  There was a hesitation; then a man’s voice replied. “We are.”

  “My name’s Stampede. I’m a trail scout.”

  “We’ve met. You knew my father.”

  “Is he out there?”

  “No.” The voice broke. “Those ’Chine killed him. We came down here hoping to kill the ’Chine.”

  “They’re all dead.” Slowly and carefully, Stampede stood up in the lantern light. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

  “Krissa. Get that light out of his face.” The speaker was a woman who was used to being obeyed. “I’m Twyla Wroth.”

  Hella remembered the woman as one of the elder Wroths.

  “We’ve met, Mrs. Wroth.” Stampede walked out onto the outer deck but kept his rifle ready.

  “Those ’Chine killed my husband.” The woman’s thin shadow stepped forward, and the moonlight revealed the hard planes of her face. She wore her hair pulled back and carried a rifle.

  “All of the ones on this ferry are dead.”

  “You blew up the anchor posts?”

  “It was the only way to keep the ’Chine on the ferry.”

  One of the males grumbled loudly. “Gonna be a lot of work putting everything back to rights.”

  “Shut up.” The second male voice was deeper and sounded older. “Those ’Chine taking the ferry out on the river with the current running like that, they’d have probably gotten all four anchor posts busted. They weren’t going to cross the Coyle tonight. They were just too stupid to know that.”

  Twyla Wroth walked over to the river’s edge in muddy boots. “How did you get to be here tonight?”

  Stampede twitched his ears. “That’s a long story.”

  “Do you want to stand out here in the cold and the wet? Or do you want to sit by a fire?”

  “If a fire’s offered, I’ll take the fire.”

  “Then come on out of there.”

  Stampede hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got cargo in here I need to pack out.”

  “Bring it and we’ll get you settled.”

  Before they could join the Wroth family inside the house, Hella and Stampede helped the survivors gather their dead family members from the mud and the river. They’d lost seven, and two of the bodies had gotten washed downriver.

  Packing the corpses back to the main house was sad work, and Hella watched as Twyla Wroth stoically tended to her dead husband, a teenage son, and a daughter. The rest were people the Wroths had brought into their clan as helpers and to keep the family gene pool fresh.

  They laid the bodies to rest on a concrete pad, covered them in branches, and set them alight. When Hella started shivering while the family stood outside to watch their loved ones burn, Twyla Wroth walked over to her. “You go on inside, girl. Before you catch your own death.” Tears streaked the older woman’s face. “There’s a fire, fresh-baked bread, and pot of venison stew we keep ready all day.”

  “I can wait.”

  Firelight played over the old woman’s face. “These are dead, and we’ll do right by them, but this isn’t your family. You see to yourself and leave us with our grieving.”

  Hella glanced over at Stampede. He nodded and stepped off first. She followed and the wind turned her drenched clothing to ice.

  “I’ve got clothes back here you can wear.” The woman wasn’t a blood relative of the Wroths, but she had the same hard look that living and working on the river brought to anyone who made a home there. “I don’t know if we can save yours, but we can try.”

  “Thank you.” Hella followed the woman to the back rooms of the Wroth house. Mechanically she stripped off her clothing in the bathroom and took a quick standing shower in hot water. The nanobots had already clotted the wound on her face. By morning she wouldn’t have even a scar.

  “Take as long as you need.” The woman spoke from the other side of the door. “The hot water tank’s powered by the generator, and it takes care of a large family.”

  Hella stood under the needle spray till the heat burned away the cold. Then she got out and found a dress hanging on the door. That stopped her. She’d never worn a dress. She pulled on the underthings then stuck her head out the door. “This dress?”

  The woman waited in the hallway and looked at her. “Doesn’t it fit? I thought it would.”

  “I don’t … I don’t wear dresses. I’ve never worn a dress.”

  “Oh. I’ll be right back.” The woman went into one of the other rooms and returned with a pair of jeans and a shirt. “Everything else fit?”

  “It did. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

  “Ain’t no reason to be sorry.”

  Gratefully Hella took the folded clothes and pulled them into the bathroom with her.

  If the situation hadn’t been so dire and so sad, Hella would have burst out laughing when she saw Stampede sitting near the stone fireplace with a blanket wrapped around his waist. He was so big that all his clothing had to be specially made or they had to find really large clothes. None of the Wroths came anywhere close to his size.

  When he saw her, he evidently sensed what was going through her mind because he scowled deeply and his ears twitched. His hooves held fresh chips from the night’s action. He drank stew from a wooden bowl and chased it with milk. The Wroths kept cows too and defended their small herd by keeping them inside the lower floor of the home.

  The metal man sat on his side in a corner of the room near Stampede.

  “Here.” One of the younger Wroth children handed Hella a wooden bowl filled with stew and a slab of bread smeared with churned butter.

  Despite all the violence and horror she’d seen, or maybe because of it, Hella was ravenous. Part of that was brought on by the energy depleted by the nanobots as they kept her weapons fed. She joined Stampede beside the fireplace and enjoyed the feel of the heat soaking up through the flagstones as well as from the fireplace.

  Eight small children sat at the big table in the long room. The room was meant for family, made simple and roomy, with the table and bench seats. Flame-retardant board covered the walls, and pictures drawn by children occupied several places. All of the children watched Stampede expectantly.

  “They’ve seen you before.” Hella blew on a spoonful of stew.

  “Not like this.” Half naked, Stampede was a testimony to the hard and violent life he’d led. Scars crisscrossed his massive body and left pink and gray tracks in their wake. Fur no longer covered several areas where the cuts had been too numerous or he had been burned.

  “They tried to put me in a dress.”

  Stampede grinned. “That would have been funny.”

  “Not to me.” Hella pointed her spoon at the metal man. “Anybody ask about your cargo?”

  “They thought it was ’Chine at first.”

  “So did you.”

  Stampede shrugged and wiped milk from his chin with a furry forearm. “I still don’t know that it isn’t.”

  Hella cocked her head and looked at the metal man. “A long fall like that, on fire and everything, you’d expect he would have taken some damage. Burned. Melted. Gotten bent and twisted. Something. And it’s not like he went untouched when the EMPs and the incendiary went off in that passenger compartment.”

  Stampede cocked an eyebrow. “ ‘He’?”

  “Yes. He’s a he.”

  “It’s a machine.”

  “A male machine.”

  “If you say so.” Stampede scratched under his chin with a forefinger. “I don’t know what Pardot expects to get out of the thing.”

  Hella shrugged and continued with her meal. She thought about Daisy, knowing the mountain boomer was doubtlessly off her leash. She hoped the big lizard wouldn’t wander far.
>
  After long minutes of silence and eating, her stomach full, Hella stretched out her legs and put her back to the fireplace wall. She didn’t mean to, but she laid her head back and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, mister.” One of the children finally found his voice.

  “What?” Stampede sounded half asleep.

  “Make it stop.”

  “Make what stop?”

  “The ’Chine.”

  That popped Hella’s eyes open. Her hands instantly morphed into weapons, and Stampede pulled his rifle over to him. She scanned the windows, thinking maybe some of the mechmen had survived after all. But only darkness filled the windows.

  She looked at the small boy. “What ’Chine?”

  The boy pointed at the metal man.

  When Hella turned to look at him, the metal man stared back at her with iridescent silver eyes. Then he opened up out of the fetal position and started to get to his feet.

  The children cried out in alarm and scattered like field mice avoiding the sudden swoop of an owl.

  CHAPTER 19

  Effortlessly rising to his feet, Stampede pointed his rifle at the metal man. “Stop.”

  The metal man ignored Stampede. Moving slowly, the metal man reached his knees and started to push himself up further. His emotionless face revealed nothing of his intentions, but his head swiveled so his gaze took in the entire room. He opened his mouth, possibly to speak, but only a high-pitched grinding issued.

  Mercilessly Stampede thrust the rifle butt into the side of the metal man’s head. It connected with a loud clank. The metal man flew backward and bounced off the wall, but he looked more surprised than hurt when he caught himself on hands and knees.

  Stampede towered over him. “Stay down.”

  The metal man looked up then tried to get to his feet once more.

  Stampede lunged forward and put more effort into the second blow. Ready for it, the metal man evaporated into a million bright points of light. The rifle butt thudded into the wall and knocked a hole in the wallboard. Almost instantly, the cloud of bright lights flew behind Stampede and re-formed into the metal man. The bisonoid was still head and shoulders taller than the metal man, but the metal man didn’t act afraid in the least.