by James Axler
There was a single, continuous ripple of sound, like a sheet of taut calico being torn in half. The piece of plywood danced and bounced, almost disintegrating into shreds of white splinters.
"Evil," Dean said admiringly.
J.B. laid the empty gun down. "Not bad," he said.
"Going to try out the scattergun?" Ryan asked.
"Waste it on dirt. Want a different sort of target to test it."
At that precise moment, almost as if it had been sent special delivery, a giant mutie rat appeared in the shooting range.
Ryan spotted it first, with J.B. a shard of a second behind. The boy didn't see it until he picked up on the men's reactions.
The creature was the size of a small pig. Its body was over two feet long, with its reptilian tail adding another eighteen inches, and it stood over a foot tall at the shoulder.
Its head was broad above the eyes, narrowing to a feral muzzle, and its jaws were open, revealing a double row of yellow, needled teeth. The rodent stared unblinkingly at the intruders to its domain, its red eyes gleaming with a manic fire.
"Shit," Dean whispered.
Ryan's hand fell to the butt of the SIG-Sauer, ready to blast the nightmare creature. The boy also started to level his own blaster, but both of them stopped at a word from J.B.
"Mine," the Armorer said.
The stock on the Smith & Wesson M-4000 was folded forward. J.B. kept one eye on the crouched rat, while he clicked the stock back, bringing the blaster up to his shoulder.
The mutie rodent was hissing between its teeth, a thin string of spittle trailing from its lips to the concrete floor. Its powerful hind legs were flexed, ready to propel it in a leap.
Either for the safety of its hole, or toward the trio of invaders.
Nothing moved.
"Go on," Ryan said very quietly.
The claws of the rat were scratching at the stone in a sound that grated on the nerves.
"Better test of the shotgun if it started to move." J.B. stood braced, ready.
"I'll make it move," Dean offered taking three steps forward, hawking and spitting. The ball of saliva struck the creature between its left ear and eye.
For a moment it didn't react, then they heard a weird sound, halfway between a squeal and a snarl, starting deep in the creature's gray-furred chest, breaking from the scummed lips.
"Watch…" Ryan began, seeing the tail flick and the muscular hindquarters quiver.
But his warning would have been way too late.
The giant rodent was already powering itself toward the slight figure of the boy, less than twenty feet away from it. Its mouth was open, and its bucked teeth were ready to rake and tear.
The boom of the Smith & Wesson filled the low-ceilinged bunker. For the first time in his life Ryan heard the noise of flechettes in lethal flight, a brief hissing sound, like a sharp exhalation of air or a stiff brush against a sheet of honed steel. His eye caught the glitter of movement as the twenty miniature arrows burst from the barrel of the 12-gauge.
The rat was in midflight when it was struck by the flechettes. The range was short for the effective use of the weapon, but the result was still totally devastating.
The tiny nails hit the leaping animal in the side of the chest, every one of the twenty finding its target. The power of the impact sent the rat toppling to its left side, a high thin cry bubbling from its throat. It landed heavily, making one attempt to rise, then lay still, only its legs scrabbling with a residual memory of what living had been.
Most of the flechettes had ripped clear through, taking flesh, muscle, bone and tatters of torn lung with them. Some tinkled against the far wall, dropping spent and bloody.
J. B. Dix grinned delightedly. "Hey," he said, "it works!"
Chapter Sixteen
THEY STAYED IN the redoubt for another day, using the time to rest their bodies and minds, to get used to the uncomfortable stiffness of new clothes and to acclimate to their change of weaponry.
Dean spent most of his waking hours down in the range, though Ryan and J.B. made sure that there was always at least one other person with him.
Mutie rats of that size didn't hunt alone. The danger was emphasized by the disappearance of the corpse of the slaughtered rodent. But there was no sign of any fresh threat. However, everyone made extra sure that the sec doors to the range were kept firmly shut and locked.
Krysty shared Ryan's interest in the past, and she spent much of the spare day going around the complex, hoping to find something left behind from the far-off days.
But it had been well cleared.
That second night she was lying pressed close to Ryan, like two spoons, cradled together. They'd just made love for the third time.
"Ryan?" she whispered.
He groaned. "Not yet, lover. Give me a couple of minutes to recover from that last one."
She slapped him on the naked shoulder. "Just watch that mouth of yours."
"Wasn't what you said ten minutes ago."
"Listen, I'm being serious."
"Sure. Go ahead."
"Know what I dream about?"
"Yeah. Finding someplace where there's green grass, clean water and good air. A safe place away from the chilling and rad sickness, where we can settle down together. Right?"
There was a long pause after he'd spoken.
"That wasn't what I was going to say, Ryan, my love, but you got the best ace on the line with it. Sure, that's what I want most in the world. Some nights, around two in the morning—blood flowing slowest and the time when the soul is at its darkest—I think we'll never do it. Stupid dream, that's all. Other times I still hope and…and dream."
"You don't have any dreams, then there's no way they can come true," Ryan whispered, reaching out and taking her hand in his.
"Yeah, I know that. I guess we keep on walking and looking." She paused again. "That wasn't what I was thinking about. I always hope that we'll find a redoubt that's still got the letters and stuff from the last men and women there. Diaries. You know. But there never is anything."
Ryan remembered the piece of paper he'd picked up under the discarded cap, near the entrance to the gateway.
He slid out of bed, padding barefoot across the floor, touching the light button. "Cover your eyes," he warned.
"Why?"
"Wanna show you something. Found it yesterday after the jump."
The light clicked on, filling the bare room with a harsh glare. Ryan reached into the pockets of his coat, finding the crumpled bit of paper.
He sat down on the bed, unfolding it with a careful delicacy. Krysty sat up in the nest of blankets and leaned forward.
"What is it, lover?"
"Words and numbers. But triple-faded. Can't read them properly."
"Let me look."
She bowed her head over the paper, her hair uncoiling across her shoulders like a cascade of fire. "Can't see the… Some kind of a code?"
"Could be."
"Places?"
Ryan squinted at it, angling the surface to try to catch all of the available light. "Looks like…like 'San Isidro,' or something like that. Then eight numbers and letters."
"Gateway code?" Krysty looked at him, her face excited. "If only we could control the jumps, lover…"
Ryan shook his head. "No good. Still can't read it properly. Anyway, there's only a few places listed here. Must've been loads of gateways built."
He took the paper and replaced it in the pocket of his coat, switched off the light and clambered back into bed.
"Feeling better, lover?" she whispered, fingers creeping over his chest and stomach.
"Hell, why not?"
DAWN WAS ALWAYS the best time of day to move on.
They ate together, everyone making a hearty breakfast. All of them, including Dean, knew from bitter experience how long it might be between meals. There was tinned ham and recon eggs; beans with five different sorts of spice; some self-heat loaves of bread that weren't voted flavor of the day.
"Like chewing a pair of old socks," Mildred commented.
"I bow to your superior experience in the field of sock chewing," Doc said, smiling. "I prefer the simile of laundered cotton wool."
Oddly some blueberry muffins, with the same brand name on the cans, were universally declared a great success.
Ryan found some tinned herrings, but remembered his appalling and near-fatal experience the last time he'd tried something like that. He went for the ham and beans with four muffins, swilling it all down with three mugs of the coffee-sub.
Dean barely smothered a belch. "Can we go outside now? I checked that vid-pic lots of times, and there was never anything there. Just a fu— Just a big mess of green."
Ryan stood. "Sure. Everyone finished? Let's go."
THEY STOOD TOGETHER in front of the small sec door that was tucked away behind the sleeping area of the compact redoubt.
Ryan had checked the screen, which still showed the same picture of unrelieved vegetation, moving under a light breeze, illuminated by the dawn's early glow. There wasn't a hint of any sort of life, human or animal.
"Everyone got everything?"
"Is that question directed at me, by any chance?" Doc asked.
"Everyone. We can't come back here for anything forgotten. Blasters and spare ammo? Bit of emergency food and water?"
Dean's hand went to his belt, checking that the slim knife with its turquoise hilt was still there. Ryan had tried to persuade him to take a longer, thicker blade, more like the Armorer's Tekna, but the boy had insisted on sticking with what he'd already got. The fact that he'd been given it by Sharona Carson, his mother, was obviously a factor in his choice.
"Skirmish line," Ryan said. "Me at point and J.B. at the back. Krysty second, then Doc, Dean and Mildred. All right? Then let's move."
The sec door had a simple Open and Close control set into a discolored Plexiglas panel. Ryan pressed the top button.
They heard the familiar hissing, and the sec lock clicked open. Ryan reached for the main handle to pull it toward him when Dean coughed, the sort of cough that was used to draw people's attention to the fact that someone had something to say.
"What?" Ryan probed.
The boy shuffled his feet, thighs squeezed together, eyes down. He didn't reply to the question.
"I asked you—" Then Dean's body language communicated itself to Ryan. "Oh, I get it. You should've gone sooner. Go on. Quick. We'll wait for you."
They heard the tipped boots clattering away through the dormitory region, fading along the corridor.
J.B. glanced at Ryan. "Have to teach him. Everything, all the time."
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. I know it. Here he comes. We all had to learn it all, one time."
"Sorry, Dad," the boy muttered, resuming his place in the line.
Ryan took the handle and pulled it slowly open.
The wave of hot, damp air took everyone's breath away.
"Upon my soul!" Doc exclaimed. "There used to be a Turkish bath somewhere around Fortieth and Third in New York. Tiles and Biblical paintings. Had to watch out for the shirt lifters, I recall. But it felt remarkably like this place does."
"Louisiana," Mildred said.
J.B. fumbled in his pockets for his location-comp, took it out and tried a sighting at the sun. "Difficult to tell from here. Could be Louisiana. Could be Florida. Someplace in the south and east."
"Not Hawaii?" Doc said.
"No. Definitely not Hawaii, Doc. Sorry about that."
All they could see from the doorway was a waving wall of dense, luxurious bushes. There was the rich scent of some heavily perfumed flowers, like orchids, filling the morning breeze.
Ryan glanced over his shoulder at Krysty. "Anything?" he asked.
"Not close, but there's a definite feel of people not far away."
"Can I take some clothes off?" Dean asked. "I'll melt."
"No, you can't, son. We travel light, and we carry everything. Once you leave something behind, you find you need it the next day. Put up with it."
The grass was thick and long, rising around Ryan's ankles as he stepped from the doorway. The earth was moist and spongy, sucking at his boots, moisture springing from the soil. There were bushes and trees all around, the higher branches meeting above their heads, cutting out all but a filtered section of palest blue sky.
After less than a dozen paces forward, the undergrowth had closed in around the companions, making it impossible for them to see the entrance to the concealed redoubt.
Ryan stopped, beckoning the Armorer to join him. "What do you reckon about this? Could get ourselves double-lost in a quarter mile."
J.B. sniffed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver disk. "Homer," he said.
"Got a receiver for it?"
"Nope."
"Great."
"Just have to watch our directions triple-careful, won't we?"
Ryan wiped sweat from his forehead. "Yeah. Thanks a lot, J.B. Plenty of help."
Ahead of him he suddenly glimpsed the silvery reflection of light off water. Cautiously he moved on, entering a small clearing. His foot pressed down into the turf and he felt rather than heard a faint mechanical click.
"Mine!" he yelled, hurling himself flat, the pistol already in his right hand.
Behind him, everyone threw themselves down into the wet grass.
There was a muffled whirring sound and the rustling of movement in the bushes. Only a couple of yards ahead of Ryan the leaves parted and the gray, wrinkled head of a gigantic horned animal loomed through, eyes glittering at the sprawled man.
To Ryan's right there was more movement, and he saw a black man, a good seven feet tall, naked apart from a loincloth and a feathered headdress, heading toward him with a vicious stabbing-spear in his hand.
"No!" Ryan shouted.
But he was too late.
Chapter Seventeen
THE VIEW OF the others had been slightly obstructed by the bushes, and they hadn't had that extra fraction of a drawn second to see what Ryan had been able to see. So they all opened fire at both the menacing creature and the man with the spear before Ryan could yell his warning to them.
All of them except Doc Tanner, who dropped his heavy Le Mat in the long grass as he dived forward.
Dean put three bullets into the head and neck of the horned animal. Krysty saw the man as the biggest danger and planted two .38s from her new Smith & Wesson double-action into his chest. Mildred didn't like shooting from the prone position, but her target ZKR 551 was as lethally accurate as ever, one round striking the threatening native between his staring eyes.
And J.B.'s Uzi did its stuff. A 6-round burst opened up the skull of the animal.
The results of all that firepower were completely devastating.
And surprising.
The head of the creature, including the long horn, was blown apart, into a mass of tangled wires, small wheels and torn fiberglass.
The native with the spear toppled forward, revealing that he had no legs, but was balanced on two short metal struts. His chest and head exploded into optic threads, multicolored cables and comp panels.
The electronic carnage shorted out some of the relays in a shower of fizzing sparks and triggered a hidden loop tape.
"Oh-oh! Looks like we better steer clear of shore. That rhino's got a mean horn waiting for us, and the Zulu warrior could spear us with his assegai before you say 'Jungle Adventures.' Watch it, folks!"
The voice was calm and slightly weary, as though the speaker had overdosed on tranks.
Everyone stood up, looking at the two destroyed mechanical creatures. The cogs still whirred around in the stump of the animal's skull, and the tumbled native was trying to wield his short spear, the point digging a furrow in the grass.
The tape continued, slower and more slurred, sometimes sticking or speeding up. The voice finally faded away into a strange, self-centered muttering, then drifted to silence.
The burst of gunfire didn't seem to have attracted anyone's attention. The trees and bushes were still and quiet, the water beyond drifting by on its own tranquil way.
Ryan looked at the others. "Tried to warn you not to open fire."
"You see they were some kind of droid?" J.B. asked, reloading his Uzi.
"Yeah. Paint's peeling off the black guy, and one eye was falling out of the rhino's head. That what a rhino looks like? Read about them. Never seen one. Big mother, I guess."
"What is this?" Dean asked.
"You replaced the shots fired, son?" J.B. asked. "If not, do it."
"Sure, sure. But—"
Mildred answered him. "I think we might have finished up in something called a theme park, Dean."
Ryan looked around. "Should move. Don't know who might have heard all that."
"Trees'll muffle it." J.B. sniffed the air. "No wind to carry it."
"What's a theme park, Mildred?"
"Sort of funfair, with white-knucklers. Disney was one of the first. And best. This doesn't—"
"White knuckles? What ate they?"
"Later," Ryan told him.
THE OVERGROWN REMAINS of a winding path ran alongside the water, which turned out to be a shallow river, no more than fifteen feet wide, its surface rainbowed and oily.
They passed rotting blocks of lightweight plastic that looked as if they had once been some sort of Oriental temple. They spotted more droids that Ryan recognized as being elephants, and there was a dried-up waterfall with some kind of heavy machinery behind it.
"Look!" Doc exclaimed. "What a fearsome saurian!"
"If a saurian's a gator, Doc, then it isn't. Another of those models."
The trail wound on, leading them past other unlikely combinations of wild animals frozen for eternity—lions with giraffes watching them, empty eyed. Birds had pecked all the fake fur off the pride, and the weather had faded the patches on the coats of the giraffes to a muted gray.
It was swelteringly hot.
Ryan waved for a halt, wiping the streams of sweat off his cheeks, lifting the eye patch where the salt was irritating the raw socket.
A tiger was lying on its side a few yards ahead of them, its legs stiff and helpless, little metal wheels rusting in each paw. Beyond it was a line of ducks, caught in midwaddle, in decreasing sizes.