by Duncan Long
Dead.
It was then that we realized just how ruthless the people were that we were up against.
It was time for the next step of our plan. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I thought.
Chapter 17
After a ghoulish exercise in undressing the dead bag lady, Nikki was outfitted in the bag lady’s ballistic armor and clothes. That done, I showed Nikki how to operate the combat shotgun.
We loaded it with the stun shells since we hoped to take a prisoner or two at our next stop.
While we all crossed our fingers, Nikki called over the bag lady’s talkie. We received instructions to leave the van on the street and bring the prisoner—me—and information about how to receive the bag lady’s pay for the job. We had a tense moment when the man on the other end of things asked what vehicle we’d be arriving in.
What had the bag lady been driving and would whoever we were meeting know what she should be driving?
Or was it a trick?
“I’ll be driving my new blue van,” Nikki said into the talkie then closed her eyes tightly as if expecting to be hit.
A pause while Jake and I held our breaths.
“OK,” came the voice over the talkie. “Here’s how you get to us…”
Before we left, we booby trapped our decoy van. Anyone that tried to operate it without the proper computer code would discover himself flying at maximum speed—straight up. Though it would mean sacrificing one of our vans, it would probably be worth it, I figured, since that would get at least one undesirable off the face of the Earth and perhaps make someone think our van had malfunctioned and jetted us straight into Valhalla.
Nikki drove and I sat in the passenger’s seat. Jake sat out of sight in the office chair he’d welded into the back of the van just behind our seats. We had an improvised curtain—borrowed from Nikki’s condo—that hid Jake from casual inspection. We all wore our throat mikes and earphones so we could communicate with Jake, who’d most likely have to be left behind in the van when we got to our destination since it was probable that surveillance cameras would detect more than two people leaving the van at our destination.
Our meeting was to take place in New Denver’s Catacombs. If Jake and I had known about the Catacombs before we got into the van with Nikki, we would not have gotten into the van with Nikki.
“Where are the Catacombs?” I asked innocently. I had in mind some resort area in the mountains. Maybe some caves or something.
After Nikki filled us in, I had a little different idea. It was simple really: If you take the beauty of the Col-Kan sky and the jeweled, needle skyscrapers of New Denver and then imagine just the opposite of all that and then multiply by two times worse yet, you have a pretty good idea of what the Catacombs are like.
They originally were huge parking areas for those living and working in the buildings of New Denver. They were also interconnected so that the residents could move around the small city, visit, or go shopping even during a heavy snow storm or chilly weather. But like a lot of other major projects, the system was poorly thought out and even when everything was new, the parking lots had seldom been used since most of those who lived in the buildings weren’t home much; the condos were owned by those that would be traveling world-wide via the rocket port.
Such people seldom fooled with owning a vehicle of their own. When they needed to travel in New Denver, they took taxi-bots or even choppers to get around.
So the underground network had been crime ridden almost from the beginning. As the system was used less and less, maintenance was discontinued. Finally, decades after they were built, the underground areas had turned into a veritable no-man’s land where criminals, Night Creeps, and other low-lifes roamed unchecked.
“And,” Nikki told us as we ignored the warning signs and turned down the short street leading to one of the few unsealed Catacombs entrances, “rumor has it that the catacombs have even been expanded to accommodate those living in them.”
“Rumor? Doesn’t anyone know,” Jake asked.
“Those who found out whether the rumors were true or not never lived long enough to tell about it,” Nikki answered.
“Don’t ever tell me any bed-time stories,” I said.
“Don’t worry.”
Shot down in flames.
Nikki turned on the van’s headlights as we left the sunlit street and started down the dark ramp that led to the Catacombs. It suddenly felt colder in the van and a chill climbed my spine.
“Jake, have your needle rifle ready. Looks like we could be needing it on the way in.”
“Already have it out.”
I picked up the Colt assault rifle I’d picked up from the Pukers and draped it across my lap, being careful to keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. If Nikki had been trying to scare us, she’d succeeded.
The headlights of our van showed various junked vehicles which were covered with dust.
Most of the glass had been broken from them leaving jagged teeth in all their openings. Empty cans and trash littered the area as far as the headlights poked light into the darkness before us. We passed through a screen of dense, black smoke which seeped into the van; someone was burning rubber tires. Fortunately we soon escaped from the thick swirling screen and broke into relatively clear—if dusty—air.
As we journeyed down the cave-like corridor of gray concrete, more and more rusted-out vehicles littered either side of the narrow ramp. Nikki made a turn and we passed a large area where great chunks of concrete had been blasted from the walls and lay along the road. Another turn led us out of the rubble and down an undamaged section.
Now we occasionally saw vehicles with their windows intact; the glass was painted or stained so that whatever was inside them was obscured.
“There’re lights inside some of those cars,” Nikki said.
“You suppose people live in those?” Jake asked, peeking through the curtain.
“Maybe.” I wondered what kind of person would give up the light of day to live in the trash and darkness.
“We turn left here,” Nikki said. We slowed and started down another passageway that looked identical to the others. Nikki had memorized the route as it had been given to her. I was totally lost already.
We went nearly a mile without turning and then made several more quick turns and journeyed downward on a narrow, dirty ramp. Human shapes often danced in the shadows on either side of us as we passed. Other, non-human forms jumped away from the beam of our headlights while large rodents darted across our path from time to time with their red eyes gleaming.
Farther from the entrance of the Catacombs, cars and other obstacles became rarer. Nikki speeded up.
We made another turn and again the headlights revealed a mosaic of trash and junk along our path. Papers and old newsfax blew in the van’s wake as we hurtled past. Piles of rags that looked terrifyingly like bodies appeared alongside the road; these piles of rags were interspersed with the glistening white bones of large animals—or men—that had been picked clean by the rats that scurried out of sight as we passed, occasionally with bones crunching under our wheels.
After seeing no cars for some time, we rounded a curve to see, in the gloom ahead of us, a group of crouching, stripped vehicles. As we hurtled toward them, an old truck slowly rolled from its parking berth beside the bodies of the cars around it. The truck picked up speed as we neared it.
“Hang on, Jake, looks like someone’s trying to block our path,” I said.
I clicked the safety off my rifle, opened the vent window, and jammed the barrel out it.
“Hang onto your ears,” I said and let loose a three-round burst of bullets at the truck. My ears ached at the sound. The truck continued to roll as we came upon it.
I fired another burst as Nikki floored the accelerator on the van and, with a screech of tires, we skidded around it. A group of men or women—it was impossible to tell which with the dirt and the rags they wore—sprang in front of us. They threw rocks
at the van.
“Don’t slow down,” I told Nikki.
All but one got out of the way. The van made a sickening lurch as it crushed our would-be assailant.
“Oh, no,” Nikki cried.
“You can’t help that,” Jake said. “They’re trying to kill us. Don’t worry about hurting them.”
A crash and the sound of metal being strained came from behind us. Something large had hit the back of the van. Jake’s curses echoed through the van.
“Everything OK back there?” I asked.
“Yeah. We’re going to have some more body work to do when we get back though.”
“Just so our hides remain intact,” I said pulling my rifle back into the van and closing the vent window. I thumbed the rifle’s selector back to its “safe” position.
We flew through the darkness. The area was again free of vehicles and Nikki was taking advantage of the fact to speed ahead.
“This area looks… clear. There isn’t so much junk,” Nikki said.
“Not only that,” I said. “Look at the walls. Plastic. We’ve left the original Catacombs area.
This must have been added to the underground network fairly recently.”
“Who would want to add to this mess?’
“Or build here?”
A bright light shown ahead of us, its beam cutting a tunnel in the dust that hung in the air and glistened off the blue plastic walls.
“We turn here—I think,” Nikki said as we approached a fork in the plastic tubing. I hoped she wasn’t lost. Spending days to find our way back out didn’t exactly sound like a fun-filled outing.
As we rounded the smooth plastic corner, the walls expanded into a huge chamber bathed in a purple light. A bag lady—identical to the other two who’d attacked us—stood inside a sandbag bunker directly in front of us. She trained an ancient M60 machine gun onto us.
I swore under my breath, “Careful. That thing could riddle our van full of holes.” I hoped the bag lady was in a better mood than those of her sisters we’d encountered in the recent past. They all looked exactly alike. I realized that the bag ladies actually wore a uniform of sorts with identical patches and bullet-proof face masks. Identical down to the tilt of the battered cloth hat.
Nikki slowed almost to a stop.
I held my breath.
The bag lady looked into the van then motioned us on when she saw that Nikki—in bag lady’s clothing—was driving.
We drove across the chamber and entered another long plastic tube. A string of cerulean lights dotted the walls and pointed the way to us. Ten minutes later, the tube expanded and the lights became brighter and brighter as we drove on. After perhaps a mile we entered a large cavern, so huge that it was impossible to see the far side of it. The field ahead of us was encircled by yellow flood lights.
“Can you believe this?” Nikki said as she slowed the van to a stop.
I couldn’t.
A two-story, white Colonial-style house stood in front of us. Large trees and shrubs had been carefully planted around it and a well-manicured lawn covered the floor of the chamber. A small bird flew by the van and a deer bounded across the lawn as we watched.
“Well, I’ll be a…"Jake said as he closed the curtains so he’d remain unseen in the back of the van.
As I looked at the scenic area ahead of us, I decided we were dealing with someone who had taken a serious overdose of weird.
Chapter 18
Nikki picked up the shotgun as I put down the assault rifle and wrapped myself in the remains of the clear plastic shell we’d used to wrap the bag lady in, in Nikki’s apartment. I draped it around myself hoping to make whoever was in the house think that I was bound.
“OK, Nikki. Tape me in,” I said.
She reached over and fastened it with some short strips of tape.
Though it looked like I had been gift wrapped in industrial plastic, I could—I hoped—push out my arms and free myself since only the small plastic strips of tape held the shell in place. My trusty Beretta was stuck in my pants under my shirt tails.
“Ready,” I asked Nikki and Jake.
“As ready as I’m going to get,” Nikki said. She jumped out of the van and walked around and opened my door. She waited for me to get out.
“Nikki, you’re going to have to act more menacing than that. Remember that you’re a tough old bat,” I said.
With that bit of prompting, she pulled me out and I gracefully fell on my side. I stood up and the plastic shell fell off me.
I swore under my breath and picked it up quickly, “Hopefully no one is watching,” I said.
“Can you fasten that back on?”
“Yeah. I hope the sticky isn’t too full of dirt… There. I think that’ll hold.”
“You think!”
“Shut up, prisoner.” The muzzle of the gun forced me forward.
“Hey! Remember the plastic is just taped on. But keep up the tough gal act.”
I immediately regretted telling her that since she gave me another sharp poke with the shotgun so I’d continue toward the house.
“ I hope the safety on that blunderbuss is engaged,” I said. ” I’d hate to have to get a dose of stun shell.”
“Shut up, pig.”
“I’ve created a Frankenstein,” I whispered to myself, forgetting about the throat mike. Jake’s laughter sounded in my earphone.
We walked across the thick grass and stepped onto the porch. The white wooden door opened on its own.
I hesitated at the door. “Get on in there,” Nikki loudly growled. I hoped someone was in there to hear her. I know it impressed me; I jumped right in.
And stumbled into the darkness of the room. My eyes quickly adjusted and I saw yet another bag lady sitting behind an antique oak desk in front of me.
“I’ve brought the prisoner,” Nikki said.
The bag lady behind the desk pushed a button and a large panel of the wall opened up to reveal a dark passageway. “Take him on in.”
With a shove from behind to remind me who was boss, I stepped forward and moved down the red brick hallway which had apparently been designed by Edgar Allen Poe on one of his worst days. The heavy wooden door at the end of it swung open as we reached it.
Behind the door was a room with three-meter high ceilings and Early-American furniture. A clutter of knickknacks covered the tables in the room and cheap-looking pictures hung on the walls. The carpeting was blue with stars while the walls had red and white stripes. A fireplace between the windows crackled cheerily with a fake-looking electric flame. The room was a monument to poor taste in kitsch.
“Well,” a huge black man, dressed like Abe Lincoln, stood up from one of the chairs as we entered. “Finally, we meet,” he said in a syrupy, bass voice. His eyes twinkled with an evil gleam.
“Won’t you have a seat Mr. Hunter.” He motioned to one of the stuffed chairs.
Turning toward Nikki, he said, ” I’d like for you to stay a moment to, uh, tidy up the loose ends to our business when Mr. Hunter and I are finished talking.”
I sat down. He eased his tall frame into a chair and gave me a mirthless grin that exposed a row of sharpened white teeth.
He smoothed the sleeve on his black jacket for a moment before speaking. “We lost a good man when we tried to bring in your van. They lost track of the van when it left Earth’s atmosphere. ”
“Good men are hard to find, no doubt.”
“I’d heard you had a smart mouth, Mr. Hunter.”
“Phil, please. We should be on a first name basis.”
“You can call me ‘Elijah Lincoln,’” he said. He flashed another of his heart-freezing smiles.
“Perhaps we should loosen your tongue and waste less time. Let’s use the truth drugs,” he said, again looking at Nikki.
“OK, Nikki, it looks like he’s not going to tell us anything without help,” I said.
Elijah Lincoln seemed to realize that something was not right. He sprang toward a small two-barrel
ed flint-lock pistol which was concealed among the clutter of the table next to him.
Nikki followed the motion with her shotgun and fired two quick shots as he grasped the pistol.
I knew stun shells don’t work instantly. It takes a couple of seconds for the drug to be carried through the blood stream to the brain. So I didn’t just sit in the chair to see what happened. I jumped toward Lincoln as he reached for the pistol.
Nikki’s first shot nearly hit me.
The second hit Lincoln in the neck. He held the stock of the pistol and I grasped the barrel.
He wrenched it from my fingers and shoved me away. He ignored Nikki and aimed the pistol at me. Nikki fired another shot which impacted with his hand as he pulled the trigger. He fired—but the shot went wide.
He aimed again. Just as a stun shell hit him right between the eyes.
He fell right on top of me. It felt as if a giant redwood had toppled over.
“What’s going on in there?” Jake hollered in my earphone after hearing my groan.
“Phil’s goofing off again,” Nikki laughed nervously.
“Don’t listen to her,” I said after I’d finally regained my breath.
“Is everything OK?” Jake sounded a little exasperated.
“Yeah. How’s it out there,” I said as I pushed Elijah Lincoln—or whoever he was—off me.
“Still clear.”
“Good. We’re going to quiz Mr. Nice in here and see if we can get a ticket to the next stop.
This may be it, but I doubt it. I suspect he’s just another hired hand,” I said.
One vial of serum later, Elijah Lincoln’s tongue became quite loose.
We discovered that he was working for World Energy. That made sense; they stood to suffer the most if the anti-grav technology become generally used; at the same time it was all but crazy since the rods could be harnessed into large generators as easily as small. Knowing how the average guy on the street hates to fuss around with mechanical things, I could imagine that most people would continue to buy power regardless of how it was generated. Only now, the power rates could actually be reduced.