Watersleep

by James Axler

  "We can go in as we head back toward the wag," Carter added. "The hospital's right on the way."

  "Wait, what's that?" J.B. asked, seeing movement on the roadway below.

  THE WAN FIGURE with long red hair who had exited the squat building that housed the brig no longer even remotely resembled the killing machine that had run rampant only moments before. This woman looked ill, as if she wouldn't be able to stay on her feet long enough to make it across the paved roadway. She paused, hovering in the flickering light of a single working streetlight. The sky was dark now, and it would have taken a close inspection to see the traces of red on her silver-tipped cowboy boots and the dry­ing ribbons of crimson on her clothing. Her hands were nearly clean, since she'd found a bathroom with water in a sink and a bar of ancient deodorant soap. She'd quickly washed the blood from her hands and fingers, half-sickened by her actions, necessary as they might have been.

  Across the street, on the roof of another one of the flat, two-story buildings, the trio was watching the woman's progress, unsure of how to proceed. This was the first woman they had seen on the base. No one said anything as they waited, until the light re­vealed the color of her limp yet still luxurious hair.

  Those in hiding knew the figure and the warning signs of fatigue she was now exhibiting. At least, two of the watchers did.

  "Dark night," J.B. breathed.

  "It's Krysty," Mildred stated.

  "Who in creation is Krysty?" Carter asked.

  "You'll find out soon enough," J.B. whispered. "She's heading this way."

  Mildred turned and approached the roof-access door. "Come on, come on," she urged. "She won't be walking for long. I know she's called on Gaia, and we all know the toll that summons takes."

  "Who's Gaia?" Carter asked peevishly, starting to grow annoyed.

  "Later, Carter," J.B. said. "It's complicated, and we don't have time right now for another one of your lectures."

  THE FRIENDS WERE ON the top floor of the two-story dormitory, and the room they were now in appeared to once have been a communal lounge for the enlisted men. Things were a bit messy perhaps, but still comfortable.

  "Here, sit down," Mildred said, gesturing toward the most intact chair. Obediently the flame-haired beauty did as she was told. Once Krysty sat down, J.B. removed his leather jacket and draped it around her slumped shoulders. The collar of his worn jacket was made of silky black fur, similar to her own long coat, and she gratefully lay one cheek on the softness. She closed her eyes and immediately began a gentle snoring through her nose.

  "She's zonked," Carter said, delivering his diag­nosis. "They must've got her high on dreem or jolt or something."

  "Shut up, Carter," Mildred said.

  "Yeah, she's always like this when she summons up the, um…" J.B.'s voice trailed off. How exactly did one explain Krysty's mutie power? The sensing of danger, the reading of emotions, that was easy enough. Everyone had heard of doomies and their prophecies. The power of the Earth Mother was some­thing else entirely.

  "Summons up what?" Carter asked.

  "I'll explain later," J.B. said. "It's complicated."

  A strong, well-developed woman, Krysty always looked much smaller after a dance with the explosive force of the Earth Mother. J.B. was shorter than her unusual height, yet seemed to still tower over her now. Even her prehensile crimson hair was slack, limp and unmoving.

  "Krysty," Mildred said, "Krysty, are you all right?"

  The physician quickly checked her for any cuts, wounds or contusions. Apparently all of the blood on her clothing had come from other parties. Her skin was ice-cold, and Mildred knew she was in a form of shock that could only be treated with rest.

  But there was no time for resting now.

  "I know who this is. Cawdor's woman," Carter said. "She's not dead?"

  "Apparently not," Mildred retorted.

  "And the blood all over her isn't her own?"

  "Nope."

  "You mean she killed whoever with her bare hands?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Cawdor must like them rough," Carter said. "There anything more you can do for her?"

  "In here? Not much."

  "I—I'm all right. I think," Krysty said, her eyes still closed. She reached up and rubbed her forehead gingerly. "But I've got one hell of a headache."

  "Sorry, but it's going to get worse before it gets better," J.B. said, checking his chrono. "Those gren timers should start popping in eight minutes, thirty-two seconds, give or take a second. The timers aren't exactly new."

  "We've got to find Ryan," Krysty said, standing and leaning on Mildred's offered shoulder for sup­port. "Poseidon has him."

  "Dark night! Any idea where?"

  "Yes, I can take you there," Krysty said. "Jak's here, too, in the hospital."

  "Let's get Jak first. We might need the extra hand," J.B. said.

  "Hot damn, but is this a night for resurrections, or what?" Mildred asked excitedly. "We might just make it through this yet."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ryan fought his way back from the subbasement hid­den away beneath the entrance to the massive sub­marine pen of Kings Point, chilling a half dozen of the hired sec men after reloading the AK-47 with a clip he'd taken from the dead man with the spectacles back at the doorway to the redoubt.

  In the heat of the moment, Ryan regretted not going into the redoubt and chilling Poseidon personally, but now that he knew Krysty was alive he was less in­clined to hang around this pesthole.

  The best strategy was to wait for a diversion. The squad of mercs he'd encountered in the stairwells be­neath the base had to have been backups, told to fol­low Poseidon at a distance. So far, it appeared as though the sound of gunfire hadn't escaped out into the aboveground chambers.

  Ryan had taken a small comm unit from one of the newer sec men he'd chilled. The airwaves were silent. He looked at his chron and hoped that J.B. had been able to plant the grens to go off at midnight.

  Twelve o'clock, the chron read.

  Ryan waited.

  One minute past twelve blinked on the digital read-out, and the explosions he'd been counting on began to rock the base.

  Both enlisted and sec men alike at the submarine pens fled their posts, seeking the source of the attack. The little radio at Ryan's side crackled into a mass of voices all trying to communicate. He took a deep breath and sized up a pair of sec men near a gang­plank leading up to the Raleigh. Apparently even the explosions rocking half the base weren't going to sway them from their duty.

  There was no way for him to sneak past. He would have to take the offensive.

  Besides, there was still the matter of Poseidon's plan to take the sub out to Shauna's place for his test of the Tomahawk. Even if the Admiral was stuck in the redoubt for the next one hundred years, his evil could live on past his mortal form if one of his lieu­tenants decided to carry out a final order. All Ryan had to do was pull some wires and sabotage the un­derwater crate.

  ADMIRAL POSEIDON INPUT the doorway code and stepped out of the redoubt, avoiding the pool of blood and other internal fluids that surrounded the bisected Jonesy.

  "You're not as smart as you think, Cawdor," he muttered as he began to run up the steps.

  Poseidon paused to catch his breath and accessed a small terminal in a corner of a stairwell at the half­way point. The screen lit up. He toggled some keys to access a security net. He was rewarded with an overview of the submarine pens.

  "What the devil?" he said, watching as the group started to flee en masse.

  Poseidon hit the keys and found another exterior view. He saw the white fire of an explosion rock the men's dormitory.

  "We're under attack," he said in disbelief. Could Cawdor have brought in reinforcements so soon? Im­possible! Poseidon returned to a view of the subma­rine pens and tried for a closer view of the Raleigh. The sub seemed to be secure, until he saw Ryan ap­pear on the sec-camera monitor, a tiny image running like a two-legged engine of flesh and mu
scle toward the gangplank.

  The pair of sec men standing guard at the sub's access hatch never knew what hit them. One of the men spun and got off a rash of shots from the auto­matic weapon he carried, and one lucky burst rico­cheted off their attacker's rifle. But Ryan was unstop­pable at that point.

  There was no audio, but Poseidon could imagine the dry snapping sound as the one-eyed man threw his useless rifle at the sec man, then lunged forward and broke the first man's neck with a forceful twist. No audio, but he could almost hear the crunch as Ryan swung back with an elbow and caught the sec­ond sec man, who had just stood there stupidly and never even fired his weapon, full in the nose.

  Poseidon beat the keyboard of the computer with both fists, his angry cries guttural as the words clogged in his chest. He picked up the monitor screen and hurled it down the stairs.

  "Not over. Not yet," he raged, and turned at an all-out run for the surface.

  "WHERE'S CAWDOR?" Poseidon rasped. He'd run all the way back up to the submarine pen, and he was out of breath. It had been a long time since he had been forced to exert himself past a quick walk, and he was sweating beneath his prim uniform.

  "Hiding," the groggy sec man said with a sniff. Red blood was already beginning to dry on the front of his uniform tunic. "He's below. In the sub."

  "Is he, now?" Poseidon chuckled. "What a won­derful idea. If Ryan wants a tour of the Raleigh, he'll receive a working man's look. But he'll not leave our submarine alive, I'll guarantee you that much. And after I've slung our Tomahawk at that commune and those mutie bastards, I'll blast his stubborn ass through a torpedo tube."

  Poseidon glanced back. "What's your name, sailor?"

  "Coleman, sir. Robert Coleman."

  "Coleman, I don't recognize you as part of the regular detail assigned to the Raleigh."

  "No, sir. First time here, sir."

  "You lost your weapon, Coleman, to the enemy who entered the same submarine you were supposed to watch. Those are serious offenses, Coleman. Court-martial offenses."

  Coleman swallowed hard. "Sir?"

  "Bugger it all, man, I'll save some time and take care of this myself."

  And with that statement, Poseidon pulled his side arm and shot Coleman in the stomach.

  Poseidon turned and dropped down the main sub hatch in a show of disgust, his wide waist and shoul­ders constricted by the narrow access way. He stopped and pulled the hatch cover overhead as tightly as he could to make sure the automechanism locked properly, then did the same for the secondary hatch, spinning the locking wheel with more force than nec­essary and being rewarded with a dull clunk as the bolts shot true.

  No one was coming in or going out now, by God, without going through him first.

  "Brosnan?" he called out.

  "Aye, sir," the second in command replied from the control room. "What's happening above, Admi­ral? We're getting all kinds of conflicting reports."

  "Never mind that now. Have you seen Ryan Caw­dor in here lurking about?"

  "No, sir."

  "What is our status?"

  "All primary systems green and checked. We are ready to dive when you give the order."

  The Admiral went into the control room and glanced at the various panels of mech, electrical and hydraulic controls. One bank was dark and two others a mix of reds and greens. So what if the Raleigh wasn't armed with the standard complement of twenty-two Tomahawk nuclear missiles? He still had the one and it was ready to launch.

  "Take us down, Commander," Poseidon said. "But take us down slowly. Easy."

  "Yes, sir." Brosnan nodded to a waiting tech man. "Flood main ballast tanks."

  The sub's hull sang with the sound of rushing air as the vents at the top of the ballast tanks flipped open. A rush of seawater entered from the bottom of the great boat and forced the air up and out in a mass of white bubbles.

  Poseidon paced back and forth behind the peri­scope pedestal in the center of the control room. He was doubly excited; the maiden voyage of the Raleigh was under way at last. Once he'd found Cawdor, he'd let the one-eyed man watch as he fired on the com­mune.

  That would show the bastard.

  Brosnan's head was darting back and forth in a nervous birdlike fashion, his prominent Adam's apple quite visible above the collar of his uniform. His mouth was set in a downward curve as he observed the men under his watch. All of them jumped each time various clanging noises rang out in increasing fashion from the sub's cylindrical hull. Brosnan couldn't blame them. The very walls of the Raleigh seemed to vibrate with each metallic creak.

  "What was that, sir?" asked one man, looking at Poseidon for reassurance.

  Brosnan cut his eyes at the Admiral. The superior officer wasn't even listening. He was in his own environment now, away from the interior of the sub or even the sea itself.

  "It's the sound of the hull adjusting to the pressure of the surrounding sea," Brosnan explained. "As the Raleigh dives, it'll keep going until we reach a hold­ing level. Old as this sub is, it was to be expected. From what I've read, even new subs did the same thing until they were broken in."

  The explanation seemed to calm the nervous en­listed man. Brosnan hoped the logic was right. The minisub they had been using was nothing like this dank monster. He would never admit it aloud, but the Raleigh made him nervous. Too unpredictable, even if the voyage had been meticulously planned.

  Not to mention Cawdor was somewhere on board, hiding and waiting—but for what?

  The submarine was far away from the pens of Kings Point now.

  "Engines, all stop." Poseidon's tone was flat as he gave the order.

  "All stop," Brosnan directed.

  The Admiral himself stepped forward and peered over the pilot's shoulder as the man dialed the an­nunciator to a full-stop position.

  Outside the submarine, the great propeller slowed, then stopped.

  "Commander Brosnan?" Poseidon's deep bass voice rumbled even more impressively inside the con­fines of the control room.

  "Aye, sir?" Brosnan glanced over at Poseidon. One of the auxiliary pumps alongside was in the red, and the last thing he wanted or needed was another red light glowing on the control board.

  "Are you familiar with the child's game of hide-and-seek?"

  It was a strange question, but Brosnan was used to that from his superior officer. "Yes, Admiral."

  "Did you play it?"

  Brosnan frowned, trying to free-associate and come up with Poseidon's line of logic. However, he an­swered quickly. "Yes, sir, I did."

  "So did I, and I was damned good at the game," the Admiral replied. No surprise there. According to Poseidon, everything he had ever attempted had been a rousing success. Still, Brosnan knew from obser­vation and evidence that most of the bluster was true. Especially when it came to games—from war games to board games to games of chance.

  "You're good at games, sir," Brosnan offered lamely. He hated it when Poseidon went into this mode. It made him feel like the worse kind of ass kisser. Which, to a large degree, he was, but he didn't like having it trotted out so blatantly. Once, the blandly handsome Brosnan had dreams of his own. He was a scholar, a historian. He spent all of his days as a young man in search of information about the past, and his passion had been the military.

  When he met the man who called himself Poseidon for the first time, it was like they were two pieces of a larger puzzle that had been joined at last.

  But whereas Brosnan had no real taste for becom­ing a leader, Poseidon did. He made a deal with his friend, telling him in confidence of the still intact base at Kings Point. Poseidon had known of the place since he was a boy, and he had been living on the Georgia coast all of his life.

  With Brosnan's knowledge and talents, and Posei­don's drive and ambition, they decided to rebuild the base from the ground up. A decade had passed, and Brosnan had watched as the older man's desire for power started to turn him in the direction of cruelty and dominance. But what could he do? Poseidon was the undisputed
leader, and Brosnan was a man of books in a world of violence.

  At Kings Point, Brosnan had his place. From time to time, he might have to assist in a bit of unpleas­antness, but that was the cost for his position—along with the loss of his once close friendship with Posei­don. Oh, Brosnan was still the Admiral's confidant. Poseidon trusted no one more. However, now he shut the younger man out of his schemes until they were ready to unfold. Poseidon's dark plans were his own.

  Brosnan found that suited him fine.

  "I love games! I love to win! Nobody wanted me to be 'it,' because I was always able to track down each and every one of my friends," Poseidon contin­ued.

  "Really?" Brosnan said, tuning back in on the conversation.

  Poseidon paused for effect. "Track them one by one."

  "Track?" Brosnan laughed. "Strong words for a child's game."

  "Even then I played to win, Commander. My childhood wasn't easy. There were only a few of us in that spacious enclave. Two girls, three boys. I was the youngest. I grew up behind glass with my father and mother observing me as intently as they might have looked at one of their own freakish experi­ments." Poseidon paused, lost in memory. "At times," he said softly, "I wonder if that was the only reason my dear mother consented to becoming preg­nant in the first place."

  Brosnan tried to shield his expression. Rarely had Poseidon offered a tidbit like this from his past even when they were at their closest, and to open up in front of the enlisted men was even more unusual.

  "You are surprised at my candor?"

  "Aye, sir. Yes."

  "In war, men act differently, Mr. Brosnan. Make no mistake about it. At this moment, we are at war. When we left, the base was in flames. Under attack. We may have to run silent and deep for a long time before returning home."

  Brosnan didn't answer.

  "This is what being a submariner entails. The com­plete and utter mastery of a child's pastime. Hide and seek, seek and hide. You keep your vessel hidden while trying to find theirs. It's all laid out in the man­uals. I've done my research and so have you. The finest manuscripts that I've been able to buy or steal. Many of them captured on discs of shining gold, and I was lucky enough to possess the computer hardware needed to access their information. I own the finest in fiction and nonfiction, including all of the known works of the master statistician, the great Clancy him­self."