by James Axler
“Well, it’s about nuking time you came around,” John snapped irritably, walking closer. The elder Rogan was holding a tin cup full of something that gave off wisps of steam and smelled incredibly like coffee. “We were starting think you’d gone on the last train west, ya lazy bastard.”
It took Edward a few times to get his throat working. Blind norad, he felt as if he’d been run over by a baron’s war wag!
“Where—” Edward broke into a rough cough and tried again. “Where the frag are we? And is that coffee?”
“The Zone,” Alan said as he joined his brother and passed him a canteen. “And yes, it is, bro. But this will do you more good.”
Eagerly taking the canteen, Edward really didn’t care what the contents of the container was, as long as it was wet. He all but ripped off the cap and poured the cool water down his parched throat.
The other Rogans said nothing, waiting for their brother to get fully awake. There was a lot to discuss.
Finally lowering the canteen, Edward sighed then gave a loud belch. “Okay, where are we?” the man repeated, scowling at his younger sibling. “The Zone, ya said? But that’s halfway around the radblasted world!”
“Not quite,” Robert croaked in his mangled voice, the sound vaguely similar to a chuckle. “But close enough.”
Weighing his thoughts, Edward took another long drink from the canteen. “How fragging long have I been out?” he demanded curiously.
His face revealing nothing, Alan crossed his arms. “Since last night,” he said. “About half a day.”
A single day and they had reached the Zone? Rising stiffly to his feet, Edward took another swig from the canteen and warily looked around. Desert, sand, cactus were all gone. Now the brothers were in a grassy field, a glade really, with a smoky campfire crackling away in a small pit. An iron pot was sitting on a flat rock near the flames, its dark watery contents bubbling softly and giving off the aroma of black coffee. Tall green trees surrounded the glen and there was the sound of splashing water from somewhere nearby. A concrete building of some kind stood nearby. Then the man froze as his gaze fell upon the machines. Bikes! Four big bikes, unlike any two-wheelers he had ever seen before.
The sleek motorcycles were sitting in a pool of the bright sunlight, all of them painted a deep satiny black, the chrome trim edging the frames shining mirror-bright. Shuffling closer, Edward couldn’t take his sight off the beautiful vehicles. He had seen a lot of different bikes when he’d traveled with the Hellrider gang in the Southwest, but those were patchwork monsters held together with baling wire and duct tape. These machines gleamed as if brand-new, and they were huge, much larger than any two-wheeler he had ever seen.
Pouring some of the water from the canteen into a palm, Edward scrubbed his face and walked straight past the cookfire, heading for the bikes. Every thought of the hot coffee was gone. Wags…
The predark machines were in perfect condition, he saw, abso-fragging-lutely perfect! Strapped across the rear fender were large cargo pods, molded to the frame as if installed there when the bikes were manufactured before skydark. The lids were open on the pods, and Edward stared inside to see rolls of clothing, self-heat cans of food, knives in sheaths, boots and grens. The loot of a ville! A baron’s ransom!
“Where and when did we steal those?” Edward asked, running a hand across the cushioned leather seat of a bike. It was the softest thing he’d ever felt, and blacker than midnight.
“Advance payment from Delphi,” John said, joining his brother at the bike. “We each get one.”
The barrel-chested man frowned. “Delphi? What did the triple-damn outlander hit me with anyway, a gren?”
Tucking both thumbs into his new gunbelt, John shrugged. “Who knows,” he replied honestly. “There was a flash of light and you dropped like a wrinklie with his knees blown off.”
“No shit,” Edward growled, feeling a touch of fear flicker in his stomach. “So…uh, how did we get here?”
John shrugged again. “Beats the living shit outta me, bro.”
“Here, this is for you, little brother,” Robert said, thrusting a longblaster at the puzzled man.
“More jack from Delphi,” Alan added with a humorless smile, pouring fresh coffee into a steel cup without any dents.
Taking the complex wep, Edward couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a rapidfire, and also in perfect condition! Not a scratch or a fleck of rust on the metal. Just like the bikes. There were two barrels, two triggers, and a crosshair scope on the top. He’d never seen anything like them in his life.
“Delphi called them an M-16/M-203 assault rifle combo,” John said, reaching out a finger to point. “You press that to get the ammo clip out, or back in.”
Clumsily moving his big hands along the blaster, Edward did as directed and released the clip. Pulling it free, he gasped at the full load of predark brass. Thirty greasy rounds.
“The big thing underneath is a gren launcher,” Robert explained, lifting up a 40 mm shell for display. “You slide that part forward and shove in this, then close before firing.”
It shot grens as well as lead?
“And that Delphi guy just gave us this?” the man whispered in awe. Then he curled a lip. “Wait a tick, you called it ‘advance payment.’ Okay, what does he want done?”
“We gotta chill a guy,” Alan said, draining the cup in his hand.
Hoisting the longblaster, Edward snorted in amusement. “That’s all?”
“Nope. We also capture some wrinklie alive, and haul his ass back to Delphi,” John growled, sounding annoyed. “And alive is the big word. If we chill the wrong person, if the wrinklie gets aced by mistake, Delphi is gonna….” John turned away. “He…showed us some stuff while you were out.”
“Trust me, bro, we do not wanna screw this up,” Robert urged in his broken voice.
Pulling back the arming bolt of the rapidfire, Edward let it snap back with a satisfying crack. “Chill a man and captured a wrinklie alive. Big nuking deal.” He chortled, starting to adjust the canvas sling for his large shoulders. “And for that we got the bikes and blasters? Delphi is a feeb.”
“No,” John said in a low and dangerous voice, glancing about fearfully. “No, he isn’t. And don’t say that again.”
“Why in nuking hell not?” Edward demanded with a laugh, hanging the rapidfire across his wide chest.
“Because Delphi said he’d be keeping a watch on us,” Alan said quickly in a low voice, placing the cup aside. “So keep your fragging yap shut. Or else.”
The two brothers exchanged knowing looks for a minute, and Edward finally nodded agreement. Okay, the outlander had really rattled his brothers. But he still had a score to settle with this Delphi, and when the time came, he wouldn’t hesitate for a bloody second.
Climbing onto a bike, Edward twisted the throttle and the dashboard came alive with glowing green lights. But there was no sound from the engine between his thighs, only a soft gentle vibration. The engine was as silent as a grave. Looking backward, Edward could see that there weren’t any exhaust pipes or mufflers. And there was no drive chain, either. Some kind of an enclosed transmission seemed to connect the engine to the wheels, sort of like how a wag worked. He grinned at the possibilities of a silent two-wheeler. Hot damn, these would be great for a nightcreep!
“So who do we ace?” Edward asked, then he started to sniff. What was that smell? There was some sort of a sharp a tang in the air, very similar to how wind smelled after a lightning strike, and it seemed to be coming from the engine. Did these things run on lightning?
“Some mutie lover named Ryan,” Robert said in his mutilated voice. He reached over and turned off the bike.
“Why’d you do that?” Edward asked petulantly.
“Saving juice. These things run off sunshine, and they need a couple of hours of just sitting every day to reload. Recharge, refuel, whatever the fuck it’s called.”
“Sunshine?”
“That’s what Delphi said.”
“Then we never have to steal shine, or fuel?”
“Nope, they don’t use it. Just daylight.”
“Well, shit.” Shaking his head at the concept, Edward climbed off the machine and carefully backed away so that his shadow wasn’t touching the metal. “S’kay. We got any idea where to find the people we’re after?” he asked, shifting the rapidfire across his back to a more comfortable position.
“Supposed to be somewhere in the Zone,” Alan said, giving some assistance. “Here, rig the combo blaster this way. Better?”
“Yeah, thanks, bro.”
“No prob.”
Looking around the glen, Edward rubbed his jaw. The Zone, eh? But that was where they were right now. Okay, so this Delphi wasn’t a total feeb. “Better and better.” Edward grinned. “And who’s the other guy we gotta do? Or it is a slut?”
“Some wrinklie called Doc,” John snapped, taking the big man by the jaw and forcing him to look directly into his eyes. “Doc Tanner. And we capture him alive, feeb. Alive. Remember that.”
Although almost twice the size of other man, Edward had no wish to ever cross his brother. The older man enjoyed giving folks pain, and Edward had gotten more than his fair share when they were all growing up together in the ruins of Border ville.
“Yeah, sure, no prob,” Edward relented, shaking free. “Alive. Sure. Whatever ya say.”
“Don’t forget again,” John warned, then his voice softened. “Hey, it’ll be a slice. They travel together like us. We find one, we find the other.”
“Are they kin, too?”
“Who gives a hot damn?” John said, walking to the campfire and pouring himself more coffee.
“Just asking.” Edward felt and heard his stomach rumble. “Well, I gotta eat before we roll anywhere. My gut is so empty, I feel like I’ve been drinking acid rain.”
“Yeah, thought so.” Alan chuckled, hitching up his ammo belt. A wide belt of leather pouches across his chest bulged with clips for the rapidfire, along with a couple of spare shells for the gren launcher. He was hauling a lot of metal, but felt like the baron of the world. “You’ve never skipped a meal in your life. I’m surprised you are still alive, what with missing breakfast and all.”
“Lots of grub in the saddlebags,” Robert said, jerking a thumb in that direction. “All you want.”
“We can eat on the way,” John said, looking directly at the sun. Taking one last swallow of the coffee, he poured the rest on the grass and tossed the dirty cup into the cargo pod on the rear of his bike. “I want to get this over as soon as possible.”
“I can load that into a blaster,” Robert agreed wholeheartedly, cracking his oversize knuckles. “Where do we start looking for this Ryan?”
“First, we got a little task to do,” John said, closing and locking the cargo pod. “A private matter.”
“Yeah?” Alan asked hesitantly, then his face brightened. “Check, we’re in the Zone. We’re gonna visit Dempster.”
Removing his combo longblaster, John slid the wep into a cushioned holster set along the black frame. Then getting onto the bike, John started the whispering engine. “Visit? Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” he muttered, giving a hard smile devoid of any warmth. “Now, let’s move out!”
LEAVING THE DEEP Storage Locker, the companions shoved their backpacks underneath the grating and out the other side. J.B. was the last to go, and paused for a few minutes inside the cage to rig a trip wire between two of the jack stands, the end of it connected to a U.S. Army Claymore mine.
“Think that’s really necessary?” Mildred asked, loosening the heavy bandolier across her chest.
“Boobies are never necessary,” J.B. said, releasing the arming switch and crawling to the next pair to do it again, “until one saves your ass.”
“Besides, we’re fairly sure Operation Chronos is looking for us,” Ryan added, hiding another Claymore under the ruined Vulcan minigun. “Might as well give them something to find.”
Now that last sentiment Mildred did agree with, and while the two men were busy setting their boobies, she dutifully checked her new blaster. Ryan had found an entire cache of automatic weapons—M-16 assault rifles, M-16/M-203 combinations, Thompson .45 machine guns, and such. It was quite an arsenal. After some heated debate, Mildred, Krysty and Jak all decided on the compact 9 mm Heckler & Koch MP-5. It was very lightweight and used the same caliber ammo as the SIG-Sauer and Uzi, which was always a good thing.
Doc, the odd man out, had disdained accepting one, espousing his dislike of rapidfires. But the Vermont scholar did agree it would be sensible to augment his firepower, and reluctantly took a Ruger .44 revolver. The stainless-steel hogleg was resting in a military police web belt around his waist, two side pouches taut with spare ammo speedloaders. With those, he could reload the Ruger in a matter of moments, unlike the LeMat, which took a minimum of ten minutes to fully repack each of the nine chambers.
“Okay, that should do it,” J.B. announced, standing and dusting off his hands. “Set off one, and all four will blow. That’s enough to turn a sec hunter droid into a grease stain.”
“Then add two more,” Jak said in deadpan humor.
Chuckling, Ryan carefully studied the area. “Looks good,” he announced. “Can’t spot a thing.” The one-eyed man then looked at the ceiling. “Now let’s see if we can get out of here,” he added grimly, “and find out what is waiting for us outside.”
Continuing the interrupted sweep of the redoubt, the heavily armed companions found the upper levels as devoid of anything as the lower ones. Strange that the Deep Storage Locker should be so full and the rest of the base so starkly empty.
“Should take LAV,” Jak commented as they rode the elevator to the topmost level. “Not tank, but close.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Ryan agreed.
Just then the elevator chimed and all conversation stopped.
As the doors parted, the companions spread out across the garage, but nothing seemed to have changed since their last visit. They had encountered many empty redoubts before, most of the installations were deserted, but this was the first in a long while packed with weapons.
Traveling down the zigzag tunnel, the companions reached the exit without incident. At the blast door, Krysty tapped in the exit code on a keypad. As the last digit was entered, Ryan pressed down on the lever and the whole tunnel shook slightly as the seamless expanse of black metal began to move with a rumble of distant thunder.
That brought everybody to attention. Normally the blast door was silent, or gave only a low growl, but not loud grinding. Was it broken? Had the base been nuked? Ryan and J.B. checked the rad counters on their lapels, but the devices weren’t registering anything.
As the door came away from the wall, everybody stepped aside when a trickle of water began to come through the crack, the flow quickly becoming a cascade and then a torrent as the blast door slid unstoppable to the side.
“Gaia, we’re under water!” Krysty cried, trying to hold on to the keypad for support. The flood was pushing hard against her boots, and the woman was having trouble standing. Frantically, she punched the code into the keypad again to try to get the door to cycle closed. But the automatic process couldn’t be interrupted, and the door continued onward until the exit was completely wide open.
Incredibly the flood began to slow and finally eased to a meager wash rippling along the floor. Moving in swirls, the dirty water began to gurgle into a series of drains set along the walls, and stopped spreading after only a few yards. At the sight, Mildred clucked her tongue in admiration. The designers of the redoubts truly had thought of everything.
When the door finally responded to the command code and began to close, Ryan sloshed closer and tried to glimpse outside. The light from the fluorescent tubes of the access corridor only reached a short distance down a long, flooded, brick tunnel.
After the portal sealed with a resounding clang, Ryan waved a hand. “Open it again, lover,” he direc
ted.
As Krysty fed in the code again, then jerked the lever, more water came into the redoubt, but nowhere near as much before. Going to the very edge of the doorway, Ryan squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see an end to the tunnel. Dropping to one knee, he studied the water, then experimentally dipped a finger into the fluid. There was no burning sensation or reek of sulfur. This was just water, not a pool of acid rain. But how deep did it go?
“Doc, try using your stick,” he suggested.
Joining his friend at the entrance, Doc withdrew the steel sword from inside the ebony stick and eased the tip into the dark water. The blade went all the way to the handle before it stopped.
“Nearly three feet deep,” the scholar said, retrieving the sword and wiping it dry on a handkerchief before sheathing the blade again.
“Shallow enough for us to wade through,” Ryan muttered thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “But we’re not going in without more light.”
“Gators like shallow water,” Jak said, furrowing his brow. “Snapping turtles, eels, snakes, all sorts of things.”
“Damn straight.”
“We’re also going to need a depth gauge of some kind,” Krysty added. “Mebbe we could use a wrench tied to a length of rope and toss it ahead of us along the way.”
“Light, I can give you,” J.B. said, pulling out one of the flares he found in the locker. As the stick burst into life, the reddish light showed deep into the watery tunnel, and still no end was in sight.
Swinging his arm back and forth, J.B. built momentum and threw the flare down the brick tunnel. It went flying for a good twenty feet before splashing into the water. As the flare sank, the light became muffled, a riot of bubbles forming around the magnesium flame, but it didn’t go out. The flare dropped a few feet and stopped on the bottom, hissing and burbling furiously. The radiant pool clearly showed the brick bottom of the tunnel in distorted relief. If there was anything alive in the water, it stayed in the black shadows outside the range of the dying flame.