by Axler, James
"Your men were a disgrace out there today. Dead or missing, you are the only one to make it back."
"What?" Murphy's mask slipped for one second, and genuine confusion showed through. "But that can't be possible, sir. These outsiders could never best us in the conditions. We know them, they don't—"
"I fear there was a third party to the slaughter today," Wallace mused. "The valley dwellers—mutie and inbred scum," he added in an aside to Doc, who merely nodded sagely and refrained from adding the view that Wallace might well to consider whether his description could be applied to his own men. "The valley dwellers must have had a scavenging party in the vicinity. They must have intervened."
"How do you know that?" Murphy asked heatedly. If the Gen had this knowledge when they were in the field, why hadn't he passed it on?
Wallace indicated the hidden vid room with an inclination of his head.
"Why didn't you let me know?" Murphy asked.
The Gen's face hardened into a scowl. "Remember who you are and where you are, Sarj. The regs have ways of dealing with impertinence. There are prescribed punishments."
Murphy breathed deeply, slowly, to control his temper. "Sir, I apologize," he said carefully. "But to what purpose was this knowledge kept from me?"
"It always pays to have a little training," Wallace said blandly. "I was interested to see how you'd cope with an assault on two fronts. You were found wanting, my friend."
The tension between the two men had escalated to a point where Doc was almost forgotten. Doc took this opportunity to stand back and observe, filing away character traits exposed in the argument for future reference. Who knew? It might be of use in any escape attempt he could contrive.
"Good men died because you wanted a training exercise based on a random factor?" Murphy railed. "Good sec is based on the elimination of the random factor!"
"No such thing," Wallace snapped back. "Look at the failure of one part of the mechanism. Random. The arrival of Tanner. Random…"
He turned and looked at Doc, a sudden vacancy in his eyes, as though he were searching for something— some strand of meaning that had somehow escaped him.
Then he grasped at it. "Tanner…" he said vaguely, and then with a more assured tone, "Yes, Doctor. Forgive me, I have been neglecting you. You have work to do, and we must prepare you for this. You are our honored guest, sent to us to aid in the war against the Reds."
"But that all ended a long…" Doc tailed off. Yes, it had. But not for Wallace, Murphy and the other inhabitants of this redoubt. And who was he to argue with them? Had the world of his beloved Emily, and of the whitecoats who had kept him captive at Operation Chronos, ceased to be real to him just because they had moved on in time and space?
These men were as much prisoners of memory as he was—the difference being that at least his memories were his own, and not the half-remembered dreams of ancestors distorted through time.
Wallace, seeming not to hear either Doc's tailing off or the long pause that had followed, rose to his feet.
"Please, Doctor, follow me and all will be made clear."
Doc fell into step behind the waddling Gen as Wallace left his office and headed along the corridor toward the elevator. Murphy left a short gap, then fell in behind his prisoner.
Doc wasn't sure whether Murphy's caution in being a few steps behind him was actually a defensive measure or intended to impress Wallace. It would be futile of him to attempt any kind of escape at this point, not until he stood some chance of retrieving his LeMat and swordstick.
As they progressed along the corridor, Doc noted that the redoubt had returned to the semibustling life that had marked it when they were first given the Gen's guided tour. Mechanics and orderlies went about their tasks, sec men moved through the lower orders in their patched, faded and much altered uniforms with a sense of purpose that was as much self-importance as anything else.
Although the redoubt would appear at first glance to be a fully working military operation, Doc was aware of a kind of torpor in the air. They moved, they bustled, but almost as though through water, or in slow motion, as though they had forgotten why they were doing this.
The only one who seemed to know was Wallace. Whether it was the original purpose, he—at least—had a clear idea of what he was doing, what they were all doing.
They were silent in the elevator as it moved to another level. Silent still as Wallace led Doc past the laboratories where the psychological torture had taken place. From the corner of his eye, Doc saw Dr. Tricks noting results from a monitor onto a clipboard. She looked up as they passed. For a fraction of a second her eyes caught his. A gorgeous, melting brown eye with a narrow eyebrow that was momentarily raised.
She was truly beautiful, out of place in this pesthole. Yet it was she who was responsible for their torture. Doc was sure there was a metaphor in there if only he could grasp it.
It was that thought that occupied him until they reached the door that had remained closed to them on the earlier tour. It was an unassuming door, remarkable for nothing except that very fact. Perversely that made it stand out all the more in a redoubt where everything else was clearly marked and delineated. Doc shuddered. What terrors could lurk behind that bland exterior?
Wallace reached for the sec panel at the side of the door, his index finger poised to tap in the code. Then he paused, finger still in midair, and turned to Doc.
"Dr. Tanner," he began, a note of genuine inquiry in his voice, "during your time at Operation Chronos, I understand that you learned a lot about the Totality Concept. Am I correct?"
Doc demurred. "I picked up a little knowledge…" Which was always a dangerous thing, echoed a small voice inside him. He was unsure what to give away, what to intimate, what to lie about.
"Did you ever hear of a project called Operation Rat King?" Wallace asked.
Doc paused before answering. Across the seared and frazzled synapses of his time-tossed brain, he struggled to access any memory, to decide whether to lie.
"I cannot recall for certain," he replied, trying to hedge any bets.
Wallace pursed his lips meaningfully and nodded slowly. At length he said, "I would have been surprised if you had answered in the affirmative, Doctor. It was part of the Totality Concept that was kept ultrasecret."
"I thought that applied to all of the experiments in that maddened scheme," Doc commented.
Wallace graced him with the kind of smile usually reserved for drooling idiots or small children about to be chilled for their stupidity. "That's just the point of view I would expect from your case history, Doctor. I do hope it doesn't mean that you intend to be awkward and noncooperative. That would be most unfortunate for all of us."
"I do not see that I have a choice," Doc said mildly, attempting to mask the acidity in his tone. "It would help if you explained a little more."
"Of course, of course. Some of the finest military, tactical and philosophical brains of the time were brought to bear on the problem of how to outwit an enemy that had the equivalent of our military power in software and hardware. The answer, it was decided, lay in lateral thinking rather than the harsh, cold logic of the computer."
His voice adopted the singsong tone of a man reciting a text learned by heart, a text that he couldn't really know the meaning of, yet felt compelled to repeat to the bitter end.
"To this end it was decided that the way forward lay in the sphere of the biocomputer. Thus was constructed the Moebius MkI—the Rat King."
A feeling of revulsion swept through Doc, churning at his guts and making acid bile rise to his throat. The word biocomputer was pregnant with meaning. As for the term rat king, Doc suddenly remembered an incident from his past.
It was the middle of March, 1881. It had to have been then, at the cusp of winter and spring, as the young Theophilus Tanner had just turned thirteen. The woods outside South Stafford were still sparse and bare, the foliage not having budded in the crisp air, air that frosted on his breath as he walked through the woods, tr
ying to memorize the periodic table, reciting to himself.
It was before noon, and the sounds of wildlife were small. Few birds sang, and the scufflings in the undergrowth were negated by the sound of his own boots crunching on the dry earth.
"Phosphorous… What is phosphorous?" Tanner muttered to himself, trying to recall the correct symbol and match it to the element. He shook his head at the stubbornness of the answer, and so was easily distracted by the strange squealing sound that seemed to emanate from a hollowed-out tree trunk about thirty yards to his left.
He paused, furrowed his brow and strode to the tree trunk to investigate.
The squealing seemed to separate out into more than one voice the nearer he got, it sounding for all the world like several animal voices in chorus.
Curious, apprehensive and perhaps just a little scared at what he might find, Tanner leaned over the hollow trunk so that he could see inside.
What he saw gripped him with both awe and fascination. Half a dozen rats were at the base of the tree, struggling and squealing in high-pitched squeals that blended into an awful harmony. Their bodies thrashed together, unable to separate and escape from each other because their tails were knotted, entwined in a spiraling tangle that ascended into the empty space above them.
The knot was so tight—each movement making it tighter—that Tanner knew that nothing short of amputation would separate them. It would also probably kill them.
Yet, bound together in that manner, death was already an inevitability.
Doc came back to reality with a shudder and a cold wave of nausea as he became aware of Wallace tapping in the access code and the door opening.
Back in the woods outside South Stafford, the young Tanner had run away and left the rat king to die.
This time he knew that he wouldn't be able to run.
"THOUGHT SAID storm less?" Jak asked truculently as they emerged from the pass and into the main body of the valley.
"It is less. I didn't say by much, did I, cully?" With which the man laughed so hard that the belly overhanging his ripped and patched camou pants shook and wobbled. The pants looked like those belonging to the sec men, and Jak figured that they were a trophy of a previous encounter.
"Tell the little shit how you came by them, Mac," the now conscious bundle of rags said, noticing how Jak was eying his captor's attire.
"Mebbe I will," Mac said, with the air of someone about to launch into a well-rehearsed and much told story. "Y'see, the insiders have always reckoned on how they were so good, and how all the old tech they still have makes them better fighters—"
"But they don't know the conditions, right?" Ryan interrupted, in no mood for self-congratulatory stories.
Mac glared at him. "You're damn right, One-eye. You know that, too. I was watching you. They was fancy moves when you came from the inside, but you didn't know how to deal with the storm."
"Not surprising," J.B. commented. "Never seen anything quite like that."
"Shut up and keep carrying," the bundle of rags grumbled. She was still suspended between the Armorer and Mildred, who glared at her, but managed to refrain from comment…for the present.
Krysty surveyed the land around them. It appeared that they were still in a valley, but a much larger one. The enclave formed around the entrance to the redoubt was a small indent into one side of the valley. Sheer rock walls ascended to a height she estimated at about 100 to 150 feet. The rock curved out in a wide parabola beyond her range of vision, but she figured that the valley as a whole had to be at least thirty square miles.
The dust storm had abated. The sprays of dust and dirt were irritations rather than major problems, and the wind had died down from a gale to a small zephyr that plucked at their clothes and drove grit into their skin. But parts of the valley were obscured by more intense storms, small pockets of violent rage that scoured the land. The skies overhead were a puckered and constantly moving mixture of purple, red and blue, the dark clouds of a chem storm breaking up and reforming under the buffeting of the winds and letting the sky above shine through.
"I'd guess that you don't get much farming done around here," she murmured.
The giant who had captured Krysty and Dean, and was still guarding them with the homemade blaster, registered almost comical surprise.
"How the fireblasted hell did you know that?"
Krysty suppressed the urge to smile. "Just look at the skies and the storms. It's obvious. Guess we could always give you a few instructions on how to mebbe make more of the land. After all, you must have realized that we don't come from…the 'inside,' did you call it?"
Mac scratched his chin with the barrel of his blaster and furrowed an already well-creased brow.
"Guess we could do with some help. Trading's hard down here. If we could mebbe—"
"You fool!" The growl came from the female bundle of rags suspended between J.B. and Mildred. She was now fully conscious, but had decided that letting them carry her would disable them in conditions they weren't used to. Mildred winced as the harsh voice cut through the surrounding noise of the storm.
"Don't listen to their lies," she continued. "They came from inside—it's some kind of trick. It must be. They can't beat us in any other way, so they want to infiltrate and subvert from within. They want us to take these asswipes to our bosom so that they can smite us like a viper. No, there is only one thing awaiting them— the ritual."
Ryan and Jak exchanged glances. The mention of a ritual meant only one thing to them—a slow and painful chilling.
Mildred dropped her end of the bundle of rags. The woman hit the ground with a hissed, squeaking sound that was part shock and part outrage.
J.B. let go of his end of the woman and looked at Mildred over the top of his glasses, scratching his head and pushing back his fedora.
"Hell, John, if they're going to chill us anyway, why should we give a shit?"
There was a momentary stunned silence, then roars of laughter from their other captors while the female rag bundle fumed in silence.
It could be the one chance they needed. Jak spun on his heel, ducked underneath the barrel of Mac's blaster and aimed a straight-edged blow at the man's gut. He felt his hand sink into the soft, fatty flesh before striking a wall of solid muscle.
Mac wasn't as slow as his bulk would have them believe. Even as Jak ducked underneath him, he raised the blaster just enough to let Jak come underneath, confident that he had enough muscle strength to withstand the blow, and then brought the barrel down sharply at the base of Jak's skull.
Jak's white, flowing hair was stained red as the sharp metal edges of the badly filed barrel tore the skin at his nape. The blow wasn't hard enough to render him unconscious, but it was enough to stun him and send him momentarily to his knees.
Before he had a chance to recover, Mac followed up with his fist, grabbing Jak's hair and bunching it, using it as a rope with which to pull the albino up level with his face. Then he thrust Jak away from him, and the small albino looked even more waiflike and lost as he sprawled in the dust, clinging onto his senses.
"Don't fuck with us," Mac growled, his previously lazy demeanor now lost. "We don't have much, but what we do have we hold to."
"Okay, okay. Joke's over. We'll go with you and no trouble, all right?" Mildred said hurriedly as she went over to examine Jak.
"Too slow." Jak grinned ruefully as he picked himself up.
He glared at Mac. "Thought just fat. Won't make mistake again."
Mac returned the glare with a grudging respect. "You're fast. I'll make damn sure you don't get the chance."
Jak, Mildred and J.B. were now grouped together under Mac's watchful eye. The ragged bundle that was called Tilly now stood at the back of the group, keeping a watchful eye on their rear. Krysty and Dean were covered by the giant, while Ryan had the dubious pleasure of having two of their captors covering him, although, in truth, neither seemed to be taking too much care about how he was covered.
They foll
owed a two-lane blacktop across the valley, the tarmac distorted and warped by the shift of the earth underneath, so that whorls and dips caused them to stumble. Their captors, however, seemed to know every little dip.
Which was why they thought they could be slack with their prisoners, Ryan thought. But it didn't explain why they weren't bothered about attackers.
"Mind if I ask a question?" he said laconically over his shoulder.
"You can ask, One-eye. Doesn't mean you'll get an answer, mind."
"Seems fair. I was just wondering why you're not keeping watch for an ambush."
The question was met with a degree of laughter that Ryan hadn't met anywhere else in the Deathlands.
"Excuse me my impoliteness," Mac, who seemed to vie with Tilly as unofficial leader of the group, said through the tears of humor that rolled down his cheek. "Seems to me that you don't know this place at all. Mebbe we were wrong about you."
"Mebbe you were," Ryan replied. "Still haven't answered my question, though."
"True, true. See, this place is a pesthole. No one much comes here. No one would want to. Mebbe we get some traders once in a purple moon, but mostly that's by mistake. There's only us and the insiders live here. No one else wants to settle here."
"Then why are you still here?" Dean asked, the first time he'd been moved to speak.
Mac shrugged. "Born here. Live here. Die here. That's the way of things."
"We get by," Tilly said. "We'd get by a whole lot better if the mother insiders would leave us alone."
"Why don't they leave you alone?" Krysty asked.
"You tell me, you're one of them," Tilly spit.
Krysty sighed. "If we were one of them, then why were they shooting at us? Why did they want us dead?"
Tilly moved in what might have been a shrug. "Everyone falls out with everyone else. People fight."
"For no reason?"
"There are 'no reasons,' " Mac snapped. "Now cut out the talking and let's move it." He scanned the skies. "I think we're in for another bad one, and I want to get back before it starts."
TRULY, DOC BELIEVED that reason had deserted him this time, perhaps for good.