by Axler, James
RYAN AND J.B. HAD SPLIT the forces. The Armorer and Mildred had taken three men and were to try to locate Doc. Their objective after this, regardless of result, was to secure the mat-trans unit. Ryan and the others, including Abner, Mac and the other three ville dwellers, were to try to eliminate Murphy and Wallace, and use the plas-ex that they knew to be in the armory to mine the redoubt and bring it down once and for all.
The combined party made its way down the corridors of the redoubt, headed for the point at which their paths would diverge. Ryan took the lead, followed by his friends and the outsiders, who were beginning to show their lack of experience in a combat situation. Their initial bravado had given way to nervousness, and their tension crackled from man to man, making them jumpy.
It was something Ryan wanted to avoid: an itchy finger on a blaster trigger, and it was likely to be one of their own party that bought the farm, rather than any of the redoubt's sec men. So his people were there to calm them down, keep them relaxed by their own vigilance.
But so far the corridors had been deserted. A wailing siren cut through the air, loud and insistent. It was a maddening sound, and didn't help the composure of the outsiders. Otherwise there was nothing: no sec men, no tech. Just the debris of a rapid pullback.
It was something that Ryan had expected. The tactics used by the redoubt sec men seemed to be along these lines, if Wallace was running things. But if it was Murphy now? And what if the two factions were at war with each other? Ryan didn't want to contemplate being caught in the cross fire of the two groups.
They came to a junction in the corridors. Ryan halted the line and flattened himself to the wall, edging forward until he was at the corner. He picked up a discarded clipboard from where it had been thrown to the floor. With a flick of the wrist, he tossed the board into the gap where the two corridors conjoined.
The blasterfire was deafening. Mostly Uzi, on rapid fire, thought J.B. His keenly trained ears picked out four men firing. He held up four fingers when the one-eyed warrior looked back at him. Ryan nodded his agreement; his own hearing had picked out the same amount of fire. As the corridor ahead was clear as far as they could see, it was obvious that this was the direction Murphy or Wallace wanted them to proceed.
It was taking them away from the elevators down to the armory, but there were other ways to get there. First they had to get across the junction.
Ryan beckoned Mac and whispered an instruction in his ear. The fat sec man nodded and turned to relay instructions to Abner and the other ville dwellers.
J.B. moved up to Ryan's side. "The usual?" he asked.
Ryan nodded. J.B. shouldered his Uzi and checked the M-4000. The deadly load of barbed steel flechettes was in place. He pushed his fedora back on his head and looked Ryan in the eye.
"Let's go."
On the count of three, J.B. stepped into the open long enough to let loose a blast of flechettes. The four sec men were strung out across the width of the corridor, crouched behind makeshift barriers made of tables. Two of them caught the largest cluster of fire, the barbed flechettes ripping away flesh in searing agony. Their companions flattened themselves to the floor, thankful they escaped the brunt of the charge.
Ryan had flung himself across the gap and stood ready to provide covering fire.
The two surviving sec men opened fire. They were situated on each side of the corridor, and were well protected. J.B. cursed and wished he had some grens. But as he was relatively ill equipped, he made do with firing another load of flechettes at the nearer sec man, while Ryan concentrated his fire on the man on his side.
It was enough to allow Mac and Abner to cross as one, the sec man helping his baron to make the crossing quickly, using his bulk to shield the even fatter old man.
The flechettes were once more effective. By looking up at the wrong moment, the sec man in the line of fire lost both his eyes and most of his face to the barbed metal.
The sec man on Ryan's side of the corridor was proving more tenacious. He kept his head down, and the barrage from the H&K picked holes around him but didn't touch him. He returned the fire sporadically.
J.B. switched to his Uzi, unwilling to waste too much of his M-4000's ammo when it wouldn't be truly effective. But the sec man was lucky and hung on, managing to avoid being hit by the blasterfire from two directions. He also got off bursts of his own, making it a tricky business for the rest of the party to get across the divide.
Mildred finished matters when she made the crossing. She shook her head so that her plaits swirled around her head. "That boy is really irritating me," she commented. Timing herself so that she acted in complete synchronization with Ryan, she flung herself to the floor as he swung out to fire a burst of cover. Bracing her elbows on the concrete to give her aim enough elevation, she sighted in the sec man as his head appeared to return fire.
One crack of the ZKR and he was silenced, a small hole drilled neatly in the middle of his forehead.
"Now let's get on," she remarked casually, getting to her feet.
The remainder of the party crossed.
"If the blasters and plas-ex are down there, why don't we go that way?" Abner asked.
Ryan shook his head. "That way will be well guarded. We're being pushed this way for a reason."
"Then surely we should surprise the bastards by going the way they don't expect?" Mac said with a puzzled frown.
Ryan grinned. It was cold and deadly. "We will. But it won't be that way."
Krysty gave Ryan a puzzled look for a second, then a smile spread across her face. "Right, lover. Wallace and Murphy think we only know the way we went before, so they're guiding us that way and making sure we don't take another path. But all the sec cameras are out along here because we shot them out."
"Right. And these stupe bastards don't know that we've been in other redoubts, or that they're all basically the same."
"You've lost me, friend," Abner said, his voice showing signs of irritation. "As far as I can see, you're just leading us into their trap."
But Mac shook his head. "No, I get it. They can't watch us along here, and expect us to end up at the end. But we won't, 'cause you know how there's another way out." He laughed.
"Got it in one," Ryan replied. "Now let's go."
They proceeded along the corridor strung out in formation, as before. The sec cameras were all inoperable, and there were no more corridor junctions for some way. Nonetheless to relax vigilance for one second was something that Ryan and J.B.'s instincts wouldn't allow them to do.
They came to a bend in the corridor.
"It should be just about here," Ryan whispered, almost to himself as he cautiously scanned the curve of the corridor before leading the party around.
It was there. "Got it!"
Mac frowned and looked around. "Think I must be double or triple stupe, but I can't see what you're getting excited about," he said quizzically.
"Up there…" Ryan gestured with his H&K toward a maintenance hatch on the ceiling.
"What good does that do us?" Abner sniffed.
"The maintenance ducts follow the line of the corridors. We can come out onto the elevator shaft, get down into one of the cars, then surprise these fireblasted stupes when we get to the right level."
Abner grinned. "I like it, even though it sounds like it's going to be hard work."
"No one said it was going to be easy," Ryan replied.
Jak was the first to climb into the duct. Ryan cupped his hands to give the albino teen a foothold, and then he sprung up to the hatch with grace and ease, using the end of one of his knives to loosen the screws that held the hatch in place. Once it was open, he pulled himself inside and wriggled around, reaching down to give Dean a helping hand as the boy was next up.
Inside the ducts there was enough room for them to kneel without being cramped, and they had soon assisted the ville dwellers into the space, having a little trouble with Abner as the old baron wasn't as fit as he would have liked to think. But, like
Mac, he was still surprisingly agile for a man of his age and weight.
Ryan was the last man up, having elected to go last in order to help J.B., who was still having niggling doubts about how his ankle would hold up. Before he jumped and caught hold of Jak and J.B.'s hands, he passed up the hatch cover. When the two friends had helped Ryan into the duct, he placed the hatch cover over the hole, so at least it would look undisturbed at a cursory glance.
It was dingy and dusty inside the duct. The air was thick, and difficult to breathe. It was obvious that the duct had been neglected by the techs for some time.
Ryan let Jak take the lead, the albino having a sure idea of the direction of the duct. They crawled in silence, unwilling to speak in the dust and heat that clawed at their throats. It seemed to take forever, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes before a cold blast of air swept across them.
"Elevator shaft," Jak croaked. "Ahead."
There was a blackness in front of them, where the lighting ceased, and a grille hatch covered the exit of the duct into the elevator shaft.
Now they came to the one part of the plan that relied on chance—if either of the elevator cars was below the level of the grille, then they could climb down and through the emergency hatch on top of the car. If both cars were above them, then they had a real problem.
Fortune favored them, and the far car was just at the level below them. It did mean, however, that they had to scale across the cables before dropping down to its roof. Jak went first, dropping catlike onto the car, and lifting the emergency hatch with one hand, the other grasping the .357 Magnum Colt Python, poised to blow away any opposition below.
The car was empty, the doors shut.
Jak beckoned to the others, and they made their way across to the car, dropping down into the well-lit interior.
Without a word, Ryan pressed the button that would take them down to armory and the comp room that controlled the redoubt.
"What about Doc?" Mildred asked as the elevator started its descent.
"We look for him later. Best to try and secure first," Ryan said tersely. He didn't want to forget Doc, but first things first.
The elevator arrived at the right level, and everyone checked their blasters as the doors began to whirr open.
"This is it," Ryan said.
WALLACE SAT behind his desk, tapping his finger on its surface as he fixed the young private opposite him with a stony stare.
"Sir, don't do that," said the private, unable to keep the tremor from his voice. Like all those in the redoubt, he had been brought up to believe in the innate superiority of the Gen, and even though he had faith in the sarj, there was something that ran deeper.
"Do you really want those outsiders to make fools of us all?" Wallace said softly.
"No sir, the Sarj says—"
"Screw that stupe. Hand that to me, boy, and we'll say no more about it," Wallace interrupted. He held out his hand for the H&K the private held. Mesmerized by the charisma of the Gen, the private handed it over.
Wallace smiled grimly and shot the boy in the chest, the force of the slug throwing his already dead body off the chair.
"Never trust anyone, especially in times of war—and that's what this is," Wallace stated before making his way into the anteroom.
Surveying the screens, he saw the mayhem that had broken out. He laughed gently to himself, a laugh that bespoke his slide into insanity.
He'd teach the sarj to mess with him.
WHEN RYAN'S raiding party had emerged from the elevator, it had been a swift and bloody race to the armory. They had emerged around the back of Murphy's men, taking them by complete surprise. The sec men had been blasted before they even had the chance to turn and face their attackers. The sec men farther down the corridor had retreated until they were holed up in the armory. Put on the defensive, they had retreated until the only secure place was the armory itself. There was no other way in. Alternatively there was no other way out.
Murphy and ten sec men were in the room, surrounded on both sides by Ryan's raiders, one group led by Jak and one by the one-eyed warrior himself.
With Murphy pinned down, Mildred and J.B. had set off with their small party to secure the main comp center and close down the comp systems controlling the redoubt.
It was here that they got the biggest shock. Arriving at the door Wallace had guided them past during his tour, they found that it wasn't guarded.
J.B. directed two of the ville dwellers to cover the corridor, while he and Mildred took the door. The third man in their party was to cover them as they went in.
The Armorer could only presume that Wallace had been so certain of his plan working that he had left this section manned only by the techs and whitecoats who worked here. Still, in a redoubt they could probably all use blasters. He wasn't going to take chances.
Bracing on his weaker ankle, J.B. used his good foot to kick open the door. Unlike most of the others in this section, it was a simple wooden door, which puzzled him.
The door crashed back on its hinges, and J.B. sprayed a short burst into the room. There was the small explosion of destroyed equipment, and the squeal of a tech mowed down at the knees.
J.B. and Mildred stepped into the room. Immediately the Armorer could see why the door was a simple wooden barrier—this was only an outer room, with the inner chamber protected by the usual sec door.
"Dark night, what has that madman done?" J.B. whispered as he caught sight of the Plexiglas window that lined one wall.
"What is it, John?" Mildred asked as she followed him into the room. "Wha—Oh, my God…"
J.B. and Mildred stood in front of the window, staring at the rat king.
And their eyes were drawn to Doc.
"Sweet Jesus," Mildred husked, resisting the urge to gag. "How could they—? No, scratch that." She turned to J.B. "We can't pull the plug until I see how Doc's connected. Leave me here with two for cover. Take one and get back to Ryan, let him know what's going on, then get back here."
"Okay."
J.B. left: He trusted Mildred's medical skills to get Doc out of there if it was possible. Otherwise he knew she would pull the plug if she couldn't get Doc out.
Ignoring the weeping tech, lost in his pain, Mildred went through the sec door and anteroom, into the main comp room where the skein of cables and wires connecting the rat king slithered across the floor.
"Let's see if I can get you detached, you damn crazy old fool," she whispered to Doc, smoothing back his hair.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that," said a level female voice from across the chamber.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mildred froze. She recognized the voice, but couldn't see the owner as she was bent over Doc. Where the hell was that idiot ville dweller when she needed her?
The outsider was standing in the anteroom, her blaster raised. A cobbled-together mix of a Smith & Wesson stock with a homemade barrel welded to it, it hadn't been tested in combat as of yet. A rifle of indeterminate origin, lost in a welter of remakes and remodels, was on her shoulder, now out of ammo.
"What happened to my cover?" Mildred grated.
"Missy, I can't see her!" exclaimed the outsider, her speech snuffled and punctuated by heavy breathing through her deformed nose.
"Of course she can't see me," whispered the velvet voice. "You don't think I'm just going to walk in the most obvious door and be chilled, do you?"
Mildred allowed herself the risk of raising her head— slowly, so as not to rattle her captor.
"Shit, I should have figured you'd be protecting this monstrosity," Mildred said as she caught sight of Dr. Tricks, standing in a shadowed corner of the computer room, a 5-shot, two-inch Smith & Wesson .38 snubbie in her grip. It was trained steadily on Mildred.
Tricks shrugged. "This is my territory. If Sarj takes over, then I get to devote all my time to this while he streamlines things. That suits me. I hate wasting my time on those other projects that are going nowhere. Let's be honest. Mo
st of the people I have under me now are stupes. That's not their fault. I'm just a freak in a different way. But if I could can all the other junk and just work on this—" her liquid brown eyes lit up with a fanaticism Mildred recognized all too well. "—then we might just have the power to take this pesthole of a country and put it back where it belongs. That would be wonderful. Did you realize that the mechanism operates at less than a thousandth of its potential?"
"I didn't," Mildred said calmly. "You know what I think?"
Tricks shook her head.
"I think you're mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck," Mildred said calmly. "Now, you can have your damn fool mechanism, and you and Murphy can do what the hell you want. But I'm going to disconnect Doc and get the hell out." She stopped speaking and leaned over the old man.
"Don't touch him," Tricks yelled, an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. "You just don't get it. The Moebius cannot operate unless it has six linked minds. He's the only match we could find, and it was only divine interventions that brought him to us at the right time. You can't disconnect him. I won't let you."
Mildred moved to cover Doc with her body and hoped that the scientist was ignorant of firearms. "Lady, that isn't a military-issue blaster you've got there. I'd guess it's been in your line since before skydark, and I'd also guess that you've never used it. You do know that if you fire at me now, the bullet will go right through and into Doc?"
"You're lying," Tricks snapped, her voice betraying her real indecision.
"Your choice," Mildred told her, feigning distraction as she examined the wires and electrodes attached to Doc. Her mind was racing, and she found it hard to focus on her task, knowing that Tricks might just fire from panic.
It was that panic that saved Mildred. Unsure of what to do, Tricks stepped forward with the wiggle that had driven the males in the redoubt mad with desire. Her intention was to bring the blaster down on Mildred's head as a club. But in order to do that, she had to step into the line of fire from the woman who was covering Mildred.