by Axler, James
In her confusion Tricks had forgotten about her. The ville dweller raised her blaster and fired.
Tricks got lucky one time. There was a deafening report that made Mildred wince as the blaster exploded in the ville dweller's hand, separating it from her arm near the elbow. The flash from the explosion seared the skin from her face, enlarging the snuffling hole that should have been a nose, her ragged and matted hair catching fire and forming a halo of flame around her head. Her scream was piercing.
Tricks looked in horror, momentarily forgetting Mildred. It was all the distraction she needed. Spinning, her foot followed through the momentum and caught Tricks on the wrist, knocking the blaster from her hand and cracking the fragile bones in her mutie wrist Tricks's own scream joined in awful harmony with the ville dweller.
As Mildred prepared to follow through with another attack, she heard a shot that sounded like another explosion in the contained space. Tricks's face took on a pained, surprised expression, her perfect mouth forming an O of surprise, her brown eyes bulging from the sockets as her whitecoated torso became a mass of red, her back blossoming red in an outward spray as a load of shot from a homemade blaster ripped through her.
The shot continued across the room, striking the mainframe, which exploded in a fury of sparks and flame.
"Oh, shit," Mildred whispered before turning to the ville dweller who had entered the chamber on hearing his companion's blaster explode. He was looking at the mewling, burned frame of his dead compatriot.
"Thanks for that," Mildred said tersely, "but we've just really screwed things. I should've been more alert, and that shot…no, never mind, it was the right thing. Just pray I can get Doc disconnected and us out of here before the damn thing blows."
WALLACE MADE HIS WAY from his office to the armory. There was confusion all around him, scared techs and whitecoats running around aimlessly, not knowing what they were supposed to be doing. There were no orders anymore, and no regs drilled into them that allowed for such a situation.
The Gen waited patiently for the elevator car to reach his level, stepped in and pressed the button for the level he wanted. His mind had completely snapped, and there was only one thing on that mind—the destruction of Murphy. The chaos all around told him that without the regs, there was only confusion. Murphy had trashed those regs, and all that remained was the court-martial and sentence. As commanding officer, Wallace had already run the procedures in his mind, and arrived at the only possible conclusion.
Death. Murphy had to die.
And if it took him, as well, what did that matter? He had failed in his position and wasn't worthy of living. He had let down his country and his forefathers. There was no one to carry on the line. Somehow he'd never got around to it. So why shouldn't it all end with him?
The elevator arrived at the required level. The doors creaked open, and Wallace stepped out. With a disdainful sniff he smelled the cordite and stench of death in the air. He took in the corpses of his own sec men, chilled by the surprise attack of the outsiders.
So much for Murphy's tactics. This was the mark of a good leader?
Even more reason for him to die.
Wallace strode down the corridor, his bulky waddle lessened by the length of strides. If he looked like a man in a hurry, then maybe that was because he had an agenda that made it urgent. If he didn't achieve his objective soon, then he felt as though all reason would snap.
That's if there was any reason left.
The sporadic bursts of blasterfire became louder as he walked through the mayhem. The armory was up ahead. He could see two groups of outsiders clustered around the entrance to the room, covering the corridor that led, at its terminus, to the armory. The entry was protected by a barricade of boxes, stacked to provide cover for the sec force holed up within.
Wallace strode through the outsiders as though they weren't there, ignoring the blasterfire that rang out around him.
"SIR, IT'S THE GEN." Murphy, lurking at the back of the armory, didn't at first realize what was being said. He was engrossed in his task, searching for a gren that would be powerful enough to take out the outsiders but wouldn't endanger his own men or the redoubt. A lifetime of learning about the caverns and fault lines that surrounded the enclave and the redoubt had led him to believe that triggering a large explosion would cause a disturbance that could endanger the stability of the redoubt's structure.
"Sir, the Gen…" The soldier's voice was more insistent. Murphy snapped back from his preoccupation, suddenly aware of what was being said to him. He also noted that the firing had virtually, ceased.
"What did you say, boy?" he asked, turning to look over the barricade. "Holy shit…"
RYAN SIGNALED his force to hold its fire. On the opposite side Jak gestured for his force to also cease fire.
"Who the fuck is that dipshit?" Mac whispered in awed tones, not knowing whether to think Wallace mad or brave to the point of reckless insanity.
"Used to be in charge here," Ryan said tersely. "We were the excuse for him to be deposed by Murphy."
"So what's he doing?"
Ryan shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Fucked if is," Jak replied grimly.
Krysty saw Wallace remove the gren from his pocket, and she whispered in Ryan's ear, "We've got big trouble, lover."
"You're telling me," the one-eyed warrior replied. "If he lets a gren loose in the armory, we need to be two levels up, or at least get that sec door down," he added, nodding toward the raised door that would close off the route to the armory.
"No, it's worse than that, lover. It's almost as if the Earth Mother herself is screaming a warning to me. When he lets that gren go, we need to be as far away from here as possible."
MURPHY WAS at the front of the barricade, looking over the top as Wallace approached.
"What's that crazy…?" he whispered to himself before raising his voice. "Gen, what do you want?"
"Even the score, Sarj. You have been tried under Reg 17B, Subsection A. You're guilty as hell, boy."
"Shit, what are you talking about? What trial? There is no trial. I'm in command here."
Wallace laughed, loud and harsh. "Command? You call this command, boy? Look at you—holed up with nowhere to run. You've lost, boy. Face it."
"Bullshit. I've got the arms right here to win."
"All you've got is your own sad chilling, boy," Wallace said coldly.
Murphy saw the Gen hand out a gren, saw him pull the pin and lob the gren over the barricade so that it landed in the center of the room. He watched as the Gen turned and punched in the code on the sec door that made it start to close with a creak and a moan.
"You bastard, you fucker," Murphy yelled, realizing that it was too late for him to scoop up the gren and throw it through the rapidly lessening gap where the sec door was closing. He raised his blue Beretta and drilled three holes in Wallace's back, throwing the Gen against the wall.
Wallace turned as he slumped to the corridor floor. His eyes were fogged with the approach of death, but he still managed to force a grin and a small chuckle from his throat. His voice bubbled as the blood rose in his throat, the words little more than a whisper.
"Never could get it right, Murphy. Not as smart as you thought, boy…not born to lead…"
Murphy heard the words with an awful clarity as he turned to watch the gren.
There was a flash as the gren exploded, milliseconds later triggering the waiting boxes of grens.
Murphy was already dead by the time the sound of the explosions rippled through the crumbling corridor, a fraction of a second later.
MILDRED HEARD the explosions as she attempted to remove the first electrode from a shaved portion of Doc's skull. It seemed to be held only with tape, but she was wary lest it be attached in some other way beneath. She heard the explosions as one—a dull whump that made everything in the room shake.
Mildred braced herself against the couch on which Doc lay, seemingly comatose. She swore to
herself, shook her head to clear it, then proceeded to strip off the tape. The electrode underneath wasn't attached directly to the brain through a trepanned hole in the skull, as she could see on the others in the room, but it did seem to have some kind of hook that bit into Doc's scalp.
"Sorry if this hurts, you old buzzard," she murmured, "but your hide is so damn thick that I seriously doubt it."
Gritting her teeth, she pulled the electrode free, prying the hook from the scalp. It seemed to be nothing more than a securing mechanism, coming free with just a slight twist, a trickle of blood marking the spot where it had been attached.
Doc twitched.
"WE ARE BEING DIVIDED. Another leaving so soon?"
The mass of men who comprised the rat king stood in the comp room, watching Mildred detach Doc. The mainframe was still sparking, small fires flaring and dying as the transistor circuits on the motherboard burned out piece by piece.
"We are all leaving," Doc replied. He was able to walk away from them, to stand apart. He no longer had the need to mask his thoughts. "By the Three Kennedys, that feels good," he said aloud. "For all that I had thought about it, I do not think I would ever truly appreciated the joys of individuality before now."
"We can no longer read your thoughts, as you are moving away from us," said the Air Force general, stepping forward. "What do you mean, we are all leaving?"
"Look at yourself," Doc answered. "You are speaking on your own, and you have moved away from the block. Just as you were when I was first joined to you. Face the facts. Without a full complement, you are separating of your own accord. Look how your imaging has focused on things as they really are. This the first time you have not been through a simulation or a model. Look at the computer." Doc pointed a bony finger at the gently smoldering mainframe. "If that ceases operation, then nature will take the course denied it for so long, and you will die. As you should. If you stop and think about it, it should be a blessed relief to you."
The Air Force general frowned. "But if we die, then the mechanism dies. And if the mechanism dies, then those who are dependent upon us will also die."
Doc craned forward, his body language registering the bewilderment he suddenly felt. "Those who are dependent?"
"Of course. Do we not spend our time in futility, using a fraction of our capability to keep the life-support systems of the redoubt in working order?"
"Oh, mercy me, has the good Dr. Wyeth thought of this?" Doc blurted, realizing what it could mean.
MILDRED HAD REMOVED almost all the electrodes and was keeping half an eye on the tubes feeding Doc and cleaning his blood, wondering which she should disconnect first, when he started to writhe and moan on the couch, seemingly desperate to fight his way back to consciousness.
"It's okay, Doc. Don't rush it, you old coot—more haste, less speed, as they always used to say."
Doc's eyes opened, staring and unfocused, but still alert. "Haste and speed are of the essence, my dear Doctor," he croaked unexpectedly.
"Calm down, you old buzzard," Mildred said softly, trying to hide the relief in her voice that he was still alive. The tubes seemed to detach easily enough, and Mildred silently thanked the recently chilled Tricks for her efficiency.
"I fear you do not understand," Doc continued hoarsely. "The mainframe is dying…By leaving the others I am killing them."
Mildred paused, looking at the desiccated, barely living zombielike corpses on the other couches. What had Doc been through when he was linked to that machine?
"They belong dead," she said shortly.
"Perhaps." Doc managed the ghost of a smile. "But they control the redoubt. When they die, it dies."
"Shit," Mildred said softly, "including the mat-trans."
"Exactly," Doc said with a weak nod.
It was then that the first tremor began to rock the redoubt, making the couches move on their mountings, screws and bolts protesting as the floor heaved beneath their solid grip.
Mildred looked up. "Oh, yeah, this is all we need."
"FIREBLAST! The stupe bastard! Get down!"
Ryan roared across the corridor, pushing to the ground as many people in his party as he could lay hands on, exhorting Jak to do the same, and barely believing what he had just seen.
The sec door groaned into place and was dented almost immediately by the force of the explosion. The displacement of air was at such a force and speed that it bent the metal, testing its strength to the utmost.
"Dark night, what was that?" the Armorer asked, arriving on the scene scant moments after the initial blast and skidding to a halt beside Ryan, who was getting to his feet.
"That triple-stupe madman Wallace just blew himself and Murphy out of existence, taking the armory with them," Krysty said, her voice hushed by the immensity of the action.
J.B. pushed back his fedora, ran his hand over his face and fixed Ryan with a worried look. "That's bad news," he said quietly.
Krysty frowned, noticing the unspoken agreement between the two old friends. She, too, felt the sense of impending danger, but for the moment the link between the feeling and hard reality was evading her.
It was Mac who voiced the question. "Friends, I might sound stupe, but why is it bad news? With Murphy and Wallace chilled, there's no one left to lead, and we can mop them up. Right?"
"Wrong," J.B. answered flatly. "First thing, an explosion in the armory is bad—spectacularly bad. Mebbe there's nerve-gas grens, all sorts of shit in there."
"But the door's closed, it's sealed," Mac interjected.
"The air-conditioning system," Ryan said simply.
"Right," the Armorer continued. "If that's still working in there, and there's no reason to think it isn't, then the gas released will spread through the entire redoubt."
"How long that take?" Jak questioned. He and the other assault party had made their way across to join the others. Abner was looking particularly worried. Mac knew that the old man always looked that way when he didn't understand what was going on.
"Depends on how much the system was damaged in there, and how much gas, if any, was in the armory."
"So there might not be any?" Abner said, his voice tinged with relief.
"We can't guarantee either way," J.B. stated. "You can close off parts of the system if you can get to the right control panel, but where that is… Anyhow, it's not just the air-conditioning that could be a problem."
Krysty felt the earth shift beneath her feet, even though she knew logically that nothing was happening. It was a chill premonition.
"Earthquake," she whispered. "Of course, the faults that formed the valley. And we're just deep enough for it to probably take effect if such a force started a shift."
"Dark night," J.B. said softly, "Millie and Doc—"
"Found him?" Jak asked sharply. When J.B. nodded, the albino looked at Ryan and said, "Let's find, get the fuck out."
THE FLIGHT to the comp room was bloodless and swift. There was no resistance from the remaining sec men, who were having more trouble fighting off whitecoats and techs who saw the military as responsible for the downfall of their little civilization, and had turned on them, grabbing makeshift weapons and chilled men's blasters to fight back. As was always the way with the community, they were so self-obsessed as to ignore the small party that made its way between them. They didn't have to fire a shot in anger, which was surprising but pleasing, as it enabled them all to conserve ammo.
They were almost on the comp room when the first series of tremors struck. Out in the corridors Ryan and his party stumbled as fissures appeared in the concrete floors, and dust and plaster spilled from the ceilings in a fine mist.
The whole structure of the deeply buried redoubt seemed to move around them, stressed concrete groaning and complaining as the steel within started to buckle. Weaknesses along fault lines began to spread cracks that threatened to separate corridors.
"We've got to get Doc and Millie and get out," J.B. said through gritted teeth, pressing on despite the
fear that started to build within him.
Krysty detected that note in his voice. "Me, too," she whispered to him, "but we can fight that. It's just the remnants of the torture."
"I know," gritted the Armorer, worries about his ankle holding up feeding into the remains of the psychological torture they had all received at Tricks's hands. "But what if nerve gas has been released, and that's fueling it?"
"Then we need to stay alert and move it," Krysty replied.
J.B. nodded, wiping dust from his glasses. The comp room and lab were ahead. Almost there…
THE VILLE DWELLER who had been standing guard for Mildred entered the comp room, his eyes wild with panic and fear.
"This place is falling apart. We'll all be trapped," he yelled at her.
Mildred ignored him for a second as she helped Doc to his feet. He looked older, frailer than he had for some time, and it was only his immense power of will that kept him from blacking out. When he was steady, she turned to the ville dweller.
"We'll all get out of here if we stay calm. Otherwise we're finished. Do you understand?"
The tall, muscled man with the pockmarked complexion nodded, for all his years and scarring looking like an innocent and frightened child. Which, in some ways, he was. He had never encountered anything like this before.
"Okay," he breathed, keeping the tremor from his voice, "what do we do now?"
Mildred looked at Doc.
"The mat-trans," Doc croaked in a trembling and tired voice. "The Moebius will shut down soon, and then we will not be able to get out that way."
"What about…?" Mildred asked, indicating the frightened ville dweller.
"True, my good Doctor. We can not leave this poor soul to his fate. If we can locate Ryan and the others, his people should be with them—"
"We're here, Doc," Ryan said as his party reached the comp room. "This place is falling apart, and we need to get out."
"Certainly do," Mildred said quickly, explaining what Doc had told her.
"Shit—we have to move," Ryan spit. "Mac, Abner, we'll lead you back to the wags, then we'll make our own way."