by Ryder Stacy
Rock greeted those who were conscious enough to respond as he walked along the corridor. He was a hero to these men and women, people he had spent years with, fighting alongside of, arguing with—he was still, as the American slaves in the Russian industrial cities called him, The Rockson. His sheer presence filled each of the pain-blinded burn victims with hope. Maybe he could rub a little off on them. He made his way down the brightly lit hall until he came to room 1142, and knocked softly.
“Come in, damn it,” a voice bellowed out from the other side. “And if you’re going to knock, knock—if not, leave.” Rockson could tell instantly that Dr. Shecter was doing fine. No man who was headed for the grave could scold the living with such conviction.
“Oh, it’s you, my boy,” said the aging chief scientist, propped up on his hospital bed, as Rockson’s face appeared from around the open door. “I wondered where the hell you’d been.” He extended his long white arm so Rockson could shake his hand and lifted one side of his lip about a quarter of an inch in a smile that only those who knew him well could see was, for him, a beaming greeting.
“Out hunting, Doc,” Rockson said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. Shecter’s lower body was covered with a white sheet and Rockson was afraid to ask or look. Shecter’s spinal cord had been severed in the Battle of Forrester Valley when the Russian-commanded Nazi army had been defeated and sent packing. His mind still worked fine, his arms, his heart—but his legs had ceased functioning.
“Out hunting, when there’s important organizational work to be done in here? You’re a leader, man, you’ve got to put your talents to their most efficient use.”
“That’s your logic, Dr. Shecter,” Rockson replied, not about to get drawn into any long-winded discussion about the proper basis of all human endeavors. “Not mine. We’ve all got to eat or no work will get done. I see you’ve been eating your share.” Shecter’s face grew momentarily livid.
“That’s all there is to do in this goddamned place—eat. I’m eating like a horse and I’m getting as big as one too. They won’t let me out until they see if the neurological bypass operation was a success.”
“The what?” Rock asked, glancing down again at the appendages hidden beneath the sheet.
“Yes, while you were away, they tried out something some of the robotics boys had been experimenting with for years now. I was the perfect specimen. And I wouldn’t hear no.” He winked at Rockson and threw the sheets back. “And I think it’s going to work.” The aging but still surprisingly spry scientist swung his hips over the side of the bed and then turned on a small panel on his hip. A row of tiny lights lit up and Shecter quickly pressed a few buttons. “Here—watch.” He stood up, pulling himself straight with his arms, and then got his balance. The legs looked thin and white beneath the pajamas, and shrunken even more since the spine had been severed. Yet they walked. The thigh lifted, the knee bent, the foot came down. Then the other. Slowly, quite awkwardly, Shecter walked a circle around the room. “I’m not Jesse Owens,” the head brain of Century City said, “but I’d dare say I’m making history in my own way with this little walk.”
“How the hell . . .” Rockson began, his eyes wide at the technological marvel.
“I couldn’t even begin to explain it—even to you, Rock. And I’m by no means denigrating your intelligence. It’s all so theoretical we’re not quite sure how it works. But it involves sending an overload of a certain synchronization of electric current, calculated by computer, into the nerves of the legs. They’re fooled into thinking the message is coming from the brain—and presto! Famed scientist can walk.
“And I’ve just been using it for a few days. Why, in a month or two, I dare say I’d give our ancient sports hero a run for his money.” The people of Century City liked to refer to famous people, places, slang of the past. It linked them up with an America they had never let die in their hearts. For when the Reds were finally defeated, a new America would re-establish her culture, and they’d need every bit they could salvage.
“As soon as I’ve got my sea legs again,” Shecter said, returning to the bed and plopping down, “I’m gonna make a break for it. I’m dying to get back to my labs. You can’t imagine what it’s like for a scientist not to have his test tubes, his computers, his graphs to fiddle with. Ah, but I’m feeling tired again, Rock. I think I’ll need a little nap. Tell the nurse to bring me my milk and cookies on the way out, will you.” Rockson exited the room with a grin. The man was a testament to the human will and spirit. If every Freefighter in America had half as much spunk as the doctor, the Reds would be crushed—and fast.
He headed several doors down to another room and knocked on the door. “Come in,” a voice said, and Rockson entered the room while pulling a small package he had taken from the ’brids from behind his back.
“Knowing your propensity for meat eating,” the Doomsday Warrior said, “I brought you some extra-tender filets from our hunting trip.”
Detroit Green, the black member of Rock’s own personal fighting team, looked up with a wide grin, his bull-like neck and arms poking out from under the light blue hospital gown.
“Rock, I wondered where you’d been. No one seemed to know.”
“My own style of R&R—getting out in the mountains. No Reds to kill, no mutant races to be thrown into the boiling pot by. Just the snowy peaks, the sun, and an occasional Lion-lizard or two.”
“Sounds great,” Detroit said, reaching forward with both arms for the five thick steaks piled one on top of another, juicy and red as apples. “Wish I’d been there. But they’re keeping me here at least a week. Rules for microsurgery.”
Rockson’s eyes grew wide as he suddenly realized that the black Freefighter had reached out with both arms. In their battle with the assassin team weeks before, Detroit’s right arm had been severed at the elbow by a single swipe of an oriental killer’s yard-long sword. Detroit had managed to kill the man, and when the pile of would-be murderers lay like sacks of red garbage around the ground, the rest of the team had rushed him and the sliced piece of arm back to Century City’s microsurgery team. The operation had lasted seventeen hours, since the microsurgical techniques were all fairly new to the medical staff. They had found the ancient books on performing such operations only several years before—and had experimented on rats and local animal forms before attempting them on people. Detroit was the twentieth, and his looked to be close to perfect.
“Look, man, better than new,” Detroit said, lifting the loose sleeve of the hospital gown. “See the scar—all the way around.” Detroit’s ebony face glowed from the bright light of the room. “It’s weird, man, feeling your whole arm come off. You reach down there with your mind and there’s nothing—like falling off the cliff of your own flesh. But, now . . .” He raised the arm and wiggled the fingers, which moved slowly but fully.
“That’s great,” Rockson said, slapping his right-hand man on the uplifted arm. He would never forget the moment he had looked down and seen the brave freedom warrior lying on the filthy floor of the cavern they were fighting in, with an infinitely weary expression on his face—and his arm sitting by his side like a pet waiting to be picked up. “Someday, you’ll get full use of it back,” Rock said, looking at the narrow, slightly white scar that formed a circle just below the elbow.
“Someday?—hell, man, I’m pitching in the Century City versus Eisenhowerville softball game next Sunday.”
Three
It rose like a black lance from the center of what had once been Denver, piercing the heavens above, slashing into them with its antennaed top. The Monolith—the most dreaded building in America to those who had had the misfortune of visiting it. Headquarters of the KGB, the Deathshirts, or the “Deathheads,” as they were called by the American slaves. Eighty stories of black steel and glass, cylindrically shaped, looming like some monstrous growth from the dark soil below it. Eighty stories of offices, suites, information-gathering networks, communications centers—and torture chamb
ers. All devoted to keeping the workers and Regular Red Army troops from getting funny ideas—about anything. For the KGB would swoop down, sending its black-leather-clad murderers out in the dark of night to gather “troublemakers” in their talons and take them back to the Monolith, down to its lowest levels, where the screams of the unfortunate could not be heard through the thick concrete walls.
The black skyscraper was usually dark as a grave at night, its lights off to conserve fuel—the most precious commodity in Post-Nuke America. But tonight the fluorescent bulbs burned on every level, sending waves of dim light through the tinted windows. And on the very top floor, a face pressed against the glass, peering out. Its normally ugly features were further distorted, making it hideous, the nose and forehead flattened out as if trying to squeeze through the immense picture window. Colonel Killov, the commander of all Deathhead forces. Killov, the pill-popping, emaciated KGB leader who was doubtless giving more than one American nightmares on this cold, dark night. “Rockson,” he muttered, loathing the sound of the name—for the hated American Freefighter was the only thing standing between him and ultimate power.
The KGB ruler was unusually agitated, even given his typically paranoid, almost insane mental state. For tonight was the beginning of Stage One of the Night of Blood—when his forces would attack the leadership of the Red Army in America. He had waited years for this moment—for the time to be just right for him to strike against the fat pig President Zhabnov, Premier Vassily’s lackey, who ruled from Washington, D.C., headquartered in the ancient White House.
“Yes, the time is right,” Killov mumbled to himself, as he reached inside his desk drawer and pulled out one of nearly fifty vials of pills. He popped two Psychoamphetamines into his hole of a mouth and sat back, waiting for the streaming effects of the drug to hit his system. He had been up for days now, and couldn’t remember when he had last slept. It all blurred together now—night, day, faces, thoughts—until his mind was nothing more than a bubbling cauldron of madness and violence.
Deep in thought, he paced across his plush office, his emaciated frame propelled by manic distress. Occasionally, he stopped and faced the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared out at the Rocky Mountains—so close, so majestic. But their beauty only camouflaged the base of Century City and the Doomsday Warrior. Bile saturated his diseased liver, and rose in his stomach. Rockson, The Rockson, who all America had rallied behind to fight the Soviet occupiers, must be dead. He had to be dead! Twelve assassins of super ability had been sent to kill him.
Killov rubbed the long red scar on his cheek that Rockson had given him and sat down in his snar-lizard chair, exhausted from his pacing. He pressed a button on his marble-top desk and the massagechair began caressing his body with tiny electronic stimulators. The computer readout on his desk monitor said Killov was six pounds lighter than last week—down to eighty-eight pounds. He’d have to consume more calories! Food—how he hated it—filled with bacteria, rotting, making him burp and vomit. But he had to stay alive. His aim must be accomplished: He had to become Premier of all the world Soviets. Ruler of everything, everywhere. And then . . . his darkest plans could be implemented.
The meeting with his military chiefs was set for five minutes from now. He had just enough time to get out the papers he had prepared on the voicewriter last evening. Instructions to his minions on staging the Night of Blood. With Zhabnov dead (preferably roasted over a spit on the White House lawn) and America ruled by the colonel, the final extermination of the so-called Freefighters, hiding in their crude cities, could be accomplished! Then, with America as his impregnable power base, the KGB would win the world back from Premier Vassily and Vasily’s black assistant, Rahallah—the sorcerer, curse him. Killov would bury them in the Kremlin wall along with Stalin and Gorbachev and Trotsky and all the others. Then he would sit in the Czar’s royal chair in the Kremlin in Vassily’s place, and rule the world. And with Killov in charge, a new onslaught of nuclear terror would crumble the pockets of resistance throughout the earth that now went unchecked, a murderous virus eating at the Red Empire.
Vassily was weak now, half dead, his neo-Nazi army exterminated in the Battle of Forrester Valley. Its remnants had been absorbed into Killov’s troops, making him even more powerful. Meanwhile, in Washington, Zhabnov sank even deeper into his swamp of sexual excess.
Rockson—the only man who might throw a wrench into all his plans, that mutant American slime—was surely dead. Even he stood no chance against the dozen martial arts masters who had been deployed against him. But Killov should have heard from them by now. They had departed weeks ago to try to find the hidden Century City. He tried to imagine the Doomsday Warrior reduced to pieces of flesh rotting in a pool of blood on some floor of an underground tunnel. But in his churning, drug-tightened guts, he felt a strange ominous sensation that rose like a wave of nausea. Nearly gagging, he grabbed a Neutravil—to try to calm down the effects of the other twenty or so pills he took routinely each day. He’d take “ups” for hours at a time until his very eyeballs felt as if they were about to pop right out of his skull-like face. Then, when he could stand it no longer, tranquilizers and muscle relaxants so he could eat something. The moment he drank the vitamin-fortified gruel that his servants whipped up—he’d been unable to hold down anything solid for over a year—he would immediately take more Elevils, Benzephenols, and tabs of morphine to quiet his aching flesh, nerves, and, most of all, his mind. No matter. Rockson was irrelevant now—gone into blood dust. The Night of Death would go forth, destroying like the very legions of Hell.
The door buzzed. It was time to swallow the damned nutrient concoction sent by the doctors. A pale-faced butler came in and put a tall glass of blue liquid with a long glass straw in it on the desk, spilling a bit. He quickly wiped it up, hands trembling and a terrified expression on his face.
Killov held his nose and drank as much as he could, nearly retching. It tasted and smelled worse than ever. He pulled open a drawer and grabbed the pillbox next to his Turganev revolver. He threw two pills into his mouth, sipped a bit of the blue liquid, and swallowed. The doctors had warned him about the pills—but he needed energy. So what if he lost a little more weight—when he ruled the world, he would eat again.
The bell rang, indicating the arrival of the general staff in the outer office. All were newly appointed officers of unusual cruelty and ruthlessness, selected to replace all the stupid fools who had let Rockson escape the last time they had had him in their clutches. The twenty of them marched in stiffly and sat in the chairs that the servants had brought at Killov’s bidding, along with trays of food. They looked nervously at one another, declining refreshment, and seated themselves at the conference table. They knew food disgusted Killov. It was probably a diabolical test of their understanding of him and the KGB.
Killov looked them over, his black rat-like eyes darting from face to face. The thin one, Mishkin, had to be watched. He was always questioning things. They were all Air Force, Army, and Death Squad vets—the three branches of the KGB in America. Killov wished he had a navy that could shell Washington from the sea. But Zhabnov would capitulate soon. Then he would have a navy. Zhabnov had many fine vessels, and with those he could push outward, across the oceans, taking the far-flung parts of Vassily’s empire. And when the Grandfather was destroyed, Killov would skin Rahallah alive and feed him to the lions at Moscow’s Coliseum.
On that pleasant note, Killov looked up and managed a razor-like smile. “Ah, gentlemen, it is good to see your faces—so much enthusiasm. I trust you are happy with your promotions?”
“Yes, your Excellency,” they replied as one.
“And remember that when I expand my power in the world, you will each be given charge of a continent—and then you can have your fun. But there is no time for speeches. I have waited until now to reveal my exact plans, because there are traitors everywhere—even in this room. We start in six days. Activate all fifth columnists, saboteurs, and death squads to attack the fo
llowing Red Army command centers.”
Killov handed out the briefing folders filled with plans, maps, and attack strategies. Within a few minutes the officers had each read enough to realize that Killov was finally going to do it. He was planning an all-out attack on Washington, D.C., and the fifty regional Red fortresses spread out across America. They knew that they didn’t have a sufficient number of forces to accomplish the task, but there was no disagreement.
They looked at one another. Every face was as white as chalk. Killov seemed to have lost himself in some sort of reverie while they had been reading the battle plans. Suddenly his eyes gleamed again. He smiled, showing the rotted gums and teeth of a dead man. The sight chilled the officers. With his hollow corpse-like cheeks, eyes sunken into their sockets, and paper-thin flesh, Killov’s face truly did look like a skull.
“Yakov—you approve?” barked Killov suddenly, with the violence of a rabid dog.
“Yes! Excellent strategy! The loss of all our shock troops in a suicide attack, after sappers destroy what they can—a Night of Blood. A poetic, brilliant, wonderful idea!”
“I applaud you, Excellency,” Mishkin exclaimed.
“It is genius,” Titov laughed, clapping his hands.
“Yes, pure genius!” the others chimed in, each trying to laud the homicidal drug-crazed leader louder and better than the next. On and on they went as Killov’s face contorted in a macabre grin.
“Good, I thought you would like my plan. Now I have some graphics and maps to go over. I wish to show you the plan in greater detail.”
“Colonel Killov,” said Mishkin a little nervously, “Isn’t there an agreement among you, the Premier, and President Zhabnov to stop attacking one another? Mightn’t we be violating the Lawrence, Kansas, Summit agreement by attacking Zhabnov’s forces and inviting a nuclear missile attack from Mother Russia?”