Chrono Spasm

by James Axler

  “Chill him!” Baron Kenojuak shrieked as his arena began to burn before his eyes. “Chill the outlander!”

  * * *

  “SHE IS CALLING TO ME,” Doc said as they hurried along another icy tunnel.

  “Who is?” Ryan asked with irritation. Now was not the time for the old man to start losing his grip on reality again, not when they were this close to freedom.

  “Emily,” Doc said, casually flipping his swordstick around to garrote another would-be attacker.

  Ryan drove a solid punch into the next man who came at them, driving him backward into two of his fellow sec men. The cramped conditions of these tunnels worked to the two men’s advantage—while they could be hemmed in, that required coordination. Furthermore, it was bastard hard, Ryan knew, for more than one man to round on them at any one time, turning the whole sequence of events into a series of one-on-one skirmishes. Short of running out of adrenaline, Ryan was confident he and Doc could hold their own—at least until someone had the bright idea of bringing a blaster to the fight.

  “Emily’s long dead, Doc,” Ryan reminded the old man. “Where do you think she’s calling you from?”

  “I do not know,” he admitted, shaking his head in confusion. “But I can...hear her. Sense her, if you will. Yes, that would be a more accurate reflection of my intuition here. ’Tis most vexing.”

  “Most vexing is right,” Ryan agreed, blasting another attacker in the face with his stolen Smith & Wesson. “Emily got any idea how the fuck we get out of here?”

  Doc laughed, missing Ryan’s sarcasm entirely. “It is not that kind of a communiqué, my dear friend,” he explained as he ran the blade of his sword through another attacker. “It is more like...knowing when you are almost home, recognizing the neighborhood even though you have been away for a very long time.”

  Ryan eyed the corridor with swift desperation. “Well, I don’t know this neighborhood from squat,” he snarled, “so let’s just keep moving and worry about your ghosts later on, okay?”

  And wasn’t that just the shits, Ryan thought—right when he needed Doc most, the old man was losing focus.

  The two men scurried down the sloped corridor and found themselves standing in a wide tunnel featuring a continuous curve. Nearby, they could hear the roar of the crowd as they watched J.B. getting pulverized by the ville champion. “We need to get to J.B.,” Ryan growled, “before it’s too late.”

  * * *

  MILDRED AND NYARLA followed Krysty through the claustrophobic tunnels of the ice ville, working their way toward the courtyard where J.B. was battling with the deranged warrior. As they moved, Mildred quizzed Nyarla on what had happened to her father.

  “After they...let it be known they wanted my sister, he ran,” Nyarla explained. “He found a way to reach her and me and we all ran together. But we had to split up. He had one of their mounts by then, but it could only carry two of them. I was just slowing them down.”

  “Is that when we found you?” Mildred asked. Ahead of her, Krysty flicked her Smith & Wesson blaster through a doorway, shooting a surprised sec man through the chest before he had an inkling that he was under attack. Screaming and clutching at the wound, he sagged to the floor like so much deadweight.

  Nyarla nodded. “They went east while I went west,” she said. “He was heading toward Yego Kraski Sada, said we would rendezvous there. The ville men followed him, so I taunted them until they came for me instead.”

  Mildred looked at the young woman, figuring her for no more than her late teens, and tried to imagine how brave she had to feel to do that, how scary it had have been. “Is that when we found you?” she asked gently.

  “I couldn’t run any farther.”

  “What about your father and your sister?” Mildred queried. “Did you hear anything more? Do you know if...?”

  “He would have gotten there,” Nyarla said insistently. “I know he would. He’s my father.”

  Krysty had led the way into a tunnel close to the lowest level of the ville. It ran in a continuous curve, following the walls of the vast courtyard, and the sounds of the baying crowd could be heard just beyond it. Together the three women followed the curve, searching for a way into the courtyard itself.

  Up ahead, Krysty saw more figures moving, twin shadows among the flickering floor lanterns. She raised her revolver in a two-handed grip, waiting for them to step into the open. The figures moved warily, edging closer. They were thirty feet away now and Krysty saw the glint of metal in their hands where they both held blasters. She readied her aim, tracking the figures’ movements, judging where they would be when they stepped into the light.

  * * *

  RYAN LOOKED UP and saw three people watching them, blasters raised and about to fire. He brought up his own .38, just two shots left in it now, and prepared to blast them to hell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Baron Kenojuak was smiling in savage humor as everything before him was consumed behind the wall of flame. The champion, that chain-saw-wielding lunatic, lay close, sprawled among the metal barrels that had been placed against the walls to protect the crowds. Ironically, they hadn’t protected them at all, not once the outlander had managed to get the contents alight. How the hell had he sneaked a lighter in there anyway? the baron wondered.

  The champion’s body was billowing with black smoke, his face and torso a pillar of flame. In his hands, the chain saw continued to whir as flames licked across its metal sheen, throwing flames in all directions as it spun.

  The baron swept away the dark smoke that spewed across his sight, pulling himself from his throne to get a better view of the action, a cruel smile spread across his face. The little man in the hat was still alive, cowering behind the execution mound as flames nuzzled at its edges. Even if the champion was dead, at least this little upstart would be chilled soon, too, the baron assured himself with satisfaction. And the ville was constructed of ice—what harm could flames do to that?

  “Chill him,” the baron cried victoriously. “Chill the outlander!”

  Around him, the crowd was becoming fearful as those flames licked higher, sparks spitting out and showering some of the seats with their burning embers. The baron laughed as his people danced out of the way of those sparks, patting themselves down. “Chill him,” he bellowed over the rising sounds of the flames. “Chill him for your baron!”

  As he spoke, Kirima stood up behind him, her eyes fixed on the baron’s back. She had been stripped naked and forced to serve the baron, suffered his depredations all night and had watched in horror as he ran the paring knife over her friend’s skin until Narja was dead from blood loss. Resolutely, Kirima took a pace forward. Then, with grim determination, she shoved the baron with both hands, shunting him against the wall that ran around the edge of the arena.

  Taken unawares, Baron Kenojuak stumbled just a pace forward before regaining his balance. He turned to the naked slut, cruel anger burning in his dark eyes. “How dare you lay your hands on the royal personage,” he snarled.

  Kirima backed away but she was surrounded on all sides by the baron’s trusted aides. There was nowhere left to run.

  “I’ll see you turned into steak for that,” Kenojuak continued. “Not even fit for humans but steak fed to the caribou!” But as he spoke the baron’s towering Pschent hat caught a spark from where he was standing so close to the burning arena now, and in an instant it had begun to flame.

  With a shriek, the baron swept the hat from his head. But the flame had caught the oil in his slicked-back hair and, in moments, his whole head went up like a candle. He screamed in agony, his hands reaching to pat down the flames—only to find the skin on his fingers catching light and burning.

  All around, the followers of the baron backed away, surprised and horrified to see his head going up in flames. All, that was, except for Kirima. Leaping forward, she kicked the baron in his gut with an outstretched foot, driving him back toward where the corpse of the sharpshooter was being slowly spit-roasted. Stil
l shrieking in agony, the baron tottered backward before tromping into the flames, and suddenly the rest of his body had joined his head in raging conflagration.

  * * *

  HER FINGER RESTING on the Smith & Wesson’s trigger, Krysty watched as the two figures stepped out from the inconsistent shadows cast by the flickering lamps. Behind her, Mildred and Nyarla hugged the wall, each holding their own weapon as they sighted down the curve of the wide tunnel that backed onto the arena.

  Mildred had reloaded her Czech-made ZKR 551 target pistol as the group worked their way down to this tunnel, but she cursed that she hadn’t had an opportunity to check it over. Right now, all she could do was hope that they hadn’t mangled its workings in that chop shop.

  Two paces behind Mildred, Nyarla held out the stubby Colt revolver she had acquired from the armory. In spite of its short barrel, the revolver looked large in the young woman’s hand and she held it with a mixture of determination and discomfort, clearly unused to wielding a blaster like this. Mildred had to trust that Nyarla wouldn’t accidentally shoot her in the back.

  Krysty saw the twin figures emerge from where they had been obscured by the curve of the tunnel, readied to fire and then...

  She stopped herself, bringing the revolver swiftly down to the ground, ordering Mildred and Nyarla to do the same.

  For a moment, Mildred thought her friend had lost her mind, but then she saw why Krysty had backed down. Thirty feet ahead of them up the tunnel stood Ryan and Doc. Both men looked a little scarred and weary but otherwise they seemed okay. Ryan was bringing his own blaster down to a safe position as Krysty sprinted over to meet him. Ryan also began to run, hurrying to meet Krysty before sweeping her up in his arms.

  The lovers embraced briefly, then returned to the matter at hand.

  “J.B.’s in trouble out there,” Ryan stated, “in some kind of arena. We were hoping to find a way in.”

  “Us, too,” Krysty confirmed.

  As she spoke, Krysty handed Ryan his weapons—the SIG-Sauer blaster and his Steyr Scout Tactical longblaster, which she had strapped across her back. Ryan took the weapon and checked the scope, confirming it was still operative.

  With the briefest of discussion, Ryan and Krysty continued around the icy tunnel, searching for a way into the combat arena. Keeping pace beside them, Mildred handed Doc his LeMat.

  “Good to see you again, old girl,” Doc said cheerily.

  Mildred shot the gray-haired scarecrow a look. “Do you mean me or the gun?”

  In reply, Doc gave her his most enigmatic smile, while Nyarla hurried to keep up with the group.

  As they ran, they heard an explosion shake the whole ville and up ahead a burning gap appeared in the curving side wall, glowing and sparking. A moment later, people began pouring through the gap, running for their lives.

  “Come on,” Ryan commanded. “Looks like J.B.’s fighting back.”

  * * *

  CROUCHING BY THE chilling mound, J.B. turned as something exploded across the far side of the courtyard. Through the flames he saw the wall come crashing down as the seating area there gave way, scattering the baying mob as some were consumed in the fire. Behind this, the whole wall had crumbled to nothing amid the fierce flames. The people who survived the wall’s collapse began to stream out of the newly created gap. After a moment’s hesitation, J.B. followed, bullets kicking at his heels as he bolted out from cover and across the circle of courtyard.

  The crowd was panicked now as the flames became more intense and lunged at the walls with their fiery tongues. J.B. saw one woman close to the gap in the wall slip and drop her blaster—a retooled Tokarev pistol with go-faster stripes painted across its black finish. The Armorer considered picking up the blaster, but already the flames were on it, making it literally too hot to handle. A second later, the Tokarev began to spit bullets as the heat engaged its firing mechanism, sending slugs spewing out across the arena at ground level. The problem with a blaster with no safety, J.B. thought grimly as he leaped over its lethal discharge.

  Then he was at the gap in the wall, bullets pounding the ground all about him. It was a ragged hole, fifteen feet across. Flames played across the walls and a fiery plume of a barrel stood at one side, pouring black smoke into the immediate area. J.B. coughed, holding one hand before his face, his eyes tearing. He slipped through the flaming gap and out into the area beyond.

  Standing there, waiting at the gap, were four familiar figures along with a fifth—Ryan, Krysty, Doc and Mildred, with the girl Nyarla, who, in a roundabout way, had got them all into this jam. Ryan and Krysty were in the lead, pushing a path through the surging crowd to get into the arena.

  “Ryan!” the Armorer called. “It’s me.”

  “We were just coming to find you,” Ryan told the Armorer as he hurried over to greet him.

  J.B.’s clothing was covered in dust where he had rolled around the icy arena and there was dried blood on his face. But otherwise he looked intact. He grabbed Ryan just above his hand in a tight grip, wrist-to-wrist. “Save me some other time,” he suggested. “Right now, we should get going. This whole place is going up in flames.”

  Another ville person came running through the fiery hole, shouting angrily and wielding a Russian-made KS-23 shotgun in both hands. “Die, outlanders!” His shotgun blurted a single cacophonous burst of buckshot. But the fool hadn’t bothered to aim, too caught up in the moment and distracted by the thick smoke swirling all about him. Utterly misguided, his attack missed his targets by several feet.

  As one, Ryan, Krysty, Doc and Mildred took steady aim and sent the man on the last train west in a volley of bullets.

  Then, moving away from the flaming arch, the companions began jogging through the ice-walled tunnel with Nyarla in tow. As they ran, Mildred brought J.B.’s mini-Uzi out from where she had stuffed it in her satchel.

  “J.B., you’ll be needing this,” she said. “Locked and loaded, I checked before we found you.”

  “Nice work, Millie,” J.B. said as he took the blaster from her, hooking the sling over his shoulder so that it would ride horizontal just below the level of his belt. “You always know the way to a man’s heart.”

  “I have one question,” Mildred said as the friends made their way through the ville. Behind them, the hole in the arena wall was spewing flames, ending its use as an exit from the flaming courtyard. “Anyone know where they’re keeping Jak and Ricky?”

  “They’re not here,” J.B. explained, bringing his Uzi up to take out a sec man ahead of them. “They made a successful escape while we were out of the ville confines.”

  Mildred looked at him with obvious surprise. “You were outside?”

  J.B. nodded. “Guess we have us some catching up to do,” he said. “Mebbe best leave that till we’re out of this pesthole, though.”

  Behind them, the first of the gas lamps that lined the floor were touched by flames and they began to explode, one after another, in a line running down the vast, curving tunnel.

  “This way,” Nyarla said, directing the group through an arched doorway leading to a short, four-step staircase.

  While the ville burned around them, the companions made a swift exit from its icy hollows along with almost fifty ville dwellers. In the confusion, it didn’t take too much stealth for Ryan’s group to escape unnoticed, wounding and chilling just a few enraged ville men who attempted to get in their way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In His Ink Orchard, Jak and Ricky were lost. They had turned back, following the path they had taken to try to get back to the mines, entertaining the idea of freeing their companions in a bloody showdown. Jak could handle himself, and with the right cover he could overcome significant odds. Further, he had seen Ricky in action and knew he could trust the kid to provide that cover. All they would need would be sufficient weaponry to mount an attack, which meant disarming the sec patrol and using their own blasters against them.

  But when it came to it, returning to the mines had been more
difficult than either friend had expected. Cold mist clung to the earth like a sheet, obscuring their view and making it almost impossible to see more than fifty yards in any direction. Jak’s spatial awareness was exceptional, and it granted him the determination to follow their path even where Ricky was admittedly lost. But as they closed in on the area where the invisible barrier lay, beyond which the mine should still be, they found themselves somehow turned around, as if the invisible wall itself was exerting a magnetic repulsion.

  “What is it?” Ricky asked after they had found themselves turned around for the third time.

  Jak stopped in place, turning on the spot until he was sure that he was facing the mining development. Freezing mist slipped before him in wispy clouds, great blurts of it wandering slowly across the icy plains.

  “Nothing good,” Jak stated, shaking his head. “Place not right. Broken somehow.”

  Ricky looked at Jak, trusting the albino’s keen instincts. “Then what do we do?”

  “Can’t go backward, got go forward,” Jak said. But he remained in place, his ruby eyes narrowed as he sought out a sign in the mist. Beyond it, he imagined he saw figures moving, but they weren’t moving the way that people should move. Instead they moved like things that had been launched, hurrying across the terrain around the mine with incredible speed, blurring dots on the horizon. It was like watching people’s movements that had been sped up beyond comprehension, as if they existed at another pace to that of Jak and Ricky.

  Touching the barrier—if, indeed, they could touch the barrier—might chill them, Jak concluded as he watched those figures hurtling past beyond it. If the people on that side were moving fast, and that would have included himself and Ricky at their point of entry, then trying to pass through the barricade at anything short of top speed would prove deadly, or more likely impossible. Like trying to grab a moving buzz saw; only by somehow matching its speed could one ever hope to do anything other than lose one’s fingers.