Synthezoids Endworld 30

by Robbins, David

  Warriors, though, didn’t leave the Home that often. Not most of them, anyway. Most of their time was taken up in perpetual training and wall duty. They saw action, and sometimes a lot of it, but they weren’t in daily peril, like the Hunters. Which was why Crom initially chose to be one of the latter. To be able to go out into the savage world each and every day was a dream come true.

  At first, anyway. Tracking down and slaying game filled his need for action until he became so good at it that it became almost too easy. Sure, now and then he ran into a mutate or some other peril. And occasionally he lucked out and stumbled on the kind of challenge he thrived on.

  Take those raiders.

  There had been nine of them, lounging in a camp adjacent to an old highway they were following. They were armed with swords and knives and spears and a few had old guns scrounged from who-knew-where.

  The glow of their campfire drew him. He’d crept close, then closer still when he saw they stupidly hadn’t posted sentries. They were eating a deer they had crudely butchered and were drinking from canteens and flasks and talking and joking. A pack of slayers, at ease.

  Crom had leaned his .50-caliber against a tree, squared his shoulders, clutched his war axe in his right hand, his .44-Magnum in his left, and strode into the firelight.

  The raiders gaped and glanced at once another, and then the largest, their leader, dressed in ragged leather and boots, shoved a woman off his lap and rose. “Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?”

  Crom said nothing. He merely waited.

  At a sly grin from a man with puss oozing from open sores, they began to spread out.

  “Nice weapons you’ve got there, mister,” puss-face said.

  A grungy woman with stringy hair and a wart on her nose shimmied her hips and said, “Maybe you see something you like? Maybe we could trade you for that revolver?”

  Still Crom made no reply. He knew how this would end. But he would let them make the first move.

  “Cat got your tongue?” one said, and laughed.

  “Maybe he’s mute,” another said.

  “Big ‘un,” said yet another.

  “So?” their leader gruffly declared, his fingers folding around a sword on his hip. “We’ve done in bigger.”

  A fidgety runt in rags had been sidling closer the whole time, and now he screamed as ferociously as he knew how, whipped a curved knife from behind his back, and sprang.

  Crom shot him in midleap in the chest. At the boom of the .44-Magnum, the little man flipped completely over and thudded to the ground. He didn’t move, after.

  The raiders froze, if only for a few seconds. Then, uttering curses and bellows of rage, they rushed him.

  Crom shot a raider raising a rifle in the forehead and the top of the man’s head exploded. He shot a female raider going for a small pistol and she catapulted into the dirt. He shot a man nocking an arrow to a bow, and then shoved the Astra into its holster and met the rest head-on with his war axe. Sidestepping the leader’s sword, he severed the man’s head with a single stroke. He buried his axe between the stringy-haired woman’s breasts, splitting her wide. Pivoting, he evaded a spear thrust and rent the man’s head down to his ears. Wresting his war axe loose, he tucked at the knees and swung his axe in a circle with his arm at full extension. As neatly as a razor slicing through paper, he cut off the right leg and the left leg of the last two raiders, respectively. They collapsed, keening and wailing. He finished each with swift strokes.

  Just like that, it was over.

  Crom never told anyone what he’d done. He never mentioned it to their Leader at the time, Plato, or to Blade or any of the Warriors. He kept it to himself, reliving the fight again and again in his mind. The experience was the pinnacle of his existence, and the main reason he decided to switch from being a Hunter to being a Warrior.

  Sure, Hunters got to leave the Home more. But when it came to combat, to the raw and pure essence of the excitement he lived for, the Warriors engaged in much more than the Hunters.

  Now here he was, about to dare the dangerous secrets of the Needle, invading the sanctuary of the Dark Lord himself. He pushed on the great wooden door.

  Let the slaying begin!

  * * *

  Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was braced for the worst. He had slung his autorifle and slid his prized katana from its scabbard. The katana was his weapon of choice, as much a part of him as his arms or his legs. In his mind, his katana was more than a sword. It was a symbol of every noble quality a warrior should aspire to. It was his soul, forged in metal.

  Moving past Crom and Kanto as they swung the giant door open, he took a few steps and adopted the Ko Gasumi No Kamae stance, ready for the attack he expected. But nothing happened.

  A spacious chamber spread before them. Its walls were as black as the Needle’s exterior, and seamless except for doorways here and there. The air seemed to pulse with an eerie green radiance that was discomfiting to gaze upon. From somewhere far below came muted rumblings, as of massive machinery at work. There was also a strong chemical scent and an occasional faint pitter-patter, as of bare feet moving quickly.

  “The Lord help us,” Eleanor breathed, her own sword raised high. “This place is vile. I can feel the evil in my bones.”

  “Where are the Dark Lord’s minions?” Crom said. “I want something to kill.”

  “Bloodthirsty much?” Kanto said, looking every which way. “Me, I wouldn’t mind if we get in and out without a hitch.”

  “Fat chance,” Crom said.

  “Focus,” Rikki said. “Close those doors before something outside gets in.” He advanced a few strides, his head cocked to hear better, his every sense alert.

  The lack of opposition puzzled him. The wisest tactical move for the Needle’s maker was to greet them en masse and overpower them by sheer numbers before they could go any further. It wasn’t like the Dark Lord—-if in truth the madman still lived—-to let let the opportunity pass.

  Sherlock sidled next to him. “I’m half surprised they didn’t put out milk and cookies.”

  Without dropping his guard, Rikki said, “So you do have a sense of humor?”

  “I was being facetious,” Sherlock said.

  Rikki flicked his left hand in a signal and the other three fanned out. Warily, he moved toward spiral stairs that led below. Nearby was a metal door with a pair of red buttons beside it. One button bore an arrow pointing up, the other button an arrow pointing down. Above the door was a row of numbers.

  “An elevator, isn’t it?” Eleanor said. “I’ve never seen one in real life before.”

  Suddenly the numbers above the door started to light up, one after the other. Simultaneously, a low whine emanated from within.

  “Someone’s using it!” Kanto said.

  Rikki placed himself a sword’s-length from the door and gestured to the trainees to take positions to either side. He was certain they were about to be attacked, and flexed his arms, ready to deliver a thrust to the first enemy that emerged.

  The whine stopped and there was a loud ping and the door slid open. “Hi,” said the elevator’s occupant. “Please don’t kill me. My Master has sent me to meet you.”

  She stood at the back, her hands folded in front of her, her chin slightly bowed. She was human, or partly. Half her face was black skin, with a slender nose and a green eye. The other half was a purple plastic substance, with an oversized red eye that brought to Rikki’s mind the kind of eye A.l.v.i.s had. When she smiled, half her teeth were human, the rest ivory fangs. Her body was humanoid but composed of more synthetic material than flesh, and oddly misshaped. Her left shoulder was higher than her right, the right half of her torso thicker than the left. One leg appeared shorter than the other. She was dressed in a white smock that came down to her knees.

  “Who in the world?” Kanto said.

  “I am to ask you to come with me,” the woman informed them.

  “Do you have a name?” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi asked.

&nbs
p; She hesitated, then said almost in a whisper, “I was once called Rilletta. Back when I was human. Now I’m hybrid number 917. ”

  “Who did this to you?” Eleanor said.

  “I believe you know,” Rilletta said. “And we don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Eleanor’s reaction on hearing the creature in the elevator was a sense of horror. There was something about the woman—-or part woman. Maybe it was the downcast expression on the human part of the woman’s face. Or maybe it was the tenor of sorrow in the woman’s voice. Eleanor felt horror, and sympathy.

  “You expect us to trust you?” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said to Rilletta.

  “Do or don’t, it’s up to you. I was sent to fetch you. Not to harm you.”

  “So you claim,” Crom growled, giving the lobby of the Needle a look of pure scorn. “I don’t trust a damn thing about this place.”

  “We should take the stairs,” Kanto said. “There could be a bomb rigged to explode the moment we step in that thing.”

  Eleanor was making up her mind what to do when Sherlock spoke up.

  “Might I interject a few pertinent comments”

  “You don’t need to ask,” Rikki said.

  “I deem it unlikely we will be slain on the way down....” Sherlock paused and turned to Rilletta. “Am I correct in my surmise that you are to take us down and not up?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  Sherlock nodded. “As I was saying, this is the only elevator I see. Elevators are complicated mechanisms. To destroy it would force our host and his underlings to use the stairs until a new elevator could be built, if one even can. Nor would it be logical for our host to recklessly destroy a creation of his in which he has invested a considerable amount of time and effort.”

  “Creation?” Kanto said, and looked at Rilletta. “Oh.”

  “So you think it’s safe to go with her?” Rikki said.

  “I would rate the danger low,” Sherlock said. “Then again, it could be Thanatos will flood the elevator with gas and lay us low that way so no harm comes to his hybrid or the elevator.”

  “I vote we risk it,” Eleanor said. In her estimation, the time factor overrode the risk. Every minute they delayed brought Blade and the others that much closer to the grave.

  “You always side with him,” Crom said.

  Rikki regarded the elevator, and Rilletta. “You get your wish. We’ll go with you.”

  Everyone filed in.

  Eleanor, the back of her neck prickling as it sometimes did when she was confronted by danger, moved to the left side.

  Rilletta stepped to a control panel and pressed a button and the door closed. She pressed another, and with a low whine, the elevator began to descend.

  Sherlock was standing next to her. “How long have you been this way, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Can’t say exactly,” Rilletta said. “Don’t know day from night anymore. Haven’t seen the sun or the moon since I was taken captive.”

  “I take it you didn’t volunteer for the procedure?”

  “Ask to be turned into this?” Rilletta said, and gestured at herself in disgust.

  “I am truly sorry,” Sherlock said.

  “Makes no never mind,” Rilletta said, although her sorrow made plain otherwise. “I am as I am now, as my new Master keeps telling me.”

  “Our Warriors thought they’d killed him.”

  “According to him, he can’t be killed.”

  “Is that so?” Sherlock said. “Interesting.”

  Eleanor heard a thunk from somewhere in the building. She braced herself but they continued to descend unhampered. “I’m Eleanor,” she said to their escort. “Pleased to meet you, sister.”

  “We’re not kin, girl,” Rilletta said. “Don’t be playing me to win me over.”

  “We’re all children of the Almighty,” Eleanor said. “Everyone is a sister or brother to everyone else.”

  “That’s a damn fool notion, girl,” Rilletta said. “My days as a scavenger taught me there’s no one we can count on except our own self. Brothers? Sisters? Hell. Everybody is our enemy unless they prove different. Even then you can’t let your guard down or you’re liable to get a knife in the back.”

  “I share Sherlock’s sympathy for you,” Eleanor told her. The woman’s account made her realize how fortunate she was to have been raised in the Home among the Family. To be loved and nurtured her whole life instead of thrown to the wolves.

  “Eighth floor and dropping,” Kanto announced. “This thing moves fast.”

  The control panel, Eleanor noticed, had buttons with numbers on them. A whole lot of buttons. If she understood right, the Tower must have twenty-five levels or stories above ground and an equal number below.

  In the silence that fell, the low whine of the elevator was punctuated by a distant scream that didn’t sound entirely human. It rose to a frantic pitch, then ended in a warbling gasp.

  “Did you hear that?” Kanto exclaimed.

  Eleanor was rattled, too. She could imagine all sorts of terrors in this place. They were venturing into the very heart of vile darkness.

  “Steady does it,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said. “Don’t let your nerves get the better of you.”

  “Easier said than done,” Eleanor mentioned under her breath. She was sure no one could hear her but Rilletta looked over and the human half of Rilletta’s mouth tweaked in a half-smile.

  “How many levels down must we go?” Rikki asked.

  “To the very bottom,” Rilletta said.

  “That won’t do, I’m afraid,” Sherlock said, and before anyone could guess what he was up to, or why, he jabbed his cane at the control panel and shouted, “Brace yourselves!”

  * * *

  Sherlock would never let his emotions show but he was enjoying himself, immensely. At long last his many talents were being put to a real test. To have his mental capacities challenged as never before was a delight in itself. He relished every moment.

  Life at the Home, Sherlock had often reflected, could be dull to the point of tedium. The Family stuck to the same routine, day in and year out. The Tillers went about their tilling, the Weavers their weaving, the Warriors guarded the walls, the Healers tended the sick.

  Except when under attack, or on those rare occasions when wild beasts got into the compound or chemical clouds appeared, life was ordinary. Predictable. Woefully so. Especially for someone like him. Someone who thrived on mysteries. On enigmas. Someone who loved nothing more than to have their mind stimulated in new and challenging ways.

  Ever since he was little—-and well before he stumbled across books on a certain consulting detective in the Family Library—-he took great enjoyment in solving mysteries and puzzles. Unfortunately, as he grew older, challenges that might stimulate him proved elusive.

  Then came word that the Warriors were planning a run to the Valley of Shadow. Eagerly, he arranged things so they would have no choice but to take him. And now here he was, pitting his intellect against a being many acknowledged to be a genius. There might never be another opportunity like this his whole life long.

  Thanatos. A madman who styled himself after the Greek personification of death. A depraved lunatic, who also happened to possess one of the greatest scientific minds ever seen on planet Earth.

  To take Thanatos on, to beat him at his own demented game, would be an exquisite exercise. Especially here. In the Needle. The Dark Lord’s lair. Where a legion of lethal pawns carried out his every whim. Where Thanatos could toy with intruders at his leisure, secure in the knowledge there was no escape.

  Sherlock was counting on his adversary being overconfident. He had read the reports filed by Blade and other Warriors concerning their early encounters with Thanatos. The Dark Lord had quite the ego. Thanatos believed himself to be as far above the common herd as the stars above terra firma. He also possessed a sadistic streak. He liked to toy with his enemies as a cat toyed with mice. He liked to make
them suffer. Crushing a foe wasn’t enough. They must wail and gnash their teeth, to phrase it in Biblical terms.

  Well before the SEAL arrived at the Valley of Shadow, Sherlock had decided that the only way to beat Thanatos was to do the unexpected. To keep him off his guard by doing what someone as frighteningly intelligent as the Dark Lord would not expect them to do.

  Thanatos clearly wanted to confront them before he killed them. Perhaps to brag. To taunt. Why else send Rilletta to greet them? Once she persuaded them to enter the elevator, Thanatos no doubt counted on them staying in the elevator until it reached the bottom floor. They were safe while they were descending.

  No sane person would jeopardize that.

  Unless the journals they needed to effect a cure for Blade and the others were—-according to A.l.v.i.s—-on an intervening floor.

  The elevator was between the eleventh and twelfth floors when Sherlock took a quick step and pressed his cane to the button for the twelfth. He shouted for the others to brace themselves but it did little good. The elevator stopped so abruptly, it was like slamming into a wall. Sherlock was flung to the floor so violently, it was a wonder he didn’t break a bone. Kanto cried out. Eleanor pitched to a knee, cutting her forearm on her sword. Crom tumbled.

  Only Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Rilletta stayed on their feet.

  Sherlock was picking himself up when the door hissed open—-and all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was the only one not caught off guard when Sherlock stabbed the button to stop the elevator. He hadn’t forgotten that the journals they were after were supposed to be on the twelfth floor. So when Rikki saw Sherlock’s body tense and the cane start to rise, he suspected what the younger man was about to do.

  The abrupt deceleration drove the trainees to their knees or knocked them flat, but not him. He was the only one standing—-besides Rilletta——when the elevator door hissed open. A lifetime of martial arts training, including endless hours in the horse stance, had strengthened Rikki’s calves and thighs to where, as some of the other Warriors liked to joke, he had ‘legs of iron’.