Deathlands 124: Child of Slaughter (27 page)

Ryan shrugged. “I just wish we knew more about whatever surprises are waiting for us at the core.”

“You and me both.” They hadn’t been able to get anything else out of Sasha after her revelation about the plan to create a beachhead for a viral Soviet collective intelligence. Though she’d told them about her true nature and goals, she’d kept her cards close to the vest when it came
to information they could actually use. “So it’s business as usual, I guess? Headfirst into the shit with next to nothing in the way of knowing what awaits us?”

“And come out on top anyway? Pretty much, J.B.”

J.B. fished a box of shotgun shells from the rubble and tossed it into his backpack. “I don’t suppose ol’ Hammersmith has any more rockets for that launcher of his squirreled away in here, does he?”

Ryan shook his head. “I was surprised he came up with the last ones.”

“I’m just glad he’s turned out to be an asset. Not that I ever had any doubts.”

“Me, neither, what with all the dope smoking and crazy talk.” Ryan found a bag full of grens and lifted it clear of the wreckage. “I just hope he can get us over the finish line, especially if there’s some kind of game-changer waiting for us.”

J.B. slapped him on the back. “What fun would life be without a curveball now and then? Or every five minutes, as the case may be in the Deathlands.”

* * *

“G
IVE IT UP
, J
AK
,” Ricky said. “She’s a lost cause.”

Jak should have been prepping for the next stage of the mission—the march to the core—and he knew it, but he couldn’t break away from watching Union.

The traitor still sat on the ground with her wrists and ankles bound, staring into space. She hadn’t said a word in more than a half hour, and she didn’t look inclined to speak anytime soon.

Jak had nothing to gain from watching her. He wasn’t even on guard duty; that was Ricky’s job. But he couldn’t stay away.

How could he have been so wrong about the connection between them? It didn’t seem possible. Jak’s instincts
were usually solid when it came to the opposite sex, and his instincts had picked up on an attraction.

Nevertheless, he’d heard her confession with his own ears. She was a Soviet freezie who hated them all and craved the fulfillment of a plan. She’d left no room for misinterpretation.

“Come on.” Ricky nodded toward the war wag, where Ryan and J.B. were still working. “Go help those guys. Shake it off.”

“Already shook,” Jak replied. “Just hoping silence breaks.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“All right, good.” Ricky still looked concerned but managed half a smile. “So can you hold down the fort for a minute while I go take a leak?”

“Consider held.” Jack winked one ruby eye.

“I’ll be right back,” Ricky said, then wandered off behind a nearby hill.

Almost as soon as he left, Union turned her gaze on Jak and started talking. “I’m still in here,” she said softly.

Jak frowned. “Who talking?” he asked, though he noticed that her braid was Carrie white.

“You know who! Now, listen, before
she
comes back.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice, though the woman she was trying to keep in the dark was inside her head. “Don’t trust her, Jak! She lies.”

“About what?”

“Us!” Carrie-Union snapped. “Who we are. Why she’s doing all this. Don’t believe her!”

“Should believe you instead?” Jak snorted. “Believe any of you?”

“Yes!” Carrie-Union hissed. “You can trust me! I want to help you!”

“Want help?” Jak asked. “Tell what Russian knows. What danger coming?”

“I don’t know.” Carrie choked out a sob. “She doesn’t show the rest of us everything! She keeps us locked away whenever she’s driving, and we’re blind and deaf and trapped.”

“How you get out?” Jak asked.

“I fought my way out, because I love you. And no matter what you say or do, I will never give up on you!”

Jak stared at her, feeling the urge, against all common sense, to believe her. Maybe his instincts hadn’t been so wrong after all; maybe the woman who had feelings for him was still in there, fighting to get free.

Or not. Suddenly, a wicked sneer spread across her face. She tipped her head to one side and oozed out a single word in a heavy Russian accent.

“Sucker.”

Then she broke down in hysterical laughter, just as Ricky returned from his bathroom break.

“Not so quiet anymore, huh?” Ricky asked. “So what got her making noise again?”

“Told her joke.”

Ricky looked at Union, who was still laughing uproariously. “Must’ve been hilarious.”

“She didn’t get.” Jak shrugged. “Didn’t know joke on her.”

Again, Ricky watched Union as she continued to crack up. “Are you sure about that?”

Jak met Union’s gaze for an instant. Did he see a flicker of Carrie or any of the others in her eyes? Did it even matter anymore?

“What can say? Some people, everything just big joke.” With that, Jak shook his head and walked off in the direction of the wag to get ready for what was to come.

Chapter Forty-Four

Doc and Fixie had been back in the mat-trans chamber for less than five minutes when the door flew open and Exo stormed into the room.

“Hello, children!” Instead of a candy stick, Exo had what looked like a strip of leathery black jerky in a corner of his mouth. “You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?”

Doc froze, wondering if Exo knew what he and Fixie had been up to for the past few hours. Had he come to punish them for their unauthorized foray to the transmitter and their efforts to restore Hammersmith’s dream?

“Well?” Exo pulled the jerky strip from his mouth and flapped it at each of the men in turn. “Who’s been the naughty one? Dr. Hammersmith, or his lovely assistant?”

“Neither.” Fixie smiled and spread his arms. “We’ve both been working hard and keeping our noses clean.”

“That’s too bad.” Exo looked deeply disappointed. “I was going to give the naughtiest one a treat!” He held up the jerky. “A hunk of the
last
naughty one to get my attention.” He waved the jerky in the air, then brought it down and bit off the end of it with savage gusto.

Doc went on smiling but recoiled inside. Cannibalism. It never got old in the Deathlands.

Exo strolled the perimeter of the chamber, looking around at the parts and pieces in various states of repair. “So can we have this ready by tomorrow?”

“Of course!” Fixie saluted with a flourish. “We were just saying that was when we’d be ready, weren’t we, Dr. H.?”

Doc met Fixie’s gaze, which told him all he needed to know. Play along. “Yes, yes. No later than tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait!” Exo twirled Doc’s swordstick like a majorette’s baton. “Tomorrow, the Shift will be mine! And after that, the sky’s the limit!”

“Actually,” Fixie said, “we’ll need a little more time for the sky.”

Exo whipped around and glared Fixie, shaking the point of the swordstick at him. For a moment, Doc thought he was going to go ballistic and punish Fixie for his egregious comment.

But instead, Exo’s glare turned into a grin. “A
little
more?” He laughed. “So be it! But I expect the stars to be part of the package.”

“Done and done.” Fixie dusted off his hands and took a bow.

Exo hurried over and gave him a long hug. Then he turned to Doc, reaching out as if he was going to hug him, too.

Instead, as usual, he took a swing at him. The blow was an uppercut pumped deep into Doc’s belly, blasting the breath right out of him.

Exo bit off another hank of jerky, then threw the remaining piece on the floor between Doc and Fixie. “Here, fight over that for your dinner.” Laughing, he strutted out the door, twirling Doc’s swordstick at his side. “No time for a sit-down meal today! You can feast all you want tomorrow, after my empire has come to pass.”

As Doc watched him go, his hand patted the razor blade in his pocket. He wanted to fish it out and put it to use so badly, just to finish off that mutie monster.

But he knew the time wasn’t right.

“Don’t worry about him,” Fixie said after Exo had gone. “He’ll be out of the picture before you know it.”

Doc frowned as the pain from the punch in his gut
began to subside. “What do you know about his brain damage?” he asked.

“From the fever, you mean?”

“I suppose.” Doc shrugged. “Ankh told me that Exo had experienced some form of brain damage and hasn’t been the same since.”

“You might say that.” Fixie nodded. “Everything in the Shift is subject to transformation, including diseases. Exo and Ankh caught one of the worst of them and nearly died. Only Ankh came out of it with his mind intact. Exo’s mind was twisted, many of his memories lost or altered. That’s why he thinks you’re Hammersmith, and he doesn’t remember the truth about Ankh.”

“Truth? What truth?”

“Ankh is family,” Fixie replied. “Ankh is Exo’s younger brother.” With that, he trotted across the chamber and opened a panel in the floor. “Hey, I could use a hand over here.”

Doc heard him but didn’t move. He was too busy processing what Fixie had just told him. “But…but Ankh is plotting to overthrow him.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Fixie grabbed a voltage meter and sat on the edge of the open floor panel. “He is one cruel, crazy son of a bitch. The sucker punch he gave you is nothing compared to the atrocities he’s committed since his mind went.”

“Then, why hasn’t anyone overthrown him until now?”

“Better the devil you know, right?” Fixie nodded knowingly and eased himself down into the opening in the floor.

“Until now.”

“Exactly.” Fixie raised his voice to be heard from under the flooring. “Things are finally about to change around here. Only they won’t change the way Ankh thinks they will. When it’s all over, he’ll be finished, too.”

“And who’ll be in charge then? You?”

“Not me.” Fixie laughed. “No one will be in charge.”

“You are referring to a state of anarchy?” Doc asked.

“We’re making a paradise here,” Fixie said. “Who needs tyrants in paradise?”

Doc couldn’t argue with his logic, though history provided far too many examples to the contrary. “So when will the device truly be ready? Tomorrow must be an overly optimistic deadline, but…”

“No, it’s not.” Fixie popped up from the hole in the floor, shaking his head. “If anything, it’s overly conservative. Not that I was going to tell him that.”

Doc frowned. “You can get it done sooner?”

“You better believe it, Theo. We’ll have the system online within the hour, barring unforeseen failures. I told you, I’ve been working on this for a while now.”

“Dribs and drabs, you said.”

Fixie shrugged. “I might have been playing it down a little, now that you mention it.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Krysty reluctantly smoked another of Hammersmith’s joints, but the pounding in her head kept getting worse.

The reason seemed pretty clear. She and the rest of the team, and their prisoner, were hiking the last few miles to the core. The landscape-warping and animal-mutating forces emanated from there. According to Hammersmith, the core represented the greatest concentration of those forces in the Shift. So it was to be expected that they would break through whatever relief she had found in Hammersmith’s drug.

But the fact remained that she had to work through the pain, no matter how bad it got. They were too close to finding Doc, if he was still alive, for her to hobble the team in any way and jeopardize the rescue.

Thinking back to her earlier seizures, which had occurred much farther from the core, she dreaded the onset of more pain at that level. To ward it off, she tried placing herself in a meditative kind of state, focusing on peaceful thoughts and maintaining an even keel in all ways.

It helped, at least, that Ryan was by her side. His presence always calmed her in even the most extreme situations.

His arm brushed against her now and then as they walked, just enough to remind her that he was there. That he would do everything in his power to keep her from suffering, no matter what it cost him.

“Not far now,” said Hammersmith, who was guiding
the group, walking in front between Jak and Ricky. “Everybody keep alert from here on out.”

“Thought you said way back,” Jak stated. “Keep us off radar.”

“We are, Casper,” Hammersmith snapped. “But you never know when one of those mutie bastards might happen to be out having a smoke or taking a piss when you least expect it, do you?”

“Jumpy?” Jak asked. “Nervous ’bout going home?”

“Not a bit, you pasty-faced bastard.”

“Not worry. We got back.” Jak chuckled. “Sides and front different story.”

“Up yours,” Hammersmith snarled.

Krysty managed a small smile in spite of the rising pain in her head. A little friction wasn’t a bad thing on the way to a fight; it helped take the edge off, took their minds off the danger just enough.

It was better to focus on Hammersmith’s trash talk than the real wild card in their midst: Union. Taking her with them had the potential to blow up in their faces. It was impossible to predict what she might do at the core, which crazy or malicious whim her split personalities might decide to indulge.

J.B. and Mildred had eyes and blasters on Union at all times. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her mouth was gagged. But Krysty wouldn’t bet jack that she wasn’t still a threat. If an opportunity presented itself, Krysty couldn’t imagine that Union would pass it up.

Suddenly, Hammersmith slowed his pace, gesturing for everyone to do the same. The group eased along a winding path through a maze of small hills, casting long shadows from the almost-setting sun.

They emerged in an open space, a broad, sandy flat centered on two big hills some fifty yards away.

“This is it,” Hammersmith announced. “Welcome to the core.”

“Not see anything,” Jak said. “Core invisible?”

“Underground.” Hammersmith pointed an index finger downward. “It’s inside an old military base that survived skydark. My old stomping grounds.”

Immediately, Krysty realized he had to be referring to a redoubt. She looked over at Ryan, who kept his poker face firmly in place but met her gaze with the same instantaneous understanding.