Doomsday Warrior 11 - American Eden (18 page)

Indeed the metal creature-bombs paused in their tracks once the Freefighters were silent. Their little antennae spun this way and that, searching for a noise.

“Who activated them?” Rona whispered.

“Maybe no one. My guess is an earthquake toppled the crates,” said Rock, “and when the crates fell, some must have rolled out and hit their power-on switches on something. Let’s slowly move out, keeping our weapons trained on them—you first, Rona.”

But the instant she moved, so did the leader among the metal death machines. Rona froze in her tracks. “What now?” she asked. “They seem to follow movement too.”

“No, the echo in the corridor is amplifying our footfalls,” Detroit said. “They will follow us, try to catch us—but see how slow they move? Like crabs more than ants. Their batteries must be run-down. After a century, why wouldn’t they be?”

“Yeah, maybe we can outrun them, or maybe we should just shoot ’em to pieces,” McCaughlin snarled out.

“We’ll try to run up the corridor. They might not have the energy to follow . . . Quickly, along the left wall, out of their way. Everyone—let’s
go.”

But such an easy escape was not to be. The minute they took off, running as fast as they could, the insidious metal things took after them, bleeping and grinding on ancient gears but still moving rapidly. They came after the humans like voracious insects that had spotted fresh meat. Whatever powered the little metal hell-things still propelled them faster than a man—or woman—could run.

Chen, who was in the rear, tossed several exploding shurikens accurately over his shoulder as he took flight, and they made their targets. But the metal things absorbed the explosive force of the deadly star-knives, and once they righted themselves from their fallen-over positions, they kept coming.

The most the martial-arts master’s weapons did was knock several on their bellies momentarily.

“Spread out so you don’t hit each other, and fire back whenever you see one getting close to you,” Rockson ordered. He crouched and, turning, himself blasted back accurately with a withering barrage of .9mm death. Then he fired six explosive shells from his shotpistol.

The shiny metal things were blasted off their feet, but the bullets zinged off their extra-hard shells into the darkness. And again they righted themselves and kept coming. A quick play of the light behind showed hundreds, maybe thousands, of the tough little monsters.

“We’ll have to think of something else to stop them,” Rock yelled over the barrage of fire pouring out of the Freefighters’ weapons.

“I’ve got an idea,” Scheransky said. “We throw some of our stuff—clothes, anything, behind us. They grab it and blow themselves up. Let them destroy themselves if we can’t do it.”

“I’ll never say anything against borscht again.” Rock said. “A brilliant idea. Everyone—take off up the corridor. But discard some items of clothing—anything.”

Chen threw down his souvenir of the battles in Death City—the odd helmet he’d snatched from the Snake Temple soldier. It rolled toward the little beeping followers.

A flashbeam—Detroit’s—shot back to reveal two of the little nasties pouncing upon it and wrapping their little steel legs about the helmet’s circumference. Then they blew up. Pieces of metal flew everywhere, one catching Chen in the shoulder.

Rockson encouraged the runners to continue the discarding of materials. There had to be some limit to the numbers of the metal scabies, he figured.

Within minutes the near-exhausted sprinters had nothing save their clothing and weapons to discard behind them. And Rockson knew they couldn’t keep up the pace much longer. Danik was near his limit for sure.

Rockson, concerned for the others, should have paid more attention to his own bootheels. A particularly well functioning scabie-bomb was suddenly upon him. It scurried up to hold fast to his left boot, almost tripping him. It was beeping faster and faster. It was going to explode.

Twenty-One

H
e winced in pain as the sharp crablike legs of the ambulatory bomb seized his foot in their crushing grip. He tore at his bootlaces and pulled out of the boot, thus leaving the death-maker behind. He ran onward, sharp rocks on the floor of the corridor ripping at his bare foot; still he was catching up to the Freefighters, who were cheering him on, urging him to get away from the thing before—

Boom
. The thing that had grabbed his boot exploded. And more of the beastly bugs came pouring through its smoke.

The Freefighters poured their combined fire on the little menaces that were closest to catching up to Rockson, but one of the steel-legged hell-things put on a burst of battery-driven speed and climbed onto his calf and sunk its steel-tipped legs into his flesh. He fell, and tore at it; he could hear the soft ticking grow louder, the beeping grow more intense as he pried at the many legs of steel.

The Freefighters were hanging back, desperate to help. “Go on, don’t wait for me.” It was a direct order and obeyed by all—except for Class Act. Class Act, snarling and with its triple row of steely teeth exposed to the full, leapt out of the nearby darkness and plunged against the tenacious machine-creature. The loyal wolf-dog furiously tore at the lethal walking bomb, succeeding in tearing it from Rockson’s leg. Then the dog itself became the target of the relentless steel claws. The metal mandibles locked around the belly of the beast. Class Act, howling like a hound of hell itself, ran off into the Stygian blackness.

There was a blast. Bits of raw, red dog flesh and fur pelt were thrown at Rockson as he painfully rose to his feet.

Rockson painfully limped along after his companions. The loyal sled dog had given him his life back.

Detroit was lobbing grenade after grenade behind Rock, having set the pineapples on slow fuse. Some were grabbed and held by the bombs, other blew up by themselves.

Archer came up to Rockson and lifted the injured man and threw him over his shoulder. They took off again up the corridor.

When the hell, thought Rockson through a veil of pain, would they reach Eden? Would the damned killer claws follow them into it even if they did reach their goal?

Danik, his legs or breath having given out, fell. McCaughlin swept him up and carried him easily.

Rock’s leg was torn in two places; a sharp pain jolted him at every step of the giant man holding him.

It was not just his own problem—or Danik’s. It was obvious—they could no longer outrun the ambulatory arsenal. They would have to make a stand.

Rockson, from his awkward position, was able to see ahead. He saw a place to make a stand.

“Quick, behind those barrels ahead.”

The Freefighters, exhausted and about to give out, dove behind the barrels and took up positions, crouching or full out flat in the spaces between the round black containers. Their weapons, already half out of ammo, were leveled once more at the pursuing infernal devices. Rockson ordered, “Open up with everything you have.”

“Hold your fire,” Rona said. “Try lobbing these babies.” She had broken open a barrel with the butt of her rifle and found some useful items.

McCaughlin was handed one.
“Helmets!”
he exclaimed.

They had all seen the things seize the helmet that Chen had thrown at them, and had all wished they had taken one of the Death City souvenirs with them. Now they had ample supplies of the things. These were more-ordinary steel affairs—brown twentieth-century U.S. Army combat helmets. They’d do.

The Freefighters broke open more barrels and heaved away the contents. Each helmet tossed meant one less bomb. And in a matter of fifty tosses, there were no more of the little bastards to follow them.

Rockson and the others slowly rose from their positions.

Rock dropped the helmet in his hand. “There are only a handful of the helmets left. It was a good thing we ran out of scabies before we ran out of helmets.”

“Now what?” Detroit asked.

“Now we go on,”
Rock said, with determination—and pain—etched in his voice. He shook away helping hands as he tore a piece of fabric from his jacket and tied up the leg wound. “It didn’t hit any major vessels. I can walk—even if it smarts a bit.”

Rockson hoped that the corridor would shortly bring them to the fissure that led to Eden. Instead they exited the corridor into another cavern, this one lit by some sort of luminous rock, and filled with brilliant amethyst crystal formations. “Man,” said Detroit, “This is really something.”

Danik exclaimed, “We are at the threshhold of Eden. In the stories—they speak of an Amethyst Cave that sends pleasant cool winds into Eden via a fissure near the lake. This is the place.”

“Well, I never saw the likes of something like this,” McCaughlin said. “You must be right.”

Rockson told them to fan out and try to find a wind—the escaping cool air that flowed into their destination.

Archer found the draft. His big floppy hat blew off, and was almost sucked into the crevice. His beard fluttered, his crystal skull-filling flashed with red and blue sparks of excitement.
“Heeeerrreee,”
he yelled.

Rock told the others to sit down a bit before they plunged into Eden. He had decided on a plan of action. A plan that all except Archer—who always agreed with Rock—and Detroit and Chen thought might work. All the others were dead set against it.

“I’ll make it orders,” Rock said, once he told them of his idea. “It’s the only way I can imagine we can overcome all of Eden’s forces in one blow.”

Twenty-Two

A
t that very moment in Eden, in the steam room of his private rooms adjoining the austere Government Building, Stafford lounged restfully. He loved the steam, the heat, the sweating. His flaccid, hairy body responded to it, sang with the steam hissing from the heated rocks.

And he didn’t like to be disturbed in these sojourns into peace. The affairs of state were most trying, and he had to have his relaxation.

The door at the far end of the misty room opened. A cool breeze came in.

“Mannerly? Is that you? Shut the damned door.”

“Sir,” said Mannerly, the butler, coming in quickly and closing the door, “where are you?”

“Over here. At the far end. Come over here and speak. What do you want? What’s so important?”

“Sir,” said the tall tuxedoed Mannerly, stepping carefully on the slick tiles, “there are visitors. Most urgent, they say.”

“Urgent? Have you their card?”

“Yessir,” Mannerly replied.

“Then bring it here, at once.”

Mannerly managed to reach his master in a few more moments of dangerous slipping and sliding. He leaned over the seated naked man and proffered a silver tray, upon which was a single business card.

Stafford grumbled and picked it up. It was already soggy.
Bdos Err, Chief of the Civil Guard
, it said.

“Hrummph,” Stafford said, “Well, I guess I must see him—fetch me that robe over there . . .”

Mannerly gingerly stepped to the hook and removed the white robe, then brought it to Stafford.

Stafford walked while he put it on, and Mannerly followed, hoping to not get lost in the steam.

Stafford, once out into the gray-carpeted gray living room bare of any decorations, sat down in his audience chair, clad in his robe. He looked up at the tall pinch-nosed Mannerly. His tuxedo was quite soggy, and damp, all the starch coming out of it. Stafford grinned. He looked positively uncomfortable. He himself was quite comfortable. The heat of the volcanic heated sauna room lingered in his bones. “Show Bdos Err in. Mannerly, don’t just stand there.”

Bdos Err, all six foot six, three hundred muscular pounds of him, toting his bullwhip in his hamhock-sized fist and wearing metal armor-mail, strode in noisily. At his side were his two martial arts experts, Nunchaku-man and Dedman. They wore plainer outfits, black synth-leather fighting suits.

They looked formidable, and were. In the recent disturbances, they had struck terror—and death—into the rising tide of dissenters to Stafford’s iron rule.

Bdos Err was the toughest man in Eden. Stafford wished he had more like him. The Civil Guard was too weak, too soft.

“Sir,” the Guard chief began, saluting across his broad chest of steel, “our detectors buried in the floor of the Amethyst Cave show movements in the area.”

“Earth tremors?”

“No sir—footsteps. We weren’t sure at first, they were so far away—but they are getting louder—and a few minutes earlier, a whole series of sharp reports—explosions.”

Stafford stood up and wrapped the robe’s belt around his rather rotund waist. He balled his fists and hissed, “It must be Danik.”

“Or an attack from Death City, sir. We’ve been expecting one for fifty years.”

“No,” said Stafford, “it’s Danik. He’s come back . . . How many people are there coming our way?” Stafford’s forehead was a mass of wrinkles of concern.

“A half-dozen, perhaps a few more.”

Stafford smiled. “That’s around the same number we suspect Danik left with. So, he returns from the surface. I told him—
and
his party of fools—that the surface is impossible. A terrible unlivable hell. Well, his failure will show the people how correct I am . . . Bdos, it is good you come here with these words. I want the group rounded up the minute they exit into our paradise. I do not want either him or any of his party injured—just apprehended.” Stafford smiled, pacing back and forth, thinking. “Yes, they are to be executed in the Public Square. That will end the last resistance to my rule. The dissenters figure Danik to be their leader—his death before their eyes . . .”

“What are my orders, sir?”

“Go to the Lake Area, keep a lookout near the crevice that leads to the caverns. Apprehend anyone who emerges. Bring them to me.”

“If they resist?” These words of Bdos Err brought twisted smiles to his companions’ faces, for they were adepts at rendering pain, at destroying flesh. Nunchaku-man fingered the two metal sticks attached to a chain shoved into his waistband. And Dedman tightened his grip on the steel shaft of a spear that he held to his side.