Deathlands 124: Child of Slaughter (21 page)

Instead, he spotted the silhouette of a wheeled vehicle, a war wag with a big square nose. The wag hurtled through gaps between hills, its giant tires churning up sand in great swirling clouds.

Friend or foe? That was the big question in Ricky’s mind as he watched the wag charge toward the team. Unfortunately, the answer would only come when the wag arrived and started shooting…or didn’t.

Heart pounding, Ricky ran through the group to what had been the rear flank. It was now the point, with Ryan and J.B. taking up positions, preparing to mount a defense if it became necessary.

“What are we up against?” Ricky asked.

“Looks like an APC,” J.B. replied. “Armored personnel carrier, affiliation unknown.”

“Shoot first?” Jak had just darted in beside Ricky with his Colt Python raised and ready. “Questions later?”

“Negative,” Ryan snapped. “Wait for my mark!”

The wag continued roaring closer, churning clouds of sand. Sunlight glinted from its tinted black windows, throwing sparks that burned spots in Ricky’s eyes.

“Get ready to scatter if we can’t turn it off course,” Ryan shouted. “We won’t have much time to get out of its way.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Ricky saw that Krysty and Mildred had formed a second row, staggered so they had clear lines of fire through the gaps in the front rank.

But one member of the group was nowhere to be seen, Ricky realized. “Where’s Union?”

“Don’t know and don’t care right now,” Ryan said without looking back. “Bigger fish to fry at the moment.”

It was true enough. The wag was bearing down on them fast.

Ricky braced himself, finger on the trigger of the carbine, aiming at one of the wag’s huge front tires. The rest of the team did the same beside and behind him, chambering rounds, taking aim and tightening their grips on their weapons.

“Here we go!” Ryan shouted. “Get ready!”

The wag continued to race forward. Sweat ran down Ricky’s neck and back as he prepared to take action.

Then, thirty yards out, the wag jolted to a stop. Suddenly, Ricky became less likely to get run over by an APC, though his odds of getting shot at still seemed high.

Like the others in his group, he kept his weapon aimed and ready to fire. He didn’t take his eyes off the wag for a second; it had no visible external blasters, but someone could pop out of the vehicle at any time with ordnance in hand.

“Come out of there!” Ryan called. “Reach for the sky!”

As if on cue, the driver’s door sprang open. Ricky fully
expected to see the barrel of a blaster or grenade launcher poke out of that cover, aimed in their direction, but for a moment, he saw nothing.

Then he saw the fingers of one hand grip the edge of the door. Another hand caught the door frame, and then a head appeared as the wag’s driver boosted himself up from inside the vehicle.

Ricky’s eyes shot wide with surprise. The driver was pretty much the last person they expected to see.

“Really?” It was Dr. Hammersmith, shouting back with his usual disgruntled attitude. “Not only do I decide to rejoin your suicide brigade, but I bring along a damn war wag, and this is the shit you give me?”

“For all we knew, you were coming to kill us,” Ryan snapped. Ricky noticed he hadn’t lowered his blaster yet.

“Why in seven shades of hell would I kill you before you help me reach my objectives?” Hammersmith asked. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later!”

“You’re assuming we want you to join up with us,” Ryan said. “Let me tell you, that’s a hell of a big assumption!”

“Then, maybe you ought to just shoot me and take the wag!” Hammersmith replied. “At least then mebbe you’ll act as though you’ve got some balls.”

For a moment, Ricky thought Ryan looked as if he wanted to pull the trigger. But then he lowered his Steyr Scout longblaster.

As the rest of the group followed his example, Ryan posed a question. “Who wants to go for a ride with this lunatic?”

“Depends,” J.B. said, and then he raised his voice so Hammersmith could hear him. “Is he at least gonna try to act civil?”

“Hell no!” Hammersmith snapped. “I’ll probably be crankier, since I’m doing this against my better judgment!”

J.B. looked at Ryan. “Do we have a choice?”

Ryan shook his head. “Those bastards who took Doc are way out ahead of us. Mebbe the wag gives us a chance to catch up.”

J.B. scowled and blew out his breath. “Damn. Doc better appreciate this.”

“If he’s even still alive, he will,” Ryan told him, and then he looked around the group. “Anyone not riding?”

No one spoke up or raised a hand.

“What about Union?” Ryan frowned as he looked for her.

“Sign me up,” Union said as she strolled out from behind a hill, looking slightly disheveled. “As long as Hammershit stays away from me.” Ricky didn’t have to see the auburn braid to know Rhonda was in charge.

The real mystery was where Union had been for the past few minutes, but Ricky figured he had zero chance of finding an answer for that one.

“I’ll stay clear of you if you stay clear of me,” Hammersmith said, then added, “Bitch.”

“All right, then.” Ryan started for the wag and waved for the others to follow. “Enough pissing around. Let’s pile in that thing and get where we’re going.”

“Hammershit.” Jak chuckled and elbowed Ricky. “Good one, huh?”

“And please.” Ryan glared at them over his shoulder. “Don’t antagonize this dick.”

“You just did,” shouted Hammersmith, who’d heard every word. “And furthermore, fuck off, all of you!”

Ryan grinned at Jak and Ricky. “Let me take care of the antagonizing for you,” he said.

“Good enough,” Jak agreed. “Always enjoy watching master work.”

“Now saddle up, people!” Ryan shouted. “We’ve got a bastard load of ground to cover!”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“We are almost at the core, are we not?” Doc asked, though he didn’t say how he knew. He didn’t tell Ankh that the fizzing feeling in his head had become more or less constant at that point.

“That’s right,” Ankh told him. “It’s less than a mile away now.”

“Good, good,” Doc said matter-of-factly as he trudged along through the high late-morning heat. The temperature had forced him to take his frock coat off and carry it over his shoulder from a hooked finger. The clothes he’d been wearing underneath were soaked with sweat anyway; he found himself wishing he could take some of those off, too.

Just then, Ankh cleared his throat. “What we talked about earlier.” He spoke in a low voice, though he didn’t need to. Doc was moving so slowly, he was keeping the two of them well back from the squad of shifters, out of earshot. “Are you clear on your part in the plan?”

“It could not be clearer.” Doc nodded. “Though I feel compelled to remind you that I am not any kind of expert on whatever equipment my predecessor might have developed.”

“Just follow my lead and keep a clear head, and you’ll do fine.”

“Good,” Doc said, though his head was anything but clear at that moment. Was the rising intensity of the fizzing due to the core’s proximity, or another landscape change waiting to happen?

“Remember, once the action starts, things will happen fast,” Ankh stated. “But I’ve got plenty of friends among the troops as well as the core station guards. Exo and his people are outnumbered, and our victory is assured.”

Doc thought of saying something about how quickly an assured victory could become the opposite, but then he decided to keep that one to himself. “That is most excellent news, Ankh,” he said instead. “Your plan seems to me quite sound indeed.”

Suddenly, Doc felt the ground shudder underfoot. Exo, at the front of the ranks, shot a hand in the air, and all the shifter troops immediately stopped in their tracks.

Was another transformation in the making? Was that the source of the fizzing in Doc’s head? All he knew for sure was that the earth was shaking, and the shifters were very much on alert.

“What’s happening?” Doc asked. “Another change in the Shift?”

“Yes and no,” Ankh replied. “You’ll see.”

Just then, fifty feet away between two big hills, the sandy ground lifted up, revealing a pitch-black gap underneath it.

“What spontaneously generated landform will this be, I wonder?” Doc asked as he watched the slab of ground continue to crank backward.

Ankh looked at him as if he was stupid. “It’s not spontaneously generated. It’s a hidden door, is what it is.”

“Ah. I see.” Doc nodded as the slab reached a forty-five-degree angle and stopped. Its underside was mounted with machinery—giant gears and levers that stopped turning and left the great weight propped above its socket in the ground.

“This is it, Doc,” Ankh said. “Congratulations on returning to the core after too long away.”

Doc was distracted by the entryway before him. He’d
never been there before, but it looked very familiar to him nonetheless.

“Don’t worry.” Ankh elbowed him in the side. “It’s a lot more impressive once you get through the door.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Just remember,” Ankh whispered urgently, “Hammersmith has been here many times before, so don’t act as if this is your first time seeing the place.”

“Understood,” Doc replied.

Up ahead, Exo started toward the entrance, signaling with a wave for the other shifters to follow. Ankh and Doc fell in step, moving as quickly toward the opening as the rest of the troops.

“This is a massive complex,” Ankh whispered. “Hammersmith was brilliant, creating it as his base and staging ground.”

“So it would seem.” Doc peered into the gaping dark cavity up ahead, wrestling with the nagging feeling that it was somehow familiar to him. “I take it you’ve spent a good deal of time here yourself, Ankh?”

“You might say that. I know the place like the back of my hand.”

Exo was the first one over the threshold. As soon as he set foot on the ramp leading down from the edge of the entryway, lights flashed to life on the underside of the slab above him.

“Motion sensors,” Doc said. Technology like that wasn’t common in postdark times; he’d rarely seen it outside caches of predark equipment that had survived the apocalypse for one reason or another.

“Wait till you see what else is in this place,” Ankh said. “Exo chose it as the base of his new empire for a reason, you know.”

Doc followed him down the ramp on the heels of the troops. The slab lowered back into place behind them, automatically
closing the door when the last of the visitors had gone inside.

When Doc descended to the first level with the shifters, he saw there was a wide, short hallway ahead, well lit and ending in a pair of giant blast doors. The layout suggested a shelter of some kind, designed to keep out the extreme force of a nuclear explosion and its aftermath.

Exo walked to an intercom panel set into the wall near the doors. He used the silver lion’s head of Doc’s swordstick to tag the button that would connect him to whoever was on the other side.

“I have returned!” Exo shouted into the panel. “And I’ve brought back our runaway whitecoat and hope for the future.”

As soon as he said it, the shifter forces cheered. Every one of them roared with approval, which made Doc wonder how much support Ankh really had. He claimed to have Exo and his people outnumbered, so victory was assured, but those pro-Exo cheers sounded pretty genuine.

“Open the doors!” Exo ordered. “Let’s not waste another second in setting my glorious empire in motion!”

Again, every shifter soldier cheered. Blasters were raised and shaken overhead in martial jubilation.

Exo turned from the intercom and faced the crowd. “We shall rule all the Shift and then the lands outside the Shift, as well! A new era is about to begin!”

The troops chanted his name over and over. The sound of all those voices raised to the ceiling filled the corridor with a deafening roar. Doc put his hands over his ears to take the edge off, but it didn’t do much good.

It was then that a siren howled, overriding the cheers, and lights along the gray metal walls began to flash. With a boom of separation, the big blast doors began to slide apart.

“This is it.” Ankh rubbed his hands together eagerly.
“We’re going in. How does it feel to be on the cusp of destiny, my friend?”

Doc didn’t answer. He was too busy gazing at what lay behind the opening doors.

His breath caught in his throat as the doors moved farther apart. The hairs on the back of his neck sprang up, but the reaction had nothing to do with what Exo had claimed was history in the making.

At that moment, Doc was much more focused on the past.

“By the Three Kennedys!” he whispered to himself. “This place…”

When the blast doors had parted most of the way, he saw the view beyond them with clarity. He saw crimson-skinned muties gathered in the extension of the hallway, cheering as the doors parted before them.

But Doc wasn’t nearly as interested in the new batch of muties as he was in the layout of the place…the walls, the tunnel.

“Ah, yes.” Ankh was grinning at him. “I see you are awestruck already, and this is but the entrance to our magnificent complex.”

“Awestruck, yes.” Doc nodded slowly. Up ahead, the shifter muties from both sides of the blast doors were rushing together, hugging and laughing as they reunited at the threshold. Someone on the other side was playing a musical instrument that sounded like a cross between a guitar and a dying cow, and the happy muties were dancing to the music.

But all Doc could focus on was the blast doors. They meant something to him, something unexpected, something that cast this place in an entirely new light.

“This is where it will all happen,” Ankh said. “A new beginning, though not quite the one that Exo expects.”

Doc did not reply. His mind was too busy racing, processing
the new information about the core and the Shift, considering what it meant to him and his friends. The implications were staggering.

If the core of the Shift was a redoubt, and the shifter muties were in control of it, as they appeared to be, Doc’s life had just gotten a good deal more complicated.