Remember Tomorrow (7 page)

Those firing on them from behind were keeping well in cover and return fire was pointless. They couldn’t turn left or right, in case they walked into a hail of fire. Their only chance was to head straight across and reach the end of the corridor, where it doglegged to the right. It was about fifty yards and they’d have to do it in shifts.

Jak kept the rear covered, while Ryan and Doc took the first run. On a count of three they flung themselves across the junction, Ryan firing to his left with the Sig Sauer while Doc was ready to pepper any fire from the right with the shot chamber on his LeMat. There was none, but to take that corridor, which ran for over a hundred yards exposed, would have left them open to fire from the rear.

When Ryan and Doc were over, Mildred and Krysty followed, with Jak between them, moving backward rapidly.

Once across, Ryan headed rapidly for the dogleg while the others covered the rear from follow-up attacks. The one-eyed man skidded to a halt as the corridor turned and recced around the corner, using the Steyr to draw any fire before risking a glance.

It was clear. He beckoned to the others and they followed.

They ran down the dogleg to the next level of the redoubt, only to find that their way was blocked by a closed sec door.

“Fuck it, they must know the codes to get that down,” Ryan breathed. “This door was up when we left.”

“Who the hell are these people?” Mildred asked, not really expecting an answer.

“People who know what they’re doing, my good woman,” Doc murmured. “You do realize that, with a minimum of firing and without showing themselves at all, they’ve forced us into a corner. And too damned easily.”

“You’re right, Doc. We’ve been triple stupe and let them run the play,” Ryan agreed. “Minds too busy elsewhere to get it together.”

“No time for recriminations, lover,” Krysty told him. “We’ve got to get ourselves out of this before we have the luxury to do that.”

“Yeah, but how? We don’t know how many of them there are or where they’re coming from. We’ve got our backs to a wall that could lift at any moment and we can’t lift it unless we want to expose ourselves.”

Ryan thought fast. There were two rooms on this leg of the corridor, both open and empty. To put themselves in one would give them cover on three sides, but would also imprison them.

Right now, cover was important. Even though he had a suspicion that this was what the enemy—whoever it was—had been directing him to, he still indicated that they should enter one of the rooms.

Jak kept watch while they built a barricade. His instincts were sharp, and were needed more than ever.

“I don’t get it,” Krysty said as they worked, the imminent danger echoed in the way her hair clung to her head and shoulders. “Why didn’t they take us out when they had the chance? Why are they driving us into this?”

“Perhaps, my dear, they wish to take us alive,” Doc mused. “This would be the best way. Force us here and then sit it out until we cannot go on.”

“But why wouldn’t they figure we’d come out blasting? Don’t they think we’d risk buying the farm?”

Doc allowed himself a sad smile. “We might, but that doesn’t increase their risk, does it? If we get chilled, we get chilled. This is, however, their best way of taking us alive with a minimum risk to themselves.”

“They’re here,” Jak said simply, pulling back into cover.

The companions took cover, blasters ready. Shapes flitted past the doorway to take positions on the far side and the companions fired. The roar of blasterfire and the stench of cordite was broken only by the screams of those they hit. From around the door, fire rained in on them. The barricade began to crumble.

“Have to take them head on,” Ryan yelled. “Otherwise we’ll be chilled meat anyway.”

They reloaded, ignoring the hail of fire around them as it ripped at their makeshift barricade and pit the walls with gaping holes of gouged-out concrete. They readied themselves for the attack. It was an almost suicidal charge, but they didn’t have the stomach to sit it out and wait to buy the farm.

“Ready?” Ryan asked. He was answered by gestures of assent.

One way or the other, it looked as though they were ready to join J.B., wherever the hell he may be.

Nothing made much sense to J.B. as he lay in a pool of water, a stream gently trickling around him. Nothing except the pain he felt, as though every muscle in his body had been torn, every bone fractured, every ligament wrenched. Even the pumping of his blood sent liquid pain coursing through his veins. If he could see through the agony enough to think with any kind of rationality, he would be surprised that the levels of pain hadn’t made him black out. But everything was too painful, the world too red and full of pulsing lights for that: he had no idea where he was and only a few vague memories of how he’d gotten there.

His head—that had been the thing that hurt most to begin with. He had been in a tunnel and he vaguely recalled something to do with dogs attacking him. Then the walls have caved in on him and he remembered the crushing pain of being under their weight. And then…

And then it went really crazy. It seemed like the whole pile of rocks around him had just been picked up and flicked over, like some force had turned the world upside down. He could remember the strangest sensation, in the blackness, of feeling an immense wave of motion wash over him, pushing him forward and then sideways as he hit a solid barrier that drove the breath from his body. He was tossed around like a branch in a dust storm, hitting the sides of the tunnel that was crumbling around him as he felt himself fall. He’d hit his head again and had the idea that he was blacking out and coming to, blacking out and coming to. How many times he had no idea. All he knew was that he had kept falling down until finally he hit water.

It wasn’t deep and it wasn’t moving fast, but he still hit it so hard that it felt like falling against another wall of rock. But this one gave under him and he found himself struggling not to breath, not to drag water down into his lungs as his descent slowed until he hit the floor of the river. Some part of his brain that was working despite himself wondered about the river. He’d figured there had to be a water table at some point, but not that it would be so deep. Stupe, how the brain does this when he should be thinking about staying alive.

The wave that had propelled him this far reached the water and the sluggish stream began to move faster, taking him with it. He had no idea which direction he was going in, only that he had to try to keep his head up and breathe in only when he could suck air into his lungs. Which would have been hard at the best of times, but he kept nodding in and out of consciousness from the blows to his skull.

The water seemed to fill the tunnel as it churned harder and faster, the force of it slamming against his body almost as hard as the rocks he’d been pelted with a short while before. There was less air, fewer pockets for him to gasp in quickly when he had the chance. The lights in his head began to glow more brightly, to move around in strange, dancing patterns. There was a humming in his ears, growing louder by the second, almost deafening. His lungs felt as though someone had tossed a torch of napalm into them. They were going to burst soon if he didn’t take another breath, yet he could feel he was still underwater.

So this was how it ended? He felt unimaginably weary and a lassitude descended on him. He didn’t care if he took in a lungful of water and drowned. Anything would be better than the awful burning in his chest.

J.B. relaxed and prepared to buy the farm. He exhaled and slipped blissfully out of consciousness.

He woke up with a head that felt like someone was pounding rocks on it and incredible pain everywhere else.

At least he was still alive.

He wanted to open his eyes, but was afraid of increasing the pain. He felt around him, slowly, with his fingertips. It was a muddy soil, slimy and slippery with a layer of water about two inches deep all around him. He could feel the water moving slowly past him in a trickle. It had to be dark where he was, as no great source of light penetrated his eyelids. And the water was flowing in a direction that took it from his legs up past his head. His legs felt particularly leaden. He flexed his calf and thigh muscles, which screamed protest at him. He stopped immediately, grateful for the sudden cessation. Then, steeling himself, he tried again.

From the resistance, he could tell that his legs were trapped from midthigh down and from the give, he knew that it wasn’t rock containing him, but mud. How the hell could he have gone through head and shoulders first and end up with his legs stuck so firmly? Trying to figure it out made his head spin and didn’t matter anyway. The fact was that he was stuck. Yeah, he had to have dislodged something as he came through the hole, and it fell around him, trapping him. Stupe thing was that he felt better for that, despite the fact that it did him no good.

Dark night, he needed to get the hell out of here before the water started to rush again, either sweeping him away or sweeping over him and drowning him once and for all. But he was so tired and it hurt so much. J.B. sank back into unconsciousness once more.

“F
UCK’S SAKES
, Sim, I don’t see what the problem is, here. Dammit, can’t Silborg or Denning see to their own damn problems?”

“Calm down, you’re starting to really bug the shit out of me.” The tall, broad-shouldered man called Sim cuffed his companion against the ear. It wasn’t hard enough to be meant with any malice, but despite his advancing years and graying beard and ponytail, Sim was still a strong man. The blow stung, making his companion wince.

“Fuck’s sakes, watch what you’re doing,” grumbled Hafler, who was smaller, skinnier and younger. He had a sharp, pointed face and his hair was cropped back apart from a thin Mahican stripe along the top of his skull. Both men were dressed in coarse linen trousers, plaid woolen shirts and heavy working boots. They were covered in splashes of mud, some old and dry, some more recent. Both had spent the day in their own sector, repairing and unblocking wells that had been damaged in the recent quake. The tremor had been felt all over their ville and while some were repairing houses and huts, they were part of the teams that had been sent to repair wells in the northern sector.

Only now, as a favor to Denning and Silborg, who had more damage in their sector to the south than the other three areas put together, Hafler and Sim were attending to the last well that was failing to bleed precious water into the storage tanks. It was hard enough keeping the ville watered as it was—they’d had to dig deep to find any water at all—without the wells blocking up from earth shifts.

This well was the most isolated and, as it was closest to the quake, the most likely to be badly damaged. Hafler was sure that this was why Silborg had asked them to take it on—that man would do anything to avoid work. Sim figured that someone had to do it, and as they’d finished their work, why not them? Besides, he had a similar opinion of Silborg and knew that he wouldn’t bother to do the job properly. Hafler was a born whiner, but at least he always did a good job.

The two men could see the well from several hundred yards away. Its lip was built up to a height of four feet from old brick and concrete built into a round wall, augmented by wattle and daub and some cement that they had managed to dredge up from a scavenger hunt to the prenuke villes nearby. Could have traded for it, but it was difficult to come by in a usable state and they didn’t want to skimp when building a wall around a well. Water was a precious commodity, the one thing in which they couldn’t trade.

The wall kept out any small mammals, stopping them from falling down and blocking the well. But the one thing they could do nothing about were the quakes. There had always been a few as the land was unstable, but never anything like yesterday’s. The damage had been widespread, if not too serious to repair quickly.

“You want to go down, give me a report?” Sim asked as they neared the lip.

Hafler sneered. “What’re you asking me for, Sim? You know an old fuck like you ain’t going down there when you can get someone younger—like me—to do it.”

Sim gave him a mirthless smile. “How did you guess?” he said, dripping with sarcasm.

“Yeah, real funny,” Hafler moaned. As they approached the lip of the well, he began to climb up, sitting astride the top. He held out his hand and Sim handed him a rope that he tied around his waist. Then he held out his hand again and the big man handed him a flashlight. Still without a word, Hafler solemnly tested it.

“Jeez!” Sim exclaimed. “It was okay half an hour ago.”

“Yeah, I know,” Hafler replied. “But who knows when these batteries will fuck up. And you’re not the one who’ll beat the end of the rope when they do.”

Sim sighed. “Just get your ass down there, will you?” he murmured, tying the rope around his own waist and bracing himself.

“Okay, just don’t even pretend that you’re letting me fall, right?”

“Would I do that?” Sim was the picture of injured innocence.

“You said that last time,” Hafler said as he disappeared from view.

Stooping, the big man picked up the excess coils of rope, paying them out as the thin man descended down the well. If there were repairs to be done, then they would have to go and get a wag with materials. If it was a blockage, then he would pitch the rope and join Hafler at the bottom, clearing the obstruction. Strictly speaking, someone should always stay up top, but it was quicker if they took a few risks. As long as Xander never found out.

Inside the well, Hafler descended at an even speed, clutching the rope with one hand and using the other to play the flash beam around the walls. This was one of the deepest wells and he started to feel closed in as the circle of sky above him grew smaller. His boots dug into the walls of the well, earth reinforced by stanchions and wattle and daub. It didn’t strike him as the best way to keep a well open, but given the scarcity of other materials, there wasn’t much of an option. Even so, the sweat spangled his top lip and ran down his brow as he tried not to think about the walls collapsing on him.

The beam of the flash swept lower as he descended. No sign of any collapse or instability yet. In fact, it seemed as though this well had stood up to the quake much better than any of the others they had attended to this day. In which case, what the hell could be blocking it?

For the closer he got to the bottom, the more he was sure that there actually was a problem with this well. He knew the sounds of water in the wells during different seasons and this should sound like a healthy stream. Instead, it sounded like a trickle. Something was stopping the water from flowing. He cursed to himself. It was too deep to spend too much time down here moving mud and unstable earth with any kind of comfort.

Hafler played the torch toward the base of the well, expecting to see a pile of mud and rock that needed digging out. The last thing he expected was to a see a man, covered in mud, blood and bruises, laying across the channel, his legs embedded in a small mudslide.

Hafler tugged the rope urgently. Sim put his head over the top, causing the rope to give and Hafler to jerk downward.

“What’s the problem? Kinda scary in the dark, is it?”

“Don’t fuck me around,” Hafler snapped. “Look at this.” He played the beam down again until it shone across the prone form of J. B. Dix.

“Shit,” Sim breathed. “How the hell did he get there? Come to that, who is he? Don’t look familiar to me.”

“Y’know what? I don’t care if he’s your fucking cousin. He’s the block in the well and we need to get him out.”

“Sure we can’t just leave him there?”

“Yeah, right—and have Xander ask us why the water’s dried up or why it’s diseased when this fucker rots?”

Sim sniffed. “Yeah, guess so. Tell you what, I’ll let you down, then you tie the rope round him and clear that mud jam around his legs while I pull him up.”

“Great plan,” Hafler muttered sarcastically, though in truth it was the only thing that could be done.

Sim lowered Hafler down until the small man was standing in the shallow stream. There was barely room to stand beside the prone body and it was hard for him to untie the rope, squat and tie it around the limp body in the confined space. But he did find out one thing…

“Take him up,” he yelled, tugging on the rope when it was secured around the prone man. “And guess what—the fucker’s alive,” he added, giving the unconscious J.B. a savage kick in the ribs to vent his anger at having to move him. The impact made the Armorer stir. “Yeah, and there’ll be more of that, you awkward fuck,” Hafler muttered.

He flattened himself to the side of the well while the body, jerking, was tugged past him. He had the flash fixed into his belt, shining downward, and the light from above was blocked by the prone figure, which kept bumping into the walls. Scatterings of earth and pebbles fell from the construction, dislodged from the body’s upward journey.

“Careful, you old fuck, or you’ll bring it down on me,” Hafler muttered to himself before turning his attention to the floor of the well. The water was now running more freely, although uncovering the Armorer’s legs had brought down a little more mud. The depth was up to the tops of his workboots and his wet feet told him that the boots weren’t in the good condition he’d thought they were. Ignoring this, Hafler set to work clearing the obstruction and shoring it up with the slabs of rock—dislodged by the arrival of J.B.—that had been used to form a channel in and out of the well, the smaller channel being on the outward flow, acting as a dam to build the water level. While he worked, he tried not to think about the fact that he was at the bottom of the well, without any lifeline to the land above.