Chapter Twenty-One

Their load lightened, the companions began to pull away from the wave of death, the crackling of the leaves slowly fading into the distance. Soon it was gone from sight, and living green plants surrounded them once more. The itching eased, and the metal of their blasters started to cool. But the riders didn't slow their frantic pace through the Tennessee woods. Soon, the trees began to thin, and the companions broke out of the woods and onto smooth rolling grasslands again. An hour passed in silent speed, clouds forming overhead to mask the eternal stars and moon. Thankfully, there was no sign of the pools and streams that had surrounded the redoubt before. The waters must have receded over time and the land was alive again. But not for long.

"We should be safe now," Dean said hopefully. The boy held his Browning Hi-Power and a single clip in sweaty hands, ready to lose both should it prove necessary. He had tried unlacing his combat boots, but it was plainly impossible to do that on a moving bike.

Shaking her head, Krysty released her hair from its confines, and the fiery cascade flexed freely once more. "Thank Gaia that's over," she exhaled. "My hair was in agony!"

"Nobody stop until we reach the redoubt!" Mildred countered, still hunched over the handlebars. "And watch the clouds! The Kite might be skipping ahead of us, so we race straight into its beams."

Maneuvering his bike closer, Ryan shouted, "What was that?"

The open spaces allowing her to relax a notch, Mildred bit a lip and tried to figure a way to explain what they had just faced. "In the kitchens of the redoubts," she replied, "you've used the microwave oven to boil water, and once we baked a potato. Same thing."

Ryan frowned as the engine of his bike sputtered, and he revved the throttle. The Harley was dangerously low on fuel. "You called it a Kite," he called out. "That a war satellite?"

She shrugged. "Not originally, but I guess it is now." The quivering needle of the fuel gauge stopped moving as it reached the empty mark, and Ryan concentrated on squeezing a few more miles out of the gas vapors in the tank. Silas had found a microwave satellite and gotten control with an old SETI dish. Good thing he had aced the old bastard on sight. But if Silas was chilled, then who was operating the Kite?

The landscape began to take on a familiar shape, and Ryan began to remember details of the last visit there, the fights, desperate running, a bloody ambush and the endless chilling. It had been one of their worst jumps, and the redoubt itself was as bare as a spent round. There wasn't a can of beans, or anything useful inside just an armored vault filled with predark works of art—bronzes statues and antique oil paintings. Why would the Pentagon waste valuable space storing those things away from the ravages of a nuke storm? That was just another of the endless mysteries about the redoubts, and one he had no desire to solve.

Just then a familiar shape rose from the ground in the glare of the headlights. The front of the redoubt was as Ryan remembered, battered and charred from the nuke blasts of skydark. But the armored door was as sturdy as ever, and the companions would be safe once they got inside.

"The redoubt!" Krysty shouted, slowing her speed.

Taking the lead, Ryan rolled his bike around the outcropping until reaching the front of the underground base. Massive black doors stood untarnished and immutable in a small recess, an armored keypad set into the burnished jamb of the portal.

Braking to a halt, the companions turned off the engines and set the kickstands. Silence greeted them, a soft wind blowing from the direction of the distant forest.

"Thermal currents from the Kite," Mildred said to the unasked question, as she stiffly climbed from the cage. For a second, she looked for her med kit, then memory flared, and she grimly walked toward the redoubt. They physician could assemble another kit over time. More important, safety was only a few yards away.

Ryan was already standing at the door, tapping the entry code onto the keypad when the ground underneath the man heaved and he was thrown sprawling yards away.

Spitting curses, the companions drew their blasters as a nightmare crawled out of the soil directly in front of the door. It was a twisted mutie unlike anything they had ever seen before. The grotesque creature possessed a misshapen head covered with different-sized eyes and multiple ears. Its drooling mouth was filled with fangs, and a forked tongue lolled over pale leathery lips. The long serpentine body was covered with spotty fur as if it suffered from mange or rad poisoning. However, massive muscles rolled beneath the leathery skin as the mutie shambled closer on four powerful legs, two tiny shriveled limbs dangling impotently from its hideous chest. Sharp claws ripped apart the hard soil as the slavering beast started to crawl catlike toward the companions.

"Silas!" J.B. cursed, working the bolt on his Uzi. "He knew we'd try for the redoubt and left one of his DNA experiments for us!"

Rising to one knee, Ryan leveled the Steyr SSG-70. He was down to only a few clips, but there was no time to waste with this mutie. They had to get inside before the Kite returned. "Chill it!" he commanded, triggering his longblaster.

In unison, the companions opened fire in a ragged volley, the barrage of rounds tearing the screaming animal apart. It slumped to the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds.

"See any more around?" Ryan demanded, standing and chambering a fresh round. He glanced at the ground for any suspicious movements, then at the sky. The clouds were still thick and heavy. Good.

"Looks clear," Doc reported, studying the fields around them while waving away the smoke from his LeMat.

Colt at the ready, Jak dropped to one knee and placed the flat of his hand in the cold soil. "No vibrations," he reported.

"Nasty-looking bugger," J.B. stated, then stared in astonishment as the dead mutie began to stir.

Sluggishly, the thing rose on its hind legs, the holes in its skin closing into dainty puckered scars.

"By the Three Kennedys," Doc whispered as he switched the selector pin on his LeMat from the .44 miniballs to the smoothbore .63 shotgun. There was only a single load, but at such close range it should remove the creature's head.

Hastily, Krysty thumbed fresh cartridges into her revolver as a rill of porcupine quills extended protectively along the neck of the snarling mutie. "Gaia protect us, it's regenerating," she said, dropping a few rounds but reloading the blaster in record time. The redhead closed the cylinder with a snap of her wrist and fired again immediately. The soft-nosed bullets hit the creature in the chest and neck with less effect this time. The wounds closed without scars after only weeping a few drops of the weird semi-transparent green blood.

"How the hell are we going to chill something that can do that?" she demanded, backing away.

"Don't have to chill it," Ryan yelled over his booming rifle. "Just have to get past!"

Furiously working the bolt on his Steyr, Ryan pumped two rounds from the longblaster directly into the beast, stalling for Doc until he was ready. The long 7.62 mm cartridges each took out an eye, which started to regrow. J.B. added a burst from the Uzi, concentrating on the chest. Greenish blood spurted with every hit, the wounds closing faster as if the mutie were accelerating the healing process.

Stepping closer, Doc ducked under a lashing tail and fired the LeMat at point-blank range. The massive black-powder weapon vomited flame and smoke from the wide muzzle, the shotgun round slamming the beast backward against the door of the redoubt. But as the companions watched, the growling mutie rose again. The gaping hole in its chest, leaking a greenish ichor, began to close and the bleeding stopped.

Dodging to the left, then darting to the right, the mutie came ever closer, a forked tongue running hungrily along its mottled jaws.

"Dark night!" J.B. snarled, releasing the Uzi and swinging the S&W shotgun into play. Only four shells remained, and the Armorer knew he had to make every one count.

Working the pump, he fired two shells at the creature, the spray of flechettes tearing its head apart. But the bleeding pieces of flesh slid together again, and a pair of scorpion tails arched from its mottled back, the barbed tips glistening with moisture.

"Poison!" Mildred warned, targeting its face with her ZKR pistol. Several of its eyes exploded from her soft lead rounds, and the hissing mutie started directly toward her, the other orbs extending on pale stalks.

Suddenly, clear moonlight flooded the battle scene.

"The Kite!" Krysty yelled, her flexing hair already coiling protectively.

"Go for its head!" Ryan shouted, moving forward and firing with each step. The companions aimed and unleashed a ragged volley, the beast screaming in agony, the barrage of lead and steel tearing apart its writhing form. But their weapons achieved only the same meager results.

The roar of an engine shook the night, and Jak raced away from the redoubt on one of the stolen Harleys. The noise of the engine caught the mutie by surprise, and it arched its back as if about to leap upon the cowardly runaway. But the humans understood, and maintained their useless blasterfire to hold the beast in place, as Jak turned the bike and charged forward, gunning the big engine to top speed.

The engine coughed and died mere feet away from the snarling creature, but continued rolling. The safety cage slammed into the mutie, crushing it against the nuke-proof door of the redoubt with a sickening crunch. Howling in pain, the bleeding creature clawed at the metalwork, struggling wildly.

"Not dead? Try this!" Jak yelled, and fired his Colt Python directly into its exposed brain, pink goo splattering onto the door and rocks.

Convulsing, the mutie jabbed the barbed tip of its scorpion tail through the openings of the cage. Struggling to undo the lock of the cage, Jak dropped his empty blaster and slashed at the creature with a knife. It shook the wreckage in unbridled rage, and, incredibly, began to shove the motorcycle off its trapped form.

"Cover fire!" J.B. shouted, emptying the shotgun as more pink brains blew out of its smashed skull.

Only a second behind, Doc lunged forward, skewering the beast through the chest, then twisting his sword, so the blade opened wide the wound. Emerald blood poured from the gash, quickly slowing to a trickle. A tail lashed at the old man, and he nimbly ducked out of the way, slicing off the barbed tip.

A crackling sound could be heard from the distant line of trees, withered leaves raining to the ground by the thousands.

Climbing on the wreckage, Krysty and Mildred emptied their blasters at the creature, as Dean got Jak loose. They hastily retreated, and seconds later Ryan crashed into the beast with another bike. A wash of greenish blood vomited out the mutie's mouth, and Ryan fired his handblaster at the beast. Ichor pouring from a dozen wounds, the mutie spit sticky phlegm at the one-eyed man and demonically tried to rise again.

Grinding gears, Ryan rolled the bike backward a few yards, then hit the throttle and slammed into the creature again, driving the safety cage of the first bike into its body, dicing the mutie into pieces. Legs and claws wiggling, it began to reform once more, but it was pinned helplessly to the wreckage.

"Stay close!" Ryan ordered, wriggling past the bikes and managing to reach the keypad. It was covered with greenish blood, so he wiped the alphanumeric pad clean with a bare hand and tapped in the entry code.

Avoiding the claws and whipping tail of the mutie, which were stretching for them, the itching humans waited impatiently as the massive doors cycled open, the brown grass sweeping closer by the second.

"In!" Ryan commanded, and squeezed through the widening crack. As the last person rushed through, the one-eyed man keyed the sequence that would close the door.

Cutting away from the mouth of the access tunnel, just as a safety precaution, J.B. paused as he looked over the garage of the underground base. It seemed cleaner than he remembered from their last visit, and there were tools on the walls. Dimly, he recalled the place had been completely stripped, but they had been in so many redoubts it was easy to get them confused occasionally.

"By gad, I hate Tennessee," Doc spit, bolstering his nearly spent LeMat. "There are always traps of some kind at this accursed redoubt!"

"Check your ammo," Ryan said, checking his own blasters. The Steyr was out, the SIG-Sauer down to six rounds.

"Out," J.B. snapped. "Haven't got a thing left."

Scowling, Dean dropped his clip and slapped it back in the butt of his blaster. "Four rounds."

"One round," Mildred stated, patting her pockets. She had six speed loaders for her target pistol, but none of them held a single bullet. Just the casings she used for combat reloading.

"Same here," Krysty said, closing her revolver, then added, "You want to drop that now, or are you keeping it as a souvenir?"

Jak stared at her, confused, then saw a ropy length of forked tongue clenched tight in his grip. In disgust, he threw it away and wiped his fingers clean on his pants. The teenager started to speak when alarms cut loose all over the base, bells clanging, and Klaxons howling in deafening volume.

"Fireblast! There must be leakage through the armor somewhere!" Ryan cursed, looking about quickly. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then microwaves were invisible. "Head for the mat-trans chamber!"

Bypassing the bank of elevators, the companions raced down the stairs. With each level they passed, the itchy sensation of the microwaves lessened a little bit. Getting off at the fourth landing, they raced down a long corridor lined with doors and slammed aside the wooden door at the far end. Charging into the control room, the companions slowed for a moment in spite of the horrible sensation on their skin. The bodies of the dead from years before were gone, the bullet holes in the consoles patched, the computers humming softly with their lights twinkling. The spent brass covering the floor was gone, and the walls looked freshly painted. Everything was clean and seemed in proper working condition.

"Silas has been here." Krysty frowned, forcing herself not to cringe from the growing misery of her living hair.

"Touch nothing!" J.B. warned, going to the door that led to the mat-trans unit. He ran fingertips along the jamb and lintel before opening the heavy portal.

"Clear," he reported. "Let's go!"

Rushing into the chamber, Ryan saw that the arma-glass walls had also been painted, the deep purple identifying this as Tennessee now painted over with a deep military green. However, the paint was peeling from the armaglass. But the disguise might fool a casual observer.

"Hiding his location," Dean said, scratching at his forearms. "Smart son of a bitch."

"Dead son of a bitch," Mildred corrected, then paused before stepping onto the platform. "Damn. Think he might have jimmied the controls?"

"Only one way to find out," Ryan said, and, pulling out an empty clip for the Steyr, he tossed it the chamber.

The companions closed the door and waited in mounting pain, then hastily opened it again. The metal-and-clear-plastic clip lay in plain sight on the cold floor on the chamber. Nothing had happened.

"He did something, or the microwave is affecting it," J.B. said woodenly, the alarms screaming in the background.

Touching her quivering hair, Krysty winced slightly. "It doesn't hurt as badly here in the mat-trans unit," she said. "Mebbe we can ride out the attack. The blues can't keep the Kite focused on us forever."

"Yes, they can," Mildred replied coldly. "And this is only buying us time. We're still being chilled, just slower than outside."

"What do?" Jak asked, rubbing his itchy face.

"It seems that we are to die today," Doc said, bowing his head in finality. "Microwaves are seeping in, and the mat-trans unit is deactivated. What other course do we have?"

"Fuck that We're trapped, not aced," Ryan spit, rubbing a fist in the palm of his hand. "Mebbe…"

"What?" Krysty barked impatiently, her hands tucked under her arms, to keep from clawing her skin off.

His empty socket feeling as if it were filled with hungry ants, Ryan scowled. "There's a fission reactor in the basement. The extra shielding might help protect us."

Tossing away his hat, J.B. wiped the hot sweat from his face. "Mebbe," he panted in agreement. "B-but for how long?"

"Till we starve to death, or they fucking turn it off!" Ryan growled, a red fury growing inside the man. "And then we'll go back and smash that bastard machine just like we did Silas."

"A chance for life is all I ask," Doc said weakly. "Lead on, my dear Ryan."

Turning for the door, Ryan braced himself for the pain waiting outside the chamber. Then, closing his good eye tight, the man charged into the control room, blindly stumbling through the maze of the redoubt for the faint hope of survival deep within the radioactive bowels of the military base.