Desert Kings. James Axler
reveal a set of four internal organs. They were made of a shiny brown plastic edged with an assortment of clear tubes and more silvery wires.
“Those are livers,” Mildred stated. “My God, if this means what I think it does…”
Nervously, the woman adjusted the med kit hanging over her shoulder. Or rather, what she called her medical bag. She had found the empty canvas bag a while back and slowly filled it with what meager medical supplies she could gather: a plastic bottle of boiled cloth, leather strips to use as a tourniquet, a razor-sharp thin-bladed knife found in an art gallery, a few herbs and moss she knew helped ease itching and minor infections, some plastic-wrapped tampons reserved strictly for deep bullet wounds, a plastic bottle of alcohol, some plastic fishing line for sutures, a curved upholstery needle and one small tin of aspirin. Not much, but it was a start.
Hurriedly opening another box, Krysty dumped a couple of plastic human hearts on the floor. At the impact, they started to beat, but soon stopped. The companions began to rip through the crates and boxes, finding more hands, limbs, lungs, kidneys, something that looked like gills of all things, and several flexible armor plates that none of them could recognize as part of a human body. Then a face clattered to the littered floor, landing upside down.
Using his ebony stick, Doc flipped it over and inhaled sharply. Although stiff and lifeless, the face was painfully familiar to the man, the smooth features so lifelike that he half expected the disembodied face to blink open its eyes and start to talk. Jak kicked foam peanuts over the face until the grotesque visage was once more out of sight.
For a couple of minutes nobody spoke and there was only the muted hum of the sterilized air flowing from the disguised wall vents.
“So, he’s back,” Doc said woodenly, the words sounding strangely flat and emotionless. “The foul cyborg has returned!”
For a moment the universe reeled and Doc was back in the underground tunnel fighting the hated manchine, the only illumination coming from the muzzle-flame of his booming LeMat and a sizzling laser beam fired by Delphi. Then the explosive charges detonated and the ceiling started to fall, as the river began to rise over their heads….
With an effort of will, Doc returned to the reality of the present. If Delphi had been here, then he might walk through the access door of the antechamber at any second! Drawing the LeMat, he pulled back the heavy hammer of the single-action blaster.
“John Barrymore, do we have any grens?” Doc barked, turning to face the door across the chamber.
“Got better than that,” the Armorer replied, pulling a squat mil sphere into view from his munitions bag. “I’ve got an implo gren! Been saving it for an emergency.”
“Well, this is it, sir!” An implo gren was a predark marvel that didn’t explode outward, but instead created a gravitational field that pulled everything nearby inward to compact into a small, hard sphere. A single implo gren could reduce a U.S. Army tank down to the size of clenched fist. Nothing could survive that. Not even a cyborg.
“All right, if he is here, then let’s finish this now!” Ryan declared roughly, sliding the Steyr off his shoulder. “We’re gonna recce the entire redoubt, from the fusion reactors in the basement to the garage on top. And if we find Delphi, then we pin him down with blasterfire long enough to get clear and let J.B. use the implo gren.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Mildred agreed, pulling out the Czech ZKR. Back in her own time, killing a person was the worst crime imaginable and carried the most stringent punishments possible. At first Mildred had found it difficult to reconcile taking a life with her oath as a doctor. But “kill or be killed” was the mantra of a new America.
“How much space needed for gren?” Jak asked.
“We need at least thirty yards,” Krysty replied, her animated hair flexing and turning in response to her heightened emotional state.
“I…My friends, while I truly appreciate these sentiments, honor forces me to remind you that we do not have to stay,” Doc noted hesitantly in his stentorian voice. “We can simply leave and jump to another redoubt. With luck, Delphi will never find us again.”
“Or nightcreep next week!” Jak shot back scornfully, drawing his Colt Python. “Not run. Ace now!”
“I agree,” Krysty stated forcibly. “We should stay.”
“But still, madam—”
“Dark night, if we rabbit now, we could find ourselves ambushed after every damn jump,” J.B. added, using his free hand to adjust his fedora. “We arrive weak and sick, then in rushes Delphi.” He vehemently shook his head. “I don’t want to get chilled on my knees puking. That’s a bastard-poor way to buy the farm.”
“There is no good way to die, John,” Mildred countered, patting his arm. She had seen death a thousand times before and Thomas Hobbes had been right—it was always ugly and brutish. “But I’d rather face it on my feet with a gun in my hand. Next time, we may not have an implo gren.”
“Fucking A,” Jak added emphatically.
“Has anybody considered the possibility that Delphi isn’t even here?” Mildred added. “Or that he hasn’t attacked yet because of the spare parts?”
“Too valuable to risk, eh?” Ryan said thoughtfully, rubbing his unshaved chin. It was an interesting idea, and opened a host of possibilities. Unfortunately there were far too many possibilities and not enough hard answers.
“Krysty, can you sense anything?” he asked hopefully.
“No…not really,” the woman said hesitantly, trying to concentrate harder. Sometimes she could feel the presence of danger long before it arrived—hidden coldhearts, sleeping muties, even acid rain. Her talent had saved their lives more than once. It was also not very reliable, waxing and waning.
Closing her eyes, the woman tried to focus on the cyborg, but stopped after a few minutes. It was useless. The redoubt was full of automatic devices that kept the place spotlessly clean and scrubbed the air. How could she pinpoint just one more machine? Ruefully, Krysty glanced at the piles of boxes. Besides, exactly how much of Delphi was still norm anymore, and how much had been replaced with plastic and steel?
“Well?” Ryan prompted.
“Sorry, lover,” Krysty answered regretfully. “But I’m still too weak from the jump.”
Ryan grunted at that. Fair enough. It had been a long shot at best. “Okay, we do this the hard way,” he stated. “Doc, you can stay here to guard the boxes if you want, but we’re going hunting.”
“Then consider me Ajax of Troy!” Doc rumbled, standing a little taller. “I shall not fall on my sword!”
Jak raised a snowy eyebrow.
“I shall not fail.”
“Ah.”
Then Doc’s voice took on a more gentle aspect. “And thank you, my friends,” he said, looking around at them. “I…Thank you.”
Slapping the man on the back in reply, Ryan started for the control room with the others close behind, but Mildred stopped them.
“Wait a second,” she said, a sly grin forming. “Leaving is actually not a bad idea.”
“Really, madam!” Doc said askance.
Mildred snorted. “Not us, ya old coot. The boxes.”
Ryan paused. He had considered smashing all of the parts, but that would take hours, and it was still possible that the cyborg might be able to use some of the bits. But he couldn’t do drek if they were gone.
“Good thinking, Millie!” J.B. said, grinning wide. “Come on, let’s scatter his shit across the world! Remember what Trader said—denying an enemy necessary supplies is halfway to winning any fight.”
“The other half is blowing out his brains,” Ryan added.