Perception Fault. James Axler
around the corner revealed the three-story building about twenty yards away. The long way to it meant going twice that distance, but it also kept him under cover almost the entire way. Slinging his Steyr, Ryan drew his Sig Sauer and replaced the half-full magazine with a full one from his pocket. Checking his back one last time, he scanned the windows of the building for movement, then hunched over and ran the last few yards to the wall, putting his back to it and hiding in the shadows as he listened for any kind of alarm. After several quiet seconds, he worked his way to the entrance, where a battered metal door hung on one hinge. Ryan listened to the pitch-blackness inside and, hearing nothing, edged into the room, leading with his blaster, careful not to touch or move the door.
He waited just inside until his eye adjusted to the gloom. When he could discern the walls instead of simply blank blackness, he began to advance cautiously, heading for the staircase he spotted on the back wall. The ground floor was completely bare of any furnishings or debris, just empty floor and support pillars throughout. He stepped quietly and listened for anyone coming after him, but heard nothing.
Reaching the stairs, Ryan began to climb, staying near the wall so the steps wouldn’t give his position away with a telltale creak. Once he reached the top, Ryan was pleased to see the starlight streaming weakly in through the glassless windows. The next staircase was right above him, its entrance at the far end of the room. He had just taken his second step when a section of the floor gave way under his foot with a snap, the weak boards crashing to the ground. Cat-quick, he wrenched himself back before his leg fell through.
Ryan froze, hearing the rapid clomp of quick footfalls. This floor was empty, as well, with nowhere and nothing to hide him. The steps grew louder, and Ryan knew the coldhearts were seconds away from flushing him. A glance at the ceiling revealed a latticework of metal bars under tangles of metal pipes and ducts. He had no idea if it was strong enough to hold his weight, but it was the only option available. Shoving his blaster into his belt, he sprang up with all his strength, grabbing the thin metal and hoisting himself up as quickly as he dared. He had managed to pull his chin up when he heard the sound of boots on the stairs. The bar settled for a moment, and he feared it would pull loose, but it held, and he kept climbing, swinging his leg up and over and pulling himself onto the bar, balancing there just as the advance team hit the floor.
Like the others, they were swift and silent, quartering the room and sweeping and clearing each section with rapid movements. The pair moved well, always covering one another’s back, and each man never out of sight of the other. They were completely covered from head to toe, one with a scarf wrapped around his head, and the other wearing what looked like an old gas mask, which gave Ryan an uncomfortable feeling. If they had gas weapons, he could be in for a world of hurt. Then he noticed there was no filtering canister on the end, and realized the hunter was wearing it as some kind of decoration or trophy.
So far, Ryan had been lucky. From what he could see, they hadn’t looked up once. Of course, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t at any moment, but he couldn’t move. If he tried for his blaster, he’d probably make enough noise to alert them, and that’d be all she wrote. So he waited and watched them come closer, trying to figure out some kind of plan.
At the far end, one of the coldhearts looked out the window and drew back in alarm, signaling to his partner about the lack of guards, apparently. There was a brief, signaled argument, then they headed back toward the stairway leading to the first floor, their weapons—two well-maintained short-barreled machine guns—held at their waist, muzzles pointing in front of them.
They were a few steps away when the glimmerings of a plan formed in Ryan’s mind. It would require split-second timing, but if he could pull it off… He watched as they came closer…three steps…two steps…one step away…
When the coldhearts were right below him, about to take their first step onto the staircase, he let his feet swing free and dropped to the floor, barely making a sound as he landed right behind them, drawing his Sig Sauer as he landed.
There was a moment’s surprise as both whirled to see their deaths in the single, icy-cold blue eye of the tall, black-haired man less than an arm’s length away. Still, they tried to bring their blasters to bear on him before he put a bullet into their heads, knowing it was hopeless, but trying anyway.
And it was. Even before the man on the right could finish turning, a 9 mm slug had entered his eye socket, drilling straight back into his brain and out the back of his skull, splattering the wall with red-gray gore as he slumped against the wall, his feet trembling and kicking as his limbs slowly registered his death.
Ryan switched his aim to Gas Mask and triggered two shots, knowing that the plastic lens of its eyepieces could sometimes deflect a bullet enough to prevent a kill shot. One or the other had to have done the job, since his attacker froze, standing stock-still at the top of the stairs, blaster clenched in his hands. Ryan kept his weapon aimed at the bandit, just in case he was faking, but it seemed the coldheart was on the last train west, even if his body hadn’t quite registered the fact yet.
From inside the gas mask came a small sigh, as if the coldheart had exhaled his last breath, and he started to fall backward, down the stairs. Ryan was aware that something was wrong; then he noticed it, and threw himself to the side, just as the corpse’s finger spasmed on the trigger of his blaster, emptying the entire magazine into the back of the staircase. The body disappeared, thumping its way down the stairs to land with a crash at the bottom as the roar from the blaster died away.
Sig Sauer covering the staircase, Ryan opened his eye to see the slumped body of the first raider, and dust and plaster trickling down from the blaster. The scarf, now askew over the head of the corpse, gave him another idea, and he got up and went over to the body, unwrapping the sodden garment and wrapping it around his head so that the gore-soaked section was over his face. He stripped the corpse of its drab-green shirt and slipped it on, finding the sleeves a couple inches too short, but figuring no one would notice. The smell of the scarf was overpowering, but he breathed through his mouth and walked to the stairs leading to the third floor, listening for anyone coming to investigate.
Only silence greeted him. Steeling himself, Ryan bent over and staggered up the stairs, breathing loudly with each step. At the top, he crawled out onto the landing, wheezing as if severely injured while looking around at the room.
The sniper’s position was ahead and to the right, a form still bent over the longblaster, scanning outside. Another figure was in the window next to him, next to a small scope mounted on a tripod, but looking back at the staircase, a weapon pointed at the crawling form that had just appeared.
“Hey, stop right— Jeez, Carly, is that you? What happened?” The voice turned from commanding to concerned, and Ryan felt a small hand on his arm, trying to help him up. “Come on. Let’s get you over— Hey, you’re not—”
The mistake was realized too late, as Ryan had already grabbed the spotter’s arm in a steely grip while he shoved his Sig Sauer into the man’s chest and pulled the trigger twice, shattering ribs and holing vital organs. The coldheart let out a startled grunt and collapsed to the floor. Ryan kicked the blaster out of his hand and aimed at the sniper, who had heard the commotion and was drawing a small blaster of his own. Their weapons went off almost simultaneously, and Ryan felt a small puff of air against the side of his head from the bullet’s passage as his own shot hit his target in the upper chest. The shooter fell back against his blind and tried to lift his blaster again, but his second shot went wild into the darkness. Panting with the effort, he stared at the weapon in his hand as if it weighed a thousand pounds, then lifted his gaze back to Ryan.
“Bastard….” was his last, high-pitched word, then his head lolled, and the blaster slipped from his lifeless fingers. Ryan had been covering him while scanning the rest of the room, but finding no one else here, went over to the sniper’s body. Something about him had caught his attention, and Ryan removed the drab-green cap from the body’s head to find a surprise underneath.
A woman. Not even a woman, a girl, maybe in her late teens at most. Ryan didn’t feel that much of a twang of conscience. Women were just as lethal in the Deathlands as men, more so a lot of times. And there was the fact that she had been trying to kill him just a few minutes