Rat King

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  "Back!" Ryan yelled

  He ejected the clip and rammed in another from the supply he'd removed from

  Panner's corpse. It seemed to him that his people were only reacting. To

  survive, they had to get these soldiers on the run.

  "Dad, get down!" Dean shouted as he saw the drum rise from the center of the

  wag. It looked like a circle of blasters on a rotating wheel, which began to

  spin rapidly.

  Ryan dived as the rotating wheel spit fire. He felt a plucking at his clothes,

  small objects whistling past his ears and through his hair.

  Trank darts.

  His last conscious thought was that someone wanted very badly to take them

  alive.

  Why?

  Rat King

  # 51 in the Deathlands series

  James Axler

  May we not who are partakers of their brotherhood claim that in a small way at

  least we are partakers of their glory? Certainly it is our duty to keep these

  traditions alive and in our memory, and to pass them on untarnished to those who

  come after us.

  —Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves, USN, 1859-1937

  THE SAGA

  This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001

  that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

  There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the

  balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

  But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion,

  the hawk and the tiger, true to nature's heart despite its ruination.

  Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal

  from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

  Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville's own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the

  strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered

  by her Mother Sonja.

  J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan's close ally, he, too, honed his

  skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

  Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc

  has been thrown into a future he couldn't have imagined.

  Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is

  not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings

  twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

  Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and

  danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

  Dean Cawdor: Ryan's young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and

  yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

  In a world where all was lost, they are humanity's last hope…

  Prologue

  The old man was going to die soon. He knew it, and so did the others. They could

  feel the pain of old age, of a body's survival systems shutting down one by one.

  They could feel it within him, reaching out to spread over them. One chilled,

  all chilled.

  Inevitably they panicked and wanted him detached, their mute cries coming

  through on the readings as a sudden increase in electrical activity. Readings

  the like of which no one in the redoubt had ever seen before.

  MURPHY GLANCED over the shoulder of the hunched tech. His hands were slow on the

  keyboard, laboriously tapping in a code to trigger a programmed instruction.

  Except that Murphy knew there wasn't a code. Wasn't a program.

  "Wallace will have to know," he said.

  The tech said nothing. He just kept tapping. Tap-tap-tap… even though the screen

  repeatedly told him that there was no response from the mechanism.

  Murphy hit the man on the shoulder. He didn't often come to this level, and sec

  men of his standing didn't bother to fraternize with the other ranks. That was

  just the way it was. He felt the small rankle of irritation grow to a full-blown

  itch of anger. An itch he had to scratch.

  "Hey, stupe, why don't you answer when I say something? You know you have to

  answer to superior officers."

  Murphy swung the tech around by the shoulder and drew back his arm to deliver a

  backhand blow. It was his favorite form of mild reproof, as each of his four

  fingers had a thick silver or steel ring rammed down beyond the knuckle joint.

  The index finger had a ring with the head of an old god called Elvis, his name

  embossed underneath. The middle finger had a skull and crossbones-—the edges of

  the crossbone motif would make a satisfying tear on many an impudent mouth— and

  the third finger had a five-pointed star that had been awarded to him by Wallace

  in recognition of the manner in which he had led the defenses on the last

  outsider attack. Many of the scum had been chilled on that day.

  But it was the little finger that held the prize—a diamond cut into many sharp

  razor edges that could lacerate with only the most glancing of blows. The metal

  that held the ring on his finger was thin compared to the other rings, but the

  jewel was a prized weapon, handed down his line from the days before skydark.

  Murphy relished taking out his anger on the stupe tech, but halted when the

  man's face whirled to look into his. The eyes were empty and dull, the nose

  misshapen into a blob of flesh with no septum. The mouth was open, jaw slack,

  drool on the receding chin.

  Murphy gave a sigh of disgust, his anger temporarily retreating. The tech had to

  have gotten some mutie blood in his line somewhere. The colony deliberately

  stole women and some men from the outsiders in order to try to keep the gene

  pool from getting too stagnant. The trouble was, the rad-blasted valley still

  suffered from intense chem storms and the irradiated dust brought in by the

  whirlwinds. The poison became trapped within the valley's confines and just

  circulated again and again, spraying whatever crops the outsiders could grow,

  seeping through the food chain into the animals the outsiders caught and ate.

  Murphy's men tried to get clean specimens on their raids, but sometimes it was

  just so hard to tell.

  The only way you knew was when you got this…

  "Stupe bastard, you don't even know what I'm saying, do you?"

  There was no answer. Just the empty eyes.

  "I'll just have to tell him myself, I guess." Murphy sighed. With exaggerated

  care he turned the tech so that he faced his terminal once more. He started to

  tap in the nonexistent code again.

  With a last look through the Plexiglas shield that separated the mechanism from

  the banks of
terminals, and a shudder at the sight that lay beyond, Murphy left

  the tech alone with whatever thoughts went through the head of a triple-stupe

  mutie bastard.

  MURPHY FOUND Wallace in his office. As always. Sometimes it seemed that Gen

  Wallace didn't move outside of the office, not even to piss or shit. But if that

  was the case, Murphy had no idea where he stowed his waste products.

  "Sir, permission to report possible code red," Murphy said in staccato fashion,

  knocking on the door as he spoke. He clicked his heels and saluted, his arm

  raised in front of him. As prescribed, he didn't look at Wallace until his

  superior spoke.

  "Sarj Murphy, report received and understood. What's the matter?"

  Wallace was a big man, spilling out of his uniform, which was frayed at the

  cuffs and shiny with age. For all that, it was well and regularly laundered,

  like Murphy's uniform and the tech's white coat. The colony believed in God and

  cleanliness, like it said in the good book.

  Murphy, given permission to look at Wallace by the superior's reply, directed

  his gaze at the big man as he stepped into the room.

  "Trouble, sir. It's the mechanism. One of the components is finally succumbing

  to obsolescence."

  Wallace steepled his fingers and stared at them. He didn't answer for what

  seemed to be a long time. Then finally he spoke.

  "No such thing as obsolescence, Sarj. Recycle is the law. We have parts we can

  use."

  It wasn't a question.

  Murphy pulled at his collar uncomfortably. It was too tight, his father having

  had less of a bull neck. The pants, on the other hand, were too big, where his

  grandfather had carried a paunch. Right now he'd like to be able to swap one for

  the other. He felt blood suffuse his face.

  "Sir, not so sure about the parts."

  Wallace looked at him. His eyes were cold, flinty in the shadowless glare of the

  fluorescent lighting.

  "You daring to argue with the good book, Sarj? You recycle. It works. Always."

  Murphy kept his jaw tight. Stupe bastard. Wallace was in command because his

  father had been Gen Wallace, and his father before him. Just like Murphy's

  father had been Sarj Murphy, and his father before him. That's the way it was.

  But Murphy wondered about the strict reg on heredity. There was too much danger

  of mutie blood infecting the ranks to keep it that simple. The tech was a good

  example. Dammit, Murphy knew he was smarter than Wallace—smarter than nearly

  everyone in the redoubt. But the regs couldn't be broken. Never had been. That

  was how they'd managed to stay as the colony while skydark decimated the

  outside—the rad-blasted and scarred world the outsiders called Deathlands.

  Problem was, it left them with a triple-stupe bastard like Gen Wallace, too

  inflexible to believe that anything new could ever happen. He'd never actually

  been outside.

  Murphy had. He knew that things changed all the time.

  Like now.

  "Sir, I really think you should come and see the mechanism."

  Wallace snorted. "Sarj, if this is a pointless trip and the recycling can go

  ahead as usual, then you're on a charge, mister."

  Murphy said nothing. He let the big man heave himself out of the chair and

  waddle after him as he headed back down the corridor toward the tech section. He

  walked fast, knowing it would make following hard for Wallace and enjoying the

  small piece of revenge for the Gen's lack of concern.

  WHEN WALLACE REACHED the tech section, puffing and panting behind the fitter

  Murphy, he was in a foul mood.

  "You, what's the problem?" he barked at the tech.

  "Sir, he can't answer you. Mutie blood."

  "Goddamn!" Wallace exploded. "How many times do you have to be told, Sarj. That

  just can't happen."

  "No, sir," Murphy said quietly. "Just like this can't happen, I guess." He

  indicated the Plexiglas screen.

  Wallace looked beyond and frowned.

  "Vital signs going down on number three. He was the oldest of the bunch when the

  great experiment began to run. Got most major organs recycled, and some limbs.

  Doesn't seem to be anything actually in need to replacement. Just seems to

  be…fading out."

  Wallace didn't seem to be listening.

  "Sir?"

  "Recycle."

  "But what, sir?"

  "The whole damn component, Sarj. If a part of the component can be replaced,

  then why not the whole damn thing? 'Cause the man is just one part of a larger

  organism—the mechanism. Recycle, Sarj."

  Murphy tried to hide his bewilderment. "But, sir, the whole mechanism is

  predark. The old man is 187 years, three months, two weeks by old chron time.

  Forty years older than the other components, true, but still, where do I find

  something of a similar age?"

  "That's your problem, Sarj. You're in charge of sec corps. You requisition

  supplies. Not my problem—what the good book calls delegation."

  Murphy ground his teeth. The good book was written before the great chilling.

  What the hell did it know about right now? But he kept it to himself. He didn't

  want to be put on a charge. As head of sec corps, he knew what that meant. And

  he'd trained his men too well.

  "Is that a problem, Sarj?" Wallace asked, the flinty eyes glittering in the

  quivering flesh of his fat face. Fat, but still hard and cruel at the jaw.

  Murphy was spared from lying by the sudden deafening blare of alarms that hadn't

  been used since predark times.

  Wallace looked around in surprise. The tech whined and covered his ears.

  "Alarms—shit, it must be the mat-trans," Murphy said.

  Wallace frowned. "Don't be stupe. No one's ever got it working. Lost the

  know-how after the great chilling."

  "Who said someone got it working from this end?" Murphy whispered.

  Chapter One

  The jump had been as sickening as usual. Ryan Cawdor opened his eye and felt a

  dull ache across the areas of his face that hadn't been numbed by scar tissue.

  The empty socket behind the eye patch felt as if it were pulsing in time with

  his heartbeat, and he flicked open his right eye, the bloodshot blue watering.

  Mat-trans jumps were painful and disjointing at all times, the atoms of each

  individual body being disassembled then flung across vast distances until

  reconfigured by the mat-trans computers at whichever redoubt was programmed to

  pick up the signal. The time between was taken up by nightmares and wanderings

  through the dark nights of imagination. The time immediately after awakening was

  usually filled with nausea and weakness.

  Ryan shook his head, trying to rid himself of the pulsing that thumped inside

  his skull. He looked across the dull green-and-cobalt-blue walls to where the

  streaked armaglass ended abruptly as the wall met a floor inlaid with the disks

  that also peppered the ceiling.

  He reached out for his weapons, feeling his hand brush the stock of the Steyr

  SSG-70. Where that lay, his SIG-Sauer couldn't be far away.

  His hand touched warm flesh, and he felt fingers instinctively grasp at him.

  Head still pounding, he turned his eye to focus on Krysty Wroth, her flaming red

  hair coiled protectively to
her head and neck. Her mutie heritage gave her hair

  a sentience that acted as an early-warning system, coiling close to her head

  when danger threatened. After a jump it usually took some time to flow freely,

  but never before had he seen it this defensive.

  It set off a triple-red warning in his brain, and he forced his disoriented

  reflexes to respond. Forcing unwilling calf muscles to brace his legs as he got

  to his feet, he looked around the chamber.

  J.B. Dix, Ryan's oldest friend and a fellow traveler since their days with the

  Trader, was beginning to regain consciousness on the far side of the chamber.

  His beloved and battered fedora was pulled down over his eyes, and his right

  hand moved instinctively toward one of his capacious pockets to pull free his

  glasses. Ryan could see that his breathing was steady, and that he was

  recovering from the jump with his usual speed.

  The Armorer's other hand was held by Dr. Mildred Wyeth, a survivor of predark

  days who had been cryogenically preserved before the big blow of 2001, then

  thawed by Ryan in the postnuclear age of the Deathlands. The stocky black

  woman's hair hung in beaded plaits around her downturned head. She was beginning

  to stir, raising her head and opening her eyes. Her Czech-made ZKR 551 revolver

  lay in her lap, and before she was fully conscious her hand closed on it.

  Dean, Ryan's son, was still out. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nose to

  his top lip. He grunted as the effects of the jump began to wear off and the

  first nausea of consciousness returned.

  "Dark night, my head's thumping like mutie drums on a bad day."

  Ryan turned, dark spots still exploding in his vision at the speed of the

  movement. "Thought it was just me." Ryan winced at the pounding that was still

  making his empty eye socket throb.

  "Everybody." Jak followed the statement with a wretch of bile that splashed onto

  the floor of the gateway. The jumps usually made him vomit, and he spit out the

  remains of the bile before rising to his feet, pulling on the patched camou

  jacket that carried his hidden throwing knives and holstering his .357 Magnum