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  "Yahhh!" J.B. replied, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

  "Yahhh!" Ryan hollered as he swung out from behind the rock. The others yelled, too, as hard as they could, to keep from being deafened as the Smith & Wesson pump gun roared in the enclosed space. Orange flame from the muzzle blast licked the ceiling. Ryan racked and fired, racked and fired as fast as he could.

  On the third blast, there was a mighty groan from above, then in a cloud of dust, the ceiling of the entry chamber came crashing down.

  Chapter Seven

  Behind Dr. Huth, in the back of the lumbering bus, the three sluts were passing the time with a noisy dice game in which the winner got the right to bitch slap the losers across the face. Oblivious to their squeals, and to the pounding vibration of the rutted road, their satiated customers lay in a snoring heap on the mattresses.

  Outside the bus, the landscape was uniformly bleak. To Huth's left, across the beige, featureless plain, were distant mountain slopes. Poisoned by radiation, they looked like monstrous heaps of brown dirt. To his right was the gray green glacier of nuke glass, along whose southernmost edge they had been driving for more than half an hour. Though the Slake City phenomenon keenly interested him, the combination of surface glare and road vibration made it impossible for him to study its details.

  Huth found it droll that the most significant act of this reality's whitecoats had been to supply the means for a civilization ending, global holocaust. Four hundred years of creative, thoughtful inquiry into the diverse mechanisms of nature had produced thirty minutes of spectacular hell. From Huth's alternate universe perspective, the nukecaust was nothing short of a blessing. The removal of ninety-five percent of the human beings from the planet had forestalled the real end game scenario, which, as he had seen, came with the whimper of starving billions, not an earth shaking bang.

  When the driver started blowing the bus's horn, Huth lost his train of thought.

  "Now arriving at Slake City," Mike the Drunkard announced as he tapped the brakes.

  The lanky former whitecoat jumped quickly to his feet. He clung to one of the stainless steel support poles in the aisle and squinted through the dirt rimmed windshield. The repeated bleating of the horn roused the other passengers from their stupor. Eager to gaze upon the Promised Land, they lurched forward and pressed in close behind Huth, exhaling an eye watering fog of alcohol fumes.

  What they saw made them cheer and hoot and stamp their feet.

  A short distance from the edge of the nukeglass, the Slake City encampment was just as Mike the Drunkard had described it. This was no typical Deathlands shantytown. No hodgepodge of rusted out car bodies and scavenged fiberglass and scrap metal. It consisted of a cluster of shiny, black, segmented domes, the biggest of which was seventy feet in diameter. All of the structures were interconnected by black tubular walkways.

  Huth's heart soared. The prefab mil-spec shelters were definitely the product of FIVE's technology. Made of the same synthetic, artificially intelligent material as the battlesuits, they could deflect conventional and laser attacks. Next to the clustered domes were a half dozen, all black, all terrain assault vehicles, state of the art killing machines designed for high speed pursuit and merciless interdiction. Closer to the thermoglass massif, beside the start of a crude road that cut over it, stood a group of huge black semitrailers and tractors. These, too, had all terrain capability. On the far side of the domes, a half dozen attack gyroplanes sat on a landing field, lined up and ready to scramble. From the number of otherworld domes, vehicles and aircraft, Huth had no doubt that his people had come across in force this time, and that they had come prepared to stay.

  Big Mike didn't stop the bus at the main compound, but drove on to a pounded rectangle of dirt roughly one hundred feet square. Inside it, huddled on the ground, were sixty to seventy people. The seated Deathlanders didn't rise to their feet when Mike parked the bus beside them, nor did they make any sign of greeting or curiosity. Few of them, in fact, even bothered to look up.

  "Why are they just sitting there like that?" a man standing behind Huth said. "Are they rad blasted dimmies?"

  FIVE'S top whitecoat could have answered the drunk's question, but he didn't. He knew that no matter how many troops had crossed over to this reality, there were certain jobs they wouldn't tackle themselves-—dangerous tasks that were better left to an expendable indigenous population. Because the Byram ville fools hadn't noticed or guessed the significance of the silver bracelets and anklets worn by the driver, the whores and all the people seated on the ground, they were in for a very unpleasant surprise. It pleased their former latrine engineer and kick toy to keep it that way.

  The woman standing beside Huth lifted one of her gigantic naked breasts and idly scratched the skin underneath it. "Hey, Big Mike," she slurred, swaying on her feet. "Where's them fancy new shitters you told us about? Gotta pee me a river."

  "What the fuck is that?" cried one of the men, pointing out an open side window.

  From a bulkhead doorway in the biggest of the domed huts a squad of black armored creatures poured forth. They carried massive tribarreled long blasters. They jogged with grim purpose toward the bus.

  "Giant fucking mutie roaches!" a young man exclaimed.

  "Monsters! Rad-blasted monsters!" someone else shouted from behind.

  "They're gonna eat us!" the woman cried. "Do something!"

  There was nothing to be done.

  Fear quickly sobered Huth's fellow passengers, but not before the black warriors had fanned out and surrounded the vehicle. There wasn't time for any of them to scoot out the door or crawl out the side windows. When they realized there was no escape from the horrors that waited outside, their fear turned to panic. Bleating like sheep, the passengers hurled themselves under the seats. Huth was the only one left standing.

  Mike the Drunkard climbed from the driver's seat. He didn't waste energy trying to pry the passengers loose himself. Instead, he shouted down the aisle to his trio of sluts, "Get 'em out of here!"

  The sluts advanced, wielding long, thick, black-tape-wrapped batons. From the looks on their faces, it was the high point of their day. It was their turn to do the prodding.

  The pink-haired slut didn't swing her club at the legs of the first passenger she came across; she merely tapped him on the buttocks with it. There was a sharp crackling sound, and a fat blue spark jumped from the tip of the baton to the seat of his pants.

  "Ee-yow!" he cried, jerking away from the baton tip so violently that he crashed the top of his head into the wall. As he scrambled onto the seat, he waved his hands in the air. "No, no…no more!"

  "Get out!" the slut ordered him.

  The man stole a sideward glance out the window, cringed at the black creature looking back at him and seized hold of the seat back's bar with both hands. He hung on to it, white knuckled, and refused to budge.

  When the pink haired slut tried to touch the back of his hand with the electric prod, he deftly moved it out of the way, sliding it along the tubing but still maintaining his death grip. Obviously, this wasn't the first time a victim had tried the maneuver. The woman immediately countered by pressing the tip of the baton to the bar.

  Blue sparks flew and the air crackled.

  From the effect, Huth judged the voltage discharge was considerable. In an instant it brought the man bolt upright from his seat. He crouched there, shuddering, his teeth clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out like cables, unable to open his smoking hands and pull away from the pain. Only when the pink haired slut drew back the baton and released him from the paralysis could he begin to scream. She waved her magic wand at him once more, and he took off down the aisle, running past Huth and down the steps.

  The other two sluts gleefully attacked the remaining malingerers. Not even the strongest of them could withstand the shock treatment for more than a few seconds. One by one, they deserted their dark hidey holes, then allowed themselves to be stampeded down the aisle and out the door.


  Still clinging to his stanchion, Huth watched these events unfold with no small measure of delight. He was confident that one by one, the wrongs of his recent history were about to be righted, that he was about to resume his former, lofty place in the order of things.

  From the bottom of the stairway, the pink haired slut aimed her prod at Huth's scrawny behind. "And what about the bag of bones?" she asked.

  "Nah, don't waste the battery," Big Mike answered. He grabbed the scientist by the scruff of the neck. Before Huth could protest, he was sent tumbling down the steps. The shovel landed in the dirt beside him.

  "Better take that with you," Mike said. "You're gonna need it."

  As Huth pushed up from the ground, spitting dust, the battlesuited troopers closed in on all sides, trapping the passengers against the side of the bus.

  The woman didn't wait for a fancy two hole outhouse to relieve herself; she didn't wait at all. As she cowered, monumentally topless, a wide, wet stain spread across the seat of her BDU pants. She wasn't alone in her sudden loss of bladder control. Two of the young men likewise soiled themselves before they dropped to their bellies and buried their faces in the dirt.

  Huth was the only one who showed no fear. He straightened, brushed himself off and, leaving the shovel behind, stepped over to one of the helmeted soldiers. There was no insignia on the trooper's battlesuit, at least none visible to the naked eye. Not that Huth expected to see the word FIVE inscribed on the breastplate. He had already concluded that this wasn't a FIVE operation. As director of the Totality Concept, he knew that FIVE didn't have a backup trans-reality unit in place. Only the individual global conglomerates had the economic and technical clout to duplicate his great achievement. The research had to have been done in secret as it was a major treaty violation, subject to extreme punishment. Given the fact that his Earth was in its last days, the threat of punishment was no deterrent. You could only die once.

  As Huth approached, the soldier reacted, and he found himself staring down the claw foot flash hider of a tribarrel laser. The muzzle was aimed at the bridge of his nose. Not only was the weapon capable of boring a hole clear through his head in a fraction of a second, but also it could simultaneously cook everything between his ears. The thought of his precious, genius level brain reduced to a pea sized cinder made him go momentarily weak kneed.

  "Stand back!" The order blasted out of the battlesuit's external speaker along with a squawk of feedback.

  These were his people, Huth assured himself. He was a man of status, of renown, even. He spoke quickly, showing his empty, helpless hands. "I know how terrible I must look to you," he said. "And I know how difficult it's going to be for you to believe me, but I am Dr. Huth, director of the Totality Concept trans-reality program."

  The soldier didn't respond.

  Huth continued, and as he did, his voice rose in pitch. "I was sucked across to this world during the explosion," he said. "I have endured terrible hardships to get here and find you. See, see this?" He held up the embroidered FIVE on his lab coat's breast pocket.

  The trooper's gauntleted hand moved to the plate beside the pulse rifle's trigger guard. Something snicked.

  "No, don't do that," Huth groaned, realizing that the soldier had released the rifle's safety. "I know about FIVE. Omnico, Invecta, Mitsuki, Questar and Hutton-Byrum-Kobe. I know you're human under the battlesuits. How would I know all that if I wasn't telling you the truth? If I didn't come from the same reality as you?"

  "Maybe you're psychic," said the digitalized voice. "Get in line with the others for your bracelets, or I'm going to fry your wormy little brain."

  "Rad-blast it!" Mike the Drunkard shouted, hurrying down from the bus's steps. "Don't chill the dimmie bastard! If you chill him, I won't make my quota for today."

  "You're bringing in the dregs," the soldier countered. "This skinny scab shouldn't count toward your quota, anyway."

  "I know he looks kind of thin and wheezy," Mike said, "but he's got a lot of work left in him. I've seen the man shovel shit, so I know what I'm talking about."

  "If your shoveler doesn't move back three steps real quick, he's going to be shit."

  Huth took the trooper at his or her word and retreated the required distance. Overcome by anguish, he threw back his head, clenched his fists and cried, "Somebody here has got to know me! I'm Dr. Huth! I developed this technology! I'm the reason you're all here!"

  This admission drew murderous stares from the captive Deathlanders seated on the ground nearby. A few of them resonantly hawked and spit in his direction.

  Huth fell to his knees and began to sob into his hands.

  "Get over there with the others," the soldier said, poking him in the back with the rifle. "Do it now, or you're dead."

  Then another amplified voice said, "Don't shoot. I know him."

  Huth wiped his eyes as the battlesuited figure approached him. "Oh, thank you. Thank you!" he gushed. "You can't imagine the hardship and humiliation I've endured."

  The figure said, "Cuff him."

  "But…but…" Huth stammered as troopers quickly snapped laser manacles on his feet and wrists. "If you know who I am, why are you treating me like this?"

  "Because I don't want you running off again."

  Even distorted by the audio processor, the voice sounded vaguely familiar to him. "But I didn't run off," he protested, rising from his knees. "I was transported here by accident when the missile blew up the Totality Concept complex."

  "There's no way to verify that, is there? Maybe you were part of the sabotage plan. Maybe you masterminded it. All I know for sure is that you're here and that my slave catcher snatched you up."

  The voice suddenly clicked in Huth's memory. "CEO Trask?" he said, squinting hard at the opaque visor. "Is that you?" The visor cleared.

  What Huth saw inside the helmet struck him speechless for a second. He had known Dredda Otis Trask since she was a little girl. Her late father, Regis Otis Trask, had been one of his early champions. The elder Trask had promoted his career as a young whitecoat, had followed his rise to fame and influence and had been instrumental in his being appointed to the directorship of the Totality Concept, FIVE'S most advanced and ambitious research program.

  Regis Otis Trask and the other CEOs of FIVE were like figures from ancient history. Like the Caesars or the Borgias. These modern kings maintained their power through enormous, self perpetuating bureaucracies, through favors granted or withdrawn, through webs of conspiracies. As with the Caesars and Borgias, their climb to the top was always bloody and violent. And once they were enthroned, the CEOs used their private armies to keep their positions. Their success was the result of cunning, not intelligence. Of brutality, not reason. No reasoning individual would have wrung out the resources of the world like the last drops of juice from an orange.

  Remarkable genius though he was, Huth had come into the picture too late to do anything but delay the inevitable. There was no way to change the course of history that had already been set by the conglomerates, who had balanced markets, consumption and the taking of profits without regard to tomorrow. Over the course of their century long reign, the conglomerates' viewpoint had shifted from "there's plenty to go around," to "let's squabble and backstab over the trickle that's left."

  In terms of outright viciousness, the Trask daughter had been even more prone to excess than her father. She was always able to grab Regis's attention, which she treasured, by going one step further than anyone else was willing to go. Of course, there were never any negative consequences to her acts if they didn't produce, or if they turned out to be catastrophic. Her position as the only child of Regis Otis Trask had made her invulnerable before his death. When she was made CEO in his place, she remained untouchable. Dredda was the CEO who had pushed through FIVE'S disastrous Beefy Cheesie, Tater Cheesie program, and she had personally coined the phrase "Let them eat rock."

  She had repeatedly demonstrated that she had no scruples, foresight or concern for aftermaths.
Huth had privately ranked her as one of the least intelligent of the CEOs he had ever dealt with. This combination also made her one of the most dangerous.

  The female standing before him wasn't the same Dredda he'd seen two months ago. The weight and density of the bones of her face had increased, as had her gross size. He no longer looked down on her; they stood almost eye to eye. Though he knew he was taking a risk in asking for the details, his scientific curiosity got the better of him.

  "You've certainly changed since I last saw you," he said.

  "So have you," Dredda said, giving his shambling, bloodstained costume and missing teeth the once over.

  "I have been badly abused by the people here," Huth said. "In order to survive, I have been forced to do things too awful to describe. Being lost in Deathlands has been the most terrible experience of my life. But you? What happened to you?"

  "A little genetic engineering," she said. "I'm bigger, stronger and faster. Smarter, too."

  "Really?"

  "I've gotten smart enough to know I don't need you anymore."

  A great lump rose in Huth's throat. He was flabbergasted. "Surely, my expertise…"

  "Is out of date," she finished for him. "My whitecoats stole your technology, miniaturized it and made it portable. See those two big semitrailers over there? The trans-reality machinery is contained in them."

  Huth looked at the trailers in disbelief. The original system he had developed had taken up an entire floor of a skyscraper. Recovering, he said, "Miniaturization was the next logical step, of course, that and reduced power consumption. Those improvements were already on the drawing board when I had my accident."

  Dredda's digitalized laugh grated against his eardrums.

  "My whitecoats figured out how to do all that six months ago," she said. "They also figured out how to make the trans-reality jumps consecutive."

  " 'Consecutive'? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by that."