Rat King Read online

  "Only one way," came the voice from the corridor. "You outsiders throw down your

  blasters and we come and get you. No way you can get out, and there's more of us

  than you. Besides, we're under orders to keep you alive."

  Ryan looked across at Krysty, whose hair was still protectively clinging to her.

  "Sounds like shit to me," he whispered.

  "Amen to that," Mildred added.

  Krysty shook her head. "No, I think he's telling the truth. It's what comes

  after that worries me." She shook her head as she noted Ryan's puzzled

  expression. "I can't explain it, lover. It's just not clear enough."

  "Move or sit?" Jak asked. The inactivity was making him restless. A born hunter

  and predator, Jak had the ability to stay still and patient for hours when

  tracking and hunting. Patience wasn't the problem. A decision had been made, and

  now he was itching to spring to action.

  "Let's do it." Ryan threw the Steyr over the top of the upturned desk. He kept

  the SIG-Sauer, holstering the blaster, and checked automatically for the panga,

  secured in a sheath against his leg. Beside him Krysty threw her blaster out

  into the middle of the room. Mildred threw hers with reluctance.

  The last to throw out his weapon was Jak, the heavy Python thudding loudly on

  the floor. Like Ryan, he chose to keep something close to hand—the leaf-bladed

  throwing knives stayed secreted on him, hidden in the folds and patches of his

  jacket.

  "Okay—sounds good to me," Murphy said from beyond the door. "Now come forward

  slowly."

  Almost as one, the companions stepped around the flimsy barriers of the

  overturned desks, Ryan fractionally ahead of the others. All kept their muscles

  as tight as whipcord, nerve ends jangling for the slightest sign of movement. It

  was a fairly large room, looking identical to the ones in all the redoubts they

  had come across. It was cleaner, and had less of an empty, desolate feel than

  the others. For all that, it was just a standard control room.

  So there was that advantage. They knew the territory. Whoever they were facing

  wouldn't expect that.

  It wasn't much of an advantage, but it might be all they needed. Behind them, in

  the chamber, J.B. clamped his fedora on his head and adjusted the wire rims of

  his glasses. He could feel, rather than see, Dean tense up for action with the

  same granite stance as his father. Doc raised the LeMat, tension transforming

  him from a seemingly mad old man into a taut killing machine.

  They were ready.

  MURPHY HEARD THE MOVEMENTS around the blind corner. He had sharp ears, honed by

  a lifetime of avoiding stickies and the ambushing gangs of outsiders he

  encountered every time he led a party from the redoubt. It was part of the

  hereditary chain that he had been trained for this since birth.

  When he knew they were in the center of the room, he nodded to one of his sec

  corps.

  "Okay, Panner. Now."

  Pri Firclas Panner was a short woman with hooded eyes and a heavy body build. In

  spite of the extra weight, her uniform was too large for her. It showed the

  marks of being altered and gave her a deceptively unbalanced and clumsy look. In

  fact her father had been a born killer, and her mother an outsider who had slit

  her throat after her daughter had been born, as though knowing the psychotic

  offspring she had produced. Panner liked her work. Too keenly. Panner was

  Murphy's most trusted ally, and it was only gene-pool regs that stopped him

  joining with her.

  A flicker of a sadistic smile crossed Panner's face.

  "Those fuckers'll wish they'd never tried to invade, Sarj," she said in a lusty,

  throaty voice. The thought of what they were about to suffer excited her. She'd

  seen these grens at work before. They didn't kill, but were far more subtle in

  their pain. It lasted longer and left the sufferer alive for other tortures.

  Before Murphy had time to take in Panner's arousal, the stocky sec woman soldier

  swung her body in front of the doorway with a rebel yell that had been passed

  down her line since the days of skydark.

  As she yelled, she adopted a classic firing stance, bracing her legs apart. The

  gren launcher in her hands was of an experimental type rarely seen in the

  Deathlands, and was one of only two that were left on the redoubt.

  AT THE SOUND of Panner's voice, the friends scattered across the room, diving

  for whatever scant cover they could find. Jak flipped over and landed on his

  feet behind a desk, one of the leaf-bladed knives balanced in the palm of his

  hand, perfectly weighted for throwing. Ryan also sought cover, rolling and

  coming to a halt with the SIG-Sauer in hand, his eye trying to sight the woman

  in the doorway.

  But she was already gone.

  The yell had covered a loud popping sound as the gren had launched. It hit the

  wall above the chamber door and bounced in front of Krysty.

  "Shit…" She threw herself away from the strangely shaped gren, which was oblong

  with a squared end and unlike anything she'd ever seen before. Not that it

  mattered—a gren was a gren. It didn't have to be just one shape to be able to

  chill you.

  J.B. appeared in the chamber doorway, holding his Uzi, preferring its accuracy

  to the less controlled M-4000, which could hit the rest of his party as easily

  as any enemy sec men.

  "Gas gren of some kind. Try to cover your mouths, breathe as shallow as

  possible," he yelled, pulling a kerchief from one of his pockets and thrusting

  it over his nose and mouth.

  A pale white mist, similar to that preceding a jump, started to infuse the room.

  It had no smell, but an immediate effect. Ryan felt his eye mist with tears as

  the gas pricked at it.

  "Fireblast! Need to get the hell out of here." His words came slowly. It seemed

  as though his brain were cut off from his body, the thoughts traveling miles to

  reach limbs that felt heavy and leaden. The SIG seemed to weigh more than usual,

  the weight dragging his arm down.

  The others were now out in the room, and they seemed to be moving in slow

  motion.

  "Nerve gas. They must be able to seal the room— otherwise the air-conditioning

  system would spread it through the whole place." Mildred gasped out the words,

  trying hard to breathe shallow as she sunk to her hands and knees. "John, they

  must want us alive. Why?" She collapsed unconscious as she forced out the

  question, trying to look around for the Armorer.

  J.B. was close to the floor, figuring that the gas would rise, being lighter

  than air, and that the air nearer the ground would be clearer, at least giving

  him a chance of staying conscious long enough to see what their captors looked

  like.

  Ryan was on the floor beside him. Both men were struggling to stay conscious.

  J.B. swum in and out of focus in Ryan's good eye.

  "Well organized. Not crazy muties for sure. Precise, like well-drilled sec men,"

  the Armorer forced out.

  It sounded to Ryan as if J.B. were talking in slow motion, the words drawn out

  and distorted. Blackness closed in at the edge of his vision, as if he were

  entering a long, dark tunnel.

  The Armorer was the last one to pass out. He didn't last long enough to see the

  door open.

  WHEN J.B. OPENED his eyes again, he found that he was staring at the ceiling of

  a dorm. Hauling himself onto the edge of the bed, he could see that all six of

  his companions were laid out on the beds, as well. It was one of the smaller

  sleepers in a redoubt, usually accommodating only four beds. But even with the

  extra three beds, there was still room to move around and stretch aching

  muscles. Outside the closed door, he could hear distant activity. From the sound

  of it, a large number of people inhabited the redoubt.

  Figuring it a certainty that they were heavily guarded on the outside, he looked

  around for a sec camera like the one Jak had spotted above the chamber door. The

  dorms didn't usually have them, but then this was obviously no ordinary redoubt.

  The sec camera was above the door, pivoting on a bracket and covering the entire

  room in a sweep. The only blind spot would be right up against the door, which

  was next to useless. Its steadily flashing red light showed that somebody was

  watching them.

  A quick search of his pockets while he gained his equilibrium on the edge of the

  bed showed the Armorer that his pockets had been stripped of all ammunition, and

  that his knife had also been taken. That his blasters would have been taken from

  him he had assumed as a matter of course.

  He stood and found that his muscles were sluggish, and that his arms and legs

  felt as though all the tendons had been sliced through. Pain lanced through

  them, and they failed to respond immediately.

  His first, tentative steps were toward Mildred. She was still out cold, as he

  could see when he thumbed back her eyelid to reveal the eyeball rolled up in the

  socket. At his touch she moaned slightly and shifted in her deep sleep.

  Moving with increasing ease and speed among the rest of the party, J.B. was able

  to determine that all of them were still unconscious. Jak's coat and knives had

  been taken from him, as had Ryan's SIG-Sauer and panga. Both Dean and Doc had

  also lost their blasters.

  But surprisingly they had neglected to take Doc's swordstick from him. The dark

  ebony cane with the silver lion's head looked like a walking stick from pre-dark

  days, and perhaps their captors had assumed it was an aid to the old man. He had

  already seen that Ryan still had his scarf wound around his neck. It was heavily

  weighted at the ends, and was a deceptively useful stealth weapon. It, too, also

  had the advantage of seeming to be innocuous.

  Two weapons left, then. Their first mistake. That was encouraging. If there was

  one error, then there would be the opportunity for others.

  Suddenly feeling overcome with a wave of exhaustion, J.B. made his way back to

  his own bed, trying not to show surprise at the discovery of Doc's swordstick.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath, which sawed his lungs.

  "Dark night," he croaked through dry lips, "what was in that gren?"

  He figured that he had awakened first because he had managed to avoid gulping as

  much of the gas as the others. And yet it had still had this effect on him…how

  would the others feel when they began to come around?

  He took off his wire-rimmed spectacles and polished them with his kerchief.

  Their captors knew he was awake. They'd figure the others wouldn't be far

  behind. And they'd know that they wouldn't be in any condition for a fight.

  The only thing to do right now was sit it out.

  BY THE ARMORER'S wrist chron, it was just over fifteen minutes before Ryan

  stirred.

  "Feel like a nuke shit in a pox-riddled gaudy house," he muttered in a low,

  quiet voice, forcing his eye open.

  He still felt as if he were separated from his body. His eye focused on J.B.,

  sitting on the edge of his bed.

  "Effects take a little while to wear off. Feels like you've had every tendon in

  your body severed and then soldered back together. Otherwise it's not too bad."

  Ryan forced a smile. A joke from J.B. was a rare thing, and could only mean that

  his old friend had the situation as assessed and secured as was humanly

  possible. Ryan's hand instinctively slipped down to his waist and leg, feeling

  for the panga, touching only the empty sheath.

  "They took everything. Only left Doc his walking stick." J.B. spoke carefully,

  indicating with a slight tilt of his fedora the sec camera behind him.

  Ryan took it in at a glance. He didn't know whether they could be heard, as well

  as seen, but he wasn't taking any chances with predark technology that was in

  the hands of people who obviously knew how to use it.

  Krysty moaned as she raised her head behind them. J.B. repeated his warning

  about the aftereffects of the gas gren.

  "Gaia! This and a jump in the same day… It's no wonder I feel like a herd of

  mutie pigs has trampled over every bone in my body."

  "Tell me about it, girl," Mildred murmured as she began to tentatively move her

  own limbs.

  Jak had obviously taken in more of the gas, as it was some time before he

  recovered consciousness, during which time Dean had opened his eyes.

  "Anyone know who did this?" Jak asked finally, shaking his head to clear his

  vision. "Tell me and I chill with pleasure."

  Only Doc remained unconscious. Mildred grabbed her backpack and went over to

  him. In addition to bits of cloth used as bandages, it usually contained medical

  supplies traded at villes or plundered from redoubts and ruined sites across

  Deathlands. The bag now revealed itself to be empty.

  "Shit. Whoever they are, they've taken everything."

  "Figured they would. The bastards are thorough." J.B. pushed his fedora back on

  his head. "Mostly," he added.

  Mildred felt Doc's pulse, which raced out of control. The old man was sweating

  and moaning, his REM making his eyelids twitch uncontrollably. The physician

  cursed the people who held them, and cursed the Deathlands. Why had they taken

  the few medical supplies she had?

  "Is he going to be okay?" Dean asked. "He doesn't look too good."

  "I wonder how much more he can take," Krysty added.

  "So do I. It's hard enough to figure out what's happened to his metabolism

  anyway, without the stresses of a mat-trans jump and a nerve-gas gren adding to

  it in such quick succession."

  She was still holding Doc's wrist when his slack hand suddenly made a grab for

  her arm, holding it tightly with a strength belied by his skinny frame. His eyes

  opened wide, staring glassily into the light above her.

  "Ah, Emily, my dear. Is it teatime already? I fear I am studying too hard, as I

  seem to fall into the arms of Morpheus far too quickly. So tired… Tell me, did

  you toast me a muffin, and is there honey for tea? I promise that I will take

  you and the children for a picnic when the weather improves enough."

  Doc's rambling didn't disguise the click of the door as it opened behind them.

  Ryan turned slowly. No need to turn quickly and make jumpy trigger fingers itch

  on their blasters.

  A man and a woman stood just inside the room. Both sec guards held 9 mm Heckler

  & Koch MP-5 K blasters, with the casual air of the regular user who was used to

  little opposition. Light grip, ready to brace and tighten on the trigger in an

  instant. They felt they didn't have to keep on the alert, as the blasters would

  take out the closely gathered group in front of them with ease.

  In Deathlands you always kept on the alert or got chilled.

  Ryan noted it as mistake number two.

  Chapter Three

  "Is there any point in asking where you're taking us?" Ryan asked as they exited

  the room.

  "Shut up and walk," Murphy replied, a smile playing across his face.

  His captain reveled in having the upper hand. Ryan could see that it made him

  sloppy. The Heckler & Koch was pointing downward at an angle of about sixty

  degrees. It would take him precious fractions of a second to level it.

  The corridor was a typical redoubt corridor. Long, with a dull floor and walls

  broken only by the installation of vanadium-steel sec doors.

  It was bizarre to see shuffling figures attending to maintenance tasks. One man

  was mopping the floor; another had the control panel off a sec door and was

  staring blankly at the wires, as though trying to remember why he had taken it

  off in the first place.

  "John, is it me or is this ridiculous?" Mildred whispered from the side of her

  mouth to the Armorer, who was walking slowly beside her. "They call this an

  armed guard?"

  "They're either triple stupe or it's a trap of some kind," J.B. replied.

  "Problem is, I can't figure out what kind of trap."

  "Or why… I'll go for the stupe option. Maybe they just need to get out more."

  Panner heard the whispered conversation and yelled, "Hey, shut the fuck up, you

  black bitch. And you, four-eyes."

  Mildred's lips tightened, and J.B. could feel her body tense beside him. Not

  that he was exactly pleased at being insulted by someone who was made brave by a

  blaster.

  "Oh-oh," Dean murmured to himself, exchanging a shifting glance with Jak. Both

  were aware of Mildred's intense hatred of stupes who picked on her color. Both

  knew it would be stored up for a future occasion.

  Which came sooner than they expected.

  Doc had been lagging behind. He walked slower than the rest of the party, and

  Panner had gleefully jabbed him in the ribs with the barrel of her weapon,