Table of Contents
In 1981 the Cold War was hot, and the possibility that the world would destroy itself in nuclear or biological holocaust was an oppressive reality. Reflecting this, DFD presents a post-holocaust LA reduced to chaotic societies run by unethical communes that control the population through fear and power.
The world has become so altered since the holocaust that Starsky & Hutch, separated before the event known only as The End, no longer remember their previous relationship as partners and best friends, or what life was like before. Now, they are known only as The Champion (Hutch) and The Other (Starsky), professional enforcers for their separate communes. And their eventual meeting is the beginning of a complex and unique tale.
Story Notes:
DFD was published as a zine in 1981, before today’s computer age. It was the first Alternate Universe (AU) story to be published in this fandom.
All art by Frodsham McCloud.
I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Sue D., Beth C., and Cindy L. who made posting the digital version of the zine possible.
- Zine cover for “Decorated for Death”
Written by Beano Smart
Art by Frodsham McCloud
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECORATED FOR DEATH
I. DEATH
II. FOR NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY,
BUT THEN FACE TO FACE. (I Corinthians 13 v.12.)
III. LIFE
Archivist’s note:
I’m very grateful to the fans who did the lion’s share of work to translate this zine with its art for the web. Both the age of the zine and the quality of the mimeo typeface made it impossible to scan, so the whole thing had to be typed in and then proofread numerous times. This on-line version has, literally, been years in the making. I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Sue D., Beth C., and Cindy L.
Much love and gratitude, Flamingo
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Intro from the Archivist:
DECORATED FOR DEATH was published in 1981, only two years after the Starsky & Hutch TV series ended in the States, but before today’s computer age. The show was still popular in syndication through much of the U.S. and Britain, home of the author and artist of Decorated for Death. DFD was, on every level, an ambitious undertaking. It was the first Alternate Universe (AU) story to be published in this fandom. While AU’s were very popular in Star Trek fanfiction, and would later be extremely popular in The Professionals fanfiction, AUs never had a big following in Starsky & Hutch. SH fans seem to prefer reading about the boys as they worked at being cops in their own familiar universe of Bay City. DFD took that familiar universe and turned it on its head.
There are numerous story conventions in SH that evolved from social events of that time that now are often lost to modern readers. The show seems to have a strange obsession with Satanists and cultists, which were featured in episodes such as Satan’s Witches and Bloodbath. Back then, cultists and cult murders were front page news, much like terrorists are now. At the time, the Cold War was hot, and the possibility that the world would destroy itself in nuclear or biological holocaust was an oppressive reality. It was a frequent subject of popular movies and TV shows, and debates of how such a holocaust would impact the world were common. This concern was so pervasive that it features in a number of classic SH fiction pieces, of which DFD is the best known.
We are lucky, as a fandom, that DFD was ever produced. It was a substantial book at 289 pages and had 14 separate art pieces. Back then, publishing a zine was a much more complex undertaking than it is now, and in the UK, according to the author, some of the publication methods available in the U.S. weren’t available to fen there. In the early 80’s some zines in the U.S. were still being produced by mimeograph machine or offset printing, while others were able to take advantage of photocopying, though that still wasn’t as readily available as it is today. In a personal correspondence, the author told me about the difficulties of producing DFD:
“One of the reasons the print quality was so poor was that in those days nobody but nobody in Britain had a PC, we were still using typewriters. To print something of that length back then, when one Xerox copy was around 8 cents a copy, was just too expensive so we resorted to Gestetner machines. But even then you had to know someone who had one and were able to sweet-talk them into lending it to you. Well, my sister and I managed to acquire a second-hand machine and duly spent hours, weeks, months cutting all the skins on a typewriter.
“However, when we came to do the printing, we didn’t know that the previous owner of the Gestetner machine had allowed it to suck pages into and around its ink drum. They were so saturated in ink we didn’t spot them under the silk and just thought it was the best the machine could do. Those sheets, which may have been on the machine’s drum for years, drank the ink and we spent a small fortune in ink to get any kind of image on the paper.
“Printing DforD cost far more than we expected and then we had the next headache of getting it bound. Again, there was nothing like personal binders over here, in those days (it sounds like the Dark Ages, doesn’t it. It’s quite amazing how far we’ve come on the printing/communication trail. Just look at us e-mailing each other!) So, we had to hunt down a printer who could do it. And when you look at the poor way it was stapled together, it’s a wonder it’s held together all these years.
“Getting the illos printed was another headache and the one of Starsky on the catafalque had to be specially done at another printer’s who had a new style machine and could cope with all that black paper. Honestly, there were days when we nearly jacked it all in. However, Terri Beckett, Chris Power, and Connie F. etc. gave us lots of encouragement and eventually DforD was born. Actually, having just re-read it, I tend to think the poor print quality kinda reflects the miserable sorry state of LA after The End and is probably the best that the Champion or the Other could have managed in the city, if they’d decided to print it themselves!”
Producing the net version of the zine wasn’t quite as labor-intensive, but it did take a considerable effort. Because of the print quality, the zine couldn’t be scanned and had to be typed, then proofread, then finally translated to html. Because of the uniqueness and the depth of detail of the art, I was reluctant to reduce the images too greatly and risk losing the superb detail. But at last it’s done.
I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Sue D., Beth C., and Cindy L. who made posting this digital version of the zine possible.
If you talk to first-generation SH fans, their opinions on DFD as a story are usually strong: they either love it or hate it. The strange tale of a post-holocaust LA reduced to chaotic societies run by unethical communes who control through fear and power is not for everyone. But at the heart of the tale are our heroes, who have now become professional enforcers for their individual communes. The world has become so altered since the holocaust that Starsky & Hutch, separated before the event known only as The End, no longer remember their previous relationship as partners, or what life was like before. They are known only as The Champion (Hutch) and The Other (Starsky). And their eventual meeting is the beginning of a complex and unique tale.
I am one of the fans who love this story, and I hope you will, too. Enjoy.
Originally posed on May 30, 2006
PART I. DEATH
When the world came to an end only a cesspool was left.
It pulsed and simmered with a fetid vitality that left no remaining man uncertain, in his private thoughts, that L.A., Los Angeles — the City of the Angels, was now the moribund waste of a perverted architect’s mind.
When civilization slipped away down the San Andreas Fault, under the cloud of nuclear war, a whole new age was born. It was an age that crept out of the dark alleys and sewers and found a debased equality with the vermin that lurked in the gutters. No more did the light of day brighten up the cloudless skies. The living survived in the cocooning darkness of the night where everything was camouflaged in shadows of gray. Nothing bore close scrutiny as there was nothing left worth studying. Better to shield the remains in the deadly darkness and pretend that there had never been a preferable alternative. The glorious past never existed, society’s rules were a mere myth perpetrated by the senile and the dangerously insane. Only the waste land of crumbling desolation was an accepted reality and the rules that governed the new, primitive millennia were based upon the ultimate in weaponry — and, more precisely, upon the ultimate champion who could wield his execution powers.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Alone.
In the savage cold of a deep, dark night a tall, blond man stood strongly erect in the mouth of a dangerously crumbling alley. Around his feet sat the huddled, black shapes of giant rats, snuffling at his knee-high boots, expecting attention of some kind. Their red, beady eyes flashed in the blackness as they peered up at their lord and master. White cartilage-ridged tails flicked spasmodically in apprehension and their hairless, blackened bodies shivered in the moaning wind. Impatient with the man’s silent vigil the largest rat snickered in a desire for action.
Instantly, the tall, armored man turned his eyes upon them. His cold blue stare alighted like a hex upon the creatures at his feet. The rat cowered down under the almost inhuman glance. It sensed the smoldering power that was subtly controlled behind the eyes and scurried away among the decaying vegetation and refuse that blanketed the alley.
The man shifted his cramped muscles under his neatly cut, studded, green leather body suit. Heavily gauntleted hands flexed over the stock of a remodeled, multi-shot, Magnum handgun. The newest killing machine to fall into the Champion’s hands. Mean and brutal, with a killing power unmatched, it gave the Champion the confidence and the right to walk the quake-shattered streets out in the open. No one crossed the Champion’s path; no one dare, as yet, lay down the challenge.
Until tonight….
His law was the last word, his actions free and deliberate. All who lived under his protection worshipped at his feet. They abased themselves before his hypnotic presence and power.
But even the Champion was owned.
The price of the Champion had been high. A multitude and variety of drugs was his price. An enormous task to fulfill, but fulfill it they did. They needed him, all of them, to survive. Survival was paramount, and so they would continue to meet his price regardless of personal cost and sacrifice. They had to. They were the last recognizably human citizens of Los Angeles, and they wanted to survive. To live, and rebuild their city, their homes, their families. But to raise a phoenix from ashes that were continually preyed upon by the mutated creatures who roamed the bones of the city, cost them dearly. To begin with they needed their hard-won territory protected; they needed a defender, a champion….
In the tall, blond, frigid man they found their killing machine. They had taken him from the wreckage of his wasted home and remolded him into their bought and kept champion. They had known of his previous reputation. His warped rejuvenation had been worth the enormous drain on their resources. They had created the perfect protector. Continually high on his personal cocktail of drugs, he would do their bidding unquestioned. He acted out their requests like an automaton fashioned in flesh and blood. Impersonal, unfeeling, his communication was spartan, his expression carved from granite.
The Champion’s eyes raked over the rubble-strewn street once more, calculating the possibly evil content of the shadows and last remaining doorways. Nothing moved in the stark moonlight, nothing twitched or gibbered on the night air. It appeared to be safe and he ventured out across the cracked tarmac to the chipped yellow line in the roadway. Positioned with a boot on either side of the dotted line, his eyes bore into the horizon of the road as he ensured that his way was not going to be barricaded. The Champion walked where he wanted. This night all other commune protectors stayed hidden. Cowering into the rank crevices of their pathetically small, ruined territories, they mouthed useless prayers and platitudes to a God in whom they no longer believed. For fear he would come. It mattered not that religion was against street law, they needed the meager comfort it afforded. Fear was the killer in the city now. It was the first and the last breath on everyone’s lips and it gave the people the crazed look of the living dead–which they were.
The Champion turned his head slowly toward the north, sniffing the air with his highly tuned, drug-induced senses. As his head moved, the long, blond ceremonial plaits down his back rustled their gold tail clasps over his bandolier. The dull chimes that broke the unnatural silence were a constant reminder to the secreted watchers that this was the prize of the city, of the Territory. He was the killing machine and for every ten dead protectors there was a gold-tipped plait. The Champion’s head was ringed in sculptured hair and gold. When a lone prowler caught the sound of the rustling gold he knew the Champion was coming. When a prowler never heard the sound of the plaits against the studded armor but saw the hell-spawned figure, gun in rock-still fist, he knew he was dead. The Champion was good, very good at his job. His methods were meticulous and performed with an air of professional detachment, almost as if he had been trained to this work. On his broad chest he bore the only other ceremonial mark of his rank and profession: a gold shield. Scarred and dented from the horrors of the Armageddon, it was still a recognized sign of the bastardized law now enforced in the city. The Champion wore the shield out of a perverse desire to remind the mutants, whom he exterminated on his missions, that they had never escaped him before and still could not hide from his swift and final justice.
Moonlight caught the shield and it glinted sharply like flying sparks from an anvil. The Champion squared his shoulders and ran an expert eye over his body, tallying his weaponry as a last check before he embarked upon his mission. His owners had chosen him well. He enjoyed a challenge but there were so few to stand against him now. So few. However, tonight was special and he almost felt the lost stirrings of living excitement. Alas for him, the drugs held a deadly calm over his being. And yet it was a numbness that allowed him to operate and survive duty nights, when he must secure the Territory against the encroaching, deformed filth and mutants who had no commune, no territory, nothing. And that was how it was meant to stay. The Territory was claimed by the Owners, and the Champion saw that it stayed that way. A long-standing equilibrium unfortunately now teetered on the brink of a newly-risen threat from the Northern Sector.
He turned his head back toward the north-east and took a deep, satisfying breath. Tonight he would fulfill his mission and wipe out the Protector of the Northern Sector Commune. His reward was to be the ultimate drug: heroin. He smiled and licked his wide lips in anticipation. It was a reward beyond price. Those who were left alive had sold their souls and worse for any drugs available. They would affiliate themselves to any commune, and trade themselves as slave labor to the owners for the multi-colored capsules. Money had no value in the city; men lived and died for a narcotic of any kind, to help them forget the living hell in which they existed.
Smugly, the Champion set off to walk to the Northern Sector. He knew his strength, his power, his skill. No one and nothing was going to deprive him of the greatest prize ever set. It was going to be his before the night was ended. All his. He would savor its effects. Thrill to the spell it would weave over his hollow mind. And he knew that once he stuck the needle into his grafted intracath he could become a servant of the narcotic forever. The thought pleased him. Forever was not such a long time and the present offered him a dull void. He shivered as his skin crawled with the near tangibility of it; he so badly wanted it that he could almost feel the reality behind his conjured mental images. And to think he had once kicked the habit — had fought and struggled against it. He smiled a hard, ironic smile and lengthened his stride. But at that time he had not been ready, had not accepted its tempting benefits. He had preferred the life he lived before. Now, he desired the heroin like he desired a clean and untainted woman for his bed. His lust was barely suppressed under the mix of uppers and downers. He wanted the drug. He wanted to win tonight. Needed to win tonight. Killing the Other in the Northern Sector would give him his reward.
He would succeed…. He was invincible.
His name was the Champion.
The hours clicked silently over on his digital watch, secured into the cuff of his metal-ridged gauntlet, and his stride did not alter from the precise and easy step of a man who walked with a sure confidence. From the shadows of the rotted facades came the whispers and jitters of the hidden populace who were brave enough to risk a sight of the Champion. In filth and squalor they counted their days and awaited their eradication at his hand. Tonight they knew of his purpose and felt the clammy shadow of death pass over them. Their respite would be brief. He would hunt again tomorrow, but while this tainted night stretched into the immensity of time, they could look upon his passage with a fear of wondrous excitement. Tonight he was not hunting them — but another.
The Champion paused under an old neon hotel sign that flickered on and off erratically due to its faulty circuit, an oasis of power in the otherwise darkened street. A blood-red light bathed him in its wavering glow, stabbing down from the cracked and flawed wall above. Deliberate blue eyes read the street nameplate with deadpan reaction. Wilshire Boulevard. He was heading in the right direction, on the right road. Most streets no longer existed. Transport was by foot. Few animals and no gasoline. Vehicles lay like discarded toys over the wastelands. No one to repair them, nothing to juice their tanks and few people left who would care to ride them. Quickly the people forgot the rule of the mobile machine and it fell into the awaiting mythological gap vacated by the end of civilization: thus becoming the new legend to tell the mutated offspring. All new civilizations needed their founding myths and legends. The car could be a beginning.
A swift movement in the darkened alley-mouth behind him caused the Champion to spin instantly and reach for his throwing knife. A wickedly razor-sharp barbed knife snaked out of the gauntleted hand and flew with a precision that left the assailant reeling — partly from disbelief at his skill and partly from the blow as it pierced his scrawny chest cavity and rested up to its ornately carved hilt. Purple-blue blood immediately flecked the lips of the ferociously squirming youth. His twisted hands dropped his futile weapon, a sharpened meat skewer, and thrashed and clawed at the metal deep within himself. His feeble attempts at removing the knife were pathetic. He died coughing, a choking gurgle of blood among the rotting remains of a commune vegetable store’s refuse. An example of the unsuccessful reintroduction of fresh produce to the city. The organic matter had swiftly decayed. Pulped flesh of the fruits smeared the rapidly paling flesh of the rag-covered body and stained it brown. A final twitch of muscular spasm and the attacker was dead. A flight of whispered approval and acknowledgement due the Champion’s skill rippled forth from the black windows and doorways. The audience considered the sight of his performance worth the risk of being so close to the meanest of men.
The Champion calmly surveyed the skull-eyed openings and refrained from bowing. He knew they had recognized him for what he was. He covered the ten feet to the body with a smoothness that made no sound. Planting his boot on the body’s chest, he bent down to wrench free the knife. The barbed blade grated against the sternum and tore the hole of the wound wider. As it slithered loose it made a dribbling squelch as the suction was released. Carefully, he examined the blade to ensure that it was undamaged. All his weaponry was excellent. Honed to a fine precision. He wiped the red from its gleaming steel on the rags of the dead youth’s shirt and slipped it back into a slit in his right boot. The longer stilettos in his boot, holster, and upper arm had not been needed. Without a backward glance or twinge of recrimination he resumed his journey toward the fulfillment of his mission.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Broken glass crunched noisily under the heavy green boots in the eerie silence.
A solitary man walked a measured distance through the gangrenous mess that had once been a thriving city street. Bricks and mortar were spewed over the road from the city’s death-throes.
The Champion stopped abruptly and studied the decaying street nameplates lying on the ground. In the dark he could barely make out the letters. Dust and grime had coated the metal in thick layers. He approached the sign and squatted down to rub away some of the clinging dirt. Underneath was the word he was searching for: Bronson. He was at the corner of Wilshire and Bronson. He had made it this far. Confident, he rose and searched the mosaic-like roadway for an access point to the sewers. The Other dwelt down there, in the effluent of the city. This was why it had taken so long to locate him, to search him out and track him down. The Other’s death was at hand; the Champion had used his spies well. He had always used informants, knew the ways and means of bringing pressure to bear and recently had enjoyed the methods of extracting that information. His mission would be completed. The Owners would be pleased. They would see he was rewarded handsomely.
The manhole cover was hidden under a collection of foul-smelling dead dogs. The Champion kicked the carcasses aside and ran gloved fingers over the rusting circle. Unhooking a large leather pouch from his left hip, he unlaced the fastening thong and rolled the leather flat. Inside was a selection of long metal implements: screwdrivers, knives, chisels, saw-blades, keys and cutters. Precisely, he removed a long screwdriver and inserted the tip under the rim of the cover. A sharp thrust and it slid under the metal, which rose slightly. His fingers hooked under before it could drop and, without a warning sound, he raised it clear of the hole. Setting it aside, he took a last glance at the deserted, lonely night, then slid his legs over the edge. Heavy-soled boots tolled on the rungs as he descended into the pitch-black bowels of the city.
A thin, dirty trickle of stinking effluent ran through the enormous pipe at the foot of the ladder-well. The Champion placed his feet solidly into the stomach-constricting filth and turned left and right to gauge his bearings. His informant had assured him that at the end of the main pipe there was a rising tunnel-way that led directly to the Other’s domain. In the grim darkness the blond Champion flicked three of the plaits from his shoulder and smiled thinly. The killing machine was on his own turf now, playing the role he was trained for. And still using skills learned before The End. Getting this far had doubled his chances of success. Being on the prey’s home ground gave him the advantage. The Other’s defenses would be down; he would be off his guard, relaxing. He could take him out with such speed and ease it would leave only mild surprise. With luck, the Other may never even register his presence before he was dispatched into the unknown. It all depended on the mood of the Champion. Was he sadistically inclined tonight? Or merciful? He reflected. Neither, he was jubilant. He was mere minutes from his mission’s end and his reward.
Adhering strictly to his personal code of practice, he crept forward on feet of unerring stealth. One hand tracking the curve of the slime-covered pipe-wall, he progressed through the dark toward the next tunnel. Creatures of bizarre shape and intent scurried from his alien scent and purposeful tread. He spared them neither glance nor thought. His eyes bore into the blackness, seeking the moment when the dark would not be quite so black, the silence not quite so still.
Edging forward, he found his padded shoulder no longer touched the curving pipe-wall. He had found the turning point of the tunnel. Cheek grazing the brickwork buckled in the quake, he eased an eye around the corner. A smaller tunnel entrance lay before him. No water ran across its cracked bed and the rubbish and excrement had been swept aside. A sure sign, mused the Champion, that the Other was living here, was existing here, but only for a short time longer…if he had his way.
Finally, the slippery ground rose in marked progression. He paused, all senses alert. His hand covered the stock of his gun and locked it with a satisfying click into the specialized handgrip in his gauntlet. It could not be kicked loose or dropped. He could not be disarmed, unless his hand was severed.
Clinging to the inner wall, the green, wraith-like figure padded up the tunnel. Dulled metal of his bastardized gun gave the first hint of a light source up ahead as it glinted balefully in his molded grip. A faint orange glow illuminated the dried and crusting grime smeared across the wall, ceiling, and floor. The stench here was marginally better, but the danger of contamination from bacteria was still present. The Champion looked down at himself and noted the filth that clung to his taut body. He would sterilize himself of this place as soon as possible. Cleanse away this diseased night. His health must not fail him. Illness: it was the only fear he had. He resolved to culminate his mission quickly. He did not feel any mercy — no, it was simply that he wanted the relatively antiseptic space of the outside. Calmly, he stepped around the final corner and into the light.
His assessment of the scene was rapid and correct. Every important detail was impregnated into the retinas of his iced eyes.
The Other was seated, as he had known he would be, upon a hugely ornate chair, carved with the grotesqueries of his adopted commune. He was drinking slowly from a plain goblet. Dark red wine. As he saw the Champion in the distant shadow’s edge, he lowered the cup and placed it upon an equally baroque side table. The red velvet drapes that adorned the back wall seemed ludicrously out of place in the crumbling tunnel, but the precious electric light that lit his underground home was a tantalizing revelation. Now the Champion knew why he must kill the Other. The Territory wanted the Northern Sector’s priceless possession — the electric light and the source of power upon which it fed. Without a protector it would be theirs for the taking. For a moment his eyes had been drawn like a moth’s to the source of brilliant whiteness. Now they snapped back to the man in the chair.
The Other rose and assumed a stance of perfect authority. No man trespasses in his domain.
His one deep blue eye glittered malevolently at the intruder. He was about to deal in death. His leather-covered arm moved toward the automatic rifle in his thigh holster. It snapped up into his left hand on the spring release. His face turned questioningly to the Champion, awaiting the next move. He was ready for the confrontation he knew must come. Tonight was as good as any other night. Death belonged to any darkness.
In the stark light, the Champion stared at the metal and flesh-fused face before him. The whole left side of the Other’s face was a mask of molded metal and studded silver strips that seemed to be embedded into cartilage, flesh, and bone. The accentuated eye socket held an oval object that glimmered with a deadly hate. It did not end there as the skull of metal became a helm of some kind as it continued over his head. At the nape of the neck the head covering joined with an erect metal collar, which rose about his shoulders like a curving wall. His long thin nose was bisected with a sliver of metal, as was the left side of his thin lips. The whiteness of his skin stood out in blatant relief beside the metal, while the rest of his body was partially adorned in a network of midnight blue, figure-hugging leather strips. Muscles bulged under this lattice, obvious evidence of his power and strength.
In his heart the Champion knew he was looking at his successor. Or at least his equal.
Silence passed between them as they assessed each other’s power. Protector to protector. Opponent against opponent. They both waited for the next move. A calculating menace seeped into the atmosphere.
The Other shifted his stance minusculely and tightened his grip on the trigger. The blond sensed the tensing in his body and raised the Magnum higher. He took a step forward for his executioner’s stance. Legs astride, he, too, was ready.
Abruptly, the Other shouldered the gun, about to discharge a volley of scything shots. Just as suddenly he stopped as he saw clearly the gold badge upon the green-clad chest. His one visible dark brow frowned as a vague sense of unease crossed his racing mind. The blond hair made him falter…the blue eyes….
It was all the Champion needed. The explosion of his weapon became a thunder-loud cacophony in the enclosed tunnel. The rapid and immediate discharge of six Magnum slugs at once tore into the muscular torso of the Other. The blue-leathered body jack-knifed into the chair and lay still, sprawled over the carved arms. The rifle slid from his lifeless fingers onto the cement floor with a dull thud. His helmeted head lolled backwards on a loose neck.
The Champion released the gun from the handgrip and instantly reloaded the empty chambers. With drill-induced precision, he completed his set moves of extermination. The gun slid back into the holster — he unlocked his legs from the wide stance. For several seconds he simply stood, awaiting the echoes of death to die away in the riddled sewer system. As the cordite dispersed, he approached the body draped across the chair like a discarded tin soldier.
The metal visage was even more bizarre close to.
Strange…so very strange.
It stirred his drug-dulled memories in a way he dreaded.
A chill crawled through him.
The features of the Other made his pulse beat faster and his stomach lurched in a way beyond his physical control. On the broad and scarred chest, among other metal commune decorations, was a polished gold shield. The same as his own.
The same as his own.
Disturbed, he held his breath and swallowed slowly. With a rock steady index finger, the Champion tilted the red-speckled head toward him. The coveted light brought the flesh, bone, and intricate helmet into naked relief. Half a face, half a man. And then he saw it.
A lone dark curl.
It had escaped the helm and face-covering. Body sweat and blood had fixed it to the damp forehead forever.
His fingers slid out from under the chin allowing the head to flop backwards against the sculptured side of the chair. For long moments he stood, immobile, unthinking, and yet menaced from within by a trace of…something….
Desire to understand made the Champion pry the helm from the still head. It clattered, ringing around his feet on the stained and bloodied ground. Revealed was the grossly deformed half-face. Gaunt and hollowed.
Puzzled, the Champion struggled to bring forth the memory he now wished for, craved for. Like a filtered dream from a paradise lost, a realization and awareness surmounted the barricade of drugs in his mind. And his body recoiled with semi-understanding. An automatic reflex-action propelled the Champion away into the shadows from whence he came. Back into the disguising darkness.
But his eyes would not leave the tableau before him.
No…never…he was lost on that night of the apocalypse. There has never been any word…never a sign.
Pressing against the crusting wall, the Champion shivered, eyes a suspicious glare of desperate denial. The jet eye of the discarded helmet stared accusingly from the feet of the corpse. It would not release him from its hypnotic hold. It begged him to honor his thoughts.
No — he ceased with the millions of others that night. He…never came back.
Reluctantly, he pulled away from the wall, turned and headed back down the tunnel. But the image chased him on, clinging to his heels. He quickened his pace, hesitating only at the junction of the main channel. As he trod through the watery waste, he tried to close his mind to the suppressed visions that were rearing up to haunt his living somnambulism. But they charged forth through the gray mists behind his wide, staring eyes. He bit them back, shutting away his doped-out past behind a portcullis of will.
But the shield and the hair…and the face. The face.
He must be close to the ladder-well now. He strained into the rancid blackness for his means of escape. But all he saw was the Magnum-riddled body.
He’d always promised to be here, beside me. He hasn’t returned. Mourning has been terminated. Death was accepted. That cyborg corpse was not him!
He sensed the change in temperature; he could smell the street. With deft confidence, he placed his hand on a rung of the ladder, sure it would be there in the ebony dark. Glancing up, he caught the tiny points, of stars in the circular patch of night sky. He had only to climb to be free of this place.
But he had to take that one look back.
For what? A tightening in his chest made it difficult to breathe. His gold clasps clicked against each other in the deathly quiet. Tonight he would plait the last remaining loose hair. He had his quota. But….
Who else could pose as equal? Who else could be favored as successor?
A rare sense of loss briefly crossed his mind. But he no longer recognized his own feelings. He no longer felt the deep core within him. There was no need to remember them. Not anymore.
Hard, he squared his shoulders.
I deny it!
Now was his reality, not some suspect memory of a failed age. Now it was the quick or the dead. Survival of the fittest. The corpse back there had not been quick enough.
I am the Champion. It is my right. I have earned it.
He placed a boot on the bottom rung and began to ascend back toward the street. Above lay his reward and he wanted its guaranteed release. Now. He would use it as his salvation — a means to an absolution of this night. Why, he did not know.
But in his kingdom of the street, he would continue his vocation with a new zeal. He would continue to Protect and Serve. He was the Champion.
And now at least he knew….
PART II. FOR NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, BUT THEN FACE TO FACE.
In the cold silver-gray of another dead dawn, four black-cowled and cloaked figures could be seen standing upon an empty and deserted roadway. Three were standing silently around an exposed manhole cover, staring into the spiraling depths, while the fourth hovered close by, a heavy automatic rifle clutched at his hip. Chalk-white fingers gripped the dark blue stock tightly, red eyes shifting haphazardly from under the low hood as he surveyed the crumbling wasteland around him. Sunrise. The mutants would crawl forth soon, to scavenge the remains of the city and to prey on the unsuspecting fool who ventured out of his commune. The guard glanced at the other three figures to his left and mentally hurried them along with their work. The nights were bad, but the days could be of far more danger. They had already been standing here too long. Too easy a target for a renegade sniper or a commune-expelled assassin. Nowhere was safe. Even the walls of a commune did not fit snugly against one’s back.
After some quiet deliberation, one of the three sentinels silently slipped down onto all fours and lowered himself into the ladder-well. The remaining two gathered in their skirts and followed close behind. Another equally chalk-white hand waved a signal to the guard and then they were gone. The guard moved over to the hole and peered down after them. In the silence he could hear their rhythmic descent upon the iron ladder. Abruptly, it stopped and all that he could hear was the soft rustle of cloaks through the sludge and effluent as they moved away into the sewer system.
He shivered even under the warmth of his coverings. He knew what lurked down there in the rank darkness. He knew what would happen if his companions were caught by the being that lived, no, existed down there. It would be a simple and swift death. The Other was a barbaric savage — a so-called protector. Deadly. All of the communes’ protectors were greatly feared. The only small mercy that comforted him was that they had not come for the ultimate killing machine owned by the Territory: the Champion. Silently, he vowed never to go against the Champion. No one ever got close enough and lived. No one. Removing the Other would be enough. He was already stretched beyond his abilities. His nerves were fraught. His hand unsteady. The fingers about the gunstock and trigger vibrated visibly. He stood upright from the manhole cover and flexed his hand. Keep calm. Stay in control.
As he turned toward the largest of the decaying buildings, a metal projectile appeared on the air and embedded itself in the flesh and bone of his skull. His head snapped back, lips parted for a last desperate cry, but he was dead upon his feet. He fell as if pole-axed, the gun still clutched in his bony grip. A small cloud of dust rose about him like a sprinkled shroud, as he rolled over the tarmac and lay still.
From across the bent and buckled road came a small sound of jubilation. An old furriers’ store-front still had some of its goods in the window. Through the shattered panes of glass a deformed tangle of arms and legs edged forward around a full-length fox-fur. Its blistered and burned arms cradled a handmade slingshot. Near the splintered points of glass it paused and smiled a toothless smile of glee. Its white eyes shone in the pale rays of morning. It had its new clothes, its new weapon and its precious food. All in one wrapped package on the road. It scampered across the rubble in a loping crouch and sat beside the corpse. Tentatively, it pawed at its prize, fingering the cloth, the weapon, the not-too-shriveled flesh. Crowing under its breath, it unhooked a series of meat hooks and attached them to the body. Pulling together all the chains that were attached to the handles of the hooks, it clipped them onto a wide leather belt at its waist and proceeded to tow away its gift. The bulk moved after it with surprising ease. Deformity did not necessarily equate with weakness. For one city dweller at least, today was going to be a fine day, one of the best. With clothes, food, and a gun, he might be able to join a commune….
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
In the stinking filth of the sewer system deep underground, three armed black-garbed figures edged up a smaller, fractionally cleaner tunnel toward the Other’s domain. Creeping around the final corner, they paused under the stark light from the electric bulb suspended from the curved ceiling. Their white hands held high the curiously designed guns and, like another not so many hours before, they were drawn to the brilliant whiteness, red eyes glowing in anticipation. Electricity. Whoever owned the city could own the power. If they could own a protector for themselves, they, too, would stand a chance at having some of the light and warmth. If they could possess the ultimate protector they could own the whole city. It all spelled security for the future. If there was ever going to be a future.
Drawing away from the jewel on the wall, one of the figures approached the huge central seat, his sharp eyes taking in the splashes of dark red and the disregarded ornate helmet. Slowly, he bent down and picked up the helmet, a finger stroked the jet eye. Smooth, hard, and cold.
From behind him came a worried hiss.
“He’s not here, Peter.”
The named figure turned, helmet in white hand.
“No, he is not.” With a long index finger, he pointed at the blood on the cement floor. “We have evidently been too late. Someone else has been here before us.”
The two men hanging back in the shadows stared at the blood. One swallowed stiffly. It appeared as if someone else before them had had similar motives and had dispensed with the Other in a violent, bloody way.
All three knew of the only other man who would have had the courage and the reasons to come down into the sewer system and fight on the Other’s own territory.
“The Champion?” Joshua’s voice was marginally high with fear.
“Who else? Who would dare to hunt in another’s domain? Who else, aside from ourselves, would gain by the Other’s death?”
Simultaneously, the leader’s men looked over their woolen shoulders into the darkness behind. Frayed nerves produced the image of the Champion in the huge pipe, weapon poised. Both knew what his companion was thinking.
“We should leave here now.” Reuben’s eyes were beseeching.
Peter ignored his remark, unaffected by the chill atmosphere and the specter of the green-clad killer and the butchered Other that hovered over the place.
“The Champion is long gone. Returned for his reward — his Owners pay him well.” He turned the helmet over in casual irritation. He liked his own way. Expected it. When his plans went astray through extraneous variables he could not control, it did little to placate his temper.
But for once things were working in his favor.
“It would seem that the rumors were true: the Champion of the Territory had been sent out to eradicate his only remaining rival.” He glanced back at the others and motioned them to lower their guns. “Unwittingly, the blond has done our job for us. Now there is only the one ultimate killing machine. He claimed the kingdom of the streets last night…and in a little time he will be the focal point of the New Image.”
“Surely we will have to move fast now, Peter?” Joshua took a hesitant step forward, his eyes on the helmet in Peter’s hand. “The Champion has given the Territory an advantage over the Plaza Commune.”
Peter nodded thoughtfully. “Yes…the Northern Sector no longer had a protector to pitch against the Champion. The Territory could move against them and take over the Plaza. He is invincible. The Owners could take the city.”
His face darkened as these thoughts did not fit in with his own convoluted designs. Snapping around from his reverie, he continued:
“Gentlemen, we need to secure the catalyst in this city for our own advancement. With that protector we can outwit them all.” He stepped forward and placed the helmet on the seat of the ornate chair. Toe pointing forward, he found he had smeared some of the thicker blood stains and he wondered who had been sufficiently interested enough in the body of the Other to come here and remove it. Surely not the Champion? If the strangely silvered man had failed to take out the Champion when he had the chance, then surely his own commune, based in the Plaza, wouldn’t be interested in reclaiming the body? Possibly the ravenous hunger of the mutants gave them the courage to sneak into the sewers and remove the body for their own ends?
Shrugging away the thoughts, he stepped back from the chair and turned to depart.
“Come, Reuben; come, Joshua. The New Image must move swiftly if we are to capitalize upon our unforeseen good fortune.” With his long robes sweeping over the cold stone floor, he brushed between his two men and walked out of the light, back the way they had come.
Departing as softly as they had arrived, three figures merged in with the pitch dark of the tunnel, the only sign of their presence being the replaced helmet and the brief spark of red from the tunnel as they occasionally looked back.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The sun hardly ever shone in the city any more, one gray powdery day was the same as all the rest. The months and weeks turned into years of the same — depressed days relieved only by the brutal violence of the demented city dweller. Los Angeles had gone bad and now it was rotting away. Each day a little more decayed and died. Those that were left grubbed, clawed, and murdered for another day. One of the countless gray days. And it was the same every day.
The Northern Sector had founded its stronghold in the ruptured remains of the glorious Plaza Hotel. Five star. Exclusive. Three crumbling stories of cracked white stucco, with its elaborate sculptured plasterwork flaking from the fissured walls. The grand-columned entrance was in grave danger of collapse, but the newly introduced iron-studded door gave the run-down remains a sense of new, if limited, life. The other four stories of exclusive Plaza lay in an enormous mound of rubble at the back. Thus, it had a more than solid back door. Old doors from giant freightliner trucks had been fixed over the windows on all floors. It was now a fortress, strong enough to withstand any attack from the outcasts or mutants. The commune was safe, safer than any other. Not as big as the Territory, but compact and secure. It stood like a whitewashed tombstone in the middle of a wasteland. Nothing stood for a block and a half on all sides. And above all else it had an electrified security system. If pushed, they could use their private generators, ripped from the innards of the National Military Hospital, and bring into their defense alarm systems of simple electrified fences and wires which were set at random points. They had fried many a mutant on the wires at night. But most of the time their fears were buttressed behind their Protector. He lived a lone, solitary life and out on the city streets at night he could clean out a whole block. Single handed.
Until the Champion came in the night. Deadly accurate.
But they were not defeated. They would make over their Protector. He would work again. Only this time he would not stand against the Territory’s killing machine, he would lure the prize of the city to their lair.
The Northern Sector wanted the Champion. The Other was, by definition, the other. Now they wanted the best. And they would sacrifice their own man of death to gain the blond butcher…
In the underground basement of the Plaza Hotel was a blackened room of soundless peace. A ceremonial plinth took up the center space on the spartan cement floor. The stone-work of the plinth was plain. The elaborate carvings on the once-hallowed church altar had been sanded smooth. Its removal from the church in Santa Monica had been strenuous, dangerous work. It had happened in a time shortly after The End and the foolish parishioners who were unlucky enough to be left alive had scurried to their beloved church and tried to prevent the removal of their blessed center-piece. The Northern Sector had decided upon what they wanted and had, without conscience, dispatched into the next life any who stood against them. They wanted a fitting display rostrum for their newly-acquired protector.
Upon this already bloodied and coveted plinth a small, furtive army of commune surgeons had practiced their new medicine. Unethical and perverted, they had practiced until they had perfected its methods, and the results were often spectacular.
This last night’s hours of labor had produced further remolding and repairs upon the muscular being exhibited there. Skilful, amoral improvements had been made upon his body. Permission was never asked, for the surgery was always carried out in silent obsession. Every new doctor was dedicated to the level of fanaticism. Each time they would make him better, greater, stronger. One day, invincible. That dream was at an end.
Now they had a chance for the Champion and they craved for him instead. The Other would be disregarded — sacrificed for a finer specimen. However, their present protector still might have his uses, as a unique kind of bait, or simply as a subject to practice upon.
When they had finally packed away their instruments of medical sorcery in the hours of dawn, the New Age doctors crept silently away to their own places within the Plaza, satisfied and proud of their growing skills, and of the reborn man who lay there in the peaceful dark.
His one dark blue eye opened with a slow, calculating menace. As the first threads of consciousness came to him, he knew what they had been doing to him; he knew he would not be in his private sanctum, safe from their prying hands. How sweet their night’s work must have been for them. What horrors had they performed upon his unwilling body now?
He hardly dare feel, guess, look.
Four heartbeats passed within the darkened room then the man on the marbled surface of the plinth took a deep, soft breath that whispered into every sterile corner. His limited vision was hard and uncompromising as it took in the shadows and objects within his range.
Be sure that I am alone, that they have gone.
He wanted them gone; he hated them. Loathed them all, especially Selkirk. His hands always touching him, always playing with his skin, so personal…too personal.
Stealthily, he rolled up into a sitting position, feet swinging from the slab to the cold stone floor. For a moment he waited, head strained back alert, listening again. No, they were gone, sure that he was still unconscious from his last programming session.
He smiled in thin cynicism. He was not about to be a Northern Sector pawn any longer.
Struggling to his feet, he gathered his wits about him. He was cold, always cold. Shivering, he rubbed a hand over his naked flesh. Immediately, he came into contact with the newly meshed metal plates in his dark-haired chest. He moaned bitterly, head sinking down to see for himself the so-called improvements.
Mutilation!
His thin features became finer and spare. White.
Oh, God, please leave me to die next time. I don’t want to live like this.
An honest tear trickled down his cheek and splashed onto the inlaid silvered pieces. Sadly, he raised a hand to his face to brush away the next and came into contact with the new metal strips curving around his left cheek. The hand stopped dead as shock registered in his whole body.
Jesus Christ, where is my body? Am I no longer a man? No longer a man…I am becoming a machine. Their machine of death.
A vengeful anger began to stir within him to mingle with his self-pitying sorrow. Misery was his being and withering hate for himself, his soul.
He moaned again, softly as the full realization of what they had done hit him. With wearied depression, he leaned back against the plinth that had all too quickly become his permanent, private catafalque. Surrendering to the reality of the situation, he accepted the fact that he had been resurrected again.
Damn them! Damn them! Damndamndamn them!!
His chin came up, hellfire in his eye. He scoured the ceiling above in an attempt to pierce the cement and seek out those who had worked these terrible acts against him. His lips twisted with his misery, strange and painful due to their partial armoring.
I cannot face this again.
Tears fell silently. Silent pain.
After a long time, he rose from his slumped stance and pulled himself erect. Shaking his head, he again came to the solution that he had decided upon last night in his home in the sewer.
Enough is enough. You have used and abused me.
His shoulders squared.
I still have my mind…just. I can still think and reason.
Facing the door, he spoke in a quiet huskiness.
“No more.”
Resolute, he moved toward the programming machine, a large complex box of circuitry, probes, and electrodes. All ready and waiting to be linked into his brain for another programming session. Manipulation and auto-suggestion. Mind-control.
Not any more. The machine was unique. Experimental. Priceless. Rescued from the wreckage of an old government agency. How delighted they would have been to know that it worked. He knew.
Not anymore. With his new-found strength, he systematically tore it into ruptured shreds of metal casing, wires, and silicon chips. The pieces filtered through his fingers to the floor, looking like a spilled erector set.
Satisfied, he turned on his heel and walked out.
The huge, studded doors into the Plaza were left swinging wide on their hinges.
The open wasteland of rubble and distant shattered office blocks stood out harshly in the watery sun that fought to illuminate the gray world of midday.
In the darkened doorway, a man stood in savage relief. He surveyed the deserted area in front of the commune building.
Nothing moved. Not even the dust stirred from the earth. The dark curly-haired man stepped forward confidently into the weak sunlight and let the change in temperature caress his naked flesh.
It had been so cold down below.
Careful not to trip any newly placed alarms, he trotted down the cracked steps to the unused road. No vehicle traveled here any more. Again he scanned the area thoroughly. The mutants loved the middle of the day when the commune dwellers hid away in their darkened fortress. It was their time to roam the streets and scratch a living from the remains. But all seemed quiet and still.
He had to be sure the area was safe as he was weaponless. All his armory had been left behind in his home. Without his gun he felt twice as naked. He swallowed slowly and looked back toward the Plaza entrance. To go would be an irreversible step. All his bridges burned. Commune-less, he would have none of his own kind. But what were his own kind? He glanced down at himself. Where did a protector fit in? With other protectors…?
He turned around.
I’ll just have to start building my own bridges.
And set off across the broken bricks and shards of glass that had once been a block of buildings. He cut diagonally across the block, not bothering with the easier terrain of the road. If the mutants wanted him, they could try it. But they would still know him even without his armor. The scarred left side of his face, the hollow eye socket, bore a blatant testimony as to who he was. Only a crazed being would venture forth against him.
Like the Champion.
Vague memories of the previous night came unbidden to his mind.
The tall green-leathered figure…the intricate Magnum…the stance…speed…blue eyes dark of pupil, wide, drugged.
He had seen that in himself so many times. Vague and haunted.
The dull thudding pain of slugs tearing holes in my body, six at a time, vicious…and the hair, blond, plaited, long nearly to his waist, gold-tipped — the sign of his kills….
The Other paused a moment, lost in thought, feet resting upon the half-buried planking of an old bar counter.
And yet there had been something strange, more frightening than the actual man before him. Something that had not been there. Yes, that was it. Whatever was missing had frightened him more.
The mystery of this man sowed the first seeds of compulsion into his mind.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
From under the wooden planking of the counter, two beady bright eyes watched in fascination as the Other passed over it. The naked body of rippling muscle and metal strode away into the watery sunlight, raising small clouds of dust at his heels. The tangle of gross deformity sniggered a toothless smile and poked its balding head out from under the counter. Its weedy fingers tightened upon the slingshot, white eyes never leaving the unsuspecting target. Two in one morning; its luck was definitely on the turn. Then, abruptly, it wrinkled its flaking features in dismissal and tossed aside the sling. Instead, it pulled out from under its too-large black cloak a new weapon. Crooning, it stroked the metal and scampered off toward the open Plaza doorway.
It had its weapon, clothes, food and now an access way into the Northern Sector Commune.
At the foot of the Plaza steps it paused, head on one side, and listened. Quiet. Good. It could slip in as unnoticed as when the Other left. Creeping slowly forward, it made it to the third step before a silent pistol shot blasted a hole in its neck. Blood spurted like a fountain. The white eyes bulged in horror. The weapon fell from the twisted hands to clatter down the steps. Its withered body folded neatly into a still heap, black cloak soaking up most of the blood.
From the darkened entrance, two men were standing silently, watching the departure of the Other, now a tiny speck in the distance.
“You have programmed him well. All is going according to plan.” The older of the two spoke levelly. “My congratulations on your team’s work, Doctor Selkirk.” Calmly, he replaced the smoking pistol under his robe. With a disgusted eye, he glanced at the corpse on the steps and then turned away. “See that that mess is removed from the steps, Selkirk. Our image is everything.”
Selkirk nodded.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
In the corner of the upstairs window of a deserted pawnbroker’s, two pairs of eyes were fastened upon the Other as he quickly passed. They stayed hidden behind a length of rotting lace as the protector picked his way down the street.
“Well, whaddaya know — there is life after death,” the tall man whispered sarcastically. “Looks like he’s going back to his sewer.” He flicked back his long, greasy hair. “Selkirk and Houndsworth musta put him on release.”
A smaller man in brown and green clothes shifted his stance nervously.
“They’ve done another flash job on his body. That medical team must have a pact with the devil.” He snickered quietly.
“Yeah, flesh and metal-work has always been Selkirk’s specialty.”
The Other had passed from their view and they didn’t want to remain in the same place too long. The first man nudged the figure at his side as an indication that they should go. As he turned, his rifle brushed against a skeleton in rags balanced upon a bedroom chair. It toppled to the carpeted floor.
“Excuse me,” he said and kicked aside the bones. “Come on, we can’t let him get out of range.”
The two men drifted down the rotten stairs and out into the yard at the back. The rats smelled them coming and fled.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Two hard-skinned feet came to rest upon the iron circle of a manhole cover. At one side, the Other could see fresh blood stains and signs of a body or carcass having been dragged away.
The mutants, most probably. They like their meat fresh…but who had been picked off? One of the medical team from the Northern Sector? Or, possibly, the Champion? No, not possible, that would make me the perfect unrivalled killing machine. Couldn’t be; the Plaza would have told me.
He channeled his attention back to the entrance to his domain. He had not the lever to get in, no tool at all, to lever the circle of iron free. Scanning about the rubble for something suitable, he caught, out of the corner of his right eye, a slight movement in the furrier’s store.
So, others are interested, are they? Who are they? The Northern Sector wouldn’t hide, the Territory has already sent their best man, and the mutants can’t stand erect….
Someone was following him.
Suddenly, he felt more exposed than his sheer nakedness. His flesh crawled. Remaining calm, he continued to poke about for the elusive piece of metal that he needed. As he was crouching down, he sensed them watching him, staring upon his raw body. Trouble clouded his features, lips thinned.
His hand alighted on a rusting door hinge. It would do. Moving back to the manhole cover he slid it under the rim and quickly flipped it up. Skin grazing on the circular rim edge, the Other slid over the edge and disappeared into the ladder-well. A long white arm snaked out and pulled the cover back into place with a heavy thud. From underneath, in the echoing dark, he ensured that the cover could not be removed by jamming it with the hinge. The sharp metal edges sliced into his palms, but he was too intent to notice. He did not belong to a commune anymore. He had finished with that. The penalties for desertion were severe and final: death by assassination. That brief glimpse, up above, could have been of his personal death squad.
So, why didn’t they strike? Mental torture…? Fear of me…?
Crouching upon the icy metal rungs, he listened to see if they would pursue him. No sound came to his ears. They must be waiting, waiting for him to come out. Well, the sewers were his domain, his home, and he had other ways to come and go. This entrance was now sealed for good.
Swiftly, he dropped down the rungs to the wet effluent below. Squelching through the waste, he made for his private sanctum.
Behind the ornate chair were several wooden chests. The Other moved swiftly forward and wrenched them open, smashing off locks with his new found strength. The fourth chest yielded what he was searching for. New clothes. The Northern Sector had always been most generous with his clothes. He wanted for nothing. Or so they thought. If only they really knew. Abruptly, he stopped and peered down the tunnel. Was there someone there? Eyes watching from the silent dark? He looked briefly to his electric light. It made him a clear, easy target. He stared into the tunnel again. Nothing. He was getting nervous, jittery.
He turned back and instantly saw the bloodstains on the floor and around the base of the seat. The sight stopped him dead. Inside he turned cold.
Blood…my own life’s blood. Spilled — and for what? For them, for the Northern Sector…but not for me. I don’t count as a person.
He looked down at himself. At the way they had saved his life yet again. He was uncanny.
Maybe I’m not a person anymore? Maybe I’m something else…something created by Selkirk.
Tears filled his eyes again and he forced them away.
No more tries, Selkirk. No more tries.
Seconds later, he was pulling together the final lace of leather. Snatching up his helmet from the cushions of the seat, he made to pull it on. His hand strayed to the empty eye-socket — a constant reminder of half-life now. Half flesh, half metal. Half face, half scars. Halved vision. In the beginning they had promised him another eye, teased him with the offer, and like a fool he’d followed.
He never got the eye, never would now. On reflection, he’d stopped believing in them long ago, but he’d had no alternative. Now he was going to create new alternatives. A life of his own, somehow.
He pulled down the helmet and settled it snugly to the contours of his face. Deftly, he tucked any loose, dark curls away from sight. He didn’t like himself, hated to catch a glimpse of his reflection. It brought home too vividly what he had become.
On, the floor near his feet he spied something familiar, half-hidden between the thick curtains and the enormous chair. Slowly, he bent down and picked it up.
His gold shield. His badge of Justice at one time. Now it was a sign of a city protector, or a butcher, depending on how one looked at things. Tenderly, he rubbed it between fingers and thumb. The gold looked hot and pale in his hand. A symbol of his blood-spattered profession.
To think I’d have died for this — What have I sunk to…?
Carefully, he secured it to the intricate, wine leather bindings of his body covering. He noted with acute distaste how the suit now emphasized the metal additions to his body. Any other medals and ceremonial decorations he left scattered over the floor where the medical team had left them. He wanted no part of them. Snatching up his custom-built rifle, he slid it into the leg holster on his left side and belted and buckled on his remaining combat weapons. He was going across town and he was going well prepared. He was a marked man with a price on his head. Everything that could crawl out of the gutter or from under a stone would put in a bid for his helmed head. It could mean a ticket into a commune. It would mean his death.
The last act he committed before leaving was a blasphemy to the Northern Sector’s creed. His leather-clad fist smashed the hanging light bulb against the wall to shatter it. Glass fragmented into curved shards. The precious wires he wrenched free and threw aside. Blackness enveloped him.
I am finished with all that the Northern Sector stands for. I damn their image and their medicine. I will take no more part in their war in this city. I release myself to become a free man again.
Boots padded away into the dark tunnel. They never paused or faltered.
They have made me into more than they can control. More than I can control, and I shall make them pay.
The footsteps grew quieter until only the swishing effluent echoed in the circular underground stream. But his mind was intoxicated with his new-found freedom. His own thoughts were a rousing symphony in his head.
I think, therefore I am, and I have a right to my own life. I desire my own brave new world…and I shall take it as of now.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Four pairs of hungry, white eyes stared intently toward the rooftops from the doors of a dilapidated warehouse. Hidden well back into the shadows, they had no fears that the being under scrutiny above would notice them. They were being careful, quiet, watchful. They could wait hour upon uneventful hour for that one chance of setting upon him. A protector was a prize beyond hope and reason and they could wait a very long time. The female companion to the other three slid silently to the rust-stained floor, nestling down in her filthy rags, eyes riveted to the dark shape above. Her weak legs were aching and tired from the already long vigil, but she was not going to leave. They’d all spotted him at the same time. His weaving, leaping journey over the neighboring rooftop had piqued their curiosity, and when they saw his badge of identification, they had instantly slavered at the thought of “apprehending” him. Their eyes never flickered from their prey as the female settled down. Protectors were sly and swift, they had to be watched like a hawk. However, the mutants hovered in the doorway like a family of vultures greedy for their feast on his body and possessions.
The world crawled through another day….
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A hunched silhouette of a strange man was etched against a misty moon like a gargoyle upon an ancient place of worship. Hour after hour he’d sat, immobile, gloved hands hugging his leathered legs. A pale sun had briefly glimmered on his metalled body, but now a silver moonbeam starred his helmet with a white halo. The only sound was the keening wind through the empty warehouses, and the soft breathing of restrained excitement through his silver-plated lips. A rat appeared through some crumbling brickwork to his left. Its shriveled body edged away from the figure as it detected different scents of a human upon the night air. Inquisitive, it snickered in a high-pitched whine.
The sharp noise brought up the figure’s one blue eye; it locked with the red pin-pricks in the dark. The rat stood its ground then backed away, white whiskers quivering in untold fear. The figure relentlessly held it within its gaze until it turned tail and bolted for its infected sanctuary in the walls of the warehouse.
The figure smiled thinly to himself and lowered his gaze again to the hole through which he was peering.
A jagged hole of splintered slates and roof beams was the improvised window that he stared through so intently, made by a flying truck door from a gasoline tanker, which had exploded in the street years ago. It had scythed neatly through the roof and left him with the perfect vantage point. The scene being enacted below was coming to its final conclusion….
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The Champion thoughtfully fingered the white pills in the plastic sachet. His eyes held a spark of negative pleasure: he had his reward — a measure of heroin. A shiver of anticipation made his flesh crawl under his leather suit. Tonight had been a successful night’s work, another protector taken out. Quick, clean, merciful. The Other would be no more trouble to the Territory. His Owners had praised him highly, generously.
On a small piece of black velvet was his final gold clasp for his last plait. He had his quota and his ceremonial acknowledgement of his prowess. Tomorrow the whole Territory would celebrate. Tonight he was alone to celebrate in his own way.
His craving for this first fix of heroin after so long — after so many promises — had wrecked his normal iron control. Like some desperately sniveling addict, he’d ducked into the first suitable warehouse in the west district of the Territory and made his preparations. For some reason, he could not commit this act of self-abuse in his own home. And yet, although he felt revulsion for himself and what he was about to do, he did not much care as to where the heroin would take him in the future.
He looked about the room, stepping back a moment from his own involvement to see the scene of his further degradation.
The room had at one time been a small, shabby office. Now it was dilapidated. Non-commune dwellers had lived here until recently, leaving behind signs of their presence: empty cans, a bed of rags upon half a blue-striped mattress in a corner. A brittle wooden desk leaned against the cracked wall of the first floor of the warehouse. Upon its newspaper-covered top were the instruments of his reward.
A tiny metal cup, a sachet, and a new needle — a thing almost as prized as the drug.
Decisively, he peeled his gauntlets from his forearms and fingered the permanent intracath inserted under his skin in his left arm at the elbow. But the sight of the grafted metal and plastic tube riddling his flesh made him pause. His body stiffened and he bent his left arm at the elbow, shielding the invader of his body from his sight. Above the table was a grimy, cracked window, edged in a frame of flaking red paint. The Champion brushed around the desk, his plaits clinking softly, and settled his shoulder against the wall beside the frame. With his right hand, he rubbed a cleaner patch on the glass and stared out.
The wide road was as it had been when he arrived, a ravaged pathway through the buildings that had been looted and ransacked months ago. No one came here now; everything had been stolen or spirited away into the communes. There was nothing left here except a few mutants who were even more weak and diseased than the rest. Here, in these cavernous barns, they huddled together, squabbling and fighting, even murdering, for the meager pieces of food that they managed to steal or scrounge off the other streets. The occasional cry of abject pain and misery filtered to his ears. Another barely-living creature gave up and died.
His brow wrinkled under the gold headband.
Days of the same inhuman survival. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow ran into one sluggish river of sickening decay. The sachet on the table was his escape — for a short while. He sighed deeply and flexed his right hand over the stock of his Magnum. He could take his reward and find the swift escape from this barren life. It only took mere moments to inject the liquid of rampant images and ecstasy, and all this living misery would be gone. Out of his cocooned mind he would be able to produce the rare images of his past.
Past.
His eyes slid shut, golden lashes alighting on the dark circles of his eyes. Struggling with defective recall, he strained for that one pure memory that would prove to him that at one time he had been different. He ached under his cushion of drugs for that one thought that would reveal he had once been a man. He no longer considered himself a human being of any kind. He didn’t feel, care, think…believe. There was no rock for him to cling to in the waste; there was nothing for him to stay sane for. He admitted to himself with a sharp wryness that his mind was drifting away a little more every day, and he made no effort whatsoever to arrest it. In fact, to cease to think altogether would be a blessing for him. It would take away the growing guilt that he had at one time been a different character altogether. Someone of some standing. It was possible he had, at one time, stood for something completely different. But he just couldn’t remember…and deep inside a tiny voice begged him to forget. Forget forever. The clock had turned on time and the past had ceased in a mushroom cloud. Don’t ever go back. To remember would make the present an instant impossibility.
I have lost. I am a loser.
His eyes opened to betray the sad depths of his inner mind.
I don’t want to know what I once had, what the city once was.
He returned slowly to the table and picked up the sachet again. He held it to his lips and kissed it.
Lose me, my friend. Take away my mind, my thoughts, for I do not want to face tomorrow and I cannot recollect the past.
He grinned without humor as he slid the white pellet into the tiny metal cup and carefully poured some water onto it. From his suit he produced a converted cigarette lighter which had been refashioned to produce a finer, more intense flame. The blue beam flared out of the tiny metal box in the Champion’s hand. He picked up the cup and began to heat its contents.
A gourmet’s delight for the hungering man whose eyes now shone with the blue flame of the fire. With equally swift movements, he sterilized the needle in the flame, and then prepared for the injection.
His usual controlled grace trembled slightly with dangerous anticipation. The hook was sliding in…the needle sucked up the precious liquid. Many had died for him to have this moment. He tried to prolong it, but his fear of the consequences threatened to taint his lusting desire.
His rock had crumbled away to invisible dust so long ago there was no reason to falter.
For the briefest of moments he conjured up an image of the Other erect and majestic on the steps of his home — a stinking sewer. He paused, needle already in the grafted intracath, poised for the surge of fluid.
Get thee away from me. Your image is of the dead. Go haunt another tormented soul — you shall not have mine. I know of ways to escape —
The plunger hissed home —
— and places to hide so deep in my mind that I may choose to remain.
The needle fell unnoticed from his hand to the littered floor. Old newspaper blew softly about his booted feet like an unheeded portal into the past he could no longer understand.
The disgusting heap of rags in the corner claimed his worn body. As he sank into the offensively strong-smelling clothes, he warmed to the effect of the heroin pumping through his body.
Lady of the Poppy, claim my body and my mind tonight. At your feet I worship your power of release…free me….
The high came instantly. As he lay like a lethargic prisoner in some dank and cold cell, the prison of his mind was revealed in a shuddering rush of released images. They fell on a kaleidoscopic “Jacob’s ladder” of his subconscious, tumbling over each other in a euphoric surge of escape, fighting for attention and finding themselves unheeded and ignored by the deadened mind of their owner. Words from the sewer drifted to his lips.
“I deny it.”
They came as a cracked appeal for mercy. This was not what he wanted from his reward. He wanted oblivion, a release from his anxieties and torments, not an accentuation of his misery. Mercy from the good, clean past. Mercy from days of warmth, love, and sunlight, where he strolled so tall and blond on a pathway of planned destiny. He had had his life together, organized. He knew of the security and strength that hovered about him. He was cared for and loved. He could have walked that path and survived the treachery and danger that sniped from the shadows on the edge of his vision. He could have kept back the dark; it need never have tainted the glow. Images danced like tantalizing jewels before the pathetically poor. He was the pathetic specimen in spirit and conviction. Bombarded, he struggled to resist the image’s tempting pleasures. This was not what he wanted from his reward.
He craved obliteration in his mind and instead he received the unbidden memory of truth. Weakening, his breath came in ever-increasing gasps as the rushing speed of the ecstasy channeled him toward facing the reality of his past. It would peak within moments and he would be unable to close his mind to the theatrical display tormenting him with its truthful clarity. His resistance wavered and his mind pulled around to acknowledge, if not accept, the free demonstration of his history being paraded forth….
So many years.
So many precious moments.
Danger.
And happiness.
A happiness that gave him love and security.
Freedom.
People, places, taste, and smells.
A myriad of pungent events, so sweet in their urgency.
Life clawed for existence; he fought to keep it.
Tenderness in lapsing pain.
And a solitary figure…standing so close.
And yet beyond his reach.
A sob of secreted misery broke past the set lips. The high was fading and he had seen so little, understood even less. He tried to reach the dizzying heights again. He had not seen everything and he wanted it all. All.
The lone figure turned to walk away,
leaving: the same as the night of The End.
And he walked out again, now a shrinking figure in his subconsciousness.
“Don’t leave me!” A scream left his throat, unintelligible to those eavesdropping.
It shook the listeners to their cores and sent them hurrying from the scene. A deadly fear was being unleashed in the dark.
In the Champion’s inner eye the solitary man turned back. He had heard. The blond breathed a held breath and strained to see the face in the fading light. His feet moved too slowly; the figure was growing dimmer, a gray shade. But still he kept coming closer.
If only the light could stretch a little further. Let it stretch a little further.
The pupil of his mind’s eye slowly closed down like the lens in a movie camera of his past. The figure became a pinprick on the retina of his subconscious. Gone, back into the secreted past of his life before.
And that brief moment of warmth and feeling winked out. For a moment he knew he had almost felt the lost sensation of Hope. That image could have been his reason for living. He’d lost it; he was a loser after all.
The stinking aroma of the bed made him cough and wrinkle his nostrils. The high was over. Its savage pleasure fell from his mind like a cobweb cast upon a breeze. A thing of fragile thread, woven as a means to capture its owner’s nourishment, it could not hold the uncontrolled release of the Champion’s trapped past.
He hadn’t wanted it, not his past, and yet when it came, it left him reeling with its alien power of a diametrically opposed life. He simply couldn’t cope with the memory-images. Too much, too much.
A leaden sleepiness overcame him; his shuddering delight was at an end and the afterglow was a weariness that seeped into every fiber of his body. It was as well it took him into a gray oblivion of drugged sleep, for to face the knowledge that he had almost seen into his previous life and recognized that lone figure could have driven him beyond his capacity to endure.
The only thing that floated through his tangle of troubled dreams now was the haunting image of the Other seconds before he killed him. Frowning in his sleep, he tried to push away the apparition. Why come now? He’d never been pursued by the souls of his victims before, so why him now?
The one blue eye stared at him with equal strength; the rifle came up for the shot and faltered….
The Champion stirred in his sleep. Bad dreams were not meant to follow such heights of pleasure, and this nightmare was unlike any he’d ever encountered. It was persistent and cunning. It was making him pay. The gun came up again in the victim’s hand ready for the shot, and the man faltered. He moved again within the same cycle of moves, and faltered. Repeated, and faltered, paused, one eye frowning and faltered. His finger tightened then held back off the trigger as he faltered. He faltered. Tensing of the body under the leather. And he faltered, falteredfalteredfalteredfalteredfaltered —
“I killed you! I killed you! I KILLED — !!”
The Champion sat bolt upright, a disheveled mess of filthy rags and sweat. Eyes wide and staring, the only sound was his own ominous echoes ringing out into the still night, screaming his self-accusation over and over and over.
Scrambling for the precarious desk, his hand snatched up the gold plait clasp off the velvet. He hugged it to himself, an object of concrete proof of his actions.
“I killed him,” was en earnest whisper. “I have the right.”
With fingers of nervous stiffness, he pulled tight the last strand of blond hair, plaited it, and affixed the clasp. As he let it drop, the new addition baptized itself into fellowship with a soft peal of gold-tail chiming against gold-tail. Complete union. It was the seal upon the event; he had finished with the Other. He was but — a memory.
The faintest rustle of feet on wooden floorboards brought the Champion slowly around. Tensed and ready, he was prepared for any kind of attack.
The Other crouched before him. His entry through the holed roof had been almost completely silent. Close to the floor, he peered up curiously at the Champion before him, quickly noting the further hollowed eyes and cheeks and the slight sheen of sweat on his white skin.
Neither moved a muscle, each weighing the other up while frantic plan and counter-plan flashed through their minds. Another confrontation loomed.
Finally, the Other rose steadily, slowly, from the floor, hand nowhere near the stock of his rifle. He wasn’t going to push a sudden move. Standing, feet well apart, he looked the Champion in the eye with an overt defiance, head held high.
The advantage was with the Other. The Champion was more than a little perturbed, but the years of training had hardened any betrayal of surprise. To the Other he was as cold and commanding as he had been the night before in his home.
The mutual silence lengthened, only distant smudges of sound filtered through the warehouses.
“The dead cannot haunt the living in this stinking world. You are nothing to me; get back to your sewer.” The Champion relaxed his stiffness into an arrogant stance of dismissal.
The Other’s eye turned a little harder. He eased across to the desk, attention riveted on the Champion.
“I’m not dead — ” Without looking down, he picked up the empty sachet, ” — and this isn’t living.” The silvered man let the plastic fall through his fingers. “Keep using this and you’re going to lose your edge over the rest of us.”
The Champion smirked. “I don’t think so. You didn’t offer much competition. Your reflexes are slow and you falt — ” The words admitted to himself that he had seen the slight hesitation in the Other’s hand last night. “You don’t make the grade.”
“True,” agreed the Other, circling back. “But it didn’t seem to bother me much, did it? Six Magnum slugs and I’m nosing right up your Territory a day later. Doesn’t that worry you?”
The bastardized Magnum appeared like lightning in the Champion’s hand, finger already tightening on the trigger. It was sighted from the green leather hip on the single blue eye left in the Other’s face.
“Not particularly,” came the soft reply. “A cyborg can be dispatched as swiftly as any man.”
The Champion had little time for assassination machines that were programmed to seek and destroy him. He made ready to execute another. And then he saw it again, a clouding in the face that spoke of barely concealed pain and misery. The words had caused hurt far more than he would ever know or could ever inflict with his weaponry. The stranger to his Territory tried vainly to cover the feeling of shock that etched itself visibly across his disfigured face. For the second time that night, the Champion felt an ominous breath stroke his spine, and this time his own hand missed taking the shot.
The Other reached up a shaking hand in wine leather to pull his helmet from his head.
“I am a man,” he said simply, “not a machine.”
The Champion looked upon the revealed visage with a stomach-lurching regard as the dark curls sprang up and around the head.
“Jesus Christ.” The Magnum fell idly to the Champion’s side, forgotten. “So the Northern Sector have begun to perfect the New Medicine. The Owners have no conception as to how advanced you are.” Wonder on his own face, he took a step closer toward the Other who could not look him in the eye. His gaze was hooded with shame.
“These metal plates and strips are new, molded and fitted during the night.” He glanced up fleetingly. “The chest work is all Selkirk’s.” A bitter murmur on his silver lips.
The Champion came as close as he dared to fully appreciate the workmanship. The tiniest of rivets and pins anchored flesh to plates.
“Incredible.” He shook his head fractionally. “So the old ways are being reborn again, in a more advanced fashion.”
The Other nodded. “And they’re looking for a finer specimen to experiment upon.” His meaning was emphasized by the unrelenting capture of the Champion’s attention.
In a second, the blond Protector understood, eyes narrowed, lips parted slightly in anticipation. Surreptitiously, he began to scan all entrances and exits.
“Presumably, they want only the best?” His question was purely rhetorical; the Champion didn’t need to see the nod of the curls. The Magnum came up again and lodged itself under the chin of the Other. The darker man bent away a little as the hot breath of the Champion grazed his cheek. “And they sent you to get him?” A killing fear permeated each word. Hate and sure death peppered the still air.
The cold steel at his throat increased in pressure as the Other tried to speak. “You surely don’t think I’m stupid enough to come into your home territory to take you out, do you? Have the drugs sapped your wits?”
“Why are you here then, if not to gut me for your perverted men of medicine?” hissed the Champion, hammer clicking slowly back. “You are their Protector. It’s your job to secure the Commune and to see to its wants. Am I one of the Northern Sector’s wants?”
The Other’s hand covered the barrel of the Magnum to force the gun down. “I don’t work for the Northern Sector any longer. I am a free man.”
Abruptly, the pressure at his throat eased, as the Champion stepped back, astounded.
Incredulity echoed in his next words. “You are a protector; you Protect and Serve. None of us are free. They own you.” His last words were spoken with an intensity of loathing, though he was owned himself.
“Not any more. I chose to leave.”
“You didn’t. No man leaves his commune — no man who is sane, that is.” Perhaps the poor wretch before him had finally gone mad; it happened to so many.
And then he wondered why the Northern Sector man was really there.
“Are they waiting outside? Ready to drug me into oblivion so they can change me into something more versatile than you?” The Champion moved cautiously over to the window, eyes flicking between the Other and the outside world.
The Other shook his head.
“No, they are well hidden within the Plaza; they won’t be coming out tonight once they know their Protector has deserted them.” He grinned a small measure of triumph. “Holy hell will be going on, once they find I’ve gone.”
The Territory Protector turned back from the window and crossed to the door. Leaning against the loose jamb, he peered slowly out and scanned the dark and silent open space of the warehouse floor. He spoke without looking back.
“No commune would be daring enough to infiltrate into another’s city blocks. It would be gross stupidity to attack the Territory — I’m not the only protector in the Owner’s stable.”
With studied calm, he surveyed the twisted posts and scattered crates. All was peace and quiet. The posts stood like waiting sentinels. A closeness of moving air at his side told him the Other had approached his back. He turned in a tight circle and came face to face with his adversary.
“If they want you, they can simply take you.” The Other’s words carried a disconcerting truth. “I have no interest in their motives. I am beginning to make my own rules like the Time Before.”
“The Time Before…?” The Champion’s gaunt face took on the faraway look of lost remembering.
“Yes. No matter what the commune leaders say, the Time Before was different…. I feel it somewhere within me.” The thin face of the Other took on the same look of remembering. “This badge used to mean more. I think it was something special.” His hand stroked the gold shield on his chest. “To Protect and Serve meant exactly that — we’re — we’re different now.”
The Champion brushed him aside, eyes averted from the wine-laced chest.
“Not me — I still do my job. I’m the best and I have the right — ”
The Other cut him short. ” — For now.” He moved against the inner wall, resting nonchalantly to await the reaction.
The reaction was severe.
“Before I kill you again, permanently,” the Champion spun around, plaits rustling against his studded leather back, “you can explain that.”
Knowing he had his dangerous, if undivided, attention, the silvered man continued on a more even level. “I’m the best protector the Northern Sector ever had — made. Call it what you like. I ensured the Plaza was secure and the mutants were kept back. It was my strength and power that built up the Northern Sector into a commune to be feared.” He raised an eyebrow as punctuation to his points, arms folded over his chest. “That is, until they saw you.”
The Champion listened with a growing suspicion.
“The Champion is without doubt the most perfect specimen. A protector of your caliber and training made jealousy rear its ugly head. They covet you,” his face clouded momentarily, “and I am no longer their desired example of strength, power — fear.” His arms tightened across his body, muscles standing rigid, and his voice became quieter. “They have no more use for me, except as bait to lure you into the clutches of Selkirk and Houndsworth.”
“How sad; my heart bleeds for you.” Sarcasm hung between them from the Champion’s broad lips.
‘”Yeah, I can see you’re real cut up.” The Other moved away from the wall, anger rising.
The Champion looked him up and down, gauging his motives behind the speech, and said, “So, you have come to take me out. You failed last night and now you’re here for another go. Most persistent.” The blond’s eyes glittered malevolently. “You have some goddamned nerve!” The Magnum rose up again with a slow meanness. “This time your New Medicine bastards won’t get here in time to rebuild you.”
The long gun barrels took up a steady bead on the dark tousled forehead.
The Other felt a stab of panic in his stomach. “I came to tell you more, if only you’d listen.” A note of imploring came into his voice. “They’ve finished with me; I can accept that — just, but I’m not going to let them use me one last time. I’m not going to be their bait. I’m moving on to make a new life for myself, away from this stinking hell-hole of death.” He pointed at the man with the Magnum. “You can stay. You seem to think you have the right and enough interest in your profession still.” He glanced at the sachet on the floor. “And the rewards may satisfy you for some time, but — ” he moved closer to speak more directly, “but, there’s going to come a time when you aren’t the best any more, no longer the Champion. Something better, younger, stronger, faster, will appear out of a commune and the Owners’ greedy eyes will turn from you toward the new man.” His eye flashed with real inner turmoil from personal experience. “And you will become the bait, the lure, the one they will simply practice their perversions upon.” He checked his rising emotions and said calmly,”…Like I was to be….”
The Other saw in the dulled blue eye of the man facing him that his words held the chill ring of truth. Black truth of a gray future. Face sadder with the honesty of his own words, he continued hounding his enemy. “But, by then there’ll be no escape, no chance at freedom — their methods of programming are becoming almost failsafe. You’ll be ensnared in the maze of their growing organization.”
A silence descended. The Territory Protector thought deeply and long. Finally the Magnum hammer fell with a tiny click as the gauntleted hand relaxed.
Still with a slight trace of suspicion in his eyes, the Champion said, “All this presupposes that I’ll become the new protector for the Northern Sector now that you’ve gone. I may choose to stay with the Territory.”
The Other looked him square in the face. “Believe me, you won’t have a choice.”
“The Territory — ” the Champion swallowed, not wishing to continue, ” — owns me. They won’t give me up so easily.”
“Who’s going to stop them? The second league men in the stable? I doubt it. Not against the Plaza men. So that leaves you — protection and security is your job…and you’ll be occupied elsewhere.”
Suddenly a thought from nowhere came to the Champion’s mind. “What brought you here? Why come and tell me, your enemy, this?”
Images of the Champion poised in the sewer tunnel ready to execute him came back to the Other. The blond hair, the blue eyes, height, physique, they all stirred annoyingly within his fragmented memory, and yet he couldn’t place it. Too many programming sessions, too much mind control.
“We’re different, yet the same — I could at least give you a warning. No one deserves this — ” The Other indicated his face by gently touching the inlaid silver.
An embarrassed silence unfolded between them both. One so tall, so strong, so believing in his right to Protect and Serve. The other ashamed, fearful for his future and yet ready to take it with both hands while he still had time.
A recurring doubt arose unchecked to the Champion’s lips. “Where do you come from?” The dark curls loomed large In his vision.
I cannot ask the next question: what is your name? If he answers rightly or wrongly, I couldn’t face it. Not now, not here…as I am…have become….
The Other debated the best answer to give. He decided to be totally honest.
“I don’t know. I was born within the Plaza many, many months ago. I am what you see, nothing more.”
The Champion hooked his fingers to release the gauntlet-pistol grip. The Magnum slid loose with a snap of metal leaving metal. “I don’t believe that for one moment. You are much more than meets the eye.” The gun found its home in the leather holster on his thigh and he smiled knowingly. “I think you have hidden depths.”
I hope so. The Other shrugged. “Who knows. I don’t.”
Something moaned in the night outside in a feeble death throe. Both men immediately moved to the window to scour the road and buildings. Everything was as it had been before.
Then, an old rusty Coors beer can rolled across the hardtop from the yawning doors of the warehouse opposite.
Bodies stiffened under leather; both hands slid to gunstocks. In unison they whispered.
“So the Northern Sector rats are lurking outside after all.”
“I’ve stayed in the same place too long.”
Shrinking down from the window, they both faced each other briefly. The long braids sang softly.
“You are the bait.” His face was devoid of any feeling as he argued rhetorically. “Keep him talking, occupied, while we move up — were those your programmed orders?” A knife appeared from nowhere, point nicking the exposed skin on the neck of the Other.
The dark eye scowled broodingly while his free hand made to replace the helmet. “It isn’t them. You forget. Anyone who leaves a commune is fair game for an assassin’s bullet. The mutants will be hacking each other under just to be the first to try target practice with my head.” He leaned back, away from the razor edge of the blade. “I’m the best prize they’ve ever had. My gold shield is automatic entry into the Northern Sector Commune.” He glanced about him, covering the door and the black depths beyond. “But I don’t aim to let them have it. I’ve had it all my life and I kinda like it.”
No, there was once a protector called Taylor who went rogue in the early days…Taylor. He just disappeared. No one claimed the prize. No one got his gold shield….
The Champion kept his thoughts to himself as he warily glanced between the Other and the door. “Only mutants?” said the man fingering the knife, a dubious expression on his face. He began to rise from the floor, tired of the guessing games. It could be the truth or he was being set up for a deadly encounter. He decided to go on the offensive, and kill any who stood in his way. He’d ask questions of the dying, innocent or guilty, later.
He never got to his feet. A plummeting mass of twisted bones and filthy tatters hurtled from the holed ceiling, landing square on his broad shoulders. Screaming in hellish glee, it sank its claws into the Champion’s back and clung on for dear life.
From the ground, the Other saw the leap by the crazed mutant as if in slow motion. Its glowing white eyes had flashed momentarily in the dark above, and then it had catapulted itself into the room. The raw, deformed limbs flayed about the Champion’s curved shoulders as the sudden weight bowed him down. Its mouth dribbled saliva down the man’s neck as it sought for the jugular vein.
Then the room erupted into clawing, screaming, fighting bodies as mutant after mutant poured through the window, door, and ceiling. They came like a tidal wave out of a storm drain with only one aim in mind: to kill the Other. As they saw the double prize of the Champion as well, they went insane with desire and hate. Vengeance and acquisition would be theirs for all the nights of mindless terror as he had stalked the streets hunting. How they had hoped for this moment, dreamed of it, to have both Protectors at their sudden mercy. They would savor tearing them bloodied limb from bloodied limb.
As the Champion tried repeatedly to loose the clinging beast on his neck by ramming it into the brickwork at his back, the Other rolled swiftly against a wall to give himself some protection and drew his rifle. But the pressure of bodies, fingers reaching out for his flesh, on all sides made his next move impossible. The long gun could not be sighted and he was forced to use it as a club to beat the odious bodies away. The walnut stock impacted dully with withered, brittle bodies to send them sprawling across the dusty floor in screaming tangles of broken arms and legs. But still more continued to swarm in through roof, window, and door. The overpowering stench of their pressing flesh made the bile rise in the Other’s throat. Heaving himself away from the wall, he pushed the throng of gray flesh back, giving him time to cross to the door and spray the entrance with a volley of rapid fire which neatly felled the next surging mass of mutants.
Across the room, the Champion flung himself backwards again and heard with satisfaction the grinding crunch as the mutant’s ribs caved in under the pressure. Lifeless, its clawing fingers fell away from his throat as it slid to the floor. Kicking out with stunning force, the Champion took the next mutant in the throat with a scything force of his boot while drawing the long knives from his leg and arm. Armed in both left hand and right, he began a systematic attack upon the demented creatures as they fought to wrench him apart. Sharpened fingernails hooked into his flesh, seeking a permanent hold, only to be hacked off by the whirling speed of the blades he now wielded. Mutant after stinking mutant collapsed in a bloodied heap of severed arteries and veins. The floor rapidly became the color of dark red wine, and he found he was now stumbling over the bodies as he made his way across the room.
In the warehouse proper, the Other leaped clear of a diving, deformed creature as he tried to make a run for the double doors at the end. Spinning his rifle around in his hands, he deftly took aim at the rising tide of new bodies emerging from behind the tumbled-down lines of packing crates. Screaming with banshee cries of glee, they came from all sides in a seething knot of blood-lusting beings. The Other fired off a rapid spurt of gunfire and cut a way through their lines, but the sheer number of hurtling mutants was becoming more than he could handle.
Demented beyond reason, they knew no fear of the two Protectors. This was their one and only chance to get their own back for all the dark nights of terror as these two walked the streets, and they weren’t about to let it slip through their flaking fingers. Anyone who could prove they’d helped in the killing of a protector from a rival commune could expect handsome rewards. There was nothing else left in life to live or die for. This was their moment and they wanted it so badly they would kill each other for a chance at the Champion and the Other.
The double doors were the Other’s chance at freedom from this rampaging mob, and he knew that if he didn’t make it to the street in the next few moments, the frenzied attackers would descend on him. They were already forming into a tight ring at the back of him, waiting for his attention to be distracted so that they could make the final lunge and ensnare him. Their bare feet pattered frantically over the concrete floor as they jostled each other for the best position for their death-leap. Under a mass of stinking, biting mutants mad with the desire to rip him to bits, he wouldn’t stand a chance. They were past understanding. The edge of fear had waned and they knew that their overpowering numbers could win against the two Protectors.
A disheveled female, hanging over the edge of a stack of crates, spat onto the floor at his feet. To protect his back from an attack coming from above, he darted right. A soft hissing noise caught his attention above the growling animal cries of the pressing throng. Pivoting on his right leg, he half turned, rifle coming up for a snap shot, too late for the scything sweep of a short metal pole, which dealt him a savage blow to neck and shoulder. Sparks shot out as the bar connected with the metal collar that the Other wore. The force of the blunt instrument felled him to the concrete floor, stunned. From his hands the rifle skittered across the dirt toward the yellow toenails of his assailants. Pushing himself up from the ground, he knew he had to get up off the floor now or it would be too late.
But his co-ordination was gone, the floor was no longer level, and the press of clawing hands, arms, and legs soon became the press of encroaching darkness as both the real world and that of oblivion crowded in upon his deadened senses.
The Champion saw the action out in the warehouse from the corner of his eye. He mounted the desk in one step to gain the advantage of height over the crushing mass of fighting mutants. Stamping on anything that was still for a moment, or that came within range, he kept back the rush as he drew his Magnum and prepared to mete out some instant deterrent. Through the doorway, he noted the joyful cries of delight as the mutants claimed their first prize. En masse, they swarmed over the still figure on the ground until he could no longer see the dark red leather body. An emaciated arm rose above the ragged, dirty mass to wave aloft the symbol of their victory: a silvered helmet, one jet eye flashing with the first sign of defeat.
He was right. He didn’t make the grade.
With a ferocious slice of the barbed knife, he ripped open the throat of young male who tried to climb onto the desk beside him. He died, feeble hands pressed to the spurting open wound in his neck.
But the bastards aren’t going to take me. No one is going to get a meal ticket into a commune on my back.
The Champion leveled the gun in the direction of the infested crowd below him. As one, they stopped, rooted to the spot as they all recognized the instrument of execution. Cowering down in blind terror, they hesitated before their next act. No mutant wanted to move against that devil-gun and find his chest spread across the wall behind.
The Champion drew back the hammer, hearing the soft click permeate the air as it locked. A sharp tenseness filled the room.
“So, my gray beauties. You know death when it stands before you.” The Champion whispered his litany of execution over them as a priest passes a benediction. “I am the Protector of the Territory and you have dared to move against me. It is the last act you will commit in this world.”
Instant hell broke out as the congested horde of malformed warehouse dwellers tried to get out of the range of the gun. Mutant clawed his way over mutant in their desperate effort to leave the enclosed trap of the room. The Champion smiled thinly as the rising cries of terror filled the air. Wild white eyes glowed with increased adrenalin surges as the thin red blood pumped spasmodically through their distended veins. Terror was upon every feature as the golden-plaited executioner took up a stance, ready to begin wiping clean another warehouse block of the increasing pestilence.
“There is no escape from the Champion. Nowhere to run.” His finger tightened on the trigger. “I hold your lives in my hands — and I now fulfill my contract with Death!”
The Magnum discharged a thunderous roar of metal annihilation.
Corpse after corpse jack-knifed through the air and slithered down the far wall in a river of blood and intestines. The Champion reloaded. The wailing howls of horror dwindled into pathetic whimpers of shock as the remaining bizarre beings stumbled through the doorway and fled into the blackness of the warehouse. Gone.
As the spiraling gases melted away upon the air, the Champion released the handgrip and holstered the weapon. Craning his head back, he searched the hole in the ceiling, for any sign of hidden attack. Certain that his means of escape was secure, he jumped with a clean litheness for the lone protruding beam. Hands locking onto the splintered wood, he swung his long legs forwards, then up and backwards over his head in one strong swift movement, to bring himself face down on the low roof. Rolling up onto his knees, he took one last look into the bloodied destruction of the room and then set off across the rooftop and away.
Down in the empty street, subdued white eyes watched the shadowy progress of the Champion cross the rooftops with a wariness that made them hide in the darkest gloom away from his vengeful gaze. His methods of bloody death and destruction would live in their haunted memories for many long nights. But they still held the Other….
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Alighting from the last rung of a crumbling ladder, the Champion leaned against the red brick wall of an alley to rest. His body relaxed, regaining its strength after the short, swift flight from the warehouse district, but his mind remained a race of activity.
It’s not like the mutants to attack in such numbers. His brow furrowed under the gold headband. It’s not like the mutants to attack at all. The Other must have been right — he has left his commune and he’s now fair game for anyone or thing that dares to pit itself against him.
Slowly, he wiped the thin film of sweat from his upper lip. The attack had been a little too close for comfort in places. A sign that the drug had slowed him up.
I’ll have to be more careful where I enjoy the rewards of my work next time. I should have gone home — been safer. Or, are the words of the Other coming true? Is this the first warning of the beginning of the end for me? Will there come a time in the not-too-distant future when I am no longer fast enough, the most powerful, and the best? Is this the first bitter taste of the future?
Carefully, he rechecked the load in his gun and replaced it almost casually. Grim-faced, hw slid home the barbed knife into its boot sheath and set off up the alley with an uncanny stealth peculiar to himself. At the end, he paused, and studied the terrain before him. Shattered shells of unrecognizable buildings. Pin-pricks of red glittered as the rats stared at him from their places of concealment. They were aware of his presence instantly and would remain riveted to him until he passed on into the night.
In the milky shine of the city’s night, the Champion seemed undecided as to what to do next. Clearly, he couldn’t stay in the secluded alley all night, and yet he seemed reluctant to move out into the kingdom of the street. Something kept tugging worriedly at his dulled mind and troubled his clear line of thought. Finally, he admitted to himself what the seed of that worry was: the Other.
Damn him to hell! The Territory Protector scuffed a boot in the heaped rubbish in the alley entrance. Why did he have to come back?
A large, carnivorous spider emerged lethargically from a rusting can and elegantly moved its legs through a series of rapid waves to take it away from the annoying boot.
The Champion watched its retreat with an apathetic interest. His mind was elsewhere. If he spoke the truth — if he’d decided to become a free man — why hadn’t he left? Gone away from here to some other part of the city? Why had he come to speak to me?
The Champion’s anger began to rise. Last night his mission had been completed with an efficiency with which he was proud. His rival had been successfully eradicated from the face of the Northern Sector. He had his quota, the final plait, and his most desired reward. But what had that given him? More doubts — in fact, a multitude. He’d tried to deny it, but the heroin only served to accentuate his need to be sure, to be certain for all time. And then he had arrived out of nowhere, with words of treason that spelled an instant death contract for anyone who dared to leave his commune. How could a protector, one that he himself had killed, come to him with a warning? A warning that he now knew to be genuine.
The Northern Sector hadn’t been waiting for him. It wasn’t a trap. The Other had spoken the truth; he had gone rogue, he was a running target for any and all city dwellers. But why come after the Champion — the man who had killed him? Why come after him at all?
What were his words: “We’re the same but different. No one deserves this — ”
His mind ran the images of the ashamed metal man before his inner eye. The silvered plates meshed with the flesh and bone of a human being. It had disgusted him. And the strange, single-eyed man had foretold the Northern Sector’s desire of him: “They covet you.” Those had been the words.
A chill feeling made itself known to him from the pit of his stomach. And the Champion began to feel afraid for his own safety. It was a growing fear that irritated him with its need to know all the answers. Not just why the Plaza wanted him. The Other had given him a teasing glimpse of something more deep and meaningful, something that he should know and understand. And yet it eluded him. It eluded him in the sewer, it had teased and tempted him through the rushing high of the heroin as it roared through his veins. And right at this moment the object of his peaking curiosity was probably being torn limb from limb on a cold, filthy warehouse floor. And that irritated him even more. In the Other were some of the answers he craved and he was losing them to a cannibalistic troupe of deviants.
I have to know. Even if it’s the seal of hopeless finality. I’ve got to know for sure. Turning on his heel, he faced back into the alley. If I go back, I will set the wheels of Fate turning in ways I won’t be able to control. A protector never goes back. And yet…I would never be at ease ever again if I passed up this chance.
Why did he have to be the Other? Why did he come to me? I understood myself this time last night. Now, I am a confused mess of doubts and uncertainties. I damn his soul to hell!!…but I must go back….
The Champion emerged onto the street like a powerhouse of hell-fired retribution. He loathed himself for this weakness, and yet he feared more the possibility that the Other was already devoured by the starving creatures of this district. The long strides of his kind ate up the distance between the alley and the warehouse. No more hiding in the shadows now. If they wanted to stand against him, let them come and confront him. He was storming with an inner rage against himself and the need that burned within him to know. All he wanted was a target to present itself and he could unleash some of his pent-up fury. He hungered for the opportunity, and if the mutants were still there he would have his chance.
In the middle of the street he paused to stand defiantly before the double doors of the warehouse. Approximately twenty yards in front of him was a group of crowing mutants, delightedly dragging their prize catch through the dirt on the asphalt. The miniature grappling hooks were fastened into the leather lacings of the Other’s suit and through layers of his skin. Chains of fine links ran tautly into the twisted hands of the jubilant predators as they heaved their feeble weight against the load of the Other’s body. Slowly, the loose-limbed sprawl of the unconscious man followed the padding feet of his captors.
So engrossed were they with their price of entry into the Northern Sector that they failed to see the silent approach of the Champion. Not until the tall shadow of the green-leathered man fell over them as a cloud passes before the sun, did they look. And as a cloud dulls a sunny day, so the shadow of the Champion destroyed their shine of victory. Instantly they froze, eyes lifting toward the man in the street. Under a pale glimmer of a flickering street lamp they saw his calm outline. Hands on hips, he held them within a crushing gaze of hate.
Any color of humanity that the mutants might have possessed drained away from their haunted features. The chains slid from their fingers to cover the inert body in a metal web, producing a faint chiming of links as they fell. As the tinkling sound faded away on the still night air, a distant echo came softly to their ears: the tolling of gold clasp against gold clasp — the warning of death.
With a delicate stiffness, the mutants began to back away from the bleeding body in the dirt, all jubilation forgotten in the face of the man before them. The Champion’s features were unreadable, his breath stilled, and his eyes unblinking. The glimmer of the street light illuminated the gold shield upon his chest briefly, winking in an ironic companionship of mutual understanding. Shouldering each other aside, the scruffy mob shuffled up the street, each tensing for the burst of speed that would propel them into the maze of back alleys and away from the Territory’s Protector.
A collective breath of anticipation hung between the hunter and the hunted. Then the Champion took a slow, deep breath, ready for the onslaught. The mutants didn’t need a second warning. As one, they turned to flee the encompassing spell.
Leaping, stumbling, crawling for their very lives, they stampeded away into the darkness of the shadows, gibbering in mortal fear of their imminent destruction. The thunderous tread of pounding feet caused .a dust haze to rise from the road, partially obscuring their retreat. The Champion deftly produced a stick grenade from the devices on his back, primed it, and lobbed it accurately into the midst of the escaping mutants. The explosion was instant and spectacular as orange-white flames leaped into the air to the tune of a roaring explosion. The blast killed and terminally injured anything within range. Those caught on the edge of the blast lay in folded blood-sodden heaps, too stunned to crawl away from the burning area.
Neat and effective as always, the Champion seemed to awaken from his intense concentration and released his held breath slowly. Satisfied with his act of retribution, he covered the ground between himself and the Other without even a spared glance for his victims. They were of no consequence to him, simply daring irritants that had caught him off guard tonight. The real object of his interest lay in a crumpled heap of blood, leather, and metal at his feet.
Kneeling beside the Other, the Champion felt for a pulse in the neck through the bars of the metal collar that had probably saved the man’s life. The ornate armor was badly dented and scored where the iron bar had impacted. A dark, livid bruise was already formed on the right side of his neck and shoulder, and was spreading under the network of leather strips. His face was a scuffed mess of claw marks and peeling skin, plus a split lip where the crazed mutants had pawed him in demented delight. The silvered helm was noticeably missing, allowing the dark curls to halo the pale features. The empty eye socket lay in sunken folds of flaccid eyelid while the other eye moved rapidly under the bruised flesh and slowly fluttered open.
The Champion tossed aside some of the chains and proceeded to unhook the grappling hooks from the leather suit. Careful not to start any more bleeding, he loosened some of the metal barbs from the silent man’s skin. As the Other stirred back to consciousness, his one deep blue eye focused briefly upon the Champion and closed with a vague unease as if he was unsure as to where he was and why.
“I came back,” stated the Champion flatly. “The first time I ever came back.” He threw aside the last grappling iron among some rotting garbage and sat back on his heels.
The smell of burning flesh still hung on the air accompanied by the occasional moan of the injured grenade victims. The Other wrinkled his nose at the smell and tried to gain some perspective on what had happened to him. With effort, he brought up a stiff arm to touch his face.
“I — hurt.” He fingered the bruising down his neck and found his hand covered in dark red blood from somewhere in his hair. The sight of his life’s liquid running over his hand made him start momentarily and try to sit up. He didn’t make it as a stabbing pain in his head turned the street into an unfocused haze of darkening light. More stars than the night sky held floated over his vision.
“I bet you hurt. The mutants play dirty — they tried to stave your skull in with a metal bar, but your helmet and collar saved your brains from being splattered over the street.” The Champion felt ill at ease sitting beside his enemy of last night like some avenging angel. The Other spelled a whole new code of behavior that he didn’t wish to examine or adopt. If he got up and left now he wouldn’t become ensnared. If he stayed, it would be an irrevocable decision that would set him on a vastly different destiny. He could condense it down to two arguments: to remain the same, stagnant but still maintaining his status and power that Territory Protector accorded him, or: to offer the Other a hand of acquaintance, not companionship, more a mutual acceptance of both their strengths and powers, while being willing to step off the secure pedestal and explore the chance of freedom. Freedom of the mind and the body: to be his own man again and possibly understand the enigma of the Other — and the half-remembered memories of his drug-dulled existence. That one step over the edge of yet another precipice. It made his flesh chill to the bone. He had barely come to terms with the New Society of The End, without breaking away from the newly-founded culture to seek his own way in this nightmare world. But this tattered man at his feet had found the courage to take that one step. Could he now reach out his hand and take that single pace into the unknown? Or, for that matter, could he reach out a hand?
What if his nagging intuition was wrong? What if this bloodied Protector was nothing more than an insane shell of fantastical dreams? He’d have lost everything, and in this new world there was pathetically little worth losing. He, the Champion, had at least something worth guarding, his closeted, cosseted place within the Territory. In the next few seconds he knew he would either retreat and accept his role on the Owners’ treadmill or find the courage to face that risk….
The Other turned his fuzzy gaze toward the imposing presence of the Champion. The long ceremonial braids rolled languidly across his broad back, the gold clasps dancing before his befuddled vision in the way a hypnotist uses a pendulum. He swallowed on a dry throat and shivered in the chill night air.
Where are the New Medicine team now that I need them?
They had always eased the Other’s physical pain although they refused to acknowledge any of his emotional traumas. Right now he wanted to feel the cold stone of the catafalque at his back and know that they would at least relieve his aches and pains. Shifting uneasily, his head rolled in the grime of the road and he felt the grit bite into the left side of his face.
The left side of my face — ? I shouldn’t be able to feel —
Horror struck through the maze of semi-consciousness as he suddenly realized that his helm was gone.
“My helmet!” came as a tortured gasp from his swollen lips. “Don ‘t look at me. Don’t look at me.” Shaking with shame, his hands came up to cover his face from the penetrating stare of the Champion, as another faint cry of humiliation escaped his partially-metalled features.
That soft whimper of sorrow cut into the Champion as no other words of reason could. It was the final gram of argument that he needed. In the injured figure before him he saw himself in the not-too-distant future: mutilated, manipulated, and with a despairing self-image of inhumanity. Today it was the Other…tomorrow it would be him.
In a stinking street of still burning mutants, under a creamy moon of the night, the Champion reached out a hand toward the Other to lay his palm upon the vibrating hands of the stigmatized man, but he drew back without knowing why.
“You said we’re different, but the same, so you need not hide from me. I will look at you without ridicule or disgust.” The Champion shifted uncomfortably. “If you can bear to look at me, in the image that I have become, I can look at you with shared equality.”
The emotional countenance of the Other registered the desire to believe those words, and yet his inner heart could not face himself yet, nor understand another’s acceptance of him, given so readily.
Without further discussion, the blond executioner surveyed the warehouses. Empty pits of mutants’ nests.
They should be regrouping and I — we, have stayed here too long. The night is coming to an end. The dark is lifting…I ought to return to the Territory.
Bright blue eyes snapped back to the prone figure. It was obvious that the Protector was in no fit state to walk back to his sewer home, and to leave him here on the road as a tempting prize for any mutant brave enough to try picking him off was not what he had come back for. With large, powerful hands, he secured a hold onto the limp form of the Other, and swung him up and over his shoulder in a classic rescue hold. Head down on the Champion’s armored back, the Other felt the strong body beneath his shrug him around until the burden was more evenly distributed over his neck and back. Rising, the Champion set off up the street, retracing his steps of minutes earlier.
The only signs of their ever having been there were the blackened, charred remains of the creatures of the warehouse district and a few small fires fizzling down to burning embers among the combustible garbage in the gutters. The silent, awed observers in the pitch dark shadows breathed a little easier as each tread took the feared Protector away from their domains. Once out of sight, they would emerge from their dens of sanctuary to pick over the debris of the fight in their district — devouring every trace of the confrontation. One took what one could get, no matter how small, in this land of distorted free enterprise.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
As the pale, watery fingers of dawn stroked the eastern sky with traces of another salmon-pink sun, the light picked out the shape of a traveler in the city — the Protector of the Territory. The Champion, still carrying his load over his shoulders, paused in the middle of the bleak wasteland of demolished buildings to sniff the pervading winds. As the dust of his journey calmed and fell to the earth again he listened intently, analyzing the very atmosphere of this spare wilderness. For as far as the eye could see were the humbled ruins of the once-great city. Now there were only rows of knee-high broken walls and twisted hunks of girded concrete. His senses highly tuned to any movement or sound, the Protector of the Territory surveyed his private domain with an exacting thoroughness. Pivoting slowly, he scanned the horizons for any unwanted intruder. There was nothing, no faintly drifting dust haze of a follower, no tainted breath of air from a group of daring mutants, not even a solitary soul from his own commune. There never was; they all had more sense than to set foot upon the personal territory of the Champion without prior invitation or warning.
Certain that he was not being followed or watched, the green-suited man set off again, traveling with a much more hurried pace — his home was close. Over the next three rows of broken walls he stepped easily, no sign of weariness in his fluid actions, the man on his back hardly slowing him at all. Abruptly, he stopped on the rupture edge of some curb-stoning, eyes boring into a hole in the ground about thirty feet away. He whistled a whining, high-pitched note and waited. The Other stirred uncomfortably as the sound pierced his sleeping state. The Champion merely held him a little tighter and continued his vigil over the large gaping pit.
Cautiously, from within the darkness came a deep breathing sound of restrained excitement and a large, black, hairless hound trotted up the stairwell. It halted, alert and ready for the return of its lord and master. Glinting eyes of pale pink held the eye of the Champion as the tall man approached. Ears forward, the enormous dog sniffed the air and caught the distinct smell of the Other. The odor of the fresh blood brought a deep throated growl of desire from a muzzle set with sharply curving fangs. It sensed the defenselessness of the victim and the chance of an easy kill. The growl became a snarl of saliva-dripping jowls and the hound bared its teeth in anticipation, legs tensing for the leap of attack.
The Champion scowled darkly and clicked his fingers once. Immediately, the dog dropped cowering to the ground, tail limp between its hind legs, ears flat to its wrinkled brow. A pathetic whine replaced the sounds of attack. As he passed by the guard-dog, the Champion paused to stare hard at its beseeching expression for mercy. Stooping, he patted the shiny head once as a sign of forgiveness, then continued down into the hole, eyes on the dangerously crumbling steps. The dog made to follow him, but a sharp series of whistled commands told it to stay on guard at the entrance. Sure of its role, the dog paced the powdery earth to find a suitable resting place, then settled itself down for a day of unceasing vigilance. Its master commanded its loyalty and it obeyed with a fanaticism uncanny in a beast of its mutated intelligence. The dog was intelligent; the Champion knew and understood it, using its intense devotion to his advantage. The hell hound kept the wandering mutants away from his privacy in ways impossible to duplicate with mechanical alarm systems. Anyone or thing encountering the guardian of his underground home never returned to tell of its whereabouts. The dog understood the man’s needs only too well, and always buried the evidence as a sign of its comprehension. In return, the man fed him. Licking its chops, it assumed a rigid pose of stillness and listened….
An oil lamp sputtered into life as the Champion lit the wick with a burning taper. Crumbling away the tiny flame he tossed the sliver of wood back onto the feeble fire in the grate. The dim light glowed a little stronger to reveal a strange array of mismatched furniture and rescued artifacts from the Time Before. Chairs, table, and bed occupied most of the floor space while the walls were covered in shabby volumes of books. The subjects were wide and varied as were the multitude of objects the Champion had collected over the years as Territory Protector. To the ignorant eye it was a jumble of worthless rubbish; to the Champion it was his only connection with a so-called historical myth: old Los Angeles.
The Owners claimed it was a myth perpetrated by the forces of nihilistic traitors to the Commune. Many Commune members believed the Owners, but some had dim memories of the Time Before and how it used to be. They whispered their beliefs in quiet corners knowing full well the punishment for such blasphemous talk — they were not too afraid to remind themselves of the truth occasionally. But as the threat of expulsion by the Commune Owners hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles, it became easier to dupe themselves into believing the lies and to accord the truth the status of a new kind of folklore.
The Champion knew the element of truth existed in the legends — he had the artifacts to prove it — held them as a kind of evidence even though he himself could barely remember the Time Before. And that disturbed him greatly.
In the pale gold light cast by the central lamp, he moved across to his bed where he had deposited the senseless form of the Other. Leaning against the wall, he searched the troubled features of the other protector, noting the deep lines of worry that were etching themselves into the white-metalled face. Desperately, he searched his limited memory for any trace of this being…anything at all. A chance meeting perhaps, or possibly something more permanent…. The dark curls had thrown him in the sewer, that and the familiar gold shield. But there were many who wore the gold shield. He had been one of the many, that much he knew from his elusive memory of the past. He had lived among them…and watched them die beside him.
Disgusted with his rising tide of hopes, the Champion tore himself away from the sight of the man and channeled his thoughts into other directions.
I can still deny it until I have indubitable proof…but then? I don’t know whether I can accept that….
He moved toward the back of the room, passed through an archway and into a small bathroom of mismatched basin and bath/shower. From a box under the basin he produced some of his treasured medical supplies: antiseptic, absorbent cotton, tape, scissors, and a small supply of antibiotics. Running some water into a metal dish, he returned to the bed to tend to the Other.
He settled the utensils onto a small bedside table and perched on the edge of the bed, releasing his holster from his thigh. Placing his Magnum within easy reach, he proceeded to remove the Other’s weapons as well. The rifle he placed beside the bed near to the mutilated man, the leather strappings and arsenal on the wide back he loosened for comfort. Satisfied that the man could rest easier, he began to examine the scalp and neck wound. The metal bar had broken the skin at the base of the skull, but the bone itself seemed undamaged. As his fingers ran through the tangled mass of dark curls, searching for further cuts to be cleaned and dressed, his sensitive fingertips passed over something alien in the center top of the skull. Startled, he tilted the head toward himself and parted the curls until he saw the hidden object: a metal circle indicating the presence of an inserted socket for an impulse-jack. The Other’s brain could literally be plugged into some form of machine that the Northern Sector possessed. The New Medicine was far more advanced and deadly than any of the beings in the Territory realized.
Recoiling in horror, the Champion wondered if the poor creature himself knew of the presence of the socket. As his hands slid away from the head, the Other turned back, resisting his hold and babbled some words of pleading, unintelligible to the human ear but abundantly clear in meaning.
Holymotherofgod…the poor bastard’s programmable…. Plug him in, load a program, and he’ll behave like Pavlov’s dogs…no questions asked, no doubts about his loyalty, just turn him on…. And if he gets damaged, just refit him with a few more artificial pieces…. Jesus Christ, where did the world go?
And yet he felt no real pity for the Other; he was hardened beyond that. The only thought that crossed his mind at that moment was the fact that it could be him next, if not tomorrow then the day after. That one day soon the Northern Sector may acquire him or, possibly worse, the Owners may learn the ways of the New Medicine. No more rewards would be needed, no more inducements to continue as Commune Protector, just a small metal socket inserted into his brain and he’d be the most efficient protector that ever stalked the streets. Infallible, as his own ability to access the random factors would have been denied him. Human error in the field of action eradicated. He would act out the precise instructions to the last impulse without the smallest error. The perfect killing machine.
Unconscious of his automatic moves, the Champion continued to wash away the red-brown stains of blood from the Other’s face, neck, and shoulder. He tended to the abdominal wounds caused by the grappling hooks and cleaned out any further minor cuts and grazes. After a time, he was satisfied with his thoroughness, his fanaticism and fear of disease making itself manifest in his exact treatment of the man on the bed, and returned the medicines to their strongbox in his tiny bathroom. As he rose from the floor he noted the vague tremor in his hands.
Time I had something extra. Can’t go on much longer without a little help.
As he washed his hands with scrupulous care, he studied his grimy reflection in the corroding mirror over the basin. He still looked hard and emotionless, but there were the first soft smudges of weariness under the hollow eye sockets.
Tired.
Drying his hands, he returned to the main room and moved behind a long mahogany bar. On the mirrored shelving were the fruits of his pampered existence: bottles of alcohol, cartons of drugs. Making a swift appraisal of his supplies, he shook out of a carton a selection of rainbow-colored capsules and selected a bottle of Scotch. He about-faced to rest on the bar top while he mixed his peculiar cocktail of narcotic energy. He had a day’s work ahead; he needed to be on top form, his senses tuned to perfection.
Gulping down the strange mixture of delayed death, he felt an eerie sensation of deja vu creep over him. A little unsure, he slowly lowered the glass to find the Other staring at him from the shadowed corner of the far wall…watching him drink down his special mixture of fortified aid.
Have I stood this way before? Has he watched me enact this ritual in some other time…?
Pushing the thought aside, the Champion shifted position and broke the held moment.
The glass tapped down on the wooden top with a sharpness that snapped the thread of remembering. Plaits rustling, he rounded the bar and came over to the watching man.
“You’ll live.” He stated flatly what he felt the Other would want to hear. Instead, the deep blue eye grew bright with an inner misery and he turned his face to the wall.
“I can’t thank you,” came the weak reply through still swollen lips.
“I didn’t ask you.” The Champion felt uneasy again. “Go back to sleep, you…can be safe here.” The words seemed strange on his tongue. He never accorded anyone safety; it was his job to deprive them of the ability to feel secure, to put the fear of the Territory into the deviants and anyone else who threatened the Commune. That was the law he lived by, but now…here, he was finding himself the dispenser of protection.
Protection. To Protect and Serve.
Puzzled by the sudden emergence of that reversed thought, he tried to refute its existence, but it was already anchored into his mind as soon as he acknowledged its presence. Did those words once hold a different meaning for me?
The Other murmured to him again, a sleepy whisper of a personally important question. “My helmet, what happened to it?” He drew up his hand up to cover his sightless eye socket.
“The mutants took it as a kind of trophy. It could have been a ticket into the Northern Sector for one of them. Killing a renegade protector is a highly profitable act.” He moved the lamp away from the bedside and onto the larger table in the center of the room. “However, the crawling scum didn’t get any further than the end of the street…. I saw to that.” A thin smirk of triumph covered his face. “They never learn.”
The tangled mass of long curls nodded minusculey, hand unmoving. “But the helmet?”
Irritated, the Champion moved away. “I told you, it’s gone, forget it, go back to sleep.” He headed for the kitchen at the side of the bar and paused in the swinging door. The Other shuddered slightly, his shoulders hunching down in a sigh of desolate misery, as he tried to hide his face in the cushioning pillow.
I suppose if I looked like him, I’d want to hide myself, too. Poor bastard. Even his disguise has gone.
On the end of the bed, neatly folded, was an archaic patchwork quilt. He’d acquired it while cleaning out an exclusive area to the north and he still remembered the corpse dissolving into white dust as he pulled it free of the woman’s grasp. Now it was his; on the open market it would be priceless. Moving awkwardly back to the bed, he scooped up the blanket, shook it out and tossed it over the Other. Immediately, the folds were anchored around the hunched shoulders, covering most of the head and all of the face.
Feeling unusually displaced by the unfamiliar action, the Champion retreated a little, unable to understand the sensations stirring within him. Then, like an escaping catch upon a thread of time, he reeled in the alien sensation and examined it.
For the first time in an ageless dimension of murderous butchery, the Champion felt compassion for another human being. Disturbed, he exited into the kitchen.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The actual commune of the Territory was a ramshackle collection of shanty-style buildings that seemed to grow out of one another in a parasitic design. They were constructed out of anything available, which accorded them a bizarreness unrivalled by any other commune. Highly decorated with strange mystical designs borrowed from old advertising billboards and product labels, the colors could be seen for miles on every side. A seedy, carnival gaudiness gave the place an atmosphere of cheap transience, and yet the Territory had existed for years like an initial foundation stone. Thousands dwelled here under the protection of the Owners and none dared to leave. They sold their skills and abilities in return for the sanctuary of the new mini-city. For many it was a place to sleep undisturbed, if with troubled dreams, during the darkest hours of the night. It was still a place that reveled in the survival of the fittest and devoured the sick and helpless by relegating them to the lower levels of its tenuous society, but it did survive from one day to the next. An admirable feat in itself. Shortly after The End many smaller communes set themselves up as independents, and they died in a miserably slow trail of starvation, disease, and anarchy.
The Territory was a survivor. It had the unlimited skills of its occupants, a struggling but functioning economy of a kind, and a system of social conventions modeled very loosely upon the old L.A. methods. However, the years had warped the original aims of their police force into a Gestapo-style army of ex-police officers who were all possessed by the Owners.
The most prominent of these old-style policemen was the Champion. His was the hand that spread the fear and terror that kept the Territory in the foremost position in comparison to the rest. His was the presence that ensured all who joined the Commune and swore undying devotion remained loyal members — for without its numerous workers, it would have been doomed to such similar tragic fates as the undermanned independents. His was the shadow that passed over the respectful populace in the narrow streets as a constant reminder of the power of the Owners. His was the face that fueled the new nightmares for the children of the Territory. His was the stuff that legends were made of…and the Owners knew of this and watched their Protector with a sharp and careful eye.
The spicy aroma of the bakeries caused the Champion to briefly think of food. He did not eat often, relying on his narcotic diet to keep him going, but the Owners kept a watch on his eating habits and tempted him with fresh, fine foods to ensure his health and strength. Today they would probably make certain that he took at least one meal, but he was never interested. He hadn’t been interested in the food he’d placed on the table before the Other: canned meat and vegetables from his own vast secret supplies in the storeroom of his underground home. If only the Owners knew how much he had forayed for himself during his hunting trips into the city, it was beyond price or ransom. And beyond the Owners’ reach. It was all his, a kind of security bond against the future. At least he had something to fall back upon, unlike the hapless peoples of the Territory.
As he melted through the bustling crowds of bartering humans who were dressed in the simple clothes of the commune dweller, he could not help but notice the way they shrank away from his presence. He may be their Protector, but they didn’t have to associate with him. It was exceedingly rare for any ordinary man to be found communicating with the powerful arctic-eyed slayer. Everyone kept a discreet, polite distance as he passed through the trading district. The only people known to have spoken to him were the prostitutes of the lower side brothels. They knew no fear as they had nothing left to fear, and they desired the prestige of being the Champion’s woman. They beckoned him lewdly, flirted demurely, offered their bodies for unlimited pleasure — and he calmly refused them all. His private phobia of disease and fanatical obsession with his personal hygiene made their offers forbidden fruits. He could never take the risk.
The Owners didn’t like this celibacy; they wanted to breed from him. All that strength, might, and intelligence were simply going to waste. If he would reproduce with an acceptable female, their growing stable of protectors would become unrivalled. They could secure all the other minor communes that drew off some of the skilled manpower for their own communities — they could have it all.
Greed had not died with the Armageddon. And absolute power still corrupted absolutely.
Into the market of garden produce the Champion strode; people averted their eyes as he passed the roughly fashioned stalls. The brief fall-out of sound as he moved over the uneven brick roads only drew attention to his alienation by his own kind. But they weren’t his own kind. The only kind he knew and understood were the same as himself: the paid butchers. And yet, under the fading influence of the drugs, he knew this had been different at one time. When the polluted fog of his mind cleared before his next fix, he could dredge up a vague remembrance that being a law enforcement officer had always kept him apart from society. However, that hadn’t troubled him to the edge of constant worry because he used to be happy, never alone. The last heroin trip had pointed that out to him. In this new time and place he was alone by choice and ostracism, but in the Time Before, his role had been different. There had been someone else beside him. His job today followed a parallel yet totally opposed line of action and justification.
He paused at the end of the canopied stalls to gaze across a small open square.
But he never came back…even though he promised. And I…I never went and looked. He scowled at the building that was facing him. The Owners stopped me. No escape….
Hand upon gunstock, he marched toward the Territory government building — the home of the Owners.
Still, I have the possible answer back in the Pits. They don’t know I have the Other. He is the key. Like a magnet drawn to a magnet, I cannot escape this strange desire I feel to know all of him. I shall empty his mind for all my answers. And then I’ll know…and perhaps I can be free again.
Passing under the rusting archway of wrought-iron gates, which had been stolen from the ruins of a large uptown estate, the Champion moved out of the pale daylight and into the heavily incensed dark of the quake-damaged house. Silhouetted against the open doorway, he waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the dark. Eventually, he could see the threadbare carpet of the interior of the low-ceilinged corridor. At the end was a green glow from the inner meeting room. He was expected, and he was never late.
Padding with a solid tread, he marched to the entrance and took in the now familiar sight of the Owners.
In a half-circle of high-backed chairs, the Owners were sitting, crimson robes draped elegantly over their shapely bodies. The peculiar green-glassed roof lent the large room a disconcertingly unreal effect that wove into his already warped perception and formed an illusory atmosphere of belied calm. Serene green. He struggled against the soporific effect it was designed to inculcate and stepped forward onto seven pairs of handcuffs inlaid in the floor forming the shape of a regular septagon. A pair of fetters for each Owner — the symbol of being shackled to the Commune. Complete mastery by the Owners.
The Champion placed his feet neatly inside the ring of handcuffs, knowing as he halted that he had once again accepted their domination over him.
The seven Owners viewed their prize with a pleasure that was apparent from the glow in their eyes. He was the finest of men.
Kneeling before his saviors, the Champion spoke in a low huskiness respectful of their power. “Madam, I have come. I live to Protect and Serve my Commune.”
A tall, elegant woman with elaborately dressed gray hair indicated with a thin hand that he should rise. “Stand proud, my Champion. Do not deny us the right to look upon our most favored possession.” She smiled warmly from the lips and studied him critically. He was still tall and strong. Undefeated. “You served us well last night. The Other was becoming a persistent threat to our continued safety and expansion. Already our people are moving into the outskirts of the Northern Sector. We shall soon possess their source of electrical power. All of the Owners thank you.”
The other six women nodded and smiled indulgently. The Champion stared back with a face of granite. They made his flesh crawl.
“It is my job.” He maintained a level delivery, muscled body held rigid as a measure of self-protection against their unnerving benevolence.
The spokeswoman rose from the purple-cushioned chair and approached him with a fluid elegance. She was a high-class dictator of unbending rules and beliefs, iron of will and determination. She circled him slowly, letting her eyes rake his body for any signs of damage or decline. His combat suit was cut on his back where fresh claw marks showed in the leather. The naked flesh of his upper right arm was bruised and scratched. Puzzled, she wondered how he had acquired such markings when he had appeared before them, immediately after the removal of the Other, unblemished of flesh and armor.
“You are marked, my Champion.” A statement of soft sweetness that covered a shrewd, searching mind. “Last night you were perfect.” She never failed to notice the slightest flaw.
Composing himself, the Champion replied, “When I left with your most gracious reward, Madam, I was attacked by the unclean of the warehouse district.” He omitted to tell her that his iron control had weakened drastically and he had been unable to wait until he returned hone before he enjoyed the heroin. He didn’t want the woman to gain further knowledge of his worsening habit.
Momentary panic spoiled her flawless features. “My most precious, you are unhurt?” She stroked the bare, pale golden flesh of his arm. “We couldn’t bear to think of you in pain.”
Oh, no? You don’t know the pain I bear, lady. “I am unhurt.” He watched her sigh of relief from the corner of his eye. She did care in a selfish way about his well-being. She did not want to see her treasured angel of death become a tarnished relic.
“And the mutants?” Coming full circle she stood close to his chest, eyes searching his.
“Dead or injured.” He let his gaze fall to hers. “They won’t bother me again. The warehouse district is still under Territory control.”
Smiling broadly, she let out a low laugh of ironic approval. “See, my sisters, even when he is off duty, enjoying his reward — ” she ran a finger over the gold shield on his chest, “he still ensures the safety of the Commune.” Stepping away, she held him with a look of pure lust. “Ah, we must never lose you. You are as we named you, the Champion.”
He let his gaze drop, eyes boring into the tiled pattern of the floor. They all looked at him in that way. As she returned to her seat, he watched her crimson-slippered feet peek out from under the robe. The skin was gray and flaking; her body was decaying. It happened to some of them since the holocaust. There was no cure and he wondered how much longer she could keep it from the other Owners. Mentally he shrugged. Perhaps they were all suffering the same fate — slow erosion of the human flesh. This was the first time that he had seen any sign of a crack in their united front. Even the Owners could not possess or buy perfection of the body. All their beauty would flake away like shavings from a wood plane. That knowledge made him feel a little superior; they weren’t getting it all their own way.
As she reseated herself, careful to hide her feet with the low hem, she nodded to an auburn-haired woman in her mid-twenties to her far right. The woman rose as commanded and spoke in a clear voice.
“Champion, you are to go tonight and clear out a growing nest of quasi-religious human males. Our informers have assured as that they are about to form a commune based upon old, forbidden ways of the church.” She stared directly at him, issuing his new orders with a soft breathlessness as he turned to face her. “Religion is forbidden and that commune must never rise. The Territory shall rule here and none other.”
Having made her speech, she resumed her seat, quietly placing her hands in her lap.
“Where will I find these degenerates, Madam?” Another mission, he could handle it.
“Due north.” The spokeswoman knew he needed no more information to seek them out. He could hunt down anything that moved. “Did you appreciate your reward, Champion? It was the finest grade of heroin we could acquire.” She accepted his almost imperceptible nod. “You have affixed the final gold clasp, I see. No other protector has ever achieved the full quota. We are more than proud of you.”
Proud of my bloodied butchery. He looked up, plaits rustling over the studs on his shoulders, to see the open adoration on her face.
“What would you desire this time, my golden one?”
Freedom. It sprang unbidden to his mind. And the knowledge and full memory of my past. Answers. He bit the words back. No one spoke treason and lived. “You have rewarded me most handsomely already.” He didn’t want anything from them, and yet his need destroyed his willpower. Once the offer was made, the small plastic sachet before him, he couldn’t’ refuse. His craving knew no bounds, it was his one weakness, and they dangled its temptation before him like a shining star before the magi.
From within the long, flowing sleeves she produced three glycerin packets of drugs; two contained the white powder of heroin. His Lady of the Poppy. The third packet contained the rarest of hallucinogens: LSD. It was in the form of several different colored and sized pills. The ultimate drug as the effect was never the same twice. Ecstasy or horror, one never knew.
His craving released an uncontrollable adrenalin surge in his chest that made his heart double its beat. They knew his price. It was almost as if they could read his mind. Maybe they could. Just when he felt the first stirrings of rebellion, the Owners pulled him back to his knees. There hadn’t been any LSD in the city for three years. It had always been his belief that there was no more. But there it was before him — the concrete proof of his own symbolic ball and chain. For that little packet of rainbow pellets he’d sell his soul.
A shiver of expectancy crawled over his leather-clad body, and, eyes fastened to the talisman held within her palm, he walked toward the gray-haired woman. Close to his new reward, he could see the faint thumb-print cloud the plastic where she’d held the packet hidden under her robe. There were seven pills, one from each Owner. As his gauntleted hand reached out to touch the objects of his desire, her finely manicured fingers closed over the sachets.
“Cut a swathe of death through their repellent hides, my precious one, and these are yours tonight.” Her voice was a purred promise to his ears. He met her eyes, so close he could see the tiny flecks of gray in the green irises. She knew she had him, and his face crumpled under the acceptance of her supremacy over him. She’d bought his soul long ago; now she held its secret dream.
As he sank to his knees at her feet, he nodded his blond head and bent to kiss the hem of her robe. He was loyalty incarnate; the job was completed as soon as he saw the drug. Tonight he would work on an emotional rise of excited vengeance. The humans were already dead; he only had to perform the actual rite of execution — then it would all be his.
She stroked his bowed golden crown of hair, then the seven women Owners rose as one to sweep from the room. As they disappeared into the labyrinth of the meeting house, they failed to see the crouching man’s face. Their work was complete; he would obey them.
But the Champion felt a strange tear of defeat slide down his cheek to darken the dusty floor…. It rose from a well of tormented frustration deep in his bartered soul. Truly, they did own him. And in an honest moment with himself he acknowledged the fact that they always would…because they knew his price.
An addict doesn’t have a choice.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A can of Batchelors red kidney beans was an object he hadn’t seen in many a long year. Approaching the table gingerly from the battering he’d received at the hands of the mutants, the Other picked up the can with a look of wonder. The paper label was brown and torn but nevertheless it was a can of red beans. Tenderly, he replaced it on the wooden top and examined the neighboring cans of carrots, tomatoes, and steak. His mouth watered at the very thought of such delicacies.
Mygod, where in hell did he get these?
Slowly, he settled into the chair at the table and ran his fingers over the faded trade names on the once well-known labels. Some he’d forgotten had ever existed; now he remembered them, all bright colors on the shelves of the supermarkets. Unlimited food.
The last time I tasted real beef was…was — He couldn’t remember.
Then among the clutter of objects and precious cans before him he saw the immortal red and white patterning on an ancient Coca-Cola can.
Holymother….
His hand snatched it up and held it out in front of himself, turning it in the strange light of the oil lamp. Cold metal, so smooth under his hand, with the raised aluminum lip and the flattened ringpull. He appraised it with the loving eye an archaeologist bestows on his greatest find.
No one has Coca-Cola any more. A soft chuckle of pure delight escaped his lips. ‘Cept this guy. His curls bobbed as he shook his head in mock disbelief for he held the reality in his hand.
He was about to pull the ring and drink deeply of the contents when he remembered the food. It was a feast to his eyes. This sort of acquisition was reserved only for the leaders in the Plaza. The “peasantry” wouldn’t even hear of such finds. He wondered again how the Champion came by such wealth.
Maybe the Owners of the Territory pay him in cans and rationed Coke? His face clouded over with the comparison with his own existence. No such favors in the Northern Sector. And then he forcibly brightened. But I don’t have those worries anymore. I chose to be free — not Selkirk and his surgeons of shame. I chose.
A glow of pride settled somewhere small and secret within himself. It was the first time in a countless age he’d felt a stirring of self-respect.
Rising from the table, he crossed to the bar, heading for the swinging door of the kitchen. The Champion had come from there with the cans just before he left. He’d placed the food before the Other during an embarrassed silence, then he’d headed for the door while restrapping on his Magnum.
“I’ll be back, get some rest…and if you feel like eating, there’s some food on the table. Kitchen’s through the back. Don’t waste the water. I’m not due for a ration for six days.” And he was gone. No backward glance, just the soft padding of feet over the rasping grit on the steps. There was no door into this underground home of seemingly palatial luxury, a very strange and foolhardy show of bravado to the Other’s way of thinking.
As he passed the end of the bar, he caught sight of the loaded shelves of alcohol and drugs and slipped behind the mahogany counter. Practically every kind of drink and mild narcotic was available. Granted, some of the bottles hardly contained a decent measure, but the Territory man had alcohol at his fingertips. The variety of drugs, the Other had little comprehension of, they were just gaily-colored pills and capsules lined up in tiny glass bottles in no apparent order. All name labels were conspicuously missing.
Probably knows them all so well he doesn’t need labels…or he doesn’t care what he takes.
Curious, the Other raked his eye over the shelving as he passed along. Beside the glass on the bar top he paused and sniffed at its contents. He could only identify the aroma of scotch, nothing else. When he’d wiped out the holders of a stash of penicillin, the Northern Sector had celebrated his return with a small measure of whiskey passed around the assembled Council. He could still feel the hot liquid in his throat and the metallic after-taste as he licked his metalled lips. His reflection in the bar mirror looked back distortedly, the silvering having worn away in places, giving the image a speckled, greeny-brown leprous effect. He stared between the bottles and glasses at himself, shock widening his one eye slightly, then his disciplined control took over and his schooled features returned to their unreadable expression.
After some moments, he turned his head to survey the bruising on his neck and shoulder and the deep indentation in his metal collar.
He touched the grazed side of his face, the left cheek, and slightly puffed, flaccid eye socket. A blow like that could have snapped my neck…. Pity it didn’t.
With long fingers, he pulled at the unruly mass of dark curls, twisting his fingers in their softness. So long since I let my hair go its own way. He shook the longer trails that collected in the nape of his neck. I…I think it always did.
Pulling himself free from the too-revealing glass, the Other made his way into the kitchen.
He was not prepared for the size of the place. Enormous catering ovens took up the central core of the room. Around the edges were the stainless steel sinks and work surfaces, cupboards, and old, unused freezers. Then the loose pieces fell into place. The Champion’s home had been a bar-cum-eating place of some kind in the Time Before — an underground social meetinghouse that hadn’t been destroyed, just buried. No layers of light, white dust powdered the surfaces here, dulling their shine. Instead the kitchen gleamed while the vast array of utensils were all neatly placed in their respective homes on walls or shelves.
Treading with a quite reverence, the Northern Sector man moved around the kitchen to an array of household goods that would buy acceptance into any commune. The vast amount of metal alone could ensure a high price on the black market. The Owners of the Territory were either far richer than he supposed, or they didn’t know of this secret treasure trove of steel.
Still, when you own the best protector, maybe you can afford to indulge him in wealth.
Close to a large icebox was a smaller grill and cooker with a rare gas bottle attached. Obviously, the Champion used only a fraction of the equipment for himself. The sink opposite had a few splashes of water left near the plug hole like dew on a rose petal. They glistened in the faint light….
Running water. Incredulous, the Other picked up a drop on one of his fingers and rubbed it away between finger and thumb. The place was a Pandora’s box of surprises.
As he turned back toward the swinging doors, a whispered memory of bustling noise, heat, and black people flashed before his mind’s eye. In a brief moment of unreality, he was aware of a ghostly after-image of the humans who had lived and worked here. The smoke was thick, the noise loud and raucous with voices and music. A loose-limbed, black man hurried through the swinging doors and barked out an order in a stumbling tangle of pauses and affectations of speech.
And then a pain of violent intensity lanced into his brain. The moment was over and he fell to the cold concrete floor, hand’s reaching for his head but never quite making it, a scream held back behind his pain-locked teeth….
Several minutes of agony passed as he lay twitching in nervous spasms as the implant in his brain went berserk. Autonomic systems malfunctioned in a rapid series of triggered shocks in his head and, gasping with the effort of fighting the pain and the lurching reality around him, he clung to the concrete floor as it seemed to jerk under his pulsing body. He screwed his eyes shut against the swirling kitchen in an effort to stabilize the rising waves of nausea, and found an abrupt parade of crystal clear scenes of a past and distant life running like an express projector through his convulsing brain. He struggled to make sense of the fantastical images of history.
My history.
A groan of aching misery accompanied the frightened racing of his pulse as a mercurial miasma of times, places, and faces rushed toward his awareness and away. He tried to anchor onto their dwindling trail but they eluded his clawing grasp.
In the tumbling thrust of his memory, one element seemed so much more prominent than any other. It was the image of a tall blond man.
He came from every corner, in different shades of color and mood. He stood so close in an ease of harmony. Running and fighting, laughing and crying, he towered over the other images, encompassed them and devoured them. Energy, warmth, and power shone from his presence, and the Other felt that somewhere in the Time Before he had known this man. He knew his shape, his touch, his….
The pain was receding and with it the images. The empty void of his mind was returning as suddenly as the flood gates of the past had been opened. Like a scared child who searches for a safe haven, the Other tried with a frantic desperation to hold onto the fading pictures, sounds, places…names.
But the agony ended and the moment was gone.
Shuddering with the shocked awakening to the dawn of his old life, the Other strove to a sitting position, back against the freezer door, head down between his knees, waiting for his thundering heart to calm. Tiny rivulets of sweat trickled a pathway over his face, running around the edges of the inlaid silver, to finally splash onto the supple webbing of his leathered chest.
Suddenly, his head came up, curls falling back, his face an expression of murderous intent as comprehension gave the previous minutes meaning.
I do have a past! I’m not just an empty shell of made-over flesh. I saw it — no drugged hallucination forced by Selkirk and his associates. It was real. I feel it…I…I know it now.
Wiping a trembling hand over his beaded brow, he moved it to his temples and tried to massage away the remainder of the pain. He’d never felt such searing agony before, not even while Selkirk had been working on him. That had been nothing compared to what he’d just experienced and the strange images that accompanied it.
If the pain meant that he would see more of his history, he’d welcome it, but why feel the stomach-wrenching pain at all? That little mystery made him scared. He didn’t have the Northern Sector doctors now to fuss over him — he was on his own by choice. A free man and now a man alone with his uncertainties. If he dared to admit it to himself, he wasn’t too sure just what he was made of anymore. He thought he was still a human being, albeit a hybrid of the worst deviations, but still a man. However, the way the images came so suddenly, the uncontrollable reaction of mind and body, and his inability to cope with the pain, made him doubt his own flesh and blood.
The ragged remains of the agony were subsiding into a more manageable form. His fingers tried to loosen the tenseness from the muscles in his head as his hands moved further across his skull, massaging his scalp.
A faint tap-tap-tapping made him stiffen and stop. Eye slitted, he squinted through thick lashes for the source of the sound. The hound stood before him, pale pink eyes searching with a weird wariness of concern. It sniffed the air, tongue hanging out and panting. A long, wire-like tail thrashed in a sign of questioning excitement.
The Other remained perfectly still, no sudden moves, no looking it directly in the eye as a challenge.
Where did that come from?
Guardedly, he pushed backwards to rise against the freezer door, leather pouches making a soft rubbing sound as he rose. The dog made a deep, throaty growl and took a step closer. It could smell the sweat and adrenalin of the Other; and sense the physical vibrations of fear brought on by the agonizing pain of moments earlier. Always alert, the hound had crept into the Pits when it heard the sounds of torment and pain, unusual in its master’s sanctum. It had found the man writhing on the kitchen floor, face a ravaged mask, body twitching fitfully. The sight was alien to the dog; the Champion never behaved in this manner. It was puzzled as to what to do with the stranger. Coolly, the man edged away along the work surfaces, putting distance between himself and the black beast. As he slithered backwards, facing its peculiar eyes, the animal raised its head to reveal the long ivory incisors that curled down from upper jaw over bottom lip. Wet with saliva, they gleamed with carnivorous intent.
“Easy boy, no one’s going to hurt you.” The Other glanced over his shoulder searching for another exit. A large, storeroom door was about twelve feet away on the other side of the cookers.
Get that door between me and it. Should have carried the rifle…don’t remember taking it off….
The hound flexed its powerful frame, muscles ridging in waves over its hairless back. Scars of pale gray skin twisted with the movement suggesting a violent life in the service of the Champion.
Hands tightening on the knife hilt at the small of his back, the Other decided to cut it deep, if it so much as attempted to anchor a fang into his flesh. The threat of fatal disease was ever present. Rabies was a nightmare.
The dog padded closer. It sensed the rising fear In the Other like the scent of hunted prey in the wind.
The Plaza Protector drew the knife, fingers slipping into the grip, razored edge angled and ready.
A scattering of stones up above made them both hesitate. In unison, animal and man turned to face the swinging door, their confrontation forgotten under the introduction of another presence.
Stones rattled again, followed by the distinct sound of boots on gravel. The footsteps stopped, seemingly overhead.
Ears pricked, the hound listened for the keening signal that told it that its master had returned.
Silence prevailed, marred only by the stifled breathing of the Other and the soft panting of the dog.
Trained to an almost instinctive level of command, the large black brute unexpectedly turned tail and hurtled from the room. Intruder was in its thoughts and attack was in its eerie howling cries as it charged through the main room and up the shattered stone stairs. Reading the dog’s interpretation of the situation, the Other followed on its heels. And skidded to a halt, eye frantically searching the cluttered objects for his rifle.
Books. Table. Chained weaponry. Bottles. Glasses…and rifle.
The noise above grew louder as unmistakable curses mixed in with the barking row of the ferocious dog.
Snatching up his weapon, the man checked its load and tore after the animal. Leaping the steps two at a time, he rocketed into the leveled city street like a demon rising from hell. Feet wide, he assumed the solid stance of the Northern Sector Protector, only this time he was freelance and the thought gave him a rushing sense of independent pride.
I am my own man and I choose to stand alone and defend myself!
Against the pearl-like blues and pinks of the blemished sky he saw the beast leaping and clawing in a frenzied attack upon four inferior protectors of the Northern Sector Commune.
For the briefest of moments the Other felt a sinking dread of amazement and fear.
How in hell did they track me here? Even I don’t know where I am….
Then he raised the rifle in the fluid movement of the expert mechanic, tucked it well in at his waist and fired off four snap shots that flowered two of the assassins’ chests in flaring spurts of red. The other two spun fast, ignoring the dog upon them seeing the object of their mission, and raised their weapons.
“Jaeger and Marcino, I might have guessed you two blood-suckers would have jumped at the chance to step into my shoes!” Eye a hard blue of cold fire, the Other stepped closer to his one-time confederates of the Northern Sector stable.
Behind Jaeger, Marcino clubbed the irritating hound around the head, stunning it to the ground. It whimpered once and lay still, pink tongue curling into the redbrick dust on the hard-top.
Jaeger grinned thinly and flicked his long greasy hair away from his sweating forehead. “You don’t scare us any more. You’re dead meat to the Plaza; just a means to another end.”
“You’ll never take me back. I’m a free man. I’ve chosen to leave, and if you two get in the way, dogging my footsteps, I’ll — ” The Other circled away from the steps at his back, eye set on his assailants, as Marcino sniggered menacingly and Jaeger verbally cut him off.
“Plaza doesn’t want you back, friend, they have someone a little more special in mind.”
“The Champion?”
“You always were bright,” Jaeger smiled. “But not bright enough to realize the Plaza let you go.”
What? “I walked out, Jaeger. The Plaza doesn’t let anyone go; no commune does.”
“There’s always a first time,” whispered Marcino. “And you were it. Like a Judas goat, you thought you’d set off to warn the Champion of his fate, but you really led us right to his doorstep.”
How can that be? I didn’t know where he lived. Unless they followed the Champion from the warehouses…it was them, after all, who were following me to the sewer….
The tangled ribbons of thought chased through his mind. “The Champion wouldn’t let scum like you two follow him.” His fingers tightened on the trigger as the uncertainty of the conversation unnerved him.
Jaeger shuffled forward in his scruffy brown combat suit. “No, he wouldn’t; he’s too damn good — better’n you, friend-protector, that’s why we want him and rid of you. You don’t fit in anymore.”
“But you still had your last use,” Marcino let the murmured statement hang on the air between them. In his scrawny, dirt-engrained hands was a Valmet rifle. “You led us here without even knowing, you’re so dumb. There’s an implant in your brain, friend, a homing device. It was fitted by Selkirk last night. You aren’t a free man. We knew of your every move since you left — ”
“There’s a what?!!“ The Other’s voice rose in acid fury. Jaeger and Marcino glanced uneasily at each other. A look of unreasoning mania had entered the Other’s face. A dangerous rage shuddered through his ramrod stance. “Say again, Jaeger, my friend,” came as a hiss of menace.
Feigning a confidence he hardly felt now, Marcino uttered the words again. “An implant in your head, it acts as a kind of tracing device…. We followed you until last night, and then the signal wavered and has only worked intermittently ever since. Seems it’s malfunctioning for some reason….” His voice trailed away, unsure.
The blow to my head with the metal bar…. Jesuschrist, what have they done to me?! “What else has Selkirk and his perverted colleagues planted in me that I should know about?” Snaking forward, he raised his rifle to shoulder height, covering both of them.
Jaeger made to move. The Other was getting too close, but the traveling barrel held him under its black circular stare.
Panicking, he glanced at Marcino. The wizened little man gathered himself for the attack. The rifle came nervously up for a gut shot and the Other blasted him in the forehead, right between the eyes. He was dead before the rifle moved higher than his waist. He dropped like a stone, a tiny hole like a third eye in his surprised features.
Jaeger began to shake, his hands trembled about his gunstock.
“Now then, Jaeger, what else should I know?” The Other smiled in his uneven metalled way, giving the terrified man full sight of his flawed left side.
“Nothing, nothing, there’s nothing else implanted in you that I know of.” His pulse began to race as the edge of eternity hovered before him in the hands of the Other.
“Are you sure, Jaeger? You seemed to know a lot before.” Tell me the truth you bastard — all of it.
“You know it all…. Marcino — ” he swallowed sickly as he glanced at the dust-covered corpse at his feet, ” — Marcino and I used the implant to trace you to the warehouse district. We didn’t know you’d met the Champion, but we hoped you’d seek him out for revenge for the night before last…. While you were occupying him, we were supposed to capture him and kill you…. You’d outlived your usefulness. Selkirk had reported that once he’d planted the thought of freedom, you’d go rogue. And — ” the gun wavered in his grasp as the rifle held a bead on his forehead. “Jesus, have some mercy!” His voice became a whining plea of horror.
“You were saying, Jaeger,” prompted the Protector.
“And…and then the implant started to cut out on the signal, but when it worked we followed on. Just a few minutes ago the signal went haywire, completely erratic, and then it cut out altogether. We scouted around and found the hole and the steps down. Then…then that damn dog appeared and…and….“ Voice faltering, Jaeger began to back away from the silvered man. “Don’t kill me, friend. Show some mercy — ”
“Of the kind you were going to show me, Jaeger? Huh? Shall I show you a reflection of yourself?” The Other took a step closer and matched move-to-move with the retreating assassin. “Kill me and capture the Champion, huh?” He paused, voice turning to a sweetness of a deadly kind.
“Well, I have my own interest in the Champion and don’t think I’m going to let some little gutter-rat like you come along and take him. Understand, Jaeger? I’m not all that bright, so correct me if I’m confusing you.” The words were becoming more brittle as the Other pressed his advantage over the second-rate protector.
Hypnotized by his own fear, Jaeger continued to stumble backwards over the rubble and twisted piping. He couldn’t find the strength to squeeze the trigger and dispatch this inhuman being from his sight.
The cowardly assassin tried for a last desperate defense. “If you kill, me there’ll be others who’ll come after you from the Plaza. You know that, don’t you?” Sweat coursed down his back in a chill slick. “The Plaza wants the Champion, and you’re too much of a risk — an independent protector is unheard of. No lawman is free.”
Tight-lipped, the Other narrowed his range again. “This one is, Jaeger, this one is. I’m setting a new precedent.”
“They’ll trace you! The implant in your brain is a constant link!” His control was dwindling; desperation was replacing it as his cries became louder.
“I’ll see to that and all the other bastards in the Plaza. I’m free, Jaeger, free by my choice — not Selkirk’s — something you’ll never have the guts to attempt — and I aim to stay that way.”
“Then you’ll be free, but dead!!”
“Who’s going to stop me? You?” He sneered disparagingly. “No, not you. You’re spineless, always were, that’s why I was Commune Protector. The Champion?” His eyes widened in teasing revelation as he continued to hound his victim. “He saved my life last night, Jaeger.”
Jaeger stopped dead, fear forgotten briefly as he digested the words. “What? The Champion saved your life? But, you’re enemies.” Incredulous, he looked the Other up and down. His voice rose in disbelief. “Or, you’re a traitor.”
“Traitor!” Violent anger suffused the Other’s words. “I warned the Champion about the Plaza’s latest ideas about acquiring him. Sure, why not? What have I to be grateful to the Plaza for?” His eye flashed bitterly. “Look at me, Jaeger. Selkirk has turned me into an inhuman monster. I have no reason to be loyal to the Northern Sector.”
“The Northern Sector is your commune. You must be loyal. No one can survive in safety without a commune.”
“I aim to. I’m my own man. I, and only I, decide my fate now. Selkirk isn’t going to mutilate me any more.” The Other tightened his pressure on the trigger. “And as for you, telling me to be loyal to the Plaza, that’s rich! Would you still be telling me that as you executed me for being ‘dead meat’ on their burdened shoulders? I don’t owe them a thing, and they couldn’t care shit about me.” He took a deep breath. “And I care even less for the cowardly trash that you are, Jaeger, and your kind — too yellow to come after me alone. You’re pathetic….”
The words were spat out with a finality that chilled Jaeger to the core. Berserk with a further frenzied rush of adrenalin, the would-be assassin dived for the ground on the Other’s right, and fired a burst of ill-aimed gunfire. The staccato delivery gouged out red dust in knee-high spurts about the Other’s feet.
Unflinching, the Other sighted the rifle and fired off one deadly accurate shot. “People die for freedom, Jaeger, and you’re going to die for mine. It’s too precious a thing to be snatched back by filth like you.”
Jaeger’s head snapped back with the impact of the slug. His body crumpled into the dust on the road and lay still. The rifle was still clutched to his brown-suited hip and the mask of “kill-or-be-killed” was fixed for all time upon the sightless features of his grimy face.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
The Other sighed tiredly, eye averted from the corpse and searching the distant, empty horizon. For seeming miles on all sides, there was nothing but the leveled city blocks.
The whole world’s gone that way, Jaeger, not just you.
He bent down and forced the rifle from the locked hands. A weapon of this caliber in the hands of a mutant was too dangerous a thing. Turning his back on the body, he found the dog was up from the dirt, sniffing at the other three dead bodies. It glanced a measured stare of equality at the man, then bent to its task of burying the evidence.
The Other collected the remaining weaponry and descended the steps of the Pits…he deserved that can of Coca-Cola, now.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Shoulder brushing the side of a corroding trashcan, the Champion cautiously peered out. The late afternoon sun gave the scene a dull, gray haze similar to a drifting fog from the bay. Under this sky-high canopy, the Territory’s soldier of death surveyed the building before him with a meticulous eye for detail. For the past thirty minutes, he’d remained at his post, a still figure of hunched weaponry and leather, body immobile but mind calculating.
How many men? What form of defense, weapons, security? Entrances, exits? Ladders? All these thoughts rattled through his mind in a constant process of rapid evaluation. Senses and brain functions heightened by the drugs gave him a feeling of superiority.
An easy target. Simple, straightforward mission. Different from last night…very different.
A dark, hooded figure emerged from a pile of shop-front debris over to his left. Sliding around from the other side of the trash can, the Champion watched the figure pause beside a door of studded cedar and check up and down the remains of the wrecked street. Silent buildings with split open innards stretched away on all sides. In random places the stores and offices were completely razed to the ground, but most of the buildings on this block were still standing — a precarious ruin of single-story facades that all communes had avoided due to the danger of collapse. The goods had been spirited away by the commune locusts who cleaned the areas out of anything useful, once the protectors had secured them. Even the mutants kept clear of the Rosedale district; it was too close to the ruptured cemetery of thrown-up caskets. The quake had unearthed the old dead of L.A., something the living dead found unable to accept. The new mythology termed the area a dead-zone of macabre evil. Many believed it, keeping well clear. Short of homes or not, they’d rather sleep under the sky than tempt fate and live in the desolation of Rosedale.
Now figures similar to the shades of death crawled over the district. They were furtive people of black robes and strange signs. It was as if the ancient brothers of a monastic order had claimed a foothold in the shattered city.
The unknown figure at the foot of the church stairs seemed sure of his isolation and hurried up the steps and rapped sharp1y on the door. As the door opened for a second, the man slipped inside and the Champion caught a glimpse of faint, flickering light.
Candles. The light will be poor. Never mind, I can handle the reduced clarity. I’ll just get in a little closer and cut the odds down again.
Snaking backwards on knees and elbows, the Champion shrank into the shadows of a store doorway and rose to his feet. Standing tall, he had a chance to make a further reconnoiter of the building he was about to enter.
An old and dilapidated church of unknown denomination, its windows of stained glass lay like scattered gemstones across the sidewalk where they had crashed years before. In the fading light, the fractured shards sparkled with a kaleidoscopic sinisterness. Once eyes into the house of God, they now stared at the Champion with a knowing glint of his intention. The gaping archways of window frames had been boarded over with anything that would bridge the gaps and keep out the wild mutants and prying eyes.
But not the Champion.
Pulling his gauntlets tight over his flexing hands, he emerged onto the street of lengthening shadows like a wraith from the graveyard. Running a hand over his right bicep, he released the golden armband, reset the aperture and gathered his plaits together across his back. Clamping on the circlet of gold, the blond secured them onto his spine as the band locked onto his armor. Thus, he still had flexibility of movement and little risk of being held from behind. Picking up speed, he dogged silently around the back of the church between its southern wall and a neighboring building.
Hemmed in by the bulging walls of the two structures, the Champion squeezed around the last corner into the back alley and found the rear exit set in the wall several feet away. Stepping over a moldering corpse that had once been an elderly mutant, he crept up to the door and inspected the lock.
Cheap, clumsy workmanship. Disdainfully, he bent the bar out of the rotting wood. The padlock he left dangling. A sharp, hard jolt and the door eased open a crack.
One last glance over his shoulder and he turned his bright eyes toward the interior of the building. The deep yellow glow of candle flames bathed what little he could see in a wash of light: a stone floor and two dark wood pews.
Widening the crack a little more, he slid in like the scent of night through an open window and pushed the door closed behind him.
The low, reverent murmur of voices indicated that the figures were somewhere near the altar of the church, engaged in some form of intense discussion. The Champion trod quietly over the floor from behind the pillar that masked the alcove from the nave. As he moved across the rear of the church, he came in sight of the central aisle. What he saw stopped him dead.
An enormous effigy of the Territory Protector was being levered into position where the altar had once stood.
Unprepared for the sacrilegious sight, the Champion ducked low between the two rear pews and watched the strange tableau before him.
The unnervingly accurate statue of himself was being settled into its new home by several black-robed beings whose red eyes glowed with unholy rapture as the stone ground to a halt. Ropes running from the statue’s upper torso were loosed by the men on ladders resting against the back wall. The tackle snapped up into the air, like flicked ribbons, then slipped free of the block and fell to the ground. With haste, several men at the statue’s huge feet bent to the task of clearing away the heavy-duty equipment.
“Beautiful, Stephen. Simply beautiful.” Jude hugged himself under his robes, arms buried deep into the vast sleeves. “Such might and power…definitely the finest example for the New Image.”
The figure called Stephen placed the metal lever in his hand against a front pew and stepped back to admire the brotherhood’s workmanship. Flawless in its creation, the statue glowered down on them, its hand raised in benediction, the other resting on a gunstock. The eyes were blue zircons, the hair beaten plaits of gold thread. The leather suit was a weaving of jade slivers so thin they could be bent to hug the polished stone of the body.
Awed before their newly raised graven image, the Brothers stood under the idol’s gaze in breathless pride.
“Peter won’t expect him to be placed; it’ll be a wonderful surprise for him upon his return.” Jude took several steps backwards and settled down in a left-hand pew. The other figures either followed suit or sank down to their knees where they were.
“Such strength, one only has to look at him. The New Image is the right one, my brothers. The mighty will triumph in this New Society. He is the model for our future, an example to be followed.”
Stephen clasped his hands together in a fervent desire to communicate his joy at their new god. “And followed he will be. Everything is ripe for the new religion. A whole generation will rush to follow his ways, adopt his beliefs, and live by his methods.”
Jude pushed back his hood, bald head shining in the candles’ glow, his red eyes lit with a spark from within. “The young will swarm to his feet, Stephen. We won’t have to go out and witness, they’ll be clamoring at our door.”
Collecting himself together, the Champion hunkered down to think.
What the hell is this? No way are they using me for their newly created religion. Not me. I Protect and Serve. I’m not here to be worshipped by the insane lunatics of a fringe commune. Religion is outlawed. I am the law. Justice must be seen to be done. Like they said: I have the power and the strength — the right.
Climbing to his feet, he stepped into the central aisle, the cold air of the vaulted roof raising gooseflesh over his body. The red carpet deadened his tread as he came forward like some ancient avenger.
A figure near the feet of the statue caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced back, did a double take, and fell to his knees, pointing at the approaching man. His white lips moved but no sound came out. The Brothers. turned, save one.
Jude felt the chill touch of fear shiver through him. He sensed the approach of something menacing even before he turned to face it.
The Champion halted ten feet away, golden tips pealing with a hollow echo in the stone building.
“The Champion!” Jude let out the involuntary gasp and shot to his feet, black robes dusting the floor.
“Religion is a punishable offense.” The Champion uttered the words of charge in a flat whisper. “The punishment is death.”
Jude made to speak a word of welcome, but closed his mouth to a thin crease, then said, “Death, Champion? You’d kill your worshipful followers? I think you are acting in haste.” He indicated the nervous brotherhood with a white hand. “These are yours to command. We believe in your methods: the mighty will survive the weak, power gives security. And that is what this commune wants — the untapped devotion of the youth in the other communes, backed by the philosophy of the ultimate survivor — you.”
The Champion set his jaw in a grimace of suspicion and raked his eyes across his “worshipful followers.”
Stephen stepped to Jude’s shoulder. “You will come to us once we have the strength of numbers behind us. All children search for a cause, an answer to life and the way to lead it. We’re going to show them the way, and you are our model of excellence. The young already aspire to your position of wealth and status in the Commune. They want to be like you. If they follow us they can live in your image….” Turning away, he looked devotedly at the statue. “Of course, if we had you physically with us, the task would be more than complete. Have you any idea how unswerving the minds of the young can be once they have a cause, a belief, to cling to? We can capitalize on that. All the fresh skills and loyalty will come to us. We won’t need an army of protectors to keep our commune in line — a religious faith will suffice. Believe, conform, or be damned to an eternal hell of ex-commune society — the real living hell. But if they kneel at your worthy feet, they can be free under your protection. You have shown us the way to follow; we adopt it to our very souls….”
Swirling the wool of his cloak, Stephen spun back to meet the hard eye line of the armored man. “Understand? An ancient dictator of an old war used a Youth Movement to great benefit. He almost won. Where he failed, we will succeed. Our rise will be unparalleled, a leviathan of people, all with the right of their religion to guide them. The other communes will die out overnight.”
The Champion listened in a deadened state of disbelief. It was all planned with himself as the focal point. No one had mentioned the fact that he belonged to another commune altogether.
“You don’t own me, yet. What if I choose to stay with the Territory? What then? No Champion, no religion.” His chin came up defiantly, eyebrows raised in challenge.
“Religion, or undying devotion doesn’t need the physical presence of the individual involved. Many people have been discovered to be worth more dead than alive.” Jude’s voice rose with excitement. “It’s the image that counts; it was always the image. Remember in the Time Before how important that was? Well, we think we’ve found the right image in you. Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter.” He smiled good-humoredly. “Of course, alive would be preferable. You could actually speak with the youngsters. Show them your methods. Train them to a powerful army, united as one in your name!”
The assembled brotherhood nodded enthusiastically as they were swept along on the tides of inspiration.
The Champion thought he ‘d seen all types of corrupt humankind, but this nest of infected madmen surpassed the rest. Unable to find the words of counter-argument, his eyes strayed to features of his own stone image.
Follow my methods toward a stronger, better life. He grinned mirthlessly, which caused a ripple of assumed approval to pass among the devout men. If only you knew why I’m here. My price of loyalty is a packet of heroin or seven doses of LSD. A real fine example for the New Image.
Pair after pair of red mutant eyes stared at their new messiah with a vulturesque expectancy, hands clasped tightly in a tense readiness for prayer. Through his distance vision, the Champion slowly searched each face. Spare, bland, and demented. Their ivory skins gleamed from the exertion of maneuvering the statue, and the pig-eyes sunken in the dark circles of their lashless lids were locked onto the object of their desire.
He could smell the sickly scent of their pheromones of lust for him under the coarse, woolen robes.
Animals — reasoning with the obtuse power of the dangerously insane. “The image of the Time Before is past. Religion is against the Law and organized religion is anathema to the New Society!” His voice became hard and edged, no more allowances. A false air of tolerance permeated the atmosphere between the Champion and the Brothers.
Jude smiled with a broad row of broken, yellowed teeth through lips of paper whiteness.
“Champion, a religion needs a messiah — a focal point. Our New Image needs a martyr.” His voice took on the hint of underlying, concentrated menace. “We would prefer you alive — for a time.” In unison the brothers spread out in a clean, simple move of smoothness that neatly covered the Champion on all sides. Their viewpoint shifted from the crazed adoration of the green-leathered man before them to a point beyond. Only Jude held the Champion’s gaze.
“It would have been nice to have you with us physically and spiritually, but I see you cannot see reason.” Abruptly, the tone changed, becoming curt. “You are a blindly ignorant fool, Champion. Faith is the single most powerful factor in any religion. Tap into that well in the young and we will be invincible. Nothing can stand against faith. It was Gamaliel who once said: Refrain from these men and let them alone, for, if this counsel or this work be of men it will come to naught. But if it be of God you cannot overthrow it. Acts 5 verses 38-39.”
Several brothers nodded in agreement and shuffled a little further toward the slayer of the Territory. A barely audible, high-pitched hum issued from the encroaching beings. The Champion flickered a warning gaze and halted their approach. Jude raised an emaciated arm, sleeve falling back, and pointed directly at the man before them.
“You, Champion, are the god of our New Image. Nothing will be able to stop the tidal wave of youth’s devout belief. In you we have our new messiah!” His thin, reedy voice rose in a cracked cry of ardor. The constant humming increased In volume.
Irritated, the Champion scowled darkly with an intense hatred of their corrupt philosophy. You repel me. All of you — with your perverted religion. “There is no more religion.” Somehow, his voice was husky with the physical nausea of them. “You forget the Law and I am the executor of that Law. Not some new messiah of debauched fantasy!” — He leveled the Magnum at Jude’s head — “I have the right to Protect and Serve this New Society.”
And Jude laughed.
It hit the Champion like a taunting blow of ridicule. The red eyes flashed with a malevolent glee.
“Oh, my pathetically duped Champion, do you really wish to preserve the fabric of this New Society?” Scrawny hands made an expansive gesture of deprecation the length of the lawman’s torso. “Look at yourself! You are the best we can offer — a junkie-slayer of inhuman magnitude whose hands are never washed clean of one being’s blood before he saturates them with another’s!” He took a defiant step forward, unheeding the aimed weapon as though sure of the man before him. “And you have the audacity to come here and pass judgment on us.” Sneering, he took in the assembled Brothers around him. “You couldn’t care a damn for the New Society or the Law. What you care about is where your next fix is coming from! Isn’t that right, Champion?”
The humming became a distracting drone to his highly tuned sense of hearing. As the rising pitch pierced his auditory perception, a forgotten thought wearily raised itself to his consciousness.
I used to care. You’ll never know how much I once cared. But I’m still the lawman of this new world. “The rules are the rules. I enforce them and the punishment is and always will be death.” A darkness came over his willingness to see or hear reason. “The New Image is doomed before it even begins.”
As one, the disciples keened out one long penetrating note.
“We said before, we would prefer you with us, Champion, but you have seen fit to move against us — it does not matter. All religions need a martyr and you, Dealer of Death, will be ours.”
The eye-line of Jude broke from the level hold of the Champion’s and affixed itself to something at the rear of the church. The howling brotherhood followed suit, eyes shining with devout relief.
The Champion pulled in on the Magnum trigger and stopped. The whole eerie atmosphere of prevalent evil suddenly increased and crawled over his back with a caressing touch of capture. Stiffening with the vibrant sensation, the Champion pivoted slowly, leather creaking, to face the end of the nave.
Hanging in lonely solitude was a huge ebony cross. It dominated the southern wall, suspended there with ancient chains bolted into the roof beams.
“All it needs is the martyr.” A voice of assured calm issued from the western alcove.
The Champion spun to cover the alcove while his mind wrestled with the awareness that the New Image was ready for their very own crucifixion. The dark seemed impenetrable as he fought to pierce into the gloom and see the newcomer.
Know your enemy.
The Brothers relaxed at the sound of the voice and turned in deferent abeyance towards its source. Several dropped their heads in reverent fealty.
The Champion eased himself into the mouth of the nearest pew in an attempt to get the brethren before him.
From the black recess stepped an older, more commanding figure of dark red eyes and ivory skin. He, too, wore the dark robes of the Order, and it was abundantly clear that this was the leader of the New Image.
“Jude gave you an excellent explanation of our motives, Champion, and you have stubbornly sought to ignore the reasoning behind it.”
Peter sauntered across the nave and stroked the wood of the cross guilefully. “A great, great pity. You could have been a mighty asset to us alive. Still, we have taken your stupid, misguided loyalty into consideration.” Sighing with a burdensome weariness, he moved across the flagstones and gave his undivided attention to the object of their religion.
Eye to eye, the Champion made a swift assessment that this was the man to fear, to be wary of.
“We’ll keep you for a decent length of time. Let the young think you’ve set out on your own to found the New Image, then when they’re just about to flock to us in their hundreds, you’ll be discovered symbolically crucified for your beliefs.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, eyes beseeching the Champion in mock sympathy. “Your Owners, having persecuted you for your betrayal of the Territory, wreak their revenge in the most brutal method possible.” His chest rose rapidly with the thrill of the description. “Just imagine it, Champion. The Commune will fall, its children will come to u,; and all we shall have done is killed you.”
The last word echoed through the blond killer’s head in a ringing rhyme that threatened his invincibility. Youyouyouyou…. He shook himself mentally and found that while he’d been absorbed by Peter, the disciples had reformed with a silent insidious efficiency. Encircled again.
“You see, we don’t actually need you — just your image.” Peter finished his speech with a smile of self-righteous confidence, as from under his robe he produced a dart-gun and shot the Champion in the chest.
The dart made a soft hissing noise as it exploded from the barrel to embed itself up to the flight in the flesh of the Territory Protector.
Ohgod! NO! Inhaling deeply, the Champion raised a gauntleted hand and twisted the dart free, dropped it to the cold, stone floor and ground it underfoot. But even he could not stay the slight shine of fear in his blue eyes. Wild blue of a storm. What have you shot me with? How long have I got before I go under? He aimed the huge Magnum. “I claim my right as executioner.” Slugs cut a swathe through the nearest group of disciples. “Die you bastards! Die!”
Hell of the most unholy kind broke out as screaming bodies jack-knifed over the pews to lie in gutted tatters. The rest took up a united cry of desperation as their “god” reloaded in seconds, ready to mow down the next attackers.
Diving for cover, Jude and Stephen rolled for the protection of the statue, landing up against the dais in a frantic scramble of arms and legs. As they hauled themselves to a standing position, the customized gun hacked them into fragments over the idol’s stone boots, wool and blood splattering in a fountainous spray over the others as they tried to get away.
The wailing hum became a scream of sheer terror as the Champion meted out his own brand of justice. Crouching low behind the pew, he reloaded yet again with a cool efficiency that made Peter’s blood petrify in his veins. The man was a killer of obsessive qualities that gave him the edge of determination over the rest. Kneeling up, the Territory man rested the barrel of the gun on the carved wooden back of the pew in front, and picked off the frantically scrambling Brothers as they tried to get past his range of death.
In the confusion and panic of the first onslaught, Peter had simply stood, paling face a mask of disbelief, as the dart was crushed and the object of their New Image calmly began to shoot anything that moved. Hands shaking with a palsy-like terror, the leader of the Brothers flung himself into the pews toward the back of the church and crawled toward the far wall. Fumbling under his robe, he searched for another dart. Uncooperative fingers tried repeatedly to load up the single chamber. As he clicked home the breech, the body of an already dying brother tumbled with a giant’s force over the pew protecting him and lay before him in a heap of arms, legs, and robe. The red eyes turned with bewildered horror towards Peter.
“How can this be, Peter?” The ashen lips bubbled up with red as his last whispers came forth. “You said he would willingly come to us.” A choking cough racked his riddled frame and flecked Peter’s sweat-slicked face. As the spasm passed, Peter closed the staring eyes with a swift angry abruptness.
“The bastard got lucky, Nathan. He just got lucky.” Squirming over the body, he continued toward the aisle and risked a peek at the action.
In the nave of the church, the Champion was being true to his word. He dealt out the justice and when he said death, he meant it. Anybody who dared to show for a second received a thunderous volley of slugs. Standing on the seat of the pew, the tall blond seemed like a pale shadow of his own enormous image before him. Giant figure to giant figure, the statue and the man cast their shadows of menace over the bleeding congregation. As the zircon eyes in the stone face of the New Image god stared down on the destruction, so the eyes of the Champion became glazed with the euphoric high of killing — the dealing of Life and Death and the rising pressure of the drug of the dart. Mixed in with the Protector’s own narcotic cocktail, the tranquilizer conspired with his impure blood and caused an intense awareness to prevail in his muscled frame. Sharp beyond his normal mental grasp, the Champion saw the church tableau as clear as truth. Through the facade, he witnessed the rife evil of the rising New Image. In its Brothers he saw it. In its treacherous leader he knew of it. And under the crazed effigy of himself he tried to dispense with it.
Satisfied with his lightning fast handwork, he ran forward across the backs of the pews in an agile display of speed, dropping cat-like to the floor. A quick look told him that many of the Brothers would never kneel to a god again. Blanched faces of frozen horror stared at him from cowls of black wool. Many still with the threatening expression of beatific vision that held the chilling spark of besotted devotion and murderous desire. He would have been their living god at the very least. At the very most, he would have been their martyred messiah. The sure security of religion-based power. Unstoppable. Unlimited.
Whirling around, the Champion rested his leather back against the stone leg of the statue, and waited for the spiraling cordite to clear from the air. Hardly panting with the previous seconds’ effort, he took in a wide panorama of the nave with the Magnum snugly secure in his handlock. Nothing stirred save for the faint moans of the wounded.
The eerie candle glow painted the church walls with the tall wavering shadows of a puppet theatre. Silhouettes rose and fell in the far pews. Squinting into the gloom, the Champion sought the one black robe he desired most — that of the leader. A shadow became shorter on the western wail indicating the direction of travel of a man as he progressed nearer the end of the rows of seats.
Peter.
The Magnum rose to cover the far aisle as the Champion focused in that sector of the church.
Robes flapping in a flurry, a Brother made a sudden attack from the Champion’s left, the hands lifted high for a downward swing of a heavy crowbar. His screeching cry shattered the stunned silence under the vaulted ceiling. Sandals pounding over the stone floor, the frenzied creature launched itself up the altar steps. Its nasty eyes flashed with a hateful fury, its pale lips curled back over the rotten, pointed teeth as the spittle of his cry splashed over the Champion.
Rolling away, the armored man raised a protective left forearm and took the blow from the iron bar on his armored shoulder. The dull thud of studded leather and iron connecting told of the bone-jarring impact. As the Brother leaped back for the next swing, the Champion snatched a hold of the bar, gave it a sharp pull and push, and released the attacker’s hold. As the Brother’s wretched hands slid free of the end, he was caught off balance. The Protector grinned in a limited way, his eyes betraying his scorn of the attack, and with a blur of speed in one deftly accurate blow, he smashed the skull with the newly acquired metal bar. The convulsing body of woolen cloth suddenly became a leaden heap at his feet; the crowbar clattered to the stone floor.
The Champion made to return to his previous vantage point only to see that the New Image leader was throwing caution to the wind and making a bolt for the rear exit. As the Protector raised his gun, the escaping man faltered and finally stopped. He turned around to face the Champion.
“Well,” Peter began with as much casualness as he could muster, “kill me. That’s all you’re good for.” Nervously, he licked his parched lips and mouth. “Butcher me like you have your faithful followers.”
Through a cordite-laced nave came the sound of hollow laughter. The sound was of stilted mirth and chilled Peter to the absolute core. It was the laughter of a despairing soul caught in a living bad joke. The Champion’s face had turned the color of a remembered grave.
“My faithful?” Stepping with the right of a victor, he made his way up the central aisle, gun never leaving the target of the heart on the chest of the man against the wall. Leather soles padded over the splinters of wood and stone caused by the rapid volleys of moments earlier. His hips swayed with the controlled length of a measured pace. The Northern Territory’s soldier of death neared the darkened pews like a silent wraith, and out of the thin mists of candle smoke, incense, and cordite, he emerged.
Swallowing down his fear, Peter pressed himself into the very cracks in the church walls. As the killer of his brotherhood approached, his shadow lengthened until it towered against the back altar wall, as tall and domineering as the statue itself.
“Don’t make me kill you, Peter, with the sound of my laughter in your ears.” The hammer clicked back on the Magnum. “You see, I want you to die with the truth ringing in your ears, you evil scum, and it’s the least funny thing I’ve heard since the roar of The End.” A tightly controlled fury coated every soft word.
“You, Peter, are the Devil’s own leech on society. You’d suck the New Society dry of its youth and resources for a brutal code of ethics that would drag us even lower….”
Peter’s quivering face of fear wavered out of focus and back. The Champion hesitated in his speech of judgment as a sudden deadness overcame his focus on the church and his victim. A weakness cut away his stance of command, and he sank to the hard stone floor with a slow rustle of creaking armor and weaponry. A sick lurch of panic coursed through him, settling in the pit of his stomach in a nagging lump.
The dart…. Oh, no, not now…. Not here, not for him…. Won’t go under…won’t die…won’t die…no messiah….
Tilting his head up, the Champion saw the tentative approach of the reprieved man become bolder every second. An almost hysterical expression of relief and triumph on the leader’s face exchanged places with the ghostly mask of imminent bloody death. As Peter squeezed between the pews toward the prone man in the center aisle, his hands rose to his mouth to smother a cry of victory. His gnarled hands clamped down on his next words, too excited was he at his turn of good fortune.
Red eyes racing over the church, the leader of the New Image looked for any living ally to come forward to share in his triumph.
“Come out, my Brothers! Stand tall.” He cast a hand over the semi-conscious Protector. “We have our messiah.” His volume rose with his relief. “Did I not promise him to you? The New Image will become the new power of this age! We have him….” Peter bent close, his infected breath drifting in warm gusts over the Champion’s face. “…We have his image.”
The reeling twist in his vision caused the Champion to see a multiplicity of shocked and battered Brothers rising from behind pews and pillars. On a distant trace of sound came the hypnotic hum.
You don’t get me that easy…. I am Territory Protector, I always win…. It is my right…. Get away from me!…What drug…? How long…? Go down fighting…fighting…to the end….
Three Brothers wandered apprehensively up to the Champion. Their eyes were riveted to the figure; none spared a glance at their leader who shone with the sweat of fear and success. Five pews away they paused and sank to their knees, hands clasped in prayer for their deliverance from death into the religion of the future.
“Pray my Brothers, pray. Power is ours for the taking. No longer will we be the deprived, the neglected, the dominated. Now it is our turn to draw in the threads of real undying power — that of religious faith. This man, this Champion over all, is our key to that door. Two months from now we can unlock that portal and for all the time of the New Society, the New Image will reign supreme!!” With a cry of manic jubilation, Peter threw back his arms and screamed out an unintelligible litany in hysterical tongues. As one, the Brothers turned their ivory faces toward the towering statue and babbled forth a similar string of incomprehensible noises.
The sudden release from the cacophony of slug-biting death and the restraint of the Protector unhinged their already tenuous hold on reality. Their droning wail became the chatter of tongues and Peter stepped astride the Champion, a further sign of his conquest. His long skirts swirled over the studs on the combat suit.
From the low angle of the floor, the Champion tried to make sense of receding cognizance. Peter’s words penetrated his mind with a lethargic slowness he’d only previously experienced on a bad mix of narcotics. Rolling his head back, he gazed up at the invigorated leader. Sweat dripped from his chin and spattered the Champion’s cheek. Sedated, he heard little of the row and only barely managed to see the grotesque spectacle.
But his sixth sense of self-preservation spoke a multitude.
Through every pore he became aware of the dangerous turn of events. It ate into the numbness of his being and stimulated the last vestige of his consciousness into rallying his waning strength. A meager ration of energy. It was all he needed.
Shuddering with the effort, he sluggishly raised his gun hand from the ground and pulled the trigger. The single burst ripped away most of Peter’s left leg below the knee. The roar of the gun silenced the babble of tongues as if he’d raised the stylus from a warped record. Brothers, who moments earlier had thought they were saved, scattered into the recesses of the church. Only the writhing body of Peter remained.
“Help me!” A cry for pity. Heaving sobs rang after the retreating Brothers from the thin lips of their leader. “I’m going to die! Come back and help me!”
With exaggerated care, the Champion crawled up into a slumped crouch and reloaded the gun in a befuddled haze. Only yards away lay his enemy, and yet he couldn’t seem to get the reloading done fast enough to finish the job. His vision shifted and changed so that he thought he saw several pairs of hands snatch up the bleeding body of the leader and drag it away behind the pews. Panicked footsteps clattered over the floor in a noisy rhythm of retreat, but from below the wooden seating he had no sight of them.
Got to get out…got to finish them off…reload…reload…can’t see, hear…can’t function…got to get away…safety…at least I wounded the sonofabitch…. Not many left…he’ll probably die…. Pick the rest off later…later…later…feel better…. Feel sick…sick…so sick…. Got to get out…mustn’t pass out…not here…not here…they’ll come back…. So sick….
A dark red trail of thickly cloying blood led away from the main church doors and into the night. It splashed and dripped its way over lumps of concrete and splintered timber with an irregularity that lead the ashen-featured Champion to believe the retreat had been frantic, unplanned, and hasty. No careful plotting of paths here. No organized secure pattern of withdrawal. The blood was flung out everywhere. The few Brothers who could still crawl had fled, taking Peter with them. His blood was a sign of their passing and the Champion’s wrath.
Jude was right; he spilled blood without feeling or compassion. He was the ultimate killer.
Steadying himself against the cedar doorjamb, the Protector stared after the thread of Peter’s life. Thirty feet and it was gone, swallowed up in the deepening shadows of the day and the ruins of the city. It had been a messy, clumsy job. He’d been slow, too willing to listen, too stupid to see the ensnaring trap creeping around him. He almost didn’t complete the contract. Peter had had him cold….
An icy draught swept over him and he shivered despite the leather suit.
Too close….
Magnum still locked into his grip, he unclasped his braids and refastened the armlet around his bicep while raising his gaunt face toward the street. Scrutinizing every possible hiding place, he satisfied himself that the street was safe. The collapsing facades, the ruptured roadway, the stagnant piles of rotten refuse and scavenged remains, all lay before him with a permanent depressed solidarity. Nothing changed for the better…only the worse. No improvements here. Nothing was going to save the city now. Certainly not the New Image; he’d seen to that — just. But the job was done.
Taking the steps slowly with a deliberate tread, he fought back the sense of lethargy and sickness, and descended down onto street level. A weariness caused by the dart gave him the smooth motion of a somnambulist. His plaits hung heavily over his back, toneless notes of another meeting with Death. Without a backwards glance at the carnage in the church, his leaden footsteps carried him away from the house of the one-time Supreme Being.
As he picked his way over the pavement, he sensed the slight movement of something behind him. Careful not to betray his knowledge of the being, the Territory Protector lengthened his stride and dropped with a snap of speed into the remaining stairwell of a one-time basement apartment. The building had long since disintegrated to well below street level, leaving a flattened, yawning waste between its neighbors to the next street beyond. Yet the steps and railings still remained.
Peering through the eroding iron bars, his eyes on level with the street, the Champion watched with an intense interest the activity occurring away to his left. The deep blue eyes probed the street as his automatic training overrode his doped condition, and his body readied for another confrontation.
A mound of seeming refuse shifted minusculy as with an uncanny soundlessness three scarcely human mutants uncoiled themselves from one another. So bizarre in their deformities were they that the watcher could hardly tell if they were male or female. Obviously legless, they used their stumps to thrust themselves over the sidewalk in a snake-like squirm. Wriggling from side to side, their arms lurched forward in a landlocked butterfly stroke to brush aside anything that would block their way or force them to raise their bellies from the dust. The object of their jerky crawl was the trail of freshly spilled blood. As they neared the steps they sniffed at the splotches with increased movement, heads swayed back and forth in an effort to determine the direction of the next splash.
The Champion watched with semi-objectiveness. His features remained deadpan, as if the unearthly sight after the staged action inside the church was too much for his drained mind to take.
The foremost figure reached out a limb of lumpy, speckled gray flesh and lifted up a single scarlet drop on the end of a stubby digit. A pale pink tongue slowly poked its way out from between the creature’s tiny, pointed teeth and licked up the drop with a sensuousness that stirred a feeling of repugnance in the blond.
We all prey on each other…live off each other…devour each other…. Just another food chain….
The creature savored the taste of Peter with a delighted relish. Its tongue curled back into its mouth and it twisted over to face the other two pairs of mutant eyes and spat out a distortion of language. The Champion assumed it had spoken words of approval as the other two suddenly descended upon the trail of blood. As they followed it, licking up splash after scarlet splash, they edged up the steps to the church.
The Champion watched indifferently. They were another type of mutant he hadn’t seen before, but with the thoroughness of past experience he stored away all that he saw. He would be ready for them in the future. Finally, he turned to descend the steps and leave. His contract was for the extermination of the New Image, not for the random culling of new breeds. He did only what he was told. His shoes padded down the crumbling steps, but not softly enough. A heel crunched a trace of grit making the sound of sandpaper on stone.
Three gray-speckled heads spun back, eyes engorged and staring directly at the Champion. Hearing as acute as sonar allowed them to focus in on him. They stared in interest. New blood perhaps…?
The Champion saw that his Magnum was empty and stiffly detached it; sliding it into the holster, he withdrew the barbed knife in one fluid movement. As his back tensed up for action, the gold pendants rang a chorus of high-pitched notes.
Their heads held high, the three mutants turned this way and that, ears straining for further noise. The Champion remained still, matching stare for stare — until he was sure they were blind.
Then they heard the soft song of his ceremonial braids.
Lumbering backwards, they slithered up the steps, heads bobbing in frantic, irregular movements as they sought the sounds of the dreaded Protector. He was out there in the dark, watching them. They hadn’t sensed him as they had slid out of their nest. Fear propelled them into the sanctuary of the church. As they felt the temperature drop of the interior, the three creatures scurried away to fresh hiding places.
There’s no sanctuary there, not now, my fearful mutants. Just more remains to be buried. My mark of passing…. The Champion shrugged, suddenly tired of the day. Go and enjoy yourselves. Feed on them, they were of no use to anyone else…. It’s a dog-eat-dog world — literally. I don’t blame you. I just pity you.
Turning away, he re-sheathed the knife and continued down the steps.
But do you pity me…?
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
When man first ran like lemmings for the gold fields in the Yukon, the rest of the world looked on with envy or condescending boredom. Always man will grub, claw, and break his back for the treasures of the earth. Today, in the City, man still exists, chasing after the treasures of the old society, but now it is not gold or diamonds that are desired….
The thin fingers of a tiny lonely girl delicately picked at the faded, shabby dress on her thin body, bored. Already wary of the menacing hound that lived in the earth in this sector, she’d crawled into a packing crate, where she was now hiding, upon hearing the report of the gunshots and the howl of the dog.
And then she heard the almost forgotten sound of a thrown can striking the ground. Her head snapped around in the crate and she crept out to cautiously approach the source.
Bare feet tripping over the uneven road, she climbed a heap of bricks and timber to stop in stunned amazement. A tall man with long, dark, curly hair was standing with the dog near to the steps of the underground domain. She knew who was supposed to live in that hole: the Champion of the Territory. Many times around low fires the other non-commune dwellers had told strange and horrifying stories about the tall blond killer with the gold-tipped hair. She’d listened, eyes wide, mouth hanging loose, until her mind could no longer cope with the tension and alarm. Then, she’d bolt away into the night, terrified of every shadow and faint noise, sure that all the Demon Protectors pursued, led by that man in green. Limbs trembling, she would finally collapse onto the old sacking in the corner of a broken-down schoolroom and cry herself to sleep.
Recently, she’d felt compelled by her childish curiosity for the macabre to see for herself the strange Protector. Was he really tall? Did his face turn men to stone? Were the rats his to command? And was his hair really tipped in gold — a clasp for ten men’s wasted lives.
But the hound had frightened her off the first day, and since then she’d kept her distance. Until now. The tinkling sound of a can meant only one thing to her: food. Food of a kind told of in legend. Meat. Fish. Vegetables…and all edible. A man would sell his soul for one can of food.
She’d decided straightaway to find the tossed-aside can because of the slim chance of lickings left inside. And the metal itself would be of value to the group of people she roamed with.
She did not expect to see the dark-haired man at all. She’d half-prepared herself for the sight of the Champion and the fierceness of the dog, but not this man.
As she neared him, he turned to face her. The light wind caught his curls and blew them lazily around his head. In the milky pink sunset he seemed to be enveloped in a mist. The dog growled thickly from its throat, and trotted around to fix her with its albino eyes. Rooted to the spot, the girl stood trembling. The sight of his partially metalled body made her swallow slowly. He was surely one of the beings that New Medicine doctors had practiced upon — she’d never seen one before. As the wind dropped, so the long curls fell away from his face and she saw the inlaid silver and the flaccid eye socket.
Involuntarily, she caught her breath. The last rays of the sun glinted off a gold shield on his chest. And she saw that he was another commune protector. She’d heard other stories late at night of another protector who was kept hidden in the Plaza. A man of metal. This must be him. And if this was him, where then was the Champion? Her mind raced and made the wrong assumption: the Other must have killed the Champion. The Territory was now without its tall killer, slain in his own home. And this new champion was about to lead the hordes of Northern Sector men against the affluent Territory.
Horrified, she began to back away. Her dirty black hair began to stick to her face and neck in thin strands, caught by the sweat. If he’s on a mission, he’ll kill any witnesses. She didn’t want to die. Her sobs came forth in a blubbering wail.
The Other was almost as transfixed as the girl. He hadn’t seen a child in months. “Come closer.” Please don’t run away from me. His voice rang out hollowly.
The girl brought her filthy hands up to her face in dread. A torrent of tears ran down her thin cheeks as her bony chest heaved with sobs.
Oh, no, don’t cry. “I said, come closer. I want to speak to you.” The Other raised a hand in friendship, the leather of his suit squeaking as he moved.
The little girl shook her head, her voice lost.
The man nodded encouragingly and motioned the dog to sit down. But still the child remained where she stood.
The man decided to try another approach. “What brought you here, child? Don’t you know who lives here?”
Somehow, that got through the terror and she nodded.
“Aren’t you frightened of him? Aren’t you scared of the Territory Protector?” He was puzzled as to why a child should approach the hidden home of the Champion. I suppose she heard he was gone — out somewhere, and she tried to scavenge something of his resources. It must take some courage to come here.
He took a step toward her, unhurried, calm. Her eyes widened. “What is it you want? Food? Clothes?”
As he drew to a halt, his boot touched the ringpull can and nudged it on a few inches. The empty tumbling sound drew her eyes to the rare treasure. Guilty, she looked away from it, already realizing she had betrayed herself.
The Coke can, is that it? She wants the can. I suppose she could get a good trade for it in some commune — soft, pliable metal is rare…. Where I’m going, they won’t be wanting it any more. They never did use aluminum, only silver….
Without taking his eyes off her, he bent down and picked it up. He’d enjoyed drinking the Coke; after all, he’d deserved it. The rich taste had been almost too much for him after years of inferior foods. The unique flavor still lingered on his tongue. Fingering the can thoughtfully, he suddenly held it out to the child.
“Here, this is what you want; come and take it.”
It was almost as if he’d held out the poisoned apple to Snow White. The child paled and began to visibly tremble. She saw his face close up and realized for the first time that the horror stories were true. Shuddering, she forced her feet to move away from the Other.
God, she thinks I’m gonna kill her. Not anymore….
Jumping forward, the Other covered the ground between them before she could scramble away into the evening. He snatched at her frail frame and caught a hold of her painfully thin right arm. His strong grip made her cry out in distress, and she began to fight him hysterically. Arms, legs, fingernails, and teeth, all flew at him in blind frenzy as she fought for her life.
The Other held her, eye sad with the pain of her fear of him — not her physical attack.
Swallowing, he found his voice, too. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you. Here, take the can. You can have it.”
She sank her teeth into his wrist, chipping a tooth on a hidden metal strip. The impact made her flinch back.
“Here, take it! I don’t want it.” He pushed the can at her chest too roughly. Her shaking hands rose to protect herself and she somehow found herself with the can. His vice-tight grip on her arm slackened and she was free.
Surprise made her totter backwards, eyes unblinking. Unsure, she hesitated in her chance to flee.
“D-d-don’t kill me, mister. Please.” Her pale lips wavered and he saw the chipped front tooth.
Even when I help them, I hurt them…. “I won’t kill you.” He sounded tired. “Go away, hide it well. It could fetch a high price.”
Without warning, the sharp intense pain pierced his skull again. The shock made him sink to the ground before her, and just for a moment he smelled the scent of fresh straw and saw the frightened face of another young girl in a cap and zip jacket. So familiar, he ought to know.
A fair-haired man, dressed all in black, appeared to be worriedly chewing on a straw beside him.
The same man again…blond in black…ought to know, ought to know….
The migraine peaked and passed, and the Other found himself on hands and knees in the dry earth. He forced his eye open and saw the bare feet of the little girl. They shifted uneasily, wanting to run yet compelled to stay by the change of events. Slowly, he raised his head and managed a crouched sitting position.
That damn implant’s gonna tear my brain apart! Gotta get it fixed. Damn Selkirk, damn them all to the worst kind of hell!
The girl watched curiously as his deep blue eye rose to meet hers. He was paler, and the skin adjoining the edges of the inlaid silver became red and inflamed.
A small voice said, “I don’t like you, mister. You’re strange.” Her face held a fresh revulsion and pity. “I think you’re mad.”
Clutching the can, she turned and ran. In seconds she was gone, dodging through the evening like a rabbit for a bolt-hole.
The Other staggered up to his feet. He looked about him for the rifle that had sprung loose from the holster. Securing it back to his leg, he glanced up to see how far she had gone. A faint rise of dust on the horizon showed her path.
Run. Run hard and get away. And keep the can hidden.
He brushed the dust free from his knees with indifference and retraced his steps. The huge black dog rose to its feet and sniffed his legs as he passed by. It knew he was leaving. Calmly, it trotted down the steps to return to its position, on guard. It had worked well today; the Champion would be pleased.
The Other set off across the desolation into the creeping fog from the bay, smoky slate fog that seemed to cloy the air. He had an appointment with a certain Commune leader that needed to be met on his terms. A feeling of rancor made him go back. He wanted to repay the Plaza for all its human kindness in a way they’d never forget, or possibly live through.
They’re gonna regret the day they witnessed my second coming…regret it in blood.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A thickset creature of the night smiled gleefully at his catch. Sheathing the homemade knife he had constructed from a shard of glass and a piece of wood bound in rough denim, he prized the red and white can out of the thin fingers that held it in a death lock. With no further glance at the tiny corpse, the huge mutant tossed the can into the air and caught it skillfully. Such a rare find. What a kid was doing with it, he didn’t know or care. He’d just acquired his meal ticket into a commune.
Tenderly, he unwrapped the spherical object at his feet by folding back the rags with great care. Casting a couple of furtive glances over his broad shoulders, he made sure the coast was clear, then tucked the can into the hollow of a silver helmet. Swiftly, he rewrapped the two treasures as a thrill swept through his tough hide. Tonight he would sleep within the safe walls of the Territory. And once they heard the story behind the helmet he’d salvaged from the debacle at the warehouse, the Owners may even present him with a real knife.
And just think of the expert killing he could do then.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A wizened old man raised his arthritic hand to the polished padlock on the western gate chain, to turn the key once and seal the Territory down for the night. It had been his responsibility ever since he joined the Commune shortly after The End, and he had never failed to make the gate fast at the exact same time every night. He turned his crag-lined face toward the central government house whose tower could plainly be seen over the shanty-style buildings. Made out of rough wood and painted glass, it glowed from within due to lamps on the spiral stairs. At the top of the tower was a tiny room, one man size, within which was housed the ancient clock. It no longer functioned, but twice a day one of the Owners would climb the uneven steps and seven times strike the bell by hand, once for each Owner, as a sign that they gave permission for the Commune to open its gates and close them. As the lights on the twisting stairs dimmed and grew bright, the gatekeeper could chart the progress of the climbing Owner.
Tonight it seemed that the woman’s steps were a little slower, and he wondered which Owner it was. He knew them by sight, but had never spoken to one for more than a few minutes when he was given this important job all those long years ago. It had been: serve the Commune, no questions asked, or take your chances outside and don’t ask to come back because the answer could be a calm and callous no.
As the last lamp dimmed and brightened at the top of the tower, the man knew he would see the woman in the next few seconds. She would appear at the tiny balcony for a moment, silver hammer in hand, and survey the streets of the Territory. All eyes would be raised to the tower. No one would dare move until the seven chimes had died out on the night air, as a mark of respect for the kindness that the Owners bestowed upon the inhabitants.
A gray-haired woman in a long-sleeved dress moved into view.
The eldest Owner, thought the gatekeeper. And moving much slower than usual. He pulled himself to some form of attention as her gaze passed over the small shanty-city. He knew she probably didn’t even know his name or care, but when an Owner looked over a commune dweller, it was best to give them no grounds for criticism. Criticism tended to be barbed — literally.
Her eyes passed over him, and the old man let out a long sigh of relief. His hand still upon the key, he awaited the seven chimes and the sign that he should lock the gates. Across the Commune, at three other points, gatekeepers would be similarly poised for the same command.
In the fading evening light, he saw the hammer rise and fall, sending out a pale pink flash as the metal glinted in the pastel-colored sunset. The bell rang out the strange melody of seven notes, and then all was silent. The Commune seemed to release a collected breath. Locked in for the night. Locked safe and locked tight. With random patrols of Commune protectors guarding the boundaries, the nighttime life could begin and the city outside, in all its horrors, could be forgotten for a little while. But for some, there were as many horrors held within….
The gatekeeper forced his stiff fingers to turn the key.
A sharp rap on the door gave him quite a start. He stepped back with fright. Nothing approached the Territory gates at night. No one would dare cross the open ground in case the mutant predators caught them or they fell foul of the patrols. All Commune dwellers would be inside. It was strictly forbidden to stray outside the Territory without permission of an Owner after lock-up.
Except for one man.
“Who is it?” The old man could scarcely find the words to call out. “Identify yourself.”
Seconds of silence passed and the already nervous man became filled with a sense of trepidation.
Finally. “The Champion of the Territory. Open the gates.” His voice was low and ominous.
The aged man clutched at his well-worn jacket with acute anxiety. It would be him. He hated all the times when the Champion had crossed through his gate in the past. He detested the cold, hard eyes, the always-present peal of his death-clasps, reminding them of his power and violence and his array of murderous weapons. He hated the sight of it all. The man smelled of blood and unwarranted murder. Now, he was outside, demanding entrance after the hallowed time of the Seven Chimes.
At last he found the courage to reply. “It’s past Seven Chimes. The gate is locked for the night.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “By order of the Owners.”
Again, there was no immediate answer. Curious, the old man moved toward the enormous wood and metal doors. Each gate was elaborately decorated but eminently functional. No mutant horde could storm the Territory gateways. Head on one side, the keeper pressed his dried-out skin to the door and listened, ear straining. He knew his hearing had been badly impaired after the bombing of years ago but, even so, it still seemed extremely quiet.
Not knowing what the Champion was doing was more nerve-wracking then seeing his barbarous actions. His mind began to run riot with nightmarish images of the man outside. He tried to deny them, but they were so much a part of his natural sleepless nights that he began to believe them. He could see the Champion would spare him little compassion once he gained a hold on him. But to let the Protector in would be against one of the most crucial of Commune orders. Caught between the devil and the devil’s Owners, he could see his fate was written on the wall. Which would be the lesser of the two evils? The quickest death…?
Still no sound. The gatekeeper moved along the door toward the tiny peephole and released the bolt. Hooking his dirty fingernails under the sharp rim, he pulled it open.
A steel-blue eye filled the aperture, smoldering with indignation.
The old man jumped back, startled.
“Open the door, you cowardly old fool, before I tear your damned liver out with my bare hands!” The words came from the Champion’s thinned lips like poison. “Don’t ever make me wait. I rule here by power, not through threats of empty meaning.”
Each word curled about the keeper’s heart like a hissed vise. Knees trembling with shock, he drew away from the door into the shadows of the nearest hovel.
“I can’t. It’s more than my life’s worth.” His white face seemed to have paled even further to almost translucency. He felt swamped by his fear of the Territory Protector. “Don’t ask me to do that, Commune Protector. Please.”
“Old man, whining at me won’t help.” The Champion turned his head slightly so as to gain a better view of the squirming gatekeeper. So apparent was the poor soul’s mortal fear, that he felt he need hardly press the man further. He dropped his voice to a softer level of friendliness, but its roots were still couched in anger.
“Unlock this door. I have completed my mission. I am owed my reward. I want it.” I’ve killed for it….
Shaking his head, the old man began to shuffle away. “I’ll have to get permission, I’ll — ”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, you ragged old degenerate. You get back here and open this door! The reward is mine. I demand it!”
Still retreating, the man had decided not to open the gate now. He’d heard the Champion was an addict, that the Owners paid for his gratuitous butchery in glycerin sachets of priceless narcotics. If this was just the beginning of his craving for the stuff, he wasn’t about to let him into the Territory until he’d calmed down and the Owners had given him permission. He’d known he’d been sent on a mission this day. The Territory always knew what the Champion was doing — it was a wise move to be aware of him. It was thought he’d be back before lockup, and the old man had prayed, silently, that he’d be back by one of the other gates. He concluded that the Owners were right; there was no God….
“You’re late returning from your mission, Champion. The Owner has struck the bell in the clock tower. You cannot come in until sun-up.” And with that he turned the first corner and hurried away from the huge door.
He’d gone no more than ten paces when he was stopped by the plummeting rush of a figure descending from the roof of the nearest building. The closeness of the falling body caused the gatekeeper to stumble backwards, over and down into the dirt of the street. On hands and knees he raised his eyes to meet those of the Champion.
Towering over the wretched specimen, the Champion looked scarcely ruffled from having just scaled the boundary buildings of the Territory in full armor. Using the tall walls as a rock-face of foot and handholds, he had clambered up the fortifications in seconds. A quick-limbed run over the rooftops and he’d dropped into the secluded street, practically on top of the old man. Seething with rage, he placed his hands on his hips, allowing his tall shadow to fall like a shroud over the cowed heap kneeling on the rough-brick sidewalk.
“Get out of my sight. As of this moment, you no longer exist. If I see you again, I shall terminate you, as surely as I wear this gold shield as a sign — ” the volume of his voice rose, ” — that I am the Protector of the Territory: the Champion. And no gate is ever barred to me!”
The old man crawled away into a haphazard alley between a brothel and a bar. His days had just become numbered.
The Champion turned around slowly; his face was shining with the sweat of a dangerously unhinged man. His golden adornments grated out a disharmony of notes as he shifted off up the street. From somewhere behind him came the sharp snap of a window closing. Even the most bold prostitute could sense a distinct dynamic menace about the commune slayer this night. Best leave him alone. Tomorrow night he may just feel like a woman, especially a woman who had unlimited talents and an endless zeal for his flesh. If not tonight, she could wait.
The Champion heard the click of the latch falling, but decided to ignore the intrusion on his private quarrel. Another night he would make the debauched female pay in ways she hadn’t imagined. He would not be lured by their crude advances to him. He would not be tainted by their diseased bodies, or run the risk of infection. No, he had more important needs to satisfy. The Owners held it for him. And for the first time since he became the Champion, they had chosen to withhold it from him. No one treated him in such a manner. He was the Territory Protector. Hadn’t they named him “Champion” themselves? Surely that counted for something more than an old man denying him entry.
As he stormed through the new garment district, he heard the faint sounds of the Territory populace enjoying themselves in the bars and brothels. Distantly, he could hear notes being plucked from a stringed instrument as they came to him on the fogged air. This was accompanied by a high-pitched laugh and the slamming of another door down the back of a narrow, litter-strewn alley. At night, the Commune awoke to the special delights of the darkness, and the noises of the dwellers in the outside world. Often, the inhuman wails of the mutants could be heard deep within the Territory, despite the noisiest of drinking places. The Commune men could not raise a din of pseudo-carefree activity loud enough to drown the cries of the miserable scavengers beyond the Territory gates. It hadn’t been so bad since the Champion cleaned out whole areas of the filthy vermin. It had been much quieter, but they still came close to the Commune on foggy nights, hidden from plain view by the swirling mists. On particularly bad nights, protectors of lesser status were occasionally sent out to patrol the first city blocks close to the Territory. Not as experienced or fast as the Champion, they could still clean out any stray mutants foolish enough to cross their paths. But the more important, deadly jobs were still left to the classic methods of the specially trained killer.
The Owners had raised him, taught him, nurtured him into the man he was today. They had complete faith in his abilities and his loyalty. His rewards were the kind that couldn’t be bought over the counter or bartered for in the street. He was conditioned to the need for the narcotics — they’d seen to that, and found to their pleasure he was a very apt pupil. It was almost as if he’d traveled that path before, his craving could be so intense. It was a hook that went too deep to be easily snapped free. And this demanded his total obedience to their law.
As if painted onto the face of the Commune with an airbrush, the Territory government building merged into the mists of the evening night. A building with a similar appearance to muslin, built out of the ruins of the city, with a tower rising from the western corner like a finger pointing to the sky. It was ramshackle to the extreme, but it held the only stable government this New Society had ever known. Love it, hate it, support it or denounce it, that building held the ultimate power of law in this commune. It also held the Champion’s reward.
No calm and quiet entry for him this time. The man was filled with an intense anger brought on by the messy confrontation with Peter, the dart’s drug, the decline of his own narcotics, and the rise of a burning desire to try the LSD and seek some answers. He wasn’t about to be stopped short of his reward by some aged idiot who was bound to the unbending rules of the new bureaucracy. He believed in his right of payment, and he was here to claim it.
Gloved hands roughly pushed back the double doors as he stepped out of the fog and into the government house. As usual, he paused in the doorway to let his eyes become accustomed to the strange gloom. Sure of his surroundings, he marched off, boots striking the floor in dull thuds, for a door at the end of the corridor. He knew they were there. He could see the thin strip of green light glowing from the bottom of the door. The corridor fell away behind him under his hasty footsteps. His long plaits clattered over the armor and weapons on his back with a discordant rhythm that betrayed his torrential anger.
Keep me out, would you? I very nearly died today and you have the audacity to close the gates to me! I am the Commune Protector; I have my rights, too. You don’t own me as totally as you thought. This man is about to fight back….
With an almighty crash, he flung back the doors into the green room.
The seven women were crowded together, talking in a soft murmur of voices in front of the high-backed chairs. As the doors crashed back, they turned, startled, their crimson robes rustling with the surprise of the entrance.
Framed by the doorway, the Champion stood with hands on hips, features a smoldering mask of rage. He took them all in with one look of contempt, then he strode forward and alighted upon the design of fetters sunk into the floor.
“I have come.” He assumed a defiant stance of rigid fury. His weaponry glimmered evilly in the strange green light, as his death awards toned a steady beat of deliberation. His blue eyes glowered over them all with a cold distrust.
The moment held between them for some seconds, then without a signal, the seven women separated and moved to their respective seats about the semicircle. Carefully, they seated themselves and arranged their robes to a neat perfection. Hands clasped delicately on their laps, they assumed expressions of benign amusement.
Finally, the middle-aged, gray-haired woman spoke from the center seat.
“You, man of this commune, are late.” Her words crossed her red lips with an animosity that made the Champion’s flesh crawl. She’d failed to use his proper title.
Abruptly, she rose and crossed the floor to meet him, a slight limp to her walk. Sliding her eyes over his body, she scrutinized every part of him as a dealer in flesh looks over a prostitute.
“You’re marked on the chest.” Her softly spoken words were a dramatic change. Beguiling. “How did you come to be marked, Protector?”
He made to reply just as she reappeared from behind him in a swift movement that brought her close to his face. The look of malevolent intent made the Champion falter.
She pressed him for an immediate answer. “Hmmm? Answer.”
“I was shot with a dart filled with a drug.” The truth came to his lips unbidden. “But I managed to kill the bastards, Madam, and I now want my re — ”
“Shot by some religious fanatic?” Her voice rose in sarcastic incredulity. “Not even by another commune protector?” She glanced at her sisters, none of whom had twitched a facial muscle, and then stared back at the man on the handcuffs. “You have been careless, Protector.”
The last sentence made him shiver with a new kind of emotion. There had been a change in attitude, minuscule, but enough to set off all the alarms ringing in his drug-dulled brain. The faces of the six sisters hardened into a set smile that failed to reach their eyes.
“You have never been careless before, have you?” She raised her eyebrows in such a manner as to invite reply.
Her face betrayed her intense dislike of his attitude. She was going to make this interview as hard as possible. As she stood before him, he lost some of the blinding anger from his eyes and saw her clearly for the first time since entering. Her face had lost some of its sheer luster, the make-up looked tired and worn in places. The basic foundation had begun to streak over the nose and chin, revealing the thickness of the covering. Underneath, he plainly saw the gray skin. Her neatly dressed hair had a loose strand hanging down the nape of her neck, and the precise fastenings on the front of her robe had been refastened in a hurry — almost as if she’d been in the process of getting undressed.
Maybe they had been helping her undress as I came in? Maybe she can’t keep her decay a secret any longer. Maybe….
“Lost for words?” The snap of her voice brought him back to her point.
“I, er, I…was — ” But his explanation was cut dead.
” — careless!” She emphasized the word as a judge lays stress upon the most vital piece of evidence.
As the Champion passed a judgment upon the gatekeeper, so the Owners passed a silent mark of rebuke over their prized possession.
Holding his gaze with one of unquestioned disapproval, the woman stepped backwards toward her chair and seated herself with the same neat movements as the other women.
“You, man of this commune, have been raised to be the Protector. We named you our Champion and we own you.” His blood chilled as her voice became sharper in pitch. “And you have the bare-faced nerve to march in here demanding an audience with your Owners?”
He spared a momentary glance at the other six and found to his rising apprehension that the beneficent expressions had completely disappeared. A nasty feeling of being led to his own doom checked any further rush of anger.
“Madam, I beg your humble forgiveness.” The Champion assumed his usual form of obedience. He fell to one knee, golden head bowed. He had to be careful.
His long plaits fell forward to make an almost complete curtain of blond and gold. The awards chinked together loud and tuneless in the overlong silence.
“See those gold clasps, Champion?” She awaited his small nod. “They are a sign to every Commune dweller and mutant of what you are. Shall I remind you of what you are, Champion?” She pressed straight on from the rhetorical question, giving him no time to answer. “You are a baptized-in-blood, narcotic-sodden butcher, who acts upon our orders and receives our favor because we choose to find a use for him.”
The savageness of the verbal attack actually made him flinch. His resistance to the outside world was growing weaker by the minute as his drugs drained out of his bloodstream. The clear, drab reality began to cloud in against his artificial protection. No more cushioning effect, just harsh truths that he did not want to hear on this night. Peter had been enough.
“Judging by your recent entrance, you have forgotten your place in this Commune. It could be that we made a mistake in letting you live outside of the Territory. Perhaps you would have been more respectful if we had housed you within the government building and kept a close eye on you?”
His head remained bowed. He didn’t want them to see his uncontrolled emotion.
Don’t bring me inside, dear God, not that. Let me stay in the Pits with the dog. I need that small measure of independence…it lets me pretend I still have a modicum of freedom. Don’t take away my illusions, too.
“You see, my sisters,” she waved her hand over him to emphasize her next point, “he has begun to assume the airs and graces of someone in authority. But we are the authority here. We are the law, and you aren’t even fit to kiss the dust from our feet. The rest of the Commune shuns you for what you are. They know, and keep well clear.” Her lips narrowed to thin lines of red. “And we, we the Owners, have only treated you with fairness, and granted you the best of rewards despite our abhorrence of your profession.”
That cut deep. His head came up as the words bombarded him.
But you treasure me. I’m the best there is…in your eyes I have always been perfection. I have always done my job, no questions asked…out of what…? For what reason…? I don’t know myself, yet….
“But we know we need you,” the woman continued, “and you know it also. However — ” and her voice became muted intimidation, ” — however, don’t ever think you are not expendable.”
A sick dread came over him. He’d pushed too far, too soon.
“Let me remind you, you could be dispensed with now that the Other has been terminated. There is no single Protector to pose a threat any more. This Commune has the manpower in other Protectors to maintain our present position of dominance for many years to come.”
He said this would happen one day. The Other knew…only he got out first.
And then it came like a bolt out of the blue.
“You did kill the Other, didn’t you?”
He never knew how he controlled an obvious start of shock. With as much self-control as he could muster, he calmly looked her in the eye and said, “Madam, I killed him in his own domain in the sewer. Shot him to death with six Magnum slugs.” And surprised himself with his fluent lying.
The woman paused in her onslaught of him to weigh up his assertion. At last, her face softened the minutest of degrees.
“Champion, Champion, we, your Owners, don’t want to bring you any harm, don’t want to have to punish you. But you must understand that as the Commune Protector, you not only act as our executor of Territory Law, but also as a man affiliated to this Commune and, as such, you must be treated like all the others. The gates close at Seven Chimes; you know that. And then they never open. If you are late, you wait until we see fit to receive you. You were late tonight; as punishment, we have decided to grant you audience in the morning.”
The Champion clenched his fists. No LSD? No reward? You can’t do this to me…. I did exactly as you asked. It’s not fair! I need that fix…I’m beginning to ache for it. I’ve killed for it, and I want it. Please don’t punish me in this way. I won’t disobey you again; please don’t do this to me. I’ve got to know some answers, gotta stop this ache. Need the high; nothing else will give it. No more heroin…used it all…all…all gone…need some more…now!
Suddenly, he sprang from the septagon and fell on his knees at her feet. The rotting smell of her was obvious, unmistakable. His gloved hands clutched at the hem of her gown. Tears of desperation came to his eyes. He blinked them away, frightened to show more weakness as he began to plead for his very peace of mind.
“Please, please don’t do this to me. I beg your forgiveness. I was wrong, acting above myself. I deserve to be reprimanded, but please don’t take away my drugs.” He searched her face to see if his pleas were having any effect.
She smiled triumphantly, enjoying the drama.
His bottom lip quavered. Jesus, woman, I’m an addict! This is no goddamned game. I’m hurting — He tried to choke down a sob of panic and failed. His voice almost broke. “I killed them all for you. I’ve killed any you cared to mention. Mutants, rivals, religious fanatics. I’ve always done my job for you. Please, don’t withhold the drugs. Please…I’m begging you….” His broad features became an earnest picture of frantic pleading. He looked quickly from one cruelly smiling face to another, then back to the woman in the center seat. His lips moved desperately as he sought for words that would sway their stand. He began to stutter out a mumble of pathetic phrases meant to warm their hearts, but only managed a whispered prayer. “Have some mercy, my Owners….”
“Make it up to us, Champion” She stroked his face with a soft caress, smoothing away deep lines of worry. “Make it worth our while.”
“I’ll do anything…anything.” He’d plumbed his last depths of strength. His rage had gone and his fierce craving had decimated his resolve. “I swear, I’ll do — ”
With a smoothness, she crossed her legs, pulling her dress over to the right. The movement distracted him for a second and he could see under the chair, into the shadows of the legs.
A silver helmet nestled in the dark. Dangerous. Conspiratorial. It had heard everything, but how much had it told?
The Owner leaned forward, expectantly. “You were saying, Champion?”
He swallowed sickly, lips trembling at the sight of the helmet. A cold sweat slicked his combat suit to his skin. The helmet shone dimly and seemed to grow in size in his mind’s eye.
Sweetmotherofgod.
He slithered away, a destroyed man. Crouched low, he tore his eyes from the offending object and felt the penetrating stare of the Owners bore into him. Somewhere in his tortured soul a solid steel door swung shut on any mutual trust he thought they might have once had.
Last time I saw the helmet it was being held aloft as a trophy by some crazed mutant — he’d just wrenched it from the head of the Other. I saved his life for my own selfish ends…never completed the contract…got the last clasp under false pretenses. So sue me!…But how did they get it?…How much does she know…?
“So, you’ll do anything, will you?” A repressed desire rose unchecked within the Owner. Standing with the grace of a champion herself, she continued, “We believe you, our most prized possession. We believe you want to show us how sorry you really are.” She smiled the radiant smile of the saintly and stepped toward him. “It makes us glad to know that our beautiful man has seen the error of his ways and wishes to come back into the fold completely. No more mistakes, no more ideas that break with the new conventions. It is our desire that you continue to be our Champion. You have always lived by the words: Protect and Serve. We have raised you to protect the Commune, and you have been more than able. Now it is time that you began to serve the Commune — in the only really worthwhile way. My sisters and I have often thought that you would be able to serve us admirably.”
She knelt down before him and gripped his plaits tightly, pulling his face up to hers. Her green eyes glittered with a dangerous passion and her voice took on a note of velvet smoothness. “I think you could serve me like I’ve never been served before. We can see how strong you are.” Her eyes dropped seductively over his body. “You are a perfect specimen, Champion. It’s a great, great pity you live such a lonely life.”
Her left hand slid under his leather armor and stroked his firm flesh. “But tomorrow night I think we can begin to change that. From now on, your nights are going to be spent in a different kind of work — ” Pink tongue tipped from between her teeth playfully. “You’ve kept us waiting too long.”
The rough flesh of her fingertips traced a line under his tunic top much lower than his waist. Shifting away from her vile touch, the Champion fought to stop himself from backhanding her across the room. The grip in his hair held him close still. She smelled even worse this near, and her gums were flecked with the creeping mold of the disease-ravaged. She purred.
Protect and Serve had suddenly taken on a whole new meaning.
Suffering her too-familiar caresses, the Champion cast a nervous glance at the other Owners. Eyes alight, they almost slavered with their need of him. Their light handclasp had also become a tight grip of restraint. No doubt he would have to serve them, also.
He looked back at the woman Owner holding him. Not with you, lady. Never with you…too much disease. I’d rather die first than taint my body with the pestilence of you!! And never with the rest of you depraved bitches, either. You’ll never use me for that. Serve never meant the act of prostitution….
“I…I…” The usual flow of words failed him. He tried to slide free of her grasp, but she held him in such a way as to be sure he always had a clear view of the helmet. A diamond-edged threat. It sat there, silent, unmoving, and yet it ensnared him deeper within their leech-like grasp. “I…”
“I remember that you said you would do anything, Champion.” She released him with a sharp wrench that pulled his head closer to hers, before he settled back. Her green eyes shone with the knowledge of victory. They had him now, completely. He would do whatever they asked him. And they were going to ask him to be the most dominant, masterful protector they’d ever possessed.
The gnawing ache hurt so badly within him that he could scarcely struggle to his feet. Flattened, he retreated to the safety of the symbol. His boots scuffed over the floor in resignation. With effort, he squared his shoulders and looked at them from under hooded lids. He contemplated drawing the Magnum now and stitching a line of red death across their panting breasts.
Better dead than a stud. I’m good at killing, I could gut them all so fast they’d die with those crude expressions of lust fixed for all time. His long fingers twitched over the butt of the gun.
“Don’t,” a soft voice broke in from the left, “don’t even think about it. Think about this instead: who would feed your habit, then?” The small dark-haired woman grinned. “Who would want you then? The Territory hates you, fears you. The rest of the city already covets your death. You can’t win.”
His hand fell slackly to his side. She was right; they had won.
You own my flesh, my soul, so you might as well own my children. Bleakly, he managed to meet her look of triumph, mirrored in all of their faces.
The woman in the center of the floor climbed to her crimson-slippered feet. As she rose, her hand stroked his thigh in the manner with which a breeder of fine horseflesh looks over his stock.
“I knew you’d understand, come around to our way of thinking again.” Her gaze became distant. “It was like in the days when we first took you from the ruins of your own home — ”
His face clouded over with the strain of snatching at forgotten memories.
” — you struggled against us then. Fought to leave our Commune, but we were too powerful for you. Champion, we possess every fiber of your being, and you will never be free of us. No matter what you think or who tells you different.” She stepped aside so he could see the helmet again. “There’s always going to be that habit of yours to start with and we, your Owners, are the only people who’ll tolerate what you have become, and the acts you have committed. No one else ever will. We’re all you have….”
Gently, she pried his clenched fist apart and placed in it the sachet. He fingered the shiny plastic with distaste, and yet he could not forestall the slight thrill of pleasurable excitement that surged through him once he knew he had the means to satisfy his craving. He raised the plastic bag for a better look. The eerie green light bathed the smooth surface of the bag. In the tiny packet was only one dose of LSD.
Immediately, he felt a rekindling of the anger. He looked up, a question already forming on his lips, and then he stopped himself.
The gray-haired woman faced him defiantly.
“You get one to begin with. The other six you’ll receive if we are satisfied with your services tomorrow night.” She sat down on the high-backed chair. The glow from the darkened glass ceiling gave the whole scene the look of seven succubi from an ancient past, and he was their pawn.
No, their fool.
“We are tired now, my most precious. It is time we parted. You may leave, but be back here tonight before Seven Chimes. Go and sleep. Enjoy the drug, and come back fully rested and strong.”
His audience was at an end. With care, he tucked the plastic bag under his suit and bowed curtly. Turning on his leather heel, he trod the long, dark corridor to the front doors. He never looked back, never quickened his pace, and never let them see in his walk the mental torture that they had subjected him to.
His back stayed rigid, his shoulders squared, but his blue eyes held the locked-in fear of a rat in a laboratory cage.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A slim, lithe figure of the deadliest race of the New Society clambered to the top of a mountain of obsolete motor vehicles, and slithered belly down across the roof of a blue Chevrolet. The creaking screech of rocking metal made his ears hurt, acting like a counter-rhythm to the throbbing pains in his head. Eye bright with the task ahead, he rested his chin on the back of his hands and surveyed the open ground before him.
The fog swirled and eddied in the light night breeze. It was as if a giant had streaked the air with a wet paintbrush of oyster gray. Too wet, for it seemed to run in places and merge with the sandy yellow and white dust of the earth. A flicker of firelight drew the eye across the serene scene. Away in the distance, a non-commune group were probably settling down for their evening supper. He had heard them chase off some roaming mutants earlier, from a couple of blocks away, before he got to this quarter. The horrendous screams of antagonism had cleaved through the thick night air. He still wasn’t sure where he was, but the moonlit sky gave him some guide — the stars hadn’t altered. Same as before. He knew which direction to travel, and once he hit some familiar blocks, he’d soon find the Plaza.
Sure that the area was clear of any predators, he rose up and swung his legs over the edge of the roof. Easing his hips over the dented side, he began to climb down. Boot- and handholds were easy. Most of the glass was smashed in the autos and he could descend by a ladder of windows, handles, and wing mirrors. Glancing down between his legs, he saw he was only feet from the ground. Swinging out, he released his grip on an ancient seat belt and alighted in the dust on all fours.
The jolt of landing made a searing pain pulse through his brain. He groaned softly and rested his head against his right forearm as an animal tries to comfort itself.
Gonna make Selkirk pay for this. Gonna make him wish he’d never thought about me in the first place. Gonna get him for all the years. All the used years…. Just so bad sometimes…hurts like hell….
Eyes screwed tightly shut, he failed to see the rising shadow over to his right. A short arm lifted sharply from behind a buckled door of a Ford panel truck. With a quick flick of the wrist, it launched a projectile with speed.
The Other felt the shock of the glass shard puncture his thigh, but didn’t wait for the pain to follow. He snatched up his rifle, ready for the next attack. A snap shot into the totaled truck brought a telltale scurry from within. A second shot through the fractured rear window spread the assailant over the dash. The “snicker-splat” told him there’d be no more threat from that vehicle.
Still holding the rifle at his height, the Other crept cautiously over the uneven earth toward the Ford. Pushing back the loosely hanging door, he gingerly peered around the edge and into the interior. A young mutant lay over most of the inside. The sling was still entwined in his long fingers. His deformed limbs were as twisted in death as they had been in life. Beside him was a large plastic refuse bag and on top of it lay a carving knife.
All neat and ready for me to be gutted and taken home. They just never learn, never keep hidden. Well, he won’t have to worry about his next meal anymore — he just became something else’s. The wind’s blowing easterly; the scavengers’ll come from their holes once they smell the fresh kill…. Better get lost….
Turning on his heel, the Other searched the sky again and then made his decision. Setting off to the north, he headed for a huge, quake-damaged shopping center. A few walls were precariously standing, clinging to a vertical position.
Keeping as low as possible, he set off at a lumbering run due to his injured leg. His boots dragged over the ground as he tried to make it to the next area of cover. He was halfway there when he heard a muffled footstep up ahead. Dropping like a stone, he rolled over into a deep hole in the dirt and burrowed himself into a pile of rotting, damp bedding and mattresses. His refuge smelled of waste and occupation by mutants.
Rifle tip peeping out of his stinking cover, the Other awaited the footstep to fall again. That was no mutant footstep….
An abnormal vacuum of silence occurred. All sounds seemed to have faded away as if both parties were waiting for the other to betray themselves with a movement.
I can outwait you. I’m no novice at this game…. And I have so much more to lose. Not even a whisper of sound came to his straining ears. He knew the tread had come from the last trace of the shopping complex. It couldn’t have seen me, so why doesn’t it appear, keep traveling? Unless it heard the shots…. Shit!
Minutes crawled by. A few motes of dust trailed over the edge of the hole and pattered down on the stinking materials. The Other neither twitched nor breathed heavily. His one good eye strained upwards, desperate for the slight telltale sign of another being appearing at the rim of the hole. The one tiny, black silhouette was all he needed for a shot. He would have him. He could win.
But as the tension mounted within him, so the pain increased from the malfunctioning jack. His brain rejected the metal intrusion and began to weave a stranglehold of agony within his head. The knots of throbbing migraine came in ever increasing waves that made him shake helplessly. Strong though he was, he couldn’t contain the unnatural spasms that shook him with each excruciating stab. And with each sharpness, he lost his concentration momentarily.
As another seizure passed off, he licked his dry metal lips and gulped. Searching the opening for the give-away movement, he dreaded the next attack, for it could be the very moment that the stranger chose to appear.
Then he heard it — no, them. He heard them!
Two people — definitely two people! I know, I know and I can win.
From up above, two pairs of dusty boots walked with a feather lightness, mistrustful of the ground, toward the hole. Stealth was their intent, but no being could traverse that terrain in total silence. A foot trod a mite too heavily upon a shattered brick and the crunch was unmistakable.
The perpetrator of the faux pas looked back sickly to his companion, who shrugged his shoulders and motioned him to continue. With a more delicate tread, they approached the hole, but the direction of their attention was clearly the mound of discarded vehicles.
“You sure the shot came from this scrap, Kyle? I mean, coulda been one of them godawful mutant things snapping something, huh?”
“You’re a yeller asshole, Muldoon, ya know that?”
Muldoon turned pointedly back and gave his partner the finger. “Look who’s talking, Kyle. It’s me who’s up here in the front, stickin’ ma damnfool neck out. While you skulk around at the rear! You wanna come forward?” The hissed conversation broke the silence.
Kyle shook his mangy head. “What, and let them ‘godawful mutant things’ shoot ma balls off? Not me, Muldoon. I like it real fine here, watchin’ your ass.” Kyle grinned wickedly through teeth of yellow and green. His dirt-encrusted hands held an old rifle of disputable parentage, which he used to urge the scrawny Muldoon forward. “Getta move on, or it’ll ‘ave gone.”
Muldoon wiped a black bead of sweat off his chin where it nestled irritatingly in a short beard. Flicking the sweat away, he hooked his chipped fingernails into the wiry hair and had a good scratch.
“Don’t hunt ya own goddamned livestock — get after the real thing.” Kyle scowled impatiently and tiptoed up beside his smaller companion. “Man, you’re slow. You used to be faster before The End.” He glanced angrily to his side. “We’da had the turkey by now.”
“Them days is over. I’m just thankful we made it this far.” Muldoon wiped his hand down his tattered shirtfront and squinted through the mist at the quiet heap of rust and perishing tires. “Police work was sure different then. They could be safely on the take an’ have a real nice life. Now — ” He gave himself and the surrounding area the once-over. ” — now, there ain’t nothin’ worth takin’.”
“You talk too much, Muldoon. I’m gonna get me whoever it is stupid enough to wander into the Northern Sector at night. I’m gonna pin him up by his ears. No one walks my sector without my say-so….”
The hurried whispers were meant for only their own ears, but the Other heard every word plainly. They were right beside his pit, but not within range of the opening. He knew who they were.
Kyle and Muldoon: cheap, third-rate new protectors, not much better than Jaeger and Marcino. Another couple of sons of bitches. The Plaza must be real sorry that I left.
Under the pale stars, the Plaza men carefully scrutinized the mountain of vehicles. On all sides there was nothing of any description, just more of the same. Occasionally, they looked back toward the distant glimmer of fire.
“It coulda been them, Kyle. Sounds at night get confused; they seem to come from different places,” Muldoon hissed nervously in his partner’s ear.
Kyle edged forward a little, eyes still hooked to the cars. “I don’t think so, Mul. Look at the bottom panel truck.”
Muldoon squinted through the fog at the truck. It looked perfectly harmless to him. Weatherworn into gaping holes of rust, its doors hung half open like some sleepy-eyed lizard. Nothing stirred. No white eyes stared with hate from the black depths of the seats as the fear of capture gave the pupils that sinister gleam. Nothing. Yet the sound of two gunshots had seemed to come from this direction.
Then they both heard a different noise. It was a faint pit-pat of liquid dripping.
They looked at each other, puzzled, and Kyle walked forward another couple of steps. Muldoon shifted sideways, his boot only inches from the edge of the hole.
The Other stiffened with expectancy. He would have preferred to have both of them within range before he began to pick them off.
Kyle spoke tightly. He didn’t like the feeling of being played with that crawled up his spine. “You hear that, Muldoon?” His finger tightened on the trigger as the hairs on his grimy neck rose slightly. “Huh, Muldoon?”
“Yeah.” The other protector felt a shadow pass over his grave, too. “It’s somethin’ drippin’.”
Kyle was about to shake his head in the negative when he saw the glint of something catch the moonlight.
Tiny drops of scarlet blood dripped delicately from the edge of the panel truck floor into a tidy pool beside the rear left wheel arch.
“See the blood, Kyle? I was wrong; it is around here.” Muldoon shouldered the rifle, ready for the unexpected.
“Wonder what’s inside the truck?” The taller man checked his ammunition. “It might not be dead.”
“If it’s bleedin’ like that it must be dead.” Muldoon could not contain the rise in his pulse rate. He could feel the accelerated pump under his leather wrist straps. Felt like his wrists were going to burst. “Go look, huh?”
“Yeah, it might have somethin’ we could sell.” Kyle carefully slipped forward.
The blood dripped steadily and began to soak into the hunched dust. Kyle used the rifle barrel to nudge the door back slowly. Tongue sticking out at the corner of his sore lips, he waited for the wild attack of a crazed and wounded mutant.
Muldoon watched his approach, giving him covering attention, should he need it. They were a damn good team, used to picking off and scavenging from the loners who roamed the streets. About three months ago they’d happened upon the Plaza and found that a gold shield was automatic entry to the good life. The fact that both Muldoon and the skin-diseased Kyle had murdered two lesser commune protectors up in old Beverly Hills while the two victims were on patrol, made little difference. The Northern Sector was looking for new talent and they found themselves accepted. Gold shields in hand, they walked into the rich life. Muldoon privately thought that two ex-cons from the Time Before had done real well for themselves in the New Society.
Rubbing the worn gunstock into his beard, Muldoon watched nervously, trying to cover every area, every patch of black. All he could see of Kyle was his dirty brown fatigue trousers and boots below the door. And then they, too, disappeared as he climbed into the truck.
Dead silence followed, and the dust swirled up and danced over the scrap metal in tiny spirals. The truck began to shake, causing the whole precarious pile to vibrate dangerously.
“Hey, man, watch it! Ya gonna bring the whole lot down.” The muttered warning fell upon deaf ears. Muldoon shifted uneasily and tumbled some loose gravel into the pit beside him.
The tiny stones pattered onto the stinking garbage in the hole and onto the tautly hollowed face of the Other. Cramped into the narrowing bottom of the pit, the Other felt the first twinge of pain sneak along his leg from the thin sliver of glass in his right thigh. Left hand on the trigger of his rifle, he used his right hand to massage the slowly weeping wound.
Germs’ll be infecting my leg, down in this filth. Why doesn’t that other creep come back? He winced as the kickback effect from the jack continued to plague him. His metalled mouth clamped down on a groan as he fought to keep his vision clear. Gotta keep steady, mustn’t move, or he’ll see me. Mustn’t move…where are you, Kyle?
“It’s what I thought, Mul.” Kyle jumped down from the truck, his bloody knife in hand. He casually wiped it clean on his thigh while he inspected something between his thick fingers. It appeared, to his partner, to be a tiny metal projectile.
Muldoon detected a note of regret in the other man’s voice. “What do ya think? Is that the bullet?”
“Yeah, one of them.” He tossed it at his partner and he caught it clumsily, hands fumbling with the rifle and the bullet lost in the folds of his clothes.
“Look at it, Mul. Look real close.”
Muldoon did as he was bid, a puzzled frown on his Neanderthal brow.
It was a bullet from a rifle.
“There’s only one man I know who uses this caliber….” Kyle’s voice trailed away as dawning realization came to both of them at once.
Muldoon swallowed sickly, eyes meeting his partner’s. “Let’s get outta here, Kyle. It — he ain’t worth the risk.”
Muldoon nodded in agreement and let the bullet drop through his fingers into the powdered earth. Kyle’s eyes watched it fall into the sand of the city and roll slowly toward the edge of the hole. As it tumbled to the lip, it paused, as if it were struggling to avoid the next plunge. Muldoon nudged it on and over with a flick of his toe. The shell shot into the darkness of the pit. Muldoon watched it fall and, like a film in slow motion, he changed his vision and brought the bottom of the hole into focus.
A face of dull silver reflected up at him from among the waste.
He knew in an instant who it was as his heart thundered with one sickening lurch. It was the last sensation his body ever felt.
“The Oth — ” barely escaped his lips when the roar of a further rifle shot made mush of his cranium. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and he toppled forward into the pit as his feet lost their hold on the edge.
Kyle staggered backwards under a shower of Muldoon’s pulped flesh and bone and began to roll away. Fear drained his face to the whiteness of a novice nun. The one thought of self-preservation filled his mind. Gun in hand, he scrambled to his feet, legs shaking uncontrollably in his fatigues, and he ran demented for the safety of anywhere. The Other had just killed his partner, and he knew it would be him next.
Down in the hole, the Other was frantically trying to get around the dead weight of Muldoon. Dead eyes stared at the dark-haired man with a horror-struck dread as the crushed face lolled obscenely against the Other’s shoulder. Kicking against the sides of the earth walls, he managed to lever himself out of most of the camouflaging refuse and onto the body of the dead man. Slack limbs fell awkwardly against his own legs as he tried to climb up the ridged sides and out. A dance of the grotesque ensued as the Other fought to get himself loose of Muldoon and after the escaping enemy.
Stepping onto the hips of the corpse, he hitched himself up onto an old bed frame and used the brass bedstead as a surrogate ladder. The sharp twinges of pain in his thigh did not deter him from the swift haul to the surface.
Stretching for the rim of the pit, his soiled hands grasped for any purchase. He tilted his head down to be sure that he was planting his feet safely; he needed sure leverage for a swift rise onto ground level. Below him was the upturned face of Muldoon. Only the lower half of his head was recognizably human; the rest was missing.
A bolt of agony lanced through his head, bringing tears to his eyes, and he suddenly saw a different Muldoon sitting in a strangely empty room. He was wearing metal bracelets chained together, and a tough, mean-looking blond was shouting at him. Muldoon shook his head and the blond slammed his fist down on the table top before him. The captive man jumped fearfully. The blond’s lips curled vindictively, and the flash of distorted memory was gone.
When he gained a measure of control again, the Other found his face was pressed into the damp earth of the wall before him. His fingers had gouged grooves of dirt up and his pulse was racing.
Same man again…haunting my mind. I want it all or none at all. I can’t stand this pain, and yet I want to know…need to know…gonna go mad…might be easier if I had gone mad…make life a whole lot simpler…no…dangerous thought, no slipping back…not now, made the break, just gotta go and sever it. No hooks left in me…no strings….
Taking a deep breath, the Other heaved himself up and onto ground level. His rifle had come up in a blur and had covered more than half the terrain before the dust had even risen about his boots. In the distance was the fleeing figure of Kyle.
“Shit!” the Other spat into the night. Desperate to get after his quarry, he realized he couldn’t run far on his injured leg. The sliver of glass was still embedded in his thigh; dark red blood stained the wine leather in darker streaks as it trickled down his shin and into the cuff of his boot. Gritting his teeth, he whipped the short sliver out and dropped it to the earth. A fresh spurt of blood flooded from the wound. Forcing his own rifle into his leg holster, he snatched up Muldoon’s fallen rifle. With lightning fast fingers, he unbuckled the shoulder strap and refastened it tightly about his right thigh. The tourniquet was dangerous, he knew, but he’d take the risk for a short time if it allowed him to chase down Kyle.
Testing his weight on the injured leg, he saw with satisfaction that the spurting blood had virtually stopped. Pulling the rifle free again, he sped off after the smudged gray line on the horizon that could only be the Plaza.
Behind him arose a soft murmuring wail of misery. The Other failed to hear the noise, not that he would have stopped for the makers of the sound — his attention was elsewhere. Like maggots in a moldering cheese, several mutants crawled out of the wreckage of the rusting heap of vehicles. They dropped with a sly softness into the dust, from windows, doors, trunks, and hoods. Metal fragments were caught in the threadbare clothes on their emaciated backs. Their spongy white flesh gave them a fungoid appearance, as many seemed to have extra growths on their arms and faces.
The soft wailing came from a taller mutant whose white eyes strayed into the back of the panel truck. It had just lost its breadwinner. The others crouched low, watching the departure of the hated Other and the stranger with a cold delight, and then they turned toward the truck themselves. Every eye fell to the still dripping blood. They wouldn’t need to hunt tonight.
Pushed roughly aside, the mourning being covered its eyes and rocked itself from side to side in an effort to gain some comfort as the rest fell upon the doors of the truck.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The Champion trudged down the broken steps into the dark depths of his underground home. The black hound trotted at his heels and patiently settled down upon the bottom step. Continuously alert to the night outside, it was still sensitive enough to understand the bleak mood of its master.
The table held the remains of the meal he’d left for the Other. The rest of the room was empty of the human enigma. He was gone.
Gone. All gone. Now the Other’s gone, too…. It’s slipping through my fingers and I can’t seem to stop it. Jesus, what a goddam mess…. Everything was so simple and easy until I went to kill him. I could see my life plotted out before me — and then I saw him down that sewer. Nothing’s been right since. Too many doubts and uncertainties. And now the threat of tomorrow night by my Owners….
Tiredly, he kicked out the chair at the table and slumped into it. Whining, the dog sank down to its belly. The Champion stared at it piercingly.
“Where did he go, huh?” Why should I care? I’ve got my reward. As I sow, so shall I reap.
He laughed with a bitter cynicism at the way Fate had twisted his arm up behind his back.
The cans rested in an orderly row before him — probably in the order the Other had eaten them. Not a trace of food left inside. The metal practically shone. The Champion stripped off a glove and fingered the bean can.
Having this ain’t worth it anymore. I want…need that part of me that’s missing. And those thieving whores aren’t having me tomorrow night, or any other night!
The can ricocheted off the wall over the bed and rattled to a standstill under a small table of quietly ticking fob watches and hunter pocket watches of the Time Before. The dog twitched an ear and turned away to face the patch of sky at the top of the stairs. The Champion’s clasps jangled together with the anger of his pitch. He tried to stifle the well of weary pessimism that threatened to engulf him. He needed some time to reflect, rethink, and prepare. So much had been said to him during that short audience and so little given as a reward.
He pulled out the tiny packet that held the LSD. Gently, he placed it on the tabletop. Close at his elbow was a cigarette lighter that contained a small amount of fuel. He flicked back the silver cap and sparked off a flame of blue and orange. It wavered in the soft breeze from the open stairway and cast a flickering web of shadows across the tabletop. His desired drug was laid bare to its truth. Red in color, evil of spirit, and yellow in its methods. It distorted reality, he knew that, as if it were too spineless to enhance the real world for the addict. But was the New Society a real world? It was a matter of philosophy and semantics. And he didn’t use his intelligence as much as he used to.
Just do as I’m told…always a good boy. “Go kill a block of mutants, my most precious.” Yes. “Go kill a religious commune, my golden one.” Yes, Madam. “Go kill the Protector of the Northern Sector, our treasured one.” Yes, Madam. But it won’t do any good; they’ll just rebuild him. “Come tomorrow night and make love to us, my superman.”
In the harsh flame of the lighter, the blond’s face became a mask of repelled hate, and he felt the bile rise in his throat.
No! Never! I’d be physically ill at the sight of you undressed. This man’s chains don’t reach that far. You forgot one thing, Madam Owner — I’ve learned a few things from the Other since my last reward…. I don’t have to come, kill, or serve. All I have to say is no. Two letters, one syllable. Understood in all languages in all countries of this earth, if there are any left. No. I should have said it a long time ago…a long time ago. Too long now. Too late. Unless I can save some of it. There’s still the Other, and I need to know for sure.
He rose from the table and lifted the glass of the lamp to light it. The funnel made a grating noise as he replaced it inside the metal neck of the oil reservoir. The pale yellow light illuminated the room, casting longer shadows into the corners.
Standing up, the Champion unstrapped his holster and peeled off the other glove. He placed them together on a clothes rack specially set aside for his precious armor. The leather combat suit followed next, and then the boots. All were neatly placed in readiness for the next day. A day he hoped would never arrive for him.
He looked at his body, taking in his own naked flesh in a way he’d never done before. He studied every inch of himself, pausing at the nicks, cuts, and scratches, remembering how he’d gotten them, through fighting, maiming, and killing. His eyes rested on the slightly raised red skin on his chest where the dart had pierced him. He traced the tender edges with his fingernail, remembering how close he’d come to death or worse: the Savior of the New Image. Involuntarily, his skin goosebumped as he recalled the speech of Peter.
And then he noticed the permanent intracath set into his arm. An addition to his body by the Owners. He’d let them do it, so desperate was he for his continued “high.” It cushioned him from the reality of his humiliating degradation. And in his profession, his dope had helped him to the top of his class. A Pedigree Protector: the Champion. And at that very moment, he hated and despised himself for being the pawn in their vast game of chess.
I’m not even a knight…just a pawn. Lowest of the low.
His body shuddered with a fear of its own self-analysis. He disgusted himself.
He wanted to be clean of this day, to be scrubbed raw of its vile taint. He pushed up from the table and purposefully crossed the stone floor to enter his tiny bathroom. Leaning over the tub, he turned the faucet on with a frenzied rapidity. Cold water splashed into the fiberglass tub. No time to boil it up, he would be scoured in iced water in an effort to sanitize his soul. A hopeless task.
The Owners know me too well. They have me trapped by my habit, but I’d kick it to be free of them. I would, I could.
He stepped into the tub, feeling the harsh discomfort of the freezing water on his body. Lowering himself, he pulled his knees up under his chin and waited for the water level to rise. Arms wrapped about his knees, he tried to control the leaden depression he knew he was falling foul of, and he knew why. No new fix. He closed his eyes in an effort to avoid the sight of the intracath. It teased him to use his present reward. And plagued him to accept his future as a means to feeding his habit continuously. His mind split into two as he struggled against his enormous craving and his need to be purified and freed of this living sentence that had blighted his life. The devil on his back rode him hard.
The Other was right. He knew and understood; perhaps the lack of drugs gave him a clearer vision. But I’m hooked…admit it, you bastard, you’re an addict, a junkie, go on, say it aloud. Go on; let the world hear the Champion speak. Go on, go on…a coward, as well.
The water rose about his knees and he leaned forward to turn off the faucet. Three drops caught on his outstretched hand. He brought them back, watching the surface tension keep their shape tightly bubbled.
I know the tension. All I want to do is burst free of this, of everything. But I need another anchor; if only the Other hadn’t gone. I could have found my answers.
The Other….
The helmet….
Yes, they know it all. They now know they can’t trust their “most precious.” But he’s too good a specimen to annihilate. So, we’ll put him out to stud. Simple, safe solution. Retire him to stud…make the cold nights a little more bearable….
He reached for the abrasive scrubbing brush. He could at least wash off the dirt of the day. But after a time, too much dirt begins to cling.
Wrapped in a threadbare, purple bath towel, the Champion paced agitatedly about the table of his living area. In an effort to distract himself from his growing need for his narcotics, he wandered over to the bed and sank down in the covers. The rough wool of the blankets scratched at his over-sensitive skin, making it unbearable for him to relax there. He climbed to his feet and wrung his hands, fretting.
Got to be another way. I don’t want to take anything else from them. The reward has been soured, and I don’t want it.
But he found he was staring at the tiny red pill again. With a superhuman effort, he forced himself to go over to the kitchen and stalk about the metal surfaces of the ovens. At least here, he wouldn’t have to look at it.
It made not the slightest bit of difference. All he was confronted with there were the blurred images of his own face in the shiny worktops, distorted out of recognition. He closed his eyes to his fevered look.
Skin feels too tight.
His body screamed for relief, his mind wavered on the brink of giving in. Twitching fingers rubbed at the intracath as if part of an automatic reflex system in his body. His eyes opened wide. And he forced his hand away and into the folds of the huge towel. Both hands gripped with a rampant fierceness that made him start at the intensity of his craving.
No, mustn’t give in. If I give in now, I’ll give in tomorrow. I’ll always give in…. Who am I fooling? Myself? Possibly…I gave in long ago when I never went and looked for him. He never came back and I never went and looked…and that’s when I gave in. The truth hurts me so, in ways more acute than the cravings. At least with the speed I didn’t care. Care…. How the Owners would laugh if they could see me. Where’s their golden Champion now?
He wiped his running nose on a corner of the towel. Sweat dripped off his chin and soaked into the looped pile.
Beads of sweat…tears of sweat, even my body cries for relief.
The precious metal that tipped his hair chanted too loudly in the silence of the kitchen. Irritating. The Champion raised a hand to the front clasp hanging from his left temple. He fingered the heavy gold and held it up before him. The last reward. Gained on false pretenses. He hadn’t killed the Other at all.
A liar and a failure, as well. Couldn’t even do that job right. Couldn’t leave the metal man to the mutants at the warehouse. I’m just turning to mush. No strength left, no vital edge left in me. At least he got away. But I’m hooked.
“I’m a drug addict.”
He said it coldly and calmly, for everyone and no one to hear. Admission of guilt made it only a little better. Some of the tension eased out of his locked chest muscles, and he knew his fight had left him. He’d acknowledged his weakness and thus he was ready to give in to it.
I’ve given in before. Nothing is new.
He pushed his way through the swinging doors and back into the living area. The dog had gone; it could not bear the confused vibrations that came from the man. Raging, embittered, and chaotic, they made the dog uneasy. It preferred the man on a serene “high,” leaving it to think calmly.
The Champion paused beside the table and gently took out the tiny dose from the packet. So small, yet so demanding.
“But I want my return from you, my evil friend.” The red powder began to crumble off the pellet as he held it between thumb and forefinger. “I give in to your manipulation of my mind and body; in return I want the answers.” He grimaced sourly. “And then, perhaps through my habit, I can find the elusive key to my freedom? Maybe, my answers lie in my reward. Out of the ashes a phoenix may arise….” His voice had become a low, soft murmur.
All I have. Last chance. Perhaps that’s why I’m so afraid to take it. If this LSD doesn’t give me what I want — my answers to the Other, then…then I’ll always have a craving deep inside of me that no drug will ever satisfy.
The red powder collected in a tiny pyramid on the corner of the table. Each speck could hold an answer. Each grain could be a strand in his lifeline. He would cast it forth into the maelstrom of the trip and pray for the chance to attach himself to the solid, undeniable truth.
At the bar, he found a clean glass. He made a rapid selection from the many bottles there and poured out a small measure of soda water. Holding the glass carefully in case a cramp should hit him, he re-approached the table. He made to scoop the red dust into the liquid, but found his hand trembled too much. He’d never had LSD before, and the mounting excitement was beginning to outstrip his melancholic soul-searching. The justification for taking the narcotic was being slowly eroded from the forefront of his mind, as his greedy craving took over his control.
His hands were sweaty and stupid. He rubbed them on the towel and then carefully scooped the red dust into the glass. He placed the object of his attention in front of the lamp and waited eagerly for the color to change and the liquid to become clear.
LSD is odorless and tasteless. He downed the liquid in one gulp, wondering as he did so whether this really was the promised hallucinogen or some cruel joke played on him as punishment by the Owners. He would soon know.
His tongue licked every drop from his lips as he placed the glass beside the orderly row of cans. One more consumption of the rare things in this new world.
With deliberate moves, he made for the bed and sank down upon the coarseness to await the trip of a kind he’d never before experienced. He stared at the lamp with eyes of bright blue yearning. The line between his brows seemed even more deeply etched as the shadows caught there. A somber, serious face.
All or nothing. A means to freedom and a reason for living…or the sure knowledge that there is nothing to hope for. It isn’t him and the Owners can have me…lock…stock…and barrel. Literally.
LSD has a cruel way of distorting reality. When that reality is already distorted, it can lay bare the bones of the real world.
In the dark room of an old bar an oil lamp guttered twice and went out, leaving the owner to the womb-like seclusion of the night. His feeble mind fought and struggled with the scope and magnitude the narcotics placed before him.
His life.
Blown up larger than it had been, more intense than he had ever felt it before, he suffered and relived the passages of his previous existence as if they had been engraved onto his subconscious. He needed the intensity of emotion to swamp him with its violent thrust and thus reawaken his long-forgotten, put-aside memory of his other life. Rekindled into a frantic awareness, he felt the images engulf him, consume him, tear him apart, as they roared forth. Pursued and cajoled by the drug’s ability to contort and explode his history, his mind threw before his inner eye a rapid succession of terrifying pictures. All became one enormous, uncontrollable leviathan of repressed desires and aching losses.
Screaming with the agony of knowledge and remembering, he curled up in a huddled, shuddering bundle of blankets in the farthest corner and rocked with fright.
Down the pulsing steps of his hovel came a parade of bizarre figures. Each one glowed with an actuality that fooled him into believing they were real. But his hallucinations evaporated in a splintered cry of almost-destroyed yearning. Faces and places moved before him like some ancient 3D cyclorama. They reached out for him, smiled at him, cried for him, hated him, and loved him. Each protagonist was larger than life, twice as tangible, and a hundred times more petrifying, as he became aware of what he had lived for, loved, and lost.
Haunted to a point where he felt dazed and unable to comprehend the next onslaught of his past, he realized that, increasingly, the more important figures were coming toward him. The first parade had been mainly acquaintances, old and new. Radiant in their shape, size, and color. Unnervingly substantial.
Accompanied by a tide of buildings and places, he covered his face with the blanket, and still he saw them.
All the victims of his work, both sides of the law. The futile individuals, the helpless crazies, and the men in blue. Buried and hidden, he still saw and heard them. Their faces and mouths shrieked out a cacophony of accusations at desertion.
How could he have forgotten them? How could he? How?
He flung the cover away from his sweating face and felt his chest rising with the need for air. Air that he could taste. Bitterness for all the wasted time. And he felt hate. It was hot and burned into his soul. Blinded with the colors of personal pain, his head sank to his chest and his hands knuckled sharply into his temples.
No. He didn’t want to remember now. Ignorance was bliss. It was true. He could fool himself — would fool himself, pretend he was content and happy with his new life. Too much was raked up before him.
A hand on his arm. Warm, tender.
He flinched away as the limb merged with his own.
“Flesh of my flesh.” The voice was real, the words so true.
He looked up.
“Mother.” It escaped his trembling lips.
Just as he remembered her. She smelled so good. Her touch, the gentle caress a woman saves only for her son. She smiled and called him Kenneth.
He screamed in silence as he saw her flesh being drunk in by his own body, so bad was its need of her.
No, Mother! Don’t become a part of me. It should be the other way around. I am a part of you…. Don’t touch me, Mother. I am unclean of spirit.
“Darling Kenneth. Don’t be afraid, Mother is here. They can’t hurt you any more….”
Just words of his own imagination to heal himself. He pushed the failing image away, desperate to be free of her touch. He crawled to the other end of the bed. When he looked back, she was gone and his original home had appeared before him.
Wood. Bricks. Rich earth and peace. Duluth.
He wanted to run up the steps and hide in his old room. Safe and secure. But his father was looming through the whole building like a giant. A giant influence on his life and in his mind. Domineering and pedantic, he bore down with a rushing sensation. The vibrations of strict dogma and influence radiated from him in colors too loud. Hot colors of anger. The colors of his father’s standards and aspirations for his son. Stifling and swamping.
The elder man’s finger pointed accusingly. His mouth opened and the Champion’s whole police career poured forth in a speeded-up barrage of places, people, and times. Kaleidoscopic images convulsed out of one another. The trip’s formation had gone. Amorphous. Incoherence reigned the same as when he’d fought against his father’s desires.
And then the stampeding images abruptly stopped, vanquished to his subconsciousness, and he thought he was free of the narcotic.
He sank down in a trembling heap of confusion, guilt, relief, and exhaustion. The bed was sodden with his sweat. His breath seemed harsh and rough in his parched throat. A vague sob escaped his lips, and he bit them hard to forestall any further outburst. He was wrung out with shame and deliverance.
An age of still time seemed to pass and all he heard was the inner thudding of his overstrained heart and the comforting tick of his collection. Slowly, he passed a hand over his wet face and wiped it clean. As he lowered it, he found himself staring at the black outline of a once-familiar shadow.
David Michael Starsky.
Shock jolted him, physically.
The outline stood on the bottom step against the faint light of the street. The face was fine and thin. The eyes just the right shade of remembered blue. The hair was thick and tight with curls. He glistened with health and vitality.
And the Champion knew he was a hallucination.
But his heart prayed for it to be a reality.
The illusion stepped into the unreal light of the lamp. The flame grew alarmingly until the whole bar was filled with the strange blue and orange light.
The Champion felt scorched, small, and insignificant. An insidious fear crept into his warped mind that perhaps his one-time partner wouldn’t see him. Just pass by in oblivion.
The shadow turned full circle in the engulfing light. Naked, showing off his body’s strengths and weaknesses: the strong line, the curves and planes, the scars. Each had their own familiarity, each was a perfect part of the whole man. Complete and within reach. And denied the watcher because of their transience.
Eyes wide with wonder and revelation, the Champion found himself mouthing the soundless phrase of his partner’s name over and over until it became one unintelligible sound in his mind that meant more than he could ever place into words.
Shakily, he rose from the bed, blankets and towel falling away forgotten, blond braids hanging to his waist.
The flames became more intense. Blues became heavier and the orange turned to a heated gold as he crossed the stone floor toward the man who had been a seed planted in his soul from the first moment of their meeting. They had grown and flourished together. Now, he felt they could grow again.
Another rebirth into the world.
The hallucination of his tortured mind pivoted slowly, eyes lost to some far horizon, never meeting those of the Champion.
I am small and insignificant. You’ll never see me…or is it that I don’t want him to see me? What I have become, I don’t even want him to know. I can’t debase the pure memory of what was with the truth of what I have become….
The shadow stopped before the watcher. It breathed a life all of its own, imbued by the mind of its creator. But try as he might, the Champion could not control the progress of the hallucinations, their speed, or their longevity.
Is he the Other?
As the thought crossed his mind unbidden, the image began to change and remold.
No! Don’t think like that. Empty your mind of such thoughts; let this image remain.
Too late.
The fine, tanned flesh seemed to sallow and gray before his eyes. The hair grew longer in moments and the eyes lost the contented glow of pleasure. The blue became hard and steel-flecked. The face took on the lines of suffering and misery. Flesh peeled away like petals dropping from a flower head to reveal the emergence of the shining metal plates. And the left eye was gone.
Don’t change…please…stay the same….
The shadow rotated as if manipulated by some unseen, godly hand. Silver handcuffs tied bony wrist to bony wrist. The man he once knew metamorphosed before his horror-struck eyes into the metalled shell of the Other.
He was a ghost of a man, whose body betrayed the abuse of the New Society, and whose tormented essence seemed to fill the room with the chill of despair and acute desolation.
The Champion felt cold. An ice seeped into his spirit, and he knew the Other was what he had hoped and feared.
The gold fire from the lamp became arctic in its temperature. The blues turned to the darkest hues of a nightmare. The bar dissolved away. Only the God-given earth and skies remained. Pure as the Time Before.
The Other locked eye to eye with the Champion. Accusation poured forth and then a strange temperance of forgiveness and understanding.
A sudden red shadow cast across the silvered features that changed abruptly to a sharp, white-neon flare. The shackles about his wrists fell noiselessly to the stone floor as his arms rose into the air above himself. The shaft of white light poured down on him from the heavens, so bright, the Champion had to shield his eyes. He fell back against the table, sinking down beside it, mesmerized by the pulsing power of the light and the Northern Sector Protector.
Hands reaching for the skies, the Other tilted his head back, closed his eyes and began to soar into the stars.
A phoenix rising from the ashes of the New Society…. Go, go fast and far, old friend. You are free…. You made the choice and you will find your own kind of freedom, somewhere. If not in this life…perhaps the next? Only I remain…forgotten…. Why don’t you remember me? Please, remember me…me…me….
The intense brilliance flared upwards and out, dragging the dark blues after it. The Champion felt the tug on his own golden shades, but he had not the conviction to follow along his own warped hallucinations. A roaring cry of thunder rent the stillness as the tapestry of his past spiraled like some Kansas twister into the dark depths of the night. A whirling storm of his reality hurtled upwards and was swallowed up into his subconscious once more, locked away into a Pandora’s box of dreams and wishes.
Find that rainbow…for the both of us.
Drained of thought and feeling, the Champion sank face down to the floor. His gold clasps settled about his back and shoulders with a silent tenderness, as if they did not want to disturb the worn-out man. The gold light faded to the ever-present blackness, and the man knew the secrets of his mind like no other ever could guess.
He knew. Remembered. And felt deserted. No more pretense, no more shields against the truth.
And the Other had gone and left him behind.
He closed his eyes and pretended he didn’t exist in time and space.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Running with the silent speed of a specter of the night, the Other skirted another pile of discarded machinery heaped up ready for collection by the salvage workers, and skidded to a halt before a small group of non-commune figures. In the flickering light from their fire, they turned warily and watched his approach with a fearful foreboding.
A small man-child in a holed sweatshirt and jeans panicked and sped off to the right into a dilapidated sports complex. The rest stood their ground, though clearly terrified. They watched, riveted, as the panting figure in wine leather and silver body plates trotted forward.
A buckled oil drum was nestling in the asphalt behind the group. Inside it, they had lit their fire. Its flames caused the group to be shown in dark relief. The Other couldn’t make out their features or gender, but he was sure that most were young. He, himself, was plainly seen by the glow of the fire. Too clearly for some of the group. A couple at the edge clung to each other in an effort to remain standing in his presence.
While the Northern Protector regained his breath, he edged a little closer, as watchful of them as they were of him.
“Do you know who I am?” His words were weak and breathy from the long chase. “Do you know me, huh, silent people?”
The nearest being nodded slowly from behind a swath of scarves and a too-large trench coat.
“Good.” He wiped a few strands of long hair from his sweating forehead. “I’m after another protector. Did he pass this way?”
Silence. None dared look at another.
Time was running away from the Other; he couldn’t wait for answers that he needed now.
He spoke with a caustic thinness. “Answer me! Or some of you people are gonna be legless.”
No one spoke. They all knew who was before them: the Other. News travels fast in the city even without the media networks. They knew he was ex-commune and free game for any and all assassins, professional and otherwise. Just who, if any of them, was going to find the guts to tackle him?
The Other scowled darkly and looked frantically about him for any clue that Kyle had passed by. Licking his lips, he padded forward another couple of feet to try and see past the fire.
The pain in his head, so sudden, crumbled him to his knees.
Gasping, he landed on all fours.
Like hounds in for the kill, the whole group took a step forward.
The Other fumbled the rifle up. The sharp click of the hammer being cocked stopped any further progress. As one, the group took on the appearance of petrification.
“Not another inch!” The Other glared balefully. “I’ll kill the whole goddamned lot of you!” The agony eased to a throbbing pulse at this temples.
The group backed away to the far side of the drum.
The Other dragged himself up to his unsteady feet. He rested most of his weight on his left leg and tucked the rifle into his shoulder tightly. Sighting a bead along the barrel, he hissed, “You got three seconds to tell me which way Kyle went, and then I’m gonna ventilate your brains, scum.”
The figures glanced agitatedly at each other.
“One — ”
A young woman dragged a shawl from her head in an effort to appeal to his humanitarianism. Surely, he wouldn’t shoot a woman?
“Two — ”
The Other tightened up the strain on the trigger. The group held its collective breath.
“Three.”
Figures flinched in expectant death and a voice from the back screamed out. “He was here! He was here! Jesus, man, don’t kill us!”
The Other’s finger held on the trigger. “I can’t hear you, filth. Speak louder.”
A shabby figure flung himself at the feet of the Other, shaking with terror. He shook so much his teeth rattled in his gaunt skull. Raising his face to meet that of the Plaza man, the light of the fire revealed the open sores on his chin and forehead, the red-rimmed eyes and the unhealthy skin. He was a wasted man of youth.
“He went through here about ten minutes ago. We let him pass; he was moving too fast.” The words chattered out of his sore lips. “He was heading for the Plaza.”
The Other nodded, gazing away into the darkness. He’s gonna get there before me. Damn! Can’t let him. Too much at stake. He looked again at the group. A collection of no-nothing beings, unfit, and unskilled for a commune. Let them rot.
Loping away to the right, he avoided the dark shadows of the sports complex and circumnavigated the crowd. They turned slowly, following his every move, fearful of a bullet in the back. They had heard the legends. Now he was wounded and running. Twice as dangerous. Twice as deadly.
Picking up speed, the Other disappeared out of their lives and into the night.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Clawing his way over the sharp bricks and fragments of the city blocks, Kyle heaved his weary body down another displaced curbstone and rolled onto the tarmac. He’d run miles out of his way to try and throw the Other off his trail. But every time he looked back, he thought he saw the faint wisps of rising dust in the moonlight, or heard the soft pattering of rapid footsteps religiously dogging his own. He rubbed his forehead across his out flung forearm and squinted toward the pale edifice of the Plaza.
Forcing his spent body onto hands and knees, he crawled on. He had to get just a little further and then he would be safe.
His nose almost came into contact with a thin gray wire.
He froze as he realized how close he’d come to being electrocuted on a boundary wire. Like some wandering mutant, he would have fried there until charred black — living entertainment for the watchers hidden within. In the early hours of dawn, they would cut the power and let the Plaza dogs out for a free feeding session.
Swallowing sickly, Kyle rose to his feet and stepped carefully over the almost-invisible wire. He had to be mindful; there would be others.
Behind him, a stone crunched very definitely.
He twisted his head almost off as he leaped around to face the dark, open waste. He couldn’t see him: the Other. Couldn’t spot any shade of wine or glint of silver, but he knew he was out there. Knew it as surely as the hairs on the back of his head that crawled erect.
Tears of despair filled his eyes. He had so much to lose. He and Muldoon had finally been onto a lucky streak until they had followed up the shots. They could have left them. Not bothered to check. Who’d have known? Who’d have cared?
Now Muldoon was dead, his skull spread over Kyle’s chest and face. And he was probably only seconds away from a similar fate.
But as long as he could still draw breath, he’d fight on. He’d take the last chance with both hands and make a break for the front door. Surely, the sentry would be on duty and see his sprint for safety. Surely, they’d give him covering fire?
Leaping up, he discarded any thought of a steady approach so as to avoid the trip wires. Instead, he dug in his toes and fled for the steps. The sand flew from his heels as, heedless of electrocution, he thundered over the last few yards to safety. His gun slipped from his fingers as he ran, his fists punched the air as he tried to hurl himself faster — faster than the bullet from a rifle.
He hit the bottom step in a flurry of flailing arms and coursing adrenalin. His sanctuary was in sight, within reach, and yet he knew he would not make it.
A soft hissing sound came to his ears above the scraping of his steel-capped boots on the steps. A thin knife flew out of the night, deadly accurate, and right on target. It embedded itself up to the hilt at the base of Kyle’s skull. He pitched forward, hands out flung for the door. His fingernails scratched down the metal sheets, screeching out his death, unlike his throat, which had been cut from within. The body hit the cold steps with a soft thud, leaving his hands still partly raised to the door.
From inside, the sound of Kyle’s flight up the steps had brought the sentries to attention. The faint, high-pitched grating of nails clawing down metal had caused all conversation to cease.
Lounging against the reception desk of the hotel, the guards became apprehensive — alert. The two closest to the main doors glanced at the others and then moved to listen against the entrance. The remaining three watched with cool interest.
A stringy type with red hair and a broken nose pulled an automatic from a shoulder holster and laid a hand on the huge door bolts. He got no further. The man at his side pulled on his arm, pointing with the barrel of a .32 S&W at the spreading pool of blood that was seeping under the door. The two men motioned the other three sentries to come and join them.
With great stealth, the redhead drew back the bolts while the others made ready to give him covering fire. Heaving until the cords stood out on his neck, the protector managed to ease open the right-hand door. Its mammoth weight slowed its swinging arc.
Outside, the night was dark and still. Nothing moved. No red eye of rat glinted. Nothing breathed.
Least of all the sentries, when they saw the corpse.
Face down on the concrete, Kyle’s hands flopped down onto the toe of the redhead’s boot. Dead, lifeless fingers. The spread of blood collected in puddles in the cracks of the tiling.
“That’s Kyle, I recognize him.” Lewis looked nervously from one side to the other, expecting some form of answer from his confederates. They were too disturbed to speak. Protectors shouldn’t end up on the Plaza steps with their throats cut from the rear.
“Well, it is him, isn’t it?” Lewis was persistent. He stared out into the dark night. “He can’t have come far with his guts running down his chest. Musta happened just down there.” He motioned with his gun into the darkness before them.
Haldane bent over the body and turned it slightly so he could gain a better look. When he was sure who it was, he let the corpse drop face down again. Standing up, he flicked his red hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, that’s him. Joined us about two months ago. Worked with a guy called Muldoon.” He rubbed his bloodied hands down his jacket front. “Wonder what happened to him…. They were on patrol together, out near the scrap yard….” He scanned the Plaza forecourt slowly. Everything was as it should be, except for Kyle’s weapon laid in the middle of the disused road.
Zuckerman coughed nervously. Something was definitely wrong here. Nobody out there, no sudden follow-up attack. Nothing.
Just a vague unease that they were being watched.
“Hey, Haldane, I’ve seen that blade before. I…I recognize the handle.” Lewis bent over the hilt embedded in the neck. “Don’t you guys remember it?”
Puzzled expressions crossed three faces, clearly indicating their ignorance of the history of the knife.
Haldane nodded thoughtfully, his face darkening like the prevalent atmosphere. His voice dropped noticeably. “Drag that meat inside and get out of this backlight. Now. Move it!” His hissed words conveyed his sense of urgency.
Three of the sentries immediately holstered their weaponry and stooped down for the corpse. Lewis and Haldane gave them cover as they retreated into their fortress.
As the doors swung shut, cutting the backlight down to a narrow strip, a last sentence came to the watcher’s ears, out in the night. It was Lewis. “But I thought the Other had gone, man. What in hell’s he doing back?”
As the huge Plaza doors were locked and bolted from inside, the Other moved forward a little, face showing his intense abhorrence of the men he used to work beside. There was nothing these men wouldn’t do to further the aims of their Commune — be it right or wrong. Right and wrong didn’t seem to exist in the New Society. Amorality was the code of ethics.
They’ll regret that way of thinking when I’ve dealt out some of my personal code. I learned very well under their terms…. Gonna show them how good I am…. But not just yet…. Let ’em sweat a little first. He smiled the smile of a predator who plays with its kill. Got to get ’em all nice, tense, and nervous…then I’ll have them.
He stared a few moments longer at the building that housed his nemesis, then kicked a few loose stones away into the darkness. Turning on his heel, he made sure he didn’t trip any of the wires and trotted on his way. He needed some things from his old “home,” some things that the salvage squads of the Northern Sector wouldn’t have discovered. He was too good for them, always had been.
As he headed from the Plaza, he could imagine their preparations for a siege getting underway. But they had already lost even before they began. Fear was the greatest weapon that the Other had on his side, and the people of the Plaza had raised a deadly killer who had escaped their control.
They were already scared to death — the Other was going to see that they got there safely.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
When the Champion awoke, he was cold. Cold in body and in spirit. He rolled stiffly to his knees, one hand on the table edge for leverage, and hauled himself onto his feet. Head down, he rested a moment as the past night came tumbling into his bruised and strained mind. Eyes shut, he raised his head and tried to steady his suddenly lurching heart. Knowledge and truth were no easier to bear in the hard light of day.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, then pushed back the heavy plaits that hung forward. Something soft brushed the skin of his leg. He glanced down and saw the dog watching him expectantly. Pale pink eyes looked knowingly into the blue of his own.
The moment held between them as if putting the final seal on the end of their old routine. The man sensed that the dog knew things had changed. The atmosphere was different. The man had undergone an experience that had altered him in ways he himself did not yet know. It was as if he’d been cleansed from within. He felt hollow and emptied of his old, familiar self.
The comfortable ease of blurred reality had evaporated from his doped mind as the effect of the LSD had peaked and waned. Reality of a most personal nature had been laid bare before him in ways sharp and cruel. Although he hadn’t been able to control its passage or speed, he knew that it was constructed from his own subconscious. The Champion was responsible for the images and how they had affected him. No good dodging the issue now. He knew. Knew it all.
A sudden swell of emotion expanded within his mind and served to clarify his enlightenment. The Champion no longer perceived in ways taught him by the Owners, and the sudden mushrooming of old sensations and feelings held him spellbound. And it gave him a rising thrill that no drug could ever achieve. His past was as clear to him as it ever would be. A little hazy in places, but so much more than he had ever had before. He exhilarated in the pain and relief, in the gains and the losses.
I know…I know.
He hooked out one of his chairs and sank into it, eyes unfocused as he stared away into the middle distance. Remembering.
So much, so much forgotten. The people, the places, the friends and lovers…my family…my father, my mother…and my partner.
The words came to his mind in vivid images that he could now control. He held each face and examined it carefully. They stirred his emotions in ways unused for years, but time had not dimmed the honesty of his feelings. The terrible aching wound that was his loss reopened as if it were again the fateful days of The End.
The horror and the anguish poured through in waves, and yet he deliberately distanced himself from the profound feeling. He examined the sensations he had been deprived of for so long, instead of deeply experiencing them. He was relearning his past in a way that screamed from the raw revelation. He simply wasn’t ready for the full perception to affect him yet. He wouldn’t be able to cope…. He had to learn to walk again before he could run.
The Other…David Michael Starsky…one and the same. And I had him right here. Fool that I am, I let him go! Where did he go? Where could he go?
A heavy, clenched fist came down angrily on the wooden planking as his frustration came out. The dog flinched and backed away a little as the empty cans bounced and scattered across the table.
The Champion turned, a steady eye upon the hound. It cowered down, suspicious of the strangeness in the man.
“Spooked?” The Champion raised a blond eyebrow. “You should be; things are different.”
He clicked his fingers in the usual code signal and the dog’s ears rose. It understood the order, felt secure again, and raced up the steps to continue its guard duty.
A wiser man watched it go with a feeling of seeing these actions being played for the last time. But at the back of his mind was the persistently nagging thought that he was still Territory Protector and certain things were expected of him. Inside, he may have changed, but the Owners would have refused to see the differences even if he pointed them out. They patently had other designs on him, and his desire to find the Other would not endear him toward them. He had bungled the job in their eyes; the Other was still roaming free. He had let them down at the most vital moment, and that was unforgivable. They were going to make him pay — tonight.
The Champion mulled over the sordid facts of his new status within the Commune hierarchy and Stud was not a title that fitted him. Not now.
I’m on the threshold of a new beginning, and I’m not going to return to those “women” as their personal prostitute. I haven’t sunk that low yet. Unwittingly, they gave me the key to my future last night. If the Other can find the courage to get up and leave, then so can I.
Like a giant among men, the Champion rose from the table with a new conviction in his heart. He stood tall and proud in the pale yellow light of the afternoon sun as it filtered down the steps of the Pits. At such a low angle, the rays caught the curve of his clasps in a teasing, expectant manner. His fair, naked flesh shone with a new vibrancy as a thin sheen of sweat covered his skin. It was caused by the first stirrings of excitement. The taste of freedom was tempting to his newfound sense of feeling. Like heady wine, it brought a warm glow of satisfaction to seep through his being. So long starved of any hope, he felt renewed and strong. No longer bowed by the ever-present menace of ownership, once he had made his choice to be free, the burden fell from his wide shoulders with a simple ease.
I, too, choose to be free of this existence. I can be my own man again…no longer a killer fed on narcotics, enslaved to the Owners’ demands. I can fight my habit — have before, and if the Other can face ex-commune life, then so can I. I want my freedom just as much as he did. He showed me the way; set the path…. All I have to do is follow.
The Champion smiled a slow smile of hope and nodded to himself in an effort to convince himself further that he could be a free man. Then his face darkened.
But nothing is ever that easy. I’m expected tonight at the Territory. The Owners won’t give me up that easily. I can’t just walk away; they’ve invested too much in me, their “most precious.” They’re bound to want their pound of flesh….
He circled the table and moved over to where his clothes lay. He picked up the armored leather suit from the rack and fingered the inlaid studs.
Studs for a stud? No, not me. This is where I cut out of this society. I’m finished, anyway, too untrustworthy. The Other was right all along — there’s going to come a time when I don’t come up to scratch and the Owners will look for someone else. This is that time, and there’ll be plenty of contenders for the first gold clasp. But they won’t find anyone as good. My worth has been my uniqueness, and once they realize that, they’ll want me back. But I’m going to be long gone or dead through the trying. I won’t return to the Territory. Last night was the very last time. The last sachet, the final time I sell myself for their paltry rewards.
He shrugged into the suit and began to strap on the holster and other weapons.
I’ve got my sights set on a new target — a new incentive: the Other. And once I’ve set my mind to something, I won’t give in. I remember that I was a policeman once, a damn good one, and it worked because I had a damned fine partner. I’m going after that partner again, and out of this pile of ash I’m going to salvage a little of my past. It should go very well with my freedom.
The final glove slid up his arm to the elbow and he was dressed for the empty wasted streets. There were still a multitude of pitfalls to cross over. He looked up and found his reflection staring back at himself from the bar mirror. The leather was tight over his body, the gun settled almost casually against his thick thigh. His gold clasps and armlet gleamed dully, as if the inner power of the man had overshadowed their brilliance. Under the gold headband, his features were too thin and gaunt to suit him; too many ill-used years had marred his beauty. But he still had that special element built into his persona that made him a man alone, feared and admired: a Protector of nightmares and haunted, quiet moments. Many commune dwellers and mutants wouldn’t be sorry to witness his passing out of their lives.
The problem would be: how to get away alive?
The Other did it. And if you want something badly enough, you can have it. I’m prepared to pay the cost. I learned that from him…from all of them. My Owners will fight me every inch of the way; the price will be high. But I’m not afraid to fight on. I’ll claw my way to freedom if I have to…I will. It’s time I had a say in my life, what’s left of it. I’ve been quiet too long; now I have so much to say. And I want the Other to listen…to me. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. But where in all this waste is he? Why did he leave? Why?
Pulling away from the mirror, the Champion walked toward his arms rack on the wall near the entrance. As he approached, he studied them, ready to make a selection, and he saw something was odd. Four rifles were resting loosely in the rack. All the others were securely chained in their individual places.
Puzzled, he picked up the nearest. He always kept the weapons locked up in case any stray mutant got into the Pits and decided to help itself. He turned the unknown rifle over in his hands and noted its poor condition. Not like a weapon that he possessed; they were always kept well cleaned and oiled. They were all that stood between a protector’s life and his death.
He put the rifle back in its place and picked up the other one. This was a little better kept, but still in need of a thorough stripping down. And then he saw the markings on the underside of the stock.
N.S.C. — P. was clearly engraved there, burned into the crazed varnish of the wood. The indentations had collected sweat and dirt, but he could still read the letters.
N. S. C. — P.? N. S. C. — P.? What the — Wait a minute — Northern Sector Commune property from the P. — the Plaza stronghold! So, those stupid cretins have been here, huh? Probably after the Other; musta been that implant in his head — .
A cold, sick feeling encircled his heart. He lowered the gun from his eye, where he’d been peering into the barrel. His hand shook slightly.
An assassination squad from the Plaza! Anyone who goes ex-commune, especially a protector, is marked out for death. Always. Suppose they succeeded here, while I was gone? The Other was injured; maybe he wasn’t quick enough….
The Champion’s face became a mask of shuttered granite. The thoughts were too dreadful to contemplate at this moment.
If he’s dead, I might as well go to the Owners now…but, but who would place the guns here? Rifles, even in this condition, are too valuable to leave behind. Unless, the Other won and he didn’t want to be loaded down with inferior weapons. And if a couple of hit men traced him here through that implant, he’s gonna know about the little addition in his skull and want some form of revenge. He thought he was free, felt sure of it. The jack means he’s still tied to the Plaza. Musta come hard…he was so sure he was free…. Hadn’t he suffered enough…? Haven’t we both?
A savage anger welled inside the Champion, and he threw the rifle across the bar and into the bottles lined up so neatly. The glass splintered in a crashing cascade as bottle after bottle smashed to the stone floor. The gold and amber liquids splashed like a fountain over the wooden bar top, settling into large pools. In seconds, the rolling mass lay still, the glass tinkled to a stop, and only the slow drip of spilled alcohol broke the silence.
His gold clasps rattled with his anger as his long plaits swayed over his back. Dark of features and spirit, the Champion stormed over to the stairs.
At the bottom he paused; the dog was halfway down. Alerted by the sudden crash of glass, it had come to its master’s aid. The Champion whistled it away. It sensed the anger and retreated. Leather boots digging hard into the crumbling steps, the Champion climbed out of his home and into the late afternoon sun. Pale, insipid orange, it struggled through the low, gray clouds and failed to warm the remains of the city. Hands on hips, the Champion surveyed his surroundings.
I still miss the buildings…sounds of the city…smell of the car exhaust fumes….
A little way behind him, the black hound was busy pawing at the ground, persistently trying to erase any signs of Jaeger from the face of the earth. As it toiled, it kept one wary eye on the Territory man. The dog liked routine, liked its master to be quiet and calm. Assured. Since last night the man was a stranger. The eerie sounds emanating from the Pits in the dead of night had made the hackles on the hound’s neck rise. It had lain on its stomach, guarding its master and yet wishing to be away from the weird man below. He had changed, and the sudden rise in thinly veiled tension about him only unnerved the dog. He still feared the man, but not like he used to; now he feared the unpredictability. Routine had been banished. How soon would it be before the hound found itself reduced to a similar state?
The Champion turned about and faced the beast.
“What are you doing?” He spoke as evenly as possible, trying to control his sense of frustration at losing the Other.
The hound stepped to one side as the tall man approached. As he drew opposite the dog, the Champion saw the shape of the grave clearly. He looked about quickly and saw the other slight mound of bricks and rubble.
“So we did have callers, huh?” He squatted down and undid some of the dog’s work by heaving away a layer of debris.
Underneath was the filthy corpse of Jaeger. Bullet hole dead center of his forehead. A dark, ugly hole. Eyes still wide, he stared at the sky. The insects had already begun to feed off him.
“Some bugs have no taste.” Unmoved, the Champion kicked the debris back and patted the dog once.
Checking that his ammunition was complete, he turned and began to walk away.
Damn fool’s gone back. He should have kept on walking.
Suddenly, he paused and glanced back. The dog was sitting patiently beside the grave, ready to resume its work. When it saw the man halt, it pricked its ears up.
The Champion stared at it, his blue eyes softening momentarily.
“You are free, too. Get away from here; there’s nothing for you now.”
The dog remained at its place. It didn’t understand the words.
The Champion gave it the whistle to “leave” and “hunt.” A faint whine of a sound made the dog leap to its feet abruptly. But again, the two orders only caused confusion.
Leave? It had left the Pits. It was already outside. Hunt? Hunt what?
The Champion turned his back and set off.
Dumb beast. Free and it doesn’t know it.
He shrugged cynically.
Perhaps that’s what we all are — dumb beasts, free but we don’t know it. Just gotta take the chance with both hands — and hang on.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
His lengthening shadow over the ground told the Other that the time of day was passing; soon the night would settle over the city like a blanket and over the Plaza like a shroud. His leather-clad body had just risen from a manhole with a practiced expertise. He’d been “home” to collect a few personal effects for tonight’s little party at the Plaza. A couple of smoke grenades, an incendiary device, extra ammunition, and another couple of knives. Just enough to be sure that the party went with a surprise and a swing.
He’d been right; the salvage squad hadn’t found his secret cache of weapons behind some loose brickwork near the top of the arched tunnel roof. Everything else, however, was gone. It crossed his mind as to how he’d ever existed down there. But he was a twilight man who had preferred at one time to live in a twilight world. The hidden tunnels of the old sewer system had served his purpose admirably.
He’d stayed hidden all the long day, avoiding any noisy confrontations with stray mutants that may attract attention to him. He knew that the Northern Sector leaders would send out scouting parties from the Plaza in an effort to flush him out before nightfall. His answer to that was to get off the street, but stay in the immediate area and let them scurry about frantically among the ruins chasing their own tails. Moreover, too cowardly to risk searching his old domain. They knew he was loose, on the run, and now holed up somewhere. No one would take the risk to venture down the sewers and check his old haunt. Too dark, too unfamiliar, too deadly. There had never been anyone skillful enough to enter those sewers and get out alive — except one man…. If the Other was down there, he could stay undisturbed; they’d rather wait and take their chance against him at the Plaza. Down in the hollow pits of their stomachs, they knew he was coming.
And the Other knew that a tired, angry, nervous army of protectors would be waiting for him tonight. Twisted up with tension and fear, they’d be inefficient and useless against his experience.
Walking with a limp, the Other made a direct route for the Plaza. He would wait, just out of sight, for darkness and then he would strike. Silent, deadly, and accurate.
Obsessive, revengeful hate lends a man an excess of energy. It sharpens his wits, brings him to a peak that they cannot match. I hope they’ve made their peace with their unlawful gods.
Collected in spirit and vocation, he walked on doggedly, the pain in his head a constant reminder of what he wanted to achieve. It had dropped from a piercing, needle-sharp agony in the top of his skull to a dull ache. But still it forced him to crease his brow, making the silver strips down his cheek strain against the skin and stand proud. The leather strap he had unbuckled from his right leg and left discarded on the damp floor of the sewer. The wound had stopped weeping blood, but the dull throbbing in the muscle only served to wear away his fading reserves of strength. Pale of flesh and solemn of feature, he quickened his pace toward his destination.
Against the quiet indigo of the evening sky he could see the thin white strip of the Plaza building. Small and serene, it disguised a hive of grasping, ruthless men intent upon the domination of the city. He still felt disgust over the part he had played in their rise to success. It was now up to him to see that they were reduced to naught. He owed them nothing — all they had ever given him were years of physical pain and mental misery….
…close to a live wire, the Other stopped and surveyed the Plaza with a sure thoroughness. He’d paused just out of range of the huge arc lights that lit the forecourt of the fortified hotel. They could spy out the lay of the land from within and never see him in the darkness.
Look all you like, but you’ll never see me. When I strike, you won’t know it because you’ll be dead. I bet you’re scared shitless, Selkirk…you want to be….
Keeping to the edge of the arc light’s white border, the silvered man trotted around the perimeter of the Plaza forecourt toward the rear of the building. He knew every pebble and broken brick of the fortress; it had been his job to secure the Northern Sector Leaders. He had been good at his job until the Champion had come along, and the Champion had used a weapon that not even the Northern Sector had known about. That weapon was a snatched memory of the Time Before. Distant and unclear, it had disrupted the Other’s concentration just long enough for the tall blond to capitalize on the delay. This time, the Other wouldn’t be surprised; there would be no delays.
The rear of the Plaza had an ad hoc natural defense. The upper stories of the hotel had fallen into a neat pile of rubble, efficiently blocking off any attempted entry from the back of the building. Their back door was always locked. However, it also provided a not-too-steep slope of debris from the earth to the third story. The floor of the fourth story was now the roof of the Plaza, above the first level of bedrooms and suites. The early Commune dwellers had cleared away most of the remaining walls of the fourth floor bedrooms in an effort to level the roof. The elevator shaft still poked out a short way and the stairwells, at either end, provided the sentries with access to the roof, as did the one that circled the elevator shaft. Around the edge of the roof a six-foot-high wall had been built out of anything tough enough to withstand a bullet or grenade. They had used mainly truck doors or security doors from banks, painted white to blend in with the rest of the building. The Plaza people believed that they had a fortress of the finest caliber.
The Other was about to prove them wrong.
In the early days, it had been upon the dark-haired Protector’s advice that the Plaza mount a constant guard upon the roof, but with success had come complacency. The Northern Sector Leaders had begun to believe that no one would dare assault the Plaza in the daylight, and the guard duty for daylight hours had been suspended. By that time, the Other was past caring, borne down under a burden of unfulfilled promises and acts of inhuman medicine. Let the place become overrun one fine, quiet day when all the sentries were abed with their whores. He couldn’t give a damn.
That day has come, my friends. You let the most important detail lapse: the attention to security. I know how the rosters were fixed so that it appeared as though the roof was always posted. I know that Ledoc and McIver were always posted there at night. And I know that McIver’s a lazy, bloated, stupid moron who couldn’t shoot himself at point-blank range, let alone anybody else. They were always on the roof…they’ll be there now. Sick with fear…waiting for that tiny trickle of stones to tell them that I’m coming up their asses.
The Other moved like lightning over the narrowest point of light to the slope of debris. Mindful as to where he planted his boots, he began to scamper up the twisted concrete toward the roof.
Seeking handholds with precision, he slithered forward, onwards and upwards like a snake in long grass. His feet provided the sure leverage he needed, and he was more than halfway up before he detected a slight movement in the darkness above.
A shadow, darker than the rest, stood out against the moonlit sky. It paused in a surrogate loophole to scan the slope. The Other bent his face to the concrete slab he was squirming over, frightened that his silver plates would glint and give him away like they had done before with Muldoon. Satisfied that there was nothing happening below, the shadow retreated.
Gotta be McIver. Ledoc wouldn’t be stupid enough to silhouette his head against the moon. Things never change around here….
Turning his face slowly upwards, the Other made sure that McIver was gone before he inched over the slab and settled against a huge lump of rusting superstructure that had once been the emergency stairs from an upper story. It was a lattice of metal tubes and treads that cast a chiaroscuro pattern over the Other, affording him some camouflage. Tensing to a stillness, he picked out a safe route through the tangled metal, and rose to his feet smoothly. Boots pattering over the steps, he scurried stealthily up and under the roughly cut loophole in the truck door and tried to press himself into the metal wall.
Fighting against the nagging headache in his skull, the Other listened attentively until he was sure that the sentry on the other side of the wall was nowhere near him. There was no faint sound of feet on concrete floor, or the slightly heavy breathing of a protector who was out of condition.
Feeling a little easier, he pulled open the leather bag on his back and slipped out a small handgun and silencer. He grinned wickedly, his teeth showing pale gray in his otherwise featureless face.
Security checks were lousy around here. I showed them how to set this system up, enroll the protectors. But it got out of hand, turned sour. And no one ever could police the Police…. When the best is in charge and then poses a threat, who checks him out? Who ensures that I’m playing by the rules and keeping clean? No one; they were never good enough. This little toy they never found…but they’re gonna find where it went tonight….
Holding it tightly in his left hand, he waited, listening intently for the return of McIver from his tour of the roof.
McIver was too sloppy…no sense of stealth…. He’ll — Ah, there he goes…steps like an elephant….
Swinging out and up, the Other used his right hand to haul himself through the loophole in one fluid movement. As he balanced on the sill, he swiftly took in the field of action. It was as he remembered it, stairwell to either end, main flight in the middle circling the elevator shaft. A few old plumbing pipes poked toward the sky, but the rest of the area was empty — except for McIver who was only just turning around.
Reaction time down…useless waste of space.
McIver’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. The Other seemed to have materialized out of fresh air. The guard’s gun rested in his holster, completely forgotten. He took a step forward out of blind terror and stunned curiosity. Mouth gaping, he tried to call out a warning. Too late, the phuffff of a silencer put the seal on his seedy life. The bullet tore through his chest and bubbled up his lungs with blood. He dropped slowly to the rooftop, face down.
The Other tiptoed swiftly over to the body and kicked it in the shoulder. Stone dead, it lolled like a beached seal. He stooped down for the gun in the holster. Flipping it out, he emptied it of shells and flung it away. It skittered over the rooftop and disappeared into the darkness.
One down, one to go. Where the hell’s Ledoc?
Footsteps in the main stairwell brought the Other round. Someone was climbing to this level. Glancing about, he realized that there was no other cover. Sprinting forward, he leaped the corner of the well and settled flat in the dust on the roof. Lying opposite the rise of the stairs, he was on the floor directly behind anyone climbing up. As long as they didn’t look back on the last six steps, he wouldn’t be seen.
The steps grew louder and a soft whistling came to his ears. A French tune that Ledoc still remembered from the old country. Irregular of rhythm, the Parisienne melody heralded the arrival of the next sentry.
Ledoc stumped up the last few steps and paused in the moonlight. He was tall, with straight black hair cut short, pencil mustache and a uniform made out of an old cleaning department coverall. It was a little too tight across the shoulders and one armhole seam had split. Underneath he wore a shabby cotton jacket and shirt. With his back to the Other, it was impossible to read his features, but the Other remembered his face and the cold killer glint in his eye. He could have been the replacement for the silvered man in a few years’ time. But he wasn’t going to make it.
Ledoc saw the corpse of his partner and sensed the presence of another being in the next split second. Whipping around, Luger in hand, he fired off a random shot in a desperate attempt to save his own life. The shot whined away into the night over the Other’s head.
Steady hand on the trigger, the Other snapped off one silent shot and ripped open Ledoc’s neck. Lips still puckered, he pitched headfirst down the stairs, stopping on a lower landing in a knot of loose limbs and blood.
Scrambling to his feet, the Other peered after the corpse and waited for the sounds that would tell him that others had heard the Luger shot in the lower floors of the Plaza. He didn’t have to wait long; the cry of alert came plainly to his ears. They thought he was attacking from the rear of the building. In that they were right, but they were wrong in thinking he was firing upon them from outside, from somewhere in the darkness.
The wolf isn’t at the door; he’s already inside.
A stampede of feet on the stairs told him in no uncertain terms that protectors were soon going to be swarming all over the roof. Stepping over the edge of the elevator shaft, the Other slithered down it with his left boot until he was at full stretch. Fumbling with his foot, he found a toehold and released his grip on the rough lip of the shaft. He scraped down the dirty shaft a little way, until he found the service rungs of the old wall ladder. Anchoring himself onto the bars, he wasted no time in getting as far away from the massing army as possible. Dropping hand over fist, he soon felt safe enough to slow down and proceed more quietly, feeling for the double doors of the third floor. Hands searched the rough sides of the shaft as he dropped another body length. For one moment, he wondered if he’d descended on the wrong side, so much in haste had he been to be gone from the roof. But when his hand touched the smooth steel doors, he felt his heart stop hammering in his chest. Hooking his legs into the rungs, he loosened his arms and set about prying the doors open. A light crowbar from the pouch ensured that he lost no more time. Slipping the thin edge into a perishing rubber cushion, he soon had enough of a gap to slip in his fingers and force the doors back.
The sudden light made him squint. On the bare walls were the oil lamps, dimly lit so as not to waste resources. Or illuminate the interior of the fortress to the advantage of the Other outside.
The Other pursed his partially metalled lips in thought.
Gotta be careful here. They’ll be on the alert now…hopefully all looking out when they should be looking in….
Swinging around the right-hand door edge, the dark-haired man alighted on the third floor and immediately hauled the elevator doors shut as close as he could. The retractable cushions expanded to meet the gap. Sprinting across the corridor, he slipped into a closet that had once housed room service equipment. Along one wall remained some off-white towels and bed linen, stacked ceiling-high on wooden shelves. On the opposite wall were rows and rows of shoes. Ancient and modern, worn and new, they lay haphazardly in bundles according to size, waiting to be allocated to the commune dweller who had proved his worth and needed some form of foot cover.
The Other paced up and down the narrow walk space, searching the shelving for anything else of use. Under the left-hand shelf at the back were six dusty bottles of cleaning fluid.
There ain’t enough left to clean out this cesspool…and too much left lying around for my purposes. Too flammable.
He picked up the bottles and crept to the door. Opening the veneered wood a crack, he listened intently then risked poking his head out. An unknown protector was poised at the foot of the main staircase, gun in hand. He was watching the removal of Ledoc from the upper landing. A muffled voice called for assistance, and he disappeared up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Knowing he may not get a second chance, the Other hurried over to the elevator doors and pushed the bottles through the rubber cushions and into the shaft.
That should give them some confusing noises to think about. Won’t know whether I’m outside or inside, or what level I’m on.
Glancing to either side, he crossed over the hard carpeting, muddied and dirtied by hundreds of boots tramping over it, and slid back into the tiny room. As he passed the shelves of shoes, an old faded track shoe caught his eye. He hesitated, and picked up the odd shoe in his hand. It had been blue and white leather at one time, with padded sole and laces. The laces were long gone, the eyelets torn loose. Dirt and grime were ground into the smooth suede in oily patches.
Who’d have ever worn this…?
As he held it before him to scrutinize its lines, his brain suddenly rocked within his skull. Electrical jolts of pain rattled his sight and practically made him sick. The shoe fell through his fingers as he clamped down on any escaping whimpers of pain, but he wasn’t strong enough for this spasm. He sagged against the shelving and then pitched over onto the floor. For several seconds, he passed in and out of a pain-filled state of unconsciousness.
And for some strange reason, the Adidas shoe filled his mind with multiple images of running feet. Pounding over wet roads and concrete sidewalks, they ate up the distance in some kind of chase.
So close…so close…dear God, let me hang on…just a little more. Gotta make it…want to make it…make ’em all pay for this….
Lying on his side, face pressed to the roughly carpeted floor, the Other managed to pull himself onto his shaking legs by aid of the shelves. For long minutes, he rested head down against a stack of towels, waiting for the surging waves of agony to abate so he could continue. Shuddering with the effort, he managed to raise his pulsing head and focus on the door. Sweat beaded on his top lip, glistening on the silver strips. A stray tear ran from the corner of his good right eye.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed away from the support of the shelf and returned to his task, the shoe forgotten on the floor. From out of his pouch he pulled the smoke grenades and the incendiary device. Looking carefully about so as not to jar his head any more than need be, he selected a shelf of bed linen and wormed the device into the pile. Next, he double-checked for any flammable liquids or cans; he didn’t want the Plaza to burn too quickly. Satisfied that the closet would burn at a steady pace, causing ample amounts of choking smoke, he set the timer on the incendiary and moved through the door. He had five minutes to get into position.
Sneaking a sly look, he made certain that the coast was clear before he crept out. A thin trail of dark red blood told of Ledoc’s passing from the landing to the lower level. Following the weaving spirals along the corridor, the Other hugged the shadows of the walls as he turned a corner and found himself only yards away from the third floor gallery. The gallery ran around three sides of the interior of the building. Onto it led the bedrooms and one could look over the balustrade, down through the next floor and onto the first floor reception level. At the center back of the reception level was the first flight of the main stairs. A hugely ornate, sweeping staircase branched at the top to form the first floor gallery. The stairs became reduced in size after that, and proceeded to sweep around the main elevator shaft.
The Other edged furtively forward and peered down into the gloom of the reception area. Several protectors and Darnall Houndsworth, current Leader of the Commune, were clustered around the corpse of Ledoc. Listening carefully, the intruder could just make out what was being said….
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Haldane! The bastard’s inside already; or did Ledoc just shoot himself and McIver out of boredom!” Darnall Houndsworth was only a breath away from losing his temper. He glowered round at his so-called army of protectors with a coldness that froze any further comment.
The Leader of the Northern Sector Commune spoke the next words with a restrained tightness. “Now, you lousy cruds, start searching this place for him before he picks off any more of you. Show me that all the time and privilege spent on you so-called protectors is worth it!”
“But, sir, he’s crazy. He doesn’t give a damn for his own safety, he — ” Lewis tried to interrupt, but was cut short by a fist snatching at the slack of his shirt across his chest.
“He’s only one man, Lewis. I know because I had Selkirk rebuild him.” Face close to the paling protector, Houndsworth snarled out his next threat. “I don’t know what you’re worried about, Lewis, you need not fear mortality any more. Selkirk has already proved with the Other that he can rebuild a man.” He let go the quivering Lewis and took in the rest of the men.
“All of you can be maintained, no matter what your injuries. I’ll personally see to it.”
The change in voice did not sway anyone. Sweet-sugared tones do not disguise words that create nightmares in men’s minds. No one standing before Houndsworth wanted to end up the same as the Other.
Haldane swallowed sourly. He had his position to uphold, despite the apprehension that he felt. “One man can’t be that hard a task, I agree, sir, but if he isn’t inside, what if he’s still outside, enjoying the fact that we’re chasing our own tails? He coulda shot McIver and Ledoc from the slope at the back. Ledoc could’ve fallen down the stairwell.”
Several others nodded their support of that argument. No one liked the thought that two of their kind were already dead, and the perpetrator of the deed was inside their own stronghold.
Houndsworth sighed with false patience. “He’s here, I can sense it. He was the best Protector this Commune ever acquired — trained, I know, because Selkirk and I programmed him personally. We ensured that he would never give up on a job…a kind of foolproof design to his motivation make-up. He won’t be swayed from a mission simply because he can’t be, he’s programmed to continue, whatever happens to him.”
“You mean, he’s unstoppable?” Zuckerman inquired, his voice rising a little with dawning dread.
Houndsworth smiled proudly. “He was the perfect killing machine until the Champion of the Territory appeared.” His face clouded. “I still can’t understand why the Other didn’t kill him first. His performance up to then indicated that he was infallible…. Strange.”
Lewis and Zuckerman stared at the two corpses on the floor for a moment, then at each other and drew their guns as one. Glancing about, they both felt the sensation of being watched.
“Hey, Haldane, let’s move it, huh? Maybe he is inside already”
Haldane tore away from Houndsworth and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, come on. Let’s hunt the bastard out.” He caught the Leader’s eye for a second and a look of mutual doom passed between them. “After all, he’s only a single man programmed to fight to the death. Piece of cake…. And old Selkirk’ll sew your brains back in, on the house.”
Houndsworth bit back a reply, then found other words. “His death will reap you large rewards, I promise. I’ll be in the community hall with the people.” He made his way to the stairs and was more than half way up when he called back, “Report to me there, Haldane, when you or your men have been successful.”
Haldane and his men departed in small groups, knowing full well that what Houndsworth left unsaid was often far more dangerous. He’d omitted to remind them that if they failed to kill the Other, they would suffer a far worse fate: probably ex-commune life. Or perhaps Selkirk would be allowed to practice on them without restraint.
Death at the hands of the silvered man was preferable.
Up above, the object of their fear smiled smugly with twisted pleasure over the whole affair, and gripped the two smoke grenades more tightly. He would strike now, before they managed to get into any kind of position.
Pulling the canister tab, he rolled one into the bedroom behind him. No surprised sounds came from within.
So, the people are in the community hall, after all. Just right for a panicking riot to ensue…all jammed in there, together.
Drawing the door shut to a crack so the smoke could escape, he set the next grenade in the opposite bedroom. Creeping back to the center of the balcony balustrade, he waited for the smoke to billow out over the barrier, filling the ceiling with pale gray clouds. Behind him came the soft whoosh as the incendiary exploded into action, right on schedule.
Couple minutes and the place is going to be an inferno on the upper floors. Now to really stir things up….
Taking a deep breath, the Other stepped back out of view from the reception area and bellowed:
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
In seconds, his shrieks of warning had brought three protectors back into the reception area. They gaped up at the billowing smoke.
“Geez, he’s torched the joint!” Zuckerman raced away to raise the alarm properly.
Haldane swore bitterly and motioned his partner to get up the stairs and see how bad the fire was. “I’ll go to the hall and warn Houndsworth. Gotta get everyone outside. Damn! He’s gonna burn us out, probably pick us off with automatic fire as we leave. Shit!”
As the men ran from the reception area, the Other moved to the corner of the gallery and swung his legs over the edge of the balcony. Then, hanging by the arms, he managed to swing out, in and under the gallery, landing with a soft thud on the floor below. Eavesdropping, he heard Haldane approaching the huge conference hall, ready to warn the several hundred people therein. Renamed the community hall, it was here that Houndsworth and Selkirk ruled the Commune like feudal lords of old. Racing away in the opposite direction, the Other burst through a single door into the emergency stairs and began to leap down the flights with a maniacal speed. Landing heavily on the first floor level, he met a surprised youth coming through the swing door. The gold shield on his chest indicated he was a Commune Protector, but it was clear by his lack of years that he had never been an original policeman of the Time Before. However, he was much sharper than either McIver or Ledoc. As soon as he saw the Other, he tried to loose off a shot at the rogue Protector.
But not as sharp as the Other, who raised the silenced gun and shot the youth in the hands, effectively stopping him from pulling the trigger. Screaming in agony, the young man fell to the tiled floor, holding his injured hands to his chest and moaning. The Other kicked him aside, already forgotten. They knew he was inside now, so he might as well conserve ammunition for more worthy opponents.
The swing door scythed softly to a close behind him. The Other paused in the shadows, listening. Wary. He didn’t want to be caught now. He had too much to do. The noise in the upper levels told him that Houndsworth was trying to calm a populace that was bordering on the hysterical. When it came to fire, the hierarchy of command was dismissed in seconds and it became every man for himself. The dark red figure just hoped that one particular man would be thinking of himself and return to the basement level for his precious instruments of torture.
Sprinting with a slyness of silent passing, the Other made the distance between himself and the stairs to the basement level disappear in seconds. Behind the grand flight to the upper floors was a smaller, more serviceable flight of steps leading down into the darkness of Selkirk’s evil little world. Repressing a shudder of revulsion, the Other tiptoed softly down the first steel steps toward the chambers of perverted medicine. Out of the bowels of the Plaza he had clawed his way to some form of freedom, and he’d never expected to return.
This should be the last time for all of us…. I’ll never come here again…ever….
At the bottom of the stairs he peered into the gloom of the corridor. He knew the layout down here better than the rest of the Plaza because this had been his own special hellhole.
All the old memories of pain, terror, and misery came flooding back to him. Memories he had thought banished to his subconscious, never to return. Instead, they came pouring forth.
The stench of antiseptic…the obscene remolding of my flesh…the broken promises of my new eye…smell of my own blood, and the taste of their sweat dripping over me as they worked. Man into monster, born in the Plaza charnel house out of debased minds who called themselves men of healing. I damn them to hell for all eternity….
At the main examination room door, the Other hesitated, not wishing to go in. To return was to admit he was still an instrument in their scheme of things. He was not a free man; they still had the one final hold over him. But the desire for freedom and revenge can give men the last spurt of courage they require to achieve their needs. Checking a quiver of sick dread in his hands, he pushed open the door, ready to face his bête noire: Selkirk.
The room was empty. Dark and cold. The biting, chilling cold he’d lived with for years that was only a stone’s throw away from the temperatures needed for cryogenics. It was the way they had kept his torn and butchered body fresh.
Goosebumps rippled over his flesh, and the hairs on the back of his neck snaked slowly upwards. Boots treading carefully, the Other walked forward guilefully, checking the dark corners for any inhabitants.
The room was devoid of any being. The racks of strange instruments and the catafalque in the center of the room waited watchfully for their master. As though resentful of his intrusion, the atmosphere was vile.
Either I’m early, or the insane bastard’s slowing up in his sick, old age…. Still, he’s not going to be burdened with the cross of life for much longer…. I think I’ll wait.
Standing before the catafalque, he traced a hand over the smooth, marble surface so familiar to his naked flesh. So many agonizing hours tied down here. Using his left hand, the Other levered himself up and onto the slab and settled himself down in the darkness to wait.
He didn’t have long to wait. The sound of frantic footsteps and voices came to his sharp ears from the corridor beyond. The door opened and the deep golden glow of the wall lamps of the corridor silhouetted the shape of Doctor Selkirk.
“No, no, no. Go and get the drugs cases from the end storeroom now. The fire’s spreading; we may not get another chance. I’ll get the glass-case instruments from in here. We’ll come back for the rest if we get a chance. Go on, hurry!”
His deep, solid tones made the Other shudder in the darkness. How many times had he listened to the sweet caress of words from that man’s lips that couched endless lies? Too many times.
Selkirk swept into the room, eyes only for the glass cases on the left-hand wall that contained his medical tools of the New Medicine. Taking a light from a tiny firebox on a gray metal table, he lit the nearest wall lamp. The light pooled around him in pale orange. Dropping the taper and breathing in sharp rasps, he took down a wooden case from an old metal filing cabinet and made ready to fill it to the brim with his personal treasures. As he approached the glass doors, he had already begun to make a mental selection of what was to be taken and what was to be left from the vast collection, when he saw the reflection of the altar in the cabinet door.
Plainly visible was the still body of the Other laid out as it always had been. Neat, orderly, and perfect.
Only this time it was armored. And watching him.
The wooden case fell through his fingers and clattered to a standstill at his feet. The black man pivoted slowly, hardly daring to confront the reality — the reflection had been bad enough. Eyes wide with disbelief, the doctor fell back against the cabinet in shock.
“So, the rats are fleeing the sinking ship, eh, Selkirk? And the chief rat is packing his valuables.” The Other turned his hollow eye socket upon the trembling figure before him. Rising slowly, he came up on one leather elbow, rifle clicking out of his leg holster in the same movement. “I’m so glad I caught you before you left. I’d have hated to come all this way and find you were out.” He smiled cunningly, metal gleaming a reflection of his evil intent.
Selkirk tried to find words but failed miserably. His mouth opened and closed in stunned terror. He staggered forward a step or two and fell to his knees.
The rifle took a line on his forehead.
And the doctor managed to find his voice. It came as a strangled whisper from the back of his throat. “Holymotherofgod, don’t kill me — please.”
The Other raised an eyebrow with patent cynicism. “Why the hell not?” His words were a soft moderation of belied burning anger. “Why not, Selkirk? Why should you of all people be saved?” He swung his feet over the edge of the slab and slid to the floor. “I can’t think of one decent use for you.” His face hardened, brows scowling down.
“I, I…I….” Selkirk began to stammer as he saw his life’s essence being swallowed up by the power of the man before him.
“Yes, you could try and persuade me, but I don’t think it’ll do you much good. It would fall on deaf ears like my pleas did so many years ago.” The Other prodded the groveling man in the chest with the rifle barrel. “Remember that, Selkirk, remember my pleas for mercy? You should; any normal man would have been haunted by them. They would have touched his basic streak of humanity and he’d have stopped his evil practices.”
The barrel pushed deeper.
The Other’s lips turned down in a sneer. “But not you, Selkirk. You aren’t normal. Anyone who practices medicine like you do, creating monsters out of men, is a malignant cancer, feeding on the last remnants of mankind.” He shifted his weight to favor his right leg. “You must be burned out, Selkirk. Eradicated. You have no right to a human existence at all. You have taken away all my rights. Even my right to think freely.”
The last sentence made Selkirk glance up from the gun that was savagely poking into his sternum. His expression was enough to convict him as guilty.
“Yes, my good doctor, I know about the implant in my head. Jaeger told me, just before I blew off his skull.”
He pulled back on the trigger. Selkirk released a guttural cry and dived to the floor, burying his head in his hands. “Oh, God help me!”
“I don’t think He will, somehow. You aren’t His style.” The Other stepped back a little, his face pale. “But you will help me. Now.”
A leather-backed hand locked into Selkirk’s afro and dragged him up from the floor, onto his knees. Bending his head back, the Other hissed into his quivering face.
“Remove the jack, Selkirk, and I might kill you quickly.” His long features told of the truth behind his words. He was beyond reason, so bad was the pain in his head, coupled with the years of festering, hateful revenge. “Move quickly, or we’ll be burned to death before you can lift a scalpel.”
But the doctor wasn’t quite beaten yet. As long as the Other needed him, he could bargain his life out of this mess.
“So, you still need me, my creation?” Selkirk grinned malevolently, knowing how deep the words could wound.
“Don’t ever call me that, sucker! I’m still a man, despite your handiwork.”
Selkirk scrutinized the mildly feverish face that watched him like a hawk. “You’re a programmable protector and nothing more. I created you out of the wreckage of your flesh shortly after The End. Without me, you’d have died. I gave you life.”
The Other flung his nemesis away from him and stepped back. Anger swelled within him, blinding him to rationality.
“You gave me life? You gave me life? You don’t know the meaning of the word, you pervert!” Each word was enunciated with a stiffness of disbelief. “All you ever gave me was a living death of half-forgotten memories, gleaned from a past I have no chance of knowing while this jack rests like a parasite in my brain!” His torrid emotions made his voice rise. “But I am still a man — above all else, and I’ve already taken the step to be free of you and this Commune. I’m going to remain free, Selkirk. Free in movement and in thought, and this is where you come in. If you put the implant in, you can remove it. NOW!” The rifle wavered from the target as the words overcame the speaker.
Selkirk watched the color drain out of the thin features of the Other and the deep blue eye dulled slightly.
“You see, what you couldn’t control were the snatches of memory that I sometimes have.” The Other glared down at the doctor. “It has given me pieces of my fractured past, and out of those shreds I have found the guts to be rid of you and your kind. I have found an inner strength of determination to fight for what I now want. And that is something no malfunctioning implant is going to prevent.” Tears glistened on the pale silver cheeks and his voice became a little thicker and softer. “Unwittingly, Selkirk, you gave me the crack in the door to the other world…a decent world. You’re trapped here in a society of your own making, but I have found an escape route. You decided to pit me against the Champion and that was your first mistake, the jack was the second, and Jaeger’s loose tongue was the third. He told me everything.”
His uncontrollable rage stirred up the electrical charges in his brain to alarming proportions. The room began to tilt sideways. Selkirk licked his dry lips and remained absolutely still, waiting.
“And I’ll find the rest of it no matter how bad the agony, because I know an agony far worse. I’ve been living it all these years. I already made my first choice to leave and be free, and now I want my past. And I will succeed…no matter…what…the cost…I will….”
His one deep blue eye turned up in his head and he folded up into a neat heap of leather and dark curls on the floor. The rifle slid quietly from his fingers and lay under him.
Selkirk waited a moment, unsure. A faint whimper of pain escaped the half-parted lips of the Other. The doctor smiled thinly and collected his robe in his dark hands. Crawling over to the prone figure, he tried to pry the rifle out from under the dead weight of the Protector.
A cold gun snout nudged his temple, making him freeze in the act of stealing the weapon.
Wide lips came close to his ear and a voice said, “He wants you to take the metal out of his brain, not put some in.”
Selkirk twisted around slowly and came face to face with the mean features of the Champion. Frigid of eye and steady of hand, the Territory Protector stood like a demon from hell in a swirl of billowing smoke. His long plaits chimed a death toll warning, and Selkirk wriggled away as another fist of ice clutched his heart.
Incredulity held back his terror momentarily, and he managed to ask a question. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The Champion stared balefully at the cowering doctor, then glanced at the seemingly small man on the floor. “I’m his escape route to the decent life.” The customized Magnum pointed toward the black man menacingly. “But first you’re going to show me what a paragon of medical ethics you really are.” His features were flinty. “Remove that implant.” His eyebrows rose, giving him a ‘don’t-doubt-my-word’ expression. “Because if you don’t, I’m gonna kill you myself, and I don’t have his compassionate streak.”
Selkirk didn’t need telling twice. He had no control over the Champion, no one did, only the Owners, or so he thought. He stumbled to his feet and found that the air was thicker with smoke than it had been five minutes ago.
“The fire, we haven’t enough t — ” Self-preservation made the doctor try one last tack to make an escape route for himself.
“You’ll have all the time eternity can offer if you don’t start working fast.” The Champion prodded him forward toward the Other. “Pick him up and get started.”
Straining under the weight and fighting muscles weakened from shock, Selkirk managed to haul the Other onto the altar slab. When he’d finished, he was perspiring heavily and gasping on the impure air.
“We haven’t time, I tell you,” Selkirk implored as he made his way to the glass cabinet.
“Then hurry,” came the cool reply.
The Champion kept an eye on Selkirk while he moved over to the body of the Other. He risked a quick look at the unconscious man, whose breathing now seemed steadier than on the floor and a little of his color was returning. The skin around the edges of the inlaid metal didn’t look quite so pink. His forehead was slick with sweat, damp curls were held there by the moisture.
Things are gonna be different around here. We’re gonna start getting a few of the things that we want…no more bought and used men…I promise.
Selkirk came back from the cabinet with a strange needle-like object in his hand. A sudden sound from above made them both look up. Stampeding feet thundered overhead as the Commune dwellers fled the smoke and flames of the upper levels. Gadget in hand, Selkirk looked nervously to the door. Escape was clearly written on his cowardly face.
“Shift your butt, Doctor,” snarled the blond.
Hesitating, Selkirk weighed the medical tool in his hand. “If I drop this, it’ll break, and your friend here’ll suffer to the end of his days.” His eyes slid from the Other back to the Champion. “My hands are shaking now.”
“You have three seconds to decide whether you want to live or die, and then I’m gonna start bleeding your guts all over the floor.” He clicked the heavy hammer back on the Magnum. “One, two — ”
Selkirk hastened forward. The Territory man didn’t have the insane streak of the Other; his word was more compelling by its even note of truth.
“You’ll have to hold his head.” His voice cut in on the count, frantically. “I can’t do it if he moves….”
Mouth framed to say “three,” the Champion paused, licked his lips and released the Magnum from the handlock with a twist. Slowly, he laid the huge, rebuilt gun beside the head of dark, tangled curls. Green-gauntleted hands gently turned the head straight and then held it securely between jaw and temple.
Selkirk wiped a bead of sweat from his upper lip and took a deep breath to steady himself. Adjusting a tiny dial on the base of the double-filament needle, the doctor reset the wattage to ensure that the resultant heat would be sufficient to melt the receiver in the split second of its operation.
Wiping his clammy hands on his robe, he made ready to insert the fine filament needle into the implant. The deafening roar of falling timbers came to their ears as parts of the upper gallery collapsed into the reception area. Selkirk jumped and edged away from the unconscious man.
Writhing in agony, the Other squirmed under the firm hold of the Champion. The pain that had brought him to his knees would soon be bringing him around.
The Champion fixed the black man with a penetrating look of enmity. “Don’t stop, Selkirk — I haven’t counted to three yet.”
Stepping up to the altar-head again, the doctor raised the instrument and parted the thick mass of curly hair. Inserting the thin metal loop, his breath caught in his throat with the thickening smoke. His eyes watered as he fought back a choking cough.
“Don’t even breathe heavy, punk, because if you bungle the next moment, you’re a dead man.” The Champion tensed for the next move, unsure of the nature of the device in the doctor’s hands.
Selkirk turned a superior expression on the executioner. “Champion, if I bungle the next moment he could be a dead man — and you’d have nothing.” He smiled. “And I’d die with the satisfaction of knowing that you’d both lost.”
“No man wants to die.” The double-talk was wasting precious time. Any moment, Selkirk’s medical team could arrive to save more of the equipment.
Selkirk deferred to the truth. “True,” he murmured, preferring to cut his losses and possibly yet get away with his life.
Inserting the filament again, he pushed until it was completely enhoused by the implant. A bead of sweat dripped down the doctor’s nose and onto the glove of the Champion. “Now hold him real steady or I’ll damage his brain permanently.”
Eyes riveted to the features of the Other, the Champion waited for a telltale sign of release. Selkirk depressed the trigger, a split-second hum was heard, and then he retrieved the instrument from the implant. He stepped away from the catafalque, hands held wide. “That’s it, he’s free.” He gulped nervously, wondering if the Champion would kill him now.
The Territory Protector stood upright from his bent position over the head of the Other. “He doesn’t look any different. He didn’t show a sign or anything.” Warily, he turned on the doctor.
“Then it went okay. If he’d screamed or something, I’d have ‘bungled’ the job, as you put it.” Selkirk loosened his robes slightly as the extreme heat began to take effect.
The Champion watched the slack body of the unconscious man. Suddenly the wine leather-stripped chest heaved a deep sigh and his eye shifted rapidly under the lid. Plainly, the Other would soon be conscious. Capitalizing on the Champion’s distracted attention, Selkirk edged over to the wooden case. Facing his adversary, he bent over and began to grope for the handle. His hand had barely alighted on the case when the Champion flicked his gun at the doctor’s chest.
“You’re not leaving here with any of your instruments of degenerate medicine, Selkirk.” The Champion indicated the Other with a look. “You won’t be doing this kind of handiwork on anyone else.”
“But, I — it’s my life’s work — it’s….” Hands raised in supplication toward the Champion, he stepped forward. “I can’t survive outside a commune without them…. I’ve no other use, man.”
“Learn something new.”
“I can’t.”
“Tough.” The Champion motioned with the Magnum for him to leave. “Get out! Get out before I kill you.”
“But — ” Argument was useless. More sounds of the first gallery crashing down filled the already choking air, and Selkirk thought it wise to retreat. Dropping the case, he ran for the exit. As he pulled the heavy-duty door open, a whooshing ball of searing white flame bowled into the room, engulfing Selkirk in a ball of living fire.
His death cries stopped abruptly as the fire burned him to a blackened heap of charred flesh. The Champion staggered back under the onslaught of intense heat, then re-approached the altar. Holstering his Magnum, he violently shook the Other. The pale features stirred, then screwed up into a mask of agony as the thick, billowing smoke clouded into the room and starved him of pure air.
A dazed eye flickered open, a desperate gleam of fear caught there. He felt the cold press of marble under his shoulders and believed, in his semiconscious state, that his ideals of freedom had been nothing but dreams to barricade himself behind from the crushing reality of falling foul of Selkirk’s team again.
Oh, God, no! Get away from me, get away, no more pain, no more, nomore, nomore. Leave me alone! Then words formed in his dry throat and burst forth in aching anguish. “NO! NO! Get away, leave me alone — leave me alone! Leave m — ” His arms came up to defend his overly abused body. They punched, then gripped tightly the green leather shoulders.
The tall blond held him still until reason returned to the Other’s distraught features.
A searching look of surprise and then understanding of, at least, the present passed between them. The Champion released his muscle-cramping hold on the fighting man and stepped back. Hacking in spasms, the dark-haired man rolled over the edge of the plinth and onto his knees on the floor. Closer to the ground the air was less heavy. He stretched out and grabbed his rifle.
“Take some deep breaths and then get on your feet — We’re gonna run for it, and it’s gonna be hotter ‘n hell up above.” The Champion hooked an arm under the Other’s left armpit and dragged him toward the door.
Eyes smarting with smoke and still unfocused with semi-consciousness, the Other failed to recognize the cremated remains of Selkirk in the doorway. The smell was stomach turning. Instead, he hung onto the broad shoulders of the Champion.
“How did you get here?” The words wheezed through his metalled lips. “Where’s Selkirk?” He bent double and coughed uncontrollably. The Other straightened marginally, face over-strained, chest heaving with the effort of drawing breath.
The Champion steered him past the corpse and through the door. “The front door was open so I walked straight in, and as for the good Doctor Selkirk, well, he got a little overheated and is no longer with us.”
Out in the corridor the ceiling was alight and threatening to collapse. The Champion hurled the Other ahead of him, directing him through the blazing inferno. At the foot of the stairs he latched a tight hold onto the still-bewildered man and took the steps two at a time.
In the reception area the furnishings were well alight. Flames of violent orange and yellow devoured wood and fabric like locusts in a cornfield. In seconds, whole objects were turned to crisp heaps of ash. The stinging heat scorched their flesh as they fled over fallen timbers for the open double doors. Heads bent low against the licking flames about the door posts, the two ex-commune Protectors leaped through the smoke and fire for the crumbling steps and the cool night air.
Outside, the Plaza was a flaming torch on the deep night horizon. In minutes, it had fallen from the pantheon of powerful communes to a rampant beacon of leaping fire. The low, roaring notes of the blazing building drowned out any audible conversation among the Commune dwellers who had stayed to watch. Solemn-faced, they witnessed their fortress disintegrate before their eyes. Smudged with soot and still coughing on the clouds of thick smoke, they stared, overwhelmed by the sudden uncontrollable end of their privileged lives. An era of complacent greed and butchery was coming to an end. Cleansed out by fire, the Northern Sector Plaza was finished as a commune of power and fear. Its precious resources were at this very moment being consumed in a funeral pyre. Food supplies, clothes, weapons, and the electric generators. All would be burned and warped beyond recognition — beyond use.
Darnall Houndsworth watched in silent shock as his power slid away in a spiraling funnel of smoke. He was dirt-streaked, burned, and disheveled, having only just managed to get away down the main stairs before the upper gallery had collapsed. Shaking, he covered his eyes, trying to shut out the horrible conflagration. They would never be able to rebuild. He had worked swiftly in the early days after The End and, before other groups could become organized, he had built up the Northern Sector into his own empire. He had realized that those poor wretches who were left would need — want a leader to guide them through the trauma of an erased society. Out of the ruins of Los Angeles, Houndsworth had elected himself leader of this sector and manipulated anyone and everyone to conform to his bizarre ideals. If they wanted to survive, they had to be seen to be at one with the Commune. The ever-present threat of Commune excommunication kept the people in line and ready to do his bidding.
His acquisition of the Other had been his ace card. Coupled with a faith in Selkirk’s abilities, he had used the policeman to better his own ends. In a few short months, Houndsworth had planned to move against the Territory. If only he’d managed to kill or recruit the Champion, maybe none of this would have happened. He should never have sent Jaeger and Marcino…never.
The people were moving about in small groups, confused and unsure of what to do next. A few looked toward their Leader for direction, but he had no words to offer. From the darkness beyond the flames of the fire came the interested sounds of the mutants. Lured out of their holes, they had crept forward on nerves of curiosity. As soon as they saw the unprotected wandering beings, they felt a mutual rise of revenge fill their simple minds. There were so many to go around. Tonight they wouldn’t need to fight among themselves.
A howling chant echoed out of the darkness. Commune dwellers about-faced from the fire and peered into the night. They looked worriedly at Houndsworth and the few remaining protectors who stood close by or were slumped to the ground, panting, after failing to save any of the weaponry except the few pieces held in their blistered hands.
Suddenly, a voice among the small crowd called out in surprise.
“Look, look! On the Plaza steps.”
Heads turned curiously, faces pale and harrowed.
Out of the billowing smoke and flames stepped two men who chilled the onlookers to the core despite the sweltering heat.
Houndsworth dropped his hands and looked, too.
The Other and the Champion stood motionless on the steps and took in the scene of aghast people before them. Hands on his broad hips, the Champion stepped down to a lower tread and scrutinized the grimy audience. His suit was still smoldering from the close proximity of the fire, and his face was wild exhilaration. His ceremonial braids sang with triumph.
The thrill of success gave him speed, and he aimed the Magnum before they could draw a second breath. A shower of orange sparks cascaded from an upper level over both men’s shoulders. The Other held the rifle casually at waist height and trotted down beside the awe-inspiring man.
“I am the Champion, and this Commune is finished!” The Champion spoke loudly and clearly above the din of the fire. “This is the first warning to you people. If you have your lives, be thankful; if you want your freedom, run.”
“Or we shall surely kill you.” The Other finished the thought aloud, his eyes trained directly on the Leader.
No one moved, unsure of where to run. They stared at each other and then away into the night.
Houndsworth stepped forward, his face red with the glow of the fire and his own burning anger. In the space of fifteen minutes, the two Protectors on the steps had reduced him to nothing.
“This is my Commune. My Commune! No two bits of shit are going to give orders here!” He pointed accusingly, voice rising to hysterical proportions. “You two motherfucking bastards just died!! Kill them! Kill them! KILL THEM!”
Eyes bulging with madness and hate, Darnall Houndsworth screamed in a spray of yellow spittle, his face quivering in rage.
The Other fired a single round. The bullet tore into Houndsworth’s head, leaving a dark red caste mark.
“You had your chance, which is more than you ever gave me.” The words were spoken with a finality by the Other that only touched upon the vast sense of relief he felt as the evil man lay dead in the dirt.
Haldane and his men had barely had time to draw breath. Now they sat or stood unflinching, rooted by shock and the speed of events; then they turned and fled.
No one else needed a second reminder. Screaming, panicking people scrambled away into the night. They disappeared in moments. No more Commune dwellers, no more Plaza, no more protectors, and no more Darnall Houndsworth.
Crackling and spitting in its death throes, the sounds of the raging fire took over from the last retreating footsteps. Silhouetted against the wall of orange fire, the Northern Sector Protector tiredly closed his eyes. He had wreaked his revenge.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Running side by side in the night, two armored figures of dark shadows tried to get as much distance between themselves and the smoldering Plaza as possible. The smaller of the two, clad in dark red armor, had developed a limp four blocks back and was slowing the speed of the blond. Finally, he pulled to a halt in the rotting doorway of an old delicatessen and leaned, panting, against the wooden frame.
The Champion had trotted on a few paces, unaware that the Other’s difficulty was so severe. He skidded to a halt and retraced his steps, peering into the gloom of the store entrance.
“What’s wrong?” He wasn’t used to walking or running with anyone by his side. He felt his personal space threatened and hampered, and yet he had a strange feeling that at one time he’d been so used to this, with this man, that they had been like each other’s shadows.
The Other lifted his head from his examination of his wounded leg. He looked apprehensive about sharing a weakness with the newly acquired ally. One learned the rules of survival hard and fast, and not telling another of your weaknesses was one of them. But the Champion seemed genuinely concerned. For a second, the deep line between his eyes smoothed out and he held an unusual look of compassion in his eyes — very similar to the look that had passed between them down under the Plaza.
The Other did not know how to accept and deal with this kind of attitude. He’d lived for years on scathing sneers and glances of pity. He didn’t want to be suckered in by kindness.
“Nothing — I hurt my leg a little in the Plaza. It’ll be — ” He tried to dismiss the nagging ache in his thigh as if it were nothing.
The Champion bent down, not fooled for a moment. “Let me see.”
“No — ” The Other tried to brush aside his assistance, but the squatting man was already pulling at the leather suit covering the tender thigh. He winced in pain as the Territory man poked a little too roughly.
“That ‘nothing’ looks to be a stab wound of some kind.” The Champion looked up, blue eyes full of questions.
The Other tried to shove him away. Rubbing his leg, he stepped back into the street.
“I got careless at a scrap yard. My own fault, a mutant with one of them slingshot gizmos stabbed me with broken glass.”
“When?” The Champion fell into irregular step beside him.
The street they were walking down was an area unknown to both of them. Many of the buildings were hollow ruins, two or three stories high. Unlike the open, flat wastes of their own sectors, facades threw deep shadows over the uneven road surface. But strangely, there had been no sign of mutants in this area.
“Last night…after I left you.” His face turned to watch the buildings on his right; the Other hoped the Champion was watching those on his left.
“Well, you can’t walk on that forever without it needing some kind of attention. It’ll get infected.” Disease of any kind gave the Champion the crawling shivers, as he remembered a time years ago when disease had very nearly killed him.
An unfamiliar tension tightened up the Other’s shoulders. “Why should you worry? It’s my leg.” His words were sharp and spoken without thought. He had guarded himself behind bitter sentences for years; he wasn’t about to let his guard down to this near-stranger so easily.
What makes you so interested in me, all of a sudden? Why the hell did you come to the Plaza — it’s hardly on your patrol route…though I confess I needed the help…. And why are you still here now?
“I once strapped up your leg before.” The Champion spoke the words quietly, hardly daring to hear them himself.
The Other walked away from him a couple of paces, a chill creeping up his spine. He kept his face turned away from the blond, not wanting to hear any more. After the action and pain of the Plaza, he wasn’t ready for the next onslaught to his already overwrought mind.
“It was in a barn — you got shot in the leg.” The Champion found that his heartbeat had increased noticeably. Show me a sign that you remember…please. I’m sure that’s why you came to me in the warehouse…. Why you hesitated in the sewer….
The Other shrugged his shoulders and glanced back as if bored by the waste of time. It was risky to stand still too long on a street. “I don’t think I ever met you before the night in the sewer.” He turned away to their left and limped into an alley of strewn bricks.
Heart sinking into his boots, the Champion followed after him. Maybe he doesn’t remember; maybe he never will. He’s not the man who was once my partner…. Then again, I’m not the man who was once a Los Angeles cop.
Hobbling over the rough bricks, the Other tried to set a fast pace, but it was obvious that his leg was paining him. Behind him came the even tread of the Territory Protector.
“You’re following me.” Dark hair an unruly tangle, the Other turned to face the Champion in the alley. The Champion nodded. “I work alone.” He raised his chin defiantly, almost in challenge.
“You didn’t use to.” The Champion moved closer, all the better that the Other should see him. “We used to be partners — ” The words caught in his throat, unfamiliar and unused for so long. ” — before The End.” His blue eyes tried to stare into the Other’s mind and read his thoughts.
The silvered face suddenly wrinkled up into the shape of a smile. The Other shook his head. “I don’t think so. I would’ve remembered you.” Stepping over a bundle of newspapers, he resumed his trudge up the alley.
The Champion felt as though he’d just been kicked in the guts. Bastard’s not even trying to remember! Why doesn’t he try?
“You couldn’t walk on your leg then, like now.” He’d been needling and suggesting ideas meant to spark some form of recognition in the Other for the past three blocks. Up to now he’d struck out dismally. He was going to persist until he got a satisfactory answer. Hastening after the other Protector, he caught up with him at the corner of the alley. Together, they searched the next ramshackle street, ensuring that there weren’t any roving packs of mutants.
At the end of the street, half embedded in the front of a cinema, was a crashed airliner. Probably a 727, its white fuselage had been pitted and scratched over the years, and its wings had been ripped free for use elsewhere. Broken-backed, it lay trapped in the dirt and rubble, a cylinder of rusting metal. The two men stared at it in interest; they hadn’t seen an airplane in years.
“Look at that,” breathed the Other in awe. “There’s enough metal there to keep a commune going for months — just think how much that’s worth.”
The Champion edged cautiously over the sidewalk onto the tarmac and headed toward the plane.
The Other made to follow, but his leg threatened to give out under him. He slumped against the wall, teeth biting into his lower lip with pain and frustration.
“Shit! I get myself free and I can’t run anywhere.” He glowered at the back of the Champion, who turned around when he heard the volatile words.
“Told you, you couldn’t walk.” He crossed the sidewalk again and stood before the seething man. “Perhaps you remember now.”
As the man looked down at him, the Other felt a strange sensation well up within him. He caught a distant memory of a tall blond bending over him when he’d slumped against a wall. His eye betrayed the unexpected image and it clouded over with hopeless fear. No, not my leg…it was another time…on a cold, dark rooftop. I felt sick and tired and dizzy…and frightened…very frightened.
The Champion held out a hand in an attempt to communicate physically with the inner mind of his old partner. Eye wide with surprise, the Other brushed the hand away and pulled himself upright. He tried to hide his guilty expression behind a transparent bluster of anger.
“Get off me! I don’t remember anything.” He hung onto the wall and found he could manage a few steps unaided.
The blond watched him go. Don’t cheat me, you crummy bastard. You do too remember. I can tell. Though why you won’t admit it….
Abruptly, the Other spun around, his face nothing but anguish. Tonight was affecting him in ways he had not felt for so long. The end of the Plaza, the death of Houndsworth, and his freedom from the implant and the evil Selkirk had very nearly wrung him out. Now his old enemy was before him, holding out his hand in friendship — and walking beside him. To where?
Too much has happened. I don’t need this now. Leave me alone. I need time…time to think and sort myself out.
His voice took on a desperate note of being pushed beyond his emotional capabilities. “I don’t know who you are. I warned you because I felt I had to…. You saved my life twice.”
Why? We’re deadly enemies. Why did you come back for me in the alley of the warehouses?
“Why did you follow me to the Plaza? Because we used to ‘work’ together?” Because we used to be ‘partners’? “We never worked together as Protectors in a commune, and I can’t remember the Time Before. I just don’t know.”
I want to believe you, but I can’t. I can’t let my guard down so easily and accept all you say.
“You’re still the Territory Protector and you must protect your Commune from the likes of me. It’s kill or be killed in this stinking world. Well, I’m ex-commune, fair game to be picked off by all and sundry. And then you appear out of the blue. You help me, save my life…and all I can remember right at this minute is that you once killed me. Six Magnum slugs right through the chest. That’s what I remember. You wanted me dead!”
The Other watched the words bite into the Champion with a knowing satisfaction that they caused him pain. He wanted to lash out and hurt. He was suddenly free and ex-commune — all that he had ever wanted. He even had the Champion before him, probably holding all his answers, and all he could remember was that the blond had killed him once, down a stinking sewer in the night.
“You tried to kill me once, on an Hawaiian island — I figure we’re even now.” The Champion spoke calmly, still reeling from the sudden outburst of the Other.
Opening his mouth to reply, the Other failed to find suitable words; instead he compressed his lips sourly, mulling over the other’s last short speech. Finally, he mumbled, “That’s an easy way out — I don’t remember, so who knows what’s truth and what’s lies.” Brows furrowed in puzzlement, he continued in less harsh tones. “Don’t you think I want to remember? It’s haunted me since the sewer…since the Magnum slugs.” He scanned the street suspiciously. “But I don’t trust you. I’ve been betrayed by promises of kindness and friendship before. Selkirk and Houndsworth could talk in honeyed words.” He fingered the gun in its holster on his left leg, suddenly becoming efficient again. “Hey, it’s too quiet around here. I don’t like it.”
The Champion also glanced about him, but his mind was preoccupied with other, more pressing matters. I’ve got to make him understand now or he could disappear on me again…before I can convince him, and I may not be so lucky at finding him again. Third time lucky isn’t always true.
Searching for the right words to bridge the growing gulf between them, he played a card he thought unnecessary. It would leave him as defenseless as the Other.
“Would it convince you of my sincerity if I told you I’ve just left my Commune? I am no longer Territory Protector.” Try as he might, he could not keep the catch of hopelessness out of his voice.
The Other eyed him with cautious appraisal. His enemy looked worried and careworn. His leather suit was charred and blackened, his golden hair dulled by the smoke and soot. Could be true…could be…he looks desperate and unsure for the first time. Maybe…but why? He had everything there. He seemed content and self-assured when we talked in the warehouse. No Commune backing — he’s in as big a mess as me. But this freedom is what I wanted…. Did you want it, too? Or did I sow the first seeds of discontent?
The Champion took a step further forward. “I chose to be free like you. I don’t want to go back…but if you won’t listen to me, it’s my only alternative.” His shoulders dropped fractionally. “I don’t want freedom on my own…”
The Other raised his head thoughtfully, weighing up the words, then he sneered knowingly. “Very good. Very good indeed. Just the right amount of emotion in the voice — most unlike you, I bet. But it doesn’t jell with me, smart mouth. If you want freedom, go and get it with both hands, like I did. I’m not going to nursemaid you along.” He turned away on that final point. But he had to have a parting shot. “As for my memory, that’s my affair now. I don’t remember you…for that matter, I’m not even sure who I am.”
Crossing the street, he limped away into the shadows of the building opposite, a smoky figure of metal and bruises, cuts and scratches. He was walking out of the Champion’s life because he wanted to, because he couldn’t handle any more at present.
The Champion watched him go. You think you’re free, huh, do you? Well, no man is an island, least of all you. I remember the look in your eye down in the sewer…the way you watched me drink at the bar, and I’ve learned enough cruel ways of holding a man in this rotten, unfair world, that can more than match your stoic, martyred air!
A meanness born out of frustration and desperate need made the Champion run after the departing Other. Several feet away he stopped and spoke with an even levelness.
“Hutch…one simple word and when you spoke it, I felt complete.” A green-clad hand gripped the gun in the holster with pent-up suspense. “Remember?” Remember, please remember…for both of us. Don’t shut me out, please, don’t go, please, please…
Soft leather ankle boots scuffed uncertainly in the dirt. “Hutch…?” He tested the word in his mouth. It seemed strange and yet comfortable. “Hutch…?”
“Yes, Hutch.” Holding the trembling shoulders, the blond turned the smaller man around. “I am your partner, if you’ll have me. I promise I won’t leave you again.”
Face downcast, the Other could not meet the bright blue eyes of the Champion. I can’t take another lie, another lifetime of wasted hope. Finding the courage to raise his head took his last reserves of strength. He saw in the eyes of the Champion the betrayal of all the man’s inner desires and honesty. They bore into the Other as if trying to heal the forgotten years in seconds.
Tearing himself away from the almost hypnotic look, the Other shook his head, face a mass of worry and uncertainty. “But I don’t remember like you do. I’m just not sure.” He spoke tiredly; the effort of resisting the persistent Champion was wearing down his defenses. “I so want to believe — to be sure. Give me time. Give me a little more time. My thoughts have been controlled for so long, I don’t know what’s me and what’s left of Selkirk.”
“I’ll give you all the time you need. Just accept the fact that we once were, and can be again — partners.” The Champion let his hands drop down to his sides as relief gave him a new confidence. “All you have to do is let me walk beside you, like we used to.” He wet his suddenly dry lips and waited for the reply.
The Other squeezed his newly bleeding leg as a twinge distracted him. Eye unfocused, he stared away into the dark depths of the shadows. Black pits in the night, just like his mind. Full of empty, black spaces that had once been his memory. And under his heart, long ago put aside and forgotten, was a dull ache that went too deep into his soul to be fully understood. It had been cut into him on the night of The End, and this wound had never healed but laid — an open, gaping hole of forlorn misery. It ached now — so badly he shook with the unfamiliar emotion.
It was the feeling of mourning. Gray days, months, years of loss came surging forth with that one spoken word: Hutch.
He thought he’d forgotten it all, but he hadn’t.
Hutch…Hutch…so familiar yet gone forever…never came and looked…never came. All the years, the wasted time…and so lonely…lost and all alone…just empty and no hope. Made me give up…I had no reason to go on…my interest evaporated and I let them take me, use me, bind me to them in ways too terrible to tell you. And they changed my soul and I forgot you. I forgot you and I cannot get the memory back.
He looked the Champion sadly in the eyes. “I remember the name but the man is gone. I don’t know whether you’re lying or not, but the streets are free to any who have the courage to walk them. It isn’t for me to say where you can walk.”
The Champion knew that for the moment it was the best that the Other could do. He looked weary and beaten. Face too pale, flesh pink about the metal. The strain was beginning to tell.
The two men stood facing each other in the moonlit street. Both battle-scarred and emotionally bruised, neither wanted to suggest the next move.
A faint, soft patter at the corner of the alley caused a look of instant warning to pass between them. No sudden moves, they eased around a little so both had a clear view of the street they had just crossed.
Dull concrete and brick offices and storefronts stood silently before them. For the first time they both noticed the sharp wind that caught the dust and spiraled it into corners of doorways and piles of refuse. All seemed the same as it had been moments earlier, but training told the two Protectors that the area had changed. Significantly.
Searching every shadow and entrance, the Other strained for some telltale movement. A nervous hand on a gun. The faint gasp for breath.
Nothing. No movement. But something was there.
Setting his jaw, the Other whispered, “Mutants or Houndsworth’s men?” He risked a quick glance at the blond.
Plaits swaying tensely over his back, the Champion had taken a smooth step forward. He swallowed slowly and raised his face to the night air and sniffed. His senses were no longer artificially heightened, but he trusted in his routine.
The air was cool and sharp. He filled his lungs again and found the first trace of something unclean and alien. Fetid and stale, it caught in his nostrils and made the adrenalin pump a little quicker through his veins.
The Other could tell by the Territory Protector’s face of disgust that he had recognized a presence. He was about to murmur another question when he saw a minuscule movement at the end of the alley.
With practiced control, he eased the rifle out of the spring holster on his leg and raised it to his shoulder.
The Champion withdrew the Magnum, metal sliding smoothly over leather. The gun butt found its home in the palm of his green gauntlet.
From out of the alley trotted a dog. It was black and lean with shining eyes of scarlet. It walked to the center of the street and stared at the men.
The Other was about to lower the rifle, it was only a lone dog, when another black hound edged out of the alley. Its red eyes flashed excitedly while its tail thrashed from side to side in short, jerky movements. Strong-limbed, it padded toward the other dog and stopped a short distance behind.
No sooner had it paused to settle itself than further sounds came from the alleyway. This time three dogs leaped out; dust flew from their paws as they joined their confederates. Ruby-red eyes watched with acute penetration.
The Champion and the Other were stock-still.
The lead dog raised its head and howled a chilling whine that made the men wince at the sharp note. Ears pricking up, the pack shifted uneasily and began an accompanying throaty growl of menace.
“What the — ?” the Other began as four more animals trotted forth from a smashed storefront opposite the alley mouth. Falling into formation alongside the other dogs, they padded around to face the two men, taking up the low-pitched growl.
The Other clicked back the hammer of his weapon. The dogs fell silent. The noise caused the pack to bare their teeth as one. Sharp fangs of glistening enamel, they dripped saliva into the gray dust.
The Champion glanced behind him, searching for somewhere safe to run. Somewhere with a solid door.
There didn’t seem to be anywhere. The glass storefronts were smashed, open to the wind. The cinema entrance was blocked by the nose of the plane.
The blond’s brow furrowed under the golden headband. The plane? We could just make it. Have to run fast…wonder if his leg’ll make it?
It was a long hundred-meter dash. Three hundred for the dogs.
Face close to his gunstock, the Other risked a glance away from the pack of slavering hounds to note the Champion’s indicated escape route. Don’t fold on me, leg. I used to be able to run the hundred meters like the devil was after me.
The leader of the pack bayed again, exciting the hounds into a crazed frenzy. The desire for a kill was in every eye. Hunger. Muscles in hind legs contracted, pulling their backs down into tense crouches. Poised to spring forward, the quivering dogs snarled wolfishly and changed the low-pitched howl into a whine of blood lust. They leapt forward like a minor explosion.
“Run!” yelled the Champion, emptying his Magnum into the released onslaught of animal flesh. Two dogs fell as though pole-axed.
The Other fired off a shot, bringing down the leading hound, then he turned and fled.
Reloading as he ran, the Champion twisted back to discharge another volley of slugs. They tore into the next leader dog, pulping the animal’s muzzle into a plethora of teeth and blood.
Screaming into the night, the remains of the pack pounded up the street, closing in on the escaping men. Shining, mangy-fleshed beasts from hell, they snapped their wet jaws. Meat was their desire and hunger spurred them on.
Up ahead, the Champion found that he was leaving the Other behind. The dark-haired man’s body hurtled after him, but his leg just didn’t have the same strength. The dogs were pressing at his heels, wild and rampant; any moment they would have him. Long fangs would sink into his throat and he’d be dead in seconds.
Barking in furious triumph, the faster dogs stretched ahead of the remains of the pack, easily outstripping the older ones. Two powerhouses of teeth and claws, they sprang for the back of the already turning Other.
Left elbow into the ribs of the first dog, the Other levered it up and over his head. It fell winded behind him, dark pink tongue hanging loosely out of its gaping mouth. But the second dog sank its teeth into the flesh of his upper right arm and held on.
Crying in agony, the struggling man dropped his rifle, useless in close combat, and reached for his knife. The sheer squirming weight of the dog pulled him to the ground and prevented him from pulling the blade.
The Champion anchored his feet into the roadway and, mastering his fear, he coolly squeezed on the Magnum trigger again. It was as accurate as ever, blowing another hound’s side out. The sudden depletion of numbers and the pungent smell of death and cordite made the remaining two dogs hesitate. They’d just witnessed the swift butchering of their pack; no one had ever hurt them before. Ravenous hunger gave them a second courage. Rounding on the man with the deadly gun, they stopped calculatingly and split away from each other — all the better to attack the man from either side.
Watching the dogs’ every move, the Champion risked a quick glance at the Other. The dog was dragging him roughly about the ground, teeth still locked solid on the arm. Already, the combat suit was wet with blood. Behind his head, the winded beast was rolling its red eyes and struggling to regain its feet.
Time was running out. If the dog got up and attacked the injured man while he was on the ground, he’d be dead meat. They’d rip him to pieces.
Making a snap decision, the Champion picked off the dog between him and the plane with a roar of his Magnum. Whipping out his long, barbed knife, he confronted the dog springing from behind him. As the hound took off, the Champion dropped to one knee, reduced the angle, and stabbed the dog up and under its sternum. The sudden dead weight bore both of them to the ground. Heaving away the carcass, he wrenched free the knife, suffering the hot splatter of blood as he withdrew the blade and scrambled to his feet. Breathing heavily, he set off for the other Protector.
The Other had somehow climbed to one knee. He beat at the chewing dog in a frenzy of blows in an effort to shake it free. Face screwed up in fear and agony, he fought blindly, grunts of pain escaping his lips.
The Champion covered the ground between them like lightning. Hooking his fingers into the corded muscles of the jaws of the savaging dog, he forced its sickeningly tight bite loose while using the knife one-handed to defend himself from the assault of the other surviving hound. Instantly, blood welled from the tears in the Other’s flesh. He cried out in pain as the hound released him and he wriggled away from the wild animal and the blond, over the dust.
The Champion held the knife out before him, covering one dog and then the other. Backing around, he stood over the ashen-faced Other. The two remaining dogs edged closer together, eyes bright with hate. Snapping its jaws, the larger dog’s teeth glistened wet and red from the Other’s blood. Barking in madness, they pressed the Champion back, heads snaking forward, ready to anchor themselves into his tasty flesh at the next opportunity. Polar-eyed, the Champion stared the hounds to an abrupt standstill. Pointed ears lay back on their scabby heads.
“Can you get up?” The Champion’s brittle voice spat out the words. He’d won them precious seconds. “Come on, get up. Head for the plane!”
Teeth clenched against the shuddering waves of nausea, the Other wobbled onto his feet. Gripping his upper right arm tightly, he tried to focus on the action before him. He managed to see the outline of the Champion and the two wild beasts nervously cowering before him. The barbed knife blade cut a slash over one dog’s nose, causing the animal to thrash its head in agony.
“Head for the goddamn plane! Goddammit, move!” Desperate, the Champion lost ground to the animals.
Still in a daze, the Other staggered backward toward the wrecked fuselage nestling in the cinema front. High up, the curved door was hanging open. Stained and battered by the years, it hung onto the body by its rusting hinges.
Picking up speed, the Other hurried over the uneven road toward possible safety. He could sense the Champion behind him, holding off the last attack for as long as he could.
Suddenly, the noise of restrained fury abated. The Champion lunged at the dogs once and then turned and fled. Pounding through the dust, he snatched at the metal collar of the Other and physically threw him up the scree of bricks and mortar and hurled him through the entrance of the plane. Ignoring the clattering tangle of arms and legs against the far interior wall, the tall blond spun round and drew a second knife. Changing his weight from backward flight to forward thrust, he sprang down the shifting slope at the first dog, still dripping blood from its jaws, and stabbed deeply into its neck. Wounding, but not killing it, the Champion withdrew the blade for a second attack, but found the dog had retreated slightly. Screaming in rage himself, he pressed his slight advantage. The two hounds backed away to the road surface, cowed momentarily by their own injuries, and watched the man above.
He knew he wouldn’t get another chance. Shoulders scraping the rusting body of the plane, the Champion slid into the doorway, withdrawing, and dropped the knives at his booted feet. He stretched out for the top of the door. Heaving with a force born from the need to live, he pulled the door into the hole. Resisting rust could not withstand his pressure as, protesting, the door began to slide shut. A sudden flurry of howling animal flesh flung itself planeward. Claws and muzzles poked into the remaining crack. It seemed to take an eternity of held-breath tension, but finally the gap was narrow enough to withstand the squirming fury of teeth and paws that fought to get in.
Gasping for air, his chest feeling as though it would burst, the Champion raced along the aisle of the passenger section, checking windows. The reinforced glass was a little cracked in places but otherwise intact. The broken back of the fuselage was another matter.
When the plane had crashed into the cinema frontage, its back had broken, almost severing it into two separate pieces. The splintered wooden interior and fractured metal of the ceiling looked weak enough in places to allow the dogs entry.
Reloading his Magnum, he waited for the hounds to approach the hole. He didn’t have long to wait. Scratching claws on metal told him of their arrival. Barking furiously, they poked their noses into the crack in the roof. Saliva dripping, they fought to get in. The Champion discharged a volley of slugs through the roof that hurtled one of the beasts into the air and off the plane. It landed on the far side with a dull thud, twitched its head once, and lay still.
The last dog backed off, startled. Tail down, it jumped from the plane and settled down to watch and wait. Nervously, it looked at the corpse by its side. Unable to comprehend the sudden destruction of its pack, it was too dumb a beast to get well clear of the area before it, too, became dead meat. Instead, its lust for fresh food overpowered its sense of self-preservation. It wanted meat and it knew where it was. All it would have to do would be to outwait the inhabitants of the plane. And one of them was already wounded.
Breath fogging the glass with the exertion of the last few moments, the Champion was pressed up against an oval window between the tattered orange seats. Eyes wide with alarm, he wiped his nose on the back of a gauntlet, eyes never leaving the watching dog down in the street.
A sudden thought crossed his mind. He raced backwards over the seats, boots gouging foam out of the cushions, and sprang across the aisle to peer out of an opposite window. Sure that there were no more pack members sneaking up for a second assault, he stepped back into the aisle and made his way to the tail of the plane to check the security of the rear exits.
Brushing past chairs disheveled by the emergency crash landing, the Champion squeezed into the aft section and checked the two rear doors. The tail of the plane had impacted badly upon landing and compressed into the passenger area. The doors were jammed as fast now as they had been when the 727 had crashed all those years ago.
Rubbing his hand over the almost flush join between curved door and sills, the Champion’s glove came away gray with dirt and grime. Underneath, the beige linen lining showed through the layers of years of neglect.
Must have panicked like hell when they found the exits jammed. Wonder what brought the thing down in the first place…. Wonder how many got out alive?
Satisfied that the back doors were secure, he retraced his steps through the economy class and back into the first class seating area. Ahead of him, the dim moonlight filtering through the nearly opaque windows showed him a dreadfully battered man trying to climb to his feet. Hand still squeezing on the bleeding arm, the Other pulled himself upright by the edge of the forward kitchen counter.
“For a moment there, I thought we weren’t going to make it.” The injured man’s voice held a slight tremor. As he raised his face to meet that of the Champion, the taller man noted the alarming lack of color. Ghostly white of skin tone, the Other forced himself down the aisle a short way toward the nearest upright chair. But his legs wouldn’t give him that last ounce of strength that he needed. Instead, he sat down in the aisle, knees against his chest, and let his head drop slowly forward to rest on them.
His wine-laced body shivered with reaction as he sucked in air through his clenched teeth in an effort to control the screaming pain in his right arm.
The Champion hastened forward, stepping over the body, and knelt beside the crumpled heap that was the Plaza Protector. Drawing his gloves off, he placed them beside his knees. As gently as possible, he tried to pry loose the knuckle-white grip the Other had on his upper arm. Trying to hold in his own blood was proving useless; thick red trails oozed through his shaking fingers and splashed down onto his side.
“Let me see, huh?” The Champion peeled away the stiff left hand and managed to cup the arm in his own broad left palm.
The suit and flesh were a torn mess. Four deep tears, where the canine fangs had sunk home, were responsible for the freely flowing blood. Miraculously, the teeth had not severed any major blood vessels. However, that was poor consolation for the agony that was shooting along the man’s arm in piercing waves and up into his neck.
Face screwed up with pain, a whispered hiss came from the silvered lips. “Feels like my arm’s hanging off.”
“Almost, but not quite.” The Champion took out a clean stiletto knife and began to cut away the thin tatters of leather from around the wound, the better to see the damage.
The Other’s hand came up, trying to stop him. He twitched and flinched as the Champion eased the leather out of the tear. Darker blood welled up among the chewed, pink flesh.
The Other groaned and snatched for the Champion’s knife. He failed. Twisting slightly, the Champion placed his back against the right side of the Other’s head and shoulders, using it as a shield, and effectively blocking off any more lunges for the blade. Lifting the savaged arm, he brought it under his own and onto his right knee. Now he had some maneuverability.
“You’re lucky, the beast could have bitten through an artery and you’d be dead now.” Flicking away the bloodied pieces of leather, the Champion tried to work as swiftly as possible.
“Yeah, this has just been my lucky — “, face still down, he writhed under the firm grasp, ” — day…”
”Hold still or it’ll hurt worse.”
“I…thought this street…was quiet.” The Other raised his head slightly and found his sight was dimming. “I never patrolled here.”
“No, it’s a little out of my sector, too.” Intent upon cleaning out the cuts, the Champion pressed on, the blade moving surely in his hand. “That nasty pack of hounds would account for the fact that much of this area has been left untouched. There didn’t seem to be any signs of mutants that I could see.”
Certain that he’d removed any dirty leather that might infect the wound further, the Champion knew that the next priority was to control the bleeding. God knows how much he’s lost already from the leg wound…and now this…
“I cleaned… out… most of the mutants… from… around the Pl — ” The jolt of pain as the Champion pressed the tears together and exerted enough pressure to stop the bleeding made the Other almost pass out completely. Head lolling against the long braids across the green, studded back, a faint whimper escaped his lips. Talking in an effort to remain conscious, he went on, “One thing…I’ll say for Selkirk, he had all the right…equipment for this…. Always managed to repair the…damage.”
The Champion felt the metal pieces in the Other’s face scrape against the studs on his back. A screeching noise. Yes, but at what cost? “Selkirk’s dead. He neutralized your implant.” The blood still trickled from out of the torn flesh. The area around the wound was already turning purple and black with the bruising.
Behind the Territory man’s back came a tired word of feeling. “Good.”
An uneasy silence fell between them, marred by the occasional stirring of the Other from his cramped position against the seat side.
The Champion glanced toward the door, searching the crack for any telltale sign of black muzzle or red eyes.
It could take ten minutes or longer before the blood would clot. The blond turned his glove over with his knee and looked at the face of the digital watch inlaid there. The illuminated green digits flicked over, counting off the time.
If it doesn’t clot, then we’re in real trouble. He’ll need expert help…. Selkirk’s dead, and I’m not going back to the Territory. It’s too far away.
While he maintained an even pressure, the Champion looked about for something to bind the wound once he’d stemmed the flow. Close by were the turned-over remains of the first-class kitchen area. Searching his dim and distant past, he remembered the old days of service. All of the finest quality. Granted, this type of plane had been almost superseded by the introduction of the 747 jets, but United Airlines’ internal flights had still maintained a service of quality. Surely, some of the linen napkins were still there.
He shuffled around on his knees, both hands tightly locked over the wound. Looking down at the mass of dust-covered curls, he saw the pale flesh under the strips, the raised goosebumps and slight sheen of sweat on the brow and upper lip.
Face clouding, the Champion realized that the man he held so tightly was going into shock. Even under his hands, the warm blood did not disguise the abrupt chills. The darkness of the cabin did not disguise anything.
With slow movements, the Champion released his grip tentatively and squinted down into the wound. Dark blood filled the open tears but not as quickly as before. “Any minute now, you’re gonna stop messing up the carpet.” He held on again.
The Other nodded, eyes screwed tightly shut. “Did we kill them all?”
“All but one. It’s sitting outside waiting for us to come out.” The Champion looked toward the window, but was too low to see anything other than the night sky and the half-demolished roof of a building further down the street. “I’ll get it later; it can’t get in.”
“I feel…sick.” The Other tried to focus on the blond’s half-turned features, eyelids shutting slowly. “And…cold…cold like in the Plaza…on the marble….”
“Well, don’t be sick over me.” Ignoring another tremor, he lifted his hands again and saw the blood held fast in the gaping holes. Scrambling up, he stepped into the kitchen area and began to turn out drawers as fast as he could force the rusting boxes from the holes in the wall. Locker doors crashed back as he sifted through trays and plastic utensils. Plastic cups tumbled to the floor, followed by discolored foil trays. Mold had grown out of the casing in dark green patches. One after another, he tossed them to the floor.
In a locker by the emergency exit, he found what he was looking for, a stack of linen napkins, yellowed with age but still intact. Picking up four, he walked over the plastic kitchenware, unheeding of the splintering crashes as his boots crushed them flat. Kneeling beside the Other, he shook out one napkin and laid it over his knee. Using two of the others as pads, he pressed them to the four long holes, held them in position with his left hand and tried to pick up the napkin from his lap. He hadn’t enough hands.
“Hold the pads in place.” He peered into the face of the Other.
No response.
He spoke a little louder, grabbing the injured man’s pale left hand and placing it on two napkins. “Hold them there, while I tie this up.”
Vibrating, the long fingers managed to follow the instructions. His breathing no easier, the Other allowed the Champion to tie the napkins in place with the remaining two pieces of linen. As the Territory Protector knotted the last corner, the Other flinched yet again, his hand falling loosely over his legs.
“Do you think…think the pack was…was…rabid?” Just a ghost of his former voice, laced with bone-weariness and fear.
The Champion stopped momentarily as he picked up his gauntlets and tucked them into his pouch. Could be, they were wild enough. A little too quick and casual, he replied, “No…just hungry.”
Thick dark hair nodded almost imperceptibly, then his head came up sharply as a shiver racked his body. Rising, the Champion hooked a hand under the Other’s left arm and pulled him upright. He was practically a dead weight. Propelling him into a seat, he settled him into a loose-limbed sprawl, pushing the seat divider up and backwards.
The seats were old and rotten, with the fabric breaking away from the seams as soon as the body sank into the foam base. Half-slouched, the Other let the Champion push the seats back into a semi-reclining angle. The third seat, nearest the window, remained forward, yellow cover faded by years of pale suns and the convergence of the rays through the glass. The Other’s head slid over to the left and rested on the arm of the aisle seat. With effort, he lifted his feet onto the window seat.
He made no further sound. No movement.
The Champion reached above his head and began to pull open the overhead lockers. He was halfway through the economy section before he found what he wanted. One locker was still locked. It bore the marks of an attempted entry, but whoever had tried to open it had failed. The door had been jammed by the impact of the crash. The Champion took out his long knife, slid the toughened blade under the molded plastic rim and exerted his whole body weight on the lever. The plastic shattered outwards and the locker door dropped down, held by one hinge.
Inside were the forgotten remains of hand luggage. Small vanity cases nestled among plastic sacks of duty-free goods, purchased in some distant airport shop. Lifting the rare treasure down, the Champion smiled to find underneath the object of his search: an orange blanket. Snatching it down, he wove his way back down the aisle and paused beside the Other’s chair. Still white and shivering, the Other lay slumped, his leather suit dirty, torn, and stained in his own blood. Longer curls had fallen over his face, partially obscuring the metal slivers set in his flesh.
The Champion almost imagined him as he had once been. Unmarked. Normal.
Shaking the blanket loose, he draped it over the tense frame. A weak left hand pulled on the satin edge of the cover with fingers stained by red trickles of blood. Dry and crusting in places, the dark brown film flaked off and spotted the orange fabric as he held on tightly.
Voice low, the Champion murmured, “This’ll keep you warm.”
The Other showed no sign of having heard. Silence descended in the cabin. Lips partly open, the Northern Sector Protector was deeply asleep.
At a loss as to what to do next, the Champion settled into a seat across the aisle and watched the comatose man before him. Face dark in the shadows, he felt the first strains within himself of fatigue. It had been a long walk across the city in search of the Other. The flight from the Plaza and the attack of the pack of wild dogs had worn him out in ways he wasn’t used to. There was no bar of drugs and alcohol readily available now to give him a high when he needed it. He stretched his wrenched muscles and flexed his fingers. His own knuckles were scrubbed, and parts of his shoulders and back smarted from the slight burns he’d received in the Plaza.
Resting his head back against the seat, he tried to empty his mind of the present, but all that poured in its place was the nagging problem of the future.
Things were going to be a lot better once we got away from the communes. Now look at us — tired, hurt and hiding from some stinking mutt in the rusting hulk of a plane.
He turned his head and watched the even rise and fall of the Other’s chest.
What are you thinking now? Why am I here? Who the hell are you? Or are you feeling rabies crawling through your bloodstream? Dreams of anguish and nightmares nothing seems to get any better, does it?…Or are you trying to remember me — you…the Time Before…the old life we led…. Remembering hurts more than the holes in your arm, believe me. All of a sudden, the shields and barriers we’ve built around ourselves drop away and we can see clearly…. It’s enough to make me weep. All the wasted time…the city, gone…family, gone. And even worse, you can see the kind of disgustingly low creatures that we have become…. I don’t think the blood on my hands will ever dry.
Abruptly, he leaned out of the seat and looked back down the aisle. Lying forgotten on a chair was the plastic carrier bag of liquor bottles.
Climbing out of his seat, the Champion strode down and picked up the bag. The bottles chimed together, glass side brushing against glass side.
I’ve been paid in alcohol, in the early days…. I remember when I used to buy it for pleasure down in the Pits. Hug would probably laugh.
Carrying the bottles back to his seat, he rested the sack down and tore the staples through the plastic edges to open the bag.
Two bottles of Johnnie Walker. Golden, amber liquid.
Gold of a different kind…and just as precious here, now. He looked again at the reclining figure of the Other. In more ways than one.
Disinfecting the Other would satisfy his compulsion for cleanliness. Unattended wounds were against his survival code. Now he wanted the Other to survive — if only for purely ulterior motives at present; and thus the savaged man was encompassed into the Champion’s order of things.
Pulling out a bottle, he broke the seal and, unscrewing the cap, stepped across the aisle. He noted the rise and fall, under the blanket, of the comatose man’s chest. The Champion held the scotch bottle before him, watching the air bubbles burst onto the surface of the liquid. In seconds, the contents found their own level.
Pity to waste good scotch, but infection’s worse.
He grimaced wryly and pulled the blanket free of the Other’s clenched fist. The slumped man scowled in his sleep. His fingers feebly tried to hold onto the satin edge, then fell back slackly.
“This is gonna hurt — not that you’ll really know.”
He lifted the folds of the napkin, bending them back until he was down to raw flesh. Next, he liberally poured neat scotch into the open wounds.
The Other instantly tossed over onto his back, autonomic nervous system forcing his body away from further agonizing pain. His face blanched, features running through a series of reactions to the burning agony of the alcohol. The Champion held him firmly and ensured that he had sufficiently washed out the bite.
“You’re gonna stink like a wino, but it could save your life.”
On the seats, the Other moaned and turned over, back into his original position. He looked damp under his eyelashes.
“Easy, lie still — you’ll start the bleeding again.”
The Champion curtailed further comment. Clearly, the Other was totally oblivious to his presence. Instead, the injured man stirred fitfully a few minutes longer, then settled. Face pressed into the padded arm of the seat, he hunched over, looking cold and shivery.
The Champion redraped the blanket over his shoulders. This time no needy hand clung to the shiny edge.
Moving away, the Territory Protector pushed the bag of bottles across his own chair and settled back into the lumpy seat. He held the bottle up to his face and looked at the lowered level.
Could do with some speed to go with this…. Should have brought some with me. All my drugs’ll probably be removed into the Territory. He smirked smugly to himself. Wish I could see their faces when they enter my food store…. Enough there to feed the Territory for days…possibly weeks.
Holding the glass neck to his lips, he let the amber liquid splash into his mouth. He swallowed it in huge gulps, then wiped his wet chin against his right arm. The scotch still held its kick, still strong over all the years.
The Champion savored the warmth that grew inside his stomach. It served to chase away some of the more chilling thoughts for a while. Nursing the bottle, he stared at the cockpit door and read over and over again the small plaque fixed there.
“No admittance…” The remaining words were obscured by thick grime.
No admittance, no admittance, no admittance…. The Other’s like that — no admittance. He just can’t accept that there is a chance that I am who I say I am…. Don’t blame him really; it’s easier to hide in this twisted reality. I did. It was easier to be used than fight them, and once I was offered the narcotics, why not? There was no other reason to say ‘no’.
He took another long gulp and closed his eyes.
Society disappeared overnight…. No more values to defend, no more reason to uphold the Law and Order I used to prize so highly. A new set of rules came into play. Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed…. I’m a survivor, one of the powerful.
He opened his eyes a crack and squinted across the moonlit seats toward the Other. He’d slipped a little lower, head nearly hidden by the orange blanket.
But what about you? Are you a survivor? How have the years affected your mind? Me, I think I’m a little crazy…but, what Selkirk did to you — I’d have gone insane. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me; you’ve probably tried all these years to forget, forget the past, the present — your future. Just forget the whole rotten stinking mess…. Well, I won’t force you. I won’t burden you with the guilt of lost remembering. But don’t blame me if I persist because I do remember, and I want some of that life back…. I want my old partner…even if it’s just a little.
The Other stirred in his sleep as if disturbed by the Champion’s thoughts. He turned more onto his back, brows scowling down. The blond saw the flaccid eye socket and felt a wave of guilt at his own selfish desires.
He’s lost so much more than me…. He doesn’t even look like a normal human being any more. Then again, what’s a normal human being in the New Society? I wonder what I look like, really? What are the changes? You never see yourself as others see you. Am I as bizarre as he is?
Staring at the bundle opposite, the Champion tried to shake off a feeling of dread that made him drink again from the bottle. Two thirds was already gone. He felt a twinge of a shiver crawl over him and longed again for something to feed his habit. The days ahead were going to be hard. He rubbed at the intracath in his elbow and wished it gone.
And then he wished it full of mind-dulling narcotics, ready and willing to buffer him against the future. Life had been easier when his decisions were made for him. Thinking dredged up thoughts that went far deeper than he had meant to go.
Where do we go from here? How do we survive now?
The thought made his throat dry and papery. He licked his lips of the loose drops of scotch.
I suppose we run. And keep on running. The Territory will want its revenge; their “most precious” just ran out on them…on the Owners’ big night….
The cold sensation of still being held by a thread to his recent past wrapped itself like ice about his soul. Turning toward his own window, he looked down the windswept street of slowly drifting litter. Far away over the empty wastes, he knew the Owners would be watching and waiting for him…for him, their “most precious.”
And he wouldn’t be there.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Under the green glass roof of the Territory government building, the white moon cast long green shadows over the stone floor. The seven high-backed chairs were in their usual position. Solid, ebony wood.
Seated with dignity in the semi-circle were the Owners. Neat and meticulous with their appearance for this special night, their long crimson robes, trimmed in silver, draped over their bodies in sensuous folds. Hair elaborately arranged, it fully complemented the skillful application of make-up and jewelry with which they had all adorned themselves. They wanted to be especially alluring tonight — for him.
Only one seat was unoccupied. Its owner was standing apart from her sisters, by the door. Dressed in jet black. Ornately jeweled herself, many stones even woven into her hair, the older woman raised a carefully covered arm and gripped the doorpost. Hand of long red fingernails, she tightened her hold on the wooden frame and stared into the darkness of the lengthy corridor. For hours now, she had watched the main door, waiting for the moment when it would slide open to reveal the powerful frame of the Champion: her very own property.
And the hours had been marked by the lengthening shadows over the stone floor. The sounds of the Territory’s nightlife had peaked and waned and now only the faint rustle of wind broke the eerie silence.
The six other women dared not move but instead kept their own silent vigil on their leader’s back. Long ago, it had become apparent to them that their most “beloved” of possessions was not coming. At first, they had felt an overriding surge of anger brought on by his refusal to follow orders. But as time passed, the anger abated and they felt deserted and foolish. Dressed and decorated for a lover who had not come as ordered. Love to order.
They suddenly felt cheap and tawdry. The glitter and the paint could not hide their disappointed lust. Sitting waiting in the late hours of the night only heightened the point that they had been scorned by a man they owned.
Possessions are only any good if they are of use. Not always of practical use, but useful to the owner. For one, they can give aesthetic pleasure. The Champion had been that to them. They had wanted to sample and savor his kind of beauty physically. Now their chance was gone.
One of the women shifted her cramped muscles. It was the young red-haired girl, who had dressed herself most carefully for this night. The other women turned expectantly, tired of the charade and hoping one of them would find the courage to admit that he was not coming.
However, words came from a different quarter. The older woman by the door breathed a whispered statement:
“Please remain seated, the Champion has not yet arrived.”
A collective ripple of dismay came from the other six.
Abruptly, the older woman spun around, black robes rustling harshly. She glowered at her sisters, daring them to contradict her words. All eyes but two fell away from her look of smoldering rage. Only one woman dare speak against her.
The young girl rose stiffly and swallowed softly. “He isn’t coming. He never was.”
Silence reigned while the sisters looked from one protagonist to the other. The older woman clenched her fists and her face became riddled with hate.
“I ordered him to come tonight. He will be here.” Her voice was bitter and cold.
The redhead looked at the floor and then raised a face of unconcealed pity. “He has left us, sister. He is long gone.”
“No!” Bony white fingers pulled at the silver trim at her scrawny neck. “No, I own him. He loves us. He loves me! He will come; he is obedient.”
Her animated face creased up into lines of violent fury, causing her carefully applied make-up to flake and peel. The glamorous effect was ruined in moments. Underneath the thin layer of porcelain-white foundation was a decaying skin of mold.
Tiny flakes of make-up fluttered down onto her aged breasts like the first snows of a personal winter.
Panic came into her eyes. He would see she was unclean. Her hands came up to her thin, hollow features and she tried to pat down the peeling facemask. Even as she touched it, it broke away, as brittle as her temper.
A cry of despair escaped her crimson lips. She held her hands out imploringly to her sisters.
“Don’t let him see me like this, please. I must look beautiful for my golden one.” Tears spilled from her eyes, leaving a tearstain of mascara on either cheek. “This is my last chance; he won’t look on me again….”
“Sister,” began a slight, dark-haired woman on her left, “I think we already had our chance. He isn’t coming — ever. He has gone from the Territory.” Her words of temperance did nothing to forestall a further outburst.
“I own him!! He cannot survive without my benevolence! I made him what he is — the ultimate man, powerful and strong! He owes me!! And I want him!” Her face quivered with acrimony. Eyes almost bulging, she dared them with a look, to contradict her.
Argument was useless. The six Owners rose from their seats and filed past her into the pitch-dark corridor. They had no further taste for this night of rancid hopes and desires.
Under the green glass roof, the lonely woman watched them go; her breasts heaved with pent-up frustration. Her obsession with the Champion knew no bounds at that precise moment. All consuming hate for her long-haired man ate into her mind like a rampant cancer. Her fists clenched with a rage so violent that her nails bit deeply into her palms.
Tiny droplets of blood splashed down onto the stone floor. And as she bled, she vowed with all her power and might to have her revenge on the Territory Protector.
For far more dangerous than the city’s empty waste was the frenzied malicious fury of a woman scorned.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Under the folds of an orange blanket, a battered and bruised man was dreaming the dreams of dread and misery. Released through his own weaknesses, images of long-forgotten days drifted hauntingly across his mind’s eye. The cessation of the implant’s control had freed him from the programmed world of Selkirk and Houndsworth into a world of freedom. Freedom of thought. He’d tried not to think since leaving the Plaza, tried hard to avoid the persistent braided man, and failed miserably.
But where the Champion had failed, the wild dogs had succeeded. Howling at the Other’s heels, all thoughts of his past had gone from his mind as a desperate self-preservation had taken over. With long canine teeth sinking into his flesh, he’d fought as best he could to save himself from being savaged to death. Kicking, punching, and scratching, he’d tried to release the dog’s hold on his arm — he hadn’t come this far to be chewed to bits in an empty street.
Now his arm beat painfully with the throb of torn nerve endings, making his sleep disturbed and fitful. He tossed against the rough cushions and tried to escape his overcrowded mind.
Vying for attention, a parade of scenes and sensations swam before his subconscious mind. Places and people not seen for years came back to him in gray-shrouded mist. Almost within reach, they came, yet always slipping away from his unsure grasp. Half of him wanted to know, to remember; the other half was plainly frightened of what he might find buried in his past.
Out of the maze of colors and faces he traced a remote tale of ill-fitting pieces that made up the puzzle of his life.
Sunshine days in urban streets, packed with the smells and tastes of a decent, ordered life. Heat-bedraggled people brushed against his body with a familiarity he welcomed. And yet their features escaped his vision as they melted away into the haze of tall buildings.
He shifted uneasily, face reflecting the strain of the inner turmoil. His breathing quickened through his parted lips.
Tall buildings. Skyscrapers every one. They frightened him; too long had he been used to the flattened wastes of the new city. He felt hemmed in, under pressure. Beside these edifices of the Time Before loomed the blurred outlines of a dark-haired man.
He strove for clarity, but the man remained ill defined. A wave of grief suddenly rippled over the Other and he felt bereft in a sea of blood. Blood spattered pavement, and the man brutally murdered at his feet. He reached down and found the image replaced by blackness — a blackness that would remain a void forever.
And he wondered if it could have been his father.
Without warning, he wanted to be awake, away from this sleep of living dead. Unsure where to turn, he found no escape. Instead, the black became the dark blue of night, spotted with silver.
Shields of silver. Shining brighter than the sun. With a brilliant radiance, they dazzled him, again obscuring the places and faces of the people he desperately tried to see.
He ran into the suffocating folds of blue and anchored himself to a silver shield. Holding on for dear life, he fought the buffeting punishment of the thrashing storm.
And then in the maelstrom of his uniform nightmare, he saw a calm oasis of golden light. It held like a spotlight over his vulnerable body and offered him a lifeline to safety.
Relief and contentment overcame his insecure being. He walked the evaporating blue path toward the chameleon shape. Clutching the silver shield before him as a defense against the powerful enigma of the light, he neared as close as he dared. Fearful of being burned by the vibrant energy, he hung back.
The flare metamorphosed before his deep blue eyes and a tough blond stood before him. Silver shield held high in salute to the Other in the swirling mists.
The fog changed to red and white streaks. Lightning crashed through the fragile fabric of this netherworld existence. And the two shields became gold.
The strangely bright man crossed over to stand before the Other’s glinting body of steel.
And he turned to see his companion’s face and found only an empty void.
Staggering away, he hid behind the gold shield. He thought his mind was twisting the beauty of his past to cushion him from his reality. Treasured memories were being tarnished to heal his fear of remembering the truth.
He dredged deeper through the red and white fog and felt the sudden chill of misery and death.
A sickening dread forced him to turn and face the soft feminine outline of a woman. Delicate and sweet smelling, she emerged out of the blurred tangle of his dreams.
She appeared on his horizon. Petite and blonde. He ran forward, sure that he would see her clearly. As she approached, her face dissolved into a mask of blood that ran down her naked body. Her soft flesh sallowed and rotted, leaving a gray skeleton frame. It crumbled to dust and blew away on the cold winds of his mind.
Distraught, he backed toward the stable glow behind him. A strong arm fell across his shoulders and he felt safe at last. He turned to face the owner of the secure caress.
The blond was still faceless. A nothing human being.
The Other raised his fingers to touch the flat expanse of skin and found that a mountainous weight dragged his hand down. He could not find the strength to reach out and feel the features of his benefactor.
The shining man reached out for him, also. The Other was paralyzed. The man’s hands came up higher, but he began to recede into the distance, away from the Other. The shape changed again into a pencil line of yellow, and he was gone.
A biting wind of impending doom stroked the features of the man left behind. The red and white fog became transparent, and he made out the shapes of black and white cars. Row after row, they looked like a visual statement about his life.
The Time Before was white. The New Society was black.
A stitched line of holes shattered his despair. They appeared on his leathered chest and spurted forth his blood. The shock rocked him to his knees. He tried to raise the gold shield to protect himself from another attack and found his strength was gone.
And then he knew the true fear of death. Brutal and ugly, it clung like a leech to his soul and drank up his life’s essence. He screamed in terror. Flailing about him, he found no anchor. Panic seized him and he knew he was dying.
A thread of gold spun out toward him, out of the velvet blackness. With fingers of straining sinew and muscle, he lunged for his last chance.
Like an Ariadnean thread through a maze, the Other found himself reeled in to safety by the blond enigma who had haunted this and many other dreams. Under the warmth and tenderness, he felt protected and saved by the man’s aura of power. And, sadly for the dreamer, he remained faceless.
A shutter came down between them abruptly. Impenetrable. Solid. The gulf widened and the dreams became colored in devastation and destruction.
He was lost, forfeit to the deranged chaos of The End. Powerless against the changed order around him, the Other tried to get away from the cloying sensation of entrapment. He held the gold shield aloft and that was his undoing.
An army of vulture-like beings grew out of the ruptured earth. Plaster fell from their bodies as they climbed from their cement graves. They were the living dead of the city and they wanted their precious lives preserved. The gold shield was a beacon to them in the ruins of their obliterated society. They flocked to him.
The Other felt the hands reach out for him. Evil hands of strange caresses and squeezing pressure. He squirmed and writhed under their hold, but found that the more he struggled, the tighter became their grip. As he looked into their faces, he found only cold reflections of himself. Under their heavy cowls, his own thin features stared wickedly back. Deep blue eyes and long, dark curls, every visage became a little more debased than the last.
Turning in turmoil, he tried to escape but found himself struggling from one pair of grasping hands to the next. Each figure repeatedly pulling him closer, bearing his own features. Each one, progressively more bizarre and distorted than the last. Metal pieces appeared. Tiny silver rivets studded his lips. And his eye rotted and fell from his socket. Over and over and over and over….
At that moment, he chose to opt out of thought. To opt out of reason and understanding. A tense fear made him petrify. Eye straining, he looked back.
Selkirk loomed out of the slate gray mists and hooked his long black fingers into his curls. Yanking him to his knees before him, he smiled a smile of evil incarnate and produced a white-hot spiral of metal. The implant. It seared his skin as the doctor brought it up past his cheek to the top of his head. Poised ready to bore it into his brain, Selkirk tightened his hold in the hair, raising the scalp.
Frantic, the Other clawed to get free. Wild of eye, like some tortured animal, he lost control and fought like a thing possessed.
Abruptly falling free, he turned in slow motion and saw the green image of the Champion. From the base of a long tunnel, he set off to meet the anguished Other.
The gold shield on the green-leathered chest glowed with an intensity to match his own. The Other felt the hot splash of tears on his cheeks and dashed forward through the swirling fog. Pushing against the weight of possession that the Plaza doctor held over him, he raised his arms for mercy, toward his salvation.
In return, the Champion raised his Magnum and calmly shot him. Cool and efficient.
The Other fell and kept on falling. Down, down, down, through his blistering past he tumbled, the echoes of his own death ringing through his ears. And as he pitched headlong through his layers of memories, he vowed he would keep them in his dark subconscious, hidden from the brutality of his conscious mind. He couldn’t afford to remember and find further disillusionment. He had to have a reserve of sanity held within him somewhere. At every turn the New Society had betrayed him. There was no hope. The blond was different and the old memory was gone.
He’d thought it was Hutch, prayed that it should be. Even God had betrayed him. Hutch wouldn’t kill him. Hutch and love were synonymous. He had been betrayed, betrayed, betrayed, betrayed, betrayed….
In the smoky light of early dawn, the Other thrashed back the blanket, eyes still filled with his tears. He jerked upright and filled his lungs to cry out his desolation.
A green gauntlet slapped down on his mouth, and a face close to his ear whispered, “Shut up! There’s somebody outside.”
The Other’s eye shot wide open in terror. Torn roughly out of his nightmare, he was totally disoriented for a split second. The Champion’s face was so close to his own, trying to see past the dark curls and through the grimy window, that the Other could only focus on his immediate features.
And the pale-skinned face of the Champion seemed to merge with the empty visage of his dreams. With dawning realization, the features of the man before him transposed themselves with the bland expanse of flesh.
Every feature fit with an unerring exactness.
The pieces of the visual puzzle fell into place.
Shock brought the Other fully awake and he tried to wriggle free of the stiff hold that pressed him down in the cushions. The Champion was distracted from his search of the street and glanced down at the struggling man.
The Other tried to shake himself loose, but the Champion had already seen the haunted revelation flicker across the drained face. He released the Other slowly, noting the indentations of his glove in the ashen skin of the man.
A second that seemed like a millennium passed between them. Accusation came into the blue eyes of the Champion.
You do remember me.
The Other looked down and away from the towering man who stood over him. Rolling to his left, he tried to get away from the Champion and into the aisle. The Champion blocked his way, not wanting to let the moment escape examination.
Then a shadow passed the crack between door and wall and something climbed up the remaining stump of the wing and onto the roof.
The Other and the Champion broke the moment and looked toward the roof, following the footsteps across the curved metal. Crouching low, the Champion turned to face the back of the plane and snaked along the aisle. The Magnum slid from its holster and clicked into the handgrip. The series of clicks must have been heard by the trespasser up above. The footsteps hesitated near the tail of the plane and re-approached the sliced wound in the ceiling.
The Champion edged forward between the seats, eyes searching the crack for the first sign of the being. Close to the hole, the sound of boots on metal stopped.
He’s sneaking forward. Only need a clear shot…. The Champion compressed his lips and waited for the black silhouette to block out the pale dawn light. Behind him, he felt the air move and a wine-suited body dropped down beside him.
The Other found that he was incredibly stiff from lying awkwardly across the seats all night. The muscles in his wounded leg protested as he crawled forward, and his right arm instantly throbbed if he moved or put any weight on it. Drawing level with the Territory Protector, he followed his line of vision to the roof.
“Where’s my rifle?” the Other whispered earnestly, looking about him. “I haven’t got it.”
The Champion stiffened as he remembered the scenario of the last night and the Other dropping the rifle as he tried to defend himself from the attacking dogs. “Lying in the street,” came the tight reply. “You dropped it.”
“That’s just great, isn’t it!” The Other looked over his shoulder toward the door, wondering if he had any chance of retrieving it in time.
“Shhh!” The Champion raised himself up onto one knee and took aim on the sliver of daylight.
Heeding the warning, the dark-haired man drew a knife and made ready to defend his newfound freedom. Eye on the break in the roof, he waited for the being to show its face.
Against the washed-out light of dawn, a head heaved into view and peered down at the two men. Fair-haired and bright-eyed, it stared in amazement and then curiosity.
The Champion clicked back the hammer on the Magnum and hesitated. The head and shoulders were so different to what he was expecting that he was completely taken aback. His mouth parted in astonishment.
The figure was evidently male and apparently glowing with health and fitness. No crazed gleam in the eye. No half-hunted, half-haunted tenseness about the flawless features. The bones were well covered by the flesh, the whites of the brown eyes were clear and shining. A slight wind ruffled the clean hair.
Abruptly, the face ducked back and footsteps scrambled over the roof, down the rubble near the nose, and into the street.
Still stunned, the Champion looked at the Other to see if he, too, had witnessed the strange sight.
“Did you — did you see — him?” The Champion could hardly speak. Without waiting for a reply, he leaped to his feet and ran down the aisle, watching the escaping figure through the small oval windows.
At the curved door, he heaved with all his might and pushed it out and open. Squatting down, he slithered over the rough rim of the doorsill and down onto the loose rubble. Skidding over the tumbled rocks and bricks, he alighted on the roadway and pounded after the fleeing figure. Rats feeding on the corpses of the dogs scurried away from the sudden action and hid in the shadows of the fuselage.
Lithe of limb, the strange figure sprinted over the strewn debris and headed for the corner of the block. His firm frame was outfitted in thick clothes of beiges and browns. On his feet were what could have been a kind of riding boot, made of tan leather and tied with laces. As he kicked the dust up under his feet, he looked back over his shoulder to see how close the Champion was. His curious expression had been replaced by one of acute agitation. Clearly, he wished that he had not found the two beings in the plane. The blond with the huge gun looked unreasonable and vicious as he thundered up the road. The fleeing man heard the dull chime of the gold tips and wondered what kind of decoration they really were.
Leaping a twist of copper piping, the unknown man staggered to a halt and took one last look back. The grit swirled about his legs in a miniature cloud. Chest heaving, he wiped his short blond hair from his eyes, sized up the chasing Champion once, and ducked behind the wall.
The pursuing Territory Protector swore under his breath as the strange man darted from sight. Heart pounding more from the thrill of the sight than the exertion of the chase, he, too, leaped the piping and skidded to a halt. Raising the Magnum, he hesitated for a second to compose himself, then stepped forcefully around the corner. Legs apart in the correct combat stance, he covered the street.
The earthquake-torn blocks were completely empty of the surprise visitor.
Listening acutely, the Champion waited for the giveaway sound of someone hiding in a deserted building. He waited, but heard nothing. Even holding his own harsh breath did not bring him the betraying noise. Finally, he released the hammer on the gun and relaxed his stance. The cloud of dust around his long legs settled.
The man was gone.
I’ve never seen anyone like that for years. Where the hell did he spring from? The clothes looked new and made of wool…. The boots — tan leather and worn by someone who clearly isn’t a commune protector — no one has privileges like that, no one…. So clean, soreless features…well-fed — healthy. Amazing…. I don’t believe it…. It must have been an illusion…. Had to be…. Goddammit, there aren’t any people like that now!
Taking a few reluctant steps backwards, the Champion retreated into the street. About four hundred yards away was the plane. The pale watery sun was struggling to light another gray day in the city. Deep in thought, the Champion released the Magnum and put it back in the holster. As the blue barrel slid against his leg, he looked down at himself. Dirt-stained green leather, fashioned after protective armor; knives and studs; all ingrained with soot and smoke. His plaits hung forward, showing the smoke and soot marks that dulled his fair hair. He rubbed a glove across his chin and still found that even after all these years, he expected to find stubble there. No more facial hair. No more wrinkles in the flesh. Not since the bombs and the biological warfare. And yet, he was undoubtedly very different from the creature that fled away from him. That figure didn’t seem to be tainted at all.
Letting his arms swing in a loose, easy rhythm, he set off toward the plane. A little way ahead of him were the carcasses of the dogs. They lay like black lumps in the street. As he neared what could have been a mutated German shepherd, he saw where the rats in this sector had already been feeding on the fresh meat of the night. A few of the more fearless rodents had returned to their meal. They watched the heavy tread of the Protector come closer, never once breaking from their feast.
The Champion turned an eye upon them and they fled back to their cracks and crevices.
Could’ve been me or the Other…. Chewed to shreds. No wonder the mutants don’t roam here. I wonder if the other mutt’s run off? He scrubbed at a twitching eye. His mind filled with the stranger again. Wonder where he came from?
Poking out from underneath the corpse of a stabbed dog was the rifle that the Other had dropped. The Champion crossed over the pavement and bent down to pull it free. Booting the soggy carcass away, he swung the rifle up over his shoulder. He brushed some of t]he sticky dust off the stock and blew softly along the outer edge of the clogged barrel. Still puzzled by the sudden appearance of the healthy figure, he half-turned and looked down the road at the two sets of running footprints.
There used to be an old story…Robinson Crusoe, I think…two sets of footmarks. His and Man Friday’s, who saved him from his life of solitude. Crusoe thought he was insane at first…many times the prints left in the sand were his own. But — I didn’t imagine him…. I’m not really crazy. Probably the lack of dope…have to do something about that…or the after-effects of the LSD…. No, I saw him — definitely heard him.
Up in the plane, the Other had crawled over the seats watching the Champion’s pursuit. Face a picture of disbelief, he, too, had catalogued the strange, apparently affluent appearance of the mysterious man.
So much had happened in the last two minutes. He still hadn’t cleared his mind of the horrendous nightmares that had troubled his sleep. Then the stranger had appeared on the roof, spoiling his chance of examining and savoring the ribbon of bizarre sleep that had infected him. Now it was snaking away from his conscious mind, leaving gaping holes in the order of images. Snatching at something that had never really been there was impossible. The semiconscious state of waking had been taken from him by his own pent-up fear and the whispered warning of the Champion.
Now, he was distracted again by the Protector rooting in the dirt for something. As the Champion swung up the rifle, the Other recognized his precious weapon and suddenly felt a little easier in his mind. Face up to the filthy glass, he peered closer as the man down below hesitated and looked back. To get a better view of what had caused the Territory Protector to stop in his return to the plane, the Other raised a hand to wipe the glass clean.
Just then, the Champion turned back. Fully preoccupied with his own thoughts, he forgot the tensions of his life. His strict regime of hostile aggression out in the street left him for a moment. The burden of survival was wiped from his features and the lines of gaunt worry smoothed out.
He looked alarmingly young.
The Other felt an army walk over his grave and instead of wiping the grime from the window, he traced into the dirt four letters.
S…T…A…R…
And for some compelling reason, he inscribed them in reverse.
Unsure as to why he should have done such a thing, he let his hand cross to his throbbing arm and cradle it.
Down below, the Champion walked forward with a vague, aimless air about him. A thousand questions poured into his mind and the answer to them all had disappeared among the ruins. He wondered what the Other had made of the brief encounter; had he perceived the man in the same way as he, himself, had done? Did the same elements stand out for the Other as they had for the Champion?
Casually, he tilted his head up, plait tips almost touching his waist at the back, and saw the finger-smeared lettering.
A thousand lonely nights left his soul, and his throat felt tight and awkward. He remembered the last time he had seen those few letters. Smudged and red, they’d been over two feet high and inscribed on a barrier of glass.
A barrier between his death and his partner’s life. A sign of fervent promise and hope…in the color of life’s blood. A statement of mutual trust. All held in a name.
He stood rooted to the spot, a champion in armor who had ruled the city streets for years. A powerhouse of a man, ingrained with the right to execute his special brand of law and order. He was the Blond Butcher of the Territory — for many, a living nightmare.
He stood there before the rusting wreckage of the 727 — no longer the ultimate killing machine, but a man vulnerable to his own hopes and desires.
You do remember me…. Sweet Jesus in heaven, thank you for this new day.
With a deliberate tread, unlike his descent, the Champion climbed the surrogate steps up to the entrance of the plane. Squeezing through the gap between door and curved wall, he stepped into the cabin.
The Other had backed out of the seats and was standing down the aisle almost under the crack in the ceiling. The patch of sky picked him out of the gloom and the blond could see he was massaging his injured arm. Dark curls on his shoulders, he was clearly apprehensive about what he had just done. He looked at his arm and then back to the forward section, hoping that the Champion would have moved. Finally, he broke the silence and spoke too quickly for normal conversation.
“Did you see him? See where he went? I ain’t never seen a mutant, or for that matter, a commune dweller dressed like that. I mean, he looked so affluent and well fed. Wonder if he’s dangerous — He could just be one of many; did you see if he was armed? Huh?” A vague panic came into his eye; he looked away through the window to his left and continued to babble. “I couldn’t see from up here, but he coulda had a gun in his belt. What do you think?…Think we should move on?…Get out of this sector?…There’s not just him, either, the other dog’s gone….” His voice grew slower and quieter and petered out to nothing. “I see you found my rifle….” Guiltily, his eyes strayed to the inscribed window.
The Champion walked slowly up the aisle, now that the verbal efforts to distract him had finished. He swung the rifle from his shoulder and handed it to the Other. The Northern Sector Protector hesitated, then stepped nearer and took hold of the long barrel. As they both held the weapon, the Champion refused to release it to the pulling pressure of the other man. Instead, he spoke levelly.
“What made you write ‘Star’ on the window?”
The Other kept his eye on the gun and said nothing. A silence stretched before them like a widening chasm.
A low voice of genuine perplexity replied, “I don’t know….”
The Champion’s eyes flared wide, eyebrows almost rising to the golden headband in abrupt anger.
“Don’t give me that crap: ‘I don’t know.’ You do damn well know! Go on, tell me what that meant to you — It meant a whole lot to me once!” He thrust the rifle into the hands of the Other.
“I tell you, I don’t goddamned know!” The Other felt the anger well within him, also. It was becoming a cat and mouse game of half memories where he was struggling but losing. “You seem to have all the answers; you tell me what it meant.”
He turned away and sank into a seat, hand still covering the wound. The Champion remained where he was, looking at the dark, bowed head before him.
If you can’t be the man I once lived beside, fought beside and cried beside, I’m not going to make you into a watered-down facsimile of the original. It’s got to come from you, too. And spoon-feeding memories at you isn’t going to help much. You’d be listening to the life of a stranger, and I’d be trying to rekindle something that was gone years ago. But I so want to feel that companionship we once had…I’ve been so lonely down the years. I want to belong to someone again.
Uncertain as to what to do next, the Champion shuffled his feet and searched for the right words. The compulsion to tell everything was almost overwhelming.
But words were to come from a different quarter.
The Other’s mind had been racing — racing over the nightmare, racing over his doubt of letting his guard down to his one-time enemy. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was emotionally strong enough to forge new links with another human being — he’d been on his own for so long now. To go back to trusting another person was something he’d thought dead and buried as soon as he had fallen into the hands of Selkirk and Houndsworth. Over the past few years he’d been through such a lot — maybe too much, and now he was faced with more mountainous pressure from the Champion. His emotional nerve was already brittle; it could not take much more strain. Hunched over in the chair, the Other nursed his arm, trying to stop the deep, pulsing ache.
You’re pressuring me, pressuring me. Two days ago I was clear in my mind. Just a programmed killer, numb to any true feelings. I’d shut them off years ago…and then you appeared down the sewer — like a catalyst; events simply snowballed. The Plaza is gone now, Selkirk and Houndsworth are dead…ironically, the only stable things in my life, gone. But I’m free now, free to think and feel. And my thoughts are more dangerous to me than the savage existence I lived in the streets. Yet, I find an unaccountable affinity with you that forces me to examine the few strands of memory I do have. And you are there, always there, in one form or another. A tall blond man who is like a metaphysical companion of my sou,l and that scares me…because I sense I was only half a man when I was alone.
Eye still downcast, the Other let his hands rest in his lap. His flash of temper seemed to have abated. He sighed deeply, mourning the passing of his self-protective exile, and the words finally came from him.
“I wrote the letters on a window — it was a long, long time ago.” His voice grew thick. “I think you were there, but not really close. Maybe I did know you once, but…but, the Hutch I knew then would never have killed me — ” he glanced up momentarily to see if the Champion had heard, ” — no matter what.”
The Champion felt a mixture of gladness and self-revulsion. No, Hutch would never have killed you. That Hutch is gone. I’m different, too, now, and I had my reasons at the time. It’s still no excuse, and I’ll regret it to the end of my days. He made to put a gloved hand onto the bowed head of tangled curls, but he couldn’t bridge the physical gap of years of denied human contact.
Green gauntlet almost over his head, the Other looked up.
“I won’t kill you again.” It was all the Champion could think of to say. It was small consolation.
“Thanks.” It was laced with a tinge of bitter sarcasm. Then he peeled back the corner of one of the linen bandages and said, “This still hurts and looks awful.” He sniffed. “And smells of…booze?”
The Champion nodded and leaned forward to get a better view of the black and purple arm. The severe bruising had climbed down and up the arm, covering half the shoulder at the top.
“I disinfected it with exceedingly rare Johnnie Walker scotch.” The Champion unfastened the knots and pulled away the blood-encrusted bandages. “Let me see.” He dropped the soiled linen to the carpet and peeled off the pads.
The Other flinched with every movement of the cloths. His jaw set hard.
His right arm looked as though it had been through a meat grinder. The four tears were inflamed and scarlet at the edges, going to dark purple where the blood had clotted in the holes. In the corners and folds of the torn skin, the flesh looked watery and yellow.
“This needs cleaning properly, something more than alcohol.” The Champion could not help but feel sickened at the damage. Any kind of wound or sore was totally against his strict regime of fastidious purity. “I haven’t got the proper medical resources here; I left them behind in the Pits.”
“You wouldn’t go back and get them?” The Other looked hopefully at the man kneeling at his side.
Grinning wryly, the Champion shook his head and replied with an emphatic, “No, I would not. I’m not going anywhere near the place. They won’t have the welcome wagon out for me.”
“No, I don’t suppose they will.”
The Champion got up and disappeared into the kitchen area for some clean napkins. The Other shouted after him.
“What about our interested visitor? Where do you suppose he came from?”
Further sounds of breaking plastic accompanied the return of the Territory Protector. In his hands he held three more pieces of linen. Dropping down onto one knee, he pulled off his gauntlets and began to rebind the arm.
“Yes, just where did a specimen like that drift in from? I thought I knew all the communes, small and large, in this sector and I’ve never seen anything — one, so affluent except the Owners.” He waited for the Other to hold the clean pads in place. “I could have missed a commune but, even so, where did he get clothes like that from? And — ”
“And he looked almost fat,” finished the Other. “Nobody in this city’s fat.”
The Champion tightened the knots and said without thinking, “Maybe he’s from outside the city.”
They both stopped at this casual statement, with new thoughts. Then the Plaza Protector shrugged dismissively.
“There isn’t anything outside the city. It’s the same as here, just a wasteland.” He murmured the words that had been drilled into his mind since The End.
The Champion knew the creed well; it had become dogma in this New Society, taught by commune leaders and perpetuated by the people. But now he was free to think as he pleased. No more narcotics to warp his mind.
“How do you know; have you ever been?” He raised his eyebrows in question, blue eyes sparkling with challenge.
“No, but — ” He couldn’t counter with his own argument, so resorted to learned theories. ” — it’s an accepted fact that the whole country is the same all over since The End. There’d only be more communes and desolate waste if we went and looked.”
The Champion wasn’t about to be put off. “So, where did he come from then?” He pulled his gloves back on. “You’re a free man now, do some free thinking. What if outside the city is different?”
“No, it’s all the same or people would have left these stinking streets.”
“Only if they knew it was different.” The Champion’s mind was darting from idea to idea. “Think: it would benefit the commune leaders if we thought there was nothing outside. The people are tied to the communes because we believe that there’d only be more gray deserts and diseased creatures. The leaders have always told us that and, in the Territory, anyone who thought differently was dealt with. But, what if there is something outside the city?”
“No, no, we’d have heard from somebody outside. There’d be signs, especially if they were as well off as our mystery man looked.” For the Other, the self-examination of New Society dogma was making his skin crawl with doubt. What if he’s right? What if his words are true? It doesn’t bear thinking about…the wasted time…the disillusionment, when life could have been better all along. No, it can’t be.
The Champion mulled over the Other’s words and found his mind straying back over his life under the control of the Owners. At every turn he came across unexplained objects and supplies that most commune dwellers had thought totally consumed years ago. He agreed with the Owners in some respects, but the Owners had always seemed well supplied with rare resources that he had not discovered for them in his work.
When I went about the streets cleaning out city block after city block, the resources I discovered never matched the supply of the more rare things — my narcotics, for one. Then again, I suppose they could have come from ransacked hospitals…but I never foraged through any of those buildings. Not one…too much disease.
“I’ve been so wound up on smack and stuff, I never really thought about it before. I’d always assumed the Owners got the rare things from Rospo Case. Occasionally, I went out north of the Territory and met up with the man. The Owners traded with him.” The Champion looked away, lost in thought. But where did Case get his supplies…? He couldn’t get the perishable goods by digging through the bricks ‘n’ mortar….
“Who is Rospo Case?” The Other had picked up his rifle and was cleaning the dust off it as best he could.
The Champion returned from his reverie and leaned back against a seat back, folding his muscular arms across his chest. “Rospo Case is an independent, allowed to operate by the Owners because he has a supply of goods not easily available in this day and age. No questions asked and he can usually supply. The Owners, to my knowledge, never asked any awkward questions. They wanted the goods too badly.”
“But where does Case get the stuff?” The Other had stopped cleaning the rifle; it lay across his knees, forgotten. What the Champion was saying was of far more importance.
“I got the impression, when I could see and think straight, that he stole things — ” Maybe I was partly wrong.
“And resold them to your commune at a fantastic profit.”
The Champion nodded.
The Other pulled himself upright and forced the rifle into the spring release holster on his leg. “I think there was an old term for that kind of operator; I think he was called a ‘fence’.”
“Yeah, I guess you would call him a ‘fence’.” And I thought I’d remembered everything.
“What kinds of things does Case supply? I could do with some medicine for this arm. You know, penicillin or something. Would he have that?” The Other brushed past the Champion and headed for the door and then waited for him to follow.
“He always supplied the Territory with whatever they asked for. Sometimes you had to wait a couple of days, but he always came through with the goods or a suitable substitute.”
“Do you suppose he could supply us with food, too. I’m starving.” The Other looked half-starved anyway, but a natural hunger was in his eye.
“We can ask.” The Champion pushed off the seat and followed the Other. “Visiting Rospo will at least give us something to do. I don’t know about you, but as of last night, I’m unemployed.”
The Other gave the Champion a strange look and then agreed. “Yeah, me, too. No more privileges, though I can’t say I ever liked the kind Houndsworth dished out.”
“While we’re there, I think I’ll ask him if he’s been supplying any small independent communes with superior goods. Our mystery man has to get his goods from somewhere.” He pushed the door open further. “I like to know what kind of man is likely to be taking potshots at me.”
“Is that what you think he was — an assassin?” The Other bent down and used his good arm to let himself drop from the plane doorway. He thought a moment before speaking again. “He could be some new kind of independent operator, brought in by commune leaders to dispense with rogue protectors. That might account for his appearance. He’d be paid well to move against us.” He waited for the Territory man to climb down beside him.
“Yeah, but rich or poor, everyone wants to belong to a commune. We are simply two gold shields now — passports. Ex-commune protectors are lower than chicken shit.” The Champion lowered himself to the unsafe ground, butted up to the fuselage.
“Then again, I think he was more surprised to see us, than anything.” The Other looked the Champion up and down. “We’re different from everyone else. I’ve always been kept apart from even the other commune protectors.” Treading carefully, he climbed down the rubble, back onto the street.
Shielding his eye from the weak sun, the Other gazed up into the sky and then on up the road. The Champion jumped down beside him. Without facing away from the view, the Other spoke quietly.
“Look at me, Territory Protector. I bet you haven’t seen anyone like me before.”
The Champion didn’t have to look; he knew the placing of the silver plates, the tiny rivets, and the flaccid eye socket. In the first light of dawn, the metal gleamed dully.
“No I never saw anyone like you before.” Before the sewer.
“Except maybe in a freak show.” The Other glanced at the Champion out of the corner of his good eye. “They still have — had them in the Plaza — for fun. Haldane and Zuckerman used to round up as many varied mutants as they could get their greasy hands on, and parade them around the community hall before kicking them back out onto the street.” He fiddled about with the leg holster unconsciously. “You know where they used to keep the wilder mutants before ‘show time’?”
It was a rhetorical question, but the Champion shook his head anyway.
“Doped, in the same room as me. That effectively put me in my place. I really was nothing more than a laboratory animal to Selkirk. A creature that he could practice on when he felt like a little special entertainment. He was right when he said he ‘created’ me.”
An aged sheet of newspaper blew past their legs and swirled with the dust eddies on the roadway.
“I’m glad he’s dead; I wish I could have killed him.” Shaking off the black atmosphere, the Other took a step forward, ready to go. “Do you think Rospo Case would sell me a false eye — they used to have them in the Time Before — ‘cept, I don’t know how I’d pay.”
The Champion coughed to cover his unease. “I don’t know.” He felt ashamed of what was left of mankind.
The Other stroked his face near the empty eye socket, deep in thought. “I think I’ll ask…. I’d like an eye again.”
Suddenly he stopped and looked back down the street, then forward again. Turning full circle, he faced the Champion. “I never came here, but this is what I termed sector 67a. I don’t know what you called your commune district. The old street names are useless now. But, if it’s any help, this is northwest of the Plaza. So, which way to Case’s?’
The Champion looked in the direction of the sun and did some mental coordination over the areas he knew. Sucking his lips in thought, he pointed vaguely behind the Other’s head. “Over that way somewhere.”
“That’s accurate.”
He scowled. No one criticized him and got away lightly in the Territory. “It’s the best I can do. This isn’t my district.”
“It isn’t mine now, either.” Tangled curls lifting slightly in the breeze, the Other followed the obscure directions and set off stiffly toward what had been a bank façade at one time. The insurance company building next to it was almost demolished; they’d be able to pick their way through it and save themselves a tour of the block.
The Champion watched him walk away, balance thrown out by the stiff leg muscles and the favoring of the right arm.
I remember all the times I followed you into unknown situations. This is just another one, I suppose, and yet I’m more frightened now than when I lived in the Territory.
Trying to shake off the cloud of doom, the tall, green-leathered man pulled at the neck of his suit and pushed back the plaits that hung down on his chest. Squaring his broad shoulders, he set off after the advancing Other.
The two figures stepped over cracks in the tarmac and out of the shadow of the huge plane tail. Quickening his pace, the Champion drew alongside the man in the wine-colored suit. Shoulder to shoulder, they disappeared among the ruins. One head of long, dark curls, the other of blond, gold-tipped hair. Total opposites and yet linked by a memory of a distant lifetime and a mutual need to survive.
The Champion could remember it as always having been so in the Time Before.
The Other simply wondered if they would survive on their own.
From out of the destruction that had been the cinema, emerged a figure in black. Hood down, it crept along the underside of the fuselage of the 727 and risked a quick look at the departing men. It waited for them to clamber into the debris of the bank, and then it turned about and ran back whence it came.
Waiting calmly among the remainder of the seats in front of the torn movie screen were several more black-clad figures. As the spy stumbled out of the weak light and into the absorbing dark, they rose expectantly. Clutching his robe at the throat, the lone wanderer began his report.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The long straight road of once-wide lanes and trees cut through the ruins of the city of the living dead. Pale gray in color, its smooth surface was marred and pitted by the ravages of the quake and the fallen debris.
Two men walked in the middle of the road. Dominating the skyline.
A man of gold.
A man of silver.
They moved with the easy grace of the well-trained killer. Armored with their weapons of death, they strode eastward, feet close to the remains of the center lane marking.
And an atmosphere of dread followed them like a shadow out of a crypt.
The sickly sun crawled through the godforsaken heavens of their sky. A gray sky of low dusting clouds and sluggish sea breezes from the distant coast. A mutant cockroach wriggled away from their approaching tread, down a jagged tear in the tarmac. Huge and engorged after its night of foraging, it did not want to be squashed underfoot.
A junction. The Champion paused and looked about him. The buildings were half standing in this district, probably inhabited by beings of the night that now slunk down in the shadows watching the Protector as he debated the next route. Hands on hips, he turned a half circle and gazed silently back the way they had come. Eyes slit to blue cracks, he peered through the swirling dust eddies to the thin-line distance and watched for any telltale dust haze that would betray trouble following. He was rogue now. Ex-commune and marked as clearly for death as he’d marked men before.
The road was empty…save for the Other.
Face of metal gleaming dully, he waited patiently for the Champion to finish his reconnaissance of the area. He studied the fine form of the man: the planes and hollows of his face, the indecently long blond hair, plaited and tipped in death-rewards, the leather-clad body of solidly developed muscle, and the eagle burned deep into his golden flesh — the Owners’ personal property mark. His brow creased in thought.
Branded for all eternity, as I am. The same…and yet different. Maybe we were always the same but different. His footstep beside me feels right somehow. I used to think I walked alone in empty space because I was anathema on sight. Who would dare to step beside me?…But now I know different: I walked alone because I was alone. The empty space around me lacked a vital ingredient…. Looking at my total opposite now, I wonder, have I found that single factor to make the balance complete…?
The Champion suddenly felt the eye of the Other upon him. He met look for look and found his body tensed with a strange, possibly old, feeling of anticipation. It gave him a strengthening of spirit in ways his narcotics had never done. He let his eyes drop back and away to the horizon again. He schooled his features not to betray his mental processes.
I know what you’re thinking…. To walk beside another person outside of your commune is alien to our routine. Your space feels threatened…and yet for all the warning signals, the movement of you at my shoulder seems perfectly right…. It goes against all my laws for survival and yet, I know, now, that this was the way we used to survive the streets. It was…the only road to safety…even though, at times, it became almost too dark and narrow.
Heavy hair chiming in a steady rhythm, the blond moved on, boots close to the chipped yellow line in the road. A dark red booted pair of feet stepped at his side; an odd and slightly foreshortened gait compared to his own.
Together the movements jelled into a disconcertingly accurate balance. The uncanny ease in which they found their body language symbiotic gave credence to their growing awareness that apart they had been powerful, but together they had uncovered untapped, dangerous depths.
The whole was greater than the parts. But the yellow line lay between them as the barriers lay between the memories of the Time Before and now.
The Champion surreptitiously watched the man at his side. He was valiantly matching step for step with the Territory man. But always at a distance that didn’t violate his private territory. Just take that small step toward me….
The Champion and the Other stayed on their own sides. The city blocks passed in a merging picture of destroyed civilization. It was difficult to be accurate of one’s bearings, as one heap at the edge of a sidewalk looked like many others.
The sun peaked and began to wane. Time passed then through another morning of desolation and near silence. The inhabitants were wise and kept well hidden. No commune dwellers were abroad in the relative safety of the daylight. Just the flat silence of nothing and the scuff of boots on gravel.
Abruptly, the Other stopped and sighed deeply. He licked his dry lips and brushed back his unruly hair from his pale forehead. “I’m gonna leave this city.”
The Champion slowed to a halt a little way ahead. He turned around and read the determination in the face of the Other. “Yeah, why the hell not?” He gazed about him. “There’s nothing here but the ruins of a city…a ruined life.”
The Other scanned the horizon, too. “I’ve never walked beyond my district unless ordered to by Houndsworth. I think I’d like to walk and keep on walking. I’d walk beyond these ruined wastes, and if I find more of the same I’ll walk on until I find something better. I’ve had my fill of concrete refuse.”
The Champion had to agree; the never-ending sandy stone and gray rubble was a world of drab, ceaseless monotony. It burned its tedious destruction into the retina of his eye. A constant image and reminder of the void he occupied.
The Other’s voice dropped and he half looked at the Champion. “I don’t want to face this every day for the rest of my life. Freedom gives me courage to expect and want more.”
From his side of the road the Champion listened intently. Freedom gives him courage…. It scares me witless. And then he voiced his opinion. “To be free is worth the risk. To change cities to look on more than this, is worth another risk.” Willing agreement. “Besides, if I stay, I’m a dead man.”
“We’re both dead men. Two rogue, ex-commune protectors loose in the city is a dangerous threat to everyone.” He looked directly at the Territory man, a little way ahead. “This is definitely a case where it can be said: Better the devil you don’t know than the ones you do….” Massaging his injured arm, he went on, “They’ll hunt us down. One at a time or both together, but they’ll hunt us down.”
Face dark with subdued thoughts, the Champion considered what the Other said, and came to the conclusive judgment that he was speaking the truth. “Yeah. They’re going to start thinking about my serious lack of appearance last night. Disobedience was always punished savagely in the Territory.” He walked on a few steps, then turned. “We should get out while the going’s good.” He released the Magnum from the holster and checked its load. “Houndsworth’s men could regroup as well and come and pick us off.”
The Other nodded. “This city just became too hot.” He tried to think ahead — plan, but he was unused to forward thinking of this nature, having been programmed on a short-term basis for years. Finally, he said, “I think we should get supplies from this Case, and then shift our asses as far and as fast as possible. We’d be safer if we dropped out of sight while there’s some confusion over the mess at the Plaza, and while your commune isn’t sure whether you’re just late or you’ve gone rogue.”
The Champion soberly nudged a small piece of stone in the powder on the tarmac with his hard toecap. He knew the Owners well, and most of their wicked ways. Their powers were like a growing pestilence over the city. They could have taken over the Plaza and all Northern Sector gains in a few weeks if he’d stayed. Now, the Plaza was gone. They’d move in on those abandoned resources and become the ultimate power in the city. There was no one to stop them now. It would be wiser to get out before the exits were barred by advancing organization.
He looked up from the chip of brick, hesitating to confide in the Other. “I’m afraid the Owners will know what I’ve done by now. I was supposed to keep a very important appointment last night — I was to be the highlight of their social calendar.” Broad green back to the Other, he resumed their trek.
“What?” The Other didn’t understand. He picked up his pace and edged a little in front of the blond. His expression pressed the Protector for an explanation.
“My kindly, grateful Owners were going to teach me a whole new meaning to Protect and Serve.” He glanced sideways at the wayward curls that framed the curious face. A slight smile of recognition and distaste appeared on his broad features and he avoided direct eye contact.
“Serve…?” The Other picked up on the emphasized word, his face frowning; then, as meaning dawned, his brows widened. “Serve?” came in a horrified whisper.
The Champion shrugged his shoulders, ashamed of the thought. “They held me as their ‘precious’ favorite until I put a foot wrong.” He looked at the Other. “I went back for you at the warehouse…and I was instantly untrustworthy. It’s no good having a champion protector who makes his own rules. They thought up a fitting punishment for me.”
The Other looked sickened at the thought of their retribution.
The Champion tried to speak philosophically, but the depression and despair in his voice came through. “Stud just isn’t my style. And they may have had all my worth, but what I won’t let them have is my children. They’ll never have my sons.” He stared at the stores on his right, uneasy at confessing his inner thoughts to another man. “They are unborn and untainted. I won’t let them be brought into this kind of world.”
“Breeding stock….” the Other concluded out loud. What happened to me at the hands of Selkirk, happened solely to me. To use a man’s immortality…. Prostitution of your soul. Unthinking, the Other crossed over the yellow line in the road. “We’ve got a long way to go yet. Freedom isn’t just being able to walk where you like — freedom is being able to walk where you like without having to look over your shoulder. Come on, let’s go see Rospo Case and quit.” Face set with determination, the Other fell in beside the Champion.
The Champion nodded, too full of emotion to speak.
A mutual sign of trust arced like an electric current between them. Memories clear or blurred were set aside, and the past became an accepted second thought as a modern-day partnership was formed.
The need for freedom and life forged chains of steel.
Two minds of individual scars, brutalized and stained in misery, pain, and fear took up the same line of iron determination.
The seed of fight flourished within them. It sparkled into life among the gray-black doom of converging disaster.
And it gave them hope.
They had suffered with equal barbarism and in each other they recognized another of their kind…and they were no longer alone.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The home of Rospo Case was a bizarre mausoleum to the days before The End. As twisted in concept and design as the man who occupied it.
The Other and the Champion emerged from behind a mound of thrown-up earth and piping and paused to take in the weird sight.
The Territory Protector had never done business with Case from his home base; they’d always met at a prearranged point, some neutral ground. Despite having heard detailed descriptions of the place from coherent mutants and commune dwellers, the sight in reality was still extraordinary.
The Other had never dealt with Case, even if the Plaza had. He tried to conceal his look of surprise and progressed with confidence toward it.
The supreme supplier of rare resources lived like a hermit within the hollowed-out remains of twelve Greyhound buses. Pushed end to end, in a double row of six, the backs of the buses had been removed, and it was possible to walk from the front of one, right through the bodies of the buses, and stop at the front of another backing up to it. To get from one pair of buses into the others, the sides had been cut out at random points. All the windows were blacked in, boarded up, or meshed.
It was one enormous metal can.
But its smooth surface was now mottled and thick with a kind of wispy growth. Strange in hue, the metal sides of the buses were decorated in patterns with the stuff. If the breeze gusted, the longer strands of browns, blacks, or grays lifted and swirled.
The Champion and the Other approached the silent edifice with caution. As they drew nearer, the faint strains of whining music came to their ears.
“So someone’s home,” murmured the Champion. He stepped down a sunken curb and came closer. Where the surface of the buses was clear of the strange growth, the Champion could see that the once pale gray and shining public transports were now pitted and lackluster heaps. Long ago, the tires had perished or had been stolen and the whole conglomeration now rested upon flaking axles and wheel arches.
Watching the long strands shifting in the slight wind, the Other suddenly stopped and sucked in his breath.
“Look,” he gasped. “Look at the stuff on the sides….”
The Champion looked more carefully at the “growth.”
“It’s hair….” The Other took a couple of quick steps toward the sides of the first Greyhound. He tentatively fingered a long mane of dark brown strands, then his hand dropped away. “It is hair.”
Together they edged back and assessed the amount of human hair that was fastened to the metal sides.
Hundreds of scalps, carefully stretched out and tacked on, rippling smoothly.
The Other swallowed slowly. He was revolted. “Where’d he get all of these?”
The Champion shook his head. “God knows. Off the dead at The End, probably…most of it’s women’s hair, judging by the length.”
Eyes scanning over the tangled, haphazard tresses, the two men followed one double side of the “building” and came at last to a door near the front. It was corroding badly and had two rusting trays jammed into the gap where the glass had once been. The paint had blistered and peeled, revealing the metal underneath.
The Champion selected a tray that didn’t look too loose or fragile and rapped with a balled fist. The sound of studs impacting with cheap aluminum reverberated around the hulks. The music continued to whine on. He glanced at the Other, who motioned that he should knock again.
The Champion thundered again.
Nothing but the music.
Seconds passed and their impatience grew.
The Other stepped back and kicked on the door. It gave a little. The Champion added his foot and together they forced an entry.
No one came to meet them. The music became clearer. High-pitched on the discordant melody, a bass note vibrated on the air, accompanied by a deep voice.
Leaning up the stairwell, the Champion peered into the dim interior. Nobody awaited them. Beckoning the Other, they tiptoed up the first steps and onto the seating level.
The interior of the bus was a maze of shelves, cartons, crates, and hanging curtains. Arranged disorderly, they formed the inner walls. The seating was obviously missing. Crammed into every nook and cranny, on these and other fittings, was a wondrous “Aladdin’s cave” of supplies, objects, and paraphernalia that made up Rospo’s cache of ill-gotten gains.
“Just look at this place,” the Other whispered at the Champion, who was edging up to the ceiling-high shelving. “I’ve never seen anything like this before….”
The Champion brushed between the racks of clothes, food, bottles, utensils, and other goods long-since departed from people’s everyday lives. Here there were thousands of the priceless objects.
The Other paused beside a stack of yellowing newspapers and ran his fingers over the fading newsprint. He was amazed he could still read after all these years.
The Champion neared the corner of a metal structure. Shoulder to the frame, he sneaked a quick look beyond.
Reclining on a sofa was a woman of indeterminate age. Dressed very ornately in silks and hand-printed cottons, her heavily made-up face tilted dolefully toward the man. She gave no sign of surprise. Eyes almond in shape and shade, she looked at him, bored.
The Champion stepped around the corner into the next aisle and approached her cautiously. His Magnum appeared in his hand, and padding forward, he leveled the gun at her forehead.
Tiny jeweled beads rustled against the cloth of her head scarf that was wound elaborately over her head. She stared into the barrel, completely composed, as her long-fingernailed hands twisted sensuously into the folds of her gown. Carmine-coated lips parted over her white teeth.
“Where’s Rospo?” The Champion asked the question quietly, trying to cover all the dark gaps in the shelving at once.
She remained silent, mouth sucking in air with a deep sigh.
The Other slid in beside the Champion and encircled her lovely throat with his hand. He exerted pressure. “He asked you where Rospo is.” He tried to look into her eyes, but she continued to stare at the gun barrel.
Suddenly, she sagged forward, hands reaching for the wrist of the Territory Protector. Thrusting her back against the threadbare sofa, the two men stepped back. She smiled vacantly and settled down in a slow, squirming bundle. Her left hand stroked the padded cushions. The rustle of her skirts and rasp of her many-ringed fingers over the velvet took up the beat of the distant music.
The Champion stepped behind the Other and into the next narrow passageway. “Come on, leave her.”
Moving silently over bare boards and thread-snagged carpet, the two Protectors wove a pattern through the warren of goods. The Greyhounds were gloomily lit by oil lamps screwed to wall brackets. Each wash of yellow light picked out the rich displays in dark colors and long shadows. Every corner was a potential threat and a new experience. The atmosphere was bad, made worse by the smell of thick, cloying incense drifting toward them on the smoky air. The music stopped, restarted, and whined on. The same song, only louder and more irritating with every new turn.
But the women were the strangest.
Elaborately dressed. Seductively posed. Chained or free, they watched in casual disdain as the men passed them by. After a while it became apparent that the women were as much a part of the collection as the shelved and catalogued goods. Sedated to a state of chronic lethargy, they stared glassy-eyed at the green- and wine-leathered figures. Richly adorned, they smelled of heavy musks and sandalwood perfumes. Toe and fingernails were painted and shaped. Faces chalk-white to a porcelain finish, their black-rimmed eyes stared blankly while their crimson lips pouted or parted hungrily.
“Rospo can supply anything.” The Champion wafted away another pawing hand and crossed an interior intersection.
Stepping over a jagged rim of metal, the Other noted that they had crossed into another made-over vehicle shell. The music was definitely louder and slower now. Peering through a row of breakable crockery, he caught the faint movement of another being in the space beyond. It was a woman of dark purple robes and silver make-up. Jerking with an unnatural rhythm, she was winding the handle of an ancient phonograph. The music speeded up again as the metal needle picked out the tune. Her thin arm fell to her side and she stepped back into a narrow alcove and stared directly at him. Dead of eye, she instinctively went into her trained motions of seduction. Bing Crosby sang “White Christmas” yet again.
As he moved on, she continued with her bizarre repertoire to an invisible audience.
The Champion wandered on ahead, Magnum still held forward, searching for the elusive Rospo Case.
The Other rounded another banking of crates containing car accessories, a useless commodity now, and found the broad back of the Champion blocking his way, braids hanging like a curtain. Green-gloved hand motioning him to be silent, the dark-haired man took up a vantage point at his side and looked to where the Champion was pointing.
Ahead, the bus was partitioned off with a thick drape. A light glowed around it and from behind came the tuneless hum of a person lazily joining with the music.
The Champion glanced at the pale face of the Other and crept forward to the edge of the drape. Gun barrel acting as a hook, he peeled the cloth back a fraction so that they both could see.
The low illumination from the oil lamp on the wall crawled over the worn, dirty carpet toward their booted feet. Spirals of incense wafted out into the passageway as the curtain stirred the air.
Behind, in a cramped hidey-hole of cushions, bed, drapes and desk, was seated the filthy shambles of the man called Rospo Case. Back to the two men, he was perched at the desk, hunched over a cookie jar of false teeth. Mirror propped against a stained coffee mug, he tried out his looted treasures taken from the mouths of the dead. Clicking plates in and out, he modeled denture after denture in an effort to find a pair that fit.
Rospo Case was a man of bad health, bad manners, and bad breath. His skin was a walnut color, ingrained with years of dirt and filth. He was polluted of body and mind and stank of decay and debauchery. He owned more wealth than any single city dweller, collected women, dentures, and hair, but preferred men.
At the moment, he was filing fervently at the pink plastic of an upper plate with a rusty nail file and testing it for fit. As he worked, he scratched at his long matted hair that was so riddled with lice that it occasionally moved on its own.
Whistling tunelessly, he threw down the file with an air of desperate boredom and sucked in the false teeth once more. He grinned at himself in the shattered glass, turning from right to left to check the fit.
Without pausing in his work, he said, “Whatever you want, I ain’t got it, so piss off!” He picked up a fine probe and dug at a rear molar.
“We’ve come to deal, scum.” The Champion felt his stomach turn at the obscene being and wondered what diseases riddled the emaciated body. As he spoke, he ducked under the curtain, making adornments ring across his back.
The fence spun around, eyes alight with delight. He recognized the sight and sound of the Champion. His man-made smile filled his sore-encrusted lips and threatened to burst forth, as the denture was too large to fit correctly. Saliva dribbled over his teeth as his incredibly long fingernails clawed through his hair and forced it back behind his ears.
His face held the shine of fantasy and evil stretched over a blank wall. He was totally insane.
Case licked away a dribble of moisture and giggled. “Nice weather we’ve been having lately.” He climbed down off his stool and shuffled toward them. His walk was clumsy and uneven, as his toenails had grown without attention, and they now curled as tightly as snail shells, down and under his feet. Thick, yellow claws.
Standing before them, Case ran his eyes hungrily over the two Protectors. Hands folded high under his armpits, he bobbed about in a strange dance of deference.
“Champion, Champion, it’s so good to see you.” He clicked the teeth back into line and dragged his eyes over the Other. “And you’ve brought a friend, too.” His lips pulled across to the right side of his face in a spasm. “It’s so nice to have visitors…of the male kind.”
“We’ve come for supplies, Case. We’re in a hurry.” The Other folded his arms over his chest defensively.
“Oh, nooooo.” His words were spoken in a slow slur of disappointment. “I don’t think I know you.” The statement was directed at the Other. “Do you come from a good family? I hope so, this area’s been going down lately; all the class has gone.” He awaited a reply with sincerity.
The Other spoke dully. ”I used to be with the Plaza.”
Rospo’s eyes widened in surprise and then suspicion. “The Plaza? I’ve heard of you, then — the silver man of death.” Leaning forward, he pulled a curl straight on the Other’s shoulder and peered at him closely. “Do you look in mirrors often?” The inquiry was made with a sly innocence. “You’re amazing. I’ve heard of you but seeing is believing.”
The Champion prodded him with the Magnum barrel to get his attention, then snapped, “Look, pus-head, this is business. We’re here to deal.” He paused for effect, ” — Or take what we want.”
Case watched the barrel prod savagely into his chest. The man’s fingers held the stock solidly; his forearm muscles were tense and bulging, his brow, lined.
Rospo leaped forward, fast as lightning, and licked the Champion’s naked arm. He sprang back savoring the taste of sweat and salt. “Gods, you taste good. I hope you can stay awhile?”
The Champion made to swat him down with the gun barrel, his face a transformation of disgust into violent anger. He was halted by Case’s next words.
“Damage me and Rosita will blow your brains out.” His bloodshot eyes indicated a presence behind them.
Looking over his shoulder, the Other saw dark and dusky Rosita blocking the aisle with her well-developed body and a pump action shotgun. She held the same drugged expression as all the other women.
“She’s very good, too,” added the fence, “so no more bullshit, huh?”
The Champion didn’t turn around; he sensed the woman and smelled the different gun oil. He lowered his weapon.
“Now, isn’t this nice?” smiled Rospo and shooed Rosita away. “Stay within call, my dear.” He crept to the two armored visitors again, his confidence secure.
“Are you going to deal?” The Other felt claustrophobic in the small man’s presence.
“Are you metal all over? It would be a shame if you were.” Case bobbed backward and curled up cross-legged on his bed, ignoring the question.
The Other smarted behind his eye and persisted, “Yes or no?”
Rospo weighed up the two, silently. Seconds passed and the Champion quickly turned and walked a couple of paces back down the shelving to check on Rosita. She was standing in her alcove, gun in hand.
Case saw the gold clasps on the ends of the long, blond plaits. And his eyes bulged out of his greasy face. “Whatever you want you’ll pay for in gold.” His voice became hard and calculating.
“Gold.” The Champion scowled meanly taking up his previous position.
“Yes, gold.” Rospo rocked with delight. “And we have everything here, so you can’t refuse.”
“Do you have an eye?” The Other stepped forward out of the shadows to show his flaccid eye socket more clearly.
“Rospo’s face sobered. “An eye?” He fell silent a moment then wriggled down off the bed. He poked a long finger at the empty eye socket, almost touching. The Other pulled away. “Real ones are hard to find. You’d need Selkirk for that. He’s an expert, I hear. Maybe he could fit it?”
“Selkirk…?” The Plaza man’s face betrayed his distaste of the name. “This is some of his expertise, ya lousy bum!”
Rospo misunderstood the anger for enthusiasm. “Yes, that’s real skill, that is.”
“Selkirk is dead, Case.” The Champion imparted the information nonchalantly.
“Dead…?” Case frowned suspiciously. “But he was here only last — ”
“So’s Houndsworth — they all are.” The Champion leaned against a rack of picture frames and jewelry boxes.
“How…?”
The Other spoke acidly. “I didn’t like them any more. So I burned down the Plaza.”
Wild of eye, Rospo looked from one to the other. “No one burns down a commune.”
“I did — with his help.” The Other nodded at the Champion and then back at Case. “So you won’t annoy us, will you, Rospo?”
“Have a magazine,” grinned Rospo, and snatched up two glossy porn mags from a well-thumbed stack. He thrust one into each of their hands. “They’re on the house; color ones were always the hardest to get.”
The two Protectors held the shiny sheets, unmoving.
“Let’s be friends, huh?” A bead of sweat collected among the crusting scabs on Case’s top lip. “You can have a woman if you want?”
The Champion tossed the gift on the desk. “Sorry, Rospo, but we haven’t the time. Do we deal or not?”
Case nodded in the affirmative and smiled ingratiatingly. He had no wish to see his luxurious home reduced to ashes.
“But the eye is a tricky one. I’ll have to consult my supplier, you understand. It could take a day or two.” He hoped they’d accept the delay.
Dear God, an eye. After all this time…an eye. The Other almost forgot the sense of urgency that beset them.
The Champion reminded him indirectly. He fixed Case coldly. “You got till tomorrow.”
The Other snapped around, face beseeching. Give him more time.
The Champion shook his head fractionally. “Only till tomorrow, Case.”
The Other struggled against his desire to give the fence all the time that he needed, but he reluctantly agreed with the Champion. Their time was desperately short. You don’t understand…I hate the way I look. I disgust myself. “Okay, only until tomorrow.” His voice held a note of resignation as he accepted that the chance had been snatched away by the lack of time. He looked down at the magazine in his hands, afraid he’d already revealed his weakness to Case.
“It’ll cost you, though.” Rospo looked at the gold that adorned the Champion. “Eyes aren’t easy; no spare parts are.”
“This should cover it.” The Champion pulled off his armlet and tossed it at Case. A solid gold circle.
Case hefted the weight in his ivory hands. Greed was written in his face. He loved gold. “I’ll get the eye.”
The Other stared, stunned, at the golden armlet in the tight clasp of the fence. He knew what it must have cost to have become worthy of that reward in the eyes of the Owners. The strange sensation scrambled his reserve. He wasn’t used to any form of kindness. He felt blessed if people just left him alone and withdrew the pain.
Rospo was almost as surprised. No one in this stinking hellhole helped anybody else. It wasn’t a line from the law of survival. He looked at the two Protectors in a whole new light. What the hell are these two doing together, anyway? I always thought they were the deadliest of enemies. Rivals over the rule of the streets. He slipped on the armlet. It was too big for his scrawny arm and slid down to the elbow.
The Other looked long and hard at the Champion. He wanted to say a thousand things, but didn’t want an audience. Not good for the image. You’ll never know what this means to me…. It’s a step toward normality again. I…I…can never repay you…. I’ve nothing of worth. He took a step toward the blond, hesitant, his head shaking slightly in disbelief.
“We need more than an eye, Rospo.” The Champion cut off any further contact with the Other by turning to Case. “But we’ll help ourselves.”
The Other took the implied hint and stepped away among the shelving. His image was crumbling. The fence watched him, suspicion in his eyes and unease in his mind.
The man against the shelving continued conversationally. “He can get most of it himself.”
Rospo leaped off the bed and made to follow the Other. He didn’t have strangers wandering among the goods “helping” themselves. Bobbing forward, he tried to follow the departing wine-clad figure. A heavy green gauntlet arrested his progress.
“He’s quite capable of selecting a few things, Case. You stay here with me, because I need a few of the rarer treasures.” He spoke with a chill breath against the grimy cheek. “You know, the kinda stuff you keep hidden away.” He grinned knowingly.
Case stumbled backwards. “What sort of things?”
“Ammunition, medicines, and narcotics.” The Champion stated the list flatly.
“I ain’t got none of that here; far too dangerous — ” Rospo squirmed over to his desk and picked up the probe absently.
“Don’t give me any shit, Case. You got it here — you wouldn’t trust it anywhere else. You’re the kind that likes it tucked under the mattress, if possible.”
Case suppressed a shiver as the professional executioner towered over him. His palms began to sweat. “I don’t have that stuff in stock. It’s always specially supplied to fill specific orders. I-I — ”
“Now, Rospo, we’ve always been friends, and it would be a shame if I had to take back that nice gold armlet by breaking your arm, just because you were lying through your plastic teeth.” The menace in his voice was practically tangible in the air.
Rospo took a quick breath to call Rosita, and a glove slapped down on his mouth, cutting off voice and breath.
“Two’s company, three’s a crowd.” A knife took the place of the Magnum. Its vicious point hooked under the top lip of the fence. “Your teeth will never fit with a permanently split lip.”
Case turned the color of refined sand. He tried to push away the iron fist at his mouth, but his nails only scratched feebly at the gauntlet.
“Jesus, leave me alone! I ain’t got any of that stuff!!” His high-pitched voice whined a plea for mercy. The upper dentures dropped loosely onto his tongue and rattled against the bottom set.
Sliding further under the warm pink flesh of the upper lip, the knifepoint took the strain of the skin. Deliberate intent came into the Champion’s eyes as his hair chimed steadily, ticking away the seconds of suspense.
“Okay, okay!!” I got it! I got it!” Case blubbered around the knifepoint, his back arched painfully over the desk of tawdry rubbish.
“Where?” The tension stayed taut on the knife tip.
“Behind the desk, behind the wall!” A thin trickle of blood dropped down onto the wobbling dentures in Rospo’s mouth as the blade bit home.
The Champion looked past the mop of greasy, matted hair to the wall behind the desk. It was covered with a thick drape that reached to the floor. Letting go of the fence, the Champion reached out and pulled the material aside. Dust rose in clouds from the worn fabric. Behind was a security door, with combination lock, set neatly into the wall.
“I swear the stuff’s in there….” Case slithered out from under the Champion and sank onto the bed, fingers pulling at his top lip. “Hell’s teeth, I’m bleeding!”
“You’ll live,” replied the Champion unfeelingly, “if the stuffs in that safe.”
Rospo turned around, face a mask of distrust and hate. “It’s in there.”
The Champion hooked a fist into the slack of Case’s stained trench coat and dragged him back to the desk.
“Open it, pervert.”
“Yeah, sure. But I’ll need the key.”
“Get it.” The Champion thrust him away like the vermin that he was. He was repelled by the revolting animal that was Case, and his failing temper was becoming frayed by his lack of drugs. After the escalated high of the LSD, he was suffering a growing sense of depression that threatened to engulf him. The world seemed twice as gray and doubly irritating; nothing was easy. He had to push all the way — all the time. Only the contact with the Other seemed to help any. Case was undermining his brittle temper.
The fence climbed to his twisted feet and lurched over to a shelf of food. Eyes glued to the Champion, he fingered the contents of the shelving, jittery with clumsy movements. He was too frightened to turn away from the Territory Protector. The knife could be between his ribs next.
The Champion grew impatient as the bottles, cans, and jars spilled from the shelf in a discordant row. His humor was worn and lacked any measure of grace for imbecilic retards. He started forward and pushed Case around. “Look at the shelves, for godsake!”
Facing the goods, Rospo made his selection more rapidly and took up a peanut butter jar, which had long since lost its label. Hands vibrating with fright, he managed to unscrew the top after the third attempt.
Inside the jar was the thick, creamy-brown spread. The smell was delicious and permeated the air to vie with the pungent incense. Sunk up to its rounded loop in the peanut butter was a key.
“Neat, huh?” Rospo beamed uncertainly at the hard-faced man and then pulled the key from the glop.
“Clean it up.”
Nodding, Case looked about for a cloth and could see nothing suitable. Realizing the need for haste, he spit his false teeth into the cookie jar and pushed the coated key into his gummy mouth. Slurping and sucking, he managed to lick off most of the butter. Popping it from between his lips, the key emerged relatively clean. Sticky with saliva, Case held it forth for the Champion.
Hooking the little man under the arm, the Champion avoided any contact with the object and propelled Case toward the wall. “Shift the desk,” he snarled.
Case put down the key and heaved till his veins bulged on his forehead. The desk scraped over the thin carpet, lifting the covering into folds as the weight rucked up the pile.
Behind the desk was a collection of crumbs, small bones, and rotting food that Case had brushed off the desk in one of his rare house-proud moments. Banked up in small slopes of bottle-green mold, the decaying refuse was scattered over the carpet at random.
The Champion peered over the desk in distaste at the sight. And then froze as the mess changed and moved of its own accord. Strange in color, wild greens and reds, the edible waste slithered toward them.
The Champion stiffened and took an involuntary step backwards.
Rospo looked at him curiously and then back at the floor. Everything was as it should be: his usual pile of rotting food and leftovers. He casually reached into the cookie jar, took out another pair of dentures, and slipped them in, eyes bright with suspicion.
The clicking of the false teeth distracted the Champion from the strange ballet on the floor. He glanced at Rospo. Fear was in his blue eyes.
“Something up?” Case grinned and wiped the sweat off his top lip with a tattered cuff of his trench coat.
The Protector tried to shake his head, but he was bewildered by the bizarre form reality was taking. Must be a flashback…threw me…the drug must still be affecting me. Rospo looks — strange…weird…bloated and engorged. His features are distorting, bulging out of his head…and…and the lice are crawling out of his hair….
The Champion backed away, his whole manner of command and menace disappearing, as the hallucination became his reality. The insects slithered in groups out of the matted hair: white-pink in color, the pulpy bodies fell to the carpet with soft plopping sounds and squirmed toward him. The matted mane became increasingly frenzied and darkened to a pitch-black tangle that grew at an alarming speed, covering the twisted body of the fence.
Manic delight lit Rospo’s face from within as his features bent and distorted sickeningly. The Champion thought he could hear the bones crack and stretch like snapping kindling as Case’s form changed. The teeth enlarged and sharpened so that they poked up through the sore-encrusted lips.
Case took a step forward and offered the key.
The Champion looked down at the fungoid hand that was riddled under the skin with further pulsating parasites and shuddered. The diseased flesh quivered.
The fear of disease paralyzed the Territory executioner.
The hand came closer with the key — sticky and wet with saliva that dripped in globules down the Champion’s legs.
Frantic, the Champion brushed away the clinging liquid with his gloved hands. Get away from me…unclean leper of parasites, get away from me!! Don’t contaminate me…no disease, no infection…no plague upon me…don’t want to die of disease, don’t want to be eaten away from within…not again, not again, not again!!
Climbing backward onto the bed of soiled linen, he found his back pressed against the wall, his height cramped by the ceiling. Eyes screwed shut, he tried to blank out the horrendous image.
He heard Rospo slither toward him. Cringing, he risked a quick look and found that the inner soul of the man had been made manifest in the deviant illusion formed in his mind.
Rospo watched transfixed. At first he was unsure as to what was occurring before his sneaky eyes and then he registered the tiny telltale signs. The LSD in the last Territory consignment…he took it! He giggled gleefully and noted the shock waves ripple over the Champion. And he’s having a flashback. What a shame…. Now let’s see who can stand up to a dose of mental torture.
He bounded up onto the bed, key in hand, and secured himself to the Champion’s leg. God, men are so powerful…so muscular. He stroked the long limb and hooked his plastic teeth into the loose leather at the knee and chewed.
The Champion whimpered.
A six-pointed steel star hissed through the air and sank deeply into the flesh of Rospo’s thigh. A spurt of blood accompanied the shrieks of agony that issued from the odorous figure.
A voice in the narrow corridor said, “I’ll have another five of those, they’re real effective.” The black outline of the Other filled the aisle.
Case jack-knifed around and fell in a writhing heap on the floor.
“Rosita! Rosita!” His cry was choked off by a spasm of pain, which caused him to grit his teeth and groan. Dirty hands pried free the star and let it drop to the floor. It rolled away languidly under the desk.
The Other tossed a pump-action shotgun onto the floor against Case’s bleeding thigh. “Rosita isn’t coming. I persuaded her otherwise by knocking her out.” He hunkered down and poked the gaping wound with his own rifle barrel. Case flinched and twitched away. “What the hell are you up to, creep?”
“Nothin’. Nothin’.” Case squirmed in pain, his hands forced to hold his blood in his leg. “I was just helping him — he looked sick or something.”
“Not as sick as you’re gonna look when I’ve finished with you.” The Other snatched the key out of the fence’s hand and held it in front of the tear-filled eyes. “Now then, what’s the combination that goes with the key?” He raised his eyebrows to punctuate the question.
Case knew when he was beaten and very close to being finished off. He looked down, seething with murderous thoughts himself. “Four-right, four-left, seven-right, zero.” He spat the words, watching the flecks catch on the Other’s metal-work.
“Now, now, Rospo, you’ve got to alter your attitude or we aren’t going to be friends.” The Other rose to his feet and watched the Champion sink down onto the disheveled bed.
The deep blue eyes held a sense of calm and awareness, but it was apparent that he was clamping down on his agonizing terror. A ghost of his voice came from his dry throat. “Keep him away from me.” He looked down at his bare knees and ran a finger over the wet patch of chewed leather. The colors and the reality were solidifying into something comprehensible.
The Other looked at the bowed crown of white-blond hair and his lips narrowed. “Keep away from him, Rospo, or I’ll cut your throat.”
Rospo curled his lips around his plastic teeth. “Why should I? What’s it to you who I get friendly with?” He crawled to the edge of the desk and pulled himself upright, searching for a cloth to staunch the flow of blood. Abruptly, he hesitated and cast a slow, thoughtful eye over the two men. “Yeah, why should you care?”
The look on the Other’s face made him wish he’d cut his tongue out. As the Protector clicked back the hammer on the rifle, Rospo’s eyes fixed onto the trigger hand in expected dread.
“Mind your own damn business!” The flare of violent rage radiated out of the Other. He threw the key at the fence. “Open that goddam safe.”
Case caught the key in the folds of his ragged coat. He slid around the desk toward the wall safe while the Other retrieved the Champion’s fallen knife. Offering it awkwardly, he waited a paused breath for the huddled man to take it from him. The green-gloved hand wasn’t quite as steady as it had been previously.
Case stiffened and turned to the wall. I always thought those two were the deadliest of enemies…. What the hell are they doing together, anyway? Hands streaked in his own blood, he turned the dial the required number of turns and inserted the key. The lock clicked over with well-kept ease. He swung open the thick metal door and limped away from the wall and the two Protectors.
What are they doing here…? Coming for supplies…? The Other’s never been sent by his commune bef — But the Plaza has been torched, so who did send him? Hand on a shelf, he raised his shivering body onto the stool and watched them broodingly. Maybe he’s here freelance? The scabby face paled even further, then tightened up in shock. Maybe he’s gone rogue…? Gone rogue! Sweet mercy, he’s gone ex-commune.
He nervously hugged himself under the armpits, hardly daring to think about the Champion for fear that he’d come to a similar chilling conclusion of truth. They couldn’t have?…couldn’t have…. The Owners own the Champion, he’s commune property, branded goods. He wouldn’t dare…wouldn’t dare…would he?
The Other strode to the wall and started flinging the contents of the strongbox over his shoulder and onto the table. Peering inside, he ran a hand over the surface of the now-empty hidey-hole, then spun around. Lifting the lamp from the wall, he lit the table more clearly and poked through the many packets and boxes.
“Is this it?” He looked at the sulking Rospo. “Is this all?”
Rospo nodded sourly.
“Where’s the penicillin — antibiotics, antiseptics? There’s only some — ” He peered at the capsules in the see-through packet. ” — uppers.” Holding the measly supply out before him, he rounded the desk and grabbed Case by the scruff of the neck. “You gotta have more.”
Case tried to pull away. “Well, I haven’t, see, ’cause Selkirk took the last of my supplies and you burned that to ashes!”
The Other released the stinking little man and stepped back. “Get some more. I don’t care where or how, but get some more or I’m gonna torch you to the ground as well.” The even tones of his voice lent more threat than the outburst of anger.
A whine of desperation entered Case’s voice. “I can’t. My suppliers aren’t due for — ”
The Other cut him short. “If you can supply the eye, you can get the antibiotics, too. Anyone who can get an eye, can get the medicine. You got till tomorrow, no argument.”
“But — ” Case began to protest and stopped short when the head of the Territory Protector came up to face him.
White. Shining with a sheen of fine sweat, the tall blond rose off the bed and towered over the infested man. His nostrils flared with barely suppressed rage.
“You heard him. He’s giving you a chance. Me? I’d have killed you.”
The coldness of his words iced Rospo’s dutch courage as swiftly as a hammer smites a killer blow.
Stepping up to the desk, the Champion sorted through the various calibers of ammunition and pocketed the entire supply of .357 shells. The array of soft drugs disappeared equally as fast into his suit. Facing about, he tossed the rifle cartridges for the Springfield Armory MIA at the Other, who tucked them into his magazine pouches.
Rospo watched his whole stock of those calibers whittle down to nothing. “Hey, man, that’s — ”
The Champion silenced him with a look and strode away down the aisle into the warm darkness.
The Other made to follow him. “We need a few other things and then we’ll be leaving — until tomorrow.”
Rospo watched warily. Tomorrow? I don’t want those two bastards back here! I’ve got too much to lose.
The silvered man stopped in the passageway near the hooked-back curtain and stared at Case, weighing him up. “We’ll meet two blocks east of here in the old estate house. Evening. Wait in the open; we’ll be there.” I don’t trust you as much as you don’t trust us. We’d be fools to come back here.
The Other turned on his heel and followed in the receding footsteps of the Champion.
Blood still streaming down his leg, Rospo shouted sarcastically, “Have a nice day!”
Outside in the pathetic sunlight, the Champion was slumped against a burned out shell of a Cadillac, eyes staring into the distant horizon. A stiletto knife dangled loosely from his hands, between his knees. Periodically, he flicked the hilt and let the blade swing pendulum-like to a standstill. The movement would then be repeated.
He was counting down his racing heartbeat and trying to make his mind a complete blank.
At his feet lay a finely worked combat suit with armor, and a superbly honed fireman’s axe that he had “helped” himself to from Rospo’s supplies. It rested in the soft dust, almost forgotten.
In the distance, the dark leathered figure of the Other jumped down from the entrance to the Greyhounds. His long tangle of dark hair blew around as the wind caught it. The manes of tacked on hair made similar movements so that the surface of the buses rippled and swayed in various shades of browns and blacks. Occasionally, a blonde scalp stood out from the rest, like an eye on a mythical beast.
Mythical beast — The Champion smiled cynically and watched the languid approach of the Other. — That’s Rospo, a mythical beast…. Nobody would believe he was real, or am I a distorted reality? Am I insane with the years of drugs and death? Would I be better off as a blissfully ignorant madman?…Maybe I already am…but if I think I am, how can I be sure I’m insane? If I’m crazy, I can’t assess myself rationally…Catch 22…. But the bizarre sight of Rospo…straight out of my mind. If I’m not insane, I ought to be….
The knife swung agitatedly between his fingers. His temperament was fragile and tender as his personal depression tortured his overwrought mind.
Moving away from the Greyhounds, the Other could see the figure of dejection resting against the totaled Cadillac. He could see the bowed head and the erratic swing of the blade. The Champion was wound up with some inner tension and the Other had a sinking dread of what that might be.
I’ve seen him look like that before…long time ago. I wonder if he’s brought any supplies with him from that underground home of his?
He shifted the weight of two small backpacks and carried them out in front of him, favoring his right arm. Stumping forward, the chain of stars swung from his hip. Weaponry gratis of Case.
The Champion watched him approach, face expressionless, just haunted from within.
The Other dumped the sacks onto the ground beside the suit and squatted down himself. He studied the blond thoughtfully, then said bluntly, “What are you on?”
The Champion looked away. “Nothing.”
Any man who walked the street knew the value of the human body and its need to be at optimum efficiency. A man knew that a hypersensitive mind divided the living from the dead when it came to a challenge situation. The Other knew that if he was to let his guard down, and go against every instinct for survival he had been trained to, by trusting in the close proximity of another human being, then that human being had better be equal to his high standards.
“You looked sick back there. Rospo could have killed you.” His deep blue eyes stared unflinchingly into the face of the man against the car door.
“Well, he didn’t.” The Champion looked back momentarily. “He was after something quite different than blood.”
“You should have been ready; a Protector of your — ”
“Well, I wasn’t!” He flared around, face a harsh expression of challenge. “You weren’t so ready in the scrap yard, were you?” He pointed to the open wound of dried blood in the Other’s right thigh.
“I got myself out of that mess; you needed some help.” The words came harder than he meant.
The Champion’s fingers tightened on the stiletto hilt as an uncontrollable rage bubbled within him. Don’t you think I know that! His gold clasps shivered, causing a tense note to tremor on the still air between them.
Seeing the increasing signs of fury about to burst forth, the Other snatched at the green-clad arm and peeled back the gauntlet.
The intracath nestled in the folds of skin at the elbow.
A second of stunned truth passed between them.
The Other released the arm as if stung. Images of a dirty back alley and needle tracks into a vein came flooding into his mind. A man in dark blue spoke words of accusation, and the seemingly undeniable truth was accompanied by a pathetic cry of misery.
The Champion made a similar noise now. He wrenched his arm free and instantly covered the intracath with the sleeve of his glove.
“Are you mainlining?” The Other was insistent. “Are you?”
“No!” No one challenged the Champion. He tried to climb to his feet but a strong arm held his shoulder down.
“You were shooting up in the warehouse — that was heroin, wasn’t it?” Silver lips spoke in earnest, forming words he didn’t know were within. They were words of caring.
“Yes, but — ” The Champion swallowed, gaining time to collect his thoughts. “But, I was only shooting under the skin; it would have killed me otherwise. You don’t start straight into the vein…. I — I ought to know!”
The Other mulled the words over, trying to sort out the full truth and the half lies.
“So what are you on now?” He rested one knee down beside the green-leathered body and watched the fingers around the knife.
“I told you, nothing.”
“What did you take last night?” He tried to make eye contact with the clearly nervous man, but all attempts were skillfully avoided.
“What’s it to you? I don’t have to answer to you.” The Champion pointed at the silver chest with the vicious blade. The pressure of questions was eating into his hair-trigger temper.
“What was it?”
“None of your business!”
“Tell me what it was!” The Other pulled the knife hand swiftly, giving it a twist, and freed the weapon.
Furious, the Champion made to hit him across the side of the face with the back of a studded gauntlet.
The Other leaned back out of reach and the blow grazed by. “Look, you bastard, you’ve put enough hooks into me to keep me tied to your shadow forever, so don’t start lying to me now!” Dark locks strewn over his face, he shouted his anger. “If you lie to me now, I’ll walk away because I’ll never know what is truth and lies from you. I’ll never be sure if you were my partner or not…and I couldn’t take one more pack of failed promises and hope.”
The Champion made to have his say, but the chance was snatched from his lips as the Other plowed on.
“You tell me things I should know. You look like a distant memory. Move like him. Speak like him. You dredge up my forgotten mourning with signs and looks.” He scrambled to his feet and pointed accusingly at the blond. “You, Champion of the Territory, you dog my footsteps, save my life, haunt my dreams and gain my confidence! I’m willing to believe you…do you hear this, I’m willing to believe my enemy because I have nothing left…and I’ve been alone too long…too long!” His face trembled with inner uncertainties and the knowledge that he was revealing many of his secret weaknesses. “But I still value my life and the small measure of freedom I’ve gained. And no cheap, lying, spaced-out, junkie-butcher from the Territory is going to jeopardize it because of his stinking habit!”
The Champion’s head bowed under the torrent of acid words.
“So, if you want us to walk away from here together, you’d better tell me what you’re on…. Next time, a thing like that could get us both killed!” The Other’s voice finally lowered to a more tolerant level and he finished with his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer.
The only sound was the harsh rise and fall of their breath and the light breeze that lifted the grit against the shell of the Cadillac.
The blond head stayed bowed for a long time. The chimes were silent. The hands still, unclenched and loose. His voice, when it came, was a shadow of itself, and the strain of anger in it was more for himself than against the silvered man before him.
“I never told you because I thought you’d never need to know.” He hesitated, searching for the easiest way that he could bear to say the words. “When I was with the Territory, I was raised, ensnared, manipulated, and finally rewarded with narcotics. All kinds. All mixes. I went out and killed for the drugs — not for the food, or the shelter, or the gold clasps, but for the drugs. Tiny capsules. Colored tablets. I wiped out a church full of religious fanatics. I even went and killed you for a fix of heroin…. That’s my price, the hook in my soul….” He looked up, directly into the eye of the Other. “…So, if I struggle and falter, it’s because I’ve been alone as long as you have, with no hope and no future. But whereas Selkirk made and programmed you into the Northern Sector Protector, I was led along that path. I was scared in the beginning, then I didn’t care anymore. And after a while, it helped dull my awareness, my misery, and I, too, forgot. It became a habit that I didn’t want to wake up from…. But the twisted irony of it all was that it showed me the way out, and it showed me you. I remembered.” His voice lowered to subdued tones of shame. As he stumbled out the answer to the original question, it finally died away. “…And-and…if you must know, it was LSD.”
Head turned away, he looked off toward the horizon, cheek pressed to the singed leather shoulder yoke, and said in a whisper of desperation, “Every word I ever said to you was the truth. I never lied once. I couldn’t take the risk…but shame makes a man want to keep his own counsel sometimes. I’m not proud of what I am.”
Inside, the Champion’s heart weighed against his chest with all the inner misery of a truth confessed, and the fear of losing something he had fought hard to regain: his partner.
I didn’t want you to ever know for certain…. I remember the years long ago, when you held me so tight against the ravages of the heroin. I kicked the habit then…but I slipped backward…and I didn’t really care in the beginning — but realization came too late, and the Owners had managed to cultivate their treasured, precious killing machine.
The Other thought gravely about the words and judged them to be true. And as the Champion made his speech, a tapestry of put-aside images paraded before his mind, and he remembered the days in a small room of dim lights, one bed, and a door that locked — where a victim of demented cravings mastered his desires and won through. He remembered the pleading, the body-wrenching spasms of shivers and sweats, the endless cups of coffee, the candy bars — the sheer bone-aching weariness of a struggle that seemed to have no end, and reduced his partner to a wreck of heart-wrenching pleas and self-blame.
He stared at that same man now. Pale of flesh and hollow of face. Eyes bright with the look of the hunted. Soul laid bare before a man who had just threatened to leave him…and who had left him once before.
No more blame, no more shame for either of us. It was me who drove away on the night of The End…. It was me who never came back…and it was me who helped you fight your habit all those years ago. He never lied to me then…and I don’t think you lied to me now…and you can be free of the needles and capsules again if you want…. If you want something badly enough you can have it — We both wanted answers and we got them; we both wanted freedom and we have it. A man can have much more besides, once he finds the courage for the first step….
Deep within himself, the Other felt these strange, unfamiliar thoughts swamp his mind, and underneath, making tentative cries for attention, was a sensation that could only be described as an unused feeling. It struggled into life as an emotion — genuine and real. And he felt the stirrings of deep concern for another human being. Not just an interest for selfish, ulterior motives, but a compassion for someone who had suffered to the same degree as himself and was still suffering.
The next words he spoke, he wanted to count. No easy platitudes would do, and yet he was unpracticed in words of kindness and compassion. Finally, he said in gentle softness, “I once helped you fight your addiction — I can do it again.”
The silent man hunched on the sand stiffened minusculely, then shook his head in the negative. His smoke-stained back was like the shadow over his conviction.
The Other continued, “LSD is a hallucinogenic drug; you’ll have weak flashbacks for several more hours yet, then you’ll be free of its influence. As for the heroin, well — ”
A quiet voice cut in. ” — I never took heroin more than once. It was mainly methyl amphetamine…. The Owners had a large supply; they fitted the intracath for easy injection. The LSD was a special reward, and I was cheated out of about eighty percent of it.” He shook his head, remembering his punishment and the hands that had held the tabs. Even while they were slowly killing me, they tortured me along the way. She enjoyed seeing me perform better on the first fear of withdrawal of narcotics. I wish I’d killed her.
“Did you have a bad trip with Rospo? Is that what happened?” The Other watched as the Champion climbed to his feet and leaned against the car, arm resting on the roof while his fingers picked at the bubbles of rust.
“My whole life’s been a bad trip since The End; Rospo and what happened in there was no worse than the rest.”
The burning anger seemed to have dwindled and died, but the nervous strung-out mannerisms were still present.
The Other brushed his hair back. “You picked up all the speed off the desk. Do you need it?” His marred face held a strange, lopsided expression of innocent question. “If you need some, I suggest you take it.”
The Champion looked back, puzzled. “But you said — ”
“I want to get out of this city; we stand a better chance together, so you have to be in better shape than this. You’ve lived on stimulants for years — a few more days won’t matter, and where we’re going, there probably won’t be any more supplies. No more Rospo, no more Owners. You won’t have any choice about kicking the habit.” The Other folded his arms over his chest with a sense of accomplishment.
The Champion hesitated, uncertain. If we get away from here — to freedom, that’ll be all the high I’ll need. Then he slipped a hand under his chest covering and produced a tiny envelope of tablets. Tearing an end open, he shook out a much-needed dose. Staring the Other in the face, he swallowed the lot. The tiny envelope fell away from his fingers and fluttered away on the light breeze.
“Where are we going?” His eyes looked away, still guilty. “Heaven or Hell?”
“Whichever comes soonest.” The Other watched the plastic packet dance away among the rubble. Then he focused in on the heap of leather and metal in the dirt at their feet.
“So, you had a browse through the combat suits, huh?” He squatted down and turned over the figure-form of black leather and found that one side was made of dull-gold strips of metal. Hinged and riveted together, the bands could bend and fold as smoothly as the thinned and beaten leather. Underneath was a pair of boots in black leather and armor for the forearms, but what drew the eye more was a huge, vicious fireman’s ax, made from steel and ebony wood. He hefted the ax and felt its weight and balance. It was cold and heavy with a feel of menace in its smooth form.
The Champion glanced down at the suit and at the crown of dark curls as the man fingered the ax. If he didn’t see the face, it could almost be the Time Before. Save for the hampering injuries. The voice was the same, the movements, tight then elaborate. Quicksilver.
“Yeah, Rospo touched me…I won’t wear this suit again.”
The Other looked up, surprised. “Afraid of contamination?” He put the ax down.
“Of the worst kind. God knows where that sore-encrusted creep’s been.”
The chew marks at his left knee could still be seen even if the saliva had dried off in the light, dry heat. The blond stooped over and retrieved the stiletto from the hand of the Other and proceeded to cut off the burned and soiled armored green suit from his body.
With a deliberate use of the knife, the leather pieces fell from his erect frame. Sections of studs with edges crisped from the fire. Underneath, his skin was pink and singed where the leather had been seared through.
The Other watched this ritual cleansing in silence and admitted to himself that the man’s color was a lot paler than it had once been. No sunshine…no real sunshine.
Slipping out of the boots, the Champion’s toes became half submerged in the powdery dust around the Cadillac. The gauntlets followed, and all that remained of his previous armor was the gold headband.
Naked. Like a chameleon of the streets, he shed one appearance for the next. Wipe away the past and look to the future. The stamp of his ownership was slowly dwindling from the eye.
The Champion stared at the once-immaculate suit in distaste, then picked up the new suit from the Other’s feet. Shrugging into the leather and metal, he eased its skin-tight fit over his powerful body. Fingers hooked around the neck, he pulled it close to his collarbones and then smoothed his hands over the perfect fit.
“Could have been made for you,” the Other commented in awe as he saw the change in the man, from green-clad butcher of the Territory to an armored man of steel. Not the steel of armor, but steel of character. A conviction, like a beacon in the night, shone from him. His shoulders set back in an arrogant stance. His chin came up defiantly as he swept back the long braids of tipped-gold.
“The green leather used to be a sign, to all who dared look on me, of what I was. It was a symbol of death for any who moved against the Territory, a visual hex on life. I won’t wear it again. That part of me is finished.”
A pair of gold vambraces nestled beside the new boots of black leather. Retrieving the pieces from the earth, the Champion slipped them on, complete with their hinged elbow coverings and pushed the fingerless leather gloves down over his hands — the leather covering his hand from wrist to the first knuckle joint. Lastly, he leaned against the Cadillac and tugged on the boots. Stamping his feet to ease the fit, he next bent to the task of replacing his weapons. Knife belt was re-strapped about his upper left arm, and his stilettos he tucked into the neck of his boots. The stick grenades he buckled over his broad shoulders in such a way as to be able to slide the ax under the band and have it resting down his back like an extra spine.
Fingers fiddling with the buckles of the leg holster, his Magnum found its usual home against his thigh. The metal grip for the Magnum slid over his right palm and locked into place at his wrist. Standing tall, he walked a few paces testing the settle of his arms. The gold clasps chimed a new rhythm over the metal-hinged back.
Under the darkening light, he towered like a black and gold man of legend. And he was legend to all who could understand the one whispered phrase of terror: The Champion, Protector of the Territory.
But no longer was he shackled to that one phrase. A free man paced about the wrecked shell of the vehicle, and the look and color of his new image betrayed the dark side of his desire to remain so.
In his thoughts he confirmed his oath. No one will stop me now. No one.
When he turned about to face the Other, he had risen from the dirt and he found his half-covered hand held out before him. In the palm rested his discarded gold shield, plucked from a fallen piece of suit. The Other proffered it forth.
The Champion stood unmoved.
“Take it, it’s yours.” The Other wondered at his hesitation.
“No. I blackened its true worth with my actions. I’m not fit to wear it any longer.” Despondency tinged his words.
“It’s the only thing I have left from the Time Before,” murmured the Other. “I like to know it’s there. It’s a kind of proof that this world wasn’t always this way.”
All he has left…. What of me? The Champion looked deep into the eye of the Other. Into his mind. “And what about me? Do I count?” Simple words with loaded meaning.
“You?” He looked sadly at the Champion and then turned away to apparently study a narrow, dark purple line of distant city blocks. “You…. I remember a man like you once, who used to carry this badge with a compulsion that fired his soul. It was his meaning in life, his purpose; it marked his place in society for Good…not Evil. It’s tarnished now, but the future could wipe it clean.” His voice held a soft note of uncertain admission and emotion. “If he took it back now, it could be that first step toward the future.”
He looked back at the thoughtful face of the Champion.
“He could never give up his badge — he tried once, but he took it up again. There was a burning need within him to make things better, safer, in the city.” He held the golden oval out before him again. “Take it back.”
“There’s no city worth saving now.” The Champion spoke tensely, fighting the stirring memories within himself.
“But the man is.” In the smoked dusk of the day, the Other’s shape became a smudged outline; his face lost its absolute clarity.
“Is he?” the Champion asked uncertainly, peering into the growing gloom for the features of the Other.
The Other confessed his inner thoughts and his voice grew tremulous. “For me, he is.”
A tightness held the Champion’s breath in his chest. He released it slowly with a dawning realization. “I’m not proud of what I did.”
“And I’m not proud of what they made me, but I won’t throw this away — “he gripped the shield, ” — because if I do, then I’ve thrown away what measure of values I have left. No matter what this gold shield came to mean in the New Society, it was once a symbol of everything we believed in. Protect and Serve meant exactly that, not some perverted meaning foisted by the Owners and the Plaza.” He took a step forward, wanting to press his point further. He looked into the pale and haunted face before him.
“You asked me to remember. Well, I have been remembering, and I keep coming back to that one figure I admired above all men. I don’t know what you’re seeking in me, but that’s who I want back — my partner. You said he was once named Hutch.”
The Champion stepped away. His plaits enfolded his shoulders and partly covered his face. The Other pressed on.
“What I remember of that man was his courage, his tenacity, his gentle truth and determination. He wouldn’t hesitate to wear this symbol as a sign of his freedom, but not as the badge of an Executioner.”
Head bowed, the Champion heard the words unflinchingly. When he spoke, his voice was empty and drained. “That man won’t be coming back. He can’t. I’m not the same; you said so for me at the plane.” Gods, I think I’m insane. I’m an addict…and a killer. I even killed you. Where is that man of gentle truth now? His black and gold body shivered in distress as he pressed his palms together in wound-up agitation. His heart raced and he misguidedly put it down to the dose of stimulants.
“Back at the plane I wasn’t sure….” The Other stepped before the Champion. “I am now.”
A frightening silence fell between them. It was swift and savage and felled the Champion’s emotions in one blow.
In the barren wastes of gray-mauve skies and leveled landscapes, he felt a weight of granite lift from his soul with the ease with which a saint performs a miracle. The miracle had been three simple words: I am now.
I am now. The Champion played them over in his mind in rapid succession. I am now. I am now. Iamnow. Iamnowiamnow.
From the corner of his eye he saw the shield winking in the solid palm of the Other in the dim light. A similar badge winked in companionship among the thick hair on the Protector’s chest, set into the wine leather strips. Different but the same. I want that companionship back. I want it so very badly…. You’ll never know or understand the depth of need that riddles my empty soul.
And he remembered the times when those two shields had existed side by side. Day by day. Year by year. A twin in the universe, and he had been lucky enough to find him.
Images of overcrowded days and brooding nights came into his mind in a flooding torrent. Running and questions. Driving and arrests. Paperwork and stale, cold coffee. Low lights and spiraled cigarette smoke. Junk meals and too little sleep. Warm showers and the smell of gun oil. Soft, well-worn leather under his arm and the comfortable weight of the Python. The scum from the gutters and the fine beauty of his women. The final pride of his parents and the admiration of his colleagues. Comforting shoulder and hands of steel.
Man of Iron, man of Justice.
And man tied soul to soul with man. My partner, my lifeline. Where did it all go? Can it ever come again?
That single image of the dark curly-haired man came before him. His eyes slid shut and he examined the picture.
Pale features. Long face of tender line and dark blue eyes. Sensitive and caring. Tough and streetwise with a mercurial personality that made the bleakest moments bearable. His talisman. His charm against the world of the streets. His companion.
Together we made our mark. I used to think we’d be remembered…. Now there’s only us left to chase up the old memories…but it’s all I want…. Sweet Jesus, this is all I want.
His hand came up and he took the shield from the Other’s palm. Shaking, he affixed it to the left shoulder armor. Gold on gold.
His voice was flat, beyond any sure feeling. The first step onto the road to the future was difficult enough as it was, without letting his pent-up emotions swamp the first tentative unity with the Other. He noted a strange, satisfied expression cross the Other’s face.
“When did you start remembering?” The Champion asked his question carefully.
“Back at the plane, back in the street in the doorway…in my dreams.” The Other answered quietly, his face shadowed by the gray light of the evening hour. “Back in the sewer….”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” the Champion asked with a tired sigh.
“Because I wasn’t certain…. It’s been so long, and my mind wasn’t my own. They could make me think whatever they liked…. I simply wasn’t sure.” His voice became quietly earnest. “I wanted to believe…. I did, but…but, I didn’t have the courage to accept you. I was scared of being betrayed again…. I couldn’t face that…not after Selkirk, I couldn’t face that again. And-and…” He swallowed, trying to gain some control over his voice. “And we aren’t the same as we once were…. We could have been fooling ourselves…delusions to ease the pain of loss.
“But you’re sure now?”
“Yes.”
“How much do you remember?”
The question met without response. The Champion took a step nearer to the Other and peered at the strained face. The blue eye was a little too bright; the mouth moved in a wordless silence.
“Just how much do you remember?” He emphasized the question again. His hands came up in a movement of pleading and stopped short of physical contact.
“More than I’d hoped, and nothing like what I want.” The Other looked down at his feet. “It’s no good pretending. I-I just don’t remember it all.”
The Champion felt a rise of elation. But it’s enough he knows…believes me. It’s enough for a start, and we can work on the blank, empty spaces together. I remember so much more…. It’s enough for now. “Give it time. You have a starting point…. More will come; it did with me. The years lay like layers on your mind, and you have to sift through so much before you come to any real worth.”
“But I don’t think I…I don’t think I have memories left to sift through. Selkirk did a very thorough job. I try, but I only find so much, and I want it all.” He bent down, picked up one of the bags that he’d brought from the Greyhounds and handed it to the Champion. “Here, this is food and water and….”
The Champion took the canvas bag and half glanced at it, stupefied at the sudden change of subject. “I don’t want to talk about that now; I want to talk about us. I want to talk about the Time Before, I — ”
The Other cut in. “And I want some time…to remember more on my own. I don’t want to be spoon-fed a past I can’t secure for myself. Give me that chance to search for myself…please.” He stared beseechingly at the Champion.
The Champion remembered a time back in the 727 when he’d made a promise to himself never to make the Other into something that he could no longer be. The time to face that promise and keep it had come. He fought within himself, one half badly wanting to expand the man’s knowledge of the Time Before and the life he’d once had, the other half struggling to hold back and leave the shattered memories hidden away.
Let him remember all that he can on his own…. Don’t force him into a role that he can no longer assume. It would be cruel to relate the life history of a man to that same man now, and expect him to live up to that image. Time has changed us both. I’m not the same…. It would torment him in ways far more savage than Selkirk’s mental tortures, if I was to tell it now. All our years together, all the happiness and tears, the side-by-side companionship, the shared fine edge between life and death on the streets. The shootings and the kidnappings, the beatings and the poisonings. The triumphs and the tragedies. It would play before an audience who would see it as a story alien from himself…apart, unrelated. And it should be told from the heart and understood above all else…his sense of love…the years haven’t cushioned my desires, my needs…if just one man would look at me again with love…. I remember the ways and the warmth.
It’s been so long since anyone loved me.
The Champion struggled within his mind and his heart to control his selfish desires, while the Other watched his face with a voyeuristic curiosity, wondering what he was thinking and not daring to ask. He studied the metalled face.
He stands before me now, expectant, scared, and confused. His mind is a tangled stream of shadowed thoughts that he must sort out for himself…and all I’d have to do would be to speak the words of treasured recollection and I would have — Have what? A shell of a man with no real basis…hollowed out from within and filled with what I remember, my view of his life, that would result in a made-over man to suit my needs. Made-over man…made-over partner. Made-over from my memories…and it would not be my Starsky.
A sigh of deep longing came from the Champion.
“All right, my…friend.” His voice caught fractionally. “You can have your chance.”
The Other gulped down his next speech, and tried to recall the last time that anyone had ever called him “friend” and meant it. His mind drew a blank but inside he felt good. He meant something to someone else, other than as a commune commodity. He was valued for himself. Not what he once had been or was to become, but simply for himself. A sense of respect for the Champion filled him.
I thank you for that one word. Aloud, the Plaza man said, “Thank you.”
An uncertain silence fell between them, neither knowing what to say or do next. At length, the Other stooped over and picked up the remaining canvas bag.
“This should last us for a couple of days if we’re careful. It could be that long till we’re out of the city.”
The Champion loosened the buckles and straps and pulled out the contents of his pouch. A water bottle, some hard, dried biscuits, and a couple of cans of vegetables: beans, carrots, and corn. Not much, not what I’m used to…. Used to be very well fed, not that I bothered to eat often. He looked up at the Other and found him struggling to open his own pouch. “Yeah, I suppose if we’re careful it could last longer.”
The Other fumbled the flap of the pouch and finally rested it on the dirt to wrestle out similar contents. “All courtesy of Rospo Case.”
The Champion watched the stiffness in the right arm hamper the movements of the crouching man. “How’s the arm?”
The Other slowed down in what he was doing. “It hurts liked hell.” He took out his water bottle and unscrewed the top, setting it carefully in the dust. “I think I should wash it — and my leg.”
“Here, I’ll loosen the bandages.” The Champion knelt beside him in the gray gloom and began to tug at the knots. His exposed fingertips felt the heat of the Other’s skin around the wound and he knew what to expect underneath.
When the cloths fell away, he could see the yellowing mess of spreading infection.
Jesus Christ. The Champion shot a worried look at the bowed head of curls. The Other failed to notice the tense expression, so intent was he upon his arm
“It’s infected,” the Other stated simply. “I thought it was.”
“You need it cleaned properly — proper antibiotics and antiseptic creams.” The Champion spoke without thinking as he shook out one of the used pads to find a clean corner.
“Which we don’t have.” The Other peeled away some of the leather and saw that the blackened bruising was becoming inflamed as well. “Damn Rospo for not having any penicillin!”
“He promised it for tomorrow, didn’t he?” Tipping over the water bottle carefully, the Champion wetted the pad and replaced the bottle on the ground. Trying to be as gentle as possible, he proceeded to wipe away the weeping yellow discharge.
The Other twitched with each pass of the cloth. “Yeah, but what if he doesn’t come through? I need that stuff now.”
“All the years of overprotection by Selkirk must have lowered your resistance to infection.”
“Probably. He was always sticking needles in me. Every time he molded a new piece on, I was kept in a sterile environment. He couldn’t run the risk that his special experiment might become infected and die.” As soon as he said the last word he wished he hadn’t. He looked apprehensively at the Champion who pretended not to have heard, and was diligently poking at every cut and tear to try and clean the wound completely. Die…I don’t want to die. No more Selkirk and his men of medicine to save me now. I’ve regained my mortality and now I’m scared.
Trying to keep his voice calm, the Other made a suggestion. “I want to try to get some medicine for myself. I need the stuff now, and Case might not come up with the goods.” His voice was earnest.
The Champion refolded the cloths and pressed the clean sides back over the dog bite. “Where do you propose we go and look?” He prodded at the thigh wound and found, to his relief, that it wasn’t quite so inflamed and infected. The Other still flinched under the examination. The Champion poured a small measure of water over the puncture, washing away some of the dirt and dust.
“We could go look in a hospital.” The Other proffered the idea hopefully.
Broad features, picked out by the increasing dark shadows, raised slowly from their task. “A hospital?” It was said in tones of wariness.
“Yes, there may be some drugs left. Surely, not all of the hospitals were picked over by scavengers and communes?” He tried to find the right words to sway the blond. “It’s worth a shot, even if we strike out.”
Retrieving the fallen pouch of the Other, the Champion pushed the cans and the biscuits back inside. Picking up his own water bottle, he took a deep swig and handed it to him.
“Hospitals harbor disease. I don’t like them…. They’re halfway houses between life and death.” He checked the fastening on his own pouch of provisions. “I can’t stand those places.”
You don’t understand; hospitals remind me of all our bad times from the Time Before…terrible times…. You were poisoned, shot — your heart stopped there once…. I’ve been shot, diseased, crushed, and plague-ridden…and it always ends in those places — houses of suffering…. And then there was Terry — hospital didn’t help her…. No, I don’t want to know; we’ve fought for life too often in hospitals — I don’t want to go —
He looked up, seeing the blatant dismay in the Other’s eye and lost out to his own argument. He sighed resignedly. “But I suppose it’s worth a shot.”
Taking a long drink from the bottle himself, the Other managed to screw back the top and slide it inside the bag. By concentrating, he found his fingers would do what was expected of them and the pouch was buckled shut. He rose to his feet and slung the strap over his shoulder nestling the bag against his right hip.
The Champion followed suit and looked about him into the gloom. The stimulants were making him feel less tired and dull and he sniffed the air in his usual habit. He froze and let his hand drop to his gunstock. Turning slowly, he assessed the surrounding panorama.
Something was different. The air was tainted with an alien scent.
The Other saw the move from pouch to gunstock and released the lock on his thigh holster. He stood rock still and tracked the empty waste with his eye.
“We’ve stayed here too long…and the night’s closing in.” The Champion edged away from the Cadillac. “Come on.”
Heading toward the nearest cover, he set off at an even pace. The Other watched the horizon and backed away from the wreck of the automobile himself. In the distance, the hair rippled over the shells of the Greyhounds. The spirals of dust tarried over the rises in the road. And the night took on a sense of sinister intent. The area was changed and the Champion was right. It was time they were gone. Skin crawling between his shoulder blades, the wine-suited man picked up his speed and half limped, half jogged after the lengthening stride of the blond.
It was going to be a long, black night for the non-commune dweller.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A vast, area of city blocks cut angled shapes across the darkening sky. Ragged points and lines silhouetted in black rose high above the ground and hung at precarious angles, just as the quake had left them. Teetering on the brink of collapse, the aged buildings crumbled a little more each day as the niggling winds eroded the sands of their bodies. Ridged and pitted, they were scarred by huge cracks in their walls. Moonlight slid between some of the open wounds revealing the lack of any interior floors — the insides having fallen to rubble. The outer walls were protecting nothing.
The area was incredibly dangerous. There had been an attempt made to clean it out of its resources years ago, but the Territory considered the task impossible when several of its salvage teams had been crushed to death in structurally unsafe buildings. It was a waste of precious manpower and the Owners gave up the area and moved on to areas equally as lucrative, but not as dangerous. That was several years ago and the Commune had never been back. No one had come. Even the mutants recognized the warning signals and usually kept well away, valuing their pathetic lives above the untouched resources.
Tonight the streets echoed with the first footsteps for what seemed an eternity. One tread was even of pattern, long in step and solid. The other was irregular and out of rhythm. Occasionally the steps stopped, as if the protagonists were listening to the silence they released by their inactivity. Seconds, maybe minutes would pass and then the trotting would continue.
Underneath the sound of their retreating footsteps came a secondary distant movement. It wafted about on the cool night air shyly, as if it were reluctant to be heard at all, and then it was gone.
The Champion paused at the junction and looked along the three roads, making a choice. The Other jogged tiredly to his side and rested down on one knee. He felt hot and dry and his arm was pulsing fit to burst. Each jarring step did nothing to ease the torn wound.
He calmed his ragged breathing and asked, “Which way now?”
Hand rubbing his chin in thought, the Champion sprinted forward a few paces then wandered up the uneven curb to peer at a faded business sign over a store front. He rubbed at the ingrained grime and tried to read the trade name and street number. The paint flaked away to powder. Hand dropping loosely to his side he stepped back a few feet into the road and scanned the upper stories of the buildings. All windows were broken and splintered; any identification was long gone. Running on a few more feet, he saw a metal shingle set into the concrete of an office front. Fingernails picking at the layer of dirt, he managed to chip away enough to guess the rest of the address.
Rubbing his hand on his thigh he jogged back toward the Other, who was now standing at the center of the crossroads. “We go right; come on.” He set off at an easy pace.
The Other fell in beside him, his strange gait causing their long shadows to cross and uncross as they moved over the tarmac.
“Is it far now? It’s getting late. We ought to hole up somewhere safe, get some rest, as well as search a hospital before tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of facing Rospo without any sleep.”
The Champion glanced sideways. “Why not? He’s only a cheap punk.”
“But he has his nasty little ways — he’d sell us out for a strand of hair.” The Other held his right arm stiffly, trying to reduce any swing that would aggravate torn muscles.
“He’s scared of us; he won’t dare try a double-cross. If he does, I’ll personally kill him.”
“And I’ll help you bury him.”
The Champion grinned maliciously, savoring the thought of getting some measure of revenge on the fence.
A voice beside him murmured, “I sure do hope he gets that eye.”
“He usually delivers.” The Champion quickened his stride and headed toward a multi-story building that had a wide sweeping driveway. Several double-fronted entrances led off the sweep of tarmac. The glass from the doors was long gone, shattered into fragments, but enough remained to show that this had once been the emergency entrance to a hospital.
Low slung ambulances were strewn haphazardly over the forecourt like scattered lumps of red and white candy. Stripped of everything that could be ripped free, they were rusting frameworks of one-time high-speed vehicles. One laid on its side, flashing lights smashed to red grit on the drive surface, its wires hanging loose and its bar twisted out of shape. The wheels were gone.
Standing at the entrance to the grounds, the Champion and the Other surveyed the dilapidated structure before them. An enormous crack had cleaved through the entire front wall, dwindling to a hairline fracture at ground level. At the top, it was possibly yards wide with the two halves of the hospital straining out and away from each other yet never quite falling. More structural faults could be seen in the once flush white walls like fine lines drawn by an insane draftsman.
“Don’t look too safe to me.” The Other edged up the path, head craning back to look over the upper stories.
“Well, it was you that wanted to come to a hospital.” The Champion moved after him, eyes watching the darker patches of the driveway. The atmosphere was already bad. He could feel it and his skin crawled.
From out of the remains of the Time Before he had been raised as the Protector, to be the perfect man. Pure of health, pristine in his personal cleanliness. The Owners were more than pleased — he had been their delight.
And yet they fouled his purity. They had soiled his blood stream with their narcotics, and stained his soul in blood with their detestable use of him.
He had tried to wash it away, but he could never scrub that deep.
The double doors that they approached had burst their glass panes when their frames had warped out of true. Automatic closing and opening mechanisms had tried in vain to close the two halves. The quake had had other ideas, and the doors were jammed open. The Other rubbed clean a remaining shard of dust-engrained glass and peered in. The Champion eased up to his shoulder and stared through the gap between the buckled frames.
The wide passageway was a museum piece of the last moments of The End. Caught and held, as if a second had been chipped out time, nurses, doctors, orderlies, and the sick and injured were arranged over the corridors and beyond like some petrified mime class. Skeletal and gray, their limbs contorted in actions of pain and caring, they rested at their posts, untouched for years. Unseen and forgotten by those who lived on.
The Champion took a deep breath and collected his demeanor. Pushing through the narrow space between the doors, he stepped out of the late night and into the darker interior of the hospital. Close at his heels, the Other followed, silent and thoughtful.
The moonlight was sufficient illumination. Gray light for a tableau of ash-gray. Dust coated the floor, the walls, and the bodies. At the edges of the floor it had risen in minor drifts and floated up into the air as they walked.
Against the right wall, a row of gurneys beckoned their eyes as they passed. Dulled by the years of neglect and damaged by the elements, the occupants lay under shrouds of off-white sheets. Dried out and pathetic, their faces held the horror of The End. Bending over the first gurney was the stiff frame of a nurse whose uniform was a breath away from crumbling to nothing as her bony shape poked through the threads in sharp lumps. She stared blankly ahead, eyes having rotted away. With wide eye sockets, she still saw the last moments of civilization disintegrate during the longest night of mankind. A vision trapped there for all time.
The two Protectors looked silently over the emergency admitting area and imagined a replay of noise and atmosphere. Time had given the building a quality akin to magnetic tape. The Champion wondered if it would be possible to tap into that held moment and experience that last split second: the misery and the panic, abject fear and recognized futility. He shivered at the thought.
The Other padded past him and stopped at a broad counter. Reception probably. He ran a hand over the plastic telephones and scattered metal clipboards. The loose sheets of paper were yellowed and brittle and tossed over the floor like thrown confetti. Slowly, he raised a clipboard and read the words, the names, the diagnosis, the treatment. Carefully made notes. And wondered who Enzo Acenti had once been.
Enzo Acenti…taxicab driver…aged 46…blood type A…severe chest injuries…died after admission…. He looked about broodingly…All of them…God, what a mess, what a damn mess…. He dropped the board back onto the counter, the sharp sound echoing through the corridors.
“Let’s look further in. This place has been picked over.” The Champion pointed to the storage cabinets whose doors were hanging loose from their hinges. “Might have guessed that the ground floor would have been scavenged; easy access, not too much danger.”
The Other nodded and stepped on along the corridor toward some double doors that would hopefully lead onto a main stairwell. The tiled floor was covered with more bodies, in no real order. All gray skinned, stretched to paper thinness similar to mummified remains. Left where they had fallen, the Other and the Champion did not disturb them now, but instead stepped carefully over them. Tiptoeing quietly so as not to wake the dead, they came to the dark wood of the doors.
The Other pressed against the right door and cringed at the whine of the hinges. On the other side was an open well and the ruptured shambles of a staircase. Treading lightly, the two men felt their way onto the unsafe landing of the first floor and looked upwards. Up above, whole sections of wall, well, and windows seemed to be missing. Several flights of stairs had come away from the interior wall altogether, their darker concrete insides showing plainly against the lighter gray of the steps.
“Think it’ll be safe enough?”
The Champion risked walking forward a couple of steps. He put a hand on the stair rail and set off up the stairs. Gingerly testing each step, he made it to the first landing and beckoned the Other to follow.
Remembering to place his feet in the footprints left by the black boots, he was soon standing beside the tall Protector. “Now it’s my turn.” The Other whispered, it didn’t seem the place for normal conversation. Back toward many of the many structural fractures in the outer wall, the dark red figure trod up the stairs, feet and weight close to the inner wall in an effort to step on the stronger places. Once at the top he beckoned the Champion to follow.
The second floor was partially barred to them. Through the windows, set high in the double doors, the two Protectors stared at the debris beyond. Most of the ceiling had crashed down. A huge chunk of concrete and a support beam now blocked the entrance. Releasing the bolts on the left-hand door, the Champion pulled on the handle and formed a narrow gap. A tumbling rush of tiny chippings poured onto them from the fallen slab. Waving away the haze of dust, the Champion heaved the door open further and climbed up onto the angled slab of concrete. The Other followed, glancing up at the gaping hole of dangling wire and exposed pipes. Slithering across and down, the two Protectors alighted on the other side of the obstacle and surveyed this next story.
It was very dark, with hardly any light as the inner shutters and blinds had been closed. But what they could make out in the gloom was an old hospital of private rooms and nurses’ stations with offices further along the corridor. Walking side by side, the two men searched the walls and administration rooms, for a drug cabinet or, hopefully, the pharmacy.
At the desk they paused and eyed the damage. Most of the ceiling had come down into the station here and crushed the staff. A skeletal body was caught between the blocks of concrete.
The Other headed away numbly, down the left-hand corridor, past the water fountain toward the operating room entrance. The Champion watched as the doors were pushed back. He saw the vague outlines of the bodies, still masked, sprawled over the high table, over the still-open patient. He was revolted.
He thought he could still smell the strong aroma of antiseptic, hear the soft squeak of rubber soled shoes on the highly polished floors, and the distant murmur of over-confident voices, mouthing words of reassurance. He remembered the times when he had been in places like this before. The worry and the fear came back to him strongly as in his mind he saw the efficient orderlies wheel a spotless gurney down a corridor in another hospital many years ago. His partner was dying and he was helpless. They took him away and he knew he wouldn’t see him again.
And he remembered another time when they had closed him off from the outside world. Behind a wall of glass they shut him away and waited for him to die. He was in agony and they tried to help, but the disease sapped his strength and then laughed at their efforts. He’d said he was dying that time, fingernails clawing through the sheets, he’d said those words in an effort to understand them himself. Out loud. But it was a stranger he heard who said them to his partner. The voice wasn’t from the Hutch who ran the street — tough and strong, who was respected and feared. No, that time he was a pale, shivering waste of a man who clung to each breath of life in rasping agony. Where was the hard cop then?
Where is he now? This place is a charnel house of death and I loathe it…. Where the hell’s that pharmacy?
In the distance a shadow was moving about the operating room, pulling open cabinets and rifling through the contents, oblivious to the still tableau close behind him. The Champion watched with a deadpan expression. He turned and peered into an observation window at what had at one time been an Intensive Care Unit. The patient was still hooked up to the life support machines but the EKG was now as silent as the hushed atmosphere on the floor. A corpse of a nurse sat beside the patient. Decayed to brittleness, she stared out at him with the same unseeing expression as all the rest. On her knee was a book, its pages curling. She’d been a blonde.
The sight of the lonely vigil touched upon too many memories for the Champion; he turned away and wandered into the left-hand corridor, then turned right and set off to examine the rooms. Somewhere there would be a drugstore.
Pushing open the doors, he ducked in and straight out again. Each room was a private bedroom, and each bed held a rigid corpse of ill-defined sex, but all too apparent illness or injury. IV’s still nestled against the beds, vases of dried flowers decorated the tops of the furniture. Some rooms had been destroyed completely by falling masonry. The war had been bad enough, but when the quake had come, no one had had time to think, let alone evacuate a hospital
As he progressed from one side of the corridor to the next, he found that with each new fossilized room, the structural faults were becoming more obvious until the room into which he was presently looking had a crack in its outer wall of at least eighteen inches. Moonlight fell in a single beam across the floor and bed, picking out the pale stripes of the onetime brightly colored blanket. And the parchment hand still clutching the emergency call button.
The Champion turned around and let the door swing back on stiffened hinges. His progress had been marked by the disturbance of dust on the floor and the groan of protesting metal as he’d forced the doors back. This door fell into place with a wooden creak and was silent. The Champion paused and listened to the distant padding of the Other as he traveled from room to room in his search.
They’d meet up at the next reception desk.
He walked on further, noting the door numbers and not bothering to look in and see the frozen corpses. He would search the nameplates for the pharmacy and leave the dead to themselves.
Turning right, he came upon what had once been a waiting area for relatives and friends. The chairs were askew and the vending machines had crashed to the ground. Dark brown stains spewed over the carpet. A few yards away on the right-hand wall was another nurses’ station.
The Champion headed toward it and began scanning the area behind the desk for any signs of a drug cabinet. A tall, white wood-and-glass cupboard stood against the far side, its door hanging loose. Hastening around the end of the desk, the Protector crossed to the cabinet and pulled back the door. It came away in his hand revealing the tossed-around contents. A few empty capsule bottles lay in a jumble on the bottom shelf. Old packets were torn open and tossed aside.
“Damn! Damn!” The Champion flung the door down in anger and backed away to the reception desk. Turning, he put his elbows on the top, lowered his head to his hands and remained bowed for some time.
Why couldn’t it be the first place you look for once? I hate this place.
Possibly a minute passed during which time the Champion struggled with himself to stay, and follow the search through. In the distance he heard another door swing through the movements of shutting or opening and decided that if the Other was still searching this floor he ought to as well. He pushed away from the counter and stepped onto the next long corridor. The floor was cracked and uneven and very probably dangerous. Walking close to the edge, his back hugging the wall, the Champion moved along. His eyes darted from where he was planting his feet, to the plates above the doors. They were changing from room numbers to administration plates: doctors’ names, senior consultants, interns’ rest room and lounge, etc.
The floor sank a couple of inches in a sudden jolt. The Champion flung his arms wide to support himself and hooked a grip into a door handle. The floor held and the black boots moved on. A trace of dust drifted down from above and coated his golden hair with powder. His plaits jostled each other in a soft, nervous rhythm, betraying the man’s inner feelings as he took another hesitant step.
A sound behind him made him pause. The floor was particularly dangerous here and took all his concentration. The uneven gait behind him continued on.
He’s limping even worse than before — must be tired. “Be careful here, the floor’s gonna collapse.” He took a gentle step forward onto the next section and eased his full weight down. He didn’t want the Other crashing through and dragging him along. One at a time and we should make it. “Have you checked out the rest of this floor?” Head bowed, intent only upon his feet, the Champion tossed the question back without looking around.
The splintered tiles groaned and more dust and loose grit sifted down from the equally-beveled ceiling.
The Champion found that he felt suddenly hot and enclosed; he didn’t care for the risk that he was running and the probability that the floor was becoming more and more unsafe as he pressed on.
The feet edged a little closer behind him. The floor creaked as his black boots took a shifting step in weight distribution. He called out another warning. “Don’t move on ’til I’m over this part…. I struck out at the nurses’ station; did you have any luck?”
Then he smelled the air.
And a bitter voice said, “Better luck than you’re having, Champion.”
Head of plaits spinning around, the Territory Protector came face to face with the crazed apparition of Peter.
Dressed in the long, black robes, heavily blood-stained and torn, he rested upon a crutch of roughly fashioned wood, his left leg swathed in dark bandages. Eyes alight with exultant triumph, their tiny pinpricks of red danced with a flaming desire for revenge. His face was ravaged by the draining pain of the injuries from his last encounter with the Blond Butcher.
Shifting his weight over to his good side, Peter lurched forward a step. The crutch-leg kicked chips of the loose floor aside and he smiled cruelly, his nasty teeth parting over his black tongue. Several other disciples of the religiously insane leader appeared like wraiths from the reception area and waiting room. They formed a barrier of degenerate humankind.
The Champion watched, stunned, as the soldiers of Peter’s New Image took up their stand. Every one held the same look in their eyes — one of death. And it was directed solely at him.
Eyes racing back to Peter, the Protector held his breath and made ready to make his move.
“You don’t look very pleased to see us, Champion.” Peter purred his words of menace across the space between them. “It doesn’t matter because we’re pleased to see you.” His face hardened, mouth dragging down at the corners. “You’re still the New Image that we require, Champion. Only this time, I’m going to keep my ready-made messiah.”
Palms pressed to the wall at his back, the Champion watched calculatingly. He counted the armed brothers at Peter’s back, the guns held almost casually, such was their confidence. He noted the dedicated faces of vindictiveness, and the gleaming face of white flesh that was their leader. His breath quickened and he tensed to draw the Magnum. He could be swift enough to pick off several of them in the first volley, and in close hand-to-hand combat, he could finish the rest.
A soft sigh, expelled five times very rapidly, made him start. Clutched tightly in bony fingers of translucent skin was a strange, compressed-air gun. Peter’s hand wobbled fractionally and then he lowered the gun, his right hand dropping into the folds of his robes.
The Champion felt the stinging pains in his unprotected left thigh and looked down to see five needle-length darts embedded like miniature pitons in his protruding muscle.
An adrenalin burst lurched through him. He raised his head to face the grinning expressions. Reached for his Magnum and failed.
“You see, my Champion, we do still need our martyr.” Peter shuffled back a step, a wince of pain crossing his face.
The Champion managed to take a shaky step toward them. The ground sank, or so he thought, as the drugs burned along his veins and attacked his central nervous system. He tried to say “no”, his face ashen with horror and tinged with regret.
His legs gave out from under him and he crashed down on his back to the concrete floor. Braids flung out randomly, he rolled his head to try and see what the Brothers were doing. His hands clenched and unclenched weakly and then slowed to stillness. The dim light grew darker and his heart hammered in his chest in an effort to support his stifling lungs and prevent himself from losing consciousness.
A cold hand held his chin and tilted his head as a hunter might look over a prize catch.
In the distorted whisper of his hearing, he heard a gleeful cry and the words, “Now it is our turn, my Brothers. The youth of the communes will look to us…to us.”
Under the enveloping blackness, the Champion tried to tell them he’d gone ex-commune, that he was anathema now to all commune dwellers, no one would ever follow him, but his mouth and throat were no longer his own. His heavy eyes slid shut.
Don’t want to be…a martyr…no messiah…not me…just a free man again…leave me alone…please leave me alone…no more…I am a man…not the chosen one. Don’t hurt me…. I don’t want to die…not for this…especially not for this…just…leave…me…alone….
Peter leaned forward at the shoulder of one of his followers and gloated over his prize. “Drag him away from that area, Joshua. I won’t lose him again. He had his chance, but he didn’t run far enough.”
Joshua took hold of the wide wrists of the gold vambraces and pulled. It took all his strength; the weapons weighed the body down. Silently, the watching Brothers stepped forward to give Joshua a hand with their catch. Fingers pulling on the black leather and gold body, the Brothers raised the torso of the Champion and dragged him away toward the reception area. Head tilted back, only the heels of his boots and the heavy gold tips of his hair made any mark in the dust and dirt.
Lurching after them, Peter brought up the rear, his face a picture of manic delight. He, above all people wanted his revenge on the Territory Protector for killing many of his converts and for maiming him permanently. As he hobbled along, he was already forming varied and suitably punishing acts of retribution. He only hoped they would fit in with the concept of martyrdom.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A curious, suspicious glint in her eye, the lonely woman Owner watched Rospo Case limp backward and forward before her. His odor was vile and repellent; his long, greasy hair moved on its own accord as the overactive lice wriggled about his head. Her face showed transparently her revulsion of him as she gave him a small measure of her attention and listened to his tale.
Weaving and darting about the salient points of his story, Case hobbled nervously. He had no liking for the Owners of the Territory, but after the visit of the Champion and the Other he felt that he was in too deep, and needed some protection or assurance from elsewhere. He chose the most powerful commune remaining, and felt it was his duty to tell her that the Northern Sector headquarters had been razed to the ground.
Rising slowly, the woman straightened her long, black robe and walked past the creepy fence, toward the door. Hand resting in the same place as the night before, she spoke. “He said he burned down the Plaza?” She looked not at Rospo, but expected him to reply. Her hair had fallen loose, many of the jewels having dropped to the hard tiled floor, forgotten. The black dress was now creased from the hours of sitting in the high backed chair. Alone. Waiting.
Rospo bobbed forward and edged around her left side to look up into her face. The make-up was very tired and flaking. Mascara streaks still stained her cheeks in gray lines, and the moldering skin was barely concealed. Her prime time was over and her days were numbered.
“Yes, and the Champion helped him.” He tucked his hands under his stinking armpits. “Your blond butcher looked weird though; he asked for drugs and ammunition and then he had some kind of attack.”
“Attack?” She looked down at his scabby face. “What kind of attack?”
Rospo shrugged. “Don’t really know. He was frightened of something.” Case omitted his actions from the story. ” — And then that friggin’ Other came in and stabbed me in the leg.” His face and voice became full of self-pity. “I’ll probably get gangrene and lose ma leg.”
The woman knew what might have caused the strange reaction in the Champion, as it was she who had handed over the LSD and curtailed his other supplies.
“Did he appear to be hurting?” She asked her questions coolly while her mind raged with hate.
Rospo grinned and sucked on his teeth. “I’ll say…. He took all ma speed from the wall safe.”
The corridor remained empty and silent. She rekindled the image of her “most precious” striding boldly toward the room, and something deep within her twisted even tighter. It became a black edge to her soul, and her savage loss eroded any compassion she may have felt for the Champion at one time. Hard of heart and features, she swung away from the corridor and walked toward the handcuffs set into the floor. It had been his place.
“What happened next?”
Case lurched after her, his curling toenails making tiny “tick-tack” sounds on the hard surface. “Well, the Champion took what he liked off my desk and left. The Other told me to meet them at the old estate house tomorrow at evening time. They said I was to go alone. Or, no doubt they’ll burn me down, too.” He looked disturbed.
“And what do you have to supply them with?” Already her mind was working on plans of avengement.
“Well, the Other looked like he’d hurt his arm pretty bad, and he asked for medicines. I suppose I could get them. But what was really strange was when he asked for an eye — .” He rummaged under his dirty raincoat and produced the gold armlet. ” — And the Champion paid with this.” He held out his treasured possession.
The woman Owner recognized it instantly. Her white hands enclosed on the armlet for a moment, but Case wasn’t about to release it. It had been one of the very early rewards that she had given him. Inside, engraved in delicate letters, was his name: Champion of the Territory, possession of the Owners.
“He gave you this?” Her voice held a note of disappointment.
“Yeah, it was real strange too. I mean, no one pays for something for anyone else. Not these days.”
She nodded understandingly, and Rospo sneaked out a hand and caressed her hair, sizing it up for his collection. He liked the soft texture and the length. Already, he was choosing a place to tack it to onto the Greyhounds.
Her hand whipped out and smacked his touch away. Green eyes flashed and her red lips became a fine line of anger. “Don’t touch me, filth. You’re lucky I let you in. Scum like you isn’t normally let through the gates to dispense with the refuse.”
Suitably chastised, Case shrank down and bowed obsequiously.
“What else did he take from you?” The question was snapped out, failing to disguise her temper. Hand lost in the folds of the ornate dress, she wandered back to her seat and settled with her usual grace.
“That special combat suit you ordered,” Rospo hovered after her. “And some extra weapons — ”
“The suit?” She was surprised and doubly annoyed. She’d had the suit specially commissioned. It was to have been a token for his services. Another slight against her. She wondered whether or not he’d done it deliberately having heard somehow of her intention.
“Yeah, didn’t even make any payment for that or all the other supplies they took.” Case was openly sulking. “If you ask me, I’d say they’d both gone rogue.”
She looked up glacially, not liking anyone pointing out that her Champion had gone rogue — had escaped her control. “No one asked you.” She chewed on her bottom lip in thought. “What sort of supplies did they take?”
Case watched her face go through the emotions of calculating hate through to seething maliciousness. This was a very dangerous woman. He began to wish he hadn’t come around groveling with the information. “Food ‘n’ water.”
She nodded; it was the answer she had expected. Inside, she knew that the Champion had teamed up with the Other and that they had gone rogue. They probably had the mutual aim of getting away from the Territory and the Northern Sector. Together, they’d already burned down the Plaza. Selkirk was dead. Houndsworth was dead. Soon it could be the Owners’ turn. She had to stop him for reasons extremely personal and for the continued life of the Territory Commune.
Now that the Plaza was gone, the city was the Territory’s for the taking — providing a jumped up, murdering addict who had found the guts to drag himself free didn’t stop her.
Unconsciously, she spoke aloud, “I won’t let him stop me. I won’t!” The words were a promise from her scheming soul.
At her side, fawning over the close proximity of her hair, the hem of her skirt, and her jeweled hands, Case murmured, “You’ve got to stop them both. They’re far more dangerous together than they ever were apart.”
He ran a long jagged fingernail through the trailing tassels of the hem and sniffed the material. He enjoyed collecting rare women, but this one was past her peak. Under the slightly raised hem, he could see the spreading mold on her legs.
“The fact that the Other lives is because of the traitorous actions of the Champion. He failed us in his mission; he failed the Territory.” And inside she added, And he failed me…me…. I loved him and he threw it back in my face. He’ll pay for his actions. I still own him, no matter how far he runs…. I own him.
“And they could kill us all.” Case had one motive in mind: to protect his nice little business from further visits by the two Protectors. In his sneaky eyes, the best way to achieve the continued safety of his livelihood was to be permanently free of the menace, which posed the threat. “We need to be rid of them, Madam.”
His tentative suggestion made her features crease into lines of ironic misery. She despised the fact that he was right, but she didn’t want to lose her beloved golden man. And yet, she knew he had gone, never to return.
She’d remained in this room all the long night and day, thinking over the past years: how she’d found him in the ruins of Venice Place, how she’d ensnared him with narcotics, manipulated him, dulled his mind and eroded his freedom, until he was her “puppet man”. If she snapped her fingers, he’d do handsprings.
All that was gone now. Lost like dust on the wind. She’d sent him to kill the Other. And that silvered man became the catalyst of the subsequent events.
How she regretted that initial command. But she’d wanted him to be the ultimate protector on the streets. He was perfect enough to be. So perfect in her eyes….
She found her vision had blurred and more mascara streaked her porcelain-crazed cheeks. Wiping away the signs of her misery, she spread the black stains even further, and the now-gray makeup speckled her dress in flakes.
Then he’d scorned her. Humiliated her and all the other Owners. And that was unforgivable.
“Tell me, Rospo Case,” her hand gripped about his bony arm as she dragged him off balance at her feet. Case stifled a cry of fright. “Tell me, perverted filth, exactly where are you going to meet with the Champion?”
The fence felt her nails bite deep into his emaciated flesh. He tried to pry her loose, but she held him so tightly her knuckles were bone-white.
“In the old estate house. You know, the large white one, four blocks south east of the Greyhounds. Used to be an independent commune in the very early days, but they got sick and died.”
She stared directly into his eyes, gauging whether he was speaking the truth or not. “And what do you have to deliver?”
“I told you, the penicillin and an eye.” He squirmed again. “You’re hurtin’ me, Madam.”
She smiled evilly, enjoying inflicting the pain. “And can you complete the contract?” She pointed at the armlet he’d slipped back on and that now hung loosely at his grimy wrist. “You’ve already been paid.”
“I — I can get the penicillin. It’s stashed somewhere safe. But the eye — I ain’t got one of them. Who has?” He shrugged a little, trying to act nonchalantly under her vice-like grip.
Her smile broadened unexpectedly and, settling back in her chair, she released the little man. Hands resting confidently on the arms, she spoke. “I have.”
Case opened his mouth and then closed it again. He shook his head, greasy hair trailing over his face. “No one has one of them. Only Selkirk and his New Medicine was into that game.”
“But I have an eye.” She swept back her skirts from the legs of the chair.
Case saw another fleeting glimpse of the decay on her body and then he caught the glint of something silver under the seat. Stooping, his toenails slithering over the tiles, he dropped down onto one knee and he saw the ornately molded helmet that had previously belonged to the Other.
He made to reach out for it, but his hands were swatted away. The woman Owner bent forward violently. Rospo flinched back.
“Not just yet, Case.” She picked up the helmet herself and held it aloft. Its empty face stared blankly at them.
The eye of jet held Case hypnotically. It was his deliverance from the wrath of the Champion and the Other. His eyes slid expectantly from the helm back to the Owner.
“You’ll get the eye for your meeting with the Champion and his “friend,” providing you don’t go any earlier than sundown. And if this information of yours proves false, it won’t be just the Champion who burns down your enterprising operation. The Territory will hunt you down, as well. The city won’t be big enough to hide you.”
The words were a chill prophecy that she would ensure would come true if he’d lied. Case made to protest his innocence and assure her that his word was true, but he dried up when he realized that only the sight and the sound of the Champion and the Other, at the house, would prove him trustworthy in her eyes.
“Yes, Madam.” He bobbed up onto his feet and half bowed before her. She held his eye a moment longer, then tossed the helmet into his hands.
Case clutched at it tightly. He caressed the silver dome and the fine molding. Ran his finger over the eye of jet. It could be worked loose, on closer inspection. Immediately, he began to rummage for one of his dental instruments to complete the job. As he searched his odorous person, he watched the woman Owner.
She stared off into the middle distance in deep thought, and then she swiftly rose to her feet and departed across the hard floor, the green light turning her skin to a sallow white. Never once did she pause or look back, but instead strode down the long corridor with a new conviction in her dark heart.
Case nestled the helm under his chin and licked back a dribble of saliva from his plastic teeth. He was estimating the length of her mane, and still deciding where to attach it to the Greyhound. He’d have to remember to call again in a coupe of weeks when she’d be dead.
Providing the Champion didn’t kill him first. Sighing, he bent to the task of prying loose the eye. All he needed now was the penicillin. And then he’d be home and dry.
A chuckle of glee followed the departing Owner, wafted on a stale breath of air.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The Other rubbed the grime off the name plate with increasing excitement and found to his intense relief the word: Pharmacy.
A smile of satisfaction spread over his face in the lopsided way enforced by the metal plates. Pay dirt!
Stepping back a little, he surveyed the door. It was a light brown stained wooden door with large hinges and a set of double locks. There were signs of an attempted forced entry and the corpse of a salvage team worker pinned flat under a section of fallen masonry. The ceiling was in grave danger of coming down on anyone else who cared to try to get into the pharmacy.
The Other released the spring-clip on his rifle and swung the gun up above his head to use it as a prod. Poking at the ceiling, he shifted some of the loose plasterwork. It poured down onto the littered floor as swiftly as sands running through an hourglass. Putting his whole weight under the rifle, he thrust upwards with more force and managed to bring down the larger pieces of cracked masonry. Dull, leaden thuds accompanied the pouring cement as the heavy lumps crashed to the ground, burying the salvage man’s body even further.
The Other leaped backwards out of immediate danger as the avalanche of debris started. He scurried across the hallway and crouched down in a doorway as a huge cloud of dust eliminated any more need to be silent in his approach.
The scattering of loose chips slowed to a peppering trickle and he squinted back over his shoulder through the haze. The dust was settling as a fine powder over the walls and floor.
Eye smarting from the impure air, he rose to return to the door. Gently he beat off the light coating that had powdered his upper body, and coughed as the fine dust caught in his throat.
The ceiling lay in ruins before the door to the pharmacy. Above his head was a gaping hole of girders, plumbing, and torn electrical wiring. Multi-colored insulated cables hung down like the insides of a wounded creature.
The air settled and cleared, and the Other tentatively stepped onto the rubble. Nothing creaked or groaned from above. Face reflecting his belief that the entrance to the pharmacy was now relatively safe, he hopped down and began to kick and push away as much of the debris as he could.
The work was hard for a man with only one good arm and leg and by the time that he was finished, his dark curls were plastered around his forehead with sweat and grime. Leaning against the wall, he wiped his face with the back of his hand and looked over the hallway. It was strewn with roughly thrown aside lumps of ceiling of various sizes. Many of them would have stove in his skull if he’d been standing underneath.
Just like the salvage man.
The Other pushed off from the wall and bent over the remains of the body. Pulling on the rag of cloth across the corpse’s neck, it came away in his hand and he held it up for closer inspection. It was a piece of plaid shirt collar. Faded and threatening to turn to loose fibers in his hand.
A shirt…used to wear them at one time. Not like this though, not usually checked…. He used to wear them checked, I think…. Wonder where he is?
He let the piece of fragile material fall, already forgotten, through his fingers as he stared away into the darkness of the corridor.
I haven’t heard him for a long time now…. He could have gone on to the next floor…. Should have waited for me…. Guess he’s not used to working with another protector…. Still, if he’d come after me, it would have saved him a search. I struck lucky first.
He turned back to the pharmacy door and the body blocking the entrance. Dropping to his haunches, he placed his back against the doors and rested his feet on the ravaged sides of the remaining lump of masonry. Taking the strain on his legs and back, he gritted his teeth and began to push. Muscles and veins began to bulge out on his shoulders and neck as the sheer force needed to shift the concrete took its toll on his sapped strength. A deep groan of effort escaped his lips as the mass began to slowly slide away from the doorway. Relaxing only momentarily to snatch a quick breath, his head sank down onto his chest as he slapped his palms against the wall at his hips, and forced his legs to straighten. The cement block ground away from him over the layer of grit and sand. It made a deep rumbling sound of protest as the silvered man shifted it from its years-old staked claim. The corpse underneath also shifted sideways, crumbling to a gray dust as the newly exerted pressure squeezed it further under the heavy weight.
Lips of flesh and silver curled back over his white teeth in an expression of enormous effort. His legs shook with the increasing strain, but finally the offending blockage was edged, inch-by-inch, out of the way.
Relaxing, he sank to the ground, his chest heaving under the leather lattice, silver glinting in the pale moonlight. After some moments he managed to raise his head and then climbed to his feet. The wound in his leg had reopened and a fine line of bright red traced a path down his leg through the white powder caught on his suit. His arm was not much better. It pulsed, swollen and hot.
He held it tenderly for a moment, then squinted his eye open to take in the doors. They were now free enough of debris to allow him entry into the room beyond.
Swiftly, he crossed to the doorway he had sheltered in and retrieved his rifle. He shouldered it with sure ease and took quick, accurate aim at the lock. One shot and the metal plate of keyhole and tumbler shattered. The single rifle crack echoed around the lifeless hospital. It whined away into the darkness and made the rats down in their dark bolt holes twitch their sensitive ears.
That should bring him running…. He’ll guess I found something.
Holstering the rifle into its leg clasp, he trotted forward and pulled on the ruptured door. Unused hinges protested stiffly as he made enough of a space so that he could squeeze inside.
The sight that met his eye made Rospo’s place look like a Five and Dime store. Every shelf was as it had been on the day of The End — full to overflowing with drugs and medicines. It was a priceless treasure trove that could make him the most powerful, wealthy man in the city, if he cared to stay and sell it.
He didn’t care to stay. Instead, he snaked among the shelves, peering at labels on boxes, cartons, and bottles, until his eye ached. He knew what he was looking for, but finding it among this varied assortment was no easy task.
Shelves of sedatives. Cartons of amphetamines. Anticoagulants. Hypoglycemics. Analgesics. Diuretics. Digitalis. Sulphonomides.
And finally, antibiotics.
His furtive search of the shelves now became more careful and selective. He had learned much from Selkirk and his methods, and knew a little of the kinds of drugs he was after.
Picking up and putting down small cartons, he read the labels most carefully and searched for a name that he recognized. A name or a word he had heard Selkirk or one of his team use.
Benethamine penicillin…benzathine penicillin…penicillin V…ampicillin…Amoxil…Floxapen…Talpen…I’m just not sure…could all be right…on the other hand…Orbenin…Ultrapen…procaine penicillin….
He held the last carton a little closer and read the label again.
Procaine penicillin…I’m sure he used that on me after I was attacked by a mutant horde in the ruins of a bowling alley…. Lost some of my chin in that one, I remember, and I’m sure he used this…. Yeah, he did…. A woman assistant gave me the shot, and he had her executed for not sterilizing the equipment properly after surgery…. I remember that…and it was procaine penicillin. I’m sure of it.
A small smile of triumph crossed his drawn face as he slipped the ampoules out of the packets. He looked at the liquid held under the plastic and wondered if it was still active after all the years. He’d only know if he tried it. Moving away from the antibiotics, he paused beside the array of stimulants and took down a box of Dexedrine. He might need these later…. I hope not. From the next shelf down, he picked up two bottles of antiseptic wash and passed on his way.
Near the door was a torn open carton of disposable syringes. They’d been hastily unpacked in the chaos of The End. The rough cardboard tears were a sharp reminder of what the emergency admitting area must have been like on that fateful night. A couple of packets were left scattered on the floor.
Bending down stiffly, he picked up the hypodermics in the thin packets and left. Too many reminders of The End he didn’t need right at this moment.
In the waiting area of the second floor, the Other slid the packets and ampoules into the small bag on his hip and refastened the buckles. He stepped around the dark coffee stains on the floor and listened. No sound. No distant stir of movement that one senses when another person is in the vicinity. No sign of the Champion.
The Other felt nervous and a niggle of fear-edged worry ate at his thoughts. He should be here; he should have made some noise by now. Where the hell is he? I’ve got the stuff, so we could leave. I know he hates the place, so why has he wandered off for so long?
He moved down the corridor a few paces and picked up on the footprints in the dust.
He froze into immobility and his eye followed the patterns of movement over the floor. Drifting swirls had made the dust eddy and rise in tiny dunes as if a soft wind had passed or a heavy material had stroked through the fine powder.
His eye took in the trails of almost parallel lines as they stopped short of the crumbled tile floor. He walked slowly forward and saw the heavier displacement of dust at the edge of the fractured tiling.
Frightened, he suppressed his racing thoughts until he saw the deep furrows made by the heel of the boots and the tiny snaking lines made by the gold clasps as they had strained downwards from the tips of the plaits.
The trail led away to the right, through a pair of swinging doors — possibly to another stairwell.
A nauseating dread almost made him sick. He stared at the door and felt a wild fear seize him.
Oh no…not now, not after we’ve come so far…oh, please don’t let the Territory take him back….
Three steps forward brought him to the doors; he pushed gingerly and peered into the space beyond. It was a stairwell, and the tracks of feet and a body being dragged downwards were clearly seen.
The Other let the door swing silently shut. Tiptoeing forward, he felt the banister rail against his hips, and he stared downward into the darkness.
Nothing moved. No sound.
His hands released the rifle clip on the spring, ready for a quick draw. Light of tread, he set off down the stairs at an alarming speed considering the state of the structure. Whole treads swayed and buckled as he bounced from one to another. Terror of losing the one other who was the same as himself — ex-commune, rogue and now companion — made him throw caution and stealth to the midnight winds.
Something dark and nasty was creeping like a pestilence over his future, and he didn’t like it.
They can’t take him back…not now…. I won’t let them…. He’s my future…my companion and I want him! I’m going to do some of my own coveting!
Jumping down to a crouch at the foot of the stairs, he squirmed forward on his stomach and pushed open the swinging doors. Face close to the ground, he squinted through the tiny cracks into the hallway.
The well had brought him full circle, back to the emergency admitting area on the ground floor. Everything was as it had been when he and the Champion had arrived. The gurneys and human remains were as immobile as when they had died in their agonized positions on the night of The End. Pale moonlight crept into the hospital from the broad sweeping driveway, casting shadows of relief over the walls.
Everything was as it should be, except for a strange moaning hum that broke the still air of the deserted city blocks. It was a keening note of purgatory that bore into his skull, and chilled his spine in warning. Climbing to his feet, he eased out through the gap and began to edge toward the source of that noise. Back planted firmly against the wall of the corridor, he stepped along on feet of feather lightness toward the fractured glass doors. His breath held in his lungs, so fearful was he of giving them any warning of his approach. He did not know what the Owners would look like. Or what their numbers might be.
The moonlight became a sharp, hard strip over walls and floor as he came up to the doors. Framed by the entrance was a strange tableau of beings about eighty-five yards away. Garbed in black, with hoods pulled low, he glimpsed the tiny pinpricks of red in the oval of black, and clearly heard their eerie noise. They shifted forward a step, forming a semicircle several bodies deep. The pitch of the notes grew higher.
Straining up onto his toes, the Other tried to see what was drawing them onwards, but his view was masked by their curved line. As if on a prearranged signal, the black figures abruptly faced inwards and knelt down.
His view was now clear, set against a backdrop of cast aside ambulances and driveway.
Involuntarily, he started forward, his hand falling on his rifle in the same movement.
Arranged carefully on the forecourt was a huge cart of rough wood mounted on six old motorcycle tires. Half on and half off the tailgate was a huge, ebony cross. Black polished wood. Its crossbar cut across the night sky, while its one leg bit deeply into the rubble of the driveway. Draped over the broad wooden beams was the black and gold figure of the Champion. Pale of complexion and shallow of breathing, he lay in a slack cross of arms and legs. His long ceremonial plaits were spread half over his chest and neck and half hanging down onto the wooden floor of the cart. The weapons had been stripped from his body, and tossed into the back of the cart. To the right of his head, standing on the cart’s back, was the vibrant figure of a man who thought he had just won the world. Hands stretched wide, his crutch tucked under his arm, Peter made to address the remains of the faithful.
“My Brothers, my children, tonight is the beginning of the new age! The messiah is upon us; we have our martyr for the New Image. It is only a matter of time now before the city is ours.” He smiled over his congregation “Youth will come flooding forth from the remaining communes, eager to be led. Pleading for words of faith and belief.” His hands came together in earnest prayer. “And we shall give them all that they wish to hear. The New Image will rise above the ash of the city on the shoulders of the young. They are ready to look to a new god. A god of strength and power, might and right. We have him before us now, my Brothers, the Champion.”
He indicated the unconscious man with expansive gestures, eyes brilliant with excitement. “The Plaza could not ensnare him, the Territory could not keep him, but we — we shall use him to the utmost. A legend will become a god tonight, my children, as the religion of the New Los Angeles gets its baptism in blood — the blood of the Champion!”
Sweat dribbled off his chin as his wild rhetoric rang out into the night. The converted heard the words and moaned and swayed in ecstasy. Their martyr was before them. It only remained for the first blow to be struck, the first drop of blood to splash from his wounded flesh like a spark into the dry kindling of their cause, and they would have succeeded.
The New Image would be born. A new god raised over them all. A new dawn of stagnant death would rise over the city.
Peter smiled benevolently on his ardent followers and held his hands palm down over their heads in benediction. He continued humbly, “My dear children, your leader cannot thank you enough for giving him this momentous moment. You have delivered me from the hands of the blond butcher into the role of his Master and God-maker. No man has ever been so great as I am now…as we all are. Together we have climbed from obscurity to become the founders of a movement that will forge a new world out of the destruction of The End.”
His voice grew stronger — adamant. “Concede or be damned for all time. There will be no middle course, no room for indecision. Believe or be cast out into the gray waste for all time!”
His savage insanity softened into a smile of beguiling manipulation. His mouth smiled; his eyes did not. “And you, my precious children, will be the disciples of this new age. You will lead the young, the uncertain, to the moment of fulfilled destiny, as they become one with the image of the golden haired Champion, and understand the wisdom and truth of his ways. And over all this greatness, you shall have me as your guide and benefactor. Your true leader who has taken you from the darkness into the light!” He finished, right fist a salute to the heavens.
Cries of warped fanaticism issued above the continuous hum as the words of Peter drew the Brothers onwards in a mass hysterical response. Swaying from side to side, their long sleeves whipping up a minor dust storm, the Brothers moaned piercing notes of excitement. An eagerness for death became an almost tangible essence on the night air.
The Other listened from his place of hiding and watched in motionless disbelief. He felt old and tired. He had heard similar words from the lips of Darnall Houndsworth a long, long time ago. And he hadn’t believed them then.
Nothing changes…. Meaning is the same, only the words are different. Power for power’s sake. Man to rule over man. To rule over what? Those beings of the night are no more men than I am, and the city was decimated years ago. There is nothing left in this city worth having…. He settled his eye on the face of the Champion…Except that lone, blond man. He, himself, is worth a ransom to me…. He knows what I am, who I was. And if a man cannot know himself, then he is worthless and the reality around him is nothing more than a world of dreams and shadows.
A wraith of dusty, red-colored leather stepped through the shards of glass that hung precariously in the frame of the door. He walked forward a few steps and paused in the shadows of the hospital.
I am going to be a whole man again one day. The Champion can help me along the path…and we are the same but different. Protectors both, and he still protects my forgotten memories, ready for the day when I decide to ask. And no crippled religious-psycho is going to snatch that from my grasp. Not now. No one controls my life but me, and I’m dictating the rules of this game as of now!
Out on the cart, Peter had motioned two of the faithful to come forward while another two crouched at the base of the cross and encircled the black leather ankles in their scrawny hands. The first two leaped aboard the cart and squirmed to the ends of the cross bar, dragging the leaden arms of the unconscious man wider. Palms turned outwards, they held his metalled forearms down against the wood.
Every red eye was upon the figure of Peter. He dominated the action on the cart with his pulsating fervor so much so that he appeared to be burning from within. Sweat beaded his face. His flesh quivered on his body as he lurched closer to the head of the Champion.
As the Brothers straightened the limp form over the structure of the cross, the Champion’s face contorted into lines of fear and turmoil. The crease between his eyebrows deepened into a black line as his subconscious level sent warnings to his brain unheeded. Pale lips parted slightly and a soft sigh of irony disappeared on the cool night air. They stripped his hands of the fingerless gloves.
The Brethren leaned forward expectantly, and the hum of rising exultation was cut off in an instant as Peter drew from his robes a large iron hammer and four long steel nails. Cradled in the palm of his shaking hand, the nails clicked against the head of the hammer in a metallic ripple of sound.
The Brothers knelt back to raise a forest of torches above their heads. Ignited at one end of the line, the fire spread from torch to torch in seconds. The yellow light illuminated the set piece on the cart. The gold armor and the death rewards dangling from the Champion’s head gleamed with a savage luster of their own.
Blue knight…White knight…Gold knight…. The Other stood poised on the edge of the torchlight and tensed to make his move.
Peter raised the hammer and nails over his head.
“Look my faithful, see the tools of our destiny. Each blow of this instrument will be like a seal of approval upon our cause, like the chiming of a new Liberty Bell — only this time we shall enforce the liberty that only our religion will allow.”
He shuffled painfully, his stump swinging oddly, toward the outstretched palm of the Champion’s right hand. His fingers bent back against the wood, the Brothers waited for their leader to center the nail and bisect the lifeline etched in his flesh.
The moaning ceased yet again. Tension from the final moment made the watching Brothers lean forward.
The hammer rose, its round head glinting in the light and paused at the apex of its curved swing, in a split second of time.
Before it could descend, Peter was a corpse, held upright by his final contracted muscle spasm as a six-pointed star bit into his skull the full length of its radius. The dull thud of skull bone splitting stunned the faithful. Peter’s eyes turned slowly upwards in his head and he pitched over backwards, a black heap of soiled robes and shattered dreams.
From the edge of the torchlight a rapid succession of hisses spat out four more stars of pointed death. The four Brothers arranged at the extremities of the cross died like their leader. Their skulls exploded under the impact of the razor sharp points.
The atmosphere of jubilation turned instantly to one of horror and disbelief. Where the leader of their New Image had stood was now a cart of bloodied corpses. The dawning of the new age had faded before it had even begun. Sheer terror had rooted them to the spot.
Close to the rickety vehicle, Joshua rose to his feet and stared at the dead and the neatly arranged pose of the flaxen-haired man. Laid out for death, he was the only living figure among the suddenly deceased.
A mortal trepidation made him turn away from the slack form of Peter and face the pitch-dark night. Red eyes traveling the perimeter of the torchlight, he soon detected the deeper shadows of a figure. A silver glint betrayed it further as its motion of drawing breath shifted the metal plates on its chest. Joshua raised a hand of long white fingers and pointed into the night.
His voice was a strangled whisper of shocked rage. “You…” His teeth bared in bitter hatred.
The Brothers wriggled around in the dirt and watched the Other step forward into the light. The silver rifle in his hands drew a bead on Joshua’s head.
“Yes, me.” One dark eyebrow raised, he strode through the suddenly cowed beings. As he passed, they shrank away from him. Torches slipped from slack fingers as a panic of self-preservation set in. Groups of terrified faithful clung to one another. Seconds ago, they had been united under one aim, one man, one mind. Now they were cast adrift, their leader a corpse, the New Image an idea that might have been.
And all this was brought about by a single man they had thought was a corpse himself.
Joshua edged away from the advancing Other. “You…. It can’t be…. I saw your blood on the floor of the sewer. So much blood…. You couldn’t have survived.” Hand snaking out for the left arm of the Champion, he pulled on the limp hand and raised the limb into the air. “He…he is the only living Protector…. You were killed by him…. He had no other rival. There was only the Champion left — the embodiment of the New Image.”
The Other, ignoring him, mounted the cart and took up a commanding stance at the head of the cross. Inches from his legs, the calm face of the Champion lay against the ebony wood, totally oblivious to the action that centered upon him.
The Other let a second pass as he surveyed the assembly. “You are wrong, all of you so-called ‘Brothers’ — I am very much alive, unlike your leader here.” He let his eye drop to the corpse of Peter.
Joshua involuntarily followed his gaze, then swallowed sickly. The rest of the congregation began to edge away.
“And all of you have no claim against this man.” The Other pointed down at the Champion as he shouted the words into the darkness, sure it would reach the groups of creeping faithful. “All of you out in the darkness, hear my words. This man is free; he is no longer owned, possessed, or manipulated by the evil men of this city. He has his rights, and he chooses to walk where he wishes. Any who have designs upon him are marked for death!” His words of warning rang out into the night and bounced off the hospital building in faint echoes.
“People like you gave us the right to kill. We became your protectors and cleaned out your city blocks. We will use those ingrained skills to win our freedom. You have trained us well, too well — you cannot stop us!” The Other glowered over the squirming beings.
Joshua listened with a seething rage; finally he hung onto the cart and shook the lattice sides in a frenzy of anger. All that he had schemed and worked for had just evaporated with the death of Peter.
“But he is our messiah,” came as a whine of injustice as he pointed at the senseless figure still draped across the wooden arms. “Peter said so! We were going to rule the city. The New Image was to be everything. Peter said — !”
The Other kicked the hands away from the cart sides. “Your Peter is dead. Your religion is dead. And you will be dead unless you leave here now.”
He held the pig-eyes of the cringing Brother in a silent look that emphasized the truth behind his words. Joshua read the meaning clearly and backed away as the rifle took up a direct line on his forehead.
“And that is a sacred truth you can believe in.” The Other smiled in a cold grin of hostility. His next words were a barely heard whisper. “Get away from here.”
The rifle hammer clicked back.
And the circle of devout faithful staggered to their feet and fled. The stampede of Brothers over the pavement and sidewalks bounced further echoes off the dangerous buildings. Shadows of men blended into the shadows of the night, and soon only the distant patter of retreat came to the Other’s ears.
Under his rifle sight stood the last remaining figure. Joshua. A look of intense malevolence seared across the gap between Protector and religious fanatic. Then, lips curling down in an admission of defeat, Joshua took one last look at the sleeping Champion, turned on his heel and walked away into the night. Unlike the others, he left with a dignified ease.
The rifle sight was trained on his shoulders every step. At the junction of an intersection, the smudge of shadow turned back once and surveyed the remains of the New Image. Then he faced east and stepped off into the unknown of the city blocks.
The Other knew he wouldn’t be back. The rest didn’t have the guts or the weaponry to attack him. When the dead suddenly rises up out of the night and changes the order of the scheme of things, a being of any wisdom walks and keeps on walking. Joshua was that — wise and alive. Beaten but not a quitter.
He’s probably planning a new messiah already. Another commune protector…whoever succeeds the Champion. He glanced down at the man on the ebony wood. He’ll look a lifetime and find nothing comparable.
Sinking down onto one knee, the Other felt for the pulse under the plaits obscuring the throat. It beat too slowly, but it was steady. He rested back and lowered his head onto the cross.
Next time we stay together…together. I could have been too late.
A shiver of reaction raised the gooseflesh on his skin. At his feet were the tools from Peter’s hands. He picked up one of the steel nails and held it before his eye.
A martyr…to their crucifixion. A messiah for their New Image. Just another role to be played out for the dangerously insane that infest this city. He sighed miserably. How many more roles have been written for us before we are truly free? Fate plays against us…winning becomes increasingly hard the further along the path we run. Can we ever outrun them?
He threw the nails and the hammer as hard and as far as he possibly could. They clattered into the darkness. A vacuum of silence enveloped the cart as the area became deserted. The Other put his rifle down and began to scan the body of the Champion with a critical eye.
The five needles in his left leg stood out like a miniature ladder. Oh God, what have they shot you with? The Other was off the cart with the speed of light, feeling his injuries plague him again. He’d been oblivious to them moments earlier, occupied with other things. Now they came back in deep aches and twinges of pain. Forgetting himself, he concentrated on the senseless man. Beside the tightly-leathered leg, he squatted on the driveway and tenderly touched one of the needles.
The Champion shifted a little.
On closer inspection, the Other could see they were fine steel tubes that had once held something, probably a liquid.
Darts of some kind. I wonder what was in them? Five…one or two could possibly kill him, but five — No, wait, think rationally — they wanted him alive for the crucifixion…but they wouldn’t want him to put up any resistance…. They could be some form of tranquilizer….
He raised his left leg for the huge step up onto the back of the cart and hauled himself aboard. The bodies of the two Brothers were followed by the sticky corpse of Peter as he began to heave them over the side. They fell heavily onto the driveway. Jumping down, he dragged them one-by-one along the curve toward the road. Dead meat had always attracted the starving mutants and rats. He didn’t want any form of company right at this moment.
By the time the five bodies were left in the gutter, he was damp with sweat and his chest was protesting from the exertion. The strain on his right arm had torn the clotted wound, and the bandages were turning a sodden red.
He weaved toward the wagon and hung onto the sides as the world shifted out of focus. His eye slid shut and he let his head fall backward. A deadly tiredness ached in his bones, and he felt too hot and sick.
The night breeze stroked his cheeks and cooled him a little. Pushing away from the sides, he wobbled to the tail of the roughly-fashioned vehicle.
The Champion lay as he had been placed. Classic pose, ready and waiting for the blows.
The Other watched the shallow rise and fall of the chest under the black and gold armor, and hoped from the bottom of his soul that it was a sleep of the sedated and not the sleep of the comatose as they slid from this world into the next.
His bottom lip trembled minutely and he bit it still.
Climbing back onto the cart took longer than his descent. Knees crawling over the roughly sanded boards, he struggled up to his feet and rested against the head of the cross. His hair was in his eye so he shook it back and made to haul the inert body of the Champion off the ebony wood. The man was a deadweight of solid physique and combat suit.
No wonder the grooves in the dust were so deep….
The two Protectors sank to the bare boards as the weight of the senseless body transferred from the cross to the arms of the Other. The jolt didn’t even cause the victim to stir.
Another seed of dismay was sown in the Other.
Don’t die on me…please hang on.
He removed the disarray of plaits from the pale face and set his head over to one side, in case he gagged on his own tongue. His flesh was a little cool under the Other’s fingers. The parted lips were dry and almost translucent. The long fair eyelashes settled over the gray shadows under his eyes and didn’t flicker once.
The Other got his back under the cross of joined wooden beams and heaved it up and backwards. The wide shape rose up into the night sky on a curve, reached the zenith of that curve, and toppled downward into the dirt. Without looking back, he shifted to the left side of the Champion and held his hand over the needles. To give himself a moment, he flexed his fingers, then swiftly pulled out the five steel darts.
As they popped out of the flesh and leather, the Other saw the tiny barbs on the points.
He made sure you didn’t knock them free.
A tiny bubble of blood appeared at every puncture hole. It held there to congeal to a scab. The Champion twitched once as the last one was drawn from his leg.
The Other felt a need to write again the letters he had inscribed on the plane window. He knew that they were important — had been important years ago. This man should read them…and then he would somehow understand.
S…T…A…R…Star…. He understood all those years ago, I’m sure he did…but I’m sure there was more; that wasn’t all the message…. There was more…but I can’t remember. But he knows; I could tell in the plane…he knows it all. And I cannot lose that now. I like having him beside me…. It feels so right.
He looked toward the dark night sky and picked out the pinpricks of starlight in the heavens.
I won’t lose this one chance…my chance for a better future…or just a future. The years have gone by and I’ve grown into a man of loneliness…deep and bitter solitary confinement. It has eaten away at my spirit until I am little more than a shell over a bottomless ache.
His face dropped and he looked again at the slack form of the Champion.
And then he came, down into my home, into my sewer…and in him I saw a fleeting glimpse of a time before…my Time Before…. He was a player…someone close…. After all the years, someone finally did come and look. It gave me that small measure of hope…. Even though they made me forget, somewhere inside, a wisp of memory told me he had finally come…. I waited and he came. I’ll wait now, I’ll wait forever…. Just don’t let him die, God. I need him now…and he needs me.
He leaned back against the inside of the wagon and pulled his knees under his chin. A freezing sensation buried itself deep in his bones. His flesh felt hot, but his inner self was cold.
Down all the wounded ways of my soul, I have searched for a meaning to my life here…and all I ever found was nothingness, a gorge of desolation…until this man came…. I forgive him the pain he caused me…. I forgive him his need to kill me…. I forgive him…. But I cannot forgive if he dies.
Chin rubbing against the smooth leather of his knees, he watched the rise and fall of the Champion’s chest. He watched the slightest facial movement and flare of a nostril as he sucked down another lungful of air. And the Other found himself counting every single breath. Each one he considered a mutual triumph.
He willed the man who held his memories safe to live for the both of them. He now knew that one without the other spelled only an eternity of further loneliness.
I’ve been alone too long…. I’ve missed other human beings. Selkirk and Houndsworth were beings who were far from human.
His brows almost met as his metalled face betrayed his inner worry.
The light wind plucked at the stray wisps of hair that had pulled loose on the Champion’s head. It teased them playfully across his straight nose.
The Other watched the twists and turns, mesmerized. And he remembered the times when that blond hair had blown loose in the winds and sunshine of the Time Before. It had been shorter then, but just as pale blond and fine. And when the man was ill or over-exerted, the damp, musky sweat of his body made the ends curl naturally.
The dark tousled head buried itself into the tightly drawn knees and tried to commit the present image to the half shadows of memory. Eye screwed tight shut against the nighttime, he chased the fleeting remembrance….
And arrived at the image of a young man standing on a sweep of steps that led into a special kind of college or academy. He was dressed with a casual exclusiveness, suitcase in large hand. Face tilted upwards, his bright blue eyes traced the outline of the imposing building, and came to rest upon an equally young man in a third story window. He looked him directly in the eye, a strong look of self-confidence and strength. Then the wind caught in his long blond hair and obscured his view momentarily. He’d brushed it aside and back, and then disappeared from the sight of the dark-haired man as he entered the building. When the watcher in the window had seen him again, the long blond locks had been trimmed to an acceptable regulation length….
The Other sighed as a trail of blurred images disappeared back into his subconscious. I’m not going to lose him again…not ever. I’ve missed so much time already.
The last burning torch on the tarmac guttered and died. The blackness enveloped the cart, accompanied immediately by an animal moan from the darkness of the street.
Alert, the Other leaned forward and grasped his rifle. The sudden movement sent a jolt of pain up his right arm, into his shoulder and neck. Wincing, he settled back carefully, the rifle across his knees. Then he remembered the treasures he had found in the pharmacy, and the reason they had come here in the first place.
He looked back at the hospital. It towered over the little cart like a giant monolith.
He didn’t even want to come here…. He knew it would be bad for him…. He only came for me….
The throbbing started up again in his arm with a vengeance, and sent his thoughts along different lines. If the Champion came around they’d be able to move on, get away. But if the Other was sick himself, it could hold them back, and the city was already hunting for them.
He pulled the small bag onto his knee and unbuckled the flap. Inside, tucked next to the water can, were the ampoules of procaine penicillin and the disposable hypodermics. At the other side were the containers of antiseptic wash.
He drew them out and set them next to his left side. Picking up one of the bottles, he poured the contents liberally over his wounded leg, his injured arm, and his hands. He tossed the bottle over the side. Next, he delicately picked up the white packet and felt the form of the needles under the thin layer. Tearing on the top strip, he pulled away the paper and screwed it into a tight ball. It slipped from his left hand as he became preoccupied with the white and transparent plastic that made up the body of the syringe. The long, fine surgical needle caught the pale moonlight in a line along its shaft.
We always lived in a disposable world — it was as if we tried to throw it away — in the end, I guess we did….
He looked past the syringe to the still features of the Champion.
…Though some of it I’m going to salvage.
He broke the seal on the ampoule and inserted the needle. As he made to draw up some of the liquid, he paused and tried to remember the exact dosage Selkirk had prescribed.
Three hundred m.g. or was it seven hundred m.g.?…I’m sure it was seven hundred. He always dosed me highly due to my tolerance levels…. Yes, that’s right.
He drew up what he hoped was the correct dosage, watched the air bubble rise, and squirted some of the liquid from the fine end of the needle. His heartbeat increased dramatically and he forced back the thought that he could be wrong. He wasn’t Selkirk, master of medicine; he was a rogue protector in a roughly fashioned wagon, in the driveway of an unsafe hospital. The Champion was unconscious and he was alone.
He shrugged away the disturbing thoughts, accepting this as just another risk, and selected a place on his leg that would be suitable for the shot. Selkirk had often used the developed muscle on the outer side of his thigh. He lowered his left leg straight and pulled a knife from its place on his back. A sharp nick in the leather and he had enough space to work. More antiseptic wash followed as he washed the area of skin as best as he could. And then back to the hypodermic.
Taking a deep breath, he poised the needle above his flesh, trusted he’d got the angle right, and stabbed down. The steel shaft slid in and he depressed the plunger with a steady evenness he had seen used so many times. The needle drew out slowly, and it was over.
He cast the plastic syringe aside and let out a pent up breath of nervous tension. A spasm of deep pain accompanied the withdrawal as the muscle protested the invasion.
Risk…always risk.
The Champion’s eyes moved rapidly under his lids for a moment, then ceased. The Other pulled his knee back up to his chest, encircled his legs with his arms and held the rifle tightly. He settled down to his vigil….
The night began to pale toward another pasty pink, gray dawn as the hours dragged by. The Other moved little all the darkened time. His rifle remained clutched in his hands and his eye traveled the driveway entrance and roadway as the sneaking black shapes of the city night crept forward cautiously. Tiny red pinpricks of light that he identified, not as the remnants of the Brothers, but as the ravenously hungry rats. The vermin did not fear the alien invasion of men into their territory; in fact they welcomed it — men always left signs of their passing. Usually it was edible. The bodies on the road were edible now. Fresh.
Once during the length of his watch, the Other caught the swiftest glimpse of white mutant eyes. They hovered at the very edge of the hospital boundary, peering from behind a crumbling wall and then darting down again. The strange scent of the Protectors’ bodies on the night breeze must have alerted them to the dangers of the two men on the cart. They were not the usual prey. Their odor was of blood, sweat, and gun oils. Beings not to be tackled by the timid mutant out on a nighttime scavenge.
A pitter-patter of deformed feet over loose rubble told the listening silvered man that the curious had departed to the relative safety of another city block. Minutes later, they wailed out a long solitary warning that made the hairs on the back of his head rise, and then there was only the severe silence of vacant territory.
And still the Champion made no move or sign. He slept like the dead.
Purpled outlines of ramshackle buildings came into relief against the vaguely warming sky. The Other knew that another dawn was imminent. Another day. What would this day bring?
A second chance? Or the seal on a solitary life?
He stretched his legs out in front of him, forced his stiff knees straight, and then climbed to his feet. Rifle still in hand, he perched on the side of the cart and scanned the surrounding area in a slow panorama.
In the weak light, the area that had hosted the final performance of the New Image was nothing more than a cracked driveway of rusting ambulances. The torches lay like blackened matches; the cross was chipped and splintered, a slung together effort. Its single foot had been damaged when it had been lowered carelessly or dragged over rough ground. Any sinister overtones that it might have once possessed had been lost during the waning of the moon.
The Other turned his back on it and scrutinized the Champion instead. His face showed signs of grazes and bruising where they had mishandled his body on the stairs. His lips were dry and cracking; the lines on the ivory flesh had become more pronounced.
The Other pulled up his light canvas bag and withdrew the water bottle. He shook it and noted how the level had already dropped. It didn’t matter now; he’d find more later. Unscrewing the cap, he knelt beside the pale head of ceremonial plaits, and slid a hand under the neck. Bottle to the broad lips, he poured a small measure down the dust-dry throat. A second passed and then the Champion swallowed greedily. More water followed, a little at a time, and then the Other lowered the slumbering form to the wooden boards.
He settled back on the heels of his boots, took a long drink himself, and replaced the cap of the bottle just as the man at his side sighed very quietly and rolled onto his right side. The Other shifted out of the way, making the wagon sway slightly, and watched the sleeping man like a hawk.
Black leather knees crooked, the Champion rolled into a more natural sleeping position. And upon reflection, his color was marginally better than in the early hours of the night.
Trying to control his inner surge of hope, the Other felt for the pulse in the neck and found the laboring strain was gone, replaced by a steady rhythm of deep sleep.
A heartfelt breath of relief escaped the silvered lips of the Northern Sector man. He wiped his dusty face, fingers tracing the metal edge of his plates, and settled down in easier contentment to wait.
He didn’t know he’d fallen asleep. He couldn’t remember vainly trying to keep his leaden eyelid open. But sometime during the morning, the man of silver had relaxed momentarily, and sleep had ambushed him in ways far more subtle than a protector’s attack. It had numbed his senses and he’d pitched slowly over to his left side, not quite falling to the cart floor. A relaxed heap of dozing pouches and leather strips. He’d needed the sleep, craved for it, but he’d refused to let his body have any respite until the Champion was conscious. But his body had had other ideas and ensnared him in a comfortable rest of dreamless sleep, free from worries or cares.
What woke him now was an alert to his sixth sense that something unusual was happening within his vicinity. He jerked upright, rifle still grasped tightly in his hands. And blinked away the fuzz of half sleep.
The Champion was sitting up. He was staring into the palms of his hands searching — searching for what? His long braids agitatedly sang as the man shook with some inner reaction.
It was this jarring noise that had disturbed the sleeping Other. He watched the strange movements of the Champion again, as he peered first into his right palm and then into his left. Soft words muttered from his mouth.
“The holes…the holes…where are the holes?” His bright blue eyes held an expression of devastation.
Disturbed, he started fractionally as he raised his head to the towering edifice of the hospital. His lips moved again but nothing emerged.
The Other leaned forward and peered into the outstretched palms himself. “There are no holes, Champion. They failed in their mission.” He tried to lower the arms of golden armor, but found them suffused with inner strength.
“But the hospital says there are.” The Territory Protector turned to face him, his eyes focused upon nothing. He was suffering a wakeful nightmare.
“What — ?” The Other looked between the Champion and the silent cracked structure that loomed over them.
The Champion nodded knowingly, then spoke conspiratorially. “A place of the diseased and the dead, I know. I was trapped there once…. The New Image is fed by the dead…dead in mind and thought…diseased in their belief.” His features crumbled from wide-eyed fear to self-pitying misery. “I am not their messiah…not their martyr. I am owned, I am not free…. They could not have me anyway.”
An anger flared within the Other. “You are free! You left the Territory. They don’t own you anymore. Believe me, you are a free man!”
The Champion savored the words and nodded very slowly, then his eyes darted suspiciously back to the hospital. “But the hospital says — ”
“The hospital says nothing! It is a shell of bricks and mortar; it says nothing to you.”
The Champion persisted with his private horror. “I saw it speak; heard the words from its windows, from its doors.” His fists clenched in a turmoil of disorientation.
“You heard your own mind — the sleeping drugs…and probably the LSD. I said it would happen, could happen again.” The Other spoke as persuasively as possible. “It happened in the Greyhounds, remember?”
“The Greyhounds…Rospo…” His blue eyes slid shut as he tried to erase the image of the perverted fence that came to mind. A groan of disgust erupted from deep within as he remembered Case’s attack, followed by a whisper of fear. “And what does Peter say?”
“Peter says very little — he’s dead!” The revelation was spat out.
“Dead?” His voiced became slurred again.
“Yeah.” The Other watched as the black and gold body slid back onto the wooden boards.
The spaced-out expression in the Champion’s eyes dimmed, but no recognition took its place. He held his hands aloft again, palms facing outwards. “No holes?” He shook his head negatively in an effort to encourage the correct response from the Other.
The Other shook his head. “No holes.”
The Champion’s eyes half shut and in a small voice he said, “I have a scar on this one.” He held up his right palm. A thin red line could clearly be seen.
Words of comfort and reason came easily to the Other’s lips so suddenly he surprised even himself. “You got that injury in an alley, a long time ago. It needed stitching. I drove you. It wasn’t serious.”
A faint smile crossed the Champion’s face. “Ah, but it was…it became very serious indeed…” And he was asleep again.
The Territory Protector rolled back onto his side and continued to sleep off the drugs and the fear of the previous night.
However, he left the Other with strange thoughts to question. The reference to the hand wound becoming serious was to puzzle him all the rest of the day, but he couldn’t place it in context.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The evil countenance of the woman Owner spread into an expression of acceptable delight as her eyes fixed upon the curved and fissured walls of the ancient baseball stadium. She’d walked all the long night, through the fearsome wastes of the city, to find this place. Now it lay before her, a crumbling mausoleum to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Heroes of many, gone like all the rest.
The four secondary protectors at her back scoured the ruin with their eyes and then deemed it relatively safe to approach. Elysian Park Avenue, now of uneven surface, led them directly on.
The sun had climbed into an insipid sky of almost predictable gray-pinks dissolving to a sickly yellow as the morning wound on. As the small party crossed into the shadow of the stadium, the temperature dropped markedly. Not just from the lack of heat from the sun, but from an inner expectancy within themselves.
The Owner knew who lived here. The squad of Territory protectors had a good idea. Nervously alert and suspicious, they guarded their Owner under the wide arches, through the rusting, narrow pay gates, and into the long tunnels and corridors that made up the inner labyrinth in the curve of the stadium.
In her long evening dress, covered in a layer of ash at the hem, the woman patted her gray mane of hair into a tidier shape, and set off up the tunnel that led to the open field of play. A flight of chipped stone stairs led up to the patch of pale morning sky that became wider as she appeared at the edge of the seating and took in the circular vista.
The huge wheel of seats and aisles was laid out before her, shabby and ill kept. Inside, the shadows were deep and black, and cut across the steep incline of seats. The curve of the roof at the top cast down more shadows, but not enough to obscure the occupants of the stadium.
In small groups, they were clustered around spluttering fires that they had lit on various levels. Keeping well into the shadowed side, they were arranged in huddled collections of ragged, bandaged beings. Their stench was unmistakable, even from where the woman Owner was standing. It was the odor of decay and death. This was the place the diseased and leprous came to spend their last days. Cast out of the communes, they fled here for a measure of protection and company among their own kind.
Silence enveloped the arena as every eye alighted upon the elegant figure standing in one of the entrance tunnels. No one moved. If anything, they huddled even closer and awaited her next move.
The woman slowly turned in a circle and took in every remnant of the diseased generation. She saw their tattered clothes and knew that they swathed the decay of their bodies from their own eyes. Practically everyone was mummified in this manner. Those that weren’t, the more bold and lively among them, soon would be. An all-consuming dread shook her to the core as she compared the foul stench of the sick bodies, and the increasingly powerful aroma of her own flesh. They were one and the same.
The writing was more than on the wall; for her, it had become a gold-embossed invitation.
The four protectors had fanned out among the seats, and tried in vain to cover the vast number of immobile inhabitants.
A female over to the right moved a scrawny arm and stirred a thick sludge in a dented pan over a fire. Four hammers on guns clicked back. The ragged woman stared at them dully. Her life was of no consequence now; she kept on stirring.
White hand a little unsteady, the Owner motioned the Territory guards to lower their weapons. She had other business here besides killing the already dead.
Her green eyes raked the multitude of rising beings again and she drew a blank. The one man she searched for was not among the crowd. If he’d been there, she’d have spotted him. He was a myth to many of the commune dwellers, but she knew he was real.
She took a deep breath and shouted out his name.
“Drew! Alex Drew! I have come to speak. Show yourself.”
A tension rippled among the crippled watchers. No one called on the master of the stadium. No one made demands of him.
She searched the sides of the arena again and found no sign of movement. He lived here; she knew that. This was the last refuge for the abominably deformed and corroded. It was the only sanctuary left open to them. Here they could molder away their last days. All were the same if at different degrees of sickness. Some stayed for months or years, others lasted only weeks. But they all bought their way in here with their last worldly goods, or they literally sold themselves into the service of Alex Drew.
A light breeze tugged at her skirts and pulled more of her hair loose. A jewel fell unheeded to the stone steps, as it tumbled from one of her gray tresses. The elegant decorations of beauty were of no matter to her now. She had her mind set on another course — that of revenge.
Above her came the soft hiss of compressed air and she turned expectantly. A tunnel entrance cut high into the seating was the source of that sound. It was hidden in the shade, a large, dark rectangle. The sound of grit being trod underfoot made her take a step upwards. She raised her arched eyebrows and tried to guess what he would look like.
The squad of protectors formed a semi-circle around their Owner, and trained their sights upon the tunnel opening.
If they’d bothered to look, they’d have found every eye in the stadium was also drawn to that rectangle.
The hissing whisper grew louder and she gripped the folds of her black dress with tension.
A voice gasped out of the darkness.
“Tell your men to lower their weapons, or Hurg will surely kill them.” Each word was spoken with halting effort, interspersed with gasps and hisses of escaping air. “It is hardly good manners to threaten me in my own home.”
The figure that emerged from the darkness was the bizarre creation of a mad scientist. Drew was of human shape, but hardly of human appearance. His whole body was covered in a strange exoskeleton. Dark, oxblood brown, it encased his arms, legs, and torso and was pitted and dented through years of violent living, a symbol of the savagery that made up the man’s life. The stains of death he never washed clean.
Running over this heavily metalled body was a series of calipers, pistons, and harnesses that enabled the whole contraption to move. As each limb changed position, the air trapped in the cylinders was forced out by the pistons, and then sucked in by the newly created vacuum. A double set of pistons ran down the outer edge of his legs and arms. It was almost as if his body were held within a webbed framework of metal.
This body shell rose as high as his neck, covering his flesh up to the tip of his chin. His movements were fluid, but slow, and his weight must have been considerable.
Drew smiled coldly at her approach. His face was scarred and disfigured from the years of doing battle with the city, and his eyes bulged noticeably due to a thyroid disorder. It gave the disconcerting impression that his eyes were boring into your mind as he listened intently. Thin wisps of hair trailed from the base of his skull and down his back, most of his hair having dropped out years ago. It was still that curious silver gray.
The climb up to his level was steep, and by the time the woman had stepped up beside him, she was flushed and breathing a little fast. She smiled fleetingly back and clasped her hands before her in some semblance of relaxed attitude.
The hissing had stopped, the sound only issuing when he moved around.
“Well?” Drew prompted a conversation.
She narrowed her eyes, deciding whether or not to trust him. Finally, a click of long red-tipped fingers and the squad of armed men lowered the weapons and moved into a tight, expectant group.
“That’s much nicer, my dear.” Drew stepped back and indicated another figure in the darkness. “You see, Hurg would have killed them, like I said.”
At first she could make out neither shape, form, nor gender of the figure until she readjusted her expectations. Then she saw him all too clearly.
Hurg was a giant of a man. Seven feet tall at least. Built like an armored truck, as wide as a pair of double doors, with muscles on him usually found on comic book super heroes. One swat of his hand would have broken her neck or stove in her skull. Hunched under the curve of the tunnel ceiling, his black eyes watched her every move. Jaw of iron, he licked his lips and nodded in acknowledgement. His long Hessian robe trailed about his large boots, frayed, and tattered. In his hands he held a rifle that looked like a toy.
“Hurg is a great asset to the stadium. We never have any discipline problems here.” Drew grinned at his personal bodyguard then turned back to the Owner.
She failed to notice his expectant expression, so hypnotized was she by the enormous man in the shadows.
Drew reached out a metal-gloved hand and touched her cheek. Startled, she stepped back, her face clouding to a menacing scowl.
“Don’t touch me, Drew.” Cold words of little mutual tolerance.
“If you insist.” He turned around slowly and set off along the tunnel. “Come away from the entrance. The seats have ears….”
Wheezing body of pistons and cylinders, Drew rasped away into the darkness of the tunnel. Hurg, close at his heels, made no sound as he followed.
The room they entered was a spartan display of simple furniture. A wooden table with Formica top in faked wood grain. Two hard, high backed chairs of ancient lineage. A lit torch in a bracket cast long, wavering shadows over the naked walls.
Drew was sitting on one of the chairs, arms resting on the tabletop with an easy casualness. Hurg settled in a corner at his back and watched the woman Owner carefully. The only sound came from the faint hiss of air as Drew raised an arm and indicated the other chair.
At length he asked, “What brings you out of the Territory Commune, Owner? We so rarely have visitors of your importance.” A thought struck him and his face brightened, causing his eyes to bug even further. “Or are you sick as well? Have they sent you here for good, an armed escort at your back to ensure you come?”
He was uncomfortably close to the truth. She clasped the neck of her dress to hide any telltale signs of mold and shook her head in a half amused way. “No, oh, no. I’m here for quite a different reason.” She looked him levelly in the eye. “I have a job for you.”
Drew settled against the back of the chair and pursed his lips in thought. “So the Champion really has gone rogue.”
The statement of undeniable truth, delivered in a flat off-hand way, almost took her breath away. She tried to hide her surprise behind the cool aura with which she shrouded herself. But Drew did not miss the light of unexpectedness fire her eyes. She smiled in acknowledgement of his foresight, but the warmth rose no higher than her crimsoned lips.
“That’s right. My — the Owners’ — Champion has decided to leave the Territory. We have no wish to lose such a valuable asset. We want him — ”
” — back?” Drew cut in.
She tossed the suggestion about in her mind for a moment and tried to foresee what life in the Commune would be like with the executioner back under her rule. But she knew her days were numbered, and she would never have the chance to enjoy him to the full. “No…we don’t want him back. He’s too dangerous. He thinks independently and — ”
“Ah, I can see how that would be dangerous to the Commune. It wouldn’t do for original thoughts to rear their ugly heads, now would it?” He smirked at her disparagingly.
“You ought to know, Drew. This place is run on similar lines!” Her patience was limited with menials at the best of times. Recently, she’d become even more short-tempered, and right at this moment she didn’t want to be teased and verbally played with by this man.
Drew nodded in agreement; his skin folded into ridges against the metal neck of the suit.
“We understand power…and how to manipulate people.” A hiss from beneath the table told her he’d shifted his legs into a more relaxed position.
“Yes, it makes the gray days a little brighter,” she agreed with him. “But the Champion has seen fit to take his own rules…play his own hand of power. He has gone rogue.” Her face betrayed an inner twist of misery, bitterness, and fury.
Drew watched the way her hands clasped and unclasped, the knuckles changing from red flesh to bone white as her grip tightened and relaxed. She was highly agitated and found her temper hard to control. “Rogue? Then he is dangerous,” he said.
Now that the truth was out she powered on with her demands. “And I want him exterminated. He’s taken up with the Protector of the Northern Sector, and my source of information has led me to believe they plan to leave the city.”
She rose from the table and moved to the back of her chair, her hands encircling the ornate carvings at either end. “He mustn’t get away. One stand of defiance against us that proves successful, and we are finished. The efficiency and equilibrium of the Territory depend on all the people being sure of their place, their status, and their belief in our rule.” Her voice became louder as she spewed out her reasons for coming to the stadium. Her ringed hands tapped on the hard wood to lend emphasis to her points.
“It only takes one man to stand up and defy us, and the seeds of decay will have been sown. That kind of lucky, open victory could fire the imaginations of even the most subservient. I can’t allow it — the Territory would crumble. And I can’t permit that just when the Commune is about to ascend to the position of prime commune in the city.”
“Really?” Drew made the question sound like a sarcastic statement of disbelief, but he was curious as to her plans.
“Yes. The Plaza is no longer a contender to the position. Selkirk and Houndsworth are dead — their Protector burned down the Plaza building with the help of the Champion. It could be you next, or the Territory. We have to be rid of them.”
So involved with her own speech was she, that she failed to see the clouding of Drew’s face, the paling of his pallor.
“Selkirk, dead?” He looked at her and saw her absent nod of assent. “My God, at last.”
The woman was about to continue. Instead, she stopped and wondered at the last comment from the seated man. “Why should you care?”
Drew struggled to stand, his calipers locking into the upright position. “Because I am Selkirk’s first mistake.”
She looked at him, stunned. All the answers as to how he became so disfigured and deformed became abundantly clear. He had been experimented on for the furtherance of the New Medicine.
Drew’s voice shook marginally. “All that he learned from me, he used to create his new killing machine, his name was — ”
“The Other…. ” She supplied the name involuntarily, and could not dodge the look of penetrating question that appeared in the overly round eyes of the man before her. “That is the Protector who has burned down the Plaza. He now runs with the Champion.”
“The Other…. So, the experiments were worth it. Selkirk did manage to create a better, improved specimen, and he took my place as commune favorite….”
Air surging forth from the slide of pistons in cylinders, the man began to pace the floor in thought. He had no love for the Other. A taste for revenge festered upon a vengeful hunger. “Strange that those two should team up. They’re so different.”
“The Champion failed to kill the Other on one of his last missions, but it makes no difference now. The Plaza is gone, anyway, and we can take the city without a rival.” She watched his pacing curiously. “However, we need those two stamped out before the dwellers get similar ideas and begin to desert the Territory. I need those people…every one of them.”
Drew stopped and confronted her. “But you used to need the Champion, did you not? He was always the precious possession, was he not? Surely you could retrain him, drug him back into line? All the time and effort would be lost if I exterminated him.” Drew had accepted the reason for disposing of the Other — commune-less protectors who played with fire were a decided menace that the city could do without. But to discard the ultimate killing machine of the Territory was another matter.
“Even if you could no longer trust him, surely you could breed from — ” And then he saw the look of revelation in her acid green eyes. He had exposed the raw nerve of inner reason — a basic truth.
A thunderous expression of violent anger had flashed over her neatly re-made face. It spoke a multitude, and Drew could fill any blanks himself quite adequately.
“So, you’ve tried using him, have you?”
She stared him out, ignoring his hissing advance toward her.
“Or did he turn you down?”
Her eyes fell away.
Drew swallowed slowly. A woman scorned is a violence unleashed and beyond control. She wants her pound of flesh before he leaves the city.
She tried to justify herself. “He failed to come as ordered. I — we were left waiting like foolish virgins. No man casts that kind of slight. He must be removed, permanently.”
Drew knew he had found her weakness in her truth. She would give anything to have him dead. “What will you pay me?” It was time he looked to his reward. “I don’t work cheaply.”
“Anything you want.” Concise and to the point.
The price was high, but the payment would cover it.
“Hurg and I want to return to a commune.” He looked at his companion, but sensed the slow nod. “Where there are women, young women.”
“Two gold shields and you can take your pick.” She knew she had him hooked. He wanted a commune life again, and he wanted the death of the Other.
He nodded in agreement. “Where will I find them? Does your informant know that?” Suction wheezed as he used his arms to lower himself to his seat again.
“You’ll find them tonight, eventide, in the old estate house. You know, the one that used to belong to the Orange County commune before they got the wasting disease and died. They’ll be there to meet Rospo Case. The Other is injured and needs some drugs.”
Drew smiled at the unexpected advantage. “What a shame. Nothing serious, I hope?”
“Can you make it there by nightfall?” She couldn’t see how he could move across the city blocks fast enough to be on time for the meet.
“I have my methods, don’t I, Hurg?” Hurg grunted knowingly in reply. Drew went on. “I’ve a Peterbilt truck, diesel in the tanks.” He knew the bombshell would stun her.
She held onto the back of the chair, her lips parted slightly in surprise. “A Peterbilt…with diesel?” She shook her head in disbelief, gray hair sweeping her shoulders.
Drew explained brightly, “Some people will give up all sorts just so’s they can die peacefully in this stadium.” He became philosophical. “I guarantee them a kind of well-protected passing into the next life. It may not have any of the finer creature comforts, but at least they’re not on the streets as pickings for the mutants.”
His words washed over her as she thought of all the fuel, so close and yet beyond her reach. She’d forgotten what exhaust fumes smelled like.
“We’ll be there,” the man at the table assured her.
Drew’s final speech attracted her attention once more. Pulling herself together, she headed for the door. Reaching to open it, her arm stretched clear of the long sleeve and the mold at her wrists became visible. Hastily, she covered the sores with a black, frilled cuff. He’s missed my beauty…. I’d never have him now.
“One more thing, Drew. I want proof that he’s dead. Bring me his manhood as well.” A swirl of black fabric and she was gone.
Hurg and Drew listened to her feet pad away down the empty corridor.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The Champion popped down another dose of Dexedrine, and turned his back on the cross lying on the forecourt. He brushed his long plaits from his shoulders, and tucked the box of stimulants into his own small bag. As his fingers buckled the flap down, he looked up to see the Other waiting for him at the end of the driveway.
The midday sun was high overhead, casting short shadows over the area. The man in the dark red leather suit wiped a hand across his face, and then transferred the layer of sweat to his leg.
The blond knew that it wasn’t just the mild heat of the day that was making him sweat. The wound was infected, and he was coming down with a fever. Maybe we ought to stay near a drug supply? I could keep dosing him until he gets better. He paused beside the heavily bandaged arm. “We can stay longer. You can try the germicide solutions on your arm as well.” He waited for a reaction.
“I’ve already got a bottle of cetrimide and acridine. Selkirk used to clean out some of my less messy wounds with them — they seemed to work. And I’ve got the penicillin.” He glanced at the Champion. “I’ll be okay; just give it time to work, huh?”
“Okay, but we’ll meet with Rospo if you still want the eye.”
The Other nodded his head. “Yes, I still want the eye.” He set off a couple of steps from the hospital, the Champion falling in behind him. “But, if it looks dangerous, we leave. I don’t trust that sewer rat. He’d like to double-cross us.”
The domineering shape of the hospital began to shrink in size the faster they walked. Occasionally, the Champion looked back. He looked at the torches left in the driveway; he looked at the large ebony cross, and he looked at the body of Peter, thinking long and hard. Finally, he spoke.
“Thanks.” He found the word hard to express, and yet he’d never meant anything so much in years.
The Other shrugged. “I listened to his speech and didn’t like it, so I killed him. He was no great asset.” It was a shallow non-committal thing to say, and he felt inadequate in his display of feeling. His voice dropped a little and he finished with, “I — I didn’t want to lose my first partner for what seems like a lifetime…just when it was beginning to feel right. He was going to take that away — No one deprives me of what I want anymore.”
The Champion looked at the Other a moment, then back to the street. Partner…he called me partner. We’re a team again, at last. “I’m glad you killed him. I’m not cut out for Messiah-hood; not after all the years of being top of my profession.”
The Other stepped up a piece of uneven curbstone, and his free hand strayed to the gold shield on his chest. “The profession used to be different, the exact opposite, I think.”
The Champion saw the movement and knew what he meant. “The policeman of the Time Before would never have survived in the New Society. He’d have gone under.”
“We didn’t.” The Other had an uncomfortable knack of persisting with a point possibly best left unpursued. “We survived.”
“Yeah, but at what cost?” The Territory Protector looked from himself to the strangely metalled man at his side. Himself a junkie-killer, the dark-haired man a mixture of cyborg and killer. It all came down to the same thing: they were killers — murderers.
The Plaza man’s shoulders drooped depressively. “I think Selkirk sold my integrity, and blurred my divisions between right and wrong.” His face was pensive, and, unconsciously, he wiped away another trickle of sweat.
“There isn’t anything of right and wrong left. No more Justice. The rule is to survive, and we learned that better than any.” The braids bounced over his back as they both picked up the pace, eager to be away from the derelict city blocks.
The Other pondered the last part of their conversation. Survive…. I’m glad I survived now. I used to wish I was dead. Used to pray for it. “Survival, yeah, though Selkirk gave me an edge over everyone else. Immortality, for a time, gives you a strange feeling of power. A fearless, foolhardy streak entered my character. I’d stand alone and face anything — that’s why I was alone down in the sewer the night you came. I didn’t worry about dying. They made me whole again and I lived. Or, I died and I’d be glad. It was the only thing that gave me any measure of respect. I could always die on them in the end. I just hated the way they altered me — all the metal plates, the tiny rivets. I look like a machine.”
The Champion caught the glint of sunlight off the silver strips and felt something similar to the compassion he’d felt in the Pits. “Machine or not, I’m glad you came back.” It took an eternity, but I’m glad you came back…. I’ve missed you so, Starsky.
The Other heard the words and believed the sentiment. He thought back to last night when he’d waited alone, wondering if the Champion were dying and helpless to do anything. He’d felt that nasty betrayal of all his hopes and desires sneak up on him once again. It had happened to him so many times — so many times over the years.
“Me, too, Territory Protector, me, too.” He smiled slightly, as best he could. “Come on, let’s get that eye and get the hell out.”
Side by side, they walked through the deserted canyons of the city blocks. Their shadows lengthened in the waning sun of the afternoon and they took a private pleasure in watching the two shapes crisscross as they walked together.
But the nighttime cannot be stopped from coming, and the pattern of Fate was working hand-in-hand with others in the city, against them.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The old estate house had once been beautiful, in a classic style. Dirtied by the holocaust and bomb-damaged structurally, it had served for a short while as commune house for a group known as the Orange County Commune Dwellers. In the third year after The End many had become sick and died. At first they nursed each other, then as the numbers of graves multiplied at the back of the house, anyone still healthy enough to walk had fled before they, too, became a mound at the back. As for the empty commune house, disease of any kind was a great deterrent, and no one had trespassed here in years.
Many of the semi-art nouveau windows had managed to retain their intricate designs of colored glass. Fractured in places, the patterns and pictures hung in the frames with a gritty determination.
The Champion and the Other had crossed what had once been the imposing front lawn to approach the building. Many years ago the verdant greenery had crisped under a wave of intense heat at The End. From then on, it had been a rusty brown rectangle of cremated grass blades.
As they approached the open front doorway the sterile sun slid down below the horizon, and the temperature took on the chill of early night. There was still enough light to see by, and they crept up to the double door, halting on the threshold.
Framed in the doorway, the two heavily-armored figures surveyed the interior of the hallway and noted the signs of human habitation. Old, forgotten habitation. The place appeared to be deserted.
The Champion marched confidently forward. He felt better for the lengthy, numbing sleep inflicted by Peter. He hadn’t slept like that in years, and the added boost of the Dexedrine made him feel sharp and alert. Peerless.
In the center of the hall he looked to the back and let his eyes travel the curve of the main staircase that swept leftwards to the second level, and found nothing to set off alarm bells in his head. He sniffed the light breeze and felt satisfied and secure that the house was not infested with mutants or assassination squads. Men’s adrenalin surges made them perspire profusely; he could pick up on a trace hours later.
He turned around to face the Other. “It’s clean.”
The Other approached cautiously, the rifle in his hands. He’d not holstered it since late last night when he’d heard the mutants wail. His words were whispered; he didn’t like the place. “Do you think we’re late or early?”
The Champion shrugged. “Who knows? No one keeps strict time anymore, except the Owners. He’ll be here; don’t worry. Case is too scared not to come.” He crossed behind the Other and approached a set of doors on the right. “He thinks you’ve still got some matches.”
The Other crossed to the foot of the stairs and looked up at the huge cobweb that stretched from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, on the top step. No one had been up there in a good few years. “Let’s check out the ground floor. I want to get my bearings.”
The Champion called back his reply from the other room. “Sure, we can start in here; it looks interesting.”
The Plaza Protector turned on his heel and followed the husky tones of the voice. The stimulants had done the Champion good; he’d regained that vital spark of life.
The room that the Northern Sector man had moved into had once been a drawing room or reception room. The Orange County dwellers had used it as a general meeting room. Tables and chairs had been arranged neatly to accommodate as many members as possible. That it had also doubled as their workroom was evident from the display of artifacts and tools left on the tables. “Knives, saws, fine screwdrivers, needles, and thread. They’d even begun to cobble shoes from made-over leather furniture.
“Looks like they had a lot going for them at one time.” The Champion picked up a thimble and found it didn’t even fit his little finger. I wonder whose small hands wore this when sewing new clothes?
The scraping of a chair made him turn around. In the gray light of evening, the Other had slumped down onto one of the vacant seats. His skin was white and shining, the metal strained against the flesh.
“You all right?” The Champion felt stupid asking; he could see he was far from all right. The man’s injured arm hung tenderly at his side.
“I’ll just sit here a moment; it was a long walk.” He looked tired and his voice gave his condition away. It held a hint of a tremble. The bruising caused by the mutant attack had become more obvious around his neck and shoulder, showing green and yellow pigments that clashed with the dark red color of his action-worn combat suit.
“Take as long as you like. Rospo may not come for ages.” Retracing his steps, the Champion paused beside him. “I’ll check out the rooms; you can watch the door from here.”
The Other nodded and pulled the rifle up onto his knee so that the barrel covered the open doorway. “I’ll perforate his kneecaps if he even looks suspicious.” But there was no real life in the voice.
“When he’s gone you should have another shot, and then we’ll clean up that arm good and proper.”
The Champion drew his Magnum and slipped it into the hand-lock. It clicked snugly into place, deadly. Braids swinging nonchalantly around the axe handle on his back, he slipped off across the hall and into the room opposite.
The Other watched him go, and then watched the colored lights that were cast onto the stone floor of the hall from the arched window above the door turn into darker shades as the night crept over them. In the distance, he could hear the thorough search being made by the Champion. At one point, the faraway sounds stopped abruptly. The man on the chair started up instantly, then settled again when he heard the heavy tread resume its path.
Shortly afterward, the searcher appeared from a door to the rear of the staircase, back from his reconnoiter. He hesitated in the hallway, then saw the dim shape of the Other in the same place as he’d left him. He headed over, holstering the Magnum. “Place is clear. Nothing to show that anyone’s been here in years.”
The Other rose to his feet and found that he didn’t feel as agile as when he’d sat down. He stretched his aching legs and discovered that the rifle felt heavy and cumbersome in his hands. His face was hot. “It’s a close night; not a breath of air.”
“Yeah, it is kinda still.” The Champion shifted uneasily, then tried to add interest to the developing leaden atmosphere. “You know what’s at the back of the house?”
The Other shook his head and wished he hadn’t as the hall warped in and out of focus.
“An indoor swimming pool. Must have been really elegant at one time. The decor is magnificent — a kind of Greek style. You know, statues and columns and alcoves. It must have cost a fortune. Come and look.”
The Other glanced toward the door and back at the Champion; he hadn’t seen any movement out on the cremated lawn. No sign of Rospo. “Okay, it might be cooler there.”
The Champion led the way through rooms of embossed ceilings — rooms that had been made into dormitories, storerooms, second kitchens, and eating places. It was obvious that the lower half of the rooms had been used by the Orange County Commune; their possessions were everywhere. Occasionally, they’d hung certain objects from the walls: shovels, saws, and other hand tools. But above chest height, the rooms in the house had been left as they once had been in the Time Before, a memorial to the faded riches that had distinguished the lives of the incredibly wealthy from those of the average man and woman. In the dining room, still hanging from the ceiling, was the chandelier. Dust coated, it had lost its sparkle.
The Other paused underneath the huge array of dangling crystal. Not much use for chandeliers these days; suppose that’s why they left it there.
He tore himself away from the dimmed glitter and saw the Champion was waiting for him by a pair of delicate interior doors. The image of the man looked fuzzy and slack at the edges. The Other found that he was having more and more moments when the clarity of his vision just wasn’t there. He took a couple of deep breaths and held down the last one until his sight cleared. Releasing it slowly, he forced his aching body toward the Protector.
As the Champion waited for his arrival, he saw the slowness of movement and the effort it took to look as though he were perfectly all right. A wild heated shine was in his one good eye, and the way he swallowed with careful control told him that the silvered man was trying to hide his failing condition. He refrained from asking him if he felt okay, and wished he hadn’t suggested he come and look at the pool.
The Other drew level and placed a hand on the finely carved door handle. “Is this it?” He hoped it was, his knees were shaking again.
The Champion pushed open the doors with enough force to allow them to swing back of their own accord. “Yeah.”
The pool house was enormous, probably built onto the house at some later date. The stone wasn’t quite so white as the rest of the house. It was as the Champion had described it, with a vaulted ceiling of glass panels, stained and weathered now.
The pale stone walls had been hollowed out at regular intervals to form niches for statues. Huge, bold, man-sized statues in the Greek style stared down over the pool surface. A green tiling ran around the lower section of the wall to about chest height. Leaf green, crazed tiles. Stone block benches nestled against the four walls so that the swimmers could rest in comfort. And in the center of all the opulent grandeur was the pool itself. Delicately sunk into the earth with a green marbled flight of steps leading down into the shallow end. The first step was only yards away from the two Protectors’ feet.
Awestruck, the Other took a step forward into the pool area. But it wasn’t the material and design of the place that made him start forward. It was the spread of fungus that had grown over everything that drew him onwards. This strange growth seemed to have sprouted and thrived in the water of the pool, forming a floating crust and then crept out and over the sides. Having entangled itself among the limbs of the statues, it had slithered onwards, over the block seats and the tiny cubicles at the rear. Dark, dark green, similar to the color of licorice. It had climbed up the fountain spigot directly opposite them and clogged it completely. In its ever-squirming progress, it appeared to have tried to reach the light filtering through the glass roof. In the corners of the room it had managed to send tendrils climbing to the sloping sheets of glass.
And then it had died. Dried out and ceased to grow.
The Other kicked a small lump of it with his boot. It crackled with a sharp crispness and then crumbled to black-green powder. Under the shell it had formed, there was a runny discharge. A black slime spread over the green tile. The smell was offensive.
A voice spoke behind him. “It must have been something impressive when it was new — ” The Champion gazed about in amazement.
The Other stepped back beside him. “I don’t like it — it’s horrible.” He threw a quick look over the room again. “It reminds me of a tomb.”
The Champion looked, too; he’d only seen its one-time beauty, but as the Other spoke, the veils of the previous image fell away. He began to see what the Other saw.
“This…this growth is covering the place. It’s like some giant cancer….” The Other raised his eye to the translucent roof. “It’s even trying to get out.” His face wrinkled in disgust.
For the Champion, the room now took on the atmosphere of a tomb. The statues took on the role of mourners. The growth was a disease that tried to smother the life out of the walls, floor, and ceiling. He took a step back himself. “You’re right, it’s macabre. I didn’t see it before.”
A second of silence hung between them as they scanned the insidious vegetation. They had been wrong when they thought that nothing had lived here for years. The fungus had lived a parasitic existence off the pool house.
The Other turned and left. The Champion leaned forward and closed the doors before leaving, just as he heard an alien sound in the distant hallway. He saw the Plaza Protector pause under the chandelier.
“Rospo….” breathed the Other and set off the way they had come.
For some reason, the Champion felt ill at ease that Case should appear just then. His hand dropped from the handle and he followed the departing man.
Close to the curved wall of the stairs, two heads, temple-to-temple, watched Case tap his overgrown toenails on the floor in impatience. He was chewing violently on something and his teeth slid about in his mouth with each bite. Clearly, he was nervous. He pulled his hand out of his dirty coat pocket and scratched his head, pausing to inspect his fingernails and flick away the greasy dirt caught there. He stuffed his hand back into the pocket and paced back and forth in a patch of moonlight. Shoulders hunched up around his ears and his filthy hair hanging loosely down his back, he sniffed, not bothering to wipe his nose, and continued to stare out of the door.
The Champion exchanged a look with the Other and the meaning was clear for both of them: they’d let him sweat a little first. Make him wait. Get nice and edgy.
The Other smiled a secret smile and shifted closer to the Champion. In tones so soft it could have been a wish spoken under his breath, he whispered, “Just like the old days, eh?”
The Champion remained motionless, eyes on the fence. And then he turned with great deliberation to stare at the Other. The silvered face was also intently watching Case, not seeing the raw expression on the Champion’s face.
Just like the old days…the old days…together, the both of us on countless stake-out duties, together in the Torino…together in the bars…together…through life, through death, through the holocaust and finally together. We came through it all…we survived. The old days are coming back…my partner, my Starsky….
He suddenly wanted to stay hidden here forever. No more running, no more killing, no more cesspit of a city. Just him and his old partner — together. His half-gloved hand rose; he wanted to touch this strangely silvered man at his side. He wanted to feel the reality of his being, and know that he was true flesh and blood. No more illusions, no more nightmares. He wanted all the warmth he’d ever craved. The years of pain and misery had taken away that inner glow he used to feel. Those last few words had just rekindled that inner fire.
Then he felt the time was right. It was the moment he’d waited for since the night in the sewer. The Champion’s eyes grew tearful, and he leaned toward the tangled mane of dark curls. His words caught in the huskiness of his throat and faintly he said, “That’s right, Starsk…just like the old days.”
The dark head shot around, deep blue eye haunted by a rushing tumble of memories. His breath caught in a sudden intake of shock. Deep shock.
Starsk…S…T…A…R…Star…Starsky…oh, God…Starsky…David Michael Starsky…my name, who I am…I am David Michael Starsky…and this…this…this is…Hutch….
His lip trembled and he let it. He sank against the curved wall of the stairs, oblivious to everything around him but the tall blond who stared at him with an expression of torment released and love returned.
All the jumbled images slotted into one jigsaw of his lonely life, and the Northern Sector Protector knew that his years of solitude and numbing misery had just been a stepping-stone to this one moment.
Ah…Hutch…my Hutch…my tall, strong, blond partner…I’ve missed you in ways you’ll never know. My soul died on the night of The End…I though you’d died…gone…and left me behind…and you’d always promised to stay…oh, Hutch….
He drank in the face of the Champion with a fierce intensity, born out of the need to finally see his partner after all the years. He studied the broad features, the straight nose, the bright blue eyes. He saw through the ravages of the years spent with the communes: the hollow cheeks, shadows of purple under the eyes, the gold headband. All he saw were the features of a man who’d shared his life before The End. He saw the power and determination in his expression, the wisdom and love in his eyes. The same eyes that always used to smile at him, no matter what. They were misty with pent up emotion now, but they were Hutch’s eyes.
And as he searched the face, he searched his memory and found this man among the treasured remains. He unearthed the secret moments between them both: a look, a touch, a caress after death had nearly separated them. The days of Hutch’s special kind of sunlight.
Dear God, he could radiate his own….
The remembrances came in a moment. They filled all the empty voids with words and actions he had thought torn from him by Selkirk and his machines.
Red-checked table cloths…held in his frightened hands…the meals of consolation he cooked…his strong arms around me when the pain became too bad…when the bottle was half empty…his meaningful presence beside my hospital bed…the pain of the slugs…the Monopoly game…the tree…my blue dog…his hand in mine…his tears on my jacket…Gillian dead…Terry dead…his blood on my hands in his hallway…the knife tear down the shower curtain…his burned face in my hands…pinned under his car…each rasping breath of agony…took all his strength…could have been the last…each one could have been the last…and the night I drove away…both knew the situation was dangerous…the war…but you nodded as I got behind the wheel and then you held my shoulder, that one last time, and I knew it was an omen…. duty, always duty…. Blue Knights…led to the black nights of mourning….
The Other was shaking and he couldn’t help it. No control left now, that one word had devastated him. Starsk. As calmly as possible, he raised his hand and touched the naked flesh of the Champion’s chest.
Ah, Hutch, how you must have suffered from my empty silence…no kind word…no tender look of recognition…. Forgive me, I didn’t know…I didn’t remember, and I was so scared…so scared of letting someone else in…into the place where I used to keep you safe…. I always held a fragment back…. They couldn’t take all of you….
The Other felt the strong, fast heartbeat of the Champion under his sensitive fingertips. And a hand enclosed in black leather covered his own. This is how it should be.
Starsky and Hutch….
A shift of movement against the right side of the hall and the faint sound of sand grinding over tiles made them both look around. It was a movement that jarred them back to the reality of the hallway. Eyes of startled black bore out of the shadows at the back of the stairs — and alighted upon the curious face of Rospo Case.
No one moved.
Case had sensed their presence somehow, and eased over to the far right wall. From there he had had a plain view of what had just transpired. He swallowed slowly, the taste of fear in his mouth. He had seen something clearly not meant for his eyes. He had caught them defenseless. Vulnerable.
The Champion and the Other stared coldly at the fence. The smaller, half-gloved hand was still encased in the larger hand of the ex-Territory man. The Other’s face was wet and pale.
The Champion released his grip of the silver man reluctantly, and stepped in front of him. Shielding him until he regained his composure.
Case backed away. His hands shot out of his pockets and crossed his scrawny chest to rest under the salt marked armpits. He bobbed up and down, his feet scraping across the darkly-colored tiles of the hallway. At his back was the open doorway with the scorched empty lawn beyond.
“Real nice night, ain’t it?” Case smiled. The plastic dentures protruding markedly.
The Champion strode out of the darkness, a giant of a man. He towered over the little creep, eyes searching the conniving features. Then he scanned the open lawn at Case’s back, suspiciously. Without looking back, his left hand shot out at lightning speed and encircled the grubby neck. Case gagged and squirmed under the crushing force.
“So, you finally showed up.” The Champion’s voice was ice in Case’s ears. “You’d better have the goods.” He dragged Case toward him, leaving his curled toenails barely scraping the floor. “I don’t like being spied on!”
The vile body odor of the shivering fence was too much for the Champion’s sensitive senses. In disgust, he threw Case away from him. A resounding smack accompanied the man’s forced impact with the floor. Sprawled on his side, Rospo massaged his neck to gain time, all the while his eyes on the fearsome Protector of black and gold. When he finally spoke, his voice was high pitched and broken.
“I got it — I got it all.” He shuffled forward, staying on his knees to keep out of the Champion’s reach.
“You’d better have it. I paid you in gold — the lives of men.” The clasps across his back tolled a forewarning of imminent death. “One more won’t make much difference.”
Case didn’t need it spelled out for him. He’d been party to something private. He’d seen something he didn’t understand, something strange and unfamiliar, and he wished he’d been struck blind before he entered the house. Rummaging in his cluttered pockets, he pulled out pieces of broken pencil, food wrappers, a soiled rag, and finally a white box. Already, its flawless sides were spoiled by grimy thumbprints. He held it aloft in trembling hands.
The Champion glowered.
“It’s the penicillin…for him.” Case nodded toward the slowly approaching Other. “He looks like he needs it.” Case tried to force his face to look encouraging, but the Territory man held an expression usually seen on a mortician — it crushed any confidence that the fence may have felt.
“And the eye?” As he was asked the question, Case saw the Champion’s lip curl in revulsion. Not a revulsion over the eye, but a deep disgust at having to associate with the filthy little man.
Then Rospo caught the look of expectancy in the eye of the Other on the right. The wine-leathered figure edged closer. He was hooked. Sneaky-eyed, the fence knelt up and searched under the folds of his raincoat. Mindful not to drop the tatter of cloth, he eased his hand out and held the bundle toward the Other.
Hair drifting across his face from a light gust of wind, the Other took the parcel carefully. His heart hammered in his chest. He’d been promised this for so long. Hutch…and now an eye…. I don’t deserve this….
The Champion tried to watch every move that Case made but he, too, wanted to see what was in the bundle. His intense scrutiny flickered from Rospo to the Other’s hands and back.
His fingers too nervous to peel away the folds of the cloth properly, the Other fumbled the packing around the hard, oval object. Please let it be a blue one…to match my own eye…. The last crease of cloth fell backward and he peered into the soft nest. The false eye sat like a rare and precious egg in his cupped palm.
It was an eye of jet. Cold. Hard. A reminder of his life with Selkirk.
His heart sank. “It’s — it’s the eye from my helmet.” Flat statement of crushed hope.
Case made to say something, then caught the murderous expression that crept over the face of the Champion.
“What — ?!” The blond seized the Other’s hands, pulling the unseen object into his line of vision.
It was the eye from the helmet. It glittered evilly, enjoying its role in the play of Fate.
The Champion’s mind raced. Last time I saw that helmet it was under the Owner’s chair. It had the eye then…. How did Case get it? Unless he…?…oh, God, no!
Rospo looked desperately toward the door, then back at the Champion. His luck had just run out, and the Owners had let him down.
“He’s betrayed us…. He got the eye from the Owners, they had the helmet!” The Champion took a step toward the fence, letting the Other’s hand drop. “Case, you mother, I’m gonna kill you!” The Magnum slid from the holster and into the hand-lock in moments. The Protector was a barely restrained maniac. He pushed the Other behind him, and homed in on the fence.
Rospo made a bolt for the door. He couldn’t wait for the appearance of the Owners any longer. His life was hanging by a thread. Sprinting with the devil at his heels, he began to flee across the lawn.
The Champion marched after him, planted his feet squarely on the top step and leveled the huge Magnum at the twisting, turning shadow of the surging figure. He took aim —
And was halted in motion by the sudden and abrupt roar of an engine. Thunderous and throbbing. It had been so long since he’d heard the distinct sound of a diesel engine that for a second he couldn’t place the noise. He was confused in his actions and he missed the shot.
Suddenly, a blaze of white light cut across the lawn and illuminated the Champion on the steps. The Other darted from the door, rifle in hand and squinted into twin set of headlamps as the Peterbilt truck charged down on then from the darkness.
It churned up the cremated lawn like some wailing leviathan from Hell. Horn screaming out a bellow of harsh notes, the whole enormous, aluminum and steel rig accelerated straight toward the two protectors.
Shock rooted them to the steps as the dazzle of white lights and the deafening roar of the engine held them transfixed.
The Peterbilt’s speed increased, soil spewed from under its wheels, as the gigantic shadow of blackness arrowed in on the steps. It was ready to mow them down.
Eyes wide with fear, the Champion and the Other stepped backward. The Champion raised the Magnum and took aim where he remembered the cab windows would be. The explosion of six slugs at once hardly competed with the ear-splitting cacophony of the truck’s arrival. But the glass shattered as the bullets ripped into the front of the cab.
Snatching a hold of the Other, the Champion dragged him back into the house, across the hall, and through the rooms.
“It’s the Owners!” His words stumbled over his hoarse breath. “That little shit sold us out! We’ve gotta get away. If you get the chance, run, and keep on running!” Plaits bouncing wide, he charged over and around the furniture in the dark. The lights had temporarily blinded them, but he wasn’t about to wait for his vision to settle down as he propelled them onwards.
The Other groaned by his side as he sprawled over a squat dresser. He hardly had time to graze the floor before the Champion dragged him back onto his feet and thrust him through another door and into a passageway. He pushed the Other onwards then sped back for a quick look.
Shoulder to the edge of the frame, the Champion watched the violent impact of the steel fenders with the steps. The blindingly bright monster squealed to a halt with its front wheels half up them. The headlights seemed to illuminate the entire ground floor. Gases and exhaust belching forth, the noise of the engine dwindled and died. From where he was hidden, the Protector saw the cab door swing open and a figure drop solidly to the ground. He caught the drifting smell of carbon monoxide and the scent of alien beings. He didn’t wait to see the rest.
Feet digging into the worn carpet, he ran down the corridor. Speed was more important than stealth now, and he didn’t care if the Owners caught his distant sounds of retreat, just so long as the two men got a decent head start. In the darkness up ahead, he saw the unsteady form of the Other silhouetted against some gray moonlight. A heavy tread too close behind told the Champion that the pursuers were hard on his heels. He reached out. Fingers hooked into the Other’s metal collar and he heaved him off balance, over to the left and through the first door he came to.
Almost falling their length, the two Protectors changed their direction again, slammed the doors and leaned against them — sealing out the chase. Eye screwed shut, the Other tried to take a quiet calming breath. He felt the cold metal of the Champion’s armor brush his side as the blond turned around and pressed his face close to the door. He whispered, “Move away from the door — it wouldn’t stop a bullet.” The Champion rolled to the left. The Other rolled away to his right and opened his eye.
They were in the pool house. In the tomb.
The silvered man’s blood froze in his veins. No…not here…don’t want to die here…. He threw a furtive glance of panic at the Champion who was busy reloading the Magnum.
The shells slid home and the Dealer in death raised the barrel again. Motioning with his head, he indicated that they should both move well away from the entrance. The glass and thin wood offered little protection. As they backed away down the right hand side of the pool, a shadow fell across the tiny windows set in the tops of the doors.
A hiss of compressed air accompanied the move. A pause, then the distinctive wheezing continued.
A larger mass encompassed the smaller shadow and the doors imploded with a vicious kick.
A giant figure stooped below the lintel and stepped into the pool house, then moved like lightning toward the two Protectors. It was a creature straight out of Dante’s Inferno.
The Champion dropped to one knee among the blackened fungus. “Take his head; I’ll take his chest.”
The Other raised the rifle, took a sight as best as he could, and fired on the rushing target. The shot went wide.
But the Magnum ripped a huge chunk of flesh out of the giant’s left side. The slugs tore through the light body armor and peppered the leather hide underneath.
Hurg screamed in agony. His enormous hands reached for the two attackers as his spurting red blood stained his clothing. His black eyes bulged out of his skull as his lips curled back over his ivory teeth in sheer pain. Jaw clenched tight enough to force the cords to stand out on his bull-like neck, he descended upon the two men.
The Other aimed the rifle for another shot and took the monster in the right shoulder, a sharp snap of a shot, and he felt the hot flecks of another’s blood spatter his face.
The next instant, the giant’s hands plucked him from the ground. Fists as strong as a vice gripped into the tender flesh of his injured arm and his left side.
The pressure of his own weight and the powerful grip of the demented man on the raw wound caused the Other to cry out in agony. It was a cry of savage desperation. He rose high into the air, and felt his resistance crumble out of him like some screwed up paper doll.
The Champion felt the violent rush of air as the body of his partner was whisked over his head. He scurried away from the savagely kicking feet of the Other and made to reload the Magnum for a point blank shot to the base of Hurg’s skull.
He never made it. A whiplash of barbed metal ends snaked out of the entrance and hooked into his right hand. The barbs sank through the leather gloves at the wrist, ripping his flesh as he tried to pull free.
A savage wrench by the wielder of the weapon, and his right hand was drawn away from him. The barbs bit twice as deeply and his blood splashed over the tiles and the fungus. He looked along the leather thong and saw the stronger hunter holding onto the end.
He was an exoskeleton of pistons and pumps, compressed air and calipers. The assassin tried to pull the being toward him for close infighting, and the Champion found his weight to be considerable. He made not the slightest impression. They hung, straining on the leather strips.
“Come closer, Champion of the Territory. I have been sent by your Owner for something very personal.” Each phrase was broken by a gasping hiss as in the solid shell, Drew eased forward, never once releasing the tension on the whip. “Something very personal….”
An extra sharp jerk and the Champion found himself on his knees, pitched forward. His arm, outstretched in front of him, dribbled blood. He heard the ring of steel as a knife left its sheath. Drew tottered forward, smiling and reeling in more lash.
Scrambling up onto one knee, the Champion drew a ferocious Bowie knife and severed the ad hoc umbilical cord between himself and the hissing man. He leaped backwards and released the Magnum, unable to reload it. Blood flowed freely over its polished metal surface from the wounds in his wrist. He let it clatter to the tiles as he edged toward the wall away from the poolside.
Drew threw down the whip handle and came lumbering on. From a loop on his belt he pulled an equally barbarous knife. His bugged eyes flashed in excitement. “I haven’t fought hand-to-hand in years.” He squatted forward as best as he could in the suit, and fended off the first blurred movement that told him the Champion had made the first lunge. Dual bladed, he’d win.
Behind the mortal combat, Hurg was finding that his strength was failing. The rapid blood loss and agony of the wounds reduced his enormous strength, and he found his whole body shaking as he still tried to crush the wriggling body of the Northern Sector Protector.
Kicking and clawing, the Other finally got a hand on a knife hilt. It took all his final energy. His world was black now. The air had been knocked out of his lungs with the first brutal grasp of his body. The pressure moved from his lower body as the assailant tried to grab a hold on his throat. He kicked for the giant’s groin and was repaid by a screech of agony loud enough to shatter glass.
Hurg bounced the Other off the ground, and fought for another hold on his throat. He tangled his thick fingers into the long curls and let go the freshly bleeding right arm. The Other dropped suddenly to the ground, saved from falling by his own hair. He pulled a stiletto knife free and lunged for Hurg’s neck.
Fighting over his head, the Other felt the blade sink deep but couldn’t be sure he’d cut the main artery. Through his blinding pain, he thought he saw the Champion take on the man of steel rods and hissing pistons. But he couldn’t be sure of the sound, as his own choked breath was screaming in his ears. He tried to focus on his attacker’s face. Instead he saw a fist, as large as his own face, swing through a blurred arc and impact with the side of his head.
The Champion heard the dead smack of bone pounding on bone and risked a quick look at the action. The Other’s head snapped back and he sagged unconscious, held upright only by his hair. A satisfied grunt escaped the dying Hurg’s lips, and he lifted the limp form by its left arm, took aim, and pitched the Protector into the southern wall of the pool house.
The crack of splintering bone stopped everyone.
The flung body of the Other smashed into the fungus-covered stone blocks and then slithered through the spongy growth to the floor. Hurg staggered forward a step, his fist reaching for the knife in his neck and then he, too, hit the ground, face down. The ground shuddered. His right hand shook as he forced it to grip the stiletto hilt, then his black eyes rolled up into his head. He was dead. His arm fell slack at his side.
All around him fungus and tiles were stained with his blood, huge splotches that had spurted out under the counterattack.
The Champion ran forward, his boots splashing through the scarlet puddles. His eyes were riveted to the tangled mess of limbs and leather in the far corner. There was no flicker of movement. The Other was still.
“NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” It was a shattered, gut-wrenching scream of unleashed bitter anguish. The Champion drew sharp, savage breath that seared his lungs with its intensity. His face was raw distress. Animal wild, he turned back to the hissing mass of calipers and pistons that made up Alex Drew.
Head of plaits swinging from side to side, the Champion stalked toward his opponent. The gold death-clasps tolled the last rites. A caustic fury suffused the powerful black-and-gold body. It rippled over his quivering frame, causing tendons to stand forth.
A murderous insanity consumed his reason. His eyes were unseeing, his mind unthinking, as he took careful deliberate steps toward the man at the pool edge.
Alex Drew felt the Grim Reaper’s hand reach out and touch his shoulder. He didn’t need to look to see that it would be the hand of the Champion of the Territory. A gibber of demented terror escaped his mouth.
The Champion’s lips curled back over his clenched teeth. The snarling growl of a wounded animal emerged from his throat as he planted himself solidly in front of his victim.
Standing erect, his whole being dominated the pool house. His chest swelled with a deep, shuddering breath of inner agony.
And a berserk violence overcame his usual iron control.
The ax at his back he drew in a smudge of speed with his left hand, up and over his shoulder. The heavy handle slapped down into his right palm. The fingers locked with a strength only found in an attack of rigor.
He caught Drew’s eye, and bore a curse of pure hatred into his brain.
Then he threw his head back and screamed a long, feral cry. It rattled the glass roof.
The ax blade rose from his ankles in a sharp, steep arc. So fast, the movement was missed by Drew. But the sound of it scything through the air was plain.
The long, sharp point of the ax head split the air, the suit, jawbone and brain, as it followed the planned trajectory. It entered Drew’s head from under his chin, like a skewer through raw meat. Lodged there with sheer force, the spike wreaked its revenge by impaling the brain from within.
Drew was dead and he didn’t even know it had been coming. He stared at the Champion unseeing, eyes now bulging with horror. His life at an end.
The Champion used one bare finger to gently push on the end of the ax handle. Drew stayed ramrod straight, held by the shock and the suit, for another second, then he tilted slowly backwards into the pool.
The fungoid crust supported the weight of the suit and mechanical frame, then it crazed, folded, and parted. The body of Alex Drew sank into the thick, black sludge — to a more fitting grave than he deserved. With the consistency of molasses, the black liquid began to merge into its former even surface.
The cold moonlight cut through the grime of the glass roof. In a blatant patch, the Champion stood alone. Silent. Spent.
Minutes passed. And still the man of black-and-gold made no move.
He couldn’t bring himself to break the spell of final silence.
The sludge bubbled and stilled.
The only sounds were the distressed breathing of the Champion, and the gold clasps that chimed hollow notes of bereavement.
Eventually, rationality crept back into the starkly mad mind of the Champion. It begged him to move, pleaded with him to go…run away.
Inside, a soul of rekindled love had just been obliterated. He wished he was completely numb — the pain too deep to even feel.
Don’t think…don’t look…just keep facing the door and walk…. They won…at the very last they won…. They owned me all along…and they took him back…broke him before my eyes…just what they wanted…don’t think…not yet…shield myself…don’t look back…don’t feel…don’t feel…not even for the last time….
He raised his eyes to the stars above him.
Oh, God…release me from this life…please….
His head dropped down to his chest, and a sigh shuddered from his tense frame.
But, I promised him I’d never leave again…. I promised him…. I promised Starsky….
A remoteness entered his mind, enabling him to function. He turned around and suppressed a physical flinch at the sight of the Other. On legs that had lost their solidity, he managed to walk across the red-wet fungus toward the slack heap of his partner.
As he neared, his eyes screwed tight shut. He didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to witness that vacant expression of death. Didn’t want to remember him this way.
Ah…Starsk…I’m so sorry…so sorry….
His knees gave out and he sank down, leather groaning in protest to match the ache in his soul.
Then he forced himself to look…to see.
The Other was laid on his right side, pelvis twisted back, broken left arm at a strange angle beside him. The face was half masked with his long, dark hair.
It shone a lustrous dark brown with perspiration.
The combat suit was stained in fresh blood, more torn and scuffed from the recent violent action.
I didn’t savor our three days enough…. I regret the passage of time already…. I regret it all.
The dark, green blanket of fungus had allowed the body to sink into its depths. The silver stripped face was half submerged from view.
The Champion wanted to see those features just one more time. Palm down, he squashed to one side the spongy growth, and made to stroke the long curls back from the face.
As he pulled on the hair covering the nose and mouth a faint movement of air stirred against his fingers. Warm air — the kind that is breathed in and out.
The Champion’s hand recoiled as if stung. His eyes widened. Then he hesitantly reached under the buckled metal collar and felt for a pulse in the neck.
A thready, weak pulse throbbed against his fingertips.
He let his hand rest there; let himself count each beat.
Each beat of life. Life.
After a long time, he gathered the battered form up into his arms and held him with a grateful tenderness. He let the bruised and already-swelling face fall against his shoulder. He indulged in the sensation of warm flesh in his arms, uncontrollable hair against his bare arm and cheek.
The scent of his partner’s body so close filled his senses. It was a heady aroma that teased out of his numbed mind a feeling of rebirth. Careful not to jar the injured body too much, the Champion gathered the Other even closer, climbed to his feet, and set off around the edge of the pool.
The battle, which he had just fought, was forgotten. His weapons left unclaimed. He had no need for them now. He held something of greater worth — much more precious.
With his Magnum he left behind his old life. All demands had been claimed against him. He was no longer owned.
He was free….
Out on the steps of the estate house, he looked deep into the night. It was suddenly strange and unfamiliar. He didn’t belong here anymore.
I give it all up…. All you lost souls of the city can have my kingdom of the streets. I abdicate in favor of something far, far better.
His arms tightened about the unconscious body. He could feel the rise and fall of the laced chest against his own that was the struggling fight for life that raged within the broken body.
As he descended the first step, the Other moaned and turned his face into the Champion’s shoulder. He twitched with a spasm of pain.
The Champion paused and murmured soft words of soothing comfort. “Easy, Starsky…take it easy. We’re free now…. We’re leaving the city.” He faced the heavens and failed to suppress a smile of satisfaction that tugged at his usually stern mouth. “We are leaving the city for good.“ And he enjoyed saying every word.
As smoothly as he could possibly move, the Champion descended the remaining steps and drew level with the bottom of the Peterbilt cab door. It was ornately painted: dark gold base with rust-orange stripes edged in a subdued ochre. The trailer was absent, leaving a sharp exposed drop to the eight rear wheels. A huge hood stretched forward like an enormous porch front, culminating in a wide grill, which stamped it as a conventional truck. Above the grill and on the sides were the large oval emblems with the Peterbilt signature on a red background.
The Champion ran his eye over the high, wide frame. The sheer dominance and power in the design were thrilling. A highly polished chrome exhaust stack beside the door climbed for the night sky.
Old California truck, take us far away.
Ensuring that he had a firm but gentle hold on the Other, the Champion stepped up the first chrome step. Settling the weight against his chest, he leaned against the exhaust stack and pulled on the door catch. The heavy cab door swung out on oiled hinges and he looked inside. It was evident by the pristine condition of the vehicle that Drew had cared for the Peterbilt more than for the wretches who had come to his colony. The signs of wear and tear were negligible in comparison with the rusting hulks of machinery that marked the passing of motorization in the city.
The aroma of leather upholstery and axle grease was unmistakable. The Champion reached out for the door edge and felt his gloved hands grip into the rubber cushions. Heaving upwards, he drew level with the passenger seat.
Setting the unconscious man into the padded cushion of the Airseat was harder than he had imagined. No matter how carefully he moved the Other, the broken left arm was jolted. With each move a whimper escaped the partly-silvered lips.
The Champion ignored the sounds as best he could as he completed the moves. When he finally withdrew his arms, allowing the bruised face to ease back against the headrest, he let the backs of his fingers stroke the pale cheeks. From being too hot, the man was now too cold. Another pain-filled noise broke from the Other, and his face rolled away from the touching hand.
Over all the years, the Champion had been unaffected by the sounds of human misery. He’d shielded himself away from the pleas for mercy, the sobs of grief, and the whimpers of agony.
Now he felt different. A nasty panic crept through his veins. He flinched with every sound uttered. They were signs of acute distress and he was terrified they would lead to a terminal silence. Leaning over the increasingly fretful body, he pushed the leather-suited legs under the dash, and eased the broken arm into a more supported position over the Other’s lap.
“Shhh, Starsky. Just sit quiet; we’ve got a little further to go yet.” Words he knew wouldn’t be heard but needed saying, to try to make up for all the lost words of comfort.
He dropped down the shiny chrome steps and swung the aluminum passenger door shut. Tearing round the long nose of the hood, the Champion stepped up the driver’s side and wrenched open the door. He sank down into the driver’s seat.
He glanced across at the Other, who’d slumped over onto his right side, bruised face resting against the padded leather door.
“Just hang in there; don’t quit now.” He turned back to the almost alien dashboard and sports steering wheel. It had been so long since he’d sat behind a wheel, he didn’t know whether or not he could remember how to drive.
Hands nervously gripping the padded circle, he gave the dials a quick scan. Under his breath he found himself identifying instruments. As he recognized the old, familiar faces, a measure of self-confidence returned.
I haven’t come this far to be beaten by a hunk of steel. Nothing is going to stop me leaving here! I won. I finally beat them all, and I can’t fail…. The rules of the game still apply — I’ve got the right to leave now…and so has he…. Winners take all, and we take our freedom.
The ignition key clicked over, the engine caught, and the turbo charger whined into the silent night. He took a hold of the gearshift and put the Peterbilt into reverse. A second look down at the pedals, and he was certain he could handle it.
The engine roared as the truck rolled down off the steps, tires grinding the crumbling edges under its weight. A shift of gear, and the Champion pulled it around in a circle and powered it across the lawn and away.
Hard moonlight glinted off the Peterbilt as it ignored roadways and streets and picked its own route across the city. Never once did the Champion slow its speed to determine his direction. Just as long as it was traveling as fast and as far away from the Northern Sector and the Territory as possible, he could be driving for the edge of the world.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
In the lost City of the Angels, the wild, white-eyed mutants cowered beside the sewer rats in sympathetic terror. A huge brute of rushing metal cut across their land, belching forth black smoke from its chrome stack. It appeared in the distance, a little more than a steady, throaty hum that built into a stormy, rushing roar. Blazing out of the darkness of the night, its headlights cut through the wasted streets like a white laser. The Peterbilt enjoyed its release after its confinement and devoured the distance.
In its wake, the truck left a dust cloud as dense as a sea fog and the pungent fumes of carbon monoxide. The bewildered populace scurried out of their boltholes to stare in bright-eyed wonder. Or they huddled down in their damp pits of hiding, sure it was another demon sent from Hell to plague them. Too many years had elapsed between the last car and this long-haul vehicle for them to understand. But some could still remember…and they watched it as they might witness a ghost pass from one netherworld to the next.
The Peterbilt anchored itself to the crazed, uneven roads and nosed its way through the miles until it came to the ramshackle remains of the Glendale Freeway. Unused and forgotten, the multi-lane road swept through the cool night air with bends of concrete and tarmac.
It didn’t take the lone driver long to discern a rupture in the crash barriers that would allow him access to the Golden State Freeway. The truck hugged the incline, its ten wheels grinding over the rough road surface. Ignoring the highway markers, the Champion swung the wheel to the left and headed north.
His foot sank to the soft pile of the carpet as he accelerated into the darkness. Each yard a new horizon, each mile a step toward the outside world. A sense of nervous anticipation teased at his mind, and he felt like an ancient explorer seeking a new land.
What will we find…? What will we see…? Will we have guessed right, after all this time? It can’t be the same as the city. It couldn’t be any worse….
The Los Angeles River was on his right. The silted waters winked out of the darkness like some secret conspirator, for it knew what lay ahead. As the river drained into the stagnant city, the truck eased free of the boundaries and began to leave the flattened debris behind.
The hours of the night trailed behind the passage of the moon as its light guided the escape of the truck. Inside the cabin, the Champion watched the road disappear under the wheels as he forced the machine to its limits. As the miles rolled over into double figures, an electric tension left his rigid frame and he relaxed a little. His arm went out to the restless bundle of leather and dark hair at his side. Eyes flicking between the dangerous hazards of the damaged road surface and his passenger, the Champion laid a hand on the damp forehead. During the last thirty or so, he’d become increasingly restless.
As he glanced to look at the Other, he saw a dark blue eye staring at him. He stared back a long moment, unable to think of suitable words. He wanted to say so much. The Other solved the problem by speaking first.
His voice was weak and tremulous. Emotion and pain.
“We — we got away?” The slight pressure of his forehead in the broad palm of the Champion increased as the Other leaned toward him.
The Champion watched the pale features grit themselves in silent agony as the man moved nearer to him.
“Yeah, we got away…far away.” He looked the Other in the eye. You — we are free.” The basic blessed truth, savored in a mutual moment of quiet understanding. The shackles fell away from their bartered souls.
The Other started to cry. He filled up with emotion and let it spill down his face. A show of thankful-through-to-the-soul emotion. An aching hole in his life had just closed.
No noise came from the silently crying man. He didn’t heave with sobs of relief or shield his naked sorrow from the Champion. He simply let the tears pour down his cheek — eye never leaving the blond’s face.
The driver tried to concentrate on the road, but found the man in the padded seat far more compelling. He hitched himself to the edge of the gap between them and stroked the tangled mass of curls.
“Don’t cry. Don’t cry, Starsk. I never cried…in all the years. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.” His words offered small consolation. But it made no difference, for deep down inside, the Champion knew the Other had a perfect right to cry away his yawning chasm of misery and suffering.
Cry your heart out…. Cry it all away into history…. Wash your mind free with tears of honest deliverance…cry.
Hand holding the wheel, hand holding his partner, the blond murmured soft words of soothing. The pale face of silver never left his own as if a moment out of his sight would break the spell of freedom and he would be back in the pool house. A marked target.
“When we’re far enough and it’s safer — different to the city, we’ll stop and I’ll fix your arm. Give you a shot, maybe.” He tried to smile encouragingly, but the enormity of their triumph was also bearing down on him. He’d somehow managed to distance himself from the inner, far-reaching consequences of the battle by the swimming pool. Now he felt his mind was relaxing and he could plan ahead. Not the distant days, but at least the next few hours, even if he couldn’t cope with any personal reaction yet. “You’ll feel better when we stop and I set your arm — ”
The Other shifted under his outstretched hand. “No, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop…. Not until they can never ever find us.” Whispered fervent pleading.
The Champion studied the wet face. If he were ever begged from the inner heart of a man again, it would never compare to the raw expression of the Other now.
He saw through the silver plates, the rivets, the bruises, the absent eye — to the face of his old partner. Before his eyes was his basic vulnerability and total dependence. It was given carte blanche after so many years of independent isolation. The total trust was back as the Other gave the Champion his life for safekeeping.
It shook the driver to the core. And inside, the Champion committed himself to a lifetime of standing guard. All the yesterdays are gone. No more solitary dangers…. Your lonely life is over. They’ll never find us….
The Other needed an immediate answer. His right hand came up with all his effort. He reached for the Champion.
“Hutch…promise.”
The Champion swallowed down his huskiness.
“I promise, Starsky.” He wiped away a tear that hung on the edge of a silver strip. “I promise.” And he held the little wet sphere on this glove till it disappeared.
The steady rhythm of hand on hair had calmed the anxious lines from the Other’s face. He settled down against the softness of the seat and found the even throb of the engine like a healthy heartbeat. It lulled him to a state of near hypnosis. The pain in his arm came in sharp spasms and then drifted away. The severe beating at the hands of Hurg became of secondary importance as a wash of contentment overcame him.
No narcotic of Selkirk’s could have ever given him a high like this warm glow. It started in his mind with a deep sense of peace, and succeeded in enveloping his tortured inner self in a sense of final release. Hugging his shredded soul, he was shielded from the shock of the fight. This new calm took away the cold hold of death that had snatched at his lifeforce in the pool house, and held his raging emotions in check. When he would be strong enough for the full realization to hit him, then the time would be right for fuller feeling and awareness. To contemplate the “what ifs….” Right now, his subconscious knew he needed a tender cocoon of tranquility.
The cabin of the Peterbilt became a surrogate womb. Until it was time for both men to be reborn, it would shield them from the world. A man needs time to find himself again, to assess his inmost being and understand the release of new life that fills him. The transition from possession — slave — to freeman takes time. Like the pages of an epic novel, each one must be turned and read to the bitter end. No part of the narrative can be missed or altered. The scenes are set, the protagonists called to their roles in the play of Destiny.
In candid retrospect, the two men examined the years they had spent in the service of the New Society. And as they replayed the events and words spoken, they felt exorcised of the inner demons. The final page in a chapter on their lives drew to a close.
Together they looked toward the future.
In calm, companionable silence they watched the State of Old California pass them by. Blurs of land and freeway, eaten up mile after mile by the blazing headlights.
The mileage turned into triple figures and the Other fell asleep.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The Champion didn’t know how far or how long they’d been climbing. Many miles back he’d turned off what could have been the original Interstate 5 highway and taken the truck up into what he remembered as the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
As the scenery changed, he became increasingly excited. The dust layers became less dense. The ash became thin and transparent, revealing the living greenery underneath, actual fresh plant life that wasn’t artificially cultivated, as in the city. The concrete wastes had been left far behind.
The first tree gave the blond such a shock that he slowed the truck right down and crawled toward it. Tall, brown and green, it grew straight to the night sky. The rest of the surrounding vegetation was thin and wispy, struggling against the elements to gain a foothold in the land.
My God — a tree. I’d almost forgotten what one looks like.
He let the engine idle, turbo whining over the countryside, as he drank his fill of the sight of natural, living matter. A desire welled inside him to get out of the cab and touch the rough bark, smell the scent of pine, crush the needles.
It’s — it’s a pine…I remember, it’s a pine tree.
He looked over at the Other, debating whether or not to wake the sleeping man so that he could view this wondrous sight.
He once had a tree….
Then decided against it. The sleep was deep and seemingly calm. The Great Healer was probably better for him right now. And besides, he reasoned inwardly, he’d stop soon and see to his injuries properly. He’d stop close to some more trees if he found them.
The Champion let in the clutch and the Peterbilt eased forward slowly. The driver was reluctant to leave the lone symbol of verdant life. His head craned back.
I just don’t believe it…a tree.
The headlamps cleaved into a new area of darkness and the tree fell away behind.
After that incident, the surrounding countryside became markedly different. Their journey was taking them far higher than sea level into a botanical wonderland. Whole hillsides were covered with pines: pines and redwoods, junipers and cedars. They dotted the slopes like spikes on a discarded running shoe, and the Champion could not believe his eyes. His highly tuned sense of smell noted the different aromas as one variety changed for another. He began to notice the thin, reedy grass poking up alongside the rough roadway as it spiraled higher. The soil turned the color of rich earth, so very different from the ash gray of the streets he’d left behind.
With the whole road to himself, the Champion tried to see everything at once in this new Utopia and drove down the center, ignoring the lane markings. He’d thought these sights had gone forever, swallowed up by the all-consuming holocaust. He’d been wrong.
A small smile crept over his gaunt features, creasing up the smudges of fatigue under his eyes. I was wrong…. We were all wrong; there is another land here.
And then he felt the surge of pleasure drain out of him with the force of a sluice gate opening on a dam.
Behind the mountains the sky had turned to a subtle shade of gray-blue.
The Champion cut the engine of the Peterbilt on a level stretch of road and hunched forward over the wheel to watch the skyline.
With the absence of the steady throb, the Other stirred in the passenger seat. His head came up and he groaned involuntarily as he shifted position. His right arm came across his body to support his left by cradling it against his chest. “What have we stopped for? Are we there yet?” He was too disoriented to grasp the full meaning of what he’d just said.
But the Champion listened to his slurred words. Are we there yet…. We just might be at the end of the road permanently…. The sky shouldn’t look like that. He sat back in his seat and glanced at the sleepy huddle of the Other. “Stay here, I’m going to look.” Leathered hand pulling on the door release, he heaved against the padded side and opened the cab.
The cool mountain air bit into the stuffy warmth of the interior. The Other raised his head, trying to focus on his surroundings. He looked fuzzily through the windshield at the strange skyline. The sight of the mountain range etched against the peculiar hues wiped away the fog in his mind instantly. His lips thinned and he started forward.
“What the — ?” He turned to speak to the Champion and was just in time to see him slipping from the seat to the ground. “Hey…hey, don’t leave me. Where are you going?” A note of panic entered his voice.
The Champion looked up at the worried features. His own were similar. “Sit still, will you?” His gold clasps rattled over his armored back, cutting a tune into the still hours of the late night. “I’m just going to look ahead.”
“No, don’t,” returned the Other, his heart starting to hammer in his chest. “I’ve seen that before and it led to the night of The — ”
The Champion cut him short. ” — I’ve seen it, too. Just stay in the cab, okay?” I remember the night of The End, as well.
Before the Other could say anything further, the Champion swung the door shut and strode off up the road.
Inside the cab, the Other remained motionless, stunned by the sudden desertion. He wasn’t ready to be left alone again yet, if even for a short time. All he had in the world was striding up the darkened road into the night. Away from him. Separated. Just like the night of The End.
His eye was drawn up to the skyline above the Champion’s head. The colors were in the process of change and he grew increasingly disturbed. Memories he had hoped were forgotten came to his mind.
The sky looked like this back then. Even though the shocks and the quake didn’t happen immediately, we knew…could tell by the changing colors in the sky…oh, God, not again…I thought it was over…I thought the war was over…or has it just been going on beyond our reach in the city…?
He flinched back and began to openly sob — choking sobs that came in stutters of despair. The road ahead was dark and empty, the Champion had gone — his only safe anchor in the frighteningly strange place. The unfamiliar scenery suddenly bore down on him: the size of the trees, the steeply climbing sides of the mountains and hills, the cluttered horizon of the rising range in dark greens and blackened browns. He was used to level wastes of debris, low walls or teetering blocks of ash gray. He was an alien in an alien world, and now he was alone.
Don’t go and leave me! Hutch….
An energy of stricken anxiety gave him the strength to open his own door and slither across the seat to the sill. Swinging his wine-colored legs over the edge, he slipped down onto the chrome step and found he had little strength in them. He half fell down the Peterbilt to the road. His aching back supported him around the long snout of the truck. Then he gritted his teeth and set off after the Champion.
Broken arm held against his left side, he began to pick a weaving pattern along the road. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to walk in a straight line. His agitation grew worse.
I won’t be able to catch up…. Gonna get left behind again…. Don’t leave me behind, Hutch…. Wait for me…. Can’t face another holocaust….
He squinted up through his fringe of hair, finding it an effort to raise his head. The sky was brightening into zircon blues striped with yellows.
No time left, it’ll hit soon…. Another area decimated, we’ll fry…. I’ll fry on my own…. Don’t want to die alone…. Want to die with someone…. Want to die with Hutch.
His feet hardly seemed able to carry him over the rough surface. The fallen pine needles skidded away as he dug his toes into the loose carpet. He felt so sick. Sick with panic, sick with fear, sick with pain. A burning fire shook him from within.
Can’t see him…. Where is he…? He promised he’d stay…. Can’t see him; must find him…. Warn him…. We could still get away…. Use the truck…. WHERE IS HE?
A vague grieving came to his ears. Aimless sounds of pain and fear. It was his own misery of desertion. Fresh tears coursed down his metalled cheek, splashed onto his laced chest, and he continued to stumble on.
Up ahead in the distance, the ex-Territory man was poised in a clearing, his face turned to the mountains in puzzlement. A circle of redwoods and pines cut into the silhouette of the mountains, sending frayed cones into the pale blues and brightening yellows of the sky. A light breeze stirred the foliage, making the man’s skin crawl. He felt he wasn’t quite in tune with the surroundings, unable to relate to the changes. His hand dropped to his Magnum stock and found only fresh air to grasp. A feeling of nakedness immediately overcame him. Unwittingly, he had discarded the trappings of one life and abruptly found that he still needed them in this new place. The sound of the gun clattering to the pool tiles came into his mind like a warning bell.
Should’ve kept it…. Need it now…. Unprotected…but, somehow, it’s okay; I should know that sign…it seems familiar, like it belonged to the Time Before…. I should know…the colors, the blues and the yellows…the, the faint sounds of stirring life, I should know…but it’s been so long…I —
His thoughts stopped and changed track with the faint sound of movement behind him. A knife appeared in his hand like magic and he spun around. Body crouched down into a tight formation, he made ready for close combat. In the weak light, he studied the road among the trees, searching for the noisemaker.
A stumbling figure in a worn leather suit cradled his left arm and wobbled from tree to tree heading in his direction. The Other looked up, eye unseeing, and then he focused in on the straightening figure of the Champion.
The Champion started forward, sheathing the knife in the process. “What are you doing? You’re in no fit state to follow me. I thought I told you to stay in the truck.” He spoke a little too sharply, partly from relief that it was only the Other, and partly from knowing that the Other was too ill to be walking anywhere. “Starsky, you should have stayed in the cab, where it was warm.”
The Other took another step and then crunched into the side of the Champion. His right hand gripped into the leather suit of the blond at chest height, but he looked not into the concerned face, but up toward the mountains.
The Champion felt the tremble of the clutching hand against his skin, and he put a supportive arm around the shaking shoulders. His boots scuffed in the dirt as he eased the swaying weight of the Other toward him.
“Hey, take it easy.” He peered into the obviously distressed features. “It’s okay, Starsk.”
A sheen of sweat glistened on the darker man’s top lip. “I — I thought you’d gone.” His voice was small and spent. He tried to drag his frightened gaze away from the clearly etched peaks up ahead, but failed. He was mesmerized by the thoughts of imminent destruction. “I didn’t want to die in the truck — on my own.”
The Champion suddenly understood, and held the Other closer. “I hadn’t gone. I came to see the — ”
” — The End! I know. I can see; it’s the same all over again. It never ends; we’re caught in it. Destruction, it never stops.” His words rushed out in rising panic and he finally managed to face the Champion. “I’m with you this time…. I’ll be ready.”
The Champion saw the spare agony in the tired eye. The Other was unable to reason clearly anymore. And yet he couldn’t face the phenomenon himself. It isn’t what you think, Starsk…. It isn’t, but I can’t place it. “I haven’t gone, Starsky…. I’m still here. I promised, remember?” He held the shaking frame against his own, his lips murmuring into the curls as he tried to support the failing body.
But the Other drowned him out. “Not for much longer; it’s coming — ” His shivering increased as his voice broke into a cracked whisper. “It’s coming, it’s coming.” He repeated the words in increasing fear.
The Champion felt the weight sink down his left leg as the Other’s legs folded under him. The wine leather skidded through his arms as he let the man slide to the soft earth. The Champion felt the first strains of doubt begin to undermine his conviction. He looked up toward the ridge and tried to calm the bereft man. “It isn’t that. It isn’t! Don’t worry; it’s okay. This isn’t the city.” He studied the rising shine of yellow and realized that some form of enormous energy was approaching the mountain range. The sky became illuminated by its brilliant glow, a brilliant, hot glow like the burning intensity of a fire.
“I know what it is, Starsk, I know — ” Just can’t remember…. Can’t place the times I’ve seen it before….
The whole area of clearing was becoming increasingly visible. The shadows of the night were creeping back. The darkness was almost completely gone.
“This is — This is, I’ll get it yet, but, damn me, I’ve forgotten. Damn,” was repeated by the Champion as often as the Other murmured his frightened phrases through soft sobs. No longer could he bear to witness the impending doom of another Armageddon. His bowed head rested face down against the knee of the blond, and he closed his eyes.
The widening sky increased in depth and scope, cutting across the heavens from horizon to horizon. The blues became drained as the glow encompassed their color and dominated the panorama.
The Champion placed a hand upon the crown of the Other with a gentleness of spirit. A memory had returned to him in a moment, and he understood why he’d forgotten this wondrous event.
It disappeared overnight…. Never was quite the same after The End…. I’d forgotten how powerful it could be…. After all the dull gray days, I never thought I’d see this again.
“Starsky.” He squatted down beside the Other, who turned his face into the gold strips on the man’s left shoulder. The Champion looked away to the mountaintops. “No, don’t hide, look. Look at the ridge…. This is a sunrise.”
He tilted the silver face upwards, saw the eye squeezed tightly shut and he spoke every word with a fierce emphasis of hope. “Starsk, this is a new dawn.”
In moments, the peaks were encircled by the crescent gleam of pale gold. The arc grew before their very eyes as the sun climbed skywards. A huge, burning ball of deep orange, it enfolded the mountain range in pure daylight. A brilliance radiated out across the rolling hillsides.
And in the lonely clearing, two men felt a basic warmth take the chill of fear and cold from their anguished faces. Transfixed, the Champion watched the sun strive for a zenith it would only achieve at midday. Beside him, the worn figure of the Other stirred under the gentle touch of his partner, and allowed himself to be turned toward the fresh, new dawn.
The Champion settled on the damp earth to watch, his shoulder supporting the slumped body of the Other. He ensured that the injured arm was well protected, and promised that in a few moments they would move.
“This is no End, Starsk…. This is a New Beginning.”
A peaceful quiet entered the glade as the two men watched the sun rise on a world they had both thought obliterated in the holocaust. Each perfect golden ray that sprang over the top of the mountain range scythed down through the trees and warmed the faces of the two Protectors. Neither spoke. The miraculous sight and the companionable closeness were enough for the moment. Even their thoughts remained at peace as the minutes added on to another, and the yellow crescent rose to form an orb.
A somnambulism pervaded their senses. For men who’d lived in the dirt and squalor of the New Society, this clean, fresh sky and landscape were an unreality — a dream they had thought would only stay a wish. Their senses became distanced until they viewed their surroundings in a kind of relaxed twilight.
Then from directly in front of them, a man walked out from among the trees.
The Champion stiffened to alertness and tried to disentangle himself from the Other without causing extra pain. His black-gloved hand slid down his hip for the Magnum and held only the mountain air.
The stranger approached, long certain strides of confidence that belied no fear or trepidation. In his hands he carried a rifle.
At the edge of the clearing he stopped and gave the two men a quick once-over.
The Champion rose slowly to his feet, hand drawing upon the large barbed knife as he stood up. His eyes narrowed and his mouth felt tight and dry. The plaits shivered in the chill morning air, sending soft notes between the two protagonists.
The stranger was no fool. He saw the hand reach for the knife, and the rifle took up a line on the chest of the armored man.
“Now, then, friend, don’t do anything hasty. Just take it easy.” He spoke in a quiet manner meant to instill confidence in the two Protectors. Then without looking back, he called out, “Hey, Jayce, I found them! I found them!”
The Champion looked wildly about. He didn’t recognize the man for a city protector or the usual assassin recruit who’d have taken on their hit. But on the other hand, he didn’t know who Jayce was and what he might do. What I’d give for my Magnum….
He glanced down at the Other, who had an expression of resigned hopelessness on his bruised face. His hair was plastered onto his cheeks, partly obscuring the silver strips, but the acute sadness was clearly seen.
The distant sounds of approaching men came to their ears, and the Other sighed tiredly, huddling up into a tight ball of shabby suit and injuries.
The Champion licked his lips and decided he’d best try to take out the man with the rifle before reinforcements arrived. Just hold on, Starsky…. We won’t be taken again. I’ll get us back to the truck…somehow….
He tensed up for a surprise lunge and failed to carry the action through as the heralded Jayce appeared through the trees, followed by several armed men and women.
The newcomers formed a wide circle about the two bizarrely dressed men and looked them over closely. Finally, the man called Jayce stepped forward. He holstered his gun and motioned the others to lower theirs.
“Are you from the city?” Jayce rubbed his forehead and tried a half smile.
The Champion scowled meanly as he ran his eyes over the well-fed frame and neat, warm clothes: heavy coat, thick trousers in blues and browns, and boots. He was instantly suspicious of affluence, and yet the expression on the man’s face was not one of foul manipulation or possessive greed. He knew that by heart; he’d seen it so often in the old Territory Government House.
Jayce glanced worriedly at his companions and then faced the Champion again, compassion in his eyes.
“We saw the truck lights in the night. We knew someone was coming. Was it you? Did you get away from the city?” He spoke carefully and slowly, gauging the armed man’s reaction to his words.
The Champion knew they would find the truck a few yards away on the road if they bothered to look. No point in lying. He nodded his head of braids. “Yes, we came from the city.” And he stepped beside the Other, almost hiding him.
“You must have escaped in the truck?” Jayce inquired, having received one answer.
“The Peterbilt.” The Champion watched the circle of people carefully. Their faces were full of expectant hope and uncalled-for sympathy. The Champion wanted nothing from them. A couple had shifted forward slightly, their weapons hanging loosely in their hands.
Jayce faced the man who had come upon them first. “They’ve seen some action. The one on the ground looks badly hurt. You’d better get back to base and tell Evelyn.” The man nodded and set off to run, but was halted by a sudden cry. “Oh, and, Dean, get Turner to cover for her, okay?”
Dean acknowledged the order with a slight wave and then he was gone. Attention returned to the men from the city.
The Champion watched everything and picked up on the key words in a flash. Escaped…base…Evelyn?
Jayce swung back to face him, weighing up his next best approach. “I can tell by the gold badges on your chests that you were once policemen, is that right? Or did you acquire those shields?”
“We are Protectors…” whispered the Champion, a sneaking understanding coming into his mind. “In the Time Before, we were policemen…but that was a long time ago.”
The little speech caused a ripple of muttering to crisscross around the clearing. A look of wonder and amazement appeared on the different faces watching them.
Jayce nodded knowingly. “We know about the city, my friend. We know about the communes and their system of keeping law and order.” He looked the blond directly in the eye with deep understanding. “And we know about the Champion — that is who you are, is it not?”
The Territory Protector was shocked into silence. His tense grip on the knife eased as he tried to take in all that was being said. Inside, he knew he was out of his depth here. “Yes, I am — was — the Champion of the Territory.” His voice sounded unsure.
He stared at the robust beings in their warm, comfortable clothes, so unlike his armor or the other long robes worn by the city dwellers. And he remembered the plane and the man who had stared at them through the crack in the roof. They were too similar for it to be a coincidence.
Jayce came even closer to stop a short distance from the gold-and-black leathered man. “You must have suffered in their evil hands. The Owners are a symbol of total depravity to us. We’re glad you escaped…. We’re glad you’re free.” He took in the whole assembled group as he spoke. A variety of accompanying words of welcome and acknowledgment rose from the men and women. “If you’d like to follow us to our camp, we’ll get you cleaned up, tend to your friend’s injuries, and give you some food. You look like you could do with a decent meal.”
The Champion felt his reserves shake and tremble.
The group began to disperse. Some set off through the trees, while several wandered forward to reach out for the Other on Jayce’s signal.
Stepping between them, the Champion found their proffered aid too much for him. He wasn’t used to people behaving in this manner. No one showed kindness or offered any help in the city; if they did, it was for some ulterior motive. He was alarmed, remembering how they’d been ensnared into the Territory and the Plaza communes in the early days. He wasn’t about to let it happen again. He raised the broad-bladed knife, letting the sun reflect wickedly along the razor-sharp edge. Covering them all with nervous stabbing gestures, he meant to keep them at bay.
Instead of assuming defensive positions, they looked at one another, at the Champion, and then Jayce.
Watching calmly, hands in his pockets, Jayce stamped his feet in the dew-laden grass and seemed impatient to be gone. “What was your name?”
The blond hesitated in his advances on the group. He caught Jayce’s persistent expression of friendliness. Don’t trust him, don’t listen…. I’ve heard it all before…. The Other was trapped like this…. Won’t let them have me again. Fight them… fight them all…
Plaits ringing anxiously, he bent over and placed a hand under the Other’s right armpit. He tried to pull his feverish partner onto his feet, but a soft moan of pain halted further action. The Other leaned against the long legs of black leather and shivered. “Don’t…don’t move me anymore….” His weak voice murmured the plea.
The Champion knelt beside the Other, eyes always covering the surrounding group. “Come on, Starsk. You can make it to the truck — come on!” A feeling of being duped made him speak more earnestly. “You want to be free, don’t you?”
The Other nodded, eye shut, and made a superhuman effort to get to his feet. As he rose up, legs struggling to get their balance, his face and chest were clearly seen. At the sight of the silver meshed to flesh, the leader of the strangers started back.
“Dear God.” Jayce’s face filled with horror. He looked at the Champion and swallowed. “Selkirk. I recognize the work.”
The Champion had thought he would never hear that name on another human being’s lips again. Do they know of that bastard out here, too? How far do we have to go to be free of them all? His grip on the Other tightened and he managed to ease back a step or two.
Jayce didn’t follow him, didn’t pressure them. Instead he spoke candidly. “Champion, don’t go. Listen to me.” He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “Do you remember a Protector called Taylor?”
The Champion knew the name instantly, but his mind was already in such a raging turmoil that he could not place it in context. He held the sagging weight of the Other and found their progress had slowed to a halt. His partner had lapsed into a semi-conscious state. They weren’t going anywhere. Not wishing to, the Champion followed up the thoughts triggered by the group’s leader.
Taylor…Taylor…. Yes, years ago. Just after The End, I remember. He disappeared…. He started with the Orange County Commune; he didn’t make the grade. I was told to terminate him so the Territory could take their city blocks…. Taylor….
A long moment passed. “Yes, I remember Taylor. He disappeared.” He spoke quietly, not letting his guard down for a moment.
“I thought you might,” Jayce continued. “He escaped the city like you did. We picked him up very early on.” His delivery became almost conversational. “He told us about the city and what was developing. How the communes were run and what happened to any ex-policemen, especially the young ones.” He looked at the Other pointedly and then back at the man in black-and-gold. “Since that time we’ve watched the city, kept track of the sordid developments, helped the ones lucky enough to escape. We learned of Selkirk and Houndsworth; we learned about the Owners, and about you — the Champion. I have to admit I never thought you’d get away from them — ”
The Champion cut in. “I chose to leave. My partner taught me a lesson….”
“We are a commune, as well.” Jayce saw the alarm flash from the blue eyes at the word “commune” and quickly went on. “Not the kind that breeds like some bacteria in the waste of the city, but a free commune. Our job is to observe the city for the government, we — ”
“Government…?” The Champion physically shook; his eyes slid shut, then opened slowly.
“Yes, the government is still here. Not quite the same as the Time Before, but it’s improving all the time. A year or two from now, if we’re fortunate, we may have the resources and manpower to tackle that city. The government has sworn to marshal aid to this area.” Jayce stepped closer. “There is a President, too.”
The Champion paled, the knife slipping from his fingers. He encircled the Other completely and stared dully at the leader, trying to fully comprehend all that he had just heard.
Government…President…aid…free commune…free people…knew all along…knew of us, down in the city…living in the city…dying in the city…knew all along.
His vision became blurred as he struggled to see his past life in the New Society in perspective with the new knowledge this leader had just given him.
“Champion, we’ll explain it all later. Come with us. We can help you; we want to help you both. We understand what you’ve been through.” Jayce looked to his followers, who backed him up by beckoning the two men again. “Just take another chance.”
The Champion felt an unfamiliar wetness splash his cheek. Understand…understand…. Dear God, you’ll never begin to know what we’ve been through…. You’ll never understand no matter how much you listen…never….
He felt suddenly apart from the whole mammoth event, and a vacant expression of humor spread across his features. Dark, bitter humor as Fate dealt him another cruel parting blow.
Knew all along…watched us in the filth of the city, grubbing out our decadent lives…for the government…for the government….
He looked at Jayce’s concerned face and laughed faintly, a sick, twisted laugh that went on too long for natural humor. “What do you free people call the President?” He spoke between spasms of quiet, personal, insane cackles.
Jayce spoke calmly. “Elliot West. He’s from Maine.” He hadn’t wanted to break it this way. He looked at the wasted men before him. One barely able to stand, too ill to understand what was going on around him. The other, about to go into some form of mental trauma as he traveled along lines of thought best left untouched. All the might-have-been’s and what-if’s were better left unturned for the moment.
He placed a firm but gentle hand on the gold-armored arm. “You, too, had a name once. What did they call you before the holocaust?”
“Before the holocaust…before the Owners…before….” The Champion wiped a shaking hand over his face. He pulled it away and hugged the Other close again. “They called me Kenneth Hutchinson.”
“Well, Kenneth, you can come with us. You’ll be safe now, and we’ll look after your friend.” Jayce began gently to pry the arms away from around the Other. Four of his men moved in, ready to receive the burden.
The Champion found he didn’t have the strength left to resist. He’d just been dealt a crushing blow, and it had felled his spirit. As they eased the limp form of the Other out of his arms, he felt the wine leather slip through his fingers. “His name is David Michael Starsky. He’s my partner…. Be careful, his arm’s broken….” His own arms fell loose at his sides.
“We’ll be careful; don’t worry. It’s over now.” Jayce nodded for his men to set off with the unconscious man cradled in their arms.
The Champion watched the healthy-looking men disappear through the trees and followed on a few slow paces, trying to keep his partner in sight. But his eyes wouldn’t focus; they filled with water that rolled down his cheeks.
The man at his side found himself moved by the grief written in the blond’s eyes. He sympathized greatly with the policeman, for truly he did know what had been happening in the city. He was good at his job.
“Kenneth, if we follow them, we’ll come to the base camp. A doctor will see to your partner there.” He set off, then paused, waiting for the armored man to catch up. The Champion looked lost and out of place. He was a man bred into a city dweller of the New Society, a killing machine. A unique man, alien in the free world outside of L.A.
The vaguely amused look had left the blue eyes; the Champion was a shattered figure in the green, open space. He looked about him for the dropped knife and picked it up from the damp earth. His ingrained training still forced him to reassess, check his weapons, be prepared. He slipped it into the sheath in his boot and almost missed, so bad was his tearful vision. He wiped his eyes and found he could see slightly better. Looking up, he saw Jayce remained, watching him intently. A few yards ahead, his followers were merging into the trees.
Pulling himself together, he straightened his shoulders and pushed his braids back. They chimed softly, muted by the somber atmosphere of revelation. The Champion started forward, then stopped.
“I never cried, you know.” He looked at Jayce with a proud rise of his chin. “I never cried once, not in all the years. They never made me….”
Jayce watched the misery and relief trail through the dust and grime on the gaunt features and drop from his chin. The tiny water splashes glistened on the gold strips on his chest. “It must have been hard.”
”It was.”
Jayce left the clearing, boots flattening the long, spidery grass. The Champion followed behind, walking in his footsteps.
PART III. LIFE
The Champion lay huddled under an enormous red blanket on a softly padded mattress. He curled over on his side and sniffed at the clean linen of the pillowcase. A coarser fabric than the blanket. The pillowcase had been made since the holocaust; the blanket came from the Time Before. He enjoyed the sensation of the material against his naked skin.
He had been washed, scrubbed clean, in a basically efficient bathroom in the small clinic. Hot running water on tap. The surface dirt of the city had been gently scoured from his skin.
While there, the doctor had seen the intracath. He couldn’t hide it, and they’d removed it immediately. Under the folds of the cover, he touched the careful bandaging. Smooth, no lump of plastic now.
He was still half asleep from the anesthetic, drowsy and warm. Peaceful. It was quiet here. Kind and safe. He felt lulled into a tenderness of spirit. It soothed his bruised and bewildered soul.
He remembered how the doctor’s assistants had moved in when they’d been about to administer the knockout shot, unsure of his reaction to needles and drugs. He’d giggled dully; if only they knew.
And he didn’t remember anything after that, until he woke up here. Firm, soothing people, dressed in white, had told him to sleep and stay calm. He’d asked about his partner and they said he was already asleep, just like he should be.
He’d always been good at obeying orders, so he turned over and went back to sleep.
Now he was awake, only just, and he was thinking about all that he had seen.
The low cabin-style buildings…the healthy people…walking everywhere and anywhere…no walls…no boundaries…no fear of the mutants…just ordinary people…. The doctors and the medical staff really cared…wanted to heal…. No monster-makers here, like Selkirk…. Glad he’s dead…. Glad they’re all dead…. Can’t use me now…. Can’t buy me with my old habit…. Can’t take my freedom away…. Can’t believe this…. All the years…found real people…free people…happy people…. Want to stay…. Hope we can stay…. Starsky…my Starsky, I wonder if he’s all right…. Wonder if he’s safe and warm like me…. Wonder if I can see him…. Should ask…but, ‘m just so tired….
He shifted further under the bedcovers, plaits spread across the pillow behind him.
On a chair and chest of drawers in the corner of the dimly-lit room were his armor and weapons. He was unarmed, and for the first time in years, he wasn’t concerned.
And on the small table close to his eye level was his gold shield. He didn’t know who had placed it there, but he was glad he could see it. Sleepy eyes squinted around the curve of the turned-back cover, and checked over the gold shape again.
Mustn’t lose that…not now…. Gonna always keep that shield…. Had it all my life…all my life with Starsky…. No Protectors here…. No killer like me…. No man of death…. Just ordinary cops…. Saw one near the barn-like place…. Stared at me…. He must know what I am…. What we both were….
His face clouded with these new thoughts as he realized he was stamped with the symbols of his New Society profession. How would they accept him? How would they accept Starsky? Would they want them once they were well?
He stretched upwards, face appearing above the blanket, eyes wide with dawning horror. His hand snaked out and he gripped the shield. He tried to focus on it.
They’ll all know what we were; they’ll have seen the shields…the weapons…the armor…they’ll know…paid killers…. One-time Los Angeles policemen turned butcher and exterminator….
His face crumpled as the calm sensation of the anesthetic left him in a draining rush, and he felt the accusation and loathing pour into the void. His resistance had been reduced to naught in the past twenty-four hours. He turned his face into the pillow and cried his heart out.
He cried for all the lost years; he cried for the cruel ways the Owners had used him, tortured him, fed his habit. He cried for the bloodstains on his hands, for the agony his partner had suffered when he hadn’t been there. He cried for the betrayal of his badge and all that it stood for. All that he had believed in. And he cried for the stigma of shame that riddled his conscience. He would never be able to lift his head before these people. They would know what he was, what he’d done…what he’d sunk to.
He cried till he ached and knew deep inside that he would grieve all the rest of his life.
A door in the right-hand corner of the room opened. A rude door, planed smooth by hand. Nearly everything in the open commune seemed to be handmade, home produced. The intruder brushed against the roughly plastered walls and approached the bed from the left.
“My son, may I speak with you?” An elderly man in somber grays pulled up a stool and clasped his hands between his knees, bending forward attentively.
An uncommunicative silence came from the bed. The blond head stayed buried in the sodden pillow.
The man sighed inside and reached out to touch the rigid shoulder. “Kenneth, we — I — heard your distress. Do you want to talk about it?”
The Champion shook his head, and his gold clasps tumbled against his bare back, heavy and cold. “No, go away.” He felt he sounded ungrateful, but all he wanted was to be left to wallow in his thoughts of a bleak future. “Please, just go away.”
It had been obvious from the noise, and now from the thickness of the voice, that the man was emotionally distraught. Blaydon Ellis stood up and forced the upturned shoulder toward him.
The Champion put up no resistance, but looked at the edge of the blanket and not at the strange visitor.
“Kenneth, don’t shut us out. You’ve come so far; don’t stop now.” Ellis reseated himself a little stiffly. “I think I know what’s been going through your mind.”
The Champion cringed away. You’ll never know…not unless you’d lived my life…. You can’t even begin to imagine…and I shall be spurned for it…. There isn’t any forgiveness for my actions….
Blaydon settled his back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. He spoke candidly. “At first the new commune is like a dream, a fairy tale. You’re in shock, possibly physical, most definitely emotional, and you get swept along with the gentleness, all the kind faces and easing of your immediate pain. But as the euphoria of the first twenty-four hours begins to wear thin, you find yourself comparing this new life to that of the city.”
The Champion felt the words of disquieting truth break through his barrier of shame. He listened to the even, persuasive voice and finally managed to look up. Ellis was wearing a coat of gray, buttoned high to the neck. His shoulder-length white hair was swept straight back from a pronounced forehead. Skin mottled with age, his aquiline nose marred with tiny red veins. He smiled with dark brown eyes at the unhappy man in the bed. In reference to his speech, Ellis said, “Is that not so?”
The Champion nodded slowly, eyes darting away from the man’s piercing expression.
Ellis nodded. “And then you start comparing yourself to the people who live here…and all you find is deep and utter shame.”
Deep blue eyes filled up with tears. “Yes,” came as a whisper from the broad lips of the Protector. “I hate myself…. I can’t ever face people here; they’ll know what I was…what I did.” His bottom lip quivered and he tried to hide among the folds of the turn-back on the blanket.
“The New Society that grew up in old L.A. had its own code of conduct — its own social conventions. We, here, don’t question your actions in the city. No one here will ever ask you to justify what you’ve done, because all who work in this base have known for many a year what the life is like down there. Kenneth, not many people are lucky enough, or find courage enough, to escape the vicious web of the city. And any man who fought to leave that stinking cesspit, by fair means or foul, did it for a reason — for a need. Surely, that need in you was for a new life, for a chance at any change that was better. Well, you made it. Now, take another risk on living your hard-won freedom.”
Ellis leaned forward to ensure that the man in the bed heard his words. “Those few who came here before you have all made similar speeches to your own. They, too, were fearful of the free people, how they would accept them — if they would accept them.” He placed a hand on the curved shape under the red fabric that he knew to be the Champion’s arm. “Today, they’re just the same as all the other New State people: they live, work, marry, raise children and enjoy life…. They don’t look back.”
He squeezed the forearm. “Kenneth, the city became another Sodom and Gomorrah, and like Lot’s wife, you must never look back. Look to the future, or you, too, will become a man of stone: rigid, unfeeling, numb, and anchored to the horrors of the past.”
He felt the shudder of physical misery under his hand.
From under the folds came a muffled voice. “I can’t forget…. I can’t….” Every time I look at Starsky, I’ll remember; when I see the scar at my elbow, I’ll remember; my brand mark on my arm, and I’ll remember…. “I’ll never forget.”
Blaydon Ellis hoped that it wouldn’t be a hard battle with a stubborn will. “Then learn to live with it, and that means placing it in some kind of perspective that you can cope with. But don’t let memories ruin the rest of your life; don’t let the Owners reach out and torment you here. You’re free now — a free man. You can do what you want, go where you like, and you have a free will. Exercise it. Use it to control your transition from Territory Protector back to — ” Ellis sat back and glanced at the remains of the combat suit and the armor. He couldn’t see the police badge anywhere. The word “policeman” had been on his lips, but now he wasn’t so sure.
His uncertainty was solved for him. The Champion emerged from his hiding place and held the gold badge aloft. He turned it so that it caught the light. “…To policeman,” he finished the sentence.
He stared mournfully at the shield. It had been his savior and his betrayer. He had been saved by the Owners because of the gold shield; thousands more died without the protection that piece of metal afforded. And he’d been destroyed by it, too, used because of it, enslaved to the Territory, just because he was a policeman during the Time Before.
“Yes, a policeman. We’re short-handed out here; you and your friend would be a great asset to us.” Ellis rose and stepped to the end of the bed. “Or, choose a new life, anything you like; if you want something badly enough, you can get it. But choose a real life, Kenneth, not another sentence like you lived in the city. You’ve served your time and your punishment is over. Look up and make a full life for yourself.”
A new life…a new life…a free life of my choosing…freedom.
Hair a tangle on the pillow, the Champion found himself nodding at the man at the end of his bed. Face moist and shining, he struggled up on one elbow. “A new life. I could start again, no, we could start again — Starsky and me, we could go where they don’t know about the city, where they never heard of us — ”
Ellis smiled at the change in the man. The Champion was still going to run, but at least he was running to a new future, a better life with the other Protector. “You can leave if you wish, but the people here don’t condemn you, no matter what you think, and the people in the east don’t even know of the city and the New Society. You’d be accepted anywhere.”
We’d be all right, Starsky and I, we’d make it…. He’s right; I wanted to be out of the Territory, so I left. I wanted my old partner back, and I got him…. We got away…we won…and I’m damned if I’m going to lose all of that now. I’ll get us a new life even if I have to kill — Oh, no, no more killing. I’ll get us a new life, but I’ll fight every inch for it. Yes, I’ll fight for it and it’ll be better than the Time Before, because I’ll use it more wisely. I won’t waste the precious moments of time. It’ll all count…’cause I’ve got a lot of lost years to make up….
Ellis watched the churning thoughts and arguments cross the gaunt features of the patient, and he could tell that Kenneth Hutchinson was already fighting, maybe just his conscience, but he was regaining the spirit and conviction to take on the world again. Given time and a much-needed rest, he’d be as formidable in the ordinary world as he had been in the New Society.
The Champion’s grip on the shield lessened. He wouldn’t let the symbol of his warped profession in the city become the cross he had to bear in the outside world. Turning onto his right shoulder, he deposited the shield onto the top of the wooden table. He’d keep it where he could see it, remind him of the words Starsky had said at the wrecked automobile outside Case’s home.
Starsky! My God, where is he? Is he okay?
Hauling himself into a tenuous sitting position, he wiped his eyes and face and began to look about agitatedly. The calming, dull effects of the anesthetic had lessened slightly, and he became more aware of other pressing matters beside himself.
“Can you tell me, Mr…er…Mr…?” It suddenly dawned on him that he didn’t know to whom he had been talking. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
The white-haired man moved toward the door, one hand pulling on a gray button on his jacket. “My name is Blaydon Ellis. I’m the spiritual advisor around here.” He smiled and shrugged in an amused way. “Not exactly a priest or a minister, but someone you can talk to if you need to.”
The Champion leaned forward a little, one hand supporting himself on the small table. “Blaydon Ellis…thank you.”
Ellis took a long look at the thin blond. His flesh was pale and bruised, even cut in places. Above the smudges of purple-gray on his cheeks were deep blue eyes with a spark of courage. At his left elbow was a neat bandage.
The spiritual advisor warmed to the most feared Protector the city had ever seen. He deserved to be free because he would use his freedom well. “It’s nice to have you with us, Kenneth,” Ellis replied, and he meant it sincerely.
He turned to go, but was halted by another question from the man in the bed.
“Starsky, the man who was brought in with me, where is he? Is he all right?” An anxiety returned to the patient’s eyes.
“I was told by Evelyn that you should rest as much as possible and not get out of bed to go wandering around to find your friend.” Ellis saw the shoulders of the blond droop slightly. “On the other hand, as your spiritual advisor, I think that your peace of mind is my department, and I deem it necessary that you can see your friend. He’s two doors down on the right, room four.” He opened the door and peered out, then glanced back. “But for my peace of mind, if Evelyn asks, it wasn’t me that told you. Okay?” And he left.
The blond found himself repeating “okay” to an empty space. Then he snuggled back under the covers and curled up in his favorite sleeping position.
Give Starsky some time to sleep off the anesthetics as well, and then I’ll get up and see him…. Sure hope he’s all right…. The medicine’s so different from the style Selkirk practiced…. I hope they didn’t frighten him…. Maybe I should have told them about Selkirk; then they’d understand if he became frightened…. He might panic and fight…. Should have stayed with him…but they took him away to set his arm…. The nurse said he was fine…. Probably tired…. I’m tired, too…. No speed now to keep me going…just so tired….
Soft, muffled snores came from the bed.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
He’d made his first positive decision toward a new life when he vowed never to wear his combat suit again. Although he had no other clothes, he wasn’t going to wear anything the Owners had given him as a uniform. All that was behind him now. Instead, he pulled the red blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself.
At the door, he eased it open a crack and took a quick look out. The corridor was deserted. Bare feet padding over rough carpeting, he tiptoed down the corridor. It was dark, possibly late evening, and quiet. The low ceiling of the building gave the place an enclosed feeling he found difficult to bear after so long in the vast open spaces of the city. He felt claustrophobic and longed to get outside for some air. But first he had something special to do.
As he crept along, he noted his immediate surroundings. The walls appeared to be simple wooden panels tacked into wooden frames. The doors roughly fashioned to fill the remaining gaps.
This clinic can’t have been here long…. This all looks new and hastily put up. Wonder what they did before they built it? Wonder where the materials came from…? Just how vast is the commune? Jesus, a government, and a President…. I still can’t believe it…. I wonder what’s beyond the commune…. How much is left of the east…. What of Duluth?
His blankets snagged against some splinters on the doorjamb of room four. He pulled the only covering he had free and picked out the slivers of wood, staring at them as though he’d never seen wood before. Then he let them fall from his fingers as he mentally shook himself. Time for exploring, seeing, hearing, touching — reliving — would come later.
Palm flat on the blue-stained door, he pushed it gently open and nervously crept into the room.
No nurse.
A pent-up breath escaped his lips and he pushed back his mane of plaits.
So far, so good. I don’t want to cause trouble the moment we get here…. Don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I’ve just got to see him.
A pale gray square of moonlight was thrown half onto the foot of a bed and half onto the coarsely carpeted floor. It came from a window opposite and revealed a view of trees and mountains and the pale gleam of lights from other buildings in the distance.
Normal houses…a commune with no wall…I’d almost forgotten.
He edged further into the room and let his eyes become fully accustomed to its layout.
A roller blind of cane hung from the window. Under the window was a chest. Diagonally opposite the door was an armchair, and before that was the bed. On the bed was a mound of covers forming the dark outline of a man laid on his back, head propped on the pillows.
Glancing back, he listened a second, then moved quietly around the bed.
Can’t hear anything. Hope I’m not missed.
As he moved along the side, he managed to pick out the shape of his partner’s face and he saw the one eye open, staring back. It was a little fuzzy, but it was watching him.
Oh, God, Starsk, you look terrible. I thought you’d be so much better…. You were all right after the sewer, you didn’t look half as ba — But that was Selkirk and his ways…. Maybe this is normal.
The Champion put his left hand out and picked up the thin fingers of the Other’s right hand, enfolding them gently in his own. It felt hot. “Hi, Starsk, feeling better?” It wasn’t just small talk; he really wanted to know.
The curly head on the pillow nodded fractionally and after a false start, he managed to say, “Yes, they set my arm.”
The Champion looked at the white plaster cast that encased the Other’s left arm from shoulder to fingertips. It rested at his side on the top of a pale green spread that looked as though it had been washed countless times.
“And the dog bite?” He could see that the arm was freshly bandaged, but the purple bruising was still noticeably severe.
The Other closed his eye. “They gave me some shots, said I’d be okay in a few days. But they asked me about the implant…” His voice wavered. “And I had to tell them, and then they asked me about the silver strips and the scars on my chest, and I told them. I’m sorry, Hutch. I didn’t mean to tell them. I couldn’t think properly. I said all the wrong things…. They know you shot me…. They know about Selkirk…how he programmed me…how….” Tears spilled down his cheeks and soaked into the pillow. The silver became strained against the skin, causing the flesh to turn pink. His fingers encircled those of the Champion as he began to shake, and he squeezed feebly. “I — I’m frightened, Hutch. They won’t do anything to you, will — will they? I — I told them it wasn’t your fault; you did — didn’t know, but — but — ”
The Champion perched on the edge of the bed and stroked the tears away off the metalled face.
“Shh, shh, nothing is going to happen, except you’re going to get well and stop thinking troubled thoughts.” He tried to smile encouragingly, but felt the emotional distress of the moment eroding his self-control. “A man called Blaydon Ellis has been to see me; we had a long talk. Well, he talked and I listened, but what he said made me think, Starsky. It seems the people here don’t blame us or condemn us for our actions in the city. They understand what happened to us. They know all about the Plaza and the Territory.” He swallowed down his huskiness and brushed back the tangled curls off the worried forehead. “We’re gonna be okay here. We’re gonna be just fine.”
The grip on his hand tightened and the Other pulled himself half up off the bed. “You — you promise? Because we could get away. I — I could make it. I — ”
The note of pleading in the weak voice threatened to crumble the Champion. He didn’t want this most precious of beings to beg him.
“Starsky, my Starsky, I promise you everything is fine here. We’re accepted as free men, not as Protectors. Really, we are free.” His strong hands held the thin shoulders of his partner as he tried to still the tremors. “No more fears, Starsk, no more fears.”
The Other’s right arm came up stiffly and clung to the neck of the Champion as he buried his face in the soft fabric of the blanket covering the pale chest. “If you say so, Hutch.”
Hutch says so, Starsk, Hutch says so…. No more fears, just a dawn on our new future….
The Champion shifted his position, turning around and bringing his left arm around the smaller man’s back, allowing him to slide against his chest. He supported him in the crook of his arm and leaned back against the headboard.
The shivering distress lessened and finally calmed as the Other matched his racing heartbeat to that of the steady rhythm of the Champion. The wracking breaths slowed and stopped until his breathing was a natural soft sigh.
Against the padding of the pillows, the Champion’s arms encircling his partner; he remembered all the times he’d needed his strength and support in the past. And then he thought of the times in the New Society when this fragile being must have needed him then and he wasn’t there. No arms to hold him, no eyes to smile, no look of love.
And he held him closer still.
Ah, Starsky, if I could give you back the years, I would. If I could turn back time, I’d pay any price to go back…to save you all the suffering…all the nightmares….
“Starsky.” He spoke only a little louder than a crooning tone. “Tomorrow the sun will rise and today will be another page in our lives.” He lowered his lips to the head pressed against his chest. “History, gone and never to be repeated. It can’t harm us; we won’t be punished for it. Instead, we’ll be given a new day to use, to live in. I’ve already decided I’m going to start living a real life again. And I won’t let the city shadow any part of it. Ellis was right when he said if I look back I’ll never progress away from that life they trained us to.” He tried to see if the Other was hearing his words, but the hair was too thick. “So I won’t, and you won’t either, understand? Because I haven’t come this far to leave you behind now.”
He felt the Other’s head nod sharply once and caught the glisten of a tear as it fell in the moonlight and disappeared into the sheets.
“That’s right…we just took the first step.”
How long they sat like that, entwined in a huddle of blankets and warm encircling arms, the Champion didn’t know. He didn’t care. Time had stopped and in the darkness of the room, he found he couldn’t see the silvered metal and the missing eye, and he touched upon a forgotten moment from the Time Before. Starsky was again the perfect image from the LSD trip. Unmarked. And he, himself, he saw as he had once been, without the trappings of the Territory. Without the brand mark. Without the signs of his profession.
Two spirits reborn. Out of the ashes a phoenix will arise.
He closed his eyes and saw them in his mind’s eye, in the Los Angeles of the Time Before. Street clothes on their backs, they moved through the city. Vibrant and alive.
One tall, fair and strong. Imbued with an athlete’s grace.
The other slight but well-muscled. Sharp and sparkling with a flair for living.
Together.
Without their communes’ decorations for death.
Clean.
The Champion rested his head back and committed the years of the New Society to distant memory. Forgotten.
Resting sleepily in his arms, the Other felt the aches and anguish in his body drain away. Head against the Champion’s chest, he listened to the regular heartbeat and matched his own to it. Content and at peace, deep and complete.
And a soft voice in the darkness whispered,
“I love you, David Michael Starsky.”
A heartbeat passed between them and the Other murmured,
“I love you, too, Hutch. I never stopped….”
As the dawn stroked the sky, the door opened and a nurse entered. She approached the two sleeping figures and gently touched the blond’s arm, causing him to stir.
Reluctantly, the Champion slid from the Other as he tenderly laid his burden down on the pillows. Half asleep on his feet, he pulled the red blanket up around his shoulders and settled into an even slumber in the armchair.
The nurse gave the man in the bed another shot, stood indecisively a moment, looking from one patient to another, and then tiptoed out as if she’d seen absolutely nothing at all. She knew healing came in many different forms.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A young woman shielded her eyes from the brightness of the sun and squinted up a hill. Her attention had been caught by a sudden movement. She scanned the rise and finally spotted two figures under a tall pine.
The two men from the city. She knew who they were. All the people in the Sequoia State Commune knew about them and where they’d come from. She debated whether or not to ride her horse up the hill and talk with them, then she remembered a report that needed completing and spurred the animal on toward the commune buildings. Work had to come first if they were ever going to rebuild their country. Already two more new states had applied for acceptance to the New Union. She wondered what another year would bring. Change was so rapid now.
Up on the crest of the hill, the two objects of her attention were circling the tall pine. The smaller man, wearing his left arm in a sling, settled down on the scrubby grass and placed his back against the rough bark on the trunk. He shook his curls back from his face and quietly watched the other man.
The Champion stretched himself, his face turned up to the sun. Over the past six weeks he’d spent a lot of time in the sun, and his pale flesh had taken on the light tan shade that the Other remembered. It made his blond hair seem even more golden.
Hands on his hips, the Champion paced along the ridge a short way, searching the countryside with interest. He loved the smell of the living earth, the sight of natural wildlife, the touch of grass and leaves. He felt at peace with this new land.
After a while, he crossed his legs and sat down beside a flattened rock that poked up out of the dark soil. From out of the breast pocket of his shirt he produced a pair of scissors, a comb, and a small mirror. He set them down neatly on the thin grass and pulled his knees under his chin to think.
Although his back was to the Other, the man resting under the tree could see the nervousness in his partner by the tension in his back. The checked shirt was tight, pulling up into folds under the armpits.
The Other eased his left arm across his chest and waited contentedly. He enjoyed watching the Champion. Six weeks had changed him. A couple more and he would have his habit under control completely. His frame was filling out naturally; he was no longer muscle built on steroids and other drugs. The face seemed less gaunt and the hollow-eyed look of living dread had faded away. The deep line between his eyes sometimes cast a shadow if he was puzzled or worried, but the Other seemed to remember him as always having had that feature.
He smiled more readily, making his eyes reveal his inner pleasure, and actually laughed when he came in from a run through the hills. The first time he’d run in years without being weighed down by his suit and weapons. Sheer happiness.
The Other found himself smiling and wafted a buzzing insect away. He still felt a muscle twinge occasionally in his right arm, but the wound was almost completely healed. He was scarred, but he still had his arm.
The sudden movement of the man under the pine had broken the spell of stillness, and the Champion glanced back. He studied the face of the Other and saw that he, too, looked a different person from the man he’d seen taken from him in the forest. He’d lost a lot of weight during his illness, still a little thin. But the good food served them here would soon change that. Recently he’d been fit enough to walk with the Champion, and already the pallor of his skin was improving. Even the flesh around the silver strips and plates looked healthier. His one good eye sparkled with life, and he nodded slowly at the blond in some form of agreement.
The Champion turned around and looked down at the objects on the grass. Slowly, he picked up the mirror and propped it against the large rock, holding it upright with another stone.
It was only a tiny mirror, a piece rescued from a much bigger one, but he could still see himself clearly enough. He studied his own features a moment, noting the changes in himself. Then he reached up and pulled from his forehead the gold headband. He dropped it to the ground and ran his hands over his long blond plaits. He weighed the heavy gold clasps in his palms and felt a chill spoil his sun-kissed skin as he remembered how and why these ceremonial decorations had been presented. Shrugging away the shadow of his past, he let the clasps drop. They chimed against each other. He knew their song, their rhythm; they had been as much a part of his body as his heartbeat was. But this was the last time they would sing.
Deftly, he unhooked a clasp and set it on the rock, then he unplaited the long braid. The blond hair hung down his back, much longer now that it was loose. It caught the light, fresh breeze and drifted away from him, each strand a thread of gold. He worked methodically from one temple to the other until the gold clasps were arranged side-by-side. He had dexterously severed them from his hair, from his being.
When he had finished, he had a wide circle of tiny gold drops. Separated, they made no sound. Dispersed, they were lifeless, nothing more than pieces of precious metal.
Leaning toward the mirror, he examined himself. Long, long, fine blond hair. Never cut in all the years. It grew so fast, unlike his facial hair. No lines of age, either.
Now I’m out of the city, away from the constant contamination, I wonder if I’ll age…. Will I ever change…?…Maybe I have already….
His hand fell upon the cold metal of the scissors and he picked them up. His hand shook and he felt foolish. He knew the Other was watching him. He’d already had his hair trimmed back, not short, just more manageable. Now it was his turn and he felt nervous.
The Other spoke from under the tree. “Go on, Hutch…sever the last connection.” Words of sympathy and understanding.
He nodded and pulled straight the first lock of hair. The scissors scythed open and cut through the golden locks. The snipping became repetitive as the blades cut into the pale mane, leaving the grass covered in fine strands of hair.
The Other watched the hair fall from his partner’s hands as he worked quickly. As the scissors cut, the dark-haired man saw a transformation take place before him. Strand by strand, the Champion of the Territory disappeared from view. He was discarded like the mane of hair on the grass, and a new man emerged. He lifted his head proudly to look at his new appearance, turning this way and that, testing his reflection. The tension left his shoulders and he seemed suddenly at ease.
The Other almost started forward, but managed to hold himself in check for fear a sudden movement would break the magic of the moment.
Hutch…. Dear God…Hutch…time can turn back…. I have you back…. Same proud profile…same hair that curls if it’s short enough or damp…same strong, solid body and graceful movements…. I saw it come back when you turned to the mirror…. Same old Hutch…. How I remember him….
His right hand fingers entwined in some grass and he pulled it free, twisting it against his thigh. It was yellow and young. Same as Hutch…yellow like the sun and young again…golden man….
The scissors slipped from the fingers of the new man crouched before the mirror. He reached out and picked up one of the gold clasps. Holding it before him, he studied its shape, seeing it for the last time. Then he rose up and pitched it as far as possible into the trees at the top of the hill. He stooped over again and studied the next clasp in the same manner. It, too, followed its sister into the dense undergrowth. Exiled forever. In seconds the others followed until the last. He paused.
A sad look of remembering came into his eyes. He recalled the moment when he’d received his final reward. And how he’d filled the quota.
The gold shape nestled in his palm and he could not bring himself to hurl it after the others. Instead, he took off the medical chain and disc used at the clinic to identify the patients. He dropped the metal disc, with his medical number engraved into the smooth surface, onto the grass and rethreaded the chain with the single gold clasp.
He stood up straight and faced the Other. The dark-haired man was watching, seeing and understanding all but the last few moves. His deep blue eye was puzzled and questioning.
The man crossed over to the pine, long legs changing the distance to a few quick paces. Under the shade of the tree, he knelt beside the Other and slipped the chain around his neck.
The gold clasp hung over the Other’s heart.
The Champion let his hands rest on his partner’s shoulders. Starsky, I give you your life back. And he kissed him lovingly on the forehead.
The Other looked up at the brilliant blue eyes that searched his face and nodded with grateful understanding. You were my reason for living.
The Champion settled beside his partner, back against the tree, and watched the afternoon sun slip across the sky to become a muted ball or orange.
He had the earth, the sky, and Starsky. He knew deep contentment and peace of mind.
After a long while he folded his arms and turned to his partner. “Ever been to Minnesota, Starsk?”
The Other shook his head, eye on the sunset. “No.”
“Ever been to Duluth?”
“No.” He turned to face his partner, guessing the next question.
“Do you want to go and look?” The freshly shorn man raised his eyebrows in question.
The Other thought for a moment and rubbed his nose. “Okay…maybe we can try New York after, huh?”
A second passed and the Champion nodded. “New York after.”
He climbed to his feet and dusted down his trousers. Catching the Other under the right arm, he pulled him to his feet. His partner looked tired; maybe he’d been out too long; they’d walked a long way. The Champion put his arm about the wool-clad shoulders of the smaller man, and they wound their way down the hill back to the commune.
Beside the rock, the long blond tresses caught in the wind and blew away.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
THE END
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