Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth Page 27

  "Sweet Jesus in heaven, this is a nightmare, all right," Mildred whistled softly as they entered the room.

  Doc surveyed the sterile laboratory conditions. Under protective glass, with built-in arm and glove sockets arrayed along the side, a number of cultures were being developed. The petri dishes in which the disease cultures were being grown seemed innocuous enough, but a closer examination of them would reveal growths that echoed their evil intent on the ugliness of their development. At one end of the long tables on which the cultures were housed there were facilities for making solutions of the culture. It was from these solutions that the disease was being disseminated.

  It did not seem, to the untrained eye, the stuff of nightmares. However, Mildred had seen enough of bacterial research and development facilities in her predark life to know what this represented. There were four long benches, one apart from the others. On any one of the other three alone there was enough of the disease being cultured to destroy the population of Earth many times over.

  Mildred caught the bemusement in Doc's eye. "Believe me, my friend, this truly is the stuff of nightmares."

  "I shall take your word as I have little option but to believe." Doc shrugged. "It seems as little more than a mystery to me, so I hope you have some way of differentiating between the disease and the anti-disease, as it were."

  Mildred immediately, walked across to the bench that lay separate from the other three.

  "You know what?" she mused. "These folk are so simpleminded in some ways that I'd lay odds this is where they cultivate the antidote, and I'll bet you that they have stores of it that are even labeled as such."

  Doc allowed himself the ghost of a smile. "Whitecoat arrogance permeates through the ages. Of course, no one would ever dare to encroach upon their sacred domain."

  Mildred agreed. "Let's just hope we're right."

  With Doc's assistance, which the older man confined to obeying her instructions alone, reasoning that she knew far better than he what to do, Mildred busied herself. The cultures in the dishes on the fourth bench were markedly different, and it took her only a little time to acquaint herself with the process for distilling the results into a solution.

  By the wall length cupboards lining the far corner of the room was a freestanding comp terminal, and Mildred punched in a few commands to access the system. There was no security code as this was a lab terminal, and the relevant information could be readily accessed. From this she was able to find a brief statistical history of the disease, and also confirm that the solution she had just distilled was, in fact, the antidote. It could prevent the disease being contracted, but there was no indication of whether the disease could actually be cured beyond a certain stage of contraction. These were the experiments that were being carried out on the subhumans they had seen in the chasm.

  On opening the cupboards, she found shrink wrapped syringes, and also a store of the antidote, bottled and labeled. Thanking God for the tidy minds of the Illuminated Ones, she turned to Doc and outlined what she had discovered.

  "There's no guarantee this will cure us, or that it won't kill us any quicker," she finished.

  Doc divested himself of his jacket, rolling up his sleeve. "My dear Doctor," he said quickly, "you must try it on me. At least if I buy the farm quickly, you will know not to try it yourself. It is imperative that you survive long enough to pass this knowledge onward. For my part, my work is done. The last useful task will be to fulfill this function. And if I am still alive in a few moments, then perhaps it will effect a cure."

  Mildred filled a syringe and increased the dose from that outlined on the comp stats. She explained this to Doc, finishing, "You sure you want to go through with this?"

  "Madam, it will just kill me quicker. Without it, I am already dead, am I not?"

  Mildred pursed her lips. It was an unassailable argument. Nodding, she swabbed Doc's arm and pushed in the needle, gently pressuring the plunger so that the liquid was forced into Doc's bloodstream.

  Despite everything that he had seen and endured over the years, Doc still found himself grow faint at the sight of the needle—an irrational fear that even time couldn't conquer. He looked away as the liquid from the syringe flowed into his arm. The solution was the same consistency as blood plasma, but felt corrosive and hot. A wave of nausea swept over him as he felt the solution travel around his body, heating him so that his skin turned red and his face was awash in perspiration.

  "Doc, how you doing?" Mildred asked in concern, still holding the older man's arm and feeling the muscles spasm beneath her fingers.

  "I have felt better," he gasped, trying hard to catch his breath between the clenching of his gut and the weakness spreading to his legs. He tried to relax, counting inside his head and conjuring up pictures of his beloved wife, Emily, and children, Rachel and Jolyon—all long since departed from the world, many years before even the nukecaust—nurturing the thought that if he didn't recover, then at least he may see them before too long had elapsed.

  It seemed to be forever, but in truth must only have been a few seconds before the waves of heat and the muscle spasms subsided, leaving Doc slumped against the wall of the lab, Mildred still holding his arm.

  "Well, at least I am still alive, so it will be worth trying to inoculate yourself and Jak, at the very least," Doc commented wearily as he straightened himself. "Are you ready for this?"

  "No," Mildred said as she prepared another syringe, "but I don't see there's any choice. Hold me, Doc—I may just need it."

  "Madam, it will be a privilege, but pray hurry," Doc uttered, "for we must move."

  Mildred nodded and swabbed her arm. She plunged the syringe into her vein and depressed the plunger, waiting for the sensations to wash over her. As the bile rose in her throat, she ground her teeth together to stop herself from vomiting as she leaned into Doc. The old man enfolded her with his arms, feeling the muscular contractions run through her, and knowing every step of the way how she felt.

  He continued to hold her as the sensations subsided, and Mildred was able to think of something other than the fire in her blood and the sweat that made the Illuminated uniform stick to her back. Within a short time she was able to right herself and stand apart from Doc.

  "We shall continue?" he asked.

  "First thing is to load up on the antidote. Get as many of the vials in that cupboard as possible in your pockets, and the syringes," she said as they carried out her words. "Then we need to fire the virus where it sits—wipe it out. But leave that table," she added, indicating the lab bench that housed the antidote cultures. "If we can get rid of the Illuminated Ones, I want that there so that I can come back and work on more antidote."

  "Very well," Doc commented as he filled his pockets. "How do we destroy the virus?"

  Mildred looked across at the benches. The atmosphere within the glass cabinets was maintained by a mixture of gases that were fed from mains pipes. At a guess, Mildred figured that the mix would have a high percentage of oxygen. Plastic hosing carried the gases from the outlets and into the airtight chambers housing the petri dishes.

  "Leave it to me, Doc. It'll be a pleasure," she commented.

  Doc's expression needed no explanation. "I shall leave it to you. I shall just check out the room where the computer leads come from…"

  As Doc disappeared, Mildred checked the pipes and how they ran into the glassed chambers. On the benches were dials that showed the mix of gases within the chambers. Her observations of the dials showed that she had been correct in her assumption about the mix. To fire the cultures should be simple.

  "Goodbye," Mildred muttered simply as she fired a short laser blast at the hoses feeding the gases into the chamber. The plastic melted under the bolt of light, and the heat ignited the oxygen, the flame from the plastic and oxygen spreading into the chamber, washing over the cultures and eradicating them. The sudden ignition caused an explosion within the chamber, shattering the glass covering.

  Mildred swore and t
urned away, sheltering herself as well as possible from the sudden shower of glass, throwing herself to the floor in order to try to take cover. She felt some of the smaller splinters pluck at her clothes and skin as she hit the floor.

  When the shower had subsided, she rose quickly to her feet. The noise could attract some unwelcome attention, and she had no idea whether the Gate had been freed as of yet. The last thing she wanted was for Doc and herself to face a force of Illuminated Ones that outnumbered them. So she would have to act quickly.

  Turning her attention to the other two chambers, she fired two quick blasts at the pipes on the other culture chambers, and dived for cover as the chambers exploded in glass and flame.

  "Shit, why does it have to be so loud," she muttered tersely, pulling herself to her feet. She listened for any indication of oncoming sec, but there was nothing. There was only the sound of Doc, in a distant room.

  "Lord save us from this abomination," he said, faint in the distance.

  Mildred furrowed her brow. What the hell had Doc discovered? She raced through the lab until she was on the threshold of the room in which Doc stood. She could see him through the open sec door, stopping from his imprecations only to vomit in disgust.

  She sped through the doorway and was brought up short by the obscenity that confronted her. The wires and leads led into a tank filled with nutrient fluids, and were attached to a human being that was curled into a fetal state, despite the fact that it seemed to be fully grown.

  "What—" she began, but stopped when she saw the look of hatred and loathing on Doc's face. He didn't need to tell her, but spoke anyway.

  "This, my dear Doctor, is the fourth Emile Taschen, the obscene blank slate, cloned for a purpose that no longer exists, with nothing to give him identity. Please, put him out of his misery."

  The clone turned in the tank, eyes opening and focusing blankly on the two people on the outside of the tank.

  Mildred swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and leveled her blaster. "Why didn't you do it, Doc?" she asked before firing.

  "Strange as it may seem, I cannot face it. The poor creature is ultimately, at this stage, an innocent…"

  The clone's expression remained blank, its eyes fixed on Mildred.

  "Maybe," she said gently, "but we can't let it live."

  Unleashing a blast of fire, she shattered the tank, the nutrient fluid flowing across the floor, steaming with the heat absorbed from the laser. The clone fetus opened its mouth and screamed, a formless, wordless sound as it was burned by the laser, its life ending before it had even truly begun.

  Doc stepped back from the fluid flowing around his feet and vomited again as the corpse fried.

  "You okay?" Mildred asked. "We need to get the hell out of here. There's been too much noise, and we need to try and get to the others."

  Doc smiled crookedly. "My dear woman, I shall be only too glad to get the hell out of here—or to get out of hell, as I feel the eternal fires themselves could not be worse than this."

  "That's something we'll really have to see," Mildred mused. "I just hope they got down to the bottom level without too much trouble in the way."

  Chapter Seventeen

  For Ryan and the rest of the companions, the journey back to free the Gate had been a little more difficult. Unlike Mildred and Doc, they had, of necessity, had to traverse areas of the redoubt that had a much denser population. It made caution a triple-red necessity, and meant that progress was slower than any of them would have liked.

  It was a balancing act. If they sped down the levels, chilling any who got in their way, then it was a certainty that they would arouse the full forces of the Illuminated Ones. With the Gate free, Ryan would still have risked this…but with just the five of them, the numbers meant that it would be unlikely that the Gate would ever get free. It would also alert the Illuminated Ones to whatever Mildred and Doc were doing, and possibly scupper their actions.

  So the companions continued down the levels of the redoubt, taking cover and sending scouts ahead to assess the territory. Krysty mostly took this role, as her Illuminated uniform was the least damaged of all of them, so it would be easier for her to blend in with the rest of the redoubt.

  Each corridor on each level was scouted by the woman, and—when the way was clear—the rest of the party would follow her in tight formation, Ryan in the lead and J.B. at the rear.

  The corridors themselves were surprisingly free of personnel for some time. Whatever Taschen had them working on besides his biological warfare campaign, he kept them hard at their tasks, as they rarely seemed to leave their admin and science bays. On the rare occasions that an Illuminated One walked out of a room and into the corridor, they were able to take cover easily. All itched to take out the enemy and reduce their numbers, rather than skulk in hiding. It went against the grain of their being for all five of them. But they all knew that it was the right way. Get the Gate free, and the cleaning up could begin.

  As they progressed, J.B. kept checking his wrist chron.

  "What's up?" Ryan asked of his old friend, noticing this for the seventh or eighth time.

  "Been a while since they left us. It's hard when you don't know how much time they need."

  "Harder still when you have to do things this way," Ryan muttered.

  They were now at the point where they would have to cross the chasm on the narrow bridge. This was the point of the journey that left them the most vulnerable both to discovery and attack. Krysty had traveled on ahead to scout the entrance to the bridge, and she returned as Ryan and J.B. spoke.

  "So what's it like up ahead?" the one-eyed man queried.

  Krysty shook her head briefly. Her hair was clinging protectively to her, although whether as an expression of her feelings or as a premonition, Ryan couldn't tell.

  "It could be better, lover," she whispered. "There's no one around on this side. The rooms nearest the sec door entry are empty. But I'm not sure about the other side… I couldn't risk taking a look across, in case I was spotted and blew it before we even got there."

  Ryan chewed his lip. "That was the right thing," he murmured. "We're just gonna have to go for this one and hope."

  Krysty fell into formation behind Ryan, and the companions moved forward at the double, down the corridor toward the sec door that led out onto the bridge. The rooms around were deserted, with no sign of any activity having taken place for some time. They reached the sec door quickly and with ease. Ryan paused before keying in the door code.

  "We'll take this as quickly as possible. Anyone comes in from the other side, then I'll try and take them out with a blade. I just hope the bridge doesn't go."

  He keyed in the code and the door rose, revealing the chasm and the narrow metal bridge that spanned the divide. Taking a deep breath, he began to run across, the panga grasped firmly in his hand. If he had to face an enemy, then he would rather use a blade than risk the metal of the bridge being melted by laser blasterfire. He felt the bridge begin to move beneath his feet, swaying with the rhythm of his run. On their previous encounter with the narrow metal walkway, they had been moving slowly, but now they moved at speed, and the bridge began to sway wildly at the heavy footfalls, first with Ryan's rhythm, and then with the counter rhythms of the others as they followed.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan cursed through gritted teeth, grabbing at the thin rail as the bridge began to move wildly beneath him. He looked over the side of the bridge at the darkness below, which moved beneath, delineated only by the edge of the rock shelf that ran around the chasm. The shapeless subhumans that lived along the rock shelf became little more than rapidly moving blurs as the bridge swayed wildly.

  "Stop! Everyone stop," Krysty yelled sharply, holding on to the rails. "If we don't, it'll pitch us right off."

  Holding on to the rails, they swayed with the bridge as the momentum began to slow, and the metal walkway steadied. The only member of the party who had looked in any way comfortable was Jak, whose innate sense of balance h
ad made it easier for him to maintain his footing. But even the albino had found it hard to stay steady as the metal snaked and twisted beneath his feet.

  "Dark night, I thought we were going to do the job for the Illuminated Ones ourselves," the Armorer said, clasping his fedora to his head and fighting the dizziness and waves of sickness that still assailed him.

  "Yeah, I reckon we should be a little more careful the rest of the way across," Dean added. "You know, try not to upset the balance too much."

  Ryan looked around. They were more than halfway across, which was good. Although they would have to slow their progress, it would be for a shorter distance. It did still make them vulnerable, however, as they were easily visible from below.

  "Okay, let's do it. Slow and easy," the one-eyed man said as he began to move forward.

  The metal bridge still swayed under the combined rhythm of their walking, but the slower and lighter movement kept it to a minimum. Looking down again, Ryan could see that they were now over the rock ledge, and within twenty feet of the sec door.

  It had all been too good so far. Sooner or later, trouble was going to hit them.

  As Ryan looked up again, the sec door they were headed for began to rise, and Ryan could see the lower half of an Illuminated One. Narrowing his eye to get a better view, he was sure that there was only one opponent, which should make it easier for him to handle. But then again, the Illuminated One would have a laser blaster, and Ryan only his panga. And it was on the swaying bridge…