“Doesn’t mean he was doing it willingly, though,” J.B. said. “Dark night, Ryan, they could have Krysty downstairs, threatening to chill her if he doesn’t do what Kaa says.”
“That’s true enough,” Mildred said. “I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions about anyone changing their loyalties.”
“Excellent point, Dr. Wyeth,” Doc said. “For all we know, the youth may be under any number of compulsions to obey the piebald man, some of them might even be unconscious. That Kaa has a hypnotic way to
him.”
“I think it’s time we took the war to Mr. Kaa,” Ryan said. He pushed the elevator’s call button. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the redoubt, a powerful motor responded. The elevator began to climb.
“What if he isn’t expecting more company?” Mildred said. “When the doors open, we’re going to face a firing squad.”
“This time we’re the firing squad,” Ryan said. “Just
follow my lead.”
The four companions had the elevator bracketed from every angle when the doors finally opened on their floor. The car was empty. They dashed into it.
“What floor?” J.B. asked, his thumb hovering over the control panel, ready to stab.
“Bottom,” Ryan said. “Hit five. I’m bettin’ that Kaa has made a beeline straight for die gateway.”
The car descended hesitantly, amid squeakings and screechings. When it passed the fourth level down,
Ryan dropped to his belly on the floor of the car. The others did the same. He double-checked his autorifle’s round counter and then flipped off the safety. J.B., Doc and Mildred did the same with their blasters.
Ryan gave them a terse word of advice as the chime toned and the doors whooshed apart.
“Don’t miss,” he said.
When the doors opened, there were plenty of targets to go around. Dozens of stickles scampered around the rows of desks that lay on either side of the broad strip of gray linoleum. Muties armed with the dead baron’s blasters stood over by the gateway. Before the doors were all the way open, they started spraying lead across the level. Their unaimed fire pocked the walls around die shaft, sponged the back of the car, but didn’t come close to hitting the belly-down foursome, which opened fire at once.
Ryan had his G-12 set on triburst. He chopped down three of the closest stickies, sending them flopping to the linoleum, spurting blood from devastating chest wounds. Then he raised his sights in order to silence the baron’s machine pistols. He put the scope’s cross hairs on the chest of the most active mutie and fired. The three rounds punched a single hole between its sagging, purple-tipped breasts. The scalie’s arms flew back, rag-doll style. The Beretta 12-S hurtled off across the room, and the scalie stumped onto its backside on the floor.
Mildred worked her own special brand of lethal magic with her Czech target pistol. Firing single shots,
she head-blasted six stickles in a row without a miss. Three of the muties died instantly, toppling as though their strings had been cut One of the remaining three, blinded in both eyes by the crossways through-and-through of the.38-caliber slug, turned and ran in the opposite direction, slamming into the edge of a desk and skidding sideways behind it. The other two got up with blood pouring out of their heads and continued their charge at the elevator.
Doc sighted down the massive bulk of his Le Mat pistol and touched off the.63-caliber barrel. The single shot amidships blew the right-hand stickle onto its bare behind He followed up on the survivor with three balls from the Le Mat’s built-in revolver. The.44-caliber balls shattered die stickie’s pelvis and hip joints. It, too, sat down suddenly on the floor. Neither of them could get up; though they tried, all they could do was flap their arms and scream.
The withering fire from the elevator made the gateway’s defenders break ranks. Stickles took off across the complex in all directions. The muties with guns also deserted their posts, scattering out of sight behind the rows of gunmetal gray desks.
The one mutie who stayed behind had a bright idea.
It jumped into the mat-trans unit.
“Back me up,” Ryan said. He got to his feet and raced across the complex. Somebody shot at him, but the bullets went high and wide, shattering a bank of fluorescent tubes to his right. Answering fire, single shots that had to have come from Mildred, silenced the
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