James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark

They passed under the awning and through cracked plate-glass doors that were defended by a half-dozen armed guards. The lobby of the hotel was a bleak expanse of glue-stained concrete subfloor, which had been stripped of all furniture, rugs and other decoration. The lobby was barren except for off-duty sec men who eyed them contemptuously as they were herded past. There were no civilian residents of Willie ville in

evidence.

Johnson Lester led the way to the ground floor’s twin elevators and pointed at the elevator car visible between parted doors on the left. The doors on the right were open, as well, but there was no car to be seen,

and there were no cables visible, either. “All of you get down on your knees/* Lester said as he waved them into the car ahead of him. “Face the rear wall with your hands behind your backs. Don’t move until I tell you to.”

After Ryan and the others obeyed, a dozen sec men pushed in behind them. When all were aboard, Lester shouted into a funnel connected to a hollow tube set in the lobby wall. “Twenty-four!” he bellowed. “Twenty-four!”

There was a long pause, then, with a creak and groan, the car started to creep upward.

“How in the name of hell are they running this thing?” J.B. muttered.

“A few dozen slaves in die basement,” Ryan answered. “Elijah keeps them chained to this gear contraption that winds up the cables as they push it around and around a big post. They push it the other way to let the car down.”

“Dark night, there’s a lot of weight in this thing to be lifting that way.”

“It’s safe enough going up,” Ryan said. “Going down is the problem. Did you see the other shaft in the lobby, the empty one? That car got away from the slave crew years ago. They tried to stop it from crashing in the bottom of the shaft, but it was impossible. For their trouble they all got battered to death by the machinery.”

It took ten minutes for them to get from the lobby to the twenty-fourth floor.

As soon as they stepped out of the car, it was clear where all the lobby furnishings had gone. The hallway was jammed with couches and armchairs. They sat along the opposing walls in unbroken lines, arm crushed against arm, like the showroom of a shabby discount-furniture warehouse. And above them the walls were covered with large, uninspired oil paintings of crashing surf on a rocky shore, quaint farms with red bams and snowdrifts, and storm-besieged sailing ships. The couches and chairs were filled to overflowing with the wives and children of the important men of the town: the baron’s accountants, his sec chiefs, his skilled craftsmen, emissaries to other barons, licensed exporters of agricultural products and tipple. Well-dressed and clean, the children sat quietly beside their mothers or in their laps. Each child held a small bag of confetti on his or her knees. When the baron and his wives made their regal exit from the dining room along this corridor, they would be showered with bright bits of paper and excited cries of “Live forever!”

From a doorway at the end of the hall came the sounds of hoarse, braying laughter and clattering cutlery. Four sec men stood guard over the entrance, and as Lester approached, they blocked it with their bodies and rifles.

“I need to see the baron,” Lester said.

“He’s already started eating,” the sec man in charge told him. “He doesn’t want to see you while he’s stuffing himself. You might break his rhythm or even put

him off his feed. Come back later, after he’s had his snooze and hump.”

“This is important. It can’t wait that long.”

“Oh, yes, it can,” the sec man said, leaning his face

close to the toll-taker’s. “It can wait as long as I say.”

Lester knew he had the trump card. He seized Ryan

by the arm and, holding the muzzle of the KG-99 hard

against his temple, pulled him close. “This here’s a

deserter from the Mutie War the baron’s been after for

years. Go on in there and tell him I brought him a