James Axler – Rat King

own thoughts, drowning them and overrunning them, blotting out his own self.

Doc clamped his hands over his ears, screwing up his eyes to shut out all light.

Why, he didn’t know. It made no sense, as he wasn’t a physical body at this

moment And how could he cover his ears when his hands had been tied but a moment

before?

Come to that, why was his tongue no longer hurting?

Doc opened his eyes and let his hands drop. In yet another strange twist, he

found he was standing upright instead of lying down.

And he was in a room full of people.

“THIS IS OUR TRUE PURPOSE.”

Doc turned, no longer surprised. Behind him was the cabal of men that comprised

the rest of the rat king. Doc suddenly thought to ask a question that had been

running through his head for some time.

“Just tell me—before we go any further—what are your names?”

The Army man clenched his fist and looked troubled. “We don’t have names, Dr.

Tanner. Not anymore. I used to, but we are Moebius now, and it is us. You will

be part of it, part of us.”

“I feared as much,” Doc murmured, turning back to the activity behind him. It

seemed to be something that he had seen before, in his days as a prisoner of the

whitecoats. It was old tech in full flow: banks of terminals, lights winking,

phones ringing, answered by men in military uniform or in shirtsleeves, one eye

always on the large screen that stood at the front of the room, display rapidly

changing.

The display itself was a map of the world, laid flat, with different-colored

lines running from continent to continent. Doc wondered idly what shape the

continents would show now on such a map, so long after the events of skydark had

reshaped them.

This display showed no signs of acknowledging any change. Why should it? Moebius

had been cut off from the outside world, had never known the changes triggered

by the nukecaust.

The LED display that made up the graphic changed the trajectory of the lines as

more information came through. Fresh lines began to spurt from the old USSR and

its satellites, traveling toward the U.S.A. Lines from the U.S.A. and some of

its European allies began to travel, in different colors, in the opposite

direction.

The virtual staff manning the computer consoles looked alarmed, sweat and fear

distorting their faces.

“This is how you—I mean, we—amuse ourselves, is it?” Doc asked.

“It’s not a matter of amusement. We exist for this purpose, and the simulations

are to keep us up to scratch, to keep our minds sharp for every eventuality. The

only task we are called upon to perform at present is to keep the redoubt

running and in good order. This seems to be harder than previously, and we

suspect the technicians are slacking because of the lack of war footing—”

Doc remembered the inbred and mutie technicians he had seen in the redoubt. Of

course Moebius, cut off in its own world, could not know of this.

“But still, it takes but a fraction of our power to keep the redoubt in working

order, waiting for the call. In the meantime we keep sharp by running these

simulations.”

Doc held up a finger to silence the collective voice.

“One point,” he said softly. “If you are Moebius, and Moebius sets the

simulation, then how can it ever outwit you, since you are it?”

He was met with silence. The men in front of him exchanged puzzled frowns,

muttered the odd word that he couldn’t make out, and seemed to take some time to

work out the logic of what he was saying.

Finally the Air Force general turned to speak to Doc.

“You make a valid point, Dr. Tanner. Our very insularity could, it seems, be a

disadvantage. This is no doubt where the hand of chance takes a turn. It has

given us you at a most opportune time. Come and be absorbed. Join with us now

and you will bring in another intellect, another point of view. A fresh input to

the mechanism, making it stronger.”