James Axler – Rat King

other half is radically changed. In reality this place is nothing but a huge

hole. Do you realize what this means?”

“It means that we have to strike back. This is the first strike in the chain.

The beginning of the simulation. Now we work.”

THEY WERE BACK in the control room, the LED screen winking and changing rapidly

as the rat king barked orders to the virtual staff, ordering them to program

strikes on East Bloc targets. Doc found himself joining in without thinking,

just knowing by some osmotic process what the others were thinking, ideas and

strategies flying from mind to mind, altering according to different

perspectives and ideas, forming into a single thought that flew to the consoles

as an order.

The rainbow patterns of mutually assured destruction sprang up over the globe,

running in lines of brilliant color until the whole LED map was a bright blaze

of moving color. It reminded Doc of the kaleidoscope that had formed around him

when he was being absorbed, and with horror he realized that was exactly what it

was supposed to be—a visual representation of the ultimate purpose.

“But don’t you fools realize what this means?” he screamed, feeling sure that

this time he would surely lose whatever fragile grip on sanity he still

possessed.

“This…”

DOC RECOGNIZED the place. It was Moscow. He remembered too well their attempt to

recover the soiled and abused American flag that had hung by the tomb of Lenin,

in a glass cage covered with generations of phlegm and spittle. He remembered

Major-Commissar Gregori Zimyanin with a shiver. A worthy man in his own way, as

honorable in his own cause as Ryan Cawdor in his: a man to have on your side

rather than fight against.

It was only with some effort that Doc remembered that this was a simulation, a

virtual Moscow, where there would be no need for him to fear running across

Zimyanin.

Besides which, there were no people around. The city was freshly nuked, too hot

for any pockets of survivors to crawl from hiding. Or for most…

Doc felt bile rise in his gorge, an instinct of revulsion as he spotted the

mewling, puking thing on the steps of the Kremlin. It was naked apart from a few

charred rags. As they drew nearer, he realized that the rags weren’t clothing,

but strips of skin and charred flesh. It had no face, no hair, and very little

in the way of skin. It crawled on the steps, dirt and dust blowing onto the

exposed flesh in the storm that was brewing in the aftermath of the bombs, in

the beginnings of the nuclear winter that had formed the Deathlands.

The thing that had once been human kept crying voicelessly and incoherently, not

noticing the filth that blew into its flesh, all nerve endings stripped away

with the epidermis, maddened beyond pain by the experience of being nuked and

yet still living.

“Interesting. The fact of survival is in itself a superb demonstration of human

tenacity. If this thing—” the voice of the rat king paused, momentarily at a

loss whether to describe the now genderless creature as male or female. “—is

able to survive on ground level, compute the possibilities of underground bunker

survival.”

“If our resources for a postholocaust survival factor are stronger, then

ultimate victory is assured.”

Doc found himself agreeing, his mind and intellect being sucked out of him by

the greater power of the computer. Remembering Emily; remembering his beloved

Rachel and Jolyon; remembering the sweet Lori; remembering the strength of Ryan,

J.B., Krysty, Mildred, Jak and Dean; remembering others like Finnegan and

Hennings, Abe, Trader and Michael Brother, who had been lost along the way.

Remembering all of them, Doc fought to retain a vestige of his own identity.

“No,” he screamed, “no. This is all wrong. You— collectively—are mad. A senile,

grumbling old machine that remembers battles never fought. Condemned by fate to

run down slowly, maintaining a redoubt full of fools, never fulfilling your

task. Frustrated by fate, spinning out fantasies of pornographic destruction to

appease your impotence.”

“No. Our time will come. You will see. You will be.”

The voice of the rat king was calm, implacable, as though it expected this