James Axler – Rat King

perhaps be best if we were to be moving on. Time to get those, ah, big wheels

rolling.”

“Doc, you speak some godawful claptrap sometimes, but just occasionally you come

out with a gem of truth.” Mildred sighed.

“The armory first, then,” Ryan said. “We need to get some more weapons and our

own damn blasters back. They outstrip us in terms of manpower and blasters.”

“But we’ve got one advantage,” Dean said with a wry smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah—they’re definitely stupe bastards.”

Ryan allowed himself a grin. “Yeah, mebbe.”

He switched his attention to the corridor. “Okay. I’ll take point. Usual

formation, people. J.B., cover the back.”

The Armorer nodded. “Any other weapons on those coldhearts?” He indicated Murphy

and Panner.

Ryan frowned. “None. That’s even weirder. It’s as if they don’t expect trouble,

even though they’re sec.”

They started to move off along the corridor, back in the direction they had

come. Jak had taken the needle-thin screwdriver from the dead hand of the

maintenance man. It would be a useful weapon in hand-to-hand combat if little

else.

In nearly all the redoubts they had landed in, the armory had been located in

the same place. There was no reason to assume otherwise here. The long corridors

offered little cover for the companions, but equally little cover for any sec

men who might try to attack. Ryan figured that they had the advantage in that

the redoubt dwellers wouldn’t expect them to know the layout.

It was pretty obvious to all of them that the sec men were trained and had the

weaponry to do serious damage, but didn’t have the combat skills or wit that the

friends had acquired during their journeys across the Deathlands. Stealth wasn’t

something these sec men were familiar with.

“I just don’t get it,” Dean said as they proceeded with extreme caution. “How

come they live here, got all this equipment and they can’t fight? And how come

they haven’t used the mat-trans?”

Doc smiled, tapping the ferrule of his swordstick against his thigh and showing

his set of perfect white teeth.

“Ah, young Dean, if only you had finished your schooling with the good Mr.

Brody. Your grasp of logic is incomplete. What proof have we that they do not

use the mat-trans?” He waited for Dean to answer, and when the youth didn’t, he

continued, “Furthermore did you learn nothing from your biology classes? I

suspect that if these are survivors from a predark community, as seems likely by

their mode of dress and some of their speech, then the likelihood is that an

astonishing degree of inbreeding has taken place. And there is nothing like that

for dulling the wits. Would you agree, my dear Dr. Wyeth?”

Mildred allowed herself a small smile. She remembered the freezies she and Ryan

had encountered in the Anthill, hidden beneath the remains of Mount Rushmore.

There was no inbreeding involved there, as the survivors of predark times had

lengthened their lives with biomechanical body parts and low temperatures. They

had mat-trans units, as well as a map of every redoubt across the old U.S.A.,

but they hadn’t used them as far as she knew. This was too long a story to go

into. Instead she said, “Your timing for a discussion on genetics is bad, but I

guess you’ve just about summed it up. By the look of it, I’d say these people

definitely don’t get out enough.”

“What about stickie?” Jak asked, his eyes still flickering as he scanned the

corridor, screwdriver poised and balanced in his palm.

“Ah, there you have me.” Doc shrugged. “Although it isn’t beyond the bounds of

possibility that some outside blood, particularly of a mutated variety, could

have—”

“Doc,” Ryan said softly.

“Yes, my dear Ryan?”

“Shut up. Save the school lesson for when we’re out of here.”

Doc deferred with a bow of the head, realizing that Ryan’s words were prompted

by their arrival at a junction in the corridors.

It hadn’t escaped Ryan’s notice that Krysty had been quiet. Too quiet, almost as

if something was distracting her.

As the group halted some ten feet from the junction, Ryan whispered,

“Something’s very wrong with all this. Too easy. They can’t be that stupe, can