frustration and fear, and screamed.
“I THINK SHE’S about ready. Go and tell the Gen.”
The guard nodded at the tech, and turned to leave the room. When he reached the
door, it was opened by Murphy.
“Sir, the woman has reached a state of readiness. I was just about to report to
the Gen, sir.”
Murphy nodded. “Good. The old man and the boy are still alive. And now she’s
ready. The mutie albino outsider seems impervious, but I guess no process is
foolproof.”
The tech, feeling that the R&D department was once again being impugned by the
Army, was about to say something when a warning glance from the guard silenced
him.
The hell with it. Let the Army thugs think what they liked. The outsiders’
resistance to interrogation had been reduced to virtually zero in a fraction of
the time their heavy-handed methods would take.
“Army bastard,” the tech muttered as Murphy and the guard left. The insult was
wasted on the unconscious Mildred, but it made the tech feel better.
Chapter Five
Ryan was back in Front Royal, and all hell was about to break loose.
The one-eyed man was in a gaudy house even more run-down than those he usually
encountered on the trek across the Deathlands. The old stone walls were scarred
and pitted with the marks of a hundred bottles, a thousand fights. Dried blood
stained patches of old plaster that the gaudy proprietor hadn’t bothered to
clean. Perhaps he figured that the marks would serve as a deterrent to anyone
fool enough to start another brawl.
Guess he was going to be wrong. The almost deserted “reception” area, where an
ugly and multiscarred bar-keep served drinks to waiting customers, was occupied
by three bored-looking sluts of indeterminate age and two drunken men who looked
far past the point where they would be able to perform. And then there was Ryan.
Try as he might, the one-eyed man couldn’t recall exactly how he had reached
this place. Through a vague fog of memory he could remember the redoubt, the
escape and the strange machine firing trank darts. And then?
And then this. He looked at the glass in his hand, filled with a spirit that
tasted as foul as the glass looked, and wondered how many he had downed before
becoming aware he was in a gaudy house.
Just looking at the glass seemed to be all the cue one of the drunks needed.
“Hey, you, One eye,” he yelled across the room.
Ryan tried to ignore him. No point looking for trouble. It was obviously looking
for him. Just let it come and roll with it. It wouldn’t take long.
“Shit, the fucker’s deaf, as well as half-blind,” the other drunk yelled,
directing the comment at Ryan.
The one-eyed man turned to face them, taking them in and weighing their possible
danger areas. The one who started the exchange was tall and skinny, no more than
140 pounds and over six feet tall. He had long, loose, lean limbs, his arms
dangling at his sides as he swayed gently in a drunken haze with an idiot grin
on his face. An old steel bayonet, rusted but still lethal, hung from his belt.
His eyes held a mean gleam.
His companion was about six inches shorter, and fifty pounds heavier. All of it
was muscle. He had a homemade knife in his belt, jagged metal attached to a
wooden handle with wire. It looked more like a tool than a weapon, but still
lethal enough. Like the taller man, he was dressed in cutoff jeans that were
stiff with oil, dirt and sweat. Both wore heavy combat boots that, perversely,
seemed to be immaculately maintained. The men were naked from the waist up,
which only served to draw Ryan’s attention to the blaster that hung off the
squat drunk’s shoulder.
It was a Heckler & Koch G-12 caseless rifle, like the one that had served Ryan
well for more years than he cared to remember.
So they were armed, and they outnumbered him two-to-one. But he was sober and
had more weapons.
Unconsciously his hand traveled to where his panga was sheathed. A tremor of