James Axler – Rat King

example. Dammit, Murphy knew he was smarter than Wallace—smarter than nearly

everyone in the redoubt. But the regs couldn’t be broken. Never had been. That

was how they’d managed to stay as the colony while skydark decimated the

outside—the rad-blasted and scarred world the outsiders called Deathlands.

Problem was, it left them with a triple-stupe bastard like Gen Wallace, too

inflexible to believe that anything new could ever happen. He’d never actually

been outside.

Murphy had. He knew that things changed all the time.

Like now.

“Sir, I really think you should come and see the mechanism.”

Wallace snorted. “Sarj, if this is a pointless trip and the recycling can go

ahead as usual, then you’re on a charge, mister.”

Murphy said nothing. He let the big man heave himself out of the chair and

waddle after him as he headed back down the corridor toward the tech section. He

walked fast, knowing it would make following hard for Wallace and enjoying the

small piece of revenge for the Gen’s lack of concern.

WHEN WALLACE REACHED the tech section, puffing and panting behind the fitter

Murphy, he was in a foul mood.

“You, what’s the problem?” he barked at the tech.

“Sir, he can’t answer you. Mutie blood.”

“Goddamn!” Wallace exploded. “How many times do you have to be told, Sarj. That

just can’t happen.”

“No, sir,” Murphy said quietly. “Just like this can’t happen, I guess.” He

indicated the Plexiglas screen.

Wallace looked beyond and frowned.

“Vital signs going down on number three. He was the oldest of the bunch when the

great experiment began to run. Got most major organs recycled, and some limbs.

Doesn’t seem to be anything actually in need to replacement. Just seems to

be…fading out.”

Wallace didn’t seem to be listening.

“Sir?”

“Recycle.”

“But what, sir?”

“The whole damn component, Sarj. If a part of the component can be replaced,

then why not the whole damn thing? ‘Cause the man is just one part of a larger

organism—the mechanism. Recycle, Sarj.”

Murphy tried to hide his bewilderment. “But, sir, the whole mechanism is

predark. The old man is 187 years, three months, two weeks by old chron time.

Forty years older than the other components, true, but still, where do I find

something of a similar age?”

“That’s your problem, Sarj. You’re in charge of sec corps. You requisition

supplies. Not my problem—what the good book calls delegation.”

Murphy ground his teeth. The good book was written before the great chilling.

What the hell did it know about right now? But he kept it to himself. He didn’t

want to be put on a charge. As head of sec corps, he knew what that meant. And

he’d trained his men too well.

“Is that a problem, Sarj?” Wallace asked, the flinty eyes glittering in the

quivering flesh of his fat face. Fat, but still hard and cruel at the jaw.

Murphy was spared from lying by the sudden deafening blare of alarms that hadn’t

been used since predark times.

Wallace looked around in surprise. The tech whined and covered his ears.

“Alarms—shit, it must be the mat-trans,” Murphy said.

Wallace frowned. “Don’t be stupe. No one’s ever got it working. Lost the

know-how after the great chilling.”

“Who said someone got it working from this end?” Murphy whispered.

Chapter One

The jump had been as sickening as usual. Ryan Cawdor opened his eye and felt a

dull ache across the areas of his face that hadn’t been numbed by scar tissue.

The empty socket behind the eye patch felt as if it were pulsing in time with

his heartbeat, and he flicked open his right eye, the bloodshot blue watering.

Mat-trans jumps were painful and disjointing at all times, the atoms of each

individual body being disassembled then flung across vast distances until

reconfigured by the mat-trans computers at whichever redoubt was programmed to

pick up the signal. The time between was taken up by nightmares and wanderings

through the dark nights of imagination. The time immediately after awakening was

usually filled with nausea and weakness.

Ryan shook his head, trying to rid himself of the pulsing that thumped inside

his skull. He looked across the dull green-and-cobalt-blue walls to where the