as Ryan tried to move on the seat and ease the pain that was starting to spread
into his groin.
Ryan breathed deeply, using his iron will to control the pain. The scar that ran
under the eye patch, from the empty socket and down his cheek to his jaw, was
white and puckered, the flesh drained of blood as he gritted his teeth. He was
storing up the resentment. If he ever got the chance, he’d finish Murphy. But
he’d rather get out. One of the things the Trader taught him was the uselessness
of bearing grudges. Concentrate too hard on that, and you wouldn’t notice the
enemy creeping up behind you.
Murphy watched Ryan through slitted eyes, trying to work out how far he could
go. The one-eyed man was sitting beneath the only light in the room, directly
above him. Murphy stood half in a pool of shadow. Behind him, obscured from
Ryan’s view, was an armed soldier. Murphy could watch his prisoner’s reactions
with clarity, but Ryan could see little beyond the pool of light in which he
sat.
“You won’t get anything from me,” Ryan muttered, spitting blood from his torn
mouth.
Murphy nodded. “You’re a big man. You’ve proved to me how hard you are. Now
let’s get real. That kid, he looks like you, One-eye.”
Ryan looked up. Slowly, trying to mask his concern.
It didn’t work. Murphy grinned at him slyly. “Yeah, figured so. Your sprog,
right? How’d you like him to be tied to the chair? I figure he’s only…what,
twelve? Thirteen? Maybe his balls ain’t dropped yet. It’d be interesting to find
out.”
Ryan winced. In his mind he tried to weigh up the options. What would it lose
them at this stage if he told this scum who he was? The redoubt seemed inbred
and isolated, so the chances of them hearing about him were low.
A chance he would take to save Dean the pain.
“Fireblast, you win this round, fucker. What do you want to know?”
“Who you are. Why you’re here. How come you can use the mat-trans. And the old
guy is…”
Ryan’s brow furrowed. Why were they so interested in Doc?
“LOOK LIKE SHIT,” Jak said quietly.
“Feel like it, too,” Ryan replied, stretching out on the bed, his legs apart to
ease the pain that throbbed into his groin. The act of speaking opened up one of
the cuts in the corner of his mouth.
Krysty took a pillowcase from one of the beds and wet it under the faucet before
using a corner of it to dab gently at the edges of Ryan’s mouth.
J.B. looked up at the sec camera over the door. They were all back in the room
in which they had originally been confined. He pushed his fedora back on his
head and scratched idly along his hairline, frowning.
“Got an idea, John?” Mildred asked quietly. She had been the most subdued since
they had all awakened on the beds, and had so far kept quiet about her dreamlike
experiences. The others had shared some details in order to try to work out what
had happened to them.
J.B. shook his head. “No, I was just wondering what exactly it is they want from
us.”
“Guess find out soon,” Jak commented, indicating Ryan with a curt nod of the
head. “What they do with Krysty and Mildred?” he added.
“I’m sure they’ll have thought of something,” Mildred said bitterly.
Ryan raised himself on one elbow and told them exactly what had happened to him.
When he had finished, Doc rose to his feet. He made as though to strike a
lecturing pose, leaning on his cane, until he remembered that Murphy’s men, once
bitten, had taken it away from him.
Doc cleared his throat. “Their behavior is most perplexing. I think we can agree
that our experiences while unconscious were an attempt to in some way play with
our most primal fears, possibly with the notion of reducing our resistance.”
Krysty nodded. “For some reason, it didn’t affect Jak and myself in the same way
as it did the rest of you. Perhaps there’s some kind of mutated gene running in