James Axler – Rat King

but no shark could convey the sinister undertone of madness in Wallace’s eyes.

“You will see in time, Doctor. But first—” he turned to Murphy. “—I must deal

with the guard. Sarj Murphy?”

“Sir?” Murphy clicked ostentatiously to attention and stared fixedly at a point

three feet above Wallace’s head. The sudden hardening of the Gen’s tone was a

grim foreboding.

“Your men were a disgrace out there today. Dead or missing, you are the only one

to make it back.”

“What?” Murphy’s mask slipped for one second, and genuine confusion showed

through. “But that can’t be possible, sir. These outsiders could never best us

in the conditions. We know them, they don’t—”

“I fear there was a third party to the slaughter today,” Wallace mused. “The

valley dwellers—mutie and inbred scum,” he added in an aside to Doc, who merely

nodded sagely and refrained from adding the view that Wallace might well to

consider whether his description could be applied to his own men. “The valley

dwellers must have had a scavenging party in the vicinity. They must have

intervened.”

“How do you know that?” Murphy asked heatedly. If the Gen had this knowledge

when they were in the field, why hadn’t he passed it on?

Wallace indicated the hidden vid room with an inclination of his head.

“Why didn’t you let me know?” Murphy asked.

The Gen’s face hardened into a scowl. “Remember who you are and where you are,

Sarj. The regs have ways of dealing with impertinence. There are prescribed

punishments.”

Murphy breathed deeply, slowly, to control his temper. “Sir, I apologize,” he

said carefully. “But to what purpose was this knowledge kept from me?”

“It always pays to have a little training,” Wallace said blandly. “I was

interested to see how you’d cope with an assault on two fronts. You were found

wanting, my friend.”

The tension between the two men had escalated to a point where Doc was almost

forgotten. Doc took this opportunity to stand back and observe, filing away

character traits exposed in the argument for future reference. Who knew? It

might be of use in any escape attempt he could contrive.

“Good men died because you wanted a training exercise based on a random factor?”

Murphy railed. “Good sec is based on the elimination of the random factor!”

“No such thing,” Wallace snapped back. “Look at the failure of one part of the

mechanism. Random. The arrival of Tanner. Random…”

He turned and looked at Doc, a sudden vacancy in his eyes, as though he were

searching for something— some strand of meaning that had somehow escaped him.

Then he grasped at it. “Tanner…” he said vaguely, and then with a more assured

tone, “Yes, Doctor. Forgive me, I have been neglecting you. You have work to do,

and we must prepare you for this. You are our honored guest, sent to us to aid

in the war against the Reds.”

“But that all ended a long…” Doc tailed off. Yes, it had. But not for Wallace,

Murphy and the other inhabitants of this redoubt. And who was he to argue with

them? Had the world of his beloved Emily, and of the whitecoats who had kept him

captive at Operation Chronos, ceased to be real to him just because they had

moved on in time and space?

These men were as much prisoners of memory as he was—the difference being that

at least his memories were his own, and not the half-remembered dreams of

ancestors distorted through time.

Wallace, seeming not to hear either Doc’s tailing off or the long pause that had

followed, rose to his feet.

“Please, Doctor, follow me and all will be made clear.”

Doc fell into step behind the waddling Gen as Wallace left his office and headed

along the corridor toward the elevator. Murphy left a short gap, then fell in

behind his prisoner.

Doc wasn’t sure whether Murphy’s caution in being a few steps behind him was

actually a defensive measure or intended to impress Wallace. It would be futile

of him to attempt any kind of escape at this point, not until he stood some

chance of retrieving his LeMat and swordstick.

As they progressed along the corridor, Doc noted that the redoubt had returned