James Axler – Rat King

extinguished.

Ryan picked himself up, flexing his back muscles and feeling the raw spot of

flesh throb. He’d have to get Mildred to look at that later. He reached down and

held out a hand to Jak, helping the albino to his feet.

“Owe you,” Jak said, wiping the mud from his face.

“Owe you,” Ryan replied. “You chilled that bastard and saved us all.”

He and Jak returned to the main party.

Mac and his two mute assistants were holding their blasters casually across

them, not trained on any of the companions. Ryan gave him a quizzical look.

“Guess I’m mebbe not as suspicious as Tilly was,” he said in reply. “Whitey

there risked a lot to save us.”

“How come you don’t know how to fight against those things?” Dean interjected.

Mac turned to the boy. “Son, you tell me how you’re supposed to beat a mutie

like that. Whitey risked everything, and let’s be honest. He wouldn’t have stood

a chance if the fucker hadn’t been busy chilling Tod—”

“Woman took attention away,” Jak added. He knew that he could probably have

taken the creature anyway, but figured it would do no harm to get on the right

side of their captors, now that the blasters were lowered.

“More important, is there anything else like that out here?” J.B. asked.

“Few weird things,” Mac said vaguely. “Don’t see them that much. We live on the

rim—they live down here. Neither gets too interested in the other. You get my

drift?”

The Armorer smiled wryly. “Doesn’t help us much at the moment, though.”

“Can’t have everything,” Ryan said. He looked past the lizard, in the direction

they had been heading, men back at Mac. “We got much farther to go?”

Mac shook his head. “Another half hour, mebbe.” He looked at his wrist chron.

“Should get us there before sunfall.”

“Then let’s get going,” Ryan said, wondering if Mac had realized that the

balance of power had shifted within the group, and that Ryan’s people now held

the upper hand in terms of numbers and blasters. He noted that J.B. had

retrieved Tod’s giant blaster, and was carrying it across his shoulder with some

effort, his pockets stuffed with the homemade cartridges.

If Mac had noticed, he remained silent. He hadn’t even mentioned Jak’s knives.

The potbellied valley dweller led the way, carrying his blaster over his

shoulder.

It seemed to Ryan that he had made a decision without even bothering to put it

into words.

“Let’s go, people,” Ryan muttered as his companions fell into step—with the mute

sec men—in Mac’s wake.

Chapter Fourteen

Doc’s fragile mind was still reeling from shock as Murphy prodded him in the

small of the back with his blue 9 mm Beretta, reclaimed from where it had been

left in the armory. It was good to have the blaster back, and it gave Murphy a

sense of confidence in handling the old man.

“Come on, old fart—out of here,” Murphy snapped. “You’ve got to be prepared.”

Wallace glared at him. “Treat him with some respect. He’s going to be part of

the mechanism. Besides, regs say that a POW should be treated according to

convention.”

Murphy looked blankly at Wallace for a moment, then it clicked that the Gen was

referring to a prisoner of war. He tried to hide the contempt in his eyes for

the Gen. He had always believed that Wallace read the regs too literally, but

this was just more proof.

Doc dragged himself back into what he laughingly thought of as reality, prompted

by the pain in his back where the Beretta’s muzzle was digging into him. He

assessed the exchange of hostile glances, put it together with what Ryan had

said to them earlier about his feelings regarding Wallace and Murphy and

shrewdly played the lunatic while he waited for a chance to drive a larger stake

between the two men.

“This pathetic old man—treat him with respect?”

Murphy spit. “He wouldn’t know if you were or not. He’s mad!”

Wallace looked into Doc’s eyes. The old man hooded them with a film of madness,

ironically using all the sanity and intelligence he could muster to create the