James Axler – Rat King

bleed into you.”

“I am not sure that I like the sound of that,” Doc said quietly.

“Dr. Tanner, you don’t have the choice,” Tricks said.

She turned to Murphy. “Strap him in the chair, then leave us alone.”

Murphy pursed his lips as he strapped the unresisting Doc into the chair,

handing his Beretta to Tricks so that she could cover them. For his part Doc

reasoned that there was no chance of escape at this time, and so allowed Murphy

to manhandle him.

“I’m not sure I like this,” Murphy said to Tricks as he stepped back from the

secured Doc and once again took charge of his Beretta. “Wallace won’t like it.”

“The Gen has given me a free hand here,” she replied sharply. “I’ve had to work

out this damn procedure for myself, and I can’t trust any of the inbreds or

muties I have to work with to assist and get it right. I’ve got my tits on the

line here…until we get the chance to change things, I have to go along with the

Gen, okay? This is going to be hard, and I don’t need any distractions.”

Tricks picked up a hypodermic from a tray on her workbench and flicked the end

before squirting a thin stream of liquid into the air to knock out any air

bubbles.

“Get going, Sarj,” she said with her back to Murphy. “Tanner can’t give me any

problems now, and I need to concentrate.”

“Okay,” Murphy muttered tersely, investing the word with a multitude of hidden

meanings. “I’ll be outside. Wallace will expect that, at least.”

The automatic door slid shut behind him with a rusting squeal, making Tricks

wince.

“I wish the maintenance techs would sort that door out,” she murmured before

turning to Doc. “Now then, I can’t promise this won’t be unpleasant. But at

least I won’t be opening up your brain.” She giggled at that, and for a moment

Doc saw the creeping edge of insanity that seemed to dwell beneath the surface

of everyone in the redoubt.

Any further speculation was cut short as Dr. Tricks rolled up the sleeve of his

frock coat, and the shirt underneath, before spearing him in the vein that ran

down the joint of his elbow. She depressed the plunger on the hypodermic, and

Doc felt a warmth spread through his veins, a velvet softness that hit almost

immediately.

During his time in the whitecoat hell that was the headquarters of Operation

Chronos, Doc had experienced almost every kind of sedative and painkiller that

had ever been formulated.

This felt like the purest heroin…perhaps pure enough to kill him with one hit.

“BY THE THREE KENNEDYS! A nightmare of morphia bliss and sullen joy. Ah, Alice,

where is the Mad Hatter now? The Cheshire cat grins at me from beyond the

boundaries of space and time. Yet he wears a white coat, my dear. Why is that?

And why do you look at me so? For you are beautiful, and I have loved you

truly…more truly than the spoken word can tell…”

Doc’s hand reached for Tricks’s arm, fingers clawing at the air. In his eyes she

could see the anguished terror of a man trying to keep a hold on what he

believed to be reality while the images of his subconscious ramblings ran riot

across his mind.

With a moue of distaste she removed his hand from her arm and let it fall to his

side, still clawing in involuntary spasms.

“You poor bastard,” she whispered, stroking Doc’s sweating brow. “This is a

complete waste of time, but at least I won’t kill you. I promise that. You alone

know what it’ll be like for you when you get into Moebius, but at least you’ll

still be alive…after a fashion.”

Somewhere beneath his fevered ramblings, Doc was aware of what she was saying to

him, and realized that there was no escape from being linked into the rat king.

But he wouldn’t have his skull trepanned, and he wouldn’t have electrodes and

diodes placed in the soft gray tissue of his brain.

Through a fog of fevered rambling, babbling softly to himself all the while, Doc