James Axler – Watersleep

“I see you doubt my credentials, Mr. Ryan Caw­dor,” Poseidon said, and gave a loud booming laugh from within the cavity of his huge barrel chest. “Are you the jealous type? Does my position threaten your own sense of leadership?”

Ryan was surprised that the Admiral knew his name, but kept his acknowledgment of the revelation close to the vest. “Not at all. Call yourself emperor of all Deathlands if that’s what stokes your engine. Way I see it, an asshole’s an asshole—even in a fancy uniform.”

Poseidon kept the wide smile, but a flinty spark of anger flared in his dark eyes. Ryan knew right then this was a man unused to being spoken to or chal­lenged.

“Ah, the service could have done wonders with your aggression, Cawdor.”

“I doubt it.”

“No, no, becoming a member of the naval fleet would have molded you,” Poseidon insisted. “The proper instruction and informed care could have made something more out of you than just a grubby lander with a blaster in his pocket.”

“Well, I never was much of a follower,” Ryan said. “Especially if the commanding officer was a regimented old fuck like you.”

Poseidon’s face was rectangular, with a wide, tall forehead topped off by a steel gray buzz cut. His eye­brows were a darker gray than the salt-and-pepper mix of his hair. Depending on how he held his head, the man’s eyes seemed to be an asphalt shade of gray, but they shifted back and forth into a near blackness as Poseidon spoke, changing color with his mood.

The eyes were shining black now.

His cheeks appeared to be pitted with the sort of skin craters associated with chronic teenage acne, al­though the close-cut full beard he wore helped to cover any imperfections. Other than a nose that had been broken at least once in Poseidon’s so-called na­val career and a pair of ears too small in proportion to the rest of his massive body, the man was more than merely impressive—he was roguishly handsome.

Ryan wanted to pick up the nearest blunt object and begin to smash that very same handsome face into a mess of grue, but held back and instead estimated how quickly he could gut the big man from sternum to chin if given half a chance. He didn’t want to shoot Poseidon. He wanted to kill him up close and personal, with his bare hands, soak the naval whites of the Admiral’s uniform in bright red blood, but he curbed the impulse. Mildred, J.B. and Carter were still unaccounted for, and Ryan knew he’d have to play the game for now.

Men such as Poseidon seemed to be compelled to strut and show off their manhood whenever someone like Ryan stumbled into their camps. They weren’t content to offer either a hand of friendship or the busi­ness end of a blaster. No, their joy came in preening.

The megalomaniacal always wanted to show off either their brilliance or their possessions.

The chairs Ryan and Shauna had finally sat in were made of mahogany, with black padded leather on the seat and arms. The immense desk across from them was made of the same wood and glowed with a sheen of polish. The room had a nautical feel: paintings of ancient whaling ships, a tapestry of an old Western-style paddle-boat steamer, ship instruments mounted on plaques. Elaborate models of submarines of the past lined the back windowed wall, beginning with one model identified as the squat Turtle, an early craft used in 1776 by the Continental army to attack the HMS Eagle.

“I see you’ve noticed my display of submarines,” Poseidon purred.

“Hard to miss it,” Ryan said.

“Right so, right so. Tell me, Mr. Cawdor, did you know that the roots of the modern submarine can be traced all the way back to the days of Alexander the Great?”

Ryan snorted. “I must’ve been absent that day from history class. Or asleep.”

“Legend has it that Alexander descended into the ocean in the year 332 B.C. in a primitive diving bell,” Poseidon said, sounding eerily like Doc did before the old man launched into a lengthy explanation Ryan had no desire to hear. “Such courage, to allow oneself to vanish beneath the waves during such an early and superstitious time of man. I’m sure even one as brave as he must have been questioning his own sanity once he was lowered.”