Jerking the bolt on the Steyr to free the internal mag, Ryan saw the oncoming condor just in time and swung the blaster with all of his strength to slam the bird aside. Tumbling out of control, its spine broken, the condor dropped directly onto the Tesla coil. There was a blinding flash, and a ball of ash drifted down from the air onto the floor.
Crackling through his combat boots, Ryan felt the electric discharge hit him hard. His leg muscles cramped, and every hair on his body tried to stick straight out. His kidneys convulsed, and there was a brief sensation of his skin trying to crawl away. The racking pain passed in a few moments and the Deathlands warrior gasped for breath, knowing he had escaped electrocution purely by the thickness of his boot soles.
“Mildred!” Doc bellowed from behind the console.
Ryan spun at the cry, blaster at the ready, then he balked. Doc was kneeling alongside Krysty. The woman was lying on top of the ancient skeleton, her animated hair absolutely still, a smoking hand resting on the bare metal floor.
Chapter Three
Sluggishly Krysty awakened to the odor of her own roasting flesh. Her stomach rebelled at the thought, but then she slowly realized it wasn’t herself she smelted.
She was lying inside the gateway on a bedroll, a blanket folded under her head as a pillow. Right outside was a roaring bonfire. The rest of the companions were sitting around the crackling blaze while several gutted condors turned on a spit over flames. The others would cut slices off the hot birds with their knives and eat the meat right from the blade. A piece of tarp they used as a tent was on the ground, piled with fresh fruit and some odd lumpy tan sticks. A battered aluminum pot sat on a rock near the fire, its contents bubbling softly. Jak and Dean were standing guard duty again, their backs to the campfire with weapons in their hands. Neither seemed overly tense or apprehensive. The sunlight was coming from the wrong direction, but aside from that everything was quiet.
“Hey,” Krysty said weakly, gamely sitting upright. Merciful Gaia, every muscle in her whole body was stiff, and her hair felt strangely numb, but aside from that she seemed to be undamaged.
Lowering a tin cup, Ryan turned in her direction and smiled broadly. “Morning, lover. Coffee?” he asked, gesturing with the cup sloshing a little of the black brew.
“Please,” she replied, rising from the nest of blankets and stumbling into the sunshine.
While Ryan poured some of the boiling water from the big pot into a collapsible U.S. Army cup, Mildred moved aside to make room for the redhead on the ground.
“Sit here,” the physician said. “Feeling okay?”
“Not dead. That’s good enough,” Krysty said, her tongue moving awkwardly in her mouth as if it were still asleep. “Morning?”
“You slept through the night,” Ryan said, opening a shiny silver envelope and sprinkling some brown crystals into the steaming water. He then carefully added a plastic pack of powdered milk and two of sugar.
Krysty accepted the cup gratefully and took a healthy swallow, regardless of the temperature. “So what happened?” she asked, savoring the warmth seeping into her stiff hands. She was feeling better by the minute, the fire driving the numbness from her limbs. “There was a condor in the gateway…” Her voice trailed off.
“Ryan aced it, but it fell on the Tesla, releasing enough voltage to melt a tank,” J.B. explained, thumbing live rounds into an empty magazine. The Uzi lay nearby on a clean cloth, the blaster freshly cleaned and polished. “But the electricity went through the whole building, killing six more condors sitting on the roof. But that’s what saved you, the enormous surface area dissipated the voltage enough so that you only got stunned and not fried.”
“Thank Gaia for that,” Krysty said, sipping the brew with distaste. It was the usual instant coffee from an MRE pack, but there was yet an odd metallic flavor in her mouth.
“Got any toothpaste left?” she asked hopefully. “Or chewing gum?”
“All out,” Mildred said. “Didn’t the coffee help?”