Turning his head, he saw Jenna. There was no sign of the sec chief. Dean smiled stupidly at her, unable to do anything else.
Jenna returned his smile, but with a sinister edge. “As you may have guessed, young Cawdor, you’ve been sedated to keep you quiet and make you more malleable. You’ll make an interesting experiment. I’ve never had a subject as young or as fit as you, nor one from outside this gene pool. I hope you’re not hiding any mutie traits, or that the redheaded mutie bitch isn’t your mother. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to synthesize the drugs that were used on previous experiments, not with what I have available at the moment. But I do my best. I think you’ll find the chemicals I’ll be using on you will perhaps hurt more than they should, which is why I’ve put you under such a heavy dose. We’ll begin tonight, after I’ve appeased my idiot husband for disappearing from his stupe celebration last night. Until then, rest well, my little one.”
She came over to him and kissed him gently on the lips before turning to go.
Dean smiled stupidly, although every fiber of his being screamed silently, unable to find release through the drugged haze.
He was still smiling when she locked the door, imprisoning him until his ordeal would begin.
Chapter Twelve
“Ryan, my dear boy. The teeth of the hell-monster are forever housed in slavering jaws that await nothing more than our perennial destruction. We are forever condemned by our past to not only repeat its mistakes but to enlarge upon them, increase them in volume to a deafening roar that cuts across the world—such as it now is—in a wave of increasing fear and loathing, even in Las Vegas, that will—”
“Doc!” Ryan roared, taking hold of the shaking, rambling man and holding him still, trying to penetrate his wild-eyed gaze with the steely glare of his good eye. It was no use. Doc’s head was rolling wildly from side to side as the old man was gripped in a convulsive anxiety attack.
He had burst into the sleeping unit a scant few seconds before, disturbing the peace. Krysty had joined Ryan in the land of the waking, and like him was suffering from the results of the potent ville brew. It was unlike any white lightning or spirit they had encountered across the Deathlands, and for the first time in what passed at this moment for a memory, she had a hangover, her head thumping and the lights seeming too bright.
She and Ryan had conversed in muted, hushed tones, trying not to trigger each other’s headaches. They both recalled similar segments of the previous night, and there was enough time for a moment of fond remembrance—a time that was in short enough supply.
Their muted reverie had been broken by the return of J.B. and Mildred. They had found an empty unit for themselves, wanting their own privacy as much as granting Ryan and Krysty theirs, but in contrast, both seemed to be suffering no ill effects from the spirit.
“Simple,” Mildred said when Krysty asked her. “Just a lot of water and some juice. It may be mutie fruit, but it has something resembling vitamin C in it.”
Krysty remembered back in Harmony, when Uncle Tyas McCann had taught them something similar. But it had taken Mildred’s predark medical-trained and methodical mind to remember this, even in the midst of such a celebration.
“So do we go on or do we stay?” J.B. asked eventually, polishing the minisextant he carried with him.
Ryan was aware that the Armorer’s producing the instrument as he posed the question was by way of a hint, and not a very subtle one. But then, J.B. was a straightforward man, not given to subtlety…unless it was in the line of a booby trap.
“I think we should go, move on. These aren’t the Illuminated Ones. Yesterday’s firefight would have been a lot easier if they had been. These people have little old tech remnants, and even though that doomie wife of Alien’s gives me the creeps as much as all of you, I think Alien’s on the level. He’s a good man, doing his best to live by the code they set up here. There’s no great stockpile, no Erewhon here.” J.B. nodded agreement. “Harvey’s a coldheart who doesn’t like us around. I don’t like the idea of wasting time and ammo on an unnecessary firefight. That’s triple stupe, but that’s what it’ll come to if we stay.” Mildred agreed, and was about to tell Ryan and Krysty of Harvey’s willingness to leave them to fight alone the day before, when she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Doc, bursting in wild-eyed and anxious.