The blaze was quick to take, and even in the dawning daylight the valley became an inferno of intense heat and light, the smell of charring flesh gagging and catching at the back of the throat as it drifted on the morning breeze.
Looking back, Doc saw the fire take hold in the enclosed oven of the valley, flaring brighter than the rising sun, with an intense heat that flared more brightly. He wasn’t the only one. As he turned, left behind by the war party, he saw that Alien was also watching the fires.
There was an aura about the baron that suggested his power had been broken that night. An aura that snapped Doc out of his reverie and reminded him that, despite the holocaust behind them, their own fight was still far from over.
Chapter Fifteen
“Why don’t you speak, you poltroon? Don’t you see that this continuing pretense is only going to lead to more pain?”
“You old fool. I don’t know who’s crazier, you or that mutie bastard,” Harvey muttered. “He’s a half-crazed mutie fucker, so why should he be able to make any sense?”
Doc smiled, his oddly perfect white teeth reflecting the lamplight that hung over the bound and secured mutie leader, casting a pool of light in the center of the room that left the edges in shadow. He leaned toward the sec chief to emphasize his point.
“That, sir, truly does beg the question of why, if you believe that, you persist in torturing the poor soul.”
“Poor soul? This fucker is a poor soul?” Harvey’s disbelieving voice rose into a screech. “After all he’s done, you can say that?”
Doc shrugged. “There is, sir, no feasible logic to your argument. Would torture bring back the dead and damned? No, sir, it would not. All that would do is make you feel better for a short while. And that, sir, is not the purpose of this charade.”
Harvey seethed. “Big words, you lanky fuck. But that’s all. I say I should just ice the son of a bitch right now.”
Jak stepped forward from the shadow. “Not what Alien want. Not what say. Anyway, Doc use big words but sometimes make sense. Why think talk sense anyway?” the albino added, looking to Doc.
Along with Harvey, Jak and Doc in the interrogation room were Ryan, Blake and Downey from the sec force. The purpose of the interrogation, as Alien had directed his sec chief, was to find out what had happened to Dean, and also to ascertain how much the mutie leader knew about the nuke that was now being safely stored in an outlying tunnel. The trip back had been swift, the makeshift transport for the nuke being more than adequate for the task. The men pulling the nuke had headed away from the ville entrance they had used to exit the underground lair, and had instead headed for the disguised entrance that led on from the subbasement of an underground garage in a ruined office building. The sec forces had camouflaged the debris that led into the garage so well that J.B. had assumed they were headed into a wall of foliage as he followed close behind with the staked Sunchild, sharing the load with Ryan.
Once inside, Alien had directed his sec chief to the interrogation, and had accompanied his men to where he planned to store the nuke. He had asked the Armorer to accompany them, and J.B. had taken that as a compliment to his abilities that he was being asked to help mothball a nuke. His rad counter had earlier verified that no radiation was leaking from the missile.
The rest of the force had dispersed to their units to recover, Mildred and Krysty accompanying the wounded to the small sick bay. There were few casualties, but more than the ville’s small medical team would usually deal with, and they were grateful for the assistance.
And now Sunchild sat in the middle of the room, bleeding from a number of minor cuts and lesions about the face and upper body, heavily bruised from the repeated punches and slaps of the sec chief. Harvey had made a show of holding back, but it was obvious from the condition of Sunchild’s earlier blaster wound, and the gangrenous smell emanating from the area around the pus-dribbling wound, that the mutie baron’s stamina had been severely depleted, and it wouldn’t take much to chill him once and for all.