James Axler - Deathlands 52 Zero City

Deathlands 52 - Zero City

James Axler

ISBN: 0373625626 / 9780373625628

...no sane man who has ever fought in a war ever wishes to do so again. It is madness and chaos and nightmare combined. Yet most will do so again and again for the most ordinary of reasons: honor, duty, a solemn promise, and of course, to protect or avenge their kith and kin. Black powder may charge our guns, sir, but it is red blood that charges the common soldier...

General John Gibbon, 1862 Army of the Potomac

As the swirling mists of the trans-mat chamber faded away, the seven people inside the unit tumbled to the cold floor, gasping for breath.

In silent agony, the companions lay where they fell, waiting for their tortured bodies to finally overcome the horrid sickness that always accompanied a jump. Almost an hour passed before the first of them was able to stir.

N-no m-more, J. B. Dix whispered, a string of drool hanging from his mouth. His wire-rimmed glasses slid from his shirt pocket and fell to the floor as a tremor shook the man. D-dark night, I cant take...another bastard jump.

Panting for breath, Ryan Cawdor swallowed before being able to answer. Fireblast! He had known they were pushing the envelope with three jumps in a single day, and now they were paying the price. It felt as if fire ants were eating his guts.

A-agreed, the man croaked. Dont...give a motherless damn if we find any food in this redoubt or not. No more jumps for a while. Win, lose or draw, this is it.

Mumbled agreements from the others answered his decision.

About time, drawled Jak Lauren. The albino teenager was lying on his side, fighting to control his rebellious stomach. His pale skin looked even whiter than usual, almost the same color as his long snowy hair. The armpits of his shirt were stained dark with sweat. N-not done six before.

Wont ever again, either, gasped Krysty Wroth, unbuttoning the front of her khaki overalls to expose a wealth of creamy cleavage. Rivulets of sweat streamed off her lovely face, the womans fiery red hair flexing and moving as if stirred by secret winds.

Dont exaggerate. It was six in a week, corrected Dr. Mildred Wyeth, leaning against the chamber wall. She rubbed the back of a hand across her mouth as if trying to remove an unpleasant taste. Only did three in the same day.

More than enough.

Agreed.

Resembling a Civil War college professor with his silvery hair and old-fashioned clothing, Dr. Theophilus Tanner lay on the cold floor, savoring the coolness against his cheek, his hands white-knuckled about his ebony walking stick. Patiently, he waited for the world around him to stop spinning and settle down. For some reason, the jumps hit him harder than the others. Perhaps it was a legacy from the time-travel experiments done to him by the whitecoats of Operation Chronos. Doc didnt know, and for the moment, he didnt care. Every peaceful second brought him away from the debilitating jump sickness and put strength into his body.

Grimacing in determination, Dean Cawdor forced himself to stand upright, then crashed back down on his ass. The eleven-year-old blinked away the hurt pride, and began the struggle to rise again.

Stay still, son, Ryan ordered brusquely. Rushing only makes the aftereffects last longer.

Okay, the boy agreed, relaxing into a heap.

Disregarding his own advice, Ryan struggled to his hands and knees, concentrating on every move as he struggled upright. His vision was clearing, and he was feeling stronger by the second. Briefly, he wondered if he was acclimatizing to the shock of disintegration. Doc had once theorized that the sickness was actually a persons soul searching for the body so rudely taken away. Foolishness, of course. But the time traveler often talked utter nonsense.

Adjusting the patch over his left eye and squinting to focus the right, Ryan glanced about the chamber. The walls and floor were made of a smooth blue material speckled with flecks of gold. He didnt recognize the color combination, so they had never been in this redoubt before. For the millionth time, he wondered why the predark scientists had decided to color code the redoubts instead of just putting up signs listing the locations. Just another of the endless ancient mysteries they would probably never solve.

Drawing in a lungful of air, Cawdor noted the atmosphere tasted flat and smelled antiseptically clean, as if every possible sign of life were missing. On the rare occasions they found an inhabited redoubt, there were faint odors of sweat, sex, blasters and food, hot oil in machines, the sharp stink of ozone from the nuclear reactor. Both life and death carried a perfume easily recognizable. This one smelled deserted.

Terra incognita, Doc said, sitting upright. Albeit, an aesthetically pleasing locale.

Talk English, you old coot, Mildred muttered, brushing the long beaded hair off her face. Automatically, the healer started to reach for the canteen at her belt, then stopped. Damn, she had forgotten that they ran out of juice two jumps ago. Although, to be honest, none of her herbal concoctions ever seemed to ease their jump sickness much. But the physician was grimly determined to keep searching until she found a combination that worked.

Weve never been here before, Doc explained.

I know that.

Company, Jak barked, pointing at the floor.

That jarred everybody awake. Stumbling closer to the teenager, Ryan saw a series of boots scuffs marring the floor, which had gone unnoticed in the aftermath of the multiple jump.

Those are Army boots, Ryan snapped, drawing the 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol from his belt. Triple red, people! Metallic clicks and clacks filled the room as the companions drew their assorted weapons.

Are they going in or coming out? Krysty asked, easing back the hammer on her S&W .38 revolver. Her bearskin coat billowed about the redheads legs as she walked closer to the door, carefully keeping to one side. Only a fool approached an unknown door straight on.

Seem to be both, J.B. said, retrieving his spectacles and setting them onto his bony nose. Unfolding the wire stock of his 9 mm Uzi submachine gun, he eased off the safety and slid the selector switch to burst. Now every time he pulled the trigger, the blaster would fire three times in less than a second. More than enough firepower for any conceivable danger.

New or old? Doc asked, laying his swordstick against the wall to free his hands. With oft practiced ease, Doc emptied a few pockets and began the laborious process of loading his huge .44 LeMat. The Civil War handgun was a percussion piece and each chamber in the rotating cylinder had to be purged and hand charged with black powder, cloth wad and lead ball, and then a copper nipple of fulminating mercury slid into the notch at the base of each individual chamber before it was ready to fire. Although old and slow, under the control of the gentleman from Vermont, the LeMat was a weapon of mass destruction fully capable of blowing a man in half. It was cumbersome to reload, but the 9-shot capacity more than made up for that small flaw.

Blaster in hand, Jak dropped to a knee and rubbed a finger across the scuff marks. Not tell, he announced. The bright fluorescent lights overhead glinted off the six-inch blue-steel barrel of his .357 Colt Python. The handcannon was almost the rival of Docs monstrous LeMat.

Maybe old and new on top each other, Dean offered. Drawing his Browning Hi-Power pistol, the boy dropped the clip to check the load, then slammed it back and jacked the slide.

Only one way to find out, Mildred stated, holding the strap of her med kit with one hand, the other full of a Czech-made .38-caliber ZKR target pistol. The precision revolver was amazingly accurate over long distances, as many enemies and muties had found out the hard way.