Desert Kings

For a couple of minutes nobody spoke and there was only the muted hum of the sterilized air flowing from the disguised wall vents.

“So, he’s back,” Doc said woodenly, the words sounding strangely flat and emotionless. “The foul cyborg has returned!”

For a moment the universe reeled and Doc was back in the underground tunnel fighting the hated manchine, the only illumination coming from the muzzle-flame of his booming LeMat and a sizzling laser beam fired by Delphi. Then the explosive charges detonated and the ceiling started to fall, as the river began to rise over their heads….

With an effort of will, Doc returned to the reality of the present. If Delphi had been here, then he might walk through the access door of the antechamber at any second! Drawing the LeMat, he pulled back the heavy hammer of the single-action blaster.

“John Barrymore, do we have any grens?” Doc barked, turning to face the door across the chamber.

“Got better than that,” the Armorer replied, pulling a squat mil sphere into view from his munitions bag. “I’ve got an implo gren! Been saving it for an emergency.”

“Well, this is it, sir!” An implo gren was a predark marvel that didn’t explode outward, but instead created a gravitational field that pulled everything nearby inward to compact into a small, hard sphere. A single implo gren could reduce a U.S. Army tank down to the size of clenched fist. Nothing could survive that. Not even a cyborg.

“All right, if he is here, then let’s finish this now!” Ryan declared roughly, sliding the Steyr off his shoulder. “We’re gonna recce the entire redoubt, from the fusion reactors in the basement to the garage on top. And if we find Delphi, then we pin him down with blasterfire long enough to get clear and let J.B. use the implo gren.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Mildred agreed, pulling out the Czech ZKR. Back in her own time, killing a person was the worst crime imaginable and carried the most stringent punishments possible. At first Mildred had found it difficult to reconcile taking a life with her oath as a doctor. But “kill or be killed” was the mantra of a new America.

“How much space needed for gren?” Jak asked.

“We need at least thirty yards,” Krysty replied, her animated hair flexing and turning in response to her heightened emotional state.

“I…My friends, while I truly appreciate these sentiments, honor forces me to remind you that we do not have to stay,” Doc noted hesitantly in his stentorian voice. “We can simply leave and jump to another redoubt. With luck, Delphi will never find us again.”

“Or nightcreep next week!” Jak shot back scornfully, drawing his Colt Python. “Not run. Ace now!”

“I agree,” Krysty stated forcibly. “We should stay.”

“But still, madam—”

“Dark night, if we rabbit now, we could find ourselves ambushed after every damn jump,” J.B. added, using his free hand to adjust his fedora. “We arrive weak and sick, then in rushes Delphi.” He vehemently shook his head. “I don’t want to get chilled on my knees puking. That’s a bastard-poor way to buy the farm.”

“There is no good way to die, John,” Mildred countered, patting his arm. She had seen death a thousand times before and Thomas Hobbes had been right—it was always ugly and brutish. “But I’d rather face it on my feet with a gun in my hand. Next time, we may not have an implo gren.”

“Fucking A,” Jak added emphatically.

“Has anybody considered the possibility that Delphi isn’t even here?” Mildred added. “Or that he hasn’t attacked yet because of the spare parts?”

“Too valuable to risk, eh?” Ryan said thoughtfully, rubbing his unshaved chin. It was an interesting idea, and opened a host of possibilities. Unfortunately there were far too many possibilities and not enough hard answers.

“Krysty, can you sense anything?” he asked hopefully.

“No…not really,” the woman said hesitantly, trying to concentrate harder. Sometimes she could feel the presence of danger long before it arrived—hidden coldhearts, sleeping muties, even acid rain. Her talent had saved their lives more than once. It was also not very reliable, waxing and waning.

Closing her eyes, the woman tried to focus on the cyborg, but stopped after a few minutes. It was useless. The redoubt was full of automatic devices that kept the place spotlessly clean and scrubbed the air. How could she pinpoint just one more machine? Ruefully, Krysty glanced at the piles of boxes. Besides, exactly how much of Delphi was still norm anymore, and how much had been replaced with plastic and steel?

“Well?” Ryan prompted.

“Sorry, lover,” Krysty answered regretfully. “But I’m still too weak from the jump.”

Ryan grunted at that. Fair enough. It had been a long shot at best. “Okay, we do this the hard way,” he stated. “Doc, you can stay here to guard the boxes if you want, but we’re going hunting.”

“Then consider me Ajax of Troy!” Doc rumbled, standing a little taller. “I shall not fall on my sword!”

Jak raised a snowy eyebrow.

“I shall not fail.”

“Ah.”

Then Doc’s voice took on a more gentle aspect. “And thank you, my friends,” he said, looking around at them. “I…Thank you.”

Slapping the man on the back in reply, Ryan started for the control room with the others close behind, but Mildred stopped them.

“Wait a second,” she said, a sly grin forming. “Leaving is actually not a bad idea.”

“Really, madam!” Doc said askance.

Mildred snorted. “Not us, ya old coot. The boxes.”

Ryan paused. He had considered smashing all of the parts, but that would take hours, and it was still possible that the cyborg might be able to use some of the bits. But he couldn’t do drek if they were gone.

“Good thinking, Millie!” J.B. said, grinning wide. “Come on, let’s scatter his shit across the world! Remember what Trader said—denying an enemy necessary supplies is halfway to winning any fight.”

“The other half is blowing out his brains,” Ryan added. “All right, I’ll stay here and watch the exit through the control room. The rest of you get moving!”

As the others headed for the boxes, Ryan leveled his longblaster at the door leading into the redoubt. At the first sign of movement he would open fire. But even if Delphi was standing on the other side, he felt sure the cyborg wouldn’t attack them straight on. The nuking coward liked to strike from behind, to lay traps or to hire mercies to do his fighting. Doc had almost aced the bastard all by himself, and this time the nuke-sucker would face all of the companions. The old man wasn’t a blood relative, but some families were forged from friends in the heat of battle.

Blood brothers, Mildred called them. Ryan liked the term. It said a lot in a few words. Blood brothers. None of the companions were related, but there was no doubt they were a family. And kin helped kin.

Forming a ragged line, the other companions started passing the boxes along and stacking them in the mat-trans unit. When it was full, Krysty tapped random buttons on the control panel, left the gateway and closed the door, triggering a jump. A few ticks later, a white mist rose from the floor and ceiling, and the complex machinery performed its function. A series of ethereal lights danced within the swirling cloud, then the sparkles diminished and the mist slowly dissipated to show the unit was empty again.

“Dark night, look how many boxes are left!” J.B. stated, studying the remaining pile. “Must be enough parts here to build a dozen copies of the bastard. Just how bad did you shoot up his ass, Doc?”

“As much as possible,” the old man replied with a note of pride in his voice. “However, I have noted that there were no spare brains among this grotesque array of medical effluvia. These must be simply spare parts for the next time he is damaged.”

“Which means he’s not making an army of himself,” Krysty said, hoisting another box. The lower they got in the pile, the heavier each box became and the parts got larger.

“Quite so, dear lady.”

“Good,” Jak snarled, taking the container. “One enough.”

Accepting the box, Mildred added, “More than enough.”

“Agreed, madam.”

“If these important, then where guards?” Jak asked suspiciously, continuing the process. A lid shifted, revealing a pair of lungs. Fighting down a shiver, the teenager tossed the container into the gateway. For some reason, the body parts reminded him of the cannies they’d come across back in Louisiana.

“We’re hardly out in the open,” Krysty replied. “This is the center of a nukeproof redoubt. No place safer in the world.”