Twenty-Four
“Ryan! Wake up! We’ve got a problem!”
Mildred Wyeth’s urgent voice cut through the dreadful jump disorientation and summoned Ryan Cawdor’s soul back to his pain-racked body. His stomach felt as if it had been wrenched inside out.
Bad one, he thought. Been through worse.
When he opened his eye, he was already being helped up by a firm, dry grip on his forearm. That would be J. B. Dix, Ryan’s chief lieutenant, best friend and the armorer of the small group of companions who traveled the Deathlands.
“Tell me something new,” Ryan said, slurring his words. He swayed as he got to his feet and was steadied by J.B. “Is everyone else awake?”
J.B. didn’t have time to answer the question.
“Muties!” Ricky Morales screamed. There was no mistaking the hideous shapes visible through the opaque armaglass walls of the mat-trans unit.
Ryan was back in command of his body, and he slammed the heel of his hand on the big red button by the keypad that controlled the workings of the gateway. The LD button was a fail-safe designed to transfer the companions back to their last destination.
No one had a desire to return to what remained of the ville of Progress, but that was the least of their worries.
Nothing happened.
“So we’re stuck here,” Mildred said after several moments.
The stocky black woman, her hair in beaded plaits, didn’t even flinch as a face pressed itself against the glass, becoming nearly visible through the opaque wall. Its nose was two holes above a wide-open mouth full of jagged teeth. Its eyes, though unnaturally round, were disconcertingly humanlike. Enough to show an almost intolerable rage.
* * *
“RYAN,” KRYSTY WORTH CALLED. The statuesque beauty was staring at the base of the armaglass walls. Her sentient red hair was still coiled tightly to her scalp, as it tended to do in times of severe stress. “Water’s building up in here.”
“Great,” Mildred moaned. “Isn’t this a bit coincidental? I mean muties, yeah. Muties are everywhere. But we jump in here and the place decides to flood right now?”
“With the chamber door closed securely, that should be nearly impossible,” said a tall, silver-haired man. He shot the cuffs of the dingy white shirt he wore beneath his black frock coat with an elegance that belied the shabbiness of the garment. Doc Tanner knew a little about the workings of the network—and the white coats who built them—because they’d trawled him out of his own time in the 1890s to use and abuse as a subject for their experiments in time. And when Doc proved to be a most unwilling subject, he was sent into the future to what was now the Deathlands. Their experiments had prematurely aged him. Although he appeared to be a man in his late sixties, Doc was really in his thirties.
Ryan drew his SIG Sauer P226 handblaster with his right hand and his panga with his left.
“Get ready to blast out of here,” he said. “J.B., you do the honors.”
The one-eyed man took in his little group with a sweeping glance. Krysty stood resolutely at his right shoulder, gripping her Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 revolver in both hands. Mildred stood just behind her, holding her more substantial .38 ZKR target revolver at the ready. Doc had drawn both his LeMat replica handgun, with the stubby shotgun barrel beneath its immense cylinder holding nine rounds of .44 Special, and the blade concealed in his ebony sword stick with the silver lion’s head. Ricky held his Webley top-break .45 revolver.
Ryan stood right behind J.B.’s left shoulder. The Armorer had his Uzi slung muzzle down over his shoulder and his Smith & Wesson M4000 riot shotgun held level. Jak Lauren stood at J.B.’s right.
“Ready?” Ryan asked. More muties seemed to be crowding into the anteroom.
“Ready as we’re going to be,” Mildred said. The others voiced their agreement.
“Hit it,” Ryan told J.B.
He maneuvered the lever that opened the door, and water swirled in, almost to the tops of Ryan’s boots. With it came stink of sewage so thick the one-eyed man almost choked.
J.B. was already striding forward through the anteroom with his scattergun held level. The mutie that had pressed its hideous face against the armaglass swung a black-taloned hand at the Armorer.
He blasted it in the belly with a charge of #4 buckshot. The weapon’s report almost imploded Ryan’s eardrums in the walled confines of the jump chamber. The mutie vented a high-pitched squeal and doubled over, clutching its ruptured gut with three-fingered hands.
The Armorer dealt it an uppercut with the butt of his longblaster. Its round head snapped up on its stalk neck and it fell over backward. It raised a splash of foul-smelling water that was already up to the tops of J.B.’s ankles. By now the rest of the companions had left the jump chamber and were all through the anteroom and into the control room.
The other muties closed in as Ryan and Jak fanned out to the sides. Ryan stepped forward to close with a mutie slashing overhand at him. He blocked with his left forearm and hacked at the creature’s upper arm with the panga.
It felt more as though the weapon was hitting dense mud or clay rather than flesh, but it struck bone. The mutie keened and struck with its left claw. Ryan kicked it in the belly, and it staggered back with thick blood oozing from the gash in its arm.
A mutie attacked from Ryan’s left. Doc stepped forward and thrust his sword
