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Ryan barked a short laugh. “Good point. Still take it triple red, though. Let’s go.”
“TEAM SIX IN POSITION. These guys are good. They didn’t just walk in. They’ve scouted it, and they’re not going to be hurried. Thinkers as well as doers. I figure Toms wasn’t wrong, Chief.”
The haggard-looking man let the handset drop. He was gaunt, lines of trauma and experience etched into his face. His slight stoop told of too long spent hunkered down on surveillance. Like the previous observers, he wore what was an approximation of old military black commando fatigues, as was the younger, more muscled man of a similar height who accompanied him. His shoulders were squared, and he was almost visibly bristling with energy.
“They’re not going in. They’re going to climb it?” It was half question, half exclamation. “But surely they’d suspect—”
He was stayed by a hand from his superior. “Keep it down. Yeah, they know the risk, but they’ve figured some odds and are taking the ones that come up best. This should be real interesting. Obs post Delta will need to take this up. We can’t follow without being spotted. And the little guy knows we’re here. Just can’t place us.”
“Probably just as well,” the younger man said.
The haggard observer grinned without mirth. “Yeah? For who?” He lifted the handset. “Look, Chief, we can’t take this on anymore. Delta needs to use the scopes if they’re going up and over. So far, though, I’d say your judgment was bearing up well.”
He let the handset fall. The younger man was giving him a dubious look.
“What?” the haggard man questioned. “Look, you know what the chief is like. A little ass-licking always goes down well with him. It’s not like he doesn’t realize…”
AS HE SAID THAT, he was unaware that his words were being monitored. All handsets were adapted so that they transmitted at all times, no matter what the user might think.
The recipient of the observer’s comments laughed softly as he heard them. It wasn’t, as the haggard man suspected, anything that was new to him. But to hear it confirmed that the men of his sec force weren’t stupes. That was good. Intelligence was always to be rewarded in his world.
And that was what the ville of Arcady meant to Baron Arcadian. It was his universe, and one that he intended to expand—for which he would need able assistance, in all departments of his research and expansion. When Toms had told him—boasted, in truth—of the one-eyed man and his companions, then Arcadian knew that he would have to assimilate them into his organization.
So far, things had been going according to plan. His smile broadened as he recalled how easy it had been to make the little fat man yield to his will. Pleased with the new recruits to his convoy, Toms had been less than willing to strike the bargain. But he was easily bought. His greed, like that of any trader, was transparent. Appeal to that and his vanity, and it became easy to manipulate the result required. A new territory for the convoy to plunder. A few baubles for the man’s vanity—in this case, some old vids and books that were of little consequence but touched that secret desire within Toms—and he had soon acquiesced.
Arcadian stretched, yawned and stood. He had been seated in the communications room of his palace, deciding to oversee this operation himself. The radio tech had been dismissed, and the baron had taken his place. Five paces each way, and he had covered the room. Its walls were painted yellow, and although the brocaded chair was comfortable, the desk equally so, the room had no windows. Arcadian could see how the radio tech could grow dissatisfied and bored on a long shift. It was more like a cell than a place of work. He made a mental note to change the location of the room. Somewhere with more air and light.
Yet this was no altruistic urge. Arcadian believed in treating well those who worked for him not because he spared the merest thought for them as human beings; rather, he knew from long research and empirical experience that a man who was at ease in his place of work was better able to concentrate, and to do a good job.
And that level of performance was his minimum requirement.
Arcadian pushed his flowing, curly, black hair back from his forehead. He was a handsome man, well-muscled. He kept himself in shape, training hard. He was, he knew, the result of careful breeding. His forefathers chose the mothers of their children with care, to maintain the highest level of physical and mental condition in a world stripped of certainties by the nukecaust. It was his duty to look after what he had been given. It was a gift, and one that he had to pass down to his successors, when he had selected a mother for his offspring.
Stretching cramped muscles once more, he settled down in front of the receiver and sent out a message to Observation Station Delta. Located on the edge of the ville, positioned on a tower fashioned from two of the tallest trees in the vicinity, the men of Delta were on a camouflaged platform equipped with tech that had been salvaged and maintained through the decades. Tech that included heat-seeking scopes and infrared taken from a military base where the founders of Arcady had once lived and worked.
If the trial group—as he thought of them—was taking a route over the top of the maze, then this tech would locate them with ease.
He liked their thinking, though. He had to admit to that.
NEGOTIATING THE CLIMB up the side of the maze wall was the easy part. Although the leaves on the vines were as slippery and oily as those that hung from the trees, it was easy to get a grip on the thick stems of the vines. Each of the companions was able to get strong hand- and footholds, feeling the vine stem—as strong as wood, yet more pliable—move and give way to their weight, shifting so that it settled beneath them, actually helping to support them as they climbed, rather than have the rigidity of wood, forcing them to bend to positions awkward to balance.
Jak took point position, pulling his light frame up with ease, snapping back any observations about the way that the vine moved, and how the bramble could be avoided. Not only painful, a thorn in the hand from the stringy growth could also spell infection. They had no idea if the thorns were poisonous, and no intention of finding out the hard way.
When he had reached the top, Jak lay flat along the edge of the maze wall. The closely intertwined growth of branch, vine and bramble made it impossible to move in anything more than a crouch. Despite the fact that he was higher than before, he found that—if anything—the light here was reduced. It was almost as though the growth had been trained to develop more densely at this point, perhaps to make the maze darker. For there was no roof to the maze other than the canopy of foliage. As he looked along, he could see dimly the shape of the maze, described by the top of each section of the wall. It seemed to stretch on to infinity, the darkness swallowing any shape into black.
Beckoning the others to follow, Jak waited until they had started to ascend—Krysty and Mildred, then Doc, with Ryan and J.B. keeping watch at the base of the wall before following on—before striking out in the gloom. Mindful of any birds or tree-dwelling reptiles that might be along the way, Jak forged a path through the overhanging branches and leaves. The dark green foliage seemed to cling to his clothes and skin as he passed. It was an unpleasant sensation, but if that was all the obstruction they would face, he would be more than satisfied.
The others followed as he picked his way across the tops of the stone walls. It was far from simple. The walls, although of thick stone, had jagged and uneven surfaces. Chunks and pebbles broke off underfoot, causing the companions to stumble and slip. As if this wasn’t enough, the walls were thick with guano from the small birds that nested in the branches that brushed the tops of their heads. The gloop built up in ridges that were treacherous underfoot. Slime from the leaves and vines only added to the unsure footing.
Looking down from time to time, they could see that the maze was complex. The light was dim, but it was still discernible that within the dead ends there were traps: areas of black with glinting metal points that caught the occasional stray ray of light betrayed a number of simple man-traps; grilles and spiked traps that were released by the passing of a man were also visible, the thin wires that triggered them catching the light from above, but invisible from ground level. Most insidious were the hinged sections that could be seen: anyone passing would trigger the hinged doors that would cut off passage back, leaving the unsuspecting wayfarer trapped between the door and a dead end, either to starve to death or to be retrieved by any sec.
Jak knew that they weren’t being shadowed as before. He could tell from the sounds and smells around him that they were alone up on top of the maze. Yet all the same he could feel something indefinable, yet there. Someone had an eye on them.
Someone who wasn’t yet hostile, but was biding his time.
But for what?
“DELTA REPORTING. Their progress so far is good. The small albino is leading them. He seems to be the most adept at this kind of maneuver. The one-eyed man, despite being leader, is bringing up the rear of the party. He’s not afraid to delegate. They appear to be scouting the maze as they go, perhaps for future note if they happen across it once more. The natural hazards seem to prevent no obstacle to them.”
The team leader of the Delta post paused and turned to where his three-man team was working. One of them was trying to make purely visual contact. It was still early afternoon, and the light was good—little cloud cover and a bright sun. However, the thick canopy of foliage that overlay the maze obstructed much direct viewing, and even with the high-powered rifle scope he was using to keep track, the sec man had to confess that he was losing sight of them more often than actually seeing them.
The other two members of the team had fared better, however. One was using an infrared scope that penetrated the gloom of the canopy. With that, he was able to see the order in which they had ascended, and also track their progress. His colleague, equipped with heat-seeking tracking equipment, was able to see in greater detail the way in which they were moving, and to detect when one of them paused to look down into the maze.
His only problem was that the image on his monitor would freeze or cut out for a few seconds, before returning as before. Like much of the equipment in Arcady that had been salvaged, maintenance was good, but age was beginning to tell. Word had it that Arcadian’s research team was back-engineering this equipment to learn fully how it worked, and to see if they could synthesize components that were unavailable in a post-nukecaust world.
The only reason that this crossed his mind was that the bastard screen did it again, just at the moment when the albino reached the lip of the maze wall on the ville side. He cursed as the screen flickered and went black, muttering to himself impatiently as he waited for it to come back.
“They’re clear,” he announced as the screen fizzed before clicking back into color, showing the group descending the wall.
“THAT WAS MOST unpleasant,” Doc said, dusting himself down with an expression of distaste at the guano he dislodged, “but if it is all we have to endure, then I think we should count ourselves lucky.”
“Somehow, I think there may be something in store for us,” Ryan mused.
They continued without pause. Now they were back on the ground, Ryan and J.B. took the lead, hacking a path through the undergrowth with the panga and the Tekna knife. Jak brought up the rear, and it was not long before he started to hang back.
“Jak?” Doc queried, noticing this. “Is there something we should know?”
“Not sure…something come. Too clumsy for watchers from before. Not animal.”
“WHOO-HOO!” exclaimed the Delta team member with a high-powered scope as he made a sweep of the surrounding country. “They’ve got trouble. The usual fuckers.”
“It’ll be interesting to see how they handle it,” the team leader said before reporting the sighting.
Chapter Four
At first they couldn’t hear it. Jak knew which from which direction it originated, but all they could go on was his judgment. Sound enough, but still bewildering when you listened for something you knew had to be there, but couldn’t find.
They stood, poised, feeling that they should do something—but what? Until they could scent the danger for themselves there was little they could do to effectively prepare.
And then they heard it—a deep, distant rustling. Small noises made by the small animals and birds that inhabited the dense woodlands had been identified to such an extent that the friends were no longer even conscious of them. Now there was a louder rustling that seemed to stretch over a wider expanse of ground.
“Spread out,” Ryan ordered. “Stay in sight, but keep down.”
There was little else to say. Blasters drawn and ready, the six companions spread out in a skirmish line, facing to the east of the maze wall.
Ryan and Jak took each end of the line. J.B. moved to the middle to act as anchor man as the friends spread out. Mildred and Krysty were nearest to him, while Doc remained between Mildred and Jak. With J.B. acting as anchor, it was an uneven line, but as always there was the unspoken assessment that Doc was the least effective fighter in such situations. Protecting him in this way didn’t go unnoticed by those who watched.
“THEY’RE CLOSING IN on each other. Our targets have taken a formation that protects the old man. The one-eye and the guy in glasses know their strengths, and have used that to get a little balance.”
Arcadian’s voice crackled over the air. “How many are they facing?”
The team leader looked to his men. Heat-seeking and infrared showed blobs of heat and light that fused and melded. Some of the attacking party were moving too close together to be counted accurately. He looked to the observer with the high-powered scope.
“Hard to say for sure. I count twelve at some times, fourteen at others. Think that there may be up to three others I can’t pin down. I’d say they’re outnumbered three to one.”
The team leader whistled softly. “Don’t like those odds. Should we step in and take the rebels out?” he asked the baron.
There was a pause while Arcadian considered. Finally his reply came through. “Leave them. It would be simple to deploy men and disperse them, but this way we get to test their true mettle. It may save wasting time later on. Do not—I repeat, do not—intervene.”
The team leader raised an eyebrow. “Very well, sir.” He shrugged at the questioning glances of his team. “It’s not down to me. It’s going to be a bloodbath down there.”
RYAN LOOKED across the line. Jak and Doc were out of sight, though he could see Mildred’s head bobbing in the undergrowth. J.B. was still upright, scoping the line. Krysty was close enough for him to see clearly. He knew that his thoughts would be echoed in the minds of all of them. As the enemy—assume that now, ask questions later—approached, the sounds of their progress began to separate so that it was possible to pick out numbers and more accurate locations.
They seemed to be moving in four groups, three or four in each. The sound of their footsteps on the undergrowth, no matter how silently they tried to move, was audible. Bramble and fallen branches littered the forest floor so thickly that it was impossible for them not to snap and break some of the dry, dead foliage. Volleys of small, sharp sounds announced the multiple numbers of each group.
Because they moved in clusters, rather than as individuals, it was impossible for them not to cause disturbance in the foliage that they used as cover. Ripples of green spread across a line, a wave of motion that would have made tracking hard if they had moved as individuals. But in a group, the epicenter of each breaking wave was easily spotted.
A bloodbath, all right—Ryan knew it would have to be if they were going to take out the superior numbers before they had a real chance to attack. To do this the companions would have to keep their positions unknown for as long as possible. The only way to gain an edge would be to stay still and hold your nerve until it was time to fire.
Ryan looked at his friends. They would know this, but a hand signal relayed his intent to J.B. and Krysty. In turn, the Armorer passed it on down the line.
If they had just been unlucky enough to be here when an enemy stumbled on them, then it should work. If the enemy was headed this way because they had a location, then it might be different.
Whatever, there was only one thing they could do now.
Wait.
“REPORT,” Arcadian’s voice snapped.
The team leader looked directly into the mangroves. Their targets were in plain sight from the post now that they had traversed the maze, and the rebel force moving toward them was now in vision.
“Our targets are staying put, keeping down. They’re letting the rebels come to them.”
“Do the rebels know they are there?” the baron asked.
The team leader sucked in his breath. “Can’t say for sure. It doesn’t look like it, though. Scavengers headed for Sector Eight, at a guess.”
“Very well. Keep them all in view and do not interfere. This should be instructive.”
“It should be a whole lot more than that,” the team leader muttered under his breath. “A whole lot more.”
THEY WERE CLOSING in. Ryan sank closer to the ground, hunkered on his haunches. He could see that Krysty and J.B. were doing the same. The others were already out of sight. Now, as he rested the Steyr on his thigh, cradling it gently, he felt alone. Insects buzzed and hummed in the grass and bramble around him, swooping in and out of the tangled vines that were now at eye level.
Sweat prickled at his hairline, itching as it ran down his face, under the eye patch and into the empty socket. He moved his free hand slowly, using the back of it to wipe sweat out of his good eye.
His thighs started to ache. He shifted his weight, careful to keep his balance. The rustling ahead of him was getting louder with each beat of his heart. The waves of movement started to move the grass and vine that was only a hundred or so yards from him.
He raised the Steyr, cocked and ready to fire on sight.
No way could he blink. The warm air, moist as it was, seemed to dry out his eye, make him want to blink. He felt it begin to water.
He couldn’t blink; that would be the moment they were on him.
And then the grasses and vines parted. Three people moved in a crouch. Were they armed? He couldn’t see, and there wasn’t time to ask.
Down the line, someone fired. The staccato chatter of J.B.’s mini-Uzi, set on 3-shot burst, was followed by a scream.
It was enough to make at least one of the group in front of him look around. Frozen for a moment, distracted, he wasn’t the immediate danger. Ryan took out one of the others instead. Squeeze, ride the recoil as the Steyr exploded, then roll to the side so that any return fire would hit empty space.
The man he had aimed at—skinny limbs, paunch, in camou rags—suddenly had no face. There had only been the briefest impression of a lined face, watery eyes and a gray-flecked beard. Now there was only blood, his head snapped back on his neck by the impact.
One of the other two yelled, then raised the blaster in his fist, a remake of a revolver of some kind—long barrel, maybe a Colt Peacemaker.
The man with the revolver fired blindly in the direction from which he thought the shot had come. He would still have missed Ryan. As it was, he didn’t stand a chance. The next shell from the Steyr clipped him on the shoulder, spinning him as he fell back, down but possibly not out. He was spared from a chilling by Ryan having to fire while still slightly off balance.
The third man, initially distracted, was now much more alert. He had a battered subgun, raking the area where he thought the fire had originated. Ryan went flat, his head down, tasting the bitter grass and the grit of the dirt beneath. The SMG fire flew above his head, hitting tree trunk and vine alike. Sweet sap splattered him, the smell blending oddly with the cordite from the Steyr. Chips of bark rained on him.
The fire stopped, and Ryan risked raising his head.
Both men were gone from view.
Blasterfire came from his right. He recognized, without having to think, the roar of Doc’s LeMat as the old man loosed the shot charge. That accounted for some of the high-pitched, agonized screams. This close, the old blaster couldn’t fail to hit home.
But let the others look out for themselves. At least for the moment. He couldn’t help them until he was safe himself.
Who were these guys? They seemed to have just stumbled on the companions rather than tracked them. There was no plan of attack that Ryan could see. So if they had been tracked, as Jak thought, then that had to mean another group was out there somewhere.
But that was irrelevant. It passed through the back of his mind while his forebrain concentrated on staying alive.
One down. Two standing. One wounded, the other gone to ground. How many more? Ryan, belly to the ground, slithered across the grass and vine, ignoring the brambles that snagged his clothes and tore at his skin. They’d been careful not to be pricked before, in case the thorns were venomous. Screw that. He’d take a chance rather than be blasted to oblivion.
He moved toward where the second man had fallen. Straining his neck to see upward as he crawled, he could see the feet of the chilled man.
Branches cracked to his left. He rolled so that he was on his back, his stomach muscles straining to pull his torso up at the waist. The guy with the subgun moved out from behind a tree. Almost in slow motion, the world slowed to an agonizing degree; he could see the man’s biceps pulse as he squeezed the trigger.
Ryan squeezed off a round from the Steyr, which caught the man full in the chest, above the cradle of his arms as they steadied the SMG. He pitched backward, the arc of his fire spewing upward and out as he fired while buying the farm, one arm holding the SMG while the other flew off in impact.
The one-eyed man threw himself backward, his muscles protesting at the sudden reverse in direction. The fire roared over his head and torso. He could almost feel the hot lead as it raked the air above him.
His stomach muscles felt as if they were made of that same hot lead. He wanted to gasp, breath deeply, recover, but there was no time.
Not yet. Two down. One still out there. At least, he hoped it was just one. He was fucked if the others hadn’t dealt with their opponents, or if the enemy was fluid.
There was only one way to find out.
Without pause, Ryan rolled again, his head raised as he came onto his stomach, scoping out the territory. In the maelstrom of sound that had erupted—and was still in full blast—from his left, it was almost impossible to pick out small sounds that were happening closer. But that was what he needed to do. Ryan needed some indication, some sign of where the immediate enemy was.
Cautiously, he got to one knee, lifting himself a little, using his left elbow to support himself as he moved a little farther up from the ground. Scanning the area, he could neither see nor hear the enemy.
