Eden’s Twilight (27 page)

Sluggishly, Ryan awoke with a major headache, throbbing and pounding like badly tuned machinery.

The room was pitch black. There was an awful metallic taste in his mouth and a dull pain just to either side of the small of his back, near his kidneys. The one-eyed man knew what that meant. These were the exact same sensations as that time in the South Pacific when he had been electrocuted. The nets had to have been wired. And unless the he missed his guess, they were now on the other side of the wall.

A low moan sounded from somebody nearby. Ryan tried to turn his head, but the exertion was almost more than he could bear. Every muscle ached, and he was blind. Stone blind! A brief panic filled the man, then he snorted in annoyance and used his bound hands to push the leather eyepatch to the left side of his head. Probably just a little joke from the captors.

Now, Ryan could see that they were in a small brick room. There was no window, and a single cot was bolted to the wall. There was a toilet and a sink in the corner, and a large metal door without visible hinges, doorknob or lock. It was a predark jail cell.

The other companions were nearby on the cold stone floor, and everyone was stripped down to their underwear.

“A-anybody hurt?” Ryan croaked softly, his throat raw.

Coughing and trembling, the companions began to stir, their motions stiff and awkward, but they were awake and moving.

Just then, footsteps could be heard coming from the other side of the closed door, and the lock rattled. Immediately, the companions lay back on the icy floor and pretended to be unconscious.

As the door swung open, Ryan risked a peek from his good eye and saw a big man wearing a baseball cap enter the room and softly close the door behind. Holding an oil lantern, the sec man was carrying a ring of keys, and there was a wheelgun tucked into his gunbelt, along with a set of handcuffs, a can of mace and a large knife.

“So, how they doing?” somebody yelled from down a hallway.

“Still out!” the sec man replied, nudging Jak with the toe of his boot. “Hell, they'll be out until dawn after the voltage we zapped 'em with!”

“Then leave 'em alone, and come back to the game!” a third voice suggested. “At least let the condemned have a decent night's sleep before we start the interrogation!”

Ryan felt his muscles tighten at those words. So they were condemned, eh? Bad move, fleeb, Ryan thought.

“Yeah, guess so,” the sec man said, gently nudging Mildred with his boot.

At the touch, the physician rolled over and arched her back, wantonly thrusting out her breasts. The man stared at the display, then J.B. grabbed his blaster, Jak snatched away the lantern, and Ryan lashed out with his bare foot to bury a heel in the stomach of the sec man. Breath exploded out his mouth in a rush, and he doubled over. Ryan grabbed the man by the hair with iron fingers and rammed his knee into the man's face again and again, to the sound of breaking bones. Then he twisted the head sharply, and the sec man went completely limp.

Looting the corpse, the companions took what weapons he had, and Ryan went to the door with the cocked blaster in his grip. Listening for a moment, he turned and pointed at the others. They nodded and quickly assumed positions.

Jak and Doc hid the corpse under the bunk, while Mildred lay on the cold floor and faced the door. Quickly donning the cap and pants of the dead guard, J.B. knelt between Mildred's legs while the others went back on the floor and feigned being unconscious. Turning the lantern to the lowest setting, Ryan placed it on top of the bunk to mask the body underneath, then bundled the shirt of the aced man into a ball and held it tightly to the barrel of the S&W .38 blaster. A small part of his mind wondered why the guards would have a predark blaster when Cascade could make new blasters.

At a nod from Ryan, J.B. started thrusting between the physician's legs, and Mildred began moaning and groaning.

After a few moments of no reaction from outside the cell, the Armorer began slapping her thigh, miming the classic sounds of rough sex.

“What the fuck was that?” a muffled voice asked.

“Sounds like Jimbo is already interrogating one of the female prisoners.” The other man chuckled. “Probably that redhead. You see those big tits?”

“Sure as hell did. Gave 'em a squeeze when nobody was looking, too.”

“You dog!”

“Flesh is flesh.” He chortled. “Even that of stinking outsiders.”

Sprawled on the floor, Krysty's animated hair began to writhe furiously, then with an iron effort of will she commanded it to be still. Gradually, the movements slowed and the filaments went still.

“You know, the mayor's gonna be madder than a wet hen if she finds out old Jim been riding a prisoner,” the second voice stated.

There was a pause, then the sound of a wooden chair scraping across a stone floor. “Yeah, guess so.”

“You gonna stop him?”

“Nah, just bring a bucket of water to make him wash her out afterward!”

The two men roared in crude laughter, and Mildred paused for a moment in the pretend rape, her pretty face distorting into a feral mask. Looking down at the woman he loved, John Barrymore gave a snort, and she fixed upon his eyes, and the two lovers nodded in unison, then started making more noise than ever before.

“Aw fuck, the folks outside are gonna hear that shit,” the first voice complained unhappily. There came the jingling of loose keys on a ring. “Hey, Jimbo, cut out the noise, old buddy! You're gonna get us into trouble!”

“Goddamn, stupid ass, son of a bitch…” the voice outside the closed door grumbled, keys jingling. Then the lock rattled and the door opened slightly, admitting a slice of light across the dark cell and the people on the floor.

Instantly, Ryan fired, the report of the wheelgun greatly reduced by the wad of cloth held to the barrel. The two slugs hit the guard in the belly, and he folded over with a groan, exposing the other sec man sitting at a desk with playing cards in his hands. His jaw dropping, the man threw away the cards and clawed for his blaster. Firing from within the cell, Ryan got the guard in the face, blood, eyes and teeth flying away to splatter on a corkboard covered with maps of the ville.

Easing out of the cell, Ryan swept the stolen blaster around the office, looking for more targets, when there came the sound of a toilet flushing, and an elderly sec man stepped out of a bathroom, drying his hands on a small towel.

Ryan fired, but the old man dived out of the way and came up with a sleek black automatic pistol. He aimed and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Muttering curses, the man fumbled with the safety. Ryan almost felt bad as he shot the sec man directly in the heart, and then again in the head to make sure the job was done. These people were total amateurs.
The sec men probably hadn't been in a real fight their whole lives. Well, he thought, that was about to change triple fast!

Doing a fast recce to make sure the rest of the small building was empty, Ryan found four more cells like the first, and one more with a wooden chair bolted to the floor, the armrests and back covered with leather straps and hooks for chains. There were no knives or screws or other torture instruments on the walls, so he guessed the locals did their questioning the old-fashioned way. Simply punch the victim long enough, and eventually he or she would talk. Once when he had been captured by a mad baron out west, Ryan had seen an outlander last four whole days of just such a brutal beating before finally breaking and telling the baron where he had hidden the precious cache of stolen machine parts. When death finally came, the poor bastard had seemed honestly pleased. Most barons could find a lunatic eager to disassemble folks, but vital information was often lost that way as the madman lost control.

Past the interrogation room, Ryan found a large supply closet full of ammo, blasters, bulletproof vests, several LAW rocket launchers and a lot of assorted grens, the different types separated into individual milk crates: thermite, shrapnel, stun, white phosphorus and so on. It was an impressive collection. Only the implo gren was missing, which meant that somebody had recognized the advanced technology. There was also a small safe, but the steel door was locked. Sagely, Ryan guessed that was the location of the implo gren. From some of the faded wanted posters on the walls, it seemed clear that this had once been the evidence room for a sheriff's office, but now it was the armory for the ville sec men.

Rejoining the rest of the companions in the front office, Ryan set down a crate of grens. The others were already looting the dead men for clothing and blasters, but Jak gave a soft whistle from the corner, and the companions saw their belongings spread out on a large table. Everything was present,
but had been searched: pockets turned inside out, knives removed from sheaths, spare socks unrolled, even the brass had been removed from the blasters, a dozen rounds opened and the powder spilled for inspection.

Retrieving their own personal weapons, the companions spent a tense few minutes reloading while Ryan stood guard with the stolen wheelgun, closely watching the front door for any sign of motion. Thick wooden shutters covered the inside of the windows, and he could guess that was partially to offer the sec men protection in case they were attacked, but mostly to afford them privacy for brutal interrogations.

“Here you go, lover!” Krysty whispered, tossing something to him.

Deftly, Ryan made the catch with one hand and, working the slide on his SIG-Sauer to chamber a round, the one-eyed warrior stood a bit easier with two weapons balanced in his fists.

When the others finished dressing, Ryan did the same, then helped J.B. and Doc drag the bodies into the cell and lock the door. Reclaiming the bathroom towel, Krysty poured what smelled like real coffee out of a thermos and wiped the floor clean. Hopefully, that would mask the telltale copper reek of fresh blood.

“That real coffee I smell?” J.B. asked hopefully.

“Thermos full,” Ryan said, jerking a thumb. “Help yourself.”

“What are these?” Krysty asked, lifting a brown sugary ring from a pile on a small plate. The smell was heavenly, almost narcotic, and the woman wondered if the sec men had been indulging in some sort of narcotic binge of drugs and cards, working themselves up to the bloody job of torture.

“It's called a doughnut,” Mildred said. “Nothing but fat, sugar and salt. Just what we need to keep us going after being fried like chicken nuggets in that damn net.”

Seeing the others hesitate, the physician took one and
stuffed it whole into her mouth. “Iz goof!” she mumbled happily.

After a hesitant nibble, the rest of the companions agreed and cleaned off the plate in a few minutes.

“In regard to the time we were unconscious, perhaps it is not my place to inquire, but…I…That is…” Doc blushed crimson. “Have either of you ladies been…harmed in any way?”

“Never better,” Krysty said, giving him a puzzled look. “Just sore as hell in my damn kidneys. Why? Don't we look okay?” Then comprehension flared, and she gently smiled at the time traveler. “No, we're fine, Doc. Nobody actually rode us while we were asleep.”

“Glad to hear it,” J.B. growled. “Now I only want to ace these bastards, without taking them apart first.”

Using the heavy desk to block the door, the companions raided the small armory, taking everything they could comfortably carry, especially bulletproof vests and the rocket launchers. They were very lightweight, only ten pounds or so, and came with a strap for carrying them across the back.

Next, J.B. went straight to the safe, but the combination dial proved to be his match, and the Armorer finally relented with a dark expression.

Spotting a first-aid box on the wall, Mildred hurried over eagerly, but it only contained things she already had in her med kit: plastic bags of clean cloth for bandages, leather strips for tourniquets, sterile water for washing wounds, plus a few tiny bottles of tinctures and jars of unguent. Just homemade brews and field bandages. Damn.

“These assholes have been stealing everything they could for decades,” J.B. whispered, stuffing his munitions bag with grens.

“Not that it did them any good,” Doc snorted, working the slide on a .44 Desert Eagle piston. The handcannon and spare clips went into the pockets of his rumpled frock coat.

“Now what?” Mildred asked, taking down a lever-action Winchester. Although it was the terror of the Old West in its day, now the longblaster was considered slow and cumbersome. However, it was the only thing in the armory equipped with a telescopic sight. That could make a big difference.

“Now we find out if the war has started yet,” Ryan stated, heading back to the front office.

Turning off the lanterns, the companions let their sight adjust to the darkness, then eased open the shutters to peek outside. Rows of armed men and women were across the street in the town square, receiving a speech from a woman standing inside a small gazebo. Behind the sec men was a mob of women with wheelbarrows full of wicker baskets.

“Christ, I feel like I'm going insane,” Mildred whispered, rubbing her temple. “A mowed lawn, water, sprinklers, bird baths, parking meters for God's sake!? Never thought I'd ever live to see such things again.”