Eden's Twilight

Chapter Four

Hopping to the floor, Krysty started looking among the piles of wreckage, turning over this and that. The others joined her and tried to stay out of the way.

“What exactly are we looking for, dear lady?” Doc asked, using his ebony stick to nudge a partially melted hunk of droid.

“This,” Krysty said, lifting a laser from the piles of loose rubble. The weapon was in good shape, with only a few scratches on the barrel, but the lens at the end reflected the candlelight like a mirror. “Now all we need is some wiring and a live battery!”

“Burn through mil armor?” J.B. cried out. “Unless we find a nuke battery, I don’t think we’ll have that kind of power. Mebbe a shot or two, but not much more.”

“That might just be enough,” Ryan muttered, studying the UCV. “Not on the doors, but on the roof hatch. The lock is probably made of regular steel, nothing special. If they were trying to save jack, why armor something nobody is ever going to reach?”

“Makes sense,” Jak said hesitantly. “But how shoot something inside locked wag?”

Mildred burst into laughter. “How? We shoot it through the window!”

“Exactly,” Krysty declared, hugging the laser.

Long ago, when the companions were battling a robotic tank armed with a laser cannon, Mildred had told them how a laser worked on light absorption. A green-colored laser did very little damage to a green target, or a blue laser to a blue target, and so on, which was why most military lasers were polycyclic, able to shift through the entire spectrum every second. That way they always did maximum damage. Back in high school, Mildred had seen a demonstration of the principle. Her teacher had inflated a blue balloon inside a clear one, then zapped it with a blue-colored laser. The blue balloon popped, but the clear one was unharmed.

If the Lexan plastic was clean enough and could take the heat expansion, Mildred thought, then the energy beam should go through the window as if it were empty air. It had been an interesting demonstration, one of her favorites, and now it was coming in handy to unlock a tank.

Placing the laser on the flattened hood of a Hummer, J.B. and Mildred checked the weapon to make sure it was in working condition. The rest of the companions scavenged through the assorted wreckage and hauled out a wide variety of batteries and power couplers. Each droid seemed to have a unique power source, almost as if they had been individually constructed. It was a ridiculous concept, but nothing else made any sense.

Wrapping his hands in some dry cloth, Ryan went through the batteries, checking the power level by touching the terminals with a piece of wire and studying the resulting spark. Most simply gave a weak crackle, but one flashed like a miniature lightning bolt.

“All right, this one will do,” Ryan said, unwrapping his hands. “It’s full of juice.”

“Nuke?” Jak asked curiously.

“Don’t think so, more likely it’s just an accumulator, with a limited amount of stored power.”

“Which means only a brief test shot before we try to burn the lock,” J.B. muttered, attaching dif gauges of wire together to try to regulate the voltage. “This may take a while…Nope, we’re ready. Okay, here goes nothing. Fire in the hole!”

When the others were out of the line of fire, J.B. touched the ground wire to the main terminal of the droid battery. At first nothing seemed to happen, then the laser began to softly hum, rapidly building in volume and strength. A scintillating beam shot from the end across the truck garage to hit the far wall. The cinder blocks exploded from the thermal expansion, then the already weakened section tumbled down in a cloudy avalanche of powdered concrete, sand and salt.

“Excelsior!” Doc grinned, brandishing a raised fist. “A weapon fit for Ra himself!”

“How aim?” Jak asked, kneeling to squint along the device. Instead of a smooth barrel like a blaster, there were rings, metal fins and all sorts of odd stuff to block a clear view.

“Couldn’t aim, not really,” J.B. replied, laying aside the wires. “I had to shoot from the hip. How’s the arm, Millie?”

“Still pretty sore,” she said suspiciously. “Why? You…you don’t want me to fire this Frankenstein monster, do you?”

“Sure. Aside from me, you’re the best shot,” Ryan said in blunt honesty. “And you’ve had a bastard lot more experience with lasers.”

“Plus, madam, with such limited resources,” Doc continued, displaying his oddly perfect teeth, “the task may require, if you will excuse the pun, surgical precision.”

“True enough,” Mildred said, hefting the weapon to guess the weight. “There’s not much play on this power cable. Can you make it any longer?”

“No prob,” J.B. said, reaching down to rip a handful of high-voltage cable from the guts of a spider.

Going to the UCV, Mildred found the roof hatch, and with the assistance of Krysty and Doc built a low mound of debris to stand on. Then taking supplies out of her med kit, the physician cleaned a section of the Lexan plastic until it sparkled. Sadly, there was nothing she could do about the inside surface, other than hope that the laser would burn away any fingerprints or smudges. If not, the beam might reflect and go wild, possibly even coming right back into her face. It was a chilling possibility.

Just then, Ryan appeared on top of the vehicle. “Anytime you’re ready,” he said, waving a pry bar.

Nodding, Mildred went back to J.B. and got the laser. It now had several yards of wire attached, and she could move the cable freely.

Returning to the UCV, Mildred stood on the mound of debris and raised the laser, aiming carefully at the ceiling hatch. Briefly the woman wished that she had a laser pointer to check the angle. Then again, I might as well just wish for the door combination, Mildred thought.

“Everybody better get back in case of a ricochet,” Mildred warned, raising the laser. It felt light, not bulky enough to be a proper weapon. A gun had heft; you knew you were holding something deadly. This felt more like a toy, which was a good thing as her arm was kind of weak. But she could handle this small weight without undue effort.

“All clear!” J.B. shouted from far behind.

Centering herself, Mildred banished any distractions and felt herself slipping into the mind-set for surgery. There was no outside world, nothing else existed except her hands, the scalpel and the patient. Easy now…gently. Taking a deep breath, she held it for a few seconds, then exhaled and fired.

The rainbow beam shot through the window, and there was a brief flash as something was burned off the inside surface. Oddly, the Lexan plastic darkened slightly, as if trying to repel the beam, but it only lasted for a second, then the laser hit the roof hatch, missing the locking bar by an inch. Changing the angle, Mildred smoothly moved the beam back and forth along the slab of metal, breathing steadily as it turned bright red, then began to melt, white drops of molten steel dripping onto one of the cryo units. That almost made her falter, but the physician did not allow herself to react, and kept at the job. The Lexan plastic window was beginning to move, warping from the heat of the beam passing through, and she could feel the power cables growing uncomfortably warm against the back of her hand, but she was almost through the resilient handle when the beam abruptly died.

“Now, lover!” Krysty shouted.

On the roof, Ryan stepped to the hatch, shoved the pry bar into the thin crevice edging the smooth hatch and heaved with all of his might. For a long second, it seemed as if nothing was going to happen, then the muscles on his neck and arms started to distend, the bar started to bend slightly…and with a loud crack, the hatch flipped back to crash onto the roof.

Caught off balance, Ryan stumbled and nearly fell, but caught himself just in time.

“You did it, Millie!” J.B. laughed. “We’re in!”

“Hallelujah!” Doc cried, and Jak gave a whoop.

“Don’t go inside yet!” Mildred commanded, forcing her hands to release the laser. There was smoke trickling from the heat vents, and a silvery metal was dribbling from a melted hole in the side. The laser was aced beyond any conceivable repair, but it had done the job. “It’s been decades since this wag was open! Let the old air out first!”

“Way ahead of you,” Ryan said, dropping a burning piece of cloth through the open hatch. The fire went out before the fabric reached the floor, but the next one landed intact, the flames steady.

Satisfied, Ryan crawled through the hatch and landed inside the vehicle, his boots oddly silent on the cushioned flooring. Now he could see that everything seemed to be cushioned, floor, walls and ceiling. Even the jumpseats. Having once been inside a damaged APC as it rolled sideways down a hill, the man appreciated the need for the cushioning. Whoever built this thing knew about combat, that seemed for damn sure.

Lightning flashed past the milky windows of the garage and thunder softly rumbled as Ryan sidestepped past the softly humming cryogenic freezers to reach the rear of the wag. Undoing the restraining bolts, he pushed both of the armored doors open wide. Holding candles, the rest of the companions were already waiting there, and everybody clambered inside.

But as they did, something in the ceiling of the wag flickered, and the UCV became brightly illuminated. Thankfully blowing out the candles, the companions could now see that the interior of the wag was spotlessly clean, as if it had never been used before. There was an area in the back for cargo, with rings set in the walls for restraining straps. Just past the cryo units, both walls were lined with cushioned jumpseats, spacious gaps between them allowing for access to the numerous blasterports set in the wide windows. Each jumpseat was equipped with a safety harness, and a hinged bodybar that could be brought down from above.

Bypassing the cryo units, Krysty and Jak went straight to the front of the vehicle. As she slipped behind the wheel, the teen began digging under the gunnery seat.

Studying the dashboard, Krysty found a row of meters and indicators showing the ready status of the engines. She had to check again to make sure it was correct. Mother Gaia, there were two engines! A tandem set of power plants. This monster had to consume fuel like it fell free from the sky! Mebbe they could only use one engine at a time. Leaning closer, she found the appropriate controls, but touched nothing. First and foremost, they had to decide what to do with those cryogenic units. Her curiosity wanted to see them open, but she was getting an uneasy feeling. Had the droids been fighting to gain possession of the units, or to try to destroy them?

“Well?” Ryan demanded from the rear.

“She’s hot,” Krysty replied, swiveling around in the mobile chair. “Plenty of power, and juice.”

“Excellent!”

With a cry, Jak triumphantly unearthed a pair of military backpacks and opened them on the spot, pulling out a ball of socks, mosquito netting, a cloth cap, a paperback book and finally an MRE food pack.

“Got dozen!” the teenager cried happily.

But there was no reaction from the people clustered around the bulky devices filling the rear of the war wag. The devices were roughly shaped like coffins, but each stood over three feet tall. The units were connected to power outlets set in the base of the jumpseats, obviously still drawing nuke power after all these decades. On the side of each was painted the bar-’n’-star of the U.S. Air Force. Nobody considered it odd that the marines were hauling air force equipment.

“Fascinating,” Doc said, both hands on the head of his ebony walking stick. “I wonder who is inside. Another civilian like our dear physician?”

“Not with this sort of protection,” J.B. answered, tilting back his fedora. “More likely some big-time politician, mebbe even the president.”

“If it is, I shall have strong words with the man,” Doc muttered, twisting the handle on the stick to withdraw a few inches of the Spanish steel hidden inside, then slamming it shut again.

“Gonna kick his ass?” J.B. smiled tolerantly.

Doc pursed his lips. “Mayhap just a little.”

Silently running her hands over the complex controls, Mildred inspected the indicators showing the vital signs of the occupant. However, the readings were coded, the numbers meaningless to her.

“Wonder how we figure out what to do,” Mildred said.

“How about this.” Ryan rammed the stock of his longblaster directly onto the control panel.

There was a shower of sparks and the displays scrolled wildly. Then everything flashed brightly, and there came a hard series of sharp clicks, followed by a low hiss. The interior of the urban combat vehicle got cold as the gases vented, a white mist crawling across the soft floor. Then the lights began to strobe, rapidly increasing in tempo as a second control panel came online. The quivering needles of digital gauges swung into the red zone, then winked out of existence, closely followed by a fast series of hard clunks. The lid rose slightly, paused, then swung open all the way, revealing only a swirling cloud of icy fumes.

Rushing over, Krysty and Jak joined their friends as the inert gases slowly thinned away to expose an inhuman figure. Roughly the size of a man, the creature was a bizarre mixture of feline and canine characteristics, a doglike body topped with a cat head sporting two saberlike fangs over black lips. There was a hump on the shoulders, and the thing possessed a pair of long tails, each of them tipped with barbed hooks. The paws had claws on the front and spurs on the back.

“Hellhound…” Jak whispered in shock.

At the word, the supine creature trembled and slowly opened its yellow eyes.

Instantly the companions drew their blasters and fired nonstop into the beast. Still sluggish, the hellhound feebly tried to crawl out of the cryo unit, but it was hopeless, and soon the monstrous creature was torn to pieces by the hail of hot lead.

“Fragging mutie bastard!” J.B. snarled, wiping yellow blood from his cheek.

“Not mutie, biowep!” Jak retorted.

Yeah, he knew what those were. The predark government hadn’t been content to just unleash nukes upon the world, they had been developing various bioweps, living biological weapons genetically designed to terrify the enemy and keep fighting through the hard rads of skydark. Only the bioweps were tougher, and smarter, than the whitecoats figured. They got free, went feral, and began feasting on anybody they could find. In a world gone mad, they were living nightmares.

“What about other two?” Jak asked, thumbing fresh brass into the smoking Colt Python.

“Could be other hellhounds,” Mildred admitted grimly. “Or merely the handlers, the folks in charge of the things.”

“Or something even worse,” J.B. suggested.

“I say we let these sleeping dogs lie,” Doc added, waving the LeMat to disperse the thick fumes wafting from the muzzle.

“But if the handlers know how to control the hellhounds…” Krysty began hesitantly.

“Frag ’em. We can’t take the chance,” Ryan declared roughly, tucking the spent clip from the Steyr into a shirt pocket. “Doc and Jak, you two stand guard. If either of these control panels change color, start blasting.”

“Consider us Gog and Magog, sir!” Doc replied, blaster in one hand, bare sword in the other. “No mortal shall reach the golden shore!”

“Fucking A,” Jak added with feeling.

Ryan merely grunted at the literary allusion. “J.B., check the engines and see if this wag can still roll. Mildred, take care of your arm! We might need you soon. Krysty and I will check the Hummers for anything useful, juice in the tanks, oil, whatever. We meet back here in five. Now, haul ass!”

Heading off in different directions, everybody moved with a purpose.

“Need a hand, Millie?” J.B. asked, partially turned toward the front of the wag. “The angle is kind of hard to reach.”

“I’ve done worse, John,” she said, smiling gently, taking a seat far away from the open cryogenic freezer and its ghastly inhabitant. “But thanks for asking.” Everybody could patch a minor bullet wound these days, the skill was as common as the ability to change a car tire from her time.

“No problem,” J.B. said with a nod, and took the driver’s seat to start examining the controls.

The man was unfamiliar with this type of vehicle, but like all military wags, the controls were simple and straightforward, designed for soldiers to operate quickly in the thick of battle, or when wounded and confused. Setting the gearshift into neutral, he pumped the gas pedal a few times to prime the fuel lines, and pressed the ignition button. There immediately came a low whine, several muffled explosions, then a loud backfire, and the tandem engines revved wildly almost out of control. Quickly, he managed to turn one of them off, and the urban combat vehicle settled down to a low purr of controlled power.

“What’s the fuel situation?” Mildred asked through gritted teeth, her hand moving slowly as she sewed the slash in her arm shut. The curved needle had come from an upholstery store, and the line thread was lightweight fishing line. Soaked in alcohol and used with care, the combo always did a fine job. Most of the companions had some of her fine stitching in their skin.

“We have plenty of juice,” J.B. answered, tapping the fluttering gauge with a finger. “Nearly half full.”

“That much?”

“Yep.”

“Must be condensed fuel,” Mildred grunted, using a knife to cut the fishing line. It hurt, but pain was life. Only the dead felt nothing.

“That’d be my guess,” J.B. agreed, cutting the engine to save juice. Obviously the vehicle had nuke batteries, and those could generate power virtually forever. The tanks had to hold that weird condensed fuel they had found in the redoubts. The stuff worked equally well in gasoline or diesel engines, and it flatly refused to evaporate. Incredible. Some amazing major scientific advances had been made just before the world blew up.

Experimentally, the man tried the radio, but it only crackled with background static. Then J.B. switched on the radar, and it gave a steady monotone that puzzled him until he realized it was registering the ring of wrecked Hummers around them. Snorting a laugh, he turned it off. Well, at least it worked. There also was a joystick and video monitor set directly into the dashboard in front of the gunnery seat. Had to be for something mounted on the roof. The Fifty? Fragging excellent, J.B. thought.

A few minutes later, Ryan and Krysty arrived with their arms full and laid the items on the soft floor.

“What this?” Jak asked, kicking a large lump wrapped in canvas. The edges were ragged, and it took him only a moment to figure out that the swatch had been cut from the giant sheet used to cover the UCV.

“That is a .50-caliber machine gun,” Ryan said. “I saw the stanchion when I was on the roof, and knew that one of the Hummers had to be carrying the rapidfire. The soldiers probably took it down when driving through town to not frighten the civilians.”

“And brass?”

“Not for the Fifty,” Krysty answered, setting the toe of her cowboy boot into a recess set in the door and using it to climb into the wag. “But we have a dozen rounds of 5.56 mm for an M-16 rapidfire, and a couple of 9 mm rounds for the Uzi. Plus some rope, couple of maps and some magnesium road flares not too badly corroded.”

“No grens?”

“I think they used all they had,” Krysty said stoically, looking over the panorama of the chilled.

“Here, take this,” Ryan directed, proffering the end of a thick rope.

Jak started to ask what it was for, then smiled and dragged the heavy rope to the nearest cryogenic freezer and looped it around the box.