PARADISE LOST

Crawling from the wreckage of Armageddon, humanity endures, mutated and forever altered. Gone are the comforts of civilization, replaced by a bloodlust to survive. Deathlands is a tortured landscape where peace and hope struggle to take root. Still, Ryan Cawdor and his band push onward, seeking a place to call home.

SWARM OF MADNESS

If any kind of utopia exists in postapocalyptic America, Ryan and his companions have yet to find it. But high in the Virginian mountains, their quest may find its reward. Heaven Falls is an agrarian idyll, its thriving inhabitants harnessing powerful feminine energy and the medicinal qualities of honey. Bountiful and serene, this community is the closest thing to sanctuary the companions have ever encountered. But as they are seduced by a life they have only envisioned, they discover Heaven has a trapdoor that opens straight to hell…

“Help me,” the man called, his voice raised in panic

He glanced back to where Jak was hiding. “Please, you know what they’ll do....”

Five white-clad figures emerged from the trees, descending on the armed man. They were women, young, tall and svelte, with long hair styled on top of their heads in elaborate braids. Their robes were light and gauzy, covering each woman from neck to ankle. The skirts and sleeves billowed around them like mist.

“Die! Damn you all!” the man screamed, rising from his crouch and blasting wildly.

The women kept gliding toward him, gracefully, swiftly, sidestepping the shots with breathtaking ease.

The man was shouting nonsense now. Jak could see him squeezing the trigger, but he had no ammo left. He dropped backward in an uncoordinated stumble.

The white-robed women converged on him. What happened next, Jak couldn’t tell. All he saw was the billowing robes circling the spot where the man had gone down, fluttering there like waves.

Siren Song

James Axler

Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.

—Karl Marx, 1818-1883

For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom.

—William Shakespeare

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s heart despite its ruination.

Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville’s own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan’s close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn’t have imagined.

Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

Dean Cawdor: Ryan’s young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

In a world where all was lost, they are humanity’s last hope.…

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Quotes

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Copyright

Chapter One

The road rushed toward Ricky Morales as he took the blast in his flank. A second later his face collided with the broken pavement. The burning flare in his hand sailed away, sparkling bright red as it rolled over and over across the tarmac like blood-drenched lightning. Beside it, the ball from the musket went rolling away down the road, splashed now with Ricky’s blood.

“Come on, boy, keep up,” J. B. Dix shouted, thrusting the barrel of his Smith & Wesson M-4000 shotgun over Ricky’s head. A second later J.B. sent a roaring blast at the figures that chased them through the grove, momentarily silencing their sinister, animallike whooping.

Ricky winced at the noise of the blast, his eyes narrowed against the bright explosion. Behind him, at least a dozen human shapes were stalking through the grove. The trees didn’t help matters. At some point someone had had the bright idea of hanging folks from their upper branches like a gallows, leaving the decaying corpses swinging in the wind in bloody warning. It was a warning that Ricky wished he and his companions had heeded when they had arrived in this place just a few hours earlier. But they had been hungry, and it had been pitch-black when they had emerged from the redoubt.

J.B. blasted another burst of buckshot from his weapon, carving a crescent moon through one side of a thick tree trunk and felling the figure poised behind it.

“You moving or am I leaving you?” J.B. snarled.

Ricky raised his Webley Mk VI revolver and sent four shots into the shadows of the trees, peppering the area with lead. He smiled with bleak satisfaction as he saw one of the scalies crash to the ground. Beside him, the flare continued to fizz, sending up sparks of red as it butted against the ground.

“I’m coming,” Ricky insisted, pulling himself up to a standing position. He reached for the flare and stopped. His side hurt, and his belly was churning so much that he could taste that stolen meal coming back up his throat. “¡Madre de Dios!” Ricky cursed the pain that seared through him.

J.B. chanced a look at the youth between his scanning of the trees. “You look green,” he said noncommittally. J.B. was a short man with wire-rimmed glasses and a fedora hat on his head. He looked to be about forty-five, but it was hard to tell—life in the Deathlands prematurely aged a person, especially the kind of life that J.B. led.

He was a weaponsmith, an expert in firearms and explosives and able to turn his hand to just about any weapon a person cared to name. He was the Armorer of the group, and he had traveled with Ryan Cawdor the longest.

Ryan was the nominal leader. There were six others in the group, including J.B., with Ricky the youngest and most recent addition. Ricky was sixteen with black hair and dark brown eyes. He was good-looking in a skinny kind of way, still more youth than man but growing every day. He had met Ryan and J.B. when they had visited Nuestra Señora, a small seaport on Monster Island. Nuestra Señora was Ricky’s home, but with his sister missing and so much that had happened there, he had chosen to stick with Ryan and his companions as they traveled the Deathlands in search of a better life.

Just now, this was not that better place. “California” was what J.B. had called it when they had emerged from the hidden redoubt. J.B. knew maps and geography, and he had a way of mapping their location using a device he carried called a mini-sextant.

It had been dark when they had arrived, emerging from the redoubt via its mat-trans system into what appeared to be a grove of oranges. The oranges were as big as a baby’s head, weighing down the branches of the trees that lined the little ribbon of road. The trouble was they were radioactive oranges. J.B. had taken one glance at his lapel rad counter, left them on the trees and gone in search of other nutrition. They had found a scalie settlement located in a flat-faced pyramid beside a graveyard for rusted cars.

“Shopping mall,” Mildred had explained when she saw it. Mildred Wyeth had grown up in the twentieth century and sometimes she made reference to things that Ricky couldn’t make sense of. She was a handsome black woman who wore her hair in beaded plaits. She had been a medical doctor back in the twentieth century, specializing in cryogenic research. When she had suffered complications during routine abdominal surgery, the decision had been made to place her temporarily in cryogenic hibernation. “Temporarily” turned out to be about a hundred years, during which a nuclear exchange between the U.S.A. and USSR had heralded the end of Western civilization. Mildred had woken up to a world that had driven through the gates of hell and just kept on accelerating.

J.B.’s hand pressed against Ricky’s back, propelling him faster along the road with a mighty shove. “Head in the game, boy!”

Ricky’s side was bleeding, wetness seeping into his shirt and making it stick. He ignored it; whatever wound he had, be it lethal or a graze, stopping now to check would get them both chilled.

Behind Ricky, the Armorer’s other hand was working the M-4000, sending another cacophonous burst of fire at their pursuers.

“They’ve got our scent,” J.B. yelled. “Forget the flare!”

Their pursuers were scalies: mutated humanoid creatures with hard, blistered skin. Scalies were just one of a whole variety of genetic twists that had happened to humanity since the widespread nuclear fallout had sent planetary radiation levels through the stratosphere. Humanity also suffered at the hands of genetically developed beings that were used as bioweapons.

Scalies were insular and some had proved capable of forming a society. This group clearly took it personally when anyone accidentally stepped into their territory. But then, the figures hanging from the trees gave that away, now that Ricky thought about it.

They had to get back to the redoubt, but the scalies were right behind them. They’d have to lure the muties away, then double back to the redoubt so that the companions weren’t swarmed before they got inside.

J.B.’s shotgun roared again and a shower of watermelon-size oranges dropped from a tree like cannonballs, slapping two of their pursuers to the ground. The others continued to give chase, stopping every few steps to pitch fist-size rocks at the two companions. Surprisingly, a few of the scalies were armed with muskets. They were cobbled together, based on more efficient designs—probably something the scalies had found in the pyramid structure that had once been a shopping mall. Whatever they were, getting hit by a projectile from one was still going to hurt like hell.

J.B. was mentally counting his shots, and knew he needed to reload the M-4000. He fumbled with its breech on the run, his legs pumping as he sought the right pocket of his jacket for more ammo.

Ahead of J.B., Ricky skidded to an abrupt halt, his arms windmilling as he fought to keep his balance, the Webley revolver drawing circles in the air.

“What the hell, kid?” J.B. asked as he came up alongside Ricky. Then he saw why the youth had stopped. They were out of road. Literally. The blacktop ended in a sudden drop—a cliff that fell about two hundred feet to the ocean below. J.B. figured that hitting the surface from this height would be like hitting a solid wall.

* * *

DOC TANNERWAS struggling to keep pace with Mildred and Jak.

Jak had short legs but he moved like a jackrabbit on jolt, barreling down the slope toward the redoubt entrance. Jak Lauren was an albino, with hair and skin that were chalk-white and eyes a ruby-red that made him look almost ghostlike. A few inches over five feet tall, Jak had a slight, wiry build that was surprisingly tough, and the barrel of his Colt Python pointed ahead of him as he scanned the overgrown scrub that all but hid the entrance to the redoubt.

Mildred kept pace with Jak easily enough, head down so that the wind blew her plaits past her shoulders, regulating her breathing as she ran. “You all right back there, Doc?” she asked as they zipped between dead trees on the pronounced slope.

Doc nodded, breathlessly muttering that he was fine, but it ended up sounding more like a straining steam engine trying to speak than a man.

Mildred glanced at him, concern etched on her face. “We’re almost there,” she assured him. “Just a few dozen yards.”

Doc nodded again, appreciating the heads-up. His vision was whirling a little, as if he was on one of those old fairground rides that used to visit his hometown back in his youth.

Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner, to give him his full appellation, was an unwilling time traveler who had been dumped in the Deathlands following a rather cruel experiment by the whitecoats of Operation Chronos. The chron jumps had affected his body, aging him prematurely. When he was trawled from the nineteenth century, Doc had been in his early thirties. Now he resembled a thin, silver-haired man in his sixties.

He wore a black frock coat, pants, a white shirt and black knee boots. Doc carried with him an ebony cane topped with a silver lion’s head, and inside the sheath was a blade of fine Toledo steel. Besides his swordstick, he carried a replica LeMat percussion pistol, which included a second barrel that functioned as a shotgun, and which could blast a single shot when needed. The fact that both swordstick and blaster contained a surprise pretty well said all that needed to be said about Doc Tanner—he was a man full of surprises.

Up ahead, the redoubt entrance looked like a tunnel that had become overgrown with creepers and moss. A line of orange trees had grown in front of the wide entrance like a fence, masking it further. Three hours earlier the entrance had been all but invisible. When the companions had emerged from it, they had cleared some of the flora out of the way—enough at least that they could pass through.

Jak was first to reach the doors, pulling away creepers from a keypad that rested against the wall at shoulder height. His white fingers punched in the three-digit entry code. As the heavy door slid aside on aged tracks, Jak glanced behind him, checking for Mildred and Doc and confirming that no one was following them.

Jak saw a figure appear behind Doc, still a little ways up the slope where once a dirt track had lain. Jak didn’t wait to see who the figure was; he just raised his Colt Python and fixed the shadow in its sights. Then he stroked the trigger and sent a single booming shot up the slope, cutting Doc’s pursuer dead center in his chest. The scalie went down in a splatter of blood and bone.

Mildred joined Jak an instant later, breathless, her eyes wide. “What was that?”

“Scalie,” Jak said, already slipping through the open doors to the redoubt. He spoke little, and rarely in full sentences.

Mildred waited in the doorway with her Czech-made ZKR-551 target pistol in her hand, scanning the landscape for further movement. Jak’s eyesight was uncanny, but Mildred was confident she could spot a hostile figure in the overgrowth.

Doc joined Mildred seconds later and together they slipped through the open doorway and into the redoubt.

* * *

“FIREBLAST,” RYAN CAWDORmuttered as he watched the scene play out below him.

Belly on the ground, he lay amid the grass, the Steyr Scout Tactical longblaster stretched out in front of him, his finger resting on the trigger guard. All around him, dead bodies hung from the trees, casting long shadows as the sun rose over the cliff. This whole excursion had been a mistake from the get-go, he lamented as he watched the sloping ground through the longblaster’s scope.

Ryan was a tall man with broad shoulders and a mop of unruly black hair. His face had two days of stubble and a black patch over the left eye where he had lost it in a knife fight with his brother a lifetime ago. A scar ran up the side of his face, a pale line that cut through his emerging beard like an arrow pointing to the missing eye. Ryan had lived with it a long time.

Krysty Wroth crouched next to Ryan with her back against a tree, her expression fixed as she listened for an ambush. She was strikingly beautiful with vivid red hair and the kind of athletic frame and long legs that, once seen, men fantasized about long after the woman herself had departed.

The woman wore a red shirt and blue jeans, with blue cowboy boots whose heels added to her tall frame. She held a blaster in her hand—a compact Smith & Wesson .38 loaded with .158-grain lead slugs.

Ryan watched through the scope as J.B. and Ricky reached the end of the road. California was a lot different since the nukes hit. This place, for instance, was nothing more than a splinter of an island surrounded on all sides by blue ocean. For another, the place was maybe two miles long and a mile across, and it was covered in orange groves. Again, if they’d known that when they’d jumped into its mat-trans they might have had the sense to get the hell out of here before the scalies took umbrage at their appearance on what they obviously thought of as their own private island.

When the nukes had struck way back in 2001, a lot of California had gone missing. The San Andreas Fault had finally cracked, dropping a good portion of the western coast of the United States of America into the ocean and drowning millions with it. What was left now, besides the abbreviated West Coast itself, was a group of isles known as the Western Islands. This minuscule piece of land, it seemed, had once been the home to some out-of-town mall. “Twelve Starbucks and a JCPenney” was the way Mildred had described it to him.

Ryan guessed that visitors to the mall had been oblivious of the redoubt on its doorstep. He took another breath, watching through the Steyr’s crosshairs as the scalies swarmed toward J.B. and Ricky. He had known J.B. a long time, all the way back to their days with Trader when they had roamed the Deathlands, part of the crew of War Wag One. The two men were equals and as close as brothers, and they had an understanding that went beyond words.

The scalies were slowing now, wary of what J.B. and the kid were going to unleash on them. The flare had gotten their attention, which was just as they had planned it, ensuring Doc, Mildred and Jak could get to the redoubt safely without the scalies hot on their heels. Ryan watched the scalies emerge from the tree cover in ones and twos. He took another deep breath and slipped his finger behind the guard so that it rested against the trigger. Shoot on the exhale, he reminded himself automatically, when the body is at its steadiest.

* * *

J.B.’SBOOTHEEL scuffed against the cliff edge as he took another step backward, the sound of the ocean loud in his ears. Ricky was hunched over next to him with one arm around his belly. There was blood leaking through his fingers.

“Hang in there, kid,” J.B. murmured as scalies swarmed from cover.

There were more than two dozen of them now, closer to thirty, J.B. estimated. They were hairless and buck naked. Some had added rudimentary tattoos across their bodies, blue swirls and lines across shoulders and chest; one displayed a shape across his face that reminded J.B. of a bat.

As he emerged from the trees, the bat man said something, but J.B. couldn’t make sense of it. It sounded like a dog snarling, a low kind of growl. Around him, the other scalies began to laugh louder—now that was something J.B. did understand, the universal laughter of the mocking bully.

Several of the scalies were sticking close to the trees as they reloaded their muskets. They were cumbersome weapons, and J.B. could see that the shot they fired was large and ball-like, approximately the size of an old table-tennis ball. It was one of those that had hit Ricky, large enough to tear clothes and skin, but not refined enough to pierce through the flesh.

The Armorer calculated that Ricky had two bullets left before he would need to reload, which meant, unless he got his shotgun reloaded, the odds were lousy.

“We going to chill them,” Ricky whispered, “or what?” The kid trusted J.B. to make these decisions. He had volunteered to carry the flare even when J.B. had tried to dissuade him. “Two blasters are better than one,” he had told the Armorer, “and you’ll have my back, right?”

Sure, J.B. had his back all right. And look where that had got them.

The leader with the bat tattoo was walking purposefully along the overgrown roadway toward J.B., its dark eyes flicking down to the open shotgun where J.B. had not had a chance to reload. “Outta time tuh load blasta,” Bat Tattoo taunted as he approached the Armorer. His voice was rough, like sandpaper, the accent all but impenetrable. The leader’s lips pulled back from his sharp teeth and he began to laugh. And then his head burst like a watermelon and a thunderclap echoed through the grove.

“Dark night, Ryan, but you took your sweet bastard time!” J.B. muttered as the mutie leader went caroming past him and over the cliff edge, his head a ruined mess of brain and bone.

Around him, the scalies were reacting with shock at their leader’s death, scrambling this way and that as they searched for their new attacker. Another shot cut the air and one of the musket-carrying muties went sailing to the ground in a sprawl of limbs.

J.B. slipped new ammo into his shotgun’s breech as he moved, then stroked the shotgun’s trigger, sending a fearsome burst of fire at the two nearest scalies. They went down with yelps of pain, blood splattering across the blacktop.

Beside J.B., Ricky had sunk to one knee and was firing shots from his own blaster before switching to his second weapon, a reproduction De Lisle carbine. The De Lisle was about half as long as Ricky was tall, with a bolt action and mock-wood finishing. It boomed with each shot like a miniature rumble of thunder, and each time another scalie dropped to the ground. Despite the pain in his flank, Ricky felt alive.

* * *

THINGSWEREAmess inside the redoubt. Located underground, it was like a concrete rabbit warren, flickering lights illuminating gray walls on which were painted dusty stripes of red, green and yellow. Bird caws echoed down the corridors. There was sand and dirt splashed over the walls by the wind, and bird droppings and insect husks carpeted the floors. Some of the corridors ended in rubble while others ended in sheer drops that looked straight out onto the ocean. Mildred followed Jak, trusting his keen tracker instincts to retrace the path they had taken a few hours ago when they had arrived.

They had left Doc at the redoubt entrance, either to welcome Ryan and J.B. or to blast the living crap out of anyone—or anything—else who tried to enter.

The redoubt itself was set half out to sea, one entire side cut away by the quake that had turned this strip of land into an island decades before. Despite that destruction, its automated facilities still functioned, including the ceiling-mounted fluorescent lights and, crucially, the mat-trans unit. Quite how the mat-trans could still operate when so much of the building had been wrenched away was beyond Mildred’s comprehension. They’d built these old places tough.

The mat-trans was a twentieth-century invention designed to move troops and matériel between locations with the minimum of fuss. The matter-transporter units were located in dozens of abandoned military redoubts across the old United States of America and several other parts of the world. While the redoubts remained mostly untampered with by the locals, locked up and hidden away as they were, Mildred and her companions had utilized the mat-trans units for a number of years, zipping from location to location as they sought a better life away from the routine bloodshed of the Deathlands. Finding somewhere to settle had proved a lot harder than Mildred had expected.

Leading the way, Jak stepped into the redoubt control room. Twin aisles of desks ran lengthwise across the room, facing a screen that was blotched with the white stripes of bird feces. The desks, too, were smothered with droppings, and as Mildred entered the room she saw a gull flap its wings in surprise as it rose from one corner. The bird had a nest here, tucked out of sight. Mildred ignored the gull as it swooped around the room, cawing in distress.

The two companions made their way to the door to the anteroom, where they waited for their friends to join them.

* * *

ITWASPANDEMONIUM. Scalies were running in all directions.

While most of the muties had scattered in blind panic, several came searching for the sniper who had executed their leader. Krysty watched from her hiding place in the bole of a tree, the Smith & Wesson .38 clutched close to her breast as two figures broke from the tree line where the bodies hung, running toward Ryan where he lay on the grass picking off their companions. One of the scalies held a knife, and it flashed as it reflected the sunlight. Glass, Krysty realized.

As the two scalies vaulted over a fallen log, Krysty emerged and popped off two shots from the .38. The first plowed into the chest of the scalie on the left, and he seemed to flip over himself as he was driven back and to the ground. But her second shot missed, whipping away just an inch over the right hand scalie’s shoulder. Tough break—he was the one with the knife.

The scalie changed direction. He ran not for Ryan now but for Krysty, drawing the glass knife back in preparation to swing. Krysty whipped up the .38, but the scalie was on her before she could squeeze the trigger.

The two of them went down with a thud of bone-jarring impact. Krysty fell backward as the knife swished through the air just inches from her face. The scalie spread his legs to hold her down, crouching over her crab-style to stop her from escaping. The knife swung again, eight inches of blade flashing with the sun’s rays.

Krysty brought up her blaster and squeezed the trigger. The .38 fired at point-blank range, but the bullet deflected on a callused section of her attacker’s armor-like flesh. The scalie howled in pain and, in the same instant, reached out with his free hand and grabbed Krysty’s blaster by the muzzle, shoving it aside.

Krysty groaned as her wrist was bent backward. The scalie’s grip was as strong as a vise and she could feel the bones of her wrist grinding together as he clenched tighter.

Looming above Krysty, the mutie brought his glass blade down toward her face, hissing through clenched teeth in some eerie victory trill, the blade racing toward her.

Gaia help me, Krysty thought as she watched the blade carving the air. Hear my prayer and come to my aid in my time of need.

Then everything seemed to slow down; the blade hovered in the air as if it was a static object.

Krysty had grown up in Harmony ville where her mother, Sonja, had taught her how to tap into a wellspring of energy that she called Gaia power. Quite how that ability worked, no one could explain, but it drew on the Earth Mother herself to feed her with a burst of incredible strength and stamina. That “Gaia power” had saved Krysty’s life on numerous occasions, but it came at a cost—each time she used it, it ran out fast and she was left as weak as a kitten. Right now, Krysty figured that cost was worth it.

As she focused on her chant, Krysty could feel the power of the Earth Mother race through her like an electric current charging her veins. Krysty’s emerald eyes seemed to shine as she snatched the scalie’s wrist and pulled, altering the angle of the stabbing knife and yanking the scalie with such force that he went sailing from her with a howl of surprise. An instant later the scalie’s flying body slammed against the trunk of a nearby orange tree, and Krysty heard his neck snap.

She lay there breathing hard as the Gaia energies coursed through her, making her feel every whisper of breeze, every blade of grass, as it seared through her body like a fire. Moments later the power ebbed, then was gone.

Still lying in the grass, Ryan picked off the last few stragglers of the attacking party, watching through the scope as the remaining scalies ran for the safety of their pyramid-like home.

“You okay?” he asked, his single eye still fixed on the rifle’s scope.

“Been better, lover,” Krysty replied weakly. She was shaking, and her voice had that familiar tremble, the result of using the Gaia force.

When he looked at her, Krysty was checking her right wrist where the scalie had tried to break it.

“Time to go,” Ryan said.

Krysty nodded. Her wrist was still working, although she may sport a bruise there for the next few days. Ryan bent to help her to her feet. He put his arm around her shoulder and they headed toward the redoubt.

* * *

THEYCONVERGEDONthe redoubt entrance. Doc was using his faithful LeMat to, as he put it, “dissuade the locals from investigating too thoroughly.”

“Good thing, too,” J.B. said as he carried Ricky through the doors and into the corridor beyond. “Wouldn’t do for muties to learn about the mat-trans system. Before we know it, the redoubts would be overrun with crazed scalies only too happy to consume or destroy anything they come across.”

Other than sending another warning shot into the trees overlooking the redoubt entrance, Doc didn’t bother to reply. He pulled back from the entrance, his LeMat still jutting out the doors in search of new targets.

A moment later Ryan appeared with Krysty at his side. As they entered the redoubt, Krysty looked exhausted; her hair hung limply now and her movements were slow and heavy, as if she was underwater.

J.B. caught Ryan’s eye, an unspoken question there.

“She’s fine,” Ryan replied. “Just a little knocked out from her Gaia power.”

When J.B. said nothing, Ryan smiled.

“Had a bit of trouble finding a good spot,” Ryan said. “Did you miss us down there?”

J.B. shrugged. “I figured you’d come through for us,” he said. “Just, you know, quicker would have been better.”

Ryan nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I save your life. Ricky, are you okay?”

“Millie’ll look him over,” J.B. replied for the teen, “once we’re away from this rad-blasted pesthole.”

Doc punched in the code to close the doors. Once he had done that, he turned to his companions and touched his free hand to the brim of an imaginary hat. “I trust we are all ready to leave?”

Less than a minute later the five companions joined Jak and Mildred in the anteroom, then they all entered the mat-trans unit and sat on the floor, except for Ryan. The one-eyed man was last in, and he firmly shut the mat-trans door, initiating a jump. He quickly made his way to Krysty’s side and sat beside her. The mat-trans powered up.

All seven companions disappeared, leaving only the wispy trails of cooling gas and the whine of the air vents in their wake.

Chapter Two

As the companions didn’t have the destination codes for the mat-trans unit, where they ended up was totally random. The jump could take them to a redoubt five hundred miles away or five thousand—or anywhere in the world, for that matter. The companions never knew where they’d arrived until they left the redoubt and got their bearings.

The effects of traveling by mat-trans made a person feel as though he or she had caught a swamp bug. The stomach rebelled, the body went weak and there was the urgent feeling that you were about to crap your pants. Thankfully, the journey itself was momentary, and once it passed—usually—so did the sickness.

The seven companions materialized in a shock of light, and even as they appeared the extractor fans of the mat-trans hummed to life, working their magic to clear the chamber of gas.

They were sitting in a different mat-trans chamber—its dimensions and design exactly like the one they had just left, the only difference being the color of its armaglass walls, which was a sort of red-violet, Ricky thought.

Breathing through clenched teeth, he clutched his side, his eyes screwed up in pain. He still hadn’t got used to the discorporation and reintegration of his molecules that was necessary for the mat-trans to shunt him to a new location, and the jarring only served to make the wound in his side feel worse. “Madre—” he muttered, doubling over in agony.

“Okay, Ricky,” Mildred said, hurrying across the small room to the teen’s side and opening her satchel of medical supplies. She moved a little unsteadily, still suffering from the aftereffects of the jump. Mildred was far more experienced in this than Ricky, but it could still catch her unawares sometimes, just the same way it caught everyone unawares sometimes. She usually had a concoction she called jump juice, which was helpful in settling the stomach, but she was all out.

As she moved, Mildred spotted the box. It loomed incongruously at the rear wall of the chamber, clicking to itself in a kind of constant hum. “Um...” Mildred began, stopping in her tracks. “Ryan? J.B.?”

Ryan was still recovering from the jump, but he moved to where Mildred had halted and scanned the device with his single blue eye. “Shit.”

It was about the size of a shoebox, roughly a foot across and half as deep, and the top was open to reveal a mass of wires and a timer. The timer was analog, like an old oven timer, and it clicked quietly to itself as it counted down.

“What the hell is that?” J.B. said, peering past Ryan’s shoulder. “Oh.”

“Three minutes,” Ryan said, reading the dial on the timer.

“Get everyone out of here,” J.B. instructed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a tiny pair of wire cutters no bigger than nail scissors. His instruction was unnecessary. Ryan was already rousing Krysty and the others, ushering them to the chamber door. “Triple red, everyone,” Ryan ordered as he turned the door handle. They had less than three minutes. Ryan would wait. He knew why J.B. wanted to defuse the bomb—the importance of the mat-trans was impossible to put a value on. If they’d emerged in a hot zone or a settlement of crazies—or both, as they had in California—then this chamber may be their only means of escape.

J.B. had defused bombs before. They had three minutes, which meant they still had a chance.

Doc and Jak took out their blasters before they hurried through the doorway, while Krysty followed a little more slowly, still reeling from the blow of her post-Gaia comedown. Mildred helped Ricky through, glancing back at J.B. as the Armorer knelt to study the explosive device. A bomb inside the mat-trans meant someone had been in this redoubt, wherever it was.

Anyone with any brains would have gotten out double-quick as soon as they had placed the explosive, but Ryan wasn’t taking any chances. He flipped the safety off his SIG Sauer blaster, left the chamber and anteroom and marched across the control room.

It was a redoubt like the one they had just exited, as most were—concrete walls, low ceilings, anteroom and control room, with winking and blinking lights and dials and comp monitors. The lights were on, but that didn’t mean anything. Redoubt lights functioned automatically when a mat-trans fired to life, which meant that the bomber could be long gone by now. Or just around the corner.

There were several cracks that ran across one side of the room, up the walls and through the ceiling, wide enough to accommodate a person’s arm. Something had struck the redoubt at some time, and struck it hard. Ryan’s people fanned out swiftly. A layer of dust was sprinkled on the age-old com terminals, but Doc noticed immediately that several screens had been wiped clean.

“Someone tried to use these,” Doc said. “Recently, too.”

Ryan waited while the rest of his friends made their way through the room. Jak keyed in the code to open the door, then they all filed into the corridor beyond. The albino youth scouted ahead, checking the immediate rooms of the redoubt, hunting for danger and for somewhere safe to position the group should the bomb go off.

While Ryan waited in the doorway, Doc helped a reluctant Krysty down the corridor.

“Ryan, come on,” she urged. “We can’t...”

“We have to try to save it,” Ryan said, his single eye fixed on J.B.

“Get her to safety,” he instructed Doc without turning.

“Krysty, I’ll see you outside.”

The redheaded beauty wanted to say something else; she was his soul mate and she usually wouldn’t leave him. But in her weakened state, leave was all she could do. And she knew that Ryan wouldn’t leave J.B. alone, not if there was a chance they could defuse the bomb.

Doc guided Krysty down the corridor. “How are you feeling, my dear?” he asked.

Krysty smiled, her usually vibrant hair hanging limply around her face. “Still kind of woozy,” she admitted, flashing him a half smile.

“Lean against me,” Doc instructed. “I may be old but I’m still good for that much, at least.”

While J.B. and Ryan dealt with the bomb, Jak employed his own natural talents to lead the rest of the group out of the redoubt as swiftly as he could.

While they had landed in an unknown redoubt, these military bases roughly followed the same basic design. Jak followed the widest corridor, turning each time it split and choosing the widest corridor again. The overhead lights flickered to life at each junction Jak stepped into, brought to life by motion sensors, filling in the void ahead with each step.

The others followed as fast as they were able—Doc helping Krysty along at his side, Mildred watching Ricky carefully as the lad struggled with his wounded side.

Mildred looked worriedly at Ricky. She glanced back at the open door to the control room—not to check on J.B. but merely to see how far they were from the potential blast. Mildred had feelings for J.B.—they were lovers—but she remained professional and focused during times like this. She had seen too many mistakes caused by people not paying attention, and as a doctor her first concern had to be her patient.

Mildred could see that Ricky wouldn’t make it to the outside in the two minutes they had left. He was slowing even now, not quite limping but certainly dragging his heels. His face was looking paler, too: blood loss.

“Jak, we’re going to have to stop,” Mildred called.

Without slowing his pace, Jak glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “We go. No point all dying.”

It was a harsh truth, Mildred knew. She turned back to Ricky, indicating an open doorway. “Stop here,” she instructed.

“But Ryan said...” Ricky began.

Mildred shot him a look. “I need to look at that wound,” she said. “In here.” She led him through the open doorway into what appeared to be a television monitoring room. The room contained two swivel chairs and a bank of television screens that dominated one wall in a gentle curve.

Ricky looked around with evident concern. “Lot of glass here if the bomb goes off.”

Mildred ignored him. “Lift up your arms,” she said, and Ricky did so.

* * *

RYANSTOODINthe doorway to the control room, wondering how long they had.

“J.B.?”

Inside the chamber, J.B. crouched by the device, warily eyeballing it. The timer was attached to a chemical mix with an explosive and an accelerant to increase the blast. When it went off, it would appear to be a single explosion, but in fact there would be two in very quick succession, the first triggering the full payload of the device. The Armorer judged the size of the device.

“The armaglass will hold the explosion,” he called back to Ryan.

“What about defusing it?” Ryan asked.

J.B. shook his head, still holding the wire cutters in front of him. “This bastard’s wired up six ways to Sunday. I’d need hours to figure it out,” he admitted.

“How long do we have?”

“Thirty seconds,” J.B. replied, slipping his wire cutters back into his jacket pocket. Then he got up from his crouch, knowing better than to rush. Rushing only made a person careless; the one time in a million that a person would slip on the floor of a chamber and earn a concussion. Thirty seconds was plenty of time to get out.

Ryan was waiting for J.B. at the door to the control room. If the bomb went off early, they were dead, but Ryan wouldn’t leave J.B.—they had been brothers in arms for too long for him to do that.

J.B. made his way swiftly to the chamber door and pulled it closed behind him. Once the door was closed, the mat-trans chamber was designed to be airtight to ensure a clean jump when in use. J.B. trusted that to help protect them from the blast. There were fifteen seconds left now before the bomb went off.

J.B. turned, checking his pockets nervously as he hurried from the room. He still had the M-4000 and the Mini-Uzi he habitually carried; it wouldn’t do to escape the explosion only to find himself weaponless.

Ryan watched as J.B. strode toward him.

“What are you still doing here?” J.B. asked, irritated.

“You think I’m letting you get blown up on your own?” Ryan snapped back. “Too much water under the bridge for that.”

J.B. nodded. “Ten seconds,” he said as he followed Ryan into the stark corridor.

Then the two men started to run, hurrying for the nearest doorway, which was cracked open. They pried it open wider to accommodate their size and slipped inside.

“Four...three...two...one,” J.B. intoned. When he got to “two,” both men turned away from the direction of the blast and placed their hands over their ears.

A moment later a dull sound like a thump reverberated through the redoubt, followed by a much louder boom accompanied almost instantaneously by the tinkling sound of shattering glass. Ryan and J.B. fell to the floor as the shockwave rocked through the redoubt.

* * *

JAKWASWITHDoc and Krysty when the bomb exploded. They were standing in a garage area of the redoubt, close to the surface and far enough away that they heard the explosion as a kind of distant cough. Still, they all knew exactly what it was and for a moment a solemn hush seemed to pass over them.

Krysty tensed. “Ryan...”

Doc held on to her, pulling her close. “Relax, Krysty, my girl,” he said, trying to calm her. “We don’t know what has happened yet.”

“I want to go back,” Krysty told him.

“Going back would only serve to place us in more danger,” Doc said reasonably. “They will come to us when they are ready.”

A few paces ahead of them, Jak had adopted a semi-crouch as he walked toward the door to the redoubt. The door lay on one side of the wide, garage-like area within which a few military vehicles still remained. The vehicles had been stripped down to shells, their components and armament long gone, tires removed along with anything else that anyone might be able to put to use. Worryingly, the door to the redoubt was open and showed about four feet of blue sky along with the scrappy dirt of an overgrown track.

Jak’s Colt Python had materialized in his hand once more. He didn’t like the fact that the door was open. It meant someone had been inside, which the bomb had already indicated, and that maybe they hadn’t had time to close it again, which meant they could still be nearby. Jak’s pale hand flicked at the Colt’s trigger guard absently as he approached the opening, padding toward it on silent feet.

Jak stopped for a moment at the open door and listened, isolating the sounds coming from outside. There were birds chirruping, the buzz of insects...and a being, moving amid the undergrowth, feet shuffling on leaves and grass. A moment later Jak heard another sound—more figures approaching, moving in unison with military precision, moving fast.

Blaster poised in front of him, Jak stepped through the open door of the redoubt.

Chapter Three

The redoubt door had been propped open using a web of sawed-down tree limbs and pieces of metal, Jak noted as he stepped through the opening. The construction was well planned and solid, raised on a scaffold-type arrangement. In addition, attention had been paid to the meeting point where the door slid into the wall. There was no exposed hinge or mechanism there, but someone had gone to a lot of trouble to bend the thick titanium door so that it would not snap back. Someone who wanted to get in and get out again.

There were trees all around, and it took a moment for Jak to zone out the noises of the local fauna and locate the sound of shuffling feet he had first noted from inside the redoubt. There. To the left.

A dirt track led to the redoubt entrance with a scrubby grass border to either side, wide enough to carry a wag. The scarred remains of a tarmac road had all but disintegrated, leaving black chunks of broken tarmac dotted amid the dirt. Jak stepped over the path and onto the grass, where he could ensure his passage would remain silent. The grass shone with dew, catching the morning sunlight in sparkling spots like glitter.

The sounds of marching feet were getting closer, and they were moving fast. Jak guessed at least three people were among the group, but it was hard to tell from the way the footsteps echoed. There could be three or three hundred moving in step.

Crouching, his blaster held in one hand, Jak scrambled across the scrub, weaving swiftly between stubby trees. His keen eyes spotted the figure crouching behind a bush, tiny red berries arrayed across it like beads of blood. It was a man, mid-thirties with a little gray clouding his dark beard, wearing cotton clothes, light and simple and remarkably clean. His hands were dirty, though, and there was a streak of what looked like either oil or dirt on his face. He was breathing heavy, fearful. Jak slowed as he spotted the blaster in the man’s hand. It was a Smith & Wesson, not much more than seven inches in length, its once-gleaming surface pitted and blackened with age.

The man turned at the albino youth’s approach, as much sensing him as hearing him. Jak was still twenty feet from the man. Even from that distance, Jak could see the man’s blue eyes were wide with anxiousness, and he brought the Smith & Wesson around to target Jak at the same time as he turned. But when he saw Jak, something seemed to change in his expression—first surprise, then relief.

“Thank heaven,” the man said in a breathless whisper. “I thought you were...”

He stopped, alert like a dog, his head turning to locate the sound of the marching feet.

Jak spotted the figures moving through the trees for the first time. Dressed in white robes, they were easy to see. They didn’t walk together but had spread out, taking different routes down the slope, but still marching in time. Jak counted five of them wending through the trees above, fluid and almost mist-like in their movements. It wasn’t like watching soldiers, it was like watching dancers.

Crouched by the bush, the bearded man glanced back at Jak, his eyes pleading. “Did the bomb go off?” he whispered. “You can’t let them—”

His words were cut short by a woman’s voice coming from upslope. “William! Will? What are you doing?”

The man—presumably William—turned back, raised his blaster and fired. The discharge sounded loud in the stillness of the woods, its thundering echo accompanied by the frightened cries of birds taking flight in its wake.

Jak ducked back, dipping behind the nearest tree and using its trunk for cover. It was a birch, and the trunk was too narrow to give adequate protection, even for Jak’s small frame. But there was no time to find better, not now that bullets were flying.

William had clearly missed his target, and he blasted again, firing another shot into the trees. Upslope, one of the figures in white moved, stepping swiftly behind a tree as the bullet struck a branch.

Jak watched the figure slip out from cover and he could discern that it was a woman—perhaps the same one who had called to William.

“Help me,” the man called, his voice raised now in panic. He glanced back to where Jak was hiding, his brow furrowing as he saw that Jak had disappeared. “Please, you know what they’ll do...”

Jak almost gasped as the white-clad figures emerged from the trees, converging on the armed man in a flurry of fluttering robes. All five were women, young and tall and svelte with long limbs and long hair styled atop their heads in some kind of elaborate braid or plait. The robes were made of a light, gauzy material, pure white like predark summer clouds, covering each woman from her neck all the way down to her ankles. There were wide pleats within the design of the robes that made the skirts and sleeves billow around them like mist, making it hard to determine where their bodies ended and the robes began. They were beautiful, angelic.

Jak watched as the women converged on the lone man. William rose from his crouch and shouted, “Die! Damn you all!” before blasting wildly at the women, again and again, shifting his aim to shoot the next and the next and the next.

Still gliding toward the man, the women moved gracefully but swiftly, sidestepping the shots with breathtaking ease. Jak watched, incredulous, as one of the women, honey-red hair piled on her head, leaped from the ground and kicked out at a tree, using it to lever herself higher as a bullet whizzed beneath her. It was an exceptional move, both in terms of speed and agility, and the timing was nothing less than perfect.

The woman landed back on the ground in a swish of billowing robes, now just three feet from the man with the blaster. He depressed the trigger again, sending another .45 slug at the woman’s face from almost point-blank range. The woman darted aside at the same time, and a combination of her speed and the man’s fear sent the bullet wide.

Then the woman grabbed the barrel of the man’s blaster in her right hand, yanking it aside as he fired again. All around them, the other figures had converged on this spot and stood just a few feet away, surrounding the two combatants as the unarmed woman overpowered her blaster-wielding foe.

Jak winced as the weapon blasted again, sending another bullet toward the woman’s shoulder. It missed her but it was close, and Jak saw the wide shoulder strap of her dress shred as the bullet breezed past, a trace of red kicking into the air as the bullet clipped her skin.

The man was shouting in nonsensical sentence fragments now. Something about stopping them... Something about love... Jak could see the man’s trigger finger squeezing again and again, but there was no ammo left in his blaster.

The white-robed women converged on him. What happened next, Jak couldn’t see. All he saw was the billowing robes circling the spot where the man had gone down, fluttering there like waves.

* * *

MILDREDAND RICKYwaited in the redoubt monitoring room as the explosion shook the walls. Dust escaped from the ceiling fixtures and a great cloud tumbled down from the bank of television screens that dominated one wall.

“You think...” Ricky began.

But Mildred was too focused on her task to respond. She was crouched beside him, her face close to the bloody mess that dominated the left side of Ricky’s shirt. “Ready?” she asked, and Ricky nodded. She lifted his shirt in a single, swift gesture and Ricky yelped in pain. “Okay,” Mildred soothed. “You’re okay.”

The blood made it look worse than it was, the way it had spread across Ricky’s skin. But it had started clotting and had dried with Ricky’s shirt, sticking flesh to material. That was why it had hurt so much when Mildred had ripped his shirt away.

Mildred prodded at the wound. You had to move quickly in the Deathlands, and field medicine like this was often the only option. Keeping the companions patched up was Mildred’s job, and she was damn good at it, too. “How does it look?” Ricky asked, breathing through clenched teeth.

“Nasty,” Mildred told him, taking an inch-high bottle of ammonia from her supplies. “You’ve lost a lot of skin, but we’ll clean that out and get you bandaged up. You’ll live.”

Ricky winced, holding back the tears. “Hurts bastard bad,” he said as Mildred knelt to clean the wound.

The physician arched a brow. “Boy, you listen too closely to J.B. and Ryan’s turns of phrase.”

* * *

DEBRISLITTEREDTHEfloor of the corridor and a coating of dust covered the two figures that lay inside the door.

Ryan moved first, pulling himself up to a sitting position and brushing plaster dust from his dark hair. Beside him, J.B. stirred and flinched at the movement, turning to Ryan with a coating of dust on the lenses of his spectacles.

Ryan looked at him and smiled. “You still alive?” he said.

“Hundred percent,” J.B. confirmed, rubbing at one ear to stop the ringing. “Let’s go check on the damage.”

Warily, the two men entered corridor. It was a mess, but just surface mess—nothing a dustpan and brush couldn’t smarten up in a few minutes. There was a hairline crack running up the wall beside the door to the control room, as thin as a spider’s web. Ryan gestured to it as he passed. “Could have been your skull,” he said.

J.B. laughed and rapped his knuckles on the wall. “Nah, my skull’s thicker than this,” he responded.

Moving quietly, Ryan and J.B. returned to the control room and surveyed the damage. The control area itself had barely sustained any damage other than a coating of plaster dust, but the mat-trans chamber was billowing with dark smoke and two-thirds of the toughened-glass walls that surrounded it had shattered, leaving a carpet of twinkling shards that spread out from the chamber like projectile vomit.

The chamber’s fans were whirring loudly as they worked to clear the smoke while ancient, ceiling-mounted water sprinklers made a hissing, fizzing sound though nothing came out of their pipes. Presumably, in the hundred years since this facility had been built, the contents of their supply tanks had either leaked or evaporated, leaving just the sound of the taps as they opened and closed, opened and closed.

When Ryan and J.B. entered the anteroom, they could see fire within the hexagonal chamber of the mat-trans itself, spots of flame licking at what was left of the walls and burning in patches on the tiled floor. Black smoke poured from the smeared remains of the crate-like device that had once abutted the back wall, but almost nothing remained of the device itself other than the basic shape of the box that had held it, now seared into the floor in a black rectangle.

Ryan shook his head, waving smoke out of his eye. “We won’t be using this again in a hurry,” he said grimly.

J.B. nodded solemnly. He left the anteroom and peered around the control room before spying the fire extinguishers. He strode over to them and reached for the boxy cabinet that clung to the wall above them, removing the fire blanket that was strapped there. The fire blanket had waited a century for someone to use it, and it smelled of mildew.

The Armorer strode back to the mat-trans and shook the blanket, throwing it across the flaming scar of the explosive, his feet tramping in the shattered armaglass. “Could be our only way out,” he reminded Ryan as they watched the blanket smother the flames. “Best do what we can to contain the damage.”

Ryan eyed the damaged floor tiles and the missing armaglass with concern. “You think this is repairable?”

“If it has to be,” J.B. told him. “Mebbe it won’t come to that.”

They waited a moment for the flames to stop burning and watched the smoke ease to a wispy trail in the air like a squirrel’s tail.

Ryan watched the smoke dissipate, voicing the question that neither of them could answer. “Who did this and why?”

J.B. just shook his head. “For now, I guess we should be grateful we didn’t arrive three minutes after we did,” he said dourly.

* * *

ONTHESLOPEoutside the redoubt, the white-clad women stepped away from the figure they had surrounded and Jak saw that the man was dead. His neck had been snapped and his head was poised at an awkward angle as he lay on the dirt, his eyes wide-open and staring into nothingness.

As one, the women turned at a noise. Jak heard it, too. It was coming from the redoubt.

Still in his hiding place, Jak saw Krysty and Doc emerging through the doors, their blasters held loosely in their hands. Krysty looked more able to stand on her own now, which was something.

As they stepped out onto the path, the women in the white robes moved through the trees toward them. Jak stepped out from cover, holding his blaster loosely, pointed straight up to the sky. “Wait,” he said. “Mean no harm.”

The women stopped, their white robes fluttering around them as they caught the breeze.

“Who are you?” the closest woman demanded. She had blond hair so pale it was almost white, and her eyes were a luminous green.

“Jak Lauren,” Jak said before indicating the redoubt entrance with an incline of his head. “Friends. Not hurting.”

Behind the blonde, another woman, this one with dark skin like Mildred’s, smiled tentatively as she spoke. “He speaks like a child,” she said. “It’s sweet.”

“His blaster isn’t sweet,” the blonde replied, her emerald eyes fixed on the weapon in Jak’s hand.

Jak took his cue and, holding out his empty hand in a placating gesture, he lowered himself to place his Colt Python on the ground. Jak didn’t like being weaponless—well, he was hardly that, as every sleeve and pocket contained a leaf-bladed throwing knife, though these strangers were not to know that—but he saw the necessity to act peaceably while the lives of his friends were at stake.

“Jak?” Doc’s voice carried up the slope. “Where are you, lad?”

The blonde fixed Jak with a look. “You had better reply, Jak,” she said. “Tell them to put down their blasters if, truly, they and you mean us no harm.”

Jak did just that, raising his voice and explaining the situation in his clipped manner. “Put away blasters, no danger,” he called back to Doc. “Five new friends here.” He was careful to state the number, so that Doc and Krysty would know how many they faced should it come to a firefight.

Down by the redoubt entrance, Doc and Krysty reluctantly placed their blasters in their holsters. The white-robed women watched, and the blonde—their leader? Jak wondered—nodded agreeably.

“Now,” said the blonde, “tell them to wait there.”

Jak did, and a few seconds later he was being led by the group back to the redoubt entrance.

“Well, well,” Doc said, appreciably eyeing the long-limbed beauties who accompanied Jak. “I see you have made some charming new acquaintances.”

Then Doc bent at the waist in a slight bow. “My name is Dr. Theophilus Tanner,” he introduced himself, “and my companion here is Krysty Wroth. You’ve already met young Jak here.” Doc made no mention of their other companions, still inside the redoubt. It didn’t do to reveal all your cards too early in the game.

“Doctor,” the blond spokeswoman said, the hint of a smile crossing her thin lips. “This is private territory. Would you care to explain how you came to be here?”

Doc fingered the handle of his sword cane for a moment as he thought. “We...um...arrived via a miraculous machine.”

“The mat-trans,” a brunette said from the back of the group. “You worked it?”

Krysty gasped at her casual comment.

Doc had not intended to be quite so transparent in his explanation, but caught unawares all he could do was reply truthfully. “Yes, the mat-trans,” he said. “We ran into a spot of bother out—” he gestured vaguely “—yonder and made the jump here, wherever here is. I am afraid it was all rather rushed.”

The women stepped forward, concern on their features. “And how is the mat-trans?” the dark-skinned woman asked.

“They survived the jump,” the brunette pointed out before Doc could reply. “Obviously, it’s operational.”

“Ah, no,” Doc replied before the women could continue. “There was an explosive device inside the unit that...”

“Exploded,” Krysty suggested, seeing Doc struggling.

“Quite, yes,” Doc acknowledged.

“William placed a bomb?” the honey-haired woman said in alarm.

“Deirdre thought as much,” the blonde confirmed before turning back to Doc.

Jak listened to all of this in silence, piecing together the story in his mind. William was the man he had come across in the woods, who had engaged in the firefight with these mysterious women before being chilled by them. William had said something to Jak before that fight began, something that might have been important. Jak thought back, recalling that the man had asked about the bomb. “You can’t let them...” was all he had said. Can’t let them...what?

“We should go check,” the dark-skinned woman said and the others agreed.

“Darn it, if William has blown up the mat-trans...” the brunette said, bitterly shaking her head.

“And it had to be now,” the honey-haired woman agreed, “right when these travelers could have...”

The blonde hushed them both with a look. “Melissas.”

“Melissas,” the honey-blonde replied, lowering her head, and her companion did the same.

The five women ushered Doc, Krysty and Jak back inside the redoubt. Doc wondered when would be the most appropriate time to mention that they had more companions waiting within.

Chapter Four

“I don’t like losing the mat-trans,” J.B. stated as he and Ryan moved through the redoubt. “Makes me edgy.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Ryan agreed. “The mat-trans have been our little secret for a long time, and I don’t revel in losing our escape hatch like this if we are in a hostile place. Otherwise, it means a hike overland to wherever the next redoubt is.”

As the two men trotted past the monitoring room, Mildred’s head poked out, calling them back.

“Hey, guys!” They joined Mildred in the monitoring room, where Ricky was just fixing his shirt over the bandage that Mildred had affixed around his belly and ribs. J.B. touched Mildred’s face briefly, leaving what he wanted to say unvoiced.

“What happened?” Ricky asked, looking from Ryan to J.B.

“Bomb went off,” Ryan said, “ruining the mat-trans.”

“Damn,” Ricky cursed.

J.B. made a show of looking at the youth’s bloody shirt. “How are you feeling? You okay, kid?” he asked.

Ricky shrugged. “De nada. I’ve had worse in Nuestra Señora.”

He was bluffing, J.B. knew. That musket shell had scored blood and had to have hurt like hell, but the kid was proud and he didn’t like to show weakness in front of the companions.

“I only heard one explosion,” Mildred was saying as she put her extra bandage in her medical satchel.

Ryan nodded. “We were lucky,” he agreed. “There were no other bombs. A military base like this could’ve been stuffed full of ordnance that might have been rigged remotely to go off when the bomb went off.”

“You said the mat-trans was wrecked,” Mildred said, phrasing it like a question.

“Yeah, for now anyway,” J.B. confirmed. “We might be able to do something with it, given time, but we’d be better off finding another mat-trans if we need one.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Mildred said, “but, assuming it does, how far would we have to go?”

J.B. shrugged. “Till we know where we are, I won’t have clue one, Millie,” he said.

“Then I guess we’d better start figuring out where we are,” Mildred said, and Ryan agreed.

Checking that Ricky was okay to move—he was—Ryan led the way back out into the corridor and the foursome headed toward the outside door.

* * *

DOCLOOKEDSURREPTITIOUSLYat the five angelic women who accompanied them as he, Krysty and Jak were led back through the redoubt they had just exited. Each of these women was young with flawless skin. Doc guessed not one of them was over twenty-one. The blonde led the way confidently, and she seemed to know which paths to take. Doc guessed that she was leading them to the mat-trans chamber to survey the damage that the bomb had wrought, and he wondered if Ryan and the others had survived the blast.

“So,” Doc began uncertainly, “Melissa, is it? You seem to know your way around this...facility.”

The blonde looked at Doc after a moment, confusion turning to understanding as she realized that he was addressing her. She smiled then, indulging him. “It’s not Melissa,” she said, “and yes, we’ve been here many times before.”

“Ah,” Doc said. “Please accept my apologies, I thought I heard your companions call you Melissa. I must have become muddled.”

“They did,” the blonde replied as she led them down a stairwell with concrete steps and reinforced-glass banisters dividing each level. “But that’s not my name, it’s a designation. We’re all Melissas.”

“I see,” Doc said, though he didn’t.

“I’m Phyllida. This is Linda, Nancy, Charm and Adele,” she said, indicating the others.

“All pretty names,” Doc said. “So you say you have been in here on other occasions?” Doc added, raising his voice a little in the hope Ryan would hear—if he was still here.

The Melissa called Phyllida looked back at him and smiled, her teeth white and flawless, much like Doc’s own. “The mat-trans you came in was damaged a long time ago in the quake,” she explained. “We’ve been examining its workings, trying to repair it.”

“Our engineers,” the dark-skinned Melissa, who was called Adele, elaborated.

“We noticed some quake damage when we came in,” Krysty said from within the huddle.

“The unit’s only been operational—what?—two days,” the brunette called Linda said.

“Not even that long,” Phyllida said. “They were still testing it yesterday evening.”

“Then it seems we arrived bang on time,” Doc said, wincing at his rather unfortunate choice of words. “Forgive the unintentional pun.”

“Yes, you—”

“Nobody make a sudden move!” Ryan said, stepping from the cover of an open doorway with his SIG Sauer raised in a two-handed grip. “Hands in the air.”

J.B. and Mildred stepped out of the shadows behind Ryan, their own weapons raised to target the group of robed women. Behind them both, Ricky waited in the shadow of the doorway, his De Lisle carbine clutched in both hands, the pain of his patched flank making him stand a little hunched over.

The Melissas tensed, moving automatically back so that they were close to the concrete walls.

Doc found himself front and center of the sudden negotiation.

“What’s the state of play, Doc?” Ryan growled, his weapon fixed on blond-haired Phyllida where she stood behind the old man.

Doc took a deep, steadying breath, his hands surreptitiously twisting the silver lion’s-head grip of his swordstick to release the blade within. “These people are unarmed, Ryan,” he stated, “and they have shown no inclination to harm us. It is my understanding that their sole interest is in the mat-trans, which they have been working on for some time.”

“Did they plant the bomb?” J.B. asked, running the shotgun over the group in warning.

“No,” Doc explained. “I am led to understand that they opposed the individual who did that, and that they had hoped to stop it.”

He turned to Phyllida. “Is this correct?”

Phyllida nodded. “Yes. You didn’t mention that there were more of you,” she said.

Doc raised his eyebrows. “You did not ask.”

Phyllida looked from Doc to Ryan and the others who had their drawn blasters pointed at them. “Your friend is quite correct,” she said at last. “We won’t hurt you.”

“My name is Phyllida,” the blond-haired woman continued. “We of the Trai have a strict ‘no blasters’ policy, and we would be grateful if you would adhere to that while on our property.”

She waited while Ryan watched her, his lone eye scanning carefully over her companions as he weighed them up. Finally he said, “And your people are unarmed?”

“Precisely so,” Phyllida confirmed.

Ryan searched Doc’s face for some sign of deceit and saw none. It paid to be cautious in the Deathlands, but a standoff had to be resolved, one way or the other, and Ricky couldn’t keep fighting without recovering. Slowly, Ryan brought his SIG Sauer down and holstered it, and his people did the same. Ryan knew just what J.B. was thinking as the Armorer slung his shotgun—it was the same thing that they were all thinking. Can these people be trusted?

“I’m Ryan,” the one-eyed man said, though he made no move to meet Phyllida.

Instead she came to him, her pure-white robes fluttering behind her like mist, one delicate, pale hand outstretched in greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Ryan.”

Ryan took the woman’s hand. Her grip was firm, stronger than he would expect for her build. He released her hand after a moment.

“I guess you weren’t inside when the bomb hit,” Ryan said.

“What makes you say that?” Phyllida asked.

“Your clothes,” Ryan said. “They’re clean.”

“You’re right,” Phyllida replied. “We were outside this structure, tracking down the violator who planted the device. I understand it went off.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said.

“Then I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” Phyllida told him. She sounded genuine, her voice tinged with regret.

J.B. spoke up from behind Ryan’s shoulder, his eyes watching the strangely garbed women carefully. “You use the mat-trans often?” he asked.

“No, never,” Phyllida told him. “But we had hoped to, as stories had been passed down for generations regarding its purpose. As I was telling your companion here, the device was out of commission for a very long time. Our people only achieved functionality again barely a day ago.”

“Then someone blew it up,” J.B. said drily. “That’s mighty inconvenient.”

One of the other Melissas spoke up, the honey-haired one called Charm. “William was a fool.” She spit. “He should have been driven out of Heaven months ago.”

“Heaven?” Doc asked with obvious surprise. These women dressed like angels, but surely...

Phyllida turned back to him and smiled. “Heaven Falls,” she said. “Where we live. We’ll show you, if you like, once we’ve assessed the damage to the mat-trans. It won’t take long.”

“Heaven Falls.” Doc rolled the name around in his mind. “It sounds, well... It sounds heavenly. Does it not, Ryan?”

The one-eyed man looked from Doc to Krysty and the others, judging their expressions. When he met with Mildred’s chocolate-brown eyes he saw her nod subtly. She wanted somewhere to check Ricky over more fully. A ville could be it.

“I think we’d like that,” Ryan said finally.

Together, the group made its way back through the redoubt to its heart, where the operations room and the mat-trans waited in their state of disarray.

“The bomb was set here,” Ryan said. “My friend tried to disarm it, but we ran out of time.”

“Placed the fire blanket over it to douse the flames,” J.B. said, as if in consolation.

Kneeling, Phyllida lifted the soot-streaked blanket and swept her hand through the mess underneath. It was still hot, but she didn’t seem to be bothered. Behind her, two of her companions were lamenting the shattered armaglass walls, while the other two checked the equipment in the control room.

“No signs of additional damage,” Adele said as she worked one of the consoles.

“All clear here,” black-haired Nancy confirmed, running a boot-up sequence on another console on the far side of the room.

Ryan and his companions watched in silence, and he felt almost violated by seeing other people operating the mat-trans controls. The companions had no clue as to how the system worked, but seeing strangers working the equipment felt threatening and very wrong.

After a few moments Phyllida straightened from the smoke-blackened tiles of the mat-trans floor and stood at her full height in front of Ryan. She was a beautiful woman, statuesque with the flawless skin of youth. Women like this didn’t usually exist in the Deathlands; it was a demanding environment, one that wore away at people, and at women most of all. Seeing these Melissas, as they called themselves, made Ryan feel uneasy, as if he was being tricked somehow.

“Thanks for everything you did to stop the fire,” Phyllida said.

“J.B. here—” Ryan began, but Phyllida interrupted him.

“You’re all to join us at the Home,” she said. “I’m sure that the Regina will want to thank you personally when she hears of your heroics.”

With that, the Melissas ushered the group from the control room and out into the corridor. Within minutes they were outside, following the dirt track that led from the redoubt door.

* * *

ITWASBEGINNINGto warm up outside. They were in a wooded area, lush grass lining the steep slope that led toward a blue, cloudless sky. Surprisingly, the usual chem clouds were absent here.

Though she had been outside briefly, Krysty wore a broad smile as she stepped into the sunlight again. She looped her arm through Ryan’s and pulled him into a sunny spot that was brightly illuminated on the dirt-and-tarmac path. “It feels good to be alive,” she told him, and Ryan knew what she meant. She had had no chance to express her concern for him in front of all these strangers, and her comment now was a veiled reference to how pleased she was that he had survived the bomb blast. Giving away too much about relationships, or much of anything else, wasn’t smart when you were around strangers.

“Your friend likes the sunlight,” the honey-haired Melissa observed.

Krysty remained on the path, twirling joyfully with her arms outstretched, a few feet from the redoubt’s entrance.

“She does at that,” Doc agreed, “and her name is Krysty, though forgive me if I have already forgotten yours, foolish old man that I am.”

“Charm,” the woman replied, flashing Doc her perfect smile.

“How very appropriate,” Doc replied.

The companions were allowed to keep their weapons, which boded well. In fact, allowed was too strong a word for it—the Melissas simply showed no interest in discussing their blasters just as long as they kept them holstered. Jak retrieved his Colt Python from where he had dropped it close to the redoubt entrance, and that was the only occasion where blasters were ever mentioned in conversation, wherein Linda instructed him to keep the weapon out of sight at all times. That was also when the subject of the late William came up.

“I’m sorry that you had to witness that,” Phyllida told Jak.

“Not see much,” Jak told her.

“The man was a violator,” Phyllida explained sorrowfully. It seemed that she regretted not that Jak had seen it so much as that their society had deviants at all.

“Violation is a disease,” she added. “It eats away at our love, fracturing the world we try to build. I’m proud of what I do for the Home, even though my contribution is small.”

“What is it you do?” Ryan asked her.

Phyllida thrust her shoulders back proudly, like a soldier showing earned medals, and gestured to her white-robed companions. “We are Melissas,” she said. “We protect the Home from factions that would destroy it, both from outside and within.”

“Then you’re sec women?” J.B. queried.

Phyllida looked at him and shrugged. “I haven’t heard that term,” she said, then remained silent, unsure of how to explain it to these strangely garbed outlanders.

Ryan and his companions followed as the white-robed Melissas led them up through the trees, following some unseen route they knew only from familiarity. There were flowers dotted here and there, more of them as they moved closer to their destination, brightening the surroundings with little oases of color: here a patch of magenta, there a line of red and white and blue. Occasionally, J.B. caught Phyllida and the others looking up at the sun, and he guessed that they were using it to navigate, the same way he did when he arrived at a new location.

Not far into the journey, Ricky stumbled and Mildred was forced to stop the group while she rechecked his wound. When he lifted his shirt, Mildred saw that the wound was still weeping blood; a darkness that was almost black had spread across the gauze she had used to patch him.

“Is your young friend going to be all right?” Adele asked with evident concern.

“He’ll be okay,” Mildred said, but there was worry in her tone.

Linda spoke swiftly, almost cheerfully. “We have a medical faculty at Home. Perhaps your companion could...” She trailed off, looking to the group’s leader for confirmation.

“Of course,” Phyllida said. “We would be only too happy to help.”

“Thanks,” Mildred said, but she sounded unconvinced. What kind of medical faculty? she wondered as Ricky replaced his shirt over the wound.

The group moved slower after that, with Ricky leaning alternately against Mildred and Jak as they trekked the path to Heaven Falls.

They were following a dead-straight path through the trees. Ryan sensed something familiar about the place; the foliage reminding him of Front Royal, where he had grown up. That was in Virginia, and he wondered if they had landed close. He caught Phyllida’s attention and asked her.

“Where exactly are we?” he asked.

“Almost home,” Phyllida replied, unintentionally cryptic. “You’ll see in a few minutes.”

And see they did. About six minutes later the group reached the summit of a rise and the trees parted to reveal a great mountain range towering over the grassy plains. Ryan’s breath caught in his throat as he looked out over those familiar mountains, while the others stopped and stared. It was Virginia, he was almost sure of it. They were looking out over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“Is it much farther to this ville of yours?” J.B. asked, his dour voice bringing Ryan back to earth.

“Through there,” Phyllida told J.B., pointing down a little ways through the crags.

J.B. and the others looked, and they saw lush green grass dotted by wooden, boxlike constructions that stood to roughly shoulder height. The boxy constructions featured latticed sides and stood atop what looked like table legs, and each had been painted white.

“Are those beehives?” Mildred asked, surprised.

“We farm honey here,” Phyllida told her in reply. “The bees like the coolness of the mountain air. They thrive in high environments.”

“I did not know that,” Mildred admitted.

Phyllida led the way through the rows of manmade beehives and deeper into the gorge between mountains. The beehives buzzed with a constant low hum, and Doc ducked his head as a bee flew close by.

“They won’t hurt you,” Charm told Doc, having somewhat attached herself to him during the journey over. “They just want to get to the pollen.”

Embarrassed, Doc laughed. “I told you I was an old fool,” he said.

There was an overhang of trees up ahead, creating a natural gateway leading into a sloping path. Beyond that stood a wide depression between the mountains within which lay the home of the Trai people.

And what a home it was!

There, in the wide plain that rested in the depression between mountains, stood a structure like nothing they had ever seen before. Like most villes the companions had encountered, it was surrounded by a high gated wall on which was located a sentry tower where sec men—or in this case, women—watched the surroundings, night and day. Behind that, white towers gleamed in the sunlight, arranged in a great circle that rose up into the sky, each building an almost perfectly circular tower. Tiny figures moved among the towers, striding across high walkways like acrobats in a circus act.

It was left to Doc to express what they were all thinking, albeit in his own inimitable style.

“By the Three Kennedys!”

Chapter Five

The companions followed Phyllida and the other Melissas onto the path that led into the gorge and, from there, to the gates themselves. As they approached, it became clear that the miraculous buildings were not quite circular. Subtle lines worked around their edges to form a soft hexagonal shape, utilizing the space perfectly. Arranged together like that, the buildings reminded Mildred of the pipes of her late father’s old church organ, but even those pipes had never gleamed so vibrantly as the buildings she now saw. While it reminded Mildred of the church organ, it also reminded her of something else—a fictitious city she had seen in an old movie serial back when she and her brother had just been kids.

“Mongo,” she muttered, shaking her head. “We’ve just walked to freaking Mongo.”

The others didn’t hear her; they were too wrapped up in the incredible sight in front of them.

“Welcome to Heaven Falls,” Phyllida announced, leading the companions to the gates of this incredible ville.

The gates to Heaven Falls were tall and well secured, fifteen feet in height with great metal rivets and hinges, two alert sentries watching from a tower that loomed over them to the left-hand side. The sentries were women, dressed in the same white robes as the party of Melissas who had found Ryan and his companions. The sentry tower was like a wooden box on stilts, with barred sides and no glass, making it difficult to shoot into but also preventing the additional danger of shattering glass should a bullet find a path through the bars.

Ryan thought of those things as he approached, wondering how far he would need to be to get a good shot from his Steyr Scout into the sentry box. Such were the thoughts of a man who had been shaped by the Deathlands, where every stranger had to be presumed to be an enemy. At least these strangers hadn’t disarmed them, and that counted for a lot as far as trust went. But Ryan was still conscious that he might be leading his friends into a trap.

It was a twenty-minute walk to the redoubt, but that had been with Ricky’s wounded flank slowing them. Ryan estimated he could march it in under fifteen minutes, sprint it in maybe seven. But with the mat-trans out of commission, that knowledge would serve them little good.

The sentries recognized Phyllida and her group, and the towering gates began to withdraw on a great winch mechanism. The winch squeaked loudly as it moved the heavy gates, granting Ryan and the companions their first proper view of the ville that lay beyond.

A main track led into the heart of the ville, with other roads peeling away at regular intervals. The streets were wide and unpaved, with farming machinery, including plows and mowers, waiting at the edge of the thoroughfare. The pale-colored buildings visible over the walls were clustered close to the center, with a lot of the land to each side given over to animal farming. It didn’t surprise Ryan that the animals were kept behind the gates—there was a lot to lose in animal farming. Rustlers could move in quickly and leave a ville starving in just a few hours.

Accompanied by the Melissas, Ryan and the companions entered. While the ville incorporated the central white towers, there were also other, lower buildings spread around, with plenty of wide-open space between them. Ryan’s first impression was that the ville might cover as much as a square mile, with the walls giving way to the towering slopes of the surrounding mountains—natural protection. Grass grew everywhere, a vibrant green carpet running all through the ville, and as one looked away from the main cluster of buildings one could see the grass borders segue into rolling fields where just two or three hut-like lodges had been built.

The ville was very clean. The roads themselves were marked by borders of flowers running in great sweeping lines all the way through the ville in strict flower types, making the roads seem almost as if they had been color-coded like a landing strip. Phyllida and her companions pointed out several interesting features, including a grand meeting hall that was circular in design and covered enough ground to house a battleship. The women were clearly proud of their ville, and they were open and upbeat in welcoming these outlanders to their home.

Ryan listened without comment, nodding as social protocol demanded, but adding little insight of his own. He was too busy taking in everything: the towering buildings that reached six or seven stories into the air; the covered drainage system that ran along the sides of the streets; the series of water pumps erected at regular intervals in the gated community. There were people, too, all of them dressed well, and happy. A lot of children under five ran up and down the street, herded by women in formal-looking attire, their hair pinned back neatly.

One child ran over to take in the companions, stopping fearlessly in front of Ryan and staring openly at him. The child had black hair that had grown a little long so that it was hard to tell if it was a boy or a girl.

“You’re dirty,” the child said cheerfully.

Ryan looked from the child to his clothes and realized that, at least by the standards of the ville’s other occupants, he and his companions were pretty dirty at that. He smiled at the child. “We’re hoping to get cleaned up,” he told him, “if we’re allowed to stick around.”

Phyllida turned back to Ryan, her blond hair catching the morning sun in a shimmer of gold. “That won’t be a problem, Ryan,” she assured him. “We have facilities here for bathing and for cleaning clothes.”

Ryan nodded once in acknowledgment. “We’d be grateful, ma’am.”

The dark-haired child was being called by one of the neatly dressed women, but didn’t seem to notice. “Patrick! Patrick, come back here,” she cried, trotting briskly over on low-heeled shoes. Finally the child turned when the woman was almost at arm’s length.

“That man’s got a blaster,” Patrick told her without a hint of fear in his voice.

The woman looked at Ryan and smiled. She was young and pretty, with red hair a little darker than Krysty’s. “Sorry,” she said to Ryan before turning back to her charge.

“I’m sure he won’t use it,” she explained, taking little Patrick’s hand. “While you need to get to school before the bell goes, otherwise you won’t learn anything.”

Patrick seemed reluctant to go for a moment. “Are you going to teach us about blasters, miss?” he asked.

“Well,” said the woman, evidently Patrick’s teacher, “you’ll only find out when you get to school.”

This seemed to satisfy the child, who’d probably have forgotten the conversation by the time he got to school anyway. The redhead turned back to Ryan just once as she departed with Patrick. She looked apologetic, but Ryan thought he detected something else there, too—she was eyeing his weapons, the handblaster at his hip and the Scout longblaster slung across his back like the Grim Reaper’s scythe.

“Kid seemed surprised by my blasters,” Ryan said to Phyllida. “Don’t you have weapons here?”

“We have no need of them,” Phyllida replied, “though we do understand that things are somewhat different outside these walls.”

“Yeah,” J.B. observed dourly. “You could say that.”

What struck Ryan, however, was not the lack of weapons but the educational program that was apparently in place. Growing up as the son of a wealthy baron, his life had been one of privilege. Ryan had learned to read and to write and he had had a good schooling in history and other subjects, despite the mess the world at large was still in following the nukecaust of 2001. Ryan was one of the lucky ones, and his travels around the Deathlands had made him very aware of that.

Most of the people in the land that had once been called the United States of America scratched their living day-to-day, feeding on what scraps they could find and preying on one another. The strong used, abused and chilled the weak to satisfy their whims, and there was little opportunity for formal education or for the sharing and exploration of ideas. But what they saw here, with the children being herded to school like sheep in a pen, told Ryan something that no discussion would have—that this settlement, Heaven Falls, was progressive. It was a society with its eyes on the future, on building and on betterment. In short, it was the very thing that he and his companions had sought for so long as they’d traveled the broken roads of the Deathlands—the sprouting buds of new civilization.

* * *

THEGROUPSOONreached the complex of tall towers. Each stood as wide as a house and five or six stories in height, with gently curving sides in a hexagonal design. The cluster of towers was arranged in a circular pattern, six on the outside with a single, broader tower in the middle. As she looked at it, once again Mildred was put in mind of church organ pipes.

Despite the beauty of their surroundings, however, Mildred was conscious that Ricky was in pain. She called to the closest Melissa, the black-haired girl called Nancy. “Is there anywhere here that I can look over my friend without being disturbed? He took a hit and I’m trained in medical matters.”

Nancy smiled warmly. “Of course,” she said, and after a brief exchange with Phyllida, she led Mildred and Ricky to one of the towers that surrounded the central spire.

“Mildred,” Ryan called, and she turned. “Why don’t you take Jak with you?”

Jak nodded, taking his cue and bounding after Mildred and Ricky.

Phyllida’s brow furrowed as she watched the albino charge away. Ryan saw that, and he offered a reassuring smile.

“Who knows how long she’ll be,” Ryan explained. “You have a smart-looking ville here and Jak’s our best tracker—he’ll make sure they don’t get lost or lose us.”

Phyllida seemed reassured at that. “You call it a ville?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Ryan replied. “Like a village.”

The Melissas laughed, and one of the others spoke up—the honey-haired one who seemed to have attached herself to Doc. “We call it Home,” she said. “You may, too.”

“Thanks,” Ryan said uncertainly. Despite the friendly atmosphere, he was not quite sure whether he could trust these people. Ryan and his companions had seen a lot of bloodshed and a lot of duplicity over their travels.

* * *

MILDRED, RICKYAND Jak followed Nancy across the flower-lined path between the towers toward an entryway. The entrance was broad, with a rounded arch completing its design, and no door. “This place is beautiful,” Mildred said, gazing at the gleaming buildings.

“One should be able to take pride in one’s home,” Nancy said, escorting the three of them into the tower.

The floor was paved, and it echoed their footsteps as they walked inside. Mildred smiled as she saw the entry room. It was spotlessly clean and featured a high ceiling that had to have taken up three floors of this lobby area, at which point the walls gradually began to angle inward as if they were inside some kind of conical pyramid. The grand lobby featured Impressionist-type art on the walls, great murals of swirling colors and abstract shapes. The place was lit by some trick of the wall structure itself, allowing sunlight to penetrate at regular intervals despite there being no visible windows either outside or within. Instead, it seemed that the walls were thinner in places, or perhaps constructed of some specific material that allowed light to pass through it unobscured.

Mildred shook her head incredulously. Mongo.

Nancy led them into an unoccupied room featuring two beds, a sink and several chairs.

* * *

THERESTOFRyan’s group was accompanied through a freestanding arch into an open-air courtyard, beyond which stood the largest and centermost of the white towers.

“If you would be so kind as to wait here,” Phyllida said, “I’ll speak with the Regina regarding your arrival.”

That didn’t sound good, but Ryan accepted it, taking up a position on one of the crescent-shaped benches that lined the courtyard. His companions joined him, weary from their travels, while Phyllida and Adele disappeared inside the tower.

Ryan’s lone eye flicked up to watch the remaining sec women for a few moments. The woman with the honey-blond hair—Charm—was engaged in conversation with Doc. The old man had an eye for a pretty woman, and he could be a witty conversationalist. The other Melissa—Linda—paced across the courtyard before assuming a position beside the freestanding arch.

“You trust these people?” J.B. asked Ryan, keeping his voice low.

“Sec force,” Ryan replied with a shrug. “What’s to trust?”

A peal of laughter erupted from a nearby bench. Doc was showing Charm some kind of old-fashioned dance that involved using his stick as a cane, and they were in the middle of muddling into each other as he tried to demonstrate the steps.

“Doc seems at home already,” J.B. observed.

Ryan shook his head. “Doc doesn’t know what year it is half the time and he spends the other half wishing he didn’t know.”

J.B. continued to watch Doc as he showed the younger woman the dance. “Seeing him happy like that reminds me of how he was with Lori,” he said.

One of the dance moves seemed to involve turning one’s back on one’s partner and bumping rear ends. The woman called Charm blushed fiercely when Doc showed her, and, still laughing, she patted Doc’s hand.

“Yeah, a lot like Lori,” Ryan agreed.

Remembering what had happened to Lori Quint, Ryan wasn’t sure that this was such a good thing. She had died shortly after betraying Ryan’s group.

* * *

JAKWASPACINGthe room like a caged tiger. “Not like place,” he said to no one in particular. “Too clean.”

He halted by the open door, peering out into the lobby area that waited beyond where Nancy had retreated to get help. He could see people moving there, men, women and children, same as in the streets beyond. They were quiet and ordered and clean. It seemed a world away from the life he was used to.

Standing over the bed, Mildred bit her lip in thought. “I’m not going to pull punches, Ricky,” she said. “Internal bleeding would be bad. But we can check for that. This seems to be a sterile environment.”

Jak hissed in warning. Nancy was returning, accompanied by another woman, this one older, with short, nut-brown hair and wearing a simple jacket-and-pants ensemble of very light blue material. Unseen by the pair, Jak slipped back from the door, gliding across the room until he was standing in the far corner from which he could observe everything. A moment later Nancy and the other woman entered, solemn expressions on their faces.

“Mildred, Ricky, Jak...” Nancy began. “This is Petra, one of our medical experts. Petra, this is Mildred, whom I told you about.”

Mildred looked up from where she was checking Ricky’s wound, and she showed her hands in slight embarrassment. “Just washed them,” she explained to prevent any awkward moment of being expected to shake this new woman’s hand.

“That’s a nasty-looking wound your patient has suffered,” Petra said, stepping closer to the bed. “Nancy said you were all caught up in a bomb blast. None of the rest of you suffered any—”

“No,” Mildred said, “we’re all fine, barring a little dust in our hair.” She was glad that Nancy had informed the woman about the bomb, and that both had assumed that was where Ricky had sustained the wound. It saved her having to explain the fraught circumstances in which they had arrived.

Petra introduced herself to Ricky and began to examine his wound, first with her eyes and then by gently running her fingers over it, careful not to cause the patient too much distress. “There’s some grit in the wound,” she said.

“I had to patch him in a hurry,” Mildred admitted. “I cleaned the wound with ammonia—”

“Which stung like hell,” Ricky declared.

“—but there was a lot of dust floating around after the bomb burst,” Mildred finished.

“That’s understandable,” Petra concurred, placating. “I can assure you that this is a sanitary environment. We’ll clean out the wound properly with a sterile irrigant, then take a look at treating it with a salve.”

Mildred was surprised. “Do you think that will be enough? It’s pretty nasty.”

“We’ve been developing some remedies here,” Petra told her, “that we’ve found to be very successful. I think you—and your patient—will be pleasantly surprised.”

* * *

OUTSIDETHECENTRALtower, Krysty joined Ryan on one of the crescent-shaped benches. “I was devastated when I heard the bomb go off,” she whispered.

Ryan ran his fingers across her hand, working them along the webbing at the base of hers. “We found somewhere safe,” he said. “Those old redoubts are built to withstand a lot.”

“So are we,” Krysty said, and she raised an eyebrow and smiled.

Before they could say anything further, Phyllida and Adele appeared at the doorway to the grand tower.

“Ryan,” Phyllida began, “you and your friends have been granted an audience with the Regina. You may follow us to the meeting suite.”

Thanking her, Ryan stood, adjusting the longblaster he carried across his back. Krysty, J.B. and Doc also stood, and together the group was escorted into the towering building.

Chapter Six

The Melissas took up positions to either side of the companions as they strode out of the morning sunshine and into the tower. A broad archway granted entry, with bent sides that worked outward to symmetrical points, and a horizontal apex in mirror to the ground. The entrance was wide enough to drive a couple wags through, shoulder to shoulder, and it served to dwarf any visitor.

Beyond that arch, the interior was almost as bright as the direct sunlight that washed the courtyard. The opening space was a grand reception area that featured a number of smaller, six-sided arches leading from it. The whole place was painted white, with hints of very light grays and blues to highlight certain features such as the grand columns that held the ceiling in place. The floor was covered with large tiles, each one as long as a man was tall, shaped in hexagons so that they could be easily slotted together. The tiles were colored lightly in subtly different off-white shades, creating a clean feel to the room. The ceiling stretched at least four stories overhead, with walkways crisscrossing high above the companions’ heads, and a grand balcony stretched along each level where a few people puttered around on errands. Six chandelier-type fixtures hung at regular intervals from beams that crossed the vast area. They were delicately designed from an amber-like substance to create splashes of color in the air, like liquid gold caught in the freeze-frame of the camera shutter. The clear amber jewels caught and spread the light, casting spots of golden orange around the chamber that moved slowly with the breeze. Despite the high ceilings and open space, the room was remarkably quiet, with barely a hint of sound echoing from its other occupants.

Doc was taken with the whole place immediately. “What a wonderful room,” he said. “Quite, quite exquisite.”

Ryan, however, looked at the room with indifference. As ever, his mind was focused on their destination, not the journey.

Despite the vast proportions of the room, it felt pleasantly warm—even tropical—to Ryan, and he suspected some hidden system of heating was in play.

The group was led through another arch, down a corridor that had been painted a very pale yellow, to a set of closed, wooden double doors that featured an elaborate floral design carved upon their surface. Phyllida waited while Charm and Linda hurried ahead to open the doors. The floral design split perfectly in the middle when the doors opened, reconnecting seamlessly when it was closed. Once the doors were opened, the two white-robed Melissas waited to the side as Phyllida led the way inside.

Beyond the doors lay a grand room, almost circular in design with a low ceiling that loaned it a more intimate feel than the lobby. The walls were carved of wood, with elaborate designs notched into the panels, similar to the one on the doors. A long, straight table dominated the center of the room. The table was forty feet in length and could have seated twelve people easily on each side. A woman sat at the far end of the table on its shortest side, reclining in a seat whose back towered grandly above her to at least double her height.

Chairs were set around the table at regular intervals, and Ryan and his companions were invited to sit. The woman at the head of the table looked about thirty-five to Ryan, and she reclined sideways in the grand chair, her legs dangling over one arm, her feet bare. She was slim and had flawless skin that had bronzed with the sun. She had luxurious blond hair that shone like gold, wide, appealing blue eyes and a generous mouth. The clothing she wore was a vibrant red in color, and though the blouse and pants were separate they matched exactly. Her clothes were loose, the top open well past the neck, with billowing sleeves, and pantaloons that ended high in the calf. She acknowledged the visitors with a casual nod and a closed-lip smile.

“This is our Regina,” Phyllida explained as the companions took their seats. Then she bowed to the Regina and said two words. “All love.”

A heartbeat later the other Melissas mimicked the gesture.

Once this ritual had been performed, the four white-clad Melissas stepped back to take up discreet positions around the room, with Phyllida taking a spot close to the Regina. The Regina surveyed the newcomers in silence.

Sitting beside Ryan, Doc leaned to him and J.B. and explained in a low voice that Regina meant queen in Latin. “One of the old languages that was dead before I was born,” Doc clarified before Ryan could ask.

Nodding, Ryan addressed the woman in the red robes. “Thank you for seeing us, Regina,” Ryan began. “My name’s Ryan Cawdor and this is J.B., Krysty and Doc. I understand that you have some rules in your ville, and I’d like to apologize if we’ve offended you in any way, with our ignorance.”

The Regina’s mouth opened in a wonderfully warm smile, her line of teeth straight and dazzlingly white. “Your blasters have no place being in this room,” she said, though her words sounded nonjudgmental, “but I understand that things are different outside these walls, so that’s something you’ll get used to in time.”

J.B. had removed his hat, and he fiddled with it in front of him as he spoke. “We’re just passing through, ma’am. We didn’t plan on staying.”

The Regina sighed. “How often we’ve heard those words, Mr.... J.B.”

“It’s just J.B.,” the Armorer told her. “J. B. Dix.”

“Yes, J.B.,” the Regina continued, “we’ve seen a few travelers since we established Heaven Falls here in the mountains. It’s not easy to get here, and most journeymen are exhausted by the time they find us—those who survive. Though I am led to understand that you did not cross the mountains, but rather arrived via the matter-transfer unit.”

“That’s right,” Ryan told her. “Your people said they’d only just got the thing working not two days before.”

“Only for someone to blow a hole in it,” J.B. grumbled dourly.

“William,” the Regina said wistfully. “He always seemed...ill at ease. Still, one would never have imagined he would become so afflicted that he would be driven to such an extreme act of defiance.”

“Defiance?” Doc repeated, surprised.

“Every Home must have rules,” the Regina told them all. “Otherwise, order loses and chaos reigns. Without order, we’d have no civilization.”

“And from what little we’ve seen, that’s something you have here in spades,” Ryan said, annoyed at Doc’s interjection. “It’s admirable.”

“Thank you,” the Regina replied. “When we all work together, it’s amazing what can be achieved.”

“I know the words,” J.B. said. “I guess having a look around will help me understand the context.”

The Regina indulged him with her brilliant smile before turning back to Ryan. “I suspect that you and your friends are hungry, Ryan. Could I interest you in a small repast?”

Ryan said that she could, and the companions waited in place while one of the Melissas left the room to fetch the serving staff who would prepare their meal. There was something here, Ryan felt, just beneath the surface. The place was too ordered, too military. It seemed—for want of a better word—inhuman.

* * *

INTHEMEDICALtower, Petra worked with Mildred on Ricky’s wound while Jak and Nancy looked on.

Petra’s work was efficient and painstaking, with an attention to detail that Mildred couldn’t fault. Once the wound was clean, she’d instructed Nancy to retrieve something from a supply room, and the dark-haired woman departed. While they waited, Mildred asked Petra about her training.

“We pool our knowledge here in Heaven Falls,” Petra told her. “It’s a simple principle—the more we learn, the more we all discover and can put to use.”

“Your work with Ricky is very good,” Mildred said, trying not to sound patronizing.

“I studied in the house of learning,” Petra explained, “where all knowledge can be shared. They showed me the parts of the human body, and how it can be repaired and kept in good working order.”

Mildred snorted. “You make it sound like a machine,” she said.

“It’s a structure, if that’s what you mean,” Petra said with no sense of irony. “And one that can be improved upon, given the right input, the right tools.”

Mildred was intrigued by that. “You...improve?”

“You’ll find there’s very little illness here in the Home,” Petra told her. “We’ve found ways to keep ourselves healthier.”

Now Mildred was really intrigued, but before she could say anything, the Melissa called Nancy returned pushing a wheeled trolley on which were various bottles of liquid, creams and jars of unguent. Petra showed Mildred several of them while Jak watched sullenly from the corner of the room. Jak didn’t like this woman. In fact, he didn’t like any of the people he had met here so far. If it wasn’t for Ricky’s wound, he would be insisting to Mildred and Ryan that they get out of here, triple fast. There was something not quite right about the place, but he couldn’t put his finger on it yet.

* * *

RYANANDTHEcompanions wereserved cakes and honey water in the Regina’s meeting room. The cakes were light and delicious, while the honey water tasted subtly sweet and was wonderfully refreshing after their long trek.

“You have really outdone yourself as a host,” Doc said in toast as he took a bite from his third scone.

The Regina held her cup up in acknowledgment to him. “We treat outlanders as we would wish to be treated,” she said.

“That’s one heck of an enlightened attitude, ma’am,” J.B. remarked, wiping at his lips with a napkin. He found the honey water a little too sweet for his tastes, and suspected that the honey was used in part as a preservative to prevent stagnation or to perhaps mask the bitter taste of mineral content. When civilization had fallen apart, preserving food and drink had become a challenge.

“We hope that one day our kindness will be repaid, when we find a community that welcomes us with open arms,” the Regina told her audience.

J.B. laughed. “In our experience, open arms is the usual response—though the other kind,” he told her, mimicking a blaster being fired.

“You’ve traveled far, then?” the Regina asked.

Ryan nodded, swallowing a mouthful of delicious sponge cake. “We’ve been on the road a long time,” he said, “moving from place to place. The screw-up at the mat-trans coupled with our companion’s wound is what brought us here.”

“Do you ever think of settling down?” the Regina asked before taking another sip from her cup.

“Sometimes,” Ryan admitted.

“It’s a lovely dream,” Krysty added, her eyes meeting with Ryan’s for a drawn-out moment.

The Regina nodded in understanding. “We should all harbor dreams,” she told the companions. “They’re what make us strive and force us to grow. Without dreams we can never better ourselves, and so life remains static. You’re very welcome to stay,” she offered.

“That’s a mighty generous proposition,” Ryan responded.

“We have food to spare, and there are several empty properties—certainly enough to house all of you if you don’t mind sharing.”

Ryan looked at Krysty as he replied. “We don’t mind that in the slightest, Regina,” he said. “If it’s no trouble, that is.”

* * *

ITWASALMOSTan hour later when Ryan and his companions were ushered from the Regina’s presence, accompanied once more by Phyllida and her three associates. Charm stuck close to Doc, who seemed more talkative than usual—if such a thing was possible—and had a new swagger in his step.

The sun was higher in the sky as they entered the courtyard beyond the tower door, slowly notching toward midday. Waiting there on one of the crescent-shaped benches were Mildred and Jak. Mildred sat, rummaging in her backpack as she reordered her supplies, while Jak was crouching with his feet up on the bench, his head down, his eyes narrowed as he watched the surroundings. Jak looked incongruous in the tranquil surroundings, like a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting bird.

Mildred looked up as the group approached. “Hey, guys, what kept you?” she asked cheerfully.

“Tea and scones with the queen,” Doc replied, delight on his aged features.

Mildred glared at him before turning to the others. “Anyone else care to elaborate?” she asked.

Ryan ignored the question, instead asking one of his own. “What’s the news on Ricky?”

“He’s fine,” Mildred told him, “but a few days of bed rest would do him good. We left him at the...hospital, I guess you’d call it.” She pointed to the white-walled tower. “They’ve made some interesting medical developments there that I think are worth looking into, if we have the time.” She was clearly excited by the prospect.

“We have the time,” Ryan told her. “The baron of this ville just invited us to stay.”

Mildred looked suddenly wary.

“Is there a problem?” Mildred asked, her eyes flicking to the Melissa guards who stood at a discreet distance from the talking companions.

The companions had been forced to stay in places before, often at the mercy of a sadistic baron who wanted to use them either as slave labor or something even more reprehensible.

“No problem,” Ryan told her. Not yet anyway.

Call him suspicious, but Ryan didn’t trust this place. It was too friendly, too welcoming. They’d been asked to stay, but it was really a soft sell, with the offer of abundant food and a place to sleep. People in the Deathlands didn’t give without expecting to get. Plus there was the issue of the bomber and just why he had found it necessary to plant a bomb in a mat-trans that had only just been made operational. There had to be a reason for that, and Ryan wanted to know what it was. But he knew better than to ask straight-out; that was a quick way to alienate themselves and maybe get chilled for the inquiry. Sticking around a few days and observing the goings-on in this strangely peaceful ville might just yield the answers he was looking for.

Chapter Seven

Life in the Deathlands was all about “take” with very little “give.” That was the sole reason that Ryan and his companions distrusted what they had found there in the mountains. But when they left the central towers of Heaven Falls and followed the Melissas to their new lodgings, their anxieties began to diminish.

The land the Trai had acquired massed several acres within a valley. It was ideally placed, set within the declivity in the mountains to provide natural protection that was as effective as any wall. Two mountain peaks soared high above to either side, leaving in their wake sharp, craggy walls that towered to the left and right of the Trai’s land. These walls were wide spaced, leaving enough land between them for farming but creating almost vertical plummets from above, making it difficult to reach the settlement from that direction. The chances of a sneak attack from above were remote, but the vast space that was left for the valley gathered plenty of sunlight, allowing crops to flourish. People worked at those fields, tilling them and sowing seeds in the midmorning sun, as Ryan and the companions followed a rough path down into the valley.

Jak sniffed the air and smiled. There was sweetness here from wildflowers that dotted the slopes and from the blossoms in the trees.

“How many people do you have here?” Ryan asked.

Phyllida smiled, pushing her hair back from her slender neck. “Almost one hundred and eighty adults at the last census,” she said, “and expanding all the time.”

Doc nodded in comprehension. “You have security and an organized food supply, from the looks of things,” he said. “Little wonder that this young ville is growing. Long may it continue.”

“Thank you,” Phyllida replied, leading the way down a roughly marked path that led toward a cluster of cabins.

The cabins were simple wooden structures, single story with no walls or fences to stake any boundaries around them. The land was the Trai’s shared garden; individuals needed no parcel of land to call their own. There were approximately thirty dwellings in total, and they were widely spaced on a gentle slope that gradually rolled away toward a natural step in the ground, beyond which three additional wooden lodges waited.

At first glance, the placement of the cabins seemed haphazard because of the slope, but Ryan realized that they were placed in lines, albeit far apart from one another. The buildings followed a single basic design, with a door to one side and a window in the center of the front, more windows along the sides and a chimney on top. Puffs of smoke emanated from a few of the chimneys where the occupants were cooking, for it was too warm in the sunlight to need to heat them. Teams of carpenters worked at two new structures in varying states of construction, their component parts laid out on the grass around them as they toiled.

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