David Robbins - Dallas Run

“Legend has it that that’s what the place was called before the war,” Aaron divulged. “The Cabbage Bowl, I believe.”

“Enough conversation, Brother Aaron,” the Lawgiver said sternly.

They descended slowly. Blade studied the layout of CHEMITEX, speculating on the purpose the complex had once served. Had the plant manufactured chemicals? If so, what kind? Warfare toxins, or chemicals utilized in agriculture or commercial industry? And how could a chemical concern be connected to the Chosens’ Elixir of Life? For that matter, what was the Elixir? Perhaps the substance had something to do with longevity.

“Do you take the Elixir, Lawgiver?” he asked.

“I have no need. I already bear the Mark of the Chosen,” responded the leader.

Blade didn’t like the implications of that remark. His lips compressed as he contemplated the possibilities. In short order they came to the break in the fence, where someone long ago had snipped the links in a straight line from the bottom to within four inches of the top. Blade waited for the Lawgiver to enter the complex, then he crouched and squeezed through the gap. As he straightened, a movement on the roof of the two-story square building drew his attention, and he saw a man with a rifle watching them.

Aaron and the four guards passed into the facility.

The square building was positioned on the west side of the CHEMITEX plant. To the north, east, and south were the one-story rectangular structures. Above all four reared grimy smokestacks.

The Lawgiver led them to a closed brown door at the rear of the square building. Weeds and brush choked the space between the fence and the building, except for the well-defined footpath. He paused at the door and glanced up, smiling and waving at the man on the roof, who had leaned over the edge to keep an eye on them. “Brother Saul!” he called.

“Lawgiver!” the man responded.

Twisting the knob, the Lawgiver gave the door a shove and stepped inside.

Blade walked over the threshold tentatively, uncertain of what awaited him. A 35-foot corridor connected to another door. Lining both sides of the hall were dozens of lockers.

“Coming here always stirs fond memories,” the Lawgiver commented.

“I can remember playing here as a child, and I know every nook and cranny in the plant.”

“Do you know a secret passage I can use to escape?” Blade asked.

“There is no escape for the impure. Our Maker’s wrath will descend like a specter of death on those who do not have the Mark,” the Lawgiver said.

They ambled to the next door.

Blade’s eyes widened when he beheld the enormous chamber on the other side. Along the east wall were situated a dozen huge vats. In the middle were benches and cabinets, several crammed with beakers and bottles. A wide mixing tank, filled to the brim with a noxious chemical concoction, occupied the area near the north wall. Pipes projected from the containment walls at both ends. Those on the east were connected to the gigantic vats; those on the west went into the ground.

Three men and two women were seated at a nearby bench. They rose and approached, smiling happily.

“Lawgiver!” a woman exclaimed.

Blade’s nostrils registered a pungent odor in the air. He glanced up at the ceiling and spotted a jagged, ten-foot hole in the northwest corner where a portion of the roof had caved in. Dust covered everything.

“How are our converts doing?” the Lawgiver inquired.

“Two have almost converted, but the third is giving us a hard time,” answered a skinny man.

“Have you tried increasing his dosage?”

“Yes. But he squirms and locks his mouth shut, and it’s next to impossible to get the Elixir down his throat,” the skinny man replied.

“I’d like to see the progress they’ve made,” the Lawgiver stated, and looked at the Warrior. “You’ll find this extremely interesting.”

“I’ll bet,” Blade muttered.

They walked toward the northwest corner.

The Warrior saw that a chunk of concrete the size of a car had fallen and broken into sizable bits, and the impact had left a shallow depression in the floor, a miniature crater ten feet in diameter and six inches deep.

Into this crater rainwater had dropped through the hole in the ceiling, collecting into a stagnant pool. He also beheld a sight that made him clench his fists and grit his teeth in suppressed rage.

Lying on their backs within a yard of the pool, attired in fatigue pants and nothing else, their arms and legs spread-eagled, were the three missing soldiers from the Civilized Zone, shackled to spikes imbedded in the cement.

“Do you know who they are?” the Lawgiver questioned.

“I know,” Blade acknowledged gruffly.

They halted a few feet from the soldiers, two of whom were gazing absently into space. The third looked at the Warrior hopefully.

“These are the ones you were sent to find,” the Lawgiver stated. “Notice anything different about them, mercenary?”

Blade did, and he swallowed hard and involuntarily shuddered, his skin crawling as his eyes roved over the bright green splotches covering the two troopers who were staring distractedly. The chest and arms of the third soldier were dotted with faint blemishes.

The Lawgiver snickered maliciously.

“Who are you?” the third soldier abruptly inquired. “I’m Sergeant Whitney. Are you really from the Civilized Zone?”

“I’m Blade,” the Warrior said, and he could tell by the manner in which the noncom reacted that Whitney had heard of him.

“Blade! They’ve caught you too!” Sergeant Whitney exclaimed.

“They think they have.”

“I was expecting General Reese to send in a battalion,” Whitney said.

“What’s wrong with these other two?” Blade asked, nodding at the dazed pair.

“It’s the damn Elixir!” Sergeant Whitney responded spitefully. “The bastards have been forcing us to drink it!”

“Not another word out of you, or else!” the Lawgiver barked.

“What can you do that you haven’t already done?” Whitney snapped.

“Kill me? Go ahead! I’d rather be dead than like you!”

Blade glanced at the pool. Lying next to the edge was a metal dipper.

He noticed a moist yellow stain along the eastern rim of the crater, and traced the stain across the floor to one of the pipes jutting from the west end of the mixing tank. The pipe had cracked, allowing the chemicals to seep out. Comprehension dawned, and he looked at the Lawgiver in astonishment.

“Do you understand now, mercenary?”

“I think I do,” Blade said. “Did your family use this pool for its drinking water?”

The Lawgiver grinned. “Yes.”

“And your father and mother took shelter here a year before you were born?”

“Yes.”

Blade stared at the green splotches on the two soldiers, the insight shocking him to his core. The chemicals in the mixing tank had leaked from the cracked pipe and trickled into the pool. “It was the chemicals,” he said softly.

The Lawgiver laughed lightly and gestured at the mixing tank. “Yes, again. The chemicals. My parents unwittingly drank from the pool, and the chemicals in the water affected the developing child in my mother’s womb—me. They had the same effect on my sister. Embryos, apparently, are extremely sensitive to the presence of certain foreign substances in a mother’s system.”

“Did your parents develop the splotches?”

“Not fully. They broke out in a green rash periodically, but I suspect they didn’t develop the splotches because diluted doses are not very efficacious when administered to mature adults.”

“But your children have the marks?”

“Yes. Once introduced into the bloodline, the trait is transmissible from generation to generation.”