James Axler - Downrigger Drift

A loud snort from next to her made both Krysty and Ryan glance over, each tensing to burst into action if necessary. But the man who’d made the noise simply smacked his lips, moaned softly and rolled over again, revealing a lined face surrounded by limp, gray-white hair. A small trickle of blood leaked from his patrician nose to drip on the floor as he snored, the bass sound rumbling off the walls.

Ryan rubbed his stubbled chin as he contemplated the enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a mystery that was Theophilus Algernon Tanner. A man born out of time, he was a unique specimen, as he had lived in the far-off past of the nineteenth century, way before skydark, when he had been time-trawled into the twentieth century, and then dumped into Deathlands without so much as a by-your-leave. The mental and physical strain of repeated jumps had left Doc’s mind more than unbalanced. On a good day, he could be a fount of information about history and times past. On a bad day, he rambled about things that made no sense to anyone, had imaginary conversations with people long dead, and acted a senile old fool.

J.B. had cautiously risen to his feet, stretching the kinks out of his back. “Doc awake?”

“Not yet. Give him a minute. Looks like it went hard for him.”

Blinking a few times, J.B. scanned the rest of the group with a glance. “Looks like Jak soiled himself.”

“Shut the fuck up, J.B.” The fifth member of their group pushed himself into a sitting position, his ruby-red eyes glittering from underneath a mane of frost-white hair hanging to his shoulders. He swept vomit from his chin with the back of a pale hand and spit on the floor. “Feel fine.”

J.B. smiled. “Equal parts piss and vinegar, as usual.”

Jak Lauren’s only response was a raised middle finger, drawing chuckles from both men. An albino from the deep swamps of what had once been the state of Louisiana a century earlier, the teenager had been with the group through many of their adventures across the Deathlands. At one point he’d settled down with a wife and child in the Southwest, but when they had been killed, he’d rejoined the group. Though shorter than J.B. and skinnier than Doc, Jak was one of the best hand-to-hand knife chillers Ryan had ever known.

Carefully wiping a drying crust of puke from his jacket, Jak checked to make sure his .357 Magnum Colt Python was secure on his belt, and also the placement of his several leaf-bladed throwing knives hidden about his person.

“Oh, my aching brain. Sweet Jesus, will these damned jumps ever get any better?” The last member of their group was also stirring, raising brown hands to her forehead and holding it as she curled into a tight, sitting ball.

Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances, and the Armorer walked over, kneeling by her side.

“You okay, Mildred?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s nothing I haven’t been through too many times before.” Mildred Wyeth raised her head, looking at the rest of them through squinted eyes. “Headache’s going away. Just give me a moment. Someday we gotta find a redoubt with a pharmacy that hasn’t been picked clean. What I wouldn’t give for an industrial-strength aspirin right now.”

“Settle for ammo—gettin’ lower than I like,” was J.B.’s matter-of-fact reply.

She looked at him with a rueful smile. “That is one of the differences between you and me, John. I just want to cure what ails me, and you’re intent on keeping yourself well-armed.”

“Both keep you from harm, don’t they?”

Mildred’s expression suddenly turned to a grimace of pain. “That they do, when you can find either.”

“Best way to do that is to start lookin’ now, isn’t it?” Ryan’s gaze flicked to the door that would lead them to the rest of the complex. The redoubts scattered throughout what was left of America and the rest of the world could hold great and terrible treasures. Often containing weapons, vehicles and equipment, some also contained darker things, like the time-trawling equipment that had brought Doc to the future—or the cryogenic equipment that had held Mildred in perfect hibernation until she had been awoken by Ryan and his crew. A skilled physician, she knew much about the cryo-chambers, having worked on their development before being put in one herself, and was also the best pistol shot in the group, even surpassing Ryan and J.B. She had even won a medal in the last ever Olympics, back when it was considered a hobby, not a way of life.

Ryan rolled to his feet in a single smooth motion and extended a hand to Krysty. “We better rouse Doc. It’s time we find out where we are.”

“Never fear, my dear Ryan, I am fully awakened, cognizant of my surroundings, and more or less in full command of my mental and physical faculties, such as they are.”

With the help of his lion’s-head ebony swordstick, Doc rose to his feet, knees popping with the effort, and dusted off his ancient frock coat before favoring them all with a broad smile. “Let us sally forth and investigate whatever new labyrinth we find ourselves inhabiting this day.”

“Awake sure. Mouth already runnin’.” Jak shook his head, then glanced at the walls. “Color different.”

The walls of the mat-trans chambers were a bewildering variety of colors that seemed to have no rhyme or reason to them, from black to silver and every shade in between.

“Triple red, people. Let’s see what we can see.” A broad variety of weapons appeared in everyone’s hands. J.B. readied his ever-present mini-Uzi, flicking off the safety with his thumb. He had taken up a position to one side, ready to catch anyone—or anything—outside in a lethal cross fire.

Although the self-sustaining redoubts had been built in secret and carefully hidden from the world more than a century earlier, the companions knew all too well that time had a way of revealing the concealed. The walls were sometimes breached. Until they knew for sure, the only way to go was slow, steady and ready to shoot anything that moved outside.

“Everyone set?” Ryan kept his blaster up and ready as he reached for the lever that would open the gateway door.

The door hissed open, and Ryan immediately felt a breath of warm air waft over him. Blaster leading the way, he edged out past the left side of the mat-trans wall and into the anteroom, scanning for the slightest hint of movement. On reflex he checked the small rad counter clipped to the lapel of his jacket, but it edged up into the green.

“Seems clean—no leaks. Not much else either.”

The control room was empty, filled with blinking banks of comp consoles with plain chairs in front of them. The walls were dull gray, and as bare as stone.

J.B. was already moving to the right, the muzzle of his submachine gun tracking in a forty-five-degree arc in front of him, ready to spray chattering death in an instant. He reached the sliding door that would take them farther into the redoubt. “Green clear.” He wiped at his forehead. “Warm.”

Krysty and Jak came in next, still carrying their side-arms. Mildred and Doc brought up the rear, all looking for any sign of where they might have ended up this time.

Doc’s gaze wandered around the barren room. “Besides what hope the flight of future days may bring, what chance, what change worth waiting—”

“Shut it, Doc.”

“My apologies, dear friend, it was my hope that a bit of doggerel might enhance the otherwise drab quarters we currently find ourselves in.”

“That was John Milton, wasn’t it, Doc?” Mildred looked wistful for a moment. “Paradise Lost indeed.”

“Let the future take care of itself and let’s all concentrate mighty hard on the here and now.” Frowning, Ryan crossed the room to the door, blaster held down at his side.