James Axler - Siren Song

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?”