Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow (10 page)

Slowly she lowered it and set it back on the marble top table. He was right about that. These
things
hadn’t done any wrong. It wasn’t for her to destroy whatever pitiful heritage was left for future generations.

“I am being a little crude tonight,” Hanover apologized, though she knew he was lying through his teeth. “Being around military sorts all the time—you know, it hardens one a little, makes one a little rough around the edges. Do forgive me. Please, let’s have dinner together, and we can talk and relax.”

He clapped his hands twice hard, so that it sounded like gunshots in the luxuriously-appointed room. Instantly the door opened and three waiters in tuxes and white gloves stood there, each pushing a three-tiered cart. The smells wafted into the room before they had even gone a few yards.

Kim was ravenous and at the same time furious at herself for her stomach, which started growling. She didn’t want to need or take anything from the man. But she also knew she had to eat, had to keep her strength and energy up. Things would change. There would be a chance at escape, at helping her father. She owed it to him, to America itself, to keep herself strong. Still, she felt another surge of contempt for the general. He knew how to manipulate people, people like her. He hadn’t allowed her to be fed since the morning before, knowing she would find it impossible to resist. She swung her head around to keep her eyes from the food.

“Come now, come now,” he said trying to act fatherly toward her as he headed over toward the dining table which the servants were setting with heirloom silverware and Royal Blue china. Then the silver serving bowls filled with delicious meats and vegetables with glazes and sauces running off them like snow down a Rocky Mountain slope.

He sat down at one side of the table and motioned for her to join him as he poured a crystal glass full of champagne. “1989,” he said, eyeing the bottle. “The last year champagne made it to this country before the no-growth years. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”

“Well, maybe a
little,”
she said, unable to resist the call of her digestive fluids which rolled through her stomach in a flood of hunger. She seated herself across from him and grabbed hold of one of the forks, ready to plunge it right into his chest if he tried anything. But for the moment at least, he seemed to enjoy the charade of being “civilized.”

She dug into the rich foods, piling the stuff up on her plates and suddenly decided to go savage on him. She crammed the forkfuls into her mouth, letting food splatter out onto the table, down her chin. She ate like a wildwoman, half out of hunger, half out of wanting to destroy the image that General Hanover was trying to create of her—the fantasy woman. That fantasy was why he had her decked out in such fineries, had the room set up to be suitable for a “princess.”

Hanover did seem a little disgusted by Kim’s neanderthalic display as he ate. He seemed to understand that it was to alienate his affections, and so in his mind he dismissed the uncouth behavior.

“This is the finest steak, taken from the butcher’s storehouse,” he said, slowly cutting a piece of his and sliding it into his mouth. “It’s not factory-farm stuff. This meat comes from a calf that was allowed to roam, to be in the sun.”

“Yeah’s great,” Kim replied, spraying out a mouthful of juices right onto the table linens and a little onto his uniform. “Good chow, good.” She piled in everything she could find, wanting to build up her storehouse. God only knew just when she would eat again, if she managed to escape into the
outside.

At last they both finished, as the servants stood with their hands clasped in front of them some yards behind each of the diners. General Hanover rose and holding a goblet of champagne in each hand walked over to her side of the table.

“Here, my dear I insist that you at least try some of this delicious bubbly. I had it opened just for this occasion. Don’t let it go to waste, I implore you.” She rose up and kept dancing away out of reach of the military madman. His very presence, and smell nauseated her, filled her chest with a burning anger. But she reached out and took hold of the glass and held it up.

“A toast,” she smirked, with a false smile on her face.

“Yes, a toast,” Hanover replied, his eyes widening as he wondered if she was at last softening toward him.

“To the biggest pig I’ve ever seen, to a fascist, a coward and inside, a wimp of a man.” She held the glass high as General Hanover’s eyes went from twinkling blue to arctic gray. He stared frozen at her as she suddenly tilted the glass forward and flung the contents at him, covering the whole front of his uniform, his medals with the bubbly.

“You bitch,” the general shouted as he looked down. “You’ve ruined this! I was going to wear it to officer promotions tomorrow. Now—” He reached forward—she wasn’t sure if it was to strike her or wrestle her to the floor. But as the meaty hands grabbed Kim around her shoulders she hefted the carving fork she had been hiding in her left hand behind her back and plunged it into his shoulder. He let out a scream of real pain as she pulled back out of his way.

Hanover stopped in his tracks and stared at the long ornate silver fork which was sticking right out of his right upper arm like he was a pre-nuke turkey about to be carved.

He reached for the handle and pulled it out with a wince of pain as blood began running lightly down the sleeve, joining with the material soaked in champagne.

“You are a wild creature,” Hanover said, his lips twitching. “I’ve got to give you that. Perhaps that is just what attracts me to you. Anyone else on this planet would be dead right now, after pulling a stunt like that! But you—I will let you live. Because you shall be my
wife.
You shall sit alongside me as I become the Supreme Commander of this land. You shall bear my children.”

“I’ll cut my ovaries out first,” Kim screamed, her face growing red as she rushed to the table and grabbed another fork.

“There is time,” Hanover replied softly, throwing the bloodstained fork he’d just removed onto the table top. Servants rushed over and began cleaning up. “There is much time. Years if need be. Enjoy yourself, my dear,” Hanover said as he strode toward the door. “I look forward to our next meeting, only perhaps then you can eat with your fingers, as clearly you haven’t mastered the etiquette of using a fork.”

“General, if all I have is my fingers then I’ll scratch, and if you rip my nails off, I’ll bite you and if—”

“Adieu,” he said, opening the door and exiting as the servants looked at her askance. It took them only a few minutes to clear everything out, even the linens which were stripped from the table after she had so rudely sullied them. They walked from the room and locked the door behind them with a loud
clank.
And even as she pounded her fists angrily against the wall there was a low hiss that came from a small vent high up on one wall. She knew what it was, it had been pumped in a few times before, in small doses. Gas. She could taste it at the back of her throat, feel the nauseating sensations begin streaming through her. Kim knew it wouldn’t kill her. Hanover had no interest in that. It would send her into a terrible darkness, a nightmare place where her mind had no will. It was his way of wreaking a little revenge, and a lot of pain on her.

“Oh no,” she whispered, suddenly terrified in spite of her desire to be brave. “Oh Rock, Rock, where are you,” Kim whispered, suddenly unable to stand up any longer. She reached out and grabbed hold of some gold-threaded curtains. But they came down as she tumbled to the floor. And suddenly demons, demons of the mind, demons created from pure fear were everywhere around her as the fear-gas penetrated to her very soul.

Eleven

R
ockson felt that he was falling down an endless tunnel. He was being scraped and gouged at from all sides by walls and sharp projections of stone. Somehow he stayed glued to the back of Snorter. The vertical fall became an 80° slope, then 70°. The flailing horse managed to kick and scamper almost right down the side of the opened earthquake fissure, half falling, half galloping. Rock could dimly sense the others just above and behind him. He didn’t know if they were still on their ’brids, and couldn’t look. Not when he was hanging on for dear life. Steam cascaded out all around him from cracks in the earth’s flesh. It was a fire-red world.

His breathing grew thick though he thanked God he had in the nose filters and the heat suit on. For it was getting hotter as they tumbled down slopes and banged along outcroppings for what seemed like a good thousand feet.

Rock’s mind worked feverishly as he fell. Perhaps the crevasse was some long hidden cavern. This couldn’t
all
be opening up now! It was too rounded, although rough around the edges. Each time it seemed like they could fall/stumble along no further, the ’brid was skidding down another impossible slope, raising up a bellowing storm.

Several times they rolled right over and Rockson felt the hybrid’s heavy weight bouncing over him. Then they tumbled more and the horse righted itself. He just kept being somewhat amazed that he was still alive, if numb with bruises.

Rock felt things scraping, ripping at his flesh and the hybrid’s too. Long gashes appeared here and there as they kept bouncing down like a golf ball in an endless hole. Rockson at last saw that the below ground was getting brighter. It was as if it were glowing pink below. He hit bottom hard, slamming off the mutant horse and rolled around on the hot ground. Rockson didn’t know where the hell he was for a second. It had all been like tumbling in a storm-tossed wave in the ocean. He was just a mixture of unconsciousness and sharp pain that struggled to claim him. He shook his head and lifted up.

He was lying in a black charcoal-like mixture, as if lying in the bottom of a fireplace. There were tunnels leading off everywhere, at least ten of them. And somehow he could see, even though he were far below the earth. Down one of the tunnels was the volcano itself. For it was white hot, brilliant, impossible to look right into. Not more than a quarter mile off was lava glowing like the furnaces of hell.

Suddenly Rock heard a frantic commotion and the rest of the Freefighters and their mounts came screaming down out of the dirt and stone skies. It was a mess. How all of them had not been ripped totally to shreds on the way down was a miracle in itself. But they slammed down into the black powdery ground all three still astride their ’brids. And all three flew off them. Right into the hardened lava walls that rose up around them like some dark fantasy world. Curved walls, with stalactites and stalagmites black as midnight poking out of everywhere like swords of the dead.

When it was all sorted out after several minutes, one of the ’brids was dead. Another had a hairline fracture of the foreleg. It could walk but couldn’t run. Archer had suffered a long and deep gash right down the side of his chest which kept flowing blood. But the giant made faces at it, like it was hardly worth bothering about.

Rock slapped some supersalve on the wound and then some glue bandage which formed a millimeter thick plastic covering saturated with vitamins and antibiotics and God knew what all that Shecter and his boys had pumped in.

Detroit had a broken hand but it was on his bionic arm. The original appendage was the victim of a team of expert martial arts assassins. The new one worked just as good, even better. And with a few quick adjustments with pliers and micro-screwdriver he’d have it in functioning order again.

“Where the hell are we,” Detroit asked as the three of them gathered around the remaining ’brids who were as shook up as animals could be and still stand. Their human masters weren’t faring much better either. All of them stood there reeling, dizzy to the core of their beings, pain covering every square inch. How could they be alive? Yet here they were!

“I must say I’ve never seen a place listed like this—even on the conjecture-maps,” Rockson muttered dryly. “I mean, it’s not normal for these formations to be in this part of the country. But what the hell do I know.”

“Thank the gods we’ve got on these outfits and nasal plugs,” Chen said as he scanned around into the glowing tunnels, each lit with a different hue—blue, red, green, brilliant white. “We’d be dead men already. I can feel the sulphur and toxic gases on my tongue. Keep your mouths closed and just breathe through the nose gear. This stuff’s bad.”

“IT HOOOOOTTT,” Archer bellowed reaching down to rip off his oversized alumnu-jumpsuit.

“No, Archer! Leave it on!” Rockson scolded him, looking sternly at the giant. “You’ll really burn if you take it off.” The temp gauge on Rock’s Combat Watch red 115°. “It’s hot out there.”

Archer grumbled and made noises like a bear in mating season, but he kept it on, getting the message.

“We’re never going to climb back up there, man,” Detroit said whistling as they all gazed up. They couldn’t even see the sky, just too many twists and turns in the deep cavern’s corkscrew well. But it—the sky—was up there
somewhere.

Rock looked down with disgust welling in his chest. Men who fell into deep chasms never came up. He couldn’t think of one. A whole C.C. expeditionary force had been lost just two years before in an earthquake zone. A hundred and twelve men, gone without a trace, like dust back into the earth.

Rock gazed down each of the tunnel systems. There had to be a way out of here. He felt it. Something was not
natural
about this place.

“What the hell makes this light?” Detroit wondered out loud.

“I’ve heard of natural formations giving off light,” Chen replied as he did some martial arts exercises, standing on one leg to center himself, breathing slowly and deeply into perfect posture. “Everything from green to blue to purple glows. But never in a volcanic formation. Should be dark as a dungeon, way down in the mines.”

“We’ve got to pick a tunnel, men,” Rockson said, addressing them all. “I don’t know which way to go, I can’t lie to you. So, let’s vote on it. Just close your eyes and all mediate on it for a moment. Try to feel your sixth—and seventh for that matter—sense. Between us, we should come out okay.”