Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow (20 page)

“Here man,” Detroit said, handing Rock a mini .9mm autopistol with 30 round clip, and then four more clips as well that he took from his utility belt. “Have fun, man.” Archer as well handed Chen, who was without his usual assortment of star-knives and other little tricks, a .9mm pistol with 15 round clip which the near-mute usually carried with him but never used, preferring to rely on the crossbow.

They tied up the guards in chains and then went up and down the rows of bound up prisoners releasing everyone in the place. In all, nearly a hundred men in various states of brainlessness—from those who were relatively untouched to absolute blithering idiots who would have made Frankenstein look like a Ph.D.—were freed.

“How the hell did you get in here?” Rock asked.

His mind seemed to clear in stages, like layers of an onion slowly shaking off the effects of even a few seconds of the zombie juice. He noticed that the two Freefighters were wearing combat uniforms like Hanover’s troops, with camouflaging and officer’s insignias on their sleeves.

“Took a few prisoners,” Detroit said with a grin as he started toward the front door out of which the released prisoners were fleeing, lurching, bumping into walls as they madly ran down the corridors in every direction. “Found out where you were. It’s not hard, when you go slow and deliberate, step by step. You taught us well.”

“Next time skip a few steps,” Rock replied as they exited the torture chamber. “Give me a few pineapples, will you, man?” Rockson asked. Detroit looked confused for a moment and then complied, handing the Doomsday Warrior two of the grenades from his utility belt where a whole string of them were attached like garlic cloves ready for the spaghetti.

“I don’t think I want to leave this place untouched,” Rockson commented bitterly and heaved both of them. They ran on, and heard the explosions behind them as they moved up the corridor. There were a bunch of secondaries louder than the grenades and then intense heat as flames came roaring down the passage behind them. They’d hit something
good.
Maybe too good.

“Do you know how the hell to get out of here?” Rock asked as Detroit took the lead. Chen moved fast behind him and Archer took up the rear, his crossbow cocked back and held at chest level, covering their rear.

“Well, no,” Detroit admitted. “Arch, you know the way?”

Archer shrugged.

From a side corridor, just then, popped the swollen red eyes of a gashead. The Doomsday Warrior did a doubletake.

“Ralph!
You! How the hell did you—”

“No time,” the man spoke, “get out here before they catch. Me escape hospital—and jj—jjoin the—underground. I take you. Fast, fast.” For Ralph it was positively a speech. They could hear shots pinging down the narrow alleyway into the dirt. The troopers would be on them within a minute at most. Ralph, bounding along on a peg-leg, disappeared back down through the manhole opening’s steep staircase. He spoke better than he had the last time Rockson had seen him. Though he still looked pretty terrible, or worse.

Rock jumped down into the opening knowing he’d have to trust the man. There was nothing to lose. Chen came next, then Detroit. It was Archer who had the most trouble. But desperation will make men squeeze into openings a lot smaller than they are. Suddenly he was in and half-fell down the stair-ladder. Then he righted himself and reached up, pulling the steel cover closed over them. It was instantly quite dark as they bumped and banged against one another and the concrete walls.

Suddenly there was a dim light—Ralph with a single candle which he protected with his cupped hand. Their shadows flickered wildly around the narrow pathway, making them appear to dance violently on the walls and ceiling.

“Follow,” Ralph said. “I take you to my leader.”

Twenty-Three

T
hey followed Ralph through numerous twisting and turning tunnels, the candle their only illumination. Bugs covered the walls down here, big thick centipedes and earth beetles, slugs and larvae which eyed them with hunger. Rats scampered around not challenging the creatures that were a hundred times larger than them. After about ten minutes they came to a ladder bolted to the wall. It was
old.
A cranking, squeaking sound, as if it might collapse, emitted from it as Ralph slowly, laboriously climbed up. It was clear that though he had improved on all levels, his strength and dexterity were not of the highest order. The peg-leg didn’t help either. The ladder was heavily rusted, even the rust had hardened and been smoothed out by the years.

They headed up and Ralph pushed a hatch at the top about twelve feet above. It fell away with a dull thud. The rest clambered up after him and they all stood there for a few seconds looking at the octagonal shaped duct system of some kind which they were in. They couldn’t see very far up and down it, as the flickering small flame was their only source of light. But they could see around them. The aluminized duct was about four feet in diameter sideways, then went to about five on the vertical. So they all had to bend down as they stood there. Archer was bent nearly halfway over, his huge back arching up like Quasimodo’s.

“What the hell is this place?” Rockson asked, as Ralph motioned for them to follow him down the piping to the right. They had to put their hands out against the cold metallic sides at first as the octagonal shape of the passage was quite disconcerting, particularly with the way their shadows bounced around the wall. It was as if they were in a funhouse and everything was shifting, moving all the time.

“Is ancient air duct system for base,” Ralph replied, his voice echoing and echoing, and again Rockson was amazed, having seen the guy the other day, how much difference there was between then and now. It gave him hope that maybe a lot of those whose minds had been gassed into oblivion had a chance to climb back into humanity again. “Was used after Great War. But fifty years ago,” Ralph went on, as his single candle lit the deep darkness of the ducting system. They could feel a constant breeze against their backs. Ralph had to do everything to keep the flame from going out. “Rulers of Pattonville put new system in. More airflow. This place forgotten long ago. But
we
use.”

And use it they did as the five of them tore along the duct about six feet apart so as not to put too much stress on it at once. But the thing held, even for Archer who was looking pretty nervous about the whole affair. Particularly since the ducting seemed to shimmy and sway around whenever he came down too hard. Which was all the time.

Archer didn’t like tunnels anyway, not since the Moscow subway and this one felt like it might just come apart around him. But other than a few complaining growls and falling down once or twice so all of them could feel the ducting shake around beneath their feet, the giant managed to make his way through.

They had moved through the ancient air duct system for several hundred yards, Rockson reckoned, when they emerged into a much larger chamber. It was a good hundred feet on a side filled with all kinds of machinery, ducting pipes, fans, pumps. All was shut down and covered with a patina of rust; everything down here was ancient.

Rock gasped as he stepped inside the room which was dimly lit, with candles and torches placed here and there. But it gave off enough light to see the zombies! Must have been hundreds of them lying, sitting, walking around the place, sitting up on the piles of rusting artifacts of the past. He gulped hard. Many of them still had their tattered clothing on, and most of the faces were twisted and contorted in pained expressions. The bloodshot wide pink eyes caught by torchlight topped it all off.

Others seemed almost normal and moved around at various tasks, disappearing into and out of about a dozen other duct passages which led out of the central chamber where they all were. They seemed to all turn and just glare at Ralph and the group he had brought in with him, but Rock knew that might just be their natural expression. Zombies can’t smile.

“Out of way, out of way,” Ralph snarled at the crowds, pushing his way through them. “These damned gasheads,” he apologized to Rockson as if quite embarrassed. “So clumsy,” he said with a kind of deep annoyance. Rock had to laugh silently as ol’ Ralphie boy himself wasn’t that far on this side of the divide.

He led them to the far end of the wide equipment chamber and into a smaller room, this about forty feet on a side.

This was crammed full of scientific junk, gas cannisters, tubing, shelf after shelf loaded to the edge with every kind of surplus industrial and scientific materials. Rock’s trained eye, which had gone on many salvage teams from C.C. searching for just such vestiges of the old world, knew immediately that most of this stuff was functional. Somebody had a
real
science-lab set up down here.

The room was better lit than the outer chamber, with electric lights even strung up here and there on the walls. Seated at a desk with scientific-type junk spread out all over the place in front of him was a white-haired, white-bearded fellow. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. Then he smiled.

“Ah, Ralph,” the man said kindly as he looked up from his work, “you were able to find them after all. Good, good.”

“Leader,” Ralph said proudly, getting a childlike grin on his face. Ralph had moments of intelligence and then—back to Mr. Roger’s neighborhood!

“I
am
the leader.” The white-haired man was wearing a set of combat fatigues from Hanover’s army, about ten sizes too big for him and a little the worse for wear. The clothes actually had bullet holes in them from the fellow who had once worn them. But then the couturieres weren’t exactly choosy down here, Rock knew. You couldn’t be.

The bearded man came out from behind his machine table and grinned broadly as he walked toward the four Freefighters. “My name is Dr. Mitchell Mason. I worked as a top research man for the military here in Pattonville, before they went mad. Before General Hanover and his wretched schemes destroyed all that was good in our city.” As he walked toward them, kicking junk on the floor out of the way, Rock and the rest of the men could see that he was crippled all along one side. His left leg was half limp and he had to drag it, his left arm and shoulder were bent in an odd position and completely frozen. His whole head was forced to the left side by the weird body posture. But still as he walked with a trace of pain in his eyes, they could see that he was tough, and smart. His eyes were a thousand times more brilliant than any of his zombie lackeys.

“Hanover found out I was supplying gas grenades to the opposition when he first took over the city. Oh yes! We fought back against it. Thousands! But we were unorganized and didn’t have anything like the firepower they did. Let alone the gas. They caught and gassed me. It didn’t take on my brains somehow—just completely screwed up my body. As you can see.” He laughed as he patted the crippled side with his good hand. “Kaput!”

The men laughed. There was something about the man that gave off a feeling of power and hope—even beyond his twisted wreckage of a body. “We established this place down here, two months ago. None of the army brass seems to know about it,” Mason continued. “At least so far. It’s been slow, very slow,” he said with a sigh. “As you can see, what I have to work with—” He glanced around the room where some gasheads were slowly and methodically working on very simple tasks, like screwing things together and cutting single pieces of tubing. They worked very slowly, like children.

“How is it that some of you are so wasted and others seem in far better shape?” Rock asked. “Ralph—he’s changed since we met just a few days ago. How come?”

“It seems to have to do with both duration of gassing and volume. When they first get you, it’s usually a big dose, that knocks you on your ass.” He laughed bitterly, stopping in front of them. “After that they give them doses of the stuff every few weeks. From what I can figure the longer you’re on the stuff—duration over say two, three, or more months—the less chance you have of ever really coming out of it. But some of the fellows, here, especially my lab assistants, they’re getting some smarts back. And Ralph got disabled like me. For some reason, that sharpens one’s faculties. He already has been a great help. He got you the hell out of one bad mess, I’ll wager! Well, fine visitors, who the hell are you?”

“I’m Ted Rockson,” Rock said looking around the place. “Ever hear of me?”

“I know who you are! Even half the gasheads down here doubtless would respond to your name. You’re far more famous, I think, than you realize,” Dr. Mason said, as Rockson blushed for a few seconds from the accolades.

“This is Detroit, Chen, and Archer here. Arch may have some resemblance to some of our zombie friends here, but in general is a highly trusted and capable man.”

“Glad to meet all of you,” Mason said, hobbling back to his desk. “You’ll have to excuse me. I must sit down most of the time. The destruction of so many muscles and nerves on the side of my body can cause excruciating pain after a while. It’s just as well I’m a scientist and love to sit and tinker and make things that don’t work.”

“What is all this, all this stuff?” Detroit asked, sweeping his hand around the lab room and its myriad supplies.

“This—as you refer to it,” Dr. Mason said with a cynical snort as if mocking his own efforts, “is our one chance of fighting back at Hanover’s people. It’s gas. These are all cannisters we’ve stolen from him,” he pointed to one whole wall which was filled with different sized cannisters, most of them, by the dials on their tops, apparently full. “We go out on raiding parties from time to time to get things I need, and to get food for them. The poor bastards are frightfully ready to give it the old college try,” he said, nodding at the gasheads everywhere like ants, just sort of staring and waiting. “But I’m afraid that most of them get shot down or captured. Still, some have been successful. This is what we have as a counter-revolutionary army, so—”

“What exactly are you doing with the gases?” Rockson asked, immediately curious.

“Well, there are a number of levels of gas, as you’re probably already aware,” Dr. Mason said, as he leaned back in his half-broken wooden lab chair. “From the zombie-producing stuff like all of our friends here got a taste of, to instant-death gas. What I’ve been trying to do is alter the molecular structure of the basic Level 1 gas, reduce its toxicity fifty-fold. Then we’d have a simple knockout gas. Could take out the whole city without killing anyone, or turning them into deeper gasbrains than they already are. Get the troopers, all of the general staff and the gasheads in one fell swoop.