Eden's Twilight. James Axler

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СКАЧАТЬ and pumped the cracked handle a few times to charge the old batteries. The device had been a gift to the physician from the captain of a steamboat for saving the life of his only child. It had served her well, but these days the weakening batteries took more and more pumping to charge, and the beam was becoming less pronounced. Soon it would be useless and she would be reduced to tallow candles and rope torches once more.

      Thumbing the switch, Mildred aimed the pale yellow beam at the irregular gap. Swirling sand and salt sparkled in the air like fireflies, and she could only see a bare concrete floor on the other side. Nothing more.

      With blasters at the ready, the companions waited for a reaction from the other side of the wall. But there was no sign of movement, only darkness, the stillness almost palpable.

      When nothing happened after a few minutes, Ryan leveled his longblaster and assumed the point position, easing through the break, his head moving steadily back and forth so that nothing could approach from his blind side. The 12-gauge primed, J.B. followed close by, flanking his friend, one covering the other until they were in the next room. The sound and fury of the storm was less pronounced in this new section of the National Guard base. Assuming defensive positions, the two men stood guard while the others crossed over, butane lighters held high, blasters leading the way.

      “If anything moves, anything at all, take no chances,” Ryan ordered gruffly. “Just spend the brass and save your ass.”

      The others nodded their agreement. The companions did not have an official leader, but they usually followed the lead of the big one-eyed man, as he was right nine times out of ten.

      In the feeble yellow beam, they could see that this was another garage. Bigger, but not much different than the other one—tools on the Peg-Board, more chains, another grease pit. From the size of the equipment and tools, this garage was clearly designed to handle military wags, 4x4 trucks, armored personnel carriers and such. But that was not what riveted their attention. There were more sec hunter droids. Dozens upon dozens of them.

      The army of machines was scattered across the floor, extending far beyond the feeble glow of the flashlight. Loose wires and burned circuit boards lay everywhere, the piles of smashed wreckage reaching over a yard high in some spots, the bent and twisted metal reflecting the yellow beam like a golden treasure. Dried puddles of hydraulic fluid dotted the graveyard, as if the machines had been savaged by wolves. But the droids were not alone.

      Still defiantly standing over the field of destruction were a couple of robotic spiders. At the sight, Ryan almost instinctively fired, then realized it wasn’t necessary. The flickering butane light had simply given them the momentary illusion of life. These droids would never harm anybody ever again.

      Most of the spiders were reduced to only three or four legs, instead of the usual eight, and every one had its guts ripped out, the computerized workings dangling loosely like metallic intestines. Even the dreaded belly-mounted lasers drooped impotently, the slim barrels bent or hammered flat.

      The companions had encountered the spiders before and aside from a single belly-mounted weapon, the machines had no other offensive capabilities. They were one-hit wonders, as Mildred liked to say—unlike the sec hunter droids, which seemed to be made out of weapons.

      “Droids fighting droids,” Ryan muttered uneasily, testing the words as if they were rotting floorboards to see if they would hold his weight. “Must have been a nukestorm of a fight.” The warrior tried to reconstruct the battle in his mind. There seemed to have been pockets of resistance, as if the machines were holding positions to guard something, or somebody, in their midst.

      “Looks like draw,” Jak snorted, easing down the hammer of his Colt. There was nothing dangerous here anymore. Only ghosts of the past.

      “Most assuredly, my young friend, a genuine Pyrrhic victory,” Doc agreed, holstering the LeMat. “Although I would theorize that our earlier, ahem, guest, was in fact the sole survivor of this internecine conflict.”

      “And it broke through the wall to attack us the moment it heard voices,” J.B. said slowly, using the shotgun to tilt back his fedora. “Yeah, that makes sense, in a droid sort of way.”

      Mildred shook her head in disbelief, her beaded plaits clacking. “It stayed on guard, alone, in a black room, for a hundred years.”

      “Just droid,” Jak replied, dismissing the matter.

      “Wonder what they were fighting over,” Ryan said cagily. “Could be something useful.” The companions were low on food, almost out of water and on foot. Almost anything would be helpful at this point. The only thing in their favor was that the group did have plenty of ammo for once. But that was dwindling fast.

      “Probably just wanted control of the base,” J.B. said with a shrug. “Who can figure out the logic of a droid?”

      “Actually, I think the answer is over there,” Krysty said in a deceptively soft voice. She was looking into the far darkness, her long red hair flexing wildly.

      Swinging the flashlight in that direction, Mildred revealed a cluster of Hummers parked in a protective circle around something really big that was covered with a sheet of canvas. The Hummers were carrying M-60 machine guns, and were literally torn to pieces from laser fire. Two of them had obviously caught fire and burned to the floor. Even worse, the white bones of human skeletons were strewed about the wags, many of them missing arms or heads. Rusty longblasters gleamed dully in the pale light, and spent brass was everywhere. These had clearly not been innocent bystanders, but participants in the battle. A few pieces of their aged uniforms were visible among the burned boots, torn body armor and cracked helmets. The troopers seemed to be from every branch of the armed services: army, navy, air force and marines. Only their patent leather belts seemed completely unaffected by the long passage of time.

      “A pickup squad,” Doc said, resting a hand on the silver lion’s head of his ebony walking stick. “Forced recruits taken from whoever was handy when the convoy was formed.”

      “What think is?” Jak asked suspiciously.

      “In a predark convoy? Could be anything,” Mildred replied with a sigh. “Top-secret documents, high-ranking politicians, all sorts of useless things.”

      “Or it could be a convoy of supplies for the Ohio redoubt,” Krysty said in subdued excitement. “Thousands of MRE food packs, tons of live brass, med kits…”

      “Boot polish, toothpaste, laundry detergent,” Mildred continued unabated. “Uniform insignia, letterhead stationery…”

      “Only one way to find out,” Krysty countered.

      “Agreed. Watch for traps,” Ryan said, kicking the dome of a sec hunter droid out of the way with his combat boot as he headed for the vehicles. From long experience, he knew that some folks died hard, clutching a primed gren in their hand in a desperate hope of taking out their killers. Death kept their fingers on the arming lever, but a careless boot could knock that loose and chill the lot of them faster than a live droid.

      Staying sharp, the companions watched the shadows for any suspicious movements. Unfortunately the blue flame of the butane lighters made everything seem alive in motion.

      Reaching into his jacket, Jak pulled out his only flare. Thumping the end on a raised knee, the top sputtered and a sizzling dagger of flame formed, the brilliant white light banishing most of the gloom. Holding the flare high to avoid the reeking clouds of bitter smoke, Jak took the lead with Ryan and J.B. on his flanks.

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