Death Cry. James Axler

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ on>

      

       The assassin who moved like a ghost waited patiently…

      The assassin, the ghost lady, scared and fascinated Cloud Singer, but the woman kept herself to herself, letting none of the tribe get close. Finally, crouching on his haunches beside the glowing laptop screen, Rock Streaming gazed at the others, waiting for everyone’s reactions. “Well?” he asked.

      “A weapon that exists on a higher plane of consciousness is one that can be activated on a higher plane of consciousness, as well.” The assassin spoke from the shadows of the cave, her soft voice carrying eerily through the enclosed space.

      “The assassin is right,” Bad Father said in his rumbling-thunder voice. “With this and the Dreamslicer, we could establish the new baronies and carve the world up for the original tribe.”

      “But how would we take it?” Rabbit in the Moon asked.

      “By force,” Neverwalk chirped, slapping a fist into his open palm.

       Outlanders ^® Death Cry

       James Axler

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      Special thanks to Rik Hoskin for his contribution to this work.

      Even when still, your mind is not still; even when hurried, your mind is not hurried. The mind is not dragged by the body, the body is not dragged by the mind. Pay attention to the mind, not the body. Let there be neither insufficiency nor excess in your mind. Even if superficially weakhearted, be inwardly stronghearted, and do not let others see into your mind.

      —Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645), The Book of Five Rings

       The Road to Outlands—

       From Secret Government Files to the Future

      Almost two hundred years after the global holocaust, Kane, a former Magistrate of Cobaltville, often thought the world had been lucky to survive at all after a nuclear device detonated in the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. The aftermath—forever known as skydark—reshaped continents and turned civilization into ashes.

      Nearly depopulated, America became the Deathlands—poisoned by radiation, home to chaos and mutated life forms. Feudal rule reappeared in the form of baronies, while remote outposts clung to a brutish existence.

      What eventually helped shape this wasteland were the redoubts, the secret preholocaust military installations with stores of weapons, and the home of gateways, the locational matter-transfer facilities. Some of the redoubts hid clues that had once fed wild theories of government cover-ups and alien visitations.

      Rearmed from redoubt stockpiles, the barons consolidated their power and reclaimed technology for the villes. Their power, supported by some invisible authority, extended beyond their fortified walls to what was now called the Outlands. It was here that the rootstock of humanity survived, living with hellzones and chemical storms, hounded by Magistrates.

      In the villes, rigid laws were enforced—to atone for the sins of the past and prepare the way for a better future. That was the barons’ public credo and their right-to-rule.

      Kane, along with friend and fellow Magistrate Grant, had upheld that claim until a fateful Outlands expedition. A displaced piece of technology…a question to a keeper of the archives…a vague clue about alien masters—and their world shifted radically. Suddenly, Brigid Baptiste, the archivist, faced summary execution, and Grant a quick termination. For Kane there was forgiveness if he pledged his unquestioning allegiance to Baron Cobalt and his unknown masters and abandoned his friends. But that allegiance would make him support a mysterious and alien power and deny loyalty and friends. Then what else was there?

      Kane had been brought up solely to serve the ville. Brigid’s only link with her family was her mother’s red-gold hair, green eyes and supple form. Grant’s clues to his lineage were his ebony skin and powerful physique. But Domi, she of the white hair, was an Outlander pressed into sexual servitude in Cobaltville. She at least knew her roots and was a reminder to the exiles that the outcasts belonged in the human family.

      Parents, friends, community—the very rootedness of humanity was denied. With no continuity, there was no forward momentum to the future. And that was the crux—when Kane began to wonder if there was a future.

      For Kane, it wouldn’t do. So the only way was out—way, way out.

      After their escape, they found shelter at the forgotten Cerberus redoubt headed by Lakesh, a scientist, Cobaltville’s head archivist, and secret opponent of the barons.

      With their past turned into a lie, their future threatened, only one thing was left to give meaning to the outcasts. The hunger for freedom, the will to resist the hostile influences. And perhaps, by opposing, end them.

      Contents

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 1

      It was snowing in North Dakota, though it wasn’t particularly cold. Wrapped in a light jacket over his shadow suit, Kane hunkered down beneath the snow-laden branches of a fir tree, watching two guards patrol outside the mine entrance. Kane was a tall man, built like a wolf, all muscle piled at the upper half of his body while his arms and legs were long and rangy.

      He took shallow breaths, ignoring the fog that formed as he expelled them, trusting the tree cover to hide his breath as well as it hid him. He wasn’t cold. In fact, the jacket was worn more for camouflage and the convenience of extra pockets while on mission. The tight-fitting one-piece shadow suit he wore beneath served as an artificially controlled environment, regulating his body temperature. It also possessed other useful properties, most crucially acting as СКАЧАТЬ