Doomsday Warrior 09 - America’s Zero Hour (3 page)

“Remove all rings,” a pleasant female voice purred from a hidden speaker.

“I’ve done it already,” Rock answered in a tired voice, having gone through the same routine countless times.

“That’s fine,” the voice replied. “Stage One will now begin.” A soft chime followed and then violet lights spilled over the floor and ceiling. From inset sprinklers, a shower of water cascaded down on Rockson, cleansing him with a mixture of suds and disinfectants. The water, shot down under high pressure, gave his body a rather pleasant, tingling sensation. After twenty seconds he was rinsed off with pure water.

“Stage Two,” the voice intoned as dazzling violet beams danced over his body, creating hypnotic strobes of phosphorescent color. He sealed his eyes shut, viewing the light show through his lids. All personnel were equipped with dark glasses for the procedure, but Rockson knew that his mutant eyes could withstand the energy spectrum. His retinas were not the same as those of
Homo sapiens.
Rockson could look directly into the burning face of the sun without harming them.

“Stage Three.” A low humming sound built up beneath his feet, growing in intensity until it filled the chamber with a physical presence. Rockson could feel the million-times-a-second vibration caused by the sound waves hold his body in a blurring grip. The sonic waves were literally shaking loose any bits of radioactive particles that were trying to take root in the Freefighter’s skin. At last it was over, and the door opened again with a flash.

“Thank you,” the voice said softly.

"Yeah, thanks, lady,” Rock answered the speaker as he stepped out. “I hope it was as good for you as it always is for me.” He put on the set of carefully folded coveralls that had been automatically deposited on a table next to the chamber. The lightweight white cotton one-piece outfit felt good, cool against his skin, after the anti-rad suit’s stifling coarseness.

Two

A
s he walked through the wide central square of the underground city, Rockson picked Rath and Shannon out of the crowd of milling workers and technicians who were observing a “street performer’s” magic act. Rath, the intel chief for the City, was a slow, stooped, gray-headed man. Still, he was a commanding figure somehow, with his hawklike nose and the heavy eyebrows, under which rested the deep gray eyes of a man of suspicious nature and high intelligence. Shannon, his assistant, was a well-endowed, strawberry-blond woman of about thirty years of age. She counterbalanced the dour, moody Rath with a bright-eyed efficiency and optimism. Rockson knew them both very well. Rock was about to pass them by, as he had things to do, but Rath’s keen eyes caught him, and the intel chief called him over with a brisk wave. Rock frowned. When Rath wanted to speak to you, it was hardly ever anything you wanted to hear. But it usually was important.

“What’s up, Rath? How are you, Shannon?” Rock took in her red skin-tight one-piece. “New outfit?” he asked.

“Rockson,” Rath sneered, “I heard about your near disaster in the tunnel. I’d like to discuss with you soon—in private—your tendency to foolhardy reckless adventure for the sake of adventure. Not just today, but at Fort Minsk—on many occasions. You seem to forget your rank, your responsibilities, your—”

“This doesn’t sound very private,” Rockson cut him off. “So how about tomorrow, at lunch, in your office? I’ll bring the sandwiches. That all?” Rock turned on his heels.

Rath shouted after him as he left, “You be there tomorrow at noon. You hear? Be there. No man’s bigger than the whole. You’ve got to obey the rules.”

Shannon seemed torn for a minute between her boss and Rockson, but then took after the Doomsday Warrior, catching up to him out of sight of Rath. “Please don’t be mad at me for Rath’s bad mood—what he said . . .”

Rockson stopped in mid-stride and said, “I can’t see how you can work with the man. He’s nasty, and gets nastier every day—and besides that, he’s opposed to and continues to oppose almost every idea I have for waging the war against Killov and Vassily.”

“He works so hard . . .” Shannon said softly. “The responsibilities of his job are immense. That’s why he is the way he is. Give him the benefit of the doubt. You know how invaluable his network of spies and saboteurs in the Russian fortress cities are. He is really a very sensitive, compassionate man. That’s his problem. He hides the fact that his heart hurts every time he finds out that one of his operatives is caught and tortured to death. Rath is responsible for us knowing when Zhabnov so much as twitches, or where Killov is slinking around. And he feels the weight of all of it—of the whole damned war against the Reds—on
his
shoulders.”

Rockson softened to her. “You’re right. Things have been bad—one disaster after another. The strain must be too much for him. God knows how any of us stay sane in all of this. I’ll cool out, Shannon, I promise. And you—give him less coffee, or else put tranquilizers in his cup, okay?”

Shannon agreed with a laugh and Rock headed on to one of the spacious cafeterias, the Starlight, where he pressed buttons for a tray full of simple but nourishing food—rabbit stew, soybean cheese, and two big slabs of whole-grain bread. But he had barely made it off to a secluded corner table and lifted a steaming spoonful to his mouth when a finger tapped insistently at his shoulder. He smelled jasmine perfume. “Okay, Rona, you seem to want to tell me something . . .”

Rona Wallender, all red-haired, stacked five feet ten inches of her leaned over the table. He turned to see that her bright green eyes were watery. “Oh, Rock, when I heard that there had been a collapse in the tunnel you were working in, I—” She finished the sentence by lightly kissing him on the cheek. She stared into his intense eyes, the eyes that she knew had seen so much pain and suffering. She quivered with emotion. “I told myself, and God, that if you came out of the tunnel all right, I would stop this silly staying away from you, stop it and tell you I love you. I don’t care if you love Kim too. As long as you want me, I’ll be yours.”

“Rona,” Rock said, pecking her on the cheek, “I’m glad. I do love you. I’ll always love you. What I haven’t liked is your trying to be the only woman in my life. It—can’t be—now. You understand—since I met Kim . . .”

Rona touched his brawny tanned arm on the table, squeezing it hard. “I want to come to your room tonight—at nine. Is that okay?”

Rockson put his hand over hers. “Yes.”

She grew suddenly bright and smiling. “But don’t tell Kim I gave in. We promised each other that neither of us would sleep with you until you made up your mind which one you wanted as a lover.”

“Mum’s the word,” Rock grinned, knowing he was heading for trouble again.

Rona unbuttoned her blouse. Her full breasts and their cream-white nipples seemed to swell like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. Flushed with desire, she boldly put her long hands out and tore at his pants until they fell to the floor in a heap. She slowly got down on her knees and kissed his manhood, making it stand up, eager, ready, steel-hard. Moans of pleasure came softly through her lips as her tongue slid down the swollen shaft. Rock held Rona’s head, his fingers ran through her fiery locks.

Her lips moved up and down the long stiff rod, trying to fit its entire length in her throat. Rock reached down and squeezed her firm, full breasts, and then, putting his arms around her, he lifted her up to him as if the slender woman were as light as a feather. He grabbed her behind each of her tan thighs and pulled her up onto him. She guided the long spear of flesh into her, slowly. Rona groaned, her eyes closing, her head dropping back as the stiff organ penetrated her to the core. Her long legs wrapped around his waist, then locked together. He began pumping, slowly at first, and as their passions grew, faster, until he was a jackhammer inside her, her triangle of red hair dripping with the juices of passion. Rock gripped her even closer to him, moving her legs apart, pushing into the deepest recesses of her supple body, taking her to the peak of pleasure.

Grinding against him, crushing her breasts against his muscled chest, Rona went into her special kind of mutant frenzy, as waves of sensation steamed up from her core. Her head thrashed back and forth, her eyes closed as the softest of catlike noises escaped from her pink lips. Rockson hadn’t made love to Rona for months. Yet their bodies
followed
each other’s slightest nuance. Perfect. His eyes shut, he felt his life-giving fluid rise up and shoot through his male organ, pumping into her with powerful thrusts. As he came in a violent eruption, her entire form went rigid and then jerked wildly against him. The woman seemed to be trying to push him all into her—completely. For a moment, they merged into one being, joined together in the mindless bliss as old as time itself. Then they lay down spent, exhausted, fulfilled.

An hour after Rona left, there was a gentle knock on Rock’s door. He thought perhaps she was back and went to the door nude, opening it a crack. There, clad in a gold semi-transparent halter and an equally thin and clinging miniskirt, was Kim. She lifted her sky-blue eyes at Rock and whispered to the man towering over her five foot two inch ultra-feminine form, “Can I come in?”

Rockson gulped, let her in. Kim moved gingerly, as the only illumination in the room was from the glow of the twisted elk horns he had on his dresser, a souvenir of one of his treks into the unknown lands. Its dull glow didn’t disturb sleep and was enough to move around the room in.

“Rock,” she said softly, grabbing him around his muscular waist, “Don’t turn on the lights—there is enough—for making love.” Rockson had lived long enough in this world to know that sometimes one had to just go with the flow. Having both women he was in love with in Century City at the same time had its problems, but it also had its pleasures. Double pleasures.

She undid a hidden clasp and her halter slipped down and fell on the floor, revealing her creamy large breasts and upturned nipples. Another quick movement and the gold miniskirt likewise dropped to the floor displaying Kim’s wispy platinum hair in the vee of her legs. The area caught the red glow of the horn. “Please don’t tell Rona I broke our agreement. But I
had
to come. I had to—feel you. You’re not mad, are you?”

“No,” Rockson smiled weakly. “Not at all.”

“I can’t stay more than an hour—Rona is so jealous that she sometimes checks on my room to make sure I’m there and living up to our agreement to not sleep with you until you decide which one of us—” She didn’t finish her run-on sentence because Rockson had lifted her up and carried her effortlessly to the bed. “No, I won’t tell,”—he pressed his lips to hers—“if you won’t.”

Three

R
ock had no idea what time it was, but he awoke to an insistent knocking on his door. Kim was gone—and the sheets were thick with sweat and the sweet, animal smell of sex. Rock stumbled to the door grabbing a towel which he wrapped around him. He opened it. One of the graveyard-shift communications techs was standing there, his hand raised up with a typewritten paper in it.

“Message, sir,” the tech said, snapping to attention at being face to face with Ted Rockson—among other things, Century City’s ranking military officer. “We picked this up just twenty minutes ago on one of our standard Russian radio interceptions. It was for your attention, sir. I hope I didn’t disturb you!”

“No, you did the right thing, thanks.” Rock took the message and held it up beneath the low light of the ceiling lamps along the hall . . .

Ted Rockson: In return for Freefighter help in defeating Colonel Killov at Fort Minsk and for helping to clear other KGB-held areas of the United Soviet States of America, I am going through with my promise to remove all nuclear weapons from the American continent. I know you have sufficient intelligence sources to verify the fact that they will be hauled out by airlifter and boat over the next 2 weeks. But I must warn you, Killov has seized 5 truck-mounted cruise missiles from an arsenal in Idaho Sector. He has headed north. We lost track of him in Canada. Make contact with me in order to coordinate our efforts to neutralize Killov and these weapons. End of message.

“Don’t break radio silence,” Rockson ordered the tech, “I’ll take care of this. It’s a military matter. Confidential.”

“Sir,” the man snapped, and tore off back to his post.

Schecter fairly ran down the corridor, a most peculiar jerking, leaning sort of run for an old man. But he didn’t have regular legs. They had been half-blown-off by a blast of Nazi fire three months ago. But the injury had just propelled Schecter’s brilliance in a new direction—servomechanical limbs for paraplegics. He invented his own legs—a fantastic breakthrough in technology that had spelled hope to many Freefighters crippled by the damned endless war with the Sov occupation forces.

Rockson turned the corner and saw Schecter barreling toward him yelling “Out of the way, out of the way” like a schoolboy on a skateboard. They entered the conference room together.

Rath was already seated, Shannon at his side. He looked up from his papers, his eyes magnified behind his strong pince-nez reading glasses, the nostrils in his large nose flared, and he frowned as a way of greeting. Rockson didn’t bother to say hello, instead, nodding to Shannon when she looked up, he slid a chair out for Dr. Schecter who seemed to be having a bit of difficulty with the maneuver.

“Don’t help me,” Schecter insisted, “Just a little adjustment problem. I’ve solved walking and running—but the damned servomechanism doesn’t want to shuffle, which is what you have to do with your feet to pull your own chair out.” With those words Schecter opened his shirt and revealed a control panel on his belt buckle with more buttons on it than a pocket calculator. He began pressing in instructions with his fingers, and his legs kind of vibrated his feet back. He put the chair in, slid it out from the table again. Then his legs sort of hummed over to the side, shuffled against the chair, and his knees bent, slowly and perfectly lowering him into the seat. Then a dozen shuffling movements of his electrofeet slid the chair forward to the table.