Doomsday Warrior 04 - Bloody America (9 page)

“Don’t kill him, you fool, or it’s
your
life, too!” The tech pulled the prod angrily away and looked down at his prisoner. Rockson let his senses settle back into their proper modes and then opened his eyes, staring up at the expert of pain.

“Is that all?” he managed to whisper out. “I must admit I’m disappointed. Why little girls from the Free Cities could take this much. There must be something more.”

“Yes, Mr. Rockson. Yes indeed, there is something more. Something of a whole different dimension.” He turned to his two assistants and snapped his fingers together with the sharp sound of a branch cracking. “Bring it in.” The two under-assistant torture technicians rushed through a side door and quickly reappeared pushing a large oval-shaped fiberglass chair with a blinking device on the top with the appearance of a streamlined diving helmet.

“Oh, I’ve heard of these,” Rock said lifting up slightly from the board. “That’s one of those Mindbreakers. Everyone’s been raving about them. Do wonders for the hair. The women in my Free City give themselves permanents every morning with one of these.”

“You’re a fool, Rockson,” the torturer muttered through grinding teeth. “In minutes you’ll tell us everything and anything we want to know. I guarantee you.” The guards uncuffed the Doomsday Warrior and half carried him toward the chair. He glanced around—guns were trained on him from every direction. There wasn’t a chance. They quickly tied him into the black shiny seat and lowered the helmet from which dropped two steel prongs tipped with rubies that would soon emit pinpoint laser beams that would burn into his skull.

“First they vaporize the skull bone itself, Mr. Rockson. Then they rip into the brain tissue erasing all memories of loyalty—of friend or enemy. We know just the right sections to burn out. And it hurts. It hurts horribly. Or so I’ve been told.” He laughed loudly and looked around at his two assistants who quickly joined in shrill, cackling sounds. The torturer retreated about two yards away, reaching a hand toward a control panel on the wall to which the Mindbreaker had been wired.

Suddenly the black phone on a far desk rang loudly. “I told them to cut that damned thing off,” Intel Chief Pastrok yelled. He rushed over and picked up the receiver screaming into the mouthpiece.

“Who the hell is this? Don’t you know we’re—” Someone on the other end said something back and the officer’s face turned white as a sheet. “Yes sir. Yes sir. Immediately sir. Absolutely. Yes sir!” He hung up the phone and turned around, his shoulders hanging limply in their sockets. Suddenly he saw the torture tech’s hand on the laser activation switch.

“Stop! Stop!” He ran over and ripped the man’s hand from the controls.

“What are you doing?” the greasy-faced tech protested. “I’m in charge here—”

“You fool. That was General—I mean—President Zhabnov on the phone. He knows Rockson’s here and wants him immediately flown to Washington. He said, if there’s a mark on his body, we’ll all pay.” The gathered officers and the torture crew looked at one another nervously and then at Rockson. They quickly released him from the chair, pulling the Mindbreaker up away from his head.

“Sorry about that,” the chief whispered with a wild look on his face. “The—the—president wants to see you.”

“Thanks so much for this little get-together,” Rock said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his skull with his hand. “I’ll remember—all of you—always.”

Eight

P
resident Zhabnov sat inside his embattled White House, his manicured hands resting on the cherry table before him, as he stared across at Rockson, the “Ultimate American,” about whom he had heard so much. He glanced nervously over at the giant mutant man, the foul-smelling mumbling Archer who was seated between four guards of the elite White House Legion. He was damned lucky to get these two. He had heard rumors that Colonel Killov had once had Rockson in his grasp deep within Pavlov City’s basement dungeons, and that the man had escaped, after scarring Killov horribly on the face. Zhabnov rubbed his cheek nervously—he didn’t like the idea of scars—not on his white sensitive skin. He tried to stare Rock down, staring into the fierce icy mismatched eyes of violet and aquamarine set in the center of the rugged, chiseled tan face. Then he turned away, unable to bear the stronger will of the prisoner. The president waited for Rock to speak and when he didn’t, at last spoke himself.

“Welcome to the capitol, Ted Rockson.”

“The American capitol is now out West,” Rock answered bitterly.

“Ah yes, that is what you rebels say.
Where,
Rockson? Where is this so-called Century City?”

“That would take the fun out of your little treasure hunt—if I told you.”

“Ah yes, your anti-response technique, hypno-planted by your scientists,” Zhabnov said, leaning forward on the shiny wood table.

“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,” Rockson answered drolly.

“Admirable, admirable. You are shot full, my assistants tell me, of paralyzing mind drugs that would make any of
us
talk, blabber in fact, and yet you bear the effect and even manage to spit out your concept of humor—fascinating. I intend to study this brain of yours—perhaps have my scientists dissect—” The red phone at the edge of the White House table began to blink on and off, under the portrait of John F. Kennedy. The president reached over. “Excuse me gentlemen,” he said and lifted the receiver. It was Premier Vassily.

“Your Excellency,” Zhabnov stuttered, his mouth instantly dry.

“Yes, yes,” the voice on the other end said brusquely, “let’s dispense with the formalities, nephew.” Nephew—that was a good sign.

“Yes, Grandfather—and to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice?”

“I understand you have stumbled upon some good luck. You have captured Rockson—correct?”

“Grandfather, through diligent, meticulous investigation and the full committment of my forces, I have indeed captured, at great losses, the famous—”

“Yes, yes, nephew,” Vassily cut him off. “What
luck.
Where is he?”

“Here, Your Excellency. They are being probed with SA-seventy-seven drugs for information as to the whereabouts of their famous Century City but—”

“Yes, I know, the hypno-blocking. They recite nursery rhymes. Don’t bother me with details—and don’t hurt him.”

“Excellency?” Zhabnov said nervously, looking over at his prisoners who listened with interest to the conversation of the two most powerful men in the world.

“I said don’t hurt them. Feed them well, take them off the mind drugs. I want them flown over here to Moscow. To the Kremlin within twenty-four hours.”

“But—but—”

“Get them over here—and quick,” the premier snapped. “There have been changes in the world situation—for the worse—fighting is going on everywhere. If a truce of some sort could be worked out with these annoying American freefighters, we could deploy some of your forces elsewhere and give more of our time to countering that madman Killov.”

“Redeploy my forces—but—” Zhabnov suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of his large stomach. His power could be greatly diminished if his troops were cut. Was this the beginning of the end for him?

“Stop repeating every word I say, nephew. Do as I say. I’ll put Rahallah on the phone and he will arrange the details of the transfer of this Rockson and his fellow rebel to Moscow. Rahallah is more than my servant now—he is a trusted advisor.”

“A
nigger
? Trust a
nigger—
but Grandfather, how—”

“Don’t use that word, nephew. You are making me grow angry. Do as I command. I have a good future planned for you. Since Killov has rebelled you are the one most likely to succeed me now. And I am old.” He sounded weary, resigned. “But I must have your unquestioned obedience until then. And you must accept Rahallah like a brother. He saved my life. Do you understand me?”

Zhabnov nearly choked when he answered, “Yes, Your Excellency. Thank you for your confidence. I will have matters of transfer arranged. Please put—brother—Rahallah on.” He handed the phone to General Smayok and turned back to face Rockson whose keen mutant ears had picked up much of the conversation.

Rockson was being tossed around like a hot potato. Just when his future seemed so bleak—very interesting. Of course being in Russia would be even more difficult to get out of than here. But the possibilities—the possibilities . . . Suddenly he was enjoying his capture tremendously.

Nine

A DAY IN THE LIFE
OF IVAN KRESKY

I
van Kresky rolled over in the soft dirt ditch he had spent the night sleeping in. The cold dew of the morning was beginning to evaporate with the arrival of the dark orange sun which hoisted itself slowly into the mottled Russian sky over the Red city of Petrograd, home of nearly six million. Kresky shivered from the wetness which covered him, and he pulled his one miserable possession, an ancient army overcoat, brown and encrusted with dirt, up over his body. He withdrew his head deep into his little cave of relative warmth underneath the blanketlike embrace of the coat. And tried not to wake up. There was nothing to wake up to. Nothing. Around him, Kresky heard the muffled moans of other dulags—untouchables—as the Russians called them. They lived on the outskirts of every Soviet city. Inside the city—the bureaucrats, the army brass, all lived plush lives surrounded by all the wealth that the World Soviet Empire sucked in with its long greedy tentacles. But the other seventy-five percent of the Russian population even within their own country were not so lucky. Many of them were poor farmers, eking what meager existence they could from their rocky acres. Others worked in the Russian factories turning out yet more tanks, trucks, military supplies to keep the empire troops supplied. For the fighting continued—even after a hundred years. The conquered peoples didn’t seem to want to give up their freedom so easily. Father taught son who taught his son to fight. To kill Russians whenever the opportunity arose.

But a vast portion of the Russian population didn’t even have factory or agricultural livelihoods at all. Nearly forty million of her citizens were forced to fend for themselves, living off the upper classes’ wealth, trying to grab what little crumbs they could to keep themselves alive. Without homes they wandered the countryside in search of God knows what. Sleeping in woods, behind logs, in ditches, then rising again each morning in pursuit of scraps thrown from the cities. They scoured the immense garbage dumps at the outskirts of the Red metropolises, fighting the rats and the worms and one another for the few precious rotting mouthfuls.

Ivan had been born in the Siberian village of Moersk, a small hunting community in the southern Steppes where the winters were nine months long and there were few days when one could take one’s shirt off and bask in the brief sunshine. But there were fewer and fewer game animals to hunt. The poisoning of the Russian ecology by the handful of American nukes that made it over had not initially caused much damage, but over the years they had made their effects felt as the ecological harmony of the precarious life forms in many parts of frozen Russia had been pushed over the edge into extinction. Nearly half of all Soviet wildlife had disappeared in the fifty years following the Great War. Much of the flora that had covered the mountains and Steppes had vanished, leaving parched flat plains without a trace of life. The small outer villages were doomed. Slowly they shrank as their once proud and robust inhabitants became bent and thin, hardly able to catch enough game to keep their families from starving.

Ivan, the fifth son of Strydor Kresky, had set off from home at the ripe age of fourteen—or rather been kicked out bodily by his stern, vodka-drinking father who had grown tired of all the mouths to feed. When his wife had twins it had been the door for Ivan—literally kicked out into the snow with just the boots on his feet, a thick black bear coat and a rusty pistol. Somehow Ivan had survived, trekking south before the worst of winter set in. He had slept by the sides of roads, lonely and desperate, happy just to hear the occasional Ziv Army car fly by, happy for a split second for his speeding company in the midst of the vast Russian wastelands.

He had headed west to the center of the Motherland falling in among the migrating hordes who hopped trains and built rickety rafts to move up and down the mighty Volga, always searching, seeking, but none knew for what.

But the years of constant struggle had taken a heavy toll on him. He was only twenty-five but looked like a man of fifty, his face lined and weathered, his eyes fixed in narrow, suspicious slits hardly larger than a razor’s edge. He had numerous wounds and sores, scars from fights with other dulags battling over this or that crumb tossed out by the elite. A bullet was still lodged in his side from a Red guard who had shot him for target practice one night as he was going through a metal dumpster parked at the edge of a city. His flesh was filled with wounds from the teeth of life, teeth that never stopped snapping.

Ivan heard engines roaring by on the road about thirty feet away from where he lay. The traffic of early morning was beginning to move in and out of Petrograd, delivery trucks from outlying warehouses bringing in the foodstuffs and materials that had been stolen from other parts of the globe. Ninety-seven percent of the earth’s population spent their short lives working for and producing goods so that three percent of the Russian population could live in ultimate luxury. Never had so many given so much for so few.

Ivan sat upright, letting his thick army coat fall to his waist. All around him in the shallow ditch in which he had spent the night other dulags were rousing themselves. It wasn’t good to be seen sleeping when the army brass went by. They were just as likely to run the prone untouchable over or shoot them with a machine gun, laughing uproariously. The poorest of the poor stood up on unsteady legs and looked at one another suspiciously. There were many of them in this particular area. There had been rumors that there was work to be had in the textile mills at the edges of the city, and thousands of them had come, some vast distances, to see if it was true—a job. A real job, and perhaps a dwelling—even a hovel would have seemed a castle to these nothings—these nobodies.