Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow

FREEDOM’S HAZARD

In the nuclear-ravaged 21st century, liberty still thrives in free cities under the ground of a wasted America—until Pattonville, second largest of these bastions of freedom, is seized by the power-crazed General Hanover. Using a newly developed lethal gas, Hanover holds the city captive in a dark and brutal reign of terror.

But word has reached the one man who can save democracy for America: Ted Rockson, the Doomsday Warrior. Together with his brave team of freedom fighters, Rockson races across the ruined landscape. Their destination is Pattonville, but before they can liberate the city, Rockson and his “Rock Team” must overcome the mad dictator’s ferocious guard force. Pitted in mortal combat against mighty men and vicious beasts alike, Rockson knows he
must
win—before Hanover captures every free city in the nation!

DOOMSDAY
WARRIOR

CAVERN OF DEATH

“Holy mother—” Rockson muttered as he led the Freefighters into the large underground cavern with glowing stalactites of immense size hanging down from the high ceiling. He saw movement behind one of the pillars of black lava.

“Company!” he yelled and reached for his shotpistol. The figures began running toward them shrieking wild guttural cries. They were covered with black lava-like scales. Their weapons were primitive, but Rockson knew a lot of things could kill a man.

Somehow the band of Freefighters had stumbled into a colony of volcanic beings. And from the way they were closing in, stabbing their polished obsidian spears in the air and screaming incantations in a strange language, Rockson wasn’t at all optimistic about his life expectancy over the next few seconds . . .

ZEBRA BOOKS

are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.

475 Park Avenue South

New York, N.Y. 10016

ISBN: 0-8217-2740-0

Copyright © 1989 by Ryder Syvertsen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

First printing: August 1989

Printed in the United States of America

One

F
actory Worker No. 1,278 woke early from terrible dreams. Even as he came out of the dark void of night he felt his body shivering, terribly cold, stiff with the night breezes which swept across the floor of the barracks where he and a hundred others of Pattonville’s slave workers lay huddled on a concrete floor. Only burlap bags or the equivalent in plasti-paper covered them, and those covers were like paper. He hurt. Bad. Every part of him ached and groaned, every joint was stiff as a piece of frigid iron. But iron with nerves, with senses; iron that groaned.

He rolled over, which elicited a sharp groan from his mouth as his shoulder dug into the hard cement floor, sending a torrent of pain through him. He had hurt his upper left arm the day before in the factory where his job was to roll heavy steel canisters on hand pulled wagons to a loading dock.

No. 1,278 remembered that he had hurt it bad. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to work now. Maybe they would . . .

Would
what?
A tremor of fear swept through his stomach. He knew that others had disappeared when they had been hurt. Worker No. 3,789, whom he had been friends with in the old days, before General Hanover had taken over in Pattonville. He had hurt his leg and couldn’t walk. And when No. 1,278 woke one morning, his only “friend” was gone. When he asked about him, the guard smacked him hard with the butt of his rifle. And that had been that. There were no questions asked in Pattonville, not any more.

He leaned his head up against the pitted wall behind him and one eye opened slightly, gazing out onto the mass of bodies lying huddled on pieces of cardboard, old coats, anything else they had managed to siphon off from the detritus of the city. Snores and groans, heavy breathings, and an occasional curse as someone rolled onto someone else’s face or body were all that broke the silence. The place stank. None of them had bathed for many weeks, months. A rat scampered between the prone bodies searching for food. It was dangerous for the creature, No. 1,278 knew. For if any of the other factory workers saw it and got a hand on the rat, it would be eaten quickly enough, that was for damned sure. No. 1,278 didn’t eat rats. The creature must have been terribly hungry itself to risk coming out onto the cement sleeping barracks floor. It clearly didn’t realize that there was no food to be had in here. And even in the midst of his own pain and mind-numbing cold, No. 1,278 felt a twinge of pity for the dark scampering creature. And for a moment felt that they were the same. A rat and a man, both hungry, desperate. United in a bond of deprivation.

He tried to clear his mind. The identification with the rat somehow shocked him out of his mental stupefication. Where was he exactly? Who was he? Had he just been No. 1,278 for a few months. Since it had all changed. Since General Hanover had taken over the Free City of Pattonville. His
name?
His real name, his human name.
What the hell was it?

George, that was it. George Mocker, Hacker. No . . . Halston. That was it. George Halston. He was George Halston. A sudden flash of anger bit through the physical torments of his body and he welcomed it for its momentary relief of the pain.

He had been a baker once. The city had been a wonderful place to live. Yes, it came back to him suddenly, in a flood of memory and desire which he hadn’t even known existed. He had a wife. Where was she? God, she had been beautiful, with long auburn hair, and green eyes that sparkled like, like . . . The images failed him as she disappeared. Tears came to his eyes and spread down both bearded cheeks, freezing the skin beneath in the sub-zero air. But he welcomed that pain as well. He felt himself awakening from what felt like a thousand-year sleep. And suddenly he was inundated with a rush of images from his past. The two rooms they had shared, a cat, picnicking on the cliff overlooking the city, making love . . .

There was a loud commotion and shouts as two men punched and kicked at each other on the far side of the fifty-by-twenty-foot sleeping chamber. God only knew what they were fighting over. There were fights down here all the time. How could there not be, Halston mused bitterly, with the men squeezed together like rats, fed almost nothing, lying on the cold concrete night after night. Sometimes one man killed another with a stolen piece of filed-down metal, a piece of broken glass. They were not allowed to possess real weapons, weren’t allowed to possess much of anything for that matter, beyond their hole-bottomed shoes and gray work clothes which were never changed.

No. 1,278 heard crunching sounds like bones being broken and then a sharp scream. Then the fighting sounds died down again. The whole floor of sleepers stirred, but only for a few moments. They were used to it.

No. 1,278 shifted to his other side, his shoulder starting to ache too much on the right side. He let his gaze rest without really focusing on the far door, a wide rectangle that led to the outer passage that ran down the center of Pattonville. Already there were stirrings outside, men walking by heading to the early shifts at the factories. Soon it would be his turn, he knew, perhaps another five or ten or twenty minutes. He tried to slip back into the memories of the past, tried to remember what had been. It was very hard, this pain of remembering. The contrast of the beauty of then, and the ugliness of now was too intense.

He knew
they
had given them all a gas that was sprayed over them from time to time. It dulled their mental faculties, made them hardly more than children intellectually, made them—him—slaves.

He struggled through the fog, knowing that it was important that he remember. Remember that he had been a man, instead of a work-drone, a slug, a worm, like he was now. He felt a sudden movement down his skull and then across his cheek, and reached up with a flash of motion. He grabbed it and gripped it hard between his fingers, though it was hard to move them, as they were stiff and inflexible from the cold. A centipede. He had caught one several weeks before and eaten it. It had been fat. But the pincers had bitten his tongue as he chewed, and his mouth had swelled up so he couldn’t even drink water for two days. Still it was meat, food, a big one, nearly three inches long, perhaps half an inch wide. He didn’t even feel revulsion this time, his stomach was too empty, and the stomach always rules men when starvation sets in. They had even been known to tear their own flesh off and chew away when the gnawing pains set in.

He held it in the middle as the ugly hundred-legged bug squirmed wildly like a worm on a hook, its long snapping jaws closing on air as it tried to get him. No. 1,278 let a flicker of a smile cross his face. This time he wouldn’t be bitten. As dumb as he was, he was smarter than an ugly bug. He sat up against the wall and reached inside the half torn pocket of his thick work-clothes and took out his own weapon, a sliver of glass eight inches long. Holding the centipede down on the concrete with one hand he quickly beheaded it with the other and then popped the thing into his mouth, the leg still wriggling as if it didn’t even know it had lost its mind. Three bites and it was gone.

It tasted good, tasted meaty and real, unlike the watery gruel they were served at lunch and dinner in the factory. He felt a slight surge of strength seep into him and more memories came back.

Memories of how the general had taken over the free-city in a coup, how he had ordered the systematic breaking down of families and the assigning of men and women to different factories around the city. The pain in his mind was overwhelming as he remembered what he had been—and how much he had lost.

Suddenly there was a slamming at the front door and eight guards holding submachine guns stormed in, kicking and butting the men awake.

“Rise up scum, time for work. Move, move.” They rushed through the place as the sleeping factory drones moved fast, even out of deep sleep. They knew the treatment that dawdlers got. Quickly they stumbled to their feet, snarling at one another as they lurched into long lines. They were shepherded out the door, guards on each side, and headed down the main thoroughfare toward the gas factory five hundred yards off.