Downrigger Drift. James Axler
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his shoulder, his SIG-Sauer filling his right hand. “End of the line, people. Krysty, you got Jak. Mildred, help J.B. Keep your blasters out if you can manage it. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to find down here. Doc, you’re on my left. Let’s get the fuck out of this metal coffin.”
Doc took his position at Ryan’s left shoulder, levering back the trigger of his LeMat with a click. “Truer words were never spoken, my friend.”
Ryan raised his SIG-Sauer and nodded at the old man. “Do it.”
Chapter Nine
The elevator doors opened into impenetrable, pitch-blackness. The bright fluorescent light emanating from the elevator was quickly swallowed by the stygian dark outside.
“Guess the lights aren’t on down here.” Mildred said. She had J.B.’s left arm draped around her shoulders, holding it in place with her left, and her blaster in her right hand, ready to shoot. Krysty had done the same with the skinny, shivering Jak, careful to avoid the shards of razor sewn into his jacket.
“No, and it certainly doesn’t smell any more pleasant than the festering pit we just left, does it?” Doc said, covering his mouth and nose.
Indeed, it didn’t smell any better outside. In fact, the reek was much worse. It was warmer here than in the mat-trans corridor, and more humid, and the pervasive odors of rot and mold surrounded them. Although he didn’t say it, Ryan was pretty sure of one of the components making up the miasma around them—rotting meat.
“Need a light.” Bending to grab one of the carpet strips, he rubbed it in the filthy fur of a dead rat body, smearing it with feces and hair, then wrapped it around the blade of his panga. “Mildred, J.B.’s got a flint on him, find it.”
“I’m not dead yet…” Ryan half turned to see the Armorer holding out the small stone, a scowl creasing his eyebrows.
“Hell, never said you were, just figured you were takin’ a little nap after our running around up there. Since you’re awake, you can make yourself useful and carry the rest of that carpet. We’re gonna need more fuel when this runs out.”
J.B. accepted two handfuls of the thin strips, stuffing them in his pockets.
Kneeling, Ryan struck the flint against the steel of his knife, sending a shower of sparks into the makeshift torch, which flared into sullen light. He caught Krysty’s worried stare and nodded, wordlessly telling her it would be all right, when in fact he had no idea whether any of them would survive the next few minutes. With Jak and J.B. incapacitated, their numbers were down by a third. That meant two of the best warriors in the group were out of action, and Ryan estimated their ability was more or less cut by half, particularly with two others carrying them along. Doc and Mildred were more than capable, he’d grant them that, but they simply weren’t in the other two men’s league. Krysty was another story, easily equal to any of the other men when it came to chilling, as she had demonstrated time after time. Her lethal performance in the hallway had proved that point yet again.
Rising, he raised the torch overhead to cast the maximum available light out in front of them. “All right, let’s move out. Stay close and sing out if you see anything. You ready, Doc?”
The old man stared at the limp corpse of one of the rats with unfocused eyes. “Would that I had a piece of string to swing it on, that is a fine pastime for a young boy to while an afternoon away, is it not?”
“Ah, Doc…” Ryan toed the stiffening body with his boot. “You saying you used to swing these on a string?”
“Oh, yes, it was great fun for the boys to scare the girls with—that or a dead cat, you see.”
“And they say the twenty-second century is uncivilized. Sometimes I think you boys don’t have anything on the nineteenth.” Mildred muttered.
At the moment, Ryan agreed with her. “Doc? Doc, snap out of it. We might be walking into trouble down here, and we need you in the here and now, understand?”
The white-haired man’s eyes blinked once, twice, then he stared up at Ryan with his more-or-less usual gaze. “Beg pardon, dear sir, I was gamboling down the misty paths of memory lane for a moment.” Doc hoisted the LeMat in front of his face. “It shall not happen again, I assure you.”
“All right, let’s go.” Ryan’s torch was already burning low, and the first order of business was to find a better light source, and quick.
His blaster extended into the room, Ryan took a step out, then another. The stench hit him like a physical blow, almost overpowering in its intensity. Beside him, Doc exited the elevator, and immediately turned to be quietly sick in the corner.
The floor was alternately slick and dry, making footing treacherous. Bringing the torch down, Ryan saw more mutie shit covering the floor as in the hallway, just not as deep here. The lumps were larger, however, some the size of a child’s fist, which sparked a faint alarm in Ryan’s mind. “Go slow, everyone. We don’t need any twisted or broken ankles here.”
“Yeah, we got enough problems already,” Mildred replied.
“Well, here is some news of import that may cheer us.” Doc darted off into the darkness, only to return a moment later wheeling something in front of him on squealing, crusted wheels. “I found a chair.”
“Great, Doc, great.” Ryan grimaced as he stared at the ancient piece of furniture, which looked as if it would fall apart if he breathed on it, much less sat down. It was also covered with feces, which Doc busily brushed off. “What in the hell are we supposed to do with it?”
The old man’s expression turned sly, as if only he knew the answer to a great riddle. With effort, he wrenched off one of the metal arms in a squeal of rusted metal and held it up. “Wrapped in your clever mixture of mutant shit and U.S. government-approved carpet—supplied by the lowest bidder, of course—I believe this would make a more than adequate torch, would it not?”
“He’s got you there, Ryan,” Krysty said.
“Guess he does.” Shaking the guttering remains of his first torch off the panga, Ryan cleaned and sheathed it before breaking off the other chair arm. In two minutes he had fashioned a pair of torches, one of which he passed to Doc. “You found them, you get to carry one.”
“Its lustrous gleam blazes like the bejeweled flame that lit the brazier whenst mankind came together to celebrate the first Olympiad in Athens, shining out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark—or is that a stream of bat’s piss? In either event, I will guard it with my very life.”
“I’d settle for finding a light of some kind, electric or otherwise—” Ryan began to reply before Krysty’s urgent whisper cut him off.
“We’re not alone.”
Everyone froze, and Ryan lifted his torch higher to try to spot what might be coming at them from the dark. “How many?”
“A lot, all around us—and they’re bigger than the ones in the hallway.”
Now Ryan heard the skittering of many feet; the peculiar rustle-clack of the pig-rats as they approached. A shadowed form remained just out of the yellow circle of torchlight, and Ryan’s breath hitched in his throat for a second—it was as large as a medium dog. He brought up his blaster, but with a flash of a naked, pink tail as big around as his thumb, it vanished into the gloom.
“What’s the plan?” Krysty asked.
“Give me J.B.’s Uzi.” Holstering his SIG-Sauer, Ryan accepted the submachine gun, unfolded the stock and snugged it into his shoulder to brace when he fired. “All right, we follow the wall until we come to another exit. They can’t surround us then. Keep your blasters out and shoot anything inside the light. Above all, keep moving. There must be another way out of here. Let’s move.”
Keeping his back to the wall, and the torch in front of him, Ryan led the way, searching for the corner that would take them deeper