Jak was the last one through the hatch, following on Ryan’s heels. By then, the front rank of the buffalo herd was hammering past, sending teeth-rattling tremors surging up from the quaking earth.
Jak slammed the hatch door shut behind him, then straightened and looked around. Until that moment, he hadn’t given much thought to what awaited him inside the hill; if it was good enough for Ryan to summon him, it had to be safe enough for Jak and the others to enter.
What Jak saw when he scanned his surroundings didn’t give him a lot of answers, though. He was standing at the edge of a laboratory, purpose unknown. Stainless-steel counters and equipment gleamed in the white light from fluorescent tubes mounted on the ceiling. Computer screens danced with video, electronic waveforms and columns of numbers. Glass beakers and racks of test tubes crowded counters and shelves, tinkling from the percussion of the buffalo herd’s hooves.
But what interested him the most was the examination table in the middle of the room. Krysty lay on that silver surface, still unconscious, as a man in a dirty white lab coat leaned over her, injecting her arm with something from a syringe.
Ryan stood a few feet back from that table, watching the proceedings with intense interest. Jak stepped up, touched his shoulder and asked a question in a quiet voice. “Who?”
“Duh. A doctor, obviously.” The man snapped out the words in the gravelly voice of a longtime smoker. “But you can call me, ‘Thank you, sir, for saving my life.’”
Jak wasn’t sure if he should be more pissed off or amused, but the doctor was working on Krysty, so he went with amused.
“Funny guy.” Jak chuckled. “No manners, but funny.”
Suddenly, the doctor swung up the syringe and brandished it like a weapon. “Do not underestimate me!”
Jak smirked. “If say so.”
The doctor was squat—no taller than five-three—and not visibly muscular. He had a face that resembled a chimpanzee’s, with close-set eyes, a broad, flat nose and a muzzle like half a grapefruit. His ears stuck out of the sides of his head like cup handles, and his hair was a thinning black decal, glistening with oil and split down the middle.
He didn’t look like much, but Jak had learned long ago just how deceiving looks could be. This middle-aged whitecoat could be full of unsupported bluster or the deadliest foe that Jak and the others had ever encountered.
“I can toss you back out into the Slaughterhouse just like that.” The doctor snapped his fingers.
“Like see try.”
The doctor frowned at Ryan. “What’s with the way this guy talks?” He pointed the syringe at Jak. “Is he simple or something?”
Jak laughed. “Heard about actions, Doc?”
The doctor’s frown deepened. “What in the hell are you talking about, Casper?”
“Actions.” Jak let a sadistic grin spread over his features. He drew one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives and spun it around his finger. “Louder than words. And not Casper.”
At that moment, Ryan caught Jak’s gaze. “Dial it back.” His one-eyed stare was dead serious. “Let the man work.”
“Yeah, Casper.” The doctor sneered and stuck up both middle fingers in a double salute intended for Jak.
Before Jak could respond, Ryan stepped closer to the table and snapped out a question. “What’s her condition?”
Instantly, the doctor switched to professional mode. “I have her stabilized for now. Lucky for you, I keep plenty of epinephrine on hand. Never know when you’re gonna need it with those fish-wasps around.”
“Wait.” Mildred, who’d been observing but hanging back on the doctor’s side of the table, pushed forward. “What else did you give her? I saw you administer the epi, but what was the other injection?”
“Antivenom.” The doctor grinned and waggled his busy black caterpillar eyebrows. “My own special recipe.” He leaned closer to Mildred. “You’d be surprised at what I can cook up, honeybunch.”
Mildred didn’t flinch. “Know what I think is adorable?”
The doctor’s grin widened. “What’s that?”
“A man who doesn’t realize he’s about to get his ass kicked.” Mildred nodded emphatically and elbowed him aside.
“I love a woman who plays hard to get!” The doctor rubbed his hands together briskly. His laugh was a stuttering, wheezing snicker from deep in his throat. “Though, y’know, if you wanted to throw yourself at me in gratitude for pulling your ass out of the fire, that’d be okay, too.” He gave her a broad wink as he scuttled away from the exam table. “Let’s just say I’ve been alone in the Devil’s Shit-House for a long time, sweet-knees.”
“How did you end up out here in the first place?” Ricky asked.
“I might ask the same of you, rug rat,” the doctor said, “if I were a nosy person. Just like I told tall, dark and one-eyed when he dragged his girlfriend in here—it’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
As the doctor wobbled toward a counter across the lab, Jak turned to Ryan. “This guy nasty,” he said under his breath. “Not trust him.”
“Mebbe.” Ryan nodded, also speaking softly. “But he could’ve left us out there to die. He didn’t have to open the hatch and invite us in.”
Jak narrowed his ruby eyes and snorted. Ryan had a point, but he didn’t have to like it, and it wouldn’t keep him from disliking his so-called host.
Fortunately, a welcome distraction took his mind off the doctor just then. The rhythmic tremors that had been rattling the place since his arrival were fading.
“Buffalo herd finally past,” he said. “All clear out there.”
“Clear is a relative term,” the doctor said as he retrieved a red coffee can from the counter and peeled off the black plastic lid. “Clear in the Devil’s Shit-House and clear in the rest of the world are two very different things.” Plunging his pudgy hand into the can, he pulled out a small plastic bag full of dried green buds and a packet of rolling papers. “But if you want to channel your inner morons and go out for an afternoon stroll, don’t let me stop you.”
“Say, Doc,” J.B. said, “you don’t have a lot of friends, do you?”
The doctor held a rolling paper between thumb and forefinger and sprinkled crushed bits of green bud into it. “I’m not really what you’d call a people person.”
“Then, why the hell did you invite us in here?” J.B. asked.
“You really don’t know?” The doctor put down the plastic bag, then rolled the paper and crushed buds into a skinny cigarette. With practiced ease, he swiftly licked the gummed edge of the paper, sealing the joint. “It’s all because of that one.” He said it matter-of-factly and pointed the end of the joint in the general direction of the group.
“That one who?” Jak asked.
“The Iron Maiden, of course.” The doctor pulled a predark butane lighter from a pocket of his lab coat, then used it to ignite the tip of the joint while inhaling deeply. He held the smoke in his lungs for a moment before letting it out with a cough. “We have a history together.”
As one, the teammates all turned and stared at Union, who was standing stiffly near the hatch. She stared back at them with icy detachment.
“I guess she hasn’t told you about the skeletons in her closet yet.” The doctor snickered. “I’m sure she was getting around to it, though. Right, metal britches?”
“It’s true,” Union said without changing her expression in the slightest. “We do share a history.”
Again, the doctor snickered. “You gotta love this chick, am I right?” Then he lifted the joint for another puff. “Don’t expect to get too much out of her, though. She’s a woman of few words.”
“Actually—” Union slowly turned her head and focused her glacial gaze on him “—you might be interested to know that he’s the architect of the Shift. This place exists because of his reckless experimentation.”
The doctor choked on his latest lungful. “Well, I’ll be damned! I didn’t see that coming!”
“And his name,” said Union, “is Dr. William Hammersmith.”
“Well, shit.” Hammersmith giggled and shrugged. “I guess the jig is up.”
“And,” Union said, “he’s supposed to be dead.”