Doc slid the razor blade out of his pocket and tried to psych himself up enough to use it. If he slashed Exo with it and failed to kill him, it would be a death sentence…though, truth to tell, Doc might be a dead man soon anyway, given Exo’s volatile nature.
Swallowing hard, Doc tensed, about to sweep the blade up and across Exo’s throat.
Then, suddenly, he heard a thunderous clamor from the direction of the redoubt like the roar of a hundred lions…
Exo’s head snapped around at the noise. “What is that?”
Doc’s head did the same. “Dear God.” And, suddenly, he forgot what he’d been planning to do with the razor blade and dropped it on the ground.
One of the rounded hills beside the redoubt had been gouged open from within. A giant red creature—about twenty feet tall—was tearing its way out of the hill with huge scarlet claws, digging to freedom in a thrashing, roaring frenzy.
“Some kind of monstrosity,” Doc said in a hushed, awestruck voice. “A mutation, perhaps induced by Hammersmi…by my experiments with matter transformation.”
“Who’s that down there?” Exo pointed at a human figure on the ground, not far from the base of the hill. “That thing will stomp her into goo if she doesn’t get her ass the hell out of there!”
“What’s she doing?” Squinting, Doc saw the woman raise an object to her mouth. He thought she was blowing into it, playing it like an instrument while looking up at the creature.
Meanwhile, the creature forced one giant leg out of the hole in the hill. When its vast red foot came down in a powerful stomp, the ground shook even harder than it was already shaking from the current quake.
“Wait a minute.” Exo, looking mesmerized, took two steps forward. “I know that woman. It’s her.”
“Her, who?” Doc asked.
Without further explanation, Exo started to run toward the woman and the monster.
Doc felt no compunction to join him, however…at least until he saw someone else emerge from the chute, leap up and run in the same direction as Exo.
Even from a distance, even in the dimming grayness of twilight, he instantly recognized the new arrival. The lean physique and long white hair were unmistakable; the face, as white as the moon rising in the sky, could belong to only one person.
“Jak!” Doc’s heart soared. His albino companion, whom he hadn’t seen for days, was a sight so welcome that Doc felt as if he might explode from pure joy on the spot.
Suddenly, the old man had a good reason to get closer to the creature after all…but not too close. For he hadn’t seen a friend in what seemed like ages.
And wherever Jak happened to be, Ryan and the rest of the companions couldn’t be too far behind.
* * *
RYAN FLASHED THROUGH the darkness of the chute, hoping he was doing the right thing.
Following Jak into the pit had seemed to make sense a few moments earlier, especially after the sheath of Doc’s swordstick had turned up. But the one-eyed man kept wondering if he and the others should have stayed in the mat-trans chamber…if maybe they were heading farther from Doc rather than closer.
Only Hammersmith had stayed behind, determined to set the out-of-control equipment to rights and stop the disruptions attacking the core. Ryan had given him Union’s Heckler & Koch longblaster to defend himself, then locked and jammed the door to the chamber before leaping into the chute with the others.
But what if he was leading them in the wrong direction? And what if Doc paid the ultimate price for that mistake?
Just as these questions haunted him on his ride through the blackness, Ryan forced them back and committed himself to whatever lay ahead. Difficult decisions—and fatal mistakes—were part and parcel of daily life in the Deathlands.
Ryan knew it was more important to hold on tight to his weapons than his doubts. Doubts had never saved him from boarding the last train west.
* * *
AS JAK RAN toward Union, he couldn’t help staring up at the giant creature bursting out of the hill. The beast was enormous, and it was unlike any creature he’d ever seen before. From where he stood, it looked as if it was composed of a multitude of crimson-skinned mutie bodies and body parts jammed together in one monstrous form—hundreds of heads and upper torsos sticking out, mangled and contorted.
Were those muties even dead? As Jak watched, they flailed and writhed. Their mouths worked, and their eyes rolled and blinked. If they were dead, were they somehow animated by the force binding the creature together? If they were alive, were they aware of their imprisonment, struggling to break free?
Whatever those poor muties were or weren’t thinking, one thing seemed clear to him: Union was calling their tune. She stood thirty yards away from Jak, playing the silver cone she’d retrieved from the mat-trans chamber as if it was some kind of trumpet. It blinked and flashed as she held it to her mouth and aimed it up at the creature. Union had said it would summon something that could kill everyone living in the Shift, and the creature certainly looked as if it fit that description.
Had she created the device or stolen it? At the moment, none of that mattered. Jak just kept racing toward her over the rumbling ground, determined to stop her and the monstrosity she was controlling at any cost. He would do the same for the mutie who was also running toward her, if he got in the way.