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Deathlands Genesis Echo
"I'd like to know how you came down here without me."
"Easy. It was when I was me and you were you and before we became us."
Ryan had taken up the point skirmish position, leaving Trader to act as
rearguard, covering them against a sudden sneak attack from behind.
The woman limped behind them, occasionally aiming the long Mossberg at doors
as they passed them, both making synchronized shooting sounds.
"Bang, you're dead, whitecoat! Bang, take that whitecoats! Eat lead,
whitecoats."
Ryan turned around, making the two heads shrink from him, the two pairs of
eyes blinking anxiously.
"Not a sound more," he hissed. "There's more whitecoats around us now than
there are wasps in a nest. If they hear us, then you'll go back to the
laboratories for lots and lots more experiments. And they'll try to chill us,
as well. Understand?"
"Yes," was said with a single voice.
Ryan dropped his voice still lower, so that the twin heads leaned toward him
to catch what he was saying.
"One more single sound and I'll cut the throat of which of you makes that
sound. And the other one'll have complete, total control."
The reaction was what he'd expected. The dominant head strained to look at its
weaker twin, grinning triumphantly. "It won't be me who loses, sister."
"And it won't be me, either," retorted the other head. "Count on that."
"MUST BE CLOSE to the main atrium now," Trader whispered, as Ryan stopped at
an intersection of the corridors. "Been lucky to get this far."
"Yeah, I know." Edna-Evangelina waited patiently and silently behind them.
"Trouble is, we don't know where Krysty is. Or where the others are being
kept."
"Probably in our rooms in the other wing," Trader suggested. "That'd make
sense."
"And Krysty?"
Trader shrugged his shoulders. "More likely to be in this wing, I guess. What
we could do with is a whitecoat prisoner. Make 'em talk to us."
Ryan looked around them, listening. "There's someone coming," he said. "Might
get us a prisoner real soon."
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Deathlands Genesis Echo
"Or get to be a prisoner, partner." Trader patted him on the shoulder. "Like
the good old days, isn't it?"
There wasn't time to answer.
Just to their left was a set of double doors. Ryan could hear nothing from
behind them so he pushed them boldly open, letting the gaping muzzle of the
SIG-Sauer precede him into the room. If there had been anyone in there, and
he'd tried to inch the doors open, they would have had plenty of warning.
Trader always used to say that if you were going in, then you went in all the
way.
The room was empty. It had a row of basins and faucets along one side, with
hooks for clothes on the wall. Other than that it was completely bare. Ryan
beckoned the others in, moving quickly to the far end where a wide single door
stood half open.
It was an operating theater, fully equipped with tables, lights and several
sets of instruments glinting hygienically from racks on the wall.
Ryan figured another set of double doors at the far end of the room had to
open onto the busy main corridor of the wing. It took him only a moment to
check that those doors were locked.
"Wait in here," he said. "I'll go back and recce who's coming this way."
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Trader stepped inside, whistling at the stark cleanliness of the place. "Looks
like it hasn't been touched in a hundred years."
Edna-Evangelina followed him, the heads swiveling separately, trying to take
in what it was seeing.
"Been here before," the dominant head said, fear making the voice ragged.
"Yes. Remember lights in the air and the pretty knives on the wall."
"Sharp pretty knives," the first head agreed.
"Quiet," Ryan warned. "Whitecoats and sec men behind that other door."
He went through the room with the washbasins and flattened himself against the
wall by the entrance. He reached out with his left hand and very slowly turned
the white plastic doorknob, squinting through the narrow gap into the
corridor.
The sound of feet was much closer, with a strange tapping sound that reminded
Ryan of the ferrule of
Doc's sword stick. But he couldn't recognize the voices.
Then they suddenly came into sight, the slight figure of Ladrow Buford,
limping on his cane, cloak hunched around his shoulders. With him were two of
the sec men.
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Deathlands Genesis Echo
"In here, Buford," Ryan whispered urgently.
He closed the door and moved to stand behind it. It was flung open and the two
guards charged in, Buford at their heels. Neither of them spotted Ryan hidden
by the open door. Keeping all three men covered with the automatic blaster, he
heeled it shut, the noise making them turn.
"Morning," Ryan said. He gestured with the SIG-Sauer as he saw one of the sec
men make a threatening move with the Mossberg that he held. "Best put those
big shiny blasters down on the floor, slow and careful. Good."
"Cawdor! It's really you." Buford's glasses nearly fell off his narrow, beaky
nose, he was shaking so much. "How can you be alive?"
"Easy. Live a good clean life, go to bed early and get up with the sun."
"But, is Thea with you?"
"No. Thea met with an accident."
"The rest of the patrol?"
"Trader's with me. Rest of the sec men sort of headed for the exit, pursued by
a bear."
Buford swallowed, his prominent Adam's apple nearly choking him. "We didn't
know."
"Sure." Ryan grinned. "How's everyone?"
"They're fine." A glint of hope shone in the scientist's watery eyes. "No need
for the blaster, Cawdor. You come along with us, and you can meet your
friends."
"Sounds good." Ryan waved the blaster at the sec men. "Stand still awhile.
Movement makes me nervous, and when I get nervous my fingers become sort of
tense."
Ladrow Buford was sweating so much that Ryan could see clear beads trickling
down the inside of the smeared lenses of his glasses. "Is there just you and
Trader here? You haven't met with anyone else?"
Ryan could almost taste the whitecoat's fear. "We met a patrol. Tried to take
us in. We chilled them all."
"Oh, no!"
"And then we broke in and met two more of your guards."
"Where?"
Trader had appeared unseen in the doorway behind the three men. "By your
freaks' prison."
Buford spun. "Freaks! Prison! What in the name of science are you talking
about?"
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