Doomsday Warrior 08 - American Glory Page 3

  But Rockson didn’t care why. The why’s were for the smockcoats. For him, life was beyond explanation. It was a mystery that was handed to him in new ways and in new forms every day. And there was no choice except to take it—and try to stay alive.

  Rock shut the door, not turning on the light. The red glow of the horns illuminated the room just enough to see. He disrobed again, folding the civilian clothes over the chair and then sat on the bed, kneeling cross-legged. He put the palms of his hands together in the cupping mudra and closed his eyes, breathing out deeply.

  It took only minutes for him to fall into a deep meditative trance in which every system in his body had slowed to nearly a tenth its normal speed. His very cells relaxed, uncoiled in the ultra-breath meditation. He had not had even one second to relax the entire time they had been out hunting down the president. As the commander of the force, Rock could never rest. Never let down his guard, never even fully sleep, one eye open, the ears listening, always listening for the crack of a branch, the rustle of a leaf. And it took its toll. By the end of the journey he felt wound tight as a spring, ready to pop, to explode, his brain filled with too many screams. But already it was disappearing into the windless void that he entered deep within himself.

  He was nowhere. No one. His breath and the air of the world outside were the same. His cells were the cells of oxygen and hydrogen floating freely. He was just an idea. A concept of a thing, an energy organization that created the illusion of self.

  He floated. Floated free. A sensation most men never feel. Only the birds and the fish know. No up or down, no gravity, just freedom, endless freedom to soar into nothing. He could feel his consciousness rise out of his body and float above him. He looked down and saw himself, the strong perfect physique of homo mutatiens—the new race—as evolved mentally and physically from homo sapiens as that species had been from the Neanderthals who they briefly shared the planet with. He could feel the strength of his body, the perfect motion of the heart and the arteries, the lungs and inner organs.

  He soared higher, away from his body, through the molecules of the ceiling and through the floors above. He floated through the solid rock as if it were water, seeing it but somehow able to melt through its atoms. Rockson rose wingless, soaring into the night sky like a satellite of pure consciousness. Higher, into clouds and ethers, into magnetic rays. He glided along the gravity patterns that shot out and up from the poles of the earth, letting their pure energy push him along like a speck of dust in a tornado.

  The Glowers had taught him. That hideous race of telepathic mutants with their entire nervous and muscular systems outside their bodies, the ugliest creatures perhaps that God had ever put on the face of the earth. But also, when one could join their mind-language—the gentlest and most beautiful. The Glowers had shown Rockson, using his latent mutant abilities, how to rise into the outer flesh of the planet—how to be one with it. Feel its heat waves, its tidal swells sweeping around the globe. Sense its gravity pulsations and its volcanic eruptions. They had shown him how to enter this world of unimaginable beauty and complexity. And he revelled in it. Flew like an eagle of pure consciousness among the oceans of atmosphere, absorbing their every hue, their every shadow of hidden spectral energies.

  He heard them. Far off at first, like the howling of a storm wind through a distant forest. Then closer, singing, many minds joined, speaking as one, all thoughts joining, blending into a symphony of sensation, thought, smell, taste, touch. All in one. They sang to him.

  “Rockson, we reach out to you once more. We warn you of terrible danger.”

  “Are you here, are you coming?” The Doomsday Warrior spoke out with his mind as he floated, spinning like an invisible meteor high above the curving surface of the cobalt blue earth below.

  “No, we are at our camp. Where we taught you. The journey we made to help you at Forrester Valley, where we turned wishes to nightmares in the minds of the invading Nazi army—took something from us. The steering of the sandships, the leaving of our poisoned radioactive zone—it weakened us. We cannot come again to help you with our powers. Not for a long time, perhaps never. We will help you with our minds, Rockson, but not our physicality.”

  “Yes,” the Doomsday Warrior answered back with sadness, which he knew they would feel. For they sensed the emotion attached to all thoughts, all words.

  “There is great danger. Perhaps greater than ever before. Killov, the skull, is moving faster than we thought possible. He has taken control of nearly all of Premier Vassily’s and President Zhabnov’s forces and fortresses here in our land. Killov is a sick, diseased person. To a depth and with a power that even you—who have done battle with him—cannot understand. He seeks to—destroy the world—utterly and completely.”

  They sent out a mental picture that slammed Rockson, pure energy though he was, and sent him spinning. A vision of Killov setting off all the nuclear missiles that were left. Aiming them at every portion of the world. They showed him the bombs going off. The thousand mushroom clouds—and then—the entire planet bursting apart at the seams like a rotten bag whose garbage had dropped out the bottom. Pieces the size of whole nations and fragments just blocks long flew out to every corner of the universe, rushing off to all the disparate galaxies that spun like wheels in the infinite night. Then—there was nothing. Where the earth had hung suspended in infinity—was now an emptiness. Not even an asteroid belt remained as the tombstone of the once-proud planet. Just black space, an unholy void, through which the sun burned with atomic rage.

  Rockson felt a deep swelling inside his heart, which was far below. And the desire to cry, though he had no tears or eyes from which to weep.

  “This, then, is the fate of the home of all of us, Rockson. American and Russian alike. Human, animal, all will perish if—” They left the thought unsaid. The collective mind stopped, not wanting to face the next, inevitable thought even themselves.

  “Unless—” Rockson sent back.

  “The future is very dark, like the sky before a tornado. The waves of fate itself are broken, crashing from different dimensions. We do not know the future. Can only sense it. We sense darkness, Rockson. A bottomless burning darkness. You must—fight this with everything you possess—and more.”

  Suddenly they pulled back, snatching their collective mind from telepathic contact with him with the speed of a missile flying off.

  Rockson felt almost in a state of shock. His consciousness reeled from the nightmare vision of the total annihilation of earth. He felt himself losing his center, his cohesiveness, and strained to come down from the atmosphere. It was so hard. Things were tearing at him. Rays, forces beyond his comprehension all pulling at his mind, his soul. Somehow he shot down, down from the high ethers through the thick plutonium-tinged clouds, moving by instinctive connection back toward his body in suspension below. He found Century City and shot down through the ground, the concrete, slipping once again between the molecules. There it was—he—his body, almost silent, heart slowed to four beats a minute. Rockson gathered his diffused mental being together and entered the skull, the heart, the spine of himself.

  He was back. Inside his body. The burden of its flesh, the sensation of its hard bones and pumping blood was like suddenly carrying hundred-pound weights on each shoulder, each leg. It was painful, returning to the body. But the other way of being was too powerful—too explosive for him to handle for long. The Glowers were mutants in more than just a physical sense—they had to be, to live all their lives in that linked supra-human mode of macrocosmic consciousness. He could barely stand it for five minutes.

  He came out of the meditation posture and fell backward on the bed, exhausted to the very marrow of his bones. He was asleep before he had the chance to wonder if he would be able to fall asleep.

  Three

  Colonel Killov, known simply to those who feared and hated him as “The Skull,” tore through the luggage that stood just inside the front door of his six-room suite, searching frantic
ally.

  “Where are they? Where the fucking hell are they? Someone’s going to die tonight. Do you hear me?” he screamed out to six KGB officers who stood nearby, staring straight down at the Persian rug on the floor.

  “My medicines, my goddamned medicines. Where are they?” He ripped open suitcases, his skinny pale arms endowed with the strength of a maniac, and threw their contents through the air. Killov’s dependence on various drugs over the years had reached the stage of drug addiction. Killov wasn’t addicted to just one or even two drugs, but over a dozen. Not to mention the various ups, downs, and consciousness-expanding and consciousness-contracting vials, spansules, and capsules that he carried everywhere he traveled in a special manganese-plated suitcase.

  But it was nowhere to be found. Somewhere in transit from Washington, D.C.—where KGB troops had been driven out by the onslaught of Rockson and his men, to Fort Minsk, where Killov had flown to oversee his ongoing military takeover of Red America—his suitcase had been lost. The war, the battles, the lives of hundreds of thousands of men were all secondary.

  “Fools,” Killov screamed, throwing the last of the suitcases down on the floor and kicking it a few yards to the KGB officers. “Why are you just standing there staring at me? Get my physician on the radio, call Denver, call the Monolith. There’s always a full supply ready at the chemist’s. Have it flown here—priority one. Do you hear me?” He came at them, flailing at their broad black-leathered chests with pale vein-popping hands. The officers fled as if a grizzly was after them. For as high-ranking as they were, they knew he would have them disposed of in a second if it suited his wishes—or his madness.

  Killov sank to the floor and pushed the door closed behind him. Not one. Not one pill. He patted the pockets of his light-absorbing midnight-black field jacket, knowing the gesture was futile. They had all been in the suitcase, and now . . . whatever fool was responsible would pay. Would pay, oh yes. The colonel, the Supreme Leader of the Supreme Torturers of America, rose to his knees and raised one trembling, skeletal hand, flicking off the overhead light. There at least he was in darkness. The dimness soothed him, cascading down around his gaunt face and shoulders like a shadowy blanket. Killov closed his eyes and tried to entice his mind with thoughts of the torture he would inflict on the guilty party. How he would slide the lips from his face, pour drops of acid onto his eyes, his tongue.

  A stab of pain shot through his thigh as if someone had stabbed him, wrenching his mind back to his own pitiful state. He hadn’t been without drugs for—how long had it been? Years. Years. He reached back into his memory, something he rarely did, but could see nothing. It felt as if he had always been this way. Had he had a childhood, a mother? Somewhere, shadows roamed—but out of reach.

  His stomach suddenly contracted, squeezing his intestines like the closing grip of a steel vise as the withdrawal symptoms hit him. The KGB commander screamed out a hoarse croaking sound and fell forward on his face onto the ultra-lush intricately patterned rug. His brain felt as if it was on fire. An immense burning coal in the center of his cracking skull. Every muscle was filled with smoking mercury, sizzling his veins, scalding his arteries. His entire body spasmed like a snake and a thick yellow sputum erupted from his mouth, depositing itself in a putrid puddle on the rug.

  He groaned and trembled, rolled around on the exotic carpet of the late commander of Fort Minsk. He was pure animal now. The sadist, the murderer, the madman with plans for world domination—and destruction—were all gone. Now just a creature, a puny amoeba undulating in wild pain. How long it went on, Killov had no idea. Just his own mind—and the moon, the razor fragments of its rays slicing through the uncovered window at the far side of the room, cutting into him with cruel neon waves that made him vomit again and again until there was nothing left inside, not a drop of moisture to retch.

  A knock sounded at the door, hesitant at first, then slightly louder.

  “Yes, yes, come in,” Killov barely managed to whisper through parched lips. The door opened and lights were flicked on and he threw his hands over his eyes to shield them from the lacerating rays. A hand was holding his head up, feeding pills into his mouth, then water. Killov gulped and swallowed, exploding again in a spraying cough. But he was able to keep the precious pills down. Slowly he opened his pinholes of eyes and brought the figure above him into focus. It was his personal physician, Keserensky, doing his best to look confident and smile down at the filth-encrusted shriveled creature he held in his arms.

  “More,” Killov burped out. “More pills. Codeine, Alevil, Transmorph.” The obese physician, his jowls pushing out around his stiff collar and hanging down like red, swollen turkey wattles, unhesitatingly reached into the vials that stood in rows inside the open suitcase next to him and fed all of Killov’s requests into the opened mouth, which waited like a bird to be fed. The officers walked in and looked down nervously, without making a sound.

  Killov swallowed again and again, feeling the comforting objects squeeze down his constructed throat. He closed his eyes and waited. It didn’t take long. As the pills and capsules dissolved, their chemicals entered his bloodstream and sent their magical effects throughout his system.

  “Ah, yes, that is better,” the KGB commander said, managing a grim smile for the first time in hours. He pulled away from his physician, who was still groveling over his lord and master, fully aware that Killov would remember this moment—would put the image of the doctor in his mind like a savior. Killov stood up, shakily at first since his spasming legs had to readjust to the streaming sensations that were shooting through his muscles and nerves.

  “Yes, yes, much better,” the top KGB’er said as he felt the wonderful, soothing chemicals fill his cells with painlessness, with artificial energy, with the power that fueled the madman and gave him life. Like a corpse returning from the dead, Killov walked around the room, half stumbling with his arms held out in front of him for balance as he tried to regain his equilibrium. The doctor and gathered brass looked on, smiling benevolently as if he were their child taking his first steps. Within minutes his body was functioning again, filled with the chemical pollution he thrived on, and his mind was as clear as the off-key crystal tones of a warped bell. He could feel the power entering him, recharging him, the waves of fuzzy warmth filling his heart and brain. The image of the ancient myth of Thor who had to but hold his immense hammer to the sky to be recharged by a fusillade of lightning bolts came into his mind. Yes, he was like that ancient fighter. For both of them—when filled with the godlike energy—were unstoppable.

  “Now, first we shall take care of the mistakes that were made last night,” the colonel said, walking to the wide leather chair of the previous Red Army commander of the fort, who was now in chains far below in the sub-basement. The chair was much too large for the ninety-pound body of the madman and he nearly slid out of it, but gripped the arm rests and settled himself.

  “Who handled the transfer of my luggage? Which one of you?” His top six stood in a line on the far side of the mirror-polished wooden desk. Not a one could meet his burning, drug-fired eyes. “Which?” Killov screamed out, jumping up in his seat. “Tell me now—or you all die!” The line parted slightly as the officers backed off on each side from the man they knew to be the guilty party. Backed off, as if he had leprosy, as if just standing near him meant infection—death.

  “Ah, so it was you, Kraskow. And I had thought you were going to work out so well when I appointed you one of my personal staff. When I took a chance on you just months ago. So, even I can be wrong.” Killov looked at the man with false sympathy. “Ah well, it proves that I am only mortal, doesn’t it?” he said with a dark smile. “And perhaps that is a good thing, is it not, Kraskow?”

  The offending KGB’er had not the slightest idea of the proper response. He knew that Killov was toying with him—that though the man spoke softly, his life lay in the balance.

  “Yes, Excellency—you are—mm-m-mortal,” Kraskow stuttered, trying to phr
ase his words so that they might let him live. “But you are the pinnacle of mortals, the top of the mountain of humanity—so high that the gods themselves feel your power.”

  “How eloquent,” Killov said sarcastically. “Really, I should have had you write my speeches not arrange for my luggage. Again, my mistake.”

  Kraskow relaxed ever so slightly as Killov’s anger seemed to be dissipating. Perhaps the KGB leader, recognizing his intellectual powers, would in fact allow the officer to escape with only minor punishment.

  “Yes, it is true,” Killov said reflectively, “I am perhaps as close as man has ever come to the realm of the gods. It is a heady experience. Would you like to feel it for a moment? What it is like to touch the clouds, to sit in the seat of ultimate power?” He rose, walked to the side of the desk, and pointed toward the seat he had just been sitting in. “Please.”

  Kraskow looked like a man staring at his own grave. “No, really, Excellency, I don’t think that I should—”

  “Sit!” Killov shrieked, his face instantly going from chalk-white to beet-red. He rushed around the front of the desk, grabbed the officer by the arm, and led him back to the large leather armchair, pushing him down in it with the strength of the drugs coursing through his corpse-like arms.