Axler, James - Deathlands 108 - Nemesis by Axler James

Author:Axler, James [Axler, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction Suspense
ISBN: 9780373626182
Publisher: Gold Eagle
Published: 2013-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The sun had yet to set behind the Rockies as Ricky found himself and his companions gazing down on the rest stop, but it was working on it.

It was an impressive sight, he had to admit.

“Okay, neat,” he said. “Now we’ve got to go. We’re late enough as it is.”

“No,” Olympia said.

Ricky and Jak turned to stare at her. She had joined them on the crest. The ground coming up had been rocky and broken-up enough that they hadn’t had to stop every so often and wait for her to catch up on her human-powered ride.

“You mustn’t.”

Jak frowned. “Shit,” he said. “Going.”

He gunned his engine.

“You’ll die,” Olympia said.

Her voice wasn’t loud, exactly, but somehow it cracked like a whip. Ricky had heard Ryan use the same voice. Well, it was completely different—he was a man, with a rough voice. But still the same. Somehow.

It commanded attention; it commanded Jak’s. His engine eased back to idle as he turned a blank red stare on her.

“Your friends will die, too,” she said.

“Can’t know!”

“Yes,” she said calmly, “I can. I’m a doomie. I can see pathways into the future.”

“Talk,” he said.

“That’s it,” she said. “I can see a short ways down different roads into the future. I see where the one your friends have chosen leads.”

“Where’s that?” Ricky asked. His throat was dry, and it wasn’t just from eating the trail dust thrown up by Jak’s bike all afternoon.

“Betrayal.”

* * *

SOMEWHERE A CLOCK gonged midnight. Bry Raker, that coldhearted piece of shit, Ryan thought, liked to keep a regular compound. He stirred. His lone eye was swollen half shut. His head rang like a gong, and from far more than the wine he’d taken aboard.

He felt a strong grip on his arm. J.B. helped him stand. Actually, the Armorer dragged Ryan’s still reluctant body clean onto his feet.

“You look like you’ve been used to hammer in half a dozen tents pegs,” J.B. remarked, steadying his friend with a hand on the biceps.

“I feel that way,” Ryan mumbled.

He felt his aching jaw. His tongue probed the inside of his mouth. Nothing seemed broken and he still had all his teeth.

He pried his eye open. “You don’t look triple good yourself.”

Both of J.B.’s eyes were black, but the round lenses of the steel-rimmed glasses perched in front of them were intact. The Armorer had made sure to slip them into his pocket before turning and making his attempt to fight free of their treacherous captors at dinner.

He’d known he’d lose the battle, as had Ryan, but they’d both made the attempt anyway. And not because of stiff-necked pride. Trader always called a man who’d die for mere pride just another dead stupe, and they still marked his words well after all these years.

“After the beat-down you two took,” called a voice from the next cell, “it’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

Ryan recognized the voice of Dan Hogue, Bass Croom’s wrench. Before Butler, Raker’s giant shave-headed meatwad of a sec boss, had personally

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