Dr. Adder by K. W. Jeter

Author:K. W. Jeter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Dystopia, Sci-Fi
ISBN: 9780451164858
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1988-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Lost in nonverbal, vegetative reverie, he collided with Ban-dita, who had suddenly frozen in front of him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Be very still,” she said softly. Ominously, her usual manic grin was absent.

He listened, but heard nothing. Then he felt it. As if the darkness somewhere nearby were thickening, coalescing into a form very close to them. “What is it?” he whispered.

“Victor.” Her voice was small, strangely constricted. “He’s right by us now. We’re in trouble—this section of the Line he knows a lot better than I do. Part of his old Rattenfängerei stomping grounds. He could jump out at us anytime. I was hoping we had enough of a lead to get through here before he caught up to us.” She cautiously stepped forward again.

Limmit nervously looked around in the damp gloom. That’s what happens, he thought, if you fuck around too much on the road. He followed behind her as they proceeded alongside the flowing water, their heads swiveling warily, peering into the darkness.

Before Limmit could react, a dark figure leaped between them and sent Bandita sprawling into the tunnel wall with a furious swing of a metal pipe section. “She’s mine!” the figure, an emaciated and wild-haired wraith, shouted at Limmit, and jabbed the metal pipe straight at his stomach. He jerked away from it, but caught the end of its thrust, which sent him sprawling onto the damp concrete. The figure leaped astride Limmit’s chest, pressing down against his throat with the pipe. “She’s mine!” he shouted again. “You can’t have her!”

The pipe felt the same as the one the MFer on the Interface had strangled Limmit with; pressing his life out the top of his head in a bloody mass. He stopped tearing at Victor’s back, and began beating against the side of his head. Blood sprang from one ear onto his fist. The contorted face continued to leer and grunt through the growing gray haze. Then, miraculously, the pressure stopped as it had once before, on the surface.

“Mary?” croaked Limmit, dazed and weak. He rolled on his side and retched blood and phlegm. His vision cleared, and he saw Victor and Bandita, one side of her face red with blood, struggling a few yards away, the metal pipe swaying between them in their hands, gradually forcing her to her knees. Limmit reached into his boot and extracted the blade that had remained there so long. Dizzy, but with a burning calm, he lunged forward and grabbed one of Victor’s wrists, the hand still clamped to the pipe. The emaciated form’s eyes widened in shock as Limmit methodically sliced across and down through the blood vessels and tendons of his arm. Victor gasped and let go of the pipe, the blood flowing satisfyingly warm across Limmit’s blade and hands, before he collapsed into unconsciousness at Limmit’s feet. Limmit smiled wanly at Bandita, sank to one knee and puked again, then fell the rest of the way on top of the other figure.

He woke up, unknown hours later, to find both Bandita’s and Victor’s eyes observing him.

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