Free The Dark Tower by Stephen King

and the helmets, but by the more primitive (and far more powerful) act of childbirth. No, Mia hadn’t lied.
    “Push, you gods-damned lazy bitch! ” Scowther almost howled, and Roland and Eddie suddenly disappeared through the ceiling for good, as if blown away by the force of the man’s breath. For all Susannah knew, they had been.
    She turned on her side, feeling her hair stuck to her head in clumps, aware that her body was pouring out sweat in what could have been gallons. She pulled herself a little closer to Mia; a little closer to Scowther; a little closer to the crosshatched butt of Scowther’s dangling automatic.
    “Be still, sissa, hear me I beg,” said one of the low men, and touched Susannah’s arm. The hand was cold and flabby, covered with fat rings. The caress made her skin crawl. “This will be over in a minute and then all the worlds change. When this one joins the Breakers in Thunderclap—”
    “Shut up, Straw!” Haber snapped, and pushedSusannah’s would-be comforter backward. Then he turned eagerly to the delivery again.
    Mia arched her back, groaning. The rathead nurse put her hands on Mia’s hips and pushed them gently back down to the bed. “Nawthee, nawthee, push ’ith thy belly.”
    “Eat shit, you bitch! ” Mia screamed, and while Susannah felt a faint tug of her pain, that was all. The connection between them was fading.
    Summoning her own concentration, Susannah cried into the well of her own mind. Hey! Hey Positronics lady! You still there?
    “The link . . . is down,” said the pleasant female voice. As before, it spoke in the middle of Susannah’s head, but unlike before, it seemed dim, no more dangerous than a voice on the radio that comes from far away due to some atmospheric flaw. “Repeat: the link . . . is down. We hope you’ll remember North Central Positronics for all your mental enhancement needs. And Sombra Corporation! A leader in mind-to-mind communication since the ten thousands!”
    There was a tooth-rattling BEE-EEEEP far down in Susannah’s mind, and then the link was gone. It wasn’t just the absence of the horridly pleasant female voice; it was everything . She felt as if she’d been let out of some painful body-compressing trap.
    Mia screamed again, and Susannah let out a cry of her own. Part of this was not wanting Sayre and his mates to know the link between her and Mia had been broken; part was genuine sorrow. She had lost a woman who had become, in a way, her true sister.
    Susannah! Suze, are you there?
    She started up on her elbows at this new voice,for a moment almost forgetting the woman beside her. That had been—
    Jake? Is it you, honey? It is, isn’t it? Can you hear me?
    YES! he cried. Finally! God, who’ve you been talking to? Keep yelling so I can home in on y —
    The voice broke off, but not before she heard a ghostly rattle of distant gunfire. Jake shooting at someone? She thought not. She thought someone was shooting at him .
TWO
    “Now!” Scowther shouted. “ Now, Mia! Push! For your life! Give it all you have! PUSH! ”
    Susannah tried to roll closer to the other woman— Oh, I’m concerned and wanting comfort, see how concerned I am, concern and wanting comfort is all it is —but the one called Straw pulled her back. The segmented steel cable swung and stretched out between them. “Keep your distance, bitch,” Straw said, and for the first time Susannah faced the possibility that they weren’t going to let her get hold of Scowther’s gun. Or any gun.
    Mia screamed again, crying out to a strange god in a strange language. When she tried to raise her midsection from the table, the nurse—Alia, Susannah thought the nurse’s name was Alia—forced her down again, and Scowther gave a short, curt cry of what sounded like satisfaction. He tossed aside the forceps he’d been holding.
    “Why d’ye do that?” Sayre demanded. The sheets beneath Mia’s spread legs were now damp with blood, and the boss sounded