Free Doom Helix by James Axler Page B

seam of stomach muscles. Like the stickie was about to give birth.
    Caesarian.
    “Time has run out,” Dr. Huth said.
    “Burn it,” Auriel said. “Do it now.”
    The whitecoat reached a gauntleted hand toward a pair of switches set in the nukeglass beside the cell’s opening. One of the switches was a button; the other was protected by a safety cover. He flipped back the cover, exposing a red toggle.
    Auriel quickly shifted her visor out of infrared mode to keep from being blinded.
    Inside the cell, along the left-hand wall stood three silver-metallic canisters. Hoses ran from the valves onthe top of tanks to a rack of stubby nozzles spaced at floor level, knee level and waist level, and they were angled to cover the entire interior, wall to wall, floor to ceiling.
    When Dr. Huth hit the switch, mama stickie’s cry of agony was accompanied by the mechanical clack-clack-clack of the ignition system. The roar of combustion that followed was as loud as a gyro turbine. Its blast of heat penetrated the force field, and slammed the front of Auriel’s battlesuit, making her take a reflexive step backward. Inside the cell, temperatures in excess of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit evaporated mutant flesh explosively; the stripped skeletons—one large, one tiny—glowed red for a fraction of an instant, then dissolved. In two seconds mama and baby stickie were reduced to smoke.
    Because of its heat-transfer properties, the thermoglass quickly cooled. Auriel surveyed the enclosed space with infrared.
    Nothing was left but a deposit of fine ash on the floor and the opposite wall.
    No specters.
    Farther down the dusty dark of the mine tunnel, the other endospore-implanted stickies began screaming and throwing themselves at their cells’ force fields. Like they instinctively knew what had happened even though they couldn’t see it, like they were mourning the loss of loved ones.
    Which was odd.
    As far as Auriel knew, stickies didn’t even have names.

Chapter Six
    Ryan stumbled over the broken ground, his hands tied in front of him, forty pounds of ammo slapping against his sweat-soaked back. Although seven hours had passed since the surprise attack, his good right eye still wept and it burned like it had been sprayed with wag-battery acid. The inside of his nose and his throat were likewise on fire, and his lungs ached every time he coughed or drew a deep breath.
    Similarly bound and burdened, his five companions staggered in a line ahead of him, into the blast furnace heat of the morning.
    A dozen armed men with white-painted faces and hair braided in long, single plaits down the middle of their backs herded them along at a rapid pace. The whitefaces moved effortlessly. They seemed to float over the ankle-breaking obstacles of the lava field, and their bootfalls made no sound. Not only had they failed to answer any of the companions’ questions since the attack, but they also hadn’t spoken a word to one another that Ryan had heard. They communicated with quick touches, nods and hand gestures, giving absolutely nothing away—the sign of a disciplined, seasoned fighting unit. Despite the exertion of the trek and the blazing sun, the whitefaces weren’t sweating. And they didn’t stop to drink; they didn’t even carry their own water with them.
    The leader of their captors, a man slightly taller and broader across the shoulders than the others, with a distinctly blocky head, had confiscated Doc’s sword stick. Having discovered the hidden rapier blade, he kept unsheathing it and gleefully waving it about, amused by the gadgetry. The companions’ blasters had been divvied up, as had all their meager personal possessions. One of the attackers proudly wore Doc’s LeMat and its hand-tooled Mexican holster strapped around his waist. Another had taken J.B.’s prized fedora for his own.
    The whitefaces all seemed to be enjoying themselves.
    And with good reason. Their victory was complete.
    They had tracked the companions over the