Free Doomsday Warrior 03 - The Last American by Ryder Stacy

experienced before. You really ought to meditate more, Rath—it would relieve some of your tension.” The intelligence chief looked momentarily offended, but quickly brushed it off.
    “This is it, Rock—what I’m hinting at is, can you kill? The few others who have had similar experiences to yours, deep, meditative, almost religious experiences near death, have not been able to kill. They’ve lost the capacity to commit violence. I lost one of my best field operatives that way.”
    “Kill? Of course . . .” Rock started to respond but drifted off. Something deep inside him was saying NO! How could he kill again after experiencing the harmony of life—the harmony of life within him and the harmony of life among men. How? But he was able, without a lot of conviction, to finish the sentence. “Of course I’ll kill when the necessity arises to protect the party.”
    Rath stared at the familiar, world-famous face—the mismatched eyes—one aquamarine, the other brilliant purple, the white streak running down the middle of Rock’s jet-black hair, the rough-hewn face, darkly tanned, chiseled out of stone, out of the thousand battles the Doomsday Warrior had fought in his life.
    “Maybe you’re different, Rockson. Maybe even after such a near-death experience you, unlike the others, will still be able to carry on as before. But I have the responsibility of bringing up my recommendations before the assembled Council.”
    “Don’t waste your time opposing me Rath,” Rock said, with a coldness that gave even the hardened veteran Rath a chill down his spine. Then Rock seemed to soften. His eyes went from Arctic crystal to the warmth of an emerging sunset. “Really Rath, we’ve been friends in the past. Have worked together. I appreciate your frankness. But I am the same. Harder, if anything. I’ll get our people to the convention.” Rath frowned.
    “I’ll have to think about it, Rock,” he said softly. He rose and left the hospital room.
    Rock rose from the bed and walked around the room for the first time in nearly two weeks. He did feel normal. His breathing, his muscles all seemed at last to be functioning with their full vigor. The doctors came in once again—en masse—nearly ten of them, each with a notepad, and began their eternal questioning of his physical and mental state. It was beginning to appear that there was yet another defensive armament in Rockson and others of his new mutant species, Homo Mutatiens. He apparently had the ability to pull poison from the body instead of letting it affect vital organs or the brain.
    “You seem to have an extra organ in there of some kind,” Dr. Elston, the leader of the medical team, said with a smile. “Eats up poison and spits it out.”
    “How nice,” Rock said, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Now can I get out of this prison bed? I’m starting to go crazy in here. Brain damage is occurring,” Rock said. “The kind you get from being bored.”
    “No way,” Elston said. “The usual recovery time for these kinds of bites—toxic reactions—is at least a month. Why—”
    “Sorry to disappoint your studies, but I can walk, I can talk, so I’m checking out, fellow citizens. It’s been swell, but—all good things must come to an end.” He rose from the bed, and in front of the medical assemblage dropped his hospital gown to the floor. The ten doctors looked at the naked mass of muscle and bronzed flesh before them with dilated eyes—the men in envy, the women blushing slightly but keeping their pupils firmly fixed on the rippling muscles . . . and other things.
    Rock put on his civilian clothes—khaki slacks and white cotton short-sleeved shirt, plus his boots, taking them from out of the closet at one side of the room. Many of the inhabitants of Century City dressed up with more pizzazz. There were fashion shows from time to time, and people seemed to follow the trends, making themselves colorful and elaborate. But Rock had spent most of his