by BEANO SMART

ART by FRODSHAM McCLOUD

PART I

PART II A. FOR NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY,

BUT THEN FACE TO FACE.

In the cold silver-gray of another dead dawn, four black-cowled and cloaked figures could be seen standing upon an empty and deserted roadway. Three were standing silently around an exposed manhole cover, staring into the spiraling depths, while the fourth hovered close by, a heavy automatic rifle clutched at his hip. Chalk-white fingers gripped the dark blue stock tightly, red eyes shifting haphazardly from under the low hood as he surveyed the crumbling wasteland around him. Sunrise. The mutants would crawl forth soon, to scavenge the remains of the city and to prey on the unsuspecting fool who ventured out of his commune. The guard glanced at the other three figures to his left and mentally hurried them along with their work. The nights were bad, but the days could be of far more danger. They had already been standing here too long. Too easy a target for a renegade sniper or a commune-expelled assassin. Nowhere was safe. Even the walls of a commune did not fit snugly against one's back.

After some quiet deliberation, one of the three sentinels silently slipped down onto all fours and lowered himself into the ladder-well. The remaining two gathered in their skirts and followed close behind. Another equally chalk-white hand waved a signal to the guard and then they were gone. The guard moved over to the hole and peered down after them. In the silence he could hear their rhythmic descent upon the iron ladder. Abruptly, it stopped and all that he could hear was the soft rustle of cloaks through the sludge and effluent as they moved away into the sewer system.

He shivered even under the warmth of his coverings. He knew what lurked down there in the rank darkness. He knew what would happen if his companions were caught by the being that lived, no, existed down there. It would be a simple and swift death. The Other was a barbaric savage -- a so-called protector. Deadly. All of the communes' protectors were greatly feared. The only small mercy that comforted him was that they had not come for the ultimate killing machine owned by the Territory: the Champion. Silently, he vowed never to go against the Champion. No one ever got close enough and lived. No one. Removing the Other would be enough. He was already stretched beyond his abilities. His nerves were fraught. His hand unsteady. The fingers about the gunstock and trigger vibrated visibly. He stood upright from the manhole cover and flexed his hand. Keep calm. Stay in control.

As he turned toward the largest of the decaying buildings, a metal projectile appeared on the air and embedded itself in the flesh and bone of his skull. His head snapped back, lips parted for a last desperate cry, but he was dead upon his feet. He fell as if pole-axed, the gun still clutched in his bony grip. A small cloud of dust rose about him like a sprinkled shroud, as he rolled over the tarmac and lay still.

From across the bent and buckled road came a small sound of jubilation. An old furriers' store-front still had some of its goods in the window. Through the shattered panes of glass a deformed tangle of arms and legs edged forward around a full-length fox-fur. Its blistered and burned arms cradled a handmade slingshot. Near the splintered points of glass it paused and smiled a toothless smile of glee. Its white eyes shone in the pale rays of morning. It had its new clothes, its new weapon and its precious food. All in one wrapped package on the road. It scampered across the rubble in a loping crouch and sat beside the corpse. Tentatively, it pawed at its prize, fingering the cloth, the weapon, the not-too-shriveled flesh. Crowing under its breath, it unhooked a series of meat hooks and attached them to the body. Pulling together all the chains that were attached to the handles of the hooks, it clipped them onto a wide leather belt at its waist and proceeded to tow away its gift. The bulk moved after it with surprising ease. Deformity did not necessarily equate with weakness. For one city dweller at least, today was going to be a fine day, one of the best. With clothes, food, and a gun, he might be able to join a commune . . . .

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

In the stinking filth of the sewer system deep underground, three armed black-garbed figures edged up a smaller, fractionally cleaner tunnel toward the Other's domain. Creeping around the final corner, they paused under the stark light from the electric bulb suspended from the curved ceiling. Their white hands held high the curiously designed guns and, like another not so many hours before, they were drawn to the brilliant whiteness, red eyes glowing in anticipation. Electricity. Whoever owned the city could own the power. If they could own a protector for themselves, they, too, would stand a chance at having some of the light and warmth. If they could possess the ultimate protector they could own the whole city. It all spelled security for the future. If there was ever going to be a future.

Drawing away from the jewel on the wall, one of the figures approached the huge central seat, his sharp eyes taking in the splashes of dark red and the disregarded ornate helmet. Slowly, he bent down and picked up the helmet, a finger stroked the jet eye. Smooth, hard, and cold.

From behind him came a worried hiss.

"He's not here, Peter."

The named figure turned, helmet in white hand.

"No, he is not." With a long index finger, he pointed at the blood on the cement floor. "We have evidently been too late. Someone else has been here before us."

The two men hanging back in the shadows stared at the blood. One swallowed stiffly. It appeared as if someone else before them had had similar motives and had dispensed with the Other in a violent, bloody way.

All three knew of the only other man who would have had the courage and the reasons to come down into the sewer system and fight on the Other's own territory.

"The Champion?" Joshua's voice was marginally high with fear.

"Who else? Who would dare to hunt in another's domain? Who else, aside from ourselves, would gain by the Other's death?"

Simultaneously, the leader's men looked over their woolen shoulders into the darkness behind. Frayed nerves produced the image of the Champion in the huge pipe, weapon poised. Both knew what his companion was thinking.

"We should leave here now." Reuben's eyes were beseeching.

Peter ignored his remark, unaffected by the chill atmosphere and the specter of the green-clad killer and the butchered Other that hovered over the place.

"The Champion is long gone. Returned for his reward -- his Owners pay him well." He turned the helmet over in casual irritation. He liked his own way. Expected it. When his plans went astray through extraneous variables he could not control, it did little to placate his temper.

But for once things were working in his favor.

"It would seem that the rumors were true: the Champion of the Territory had been sent out to eradicate his only remaining rival." He glanced back at the others and motioned them to lower their guns. "Unwittingly, the blond has done our job for us. Now there is only the one ultimate killing machine. He claimed the kingdom of the streets last night . . . and in a little time he will be the focal point of the New Image."

"Surely we will have to move fast now, Peter?" Joshua took a hesitant step forward, his eyes on the helmet in Peter's hand. "The Champion has given the Territory an advantage over the Plaza Commune."

Peter nodded thoughtfully. "Yes . . . the Northern Sector no longer had a protector to pitch against the Champion. The Territory could move against them and take over the Plaza. He is invincible. The Owners could take the city."

His face darkened as these thoughts did not fit in with his own convoluted designs. Snapping around from his reverie, he continued:

"Gentlemen, we need to secure the catalyst in this city for our own advancement. With that protector we can outwit them all." He stepped forward and placed the helmet on the seat of the ornate chair. Toe pointing forward, he found he had smeared some of the thicker blood stains and he wondered who had been sufficiently interested enough in the body of the Other to come here and remove it. Surely not the Champion? If the strangely silvered man had failed to take out the Champion when he had the chance, then surely his own commune, based in the Plaza, wouldn't be interested in reclaiming the body? Possibly the ravenous hunger of the mutants gave them the courage to sneak into the sewers and remove the body for their own ends?

Shrugging away the thoughts, he stepped back from the chair and turned to depart.

"Come, Reuben; come, Joshua. The New Image must move swiftly if we are to capitalize upon our unforeseen good fortune." With his long robes sweeping over the cold stone floor, he brushed between his two men and walked out of the light, back the way they had come.

Departing as softly as they had arrived, three figures merged in with the pitch dark of the tunnel, the only sign of their presence being the replaced helmet and the brief spark of red from the tunnel as they occasionally looked back.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The sun hardly ever shone in the city any more, one gray powdery day was the same as all the rest. The months and weeks turned into years of the same -- depressed days relieved only by the brutal violence of the demented city dweller. Los Angeles had gone bad and now it was rotting away. Each day a little more decayed and died. Those that were left grubbed, clawed, and murdered for another day. One of the countless gray days. And it was the same every day.

The Northern Sector had founded its stronghold in the ruptured remains of the glorious Plaza Hotel. Five star. Exclusive. Three crumbling stories of cracked white stucco, with its elaborate sculptured plasterwork flaking from the fissured walls. The grand-columned entrance was in grave danger of collapse, but the newly introduced iron-studded door gave the run-down remains a sense of new, if limited, life. The other four stories of exclusive Plaza lay in an enormous mound of rubble at the back. Thus, it had a more than solid back door. Old doors from giant freightliner trucks had been fixed over the windows on all floors. It was now a fortress, strong enough to withstand any attack from the outcasts or mutants. The commune was safe, safer than any other. Not as big as the Territory, but compact and secure. It stood like a whitewashed tombstone in the middle of a wasteland. Nothing stood for a block and a half on all sides. And above all else it had an electrified security system. If pushed, they could use their private generators, ripped from the innards of the National Military Hospital, and bring into their defense alarm systems of simple electrified fences and wires which were set at random points. They had fried many a mutant on the wires at night. But most of the time their fears were buttressed behind their Protector. He lived a lone, solitary life and out on the city streets at night he could clean out a whole block. Single handed.

Until the Champion came in the night. Deadly accurate.

But they were not defeated. They would make over their Protector. He would work again. Only this time he would not stand against the Territory's killing machine, he would lure the prize of the city to their lair.

The Northern Sector wanted the Champion. The Other was, by definition, the other. Now they wanted the best. And they would sacrifice their own man of death to gain the blond butcher . . . .

In the underground basement of the Plaza Hotel was a blackened room of soundless peace. A ceremonial plinth took up the center space on the spartan cement floor. The stone-work of the plinth was plain. The elaborate carvings on the once-hallowed church altar had been sanded smooth. Its removal from the church in Santa Monica had been strenuous, dangerous work. It had happened in a time shortly after The End and the foolish parishioners who were unlucky enough to be left alive had scurried to their beloved church and tried to prevent the removal of their blessed center-piece. The Northern Sector had decided upon what they wanted and had, without conscience, dispatched into the next life any who stood against them. They wanted a fitting display rostrum for their newly-acquired protector.

Upon this already bloodied and coveted plinth a small, furtive army of commune surgeons had practiced their new medicine. Unethical and perverted, they had practiced until they had perfected its methods, and the results were often spectacular.

This last night's hours of labor had produced further remolding and repairs upon the muscular being exhibited there. Skilful, amoral improvements had been made upon his body. Permission was never asked, for the surgery was always carried out in silent obsession. Every new doctor was dedicated to the level of fanaticism. Each time they would make him better, greater, stronger. One day, invincible. That dream was at an end.

Now they had a chance for the Champion and they craved for him instead. The Other would be disregarded -- sacrificed for a finer specimen. However, their present protector still might have his uses, as a unique kind of bait, or simply as a subject to practice upon.

When they had finally packed away their instruments of medical sorcery in the hours of dawn, the New Age doctors crept silently away to their own places within the Plaza, satisfied and proud of their growing skills, and of the reborn man who lay there in the peaceful dark.

His one dark blue eye opened with a slow, calculating menace. As the first threads of consciousness came to him, he knew what they had been doing to him; he knew he would not be in his private sanctum, safe from their prying hands. How sweet their night's work must have been for them. What horrors had they performed upon his unwilling body now?

He hardly dare feel, guess, look.

Four heartbeats passed within the darkened room then the man on the marbled surface of the plinth took a deep, soft breath that whispered into every sterile corner. His limited vision was hard and uncompromising as it took in the shadows and objects within his range.

He wanted them gone; he hated them. Loathed them all, especially Selkirk. His hands always touching him, always playing with his skin, so personal . . . too personal.

Stealthily, he rolled up into a sitting position, feet swinging from the slab to the cold stone floor. For a moment he waited, head strained back alert, listening again. No, they were gone, sure that he was still unconscious from his last programming session.

He smiled in thin cynicism. He was not about to be a Northern Sector pawn any longer.

Struggling to his feet, he gathered his wits about him. He was cold, always cold. Shivering, he rubbed a hand over his naked flesh. Immediately, he came into contact with the newly meshed metal plates in his dark-haired chest. He moaned bitterly, head sinking down to see for himself the so-called improvements.

His thin features became finer and spare. White.

An honest tear trickled down his cheek and splashed onto the inlaid silvered pieces. Sadly, he raised a hand to his face to brush away the next and came into contact with the new metal strips curving around his left cheek. The hand stopped dead as shock registered in his whole body.

A vengeful anger began to stir within him to mingle with his self-pitying sorrow. Misery was his being and withering hate for himself, his soul.

He moaned again, softly as the full realization of what they had done hit him. With wearied depression, he leaned back against the plinth that had all too quickly become his permanent, private catafalque. Surrendering to the reality of the situation, he accepted the fact that he had been resurrected again.

His chin came up, hellfire in his eye. He scoured the ceiling above in an attempt to pierce the cement and seek out those who had worked these terrible acts against him. His lips twisted with his misery, strange and painful due to their partial armoring.

Tears fell silently. Silent pain.

After a long time, he rose from his slumped stance and pulled himself erect. Shaking his head, he again came to the solution that he had decided upon last night in his home in the sewer.

His shoulders squared.

Facing the door, he spoke in a quiet huskiness.

"No more."

Resolute, he moved toward the programming machine, a large complex box of circuitry, probes, and electrodes. All ready and waiting to be linked into his brain for another programming session. Manipulation and auto-suggestion. Mind-control.

Not any more. The machine was unique. Experimental. Priceless. Rescued from the wreckage of an old government agency. How delighted they would have been to know that it worked. He knew.

Not anymore. With his new-found strength, he systematically tore it into ruptured shreds of metal casing, wires, and silicon chips. The pieces filtered through his fingers to the floor, looking like a spilled erector set.

Satisfied, he turned on his heel and walked out.

The huge, studded doors into the Plaza were left swinging wide on their hinges.

The open wasteland of rubble and distant shattered office blocks stood out harshly in the watery sun that fought to illuminate the gray world of midday.

In the darkened doorway, a man stood in savage relief. He surveyed the deserted area in front of the commune building.

Nothing moved. Not even the dust stirred from the earth. The dark curly-haired man stepped forward confidently into the weak sunlight and let the change in temperature caress his naked flesh.

It had been so cold down below.

Careful not to trip any newly placed alarms, he trotted down the cracked steps to the unused road. No vehicle traveled here any more. Again he scanned the area thoroughly. The mutants loved the middle of the day when the commune dwellers hid away in their darkened fortress. It was their time to roam the streets and scratch a living from the remains. But all seemed quiet and still.

He had to be sure the area was safe as he was weaponless. All his armoryhad been left behind in his home. Without his gun he felt twice as naked. He swallowed slowly and looked back toward the Plaza entrance. To go would be an irreversible step. All his bridges burned. Commune-less, he would have none of his own kind. But what were his own kind? He glanced down at himself. Where did a protector fit in? With other protectors . . . ?

He turned around.

And set off across the broken bricks and shards of glass that had once been a block of buildings. He cut diagonally across the block, not bothering with the easier terrain of the road. If the mutants wanted him, they could try it. But they would still know him even without his armor. The scarred left side of his face, the hollow eye socket, bore a blatant testimony as to who he was. Only a crazed being would venture forth against him.

Like the Champion.

Vague memories of the previous night came unbidden to his mind.

He had seen that in himself so many times. Vague and haunted.

The Other paused a moment, lost in thought, feet resting upon the half-buried planking of an old bar counter.

And yet there had been something strange, more frightening than the actual man before him. Something that had not been there. Yes, that was it. Whatever was missing had frightened him more.

The mystery of this man sowed the first seeds of compulsion into his mind.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

From under the wooden planking of the counter, two beady bright eyes watched in fascination as the Other passed over it. The naked body of rippling muscle and metal strode away into the watery sunlight, raising small clouds of dust at his heels. The tangle of gross deformity sniggered a toothless smile and poked its balding head out from under the counter. Its weedy fingers tightened upon the slingshot, white eyes never leaving the unsuspecting target. Two in one morning; its luck was definitely on the turn. Then, abruptly, it wrinkled its flaking features in dismissal and tossed aside the sling. Instead, it pulled out from under its too-large black cloak a new weapon. Crooning, it stroked the metal and scampered off toward the open Plaza doorway.

It had its weapon, clothes, food and now an access way into the Northern Sector Commune.

At the foot of the Plaza steps it paused, head on one side, and listened. Quiet. Good. It could slip in as unnoticed as when the Other left. Creeping slowly forward, it made it to the third step before a silent pistol shot blasted a hole in its neck. Blood spurted like a fountain. The white eyes bulged in horror. The weapon fell from the twisted hands to clatter down the steps. Its withered body folded neatly into a still heap, black cloak soaking up most of the blood.

From the darkened entrance, two men were standing silently, watching the departure of the Other, now a tiny speck in the distance.

"You have programmed him well. All is going according to plan." The older of the two spoke levelly. "My congratulations on your team's work, Doctor Selkirk." Calmly, he replaced the smoking pistol under his robe. With a disgusted eye, he glanced at the corpse on the steps and then turned away. "See that that mess is removed from the steps, Selkirk. Our image is everything."

Selkirk nodded.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

In the corner of the upstairs window of a deserted pawnbroker's, two pairs of eyes were fastened upon the Other as he quickly passed. They stayed hidden behind a length of rotting lace as the protector picked his way down the street.

"Well, whaddaya know -- there is life after death," the tall man whispered sarcastically. "Looks like he's going back to his sewer." He flicked back his long, greasy hair. "Selkirk and Houndsworth musta put him on release."

A smaller man in brown and green clothes shifted his stance nervously.

"They've done another flash job on his body. That medical team must have a pact with the devil." He snickered quietly.

"Yeah, flesh and metal-work has always been Selkirk's specialty."

The Other had passed from their view and they didn't want to remain in the same place too long. The first man nudged the figure at his side as an indication that they should go. As he turned, his rifle brushed against a skeleton in rags balanced upon a bedroom chair. It toppled to the carpeted floor.

"Excuse me," he said and kicked aside the bones. "Come on, we can't let him get out of range."

The two men drifted down the rotten stairs and out into the yard at the back. The rats smelled them coming and fled.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Two hard-skinned feet came to rest upon the iron circle of a manhole cover. At one side, the Other could see fresh blood stains and signs of a body or carcass having been dragged away.

He channeled his attention back to the entrance to his domain. He had not the lever to get in, no tool at all, to lever the circle of iron free. Scanning about the rubble for something suitable, he caught, out of the corner of his right eye, a slight movement in the furrier's store.

Someone was following him.

Suddenly, he felt more exposed than his sheer nakedness. His flesh crawled. Remaining calm, he continued to poke about for the elusive piece of metal that he needed. As he was crouching down, he sensed them watching him, staring upon his raw body. Trouble clouded his features, lips thinned.

His hand alighted on a rusting door hinge. It would do. Moving back to the manhole cover he slid it under the rim and quickly flipped it up. Skin grazing on the circular rim edge, the Other slid over the edge and disappeared into the ladder-well. A long white arm snaked out and pulled the cover back into place with a heavy thud. From underneath, in the echoing dark, he ensured that the cover could not be removed by jamming it with the hinge. The sharp metal edges sliced into his palms, but he was too intent to notice. He did not belong to a commune anymore. He had finished with that. The penalties for desertion were severe and final: death by assassination. That brief glimpse, up above, could have been of his personal death squad.

Crouching upon the icy metal rungs, he listened to see if they would pursue him. No sound came to his ears. They must be waiting, waiting for him to come out. Well, the sewers were his domain, his home, and he had other ways to come and go. This entrance was now sealed for good.

Swiftly, he dropped down the rungs to the wet effluent below. Squelching through the waste, he made for his private sanctum.

Behind the ornate chair were several wooden chests. The Other moved swiftly forward and wrenched them open, smashing off locks with his new found strength. The fourth chest yielded what he was searching for. New clothes. The Northern Sector had always been most generous with his clothes. He wanted for nothing. Or so they thought. If only they really knew. Abruptly, he stopped and peered down the tunnel. Was there someone there? Eyes watching from the silent dark? He looked briefly to his electric light. It made him a clear, easy target. He stared into the tunnel again. Nothing. He was getting nervous, jittery.

He turned back and instantly saw the bloodstains on the floor and around the base of the seat. The sight stopped him dead. Inside he turned cold.

He looked down at himself. At the way they had saved his life yet again. He was uncanny.

Tears filled his eyes again and he forced them away.

Seconds later, he was pulling together the final lace of leather. Snatching up his helmet from the cushions of the seat, he made to pull it on. His hand strayed to the empty eye-socket -- a constant reminder of half-life now. Half flesh, half metal. Half face, half scars. Halved vision. In the beginning they had promised him another eye, teased him with the offer, and like a fool he'd followed.

He never got the eye, never would now. On reflection, he'd stopped believing in them long ago, but he'd had no alternative. Now he was going to create new alternatives. A life of his own, somehow.

He pulled down the helmet and settled it snugly to the contours of his face. Deftly, he tucked any loose, dark curls away from sight. He didn't like himself, hated to catch a glimpse of his reflection. It brought home too vividly what he had become.

On, the floor near his feet he spied something familiar, half-hidden between the thick curtains and the enormous chair. Slowly, he bent down and picked it up.

His gold shield. His badge of Justice at one time. Now it was a sign of a city protector, or a butcher, depending on how one looked at things. Tenderly, he rubbed it between fingers and thumb. The gold looked hot and pale in his hand. A symbol of his blood-spattered profession.

Carefully, he secured it to the intricate, wine leather bindings of his body covering. He noted with acute distaste how the suit now emphasized the metal additions to his body. Any other medals and ceremonial decorations he left scattered over the floor where the medical team had left them. He wanted no part of them. Snatching up his custom-built rifle, he slid it into the leg holster on his left side and belted and buckled on his remaining combat weapons. He was going across town and he was going well prepared. He was a marked man with a price on his head. Everything that could crawl out of the gutter or from under a stone would put in a bid for his helmed head. It could mean a ticket into a commune. It would mean his death.

The last act he committed before leaving was a blasphemy to the Northern Sector's creed. His leather-clad fist smashed the hanging light bulb against the wall to shatter it. Glass fragmented into curved shards. The precious wires he wrenched free and threw aside. Blackness enveloped him.

Boots padded away into the dark tunnel. They never paused or faltered.

The footsteps grew quieter until only the swishing effluent echoed in the circular underground stream. But his mind was intoxicated with his new-found freedom. His own thoughts were a rousing symphony in his head.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Four pairs of hungry, white eyes stared intently toward the rooftops from the doors of a dilapidated warehouse. Hidden well back into the shadows, they had no fears that the being under scrutiny above would notice them. They were being careful, quiet, watchful. They could wait hour upon uneventful hour for that one chance of setting upon him. A protector was a prize beyond hope and reason and they could wait a very long time. The female companion to the other three slid silently to the rust-stained floor, nestling down in her filthy rags, eyes riveted to the dark shape above. Her weak legs were aching and tired from the already long vigil, but she was not going to leave. They'd all spotted him at the same time. His weaving, leaping journey over the neighboring rooftop had piqued their curiosity, and when they saw his badge of identification, they had instantly slavered at the thought of "apprehending" him. Their eyes never flickered from their prey as the female settled down. Protectors were sly and swift, they had to be watched like a hawk. However, the mutants hovered in the doorway like a family of vultures greedy for their feast on his body and possessions.

The world crawled through another day . . . .

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A hunched silhouette of a strange man was etched against a misty moon like a gargoyle upon an ancient place of worship. Hour after hour he'd sat, immobile, gloved hands hugging his leathered legs. A pale sun had briefly glimmered on his metalled body, but now a silver moonbeam starred his helmet with a white halo. The only sound was the keening wind through the empty warehouses, and the soft breathing of restrained excitement through his silver-plated lips. A rat appeared through some crumbling brickwork to his left. Its shriveled body edged away from the figure as it detected different scents of a human upon the night air. Inquisitive, it snickered in a high-pitched whine.

The sharp noise brought up the figure's one blue eye; it locked with the red pin-pricks in the dark. The rat stood its ground then backed away, white whiskers quivering in untold fear. The figure relentlessly held it within its gaze until it turned tail and bolted for its infected sanctuary in the walls of the warehouse.

The figure smiled thinly to himself and lowered his gaze again to the hole through which he was peering.

A jagged hole of splintered slates and roof beams was the improvised window that he stared through so intently, made by a flying truck door from a gasoline tanker, which had exploded in the street years ago. It had scythed neatly through the roof and left him with the perfect vantage point. The scene being enacted below was coming to its final conclusion . . . .

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Champion thoughtfully fingered the white pills in the plastic sachet. His eyes held a spark of negative pleasure: he had his reward -- a measure of heroin. A shiver of anticipation made his flesh crawl under his leather suit. Tonight had been a successful night's work, another protector taken out. Quick, clean, merciful. The Other would be no more trouble to the Territory. His Owners had praised him highly, generously.

On a small piece of black velvet was his final gold clasp for his last plait. He had his quota and his ceremonial acknowledgement of his prowess. Tomorrow the whole Territory would celebrate. Tonight he was alone to celebrate in his own way.

His craving for this first fix of heroin after so long -- after so many promises -- had wrecked his normal iron control. Like some desperately sniveling addict, he'd ducked into the first suitable warehouse in the west district of the Territory and made his preparations. For some reason, he could not commit this act of self-abuse in his own home. And yet, although he felt revulsion for himself and what he was about to do, he did not much care as to where the heroin would take him in the future.

He looked about the room, stepping back a moment from his own involvement to see the scene of his further degradation.

The room had at one time been a small, shabby office. Now it was dilapidated. Non-commune dwellers had lived here until recently, leaving behind signs of their presence: empty cans, a bed of rags upon half a blue-striped mattress in a corner. A brittle wooden desk leaned against the cracked wall of the first floor of the warehouse. Upon its newspaper-covered top were the instruments of his reward.

A tiny metal cup, a sachet, and a new needle -- a thing almost as prized as the drug.

Decisively, he peeled his gauntlets from his forearms and fingered the permanent intracath inserted under his skin in his left arm at the elbow. But the sight of the grafted metal and plastic tube riddling his flesh made him pause. His body stiffened and he bent his left arm at the elbow, shielding the invader of his body from his sight. Above the table was a grimy, cracked window, edged in a frame of flaking red paint. The Champion brushed around the desk, his plaits clinking softly, and settled his shoulder against the wall beside the frame. With his right hand, he rubbed a cleaner patch on the glass and stared out.

The wide road was as it had been when he arrived, a ravaged pathway through the buildings that had been looted and ransacked months ago. No one came here now; everything had been stolen or spirited away into the communes. There was nothing left here except a few mutants who were even more weak and diseased than the rest. Here, in these cavernous barns, they huddled together, squabbling and fighting, even murdering, for the meager pieces of food that they managed to steal or scrounge off the other streets. The occasional cry of abject pain and misery filtered to his ears. Another barely-living creature gave up and died.

His brow wrinkled under the gold headband.

Days of the same inhuman survival. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow ran into one sluggish river of sickening decay. The sachet on the table was his escape -- for a short while. He sighed deeply and flexed his right hand over the stock of his Magnum. He could take his reward and find the swift escape from this barren life. It only took mere moments to inject the liquid of rampant images and ecstasy, and all this living misery would be gone. Out of his cocooned mind he would be able to produce the rare images of his past.

His eyes slid shut, golden lashes alighting on the dark circles of his eyes. Struggling with defective recall, he strained for that one pure memory that would prove to him that at one time he had been different. He ached under his cushion of drugs for that one thought that would reveal he had once been a man. He no longer considered himself a human being of any kind. He didn't feel, care, think . . . believe. There was no rock for him to cling to in the waste; there was nothing for him to stay sane for. He admitted to himself with a sharp wryness that his mind was drifting away a little more every day, and he made no effort whatsoever to arrest it. In fact, to cease to think altogether would be a blessing for him. It would take away the growing guilt that he had at one time been a different character altogether. Someone of some standing. It was possible he had, at one time, stood for something completely different. But he just couldn't remember . . . and deep inside a tiny voice begged him to forget. Forget forever. The clock had turned on time and the past had ceased in a mushroom cloud. Don't ever go back. To remember would make the present an instant impossibility.

His eyes opened to betray the sad depths of his inner mind.

He returned slowly to the table and picked up the sachet again. He held it to his lips and kissed it.

He grinned without humor as he slid the white pellet into the tiny metal cup and carefully poured some water onto it. From his suit he produced a converted cigarette lighter which had been refashioned to produce a finer, more intense flame. The blue beam flared out of the tiny metal box in the Champion's hand. He picked up the cup and began to heat its contents.

A gourmet's delight for the hungering man whose eyes now shone with the blue flame of the fire. With equally swift movements, he sterilized the needle in the flame, and then prepared for the injection.

His usual controlled grace trembled slightly with dangerous anticipation. The hook was sliding in . . . the needle sucked up the precious liquid. Many had died for him to have this moment. He tried to prolong it, but his fear of the consequences threatened to taint his lusting desire.

His rock had crumbled away to invisible dust so long ago there was no reason to falter.

For the briefest of moments he conjured up an image of the Other erect and majestic on the steps of his home -- a stinking sewer. He paused, needle already in the grafted intracath, poised for the surge of fluid.

The plunger hissed home --

The needle fell unnoticed from his hand to the littered floor. Old newspaper blew softly about his booted feet like an unheeded portal into the past he could no longer understand.

The disgusting heap of rags in the corner claimed his worn body. As he sank into the offensively strong-smelling clothes, he warmed to the effect of the heroin pumping through his body.

The high came instantly. As he lay like a lethargic prisoner in some dank and cold cell, the prison of his mind was revealed in a shuddering rush of released images. They fell on a kaleidoscopic "Jacob's ladder" of his subconscious, tumbling over each other in a euphoric surge of escape, fighting for attention and finding themselves unheeded and ignored by the deadened mind of their owner. Words from the sewer drifted to his lips.

"I deny it."

They came as a cracked appeal for mercy. This was not what he wanted from his reward. He wanted oblivion, a release from his anxieties and torments, not an accentuation of his misery. Mercy from the good, clean past. Mercy from days of warmth, love, and sunlight, where he strolled so tall and blond on a pathway of planned destiny. He had had his life together, organized. He knew of the security and strength that hovered about him. He was cared for and loved. He could have walked that path and survived the treachery and danger that sniped from the shadows on the edge of his vision. He could have kept back the dark; it need never have tainted the glow. Images danced like tantalizing jewels before the pathetically poor. He was the pathetic specimen in spirit and conviction. Bombarded, he struggled to resist the image's tempting pleasures. This was not what he wanted from his reward.

He craved obliteration in his mind and instead he received the unbidden memory of truth. Weakening, his breath came in ever-increasing gasps as the rushing speed of the ecstasy channeled him toward facing the reality of his past. It would peak within moments and he would be unable to close his mind to the theatrical display tormenting him with its truthful clarity. His resistance wavered and his mind pulled around to acknowledge, if not accept, the free demonstration of his history being paraded forth . . . .

So many years.

So many precious moments.

Danger.

And happiness.

A happiness that gave him love and security.

Freedom.

People, places, taste, and smells.

A myriad of pungent events, so sweet in their urgency.

Life clawed for existence; he fought to keep it.

Tenderness in lapsing pain.

And a solitary figure . . . standing so close.

And yet beyond his reach.

A sob of secreted misery broke past the set lips. The high was fading and he had seen so little, understood even less. He tried to reach the dizzying heights again. He had not seen everything and he wanted it all. All.

The lone figure turned to walk away,

leaving: the same as the night of The End.

And he walked out again, now a shrinking figure in his subconsciousness.

"Don't leave me!" A scream left his throat, unintelligible to those eavesdropping.

It shook the listeners to their cores and sent them hurrying from the scene. A deadly fear was being unleashed in the dark.

In the Champion's inner eye the solitary man turned back. He had heard. The blond breathed a held breath and strained to see the face in the fading light. His feet moved too slowly; the figure was growing dimmer, a gray shade. But still he kept coming closer.

The pupil of his mind's eye slowly closed down like the lens in a movie camera of his past. The figure became a pinprick on the retina of his subconscious. Gone, back into the secreted past of his life before.

And that brief moment of warmth and feeling winked out. For a moment he knew he had almost felt the lost sensation of Hope. That image could have been his reason for living. He'd lost it; he was a loser after all.

The stinking aroma of the bed made him cough and wrinkle his nostrils. The high was over. Its savage pleasure fell from his mind like a cobweb cast upon a breeze. A thing of fragile thread, woven as a means to capture its owner's nourishment, it could not hold the uncontrolled release of the Champion's trapped past.

He hadn't wanted it, not his past, and yet when it came, it left him reeling with its alien power of a diametrically opposed life. He simply couldn't cope with the memory-images. Too much, too much.

A leaden sleepiness overcame him; his shuddering delight was at an end and the afterglow was a weariness that seeped into every fiber of his body. It was as well it took him into a gray oblivion of drugged sleep, for to face the knowledge that he had almost seen into his previous life and recognized that lone figure could have driven him beyond his capacity to endure.

The only thing that floated through his tangle of troubled dreams now was the haunting image of the Other seconds before he killed him. Frowning in his sleep, he tried to push away the apparition. Why come now? He'd never been pursued by the souls of his victims before, so why him now?

The one blue eye stared at him with equal strength; the rifle came up for the shot and faltered . . . .

The Champion stirred in his sleep. Bad dreams were not meant to follow such heights of pleasure, and this nightmare was unlike any he'd ever encountered. It was persistent and cunning. It was making him pay. The gun came up again in the victim's hand ready for the shot, and the man faltered. He moved again within the same cycle of moves, and faltered. Repeated, and faltered, paused, one eye frowning and faltered. His finger tightened then held back off the trigger as he faltered. He faltered. Tensing of the body under the leather. And he faltered, falteredfalteredfalteredfalteredfaltered --

"I killed you! I killed you! I KILLED -- !!"

The Champion sat bolt upright, a disheveled mess of filthy rags and sweat. Eyes wide and staring, the only sound was his own ominous echoes ringing out into the still night, screaming his self-accusation over and over and over.

Scrambling for the precarious desk, his hand snatched up the gold plait clasp off the velvet. He hugged it to himself, an object of concrete proof of his actions.

"I killed him," was en earnest whisper. "I have the right."

With fingers of nervous stiffness, he pulled tight the last strand of blond hair, plaited it, and affixed the clasp. As he let it drop, the new addition baptized itself into fellowship with a soft peal of gold-tail chiming against gold-tail. Complete union. It was the seal upon the event; he had finished with the Other. He was but -- a memory.

The faintest rustle of feet on wooden floorboards brought the Champion slowly around. Tensed and ready, he was prepared for any kind of attack.

The Other crouched before him. His entry through the holed roof had been almost completely silent. Close to the floor, he peered up curiously at the Champion before him, quickly noting the further hollowed eyes and cheeks and the slight sheen of sweat on his white skin.

Neither moved a muscle, each weighing the other up while frantic plan and counter-plan flashed through their minds. Another confrontation loomed.

Finally, the Other rose steadily, slowly, from the floor, hand nowhere near the stock of his rifle. He wasn't going to push a sudden move. Standing, feet well apart, he looked the Champion in the eye with an overt defiance, head held high.

The advantage was with the Other. The Champion was more than a little perturbed, but the years of training had hardened any betrayal of surprise. To the Other he was as cold and commanding as he had been the night before in his home.

The mutual silence lengthened, only distant smudges of sound filtered through the warehouses.

"The dead cannot haunt the living in this stinking world. You are nothing to me; get back to your sewer." The Champion relaxed his stiffness into an arrogant stance of dismissal.

The Other's eye turned a little harder. He eased across to the desk, attention riveted on the Champion.

"I'm not dead -- " Without looking down, he picked up the empty sachet, " -- and this isn't living." The silvered man let the plastic fall through his fingers. "Keep using this and you're going to lose your edge over the rest of us."

The Champion smirked. "I don't think so. You didn't offer much competition. Your reflexes are slow and you falt -- " The words admitted to himself that he had seen the slight hesitation in the Other's hand last night. "You don't make the grade."

"True," agreed the Other, circling back. "But it didn't seem to bother me much, did it? Six Magnum slugs and I'm nosing right up your Territory a day later. Doesn't that worry you?"

The bastardized Magnum appeared like lightning in the Champion's hand, finger already tightening on the trigger. It was sighted from the green leather hip on the single blue eye left in the Other's face.

"Not particularly," came the soft reply. "A cyborg can be dispatched as swiftly as any man."

The Champion had little time for assassination machines that were programmed to seek and destroy him. He made ready to execute another. And then he saw it again, a clouding in the face that spoke of barely concealed pain and misery. The words had caused hurt far more than he would ever know or could ever inflict with his weaponry. The stranger to his Territory tried vainly to cover the feeling of shock that etched itself visibly across his disfigured face. For the second time that night, the Champion felt an ominous breath stroke his spine, and this time his own hand missed taking the shot.

The Other reached up a shaking hand in wine leather to pull his helmet from his head.

"I am a man," he said simply, "not a machine."

The Champion looked upon the revealed visage with a stomach-lurching regard as the dark curls sprang up and around the head.

"Jesus Christ." The Magnum fell idly to the Champion's side, forgotten. "So the Northern Sector have begun to perfect the New Medicine. The Owners have no conception as to how advanced you are." Wonder on his own face, he took a step closer toward the Other who could not look him in the eye. His gaze was hooded with shame.

"These metal plates and strips are new, molded and fitted during the night." He glanced up fleetingly. "The chest work is all Selkirk's." A bitter murmur on his silver lips.

The Champion came as close as he dared to fully appreciate the workmanship. The tiniest of rivets and pins anchored flesh to plates.

"Incredible." He shook his head fractionally. "So the old ways are being reborn again, in a more advanced fashion."

The Other nodded. "And they're looking for a finer specimen to experiment upon." His meaning was emphasized by the unrelenting capture of the Champion's attention.

In a second, the blond Protector understood, eyes narrowed, lips parted slightly in anticipation. Surreptitiously, he began to scan all entrances and exits.

"Presumably, they want only the best?" His question was purely rhetorical; the Champion didn't need to see the nod of the curls. The Magnum came up again and lodged itself under the chin of the Other. The darker man bent away a little as the hot breath of the Champion grazed his cheek. "And they sent you to get him?" A killing fear permeated each word. Hate and sure death peppered the still air.

The cold steel at his throat increased in pressure as the Other tried to speak. "You surely don't think I'm stupid enough to come into your home territory to take you out, do you? Have the drugs sapped your wits?"

"Why are you here then, if not to gut me for your perverted men of medicine?" hissed the Champion, hammer clicking slowly back. "You are their Protector. It's your job to secure the Commune and to see to its wants. Am I one of the Northern Sector's wants?"

The Other's hand covered the barrel of the Magnum to force the gun down. "I don't work for the Northern Sector any longer. I am a free man."

Abruptly, the pressure at his throat eased, as the Champion stepped back, astounded.

Incredulity echoed in his next words. "You are a protector; you Protect and Serve. None of us are free. They own you." His last words were spoken with an intensity of loathing, though he was owned himself.

"Not any more. I chose to leave."

"You didn't. No man leaves his commune -- no man who is sane, that is." Perhaps the poor wretch before him had finally gone mad; it happened to so many.

And then he wondered why the Northern Sector man was really there.

"Are they waiting outside? Ready to drug me into oblivion so they can change me into something more versatile than you?" The Champion moved cautiously over to the window, eyes flicking between the Other and the outside world.

The Other shook his head.

"No, they are well hidden within the Plaza; they won't be coming out tonight once they know their Protector has deserted them." He grinned a small measure of triumph. "Holy hell will be going on, once they find I've gone."

The Territory Protector turned back from the window and crossed to the door. Leaning against the loose jamb, he peered slowly out and scanned the dark and silent open space of the warehouse floor. He spoke without looking back.

"No commune would be daring enough to infiltrate into another's city blocks. It would be gross stupidity to attack the Territory -- I'm not the only protector in the Owner's stable."

With studied calm, he surveyed the twisted posts and scattered crates. All was peace and quiet. The posts stood like waiting sentinels. A closeness of moving air at his side told him the Other had approached his back. He turned in a tight circle and came face to face with his adversary.

"If they want you, they can simply take you." The Other's words carried a disconcerting truth. "I have no interest in their motives. I am beginning to make my own rules like the Time Before."

"The Time Before . . . ?" The Champion's gaunt face took on the faraway look of lost remembering.

"Yes. No matter what the commune leaders say, the Time Before was different . . . . I feel it somewhere within me." The thin face of the Other took on the same look of remembering. "This badge used to mean more. I think it was something special." His hand stroked the gold shield on his chest. "To Protect and Serve meant exactly that -- we're -- we're different now."

The Champion brushed him aside, eyes averted from the wine-laced chest.

"Not me -- I still do my job. I'm the best and I have the right -- "

The Other cut him short. " -- For now." He moved against the inner wall, resting nonchalantly to await the reaction.

The reaction was severe.

"Before I kill you again, permanently," the Champion spun around, plaits rustling against his studded leather back, "you can explain that."

Knowing he had his dangerous, if undivided, attention, the silvered man continued on a more even level. "I'm the best protector the Northern Sector ever had -- made. Call it what you like. I ensured the Plaza was secure and the mutants were kept back. It was my strength and power that built up the Northern Sector into a commune to be feared." He raised an eyebrow as punctuation to his points, arms folded over his chest. "That is, until they saw you."

The Champion listened with a growing suspicion.

"The Champion is without doubt the most perfect specimen. A protector of your caliber and training made jealousy rear its ugly head. They covet you," his face clouded momentarily, "and I am no longer their desired example of strength, power -- fear." His arms tightened across his body, muscles standing rigid, and his voice became quieter. "They have no more use for me, except as bait to lure you into the clutches of Selkirk and Houndsworth."

"How sad; my heart bleeds for you." Sarcasm hung between them from the Champion's broad lips.

'"Yeah, I can see you're real cut up." The Other moved away from the wall, anger rising.

The Champion looked him up and down, gauging his motives behind the speech, and said, "So, you have come to take me out. You failed last night and now you're here for another go. Most persistent." The blond's eyes glittered malevolently. "You have some goddamned nerve!" The Magnum rose up again with a slow meanness. "This time your New Medicine bastards won't get here in time to rebuild you."

The long gun barrels took up a steady bead on the dark tousled forehead.

The Other felt a stab of panic in his stomach. "I came to tell you more, if only you'd listen." A note of imploring came into his voice. "They've finished with me; I can accept that -- just, but I'm not going to let them use me one last time. I'm not going to be their bait. I'm moving on to make a new life for myself, away from this stinking hell-hole of death." He pointed at the man with the Magnum. "You can stay. You seem to think you have the right and enough interest in your profession still." He glanced at the sachet on the floor. "And the rewards may satisfy you for some time, but -- " he moved closer to speak more directly, "but, there's going to come a time when you aren't the best any more, no longer the Champion. Something better, younger, stronger, faster, will appear out of a commune and the Owners' greedy eyes will turn from you toward the new man." His eye flashed with real inner turmoil from personal experience. "And you will become the bait, the lure, the one they will simply practice their perversions upon." He checked his rising emotions and said calmly," . . . Like I was to be . . . ."

The Other saw in the dulled blue eye of the man facing him that his words held the chill ring of truth. Black truth of a gray future. Face sadder with the honesty of his own words, he continued hounding his enemy. "But, by then there'll be no escape, no chance at freedom -- their methods of programming are becoming almost failsafe. You'll be ensnared in the maze of their growing organization."

A silence descended. The Territory Protector thought deeply and long. Finally the Magnum hammer fell with a tiny click as the gauntleted hand relaxed.

Still with a slight trace of suspicion in his eyes, the Champion said, "All this presupposes that I'll become the new protector for the Northern Sector now that you've gone. I may choose to stay with the Territory."

The Other looked him square in the face. "Believe me, you won't have a choice."

"The Territory -- " the Champion swallowed, not wishing to continue, " -- owns me. They won't give me up so easily."

"Who's going to stop them? The second league men in the stable? I doubt it. Not against the Plaza men. So that leaves you -- protection and security is your job . . . and you'll be occupied elsewhere."

Suddenly a thought from nowhere came to the Champion's mind. "What brought you here? Why come and tell me, your enemy, this?"

Images of the Champion poised in the sewer tunnel ready to execute him came back to the Other. The blond hair, the blue eyes, height, physique, they all stirred annoyingly within his fragmented memory, and yet he couldn't place it. Too many programming sessions, too much mind control.

"We're different, yet the same -- I could at least give you a warning. No one deserves this -- " The Other indicated his face by gently touching the inlaid silver.

An embarrassed silence unfolded between them both. One so tall, so strong, so believing in his right to Protect and Serve. The other ashamed, fearful for his future and yet ready to take it with both hands while he still had time.

A recurring doubt arose unchecked to the Champion's lips. "Where do you come from?" The dark curls loomed large In his vision.

The Other debated the best answer to give. He decided to be totally honest.

"I don't know. I was born within the Plaza many, many months ago. I am what you see, nothing more."

The Champion hooked his fingers to release the gauntlet-pistol grip. The Magnum slid loose with a snap of metal leaving metal. "I don't believe that for one moment. You are much more than meets the eye." The gun found its home in the leather holster on his thigh and he smiled knowingly. "I think you have hidden depths."

I hope so. The Other shrugged. "Who knows. I don't."

Something moaned in the night outside in a feeble death throe. Both men immediately moved to the window to scour the road and buildings. Everything was as it had been before.

Then, an old rusty Coors beer can rolled across the hardtop from the yawning doors of the warehouse opposite.

Bodies stiffened under leather; both hands slid to gunstocks. In unison they whispered.

"So the Northern Sector rats are lurking outside after all."

"I've stayed in the same place too long."

Shrinking down from the window, they both faced each other briefly. The long braids sang softly.

"You are the bait." His face was devoid of any feeling as he argued rhetorically. "Keep him talking, occupied, while we move up -- were those your programmed orders?" A knife appeared from nowhere, point nicking the exposed skin on the neck of the Other.

The dark eye scowled broodingly while his free hand made to replace the helmet. "It isn't them. You forget. Anyone who leaves a commune is fair game for an assassin's bullet. The mutants will be hacking each other under just to be the first to try target practice with my head." He leaned back, away from the razor edge of the blade. "I'm the best prize they've ever had. My gold shield is automatic entry into the Northern Sector Commune." He glanced about him, covering the door and the black depths beyond. "But I don't aim to let them have it. I've had it all my life and I kinda like it."

The Champion kept his thoughts to himself as he warily glanced between the Other and the door. "Only mutants?" said the man fingering the knife, a dubious expression on his face. He began to rise from the floor, tired of the guessing games. It could be the truth or he was being set up for a deadly encounter. He decided to go on the offensive, and kill any who stood in his way. He'd ask questions of the dying, innocent or guilty, later.

He never got to his feet. A plummeting mass of twisted bones and filthy tatters hurtled from the holed ceiling, landing square on his broad shoulders. Screaming in hellish glee, it sank its claws into the Champion's back and clung on for dear life.

From the ground, the Other saw the leap by the crazed mutant as if in slow motion. Its glowing white eyes had flashed momentarily in the dark above, and then it had catapulted itself into the room. The raw, deformed limbs flayed about the Champion's curved shoulders as the sudden weight bowed him down. Its mouth dribbled saliva down the man's neck as it sought for the jugular vein.

Then the room erupted into clawing, screaming, fighting bodies as mutant after mutant poured through the window, door, and ceiling. They came like a tidal wave out of a storm drain with only one aim in mind: to kill the Other. As they saw the double prize of the Champion as well, they went insane with desire and hate. Vengeance and acquisition would be theirs for all the nights of mindless terror as he had stalked the streets hunting. How they had hoped for this moment, dreamed of it, to have both Protectors at their sudden mercy. They would savor tearing them bloodied limb from bloodied limb.

As the Champion tried repeatedly to loose the clinging beast on his neck by ramming it into the brickwork at his back, the Other rolled swiftly against a wall to give himself some protection and drew his rifle. But the pressure of bodies, fingers reaching out for his flesh, on all sides made his next move impossible. The long gun could not be sighted and he was forced to use it as a club to beat the odious bodies away. The walnut stock impacted dully with withered, brittle bodies to send them sprawling across the dusty floor in screaming tangles of broken arms and legs. But still more continued to swarm in through roof, window, and door. The overpowering stench of their pressing flesh made the bile rise in the Other's throat. Heaving himself away from the wall, he pushed the throng of gray flesh back, giving him time to cross to the door and spray the entrance with a volley of rapid fire which neatly felled the next surging mass of mutants.

Across the room, the Champion flung himself backwards again and heard with satisfaction the grinding crunch as the mutant's ribs caved in under the pressure. Lifeless, its clawing fingers fell away from his throat as it slid to the floor. Kicking out with stunning force, the Champion took the next mutant in the throat with a scything force of his boot while drawing the long knives from his leg and arm. Armed in both left hand and right, he began a systematic attack upon the demented creatures as they fought to wrench him apart. Sharpened fingernails hooked into his flesh, seeking a permanent hold, only to be hacked off by the whirling speed of the blades he now wielded. Mutant after stinking mutant collapsed in a bloodied heap of severed arteries and veins. The floor rapidly became the color of dark red wine, and he found he was now stumbling over the bodies as he made his way across the room.

In the warehouse proper, the Other leaped clear of a diving, deformed creature as he tried to make a run for the double doors at the end. Spinning his rifle around in his hands, he deftly took aim at the rising tide of new bodies emerging from behind the tumbled-down lines of packing crates. Screaming with banshee cries of glee, they came from all sides in a seething knot of blood-lusting beings. The Other fired off a rapid spurt of gunfire and cut a way through their lines, but the sheer number of hurtling mutants was becoming more than he could handle.

Demented beyond reason, they knew no fear of the two Protectors. This was their one and only chance to get their own back for all the dark nights of terror as these two walked the streets, and they weren't about to let it slip through their flaking fingers. Anyone who could prove they'd helped in the killing of a protector from a rival commune could expect handsome rewards. There was nothing else left in life to live or die for. This was their moment and they wanted it so badly they would kill each other for a chance at the Champion and the Other.

The double doors were the Other's chance at freedom from this rampaging mob, and he knew that if he didn't make it to the street in the next few moments, the frenzied attackers would descend on him. They were already forming into a tight ring at the back of him, waiting for his attention to be distracted so that they could make the final lunge and ensnare him. Their bare feet pattered frantically over the concrete floor as they jostled each other for the best position for their death-leap. Under a mass of stinking, biting mutants mad with the desire to rip him to bits, he wouldn't stand a chance. They were past understanding. The edge of fear had waned and they knew that their overpowering numbers could win against the two Protectors.

A disheveled female, hanging over the edge of a stack of crates, spat onto the floor at his feet. To protect his back from an attack coming from above, he darted right. A soft hissing noise caught his attention above the growling animal cries of the pressing throng. Pivoting on his right leg, he half turned, rifle coming up for a snap shot, too late for the scything sweep of a short metal pole, which dealt him a savage blow to neck and shoulder. Sparks shot out as the bar connected with the metal collar that the Other wore. The force of the blunt instrument felled him to the concrete floor, stunned. From his hands the rifle skittered across the dirt toward the yellow toenails of his assailants. Pushing himself up from the ground, he knew he had to get up off the floor now or it would be too late.

But his co-ordination was gone, the floor was no longer level, and the press of clawing hands, arms, and legs soon became the press of encroaching darkness as both the real world and that of oblivion crowded in upon his deadened senses.

The Champion saw the action out in the warehouse from the corner of his eye. He mounted the desk in one step to gain the advantage of height over the crushing mass of fighting mutants. Stamping on anything that was still for a moment, or that came within range, he kept back the rush as he drew his Magnum and prepared to mete out some instant deterrent. Through the doorway, he noted the joyful cries of delight as the mutants claimed their first prize. En masse, they swarmed over the still figure on the ground until he could no longer see the dark red leather body. An emaciated arm rose above the ragged, dirty mass to wave aloft the symbol of their victory: a silvered helmet, one jet eye flashing with the first sign of defeat.

With a ferocious slice of the barbed knife, he ripped open the throat of young male who tried to climb onto the desk beside him. He died, feeble hands pressed to the spurting open wound in his neck.

The Champion leveled the gun in the direction of the infested crowd below him. As one, they stopped, rooted to the spot as they all recognized the instrument of execution. Cowering down in blind terror, they hesitated before their next act. No mutant wanted to move against that devil-gun and find his chest spread across the wall behind.

The Champion drew back the hammer, hearing the soft click permeate the air as it locked. A sharp tenseness filled the room.

"So, my gray beauties. You know death when it stands before you." The Champion whispered his litany of execution over them as a priest passes a benediction. "I am the Protector of the Territory and you have dared to move against me. It is the last act you will commit in this world."

Instant hell broke out as the congested horde of malformed warehouse dwellers tried to get out of the range of the gun. Mutant clawed his way over mutant in their desperate effort to leave the enclosed trap of the room. The Champion smiled thinly as the rising cries of terror filled the air. Wild white eyes glowed with increased adrenalin surges as the thin red blood pumped spasmodically through their distended veins. Terror was upon every feature as the golden-plaited executioner took up a stance, ready to begin wiping clean another warehouse block of the increasing pestilence.

"There is no escape from the Champion. Nowhere to run." His finger tightened on the trigger. "I hold your lives in my hands -- and I now fulfill my contract with Death!"

The Magnum discharged a thunderous roar of metal annihilation.

Corpse after corpse jack-knifed through the air and slithered down the far wall in a river of blood and intestines. The Champion reloaded. The wailing howls of horror dwindled into pathetic whimpers of shock as the remaining bizarre beings stumbled through the doorway and fled into the blackness of the warehouse. Gone.

As the spiraling gases melted away upon the air, the Champion released the handgrip and holstered the weapon. Craning his head back, he searched the hole in the ceiling, for any sign of hidden attack. Certain that his means of escape was secure, he jumped with a clean litheness for the lone protruding beam. Hands locking onto the splintered wood, he swung his long legs forwards, then up and backwards over his head in one strong swift movement, to bring himself face down on the low roof. Rolling up onto his knees, he took one last look into the bloodied destruction of the room and then set off across the rooftop and away.

Down in the empty street, subdued white eyes watched the shadowy progress of the Champion cross the rooftops with a wariness that made them hide in the darkest gloom away from his vengeful gaze. His methods of bloody death and destruction would live in their haunted memories for many long nights. But they still held the Other . . . .

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Alighting from the last rung of a crumbling ladder, the Champion leaned against the red brick wall of an alley to rest. His body relaxed, regaining its strength after the short, swift flight from the warehouse district, but his mind remained a race of activity.

It's not like the mutants to attack in such numbers. His brow furrowed under the gold headband. It's not like the mutants to attack at all. The Other must have been right -- he has left his commune and he's now fair game for anyone or thing that dares to pit itself against him.

Slowly, he wiped the thin film of sweat from his upper lip. The attack had been a little too close for comfort in places. A sign that the drug had slowed him up.

Carefully, he rechecked the load in his gun and replaced it almost casually. Grim-faced, hw slid home the barbed knife into its boot sheath and set off up the alley with an uncanny stealth peculiar to himself. At the end, he paused, and studied the terrain before him. Shattered shells of unrecognizable buildings. Pin-pricks of red glittered as the rats stared at him from their places of concealment. They were aware of his presence instantly and would remain riveted to him until he passed on into the night.

In the milky shine of the city's night, the Champion seemed undecided as to what to do next. Clearly, he couldn't stay in the secluded alley all night, and yet he seemed reluctant to move out into the kingdom of the street. Something kept tugging worriedly at his dulled mind and troubled his clear line of thought. Finally, he admitted to himself what the seed of that worry was: the Other.

Damn him to hell! The Territory Protector scuffed a boot in the heaped rubbish in the alley entrance. Why did he have to come back?

A large, carnivorous spider emerged lethargically from a rusting can and elegantly moved its legs through a series of rapid waves to take it away from the annoying boot.

The Champion watched its retreat with an apathetic interest. His mind was elsewhere. If he spoke the truth -- if he'd decided to become a free man -- why hadn't he left? Gone away from here to some other part of the city? Why had he come to speak to me?

The Champion's anger began to rise. Last night his mission had been completed with an efficiency with which he was proud. His rival had been successfully eradicated from the face of the Northern Sector. He had his quota, the final plait, and his most desired reward. But what had that given him? More doubts -- in fact, a multitude. He'd tried to deny it, but the heroin only served to accentuate his need to be sure, to be certain for all time. And then he had arrived out of nowhere, with words of treason that spelled an instant death contract for anyone who dared to leave his commune. How could a protector, one that he himself had killed, come to him with a warning? A warning that he now knew to be genuine.

The Northern Sector hadn't been waiting for him. It wasn't a trap. The Other had spoken the truth; he had gone rogue, he was a running target for any and all city dwellers. But why come after the Champion -- the man who had killed him? Why come after him at all?

What were his words: "We're the same but different. No one deserves this -- "

His mind ran the images of the ashamed metal man before his inner eye. The silvered plates meshed with the flesh and bone of a human being. It had disgusted him. And the strange, single-eyed man had foretold the Northern Sector's desire of him: "They covet you." Those had been the words.

A chill feeling made itself known to him from the pit of his stomach. And the Champion began to feel afraid for his own safety. It was a growing fear that irritated him with its need to know all the answers. Not just why the Plaza wanted him. The Other had given him a teasing glimpse of something more deep and meaningful, something that he should know and understand. And yet it eluded him. It eluded him in the sewer, it had teased and tempted him through the rushing high of the heroin as it roared through his veins. And right at this moment the object of his peaking curiosity was probably being torn limb from limb on a cold, filthy warehouse floor. And that irritated him even more. In the Other were some of the answers he craved and he was losing them to a cannibalistic troupe of deviants.

I have to know. Even if it's the seal of hopeless finality. I've got to know for sure. Turning on his heel, he faced back into the alley. If I go back, I will set the wheels of Fate turning in ways I won't be able to control. A protector never goes back. And yet . . . I would never be at ease ever again if I passed up this chance.

Why did he have to be the Other? Why did he come to me? I understood myself this time last night. Now, I am a confused mess of doubts and uncertainties. I damn his soul to hell!! . . . but I must go back . . . .

The Champion emerged onto the street like a powerhouse of hell-fired retribution. He loathed himself for this weakness, and yet he feared more the possibility that the Other was already devoured by the starving creatures of this district. The long strides of his kind ate up the distance between the alley and the warehouse. No more hiding in the shadows now. If they wanted to stand against him, let them come and confront him. He was storming with an inner rage against himself and the need that burned within him to know. All he wanted was a target to present itself and he could unleash some of his pent-up fury. He hungered for the opportunity, and if the mutants were still there he would have his chance.

In the middle of the street he paused to stand defiantly before the double doors of the warehouse. Approximately twenty yards in front of him was a group of crowing mutants, delightedly dragging their prize catch through the dirt on the asphalt. The miniature grappling hooks were fastened into the leather lacings of the Other's suit and through layers of his skin. Chains of fine links ran tautly into the twisted hands of the jubilant predators as they heaved their feeble weight against the load of the Other's body. Slowly, the loose-limbed sprawl of the unconscious man followed the padding feet of his captors.

So engrossed were they with their price of entry into the Northern Sector that they failed to see the silent approach of the Champion. Not until the tall shadow of the green-leathered man fell over them as a cloud passes before the sun, did they look. And as a cloud dulls a sunny day, so the shadow of the Champion destroyed their shine of victory. Instantly they froze, eyes lifting toward the man in the street. Under a pale glimmer of a flickering street lamp they saw his calm outline. Hands on hips, he held them within a crushing gaze of hate.

Any color of humanity that the mutants might have possessed drained away from their haunted features. The chains slid from their fingers to cover the inert body in a metal web, producing a faint chiming of links as they fell. As the tinkling sound faded away on the still night air, a distant echo came softly to their ears: the tolling of gold clasp against gold clasp -- the warning of death.

With a delicate stiffness, the mutants began to back away from the bleeding body in the dirt, all jubilation forgotten in the face of the man before them. The Champion's features were unreadable, his breath stilled, and his eyes unblinking. The glimmer of the street light illuminated the gold shield upon his chest briefly, winking in an ironic companionship of mutual understanding. Shouldering each other aside, the scruffy mob shuffled up the street, each tensing for the burst of speed that would propel them into the maze of back alleys and away from the Territory's Protector.

A collective breath of anticipation hung between the hunter and the hunted. Then the Champion took a slow, deep breath, ready for the onslaught. The mutants didn't need a second warning. As one, they turned to flee the encompassing spell.

Leaping, stumbling, crawling for their very lives, they stampeded away into the darkness of the shadows, gibbering in mortal fear of their imminent destruction. The thunderous tread of pounding feet caused .a dust haze to rise from the road, partially obscuring their retreat. The Champion deftly produced a stick grenade from the devices on his back, primed it, and lobbed it accurately into the midst of the escaping mutants. The explosion was instant and spectacular as orange-white flames leaped into the air to the tune of a roaring explosion. The blast killed and terminally injured anything within range. Those caught on the edge of the blast lay in folded blood-sodden heaps, too stunned to crawl away from the burning area.

Neat and effective as always, the Champion seemed to awaken from his intense concentration and released his held breath slowly. Satisfied with his act of retribution, he covered the ground between himself and the Other without even a spared glance for his victims. They were of no consequence to him, simply daring irritants that had caught him off guard tonight. The real object of his interest lay in a crumpled heap of blood, leather, and metal at his feet.

Kneeling beside the Other, the Champion felt for a pulse in the neck through the bars of the metal collar that had probably saved the man's life. The ornate armor was badly dented and scored where the iron bar had impacted. A dark, livid bruise was already formed on the right side of his neck and shoulder, and was spreading under the network of leather strips. His face was a scuffed mess of claw marks and peeling skin, plus a split lip where the crazed mutants had pawed him in demented delight. The silvered helm was noticeably missing, allowing the dark curls to halo the pale features. The empty eye socket lay in sunken folds of flaccid eyelid while the other eye moved rapidly under the bruised flesh and slowly fluttered open.

The Champion tossed aside some of the chains and proceeded to unhook the grappling hooks from the leather suit. Careful not to start any more bleeding, he loosened some of the metal barbs from the silent man's skin. As the Other stirred back to consciousness, his one deep blue eye focused briefly upon the Champion and closed with a vague unease as if he was unsure as to where he was and why.

"I came back," stated the Champion flatly. "The first time I ever came back." He threw aside the last grappling iron among some rotting garbage and sat back on his heels.

The smell of burning flesh still hung on the air accompanied by the occasional moan of the injured grenade victims. The Other wrinkled his nose at the smell and tried to gain some perspective on what had happened to him. With effort, he brought up a stiff arm to touch his face.

"I -- hurt." He fingered the bruising down his neck and found his hand covered in dark red blood from somewhere in his hair. The sight of his life's liquid running over his hand made him start momentarily and try to sit up. He didn't make it as a stabbing pain in his head turned the street into an unfocused haze of darkening light. More stars than the night sky held floated over his vision.

"I bet you hurt. The mutants play dirty -- they tried to stave your skull in with a metal bar, but your helmet and collar saved your brains from being splattered over the street." The Champion felt ill at ease sitting beside his enemy of last night like some avenging angel. The Other spelled a whole new code of behavior that he didn't wish to examine or adopt. If he got up and left now he wouldn't become ensnared. If he stayed, it would be an irrevocable decision that would set him on a vastly different destiny. He could condense it down to two arguments: to remain the same, stagnant but still maintaining his status and power that Territory Protector accorded him, or: to offer the Other a hand of acquaintance, not companionship, more a mutual acceptance of both their strengths and powers, while being willing to step off the secure pedestal and explore the chance of freedom. Freedom of the mind and the body: to be his own man again and possibly understand the enigma of the Other -- and the half-remembered memories of his drug-dulled existence. That one step over the edge of yet another precipice. It made his flesh chill to the bone. He had barely come to terms with the New Society of The End, without breaking away from the newly-founded culture to seek his own way in this nightmare world. But this tattered man at his feet had found the courage to take that one step. Could he now reach out his hand and take that single pace into the unknown? Or, for that matter, could he reach out a hand?

What if his nagging intuition was wrong? What if this bloodied Protector was nothing more than an insane shell of fantastical dreams? He'd have lost everything, and in this new world there was pathetically little worth losing. He, the Champion, had at least something worth guarding, his closeted, cosseted place within the Territory. In the next few seconds he knew he would either retreat and accept his role on the Owners' treadmill or find the courage to face that risk . . . .

The Other turned his fuzzy gaze toward the imposing presence of the Champion. The long ceremonial braids rolled languidly across his broad back, the gold clasps dancing before his befuddled vision in the way a hypnotist uses a pendulum. He swallowed on a dry throat and shivered in the chill night air.

They had always eased the Other's physical pain although they refused to acknowledge any of his emotional traumas. Right now he wanted to feel the cold stone of the catafalque at his back and know that they would at least relieve his aches and pains. Shifting uneasily, his head rolled in the grime of the road and he felt the grit bite into the left side of his face.

Horror struck through the maze of semi-consciousness as he suddenly realized that his helm was gone.

"My helmet!" came as a tortured gasp from his swollen lips. "Don 't look at me. Don't look at me." Shaking with shame, his hands came up to cover his face from the penetrating stare of the Champion, as another faint cry of humiliation escaped his partially-metalled features.

That soft whimper of sorrow cut into the Champion as no other words of reason could. It was the final gram of argument that he needed. In the injured figure before him he saw himself in the not-too-distant future: mutilated, manipulated, and with a despairing self-image of inhumanity. Today it was the Other . . . tomorrow it would be him.

In a stinking street of still burning mutants, under a creamy moon of the night, the Champion reached out a hand toward the Other to lay his palm upon the vibrating hands of the stigmatized man, but he drew back without knowing why.

"You said we're different, but the same, so you need not hide from me. I will look at you without ridicule or disgust." The Champion shifted uncomfortably. "If you can bear to look at me, in the image that I have become, I can look at you with shared equality."

The emotional countenance of the Other registered the desire to believe those words, and yet his inner heart could not face himself yet, nor understand another's acceptance of him, given so readily.

Without further discussion, the blond executioner surveyed the warehouses. Empty pits of mutants' nests.

Bright blue eyes snapped back to the prone figure. It was obvious that the Protector was in no fit state to walk back to his sewer home, and to leave him here on the road as a tempting prize for any mutant brave enough to try picking him off was not what he had come back for. With large, powerful hands, he secured a hold onto the limp form of the Other, and swung him up and over his shoulder in a classic rescue hold. Head down on the Champion's armored back, the Other felt the strong body beneath his shrug him around until the burden was more evenly distributed over his neck and back. Rising, the Champion set off up the street, retracing his steps of minutes earlier.

The only signs of their ever having been there were the blackened, charred remains of the creatures of the warehouse district and a few small fires fizzling down to burning embers among the combustible garbage in the gutters. The silent, awed observers in the pitch dark shadows breathed a little easier as each tread took the feared Protector away from their domains. Once out of sight, they would emerge from their dens of sanctuary to pick over the debris of the fight in their district -- devouring every trace of the confrontation. One took what one could get, no matter how small, in this land of distorted free enterprise.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

As the pale, watery fingers of dawn stroked the eastern sky with traces of another salmon-pink sun, the light picked out the shape of a traveler in the city -- the Protector of the Territory. The Champion, still carrying his load over his shoulders, paused in the middle of the bleak wasteland of demolished buildings to sniff the pervading winds. As the dust of his journey calmed and fell to the earth again he listened intently, analyzing the very atmosphere of this spare wilderness. For as far as the eye could see were the humbled ruins of the once-great city. Now there were only rows of knee-high broken walls and twisted hunks of girded concrete. His senses highly tuned to any movement or sound, the Protector of the Territory surveyed his private domain with an exacting thoroughness. Pivoting slowly, he scanned the horizons for any unwanted intruder. There was nothing, no faintly drifting dust haze of a follower, no tainted breath of air from a group of daring mutants, not even a solitary soul from his own commune. There never was; they all had more sense than to set foot upon the personal territory of the Champion without prior invitation or warning.

Certain that he was not being followed or watched, the green-suited man set off again, traveling with a much more hurried pace -- his home was close. Over the next three rows of broken walls he stepped easily, no sign of weariness in his fluid actions, the man on his back hardly slowing him at all. Abruptly, he stopped on the rupture edge of some curb-stoning, eyes boring into a hole in the ground about thirty feet away. He whistled a whining, high-pitched note and waited. The Other stirred uncomfortably as the sound pierced his sleeping state. The Champion merely held him a little tighter and continued his vigil over the large gaping pit.

Cautiously, from within the darkness came a deep breathing sound of restrained excitement and a large, black, hairless hound trotted up the stairwell. It halted, alert and ready for the return of its lord and master. Glinting eyes of pale pink held the eye of the Champion as the tall man approached. Ears forward, the enormous dog sniffed the air and caught the distinct smell of the Other. The odor of the fresh blood brought a deep throated growl of desire from a muzzle set with sharply curving fangs. It sensed the defenselessness of the victim and the chance of an easy kill. The growl became a snarl of saliva-dripping jowls and the hound bared its teeth in anticipation, legs tensing for the leap of attack.

The Champion scowled darkly and clicked his fingers once. Immediately, the dog dropped cowering to the ground, tail limp between its hind legs, ears flat to its wrinkled brow. A pathetic whine replaced the sounds of attack. As he passed by the guard-dog, the Champion paused to stare hard at its beseeching expression for mercy. Stooping, he patted the shiny head once as a sign of forgiveness, then continued down into the hole, eyes on the dangerously crumbling steps. The dog made to follow him, but a sharp series of whistled commands told it to stay on guard at the entrance. Sure of its role, the dog paced the powdery earth to find a suitable resting place, then settled itself down for a day of unceasing vigilance. Its master commanded its loyalty and it obeyed with a fanaticism uncanny in a beast of its mutated intelligence. The dog was intelligent; the Champion knew and understood it, using its intense devotion to his advantage. The hell hound kept the wandering mutants away from his privacy in ways impossible to duplicate with mechanical alarm systems. Anyone or thing encountering the guardian of his underground home never returned to tell of its whereabouts. The dog understood the man's needs only too well, and always buried the evidence as a sign of its comprehension. In return, the man fed him. Licking its chops, it assumed a rigid pose of stillness and listened . . . .

An oil lamp sputtered into life as the Champion lit the wick with a burning taper. Crumbling away the tiny flame he tossed the sliver of wood back onto the feeble fire in the grate. The dim light glowed a little stronger to reveal a strange array of mismatched furniture and rescued artifacts from the Time Before. Chairs, table, and bed occupied most of the floor space while the walls were covered in shabby volumes of books. The subjects were wide and varied as were the multitude of objects the Champion had collected over the years as Territory Protector. To the ignorant eye it was a jumble of worthless rubbish; to the Champion it was his only connection with a so-called historical myth: old Los Angeles.

The Owners claimed it was a myth perpetrated by the forces of nihilistic traitors to the Commune. Many Commune members believed the Owners, but some had dim memories of the Time Before and how it used to be. They whispered their beliefs in quiet corners knowing full well the punishment for such blasphemous talk -- they were not too afraid to remind themselves of the truth occasionally. But as the threat of expulsion by the Commune Owners hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles, it became easier to dupe themselves into believing the lies and to accord the truth the status of a new kind of folklore.

The Champion knew the element of truth existed in the legends -- he had the artifacts to prove it -- held them as a kind of evidence even though he himself could barely remember the Time Before. And that disturbed him greatly.

In the pale gold light cast by the central lamp, he moved across to his bed where he had deposited the senseless form of the Other. Leaning against the wall, he searched the troubled features of the other protector, noting the deep lines of worry that were etching themselves into the white-metalled face. Desperately, he searched his limited memory for any trace of this being . . . anything at all. A chance meeting perhaps, or possibly something more permanent . . . . The dark curls had thrown him in the sewer, that and the familiar gold shield. But there were many who wore the gold shield. He had been one of the many, that much he knew from his elusive memory of the past. He had lived among them . . . and watched them die beside him.

Disgusted with his rising tide of hopes, the Champion tore himself away from the sight of the man and channeled his thoughts into other directions.

He moved toward the back of the room, passed through an archway and into a small bathroom of mismatched basin and bath/shower. From a box under the basin he produced some of his treasured medical supplies: antiseptic, absorbent cotton, tape, scissors, and a small supply of antibiotics. Running some water into a metal dish, he returned to the bed to tend to the Other.

He settled the utensils onto a small bedside table and perched on the edge of the bed, releasing his holster from his thigh. Placing his Magnum within easy reach, he proceeded to remove the Other's weapons as well. The rifle he placed beside the bed near to the mutilated man, the leather strappings and arsenal on the wide back he loosened for comfort. Satisfied that the man could rest easier, he began to examine the scalp and neck wound. The metal bar had broken the skin at the base of the skull, but the bone itself seemed undamaged. As his fingers ran through the tangled mass of dark curls, searching for further cuts to be cleaned and dressed, his sensitive fingertips passed over something alien in the center top of the skull. Startled, he tilted the head toward himself and parted the curls until he saw the hidden object: a metal circle indicating the presence of an inserted socket for an impulse-jack. The Other's brain could literally be plugged into some form of machine that the Northern Sector possessed. The New Medicine was far more advanced and deadly than any of the beings in the Territory realized.

Recoiling in horror, the Champion wondered if the poor creature himself knew of the presence of the socket. As his hands slid away from the head, the Other turned back, resisting his hold and babbled some words of pleading, unintelligible to the human ear but abundantly clear in meaning.

And yet he felt no real pity for the Other; he was hardened beyond that. The only thought that crossed his mind at that moment was the fact that it could be him next, if not tomorrow then the day after. That one day soon the Northern Sector may acquire him or, possibly worse, the Owners may learn the ways of the New Medicine. No more rewards would be needed, no more inducements to continue as Commune Protector, just a small metal socket inserted into his brain and he'd be the most efficient protector that ever stalked the streets. Infallible, as his own ability to access the random factors would have been denied him. Human error in the field of action eradicated. He would act out the precise instructions to the last impulse without the smallest error. The perfect killing machine.

Unconscious of his automatic moves, the Champion continued to wash away the red-brown stains of blood from the Other's face, neck, and shoulder. He tended to the abdominal wounds caused by the grappling hooks and cleaned out any further minor cuts and grazes. After a time, he was satisfied with his thoroughness, his fanaticism and fear of disease making itself manifest in his exact treatment of the man on the bed, and returned the medicines to their strongbox in his tiny bathroom. As he rose from the floor he noted the vague tremor in his hands.

As he washed his hands with scrupulous care, he studied his grimy reflection in the corroding mirror over the basin. He still looked hard and emotionless, but there were the first soft smudges of weariness under the hollow eye sockets.

Drying his hands, he returned to the main room and moved behind a long mahogany bar. On the mirrored shelving were the fruits of his pampered existence: bottles of alcohol, cartons of drugs. Making a swift appraisal of his supplies, he shook out of a carton a selection of rainbow-colored capsules and selected a bottle of Scotch. He about-faced to rest on the bar top while he mixed his peculiar cocktail of narcotic energy. He had a day's work ahead; he needed to be on top form, his senses tuned to perfection.

Gulping down the strange mixture of delayed death, he felt an eerie sensation of deja vu creep over him. A little unsure, he slowly lowered the glass to find the Other staring at him from the shadowed corner of the far wall . . . watching him drink down his special mixture of fortified aid.

Pushing the thought aside, the Champion shifted position and broke the held moment.

The glass tapped down on the wooden top with a sharpness that snapped the thread of remembering. Plaits rustling, he rounded the bar and came over to the watching man.

"You'll live." He stated flatly what he felt the Other would want to hear. Instead, the deep blue eye grew bright with an inner misery and he turned his face to the wall.

"I can't thank you," came the weak reply through still swollen lips.

"I didn't ask you." The Champion felt uneasy again. "Go back to sleep, you . . . can be safe here." The words seemed strange on his tongue. He never accorded anyone safety; it was his job to deprive them of the ability to feel secure, to put the fear of the Territory into the deviants and anyone else who threatened the Commune. That was the law he lived by, but now . . . here, he was finding himself the dispenser of protection.

Puzzled by the sudden emergence of that reversed thought, he tried to refute its existence, but it was already anchored into his mind as soon as he acknowledged its presence. Did those words once hold a different meaning for me?

The Other murmured to him again, a sleepy whisper of a personally important question. "My helmet, what happened to it?" He drew up his hand up to cover his sightless eye socket.

"The mutants took it as a kind of trophy. It could have been a ticket into the Northern Sector for one of them. Killing a renegade protector is a highly profitable act." He moved the lamp away from the bedside and onto the larger table in the center of the room. "However, the crawling scum didn't get any further than the end of the street . . . . I saw to that." A thin smirk of triumph covered his face. "They never learn."

The tangled mass of long curls nodded minusculey, hand unmoving. "But the helmet?"

Irritated, the Champion moved away. "I told you, it's gone, forget it, go back to sleep." He headed for the kitchen at the side of the bar and paused in the swinging door. The Other shuddered slightly, his shoulders hunching down in a sigh of desolate misery, as he tried to hide his face in the cushioning pillow.

On the end of the bed, neatly folded, was an archaic patchwork quilt. He'd acquired it while cleaning out an exclusive area to the north and he still remembered the corpse dissolving into white dust as he pulled it free of the woman's grasp. Now it was his; on the open market it would be priceless. Moving awkwardly back to the bed, he scooped up the blanket, shook it out and tossed it over the Other. Immediately, the folds were anchored around the hunched shoulders, covering most of the head and all of the face.

Feeling unusually displaced by the unfamiliar action, the Champion retreated a little, unable to understand the sensations stirring within him. Then, like an escaping catch upon a thread of time, he reeled in the alien sensation and examined it.

For the first time in an ageless dimension of murderous butchery, the Champion felt compassion for another human being. Disturbed, he exited into the kitchen.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The actual commune of the Territory was a ramshackle collection of shanty-style buildings that seemed to grow out of one another in a parasitic design. They were constructed out of anything available, which accorded them a bizarreness unrivalled by any other commune. Highly decorated with strange mystical designs borrowed from old advertising billboards and product labels, the colors could be seen for miles on every side. A seedy, carnival gaudiness gave the place an atmosphere of cheap transience, and yet the Territory had existed for years like an initial foundation stone. Thousands dwelled here under the protection of the Owners and none dared to leave. They sold their skills and abilities in return for the sanctuary of the new mini-city. For many it was a place to sleep undisturbed, if with troubled dreams, during the darkest hours of the night. It was still a place that reveled in the survival of the fittest and devoured the sick and helpless by relegating them to the lower levels of its tenuous society, but it did survive from one day to the next. An admirable feat in itself. Shortly after The End many smaller communes set themselves up as independents, and they died in a miserably slow trail of starvation, disease, and anarchy.

The Territory was a survivor. It had the unlimited skills of its occupants, a struggling but functioning economy of a kind, and a system of social conventions modeled very loosely upon the old L.A. methods. However, the years had warped the original aims of their police force into a Gestapo-style army of ex-police officers who were all possessed by the Owners.

The most prominent of these old-style policemen was the Champion. His was the hand that spread the fear and terror that kept the Territory in the foremost position in comparison to the rest. His was the presence that ensured all who joined the Commune and swore undying devotion remained loyal members -- for without its numerous workers, it would have been doomed to such similar tragic fates as the undermanned independents. His was the shadow that passed over the respectful populace in the narrow streets as a constant reminder of the power of the Owners. His was the face that fuelled the new nightmares for the children of the Territory. His was the stuff that legends were made of . . . and the Owners knew of this and watched their Protector with a sharp and careful eye.

The spicy aroma of the bakeries caused the Champion to briefly think of food. He did not eat often, relying on his narcotic diet to keep him going, but the Owners kept a watch on his eating habits and tempted him with fresh, fine foods to ensure his health and strength. Today they would probably make certain that he took at least one meal, but he was never interested. He hadn't been interested in the food he'd placed on the table before the Other: canned meat and vegetables from his own vast secret supplies in the storeroom of his underground home. If only the Owners knew how much he had forayed for himself during his hunting trips into the city, it was beyond price or ransom. And beyond the Owners' reach. It was all his, a kind of security bond against the future. At least he had something to fall back upon, unlike the hapless peoples of the Territory.

As he melted through the bustling crowds of bartering humans who were dressed in the simple clothes of the commune dweller, he could not help but notice the way they shrank away from his presence. He may be their Protector, but they didn't have to associate with him. It was exceedingly rare for any ordinary man to be found communicating with the powerful arctic-eyed slayer. Everyone kept a discreet, polite distance as he passed through the trading district. The only people known to have spoken to him were the prostitutes of the lower side brothels. They knew no fear as they had nothing left to fear, and they desired the prestige of being the Champion's woman. They beckoned him lewdly, flirted demurely, offered their bodies for unlimited pleasure -- and he calmly refused them all. His private phobia of disease and fanatical obsession with his personal hygiene made their offers forbidden fruits. He could never take the risk.

The Owners didn't like this celibacy; they wanted to breed from him. All that strength, might, and intelligence were simply going to waste. If he would reproduce with an acceptable female, their growing stable of protectors would become unrivalled. They could secure all the other minor communes that drew off some of the skilled manpower for their own communities -- they could have it all.

Greed had not died with the Armageddon. And absolute power still corrupted absolutely.

Into the market of garden produce the Champion strode; people averted their eyes as he passed the roughly fashioned stalls. The brief fall-out of sound as he moved over the uneven brick roads only drew attention to his alienation by his own kind. But they weren't his own kind. The only kind he knew and understood were the same as himself: the paid butchers. And yet, under the fading influence of the drugs, he knew this had been different at one time. When the polluted fog of his mind cleared before his next fix, he could dredge up a vague remembrance that being a law enforcement officer had always kept him apart from society. However, that hadn't troubled him to the edge of constant worry because he used to be happy, never alone. The last heroin trip had pointed that out to him. In this new time and place he was alone by choice and ostracism, but in the Time Before, his role had been different. There had been someone else beside him. His job today followed a parallel yet totally opposed line of action and justification.

He paused at the end of the canopied stalls to gaze across a small open square.

But he never came back . . . even though he promised. And I . . . I never went and looked. He scowled at the building that was facing him. The Owners stopped me. No escape . . . .

Hand upon gunstock, he marched toward the Territory government building -- the home of the Owners.

Passing under the rusting archway of wrought-iron gates, which had been stolen from the ruins of a large uptown estate, the Champion moved out of the pale daylight and into the heavily incensed dark of the quake-damaged house. Silhouetted against the open doorway, he waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the dark. Eventually, he could see the threadbare carpet of the interior of the low-ceilinged corridor. At the end was a green glow from the inner meeting room. He was expected, and he was never late.

Padding with a solid tread, he marched to the entrance and took in the now familiar sight of the Owners.

In a half-circle of high-backed chairs, the Owners were sitting, crimson robes draped elegantly over their shapely bodies. The peculiar green-glassed roof lent the large room a disconcertingly unreal effect that wove into his already warped perception and formed an illusory atmosphere of belied calm. Serene green. He struggled against the soporific effect it was designed to inculcate and stepped forward onto seven pairs of handcuffs inlaid in the floor forming the shape of a regular septagon. A pair of fetters for each Owner -- the symbol of being shackled to the Commune. Complete mastery by the Owners.

The Champion placed his feet neatly inside the ring of handcuffs, knowing as he halted that he had once again accepted their domination over him.

The seven Owners viewed their prize with a pleasure that was apparent from the glow in their eyes. He was the finest of men.

Kneeling before his saviors, the Champion spoke in a low huskiness respectful of their power. "Madam, I have come. I live to Protect and Serve my Commune."

A tall, elegant woman with elaborately dressed gray hair indicated with a thin hand that he should rise. "Stand proud, my Champion. Do not deny us the right to look upon our most favored possession." She smiled warmly from the lips and studied him critically. He was still tall and strong. Undefeated. "You served us well last night. The Other was becoming a persistent threat to our continued safety and expansion. Already our people are moving into the outskirts of the Northern Sector. We shall soon possess their source of electrical power. All of the Owners thank you."

The other six women nodded and smiled indulgently. The Champion stared back with a face of granite. They made his flesh crawl.

"It is my job." He maintained a level delivery, muscled body held rigid as a measure of self-protection against their unnerving benevolence.

The spokeswoman rose from the purple-cushioned chair and approached him with a fluid elegance. She was a high-class dictator of unbending rules and beliefs, iron of will and determination. She circled him slowly, letting her eyes rake his body for any signs of damage or decline. His combat suit was cut on his back where fresh claw marks showed in the leather. The naked flesh of his upper right arm was bruised and scratched. Puzzled, she wondered how he had acquired such markings when he had appeared before them, immediately after the removal of the Other, unblemished of flesh and armor.

"You are marked, my Champion." A statement of soft sweetness that covered a shrewd, searching mind. "Last night you were perfect." She never failed to notice the slightest flaw.

Composing himself, the Champion replied, "When I left with your most gracious reward, Madam, I was attacked by the unclean of the warehouse district." He omitted to tell her that his iron control had weakened drastically and he had been unable to wait until he returned hone before he enjoyed the heroin. He didn't want the woman to gain further knowledge of his worsening habit.

Momentary panic spoiled her flawless features. "My most precious, you are unhurt?" She stroked the bare, pale golden flesh of his arm. "We couldn't bear to think of you in pain."

Oh, no? You don't know the pain I bear, lady. "I am unhurt." He watched her sigh of relief from the corner of his eye. She did care in a selfish way about his well-being. She did not want to see her treasured angel of death become a tarnished relic.

"And the mutants?" Coming full circle she stood close to his chest, eyes searching his.

"Dead or injured." He let his gaze fall to hers. "They won't bother me again. The warehouse district is still under Territory control."

Smiling broadly, she let out a low laugh of ironic approval. "See, my sisters, even when he is off duty, enjoying his reward -- " she ran a finger over the gold shield on his chest, "he still ensures the safety of the Commune." Stepping away, she held him with a look of pure lust. "Ah, we must never lose you. You are as we named you, the Champion."

He let his gaze drop, eyes boring into the tiled pattern of the floor. They all looked at him in that way. As she returned to her seat, he watched her crimson-slippered feet peek out from under the robe. The skin was gray and flaking; her body was decaying. It happened to some of them since the holocaust. There was no cure and he wondered how much longer she could keep it from the other Owners. Mentally he shrugged. Perhaps they were all suffering the same fate -- slow erosion of the human flesh. This was the first time that he had seen any sign of a crack in their united front. Even the Owners could not possess or buy perfection of the body. All their beauty would flake away like shavings from a wood plane. That knowledge made him feel a little superior; they weren't getting it all their own way.

As she reseated herself, careful to hide her feet with the low hem, she nodded to an auburn-haired woman in her mid-twenties to her far right. The woman rose as commanded and spoke in a clear voice.

"Champion, you are to go tonight and clear out a growing nest of quasi-religious human males. Our informers have assured as that they are about to form a commune based upon old, forbidden ways of the church." She stared directly at him, issuing his new orders with a soft breathlessness as he turned to face her. "Religion is forbidden and that commune must never rise. The Territory shall rule here and none other."

Having made her speech, she resumed her seat, quietly placing her hands in her lap.

"Where will I find these degenerates, Madam?" Another mission, he could handle it.

"Due north." The spokeswoman knew he needed no more information to seek them out. He could hunt down anything that moved. "Did you appreciate your reward, Champion? It was the finest grade of heroin we could acquire." She accepted his almost imperceptible nod. "You have affixed the final gold clasp, I see. No other protector has ever achieved the full quota. We are more than proud of you."

Proud of my bloodied butchery. He looked up, plaits rustling over the studs on his shoulders, to see the open adoration on her face.

"What would you desire this time, my golden one?"

Freedom. It sprang unbidden to his mind. And the knowledge and full memory of my past. Answers. He bit the words back. No one spoke treason and lived. "You have rewarded me most handsomely already." He didn't want anything from them, and yet his need destroyed his willpower. Once the offer was made, the small plastic sachet before him, he couldn't' refuse. His craving knew no bounds, it was his one weakness, and they dangled its temptation before him like a shining star before the magi.

From within the long, flowing sleeves she produced three glycerin packets of drugs; two contained the white powder of heroin. His Lady of the Poppy. The third packet contained the rarest of hallucinogens: LSD. It was in the form of several different colored and sized pills. The ultimate drug as the effect was never the same twice. Ecstasy or horror, one never knew.

His craving released an uncontrollable adrenalin surge in his chest that made his heart double its beat. They knew his price. It was almost as if they could read his mind. Maybe they could. Just when he felt the first stirrings of rebellion, the Owners pulled him back to his knees. There hadn't been any LSD in the city for three years. It had always been his belief that there was no more. But there it was before him -- the concrete proof of his own symbolic ball and chain. For that little packet of rainbow pellets he'd sell his soul.

A shiver of expectancy crawled over his leather-clad body, and, eyes fastened to the talisman held within her palm, he walked toward the gray-haired woman. Close to his new reward, he could see the faint thumb-print cloud the plastic where she'd held the packet hidden under her robe. There were seven pills, one from each Owner. As his gauntleted hand reached out to touch the objects of his desire, her finely manicured fingers closed over the sachets.

"Cut a swathe of death through their repellent hides, my precious one, and these are yours tonight." Her voice was a purred promise to his ears. He met her eyes, so close he could see the tiny flecks of gray in the green irises. She knew she had him, and his face crumpled under the acceptance of her supremacy over him. She'd bought his soul long ago; now she held its secret dream.

As he sank to his knees at her feet, he nodded his blond head and bent to kiss the hem of her robe. He was loyalty incarnate; the job was completed as soon as he saw the drug. Tonight he would work on an emotional rise of excited vengeance. The humans were already dead; he only had to perform the actual rite of execution -- then it would all be his.

She stroked his bowed golden crown of hair, then the seven women Owners rose as one to sweep from the room. As they disappeared into the labyrinth of the meeting house, they failed to see the crouching man's face. Their work was complete; he would obey them.

But the Champion felt a strange tear of defeat slide down his cheek to darken the dusty floor . . . . It rose from a well of tormented frustration deep in his bartered soul. Truly, they did own him. And in an honest moment with himself he acknowledged the fact that they always would . . . because they knew his price.

An addict doesn't have a choice.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A can of Batchelors red kidney beans was an object he hadn't seen in many a long year. Approaching the table gingerly from the battering he'd received at the hands of the mutants, the Other picked up the can with a look of wonder. The paper label was brown and torn but nevertheless it was a can of red beans. Tenderly, he replaced it on the wooden top and examined the neighboring cans of carrots, tomatoes, and steak. His mouth watered at the very thought of such delicacies.

Slowly, he settled into the chair at the table and ran his fingers over the faded trade names on the once well-known labels. Some he'd forgotten had ever existed; now he remembered them, all bright colors on the shelves of the supermarkets. Unlimited food.

The last time I tasted real beef was . . . was -- He couldn't remember.

Then among the clutter of objects and precious cans before him he saw the immortal red and white patterning on an ancient Coca-Cola can.

His hand snatched it up and held it out in front of himself, turning it in the strange light of the oil lamp. Cold metal, so smooth under his hand, with the raised aluminum lip and the flattened ringpull. He appraised it with the loving eye an archaeologist bestows on his greatest find.

No one has Coca-Cola any more. A soft chuckle of pure delight escaped his lips. 'Cept this guy. His curls bobbed as he shook his head in mock disbelief for he held the reality in his hand.

He was about to pull the ring and drink deeply of the contents when he remembered the food. It was a feast to his eyes. This sort of acquisition was reserved only for the leaders in the Plaza. The "peasantry" wouldn't even hear of such finds. He wondered again how the Champion came by such wealth.

Maybe the Owners of the Territory pay him in cans and rationed Coke? His face clouded over with the comparison with his own existence. No such favors in the Northern Sector. And then he forcibly brightened. But I don't have those worries anymore. I chose to be free -- not Selkirk and his surgeons of shame. I chose.

A glow of pride settled somewhere small and secret within himself. It was the first time in a countless age he'd felt a stirring of self-respect.

Rising from the table, he crossed to the bar, heading for the swinging door of the kitchen. The Champion had come from there with the cans just before he left. He'd placed the food before the Other during an embarrassed silence, then he'd headed for the door while restrapping on his Magnum.

"I'll be back, get some rest . . . and if you feel like eating, there's some food on the table. Kitchen's through the back. Don't waste the water. I'm not due for a ration for six days." And he was gone. No backward glance, just the soft padding of feet over the rasping grit on the steps. There was no door into this underground home of seemingly palatial luxury, a very strange and foolhardy show of bravado to the Other's way of thinking.

As he passed the end of the bar, he caught sight of the loaded shelves of alcohol and drugs and slipped behind the mahogany counter. Practically every kind of drink and mild narcotic was available. Granted, some of the bottles hardly contained a decent measure, but the Territory man had alcohol at his fingertips. The variety of drugs, the Other had little comprehension of, they were just gaily-colored pills and capsules lined up in tiny glass bottles in no apparent order. All name labels were conspicuously missing.

Curious, the Other raked his eye over the shelving as he passed along. Beside the glass on the bar top he paused and sniffed at its contents. He could only identify the aroma of scotch, nothing else. When he'd wiped out the holders of a stash of penicillin, the Northern Sector had celebrated his return with a small measure of whiskey passed around the assembled Council. He could still feel the hot liquid in his throat and the metallic after-taste as he licked his metalled lips. His reflection in the bar mirror looked back distortedly, the silvering having worn away in places, giving the image a speckled, greeny-brown leprous effect. He stared between the bottles and glasses at himself, shock widening his one eye slightly, then his disciplined control took over and his schooled features returned to their unreadable expression.

After some moments, he turned his head to survey the bruising on his neck and shoulder and the deep indentation in his metal collar.

He touched the grazed side of his face, the left cheek, and slightly puffed, flaccid eye socket. A blow like that could have snapped my neck . . . . Pity it didn't.

With long fingers, he pulled at the unruly mass of dark curls, twisting his fingers in their softness. So long since I let my hair go its own way. He shook the longer trails that collected in the nape of his neck. I . . . I think it always did.

Pulling himself free from the too-revealing glass, the Other made his way into the kitchen.

He was not prepared for the size of the place. Enormous catering ovens took up the central core of the room. Around the edges were the stainless steel sinks and work surfaces, cupboards, and old, unused freezers. Then the loose pieces fell into place. The Champion's home had been a bar-cum-eating place of some kind in the Time Before -- an underground social meetinghouse that hadn't been destroyed, just buried. No layers of light, white dust powdered the surfaces here, dulling their shine. Instead the kitchen gleamed while the vast array of utensils were all neatly placed in their respective homes on walls or shelves.

Treading with a quite reverence, the Northern Sector man moved around the kitchen to an array of household goods that would buy acceptance into any commune. The vast amount of metal alone could ensure a high price on the black market. The Owners of the Territory were either far richer than he supposed, or they didn't know of this secret treasure trove of steel.

Close to a large icebox was a smaller grill and cooker with a rare gas bottle attached. Obviously, the Champion used only a fraction of the equipment for himself. The sink opposite had a few splashes of water left near the plug hole like dew on a rose petal. They glistened in the faint light . . . .

Running water. Incredulous, the Other picked up a drop on one of his fingers and rubbed it away between finger and thumb. The place was a Pandora's box of surprises.

As he turned back toward the swinging doors, a whispered memory of bustling noise, heat, and black people flashed before his mind's eye. In a brief moment of unreality, he was aware of a ghostly after-image of the humans who had lived and worked here. The smoke was thick, the noise loud and raucous with voices and music. A loose-limbed, black man hurried through the swinging doors and barked out an order in a stumbling tangle of pauses and affectations of speech.

And then a pain of violent intensity lanced into his brain. The moment was over and he fell to the cold concrete floor, hand's reaching for his head but never quite making it, a scream held back behind his pain-locked teeth . . . .

Several minutes of agony passed as he lay twitching in nervous spasms as the implant in his brain went berserk. Autonomic systems malfunctioned in a rapid series of triggered shocks in his head and, gasping with the effort of fighting the pain and the lurching reality around him, he clung to the concrete floor as it seemed to jerk under his pulsing body. He screwed his eyes shut against the swirling kitchen in an effort to stabilize the rising waves of nausea, and found an abrupt parade of crystal clear scenes of a past and distant life running like an express projector through his convulsing brain. He struggled to make sense of the fantastical images of history.

My history.

A groan of aching misery accompanied the frightened racing of his pulse as a mercurial miasma of times, places, and faces rushed toward his awareness and away. He tried to anchor onto their dwindling trail but they eluded his clawing grasp.

In the tumbling thrust of his memory, one element seemed so much more prominent than any other. It was the image of a tall blond man.

He came from every corner, in different shades of color and mood. He stood so close in an ease of harmony. Running and fighting, laughing and crying, he towered over the other images, encompassed them and devoured them. Energy, warmth, and power shone from his presence, and the Other felt that somewhere in the Time Before he had known this man. He knew his shape, his touch, his . . . .

The pain was receding and with it the images. The empty void of his mind was returning as suddenly as the flood gates of the past had been opened. Like a scared child who searches for a safe haven, the Other tried with a frantic desperation to hold onto the fading pictures, sounds, places . . . names.

But the agony ended and the moment was gone.

Shuddering with the shocked awakening to the dawn of his old life, the Other strove to a sitting position, back against the freezer door, head down between his knees, waiting for his thundering heart to calm. Tiny rivulets of sweat trickled a pathway over his face, running around the edges of the inlaid silver, to finally splash onto the supple webbing of his leathered chest.

Suddenly, his head came up, curls falling back, his face an expression of murderous intent as comprehension gave the previous minutes meaning.

Wiping a trembling hand over his beaded brow, he moved it to his temples and tried to massage away the remainder of the pain. He'd never felt such searing agony before, not even while Selkirk had been working on him. That had been nothing compared to what he'd just experienced and the strange images that accompanied it.

If the pain meant that he would see more of his history, he'd welcome it, but why feel the stomach-wrenching pain at all? That little mystery made him scared. He didn't have the Northern Sector doctors now to fuss over him -- he was on his own by choice. A free man and now a man alone with his uncertainties. If he dared to admit it to himself, he wasn't too sure just what he was made of anymore. He thought he was still a human being, albeit a hybrid of the worst deviations, but still a man. However, the way the images came so suddenly, the uncontrollable reaction of mind and body, and his inability to cope with the pain, made him doubt his own flesh and blood.

The ragged remains of the agony were subsiding into a more manageable form. His fingers tried to loosen the tenseness from the muscles in his head as his hands moved further across his skull, massaging his scalp.

A faint tap-tap-tapping made him stiffen and stop. Eye slitted, he squinted through thick lashes for the source of the sound. The hound stood before him, pale pink eyes searching with a weird wariness of concern. It sniffed the air, tongue hanging out and panting. A long, wire-like tail thrashed in a sign of questioning excitement.

The Other remained perfectly still, no sudden moves, no looking it directly in the eye as a challenge.

Guardedly, he pushed backwards to rise against the freezer door, leather pouches making a soft rubbing sound as he rose. The dog made a deep, throaty growl and took a step closer. It could smell the sweat and adrenalin of the Other; and sense the physical vibrations of fear brought on by the agonizing pain of moments earlier. Always alert, the hound had crept into the Pits when it heard the sounds of torment and pain, unusual in its master's sanctum. It had found the man writhing on the kitchen floor, face a ravaged mask, body twitching fitfully. The sight was alien to the dog; the Champion never behaved in this manner. It was puzzled as to what to do with the stranger. Coolly, the man edged away along the work surfaces, putting distance between himself and the black beast. As he slithered backwards, facing its peculiar eyes, the animal raised its head to reveal the long ivory incisors that curled down from upper jaw over bottom lip. Wet with saliva, they gleamed with carnivorous intent.

"Easy boy, no one's going to hurt you." The Other glanced over his shoulder searching for another exit. A large, storeroom door was about twelve feet away on the other side of the cookers.

The hound flexed its powerful frame, muscles ridging in waves over its hairless back. Scars of pale gray skin twisted with the movement suggesting a violent life in the service of the Champion.

Hands tightening on the knife hilt at the small of his back, the Other decided to cut it deep, if it so much as attempted to anchor a fang into his flesh. The threat of fatal disease was ever present. Rabies was a nightmare.

The dog padded closer. It sensed the rising fear In the Other like the scent of hunted prey in the wind.

The Plaza Protector drew the knife, fingers slipping into the grip, razored edge angled and ready.

A scattering of stones up above made them both hesitate. In unison, animal and man turned to face the swinging door, their confrontation forgotten under the introduction of another presence.

Stones rattled again, followed by the distinct sound of boots on gravel. The footsteps stopped, seemingly overhead.

Ears pricked, the hound listened for the keening signal that told it that its master had returned.

Silence prevailed, marred only by the stifled breathing of the Other and the soft panting of the dog.

Trained to an almost instinctive level of command, the large black brute unexpectedly turned tail and hurtled from the room. Intruder was in its thoughts and attack was in its eerie howling cries as it charged through the main room and up the shattered stone stairs. Reading the dog's interpretation of the situation, the Other followed on its heels. And skidded to a halt, eye frantically searching the cluttered objects for his rifle.

The noise above grew louder as unmistakable curses mixed in with the barking row of the ferocious dog.

Snatching up his weapon, the man checked its load and tore after the animal. Leaping the steps two at a time, he rocketed into the leveled city street like a demon rising from hell. Feet wide, he assumed the solid stance of the Northern Sector Protector, only this time he was freelance and the thought gave him a rushing sense of independent pride.

Against the pearl-like blues and pinks of the blemished sky he saw the beast leaping and clawing in a frenzied attack upon four inferior protectors of the Northern Sector Commune.

For the briefest of moments the Other felt a sinking dread of amazement and fear.

Then he raised the rifle in the fluid movement of the expert mechanic, tucked it well in at his waist and fired off four snap shots that flowered two of the assassins' chests in flaring spurts of red. The other two spun fast, ignoring the dog upon them seeing the object of their mission, and raised their weapons.

"Jaeger and Marcino, I might have guessed you two blood-suckers would have jumped at the chance to step into my shoes!" Eye a hard blue of cold fire, the Other stepped closer to his one-time confederates of the Northern Sector stable.

Behind Jaeger, Marcino clubbed the irritating hound around the head, stunning it to the ground. It whimpered once and lay still, pink tongue curling into the redbrick dust on the hard-top.

Jaeger grinned thinly and flicked his long greasy hair away from his sweating forehead. "You don't scare us any more. You're dead meat to the Plaza; just a means to another end."

"You'll never take me back. I'm a free man. I've chosen to leave, and if you two get in the way, dogging my footsteps, I'll -- " The Other circled away from the steps at his back, eye set on his assailants, as Marcino sniggered menacingly and Jaeger verbally cut him off.

"Plaza doesn't want you back, friend, they have someone a little more special in mind."

"The Champion?"

"You always were bright." Jaeger smiled. "But not bright enough to realize the Plaza let you go."

What? "I walked out, Jaeger. The Plaza doesn't let anyone go; no commune does."

"There's always a first time," whispered Marcino. "And you were it. Like a Judas goat, you thought you'd set off to warn the Champion of his fate, but you really led us right to his doorstep."

The tangled ribbons of thought chased through his mind. "The Champion wouldn't let scum like you two follow him." His fingers tightened on the trigger as the uncertainty of the conversation unnerved him.

Jaeger shuffled forward in his scruffy brown combat suit. "No, he wouldn't; he's too damn good -- better'n you, friend-protector, that's why we want him and rid of you. You don't fit in anymore."

"But you still had your last use," Marcino let the murmured statement hang on the air between them. In his scrawny, dirt-engrained hands was a Valmet rifle. "You led us here without even knowing, you're so dumb. There's an implant in your brain, friend, a homing device. It was fitted by Selkirk last night. You aren't a free man. We knew of your every move since you left -- "

"There's a what?!!" The Other's voice rose in acid fury. Jaeger and Marcino glanced uneasily at each other. A look of unreasoning mania had entered the Other's face. A dangerous rage shuddered through his ramrod stance. "Say again, Jaeger, my friend," came as a hiss of menace.

Feigning a confidence he hardly felt now, Marcino uttered the words again. "An implant in your head, it acts as a kind of tracing device . . . . We followed you until last night, and then the signal wavered and has only worked intermittently ever since. Seems it's malfunctioning for some reason . . . ." His voice trailed away, unsure.

The blow to my head with the metal bar . . . . Jesuschrist, what have they done to me?! "What else has Selkirk and his perverted colleagues planted in me that I should know about?" Snaking forward, he raised his rifle to shoulder height, covering both of them.

Jaeger made to move. The Other was getting too close, but the traveling barrel held him under its black circular stare.

Panicking, he glanced at Marcino. The wizened little man gathered himself for the attack. The rifle came nervously up for a gut shot and the Other blasted him in the forehead, right between the eyes. He was dead before the rifle moved higher than his waist. He dropped like a stone, a tiny hole like a third eye in his surprised features.

Jaeger began to shake, his hands trembled about his gunstock.

"Now then, Jaeger, what else should I know?" The Other smiled in his uneven metalled way, giving the terrified man full sight of his flawed left side.

"Nothing, nothing, there's nothing else implanted in you that I know of." His pulse began to race as the edge of eternity hovered before him in the hands of the Other.

"Are you sure, Jaeger? You seemed to know a lot before." Tell me the truth you bastard -- all of it.

"You know it all . . . . Marcino -- " he swallowed sickly as he glanced at the dust-covered corpse at his feet, " -- Marcino and I used the implant to trace you to the warehouse district. We didn't know you'd met the Champion, but we hoped you'd seek him out for revenge for the night before last . . . . While you were occupying him, we were supposed to capture him and kill you . . . . You'd outlived your usefulness. Selkirk had reported that once he'd planted the thought of freedom, you'd go rogue. And -- " the gun wavered in his grasp as the rifle held a bead on his forehead. "Jesus, have some mercy!" His voice became a whining plea of horror.

"You were saying, Jaeger," prompted the Protector.

"And . . . and then the implant started to cut out on the signal, but when it worked we followed on. Just a few minutes ago the signal went haywire, completely erratic, and then it cut out altogether. We scouted around and found the hole and the steps down. Then . . . then that damn dog appeared and . . . and . . . ." Voice faltering, Jaeger began to back away from the silvered man. "Don't kill me, friend. Show some mercy -- "

"Of the kind you were going to show me, Jaeger? Huh? Shall I show you a reflection of yourself?" The Other took a step closer and matched move-to-move with the retreating assassin. "Kill me and capture the Champion, huh?" He paused, voice turning to a sweetness of a deadly kind.

"Well, I have my own interest in the Champion and don't think I'm going to let some little gutter-rat like you come along and take him. Understand, Jaeger? I'm not all that bright, so correct me if I'm confusing you." The words were becoming more brittle as the Other pressed his advantage over the second-rate protector.

Hypnotized by his own fear, Jaeger continued to stumble backwards over the rubble and twisted piping. He couldn't find the strength to squeeze the trigger and dispatch this inhuman being from his sight.

The cowardly assassin tried for a last desperate defense. "If you kill, me there'll be others who'll come after you from the Plaza. You know that, don't you?" Sweat coursed down his back in a chill slick. "The Plaza wants the Champion, and you're too much of a risk -- an independent protector is unheard of. No lawman is free."

Tight-lipped, the Other narrowed his range again. "This one is, Jaeger, this one is. I'm setting a new precedent."

"They'll trace you! The implant in your brain is a constant link!" His control was dwindling; desperation was replacing it as his cries became louder.

"I'll see to that and all the other bastards in the Plaza. I'm free, Jaeger, free by my choice -- not Selkirk's -- something you'll never have the guts to attempt -- and I aim to stay that way."

"Then you'll be free, but dead!!"

"Who's going to stop me? You?" He sneered disparagingly. "No, not you. You're spineless, always were, that's why I was Commune Protector. The Champion?" His eyes widened in teasing revelation as he continued to hound his victim. "He saved my life last night, Jaeger."

Jaeger stopped dead, fear forgotten briefly as he digested the words. "What? The Champion saved your life? But, you're enemies." Incredulous, he looked the Other up and down. His voice rose in disbelief. "Or, you're a traitor."

"Traitor!" Violent anger suffused the Other's words. "I warned the Champion about the Plaza's latest ideas about acquiring him. Sure, why not? What have I to be grateful to the Plaza for?" His eye flashed bitterly. "Look at me, Jaeger. Selkirk has turned me into an inhuman monster. I have no reason to be loyal to the Northern Sector."

"The Northern Sector is your commune. You must be loyal. No one can survive in safety without a commune."

"I aim to. I'm my own man. I, and only I, decide my fate now. Selkirk isn't going to mutilate me any more." The Other tightened his pressure on the trigger. "And as for you, telling me to be loyal to the Plaza, that's rich! Would you still be telling me that as you executed me for being 'dead meat' on their burdened shoulders? I don't owe them a thing, and they couldn't care shit about me." He took a deep breath. "And I care even less for the cowardly trash that you are, Jaeger, and your kind -- too yellow to come after me alone. You're pathetic . . . ."

The words were spat out with a finality that chilled Jaeger to the core. Berserk with a further frenzied rush of adrenalin, the would-be assassin dived for the ground on the Other's right, and fired a burst of ill-aimed gunfire. The staccato delivery gouged out red dust in knee-high spurts about the Other's feet.

Unflinching, the Other sighted the rifle and fired off one deadly accurate shot. "People die for freedom, Jaeger, and you're going to die for mine. It's too precious a thing to be snatched back by filth like you."

Jaeger's head snapped back with the impact of the slug. His body crumpled into the dust on the road and lay still. The rifle was still clutched to his brown-suited hip and the mask of "kill-or-be-killed" was fixed for all time upon the sightless features of his grimy face.

The Other sighed tiredly, eye averted from the corpse and searching the distant, empty horizon. For seeming miles on all sides, there was nothing but the leveled city blocks.

He bent down and forced the rifle from the locked hands. A weapon of this caliber in the hands of a mutant was too dangerous a thing. Turning his back on the body, he found the dog was up from the dirt, sniffing at the other three dead bodies. It glanced a measured stare of equality at the man, then bent to its task of burying the evidence.

The Other collected the remaining weaponry and descended the steps of the Pits . . . he deserved that can of Coca-Cola, now.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Shoulder brushing the side of a corroding trashcan, the Champion cautiously peered out. The late afternoon sun gave the scene a dull, gray haze similar to a drifting fog from the bay. Under this sky-high canopy, the Territory's soldier of death surveyed the building before him with a meticulous eye for detail. For the past thirty minutes, he'd remained at his post, a still figure of hunched weaponry and leather, body immobile but mind calculating.

How many men? What form of defense, weapons, security? Entrances, exits? Ladders? All these thoughts rattled through his mind in a constant process of rapid evaluation. Senses and brain functions heightened by the drugs gave him a feeling of superiority.

A dark, hooded figure emerged from a pile of shop-front debris over to his left. Sliding around from the other side of the trash can, the Champion watched the figure pause beside a door of studded cedar and check up and down the remains of the wrecked street. Silent buildings with split open innards stretched away on all sides. In random places the stores and offices were completely razed to the ground, but most of the buildings on this block were still standing -- a precarious ruin of single-story facades that all communes had avoided due to the danger of collapse. The goods had been spirited away by the commune locusts who cleaned the areas out of anything useful, once the protectors had secured them. Even the mutants kept clear of the Rosedale district; it was too close to the ruptured cemetery of thrown-up caskets. The quake had unearthed the old dead of L.A., something the living dead found unable to accept. The new mythology termed the area a dead-zone of macabre evil. Many believed it, keeping well clear. Short of homes or not, they'd rather sleep under the sky than tempt fate and live in the desolation of Rosedale.

Now figures similar to the shades of death crawled over the district. They were furtive people of black robes and strange signs. It was as if the ancient brothers of a monastic order had claimed a foothold in the shattered city.

The unknown figure at the foot of the church stairs seemed sure of his isolation and hurried up the steps and rapped sharp1y on the door. As the door opened for a second, the man slipped inside and the Champion caught a glimpse of faint, flickering light.

Snaking backwards on knees and elbows, the Champion shrank into the shadows of a store doorway and rose to his feet. Standing tall, he had a chance to make a further reconnoiter of the building he was about to enter.

An old and dilapidated church of unknown denomination, its windows of stained glass lay like scattered gemstones across the sidewalk where they had crashed years before. In the fading light, the fractured shards sparkled with a kaleidoscopic sinisterness. Once eyes into the house of God, they now stared at the Champion with a knowing glint of his intention. The gaping archways of window frames had been boarded over with anything that would bridge the gaps and keep out the wild mutants and prying eyes.

But not the Champion.

Pulling his gauntlets tight over his flexing hands, he emerged onto the street of lengthening shadows like a wraith from the graveyard. Running a hand over his right bicep, he released the golden armband, reset the aperture and gathered his plaits together across his back. Clamping on the circlet of gold, the blond secured them onto his spine as the band locked onto his armor. Thus, he still had flexibility of movement and little risk of being held from behind. Picking up speed, he dogged silently around the back of the church between its southern wall and a neighboring building.

Hemmed in by the bulging walls of the two structures, the Champion squeezed around the last corner into the back alley and found the rear exit set in the wall several feet away. Stepping over a moldering corpse that had once been an elderly mutant, he crept up to the door and inspected the lock.

Cheap, clumsy workmanship. Disdainfully, he bent the bar out of the rotting wood. The padlock he left dangling. A sharp, hard jolt and the door eased open a crack.

One last glance over his shoulder and he turned his bright eyes toward the interior of the building. The deep yellow glow of candle flames bathed what little he could see in a wash of light: a stone floor and two dark wood pews.

Widening the crack a little more, he slid in like the scent of night through an open window and pushed the door closed behind him.

The low, reverent murmur of voices indicated that the figures were somewhere near the altar of the church, engaged in some form of intense discussion. The Champion trod quietly over the floor from behind the pillar that masked the alcove from the nave. As he moved across the rear of the church, he came in sight of the central aisle. What he saw stopped him dead.

An enormous effigy of the Territory Protector was being levered into position where the altar had once stood.

Unprepared for the sacrilegious sight, the Champion ducked low between the two rear pews and watched the strange tableau before him.

The unnervingly accurate statue of himself was being settled into its new home by several black-robed beings whose red eyes glowed with unholy rapture as the stone ground to a halt. Ropes running from the statue's upper torso were loosed by the men on ladders resting against the back wall. The tackle snapped up into the air, like flicked ribbons, then slipped free of the block and fell to the ground. With haste, several men at the statue's huge feet bent to the task of clearing away the heavy-duty equipment.

"Beautiful, Stephen. Simply beautiful." Jude hugged himself under his robes, arms buried deep into the vast sleeves. "Such might and power . . . definitely the finest example for the New Image."

The figure called Stephen placed the metal lever in his hand against a front pew and stepped back to admire the brotherhood's workmanship. Flawless in its creation, the statue glowered down on them, its hand raised in benediction, the other resting on a gunstock. The eyes were blue zircons, the hair beaten plaits of gold thread. The leather suit was a weaving of jade slivers so thin they could be bent to hug the polished stone of the body.

Awed before their newly raised graven image, the Brothers stood under the idol's gaze in breathless pride.

"Peter won't expect him to be placed; it'll be a wonderful surprise for him upon his return." Jude took several steps backwards and settled down in a left-hand pew. The other figures either followed suit or sank down to their knees where they were.

"Such strength, one only has to look at him. The New Image is the right one, my brothers. The mighty will triumph in this New Society. He is the model for our future, an example to be followed."

Stephen clasped his hands together in a fervent desire to communicate his joy at their new god. "And followed he will be. Everything is ripe for the new religion. A whole generation will rush to follow his ways, adopt his beliefs, and live by his methods."

Jude pushed back his hood, bald head shining in the candles' glow, his red eyes lit with a spark from within. "The young will swarm to his feet, Stephen. We won't have to go out and witness, they'll be clamoring at our door."

Collecting himself together, the Champion hunkered down to think.

Climbing to his feet, he stepped into the central aisle, the cold air of the vaulted roof raising gooseflesh over his body. The red carpet deadened his tread as he came forward like some ancient avenger.

A figure near the feet of the statue caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced back, did a double take, and fell to his knees, pointing at the approaching man. His white lips moved but no sound came out. The Brothers. turned, save one.

Jude felt the chill touch of fear shiver through him. He sensed the approach of something menacing even before he turned to face it.

The Champion halted ten feet away, golden tips pealing with a hollow echo in the stone building.

"The Champion!" Jude let out the involuntary gasp and shot to his feet, black robes dusting the floor.

"Religion is a punishable offense." The Champion uttered the words of charge in a flat whisper. "The punishment is death."

Jude made to speak a word of welcome, but closed his mouth to a thin crease, then said, "Death, Champion? You'd kill your worshipful followers? I think you are acting in haste." He indicated the nervous brotherhood with a white hand. "These are yours to command. We believe in your methods: the mighty will survive the weak, power gives security. And that is what this commune wants -- the untapped devotion of the youth in the other communes, backed by the philosophy of the ultimate survivor -- you."

The Champion set his jaw in a grimace of suspicion and raked his eyes across his "worshipful followers."

Stephen stepped to Jude's shoulder. "You will come to us once we have the strength of numbers behind us. All children search for a cause, an answer to life and the way to lead it. We're going to show them the way, and you are our model of excellence. The young already aspire to your position of wealth and status in the Commune. They want to be like you. If they follow us they can live in your image . . . ." Turning away, he looked devotedly at the statue. "Of course, if we had you physically with us, the task would be more than complete. Have you any idea how unswerving the minds of the young can be once they have a cause, a belief, to cling to? We can capitalize on that. All the fresh skills and loyalty will come to us. We won't need an army of protectors to keep our commune in line -- a religious faith will suffice. Believe, conform, or be damned to an eternal hell of ex-commune society -- the real living hell. But if they kneel at your worthy feet, they can be free under your protection. You have shown us the way to follow; we adopt it to our very souls . . . ."

Swirling the wool of his cloak, Stephen spun back to meet the hard eye line of the armored man. "Understand? An ancient dictator of an old war used a Youth Movement to great benefit. He almost won. Where he failed, we will succeed. Our rise will be unparalleled, a leviathan of people, all with the right of their religion to guide them. The other communes will die out overnight."

The Champion listened in a deadened state of disbelief. It was all planned with himself as the focal point. No one had mentioned the fact that he belonged to another commune altogether.

"You don't own me, yet. What if I choose to stay with the Territory? What then? No Champion, no religion." His chin came up defiantly, eyebrows raised in challenge.

"Religion, or undying devotion doesn't need the physical presence of the individual involved. Many people have been discovered to be worth more dead than alive." Jude's voice rose with excitement. "It's the image that counts; it was always the image. Remember in the Time Before how important that was? Well, we think we've found the right image in you. Dead or alive, it doesn't matter." He smiled good-humoredly. "Of course, alive would be preferable. You could actually speak with the youngsters. Show them your methods. Train them to a powerful army, united as one in your name!"

The assembled brotherhood nodded enthusiastically as they were swept along on the tides of inspiration.

The Champion thought he 'd seen all types of corrupt humankind, but this nest of infected madmen surpassed the rest. Unable to find the words of counter-argument, his eyes strayed to features of his own stone image.

Follow my methods toward a stronger, better life. He grinned mirthlessly, which caused a ripple of assumed approval to pass among the devout men. If only you knew why I'm here. My price of loyalty is a packet of heroin or seven doses of LSD. A real fine example for the New Image.

Pair after pair of red mutant eyes stared at their new messiah with a vulturesque expectancy, hands clasped tightly in a tense readiness for prayer. Through his distance vision, the Champion slowly searched each face. Spare, bland, and demented. Their ivory skins gleamed from the exertion of maneuvering the statue, and the pig-eyes sunken in the dark circles of their lashless lids were locked onto the object of their desire.

He could smell the sickly scent of their pheromones of lust for him under the coarse, woolen robes.

Animals -- reasoning with the obtuse power of the dangerously insane. "The image of the Time Before is past. Religion is against the Law and organized religion is anathema to the New Society!" His voice became hard and edged, no more allowances. A false air of tolerance permeated the atmosphere between the Champion and the Brothers.

Jude smiled with a broad row of broken, yellowed teeth through lips of paper whiteness.

"Champion, a religion needs a messiah -- a focal point. Our New Image needs a martyr." His voice took on the hint of underlying, concentrated menace. "We would prefer you alive -- for a time." In unison the brothers spread out in a clean, simple move of smoothness that neatly covered the Champion on all sides. Their viewpoint shifted from the crazed adoration of the green-leathered man before them to a point beyond. Only Jude held the Champion's gaze.

"It would have been nice to have you with us physically and spiritually, but I see you cannot see reason." Abruptly, the tone changed, becoming curt. "You are a blindly ignorant fool, Champion. Faith is the single most powerful factor in any religion. Tap into that well in the young and we will be invincible. Nothing can stand against faith. It was Gamaliel who once said: Refrain from these men and let them alone, for, if this counsel or this work be of men it will come to naught. But if it be of God you cannot overthrow it. Acts 5 verses 38-39."

Several brothers nodded in agreement and shuffled a little further toward the slayer of the Territory. A barely audible, high-pitched hum issued from the encroaching beings. The Champion flickered a warning gaze and halted their approach. Jude raised an emaciated arm, sleeve falling back, and pointed directly at the man before them.

"You, Champion, are the god of our New Image. Nothing will be able to stop the tidal wave of youth's devout belief. In you we have our new messiah!" His thin, reedy voice rose in a cracked cry of ardor. The constant humming increased In volume.

Irritated, the Champion scowled darkly with an intense hatred of their corrupt philosophy. You repel me. All of you -- with your perverted religion. "There is no more religion." Somehow, his voice was husky with the physical nausea of them. "You forget the Law and I am the executor of that Law. Not some new messiah of debauched fantasy!" -- He leveled the Magnum at Jude's head -- "I have the right to Protect and Serve this New Society."

And Jude laughed.

It hit the Champion like a taunting blow of ridicule. The red eyes flashed with a malevolent glee.

"Oh, my pathetically duped Champion, do you really wish to preserve the fabric of this New Society?" Scrawny hands made an expansive gesture of deprecation the length of the lawman's torso. "Look at yourself! You are the best we can offer -- a junkie-slayer of inhuman magnitude whose hands are never washed clean of one being's blood before he saturates them with another's!" He took a defiant step forward, unheeding the aimed weapon as though sure of the man before him. "And you have the audacity to come here and pass judgment on us." Sneering, he took in the assembled Brothers around him. "You couldn't care a damn for the New Society or the Law. What you care about is where your next fix is coming from! Isn't that right, Champion?"

The humming became a distracting drone to his highly tuned sense of hearing. As the rising pitch pierced his auditory perception, a forgotten thought wearily raised itself to his consciousness.

I used to care. You'll never know how much I once cared. But I'm still the lawman of this new world. "The rules are the rules. I enforce them and the punishment is and always will be death." A darkness came over his willingness to see or hear reason. "The New Image is doomed before it even begins."

As one, the disciples keened out one long penetrating note.

"We said before, we would prefer you with us, Champion, but you have seen fit to move against us -- it does not matter. All religions need a martyr and you, Dealer of Death, will be ours."

The eye-line of Jude broke from the level hold of the Champion's and affixed itself to something at the rear of the church. The howling brotherhood followed suit, eyes shining with devout relief.

The Champion pulled in on the Magnum trigger and stopped. The whole eerie atmosphere of prevalent evil suddenly increased and crawled over his back with a caressing touch of capture. Stiffening with the vibrant sensation, the Champion pivoted slowly, leather creaking, to face the end of the nave.

Hanging in lonely solitude was a huge ebony cross. It dominated the southern wall, suspended there with ancient chains bolted into the roof beams.

"All it needs is the martyr." A voice of assured calm issued from the western alcove.

The Champion spun to cover the alcove while his mind wrestled with the awareness that the New Image was ready for their very own crucifixion. The dark seemed impenetrable as he fought to pierce into the gloom and see the newcomer.

The Brothers relaxed at the sound of the voice and turned in deferent abeyance towards its source. Several dropped their heads in reverent fealty.

The Champion eased himself into the mouth of the nearest pew in an attempt to get the brethren before him.

From the black recess stepped an older, more commanding figure of dark red eyes and ivory skin. He, too, wore the dark robes of the Order, and it was abundantly clear that this was the leader of the New Image.

"Jude gave you an excellent explanation of our motives, Champion, and you have stubbornly sought to ignore the reasoning behind it."

Peter sauntered across the nave and stroked the wood of the cross guilefully. "A great, great pity. You could have been a mighty asset to us alive. Still, we have taken your stupid, misguided loyalty into consideration." Sighing with a burdensome weariness, he moved across the flagstones and gave his undivided attention to the object of their religion.

Eye to eye, the Champion made a swift assessment that this was the man to fear, to be wary of.

"We'll keep you for a decent length of time. Let the young think you've set out on your own to found the New Image, then when they're just about to flock to us in their hundreds, you'll be discovered symbolically crucified for your beliefs." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, eyes beseeching the Champion in mock sympathy. "Your Owners, having persecuted you for your betrayal of the Territory, wreak their revenge in the most brutal method possible." His chest rose rapidly with the thrill of the description. "Just imagine it, Champion. The Commune will fall, its children will come to u,; and all we shall have done is killed you."

The last word echoed through the blond killer's head in a ringing rhyme that threatened his invincibility. Youyouyouyou . . . . He shook himself mentally and found that while he'd been absorbed by Peter, the disciples had reformed with a silent insidious efficiency. Encircled again.

"You see, we don't actually need you -- just your image." Peter finished his speech with a smile of self-righteous confidence, as from under his robe he produced a dart-gun and shot the Champion in the chest.

The dart made a soft hissing noise as it exploded from the barrel to embed itself up to the flight in the flesh of the Territory Protector.

Ohgod! NO! Inhaling deeply, the Champion raised a gauntleted hand and twisted the dart free, dropped it to the cold, stone floor and ground it underfoot. But even he could not stay the slight shine of fear in his blue eyes. Wild blue of a storm. What have you shot me with? How long have I got before I go under? He aimed the huge Magnum. "I claim my right as executioner." Slugs cut a swathe through the nearest group of disciples. "Die you bastards! Die!"

Hell of the most unholy kind broke out as screaming bodies jack-knifed over the pews to lie in gutted tatters. The rest took up a united cry of desperation as their "god" reloaded in seconds, ready to mow down the next attackers.

Diving for cover, Jude and Stephen rolled for the protection of the statue, landing up against the dais in a frantic scramble of arms and legs. As they hauled themselves to a standing position, the customized gun hacked them into fragments over the idol's stone boots, wool and blood splattering in a fountainous spray over the others as they tried to get away.

The wailing hum became a scream of sheer terror as the Champion meted out his own brand of justice. Crouching low behind the pew, he reloaded yet again with a cool efficiency that made Peter's blood petrify in his veins. The man was a killer of obsessive qualities that gave him the edge of determination over the rest. Kneeling up, the Territory man rested the barrel of the gun on the carved wooden back of the pew in front, and picked off the frantically scrambling Brothers as they tried to get past his range of death.

In the confusion and panic of the first onslaught, Peter had simply stood, paling face a mask of disbelief, as the dart was crushed and the object of their New Image calmly began to shoot anything that moved. Hands shaking with a palsy-like terror, the leader of the Brothers flung himself into the pews toward the back of the church and crawled toward the far wall. Fumbling under his robe, he searched for another dart. Uncooperative fingers tried repeatedly to load up the single chamber. As he clicked home the breech, the body of an already dying brother tumbled with a giant's force over the pew protecting him and lay before him in a heap of arms, legs, and robe. The red eyes turned with bewildered horror towards Peter.

"How can this be, Peter?" The ashen lips bubbled up with red as his last whispers came forth. "You said he would willingly come to us." A choking cough racked his riddled frame and flecked Peter's sweat-slicked face. As the spasm passed, Peter closed the staring eyes with a swift angry abruptness.

"The bastard got lucky, Nathan. He just got lucky." Squirming over the body, he continued toward the aisle and risked a peek at the action.

In the nave of the church, the Champion was being true to his word. He dealt out the justice and when he said death, he meant it. Anybody who dared to show for a second received a thunderous volley of slugs. Standing on the seat of the pew, the tall blond seemed like a pale shadow of his own enormous image before him. Giant figure to giant figure, the statue and the man cast their shadows of menace over the bleeding congregation. As the zircon eyes in the stone face of the New Image god stared down on the destruction, so the eyes of the Champion became glazed with the euphoric high of killing -- the dealing of Life and Death and the rising pressure of the drug of the dart. Mixed in with the Protector's own narcotic cocktail, the tranquilizer conspired with his impure blood and caused an intense awareness to prevail in his muscled frame. Sharp beyond his normal mental grasp, the Champion saw the church tableau as clear as truth. Through the facade, he witnessed the rife evil of the rising New Image. In its Brothers he saw it. In its treacherous leader he knew of it. And under the crazed effigy of himself he tried to dispense with it.

Satisfied with his lightningly fast handwork, he ran forward across the backs of the pews in an agile display of speed, dropping cat-like to the floor. A quick look told him that many of the Brothers would never kneel to a god again. Blanched faces of frozen horror stared at him from cowls of black wool. Many still with the threatening expression of beatific vision that held the chilling spark of besotted devotion and murderous desire. He would have been their living god at the very least. At the very most, he would have been their martyred messiah. The sure security of religion-based power. Unstoppable. Unlimited.

Whirling around, the Champion rested his leather back against the stone leg of the statue, and waited for the spiraling cordite to clear from the air. Hardly panting with the previous seconds' effort, he took in a wide panorama of the nave with the Magnum snugly secure in his handlock. Nothing stirred save for the faint moans of the wounded.

The eerie candle glow painted the church walls with the tall wavering shadows of a puppet theatre. Silhouettes rose and fell in the far pews. Squinting into the gloom, the Champion sought the one black robe he desired most -- that of the leader. A shadow became shorter on the western wail indicating the direction of travel of a man as he progressed nearer the end of the rows of seats.

The Magnum rose to cover the far aisle as the Champion focused in that sector of the church.

Robes flapping in a flurry, a Brother made a sudden attack from the Champion's left, the hands lifted high for a downward swing of a heavy crowbar. His screeching cry shattered the stunned silence under the vaulted ceiling. Sandals pounding over the stone floor, the frenzied creature launched itself up the altar steps. Its nasty eyes flashed with a hateful fury, its pale lips curled back over the rotten, pointed teeth as the spittle of his cry splashed over the Champion.

Rolling away, the armored man raised a protective left forearm and took the blow from the iron bar on his armored shoulder. The dull thud of studded leather and iron connecting told of the bone-jarring impact. As the Brother leaped back for the next swing, the Champion snatched a hold of the bar, gave it a sharp pull and push, and released the attacker's hold. As the Brother's wretched hands slid free of the end, he was caught off balance. The Protector grinned in a limited way, his eyes betraying his scorn of the attack, and with a blur of speed in one deftly accurate blow, he smashed the skull with the newly acquired metal bar. The convulsing body of woolen cloth suddenly became a leaden heap at his feet; the crowbar clattered to the stone floor.

The Champion made to return to his previous vantage point only to see that the New Image leader was throwing caution to the wind and making a bolt for the rear exit. As the Protector raised his gun, the escaping man faltered and finally stopped. He turned around to face the Champion.

"Well," Peter began with as much casualness as he could muster, "kill me. That's all you're good for." Nervously, he licked his parched lips and mouth. "Butcher me like you have your faithful followers."

Through a cordite-laced nave came the sound of hollow laughter. The sound was of stilted mirth and chilled Peter to the absolute core. It was the laughter of a despairing soul caught in a living bad joke. The Champion's face had turned the color of a remembered grave.

"My faithful?" Stepping with the right of a victor, he made his way up the central aisle, gun never leaving the target of the heart on the chest of the man against the wall. Leather soles padded over the splinters of wood and stone caused by the rapid volleys of moments earlier. His hips swayed with the controlled length of a measured pace. The Northern Territory's soldier of death neared the darkened pews like a silent wraith, and out of the thin mists of candle smoke, incense, and cordite, he emerged.

Swallowing down his fear, Peter pressed himself into the very cracks in the church walls. As the killer of his brotherhood approached, his shadow lengthened until it towered against the back altar wall, as tall and domineering as the statue itself.

"Don't make me kill you, Peter, with the sound of my laughter in your ears." The hammer clicked back on the Magnum. "You see, I want you to die with the truth ringing in your ears, you evil scum, and it's the least funny thing I've heard since the roar of The End." A tightly controlled fury coated every soft word.

"You, Peter, are the Devil's own leech on society. You'd suck the New Society dry of its youth and resources for a brutal code of ethics that would drag us even lower . . . ."

Peter's quivering face of fear wavered out of focus and back. The Champion hesitated in his speech of judgment as a sudden deadness overcame his focus on the church and his victim. A weakness cut away his stance of command, and he sank to the hard stone floor with a slow rustle of creaking armor and weaponry. A sick lurch of panic coursed through him, settling in the pit of his stomach in a nagging lump.

Tilting his head up, the Champion saw the tentative approach of the reprieved man become bolder every second. An almost hysterical expression of relief and triumph on the leader's face exchanged places with the ghostly mask of imminent bloody death. As Peter squeezed between the pews toward the prone man in the center aisle, his hands rose to his mouth to smother a cry of victory. His gnarled hands clamped down on his next words, too excited was he at his turn of good fortune.

Red eyes racing over the church, the leader of the New Image looked for any living ally to come forward to share in his triumph.

"Come out, my Brothers! Stand tall." He cast a hand over the semi-conscious Protector. "We have our messiah." His volume rose with his relief. "Did I not promise him to you? The New Image will become the new power of this age! We have him . . . ." Peter bent close, his infected breath drifting in warm gusts over the Champion's face. " . . . We have his image."

The reeling twist in his vision caused the Champion to see a multiplicity of shocked and battered Brothers rising from behind pews and pillars. On a distant trace of sound came the hypnotic hum.

Three Brothers wandered apprehensively up to the Champion. Their eyes were riveted to the figure; none spared a glance at their leader who shone with the sweat of fear and success. Five pews away they paused and sank to their knees, hands clasped in prayer for their deliverance from death into the religion of the future.

"Pray my Brothers, pray. Power is ours for the taking. No longer will we be the deprived, the neglected, the dominated. Now it is our turn to draw in the threads of real undying power -- that of religious faith. This man, this Champion over all, is our key to that door. Two months from now we can unlock that portal and for all the time of the New Society, the New Image will reign supreme!!" With a cry of manic jubilation, Peter threw back his arms and screamed out an unintelligible litany in hysterical tongues. As one, the Brothers turned their ivory faces toward the towering statue and babbled forth a similar string of incomprehensible noises.

The sudden release from the cacophony of slug-biting death and the restraint of the Protector unhinged their already tenuous hold on reality. Their droning wail became the chatter of tongues and Peter stepped astride the Champion, a further sign of his conquest. His long skirts swirled over the studs on the combat suit.

From the low angle of the floor, the Champion tried to make sense of receding cognizance. Peter's words penetrated his mind with a lethargic slowness he'd only previously experienced on a bad mix of narcotics. Rolling his head back, he gazed up at the invigorated leader. Sweat dripped from his chin and spattered the Champion's cheek. Sedated, he heard little of the row and only barely managed to see the grotesque spectacle.

But his sixth sense of self-preservation spoke a multitude.

Through every pore he became aware of the dangerous turn of events. It ate into the numbness of his being and stimulated the last vestige of his consciousness into rallying his waning strength. A meager ration of energy. It was all he needed.

Shuddering with the effort, he sluggishly raised his gun hand from the ground and pulled the trigger. The single burst ripped away most of Peter's left leg below the knee. The roar of the gun silenced the babble of tongues as if he'd raised the stylus from a warped record. Brothers, who moments earlier had thought they were saved, scattered into the recesses of the church. Only the writhing body of Peter remained.

"Help me!" A cry for pity. Heaving sobs rang after the retreating Brothers from the thin lips of their leader. "I'm going to die! Come back and help me!"

With exaggerated care, the Champion crawled up into a slumped crouch and reloaded the gun in a befuddled haze. Only yards away lay his enemy, and yet he couldn't seem to get the reloading done fast enough to finish the job. His vision shifted and changed so that he thought he saw several pairs of hands snatch up the bleeding body of the leader and drag it away behind the pews. Panicked footsteps clattered over the floor in a noisy rhythm of retreat, but from below the wooden seating he had no sight of them.

Got to get out . . . got to finish them off . . . reload . . . reload . . . can't see, hear . . . can't function . . . got to get away . . . safety . . . at least I wounded the sonofabitch . . . . Not many left . . . he'll probably die . . . . Pick the rest off later . . . later . . . later . . . feel better . . . . Feel sick . . . sick . . . so sick . . . . Got to get out . . . mustn't pass out . . . not here . . . not here . . . they'll come back . . . . So sick . . . .

A dark red trail of thickly cloying blood led away from the main church doors and into the night. It splashed and dripped its way over lumps of concrete and splintered timber with an irregularity that lead the ashen-featured Champion to believe the retreat had been frantic, unplanned, and hasty. No careful plotting of paths here. No organized secure pattern of withdrawal. The blood was flung out everywhere. The few Brothers who could still crawl had fled, taking Peter with them. His blood was a sign of their passing and the Champion's wrath.

Jude was right; he spilled blood without feeling or compassion. He was the ultimate killer.

Steadying himself against the cedar doorjamb, the Protector stared after the thread of Peter's life. Thirty feet and it was gone, swallowed up in the deepening shadows of the day and the ruins of the city. It had been a messy, clumsy job. He'd been slow, too willing to listen, too stupid to see the ensnaring trap creeping around him. He almost didn't complete the contract. Peter had had him cold . . . .

An icy draught swept over him and he shivered despite the leather suit.

Magnum still locked into his grip, he unclasped his braids and refastened the armlet around his bicep while raising his gaunt face toward the street. Scrutinizing every possible hiding place, he satisfied himself that the street was safe. The collapsing facades, the ruptured roadway, the stagnant piles of rotten refuse and scavenged remains, all lay before him with a permanent depressed solidarity. Nothing changed for the better . . . only the worse. No improvements here. Nothing was going to save the city now. Certainly not the New Image; he'd seen to that -- just. But the job was done.

Taking the steps slowly with a deliberate tread, he fought back the sense of lethargy and sickness, and descended down onto street level. A weariness caused by the dart gave him the smooth motion of a somnambulist. His plaits hung heavily over his back, toneless notes of another meeting with Death. Without a backwards glance at the carnage in the church, his leaden footsteps carried him away from the house of the one-time Supreme Being.

As he picked his way over the pavement, he sensed the slight movement of something behind him. Careful not to betray his knowledge of the being, the Territory Protector lengthened his stride and dropped with a snap of speed into the remaining stairwell of a one-time basement apartment. The building had long since disintegrated to well below street level, leaving a flattened, yawning waste between its neighbors to the next street beyond. Yet the steps and railings still remained.

Peering through the eroding iron bars, his eyes on level with the street, the Champion watched with an intense interest the activity occurring away to his left. The deep blue eyes probed the street as his automatic training overrode his doped condition, and his body readied for another confrontation.

A mound of seeming refuse shifted minusculy as with an uncanny soundlessness three scarcely human mutants uncoiled themselves from one another. So bizarre in their deformities were they that the watcher could hardly tell if they were male or female. Obviously legless, they used their stumps to thrust themselves over the sidewalk in a snake-like squirm. Wriggling from side to side, their arms lurched forward in a landlocked butterfly stroke to brush aside anything that would block their way or force them to raise their bellies from the dust. The object of their jerky crawl was the trail of freshly spilled blood. As they neared the steps they sniffed at the splotches with increased movement, heads swayed back and forth in an effort to determine the direction of the next splash.

The Champion watched with semi-objectiveness. His features remained deadpan, as if the unearthly sight after the staged action inside the church was too much for his drained mind to take.

The foremost figure reached out a limb of lumpy, speckled gray flesh and lifted up a single scarlet drop on the end of a stubby digit. A pale pink tongue slowly poked its way out from between the creature's tiny, pointed teeth and licked up the drop with a sensuousness that stirred a feeling of repugnance in the blond.

The creature savored the taste of Peter with a delighted relish. Its tongue curled back into its mouth and it twisted over to face the other two pairs of mutant eyes and spat out a distortion of language. The Champion assumed it had spoken words of approval as the other two suddenly descended upon the trail of blood. As they followed it, licking up splash after scarlet splash, they edged up the steps to the church.

The Champion watched indifferently. They were another type of mutant he hadn't seen before, but with the thoroughness of past experience he stored away all that he saw. He would be ready for them in the future. Finally, he turned to descend the steps and leave. His contract was for the extermination of the New Image, not for the random culling of new breeds. He did only what he was told. His shoes padded down the crumbling steps, but not softly enough. A heel crunched a trace of grit making the sound of sandpaper on stone.

Three gray-speckled heads spun back, eyes engorged and staring directly at the Champion. Hearing as acute as sonar allowed them to focus in on him. They stared in interest. New blood perhaps . . . ?

The Champion saw that his Magnum was empty and stiffly detached it; sliding it into the holster, he withdrew the barbed knife in one fluid movement. As his back tensed up for action, the gold pendants rang a chorus of high-pitched notes.

Their heads held high, the three mutants turned this way and that, ears straining for further noise. The Champion remained still, matching stare for stare -- until he was sure they were blind.

Then they heard the soft song of his ceremonial braids.

Lumbering backwards, they slithered up the steps, heads bobbing in frantic, irregular movements as they sought the sounds of the dreaded Protector. He was out there in the dark, watching them. They hadn't sensed him as they had slid out of their nest. Fear propelled them into the sanctuary of the church. As they felt the temperature drop of the interior, the three creatures scurried away to fresh hiding places.

There's no sanctuary there, not now, my fearful mutants. Just more remains to be buried. My mark of passing . . . . The Champion shrugged, suddenly tired of the day. Go and enjoy yourselves. Feed on them, they were of no use to anyone else . . . . It's a dog-eat-dog world -- literally. I don't blame you. I just pity you.

Turning away, he re-sheathed the knife and continued down the steps.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

PART II B