by BEANO SMART

ART by FRODSHAM McCLOUD

PART II A

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

BUT THEN FACE TO FACE.

When man first ran like lemmings for the gold fields in the Yukon, the rest of the world looked on with envy or condescending boredom. Always man will grub, claw, and break his back for the treasures of the earth. Today, in the City, man still exists, chasing after the treasures of the old society, but now it is not gold or diamonds that are desired . . . .

The thin fingers of a tiny lonely girl delicately picked at the faded, shabby dress on her thin body, bored. Already wary of the menacing hound that lived in the earth in this sector, she'd crawled into a packing crate, where she was now hiding, upon hearing the report of the gunshots and the howl of the dog.

And then she heard the almost forgotten sound of a thrown can striking the ground. Her head snapped around in the crate and she crept out to cautiously approach the source.

Bare feet tripping over the uneven road, she climbed a heap of bricks and timber to stop in stunned amazement. A tall man with long, dark, curly hair was standing with the dog near to the steps of the underground domain. She knew who was supposed to live in that hole: the Champion of the Territory. Many times around low fires the other non-commune dwellers had told strange and horrifying stories about the tall blond killer with the gold-tipped hair. She'd listened, eyes wide, mouth hanging loose, until her mind could no longer cope with the tension and alarm. Then, she'd bolt away into the night, terrified of every shadow and faint noise, sure that all the Demon Protectors pursued, led by that man in green. Limbs trembling, she would finally collapse onto the old sacking in the corner of a broken-down schoolroom and cry herself to sleep.

Recently, she'd felt compelled by her childish curiosity for the macabre to see for herself the strange Protector. Was he really tall? Did his face turn men to stone? Were the rats his to command? And was his hair really tipped in gold -- a clasp for ten men's wasted lives.

But the hound had frightened her off the first day, and since then she'd kept her distance. Until now. The tinkling sound of a can meant only one thing to her: food. Food of a kind told of in legend. Meat. Fish. Vegetables . . . and all edible. A man would sell his soul for one can of food.

She'd decided straightaway to find the tossed-aside can because of the slim chance of lickings left inside. And the metal itself would be of value to the group of people she roamed with.

She did not expect to see the dark-haired man at all. She'd half-prepared herself for the sight of the Champion and the fierceness of the dog, but not this man.

As she neared him, he turned to face her. The light wind caught his curls and blew them lazily around his head. In the milky pink sunset he seemed to be enveloped in a mist. The dog growled thickly from its throat, and trotted around to fix her with its albino eyes. Rooted to the spot, the girl stood trembling. The sight of his partially metalled body made her swallow slowly. He was surely one of the beings that New Medicine doctors had practiced upon -- she'd never seen one before. As the wind dropped, so the long curls fell away from his face and she saw the inlaid silver and the flaccid eye socket.

Involuntarily, she caught her breath. The last rays of the sun glinted off a gold shield on his chest. And she saw that he was another commune protector. She'd heard other stories late at night of another protector who was kept hidden in the Plaza. A man of metal. This must be him. And if this was him, where then was the Champion? Her mind raced and made the wrong assumption: the Other must have killed the Champion. The Territory was now without its tall killer, slain in his own home. And this new champion was about to lead the hordes of Northern Sector men against the affluent Territory.

Horrified, she began to back away. Her dirty black hair began to stick to her face and neck in thin strands, caught by the sweat. If he's on a mission, he'll kill any witnesses. She didn't want to die. Her sobs came forth in a blubbering wail.

The Other was almost as transfixed as the girl. He hadn't seen a child in months. "Come closer." Please don't run away from me. His voice rang out hollowly.

The girl brought her filthy hands up to her face in dread. A torrent of tears ran down her thin cheeks as her bony chest heaved with sobs.

Oh, no, don't cry. "I said, come closer. I want to speak to you." The Other raised a hand in friendship, the leather of his suit squeaking as he moved.

The little girl shook her head, her voice lost.

The man nodded encouragingly and motioned the dog to sit down. But still the child remained where she stood.

The man decided to try another approach. "What brought you here, child? Don't you know who lives here?"

Somehow, that got through the terror and she nodded.

"Aren't you frightened of him? Aren't you scared of the Territory Protector?" He was puzzled as to why a child should approach the hidden home of the Champion. I suppose she heard he was gone -- out somewhere, and she tried to scavenge something of his resources. It must take some courage to come here.

He took a step toward her, unhurried, calm. Her eyes widened. "What is it you want? Food? Clothes?"

As he drew to a halt, his boot touched the ringpull can and nudged it on a few inches. The empty tumbling sound drew her eyes to the rare treasure. Guilty, she looked away from it, already realizing she had betrayed herself.

Without taking his eyes off her, he bent down and picked it up. He'd enjoyed drinking the Coke; after all, he'd deserved it. The rich taste had been almost too much for him after years of inferior foods. The unique flavor still lingered on his tongue. Fingering the can thoughtfully, he suddenly held it out to the child.

"Here, this is what you want; come and take it."

It was almost as if he'd held out the poisoned apple to Snow White. The child paled and began to visibly tremble. She saw his face close up and realized for the first time that the horror stories were true. Shuddering, she forced her feet to move away from the Other.

Jumping forward, the Other covered the ground between them before she could scramble away into the evening. He snatched at her frail frame and caught a hold of her painfully thin right arm. His strong grip made her cry out in distress, and she began to fight him hysterically. Arms, legs, fingernails, and teeth, all flew at him in blind frenzy as she fought for her life.

The Other held her, eye sad with the pain of her fear of him -- not her physical attack.

Swallowing, he found his voice, too. "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you. Here, take the can. You can have it."

She sank her teeth into his wrist, chipping a tooth on a hidden metal strip. The impact made her flinch back.

"Here, take it! I don't want it." He pushed the can at her chest too roughly. Her shaking hands rose to protect herself and she somehow found herself with the can. His vice-tight grip on her arm slackened and she was free.

Surprise made her totter backwards, eyes unblinking. Unsure, she hesitated in her chance to flee.

"D-d-don't kill me, mister. Please." Her pale lips wavered and he saw the chipped front tooth.

Even when I help them, I hurt them . . . . "I won't kill you." He sounded tired. "Go away, hide it well. It could fetch a high price."

Without warning, the sharp intense pain pierced his skull again. The shock made him sink to the ground before her, and just for a moment he smelled the scent of fresh straw and saw the frightened face of another young girl in a cap and zip jacket. So familiar, he ought to know.

A fair-haired man, dressed all in black, appeared to be worriedly chewing on a straw beside him.

The migraine peaked and passed, and the Other found himself on hands and knees in the dry earth. He forced his eye open and saw the bare feet of the little girl. They shifted uneasily, wanting to run yet compelled to stay by the change of events. Slowly, he raised his head and managed a crouched sitting position.

The girl watched curiously as his deep blue eye rose to meet hers. He was paler, and the skin adjoining the edges of the inlaid silver became red and inflamed.

A small voice said, "I don't like you, mister. You're strange." Her face held a fresh revulsion and pity. "I think you're mad."

Clutching the can, she turned and ran. In seconds she was gone, dodging through the evening like a rabbit for a bolt-hole.

The Other staggered up to his feet. He looked about him for the rifle that had sprung loose from the holster. Securing it back to his leg, he glanced up to see how far she had gone. A faint rise of dust on the horizon showed her path.

He brushed the dust free from his knees with indifference and retraced his steps. The huge black dog rose to its feet and sniffed his legs as he passed by. It knew he was leaving. Calmly, it trotted down the steps to return to its position, on guard. It had worked well today; the Champion would be pleased.

The Other set off across the desolation into the creeping fog from the bay, smoky slate fog that seemed to cloy the air. He had an appointment with a certain Commune leader that needed to be met on his terms. A feeling of rancor made him go back. He wanted to repay the Plaza for all its human kindness in a way they'd never forget, or possibly live through.

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

A thickset creature of the night smiled gleefully at his catch. Sheathing the homemade knife he had constructed from a shard of glass and a piece of wood bound in rough denim, he prized the red and white can out of the thin fingers that held it in a death lock. With no further glance at the tiny corpse, the huge mutant tossed the can into the air and caught it skillfully. Such a rare find. What a kid was doing with it, he didn't know or care. He'd just acquired his meal ticket into a commune.

Tenderly, he unwrapped the spherical object at his feet by folding back the rags with great care. Casting a couple of furtive glances over his broad shoulders, he made sure the coast was clear, then tucked the can into the hollow of a silver helmet. Swiftly, he rewrapped the two treasures as a thrill swept through his tough hide. Tonight he would sleep within the safe walls of the Territory. And once they heard the story behind the helmet he'd salvaged from the debacle at the warehouse, the Owners may even present him with a real knife.

And just think of the expert killing he could do then.

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

A wizened old man raised his arthritic hand to the polished padlock on the western gate chain, to turn the key once and seal the Territory down for the night. It had been his responsibility ever since he joined the Commune shortly after The End, and he had never failed to make the gate fast at the exact same time every night. He turned his crag-lined face toward the central government house whose tower could plainly be seen over the shanty-style buildings. Made out of rough wood and painted glass, it glowed from within due to lamps on the spiral stairs. At the top of the tower was a tiny room, one man size, within which was housed the ancient clock. It no longer functioned, but twice a day one of the Owners would climb the uneven steps and seven times strike the bell by hand, once for each Owner, as a sign that they gave permission for the Commune to open its gates and close them. As the lights on the twisting stairs dimmed and grew bright, the gatekeeper could chart the progress of the climbing Owner.

Tonight it seemed that the woman's steps were a little slower, and he wondered which Owner it was. He knew them by sight, but had never spoken to one for more than a few minutes when he was given this important job all those long years ago. It had been: serve the Commune, no questions asked, or take your chances outside and don't ask to come back because the answer could be a calm and callous no.

As the last lamp dimmed and brightened at the top of the tower, the man knew he would see the woman in the next few seconds. She would appear at the tiny balcony for a moment, silver hammer in hand, and survey the streets of the Territory. All eyes would be raised to the tower. No one would dare move until the seven chimes had died out on the night air, as a mark of respect for the kindness that the Owners bestowed upon the inhabitants.

A gray-haired woman in a long-sleeved dress moved into view.

The eldest Owner, thought the gatekeeper. And moving much slower than usual. He pulled himself to some form of attention as her gaze passed over the small shanty-city. He knew she probably didn't even know his name or care, but when an Owner looked over a commune dweller, it was best to give them no grounds for criticism. Criticism tended to be barbed -- literally.

Her eyes passed over him, and the old man let out a long sigh of relief. His hand still upon the key, he awaited the seven chimes and the sign that he should lock the gates. Across the Commune, at three other points, gatekeepers would be similarly poised for the same command.

In the fading evening light, he saw the hammer rise and fall, sending out a pale pink flash as the metal glinted in the pastel-colored sunset. The bell rang out the strange melody of seven notes, and then all was silent. The Commune seemed to release a collected breath. Locked in for the night. Locked safe and locked tight. With random patrols of Commune protectors guarding the boundaries, the nighttime life could begin and the city outside, in all its horrors, could be forgotten for a little while. But for some, there were as many horrors held within . . . .

The gatekeeper forced his stiff fingers to turn the key.

A sharp rap on the door gave him quite a start. He stepped back with fright. Nothing approached the Territory gates at night. No one would dare cross the open ground in case the mutant predators caught them or they fell foul of the patrols. All Commune dwellers would be inside. It was strictly forbidden to stray outside the Territory without permission of an Owner after lock-up.

Except for one man.

"Who is it?" The old man could scarcely find the words to call out. "Identify yourself."

Seconds of silence passed and the already nervous man became filled with a sense of trepidation.

Finally. "The Champion of the Territory. Open the gates." His voice was low and ominous.

The aged man clutched at his well-worn jacket with acute anxiety. It would be him. He hated all the times when the Champion had crossed through his gate in the past. He detested the cold, hard eyes, the always-present peal of his death-clasps, reminding them of his power and violence and his array of murderous weapons. He hated the sight of it all. The man smelled of blood and unwarranted murder. Now, he was outside, demanding entrance after the hallowed time of the Seven Chimes.

At last he found the courage to reply. "It's past Seven Chimes. The gate is locked for the night." After a moment's thought, he added, "By order of the Owners."

Again, there was no immediate answer. Curious, the old man moved toward the enormous wood and metal doors. Each gate was elaborately decorated but eminently functional. No mutant horde could storm the Territory gateways. Head on one side, the keeper pressed his dried-out skin to the door and listened, ear straining. He knew his hearing had been badly impaired after the bombing of years ago but, even so, it still seemed extremely quiet.

Not knowing what the Champion was doing was more nerve-wracking then seeing his barbarous actions. His mind began to run riot with nightmarish images of the man outside. He tried to deny them, but they were so much a part of his natural sleepless nights that he began to believe them. He could see the Champion would spare him little compassion once he gained a hold on him. But to let the Protector in would be against one of the most crucial of Commune orders. Caught between the devil and the devil's Owners, he could see his fate was written on the wall. Which would be the lesser of the two evils? The quickest death . . . ?

Still no sound. The gatekeeper moved along the door toward the tiny peephole and released the bolt. Hooking his dirty fingernails under the sharp rim, he pulled it open.

A steel-blue eye filled the aperture, smoldering with indignation.

The old man jumped back, startled.

"Open the door, you cowardly old fool, before I tear your damned liver out with my bare hands!" The words came from the Champion's thinned lips like poison. "Don't ever make me wait. I rule here by power, not through threats of empty meaning."

Each word curled about the keeper's heart like a hissed vise. Knees trembling with shock, he drew away from the door into the shadows of the nearest hovel.

"I can't. It's more than my life's worth." His white face seemed to have paled even further to almost translucency. He felt swamped by his fear of the Territory Protector. "Don't ask me to do that, Commune Protector. Please."

"Old man, whining at me won't help." The Champion turned his head slightly so as to gain a better view of the squirming gatekeeper. So apparent was the poor soul's mortal fear, that he felt he need hardly press the man further. He dropped his voice to a softer level of friendliness, but its roots were still couched in anger.

"Unlock this door. I have completed my mission. I am owed my reward. I want it." I've killed for it . . . .

Shaking his head, the old man began to shuffle away. "I'll have to get permission, I'll -- "

"You'll do nothing of the sort, you ragged old degenerate. You get back here and open this door! The reward is mine. I demand it!"

Still retreating, the man had decided not to open the gate now. He'd heard the Champion was an addict, that the Owners paid for his gratuitous butchery in glycerin sachets of priceless narcotics. If this was just the beginning of his craving for the stuff, he wasn't about to let him into the Territory until he'd calmed down and the Owners had given him permission. He'd known he'd been sent on a mission this day. The Territory always knew what the Champion was doing -- it was a wise move to be aware of him. It was thought he'd be back before lockup, and the old man had prayed, silently, that he'd be back by one of the other gates. He concluded that the Owners were right; there was no God . . . .

"You're late returning from your mission, Champion. The Owner has struck the bell in the clock tower. You cannot come in until sun-up." And with that he turned the first corner and hurried away from the huge door.

He'd gone no more than ten paces when he was stopped by the plummeting rush of a figure descending from the roof of the nearest building. The closeness of the falling body caused the gatekeeper to stumble backwards, over and down into the dirt of the street. On hands and knees he raised his eyes to meet those of the Champion.

Towering over the wretched specimen, the Champion looked scarcely ruffled from having just scaled the boundary buildings of the Territory in full armor. Using the tall walls as a rock-face of foot and handholds, he had clambered up the fortifications in seconds. A quick-limbed run over the rooftops and he'd dropped into the secluded street, practically on top of the old man. Seething with rage, he placed his hands on his hips, allowing his tall shadow to fall like a shroud over the cowed heap kneeling on the rough-brick sidewalk.

"Get out of my sight. As of this moment, you no longer exist. If I see you again, I shall terminate you, as surely as I wear this gold shield as a sign -- " the volume of his voice rose, " -- that I am the Protector of the Territory: the Champion. And no gate is ever barred to me!"

The old man crawled away into a haphazard alley between a brothel and a bar. His days had just become numbered.

The Champion turned around slowly; his face was shining with the sweat of a dangerously unhinged man. His golden adornments grated out a disharmony of notes as he shifted off up the street. From somewhere behind him came the sharp snap of a window closing. Even the most bold prostitute could sense a distinct dynamic menace about the commune slayer this night. Best leave him alone. Tomorrow night he may just feel like a woman, especially a woman who had unlimited talents and an endless zeal for his flesh. If not tonight, she could wait.

The Champion heard the click of the latch falling, but decided to ignore the intrusion on his private quarrel. Another night he would make the debauched female pay in ways she hadn't imagined. He would not be lured by their crude advances to him. He would not be tainted by their diseased bodies, or run the risk of infection. No, he had more important needs to satisfy. The Owners held it for him. And for the first time since he became the Champion, they had chosen to withhold it from him. No one treated him in such a manner. He was the Territory Protector. Hadn't they named him "Champion" themselves? Surely that counted for something more than an old man denying him entry.

As he stormed through the new garment district, he heard the faint sounds of the Territory populace enjoying themselves in the bars and brothels. Distantly, he could hear notes being plucked from a stringed instrument as they came to him on the fogged air. This was accompanied by a high-pitched laugh and the slamming of another door down the back of a narrow, litter-strewn alley. At night, the Commune awoke to the special delights of the darkness, and the noises of the dwellers in the outside world. Often, the inhuman wails of the mutants could be heard deep within the Territory, despite the noisiest of drinking places. The Commune men could not raise a din of pseudo-carefree activity loud enough to drown the cries of the miserable scavengers beyond the Territory gates. It hadn't been so bad since the Champion cleaned out whole areas of the filthy vermin. It had been much quieter, but they still came close to the Commune on foggy nights, hidden from plain view by the swirling mists. On particularly bad nights, protectors of lesser status were occasionally sent out to patrol the first city blocks close to the Territory. Not as experienced or fast as the Champion, they could still clean out any stray mutants foolish enough to cross their paths. But the more important, deadly jobs were still left to the classic methods of the specially trained killer.

The Owners had raised him, taught him, nurtured him into the man he was today. They had complete faith in his abilities and his loyalty. His rewards were the kind that couldn't be bought over the counter or bartered for in the street. He was conditioned to the need for the narcotics -- they'd seen to that, and found to their pleasure he was a very apt pupil. It was almost as if he'd traveled that path before, his craving could be so intense. It was a hook that went too deep to be easily snapped free. And this demanded his total obedience to their law.

As if painted onto the face of the Commune with an airbrush, the Territory government building merged into the mists of the evening night. A building with a similar appearance to muslin, built out of the ruins of the city, with a tower rising from the western corner like a finger pointing to the sky. It was ramshackle to the extreme, but it held the only stable government this New Society had ever known. Love it, hate it, support it or denounce it, that building held the ultimate power of law in this commune. It also held the Champion's reward.

No calm and quiet entry for him this time. The man was filled with an intense anger brought on by the messy confrontation with Peter, the dart's drug, the decline of his own narcotics, and the rise of a burning desire to try the LSD and seek some answers. He wasn't about to be stopped short of his reward by some aged idiot who was bound to the unbending rules of the new bureaucracy. He believed in his right of payment, and he was here to claim it.

Gloved hands roughly pushed back the double doors as he stepped out of the fog and into the government house. As usual, he paused in the doorway to let his eyes become accustomed to the strange gloom. Sure of his surroundings, he marched off, boots striking the floor in dull thuds, for a door at the end of the corridor. He knew they were there. He could see the thin strip of green light glowing from the bottom of the door. The corridor fell away behind him under his hasty footsteps. His long plaits clattered over the armor and weapons on his back with a discordant rhythm that betrayed his torrential anger.

With an almighty crash, he flung back the doors into the green room.

The seven women were crowded together, talking in a soft murmur of voices in front of the high-backed chairs. As the doors crashed back, they turned, startled, their crimson robes rustling with the surprise of the entrance.

Framed by the doorway, the Champion stood with hands on hips, features a smoldering mask of rage. He took them all in with one look of contempt, then he strode forward and alighted upon the design of fetters sunk into the floor.

"I have come." He assumed a defiant stance of rigid fury. His weaponry glimmered evilly in the strange green light, as his death awards toned a steady beat of deliberation. His blue eyes glowered over them all with a cold distrust.

The moment held between them for some seconds, then without a signal, the seven women separated and moved to their respective seats about the semicircle. Carefully, they seated themselves and arranged their robes to a neat perfection. Hands clasped delicately on their laps, they assumed expressions of benign amusement.

Finally, the middle-aged, gray-haired woman spoke from the center seat.

"You, man of this commune, are late." Her words crossed her red lips with an animosity that made the Champion's flesh crawl. She'd failed to use his proper title.

Abruptly, she rose and crossed the floor to meet him, a slight limp to her walk. Sliding her eyes over his body, she scrutinized every part of him as a dealer in flesh looks over a prostitute.

"You're marked on the chest." Her softly spoken words were a dramatic change. Beguiling. "How did you come to be marked, Protector?"

He made to reply just as she reappeared from behind him in a swift movement that brought her close to his face. The look of malevolent intent made the Champion falter.

She pressed him for an immediate answer. "Hmmm? Answer."

"I was shot with a dart filled with a drug." The truth came to his lips unbidden. "But I managed to kill the bastards, Madam, and I now want my re -- "

"Shot by some religious fanatic?" Her voice rose in sarcastic incredulity. "Not even by another commune protector?" She glanced at her sisters, none of whom had twitched a facial muscle, and then stared back at the man on the handcuffs. "You have been careless, Protector."

The last sentence made him shiver with a new kind of emotion. There had been a change in attitude, minuscule, but enough to set off all the alarms ringing in his drug-dulled brain. The faces of the six sisters hardened into a set smile that failed to reach their eyes.

"You have never been careless before, have you?" She raised her eyebrows in such a manner as to invite reply.

Her face betrayed her intense dislike of his attitude. She was going to make this interview as hard as possible. As she stood before him, he lost some of the blinding anger from his eyes and saw her clearly for the first time since entering. Her face had lost some of its sheer luster, the make-up looked tired and worn in places. The basic foundation had begun to streak over the nose and chin, revealing the thickness of the covering. Underneath, he plainly saw the gray skin. Her neatly dressed hair had a loose strand hanging down the nape of her neck, and the precise fastenings on the front of her robe had been refastened in a hurry -- almost as if she'd been in the process of getting undressed.

"Lost for words?" The snap of her voice brought him back to her point.

"I, er, I . . . was -- " But his explanation was cut dead.

" -- careless!" She emphasized the word as a judge lays stress upon the most vital piece of evidence.

As the Champion passed a judgment upon the gatekeeper, so the Owners passed a silent mark of rebuke over their prized possession.

Holding his gaze with one of unquestioned disapproval, the woman stepped backwards toward her chair and seated herself with the same neat movements as the other women.

"You, man of this commune, have been raised to be the Protector. We named you our Champion and we own you." His blood chilled as her voice became sharper in pitch. "And you have the bare-faced nerve to march in here demanding an audience with your Owners?"

He spared a momentary glance at the other six and found to his rising apprehension that the beneficent expressions had completely disappeared. A nasty feeling of being led to his own doom checked any further rush of anger.

"Madam, I beg your humble forgiveness." The Champion assumed his usual form of obedience. He fell to one knee, golden head bowed. He had to be careful.

His long plaits fell forward to make an almost complete curtain of blond and gold. The awards chinked together loud and tuneless in the overlong silence.

"See those gold clasps, Champion?" She awaited his small nod. "They are a sign to every Commune dweller and mutant of what you are. Shall I remind you of what you are, Champion?" She pressed straight on from the rhetorical question, giving him no time to answer. "You are a baptized-in-blood, narcotic-sodden butcher, who acts upon our orders and receives our favor because we choose to find a use for him."

The savageness of the verbal attack actually made him flinch. His resistance to the outside world was growing weaker by the minute as his drugs drained out of his bloodstream. The clear, drab reality began to cloud in against his artificial protection. No more cushioning effect, just harsh truths that he did not want to hear on this night. Peter had been enough.

"Judging by your recent entrance, you have forgotten your place in this Commune. It could be that we made a mistake in letting you live outside of the Territory. Perhaps you would have been more respectful if we had housed you within the government building and kept a close eye on you?"

His head remained bowed. He didn't want them to see his uncontrolled emotion.

"You see, my sisters," she waved her hand over him to emphasize her next point, "he has begun to assume the airs and graces of someone in authority. But we are the authority here. We are the law, and you aren't even fit to kiss the dust from our feet. The rest of the Commune shuns you for what you are. They know, and keep well clear." Her lips narrowed to thin lines of red. "And we, we the Owners, have only treated you with fairness, and granted you the best of rewards despite our abhorrence of your profession."

That cut deep. His head came up as the words bombarded him.

"But we know we need you," the woman continued, "and you know it also. However -- " and her voice became muted intimidation, " -- however, don't ever think you are not expendable."

A sick dread came over him. He'd pushed too far, too soon.

"Let me remind you, you could be dispensed with now that the Other has been terminated. There is no single Protector to pose a threat any more. This Commune has the manpower in other Protectors to maintain our present position of dominance for many years to come."

And then it came like a bolt out of the blue.

"You did kill the Other, didn't you?"

He never knew how he controlled an obvious start of shock. With as much self-control as he could muster, he calmly looked her in the eye and said, "Madam, I killed him in his own domain in the sewer. Shot him to death with six Magnum slugs." And surprised himself with his fluent lying.

The woman paused in her onslaught of him to weigh up his assertion. At last, her face softened the minutest of degrees.

"Champion, Champion, we, your Owners, don't want to bring you any harm, don't want to have to punish you. But you must understand that as the Commune Protector, you not only act as our executor of Territory Law, but also as a man affiliated to this Commune and, as such, you must be treated like all the others. The gates close at Seven Chimes; you know that. And then they never open. If you are late, you wait until we see fit to receive you. You were late tonight; as punishment, we have decided to grant you audience in the morning."

The Champion clenched his fists. No LSD? No reward? You can't do this to me . . . . I did exactly as you asked. It's not fair! I need that fix . . . I'm beginning to ache for it. I've killed for it, and I want it. Please don't punish me in this way. I won't disobey you again; please don't do this to me. I've got to know some answers, gotta stop this ache. Need the high; nothing else will give it. No more heroin . . . used it all . . . all . . . all gone . . . need some more . . . now!

Suddenly, he sprang from the septagon and fell on his knees at her feet. The rotting smell of her was obvious, unmistakable. His gloved hands clutched at the hem of her gown. Tears of desperation came to his eyes. He blinked them away, frightened to show more weakness as he began to plead for his very peace of mind.

"Please, please don't do this to me. I beg your forgiveness. I was wrong, acting above myself. I deserve to be reprimanded, but please don't take away my drugs." He searched her face to see if his pleas were having any effect.

She smiled triumphantly, enjoying the drama.

His bottom lip quavered. Jesus, woman, I'm an addict! This is no goddamned game. I'm hurting -- He tried to choke down a sob of panic and failed. His voice almost broke. "I killed them all for you. I've killed any you cared to mention. Mutants, rivals, religious fanatics. I've always done my job for you. Please, don't withhold the drugs. Please . . . I'm begging you . . . ." His broad features became an earnest picture of frantic pleading. He looked quickly from one cruelly smiling face to another, then back to the woman in the center seat. His lips moved desperately as he sought for words that would sway their stand. He began to stutter out a mumble of pathetic phrases meant to warm their hearts, but only managed a whispered prayer. "Have some mercy, my Owners . . . ."

"Make it up to us, Champion" She stroked his face with a soft caress, smoothing away deep lines of worry. "Make it worth our while."

"I'll do anything . . . anything." He'd plumbed his last depths of strength. His rage had gone and his fierce craving had decimated his resolve. "I swear, I'll do -- "

With a smoothness, she crossed her legs, pulling her dress over to the right. The movement distracted him for a second and he could see under the chair, into the shadows of the legs.

A silver helmet nestled in the dark. Dangerous. Conspiratorial. It had heard everything, but how much had it told?

The Owner leaned forward, expectantly. "You were saying, Champion?"

He swallowed sickly, lips trembling at the sight of the helmet. A cold sweat slicked his combat suit to his skin. The helmet shone dimly and seemed to grow in size in his mind's eye.

He slithered away, a destroyed man. Crouched low, he tore his eyes from the offending object and felt the penetrating stare of the Owners bore into him. Somewhere in his tortured soul a solid steel door swung shut on any mutual trust he thought they might have once had.

Last time I saw the helmet it was being held aloft as a trophy by some crazed mutant -- he'd just wrenched it from the head of the Other. I saved his life for my own selfish ends . . . never completed the contract . . . got the last clasp under false pretenses. So sue me! . . . But how did they get it? . . . How much does she know . . . ?

"So, you'll do anything, will you?" A repressed desire rose unchecked within the Owner. Standing with the grace of a champion herself, she continued, "We believe you, our most prized possession. We believe you want to show us how sorry you really are." She smiled the radiant smile of the saintly and stepped toward him. "It makes us glad to know that our beautiful man has seen the error of his ways and wishes to come back into the fold completely. No more mistakes, no more ideas that break with the new conventions. It is our desire that you continue to be our Champion. You have always lived by the words: Protect and Serve. We have raised you to protect the Commune, and you have been more than able. Now it is time that you began to serve the Commune -- in the only really worthwhile way. My sisters and I have often thought that you would be able to serve us admirably."

She knelt down before him and gripped his plaits tightly, pulling his face up to hers. Her green eyes glittered with a dangerous passion and her voice took on a note of velvet smoothness. "I think you could serve me like I've never been served before. We can see how strong you are." Her eyes dropped seductively over his body. "You are a perfect specimen, Champion. It's a great, great pity you live such a lonely life."

Her left hand slid under his leather armor and stroked his firm flesh. "But tomorrow night I think we can begin to change that. From now on, your nights are going to be spent in a different kind of work -- " Pink tongue tipped from between her teeth playfully. "You've kept us waiting too long."

The rough flesh of her fingertips traced a line under his tunic top much lower than his waist. Shifting away from her vile touch, the Champion fought to stop himself from backhanding her across the room. The grip in his hair held him close still. She smelled even worse this near, and her gums were flecked with the creeping mold of the disease-ravaged. She purred.

Protect and Serve had suddenly taken on a whole new meaning.

Suffering her too-familiar caresses, the Champion cast a nervous glance at the other Owners. Eyes alight, they almost slavered with their need of him. Their light handclasp had also become a tight grip of restraint. No doubt he would have to serve them, also.

He looked back at the woman Owner holding him. Not with you, lady. Never with you . . . too much disease. I'd rather die first than taint my body with the pestilence of you!! And never with the rest of you depraved bitches, either. You'll never use me for that. Serve never meant the act of prostitution . . . .

"I . . . I . . . " The usual flow of words failed him. He tried to slide free of her grasp, but she held him in such a way as to be sure he always had a clear view of the helmet. A diamond-edged threat. It sat there, silent, unmoving, and yet it ensnared him deeper within their leech-like grasp. "I . . . "

"I remember that you said you would do anything, Champion." She released him with a sharp wrench that pulled his head closer to hers, before he settled back. Her green eyes shone with the knowledge of victory. They had him now, completely. He would do whatever they asked him. And they were going to ask him to be the most dominant, masterful protector they'd ever possessed.

The gnawing ache hurt so badly within him that he could scarcely struggle to his feet. Flattened, he retreated to the safety of the symbol. His boots scuffed over the floor in resignation. With effort, he squared his shoulders and looked at them from under hooded lids. He contemplated drawing the Magnum now and stitching a line of red death across their panting breasts.

Better dead than a stud. I'm good at killing, I could gut them all so fast they'd die with those crude expressions of lust fixed for all time. His long fingers twitched over the butt of the gun.

"Don't," a soft voice broke in from the left, "don't even think about it. Think about this instead: who would feed your habit, then?" The small dark-haired woman grinned. "Who would want you then? The Territory hates you, fears you. The rest of the city already covets your death. You can't win."

His hand fell slackly to his side. She was right; they had won.

You own my flesh, my soul, so you might as well own my children. Bleakly, he managed to meet her look of triumph, mirrored in all of their faces.

The woman in the center of the floor climbed to her crimson-slippered feet. As she rose, her hand stroked his thigh in the manner with which a breeder of fine horseflesh looks over his stock.

"I knew you'd understand, come around to our way of thinking again." Her gaze became distant. "It was like in the days when we first took you from the ruins of your own home -- "

His face clouded over with the strain of snatching at forgotten memories.

" -- you struggled against us then. Fought to leave our Commune, but we were too powerful for you. Champion, we possess every fiber of your being, and you will never be free of us. No matter what you think or who tells you different." She stepped aside so he could see the helmet again. "There's always going to be that habit of yours to start with and we, your Owners, are the only people who'll tolerate what you have become, and the acts you have committed. No one else ever will. We're all you have . . . ."

Gently, she pried his clenched fist apart and placed in it the sachet. He fingered the shiny plastic with distaste, and yet he could not forestall the slight thrill of pleasurable excitement that surged through him once he knew he had the means to satisfy his craving. He raised the plastic bag for a better look. The eerie green light bathed the smooth surface of the bag. In the tiny packet was only one dose of LSD.

Immediately, he felt a rekindling of the anger. He looked up, a question already forming on his lips, and then he stopped himself.

The gray-haired woman faced him defiantly.

"You get one to begin with. The other six you'll receive if we are satisfied with your services tomorrow night." She sat down on the high-backed chair. The glow from the darkened glass ceiling gave the whole scene the look of seven succubi from an ancient past, and he was their pawn.

"We are tired now, my most precious. It is time we parted. You may leave, but be back here tonight before Seven Chimes. Go and sleep. Enjoy the drug, and come back fully rested and strong."

His audience was at an end. With care, he tucked the plastic bag under his suit and bowed curtly. Turning on his leather heel, he trod the long, dark corridor to the front doors. He never looked back, never quickened his pace, and never let them see in his walk the mental torture that they had subjected him to.

His back stayed rigid, his shoulders squared, but his blue eyes held the locked-in fear of a rat in a laboratory cage.

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

A slim, lithe figure of the deadliest race of the New Society clambered to the top of a mountain of obsolete motor vehicles, and slithered belly down across the roof of a blue Chevrolet. The creaking screech of rocking metal made his ears hurt, acting like a counter-rhythm to the throbbing pains in his head. Eye bright with the task ahead, he rested his chin on the back of his hands and surveyed the open ground before him.

The fog swirled and eddied in the light night breeze. It was as if a giant had streaked the air with a wet paintbrush of oyster gray. Too wet, for it seemed to run in places and merge with the sandy yellow and white dust of the earth. A flicker of firelight drew the eye across the serene scene. Away in the distance, a non-commune group were probably settling down for their evening supper. He had heard them chase off some roaming mutants earlier, from a couple of blocks away, before he got to this quarter. The horrendous screams of antagonism had cleaved through the thick night air. He still wasn't sure where he was, but the moonlit sky gave him some guide -- the stars hadn't altered. Same as before. He knew which direction to travel, and once he hit some familiar blocks, he'd soon find the Plaza.

Sure that the area was clear of any predators, he rose up and swung his legs over the edge of the roof. Easing his hips over the dented side, he began to climb down. Boot- and handholds were easy. Most of the glass was smashed in the autos and he could descend by a ladder of windows, handles, and wing mirrors. Glancing down between his legs, he saw he was only feet from the ground. Swinging out, he released his grip on an ancient seat belt and alighted in the dust on all fours.

The jolt of landing made a searing pain pulse through his brain. He groaned softly and rested his head against his right forearm as an animal tries to comfort itself.

Eyes screwed tightly shut, he failed to see the rising shadow over to his right. A short arm lifted sharply from behind a buckled door of a Ford panel truck. With a quick flick of the wrist, it launched a projectile with speed.

The Other felt the shock of the glass shard puncture his thigh, but didn't wait for the pain to follow. He snatched up his rifle, ready for the next attack. A snap shot into the totaled truck brought a telltale scurry from within. A second shot through the fractured rear window spread the assailant over the dash. The "snicker-splat" told him there'd be no more threat from that vehicle.

Still holding the rifle at his height, the Other crept cautiously over the uneven earth toward the Ford. Pushing back the loosely hanging door, he gingerly peered around the edge and into the interior. A young mutant lay over most of the inside. The sling was still entwined in his long fingers. His deformed limbs were as twisted in death as they had been in life. Beside him was a large plastic refuse bag and on top of it lay a carving knife.

All neat and ready for me to be gutted and taken home. They just never learn, never keep hidden. Well, he won't have to worry about his next meal anymore -- he just became something else's. The wind's blowing easterly; the scavengers'll come from their holes once they smell the fresh kill . . . . Better get lost . . . .

Turning on his heel, the Other searched the sky again and then made his decision. Setting off to the north, he headed for a huge, quake-damaged shopping center. A few walls were precariously standing, clinging to a vertical position.

Keeping as low as possible, he set off at a lumbering run due to his injured leg. His boots dragged over the ground as he tried to make it to the next area of cover. He was halfway there when he heard a muffled footstep up ahead. Dropping like a stone, he rolled over into a deep hole in the dirt and burrowed himself into a pile of rotting, damp bedding and mattresses. His refuge smelled of waste and occupation by mutants.

Rifle tip peeping out of his stinking cover, the Other awaited the footstep to fall again. That was no mutant footstep . . . .

An abnormal vacuum of silence occurred. All sounds seemed to have faded away as if both parties were waiting for the other to betray themselves with a movement.

I can outwait you. I'm no novice at this game . . . . And I have so much more to lose. Not even a whisper of sound came to his straining ears. He knew the tread had come from the last trace of the shopping complex. It couldn't have seen me, so why doesn't it appear, keep traveling? Unless it heard the shots . . . . Shit!

Minutes crawled by. A few motes of dust trailed over the edge of the hole and pattered down on the stinking materials. The Other neither twitched nor breathed heavily. His one good eye strained upwards, desperate for the slight telltale sign of another being appearing at the rim of the hole. The one tiny, black silhouette was all he needed for a shot. He would have him. He could win.

But as the tension mounted within him, so the pain increased from the malfunctioning jack. His brain rejected the metal intrusion and began to weave a stranglehold of agony within his head. The knots of throbbing migraine came in ever increasing waves that made him shake helplessly. Strong though he was, he couldn't contain the unnatural spasms that shook him with each excruciating stab. And with each sharpness, he lost his concentration momentarily.

As another seizure passed off, he licked his dry metal lips and gulped. Searching the opening for the give-away movement, he dreaded the next attack, for it could be the very moment that the stranger chose to appear.

Then he heard it -- no, them. He heard them!

Two people -- definitely two people! I know, I know and I can win.

From up above, two pairs of dusty boots walked with a feather lightness, mistrustful of the ground, toward the hole. Stealth was their intent, but no being could traverse that terrain in total silence. A foot trod a mite too heavily upon a shattered brick and the crunch was unmistakable.

The perpetrator of the faux pas looked back sickly to his companion, who shrugged his shoulders and motioned him to continue. With a more delicate tread, they approached the hole, but the direction of their attention was clearly the mound of discarded vehicles.

"You sure the shot came from this scrap, Kyle? I mean, coulda been one of them godawful mutant things snapping something, huh?"

"You're a yeller asshole, Muldoon, ya know that?"

Muldoon turned pointedly back and gave his partner the finger. "Look who's talking, Kyle. It's me who's up here in the front, stickin' ma damnfool neck out. While you skulk around at the rear! You wanna come forward?" The hissed conversation broke the silence.

Kyle shook his mangy head. "What, and let them 'godawful mutant things' shoot ma balls off? Not me, Muldoon. I like it real fine here, watchin' your ass." Kyle grinned wickedly through teeth of yellow and green. His dirt-encrusted hands held an old rifle of disputable parentage, which he used to urge the scrawny Muldoon forward. "Getta move on, or it'll 'ave gone."

Muldoon wiped a black bead of sweat off his chin where it nestled irritatingly in a short beard. Flicking the sweat away, he hooked his chipped fingernails into the wiry hair and had a good scratch.

"Don't hunt ya own goddamned livestock -- get after the real thing." Kyle scowled impatiently and tiptoed up beside his smaller companion. "Man, you're slow. You used to be faster before The End." He glanced angrily to his side. "We'da had the turkey by now."

"Them days is over. I'm just thankful we made it this far." Muldoon wiped his hand down his tattered shirtfront and squinted through the mist at the quiet heap of rust and perishing tires. "Police work was sure different then. They could be safely on the take an' have a real nice life. Now -- " He gave himself and the surrounding area the once-over. " -- now, there ain't nothin' worth takin'."

"You talk too much, Muldoon. I'm gonna get me whoever it is stupid enough to wander into the Northern Sector at night. I'm gonna pin him up by his ears. No one walks my sector without my say-so . . . ."

The hurried whispers were meant for only their own ears, but the Other heard every word plainly. They were right beside his pit, but not within range of the opening. He knew who they were.

Under the pale stars, the Plaza men carefully scrutinized the mountain of vehicles. On all sides there was nothing of any description, just more of the same. Occasionally, they looked back toward the distant glimmer of fire.

"It coulda been them, Kyle. Sounds at night get confused; they seem to come from different places," Muldoon hissed nervously in his partner's ear.

Kyle edged forward a little, eyes still hooked to the cars. "I don't think so, Mul. Look at the bottom panel truck."

Muldoon squinted through the fog at the truck. It looked perfectly harmless to him. Weatherworn into gaping holes of rust, its doors hung half open like some sleepy-eyed lizard. Nothing stirred. No white eyes stared with hate from the black depths of the seats as the fear of capture gave the pupils that sinister gleam. Nothing. Yet the sound of two gunshots had seemed to come from this direction.

Then they both heard a different noise. It was a faint pit-pat of liquid dripping.

They looked at each other, puzzled, and Kyle walked forward another couple of steps. Muldoon shifted sideways, his boot only inches from the edge of the hole.

The Other stiffened with expectancy. He would have preferred to have both of them within range before he began to pick them off.

Kyle spoke tightly. He didn't like the feeling of being played with that crawled up his spine. "You hear that, Muldoon?" His finger tightened on the trigger as the hairs on his grimy neck rose slightly. "Huh, Muldoon?"

"Yeah." The other protector felt a shadow pass over his grave, too. "It's somethin' drippin'."

Kyle was about to shake his head in the negative when he saw the glint of something catch the moonlight.

Tiny drops of scarlet blood dripped delicately from the edge of the panel truck floor into a tidy pool beside the rear left wheel arch.

"See the blood, Kyle? I was wrong; it is around here." Muldoon shouldered the rifle, ready for the unexpected.

"Wonder what's inside the truck?" The taller man checked his ammunition. "It might not be dead."

"If it's bleedin' like that it must be dead." Muldoon could not contain the rise in his pulse rate. He could feel the accelerated pump under his leather wrist straps. Felt like his wrists were going to burst. "Go look, huh?"

"Yeah, it might have somethin' we could sell." Kyle carefully slipped forward.

The blood dripped steadily and began to soak into the hunched dust. Kyle used the rifle barrel to nudge the door back slowly. Tongue sticking out at the corner of his sore lips, he waited for the wild attack of a crazed and wounded mutant.

Muldoon watched his approach, giving him covering attention, should he need it. They were a damn good team, used to picking off and scavenging from the loners who roamed the streets. About three months ago they'd happened upon the Plaza and found that a gold shield was automatic entry to the good life. The fact that both Muldoon and the skin-diseased Kyle had murdered two lesser commune protectors up in old Beverly Hills while the two victims were on patrol, made little difference. The Northern Sector was looking for new talent and they found themselves accepted. Gold shields in hand, they walked into the rich life. Muldoon privately thought that two ex-cons from the Time Before had done real well for themselves in the New Society.

Rubbing the worn gunstock into his beard, Muldoon watched nervously, trying to cover every area, every patch of black. All he could see of Kyle was his dirty brown fatigue trousers and boots below the door. And then they, too, disappeared as he climbed into the truck.

Dead silence followed, and the dust swirled up and danced over the scrap metal in tiny spirals. The truck began to shake, causing the whole precarious pile to vibrate dangerously.

"Hey, man, watch it! Ya gonna bring the whole lot down." The muttered warning fell upon deaf ears. Muldoon shifted uneasily and tumbled some loose gravel into the pit beside him.

The tiny stones pattered onto the stinking garbage in the hole and onto the tautly hollowed face of the Other. Cramped into the narrowing bottom of the pit, the Other felt the first twinge of pain sneak along his leg from the thin sliver of glass in his right thigh. Left hand on the trigger of his rifle, he used his right hand to massage the slowly weeping wound.

Germs'll be infecting my leg, down in this filth. Why doesn't that other creep come back? He winced as the kickback effect from the jack continued to plague him. His metalled mouth clamped down on a groan as he fought to keep his vision clear. Gotta keep steady, mustn't move, or he'll see me. Mustn't move . . . where are you, Kyle?

"It's what I thought, Mul." Kyle jumped down from the truck, his bloody knife in hand. He casually wiped it clean on his thigh while he inspected something between his thick fingers. It appeared, to his partner, to be a tiny metal projectile.

Muldoon detected a note of regret in the other man's voice. "What do ya think? Is that the bullet?"

"Yeah, one of them." He tossed it at his partner and he caught it clumsily, hands fumbling with the rifle and the bullet lost in the folds of his clothes.

"Look at it, Mul. Look real close."

Muldoon did as he was bid, a puzzled frown on his Neanderthal brow.

It was a bullet from a rifle.

"There's only one man I know who uses this caliber . . . ." Kyle's voice trailed away as dawning realization came to both of them at once.

Muldoon swallowed sickly, eyes meeting his partner's. "Let's get outta here, Kyle. It -- he ain't worth the risk."

Muldoon nodded in agreement and let the bullet drop through his fingers into the powdered earth. Kyle's eyes watched it fall into the sand of the city and roll slowly toward the edge of the hole. As it tumbled to the lip, it paused, as if it were struggling to avoid the next plunge. Muldoon nudged it on and over with a flick of his toe. The shell shot into the darkness of the pit. Muldoon watched it fall and, like a film in slow motion, he changed his vision and brought the bottom of the hole into focus.

A face of dull silver reflected up at him from among the waste.

He knew in an instant who it was as his heart thundered with one sickening lurch. It was the last sensation his body ever felt.

"The Oth -- " barely escaped his lips when the roar of a further rifle shot made mush of his cranium. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and he toppled forward into the pit as his feet lost their hold on the edge.

Kyle staggered backwards under a shower of Muldoon's pulped flesh and bone and began to roll away. Fear drained his face to the whiteness of a novice nun. The one thought of self-preservation filled his mind. Gun in hand, he scrambled to his feet, legs shaking uncontrollably in his fatigues, and he ran demented for the safety of anywhere. The Other had just killed his partner, and he knew it would be him next.

Down in the hole, the Other was frantically trying to get around the dead weight of Muldoon. Dead eyes stared at the dark-haired man with a horror-struck dread as the crushed face lolled obscenely against the Other's shoulder. Kicking against the sides of the earth walls, he managed to lever himself out of most of the camouflaging refuse and onto the body of the dead man. Slack limbs fell awkwardly against his own legs as he tried to climb up the ridged sides and out. A dance of the grotesque ensued as the Other fought to get himself loose of Muldoon and after the escaping enemy.

Stepping onto the hips of the corpse, he hitched himself up onto an old bed frame and used the brass bedstead as a surrogate ladder. The sharp twinges of pain in his thigh did not deter him from the swift haul to the surface.

Stretching for the rim of the pit, his soiled hands grasped for any purchase. He tilted his head down to be sure that he was planting his feet safely; he needed sure leverage for a swift rise onto ground level. Below him was the upturned face of Muldoon. Only the lower half of his head was recognizably human; the rest was missing.

A bolt of agony lanced through his head, bringing tears to his eyes, and he suddenly saw a different Muldoon sitting in a strangely empty room. He was wearing metal bracelets chained together, and a tough, mean-looking blond was shouting at him. Muldoon shook his head and the blond slammed his fist down on the table top before him. The captive man jumped fearfully. The blond's lips curled vindictively, and the flash of distorted memory was gone.

When he gained a measure of control again, the Other found his face was pressed into the damp earth of the wall before him. His fingers had gouged grooves of dirt up and his pulse was racing.

Taking a deep breath, the Other heaved himself up and onto ground level. His rifle had come up in a blur and had covered more than half the terrain before the dust had even risen about his boots. In the distance was the fleeing figure of Kyle.

"Shit!" the Other spat into the night. Desperate to get after his quarry, he realized he couldn't run far on his injured leg. The sliver of glass was still embedded in his thigh; dark red blood stained the wine leather in darker streaks as it trickled down his shin and into the cuff of his boot. Gritting his teeth, he whipped the short sliver out and dropped it to the earth. A fresh spurt of blood flooded from the wound. Forcing his own rifle into his leg holster, he snatched up Muldoon's fallen rifle. With lightning fast fingers, he unbuckled the shoulder strap and refastened it tightly about his right thigh. The tourniquet was dangerous, he knew, but he'd take the risk for a short time if it allowed him to chase down Kyle.

Testing his weight on the injured leg, he saw with satisfaction that the spurting blood had virtually stopped. Pulling the rifle free again, he sped off after the smudged gray line on the horizon that could only be the Plaza.

Behind him arose a soft murmuring wail of misery. The Other failed to hear the noise, not that he would have stopped for the makers of the sound -- his attention was elsewhere. Like maggots in a moldering cheese, several mutants crawled out of the wreckage of the rusting heap of vehicles. They dropped with a sly softness into the dust, from windows, doors, trunks, and hoods. Metal fragments were caught in the threadbare clothes on their emaciated backs. Their spongy white flesh gave them a fungoid appearance, as many seemed to have extra growths on their arms and faces.

The soft wailing came from a taller mutant whose white eyes strayed into the back of the panel truck. It had just lost its breadwinner. The others crouched low, watching the departure of the hated Other and the stranger with a cold delight, and then they turned toward the truck themselves. Every eye fell to the still dripping blood. They wouldn't need to hunt tonight.

Pushed roughly aside, the mourning being covered its eyes and rocked itself from side to side in an effort to gain some comfort as the rest fell upon the doors of the truck.

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

The Champion trudged down the broken steps into the dark depths of his underground home. The black hound trotted at his heels and patiently settled down upon the bottom step. Continuously alert to the night outside, it was still sensitive enough to understand the bleak mood of its master.

The table held the remains of the meal he'd left for the Other. The rest of the room was empty of the human enigma. He was gone.

Gone. All gone. Now the Other's gone, too . . . . It's slipping through my fingers and I can't seem to stop it. Jesus, what a goddam mess . . . . Everything was so simple and easy until I went to kill him. I could see my life plotted out before me -- and then I saw him down that sewer. Nothing's been right since. Too many doubts and uncertainties. And now the threat of tomorrow night by my Owners . . . .

Tiredly, he kicked out the chair at the table and slumped into it. Whining, the dog sank down to its belly. The Champion stared at it piercingly.

"Where did he go, huh?" Why should I care? I've got my reward. As I sow, so shall I reap.

He laughed with a bitter cynicism at the way Fate had twisted his arm up behind his back.

The cans rested in an orderly row before him -- probably in the order the Other had eaten them. Not a trace of food left inside. The metal practically shone. The Champion stripped off a glove and fingered the bean can.

The can ricocheted off the wall over the bed and rattled to a standstill under a small table of quietly ticking fob watches and hunter pocket watches of the Time Before. The dog twitched an ear and turned away to face the patch of sky at the top of the stairs. The Champion's clasps jangled together with the anger of his pitch. He tried to stifle the well of weary pessimism that threatened to engulf him. He needed some time to reflect, rethink, and prepare. So much had been said to him during that short audience and so little given as a reward.

He pulled out the tiny packet that held the LSD. Gently, he placed it on the tabletop. Close at his elbow was a cigarette lighter that contained a small amount of fuel. He flicked back the silver cap and sparked off a flame of blue and orange. It wavered in the soft breeze from the open stairway and cast a flickering web of shadows across the tabletop. His desired drug was laid bare to its truth. Red in color, evil of spirit, and yellow in its methods. It distorted reality, he knew that, as if it were too spineless to enhance the real world for the addict. But was the New Society a real world? It was a matter of philosophy and semantics. And he didn't use his intelligence as much as he used to.

In the harsh flame of the lighter, the blond's face became a mask of repelled hate, and he felt the bile rise in his throat.

He rose from the table and lifted the glass of the lamp to light it. The funnel made a grating noise as he replaced it inside the metal neck of the oil reservoir. The pale yellow light illuminated the room, casting longer shadows into the corners.

Standing up, the Champion unstrapped his holster and peeled off the other glove. He placed them together on a clothes rack specially set aside for his precious armor. The leather combat suit followed next, and then the boots. All were neatly placed in readiness for the next day. A day he hoped would never arrive for him.

He looked at his body, taking in his own naked flesh in a way he'd never done before. He studied every inch of himself, pausing at the nicks, cuts, and scratches, remembering how he'd gotten them, through fighting, maiming, and killing. His eyes rested on the slightly raised red skin on his chest where the dart had pierced him. He traced the tender edges with his fingernail, remembering how close he'd come to death or worse: the Savior of the New Image. Involuntarily, his skin goosebumped as he recalled the speech of Peter.

And then he noticed the permanent intracath set into his arm. An addition to his body by the Owners. He'd let them do it, so desperate was he for his continued "high." It cushioned him from the reality of his humiliating degradation. And in his profession, his dope had helped him to the top of his class. A Pedigree Protector: the Champion. And at that very moment, he hated and despised himself for being the pawn in their vast game of chess.

His body shuddered with a fear of its own self-analysis. He disgusted himself.

He wanted to be clean of this day, to be scrubbed raw of its vile taint. He pushed up from the table and purposefully crossed the stone floor to enter his tiny bathroom. Leaning over the tub, he turned the faucet on with a frenzied rapidity. Cold water splashed into the fiberglass tub. No time to boil it up, he would be scoured in iced water in an effort to sanitize his soul. A hopeless task.

He stepped into the tub, feeling the harsh discomfort of the freezing water on his body. Lowering himself, he pulled his knees up under his chin and waited for the water level to rise. Arms wrapped about his knees, he tried to control the leaden depression he knew he was falling foul of, and he knew why. No new fix. He closed his eyes in an effort to avoid the sight of the intracath. It teased him to use his present reward. And plagued him to accept his future as a means to feeding his habit continuously. His mind split into two as he struggled against his enormous craving and his need to be purified and freed of this living sentence that had blighted his life. The devil on his back rode him hard.

The water rose about his knees and he leaned forward to turn off the faucet. Three drops caught on his outstretched hand. He brought them back, watching the surface tension keep their shape tightly bubbled.

Yes, they know it all. They now know they can't trust their "most precious." But he's too good a specimen to annihilate. So, we'll put him out to stud. Simple, safe solution. Retire him to stud . . . make the cold nights a little more bearable . . . .

He reached for the abrasive scrubbing brush. He could at least wash off the dirt of the day. But after a time, too much dirt begins to cling.

Wrapped in a threadbare, purple bath towel, the Champion paced agitatedly about the table of his living area. In an effort to distract himself from his growing need for his narcotics, he wandered over to the bed and sank down in the covers. The rough wool of the blankets scratched at his over-sensitive skin, making it unbearable for him to relax there. He climbed to his feet and wrung his hands, fretting.

But he found he was staring at the tiny red pill again. With a superhuman effort, he forced himself to go over to the kitchen and stalk about the metal surfaces of the ovens. At least here, he wouldn't have to look at it.

It made not the slightest bit of difference. All he was confronted with there were the blurred images of his own face in the shiny worktops, distorted out of recognition. He closed his eyes to his fevered look.

His body screamed for relief, his mind wavered on the brink of giving in. Twitching fingers rubbed at the intracath as if part of an automatic reflex system in his body. His eyes opened wide. And he forced his hand away and into the folds of the huge towel. Both hands gripped with a rampant fierceness that made him start at the intensity of his craving.

He wiped his running nose on a corner of the towel. Sweat dripped off his chin and soaked into the looped pile.

The precious metal that tipped his hair chanted too loudly in the silence of the kitchen. Irritating. The Champion raised a hand to the front clasp hanging from his left temple. He fingered the heavy gold and held it up before him. The last reward. Gained on false pretenses. He hadn't killed the Other at all.

"I'm a drug addict."

He said it coldly and calmly, for everyone and no one to hear. Admission of guilt made it only a little better. Some of the tension eased out of his locked chest muscles, and he knew his fight had left him. He'd acknowledged his weakness and thus he was ready to give in to it.

He pushed his way through the swinging doors and back into the living area. The dog had gone; it could not bear the confused vibrations that came from the man. Raging, embittered, and chaotic, they made the dog uneasy. It preferred the man on a serene "high," leaving it to think calmly.

The Champion paused beside the table and gently took out the tiny dose from the packet. So small, yet so demanding.

"But I want my return from you, my evil friend." The red powder began to crumble off the pellet as he held it between thumb and forefinger. "I give in to your manipulation of my mind and body; in return I want the answers." He grimaced sourly. "And then, perhaps through my habit, I can find the elusive key to my freedom? Maybe, my answers lie in my reward. Out of the ashes a phoenix may arise . . . ." His voice had become a low, soft murmur.

All I have. Last chance. Perhaps that's why I'm so afraid to take it. If this LSD doesn't give me what I want -- my answers to the Other, then . . . then I'll always have a craving deep inside of me that no drug will ever satisfy.

The red powder collected in a tiny pyramid on the corner of the table. Each speck could hold an answer. Each grain could be a strand in his lifeline. He would cast it forth into the maelstrom of the trip and pray for the chance to attach himself to the solid, undeniable truth.

At the bar, he found a clean glass. He made a rapid selection from the many bottles there and poured out a small measure of soda water. Holding the glass carefully in case a cramp should hit him, he re-approached the table. He made to scoop the red dust into the liquid, but found his hand trembled too much. He'd never had LSD before, and the mounting excitement was beginning to outstrip his melancholic soul-searching. The justification for taking the narcotic was being slowly eroded from the forefront of his mind, as his greedy craving took over his control.

His hands were sweaty and stupid. He rubbed them on the towel and then carefully scooped the red dust into the glass. He placed the object of his attention in front of the lamp and waited eagerly for the color to change and the liquid to become clear.

LSD is odorless and tasteless. He downed the liquid in one gulp, wondering as he did so whether this really was the promised hallucinogen or some cruel joke played on him as punishment by the Owners. He would soon know.

His tongue licked every drop from his lips as he placed the glass beside the orderly row of cans. One more consumption of the rare things in this new world.

With deliberate moves, he made for the bed and sank down upon the coarseness to await the trip of a kind he'd never before experienced. He stared at the lamp with eyes of bright blue yearning. The line between his brows seemed even more deeply etched as the shadows caught there. A somber, serious face.

LSD has a cruel way of distorting reality. When that reality is already distorted, it can lay bare the bones of the real world.

In the dark room of an old bar an oil lamp guttered twice and went out, leaving the owner to the womb-like seclusion of the night. His feeble mind fought and struggled with the scope and magnitude the narcotics placed before him.

His life.

Blown up larger than it had been, more intense than he had ever felt it before, he suffered and relived the passages of his previous existence as if they had been engraved onto his subconscious. He needed the intensity of emotion to swamp him with its violent thrust and thus reawaken his long-forgotten, put-aside memory of his other life. Rekindled into a frantic awareness, he felt the images engulf him, consume him, tear him apart, as they roared forth. Pursued and cajoled by the drug's ability to contort and explode his history, his mind threw before his inner eye a rapid succession of terrifying pictures. All became one enormous, uncontrollable leviathan of repressed desires and aching losses.

Screaming with the agony of knowledge and remembering, he curled up in a huddled, shuddering bundle of blankets in the farthest corner and rocked with fright.

Down the pulsing steps of his hovel came a parade of bizarre figures. Each one glowed with an actuality that fooled him into believing they were real. But his hallucinations evaporated in a splintered cry of almost-destroyed yearning. Faces and places moved before him like some ancient 3D cyclorama. They reached out for him, smiled at him, cried for him, hated him, and loved him. Each protagonist was larger than life, twice as tangible, and a hundred times more petrifying, as he became aware of what he had lived for, loved, and lost.

Haunted to a point where he felt dazed and unable to comprehend the next onslaught of his past, he realized that, increasingly, the more important figures were coming toward him. The first parade had been mainly acquaintances, old and new. Radiant in their shape, size, and color. Unnervingly substantial.

Accompanied by a tide of buildings and places, he covered his face with the blanket, and still he saw them.

All the victims of his work, both sides of the law. The futile individuals, the helpless crazies, and the men in blue. Buried and hidden, he still saw and heard them. Their faces and mouths shrieked out a cacophony of accusations at desertion.

How could he have forgotten them? How could he? How?

He flung the cover away from his sweating face and felt his chest rising with the need for air. Air that he could taste. Bitterness for all the wasted time. And he felt hate. It was hot and burned into his soul. Blinded with the colors of personal pain, his head sank to his chest and his hands knuckled sharply into his temples.

No. He didn't want to remember now. Ignorance was bliss. It was true. He could fool himself -- would fool himself, pretend he was content and happy with his new life. Too much was raked up before him.

A hand on his arm. Warm, tender.

He flinched away as the limb merged with his own.

"Flesh of my flesh." The voice was real, the words so true.

He looked up.

"Mother." It escaped his trembling lips.

Just as he remembered her. She smelled so good. Her touch, the gentle caress a woman saves only for her son. She smiled and called him Kenneth.

He screamed in silence as he saw her flesh being drunk in by his own body, so bad was its need of her.

"Darling Kenneth. Don't be afraid, Mother is here. They can't hurt you any more . . . ."

Just words of his own imagination to heal himself. He pushed the failing image away, desperate to be free of her touch. He crawled to the other end of the bed. When he looked back, she was gone and his original home had appeared before him.

Wood. Bricks. Rich earth and peace. Duluth.

He wanted to run up the steps and hide in his old room. Safe and secure. But his father was looming through the whole building like a giant. A giant influence on his life and in his mind. Domineering and pedantic, he bore down with a rushing sensation. The vibrations of strict dogma and influence radiated from him in colors too loud. Hot colors of anger. The colors of his father's standards and aspirations for his son. Stifling and swamping.

The elder man's finger pointed accusingly. His mouth opened and the Champion's whole police career poured forth in a speeded-up barrage of places, people, and times. Kaleidoscopic images convulsed out of one another. The trip's formation had gone. Amorphous. Incoherence reigned the same as when he'd fought against his father's desires.

And then the stampeding images abruptly stopped, vanquished to his subconsciousness, and he thought he was free of the narcotic.

He sank down in a trembling heap of confusion, guilt, relief, and exhaustion. The bed was sodden with his sweat. His breath seemed harsh and rough in his parched throat. A vague sob escaped his lips, and he bit them hard to forestall any further outburst. He was wrung out with shame and deliverance.

An age of still time seemed to pass and all he heard was the inner thudding of his overstrained heart and the comforting tick of his collection. Slowly, he passed a hand over his wet face and wiped it clean. As he lowered it, he found himself staring at the black outline of a once-familiar shadow.

Shock jolted him, physically.

The outline stood on the bottom step against the faint light of the street. The face was fine and thin. The eyes just the right shade of remembered blue. The hair was thick and tight with curls. He glistened with health and vitality.

And the Champion knew he was a hallucination.

But his heart prayed for it to be a reality.

The illusion stepped into the unreal light of the lamp. The flame grew alarmingly until the whole bar was filled with the strange blue and orange light.

The Champion felt scorched, small, and insignificant. An insidious fear crept into his warped mind that perhaps his one-time partner wouldn't see him. Just pass by in oblivion.

The shadow turned full circle in the engulfing light. Naked, showing off his body's strengths and weaknesses: the strong line, the curves and planes, the scars. Each had their own familiarity, each was a perfect part of the whole man. Complete and within reach. And denied the watcher because of their transience.

Eyes wide with wonder and revelation, the Champion found himself mouthing the soundless phrase of his partner's name over and over until it became one unintelligible sound in his mind that meant more than he could ever place into words.

Shakily, he rose from the bed, blankets and towel falling away forgotten, blond braids hanging to his waist.

The flames became more intense. Blues became heavier and the orange turned to a heated gold as he crossed the stone floor toward the man who had been a seed planted in his soul from the first moment of their meeting. They had grown and flourished together. Now, he felt they could grow again.

Another rebirth into the world.

The hallucination of his tortured mind pivoted slowly, eyes lost to some far horizon, never meeting those of the Champion.

The shadow stopped before the watcher. It breathed a life all of its own, imbued by the mind of its creator. But try as he might, the Champion could not control the progress of the hallucinations, their speed, or their longevity.

As the thought crossed his mind unbidden, the image began to change and remold.

Too late.

The fine, tanned flesh seemed to sallow and gray before his eyes. The hair grew longer in moments and the eyes lost the contented glow of pleasure. The blue became hard and steel-flecked. The face took on the lines of suffering and misery. Flesh peeled away like petals dropping from a flower head to reveal the emergence of the shining metal plates. And the left eye was gone.

The shadow rotated as if manipulated by some unseen, godly hand. Silver handcuffs tied bony wrist to bony wrist. The man he once knew metamorphosed before his horror-struck eyes into the metalled shell of the Other.

He was a ghost of a man, whose body betrayed the abuse of the New Society, and whose tormented essence seemed to fill the room with the chill of despair and acute desolation.

The Champion felt cold. An ice seeped into his spirit, and he knew the Other was what he had hoped and feared.

The gold fire from the lamp became arctic in its temperature. The blues turned to the darkest hues of a nightmare. The bar dissolved away. Only the God-given earth and skies remained. Pure as the Time Before.

The Other locked eye to eye with the Champion. Accusation poured forth and then a strange temperance of forgiveness and understanding.

A sudden red shadow cast across the silvered features that changed abruptly to a sharp, white-neon flare. The shackles about his wrists fell noiselessly to the stone floor as his arms rose into the air above himself. The shaft of white light poured down on him from the heavens, so bright, the Champion had to shield his eyes. He fell back against the table, sinking down beside it, mesmerized by the pulsing power of the light and the Northern Sector Protector.

Hands reaching for the skies, the Other tilted his head back, closed his eyes and began to soar into the stars.

The intense brilliance flared upwards and out, dragging the dark blues after it. The Champion felt the tug on his own golden shades, but he had not the conviction to follow along his own warped hallucinations. A roaring cry of thunder rent the stillness as the tapestry of his past spiraled like some Kansas twister into the dark depths of the night. A whirling storm of his reality hurtled upwards and was swallowed up into his subconscious once more, locked away into a Pandora's box of dreams and wishes.

Drained of thought and feeling, the Champion sank face down to the floor. His gold clasps settled about his back and shoulders with a silent tenderness, as if they did not want to disturb the worn-out man. The gold light faded to the ever-present blackness, and the man knew the secrets of his mind like no other ever could guess.

He knew. Remembered. And felt deserted. No more pretense, no more shields against the truth.

And the Other had gone and left him behind.

He closed his eyes and pretended he didn't exist in time and space.

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

Running with the silent speed of a specter of the night, the Other skirted another pile of discarded machinery heaped up ready for collection by the salvage workers, and skidded to a halt before a small group of non-commune figures. In the flickering light from their fire, they turned warily and watched his approach with a fearful foreboding.

A small man-child in a holed sweatshirt and jeans panicked and sped off to the right into a dilapidated sports complex. The rest stood their ground, though clearly terrified. They watched, riveted, as the panting figure in wine leather and silver body plates trotted forward.

A buckled oil drum was nestling in the asphalt behind the group. Inside it, they had lit their fire. Its flames caused the group to be shown in dark relief. The Other couldn't make out their features or gender, but he was sure that most were young. He, himself, was plainly seen by the glow of the fire. Too clearly for some of the group. A couple at the edge clung to each other in an effort to remain standing in his presence.

While the Northern Protector regained his breath, he edged a little closer, as watchful of them as they were of him.

"Do you know who I am?" His words were weak and breathy from the long chase. "Do you know me, huh, silent people?"

The nearest being nodded slowly from behind a swath of scarves and a too-large trench coat.

"Good." He wiped a few strands of long hair from his sweating forehead. "I'm after another protector. Did he pass this way?"

Silence. None dared look at another.

Time was running away from the Other; he couldn't wait for answers that he needed now.

He spoke with a caustic thinness. "Answer me! Or some of you people are gonna be legless."

No one spoke. They all knew who was before them: the Other. News travels fast in the city even without the media networks. They knew he was ex-commune and free game for any and all assassins, professional and otherwise. Just who, if any of them, was going to find the guts to tackle him?

The Other scowled darkly and looked frantically about him for any clue that Kyle had passed by. Licking his lips, he padded forward another couple of feet to try and see past the fire.

The pain in his head, so sudden, crumbled him to his knees.

Gasping, he landed on all fours.

Like hounds in for the kill, the whole group took a step forward.

The Other fumbled the rifle up. The sharp click of the hammer being cocked stopped any further progress. As one, the group took on the appearance of petrification.

"Not another inch!" The Other glared balefully. "I'll kill the whole goddamned lot of you!" The agony eased to a throbbing pulse at this temples.

The group backed away to the far side of the drum.

The Other dragged himself up to his unsteady feet. He rested most of his weight on his left leg and tucked the rifle into his shoulder tightly. Sighting a bead along the barrel, he hissed, "You got three seconds to tell me which way Kyle went, and then I'm gonna ventilate your brains, scum."

The figures glanced agitatedly at each other.

"One -- "

A young woman dragged a shawl from her head in an effort to appeal to his humanitarianism. Surely, he wouldn't shoot a woman?

"Two -- "

The Other tightened up the strain on the trigger. The group held its collective breath.

Figures flinched in expectant death and a voice from the back screamed out. "He was here! He was here! Jesus, man, don't kill us!"

The Other's finger held on the trigger. "I can't hear you, filth. Speak louder."

A shabby figure flung himself at the feet of the Other, shaking with terror. He shook so much his teeth rattled in his gaunt skull. Raising his face to meet that of the Plaza man, the light of the fire revealed the open sores on his chin and forehead, the red-rimmed eyes and the unhealthy skin. He was a wasted man of youth.

"He went through here about ten minutes ago. We let him pass; he was moving too fast." The words chattered out of his sore lips. "He was heading for the Plaza."

The Other nodded, gazing away into the darkness. He's gonna get there before me. Damn! Can't let him. Too much at stake. He looked again at the group. A collection of no-nothing beings, unfit, and unskilled for a commune. Let them rot.

Loping away to the right, he avoided the dark shadows of the sports complex and circumnavigated the crowd. They turned slowly, following his every move, fearful of a bullet in the back. They had heard the legends. Now he was wounded and running. Twice as dangerous. Twice as deadly.

Picking up speed, the Other disappeared out of their lives and into the night.

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

Clawing his way over the sharp bricks and fragments of the city blocks, Kyle heaved his weary body down another displaced curbstone and rolled onto the tarmac. He'd run miles out of his way to try and throw the Other off his trail. But every time he looked back, he thought he saw the faint wisps of rising dust in the moonlight, or heard the soft pattering of rapid footsteps religiously dogging his own. He rubbed his forehead across his out flung forearm and squinted toward the pale edifice of the Plaza.

Forcing his spent body onto hands and knees, he crawled on. He had to get just a little further and then he would be safe.

His nose almost came into contact with a thin gray wire.

He froze as he realized how close he'd come to being electrocuted on a boundary wire. Like some wandering mutant, he would have fried there until charred black -- living entertainment for the watchers hidden within. In the early hours of dawn, they would cut the power and let the Plaza dogs out for a free feeding session.

Swallowing sickly, Kyle rose to his feet and stepped carefully over the almost-invisible wire. He had to be mindful; there would be others.

Behind him, a stone crunched very definitely.

He twisted his head almost off as he leaped around to face the dark, open waste. He couldn't see him: the Other. Couldn't spot any shade of wine or glint of silver, but he knew he was out there. Knew it as surely as the hairs on the back of his head that crawled erect.

Tears of despair filled his eyes. He had so much to lose. He and Muldoon had finally been onto a lucky streak until they had followed up the shots. They could have left them. Not bothered to check. Who'd have known? Who'd have cared?

Now Muldoon was dead, his skull spread over Kyle's chest and face. And he was probably only seconds away from a similar fate.

But as long as he could still draw breath, he'd fight on. He'd take the last chance with both hands and make a break for the front door. Surely, the sentry would be on duty and see his sprint for safety. Surely, they'd give him covering fire?

Leaping up, he discarded any thought of a steady approach so as to avoid the trip wires. Instead, he dug in his toes and fled for the steps. The sand flew from his heels as, heedless of electrocution, he thundered over the last few yards to safety. His gun slipped from his fingers as he ran, his fists punched the air as he tried to hurl himself faster -- faster than the bullet from a rifle.

He hit the bottom step in a flurry of flailing arms and coursing adrenalin. His sanctuary was in sight, within reach, and yet he knew he would not make it.

A soft hissing sound came to his ears above the scraping of his steel-capped boots on the steps. A thin knife flew out of the night, deadly accurate, and right on target. It embedded itself up to the hilt at the base of Kyle's skull. He pitched forward, hands out flung for the door. His fingernails scratched down the metal sheets, screeching out his death, unlike his throat, which had been cut from within. The body hit the cold steps with a soft thud, leaving his hands still partly raised to the door.

From inside, the sound of Kyle's flight up the steps had brought the sentries to attention. The faint, high-pitched grating of nails clawing down metal had caused all conversation to cease.

Lounging against the reception desk of the hotel, the guards became apprehensive -- alert. The two closest to the main doors glanced at the others and then moved to listen against the entrance. The remaining three watched with cool interest.

A stringy type with red hair and a broken nose pulled an automatic from a shoulder holster and laid a hand on the huge door bolts. He got no further. The man at his side pulled on his arm, pointing with the barrel of a .32 S&W at the spreading pool of blood that was seeping under the door. The two men motioned the other three sentries to come and join them.

With great stealth, the redhead drew back the bolts while the others made ready to give him covering fire. Heaving until the cords stood out on his neck, the protector managed to ease open the right-hand door. Its mammoth weight slowed its swinging arc.

Outside, the night was dark and still. Nothing moved. No red eye of rat glinted. Nothing breathed.

Least of all the sentries, when they saw the corpse.

Face down on the concrete, Kyle's hands flopped down onto the toe of the redhead's boot. Dead, lifeless fingers. The spread of blood collected in puddles in the cracks of the tiling.

"That's Kyle, I recognize him." Lewis looked nervously from one side to the other, expecting some form of answer from his confederates. They were too disturbed to speak. Protectors shouldn't end up on the Plaza steps with their throats cut from the rear.

"Well, it is him, isn't it?" Lewis was persistent. He stared out into the dark night. "He can't have come far with his guts running down his chest. Musta happened just down there." He motioned with his gun into the darkness before them.

Haldane bent over the body and turned it slightly so he could gain a better look. When he was sure who it was, he let the corpse drop face down again. Standing up, he flicked his red hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, that's him. Joined us about two months ago. Worked with a guy called Muldoon." He rubbed his bloodied hands down his jacket front. "Wonder what happened to him . . . . They were on patrol together, out near the scrap yard . . . ." He scanned the Plaza forecourt slowly. Everything was as it should be, except for Kyle's weapon laid in the middle of the disused road.

Zuckerman coughed nervously. Something was definitely wrong here. Nobody out there, no sudden follow-up attack. Nothing.

Just a vague unease that they were being watched.

"Hey, Haldane, I've seen that blade before. I . . . I recognize the handle." Lewis bent over the hilt embedded in the neck. "Don't you guys remember it?"

Puzzled expressions crossed three faces, clearly indicating their ignorance of the history of the knife.

Haldane nodded thoughtfully, his face darkening like the prevalent atmosphere. His voice dropped noticeably. "Drag that meat inside and get out of this backlight. Now. Move it!" His hissed words conveyed his sense of urgency.

Three of the sentries immediately holstered their weaponry and stooped down for the corpse. Lewis and Haldane gave them cover as they retreated into their fortress.

As the doors swung shut, cutting the backlight down to a narrow strip, a last sentence came to the watcher's ears, out in the night. It was Lewis. "But I thought the Other had gone, man. What in hell's he doing back?"

As the huge Plaza doors were locked and bolted from inside, the Other moved forward a little, face showing his intense abhorrence of the men he used to work beside. There was nothing these men wouldn't do to further the aims of their Commune -- be it right or wrong. Right and wrong didn't seem to exist in the New Society. Amorality was the code of ethics.

They'll regret that way of thinking when I've dealt out some of my personal code. I learned very well under their terms . . . . Gonna show them how good I am . . . . But not just yet . . . . Let 'em sweat a little first. He smiled the smile of a predator who plays with its kill. Got to get 'em all nice, tense, and nervous . . . then I'll have them.

He stared a few moments longer at the building that housed his nemesis, then kicked a few loose stones away into the darkness. Turning on his heel, he made sure he didn't trip any of the wires and trotted on his way. He needed some things from his old "home," some things that the salvage squads of the Northern Sector wouldn't have discovered. He was too good for them, always had been.

As he headed from the Plaza, he could imagine their preparations for a siege getting underway. But they had already lost even before they began. Fear was the greatest weapon that the Other had on his side, and the people of the Plaza had raised a deadly killer who had escaped their control.

They were already scared to death -- the Other was going to see that they got there safely.

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

When the Champion awoke, he was cold. Cold in body and in spirit. He rolled stiffly to his knees, one hand on the table edge for leverage, and hauled himself onto his feet. Head down, he rested a moment as the past night came tumbling into his bruised and strained mind. Eyes shut, he raised his head and tried to steady his suddenly lurching heart. Knowledge and truth were no easier to bear in the hard light of day.

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, then pushed back the heavy plaits that hung forward. Something soft brushed the skin of his leg. He glanced down and saw the dog watching him expectantly. Pale pink eyes looked knowingly into the blue of his own.

The moment held between them as if putting the final seal on the end of their old routine. The man sensed that the dog knew things had changed. The atmosphere was different. The man had undergone an experience that had altered him in ways he himself did not yet know. It was as if he'd been cleansed from within. He felt hollow and emptied of his old, familiar self.

The comfortable ease of blurred reality had evaporated from his doped mind as the effect of the LSD had peaked and waned. Reality of a most personal nature had been laid bare before him in ways sharp and cruel. Although he hadn't been able to control its passage or speed, he knew that it was constructed from his own subconscious. The Champion was responsible for the images and how they had affected him. No good dodging the issue now. He knew. Knew it all.

A sudden swell of emotion expanded within his mind and served to clarify his enlightenment. The Champion no longer perceived in ways taught him by the Owners, and the sudden mushrooming of old sensations and feelings held him spellbound. And it gave him a rising thrill that no drug could ever achieve. His past was as clear to him as it ever would be. A little hazy in places, but so much more than he had ever had before. He exhilarated in the pain and relief, in the gains and the losses.

He hooked out one of his chairs and sank into it, eyes unfocused as he stared away into the middle distance. Remembering.

The words came to his mind in vivid images that he could now control. He held each face and examined it carefully. They stirred his emotions in ways unused for years, but time had not dimmed the honesty of his feelings. The terrible aching wound that was his loss reopened as if it were again the fateful days of The End.

The horror and the anguish poured through in waves, and yet he deliberately distanced himself from the profound feeling. He examined the sensations he had been deprived of for so long, instead of deeply experiencing them. He was relearning his past in a way that screamed from the raw revelation. He simply wasn't ready for the full perception to affect him yet. He wouldn't be able to cope . . . . He had to learn to walk again before he could run.

A heavy, clenched fist came down angrily on the wooden planking as his frustration came out. The dog flinched and backed away a little as the empty cans bounced and scattered across the table.

The Champion turned, a steady eye upon the hound. It cowered down, suspicious of the strangeness in the man.

"Spooked?" The Champion raised a blond eyebrow. "You should be; things are different."

He clicked his fingers in the usual code signal and the dog's ears rose. It understood the order, felt secure again, and raced up the steps to continue its guard duty.

A wiser man watched it go with a feeling of seeing these actions being played for the last time. But at the back of his mind was the persistently nagging thought that he was still Territory Protector and certain things were expected of him. Inside, he may have changed, but the Owners would have refused to see the differences even if he pointed them out. They patently had other designs on him, and his desire to find the Other would not endear him toward them. He had bungled the job in their eyes; the Other was still roaming free. He had let them down at the most vital moment, and that was unforgivable. They were going to make him pay -- tonight.

The Champion mulled over the sordid facts of his new status within the Commune hierarchy and Stud was not a title that fitted him. Not now.

Like a giant among men, the Champion rose from the table with a new conviction in his heart. He stood tall and proud in the pale yellow light of the afternoon sun as it filtered down the steps of the Pits. At such a low angle, the rays caught the curve of his clasps in a teasing, expectant manner. His fair, naked flesh shone with a new vibrancy as a thin sheen of sweat covered his skin. It was caused by the first stirrings of excitement. The taste of freedom was tempting to his newfound sense of feeling. Like heady wine, it brought a warm glow of satisfaction to seep through his being. So long starved of any hope, he felt renewed and strong. No longer bowed by the ever-present menace of ownership, once he had made his choice to be free, the burden fell from his wide shoulders with a simple ease.

I, too, choose to be free of this existence. I can be my own man again . . . no longer a killer fed on narcotics, enslaved to the Owners' demands. I can fight my habit -- have before, and if the Other can face ex-commune life, then so can I. I want my freedom just as much as he did. He showed me the way; set the path . . . . All I have to do is follow.

The Champion smiled a slow smile of hope and nodded to himself in an effort to convince himself further that he could be a free man. Then his face darkened.

He circled the table and moved over to where his clothes lay. He picked up the armored leather suit from the rack and fingered the inlaid studs.

Studs for a stud? No, not me. This is where I cut out of this society. I'm finished, anyway, too untrustworthy. The Other was right all along -- there's going to come a time when I don't come up to scratch and the Owners will look for someone else. This is that time, and there'll be plenty of contenders for the first gold clasp. But they won't find anyone as good. My worth has been my uniqueness, and once they realize that, they'll want me back. But I'm going to be long gone or dead through the trying. I won't return to the Territory. Last night was the very last time. The last sachet, the final time I sell myself for their paltry rewards.

He shrugged into the suit and began to strap on the holster and other weapons.

The final glove slid up his arm to the elbow and he was dressed for the empty wasted streets. There were still a multitude of pitfalls to cross over. He looked up and found his reflection staring back at himself from the bar mirror. The leather was tight over his body, the gun settled almost casually against his thick thigh. His gold clasps and armlet gleamed dully, as if the inner power of the man had overshadowed their brilliance. Under the gold headband, his features were too thin and gaunt to suit him; too many ill-used years had marred his beauty. But he still had that special element built into his persona that made him a man alone, feared and admired: a Protector of nightmares and haunted, quiet moments. Many commune dwellers and mutants wouldn't be sorry to witness his passing out of their lives.

The problem would be: how to get away alive?

The Other did it. And if you want something badly enough, you can have it. I'm prepared to pay the cost. I learned that from him . . . from all of them. My Owners will fight me every inch of the way; the price will be high. But I'm not afraid to fight on. I'll claw my way to freedom if I have to . . . I will. It's time I had a say in my life, what's left of it. I've been quiet too long; now I have so much to say. And I want the Other to listen . . . to me. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. But where in all this waste is he? Why did he leave? Why?

Pulling away from the mirror, the Champion walked toward his arms rack on the wall near the entrance. As he approached, he studied them, ready to make a selection, and he saw something was odd. Four rifles were resting loosely in the rack. All the others were securely chained in their individual places.

Puzzled, he picked up the nearest. He always kept the weapons locked up in case any stray mutant got into the Pits and decided to help itself. He turned the unknown rifle over in his hands and noted its poor condition. Not like a weapon that he possessed; they were always kept well cleaned and oiled. They were all that stood between a protector's life and his death.

He put the rifle back in its place and picked up the other one. This was a little better kept, but still in need of a thorough stripping down. And then he saw the markings on the underside of the stock.

N.S.C. -- P. was clearly engraved there, burned into the crazed varnish of the wood. The indentations had collected sweat and dirt, but he could still read the letters.

N. S. C. -- P.? N. S. C. -- P.? What the -- Wait a minute -- Northern Sector Commune property from the P. -- the Plaza stronghold! So, those stupid cretins have been here, huh? Probably after the Other; musta been that implant in his head -- .

A cold, sick feeling encircled his heart. He lowered the gun from his eye, where he'd been peering into the barrel. His hand shook slightly.

The Champion's face became a mask of shuttered granite. The thoughts were too dreadful to contemplate at this moment.

A savage anger welled inside the Champion, and he threw the rifle across the bar and into the bottles lined up so neatly. The glass splintered in a crashing cascade as bottle after bottle smashed to the stone floor. The gold and amber liquids splashed like a fountain over the wooden bar top, settling into large pools. In seconds, the rolling mass lay still, the glass tinkled to a stop, and only the slow drip of spilled alcohol broke the silence.

His gold clasps rattled with his anger as his long plaits swayed over his back. Dark of features and spirit, the Champion stormed over to the stairs.

At the bottom he paused; the dog was halfway down. Alerted by the sudden crash of glass, it had come to its master's aid. The Champion whistled it away. It sensed the anger and retreated. Leather boots digging hard into the crumbling steps, the Champion climbed out of his home and into the late afternoon sun. Pale, insipid orange, it struggled through the low, gray clouds and failed to warm the remains of the city. Hands on hips, the Champion surveyed his surroundings.

A little way behind him, the black hound was busy pawing at the ground, persistently trying to erase any signs of Jaeger from the face of the earth. As it toiled, it kept one wary eye on the Territory man. The dog liked routine, liked its master to be quiet and calm. Assured. Since last night the man was a stranger. The eerie sounds emanating from the Pits in the dead of night had made the hackles on the hound's neck rise. It had lain on its stomach, guarding its master and yet wishing to be away from the weird man below. He had changed, and the sudden rise in thinly veiled tension about him only unnerved the dog. He still feared the man, but not like he used to; now he feared the unpredictability. Routine had been banished. How soon would it be before the hound found itself reduced to a similar state?

The Champion turned about and faced the beast.

"What are you doing?" He spoke as evenly as possible, trying to control his sense of frustration at losing the Other.

The hound stepped to one side as the tall man approached. As he drew opposite the dog, the Champion saw the shape of the grave clearly. He looked about quickly and saw the other slight mound of bricks and rubble.

"So we did have callers, huh?" He squatted down and undid some of the dog's work by heaving away a layer of debris.

Underneath was the filthy corpse of Jaeger. Bullet hole dead center of his forehead. A dark, ugly hole. Eyes still wide, he stared at the sky. The insects had already begun to feed off him.

"Some bugs have no taste." Unmoved, the Champion kicked the debris back and patted the dog once.

Checking that his ammunition was complete, he turned and began to walk away.

Suddenly, he paused and glanced back. The dog was sitting patiently beside the grave, ready to resume its work. When it saw the man halt, it pricked its ears up.

The Champion stared at it, his blue eyes softening momentarily.

"You are free, too. Get away from here; there's nothing for you now."

The dog remained at its place. It didn't understand the words.

The Champion gave it the whistle to "leave" and "hunt." A faint whine of a sound made the dog leap to its feet abruptly. But again, the two orders only caused confusion.

Leave? It had left the Pits. It was already outside. Hunt? Hunt what?

The Champion turned his back and set off.

He shrugged cynically.

Perhaps that's what we all are -- dumb beasts, free but we don't know it. Just gotta take the chance with both hands -- and hang on.

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

His lengthening shadow over the ground told the Other that the time of day was passing; soon the night would settle over the city like a blanket and over the Plaza like a shroud. His leather-clad body had just risen from a manhole with a practiced expertise. He'd been "home" to collect a few personal effects for tonight's little party at the Plaza. A couple of smoke grenades, an incendiary device, extra ammunition, and another couple of knives. Just enough to be sure that the party went with a surprise and a swing.

He'd been right; the salvage squad hadn't found his secret cache of weapons behind some loose brickwork near the top of the arched tunnel roof. Everything else, however, was gone. It crossed his mind as to how he'd ever existed down there. But he was a twilight man who had preferred at one time to live in a twilight world. The hidden tunnels of the old sewer system had served his purpose admirably.

He'd stayed hidden all the long day, avoiding any noisy confrontations with stray mutants that may attract attention to him. He knew that the Northern Sector leaders would send out scouting parties from the Plaza in an effort to flush him out before nightfall. His answer to that was to get off the street, but stay in the immediate area and let them scurry about frantically among the ruins chasing their own tails. Moreover, too cowardly to risk searching his old domain. They knew he was loose, on the run, and now holed up somewhere. No one would take the risk to venture down the sewers and check his old haunt. Too dark, too unfamiliar, too deadly. There had never been anyone skillful enough to enter those sewers and get out alive -- except one man . . . . If the Other was down there, he could stay undisturbed; they'd rather wait and take their chance against him at the Plaza. Down in the hollow pits of their stomachs, they knew he was coming.

And the Other knew that a tired, angry, nervous army of protectors would be waiting for him tonight. Twisted up with tension and fear, they'd be inefficient and useless against his experience.

Walking with a limp, the Other made a direct route for the Plaza. He would wait, just out of sight, for darkness and then he would strike. Silent, deadly, and accurate.

Collected in spirit and vocation, he walked on doggedly, the pain in his head a constant reminder of what he wanted to achieve. It had dropped from a piercing, needle-sharp agony in the top of his skull to a dull ache. But still it forced him to crease his brow, making the silver strips down his cheek strain against the skin and stand proud. The leather strap he had unbuckled from his right leg and left discarded on the damp floor of the sewer. The wound had stopped weeping blood, but the dull throbbing in the muscle only served to wear away his fading reserves of strength. Pale of flesh and solemn of feature, he quickened his pace toward his destination.

Against the quiet indigo of the evening sky he could see the thin white strip of the Plaza building. Small and serene, it disguised a hive of grasping, ruthless men intent upon the domination of the city. He still felt disgust over the part he had played in their rise to success. It was now up to him to see that they were reduced to naught. He owed them nothing -- all they had ever given him were years of physical pain and mental misery . . . .

. . . close to a live wire, the Other stopped and surveyed the Plaza with a sure thoroughness. He'd paused just out of range of the huge arc lights that lit the forecourt of the fortified hotel. They could spy out the lay of the land from within and never see him in the darkness.

Keeping to the edge of the arc light's white border, the silvered man trotted around the perimeter of the Plaza forecourt toward the rear of the building. He knew every pebble and broken brick of the fortress; it had been his job to secure the Northern Sector Leaders. He had been good at his job until the Champion had come along, and the Champion had used a weapon that not even the Northern Sector had known about. That weapon was a snatched memory of the Time Before. Distant and unclear, it had disrupted the Other's concentration just long enough for the tall blond to capitalize on the delay. This time, the Other wouldn't be surprised; there would be no delays.

The rear of the Plaza had an ad hoc natural defense. The upper stories of the hotel had fallen into a neat pile of rubble, efficiently blocking off any attempted entry from the back of the building. Their back door was always locked. However, it also provided a not-too-steep slope of debris from the earth to the third story. The floor of the fourth story was now the roof of the Plaza, above the first level of bedrooms and suites. The early Commune dwellers had cleared away most of the remaining walls of the fourth floor bedrooms in an effort to level the roof. The elevator shaft still poked out a short way and the stairwells, at either end, provided the sentries with access to the roof, as did the one that circled the elevator shaft. Around the edge of the roof a six-foot-high wall had been built out of anything tough enough to withstand a bullet or grenade. They had used mainly truck doors or security doors from banks, painted white to blend in with the rest of the building. The Plaza people believed that they had a fortress of the finest caliber.

The Other was about to prove them wrong.

In the early days, it had been upon the dark-haired Protector's advice that the Plaza mount a constant guard upon the roof, but with success had come complacency. The Northern Sector Leaders had begun to believe that no one would dare assault the Plaza in the daylight, and the guard duty for daylight hours had been suspended. By that time, the Other was past caring, borne down under a burden of unfulfilled promises and acts of inhuman medicine. Let the place become overrun one fine, quiet day when all the sentries were abed with their whores. He couldn't give a damn.

The Other moved like lightning over the narrowest point of light to the slope of debris. Mindful as to where he planted his boots, he began to scamper up the twisted concrete toward the roof.

Seeking handholds with precision, he slithered forward, onwards and upwards like a snake in long grass. His feet provided the sure leverage he needed, and he was more than halfway up before he detected a slight movement in the darkness above.

A shadow, darker than the rest, stood out against the moonlit sky. It paused in a surrogate loophole to scan the slope. The Other bent his face to the concrete slab he was squirming over, frightened that his silver plates would glint and give him away like they had done before with Muldoon. Satisfied that there was nothing happening below, the shadow retreated.

Turning his face slowly upwards, the Other made sure that McIver was gone before he inched over the slab and settled against a huge lump of rusting superstructure that had once been the emergency stairs from an upper story. It was a lattice of metal tubes and treads that cast a chiaroscuro pattern over the Other, affording him some camouflage. Tensing to a stillness, he picked out a safe route through the tangled metal, and rose to his feet smoothly. Boots pattering over the steps, he scurried stealthily up and under the roughly cut loophole in the truck door and tried to press himself into the metal wall.

Fighting against the nagging headache in his skull, the Other listened attentively until he was sure that the sentry on the other side of the wall was nowhere near him. There was no faint sound of feet on concrete floor, or the slightly heavy breathing of a protector who was out of condition.

Feeling a little easier, he pulled open the leather bag on his back and slipped out a small handgun and silencer. He grinned wickedly, his teeth showing pale gray in his otherwise featureless face.

Holding it tightly in his left hand, he waited, listening intently for the return of McIver from his tour of the roof.

Swinging out and up, the Other used his right hand to haul himself through the loophole in one fluid movement. As he balanced on the sill, he swiftly took in the field of action. It was as he remembered it, stairwell to either end, main flight in the middle circling the elevator shaft. A few old plumbing pipes poked toward the sky, but the rest of the area was empty -- except for McIver who was only just turning around.

McIver's eyes widened in genuine surprise. The Other seemed to have materialized out of fresh air. The guard's gun rested in his holster, completely forgotten. He took a step forward out of blind terror and stunned curiosity. Mouth gaping, he tried to call out a warning. Too late, the phuffff of a silencer put the seal on his seedy life. The bullet tore through his chest and bubbled up his lungs with blood. He dropped slowly to the rooftop, face down.

The Other tiptoed swiftly over to the body and kicked it in the shoulder. Stone dead, it lolled like a beached seal. He stooped down for the gun in the holster. Flipping it out, he emptied it of shells and flung it away. It skittered over the rooftop and disappeared into the darkness.

Footsteps in the main stairwell brought the Other round. Someone was climbing to this level. Glancing about, he realized that there was no other cover. Sprinting forward, he leaped the corner of the well and settled flat in the dust on the roof. Lying opposite the rise of the stairs, he was on the floor directly behind anyone climbing up. As long as they didn't look back on the last six steps, he wouldn't be seen.

The steps grew louder and a soft whistling came to his ears. A French tune that Ledoc still remembered from the old country. Irregular of rhythm, the Parisienne melody heralded the arrival of the next sentry.

Ledoc stumped up the last few steps and paused in the moonlight. He was tall, with straight black hair cut short, pencil mustache and a uniform made out of an old cleaning department coverall. It was a little too tight across the shoulders and one armhole seam had split. Underneath he wore a shabby cotton jacket and shirt. With his back to the Other, it was impossible to read his features, but the Other remembered his face and the cold killer glint in his eye. He could have been the replacement for the silvered man in a few years' time. But he wasn't going to make it.

Ledoc saw the corpse of his partner and sensed the presence of another being in the next split second. Whipping around, Luger in hand, he fired off a random shot in a desperate attempt to save his own life. The shot whined away into the night over the Other's head.

Steady hand on the trigger, the Other snapped off one silent shot and ripped open Ledoc's neck. Lips still puckered, he pitched headfirst down the stairs, stopping on a lower landing in a knot of loose limbs and blood.

Scrambling to his feet, the Other peered after the corpse and waited for the sounds that would tell him that others had heard the Luger shot in the lower floors of the Plaza. He didn't have to wait long; the cry of alert came plainly to his ears. They thought he was attacking from the rear of the building. In that they were right, but they were wrong in thinking he was firing upon them from outside, from somewhere in the darkness.

A stampede of feet on the stairs told him in no uncertain terms that protectors were soon going to be swarming all over the roof. Stepping over the edge of the elevator shaft, the Other slithered down it with his left boot until he was at full stretch. Fumbling with his foot, he found a toehold and released his grip on the rough lip of the shaft. He scraped down the dirty shaft a little way, until he found the service rungs of the old wall ladder. Anchoring himself onto the bars, he wasted no time in getting as far away from the massing army as possible. Dropping hand over fist, he soon felt safe enough to slow down and proceed more quietly, feeling for the double doors of the third floor. Hands searched the rough sides of the shaft as he dropped another body length. For one moment, he wondered if he'd descended on the wrong side, so much in haste had he been to be gone from the roof. But when his hand touched the smooth steel doors, he felt his heart stop hammering in his chest. Hooking his legs into the rungs, he loosened his arms and set about prying the doors open. A light crowbar from the pouch ensured that he lost no more time. Slipping the thin edge into a perishing rubber cushion, he soon had enough of a gap to slip in his fingers and force the doors back.

The sudden light made him squint. On the bare walls were the oil lamps, dimly lit so as not to waste resources. Or illuminate the interior of the fortress to the advantage of the Other outside.

The Other pursed his partially metalled lips in thought.

Swinging around the right-hand door edge, the dark-haired man alighted on the third floor and immediately hauled the elevator doors shut as close as he could. The retractable cushions expanded to meet the gap. Sprinting across the corridor, he slipped into a closet that had once housed room service equipment. Along one wall remained some off-white towels and bed linen, stacked ceiling-high on wooden shelves. On the opposite wall were rows and rows of shoes. Ancient and modern, worn and new, they lay haphazardly in bundles according to size, waiting to be allocated to the commune dweller who had proved his worth and needed some form of foot cover.

The Other paced up and down the narrow walk space, searching the shelving for anything else of use. Under the left-hand shelf at the back were six dusty bottles of cleaning fluid.

He picked up the bottles and crept to the door. Opening the veneered wood a crack, he listened intently then risked poking his head out. An unknown protector was poised at the foot of the main staircase, gun in hand. He was watching the removal of Ledoc from the upper landing. A muffled voice called for assistance, and he disappeared up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Knowing he may not get a second chance, the Other hurried over to the elevator doors and pushed the bottles through the rubber cushions and into the shaft.

Glancing to either side, he crossed over the hard carpeting, muddied and dirtied by hundreds of boots tramping over it, and slid back into the tiny room. As he passed the shelves of shoes, an old faded track shoe caught his eye. He hesitated, and picked up the odd shoe in his hand. It had been blue and white leather at one time, with padded sole and laces. The laces were long gone, the eyelets torn loose. Dirt and grime were ground into the smooth suede in oily patches.

As he held it before him to scrutinize its lines, his brain suddenly rocked within his skull. Electrical jolts of pain rattled his sight and practically made him sick. The shoe fell through his fingers as he clamped down on any escaping whimpers of pain, but he wasn't strong enough for this spasm. He sagged against the shelving and then pitched over onto the floor. For several seconds, he passed in and out of a pain-filled state of unconsciousness.

And for some strange reason, the Adidas shoe filled his mind with multiple images of running feet. Pounding over wet roads and concrete sidewalks, they ate up the distance in some kind of chase.

Lying on his side, face pressed to the roughly carpeted floor, the Other managed to pull himself onto his shaking legs by aid of the shelves. For long minutes, he rested head down against a stack of towels, waiting for the surging waves of agony to abate so he could continue. Shuddering with the effort, he managed to raise his pulsing head and focus on the door. Sweat beaded on his top lip, glistening on the silver strips. A stray tear ran from the corner of his good right eye.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed away from the support of the shelf and returned to his task, the shoe forgotten on the floor. From out of his pouch he pulled the smoke grenades and the incendiary device. Looking carefully about so as not to jar his head any more than need be, he selected a shelf of bed linen and wormed the device into the pile. Next, he double-checked for any flammable liquids or cans; he didn't want the Plaza to burn too quickly. Satisfied that the closet would burn at a steady pace, causing ample amounts of choking smoke, he set the timer on the incendiary and moved through the door. He had five minutes to get into position.

Sneaking a sly look, he made certain that the coast was clear before he crept out. A thin trail of dark red blood told of Ledoc's passing from the landing to the lower level. Following the weaving spirals along the corridor, the Other hugged the shadows of the walls as he turned a corner and found himself only yards away from the third floor gallery. The gallery ran around three sides of the interior of the building. Onto it led the bedrooms and one could look over the balustrade, down through the next floor and onto the first floor reception level. At the center back of the reception level was the first flight of the main stairs. A hugely ornate, sweeping staircase branched at the top to form the first floor gallery. The stairs became reduced in size after that, and proceeded to sweep around the main elevator shaft.

The Other edged furtively forward and peered down into the gloom of the reception area. Several protectors and Darnall Houndsworth, current Leader of the Commune, were clustered around the corpse of Ledoc. Listening carefully, the intruder could just make out what was being said . . . .

"Don't give me that bullshit, Haldane! The bastard's inside already; or did Ledoc just shoot himself and McIver out of boredom!" Darnall Houndsworth was only a breath away from losing his temper. He glowered round at his so-called army of protectors with a coldness that froze any further comment.

The Leader of the Northern Sector Commune spoke the next words with a restrained tightness. "Now, you lousy cruds, start searching this place for him before he picks off any more of you. Show me that all the time and privilege spent on you so-called protectors is worth it!"

"But, sir, he's crazy. He doesn't give a damn for his own safety, he -- " Lewis tried to interrupt, but was cut short by a fist snatching at the slack of his shirt across his chest.

"He's only one man, Lewis. I know because I had Selkirk rebuild him." Face close to the paling protector, Houndsworth snarled out his next threat. "I don't know what you're worried about, Lewis, you need not fear mortality any more. Selkirk has already proved with the Other that he can rebuild a man." He let go the quivering Lewis and took in the rest of the men.

"All of you can be maintained, no matter what your injuries. I'll personally see to it."

The change in voice did not sway anyone. Sweet-sugared tones do not disguise words that create nightmares in men's minds. No one standing before Houndsworth wanted to end up the same as the Other.

Haldane swallowed sourly. He had his position to uphold, despite the apprehension that he felt. "One man can't be that hard a task, I agree, sir, but if he isn't inside, what if he's still outside, enjoying the fact that we're chasing our own tails? He coulda shot McIver and Ledoc from the slope at the back. Ledoc could've fallen down the stairwell."

Several others nodded their support of that argument. No one liked the thought that two of their kind were already dead, and the perpetrator of the deed was inside their own stronghold.

Houndsworth sighed with false patience. "He's here, I can sense it. He was the best Protector this Commune ever acquired -- trained, I know, because Selkirk and I programmed him personally. We ensured that he would never give up on a job . . . a kind of foolproof design to his motivation make-up. He won't be swayed from a mission simply because he can't be, he's programmed to continue, whatever happens to him."

"You mean, he's unstoppable?" Zuckerman inquired, his voice rising a little with dawning dread.

Houndsworth smiled proudly. "He was the perfect killing machine until the Champion of the Territory appeared." His face clouded. "I still can't understand why the Other didn't kill him first. His performance up to then indicated that he was infallible . . . . Strange."

Lewis and Zuckerman stared at the two corpses on the floor for a moment, then at each other and drew their guns as one. Glancing about, they both felt the sensation of being watched.

"Hey, Haldane, let's move it, huh? Maybe he is inside already"

Haldane tore away from Houndsworth and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, come on. Let's hunt the bastard out." He caught the Leader's eye for a second and a look of mutual doom passed between them. "After all, he's only a single man programmed to fight to the death. Piece of cake . . . . And old Selkirk'll sew your brains back in, on the house."

Houndsworth bit back a reply, then found other words. "His death will reap you large rewards, I promise. I'll be in the community hall with the people." He made his way to the stairs and was more than half way up when he called back, "Report to me there, Haldane, when you or your men have been successful."

Haldane and his men departed in small groups, knowing full well that what Houndsworth left unsaid was often far more dangerous. He'd omitted to remind them that if they failed to kill the Other, they would suffer a far worse fate: probably ex-commune life. Or perhaps Selkirk would be allowed to practice on them without restraint.

Death at the hands of the silvered man was preferable.

Up above, the object of their fear smiled smugly with twisted pleasure over the whole affair, and gripped the two smoke grenades more tightly. He would strike now, before they managed to get into any kind of position.

Pulling the canister tab, he rolled one into the bedroom behind him. No surprised sounds came from within.

Drawing the door shut to a crack so the smoke could escape, he set the next grenade in the opposite bedroom. Creeping back to the center of the balcony balustrade, he waited for the smoke to billow out over the barrier, filling the ceiling with pale gray clouds. Behind him came the soft whoosh as the incendiary exploded into action, right on schedule.

Taking a deep breath, the Other stepped back out of view from the reception area and bellowed:

"Fire! Fire! Fire!"

In seconds, his shrieks of warning had brought three protectors back into the reception area. They gaped up at the billowing smoke.

"Geez, he's torched the joint!" Zuckerman raced away to raise the alarm properly.

Haldane swore bitterly and motioned his partner to get up the stairs and see how bad the fire was. "I'll go to the hall and warn Houndsworth. Gotta get everyone outside. Damn! He's gonna burn us out, probably pick us off with automatic fire as we leave. Shit!"

As the men ran from the reception area, the Other moved to the corner of the gallery and swung his legs over the edge of the balcony. Then, hanging by the arms, he managed to swing out, in and under the gallery, landing with a soft thud on the floor below. Eavesdropping, he heard Haldane approaching the huge conference hall, ready to warn the several hundred people therein. Renamed the community hall, it was here that Houndsworth and Selkirk ruled the Commune like feudal lords of old. Racing away in the opposite direction, the Other burst through a single door into the emergency stairs and began to leap down the flights with a maniacal speed. Landing heavily on the first floor level, he met a surprised youth coming through the swing door. The gold shield on his chest indicated he was a Commune Protector, but it was clear by his lack of years that he had never been an original policeman of the Time Before. However, he was much sharper than either McIver or Ledoc. As soon as he saw the Other, he tried to loose off a shot at the rogue Protector.

But not as sharp as the Other, who raised the silenced gun and shot the youth in the hands, effectively stopping him from pulling the trigger. Screaming in agony, the young man fell to the tiled floor, holding his injured hands to his chest and moaning. The Other kicked him aside, already forgotten. They knew he was inside now, so he might as well conserve ammunition for more worthy opponents.

The swing door scythed softly to a close behind him. The Other paused in the shadows, listening. Wary. He didn't want to be caught now. He had too much to do. The noise in the upper levels told him that Houndsworth was trying to calm a populace that was bordering on the hysterical. When it came to fire, the hierarchy of command was dismissed in seconds and it became every man for himself. The dark red figure just hoped that one particular man would be thinking of himself and return to the basement level for his precious instruments of torture.

Sprinting with a slyness of silent passing, the Other made the distance between himself and the stairs to the basement level disappear in seconds. Behind the grand flight to the upper floors was a smaller, more serviceable flight of steps leading down into the darkness of Selkirk's evil little world. Repressing a shudder of revulsion, the Other tiptoed softly down the first steel steps toward the chambers of perverted medicine. Out of the bowels of the Plaza he had clawed his way to some form of freedom, and he'd never expected to return.

At the bottom of the stairs he peered into the gloom of the corridor. He knew the layout down here better than the rest of the Plaza because this had been his own special hellhole.

All the old memories of pain, terror, and misery came flooding back to him. Memories he had thought banished to his subconscious, never to return. Instead, they came pouring forth.

At the main examination room door, the Other hesitated, not wishing to go in. To return was to admit he was still an instrument in their scheme of things. He was not a free man; they still had the one final hold over him. But the desire for freedom and revenge can give men the last spurt of courage they require to achieve their needs. Checking a quiver of sick dread in his hands, he pushed open the door, ready to face his bête noire: Selkirk.

The room was empty. Dark and cold. The biting, chilling cold he'd lived with for years that was only a stone's throw away from the temperatures needed for cryogenics. It was the way they had kept his torn and butchered body fresh.

Goosebumps rippled over his flesh, and the hairs on the back of his neck snaked slowly upwards. Boots treading carefully, the Other walked forward guilefully, checking the dark corners for any inhabitants.

The room was devoid of any being. The racks of strange instruments and the catafalque in the center of the room waited watchfully for their master. As though resentful of his intrusion, the atmosphere was vile.

Standing before the catafalque, he traced a hand over the smooth, marble surface so familiar to his naked flesh. So many agonizing hours tied down here. Using his left hand, the Other levered himself up and onto the slab and settled himself down in the darkness to wait.

He didn't have long to wait. The sound of frantic footsteps and voices came to his sharp ears from the corridor beyond. The door opened and the deep golden glow of the wall lamps of the corridor silhouetted the shape of Doctor Selkirk.

"No, no, no. Go and get the drugs cases from the end storeroom now. The fire's spreading; we may not get another chance. I'll get the glass-case instruments from in here. We'll come back for the rest if we get a chance. Go on, hurry!"

His deep, solid tones made the Other shudder in the darkness. How many times had he listened to the sweet caress of words from that man's lips that couched endless lies? Too many times.

Selkirk swept into the room, eyes only for the glass cases on the left-hand wall that contained his medical tools of the New Medicine. Taking a light from a tiny firebox on a gray metal table, he lit the nearest wall lamp. The light pooled around him in pale orange. Dropping the taper and breathing in sharp rasps, he took down a wooden case from an old metal filing cabinet and made ready to fill it to the brim with his personal treasures. As he approached the glass doors, he had already begun to make a mental selection of what was to be taken and what was to be left from the vast collection, when he saw the reflection of the altar in the cabinet door.

Plainly visible was the still body of the Other laid out as it always had been. Neat, orderly, and perfect.

Only this time it was armored. And watching him.

The wooden case fell through his fingers and clattered to a standstill at his feet. The black man pivoted slowly, hardly daring to confront the reality -- the reflection had been bad enough. Eyes wide with disbelief, the doctor fell back against the cabinet in shock.

"So, the rats are fleeing the sinking ship, eh, Selkirk? And the chief rat is packing his valuables." The Other turned his hollow eye socket upon the trembling figure before him. Rising slowly, he came up on one leather elbow, rifle clicking out of his leg holster in the same movement. "I'm so glad I caught you before you left. I'd have hated to come all this way and find you were out." He smiled cunningly, metal gleaming a reflection of his evil intent.

Selkirk tried to find words but failed miserably. His mouth opened and closed in stunned terror. He staggered forward a step or two and fell to his knees.

The rifle took a line on his forehead.

And the doctor managed to find his voice. It came as a strangled whisper from the back of his throat. "Holymotherofgod, don't kill me -- please."

The Other raised an eyebrow with patent cynicism. "Why the hell not?" His words were a soft moderation of belied burning anger. "Why not, Selkirk? Why should you of all people be saved?" He swung his feet over the edge of the slab and slid to the floor. "I can't think of one decent use for you." His face hardened, brows scowling down.

"I, I . . . I . . . ." Selkirk began to stammer as he saw his life's essence being swallowed up by the power of the man before him.

"Yes, you could try and persuade me, but I don't think it'll do you much good. It would fall on deaf ears like my pleas did so many years ago." The Other prodded the groveling man in the chest with the rifle barrel. "Remember that, Selkirk, remember my pleas for mercy? You should; any normal man would have been haunted by them. They would have touched his basic streak of humanity and he'd have stopped his evil practices."

The barrel pushed deeper.

The Other's lips turned down in a sneer. "But not you, Selkirk. You aren't normal. Anyone who practices medicine like you do, creating monsters out of men, is a malignant cancer, feeding on the last remnants of mankind." He shifted his weight to favor his right leg. "You must be burned out, Selkirk. Eradicated. You have no right to a human existence at all. You have taken away all my rights. Even my right to think freely."

The last sentence made Selkirk glance up from the gun that was savagely poking into his sternum. His expression was enough to convict him as guilty.

"Yes, my good doctor, I know about the implant in my head. Jaeger told me, just before I blew off his skull."

He pulled back on the trigger. Selkirk released a guttural cry and dived to the floor, burying his head in his hands. "Oh, God help me!"

"I don't think He will, somehow. You aren't His style." The Other stepped back a little, his face pale. "But you will help me. Now."

A leather-backed hand locked into Selkirk's afro and dragged him up from the floor, onto his knees. Bending his head back, the Other hissed into his quivering face.

"Remove the jack, Selkirk, and I might kill you quickly." His long features told of the truth behind his words. He was beyond reason, so bad was the pain in his head, coupled with the years of festering, hateful revenge. "Move quickly, or we'll be burned to death before you can lift a scalpel."

But the doctor wasn't quite beaten yet. As long as the Other needed him, he could bargain his life out of this mess.

"So, you still need me, my creation?" Selkirk grinned malevolently, knowing how deep the words could wound.

"Don't ever call me that, sucker! I'm still a man, despite your handiwork."

Selkirk scrutinized the mildly feverish face that watched him like a hawk. "You're a programmable protector and nothing more. I created you out of the wreckage of your flesh shortly after The End. Without me, you'd have died. I gave you life."

The Other flung his nemesis away from him and stepped back. Anger swelled within him, blinding him to rationality.

"You gave me life? You gave me life? You don't know the meaning of the word, you pervert!" Each word was enunciated with a stiffness of disbelief. "All you ever gave me was a living death of half-forgotten memories, gleaned from a past I have no chance of knowing while this jack rests like a parasite in my brain!" His torrid emotions made his voice rise. "But I am still a man -- above all else, and I've already taken the step to be free of you and this Commune. I'm going to remain free, Selkirk. Free in movement and in thought, and this is where you come in. If you put the implant in, you can remove it. NOW!" The rifle wavered from the target as the words overcame the speaker.

Selkirk watched the color drain out of the thin features of the Other and the deep blue eye dulled slightly.

"You see, what you couldn't control were the snatches of memory that I sometimes have." The Other glared down at the doctor. "It has given me pieces of my fractured past, and out of those shreds I have found the guts to be rid of you and your kind. I have found an inner strength of determination to fight for what I now want. And that is something no malfunctioning implant is going to prevent." Tears glistened on the pale silver cheeks and his voice became a little thicker and softer. "Unwittingly, Selkirk, you gave me the crack in the door to the other world . . . a decent world. You're trapped here in a society of your own making, but I have found an escape route. You decided to pit me against the Champion and that was your first mistake, the jack was the second, and Jaeger's loose tongue was the third. He told me everything."

His uncontrollable rage stirred up the electrical charges in his brain to alarming proportions. The room began to tilt sideways. Selkirk licked his dry lips and remained absolutely still, waiting.

"And I'll find the rest of it no matter how bad the agony, because I know an agony far worse. I've been living it all these years. I already made my first choice to leave and be free, and now I want my past. And I will succeed . . . no matter . . . what . . . the cost . . . I will . . . ."

His one deep blue eye turned up in his head and he folded up into a neat heap of leather and dark curls on the floor. The rifle slid quietly from his fingers and lay under him.

Selkirk waited a moment, unsure. A faint whimper of pain escaped the half-parted lips of the Other. The doctor smiled thinly and collected his robe in his dark hands. Crawling over to the prone figure, he tried to pry the rifle out from under the dead weight of the Protector.

A cold gun snout nudged his temple, making him freeze in the act of stealing the weapon.

Wide lips came close to his ear and a voice said, "He wants you to take the metal out of his brain, not put some in."

Selkirk twisted around slowly and came face to face with the mean features of the Champion. Frigid of eye and steady of hand, the Territory Protector stood like a demon from hell in a swirl of billowing smoke. His long plaits chimed a death toll warning, and Selkirk wriggled away as another fist of ice clutched his heart.

Incredulity held back his terror momentarily, and he managed to ask a question. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The Champion stared balefully at the cowering doctor, then glanced at the seemingly small man on the floor. "I'm his escape route to the decent life." The customized Magnum pointed toward the black man menacingly. "But first you're going to show me what a paragon of medical ethics you really are." His features were flinty. "Remove that implant." His eyebrows rose, giving him a 'don't-doubt-my-word' expression. "Because if you don't, I'm gonna kill you myself, and I don't have his compassionate streak."

Selkirk didn't need telling twice. He had no control over the Champion, no one did, only the Owners, or so he thought. He stumbled to his feet and found that the air was thicker with smoke than it had been five minutes ago.

"The fire, we haven't enough t -- " Self-preservation made the doctor try one last tack to make an escape route for himself.

"You'll have all the time eternity can offer if you don't start working fast." The Champion prodded him forward toward the Other. "Pick him up and get started."

Straining under the weight and fighting muscles weakened from shock, Selkirk managed to haul the Other onto the altar slab. When he'd finished, he was perspiring heavily and gasping on the impure air.

"We haven't time, I tell you," Selkirk implored as he made his way to the glass cabinet.

"Then hurry," came the cool reply.

The Champion kept an eye on Selkirk while he moved over to the body of the Other. He risked a quick look at the unconscious man, whose breathing now seemed steadier than on the floor and a little of his color was returning. The skin around the edges of the inlaid metal didn't look quite so pink. His forehead was slick with sweat, damp curls were held there by the moisture.

Selkirk came back from the cabinet with a strange needle-like object in his hand. A sudden sound from above made them both look up. Stampeding feet thundered overhead as the Commune dwellers fled the smoke and flames of the upper levels. Gadget in hand, Selkirk looked nervously to the door. Escape was clearly written on his cowardly face.

"Shift your butt, Doctor," snarled the blond.

Hesitating, Selkirk weighed the medical tool in his hand. "If I drop this, it'll break, and your friend here'll suffer to the end of his days." His eyes slid from the Other back to the Champion. "My hands are shaking now."

"You have three seconds to decide whether you want to live or die, and then I'm gonna start bleeding your guts all over the floor." He clicked the heavy hammer back on the Magnum. "One, two -- "

Selkirk hastened forward. The Territory man didn't have the insane streak of the Other; his word was more compelling by its even note of truth.

"You'll have to hold his head." His voice cut in on the count, frantically. "I can't do it if he moves . . . ."

Mouth framed to say "three," the Champion paused, licked his lips and released the Magnum from the handlock with a twist. Slowly, he laid the huge, rebuilt gun beside the head of dark, tangled curls. Green-gauntleted hands gently turned the head straight and then held it securely between jaw and temple.

Selkirk wiped a bead of sweat from his upper lip and took a deep breath to steady himself. Adjusting a tiny dial on the base of the double-filament needle, the doctor reset the wattage to ensure that the resultant heat would be sufficient to melt the receiver in the split second of its operation.

Wiping his clammy hands on his robe, he made ready to insert the fine filament needle into the implant. The deafening roar of falling timbers came to their ears as parts of the upper gallery collapsed into the reception area. Selkirk jumped and edged away from the unconscious man.

Writhing in agony, the Other squirmed under the firm hold of the Champion. The pain that had brought him to his knees would soon be bringing him around.

The Champion fixed the black man with a penetrating look of enmity. "Don't stop, Selkirk -- I haven't counted to three yet."

Stepping up to the altar-head again, the doctor raised the instrument and parted the thick mass of curly hair. Inserting the thin metal loop, his breath caught in his throat with the thickening smoke. His eyes watered as he fought back a choking cough.

"Don't even breathe heavy, punk, because if you bungle the next moment, you're a dead man." The Champion tensed for the next move, unsure of the nature of the device in the doctor's hands.

Selkirk turned a superior expression on the executioner. "Champion, if I bungle the next moment he could be a dead man -- and you'd have nothing." He smiled. "And I'd die with the satisfaction of knowing that you'd both lost."

"No man wants to die." The double-talk was wasting precious time. Any moment, Selkirk's medical team could arrive to save more of the equipment.

Selkirk deferred to the truth. "True," he murmured, preferring to cut his losses and possibly yet get away with his life.

Inserting the filament again, he pushed until it was completely enhoused by the implant. A bead of sweat dripped down the doctor's nose and onto the glove of the Champion. "Now hold him real steady or I'll damage his brain permanently."

Eyes riveted to the features of the Other, the Champion waited for a telltale sign of release. Selkirk depressed the trigger, a split-second hum was heard, and then he retrieved the instrument from the implant. He stepped away from the catafalque, hands held wide. "That's it, he's free." He gulped nervously, wondering if the Champion would kill him now.

The Territory Protector stood upright from his bent position over the head of the Other. "He doesn't look any different. He didn't show a sign or anything." Warily, he turned on the doctor.

"Then it went okay. If he'd screamed or something, I'd have 'bungled' the job, as you put it." Selkirk loosened his robes slightly as the extreme heat began to take effect.

The Champion watched the slack body of the unconscious man. Suddenly the wine leather-stripped chest heaved a deep sigh and his eye shifted rapidly under the lid. Plainly, the Other would soon be conscious. Capitalizing on the Champion's distracted attention, Selkirk edged over to the wooden case. Facing his adversary, he bent over and began to grope for the handle. His hand had barely alighted on the case when the Champion flicked his gun at the doctor's chest.

"You're not leaving here with any of your instruments of degenerate medicine, Selkirk." The Champion indicated the Other with a look. "You won't be doing this kind of handiwork on anyone else."

"But, I -- it's my life's work -- it's . . . ." Hands raised in supplication toward the Champion, he stepped forward. "I can't survive outside a commune without them . . . . I've no other use, man."

"Learn something new."

"I can't."

"Tough." The Champion motioned with the Magnum for him to leave. "Get out! Get out before I kill you."

"But -- " Argument was useless. More sounds of the first gallery crashing down filled the already choking air, and Selkirk thought it wise to retreat. Dropping the case, he ran for the exit. As he pulled the heavy-duty door open, a whooshing ball of searing white flame bowled into the room, engulfing Selkirk in a ball of living fire.

His death cries stopped abruptly as the fire burned him to a blackened heap of charred flesh. The Champion staggered back under the onslaught of intense heat, then re-approached the altar. Holstering his Magnum, he violently shook the Other. The pale features stirred, then screwed up into a mask of agony as the thick, billowing smoke clouded into the room and starved him of pure air.

A dazed eye flickered open, a desperate gleam of fear caught there. He felt the cold press of marble under his shoulders and believed, in his semiconscious state, that his ideals of freedom had been nothing but dreams to barricade himself behind from the crushing reality of falling foul of Selkirk's team again.

Oh, God, no! Get away from me, get away, no more pain, no more, nomore, nomore. Leave me alone! Then words formed in his dry throat and burst forth in aching anguish. "NO! NO! Get away, leave me alone -- leave me alone! Leave m -- " His arms came up to defend his overly abused body. They punched, then gripped tightly the green leather shoulders.

The tall blond held him still until reason returned to the Other's distraught features.

A searching look of surprise and then understanding of, at least, the present passed between them. The Champion released his muscle-cramping hold on the fighting man and stepped back. Hacking in spasms, the dark-haired man rolled over the edge of the plinth and onto his knees on the floor. Closer to the ground the air was less heavy. He stretched out and grabbed his rifle.

"Take some deep breaths and then get on your feet -- We're gonna run for it, and it's gonna be hotter 'n hell up above." The Champion hooked an arm under the Other's left armpit and dragged him toward the door.

Eyes smarting with smoke and still unfocused with semi-consciousness, the Other failed to recognize the cremated remains of Selkirk in the doorway. The smell was stomach turning. Instead, he hung onto the broad shoulders of the Champion.

"How did you get here?" The words wheezed through his metalled lips. "Where's Selkirk?" He bent double and coughed uncontrollably. The Other straightened marginally, face over-strained, chest heaving with the effort of drawing breath.

The Champion steered him past the corpse and through the door. "The front door was open so I walked straight in, and as for the good Doctor Selkirk, well, he got a little overheated and is no longer with us."

Out in the corridor the ceiling was alight and threatening to collapse. The Champion hurled the Other ahead of him, directing him through the blazing inferno. At the foot of the stairs he latched a tight hold onto the still-bewildered man and took the steps two at a time.

In the reception area the furnishings were well alight. Flames of violent orange and yellow devoured wood and fabric like locusts in a cornfield. In seconds, whole objects were turned to crisp heaps of ash. The stinging heat scorched their flesh as they fled over fallen timbers for the open double doors. Heads bent low against the licking flames about the door posts, the two ex-commune Protectors leaped through the smoke and fire for the crumbling steps and the cool night air.

Outside, the Plaza was a flaming torch on the deep night horizon. In minutes, it had fallen from the pantheon of powerful communes to a rampant beacon of leaping fire. The low, roaring notes of the blazing building drowned out any audible conversation among the Commune dwellers who had stayed to watch. Solemn-faced, they witnessed their fortress disintegrate before their eyes. Smudged with soot and still coughing on the clouds of thick smoke, they stared, overwhelmed by the sudden uncontrollable end of their privileged lives. An era of complacent greed and butchery was coming to an end. Cleansed out by fire, the Northern Sector Plaza was finished as a commune of power and fear. Its precious resources were at this very moment being consumed in a funeral pyre. Food supplies, clothes, weapons, and the electric generators. All would be burned and warped beyond recognition -- beyond use.

Darnall Houndsworth watched in silent shock as his power slid away in a spiraling funnel of smoke. He was dirt-streaked, burned, and disheveled, having only just managed to get away down the main stairs before the upper gallery had collapsed. Shaking, he covered his eyes, trying to shut out the horrible conflagration. They would never be able to rebuild. He had worked swiftly in the early days after The End and, before other groups could become organized, he had built up the Northern Sector into his own empire. He had realized that those poor wretches who were left would need -- want a leader to guide them through the trauma of an erased society. Out of the ruins of Los Angeles, Houndsworth had elected himself leader of this sector and manipulated anyone and everyone to conform to his bizarre ideals. If they wanted to survive, they had to be seen to be at one with the Commune. The ever-present threat of Commune excommunication kept the people in line and ready to do his bidding.

His acquisition of the Other had been his ace card. Coupled with a faith in Selkirk's abilities, he had used the policeman to better his own ends. In a few short months, Houndsworth had planned to move against the Territory. If only he'd managed to kill or recruit the Champion, maybe none of this would have happened. He should never have sent Jaeger and Marcino . . . never.

The people were moving about in small groups, confused and unsure of what to do next. A few looked toward their Leader for direction, but he had no words to offer. From the darkness beyond the flames of the fire came the interested sounds of the mutants. Lured out of their holes, they had crept forward on nerves of curiosity. As soon as they saw the unprotected wandering beings, they felt a mutual rise of revenge fill their simple minds. There were so many to go around. Tonight they wouldn't need to fight among themselves.

A howling chant echoed out of the darkness. Commune dwellers about-faced from the fire and peered into the night. They looked worriedly at Houndsworth and the few remaining protectors who stood close by or were slumped to the ground, panting, after failing to save any of the weaponry except the few pieces held in their blistered hands.

Suddenly, a voice among the small crowd called out in surprise.

"Look, look! On the Plaza steps."

Heads turned curiously, faces pale and harrowed.

Out of the billowing smoke and flames stepped two men who chilled the onlookers to the core despite the sweltering heat.

Houndsworth dropped his hands and looked, too.

The Other and the Champion stood motionless on the steps and took in the scene of aghast people before them. Hands on his broad hips, the Champion stepped down to a lower tread and scrutinized the grimy audience. His suit was still smoldering from the close proximity of the fire, and his face was wild exhilaration. His ceremonial braids sang with triumph.

The thrill of success gave him speed, and he aimed the Magnum before they could draw a second breath. A shower of orange sparks cascaded from an upper level over both men's shoulders. The Other held the rifle casually at waist height and trotted down beside the awe-inspiring man.

"I am the Champion, and this Commune is finished!" The Champion spoke loudly and clearly above the din of the fire. "This is the first warning to you people. If you have your lives, be thankful; if you want your freedom, run."

"Or we shall surely kill you." The Other finished the thought aloud, his eyes trained directly on the Leader.

No one moved, unsure of where to run. They stared at each other and then away into the night.

Houndsworth stepped forward, his face red with the glow of the fire and his own burning anger. In the space of fifteen minutes, the two Protectors on the steps had reduced him to nothing.

"This is my Commune. My Commune! No two bits of shit are going to give orders here!" He pointed accusingly, voice rising to hysterical proportions. "You two motherfucking bastards just died!! Kill them! Kill them! KILL THEM!"

Eyes bulging with madness and hate, Darnall Houndsworth screamed in a spray of yellow spittle, his face quivering in rage.

The Other fired a single round. The bullet tore into Houndsworth's head, leaving a dark red caste mark.

"You had your chance, which is more than you ever gave me." The words were spoken with a finality by the Other that only touched upon the vast sense of relief he felt as the evil man lay dead in the dirt.

Haldane and his men had barely had time to draw breath. Now they sat or stood unflinching, rooted by shock and the speed of events; then they turned and fled.

No one else needed a second reminder. Screaming, panicking people scrambled away into the night. They disappeared in moments. No more Commune dwellers, no more Plaza, no more protectors, and no more Darnall Houndsworth.

Crackling and spitting in its death throes, the sounds of the raging fire took over from the last retreating footsteps. Silhouetted against the wall of orange fire, the Northern Sector Protector tiredly closed his eyes. He had wreaked his revenge.

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

PART II C