by BEANO SMART

ART by FRODSHAM McCLOUD

PART II A, PART II B

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

BUT THEN FACE TO FACE.

Running side by side in the night, two armored figures of dark shadows tried to get as much distance between themselves and the smoldering Plaza as possible. The smaller of the two, clad in dark red armor, had developed a limp four blocks back and was slowing the speed of the blond. Finally, he pulled to a halt in the rotting doorway of an old delicatessen and leaned, panting, against the wooden frame.

The Champion had trotted on a few paces, unaware that the Other's difficulty was so severe. He skidded to a halt and retraced his steps, peering into the gloom of the store entrance.

"What's wrong?" He wasn't used to walking or running with anyone by his side. He felt his personal space threatened and hampered, and yet he had a strange feeling that at one time he'd been so used to this, with this man, that they had been like each other's shadows.

The Other lifted his head from his examination of his wounded leg. He looked apprehensive about sharing a weakness with the newly acquired ally. One learned the rules of survival hard and fast, and not telling another of your weaknesses was one of them. But the Champion seemed genuinely concerned. For a second, the deep line between his eyes smoothed out and he held an unusual look of compassion in his eyes -- very similar to the look that had passed between them down under the Plaza.

The Other did not know how to accept and deal with this kind of attitude. He'd lived for years on scathing sneers and glances of pity. He didn't want to be suckered in by kindness.

"Nothing -- I hurt my leg a little in the Plaza. It'll be -- " He tried to dismiss the nagging ache in his thigh as if it were nothing.

The Champion bent down, not fooled for a moment. "Let me see."

"No -- " The Other tried to brush aside his assistance, but the squatting man was already pulling at the leather suit covering the tender thigh. He winced in pain as the Territory man poked a little too roughly.

"That 'nothing' looks to be a stab wound of some kind." The Champion looked up, blue eyes full of questions.

The Other tried to shove him away. Rubbing his leg, he stepped back into the street.

"I got careless at a scrap yard. My own fault, a mutant with one of them slingshot gizmos stabbed me with broken glass."

"When?" The Champion fell into irregular step beside him.

The street they were walking down was an area unknown to both of them. Many of the buildings were hollow ruins, two or three stories high. Unlike the open, flat wastes of their own sectors, facades threw deep shadows over the uneven road surface. But strangely, there had been no sign of mutants in this area.

"Last night . . . after I left you." His face turned to watch the buildings on his right; the Other hoped the Champion was watching those on his left.

"Well, you can't walk on that forever without it needing some kind of attention. It'll get infected." Disease of any kind gave the Champion the crawling shivers, as he remembered a time years ago when disease had very nearly killed him.

An unfamiliar tension tightened up the Other's shoulders. "Why should you worry? It's my leg." His words were sharp and spoken without thought. He had guarded himself behind bitter sentences for years; he wasn't about to let his guard down to this near-stranger so easily.

What makes you so interested in me, all of a sudden? Why the hell did you come to the Plaza -- it's hardly on your patrol route . . . though I confess I needed the help . . . . And why are you still here now?

"I once strapped up your leg before." The Champion spoke the words quietly, hardly daring to hear them himself.

The Other walked away from him a couple of paces, a chill creeping up his spine. He kept his face turned away from the blond, not wanting to hear any more. After the action and pain of the Plaza, he wasn't ready for the next onslaught to his already overwrought mind.

"It was in a barn -- you got shot in the leg." The Champion found that his heartbeat had increased noticeably. Show me a sign that you remember . . . please. I'm sure that's why you came to me in the warehouse . . . . Why you hesitated in the sewer . . . .

The Other shrugged his shoulders and glanced back as if bored by the waste of time. It was risky to stand still too long on a street. "I don't think I ever met you before the night in the sewer." He turned away to their left and limped into an alley of strewn bricks.

Heart sinking into his boots, the Champion followed after him. Maybe he doesn't remember; maybe he never will. He's not the man who was once my partner . . . . Then again, I'm not the man who was once a Los Angeles cop.

Hobbling over the rough bricks, the Other tried to set a fast pace, but it was obvious that his leg was paining him. Behind him came the even tread of the Territory Protector.

"You're following me." Dark hair an unruly tangle, the Other turned to face the Champion in the alley. The Champion nodded. "I work alone." He raised his chin defiantly, almost in challenge.

"You didn't use to." The Champion moved closer, all the better that the Other should see him. "We used to be partners -- " The words caught in his throat, unfamiliar and unused for so long. " -- before The End." His blue eyes tried to stare into the Other's mind and read his thoughts.

The silvered face suddenly wrinkled up into the shape of a smile. The Other shook his head. "I don't think so. I would've remembered you." Stepping over a bundle of newspapers, he resumed his trudge up the alley.

The Champion felt as though he'd just been kicked in the guts. Bastard's not even trying to remember! Why doesn't he try?

"You couldn't walk on your leg then, like now." He'd been needling and suggesting ideas meant to spark some form of recognition in the Other for the past three blocks. Up to now he'd struck out dismally. He was going to persist until he got a satisfactory answer. Hastening after the other Protector, he caught up with him at the corner of the alley. Together, they searched the next ramshackle street, ensuring that there weren't any roving packs of mutants.

At the end of the street, half embedded in the front of a cinema, was a crashed airliner. Probably a 727, its white fuselage had been pitted and scratched over the years, and its wings had been ripped free for use elsewhere. Broken-backed, it lay trapped in the dirt and rubble, a cylinder of rusting metal. The two men stared at it in interest; they hadn't seen an airplane in years.

"Look at that," breathed the Other in awe. "There's enough metal there to keep a commune going for months -- just think how much that's worth."

The Champion edged cautiously over the sidewalk onto the tarmac and headed toward the plane.

The Other made to follow, but his leg threatened to give out under him. He slumped against the wall, teeth biting into his lower lip with pain and frustration.

"Shit! I get myself free and I can't run anywhere." He glowered at the back of the Champion, who turned around when he heard the volatile words.

"Told you, you couldn't walk." He crossed the sidewalk again and stood before the seething man. "Perhaps you remember now."

As the man looked down at him, the Other felt a strange sensation well up within him. He caught a distant memory of a tall blond bending over him when he'd slumped against a wall. His eye betrayed the unexpected image and it clouded over with hopeless fear. No, not my leg . . . it was another time . . . on a cold, dark rooftop. I felt sick and tired and dizzy . . . and frightened . . . very frightened.

The Champion held out a hand in an attempt to communicate physically with the inner mind of his old partner. Eye wide with surprise, the Other brushed the hand away and pulled himself upright. He tried to hide his guilty expression behind a transparent bluster of anger.

"Get off me! I don't remember anything." He hung onto the wall and found he could manage a few steps unaided.

The blond watched him go. Don't cheat me, you crummy bastard. You do too remember. I can tell. Though why you won't admit it . . . .

Abruptly, the Other spun around, his face nothing but anguish. Tonight was affecting him in ways he had not felt for so long. The end of the Plaza, the death of Houndsworth, and his freedom from the implant and the evil Selkirk had very nearly wrung him out. Now his old enemy was before him, holding out his hand in friendship -- and walking beside him. To where?

His voice took on a desperate note of being pushed beyond his emotional capabilities. "I don't know who you are. I warned you because I felt I had to . . . . You saved my life twice."

"Why did you follow me to the Plaza? Because we used to 'work' together?" Because we used to be 'partners'? "We never worked together as Protectors in a commune, and I can't remember the Time Before. I just don't know."

"You're still the Territory Protector and you must protect your Commune from the likes of me. It's kill or be killed in this stinking world. Well, I'm ex-commune, fair game to be picked off by all and sundry. And then you appear out of the blue. You help me, save my life . . . and all I can remember right at this minute is that you once killed me. Six Magnum slugs right through the chest. That's what I remember. You wanted me dead!"

The Other watched the words bite into the Champion with a knowing satisfaction that they caused him pain. He wanted to lash out and hurt. He was suddenly free and ex-commune -- all that he had ever wanted. He even had the Champion before him, probably holding all his answers, and all he could remember was that the blond had killed him once, down a stinking sewer in the night.

"You tried to kill me once, on an Hawaiian island -- I figure we're even now." The Champion spoke calmly, still reeling from the sudden outburst of the Other.

Opening his mouth to reply, the Other failed to find suitable words; instead he compressed his lips sourly, mulling over the other's last short speech. Finally, he mumbled, "That's an easy way out -- I don't remember, so who knows what's truth and what's lies." Brows furrowed in puzzlement, he continued in less harsh tones. "Don't you think I want to remember? It's haunted me since the sewer . . . since the Magnum slugs." He scanned the street suspiciously. "But I don't trust you. I've been betrayed by promises of kindness and friendship before. Selkirk and Houndsworth could talk in honeyed words." He fingered the gun in its holster on his left leg, suddenly becoming efficient again. "Hey, it's too quiet around here. I don't like it."

The Champion also glanced about him, but his mind was preoccupied with other, more pressing matters. I've got to make him understand now or he could disappear on me again . . . before I can convince him, and I may not be so lucky at finding him again. Third time lucky isn't always true.

Searching for the right words to bridge the growing gulf between them, he played a card he thought unnecessary. It would leave him as defenseless as the Other.

"Would it convince you of my sincerity if I told you I've just left my Commune? I am no longer Territory Protector." Try as he might, he could not keep the catch of hopelessness out of his voice.

The Other eyed him with cautious appraisal. His enemy looked worried and careworn. His leather suit was charred and blackened, his golden hair dulled by the smoke and soot. Could be true . . . could be . . . he looks desperate and unsure for the first time. Maybe . . . but why? He had everything there. He seemed content and self-assured when we talked in the warehouse. No Commune backing -- he's in as big a mess as me. But this freedom is what I wanted . . . . Did you want it, too? Or did I sow the first seeds of discontent?

The Champion took a step further forward. "I chose to be free like you. I don't want to go back . . . but if you won't listen to me, it's my only alternative." His shoulders dropped fractionally. "I don't want freedom on my own . . . "

The Other raised his head thoughtfully, weighing up the words, then he sneered knowingly. "Very good. Very good indeed. Just the right amount of emotion in the voice -- most unlike you, I bet. But it doesn't jell with me, smart mouth. If you want freedom, go and get it with both hands, like I did. I'm not going to nursemaid you along." He turned away on that final point. But he had to have a parting shot. "As for my memory, that's my affair now. I don't remember you . . . for that matter, I'm not even sure who I am."

Crossing the street, he limped away into the shadows of the building opposite, a smoky figure of metal and bruises, cuts and scratches. He was walking out of the Champion's life because he wanted to, because he couldn't handle any more at present.

The Champion watched him go. You think you're free, huh, do you? Well, no man is an island, least of all you. I remember the look in your eye down in the sewer . . . the way you watched me drink at the bar, and I've learned enough cruel ways of holding a man in this rotten, unfair world, that can more than match your stoic, martyred air!

A meanness born out of frustration and desperate need made the Champion run after the departing Other. Several feet away he stopped and spoke with an even levelness.

"Hutch . . . one simple word and when you spoke it, I felt complete." A green-clad hand gripped the gun in the holster with pent-up suspense. "Remember?" Remember, please remember . . . for both of us. Don't shut me out, please, don't go, please, please . . .

Soft leather ankle boots scuffed uncertainly in the dirt. "Hutch . . . ?" He tested the word in his mouth. It seemed strange and yet comfortable. "Hutch . . . ?"

"Yes, Hutch." Holding the trembling shoulders, the blond turned the smaller man around. "I am your partner, if you'll have me. I promise I won't leave you again."

Face downcast, the Other could not meet the bright blue eyes of the Champion. I can't take another lie, another lifetime of wasted hope. Finding the courage to raise his head took his last reserves of strength. He saw in the eyes of the Champion the betrayal of all the man's inner desires and honesty. They bore into the Other as if trying to heal the forgotten years in seconds.

Tearing himself away from the almost hypnotic look, the Other shook his head, face a mass of worry and uncertainty. "But I don't remember like you do. I'm just not sure." He spoke tiredly; the effort of resisting the persistent Champion was wearing down his defenses. "I so want to believe -- to be sure. Give me time. Give me a little more time. My thoughts have been controlled for so long, I don't know what's me and what's left of Selkirk."

"I'll give you all the time you need. Just accept the fact that we once were, and can be again -- partners." The Champion let his hands drop down to his sides as relief gave him a new confidence. "All you have to do is let me walk beside you, like we used to." He wet his suddenly dry lips and waited for the reply.

The Other squeezed his newly bleeding leg as a twinge distracted him. Eye unfocused, he stared away into the dark depths of the shadows. Black pits in the night, just like his mind. Full of empty, black spaces that had once been his memory. And under his heart, long ago put aside and forgotten, was a dull ache that went too deep into his soul to be fully understood. It had been cut into him on the night of The End, and this wound had never healed but laid -- an open, gaping hole of forlorn misery. It ached now -- so badly he shook with the unfamiliar emotion.

It was the feeling of mourning. Gray days, months, years of loss came surging forth with that one spoken word: Hutch.

He thought he'd forgotten it all, but he hadn't.

He looked the Champion sadly in the eyes. "I remember the name but the man is gone. I don't know whether you're lying or not, but the streets are free to any who have the courage to walk them. It isn't for me to say where you can walk."

The Champion knew that for the moment it was the best that the Other could do. He looked weary and beaten. Face too pale, flesh pink about the metal. The strain was beginning to tell.

The two men stood facing each other in the moonlit street. Both battle-scarred and emotionally bruised, neither wanted to suggest the next move.

A faint, soft patter at the corner of the alley caused a look of instant warning to pass between them. No sudden moves, they eased around a little so both had a clear view of the street they had just crossed.

Dull concrete and brick offices and storefronts stood silently before them. For the first time they both noticed the sharp wind that caught the dust and spiraled it into corners of doorways and piles of refuse. All seemed the same as it had been moments earlier, but training told the two Protectors that the area had changed. Significantly.

Searching every shadow and entrance, the Other strained for some telltale movement. A nervous hand on a gun. The faint gasp for breath.

Nothing. No movement. But something was there.

Setting his jaw, the Other whispered, "Mutants or Houndsworth's men?" He risked a quick glance at the blond.

Plaits swaying tensely over his back, the Champion had taken a smooth step forward. He swallowed slowly and raised his face to the night air and sniffed. His senses were no longer artificially heightened, but he trusted in his routine.

The air was cool and sharp. He filled his lungs again and found the first trace of something unclean and alien. Fetid and stale, it caught in his nostrils and made the adrenalin pump a little quicker through his veins.

The Other could tell by the Territory Protector's face of disgust that he had recognized a presence. He was about to murmur another question when he saw a minuscule movement at the end of the alley.

With practiced control, he eased the rifle out of the spring holster on his leg and raised it to his shoulder.

The Champion withdrew the Magnum, metal sliding smoothly over leather. The gun butt found its home in the palm of his green gauntlet.

From out of the alley trotted a dog. It was black and lean with shining eyes of scarlet. It walked to the center of the street and stared at the men.

The Other was about to lower the rifle, it was only a lone dog, when another black hound edged out of the alley. Its red eyes flashed excitedly while its tail thrashed from side to side in short, jerky movements. Strong-limbed, it padded toward the other dog and stopped a short distance behind.

No sooner had it paused to settle itself than further sounds came from the alleyway. This time three dogs leaped out; dust flew from their paws as they joined their confederates. Ruby-red eyes watched with acute penetration.

The Champion and the Other were stock-still.

The lead dog raised its head and howled a chilling whine that made the men wince at the sharp note. Ears pricking up, the pack shifted uneasily and began an accompanying throaty growl of menace.

"What the -- ?" the Other began as four more animals trotted forth from a smashed storefront opposite the alley mouth. Falling into formation alongside the other dogs, they padded around to face the two men, taking up the low-pitched growl.

The Other clicked back the hammer of his weapon. The dogs fell silent. The noise caused the pack to bare their teeth as one. Sharp fangs of glistening enamel, they dripped saliva into the gray dust.

The Champion glanced behind him, searching for somewhere safe to run. Somewhere with a solid door.

There didn't seem to be anywhere. The glass storefronts were smashed, open to the wind. The cinema entrance was blocked by the nose of the plane.

The blond's brow furrowed under the golden headband. The plane? We could just make it. Have to run fast . . . wonder if his leg'll make it?

It was a long hundred-meter dash. Three hundred for the dogs.

Face close to his gunstock, the Other risked a glance away from the pack of slavering hounds to note the Champion's indicated escape route. Don't fold on me, leg. I used to be able to run the hundred meters like the devil was after me.

The leader of the pack bayed again, exciting the hounds into a crazed frenzy. The desire for a kill was in every eye. Hunger. Muscles in hind legs contracted, pulling their backs down into tense crouches. Poised to spring forward, the quivering dogs snarled wolfishly and changed the low-pitched howl into a whine of blood lust. They leapt forward like a minor explosion.

"Run!" yelled the Champion, emptying his Magnum into the released onslaught of animal flesh. Two dogs fell as though pole-axed.

The Other fired off a shot, bringing down the leading hound, then he turned and fled.

Reloading as he ran, the Champion twisted back to discharge another volley of slugs. They tore into the next leader dog, pulping the animal's muzzle into a plethora of teeth and blood.

Screaming into the night, the remains of the pack pounded up the street, closing in on the escaping men. Shining, mangy-fleshed beasts from hell, they snapped their wet jaws. Meat was their desire and hunger spurred them on.

Up ahead, the Champion found that he was leaving the Other behind. The dark-haired man's body hurtled after him, but his leg just didn't have the same strength. The dogs were pressing at his heels, wild and rampant; any moment they would have him. Long fangs would sink into his throat and he'd be dead in seconds.

Barking in furious triumph, the faster dogs stretched ahead of the remains of the pack, easily outstripping the older ones. Two powerhouses of teeth and claws, they sprang for the back of the already turning Other.

Left elbow into the ribs of the first dog, the Other levered it up and over his head. It fell winded behind him, dark pink tongue hanging loosely out of its gaping mouth. But the second dog sank its teeth into the flesh of his upper right arm and held on.

Crying in agony, the struggling man dropped his rifle, useless in close combat, and reached for his knife. The sheer squirming weight of the dog pulled him to the ground and prevented him from pulling the blade.

The Champion anchored his feet into the roadway and, mastering his fear, he coolly squeezed on the Magnum trigger again. It was as accurate as ever, blowing another hound's side out. The sudden depletion of numbers and the pungent smell of death and cordite made the remaining two dogs hesitate. They'd just witnessed the swift butchering of their pack; no one had ever hurt them before. Ravenous hunger gave them a second courage. Rounding on the man with the deadly gun, they stopped calculatingly and split away from each other -- all the better to attack the man from either side.

Watching the dogs' every move, the Champion risked a quick glance at the Other. The dog was dragging him roughly about the ground, teeth still locked solid on the arm. Already, the combat suit was wet with blood. Behind his head, the winded beast was rolling its red eyes and struggling to regain its feet.

Time was running out. If the dog got up and attacked the injured man while he was on the ground, he'd be dead meat. They'd rip him to pieces.

Making a snap decision, the Champion picked off the dog between him and the plane with a roar of his Magnum. Whipping out his long, barbed knife, he confronted the dog springing from behind him. As the hound took off, the Champion dropped to one knee, reduced the angle, and stabbed the dog up and under its sternum. The sudden dead weight bore both of them to the ground. Heaving away the carcass, he wrenched free the knife, suffering the hot splatter of blood as he withdrew the blade and scrambled to his feet. Breathing heavily, he set off for the other Protector.

The Other had somehow climbed to one knee. He beat at the chewing dog in a frenzy of blows in an effort to shake it free. Face screwed up in fear and agony, he fought blindly, grunts of pain escaping his lips.

The Champion covered the ground between them like lightning. Hooking his fingers into the corded muscles of the jaws of the savaging dog, he forced its sickeningly tight bite loose while using the knife one-handed to defend himself from the assault of the other surviving hound. Instantly, blood welled from the tears in the Other's flesh. He cried out in pain as the hound released him and he wriggled away from the wild animal and the blond, over the dust.

The Champion held the knife out before him, covering one dog and then the other. Backing around, he stood over the ashen-faced Other. The two remaining dogs edged closer together, eyes bright with hate. Snapping its jaws, the larger dog's teeth glistened wet and red from the Other's blood. Barking in madness, they pressed the Champion back, heads snaking forward, ready to anchor themselves into his tasty flesh at the next opportunity. Polar-eyed, the Champion stared the hounds to an abrupt standstill. Pointed ears lay back on their scabby heads.

"Can you get up?" The Champion's brittle voice spat out the words. He'd won them precious seconds. "Come on, get up. Head for the plane!"

Teeth clenched against the shuddering waves of nausea, the Other wobbled onto his feet. Gripping his upper right arm tightly, he tried to focus on the action before him. He managed to see the outline of the Champion and the two wild beasts nervously cowering before him. The barbed knife blade cut a slash over one dog's nose, causing the animal to thrash its head in agony.

"Head for the goddamn plane! Goddammit, move!" Desperate, the Champion lost ground to the animals.

Still in a daze, the Other staggered backward toward the wrecked fuselage nestling in the cinema front. High up, the curved door was hanging open. Stained and battered by the years, it hung onto the body by its rusting hinges.

Picking up speed, the Other hurried over the uneven road toward possible safety. He could sense the Champion behind him, holding off the last attack for as long as he could.

Suddenly, the noise of restrained fury abated. The Champion lunged at the dogs once and then turned and fled. Pounding through the dust, he snatched at the metal collar of the Other and physically threw him up the scree of bricks and mortar and hurled him through the entrance of the plane. Ignoring the clattering tangle of arms and legs against the far interior wall, the tall blond spun round and drew a second knife. Changing his weight from backward flight to forward thrust, he sprang down the shifting slope at the first dog, still dripping blood from its jaws, and stabbed deeply into its neck. Wounding, but not killing it, the Champion withdrew the blade for a second attack, but found the dog had retreated slightly. Screaming in rage himself, he pressed his slight advantage. The two hounds backed away to the road surface, cowed momentarily by their own injuries, and watched the man above.

He knew he wouldn't get another chance. Shoulders scraping the rusting body of the plane, the Champion slid into the doorway, withdrawing, and dropped the knives at his booted feet. He stretched out for the top of the door. Heaving with a force born from the need to live, he pulled the door into the hole. Resisting rust could not withstand his pressure as, protesting, the door began to slide shut. A sudden flurry of howling animal flesh flung itself planeward. Claws and muzzles poked into the remaining crack. It seemed to take an eternity of held-breath tension, but finally the gap was narrow enough to withstand the squirming fury of teeth and paws that fought to get in.

Gasping for air, his chest feeling as though it would burst, the Champion raced along the aisle of the passenger section, checking windows. The reinforced glass was a little cracked in places but otherwise intact. The broken back of the fuselage was another matter.

When the plane had crashed into the cinema frontage, its back had broken, almost severing it into two separate pieces. The splintered wooden interior and fractured metal of the ceiling looked weak enough in places to allow the dogs entry.

Reloading his Magnum, he waited for the hounds to approach the hole. He didn't have long to wait. Scratching claws on metal told him of their arrival. Barking furiously, they poked their noses into the crack in the roof. Saliva dripping, they fought to get in. The Champion discharged a volley of slugs through the roof that hurtled one of the beasts into the air and off the plane. It landed on the far side with a dull thud, twitched its head once, and lay still.

The last dog backed off, startled. Tail down, it jumped from the plane and settled down to watch and wait. Nervously, it looked at the corpse by its side. Unable to comprehend the sudden destruction of its pack, it was too dumb a beast to get well clear of the area before it, too, became dead meat. Instead, its lust for fresh food overpowered its sense of self-preservation. It wanted meat and it knew where it was. All it would have to do would be to outwait the inhabitants of the plane. And one of them was already wounded.

Breath fogging the glass with the exertion of the last few moments, the Champion was pressed up against an oval window between the tattered orange seats. Eyes wide with alarm, he wiped his nose on the back of a gauntlet, eyes never leaving the watching dog down in the street.

A sudden thought crossed his mind. He raced backwards over the seats, boots gouging foam out of the cushions, and sprang across the aisle to peer out of an opposite window. Sure that there were no more pack members sneaking up for a second assault, he stepped back into the aisle and made his way to the tail of the plane to check the security of the rear exits.

Brushing past chairs disheveled by the emergency crash landing, the Champion squeezed into the aft section and checked the two rear doors. The tail of the plane had impacted badly upon landing and compressed into the passenger area. The doors were jammed as fast now as they had been when the 727 had crashed all those years ago.

Rubbing his hand over the almost flush join between curved door and sills, the Champion's glove came away gray with dirt and grime. Underneath, the beige linen lining showed through the layers of years of neglect.

Satisfied that the back doors were secure, he retraced his steps through the economy class and back into the first class seating area. Ahead of him, the dim moonlight filtering through the nearly opaque windows showed him a dreadfully battered man trying to climb to his feet. Hand still squeezing on the bleeding arm, the Other pulled himself upright by the edge of the forward kitchen counter.

"For a moment there, I thought we weren't going to make it." The injured man's voice held a slight tremor. As he raised his face to meet that of the Champion, the taller man noted the alarming lack of color. Ghostly white of skin tone, the Other forced himself down the aisle a short way toward the nearest upright chair. But his legs wouldn't give him that last ounce of strength that he needed. Instead, he sat down in the aisle, knees against his chest, and let his head drop slowly forward to rest on them.

His wine-laced body shivered with reaction as he sucked in air through his clenched teeth in an effort to control the screaming pain in his right arm.

The Champion hastened forward, stepping over the body, and knelt beside the crumpled heap that was the Plaza Protector. Drawing his gloves off, he placed them beside his knees. As gently as possible, he tried to pry loose the knuckle-white grip the Other had on his upper arm. Trying to hold in his own blood was proving useless; thick red trails oozed through his shaking fingers and splashed down onto his side.

"Let me see, huh?" The Champion peeled away the stiff left hand and managed to cup the arm in his own broad left palm.

The suit and flesh were a torn mess. Four deep tears, where the canine fangs had sunk home, were responsible for the freely flowing blood. Miraculously, the teeth had not severed any major blood vessels. However, that was poor consolation for the agony that was shooting along the man's arm in piercing waves and up into his neck.

Face screwed up with pain, a whispered hiss came from the silvered lips. "Feels like my arm's hanging off."

"Almost, but not quite." The Champion took out a clean stiletto knife and began to cut away the thin tatters of leather from around the wound, the better to see the damage.

The Other's hand came up, trying to stop him. He twitched and flinched as the Champion eased the leather out of the tear. Darker blood welled up among the chewed, pink flesh.

The Other groaned and snatched for the Champion's knife. He failed. Twisting slightly, the Champion placed his back against the right side of the Other's head and shoulders, using it as a shield, and effectively blocking off any more lunges for the blade. Lifting the savaged arm, he brought it under his own and onto his right knee. Now he had some maneuverability.

"You're lucky, the beast could have bitten through an artery and you'd be dead now." Flicking away the bloodied pieces of leather, the Champion tried to work as swiftly as possible.

"Yeah, this has just been my lucky -- ", face still down, he writhed under the firm grasp, " -- day . . . "

''Hold still or it'll hurt worse."

"I . . . thought this street . . . was quiet." The Other raised his head slightly and found his sight was dimming. "I never patrolled here."

"No, it's a little out of my sector, too." Intent upon cleaning out the cuts, the Champion pressed on, the blade moving surely in his hand. "That nasty pack of hounds would account for the fact that much of this area has been left untouched. There didn't seem to be any signs of mutants that I could see."

Certain that he'd removed any dirty leather that might infect the wound further, the Champion knew that the next priority was to control the bleeding. God knows how much he's lost already from the leg wound . . . and now this . . .

"I cleaned . . . out . . . most of the mutants . . . from . . . around the Pl -- " The jolt of pain as the Champion pressed the tears together and exerted enough pressure to stop the bleeding made the Other almost pass out completely. Head lolling against the long braids across the green, studded back, a faint whimper escaped his lips. Talking in an effort to remain conscious, he went on, "One thing . . . I'll say for Selkirk, he had all the right . . . equipment for this . . . . Always managed to repair the . . . damage."

The Champion felt the metal pieces in the Other's face scrape against the studs on his back. A screeching noise. Yes, but at what cost? "Selkirk's dead. He neutralized your implant." The blood still trickled from out of the torn flesh. The area around the wound was already turning purple and black with the bruising.

Behind the Territory man's back came a tired word of feeling. "Good."

An uneasy silence fell between them, marred by the occasional stirring of the Other from his cramped position against the seat side.

The Champion glanced toward the door, searching the crack for any telltale sign of black muzzle or red eyes.

It could take ten minutes or longer before the blood would clot. The blond turned his glove over with his knee and looked at the face of the digital watch inlaid there. The illuminated green digits flicked over, counting off the time.

While he maintained an even pressure, the Champion looked about for something to bind the wound once he'd stemmed the flow. Close by were the turned-over remains of the first-class kitchen area. Searching his dim and distant past, he remembered the old days of service. All of the finest quality. Granted, this type of plane had been almost superseded by the introduction of the 747 jets, but United Airlines' internal flights had still maintained a service of quality. Surely, some of the linen napkins were still there.

He shuffled around on his knees, both hands tightly locked over the wound. Looking down at the mass of dust-covered curls, he saw the pale flesh under the strips, the raised goosebumps and slight sheen of sweat on the brow and upper lip.

Face clouding, the Champion realized that the man he held so tightly was going into shock. Even under his hands, the warm blood did not disguise the abrupt chills. The darkness of the cabin did not disguise anything.

With slow movements, the Champion released his grip tentatively and squinted down into the wound. Dark blood filled the open tears but not as quickly as before. "Any minute now, you're gonna stop messing up the carpet." He held on again.

The Other nodded, eyes screwed tightly shut. "Did we kill them all?"

"All but one. It's sitting outside waiting for us to come out." The Champion looked toward the window, but was too low to see anything other than the night sky and the half-demolished roof of a building further down the street. "I'll get it later; it can't get in."

"I feel . . . sick." The Other tried to focus on the blond's half-turned features, eyelids shutting slowly. "And . . . cold . . . cold like in the Plaza . . . on the marble . . . ."

"Well, don't be sick over me." Ignoring another tremor, he lifted his hands again and saw the blood held fast in the gaping holes. Scrambling up, he stepped into the kitchen area and began to turn out drawers as fast as he could force the rusting boxes from the holes in the wall. Locker doors crashed back as he sifted through trays and plastic utensils. Plastic cups tumbled to the floor, followed by discolored foil trays. Mold had grown out of the casing in dark green patches. One after another, he tossed them to the floor.

In a locker by the emergency exit, he found what he was looking for, a stack of linen napkins, yellowed with age but still intact. Picking up four, he walked over the plastic kitchenware, unheeding of the splintering crashes as his boots crushed them flat. Kneeling beside the Other, he shook out one napkin and laid it over his knee. Using two of the others as pads, he pressed them to the four long holes, held them in position with his left hand and tried to pick up the napkin from his lap. He hadn't enough hands.

"Hold the pads in place." He peered into the face of the Other.

No response.

He spoke a little louder, grabbing the injured man's pale left hand and placing it on two napkins. "Hold them there, while I tie this up."

Vibrating, the long fingers managed to follow the instructions. His breathing no easier, the Other allowed the Champion to tie the napkins in place with the remaining two pieces of linen. As the Territory Protector knotted the last corner, the Other flinched yet again, his hand falling loosely over his legs.

"Do you think . . . think the pack was . . . was . . . rabid?" Just a ghost of his former voice, laced with bone-weariness and fear.

The Champion stopped momentarily as he picked up his gauntlets and tucked them into his pouch. Could be, they were wild enough. A little too quick and casual, he replied, "No . . . just hungry."

Thick dark hair nodded almost imperceptibly, then his head came up sharply as a shiver racked his body. Rising, the Champion hooked a hand under the Other's left arm and pulled him upright. He was practically a dead weight. Propelling him into a seat, he settled him into a loose-limbed sprawl, pushing the seat divider up and backwards.

The seats were old and rotten, with the fabric breaking away from the seams as soon as the body sank into the foam base. Half-slouched, the Other let the Champion push the seats back into a semi-reclining angle. The third seat, nearest the window, remained forward, yellow cover faded by years of pale suns and the convergence of the rays through the glass. The Other's head slid over to the left and rested on the arm of the aisle seat. With effort, he lifted his feet onto the window seat.

He made no further sound. No movement.

The Champion reached above his head and began to pull open the overhead lockers. He was halfway through the economy section before he found what he wanted. One locker was still locked. It bore the marks of an attempted entry, but whoever had tried to open it had failed. The door had been jammed by the impact of the crash. The Champion took out his long knife, slid the toughened blade under the molded plastic rim and exerted his whole body weight on the lever. The plastic shattered outwards and the locker door dropped down, held by one hinge.

Inside were the forgotten remains of hand luggage. Small vanity cases nestled among plastic sacks of duty-free goods, purchased in some distant airport shop. Lifting the rare treasure down, the Champion smiled to find underneath the object of his search: an orange blanket. Snatching it down, he wove his way back down the aisle and paused beside the Other's chair. Still white and shivering, the Other lay slumped, his leather suit dirty, torn, and stained in his own blood. Longer curls had fallen over his face, partially obscuring the metal slivers set in his flesh.

The Champion almost imagined him as he had once been. Unmarked. Normal.

Shaking the blanket loose, he draped it over the tense frame. A weak left hand pulled on the satin edge of the cover with fingers stained by red trickles of blood. Dry and crusting in places, the dark brown film flaked off and spotted the orange fabric as he held on tightly.

Voice low, the Champion murmured, "This'll keep you warm."

The Other showed no sign of having heard. Silence descended in the cabin. Lips partly open, the Northern Sector Protector was deeply asleep.

At a loss as to what to do next, the Champion settled into a seat across the aisle and watched the comatose man before him. Face dark in the shadows, he felt the first strains within himself of fatigue. It had been a long walk across the city in search of the Other. The flight from the Plaza and the attack of the pack of wild dogs had worn him out in ways he wasn't used to. There was no bar of drugs and alcohol readily available now to give him a high when he needed it. He stretched his wrenched muscles and flexed his fingers. His own knuckles were scrubbed, and parts of his shoulders and back smarted from the slight burns he'd received in the Plaza.

Resting his head back against the seat, he tried to empty his mind of the present, but all that poured in its place was the nagging problem of the future.

Things were going to be a lot better once we got away from the communes. Now look at us -- tired, hurt and hiding from some stinking mutt in the rusting hulk of a plane.

He turned his head and watched the even rise and fall of the Other's chest.

What are you thinking now? Why am I here? Who the hell are you? Or are you feeling rabies crawling through your bloodstream? Dreams of anguish and nightmares nothing seems to get any better, does it? . . . Or are you trying to remember me -- you . . . the Time Before . . . the old life we led . . . . Remembering hurts more than the holes in your arm, believe me. All of a sudden, the shields and barriers we've built around ourselves drop away and we can see clearly . . . . It's enough to make me weep. All the wasted time . . . the city, gone . . . family, gone. And even worse, you can see the kind of disgustingly low creatures that we have become . . . . I don't think the blood on my hands will ever dry.

Abruptly, he leaned out of the seat and looked back down the aisle. Lying forgotten on a chair was the plastic carrier bag of liquor bottles.

Climbing out of his seat, the Champion strode down and picked up the bag. The bottles chimed together, glass side brushing against glass side.

Carrying the bottles back to his seat, he rested the sack down and tore the staples through the plastic edges to open the bag.

Two bottles of Johnnie Walker. Golden, amber liquid.

Gold of a different kind . . . and just as precious here, now. He looked again at the reclining figure of the Other. In more ways than one.

Disinfecting the Other would satisfy his compulsion for cleanliness. Unattended wounds were against his survival code. Now he wanted the Other to survive -- if only for purely ulterior motives at present; and thus the savaged man was encompassed into the Champion's order of things.

Pulling out a bottle, he broke the seal and, unscrewing the cap, stepped across the aisle. He noted the rise and fall, under the blanket, of the comatose man's chest. The Champion held the scotch bottle before him, watching the air bubbles burst onto the surface of the liquid. In seconds, the contents found their own level.

He grimaced wryly and pulled the blanket free of the Other's clenched fist. The slumped man scowled in his sleep. His fingers feebly tried to hold onto the satin edge, then fell back slackly.

"This is gonna hurt -- not that you'll really know."

He lifted the folds of the napkin, bending them back until he was down to raw flesh. Next, he liberally poured neat scotch into the open wounds.

The Other instantly tossed over onto his back, autonomic nervous system forcing his body away from further agonizing pain. His face blanched, features running through a series of reactions to the burning agony of the alcohol. The Champion held him firmly and ensured that he had sufficiently washed out the bite.

"You're gonna stink like a wino, but it could save your life."

On the seats, the Other moaned and turned over, back into his original position. He looked damp under his eyelashes.

"Easy, lie still -- you'll start the bleeding again."

The Champion curtailed further comment. Clearly, the Other was totally oblivious to his presence. Instead, the injured man stirred fitfully a few minutes longer, then settled. Face pressed into the padded arm of the seat, he hunched over, looking cold and shivery.

The Champion redraped the blanket over his shoulders. This time no needy hand clung to the shiny edge.

Moving away, the Territory Protector pushed the bag of bottles across his own chair and settled back into the lumpy seat. He held the bottle up to his face and looked at the lowered level.

Could do with some speed to go with this . . . . Should have brought some with me. All my drugs'll probably be removed into the Territory. He smirked smugly to himself. Wish I could see their faces when they enter my food store . . . . Enough there to feed the Territory for days . . . possibly weeks.

Holding the glass neck to his lips, he let the amber liquid splash into his mouth. He swallowed it in huge gulps, then wiped his wet chin against his right arm. The scotch still held its kick, still strong over all the years.

The Champion savored the warmth that grew inside his stomach. It served to chase away some of the more chilling thoughts for a while. Nursing the bottle, he stared at the cockpit door and read over and over again the small plaque fixed there.

"No admittance . . . " The remaining words were obscured by thick grime.

No admittance, no admittance, no admittance . . . . The Other's like that -- no admittance. He just can't accept that there is a chance that I am who I say I am . . . . Don't blame him really; it's easier to hide in this twisted reality. I did. It was easier to be used than fight them, and once I was offered the narcotics, why not? There was no other reason to say 'no'.

He took another long gulp and closed his eyes.

He opened his eyes a crack and squinted across the moonlit seats toward the Other. He'd slipped a little lower, head nearly hidden by the orange blanket.

But what about you? Are you a survivor? How have the years affected your mind? Me, I think I'm a little crazy . . . but, what Selkirk did to you -- I'd have gone insane. I'm not surprised you don't remember me; you've probably tried all these years to forget, forget the past, the present -- your future. Just forget the whole rotten stinking mess . . . . Well, I won't force you. I won't burden you with the guilt of lost remembering. But don't blame me if I persist because I do remember, and I want some of that life back . . . . I want my old partner . . . even if it's just a little.

The Other stirred in his sleep as if disturbed by the Champion's thoughts. He turned more onto his back, brows scowling down. The blond saw the flaccid eye socket and felt a wave of guilt at his own selfish desires.

Staring at the bundle opposite, the Champion tried to shake off a feeling of dread that made him drink again from the bottle. Two thirds was already gone. He felt a twinge of a shiver crawl over him and longed again for something to feed his habit. The days ahead were going to be hard. He rubbed at the intracath in his elbow and wished it gone.

And then he wished it full of mind-dulling narcotics, ready and willing to buffer him against the future. Life had been easier when his decisions were made for him. Thinking dredged up thoughts that went far deeper than he had meant to go.

The thought made his throat dry and papery. He licked his lips of the loose drops of scotch.

The cold sensation of still being held by a thread to his recent past wrapped itself like ice about his soul. Turning toward his own window, he looked down the windswept street of slowly drifting litter. Far away over the empty wastes, he knew the Owners would be watching and waiting for him . . . for him, their "most precious."

And he wouldn't be there.

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

Under the green glass roof of the Territory government building, the white moon cast long green shadows over the stone floor. The seven high-backed chairs were in their usual position. Solid, ebony wood.

Seated with dignity in the semi-circle were the Owners. Neat and meticulous with their appearance for this special night, their long crimson robes, trimmed in silver, draped over their bodies in sensuous folds. Hair elaborately arranged, it fully complemented the skillful application of make-up and jewelry with which they had all adorned themselves. They wanted to be especially alluring tonight -- for him.

Only one seat was unoccupied. Its owner was standing apart from her sisters, by the door. Dressed in jet black. Ornately jeweled herself, many stones even woven into her hair, the older woman raised a carefully covered arm and gripped the doorpost. Hand of long red fingernails, she tightened her hold on the wooden frame and stared into the darkness of the lengthy corridor. For hours now, she had watched the main door, waiting for the moment when it would slide open to reveal the powerful frame of the Champion: her very own property.

And the hours had been marked by the lengthening shadows over the stone floor. The sounds of the Territory's nightlife had peaked and waned and now only the faint rustle of wind broke the eerie silence.

The six other women dared not move but instead kept their own silent vigil on their leader's back. Long ago, it had become apparent to them that their most "beloved" of possessions was not coming. At first, they had felt an overriding surge of anger brought on by his refusal to follow orders. But as time passed, the anger abated and they felt deserted and foolish. Dressed and decorated for a lover who had not come as ordered. Love to order.

They suddenly felt cheap and tawdry. The glitter and the paint could not hide their disappointed lust. Sitting waiting in the late hours of the night only heightened the point that they had been scorned by a man they owned.

Possessions are only any good if they are of use. Not always of practical use, but useful to the owner. For one, they can give aesthetic pleasure. The Champion had been that to them. They had wanted to sample and savor his kind of beauty physically. Now their chance was gone.

One of the women shifted her cramped muscles. It was the young red-haired girl, who had dressed herself most carefully for this night. The other women turned expectantly, tired of the charade and hoping one of them would find the courage to admit that he was not coming.

However, words came from a different quarter. The older woman by the door breathed a whispered statement:

"Please remain seated, the Champion has not yet arrived."

A collective ripple of dismay came from the other six.

Abruptly, the older woman spun around, black robes rustling harshly. She glowered at her sisters, daring them to contradict her words. All eyes but two fell away from her look of smoldering rage. Only one woman dare speak against her.

The young girl rose stiffly and swallowed softly. "He isn't coming. He never was."

Silence reigned while the sisters looked from one protagonist to the other. The older woman clenched her fists and her face became riddled with hate.

"I ordered him to come tonight. He will be here." Her voice was bitter and cold.

The redhead looked at the floor and then raised a face of unconcealed pity. "He has left us, sister. He is long gone."

"No!" Bony white fingers pulled at the silver trim at her scrawny neck. "No, I own him. He loves us. He loves me! He will come; he is obedient."

Her animated face creased up into lines of violent fury, causing her carefully applied make-up to flake and peel. The glamorous effect was ruined in moments. Underneath the thin layer of porcelain-white foundation was a decaying skin of mold.

Tiny flakes of make-up fluttered down onto her aged breasts like the first snows of a personal winter.

Panic came into her eyes. He would see she was unclean. Her hands came up to her thin, hollow features and she tried to pat down the peeling facemask. Even as she touched it, it broke away, as brittle as her temper.

A cry of despair escaped her crimson lips. She held her hands out imploringly to her sisters.

"Don't let him see me like this, please. I must look beautiful for my golden one." Tears spilled from her eyes, leaving a tearstain of mascara on either cheek. "This is my last chance; he won't look on me again . . . ."

"Sister," began a slight, dark-haired woman on her left, "I think we already had our chance. He isn't coming -- ever. He has gone from the Territory." Her words of temperance did nothing to forestall a further outburst.

"I own him!! He cannot survive without my benevolence! I made him what he is -- the ultimate man, powerful and strong! He owes me!! And I want him!" Her face quivered with acrimony. Eyes almost bulging, she dared them with a look, to contradict her.

Argument was useless. The six Owners rose from their seats and filed past her into the pitch-dark corridor. They had no further taste for this night of rancid hopes and desires.

Under the green glass roof, the lonely woman watched them go; her breasts heaved with pent-up frustration. Her obsession with the Champion knew no bounds at that precise moment. All consuming hate for her long-haired man ate into her mind like a rampant cancer. Her fists clenched with a rage so violent that her nails bit deeply into her palms.

Tiny droplets of blood splashed down onto the stone floor. And as she bled, she vowed with all her power and might to have her revenge on the Territory Protector.

For far more dangerous than the city's empty waste was the frenzied malicious fury of a woman scorned.

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

Under the folds of an orange blanket, a battered and bruised man was dreaming the dreams of dread and misery. Released through his own weaknesses, images of long-forgotten days drifted hauntingly across his mind's eye. The cessation of the implant's control had freed him from the programmed world of Selkirk and Houndsworth into a world of freedom. Freedom of thought. He'd tried not to think since leaving the Plaza, tried hard to avoid the persistent braided man, and failed miserably.

But where the Champion had failed, the wild dogs had succeeded. Howling at the Other's heels, all thoughts of his past had gone from his mind as a desperate self-preservation had taken over. With long canine teeth sinking into his flesh, he'd fought as best he could to save himself from being savaged to death. Kicking, punching, and scratching, he'd tried to release the dog's hold on his arm -- he hadn't come this far to be chewed to bits in an empty street.

Now his arm beat painfully with the throb of torn nerve endings, making his sleep disturbed and fitful. He tossed against the rough cushions and tried to escape his overcrowded mind.

Vying for attention, a parade of scenes and sensations swam before his subconscious mind. Places and people not seen for years came back to him in gray-shrouded mist. Almost within reach, they came, yet always slipping away from his unsure grasp. Half of him wanted to know, to remember; the other half was plainly frightened of what he might find buried in his past.

Out of the maze of colors and faces he traced a remote tale of ill-fitting pieces that made up the puzzle of his life.

Sunshine days in urban streets, packed with the smells and tastes of a decent, ordered life. Heat-bedraggled people brushed against his body with a familiarity he welcomed. And yet their features escaped his vision as they melted away into the haze of tall buildings.

He shifted uneasily, face reflecting the strain of the inner turmoil. His breathing quickened through his parted lips.

Tall buildings. Skyscrapers every one. They frightened him; too long had he been used to the flattened wastes of the new city. He felt hemmed in, under pressure. Beside these edifices of the Time Before loomed the blurred outlines of a dark-haired man.

He strove for clarity, but the man remained ill defined. A wave of grief suddenly rippled over the Other and he felt bereft in a sea of blood. Blood spattered pavement, and the man brutally murdered at his feet. He reached down and found the image replaced by blackness -- a blackness that would remain a void forever.

And he wondered if it could have been his father.

Without warning, he wanted to be awake, away from this sleep of living dead. Unsure where to turn, he found no escape. Instead, the black became the dark blue of night, spotted with silver.

Shields of silver. Shining brighter than the sun. With a brilliant radiance, they dazzled him, again obscuring the places and faces of the people he desperately tried to see.

He ran into the suffocating folds of blue and anchored himself to a silver shield. Holding on for dear life, he fought the buffeting punishment of the thrashing storm.

And then in the maelstrom of his uniform nightmare, he saw a calm oasis of golden light. It held like a spotlight over his vulnerable body and offered him a lifeline to safety.

Relief and contentment overcame his insecure being. He walked the evaporating blue path toward the chameleon shape. Clutching the silver shield before him as a defense against the powerful enigma of the light, he neared as close as he dared. Fearful of being burned by the vibrant energy, he hung back.

The flare metamorphosed before his deep blue eyes and a tough blond stood before him. Silver shield held high in salute to the Other in the swirling mists.

The fog changed to red and white streaks. Lightning crashed through the fragile fabric of this netherworld existence. And the two shields became gold.

The strangely bright man crossed over to stand before the Other's glinting body of steel.

And he turned to see his companion's face and found only an empty void.

Staggering away, he hid behind the gold shield. He thought his mind was twisting the beauty of his past to cushion him from his reality. Treasured memories were being tarnished to heal his fear of remembering the truth.

He dredged deeper through the red and white fog and felt the sudden chill of misery and death.

A sickening dread forced him to turn and face the soft feminine outline of a woman. Delicate and sweet smelling, she emerged out of the blurred tangle of his dreams.

She appeared on his horizon. Petite and blonde. He ran forward, sure that he would see her clearly. As she approached, her face dissolved into a mask of blood that ran down her naked body. Her soft flesh sallowed and rotted, leaving a gray skeleton frame. It crumbled to dust and blew away on the cold winds of his mind.

Distraught, he backed toward the stable glow behind him. A strong arm fell across his shoulders and he felt safe at last. He turned to face the owner of the secure caress.

The blond was still faceless. A nothing human being.

The Other raised his fingers to touch the flat expanse of skin and found that a mountainous weight dragged his hand down. He could not find the strength to reach out and feel the features of his benefactor.

The shining man reached out for him, also. The Other was paralyzed. The man's hands came up higher, but he began to recede into the distance, away from the Other. The shape changed again into a pencil line of yellow, and he was gone.

A biting wind of impending doom stroked the features of the man left behind. The red and white fog became transparent, and he made out the shapes of black and white cars. Row after row, they looked like a visual statement about his life.

The Time Before was white. The New Society was black.

A stitched line of holes shattered his despair. They appeared on his leathered chest and spurted forth his blood. The shock rocked him to his knees. He tried to raise the gold shield to protect himself from another attack and found his strength was gone.

And then he knew the true fear of death. Brutal and ugly, it clung like a leech to his soul and drank up his life's essence. He screamed in terror. Flailing about him, he found no anchor. Panic seized him and he knew he was dying.

A thread of gold spun out toward him, out of the velvet blackness. With fingers of straining sinew and muscle, he lunged for his last chance.

Like an Ariadnean thread through a maze, the Other found himself reeled in to safety by the blond enigma who had haunted this and many other dreams. Under the warmth and tenderness, he felt protected and saved by the man's aura of power. And, sadly for the dreamer, he remained faceless.

A shutter came down between them abruptly. Impenetrable. Solid. The gulf widened and the dreams became colored in devastation and destruction.

He was lost, forfeit to the deranged chaos of The End. Powerless against the changed order around him, the Other tried to get away from the cloying sensation of entrapment. He held the gold shield aloft and that was his undoing.

An army of vulture-like beings grew out of the ruptured earth. Plaster fell from their bodies as they climbed from their cement graves. They were the living dead of the city and they wanted their precious lives preserved. The gold shield was a beacon to them in the ruins of their obliterated society. They flocked to him.

The Other felt the hands reach out for him. Evil hands of strange caresses and squeezing pressure. He squirmed and writhed under their hold, but found that the more he struggled, the tighter became their grip. As he looked into their faces, he found only cold reflections of himself. Under their heavy cowls, his own thin features stared wickedly back. Deep blue eyes and long, dark curls, every visage became a little more debased than the last.

Turning in turmoil, he tried to escape but found himself struggling from one pair of grasping hands to the next. Each figure repeatedly pulling him closer, bearing his own features. Each one, progressively more bizarre and distorted than the last. Metal pieces appeared. Tiny silver rivets studded his lips. And his eye rotted and fell from his socket. Over and over and over and over . . . .

At that moment, he chose to opt out of thought. To opt out of reason and understanding. A tense fear made him petrify. Eye straining, he looked back.

Selkirk loomed out of the slate gray mists and hooked his long black fingers into his curls. Yanking him to his knees before him, he smiled a smile of evil incarnate and produced a white-hot spiral of metal. The implant. It seared his skin as the doctor brought it up past his cheek to the top of his head. Poised ready to bore it into his brain, Selkirk tightened his hold in the hair, raising the scalp.

Frantic, the Other clawed to get free. Wild of eye, like some tortured animal, he lost control and fought like a thing possessed.

Abruptly falling free, he turned in slow motion and saw the green image of the Champion. From the base of a long tunnel, he set off to meet the anguished Other.

The gold shield on the green-leathered chest glowed with an intensity to match his own. The Other felt the hot splash of tears on his cheeks and dashed forward through the swirling fog. Pushing against the weight of possession that the Plaza doctor held over him, he raised his arms for mercy, toward his salvation.

In return, the Champion raised his Magnum and calmly shot him. Cool and efficient.

The Other fell and kept on falling. Down, down, down, through his blistering past he tumbled, the echoes of his own death ringing through his ears. And as he pitched headlong through his layers of memories, he vowed he would keep them in his dark subconscious, hidden from the brutality of his conscious mind. He couldn't afford to remember and find further disillusionment. He had to have a reserve of sanity held within him somewhere. At every turn the New Society had betrayed him. There was no hope. The blond was different and the old memory was gone.

He'd thought it was Hutch, prayed that it should be. Even God had betrayed him. Hutch wouldn't kill him. Hutch and love were synonymous. He had been betrayed, betrayed, betrayed, betrayed, betrayed . . . .

In the smoky light of early dawn, the Other thrashed back the blanket, eyes still filled with his tears. He jerked upright and filled his lungs to cry out his desolation.

A green gauntlet slapped down on his mouth, and a face close to his ear whispered, "Shut up! There's somebody outside."

The Other's eye shot wide open in terror. Torn roughly out of his nightmare, he was totally disoriented for a split second. The Champion's face was so close to his own, trying to see past the dark curls and through the grimy window, that the Other could only focus on his immediate features.

And the pale-skinned face of the Champion seemed to merge with the empty visage of his dreams. With dawning realization, the features of the man before him transposed themselves with the bland expanse of flesh.

Every feature fit with an unerring exactness.

The pieces of the visual puzzle fell into place.

Shock brought the Other fully awake and he tried to wriggle free of the stiff hold that pressed him down in the cushions. The Champion was distracted from his search of the street and glanced down at the struggling man.

The Other tried to shake himself loose, but the Champion had already seen the haunted revelation flicker across the drained face. He released the Other slowly, noting the indentations of his glove in the ashen skin of the man.

A second that seemed like a millennium passed between them. Accusation came into the blue eyes of the Champion.

The Other looked down and away from the towering man who stood over him. Rolling to his left, he tried to get away from the Champion and into the aisle. The Champion blocked his way, not wanting to let the moment escape examination.

Then a shadow passed the crack between door and wall and something climbed up the remaining stump of the wing and onto the roof.

The Other and the Champion broke the moment and looked toward the roof, following the footsteps across the curved metal. Crouching low, the Champion turned to face the back of the plane and snaked along the aisle. The Magnum slid from its holster and clicked into the handgrip. The series of clicks must have been heard by the trespasser up above. The footsteps hesitated near the tail of the plane and re-approached the sliced wound in the ceiling.

The Champion edged forward between the seats, eyes searching the crack for the first sign of the being. Close to the hole, the sound of boots on metal stopped.

He's sneaking forward. Only need a clear shot . . . . The Champion compressed his lips and waited for the black silhouette to block out the pale dawn light. Behind him, he felt the air move and a wine-suited body dropped down beside him.

The Other found that he was incredibly stiff from lying awkwardly across the seats all night. The muscles in his wounded leg protested as he crawled forward, and his right arm instantly throbbed if he moved or put any weight on it. Drawing level with the Territory Protector, he followed his line of vision to the roof.

"Where's my rifle?" the Other whispered earnestly, looking about him. "I haven't got it."

The Champion stiffened as he remembered the scenario of the last night and the Other dropping the rifle as he tried to defend himself from the attacking dogs. "Lying in the street," came the tight reply. "You dropped it."

"That's just great, isn't it!" The Other looked over his shoulder toward the door, wondering if he had any chance of retrieving it in time.

"Shhh!" The Champion raised himself up onto one knee and took aim on the sliver of daylight.

Heeding the warning, the dark-haired man drew a knife and made ready to defend his newfound freedom. Eye on the break in the roof, he waited for the being to show its face.

Against the washed-out light of dawn, a head heaved into view and peered down at the two men. Fair-haired and bright-eyed, it stared in amazement and then curiosity.

The Champion clicked back the hammer on the Magnum and hesitated. The head and shoulders were so different to what he was expecting that he was completely taken aback. His mouth parted in astonishment.

The figure was evidently male and apparently glowing with health and fitness. No crazed gleam in the eye. No half-hunted, half-haunted tenseness about the flawless features. The bones were well covered by the flesh, the whites of the brown eyes were clear and shining. A slight wind ruffled the clean hair.

Abruptly, the face ducked back and footsteps scrambled over the roof, down the rubble near the nose, and into the street.

Still stunned, the Champion looked at the Other to see if he, too, had witnessed the strange sight.

"Did you -- did you see -- him?" The Champion could hardly speak. Without waiting for a reply, he leaped to his feet and ran down the aisle, watching the escaping figure through the small oval windows.

At the curved door, he heaved with all his might and pushed it out and open. Squatting down, he slithered over the rough rim of the doorsill and down onto the loose rubble. Skidding over the tumbled rocks and bricks, he alighted on the roadway and pounded after the fleeing figure. Rats feeding on the corpses of the dogs scurried away from the sudden action and hid in the shadows of the fuselage.

Lithe of limb, the strange figure sprinted over the strewn debris and headed for the corner of the block. His firm frame was outfitted in thick clothes of beiges and browns. On his feet were what could have been a kind of riding boot, made of tan leather and tied with laces. As he kicked the dust up under his feet, he looked back over his shoulder to see how close the Champion was. His curious expression had been replaced by one of acute agitation. Clearly, he wished that he had not found the two beings in the plane. The blond with the huge gun looked unreasonable and vicious as he thundered up the road. The fleeing man heard the dull chime of the gold tips and wondered what kind of decoration they really were.

Leaping a twist of copper piping, the unknown man staggered to a halt and took one last look back. The grit swirled about his legs in a miniature cloud. Chest heaving, he wiped his short blond hair from his eyes, sized up the chasing Champion once, and ducked behind the wall.

The pursuing Territory Protector swore under his breath as the strange man darted from sight. Heart pounding more from the thrill of the sight than the exertion of the chase, he, too, leaped the piping and skidded to a halt. Raising the Magnum, he hesitated for a second to compose himself, then stepped forcefully around the corner. Legs apart in the correct combat stance, he covered the street.

The earthquake-torn blocks were completely empty of the surprise visitor.

Listening acutely, the Champion waited for the giveaway sound of someone hiding in a deserted building. He waited, but heard nothing. Even holding his own harsh breath did not bring him the betraying noise. Finally, he released the hammer on the gun and relaxed his stance. The cloud of dust around his long legs settled.

The man was gone.

I've never seen anyone like that for years. Where the hell did he spring from? The clothes looked new and made of wool . . . . The boots -- tan leather and worn by someone who clearly isn't a commune protector -- no one has privileges like that, no one . . . . So clean, soreless features . . . well-fed -- healthy. Amazing . . . . I don't believe it . . . . It must have been an illusion . . . . Had to be . . . . Goddammit, there aren't any people like that now!

Taking a few reluctant steps backwards, the Champion retreated into the street. About four hundred yards away was the plane. The pale watery sun was struggling to light another gray day in the city. Deep in thought, the Champion released the Magnum and put it back in the holster. As the blue barrel slid against his leg, he looked down at himself. Dirt-stained green leather, fashioned after protective armor; knives and studs; all ingrained with soot and smoke. His plaits hung forward, showing the smoke and soot marks that dulled his fair hair. He rubbed a glove across his chin and still found that even after all these years, he expected to find stubble there. No more facial hair. No more wrinkles in the flesh. Not since the bombs and the biological warfare. And yet, he was undoubtedly very different from the creature that fled away from him. That figure didn't seem to be tainted at all.

Letting his arms swing in a loose, easy rhythm, he set off toward the plane. A little way ahead of him were the carcasses of the dogs. They lay like black lumps in the street. As he neared what could have been a mutated German shepherd, he saw where the rats in this sector had already been feeding on the fresh meat of the night. A few of the more fearless rodents had returned to their meal. They watched the heavy tread of the Protector come closer, never once breaking from their feast.

The Champion turned an eye upon them and they fled back to their cracks and crevices.

Could've been me or the Other . . . . Chewed to shreds. No wonder the mutants don't roam here. I wonder if the other mutt's run off? He scrubbed at a twitching eye. His mind filled with the stranger again. Wonder where he came from?

Poking out from underneath the corpse of a stabbed dog was the rifle that the Other had dropped. The Champion crossed over the pavement and bent down to pull it free. Booting the soggy carcass away, he swung the rifle up over his shoulder. He brushed some of the sticky dust off the stock and blew softly along the outer edge of the clogged barrel. Still puzzled by the sudden appearance of the healthy figure, he half-turned and looked down the road at the two sets of running footprints.

There used to be an old story . . . Robinson Crusoe, I think . . . two sets of footmarks. His and Man Friday's, who saved him from his life of solitude. Crusoe thought he was insane at first . . . many times the prints left in the sand were his own. But -- I didn't imagine him . . . . I'm not really crazy. Probably the lack of dope . . . have to do something about that . . . or the after-effects of the LSD . . . . No, I saw him -- definitely heard him.

Up in the plane, the Other had crawled over the seats watching the Champion's pursuit. Face a picture of disbelief, he, too, had catalogued the strange, apparently affluent appearance of the mysterious man.

So much had happened in the last two minutes. He still hadn't cleared his mind of the horrendous nightmares that had troubled his sleep. Then the stranger had appeared on the roof, spoiling his chance of examining and savoring the ribbon of bizarre sleep that had infected him. Now it was snaking away from his conscious mind, leaving gaping holes in the order of images. Snatching at something that had never really been there was impossible. The semiconscious state of waking had been taken from him by his own pent-up fear and the whispered warning of the Champion.

Now, he was distracted again by the Protector rooting in the dirt for something. As the Champion swung up the rifle, the Other recognized his precious weapon and suddenly felt a little easier in his mind. Face up to the filthy glass, he peered closer as the man down below hesitated and looked back. To get a better view of what had caused the Territory Protector to stop in his return to the plane, the Other raised a hand to wipe the glass clean.

Just then, the Champion turned back. Fully preoccupied with his own thoughts, he forgot the tensions of his life. His strict regime of hostile aggression out in the street left him for a moment. The burden of survival was wiped from his features and the lines of gaunt worry smoothed out.

He looked alarmingly young.

The Other felt an army walk over his grave and instead of wiping the grime from the window, he traced into the dirt four letters.

S . . . T . . . A . . . R . . .

And for some compelling reason, he inscribed them in reverse.

Unsure as to why he should have done such a thing, he let his hand cross to his throbbing arm and cradle it.

Down below, the Champion walked forward with a vague, aimless air about him. A thousand questions poured into his mind and the answer to them all had disappeared among the ruins. He wondered what the Other had made of the brief encounter; had he perceived the man in the same way as he, himself, had done? Did the same elements stand out for the Other as they had for the Champion?

Casually, he tilted his head up, plait tips almost touching his waist at the back, and saw the finger-smeared lettering.

A thousand lonely nights left his soul, and his throat felt tight and awkward. He remembered the last time he had seen those few letters. Smudged and red, they'd been over two feet high and inscribed on a barrier of glass.

A barrier between his death and his partner's life. A sign of fervent promise and hope . . . in the color of life's blood. A statement of mutual trust. All held in a name.

He stood rooted to the spot, a champion in armor who had ruled the city streets for years. A powerhouse of a man, ingrained with the right to execute his special brand of law and order. He was the Blond Butcher of the Territory -- for many, a living nightmare.

He stood there before the rusting wreckage of the 727 -- no longer the ultimate killing machine, but a man vulnerable to his own hopes and desires.

With a deliberate tread, unlike his descent, the Champion climbed the surrogate steps up to the entrance of the plane. Squeezing through the gap between door and curved wall, he stepped into the cabin.

The Other had backed out of the seats and was standing down the aisle almost under the crack in the ceiling. The patch of sky picked him out of the gloom and the blond could see he was massaging his injured arm. Dark curls on his shoulders, he was clearly apprehensive about what he had just done. He looked at his arm and then back to the forward section, hoping that the Champion would have moved. Finally, he broke the silence and spoke too quickly for normal conversation.

"Did you see him? See where he went? I ain't never seen a mutant, or for that matter, a commune dweller dressed like that. I mean, he looked so affluent and well fed. Wonder if he's dangerous -- He could just be one of many; did you see if he was armed? Huh?" A vague panic came into his eye; he looked away through the window to his left and continued to babble. "I couldn't see from up here, but he coulda had a gun in his belt. What do you think? . . . Think we should move on? . . . Get out of this sector? . . . There's not just him, either, the other dog's gone . . . ." His voice grew slower and quieter and petered out to nothing. "I see you found my rifle . . . ." Guiltily, his eyes strayed to the inscribed window.

The Champion walked slowly up the aisle, now that the verbal efforts to distract him had finished. He swung the rifle from his shoulder and handed it to the Other. The Northern Sector Protector hesitated, then stepped nearer and took hold of the long barrel. As they both held the weapon, the Champion refused to release it to the pulling pressure of the other man. Instead, he spoke levelly.

"What made you write 'Star' on the window?"

The Other kept his eye on the gun and said nothing. A silence stretched before them like a widening chasm.

A low voice of genuine perplexity replied, "I don't know . . . ."

The Champion's eyes flared wide, eyebrows almost rising to the golden headband in abrupt anger.

"Don't give me that crap: 'I don't know.' You do damn well know! Go on, tell me what that meant to you -- It meant a whole lot to me once!" He thrust the rifle into the hands of the Other.

"I tell you, I don't goddamned know!" The Other felt the anger well within him, also. It was becoming a cat and mouse game of half memories where he was struggling but losing. "You seem to have all the answers; you tell me what it meant."

He turned away and sank into a seat, hand still covering the wound. The Champion remained where he was, looking at the dark, bowed head before him.

Uncertain as to what to do next, the Champion shuffled his feet and searched for the right words. The compulsion to tell everything was almost overwhelming.

But words were to come from a different quarter.

The Other's mind had been racing -- racing over the nightmare, racing over his doubt of letting his guard down to his one-time enemy. He wasn't sure whether or not he was emotionally strong enough to forge new links with another human being -- he'd been on his own for so long now. To go back to trusting another person was something he'd thought dead and buried as soon as he had fallen into the hands of Selkirk and Houndsworth. Over the past few years he'd been through such a lot -- maybe too much, and now he was faced with more mountainous pressure from the Champion. His emotional nerve was already brittle; it could not take much more strain. Hunched over in the chair, the Other nursed his arm, trying to stop the deep, pulsing ache.

You're pressuring me, pressuring me. Two days ago I was clear in my mind. Just a programmed killer, numb to any true feelings. I'd shut them off years ago . . . and then you appeared down the sewer -- like a catalyst; events simply snowballed. The Plaza is gone now, Selkirk and Houndsworth are dead . . . ironically, the only stable things in my life, gone. But I'm free now, free to think and feel. And my thoughts are more dangerous to me than the savage existence I lived in the streets. Yet, I find an unaccountable affinity with you that forces me to examine the few strands of memory I do have. And you are there, always there, in one form or another. A tall blond man who is like a metaphysical companion of my sou,l and that scares me . . . because I sense I was only half a man when I was alone.

Eye still downcast, the Other let his hands rest in his lap. His flash of temper seemed to have abated. He sighed deeply, mourning the passing of his self-protective exile, and the words finally came from him.

"I wrote the letters on a window -- it was a long, long time ago." His voice grew thick. "I think you were there, but not really close. Maybe I did know you once, but . . . but, the Hutch I knew then would never have killed me -- " he glanced up momentarily to see if the Champion had heard, " -- no matter what."

The Champion felt a mixture of gladness and self-revulsion. No, Hutch would never have killed you. That Hutch is gone. I'm different, too, now, and I had my reasons at the time. It's still no excuse, and I'll regret it to the end of my days. He made to put a gloved hand onto the bowed head of tangled curls, but he couldn't bridge the physical gap of years of denied human contact.

Green gauntlet almost over his head, the Other looked up.

"I won't kill you again." It was all the Champion could think of to say. It was small consolation.

"Thanks." It was laced with a tinge of bitter sarcasm. Then he peeled back the corner of one of the linen bandages and said, "This still hurts and looks awful." He sniffed. "And smells of . . . booze?"

The Champion nodded and leaned forward to get a better view of the black and purple arm. The severe bruising had climbed down and up the arm, covering half the shoulder at the top.

"I disinfected it with exceedingly rare Johnnie Walker scotch." The Champion unfastened the knots and pulled away the blood-encrusted bandages. "Let me see." He dropped the soiled linen to the carpet and peeled off the pads.

The Other flinched with every movement of the cloths. His jaw set hard.

His right arm looked as though it had been through a meat grinder. The four tears were inflamed and scarlet at the edges, going to dark purple where the blood had clotted in the holes. In the corners and folds of the torn skin, the flesh looked watery and yellow.

"This needs cleaning properly, something more than alcohol." The Champion could not help but feel sickened at the damage. Any kind of wound or sore was totally against his strict regime of fastidious purity. "I haven't got the proper medical resources here; I left them behind in the Pits."

"You wouldn't go back and get them?" The Other looked hopefully at the man kneeling at his side.

Grinning wryly, the Champion shook his head and replied with an emphatic, "No, I would not. I'm not going anywhere near the place. They won't have the welcome wagon out for me."

"No, I don't suppose they will."

The Champion got up and disappeared into the kitchen area for some clean napkins. The Other shouted after him.

"What about our interested visitor? Where do you suppose he came from?"

Further sounds of breaking plastic accompanied the return of the Territory Protector. In his hands he held three more pieces of linen. Dropping down onto one knee, he pulled off his gauntlets and began to rebind the arm.

"Yes, just where did a specimen like that drift in from? I thought I knew all the communes, small and large, in this sector and I've never seen anything -- one, so affluent except the Owners." He waited for the Other to hold the clean pads in place. "I could have missed a commune but, even so, where did he get clothes like that from? And -- "

"And he looked almost fat," finished the Other. "Nobody in this city's fat."

The Champion tightened the knots and said without thinking, "Maybe he's from outside the city."

They both stopped at this casual statement, with new thoughts. Then the Plaza Protector shrugged dismissively.

"There isn't anything outside the city. It's the same as here, just a wasteland." He murmured the words that had been drilled into his mind since The End.

The Champion knew the creed well; it had become dogma in this New Society, taught by commune leaders and perpetuated by the people. But now he was free to think as he pleased. No more narcotics to warp his mind.

"How do you know; have you ever been?" He raised his eyebrows in question, blue eyes sparkling with challenge.

"No, but -- " He couldn't counter with his own argument, so resorted to learned theories. " -- it's an accepted fact that the whole country is the same all over since The End. There'd only be more communes and desolate waste if we went and looked."

The Champion wasn't about to be put off. "So, where did he come from then?" He pulled his gloves back on. "You're a free man now, do some free thinking. What if outside the city is different?"

"No, it's all the same or people would have left these stinking streets."

"Only if they knew it was different." The Champion's mind was darting from idea to idea. "Think: it would benefit the commune leaders if we thought there was nothing outside. The people are tied to the communes because we believe that there'd only be more gray deserts and diseased creatures. The leaders have always told us that and, in the Territory, anyone who thought differently was dealt with. But, what if there is something outside the city?"

"No, no, we'd have heard from somebody outside. There'd be signs, especially if they were as well off as our mystery man looked." For the Other, the self-examination of New Society dogma was making his skin crawl with doubt. What if he's right? What if his words are true? It doesn't bear thinking about . . . the wasted time . . . the disillusionment, when life could have been better all along. No, it can't be.

The Champion mulled over the Other's words and found his mind straying back over his life under the control of the Owners. At every turn he came across unexplained objects and supplies that most commune dwellers had thought totally consumed years ago. He agreed with the Owners in some respects, but the Owners had always seemed well supplied with rare resources that he had not discovered for them in his work.

When I went about the streets cleaning out city block after city block, the resources I discovered never matched the supply of the more rare things -- my narcotics, for one. Then again, I suppose they could have come from ransacked hospitals . . . but I never foraged through any of those buildings. Not one . . . too much disease.

"I've been so wound up on smack and stuff, I never really thought about it before. I'd always assumed the Owners got the rare things from Rospo Case. Occasionally, I went out north of the Territory and met up with the man. The Owners traded with him." The Champion looked away, lost in thought. But where did Case get his supplies . . . ? He couldn't get the perishable goods by digging through the bricks 'n' mortar . . . .

"Who is Rospo Case?" The Other had picked up his rifle and was cleaning the dust off it as best he could.

The Champion returned from his reverie and leaned back against a seat back, folding his muscular arms across his chest. "Rospo Case is an independent, allowed to operate by the Owners because he has a supply of goods not easily available in this day and age. No questions asked and he can usually supply. The Owners, to my knowledge, never asked any awkward questions. They wanted the goods too badly."

"But where does Case get the stuff?" The Other had stopped cleaning the rifle; it lay across his knees, forgotten. What the Champion was saying was of far more importance.

"I got the impression, when I could see and think straight, that he stole things -- " Maybe I was partly wrong.

"And resold them to your commune at a fantastic profit."

The Champion nodded.

The Other pulled himself upright and forced the rifle into the spring release holster on his leg. "I think there was an old term for that kind of operator; I think he was called a 'fence'."

"Yeah, I guess you would call him a 'fence'." And I thought I'd remembered everything.

"What kinds of things does Case supply? I could do with some medicine for this arm. You know, penicillin or something. Would he have that?" The Other brushed past the Champion and headed for the door and then waited for him to follow.

"He always supplied the Territory with whatever they asked for. Sometimes you had to wait a couple of days, but he always came through with the goods or a suitable substitute."

"Do you suppose he could supply us with food, too. I'm starving." The Other looked half-starved anyway, but a natural hunger was in his eye.

"We can ask." The Champion pushed off the seat and followed the Other. "Visiting Rospo will at least give us something to do. I don't know about you, but as of last night, I'm unemployed."

The Other gave the Champion a strange look and then agreed. "Yeah, me, too. No more privileges, though I can't say I ever liked the kind Houndsworth dished out."

"While we're there, I think I'll ask him if he's been supplying any small independent communes with superior goods. Our mystery man has to get his goods from somewhere." He pushed the door open further. "I like to know what kind of man is likely to be taking potshots at me."

"Is that what you think he was -- an assassin?" The Other bent down and used his good arm to let himself drop from the plane doorway. He thought a moment before speaking again. "He could be some new kind of independent operator, brought in by commune leaders to dispense with rogue protectors. That might account for his appearance. He'd be paid well to move against us." He waited for the Territory man to climb down beside him.

"Yeah, but rich or poor, everyone wants to belong to a commune. We are simply two gold shields now -- passports. Ex-commune protectors are lower than chicken shit." The Champion lowered himself to the unsafe ground, butted up to the fuselage.

"Then again, I think he was more surprised to see us, than anything." The Other looked the Champion up and down. "We're different from everyone else. I've always been kept apart from even the other commune protectors." Treading carefully, he climbed down the rubble, back onto the street.

Shielding his eye from the weak sun, the Other gazed up into the sky and then on up the road. The Champion jumped down beside him. Without facing away from the view, the Other spoke quietly.

"Look at me, Territory Protector. I bet you haven't seen anyone like me before."

The Champion didn't have to look; he knew the placing of the silver plates, the tiny rivets, and the flaccid eye socket. In the first light of dawn, the metal gleamed dully.

"No I never saw anyone like you before." Before the sewer.

"Except maybe in a freak show." The Other glanced at the Champion out of the corner of his good eye. "They still have -- had them in the Plaza -- for fun. Haldane and Zuckerman used to round up as many varied mutants as they could get their greasy hands on, and parade them around the community hall before kicking them back out onto the street." He fiddled about with the leg holster unconsciously. "You know where they used to keep the wilder mutants before 'show time'?"

It was a rhetorical question, but the Champion shook his head anyway.

"Doped, in the same room as me. That effectively put me in my place. I really was nothing more than a laboratory animal to Selkirk. A creature that he could practice on when he felt like a little special entertainment. He was right when he said he 'created' me."

An aged sheet of newspaper blew past their legs and swirled with the dust eddies on the roadway.

"I'm glad he's dead; I wish I could have killed him." Shaking off the black atmosphere, the Other took a step forward, ready to go. "Do you think Rospo Case would sell me a false eye -- they used to have them in the Time Before -- 'cept, I don't know how I'd pay."

The Champion coughed to cover his unease. "I don't know." He felt ashamed of what was left of mankind.

The Other stroked his face near the empty eye socket, deep in thought. "I think I'll ask . . . . I'd like an eye again."

Suddenly he stopped and looked back down the street, then forward again. Turning full circle, he faced the Champion. "I never came here, but this is what I termed sector 67a. I don't know what you called your commune district. The old street names are useless now. But, if it's any help, this is northwest of the Plaza. So, which way to Case's?'

The Champion looked in the direction of the sun and did some mental coordination over the areas he knew. Sucking his lips in thought, he pointed vaguely behind the Other's head. "Over that way somewhere."

"That's accurate."

He scowled. No one criticized him and got away lightly in the Territory. "It's the best I can do. This isn't my district."

"It isn't mine now, either." Tangled curls lifting slightly in the breeze, the Other followed the obscure directions and set off stiffly toward what had been a bank facade at one time. The insurance company building next to it was almost demolished; they'd be able to pick their way through it and save themselves a tour of the block.

The Champion watched him walk away, balance thrown out by the stiff leg muscles and the favoring of the right arm.

Trying to shake off the cloud of doom, the tall, green-leathered man pulled at the neck of his suit and pushed back the plaits that hung down on his chest. Squaring his broad shoulders, he set off after the advancing Other.

The two figures stepped over cracks in the tarmac and out of the shadow of the huge plane tail. Quickening his pace, the Champion drew alongside the man in the wine-colored suit. Shoulder to shoulder, they disappeared among the ruins. One head of long, dark curls, the other of blond, gold-tipped hair. Total opposites and yet linked by a memory of a distant lifetime and a mutual need to survive.

The Champion could remember it as always having been so in the Time Before.

The Other simply wondered if they would survive on their own.

From out of the destruction that had been the cinema, emerged a figure in black. Hood down, it crept along the underside of the fuselage of the 727 and risked a quick look at the departing men. It waited for them to clamber into the debris of the bank, and then it turned about and ran back whence it came.

Waiting calmly among the remainder of the seats in front of the torn movie screen were several more black-clad figures. As the spy stumbled out of the weak light and into the absorbing dark, they rose expectantly. Clutching his robe at the throat, the lone wanderer began his report.

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

The long straight road of once-wide lanes and trees cut through the ruins of the city of the living dead. Pale gray in color, its smooth surface was marred and pitted by the ravages of the quake and the fallen debris.

Two men walked in the middle of the road. Dominating the skyline.

A man of gold.

A man of silver.

They moved with the easy grace of the well-trained killer. Armored with their weapons of death, they strode eastward, feet close to the remains of the center lane marking.

And an atmosphere of dread followed them like a shadow out of a crypt.

The sickly sun crawled through the godforsaken heavens of their sky. A gray sky of low dusting clouds and sluggish sea breezes from the distant coast. A mutant cockroach wriggled away from their approaching tread, down a jagged tear in the tarmac. Huge and engorged after its night of foraging, it did not want to be squashed underfoot.

A junction. The Champion paused and looked about him. The buildings were half standing in this district, probably inhabited by beings of the night that now slunk down in the shadows watching the Protector as he debated the next route. Hands on hips, he turned a half circle and gazed silently back the way they had come. Eyes slit to blue cracks, he peered through the swirling dust eddies to the thin-line distance and watched for any telltale dust haze that would betray trouble following. He was rogue now. Ex-commune and marked as clearly for death as he'd marked men before.

The road was empty . . . save for the Other.

Face of metal gleaming dully, he waited patiently for the Champion to finish his reconnaissance of the area. He studied the fine form of the man: the planes and hollows of his face, the indecently long blond hair, plaited and tipped in death-rewards, the leather-clad body of solidly developed muscle, and the eagle burned deep into his golden flesh -- the Owners' personal property mark. His brow creased in thought.

The Champion suddenly felt the eye of the Other upon him. He met look for look and found his body tensed with a strange, possibly old, feeling of anticipation. It gave him a strengthening of spirit in ways his narcotics had never done. He let his eyes drop back and away to the horizon again. He schooled his features not to betray his mental processes.

I know what you're thinking . . . . To walk beside another person outside of your commune is alien to our routine. Your space feels threatened . . . and yet for all the warning signals, the movement of you at my shoulder seems perfectly right . . . . It goes against all my laws for survival and yet, I know, now, that this was the way we used to survive the streets. It was . . . the only road to safety . . . even though, at times, it became almost too dark and narrow.

Heavy hair chiming in a steady rhythm, the blond moved on, boots close to the chipped yellow line in the road. A dark red booted pair of feet stepped at his side; an odd and slightly foreshortened gait compared to his own.

Together the movements jelled into a disconcertingly accurate balance. The uncanny ease in which they found their body language symbiotic gave credence to their growing awareness that apart they had been powerful, but together they had uncovered untapped, dangerous depths.

The whole was greater than the parts. But the yellow line lay between them as the barriers lay between the memories of the Time Before and now.

The Champion surreptitiously watched the man at his side. He was valiantly matching step for step with the Territory man. But always at a distance that didn't violate his private territory. Just take that small step toward me . . . .

The Champion and the Other stayed on their own sides. The city blocks passed in a merging picture of destroyed civilization. It was difficult to be accurate of one's bearings, as one heap at the edge of a sidewalk looked like many others.

The sun peaked and began to wane. Time passed then through another morning of desolation and near silence. The inhabitants were wise and kept well hidden. No commune dwellers were abroad in the relative safety of the daylight. Just the flat silence of nothing and the scuff of boots on gravel.

Abruptly, the Other stopped and sighed deeply. He licked his dry lips and brushed back his unruly hair from his pale forehead. "I'm gonna leave this city."

The Champion slowed to a halt a little way ahead. He turned around and read the determination in the face of the Other. "Yeah, why the hell not?" He gazed about him. "There's nothing here but the ruins of a city . . . a ruined life."

The Other scanned the horizon, too. "I've never walked beyond my district unless ordered to by Houndsworth. I think I'd like to walk and keep on walking. I'd walk beyond these ruined wastes, and if I find more of the same I'll walk on until I find something better. I've had my fill of concrete refuse."

The Champion had to agree; the never-ending sandy stone and gray rubble was a world of drab, ceaseless monotony. It burned its tedious destruction into the retina of his eye. A constant image and reminder of the void he occupied.

The Other's voice dropped and he half looked at the Champion. "I don't want to face this every day for the rest of my life. Freedom gives me courage to expect and want more.''

From his side of the road the Champion listened intently. Freedom gives him courage . . . . It scares me witless. And then he voiced his opinion. "To be free is worth the risk. To change cities to look on more than this, is worth another risk." Willing agreement. "Besides, if I stay, I'm a dead man."

"We're both dead men. Two rogue, ex-commune protectors loose in the city is a dangerous threat to everyone." He looked directly at the Territory man, a little way ahead. "This is definitely a case where it can be said: Better the devil you don't know than the ones you do . . . ." Massaging his injured arm, he went on, "They'll hunt us down. One at a time or both together, but they'll hunt us down."

Face dark with subdued thoughts, the Champion considered what the Other said, and came to the conclusive judgment that he was speaking the truth. "Yeah. They're going to start thinking about my serious lack of appearance last night. Disobedience was always punished savagely in the Territory." He walked on a few steps, then turned. "We should get out while the going's good." He released the Magnum from the holster and checked its load. "Houndsworth's men could regroup as well and come and pick us off."

The Other nodded. "This city just became too hot." He tried to think ahead -- plan, but he was unused to forward thinking of this nature, having been programmed on a short-term basis for years. Finally, he said, "I think we should get supplies from this Case, and then shift our asses as far and as fast as possible. We'd be safer if we dropped out of sight while there's some confusion over the mess at the Plaza, and while your commune isn't sure whether you're just late or you've gone rogue."

The Champion soberly nudged a small piece of stone in the powder on the tarmac with his hard toecap. He knew the Owners well, and most of their wicked ways. Their powers were like a growing pestilence over the city. They could have taken over the Plaza and all Northern Sector gains in a few weeks if he'd stayed. Now, the Plaza was gone. They'd move in on those abandoned resources and become the ultimate power in the city. There was no one to stop them now. It would be wiser to get out before the exits were barred by advancing organization.

He looked up from the chip of brick, hesitating to confide in the Other. "I'm afraid the Owners will know what I've done by now. I was supposed to keep a very important appointment last night -- I was to be the highlight of their social calendar." Broad green back to the Other, he resumed their trek.

"What?" The Other didn't understand. He picked up his pace and edged a little in front of the blond. His expression pressed the Protector for an explanation.

"My kindly, grateful Owners were going to teach me a whole new meaning to Protect and Serve." He glanced sideways at the wayward curls that framed the curious face. A slight smile of recognition and distaste appeared on his broad features and he avoided direct eye contact.

"Serve . . . ?" The Other picked up on the emphasized word, his face frowning; then, as meaning dawned, his brows widened. "Serve?" came in a horrified whisper.

The Champion shrugged his shoulders, ashamed of the thought. "They held me as their 'precious' favorite until I put a foot wrong." He looked at the Other. "I went back for you at the warehouse . . . and I was instantly untrustworthy. It's no good having a champion protector who makes his own rules. They thought up a fitting punishment for me."

The Other looked sickened at the thought of their retribution.

The Champion tried to speak philosophically, but the depression and despair in his voice came through. "Stud just isn't my style. And they may have had all my worth, but what I won't let them have is my children. They'll never have my sons." He stared at the stores on his right, uneasy at confessing his inner thoughts to another man. "They are unborn and untainted. I won't let them be brought into this kind of world."

"Breeding stock . . . ." the Other concluded out loud. What happened to me at the hands of Selkirk, happened solely to me. To use a man's immortality . . . . Prostitution of your soul. Unthinking, the Other crossed over the yellow line in the road. "We've got a long way to go yet. Freedom isn't just being able to walk where you like -- freedom is being able to walk where you like without having to look over your shoulder. Come on, let's go see Rospo Case and quit." Face set with determination, the Other fell in beside the Champion.

The Champion nodded, too full of emotion to speak.

A mutual sign of trust arced like an electric current between them. Memories clear or blurred were set aside, and the past became an accepted second thought as a modern-day partnership was formed.

The need for freedom and life forged chains of steel.

Two minds of individual scars, brutalized and stained in misery, pain, and fear took up the same line of iron determination.

The seed of fight flourished within them. It sparkled into life among the gray-black doom of converging disaster.

And it gave them hope.

They had suffered with equal barbarism and in each other they recognized another of their kind . . . and they were no longer alone.

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

The home of Rospo Case was a bizarre mausoleum to the days before The End. As twisted in concept and design as the man who occupied it.

The Other and the Champion emerged from behind a mound of thrown-up earth and piping and paused to take in the weird sight.

The Territory Protector had never done business with Case from his home base; they'd always met at a prearranged point, some neutral ground. Despite having heard detailed descriptions of the place from coherent mutants and commune dwellers, the sight in reality was still extraordinary.

The Other had never dealt with Case, even if the Plaza had. He tried to conceal his look of surprise and progressed with confidence toward it.

The supreme supplier of rare resources lived like a hermit within the hollowed-out remains of twelve Greyhound buses. Pushed end to end, in a double row of six, the backs of the buses had been removed, and it was possible to walk from the front of one, right through the bodies of the buses, and stop at the front of another backing up to it. To get from one pair of buses into the others, the sides had been cut out at random points. All the windows were blacked in, boarded up, or meshed.

It was one enormous metal can.

But its smooth surface was now mottled and thick with a kind of wispy growth. Strange in hue, the metal sides of the buses were decorated in patterns with the stuff. If the breeze gusted, the longer strands of browns, blacks, or grays lifted and swirled.

The Champion and the Other approached the silent edifice with caution. As they drew nearer, the faint strains of whining music came to their ears.

"So someone's home," murmured the Champion. He stepped down a sunken curb and came closer. Where the surface of the buses was clear of the strange growth, the Champion could see that the once pale gray and shining public transports were now pitted and lackluster heaps. Long ago, the tires had perished or had been stolen and the whole conglomeration now rested upon flaking axles and wheel arches.

Watching the long strands shifting in the slight wind, the Other suddenly stopped and sucked in his breath.

"Look," he gasped. "Look at the stuff on the sides . . . ."

The Champion looked more carefully at the "growth."

"It's hair . . . ." The Other took a couple of quick steps toward the sides of the first Greyhound. He tentatively fingered a long mane of dark brown strands, then his hand dropped away. "It is hair."

Together they edged back and assessed the amount of human hair that was fastened to the metal sides.

Hundreds of scalps, carefully stretched out and tacked on, rippling smoothly.

The Other swallowed slowly. He was revolted. "Where'd he get all of these?"

The Champion shook his head. "God knows. Off the dead at The End, probably . . . most of it's women's hair, judging by the length."

Eyes scanning over the tangled, haphazard tresses, the two men followed one double side of the "building" and came at last to a door near the front. It was corroding badly and had two rusting trays jammed into the gap where the glass had once been. The paint had blistered and peeled, revealing the metal underneath.

The Champion selected a tray that didn't look too loose or fragile and rapped with a balled fist. The sound of studs impacting with cheap aluminum reverberated around the hulks. The music continued to whine on. He glanced at the Other, who motioned that he should knock again.

The Champion thundered again.

Nothing but the music.

Seconds passed and their impatience grew.

The Other stepped back and kicked on the door. It gave a little. The Champion added his foot and together they forced an entry.

No one came to meet them. The music became clearer. High-pitched on the discordant melody, a bass note vibrated on the air, accompanied by a deep voice.

Leaning up the stairwell, the Champion peered into the dim interior. Nobody awaited them. Beckoning the Other, they tiptoed up the first steps and onto the seating level.

The interior of the bus was a maze of shelves, cartons, crates, and hanging curtains. Arranged disorderly, they formed the inner walls. The seating was obviously missing. Crammed into every nook and cranny, on these and other fittings, was a wondrous "Aladdin's cave" of supplies, objects, and paraphernalia that made up Rospo's cache of ill-gotten gains.

"Just look at this place," the Other whispered at the Champion, who was edging up to the ceiling-high shelving. "I've never seen anything like this before . . . ."

The Champion brushed between the racks of clothes, food, bottles, utensils, and other goods long-since departed from people's everyday lives. Here there were thousands of the priceless objects.

The Other paused beside a stack of yellowing newspapers and ran his fingers over the fading newsprint. He was amazed he could still read after all these years.

The Champion neared the corner of a metal structure. Shoulder to the frame, he sneaked a quick look beyond.

Reclining on a sofa was a woman of indeterminate age. Dressed very ornately in silks and hand-printed cottons, her heavily made-up face tilted dolefully toward the man. She gave no sign of surprise. Eyes almond in shape and shade, she looked at him, bored.

The Champion stepped around the corner into the next aisle and approached her cautiously. His Magnum appeared in his hand, and padding forward, he leveled the gun at her forehead.

Tiny jeweled beads rustled against the cloth of her head scarf that was wound elaborately over her head. She stared into the barrel, completely composed, as her long-fingernailed hands twisted sensuously into the folds of her gown. Carmine-coated lips parted over her white teeth.

"Where's Rospo?" The Champion asked the question quietly, trying to cover all the dark gaps in the shelving at once.

She remained silent, mouth sucking in air with a deep sigh.

The Other slid in beside the Champion and encircled her lovely throat with his hand. He exerted pressure. "He asked you where Rospo is." He tried to look into her eyes, but she continued to stare at the gun barrel.

Suddenly, she sagged forward, hands reaching for the wrist of the Territory Protector. Thrusting her back against the threadbare sofa, the two men stepped back. She smiled vacantly and settled down in a slow, squirming bundle. Her left hand stroked the padded cushions. The rustle of her skirts and rasp of her many-ringed fingers over the velvet took up the beat of the distant music.

The Champion stepped behind the Other and into the next narrow passageway. "Come on, leave her."

Moving silently over bare boards and thread-snagged carpet, the two Protectors wove a pattern through the warren of goods. The Greyhounds were gloomily lit by oil lamps screwed to wall brackets. Each wash of yellow light picked out the rich displays in dark colors and long shadows. Every corner was a potential threat and a new experience. The atmosphere was bad, made worse by the smell of thick, cloying incense drifting toward them on the smoky air. The music stopped, restarted, and whined on. The same song, only louder and more irritating with every new turn.

But the women were the strangest.

Elaborately dressed. Seductively posed. Chained or free, they watched in casual disdain as the men passed them by. After a while it became apparent that the women were as much a part of the collection as the shelved and catalogued goods. Sedated to a state of chronic lethargy, they stared glassy-eyed at the green- and wine-leathered figures. Richly adorned, they smelled of heavy musks and sandalwood perfumes. Toe and fingernails were painted and shaped. Faces chalk-white to a porcelain finish, their black-rimmed eyes stared blankly while their crimson lips pouted or parted hungrily.

"Rospo can supply anything." The Champion wafted away another pawing hand and crossed an interior intersection.

Stepping over a jagged rim of metal, the Other noted that they had crossed into another made-over vehicle shell. The music was definitely louder and slower now. Peering through a row of breakable crockery, he caught the faint movement of another being in the space beyond. It was a woman of dark purple robes and silver make-up. Jerking with an unnatural rhythm, she was winding the handle of an ancient phonograph. The music speeded up again as the metal needle picked out the tune. Her thin arm fell to her side and she stepped back into a narrow alcove and stared directly at him. Dead of eye, she instinctively went into her trained motions of seduction. Bing Crosby sang "White Christmas" yet again.

As he moved on, she continued with her bizarre repertoire to an invisible audience.

The Champion wandered on ahead, Magnum still held forward, searching for the elusive Rospo Case.

The Other rounded another banking of crates containing car accessories, a useless commodity now, and found the broad back of the Champion blocking his way, braids hanging like a curtain. Green-gloved hand motioning him to be silent, the dark-haired man took up a vantage point at his side and looked to where the Champion was pointing.

Ahead, the bus was partitioned off with a thick drape. A light glowed around it and from behind came the tuneless hum of a person lazily joining with the music.

The Champion glanced at the pale face of the Other and crept forward to the edge of the drape. Gun barrel acting as a hook, he peeled the cloth back a fraction so that they both could see.

The low illumination from the oil lamp on the wall crawled over the worn, dirty carpet toward their booted feet. Spirals of incense wafted out into the passageway as the curtain stirred the air.

Behind, in a cramped hidey-hole of cushions, bed, drapes and desk, was seated the filthy shambles of the man called Rospo Case. Back to the two men, he was perched at the desk, hunched over a cookie jar of false teeth. Mirror propped against a stained coffee mug, he tried out his looted treasures taken from the mouths of the dead. Clicking plates in and out, he modeled denture after denture in an effort to find a pair that fit.

Rospo Case was a man of bad health, bad manners, and bad breath. His skin was a walnut color, ingrained with years of dirt and filth. He was polluted of body and mind and stank of decay and debauchery. He owned more wealth than any single city dweller, collected women, dentures, and hair, but preferred men.

At the moment, he was filing fervently at the pink plastic of an upper plate with a rusty nail file and testing it for fit. As he worked, he scratched at his long matted hair that was so riddled with lice that it occasionally moved on its own.

Whistling tunelessly, he threw down the file with an air of desperate boredom and sucked in the false teeth once more. He grinned at himself in the shattered glass, turning from right to left to check the fit.

Without pausing in his work, he said, "Whatever you want, I ain't got it, so piss off!" He picked up a fine probe and dug at a rear molar.

"We've come to deal, scum." The Champion felt his stomach turn at the obscene being and wondered what diseases riddled the emaciated body. As he spoke, he ducked under the curtain, making adornments ring across his back.

The fence spun around, eyes alight with delight. He recognized the sight and sound of the Champion. His man-made smile filled his sore-encrusted lips and threatened to burst forth, as the denture was too large to fit correctly. Saliva dribbled over his teeth as his incredibly long fingernails clawed through his hair and forced it back behind his ears.

His face held the shine of fantasy and evil stretched over a blank wall. He was totally insane.

Case licked away a dribble of moisture and giggled. "Nice weather we've been having lately." He climbed down off his stool and shuffled toward them. His walk was clumsy and uneven, as his toenails had grown without attention, and they now curled as tightly as snail shells, down and under his feet. Thick, yellow claws.

Standing before them, Case ran his eyes hungrily over the two Protectors. Hands folded high under his armpits, he bobbed about in a strange dance of deference.

"Champion, Champion, it's so good to see you." He clicked the teeth back into line and dragged his eyes over the Other. "And you've brought a friend, too." His lips pulled across to the right side of his face in a spasm. "It's so nice to have visitors . . . of the male kind."

"We've come for supplies, Case. We're in a hurry." The Other folded his arms over his chest defensively.

"Oh, nooooo." His words were spoken in a slow slur of disappointment. "I don't think I know you." The statement was directed at the Other. "Do you come from a good family? I hope so, this area's been going down lately; all the class has gone." He awaited a reply with sincerity.

The Other spoke dully. ''I used to be with the Plaza.''

Rospo's eyes widened in surprise and then suspicion. "The Plaza? I've heard of you, then -- the silver man of death." Leaning forward, he pulled a curl straight on the Other's shoulder and peered at him closely. "Do you look in mirrors often?" The inquiry was made with a sly innocence. "You're amazing. I've heard of you but seeing is believing."

The Champion prodded him with the Magnum barrel to get his attention, then snapped, "Look, pus-head, this is business. We're here to deal." He paused for effect, " -- Or take what we want."

Case watched the barrel prod savagely into his chest. The man's fingers held the stock solidly; his forearm muscles were tense and bulging, his brow, lined.

Rospo leaped forward, fast as lightning, and licked the Champion's naked arm. He sprang back savoring the taste of sweat and salt. "Gods, you taste good. I hope you can stay awhile?"

The Champion made to swat him down with the gun barrel, his face a transformation of disgust into violent anger. He was halted by Case's next words.

"Damage me and Rosita will blow your brains out." His bloodshot eyes indicated a presence behind them.

Looking over his shoulder, the Other saw dark and dusky Rosita blocking the aisle with her well-developed body and a pump action shotgun. She held the same drugged expression as all the other women.

"She's very good, too," added the fence, "so no more bullshit, huh?"

The Champion didn't turn around; he sensed the woman and smelled the different gun oil. He lowered his weapon.

"Now, isn't this nice?" smiled Rospo and shooed Rosita away. "Stay within call, my dear." He crept to the two armored visitors again, his confidence secure.

"Are you going to deal?" The Other felt claustrophobic in the small man's presence.

"Are you metal all over? It would be a shame if you were." Case bobbed backward and curled up cross-legged on his bed, ignoring the question.

The Other smarted behind his eye and persisted, "Yes or no?"

Rospo weighed up the two, silently. Seconds passed and the Champion quickly turned and walked a couple of paces back down the shelving to check on Rosita. She was standing in her alcove, gun in hand.

Case saw the gold clasps on the ends of the long, blond plaits. And his eyes bulged out of his greasy face. "Whatever you want you'll pay for in gold." His voice became hard and calculating.

"Gold." The Champion scowled meanly taking up his previous position.

"Yes, gold." Rospo rocked with delight. "And we have everything here, so you can't refuse."

"Do you have an eye?" The Other stepped forward out of the shadows to show his flaccid eye socket more clearly.

"Rospo's face sobered. "An eye?" He fell silent a moment then wriggled down off the bed. He poked a long finger at the empty eye socket, almost touching. The Other pulled away. "Real ones are hard to find. You'd need Selkirk for that. He's an expert, I hear. Maybe he could fit it?"

"Selkirk . . . ?" The Plaza man's face betrayed his distaste of the name. "This is some of his expertise, ya lousy bum!"

Rospo misunderstood the anger for enthusiasm. "Yes, that's real skill, that is."

"Selkirk is dead, Case." The Champion imparted the information nonchalantly.

"Dead . . . ?" Case frowned suspiciously. "But he was here only last -- "

"So's Houndsworth -- they all are." The Champion leaned against a rack of picture frames and jewelry boxes.

"How . . . ?"

The Other spoke acidly. "I didn't like them any more. So I burned down the Plaza."

Wild of eye, Rospo looked from one to the other. "No one burns down a commune."

"I did -- with his help." The Other nodded at the Champion and then back at Case. "So you won't annoy us, will you, Rospo?"

"Have a magazine," grinned Rospo, and snatched up two glossy porn mags from a well-thumbed stack. He thrust one into each of their hands. "They're on the house; color ones were always the hardest to get."

The two Protectors held the shiny sheets, unmoving.

"Let's be friends, huh?" A bead of sweat collected among the crusting scabs on Case's top lip. "You can have a woman if you want?"

The Champion tossed the gift on the desk. "Sorry, Rospo, but we haven't the time. Do we deal or not?"

Case nodded in the affirmative and smiled ingratiatingly. He had no wish to see his luxurious home reduced to ashes.

"But the eye is a tricky one. I'll have to consult my supplier, you understand. It could take a day or two." He hoped they'd accept the delay.

Dear God, an eye. After all this time . . . an eye. The Other almost forgot the sense of urgency that beset them.

The Champion reminded him indirectly. He fixed Case coldly. "You got till tomorrow."

The Other snapped around, face beseeching. Give him more time.

The Champion shook his head fractionally. "Only till tomorrow, Case."

The Other struggled against his desire to give the fence all the time that he needed, but he reluctantly agreed with the Champion. Their time was desperately short. You don't understand . . . I hate the way I look. I disgust myself. "Okay, only until tomorrow." His voice held a note of resignation as he accepted that the chance had been snatched away by the lack of time. He looked down at the magazine in his hands, afraid he'd already revealed his weakness to Case.

"It'll cost you, though." Rospo looked at the gold that adorned the Champion. "Eyes aren't easy; no spare parts are."

"This should cover it." The Champion pulled off his armlet and tossed it at Case. A solid gold circle.

Case hefted the weight in his ivory hands. Greed was written in his face. He loved gold. "I'll get the eye."

The Other stared, stunned, at the golden armlet in the tight clasp of the fence. He knew what it must have cost to have become worthy of that reward in the eyes of the Owners. The strange sensation scrambled his reserve. He wasn't used to any form of kindness. He felt blessed if people just left him alone and withdrew the pain.

Rospo was almost as surprised. No one in this stinking hellhole helped anybody else. It wasn't a line from the law of survival. He looked at the two Protectors in a whole new light. What the hell are these two doing together, anyway? I always thought they were the deadliest of enemies. Rivals over the rule of the streets. He slipped on the armlet. It was too big for his scrawny arm and slid down to the elbow.

The Other looked long and hard at the Champion. He wanted to say a thousand things, but didn't want an audience. Not good for the image. You'll never know what this means to me . . . . It's a step toward normality again. I . . . I . . . can never repay you . . . . I've nothing of worth. He took a step toward the blond, hesitant, his head shaking slightly in disbelief.

"We need more than an eye, Rospo." The Champion cut off any further contact with the Other by turning to Case. "But we'll help ourselves."

The Other took the implied hint and stepped away among the shelving. His image was crumbling. The fence watched him, suspicion in his eyes and unease in his mind.

The man against the shelving continued conversationally. "He can get most of it himself."

Rospo leaped off the bed and made to follow the Other. He didn't have strangers wandering among the goods "helping" themselves. Bobbing forward, he tried to follow the departing wine-clad figure. A heavy green gauntlet arrested his progress.

"He's quite capable of selecting a few things, Case. You stay here with me, because I need a few of the rarer treasures." He spoke with a chill breath against the grimy cheek. "You know, the kinda stuff you keep hidden away." He grinned knowingly.

Case stumbled backwards. "What sort of things?"

"Ammunition, medicines, and narcotics." The Champion stated the list flatly.

"I ain't got none of that here; far too dangerous -- " Rospo squirmed over to his desk and picked up the probe absently.

"Don't give me any shit, Case. You got it here -- you wouldn't trust it anywhere else. You're the kind that likes it tucked under the mattress, if possible."

Case suppressed a shiver as the professional executioner towered over him. His palms began to sweat. "I don't have that stuff in stock. It's always specially supplied to fill specific orders. I-I -- "

"Now, Rospo, we've always been friends, and it would be a shame if I had to take back that nice gold armlet by breaking your arm, just because you were lying through your plastic teeth." The menace in his voice was practically tangible in the air.

Rospo took a quick breath to call Rosita, and a glove slapped down on his mouth, cutting off voice and breath.

"Two's company, three's a crowd." A knife took the place of the Magnum. Its vicious point hooked under the top lip of the fence. "Your teeth will never fit with a permanently split lip."

Case turned the color of refined sand. He tried to push away the iron fist at his mouth, but his nails only scratched feebly at the gauntlet.

"Jesus, leave me alone! I ain't got any of that stuff!!" His high-pitched voice whined a plea for mercy. The upper dentures dropped loosely onto his tongue and rattled against the bottom set.

Sliding further under the warm pink flesh of the upper lip, the knifepoint took the strain of the skin. Deliberate intent came into the Champion's eyes as his hair chimed steadily, ticking away the seconds of suspense.

"Okay, okay!!" I got it! I got it!" Case blubbered around the knifepoint, his back arched painfully over the desk of tawdry rubbish.

"Where?" The tension stayed taut on the knife tip.

"Behind the desk, behind the wall!" A thin trickle of blood dropped down onto the wobbling dentures in Rospo's mouth as the blade bit home.

The Champion looked past the mop of greasy, matted hair to the wall behind the desk. It was covered with a thick drape that reached to the floor. Letting go of the fence, the Champion reached out and pulled the material aside. Dust rose in clouds from the worn fabric. Behind was a security door, with combination lock, set neatly into the wall.

"I swear the stuff's in there . . . ." Case slithered out from under the Champion and sank onto the bed, fingers pulling at his top lip. "Hell's teeth, I'm bleeding!"

"You'll live," replied the Champion unfeelingly, "if the stuffs in that safe."

Rospo turned around, face a mask of distrust and hate. "It's in there."

The Champion hooked a fist into the slack of Case's stained trench coat and dragged him back to the desk.

"Open it, pervert."

"Yeah, sure. But I'll need the key."

"Get it." The Champion thrust him away like the vermin that he was. He was repelled by the revolting animal that was Case, and his failing temper was becoming frayed by his lack of drugs. After the escalated high of the LSD, he was suffering a growing sense of depression that threatened to engulf him. The world seemed twice as gray and doubly irritating; nothing was easy. He had to push all the way -- all the time. Only the contact with the Other seemed to help any. Case was undermining his brittle temper.

The fence climbed to his twisted feet and lurched over to a shelf of food. Eyes glued to the Champion, he fingered the contents of the shelving, jittery with clumsy movements. He was too frightened to turn away from the Territory Protector. The knife could be between his ribs next.

The Champion grew impatient as the bottles, cans, and jars spilled from the shelf in a discordant row. His humor was worn and lacked any measure of grace for imbecilic retards. He started forward and pushed Case around. "Look at the shelves, for godsake!"

Facing the goods, Rospo made his selection more rapidly and took up a peanut butter jar, which had long since lost its label. Hands vibrating with fright, he managed to unscrew the top after the third attempt.

Inside the jar was the thick, creamy-brown spread. The smell was delicious and permeated the air to vie with the pungent incense. Sunk up to its rounded loop in the peanut butter was a key.

"Neat, huh?" Rospo beamed uncertainly at the hard-faced man and then pulled the key from the glop.

"Clean it up."

Nodding, Case looked about for a cloth and could see nothing suitable. Realizing the need for haste, he spit his false teeth into the cookie jar and pushed the coated key into his gummy mouth. Slurping and sucking, he managed to lick off most of the butter. Popping it from between his lips, the key emerged relatively clean. Sticky with saliva, Case held it forth for the Champion.

Hooking the little man under the arm, the Champion avoided any contact with the object and propelled Case toward the wall. "Shift the desk," he snarled.

Case put down the key and heaved till his veins bulged on his forehead. The desk scraped over the thin carpet, lifting the covering into folds as the weight rucked up the pile.

Behind the desk was a collection of crumbs, small bones, and rotting food that Case had brushed off the desk in one of his rare house-proud moments. Banked up in small slopes of bottle-green mold, the decaying refuse was scattered over the carpet at random.

The Champion peered over the desk in distaste at the sight. And then froze as the mess changed and moved of its own accord. Strange in color, wild greens and reds, the edible waste slithered toward them.

The Champion stiffened and took an involuntary step backwards.

Rospo looked at him curiously and then back at the floor. Everything was as it should be: his usual pile of rotting food and leftovers. He casually reached into the cookie jar, took out another pair of dentures, and slipped them in, eyes bright with suspicion.

The clicking of the false teeth distracted the Champion from the strange ballet on the floor. He glanced at Rospo. Fear was in his blue eyes.

"Something up?" Case grinned and wiped the sweat off his top lip with a tattered cuff of his trench coat.

The Protector tried to shake his head, but he was bewildered by the bizarre form reality was taking. Must be a flashback . . . threw me . . . the drug must still be affecting me. Rospo looks -- strange . . . weird . . . bloated and engorged. His features are distorting, bulging out of his head . . . and . . . and the lice are crawling out of his hair . . . .

The Champion backed away, his whole manner of command and menace disappearing, as the hallucination became his reality. The insects slithered in groups out of the matted hair: white-pink in color, the pulpy bodies fell to the carpet with soft plopping sounds and squirmed toward him. The matted mane became increasingly frenzied and darkened to a pitch-black tangle that grew at an alarming speed, covering the twisted body of the fence.

Manic delight lit Rospo's face from within as his features bent and distorted sickeningly. The Champion thought he could hear the bones crack and stretch like snapping kindling as Case's form changed. The teeth enlarged and sharpened so that they poked up through the sore-encrusted lips.

Case took a step forward and offered the key.

The Champion looked down at the fungoid hand that was riddled under the skin with further pulsating parasites and shuddered. The diseased flesh quivered.

The fear of disease paralyzed the Territory executioner.

The hand came closer with the key -- sticky and wet with saliva that dripped in globules down the Champion's legs.

Frantic, the Champion brushed away the clinging liquid with his gloved hands. Get away from me . . . unclean leper of parasites, get away from me!! Don't contaminate me . . . no disease, no infection . . . no plague upon me . . . don't want to die of disease, don't want to be eaten away from within . . . not again, not again, not again!!

Climbing backward onto the bed of soiled linen, he found his back pressed against the wall, his height cramped by the ceiling. Eyes screwed shut, he tried to blank out the horrendous image.

He heard Rospo slither toward him. Cringing, he risked a quick look and found that the inner soul of the man had been made manifest in the deviant illusion formed in his mind.

Rospo watched transfixed. At first he was unsure as to what was occurring before his sneaky eyes and then he registered the tiny telltale signs. The LSD in the last Territory consignment . . . he took it! He giggled gleefully and noted the shock waves ripple over the Champion. And he's having a flashback. What a shame . . . . Now let's see who can stand up to a dose of mental torture.

He bounded up onto the bed, key in hand, and secured himself to the Champion's leg. God, men are so powerful . . . so muscular. He stroked the long limb and hooked his plastic teeth into the loose leather at the knee and chewed.

The Champion whimpered.

A six-pointed steel star hissed through the air and sank deeply into the flesh of Rospo's thigh. A spurt of blood accompanied the shrieks of agony that issued from the odorous figure.

A voice in the narrow corridor said, "I'll have another five of those, they're real effective." The black outline of the Other filled the aisle.

Case jack-knifed around and fell in a writhing heap on the floor.

"Rosita! Rosita!" His cry was choked off by a spasm of pain, which caused him to grit his teeth and groan. Dirty hands pried free the star and let it drop to the floor. It rolled away languidly under the desk.

The Other tossed a pump-action shotgun onto the floor against Case's bleeding thigh. "Rosita isn't coming. I persuaded her otherwise by knocking her out." He hunkered down and poked the gaping wound with his own rifle barrel. Case flinched and twitched away. "What the hell are you up to, creep?"

"Nothin'. Nothin'." Case squirmed in pain, his hands forced to hold his blood in his leg. "I was just helping him -- he looked sick or something."

"Not as sick as you're gonna look when I've finished with you." The Other snatched the key out of the fence's hand and held it in front of the tear-filled eyes. "Now then, what's the combination that goes with the key?" He raised his eyebrows to punctuate the question.

Case knew when he was beaten and very close to being finished off. He looked down, seething with murderous thoughts himself. "Four-right, four-left, seven-right, zero." He spat the words, watching the flecks catch on the Other's metal-work.

"Now, now, Rospo, you've got to alter your attitude or we aren't going to be friends." The Other rose to his feet and watched the Champion sink down onto the disheveled bed.

The deep blue eyes held a sense of calm and awareness, but it was apparent that he was clamping down on his agonizing terror. A ghost of his voice came from his dry throat. "Keep him away from me." He looked down at his bare knees and ran a finger over the wet patch of chewed leather. The colors and the reality were solidifying into something comprehensible.

The Other looked at the bowed crown of white-blond hair and his lips narrowed. "Keep away from him, Rospo, or I'll cut your throat."

Rospo curled his lips around his plastic teeth. "Why should I? What's it to you who I get friendly with?" He crawled to the edge of the desk and pulled himself upright, searching for a cloth to staunch the flow of blood. Abruptly, he hesitated and cast a slow, thoughtful eye over the two men. "Yeah, why should you care?"

The look on the Other's face made him wish he'd cut his tongue out. As the Protector clicked back the hammer on the rifle, Rospo's eyes fixed onto the trigger hand in expected dread.

"Mind your own damn business!" The flare of violent rage radiated out of the Other. He threw the key at the fence. "Open that goddam safe."

Case caught the key in the folds of his ragged coat. He slid around the desk toward the wall safe while the Other retrieved the Champion's fallen knife. Offering it awkwardly, he waited a paused breath for the huddled man to take it from him. The green-gloved hand wasn't quite as steady as it had been previously.

Case stiffened and turned to the wall. I always thought those two were the deadliest of enemies . . . . What the hell are they doing together, anyway? Hands streaked in his own blood, he turned the dial the required number of turns and inserted the key. The lock clicked over with well-kept ease. He swung open the thick metal door and limped away from the wall and the two Protectors.

What are they doing here . . . ? Coming for supplies . . . ? The Other's never been sent by his commune bef -- But the Plaza has been torched, so who did send him? Hand on a shelf, he raised his shivering body onto the stool and watched them broodingly. Maybe he's here freelance? The scabby face paled even further, then tightened up in shock. Maybe he's gone rogue . . . ? Gone rogue! Sweet mercy, he's gone ex-commune.

He nervously hugged himself under the armpits, hardly daring to think about the Champion for fear that he'd come to a similar chilling conclusion of truth. They couldn't have? . . . couldn't have . . . . The Owners own the Champion, he's commune property, branded goods. He wouldn't dare . . . wouldn't dare . . . would he?

The Other strode to the wall and started flinging the contents of the strongbox over his shoulder and onto the table. Peering inside, he ran a hand over the surface of the now-empty hidey-hole, then spun around. Lifting the lamp from the wall, he lit the table more clearly and poked through the many packets and boxes.

"Is this it?" He looked at the sulking Rospo. "Is this all?"

Rospo nodded sourly.

"Where's the penicillin -- antibiotics, antiseptics? There's only some -- " He peered at the capsules in the see-through packet. " -- uppers." Holding the measly supply out before him, he rounded the desk and grabbed Case by the scruff of the neck. "You gotta have more."

Case tried to pull away. "Well, I haven't, see, 'cause Selkirk took the last of my supplies and you burned that to ashes!"

The Other released the stinking little man and stepped back. "Get some more. I don't care where or how, but get some more or I'm gonna torch you to the ground as well." The even tones of his voice lent more threat than the outburst of anger.

A whine of desperation entered Case's voice. "I can't. My suppliers aren't due for -- "

The Other cut him short. "If you can supply the eye, you can get the antibiotics, too. Anyone who can get an eye, can get the medicine. You got till tomorrow, no argument."

"But -- " Case began to protest and stopped short when the head of the Territory Protector came up to face him.

White. Shining with a sheen of fine sweat, the tall blond rose off the bed and towered over the infested man. His nostrils flared with barely suppressed rage.

"You heard him. He's giving you a chance. Me? I'd have killed you."

The coldness of his words iced Rospo's dutch courage as swiftly as a hammer smites a killer blow.

Stepping up to the desk, the Champion sorted through the various calibers of ammunition and pocketed the entire supply of .357 shells. The array of soft drugs disappeared equally as fast into his suit. Facing about, he tossed the rifle cartridges for the Springfield Armory MIA at the Other, who tucked them into his magazine pouches.

Rospo watched his whole stock of those calibers whittle down to nothing. "Hey, man, that's -- "

The Champion silenced him with a look and strode away down the aisle into the warm darkness.

The Other made to follow him. "We need a few other things and then we'll be leaving -- until tomorrow."

Rospo watched warily. Tomorrow? I don't want those two bastards back here! I've got too much to lose.

The silvered man stopped in the passageway near the hooked-back curtain and stared at Case, weighing him up. "We'll meet two blocks east of here in the old estate house. Evening. Wait in the open; we'll be there." I don't trust you as much as you don't trust us. We'd be fools to come back here.

The Other turned on his heel and followed in the receding footsteps of the Champion.

Blood still streaming down his leg, Rospo shouted sarcastically, "Have a nice day!"

Outside in the pathetic sunlight, the Champion was slumped against a burned out shell of a Cadillac, eyes staring into the distant horizon. A stiletto knife dangled loosely from his hands, between his knees. Periodically, he flicked the hilt and let the blade swing pendulum-like to a standstill. The movement would then be repeated.

He was counting down his racing heartbeat and trying to make his mind a complete blank.

At his feet lay a finely worked combat suit with armor, and a superbly honed fireman's axe that he had "helped" himself to from Rospo's supplies. It rested in the soft dust, almost forgotten.

In the distance, the dark leathered figure of the Other jumped down from the entrance to the Greyhounds. His long tangle of dark hair blew around as the wind caught it. The manes of tacked on hair made similar movements so that the surface of the buses rippled and swayed in various shades of browns and blacks. Occasionally, a blonde scalp stood out from the rest, like an eye on a mythical beast.

Mythical beast -- The Champion smiled cynically and watched the languid approach of the Other. -- That's Rospo, a mythical beast . . . . Nobody would believe he was real, or am I a distorted reality? Am I insane with the years of drugs and death? Would I be better off as a blissfully ignorant madman? . . . Maybe I already am . . . but if I think I am, how can I be sure I'm insane? If I'm crazy, I can't assess myself rationally . . . Catch 22 . . . . But the bizarre sight of Rospo . . . straight out of my mind. If I'm not insane, I ought to be . . . .

The knife swung agitatedly between his fingers. His temperament was fragile and tender as his personal depression tortured his overwrought mind.

Moving away from the Greyhounds, the Other could see the figure of dejection resting against the totaled Cadillac. He could see the bowed head and the erratic swing of the blade. The Champion was wound up with some inner tension and the Other had a sinking dread of what that might be.

He shifted the weight of two small backpacks and carried them out in front of him, favoring his right arm. Stumping forward, the chain of stars swung from his hip. Weaponry gratis of Case.

The Champion watched him approach, face expressionless, just haunted from within.

The Other dumped the sacks onto the ground beside the suit and squatted down himself. He studied the blond thoughtfully, then said bluntly, "What are you on?"

The Champion looked away. "Nothing."

Any man who walked the street knew the value of the human body and its need to be at optimum efficiency. A man knew that a hypersensitive mind divided the living from the dead when it came to a challenge situation. The Other knew that if he was to let his guard down, and go against every instinct for survival he had been trained to, by trusting in the close proximity of another human being, then that human being had better be equal to his high standards.

"You looked sick back there. Rospo could have killed you." His deep blue eyes stared unflinchingly into the face of the man against the car door.

"Well, he didn't." The Champion looked back momentarily. "He was after something quite different than blood."

"You should have been ready; a Protector of your -- "

"Well, I wasn't!" He flared around, face a harsh expression of challenge. "You weren't so ready in the scrap yard, were you?" He pointed to the open wound of dried blood in the Other's right thigh.

"I got myself out of that mess; you needed some help." The words came harder than he meant.

The Champion's fingers tightened on the stiletto hilt as an uncontrollable rage bubbled within him. Don't you think I know that! His gold clasps shivered, causing a tense note to tremor on the still air between them.

Seeing the increasing signs of fury about to burst forth, the Other snatched at the green-clad arm and peeled back the gauntlet.

The intracath nestled in the folds of skin at the elbow.

A second of stunned truth passed between them.

The Other released the arm as if stung. Images of a dirty back alley and needle tracks into a vein came flooding into his mind. A man in dark blue spoke words of accusation, and the seemingly undeniable truth was accompanied by a pathetic cry of misery.

The Champion made a similar noise now. He wrenched his arm free and instantly covered the intracath with the sleeve of his glove.

"Are you mainlining?" The Other was insistent. "Are you?"

"No!" No one challenged the Champion. He tried to climb to his feet but a strong arm held his shoulder down.

"You were shooting up in the warehouse -- that was heroin, wasn't it?" Silver lips spoke in earnest, forming words he didn't know were within. They were words of caring.

"Yes, but -- " The Champion swallowed, gaining time to collect his thoughts. "But, I was only shooting under the skin; it would have killed me otherwise. You don't start straight into the vein . . . . I -- I ought to know!"

The Other mulled the words over, trying to sort out the full truth and the half lies.

"So what are you on now?" He rested one knee down beside the green-leathered body and watched the fingers around the knife.

"I told you, nothing."

"What did you take last night?" He tried to make eye contact with the clearly nervous man, but all attempts were skillfully avoided.

"What's it to you? I don't have to answer to you." The Champion pointed at the silver chest with the vicious blade. The pressure of questions was eating into his hair-trigger temper.

"What was it?"

"None of your business!"

"Tell me what it was!" The Other pulled the knife hand swiftly, giving it a twist, and freed the weapon.

Furious, the Champion made to hit him across the side of the face with the back of a studded gauntlet.

The Other leaned back out of reach and the blow grazed by. "Look, you bastard, you've put enough hooks into me to keep me tied to your shadow forever, so don't start lying to me now!" Dark locks strewn over his face, he shouted his anger. "If you lie to me now, I'll walk away because I'll never know what is truth and lies from you. I'll never be sure if you were my partner or not . . . and I couldn't take one more pack of failed promises and hope."

The Champion made to have his say, but the chance was snatched from his lips as the Other plowed on.

"You tell me things I should know. You look like a distant memory. Move like him. Speak like him. You dredge up my forgotten mourning with signs and looks." He scrambled to his feet and pointed accusingly at the blond. "You, Champion of the Territory, you dog my footsteps, save my life, haunt my dreams and gain my confidence! I'm willing to believe you . . . do you hear this, I'm willing to believe my enemy because I have nothing left . . . and I've been alone too long . . . too long!" His face trembled with inner uncertainties and the knowledge that he was revealing many of his secret weaknesses. "But I still value my life and the small measure of freedom I've gained. And no cheap, lying, spaced-out, junkie-butcher from the Territory is going to jeopardize it because of his stinking habit!"

The Champion's head bowed under the torrent of acid words.

"So, if you want us to walk away from here together, you'd better tell me what you're on . . . . Next time, a thing like that could get us both killed!" The Other's voice finally lowered to a more tolerant level and he finished with his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer.

The only sound was the harsh rise and fall of their breath and the light breeze that lifted the grit against the shell of the Cadillac.

The blond head stayed bowed for a long time. The chimes were silent. The hands still, unclenched and loose. His voice, when it came, was a shadow of itself, and the strain of anger in it was more for himself than against the silvered man before him.

"I never told you because I thought you'd never need to know." He hesitated, searching for the easiest way that he could bear to say the words. "When I was with the Territory, I was raised, ensnared, manipulated, and finally rewarded with narcotics. All kinds. All mixes. I went out and killed for the drugs -- not for the food, or the shelter, or the gold clasps, but for the drugs. Tiny capsules. Colored tablets. I wiped out a church full of religious fanatics. I even went and killed you for a fix of heroin . . . . That's my price, the hook in my soul . . . ." He looked up, directly into the eye of the Other. " . . . So, if I struggle and falter, it's because I've been alone as long as you have, with no hope and no future. But whereas Selkirk made and programmed you into the Northern Sector Protector, I was led along that path. I was scared in the beginning, then I didn't care anymore. And after a while, it helped dull my awareness, my misery, and I, too, forgot. It became a habit that I didn't want to wake up from . . . . But the twisted irony of it all was that it showed me the way out, and it showed me you. I remembered." His voice lowered to subdued tones of shame. As he stumbled out the answer to the original question, it finally died away. " . . . And-and . . . if you must know, it was LSD."

Head turned away, he looked off toward the horizon, cheek pressed to the singed leather shoulder yoke, and said in a whisper of desperation, "Every word I ever said to you was the truth. I never lied once. I couldn't take the risk . . . but shame makes a man want to keep his own counsel sometimes. I'm not proud of what I am."

Inside, the Champion's heart weighed against his chest with all the inner misery of a truth confessed, and the fear of losing something he had fought hard to regain: his partner.

I didn't want you to ever know for certain . . . . I remember the years long ago, when you held me so tight against the ravages of the heroin. I kicked the habit then . . . but I slipped backward . . . and I didn't really care in the beginning -- but realization came too late, and the Owners had managed to cultivate their treasured, precious killing machine.

The Other thought gravely about the words and judged them to be true. And as the Champion made his speech, a tapestry of put-aside images paraded before his mind, and he remembered the days in a small room of dim lights, one bed, and a door that locked -- where a victim of demented cravings mastered his desires and won through. He remembered the pleading, the body-wrenching spasms of shivers and sweats, the endless cups of coffee, the candy bars -- the sheer bone-aching weariness of a struggle that seemed to have no end, and reduced his partner to a wreck of heart-wrenching pleas and self-blame.

He stared at that same man now. Pale of flesh and hollow of face. Eyes bright with the look of the hunted. Soul laid bare before a man who had just threatened to leave him . . . and who had left him once before.

No more blame, no more shame for either of us. It was me who drove away on the night of The End . . . . It was me who never came back . . . and it was me who helped you fight your habit all those years ago. He never lied to me then . . . and I don't think you lied to me now . . . and you can be free of the needles and capsules again if you want . . . . If you want something badly enough you can have it -- We both wanted answers and we got them; we both wanted freedom and we have it. A man can have much more besides, once he finds the courage for the first step . . . .

Deep within himself, the Other felt these strange, unfamiliar thoughts swamp his mind, and underneath, making tentative cries for attention, was a sensation that could only be described as an unused feeling. It struggled into life as an emotion -- genuine and real. And he felt the stirrings of deep concern for another human being. Not just an interest for selfish, ulterior motives, but a compassion for someone who had suffered to the same degree as himself and was still suffering.

The next words he spoke, he wanted to count. No easy platitudes would do, and yet he was unpracticed in words of kindness and compassion. Finally, he said in gentle softness, "I once helped you fight your addiction -- I can do it again."

The silent man hunched on the sand stiffened minusculely, then shook his head in the negative. His smoke-stained back was like the shadow over his conviction.

The Other continued, "LSD is a hallucinogenic drug; you'll have weak flashbacks for several more hours yet, then you'll be free of its influence. As for the heroin, well -- "

A quiet voice cut in. " -- I never took heroin more than once. It was mainly methyl amphetamine . . . . The Owners had a large supply; they fitted the intracath for easy injection. The LSD was a special reward, and I was cheated out of about eighty percent of it." He shook his head, remembering his punishment and the hands that had held the tabs. Even while they were slowly killing me, they tortured me along the way. She enjoyed seeing me perform better on the first fear of withdrawal of narcotics. I wish I'd killed her.

"Did you have a bad trip with Rospo? Is that what happened?" The Other watched as the Champion climbed to his feet and leaned against the car, arm resting on the roof while his fingers picked at the bubbles of rust.

"My whole life's been a bad trip since The End; Rospo and what happened in there was no worse than the rest."

The burning anger seemed to have dwindled and died, but the nervous strung-out mannerisms were still present.

The Other brushed his hair back. "You picked up all the speed off the desk. Do you need it?" His marred face held a strange, lopsided expression of innocent question. "If you need some, I suggest you take it."

The Champion looked back, puzzled. "But you said -- "

"I want to get out of this city; we stand a better chance together, so you have to be in better shape than this. You've lived on stimulants for years -- a few more days won't matter, and where we're going, there probably won't be any more supplies. No more Rospo, no more Owners. You won't have any choice about kicking the habit." The Other folded his arms over his chest with a sense of accomplishment.

The Champion hesitated, uncertain. If we get away from here -- to freedom, that'll be all the high I'll need. Then he slipped a hand under his chest covering and produced a tiny envelope of tablets. Tearing an end open, he shook out a much-needed dose. Staring the Other in the face, he swallowed the lot. The tiny envelope fell away from his fingers and fluttered away on the light breeze.

"Where are we going?" His eyes looked away, still guilty. "Heaven or Hell?"

"Whichever comes soonest." The Other watched the plastic packet dance away among the rubble. Then he focused in on the heap of leather and metal in the dirt at their feet.

"So, you had a browse through the combat suits, huh?" He squatted down and turned over the figure-form of black leather and found that one side was made of dull-gold strips of metal. Hinged and riveted together, the bands could bend and fold as smoothly as the thinned and beaten leather. Underneath was a pair of boots in black leather and armor for the forearms, but what drew the eye more was a huge, vicious fireman's ax, made from steel and ebony wood. He hefted the ax and felt its weight and balance. It was cold and heavy with a feel of menace in its smooth form.

The Champion glanced down at the suit and at the crown of dark curls as the man fingered the ax. If he didn't see the face, it could almost be the Time Before. Save for the hampering injuries. The voice was the same, the movements, tight then elaborate. Quicksilver.

"Yeah, Rospo touched me . . . I won't wear this suit again."

The Other looked up, surprised. "Afraid of contamination?" He put the ax down.

"Of the worst kind. God knows where that sore-encrusted creep's been."

The chew marks at his left knee could still be seen even if the saliva had dried off in the light, dry heat. The blond stooped over and retrieved the stiletto from the hand of the Other and proceeded to cut off the burned and soiled armored green suit from his body.

With a deliberate use of the knife, the leather pieces fell from his erect frame. Sections of studs with edges crisped from the fire. Underneath, his skin was pink and singed where the leather had been seared through.

The Other watched this ritual cleansing in silence and admitted to himself that the man's color was a lot paler than it had once been. No sunshine . . . no real sunshine.

Slipping out of the boots, the Champion's toes became half submerged in the powdery dust around the Cadillac. The gauntlets followed, and all that remained of his previous armor was the gold headband.

Naked. Like a chameleon of the streets, he shed one appearance for the next. Wipe away the past and look to the future. The stamp of his ownership was slowly dwindling from the eye.

The Champion stared at the once-immaculate suit in distaste, then picked up the new suit from the Other's feet. Shrugging into the leather and metal, he eased its skin-tight fit over his powerful body. Fingers hooked around the neck, he pulled it close to his collarbones and then smoothed his hands over the perfect fit.

"Could have been made for you," the Other commented in awe as he saw the change in the man, from green-clad butcher of the Territory to an armored man of steel. Not the steel of armor, but steel of character. A conviction, like a beacon in the night, shone from him. His shoulders set back in an arrogant stance. His chin came up defiantly as he swept back the long braids of tipped-gold.

"The green leather used to be a sign, to all who dared look on me, of what I was. It was a symbol of death for any who moved against the Territory, a visual hex on life. I won't wear it again. That part of me is finished."

A pair of gold vambraces nestled beside the new boots of black leather. Retrieving the pieces from the earth, the Champion slipped them on, complete with their hinged elbow coverings and pushed the fingerless leather gloves down over his hands -- the leather covering his hand from wrist to the first knuckle joint. Lastly, he leaned against the Cadillac and tugged on the boots. Stamping his feet to ease the fit, he next bent to the task of replacing his weapons. Knife belt was re-strapped about his upper left arm, and his stilettos he tucked into the neck of his boots. The stick grenades he buckled over his broad shoulders in such a way as to be able to slide the ax under the band and have it resting down his back like an extra spine.

Fingers fiddling with the buckles of the leg holster, his Magnum found its usual home against his thigh. The metal grip for the Magnum slid over his right palm and locked into place at his wrist. Standing tall, he walked a few paces testing the settle of his arms. The gold clasps chimed a new rhythm over the metal-hinged back.

Under the darkening light, he towered like a black and gold man of legend. And he was legend to all who could understand the one whispered phrase of terror: The Champion, Protector of the Territory.

But no longer was he shackled to that one phrase. A free man paced about the wrecked shell of the vehicle, and the look and color of his new image betrayed the dark side of his desire to remain so.

In his thoughts he confirmed his oath. No one will stop me now. No one.

When he turned about to face the Other, he had risen from the dirt and he found his half-covered hand held out before him. In the palm rested his discarded gold shield, plucked from a fallen piece of suit. The Other proffered it forth.

The Champion stood unmoved.

"Take it, it's yours." The Other wondered at his hesitation.

"No. I blackened its true worth with my actions. I'm not fit to wear it any longer." Despondency tinged his words.

"It's the only thing I have left from the Time Before," murmured the Other. "I like to know it's there. It's a kind of proof that this world wasn't always this way."

All he has left . . . . What of me? The Champion looked deep into the eye of the Other. Into his mind. "And what about me? Do I count?" Simple words with loaded meaning.

"You?" He looked sadly at the Champion and then turned away to apparently study a narrow, dark purple line of distant city blocks. "You . . . . I remember a man like you once, who used to carry this badge with a compulsion that fired his soul. It was his meaning in life, his purpose; it marked his place in society for Good . . . not Evil. It's tarnished now, but the future could wipe it clean." His voice held a soft note of uncertain admission and emotion. "If he took it back now, it could be that first step toward the future."

He looked back at the thoughtful face of the Champion.

"He could never give up his badge -- he tried once, but he took it up again. There was a burning need within him to make things better, safer, in the city." He held the golden oval out before him again. "Take it back."

"There's no city worth saving now." The Champion spoke tensely, fighting the stirring memories within himself.

"But the man is." In the smoked dusk of the day, the Other's shape became a smudged outline; his face lost its absolute clarity.

"Is he?" the Champion asked uncertainly, peering into the growing gloom for the features of the Other.

The Other confessed his inner thoughts and his voice grew tremulous. "For me, he is."

A tightness held the Champion's breath in his chest. He released it slowly with a dawning realization. "I'm not proud of what I did."

"And I'm not proud of what they made me, but I won't throw this away -- "he gripped the shield, " -- because if I do, then I've thrown away what measure of values I have left. No matter what this gold shield came to mean in the New Society, it was once a symbol of everything we believed in. Protect and Serve meant exactly that, not some perverted meaning foisted by the Owners and the Plaza." He took a step forward, wanting to press his point further. He looked into the pale and haunted face before him.

"You asked me to remember. Well, I have been remembering, and I keep coming back to that one figure I admired above all men. I don't know what you're seeking in me, but that's who I want back -- my partner. You said he was once named Hutch."

The Champion stepped away. His plaits enfolded his shoulders and partly covered his face. The Other pressed on.

"What I remember of that man was his courage, his tenacity, his gentle truth and determination. He wouldn't hesitate to wear this symbol as a sign of his freedom, but not as the badge of an Executioner."

Head bowed, the Champion heard the words unflinchingly. When he spoke, his voice was empty and drained. "That man won't be coming back. He can't. I'm not the same; you said so for me at the plane." Gods, I think I'm insane. I'm an addict . . . and a killer. I even killed you. Where is that man of gentle truth now? His black and gold body shivered in distress as he pressed his palms together in wound-up agitation. His heart raced and he misguidedly put it down to the dose of stimulants.

"Back at the plane I wasn't sure . . . ." The Other stepped before the Champion. "I am now."

A frightening silence fell between them. It was swift and savage and felled the Champion's emotions in one blow.

In the barren wastes of gray-mauve skies and leveled landscapes, he felt a weight of granite lift from his soul with the ease with which a saint performs a miracle. The miracle had been three simple words: I am now.

I am now. The Champion played them over in his mind in rapid succession. I am now. I am now. Iamnow. Iamnowiamnow.

From the corner of his eye he saw the shield winking in the solid palm of the Other in the dim light. A similar badge winked in companionship among the thick hair on the Protector's chest, set into the wine leather strips. Different but the same. I want that companionship back. I want it so very badly . . . . You'll never know or understand the depth of need that riddles my empty soul.

And he remembered the times when those two shields had existed side by side. Day by day. Year by year. A twin in the universe, and he had been lucky enough to find him.

Images of overcrowded days and brooding nights came into his mind in a flooding torrent. Running and questions. Driving and arrests. Paperwork and stale, cold coffee. Low lights and spiraled cigarette smoke. Junk meals and too little sleep. Warm showers and the smell of gun oil. Soft, well-worn leather under his arm and the comfortable weight of the Python. The scum from the gutters and the fine beauty of his women. The final pride of his parents and the admiration of his colleagues. Comforting shoulder and hands of steel.

Man of Iron, man of Justice.

That single image of the dark curly-haired man came before him. His eyes slid shut and he examined the picture.

Pale features. Long face of tender line and dark blue eyes. Sensitive and caring. Tough and streetwise with a mercurial personality that made the bleakest moments bearable. His talisman. His charm against the world of the streets. His companion.

His hand came up and he took the shield from the Other's palm. Shaking, he affixed it to the left shoulder armor. Gold on gold.

His voice was flat, beyond any sure feeling. The first step onto the road to the future was difficult enough as it was, without letting his pent-up emotions swamp the first tentative unity with the Other. He noted a strange, satisfied expression cross the Other's face.

"When did you start remembering?" The Champion asked his question carefully.

"Back at the plane, back in the street in the doorway . . . in my dreams." The Other answered quietly, his face shadowed by the gray light of the evening hour. "Back in the sewer . . . ."

"Why didn't you tell me?" the Champion asked with a tired sigh.

"Because I wasn't certain . . . . It's been so long, and my mind wasn't my own. They could make me think whatever they liked . . . . I simply wasn't sure." His voice became quietly earnest. "I wanted to believe . . . . I did, but . . . but, I didn't have the courage to accept you. I was scared of being betrayed again . . . . I couldn't face that . . . not after Selkirk, I couldn't face that again. And-and . . . " He swallowed, trying to gain some control over his voice. "And we aren't the same as we once were . . . . We could have been fooling ourselves . . . delusions to ease the pain of loss.

"But you're sure now?"

"Yes."

"How much do you remember?"

The question met without response. The Champion took a step nearer to the Other and peered at the strained face. The blue eye was a little too bright; the mouth moved in a wordless silence.

"Just how much do you remember?" He emphasized the question again. His hands came up in a movement of pleading and stopped short of physical contact.

"More than I'd hoped, and nothing like what I want." The Other looked down at his feet. "It's no good pretending. I-I just don't remember it all."

The Champion felt a rise of elation. But it's enough he knows . . . believes me. It's enough for a start, and we can work on the blank, empty spaces together. I remember so much more . . . . It's enough for now. "Give it time. You have a starting point . . . . More will come; it did with me. The years lay like layers on your mind, and you have to sift through so much before you come to any real worth."

"But I don't think I . . . I don't think I have memories left to sift through. Selkirk did a very thorough job. I try, but I only find so much, and I want it all." He bent down, picked up one of the bags that he'd brought from the Greyhounds and handed it to the Champion. "Here, this is food and water and . . . ."

The Champion took the canvas bag and half glanced at it, stupefied at the sudden change of subject. "I don't want to talk about that now; I want to talk about us. I want to talk about the Time Before, I -- "

The Other cut in. "And I want some time . . . to remember more on my own. I don't want to be spoon-fed a past I can't secure for myself. Give me that chance to search for myself . . . please." He stared beseechingly at the Champion.

The Champion remembered a time back in the 727 when he'd made a promise to himself never to make the Other into something that he could no longer be. The time to face that promise and keep it had come. He fought within himself, one half badly wanting to expand the man's knowledge of the Time Before and the life he'd once had, the other half struggling to hold back and leave the shattered memories hidden away.

The Champion struggled within his mind and his heart to control his selfish desires, while the Other watched his face with a voyeuristic curiosity, wondering what he was thinking and not daring to ask. He studied the metalled face.

A sigh of deep longing came from the Champion.

"All right, my . . . friend." His voice caught fractionally. "You can have your chance."

The Other gulped down his next speech, and tried to recall the last time that anyone had ever called him "friend" and meant it. His mind drew a blank but inside he felt good. He meant something to someone else, other than as a commune commodity. He was valued for himself. Not what he once had been or was to become, but simply for himself. A sense of respect for the Champion filled him.

I thank you for that one word. Aloud, the Plaza man said, "Thank you."

An uncertain silence fell between them, neither knowing what to say or do next. At length, the Other stooped over and picked up the remaining canvas bag.

"This should last us for a couple of days if we're careful. It could be that long till we're out of the city."

The Champion loosened the buckles and straps and pulled out the contents of his pouch. A water bottle, some hard, dried biscuits, and a couple of cans of vegetables: beans, carrots, and corn. Not much, not what I'm used to . . . . Used to be very well fed, not that I bothered to eat often. He looked up at the Other and found him struggling to open his own pouch. "Yeah, I suppose if we're careful it could last longer."

The Other fumbled the flap of the pouch and finally rested it on the dirt to wrestle out similar contents. "All courtesy of Rospo Case."

The Champion watched the stiffness in the right arm hamper the movements of the crouching man. "How's the arm?"

The Other slowed down in what he was doing. "It hurts liked hell." He took out his water bottle and unscrewed the top, setting it carefully in the dust. "I think I should wash it -- and my leg."

"Here, I'll loosen the bandages." The Champion knelt beside him in the gray gloom and began to tug at the knots. His exposed fingertips felt the heat of the Other's skin around the wound and he knew what to expect underneath.

When the cloths fell away, he could see the yellowing mess of spreading infection.

Jesus Christ. The Champion shot a worried look at the bowed head of curls. The Other failed to notice the tense expression, so intent was he upon his arm

"It's infected," the Other stated simply. "I thought it was."

"You need it cleaned properly -- proper antibiotics and antiseptic creams." The Champion spoke without thinking as he shook out one of the used pads to find a clean corner.

"Which we don't have." The Other peeled away some of the leather and saw that the blackened bruising was becoming inflamed as well. "Damn Rospo for not having any penicillin!"

"He promised it for tomorrow, didn't he?" Tipping over the water bottle carefully, the Champion wetted the pad and replaced the bottle on the ground. Trying to be as gentle as possible, he proceeded to wipe away the weeping yellow discharge.

The Other twitched with each pass of the cloth. "Yeah, but what if he doesn't come through? I need that stuff now."

"All the years of overprotection by Selkirk must have lowered your resistance to infection."

"Probably. He was always sticking needles in me. Every time he molded a new piece on, I was kept in a sterile environment. He couldn't run the risk that his special experiment might become infected and die." As soon as he said the last word he wished he hadn't. He looked apprehensively at the Champion who pretended not to have heard, and was diligently poking at every cut and tear to try and clean the wound completely. Die . . . I don't want to die. No more Selkirk and his men of medicine to save me now. I've regained my mortality and now I'm scared.

Trying to keep his voice calm, the Other made a suggestion. "I want to try to get some medicine for myself. I need the stuff now, and Case might not come up with the goods." His voice was earnest.

The Champion refolded the cloths and pressed the clean sides back over the dog bite. "Where do you propose we go and look?" He prodded at the thigh wound and found, to his relief, that it wasn't quite so inflamed and infected. The Other still flinched under the examination. The Champion poured a small measure of water over the puncture, washing away some of the dirt and dust.

"We could go look in a hospital." The Other proffered the idea hopefully.

Broad features, picked out by the increasing dark shadows, raised slowly from their task. "A hospital?" It was said in tones of wariness.

"Yes, there may be some drugs left. Surely, not all of the hospitals were picked over by scavengers and communes?" He tried to find the right words to sway the blond. "It's worth a shot, even if we strike out."

Retrieving the fallen pouch of the Other, the Champion pushed the cans and the biscuits back inside. Picking up his own water bottle, he took a deep swig and handed it to him.

"Hospitals harbor disease. I don't like them . . . . They're halfway houses between life and death." He checked the fastening on his own pouch of provisions. "I can't stand those places."

He looked up, seeing the blatant dismay in the Other's eye and lost out to his own argument. He sighed resignedly. "But I suppose it's worth a shot."

Taking a long drink from the bottle himself, the Other managed to screw back the top and slide it inside the bag. By concentrating, he found his fingers would do what was expected of them and the pouch was buckled shut. He rose to his feet and slung the strap over his shoulder nestling the bag against his right hip.

The Champion followed suit and looked about him into the gloom. The stimulants were making him feel less tired and dull and he sniffed the air in his usual habit. He froze and let his hand drop to his gunstock. Turning slowly, he assessed the surrounding panorama.

Something was different. The air was tainted with an alien scent.

The Other saw the move from pouch to gunstock and released the lock on his thigh holster. He stood rock still and tracked the empty waste with his eye.

"We've stayed here too long . . . and the night's closing in." The Champion edged away from the Cadillac. "Come on."

Heading toward the nearest cover, he set off at an even pace. The Other watched the horizon and backed away from the wreck of the automobile himself. In the distance, the hair rippled over the shells of the Greyhounds. The spirals of dust tarried over the rises in the road. And the night took on a sense of sinister intent. The area was changed and the Champion was right. It was time they were gone. Skin crawling between his shoulder blades, the wine-suited man picked up his speed and half limped, half jogged after the lengthening stride of the blond.

It was going to be a long, black night for the non-commune dweller.

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

PART II D