by BEANO SMART

ART by FRODSHAM McCLOUD

PART II A, PART II B, PART II C

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

BUT THEN FACE TO FACE.

A vast, area of city blocks cut angled shapes across the darkening sky. Ragged points and lines silhouetted in black rose high above the ground and hung at precarious angles, just as the quake had left them. Teetering on the brink of collapse, the aged buildings crumbled a little more each day as the niggling winds eroded the sands of their bodies. Ridged and pitted, they were scarred by huge cracks in their walls. Moonlight slid between some of the open wounds revealing the lack of any interior floors -- the insides having fallen to rubble. The outer walls were protecting nothing.

The area was incredibly dangerous. There had been an attempt made to clean it out of its resources years ago, but the Territory considered the task impossible when several of its salvage teams had been crushed to death in structurally unsafe buildings. It was a waste of precious manpower and the Owners gave up the area and moved on to areas equally as lucrative, but not as dangerous. That was several years ago and the Commune had never been back. No one had come. Even the mutants recognized the warning signals and usually kept well away, valuing their pathetic lives above the untouched resources.

Tonight the streets echoed with the first footsteps for what seemed an eternity. One tread was even of pattern, long in step and solid. The other was irregular and out of rhythm. Occasionally the steps stopped, as if the protagonists were listening to the silence they released by their inactivity. Seconds, maybe minutes would pass and then the trotting would continue.

Underneath the sound of their retreating footsteps came a secondary distant movement. It wafted about on the cool night air shyly, as if it were reluctant to be heard at all, and then it was gone.

The Champion paused at the junction and looked along the three roads, making a choice. The Other jogged tiredly to his side and rested down on one knee. He felt hot and dry and his arm was pulsing fit to burst. Each jarring step did nothing to ease the torn wound.

He calmed his ragged breathing and asked, "Which way now?"

Hand rubbing his chin in thought, the Champion sprinted forward a few paces then wandered up the uneven curb to peer at a faded business sign over a store front. He rubbed at the ingrained grime and tried to read the trade name and street number. The paint flaked away to powder. Hand dropping loosely to his side he stepped back a few feet into the road and scanned the upper stories of the buildings. All windows were broken and splintered; any identification was long gone. Running on a few more feet, he saw a metal shingle set into the concrete of an office front. Fingernails picking at the layer of dirt, he managed to chip away enough to guess the rest of the address.

Rubbing his hand on his thigh he jogged back toward the Other, who was now standing at the center of the crossroads. "We go right; come on." He set off at an easy pace.

The Other fell in beside him, his strange gait causing their long shadows to cross and uncross as they moved over the tarmac.

"Is it far now? It's getting late. We ought to hole up somewhere safe, get some rest, as well as search a hospital before tomorrow. I don't like the idea of facing Rospo without any sleep."

The Champion glanced sideways. "Why not? He's only a cheap punk."

"But he has his nasty little ways -- he'd sell us out for a strand of hair." The Other held his right arm stiffly, trying to reduce any swing that would aggravate torn muscles.

"He's scared of us; he won't dare try a double-cross. If he does, I'll personally kill him."

"And I'll help you bury him."

The Champion grinned maliciously, savoring the thought of getting some measure of revenge on the fence.

A voice beside him murmured, "I sure do hope he gets that eye."

"He usually delivers." The Champion quickened his stride and headed toward a multi-story building that had a wide sweeping driveway. Several double-fronted entrances led off the sweep of tarmac. The glass from the doors was long gone, shattered into fragments, but enough remained to show that this had once been the emergency entrance to a hospital.

Low slung ambulances were strewn haphazardly over the forecourt like scattered lumps of red and white candy. Stripped of everything that could be ripped free, they were rusting frameworks of one-time high-speed vehicles. One laid on its side, flashing lights smashed to red grit on the drive surface, its wires hanging loose and its bar twisted out of shape. The wheels were gone.

Standing at the entrance to the grounds, the Champion and the Other surveyed the dilapidated structure before them. An enormous crack had cleaved through the entire front wall, dwindling to a hairline fracture at ground level. At the top, it was possibly yards wide with the two halves of the hospital straining out and away from each other yet never quite falling. More structural faults could be seen in the once flush white walls like fine lines drawn by an insane draftsman.

"Don't look too safe to me." The Other edged up the path, head craning back to look over the upper stories.

"Well, it was you that wanted to come to a hospital." The Champion moved after him, eyes watching the darker patches of the driveway. The atmosphere was already bad. He could feel it and his skin crawled.

From out of the remains of the Time Before he had been raised as the Protector, to be the perfect man. Pure of health, pristine in his personal cleanliness. The Owners were more than pleased -- he had been their delight.

And yet they fouled his purity. They had soiled his blood stream with their narcotics, and stained his soul in blood with their detestable use of him.

He had tried to wash it away, but he could never scrub that deep.

The double doors that they approached had burst their glass panes when their frames had warped out of true. Automatic closing and opening mechanisms had tried in vain to close the two halves. The quake had had other ideas, and the doors were jammed open. The Other rubbed clean a remaining shard of dust-engrained glass and peered in. The Champion eased up to his shoulder and stared through the gap between the buckled frames.

The wide passageway was a museum piece of the last moments of The End. Caught and held, as if a second had been chipped out time, nurses, doctors, orderlies, and the sick and injured were arranged over the corridors and beyond like some petrified mime class. Skeletal and gray, their limbs contorted in actions of pain and caring, they rested at their posts, untouched for years. Unseen and forgotten by those who lived on.

The Champion took a deep breath and collected his demeanor. Pushing through the narrow space between the doors, he stepped out of the late night and into the darker interior of the hospital. Close at his heels, the Other followed, silent and thoughtful.

The moonlight was sufficient illumination. Gray light for a tableau of ash-gray. Dust coated the floor, the walls, and the bodies. At the edges of the floor it had risen in minor drifts and floated up into the air as they walked.

Against the right wall, a row of gurneys beckoned their eyes as they passed. Dulled by the years of neglect and damaged by the elements, the occupants lay under shrouds of off-white sheets. Dried out and pathetic, their faces held the horror of The End. Bending over the first gurney was the stiff frame of a nurse whose uniform was a breath away from crumbling to nothing as her bony shape poked through the threads in sharp lumps. She stared blankly ahead, eyes having rotted away. With wide eye sockets, she still saw the last moments of civilization disintegrate during the longest night of mankind. A vision trapped there for all time.

The two Protectors looked silently over the emergency admitting area and imagined a replay of noise and atmosphere. Time had given the building a quality akin to magnetic tape. The Champion wondered if it would be possible to tap into that held moment and experience that last split second: the misery and the panic, abject fear and recognized futility. He shivered at the thought.

The Other padded past him and stopped at a broad counter. Reception probably. He ran a hand over the plastic telephones and scattered metal clipboards. The loose sheets of paper were yellowed and brittle and tossed over the floor like thrown confetti. Slowly, he raised a clipboard and read the words, the names, the diagnosis, the treatment. Carefully made notes. And wondered who Enzo Acenti had once been.

Enzo Acenti . . . taxicab driver . . . aged 46 . . . blood type A . . . severe chest injuries . . . died after admission . . . . He looked about broodingly . . . All of them . . . God, what a mess, what a damn mess . . . . He dropped the board back onto the counter, the sharp sound echoing through the corridors.

"Let's look further in. This place has been picked over." The Champion pointed to the storage cabinets whose doors were hanging loose from their hinges. "Might have guessed that the ground floor would have been scavenged; easy access, not too much danger."

The Other nodded and stepped on along the corridor toward some double doors that would hopefully lead onto a main stairwell. The tiled floor was covered with more bodies, in no real order. All gray skinned, stretched to paper thinness similar to mummified remains. Left where they had fallen, the Other and the Champion did not disturb them now, but instead stepped carefully over them. Tiptoeing quietly so as not to wake the dead, they came to the dark wood of the doors.

The Other pressed against the right door and cringed at the whine of the hinges. On the other side was an open well and the ruptured shambles of a staircase. Treading lightly, the two men felt their way onto the unsafe landing of the first floor and looked upwards. Up above, whole sections of wall, well, and windows seemed to be missing. Several flights of stairs had come away from the interior wall altogether, their darker concrete insides showing plainly against the lighter gray of the steps.

"Think it'll be safe enough?"

The Champion risked walking forward a couple of steps. He put a hand on the stair rail and set off up the stairs. Gingerly testing each step, he made it to the first landing and beckoned the Other to follow.

Remembering to place his feet in the footprints left by the black boots, he was soon standing beside the tall Protector. "Now it's my turn." The Other whispered, it didn't seem the place for normal conversation. Back toward many of the many structural fractures in the outer wall, the dark red figure trod up the stairs, feet and weight close to the inner wall in an effort to step on the stronger places. Once at the top he beckoned the Champion to follow.

The second floor was partially barred to them. Through the windows, set high in the double doors, the two Protectors stared at the debris beyond. Most of the ceiling had crashed down. A huge chunk of concrete and a support beam now blocked the entrance. Releasing the bolts on the left-hand door, the Champion pulled on the handle and formed a narrow gap. A tumbling rush of tiny chippings poured onto them from the fallen slab. Waving away the haze of dust, the Champion heaved the door open further and climbed up onto the angled slab of concrete. The Other followed, glancing up at the gaping hole of dangling wire and exposed pipes. Slithering across and down, the two Protectors alighted on the other side of the obstacle and surveyed this next story.

It was very dark, with hardly any light as the inner shutters and blinds had been closed. But what they could make out in the gloom was an old hospital of private rooms and nurses' stations with offices further along the corridor. Walking side by side, the two men searched the walls and administration rooms, for a drug cabinet or, hopefully, the pharmacy.

At the desk they paused and eyed the damage. Most of the ceiling had come down into the station here and crushed the staff. A skeletal body was caught between the blocks of concrete.

The Other headed away numbly, down the left-hand corridor, past the water fountain toward the operating room entrance. The Champion watched as the doors were pushed back. He saw the vague outlines of the bodies, still masked, sprawled over the high table, over the still-open patient. He was revolted.

He thought he could still smell the strong aroma of antiseptic, hear the soft squeak of rubber soled shoes on the highly polished floors, and the distant murmur of over-confident voices, mouthing words of reassurance. He remembered the times when he had been in places like this before. The worry and the fear came back to him strongly as in his mind he saw the efficient orderlies wheel a spotless gurney down a corridor in another hospital many years ago. His partner was dying and he was helpless. They took him away and he knew he wouldn't see him again.

And he remembered another time when they had closed him off from the outside world. Behind a wall of glass they shut him away and waited for him to die. He was in agony and they tried to help, but the disease sapped his strength and then laughed at their efforts. He'd said he was dying that time, fingernails clawing through the sheets, he'd said those words in an effort to understand them himself. Out loud. But it was a stranger he heard who said them to his partner. The voice wasn't from the Hutch who ran the street -- tough and strong, who was respected and feared. No, that time he was a pale, shivering waste of a man who clung to each breath of life in rasping agony. Where was the hard cop then?

In the distance a shadow was moving about the operating room, pulling open cabinets and rifling through the contents, oblivious to the still tableau close behind him. The Champion watched with a deadpan expression. He turned and peered into an observation window at what had at one time been an Intensive Care Unit. The patient was still hooked up to the life support machines but the EKG was now as silent as the hushed atmosphere on the floor. A corpse of a nurse sat beside the patient. Decayed to brittleness, she stared out at him with the same unseeing expression as all the rest. On her knee was a book, its pages curling. She'd been a blonde.

The sight of the lonely vigil touched upon too many memories for the Champion; he turned away and wandered into the left-hand corridor, then turned right and set off to examine the rooms. Somewhere there would be a drugstore.

Pushing open the doors, he ducked in and straight out again. Each room was a private bedroom, and each bed held a rigid corpse of ill-defined sex, but all too apparent illness or injury. IV's still nestled against the beds, vases of dried flowers decorated the tops of the furniture. Some rooms had been destroyed completely by falling masonry. The war had been bad enough, but when the quake had come, no one had had time to think, let alone evacuate a hospital

As he progressed from one side of the corridor to the next, he found that with each new fossilized room, the structural faults were becoming more obvious until the room into which he was presently looking had a crack in its outer wall of at least eighteen inches. Moonlight fell in a single beam across the floor and bed, picking out the pale stripes of the onetime brightly colored blanket. And the parchment hand still clutching the emergency call button.

The Champion turned around and let the door swing back on stiffened hinges. His progress had been marked by the disturbance of dust on the floor and the groan of protesting metal as he'd forced the doors back. This door fell into place with a wooden creak and was silent. The Champion paused and listened to the distant padding of the Other as he traveled from room to room in his search.

They'd meet up at the next reception desk.

He walked on further, noting the door numbers and not bothering to look in and see the frozen corpses. He would search the nameplates for the pharmacy and leave the dead to themselves.

Turning right, he came upon what had once been a waiting area for relatives and friends. The chairs were askew and the vending machines had crashed to the ground. Dark brown stains spewed over the carpet. A few yards away on the right-hand wall was another nurses' station.

The Champion headed toward it and began scanning the area behind the desk for any signs of a drug cabinet. A tall, white wood-and-glass cupboard stood against the far side, its door hanging loose. Hastening around the end of the desk, the Protector crossed to the cabinet and pulled back the door. It came away in his hand revealing the tossed-around contents. A few empty capsule bottles lay in a jumble on the bottom shelf. Old packets were torn open and tossed aside.

"Damn! Damn!" The Champion flung the door down in anger and backed away to the reception desk. Turning, he put his elbows on the top, lowered his head to his hands and remained bowed for some time.

Possibly a minute passed during which time the Champion struggled with himself to stay, and follow the search through. In the distance he heard another door swing through the movements of shutting or opening and decided that if the Other was still searching this floor he ought to as well. He pushed away from the counter and stepped onto the next long corridor. The floor was cracked and uneven and very probably dangerous. Walking close to the edge, his back hugging the wall, the Champion moved along. His eyes darted from where he was planting his feet, to the plates above the doors. They were changing from room numbers to administration plates: doctors' names, senior consultants, interns' rest room and lounge, etc.

The floor sank a couple of inches in a sudden jolt. The Champion flung his arms wide to support himself and hooked a grip into a door handle. The floor held and the black boots moved on. A trace of dust drifted down from above and coated his golden hair with powder. His plaits jostled each other in a soft, nervous rhythm, betraying the man's inner feelings as he took another hesitant step.

A sound behind him made him pause. The floor was particularly dangerous here and took all his concentration. The uneven gait behind him continued on.

He's limping even worse than before -- must be tired. "Be careful here, the floor's gonna collapse." He took a gentle step forward onto the next section and eased his full weight down. He didn't want the Other crashing through and dragging him along. One at a time and we should make it. "Have you checked out the rest of this floor?" Head bowed, intent only upon his feet, the Champion tossed the question back without looking around.

The splintered tiles groaned and more dust and loose grit sifted down from the equally-beveled ceiling.

The Champion found that he felt suddenly hot and enclosed; he didn't care for the risk that he was running and the probability that the floor was becoming more and more unsafe as he pressed on.

The feet edged a little closer behind him. The floor creaked as his black boots took a shifting step in weight distribution. He called out another warning. "Don't move on 'til I'm over this part . . . . I struck out at the nurses' station; did you have any luck?"

Then he smelled the air.

And a bitter voice said, "Better luck than you're having, Champion."

Head of plaits spinning around, the Territory Protector came face to face with the crazed apparition of Peter.

Dressed in the long, black robes, heavily blood-stained and torn, he rested upon a crutch of roughly fashioned wood, his left leg swathed in dark bandages. Eyes alight with exultant triumph, their tiny pinpricks of red danced with a flaming desire for revenge. His face was ravaged by the draining pain of the injuries from his last encounter with the Blond Butcher.

Shifting his weight over to his good side, Peter lurched forward a step. The crutch-leg kicked chips of the loose floor aside and he smiled cruelly, his nasty teeth parting over his black tongue. Several other disciples of the religiously insane leader appeared like wraiths from the reception area and waiting room. They formed a barrier of degenerate humankind.

The Champion watched, stunned, as the soldiers of Peter's New Image took up their stand. Every one held the same look in their eyes -- one of death. And it was directed solely at him.

Eyes racing back to Peter, the Protector held his breath and made ready to make his move.

"You don't look very pleased to see us, Champion." Peter purred his words of menace across the space between them. "It doesn't matter because we're pleased to see you." His face hardened, mouth dragging down at the corners. "You're still the New Image that we require, Champion. Only this time, I'm going to keep my ready-made messiah."

Palms pressed to the wall at his back, the Champion watched calculatingly. He counted the armed brothers at Peter's back, the guns held almost casually, such was their confidence. He noted the dedicated faces of vindictiveness, and the gleaming face of white flesh that was their leader. His breath quickened and he tensed to draw the Magnum. He could be swift enough to pick off several of them in the first volley, and in close hand-to-hand combat, he could finish the rest.

A soft sigh, expelled five times very rapidly, made him start. Clutched tightly in bony fingers of translucent skin was a strange, compressed-air gun. Peter's hand wobbled fractionally and then he lowered the gun, his right hand dropping into the folds of his robes.

The Champion felt the stinging pains in his unprotected left thigh and looked down to see five needle-length darts embedded like miniature pitons in his protruding muscle.

An adrenalin burst lurched through him. He raised his head to face the grinning expressions. Reached for his Magnum and failed.

"You see, my Champion, we do still need our martyr." Peter shuffled back a step, a wince of pain crossing his face.

The Champion managed to take a shaky step toward them. The ground sank, or so he thought, as the drugs burned along his veins and attacked his central nervous system. He tried to say "no", his face ashen with horror and tinged with regret.

His legs gave out from under him and he crashed down on his back to the concrete floor. Braids flung out randomly, he rolled his head to try and see what the Brothers were doing. His hands clenched and unclenched weakly and then slowed to stillness. The dim light grew darker and his heart hammered in his chest in an effort to support his stifling lungs and prevent himself from losing consciousness.

A cold hand held his chin and tilted his head as a hunter might look over a prize catch.

In the distorted whisper of his hearing, he heard a gleeful cry and the words, "Now it is our turn, my Brothers. The youth of the communes will look to us . . . to us."

Under the enveloping blackness, the Champion tried to tell them he'd gone ex-commune, that he was anathema now to all commune dwellers, no one would ever follow him, but his mouth and throat were no longer his own. His heavy eyes slid shut.

Peter leaned forward at the shoulder of one of his followers and gloated over his prize. "Drag him away from that area, Joshua. I won't lose him again. He had his chance, but he didn't run far enough."

Joshua took hold of the wide wrists of the gold vambraces and pulled. It took all his strength; the weapons weighed the body down. Silently, the watching Brothers stepped forward to give Joshua a hand with their catch. Fingers pulling on the black leather and gold body, the Brothers raised the torso of the Champion and dragged him away toward the reception area. Head tilted back, only the heels of his boots and the heavy gold tips of his hair made any mark in the dust and dirt.

Lurching after them, Peter brought up the rear, his face a picture of manic delight. He, above all people wanted his revenge on the Territory Protector for killing many of his converts and for maiming him permanently. As he hobbled along, he was already forming varied and suitably punishing acts of retribution. He only hoped they would fit in with the concept of martyrdom.

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

A curious, suspicious glint in her eye, the lonely woman Owner watched Rospo Case limp backward and forward before her. His odor was vile and repellent; his long, greasy hair moved on its own accord as the overactive lice wriggled about his head. Her face showed transparently her revulsion of him as she gave him a small measure of her attention and listened to his tale.

Weaving and darting about the salient points of his story, Case hobbled nervously. He had no liking for the Owners of the Territory, but after the visit of the Champion and the Other he felt that he was in too deep, and needed some protection or assurance from elsewhere. He chose the most powerful commune remaining, and felt it was his duty to tell her that the Northern Sector headquarters had been razed to the ground.

Rising slowly, the woman straightened her long, black robe and walked past the creepy fence, toward the door. Hand resting in the same place as the night before, she spoke. "He said he burned down the Plaza?" She looked not at Rospo, but expected him to reply. Her hair had fallen loose, many of the jewels having dropped to the hard tiled floor, forgotten. The black dress was now creased from the hours of sitting in the high backed chair. Alone. Waiting.

Rospo bobbed forward and edged around her left side to look up into her face. The make-up was very tired and flaking. Mascara streaks still stained her cheeks in gray lines, and the moldering skin was barely concealed. Her prime time was over and her days were numbered.

"Yes, and the Champion helped him." He tucked his hands under his stinking armpits. "Your blond butcher looked weird though; he asked for drugs and ammunition and then he had some kind of attack."

"Attack?" She looked down at his scabby face. "What kind of attack?"

Rospo shrugged. "Don't really know. He was frightened of something." Case omitted his actions from the story. " -- And then that friggin' Other came in and stabbed me in the leg." His face and voice became full of self-pity. "I'll probably get gangrene and lose ma leg."

The woman knew what might have caused the strange reaction in the Champion, as it was she who had handed over the LSD and curtailed his other supplies.

"Did he appear to be hurting?" She asked her questions coolly while her mind raged with hate.

Rospo grinned and sucked on his teeth. "I'll say . . . . He took all ma speed from the wall safe."

The corridor remained empty and silent. She rekindled the image of her "most precious" striding boldly toward the room, and something deep within her twisted even tighter. It became a black edge to her soul, and her savage loss eroded any compassion she may have felt for the Champion at one time. Hard of heart and features, she swung away from the corridor and walked toward the handcuffs set into the floor. It had been his place.

"What happened next?"

Case lurched after her, his curling toenails making tiny "tick-tack" sounds on the hard surface. "Well, the Champion took what he liked off my desk and left. The Other told me to meet them at the old estate house tomorrow at evening time. They said I was to go alone. Or, no doubt they'll burn me down, too." He looked disturbed.

"And what do you have to supply them with?" Already her mind was working on plans of avengement.

"Well, the Other looked like he'd hurt his arm pretty bad, and he asked for medicines. I suppose I could get them. But what was really strange was when he asked for an eye -- ." He rummaged under his dirty raincoat and produced the gold armlet. " -- And the Champion paid with this." He held out his treasured possession.

The woman Owner recognized it instantly. Her white hands enclosed on the armlet for a moment, but Case wasn't about to release it. It had been one of the very early rewards that she had given him. Inside, engraved in delicate letters, was his name: Champion of the Territory, possession of the Owners.

"He gave you this?" Her voice held a note of disappointment.

"Yeah, it was real strange too. I mean, no one pays for something for anyone else. Not these days."

She nodded understandingly, and Rospo sneaked out a hand and caressed her hair, sizing it up for his collection. He liked the soft texture and the length. Already, he was choosing a place to tack it to onto the Greyhounds.

Her hand whipped out and smacked his touch away. Green eyes flashed and her red lips became a fine line of anger. "Don't touch me, filth. You're lucky I let you in. Scum like you isn't normally let through the gates to dispense with the refuse."

Suitably chastised, Case shrank down and bowed obsequiously.

"What else did he take from you?" The question was snapped out, failing to disguise her temper. Hand lost in the folds of the ornate dress, she wandered back to her seat and settled with her usual grace.

"That special combat suit you ordered," Rospo hovered after her. "And some extra weapons -- "

"The suit?" She was surprised and doubly annoyed. She'd had the suit specially commissioned. It was to have been a token for his services. Another slight against her. She wondered whether or not he'd done it deliberately having heard somehow of her intention.

"Yeah, didn't even make any payment for that or all the other supplies they took." Case was openly sulking. "If you ask me, I'd say they'd both gone rogue."

She looked up glacially, not liking anyone pointing out that her Champion had gone rogue -- had escaped her control. "No one asked you." She chewed on her bottom lip in thought. "What sort of supplies did they take?"

Case watched her face go through the emotions of calculating hate through to seething maliciousness. This was a very dangerous woman. He began to wish he hadn't come around groveling with the information. "Food 'n' water."

She nodded; it was the answer she had expected. Inside, she knew that the Champion had teamed up with the Other and that they had gone rogue. They probably had the mutual aim of getting away from the Territory and the Northern Sector. Together, they'd already burned down the Plaza. Selkirk was dead. Houndsworth was dead. Soon it could be the Owners' turn. She had to stop him for reasons extremely personal and for the continued life of the Territory Commune.

Now that the Plaza was gone, the city was the Territory's for the taking -- providing a jumped up, murdering addict who had found the guts to drag himself free didn't stop her.

Unconsciously, she spoke aloud, "I won't let him stop me. I won't!" The words were a promise from her scheming soul.

At her side, fawning over the close proximity of her hair, the hem of her skirt, and her jeweled hands, Case murmured, "You've got to stop them both. They're far more dangerous together than they ever were apart."

He ran a long jagged fingernail through the trailing tassels of the hem and sniffed the material. He enjoyed collecting rare women, but this one was past her peak. Under the slightly raised hem, he could see the spreading mold on her legs.

"The fact that the Other lives is because of the traitorous actions of the Champion. He failed us in his mission; he failed the Territory." And inside she added, And he failed me . . . me . . . . I loved him and he threw it back in my face. He'll pay for his actions. I still own him, no matter how far he runs . . . . I own him.

"And they could kill us all." Case had one motive in mind: to protect his nice little business from further visits by the two Protectors. In his sneaky eyes, the best way to achieve the continued safety of his livelihood was to be permanently free of the menace, which posed the threat. "We need to be rid of them, Madam."

His tentative suggestion made her features crease into lines of ironic misery. She despised the fact that he was right, but she didn't want to lose her beloved golden man. And yet, she knew he had gone, never to return.

She'd remained in this room all the long night and day, thinking over the past years: how she'd found him in the ruins of Venice Place, how she'd ensnared him with narcotics, manipulated him, dulled his mind and eroded his freedom, until he was her "puppet man". If she snapped her fingers, he'd do handsprings.

All that was gone now. Lost like dust on the wind. She'd sent him to kill the Other. And that silvered man became the catalyst of the subsequent events.

How she regretted that initial command. But she'd wanted him to be the ultimate protector on the streets. He was perfect enough to be. So perfect in her eyes . . . .

She found her vision had blurred and more mascara streaked her porcelain-crazed cheeks. Wiping away the signs of her misery, she spread the black stains even further, and the now-gray makeup speckled her dress in flakes.

Then he'd scorned her. Humiliated her and all the other Owners. And that was unforgivable.

"Tell me, Rospo Case," her hand gripped about his bony arm as she dragged him off balance at her feet. Case stifled a cry of fright. "Tell me, perverted filth, exactly where are you going to meet with the Champion?"

The fence felt her nails bite deep into his emaciated flesh. He tried to pry her loose, but she held him so tightly her knuckles were bone-white.

"In the old estate house. You know, the large white one, four blocks south east of the Greyhounds. Used to be an independent commune in the very early days, but they got sick and died."

She stared directly into his eyes, gauging whether he was speaking the truth or not. "And what do you have to deliver?"

"I told you, the penicillin and an eye." He squirmed again. "You're hurtin' me, Madam."

She smiled evilly, enjoying inflicting the pain. "And can you complete the contract?" She pointed at the armlet he'd slipped back on and that now hung loosely at his grimy wrist. "You've already been paid."

"I -- I can get the penicillin. It's stashed somewhere safe. But the eye -- I ain't got one of them. Who has?" He shrugged a little, trying to act nonchalantly under her vice-like grip.

Her smile broadened unexpectedly and, settling back in her chair, she released the little man. Hands resting confidently on the arms, she spoke. "I have."

Case opened his mouth and then closed it again. He shook his head, greasy hair trailing over his face. "No one has one of them. Only Selkirk and his New Medicine was into that game."

"But I have an eye." She swept back her skirts from the legs of the chair.

Case saw another fleeting glimpse of the decay on her body and then he caught the glint of something silver under the seat. Stooping, his toenails slithering over the tiles, he dropped down onto one knee and he saw the ornately molded helmet that had previously belonged to the Other.

He made to reach out for it, but his hands were swatted away. The woman Owner bent forward violently. Rospo flinched back.

"Not just yet, Case." She picked up the helmet herself and held it aloft. Its empty face stared blankly at them.

The eye of jet held Case hypnotically. It was his deliverance from the wrath of the Champion and the Other. His eyes slid expectantly from the helm back to the Owner.

"You'll get the eye for your meeting with the Champion and his "friend," providing you don't go any earlier than sundown. And if this information of yours proves false, it won't be just the Champion who burns down your enterprising operation. The Territory will hunt you down, as well. The city won't be big enough to hide you."

The words were a chill prophecy that she would ensure would come true if he'd lied. Case made to protest his innocence and assure her that his word was true, but he dried up when he realized that only the sight and the sound of the Champion and the Other, at the house, would prove him trustworthy in her eyes.

"Yes, Madam." He bobbed up onto his feet and half bowed before her. She held his eye a moment longer, then tossed the helmet into his hands.

Case clutched at it tightly. He caressed the silver dome and the fine molding. Ran his finger over the eye of jet. It could be worked loose, on closer inspection. Immediately, he began to rummage for one of his dental instruments to complete the job. As he searched his odorous person, he watched the woman Owner.

She stared off into the middle distance in deep thought, and then she swiftly rose to her feet and departed across the hard floor, the green light turning her skin to a sallow white. Never once did she pause or look back, but instead strode down the long corridor with a new conviction in her dark heart.

Case nestled the helm under his chin and licked back a dribble of saliva from his plastic teeth. He was estimating the length of her mane, and still deciding where to attach it to the Greyhound. He'd have to remember to call again in a coupe of weeks when she'd be dead.

Providing the Champion didn't kill him first. Sighing, he bent to the task of prying loose the eye. All he needed now was the penicillin. And then he'd be home and dry.

A chuckle of glee followed the departing Owner, wafted on a stale breath of air.

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

The Other rubbed the grime off the name plate with increasing excitement and found to his intense relief the word: Pharmacy.

A smile of satisfaction spread over his face in the lopsided way enforced by the metal plates. Pay dirt!

Stepping back a little, he surveyed the door. It was a light brown stained wooden door with large hinges and a set of double locks. There were signs of an attempted forced entry and the corpse of a salvage team worker pinned flat under a section of fallen masonry. The ceiling was in grave danger of coming down on anyone else who cared to try to get into the pharmacy.

The Other released the spring-clip on his rifle and swung the gun up above his head to use it as a prod. Poking at the ceiling, he shifted some of the loose plasterwork. It poured down onto the littered floor as swiftly as sands running through an hourglass. Putting his whole weight under the rifle, he thrust upwards with more force and managed to bring down the larger pieces of cracked masonry. Dull, leaden thuds accompanied the pouring cement as the heavy lumps crashed to the ground, burying the salvage man's body even further.

The Other leaped backwards out of immediate danger as the avalanche of debris started. He scurried across the hallway and crouched down in a doorway as a huge cloud of dust eliminated any more need to be silent in his approach.

The scattering of loose chips slowed to a peppering trickle and he squinted back over his shoulder through the haze. The dust was settling as a fine powder over the walls and floor.

Eye smarting from the impure air, he rose to return to the door. Gently he beat off the light coating that had powdered his upper body, and coughed as the fine dust caught in his throat.

The ceiling lay in ruins before the door to the pharmacy. Above his head was a gaping hole of girders, plumbing, and torn electrical wiring. Multi-colored insulated cables hung down like the insides of a wounded creature.

The air settled and cleared, and the Other tentatively stepped onto the rubble. Nothing creaked or groaned from above. Face reflecting his belief that the entrance to the pharmacy was now relatively safe, he hopped down and began to kick and push away as much of the debris as he could.

The work was hard for a man with only one good arm and leg and by the time that he was finished, his dark curls were plastered around his forehead with sweat and grime. Leaning against the wall, he wiped his face with the back of his hand and looked over the hallway. It was strewn with roughly thrown aside lumps of ceiling of various sizes. Many of them would have stove in his skull if he'd been standing underneath.

The Other pushed off from the wall and bent over the remains of the body. Pulling on the rag of cloth across the corpse's neck, it came away in his hand and he held it up for closer inspection. It was a piece of plaid shirt collar. Faded and threatening to turn to loose fibers in his hand.

A shirt . . . used to wear them at one time. Not like this though, not usually checked . . . . He used to wear them checked, I think . . . . Wonder where he is?

He let the piece of fragile material fall, already forgotten, through his fingers as he stared away into the darkness of the corridor.

He turned back to the pharmacy door and the body blocking the entrance. Dropping to his haunches, he placed his back against the doors and rested his feet on the ravaged sides of the remaining lump of masonry. Taking the strain on his legs and back, he gritted his teeth and began to push. Muscles and veins began to bulge out on his shoulders and neck as the sheer force needed to shift the concrete took its toll on his sapped strength. A deep groan of effort escaped his lips as the mass began to slowly slide away from the doorway. Relaxing only momentarily to snatch a quick breath, his head sank down onto his chest as he slapped his palms against the wall at his hips, and forced his legs to straighten. The cement block ground away from him over the layer of grit and sand. It made a deep rumbling sound of protest as the silvered man shifted it from its years-old staked claim. The corpse underneath also shifted sideways, crumbling to a gray dust as the newly exerted pressure squeezed it further under the heavy weight.

Lips of flesh and silver curled back over his white teeth in an expression of enormous effort. His legs shook with the increasing strain, but finally the offending blockage was edged, inch-by-inch, out of the way.

Relaxing, he sank to the ground, his chest heaving under the leather lattice, silver glinting in the pale moonlight. After some moments he managed to raise his head and then climbed to his feet. The wound in his leg had reopened and a fine line of bright red traced a path down his leg through the white powder caught on his suit. His arm was not much better. It pulsed, swollen and hot.

He held it tenderly for a moment, then squinted his eye open to take in the doors. They were now free enough of debris to allow him entry into the room beyond.

Swiftly, he crossed to the doorway he had sheltered in and retrieved his rifle. He shouldered it with sure ease and took quick, accurate aim at the lock. One shot and the metal plate of keyhole and tumbler shattered. The single rifle crack echoed around the lifeless hospital. It whined away into the darkness and made the rats down in their dark bolt holes twitch their sensitive ears.

Holstering the rifle into its leg clasp, he trotted forward and pulled on the ruptured door. Unused hinges protested stiffly as he made enough of a space so that he could squeeze inside.

The sight that met his eye made Rospo's place look like a Five and Dime store. Every shelf was as it had been on the day of The End -- full to overflowing with drugs and medicines. It was a priceless treasure trove that could make him the most powerful, wealthy man in the city, if he cared to stay and sell it.

He didn't care to stay. Instead, he snaked among the shelves, peering at labels on boxes, cartons, and bottles, until his eye ached. He knew what he was looking for, but finding it among this varied assortment was no easy task.

Shelves of sedatives. Cartons of amphetamines. Anticoagulants. Hypoglycemics. Analgesics. Diuretics. Digitalis. Sulphonomides.

And finally, antibiotics.

His furtive search of the shelves now became more careful and selective. He had learned much from Selkirk and his methods, and knew a little of the kinds of drugs he was after.

Picking up and putting down small cartons, he read the labels most carefully and searched for a name that he recognized. A name or a word he had heard Selkirk or one of his team use.

He held the last carton a little closer and read the label again.

A small smile of triumph crossed his drawn face as he slipped the ampoules out of the packets. He looked at the liquid held under the plastic and wondered if it was still active after all the years. He'd only know if he tried it. Moving away from the antibiotics, he paused beside the array of stimulants and took down a box of Dexedrine. He might need these later . . . . I hope not. From the next shelf down, he picked up two bottles of antiseptic wash and passed on his way.

Near the door was a torn open carton of disposable syringes. They'd been hastily unpacked in the chaos of The End. The rough cardboard tears were a sharp reminder of what the emergency admitting area must have been like on that fateful night. A couple of packets were left scattered on the floor.

Bending down stiffly, he picked up the hypodermics in the thin packets and left. Too many reminders of The End he didn't need right at this moment.

In the waiting area of the second floor, the Other slid the packets and ampoules into the small bag on his hip and refastened the buckles. He stepped around the dark coffee stains on the floor and listened. No sound. No distant stir of movement that one senses when another person is in the vicinity. No sign of the Champion.

The Other felt nervous and a niggle of fear-edged worry ate at his thoughts. He should be here; he should have made some noise by now. Where the hell is he? I've got the stuff, so we could leave. I know he hates the place, so why has he wandered off for so long?

He moved down the corridor a few paces and picked up on the footprints in the dust.

He froze into immobility and his eye followed the patterns of movement over the floor. Drifting swirls had made the dust eddy and rise in tiny dunes as if a soft wind had passed or a heavy material had stroked through the fine powder.

His eye took in the trails of almost parallel lines as they stopped short of the crumbled tile floor. He walked slowly forward and saw the heavier displacement of dust at the edge of the fractured tiling.

Frightened, he suppressed his racing thoughts until he saw the deep furrows made by the heel of the boots and the tiny snaking lines made by the gold clasps as they had strained downwards from the tips of the plaits.

The trail led away to the right, through a pair of swinging doors -- possibly to another stairwell.

A nauseating dread almost made him sick. He stared at the door and felt a wild fear seize him.

Three steps forward brought him to the doors; he pushed gingerly and peered into the space beyond. It was a stairwell, and the tracks of feet and a body being dragged downwards were clearly seen.

The Other let the door swing silently shut. Tiptoeing forward, he felt the banister rail against his hips, and he stared downward into the darkness.

Nothing moved. No sound.

His hands released the rifle clip on the spring, ready for a quick draw. Light of tread, he set off down the stairs at an alarming speed considering the state of the structure. Whole treads swayed and buckled as he bounced from one to another. Terror of losing the one other who was the same as himself -- ex-commune, rogue and now companion -- made him throw caution and stealth to the midnight winds.

Something dark and nasty was creeping like a pestilence over his future, and he didn't like it.

Jumping down to a crouch at the foot of the stairs, he squirmed forward on his stomach and pushed open the swinging doors. Face close to the ground, he squinted through the tiny cracks into the hallway.

The well had brought him full circle, back to the emergency admitting area on the ground floor. Everything was as it had been when he and the Champion had arrived. The gurneys and human remains were as immobile as when they had died in their agonized positions on the night of The End. Pale moonlight crept into the hospital from the broad sweeping driveway, casting shadows of relief over the walls.

Everything was as it should be, except for a strange moaning hum that broke the still air of the deserted city blocks. It was a keening note of purgatory that bore into his skull, and chilled his spine in warning. Climbing to his feet, he eased out through the gap and began to edge toward the source of that noise. Back planted firmly against the wall of the corridor, he stepped along on feet of feather lightness toward the fractured glass doors. His breath held in his lungs, so fearful was he of giving them any warning of his approach. He did not know what the Owners would look like. Or what their numbers might be.

The moonlight became a sharp, hard strip over walls and floor as he came up to the doors. Framed by the entrance was a strange tableau of beings about eighty-five yards away. Garbed in black, with hoods pulled low, he glimpsed the tiny pinpricks of red in the oval of black, and clearly heard their eerie noise. They shifted forward a step, forming a semicircle several bodies deep. The pitch of the notes grew higher.

Straining up onto his toes, the Other tried to see what was drawing them onwards, but his view was masked by their curved line. As if on a prearranged signal, the black figures abruptly faced inwards and knelt down.

His view was now clear, set against a backdrop of cast aside ambulances and driveway.

Involuntarily, he started forward, his hand falling on his rifle in the same movement.

Arranged carefully on the forecourt was a huge cart of rough wood mounted on six old motorcycle tires. Half on and half off the tailgate was a huge, ebony cross. Black polished wood. Its crossbar cut across the night sky, while its one leg bit deeply into the rubble of the driveway. Draped over the broad wooden beams was the black and gold figure of the Champion. Pale of complexion and shallow of breathing, he lay in a slack cross of arms and legs. His long ceremonial plaits were spread half over his chest and neck and half hanging down onto the wooden floor of the cart. The weapons had been stripped from his body, and tossed into the back of the cart. To the right of his head, standing on the cart's back, was the vibrant figure of a man who thought he had just won the world. Hands stretched wide, his crutch tucked under his arm, Peter made to address the remains of the faithful.

"My Brothers, my children, tonight is the beginning of the new age! The messiah is upon us; we have our martyr for the New Image. It is only a matter of time now before the city is ours." He smiled over his congregation "Youth will come flooding forth from the remaining communes, eager to be led. Pleading for words of faith and belief." His hands came together in earnest prayer. "And we shall give them all that they wish to hear. The New Image will rise above the ash of the city on the shoulders of the young. They are ready to look to a new god. A god of strength and power, might and right. We have him before us now, my Brothers, the Champion."

He indicated the unconscious man with expansive gestures, eyes brilliant with excitement. "The Plaza could not ensnare him, the Territory could not keep him, but we -- we shall use him to the utmost. A legend will become a god tonight, my children, as the religion of the New Los Angeles gets its baptism in blood -- the blood of the Champion!"

Sweat dribbled off his chin as his wild rhetoric rang out into the night. The converted heard the words and moaned and swayed in ecstasy. Their martyr was before them. It only remained for the first blow to be struck, the first drop of blood to splash from his wounded flesh like a spark into the dry kindling of their cause, and they would have succeeded.

The New Image would be born. A new god raised over them all. A new dawn of stagnant death would rise over the city.

Peter smiled benevolently on his ardent followers and held his hands palm down over their heads in benediction. He continued humbly, "My dear children, your leader cannot thank you enough for giving him this momentous moment. You have delivered me from the hands of the blond butcher into the role of his Master and God-maker. No man has ever been so great as I am now . . . as we all are. Together we have climbed from obscurity to become the founders of a movement that will forge a new world out of the destruction of The End."

His voice grew stronger -- adamant. "Concede or be damned for all time. There will be no middle course, no room for indecision. Believe or be cast out into the gray waste for all time!"

His savage insanity softened into a smile of beguiling manipulation. His mouth smiled; his eyes did not. "And you, my precious children, will be the disciples of this new age. You will lead the young, the uncertain, to the moment of fulfilled destiny, as they become one with the image of the golden haired Champion, and understand the wisdom and truth of his ways. And over all this greatness, you shall have me as your guide and benefactor. Your true leader who has taken you from the darkness into the light!" He finished, right fist a salute to the heavens.

Cries of warped fanaticism issued above the continuous hum as the words of Peter drew the Brothers onwards in a mass hysterical response. Swaying from side to side, their long sleeves whipping up a minor dust storm, the Brothers moaned piercing notes of excitement. An eagerness for death became an almost tangible essence on the night air.

The Other listened from his place of hiding and watched in motionless disbelief. He felt old and tired. He had heard similar words from the lips of Darnall Houndsworth a long, long time ago. And he hadn't believed them then.

Nothing changes . . . . Meaning is the same, only the words are different. Power for power's sake. Man to rule over man. To rule over what? Those beings of the night are no more men than I am, and the city was decimated years ago. There is nothing left in this city worth having . . . . He settled his eye on the face of the Champion . . . Except that lone, blond man. He, himself, is worth a ransom to me . . . . He knows what I am, who I was. And if a man cannot know himself, then he is worthless and the reality around him is nothing more than a world of dreams and shadows.

A wraith of dusty, red-colored leather stepped through the shards of glass that hung precariously in the frame of the door. He walked forward a few steps and paused in the shadows of the hospital.

Out on the cart, Peter had motioned two of the faithful to come forward while another two crouched at the base of the cross and encircled the black leather ankles in their scrawny hands. The first two leaped aboard the cart and squirmed to the ends of the cross bar, dragging the leaden arms of the unconscious man wider. Palms turned outwards, they held his metalled forearms down against the wood.

Every red eye was upon the figure of Peter. He dominated the action on the cart with his pulsating fervor so much so that he appeared to be burning from within. Sweat beaded his face. His flesh quivered on his body as he lurched closer to the head of the Champion.

As the Brothers straightened the limp form over the structure of the cross, the Champion's face contorted into lines of fear and turmoil. The crease between his eyebrows deepened into a black line as his subconscious level sent warnings to his brain unheeded. Pale lips parted slightly and a soft sigh of irony disappeared on the cool night air. They stripped his hands of the fingerless gloves.

The Brethren leaned forward expectantly, and the hum of rising exultation was cut off in an instant as Peter drew from his robes a large iron hammer and four long steel nails. Cradled in the palm of his shaking hand, the nails clicked against the head of the hammer in a metallic ripple of sound.

The Brothers knelt back to raise a forest of torches above their heads. Ignited at one end of the line, the fire spread from torch to torch in seconds. The yellow light illuminated the set piece on the cart. The gold armor and the death rewards dangling from the Champion's head gleamed with a savage luster of their own.

Blue knight . . . White knight . . . Gold knight . . . . The Other stood poised on the edge of the torchlight and tensed to make his move.

Peter raised the hammer and nails over his head.

"Look my faithful, see the tools of our destiny. Each blow of this instrument will be like a seal of approval upon our cause, like the chiming of a new Liberty Bell -- only this time we shall enforce the liberty that only our religion will allow."

He shuffled painfully, his stump swinging oddly, toward the outstretched palm of the Champion's right hand. His fingers bent back against the wood, the Brothers waited for their leader to center the nail and bisect the lifeline etched in his flesh.

The moaning ceased yet again. Tension from the final moment made the watching Brothers lean forward.

The hammer rose, its round head glinting in the light and paused at the apex of its curved swing, in a split second of time.

Before it could descend, Peter was a corpse, held upright by his final contracted muscle spasm as a six-pointed star bit into his skull the full length of its radius. The dull thud of skull bone splitting stunned the faithful. Peter's eyes turned slowly upwards in his head and he pitched over backwards, a black heap of soiled robes and shattered dreams.

From the edge of the torchlight a rapid succession of hisses spat out four more stars of pointed death. The four Brothers arranged at the extremities of the cross died like their leader. Their skulls exploded under the impact of the razor sharp points.

The atmosphere of jubilation turned instantly to one of horror and disbelief. Where the leader of their New Image had stood was now a cart of bloodied corpses. The dawning of the new age had faded before it had even begun. Sheer terror had rooted them to the spot.

Close to the rickety vehicle, Joshua rose to his feet and stared at the dead and the neatly arranged pose of the flaxen-haired man. Laid out for death, he was the only living figure among the suddenly deceased.

A mortal trepidation made him turn away from the slack form of Peter and face the pitch-dark night. Red eyes traveling the perimeter of the torchlight, he soon detected the deeper shadows of a figure. A silver glint betrayed it further as its motion of drawing breath shifted the metal plates on its chest. Joshua raised a hand of long white fingers and pointed into the night.

His voice was a strangled whisper of shocked rage. "You . . . " His teeth bared in bitter hatred.

The Brothers wriggled around in the dirt and watched the Other step forward into the light. The silver rifle in his hands drew a bead on Joshua's head.

"Yes, me." One dark eyebrow raised, he strode through the suddenly cowed beings. As he passed, they shrank away from him. Torches slipped from slack fingers as a panic of self-preservation set in. Groups of terrified faithful clung to one another. Seconds ago, they had been united under one aim, one man, one mind. Now they were cast adrift, their leader a corpse, the New Image an idea that might have been.

And all this was brought about by a single man they had thought was a corpse himself.

Joshua edged away from the advancing Other. "You . . . . It can't be . . . . I saw your blood on the floor of the sewer. So much blood . . . . You couldn't have survived." Hand snaking out for the left arm of the Champion, he pulled on the limp hand and raised the limb into the air. "He . . . he is the only living Protector . . . . You were killed by him . . . . He had no other rival. There was only the Champion left -- the embodiment of the New Image."

The Other, ignoring him, mounted the cart and took up a commanding stance at the head of the cross. Inches from his legs, the calm face of the Champion lay against the ebony wood, totally oblivious to the action that centered upon him.

The Other let a second pass as he surveyed the assembly. "You are wrong, all of you so-called 'Brothers' -- I am very much alive, unlike your leader here." He let his eye drop to the corpse of Peter.

Joshua involuntarily followed his gaze, then swallowed sickly. The rest of the congregation began to edge away.

"And all of you have no claim against this man." The Other pointed down at the Champion as he shouted the words into the darkness, sure it would reach the groups of creeping faithful. "All of you out in the darkness, hear my words. This man is free; he is no longer owned, possessed, or manipulated by the evil men of this city. He has his rights, and he chooses to walk where he wishes. Any who have designs upon him are marked for death!" His words of warning rang out into the night and bounced off the hospital building in faint echoes.

"People like you gave us the right to kill. We became your protectors and cleaned out your city blocks. We will use those ingrained skills to win our freedom. You have trained us well, too well -- you cannot stop us!" The Other glowered over the squirming beings.

Joshua listened with a seething rage; finally he hung onto the cart and shook the lattice sides in a frenzy of anger. All that he had schemed and worked for had just evaporated with the death of Peter.

"But he is our messiah," came as a whine of injustice as he pointed at the senseless figure still draped across the wooden arms. "Peter said so! We were going to rule the city. The New Image was to be everything. Peter said -- !"

The Other kicked the hands away from the cart sides. "Your Peter is dead. Your religion is dead. And you will be dead unless you leave here now."

He held the pig-eyes of the cringing Brother in a silent look that emphasized the truth behind his words. Joshua read the meaning clearly and backed away as the rifle took up a direct line on his forehead.

"And that is a sacred truth you can believe in." The Other smiled in a cold grin of hostility. His next words were a barely heard whisper. "Get away from here."

The rifle hammer clicked back.

And the circle of devout faithful staggered to their feet and fled. The stampede of Brothers over the pavement and sidewalks bounced further echoes off the dangerous buildings. Shadows of men blended into the shadows of the night, and soon only the distant patter of retreat came to the Other's ears.

Under his rifle sight stood the last remaining figure. Joshua. A look of intense malevolence seared across the gap between Protector and religious fanatic. Then, lips curling down in an admission of defeat, Joshua took one last look at the sleeping Champion, turned on his heel and walked away into the night. Unlike the others, he left with a dignified ease.

The rifle sight was trained on his shoulders every step. At the junction of an intersection, the smudge of shadow turned back once and surveyed the remains of the New Image. Then he faced east and stepped off into the unknown of the city blocks.

The Other knew he wouldn't be back. The rest didn't have the guts or the weaponry to attack him. When the dead suddenly rises up out of the night and changes the order of the scheme of things, a being of any wisdom walks and keeps on walking. Joshua was that -- wise and alive. Beaten but not a quitter.

He's probably planning a new messiah already. Another commune protector . . . whoever succeeds the Champion. He glanced down at the man on the ebony wood. He'll look a lifetime and find nothing comparable.

Sinking down onto one knee, the Other felt for the pulse under the plaits obscuring the throat. It beat too slowly, but it was steady. He rested back and lowered his head onto the cross.

A shiver of reaction raised the gooseflesh on his skin. At his feet were the tools from Peter's hands. He picked up one of the steel nails and held it before his eye.

A martyr . . . to their crucifixion. A messiah for their New Image. Just another role to be played out for the dangerously insane that infest this city. He sighed miserably. How many more roles have been written for us before we are truly free? Fate plays against us . . . winning becomes increasingly hard the further along the path we run. Can we ever outrun them?

He threw the nails and the hammer as hard and as far as he possibly could. They clattered into the darkness. A vacuum of silence enveloped the cart as the area became deserted. The Other put his rifle down and began to scan the body of the Champion with a critical eye.

The five needles in his left leg stood out like a miniature ladder. Oh God, what have they shot you with? The Other was off the cart with the speed of light, feeling his injuries plague him again. He'd been oblivious to them moments earlier, occupied with other things. Now they came back in deep aches and twinges of pain. Forgetting himself, he concentrated on the senseless man. Beside the tightly-leathered leg, he squatted on the driveway and tenderly touched one of the needles.

The Champion shifted a little.

On closer inspection, the Other could see they were fine steel tubes that had once held something, probably a liquid.

He raised his left leg for the huge step up onto the back of the cart and hauled himself aboard. The bodies of the two Brothers were followed by the sticky corpse of Peter as he began to heave them over the side. They fell heavily onto the driveway. Jumping down, he dragged them one-by-one along the curve toward the road. Dead meat had always attracted the starving mutants and rats. He didn't want any form of company right at this moment.

By the time the five bodies were left in the gutter, he was damp with sweat and his chest was protesting from the exertion. The strain on his right arm had torn the clotted wound, and the bandages were turning a sodden red.

He weaved toward the wagon and hung onto the sides as the world shifted out of focus. His eye slid shut and he let his head fall backward. A deadly tiredness ached in his bones, and he felt too hot and sick.

The night breeze stroked his cheeks and cooled him a little. Pushing away from the sides, he wobbled to the tail of the roughly-fashioned vehicle.

The Champion lay as he had been placed. Classic pose, ready and waiting for the blows.

The Other watched the shallow rise and fall of the chest under the black and gold armor, and hoped from the bottom of his soul that it was a sleep of the sedated and not the sleep of the comatose as they slid from this world into the next.

His bottom lip trembled minutely and he bit it still.

Climbing back onto the cart took longer than his descent. Knees crawling over the roughly sanded boards, he struggled up to his feet and rested against the head of the cross. His hair was in his eye so he shook it back and made to haul the inert body of the Champion off the ebony wood. The man was a deadweight of solid physique and combat suit.

The two Protectors sank to the bare boards as the weight of the senseless body transferred from the cross to the arms of the Other. The jolt didn't even cause the victim to stir.

Another seed of dismay was sown in the Other.

He removed the disarray of plaits from the pale face and set his head over to one side, in case he gagged on his own tongue. His flesh was a little cool under the Other's fingers. The parted lips were dry and almost translucent. The long fair eyelashes settled over the gray shadows under his eyes and didn't flicker once.

The Other got his back under the cross of joined wooden beams and heaved it up and backwards. The wide shape rose up into the night sky on a curve, reached the zenith of that curve, and toppled downward into the dirt. Without looking back, he shifted to the left side of the Champion and held his hand over the needles. To give himself a moment, he flexed his fingers, then swiftly pulled out the five steel darts.

As they popped out of the flesh and leather, the Other saw the tiny barbs on the points.

A tiny bubble of blood appeared at every puncture hole. It held there to congeal to a scab. The Champion twitched once as the last one was drawn from his leg.

The Other felt a need to write again the letters he had inscribed on the plane window. He knew that they were important -- had been important years ago. This man should read them . . . and then he would somehow understand.

He looked toward the dark night sky and picked out the pinpricks of starlight in the heavens.

His face dropped and he looked again at the slack form of the Champion.

He leaned back against the inside of the wagon and pulled his knees under his chin. A freezing sensation buried itself deep in his bones. His flesh felt hot, but his inner self was cold.

Chin rubbing against the smooth leather of his knees, he watched the rise and fall of the Champion's chest. He watched the slightest facial movement and flare of a nostril as he sucked down another lungful of air. And the Other found himself counting every single breath. Each one he considered a mutual triumph.

He willed the man who held his memories safe to live for the both of them. He now knew that one without the other spelled only an eternity of further loneliness.

His brows almost met as his metalled face betrayed his inner worry.

The light wind plucked at the stray wisps of hair that had pulled loose on the Champion's head. It teased them playfully across his straight nose.

The Other watched the twists and turns, mesmerized. And he remembered the times when that blond hair had blown loose in the winds and sunshine of the Time Before. It had been shorter then, but just as pale blond and fine. And when the man was ill or over-exerted, the damp, musky sweat of his body made the ends curl naturally.

The dark tousled head buried itself into the tightly drawn knees and tried to commit the present image to the half shadows of memory. Eye screwed tight shut against the nighttime, he chased the fleeting remembrance . . . .

And arrived at the image of a young man standing on a sweep of steps that led into a special kind of college or academy. He was dressed with a casual exclusiveness, suitcase in large hand. Face tilted upwards, his bright blue eyes traced the outline of the imposing building, and came to rest upon an equally young man in a third story window. He looked him directly in the eye, a strong look of self-confidence and strength. Then the wind caught in his long blond hair and obscured his view momentarily. He'd brushed it aside and back, and then disappeared from the sight of the dark-haired man as he entered the building. When the watcher in the window had seen him again, the long blond locks had been trimmed to an acceptable regulation length . . . .

The Other sighed as a trail of blurred images disappeared back into his subconscious. I'm not going to lose him again . . . not ever. I've missed so much time already.

The last burning torch on the tarmac guttered and died. The blackness enveloped the cart, accompanied immediately by an animal moan from the darkness of the street.

Alert, the Other leaned forward and grasped his rifle. The sudden movement sent a jolt of pain up his right arm, into his shoulder and neck. Wincing, he settled back carefully, the rifle across his knees. Then he remembered the treasures he had found in the pharmacy, and the reason they had come here in the first place.

He looked back at the hospital. It towered over the little cart like a giant monolith.

The throbbing started up again in his arm with a vengeance, and sent his thoughts along different lines. If the Champion came around they'd be able to move on, get away. But if the Other was sick himself, it could hold them back, and the city was already hunting for them.

He pulled the small bag onto his knee and unbuckled the flap. Inside, tucked next to the water can, were the ampoules of procaine penicillin and the disposable hypodermics. At the other side were the containers of antiseptic wash.

He drew them out and set them next to his left side. Picking up one of the bottles, he poured the contents liberally over his wounded leg, his injured arm, and his hands. He tossed the bottle over the side. Next, he delicately picked up the white packet and felt the form of the needles under the thin layer. Tearing on the top strip, he pulled away the paper and screwed it into a tight ball. It slipped from his left hand as he became preoccupied with the white and transparent plastic that made up the body of the syringe. The long, fine surgical needle caught the pale moonlight in a line along its shaft.

He looked past the syringe to the still features of the Champion.

. . . Though some of it I'm going to salvage.

He broke the seal on the ampoule and inserted the needle. As he made to draw up some of the liquid, he paused and tried to remember the exact dosage Selkirk had prescribed.

He drew up what he hoped was the correct dosage, watched the air bubble rise, and squirted some of the liquid from the fine end of the needle. His heartbeat increased dramatically and he forced back the thought that he could be wrong. He wasn't Selkirk, master of medicine; he was a rogue protector in a roughly fashioned wagon, in the driveway of an unsafe hospital. The Champion was unconscious and he was alone.

He shrugged away the disturbing thoughts, accepting this as just another risk, and selected a place on his leg that would be suitable for the shot. Selkirk had often used the developed muscle on the outer side of his thigh. He lowered his left leg straight and pulled a knife from its place on his back. A sharp nick in the leather and he had enough space to work. More antiseptic wash followed as he washed the area of skin as best as he could. And then back to the hypodermic.

Taking a deep breath, he poised the needle above his flesh, trusted he'd got the angle right, and stabbed down. The steel shaft slid in and he depressed the plunger with a steady evenness he had seen used so many times. The needle drew out slowly, and it was over.

He cast the plastic syringe aside and let out a pent up breath of nervous tension. A spasm of deep pain accompanied the withdrawal as the muscle protested the invasion.

The Champion's eyes moved rapidly under his lids for a moment, then ceased. The Other pulled his knee back up to his chest, encircled his legs with his arms and held the rifle tightly. He settled down to his vigil . . . .

The night began to pale toward another pasty pink, gray dawn as the hours dragged by. The Other moved little all the darkened time. His rifle remained clutched in his hands and his eye traveled the driveway entrance and roadway as the sneaking black shapes of the city night crept forward cautiously. Tiny red pinpricks of light that he identified, not as the remnants of the Brothers, but as the ravenously hungry rats. The vermin did not fear the alien invasion of men into their territory; in fact they welcomed it -- men always left signs of their passing. Usually it was edible. The bodies on the road were edible now. Fresh.

Once during the length of his watch, the Other caught the swiftest glimpse of white mutant eyes. They hovered at the very edge of the hospital boundary, peering from behind a crumbling wall and then darting down again. The strange scent of the Protectors' bodies on the night breeze must have alerted them to the dangers of the two men on the cart. They were not the usual prey. Their odor was of blood, sweat, and gun oils. Beings not to be tackled by the timid mutant out on a nighttime scavenge.

A pitter-patter of deformed feet over loose rubble told the listening silvered man that the curious had departed to the relative safety of another city block. Minutes later, they wailed out a long solitary warning that made the hairs on the back of his head rise, and then there was only the severe silence of vacant territory.

And still the Champion made no move or sign. He slept like the dead.

Purpled outlines of ramshackle buildings came into relief against the vaguely warming sky. The Other knew that another dawn was imminent. Another day. What would this day bring?

A second chance? Or the seal on a solitary life?

He stretched his legs out in front of him, forced his stiff knees straight, and then climbed to his feet. Rifle still in hand, he perched on the side of the cart and scanned the surrounding area in a slow panorama.

In the weak light, the area that had hosted the final performance of the New Image was nothing more than a cracked driveway of rusting ambulances. The torches lay like blackened matches; the cross was chipped and splintered, a slung together effort. Its single foot had been damaged when it had been lowered carelessly or dragged over rough ground. Any sinister overtones that it might have once possessed had been lost during the waning of the moon.

The Other turned his back on it and scrutinized the Champion instead. His face showed signs of grazes and bruising where they had mishandled his body on the stairs. His lips were dry and cracking; the lines on the ivory flesh had become more pronounced.

The Other pulled up his light canvas bag and withdrew the water bottle. He shook it and noted how the level had already dropped. It didn't matter now; he'd find more later. Unscrewing the cap, he knelt beside the pale head of ceremonial plaits, and slid a hand under the neck. Bottle to the broad lips, he poured a small measure down the dust-dry throat. A second passed and then the Champion swallowed greedily. More water followed, a little at a time, and then the Other lowered the slumbering form to the wooden boards.

He settled back on the heels of his boots, took a long drink himself, and replaced the cap of the bottle just as the man at his side sighed very quietly and rolled onto his right side. The Other shifted out of the way, making the wagon sway slightly, and watched the sleeping man like a hawk.

Black leather knees crooked, the Champion rolled into a more natural sleeping position. And upon reflection, his color was marginally better than in the early hours of the night.

Trying to control his inner surge of hope, the Other felt for the pulse in the neck and found the laboring strain was gone, replaced by a steady rhythm of deep sleep.

A heartfelt breath of relief escaped the silvered lips of the Northern Sector man. He wiped his dusty face, fingers tracing the metal edge of his plates, and settled down in easier contentment to wait.

He didn't know he'd fallen asleep. He couldn't remember vainly trying to keep his leaden eyelid open. But sometime during the morning, the man of silver had relaxed momentarily, and sleep had ambushed him in ways far more subtle than a protector's attack. It had numbed his senses and he'd pitched slowly over to his left side, not quite falling to the cart floor. A relaxed heap of dozing pouches and leather strips. He'd needed the sleep, craved for it, but he'd refused to let his body have any respite until the Champion was conscious. But his body had had other ideas and ensnared him in a comfortable rest of dreamless sleep, free from worries or cares.

What woke him now was an alert to his sixth sense that something unusual was happening within his vicinity. He jerked upright, rifle still grasped tightly in his hands. And blinked away the fuzz of half sleep.

The Champion was sitting up. He was staring into the palms of his hands searching -- searching for what? His long braids agitatedly sang as the man shook with some inner reaction.

It was this jarring noise that had disturbed the sleeping Other. He watched the strange movements of the Champion again, as he peered first into his right palm and then into his left. Soft words muttered from his mouth.

"The holes . . . the holes . . . where are the holes?" His bright blue eyes held an expression of devastation.

Disturbed, he started fractionally as he raised his head to the towering edifice of the hospital. His lips moved again but nothing emerged.

The Other leaned forward and peered into the outstretched palms himself. "There are no holes, Champion. They failed in their mission." He tried to lower the arms of golden armor, but found them suffused with inner strength.

"But the hospital says there are." The Territory Protector turned to face him, his eyes focused upon nothing. He was suffering a wakeful nightmare.

"What -- ?" The Other looked between the Champion and the silent cracked structure that loomed over them.

The Champion nodded knowingly, then spoke conspiratorially. "A place of the diseased and the dead, I know. I was trapped there once . . . . The New Image is fed by the dead . . . dead in mind and thought . . . diseased in their belief." His features crumbled from wide-eyed fear to self-pitying misery. "I am not their messiah . . . not their martyr. I am owned, I am not free . . . . They could not have me anyway."

An anger flared within the Other. "You are free! You left the Territory. They don't own you anymore. Believe me, you are a free man!"

The Champion savored the words and nodded very slowly, then his eyes darted suspiciously back to the hospital. "But the hospital says -- "

"The hospital says nothing! It is a shell of bricks and mortar; it says nothing to you."

The Champion persisted with his private horror. "I saw it speak; heard the words from its windows, from its doors." His fists clenched in a turmoil of disorientation.

"You heard your own mind -- the sleeping drugs . . . and probably the LSD. I said it would happen, could happen again." The Other spoke as persuasively as possible. "It happened in the Greyhounds, remember?"

"The Greyhounds . . . Rospo . . . " His blue eyes slid shut as he tried to erase the image of the perverted fence that came to mind. A groan of disgust erupted from deep within as he remembered Case's attack, followed by a whisper of fear. "And what does Peter say?"

"Peter says very little -- he's dead!" The revelation was spat out.

"Dead?" His voiced became slurred again.

"Yeah." The Other watched as the black and gold body slid back onto the wooden boards.

The spaced-out expression in the Champion's eyes dimmed, but no recognition took its place. He held his hands aloft again, palms facing outwards. "No holes?" He shook his head negatively in an effort to encourage the correct response from the Other.

The Other shook his head. "No holes."

The Champion's eyes half shut and in a small voice he said, "I have a scar on this one." He held up his right palm. A thin red line could clearly be seen.

Words of comfort and reason came easily to the Other's lips so suddenly he surprised even himself. "You got that injury in an alley, a long time ago. It needed stitching. I drove you. It wasn't serious."

A faint smile crossed the Champion's face. "Ah, but it was . . . it became very serious indeed . . . " And he was asleep again.

The Territory Protector rolled back onto his side and continued to sleep off the drugs and the fear of the previous night.

However, he left the Other with strange thoughts to question. The reference to the hand wound becoming serious was to puzzle him all the rest of the day, but he couldn't place it in context.

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

The evil countenance of the woman Owner spread into an expression of acceptable delight as her eyes fixed upon the curved and fissured walls of the ancient baseball stadium. She'd walked all the long night, through the fearsome wastes of the city, to find this place. Now it lay before her, a crumbling mausoleum to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Heroes of many, gone like all the rest.

The four secondary protectors at her back scoured the ruin with their eyes and then deemed it relatively safe to approach. Elysian Park Avenue, now of uneven surface, led them directly on.

The sun had climbed into an insipid sky of almost predictable gray-pinks dissolving to a sickly yellow as the morning wound on. As the small party crossed into the shadow of the stadium, the temperature dropped markedly. Not just from the lack of heat from the sun, but from an inner expectancy within themselves.

The Owner knew who lived here. The squad of Territory protectors had a good idea. Nervously alert and suspicious, they guarded their Owner under the wide arches, through the rusting, narrow pay gates, and into the long tunnels and corridors that made up the inner labyrinth in the curve of the stadium.

In her long evening dress, covered in a layer of ash at the hem, the woman patted her gray mane of hair into a tidier shape, and set off up the tunnel that led to the open field of play. A flight of chipped stone stairs led up to the patch of pale morning sky that became wider as she appeared at the edge of the seating and took in the circular vista.

The huge wheel of seats and aisles was laid out before her, shabby and ill kept. Inside, the shadows were deep and black, and cut across the steep incline of seats. The curve of the roof at the top cast down more shadows, but not enough to obscure the occupants of the stadium.

In small groups, they were clustered around spluttering fires that they had lit on various levels. Keeping well into the shadowed side, they were arranged in huddled collections of ragged, bandaged beings. Their stench was unmistakable, even from where the woman Owner was standing. It was the odor of decay and death. This was the place the diseased and leprous came to spend their last days. Cast out of the communes, they fled here for a measure of protection and company among their own kind.

Silence enveloped the arena as every eye alighted upon the elegant figure standing in one of the entrance tunnels. No one moved. If anything, they huddled even closer and awaited her next move.

The woman slowly turned in a circle and took in every remnant of the diseased generation. She saw their tattered clothes and knew that they swathed the decay of their bodies from their own eyes. Practically everyone was mummified in this manner. Those that weren't, the more bold and lively among them, soon would be. An all-consuming dread shook her to the core as she compared the foul stench of the sick bodies, and the increasingly powerful aroma of her own flesh. They were one and the same.

The writing was more than on the wall; for her, it had become a gold-embossed invitation.

The four protectors had fanned out among the seats, and tried in vain to cover the vast number of immobile inhabitants.

A female over to the right moved a scrawny arm and stirred a thick sludge in a dented pan over a fire. Four hammers on guns clicked back. The ragged woman stared at them dully. Her life was of no consequence now; she kept on stirring.

White hand a little unsteady, the Owner motioned the Territory guards to lower their weapons. She had other business here besides killing the already dead.

Her green eyes raked the multitude of rising beings again and she drew a blank. The one man she searched for was not among the crowd. If he'd been there, she'd have spotted him. He was a myth to many of the commune dwellers, but she knew he was real.

She took a deep breath and shouted out his name.

"Drew! Alex Drew! I have come to speak. Show yourself."

A tension rippled among the crippled watchers. No one called on the master of the stadium. No one made demands of him.

She searched the sides of the arena again and found no sign of movement. He lived here; she knew that. This was the last refuge for the abominably deformed and corroded. It was the only sanctuary left open to them. Here they could molder away their last days. All were the same if at different degrees of sickness. Some stayed for months or years, others lasted only weeks. But they all bought their way in here with their last worldly goods, or they literally sold themselves into the service of Alex Drew.

A light breeze tugged at her skirts and pulled more of her hair loose. A jewel fell unheeded to the stone steps, as it tumbled from one of her gray tresses. The elegant decorations of beauty were of no matter to her now. She had her mind set on another course -- that of revenge.

Above her came the soft hiss of compressed air and she turned expectantly. A tunnel entrance cut high into the seating was the source of that sound. It was hidden in the shade, a large, dark rectangle. The sound of grit being trod underfoot made her take a step upwards. She raised her arched eyebrows and tried to guess what he would look like.

The squad of protectors formed a semi-circle around their Owner, and trained their sights upon the tunnel opening.

If they'd bothered to look, they'd have found every eye in the stadium was also drawn to that rectangle.

The hissing whisper grew louder and she gripped the folds of her black dress with tension.

A voice gasped out of the darkness.

"Tell your men to lower their weapons, or Hurg will surely kill them." Each word was spoken with halting effort, interspersed with gasps and hisses of escaping air. "It is hardly good manners to threaten me in my own home."

The figure that emerged from the darkness was the bizarre creation of a mad scientist. Drew was of human shape, but hardly of human appearance. His whole body was covered in a strange exoskeleton. Dark, oxblood brown, it encased his arms, legs, and torso and was pitted and dented through years of violent living, a symbol of the savagery that made up the man's life. The stains of death he never washed clean.

Running over this heavily metalled body was a series of calipers, pistons, and harnesses that enabled the whole contraption to move. As each limb changed position, the air trapped in the cylinders was forced out by the pistons, and then sucked in by the newly created vacuum. A double set of pistons ran down the outer edge of his legs and arms. It was almost as if his body were held within a webbed framework of metal.

This body shell rose as high as his neck, covering his flesh up to the tip of his chin. His movements were fluid, but slow, and his weight must have been considerable.

Drew smiled coldly at her approach. His face was scarred and disfigured from the years of doing battle with the city, and his eyes bulged noticeably due to a thyroid disorder. It gave the disconcerting impression that his eyes were boring into your mind as he listened intently. Thin wisps of hair trailed from the base of his skull and down his back, most of his hair having dropped out years ago. It was still that curious silver gray.

The climb up to his level was steep, and by the time the woman had stepped up beside him, she was flushed and breathing a little fast. She smiled fleetingly back and clasped her hands before her in some semblance of relaxed attitude.

The hissing had stopped, the sound only issuing when he moved around.

"Well?" Drew prompted a conversation.

She narrowed her eyes, deciding whether or not to trust him. Finally, a click of long red-tipped fingers and the squad of armed men lowered the weapons and moved into a tight, expectant group.

"That's much nicer, my dear." Drew stepped back and indicated another figure in the darkness. "You see, Hurg would have killed them, like I said."

At first she could make out neither shape, form, nor gender of the figure until she readjusted her expectations. Then she saw him all too clearly.

Hurg was a giant of a man. Seven feet tall at least. Built like an armored truck, as wide as a pair of double doors, with muscles on him usually found on comic book super heroes. One swat of his hand would have broken her neck or stove in her skull. Hunched under the curve of the tunnel ceiling, his black eyes watched her every move. Jaw of iron, he licked his lips and nodded in acknowledgement. His long Hessian robe trailed about his large boots, frayed, and tattered. In his hands he held a rifle that looked like a toy.

"Hurg is a great asset to the stadium. We never have any discipline problems here." Drew grinned at his personal bodyguard then turned back to the Owner.

She failed to notice his expectant expression, so hypnotized was she by the enormous man in the shadows.

Drew reached out a metal-gloved hand and touched her cheek. Startled, she stepped back, her face clouding to a menacing scowl.

"Don't touch me, Drew." Cold words of little mutual tolerance.

"If you insist." He turned around slowly and set off along the tunnel. "Come away from the entrance. The seats have ears . . . ."

Wheezing body of pistons and cylinders, Drew rasped away into the darkness of the tunnel. Hurg, close at his heels, made no sound as he followed.

The room they entered was a spartan display of simple furniture. A wooden table with Formica top in faked wood grain. Two hard, high backed chairs of ancient lineage. A lit torch in a bracket cast long, wavering shadows over the naked walls.

Drew was sitting on one of the chairs, arms resting on the tabletop with an easy casualness. Hurg settled in a corner at his back and watched the woman Owner carefully. The only sound came from the faint hiss of air as Drew raised an arm and indicated the other chair.

At length he asked, "What brings you out of the Territory Commune, Owner? We so rarely have visitors of your importance." A thought struck him and his face brightened, causing his eyes to bug even further. "Or are you sick as well? Have they sent you here for good, an armed escort at your back to ensure you come?"

He was uncomfortably close to the truth. She clasped the neck of her dress to hide any telltale signs of mold and shook her head in a half amused way. "No, oh, no. I'm here for quite a different reason." She looked him levelly in the eye. "I have a job for you."

Drew settled against the back of the chair and pursed his lips in thought. "So the Champion really has gone rogue."

The statement of undeniable truth, delivered in a flat off-hand way, almost took her breath away. She tried to hide her surprise behind the cool aura with which she shrouded herself. But Drew did not miss the light of unexpectedness fire her eyes. She smiled in acknowledgement of his foresight, but the warmth rose no higher than her crimsoned lips.

"That's right. My -- the Owners' -- Champion has decided to leave the Territory. We have no wish to lose such a valuable asset. We want him -- "

" -- back?" Drew cut in.

She tossed the suggestion about in her mind for a moment and tried to foresee what life in the Commune would be like with the executioner back under her rule. But she knew her days were numbered, and she would never have the chance to enjoy him to the full. "No . . . we don't want him back. He's too dangerous. He thinks independently and -- "

"Ah, I can see how that would be dangerous to the Commune. It wouldn't do for original thoughts to rear their ugly heads, now would it?" He smirked at her disparagingly.

"You ought to know, Drew. This place is run on similar lines!" Her patience was limited with menials at the best of times. Recently, she'd become even more short-tempered, and right at this moment she didn't want to be teased and verbally played with by this man.

Drew nodded in agreement; his skin folded into ridges against the metal neck of the suit.

"We understand power . . . and how to manipulate people." A hiss from beneath the table told her he'd shifted his legs into a more relaxed position.

"Yes, it makes the gray days a little brighter," she agreed with him. "But the Champion has seen fit to take his own rules . . . play his own hand of power. He has gone rogue." Her face betrayed an inner twist of misery, bitterness, and fury.

Drew watched the way her hands clasped and unclasped, the knuckles changing from red flesh to bone white as her grip tightened and relaxed. She was highly agitated and found her temper hard to control. "Rogue? Then he is dangerous," he said.

Now that the truth was out she powered on with her demands. "And I want him exterminated. He's taken up with the Protector of the Northern Sector, and my source of information has led me to believe they plan to leave the city."

She rose from the table and moved to the back of her chair, her hands encircling the ornate carvings at either end. "He mustn't get away. One stand of defiance against us that proves successful, and we are finished. The efficiency and equilibrium of the Territory depend on all the people being sure of their place, their status, and their belief in our rule." Her voice became louder as she spewed out her reasons for coming to the stadium. Her ringed hands tapped on the hard wood to lend emphasis to her points.

"It only takes one man to stand up and defy us, and the seeds of decay will have been sown. That kind of lucky, open victory could fire the imaginations of even the most subservient. I can't allow it -- the Territory would crumble. And I can't permit that just when the Commune is about to ascend to the position of prime commune in the city."

"Really?" Drew made the question sound like a sarcastic statement of disbelief, but he was curious as to her plans.

"Yes. The Plaza is no longer a contender to the position. Selkirk and Houndsworth are dead -- their Protector burned down the Plaza building with the help of the Champion. It could be you next, or the Territory. We have to be rid of them."

So involved with her own speech was she, that she failed to see the clouding of Drew's face, the paling of his pallor.

"Selkirk, dead?" He looked at her and saw her absent nod of assent. "My God, at last."

The woman was about to continue. Instead, she stopped and wondered at the last comment from the seated man. "Why should you care?"

Drew struggled to stand, his calipers locking into the upright position. "Because I am Selkirk's first mistake."

She looked at him, stunned. All the answers as to how he became so disfigured and deformed became abundantly clear. He had been experimented on for the furtherance of the New Medicine.

Drew's voice shook marginally. "All that he learned from me, he used to create his new killing machine, his name was -- "

"The Other . . . . " She supplied the name involuntarily, and could not dodge the look of penetrating question that appeared in the overly round eyes of the man before her. "That is the Protector who has burned down the Plaza. He now runs with the Champion."

"The Other . . . . So, the experiments were worth it. Selkirk did manage to create a better, improved specimen, and he took my place as commune favorite . . . ."

Air surging forth from the slide of pistons in cylinders, the man began to pace the floor in thought. He had no love for the Other. A taste for revenge festered upon a vengeful hunger. "Strange that those two should team up. They're so different."

"The Champion failed to kill the Other on one of his last missions, but it makes no difference now. The Plaza is gone, anyway, and we can take the city without a rival." She watched his pacing curiously. "However, we need those two stamped out before the dwellers get similar ideas and begin to desert the Territory. I need those people . . . every one of them."

Drew stopped and confronted her. "But you used to need the Champion, did you not? He was always the precious possession, was he not? Surely you could retrain him, drug him back into line? All the time and effort would be lost if I exterminated him." Drew had accepted the reason for disposing of the Other -- commune-less protectors who played with fire were a decided menace that the city could do without. But to discard the ultimate killing machine of the Territory was another matter.

"Even if you could no longer trust him, surely you could breed from -- " And then he saw the look of revelation in her acid green eyes. He had exposed the raw nerve of inner reason -- a basic truth.

A thunderous expression of violent anger had flashed over her neatly re-made face. It spoke a multitude, and Drew could fill any blanks himself quite adequately.

"So, you've tried using him, have you?"

She stared him out, ignoring his hissing advance toward her.

"Or did he turn you down?"

Her eyes fell away.

Drew swallowed slowly. A woman scorned is a violence unleashed and beyond control. She wants her pound of flesh before he leaves the city.

She tried to justify herself. "He failed to come as ordered. I -- we were left waiting like foolish virgins. No man casts that kind of slight. He must be removed, permanently."

Drew knew he had found her weakness in her truth. She would give anything to have him dead. "What will you pay me?" It was time he looked to his reward. "I don't work cheaply."

"Anything you want." Concise and to the point.

The price was high, but the payment would cover it.

"Hurg and I want to return to a commune." He looked at his companion, but sensed the slow nod. "Where there are women, young women."

"Two gold shields and you can take your pick." She knew she had him hooked. He wanted a commune life again, and he wanted the death of the Other.

He nodded in agreement. "Where will I find them? Does your informant know that?" Suction wheezed as he used his arms to lower himself to his seat again.

"You'll find them tonight, eventide, in the old estate house. You know, the one that used to belong to the Orange County commune before they got the wasting disease and died. They'll be there to meet Rospo Case. The Other is injured and needs some drugs."

Drew smiled at the unexpected advantage. "What a shame. Nothing serious, I hope?"

"Can you make it there by nightfall?" She couldn't see how he could move across the city blocks fast enough to be on time for the meet.

"I have my methods, don't I, Hurg?" Hurg grunted knowingly in reply. Drew went on. "I've a Peterbilt truck, diesel in the tanks." He knew the bombshell would stun her.

She held onto the back of the chair, her lips parted slightly in surprise. "A Peterbilt . . . with diesel?" She shook her head in disbelief, gray hair sweeping her shoulders.

Drew explained brightly, "Some people will give up all sorts just so's they can die peacefully in this stadium." He became philosophical. "I guarantee them a kind of well-protected passing into the next life. It may not have any of the finer creature comforts, but at least they're not on the streets as pickings for the mutants."

His words washed over her as she thought of all the fuel, so close and yet beyond her reach. She'd forgotten what exhaust fumes smelled like.

"We'll be there," the man at the table assured her.

Drew's final speech attracted her attention once more. Pulling herself together, she headed for the door. Reaching to open it, her arm stretched clear of the long sleeve and the mold at her wrists became visible. Hastily, she covered the sores with a black, frilled cuff. He's missed my beauty . . . . I'd never have him now.

"One more thing, Drew. I want proof that he's dead. Bring me his manhood as well." A swirl of black fabric and she was gone.

Hurg and Drew listened to her feet pad away down the empty corridor.

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

The Champion popped down another dose of Dexedrine, and turned his back on the cross lying on the forecourt. He brushed his long plaits from his shoulders, and tucked the box of stimulants into his own small bag. As his fingers buckled the flap down, he looked up to see the Other waiting for him at the end of the driveway.

The midday sun was high overhead, casting short shadows over the area. The man in the dark red leather suit wiped a hand across his face, and then transferred the layer of sweat to his leg.

The blond knew that it wasn't just the mild heat of the day that was making him sweat. The wound was infected, and he was coming down with a fever. Maybe we ought to stay near a drug supply? I could keep dosing him until he gets better. He paused beside the heavily bandaged arm. "We can stay longer. You can try the germicide solutions on your arm as well." He waited for a reaction.

"I've already got a bottle of cetrimide and acridine. Selkirk used to clean out some of my less messy wounds with them -- they seemed to work. And I've got the penicillin." He glanced at the Champion. "I'll be okay; just give it time to work, huh?"

"Okay, but we'll meet with Rospo if you still want the eye."

The Other nodded his head. "Yes, I still want the eye." He set off a couple of steps from the hospital, the Champion falling in behind him. "But, if it looks dangerous, we leave. I don't trust that sewer rat. He'd like to double-cross us."

The domineering shape of the hospital began to shrink in size the faster they walked. Occasionally, the Champion looked back. He looked at the torches left in the driveway; he looked at the large ebony cross, and he looked at the body of Peter, thinking long and hard. Finally, he spoke.

"Thanks." He found the word hard to express, and yet he'd never meant anything so much in years.

The Other shrugged. "I listened to his speech and didn't like it, so I killed him. He was no great asset." It was a shallow non-committal thing to say, and he felt inadequate in his display of feeling. His voice dropped a little and he finished with, "I -- I didn't want to lose my first partner for what seems like a lifetime . . . just when it was beginning to feel right. He was going to take that away -- No one deprives me of what I want anymore."

The Champion looked at the Other a moment, then back to the street. Partner . . . he called me partner. We're a team again, at last. "I'm glad you killed him. I'm not cut out for Messiah-hood; not after all the years of being top of my profession."

The Other stepped up a piece of uneven curbstone, and his free hand strayed to the gold shield on his chest. "The profession used to be different, the exact opposite, I think."

The Champion saw the movement and knew what he meant. "The policeman of the Time Before would never have survived in the New Society. He'd have gone under."

"We didn't." The Other had an uncomfortable knack of persisting with a point possibly best left unpursued. "We survived."

"Yeah, but at what cost?" The Territory Protector looked from himself to the strangely metalled man at his side. Himself a junkie-killer, the dark-haired man a mixture of cyborg and killer. It all came down to the same thing: they were killers -- murderers.

The Plaza man's shoulders drooped depressively. "I think Selkirk sold my integrity, and blurred my divisions between right and wrong." His face was pensive, and, unconsciously, he wiped away another trickle of sweat.

"There isn't anything of right and wrong left. No more Justice. The rule is to survive, and we learned that better than any." The braids bounced over his back as they both picked up the pace, eager to be away from the derelict city blocks.

The Other pondered the last part of their conversation. Survive . . . . I'm glad I survived now. I used to wish I was dead. Used to pray for it. "Survival, yeah, though Selkirk gave me an edge over everyone else. Immortality, for a time, gives you a strange feeling of power. A fearless, foolhardy streak entered my character. I'd stand alone and face anything -- that's why I was alone down in the sewer the night you came. I didn't worry about dying. They made me whole again and I lived. Or, I died and I'd be glad. It was the only thing that gave me any measure of respect. I could always die on them in the end. I just hated the way they altered me -- all the metal plates, the tiny rivets. I look like a machine."

The Champion caught the glint of sunlight off the silver strips and felt something similar to the compassion he'd felt in the Pits. "Machine or not, I'm glad you came back." It took an eternity, but I'm glad you came back . . . . I've missed you so, Starsky.

The Other heard the words and believed the sentiment. He thought back to last night when he'd waited alone, wondering if the Champion were dying and helpless to do anything. He'd felt that nasty betrayal of all his hopes and desires sneak up on him once again. It had happened to him so many times -- so many times over the years.

"Me, too, Territory Protector, me, too." He smiled slightly, as best he could. "Come on, let's get that eye and get the hell out."

Side by side, they walked through the deserted canyons of the city blocks. Their shadows lengthened in the waning sun of the afternoon and they took a private pleasure in watching the two shapes crisscross as they walked together.

But the nighttime cannot be stopped from coming, and the pattern of Fate was working hand-in-hand with others in the city, against them.

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

The old estate house had once been beautiful, in a classic style. Dirtied by the holocaust and bomb-damaged structurally, it had served for a short while as commune house for a group known as the Orange County Commune Dwellers. In the third year after The End many had become sick and died. At first they nursed each other, then as the numbers of graves multiplied at the back of the house, anyone still healthy enough to walk had fled before they, too, became a mound at the back. As for the empty commune house, disease of any kind was a great deterrent, and no one had trespassed here in years.

Many of the semi-art nouveau windows had managed to retain their intricate designs of colored glass. Fractured in places, the patterns and pictures hung in the frames with a gritty determination.

The Champion and the Other had crossed what had once been the imposing front lawn to approach the building. Many years ago the verdant greenery had crisped under a wave of intense heat at The End. From then on, it had been a rusty brown rectangle of cremated grass blades.

As they approached the open front doorway the sterile sun slid down below the horizon, and the temperature took on the chill of early night. There was still enough light to see by, and they crept up to the double door, halting on the threshold.

Framed in the doorway, the two heavily-armored figures surveyed the interior of the hallway and noted the signs of human habitation. Old, forgotten habitation. The place appeared to be deserted.

The Champion marched confidently forward. He felt better for the lengthy, numbing sleep inflicted by Peter. He hadn't slept like that in years, and the added boost of the Dexedrine made him feel sharp and alert. Peerless.

In the center of the hall he looked to the back and let his eyes travel the curve of the main staircase that swept leftwards to the second level, and found nothing to set off alarm bells in his head. He sniffed the light breeze and felt satisfied and secure that the house was not infested with mutants or assassination squads. Men's adrenalin surges made them perspire profusely; he could pick up on a trace hours later.

He turned around to face the Other. "It's clean."

The Other approached cautiously, the rifle in his hands. He'd not holstered it since late last night when he'd heard the mutants wail. His words were whispered; he didn't like the place. "Do you think we're late or early?"

The Champion shrugged. "Who knows? No one keeps strict time anymore, except the Owners. He'll be here; don't worry. Case is too scared not to come." He crossed behind the Other and approached a set of doors on the right. "He thinks you've still got some matches."

The Other crossed to the foot of the stairs and looked up at the huge cobweb that stretched from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, on the top step. No one had been up there in a good few years. "Let's check out the ground floor. I want to get my bearings."

The Champion called back his reply from the other room. "Sure, we can start in here; it looks interesting."

The Plaza Protector turned on his heel and followed the husky tones of the voice. The stimulants had done the Champion good; he'd regained that vital spark of life.

The room that the Northern Sector man had moved into had once been a drawing room or reception room. The Orange County dwellers had used it as a general meeting room. Tables and chairs had been arranged neatly to accommodate as many members as possible. That it had also doubled as their workroom was evident from the display of artifacts and tools left on the tables. "Knives, saws, fine screwdrivers, needles, and thread. They'd even begun to cobble shoes from made-over leather furniture.

"Looks like they had a lot going for them at one time." The Champion picked up a thimble and found it didn't even fit his little finger. I wonder whose small hands wore this when sewing new clothes?

The scraping of a chair made him turn around. In the gray light of evening, the Other had slumped down onto one of the vacant seats. His skin was white and shining, the metal strained against the flesh.

"You all right?" The Champion felt stupid asking; he could see he was far from all right. The man's injured arm hung tenderly at his side.

"I'll just sit here a moment; it was a long walk." He looked tired and his voice gave his condition away. It held a hint of a tremble. The bruising caused by the mutant attack had become more obvious around his neck and shoulder, showing green and yellow pigments that clashed with the dark red color of his action-worn combat suit.

"Take as long as you like. Rospo may not come for ages." Retracing his steps, the Champion paused beside him. "I'll check out the rooms; you can watch the door from here."

The Other nodded and pulled the rifle up onto his knee so that the barrel covered the open doorway. "I'll perforate his kneecaps if he even looks suspicious." But there was no real life in the voice.

"When he's gone you should have another shot, and then we'll clean up that arm good and proper."

The Champion drew his Magnum and slipped it into the hand-lock. It clicked snugly into place, deadly. Braids swinging nonchalantly around the axe handle on his back, he slipped off across the hall and into the room opposite.

The Other watched him go, and then watched the colored lights that were cast onto the stone floor of the hall from the arched window above the door turn into darker shades as the night crept over them. In the distance, he could hear the thorough search being made by the Champion. At one point, the faraway sounds stopped abruptly. The man on the chair started up instantly, then settled again when he heard the heavy tread resume its path.

Shortly afterward, the searcher appeared from a door to the rear of the staircase, back from his reconnoiter. He hesitated in the hallway, then saw the dim shape of the Other in the same place as he'd left him. He headed over, holstering the Magnum. "Place is clear. Nothing to show that anyone's been here in years."

The Other rose to his feet and found that he didn't feel as agile as when he'd sat down. He stretched his aching legs and discovered that the rifle felt heavy and cumbersome in his hands. His face was hot. "It's a close night; not a breath of air."

"Yeah, it is kinda still." The Champion shifted uneasily, then tried to add interest to the developing leaden atmosphere. "You know what's at the back of the house?"

The Other shook his head and wished he hadn't as the hall warped in and out of focus.

"An indoor swimming pool. Must have been really elegant at one time. The decor is magnificent -- a kind of Greek style. You know, statues and columns and alcoves. It must have cost a fortune. Come and look."

The Other glanced toward the door and back at the Champion; he hadn't seen any movement out on the cremated lawn. No sign of Rospo. "Okay, it might be cooler there."

The Champion led the way through rooms of embossed ceilings -- rooms that had been made into dormitories, storerooms, second kitchens, and eating places. It was obvious that the lower half of the rooms had been used by the Orange County Commune; their possessions were everywhere. Occasionally, they'd hung certain objects from the walls: shovels, saws, and other hand tools. But above chest height, the rooms in the house had been left as they once had been in the Time Before, a memorial to the faded riches that had distinguished the lives of the incredibly wealthy from those of the average man and woman. In the dining room, still hanging from the ceiling, was the chandelier. Dust coated, it had lost its sparkle.

The Other paused underneath the huge array of dangling crystal. Not much use for chandeliers these days; suppose that's why they left it there.

He tore himself away from the dimmed glitter and saw the Champion was waiting for him by a pair of delicate interior doors. The image of the man looked fuzzy and slack at the edges. The Other found that he was having more and more moments when the clarity of his vision just wasn't there. He took a couple of deep breaths and held down the last one until his sight cleared. Releasing it slowly, he forced his aching body toward the Protector.

As the Champion waited for his arrival, he saw the slowness of movement and the effort it took to look as though he were perfectly all right. A wild heated shine was in his one good eye, and the way he swallowed with careful control told him that the silvered man was trying to hide his failing condition. He refrained from asking him if he felt okay, and wished he hadn't suggested he come and look at the pool.

The Other drew level and placed a hand on the finely carved door handle. "Is this it?" He hoped it was, his knees were shaking again.

The Champion pushed open the doors with enough force to allow them to swing back of their own accord. "Yeah."

The pool house was enormous, probably built onto the house at some later date. The stone wasn't quite so white as the rest of the house. It was as the Champion had described it, with a vaulted ceiling of glass panels, stained and weathered now.

The pale stone walls had been hollowed out at regular intervals to form niches for statues. Huge, bold, man-sized statues in the Greek style stared down over the pool surface. A green tiling ran around the lower section of the wall to about chest height. Leaf green, crazed tiles. Stone block benches nestled against the four walls so that the swimmers could rest in comfort. And in the center of all the opulent grandeur was the pool itself. Delicately sunk into the earth with a green marbled flight of steps leading down into the shallow end. The first step was only yards away from the two Protectors' feet.

Awestruck, the Other took a step forward into the pool area. But it wasn't the material and design of the place that made him start forward. It was the spread of fungus that had grown over everything that drew him onwards. This strange growth seemed to have sprouted and thrived in the water of the pool, forming a floating crust and then crept out and over the sides. Having entangled itself among the limbs of the statues, it had slithered onwards, over the block seats and the tiny cubicles at the rear. Dark, dark green, similar to the color of licorice. It had climbed up the fountain spigot directly opposite them and clogged it completely. In its ever-squirming progress, it appeared to have tried to reach the light filtering through the glass roof. In the corners of the room it had managed to send tendrils climbing to the sloping sheets of glass.

And then it had died. Dried out and ceased to grow.

The Other kicked a small lump of it with his boot. It crackled with a sharp crispness and then crumbled to black-green powder. Under the shell it had formed, there was a runny discharge. A black slime spread over the green tile. The smell was offensive.

A voice spoke behind him. "It must have been something impressive when it was new -- " The Champion gazed about in amazement.

The Other stepped back beside him. "I don't like it -- it's horrible." He threw a quick look over the room again. "It reminds me of a tomb."

The Champion looked, too; he'd only seen its one-time beauty, but as the Other spoke, the veils of the previous image fell away. He began to see what the Other saw.

"This . . . this growth is covering the place. It's like some giant cancer . . . ." The Other raised his eye to the translucent roof. "It's even trying to get out." His face wrinkled in disgust.

For the Champion, the room now took on the atmosphere of a tomb. The statues took on the role of mourners. The growth was a disease that tried to smother the life out of the walls, floor, and ceiling. He took a step back himself. "You're right, it's macabre. I didn't see it before."

A second of silence hung between them as they scanned the insidious vegetation. They had been wrong when they thought that nothing had lived here for years. The fungus had lived a parasitic existence off the pool house.

The Other turned and left. The Champion leaned forward and closed the doors before leaving, just as he heard an alien sound in the distant hallway. He saw the Plaza Protector pause under the chandelier.

"Rospo . . . ." breathed the Other and set off the way they had come.

For some reason, the Champion felt ill at ease that Case should appear just then. His hand dropped from the handle and he followed the departing man.

Close to the curved wall of the stairs, two heads, temple-to-temple, watched Case tap his overgrown toenails on the floor in impatience. He was chewing violently on something and his teeth slid about in his mouth with each bite. Clearly, he was nervous. He pulled his hand out of his dirty coat pocket and scratched his head, pausing to inspect his fingernails and flick away the greasy dirt caught there. He stuffed his hand back into the pocket and paced back and forth in a patch of moonlight. Shoulders hunched up around his ears and his filthy hair hanging loosely down his back, he sniffed, not bothering to wipe his nose, and continued to stare out of the door.

The Champion exchanged a look with the Other and the meaning was clear for both of them: they'd let him sweat a little first. Make him wait. Get nice and edgy.

The Other smiled a secret smile and shifted closer to the Champion. In tones so soft it could have been a wish spoken under his breath, he whispered, "Just like the old days, eh?"

The Champion remained motionless, eyes on the fence. And then he turned with great deliberation to stare at the Other. The silvered face was also intently watching Case, not seeing the raw expression on the Champion's face.

He suddenly wanted to stay hidden here forever. No more running, no more killing, no more cesspit of a city. Just him and his old partner -- together. His half-gloved hand rose; he wanted to touch this strangely silvered man at his side. He wanted to feel the reality of his being, and know that he was true flesh and blood. No more illusions, no more nightmares. He wanted all the warmth he'd ever craved. The years of pain and misery had taken away that inner glow he used to feel. Those last few words had just rekindled that inner fire.

Then he felt the time was right. It was the moment he'd waited for since the night in the sewer. The Champion's eyes grew tearful, and he leaned toward the tangled mane of dark curls. His words caught in the huskiness of his throat and faintly he said, "That's right, Starsk . . . just like the old days."

The dark head shot around, deep blue eye haunted by a rushing tumble of memories. His breath caught in a sudden intake of shock. Deep shock.

Starsk . . . S . . . T . . . A . . . R . . . Star . . . Starsky . . . oh, God . . . Starsky . . . David Michael Starsky . . . my name, who I am . . . I am David Michael Starsky . . . and this . . . this . . . this is . . . Hutch . . . .

His lip trembled and he let it. He sank against the curved wall of the stairs, oblivious to everything around him but the tall blond who stared at him with an expression of torment released and love returned.

All the jumbled images slotted into one jigsaw of his lonely life, and the Northern Sector Protector knew that his years of solitude and numbing misery had just been a stepping-stone to this one moment.

He drank in the face of the Champion with a fierce intensity, born out of the need to finally see his partner after all the years. He studied the broad features, the straight nose, the bright blue eyes. He saw through the ravages of the years spent with the communes: the hollow cheeks, shadows of purple under the eyes, the gold headband. All he saw were the features of a man who'd shared his life before The End. He saw the power and determination in his expression, the wisdom and love in his eyes. The same eyes that always used to smile at him, no matter what. They were misty with pent up emotion now, but they were Hutch's eyes.

And as he searched the face, he searched his memory and found this man among the treasured remains. He unearthed the secret moments between them both: a look, a touch, a caress after death had nearly separated them. The days of Hutch's special kind of sunlight.

The remembrances came in a moment. They filled all the empty voids with words and actions he had thought torn from him by Selkirk and his machines.

The Other was shaking and he couldn't help it. No control left now, that one word had devastated him. Starsk. As calmly as possible, he raised his hand and touched the naked flesh of the Champion's chest.

Ah, Hutch, how you must have suffered from my empty silence . . . no kind word . . . no tender look of recognition . . . . Forgive me, I didn't know . . . I didn't remember, and I was so scared . . . so scared of letting someone else in . . . into the place where I used to keep you safe . . . . I always held a fragment back . . . . They couldn't take all of you . . . .

The Other felt the strong, fast heartbeat of the Champion under his sensitive fingertips. And a hand enclosed in black leather covered his own. This is how it should be.

A shift of movement against the right side of the hall and the faint sound of sand grinding over tiles made them both look around. It was a movement that jarred them back to the reality of the hallway. Eyes of startled black bore out of the shadows at the back of the stairs -- and alighted upon the curious face of Rospo Case.

No one moved.

Case had sensed their presence somehow, and eased over to the far right wall. From there he had had a plain view of what had just transpired. He swallowed slowly, the taste of fear in his mouth. He had seen something clearly not meant for his eyes. He had caught them defenseless. Vulnerable.

The Champion and the Other stared coldly at the fence. The smaller, half-gloved hand was still encased in the larger hand of the ex-Territory man. The Other's face was wet and pale.

The Champion released his grip of the silver man reluctantly, and stepped in front of him. Shielding him until he regained his composure.

Case backed away. His hands shot out of his pockets and crossed his scrawny chest to rest under the salt marked armpits. He bobbed up and down, his feet scraping across the darkly-colored tiles of the hallway. At his back was the open doorway with the scorched empty lawn beyond.

"Real nice night, ain't it?" Case smiled. The plastic dentures protruding markedly.

The Champion strode out of the darkness, a giant of a man. He towered over the little creep, eyes searching the conniving features. Then he scanned the open lawn at Case's back, suspiciously. Without looking back, his left hand shot out at lightning speed and encircled the grubby neck. Case gagged and squirmed under the crushing force.

"So, you finally showed up." The Champion's voice was ice in Case's ears. "You'd better have the goods." He dragged Case toward him, leaving his curled toenails barely scraping the floor. "I don't like being spied on!"

The vile body odor of the shivering fence was too much for the Champion's sensitive senses. In disgust, he threw Case away from him. A resounding smack accompanied the man's forced impact with the floor. Sprawled on his side, Rospo massaged his neck to gain time, all the while his eyes on the fearsome Protector of black and gold. When he finally spoke, his voice was high pitched and broken.

"I got it -- I got it all." He shuffled forward, staying on his knees to keep out of the Champion's reach.

"You'd better have it. I paid you in gold -- the lives of men." The clasps across his back tolled a forewarning of imminent death. "One more won't make much difference."

Case didn't need it spelled out for him. He'd been party to something private. He'd seen something he didn't understand, something strange and unfamiliar, and he wished he'd been struck blind before he entered the house. Rummaging in his cluttered pockets, he pulled out pieces of broken pencil, food wrappers, a soiled rag, and finally a white box. Already, its flawless sides were spoiled by grimy thumbprints. He held it aloft in trembling hands.

The Champion glowered.

"It's the penicillin . . . for him." Case nodded toward the slowly approaching Other. "He looks like he needs it." Case tried to force his face to look encouraging, but the Territory man held an expression usually seen on a mortician -- it crushed any confidence that the fence may have felt.

"And the eye?" As he was asked the question, Case saw the Champion's lip curl in revulsion. Not a revulsion over the eye, but a deep disgust at having to associate with the filthy little man.

Then Rospo caught the look of expectancy in the eye of the Other on the right. The wine-leathered figure edged closer. He was hooked. Sneaky-eyed, the fence knelt up and searched under the folds of his raincoat. Mindful not to drop the tatter of cloth, he eased his hand out and held the bundle toward the Other.

Hair drifting across his face from a light gust of wind, the Other took the parcel carefully. His heart hammered in his chest. He'd been promised this for so long. Hutch . . . and now an eye . . . . I don't deserve this . . . .

The Champion tried to watch every move that Case made but he, too, wanted to see what was in the bundle. His intense scrutiny flickered from Rospo to the Other's hands and back.

His fingers too nervous to peel away the folds of the cloth properly, the Other fumbled the packing around the hard, oval object. Please let it be a blue one . . . to match my own eye . . . . The last crease of cloth fell backward and he peered into the soft nest. The false eye sat like a rare and precious egg in his cupped palm.

It was an eye of jet. Cold. Hard. A reminder of his life with Selkirk.

His heart sank. "It's -- it's the eye from my helmet." Flat statement of crushed hope.

Case made to say something, then caught the murderous expression that crept over the face of the Champion.

"What -- ?!" The blond seized the Other's hands, pulling the unseen object into his line of vision.

It was the eye from the helmet. It glittered evilly, enjoying its role in the play of Fate.

The Champion's mind raced. Last time I saw that helmet it was under the Owner's chair. It had the eye then . . . . How did Case get it? Unless he . . . ? . . . oh, God, no!

Rospo looked desperately toward the door, then back at the Champion. His luck had just run out, and the Owners had let him down.

"He's betrayed us . . . . He got the eye from the Owners, they had the helmet!" The Champion took a step toward the fence, letting the Other's hand drop. "Case, you mother, I'm gonna kill you!'' The Magnum slid from the holster and into the hand-lock in moments. The Protector was a barely restrained maniac. He pushed the Other behind him, and homed in on the fence.

Rospo made a bolt for the door. He couldn't wait for the appearance of the Owners any longer. His life was hanging by a thread. Sprinting with the devil at his heels, he began to flee across the lawn.

The Champion marched after him, planted his feet squarely on the top step and leveled the huge Magnum at the twisting, turning shadow of the surging figure. He took aim --

And was halted in motion by the sudden and abrupt roar of an engine. Thunderous and throbbing. It had been so long since he'd heard the distinct sound of a diesel engine that for a second he couldn't place the noise. He was confused in his actions and he missed the shot.

Suddenly, a blaze of white light cut across the lawn and illuminated the Champion on the steps. The Other darted from the door, rifle in hand and squinted into twin set of headlamps as the Peterbilt truck charged down on then from the darkness.

It churned up the cremated lawn like some wailing leviathan from Hell. Horn screaming out a bellow of harsh notes, the whole enormous, aluminum and steel rig accelerated straight toward the two protectors.

Shock rooted them to the steps as the dazzle of white lights and the deafening roar of the engine held them transfixed.

The Peterbilt's speed increased, soil spewed from under its wheels, as the gigantic shadow of blackness arrowed in on the steps. It was ready to mow them down.

Eyes wide with fear, the Champion and the Other stepped backward. The Champion raised the Magnum and took aim where he remembered the cab windows would be. The explosion of six slugs at once hardly competed with the ear-splitting cacophony of the truck's arrival. But the glass shattered as the bullets ripped into the front of the cab.

Snatching a hold of the Other, the Champion dragged him back into the house, across the hall, and through the rooms.

"It's the Owners!" His words stumbled over his hoarse breath. "That little shit sold us out! We've gotta get away. If you get the chance, run, and keep on running!" Plaits bouncing wide, he charged over and around the furniture in the dark. The lights had temporarily blinded them, but he wasn't about to wait for his vision to settle down as he propelled them onwards.

The Other groaned by his side as he sprawled over a squat dresser. He hardly had time to graze the floor before the Champion dragged him back onto his feet and thrust him through another door and into a passageway. He pushed the Other onwards then sped back for a quick look.

Shoulder to the edge of the frame, the Champion watched the violent impact of the steel fenders with the steps. The blindingly bright monster squealed to a halt with its front wheels half up them. The headlights seemed to illuminate the entire ground floor. Gases and exhaust belching forth, the noise of the engine dwindled and died. From where he was hidden, the Protector saw the cab door swing open and a figure drop solidly to the ground. He caught the drifting smell of carbon monoxide and the scent of alien beings. He didn't wait to see the rest.

Feet digging into the worn carpet, he ran down the corridor. Speed was more important than stealth now, and he didn't care if the Owners caught his distant sounds of retreat, just so long as the two men got a decent head start. In the darkness up ahead, he saw the unsteady form of the Other silhouetted against some gray moonlight. A heavy tread too close behind told the Champion that the pursuers were hard on his heels. He reached out. Fingers hooked into the Other's metal collar and he heaved him off balance, over to the left and through the first door he came to.

Almost falling their length, the two Protectors changed their direction again, slammed the doors and leaned against them -- sealing out the chase. Eye screwed shut, the Other tried to take a quiet calming breath. He felt the cold metal of the Champion's armor brush his side as the blond turned around and pressed his face close to the door. He whispered, "Move away from the door -- it wouldn't stop a bullet." The Champion rolled to the left. The Other rolled away to his right and opened his eye.

They were in the pool house. In the tomb.

The silvered man's blood froze in his veins. No . . . not here . . . don't want to die here . . . . He threw a furtive glance of panic at the Champion who was busy reloading the Magnum.

The shells slid home and the Dealer in death raised the barrel again. Motioning with his head, he indicated that they should both move well away from the entrance. The glass and thin wood offered little protection. As they backed away down the right hand side of the pool, a shadow fell across the tiny windows set in the tops of the doors.

A hiss of compressed air accompanied the move. A pause, then the distinctive wheezing continued.

A larger mass encompassed the smaller shadow and the doors imploded with a vicious kick.

A giant figure stooped below the lintel and stepped into the pool house, then moved like lightning toward the two Protectors. It was a creature straight out of Dante's Inferno.

The Champion dropped to one knee among the blackened fungus. "Take his head; I'll take his chest."

The Other raised the rifle, took a sight as best as he could, and fired on the rushing target. The shot went wide.

But the Magnum ripped a huge chunk of flesh out of the giant's left side. The slugs tore through the light body armor and peppered the leather hide underneath.

Hurg screamed in agony. His enormous hands reached for the two attackers as his spurting red blood stained his clothing. His black eyes bulged out of his skull as his lips curled back over his ivory teeth in sheer pain. Jaw clenched tight enough to force the cords to stand out on his bull-like neck, he descended upon the two men.

The Other aimed the rifle for another shot and took the monster in the right shoulder, a sharp snap of a shot, and he felt the hot flecks of another's blood spatter his face.

The next instant, the giant's hands plucked him from the ground. Fists as strong as a vice gripped into the tender flesh of his injured arm and his left side.

The pressure of his own weight and the powerful grip of the demented man on the raw wound caused the Other to cry out in agony. It was a cry of savage desperation. He rose high into the air, and felt his resistance crumble out of him like some screwed up paper doll.

The Champion felt the violent rush of air as the body of his partner was whisked over his head. He scurried away from the savagely kicking feet of the Other and made to reload the Magnum for a point blank shot to the base of Hurg's skull.

He never made it. A whiplash of barbed metal ends snaked out of the entrance and hooked into his right hand. The barbs sank through the leather gloves at the wrist, ripping his flesh as he tried to pull free.

A savage wrench by the wielder of the weapon, and his right hand was drawn away from him. The barbs bit twice as deeply and his blood splashed over the tiles and the fungus. He looked along the leather thong and saw the stronger hunter holding onto the end.

He was an exoskeleton of pistons and pumps, compressed air and calipers. The assassin tried to pull the being toward him for close infighting, and the Champion found his weight to be considerable. He made not the slightest impression. They hung, straining on the leather strips.

"Come closer, Champion of the Territory. I have been sent by your Owner for something very personal." Each phrase was broken by a gasping hiss as in the solid shell, Drew eased forward, never once releasing the tension on the whip. "Something very personal . . . ."

An extra sharp jerk and the Champion found himself on his knees, pitched forward. His arm, outstretched in front of him, dribbled blood. He heard the ring of steel as a knife left its sheath. Drew tottered forward, smiling and reeling in more lash.

Scrambling up onto one knee, the Champion drew a ferocious Bowie knife and severed the ad hoc umbilical cord between himself and the hissing man. He leaped backwards and released the Magnum, unable to reload it. Blood flowed freely over its polished metal surface from the wounds in his wrist. He let it clatter to the tiles as he edged toward the wall away from the poolside.

Drew threw down the whip handle and came lumbering on. From a loop on his belt he pulled an equally barbarous knife. His bugged eyes flashed in excitement. "I haven't fought hand-to-hand in years." He squatted forward as best as he could in the suit, and fended off the first blurred movement that told him the Champion had made the first lunge. Dual bladed, he'd win.

Behind the mortal combat, Hurg was finding that his strength was failing. The rapid blood loss and agony of the wounds reduced his enormous strength, and he found his whole body shaking as he still tried to crush the wriggling body of the Northern Sector Protector.

Kicking and clawing, the Other finally got a hand on a knife hilt. It took all his final energy. His world was black now. The air had been knocked out of his lungs with the first brutal grasp of his body. The pressure moved from his lower body as the assailant tried to grab a hold on his throat. He kicked for the giant's groin and was repaid by a screech of agony loud enough to shatter glass.

Hurg bounced the Other off the ground, and fought for another hold on his throat. He tangled his thick fingers into the long curls and let go the freshly bleeding right arm. The Other dropped suddenly to the ground, saved from falling by his own hair. He pulled a stiletto knife free and lunged for Hurg's neck.

Fighting over his head, the Other felt the blade sink deep but couldn't be sure he'd cut the main artery. Through his blinding pain, he thought he saw the Champion take on the man of steel rods and hissing pistons. But he couldn't be sure of the sound, as his own choked breath was screaming in his ears. He tried to focus on his attacker's face. Instead he saw a fist, as large as his own face, swing through a blurred arc and impact with the side of his head.

The Champion heard the dead smack of bone pounding on bone and risked a quick look at the action. The Other's head snapped back and he sagged unconscious, held upright only by his hair. A satisfied grunt escaped the dying Hurg's lips, and he lifted the limp form by its left arm, took aim, and pitched the Protector into the southern wall of the pool house.

The crack of splintering bone stopped everyone.

The flung body of the Other smashed into the fungus-covered stone blocks and then slithered through the spongy growth to the floor. Hurg staggered forward a step, his fist reaching for the knife in his neck and then he, too, hit the ground, face down. The ground shuddered. His right hand shook as he forced it to grip the stiletto hilt, then his black eyes rolled up into his head. He was dead. His arm fell slack at his side.

All around him fungus and tiles were stained with his blood, huge splotches that had spurted out under the counterattack.

The Champion ran forward, his boots splashing through the scarlet puddles. His eyes were riveted to the tangled mess of limbs and leather in the far corner. There was no flicker of movement. The Other was still.

"NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" It was a shattered, gut-wrenching scream of unleashed bitter anguish. The Champion drew sharp, savage breath that seared his lungs with its intensity. His face was raw distress. Animal wild, he turned back to the hissing mass of calipers and pistons that made up Alex Drew.

Head of plaits swinging from side to side, the Champion stalked toward his opponent. The gold death-clasps tolled the last rites. A caustic fury suffused the powerful black-and-gold body. It rippled over his quivering frame, causing tendons to stand forth.

A murderous insanity consumed his reason. His eyes were unseeing, his mind unthinking, as he took careful deliberate steps toward the man at the pool edge.

Alex Drew felt the Grim Reaper's hand reach out and touch his shoulder. He didn't need to look to see that it would be the hand of the Champion of the Territory. A gibber of demented terror escaped his mouth.

The Champion's lips curled back over his clenched teeth. The snarling growl of a wounded animal emerged from his throat as he planted himself solidly in front of his victim.

Standing erect, his whole being dominated the pool house. His chest swelled with a deep, shuddering breath of inner agony.

And a berserk violence overcame his usual iron control.

The ax at his back he drew in a smudge of speed with his left hand, up and over his shoulder. The heavy handle slapped down into his right palm. The fingers locked with a strength only found in an attack of rigor.

He caught Drew's eye, and bore a curse of pure hatred into his brain.

Then he threw his head back and screamed a long, feral cry. It rattled the glass roof.

The ax blade rose from his ankles in a sharp, steep arc. So fast, the movement was missed by Drew. But the sound of it scything through the air was plain.

The long, sharp point of the ax head split the air, the suit, jawbone and brain, as it followed the planned trajectory. It entered Drew's head from under his chin, like a skewer through raw meat. Lodged there with sheer force, the spike wreaked its revenge by impaling the brain from within.

Drew was dead and he didn't even know it had been coming. He stared at the Champion unseeing, eyes now bulging with horror. His life at an end.

The Champion used one bare finger to gently push on the end of the ax handle. Drew stayed ramrod straight, held by the shock and the suit, for another second, then he tilted slowly backwards into the pool.

The fungoid crust supported the weight of the suit and mechanical frame, then it crazed, folded, and parted. The body of Alex Drew sank into the thick, black sludge -- to a more fitting grave than he deserved. With the consistency of molasses, the black liquid began to merge into its former even surface.

The cold moonlight cut through the grime of the glass roof. In a blatant patch, the Champion stood alone. Silent. Spent.

Minutes passed. And still the man of black-and-gold made no move.

He couldn't bring himself to break the spell of final silence.

The sludge bubbled and stilled.

The only sounds were the distressed breathing of the Champion, and the gold clasps that chimed hollow notes of bereavement.

Eventually, rationality crept back into the starkly mad mind of the Champion. It begged him to move, pleaded with him to go . . . run away.

Inside, a soul of rekindled love had just been obliterated. He wished he was completely numb -- the pain too deep to even feel.

He raised his eyes to the stars above him.

His head dropped down to his chest, and a sigh shuddered from his tense frame.

A remoteness entered his mind, enabling him to function. He turned around and suppressed a physical flinch at the sight of the Other. On legs that had lost their solidity, he managed to walk across the red-wet fungus toward the slack heap of his partner.

As he neared, his eyes screwed tight shut. He didn't want to see. Didn't want to witness that vacant expression of death. Didn't want to remember him this way.

His knees gave out and he sank down, leather groaning in protest to match the ache in his soul.

Then he forced himself to look . . . to see.

The Other was laid on his right side, pelvis twisted back, broken left arm at a strange angle beside him. The face was half masked with his long, dark hair.

It shone a lustrous dark brown with perspiration.

The combat suit was stained in fresh blood, more torn and scuffed from the recent violent action.

The dark, green blanket of fungus had allowed the body to sink into its depths. The silver stripped face was half submerged from view.

The Champion wanted to see those features just one more time. Palm down, he squashed to one side the spongy growth, and made to stroke the long curls back from the face.

As he pulled on the hair covering the nose and mouth a faint movement of air stirred against his fingers. Warm air -- the kind that is breathed in and out.

The Champion's hand recoiled as if stung. His eyes widened. Then he hesitantly reached under the buckled metal collar and felt for a pulse in the neck.

A thready, weak pulse throbbed against his fingertips.

He let his hand rest there; let himself count each beat.

Each beat of life. Life.

After a long time, he gathered the battered form up into his arms and held him with a grateful tenderness. He let the bruised and already-swelling face fall against his shoulder. He indulged in the sensation of warm flesh in his arms, uncontrollable hair against his bare arm and cheek.

The scent of his partner's body so close filled his senses. It was a heady aroma that teased out of his numbed mind a feeling of rebirth. Careful not to jar the injured body too much, the Champion gathered the Other even closer, climbed to his feet, and set off around the edge of the pool.

The battle, which he had just fought, was forgotten. His weapons left unclaimed. He had no need for them now. He held something of greater worth -- much more precious.

With his Magnum he left behind his old life. All demands had been claimed against him. He was no longer owned.

He was free . . . .

Out on the steps of the estate house, he looked deep into the night. It was suddenly strange and unfamiliar. He didn't belong here anymore.

His arms tightened about the unconscious body. He could feel the rise and fall of the laced chest against his own that was the struggling fight for life that raged within the broken body.

As he descended the first step, the Other moaned and turned his face into the Champion's shoulder. He twitched with a spasm of pain.

The Champion paused and murmured soft words of soothing comfort. "Easy, Starsky . . . take it easy. We're free now . . . . We're leaving the city." He faced the heavens and failed to suppress a smile of satisfaction that tugged at his usually stern mouth. "We are leaving the city for good." And he enjoyed saying every word.

As smoothly as he could possibly move, the Champion descended the remaining steps and drew level with the bottom of the Peterbilt cab door. It was ornately painted: dark gold base with rust-orange stripes edged in a subdued ochre. The trailer was absent, leaving a sharp exposed drop to the eight rear wheels. A huge hood stretched forward like an enormous porch front, culminating in a wide grill, which stamped it as a conventional truck. Above the grill and on the sides were the large oval emblems with the Peterbilt signature on a red background.

The Champion ran his eye over the high, wide frame. The sheer dominance and power in the design were thrilling. A highly polished chrome exhaust stack beside the door climbed for the night sky.

Ensuring that he had a firm but gentle hold on the Other, the Champion stepped up the first chrome step. Settling the weight against his chest, he leaned against the exhaust stack and pulled on the door catch. The heavy cab door swung out on oiled hinges and he looked inside. It was evident by the pristine condition of the vehicle that Drew had cared for the Peterbilt more than for the wretches who had come to his colony. The signs of wear and tear were negligible in comparison with the rusting hulks of machinery that marked the passing of motorization in the city.

The aroma of leather upholstery and axle grease was unmistakable. The Champion reached out for the door edge and felt his gloved hands grip into the rubber cushions. Heaving upwards, he drew level with the passenger seat.

Setting the unconscious man into the padded cushion of the Airseat was harder than he had imagined. No matter how carefully he moved the Other, the broken left arm was jolted. With each move a whimper escaped the partly-silvered lips.

The Champion ignored the sounds as best he could as he completed the moves. When he finally withdrew his arms, allowing the bruised face to ease back against the headrest, he let the backs of his fingers stroke the pale cheeks. From being too hot, the man was now too cold. Another pain-filled noise broke from the Other, and his face rolled away from the touching hand.

Over all the years, the Champion had been unaffected by the sounds of human misery. He'd shielded himself away from the pleas for mercy, the sobs of grief, and the whimpers of agony.

Now he felt different. A nasty panic crept through his veins. He flinched with every sound uttered. They were signs of acute distress and he was terrified they would lead to a terminal silence. Leaning over the increasingly fretful body, he pushed the leather-suited legs under the dash, and eased the broken arm into a more supported position over the Other's lap.

"Shhh, Starsky. Just sit quiet; we've got a little further to go yet." Words he knew wouldn't be heard but needed saying, to try to make up for all the lost words of comfort.

He dropped down the shiny chrome steps and swung the aluminum passenger door shut. Tearing round the long nose of the hood, the Champion stepped up the driver's side and wrenched open the door. He sank down into the driver's seat.

He glanced across at the Other, who'd slumped over onto his right side, bruised face resting against the padded leather door.

"Just hang in there; don't quit now." He turned back to the almost alien dashboard and sports steering wheel. It had been so long since he'd sat behind a wheel, he didn't know whether or not he could remember how to drive.

Hands nervously gripping the padded circle, he gave the dials a quick scan. Under his breath he found himself identifying instruments. As he recognized the old, familiar faces, a measure of self-confidence returned.

The ignition key clicked over, the engine caught, and the turbo charger whined into the silent night. He took a hold of the gearshift and put the Peterbilt into reverse. A second look down at the pedals, and he was certain he could handle it.

The engine roared as the truck rolled down off the steps, tires grinding the crumbling edges under its weight. A shift of gear, and the Champion pulled it around in a circle and powered it across the lawn and away.

Hard moonlight glinted off the Peterbilt as it ignored roadways and streets and picked its own route across the city. Never once did the Champion slow its speed to determine his direction. Just as long as it was traveling as fast and as far away from the Northern Sector and the Territory as possible, he could be driving for the edge of the world.

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

In the lost City of the Angels, the wild, white-eyed mutants cowered beside the sewer rats in sympathetic terror. A huge brute of rushing metal cut across their land, belching forth black smoke from its chrome stack. It appeared in the distance, a little more than a steady, throaty hum that built into a stormy, rushing roar. Blazing out of the darkness of the night, its headlights cut through the wasted streets like a white laser. The Peterbilt enjoyed its release after its confinement and devoured the distance.

In its wake, the truck left a dust cloud as dense as a sea fog and the pungent fumes of carbon monoxide. The bewildered populace scurried out of their boltholes to stare in bright-eyed wonder. Or they huddled down in their damp pits of hiding, sure it was another demon sent from Hell to plague them. Too many years had elapsed between the last car and this long-haul vehicle for them to understand. But some could still remember . . . and they watched it as they might witness a ghost pass from one netherworld to the next.

The Peterbilt anchored itself to the crazed, uneven roads and nosed its way through the miles until it came to the ramshackle remains of the Glendale Freeway. Unused and forgotten, the multi-lane road swept through the cool night air with bends of concrete and tarmac.

It didn't take the lone driver long to discern a rupture in the crash barriers that would allow him access to the Golden State Freeway. The truck hugged the incline, its ten wheels grinding over the rough road surface. Ignoring the highway markers, the Champion swung the wheel to the left and headed north.

His foot sank to the soft pile of the carpet as he accelerated into the darkness. Each yard a new horizon, each mile a step toward the outside world. A sense of nervous anticipation teased at his mind, and he felt like an ancient explorer seeking a new land.

The Los Angeles River was on his right. The silted waters winked out of the darkness like some secret conspirator, for it knew what lay ahead. As the river drained into the stagnant city, the truck eased free of the boundaries and began to leave the flattened debris behind.

The hours of the night trailed behind the passage of the moon as its light guided the escape of the truck. Inside the cabin, the Champion watched the road disappear under the wheels as he forced the machine to its limits. As the miles rolled over into double figures, an electric tension left his rigid frame and he relaxed a little. His arm went out to the restless bundle of leather and dark hair at his side. Eyes flicking between the dangerous hazards of the damaged road surface and his passenger, the Champion laid a hand on the damp forehead. During the last thirty or so, he'd become increasingly restless.

As he glanced to look at the Other, he saw a dark blue eye staring at him. He stared back a long moment, unable to think of suitable words. He wanted to say so much. The Other solved the problem by speaking first.

His voice was weak and tremulous. Emotion and pain.

"We -- we got away?" The slight pressure of his forehead in the broad palm of the Champion increased as the Other leaned toward him.

The Champion watched the pale features grit themselves in silent agony as the man moved nearer to him.

"Yeah, we got away . . . far away." He looked the Other in the eye. You -- we are free." The basic blessed truth, savored in a mutual moment of quiet understanding. The shackles fell away from their bartered souls.

The Other started to cry. He filled up with emotion and let it spill down his face. A show of thankful-through-to-the-soul emotion. An aching hole in his life had just closed.

No noise came from the silently crying man. He didn't heave with sobs of relief or shield his naked sorrow from the Champion. He simply let the tears pour down his cheek -- eye never leaving the blond's face.

The driver tried to concentrate on the road, but found the man in the padded seat far more compelling. He hitched himself to the edge of the gap between them and stroked the tangled mass of curls.

"Don't cry. Don't cry, Starsk. I never cried . . . in all the years. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction." His words offered small consolation. But it made no difference, for deep down inside, the Champion knew the Other had a perfect right to cry away his yawning chasm of misery and suffering.

Hand holding the wheel, hand holding his partner, the blond murmured soft words of soothing. The pale face of silver never left his own as if a moment out of his sight would break the spell of freedom and he would be back in the pool house. A marked target.

"When we're far enough and it's safer -- different to the city, we'll stop and I'll fix your arm. Give you a shot, maybe." He tried to smile encouragingly, but the enormity of their triumph was also bearing down on him. He'd somehow managed to distance himself from the inner, far-reaching consequences of the battle by the swimming pool. Now he felt his mind was relaxing and he could plan ahead. Not the distant days, but at least the next few hours, even if he couldn't cope with any personal reaction yet. "You'll feel better when we stop and I set your arm -- "

The Other shifted under his outstretched hand. "No, don't stop. Don't ever stop . . . . Not until they can never ever find us." Whispered fervent pleading.

The Champion studied the wet face. If he were ever begged from the inner heart of a man again, it would never compare to the raw expression of the Other now.

He saw through the silver plates, the rivets, the bruises, the absent eye -- to the face of his old partner. Before his eyes was his basic vulnerability and total dependence. It was given carte blanche after so many years of independent isolation. The total trust was back as the Other gave the Champion his life for safekeeping.

It shook the driver to the core. And inside, the Champion committed himself to a lifetime of standing guard. All the yesterdays are gone. No more solitary dangers . . . . Your lonely life is over. They'll never find us . . . .

The Other needed an immediate answer. His right hand came up with all his effort. He reached for the Champion.

"Hutch . . . promise."

The Champion swallowed down his huskiness.

"I promise, Starsky." He wiped away a tear that hung on the edge of a silver strip. "I promise." And he held the little wet sphere on this glove till it disappeared.

The steady rhythm of hand on hair had calmed the anxious lines from the Other's face. He settled down against the softness of the seat and found the even throb of the engine like a healthy heartbeat. It lulled him to a state of near hypnosis. The pain in his arm came in sharp spasms and then drifted away. The severe beating at the hands of Hurg became of secondary importance as a wash of contentment overcame him.

No narcotic of Selkirk's could have ever given him a high like this warm glow. It started in his mind with a deep sense of peace, and succeeded in enveloping his tortured inner self in a sense of final release. Hugging his shredded soul, he was shielded from the shock of the fight. This new calm took away the cold hold of death that had snatched at his lifeforce in the pool house, and held his raging emotions in check. When he would be strong enough for the full realization to hit him, then the time would be right for fuller feeling and awareness. To contemplate the "what ifs . . . ." Right now, his subconscious knew he needed a tender cocoon of tranquility.

The cabin of the Peterbilt became a surrogate womb. Until it was time for both men to be reborn, it would shield them from the world. A man needs time to find himself again, to assess his inmost being and understand the release of new life that fills him. The transition from possession -- slave -- to freeman takes time. Like the pages of an epic novel, each one must be turned and read to the bitter end. No part of the narrative can be missed or altered. The scenes are set, the protagonists called to their roles in the play of Destiny.

In candid retrospect, the two men examined the years they had spent in the service of the New Society. And as they replayed the events and words spoken, they felt exorcised of the inner demons. The final page in a chapter on their lives drew to a close.

Together they looked toward the future.

In calm, companionable silence they watched the State of Old California pass them by. Blurs of land and freeway, eaten up mile after mile by the blazing headlights.

The mileage turned into triple figures and the Other fell asleep.

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

The Champion didn't know how far or how long they'd been climbing. Many miles back he'd turned off what could have been the original Interstate 5 highway and taken the truck up into what he remembered as the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

As the scenery changed, he became increasingly excited. The dust layers became less dense. The ash became thin and transparent, revealing the living greenery underneath, actual fresh plant life that wasn't artificially cultivated, as in the city. The concrete wastes had been left far behind.

The first tree gave the blond such a shock that he slowed the truck right down and crawled toward it. Tall, brown and green, it grew straight to the night sky. The rest of the surrounding vegetation was thin and wispy, struggling against the elements to gain a foothold in the land.

He let the engine idle, turbo whining over the countryside, as he drank his fill of the sight of natural, living matter. A desire welled inside him to get out of the cab and touch the rough bark, smell the scent of pine, crush the needles.

He looked over at the Other, debating whether or not to wake the sleeping man so that he could view this wondrous sight.

Then decided against it. The sleep was deep and seemingly calm. The Great Healer was probably better for him right now. And besides, he reasoned inwardly, he'd stop soon and see to his injuries properly. He'd stop close to some more trees if he found them.

The Champion let in the clutch and the Peterbilt eased forward slowly. The driver was reluctant to leave the lone symbol of verdant life. His head craned back.

The headlamps cleaved into a new area of darkness and the tree fell away behind.

After that incident, the surrounding countryside became markedly different. Their journey was taking them far higher than sea level into a botanical wonderland. Whole hillsides were covered with pines: pines and redwoods, junipers and cedars. They dotted the slopes like spikes on a discarded running shoe, and the Champion could not believe his eyes. His highly tuned sense of smell noted the different aromas as one variety changed for another. He began to notice the thin, reedy grass poking up alongside the rough roadway as it spiraled higher. The soil turned the color of rich earth, so very different from the ash gray of the streets he'd left behind.

With the whole road to himself, the Champion tried to see everything at once in this new Utopia and drove down the center, ignoring the lane markings. He'd thought these sights had gone forever, swallowed up by the all-consuming holocaust. He'd been wrong.

A small smile crept over his gaunt features, creasing up the smudges of fatigue under his eyes. I was wrong . . . . We were all wrong; there is another land here.

And then he felt the surge of pleasure drain out of him with the force of a sluice gate opening on a dam.

Behind the mountains the sky had turned to a subtle shade of gray-blue.

The Champion cut the engine of the Peterbilt on a level stretch of road and hunched forward over the wheel to watch the skyline.

With the absence of the steady throb, the Other stirred in the passenger seat. His head came up and he groaned involuntarily as he shifted position. His right arm came across his body to support his left by cradling it against his chest. "What have we stopped for? Are we there yet?" He was too disoriented to grasp the full meaning of what he'd just said.

But the Champion listened to his slurred words. Are we there yet . . . . We just might be at the end of the road permanently . . . . The sky shouldn't look like that. He sat back in his seat and glanced at the sleepy huddle of the Other. "Stay here, I'm going to look." Leathered hand pulling on the door release, he heaved against the padded side and opened the cab.

The cool mountain air bit into the stuffy warmth of the interior. The Other raised his head, trying to focus on his surroundings. He looked fuzzily through the windshield at the strange skyline. The sight of the mountain range etched against the peculiar hues wiped away the fog in his mind instantly. His lips thinned and he started forward.

"What the -- ?" He turned to speak to the Champion and was just in time to see him slipping from the seat to the ground. "Hey . . . hey, don't leave me. Where are you going?" A note of panic entered his voice.

The Champion looked up at the worried features. His own were similar. "Sit still, will you?" His gold clasps rattled over his armored back, cutting a tune into the still hours of the late night. "I'm just going to look ahead."

"No, don't," returned the Other, his heart starting to hammer in his chest. "I've seen that before and it led to the night of The -- "

The Champion cut him short. " -- I've seen it, too. Just stay in the cab, okay?" I remember the night of The End, as well.

Before the Other could say anything further, the Champion swung the door shut and strode off up the road.

Inside the cab, the Other remained motionless, stunned by the sudden desertion. He wasn't ready to be left alone again yet, if even for a short time. All he had in the world was striding up the darkened road into the night. Away from him. Separated. Just like the night of The End.

His eye was drawn up to the skyline above the Champion's head. The colors were in the process of change and he grew increasingly disturbed. Memories he had hoped were forgotten came to his mind.

He flinched back and began to openly sob -- choking sobs that came in stutters of despair. The road ahead was dark and empty, the Champion had gone -- his only safe anchor in the frighteningly strange place. The unfamiliar scenery suddenly bore down on him: the size of the trees, the steeply climbing sides of the mountains and hills, the cluttered horizon of the rising range in dark greens and blackened browns. He was used to level wastes of debris, low walls or teetering blocks of ash gray. He was an alien in an alien world, and now he was alone.

An energy of stricken anxiety gave him the strength to open his own door and slither across the seat to the sill. Swinging his wine-colored legs over the edge, he slipped down onto the chrome step and found he had little strength in them. He half fell down the Peterbilt to the road. His aching back supported him around the long snout of the truck. Then he gritted his teeth and set off after the Champion.

Broken arm held against his left side, he began to pick a weaving pattern along the road. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to walk in a straight line. His agitation grew worse.

He squinted up through his fringe of hair, finding it an effort to raise his head. The sky was brightening into zircon blues striped with yellows.

His feet hardly seemed able to carry him over the rough surface. The fallen pine needles skidded away as he dug his toes into the loose carpet. He felt so sick. Sick with panic, sick with fear, sick with pain. A burning fire shook him from within.

A vague grieving came to his ears. Aimless sounds of pain and fear. It was his own misery of desertion. Fresh tears coursed down his metalled cheek, splashed onto his laced chest, and he continued to stumble on.

Up ahead in the distance, the ex-Territory man was poised in a clearing, his face turned to the mountains in puzzlement. A circle of redwoods and pines cut into the silhouette of the mountains, sending frayed cones into the pale blues and brightening yellows of the sky. A light breeze stirred the foliage, making the man's skin crawl. He felt he wasn't quite in tune with the surroundings, unable to relate to the changes. His hand dropped to his Magnum stock and found only fresh air to grasp. A feeling of nakedness immediately overcame him. Unwittingly, he had discarded the trappings of one life and abruptly found that he still needed them in this new place. The sound of the gun clattering to the pool tiles came into his mind like a warning bell.

His thoughts stopped and changed track with the faint sound of movement behind him. A knife appeared in his hand like magic and he spun around. Body crouched down into a tight formation, he made ready for close combat. In the weak light, he studied the road among the trees, searching for the noisemaker.

A stumbling figure in a worn leather suit cradled his left arm and wobbled from tree to tree heading in his direction. The Other looked up, eye unseeing, and then he focused in on the straightening figure of the Champion.

The Champion started forward, sheathing the knife in the process. "What are you doing? You're in no fit state to follow me. I thought I told you to stay in the truck." He spoke a little too sharply, partly from relief that it was only the Other, and partly from knowing that the Other was too ill to be walking anywhere. "Starsky, you should have stayed in the cab, where it was warm."

The Other took another step and then crunched into the side of the Champion. His right hand gripped into the leather suit of the blond at chest height, but he looked not into the concerned face, but up toward the mountains.

The Champion felt the tremble of the clutching hand against his skin, and he put a supportive arm around the shaking shoulders. His boots scuffed in the dirt as he eased the swaying weight of the Other toward him.

"Hey, take it easy." He peered into the obviously distressed features. "It's okay, Starsk."

A sheen of sweat glistened on the darker man's top lip. "I -- I thought you'd gone." His voice was small and spent. He tried to drag his frightened gaze away from the clearly etched peaks up ahead, but failed. He was mesmerized by the thoughts of imminent destruction. "I didn't want to die in the truck -- on my own."

The Champion suddenly understood, and held the Other closer. "I hadn't gone. I came to see the -- "

" -- The End! I know. I can see; it's the same all over again. It never ends; we're caught in it. Destruction, it never stops." His words rushed out in rising panic and he finally managed to face the Champion. "I'm with you this time . . . . I'll be ready."

The Champion saw the spare agony in the tired eye. The Other was unable to reason clearly anymore. And yet he couldn't face the phenomenon himself. It isn't what you think, Starsk . . . . It isn't, but I can't place it. "I haven't gone, Starsky . . . . I'm still here. I promised, remember?" He held the shaking frame against his own, his lips murmuring into the curls as he tried to support the failing body.

But the Other drowned him out. "Not for much longer; it's coming -- " His shivering increased as his voice broke into a cracked whisper. "It's coming, it's coming." He repeated the words in increasing fear.

The Champion felt the weight sink down his left leg as the Other's legs folded under him. The wine leather skidded through his arms as he let the man slide to the soft earth. The Champion felt the first strains of doubt begin to undermine his conviction. He looked up toward the ridge and tried to calm the bereft man. "It isn't that. It isn't! Don't worry; it's okay. This isn't the city." He studied the rising shine of yellow and realized that some form of enormous energy was approaching the mountain range. The sky became illuminated by its brilliant glow, a brilliant, hot glow like the burning intensity of a fire.

"I know what it is, Starsk, I know -- " Just can't remember . . . . Can't place the times I've seen it before . . . .

The whole area of clearing was becoming increasingly visible. The shadows of the night were creeping back. The darkness was almost completely gone.

"This is -- This is, I'll get it yet, but, damn me, I've forgotten. Damn," was repeated by the Champion as often as the Other murmured his frightened phrases through soft sobs. No longer could he bear to witness the impending doom of another Armageddon. His bowed head rested face down against the knee of the blond, and he closed his eyes.

The widening sky increased in depth and scope, cutting across the heavens from horizon to horizon. The blues became drained as the glow encompassed their color and dominated the panorama.

The Champion placed a hand upon the crown of the Other with a gentleness of spirit. A memory had returned to him in a moment, and he understood why he'd forgotten this wondrous event.

"Starsky." He squatted down beside the Other, who turned his face into the gold strips on the man's left shoulder. The Champion looked away to the mountaintops. "No, don't hide, look. Look at the ridge . . . . This is a sunrise."

He tilted the silver face upwards, saw the eye squeezed tightly shut and he spoke every word with a fierce emphasis of hope. "Starsk, this is a new dawn."

In moments, the peaks were encircled by the crescent gleam of pale gold. The arc grew before their very eyes as the sun climbed skywards. A huge, burning ball of deep orange, it enfolded the mountain range in pure daylight. A brilliance radiated out across the rolling hillsides.

And in the lonely clearing, two men felt a basic warmth take the chill of fear and cold from their anguished faces. Transfixed, the Champion watched the sun strive for a zenith it would only achieve at midday. Beside him, the worn figure of the Other stirred under the gentle touch of his partner, and allowed himself to be turned toward the fresh, new dawn.

The Champion settled on the damp earth to watch, his shoulder supporting the slumped body of the Other. He ensured that the injured arm was well protected, and promised that in a few moments they would move.

"This is no End, Starsk . . . . This is a New Beginning."

A peaceful quiet entered the glade as the two men watched the sun rise on a world they had both thought obliterated in the holocaust. Each perfect golden ray that sprang over the top of the mountain range scythed down through the trees and warmed the faces of the two Protectors. Neither spoke. The miraculous sight and the companionable closeness were enough for the moment. Even their thoughts remained at peace as the minutes added on to another, and the yellow crescent rose to form an orb.

A somnambulism pervaded their senses. For men who'd lived in the dirt and squalor of the New Society, this clean, fresh sky and landscape were an unreality -- a dream they had thought would only stay a wish. Their senses became distanced until they viewed their surroundings in a kind of relaxed twilight.

Then from directly in front of them, a man walked out from among the trees.

The Champion stiffened to alertness and tried to disentangle himself from the Other without causing extra pain. His black-gloved hand slid down his hip for the Magnum and held only the mountain air.

The stranger approached, long certain strides of confidence that belied no fear or trepidation. In his hands he carried a rifle.

At the edge of the clearing he stopped and gave the two men a quick once-over.

The Champion rose slowly to his feet, hand drawing upon the large barbed knife as he stood up. His eyes narrowed and his mouth felt tight and dry. The plaits shivered in the chill morning air, sending soft notes between the two protagonists.

The stranger was no fool. He saw the hand reach for the knife, and the rifle took up a line on the chest of the armored man.

"Now, then, friend, don't do anything hasty. Just take it easy." He spoke in a quiet manner meant to instill confidence in the two Protectors. Then without looking back, he called out, "Hey, Jayce, I found them! I found them!"

The Champion looked wildly about. He didn't recognize the man for a city protector or the usual assassin recruit who'd have taken on their hit. But on the other hand, he didn't know who Jayce was and what he might do. What I'd give for my Magnum . . . .

He glanced down at the Other, who had an expression of resigned hopelessness on his bruised face. His hair was plastered onto his cheeks, partly obscuring the silver strips, but the acute sadness was clearly seen.

The distant sounds of approaching men came to their ears, and the Other sighed tiredly, huddling up into a tight ball of shabby suit and injuries.

The Champion licked his lips and decided he'd best try to take out the man with the rifle before reinforcements arrived. Just hold on, Starsky . . . . We won't be taken again. I'll get us back to the truck . . . somehow . . . .

He tensed up for a surprise lunge and failed to carry the action through as the heralded Jayce appeared through the trees, followed by several armed men and women.

The newcomers formed a wide circle about the two bizarrely dressed men and looked them over closely. Finally, the man called Jayce stepped forward. He holstered his gun and motioned the others to lower theirs.

"Are you from the city?" Jayce rubbed his forehead and tried a half smile.

The Champion scowled meanly as he ran his eyes over the well-fed frame and neat, warm clothes: heavy coat, thick trousers in blues and browns, and boots. He was instantly suspicious of affluence, and yet the expression on the man's face was not one of foul manipulation or possessive greed. He knew that by heart; he'd seen it so often in the old Territory Government House.

Jayce glanced worriedly at his companions and then faced the Champion again, compassion in his eyes.

"We saw the truck lights in the night. We knew someone was coming. Was it you? Did you get away from the city?" He spoke carefully and slowly, gauging the armed man's reaction to his words.

The Champion knew they would find the truck a few yards away on the road if they bothered to look. No point in lying. He nodded his head of braids. "Yes, we came from the city." And he stepped beside the Other, almost hiding him.

"You must have escaped in the truck?" Jayce inquired, having received one answer.

"The Peterbilt." The Champion watched the circle of people carefully. Their faces were full of expectant hope and uncalled-for sympathy. The Champion wanted nothing from them. A couple had shifted forward slightly, their weapons hanging loosely in their hands.

Jayce faced the man who had come upon them first. "They've seen some action. The one on the ground looks badly hurt. You'd better get back to base and tell Evelyn." The man nodded and set off to run, but was halted by a sudden cry. "Oh, and, Dean, get Turner to cover for her, okay?"

Dean acknowledged the order with a slight wave and then he was gone. Attention returned to the men from the city.

The Champion watched everything and picked up on the key words in a flash. Escaped . . . base . . . Evelyn?

Jayce swung back to face him, weighing up his next best approach. "I can tell by the gold badges on your chests that you were once policemen, is that right? Or did you acquire those shields?"

"We are Protectors . . . " whispered the Champion, a sneaking understanding coming into his mind. "In the Time Before, we were policemen . . . but that was a long time ago."

The little speech caused a ripple of muttering to crisscross around the clearing. A look of wonder and amazement appeared on the different faces watching them.

Jayce nodded knowingly. "We know about the city, my friend. We know about the communes and their system of keeping law and order." He looked the blond directly in the eye with deep understanding. "And we know about the Champion -- that is who you are, is it not?"

The Territory Protector was shocked into silence. His tense grip on the knife eased as he tried to take in all that was being said. Inside, he knew he was out of his depth here. "Yes, I am -- was -- the Champion of the Territory." His voice sounded unsure.

He stared at the robust beings in their warm, comfortable clothes, so unlike his armor or the other long robes worn by the city dwellers. And he remembered the plane and the man who had stared at them through the crack in the roof. They were too similar for it to be a coincidence.

Jayce came even closer to stop a short distance from the gold-and-black leathered man. "You must have suffered in their evil hands. The Owners are a symbol of total depravity to us. We're glad you escaped . . . . We're glad you're free." He took in the whole assembled group as he spoke. A variety of accompanying words of welcome and acknowledgment rose from the men and women. "If you'd like to follow us to our camp, we'll get you cleaned up, tend to your friend's injuries, and give you some food. You look like you could do with a decent meal."

The Champion felt his reserves shake and tremble.

The group began to disperse. Some set off through the trees, while several wandered forward to reach out for the Other on Jayce's signal.

Stepping between them, the Champion found their proffered aid too much for him. He wasn't used to people behaving in this manner. No one showed kindness or offered any help in the city; if they did, it was for some ulterior motive. He was alarmed, remembering how they'd been ensnared into the Territory and the Plaza communes in the early days. He wasn't about to let it happen again. He raised the broad-bladed knife, letting the sun reflect wickedly along the razor-sharp edge. Covering them all with nervous stabbing gestures, he meant to keep them at bay.

Instead of assuming defensive positions, they looked at one another, at the Champion, and then Jayce.

Watching calmly, hands in his pockets, Jayce stamped his feet in the dew-laden grass and seemed impatient to be gone. "What was your name?"

The blond hesitated in his advances on the group. He caught Jayce's persistent expression of friendliness. Don't trust him, don't listen . . . . I've heard it all before . . . . The Other was trapped like this . . . . Won't let them have me again. Fight them . . . fight them all . . .

Plaits ringing anxiously, he bent over and placed a hand under the Other's right armpit. He tried to pull his feverish partner onto his feet, but a soft moan of pain halted further action. The Other leaned against the long legs of black leather and shivered. "Don't . . . don't move me anymore . . . ." His weak voice murmured the plea.

The Champion knelt beside the Other, eyes always covering the surrounding group. "Come on, Starsk. You can make it to the truck -- come on!" A feeling of being duped made him speak more earnestly. "You want to be free, don't you?"

The Other nodded, eye shut, and made a superhuman effort to get to his feet. As he rose up, legs struggling to get their balance, his face and chest were clearly seen. At the sight of the silver meshed to flesh, the leader of the strangers started back.

"Dear God." Jayce's face filled with horror. He looked at the Champion and swallowed. "Selkirk. I recognize the work."

The Champion had thought he would never hear that name on another human being's lips again. Do they know of that bastard out here, too? How far do we have to go to be free of them all? His grip on the Other tightened and he managed to ease back a step or two.

Jayce didn't follow him, didn't pressure them. Instead he spoke candidly. "Champion, don't go. Listen to me." He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. "Do you remember a Protector called Taylor?"

The Champion knew the name instantly, but his mind was already in such a raging turmoil that he could not place it in context. He held the sagging weight of the Other and found their progress had slowed to a halt. His partner had lapsed into a semi-conscious state. They weren't going anywhere. Not wishing to, the Champion followed up the thoughts triggered by the group's leader.

A long moment passed. "Yes, I remember Taylor. He disappeared." He spoke quietly, not letting his guard down for a moment.

"I thought you might," Jayce continued. "He escaped the city like you did. We picked him up very early on." His delivery became almost conversational. "He told us about the city and what was developing. How the communes were run and what happened to any ex-policemen, especially the young ones." He looked at the Other pointedly and then back at the man in black-and-gold. "Since that time we've watched the city, kept track of the sordid developments, helped the ones lucky enough to escape. We learned of Selkirk and Houndsworth; we learned about the Owners, and about you -- the Champion. I have to admit I never thought you'd get away from them -- "

The Champion cut in. "I chose to leave. My partner taught me a lesson . . . ."

"We are a commune, as well." Jayce saw the alarm flash from the blue eyes at the word "commune" and quickly went on. "Not the kind that breeds like some bacteria in the waste of the city, but a free commune. Our job is to observe the city for the government, we -- "

"Government . . . ?" The Champion physically shook; his eyes slid shut, then opened slowly.

"Yes, the government is still here. Not quite the same as the Time Before, but it's improving all the time. A year or two from now, if we're fortunate, we may have the resources and manpower to tackle that city. The government has sworn to marshal aid to this area." Jayce stepped closer. "There is a President, too."

The Champion paled, the knife slipping from his fingers. He encircled the Other completely and stared dully at the leader, trying to fully comprehend all that he had just heard.

His vision became blurred as he struggled to see his past life in the New Society in perspective with the new knowledge this leader had just given him.

"Champion, we'll explain it all later. Come with us. We can help you; we want to help you both. We understand what you've been through." Jayce looked to his followers, who backed him up by beckoning the two men again. "Just take another chance."

The Champion felt an unfamiliar wetness splash his cheek. Understand . . . understand . . . . Dear God, you'll never begin to know what we've been through . . . . You'll never understand no matter how much you listen . . . never . . . .

He felt suddenly apart from the whole mammoth event, and a vacant expression of humor spread across his features. Dark, bitter humor as Fate dealt him another cruel parting blow.

He looked at Jayce's concerned face and laughed faintly, a sick, twisted laugh that went on too long for natural humor. "What do you free people call the President?" He spoke between spasms of quiet, personal, insane cackles.

Jayce spoke calmly. "Elliot West. He's from Maine." He hadn't wanted to break it this way. He looked at the wasted men before him. One barely able to stand, too ill to understand what was going on around him. The other, about to go into some form of mental trauma as he traveled along lines of thought best left untouched. All the might-have-been's and what-if's were better left unturned for the moment.

He placed a firm but gentle hand on the gold-armored arm. "You, too, had a name once. What did they call you before the holocaust?"

"Before the holocaust . . . before the Owners . . . before . . . ." The Champion wiped a shaking hand over his face. He pulled it away and hugged the Other close again. "They called me Kenneth Hutchinson."

"Well, Kenneth, you can come with us. You'll be safe now, and we'll look after your friend." Jayce began gently to pry the arms away from around the Other. Four of his men moved in, ready to receive the burden.

The Champion found he didn't have the strength left to resist. He'd just been dealt a crushing blow, and it had felled his spirit. As they eased the limp form of the Other out of his arms, he felt the wine leather slip through his fingers. "His name is David Michael Starsky. He's my partner . . . . Be careful, his arm's broken . . . ." His own arms fell loose at his sides.

"We'll be careful; don't worry. It's over now." Jayce nodded for his men to set off with the unconscious man cradled in their arms.

The Champion watched the healthy-looking men disappear through the trees and followed on a few slow paces, trying to keep his partner in sight. But his eyes wouldn't focus; they filled with water that rolled down his cheeks.

The man at his side found himself moved by the grief written in the blond's eyes. He sympathized greatly with the policeman, for truly he did know what had been happening in the city. He was good at his job.

"Kenneth, if we follow them, we'll come to the base camp. A doctor will see to your partner there." He set off, then paused, waiting for the armored man to catch up. The Champion looked lost and out of place. He was a man bred into a city dweller of the New Society, a killing machine. A unique man, alien in the free world outside of L.A.

The vaguely amused look had left the blue eyes; the Champion was a shattered figure in the green, open space. He looked about him for the dropped knife and picked it up from the damp earth. His ingrained training still forced him to reassess, check his weapons, be prepared. He slipped it into the sheath in his boot and almost missed, so bad was his tearful vision. He wiped his eyes and found he could see slightly better. Looking up, he saw Jayce remained, watching him intently. A few yards ahead, his followers were merging into the trees.

Pulling himself together, he straightened his shoulders and pushed his braids back. They chimed softly, muted by the somber atmosphere of revelation. The Champion started forward, then stopped.

"I never cried, you know." He looked at Jayce with a proud rise of his chin. "I never cried once, not in all the years. They never made me . . . ."

Jayce watched the misery and relief trail through the dust and grime on the gaunt features and drop from his chin. The tiny water splashes glistened on the gold strips on his chest. "It must have been hard."

''It was."

Jayce left the clearing, boots flattening the long, spidery grass. The Champion followed behind, walking in his footsteps.

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

PART III -- LIFE