A Rage for Revenge

5 Jason Delandro

I came out of the dome at a run--

--and nearly skidded into a worm, a small one. Bright red. There's no such thing as a small worm! This one was three meters long, only waist high-

Something tripped me-my gun went flying-I skidded flat on the ground-

Somebody was firing a machine gun, right over my head! I covered my head with my hands and lay as flat as I could, but the worm still hadn't come down on top of me.

But then, maybe it hadn't been attacking. Every worm I'd ever seen had raised itself up high before attacking. I had a theory about that, but I'd never tested it.

Suddenly, there was silence. And I was still alive.

Maybe an upright stance was a challenge to a worm, the last opportunity to back down. Maybe because human beings stood upright, the worms saw us as always challenging, always on the brink of attack. Maybe that's why the worms almost always attacked human beings on sight. Maybe that's why I was still alive.

I lay there face down on the ground, afraid to look up. What was the worm doing?

I heard it move. Toward me. I felt something brush against my hands. Fur? It tingled. I could hear it breathing. Its breaths were long and slow and deep. I could feel the heat. It smelled . . . spicy?

Something was tapping me lightly along the back. Its antennae. No-its fingers, its claws.

I was laying there flat, my face tightly scrunched, waiting for death-and still completely curious about what the creature was doing. I wanted to look.

If I lifted my head, would it kill me?

I was still trying to summon up enough courage to look when something trilled at it and it backed away.

A human voice said, "Get up." Huh?

"Get up!" it repeated. I lifted my head.

There were six of them. Four men. Two women. And the worm. The worm was blood-colored; it had pink and orange stripes rippling slowly down its dark red flanks.

They were grouped in a rough semi-circle before me. They were all carrying weapons. All but one of the men were bearded. One was a huge monster of a human being. One of the women was pregnant. The other was thin and dark and looked familiar.

I didn't see McCain. Or the little girl.

The leader of the group looked mid-thirtyish, but he could have been older. He was the one without the beard. He wore hornrimmed glasses and he had long sandy hair with just a hint of gray at the temples. He wore an oversized white sweater, khaki pants, and heavy boots. He looked like a college professor on vacation-except for the machine gun he had slung over one shoulder. He would have looked friendly-if it hadn't been for the worm beside him.

He gave it a hand signal. "Stay." He nodded to me. "Get up. Orrie won't hurt you."

Orrie?

I started to get up slowly. I got as far as my hands and knees when the thin woman said, "That's far enough."

I stopped.

I couldn't take my eyes off the worm. Had they tamed it? How? That was supposed to be impossible.

The man with the sandy hair nodded to the giant. "Search him." The giant lumbered over to me like Frankenstein's monster. He was 600 pounds of animated meat. He stepped behind me, hooked his hands into my armpits and yanked me to my feet. He started pulling things off me.

He unholstered my sidearm and tossed it aside.

He lifted my pant leg and pulled the knife out o€ my boot. He pulled the pack off my back. And my utility belt. He patted my waist and my pockets. He emptied them and tossed the contents to one side. I thought about the pack. If I could reach my watch-I probably wouldn't survive, but I'd take most of them with me.

Now Frankenstein began to frisk me; so slowly and methodically that I wondered if he were mentally retarded. First he took my right arm between his two huge hands and patted and felt it all the way down to the wrist, then the left; he pulled my watch off my wrist and tossed it onto the pile with the rest. He repeated the process with my legs. His hands were the size of shovels, it was like being pummeled by beef.

He slid his hands up around my torso and around in front of me and all over my chest. He emptied my shirt pockets. When he found my dog tags, he grunted and broke the chain. He tossed the tags onto the pile. He felt my crotch dispassionately.

I ignored his touch and stared sideways at the leader. He met my gaze directly. Yes, definitely a college professor. I wondered what subject he'd taught. Probably something flaky. Like American Jargon. I shifted my eyes back to the worm. Deliberately.

Frankenstein finished searching me then. He seized my shoulders in his gigantic hands and pushed me back down to my knees. Then, carefully, almost like a child, he placed my hands on top of my head. Prisoner of war position. And then he backed away behind me. I heard him cock his rifle.

The leader of the group was still studying me. Debating my fate? His expression was unreadable.

The sweat trickled coldly down my side.

The worm was cocking its eyes curiously back and forth to look at me, like a madman's big pink hand puppet. The effect would have been comical if it hadn't been so terrifying.

The worm began twitching its mandibles anxiously. It looked like a nervous tic, or a tremble of anticipation.

Were they waiting for me to beg?

I thought about it for half a second. Would it make a difference? No.

The man with the sandy hair came over and kicked through my belongings. He picked up my dog tags and looked at them. "United States Army. Too bad."

"Kill him," said the thin woman. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her.

He ignored her. He saw how my attention was riveted on the worm. "Orrie," he said to it, "patrol." He waved at the creature. It whistled in response and dipped its eyes; then it wheeled about and flowed off sniffling at the ground.

The sandy-haired man waved at the other two men. "Go with him. See if there are any others."

The man turned back to me and jingled my dog tags. "Ladies," he said to his companions. "I'd like you to meet Lieutenant James Edward McCarthy of the United States Armed Forces." He paused for effect. "Recently retired." He dropped my dog tags to the ground.

He looked down at me speculatively. His eyes were very blue. "The question before us, Lieutenant McCarthy, is simple. Isn't it?"

"Am I supposed to have an opinion here?"

The sandy-haired man scratched his neck thoughtfully. He used the backs of his fingers and made quick upward strokes toward his chin. He asked abstractedly, "Why do you people always make things so complicated?"

Then he took a step forward. He folded his arms thoughtfully in front of himself, bunching up the thick material of his sweater, and focused hard on me. He was uncomfortably close; I had to crane my neck to look up at him. The bastard was doing it deliberately.

"I am going to ask you a question," he said. "You can answer it yes or no. I don't want repartee. Any statement other than yes will be considered a no. Do you understand that?" His gaze was uncomfortably direct.

"Yes," I said.

"Good." He studied me thoughtfully. "Here's the question. Do you want to live?" He cocked his head and waited for my answer. I licked my lips. My throat was suddenly dry. I could hear the blood pounding in my head. This was no casual question. The man was mad. If I said anything but yes, he would kill me.

"Yes," I said. My voice sounded like a croak.

"Good." A flicker of amusement crossed his face. He turned to the women. "It's always so difficult for them to state the obvious, isn't it?"

The women tittered.

The man turned back to me. He was abruptly crisp and businesslike. "Those are your only options. Live or die. Do you understand that?"

"Yes." I hated him. "I understand that."

"And that it will be your choice-no one else's?"

I hesitated, then somehow managed to get the words out. "Yes . . . I understand that too."

"Very good, Lieutenant McCarthy. Former Lieutenant McCarthy." He squatted down before me and faced me eye-to-eye. "My name is Dr. Jason Delandro. And I am in charge here. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"You have been liberated from your previous condition of servitude. Do you understand that?"

"Uh, no."

He picked up my dog tags and held them up in front of me. "There is a group that calls itself the United States Government-"

"I've heard of them," I said.

"Don't be cute," Delandro said. "Too much cute can make a person dead. Do you understand?"

"Yes. "

"This group-the United States Government-claims to represent the people of this continent. Have you had an education, James Edward McCarthy?"

"Yes."

"Did they teach you that a government must be accountable to its member population?"

"Yes."

"Did they teach you that if a government is not, then the people have the right to replace that government?"

"It's in the Declaration of Independence," I said.

"Did you learn it?" he asked with elaborate patience.

"Yes," I said.

"Did you learn that as a fact?" Delandro repeated. "Or as a responsibility?"

"Uh . . . a responsibility."

"I doubt that," said Delandro, "I doubt it very much."

"Maybe some of us interpret responsibility a little bit different than you," I offered.

"On that we are in absolute agreement," he said, smiling for the first time. "There are people on this continent who are no longer willing to allow the so-called government of the United States to claim to represent us or act in our names. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Do you?" He looked at me as if he could see into my soul. "Or are you just saying yes to avoid hearing what I'm really saying?"

I took a breath. I returned his stare. "Yes," I said. "I understand." My knees were beginning to hurt. My arms were beginning to ache. The sweat was carving a river down my side. And I wanted to know what had happened to the kid.

"Can I get up?"

"In a minute. First we need to establish the ground rules." He stood up and pulled a pistol out from under his sweater. It had been stuck in his belt. "Do you know what this is?" It was a silver-plated Walther PPK. I wondered whose body he'd taken it off of.

"It's a gun."

"Do you know what it does?"

"It kills people."

"Very good." He brought it up very close to my face, so close I couldn't focus on it. He held the end of the barrel under my nose. "Smell the gunpowder?"

I managed to say, "Yes."

He shoved the end of the barrel into my mouth. "Taste the metal?"

I tried to nod. My heart was banging in my throat. "Want to feel the bullet?"

I shook my head, very slowly. My eyes felt like hard-boiled eggs. I was afraid to blink.

"Good. James McCarthy has chosen to live. Now you're ready to hear the ground rules. I'm going to ask you to give me your word. If you break your word to me, I'll kill you. I'll blow your fucking brains out. Do you understand?"

"Mm-hmh!"

"What was that again?" He took the gun out of my mouth.

"Yes!" I nearly shouted it. I was terrified. I gulped and added, "I understand. If I break my word, you'll kill me."

Delandro grinned toothily. "Very good, James. There may be a chance for you after all." He started to turn away, then suddenly he turned back and squatted down in front of me again. His face was very close. He looked me straight in the eyes and his expression was icy. "You don't fool me for a minute, you slimy motherfucker. You'd kill me in a second if you thought you could get away with it. You're just waiting for the opportunity, aren't you?"

I didn't answer. I just glared at him.

He held up his pistol meaningfully. "Tell the truth, James."

"Right," I said. It was the truth.

"Thank you." He smiled disarmingly, as if we were longtime friends. "You see, there's no punishment for telling the truth, James. You can tell me anything you want. I can take it."

"You're right," I said; I didn't care if my hatred showed. "That's exactly what I've been thinking."

"Thank you," Delandro said. Suddenly, his voice took on an intensely earnest quality. "I appreciate your honesty. It's a very good beginning."

"You see," he added, "it's only your military programming that wants to kill me. You've been brainwashed. Your mind has been turned into a nasty little military machine. But I don't listen to what that machinery spits out. Because I know where it comes from. And I also know that there's a real person under all that programming. The truth is, you don't really want to kill anyone at all."

"You're right. I don't want to kill," I said very carefully and very evenly. "But I will kill you if I get the chance."

"That's very courageous," Delandro grinned. "That's a perfect example of how a military mind works." He patted me on the shoulder. "You can be proud of yourself. You told me off."

"I meant it," I said. "I will kill you."

He studied me quietly. "Do you see how you're stuck in that?" he asked.

"It may take me a while," I said. "But you can count on it."

Delandro straightened up. He was unimpressed. "If I felt that was true," he said, "I wouldn't even bother continuing." He reholstered his pistol in his belt and pulled his sweater down over it again. "Did you get the ground rules?"

"Yes."

"What are they?"

I said it acidly. "If I break my word, you'll kill me."

"So, therefore . . . ?" he prompted.

"Whether I live or die will be my choice."

"Very good! Say it again, please. All of it."

My lips were so tight I could hardly speak. The words came out like bullets. "The choice between living and dying is entirely mine. If I break my word, you'll kill me."

"Very good, Jim. You may stand up now. You may put your hands down."

I did so.

"Now," he said. "I am going to ask you to give me your word that you will answer my questions truthfully, that you won't try to escape, and that you will cooperate to the best of your ability."

I hesitated.

"If you're thinking about your name, rank and serial number, forget it. I already know those things. And you're not a prisoner of war, Jim. Quite the contrary. You've been liberated. But you don't see it as liberation, do you?"

"No, I don't," I admitted. "If it's really liberation, you shouldn't have to threaten me."

"Quite," he agreed. "Do you know how to train a mule?" I shook my head. "You hit it with a two-by-four. Then, after you have its attention, you can begin to train it. Do you understand the analogy?"

"Yes."

"Good. You don't see it as liberation. Not yet. Don't worry, you will. Until that time, I want your word."

Still I hesitated.

Delandro looked confused. "Is there some problem James? Didn't we make ourselves clear?" He put his hand inside his sweater-on his pistol butt.

I gulped. "You have my word."

"Thank you," he said. He waved to someone behind me. "All right, relax."

I looked to my rear.

There were two more worms there. Bigger than the one they called Orrie.

They had been there the whole time.