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Perception Fault. James Axler
Читать онлайн.Название Perception Fault
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781472084132
Автор произведения James Axler
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство HarperCollins
Krysty’s face might have been carved from white marble for all the reaction she showed. The man placed his blaster at her stomach, promising a horrible, gut-shot passing if she tried anything. He ran his dirty hands over her lower legs, up her shapely thighs and between the vee of her sex, lingering there much longer than necessary, his callused fingers pinching hard. Krysty’s lips tightened, but she made no sound at all.
“Strong, silent type, huh? The boss likes ’em to scream—I’m sure he’ll enjoy breakin’ you in, bitch.”
Krysty didn’t deign to make eye contact, but she did speak. “Just get it over with.”
“Go fast as I please, girlie. No fire-haired whore tells me what ta do.” His hands spidered upward, across her muscular midriff, heading for her breasts. “Almost there, sweetheart.”
Krysty’s eyes flicked downward just as he grabbed the tab of her jumpsuit zipper and pulled it down, the material parting to reveal more of her breasts, supported by a simple white bra. His eyes were solely on those round globes, and she felt the pressure on her abdomen lessen a bit as he licked his lips, his free hand just inches away. “Course, mebbe you and I could cut a deal right here—”
The moment his hand touched her skin, Krysty moved. Her left hand swept down and across, catching the man’s blaster hand and shoving it aside. At the same time, her right leg shot up, the chiseled metal point of silver-toed cowboy boot sinking deep into the man’s genitals. The man’s grin was replaced by a wide-open O of shock as the brutal assault on his privates short-circuited his brain. His trigger finger spasmed, sending a bullet into the floor as his other hand moved to cup his injured parts. He sank to his knees, retching once, a globule of vomit spraying from his lips to splatter on the floor.
With her right hand, Krysty had snatched her blaster off the counter and brought the butt down on the back of the man’s neck, laying him out with one ferocious blow.
Zipping up her jumpsuit, she turned to the doorway just as a shadow fell across it. She saw a flash of white hair and relaxed for a moment, thinking it was just Jak returning, except he was moving oddly, his feet dragging, almost as if—
“Don’t move, or he gets a bullet in the head,” a voice said from behind her and to the left. Startled, Krysty half turned, watching both the speaker and the man who had one arm curled around Jak’s throat, holding him up, the teen’s.357 Magnum blaster pressed to his temple.
Gaia, give me strength, she thought, raising her hands for the second time in as many minutes, just as a profusion of blaster shots erupted in the distance.
DOC HADN’T EVEN FINISHED bouncing in the dirt before J.B. leveled the M-4000 autoshotgun and let loose a hailstorm of death. The razor-sharp steel fléchettes passed over Doc’s outstretched body, arrowing through the knees of both coldhearts and sending them crashing to the ground, tormented screams bursting from their throats as they clutched their bloody, crippled legs.
The old man hadn’t been idle, either, hauling his massive LeMat single-action blaster out from under his coat and pointing it at the third man, who was standing stock-still on the other side of the wall, staring at the bloody tableau that had unfolded before him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a huge gout of blood. Eyes rolling back in his head, he collapsed onto the wall, a smaller trickle of blood leaking from the round hole in the top of his skull.
“Upon my word.” Doc kept his blaster pointed at the two wounded men as he started to clamber to his feet. In seconds, J.B. was at his side, hauling him back down behind the wall while keeping his M-4000 aimed at the pair, both of whom had stopped rolling on the ground and stared back at the companions with hate-filled eyes.
The Armorer waved at the building across the street even as he shook his head. “Dark night, Doc, you trying to get yourself killed?”
Doc grinned, showing his peculiarly even, white teeth. “While I will admit that my diversion may not have been well planned, it did do the trick, did it not?”
“These triple-stupe bastards aren’t what I’m talking about.” J.B. jabbed a thumb at the other side of the wall. “Remember the longblaster out there? Next time, think of something better than playing the hero—sure way to get a bullet through the brainpan.”
“Perhaps, but I got the distinct impression that these brigands were not coming to kill us, but to capture as many alive as they could.”
“Black dust, Doc, I swear that third guy came within an ass-hair of hitting you with his blaster.”
Mildred had come down from the building and run across the street in a crouch to join them, looking at their two prisoners with distaste. “What were you thinking, showing yourself like that?”
Doc shrugged. “I saw a course of action and took it. In hindsight, I concur that may not have been the most prudent avenue to pursue, but it got the job done, so to speak.”
The black woman shook her head, her beaded plaits swaying back and forth. “I swear, Doc, you take more words to say ‘I fucked up’ than anyone I know. What about these two?” She indicated the pair with the barrel of her blaster.
“See if you can patch them up long enough to— Look out!” J.B. shoved Mildred aside and brought up his shotgun even as Doc’s LeMat boomed. The slug smashed through the first prisoner’s breastbone, sending splinters of bone along with the slug crashing into his heart, stopping it instantly. The crude blaster, tape wrapped around its handle, fell from his hand.
The other coldheart had launched his own diversion by trying to grab Mildred. J.B. didn’t waste a shot on him, but instead brought the M-4000’s stock around in a short arc, cracking the man in the side of the head. He fell over as if someone had cut his spinal cord, collapsing in a sprawled heap on the ground.
“Damn, J.B.” Her blaster out, she checked the man for weapons, then checked his neck for a pulse. “You killed him. Must have crushed his temple with that little love tap of yours.”
The Armorer grimaced as he bent over to examine the corpse. “Didn’t think I hit him that hard.”
“You don’t know your own strength, John Barrymore.” For some reason Doc found that statement absurdly funny, slapping his knee as he laughed so hard he nearly choked, coughing and spluttering. J.B. glanced at Mildred in puzzlement, but she returned his look with a shrug before craning her neck a bit to peer cautiously over the wall.
“Shouldn’t we be finding the others?”
J.B. checked his chron. “Haven’t heard any signals—no gunshots or other signal calls yet—but it’s only been about three minutes since they left. Let’s give them two more, then poke around for them. Ryan’s still out there after the sniper. We better leave him a chance to take the coldheart out before we risk our necks going anywhere.”
The boom of the sniper rifle echoed all around them, making heads turn toward the no-man’s land on the other side of the wall. J.B. frowned. “Or we might have to go a bit sooner than planned.”
AS HE RETURNED to consciousness, Jak had the strange sense he was floating over the ground. Then there were the noises—voices nearby—a man, no, two men talking, and a woman whose voice sounded familiar.
The rest of his awareness came back between flashes of pain. First was his swollen head, with a large lump on his forehead that he couldn’t touch for some reason. His cheek was wet, too, although he didn’t know if that was his blood or someone else’s. Also, there was a band of unyielding pressure around his throat, constrictive enough to allow just a bit of air to get through. Lastly, he felt a warm circle of metal pressed against his temple, and the distinct odor of cordite every time he inhaled. His eyes fluttered, but he had the sense to remain as still as possible, trying to pick out what was being said around him.
“Blind