Under the Eye of God Read online

  The blue-skinned bartender glanced up distastefully. He recognized not the men, but the mission.

  “Slow night,” remarked the tall man, pulling his scarf down to reveal clear even features. Sawyer Markham grinned, a wild bright flash of laughter in a gloomy hole.

  The bartender ignored Sawyer, his comment, and his grin; he continued wiping disinterestedly at a glass.

  Sawyer shrugged and stepped sideways so the bartender could see his partner behind him. Finn Markham.

  Now the bartender looked up. Finn Markham had an ominous look; his eyes shone like coal, glowing in the dark space beneath his hat. His scarf still covered his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice rumbled like death. “Where’s Murdock?” he asked quietly.

  The bartender considered the question. He considered putting down the glass and picking up the hand-weapon under the folded towels. His eyes flicked up and across and down again, quickly assessing the two men and the power of their rifles. Slowly, he put down the glass. Then he picked up the next one and began to wash it carefully. “Don’t know anyone named Murdock,” he said noncommittally.

  Sawyer snorted.

  Finn glanced over, then flicked his eyes upward. Sawyer nodded in response. They headed for the stairs.

  Finn went swiftly up the hard ceramic steps, treading as lightly as he could. Still, his footsteps caused the boards to creak. Sawyer waited at the bottom; he turned and studied the room, his gun casually covering a wide arc. The synth fell silent. The technoid closed the cover on its keyboard and faded into a corner. In the silence, conversation ebbed. A few of the more cautious patrons moved out of the center of the room.

  Finn paused at the landing. He listened at the first door. Nothing. He moved to the second—

  The bartender started to move. Sawyer looked over at him, one eyebrow raised questioningly. His rifle swung meaningfully. The bartender stopped; he shrugged apologetically. What the hell—Murdock meant nothing to him. Sawyer grinned and looked up to the top of the stairs again, watching his brother with great interest.

  At the third door, Finn paused. He glanced down and nodded. This one. He lifted his rifle; then he kicked—

  The door crashed open with a bang! Finn plunged in like a charging buffalo. A scream and a roar—“Murdock! I have a warrant for your arrest!” Something crashed against the wall, shaking it visibly, and then another shuddering crash, and a chair came flying out the door, arcing over the railing, tumbling down into the bar and shattering on the floor below. The crashing, smashing noises continued, punctuated by painful grunts and other meaty sounds.

  A naked young man—no, only a boy—just a little too young and a little too pretty, came running out the door carrying his clothes in his hands. He looked terrified. He came flying, skidding, tripping down the stairs. He slipped and skidded the last few steps.

  Sawyer’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the voluptuous boy, but he let him pass. “That’s not Murdock,” he decided. Apparently, this establishment kept a wider variety of erotic talents available for the entertainment of its guests than he had previously assumed.

  “Hm,” said Sawyer, looking after the boy’s rosy cheeks. “I didn’t think Murdock liked humans of any sex.”

  Another thundering crunch from above pulled Sawyer’s attention around again. The sudden sound of rifle fire spattered loudly above—a fast-crackling whistle, the sound of air burning—and then a sudden oof! and an even greater loud crash! Large pieces of ceramic molding cracked and shattered from the ceiling, from the walls. They fell to the floor in a lacerating shower, spattering fragments in all directions. Customers gasped and jumped out of the way. The bartender looked up alarmed.

  A second chair came hurtling out the door, followed by the two halves of Finn’s rifle. The chair bounced once and broke apart. The fuel cell in the stock of the rifle discharged itself in a terrific flash of light and energy. Another frightful impact from above hit the building like the fist of god. The brittle front wall cracked with the shock; all three windows shattered at once, spraying shards of glass outward into the lambent night. For just the briefest moment, they glittered like diamonds in the air.

  Sawyer Markham listened thoughtfully. Then, nodding to himself, he admitted, “This one could get serious.” He listened half an instant more to the shuddering, thumping, crashing, clattering, thundering sounds of the titanic battle overhead—yes, very serious—then headed out the back door.

  Murdock

  Sawyer stepped into the brightening alley, starting to sparkle now with lambent starlight. A row of metal-roofed storage sheds leaned exhaustedly against the sagging rear of the building. Yes, new cracks outlined the wall. He looked up above them to the second floor. As he watched, the surface shook again. The wall shuddered. The fissures lengthened.

  Sawyer narrowed his eyes as if estimating something. Absent-mindedly, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of red and white striped candy. He unwrapped it methodically and popped it into his mouth, never taking his eyes from the old ceramic wall. Suddenly, there came a terrible crash and Sawyer looked pleased.

  “Four . . . three . . . two. . . . “He counted and took a step back—

  Abruptly, right on cue, an incredibly huge, ugly, barrel-shaped monster of a human—at least, it looked vaguely human—came fracturing through the boards almost directly above Sawyer’s head. He stepped easily out of the way as the elephantine creature crunched, bounced, rolled, flopped and plopped onto the roof of the row of weak-looking sheds. They collapsed instantly and the enormous beast continued its horrendous fall, now crashing and sliding and tumbling down amid the splintering walls and the crumpling metal roofs, surrounded by the terrible clattering of cracking boards and the labored groans of folding metal beams. The monster thumped to the hard-packed earth with a wet, meaty sound, rolled a few meters and came to rest directly in front of Sawyer Markham, but facing the other way.

  Murdock.

  Also known as Murdock the Mountain.

  Upright, she stood three and a half meters tall. She had shoulders the size of a catastrophe. Sawyer began edging around to face her head on. She looked like eight hundred kilos of fun all rolled into one.

  She also looked very angry.

  Sawyer blinked. And gulped. And said, “Urk.”

  Murdock’s layers of fat and her inch-thick body-armor had softened the impact of her fall. Now, grunting like a sow, she began to lever herself back to her feet. She rose up slowly, a rising avalanche of flesh, a rolling wave of meat and bone and muscle. Her armor glistened with wet-looking reflections; she glittered like a leviathan, a great gray dragon lifting majestically out of the sea.

  Sawyer cocked his weapon loudly, but his voice sounded suddenly thin in the desert air. “Will you come quietly?”

  Murdock turned around slowly and saw Sawyer for the first time. Her face seemed pinched and tiny and much too small for her massive head. Her expression, already red and furious, contorted further in crimson rage. Her chins flowed in great disgusting wattles of flesh. The fat rolled up and down her body as the enormous muscles underneath shifted and moved. Murdock billowed and undulated as she rose. And rose. And rose. . . .

  “Hi,” said Sawyer. He gave her his most famous smile—

  It didn’t work.

  Murdock’s breath steamed. She lowered her head. She growled and started forward.

  Sawyer fired.

  The needle-beam ricocheted with a loud flash off Murdock’s body-armor and blew a hole in the nearby wall. Sawyer stepped back, startled. He hadn’t expected that. “I think I need a bigger gun.”

  Now she charged. The mountain moved. She lowered her head and roared like a bull volcano. She came rumbling forward like an avalanche of flesh. Her speed amazed Sawyer. Her power nearly killed him. Her great head caught him full-force in the chest and pushed him right through the wall of the building behind him. They hurtled into a storeroom, through a supporting wall, and up against a tower of barrels, which exploded in all directio
ns at once. Ceramic splints, wall panels, and ceiling tiles came crashing down around them, shattering and popping with sharp exploding noises. The lights swung crazily, the shadows twisted like snakes.

  Finn Markham dropped from above, falling through a hole in the ceiling, grabbing at a two-by-four as he tumbled—it broke off in his hand, dropping him roughly to the floor.

  “What kept you?” gasped Sawyer. Murdock pulled back, looked up—

  Finn didn’t take the time to answer. He started to swing the makeshift club, but Murdock caught him first, almost casually warding off his attack with one gigantic arm. The two-by-four splintered loudly into pieces.

  “Aww, shit,” said Sawyer painfully. “Now I think you’ve made her mad.”

  Murdock swung her other arm, backhanding Finn into the opposite wall. He crashed against it. It cracked ominously, held for an instant, and then tumbled him almost gently backward out into the alley. Finn lay flat on his back like an overturned cockroach. He stared up into the sky. “Pretty lights,” he said, blinking. He caught himself quickly and scrambled backward, back up onto his feet.

  Murdock moved after him. She followed him out into the alley—

  “Last warning,” Finn said, hurriedly clambering back to his feet. “Last chance to surrender peacefully.”

  Murdock only growled, a terrible rumbling note of doom. The sound had an ominous quality.

  Finn took a prudent step backward—and tripped over an empty barrel. He tumbled into the rubble behind it.

  Murdock made a sound like an earthquake, only deeper. A fleshquake. She grunted and lowered her head. She began to move again—

  But Sawyer acted first. Gasping with the effort, he levered himself painfully up. He staggered after Murdock. He touched a control on his belt. Plan B.

  Rule Number One: Always have a Plan B.

  Rule Number Two: See Rule Number One.

  Lightning-bright suns flared suddenly in the sky. The blazing lights dazzled and blinded. The beams probed, swept, and pointed again, illuminating the shaded valleys of the desert with a frightening intensity. Even the Eye of God faded behind the startling glare.

  The lightning-beams searched, hesitated, converged—and caught Murdock in the middle of an incredible wash of whiteness. Everything turned stark. The hulking fugitive froze. She looked up, blinking painfully at the glare. She deep-growled something in an unfamiliar language, a nasty curse, then turned and lumbered toward the darkness. The ground thundered under her feet.

  The aerial trackers pursued. The blinding beams followed the mammoth human beast out toward the badlands, out toward the glittering distance and the dark notch that carved deep into the south.

  Tracking

  Sawyer pulled Finn quickly to his feet. “We’ve—(gasp)—got to go after her—”

  Finn gave his brother a merciless look. His expression said it all.

  “We’ve never gotten this close to her before,” Sawyer insisted. He picked his rifle out of the broken rubble.

  Finn considered their options. His whole body hurt. He held his breath for half a second, trying to catch up to himself. Exasperated, he said, “Don’t you have a . . . a bad feeling about this, or something?”

  “No. Should I? Come on, let’s go—Hey, what happened to your other gun?”

  “She ate it.”

  “Use this,” Sawyer tossed his rifle to Finn. “I’ve got the grenades.” He started after Murdock, breaking into an eager sprint.

  Still disbelieving his brother’s enthusiasm, Finn followed, shaking his head and muttering darkly. “You know something, Sawyer?” he called. “All of a sudden, I just don’t have the same enthusiasm for this.”

  “Think of the money,” Sawyer called back.

  “Oh yeah, right. Sure. The money.” Finn remained unconvinced, but he picked up his pace anyway. “I just know I’ll regret this.”

  As they hurried after the receding lights, Sawyer unclipped the hand-terminal from his belt. The display cycled through the views from each of the aerial trackers. The skyballs still followed their target. From every perspective, the screen showed Murdock the Mountain thundering down a wide ruined avenue.

  “Down that way,” Sawyer pointed. The lights burned brilliantly.

  “I can see.”

  They came around a broken colonnade. Down at the end of the avenue, the blazing animated beams of the skyballs weaved back and forth around Murdock’s lumpish, dark, ungraceful bulk.

  Finn dropped to one knee and took aim. One good shot. . . . He fired. The needle-thin beam hung in the air for just the briefest of instants, cycling up from the infra-red to the ultraviolet and disappearing even before it had finished registering on the retina. Finn couldn’t tell if he’d hit her or not. He fired again. And again. Murdock kept moving.

  Beside him, just ahead of him, Sawyer tossed a grenade. It lifted up into the dry air with a sharp whine, hesitated at the peak of its arc while it hunted, then began heading vaguely, almost uncertainly, toward its target. It screamed as it flew, its pitch rising and falling as it hunted its objective. The grenade traced an irregular path as it searched, weaving back and forth through the glittering sky like a drunken banshee. Suddenly, its note changed—turned into a sizzling, sawtoothed buzz—as it locked onto Murdock’s lumbering fury. Now it drove toward her like the vengeance of hell.

  The grenade exploded in a shattering flash of light. It crackled the air, silhouetting Murdock’s mountainous form like a hole in the sky. Crimson rays spattered all around, sending snakes of blue-white lightning sleeting through the ruins, leaving purple afterglows burning in the air and startling orange discharges writhing across the ground.

  But Murdock remained.

  “I don’t believe this,” said Sawyer.

  “Oh, I do,” said Finn.

  The air burned redly overhead—a blistering shot from Murdock! Instinctively, Finn and Sawyer rolled in opposite directions, dodging the next shot and the next.

  Finn scrambled for the cover of a broken pedestal. Sawyer kept on rolling, came up swearing behind the corner of an elephant-sized block. He started swearing commands into his hand-terminal. The skyballs began darting and swooping low after Murdock, still pinning her in the light. Now they started firing—the needle-beams scorched the night, laying down a fiery net of thunder and flames.

  Somewhere in the middle of that hell, Murdock moved. Untouched.

  Sawyer took off down the ruined avenue, across the broken uneven surface, jumping over the smaller of the fallen blocks where they lay, his long black coat flying out behind him. He wove a random course around and through the colonnade. Murdock’s sizzling beams carved holes in the air.

  Finn fired back, laying down his own sprays of lightning, to cover his brother’s advance; then, painfully, he followed. Finn still entertained the cheerless thought that Murdock might end up costing them much more than the various bounties on her head would cover; but he already knew Sawyer’s answer to that, he’d heard it too many times before: “Then we have to catch her quickly. The bounty will offset our losses—well, some of them anyway.” Finn knew without asking. Sawyer had already reached the point of no return. He had become obsessed with this one. Murdock had long since graduated from nuisance to nemesis in Sawyer’s mind. Finn sighed and followed, moving from block to rock to column, never giving Murdock a clear shot back.

  In the distance, the skyballs moved down a distant slope, following their target remorselessly, circling and firing. The beams flashed and ricocheted off Murdock’s armor, scorching and blistering the rocks and ruins. Murdock left a trail of small molten pools and burning fires behind her.

  Now, she disappeared into the cover of deep gully; it sharpened as it carved its way toward the greater notch along Misdemeanor Ridge. Down beyond, where the ravine widened and then narrowed again toward a dark descent, a wide road led downward toward and through the last broken ruins of the centuries-old mining station. Here, the shadows of Misdemeanor Ridge took on an ominous and haunting look
. They writhed beneath the beams of the skyballs and turned jagged and tortured. Murdock’s heavy booming steps echoed back up the slope.

  Sawyer and Finn came tumbling heedless after, making wide arcs around the still-burning rocks. They headed down the gully, skidding across the broken rocks and following Murdock toward the ruins. The rising light of the Eye of God gave the broken buildings a pale ghostly glow. They hovered in the gloom like sepulchres, a city of the dead. That thought did not make Finn happy.

  Somewhere ahead, a laser-beam spat upward and something exploded in the sky.

  “Damn! She got one of the skyballs!” Sawyer started swearing.

  “Bill the client,” Finn called after him. Despite the partial battle-skeleton he wore, he knew he would ache tomorrow. And probably for several days afterward. Reluctantly, he keyed himself to a faster pace and began gaining on Sawyer again.

  Sawyer released two more grenades. They lifted in tandem, then swooped loudly toward the ever-receding beams of the skyballs.

  “That won’t stop her—”

  “Might slow ‘er down, though.”

  Another distant shot—and a second skyball disintegrated in a bright scorch of light.

  “She’s getting expensive,” Finn cautioned.

  Sawyer didn’t answer. “Better shield yourself—”

  The two grenades went off almost simultaneously. They turned the horizon momentarily white. The ground shook with the impact, but even as the detonation faded, a screeching red needle-beam blistered the air over their heads.

  “I don’t think she likes us,” said Sawyer.

  “I can’t imagine why not.”

  “Come on, let’s go.” Sawyer studied his terminal for a moment. “That way—” He pointed downward. “Down the old road.”