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And J.B.'s Uzi did its stuff. A 6-round burst opened up the skull of the
animal.
The results of all that firepower were completely devastating.
And surprising.
The head of the creature, including the long horn, was blown apart, into a
mass of tangled wires, small wheels and torn fiberglass.
The native with the spear toppled forward, revealing that he had no legs, but
was balanced on two short metal struts. His chest and head exploded into optic
threads, multicolored cables and comp panels.
The electronic carnage shorted out some of the relays in a shower of fizzing
sparks and triggered a hidden loop tape.
"Oh-oh! Looks like we better steer clear of shore. That rhino's got a mean
horn waiting for us, and the
Zulu warrior could spear us with his assegai before you say 'Jungle
Adventures.' Watch it, folks!"
The voice was calm and slightly weary, as though the speaker had overdosed on
tranks.
Everyone stood up, looking at the two destroyed mechanical creatures. The cogs
still whirred around in the stump of the animal's skull, and the tumbled
native was trying to wield his short spear, the point digging a furrow in the
grass.
The tape continued, slower and more slurred, sometimes sticking or speeding
up. The voice finally faded away into a strange, self-centered muttering, then
drifted to silence.
The burst of gunfire didn't seem to have attracted anyone's attention. The
trees and bushes were still and quiet, the water beyond drifting by on its own
tranquil way.
Ryan looked at the others. "Tried to warn you not to open fire."
"You see they were some kind of droid?" J.B. asked, reloading his Uzi.
"Yeah. Paint's peeling off the black guy, and one eye was falling out of the
rhino's head. That what a rhino looks like? Read about them. Never seen one.
Big mother, I guess."
"What is this?" Dean asked.
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"You replaced the shots fired, son?" J.B. asked. "If not, do it."
"Sure, sure. But"
Mildred answered him. "I think we might have finished up in something called a
theme park, Dean."
Ryan looked around. "Should move. Don't know who might have heard all that."
"Trees'll muffle it." J.B. sniffed the air. "No wind to carry it."
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"What's a theme park, Mildred?"
"Sort of funfair, with white-knucklers. Disney was one of the first. And best.
This doesn't"
"White knuckles? What ate they?"
"Later," Ryan told him.
THE OVERGROWN REMAINS of a winding path ran alongside the water, which turned
out to be a shallow river, no more than fifteen feet wide, its surface
rainbowed and oily.
They passed rotting blocks of lightweight plastic that looked as if they had
once been some sort of
Oriental temple. They spotted more droids that Ryan recognized as being
elephants, and there was a dried-
up waterfall with some kind of heavy machinery behind it.
"Look!" Doc exclaimed. "What a fearsome saurian!"
"If a saurian's a gator, Doc, then it isn't. Another of those models."
The trail wound on, leading them past other unlikely combinations of wild
animals frozen for eternitylions with giraffes watching them, empty eyed.
Birds had pecked all the fake fur off the pride, and the weather had faded the
patches on the coats of the giraffes to a muted gray.
It was swelteringly hot.
Ryan waved for a halt, wiping the streams of sweat off his cheeks, lifting the
eye patch where the salt was irritating the raw socket.
A tiger was lying on its side a few yards ahead of them, its legs stiff and
helpless, little metal wheels rusting in each paw. Beyond it was a line of
ducks, caught in midwaddle, in decreasing sizes.
"People pay to come see this, Mildred?" he asked. "Double-dull."
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"Wasn't just like you see now. There'd be noises, movements and stuff, and
this'd be only a small part of the place. Probably lots of other rides and
entertainment. My father brought me to Magic Mountain when
I was only" The memory was suddenly so strong that she almost choked on it.
Tears flooded her eyes, and her voice swallowed into silence. "Popcorn and
pinon pine" she said almost to herself.
Dean had finally reloaded his Smith amp; Wesson and tucked it into its
holster. He left the others and walked a few paces around the next bend,
calling back to them.
"Hey, there's a shit-evil snake here. Looks as real as life and has bright
colors. Big as a subway tunnel back in the ville."
"Wait for the rest of us," Ryan said.
"Sure, Dad, but it's"
The sentence stopped dead, as though someone had swung a huge machete and
sliced the boy into a fourth dimension.
"Dean! "Ryan called.
"Oh, Gaia! Quick!" Krysty gasped, starting to move.
But the one-eyed man was a clear two yards ahead of anyone. He sprinted around
the corner, nearly stumbling into the river, where a part of the bank had
subsided. His blaster was cocked and ready.
Ryan came to a sliding halt, holding up his hand to stop the others.
"Wait," he ordered, his voice so harsh and grating that it was hardly
recognizable. He bolstered the SIG-
Sauer. This wasn't one for a pistol.
Unlike the rhino, the lions and the rest of the creatures, the snake wasn't an
electronic android creation of the workshop.
This snake was real.
Its overlapping scales shone with a coppery, iridescent gleam. It was
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impossible to guess at its true length, as much of it was coiled out of sight,
around a massive baobab tree. But there was enough to see that it was a
mutated giant.
The head was blunt, like a great chisel, and tapered to the narrow lipless
mouth, which was half-open to reveal the scarlet forked tongue. It flicked in
and out, tasting the air currents around it, the creature's small reptilian
brain interpreting the messages and judging safety or the threat of danger.
The body just behind the head was the thickness of a muscular man's forearm,
widening until it was bigger than a weight lifter's chest. And held within the
twining coils, his feet a yard from the ground, was
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Dean Cawdor.
The boy wasn't struggling, realizing the utter futility of trying to pit his
puny strength against the monster python. One coil was around his ankles,
another about his upper chest, pinning his arms down to his sides.
Ryan noticed the .22 blaster lying in the grass, showing that the boy had come
close to saving himself.
Dean's face was suffused with blood, eyes protruding with the pressure around
his body. His mouth was open and he was trying to call out, but the snake was
slowly suffocating him.
The only sound in the clearing was the faint rustling of the reptile's dry
skin moving against the branches of the tree, and the venomous hissing of its
warning breath. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]