Ahern, Jerry - Survivalist 10 - The Awakening

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The Awakening
Chapter One
It was another dream, another in the endless succession of dreams, of
nightmare fantasy and reality, of happiness and pleasure—another of the
dreams. He had long since become aware of them, viewing them from the peculiar
position of observer yet at once participant. He had even learned to control
them. When a scene in the dream would be violent, when he was against
insurmountable odds, he would stop the dream, go back several scenes and
provide an additional weapon for himself, extra explosives, some added means
of escape. He tried that when he came upon an electrified fence—like the one
that had sur-rounded the Womb—and for some reason despite his precautions, the
electrified fence was sending a charge through his body. The funny thing of it
was that the charge was not killing him—but did one ever die in dreams, he
wondered? In fact, the charge was almost pleasant. He felt the tingling
sensation in his body—as if it were somehow animating him rather than
destroying him.
He considered this, in the surreal way in which dreamers can consider
anything—why was it pleasant?
Enough of this dream.
He opened his eyes.
John Rourke opened his eyes.
He could breathe.
He closed his eyes—but he realized at one level of consciousness that it was
not a dream now. He was at last awake.
John Rourke realized he was alive.
To sit up was impossible yet—he felt only the tickle of the electrical charge,
the sensation of light touching his eyes, his eyes unused for five centuries.
The sensation of the rising and falling of his chest.
There was no danger of falling asleep.
But with his eyes dosed, he felt his body awakening, never more aware of his
body in so physical a way—it was like orgasm, only with the entire body as its
focal point.
Alive . . .
Rourke sat up, the lid of the cryogenic chamber rising in rhythm with his
body.
He turned his head—he had been practicing that. The monitoring lights still
glowed on the five other cryogenic chambers, still sealed. They too were
alive—Sarah, Michael, Annie, Paul—and his eyes rested on Natalia. He closed
his eyes. She was beautiful even in her sleep as the swirling
clouds of the bluish gas drifted across her face. But he missed the surreal
blue of her eyes.
John Rourke looked to his right.
His Rolex Submariner—he picked it up and as he did the sweep second hand
started to move again. He would have to ascertain the correct time, the
correct date. Slowly—not moving well yet—he placed the watch on his wrist and
closed the flip-lock clasp in place to secure it there. Beside the watch—the
twin stainless Detonics .45s.
He remembered now.
There had been the fight with the last Soviet helicopter. He had killed
Rozhdestvenskiy and Rozhdestvenskiy's submachine gun—it was an Uzi, Rourke
recalled for some strange reason—had fired into the chopper. The chopper had
exploded and Rourke had dived for the escape tunnel. He remembered a wound to
his left forearm, a rock chip. He had cleaned the wound, dressed it while he
had gone about the rest of his business in preparing the Retreat.
The world had been dying outside.
He had removed the bandage just before entering his chamber, just before
injecting himself with the cryogenic serum.
The hypodermic needle—it lay on the floor beside the chamber now as he looked
down. And he looked at his arm. The wound was healed and there was no scar.
His pistols. Rourke had cleaned them, leaving them unloaded. He picked up one
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of the pistols— the lubrication was still in evidence.
He was naked from the waist up, and bootless and sockless.
Slowly, he began to move his legs. . . .
Rourke's feet were over the side now, the pair of rubber thongs beside the
chamber, the thongs that he had worn while cleaning the guns, securing the
Retreat. He remembered that. He placed his feet in them and tried to
stand—slowly.
He could stand, but he leaned against the cryogenic chamber for support.
He started to walk, the twin Detonics' Combat Masters in the hip pockets of
his beltless Levi's— his pants felt a little large on him at the waist. Weight
loss, he supposed, the body burning energy however minutely for higher brain
func-tions and the like.
There was a mirror in the bathroom—he started toward it, not having to urinate
yet, but knowing that he should try to get his body working again. Water.
He was suddenly cot ton-mouthed, thirsty. He continued toward the bathroom, up
the three low steps, the steps hard going, hard to balance on, but he reached
the bathroom.
Rourke activated the electrical pump for the water system, hearing it come on,
turning on the cold water—air sputtered through the pipe, mak-ing loud noises,
then a trickle of water from the tap, a murky yellow color, more air, a bubble
of gas, then water, clean looking.
He let it run for a time, looking up to see himself in the mirror.
His hair was a little longer than he remembered it. He could cut it himself.
He had taught himself to do that. He had a beard that looked the equivalent of
two weeks or so of growth—he'd grown beards before, sometimes involuntarily in
the field. His eyes were clear. Wrinkles that had been at their corners were
now gone.
The scar on the base of his left ear lobe where a bullet had nicked him—the
scar was gone.
He had suspected the cryogenic process might serve to restore and rejuvenate
the body, from the data he had seen. He felt, somehow, younger.
Rourke sat down on the toilet, the lid down, to rest while the water ran. . .
.
He had drunk watei after first testing it for purity—it was as pure as it had
been. The underground stream had not failed him.
He had cooked a meal of cream of wheat and lightly toasted whole wheat bread.
He had one cup of black coffee—he had barely made it to the bathroom in time,
but the results had been normal, healthy.
In the area beyond the confines of the living section of the Retreat he had
constructed a ballistic test chamber. With boxes of ammunition selected at
random and the twin Detonics pistols—he wore a shirt now and a belt, the belt
notched in tight against his newer thinness—he went to this section of the
Retreat. The primary generators hummed, working perfectly. He would detail-
inspect them later.
But defense—it might be important.
Four boxes of Federal 185-grain JHP .45s. He selected one round from each box,
having first more closely inspected his guns, removing excess lubrication.
He fired the four rounds into the test chamber, the chronograph reading
showing the proper muzzle velocity, the functioning of guns and ammunition
combined as perfect as ever.
He loaded the magazines for both pistols, reinserting them, working the
slides, lowering the hammers over the live rounds, He loaded the half-dozen
magazines from the black leather Milt Sparks Six Pack, the Six Pack already on
his belt.
Rourke inserted the Detonics pistols into the double Alessi shoulder rig,
settling the holsters on his body—the familiarity of the weight.
He returned to the main portion of the Retreat— his little A. G. Russell Sting
IA black chrome—he positioned this inside his trouser band behind his left hip
bone. And the bone was easier to find with the loss of weight.
Socks and boots. There would be time for a shower later.
He found boot socks, pulled them on, then a pair of combat boots. He pulled
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these on, lacing them up.
His bomber jacket—before putting himself to sleep he had saddle soaped it. He
pulled it on now, his gloves in the side pocket—they were still soft, supple.
He pulled on the gloves.
Not a cigar—not yet.
His dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses—he
placed these in the inside pocket of his coat.
He had no idea if it was day or night outside. He had been awake for nearly
five hours.
He checked the charge for the battery units for one of the Geiger counters.
Adequate.
John Rourke started for the escape tunnel.
It had a double hermetic seal.
It was the only way to know.. . .
His muscles were unused to working—and he was tired as he climbed the rungs of
the tunnel from the interior door, a rechargeable flashlight in his jacket,
the light swaying as he moved.
The barred hermetically sealed door. He opened this—cold.
The air seemed somehow thinner to him. But he could breathe it. He had tested
the Geiger counter against the luminous face of the Rolex. But it read nothing
now. He checked it against the watch face again—the radiation detector worked.
But there was no high level of background radiation.
Rourke climbed through the tunnel, securing the hermetically sealed door
behind him. He kept climbing upward, toward the final door.
Did a viable world lay above it?
He worked away the bar. The rubber gasket still had its integrity but the
rubber was a little dry—he made a mental note to lubricate it. He used the
Geiger counter again with the door only open a small crack so he could close
it quickly.
No alarming level of background radiation.
He opened the door, turning his face away, putting on the glasses. There was
no way to test for
ozone content. Skin cancer was a risk he would endure—but the signs of
excessive incoming solar radiation would show up quickly.
He moved through the last door into the blinding sunlight. Squinting against
it, despite the dark-lensed glasses, he climbed out, exhausted from the climb,
muscle weary, his breathing labored—the air was rarer than it had been but
that was to be expected.
The digital readout on the cryogenic chamber had shown 481 years to have
passed. v
He stood up—around him was desert, at the base of the mountain and beyond.
Binoculars—he took the Bushnells from their case at his side. Shivering again
against the cold, he estimated the ambient temperature in the fifties and it
was midday.
He focused the Bushnell eight-by-thirtys—in the far distance, there was green,
patches of it, like sparse grass.
John Rourke dropped to his knees—half from exhaustion and half from a more
compelling necessity.
He made the sign of the cross.
Chapter Two
Still using the escape tunnel and keeping
the main entrance sealed, Rourke sortied into the world often throughout the
next several days, testing the atmosphere against his own skin. After six
days, he determined that although prolonged exposure to the sun would have its
effects because of the thinness of the atmosphere, a sufficient amount of the
ozone layer had survived and/or been restored so that with some care it would
not be lethal to be out of doors. He determined this as best he could—only
long-term time would truly tell, perhaps fatally.
But life in itself was a gamble.
Judging from the exact readout on the chamber in terms of years and decimal
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values thereof—and from readings on the position of the sun and some of the
more regular constellations in the brilliant night sky (there was less
distortion now because of the thinner atmosphere)—he calculated the date of
his awakening as September twelfth, and the year as well.
He was also able to set his watch precisely, as well as the electric clocks
throughout the Retreat.
Time was now a definitive commodity, measur-ing, rather than merely elapsed
time, an orderly progression.
One by one, he had checked the systems within the Retreat—a minor repair here,
an alteration there.
He experimented with the food. It had survived, the meal irradiated to kill
bacteria before storage proving now exceedingly worthwhile.
He was on solid foods, his appetite coming back
to him, his bodily functions normal.
A complete physical—as complete as a physi-cian can give himself. His heart
rate was better than it had been since his early twenties. So was his pulse.
His hearing was better, too.
Smoking no longer a habit, he consumed three cigars a day or less. He
calculated that, at that rate, he had enough for three years, perhaps a little
longer. He had prepared. Tobacco could be grown.
He had begun a program of rigoroYis physical activity, large muscle group
function tostrengthen the heart and to tone the body and develop lung power.
At midday on the sixth day he used a soil test kit to determine the viability
of the land near the Retreat, for the first time using the main entrance.
The soil was richer than it had ever been, despite the sandy appearance. It
was bleached by the stronger sun. He was tanning rapidly and by the fifth day
had begun to wear one of his broad-brimmed Stetsons against the sun.
Beneath the topsoil, the ground was still dark and rich. Some nutrients were
in bizarre combina-tions—but it would grow food.
He had tested all of his weapons and ammuni-tion—all was in order.
Gradually, he was recharging the battery for the Harley Low Rider.
But he was alone.
Chapter Three
On the seventh day, September eighteenth, he did not rest.
He was not God and so there was no special reason, for dramatic meaning or
otherwise, to do so.
His plan was one he had considered carefully, one in which he had no choice
but to place his confidence. For the survival of them all, it was necessity.
/ He stood—one of his cigars, the first of the day, was clamped tightly in the
left side of his mouth between his teeth, unlit. Rourke stared at the
cryogenic chambers.
His hair was cut. He could feel his muscle power returning more rapidly than
he had anticipated. He was clean shaven and had a full stomach.
Alive in all but the fullest sense of the word.
He activated the controls of the cryogenic chambers, to awaken his son and his
daughter.
He sat down on the sofa which had been pushed aside to make room for the
cryogenic chambers when they had first been brought to the Retreat, watching
the slow awakening process begin—the gas began to swirl in different patterns,
to slowly dissipate.
He watched. . . .
John Rourke was fascinated—the process took hours. He felt overly clinical,
but he made notes as he watched, smiling too as expression returned to
the face of his young daughter, to the face of his young son.
Annie's hair had grown—perhaps two inches. Michael's hair had grown as well—he
could give Michael a haircut. The longer length hair looked pleasing on Annie.
Rourke watched them turn their heads, evi-dently passing through the state
where dreams and returning consciousness co-mingled, as he had—it fascinated
him how long this process seemed to endure. And he wondered what children's
dreams were. His dreams in childhood had long since faded in his memory.
Rourke watched. He noted things in the legal pad before him.
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He remembered things in his heart—he won-dered how it would be to watch his
wife Sarah, Natalia, Paul. How would it be for them?
To awaken.
Annie began to sit up. Michael—always the harder of the two children to
awaken—still moved, but in a supine position, tossing, turning.
The lid of Annie's chamber began to rise, coordinated with the rising of her
seven-year-old body. That she had been born 488 years ago did not escape
him—the irony of it.
The cryogenic chamber's lid was fully open.
"Hello, sweetheart," Rourke whispered—for the first time since his awakening
having someone with whom to speak.
"Da—"
Her mouth wasn't working properly yet and he
ift
laughed, standing up, walking over to stand beside the chamber, reaching out
his right hand to hold her hands. "We're all alive. We made it. You've been
sleeping for four hundred and eighty-one years."
"How—how—"
"How long is that? It's a very long time, longer than any other human being
has ever slept and then awakened. The people on the Eden Project— they've been
sleeping a little longer, but they're still asleep. They should be for another
twenty-one years. Do you understand me?"
Annie yawned, like only a little girl yawns, her body scrunching up, her mouth
open, her arms outstretching.
And she smiled—he had remembered how beautiful her smile was, at least he had
thought he had. But seeing it now was even more than he had remembered. He
noticed too that the small chicken pox scar that had been on her eyelid, and
the mark on her hand from the removal of a wart— both scars were gone now.
She hugged her arms—awkwardly—around his neck. He lifted her from the chamber,
kissing her cheek.
In the cryogenic chamber to the right, Rourke's left, Michael was beginning to
move with greater determination it seemed—and he was starting to rise, the lid
of the chamber rising, the slightly sweet smell of the cryogenic gas again as
it dissipated.
Michael sat fully erect. f
19
"Hi, son."
Michael looked at him oddly. And then it looked like Michael was starting to
laugh.
Chapter Four
Oddly, the children had seemed tirecl after only a few hours of
wakefulness—but a rapid yet com-plete examination had revealed no unexpected
physical conditions, no illness. They were simply children—something which
Rourke had con-sciously reminded himself to remember—and been exhausted by the
excitement.
After eight hours of sleep, a surprisingly large breakfast and endless
questions about the cryo-genic process, Rourke stood with them before the open
outer door of the Retreat. It was their first sight of the New World.
"It looks like a desert," Annie observed. "But it's kinda pretty, isn't it,
Daddy?"
"Yes—kind of pretty," Rourke answered, smok-ing his first cigar of the day.
"Kind of."
"Is everything dead out there?" Michael asked suddenly, his shoulders hunched
in the too large blue denim jacket Rourke had loaned him.
Rourke didn't answer for a moment.
Annie repeated Michael's question. "Is it all dead out there?"
"I thought that it would be—and in a way it is. But I was awake for a week
before I awakened you, Annie, or you, Michael. And I did a lot of thinking."
He started through the outer doorway —the rocks were still in place as they
should be, the rocks which he used as the counterbalances for opening the door
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of the Retreat. He perched on a rock near them, Annie squirming up onto his
lap, Michael leaningon his shoulderat his left. Rourke carried his Detonics
pistols only. "There might have been other nations which foresaw what could
happen and prepared, maybe other groups. There wefe a lot of Survivalists in
the days before the Night of The War. If an elaborate enough Retreat could
have been built, one that was self-sustaining —well, maybe we aren't alone."
And he smiled, hugging Annie tighter on his lap, holding Michael close, too.
"But we're alone here—as far as the eye can see, even with binoculars." He
pointed toward the top of the mountain. "From way up there, I can see
vegetation—plants, you know. But no signs of fish in the streams, animal
life—or people. No campf ires, no smokestacks, no vehicles —like the land
around us was wiped clean like a chalkboard and no one has written on it yet.
And that's what I want to talk to you both about." The air temperature was
chill, but Rourke felt a warmth in him he rarely felt as he held his children.
"The Eden Project—"
"The spaceships," Annie supplied.
"Space Shuttles," Michael corrected, seemingly automatically.
"Shuttles, ships—but the Eden Project. They should return in about twenty-one
years if the data was correct. But what if the Eden Project never returned,
and what if we were the only people on Earth?"
"I wouldn't have anybody to play with," Annie said softly.
Rourke smiled, holding her. "More important that that—and I know playing is
important—but more important than that even: survival, not just of ourselves,
but the human race. The three of us here, and your mother, and Uncle Paul and
Natalia—only six people. I thought a long time about this.
Ourchancesofrcbmlding, of makinga new world—the only way is for all six of us
to be adults at the same time, for all six of usto be as close in age as
possible. And so I have a plan. You'd both have to be very brave and be very
smart."
"What is it that you want us to do, Daddy?"
He looked at his son's lean face, the brown eyes, the full shock of dark brown
hair—it was as il somehow he were studying his own reflection in a mirror, but
the light biinging him the reflection had taken a quarter century to return
from the mirror to his eyes. "For the next five years, I'm going to teach both
of you everything, some things you probably shouldn't know until you are much
older. We're going to work very hard—"
"Will we have a chance to play, Daddy?" Annie smiled,
"Yes—there'll be time for that, too."
"Why five years?" Michael asked him.
"Because, son, in live years you'll be nearly fourteen biologically," and he
looked at Annie on his lap, her dark honey blond hair caught up in the breeze,
her brown eyes sparkling. "And you, young lady—you'll be nearly twelve. That's
awfully young for both of you—"
"Fourteen is pretty old," Michael insisted.
Rourke let himself smile. "It's going to have to be. Because in five years, if
everything goes as I plan, I'm taking the cryogenic sleep again. For sixteen
years. And when you are thirty, Michael— and Annie, you'll be twenty-eight.
Then all the chambers will open, your mother's, Paul's, Nata-lia's—and mine
again." He looked at his son. "You'll be about two years older than Natalia,
Michael." He looked at Annie. "And you'll be just a little younger than Paul
Rubenstein. And Mommy and Daddy won't be that much older than either of you.
Then there'll be six of us—and we can build the world again if we have to."
They didn't understand, Rourke thought. His children didn't understand.
But in Michael's eyes, he saw something. Rourke knew that he would.
"Our first lesson in survival and in growing up begins today. So run—don't run
far, but run and
play-"
Annie kissed him on the lips and slipped off his lap, running after Michael.
Rourke watched as they played tag down the mountain road from the entrance of
the Retreat. "Play," John Rourke
whispered. "While you can." He inhaled on his cigar but it had gone dead. He
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lit it again in the blue-yellow flame of his Zippo.
Chapter Five
The most important task at the beginning had been teaching Annie to do more
than just pretend to read. And she had learned quickly. And he had immediately
begun each child in the ways of self-preservation. Michael had been taught the
rudi-ments of marskmanship before the Night of The War. And from what Sarah
had told him, Michael had learned these rudiments well. He found himself—John
Rourke—sometimes watching Mi-chael in those first days.Nine yearsoldand the
boy had already killed. But it seemed not to affect him.
The subject matter to be taught and mastered had been overwhelming, Rourke had
realized from the start. Electronics, plumbing, electrical work, motorcycle
maintenance—all these to pre-serve the Retreat and what it housed. Cooking,
from the use of the stove and the microwave oven to how to build a fire in the
wild. Wood was scarce and the search for it had taken Rourke away from the
children with the pickup truck to far beyond the base of the mountain. No
life—but trees to cut down. Eventually, as the years passed, he had
taught Michael to handle the full-sized McCuIloch Pro-Mac 610. Rourke's palms
had sweated, his stomach churning, letting an eleven-year-old boy handle a
chain saw.
Both children he had taught the rudiments of sewing—putting back buttons and
mending ripped seams and holes in Levi's. Annie had quickly gotten into the
books Rourke had put up for Sarah and by the time she had reached age ten
spent much of her leisure time doing needlepoint as she listened to
recordings, watched videotapes, and questioned her father.
Marksmanship training for both of them pro-gressed, Annie utilizing the CAR-15
because of the shorter buttstock length, Michael managing one of the Ml 6s.
Target practice in the early years was confined to the .223 because Rourke had
such an abundance of ammo for this caliber as well as a large number of M-16s
and replacement parts, all of this from the United States Air Force base on
the New West Coast, part of the supplies he and Rubenstein and Natalia had
brought back with them. Occasional handgun marksmanship was practiced,
utilizing miscellaneous .38 Special ammunition fired through Rourke's
Metalifed Colt Python.
It was not until Michael reached age twelve that Rourke in earnest began
teaching him the use of the .45.
The training gun was the blue Detonics .45 Rourke had taken from the Soviet
agent who had worked with Randan Soames near the early site of
of;
U .S. II headquarters. Michael had quickly taken to it. Annie's marksmanship
with Rourke's CAR-15 reached such a level that after a time he began joking
with her that Annie's real last name should be Oakley rather than Rourke.
The martial arts. Childrens' bodies are supple, strong, flexible—they learned
quickly and well, Rourke teaching them the basics of Tae Kwon Doe and letting
them progress into other variations. It was not until Michael was thirteen and
Annie eleven that Rourke began teaching the children what to do in order to
kill with their hands.
He paralleled their instruction, which at times meant holding Michael back, at
times pushing Annie forward. But teaching both children simul-taneously was
the only way for him.
The children studied history. Having lived through its most important epoch,
its most pivotal period, they seemed naturally drawn to the discipline.
Questions—why had U.S. and Soviet relations fallen to the point where the
Night of The War had been the only alternative?
It was then that Rourke showed them some-thing he had begun shortly after the
Awakening-it was then that the children had realized why at night he had sat
alone in a far corner of the Great Room, music low on the air, a
typewritergoing.lt was a memoir of events leading to the Night of The War, and
events afterward. It was not finished and Rourke had confided to his son and
daughter that he felt it never would be—there was always more to add.
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Ovid in the original Latin—it was good mental
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discipline, he had told them.
The sculpture of Michelangelo, the music of Beethoven and Liszt, the
philosophy of Aquinas, Sartre, Rand. He realized early on that he was merely
introducing the children to things they would have to learn without him.
The fertile soil outside the Retreat yielded corn, potatoes, asparagus,
tomatoes, peas. The winters were hard and long and cold and the growing
seasons short, but in these times, as in all other times they shared, they
shared the work together. John Rourke discovered that he not only had
children, he had friends.
They would talk long into the evening— literature, philosophy, music, science,
the arts.
Medicine. By the time the last year had begun, both Michael and Annie had
learned first aid to the point where either would have been qualified to
assume the duties of a paramedic. He had placed medical and dental knowledge
above all else but self-defense, for without their health, in this hospitable
yet forbidding world, they would perish.
Michael, at nearly fourteen, had begun to seriously assault Rourke's
limited—but not too limited—-supply of .44 Remington Magnum am-munition. The
boy had become enamored of one particular pair of guns. John Rourke had never
favored single action revolvers. Michael Rourke favored them.
At the range area beyond the entrance to the Retreat, Rourke stood, watching
his son.
Michael, only two inches shorter than Rourke now, held the eight-and-three-
eighths-inch-barreled Stalker in'both hands at full arms length, the webbed
sling for the massive Magnum Sales-converted Ruger Super Blackhawk swaying
slightly in the breeze as it hung from its barrel and base-of-the-butt-mounted
swivels. John Rourke watched as Michael Rourke studied the target—a pine cone
one hundred yards distant—through the 2X Leupold scope. Even with the sound-
dampening earmuffs John Rourke wore, the sound of the Stalker as it discharged
was intense. In the distance, the dot that had been the pine cone seemed to
vaporize as Rourke studied it through the Bushnell armored eight-by-thirtys.
"You hit it."
"I know."
"Let's see what you can do with the short one."
"All right."
Michael set down the Stalker, taking the shorter barreled gun from the wooden
table they had built together of rough hewn pine logs brought up from the
valley below. Michael picked up the Predator. It was largely the same gun, a
stainless Ruger Super Blackhawk reworked by Magnum Sales, but this without a
scope, the barrel only four and five-eighths inches long.
Michael held the revolver in both hands. John Rourke called to him, "When I
sleep again— practice firing that smaller one you've got now,
9«
practice firing it faster at closer ranges. Teach yourself to reload it on the
run as you fire."
"I understand what you mean, but not how to do it," Michael called back, his
voice deeper than it had been as a child. But not as deep as it would be,
Rourke thought.
"You take your shot down range—like you planned—then I'll empty it and show
you what I mean," and Rourke brought the shooter's ear-muffs up again,
watching as Michael did the same.
Rourke watched through the binoculars again —another pine cone, this fifty
yards away. It was a good-sized pine cone, John Rourke reminded himself as
Michael's Predator discharged, the pine cone disintegrating.
Rourke looked at his son—proud, no prouder than when the boy had first
attacked geometry and taken quickly to it, but just as proud.
Rourke walked toward his son, leaving the earmuffs up.
Michael handed him the Predator.
"Four shots?"
"Never load more than five in a single action, even if it is a Ruger," Michael
nodded.
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Rourke smiled. Twenty-five feet away, more or less, was a pine tree that had
been struck by lightning—natural lightning. It had happened only six months
earlier.
Rourke picked up five rounds of the Federal 240-grain .44 Mags, his right
thumb working open the Ruger's loading gate, closing it, opening it, closing.
"With an original Colt, I knew a man
29
who kept the loading gate open, reloading just as fast as he fired. You can't
do that with one of these. So you improvise."
"Show me," Michael said, his even white teeth showing as his wide mouth opened
in a smile.
"I was planning to," Rourke laughed. "That struck tree—that's a man shooting
at you. This table is cover. You've gotta nail him as you run toward the
table, reloading as fast as you can. Then because there's somebody coming
right up your back, you've gotta pass that guy and finish him. So you run from
behind cover and empty the next five into him—if it takes that many. This time
it will."
"All right."
"Get back over there." Rourke gestured toa rock some distance beyond the table
and out of range of any possible missed shot. "And keep your muffs
up—shooting's hard enough on your ears in combat, no sense damaging your ears
during practice."
"All right."
Rourke took the Predator and the five spare rounds of ammo and strode back
perhaps twenty-five feet beyond the table at an angle. He shouted to Michael,
"Gimme a yell when you want me to start—and keep in mind I'm not very good
with a single action and I don't shoot .44 very often."
"Excuses, excuses—now!"
Michael had caught him flat-footed—but Rourke broke into a run, the Predator
in his right fist, the loose ammo in his left, his right thumb
jerking back the hammer, the right index finger 'triggering the shot, the
Magnum Sales Custom Ruger bucking in his right hand at the web of flesh
between thumb and forefinger, bucking again and again and again as he crossed
the distance to the table, the lightning-struck pine shuddering with the
impacts, starting to crack near the base, Rourke skidding down behind the
table, the loading gate already flicked open. His left thumb worked the full
length ejector rod, the loose rounds in the left palm, his left hand's last
two fingers holding the Ruger, as the rod reached maximum extension and the
empty punched out, his right plucking a loaded round from the palm of his
left, inserting it, then repeating the process, the Ruger loaded, the loading
gate closed, Rourke up, running, emptying four of the five rounds into the
tree trunk target—the tree split, falling.
Rourke stopped running.
Michael was shouting, "That's pretty good, Dad-"
Rourke wheeled, firing the fifth and last round into the remaining stump of
the tree, the distance fifteen feet, the stump cracking, a chunk of pine wood
perhaps two inches in diameter sailing skyward.
Rourke pulled off his shooter's earmuffs; Mi-chael, approaching, did the same.
Rourke, his voice almost a whisper, said, "I like a .45 better, or a double
action. But if you're wedded to these, maybe that's more important. They're
good guns."
Annie—nearly twelve, shouted from the en-trance to the Retreat. "I cracked
open the last jar of peanut butter—anybody want a -cornbread and peanut butter
sandwich?"
Rourke looked at Michael—Michael looked at him.
Annie was turning into a good cook for a girl of her years.
"Come on—peanut butter sandwiches with fresh strawberries and tomatoes and a
green pea and asparagus salad. Come on!"
A fine cook, if somewhat bizarre.
Chapter Six
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Rourke sipped at a glass of the corn whiskey. The first batch had been too
strong, but this was palatable enough. He still had a more than ample supply
of civilized Seagram's Seven but almost three years ago had started the still.
Michael was planning to produce beer eventually. Rourke had never worshipped
beer that terribly much, but if he were nearly fourteen, he supposed that he
might— in anticipation.
They sat in the kitchen, Annie talking. "I wish we could find some surviving
dairy animals— anything. Even a goat. I've got some great recipes for cheese,
for yogurt, and you've got the starters I
need. Remember that yogurt I tried with the dehydrated milk?"
"It was good, sweetheart," Rourke told his daughter. She reminded him of her
mother, except for the hair color. She had not cut her hair either, not since
the Awakening. He mentally corrected himself—occasionally she trimmed "split
ends," as she called them. He imagined she had picked up the term from a book
or from a videotape. But her hair, when it was unbound as it was now, reached
past her waist, still the same dark honey blond color it had always been.
She was becoming a woman—but he would miss the little girl she so rarely was
nowadays. He had told her what to expect—when she actually became a woman. For
there would be no woman there, no adult.
He had explained to both children what they would feel in their bodies, and
explained to both of them the obvious limitations their environment would
impose.
But he had planned for that as well. . . .
They sat in the great room, Rourke on the couch, Michael on the reclining
chair, but the chair not reclined, the back up straight. Annie sat cross-
legged, Indian fashion, on the floor. Behind them—Rourke suddenly noticing
it—was the soft hum of the cryogenic chambers. "We six are the future—it's
important that all six of us survive to make that future. I haven't really
taught you anything, either of you, except the means to improve your skills,
to acquire real knowledge.
Sixteen years will pass after tonight before I see either of you again, yet
daily each of you will see me, see your mother—she is unchanging. SeePau] and
Natalia. I'm not leaving you—either of you— an easy task. Not at all. If
something comes up for which I wasn't able to prepare you, you'll have to
solve it. If it cannot be solved, then awaken me from the sleep and hope that
I can solve it. If either of you is so seriously injured that the medical
techniques I've taught you and the reference material available cannot
alleviate the situation, then awaken me from the sleep. If there is a problem
with the/ Retreat systems which you cannot solve, th£n awaken me. At even the
slightest intimafion that the cryogenic systems are failing or thepower is
failing, awaken the four of us instantly. Instantly."
He looked at Annie. "I want you to pursue your interest in things
creative—creativity is vital to survival, mentally as well as physically.
Don't redecorate the Retreat—I kind of !ike it the way it is. But exercise
your mind, practice the fighting techniques I've taught you—but don't break
your brother in half."
"Dad," Michael laughed.
Annie only smiled.
"Move up from those .38s out of my Python— start into .357 Magnums. Don't get
hooked on single action revolvers like your brother."
"I like that Detonics Scoremaster you let me try once—it's pretty and it's
accurate."
"Fine—but wait a few years before you get into
it, and the gun is yours."
"All right." She smiled, the corners of her mouth dimpling.
He looked at Michael. "I'm not sounding chauvinistic—at least I hope not. But
you're two years older, and you're a man. Fourteen is a rough age to start
being a man, but you started when you were younger than that and saved your
mother's life with those Brigands, helped your mother and Annie out of that
swollen lake when the dam burst. You've got an ego I haven't seen the like of
since my own. That can be a positive feature if you can control it. A negative
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file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/James%20Axler%20-%20The%20Survivalist%2010%20-%20The%20Awakening.txtTheAwakeningChapterOneItwasanotherdream,anotherintheendlesssuccessionofdreams,ofnightmarefantasyandreality,ofhappinessandpleasure—anotherofthedreams.Hehadlongsincebecomeawareofthe...

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