Chapter 10

Vash kicked in the door and activated the machine gun as he sprinted through a sudden hail of bullets. He caught three of the gunmen, causing them to drop their guns then bounded up the stairs, firing as accurately as he could at those on the upper landings. Someone grabbed him, he swung his elbow where he expected there to be a stomach and his arm found nothing but air. He fiercely twisted out of the grip and kicked at the gunman's stomach, sending him flying into the wall, noticing with some alarm the over long arms and the strangely articulated legs. So someone in this mansion needed modified goons. He kicked out at another gunman who leaped at him from a higher flight and sent him tumbling down the stair to land in a groaning in a heap at the bottom. That one had strange claw like fingers. Vash made it to the door and found it locked. Someone grabbed him from behind and he snapped his arm back, extending his palm so that he connected with the solar plexus, the modified men seemed to have a similar build, which meant with a few adaptations, he could fight them. He slammed the man's breath out of him and he dropped. He kicked open the door, then grabbed a chair beside it, slammed the door shut and jammed it closed on the goons, not that that would hold them long.

Inside was a pale, young woman with the same curly hair as Izzy. A large man with thick grey hair held a gun to her temple as she whimpered and cried. By the bruises on the side of her face and arms, they'd not been kind to her.

Okay. Tricky.

"Who the hell are you?" The man demanded.

He put a hand to his chest and preened.

"Me? Well now, have you heard of the legendary outlaw, Vash the Stampede?"

The man barked a laugh and lazily lifted his pistol, cocking it in the same motion then fired. He dodged. Excellent, an excuse to shoot back.

He shot the rope loose first, then took out the leg of her chair when she did not at first realise she was free. He sent the man with grey hair scurrying for cover.

He went to rescue the girl, but she was gone. Huh? The next thing he knew a click sounded at his ear. Ah there she was, not looking nearly as beaten up as she had first appeared.

"Hello!" He tried winsomely. Her eyes narrowed and she pressed the hot muzzle to his jaw.

Okay, very tricky. He raised his hands.

"Drop your weapons." The grey haired man ordered.

"Not holding any!" He managed before the blow hit him.

He did not see who shot his left arm out from behind, but it hurt like the blazes. It felt like eternity, but was perhaps less than a second before the ragged signals caused the neural feedback to shut down. He let the arm fall loosely at his side. Let them think they had disabled it entirely. At least they hadn't shot it off. Now, think. Why had they tricked him? They had not recognised him. So it was not the bounty. Who was supposed to have seen this set up? Jim? But they had sent him home with bullet wounds. Ah, no, she had sent him home with bullet wounds; he recognised the revolver shells on the floor. Those were not the machine gun rounds that had chased him.

This had something to do with Jim, Izzy and Ella. Oh great, a love triangle?

"He's still alive." He said calmly, watching her reaction out of the corner of his eye.

Her eyes widened and she looked very relieved. Bingo. But that didn't help him.

"I have a message for you, Ella, if I could speak without the threat of being pumped full of lead the instant I sneeze."

"Don't sneeze then." The man growled at him.

He wrinkled his nose suddenly intensely itchy with the dust and gunpowder and breathed through his mouth. It was as he was concentrating that he felt it, the whole house shook with it, a faint tremor, most unusual, and strangely familiar.

"Let him speak Trey." Ella ordered.

The gunmen lowered their weapons, but she did not.

"The message."

"Oh, right. Izzy asks that you give her ten thousand double dollars and use of the car. Baby Jim is dying."

Ella gasped and lowered the gun.

She glanced at Trey.

"I can't." She breathed, turning back to him her eyes wide. "I can't give my sister the money."

"Then her child will die." He said more coldly than he intended.

She put her hands up to her face in a gasp, and he was bewildered to see her mouth 'help me' and shoot a frightened gaze at Trey.

What in the hell was going on here?

Meryl picked up his gun. It was far too heavy for her to use with any accuracy, even two handed. She raised it to sight along it then lowered it again. It felt odd, as if she had stolen a private thing from him. Why had he left it? He never let that gun out of his sight if he could help it. The last she had seen of him was his gangly form galloping up the stairs, dodging bullets in his wildly erratic manner.

She walked down the road, back to where she had seen the twins. She could do that much for him, she thought bitterly, watch the children.

"What am I to you, Vash the Stampede?" She demanded of thin air, infuriated. "A babysitter? For your damned kids?" Hah!

She was still fuming when she marched up the cliff to where the kids were digging. There were two spades, and the coat that Doug had been wearing, but no kids. There was also a large aperture door now open in the hull of the ship. Oh hell.

She leaped down the rocks to the door and peered through the open door into the ship. This section seemed to be rather damaged and worn, as if it had been open to the elements for some time before someone had closed it up again. It also seemed that the passage went north. She tried to orientate herself, oh just her damn luck, towards the house. There was also a trail of sand heading that direction with scuffed prints that would perhaps belong to a nine year old.

She leaped down before she could think straight and ran.

She managed perhaps fifty yarz before it became too dark to see. She patted herself, looking for some source of light. She found the microphone, and her derringer. She slipped the gun into her hand and patted at the rest of her pockets. First aid kit. She dug in there and came up with medical supplies, but no fire lighting tools. Just excellent. She turned back and sprinted out of the ship. She ran all the way back down to the cottage, where Milly was calming the children in one corner, and the old doctor and the men were arguing in another room. She went over to their packs in the corner, snatched up the flashlight and sprinted out of the house again.

The ship was bigger than she had ever imagined. She felt she had walked for at least an ile before she came to a T junction. She glanced back and suddenly knew why when she saw the way the passage vanished to one side. She had been following a spiralling path. What a waste of space on a ship! But there was still no hide or hair of the kids and she was beginning to worry. She had pocketed Vash's revolver, preferring her known accuracy with a derringer for her first shot. The torch was becoming heavy in her other hand.

She froze as she heard a click and a rather odd mechanical whirring. She instinctively flinched to the side and flipped the torch off. She felt along the wall until there was an alcove and feeling a little more protected, she crouched, her derringer ready, waiting. A beam of light flashed against the wall near her and Jasmine put her head out of the door.

"Quick!" She called and then the light went out. Meryl was startled to see the children run back the way she had come in the dark without apparent need for a torch.

She stood up and turned the torch back on, her mission complete.

A gunshot startled her so much she jumped almost a foot in the air and shrieked involuntarily. She dropped the torch, and it rolled away from her, flashing light in her eyes before she could get a fix on her attacker. She dove into the darkness as more shots followed. She thumped up against the side of the wall and the door opened. She scrambled in, and felt blindly in the dark as the door closed again. Crap. Where was she? She found the wall and hurried along it, fumbling over obstacles and into things.

But she was not fast enough. The door of the room thudded open and the light came on. She crouched, and discovered she was trying to hide behind a clear glass screen. Two men cautiously peered in, and both raised their revolvers when they saw her. She stood up and held out her gun.

"I will shoot you." She told them as they came nearer.

"With that pea shooter?" One laughed.

She edged away backwards, and stumbled as the wall behind her revealed itself to be a door as it slipped sideways into the wall.

"State your destination." An oddly accented recorded voice chimed.

Meryl saw numbers flashing on the wall.

"Three!" She shrieked and flung herself to the side as one of the men pulled his trigger.

There was a terrible sensation of falling combined with the explosion of the gun. She smelled something like burning rubber as the chamber like lift she was in suddenly slowed. The door opened half way and got stuck. What she liked even less was that the floor level was just above her head. She holstered her derringer and fighting flat panic and adrenaline pumping, she hauled herself up through the gap and out onto the third deck of the ship. Right into a dimly lit room.

A dimly lit room. She was forever thankful that it was dim lighting. There were perhaps eight beds in the room, each encased in a circular tube of glass. Within them were what looked like people, until she looked closer. If they had been people once, their bodies had been morphed and modified into something beyond horrific. There was a faint, but very familiar smell of death about the room. The elevator clunked behind her and began its ascent.

She crossed the room at a flat run, her heart hammering. She darted out into the passage and was particularly relieved to find it partially lit. She turned back to run the way she had come in, but the layout was different on this level. She followed the zig zagging passage as best she could, and then found something almost as good as the way out. Stairs. She sprinted up them taking two at a time, counting the levels as she ran, but by the time she had counted three, she was still not on a dark level that spiralled outwards. She cautiously went up another level. Still not. Another. Panic clutched at her heart again.

The stairs ended. But she was still not out on the level she needed to be. She checked the passages, but was completely disorientated. She could no longer tell which way was the entrance or the exit. Somehow that made her feel claustrophobic. She placed a hand on the wall and closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Not now, she had to concentrate, she had to find some way out.

With a swift movement, Vash claimed Ella's revolver from her hand and took the opportunity to put his arm around her, pinning her to him. He really regretted not having good use of his left arm, he could have hugged her to, well, comfort her in the moment.

Trey's aim shook, trying to aim at him without including Ella.

"Why don't you tell me what you have hidden beneath this house?" He asked conversationally.

Trey gaped at him, his arm shaking.

"What do you know?"

"It's still feeding power from the power plants in the town, even after all those years since it crashed." He reasoned and saw he was right.

"Who sent you?" Trey demanded, frightened.

He ignored the question.

"You're using the ship's hospital as a biogenetic convertor, or none of those strange men in the passage would have lived through the alterations you put them through."

"You know about the reconstruction program?"

Now he did, to his surprise Trey turned on Ella, his hands steadying.

"You bitch, you betrayed us!"

"No Trey!" She sobbed. "No, I did not!"

Trey's eyes went narrow as his resolve hardened.

"Hey! Careful!" Vash raised the revolver. "Let us take a walk down there."

Trev squeezed the trigger and Vash shot the gun out of his hand, sending the shot wide.

"I said, let us take a walk."

Meryl hugged her arms around herself knowing it was all irrational fear. That was all that claustrophobia was, it didn't help her that her mind refused to believe her rational side and the walls closed in around her, suffocating her. No. She was stronger than this. She had to use logic; she forced her panic-stricken mind into action. If she followed the passage in one direction, it would lead her to the end of it, and if that were not the exit, then it would follow, that travelling in the other direction would. She walked. She heard faint gun shots and looked upwards. Somewhere above her, there was another level to this ship. She began to search for hidden doors, trailing her hands along the walls. After finding the first, she took out Vash's gun and as heavy as it was, waved it shakily about at every shadow. The room had contained the same beds with the cylinders around them. Only this time, there was the muted rhythmic bleeping of life support systems. The monsters rested here, not yet alive and not yet dead. Her nerve broke and she sprinted down the passage. She was so unnerved that she almost missed it. Another stair. She managed three stairs a time and reached an upper door and had opened it before realising that it was nothing like the ship. It was a normal door, which opened into a normal room. With people in it. People with guns. Pointing at her. She did not care. This was ordinary terror. She could face it.

She shrieked as a heavy hand clamped over her right hand and relieved her of the heavy gun.

"Get down!"

She gasped as Vash was suddenly there, facing the people in the room with his revolver. Where had he come from? Had she been that terrified that she hadn't noticed him?

He backed towards her, slowly, forcing her back down into that terrible ship.

She grabbed the back of his coat.

"No!"

He did not listen.

"This is your last warning." He said with an eerie fury and awful sadness in his voice.

She looked past him, her head clearing oddly in panic. She would not be going back into the ship. But beyond her in the room stood four men with assault rifles. A girl crouched on the floor sobbing and a man beside her stood with both his hands on his revolver stock.

"You cannot do anything." The man spat at him. "They are too far gone."

"I cannot do nothing." Vash replied evenly and took another pace back. Meryl dipped down a step and felt him sink into a balanced stance as she pulled the back of his coat.

"It's just him boss." One of the men said, though cautiously.

He made the mistake of firing his rifle. Meryl did not hear the separate gun shots, but all four suddenly dropped their rifles amid yells of shock and pain. Vash took another step back, negotiating the stairs now. She tried to shove him right back up them.

He suddenly fired at the ceiling, and the lamp that was there fell in a shower of glass shards and sparks. It arced for a while then went dead.

Meryl shrieked when he grabbed her around the waist and leaped down the stairs, whole flights at a time. As soon as he was in the ship, he dumped her on the ground, slammed a panel open, activated a bar barrier and then ripped out the electrics, shorting it so that another set of doors slammed closed over the bars. They were trapped on the ship.

She stared incredulously. He couldn't drive, nor could he manage to ride a tomas, but somehow he could fuse a ship door. She watched him inspect the arrangement, and gingerly touched the door. It slid back open without any resistance. Oh. He had shorted it, and completely blown the locking mechanism.

"Ah, er... " He positioned the door closed then gingerly stepped back from it.

She was startled when his gloved hand appeared in front of her.

"We need to hurry!"

She took it and he pulled her to her feet, then she remembered the things that were sleeping. She clamped her hands around his and stepped as close to him as she dared.

"Vash." Her voice betrayed her feelings; it came out all quivery and scared. "There's monsters on this ship."

"They might look like monsters." He said softly. "But they were once people. Come, we're going to see if any are alive."

"No!" She shrieked and tried to haul him back to the stairs.

He set his feet and she found she couldn't budge him.

"Hey now." He murmured and gazed at her. "Would it help if I told you what happened here?"

She didn't want to know anything.

"But you must come with me, that tampering will activate the ships security override, and it might register us as intruders, and then we'll be in trouble."

He tugged her firmly after him down the passage. It was then that she noticed his left arm was hanging uselessly at his side and she was clinging to his only firing arm. She released his hand and fetched out her derringer again. He smiled encouragingly at her.

"This way."

This way took her back past the softly bleeping room that had so horrified her earlier. Vash slipped his revolver away, and went across to the screen and ran a finger down the list of readings. She crouched at the door, twitching at his every movement. She constantly checked the passage, then into the room.

"Ah!" He sounded happy. "This will wake them up."

"No!" She shrieked at him.

He keyed in a code and there was a sudden change in the heart rate monitors. The things in the tubes stirred slightly. Meryl backed into the passage, unable to voice the terror twisting around her.

There was a grinding clonk behind him. Vash turned, his face still smiling.

"No!" He bawled, then dove for the floor and rolled as gunfire tore through the ships consoles and broke the glass cases around the creatures. The consoles sparked and shorted as an odd wailing scream began, followed by more throat rattling cries. Meryl watched as Vash picked himself off the passage floor, his face turning to horror. The cries were not coming from those that had been shot.

"No. What have I done?"

The strangely morphed people in the cases were calling out in pain.

"I'm sorry." His lips moved but no sound emerged in his anguish.

Meryl felt the cries drill through her head and shudder through her heart. Vash dove out of the way as bullets tore into the passage way floor. She sprinted after him as the gunmen leaned out into the passage and let off a round after them. As they reached the stairs to the lower level they heard the gunmen who had emerged from the lift systematically shoot each creature. The cries were silenced by the time they had made it to the next level. Vash persisted, though he had tears spilling down his face. He went directly to the lab on the next level, but they were too late. The gunmen had done a thorough job here. Down and down they went. Meryl keeping up with him out of sheer terror. They finally came to a room with no bodies in it.

She recognised the glass plates she had tried to hide behind.

She knew where she was and where the exit was. She hurried over to the door and to her relief found the torch lying on the floor. She picked it up.

The lights on the ship flickered then yellow lights came on.

"This is an emergency. Please proceed to the pods located at the end of every passage. Warning this is not a drill. This is an emergency."

Vash walked over to the consol in the room and tapped in a code.

"Override incorrect. Enter name and clearance status."

The emergency announcement repeated itself.

She watched him type so fast his fingers blurred, and he was typing with one hand. Across the screen words flashed, and a name which made her pay attention.

"Rem Saverem, clearance granted, authorisation pending."

He kept typing.

"Authorisation granted. Evacuation overridden. Ship status, critical."

He stood back and smiled slightly.

There was a rumbling noise, which shook the entire ship. Vash hunched his shoulders and typed one word, very deliberately.

"Full systems shut down, initiated. All doors will automatically seal in fifty nine, fifty eight..."

"Run!" Vash shouted and sprinted out of the door.

She followed him. She felt another vibration ripple through the ship, followed by a dull booming.

"What's happening?" She shrieked at him.

"Run!"

He reached back and hauled her along after him. He knew his way around this ship. He could hack its systems. He really was who he had said he was. Somehow it took seeing him in action for it to finally sink in. He was as old as he claimed, from the time of the Great Fall.

The countdown reached one, as they were half way down the passage. All the lights went out and Meryl was left with the torch. She held it up and fear led wings to her feet. Now that the ship was in darkness, who knew what could spring out of it?

She saw the light ahead of them and tried to put on an extra spurt of energy, but she was running flat out at the end of her energy. It suddenly struck her she was keeping pace with Vash. Or was it he was slowing his pace to hers?

They reached the opening and Meryl saw why there still was an opening. Two spades jammed the aperture open. Milly hovered with Jasmine and Doug looking down at them wild eyed.

"Don't knock the spades and you'll be able to get out." She called.

"Climb onto my back." Vash crouched down.

She did so, feeling very aware of how patched up he was under his coat. She did not want to jolt or tear anything. He steadied her with his good arm and slowly stood; allowing her to weave her way through the delicate arrangement and Milly pulled her the rest of the way out.

"Meryl, are you all right?"

Her shock must still show on her face. She took a deep calming breath. She stood on the solid metal of the ship, so very glad to be out of it.

"I'm better now, Milly."

She turned back to the jammed door. Vash only had one arm, how was he going to get up?

"Hup!"

She was astonished at how he leaped up his body length and a half then slammed his good hand down, springing himself from the ship entirely. He rolled and the door snapped shut, crushing one spade and dropping the other into the ship below.

"Vash!" Jasmine exclaimed in horror. "What happened to your arm?"

"They tried to shoot me." He said mournfully.

He sat up and examined the mechanism. It seemed fairly intact. A few hours fiddly work working out the dents in the gun's mechanism and it should slot back in fine. He'd have to find a surgeon to reactivate full sensory capacity though. As it was he could only shift it by using his stump.

"Mom never said you were missing an arm!" Jasmine interrupted his thoughts.

"There is a lot your mother never knew about me." He said absently.

He noticed Meryl suddenly stand up and hike up the stones. She flounced off then froze, mid stride. He pricked up his ears, something was wrong. He leaped to his feet and bounded up the stairs. He felt his stomach drop when he saw the mansion on the hill billowing smoke. There were a great deal of people gathered around the house. He set off at a run, Meryl in his wake. The roof of the mansion had fallen in by the time they arrived. He watched as Jim's hired men chased a retreating car on foot, armed with the spades they had been using. Trey and several of the goons that had tried to shoot him earlier had escaped.

He found Izzy and Ella clinging to each other in tears. He kept to the back of the crowd, as Meryl and Milly and the twins joined him.

Back in the great kitchen of the cottage, he examined at the small television the twins had jury rigged out of parts they had stolen from the ship. So this was what they had been up to. He was relieved they had not seen anything else of the ship, they were aware of the darkness of the soul, but not yet the extent of the depravity and he would keep them from that for as long as he could. They had also stolen a power supply, that if they ever needed to recharge, required plant energy. The other children were gathered avidly in front of it, tuned in to the singing and dancing that passed as children's entertainment. It was not bad for two kids who had had to learn their electronics out of a book.

He sat back in his chair, using the tools the twins had acquired, and tried to twist a torn piece of metal back into place on the prosthetic. Oh man was this thing was intricate. Meryl was explaining something to Jim. If he did not know better, by all the papers it seemed like she was trying to sell him insurance. Milly had been into town to buy new spades, and was now assembling the pieces. It was then that Ella and her sister came through. Ella cradled the youngest of her sister's children against her bosom.

"Izzy, we'll write as soon as we know what the diagnosis is." She promised.

"You don't have to leave us forever!" Izzy exclaimed. "I know this is not quite the mansion, but we could make room for you."

"I must go. I have made up my mind to stay in the city." Ella's eyes flickered to Jim. "I need to find my own life." She patted the baby. "And save little Jim's."

They hugged.

Ah, he liked a good reunion. He wiped at his tears and went back to the stubborn piece of metal. He was astonished to feel hands rest lightly on his shoulders.

"And you, I could almost believe you are who you claimed to be."

"And if you did?" He asked smoothly, and smiled enchantingly at Ella.

She tapped him on the nose; he rubbed away the sensation, offended.

"You aren't half as desirable as you think you are, Mister. Quit the charm."

Oh dear, another Meryl type, who saw right through him and spoke to his raw self without the generosity of humouring him.

Then she kissed him on the cheek. He smiled, all things forgiven, unconditionally, for the price of a kiss. He watched her walk across to the door with her sister she had a homely beauty.

Meryl had forgotten her paperwork and was staring furiously at Ella. He touched his cheek and smiled when he caught Meryl's eye. She delivered one of her furious glares and rather jerkily went back to her beloved paperwork. If that was jealousy he saw there, why did she hide it in anger?