scars forever.
But the women could think of no way to abort
themselves of the monsters that were forming inside their bodies-growing, taking shape, at almost unbelievable speed. The women were under constant supervision; a member of the IPF medical teams was at their sides at all times. The women were never left alone, not even when going to the bathroom. The chosen women would birth the half-mutant children, and if the IPF doctors had their way, there would be many of the half-mutant offspring.
In selected and carefully padded rooms in what had become known as the warehouse, the wailing and screaming of the women being sexually introduced to male mutants could be heard throughout the day and night. To keep the big male mutants happy and content, many of the sterilized women were “given” to the mutants- always under careful supervision so the big males would not kill the women when they became excited while copulating.
The screaming seemed to never stop.
And the human men chosen for the experiment were experiencing nightmares of such hideous magnitude many of them had to be sedated before sleep. And to make matters worse for the men, many of the female mutants had grown fond of their human sex partners; so much so the beasts were not content unless they could be with the men at least part of the day and night, touching and stroking and caressing them.
The men and women of the IPF found that most amusing.
“You do know what fightin” is all about,” Abe Lancer said. He spoke from the ground, where Captain
Rayle had tossed him during a hand-to-hand combat session. “I’ll be gittin’ up now,” Abe said. “Take me a rest. You “bout wore me plumb out, Captain.”
Captain Rayle extended his hand and grinned. The mountain man accepted the hand warily, then returned the smile as he was helped to his feet.
“All of President Raines’s people trained like you?” the man asked Roger.
“Quite a number of us. The general insists on his people being able to take care of themselves.”
Abe rubbed his aching and bruised shoulder and grinned ruefully. “I would have to say, Captain, you folks do know that, all right.”
The crowd of mountain people and flat-landers from down in Georgia had watched in silence and some disbelief-at first-as the smaller, lighter and much less powerful Rebel captain had tossed the big mountain man around like a rag doll, bouncing him off the ground time after time. Abe had been unable to land even one blow.
Captain Rayle and his small contingent of Rebels had been surprised at the number of survivors they had discovered in the area, and delighted at the number who accepted them. Almost a thousand men and women had volunteered to be trained by the small detachment of Rebels.
But the civilians needed no training in marksmanship, however. There was not a man among them who could not punch out the center of a Prince Albert can at three hundred yards with a rifle.
All the Rebels had been touched by the naivet@eof the country people and amused and mildly shocked by the open frankness of the people. And all had been
genuinely welcomed into the homes of the people.
Ben had deliberately mixed the detachment, including blacks and Jews and Hispanics and Orientals; he wanted the people to see exactly what his philosophy was all about.
“We ain’t got nothing agin” black folks-or anybody else, for that matter,” one man had told Captain Rayle. “We live side by side with black folks and work ever’ day with “em. Long as a man pulls his weight and don’t want something for nothing and don’t try to mess over another person, anyone is welcome to come here and live. The one thing we ain’t gonna put up with is no goddamn welfare state. If a man or woman is able to work, by God they gonna work; they ain’t gonna lay up on their backsides and do nothing ‘cept eat and git fat at somebody else’s labor.” That much was the Rebel’s philosophy. “I ‘member how it was-how it got-‘fore the big war of eighty-eight: lazy-assed trashy women of all colors layin” around and fuckin’ and havin’ babies that the taxpayers had to support; goddamned sorry, trashy men too lazy to work, sayin’ a certain kind of job was beneath “em. Piss on those people. We ain’t gonna have none of them in here. No way. Now they ain’t nobody who is sick gonna go hungry or cold in this area; we’ll look after ‘em folk-see to it that nobody lacks for comfort. But them that can work is gonna work.
“It’s a small community as communities go. We all know who is tippy-toein” around, liftin’ what skirt and when. Woman gets in a family way, the man responsible is gonna support the child. And we don’t give a good goddamn how much more work the man’s gotta do. He’s gonna do “er.
“I ain’t sayin” I hold much with mixed marriages, but me and mine kinda figure that really ain’t none of our truck. Man or woman wants to wake up in the morning time and look at ugly-that’s their business.”
“Had many cases arose where a man refused to support a child he fathered?”
“One, to date. Feller admitted he got his jollies with the lady-said she should have tooken some measures to don’t have no kid. Refused to help with the child.”
“What happened to him?”
“He come up shot one night,” the man replied noncommittally. “Dead.”
The Rebel smiled at this very final type of justice. “Klan strong in this area?”
The man fixed him with a baleful look. “I ain’t got no use a-tal for that bunch of white trash. Never did have. Don’t know nobody that do. Wouldn’t have “em around me if I did. Don’t know no one that would. That answer your question?”
The Rebel laughed. “Sure does.”
Captain Rayle radioed back to Ben, requesting that medical supplies and medics be sent into the area. Soon trucks began rolling in, some of them diverted from the battle area. The trucks brought in not only badly needed medicines, but also a few doctors and teams of highly trained medics to beef up the few medical people that had survived the plague of the previous year. They were welcomed.
Ben had given Captain Rayle his orders personally, in a private meeting back in Tri-States. Roger had the mapped-out coordinates for what Ben had called the last chance for his dream, and it was in that area that Captain Rayle and his people were working,
fanning out, attempting to make contact with all those who survived. They began finalizing the boundaries. The Alabama line would be the western boundary, from Burke up in Tennessee down to Bowdon in Georgia, on the Alabama line. The line would run straight east to Orangeburg in South Carolina, then take a ninety-degree turn to Columbia, angling gently northwest, following Interstate 26 as the guiding line up to Ashville. From there, the north boundary would be a line straight east, connecting with Burke to close the area.
“Get your defensive positions quietly laid out,” Ben had instructed. “Study what we did in the old Tri-States back in eighty-nine and ninety. Use that as a guidebook. When we get as many of the people out of the areas controlled by the IPF as possible, we’ll be coming in. To stay,” he added, with more than a touch of grimness to his comment. “I hope.”
There were tears in her eyes, spilling down to roll in silver rivers over her cheeks as she read the message, then reread it. Ben sat quietly and watched her. Gale looked at him through a blurry mist. She wiped her eyes and threw the message in a wad onto his desk.
“That is the most monstrous thing I have ever heard of, Ben,” she said, considerable heat to her comment. Her dark eyes flashed fire through the mist that tinted them multicolored.
She had just read about the IPF’S experimentation programs with minority men and women. The report had been sent to Ben by LETTERRP’S and verified by people who had managed to escape the area controlled by the IPF.
“Yes,” Ben said.
“The man is a reincarnation of Hitler!” she spat out the damning accusation.
“I concur, Gale.”
“And his doctors and IPF people are no better than the fucking Gestapo!” she shouted at him.
“Yes, I agree with that.”
“He has to be stopped, Ben.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
