Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow by Ryder Stacy Page A

wider ones.
    Looking down into the crevasses was no great recipe for a good mood. The dark cracks in the earth’s flesh seemed to fall forever, disappearing into blackness far below.
    “It doesn’t look like you are coming out if you tumbled down into one of those!” Detroit said.
    “Just don’t think about it,” Rock replied.
    But it was the heat that started to get to all of them, not anxiety over a dive into the deep six. The sun wasn’t exactly brilliantly yellow in the hazed-over skies, but it was still burning down. Especially as the day wore on. The white terrain reflected the heat back up to them so that after a while it felt like they were being baked in an oven. Rockson knew that none of them would complain even if they were near collapse. They were just too macho a bunch. So as he felt the sweat pouring out of every pore he was the one who held up his arm and made them stop.
    “Let’s put on the heat gear boys,” the Doomsday Warrior said, wiping his brow. “This kind of heat’s good for no one—man nor beast.” He pulled out his newly created Shecter heat jumpsuit and slid it on, as the others followed suit. They were used to wrapping the heat protecting space blankets around them but these were an improvement as they covered just about every square inch of their bodies with hoods as well, so their heads too could be shielded. They used the blanket heat reflectors on the ’brids backs and heads. The animals didn’t seem to like the encumbrances but once they were strapped on, they could quickly feel that it helped with the high temps. They cooled out too.
    The men rode on, commenting to one another that the damned things actually seemed to work. The ride was a hell of a lot better even as they headed deeper into the hellish wastelands. “It hardly seems possible that anything could live out here,” Rock commented.
    No one replied. It was too true. There was just salty sand, just bones everywhere, endless. But here and there a lone snake slithered through the white sand or a group of lizards stood sunning themselves on a mound, breathing hard to open their eyes more than a slit as the strike force rode by. Rockson could see Archer eyeing the small green and yellow creatures out of the corner of his eye, probably wondering if any of them were big enough to be worth going after. But a single bolt from his huge crossbow would have left not a trace of its tiny scaly targets.
    They had ridden twenty miles into the chasm-riddled desert when they saw a large mountain rising out of the flatlands some five miles ahead. It had a conical shape to it and it was hard to tell if it was an old A-bomb crater or a natural occurrence. As they grew closer Rock took out his field glasses and scanned the nearly half-mile-high structure. To his amazement a plume of white smoke was rising out of the center of the thing and red lava was boiling over the sides, flowing down to create a blanket of hardened lava rock that spread out for a good half mile around the crater.
    “Son of a bitch,” Detroit said, following suit with his own glasses. “You don’t see too many volcanos out here, and that one looks like a live wire. Maybe we should make a big go-around. I don’t fancy being fried in that hot rock ahead.”
    “ARRCHER LIIIKEE,” the huge near mute squealed with a childlike glee at the volcano which for some reason seemed to tickle his fancy. He kept staring at it like it was some kind of immense toy built just for him.
    “We’d better be careful, Rock,” Chen spoke up, coming up alongside the Doomsday Warrior who rode lead. “I smell sulphur in the air. Lots of times these babies put out poisonous gases. Some of them you can smell—others you can’t. Until you keel over dead.”
    Rockson stopped them and stood up on the ’brid’s saddle taking a long look around them. If they headed far around the volcano it was clearly even more chasm-riddled to both sides. It could add many hours, even days to their