Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

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    John stuffed and mounted, and stood somewhere prominent so that everyone could enjoy it. But for the moment he couldn't be bothered.
    He left the body in the stolen flyer for someone else to take care of, and trudged unwillingly toward the waiting elevators. Blood squelched noisily in one of his boots, from a wound he'd taken in his leg. He'd taken hurts in other places, too, but he kept his back straight. He had a reputation to maintain. He waited impatiently in front of the elevator doors, his hand on the pommel of his sword, drawing strength from it. The doors finally opened, and he strode in.
    They closed behind him, and he immediately slumped in a corner, held up only by the steel wall. He'd felt better. Getting old, and past it. Be playing checkers next. All he really wanted right now was a bed and several days' uninterrupted sleep, but the underground leaders were waiting for him to make his report. He couldn't make it in writing, of course; that would be far too easy. No, he had to stand there before them and tell them every detail, like a schoolboy in a classroom. He thought fondly of his quarters and a large glass of the good brandy. During the last stages of his trip back, it had only been thoughts of
    the brandy that had kept him going. That, and memories of Evangeline. She was never that far from his thoughts, whatever he was doing.
    He straightened up slowly, pushing himself away from the supporting wall, and sniffed disparagingly at the various aches and pains that bothered him. He didn't really know why he was bothering with this report. All the esper leaders had to do was go take a look at the body in his flyer to know his mission had been a success. But they'd want details. They always did. It gave them the illusion that they were in charge. And since he was dependent on the underground for his few remaining comforts, not to mention further missions, he played along. Grudgingly.
    The elevator doors finally opened on a floor that didn't exist on any official plans, and Finlay lurched out into the gloomy corridor. There never seemed to be enough lights in the underground. They probably did it deliberately, just to make the place look mysterious. Either that, or they were saving energy again.
    Finlay realized his thoughts were drifting again, and made himself concentrate on where he was going. Down here in the subsystems, far below the surface of Golgotha, one abandoned steel corridor looked much like any other. There were a few people about, and he found the energy to grunt a greeting to them as they passed. They all nodded politely to him, and quite right, too. He was Finlay Campbell, damn it.
    He finally stomped into the main meeting area, an abandoned workstation that the cyberats had wiped from official memory. It was a large open space bounded with sharp-edged steel plates, and cables dangled everywhere, giving the place an unfinished, transient look. Quite suitably, really, for an underground that might have to pick up its belongings and run at any moment. After the debacle of
    the attempted storming of Silo Nine and the purges that followed, what remained of the underground lived from moment to moment, and tended to be even more paranoid than it used to. Finlay strode up to the esper leaders waiting for him in the center of the open space, and nodded to them briskly. There were three of them today, powerful espers hidden behind telepathically projected images to protect their identities. At least that was their story. Finlay liked to think they did it to hide really bad skin conditions or unsuccessful hair transplants.
    Finlay Campbell didn't believe in being in awe of anyone.
    The leader, usually referred to as Mr. Perfect, was a tall naked Adonis, his impossibly defined musculature gleaming with sweat, though he never actually did anything but stand there. He had harsh, forbidding features that were just a little too classically handsome. He even had a dimple in his chin, the bastard.
    Finlay carefully refrained from looking at Mr. Perfect's genitals. It would only depress him. Next to Mr. Perfect, a mandala of ever-shifting shapes and colors hung unsupported in midair, a spinning wheel of interlocking patterns. Finlay didn't like to look at that too much, either. The sudden changes in color and brightness, and the way they swirled away into nothingness, made his head ache.
    The third leader presented his or her self as a twenty-foot dragon wrapped around the