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STORY: Jessica and Logan arrive in Molly. Logan is called a monster
by Jessica. He tells her he didn't kill her brother. She tells him maybe he would
have. He lives by pain, hurting, killing in the name of mass survival. She damns
him and his system and calls him a foul...before he slaps her. Jessica is on black
palm. Logan reaches for his gun instinctively but stopped. She ran upward a spiral
of metal steps, a tall durasteel door. A steg-harpoon almost hits her head. A giant
man tells her that if she opened the door the sea would kill her and him. He is Whale
and held a steglauncher. Jessica warns him as Logan runs up behind them. Whale takes
them to a door where he tells Logan to put his weight to a door and seals Logan in.
Jessica calls him a killer, no better than Logan is. Whale gives her a key to the
next car at ten forty. He tells her to tell Ballard they are still holding. Logan
feels fear as runner fears. He wondered why he didn't take his chances with the harpoon.
It ripped your gut out but it was quick. A place like this could break a man's courage,
stretch his nerve and unman him. The cold tide came up to his chest and the chamber
groaned. Jessica opens the door and lets him out. Callbox 192978-E a micro terminal
rose 7 and a half degrees, shorting out a relay. Jessica and Logan ask to go to Sanctuary
but instead it took them to hell. Francis interrogated Mary Mary 2. Hell is between
Baffin Bay and the Bering Sea, over a thousand miles. A frozen world of white on
white. 14 burrows on the side of a storm carved Berg. Ice cells claw from the surface
by dying men and women in subzero cold. No guards were ever needed here. No one ever
walked out of Hell. An alarm sounded Logan and Jessica's arrival. A Warden in a hood
and fur jacket meets them. Rule 1: a new convict can pick his antagonist. Rule 2:
the antagonist can use any weapon to defend himself and his goods. Rule 3: the new
man fights barehanded. If Logan won't fight, he dies on the ice and they keep the
girl. Logan picks and the enemy takes out a hand carved stiletto of ice. Logan makes
the knife fall, shattering it. He slips on the shards but Logan was down, the man's
hands on his throat. Logan broke the chokehold and elbowed the man and kraked him
in the neck. The others strip the body, already frost covered. Harry 7's stuff is
now Logan's. Harry 7 didn't have no woman and Logan must share everything with the
girl. The pair put on the evil smelling hides of Harry 7. Logan pressed Jessica to
him. He hid his gun. Warden shows them Black Tom in the snowy wilderness, a man turned
to black ice and somewhat bone. He was here two years, went blind from snow, lost
his legs to frost bite, bit off his own arm when an ice slide trapped him. Jessica
calls him a savage and asks why he lives like this. He tells her it is better than
dying. She tells Warden they can work together. Warden gives them their share of
food...the liver and heart of Harry 7. Logan flops it down to the ground. Warden
takes it. Warden tells them to go join Box if they don't want to eat the food of
the table they set--food a mile or so, maybe a hundred. Box got chewed up in a belt
jump, gears scattered. They sewed him back together and what they couldn't find,
they made. They put him on a hellcar and brought him here. He lit out as soon as
he got here and is hard to find. He knows where food is. North about 2 miles near
the cliffs. A part of Box never slept. He lived alone. Box saw Jess and Logan and
vanished. Jess falls asleep but Logan keeps her moving. Then he closes his eyes just
for a minute. Both fall. Logan wakes up Jess in a cave with lots of food--but they
are frozen in ice: Walrus, fish, and crystal birds. Jess calls Box a machine. He
is really a fusion of man and machine, he tells Jess. He feeds the soul here, calling
them walking bellies. He tells them man wants his metal to build a stove but now
he has found his perfect models for his masterwork. Box has a pony tail. This temple
will last 21 thousand years and they will be here eternally frozen lovers in a lovers'
embrace. He will tell them how to escape--he knows a way but wants to stay. He has
ten billion neurons in a mighty brain. He is brother to the Thinker and knows it
circuits and ways. He can thread the forcefield labyrinth. He wants them to pose
nude. They take off their clothes hugging. When Box was finished, they saw themselves
as ice figures. Logan tells him it is beautiful but they must get going. Box punches
him down. Soon Jess has her hands up over her head, her wrists in metal bonds. Box
calls torture an art form. Logan is in his tights only. He uses his shirt and wound
it around his hand. He thinks there is no cell bar as he punches at the imperfection
in the cage. He attacked the ice shackles and let Jess free. Box's cutting hand tore
off at them as the slide Jess was on tore off the roof. They grab their clothes and
run out. The ice hand weakened the central pillar, cutting it deeply. Logan kicks
his ice statue of himself into the pillar, bringing the whole temple on Box. They
get to the maze car after Logan gets his gun. Next is the Black Hills of Dakota,
Logan shifting terminals. Ballard controls these cars as he needs them. To find him,
they have to go to the source..."We go to the Thinker." |