Perception Fault
The ravaged landscape that was America two centuries ago is now blighted by post-nuclear holocaust savagery. Still, there remain pockets of preDark technology that may offer undiscovered paths to reclaiming the future.Ryan Cawdor and his companions have faced most kinds of horror that Deathlands can deliver–and survived. This merciless place can break even the strongest, but it has yet to destroy hope.Denver offers a glimpse of that very hope–a power plant, electricity, food and freedom. But the city is caught in a civil war between two would-be leaders and their civilian armies. Challenged by both sides to do their bidding, Ryan discovers a third player in the quest to control the mile-high city–a secret enclave of White Coats with the strength and technology to pursue a twisted agenda of their own.
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âRyan!â
Heedless of his own injuries, J.B. bolted to his side, firing his Uzi through the veil of smoke. Grabbing Ryan by the legs, he dragged him back to the wall. âHow bad is it?â
âNotâ¦good. I know that much,â Ryan gritted. He brought his trembling neck muscles under control to look down at his shoulders, seeing a lot of blood and the jagged end of a bone poking up through the skin.
J.B. gingerly explored the wound. âThis is going to hurt a lot.â The Armorer eased himself under his old friendâs right arm, eliciting a groan of pain from him as he gripped his hand tight to keep him in place.
When J.B. stood, Ryan nearly passed out from the agony shooting through his shoulders. The Armorer half dragged the one-eyed man forward, intent on getting clear of the underground pit and getting help for Ryanâ¦.
Perception Fault
Death Lands>®
Every new stroke of civilization has cost the lives of countless brave men, who have fallen defeated by the âdragon,â in their efforts to win the apples of the Hesperides, or the fleece of gold. Fallen in their efforts to overcome the old, half sordid savagery of the lower stages of creation, and win the next stage.
âD. H. Lawrence
1885â1930
THE DEATHLANDS SAGA
This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.
There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.
But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endureâin the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to natureâs heart despite its ruination.
Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.
Krysty Wroth: Harmony villeâs own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.
J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryanâs close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.
Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldnât have imagined.
Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.
Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.
Dean Cawdor: Ryanâs young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.
In a world where all was lost, they are humanityâs last hopeâ¦.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Chapter One
Crouched behind a half-ruined wall, Ryan Cawdor wiped gritty concrete dust from his tanned face, black eye patch and curly black hair. He peeked around the left side of the barrier, searching for the person with the longblaster whoâd come within a couple inches of sending him on the last train west.
The day had started well enough. He and his companions had come out of a mat-trans near what they thought were the ruins of what used to be Denver, Colorado. It was an area they were fairly familiar with, since two of their group had grown up around these parts. Traveling north to check out the ville, they had reached the outskirts without incident. The quiet should have been a warning. They had just set up a campsite with an outdoor fire theyâd thought was sheltered from passing eyes, and were roasting their freshly killed dinner. But as Krysty Wroth was turning the giant, heronlike bird on their makeshift spit, she had looked up with that shocked expression everyone knew all too well, sending each of the other five diving for weapons, cover or both. The first shot had cracked out a second later, and now the group was pinned down and facing an unknown force.
The ambush had been well planned and executed. But the targets the raiders had chosen werenât farmers or traders traveling the Deathlands hawking their wares. They werenât even a ragtag band of mercies looking for work, their blasters available for hire to anyone who had the jack.
Ryan and his five companions had spent years roaming the length and breadth of the radiation and chem-ravaged land that had been called America long ago. They had encountered much during their journeys, from mutant animals and humanoids of every shape and size to power-hungry barons carving out their empires from the postholocaust savagery, offering refugeâof a sortâto anyone who could pay or barter for the price of admission.
