Chapter Twenty-One

 

 

Mildred and Ryan looked about them. The floor was surfaced with a highly polished light blue material, as were the smooth, curving walls. Bending, Ryan rubbed his hand over the floor, then looked at his fingers.

 

"Clean. You could eat off it. Looks like it's made of some kind of vanadium alloy. How do they keep it this way?"

 

Mildred squinted at the floor. "A low-level electrostatic field, probably. Right before skydark, hospitals were experimenting with similar devices to keep operating rooms completely sterile. The field in here prevents dust and foreign particles from entering, pushing them toward the tunnel, like a giant whisk broom. That's the detritus we walked through when we came in." Though they looked for them, there was no indication of spy eyes or security cameras. They moved carefully among the boxes, crates, vehicles, sculptures and tables holding electronic parts and even more crates. There seemed to be an order in which the artifacts were stored, though none was cataloged by name or even number. It required all of Ryan's willpower to resist the temptation to stop and examine everything.

 

"Kind of reminds me of crazy old Quint's redoubt in Alaska," Ryan said. "Except this place seems even bigger, and the relics aren't touched by time. Mebbe that electrostatic field you mentioned protects them."

 

Mildred only nodded. She remembered J.B.'s tales of the strange complex operated by an incestuous madman.

 

As they wended a path through the artifacts, both noticed it was growing colder. The temperature seemed to have dropped by ten degrees. Ryan finally put on his gloves, the ones with the index fingers snipped off to allow easy access to triggers.

 

"Any ideas on how they keep it so cold in here?" Ryan asked.

 

"Must be a huge air-conditioning system," Mildred answered, "with giant circulating fans somewhere, like the blast freezers they used to have in food-processing plants. Must be a terrific energy drain to pump air this frigid through the entire complex."

 

"Probably have nuclear power, like most of the redoubts we've seen."

 

They passed several yellow four-wheeled contraptions outfitted with long, front-projecting prongs that Mildred identified as forklifts.

 

"What happens to the people when we knock out the cold circulation system?" Ryan wanted to know.

 

Mildred shrugged. "That depends."

 

"On what?"

 

"If their metabolic rates have been artificially reduced, through cybernetic alteration and organ transplants, just so they can survive in such low temperatures, the result of raising the temperature could be catastrophic. Depending on the age of their original soft tissues and organs they could begin to decay almost immediately. That's what happens in cryonics when a subject is accidently thawed out."

 

They continued walking through the vast space, the floor and walls echoing oddly to their footsteps.

 

Mildred craned her neck, looking up at the ceiling. "The shielding in here must be fantastically absorbent, not just for radiation, but for sound."

 

Gesturing behind him to a long, massively built wag bearing a chrome-plated Winnebago logo, Ryan said, "There's got to be a big cargo mat-trans gateway in here. There's no way a fleet of that many wags could have gotten up here any other way."

 

Mildred smiled. "Unless they packed them up part by part and assembled them later."

 

"What we really need is a map of the layout of this place. We could wander around in here for more than the twenty-four hours Hellstrom gave us."

 

Because he was speaking in a whisper, he failed to hear the first footfall settle in front of him, but he grabbed Mildred by the arm before the second one had fallen. They crouched behind a table and watched a man, dressed similarly to Bob, sauntering between the aisle of artifacts. He was walking directly toward them.

 

The man passed them without a glance. Ryan realized be was heading toward the chamber inside Lincoln's head. After a warning glance to Mildred, he crawled among the tables, the wags and the furniture. He couldn't allow Bob to be discovered.

 

Dodging between the antiquities, Ryan managed to reach a point to the left and well ahead of the tunnel entrance. The man walked purposefully past. Ryan glided behind him, his left arm crooking around his throat. The man uttered a small gagging sound of shock as he was dragged behind a large bright red vehicle.

 

The man struggled for breath and clawed at his attacker's arm. Ryan kicked his legs out from under him, and he fell heavily, banging the side of his head on the vehicle's gleaming bumper. A small cut was opened in the pale flesh. He put a hand to it and stared as Ryan showed him the SIG-Sauer. He was middle-aged and slight of frame, with tiny eyes surrounded by puffy pouches of wrinkled skin.

 

The man made a choking sound of rage. "Are you insane? Are you a fool? Get out of here!"

 

Like Bob, this man showed no fear, only surprise and contempt. Curious, Ryan pushed his hand away from the cut in his temple. It was superficial and bleeding only slightly, but the blood oozed sluggishly. The color wasn't a deep red, it was more of a dark pink, with a crimson tinge. He wore a badge like Bob's, which identified him as DOUG.

 

Grabbing the man's tie, Ryan hauled him to his feet, put him in front of the gun and marched him back to Mildred. He gave her a look as though he were regarding a pile of excrement on a breakfast table.

 

"You're from Helskel," Doug said in a voice sibilant with spite. "Undisciplined maniacs, aren't you?"

 

The remark irritated Mildred. She drew her ZKR and pressed the muzzle against his forehead. "Not exactly. In Helskel, murder is indiscriminate and meaningless. I have a method. You don't talk, you die."

 

"From my view strata," Doug replied, "your methodology of data synthesizing is reactive, rather than proactive. You've assumed a posture which is simplistic and adversarial, rather than cooperative, inasmuch as your rationale for trespassing on restricted property is based on an insufficient grasp of the legalities involved and the disposition thereof."

 

"What the hell did he say?" Ryan demanded.

 

Mildred smiled sardonically. "Used to be called new-speak. Authentic corporate jargon. One of the few things I don't miss about the predark days."

 

Pressing harder with the bore of her pistol, Mildred said, "What you just spouted was bullshit a hundred years ago and it's bullshit now. In simple, unadorned language, I want you to tell us the layout of this place."

 

By threatening and poking and prodding with their guns in more delicate portions of the man's anatomy, he finally agreed to take them to a map. They marched him ahead of their blasters toward the nearest wall. With a grin, Mildred whispered, "I guess not every one of Doug's organs is prosthetic."

 

Doug walked over to one of the walls. He stood and looked at it, saying, "Complex display."

 

Suddenly a three-by-three-foot square came alive with countless lines and dots of many colors. One of the dots was throbbing. Pointing to it, Doug said, "That represents my current position, indicated by the locater lozenge on my badge. Since I was the one who activated the display, the computer shows my position first."

 

Fixing their position in the confusing webwork of colors and intersection points and angles, Ryan and Mildred saw that the central core of the Anthill was indicated by a large pattern of blue lines and several big green dots.

 

Tapping Bob's badge on his lapel, Ryan asked, "Does the computer respond to your voice or to the locater lozenge?"

 

Doug was reluctant to answer. It required Mildred poking his kidneys with her blaster for him to say, "The lozenge."

 

"Locate the Commander," Ryan said.

 

One of the dots in the central core suddenly flared brighter and began to throb.

 

"Locate the circulating and pumping station," Mildred stated.

 

Nothing happened. Responding to Ryan's glare, Doug said, "It's only programmed to locate the installation's personnel. It was assumed that everyone in here was supposed to be in here and would therefore know their way around."

 

Studying the map again, Ryan traced a network of glowing grid lines with a forefinger. "We're here, almost on the top level. The Commander is below uslooks to be" he counted quickly. "four levels. Where's the nearest elevator?"

 

Doug inclined his head to the left.' "That way, about a hundred yards. Follow the curve of the wall."

 

Ryan pulled him away from the map. "Show us."

 

As they walked beside the wall, Ryan asked, "How many people are in this place?"

 

"Would you believe me if I told you?" Doug replied.

 

"Probably not. But answer me anyway."

 

"Sixty-eight active, one hundred and twelve inactive."

 

"Inactive? Do you mean dead?"

 

Doug shook his head disdainfully. "I say what I mean. If I'd meant to say 'dead,' I would have said 'dead.' I said 'inactive.' Are you unable to comprehend English, as well as simple survival-oriented common-sense measures?"

 

Angrily Ryan rapped the back of his head with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. "Are you unable to comprehend that I will make you permanently inactive if you piss me off?"

 

Doug didn't even flinch, but he said sullenly, "I comprehend."

 

"What about sec men?"

 

"Sec what?"

 

"Security forces," Mildred said. "Sentries, guards."

 

"At one time we had a special division for that sole purpose, but all of us act in that capacity when necessary."

 

The wall curved lazily to the right and opened up in a low-ceilinged, colonnaded antechamber. They saw a metal pair of double doors topped by an arch bearing a long set of colored lights. Hovering before the doors, bobbing gently up and down on thin air, was a beetle.

 

Mildred and Ryan froze, both of them grabbing Doug and pressing their blasters into his back. They stared at the device. Its red photoreceptor eye stared back.

 

"What's it doing?" Mildred whispered into Doug's car.

 

"Scanning us, or rather, the locater lozenges on the badges," the man replied in a normal conversational tone. "It transmits an invisible recognition beam. Your companion and myself are noted and logged as known installation personnel. However, since you are not wearing a badge"

 

An unnerving whoop-whoop of a Klaxon caused Mildred and Ryan to jump and curse at the same time. The beetle drifted forward. "Make it back off," Ryan snarled, shoving the SIG-Sauer against Doug's neck.

 

Smiling, Doug said, "I can't. The automatic intruder-alert system has already been triggered." He crooked a finger over his lips and giggled. "She's been targeted for deactivation."

 

A needle-thin beam of white light shot out from a nozzle on the underside of the beetle, which touched the barrel of the gun in Mildred's hand. Sparks flashed and showered, and there was a loud electrical crackle. Crying out, she stumbled backward, dropping her ZKR. The mechanism swooped closer, needle beams stabbing with crackles of sound.

 

Mildred screamed and fell thrashing to the floor, covering her face with her arms. She tucked her legs up and shrieked, "Do something! It's electrocuting me!"

 

"Fireblast!" Ryan crashed the SIG-Sauer over Doug's skull, and even as he hurled the unconscious man away, he centered the blaster's sights on the beetle and fired five rounds in such rapid succession, the shots sounded like a single report.

 

The device fragmented under the 9 mm assault, metal and circuitry flying in shards. Its power pack flared in an orange halo of flame. Spinning crazily on an invisible axis, the beetle listed to the left, then clattered to the floor, the red light of its photoreceptor eye fading. The Klaxon still whooped.

 

Bending, Ryan pulled Mildred's arms away from her face. A red welt showed against the dusky complexion of her right cheek. She shook her right hand in irritation and pain.

 

"Are you all right?" he asked, helping her to her feet and handing her the ZKR. It was undamaged.

 

She took a long, shaky breath. "I think so. Electric shock, considerable voltage. Good thing I protected my eyes." She kicked the shattered, smoldering remains of the beetle. "Goddamn nasty little toy. Like a flying stun gun."

 

The lights over the lift door were blinking. "We're going to have company," Ryan said, tugging the badge from Doug's lapel.

 

They sprinted back toward the storage area, hearing the hydraulic hiss of door panels sliding open behind them. Ryan reflected that the prospects of their surviving inside the complex were moving from poor to zero. All the odds were stacked against them, but that was nothing new.

 

The explosive report of a gunshot sounded from the rear, and a bullet whipped between them, spinning end over end from the sound of it. The slug chewed off the corner of a varnished, ornately carved table on Ryan's right.

 

"You idiot!" bleated a male voice from somewhere behind them. "Don't shoot in here!"

 

Ryan and Mildred exchanged tight grins. The freezies wouldn't shoot out of fear of damaging the relics, but since they were under no such obligation, they unlimbered their autoblasters. Spinning, Mildred and Ryan triggered the Heckler amp; Koch MP-5 and the Walther MPL at the same time. The blasters roared into the trio of armed, business-suited men dogtrotting toward them in a flanking maneuver. A crate filled with light bulbs jumped and blew apart under the leaden hail. They didn't bother to gauge the accuracy of their shots. They fired, whirled and ran among a collection of life-size statues.

 

They changed direction twice, then sank down in the shadow of a giant television screen and electronics console. Male voices filtered to them, but they were too distant to be understood. The tones were undeniably petulant, like children ordered to perform an unpleasant task.

 

"There's got to be another way out of this rat's maze," Mildred panted.

 

"Speak for yourself, Mildred," Ryan replied.

 

"No, not us. Them. They're the rats. Hear them?"

 

"Yeah. They sound like bratty kids. And neither Doug or Bob were afraid of us, almost like they couldn't believe what was happening."

 

"Exactly," Mildred said. "John likes to say, 'crazy as a shithouse rat' to describe mental illness. I think we're dealing with the equivalent here. If you pack rats too closely together for too long, you get homicidal rats, suicidal rats, cannibalistic rats, insane rats. Not too different from the people in this place."

 

They stopped whispering when the sound of the voices grew louder.

 

"How's Doug?"

 

"How should I know? I'm not a medic. Where's Bob?"

 

"He was supposed to check out the merchandise. Somebody go look."

 

The voices drifted away, becoming distant and incomprehensible again. Ryan, suddenly realizing that he was very cold, repressed a shiver. It felt like he was squatting in the path of a frigid blast of wintry air. Wetting a forefinger, he held it up in several directions.

 

"Air movement that way," he whispered, nodding ahead of them. "Bastard cold air movement."

 

They crept in that direction and saw the shadowed, circular mouth of a hole in the floor about fifty yards away. Rising, they raced toward it, casting glances over their shoulders every few feet. It was more of a shaft than a tunnel. Icy wind blew up through a thickly meshed metal screen, stinging their faces, bringing water to their eyes and ruffling their hair. The frame of the hatch cover had a combination lock, but no handle or knob. Beneath it they saw ladder rungs affixed to one circular wall.

 

Ryan took aim with the SIG-Sauer and emptied the clip at the lock. He stood fast as ricochets whined and screamed around him. The 9 mm rounds smashed and shattered the combination lock, blasting the steel catch to scrap. He wrenched the hatch cover up and gestured to Mildred. "After you."

 

She didn't protest, but quickly climbed into the opening. Ryan followed her, not bothering to shut the cover after him. The men would have undoubtedly heard the shots, so as he scampered down the rungs, he swiftly ejected the spent clip of the pistol, took a spare from the harness and slid it into the SIG-Sauer's butt.

 

The ladder rungs descended about fifty feet. At their end, Mildred and Ryan dropped down and found themselves standing in the elbow of an L-shaped shaft. The shaft wasn't composed of rock, but of a lusterless, non-reflective metal, featureless except for ridges where sections of tubing joined. At intervals, wire-encased light bulbs glowed from the ceiling. It was narrow, not wide enough for them to walk side by side. The shaft stretched out almost as far as they could see, and the cold wind was stiffto move forward, they were forced to lean into it. Far in the distance was a white circle, about the size of an old dime. A muffled, rhythmic throb set up steady vibrations in the floor of the tunnel.

 

"Air circulation shaft," Mildred gasped out, the wind nearly snatching her words away.

 

Ryan glanced upward and saw the head and shoulders of a man peering down into the mouth of the opening. He pushed Mildred forward, just in case someone topside started shooting.

 

They jogged along the narrow tube, Ryan in the lead, both of them maintaining a steady pace so their feet wouldn't slip on the smooth surface. He wasn't sure how long they navigated the passageway before a rattling roar came from behind them.

 

The din of bullets crashing into, ricocheting off and striking sparks from the metal was terrific, almost deafening. Mildred pointed the MP-5 behind her and fired a long burst, but the enemy fire didn't abate.

 

Fragments of slugs and chipped pipe shrieked through the shaft like angered hornets. Bullets buzzed all around them. Behind it all was the drumming hammer of a machine gun, a light caliber by the sound of it.

 

The two companions kept running forward, bent almost double so as to present smaller targets. Each time they passed beneath a light bulb, Mildred shot it out with her target revolver. It was a tiring effort, fighting their way through the frigid wind pressing against them broadside.

 

Ryan's free hand groped over the combat harness under his coat until it identified and closed around one of the V-40 grens. Detaching it from the harness, he hooked his thumb into the firing pin and tweaked it away.

 

He shouted, "Fire in the hole!" and tossed it behind him, over Mildred's head. Both of them increased their speed, running as fast as they could, not worrying about the bullets or losing their footing. Ryan counted to five under his breath. A score of yards later, they received violent blows in the backs that knocked them forward and off their feet.

 

The shock wave of the exploding grenade buffeted them to the shaft's floor, skidding them along for a few feet, bruising their knees and elbows. They lay where they had fallen for a moment, biting at the chilly air, listening to the fading, rolling echoes of the detonation and the feeble moans of the men who had been caught by it.

 

Rising a little unsteadily, Mildred and Ryan resumed their run, at a much slower pace. Their eardrums still vibrated, and their heads throbbed. Both of them had opened their mouths to equalize the pressure of the explosion, so neither one suffered hearing impairment. Ahead glimmered a circle of brilliant light, and the cold wind increased in intensity and strength. The throbbing noise grew in volume until they could feel it vibrating in their bones.

 

They emerged from the shaft, squinted their eyes against the brightness of artificial light and took two steps before stopping and staring.