Chapter Thirty-Three

 

 

When Ryan heard the first alarms, he picked up the Walther MPL and the SIG-Sauer P-226 and walked painfully toward the private lift between the bookcases. Pushing the red button with the barrel of the Walther, the door panels rolled open and he stepped inside. A push of the button on the inside wall closed the doors and started the elevator moving smoothly upward.

 

When it sighed to a gentle stop, he poked the button, the door panels opened and he stepped out into a scene of utter, screaming panic and pandemonium. He stood for a moment, grinning, relishing the energy of dazed, almost stupefied terror crackling throughout the control room.

 

He did a quick scan of the huge, dome-roofed room, his senses on full alert, his warrior instincts tingling from the waves of tension coursing and cresting through the place.

 

Men ran to and fro, back and forth, going from computer terminal to readout station to dial-and-button-studded consoles. All of them were screaming and shrieking to be heard over the rising and falling banshee notes of the Klaxon. Ryan picked up snatches of shouts and yells.

 

"Coolant core breach! We've lost two generators"

 

"Why aren't the backups on line"

 

"Goddammit, my board shows a total circulation failure!"

 

"Main pumps and conduits are gone! Reserve processors and the temperature and humidity controls are locked"

 

"Where's the Commander? The temperature will rise to critical levels in five hours"

 

Ryan stepped into the control room, walking around the running, panic-stricken men, heading toward the gateway chamber. He almost reached it with no one noticing him. A man bending over a flickering monitor screen glanced up and snarled. He shouted something, but no one heard him. One of his hands fumbled at his waist and came up gripping a long-nosed automatic made of blued steel.

 

Simultaneously Ryan brought up his SIG-Sauer and dispatched a 9 mm round into the man's stomach. That drew attention to him, and a group of men spun in his direction. Already on the verge of mindless flight, it took them an instant to identify him as an intruder, as a danger.

 

Ryan kept walking, swinging the Walther toward them, holding down the trigger. He sprayed bullets into the middle of the group and could hear their screams above the warbling of the alarm.

 

The burst of autofire was the signal for the men in the control room to go berserk. They milled around mindlessly, ducking beneath consoles and panels, some stampeding madly for an exit. The few who were armed were bowled over by their terrified comrades.

 

A short, stumpy-legged man bolted around a corner, trying to run past Ryan, who reached out and grabbed the man's necktie, swinging him around in a wide arc. The man clawed desperately at Ryan's hand, his face ashen with terror.

 

Ryan released the tie and the man floundered backward, toward the gateway, and fell up against the freestanding console pedestal. The one-eyed man stepped in close, ramming the muzzle of the SIG-Sauer under his fleshy chin, forcing his head back at a painful angle. His ID badge proclaimed him to be HOWARD.

 

"Are there beetles in the cave, Howard?" he snapped.

 

"Only one," the man gasped. "Programmed for surveillance and defense."

 

"Can you override the program from this console?"

 

Howard stared at him as though he were insane. "Why?"

 

"Answer me!"

 

"Yes, there are manual overrides here."

 

Hauling the man away from the console, he turned him around to face it. "Show me."

 

J.B.'s face stared at him from the small screen in the center of the panel. Behind him, Ryan could make out Krysty, and his head went light with relief.

 

Howard fiddled with a button or two and announced, "The beetle is controlled from here now."

 

"Can you speak through it from here?" Ryan demanded.

 

Howard's trembling finger touched a square grid. "Talk into that. The communication channel is open."

 

"J.B., Krysty," Ryan said loudly, "can you hear me?"

 

On the screen, J.B., and Krysty's expressions went blank, then lit up with relief. Both of them started talking at once, so Ryan had to say, "Is everyone with you? Jak and Doc?"

 

"Yes, lover," Krysty replied. "Where are you?"

 

"In the Anthill. Have you found the gateway in the cave?"

 

"No," J.B. answered. "The place is as black as a swampie's hind end."

 

Turning to the terrified Howard, Ryan said, "Where's the gateway in there?"

 

"Only a few hundred yards ahead. You can guide them to it with the beetle."

 

"Do it."

 

"We copy that, Ryan," J.B. said. He glanced behind him. "I think Hellstrom's on our heels, though."

 

"Forget him."

 

"Where is Mildred? Is she with you?" Doc asked.

 

"Not yet," Ryan replied.

 

J.B.'s lips compressed. "What do you mean?"

 

"We'll talk about it when you get here. Follow the beetle to the gateway chamber, get inside and I'll transport you all here."

 

"Then what?"

 

Ryan grinned mirthlessly. "Then we'll plan our next field trip."

 

He watched both the screen and Howard's hands, as under his ministrations on the controls, J.B., Krysty, Doc and Jak followed the beetle to the mat-trans unit. It was an exact double of the huge one in the control room.

 

"No controls here!" Jak exclaimed as they reached it.

 

"They're up here," Ryan responded.

 

He glared at Howard. "Aren't they?"

 

Howard nodded several times and flipped up a cover on the console. Beneath it, inset into the surface, was a set of buttons and tabs.

 

When his friends were inside, with the armaglass portal secured, Howard keyed in the transport sequence. Ryan watched the screen, through the beetle's electronic eye, as tendrils of white mist crept up around the figures inside the chamber. The tendrils were shot through with crackling fingers of static electricity. A very bright light began to glow behind the glass.

 

From the chamber in the control room a sound like a fierce rushing wind grew, rising louder and louder. Light flashed on the other side of armaglass walls. The light swelled, growing in intensity in tandem with the hurricane noises. Both the light and sound faded at the same time.

 

Howard fidgeted with his tie. "Are you done with me?"

 

Ryan ignored him, running around the console and grabbing the handle of the gateway chamber. Mat-trans jumps usually had a debilitating effect, making the jumpers weak and often sick for a while. Ryan hoped that this short jump wouldn't incapacitate his friends. He might need their firepower.

 

When he popped open the door, he saw Jak, Krysty, Doc and J.B. struggling to rise. They looked a bit dizzy, a little disoriented, but not faint or sluggish. Ryan helped Krysty to her feet, and she held him in a crushing embrace.

 

J.B. struggled to his feet, helping Doc up. He grinned, but there was worry in his eyes. As was his habit, he had taken off his spectacles before the jump. "Good to see you. Where the hell's Millie?"

 

"Right here, John." Mildred pushed her way into the chamber and grabbed J.B.'s face with both hands, kissing him passionately. Ryan noted that it was probably a good thing J.B. wasn't wearing his glasses. Mildred's face was caked with dried blood, and she was covered by what looked like a gray dust. The plaits of her hair were snarled in a wild, Medusa-like tangle.

 

She met Ryan's glance, looked him up and down and said, "You look like shit."

 

Jak and Doc, feeling a little left out of the reunion, moved to the chamber door, peering around it at the control room beyond. The alarm Klaxons had fallen silent, and the abrupt quiet was almost as nerve-scratching as the warbling tones.

 

"What's plan?" Jak demanded. "Take over place, give up or what?"

 

"I hope it's a 'what,' " Doc muttered, blowing on his hands. "I do not find the climate congenial."

 

"I want to get the fuck out of this frozen nightmare," Ryan declared. "We can make a direct jump back to that installation in New Mexico from here. Just have to punch a key with that strange triangle symbol."

 

"What'll keep the freezies here from following us?" Krysty asked.

 

Ryan shook his head. "Luck mebbe."

 

Jak, in an urgent whisper, said, "Men with blasters, creepy-crawling here."

 

Ryan cursed, peering over Jak's head. A few of the Anthill's staff had recovered from their shock, armed themselves and were moving toward the gateway.

 

J.B. dug around in his sack and with a triumphant snort produced a small plastic-shelled sphere. "Here's a piece of luck, Ryan."

 

Looking at it, Ryan said, "A gren. We'll need more than that."

 

"This is more than that. It's a Misar MU 5-G fragger, with a kill radius of about thirty feet. We're talking about a handful of hell here. More than that, it has a time pencil fuse."

 

That captured Ryan's attention. It was an old device, developed over a hundred years before. A thin-walled metal tube, similar in shape to a pencil, was inserted into the gren, and a turn of a small screw atop the MU 5-G crushed the tube, releasing a corrosive liquid, which then ate through a wire restraining a sprung firing pin. It was the next best thing to a clockwork time bomb.

 

"Great," Ryan said, taking it from J.B.'s hands. "I'll ask you later where you picked it up. The rest of you cover me and get ready to jump."

 

Ryan shouldered the door of the chamber open and made a run for the console. In a far corner, a trio of men had barricaded themselves behind an overturned table. One of them saw him and shouted. Gun barrels shifted his way.

 

Emptying the Walther's clip in their direction, Ryan saw wood shredding and bodies twitching. A few bursts of gunfire came from across the control room, and he triggered the SIG-Sauer as he ran. He heard J.B.'s Uzi and Krysty's Smith amp; Wesson blasting from behind him. The big room trembled with shattering glass and the sound of metal being punctured. Bullets punched through the air around him, ricocheting away from the armaglass of the gateway chamber.

 

Skidding to a stop at the console, Ryan ducked low as he worked with the gren, turning the knurled timing screw until he heard a crunch. He placed the sphere on the floor next to the hard plastic support pedestal, then raised his head up to punch in the destination. As he did, movement flickered across the monitor.

 

It was Lars Hellstrom, standing before the mat-trans unit, holding an automatic rifle in one hand and a revolver in the other. The right sleeve of his white coat was black with blood.

 

Ryan spoke into the speaker grid. "Lars. Wondering when you'd show up."

 

Hellstrom's reaction was almost comical. He skipped around, glaring wildly up at the beetle, face contorting. His mouth worked for a long second, with no sounds coming from it. Finally he bellowed, "Cawdor? Cawdor! You deceived me! You betrayed me!"

 

"Sorry, Lars, but after thinking it over, I'm afraid I must refuse your job offer. The hours stink, and the pay is lousy."

 

Hellstrom began to tremble, eyelids flickering, spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth. In a voice that shivered with the intensity of the emotions he was struggling to control, he said, "You stupe bastard. You stupe, suicidal bastard. You don't know what you've done."

 

Ryan snarled out a laugh. "I know exactly what I've done. I've cut off this sick trade between you and this monument of predark insanity. You're cast back out onto Deathlands, to survive or to die on your own. I hope you die, and if we ever meet face-to-face again, I'll make sure of it. That's not a threat, Lars. It's a fucking prophecy."

 

Hellstrom stood frozen, his body quaking violently, a thousand changing sparks of light dancing in his dark eyes. Then he threw back his head and screamed, a howl of agony, terror and rage torn from the roots of his soul. Saliva sprayed from his mouth, one hand clawed at the side of his face, the long nails tearing gouges from his hairline to his chin.

 

"I'll track you down, Cawdor!" he shrieked. "I'll find you and I'll keep you alive for years, in constant, unending pain! You'll promise me anything, give me anything, do anything, just so I'll chill you! And if you die before I find you again, I'll dig up your stinking corpse and spend my days pissing in its mouth! Your punishment begins now, Cawdor! It will never end!"

 

The tone, the crash of his strident voice, the unregenerate, unforgiving madness in his eyes almost caused Ryan to drop his blaster in surprise. To witness Hellstrom losing his iron control and flaming up in a torch of insane fury was a more fearful picture than he had imagined. For a moment he contemplated making a mat-trans jump to the cave and finishing his business with the patriarch of Helskel.

 

"Ryan!" J.B. shouted. "Come on, dammit!"

 

Peering over the console, he saw J.B. and Jak standing in the open door of the mat-trans unit chamber. They were staring past him, and Ryan heard the slap of running feet on the smooth alloy flooring, rushing up from behind.

 

He half turned, sweeping the ranks of the business-suited men with a prolonged burst from the SIG-Sauer. They screamed as the hail of full-metal-jacket rounds ripped through them. The few who weren't drilled scrambled for cover, flinging ineffectual pistol fire in his general direction.

 

"Ryan!" Krysty's voice was high and tight with tension.

 

But Ryan wasn't satisfied with the carnage. The Anthill still stood, a symbol of everything vile, depraved and self-serving that had survived the nukecaust. He wanted to claw the mountain stronghold down, stone by stone, crush it into rubble and stomp it flat.

 

He fired another four rounds at the stumbling, mewling straw men and roared, at the top of his voice, "I'll be back, you ice-blooded bastards!"

 

Ryan slapped the destination key, the one bearing the triangle symbol, and raced across the room to the gateway chamber. Jak slammed the door behind him, and the jump mechanism was triggered.

 

Everyone but Mildred eyed him strangely. Threats and vows of vengeance were uncharacteristic of Ryan Cawdor. Turning to J.B., he asked, "What was the setting on that time pencil fuse?"

 

J.B. shook his head. "About two minutes."

 

"Then we've got about thirty seconds left," Ryan said grimly.

 

"Let's pray to Gaia that's enough time," Krysty murmured fervently.

 

The metal disks in the floor and ceiling of the mat-trans chamber shimmered, the glow slowly intensifying, like a condensed fire. A fine mist gathered and wafted down from the overhead convertor assembly. A vibrating hum arose, climbing quickly to a high-pitched whine.

 

Men began to shout out in the control room, their blasters cutting loose with slugs that splattered against the armaglass walls of the chamber. J.B. squeezed Mildred's hand reassuringly. The mist sparked and thickened, curling down to engulf them.

 

Ryan pulled Krysty close to him, pressing his cheek against the soft caress of her hair. They had conquered many hellpits in Deathlands, and they would conquer this one.

 

He hoped.