Chapter Six

 

 

Watching the events unfold over the surveillance monitors and not being able to do anything about it was maddening. Krysty pushed up from the keyboard, fisting her pistol. There was nothing more she could do. Jak would lead them here.

 

Most of the power had returned to the hidden lab, bringing with it a stronger light that made everything easier to see. A few seconds later she found another door, which led to a bathroom and a provisions area stocked with self-heats and ring-pulls of water. The wire racks held enough to keep several people alive for days. Even then, she didn't think the soldiers pursuing them would give up.

 

She'd seen the uniforms. They didn't wear them like men who'd merely borrowed them from stores within the installation. They also handled the war wags easily, like a precise military unit.

 

After making sure the bathroom and provisions room were secure, she went forward, checking the other door. It was locked with a sliding combination mechanism. Standing only a couple feet away, she aimed her blaster at the lock and squeezed off a pair of rounds.

 

Sparks scattered in all directions, followed by pieces of stainless steel. Cordite stink was trapped between the narrow walls. The lock, though, was shattered.

 

She kicked a booted foot against the door and went through with the .38 pistol clutched in both hands. The room held more computer equipment that hummed and pulsed with electronic life. No clues were provided as to what they were there for.

 

But the centerpiece of the room was the familiar hexagonal shape of a mat-trans unit.

 

"Thank Gaia," Krysty breathed. She walked closer, studying the interior of the gateway through the arma-glass. It was empty, but the glowing metal disks set into the floor signaled the unit's readiness. The speckled arma-glass made it hard to see inside. Then she noticed the color a jade so dark it almost looked black, the tint only visible when she didn't look directly at it.

 

The vanadium-steel doors were shut tight. She knew nothing short of a missile could penetrate them. Without hesitation she reached for the control pad beside the doors and punched in the access code.

 

Even though it had probably been a hundred years since they'd been opened, the doors recessed smoothly. Stale air rushed out over her, triggering a gag reflex.

 

Swallowing her gorge, Krysty moved away from the mat-trans unit and retraced her steps to the keyboard. She searched the screens anxiously for Ryan and the others, but couldn't find them. She tapped the keyboard and brought up other menus, playing other scenes across the monitors.

 

She almost missed Doc.

 

The gangly man was still rummaging through the office where the hidden door was. His torch was down to almost an ember now, and he had the Le Mat shoved into the front of his belt as he shoved his way through the shelves and books lining the walls. The floor was littered with books, files and what remained of Colonel Henry Walker.

 

Krysty found the audio control and opened the channel into the office. "Doc."

 

He straightened immediately, his blaster in his hand. "Krysty, my dear lady, where are you?"

 

"Safe."

 

"By the Three Kennedys, you should not scare an old man that way." The smile on Doc's face showed honest relief. "I was trying to think of a way to break it to friend Ryan that I had lost you."

 

"You didn't lose me, Doc. I lost myself." Krysty searched the keyboard and found another pull-down menu. One of the coded encryptions was for opening the door.

 

"I think," Doc said, "that your man perhaps wouldn't have seen that so clearly as you state it. Your care was somewhat entrusted to me."

 

"Old ideas, Doc, a man looking after a woman and being responsible like that. Mebbe if I was helpless." Despite the tenseness of the situation, she couldn't resist a pointed barb. "Unless you're saying I'm helpless."

 

"No, dear lady. I would never suggest such a thing as that." The torch sputtered and popped, casting less light with every second.

 

"Step back." Krysty punched in the access code for the hidden door.

 

From the vantage point provided by the sec camera, Krysty was able to see the hidden door swing open.

 

"I knew that was there," Doc said, approaching the shadowed entrance. The view was of the back of his head as he advanced on the door. "However, none of my efforts to open yon portal met with any success."

 

"The others are on their way there now," Krysty said, "and they're bringing company."

 

"I had thought perhaps they were ill met," the old man said. "upon hearing the thunderous cannonade."

 

"Do you still have those explosives we picked up earlier?"

 

"Why, of course, fair lady. You were the only thing I was in arrears on as far as responsibility goes."

 

"Dig them out," Krysty said. "We're going to try to close the door after the others arrive." She clicked off the audio portion of the sec board. They had a way out of the redoubt if they could reach it, even if they didn't know where it was going to lead.

 

 

 

"BURROUGHS," Mildred said.

 

Ryan gripped the stairwell's railing and threw himself over. Jak was a pale ghost sprinting ahead of the others, the blazing brand thrust before him, burning more brightly as it struggled to live against the quick movement. Ryan landed hard on the next set of steps, turned under the first set and headed in the opposite direction as they went down.

 

"Burroughs," Mildred repeated, anger lighting her voice.

 

"Save your breath," Ryan said, "for running. Got a long ways to go."

 

In the distance Jak turned around the first corner two floors below and took part of the light with him. The din of the guns overhead had died away, but the warbling echoes of men's voices drifted through the stairwell. The metal skeleton of steps vibrated under the constant pounding.

 

"Man said his name was Drake Burroughs?" Mildred asked, out of breath as she navigated the landing that led onto the floor Jak had taken.

 

"That's right," J.B. answered. "Heard him myself."

 

"He's a major."

 

Ryan reached out a hand and caught the corner, throwing himself after the Armorer and Mildred. "Fireblast, I don't have time to carry you if you run out of air."

 

Mildred stopped talking, instead saving her breath to keep up with her companions.

 

Jak waited up ahead, his torch held away from his body so some of the shadows still shielded him. "Doc and Krysty are inside," he called out.

 

Ryan scanned the office, taking in the artificed door bisecting the opening. Krysty and Doc weren't immediately visible.

 

"Inside," Jak said, pointing.

 

Ryan crossed the room and peered into the tunnel. A torch was lying on the ground, fighting for its life against a greasy wetness that covered the floor. Doc and Krysty were busy working plas ex around the inside of the narrow corridor.

 

"Where does the tunnel go?" Ryan asked.

 

"Mat-trans unit," Krysty said. "Another room just beyond."

 

"Powered?"

 

"Yeah. Evidently this redoubt was compartmented. Different levels worked off their own power sources." Krysty worked another line of plas ex into the corner made where the ceiling met the wall. "Doc and I found the explosives earlier. I'd figured we'd pack them out of here, mebbe do some trading at one of the other villes for supplies we might need. Didn't think we'd need this much."

 

"They come," Jak said quietly.

 

Ryan nodded.

 

"Now," Krysty went on, "we're going to use the whole wad at once. If it works, could be we'll cut off pursuit."

 

"Of course," Doc said as he worked steadfastly and with care, "the downside is that we'll be trapped in even less space if the mat-trans unit does not operate properly."

 

"Wouldn't have much use for it anyway," Ryan said, "all shot full of holes the way these stupes plan it."

 

"Buy us some time," Krysty said. "Another couple minutes should see us clear in here."

 

"Mebbe." Ryan pulled his head out of the tunnel. "Burroughs has a lot of shooters, but I don't think he brought that war wag down with him." He hefted one side of the desk, finding it heavy enough to suit his purpose. "J.B."

 

The Armorer joined him, picking up the other side of the desk. They moved it toward the door, turning it on its side and spilling everything from the top. The petrified corpse almost tripped Ryan until he kicked himself free of it.

 

"Throw the torches out," Ryan ordered. "We know where we are and where we're going to head. All that light is doing in here is giving them a better target." He and J.B. positioned the desk crossways in the door as the first shots rang out and smashed against the outer walls and the other side of the room. Before he released the desk, Ryan felt bullets thud to shuddering stops against it.

 

Mildred and Jak heaved their torches into the corridor, and they drew fire at once. The flames were quickly ripped to shreds.

 

"Stop firing!" Burroughs yelled.

 

Swiftly the gunfire died away.

 

Ryan moved to the left of the door as the final sounds drifted away, leaving a ringing in his ears. He stared through the darkness. The major had settled his men into position fifty yards distant, from the stairwell to two corridors running from the opposite wall.

 

"You've got nowhere to go, Cawdor," Burroughs yelled.

 

Ryan made no comment. If the man didn't know about the mat-trans unit, it would work in their favor. Burroughs would feel time was on his side instead of working against him.

 

"If that's the same guy that was written about in that lady's journal I discovered," Mildred said in a voice pitched low enough that only Ryan and the others could hear, "the man's over a hundred years old."

 

"Same you," Jak said.

 

"Watch it, Jak," Mildred cautioned. "A proper young man wouldn't go around mentioning a lady's age."

 

"Cryosleep?" Ryan asked.

 

"When we had a look in that project area," she said, "I didn't see any cryo chambers."

 

Jak shook his head, too.

 

"This book I got" Mildred took it out of her clothing, "mentions Burroughs by name. Same rank. Said he was the man in charge of project security."

 

"What was the project?" Ryan asked.

 

"They called it Calypso."

 

"Ryan," Doc spoke up, "if I may intrude into the conversation."

 

"Never saw a time when you didn't feel free before," J.B. commented.

 

Doc ignored the statement. "Calypso may refer to one of the Greek deities. The masterminds who developed the Totality Concept and the others like it have an obvious fondness for that mythology. To wit"

 

"Who was Calypso?" Ryan asked, trying to keep the older man on track mentally. Doc had a habit of wandering astray of a subject before circling back to it. If he did return to it at all.

 

"Calypso is mentioned in Homer's Odyssey . As you may recall, after the Trojan War, Odysseus spent ten long years trying to get back to his home and family. Many adventures befell him. One was on the island of Ogygia in the Ionian Sea."

 

"Cawdor," Burroughs called, "no more truces. You can have your choice of deaths. Come out now, and I promise to be merciful. Make me come in after you, and you'll be days in the dying."

 

Ryan ignored the man.

 

"You see," Doc continued, "Odysseus was shipwrecked on the island. Calypso lived there alone. She was a sea nymph, a daughter of Atlas, who carried the entire weight of the world on his shoulders, and as such had many powers. She fell in love with the Greek hero after saving his life, and kept him a prisoner for seven years. If he would have only loved her, she would have granted him immortality and eternal youth, because those were within her ability to give. Instead, he chose to return home, and Zeus made her release him. Odysseus built a raft and left the island, leaving poor Calypso there to die of grief."

 

Ryan rolled the story over in his mind. Immortality was one of the greatest things mankind had ever lusted after. He glanced at Mildred. "His name's in the book?"

 

"Yes."

 

Ryan stared back out into the corridor. "Did you see any radiation scarring on his men?"

 

"No," J.B. replied. The others answered the same. "Means they had to have stayed in the redoubt after the nukes dropped," Ryan said.

 

"They live in project area," Jak said. "That time. Not now."

 

"Stands to reason they've got a base set up somewhere outside the radiation zone," Ryan said. "Probably keep a close watch on the mutie communities."

 

"Sure," J.B. said. "We worked our way through the villes outside here, everybody warned us away from the area 'cause of the muties. Man like Burroughs, he'd see the mutie populace as a built-in sec device. Probably adds to the stories about how violent they are to keep outlanders away."

 

"Only we didn't turn so easy," Mildred said. "He had to come after us because there's still something here he's protecting."

 

"Too late, Ryan," Burroughs called. "Now you're going to burn."

 

His attention drawn back to the outside corridor, Ryan watched as three teams of men carried small barrels out into the open. He fired his blaster at the nearest of them, catching one man in the head and dropping him. But it was too late to keep the barrel from being thrown. It rolled and tumbled straight for the door, skittering across the debris. The two other barrels followed.

 

"Krysty," Ryan called out.

 

"Another moment, lover. I'm setting the detonation switches."

 

The barrels kept coming, sounding like thunder in the corridor.

 

Moving swiftly, Ryan grabbed one of the corpses' feet and yanked. Brittle cartilage snapped like twigs. Shorn of flesh, the foot didn't fill out the shoe anymore, so it tumbled free, taking several toes with it. With the long, hard length of bone in his hand, the one-eyed man returned to the door. Aiming deliberately, he flung the leg and foot into the path of the oncoming barrels.

 

The sock fluttered loose as the leg bone turned end over end, then landed in front of the lead barrel. The cylinder hit the leg with a crunch, then halted and reversed direction, banging back down into the barrel just behind it. Both came to a stop less than twenty yards from the door.

 

Ryan aimed his blaster at the rolling barrel and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger.

 

The thumps of the bullets hitting their target sounded thickly hollow. With the fourth or fifth round, the barrel exploded and was engulfed in a wreath of flames less than ten yards from the doorway. The heat washed over them, riding in like a thermal tide. The flaming barrel stopped little more than five yards distant, uncoiling black smoke in thick ropes to pool against the ceiling.

 

Gunfire from Burroughs's group looked like a string of fireflies across the hall.

 

"We stay, they see easy," Jak said.

 

The room had brightened considerably. Ryan leaned around the door long enough to target the other two barrels, picking up the shadows that suddenly sprinted forward. He waited a heartbeat, letting them draw even with the barrels. One of the men even leaped into the air to hurdle the barrels.

 

Ryan fired, feeling a round blaze through his shirt and scream along his forearm from his wrist to his elbow.

 

The other barrels ignited at once, filling the corridor with the sound of the explosions. The leaping man was fried in midair and died without a sound. The burning corpse fell to the floor on the other side of the twisted wreckage of the barrels.

 

"Ready," Krysty yelled.

 

There was a momentary lull in the gunfire as the military group dealt with the unexpected carnage. The concussion ripping free of the fuel containers had thrown a sheet of flames over the immediate vicinity.

 

"Go," Ryan ordered.

 

The group pulled back, filing into the secret passageway on either side of the sideways door. J.B. hesitated a moment, glancing at Ryan and Krysty.

 

"I'll be along," Ryan said. The air was already getting thin as the fire burned up the oxygen, feeding itself in a rush.

 

The Armorer nodded and disappeared. Krysty moved outside, the detonator in her hand. "Here, lover. You decide when to blow it." She tossed it in his direction.

 

Ryan caught the device easily and gave her a wolfish smile. "Get them tucked in and ready. This is going to cut it thin."

 

Krysty gave him a fearful stare. "I'll be waiting for you, lover," she said, then disappeared.

 

The one-eyed man waited, giving them a three count. He wrapped his left arm around his face to block some of the smoke, breathing through the material sandwiched in the crook of his elbow. The heat pressed against him as he squinted through the uneven brightness.

 

The soldiers came through the flames in a broken line, moving with their rifles in front of them.

 

Taking careful aim Ryan managed to shoot one of them through the head before return fire drove him to ground.

 

He went through the door at a run, wondering if there was a way to shut it and maybe buy them some more time.

 

The instant after he'd passed through, though, the door wheeled smoothly and slammed shut. Krysty was staying on her toes, reminding him of only one of the reasons he loved her. The light went away, except for the rectangle at the other end of the tunnel. His feet slid through the greasy liquid covering the floor. Voices came from the room behind him. He tried to hurry as fast as he could, but the door wrenched open behind him before he covered a third of the distance.

 

Ryan's footing was the first thing to go as he twisted to confront whoever might be coming through the tunnel after him. Shifting smoke with ember-covered debris confused his vision as the sonic waves pounded him. He struck the ground hard, all wrong, and a numbness spread down his left arm, allowing the detonator to squirt out of his grip.

 

The first man through the door took shape before him as he brought up the SIG-Sauer.