Chapter Two
A military redoubt was a boring place. There was little in the way of decoration or personality, only a cold professionalism. These hidden installations varied in size, from the massive maze of passages and rooms located behind the stone-faced facade of Mount Rushmore, known as the Anthill, to this tiny little hive of less than a dozen or so labs, dormitories and control rooms.
No matter the size or the complexity, there was a predictable uniformity that cried to the rafters of calm, plodding, rubber-stamped government bureaucracy.
Checking each of the rooms was quick and effortless, and no time was wasted in search of food or supplies since they had examined all the redoubt had to offer during their earlier stay.
"Gunmetal gray." Mildred Wyeth sighed. "There's no place like home."
"Familiar is good," J. B. Dix replied. "I like familiar."
"You would, John," she retorted.
"What? You want change?" the Armorer asked in disbelief. "Hell, Millie, every time we walk into one of these redoubts, we end up jumping to another part of Deathlands. Only good thing about this mode of transportation is that it's quicker than riding in a wag, and a hell of a lot safer than walking or trying to ride a motor bike."
"All I'm saying is, would it have killed whoever came up with the design of these lairs to consult a decorator?" Mildred asked. "Some different colors of paint? A pair of frilly curtains? Hell, I'd even take throw pillows and doilies just to break up the monotony."
Mildred's comments were directed at the sameness of the redoubt's walls. For all of its many uses in security, vanadium wasn't a reflective or attractive metal. The genetic installation's underground level was constructed of smooth alloy wall plates, which absorbed the faint light given off by the fluorescent light strips overhead.
J.B. looked exasperated. "I'm going to check on Ryan and Krysty. After all we've been through, Ryan's probably forgotten the combination to close the sec door." He was referring to the treatment the friends had received from Pharaoh Akhnaton in the city of Aten, and the arduous journey across the Barrens to this redoubt. At the back of their minds was the possibility that the gateway wouldn't workas it hadn't days earlier when they had attempted to jump out of there.
J.B. stomped off, only to quickly return with the missing pair. No words were spoken as Ryan made his way past, the others falling in behind him. The low-wattage lighting conspired with the vanadium walls to create a multitude of faint shadows, skittering pieces of dark against the light as the group made its way down the hallway.
Now that all had been reunited, the order of their descent back into the lair was a traditional, predetermined one, a secure wedge of seven friends who had grown to rely on one another despite the brief internal squabbles that might occasionally erupt. Tempers sometimes flared, but when the time arrived, they stuck together firmly as a family to survive the harshness of the world they were forced to call home.
Ryan turned to face the group after they had determined the redoubt was secure.
"Fill up the canteens," the dark-haired man said. "Might be a while before we get another chance. Every one take a good long drink, but not too much. Our trip isn't over yet, and I don't want to have anybody puking up water if it can be avoided."
His young son, Dean, collected the canteens and left to start filling them in the tiny kitchen.
After their thirsts had been quenched, there was nothing left to be said.
Taking up the triple-red-alert positions again, all gathered and waited, standing before the only door they hadn't yet entered. They knew what was inside from the last time, and none of them relished going back through for a return visit. The door was different from the others in the redoubt in both shape and design, its surface bearing a disk sheathed in silvery metal surrounded by three concentric collars of thick steel.
Another keypad was on the wall, and next to it was a laminated sign bearing red letters Biohazard Beyond This Point! Entry Forbidden To Personnel Not Wearing Anticontaminant Clothing!
"Oops," Ryan said mildly. "Any of you remember to pack a pair of anticontaminant coveralls?"
The mock query went unacknowledged. Their fears of a rogue biological agent having been loosed inside the room they were about to enter had been debated last time. Mildred had felt sure the combination of the passage of time and the lack of obvious damage in the redoubt would indicate their safety against being infected with any killer microorganisms.
"Guess not," Ryan murmured, answering his own rhetorical query. "Looks like we're going in dressed as we are."
He reached out and pressed in the familiar sequence to open the door. Ryan was standing to one side, his blaster held at the ready, braced against his lean right hip. The other companions were arrayed behind him, their own weapons held tight in readiness to pour a vicious drumming of full-metal-jacketed death into anyoneanythinghostile that might be waiting inside.
Following the hiss of pneumatics and internal machinery, the metal door rolled slowly to the left, disappearing into a open slot to allow entrance.
The room that was now revealed was dim. Ryan could make out dark blocks of shapes inside the immediate threshold. He exhaled a deep breath and stepped into the chamber. This motion caused an automatic lighting system to kick in the moment his presence was noted. A sickly greenish fluorescent bank of overhead lights illuminated the complete contents of the cluttered twenty-yard-long room.
Ryan strode quickly through, his eye noting the tables loaded with pristine glass tubes and beakers, silent gauges and softly humming comp terminals. His blaster stayed in his right hand, cocked and ready, as he headed for the door on the other side of the biolaboratory.
"Hope no bugs have gotten out since last time," J.B. muttered as he followed Ryan inside.
"Now, that's a cheery thought," Krysty Wroth retorted.
"Doubtful," Mildred said, her own dark eyes scanning the hidden genetics laboratory. "If so, there's not a damn thing we can do about it now."
"I feel a most distinct tickle in my nostrils," Doc Tanner began. "Do you think perhaps?"
"No. Like I told you the last time, any virus that might be loose in here was most likely designed to attack through the skin. Your nose is itching from desert sand or your own weak nerves," Mildred snapped, her voice slightly hollow in the chamber. "And if you're going to sneeze, use your handkerchief! You're probably carrying around a more dangerous disease than we'd ever find creeping around in here."
"Don't get your germs on me," Dean said, scooting past Doc with Jak Lauren close behind.
"Me, either," Jak added.
Doc made a brief show of taking out his stained swallow's-eye kerchief and putting the rag to his face in time to catch the spray as he unleashed a terrific sneeze. Everyone turned back to glare as he gave a weak smile, folded the now damp kerchief into a square packet of cloth and placed it in a rear pocket of his trousers.
"Apologies, friends. But there is no stopping a sneeze once it begins," Doc said. "One might as well hold back a howling tornado or stop a crushing tidal wave."
"Or stifle the verbosity blowing out of an overeducated windbag," Mildred added.
Ryan stood waiting at the door on the other side of the lab. This silver door was a twin for the first one, with the same configuration and security keypad. Ryan waited for Doc to compose himself and keyed in the entry code, commanding the door to roll aside and allow access to the last stop on their tour.
They stepped into a foyer that led to a small anteroom containing nothing but a utilitarian metal table and two steel-and-cloth office chairs. Several fluorescent light strips gave off a feeble glow. Another vanadium-alloy-plated corridor led to a large modem room, filled with an array of more elaborate comp consoles and readout monitor screens than seen in the lab.
Some of the comp screens were dark, but others glowed in tones of amber and blue, with lines of strange symbols mixed together with letters and numbers in incomprehensible codes. Oversize comp banks as tall as a man lined one wall, and on the other was a sharply cut series of brown panels of armaglass.
None of the group seemed surprised or impressed by the control room they were now standing in. All of them had seen this kind of setup before.
"There's the mat-trans chamber," Mildred said, pointing at the armaglass and stating the obvious. The walls of the gateway chamber she was pointing to were a rusty brown shade.
"The color of runny crap," J.B. muttered. "From a frightened man"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Ryan snapped back. "Want to go back and visit in Aten again? Play some Blood Stomper with the Pharaoh? Maybe dig him out from under that ruin of a pyramid so we can continue our friendly chat?"
"Hell, no," the taciturn Armorer grunted. "Making an observation, that's all."
"I don't give a shit what color this thing is. It's our ticket out of this mess, unless Nefron's still got the controls frozen. If that's the case, we're all going to have to figure out how to survive a trek clear across the Barrens. I guess we can all take turns pushing the chariot!" Ryan said, continuing to mine the vein of sarcasm J.B. had inadvertently opened up.
"Didn't say anything about that. You did," J.B. replied.
"Drop it, lover. Please," Krysty said, lightly touching his arm. "We're all on edge. Don't need to start carving one another up."
Still, the notion of being a coward rankled Ryan. J.B. was rightwhat were the gateways really, but the ultimate escape route? Maybe it was the easy way out if the damn thing worked this timebut after all they'd been through, Ryan really didn't care.
One by one, each of the party stepped into the chamber and sat on the floor. Ryan waited patiently until everyone was inside and accounted for before stepping into the room himself. He turned back and stared at the door of the low-ceilinged chamber. Once closed, the advanced matter-transfer unit should automatically begin to power up and then they would be free, their very atoms reduced to mere components and shot out screaming into the void to be reassembled in another place.
Hopefully a better place than this.
"Close it," Jak said bitterly. "Close door on fucking place."
"Amen," Doc echoed. "I would rather be anywhere besides here, even if I must endure this hellish mode of transit."
"You could always walk, Doc," Ryan said. "The offer's still open."
"No, I do not relish a rematch with those most unusual followers of our friend the pharaoh. Even though the good Miss Wroth has eliminated Akhnaton from this mortal coil, I shall take my chances with the matter-transfer process, thank you very much though we all know how well it sits on my aged bones."
"Aged bones, my ass," Mildred said. "You'll outlive us all, Doc."
"A fate I do not relish, Dr. Wyethalthough in your case, I must make an exception."
"All right, then. Let's do it," Ryan said, and pulled the chamber door closed, feeling the heavy steel panel click shut, an action that would result in the activation of the mat-trans unit.
A second passed, then two.
Ryan felt sweat begin to bead under his armpits.
And then, as it always did, the unit's security lock caught true, and the metallic clunk of magnetic bolts being thrown into the place was followed in turn by the spectral tendrils of the sinister pale mist that signaled the beginning of a jump.
"Hot pipe!" Dean said excitedly.
Despite his tension, Ryan grinned at his son's sense of adventure. "They don't make 'em any hotter," he acknowledged.
The white fog continued to gather, thickening around the unearthly shimmering disks in the floor and ceiling, and an almost inaudible hum from within the bowels of the chamber began to make itself heard deep inside the very core of their individual beings, a hum that increased slowly in pitch, making their skulls vibrate. For a few fleeting seconds of sheer agony and discomfort, it always felt as though the flesh were being flayed back from the bone.
"I could use a bottle of extra strength headache pills," Mildred mused. "I used to eat them like candy back when I was in med school. Pulled many an all-nighter with them and the radio as company, and got to where I'd bite down and chew them up one by one without water. I actually developed a taste for the flavor. And I thought I had bad headaches then!" She paused, then went on. "Now I also feel as if a whole hive of electricity generating ants were running all over my bodyand I want to talk and talk so I won't notice as much."
"Any of the stuff we grabbed out of here good for headaches?" J.B. asked. "I got a pocketful of drugs and syringes."
Mildred shook her head. "What you're carrying are just broad-spectrum antibiotics. Good for infection, but they're not painkillers in the sense I'm needing."
"Too bad. Bad enough taking a mat-trans jump when you're feeling good. Triple bad when your head's already hurting."
"I know," Mildred replied, snuggling in closer to J.B.'s lean body. "I'd have to wait and take them after the jump anyway. Otherwise, I'd probably just vomit them up once we got to where we're going wherever in the hell that might be."
John Barrymore Dixbetter known as J.B.was Ryan Cawdor's longtime companion, best friend and his own personal walking and talking cache of knowledge of all forms of weaponry and how they could most effectively be used. J.B. wore the title of Armorer with quiet pride, a title given to him by the legendary Trader in the days when J.B. and Ryan rode with the grizzled old master of survival before fate stepped in and set them on their own path.
Trader had respected Dix and made him his head weapons master and booby-trap expert. J.B.'s encyclopedic mastery of blasters and their specs was invaluable to anyone attempting to traverse the Deathlands. From simple black-powder muskets to rumbling war wags equipped with high-tech lasers, J. B. Dix had obsessively spent his childhood and young adult life studying and memorizing how to use and repair any kind of offensive weapon.
He was still learning, but it was the rare weapon indeed he hadn't read about or seen.
With J.B. was his companion and lover, Dr. Mildred Wyeth, a "survivor" from the period before the nukecaust that ended the civilized world. Like J.B., Mildred was also a rare find for the Deathlands, since she was a trained physician and pioneer in the field of cryonics and cryogenics, a talented woman whose abilities had saved more than one member of the group.
Ironically, due to an illness near the end of the year 2000, she had been frozen by the very same cryonic process she had helped to develop, and had remained that way until Ryan and the others had found and managed to restore her to life, not knowing she was a physician.
Of even more practical use in her new surroundings, Mildred was a crack shot, having participated in the Olympics of 1996 as a free-shooter and taking home a silver medal for the United States. She carried a ZKR 551 Czech-built .38 target revolver, and while she took her oath as a healer seriously, she had seen enough and experienced even more since her reawakening to know the old saying "he who hesitates is lost" was written with the Deathlands in mind.
But for now the Armorer and the doctor were both at rest. Although they kept their relationship restrained and private, Ryan couldn't help but notice the comforting arm J.B. had placed around Mildred's shoulders. She leaned back into the side of the Armorer gratefully. Out of all the band of friends, Mildred came closest to actually understanding the hellish process they were about to endure, but that didn't mean she particularly enjoyed it.
J.B. was ready. Ryan saw the lean man had already removed his steel-rimmed eyeglasses and tucked them safely away inside the front pocket of his worn leather jacket. J.B.'s other hand gripped his Smith amp; Wesson M-4000 scattergun tightly, reminding Ryan to check his own weaponry. Ryan caught J.B.'s eye, and the Armorer nodded an affirmative, tilting his battered fedora down over his eyes as if readying himself for a late-afternoon nap.
Ryan smiled at the gesture. J. B. Dix didn't like to use words when a gesture or a nod would do the job. Saved time. But he spoke up when things needed saying, or at times, when Mildred needed something a little extra from him.
"Planning on standing up for this trip, lover?" Krysty asked.
Staying upright during the matter-transfer process was never a good idea, since they usually ended up after a jump flat on the floor and unconscious anyway.
Ryan sat down in the graveyard mist next to Krysty, and she gave him a brief wink. As always, he couldn't help but marvel at her striking beautythe flawless pale alabaster skin that managed to keep its purity even under the adverse conditions they sometimes traveled in, the radiant green of her eyes and the passionate fire of her long red hair. It was odd considering the amount of time they spent outdoors that there wasn't even a hint of a freckle on her nose or cheeks. Such a lack of freckling was very unusual for a redhead.
"You're staring," she whispered, taking his hand in her own and squeezing.
"Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you," Ryan replied.
"Nice to be appreciated."
"I'm just glad to be moving again," Dean Cawdor remarked to his father. The boy was seated next to Krysty, his knees drawn up tight to his chest. Ryan could almost swear the lad had grown an inch during their brief separation. If the growth spurts continued, the boy would soon be as tall as Ryan himself. They already shared the same dark complexion and curly black hair.
Like many young people of the Deathlands, Dean was chronologically poised to enter his teens with the life experiences of a much older person.
Across from Ryan was a young albino he considered his second son. Unlike Dean, there was no sharing of bloodlines, nor any resemblancebut the mutual feelings of love and respect ran deep. The teen's features were distinctive enough to bring more than a glancing notice, even among the more unusual appearances in Deathlands. Jak Lauren's pallid complexion was paler than usual, throwing the crisscrossed scars on his face into sharp relief. His ruby eyes were half-closed, and his mouth was drawn tight in anticipation of the jump to come.
A heavy, well-used but well-maintained Colt Python blaster was safely fastened down in a holster on one of Jak's legs. As a rule, Ryan didn't want his party to have weapons combat ready before a jump, so there was no need to have the handblaster cocked and ready. The mental and physical condition of everyone after a jump prevented the use of any weapons. Even if they were to beam into the midst of a firefight or a band of scalies, the group wouldn't be able to lift a finger to fight back until recovering from the physical toll the mat-trans experience took as payment for the instantaneous method of travel.
Besides, hidden on his person, Jak had several leaf-bladed throwing knifes, their hilts taped for perfect balance. The young albino didn't need to worry about using a blaster when he had access to his knives, and he never went anywhere without one or more within instant access.
As usual before a mat-trans jump, Jak had nothing much to say, unlike the thin man beside him, who kept up an ongoing discussion with anyone who would listen or, when that option was out, keep a dialogue going with himself.
Next to Jak's eerie whiteness was the weathered face of Doc Tanner, a man trawled from the 1800s and thrust into present-day Deathlands. A lifetime of sights was etched into his skinand his eyes. Doc gripped his ebony walking stick tight, the silver lion's-head handle keeping the secret of the hidden and honed blade of Toledo steel housed inside the body of the cane.
A most unusual handblaster was holstered at the man's thin hip. It was an ornate Le Mat, a weapon dating back to the early days of the Civil War. The weapon was almost as much an antique as Doc himself, but probably in much better condition. Engraved and decorated with twenty-four-carat gold as a commemorative tribute to the great Confederate soldier James Ewell Brown Stuartor Jeb Stuart, as his friends and folks in Virginia referred to himthe massive hand cannon weighed in at over three and half pounds.
The blaster had two barrels and an adjustable hammer, firing a single .63-caliber round like a shotgun, and nine .36-caliber rounds in revolver mode. Finding ammo was difficult, but the old man refused to give up the sometimes clumsy blaster for a more modern weapon.
"Once you are set in your ways, there is no reason to change unless absolutely, positively necessary," Doc intoned.
Ryan did a quick inventory of his own personal arsenal. The 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 blaster was at his side like a loyal dog, the weapon's bulky baffle silencer digging reassuringly into his hip. The twenty-five-and-one-half-ounce weapon served as his third hand.
He had looped his bolt-action walnut-stocked Steyr SSG-70 rifle over one shoulder. Also on hand were two bladed weapons, a large eighteen-inch panga strapped to his left hip and a flensing knife, hidden away at the small of his back. Various bits of ammunition and a talent for the lost art of hand-to-hand combat made for a dangerous two-legged killing machine.
"Dad don't take shit off nobody," Dean had once said in awed wonder to Krysty as they both watched Ryan take out twin attackers in less than thirty seconds.
"I know. He doesn't have to. And what have I told you about watching your language?" the redhead replied.
This same incident had caused a third foe to cry out in exasperation at the firepower Ryan was using and the skill in how it was deployed, "It's a wonder the one-eyed son of a bitch doesn't clank when he walks!"
"That's mister one-eyed son of a bitch to you, stupe," Ryan spat back, before unleashing a single shot from the SIG-Sauer pistol and turning the upper part of the attacker's head into a messy mix of brain, blood and bone.
The memory comforted Dean. More often than not, he viewed his father as more than human. Oh, not in the way one might view a mutie or doomie, but instead in how a man might step back and look at a force of nature. Ryan shared one trait with the unpredictable weather patterns that circled the globeonce you unleashed the whirlwind, there was no stopping him until the course was completed.
The mist of the chamber began to creep into everyone's being, tendrils of pale smoke sparking with miniature bursts of lightning, working its magic as the group prepared to be taken to an unknown site at an undisclosed location. No one could know for sure where they might end up. The band of travelers had traversed most of what remained of the United States and even visited other continents during their time of hopping around via the gateways.
How the mat-trans units really worked was anybody's guess. Mildred's theorybased on the quick study of the precious little documentation she'd been able to scan, the discussions she'd had with the rare few in the Deathlands who appeared to know something about the devices and late-night talks with Doc in the man's more lucid stageswas that both organic and inorganic matter were reduced to digital information and instantaneously transmitted on a form of carrier wave to another gateway, where it was then reconstructed, molecule by molecule.
None of the group had ever taken the time to try to dismantle any of the gateways; after all, once you'd taken one apart, there was no guarantee of being able to put it back together again. Ryan didn't want to find himself in a situation where they'd broken down their only avenue of escape because they'd gotten creative.
Nor had they been able to completely figure out exactly how a destination was chosen for them. The process was unpredictablesome jumps seemed to take only seconds, others hours or days. The time spent in transit always varied, surprisingly enough, even from person to person, depending on how their own perceptions colored the excursion.
"I'm really not looking forward to this," Krysty said softly.
Ryan moved closer to her in silent reply, acknowledging the journey to come.