The descent went on for rather longer than was comfortable, and I had to wonder just how deep they'd buried Area 52, under the concealing snow and ice of the Antarctic. Just what were they hiding here, that needed to be imprisoned so deep in the earth? Were they worried about something getting in, or something getting out?
"They built this place deep," said Molly, echoing my thoughts.
"Well, wouldn't you?" I said reasonably. "Given some of the truly dangerous things they're supposed to have stored away here?"
"Like what?" Molly said immediately. "Come on; you're the one who's read all your family's files on this place; what exactly are they sitting on here?"
"Ah," I said. "Nothing too important or frightening, of course, because we always get to those first. But they are supposed to have squirreled away a fair collection of very interesting pieces…"
"You don't know!" said Molly. "You haven't got a clue what's down here, have you?"
"Be fair," I said. "No one in my family has even been to Area 52 before. Never felt the need, until now. We've always relied on reports from people on the inside. But don't worry, sweetie, I'm sure we'll find something nice you can take home as a souvenir."
The steel chamber finally came to a halt deep underground, and a door opened that I would have sworn wasn't there a moment before. I stepped quickly out and looked around, ready for any response. Molly was right there with me; but the shining steel corridor was completely empty. The door slid shut behind us, and then the corridor was utterly still and silent. Fierce electric light meant there were no shadows, and there wasn't even a whisper of air-conditioning. Nothing moved. The steel corridor stretched away in both directions, empty and deserted.
"You know, I thought for sure someone would be expecting us," said Molly. "I had some really unpleasant transformation spells lined up, just waiting to be unleashed on the wicked and deserving."
"I thought those took a lot out of you," I said.
Molly smiled. "The look on people's faces makes it all worthwhile. Your trouble is, you just don't know how to have fun."
"I have a really bad feeling about this," I said.
"You always have a really bad feeling," said Molly.
"And I'm usually right."
Molly looked up and down the long steel corridor. "So, which way do we go?"
"I don't know," I said. "Your guess is as good as mine. I told you-no one in my family has ever seen the inside of this place. Even the floor plans in our files are years out of date. And the regular reports we get usually just consist of Everything's fine, nobody panic. I have to say, I'm not entirely sure we're getting value for money there."
"And there's no one here to ask," said Molly. "Funny, that. There ought to be somebody around. Especially as we've just arrived out of nowhere, riding an emergency exit in reverse. You'd have thought someone would have noticed that."
"Yes," I said. "Spooky, isn't it?"
I armoured down. There was always the chance Doctor Delirium, Tiger Tim, Methuselah, or any of the base's security people might be able to detect the presence of strange matter. I turned to look at Molly, and she actually gasped, her hands rising to her mouth.
"Oh Eddie, what have they done to you?"
I looked at my blurred reflection in the steel wall. Even in that distorting surface, I looked pretty bad. I raised a hand to my face, and winced as I touched swollen eyes and nose, and a pulped mouth. When I took my hand away, there was blood on my fingers. As though seeing made it suddenly real, my whole face pulsed with pain. Those dark shapes really had done a number on me, even inside my armour. Suddenly it was all I could do to stand up straight, as the pain kicked in; all the damage, from torn muscles to cracked ribs, the sharp aches flaring up from a hundred injuries, inside and out. Molly must have seen something of it in my bloodied face, because she stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on my chest.
"My hero," she said. "My knight in shining armour. Sometimes I forget how brave you are, Eddie. Because you try so hard to seem as strong and invulnerable as your armour. Look at what they've done to you…"
"Don't fuss," I said. "I've had worse. Comes with the job, and the territory."
"Not while I'm around," said Molly. "Hush. Hush, my darling."
She pressed her hand hard against my chest, and a subtle thrilling energy ran through me. I cried out despite myself as the pain blazed up, and then was suddenly gone. I could move without wincing, breathe without hurting, and when I put my hands to my face all the damage was gone.
"There," said Molly. "All better now."
She produced a clean handkerchief and dabbed at the blood on my face. But her voice hadn't been entirely steady, and neither was her hand, and there was a grey cast to her face that hadn't been there before. The healing had taken a lot out of her.
"I know," she said, before I could say anything. "But it's my choice to pay the price, instead of you. If I'd told you what it would cost me, you wouldn't have let me do it, so I didn't ask. You can be too bloody noble for your own good, sometimes."
I just nodded, kissed her briefly, chose a direction at random and set off down it. Molly bounced along beside me, smiling hap pily, quite ready to lash out at someone she didn't know and do terrible things to them. After a while the corridor branched out into junctions and side turnings, and I just kept changing directions at random. But even as we penetrated deeper and deeper into Area 52, we never saw another living soul. The whole base gave every indication of being deserted, abandoned. No sign of any struggle, or violence, nothing to suggest any sudden emergency. It was as though everyone had just… walked out. Except there was nowhere to walk out to-just the bitter and unforgiving cold of the Antarctic above. So where had everybody gone?
I remembered Tiger Tim boasting that all the Base personnel were dead; but where were Doctor Delirium's people?
We found a canteen. The door was wide open, and when we looked in the long tables had all been set out for a meal. Plates and cutlery, jugs and glasses of water; but no food. And no one there to eat it. We kept on walking, pushing open doors along the way that led to offices and living quarters, and there was every sign of life except people.
"This whole base has gone Marie Celeste," said Molly. "Spooky…"
"Deja vu all over again," I said. "And not in a good way." I filled her in quickly on what I'd found at Doctor Delirium's Amazon base. On what Tiger Tim had done there. Molly shook her head in slow disbelief.
"What a bastard. All right, no way are we taking him in alive."
"No," I said immediately. "You have to leave him to me, Molly. He's family. That makes him my responsibility."
"Okay, I'll take the Doctor and the Immortal."
I had to smile. "Self-confidence has never been a problem for you, has it?"
Some time later, we came to the Area 52 Armoury. Carefully sign-marked, with a whole bunch of not at all veiled warnings and threats, about not opening the Armoury door without all the proper instructions and authorisations, and a whole army of heavily armed security to back you up. The massive door was the kind you usually only find in banks, in maximum security vaults.
"Just a quick look," pleaded Molly. "Come on, Eddie; you know you want to. We can get in there, no problem."