"Only problem is, Krysty bent the handle and ripped the lock apart. Could be difficult to get the little booger patched up ready for when we want to jump out of here. Wherever 'here' is," Rick concluded as he finished his examination of the broken lock on the chamber door.
Krysty lay on the smooth floor, her head cradled in Ryan's lap. The sentient hair had gone limp, seeming to lose its bright color. Her eyes were closed and her skin was parchment pale. Ryan was chafing her hands between his.
The supernatural effort of wrenching the jammed door open had carried her over the brink of total exhaustion. Her pulse was fluttering and irregular, her breathing shallow. As soon as the metal had crunched apart and the chamber entrance had begun to swing open, she had let go her hold and slumped semiconscious to the floor, where Ryan had been just in time to catch her.
"How long before the sweet child has recovered sufficiently for us to continue with our perilous voyage of exploration?" Doc asked.
"Hour or so," Ryan replied, smoothing Krysty's forehead with his long, muscular fingers.
"Make that a day or so, lover," she said, opening one eye and managing a weak smile. Krysty licked her lips. "Could do with a drink. Anyone got any prenuke brandy? Uncle Tyas McCann back in Harmony had a dozen bottles. Used to have a sip on special occasions. Best I ever had."
"I guess that means you're feeling a whole lot better." J.B. grinned.
"I feel like I might not die after all," she replied. "But I'd surely like some eats and some drink. Calling on the Earth Mother always drains me right down."
Ryan glanced at J.B. questioningly. "Ready to move?"
The armorer nodded. "Why not?"
Everyone was standing, except Krysty. She shrugged off Ryan's hand and pulled herself to her feet, with a little help from the gray wall. She shook her head. "Something's not right. Don't know what, but I can feel it. The air or... Don't know."
"Let's go," Ryan said, leading the way, blaster cocked and ready. Everyone else had their handguns drawn, except Rick. Despite all of Ryan's efforts, and the urging of the others in the group, he'd steadfastly kept to his old nineties peacenik beliefs. Shortly before they'd left Snakefish, Rick had been forced by circumstances to finally use a blaster against another human being. But he'd hated the experience and hated his new friends who had compelled him to pick up a loaded gun and squeeze the trigger.
He was unarmed now, except for the heavy bamboo cane.
Ryan knew what to expect beyond the damaged door to the gateway. There would be a small room about twelve feet square, probably completely empty. Most of the buried and hidden redoubts that they'd discovered so far had been deserted and abandoned.
Beyond the antechamber would be the main control room for the mat-trans unit, filled with flickering lights and humming computers. All of the massive fortress complexes had been run by independent nuke-power plants. Most of them still functioned even after a hundred years of neglect.
And beyond that control room would be the locked sec doors that sealed the gateway off from the rest of the redoubt. Normally, if there was danger, it came when those doors were opened.
Ryan stepped outside the chamber, pausing and glancing quickly around.
"Not the same," he announced.
There was no small anteroom. The armaglass door swung back to reveal a control room, but it was tiny compared to the others that they'd seen barely twenty feet across, with a single, simplified master console. Ryan recognized some of the basic command units from other redoubts.
"Why so small?" Jak asked wonderingly.
"Experimental?" J.B. suggested. "Or a real small redoubt."
"There's some state-of-the-art technology in here," Rick said, limping heavy-footed around the comp-displays. "A lot of real costly miniaturization and laser-tech boards. Not experimental, J.B. No way, Jose."
"This place is inordinately clean, is it not?" Doc observed, running a finger along the top of one of the desks, showing it untouched by dust. "And I do believe... Yes." He stooped and peered underneath. "I think we should exercise a little care in what we touch in this place."
"Why?" Krysty asked.
Ryan knelt down and looked where the old man pointed, straightening slowly. "See what you mean, Doc."
"What is it?" the woman repeated.
"Place is boobied. Nice little packets of plas-ex, some shiny detonators and plenty of red wire and green wire and even some blue wires."
"Sabotaged, you mean?" Rick said, puzzled. "Who would do that? And why? It isn't as if the good old U.S. of A. was in any danger of being invaded. Who were they hoping to catch?"
"Could be demolition charges. Could be they were just taking precautions." J.B. scratched the side of his nose, looking carefully at the wiring, but not touching anything. "No. Definitely antipersonnel. Not big enough to blow the building. Take your head off in a messy kind of way."
"Cut 'em?" Ryan asked.
"Not a lot of point. Nothing on the deck here we need."
"We have to repair that door," Krysty reminded them, "or we don't get out of here again."
Rick had been looking at the damaged portal to the gateway. "Not easy, lady. Not easy at all. The main contacts need some serious electrical work."
"Can you do it?"
"Sure, Ryan. I might be dying and my memory's got more holes than the Jets' defense, but I can still do me some wiring." He paused. "But it'll take some time, Ryan. A couple of days heavy work, the way it looks to me."
"We'll take a look around first. Then make a decision on what you do. And when. First thing's to get us some food and drink."
"Leave this?" J.B. asked, gesturing to the wired-up explosives.
"Yeah. Plas-ex that old might blow if you look at it wrong."
"Do you suppose trying to use the gateway again triggers the boobies? Then I fear that we would find ourselves in the deepest ordure."
"We all gotta go sometime, Doc." Ryan grinned. "Let's cross that overpass when we come to it."
Krysty was standing still, staring vacantly into space across the control room. She shook her head. "Something bad here. It doesn't feel like any redoubt I've ever been in."
"Danger?" Jak asked.
"Not immediate. But... Can't find the handle for it."
"No point sticking around. We'll worry about that broken lock when we're ready to leave, Rick. At least the main doors don't look like they've been tampered with."
The hugely strong sec doors were painted a very light shade of green. The control lever was a darker green.
And it was in the Open position.
"Think it's mined?" J.B. asked.
"Probably," Ryan guessed.
Chapter Four
Jak spotted the wire.
"Look!"
A thin pale blue length of wire ran into the crack in the wall, behind the massive sec-steel hinges. J.B. traced it with a cautious finger, watchful for any mercury tremblers or prox-fuses. But it was a very straightforward piece of plas-ex plus detonator. The actual explosive was concealed on a ridge above the top of the doors.
"Nobody been in here since sky-dark," the Armorer said.
"Could be recent."
J.B. shook his head at Ryan's suggestion. "No. Not stuff wired this way. It's crude, and it's also old. Besides, it would've blown if anyone had tried to enter."
"Cut it?"
"Yeah." J.B. dragged over a wooden chair and stood on it, drawing his Tekna knife and easing the needle point behind the wire.
"Everyone take cover," Ryan ordered, crouching behind one of the consoles in the corner of the strangely cramped room. Krysty knelt beside him, with Jak, Doc and Rick farther along, near the wall.
"What if it blows?" the freezie asked.
"Keep tight and small on the floor, hands over your ears, eyes shut. And keep your mouth open. That way you keep the blast damage to a minimum."
"Thanks, Ryan. Thanks a lot."
"Stick head between knees and kiss ass goodbye," Jak sniggered.