"I guess not."
"So are you going to take us down there or do I have to get someone with some real clout?"
It was Vickers' moment to interrupt. "Do we have to fuck around with this jerk any longer? Let's just find his superior and explain how he's fucking us over."
Fenton became the calming influence.
"Hey, give him a break, will you? He wants to cooperate, he's just nervous. They go by the book down here, that's all." He turned to the captain. "You're going to help us out, aren't you?"
The captain caved in. "Okay, but I'm going to have to come down there with you.
Fenton beamed. "Sure. Let's go to it."
With the captain completely buffaloed, the rest was easy. They went through to the jumpers' locker room and opened the locker of one Jose Torres. The computer had selected him as being the same size as Vickers, so his radiation suit would fit. He was also off-shift so the suit would be hanging in his locker. While the captain watched, they searched every inch of the suit. Finally they delivered the verdict.
"There're no secret pockets or gimmicks in the suit that we can find. We're going to have to take it in for some lab tests."
Vickers had an apparent thought.
"We really ought to put another suit in its place so Torres won't suspect anything." He looked at the captain. "Can you fix that for us? Can you get us another suit?"
The captain was now a hundred percent anxious to please. He practically skipped to the nearest wall phone. Inside of ten minutes, a mystified orderly had brought down a second orange radiation suit. Vickers folded Torres' original suit under his arm and let the increasingly relieved captain lead them back the way they'd come. As they walked out through the security check, Vickers couldn't resist a parting shot. He wagged a cautionary finger at the captain.
"Not a word now, right? Nothing to anyone?"
The captain was as eager as a terrier. "You can trust me."
"I sure hope we can."
Vickers and Fenton walked slowly between two lines of parked vehicles to the first level, doing their best to look like it was just a routine patrol. Over the past two days they'd conducted a lot of random, unauthorized patrols and no one had challenged them or even asked a question. This, however, was the big one. It was their first shot at the outside. Vickers had Jose Torres' radiation suit slung over his shoulder in a canvas tote bag and, in addition to the usual Yasha, he also carried a big 12 gauge Churchill autoload. As far as hardware went, Vickers was ready for the outside. Emotionally, he wasn't so sure. The dry metallic taste was in his mouth and the acid knot in his stomach. It was different, though, from preparing for combat. This was something completely unknown. He knew that he was scared of what he might find out there. All he could do was lean back on his nerves and carefully put one foot in front of the other.
They came to the end of the line of vehicles. They turned and walked up another. Without being too obvious about it, they were gradually working their way away from the sealed elevator door toward the far back of the level. After sauntering casually for another five minutes, they were between two rows of tall armored personnel carriers. As far as either of them could tell there were no cameras watching them in the darkness.
"This looks like as good a place as any." Vickers dropped the tote bag on the ground. They stood still for a few seconds, waiting for any possible challenge. When none came, Vickers bent down and dragged out the suit. He unrolled it and laid it flat.
"You want to help me with this?"
"Sure."
Fenton held up the bulky orange suit while Vickers struggled into it. Finally he pulled on the headpiece but left the faceplate open.
"Christ, you could sweat to death in one of these."
They both glanced around at the black, silent lines of armor. Nothing seemed to be moving. Vickers took a deep breath.
"I guess I'd better get going."
Fenton glanced at his watch. Vickers did the same. Fenton had one more look round.
"You want to give me five minutes to get out of here?"
"Yeah, okay."
"Take it easy, right? Just two hours and then right back inside."
Vickers nodded. "If I'm not back in three, you've never heard of me."
Fenton briefly gripped Vickers' arm and then he walked away. Vickers watched him go. His diminishing footsteps were measured and even, as though he didn't have a care in the world. The old familiar feeling of wanting to be somewhere else crept over Vickers. He did his best to focus his attention on the passage of time, staring at the digits on his watch, willing them to change. He gave Fenton his full five minutes, then he shouldered the Churchill and started determinedly into the darkness.
It was like another world. At first the things that scuttled out of the way of his flashlight beam were rats and lizards and small desert rodents. As he got further in though, they sounded bigger and a lot more timid. People? Mad enough to live out here in the dark? No flooring had ever been put in and the ground underfoot was covered with building debris. He had to take care not to stumble on rocks, chunks of masonry and discarded boards. Stacks of unused building material and heaps of garbage gave the unfinished area a set of contours that provided natural cover for whoever and whatever lurked. At regular intervals there were small smokey fires with dark figures crouched among them. Vickers didn't approach any. He figured that those who had elected to live in this place had sufficient troubles without the addition of being scared witless by a monsterous, armed figure in an orange suit. At some point, someone had clearly tried to marginally improve the unfinished area. Loops of electrical cable hung down from the ceiling like black jungle vines. Vickers had seen a handful of jury-rigged lights off in the distance but they were quickly extinguished when he threatened to come anywhere near them. The oddities who hid out in the place were skittish and extremely watchful.
It took Vickers over thirty-five minutes to locate the door. He'd crossed the unfinished area by dead reckoning and then worked his way along the wall. He'd missed the start of the tunnel on the first pass. He hadn't been expecting it to be concealed behind anything as mundane as a sheet of corrugated tin. Vickers moved the tin to one side and shone his light into the black space. The tunnel was nothing special. It was narrow and the curved roof was just high enough to allow a man of normal height to walk without stooping. Any group of people coming down the tunnel would have to do it in single file. It was clearly intended to be easily defensible. Instinctively, Vickers ducked as he stepped inside.
Vickers saw something on the floor of the tunnel up ahead. It looked as though someone had dumped some untidily coiled electrical cable. He was sufficiently keyed up to stop and regard it suspiciously before going forward. The mess seemed harmless enough, an untidy confusion of cable ends, but Vickers couldn't quite figure out why cable off-cuts should be dumped some two hundred yards down a tunnel that had no electric wiring. It wasn't anything to make him turn back, though. Then one of the cables moved.
"Sweet Jesus Christ!"
The cables were snakes. Vickers detested snakes and knew nothing about them. He could only assume that they were nasty and probably poisonous. Vickers had no idea why they were there but he only had the haziest idea of what snakes might be capable. Presumably they had somehow gotten in from the desert. His first impulse was to unhitch the Churchill and blow the whole squirm of them away. He realized in time, though, that if he started blazing away with an autoload in such a confined space, he might, with luck, kill all the snakes and avoid being hit by ricocheting pellets but the noise would certainly destroy his hearing. His second impulse was to turn back but that would totally destroy his self-respect. What was he going to tell Fenton? There were snakes in the tunnel and he'd chickened out? He walked gingerly forward. As far as he could tell, the radiation suit was probably thick enough to stop a snakebite but he didn't want to bank his life on it.