a palm against the corridor to check for heat. It was warm, but not hot, so he listened for a moment for any sounds coming from the other side, then worked the handle and opened the door a crack.
The corridor was empty. The overhead lights were working, but the bright glow of the fluorescent tubes had been reduced to a dim bluish sheen from the passage of the years. The air vents were still blowing warm air instead of cool, but Ryan was starting to wonder if that was deliberate. Maybe the redoubt was at the North Pole, or inside a glacier, and it needed to be kept this warm. Anything was possible. The predark government had hidden the subterranean bases in the oddest places.
Placing fingers in his mouth, Ryan whistled sharply twice, and J.B. and Mildred rejoined the group. With practiced ease, the group spread out in groups of two and checked the offices lining the corridor, one person staying at the door while the other went inside. Then the pair switched and did the next room. As usual, Doc served as the anchorman, the colossal .44 LeMat held as reserve firepower.
As he kept track of the others as they moved from room to room, just for a split second the scholar thought he heard a metallic noise and almost called out a warning. But when it didn’t occur again, he grudgingly relaxed.
After a few minutes, the companions regrouped at the end of the corridor near the elevator and the door to the stairwell.
“This place is clean as a glass lake,” Krysty stated, sliding off her heavy coat and tying the arms around her waist. The heat was starting to bother her slightly.
“Found a humidor with two cigars,” Mildred announced, patting a pocket. “But since J.B. is trying to quit, I’ll just add them to the trade goods.”
“Thanks a heap,” J.B. muttered
“No ammo, no booze,” Jak added. “Lots bottles, all dry.”
“Couple of pencils,” Dean said, reaching into a pocket. “And a lighter. Anybody need a replacement?”
Tough and resilient, butane lighters were the gold of the new world. Even after a hundred years they still sparked a flame and worked for months with careful hoarding. Nearly worthless in the predark society, now the plastic cartridges were a month of eating, or a week of pleasure in a ville’s gaudy house.
“Mine’s almost dead,” Mildred said.
Without a comment Dean passed it over. The woman flicked the lighter to make sure it worked, then tucked it away. “Thanks. Nothing like them for cauterizing a wound.”
“No prob,” the boy answered, feeling a touch of pride at finding something useful.
Suddenly snapping her head to the left, Krysty frowned at the empty corridor.
“Something?” Ryan demanded softly, glancing about with his good eye. The hallway was clear, not even dust moving on the floor.
The woman started to speak, then shook her head. “Nothing, I guess. Must have just been the air vents.”
Doc frowned at the comment. “Indeed, madam. I also thought there had been a noise before,” he rumbled. “But dismissed it as superfluous clatter.”
Holstering his 9 mm blaster, Ryan eased the butt of the Steyr SSG-70 out of his backpack and worked the bolt. First it was too hot in the redoubt, now mysterious noises.
“Okay, get hard, people,” Ryan ordered. “Jak, Dean, watch the elevator. Anything that comes out, blast it. Doc and Mildred, guard the stairs. The rest of us will walk down to the reactor on the bottom level. Then come back up before searching the upper levels. This way we can know nothing is coming from behind.”
Cradling his Uzi, J.B. added, “Any trouble, fire a round. If nobody comes back in ten, then come running.”
“I shall serve as Horatius,” Doc rumbled, taking position near the corner of the hallway. This offered a clear field of fire in two directions and possible cover in case of incoming rounds.
“Horatius had two companions with him on that bridge,” Mildred muttered, joining the scholar, “and they both died.”
Leaning against the wall, Doc smiled widely, displaying his oddly perfect teeth. “Which is exactly why,” he said politely, “I was very careful to state that I alone was Horatius, and not you.”
Glowering at the man, Mildred said something in Latin that made his eyebrows rise in shock while Ryan eased open the door to the stairwell. As he did, a sound was clearly heard echoing down from the levels above. Something metallic and moving. Then came a horrible scream.
Chapter Three
“Air vent, my ass,” Ryan cursed as the scream echoed away.
He started forward, then paused, and for a tense moment sharply debated leaving. Whatever was happening here probably wasn’t their concern. Then again, the redoubts were the lifeline of the companions. If there were people in here, they needed to know how they got inside and what, if anything, they knew about the mat-trans system.
“Dad?” Dean asked anxiously, his knuckles white from the tight grip on his blaster.
“That could have been a child,” Krysty said, remembering a particularly gruesome event at a redoubt where the companions had arrived only seconds too late to save a young girl who was starving to death from taking her own life.
Anxiously, Doc added, “Knowledge is power, my dear Ryan.”
Yeah, the Trader used to say that, too. “Okay, we move as a group,” Ryan decided, almost against his better judgment. “I’m on point, one yard apart, two on two formation. Let’s go!”
“Just a sec,” J.B. countered, walking to the elevator and hitting the call button. The indicator lights in the lintel chimed in response as the cage started to descend from the upper levels.
Ryan nodded in approval at the distraction; every little bit helped. Doc and Mildred quickly joined the others in the stairwell and, moving fast, the companions quietly started up the ancient stairs of the redoubt, blasters leading the way.
At each level they paused, straining to hear anything, but there was only dusty silence. The dining hall, barracks, communications, medical, storage, each section was as still as a empty tomb. At the top level, the companions paused before the last door and were rewarded by some sort of humming noise.
“Dark night, but that’s familiar,” J.B. said, setting his fedora farther back on his head as a prelude to a fight. “Just can’t recall what the nuke it is, though.”
“I don’t like this,” Krysty whispered, her hair coiling tightly in response to the tension.
“Got something?” Jak asked, flexing his left hand. A knife slipped from the sleeve of his leather jacket into his palm at the gesture.
“No,” the redhead said slowly, as if unsure. “I’m not reading anything. This just feels wrong, a gut instinct.”
“Same here,” Mildred added, chewing at her lip.
With a worried expression on his young face, Dean grunted in agreement.
There was no light coming from under the jamb, so working the latch carefully, Ryan opened the door slightly, and held out a hand toward Doc. The scholar passed over his ebony stick and, easing it through the crack, Ryan reached toward the nearby light switch, flicked it on with a loud click and threw open the door.
This top level was the garage of the redoubt, tool benches and storage rooms to the left, the exit corridor to the distant right. The rest of the cavernous room was filled with vehicles, mostly civilian wags—compact cars and station wagons, some falling apart from body rust, others in decent condition.
However, a few of the larger machines were military wags, 4×4s, some Hummers and even an APC. The armored personnel carrier was lacking wheels, the axles resting on the stained concrete floor above a dark grease pit, but the chassis seemed intact.
“Hot