survive a trip across that desert. How did they get here?”
“Might have been mat-trans-ed in, I suppose,” J.B. said.
“If the people here had access to mat-trans, why would they just import seed and livestock?” Ryan said. “Why wouldn’t they get the hell out if they could? What do you think, Mildred?”
The black woman didn’t answer. She was staring at a square of chalkboard that hung from a nail on the wall. The board was a hundred-year-old artifact, and still in relatively good condition. It was the room’s only decoration. Across the top, “Lupita’s Daily Special” was painted in chipped, but legible hot pink. The dots over the i’s were in the shape of little flowers.
There was no special today, or tomorrow, or ever again.
“Mildred, is something wrong?” he asked.
“Just wondering what if anything that might mean,” she said. She stepped aside so they could all see the words deeply scratched into the blackboard: “All Glory to Bob & Enid.”
Nobody had a clue.
It didn’t seem important at the time. Just odd.
But when they started looking through other buildings, weapons ready in case the missing owners suddenly returned, they found more references to the pair. And on the streetfront wall of Titterness Real Estate someone had charcoaled three lines of tall, crooked letters: Our love for Bob & Enid, our love for one & other makes us strong & proud.
“It would appear that paeans to ‘Bob and Enid’ are a recurring motif in these parts,” Doc said. “I would hazard the pair were early settlers, except for the glories and huzzahs that always accompany the inscriptions. They reflect a level of adoration normally reserved for deities.”
“Goddess Enid sounds okay, but a god named Bob?” Krysty said.
“That wasn’t here in 1992,” Mildred announced. She pointed across the street, through the line of mature trees, at the town square park.
Ryan was already staring at the windowless, one-story, gray concrete monolith that rose from the middle of the park. The roof and sides of the 50-by-80-foot structure were ribbed for strength.
Keeping low and single file, they trotted over for a closer look.
There was only one entrance, a doorway accessed down a short flight of steps. The titanium steel and pressure-locked door was blocked by a pile of stones.
The above ground structure was just the tip of the iceberg.
“We’ve found Minotaur,” Ryan said.
“Never was an island here, then,” Krysty said.
“Map was right, though,” Dix stated. “Damn thing was smack in the middle of the reservoir—only on the bottom.”
“Look at those reinforcing ribs,” Mildred said. “The walls are massive, designed to withstand tremendous pressure. Things are finally starting to make sense to me.”
“Pray tell in what regard, my dear?” Doc asked.
“The chronology,” Mildred said. “It’s all about the chronology. First came the rushed-through funding for the dam from Congress, then the town was condemned, and the residents relocated. A military no-fly perimeter was set up, supposedly to keep out saboteurs, but more likely to keep out prying eyes. The redoubt site was excavated and the complex installed at the same time as the dam, then hidden when the canyon was flooded. From the start, the whole Pueblo Canyon Dam project was about building Minotaur!”
“The construction and engineering you’re talking about is way beyond anything I’ve seen before,” Ryan said. “The question is, why wasn’t hollowing out a mountain good enough in this case? Why the hell did they put it under all that water?”
“Mountain complexes are designed to keep out nukestrikes, radiation and uninvited guests,” Mildred said. “Maybe this one was meant to keep something in.”
Ryan picked up on her train of thought at once. “You mean because of the water depth?” he said.
“That’s right. Without a pressurized suit or transport vehicle, no large organism could make it from the bottom to the surface alive.”
“So we’re not just talking concealment, then,” Krysty said. “We’re talking total isolation, maximum quarantine.”
“Predark whitecoats left behind some triple-ugly surprises,” J.B. said. “Maybe we better find out more about the place before we stick our beaks in there.”
The sounds of muffled singing and drumming, which had momentarily waned, suddenly swelled.
“It’s coming from the other side of the square,” Krysty said. “One of those buildings in the middle of the block.”
“Time we introduced ourselves to the locals,” Ryan said. “See what they can tell us about Minotaur.”
They followed the noise to its source, a two-story structure with a big marquee over the entrance. The marquee’s frame bore the name El Mirador Theater; a row of black plastic letters spelled out the current attraction: “Prays Bob & Enid.”
There were no guards on the movie house’s front doors and wild festivities were in progress inside. Clapping hands, stamping feet and sticks thumping on metal kept the rolling, musical beat. The singing, now that they could clearly make it out, was more like yelling. There were no words to the tune, just nonsense syllables, joyfully shouted at top volume.
Dee-dit-deedee. Dee-dit-deedee.
“Here comes the bride?” Mildred queried.
Chapter Six
“The bride comes from where?” Krysty asked Mildred.
Ryan and J.B. wore identical puzzled looks. Jak wasn’t paying any attention.
“It’s just the words to an old song, ‘The Wedding March,’” Mildred told them. “Written by Felix Mendelssohn in the mid-nineteenth century. Before the nukecaust it was played as the bride-to-be walked down the aisle of the church, before the wedding ceremony.”
“You think people are getting married in there?” Krysty said.
“If the music means anything anymore.”
“Sounds like a big crowd,” J.B. said. “Maybe the whole blasted ville. If we go in all peace and love, we might not come out again.”
Peace and love wasn’t on Ryan Cawdor’s agenda.
“Everybody got grens?” he asked.
“You want stunners, fog, or frags?” J.B. asked.
“Frags.”
Mildred’s eyes widened. Detonating a half-dozen antipersonnel grenades in a crowded room was some serious, undifferentiated ugly. A head-on train wreck. A plane crash. A twenty-car pile up.
