from beside her. His lean, almost gaunt face was set in an expression of intense discomfort, broken only by the out-of-focus set of his eyes. His bony hand reached for the wire-rimmed spectacles he kept securely in his jacket pocket during jumps. Placing them on the bridge of his nose, he blinked as his still clouded eyes adjusted to consciousness. Where Mildred carried a generous covering of flesh on her frame, J.B. was wiry and thin, belying his strength and stamina. Known as the Armorer, J.B. had met Ryan when they traveled together as sec men for the Trader, the legendary figure who was foremost among the breed of traveling merchants who kept alive what little economy and trade could exist, sniffing out caches of predark supplies and using them for barter.
J.B. was an armorer by trade and natural inclination, his fascination and thirst for knowledge on all weapons matched only by his ability to get the best out of even the most neglected and damaged blaster. He rose to his feet, dusting himself down out of habit, even though there was no dust in the static-free atmosphere of the chamber. Bending, he picked his battered fedora from the floor and placed it on his head, not feeling properly dressed until he had done that. He then checked his Tekna knife, the M-4000 and Uzi that were his preferred blasters and trusted companions.
Beside him, Mildred had also risen to her feet and checked her own blaster, the .38-caliber Czech-made ZKR 551 target pistol. Although not the most powerful of the handblasters that had run through the hands of the companions during their time roaming the Deathlands, it suited Mildred perfectly, being the model she had used in her days as an Olympic-grade shooter.
For Mildred was, like Doc Tanner, a relic of the past who should not, by rights, have been alive in the Deathlands. She had spent Christmas of the year 2000 in hospital for routine surgery on a suspected ovarian cyst. While under anesthetic, Mildred had developed complications that saw her vital signs sinking fast with no apparent way to revive her. She was cryogenically frozen until this seemingly minor problem could be solved.
Ironically, it was the act of dying that kept her alive, for while she was frozen the superpowers executed the military and nuclear maneuvers preceded skydark and the resultant nuclear winter that created the landscape of the Deathlands.
When Ryan and his traveling companions stumbled across the facility where her frozen body was stored and managed to successfully revive her, she found herself in an incomprehensibly different world to the one she had left behind.
Unlike Doc—whose body and mind had been prematurely aged and ripped apart as a result of being flung through time—Mildred had kept a grasp on reality and adapted well to the harsh new world. Her medical skills were sometimes blunted by the lack of resources, but she had proved herself invaluable to the band of travelers by her ability to apply her knowledge in even the most exceptional circumstances.
Mildred’s first move after clearing her head from the aftereffects of the jump was to join Ryan and Krysty over Doc’s slumped body.
“You know that one day this is going to be once too often for the old fool,” she commented as she thumbed back Doc’s flickering eyelid to get a better look at his wildly rolling eye. She felt his sweat-plastered forehead. “Not too much of a temperature, though,” she said, almost to herself. Rummaging in the pockets of her jacket, she produced a battered stethoscope that had been salvaged from the ruined medical bay of a previous redoubt. She opened Doc’s shirt, roaming the end of the stethoscope across his chest until she picked up his heart rate. It was fluttering and irregular, but even as she listened it began to settle into a more regular rhythm.
“Hell, I think the old buzzard might even last this one out,” she said to the others, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth.
“Mebbe he’ll even outlive Jak—well, at this rate it seems likely,” Dean commented wryly as he glanced over his shoulder to where Jak Lauren had risen to his knees before retching and puking a thin string of bile onto the chamber floor.
Jak looked tiny swathed in his multipatched camou jacket, and cut a pathetic figure as he coughed and spit out the last of the vomit, spasms jolting his body. But this impression was belied by the fact that the teenager—an albino from the swamps of the bayou whose pale face was covered in the scars of innumerable battles—was a born hunter and fighter, his slight frame almost entirely consisting of wiry muscle stretched over his skeleton.
Despite the vast reserves of strength that he held within his wiry frame, Jak was the member of the group who was hit hardest by the mat-trans jumps, always taking the longest to recover, his senses reeling and his body racked by pain.
“Right now be glad see Doc last longer.” Jak coughed in between gulping down breaths of air, his red eyes beginning to focus on the rest of the group. “Feel like already long chilled,” he added with a rare grin.
As Jak pulled himself to his feet, and Dean and Mildred helped a dazed and confused Doc to his feet, Ryan, J.B. and Krysty moved across to the chamber door. This particular chamber had teal-blue armaglass walls; most of the chambers they had encountered, whatever the color of the armaglass, had been opaque. And although that was a good thing because it meant that they couldn’t be observed from the outside, it also meant that exiting from each chamber and into the redoubt was fraught with the possibility of being open to an attack they couldn’t predict.
Ryan paused by the door and looked at Krysty. Her Titian mane was flowing free, not curling close to her head.
“Feels good to me, lover,” she said simply.
Ryan spared her a smile, his single eye sparkling. “Mebbe I’d gathered that,” he replied, indicating her free-flowing tresses.
“So take it yellow but still alert?” the Armorer interjected. It was a question, as Ryan was the undisputed leader—there had to be one in any group if they were to survive—but J.B. was as experienced as his old friend, and just needed the one-eyed warrior to confirm what he suspected he was thinking.
Ryan nodded. “Check the others. Are we ready?”
He looked over the rest of his people. Dean was now alert and ready for action, while Doc was recovering rapidly, attended by Mildred.
The younger Cawdor nodded assent at his readiness. Mildred muttered a swift yes before looking at Doc, who also nodded assent, leaning heavily on his lion’s-head sword stick but looking stronger with each passing second. Already he had the unwieldy but effective LeMat pistol sitting easily against the heel of his hand.
That just left Jak. The albino was resilient and strong, and he had already moved over to where Ryan, Krysty and J.B. were poised by the chamber door, his .357 Magnum Colt Python already in his hand.
“Ready,” he said shortly.
Ryan nodded and reached out for the handle on the interior of the door. It was a simple handle, seemingly too simple a lock mechanism for something that would seal a doorway against the outside world while matter transfer took place within.
Ryan’s muscles tensed perceptibly in the fraction of a second it took for the door to swing open, his easy stance replaced by a steeled spring that took him into the anteroom outside. J.B. swung into position behind him, his Uzi up and ready, covering his friend.
Ryan took in his surroundings with one swift circular glance, years of training in the art of survival meaning that every detail of the area was imprinted on his sole retina.
The comp control room was deserted, with the remaining comp consoles covered in a thin layer of dust despite the gentle hum of the air-conditioning, suggesting that the plant that cleaned the air was at least still partly working.
Ryan
