and J.B. returned to the others. There was no need to explain, as they had gathered the results.
“So we head out?” Mildred asked.
Ryan assented. “Recce on the way to see if we can pick up anything of interest.”
They began to walk the corridors that led toward the elevators, emergency stairwells and upward ramps that would take them to the surface. The corridors were dingy, with just enough light to see in front, but not enough to stop the corner of vision from being obscured by shadow. They passed through several sec doors that were permanently open.
“Hey, has anyone noticed something weird?” Dean asked suddenly as they passed through yet another open door.
“How would you define weird?” Doc queried.
“Well, because all these doors are open I wouldn’t swear to it being the same all the way through, but I’ve looked at the last couple of sec panels, and they haven’t got numbers scratched on them.”
Ryan frowned. It was something and nothing. Predark sec men sometimes scratched the sec-code numbers onto the scratch plates on the reverse side of the sec door, in case they forgot the number sequence.
“So you think what?” he asked his son.
Dean shrugged. “Don’t know. Guess mebbe this wasn’t a regular military place. Whoever was stationed here, was here all the time, and wasn’t likely to forget.”
“And why all open?” Jak added. “Not usual.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, this isn’t an ordinary redoubt. What—”
He looked round sharply, guided by an instinct that told him Krysty had stopped behind him. She was staring at a closed door, and the hair around her nape had formed tendrils that hugged her neck.
“Mebbe we’ll find an answer in there,” she said. “It feels bad, but not like danger…just residual bad feeling.”
“If it can’t hurt us,” J.B. remarked, throwing a glance at Ryan. The one-eyed warrior gestured, and the Armorer stepped forward to the door. It had a computerized lock with a blank digital display, and when he tried the handle underneath, the door failed to yield.
With a shrug, he took a small piece of plas-ex from one of his pockets, added a detonator fuse and set it. Waiting until the others took cover, he activated the fuse and hurriedly stepped back himself.
The lock and display on the door was of glass and a soft metal, and the small blob of plas-ex was enough explosive to make the metal buckle and yield. Waiting for the friction-heated metal to cool for a few seconds, the Armorer tried the door once more, and it swung open. The smell of the explosion lingered in the poor air, catching at their throats.
Personal artifacts were strewed across the desk and the carpet, as though someone had wrecked the room in a rage. A swivel chair lay overturned on the door side of the desk, and the remains of a body were visible in the hollow beneath the desk.
Mildred moved around to get a better view. The body was dressed in a black T-shirt and combat pants, with scuffed boots. It looked paramilitary rather than military to her, reminding the woman of the punks and metalheads from her own predark days who had become obsessed with apocalyptic and militaristic imagery. Strands of hair still clung to the skull. The skeleton still clutched a gray service-issue Colt .45 with a customized mother-of-pearl pistol grip. The cause of death was obvious: part of the skull was lying across the room, splintered by the bullet that had passed through the right temple and out somewhere above the left ear.
Ryan noticed a poster on the wall. It was faded and crumbling, and over a dreamlike image were written, in gothic lettering, the words “Grateful Dead.”
“Guess he was,” Ryan said grimly, indicating the poster.
The comp terminal on the long-dead man’s desk would give them no clues. It had been thoroughly trashed and was beyond repair, with the keyboard dismembered and the screen smashed. There were only a few pieces of paper scattered about. They were fragile with age and crumbled when Dean or Ryan bent to pick them up. The fragments that remained were so faded with scrawled ink that they were unreadable.
“It seems to me that we are in the hands of some apocalyptic cult or other,” Doc commented mildly, squinting to read several posters that were still hanging—just—from the walls. They were faded, and the light was poor, but there was enough for him to see that they all had biblical imagery or photographs of dead, dying and starving people. The slogans beneath spoke of humankind—what was left—rising like a phoenix from the ashes of mass destruction.
“Creeps knew what coming,” Jak commented.
“I don’t think this was anything to do with the military,” Mildred said, looking around her. “Can you imagine predark soldiers having these weird posters?” She gestured at the walls, and then looked at her companions. “No, I don’t suppose you’d know, really,” she added lamely, suddenly feeling the weight of her years.
Doc broke the silence. “From my somewhat limited knowledge, I would have to agree. I suspect this truly is some kind of nonmilitary base. In which case, it may be worth our searching for clues, as we may find information—if not weapons—that can be used to our advantage.”
J.B. acknowledged Doc’s point. “Okay, but where do we look?”
“There’s as good a place as any,” Krysty said, pointing to a poster.
Ryan didn’t question her instinct. He simply tore down the poster, which crumbled at his touch, to reveal a small wall safe hidden behind. Set into the wall, it had a simple tumbler lock.
“Better be something here—can’t keep wasting this,” J.B. grumbled as he repeated his previous procedure with an even smaller blob of plas-ex.
The explosion sounded louder in the enclosed space as they retreated to outside the door. When the plaster dust had settled, Ryan could see that the door of the safe was hanging loosely from its hinges, and that the plaster surrounding had powdered in the blast. Advancing to the safe, Ryan used the long barrel of the Steyr to maneuver the door open, mindful of any booby traps that may not have been knocked out by the initial blast.
The door creaked and fell off the hinge. Peering inside, Ryan could see nothing but a small, spiral-bound notebook. Taking it out gingerly, he could feel that the pages weren’t of paper, but rather of some kind of plastic that was as thin as paper.
He put the book on the desk and opened it. The pages were typed, which made it easier to read.
“What does it say, lover?” Krysty asked, peering over his shoulder.
“Makes no sense to me,” Ryan said simply, shaking his head. “I can see the words, but what they’re supposed to mean…”
“Let me see.” Mildred took the book from him and began to read.
Obviously, it made some kind of sense to her, as she began to flick through the pages, referring back and forth, and nodding to herself from time to time.
“Fireblast!” Ryan exclaimed after a few minutes, the tension getting to him. “Are you just going to stand there until we all get old and die, or are you going to tell us what it says?”
Mildred
