by James Axler
If that was dreaming, then Jak didn't want it.
And now there was the woman. Who was she? And why had he seen his friends chilled and spread around the veld? Why had he survived?
Jak could recall every detail of it as though it were real. He could taste and smell the ground, the death, the woman…
If he was becoming a doomie, then he didn't want to know. It disturbed him, and Jak was rarely disturbed. He acted and reacted to stimulus, and didn't stop to think. It wasn't what he did.
But now Jak did think. Should he mention the strange dream, the like of which he had never experienced before during a jump? Would it unsettle his companions before they even knew what they had landed in this time around?
Jak didn't realize how distant this made him seem until he was aware of Mildred standing over him, bent forward so that her plaits were dangling before her.
"Jak, are you feeling well enough to move?"
THE JUMP HAD BEEN better for most of the companions than usual. Why that should be, no one had any idea. Come to that, no one cared. Using the mat-trans was a good way of moving from one area of the Deathlands to another in the constant search for that indefinable something, perhaps somewhere to settle, to build lives away from the constant struggle until a person bought the farm.
At least, that was what they all told themselves in their own ways. The truth was that no one wanted a hundred percent to admit that there was probably no escape from this life, as it was all they knew and all that there was.
Ryan was usually first to come around after a jump. He was the strongest and seemed to weather the jump better than the others. It was always bad at first, like a hangover from jolt or bad shine. But this time had been marginally better. His head still thumped as if it had been kicked by a mutie mule, but it cleared quickly, and his limbs felt less sluggish as he rose to his feet and checked himself.
Krysty was also soon conscious. Her hair flowed freely, suggesting that they were, for the time being, safe. She was so surprised by how good she felt that she even remarked on it to Ryan as she rose to her feet, stretching aching muscles and massaging life back into her limbs.
J.B. and Mildred were also rapidly up to speed, the Armorer checking his weapons and adjusting his spectacles so that he could make sense of his surroundings while Mildred went to check Doc. It was unspoken, but all worried that one day there would be one jump too many for Doc Tanner. His fragile psyche had received far too many shocks of this kind before they had even first encountered him, and the physical effects of having been trawled through time were all too obvious. But even Doc had taken this jump well. He was still unconscious when Mildred went over to him, but he wasn't muttering to himself in delirium, as sometimes happened after a bad jump. He showed no sign of distress, and he soon came around.
Dean was quickly on his feet. Like a younger version of his father in every way, it was only the lack of stamina engendered by his youth that prevented him from being one of the first to recover. Like the others, he remarked on how well he felt compared to a regular jump.
That left only Jak. The whip-thin and small albino had an incredible strength and stamina for his frame and size, but the mat-trans took no account of that and seemed to drain him of strength. It always made him vomit and bleed, and feel as though he had been ripped out from the insides and then put together again roughly, which, in a sense, he had been.
But whereas the others had recovered more rapidly than usual, Jak seemed to take longer, which was why Mildred leaned over him and voiced her concern.
"Yeah…okay, bad jump," Jak answered her, wanting to keep his strange vision to himself.
Mildred looked at him askance. "Are you sure? We all recovered fairly quickly. Do you want me to give you a quick examination, just to check?"
Jak nodded. "Mebbe not bad thing," he replied, for different reasons than she could interpret.
While Mildred checked the albino, finding that his pulse and respiration had recovered as usual, and that there were no other physical signs as to why he should have taken the jump differently to the rest of them, Ryan and J.B. prepared to secure the redoubt.
Ryan glanced over to Krysty, who shook her head almost imperceptibly. Ryan and the Armorer had already discussed their instinctive sense that the redoubt was empty. Caution was still necessary, but both men had been fighters and survivors too long not to have a sixth sense about danger in a new situation. And the one-eyed warrior always relied on Krysty's mutie sense of nearby danger. He checked with her, noticed her hair flow freely as she moved her head. That was a good sign. "Let's do it," Ryan said softly. J.B. nodded silent agreement and waited as Ryan opened the armaglass door.
Keeping close to the floor and moving swiftly, the two men moved out into the anteroom, eyes scanning the area for the best cover. They moved on, into the control room beyond.
The air conditioning hummed as it had for a hundred years. The computer terminals in the room were on freestanding bases. A few notes were scribbled on the 2001 wall planners, but the different colored inks had faded over the years.
Ryan and J.B. secured the room, then continued to recce the corridors and rooms immediately adjacent. All were silent.
When the two men returned to the control room, Jak had fully recovered and was waiting with the others outside the mat-trans chamber.
"Don't think I've ever seen anything like this."
Ryan said as he and J.B. joined their companions.
"It's empty, and there's no sign of any real damage."
"That means I should be able to get some medical supplies to take along," Mildred said, almost to herself. "It's about time we had some luck there."
J.B. allowed himself a rare smile. "Also means the armory should be intact. Mebbe I'll even be spoiled for choice."
"Well, my dear Ryan, perchance we can tarry a few days in exploration."
Ryan turned to where Doc was standing. The old man had moved away from the group, drawn toward the maps and charts that were pinned to one wall. As Ryan watched, Doc turned back to the map he had been studying and tapped a point toward the northwest of the old United States with the end of his swordstick.
"According to this map, we are not far from the ruins of old Seattle, near Raw and the mysteries of the Illuminated Ones. We are headed in the right direction for the mysterious horn of plenty."
"Hot pipe! Horn of what?" Dean asked. "C'mon, Doc, speak some kind of language I can understand!"
Doc indulged the youth. "My dear young Cawdor, a horn of plenty is that which is full to overflowing with that which you most desire…in this case, our departed friend Trader's mythical land of stockpiles. Something keeps drawing us back to this area."
"Yeah, the mat-trans," J.B. drawled.
Jak said nothing, but suppressed a shiver at the mention of the ville of Raw and the Illuminated Ones. Coincidences like that didn't fit with his view of the world, and he didn't want to think about his dream.
"That may not be as funny as your intention, John Barrymore," Doc chided. "It could possibly be that there are automatic settings on the mat-trans units that tend to direct traffic here if the units are fully functional."
"You mean like an electronic beacon or computerized homing pigeon?" Mildred ventured.
Doc inclined his head gracefully. "Exactly, and so aptly put, my dear Dr. Wyeth. It would make sense, would it not, for any computerized devices to have an emergency setting. And what could be more of an emergency than the mat-trans being used after skydark—albeit several decades too late?"
Jak felt twitchy. He'd felt that way since Doc had pointed out their location. "We sleep, then move?" he queried.
"Why move on so quickly?" Mildred asked, puzzled. Like the others, she had picked up that Jak was worried. It was obvious from his demeanor.
Jak shrugged in reply. "Not been in redoubt yet without trouble."
Ryan fixed Jak with his steely blue eye. "But outside also means trouble. This is a good place to rest up for a few days, meb
be replenish our supplies. No, we're not going yet."
Jak shrugged, shrinking into an uneasy silence.
THE ALBINO'S UNEASE had created a tense atmosphere that could only be dispersed by their leaving the control room. Ryan sent Jak along with Dean and Doc to check out the dorms and kitchens, to look for fresh clothes and food. Mildred and Krysty went to the dispensary to see what medical supplies they could find that were still of some use. Meanwhile, the one-eyed warrior joined J.B. in checking out the armory.
As they had suspected, the redoubt was in full working order and almost untouched by the devastation that had occurred a hundred years before. There were plenty of self-heats in the kitchen, a set of fully working showers, clean uniforms, bedding and plenty of medical supplies that were usable. Even some of the drugs left in the dispensary could pass muster as painkillers and antibiotics…although what use they could be against the post skydark mutated viruses was debatable.
Most important, the armory was fully stocked, with the hardware, grens and ammo still freshly greased and boxed.
"It seems a shame to leave all this here," J.B. said sadly as they loaded up with ammo.
"You know what Trader used to say—you can have the best blasters in the whole of Deathlands, but if there's so many that you can't untangle them in a firefight— "
"—then you might as well have none at all," J.B. finished. "Guess he was right. Still seems a damn shame, though."
"I'm with you on that," Ryan agreed, "but at least we know where this place is, and it doesn't seem that anyone else does. And if we ever jump back here, we'll have our own little stockpile."
"I'll have to be satisfied with that," J.B. agreed. He added ruefully, "Let's get out of here and eat before this breaks my heart."
Ryan led the way and said nothing, although he was smiling to himself. It was the closest he had ever heard his taciturn friend get to expressing emotion, and it was inevitable that it would be about firepower.
THEY PASSED a comfortable night in the redoubt, and the next morning Dean and Mildred devoted themselves to trying to find some useful information on the comps while Ryan and J.B. decided to check out the exits from the redoubt.
The one concern Ryan had was that the redoubt would be completely cut off from the outside world. If a landfall or earth shift of some kind had led to the upper levels being damaged, and the elevator shafts and emergency stairwells were blocked, then they would have no choice but to jump. If, however, they were clear, then the fact that the redoubt had been left alone for so long suggested that they were in an area that was sparsely populated. Venturing above ground would be that much easier.
The elevators were working, and the men discovered that the upper levels were as well preserved as those that housed the mat-trans chamber, the dormitories, kitchens and armory.
"We could learn a lot about the redoubts from all this," Ryan remarked as they inspected the array of offices and workrooms.
"Would it matter?" J.B. asked.
Ryan pondered. "Mebbe, mebbe not. Guess it's mostly my own curiosity."
"Well, remember that Jak doesn't share it," J.B. remarked pointedly.
"Yeah, me and Krysty were talking about that."
Ryan said quietly after a pause. "She figures that something happened during the jump, mebbe some kind of doomie feeling that he doesn't want to talk about."
"Jak isn't a doomie."
Ryan grimaced. "Neither is Krysty, but sometimes you can't tell with mutie blood. Mebbe it can hit you just once."
"In which case I'd listen to it," J.B. said grimly.
Following their recce, the two men returned to the mat-trans control room, where Dean and Krysty were in conference over one of the comp consoles, with Doc looking on.
"Well?" the Titian-haired beauty asked, looking up as they entered.
"It's all in working order, and the upper levels look as untouched as down here. My guess is that we're in an area that hasn't got any villes nearby, and is off any trade routes."
"Will not that make leaving here on foot a little risky, to say the least?" Doc asked.
Ryan shrugged. "Everything's a risk, Doc. If we take enough supplies for a few days, and it looks impassable or too desolate, then we come back here and jump."
"If we have to do that, I wouldn't give you much for the chances of picking a destination," Dean said without tearing his gaze away from the console. "Looking at this is just telling me how little I actually learned at the school. There's so little old comp tech that I've seen…just too much to pick up quickly."
"He's right, Ryan," Mildred added in answer to Ryan's questioning gaze. "This is so complex compared to what even I learned back in the day."
"Okay. We leave tomorrow on foot."
"That will please young Jak," Doc remarked. "He's been a trifle restless since we arrived."
"As if we hadn't noticed," Krysty said. "I'll be glad to move if only because it'll calm him."
"Where is he right now?" Ryan asked.
"I asked him to gather everything together from the dispensary and the kitchens," Mildred replied. "He was driving me nuts just sitting around looking miserable."
THEY SPENT one more night at the redoubt, a night that was used to get some necessary sleep in a good bed, and in peace. There was no knowing when the chance might arise again, as it was completely unknown territory beyond the entrance doors.
The next morning they ate in silence. Jak was happier, but there was still the general air of tension that preceded the journey into the unknown outside world, which had been exacerbated by his earlier depression. The elevator took them to the top level, and they walked in silence along the corridor toward the exit doors, opening each sec door from the code scratched into the metal plate above the keypad. This was a common feature of redoubt sec doors, where enlisted men feared forgetting codes in an emergency and so scratched the sec number on the inner side of the door. They couldn't have known how useful their precautionary measure would be in an unimaginable! future.
Finally they stood before the outer door.
Ryan paused before punching in the final code. He was concerned that they had gotten this far with everything going so well. What if the actual entrance was blocked on the outside by a landfall, or that sec door was buckled or warped and so permanently stuck?
He turned to the others. "Triple red, people. Been too good so far…can never be too safe." With that he punched in the sec code, and Dean pressed the lever. The door opened smoothly…
Chapter Three
There was no landfall outside the main sec door. Neither was there any sign of human or mutie habitation. The entrance to the redoubt was in a shallow valley, thick with lush green foliage and trees that grew tall in spiraling shapes of mutated wonder. Like redwoods modeled on pretzels, they cast shadows across the floor of the valley in roller coaster shapes that reminded Ryan and Jak of the old rides they had seen in the Greenglades Theme Park in Florida, once ruled over by the baron called Larry Zapp. That had seen them come up against another cult leader—Adam Traven—and the chain of thought led Jak to remember the Sunchildren. He quickly dismissed the thought from his mind.
Doc was lost on another road of memory altogether. The height of the trees reminded him of the redwoods he had seen on a family holiday with his beloved Emily, Rachel and Jolyon. All long before the days when he had been trawled by the whitecoats of Chronos and thrust into the nightmare that was now his life. For a moment, Doc wondered if his children had grown strong, and if they in turn had children of their own. Did he have any blood that faced the nukecaust? Were there any vestigial remains of a Tanner family somewhere in the Deathlands even now? He hoped not. He would cope with this life, but he wouldn't wish it on anyone.
"Dark night, an ambush dream," J.B. mouthed softly to Ryan as they entered the valley from the redoubt.
The one-eyed warrior nodded. "String out, stay triple red. Doesn't seem as though there's anything out here, but it's so fireblasted dense you couldn't te
ll anyway."
Krysty, feeling no sense of imminent danger, still thought to add, "It's not just human danger, though, lover."
Ryan nodded silent agreement. As he took the lead, with J.B. dropping back to cover the rear and the others stringing out into line automatically, he withdrew the panga from its sheath on his thigh. There was no actual path away from the sec door, which suggested that no one had been around to beat such a way for a long, long time. But the large flowering plants and shrubs, the tall mix of differently seeded grasses and the imposing shadows of the twisted trees presented their own dangers. Some mutie plants had a form of sentience, and were predators of small animals. Some were armed for their own defense with poison that could be fatal to humans. And the cover was dense enough to provide shelter for any host of bird and animal life that may be predatory. Even if it wasn't, the idea that they may just stumble across some form of life that would defend itself with a savage ferocity born of fear was enough to keep them alert.
Mildred, three back in line, looked up to the sky.
It was a fairly clear blue, with only a light dusting of purple across the scattered cumulus cloud cover to suggest any chem disturbance in this area. She figured the shadows cast by the trees couldn't be that heavy, as there was such an abundance of plant life in the valley. In fact, it could be that the shadow helped this growth, keeping off the worst excesses of the sun, which was burning orange in the sky.
Mildred looked behind her, merely intending to pass on her observations, but was stopped dead by the look on Jak's face. The albino was directly behind her, and it was difficult for his scarred and pitted white face, with the fall of long, stringy white hair that framed it, to ever look anything other than solemn and fierce. It took a lot to raise a smile, but even by his standards, Jak looked intense. There was a worried mien about him that seemed to actually weigh down on him, driving his small stature close to the ground.