by James Axler
The handle gave easily and the heavy door swung open on a well-oiled hinge.
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Mildred whispered. “Especially as everything else down there still seems to be working,” she added, noting that the hum of the air-conditioning, the dim glow of the lights and presumably the freezers, were still working.
“Bones reckoned that the generators were something special to have worked this long after skydark and well protected down here, but that the door must have had some heavy trauma during skydark that fused the mechanism.”
“But it’s so untouched,” Mildred said in awe. Most places, she would have expected it to have been long since looted.
Michaela shrugged. “Like I told you, once it was discovered, no one came here on the orders of the baron. And before that, well, I guess no one really looked, ’cause it just seemed to be an empty building.”
Mildred shook her head. She was damn sure that she would have had the curiosity to look, but maybe they just didn’t breed them that way in Pleasantville.
“Come on, let’s get to it,” she whispered, suddenly aware once more of the passing of time.
The two women picked up the gurney and walked down the narrow stairway that led into the med labs. As they reached the bottom, Mildred whistled long and low. The labs extended the length of the block and carried on beneath all the buildings that surrounded the upper office through which they had entered. Lit by overhead fluorescent tubes, the floors were covered by functional polyvinyl flooring, on which had been laid a number of workbenches with sinks and fuel outlets. Many of the benches still had retorts and test tubes seated on them. Some of the floor space was partitioned off for offices or secured lab areas, and sec locks on the doors indicated the degree of danger that they may represent.
At the far end from the entrance stood the freezers, behind gleaming metal doors with sec locks that were still blinking LED displays above their keypads.
“You know the codes?” Mildred asked on seeing the locks.
“Oh, yeah,” Michaela assented, “I know those.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Mildred said perfunctorily, not wanting to get into this argument. There wasn’t the time, not now.
She and Michaela carried the Armorer the length of the med labs and into one of the side offices, setting him down gently.
“Now let’s get to it,” Mildred murmured, leading Michaela toward the freezers.
The spiky-haired healer stood at the sec door and punched a six-figure code into the keypad in front of her. There was a hiss of air as the seal on the door cracked, and the handle gave under her hand. The heavy metal door, thickly insulated, came free as she tugged and Mildred looked over her shoulder to the riches within.
Metal compartments lined the walls, leaving a metal floor space large enough to work in, with a metal table in the middle. The lighting overhead was harsh and functional. Mildred moved past Michaela and studied the drawers. Inserted in a slot on every drawer was a small piece of card with a name or a chemical formula written on it. Some were in blue ink, some in black. Obviously, they were changed as the contents of the drawers changed, and she was a little surprised to see that not only were they as bright and unfaded as on the day they were written, but also that they were handwritten, not computer printouts. It was a small reminder of the people, long since gone, who had worked here before the nukecaust. People who had lived at the same time as her, knew the same TV shows and records, drove the same cars…
A pang of—not nostalgia exactly, but a sadness for things past—went through her; for something she missed, but hadn’t time to think about; for people who she may even have dealt with in her time as a hospital intern, in her previous life.
“Mildred, what is it?” Michaela asked gently, touching her arm.
Mildred snapped out of her trance and began to scan the cards on the metal drawers once more. “It’s nothing—nothing that we’ve got time for right now,” she said, not wanting to enter into an explanation that would take too long and raise too many questions.
It took her a few moments to find the drawer she required. Holding her breath, praying that Ethan hadn’t taken all the supplies of the virus, she gently opened the metal drawer, which gave easily on its tempered metal runner. Inside there were six spaces in a padded interior for small bottles, four of which were empty; but two were occupied. Mildred carefully removed one of the bottles and read the label. It seemed to be the right stuff, but there was only one way to be sure.
Moving quickly and assuredly, as though Michaela weren’t even there, Mildred headed into the main body of the lab and went to one of the benches. There was a microscope on it, which she tested to see if it was still working.
“You know where everything is in here?” she asked. And when Michaela assented, she went on, “Prepare me a slide of this,” holding out the bottle.
She waited while the young woman moved around the lab, preparing the slide, which she then mounted under the microscope. Mildred focused and saw the culture that she recognized so well.
“That’s it,” she said simply. “Get me a hypodermic and needle. The sooner I get this done, the better.”
She watched impatiently while Michaela prepared a hypodermic and then handed it to her. Mildred examined the contents, flicked it, then released the trapped air. Without a word, she moved into the office where they had left J.B., and knelt over him, rolling up his sleeve, then flicking a vein. She double-checked the hypodermic, took a guess at how much he would need as she had no real way of knowing, and then plunged the needle into his arm, praying that she had guessed right.
She straightened away from him, letting his arm drop, and noticed that Michaela was watching her, biting her lower lip.
“What now?” the young woman asked.
“Now we just sit and wait,” Mildred replied, trying to keep her tone neutral. There was nothing else she could do.
MILDRED CHECKED HER WATCH once more. It would be dark outside by now, and she wondered how the other companions were faring in the hunt. Even if John recovered from the antidote, and she hadn’t been too late, it would still take him some time to recover from the effects of his illness. The three of them wouldn’t be much good, and she wasn’t even sure if she could count on Michaela. The healer had been as good as her word so far, but it was a big step from running away into the old city to fighting against her baron.
Mildred moved uncomfortably. Right now, Michaela was asleep, her head resting on Mildred’s stomach, whimpering to herself at some bad dream. The young woman wasn’t used to the kind of activity and adrenaline rushes that a trip to the ruins with Mildred had turned out to be; come to that, the good Dr. Wyeth could have easily done without some of the excitement, but that was irrelevant. The point was that Michaela was exhausted and when Mildred had told her that all they could do was wait for J.B.’s crisis to pass, all life seemed to have drained from the young girl.
The two of them had settled themselves in the corner of the office, Mildred with J.B.’s Uzi close at hand, just in case they had been followed in any way. It was unlikely, but she hadn’t come this far to get caught out at the last. They had then eaten some of the self-heats that were always carried by the companions. Michaela had protested at how foul they were, not used to the artificial taste of the food. But she had still eaten every last scrap. She was too hungry to go as far as turning down the chance of food. After she had washed the taste away with some water, she had felt a torpor creep over her. As they had settled in the corner, sleep had gradually drifted over her.
Mildred let the girl slump down onto her, not knowing how comforting it was for the young healer to be against someone for whom she held such a passion. There was nothing that she could do right now, so why not let the girl rest?
But now she was starting to get a cramp, and she was also starting to get the itch of impatience. She needed to get over to J.B. to see how he was doing. Slowly she edged out from under the sleeping woman, holding her he
ad so that it didn’t fall to the floor with a thud. She used her bundled coat as a pillow, and laid Michaela’s head down gently on it before getting painfully to her feet, the cramp making her wince as the circulation restored itself to her lower limbs, and going over to where J.B. lay.
She crouched, ignoring her protesting muscles, and checked his vital signs. The Armorer had been quiet since she had given him the antidote, and he was still silent, the only sound being the slight whistle in his breath as he continued to respirate deeply and evenly. His pulse was strong and even, moving a little fast, still, but slower than before.
All the signs were that the effect of the antidote was positive, but there was no way of being sure until that time when he opened his eyes. His temperature was down, but that could just be because he had entered a later stage of the illness. Hell, he may even have infected her and Michaela. No, that was unlikely. The worst thing was not knowing whether she had overdosed him on the antidote, or whether the disease had already had a chance to damage his brain, impair any of his functions.
She let his hand drop, where she had been holding it for his pulse, and looked away from him. If it was too late for J.B., then what could she and Michaela do against a whole ville?
She was suddenly aware that she was holding J.B.’s hand again, but she couldn’t remember taking hold of it. In fact, it was the Armorer who was gripping her hand, not vice versa.
Mildred looked down at him, the astonishment plain on her face.
“Dark night, and I thought you’d be pleased,” the Armorer whispered wryly, his voice just a dry, cracked husk.
WHEN MICHAELA WAS ROUSED from her dreams—dreams where everything was nice and normal, and she hadn’t seen a man ripped apart by giant bats and she hadn’t fired at them and seen their innards splatter over the ground—she panicked. Mildred wouldn’t be rousing her unless there was danger, and through her sleep-clouded eyes she was aware of a third figure standing in the small cubicle.
A third figure…She groped clumsily for a blaster, knowing that this had to be danger.
“Whoa there, calm down,” Mildred said soothingly, restraining her. “Look…”
Michaela’s eyes adjusted to the light and to wakefulness, and she was astounded to see the Armorer standing in the room. He looked a little unsteady, still, but the point was that he was conscious and on his feet.
“It worked?” she mumbled dumbly.
“Doesn’t feel like it, but I guess it has,” J.B. answered her, his voice still harsh and cracked. Mildred handed him a canteen and he drank thirstily, almost choking on the first mouthful where his throat was so closed.
Michaela was now fully awake and on her feet. “How are you feeling?” she asked as she moved toward him, poised to check his vitals and clicking into healer mode.
J.B. stepped back and held up his hands. “Hey, Millie’s already been through that routine.”
Michaela looked at her questioningly.
“His signs are good and he seems to have made a pretty good recovery—pretty miraculous, considering I didn’t know how much of that shit to pump into him. Could easily have bought the farm,” she added with a sly glance at the Armorer.
“Thanks, I’ll remember that,” he said dryly.
Michaela was beside herself and didn’t know what to say. A tumble of emotions and thoughts ran through her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt. On the one hand, she felt happy for Mildred that J.B. was now on his feet, and she was glad as she was sure that they would need his smarts, even if he was still weakened by the virus. But she could also see how happy Mildred was and a small part of her realized that she could never say anything about how she felt for the woman. Still, if nothing else, her emotions had given her the impetus to break from her fear and to change her life. Although whether that was a good thing, as she stood with just two other people against a whole ville, was open to debate.
Her train of thought was broken by the Armorer’s next words.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, and not much time. So we need to get to it.”
“What do you mean?” Michaela questioned. “You’re not in any fit state to do anything just yet. It’s only a matter of minutes, probably, since you came around, and—”
“Whoa, calm down,” Mildred interrupted, gesturing to placate the worried healer. “Listen, I hear what you’re saying, but you don’t know John Barrymore Dix, and you don’t know what a stubborn son of a bitch he can be when he gets going.” She exchanged a wry smile with the Armorer before adding, “Anyway, he’s got a point, damn him.”
“Which is?” Michaela demanded.
“Which is that we’ve got no time to waste. Dark night, you think I wouldn’t rather rest up a little before taking on those coldhearts? Of course I would, but I’ll be nuked if I’m gonna sit here and let that bastard Ethan get his own way after what he’s done to the others…and what he did to me.”
“So Mildred’s told you the whole story?” Michaela asked with a tremble of trepidation in her voice. When J.B. nodded, she added, “And you trust me, after hearing it all?”
J.B. gave her a crooked grin as he took off his spectacles and polished them. “You’re here, aren’t you?” he said simply. Then he replaced his spectacles and assumed an altogether more serious air. “Okay. So as I see it, we’ve got two problems. One is to get back into Pleasantville and deal with any opposition we may encounter. The second is to get Ryan, Krysty, Jak and Doc back with us, hopefully all of them and hopefully not under hypnosis. Don’t know how likely the second thing is, but the first…” He looked Michaela in the eye before asking his next question. She felt herself quiver under the intensity of his gaze: whatever answer she gave, he would know it to be the truth. But what was the question? He continued. “You’ve turned against Ethan and you’ve told Mildred you were silent for a long time. Question is, how many others are there like you?”
It was some moments before she answered, considering her response very carefully. “I couldn’t say for sure. For instance, I didn’t know Bones felt the way he did until he actually joined us willingly. But one thing I do know—there are a lot of people who are very frightened in Pleasantville. Ethan’s gotten worse with each year, the power and the jack making him more ruthless and his schemes weirder and weirder. I think he’s gone crazy, but no one dares to tell him. And I don’t think I’m alone. Sure, everyone probably put on a good show when the hunt began, turned out like it was a celebration, but they were scared. I’ve been there myself, and I haven’t dared not to show. I know I’m not alone. I just don’t know how not alone. And I don’t know how many you could rely on to join in a fight.”
The Armorer considered her words for a few moments, then split his face in a big grin. “Shit, we’ve had worse odds than that before now, right, Millie?” he asked Mildred. When she nodded, he continued. “All we’ve got to do is outthink the sec men, and if they leave the walls unguarded when they’ve got prisoners, then you can bet anything you want that they’re dumb bastards. I figure we’ve got a fighting chance.”
“Yeah, but not right now, John,” Mildred said. “It’s still dark out there and you’re still weak. Try to catch a couple hours’ rest until sunup, and then we’ll head for the ville. The last thing I want is to get lost in these bastard ruins because we can’t see where we’re going.”
J.B. eyed Mildred suspiciously. “Bullshit. Dark is the best time to attack, and I’d bet that Michaela could find her way back to Pleasantville. But if you’re that concerned that I get some rest before we set out, I don’t reckon there’s much I can do.”
The Armorer lay on the floor and eyed the gurney on which he had been carried to the labs.
“Tell you one thing, though…bet you’re glad you won’t have to carry me back.”
THEY GRABBED a few hours’ rest. As fitful and full of frustration though it may have been, it was necessary before they set out for the ville. It also allowed the sun to rise. Michaela worried about the kind of reception they would get;
Mildred worried if J.B. would be fit enough, sharp enough, so quickly to tackle any trouble they may run into; J.B. tried to rest, feeling how weak his body was compared to his normal strength and vitality, but all he could think of was how useless he’d been, how he’d lain there while Mildred and Michaela battled muties, and how the others were out there somewhere trying to chill each other because of one man’s greed. That was enough to keep him from resting.
So it was that, in their own manner, they were all relieved when their chrons told them that it was sunup on the surface and they could begin the trek back to the ville.
“How are you feeling?” Mildred asked J.B. as he checked his M-4000 and Uzi before arranging the ammo and gren supplies about his person, ready to carry them.
“Okay,” he answered briefly before catching her eye and cracking a grin. “Okay, yeah…I’ve felt better, I’d be lying if I said otherwise. A bit weak and shaky, still, but I figure we can’t wait much longer. Thing is, I know I’m not my usual self, and I can allow for that.”
Mildred nodded. She knew the man well enough to realize that this degree of honesty in such matters was no front and that he would be as good as his word. And a J. B. Dix who was only partly fit was still more use than most people would be in a combat situation.
A frown crossed his features as he checked the gren supplies. “Dark night, Millie, how many did you use on those bastard muties?”
“If you’d seen them, John, you’d understand,” she answered wryly. “Now stop moaning. We’ve got some ground to cover.”
The three of them left the labs, keeping alert as they ascended the stairs to the ground-floor level of the offices and then out onto the sidewalk of the deserted city.
J.B. whistled as he got his first look at the ruins. Mildred stopped, momentarily wondering if anything was wrong, until she realized with a start that this was the first time he’d actually seen the landscape through which he’d been carried the previous day.