by James Axler
Pandora's Redoubt
Dean scanned the area. "Where's Krysty?"
Startled, Ryan jerked his head around. One glance told him she wasn't in the tank with them. Rushing to a blasterport, the one-eyed man blew away the outside greenery with a single discharge and looked frantically at the alleyway. Ivy was everywhere, thickening by the second.
"Second floor!" Doc cried, standing at the rooftop periscope.
Ryan turned and found her, dangling from the grip of the mutie plant twenty feet in the air. Her .38 discharged once, pointing at nothing in particular. Then she was hauled over the rooftop and gone.
"Combat positions," Ryan ordered, striding past his friends and sliding into the driver's seat. "We're going after her."
To Melissa and Lisa, for doing such a bang-up job. Thanks, amigas.
First edition June 2000
ISBN 0-373-62560-X
Copyright 2000 by Worldwide Library
It is the nature of a thing to be true to its essence: fire can only burn, a rock is unyielding, water flows. Men alone are both animal and intellect and thus must choose if they shall stand erect and embrace the stars, or sprawl in the dirt and feats on blood like a lowly beast.
-- The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, 167 A.D.
THE SAGA
This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.
There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.
But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure-in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature's heart despite its ruination.
Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.
Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville's own Titian-haired beauty; a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.
J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan's close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.
Doctor Theophllus Tkinner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn't have imagined.
Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.
Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.
Dean Cawdor: Ryan's young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.
In a world where all was lost, they are humanity's last hope....
Chapter One
The handle of the door to the mat-trans chamber moved a fraction of an inch, the hinges screeching in protest at the intrusion. Muffled curses came from the other side as the stubborn handle grudgingly moved, and promptly jammed again. More curses. Then the locking mechanism disengaged with a echoing clank of heavy steel on steel The door was muscled open, and seven armed people charged into the hexagonal chamber beyond. A badly scarred man with a patch covering one eye was the last inside, and he stood ready to close the door behind them to trigger a jump.
"Dark night, we made it," J. B. Dix gasped. The short wiry man removed his well-worn fedora to rub a grimy sleeve across his sweaty forehead. "I knew we could outrun it."
"Gaia," Krysty Wroth breathed, her sentient crimson hair tightening protectively about her lovely face, "we're lucky it found the elevator shaft to fall down."
"Gren helped," Jak Lauren said. The slim, snowy-haired albino teen walked across the chamber and sat on one of the disks set into the floor.
"Grens always help," J.B. commented.
Keeping a close watch on the door behind them, Dean Cawdor scowled and said nothing, but shifted the grip on his Browning Hi-Power pistol as if in preparation for an attack.
"Do you think it can get through the door?" Dr. Mildred Wyeth asked anxiously, shifting her backpack of medical supplies on her shoulders.
"The thermal inversion gradient of the armaglass portal is not precisely known," Doc Tanner replied, taking his usual spot on the floor. "But as this establishment was theoretically designed to be nukeproof, therefore, I would extrapolate that the defensive yield potential is-"
"Door!" Jak barked, pointing past Ryan.
Spinning, Ryan saw that the access door to the control room was slowly bulging inward, distending like the bloated belly of a starving man, horribly straining at the resilient alloy framework. The reek of sulfur hit them as yellow steam spurted around the edges and the walls on either side began to glow warmly. Then a wave of dry heat washed over the group, stinging their eyes and searing exposed flesh.
"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc intoned, pulling out his huge LeMat pistol for no sane reason. "The lava is here!"
"Everybody sit down!" Ryan ordered, starting to close the door to the mat-trans unit. But he was unable to remove his gaze from the terrible scene outside. Although stretching like warm taffy, the trembling door to the control room was still in place. The walls on either side, however, were turning orange from the volcanic heat.
"Soon yellow, then white," Krysty warned, sweat dripping off her chin. "Then it'll soften and melt away."
Loosening the collar of his jacket, J.B. agreed. "We'll be long gone by then. Got a minute yet, mebbe two."
As he spoke, the glowing walls beyond the chamber shattered in a crackling explosion, the remaining chunks peeling away like a flower blossoming to the sun, and white-hot lava began to thickly pump into the control room.
Beyond the yellowish haze they could see only an endless plain of reddish flames.
Once Ryan saw that all of the companions were properly seated on the floor, he slammed the door shut, triggering the jump mechanism, and quickly went to sit beside Krysty. Immediately, the usual mist filled the chamber, engulfing the seven friends, sparks forming around them like newborn stars.
Drawing his 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol, Ryan could just barely see the deadly lava flow inexorably rising higher and higher, moving toward them, the locked door standing ludicrously upright in the lambent field of molten stone. If the mat-trans unit failed to work because of damage from the lava, then he'd use the pistol. First on Krysty, then on the others and himself. It'd be a lot quicker than burning alive. He glanced at her and saw she already had her own .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver out and was looking at him. They shared a moment of understanding more intimate than any embrace.
Then a great surge of power filled their bodies from within as a subsonic hum tore them apart. The universe yawned wide as all eternity. Instantly, they embarked on a subelectronic journey toward an unknown destination, possibly into the great abyss itself
Well over one century old, the predark matter-trans chambers sent travelers randomly to other units, the secret of their precise control lost forever.
As always, during the time the friends were unconscious, hallucinations filled their minds, idyllic dreams and mad visions, phantasms of old enemies, bloody battles and sexual fantasies. But on this journey the visions died before being truly formed. Suddenly, solid, flooring was beneath Ryan's back, and he was reeling a bit from the usual aftershocks of being instantly transferred to a new destination.
As the mist began to thin, Ryan lay still, a pounding headache momentarily clouding his vision. The masking clouds of mist were unusually thick this time. Or was it the sulfur fumes? The awful heat of the lava seemed still to be with them, and he tried to force breath into his heavi
ng chest Hot, he was so hot, and needed to draw a lungful of air. But he seemed unable to pull atmosphere inside his aching body. Was this another of the hallucinations? He had never dreamed of arriving before. Had they gone anywhere? Or where they still reduced to electronic signals pulsing along the hidden network of the worldwide web of mat-trans units yet to arrive? Perhaps never to arrive. Fireblast, there were times that he hated these bastard machines.
Slowly, the mists dissipated, but his vision was still oddly obscured. Squinting his good eye, Ryan saw the others working their mouths as if trying to draw air into their lungs.
Krysty was on her hands and knees. "Can't... breathe," she gasped, her prehensile hair hanging limply, as if the living strands of crimson were unconscious. Her chest rose and fell unnaturally as she tried to father air.
Jak had managed to get to his feet and leaned weakly against one of the armaglass walls. He began to drip sweat, black stains spreading over his camou-colored vest. J.B. was on his stomach, his beloved fedora bunched in a white-knuckled hand. Gasping, Mildred was tearing at the crew neck of her T-shirt, desperate to get restrictive clothing away from her throat His ebony swordstick lying at his feet, Doc grimaced as if in the grip of an invisible fist squeezing the very life out of him. Clutching the Browning to his chest, Dean stood stock-stiIl, as if dead and ready to topple over.
Clearly, there was no more time to wait. Ryan had to know if they were safe or should chance another jump immediately. Summoning strength, the one-eyed man forced himself to step out of the jump unit, half expecting his feet to vanish into fiery ash But his worn combat boots thumped onto a solid floor. There was no lava. The black-walled chamber was empty except for them. Thankfully, they had jumped to a different redoubt. Yet the heat was still here, cooking them to death.
Ryan hawked to clear his dry throat. "Something's wrong," he managed to croak.
"Jump now," Mildred gasped. "Heat's going to kill us."
Ryan shook his head. "Can't until we know for sure that the other redoubt is gone. If we jump back before the volcano melts the chamber completely, we fry."
"I say thee, nay, Agamemnon," Doc gasped. "Trepidation is unnecessary. We are quite safe."
"Bullshit," Dean coughed.
"A useful enough organic by-product of domesticated bovines, but not a correct summation in this particular instance, young Dean," Doc said, pausing between the words. "This roasting is merely..." He swallowed. "From the residual...heat that jumped with us. See?" He pointed a bony finger downward. There lay several large lumps of glowing orange rock among them, radiating a fierce heat like miniature blast furnaces.
"The old coot is right," Mildred gasped. "The lava came along with us."
"Some. It seems as if our timing has exceeded our quotient of luck by the nth factor."
"Come on out," Ryan ordered, "I can feel the redoubt's life support starting to pump in cool air." Then his stomach rebelled and he doubled over to retch loudly in the corner. Jump sickness almost always affected some of the companions, but usually Doc and Jak.
The friends staggered to their feet or pushed from the walls, moving as far from the lava as possible. Everybody was pale and holding throbbing heads. Jak sported a bad nosebleed and several of them used the corners of the chamber to vomit Wordlessly, Mildred extracted a battered canteen from her backpack. Unscrewing the chained cap took two tries, but it finally came free. The physician made a bitter face, then forced her to take a long swallow.
"Here," she said, handing it to the nearest person. "This should help."
Uncaring if it was poison or whiskey, everybody took a swallow and passed it on to the next.
"I hope it's better than the last batch," Krysty muttered, tilting her head and luxuriating in the cool breeze from the ceiling vents.
Smoothing his rumpled fedora, J.B. glumly signaled agreement. "Gave us the runs for a week."
"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger," Doc said. "Or at least, that's the theory. Occasionally I have found Nietzsche to be a total ass."
However, minds soon cleared and the knotted stomachs eased some. Not much, but some.
"Best mix so far," Ryan stated, handing the empty canteen to Mildred.
The black woman screwed the cap on tight. "Would have been better if I could have found some mint leaves."
Sitting upright, Jak arched an snowy eyebrow. "Not?" he asked.
The physician shook her head. "Orange peels and scrag root. Close enough in taste, but not effect."
"Hope the mat-trans is still okay," Ryan said, studying the floor with its collection of fiercely glowing rocks.
Hawking loudly, Jak spit out an orange lump and watched the spittle sizzle into steam. "Close," he drawled.
"Too damn close," Krysty added.
"But we got the rations. No hunting mutie deer or trading bullets for chickens for a while," Mildred said. "The risk was worth it. We have enough clean food for a couple weeks."
"Tis a pity, though," Doc boomed, leaning heavily on his swordstick as he got standing. "That storeroom was a cornucopia of food, sufficient vittles for years. Decades!"
"Took all we could," Ryan said gruffly, checking the action on his SIG-Sauer blaster. The pistol was a prized possession, a military police blaster of the finest quality, and its built-in acoustic baffler made the silenced gun no louder than a cough when it fired.
"It's enough," said Dean, touching his vest to ascertain he hadn't lost anything in transit. Having been caught once with no ammo, and damn near getting aced because of it, Dean was grimly determined it would never happen again. Front and back, the entire expanse of a newly acquired leather vest was sewn into tiny pockets to hold individual rounds for his blaster. He was a walking munitions dump, and the weight was awful. However, he doubted if even an arrow could penetrate the thick garment. His father told him he was carrying too much, that speed was as necessary as bullets to stay alive in Deathlands, and he was right. But the lad wasn't yet ready to admit he had overfigured his own strength.
Feeling better by the minute, Ryan walked about the chamber. "Hmm, black walls with silver streaking. We've never been to this redoubt before."
"Beautiful," Mildred said, running fingertips across the smooth almost frictionless surface. "Could this be D.C.? Some ancient executive redoubt?"
"Mayhap some crazed billionaire's private penthouse," Doc grumbled. "Notice how the excess heat is almost totally dissipated? The life support system is exemplary."
"Not good enough for me," Krysty said, pinching her nose shut. "Hot lava and sulfur mixed with fresh vomit. This place stinks."
"Agreed," Ryan stated, cracking a rare smile. "Let's move out."
He moved to the door, then started to press the handle. Everybody readied weapons as the heavy portal smoothly swung open on silent hinges. However, instead of the usual anteroom on the other side, there was only a seamless expanse of wood, dark and solid as a mountain.
"Blocked off," Ryan said in amazement
Dean worked the slide of his Browning, chambering a round for immediate use.
"What in hell for?" Mildred asked. "To hide the mat-trans?"
"Seems likely."
Expertly, J.B. ran his callused hands over the wood. "Hmm, not joined beams, but a single piece."
"Big tree," Jak said.
"Paneling," J.B. stated, tapping the material lightly with a knuckle. "Hear that? Thin stuff. No more than a half inch thick. Pretty light armor."
"To keep others out, not us in," Ryan said, holstering his pistol and sliding the Steyr SSG-70 rifle off his shoulder. "Everybody get ready. Triple red."
Moving to the rear of the pack, Mildred eased back the hammer on her Czech-made ZKR .38-caliber target pistol. Loosening one of the many throwing knives in his belt, Jak did the same with his .357 Colt Python revolver.
J.B. placed an ear to the wood and held his breath. Nobody spoke.
Approaching the man, Ryan placed his mouth near his old friend's ear. "People? Sec droid?" he asked so
ftly, easing the off safety of the Steyr. He was down to only a few rounds, but the heavy-caliber bullets would do far more damage to both man or machine than his pistol.
"Clear," J.B. announced, stepping away. "There're no traps I can find, and nothing is moving on the other side."
Mildred grunted. "Then open it."
"Check." Expertly running his hands over the wood, the Armorer knocked experimentally, then scratched here and there.
"Blast hole?" Jak asked, rummaging in his fatigues and withdrawing a half stick of dynamite.
Resting the rifle on his shoulder, Ryan snorted in contempt "We can kick our way through."
"Not necessary," J.B. replied, probing the edges of the alloy doorframe. "Ah. here we are. Found the catch." The wood slid aside, exposing darkness.
Instantly, everybody moved away from the open doorway, weapons at the ready. For several minutes they stood motionless, patiently waiting, listening hard. When nothing happened, Ryan took the point, moving in low and fast, the pitted barrel of his Steyr sweeping the room, searching for targets. He was flanked by Jak and Krysty, with J.B. and Doc staying as backup at the open door, ready to block it with their bodies if need be. Dean stood off to the side with Mildred, ready to cover the two men should it be necessary.
It took a moment for Ryan's eye to adjust to the dim light. That wasn't good. Usually, the overhead lights came on automatically. Then he saw the ceiling fixtures were completely smashed, every single bulb systematically destroyed.
"But not the tiles alongside," Krysty noted.
"Somebody wanted it dark," Ryan agreed, keeping his blind side toward his companions.
There was a sigh of steel on leather as Jak eased a knife from its sheath. "Ambush?"
"Most likely."
Carefully, the three moved through the mixture of litter that covered the floor of the anteroom. Next, instead of the usual control room, they discovered an office. The furniture was broken, the pieces scattered randomly with broken plastic and glass underfoot everywhere. Bullet holes stitched a wall at chest height. Ryan checked, and sure enough the opposite wall was the same. A firefight had occurred. Over in a corner was the remains of an executive bar. mirror and bottles reduced to glistening shards from a small explosion.