Prophecy

by James Axler

  “I can work that out,” J.B. replied, his eyes flickering up to the position of the sun.

  “Normally I’d be with you on that, John,” Mildred told him, “but how the hell can we be sure that the sun we’re looking at is in the right place? How can we be sure of any accuracy in what we’re seeing?”

  “We can’t,” Ryan said, taking the chart from her, “but if we can work out what kind of redoubts they had in these parts…”

  “Then mebbe we can work out what’s behind this weird shit and why it’s brought us here,” J.B. finished.

  “But why us?” Doc asked plaintively.

  “Not us, Doc. The Native Americans,” Mildred said quietly. “It’s their legend, and we just stumbled into it.” Briefly, again mindful that time was of the essence, she told them what the old seer Milled Red had said to her.

  When she had finished, Jak—who had been looking around while she had been speaking—turned back to them.

  “Tell you something else…looks like just us now.”

  The others took a moment to listen. He was right. Silence reigned where previously there had been the sounds of the battling tribesmen. The illusory valley had cut them off from the outside. Was it, they wondered, also sheltering them from those who may be outside looking in?

  “Mebbe that gives us all the time we’re going to need,” Ryan murmured, aware that the shifting landscape was changing once more.

  “Mebbe we won’t need it,” Krysty added. “Look.”

  Behind Ryan and J.B., the landscape melted into a hazy dissolve, reassembling itself once again so that a small outcrop of bare rock was revealed. Recessed into this was a door, visible against the rock only because the camou disguising it had eroded. It was a small door, enough for two people abreast.

  J.B. consulted one of the charts he held. There were few redoubts of this small size that were marked.

  “Dark night,” he murmured as he realized a truth that had been staring him in the face all along, “that would explain everything.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty

  They let the horses go, watching them wander off to pick at the grass that was real, as opposed to the abundance that seemed to grow all around. Too late to be of use, perhaps, but Jak at least realized that the animals had a firmer grasp of the real than any of the six of them. No matter: the horses would be of no use to them once they entered the redoubt.

  Moving to the entrance, they could see that not only had erosion revealed the once-concealed entrance, but it had also left a residue that lay undisturbed against the door.

  “No one’s come out of there in a long, long while,” Mildred said softly.

  “Doesn’t mean they haven’t been happy to stay inside,” Krysty countered in equally soft tones.

  “Triple red, people,” Ryan murmured, drawing his SIG-Sauer for what seemed like the first time in an eternity.

  While the others also drew and checked their blasters—an alien feeling after the insistence of the tribes on a more ancient form of weaponry—J.B. put the maps and charts back in his bag, knowing that their use was now at an end, and racked the mini-Uzi before standing in front of the area on the wall next to the door where the concealed keypad would be.

  “Not sure if I hope this is still working or not,” he said as his fingers played over the rock surface, searching for the catch that would reveal the entry panel. Deft probing soon caused a section of rock to swing on a hinge, and a familiar keypad device was revealed. J.B. turned to the others. “Figure it’ll be a standard code, seeing as it’s not a standard entry?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” Then, turning to the others, “Keep it triple red.”

  J.B. thought about it for a moment. All redoubts had different internal codes, but the exit and entrance to the outside usually ran on a standardized code. Why that should have been, he could only guess. Maybe so that returning soldiers being pursued could effect an easy entry if panic set in? That would make sense. His own nerves were making his fingers tremble slightly as he keyed in the familiar code.

  Why was he, well, scared? It wasn’t like him. But there was something that was causing a tightening in his gut. His fingers hovered over the last digit of the code, and he stole a look at the others. Jak was impassive, as ever, but he could see that Mildred was anxious from the furrowing on her brow. Ryan was sweating. Krysty’s hair was tight to her scalp and neck. Doc had a nervous tick in his right cheek.

  “We’re not so calm, here,” he said. “Sure we’re ready?”

  “I think it’s whatever’s been screwing with our heads for some time. There’s nothing really to fear, other than what we’ve faced dozens of times,” Mildred said, unable to keep the tension from her voice, which was tight and high. “As long as we remember that.”

  “And also that there could be something,” Ryan added. “But if there is, it’ll be some inbred with a blaster. And we’ve blown away plenty of those. Do it, J.B.”

  The Armorer nodded and hit the last digit. With a creak that betrayed its age, the doors to the redoubt began to retract into the rock on either side. The left-hand door squealed as though in agony as it hit a piece of rock that had slid into the groove, making them wince.

  “Even if their sec cams have gone, anyone who’s in there’s gonna know we’re here now,” J.B. commented.

  It was a nothing remark, and yet somehow it defused some of the tension that had run between them. At a nod from Ryan, J.B. slid into the corridor that ran behind the doors. The others fell into an all-too familiar formation, even though it seemed an age since the last time.

  The corridor was fairly narrow—about two yards across—and was white-painted concrete. It extended down at an angle for about twenty yards before it became a dogleg stairwell. It was well-lit: the fluorescent tubes that ran overhead, if triggered by the door mechanism as was usual, had either been well maintained or little used.

  As Ryan was the last to enter, he keyed in the code to close the door, which shuddered and squealed back into place behind them. There was little sign of life within. The corridor was dust-free, and almost below the level of their hearing, the hum of the life support system and antistatic air purifier was an omnipresent drone.

  The stairwell was open, and they took it in stages, Ryan now in the lead. Each flight, down to the platform that led to a corridor level, was secured by Ryan covered by the rest of the companions. It took them time, but it was essential to be certain.

  On the first level, their hearts pounded as they traversed the corridor. Again, the overhead lighting was unforgiving and revealing. No shadows for any enemy to lurk; by the same token, no place for them to hide if ambushed.

  The redoubt was small by the standards of most, but that still left a number of rooms that could hide an enemy. And all doors were closed.

  Each one was taken the same way: swiftly, and with a minimum of risk. Krysty and Mildred covered either side of the door while Jak entered and secured the room. Corridor covered by Ryan and Doc while J.B. scouted the next door down.

  It was monotonous, but necessary. Potentially hidden enemies had to be dealt with. Yet the first level was completely empty. Sec rooms, with camera monitors that showed a completely empty redoubt, and an outside that was sparse, bare and bore no relation to the lush landscape that they had ridden into; maintenance tech rooms and an armory that were dustless, cool, and had a stillness that could only come from decades of emptiness.

  The second level yielded a similar result: dorms and common rooms that were tidy and had an air of being uninhabited for some considerable time; a kitchen that had supplies in store cupboards, refrigerators and freezers that looked as though they had never been broken into; storerooms with military-issue clothing that looked as though it had never been used.

  And no signs of personnel at any time. It was as though the redoubt had been kitted out, and never actually put into commission.

  And yet…

  The third level co
ntained offices and tech rooms. The comps chattered gently to themselves, a background burble almost as unobtrusive as the hum of the life support system. They stayed awhile here, examining the comp readouts and screens.

  “What I want to know is,” Mildred said, looking around, “why this place looks like it was never lived in, when it must have been.”

  “How do you know it was?” Ryan queried.

  Mildred shook her head, her beaded plaits shadowing her face. “Everything has led us—the tribes—here. This is the place that the prophecy leads them to. Milled Red, an elder, told me that the old legends weren’t that old, that they dated back to fairly recent predark times. That’s got to mean that the Native Americans knew something about this place. And to do that—”

  “Someone had to live and work here, so that word could get out,” Krysty finished. “Right. But how does this tie in to the tribes? They hated this shit.”

  Mildred frowned. “I figure we find out the answer to one, it’ll tell us the answer to the other.”

  Jak sniffed the air. “Let’s clear rest this place then come back. Smells empty, but—”

  “Who would trust their senses after the last day or so,” Doc finished. “Quite right, dear boy. Ryan?”

  The one-eyed man nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Despite the fact that it was almost perfunctory, they proceeded as before. Schematics they had found on the first level told them that there was just the one level below this, and they secured it easily.

  And there they found the only sign of life, mechanical or otherwise. This level consisted of a single, open-floor plan, with a number of consoles and terminals. One end of the room was taken up by the armaglass structure of a mat-trans chamber, the controlling console at a safe distance. The other end had equipment for an indeterminate means. It was also the only source of sound other than the hum and chatter they had already heard.

  A high-pitched, two-tone alarm sounded. It had been audible from the bend in the stairwell as they approached, and as they entered the open level they could see that it was accompanied by a flashing blue screen.

  Mildred and Krysty approached it first. After experimentally tapping a few keys and gaining no result, Krysty read out the screen to the others.

  “‘Sector 27. Tank leak. Condition orange. Suggested action, immediate repair, gangway 5. Leak status, low-level. Potential, blue. Survey result, hairline crack, pressure potential to rise to rupture.’”

  “Any idea how long that Klaxon has been sounding?” Mildred asked, peering over Krysty’s shoulder. As she spoke, she joined Krysty in trying to access the screen, but with little result.

  “So it could be recent, or that bastard could have been sounding for years,” Ryan stated.

  “Must be fairly recent,” J.B. mused, “otherwise that crack would have given way by now, and the whole fucking thing would have blown.”

  “Indeed, my dear John Barrymore, but surely the more pertinent question is, what it is that would have been expelled?” Doc murmured, looking around.

  “What are you looking for?” Ryan asked, momentarily puzzled as he tried to follow Doc’s line of thought; something that was never easy at the best of times.

  Doc fixed them with a stare. “I should have thought it obvious. Tanks, leaks, storage…I’m sure Mildred will agree with me. This only suggests one thing to those who are familiar with whitecoat thinking.”

  Mildred agreed. “Nerve agents. Gases. Chem weaponry. Mostly outlawed by international law before the nukecaust, but I’ve seen enough of what happened next to think that those kinds of things didn’t matter shit. If this is a chem weapons base, then that shit leaking out could be why we were seeing things like we were dropping acid—like jolt,” she added, seeing their unfamiliarity with the term. “And if the tanks are near, then there could be some residual shit that can get past even the strongest air filters.”

  “Hence our need to find protective masks or clothing,” Doc urged. “I cannot stress the importance.”

  “We’ll look for that shit, then try to work out how to stop this from getting worse. Otherwise there’s not much chance of us getting out of here in one piece,” Ryan said. Trapped in an explosion, disabled by hallucination, facing the tribesmen who waited, crazed by hallucinatory gas outside the redoubt if they didn’t risk the mat-trans, even risking the mat-trans if they were contaminated in some way by the nerve agent: all that crossed his mind as he led them back up two levels to where the stores were located.

  Was it imagination, or was there some residue of the gas starting to leak into the life-support system? That anxiety that he knew they had all felt since before entering—the realization of which he had seen on J.B.’s face before he hit the entry code—was now exacerbated by the sudden flickering at the corner of his eye. Figures, vague and shadowy or else clear but transparent, moved in and out of the periphery of his vision. They were not threatening, but nonetheless unnerving. Military personnel going about their business as they might have done before the nukecaust, like ghosts…like the phantoms they had seen outside on the plain. Was this how the gas worked, tapping into the unconscious, the latent psyche, and suggesting images and imaginings that were already there?

  He caught Krysty looking at him, and from the briefest of acknowledgments he knew that she, too, could see these things. The quicker they found protective clothing, the better.

  Thankfully, when they reached the second level and the stores, they were able to find chem protection suits and masks easily, and donning them only took a few minutes. The filters on the masks of the suits were easy to operate, and it was only when he could see that all his people were suited and protected that Ryan was able to breathe easier.

  But still, he knew, there was an imperative of time. They had to move.

  Hurriedly, they returned to the level that acted as an operations base for the redoubt. There was little that Ryan could do for the moment—J.B., Jak or Doc, either, for that matter—as it was down to Krysty and Mildred to work out how the comp system would yield its secrets.

  Mildred exclaimed in delight as she hit a key and a screen unrolled from the ceiling and a menu flickered into view, a visual journal made by the successive commanding officers of the redoubt. She clicked on the last entry. The image of a graying, crew-cut officer with a face that was pitted and lined came on-screen. After logging-in preliminaries, his report was brief and concise.

  “December 14, 2000. Essential maintenance has been completed, and the skeleton crew is now ready to depart. If tests prove positive, then the next report I make will be when we return as a full complement in precisely twelve months’ time. This will enable the last traces of the accident to evaporate. Until such time, regular maintenance visits will be made by suited technicians on a monthly basis. It is to be hoped that their reports will be positive. Of those contaminated, all mil itary personnel have been hospitalized. The civilian workers have, by their transient nature, been a little more difficult to trace—”

  Mildred paused the video. “That accounts for it being like new here,” she commented. “Within weeks, the missiles were launched. Too late to bus in a full detail when it was nuclear winter up top.”

  “And this is not the first time that there has been a leak, obviously,” Doc added. “Could you find details? If what I suspect…”

  “Y’know, I think I’m with you on that, Doc…” Mildred started to search the menu for earlier entries, clicking on and then dismissing those that promised much and delivered little. Eventually, however, she found what she was looking for. The same face came up on screen. He looked younger, yet it was less than a year before the final entry: an indication of how tough that year had been.

  “January 30,1999. Code Seven, day eight. There are now eighteen personnel in the sick bay. They are responding well to treatment, but it will be some time before they are fully rehabilitated. The leaks have finally been traced to source. Tank linings were improperly fitted, and seals had not been effective. The workers
on the original construction, who were brought in to fix the problem, were not at fault. It transpires that documentation supplied by the manufacturers was incorrectly labeled, leading to installation instructions that were defective. I trust that a higher level of authority will take the necessary punitive action.

  “There has been some problem with the construction workers. I understand that the decision to employ an indigenous population was initiated partly because of employment problems in such communities. I would assume this made them an, ah, economic source of labor, as well as appeasing liberal politicians bleating about unemployment levels. I trust this will tell us something about employing unskilled labor. Experienced engineering staff would have been able to draw attention to the defective instruction much sooner.

  “I also believe that an indigenous population was used because of their knowledge of the topography and weather patterns in the locale. While the safe concealment of the tanks is paramount, what has happened reveals to me—and I hope this will be officially noted—the dangers of such a practice. Rumors have begun to circulate that the tribes within the population are splitting, and believe that hallucinations induced by leakages are, in fact, divinely inspired revelations.

  “The dangers of having such people running around spouting such garbage when they also have sensitive information in their possession are, I hope, obvious—”

  Mildred paused the video.

  “Bastards,” she whispered. “Screw the workers, let them suffer. Just don’t let them make a noise about it.”

  “Except they did, and the noise they made went on awhile lot longer than that joker could ever have thought,” Krysty said quietly.

  Mildred chuckled and shook her head sadly. “I guess this is what Milled Red was trying to say to me. The whole idea of going back to the old ways, moving away from what the white-eye people were doing, came from being damaged by those very same people.”

  “Then why do they want to come here so much?” J.B. asked. “They don’t use other redoubts, so—”