Vickers (Corp.s.e.)

by Mick Farren

  "Goddamn it. It just gets weirder and weirder." Something occurred to Vickers. "Wait just a minute. When you said earlier that Lloyd-Ransom didn't know his way out of the bunker, you made it sound as though there are people who do."

  Cattermole nodded. "Well, I do. I don't know about anyone else."

  Vickers could hardly believe what he was hearing.

  "Why are you doing this to me, Lance? Why in hell didn't you tell anybody?"

  "Would you believe that nobody asked me?"

  "No."

  "How about the fact that I considered the information something of a liability."

  "More like it. You want to tell me about it?"

  Cattermole thoughtfully poured more Medoc.

  "I don't know. What would you do with this information?"

  Vickers raised his eyes until they met Cattermole's.

  "I'd try and get out, see what it's really like on the surface."

  "Would you tell anyone else?"

  "Maybe. I'd probably tell one or two others. People I can trust."

  "I thought a few times I might try and get out but, when it came down to it, I didn't do anything." He patted his gnome's pot belly. "I decided I didn't have the figure for being intrepid."

  There was a long pause. Finally Vickers put down his glass.

  "So are you going to show me the way out?"

  Cattermole thought. It took him almost a minute to decide.

  "Yes. It's about time someone had a look at the surface." Cattermole hunted along the stacks until he found the card he was looking for. He dropped it into one of his computers. The monitor showed a detail of an architectural drawing. "These are the original drawings for the bunker. What many people don't realize is that parts of it were never properly finished. All over there are nooks and small corners where the heat or the lighting was never installed, the air conditioning was never piped through or the surveillance cameras were never put in. The largest of these is up on the first level way over in the back right away from the main elevators."

  He spoke to the computer. "Level one, quadrant twelve… okay… left six… up seven… enlarge two hundred."

  The screen filled with a honeycomb of small rooms against the outer wall of the first level. Cattermole tapped it with his finger.

  "This was never built. It's like a cave. The support pillars are in and there's a floor but that's it. Nothing else was ever built. It was supposed to be some kind of store for vehicle spares but I guess they never got around to finishing it. There's no light in there but it's warm enough. There're a few oddities living in there. Now and again they send some soldiers up there to frighten them but for the most part they're left alone."

  "Oddities?"

  "Winos, crazies, maybe a couple of dozen of various individuals who crawled away because they couldn't stay afloat in the bunker population."

  "And they live there?"

  "Sure. They've got to live somewhere but they're not what we're concerned with. See this?"

  Cattermole pointed to a pair of parallel lines that ran out from the complex of rooms, through the wall of the bunker and out for some distance beyond.

  "You know what this is?"

  "What?"

  "It's a tunnel. It runs for about two hundred yards angling out and up until it comes out on the surface."

  "It's a way out, damn it!"

  Cattermole grinned. He was clearly warming to the conspiracy.

  "That's right."

  "But isn't it sealed or at least alarmed?"

  "No, that's the beauty of it. Since the wiring was never put in, there are no cameras. It only appears on their scans as a dead area. The tunnel wouldn't appear at all. Surveillance runs the bunker and they never refer back to the original plans."

  "How do we know that the tunnel was actually built? Maybe they never got around to that either."

  Cattermole shook his head.

  "No, it's there. It has to be. It goes through the bunker wall, it's an integral part. It stands to reason that it would have to be constructed at the same time as the wall."

  "But how come it's the only one?"

  "They must have thought that one was enough."

  "And then it got lost in the shuffle?"

  "You'd be surprised what got lost in the shuffle when this place was being put together."

  "It's certainly worth checking out."

  Vickers could feel an excitement. He could feel the breeze and see the open space and sky. The idea of being outside again was almost frightening. Cattermole poured out the last of the wine. He raised his glass in a toast.

  "Out."

  Vickers also raised his glass.

  "Yeah, out."

  "What will you do?"

  "I need to think about this for a couple of days. I'll try and set up a situation where I won't be missed if I slip out for a while." He looked around the ceiling, again at imaginary microphones. "And talking of setups, I take it you have some way to neutralize the eavesdroppers."

  "Sure. I've had the system patched in to my computers. When I think a conversation is going to get them excited, I have my computer send a nice relaxing simulation."

  Vickers finished his wine.

  "I'll let you know what I'm going to do before I do it."

  Cattermole ushered him to the door of the inner sanctum.

  "This should prove particularly interesting."

  Yoko was waiting for him by the outer door to Cattermole's kingdom.

  "I thought you'd forgotten about me."

  "I must confess that I had."

  The idea of there being a way out had put everything else to the back of his mind. Yoko, however, was enough to bring a few things hopping forward as she stood smouldering at him.

  "That's not particularly flattering."

  Vickers did his best to look contrite.

  "If I stuck around and flattered you for a half hour or so would it make it up to you?"

  "Just a half-hour?"

  "An hour?"

  Yoko glanced around. Cattermole had vanished back inside his nest of computers. She took hold of Vickers' hand.

  "Let's see how flattering you can get."

  It looked like they were heading into another confrontation with the military. Vickers and Fenton mingled with the crowd of workers going on shift. They were on the third level and moving toward the heavily guarded entrance to the power plant. Security around the plant was some of the tightest in the bunker. The power plant was, without a doubt, the most vulnerable spot in the underground installation. If the fusion reactor went out of control, it would vaporize the bunker and the land for miles around. Through its life it had specifically been guarded from saboteurs, Reds, anarchists and now Wantouts. Any second, Fenton and Vickers would discover how well it was defended against them. On the plus side, there was their reputation, on the minus side, there was the fact that they had absolutely no authority. The power plant was the only place that Vickers was going to get a radiation suit, though, and he didn't intend to venture outside without one. He wanted to see the sky again but he definitely didn't want to set himself up for cancer, radiation sickness or worse.

  It had only been after a good deal of deliberation that Vickers had told Fenton about the tunnel. At first he had considered Parkwood. If anything, Parkwood was the more reliable of the two but Fenton had a streak of craziness that would be invaluable on such an extreme adventure. At first Fenton had wanted them to go out together, but after two hours and most of a bottle of whiskey, Vickers had persuaded him that the best idea was for one to go out first for a short exposure, nothing more than a two-hour look around. After faking the coin toss, the task fell to Vickers while Fenton would stay behind and cover for his absence. Vickers' only stipulation was that they should steal a radiation suit so he wasn't completely vulnerable to anything the outside might throw at him. When they'd sobered up, the idea of stealing a radiation suit from the power plant seemed a good deal more hazardous than it had in the light of the whiskey bottle.
About the only thing they had on their side was that most people would have a hard time imagining why they would want to steal a radiation suit in the first place. It was the basis of their bluff.

  The first test of this bluff was rapidly coming up. The regular power workers had to use a thumbprint check to pass through a combined body scan and ID gate. Each gate was manned by a human guard as a second line of security. There was no other way in. Vickers and Fenton joined the line that led up to one gate. They'd decided to go in together, claiming it was a line-of-duty visit. Their guard was blonde, cute apart from a pair of hard, calculating eyes. Vickers doubted that they could put anything over on her. As they approached, she coldly looked them up and down.

  "What do you two want?"

  "There's something we have to check out in the jumpers' locker room."

  "You got passes?"

  "We don't need passes."

  The guard's face hardened. "I never heard that."

  "You know who we are."

  "Sure I know who you are but I still never heard that I should let you into the plant without passes."

  Fenton glanced back at the line of plant workers who were backed up behind them.

  "Why don't you let us just step inside and we'll talk about it. We're holding up the line here."

  The woman put a hand on the strap of the M90 slung over her shoulder.

  "I can't let you do that."

  "Suppose you called the officer who can talk to us."

  The guard thought about it.

  "I suppose I could do that."

  She pushed a button beside the thumbprint scanner. The officer, a rather vapid captain, appeared much more of a pushover than the guard. He was far more in awe of the two corpses than his subordinate.

  "What seems to be going on here?"

  The guard looked at the captain with scarcely veiled contempt.

  "These two want to get in without passes."

  "But you know who they are?"

  "I don't have authority to let anyone through without a pass."

  Fenton tried to take control of the situation.

  "Listen, Captain, if we could just step through and explain the situation we'll stop holding up the line and I'm sure when you hear what we have to say you'll see it our way. And if you don't, we'll leave. Okay?"

  The captain seemed uncertain. He looked like he wanted to ask someone what to do but was afraid of losing face. Fenton leaned in to his indecision.

  "Well?"

  The captain was tipped over.

  "Yes, I suppose you'd better step inside."

  Fenton and Vickers made to pass through but the guard didn't get out of the way. She looked enquiringly at the captain.

  "Sir?"

  The captain covered himself with impatient bluster.

  "Yes, yes, let them through."

  "On your authority sir?"

  "Yes, damn it, on my authority. Now start this line moving." He waved Vickers and Fenton to where he was standing on the other side of the barrier. "So what is all this about?"

  Fenton put an arm around the captain's shoulder and steered him away from the guards and the lines at the gates. Vickers followed them.

  "It's like this, see. We think we might have a problem with one of your jumpers and all we wanted to do was to go down to the jumpers' locker room and discreetly go through his stuff."

  The captain was looking nervous again.

  "A jumper? One of the ones who actually go inside the reactor?"

  "One of those. One of those exactly. That's why we have to be so very careful. I mean, those people don't have very long lifespans, do they?"

  "It's not as bad as it was on the outside, we take better care…"

  "Yeah, but what with contamination and their hair falling out and everything, they've still got plenty of room to get mean. Am I right?"

  "I guess so."

  "And if one of them went rogue they could do an untold amount of damage."

  "That's right."

  "We only had the faintest of whispers that one of these people might be up to something but there was no way that we could ignore it."

  "What was this whisper?"

  "That someone was stashing explosives inside the fusion loop."

  The captain actually turned a little pale.

  "You have to be joking. Do you know what even the smallest explosion in the fusion loop could do?"

  "And that's why we have to go in and check things out."

  The captain shook his head.

  "If you want to go in and search why didn't you go through channels?"

  Fenton removed his arm from around the captain's shoulder with a look of exasperation.

  "Are you back on that again? You know what it's like around here. If we'd gone through channels everyone in the plant would have known about it inside half an hour. The whole point here is to keep it quiet. Quiet, you understand? If there's nothing to it we don't want to give the bastards any ideas, do we?"

  "I guess not."

  "So are you going to take us down there or do I have to get someone with some real clout?"

  It was Vickers' moment to interrupt. "Do we have to fuck around with this jerk any longer? Let's just find his superior and explain how he's fucking us over."

  Fenton became the calming influence.

  "Hey, give him a break, will you? He wants to cooperate, he's just nervous. They go by the book down here, that's all." He turned to the captain. "You're going to help us out, aren't you?"

  The captain caved in. "Okay, but I'm going to have to come down there with you.

  Fenton beamed. "Sure. Let's go to it."

  With the captain completely buffaloed, the rest was easy. They went through to the jumpers' locker room and opened the locker of one Jose Torres. The computer had selected him as being the same size as Vickers, so his radiation suit would fit. He was also off-shift so the suit would be hanging in his locker. While the captain watched, they searched every inch of the suit. Finally they delivered the verdict.

  "There're no secret pockets or gimmicks in the suit that we can find. We're going to have to take it in for some lab tests."

  Vickers had an apparent thought.

  "We really ought to put another suit in its place so Torres won't suspect anything." He looked at the captain. "Can you fix that for us? Can you get us another suit?"

  The captain was now a hundred percent anxious to please. He practically skipped to the nearest wall phone. Inside of ten minutes, a mystified orderly had brought down a second orange radiation suit. Vickers folded Torres' original suit under his arm and let the increasingly relieved captain lead them back the way they'd come. As they walked out through the security check, Vickers couldn't resist a parting shot. He wagged a cautionary finger at the captain.

  "Not a word now, right? Nothing to anyone?"

  The captain was as eager as a terrier. "You can trust me."

  "I sure hope we can."

  Vickers and Fenton walked slowly between two lines of parked vehicles to the first level, doing their best to look like it was just a routine patrol. Over the past two days they'd conducted a lot of random, unauthorized patrols and no one had challenged them or even asked a question. This, however, was the big one. It was their first shot at the outside. Vickers had Jose Torres' radiation suit slung over his shoulder in a canvas tote bag and, in addition to the usual Yasha, he also carried a big 12 gauge Churchill autoload. As far as hardware went, Vickers was ready for the outside. Emotionally, he wasn't so sure. The dry metallic taste was in his mouth and the acid knot in his stomach. It was different, though, from preparing for combat. This was something completely unknown. He knew that he was scared of what he might find out there. All he could do was lean back on his nerves and carefully put one foot in front of the other.

  They came to the end of the line of vehicles. They turned and walked up another. Without being too obvious about it, they were gradually working their way away from the sealed elevator door toward the far back
of the level. After sauntering casually for another five minutes, they were between two rows of tall armored personnel carriers. As far as either of them could tell there were no cameras watching them in the darkness.

  "This looks like as good a place as any." Vickers dropped the tote bag on the ground. They stood still for a few seconds, waiting for any possible challenge. When none came, Vickers bent down and dragged out the suit. He unrolled it and laid it flat.

  "You want to help me with this?"

  "Sure."

  Fenton held up the bulky orange suit while Vickers struggled into it. Finally he pulled on the headpiece but left the faceplate open.

  "Christ, you could sweat to death in one of these."

  They both glanced around at the black, silent lines of armor. Nothing seemed to be moving. Vickers took a deep breath.

  "I guess I'd better get going."

  Fenton glanced at his watch. Vickers did the same. Fenton had one more look round.

  "You want to give me five minutes to get out of here?"

  "Yeah, okay."

  "Take it easy, right? Just two hours and then right back inside."

  Vickers nodded. "If I'm not back in three, you've never heard of me."

  Fenton briefly gripped Vickers' arm and then he walked away. Vickers watched him go. His diminishing footsteps were measured and even, as though he didn't have a care in the world. The old familiar feeling of wanting to be somewhere else crept over Vickers. He did his best to focus his attention on the passage of time, staring at the digits on his watch, willing them to change. He gave Fenton his full five minutes, then he shouldered the Churchill and started determinedly into the darkness.

  It was like another world. At first the things that scuttled out of the way of his flashlight beam were rats and lizards and small desert rodents. As he got further in though, they sounded bigger and a lot more timid. People? Mad enough to live out here in the dark? No flooring had ever been put in and the ground underfoot was covered with building debris. He had to take care not to stumble on rocks, chunks of masonry and discarded boards. Stacks of unused building material and heaps of garbage gave the unfinished area a set of contours that provided natural cover for whoever and whatever lurked. At regular intervals there were small smokey fires with dark figures crouched among them. Vickers didn't approach any. He figured that those who had elected to live in this place had sufficient troubles without the addition of being scared witless by a monsterous, armed figure in an orange suit. At some point, someone had clearly tried to marginally improve the unfinished area. Loops of electrical cable hung down from the ceiling like black jungle vines. Vickers had seen a handful of jury-rigged lights off in the distance but they were quickly extinguished when he threatened to come anywhere near them. The oddities who hid out in the place were skittish and extremely watchful.