“Then let’s do it,” Ryan said, unsheathing his own panga.
And so began the next phase of the journey. They were out of the plain, and now only a few miles from the settlement that appeared on the surface to be devoid of life, but that they knew to somehow house the Illuminated Ones—probably in a redoubt of some kind.
When they had made camp for the night, Doc sat with Ryan, Krysty and Gloria, musing on this.
“It presents us with a whole series of thorny little problems, doesn’t it?” he asked rhetorically. “If the Illuminated Ones are in a redoubt, then why have they never tried to travel around the Deathlands? Or at least, not to the extent where we have ever come across them before, or heard mention of them until recently.”
“Mebbe, if they are the ones of which our legends speak, and they are the guardians of the gateway, then they have greater knowledge,” Gloria mused, running loose earth through her fingers and watching it fall to the ground as she spoke. “Mebbe they have a way of regulating their travel through the old tech—yourselves have spoken of how you cannot control where you land. Well, mebbe they can.”
Ryan and Krysty exchanged sharp glances. They, and the others, had been careful not to speak too much of their travels through the mat-trans in front of any of the Gate. Did this mean that Jak had been speaking to Gloria about these things without telling the others? There had been no set rule about this, but it had been assumed by all that it would be best to keep this quiet until or unless it was necessary.
Doc also noticed this, but chose to ignore the apparent oddity and keep his own counsel…as ever. “A good point, my dear lady. It would seem that it was the merest accident that tapped us into the previous Illuminated Ones’ redoubt that we encountered. If they have their old tech in good working order, they may be able to use other redoubts and block their own ones from receiving any, ah, unwanted visitors, shall we say?”
“Well, they may be getting them now,” Gloria said quietly, with a sly grin to herself.
Doc seemed not to notice this. He was staring over Gloria’s head at some point far off in the middle distance, where there was something that only he seemed to see.
He continued in a faraway voice. “It was a strange thing, to be pitched into the middle of an alien time and to hear so much that seemed to make sense only with the benefit of hindsight. There were rumors of a secret society that was ready to take over the government and use it for its own ends if the end time came. And yet, in one of those strange dichotomies that seem to occur so often when power and intrigue become inextricably entwined, it was also rumored that this society was funded by the black operations budget of the very government that it sought to overthrow. Indeed, it was rumored that the security agencies of that government had infiltrated the secret society to such an extent that it was, in fact, operated by the government itself and was no more than a failsafe device for retaining power if civilization collapsed around its ears…which, of course, it did. Ironic, then, is it not, that this very society is now little more than a footnote to the saga of the Deathlands, existing in its own little void somewhere in the northeast of what used to be a so-called United States?”
There was a pause, then Gloria said, “Nice story, honey, but what does it have to do with what we’re after?”
Doc seemed to snap back from his own private world, and for a moment looked at the Gate queen with eyes that were wide and innocent, uncomprehending of the world. And then her words filtered through, and a look of amazement spread across his face. “Why, is it not obvious? If the Illuminated Ones and the government of the old predark United States were one and the same, in effect, then doesn’t it make sense that the shadow center of government that I heard rumors about will be the very place where the secret society will be based? Where the gateway you seek, and where the possible entry to the stockpile and peace which we seek… Well, where they will be?”