“Negative termination. We must examine him carefully and cherish him. A mutie beyond all muties, this one. No. Remainder of you can sleep peacefully. He comes.” The voice hardened. “No more resistance, or megacull. You understand, strangers?”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah. We understand, Doctor. Jak, you take care now. We’ll be in to see you in the morning.”
In their supertech world, it was obvious the scientists had never come across anyone with the raw power and ruthless skill to off armed men with hands and feet only. Ryan’s guess was that that should be enough to keep the kid alive for a while.
That was his hope.
The sec men wheeled clumsily around, circling the young boy. Jak brushed back his snowy mane of hair, pale face schooled into stillness. The crippled scientist went haltingly out first, followed by the patrol.
“Hold your fucking head up, Whitey!” Finnegan shouted.
“Sure, Fats. I’ll do that,” the boy replied.
Dr. Tardy was last out, pausing in the doorway to turn and rake the six of them with her pebbled eyes. “Strange company for a man such as you, Dr. Tanner. We shall examine and test all of this. But it must wait. Central will become impatient if we do not proceed. And we are so nearly ready. So very nearly.”
The door hissed shut, and Ryan and his companions were left alone.
Later, on his narrow bed, under the subdued lighting of the dormitory, Ryan found sleep difficult. The room still tasted of death, though the corpses had been removed and the floor cleaned.
There were too many rules he couldn’t understand. Too many pieces missing from the puzzle.
“Fireblast!” he whispered to himself. He didn’t even know what the game was called.
Chapter Seventeen
THE SIGN ABOVE the door said Information Storage and Retrieval.
To Ryan’s surprise they had been encouraged to visit Jak after they’d taken their first meal of the pallid sludge. The boy was safe and well, though in a closed security unit under a heavy guard of visored sec men.
Later, they’d again split up, to explore the Wizard Island complex, Ryan and Krysty wandering far into an isolated wing, descending in a smaller elevator, finding themselves in a region that seemed totally unused.
There were tiny heaps of dust in the corners of the corridors. All of the doors were locked, and few carried any sort of sign. It seemed as though it was a part of the complex that had drifted into disuse, possibly as the population decreased so rapidly.
J.B. and Finnegan had gone in search of ways of getting through to the main entrance and exit elevators, checking out the levels of security coverage. Lori hadn’t been feeling well, but she and Doc were going again toward the closed research areas, in the hope that Doc’s name might find them a way through.
“It’s what they used to call a library,” Krysty said, hands on hips, looking down at where her sneakers had become dirtied.
“I’ve seen ’em before. Lots of redoubts had them. Books and vids an’ mags. Micros and fiches. All old stuff. Most so far gone it’s useless.”
“Shall we go in?”
“Sure. Probably locked like the No, it isn’t.”
The door was stiff, the bronze handle reluctant to move at all. As it opened, they felt the faintest draft of stale air, which made the girl’s vivid hair coil and shift.
“Tastes like a well-kept grave,” Krysty said.
“Been long years since this was opened up. I know that smell from other places, other times.”
Hand in hand, like children, they walked in, their shoes squeaking on the dull floor.
AFTER AN HOUR or more of wandering the endless rows of files, Ryan called out to Krysty, “This is madness, lover. There’s all the history of the fucking world here. Everything, right up to January 2001. All from outside. But you scan anything after the bombs fell, and it’s from Wizard Island.”
“Yeah. Post the nukes, it’s all inbred stuff. Like the world outside stopped dead. Which it nearly did. But they didn’t record anything after that. Like nobody ever left here.”
“That’s what that poisonous scientist dwarf said. Nobody ever leaves Wizard Island. Not until us.”