Occasionally they had come across prenuke graffiti, but these walls were flawless and clean.
There was another vanadium-steel sec door on the opposite side of the room.
“Ready?” Ryan asked, finger tight on the trigger of his 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 pistol. He reached out with his left hand to depress the cold metal handle and inch the door open.
“Air tastes better here than in chamber,” Jak said. “Fresher.”
Ryan hesitated, taking in a deep breath, as did everyone else.
“Kind of a pine scent.” Mildred sniffed again. “Feel the rush through the sinuses.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed nodding, still holding the handle. “Must mean we’re close to a forest of some kind.”
“Let’s go look,” J.B. suggested. “Forest means there’s game.”
The heavy door swung slowly open, revealing what they’d all expected to see—a large room containing the main control section of the mat-trans unit. Digital displays on more than forty screens were in constant flux, altering every nanosecond, endlessly changing numbers, codes and formulas, monitoring every aspect of what had once been called Project Cerberus, which was a tiny cog in the infinitely complex system known to the selected few as the Totality Concept.
The far side of the rows of control consoles was dominated by a huge sec steel door. It was in the closed position, sealing off that section of the redoubt against anything short of a full nuke-missile attack.
“Down to orange,” Ryan said, holstering his pistol. If by any amazing chance the sec door started to open, it would give them a good half-minute warning.
The rest of the group of friends put away then-blasters and wandered around the rows of desks, seeing if anything had been left behind that might give them a clue as to where they were and what had happened.
“The waste bins are devoid of any contents,” Doc declared.
“No notes or anything like that,” Mildred said, perching herself comfortably in a dark gray orthopedic swivel chair, revolving slowly, head back, looking up at the rounded ceiling. “Sec cameras are still functioning. Wonder if anyone’s watching us. Probably not, I guess.” She lifted a hand in a casual wave to the nearest of the security devices that had a tiny ruby light glowing at its top.
“Nothing,” J.B. said, taking off his glasses and wiping them carefully on his sleeve. “Place swept as clean as this is, likely means no food or weapons in the rest of the redoubt. Might as well move on, Ryan.”
“Sure. Back onto red.”
As was usual, Dean hurried forward to operate the mechanism that opened and closed the sec doors. He moved to the side of the entrance, sticking his blaster in his belt, laying both hands on the green steel lever, ready at his father’s word to shift it to the upward position that would start the ponderous door moving slowly, opening the way to the rest of the complex.
It was a moment of considerable danger.
Ryan gestured for the others to back away, taking cover behind the control consoles. He moved to the opposite side of the door from Dean, crouching as close to the concrete floor as he could get, his blaster drawn again, ready to squint through the narrow gap that would appear beneath the sec door.
“Go, Dean. Ready to stop instantly on my word.”
The boy threw his weight against the green lever, heaving it up. There was the familiar faint rumbling sound of buried gears engaging, deep within the walls. Ryan felt the trembling of movement through his knees, seeing the almost imperceptible beginning of action.
Somewhere, from the far side of the vast door, he could just catch the faint sound of a warning siren. If there was anyone living in the redoubt, it would give them ample warning of the arrival of intruders.
A narrow gap appeared between the bottom of the door and the floor, and Ryan flattened himself to peer beneath it. He saw the corridor outside, brightly lit, and the wall. There was no sign of any kind of life.
“Hold it.”
The gap was about seven inches.
“Krysty, you feel anything?”
There was a pause while the flame-headed woman closed her eyes and pushed her mind to go questing into the redoubt. “No, lover. Can’t feel anything.”