“All the way, Dad?”
“Sure.”
The lever moved from the horizontal and the great weight of sec steel began to slide slowly upward again. Ryan crouched on hands and knees, watching as more of the passage outside was revealed. He saw concrete, sloping to an arched roof that was illuminated by strip lighting, and he could also see the first of an expected number of sec cameras, fixed high up where the roof and walls ran into one another.
The door was now almost completely open, leaving a gap of better than six feet. “Stop it right there, Dean. I’ll take a look outside in the corridor.”
The barrel of the powerful blaster probed the air in front of him as he glanced around the corner of the opening, checking both ways. Both were empty.
“Clear,” he said, easing down the hammer on the SIG-Sauer.
The scent of pines was noticeably stronger out in the passage, and he could feel a light draft coming from the right.
“Everyone ready?”
Most of the redoubts that they’d visited had the same sort of layout. The gateway chamber and control room were almost always in the deepest part, often far below ground level. Ryan turned to the left, walking only a few paces along the curving passage before coming up against a wall of raw, impenetrable rock, dark granite streaked with bands of silvery quartz. Again, this feature was common to most redoubts.
“Back the other way,” Ryan said.
He walked past the rest of them, taking the lead. Krysty fell in behind him, followed by Jak, Dean and Doc. Mildred came sixth with J.B. bringing up the rear.
Now the wide sweep of the passage opened up before him, with sec cameras dotted in the angle between wall and ceiling, about every thirty paces. The tiny ruby lights flickered on and off, under the random control of comp central.
Ryan paused, looking up at them, wondering whether there was anyone watching the master screens that he knew would be hidden deep in the heart of the redoubt. Anyone? Or anything?
They continued for about two hundred yards, always curving to the right, the concrete floor of the wide corridor sloping slightly upward.
“Like being inside the Guggenheim in old New York,” Mildred commented.
“What’s a Guggenheim?” Dean asked.
“An art gallery, Dean. One of the best. The design is sort of based on the shell of a snail, so it winds round and round. Only difference with this place is that you start at the top in the Guggenheim and work your way to the bottom.”
They hadn’t passed any side entrances, which wasn’t all that unusual. Quite often the section of the redoubt that housed the mat-trans unit was buried in the part of the complex farthest from the center and the entrance.
“There,” Jak said, pointing ahead. The round-roofed passage widened, becoming a clear, steep ramp that stopped abruptly at the single sec-steel door of a large freight elevator.
“Anything?” Ryan asked, turning toward Krysty.
She hesitated a moment, closing her eyes. Ryan noticed that her sentient red hair was coiled loosely at her nape. It was generally safe to assume that if the hair had been bunched tight then there might have been danger in the air.
“Nothing.” She paused. “Well, there’s the faint scent of piñon, floating around from some place outside.” She flashed him a brilliant smile, teeth gleaming in the flat overhead lighting. “Wouldn’t mind a little time resting among fresh mountain pines, lover.”
“No hostiles? That’s good,” J.B. said, taking off his fedora and fanning his face with the brim. “Kind of warm. Feels like the air-con’s not working properly.”
Jak moved ahead, peering at the controls of the elevator. He turned back to face the others, his snowy hair floating around his narrow face. “Control code’s at side,” he called, voice dull in the stillness of the concrete vault.
“Makes life easier.” Mildred and the others had all bunched up, close by the elevator.
“Four and two and six and six and seven,” Jak said, peering at the neatly printed card. “Go for it, Ryan?”
“Seems a most discreditful breach of security to leave the code placed there for everyone to see.” Doc made a moue of disapproval, shaking his head and tutting between his perfect teeth. “Heads should roll.”