The fat man behind the desk studied them intently. He had expected more from them, certainly, his sec squad had kept them under close watch as he was sure that they would try to escape into the redoubt and fight against him. Yet here they were, doing nothing except standing and exchanging puzzled glances.
His confidence grew, and he signaled for the sec squads to stand farther back. He rose from behind the desk, his vast bulk wobbling in the tight-fitting uniform, which seemed to barely stretch over his skin.
They could see that he was as immensely tall as he was wide, and he stepped with difficulty from behind the desk so that he stood in front of them.
“You know, when I was a younger man, before the nukecaust, there was a tradition in the entertainments of the time for the villain of the piece to stand before the hero and say, ‘Now you will die—but first I must explain my plans for world domination to you.’ And of course, this would allow the hero time to effect some miraculous escape. I always used to wonder why the mastermind, supposingly so brilliant, would do something that was seemingly so stupid. In fiction, just a plot device, of course, to reveal the full extent and implication of the story to the waiting audience. But would it happen in reality?
“Now, there is an interesting proposition—what would one do in reality? I had always wondered, and now I know. I am about to follow in the footsteps of my fictional forebears and relay to you my story, and why I intend to follow my current course of action. Of course, there are some differences. For instance, you will not escape, and you will be chilled…not immediately, it’s true, but as the disease takes hold on you. And you will have the bittersweet knowledge of knowing what is occurring as you helplessly spread the pox across the lands above.” He chuckled, high in pitch and suggestive of madness. “That rather appeals to me. The biggest difference is that in this scenario, I win. Now, that definitely appeals to me.”
Mildred’s mind raced. There were several things for which she needed answers, and perhaps quicker than this dangerous buffoon would supply them. What was the disease? Did he have a cure, or was he intending to wipe out even his own people? And what did he mean when he spoke of being a younger man, before the nukecaust? Mildred had lived in those days and been cryogenically frozen; Doc had been trawled from then and before; but what was this man’s secret?
The companions were all lost in their own thoughts. Krysty’s were running along similar lines to Mildred’s. Doc, too, was pondering on the fat man’s cryptic references.
But the other four had separate notions.
Dean was eying the comp terminal, and wondering if it would be possible to gain access to it if a fight broke out. He figured that the terminal here had to be the mother of all others in the redoubt, and from it he could control all the systems within the base, and free the Gate.
Ryan and J.B. were balancing the chances of winning a hand-to-hand combat with the sec squad with a minimum risk of casualty against the option of waiting a little longer, lest the fat man give away more about himself and his organization that would help them in their battle against him.
Jak was more decided. He was waiting for the chance to strike. He knew that Doc still had his sword of the finest Toledo steel hidden within the lion’s-head cane on which he leaned. He also knew that the sec squad had been slack in not searching each companion, for he still had his leaf-bladed throwing knives secreted within the patched and metal-decorated combat jacket he wore. Although the words of the fat man might give them insight into why he was pursuing this course of action, Jak considered that this was completely irrelevant. To the albino, it was important to strike quickly. He trusted Mildred to know what she was looking for, and that their imperative was to move out of this room and look for the lab before freeing the Gate and wiping out the opposition. It was that simple. There was no time for anything else.