“Waiting?” Jak was bewildered. It hadn’t occurred to him up to this point, but it now registered with him that he was in a redoubt sick bay. How had he gotten here? He couldn’t recall a time when Ryan would move his people out of a mat-trans chamber and into the main body of a redoubt without everyone being triple red and sharp.
“Gate?” Jak asked suddenly, his guts lurching when he thought of Gloria and his bizarre dream.
In the semidark he could see Mildred’s plaits move on her shoulders as she shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve been taking a look at the computers here and reckon that the mat-trans computers at the other base must have had some kind of fail-safe device on them.”
“Eh?” Still dazed, Jak was finding it hard to take in what she was saying.
Mildred came and stood over him as she continued. “When we arrived, and it became obvious that you weren’t going to come around, Ryan got Doc to stand guard over you in the chamber while the rest of us recced. As soon as we were out, we could see that there was only one chamber in the room, and we already knew that it wasn’t as big as the one we’d used when we parted company with the Gate. And part company is exactly what we did.
“It was pretty obvious that whatever happened, we were nowhere where the Illuminated Ones had gone, and nowhere where the Gate had ended up. We divided up and searched the redoubt. It’s small as they go, and still pretty well equipped. We haven’t gone for the upper levels yet, so maybe it’s been left alone because you just can’t get in and out of it. Whatever, it’s empty and safe for now, so we set you up here so I could examine and monitor you. Speaking of which…”
Mildred began to test Jak’s reflexes and check his vital signs. The albino youth was silent while she carried out her tasks, waiting until she had finished before speaking.
“So we’re on our own?”
Mildred nodded. “Seems like the Illuminated Ones computers had an automatic reset to send the contents of the mat-trans to a random redoubt unless it was operated manually. We’re here, God alone knows where the Gate tribe is, and the Illuminated Ones are safely wherever the hell they wanted to be. Which is just the way they wanted it.”
“And me?”
Mildred sucked in breath through her teeth. “That’s a good question. You know as well as any of us that you always take a while to come around from the strain of a jump. But this time it seems that you went into some kind of deep trance, almost like a coma. You were completely unresponsive and there was nothing I could do.”
“How long?”
“We’ve been here four days,” Mildred replied, shocking Jak. He didn’t realize that he had been unconscious for so long.
“Know where we are?” Jak asked. “Not yet. Not until we try and get out.” Jak closed his eyes. He needed to get his strength back. Every fiber of his body was aching, and as he closed his eyes, leaving Mildred to exit the sick bay, he felt waves of sleep wash over him; sleep that was devoid of dream, good or bad.
“IT’S A BASTARD this has happened,” J.B. muttered as he surveyed the armory of the redoubt. The walls were lined with racks where rifles, machine pistols, lightweight antitank blasters and grens should have stood. Instead there were only the remnants of trashed plastic-and-carbon fiber, the rusting remains of scrapped metal. The last scavengers or inhabitants of the redoubt had stripped the armory and then destroyed whatever was either too much to carry or simply surplus to requirements.
For the Armorer, the sight of deliberately destroyed weapons was like sacrilege. His obsession was to keep as much of this old tech as possible in good working order—not just because it was essential to survival in the Deathlands, but also because he could see beauty in the varieties of weaponry, and the ways in which they worked their art of chilling.