Or at least, that was the plan. It soon became apparent that the Illuminated Ones had other ideas.
As the scouts and the med group rounded the dogleg of the tunnel and moved downward, they noticed that some of the corridors leading to dorms, sec-camera monitor rooms and storage bays were cut off, their sec doors closed. Rooms that led directly off the corridor were also firmly closed.
Mildred called the scout party back.
“Problem?” Dette asked in an edgy tone. From the way she was looking around, Mildred guessed that the warrior was unhappy with being stuck beneath ground.
“Could be,” Mildred replied. “Nothing ahead, I know, but what about these corridors and rooms?”
“What, you figure there could be warriors waiting behind them to spring out on us?”
Mildred shook her head, pulling back her plaits. “That would have already happened. Besides, it’s too close to the surface for them to do that. That’ll happen farther down, when they feel we have a false sense of security.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Dette countered.
“I just want to see if any of these doors—corridors or rooms—open when we try them,” she replied.
“You are kidding, right?” Dette said sharply. “They’ll be booby trapped, and blow us away if we’re not careful.”
“Then we’ll be careful,” Mildred said coldly, not caring for the woman’s tone.
“For fuck’s sake, we’re supposed to be making an advance—” Dette began, before Tammy cut her short.
“We’re not doing that, either, the more you stand here arguing,” the Gate number two snapped. “Let’s try some of them, yeah?”
Dette nodded, seething but keeping herself in check. The two parties then backtracked to a sec door leading to an ancillary corridor. Mildred checked and could see the code on the scratch plate above the keypad.
“You keep back,” she said softly to the others.
“Hang on,” Dean interrupted, staying her hand as she was about to punch the first number. “You stay back. You’re the one we need to keep alive right now. Let me.”
Their eyes met for a long moment, until Mildred looked away, acknowledging that Dean was right. She stepped back and joined the others, who were taking cover behind a concrete buttress.
Dean stared at the code and then at the keypad. He felt a trickle of sweat, cold in the small of his back. His finger trembled as he punched the first digit. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and punched in the second. Again, nothing happened. He continued this for each digit until the last, when he hesitated for a moment, feeling a cold gnaw of fear in his gut. If it was going to go, it would on this—
He hit the last digit of the code, flinching as his finger made contact with the keypad.
Nothing.
Nothing at all. Not the explosion, ripping him to shreds, that he had feared, but neither was there any movement from the door.
Dean frowned and with a renewed confidence punched in the full code for a second time.
Again nothing happened.
He turned to the others, backing away from the door. He still kept watch from the corner of his eye, and had his Browning Hi-Power to hand, in case something should suddenly occur.
“I think they’ve put a lock on by remote control,” he said as he drew near. “Try some of the others.”
He and Mildred then worked their way back while the others kept watch, trying both the ancillary corridor sec doors and the closed doors to ancillary rooms. All were locked and failed to respond when their codes were punched in.
“We’ve got a real problem here,” Mildred said, shaking her head in anger as she and Dean returned to the rest of the scout and lab parties.
“In what way?” Nita asked.
Tammy gave her a withering look. “You stupe bitch,” she began.
“I’ve been saying that for a long time,” Dette observed quietly, but was stopped dead by Tammy’s glare.
“Cut that shit out,” she hissed before explaining patiently to the tall blonde, “It’s like this. They shut off all these exits, and then we have to go exactly where they want us. Like when we arrived here, remember?”