James Axler – Bitter Fruit

“J.B.,” Ryan said.

“Yeah.”

“The other door.”

“Got it.” The Armorer moved almost silently despite the tomblike quietness of the redoubt.

Ryan moved toward the other door. A rectangle of wire-meshed glass was set at eye level. Peering through it, he tried to see beyond but couldn’t. He raised the self-light. The weak yellow light bounced off some metal surfaces, but didn’t give a clue as to what they were. The thin layer of frost overlaying the glass retreated, running down the metal skin of the door in tiny, diamond-bright tears.

“Too dark,” he told the others as he shook out the self-light. “J.B.” Without the light, crazy black-and-yellow patterns danced in his vision as the rods and cones tried to reassess the darkness.

The Armorer cracked a self-light, and the sharp sulfur smell lingering in the room grew even stronger. “Can’t see,” J.B. stated.

Ryan tested the door in front of him and found it unlocked. “Okay, here’s the drill. We take one door at a time, leaving our retreat open and an attack front on two sides impossible. Krysty, you’re with me. Mildred and Doc, you follow. Jak, you’re with J.B.”

The albino teenager nodded and moved off to join the Armorer.

“Ryan,” Krysty said, “I’ve found a lamp.” She took it from one of the wire shelves. A half-dozen others were racked behind it.

“Light it. If anyone’s out there, they’re bound to know we’re here by now.”

Krysty struck a self-light and held it to the wick of a small oil lamp. The flame caught quickly, burning through the wick rapidly and throwing wavering shadows against the plain concrete walls. “Dried out. It’ll burn fast for a time.” She put the glass back in place and held up the lamp. The reservoir was a third empty, and the thick fluid coiling in the bottom looked briny and gelatinous.

Embers whirled from the wick, then the corona of the flame died down as Krysty twisted up more of the oil-soaked sections. “It’s been here for a while.”

Doc sniffed. “It seems someone was trying to better a vile concoction with apparently little true success.”

“Smells like bad chili fart,” Jak commented. But he took another lamp from one of the shelves and removed the hurricane glass to get to the wick.

“A precise observation, lad,” Doc agreed, “though it certainly lacks something in polish.”

“Now,” Ryan said, opening the door and going through.

The room was bigger than the one they’d just quit. More shelves lined the walls, filled with boxes, crates and cylinders.

In the center of the floor, though, was a wag. It was small, only a four-seater, but had armor plating around the sides and a rack across the back for tying other cargo on. A .50-caliber machine gun was mounted on an arm that swiveled out in front of the back seat.

Krysty held the lamp high so the light could flood the room.

“I found a generator,” Mildred called out.

“See if you can get it started,” Ryan said. A cursory once-over of the wag gave him the impression that everything looked as though it would work. Directly in front of the wag was an electronic door. There were no windows. He tested the lock, but nothing moved. “I’m going with J.B. and Jak to see where that other door leads.”

“I’ll get an inventory going,” Krysty replied.

Ryan nodded and walked back into the other room. The smoke from the two lanterns was already starting to fill the air. Within a half hour or so, the air inside the redoubt would be acrid enough to burn their nasal passages.

“They must be trying to come through,” J.B. said as Ryan approached. He pointed his chin in the direction of the mat-trans unit. “Control panels in there keep cycling through color codes, and the disks heat up occasionally like they’re going to do something.”

Ryan glanced at the unit. Krysty had blocked the doors with a trenching tool, but they’d pulled in hard enough to warp the working end of the blade.

“Be better blow it up,” Jak commented. “Mebbe damage. No work no more. No danger.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “Except we don’t know if we can get out of here ourselves yet. And there’s no telling what’s waiting for us outside if we do. Let’s look around a little more and see what we turn up before we go doing anything too rash.”