The hardest part is listening to the others, people some of us might have known, pounding on the door and begging to be let in. But they’ve been infected by the radiation. There’s nothing that can be done.
Mildred skipped ahead twenty or thirty pages. The entries became shorter, less hopeful and less punctual.
11/28/01 Major Burroughs is going around asking for volunteers to go on a raiding party into the outer sections of the installation. Rumors have started up that no one can lay to rest. We all know what we were working on now. We have to wonder what the other sections of the complex were dealing with.
And if there are any other survivors.
Despite the major’s best efforts, the group is starting to divide into factions. It’s natural, some of the people say. We’re festering inside this center. If we had a goal, maybe everyone would accept a strong leader more easily. Burroughs isn’t going to relinquish command without a struggle.
The people who engineered the Lydecker Foundation chose well in him, though. He’ll kill whomever he has to in order to keep discipline. I don’t think the others see that in him yet. Especially the egghead civilians the project was blessed with.
Mention of the Lydecker Foundation gave Mildred pause. It sounded a lot like the Totality Concept. At the same time it offered hope, the presence of the program here also scared her. Those programs had a habit of being as destructive as anything that had blown the world apart.
Mildred closed the book. It offered perhaps another couple dozen entries. The last one was dated April 19, 2005. She stuffed the journal in the rucksack she’d commandeered, along with some self-heats and ring-pulls. Whatever secrets and sorrows it held could wait until a better time to go through it.
“Not exactly going to be light reading,” she told herself in an effort to shake the weight from her shoulders as she gave the dead mother and child a final look.
Turning, she almost walked into Jak.
“Not alone anymore,” the albino whispered, covering her mouth with a leathery palm. His torch was off, put away.
She nodded to let him know that she understood, then slipped the Czech blaster from its leather. There was a scrape above her, from somewhere along the catwalk that ringed the computer center.
Mildred threw the torch away and dropped to one side a heartbeat ahead of the bullet that split the air where her skull had been.
Chapter Three
Writhing in the giant spider’s grasp, Ryan swung the panga with all his strength. The leg holding him was as tough as he’d expected, but the keen eighteen-inch blade sheared through and freed him. Blood sprayed over him as the arachnid hunkered down in momentary shock and pain.
Ryan landed against the spider’s head and immediately pushed off, sliding easily down the blood-slick hair. He dropped feet first into the sand, holding on to the panga tightly.
Wounded, the spider seemed to be having difficulty controlling its protective-coloring ability. It phased in and out of easy view. The natural colors appeared to be a very dark brown that looked black against the sand. The remaining legs dug deeply for purchase, then the body swung so that the creature could track Ryan with its beady black gaze.
Some of the feeling was returning to Ryan’s left arm, stinging pain bringing with it a stiff mobility. He managed to reach down for the Steyr and scoop it up.
The spider swept another leg at him, creasing the sand more and more deeply as it approached.
Operating on razored instincts, Ryan leaped over the leg and brought up the Steyr. Holding the rifle in one hand, feeling the burn of the weight settle across his back and shoulders, he shoved the muzzle into the spider’s face, penetrating one of the jet black eye bubbles. He squeezed the trigger as the hairs of another flailing leg missed his cheek. The rifle bucked.
The heavy 7.62 mm round rocketed through the spider’s head, spewing a cloud of green ichor out behind it.
Ryan remained relentless as the spider tried to make its escape. He followed the creature, having to step high and stretch to keep the Steyr in place, and fired four more rounds before the arachnid was able to pull away.
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