“Nine,” Krysty said. “The last number is a nine not an eight, Ryan.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
The others agreed.
Krysty rattled it off. “Six, two, nine, N, W , two, nine. Well done, Jak.”
“Enter it in, Jak,” Ryan said. “Everyone back onto triple-red. Keep alert.”
“I can’t feel anyone near, lover.”
He grinned at her. “Probably right, Krysty. Trader used to say that a man who rests his life on a probably doesn’t get to be much older.”
They stood off in a circle while the teenager took up his position by the control panel.
There didn’t seem to be any manual override on the sec door, so it wasn’t going to be possible to stop it after a few inches. It was all-or-nothing.
The buttons clicked in smoothly, and after a couple of seconds’ hesitation, the green door began to rise ponderously into the air, leaving a film of fine dust hanging below it, finally settling silently into the recessed ceiling.
“Nothing,” Ryan said.
There was a similar corridor beyond the door, but it was slightly less wide, and one or two of the ceiling lights had malfunctioned.
“Air’s better,” Mildred said, holstering her revolver.
“Reckon we could be close to ground level,” Ryan guessed. “Passage is level.”
“Plan over there that they haven’t taken down,” J.B. said, slinging the Uzi over his shoulder and balancing the scattergun on his other shoulder.
“Only shows this level.” Krysty was trying to make sense out of the pattern of colored rectangles and circles on the schematic map, looking at the fluorescent yellow arrow with the words You Are Here.
“There appears to be some residential accommodation with washing-and-sleeping facilities,” Doc said. “If they didn’t strip it during the evacuation of the place.”
“Sometimes they leave one small section for the final platoon or whatever was working here on the last cleansing.” Ryan looked around. “That’s up to the left.”
“What was this?” The Armorer was stooped over the key, trying to read a small rectangle of white paper that had been stuck over one of the adjacent sections. “Says ‘ART.’ What does that stand for? Anyone come across it before?”
“Armament Retraining?” Krysty offered.
“Arizona Rangers’ Tercentenary?” J.B. suggested.
“American Research and Technology?” Doc guessed.
“Must be something military.” Ryan considered the acronym. “And it looks like it’s something that they only came up with at the last moment. Stuck it on. Some kind of evacuation section.” He shook his head. “No. Can’t even guess.”
“We can go look.” Jak had holstered his blaster. “Can’t we?”
“Sure. But that part with bathing facilities sounds like a number-one target for us. To the left and up a couple of levels. Hope there’s no more locked sec doors.”
RYAN FOUND HIS HOPE was fulfilled.
It was as if the big sec barrier had been a last resort, sealing off the lower part of the redoubt from above, locking it away for all time.
Before they moved on, J.B. took a stub of pencil from one of his capacious pockets and scrawled the code number of the door onto the wall by the control panel, ready if they needed it when they left the region.
Now there were more signs of human life, evidence of a hasty departure.
In a controlled and unchanging environment, the detritus of the evacuation had remained untouched. Soda cans lay crumpled in corners with gum wrappers. Wads of tissues were stained black with what could have been clotted blood, or might have been teriyaki sauce. After a hundred years there wasn’t much way of knowing.
Clothes were piled everywhere, pants and shirts in olive green, some with badges of rank still shining dully on them.
“Looks like the end came fast.” Ryan stirred a mound of scarlet berets that lay in a corner of one of the corridors.
“Wonder if they left any weapons.” J.B. muttered to himself.
But Mildred heard him. “Damned if you don’t have a one-track mind, John. How about finding some worthwhile relics of the past? Books or movies or records. Pile of personal letters. Newspapers. Better than blasters.”
“Depends on what you want them for. Book isn’t much use against a gang of screaming stickies.”