James Axler – Cold Asylum

J.B. HAD HEARD the muffled ringing noise and immediately stopped. He had been walking at good speed, confident from the dull taste of the air that nobody had been in that section of the complex for many, many years.

“Dark night!” he breathed. He had no doubt at all that someone else was inside the redoubt with him.

MILRED RECOVERED consciousness, feeling as though she were suffering from the worst migraine in the history of the universe.

There were a whole mess of things that she couldn’t stand about living in Deathlands, but the sickening horror of making a mat-trans jump was among the worst. She sat up very slowly, holding her head in both hands, not yet willing to open her eyes.

When Mildred eventually did, the flaming brightness of the cherry-red armaglass walls of the chamber almost made her pass out again.

THE CHEMICAL SMELL GREW stronger as the elevator climbed the endless shaft. Ryan waited patiently, trying to work out the speed he was traveling at and, hence, the depth of the mat-trans section of the redoubt. But it was impossible to judge. All he could tell for sure was that it was seriously deep.

There was a tiny, bell-like pinging sound, and the upward movement slowed and then ceased. Ryan’s finger hesitated over the button that would open the sliding steel door.

He ran his mind over the code in case he needed to get back quickly to the gateway. In case he needed to get back to the gateway at all . The overwhelming probability was that he would never be able to return if he forgot the comp sequence.

“Green, C, M, nineteen, blue, five, E, E, red,” he recited, making sure he had it right.

Numbers had never been his strong point. Trader, even though he was nearly illiterate, was able to reel off strings of map coordinates or quote endless details of muzzle velocities or the populations and sec strength of dozens of villes throughout Deathlands.

Here, at the top of the shaft, the air seemed a little fresher, though it also carried a stronger taint of the medical smells. Ryan couldn’t believe that the place was still working as a hospital. During his travels with War Wags One and Two, he would surely have heard something about such a place.

But he gripped his blaster more tightly, eased the shoulder strap on the Steyr rifle and pressed the button.

J.B. SAW THE ELEVATOR, with the light showing that it was at the top. He also spotted the code written out on the wall alongside the control panel. He moved in closer and waited.

“FIREBLAST.”

The impenetrable sec door slid open and the elevator cage was flooded with the hospital smell, so strong and sickly that it made Ryan gag. It was overlaid with more familiar scentsthe sweetness of decay and the unforgettable gut-churning odor of much dying.

He wished profoundly that he had J.B. on his right hand to face whatever it was that lay out there. Perhaps whatever it was might walk alone.

There was an open area immediately in front of him, with a number of other passages leading off it. Ryan saw there was a large wall plan of the redoubt opposite, but it had been daubed with what could have been paint, tar or old, dried blood. Whatever it was had completely obscured the map.

The floor outside the elevator was in stark contrast to that around the gateway. It was muddy and scuffed, showing the blurred marks of dozens of feet. As Ryan stepped out of the cage, with infinite caution, he saw that the walls on either side of it had been hacked and scarred, the reinforced concrete gouged and the vanadium steel of the door itself and its surround showing innumerable bright scratches.

But there were no marks of gunfire. No evidence that anyone had tried to use a gren to break into the elevator and get down to the mat-trans section. The damage looked like it had been done with nothing more lethal than knives or chisels.

The control panel had also been attacked, but the cover was sheet armaglass and had hardly been touched. Ryan pressed his finger to the contact pad marked “Door Close” and stood back, mentally rehearsing the control code to himself.