James Axler – Cold Asylum

Chapter Three

As Ryan opened the door of the gateway chamber, he was struck by the strange taste of the air. It wasn’t the flat dull taste that he was so used to in other redoubts. This had an exotic scent of lustrous flowers that had become sickly and overblown, a warm and damp smell that also carried with it another taint.

Human sweat.

Finger tight on the trigger of the SIG-Sauer, Ryan stepped silently out into the anteroom that was always a part of the mat-trans complex.

But something barred his way. A scarlet rope with yellow tassels had been strung across the entrance.

A large rectangular piece of car was fixed to the thick cord. Ryan carefully stepped over the rope, making sure he didn’t touch it, then looked back.

Keep out.

The room was bare, with two short shelves fixed to the wall near the distant door, which Ryan knew would open into the control room for the gateway.

He paused to listen, wondering whether he’d actually heard voices beyond the door. He decided that he’d imagined it, but didn’t put the blaster back in its holster.

The handle of the second door was clean and polished. Ryan turned it very slowly, pressing his eye to the narrow gap and seeing what he’d expected rows and rows of chattering comp consoles.

The smell of human perspiration was stronger, overlaid with something sweet, like popped corn with honey.

“Don’t touch anything!”

The voice was so loud that it made Ryan jump and nearly squeeze a round from the SIG-Sauer.

“When this building was uncovered during the digging of foundations for a new housing development, great care was taken not to tamper with it. There have been many lookings to find how it worked, but so far no successes with that.”

It was English, but with an odd accent and with peculiar phrasings. Ryan’s first guess was that it was someone speaking who came from below the Grandee, but it wasn’t quite like the usual sort of Mex-speak.

“We think it was closed up in the month of January, which is the first of the year, in 2001, which was when skydark came and long nights lived for many times. Please keep the children away from that next room, lady. It’s double-real out of bounds.”

Ryan flattened himself back in the little room, knowing that any attempt to close the control-section door would draw attention to him. There were others out there, apart from the speaker, who almost sounded as if he were taking them on a conducted tour.

“Story is that a big bomb exploded in Washington and that set off the war.” A harsh laugh. “Not that war is correct word. More like nukes in noon and night and morning, and after the noon also. About twenty lived from every ten thousand. In the big villes, more like one living.”

Another voice asked a question that Ryan couldn’t quite catch.

But he heard the answer. “We know it was called ‘mat-trans,’ and we think somehow sent food or stuff through space. We reckon it was a nuke trick. But Won’t tell you again to watch that child, lady. But we don’t know nothing how it worked. Could be locked in some way so doesn’t function.”

Ryan bit his lip, not knowing what was happening. Why was there a working gateway that they hadn’t been able to use to carry out jumps? Could it be that it was only able to receive? If so, he was in serious trouble. Or mebbe it needed some kind of priming, like a hand pump. Otherwise, the first of these strangers to go in and close the door behind him would have had one of the great all-time shocks.

“Want to go in and see, Grandy?” The voice of a whining child sounded less than a yard away from Ryan.

“Shut up, Langdon.” The admonition was followed by a muffled slap and a cry of pain.

“Thank you, lady. These things we look at are old and rare and can’t be touched or ruins come fast. The Museum of Our Past got more things to show. Let’s move on now. Hey!”

Ryan had been backing away toward the gateway, ready to chance another quick jump to get away from wherever he was. Then the door to the control area burst open and a skinny boy, looking around twelve, pushed in. He was dressed in scruffy cotton pants and a torn vest, with a red peaked cap struck on his foxy skull. In his right hand he held a bright plastic windmill.