THE HUGE BONEYARD outside the main entrance seemed to tower higher, its sharp angles stark in the moonlight.
“Hope no more crazies,” Jak said, staring up at the towering redoubt.
“Think we killed off the last of the breed,” Ryan replied. “Soon find out.”
He realized that he’d been unconsciously waiting for Dean to jump forward and offer to press in the triple-digit number code that would open the vast vanadium-steel sec doors, as he always did.
“You waiting for Dean to do the numbers?” J.B. asked. “Me too.”
Everyone smiled as they realized that they’d all had precisely the same thought.
“Allow me,” Doc said.
“No sign water,” Jak stated, bending and touching the ground below his boots. “Dry.”
Ryan nodded. He’d already noticed that. There was no way of knowing until they were actually well inside the ranging military complex whether the flooding that had been going on when they left had continued, or how much damage it might have caused, or how deep it might have gotten. It could have reached down into the deeps of the redoubt and affected the mat-trans complex and the gateway itself.
Far too many questions.
No answers.
“Everyone get clear of the doors,” Ryan cautioned, “in case we get a tidal wave rolling over us.”
“A tsunami,” Mildred said. “That’s what they call them in Japan.”
Doc pushed a finger at the worn keyboard, peering to make sure he was hitting the right numerals in the correct order, lips moving. “Three five two.”
There was the familiar distant grinding of gears, and the door began to move. To Ryan’s relief there was no sudden gushing tumble of water.
“After me,” he said, walking cautiously into the main entrance of the redoubt, his nostrils flaring at the damp smell that permeated the complex. “Keep on double red.”
“Should I close the door again?” Doc called, standing inside. “Be safer.”
“Sure. Let her go.”
The old man pressed the numbers in reverse, two, five, three, and the moonlight was shut away. Most of the strip lights inside the complex had malfunctioned, and it felt as if the air-conditioning had also failed in the few days since they were last there.
“Damp’s gotten into the heart of the place,” J.B. said, pausing to wipe his glasses on a white handkerchief that he’d taken out of one of the capacious pockets of his coat.
“Just hope it hasn’t done any damage to the gateway.” Ryan looked around. “I think we should go straight there and try for the jump. Something here that doesn’t feel good, Krysty? You feel anything?”
She touched her sentient hair, now curled tight against her skull. “See for yourself. Can’t feel any life, though.”
THE PLACE REEKED of stale water. There were puddles in all the dips of the floor, and a film of oil lay on top, making any movement treacherous and difficult.
Some kind of mutated lichen, a sickly phosphorescent green, had taken over some of the first floor, splashing itself over walls and doors.
Doc began to sing a song about how times were getting hard, and if things didn’t get better, then he was going to leave the place. His voice echoed flat and hollow, sounding depressing. After a single verse, he fell silent again.
“Looks like the main reservoirs must’ve drained down,” Mildred commented.
“But where’s water gone?” Jak looked around, his feet slapping in a shallow puddle.
“Down.” J.B. offered a hand to Mildred to help her around one of the largest pools. “It’ll have found its own level and soaked away.”
Ryan stopped. “Yeah. Down. To the gateway?”
They worked their way through the levels, finding that the elevators still worked. Krysty hadn’t been happy.
“Suppose they malfunction and lose power when we’re halfway down in one of them. Don’t want to spend eternity in a cold, wet, metal box.”
“Worst comes to it, we can climb down the cables,” J.B. said.
“Then let us profoundly pray that the worst doesn’t come to it,” Doc muttered.
“SMELL’S WORSE.” Jak sniffed, head on one side, eyes glowing like stoplights in the bare overhead lights.
The deeper they got into the redoubt, the more harm seemed to have been done by the flooding. Twice they encountered long stretches of corridors where all of the strip lights had blown out, sprinkling the floor with shards of razored glass.