“I recall reading a survey long ago that blue was the most popular choice for favorite color,” the physician mused.
“Well, there you go,” J.B. answered, checking his weapons to make sure they’d come through safely. “I always liked blue myself.”
“Other than seeing similar shades matching the armaglass in our dreams, either of you recognize this chamber?” Ryan asked impatiently.
“No.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, then we’re in new territory. Everybody awake?” Ryan asked, getting to his feet. He reached down and felt the butt of the SIG-Sauer still holstered and fastened down. He flicked back the strap, freeing the handblaster for when he needed it. His other rifle was still safely strapped around his body, tucked away at his back.
“Define awake, lover.” The redhead was on her stomach, her arms tucked beneath her limber body.
“I’ll take that as a yes, Krysty,” he replied, kneeling to shake his son. “Dearr, you feel okay?”
Dean, who was on his side, rolled over and looked up at his father. A small spot of saliva dotted one of his cheeks. “Sure. Dreamed I was back on The Patch. Fell in the drink. Drowned.”
“I am delighted each and every one of you feels so giddy and free. I, on the other hand, feel like something tracked in on the bottom of a shoe. My left hipbone is killing me,” Doc told them.
“Roll off that damned Le Mat and you’ll be more apt to feel better,” Mildred suggested.
“Alas, to roll requires strength I currently do not possess, my good Dr. Wyeth. Perhaps you might assist me?”
“Assist yourself. I’ve got my own jump sickness to deal with,” she retorted, sitting up with her back against one of the blue armaglass walls. Her stomach was cramping, but it had been a while since she or any of the others had eaten, so she suspected her nausea was induced more by hunger than by aftereffects from the mat-trans journey.
“I’m going to take a look and see what’s waiting outside the chamber,” Ryan said. “Triple red alert for everybody. J.B., watch my back. The rest of you go ahead and get your blasters ready, just in case.”
“My dear Ryan, I doubt I currently have the strength to even hold my own pistol aloft to shoot.”
“You’re excused, then, Doc. But try and keep both eyes open. If the shit starts flying, I bet you’ll find the energy to fight back.”
“Well said,” the old man answered, and got himself into a semierect seated position facing the chamber doorway.
Stepping lightly across the floor, with J.B. close at hand, Ryan stopped and readied himself before trying the handle of the heavy armaglass door. It lifted smoothly in his gloved grip and the door opened a crack.
Drawing his blaster and keeping it held at his side, Ryan’s single blue eye peered out carefully. Outside the mat-trans, within his limited field of view, he spotted an array of digital displays and comp monitors. The comps were active, flickering in random patterns of frantic life and colored lights, the secret glowing dance that allowed each of the mat-trans units around the world to operate safely and securely. Their hard-drive bays glowing with tiny yellow dancing lights, their internal drives whirring away, all of the comps outside the chamber appeared to be in full working order.
“No anteroom,” he said quietly to his waiting friends. “This mat-trans opens right into the control center. Comps everywhere.”
“People?” J.B. asked.
Ryan shook his head no.
“Weird. I thought the engineers usually wanted a buffer zone between the unit and the control computers,” Mildred replied, voicing her private opinion that while the mat-trans chambers were self-enclosed, nearly every one of the devices they’d encountered so far seemed to keep a smaller room and wall between master control and the units themselves. These smallish, buffer rooms seemed to offer a protective layer between the forces unleashed within the self-enclosed mat-trans unit and the software kept housed in the memories of the control comps, as well as serving as a simple waiting area before and after a jump.
Ryan slowly continued to take in what he could see from his protected vantage point inside the gateway. Along the far wall, behind twin desks of industrial metal with off-white terminal stations and monitor cabinets, he spied a long series of familiar-looking information storage and retrieval units, as tall as a man, chattering softly to themselves.