“Don’t get your germs on me,” Dean said, scooting past Doc with Jak Lauren close behind.
“Me, either,” Jak added.
Doc made a brief show of taking out his stained swallow’s-eye kerchief and putting the rag to his face in time to catch the spray as he unleashed a terrific sneeze. Everyone turned back to glare as he gave a weak smile, folded the now damp kerchief into a square packet of cloth and placed it in a rear pocket of his trousers.
“Apologies, friends. But there is no stopping a sneeze once it begins,” Doc said. “One might as well hold back a howling tornado or stop a crushing tidal wave.”
“Or stifle the verbosity blowing out of an overeducated windbag,” Mildred added.
Ryan stood waiting at the door on the other side of the lab. This silver door was a twin for the first one, with the same configuration and security keypad. Ryan waited for Doc to compose himself and keyed in the entry code, commanding the door to roll aside and allow access to the last stop on their tour.
They stepped into a foyer that led to a small anteroom containing nothing but a utilitarian metal table and two steel-and-cloth office chairs. Several fluorescent light strips gave off a feeble glow. Another vanadium-alloy-plated corridor led to a large modem room, filled with an array of more elaborate comp consoles and readout monitor screens than seen in the lab.
Some of the comp screens were dark, but others glowed in tones of amber and blue, with lines of strange symbols mixed together with letters and numbers in incomprehensible codes. Oversize comp banks as tall as a man lined one wall, and on the other was a sharply cut series of brown panels of armaglass.
None of the group seemed surprised or impressed by the control room they were now standing in. All of them had seen this kind of setup before.
“There’s the mat-trans chamber,” Mildred said, pointing at the armaglass and stating the obvious. The walls of the gateway chamber she was pointing to were a rusty brown shade.
“The color of runny crap,” J.B. muttered. “From a frightened man”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Ryan snapped back. “Want to go back and visit in Aten again? Play some Blood Stomper with the Pharaoh? Maybe dig him out from under that ruin of a pyramid so we can continue our friendly chat?”
“Hell, no,” the taciturn Armorer grunted. “Making an observation, that’s all.”
“I don’t give a shit what color this thing is. It’s our ticket out of this mess, unless Nefron’s still got the controls frozen. If that’s the case, we’re all going to have to figure out how to survive a trek clear across the Barrens. I guess we can all take turns pushing the chariot!” Ryan said, continuing to mine the vein of sarcasm J.B. had inadvertently opened up.
“Didn’t say anything about that. You did,” J.B. replied.
“Drop it, lover. Please,” Krysty said, lightly touching his arm. “We’re all on edge. Don’t need to start carving one another up.”
Still, the notion of being a coward rankled Ryan. J.B. was rightwhat were the gateways really, but the ultimate escape route? Maybe it was the easy way out if the damn thing worked this timebut after all they’d been through, Ryan really didn’t care.
One by one, each of the party stepped into the chamber and sat on the floor. Ryan waited patiently until everyone was inside and accounted for before stepping into the room himself. He turned back and stared at the door of the low-ceilinged chamber. Once closed, the advanced matter-transfer unit should automatically begin to power up and then they would be free, their very atoms reduced to mere components and shot out screaming into the void to be reassembled in another place.
Hopefully a better place than this.
“Close it,” Jak said bitterly. “Close door on fucking place.”
“Amen,” Doc echoed. “I would rather be anywhere besides here, even if I must endure this hellish mode of transit.”
“You could always walk, Doc,” Ryan said. “The offer’s still open.”
“No, I do not relish a rematch with those most unusual followers of our friend the pharaoh. Even though the good Miss Wroth has eliminated Akhnaton from this mortal coil, I shall take my chances with the matter-transfer process, thank you very much though we all know how well it sits on my aged bones.”