“How’d they keep it hidden?”
“Money, of course. Jack. To be put in with the other freezies, you had to pay dear. The freezies’ lair was private. Getting down there involved some trick with the elevators, back when they were functioning. I don’t know the details. Don’t matter anyway. They had to have a backup plan in case the elevators fucked up, and that’s where you’d go in.”
“Will I have to rappel down the elevator shaft?” Adrian asked nervously, already feeling his arms ache. “I’ll have to lose some weight and get in better shape.”
“Shit,” his new benefactor replied, taking another long swig of his beer, “you think I’d want to go diving down an elevator shaft? No way. No, what you’ll need to do first is to find the stairs.”
“All right. That I can handle.”
“When you enter the main floor of the med-center tower, there’s an admitting desk. You’ll have two choices. Right or left. Go left. Take the stairs down all the way to the bottom.”
“Okay.” The scavie started to take out a scrap of paper to make notes, but Willard’s stern glare made him tuck the paper back in a pocket.
“What you doing, boy? First law of scavenging is to never write anything down.”
“I know. Sorry. Nerves.”
“This isn’t that complicated. You’ll remember it.”
“Now, you’ll have to go by feel, since the walls in the bottom look blank. There are no doors or windows. If a man was to have walked down there long ago, he’d never have suspected anything, and gone back up a level to the last floor listed on the guide maps. Keep running your fingers along the wall. I think it’s the wall on your left. Feel around until you notice a small indention. That’s the spot. Rig a series of explosive charges to take out the wall, and you should be in.”
Adrian could scarcely contain his mounting excitement. “This is fantastic! What’s inside once I bring the wall down?”
Will paused with an expression of guilt. “I don’t know. I never was brave enough to go see for myself. Like I said, I’ve been told freezies, but who can say? I went down once, had a bit of plas ex in my backpack and a time-delay fuse, and I was ready to go, oh yeah. But hell, I’ll admit to you, Alton. I got scared. The stairwell was pitch-black, and I was alone and afraid of what I might find. So, I went back up and on my way, fully intending to go back down there with a partner, but I never did.”
“And you think I should.”
“Isn’t my knowledge and advice what you came all the way to Cana for?”
“Yeah, but”
“It’s an easy score for a smart man.”
“Hah. Easy for you to say, Willard. You’ve made your bank. You’ll live here in this cabin with your woman and your guns and your sec systems until you dry up and wither away.”
“It’s all up to you, boy. You’re still young. How hungry are you?”
A FEW DAYS AFTER LEAVING Cana and returning home, Alton Adrian decided he wasn’t just hungryhe was a starving man. So he had taken the long walk down into the dark and, once at the bottom of the stairs, he’d worked the claylike plas ex in his hands, molding and shaping it into four clumps of equal size. He pressed two of the clumps at eye level separated roughly by eight feet. The other two he placed low. Then he took out the wiring and used it to attach the four clumps of explosive to a single fuse. Extending the fuse as long as he dared, Adrian crept back up the stairs, knowing he’d need to be a floor away when the fireworks began.
He had no idea how thick the door or walls might be, so he overcompensated.
The wall went up in a sound of thunder.
The scavie crept back down to admire his handiwork, and artificial light spilled out into the darkness. The room he had opened had electric lighting from within. He’d been inside for only five short minutes when he heard noises and smelled burning oilcloth.