“Good thing most of the dye has worn off, lover,” Krysty said. “I was starting to get used to your new look until our new acquaintance pointed it out.”
“Here we are,” Alton said, gesturing toward the door of the cryo laboratory. He’d been very close to entering the actual lab. His chosen hiding place was outside the main doorway in the air lock, with the contents behind him kept sealed by a single steel door. He’d peeked inside through a small round window, but had gone no farther. Again, as in most of the lab complex except for the gateway, there were no codes or secrets for full access and entry, just a simple Admit button to cycle the air lock.
“Ready?” Mildred asked, an anxious tone in her voice as she stood in front of the doorway, clenching and unclenching her hands.
Ryan waved her on, and the woman stuck out a stocky finger and pushed the button. The air lock hummed, then opened with a sigh, and the pressure quickly equalized, allowing easy entry to a pair of double swing doors hanging on the far wall inside.
Mildred stepped through, followed closely by the others.
Ryan held out an arm, stopping the newest addition to the group. “Why don’t you and Jak stay out here,” he said, nodding toward the waiting albino. “A pair of jacks to back up our hand once we’re in.”
Blocked by Ryan’s arm, the scavenger’s eyes narrowed and his face took on a suspicious look. “I’ve played straight with you and your group. You’re not looking to cheat me, are you, Cawdor?” he asked.
“Not much you could do about it if I was, is there?” Ryan asked.
“No, but”
“I was just thinking we needed some men outside in case another band of stickies came calling. Don’t worry, we’ll protect your interest.”
The scavie looked dubious and glanced at Jak.
“Okay, Cawdor. I owe you anyway. I guess you know best.”
“Be here,” Jak added. “Come running if hear shots.”
“Like the wind,” Ryan said, stepping into the cryo facility and sealing the door to the air lock behind him.
“OUR FRIEND’S OUTSIDE with Jak. Told them to watch out for muties.”
“Good idea,” Mildred said. “We can talk more freely.”
As in other cryo centers, the layout was elementary a control room filled with comp panels dominated by a mammoth central unit in the center and a long side wall of clear glass. However, the difference came from behind the glass. There, angled on a raised platform, were a dozen silver capsules, and recessed farther into the wall on metal shelving behind the capsules were an additional twelve smaller cylinders.
“I confess, I have seen the larger cryo beds, but what are the little containers for?” Doc asked, his face reflecting his confusion.
“I don’t know. Midgets?” Dean guessed.
“Little people,” Mildred retorted. “And no, there are no little people in those casks.”
“What do you think?” Ryan asked, looking at Krysty. “Anybody in there still alive?”
“No, I don’t think so. Feels wrong,” the crimson-haired woman replied, her voice whispery as she struggled to concentrate and expand her consciousness outward. “Feels empty.”
“How so?” Mildred asked as she continued to inspect the room’s equipment.
“Not like when we found you,” the green-eyed beauty said in response as she blinked and tried to focus a second time. “Or Rick.”
“Rick” was Richard Neal Ginsberg, born March 22, 1970. Ryan and his bandbefore Mildred and Dean had joined themhad discovered the man housed within one of the cryo chambers inside a military redoubt in California. An expert in the operation of the mat-trans units and the gateways, Rick had been frozen to halt the spread of the disease that was slowly killing him, waiting in the hopes of being revived when a cure was available.
Suffering from an advanced case of Lou Gehrig’s disease, he’d been a companion for only a short time before determining that the disease was still relentlessly killing him. When the opportunity arose for a valiant sacrifice to save his new friends, Ginsberg had made the gesture.
Like Ginsberg, Mildred had also been placed in cryo sleep, but her problem was different from a life-threatening disease. Instead, the doctor had been hospitalized to undergo abdominal surgery for a possible ovarian cyst when an unexpected and completely idiosyncratic reaction to the anesthetic plunged her into a coma.
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