“Silas has been here.” Krysty frowned, forcing herself not to cringe from the growing misery of her living hair.
“Touch nothing!” J.B. warned, going to the door that led to the mat-trans unit. He ran fingertips along the jamb and lintel before opening the heavy portal.
“Clear,” he reported. “Let’s go!”
Rushing into the chamber, Ryan saw that the arma-glass walls had also been painted, the deep purple identifying this as Tennessee now painted over with a deep military green. However, the paint was peeling from the armaglass. But the disguise might fool a casual observer.
“Hiding his location,” Dean said, scratching at his forearms. “Smart son of a bitch.”
“Dead son of a bitch,” Mildred corrected, then paused before stepping onto the platform. “Damn. Think he might have jimmied the controls?”
“Only one way to find out,” Ryan said, and, pulling out an empty clip for the Steyr, he tossed it the chamber.
The companions closed the door and waited in mounting pain, then hastily opened it again. The metal-and-clear-plastic clip lay in plain sight on the cold floor on the chamber. Nothing had happened.
“He did something, or the microwave is affecting it,” J.B. said woodenly, the alarms screaming in the background.
Touching her quivering hair, Krysty winced slightly. “It doesn’t hurt as badly here in the mat-trans unit,” she said. “Mebbe we can ride out the attack. The blues can’t keep the Kite focused on us forever.”
“Yes, they can,” Mildred replied coldly. “And this is only buying us time. We’re still being chilled, just slower than outside.”
“What do?” Jak asked, rubbing his itchy face.
“It seems that we are to die today,” Doc said, bowing his head in finality. “Microwaves are seeping in, and the mat-trans unit is deactivated. What other course do we have?”
“Fuck that We’re trapped, not aced,” Ryan spit, rubbing a fist in the palm of his hand. “Mebbe…”
“What?” Krysty barked impatiently, her hands tucked under her arms, to keep from clawing her skin off.
His empty socket feeling as if it were filled with hungry ants, Ryan scowled. “There’s a fission reactor in the basement. The extra shielding might help protect us.”
Tossing away his hat, J.B. wiped the hot sweat from his face. “Mebbe,” he panted in agreement. “B-but for how long?”
“Till we starve to death, or they fucking turn it off!” Ryan growled, a red fury growing inside the man. “And then we’ll go back and smash that bastard machine just like we did Silas.”
“A chance for life is all I ask,” Doc said weakly. “Lead on, my dear Ryan.”
Turning for the door, Ryan braced himself for the pain waiting outside the chamber. Then, closing his good eye tight, the man charged into the control room, blindly stumbling through the maze of the redoubt for the faint hope of survival deep within the radioactive bowels of the military base.
Epilogue
Alone in the laboratory, Major Sheffield sat the computer desk and carefully turned on predark machine. It cycled through the boot programs in a few seconds, and the screen lit with a picture of a hundred tiny icons. Reaching into his shirt pocket, the sec man pulled out a CD-ROM, wiped some blood off the disk, then inserted it into the little tray as he saw Silas do once. The device pulled the drawer back inside, made soft noises, then cleared into a picture of Silas.
“Hello, Major,” the whitecoat said without a smile. “If you are listening to this, then I am dead, most likely from my own hand to stop the nightmares. If so, now you are charged with the all-important task of purifying North America, and the saving of the human race from the growing threat of the muties.”
“Think again, norm,” the major said softly, his two hearts beating hard. “And now it’s Baron Sheffield.”
The laser-disk ghost of Silas Jamaisvous went on undisturbed, “…and thus the redoubts were originally conceived during World War II as haven against the crude nukes of the time. However, upon creation of the mat-trans unit, several interesting possibilities became evident and the Pentagon decided to implement a particularly bold plan called Overproject Whisper…”
The voice went on for hours, and Sheffield stayed through the night, drinking in the most amazing story he had ever heard, all the more so because he knew it to be completely true.