James Axler – Stoneface

“Do it,” Ryan said. “On the level directly above me is some sort of a control room, with a mat-trans gateway. That’ll be our escape route. I’ll wait for you up there.”

“What about J.B. and the others?”

“I don’t know. There’s a vid circuit upstairs connected to the cave, but when I checked it out a little while ago, there was no sign of them.”

Mildred’s response was so long in coming that Ryan almost called her name. Then her voice filtered over the earpiece. It was unsteady.

“If they’re not there, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll think about that later. First we have to get out of here. Blow the generators.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can. I won’t make my move until you’ve made yours. I’m sure all sorts of alarms, bells and whistles will go off, and that’ll be my signal. Acknowledged?”

“Acknowledged. You know something?”

“What?”

“We need to put more thought into planning our field trips.”

“Understood. Standby.”

He waited until he was sure she’d signed off before allowing himself the luxury of a groan. Ryan sat back to wait, trying to massage the soreness from his wrists and knee.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Turning toward Uni, Mildred shouted, “You have to go back. It’s not safe in here.”

Uni narrowed its big eyes. “Why not? I’ve been here plenty of times.”

Waving toward the row of generators below, she answered, “I’m going to blow those up. There’s no telling what will happen.”

Staring first at the generators and then at Mildred, Uni asked, “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. Just get back below. I think you’ll be okay. I’ll give you a minute to get started.”

The red disk shaped eyes moved from her face to the generators, then back to her face. “What about my new brain?”

Mildred swallowed hard, feeling pity well up like a lump in her throat. “You don’t need one, honey. The one you have is just fine. Now go!”

Uni moved a few faltering steps toward the round hatchway, then turned, beaming broadly. “Come back when you’re finished, okay?”

Mildred nodded. “I’ll do my best. Be on your way now.”

Uni flipped her a quick salute and scuttled through the hatch opening, swinging the heavy cover closed. Mildred counted to sixty under her breath, trying to give Uni as much time as possible to get away from the area. As far as she or Ryan knew, destroying one generator might trigger an atomic chain reaction that would result in a do-it-yourself Hiroshima.

Mildred moved around the catwalks, heading for the optimum position from which to throw the grenades. Though her hand-eye coordination was excellent, she didn’t possess the muscle strength or the experience to throw one of the deadly explosives very far. Her best bet was to get right over the generators and drop them straight down.

She was able to reach a point on one of the walkways that was almost directly above the generator connected to the pump array. Best of all, it was only a couple of long steps to a lift cage. She examined the control box inside of the cage and saw that it was a simple lever to go down, you pushed the lever down, to go up, you pulled it up.

Mildred undipped two grenades from the combat harness, an incendiary and a fragmentation. She hoped the combination of shock, heat and about three thousand ball bearings spraying out at six thousand meters per second would accomplish her task.

Leaning as far out over the vibrating railing as she dared, Mildred held both grenades in her right hand. She armed them by pulling away the pin levers. She opened her fingers, letting both of the devices fall away toward the rows of generators fifty feet below. Then she bounded for the elevator, slamming the gate shut and grabbing the lever. Before she could jerk it up, the brutal sound of detonating high explosives and ripping, rending metal filled the vast room.

The lift cage shook violently, rattling and clattering. Water, chunks of concrete and metal flew upward in a fiery column, battering the underside of the catwalks. Mildred got a blurred image of a layer of fire clinging to the handrails and grillwork. The double concussion slapped against her eardrums.