James Axler – Stoneface

“So,” Ryan said musingly, “it looks like Lars was telling the truth about this place.”

“As much truth as he understood. Make no mistakefrom what we’ve seen so far, and that’s very damned little, I’d judge the people who live here are a hell of a lot more dangerous than the Helskel crowd.”

Ryan stood, prodding the senseless Bob with the toe of a boot. “Yeah, Lars said that, too. What do you want to do with this guy?”

Mildred shrugged and tugged on her glove. “Your call. You shot him.”

Dragging Bob to a far corner and laying him on his stomach, he used the man’s tie, belt and shoelaces to gag and bind him. It was difficult since he had only one arm, so Ryan bound his wrist to his ankles, bending his legs up behind him. He briefly contemplated dumping the man down the nasal passage. Trader would have done it, and a few years before, he might have done it, too. But it didn’t seem right to take the life of a helpless man.

Aside from that, there was a tactical wisdom in sparing the man’s life; he and Mildred were the invaders here. Unwilling interlopers, maybe, but interlopers nonetheless. If there was even a marginal chance of reasoning with the Anthill residents, it made sense not to arouse their anger.

He returned to Mildred and they approached the doorway. The panel was still up. The woman suddenly put a hand on his chest and said, “Wait!”

Eyeing the panel, she said, “I think there’s a photoelectric eye there. Just strolling through the beam might trigger an alarm.”

Ryan produced Bob’s ID badge and clipped it to the breast pocket of his coat. “Already thought of that. This dot looks like a light-sensitive cell. Seen them before, in other installations.”

Mildred smiled and nodded in understanding. “I get it. If the cell is of the same electrochemical spectrum as the beam, it will interact with it, not react to it. Like a passkey.”

“You said it better than I could have, Mildred. Let’s give it a try.”

Hands on their blasters, they walked up the steps and through the doorway, past the wall panel. Nothing happened.

“You were right,” Ryan said, relief in his voice.

“You thought of it first,” Mildred replied, sounding just as relieved.

They found themselves in a squarish tunnel. The light from two wire-encased electric bulbs glistened from the cold rock walls. The crude marks of tools showed on the stone. Ryan pointed them out.

“So far, this place doesn’t seem to be the high-tech heaven Hellstrom made it out to be,” he said. “Even the worst redoubt we ever visited wasn’t chipped out of rock.”

A faint musky but cloying odor took them by the throats and tried to force out coughs. Ryan stifled it, walking steadily along the passageway, his SIG-Sauer leading. A powdery coating of dust covered the tunnel floor, and each footstep caused a small cloud to puff up beneath their boots.

“They wouldn’t win any awards for good housekeeping, either,” Mildred commented, holding a finger beneath her nose to prevent a sneeze.

A wedge of light glimmered before them. They slowed their pace and sidled along the wall. The tunnel opened out into an enormous vaulted chamber, its ceiling almost lost high in the darkness. Both of them jolted to unsteady halts, forgetting the killzone they were braving. They had to blink and shake their heads, fighting to absorb what they were seeing. Ryan in particular wondered if it was indeed real and tangible and not a hallucination.

Mildred opened her mouth, gaping, her staring eyes sweeping the chamber. “Mother of God and sweet baby Jesus in her arms.”

Ryan didn’t say anything. He seemed to have lost the capacity for speech. He caught his breath in awed wonder.

The vast room was filled, almost as far as the eye could see, with crates, boxes, stacks of books, electronic gadgets, furniture, sleek and shining wheeled vehicles, paintings and musical instruments. The huge room was a museum of mechanics, art, literature, seemingly of the entire predark culture. There was simply far too much to absorb, much less identify.

Many of the objects and items were unfamiliar to Ryan, but he knew the thousands of items in the gargantuan vault represented the destroyed aspirations of a destroyed and dead society.