Greenglades was just as he remembered it: lush and beautiful, and as humid as hell.
And this time there was an added bonus.
“Raining,” Jak said.
“Gaia, but it’s hot,” Krysty commented, reaching her arms behind her neck and grasping fistfuls of her long red hair in her hands. She began to twist the hair into a makeshift bun to keep it off her neck.
Dean slapped at an insect. “Little shit.” He scratched at a fresh pink bite on the back of his neck.
“Get used to it,” Ryan said sharply. “We’re going to be slogging through this mess for a while. And watch your language—you’ve been cussing more than I do! Didn’t Brody teach you manners in that school of his?”
“Yes, sir,” Dean said. “Taught me plenty. But he didn’t teach me not to cuss.”
“Funny, I thought manners were on the agenda,” Ryan said. “Leastways, they were when I dropped you off there at the school.”
“A lack of vocabulary is nothing to take pride in, young Cawdor,” Doc interjected.
“Words is words, Doc,” the boy said. “Why use big ones when the little ones will do?”
Ryan had to grin in spite of himself at that bit of logic. Even Doc was speechless.
“Out of the mouths of babes, Doc,” Krysty teased. “But I’d appreciate your taking more care, Dean. For my sake.”
“Okay, Krysty,” Dean replied, scratching again at the bite.
J.B. examined one of the broken sides of the doorway where the vanadium-steel sec door would normally have been entrenched and whistled appreciatively. “Somebody wanted in here bad.”
“What do you think they used?” Ryan asked.
“Hmm. A TOW mebbe. It’s portable enough to bring into the swamps and has enough kick. I’d say it would have to be some type of heavy antitank gear.” J.B.’s words were hurried as they tumbled out of his mouth in a torrent. The only time the taciturn Armorer ever showed any excitement was when discussing weapons and their destructive capabilities. “Or a mortar. Might have taken a dozen or so hits to do the job, but apparently they weren’t too worried about shaking up the interior since this redoubt was already quake damaged.”
“That’s how they were able to get in without a code,” Mildred said. “They huffed and they puffed and they blew the house in.”
“Yeah. We know these redoubts were built tough enough to withstand a lot of punishment, but even they can’t hold up long against an earthshaker. After the quake did the structural damage, whoever wanted in kept hammering at the door. You hammer long enough, knowing the walls were already cracked…” J.B. let his voice trail off.
“They brought down the walls of Jericho,” Doc finished.
“If you have the force of nature on your side, you can force your way into anything,” Krysty murmured. “I should know.”
Krysty’s comment wasn’t lost on the group. In addition to her empathetic abilities, the tall woman had been trained since childhood to be in tune with the electromagnetic energies of the great Earth Mother, Gaia. By tapping into these hidden pools of energy, Krysty called upon the strength of a sheer force of nature—but for a limited time, and the transformation took a terrific physical and mental toll.
She rarely forced herself to go that far, for when she was in the throes of the Earth Mother, she couldn’t be held accountable for her actions. Her private fear was that she might injure a friend instead of a foe during a transformation, or even inadvertently kill one of them.
“As you were telling young Dean earlier, nobody has any manners these days,” Doc said. “Still, these redoubts were built with the taxpayers’ money. I suppose all have the God-given right to use them as they please.”
Doc was right. The group of travelers had grown to become somewhat possessive of the hidden redoubts, and they were far from masters of the technology inside. Mildred had once said the places were like a sick version of their home away from home. Like the old-fashioned motel chains of her youth, all of the redoubts tended to be alike, from city to city and state to state.