The four Magistrates in the jump seats obeyed his order without comment, climbing out through the rear storage hatch. Presky flung open the gull-wing door on the driver’s side and stepped out. All five of them formed a line in front of the Sandcat, standing stiffly at attention.
Stenz surveyed them swiftly, silently. All of them Miller, Hughes, Lewis, DeCampo and Preskywore the black polycarbonate body armor. The lightweight exoskeletons fit snugly over undersheathings made of Kevlar weave. Small disk-shaped badges of office were emblazoned on the arching left pectoral, depicting the stylized, balanced scales of justice superimposed over nine-spoked wheels. The badges symbolized the Magistrate’s oath to keep the wheels of justice turning in the nine villes.
Like the armor, their helmets were made of black polycarbonate, and fitted over the upper half and back of the head, leaving only a portion of the mouth and chin exposed. The red-tinted visors were composed of electrochemical polymers and connected to a passive night sight that intensified ambient light to permit one-color night vision.
Stenz snapped, “Lock and lock.”
In unison, the Magistrates raised their right arms, bending them at the elbow. They extended their index fingers. Five tiny electric motors whined as they tensed their wrist tendons. Sensitive actuators activated flexible cables in the forearm holsters and snapped the Sin
Eaters smoothly into gloved hands. Since the big-bored automatic handblasters had no trigger guards or safeties, the pistols fired immediately upon the touch of crooked index fingers.
They stood quietly, barrels pointed toward the lead-colored sky. Though they were too disciplined to show it, Stenz knew they were all worried about the high rad count. He nodded, not in approval of their silent acceptance of the risks, but in acknowledgment. “I’ll take the point. Let’s move out.”
He clambered up the pile of lichen-patched stone. Though Ericson hadn’t said so, he figured the massive slabs and chunks of rock had once been the upper floors of a multilevel complex. Sheared-away reinforcing rods jutted out of the edges of some pieces like rusty, skeletal fingers.
A tiny six-legged lizard, its skin bleached a dingy brown, flopped sluggishly out of his path. Its eyes were covered by a gelatinous film. Stenz inhaled sharply at the sight of the mutated reptile. The acrid air seared his throat, and it took a great effort not to succumb to a coughing fit.
The climb was not particularly rugged because the heaps of fallen rock and concrete formed a crude stairway. Beneath a shelf of granite stood the wide sec door. As Ericson had described, a square keypad was positioned within the recessed double frame. Taking and holding a deep breath, he punched in the three-digit entrance code, 3-5-2.
Stenz released his breath when a grinding, squeaking sound of buried hydraulics and gears began to build. He stepped back, eyeing the shuddering portal nervously. The vibration triggered miniavalanches in the surrounding stone, small pebbles pattering down amid sifting showers of grit.
Though he couldn’t be positive, the laborious groaning of the mechanisms indicated that the door hadn’t opened in a long time, perhaps not since before the oukecaust.
Like a curtain of steel, the massive door slowly inched upward. With a squealing grate of rust breaking free and a prolonged pneumatic hiss, it slid into slots between the double frame channels. Solenoids snapped loudly as they caught and held. The rumbling, grinding oise ceased abruptly. The Magistrates behind him drew back uncertainly.
A wide, square corridor yawned on the other side of the threshold. Inadequately lit by a single light strip stretching along the center of the ceiling, the glow was a dim, misty white. Stenz saw an undisturbed layer of dust covering the floor.
He activated the tiny image enhancer on the forepart of his helmet. The corridor leaped into clear, sharp, one-color focus. A musty odor tickled his nostrils. Feeling the pressure of the eyes of the squad on his back, Stenz squared his shoulders and took the first step beneath the sec door and into Redoubt Papa. The Magistrates followed him, fanning out across the passageway in the standard wedge deployment of personnel and firepower.
Stenz wasn’t surprised that the overhead light still functioned. He’d been told that the redoubts were powered by nuclear generators, which were buried in the deepest part of the installations, just like the mat-trans gateways. As he walked along, heel to toe, he kept alert for any sign of a stairwell or an elevator shaft.