Well over one century old, the predark matter-trans chambers sent travelers randomly to other units, the secret of their precise control lost forever.
As always, during the time the friends were unconscious, hallucinations filled their minds, idyllic dreams and mad visions, phantasms of old enemies, bloody battles and sexual fantasies. But on this journey the visions died before being truly formed. Suddenly, solid, flooring was beneath Ryan’s back, and he was reeling a bit from the usual aftershocks of being instantly transferred to a new destination.
As the mist began to thin, Ryan lay still, a pounding headache momentarily clouding his vision. The masking clouds of mist were unusually thick this time. Or was it the sulfur fumes? The awful heat of the lava seemed still to be with them, and he tried to force breath into his heaving chest Hot, he was so hot, and needed to draw a lungful of air. But he seemed unable to pull atmosphere inside his aching body. Was this another of the hallucinations? He had never dreamed of arriving before. Had they gone anywhere? Or where they still reduced to electronic signals pulsing along the hidden network of the worldwide web of mat-trans units yet to arrive? Perhaps never to arrive. Fireblast, there were times that he hated these bastard machines.
Slowly, the mists dissipated, but his vision was still oddly obscured. Squinting his good eye, Ryan saw the others working their mouths as if trying to draw air into their lungs.
Krysty was on her hands and knees. “Can’t… breathe,” she gasped, her prehensile hair hanging limply, as if the living strands of crimson were unconscious. Her chest rose and fell unnaturally as she tried to father air.
Jak had managed to get to his feet and leaned weakly against one of the armaglass walls. He began to drip sweat, black stains spreading over his camou-colored vest. J.B. was on his stomach, his beloved fedora bunched in a white-knuckled hand. Gasping, Mildred was tearing at the crew neck of her T-shirt, desperate to get restrictive clothing away from her throat His ebony swordstick lying at his feet, Doc grimaced as if in the grip of an invisible fist squeezing the very life out of him. Clutching the Browning to his chest, Dean stood stock-stiIl, as if dead and ready to topple over.
Clearly, there was no more time to wait. Ryan had to know if they were safe or should chance another jump immediately. Summoning strength, the one-eyed man forced himself to step out of the jump unit, half expecting his feet to vanish into fiery ash But his worn combat boots thumped onto a solid floor. There was no lava. The black-walled chamber was empty except for them. Thankfully, they had jumped to a different redoubt. Yet the heat was still here, cooking them to death.
Ryan hawked to clear his dry throat. “Something’s wrong,” he managed to croak.
“Jump now,” Mildred gasped. “Heat’s going to kill us.”
Ryan shook his head. “Can’t until we know for sure that the other redoubt is gone. If we jump back before the volcano melts the chamber completely, we fry.”
“I say thee, nay, Agamemnon,” Doc gasped. “Trepidation is unnecessary. We are quite safe.”
“Bullshit,” Dean coughed.
“A useful enough organic by-product of domesticated bovines, but not a correct summation in this particular instance, young Dean,” Doc said, pausing between the words. “This roasting is merely…” He swallowed. “From the residual…heat that jumped with us. See?” He pointed a bony finger downward. There lay several large lumps of glowing orange rock among them, radiating a fierce heat like miniature blast furnaces.
“The old coot is right,” Mildred gasped. “The lava came along with us.”
“Some. It seems as if our timing has exceeded our quotient of luck by the nth factor.”
“Come on out,” Ryan ordered, “I can feel the redoubt’s life support starting to pump in cool air.” Then his stomach rebelled and he doubled over to retch loudly in the corner. Jump sickness almost always affected some of the companions, but usually Doc and Jak.
The friends staggered to their feet or pushed from the walls, moving as far from the lava as possible. Everybody was pale and holding throbbing heads. Jak sported a bad nosebleed and several of them used the corners of the chamber to vomit Wordlessly, Mildred extracted a battered canteen from her backpack. Unscrewing the chained cap took two tries, but it finally came free. The physician made a bitter face, then forced her to take a long swallow.