The girl looked dazzlingly pretty to Ryan, her long golden hair tied back with a
strand of emerald ribbon. Her red satin blouse had a small rip across the right
breast, showing a tantalizing amount of flesh. Her short suede skirt clung
tightly to her thighs, heightening her femininity. On her right hip was the
bolstered pearl-handled Walther PPK, apparently chambered for a .22 cartridge.
Not much of a stopper unless you were very good with it.
“Hi,” said Ryan, receiving a broad smile from the girl, and a nod.
“Leave you two young people together, I think,” said Doc, grinning and bowing
formally from the waist to Lori, walking off before Ryan could say anything.
“I’m goin’ out,” said Ryan.
Her head shook so violently that he feared she might have a fit.
“Yeah, want to see some outside. Seen enough inside for a while. You comin’?”
Again a shake of her head. She took his arm and tried to pull him back into the
center of the redoubt.
“No, lady, I’m goin’. You stay. That’s fine.”
She kept her grip on his arm but made no further effort to check him. He walked
along with her at his side, conscious of her attractiveness; wearing heels, she
topped him by a couple of inches.
Ryan felt himself becoming aroused. Time was he’d have just laid her down in the
passage and done it to her—without a single pang of conscience or regret. A
woman asked for it with Ryan Cawdor, and a woman got it. Simple as icin’ a
stickie.
They descended the winding stairs level by level until they reached the tenth
floor, which was near the bottom of the complex. At the base of the staircase,
there was a pair of heavy steel doors, firmly locked. Ryan paused, wondering
what the Keeper wanted to shut off in there.
“What’s in there, Lori?”
Her face tightened with concentration. She put both hands to her cheek and
closed her eyes, miming sleep.
“Beds? You come and sleep down here?”
Lori shook her head sadly. Then she bit her lip, trying again. She pointed to
the doors and clutched her chest, rolled her eyes and sank slowly and gracefully
to the floor, where she lay still, one leg bent beneath her. Not quite
understanding the meaning of the pantomime, Ryan noticed that the girl wore no
panties beneath the red suede skirt, and that her pubic hair was naturally as
gold as her head.
“They…they’re dead in there? Sleeping? Dead?”
She sat up with a radiant smile, then folded her arms around herself and
shuddered.
“Frozen? Fireblast, you mean that there’s folk in there, frozen and dead?”
She stood up, looking at him, mouth trembling open, almost as if she was about
to talk. But the moment passed, and she turned and ran down a lateral corridor
until all he heard was the tinkling of her spurs.
He stood for some seconds, looking at the great doors, wondering if the secret
of the lost generations of the redoubt lay behind them. But whatever the secret
was, he decided that it didn’t much interest him. What he wanted was some fresh
air.
He and J.B. had worked out the controls on a previous visit. The exit code was
displayed on a green liquid panel. It was three digits. As soon as you pressed
the Ready button, a return code appeared, three digits plus a letter to complete
the sequence. Ryan touched the button that turned on the display panel. It
showed 9.2.9. and the return code, 5.9.6. followed by the letter H.
The secondary entrance to the redoubt slid soundlessly open.
Ryan’s nostrils were immediately filled with the stench of sulfur. Outside,
sleet and snow whirled across a flat paved area about fifty paces square. In the
stockpile they’d found dozens of snow buggies with tracks that enabled them to
go over any kind of terrain. But for this brief excursion, Ryan had chosen to go
on foot.
Repeating to himself, “Five, nine, six, H,” he stepped through the door and
watched it close behind him.
The landscape was as bleak as anything he’d ever seen. The redoubt was set into
the side of a mountain. A long trail wound toward a steep valley below. There