At the front of the gateway, J.B. was busy at the closed door, stringing a piece of black wire across the jamb.
“In case of visitors,” he announced, stepping back. “Anybody tries to get inside will never reach the door alive.”
“Anything inside?” Ryan asked, checking his longblaster.
“A frag hidden in the light fixture. Got it angled so the shrapnel won’t damage the console or the power plant.”
“Good,” Dean said in approval, slapping at a skeeter on his neck. He pulled away his hand and saw a tiny smear of blood on the palm. “Can’t wait to leave.”
“I thought you were down to your last gren? Where did you get the plas? Never mind,” Krysty said, glancing at the smooth path leading from the hole in the fence to the edge of the mesa. “You were busy while I was unconscious.”
Going to the hole in the fence, she saw a pathway of churned earth wandering through the piles of rubbish and rusted metal going all the way to the edge of the mesa. The treetops spread before her like an arboreal garden, disappearing into the morning mists and onward to a lone mountain in the far distance.
“Saved every land mine we could,” J.B. said, sprinkling dirt in front of the door to hide any footprints. “But most of the ones we dug up were just rusted lumps. Useless.”
“On my hands and knees, stabbing the dirt with a knife,” Doc rumbled lugubriously. “I felt like a pig hunting truffles.”
“Only mushrooms don’t detonate and remove your face,” Mildred countered, tying a bandanna around her head in lieu of a hat. The climbing sun was already raising the temperature to uncomfortable levels. “Not even in the Deathlands.”
“Best way to clear a path,” Ryan stated walking past the rotting fence and continuing along the churned section of ground. “Nobody got chilled. That’s what matters.”
Gathering at the side of the mesa, the companions looked over the land below for any possible dangers before proceeding down the ten-foot drop. The ground was steeply sloped, and slick with spongy moss. But they reached the floor of the jungle without serious mishap.
The wide trees rose above them now, dark shadows thick within their twisted branches. Thousands of leafy vines going from tree to tree blocked their view of the sky, changing the dawn into dusk. Yet colorful flowers were everywhere, making the air almost sickly sweet with thick perfume. Insects buzzed amid the foliage or crawled along the jungle carpeting. The vibrant jungle was alive with subtle noises, and it bothered the companions. It seemed unnatural to have their surroundings buzzing with so much life.
Only a few yards away, the battered hulk of an armored bank truck rose from the lush greenery, its dissolving body covered with vines and dripping with moss. The faint vestiges of a predark road were visible under the vehicle. Carefully placing each boot as if it might break through into a yawning chasm, Ryan walked closer, noticing that the tires were gone, only bare rims on the axles, and the seats inside were just a naked collection of coiled springs. Everything organic had been eaten long ago by the myriad insects, and immutable time itself.
“Might be how our dead whitecoat got here,” Dean suggested.
“Or her killers,” Ryan countered, his eye sweeping the foliage for any possible dangers. There was a blur of motion, and he stood with a hissing snake clenched helpless in his fist.
“Coral snake. We must be near the beach,” Ryan said calmly, and whipped the creature against the side of the truck. Its spine audibly cracked from the blow, and the deadly killer went limp.
“Won’t have to hunt for lunch,” he said, rolling up the snake and tucking it into a pocket.
“The ruins are straight ahead,” J.B. announced, checking the compass, his Uzi resting on his shoulder.
Maneuvering past the truck, Ryan brushed vines and banyan flowers out of his way with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer until reaching a wall of fronds, prickly weeds and bizarre plants with thick stems and slick with moisture. Drawing the panga from its sheath, he experimentally hacked at the dense greenery blocking the way and the plants easily parted at the touch of the razor-sharp knife.