Heading down the zigzagging antirad tunnel from the front door, the companions burst into the garage of the redoubt. The area was packed solid with the materials and supplies from the National Guard armoryvehicles, Bradleys, trucks and a dozen Hummers. Crates of weapons, explosives and blasters were stacked to the ceiling. It was the wealth of the predark world.
“Implo grens!” J.B. cried and went straight to the case. The other companions assumed defensive positions and watched the mouth of the entrance corridor for any sign of the approaching fog.
“Well?” Ryan snapped after a few seconds.
“Almost got it,” the Armorer grunted, struggling to rip open the packing case. His knife slipped and hit the floor, skittering away.
Jak gestured and handed him another.
“Move it, John!” Mildred shouted, pointing as the first tendril of the Cerberus cloud came sneaking around the corner.
“Buy me some time!” J.B. cried, stabbing a knife into the resilient plastic. Flakes chipped away with every blow. In just a couple of minutes he’d have the grens they needed.
“Pray tell, with what?” Doc retorted hotly, both hands busy reloading his Civil War blaster.
“Try this!” Dean said, throwing the last Molotov.
The tendril retreated a bit from the small blaze, and Ryan looked over the assortment of military hardware for an answer. There was enough here to conquer the world, but nothing was primed and ready. In five minutes they would be safe, in an hour unstoppable. But they had only moments before the cloud would be here. They needed something right now.
“The lantern!” Ryan said, and grabbed it from Krysty to smash the pressurized lamp on top of a sealed wooden crate carrying the alphanumeric sequence for thermite grens. The wick ignited the oil and the flames climbed high, burning into the wood.
“Time to go,” Ryan ordered, stepping into the maze of crates. “Take the stairs. The elevators might not be working.”
“Just another couple of sees,” J.B. grunted, hacking away at the stubborn wood. There was already a hole in the top of the crate, and he could see a piece of an implo gren. It was only inches away. The Armorer tried to shove his hand into the opening, but it was too muscular. The splinter stabbed his flesh, making the hand slippery with blood and he forced it in deeper, a fingertip brushing the handle of the deadly high-tech gren.
Grabbing the arm, Mildred pulled the man away from the crate. “We have to go now, John,” she shouted, firing her revolver at the approaching fog.
Blood dripping onto the floor, J.B. glared in raw hatred at the packing crate, then grabbed his Uzi and started off at a run.
Almost every redoubt was built along similar designs, and this was a configuration the companions knew by heart. Dodging through the crates, they reached the stairs and jumped down the steps. As they reached the third level, they plowed out of the stairwell and charged for the mat-trans chamber.
Slamming open the door to the control room, they saw that the comps and monitors were operating normally. Going to the chamber, Krysty opened the veined door and everybody raced through. The last one in, Ryan saw a wisp of fog snake into the control room.
“It’s here,” he stated, then hurriedly closed the door and sat quickly on the floor.
As always, the mat-trans unit waited patiently a few moments for a destination code to be pressed into the keypad. When nothing was entered, the machine commenced to activate a random jump.
Static electricity began crackling in the air as wild lights sparkled. Slowly, a swirling mist began to cloud the chamber, twinkling lights like tiny stars shooting through the material of the floor and the companions themselves. Only yards away, Ryan saw the door begin to dissolve under the arrival of the Cerberus fog. Seconds counted now.
The lights grew in numbers and brightness until they were immersed in a swirling galaxy of flaring novas. The universe vanished, and the companions fell through the floor into infinite nothingness, and beyond.
Epilogue
A hundred miles away, Lord Baron Kinnison was driving his Hummer through the farmlands of his island, heading for the sulfur mines to review the torture status of some slaves, when a powerful quake shook the land.