Part 4 (1/2)
”Open them,” Ryan ordered. ”You've got blood on your face.”
Dean carefully opened one eye, then the other. He touched the sticky blood on his chin and sighed. ”Gets old. Wish I could figure out a way to stop this from happening.”
”Don't we all. Anybody else awake yet?” Ryan asked the room, regaining his usual composure as the light continued to fade to a normal level.
”Yeah, but I wish I wasn't,” Mildred Wyeth replied. ”I think I scarred my retinas.”
”Light was pretty d.a.m.n bright. Never seen it go so high,” Ryan said. ”Guess it doesn't matter much as long as we're all here in one piece.”
”Speak for yourself, Ryan. I haven't tried sitting up yet,” the black woman replied.
The last thing the physician remembered was feeling all of the fillings in her teeth starting to vibrate and a metallic hum rising within her mouth to match the pitch and frequency of the teleportation disks overhead and underfoot in the small redoubt in the desert.
Then came the smoke, and the blue haze, and the long, lazy tendrils of fog. Unlike most of her companions, all of whom subconsciously held their breath as the eldritch process of the jump began, Mildred always breathed deeply, taking the ion-charged atmosphere deep into her lungs. She believed it helped with the dispersal and recalibration of her individual molecules when they where broken down and rea.s.sembled at their eventual destination.
So far, she had managed to avoid any references to Star Trek , Dr. Leonard ”Bones” McCoy, having her ”atoms scrambled” and the Stars.h.i.+p Enterprise not because she didn't think it would be funny, but because it was tiring to be the only person in the room laughing at a jokethough Doc might get itand by the time she'd explained everything it wouldn't be funny anymore.
”Like looking into sun,” Jak said softly, speaking for the first time since their arrival. His own ruby orbs were infinitely more suited for low levels of light and shadow instead of the bright lighting in the new mat-trans chamber.
”It's not that bad, Jak. Wasn't that bad, I mean,” Ryan replied, getting slowly to his feet and keeping his blaster leveled at the door. ”I took a good look when I came to, and I seem to be all right. The spots'll fade.”
”Thank Gaia. You don't have the sight to lose,” Krysty replied, revealing she, too, was awake.
”h.e.l.l of a ride,” J.B. announced, sitting up and stretching. He took out his gla.s.ses and placed them on his lean nose before standing.
The mat-trans chamber they occupied was the traditional hexagonal shape, but everything else was different. A lower than usual ceiling tapered to a central point. Ryan had to duck when crossing the center of the room. An array of open silver mat-trans disks were overhead, close enough for Ryan to reach up and touch. A smooth, flat floor that appeared to be made of a thick clear substance with the lower mat-trans disks sealed within like insects in amber rested beneath the group's bodies. The disks were softly creaking as they contracted from their expansion, cooling down from the incredible heat unleashed during the jumping process.
The usual metallic smell was in the air, a flat, bitter scent of pressurized oxygen from the gases released during the jump.
There was nothing pleasant about a matter transfer jump. However, everyone was relieved to know that the odds were in their favor of being a long, long way from the Barrens, and that knowledge alone was enough to help relieve some of the feelings of illness that came with gateway transport.
However, this mat-trans chamber came with yet another new twist.
What could only be interpreted as a clear ob window was embedded in one wall, next to the doorway. At least the familiar thick armagla.s.s that served as the walls of the chamber was in evidence here, although colorless in a dingy opaque gray sort of way. Trying to see through it was impossible, like trying to peer through a window covered in grime.
”What gives?” Ryan asked. ”This place is a mat-trans chamber, but the feel is all wrong.”
”I agree,” Krysty answered. ”And I don't think we're the only ones here.”
”Think we're being watched?”
”Hope not.”
Mildred was standing in front of the ob window with J.B, who had unlimbered his Uzi and was standing combat ready.
”One thing's for sure. This isn't just another redoubt,” the Armorer murmured. ”If you think the chamber's different, get a gander at the control room.”
Everyone but the still unconscious Doc clambered over for a look, keeping their heads low as they peeked outside. The window revealed a wide, low-ceilingedlike the chamberroom that was antiseptically white. A series of black lines gave the floor a checkerboard pattern. A single white desk with a comp and monitor rested directly across from the window.
”Simple, stripped down. Where's all of the hardware?” Mildred wondered aloud.
”Another room, perhaps?” J.B. replied. ”There's a small anteroom off from the gateway between us and main control anyway.”
”Mebbe. Mebbe not,” Ryan said. ”Still, I do see a door, off to the far left.”
Everyone looked in the direction where the one-eyed man was gesturing. There was a door, which appeared to be painted eggsh.e.l.l white with a simple silver doork.n.o.b. No high-tech locking systems or security key pads were visible. The frame had the look of being reinforced, and a thin rubber seal could be spied for an extraclose fit, but that was all in the way of modification.
”From the lack of security, I'd guess this place is commercial. Not military,” Mildred mused. ”I wonder what part of Deathlands we're in this time?”
Ryan tried the handle on the heavy armagla.s.s door. It lifted up easily, and the door opened a crack.
”Never seen a mat-trans unit like this, and the colors of the walls are new. We're in unexplored territory here,” he replied. ”May want to take another jump out of here triple fast. Might be safer.”
Doc remained oblivious, still unconscious and coiled in a fetal position on the floor. ”Don't think these jumps are getting less stressful for Doc,” Krysty said as she knelt next to him and pushed back a few wisps of long white hair from his face and forehead.
”My dear, you have a singular talent for stating the obvious even as you soothe my troubled brow,” Doc retorted, smiling at her while keeping his eyes closed. ”I do wish, however, the fates would choose the easier path and set me down gently upon it.”
”You're not dead yet,” Ryan said. ”Get your skinny a.s.s up, you old faker.”
”I believe a predark expression was, 'My eyes feel like poached eggs,'” Doc volunteered, then curled his long, hawkish nose and sniffed. ”Burned poached eggs, at that, if the scent my nose has detected is true.”
Ryan smelled the odor, as well, which was now wafting into the mat-trans chamber through the door he'd opened.
”J.B., you smell it?” Ryan asked urgently.
”Dark night,” the Armorer replied as an affirmative, ”smoke.”
”And where there's smoke” Doc said, his voice trailing off.
”There's fire,” Dean finished. ”We've got to go. Now.”
”Can you move yet?” Ryan asked, striding over to where Doc sat.
The old man shook his head slowly. ”No,” he whispered. ”Not yet. Not at any kind of speed.”
”I'm not asking for a sprint. I just want you to walk fast.”
”Alas, my dear Ryan, I fear even elementary locomotion is beyond my reach. A few moments more, and I might rouse myself”
”We don't have a few minutes,” Ryan snapped. ”Guess you get to improvise, Doc.”
”My good man,” Doc said indignantly, ”my life thus far has been nothing but one long improvisation.”
”We'll have to carry him,” Ryan said simply.
”Krysty, you take his feet. I've got his upper body. J.B., take the point. Mildred, Dean, fall in behind him. Jak, you're on the rear. Let's see what's burning. If there's a fire in the control room, we might not be jumping back after all. Triple red, people. Let's move!”
”Didn't count on fighting any fires today,” Mildred said, glancing through the ob window at a bright red extinguisher hanging against one of the white walls outside the gateway. ”And I imagine the charge in that old extinguisher wouldn't even put out a match.”
”That's what we get for jumping into something besides a good old-fas.h.i.+oned military redoubt,” Ryan retorted. ”At least in those, we know what's coming, most of the time.”