Lost Gates (20 page)

Without a word the two men exchanged looks. Ryan nodded shortly, and Jak moved to the control room door. He keyed the sec code to open it and stood back as it shuddered to life, opening slowly with the stiffness of a mechanism that had been too long out of use.

Light flooded in from the corridor outside, but the quality of air remained the same. There was the same
musty and stale aftertaste to it that suggested that it had been recycled with a decreasing frequency. It was breathable, as no oxygen had ever been extracted from it, but age hadn’t flavored it with any sweetness.

“No one here, and not been ages,” Jak commented. “Should be safe.”

“Still, keep it frosty,” Ryan said, moving ahead of the albino youth and out into the corridor, his trusty SIG-Sauer loose in his grasp. His eye scanned in either direction. The corridor was empty, and like the control room, a patina of dirt covered the walls and floor, smearing dust and grime over the lighting. Webs of dust and dirt had formed in the curves of the corridor’s wall and ceiling. The floor was undisturbed. Any footprints or tracks would have shown in the dust.

“Come on,” Ryan said, beckoning to Jak to follow as he headed toward the curve of the corridor that would take them on an upward path.

The albino teen fell in behind him.

There was a quiet that hung like a pall over the redoubt as they ascended to the next level. Jak kept his attention focused, keeping an ear out for anything that may betray the presence of another living creature. Yet his instincts, working on a more subconscious level, spoke to him of the lack of life.

“We might just get lucky here,” Ryan whispered. Even as he did, it struck him as absurd that he was keeping his voice low. What need was there for him to do that? The redoubt was deserted, of that he had little doubt. Yet there was something about the sepulchral silence of the corridor stretching in front of and behind them that caused him to speak quietly despite himself.

“Lucky?” Jak responded, puzzled.

Ryan nodded. In response to Jak’s normal tone, he endeavored to raise his own voice. It rang in his ears and the empty space of the corridor.

“Yeah, lucky. Think about it. This place has been deserted, since the dawn of skydark, by the looks of things. It looks like whoever was here got the hell out in a hurry. If they didn’t clear up after themselves in all the little things, chances are that they weren’t too bothered to hang around for a major evacuation, either. And it sure as hell doesn’t look and feel like anyone else has been down here since. So what are the chances of the armory having been moved out, or looted at some point since? And if that’s the case, then chances are that there’s some weapons there that we can use.”

“Have to be small,” Jak mused. “Something can hide from prying eyes.”

Ryan nodded. “Grens. Small enough to not be seen. They’ll only be looking to take back our own blasters and blades. Shit, they haven’t looked for anything else so far.”

Jak’s face broke into a crooked and humorless grin. “Yeah. Bastards are shit sec men, but no chance slip shit past yet.”

Ryan’s grin matched Jak’s. “Mebbe that’s all about to change, eh?”

The two companions continued their climb to the level where the medical facilities and armory would be kept. They didn’t bother to waste time, as they saw it, looking in any of the other rooms that they passed. Some doors were closed and would remain so for the rest of time. Others were open, the briefest glimpse as
they passed showing that there was nothing inside but the debris of a hasty evacuation. In one dorm, clothes, bedding and magazines lay strewed across the mattresses and on the floors, hastily tipped over as belongings were grabbed before the long gone inhabitants had run for…what? Most likely their own hastened demise.

This mute testament to the panic of the nukecaust went unremarked as the friends headed for their goal with the determination of those bent on vengeance. They were intent on getting the weapons they needed to gain the upper hand in the unspoken battle with Crabbe, and to do it with the maximum amount of time to spare.

In a redoubt such as this, deserted and with nothing that could deflect them from their course, it should have been a simple matter to achieve their goal.

At least, that was how Ryan saw it as they reached the level on which the armory was housed. Ahead of them was a door that had been closed for well over a hundred years. The one-eyed man exchanged a glance with Jak. From the level of grime and dust that was gathered on the corridor floor in front of them, the armory was as intact as it had been when predark military stalked the corridors.

Ryan looked at his wrist chron. It had taken them no time at all to secure the area and move from the mat-trans unit to this level. They had plenty of time to take a leisurely look around to see what was inside, take their pick of the ordnance that had been stored there since skydark and return to the mat-trans with ample time to spare. Ryan grinned and motioned Jak to the armory entrance.

With a brief nod, Jak stepped forward and keyed in the code that would open the armory after so long.

With a squeal of protest, the door began to open. They had a brief, tantalizing glimpse of the ordnance within before all hell broke loose.

A
LL WAS SILENT
in the mat-trans control room. Krysty was huddled over a comp desk, not wanting to look up and so catch the eye of the baron. Crabbe, for his part, was pacing the floor, muttering to himself. Sal, lurking in the background, was trying as much as any man could to render himself invisible. He didn’t want to catch the eye of his baron. Far too often over the years he had felt the force of Crabbe’s anger, even when he had been achieving the kind of near miracles that any other would have rewarded him for. Crabbe demanded high standards of himself, and was driven by an overwhelming ambition. He expected the same of all others that served under him, expected it even if they didn’t share that ambition.

McCready didn’t have that ambition, but he could fake it. And he had for a long time. When the baron became old and lost his grip on his ville, then he would be ready to pounce. Meantime, he would play the loyal lieutenant and say “yes sir” and “no sir” when Crabbe demanded.

For now he would keep his men with their blasters trained on the outlanders. It was a no-brainer that the old man would want them chilled at the end of the mission. He didn’t give a shit about the disk the old man kept going on about. If he got it from the two missions that were left, then he would be difficult. If he didn’t,
the disappointment would drag him down to such a level that maybe—just maybe—the time would be here sooner than he could have hoped.

He looked at his men, and then at the three outlanders as they sat at his feet. As it should be, he figured. Jock and J.T. were sitting quietly. The old bastard had a smug look about him, and it was bugging McCready. He wanted to shake down the old geezer before the one-eyed fucker and Snowy came back. They were the worst ones. Mean streak in the pair of them, and they looked like they could handle themselves more than the others. Millicent was a tough bitch, but at the end of the day that’s all she was. She was looking around, sizing things up, and trying to look for some kind of opening. He’d trust her as far as he could throw her. No, not even that far. It was like she was trying to communicate with Kirsty. Not that the mutie bitch wanted to look up. Running scared or holding secrets. Weird. He was sure there was something going on. Come to that, he was less than happy when he looked at J.T. Under the lighting, the way he was sitting, the light was reflecting off his glasses and shielding his eyes. It was impossible to read him. McCready didn’t like that.

Maybe he should do something before the one-eyed freak and his bastard dwarf sidekick came back.

J.B.
WAS OBSERVING
the sec chief, knowing that the way he had tilted his head would make it impossible for the man to know that he was being watched. He figured that the sec chief was getting jumpy. Whatever might go down, the squat man was liable to be a loose cannon, a danger to the baron as much as to J.B. and his
companions—and that made him a liability that would need dealing with as soon as possible.

Both Mildred and Doc harbored their own thoughts, kept their secret clutched tight to them as there was no way that they could share it with Krysty and J.B., much as they wanted. There was a moment when they would have to act. Without this action, they were doomed. If not from Crabbe, then from his sec man. But how to judge that moment?

The air was tight with the tension between them, so tight that it was almost impossible to breathe.

The question was, would it crack before Ryan and Jak returned?

For a moment they got a glimpse of what lay within the redoubt. It was, as they had hoped, a fully stocked and untouched armory. More than that, the quality and range of the weaponry showed that this was more than just an ancillary base. The racks of rifles and SMGs, the open cabinets of handblasters and the crates of grens and ammo—this was only to be expected. But there were strange-looking blasters, as well, that were of an odd design and a strange white metal. The barrels ended in molded shapes that would allow for no conventional ammo. They looked like the kind of pulse and laser rifles that Jak and Ryan had seen before, and which they thought were a rare commodity. There were also strange weapons that were like flame-throwers but were of a different hue. They had base packs like flame throwers, but the nozzled handsets ended in dishes with protruding antennas.

It was a treasure trove, the likes of which would have astounded J.B.

But there was no chance for them to really take it in. Even less of a chance for them to select anything that they could take back and use against the baron and his hateful henchmen.

For their vision was suddenly restricted by the way in which the lighting around them cut out for a second,
to be replaced a strobing red light that was accompanied by a Klaxon that sounded at a deafening volume. Even as it started, a Plexiglas screen descended from the ceiling, sealing the contents of the armory forever beyond their grasp.

Ryan looked up and around. The hair on the back of his neck began to prickle. There was more to this than just an alarm.

Jak grabbed his arm and tugged. The sirens were so loud that it would have been pointless to waste words on speech. Ryan had instinctively stepped back from the Plexiglas screen as it had fallen, and now he looked around in the direction that Jak’s movement indicated. It was hard to make out anything in the strobing light: a dark, crimson slash of red followed by a blinking of the blackest night that gave his eye no chance to adjust to the contrast and the bleeding of the spectrum.

As such, it took a fraction of a second before he understood what it was that the albino teen was trying to bring to his attention. And when he did comprehend, he knew that the fraction of a second was something that he could no longer allow himself. There would be no time if this was the shape of what was coming their way.

Knowing that, like Jak, it would waste time and breath to try to yell above the blaring siren, Ryan simply turned and began to run, beckoning to his companion that he should follow. In truth, Jak needed no second bidding as he took one look at the bizarre mechanical creatures that were fast approaching through the alternating red and black, the strobe effect rendering their progress strangely jerky and unreal. He had
never seen anything like them before, and he was damn sure that, like Ryan, he had no desire to stick around to see what they were like up close. His every instinct was screaming at him that these were stone-cold chillers, whatever they were.

If Krysty had been with them, she could have told him that they were likely to be the automated remnants of soldiers who had once served at the base. During her brief and bizarre encounter with the man who called himself the Thunder Rider she had seen such machines. The last insane descendant of a megarich and powerful predark family, he had lived among the remains of his ancestors’ wealth and privilege, including military tech that had taken the family servants and housed their brains in machines that would never wear out or buy the farm. Perhaps such bizarre experiments were what had happened to some of the soldiers stationed in the redoubt.

Right then, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that these bizarre creatures, remnants of a time long since past, had been drawn out of the shadows and into life by the intrusion of Jak and Ryan. And for whatever reason they had been released from a point between the armory and the level that housed the mat-trans unit, in effect cutting off the duo from their effective escape route.

Looking back over his shoulder as he ran, Ryan could see that the machines were gaining on them. It was like a nightmare—you kept running, you looked back and saw them at your rear, and then for a moment the world went black. Then, when the light returned, poor as it was, you could see that they had gotten closer,
as though leaping in time as well as space. The strobing actually made it impossible to judge just how close they were, or how fast their progress was. All Ryan could see was that these inhuman monsters, already seeming to move in an even more alien manner because of the disorienting light, were gaining on them far too quickly for his liking.

He fired the SIG-Sauer over his shoulder as he ran, hardly even bothering to sight. There were five, maybe six of them—it was hard to tell with the way in which the lights were messing with his vision—and although they weren’t large they kept in a close formation, moving almost abreast across the width of the corridor. Even the wildest of shots was likely to hit something, and Ryan was no wild shot, albeit on the run and firing over his shoulder without anything more than a glance.

He was pretty sure that the SIG-Sauer wouldn’t be powerful enough to penetrate the metal shells of their mechanical pursuers. The white spark of light as the slug hit the casing of one of the creatures showed this to be true. A ricochet couldn’t be heard above the blaring sirens. Even though its progress was momentarily slowed as the impact knocked it back and sideways, it did little more than gain the companions an extra yard of distance on that mechanism alone. Knocked back and out of line, it soon righted itself and continued as though nothing had happened, moving at the same pace as the others, but just a little to their rear.

Jak turned and fired in the same way. The heavier ordnance of his Magnum blaster should make some kind of difference. The recoil from firing over his shoulder and while on the move caused him to stum
ble momentarily. Ryan almost broke step, instinctively moving toward Jak to halt his fall, should it happen.

But there was little chance of that. Jak was far too fleet and sure of foot, and he compensated in less than the blink of an eye. He also grinned, hungry with the fire of battle in his belly. The heavier gauge slug had hit one of the creatures full-on, denting the middle of its armor plate and sending it spinning around, its momentum causing an increasing orbit that cannoned it into some of the others, knocking them in turn from their forward momentum.

The pair gained some time and some valuable distance: not much, but enough for them to hit a bend in the corridor and lose the machines from their sight for a moment. A moment that could be of the utmost importance, for they had a double problem. The first was that they needed to get some kind of cover, find some kind of angle from which they could turn the situation around, so that instead of being pursued they could round on their attackers from some kind of relative safety and then blow the bastards to pieces.

The second problem was that they were being driven away from the mat-trans unit, with the clock ticking and this obstacle barring their path. They had to knock it out if they were to stand any chance of getting out of the redoubt. Already it had become as simple as that: they had to get out. The armory with its treasure trove, hidden and preserved behind the Plexiglas screen, was now something that Ryan tried to put out of his mind. Whatever they may have been able to plunder from it and take back was now lost to them.

It would be all they could do to get out in one piece.

As this flashed through his mind, he kept his eye out for anywhere that would give them cover for attack. The sirens were disorienting, their alternating screech seeming to run in rhythm with the strobe, making it hard to think without his train of thought being interrupted. That would be the point of them, he guessed. Couldn’t be much else. The trouble was that it made it hard for him to see where they could find cover. Everything around him seemed to be red and black shadow, fading in and out of vision. If he tried to stare too hard into the flashing abyss, he found himself becoming mesmerized by the insistent light pulses, his gait faltering.

It was Jak’s hand, tight around his forearm, that once again brought him out of his reverie and showed him a solution. The albino teen had been keeping his eyes wide open, his own natural albinism meaning that his vision was less affected by the reduction in light. As to the mesmeric effects of the strobe, it had long since been proved that it took a lot to make Jak Lauren lose his focus.

With two quick gestures, he indicated to Ryan that they should use the rooms on either side of the corridor to mount an ambush. There would be no time to recce either room; they would have to burst through the closed doors and hope for the best.

Without even the time for this thought to take full shape in his mind, Ryan briefly nodded and took two strides, launching a foot at the door on his side of the corridor. In the blare of sound around them, it was strangely noiseless as it crashed open. The room beyond was also flashing red and black—the whole redoubt, it
seemed, had hit this kind of emergency state—and so it was almost impossible for him to see inside the room with any kind of clarity. It didn’t matter. SIG-Sauer raised and cocked, he followed his own forward momentum as it carried him into the room. He swept the interior with his arm. If anything had dared to move, it would have got blasted before he could even register exactly what it might be.

The room was empty. Without pausing for breath, he pivoted and closed the door until it was almost shut. He got the briefest glimpse of a door doing likewise on the other side of the corridor and knew that Jak, too, had found his room empty. He couldn’t hear them above the sound of the siren, but he knew that their mechanical pursuers had to be closing on them. Whatever kind of sensory equipment they had, he hoped that they wouldn’t have registered what had just taken place, and that they wouldn’t be able, likewise, to sense that the rooms on either side were occupied by life as they rolled past.

Moments later, through the gap in the door, he could see a blur as the mechanized sec passed by. Were they on wheel, tracks or feet of some kind? It was impossible to tell. Would it make a difference to how they could be defeated? Probably not, he thought.

With a yell that was to psyche himself, seeing as it wouldn’t be heard above the clamor of the Klaxon, Ryan pulled open the door and swung out into the corridor, adopting a two-footed stance that would enable him to steady himself and take careful aim in the minimum possible time. From the corner of his eye he could see Jak do the same, almost in exact parallel. The albino
youth’s stance was looser, but then he had more recoil to absorb from his heavier weapon.

The machines were a few yards in front, with their backs to the two companions. Neither Ryan nor Jak could be certain, but it was a bet worth taking that they would be unable to turn that quickly. Their backs were exposed, and it was unlikely that they could return fire.

Just as well, considering that Ryan knew his SIG-Sauer wasn’t effective against their metal plate. He would have to pick his shots with care. Jak’s Magnum blaster could do more raw damage, but the SIG-Sauer needed to be used as a precision tool.

Despite the situation, he felt calmer now. They were more in control of the situation, and he knew that they thrived in situations like this.

The first volley of fire was loud, even with the sirens going off around them. The boom of the Colt Python resounded, cutting through the blare of the Klaxon and momentarily deafening Ryan as he stood beside the albino teen. His own weapon sounded like a popgun next to it—or would have done if it had been in any way audible above the other sounds.

The machines were hit by a hail of fire as Jak and Ryan fired repeatedly. The one-eyed man aimed low. He could just about see in the red shadows that the lower backs of the machines had exposed panels that looked like connectors: to what, he neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was that the rear of their pursuers had a weak spot that might just allow him to place a shell that would have some effect. And he was pretty sure that he did. Showers of spark and fire, white in the red and black glare, rose from two of the machines,
causing them to suddenly move in erratic orbits around each other, crashing into the others and sending them spinning in their own orbits.

As they pivoted like targets in old predark fairground attractions, Jak’s Magnum slugs hammered into them. The heavy-caliber ammo smashed the plating that would otherwise have protected them. Two exploded, their innards spilling out as the power units combusted. The pieces showered over the corridor, skidding across the floor and making Ryan and Jak move quickly out of the way of their trajectories.

The machines that weren’t damaged beyond repair and movement by the hail of fire that let up only instantly while both men reloaded their blasters soon found that they were scuppered by their own allies. The rogue and damaged machines caused as much if not more damage than the blasterfire than had precipitated the carnage. Whirling and combusting, they became the engines of their own destruction.

By the time this had occurred, Ryan and Jak had already turned and were on the move toward the lower levels of the redoubt and their route back to their companions. Satisfied that the machines were no longer a threat they felt safe in turning their backs. And yet, as they ran, they both had the feeling that the machines wouldn’t be the only danger that would beset them before they could find a way back.

Ryan could feel the pounding of his heart against his damaged ribs as he ran. Almost unconsciously he started to take shorter breaths, trying to save his ribs from strain. Sure, he had felt better after the jump, but he was still carrying the injury, and the strange boost
given him by the second jump was now wearing thin with the exertion.

Jak could sense, rather than see, that Ryan was slowing, and he adjusted his pace accordingly. He wasn’t going to leave the one-eyed man in his wake. They would get through this together, and he was sure that there was something to get through just ahead of them. With the sirens and lights like this, a few automated sec machines wouldn’t be the sum total of the defenses they had triggered.