Sixth Cycle Page 8

  “Sure you remember the code? That chamber hasn’t fried your brain?” Trader said.

  “You just get me there. I’ll open the loading doors if the bunker has power.”

  Jake couldn’t forget 072069, the date man first stepped foot on the moon. Fingerprint recognition was also required for access. Keeping the code to himself would provide his ongoing usefulness. A finger would be easy to snip off a dead body.

  “Good. We’ll load up, and I’ll make my other delivery to Sigma. That’s where we stay between trades. I think you’ll like it.”

  “If it’s anything like Omega, I doubt it.”

  Trader laughed. “There’s only a couple like Finch. Sigma is probably the closest thing to the world you remember, and they don’t have a butterfly-obsessed leader.”

  “What are you hoping to find here?”

  “I’m hoping you can find me things. Weapons, technology, supplies, tools, anything that can make our society stronger.”

  Jake cast his mind back to the first time he toured one of the underground facilities. He walked around the cavernous cryo-warehouses filled with vats of water, equipment and freeze-dried food. Corridors led to smaller storage units stocked with frozen produce like milk, meat, eggs and vegetables. It also had an airtight armory housing rifles, machine guns and guided weapons. The duplex living quarters had stasis pods on the lower floor, and an operations room, kitchen, bedrooms and a social area on the upper level. All areas were controlled by a sophisticated management system in the operations room, which monitored each part and isolated any individual problems. The techs called it compartmentalization.

  “There’s more than two of these places,” Jake said. “I know locations in Wyoming.”

  “It’s enough for now. We’ve got plenty of time on our hands, and it’ll tell us if it’s worth finding more.”

  The chain-link fence undulated in height around the facility’s perimeter where some of the supports had collapsed. On the standing sections, rusty chain-link curled up from the ground where the fastenings rusted away and the fence pinged free.

  An early evening breeze sent a ripple across the waist-high grass inside the facility. The front gate, also chain-link with a steel frame, loosely hung from its bottom hinge. Trader aimed the SUV at it and accelerated. Jake braced himself. The front bull-bar crashed against it, and it flew to the left with a metallic rattle.

  He skidded to a stop outside the ivy-covered topside building. The other seven vehicles followed, flattening the plants that sprang from the cracks in the concrete paving, and came to a halt in an extended line.

  The setting sun shined directly through the windshield, warming Jake’s face.

  Trader opened the SUV’s rear door and passed Jake a black handheld spotlight that looked like a police speed gun. “You’ll be needing this.”

  Jake clicked it on and off. “Bunkers were designed to last a thousand years. Unless it’s been sabotaged or suffered a chronic system failure, we should be okay once we’re in.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Trader said and turned to his assembled team. “Tess and Pete, come with us and secure the area. The rest of you keep watch until we confirm entry and removable contents.”

  A tall, stocky man with red hair organized the team around the building. Two split off and joined Jake and Trader.

  Only a few faded light blue patches of paint were left on the rusty door. Trader shoved the handle down and shouldered it open.

  Jake peered inside the gloomy entrance. Thin light radiated through the dirt-stained window, illuminating a workstation in the corner. Mold spores freckled the leather swivel chair and gray laminate desk. The cracked monitor screen and keyboard had dust smeared away from their surfaces. They would be far too eroded to use; besides, the topside building took its power from conventional sources.

  “This way,” Trader said and flicked on his spotlight.

  Jake did the same and followed him through the office along a dark corridor. Floorboards creaked beneath his feet, and he ducked under a cobweb. The configuration matched the bunker he previously visited one hundred and thirty-five years ago. In the room at the end of the corridor, Trader shone his beam at the circular steel hatch. The floor tiles that used to cover it were piled in the far left corner.

  He waved Tess and Pete forward. They both grabbed each side of the hatch wheel and twisted. Metal threads screeched against each other as they rotated it open. Not quite as bad as fingernails along a chalkboard, but close. Pete grabbed the raising handle, grunted and pulled it open. It dropped backward with a hollow thud, sending a puff of dust into the dank air.

  Jake shone his spotlight down the vertical shaft. A metal ladder was attached to a smooth concrete wall and descended two hundred feet. Staff usually entered through the loading doors after using the topside intercom. This hatch was designed as an emergency or reconnaissance exit after bunker lockdown.

  “How did you know it was here?” Jake said.

  “People have known for years,” Trader said. “You’ll see when you get to the bottom.”

  Jake attached the spotlight to his webbing belt so the light shone by his feet. “Here goes.”

  The ladder felt chilly against his hands, and the temperature dropped as he descended, sending a shiver down his spine. Jake gripped each rung tightly and maintained three points of contact. His spotlight flashed around the wall below with each step down.

  He looked up and squinted at Trader’s spotlight, stabbing through the dark and dazzling his eyes. The hole at the top gradually reduced in size, and the clinking echo of hands and boots against metal increased.

  Jake felt vibrations through the ladder and the sound of rifles scraping against the side of the shaft. The others climbing down. He looked between his legs to where his spotlight’s ray hit the ground twenty feet below. He increased his speed of descent, and his boots landed on the solid surface.

  Jake shone his spotlight along a sparse, musty smelling, forty-yard tunnel and moved his beam around the blast door at the end. A metal guard surrounded the entry panel on the left wall.

  Trader wheezed down the last few rungs and let out a deep breath. “Shouldn’t have started smoking. Bad for my health.”

  “Driving between strongholds under the constant threat of attack isn’t good for it either,” Jake said.

  “True enough. But what we find here might help.”

  Pete and Tess quickly followed. She dusted herself down and clicked on a head torch. Jake walked along the tunnel toward the blast door. Dew covered the walls and dripped from the roof. Dark lines formed in the concrete where it had cracked and decayed; patches of mold surrounded them. The internal bunker walls were twice as thick as the entry tunnel’s. He hoped the rot hadn’t set in too deep.

  The blast door had scratches and small dents around the edges, and two black explosion marks against the bottom of it. Probably feeble attempts to get in with tools and a couple of grenades.

  Jake pointed to the minor damage. “This your work, Trader?”

  He shrugged. “Had to at least try, didn’t we?”

  “And destroy the panel in the process? Not the smartest move.”

  “It’s still intact. Do your work.”

  Trader creaked the protective shield to one side and revealed a silver box. A weak blue light illuminated around the edge of each circular key and the black thumb screen to the left of it.

  Jake protected the keypad with his body, keeping it out of sight, and keyed in the code. A green LED winked continuously. He pressed his thumb against the pad. Nothing happened.

  “Do we have a problem?” Trader said.

  Jake felt conscious that he had his back to three armed people, who had rescued him from Omega and expected him to open the bunker. He already witnessed how brutal this new world could be.

  “Give me a second,” Jake said.

  He licked his finger and smudged it across the thumb screen before keying in the code again. Taking a deep breath, he pressed his t
humb firmly on the pad again.

  The winking light turned solid green.

  A boom echoed along the tunnel after the heavy bolts of the triple lock system snapped back into the door. It yawned open, and a blast of warm air rushed out. Jake’s pulse raced at the thought of touching his own reality again.

  Only five of the hundred ceiling lights in the cryo-warehouse were on, casting a faint radiance over the fifty rows of tall metal shelves below. At the far end, elevated above the infrastructure, monitors glowed from behind the control room’s observation window.

  Rapid footsteps slapped against the warehouse surface. A man wailed.

  Jake drew his gun.

  Trader and his two-man team advanced. He held his arm out to stop them.

  “This is Captain Jake Phillips of Endeavor Three. Identify yourself.”

  The sound of a slamming door reverberated around the warehouse.

  “He must be one of yours,” Pete said. “We would’ve known if somebody came out here.”

  “If the wastelanders didn’t get them first,” Jake said.

  “Doesn’t mean to say that someone hasn’t come in,” Trader said.

  “Not likely. Unless it’s one of the other captains from my bomber.”

  The idea of it excited Jake, but he wanted to maintain his composure and not let his thoughts run wild. They had stasis pods in here too, and the occupant might be another Rip Van Winkel. The nickname amused rather than offended him. People who couldn’t take a joke or nickname usually suffered in the Fleet. Rightly or wrongly, it was just the way things worked.

  “Do you know the layout?” Tess said.

  Jake nodded. “Follow me. He’s probably gone to the living quarters.”

  He crept forward and swept his gun across the warehouse. Shelves towered over him at either side. Two sacks of grain had burst across the floor. Empty packets of freeze-dried food littered the lower shelves. Supplies were being used, and plenty of them.

  Pete and Tess prowled along between two aisles. Jake edged around a small lift truck with a half-full crate of sugar balanced on its forks and moved along the side of the facility.

  The ceiling lights flickered off.

  Jake crouched against the shelves. He heard the others shuffling to cover.

  Trader raised his spotlight. Through the gaps in the shelves, Tess’ head torch shone down in front of her. She adjusted the beam to her front.

  “Pete, where are you?” Trader said.

  “One row across.”

  “Get over here. We need to stick together.”

  Pete ran toward the end of the aisle. A quicker route to get to Trader’s position, rather than doubling back. Jake heard a twang, like a guitar string snapping.

  “Get down!” he shouted.

  He dove behind the truck. Trader skidded across the floor next to him.

  A deafening blast ripped through the air, accompanied with a blinding flash of light. The shelves rattled. A sack split above him and dried peas rained on his head.

  Pete cried in anguish.

  A high-pitched tone whistled in Jake’s ears. He sprang to his feet, grabbed Trader’s arm, and hauled him up.

  “What the hell?” Trader said.

  “Trip wire. Looks like he’s booby-trapped the place.”

  Jake shone his spotlight three feet in front, and slowly moved around to Pete. Tess knelt over him and sliced open the right leg of his cargo pants with a knife.

  Pete screwed his face up and tried to lean up to look at his leg. Trader focused his light on a bloodied gouge in his calf.

  “We’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry about that,” Trader said.

  Pete hissed through clenched teeth. “How bad is it?”

  “You’ll live. Straight back to Sigma when we’ve finished here.”

  “I’ll get the others,” Tess said.

  Jake decided to take the lead. They needed to be assertive. If the occupant had rigged trip wires across the warehouse, he’d have a gun trained on it too, turning the place into a killing ground.

  “We need to move,” Jake said. “Tess, help Pete back to the tunnel and take care of him. If you can’t stop the bleeding, tourniquet his leg. Trader, let’s go.”

  Tess looked at Trader.

  “Do it,” Trader said.

  “Double back and make our way around the edge,” Jake said. “Take it nice and easy and get to the upper level. He must’ve hit the lights in the control room.”

  They were probably facing a military man. If they came back later, the defenses might be stronger.

  Both he and Trader held their guns in their right hands and spotlights in the other. Jake retraced their steps and moved to the left edge of the warehouse. His light punched through the dusty darkness and searched the ground ahead of them.

  In an ideal world he wouldn’t advertise his position like this, but with the threat of trip wires and other potential dangers, they needed to carefully survey their route.

  Jake stopped and crouched before reaching level with the light from Tess’ head torch. He could see her applying downward pressure to Pete’s shrapnel wound through a gap in the shelves. Pete held his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his moans.

  Something glinted ahead. Jake edged forward and identified another wire, a foot off the ground. He followed its line from a vent on the warehouse wall, across to the shelving units. Three grenades were taped to the leg of a unit. The wire attached to the pin of the middle grenade.

  Trader crawled alongside him. “We can always come back.”

  “No. He’ll be expecting that. If you send in a larger group, you’ll pick up more casualties.”

  Jake stepped over the wire and checked for a secondary trap.

  A burst of automatic gunfire rattled overhead. Rounds smacked into the wall above Jake. He rolled to his side. A muzzle flashed in the control room as another burst peppered the shelves close to Tess and Pete. One of the rounds ricocheted off the metal frame and whizzed through the air. The control room window’s shattered glass showered the warehouse floor.

  Jake carried out a quick search of the space between himself and the door to the upper level. Without seeing any signs of a trap, he flicked off his spotlight, jumped to his feet, and sprinted for the door.

  He reached it in seconds and dragged it open. Blue light bathed the far end of the corridor, the area with huge cryo-units that contained frozen meat, dairy and vegetables. Jake’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten for the last one hundred and thirty years, or ten hours if he wanted to be picky. That could wait.

  Vinyl-covered stairs to his right led to the upper level. He aimed high and climbed, treading as softly as possible.

  Three single shots echoed from the warehouse. A burst of automatic fire replied. Trader keeping the hostile occupant busy. At least he had the sense to realize Jake’s play.

  Jake reached the top and craned his neck around the corner. The monitors from the control room cast light from its open entrance into the gloomy corridor. Another burst of gunfire rattled. Shell cases clinked and rolled on the tiled floor.

  He crept toward the entrance and listened. A man mumbled something, fired again. Jake heard the click and metallic slide of a magazine release. He seized the opportunity, swung around the door, and aimed at a skinny figure ducking below the window.

  “Freeze. You’ve got three seconds to drop your rifle.”

  The man ignored him and fumbled with the magazine. A graying beard reached down past his chest. Stains covered his sky blue Fleet T-shirt and filthy white underpants. Red, green and blue lights flashed on the console behind him.

  “Two.”

  He shot a wild glance at Jake through his red-rimmed eyes. The room stank of stale body odor.

  “One.”

  The man dropped his magazine and rifle, and raised his shaking hands.

  “Hit the lights,” Jake said.

  “Excuse me?” he said in a low voice.

  “I’m Captain Jake P
hillips from Endeavor Three. Hit the lights. Now.”

  “You’re one of us? Do you hear the voices?”

  The man had clearly lost his marbles, but Jake knew that people in these types of situations needed firm direction. “I won’t ask you again. Turn on the facility lights. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He pointed at a monitor showing a view outside from the loading doors. “Crazy people attack them. It’s not safe.”

  Jake stepped forward. The man scampered to the console. They were roughly the same height, just over six foot, but his stick-thin frame probably weighed about one hundred pounds. Half of Jake’s fighting weight.

  He pressed a series of buttons, and all one hundred lights flicked on in sequence across the warehouse. Fluorescent lights blinked on in the corridor and the control room. Deep wrinkles lined the man’s face, and his fingernails were chewed down to the quick.

  Jake edged to the window. A trail of blood led from Tess and Pete’s position toward the tunnel. Trader hunched behind a metal crate by the wall.

  “Get up here and bring some rope or ties,” Jake called down.

  Trader raised his hand in acknowledgment and searched the shelves.

  “What do the voices tell you?” the man said.

  Jake jerked his gun at a black ergonomic chair next to the console. “Take a seat.”

  The man flopped down and licked his lips. Jake slid the magazine and rifle away with his foot.

  “Please don’t take me outside,” the man said. He locked his fingers together and shook his hands. “I’m begging you. From one officer to another.”

  “What unit are you with, and how long have you been down here?”

  He looked confused and scratched his long greasy thinning hair. “I’ve always been here. He commands it.”

  Jake shook his head and sighed. This man needed help.

  Trader banged up the stairs, entered the control room, and froze. He and the man stared at each other.