Shoving the door open, Ryan burst into the room to witness a scene of shocking carnage.
The first thing that caught his attention was the huge, bas-relief figure on the far wall, a crude, humanoid figure sculpted out of mud, with scales covering her body. She had large breasts, outstretched arms ending in claw-tipped fingers, and hair consisting of a dozen waving snake bodies, their mouths open and dripping venom.
But what was much more important to him was the tableau underneath the giant effigy.
Four lizardmen, each dressed in garish accoutrements similar to, but more ornate than what the guards outside wore, were sprawled around a dais in front of the statue, their splayed limbs and bleeding heads indicating that they had died suddenly and violently.
Krysty stood on the raised platform, still in her damp jumpsuit, broken ropes dangling from her wrists. She clutched the head of a kneeling mutie. As Ryan was checking his aim, she twisted its head clean around, the snap of cracking vertebrae heard throughout the room. The lizardman’s body trembled once, and fell to the floor when she let it go.
“Krysty!” Ryan ran to her just as she started to topple over, catching her in his arms.
“Ryan…knew you’d come. Had to use…power of Gaia…to free myself.”
He hugged her tightly, his gaze going to Jak and Donfil, both of whom had cleared the room without firing a shot, and who nodded back at him. “I’ve got you, you’re safe now. Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
She pushed back to look at him. “Wait! We can’t go. Not yet. They’re planning to destroy the ville. We have to stop them!”
“Time go, Ryan,” Jak said from a pair of doors on the other side of the room, where he was peeking through the windows. “Someone come and be pissed seein’ bodies here.”
“Just a sec,” Ryan said, turning back to Krysty. “What are you saying?”
“They’re planning…to attack the ville. All at once…leaders whipping the rest into a frenzy…at least a hundred of them. They’ll massacre everyone.”
One hundred minus six, Ryan thought, but frowned as he considered the problem. “Okay, but how are we supposed to stop them?”
Krysty had regained enough of her strength to stand, although she still held on to Ryan’s arm. “As they were taking me through…the passages I saw a sign next to a room…just down the stairs there. It contains radioactive material. We open it…flood the entire building. Kill them all. Take only a few minutes.”
“Doesn’t sound like it leaves us a gnat’s chance in hell of making it out of here ourselves.”
“No, we can rig it to open slowly.” Krysty grabbed the remnants of rope that had bound her and thrust them at Ryan. “It’s our best shot, otherwise we have to fight them out there again.” She faced him, all bedraggled hair, filthy clothes and flashing eyes. “We’re not going to leave those people out there to these things’ savagery. By
Gaia, the things I’ve seen down here—” She swayed for a moment, but brushed off Ryan’s hand. “You stopped the cannies, now I’m putting my foot down—this ends here. What was it you said to Mildred? ‘You can either help, or get out of the way.’ Now strip them of those clothes or get the hell out of my way!”
Krysty turned to begin stripping the nearest corpse. Ryan pushed the body of one of them over with his foot, finding her Smith & Wesson blaster tucked into the belt of one of the priests. Grabbing it, he straightened and stared at her for a long moment, watching her, coiled and efficient, as she stripped the body and moved to the next one. A wave of love swept over him at that second. “Krysty?”
She was busy stripping another of its gaudy tabard. “Yeah?”
“You’re gonna need this.” He tossed her the weapon, which she plucked out of the air with one hand. “Thanks, lover.”
Donfil came over while Ryan was stripping the last two bodies. “Exit corridor is clear. Why are we not leaving?”
“Krysty says the nest plans to attack the ville in force. She wants to flood the building with radioactive material to chill them once and for all.”
“Is that possible?”
“She thinks so, and doesn’t seem inclined to leave until we do this, so yeah, we’re going to try. Better than trying a straight-up fight in the ville itself.”
“All right, I’m with you.”
“Good, then take this.” Ryan shoved two sets of rough clothes at him. “Krysty, we have to move, now!”
“Done, come on.” Arms full, she trotted to the set
of doors on the other side of the room. “Are we clear, Jak?”
“So far. What plan?”
“Just follow me.” She peeked out the glass and frowned. “Funny, there should be a lot more muties out here.”
“J.B., Mildred, and Doc are making a diversion on the lake right now, during which we’re supposed to be getting you out of here.”
“Good, easier for us.” She pushed through the doors and turned left. Ryan was right behind her, followed by Donfil, then Jak. Krysty crept about ten yards down the hallway, then turned right again, leading them to a vertical passageway with a ladder leading down. “This way. It’s right off this corridor.”
She dumped the armload of clothes down the shaft first, causing a surprised grunt from below. Grabbing the light from Ryan, Krysty shone it down just in time to catch a lizardman’s surprised face appear in the circle of light, throwing its hand up to shield its sensitive eyes.
“Shit!” Still holding the light, Krysty jumped down through the hole, not touching the ladder as she fell. There was a quick scrabbling from below, then a loud thwack, and a muffled mewling.
“Damn,” Ryan muttered as he swung onto the ladder and descended, his feet and fingers sending showers of wet rust down as he gripped each rung. Above, he heard someone else climb on, but he only had an eye for what he found when he stepped off the ladder.
Breathing hard, Krysty stood over a fallen lizardman, its hideously distended jaw hanging off its face. As Donfil hit the bottom, he shone his light over, revealing the wet blood on the heel of her cowboy boots, and it all became clear.
“Finish it.” Ryan was already scanning the small, square chamber for the door Krysty had claimed was here, catching the sharp snap of the lizardman’s neck breaking as he looked around. Small corridors led away in two directions, but he paid no attention to them after making sure they were empty.
“Ryan?” Donfil pointed to a shadowed alcove containing a heavy steel door with the familiar three black, rounded triangles arrayed around a small black circle against a bright yellow background on it. A large, red-and-white sign, dotted with rust, hung on the wall next to it. Warning! Nuclear Containment Unit! Radioactive Materials Inside!
The sign went on to say that the outer entry door to the containment unit had to be sealed and locked before the inner door was opened. All personnel had to be wearing level 4 hazmat protection to enter, and personnel had to submit to a chemical bath immediately upon exit.
“That’s it.” Krysty trotted to the door and reached for the large wheel in the middle. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Ryan placed his hand gently over hers. “Hold on a moment. Let’s get a look inside first.” While he calmed her, he snuck a look at his rad counter, finding that it had gone down to the midpoint of the green range. “Shine that light in this porthole first. Let’s make sure that inner door is sealed before doing anything we might regret later.”
Krysty’s fingers tensed on the metal, and for a moment he thought she might resist him, but she leaned into him and sighed. “You’re right, lover. Sorry. I just want to get this done and get the hell out.”
“You and me both.” He wrapped an arm around her
while taking the light from her other hand and shining it through the thick, cloudy window. “Fireblast! Can’t see much in there. Jak, get over here.”
The albino teen stalked over, catching the flashlight as he approached the door. “See if you can make out whether the inner door is closed.”
Standing on his tiptoes, the skinny teen could just barely get his eyes above the bottom sill of the window. “Looks like—yeah, shut.”
“Okay, stand back.” Jak got out of the way as Ryan gripped the wheel firmly and applied pressure, slowly at first, then more and more, until the veins stood out on his arms. “Donfil, give me a hand.”
The shaman broke off from watching the rightmost corridor to walk to the other side of the door and grasp the lower part of the wheel firmly.
“On three—one…two…three, now!” Both men strained at the wheel with all their strength. For a moment nothing happened, then, with a high-pitched shriek of metal, the wheel budged an inch, then another. One more mighty heave, and it rotated a quarter-turn, then another, then Ryan was able to turn it by himself, although still with an effort.
“All right—let’s crack this and see what we can see. If my rad counter touches red, we get back out, all right?” When everyone had nodded in agreement, Ryan pushed the door inward.
A wave of stale air whooshed out over them, carrying the smell of metal and dust. Ryan checked his counter, but it had only risen to high green, just below red.
“So far, so good. Let’s go.” Stepping into the room, the first thing Ryan saw was a slumped skeleton next to the inner door, its bony fingers still clutching a small-caliber blaster close to its head. A faded, dark rust-
colored stain on the wall above its holed skull left no doubt what had transpired here more than a hundred years ago.
“Pop inside door and get hell out, right?” Jak asked, still hovering near the first doorway.
“I do not think it will be that easy, Eyes of Wolf,” Donfil said, pointing to a sign next to the inner door: Warning! Nuclear Containment Unit! Radioactive Materials Inside! Outer door
must
be closed before inner door can be opened!
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Krysty breathed as she stared at it.
“Yeah.” Ryan’s shoulders slumped. “If we’re going to do this, somebody’s got to stay inside to open the outer door once this room’s flooded with radioactive material.”
“No, no, there must be another way.” Krysty went to the smooth metal wheel of the door and pulled on it before anyone could stop her. Unlike the other mechanism, this one looked new, and even shifted a fraction under her hands before stopping hard. “Come on—help me. If all of us try, we can get it open.”
Ryan, Jak and Donfil exchanged glances, and Ryan walked over to Krysty, gently taking her hands, which clenched into tight fists, from the wheel. “Krysty, you know that isn’t going to help.”
“It has to! We can’t just leave someone in here to sacrifice themselves—”
“I will stay.”
Ryan, along with Jak and Krysty, turned to look at Donfil, who was stood straight and tall, his shoulders back, the top of his head almost brushing the ceiling, every inch the proud Mescalero Apache. “Donfil, you don’t have to—”
“No, One-Eye Chills, I do. I would certainly not ask any of you to do this for our ville. You have done enough already. I am sure of my purpose now. This is where the Great Spirit has been guiding me—only when I stepped inside this building did I begin to feel a moment of peace. And now, upon seeing what must be done, I understand that this is where I am meant to be.”
Krysty started to speak, but Donfil cut her off. “Fire-
Hair Woman, you and the others must leave. Doubtless the lizardmen will be coming soon, and you do not wish to be caught between this—” he smacked the inner door with his palm “—and their anger.” He walked to the inner door, his steps stately and dignified. “Go now, my friends. I only ask that you let the ville know what has happened here.”
Ryan stared at the shaman, then at his friends, knowing there was nothing left to say. It was Donfil’s choice, and as far as Ryan was concerned, it was the right one. It was the only way they could do what needed to be done. There was only one thing left.
Krysty walked over to the skinny shaman and hugged him hard. “Farewell, Man-Whose-Eyes-See-More.”
Donfil regarded her with grave eyes. “Farewell, Fire-Hair Woman. Until we meet in the next life.” Krysty turned and walked out without looking back.
Jak was next, staring up at the towering Apache, his slight stature incongruous next to the tall man. He nodded goodbye. “Chill lots, Donfil.”
“I intend to, Eyes of Wolf. If you see any out there, may you have happy hunting as well.”
“Know it.” The albino teen ducked out of the doorway, leaving Ryan and Donfil in the thick-walled chamber.
“You know what to do?” An unnecessary question, but suddenly Ryan didn’t want to leave the other man to his fate so quickly. He’d seen what the rad sickness could do. Ryan had no idea what lie beyond that windowless inner door, but he hoped Donfil’s death would be quick.
Donfil nodded. “All I need you to do is close that door behind you. I will take care of the rest.”
The two men faced each other for a moment, then Ryan extended his hand, which Donfil grasped and
shook, his grip strong. The shaman grinned, showing his strong teeth. “It is a good day to die.”
“We’ll let the ville know what went down here.” Ryan swallowed through an uncharacteristically thick throat. “They’ll be singing your praises for years.”
“Only if we stop the muties here.” Donfil nodded at the outer door. “Time to go, One-Eye Chills. Until we meet again.”
“Yeah.” Ryan walked to the door, unable to stop himself from looking back once more. Donfil stood beside the door, one hand resting on the wheel to open it. His lips moved, and words came out, the chant soft at first, but growing louder: “Great Spirit, make me like a strong bear, Great Spirit, make me like a strong bear, This I pray…Make me strong…”
“Farewell, Donfil More.” Stepping outside, Ryan pulled the heavy door shut after him, spinning the wheel hard until it snicked into place. He gave it one more twist to make sure it was sealed, then turned to the others. “Time to go.”
Leading the way back to the ladder to the main level, Ryan was about to put his hand on a rung and haul himself up when a slight scrape from above caught his attention. He jerked back just as a spearhead jabbed down through the space where his head had been a moment earlier.
His blaster blurring into his hand, Ryan triggered three shots at the dark opening. Hearing a gurgle, he stepped back as a dark form plummeted through the hole to slam onto the metal floor, the dying lizardman’s lifeblood geysering from his perforated throat. A quick glance confirmed what Donfil had suspected would happen—the muties had returned in force.
“Can’t go that way.” He grunted, looking at the right
and left passageways. “Can’t tell which way is which in this place.”
“One good as another right now,” Jak said, pointing to the left. “Take that one.”
“Why?” Krysty asked.
“Heads away from where came in. Gotta come out somewhere.”
Ryan frowned. “Or dead-end and trap us in here.”
“Got better idea, I’m waitin’,” Jak challenged.
“All right. Give them a blast from that cannon of yours. Something to think about while we go.”
Bracing his right hand with his left wrist, Jak pointed the .357 at the hole, through which furtive scuttling could be heard. When Ryan and Krysty had covered their ears, he squeezed the trigger twice, the Magnum weapon’s barrel exploding with flame in the narrow passageway as the heavy pistol bucked in his hands. As the concussions died away, they heard an agonized howl that was suddenly cut off by a meaty thud.
“One less to worry about. C’mon!” Ryan waved Krysty down the narrow corridor, then Jak, taking the rear himself. He waited until a clawed foot cautiously appeared at the top of the ladder, took aim, and squeezed off a shot, hitting it near the ankle, and causing the maimed limb to vanish out of sight. With a last glance at the thick metal door, Ryan ducked into the hall, hurrying to catch up with the bobbing light ahead.
This tunnel was cramped and musty, with the dust on the floor blending with the water vapor to form a thin, slippery layer on the tiles. Ryan kept one hand on the wall as he trotted down the corridor. He caught up with Krysty and Jak just as they rounded a corner and stopped only a couple steps beyond, nearly causing him to bump into them in his haste.
“What the hell—”
“Shh!” Krysty’s urgent whisper cut him off. When Ryan craned his head over hers to see what was making them so quiet, he suddenly understood.
Ahead was a large chamber that might have been a power generating room at one time, but was now a huge indoor lake. Water had submerged the entire floor, the grated stairs in front of them disappearing under the waterline. The opposite wall of the room was at least thirty yards away. The odor, redolent of fuel, lubricant and mold, was so strong it made Ryan breathe through his mouth. The shells of half-submerged machines, perhaps generators of some kind, rose out of the water in rows, covered in dark orange rust and slime. Around them, the water flowed strangely, forming strange eddies and whirlpools on its oil-slicked surface, as if something underneath was lazily moving around the perimeter. The entire room was ringed by a metal walkway with a railing on one side. It reached almost to the other side, but had been broken off near an identical doorway on the far wall several feet above the water, leaving a gap between them and the exit.
“Head out there?” Krysty asked, wrinkling her nose at the stink.
Ryan ducked back and played his light along the walls, searching for any kind of alternate way out. “Looks like. At least there’s no one here.” He glanced around the room, sensing something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “No blasting, however.” He’d caught the acrid stink of fuel fumes. Hearing a far-off thump shake the floor under his feet, the decision was made. “Get out there.”
Jak had already edged out onto the catwalk, testing
it with tentative steps. The struts underneath trembled a bit, but held firm. “Looks all right.”
“Head out a few more yards first.” A splash from below caught Ryan’s attention, and he shone his light at where the sound had come from, but saw nothing except an eddy of black water. He turned back to Krysty. “Give him a few more steps, then you go. I’ll follow in a bit.”
“No more heroics, lover.” She leaned up and kissed him hard. “Already saved your hide once today, and I don’t want to have to come back for you again.”
“Hey, who saved who in here?”
“I’d already freed myself and killed the lizardmen, remember? You were a few seconds late. Now hurry up— I’ve had enough of this hellhole to last a lifetime.”
“You and me both. Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
Krysty stepped onto the walkway, which settled a bit more under her weight. Sticking close to the wall, she began her trek around the room. Jak had already rounded the far corner and was heading toward the door, picking up speed to leap the gap between him and freedom.
Ryan checked the hallway behind them one more time, hearing the slap of many bare feet against the metal floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Krysty carefully easing around the near corner. Across the room, Jak was framed in the doorway, waving them on.
Drawing his panga, Ryan set his flashlight on the floor and crept noiselessly back to the corner where the hallway turned and waited, blade poised to slash. The point of a spear suddenly thrust around the corner, the tip missing Ryan’s waist by a fingerwidth. Grabbing the weapon behind the head, he yanked it forward, pulling a
startled lizardman around the corner. The mutie looked up just in time to see the eighteen-inch blade slice down at its head. Ryan buried the edge a good inch into its skull, parting the skin and spraying black blood into the air. Wrenching his knife free, he shoved the dying creature back into his fellows and ran for the large room, snatching his light off the floor at the entrance as he passed. Rounding the corner, he hit the catwalk and slowed to a cautious walk, feeling the grated surface flex and shift with each step. Krysty was almost at the doorway now, tensing to make the leap across.
He had just turned the first corner when a chorus of furious howls erupted from the passage behind him, and Ryan looked back to see a cluster of raging lizardmen erupt from the dark passageway and stream across the walkway on both sides of the room. Others stayed near the entrance, but lobbed harpoons at him—a few coming too close for comfort.
Ryan took off just ahead of the advancing horde, pounding down the catwalk with huge jumps, feeling it creak and strain with each step. It only had to stay up for a few more seconds, he thought.
He was about halfway across when he heard an ominous snap, and felt the section of walkway he was on tilt dangerously toward the water. Only a leap away from the next part, Ryan crouched to spring forward just as the first of the oncoming lizardmen hit his section of walkway. Its added weight was the last straw, and with a shriek of overstressed metal, the path gave way, pitching both Ryan and the mutie into the dank waters below.