Chapter Nineteen

 

 

The day dawned white and ghostly. The AMAC rumbled across the barren plains, towing a four-wheeled trailer. Beneath a canvas covering were baskets and crates brimming with loaves of bread, ears of corn, wheat and even hand-loomed bolts of fabric. In the distance, across acres of thorny shrubs, towered Mount Rushmore.

 

Ryan glanced over at Mildred. She tried a jittery, reassuring smile on him, but he was too tense to even try to return it. He knew she was more worried about the people left behind in Helskel than what awaited them.

 

Hellstrom sat in the back with them and ten sec men. He had dropped all pretense of the relaxed, friendly host. He snapped orders to the man driving and the one operating the periscope. Everyone's speech was faster and clipped, their movements tense, their eyes never still for an instant. They were like soldiers preparing for battle.

 

Ryan wore his long fur-collared leather coat. Beneath I was a combat harness, and from it hung four grens; two were V-40 minis, and the other two were DM-19 incendiaries. Though the SIG-Sauer was snugly holstered at his hip, a midsized Walther MPL submachine gun was clipped to the harness. The metal stock was folded side-ways to allow for carrying comfort, and the perforated barrel could spit out 550 rounds per minute. Four extra clips of the 9 mm ammunition were attached to the harness. He had decided against carrying his Steyr bolt-action rifleif any fighting was to be done, he figured it would be up close and dirty. The SSG-70 was strictly a long-range weapon.

 

His silk scarf with the lead weights sewn into the lining was wrapped around his neck.

 

Mildred was similarly attired and outfitted, with the same kind of grenades. Though she still packed her ZKR 551 target pistol, she had chosen, at J.B.'s recommendation, a Heckler amp; Koch MP-5 from Helskel's impressive armory as her second blaster. It was a fairly lightweight and compact submachine gun, constructed largely of stamped metal parts and heat-resistant plastic. It used a 20-round magazine, and its eight-inch barrel was equipped with a noise and flash arrester.

 

Ryan had considered the MP-5, since he had fond memories of his Heckler amp; Koch G-12 caseless rifle, but he felt its fixed wooden stock would interfere with his movements. Still and all, he was glad Mildred had chosen it.

 

As the journey continued, Ryan found himself drifting off, lulled by the rocking motion of the AMAC. Despite the almost superhuman stamina he possessed, he had his breaking point. Too much tension, too much bloodshed, and even his endurance could drain away.

 

He kept replaying the scene with Krysty the afternoon before, when he had told her Mildred was his choice to breach the Anthill. He had been prepared for a long argument, and when it didn't arrive, he felt a little let down.

 

His decision was logical, based primarily on Mildred's knowledge of twentieth-century history, psychology and technology. If the Anthill was indeed a cryonic deep freeze, as Hellstrom had said, then her background would prove invariable. Also, she was a good person to have at your back if the going got tricky.

 

Krysty had seemed to accept his reasoning, though J.B. wasn't quite as calm when Ryan told him of his choice.

 

That evening, after apprising Hellstrom, Mildred and Ryan were allowed into Helskel's arsenal to pick out weapons. There were hundreds to choose from, all in mint condition. Hellstrom had commented on the irony of using the Anthill's own traded-in blasters against its inhabitants.

 

"You bored, Cawdor?"

 

Ryan opened his eye and gazed at Hellstrom. The man's face was strained, although he was trying to smile. "Just thinking."

 

"About what awaits you after you get up the nose?"

 

Ryan shook his head. "No. About what I'll do to you when I come back and find out you've mistreated my people."

 

Hellstrom's forced, stitched-on smile faltered. "A little premature, aren't you? Besides, there's no need to worry. Unless circumstances warrant otherwise, their status as guests won't change."

 

"That's good, that's real good," Ryan said. "But listen to me, Lars, and believe what I say. Harm any of them, and all hell won't hide you from me."

 

Hellstrom's shoulders stiffened. He glared at Ryan and opened his mouth to say something. Then he shut it and glanced away, shouting at the man at the periscope for a recce report.

 

Ryan settled back, repressing a smile. Though Hellstrom held the high cards, he was still unnerved enough by Ryan's self-confidence to take the threat seriously.

 

The AMAC retraced the route of five days before, rolling through the valley, past the Sioux battlefield and across the bluffs. There was no sign of the Lakota whatsoever, and Ryan wasn't sure if he was happy about that.

 

Once the wag was parked, Hellstrom took the Very pistol and inserted a red flare cartridge into it. Accompanied by a trio of sec men, he left the vehicle and climbed to the top of the ridge. He fired off the flare and waited.

 

Looking out past the windshield, Ryan watched the mechanical beetle zip from the direction of Lincoln's nose and hover above and before Hellstrom.

 

"You have the merchandise." The amplified, metallic voice wasn't asking a question, it was making a statement.

 

"Yes," Hellstrom replied. "All of the highest quality, too. What do you offer for it?"

 

The beetle pivoted slowly, its glowing photoreceptor eye turning toward the AMAC. Ryan ducked back out of sight.

 

"We will make that decision once we examine your goods and ascertain if they meet our present needs."

 

"Then we shall remain in the area until you contact me with your offer," Hellstrom replied. "Is that acceptable?"

 

"If you withdraw back to the valley, then it is acceptable. Return to this spot forty-eight hours hence. Understood?"

 

"Understood. Will you now make preparations to receive the merchandise?"

 

"Yes. You are familiar with the procedure."

 

As it had done before, the beetle retreated across empty air, ascended, twirled and skated back toward Mount Rushmore.

 

Hellstrom entered the AMAC, face glistening with a sheen of perspiration. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and said to Ryan and Mildred, "Almost time."

 

Ryan threw him a mocking half-smile. "Hot out there, is it?"

 

Hellstrom's lips compressed in a tight line. "Where you and that Beforetime woman are going, you'll be praying for some hot."

 

The driver started up the AMAC and rolled it over the bluff, heading for the boulder-strewn base of Mount Rushmore. Above it, vast and exuding an ancient sadness, towered the ruin of Lincoln's head.

 

As the vehicle rumbled closer, something lowered itself from the huge pit of Lincoln's right nostril. Like streams of metallic mucus, four steel cables connected to a long, flat platform descended from the nasal passage.

 

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair," Mildred murmured in a singsong tone.

 

Ryan didn't bother asking her what she meant.

 

When the platform scraped rocky earth, two sec men left the wag and pulled it away from the cliff side, while others busied themselves unloading the crates of crops and homemade goods.

 

Hellstrom announced, "Your transportation has arrived. Time to get ready."

 

Ryan and Mildred ran a quick inventory of their equipment and ordnance. The pair of small radio transceivers were tucked into the pockets of their coats, and they donned the headsets, inserting the receiver plugs into their right ears. They made sure the comm devices were tuned to the same frequency and the circuits were open. Then they walked to the pair of metal containers at the rear of the AMAC.

 

"Hurry up and climb in," Hellstrom said anxiously. "I don't want to make them suspicious."

 

They slid into the metal-walled containers feet first. Each held a small oxygen tank, with a length of flexible hose extending from the nozzle. The hoses terminated in breathing masks, which fit securely over the nose and mouth.

 

It was an extremely tight fit for Ryan. He had to lie in a fetal position beneath the bottom tray that held human organs and dry ice. A sec man pushed in the back panel of the box, and when Ryan tightened it with the inner latch, it squeezed against a flexible seal. It was dark and cold, but the air was breathable. Still, he felt a stirring of claustrophobia.

 

After what seemed like a long, cramped, cold wait, Ryan felt the container being heaved up and carried out of the AMAC by at least four men, judging by the voices. He was dropped none too gently onto the platform, and he winced. The knife wounds on his shoulder and arm hadn't yet begun to heal, and the jolt set them to stinging. A few minutes later he heard a thud he assumed was Mildred's container being loaded onto the platform beside his.

 

A jerk shook the container around him, and he experienced a giddy, rising sensation in the pit of his stomach. Faintly Ryan could hear the steady creaking of a winch. He could feel the platform swinging gently back and forth, and he tried not to think of what might happen if the container slid off into empty space, spilling him, dry ice and human viscera all over the rocky ground.

 

The cranking, creaking sounds grew louder, and a moment later they were echoing hollowly. Ryan figured the platform had reached the nasal passage. Dimly he heard the steady throb of an engine.

 

The rising motion suddenly ceased. The platform swung forward, dropped a few inches, and he heard the crunching of rock as a heavy weight was dragged over it. The scraping of stone set his teeth on edge. The engine sounds abruptly ceased. When that sound stopped, Ryan held his breath, listening for more noise.

 

Suddenly a flat male voice intoned, "Barter and exchange report, record of the month of July."

 

The sound of the voice was human enough, but its colorless monotone motivated Ryan to grasp the butt of the SIG-Sauer.

 

The voice continued speaking, reciting a monologue concerning, barley, wheat, corn, surpluses, overages and shortages. Numbers were mentioned, over and over and for a very long time. Ryan was considering showing himself and shooting the boring bastard just to shut him up.

 

The droning voice ceased, then he heard the sound of footsteps slowly receding. They seemed to have a peculiar echo. The footfalls disappeared, swallowed up by a hissing noise. Ryan waited for a count of sixty, then touched the transmit stud on the comm in his pocket. In a very low whisper, he asked, "Mildred? You with me?"

 

In an equally faint voice, filtered through the plug in his ear, she replied, "So far. I think we're alone."

 

"Me too. On the count of three, let's open up."

 

"Do you mean one-two, open, or one-two-three, open?"

 

Ryan couldn't help but smile. He placed his fingers on the panel latch. "One two three open!"

 

Pushing the latch to its down position, he shouldered the panel up and squirmed out as quickly as he could. Fortunately his legs weren't as stiff as he feared they would be. As he got to his feet, he saw Mildred rising from behind her container. They grinned at each other, then surveyed their surroundings.

 

A naked light bulb provided a dim overhead glow from a low ceiling. Feeble light filtered in from the tunnel in Lincoln's nose. A few feet away yawned a doorway chiseled out of solid rock. A series of worn stone steps led up to a dull gray metal door.

 

The circular chamber wasn't very spacious. A large winch occupied most of the space. Ryan noticed that it was powered by a gasoline engine. He also noticed that it was very cold in the room.

 

Shivering, Mildred pulled a pair of black leather gloves out of a coat pocket and slipped them on. "Must be around forty degrees Fahrenheit in here."

 

Ryan grunted. "Tolerable."

 

"If you enjoy winter sports."

 

Both of them were speaking in whispers.

 

Turning toward the doorway, Mildred said, "Time to see what there is to see. Keep a watch for those beetles."

 

Ryan unleathered the SIG-Sauer and jacked a round into the cylinder. "Stay on triple red."

 

As they eyed the metal panel, searching for a doorknob or latch, it suddenly rolled upward with the whooshing squeak of hydraulics. Both of them leapt for cover on opposite sides of the stone chamber. Ryan crouched down behind the cable-wrapped drum of the winch, and Mildred melded into the shadows at the far corner.

 

A man strode into the chamber, walking down the steps with long, deliberate strides. He carried a clipboard in one hand. He was a pale, burly man of medium height, his gray hair so close-cropped that the scalp could be seen beneath it. His face was as craggy and as furrowed as the stone walls around him.

 

His attire was a dark blue coat and slacks, with a white shirt and red tie. Ryan had seen pictures of costumes like that. They were referred to as "business suits." However, the coat was threadbare, and the trousers so worn through at the knees that flashes of pale flesh beneath could be glimpsed through the fabric. But despite the poor condition of his clothes, his black shoes were impeccably polished. Ryan noticed he wore a rectangular plastic-coated badge on his lapel that bore his likeness. There was only one word on the badge. It read simply BOB.

 

The man marched purposefully to the container that had concealed Ryan and opened the lid. Without hesitation, he plunged his free hand into the bed of dry ice and picked up a plastic-shrouded heart. He examined it closely, grunting a time or two. He hefted the organ in his hand like a butcher trying to gauge its worth by weight alone.

 

Replacing the heart, he shut the lid and moved toward the other container, the one that had conveyed Mildred. As he did, he noticed the rigged back panel on Ryan's box hanging open a few inches.

 

The man didn't look alarmed, but he glanced quickly around the chamber, dark eyes wide and bright. He reminded Ryan of a very alert bird, trying to focus on the source of a mysterious sound. Those darting eyes swept over Ryan's hiding place, then just as quickly returned.

 

Rising up, Ryan leveled the SIG-Sauer at him, saying in a cold, clear voice, "Don't move. Just stand there."

 

The man stared at him in silence, an awesome disdain in his eyes. "I wondered when one of you perverted little shits would try something like this."

 

He moved, unafraid, to a small metal panel inset on the wall beside the doorway. A half-dozen colored buttons studded its surface. Ryan hadn't noticed it before.

 

"Don't try it, Bob," Ryan said, his blaster floating along with him.

 

Bob granted him one glance of disgust and continued reaching. Ryan held the SIG-Sauer in both hands, straight out in front of him, brought the sights into line and squeezed the trigger. The blaster bucked in his hand, and a 9 mm slug screamed across the yards that separated Bob from the gun bore.

 

The slug hit the man with the force of a sledgehammer, smashing him off his feet and ripping his right arm off at the shoulder socket and sending it pinwheeling across the chamber.

 

Ryan stared, astonished. He had shot to wound, not to kill or maim. He hadn't expected the man's arm to be ripped off. Then he saw why it had happened. There was no blood, either from the ragged shoulder socket or from the stump of the arm. Instead, he glimpsed a gleaming tangle of twisted metal, cables and wires.

 

Bob glanced down at his disembodied arm, then back to Ryan. " Damn you! That construct alone cost the government sixty thousand dollars. You've ruined it, you fucking renegade!"

 

Lurching to his feet, Bob stumbled toward Ryan. The echoes of his footfalls resounded hollowly within the stone vault.

 

"I don't want to kill you," Ryan snapped. "Don't move."

 

He didn't seem to hear or care. Clumsily he rushed at Ryan. Sidestepping quickly, the one-eyed warrior delivered a roundhouse kick to his belly. The man didn't cry out or even gasp as he folded over Ryan's leg. With the back of Bob's head exposed, Ryan brought down the barrel of his blaster against his skull.

 

Bob slid limply down Ryan's leg and fell face first to the stone floor. He made no movement afterward. As Ryan kneeled beside the man, he was joined by Mildred. She peeled off a glove and pressed two fingers against the man's carotid artery.

 

"He's alive, but his pulse is weird," she said. "Very fast and irregular. His body temperature seems unusually low, too. Turn him over, will you?"

 

Ryan obliged so Mildred could examine the stump of the shoulder. Within a raw orifice, color-coded wires intertwined and a complex network of circuitry glistened wetly.

 

Touching a fractured cylinder protruding several inches from the stump, Mildred said, "Looks like a Teflon socket."

 

A small transparent plastic tube corkscrewed within the hollow socket. A pale greenish liquid dripped from it to the floor, crawling across the stone. Ryan touched it, rubbing the fluid between thumb and forefinger. It was oily and viscous.

 

"This isn't blood," he said. "A lubricant, mebbe."

 

Frowning, Mildred dipped a finger into the spreading puddle, brought it to her nose and sniffed. Then, tentatively, she touched the tip of her tongue to her finger. Quickly she turned her head and spit.

 

"A sort of sweetish taste," she said, still spitting. "I think it might be some kind of coolant."

 

Ryan's eyebrows rose. "A coolant?"

 

"Yeah. Like Freon or something."

 

Mildred undid the man's shirt, tossing his tie aside. His flesh was very pale, an unhealthy mushroom shade. A five-inch pink scar ran down his clavicle, marked on either side by a saddle-stitched pattern.

 

She grunted. "He's one of the zipper club."

 

"What's that?"

 

"Old medical slang. Means he either had open-heart surgery, like a bypass operation, or he's had a heart transplant. See if you can get his mouth open."

 

Mystified, Ryan did as she said, squeezing the hinges of the man's jaw until his mouth gaped open. To his surprise, Mildred stuck a finger inside Bob's mouth, under his saliva-slick tongue. After a moment she withdrew it, wiping her finger on her jacket.

 

"Why did you do that?" he demanded.

 

"Testing his body temperature. If it was normal, his mouth would be hot even if his epidermis isn't."

 

"Well's it hot or not?"

 

"Not," she replied. "Very cool. In fact, probably not over seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. It's almost as if the poor bastard is walking around in a constant state of hypothermia."

 

The doctor straightened and went to retrieve Bob's arm. Ryan studied the badge pinned to the man's lapel. It bore very little information beyond his picture, his name and a red dot about a quarter of an inch in diameter. The dot looked as if it had been affixed to the card somehow, and it bore an odd reflective sheen.

 

Mildred returned with the arm. Holding the limb by the wrist and the bicep, she bent the elbow back and forth. "This is extraordinary, Ryan."

 

"How so?"

 

"It's a bionic prosthesis, but it's about ten years beyond anything in use before the holocaust. Touch the hand."

 

Ryan poked the hand, pinched it and shrugged. "Feels like skin."

 

Nodding, Mildred said, "Exactly. Not latex or rubber, but a synthetic, organic equivalent of flesh. Perfect in every detail, right down to the texture and implanted hair follicles, which is pretty amazing, considering a human hair is only sixty microns wide."

 

"You doctors didn't have this in predark days?"

 

"We had something like it, used mainly to speed the healing process of burn victims, and it was hardly the best solution. This stuff is almost indistinguishable from normal epidermal tissue."

 

"How's it made?" Ryan asked.

 

"In my day, we used a form of silicon gel and plasma. A synthetic skin this close to the original has to be developed by genetic engineering, maybe through a form of cloning."

 

"So," Ryan said musingly, "it looks like Lars was telling the truth about this place."

 

"As much truth as he understood. Make no mistakefrom what we've seen so far, and that's very damned little, I'd judge the people who live here are a hell of a lot more dangerous than the Helskel crowd."

 

Ryan stood, prodding the senseless Bob with the toe of a boot. "Yeah, Lars said that, too. What do you want to do with this guy?"

 

Mildred shrugged and tugged on her glove. "Your call. You shot him."

 

Dragging Bob to a far corner and laying him on his stomach, he used the man's tie, belt and shoelaces to gag and bind him. It was difficult since he had only one arm, so Ryan bound his wrist to his ankles, bending his legs up behind him. He briefly contemplated dumping the man down the nasal passage. Trader would have done it, and a few years before, he might have done it, too. But it didn't seem right to take the life of a helpless man.

 

Aside from that, there was a tactical wisdom in sparing the man's life; he and Mildred were the invaders here. Unwilling interlopers, maybe, but interlopers nonetheless. If there was even a marginal chance of reasoning with the Anthill residents, it made sense not to arouse their anger.

 

He returned to Mildred and they approached the doorway. The panel was still up. The woman suddenly put a hand on his chest and said, "Wait!"

 

Eyeing the panel, she said, "I think there's a photoelectric eye there. Just strolling through the beam might trigger an alarm."

 

Ryan produced Bob's ID badge and clipped it to the breast pocket of his coat. "Already thought of that. This dot looks like a light-sensitive cell. Seen them before, in other installations."

 

Mildred smiled and nodded in understanding. "I get it. If the cell is of the same electrochemical spectrum as the beam, it will interact with it, not react to it. Like a passkey."

 

"You said it better than I could have, Mildred. Let's give it a try."

 

Hands on their blasters, they walked up the steps and through the doorway, past the wall panel. Nothing happened.

 

"You were right," Ryan said, relief in his voice.

 

"You thought of it first," Mildred replied, sounding just as relieved.

 

They found themselves in a squarish tunnel. The light from two wire-encased electric bulbs glistened from the cold rock walls. The crude marks of tools showed on the stone. Ryan pointed them out.

 

"So far, this place doesn't seem to be the high-tech heaven Hellstrom made it out to be," he said. "Even the worst redoubt we ever visited wasn't chipped out of rock."

 

A faint musky but cloying odor took them by the throats and tried to force out coughs. Ryan stifled it, walking steadily along the passageway, his SIG-Sauer leading. A powdery coating of dust covered the tunnel floor, and each footstep caused a small cloud to puff up beneath their boots.

 

"They wouldn't win any awards for good housekeeping, either," Mildred commented, holding a finger beneath her nose to prevent a sneeze.

 

A wedge of light glimmered before them. They slowed their pace and sidled along the wall. The tunnel opened out into an enormous vaulted chamber, its ceiling almost lost high in the darkness. Both of them jolted to unsteady halts, forgetting the killzone they were braving. They had to blink and shake their heads, fighting to absorb what they were seeing. Ryan in particular wondered if it was indeed real and tangible and not a hallucination.

 

Mildred opened her mouth, gaping, her staring eyes sweeping the chamber. "Mother of God and sweet baby Jesus in her arms."

 

Ryan didn't say anything. He seemed to have lost the capacity for speech. He caught his breath in awed wonder.

 

The vast room was filled, almost as far as the eye could see, with crates, boxes, stacks of books, electronic gadgets, furniture, sleek and shining wheeled vehicles, paintings and musical instruments. The huge room was a museum of mechanics, art, literature, seemingly of the entire predark culture. There was simply far too much to absorb, much less identify.

 

Many of the objects and items were unfamiliar to Ryan, but he knew the thousands of items in the gargantuan vault represented the destroyed aspirations of a destroyed and dead society.

 

Ryan finally regained his voice. "What was that J.B. said? The mother of all stockpiles?"

 

Mildred husked out a small, faint laugh. "John had no idea, did he?"