Читать книгу Judgment Plague - James Axler - Страница 11

Chapter 4

They regrouped, then followed Kane back into the water, using the waterproof xenon flashlights to light their way. Grant and Kane still had their rebreathers, but Brigid had sacrificed hers in the struggle with the crocs, so she shared with Grant, taking a breath every fifty seconds while they explored the submerged structure of the redoubt. Brigid was a superb swimmer, and she was adept at holding her breath, using circular breathing techniques to keep from drowning.

They came across no further living muties, although there was a rotting corpse deep below, on the bottom, weighted down with some kind of air-conditioning unit that had been pulled out or broken away from a wall. Brigid speculated that the unit may have fallen on the croc, killing it.

There was something else under there, too: ancient boring machinery, powerful caterpillar tracks and a pointed drill extended before them like a nose. Brigid pointed it out as they swam past. She guessed it dated back to the early days of the Deathlands, when uncontaminated water had been scarce, but technology was still functioning. In that period, people had done anything they could to obtain clean water.

Before long they were back at the place where Kane had awoken after the first attack, the area he had identified as an old sewer pipe.

“Looks like this isn’t the end of it,” he reiterated, pointing to the hole in the wall.

Brigid eyed the ruined egg sacs for a heartfelt moment, wondering at what Kane had done. “They were children,” she said. “You shouldn’t have—”

“They tried to kill me, Baptiste,” Kane snapped back. “Me and you and Grant. No discussion, no explanation. They just dragged me under—”

“Me, too,” Grant added, “or they tried to.”

Brigid shook her head regretfully. “They were probably hungry, living down here like this.”

“Then I sympathize,” Kane said hotly, “but that won’t stop me putting up a fight when something starts chomping down on my leg.”

They left it at that, the atmosphere between the trio strained. Brigid knew Kane was right in one sense. They had come here without any intention to hurt anything, but had been forced to defend themselves. She herself had been cornered and forced to kill three of the strange mutated creatures. Even so, it wouldn’t sit easy with her, especially killing unborn things like the ones Kane had dispatched.

“I wonder what they are,” she said, crouching down to examine the body of the adult that Kane had shot.

“Some kind of mutie,” he replied dismissively.

“This one’s a female,” she told him, and then she indicated the eggs. “Their mother, probably, trying to feed her brood.

“But they’re not a strain of mutie I recognize,” Brigid continued. “They share superficial similarities to scalies, but they’re more animal than that.”

“A new strain?” Grant proposed.

“Could be,” she mused, “but they shouldn’t be appearing like this.”

Kane stepped over to the wide hole and peeked inside. “You think maybe we should go check out the source?” It was obvious he wanted to. That was the reason he had brought them back here.

“Yes, we should,” Brigid agreed, checking and reloading her pistol before she slipped it back into its holster.

With his head still in the hole, Kane called a hearty “Hello-o-o!” and listened for a response. The only thing to come back was the distant echo of his own voice.

“Smart,” Brigid muttered to herself with a shake of her head.

“So,” Kane asked, “you want me to go first?”

“You’re point man,” Grant said.

“Why not,” Brigid added. “Look how much it helped us last time.”

* * *

THE THREE CERBERUS warriors clambered through the rough gap in the wall. They were in a long, roughly carved tunnel that stretched through a thick layer of poured concrete. The space was unlit, and way longer than their xenon beams could reach, leaving a whole swathe of the hole in darkness.

The concrete walls felt rough where they had been drilled into and broken up, and were scuffed and dark with mold. There was a little water on the floor here, not a stream but just a shallow trickle a couple inches across at its widest point.

“Water’s coming in from somewhere,” Brigid observed, running her beam on the glistening flow.

“Clean water,” Grant pointed out, noting its clearness.

The water was flowing steadily toward them, coming from the direction they were headed.

Kane marched on. The tunnel was on a gradual slope, and a few stretches had rugged, uneven steps carved in the floor. “Someone certainly wanted to get down here,” he said grimly.

“Or they wanted to get away from whatever is up there,” Grant suggested solemnly.

“You saw the borer,” Brigid pointed out. “Could be this tunnel’s been here for a long time.”

There was a sense of foreboding as they climbed the gentle slope to whatever waited above. Nothing came to block their path and there was no sign of life, not even insects feasting on the mold. The trickling of water was the only movement they could detect.

* * *

IT TOOK SIX MINUTES until the powerful xenon beams reached the end of the rough-hewn tunnel, seven until the Cerberus teammates had finished their ascent to its egress. The exit, like the rest of the tunnel, was roughly carved, an almost circular hole leading to whatever lay beyond.

Kane dowsed his flashlight and the others did the same, replacing the polymer-coated lenses over their eyes to see in the darkness rather than warn anyone of their approach. Looking back, he estimated that they had climbed at least a quarter mile up from the underground redoubt, and he guessed that they must be close to ground level.

Kane went ahead, crouch-walking toward the gap in the wall, anxiously manipulating his fingers as he itched to draw his sin eater once again. Behind him, Grant had drawn the Copperhead assault subgun and held it close to his body, pointed at the floor. If they met any more of those croc muties he would be ready. Brigid brought up the rear, her eyes fixed on the space behind them, making sure they didn’t get snared in a classic ambush with no way back.

Kane let his point-man sense attune to the new environment, stilling his mind and listening, smelling, feeling the way the wind currents moved. Whatever lay beyond the hole smelled old and dusty, but otherwise didn’t smell much at all. He was pretty sure there was no one around, and certainly no more of the croc things, unless they’d taken to using mouthwash.

Through the gap and into the next space. It was huge, momentarily dwarfing Kane with its proportions after the claustrophobic tunnel. He was in a room a little larger than a tennis court, containing a sunken space in the floor. The sunken area was rectangular and filled most of the room, with broad steps leading down into it and a metal ladder running up one side. It took a moment for Kane to recognize what it was—a swimming pool.

Grant followed a moment later, with Brigid just behind him, both of them glancing around warily.

“So,” Grant whispered, “where are we?”

“Pool,” Kane said, indicating the sunken space. He paced around the rim, scanning the room.

The pool was empty of water, but contained several boxes or crates, stacked one on top of the other. There were similar crates dotted around the sides, as well as a pile of material—probably clothes or towels, Kane guessed—near one wall. Up close, the material smelled musty. The room had no windows, but it featured two sets of double doors, set off center on the shorter walls.

Kane paced swiftly to the nearest doors, indicating Grant should do likewise for the far set. Moments later the two ex-mags were standing at the doors, listening for signs of life beyond them.

“On three?” Kane called across the room.

Grant nodded, running his index finger down the side of his nose as he caught his teammate’s eye. They called the gesture the one percent salute, a ritual between them that averred that no matter how much you plan for, there’s always that rogue element—that one percent—that can throw a wrench in the works. The salute was meant to be ironic, but the two men saw it almost as a lucky charm when they found themselves entering an unknown situation.

Kane did a silent count on his fingers and then the two ex-magistrates pushed at the doors they stood before. None of them opened.

“Locked.”

“Locked,” Grant agreed.

The top halves of each door featured a glass panel, but all of them seemed to have been obscured on the far side. Certain now that they were alone, Kane flipped his xenon flashlight back on and ran it over the windows and down the sliver of space between the doors to see if he could find a lock.

“Looks like someone’s put something against the other side of this one,” he stated, trotting back and keeping his voice at conversational level. “Looks like wood—maybe a dresser or cabinet.”

Grant tried his own doors again, pushing at them with his prodigious strength. “There’s some give here,” he told the others. “Might be able to force it.”

Kane looked from the empty pool to the doors, and finally settled his gaze on Brigid. “What do you figure this place is? Some kind of public baths?”

“Could be, but could just as easily be one person’s private pool,” she said.

“Looks kind of old,” Kane said to her.

“Reclaimed from prenukecaust stock maybe,” Brigid suggested. “Rebuilt or built to old specs. A lot of the materials we’ve come to use every day date back to those predark designs, remember.” She didn’t need to add that even her own blaster was of prenukecaust design, first fashioned in the late twentieth century.

* * *

CONCLUDING THAT THE only alternative exits in the room were narrow ventilation ducts, which had been sealed for years, the Cerberus crew agreed to try the doors that Grant had felt give. Kane and Brigid waited behind him while he put all his weight into moving them. The twin doors bulged outward, and the team could hear the rattle of chains. For a moment nothing happened, then came a splintering of wood as Grant applied more force, pushing his shoulder against the narrow gap between the panels.

There was a loud cracking and then the doors shuddered backward as they split from their frames, crashing to the floor with a metallic clatter of chain links, followed by an eerie silence.

Grant stepped back, pulling his Copperhead from its hidden sheath.

“Well, I guess that’s one way of opening a door,” Brigid said quietly.

Grant waited by the doorway, scanning the space beyond. It was dark out there, just as it had been inside. He saw a corridor lined with windows on one side and a rash of peeling paint on the other. The panes were so grimy they let in almost no light, a wash of mud caking their exterior. Apart from furniture, which included a pewlike bench and a trophy cabinet, the corridor was empty.

“What happened here?” Brigid whispered as she stepped forward to examine the scene.

“Maybe the crocs ate everyone,” Kane suggested. Though his tone was light, he was only half joking.

She shook her head, her usually vibrant hair almost purple in the semidarkness. “No, they locked the crocs in here, with the pool,” she reasoned. “Then they probably drained it in hopes of killing them.”

“How do you figure that?” Kane asked.

Brigid pointed to the fallen doors, the length of chain still wrapped tightly around their handles. “It’s been locked from outside,” she said. “The crocs couldn’t get out even if they wanted to.”

“Unless they had a bruiser like Grant on their team,” Kane added, but he accepted Brigid’s point.

* * *

THEY PACED AHEAD, more confident now, using the xenon beams to light their way.

There were rooms bleeding off the corridor, some with closed doors, others with just open doorways. The Cerberus trio were used to that. They had grown up in Cobaltville under the Program of Unification, which stated that no individual should have a lock to bar the entry of another.

There were several communal dressing rooms, showers and a large space that Brigid speculated had been used for social events. There were also several smaller rooms, including an office and a number of toilet stalls. All the rooms were unoccupied and in a run-down state, although they were mostly clean. It was as if the whole building had been deserted and forgotten, left as a frozen moment in time.

There were a few pictures here and there, posters on the walls, photographs on desks and in drawers. The Cerberus team examined these, looking for signs of something going wrong. But they found nothing untoward; the people in the pictures looked normal.

Behind one door was a staircase, with more crates of belongings on the steps, along with several heaps of towels. The others waited in the doorway while Kane trotted up the steps, checking where they led. He found himself in an upper room with a low ceiling and naked support beams, an attic filled with cold and damp.

As in much of the building, a large chunk of the space was given over to storage, but sunlight painted a square on one small section of the floor. Kane paced across to it, glancing around until he located its source. There was a small gap between two support beams of the sloping roof, a ventilation hole where the wall met the eaves. Kane squeezed past the struts and peered through it.

Beyond lay a ville, a small community of a couple dozen buildings, most of them single story, lit by the midmorning sun. There was a paved street running from this building into the ville, with a few benches dotted along its length and a statue at a corner. The place seemed lifeless and empty. Empty except for one thing: a SandCat waiting at the far end, its markings familiar to Kane even after all this time. Cobaltville magistrates.