Ryan had done little more than voice a concern that had been lurking at the backs of all their minds. When the support systems of a redoubt began to crumble they could take years to fail, or one short could start a chain reaction to close it down in minutes.
Time, then, was of the essence. The upper levels of the redoubt hadn’t been damaged too badly by the earth movements. There were cracks in some of the walls, but nothing like the fissures on the lower level. The main problems were caused by the shorting of electrical circuits that had closed some sec doors and effectively sealed them by refusing to respond to the codes. Many of these were in areas where the companions would seek to plunder: the armory, the kitchens and food stores, and stores for clothing and footwear.
J.B.’s task was to open the doors without risking further damage to the potentially delicate balance of the redoubt. Under any other circumstances the task would have been simple—plas-ex applied to the points of balance, and then retire to a safe distance. But now he had to be careful about the amounts he used, much more so that usual.
Carefully, the Armorer weighed out the plas-ex and attached a detonator, making sure that, at all times, the companions would shelter from the blast in a position that would leave them on the right side of the explosion for the main exit should the need to flee arise.
In the eerie quiet of the deserted redoubt, the tension hung heavy over J.B. as he prepared each explosion. The first two were small—more pops than blasts—but by his careful positioning the charges were enough to bend the doors, giving the companions the leverage they needed to open them manually.
The kitchen and clothing stores came easily. Despite his looks of apprehension at the roof overhead when the charges detonated, J.B.’s judgment proved sound. In the clothing stores they were able to kit themselves out in some fresh clothing, still packed in polyethylene, that replaced the tattered rags they had worn from the north.
Likewise, the kitchen stores hadn’t been raided, although there was some evidence that rats and insects had been able to use the service ducts to get this far up the redoubt levels, driven onward by the scent of foodstuffs. As there was no knowing what may or may not have been contaminated, they stuck to self-heats and some foods where the packaging hadn’t been tampered with in any way or was far from evidence of rats such as gnawing and droppings. The huge walk-in freezer compartments were still stocked and sealed. There were three, and although the power had failed in two, the third still contained some deep-frozen perishables that could safely be eaten when defrosted. They stocked up on as much as possible, preferring to keep the inedible self-heats for emergencies.
The third door J.B. had to open was the one that gave him most concern: the armory. Tricky enough to have to blow the door on an armory at the best of times, lest the explosive materials within be triggered by the explosion. But when they were up against a structure riddled with flaws that may give under such stress, it became a much harder task.
J.B. set the charge and looked nervously up at the ceiling before retiring to cover.
‘If this fucks up, it’s been interesting,’ he said wryly in the moments before the small charge detonated. He closed his eyes and held his breath…nothing. Opening them again, he could see that the door had been blasted away from one side of the portal and that there appeared to be no residual damage within the room itself.
They advanced and opened up the room. It was exactly as it had been left before the nukecaust. At some point, there had to have been an evacuation, as there still lay in one corner an open crate and a clipboard and pen, as though the room had been deserted partway through an inventory of the ordnance.
Wasting little time, they equipped themselves with spare ammo, grens and plas-ex from the stores. J.B. regretfully looked at the crates of unopened and undisturbed blasters. There were rifles, SMGs and handblasters, any of which may have replaced their own favored arms, given time to test them in the ranges.
But time was one thing they couldn’t allow. The redoubt may be fine for another century, or it may start to crumble at any moment.
Equipped, they left the armory—J.B. casting it a backward glance that was part wistful longing and part a hard-headed knowledge that they could have gleaned so much if given time—and headed toward the exit door.
The lighting was erratic along the stretch leading to the exit ramp, and all had cause to wonder what they might find beyond the final sec door. Had the circuits cut out because of the water damage in the lower levels or because there were other stresses operating outside the walls on this upper level? Would the sec door open to reveal that they had been blocked in by a landfall?
The latter was something that Ryan hoped wouldn’t be the case. They needed to get out. The redoubt was too unsafe for them to stay and a jump would be too risky. Out was their only option.
‘Here goes nothing,’ he said to the others as he punched in the sec code, lifted the lever and leveled his Steyr. The chances of anyone lying in wait were next to nothing, but that wasn’t zero.
The door raised slowly to reveal a landscape that was lush but strange. Everything was green, but low-level, as though it were made for small people. The grasses were close to the ground, plants were half size, the trees stunted. But it was a clear day and it was good to breathe fresh air untainted by sulfur as it swept into the musty tunnel mouth.
Ryan stepped cautiously out into a bright, sunny morning, with the sky clear but for a few fluffy white clouds. He looked around. The surrounding area was clear and there were no sounds of bird or animal life within earshot. He beckoned the others to join him.
‘Gaia, it’s like paradise compared to where we’ve just been,’ Krysty said, breathing in deeply to savor the air.
‘Yeah, even if it is a kind of half-pint paradise,’ Mildred muttered.
‘Not fucking cold.’ Jak smiled.
‘So far, so good,’ J.B. agreed. ‘What d’you think, Doc?’
It was when he turned to elicit the old man’s opinion that J.B. was astounded to see Doc retreating backward into the redoubt, with the door closing on him, cutting him off seemingly at his own behest.
Chapter Four
Who am I? Is the real me the man who now posits these questions, or is the real me the man Jordan who they say I became for a short while? It does, does it not, raise many questions as to the nature of identity? Is all of this through which I move an artifice, the mere whim of my own imagination, or is it real? But then, what is reality?
Of all the things I remember, of all the things that have occurred within the confines of my own mind over the past few days, there is only the one constant: the search for some kind of truth. Whatever I am, and wherever I am, there is a part of my mind that is still active and still seeks to find an answer of some kind for what has happened, and what is continuing to happen. If I am to ascertain the truth, then I must follow that course through to the end. That quest is the only one which matters. Wherever that leads.
Am I in a padded cell? Am I here? Am I Theophilus Tanner? Am I Joseph Jordan? There is only the one way in which I can find an answer. I must follow my gut feeling. When the consciousness is confused, then intellect alone cannot be trusted. In order to find the answer, then I must follow what instinct tells me.
And yet what it tells me to do is something that I cannot share with the others. They would not want to go back to Fairbanks. Why should they? They lived that nightmare in a way that I cannot comprehend. By the same token, they could never comprehend the compulsion that drives me onward.
I have said nothing. I shall continue to say nothing. If I hang back in the tunnel, I can slip away while they walk out into the new lands. If I close the door behind me, then by the time they have noticed my absence, reopened the redoubt and tried