J.B. shrugged. “I figured you’d come through for us,” he said. “Just, you know, quicker would have been better.”
Ryan nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I save your life. Ricky, are you okay?”
“Millie’ll look him over,” J.B. replied for the teen, “once we’re away from this rad-blasted pesthole.”
Doc punched in the code to close the doors. Once he had done that, he turned to his companions and touched his free hand to the brim of an imaginary hat. “I trust we are all ready to leave?”
Less than a minute later the five companions joined Jak and Mildred in the anteroom, then they all entered the mat-trans unit and sat on the floor, except for Ryan. The one-eyed man was last in, and he firmly shut the mat-trans door, initiating a jump. He quickly made his way to Krysty’s side and sat beside her. The mat-trans powered up.
All seven companions disappeared, leaving only the wispy trails of cooling gas and the whine of the air vents in their wake.
As the companions didn’t have the destination codes for the mat-trans unit, where they ended up was totally random. The jump could take them to a redoubt five hundred miles away or five thousand—or anywhere in the world, for that matter. The companions never knew where they’d arrived until they left the redoubt and got their bearings.
The effects of traveling by mat-trans made a person feel as though he or she had caught a swamp bug. The stomach rebelled, the body went weak and there was the urgent feeling that you were about to crap your pants. Thankfully, the journey itself was momentary, and once it passed—usually—so did the sickness.
The seven companions materialized in a shock of light, and even as they appeared the extractor fans of the mat-trans hummed to life, working their magic to clear the chamber of gas.
They were sitting in a different mat-trans chamber—its dimensions and design exactly like the one they had just left, the only difference being the color of its armaglass walls, which was a sort of red-violet, Ricky thought.
Breathing through clenched teeth, he clutched his side, his eyes screwed up in pain. He still hadn’t got used to the discorporation and reintegration of his molecules that was necessary for the mat-trans to shunt him to a new location, and the jarring only served to make the wound in his side feel worse. “Madre—” he muttered, doubling over in agony.
“Okay, Ricky,” Mildred said, hurrying across the small room to the teen’s side and opening her satchel of medical supplies. She moved a little unsteadily, still suffering from the aftereffects of the jump. Mildred was far more experienced in this than Ricky, but it could still catch her unawares sometimes, just the same way it caught everyone unawares sometimes. She usually had a concoction she called jump juice, which was helpful in settling the stomach, but she was all out.
As she moved, Mildred spotted the box. It loomed incongruously at the rear wall of the chamber, clicking to itself in a kind of constant hum. “Um...” Mildred began, stopping in her tracks. “Ryan? J.B.?”
Ryan was still recovering from the jump, but he moved to where Mildred had halted and scanned the device with his single blue eye. “Shit.”
It was about the size of a shoebox, roughly a foot across and half as deep, and the top was open to reveal a mass of wires and a timer. The timer was analog, like an old oven timer, and it clicked quietly to itself as it counted down.
“What the hell is that?” J.B. said, peering past Ryan’s shoulder. “Oh.”
“Three minutes,” Ryan said, reading the dial on the timer.
“Get everyone out of here,” J.B. instructed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a tiny pair of wire cutters no bigger than nail scissors. His instruction was unnecessary. Ryan was already rousing Krysty and the others, ushering them to the chamber door. “Triple red, everyone,” Ryan ordered as he turned the door handle. They had less than three minutes. Ryan would wait. He knew why J.B. wanted to defuse the bomb—the importance of the mat-trans was impossible to put a value on. If they’d emerged in a hot zone or a settlement of crazies—or both, as they had in California—then this chamber may be their only means of escape.
J.B. had defused bombs before. They had three minutes, which meant they still had a chance.
Doc and Jak took out their blasters before they hurried through the doorway, while Krysty followed a little more slowly, still reeling from the blow of her post-Gaia comedown. Mildred helped Ricky through, glancing back at J.B. as the Armorer knelt to study the explosive device. A bomb inside the mat-trans meant someone had been in this redoubt, wherever it was.
Anyone with any brains would have gotten out double-quick as soon as they had placed the explosive, but Ryan wasn’t taking any chances. He flipped the safety off his SIG Sauer blaster, left the chamber and anteroom and marched across the control room.
It was a redoubt like the one they had just exited, as most were—concrete walls, low ceilings, anteroom and control room, with winking and blinking lights and dials and comp monitors. The lights were on, but that didn’t mean anything. Redoubt lights functioned automatically when a mat-trans fired to life, which meant that the bomber could be long gone by now. Or just around the corner.
There were several cracks that ran across one side of the room, up the walls and through the ceiling, wide enough to accommodate a person’s arm. Something had struck the redoubt at some time, and struck it hard. Ryan’s people fanned out swiftly. A layer of dust was sprinkled on the age-old com terminals, but Doc noticed immediately that several screens had been wiped clean.
“Someone tried to use these,” Doc said. “Recently, too.”
Ryan waited while the rest of his friends made their way through the room. Jak keyed in the code to open the door, then they all filed into the corridor beyond. The albino youth scouted ahead, checking the immediate rooms of the redoubt, hunting for danger and for somewhere safe to position the group should the bomb go off.
While Ryan waited in the doorway, Doc helped a reluctant Krysty down the corridor.
“Ryan, come on,” she urged. “We can’t...”
“We have to try to save it,” Ryan said, his single eye fixed on J.B.
“Get her to safety,” he instructed Doc without turning.
“Krysty, I’ll see you outside.”
The redheaded beauty wanted to say something else; she was his soul mate and she usually wouldn’t leave him. But in her weakened state, leave was all she could do. And she knew that Ryan wouldn’t leave J.B. alone, not if there was a chance they could defuse the bomb.
Doc guided Krysty down the corridor. “How are you feeling, my dear?” he asked.
Krysty smiled, her usually vibrant hair hanging limply around her face. “Still kind of woozy,” she admitted, flashing him a half smile.
“Lean against me,” Doc instructed. “I may be old but I’m still good for that much, at least.”
While J.B. and Ryan dealt with the bomb, Jak employed his own natural talents to lead the rest of the group out of the redoubt as swiftly as he could.
While they had landed in an unknown redoubt, these military bases roughly followed the same basic design. Jak followed the widest corridor, turning each time it split and choosing the widest corridor again. The overhead lights flickered to life at each junction Jak stepped into, brought to life by motion sensors, filling in the void ahead with each step.
The others followed as fast as they were able—Doc helping Krysty along at his side, Mildred watching Ricky carefully as the lad struggled with his wounded side.
Mildred looked worriedly at Ricky. She glanced back at the open