Prometheus Road (11 page)

Dead Man kept his eye on Rocco. “We prefer owls. They’re smarter.”

“That’s great if you need a night bird. I prefer to sleep at night.”

A renewed wave of dizziness forced Tom to sit down on the boulder where Helix was hiding. “I really need to get some sleep, Magnus.”

“You can use my burial mound if you wish,” Dead Man offered, gesturing at his grave.

Tom grimaced. “Thanks, but I think I’d prefer to sleep out in the open.”

“The soil conserves your body heat,” Dead Man pointed out. “And the nanoforms won’t bother you unless you start to decay.”

Tom bent over to put his face in his hands and closed his eyes, thinking how the boulder was really more comfortable than he might have guessed, until Magnus shook his shoulder. “There’ll be none of that, boy. Humboldt is still following us, and it’s about time for a spysat to fly over on its last orbit before dark. We don’t want the watchers to spot us out in the open.”

“Can’t I just take a quick nap? I’m too dizzy to walk.”

Magnus shouldered his backpack. “You can rest after it gets dark. We’ve got another two hours of light.”

Dead Man set a light hand on Tom’s shoulder, causing Tom to wrinkle his nose when he caught the scent. “The dizziness will pass, young Tom. Eventually.”

Tom looked up and frowned at Dead Man, silhouetted by the sun, low above the horizon. “How would you know?”

Dead Man glanced at Magnus, who shook his head in response. “Come along, boy. If our dead friend can manage a little hike, then so can you.”

Wondering what kind of a freak show he had gotten himself into, Tom groaned and lifted his weary body off the boulder. Helix led the way, happy to leave the burial mounds behind.

AN hour of hiking took them through a narrow tributary of the Valley of the Moon, up a narrow cliff side trail where Tom slipped four times on loose gravel, and on into another oak forest among the rolling hills. By sunset, they had spent a second hour climbing the highest hill in the area, where Magnus felt more comfortable under the screen of black oak and madrone trees that shielded them from any watchers in the sky. The air was cooler, but the breeze still held the musty smell of grasses and trees that had baked in the sun all day. Yellow butterflies fluttered over clumps of orange poppies. Tiny purple, white, and yellow flowers were spattered like paint among tall brown blades of grass. Barn swallows darted low over the unusually flat meadow, hunting for dinner, but Helix was too tired to notice.

Magnus stopped suddenly on a bare square of dirt in the middle of a broad meadow. “We’re here,” he announced, looking around in a circle. Dead Man stopped beside Tom. Rocco circled overhead in a holding pattern.

Tom nodded, thinking it looked like as good a place as any to make camp for the night. A grasshopper buzzed past his face, and his eyes crossed from fatigue until he blinked a few times. “Where’s here?”

Magnus stamped hard on the dirt, and they heard a hollow boom. “This is Skylight. It’s an old Titan missile launch facility. We’re standing on the cap that covers the silo.”

Tom dug the toe of his boot into what turned out to be a thin layer of soil over cracked gray concrete. He cleared away more of the dirt, revealing faded black and yellow lines with the occasional spot of red. Studying their surroundings, he noted oddly square shapes that he had assumed to be rocks partially hidden by weeds and bushes, and it occurred to him that the meadow didn’t look entirely natural.

Magnus walked over to a clump of bushes on a dirt mound about thirty feet away, then waved them over while he lifted a section of the bushes away from a heavy steel door set in an angled block of concrete. He traced some of the lines on the rusty door with his finger, following some pattern only he could see, then the door slowly hummed open on silent hinges, revealing a spiral staircase that led deep underground. Helix sniffed at the opening and gave Tom a questioning look. Cool air drifted out from the dark depths while Magnus poked around just inside the doorframe, surprising two snails that were making their way up a sign that read: 851st Strategic Missile Squadron, Skylight Command, National Defense Restricted Area, Entry prohibited unless specifically authorized by the Commanding Officer. Tom heard a click, then red and yellow lights came on to illuminate the staircase. Magnus smiled. “Sandoval takes good care of this place. The elevator doesn’t work, but we can take the stairs. We only have to go down about fifty feet.”

Tom was used to living underground, but he assumed that such a deep dwelling could hold several comfortable family homes. A silo this deep might also hold several harvest seasons of grain. Ducking his head under the top of the doorframe, he followed Magnus down the stairwell, his feet clanking on the metal steps that spiraled downward. Right behind him, he heard the ticking of Helix’s nails as he hopped down from step to step and the steady plodding thump of Dead Man’s feet on the stairs.

When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, the floor was a metal grille, and they faced a heavy green steel door that was about nine feet tall. Magnus waved his arms, and the door hummed open, revealing a small chamber beyond it with another steel door on the opposite wall. “Blast doors, nine tons each,” Magnus said cryptically, beckoning them into the chamber as he stepped over the yellow-and-black-striped threshold.

Once they had all crowded into the blast lock chamber, Magnus pressed a set of buttons, closing the first blast door just before the second one hummed open. On the other side of the door was a small, bald man with a thin white beard that seemed to continue up around the fringe of his skull to form a fluffy halo. Smile lines creased the skin around his eyes, indicating either that he was a happy fellow or that he was crazy—Tom wasn’t sure which. He was thin, with leathery brown skin, and wore a white robe that dragged on the floor and collected dust bunnies. Behind him, through another open blast door, stretched a long corridor with a dull silver floor of steel plates, a curved ceiling supported by metal struts, and modern glow panels hanging from the ceiling.

“Sandoval, my good friend,” Magnus said, bowing to the little man.

Sandoval bowed in response, twinkling his dark brown eyes at the group. “Welcome to the Museum of Old Tech, my friends. We have many fascinating objects here on display, and none of them are gods-approved for viewing, so turn back now if you are weak in spirit or faint of heart.” He straightened, then thumped his chest with his fist. “I, myself, am Miguel Julio Ricardo Jose Sandoval, and I will be your guide for this delightful sojourn into our past. Please watch your step, mind your head, and don’t touch anything that might explode.”

“Words to live by,” Magnus said. “Have you sealed the entry door?”

Sandoval raised his eyebrows. “Of course, my friend. Are you expecting someone else?”

“Nobody that we want to see.”

Sandoval nodded. “I understand. The old security system is not what it once was, but they won’t get in unless we allow it.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Magnus said. He gestured at the long tunnel. “Think we could use the simulator? Is it still working?”

Sandoval thumped his chest again. “I, myself, maintain the simulator and all the other exhibits here. I take full responsibility for its operation. You will not be disappointed.”

The group moved forward, following Sandoval into the tunnel, their boots ringing on the floor plates. Sandoval glanced over his shoulder at Tom and pointed at the floor. “You may have noticed the construction. The control center of this silo is suspended from shock mounts with huge coil springs. It rests on shock absorbers, and there used to be a rubber sheet between the metal walls and the reinforced concrete walls, although that was replaced by shock foam a long time ago.”

This information seemed obvious to his companions, but not to Tom. He noted a faint scent of machine oil in the air. “Why? Who lived here?”

“Missilemen,” Sandoval said. “Crews of four at a time, although two of them would be maintenance people. The idea was to damp out the shock waves if a bomb hit the surface nearby, or if a missile exploded. The liquid fuel they used in the missiles was pretty volatile, so every once in a while there would be an accident, and they didn’t want to lose an entire missile complex when that happened.”

“Of course not,” Tom said, nodding as if he understood. Then he decided he wasn’t fooling anybody but himself. “What’s a missile complex?”

“It’s where they kept the Titan missiles in their silos ready to launch,” Sandoval said with a slight smile.

“Were the missiles in the silos with the grain?” Tom asked, a deep frown creasing his forehead.

Sandoval glanced at Magnus, who shrugged. The little man changed the subject as they reached a junction in the tunnel where he opened another blast door. “We’ve made a lot of changes since then, of course. Over time, the museum has had many donations that needed to be hidden from the eyes of the gods, and we’ve done our best to give them a good home. This is part of the collection.”

They stepped into a large chamber that had been converted to an exhibit area. Glass cases stood in dramatic pools of light, protecting and displaying a wide variety of objects that Tom didn’t recognize. Helix squirmed in his arms, and Tom put him down so he could sniff the exhibits on his own.

“Is Barney in here?” Magnus asked as he looked around with an approving gaze.

Sandoval shook his head. “No. I’ll show him to you later. I fixed him up enough to put him on guard duty. You’re just lucky that you got past him up there.”

“I noticed that things are a lot cleaner than the last time I was here.”

Dead Man stopped in front of a glass case housing a pitted granite tombstone that read: “Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.” A chunk was missing on the bottom except for the year “1880.” Dead Man looked at Sandoval. “This is interesting. Who brought it in?”

“Clampers,” Sandoval said. “E Clampus Vitus, the historical society. They heard we had a secret museum here, so they dropped it off for safekeeping. Important part of San Francisco history they said. Someone found it on the other side of The Uplift.”

“Indeed,” Dead Man said, returning his attention to the tombstone.

After a few minutes of looking around, Tom still had no clue as to the nature of most of the objects he was seeing on display. He identified the hard shell spacesuit, the electron microscope, the electric guitar, and the early quantum computer from pictures he’d seen in his father’s library, and that was impressive enough; but there were many more artifacts that were unmarked. He tried to stifle a yawn, but he was too tired to stop it.

“We don’t know what all of them are,” Sandoval said, as if he’d been reading Tom’s mind. “Magnus brought us the Jimi Hendrix guitar and the electron microscope, but people bring us a lot of junk as well. I try to sort it all out and keep what I think is valuable, and as we gain more knowledge about the past we may be able to identify some of these other artifacts. However, one of the greatest features of this museum is the library, and—”

Magnus held up a hand to silence Sandoval. “If only we had more time, my friend, but we have wasted enough already. If Tom succeeds in his mission, he can revisit the museum later on. For now, we should get him to the simulator.”

Dead Man tore his attention away from the tombstone and walked toward them. “But it’s the library, Magnus. The boy should know about it.”

Magnus took Tom’s elbow and steered him toward the cableway corridor. “I’m sorry. We must proceed with his training. That’s more important than anything.”

Another thirty feet down the corridor, Sandoval opened another steel blast door and gestured for Tom to enter. “We’re somewhat squeezed for storage space, so you’ll have to ignore the other exhibits we have in here. This is the simulator room.”

Tom sighed, wondering if he’d ever be able to simulate some sleep, as the group walked into a chamber that was about forty feet across and crammed with complex machinery housed in battered gray equipment racks. Helix started sniffing the floor right in front of Tom, so he had to dance sideways to avoid stepping on the little dog, bumping into a glass case as he did so. The large steel egg in the case bore a faded plaque that read: General Electric—We bring good things to life.

“What’s this egg thing?” Tom asked, as he pressed his hands and face close to the glass, trying to make sense of the curious symbols on the outside of the steel case.

“Nuclear warhead. Plutonium core,” Sandoval said. “Nine-kiloton yield, so it was pretty small compared to later warheads.”

Tom tried to imagine what a warhead was, thinking it ought to look like a big hammer, but he was really too tired to ask more questions.

Magnus motioned to him. “Have a seat over here, Tom. Rest a while.” He stood next to a padded steel couch tilted back into a reclining position. The foot- and armrests were positioned carefully with straps, presumably so that the chair’s occupant would be comfortable enough to sleep there. The back of the reclined seat rested on a webwork of steel connected to a network of springs, hydraulic piston arms, levers, and other devices that were anchored in a heavy base on the floor. Wires with electrodes dangled above the chair. There were many things Tom didn’t understand about the old technologies, but he was willing to try this one out if it meant he could finally get some rest.

While Tom settled into the seat, Magnus lifted a thick helmet that was attached to the headrest. “Put this on, and you won’t be bothered by the lights.” He helped Tom slip it over his head, and Tom noticed how the helmet damped out the sounds and the light from the room. He closed his eyes and settled in, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he fell asleep.

“Are you comfortable, Tom?” It sounded like a tiny Sandoval was speaking into both of his ears at once. He felt wires, maybe the electrodes, being pressed against the skin of his forearms, wrists, and ankles.

“Yes. Good night,” Tom said, hoping they’d take the hint and leave him alone.

The inside of the helmet started to get steamy, then a cooling flow of oxygen drifted past his face, and he dozed off. Strange dreams started right away, with little rotating images of a knight in shiny silver-plate armor; a woman with a bow and arrow in leather armor; some kind of a hunchbacked gnome with a goofy smile and a short sword; a heavily muscled creature with huge eyes, a scary face, and a giant axe; a mean-looking skeleton with glowing red eyes, a long white scythe, and tattered black leather clothes. Tom thought the detail of the knight’s armor was pretty good for a dream, and as he focused his attention on it the knight saluted him with his broadsword. The images faded away.