Prophecy (23 page)

“And this is not the first time that there has been a leak, obviously,” Doc added. “Could you find details? If what I suspect…”

“Y'know, I think I'm with you on that, Doc…” Mildred started to search the menu for earlier entries, clicking on and then dismissing those that promised much and delivered little. Eventually, however, she found what she was looking for. The same face came up on screen. He looked younger, yet it was less than a year before the final entry: an indication of how tough that year had been.

“January 30,1999. Code Seven, day eight. There are now eighteen personnel in the sick bay. They are responding well to treatment, but it will be some time before they are fully rehabilitated. The leaks have finally been traced to source. Tank linings were improperly fitted, and seals had not been effective. The workers on the original construction, who were brought in to fix the problem, were not at fault. It transpires that documentation supplied by the manufacturers was incorrectly labeled, leading to installation instructions that were defective. I trust that a higher level of authority will take the necessary punitive action.

“There has been some problem with the construction workers. I understand that the decision to employ an indigenous population was initiated partly because of employment problems in such communities. I would assume this made them an, ah, economic source of labor, as well as appeasing liberal politicians bleating about unemployment levels. I trust this will tell us something about employing unskilled labor. Experienced engineering staff would have been able to draw attention to the defective instruction much sooner.

“I also believe that an indigenous population was used because of their knowledge of the topography and weather patterns in the locale. While the safe concealment of the tanks is paramount, what has happened reveals to me—and I hope this will be officially noted—the dangers of such a practice. Rumors have begun to circulate that the tribes within the population are splitting, and believe that hallucinations induced by leakages are, in fact, divinely inspired revelations.

“The dangers of having such people running around spouting such garbage when they also have sensitive information in their possession are, I hope, obvious—”

Mildred paused the video.

“Bastards,” she whispered. “Screw the workers, let them suffer. Just don't let them make a noise about it.”

“Except they did, and the noise they made went on awhile lot longer than that joker could ever have thought,” Krysty said quietly.

Mildred chuckled and shook her head sadly. “I guess
this is what Milled Red was trying to say to me. The whole idea of going back to the old ways, moving away from what the white-eye people were doing, came from being damaged by those very same people.”

“Then why do they want to come here so much?” J.B. asked. “They don't use other redoubts, so—”

“My dear John Barrymore, they do not realize that the promised land of their prophecy is a white-eye institution,” Doc said sadly. “I would guess, from the reactions of myself, and what I have heard from others as well as seen, that this foul nerve agent induces visions that are inspired by the subconscious of the subject—”

“Speak proper,” Jak interjected.

Doc smiled. “My apologies. It can draw out of you that which is buried in your dreams. These poor workers, subjected to the foul gas, found themselves dreaming of a way of life that would be apart from the world that had so badly treated them. And yet, to gain the power to do this, their subconscious—”'

“Told them this would be the best way to get it,” Ryan finished.

“And now the leak has spread across the plain with the wind, and created the illusion that things are changing—the weather, those weird shit animals we could never catch—”

“But what about weird muties we catch? And some plants. Real enough, just never saw many of 'em,” Jak queried.

Millie shrugged. “I'm no botanist or biologist, but I'm guessing a slow leak would cause particles of the
gas to seep into the earth over time. God knows how that could alter DNA.”

“It is, I would hazard, irrelevant now. The point is that it has happened, and if it continues there is no knowing the damage it could do. Not just to these tribes, but to the rest of the land should it spread. I am no altruist when it comes to this forsaken pesthole of a continent, but if I am not to buy the farm, then I must ensure…” He shrugged. “We all must, I think.”

Mildred nodded, losing the frozen image of the old soldier as she did so, and starting to scan the comp for schematics of the redoubt and surrounding areas. “I think I'm getting this system,” she said. “A layout of the tanks has to be here somewhere.”

While images whipped past on the screen in front of them, a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes that made sense to Mildred, yet made the heads of some others spin, J.B. turned away. It was obvious that something was bothering him, and Doc felt compelled to ask him what was on his mind.

“It's just that—” J.B. shook his head “—this is going to sound like a crazy talking, but what if the tribes were right? What if their spirits did bring us here?”

Doc pondered for a moment. “Our arrival was a happy accident for them. If the key tenet of their prophecy was that a pair of strangers arrived to lead them to the promised land, then all we did was trigger their illusions.”

“But, Doc…why two?”

“Perhaps those who were originally contaminated were led from their wilderness—the scene of the acci
dent—by teams of military who worked in pairs? From such mundane things are legends born.”

J.B. snorted. “Yeah, but how come we ended up split into pairs? That's weird. And how come it happened when the stars were aligned for their medicine men?”

“Again, I would say this to you, dear John Barrymore. Perhaps they saw the stars that way because the prophecy said they would be that way when the strangers arrived, and so the traces of nerve agent in the air altered their perception?”

“That's two huge coincidences. Even if you're right, then how come—”

Doc stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. When he spoke, it was softly and with a faraway look in his eye. “Lad, fate is a strange thing. I have seen many strange things in my time, as have you. You know what has happened to me. After all these things, could I truly say to you that there is no divine, or indeed malign, hand behind the workings of man? Perhaps there are forces that are beyond our understanding. Mayhap Wakan Tanka exists, and this is his idea of a joke. Or perhaps the way in which the universe is knitted together has a kind of music to which we can only dance, without ever recognizing the tune.”

J.B. fixed Doc with a stare. “Come back, Doc, I'm losing you. What the hell are you trying to say?”

Doc paused for a moment, his eyes clouded and lost in a world of his own. Then, with no prior warning, they cleared. He beamed a dazzling smile at the Armorer.

“More things on heaven and earth, Horatio, as some
hack writer once said. I think, dear boy, all I mean is never say never. Sometimes it is best not to know, just to do.”

J.B. was about to tell Doc that he was still none the wiser when Mildred's voice cut across him.

“I hate to interrupt you boys and your little knitting circle, but I think we've got what we need.”

J.B. turned to see that Jak and Ryan were already with Krysty and Mildred in front of the drop-down screen. They were all looking at a three-dimensional model of the area, which Mildred was scouting around with the comp cursor. In cutaway, it revealed the locations of the tanks containing the nerve agent in regard to the redoubt. The one that was causing the leak was indicated by a flashing beacon that pinpointed the crack in detail.

“Come over here,” Ryan beckoned. “I figure it's pretty clear what we've got to do.”

“If I had any idea that it would amount to this, I would have perhaps been a little less keen on saving this shit-hole of a land,” Doc panted as he carried yet another land mine from the armory, up the flight of stairs that led to the exit corridor, and placed it on one of the two carts that stood in the corridor.

“You think hard? Wait till dig it in.” Jak laughed.

“That is right, make it worse,” Doc grumbled. He blinked heavily, sweat dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes. “If only I could take this mask off for a moment.”

“Don't even think about it,” Ryan snapped. “We can't risk it. We need to be triple red for this.”

“I know, I know,” Doc sighed. “I was just venting some anger, no more no less.”

“Then keep it that way,” Ryan cautioned. “We ready, J.B.?”

The Armorer checked the two carts. Each was loaded with twenty land mines, two spades and four SMGs taken from the armory.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “This should do it.”

The four men paired up—Jak and Doc, Ryan and
J.B.—and started to haul the carts toward the redoubt exit. Loaded down, the carts were heavy, but they were easy compared to the slog of carrying the mines and trolleys up from the level of the armory. It occurred to Ryan that this redoubt had to have elevators of some kind that led to the sites where the tanks were located. But they weren't obviously marked on any schematic Mildred had found, and they didn't have the time to waste. He felt uncomfortable here, even though the anxiety caused by the nerve gas had receded. The sooner they completed this task and were on their way, the happier he would be.

As J.B. tapped in the code, and the redoubt doors slid painfully open, it became startlingly obvious how much they had been affected by the nerve gas. Even though the view from the sec monitors on the first level had given them some kind of indication, it was still shocking to see how much their perception had been altered.

The lush valley was gone. In fact, they could now see that they were not in any kind of valley at all. The land around was flat, with a few areas of scrub and spiky brown grasses fighting their way through the slowly poisoned soil. The tribesmen, whose presence had seemed to fade as they entered the now vanished valley, could be clearly seen only a short distance away. Without the nerve gas to mess with their minds, the four chem-suited men could see that the warriors were executing an absurd ballet in which they seemed to be half fighting one another, and half battling against an
enemy that was unseen. The ghosts of their ancestors were invisible without the inducement of chemicals.

Perhaps that was as it had always been.

Pausing only to see if the warriors noticed them, and if they would resultantly become a threat, the four men continued on their way. It was as though they didn't exist to the mounted warriors. They didn't fit in with what the warriors could see, or wanted to see, and so became invisible.

Better that way. A couple of hundred yards from the redoubt entrance, the four men split up. Ryan gestured to Jak and Doc that they take the tanks located to the east, while J.B. and himself would take those to the west. With gestures of acknowledgment, the men hauled their carts in separate directions.

 

O
N THE THIRD LEVEL
of the redoubt, Mildred and Krysty were laboring at their own task. Gradually, Mildred had familiarized herself with the comp, and was becoming more adept at finding the information she wanted. Krysty watched her carefully, picked up the codes and entry keys to the running programs, and turned to another of the terminals, using those things she had learned to try to find the program that would give them what they wanted.

“Mildred, I think I've found it,” she said quietly. The screen in front of her carried a schematic of the pipes that connected the tanks. She scrolled through several pages while Mildred watched.

“That's it, back one page,” Mildred prompted. And,
when Krysty had called up the correct page, added, “That's the one. The program that troubleshoots the faults on the feed lines. Run it.”

Krysty clicked on the run instruction, and the women waited impatiently as the comp ticked over, finally flashing up a message that the leak had been located and a program for sealing all tanks at source was available.

“What about the gas already in the pipe?” Krysty queried.

Mildred leaned over her and scanned the figures. “Most of it will be pulled back into the tank by the suction seal. The volume of what might remain is small. We'll have to risk that. Face it, we leave it and then what?”

Krysty shrugged. “Guess it's the only way.” She hit the key that triggered the seal, and they waited while the bar appearing across the screen went from empty to full, the percentage figure above it increasing with an almost painful slowness. For both of them, it seemed bizarre to be standing, doing nothing, while the others toiled above. Yet the leakage was not directly from a tank, and no amount of physical labor could replace what the comp was doing.

Still, the relief when the program finished its run, and the tanks were sealed, was palpable.

“Step one.” Krysty sighed as she closed the program.

“Now let's get the hell out of here and see if we can help them,” Mildred suggested, unable to keep the itching tension from her voice.

“Way ahead of you,” Krysty echoed.

 

I
N THE HEAT OF THE SUN
, the chem suits made every movement strength sapping. Although the material was light, it seemed to soak up the heat from the sun. All four men could feel their skins roast; sweat prickled and irritated as it formed pools that could not even cool. It was like being broiled alive.

And so it was a delicate balance: the sooner they laid the mines, the sooner they would be able to get some distance between themselves and the source of the chem leak, making it safe to remove the suits and breathe easily once more.

Jak, for the life of him, could not understand why the full body suits were necessary. Doc had tried to explain about the ability of the gas to be absorbed by bare skin, but to Jak it was nonsense. Surely you had to breathe it into your lungs? Still, he abided by Ryan's decision to take as little risk as possible, even though he cursed the suit with every step he took; with every shovel of earth that he moved.

Despite the heat, he and Doc had established a good rhythm. Each man was laying a series of mines around the areas where the tanks lay in their sector. The plan was simple: the tanks were in pits that had been dug and then shored with concrete. That much they had seen on the schematic. They knew the locations, even though the tanks and concrete pits were hidden from their view. However, small outcrops disguised entrances to the pits that were used for maintenance, which had been exposed over the decades since nuclear winter.

The pipelines between the redoubt and the inter
linked tanks were also encased in concrete. Those, they knew, would be sealed off via the comp. The fact that one of them had split, and the gas had leaked via concrete cracked by the earth movements postnukecaust, showed that to make the tanks and their concrete coffins completely safe would be an impossibility. There would always be a lurking, ticking bomb. But if they blew the access tunnels, burying the pits, then the tribes, or whoever else discovered and tried to access the tanks, would find it impossible.

Laying mines at the maintenance exits, and at points both between and at a safe distance, ensured that they would seal the tanks as effectively as was possible.

It was a repetitive task, made only marginally easier by the monotony of rhythm. Dig to a depth of three feet, lay the mine and set the timer, fill in the hole, then move on. Ryan and J.B. had calculated that to mine all the tanks and then to mine the redoubt entrance would take two hours. An hour to get away, and then the mines could safely blow.

They were on schedule, but Jak was finding the heat was getting to him, making his muscles cramp. Looking up momentarily, he could see that Doc was slowing. He guessed that it was less cramp, and more that the work was backbreaking for the older man. Cursing to himself, he looked down and continued to dig.

Across at the locations where they were laying the mines, both Ryan and J.B. were feeling the strain. Acutely aware of the time limit he had imposed on his people, Ryan could feel the tension making the muscles
at the base of skull knot, at a time when he least needed the pain and tightness.

So it was that he was relieved when he saw Mildred approach them. In the distance, he could see that Krysty was joining Doc and Jak. Both women had picked up spades on their way out of the redoubt, and both—without even a word of greeting—started to dig.

Their efforts spurred on the flagging men, who found reserves of energy both from the assistance, and also from the knowledge that if the women had joined them without fuss, then the tanks had been sealed from the comp. Bury the bastards, and cover the entrance to the redoubt so that it could never again be accessed, and they would have done all that was possible to avert disaster. All that would remain would be to get as far away as possible before the mines detonated. Ryan had opted to take the overland route rather than use the mat-trans. With the residual effects of the gas in their systems, the arduous effects of such a process might have an intensified danger that he wanted to avoid; particularly for Jak and Doc, who had always been the worst affected by previous jumps.

No one in either party spoke until the final mines had been laid around the tanks, and the two crews hauled their now lighter carts to the redoubt entrance.

“So far, so good,” Ryan said shortly when they came together. He checked his wristchron. “No time to waste. Everything okay?” he asked Krysty and Mildred. When the women nodded, he said, “Let's get this done and move out.”

There were four mines left, and six people to lay
them. Two were placed on each side of the outcrop that acted as cover for the redoubt entrance. Buried just below the surface so that they would crumble the rock around the doors, and cripple the already failing door mechanism, they would effectively seal as well as hide the redoubt. With Ryan and Krysty digging on one side, and J.B. and Mildred on the other, the mines were laid and then the holes filled in by Jak and Doc. It was a process that was speeded by their efficiency, and also by the adrenaline pounding through them with the knowledge that it was a job completed, and time to haul out. Leaving the carts and the spades to be buried by the hoped-for rock fall around the redoubt entrance, they turned to go.

 

T
HE VISIONS OF THE PAST
had faded, and the bloodlust to destroy one another had likewise begun to recede. The warriors of the three tribes fell back, each too exhausted to go in for the chill. They were battered, bruised and cut, but their skills had been on a par with each other, so despite their own best efforts, each warrior had been unable to land a telling blow.

And now they each faced the others, realizing for the first time that the ones sent to guide them by the spirits had left them to their own battles. Breathing heavily, running with sweat and blood, they looked around as if for the first time.

Though they didn't know it, the slightest of changes in the wind direction had carried the residue of nerve gas away from them. Their perceptions of the world
were now in line with what was a common reality. Reactions no longer fuzzed by a nerve agent in their systems, the rage subsided, and the ability to perceive the landscape around them returned. There were no phantom tribes; no imagined valleys; no hidden groves.

Now there was only the reality of battered and bruised warriors clustered in a loose semicircle, too beaten to fight one another, and wondering why Wakan Tanka had deserted them in their hour of need. Where was the promised land that held the secrets of the prophecy? Where were those who had been sent to guide them?

And who were the six people in odd, bizarre costumes who were turning away from a rock?

 

“D
ARK NIGHT
,” J.B. breathed softly. “If they come for us…”

He did not need to finish the sentence. The others knew what he meant: the entrance to the redoubt was glaring. The mines still had enough time for detonation for the warriors to make an entry.

And the six of them were hampered by chem suits that they dare not remove.

For a few moments, disbelief hung in the air. The warriors couldn't take in what they saw; the friends couldn't believe that the warriors hadn't charged them.

And then the silence was broken by a yell of fury from Little Tree. The Otoe warrior was streaked with his own blood from ax cuts, and couldn't believe that the people he had come to trust had let him—and his tribe—
down in such a manner. Kicking his mount, he drove the steed toward them, his ax held high above his head. Those who followed in his wake needed little encouragement to follow his lead.

“Fireblast! Fan out, try to take them down and save the horses,” Ryan yelled, moving as quickly as the cumbersome suit would allow him.

The six chem-suited companions moved out in a spray, putting as much distance between themselves as was possible in the brief time allowed to them, aiming to make themselves impossible to hit in one bunch. Spread the attentions of the attackers, and they may have a chance.