The
buckets, those that had not cracked from old age and been tossed
aside, reeked. The crew handling them had found rags with which to
cover their mouths and noses, but it was certainly an onerous task.
Bringing up the buckets was slow work; it was more than a hundred
meters from the "tunnel's" entrance at Ridge to its exit at
Hall Farm.
Karen
stood near the doorway. She and the others could hear much of what
was going on: the bursting shells from the big gun, the collapse of
the sally port door, the brief battle in the antechamber, footsteps
on the stairs. Karen drew her revolver, but no one appeared on the
landing at the end of the corridor.
"What
is happening?" asked Juanita.
"I
don't know. It's like they've skipped over us and gone downstairs."
Marleena
strode over with a bucket of sewage. "The sinks and shower
stalls are full.
Where do we put the rest of this?"
Karen
didn't hesitate. "Chuck it right out in the hall. Maybe it will
slow someone down."
Not
twenty buckets later, an echo-laden shout was heard from the bottom
of the garderobe. The lower door was open! Little Griff, sounding as
if he were kilometers away, gave the all-clear.
Karen,
after checking both ways down the corridor, looked into the troubled
faces nearest her. "I'm sorry, everyone, we're all going to
get ruinously messy.
Gather your gear, each of you put your stuff in front of you, climb
in, and go. Feet first. Half slide, half creep."
The
refectory filled with the rustling of bundles, bows, quivers,
backpacks, and bodies. Lining up, one after another of Karen's crew
shoved one or more items into the hole, undoubtedly causing distress
and discomfort to whomever was below, then sat on the edge and
slipped in. Marleena, now carrying Arda, who was wrapped in an old
quilt head to foot, kicked a small duffel bag to the side of the
hole. Juanita lifted the bag for her and tipped it onto someone in
the darkness. Ignoring the aggrieved yelp from below, she turned and
helped Marleena sit down with the baby and shove off.
Errol
brought the last spear from the armory. His wounds not completely
healed, he was using it as a crutch. "Mrs. Allyn, I can ..."
"No,
they need your experience at the bottom in case they are attacked
there. Go!"
Grimly,
but willingly, steeling himself against the pain, he went.
An
explosion from somewhere shook the room.
Juanita
looked at Karen questioningly.
"They're
working up from Four, clearing," Karen offered. "You should
go."
"You
will come too, will you not?"
"I
can't, not right away. They have grenades or something; when they
find the garderobe they will drop one right on top of us."
Juanita
extended her hands."Then let me take the boy."
Karen
looked down at Allyn, sleeping peacefully in his pouch at her left
side. "Sure – got a way to wrap him up?"
"But
of course. A towel will do, and he will ride between my breasts."
:::
Magee
was not pleased to find a steel door, streaked with rust, locked
against him. But this was easily remedied. Popping the magazine off
his AA-12, he racked the slug out of its chamber and hand-loaded an
explosive round from his tool belt. Standing back, he fired
point-blank at the doorknob assembly, squinting against the bright
flash of the sharp little explosion.
Immediately
a shotgun fired as the door swung open -- quite close by and and
very loud – but instead of feeling a hit on his suit or helm, Magee
watched his magazine skip away from him. A smart warrior! This was
going to be fun.
There
would be another shot coming – but, no, whomever it was held their
fire. Magee could not risk a peek; he turned away as he stood up, and
and reached into his pouch for a spare shell. Buckshot; just what was
wanted. This he popped into his chamber and threw his shotgun over
his shoulder to fire behind him into the room. Strange sounds –
something rolling? – came to him from the general
direction of his assailant.
A
woman's voice – an old woman's voice – pierced the air. "Watch
out, Avery, sunnabitch is armored! Cap-a-pie!"
Two
of them at least! And experienced, clearly. Change of plan. Magee
scrabbled in the other pouch at his belt for his one flash-bang,
hoping it would not prove to be a dud. This would require two hands.
He set his shotgun against the wall, and was not surprised to see it
immediately shot and knocked to the floor, undoubtedly damaged. He
pulled the fuse ring on the bomb, counted to three, and tossed it
over his shoulder into the room. A satisfying commotion ensued,
followed by a disappointingly dull thump.
Someone
had jumped on the bomb and suppressed the blast.
Magee
swung round and bounded into the room. A
bit old for this sort of thing, but when ya gotta, ya gotta. To
his consternation he found himself facing two wheelchairs by a table,
one empty. In the other sat a large round-shouldered hag, completely
focused on re-loading a sawed-off twelve-gauge. In three steps he
crossed the room and disarmed her, snapped the gun shut, and was in
command of the situation.
On
the floor lay a man, already moaning and stirring. Although he had
stumps for legs, he looked strong and still dangerous. Even as he'd
fallen across the hissing flash-bang, the leader – he had to be the
leader – had had the presence of mind to draw a derringer with one
hand and a throwing knife with the other. Best neutralize him
immediately.
But
the old lady apparently didn't know when she was licked; she picked
up a heavy old telephone handset and threw it at the shotgun, then
some kind of electronic thing in a box, and then, from somewhere,
produced, of all things, a short sword, and stood up, all the while
uttering colorful curses. Okay,
be that way.
Magee changed his aim and fired into her. The hag sat down heavily,
rolled backward a few centimeters and subsided at last, but not
without offering Magee a strange and quizzical smile.
What
was that smile about?
Instinctively,
hackles raised, Magee turned toward the door.
The
last person he'd expected to see was standing there, less than two
meters away, aiming a large chromed pistol right at the eye-slit in
Magee's helm.
Magee
lifted the sawed-off, ready to trip the trigger again just as soon as
he could get its aim onto any part of his target, but he was
painfully aware that for the second time in his life, someone had the
drop on him.
:::
The
Doctor, whose hearing was especially acute, followed the sounds of
small-arms combat near and far. Some of this was easily interpreted;
her minions were efficiently clearing rooms for her. Other sounds
made less sense, and were beginning to concern her. There was action
three or more floors above her, which she judged involved Magee; then
closer, as though someone had engaged her rear guard at the entrance
– that staccato racket was surely the AK, but what was the other?
Neither shotgun nor twenty-two. One more floor to clear, and then see
for herself what Magee had got himself into. That would be slow, but
one's rear must be secure.
She
climbed the stairs behind her young men and followed them onto the
landing.
Imagine!
A nuclear battery. She'd verified not only its existence, but its
status. From the LEDs and gauges, she'd seen that it would last, at
the current rate, a good twenty years. Exactly what The Doctor
ordered. But this rat's nest must be cleared, the insurrection of the
peasants put down, once and for all, before she could plan her
future.
One
last level. The young men swung into a room, covering each other.
Clear. Another. Clear. Another.
Here
they encountered difficulties. Someone was shooting at them! One
returned fire with his crossbow and lurched back into the corridor,
apparently hit. The other tossed a flash-bang into the room, then,
after the explosion, cleared the room himself. The Doctor inspected
her damaged soldier.
"Where
did they get you?"
"Uhh
... shoulder, ma'am. Not too bad."
"You
can still fight?"
"Yes,
ma'am."
"Good."
The
other returned. She turned to him. "What did you find?"
"Old
lady and an old man. Really old. He was already half dead. She was
shooting
at us; then after the bomb we got her."
"You
made sure of them?"
"Yes,
ma'am, cleared. Here's the weapon. One round left."
The
Doctor inspected the tiny green pistol. "Cute. I've heard of
these but never seen one. Keep it. Let's get the next room. Load your
partner's crossbow for him; he has a bad arm."
The
youths worked the next doorway and then the next.
Here
they found a mystery; several old people who had, apparently,
committed mass suicide. The oldest corpse, a small wizened woman with
white hair in a bun, held, of all things, a Glock tightly gripped in
both hands. One of the young men pried it loose and checked the
magazine and the chamber – both empty. "Ma'am, could this be
Wolf's sidearm?"
"Why
yes, I believe it could. He came back to Roseburg without it. Hang
onto that, too. I believe I have some Parabellum back at the truck."
Things
had quieted down upstairs; presumably Magee had secured his objective
and was exploring. She would have to wrap things up here and check on
him.
The
next room presented a difficulty; raw sewage had been spilled, in
quantity, into the hallway, and would have to be negotiated to
proceed farther. The stench was indescribable, and the interns showed
a disinclination to walk through the stuff to clear the room.
"Now,
boys, let's not be fastidious."
"No,
ma'am, we're on it."
They
stepped into the slick brown stream. Just as they did so, The
Doctor's sensitive ears picked up the smallest of sounds behind her –
as of someone walking on the balls of bare feet, almost tiptoe. She
brought up the AA-12 and swung round to bring it to bear. As she did
so, two loud pops, as from a small-bore pistol, resounded in the
corridor. From the corner of her eye, The Doctor saw only a heel as
whomever it was disappeared into the death-room they had just
cleared. She swung back to check on her interns, only to find them
both sagging onto the mired floor of the corridor. One was cursing
liberally. Both had clearly been shot, on either side of and past
her, below their body armor, and neither looked as if he had any
fight left in him.
The
Doctor was, quite suddenly, effectively alone. Swinging back to the
door, she strode over and slipped in as quickly as her armored suit
would permit, covering all the corners with the AA-12. Surely
whomever had attacked was not one of these dead old ladies. Was there
a closet? There was a door! She realized she'd heard it click shut.
Neither of those dolts lying out there in the hallway had mentioned a
door. Oh, well. If you want something done right ... she saw that
there was no lock in the doorknob, nor a keypad on the wall nearby.
Trying the knob, she found that it turned. She opened the door a
crack, and threw in her one remaining flash-bang.
After
the burst, she entered, shotgun at the ready, but found only some
kind of tiny bunkroom with empty steel bunks. There was yet another
door at the other end. She advanced and cracked that one. This led to
a well-lit large room with tables and chairs, with a kitchen at the
other end. A large serving window, with a stainless-steel counter,
offered good cover there; The Doctor would have to clear that kitchen
before exploring farther.
As
she was about to do so, however, two more pops came from an open
doorway to her right. The corridor! Moving as fast as the suit would
allow, The Doctor reached the doorway, only to find that her men were
lying face down in the muck. Both had been double-tapped! And brown
footprints led back once again to the doorway behind which the old
women had died. She was being led a merry chase.
This
will not do. Thoroughly
concerned now, The Doctor retraced her steps to the bunkroom, with
the shotgun at ready, and approached the doorway to the death
chamber. Ah, movement at last within her field of fire! She held down
the trigger. The AA-12, on full automatic, roared as it tore apart
the person who lurched into the bunkroom.
But
something did not seem right. Leaning over for a better view through
her eye-slit, The Doctor glimpsed her victim. It was the already-dead
old lady, the one who'd held the Glock! Quickly The Doctor began to
re-assume her defensive posture; but as she did so, something flashed
at the edge of her vision.
:::
Karen
had expected the dagger, plunged deep within the slit in her strange
opponent's helmet, to end the fight, yet the hands that gripped
the big shotgun still moved with deadly purpose. She gripped the
barrel, gasping as it burned her one hand, and body slammed the
jointed Kevlar suit, then put her right foot behind the other's left
leg, planted for a split second, then kicked back against the leg.
Surprising strength resisted her, but the two toppled together
between the rows of bunks. The shotgun fired again and again, right
by her ear, almost stunning her. Why had the long knife, still
protruding from the helmet's face, not killed? Never mind, focus.
Her
enemy abandoned the idea of shooting and tried to hit Karen in the
side of the head with the gun barrel. Karen rolled right, and, taking
a chance on timing, drew her revolver, put it alongside the hilt of
the dagger, and pulled the trigger five times. One shot
misfired, but the other four struck home. The heavy armored suit
stiffened, and then lay almost still. The arms and legs continued to
flex rhythmically, though there seemed to be no longer any purpose in
them.
Karen,
still lying prone atop her twitching foe, holstered the emptied
revolver, retrieved her bloodied knife, wiped it on the corpse's
Kevlar for lack of anything better and sheathed it, then yanked the
big shotgun away from the strange figure's gloved hands and tossed it
across the room.
Before
anything else was to be done, she must reload.
Karen,
legs wobbly, arose and reeled across the roomful of bodies to an
upended chair, which she righted, hand trembling. She drew the
revolver, gripped the still-warm barrel between her knees and pulled
at the extractor rod, swinging out the cylinder to shove the shells
out. The brass empties, along with one dud, tinkled across the
blood-pooled floor. Now shaking all over, she fished nine new rounds,
one at a time, from her ammunition pouch and shoved them into the
chambers of the tiny cylinder, then snapped it shut with her thumb.
She watched the armored suit from the corner of her eye as she did
so. The heels of its boots were lightly tapping the floor.
She
holstered the revolver, then, agonizingly, rose from the chair and
returned to the armored fighter. The gloved hands were still slowly
grasping at the air. Why had not a knife thrust and four shots
through the eye-slit finished this man?
Karen
explored the helmet and found and unsnapped its fastenings. Drawing
it off the head awkwardly, she found herself looking into what
had once been a woman's face. Or was it?
The
features, as best Karen could tell – she had damaged them
considerably – were regular and not unattractive. Ellen Murchison
might have resembled this, years ago. Long hair, drawn up into a bun
like Mrs. Lazar's. A strong jaw line. The eyes –
One
eye had been thoroughly – shattered was
the right word – by the knife, or the twenty-two, or both. There
were orbital muscles – that would be the superior rectus – but
also fine wires – platinum? Karen recoiled.
As
she did so, the other eye's pupil contracted and focused on her.
Karen
drew her revolver and fired all nine rounds, double action. None
misfired.
The
woman – or thing,
whatever – jerked and lay still.
Karen
returned to the chair, her breath rasping, and reloaded again. Very
little ammunition remained to her. She looked across at the shotgun.
No, too big to be practical for her. Perhaps she could chuck it down
the garderobe; perhaps Errol or Marleena could use it.
She listened
to her surroundings.
Everything
had gone strangely quiet. Though Karen had concentrated on the
problem at hand, she now realized there had been fighting in other
parts of the facility. Why hadn't the mines been set off? These
people – or this –
must have found and interfered with the detonating system. Briefly
she considered checking upstairs, but the people who had gone down
the pipe were her current responsibility. Time to go and find them.
Karen
stood up, crossed the room, and retrieved the massive shotgun.
On
her way out, she discovered again the upper torso of Mrs. Lazar, with
whose body, using all of her strength, Karen had decoyed the armored
creature.
The
old woman's surprised-looking eyes, which had suffered from
cataracts, were open and drying. Karen bent over and drew the eyelids
closed.
(To be continued)
