Hellbenders Page 5

  “So what do I call you, One-eye? You know me, after all.”

  Ryan answered simply with his name, taking the opportunity to look over the rest of the company who were behind Correll. There had been a party of ten after all, then, as there were six people lining up behind the leader. Five of them were men, all looking lean and ready to fight. The sole woman was stouter, with a better developed musculature. She looked to be of Native American heritage, as her skin had a darker tint, and her hair was black, like her glittering eyes. All of them were dressed in better fatigues, camou and old military clothes than their leader, which made a part of Ryan wonder why Correll still wore his old rags. They all had the wariness that Ryan could feel in his own people, yet they had all relaxed the instant Correll had spoken, as though they trusted his every word, as well as following it. They carried Uzis, H&Ks, and one had an M-4000 like the one J.B. carried. Their clothes and blasters suggested that they had been in this redoubt for some time, and had made full use of what had been left behind after skydark.

  In the distance, back at the bend of the tunnel, Ryan could see the two chilled corpses, and the wounded man, now semiconscious.

  “Let Mildred go and see to your man,” Ryan added after he had spoken his name, indicating the woman with an inclination of his head. “She knows a lot of healing skills and understands some of the old medicines. Let her take him to the med lab here, she may be able to help him.”

  Correll furrowed his brow. “Med lab?” He pronounced the words as though they were completely foreign, rolling them around his tongue.

  Mildred spoke for the first time. “Med lab—it’s usually on the same level as the armory. Look, a couple of your people carry him, and I’ll see if I can help him.”

  Correll gave Mildred a penetrating stare that, for one moment, completely fazed her. She felt a shudder run down her spine as those deep-set eyes seemed to search into her. Then he nodded, turning his head to two of the men behind.

  “Lonnie, Travis—help this here lady to take Cy to the med lab, see if she can help him. Let her lead.”

  He had, once again, pronounced the words “med lab” as though they were something strange and freakish, but his voice still carried authority. Two of the men—a tall, crop-haired guy and a slightly shorter guy with longer, red hair—nodded, shouldered their blasters and moved back to where Cy was lying. Mildred, with the briefest of glances at Ryan and J.B., holstered her ZKR, which had been in her hand, pointing down, as were all the blasters, and hurried past the one-eyed man and his counterpart, moving through the other people to reach the injured man.

  The two men assigned to assist her were about to lift him, but she stayed them with a simple “Wait, please,” and examined the prone body as they hovered over her. It was a bad injury, and she couldn’t guarantee saving the use of the arm, but as long as the refrigeration on the blood-and-plasma bank in the redoubt was still working, she may be able to keep him alive. “Okay, let’s go,” she said firmly, establishing her authority and leading Lonnie and Travis, carrying the prone Cy, out of sight around the tunnel bend and in search of the med lab.

  Correll had turned to watch them go, and now he returned his gaze to Ryan.

  “So, Ryan Cawdor, we know who we are. Introduce me to the rest of your people, and then we can go back to the living quarters and you can meet my people.”

  Correll slowly shouldered his H&K and extended his hand in a gesture. Ryan holstered the SIG-Sauer and grasped Correll’s hand. The grip was firm and dry.

  “That’s a deal,” Ryan said.

  After the introductions had been made, the two forces joined up and moved out of the lower tunnel, walking up toward where the redoubt dwellers had made their home. Correll explained on the way that his people had learned early on that the worms liked to dig deep in these parts, and apart from one or two isolated incidents they had never experienced any problems with the giant muties on the upper levels. They rarely used the lower levels, just venturing down when necessary to use the shower room, or take supplies, or effect repairs.

  Jak and Dean volunteered themselves to help the woman and one of the other men carry the corpses of those they had chilled up to the higher levels, where they would be disposed of. The man and woman still seemed to have a degree of hostility over the chilling, even though they abided by their leader’s word, and seemed uneasy at Jak and Dean assisting. But both felt it was a necessary gesture and carried on regardless.

  They passed the med lab, and Correll stopped to see what was going on.

  Mildred turned as the door opened. Travis was assisting her, his red hair pushed back from his face as he leaned over the prone Cy, but Lonnie had been overcome by seeing the state of Cy’s wound closeup, and was standing some distance away.

  “What’s going on?” Correll asked.

  Mildred, bent over the recumbent man’s shoulder, spared Correll the briefest of looks. “Hard to say at the moment,” she replied as she returned to her work. “There was some superficial flesh wounding from the fléchettes, but the real damage is around the joint itself. I’ve cleaned up the rest of his arm, and I’m looking at the tendons and muscle damage, see what I can do. Thing is, I’m no surgeon. I can patch him up, but he may not be able to use the arm too well.”

  Correll nodded, as much to himself as anyone else. “That is as may be, and there is nothing we can do about it. I thank you for your help. We’ll leave you to your task.”

  They left the med lab and rejoined the rest of the party, waiting outside.

  “Tell me, my dear sir,” Doc asked, taking advantage of this unexpected break, “how did you come to be living here?”

  “In good time, Dr. Tanner, in good time,” Correll said. “First we must do what is necessary.”

  They reached the upper level of the redoubt, and went past an area that was obviously where the inhabitants had made their home. There were several people about, and they stopped to stare as Correll led the party past them. No one spoke, and a hush descended on the level.

  “It’s not exactly the best way for them to get acquainted with us, is it?” Krysty whispered to Ryan. “They’re really going to love us for this.”

  Correll looked back at her. “They’ll know the truth soon enough. First we do this.”

  There was an edge to his voice that brooked no argument, and Ryan felt a nagging doubt begin to creep at the back of his mind. The low drawl in which Correll spoke barely changed in pitch or volume, yet was stopped from being a monotone by an underlying edge. Ryan had the vaguest notion that the edge in the man’s voice was that of madness. He was driven by something, but the one-eyed warrior had yet to find out exactly what that something was.

  They walked on, past the area of habitation and up toward the main ramp and double set of sec doors leading to the outside. Correll punched in a code and opened the first set, leading them through. He paused before the second set, which opened onto the outside.

  “Blasters ready,” he intoned. “That means you, as well, Ryan Cawdor, and your people. Every time that we go outside, we need to be triple-red aware.”

  “Your enemies, or just muties and wildlife?” Ryan asked.

  The ghost of a smile flickered across Correll’s face. “It’s all wildlife out there, friend, and they’re all our enemies.”

  He punched in the final code and pressed a lever, the outer sec doors lifting to reveal to Ryan and the companions the world outside this particular redoubt.

  In truth, it was hard to tell what the outside was like, as the fluorescent lighting inside made it hard for their eyes to adjust to the gloom outside. Although both J.B. and Ryan had wrist chrons, it was useless for them to use those as they had no idea whereabouts in the they had landed. The Armorer had hoped that a look at the terrain would give him an idea, as he was usually accurate at judging their general location by the topography of the land. But wherever they were, it seemed to be late evening, and in the cloudless sky overhead there were stars beginning to show through the twi
light.

  “We must hurry,” Correll said, breaking into their respective thoughts. “The open door will be visible for some way. Come…”

  He led most of the party outside and onto the bare rock around. Two of his sec people stayed within the boundary of the redoubt, and at a nod from their leader, closed the sec door.

  “I don’t want the inside visible any longer than necessary when it’s dark,” he offered by way of explanation before leading them across the rock floor to an incline.

  Looking around, the companions could tell that the redoubt was recessed into the side of a mountain that had a series of graded ridges running up the side. These had been fashioned into a road at one time, as there were still traces of blacktop material, but an earth movement—either the earth itself or possibly even the activities of the mutie worms—had caused much of the rock to fall away.

  Correll stopped and pointed over the incline. It began gently, then after a few yards fell away into nothing. He said, “See, everyone who comes near figures that there was something leading up here, and then it all went. But that ain’t true. We only discovered this place by chance and fate, and then because there’s another road that moves from the other side of the hill and goes up then down before it gets to here. See, you take the long route and sometimes you get what you want, whereas you always want the quickest, then you get fucked off.”

  Ryan looked at the road that ran in the opposite direction from the sheltered entrance to the redoubt. It certainly ran up, and then out of sight around the side of the mountain. But it was obvious to the one-eyed man that Correll was talking about something else when he mouthed the last sentence. Something that had to do with the secrets of the old tech that he believed they could find.

  J.B., meanwhile, was taking a good look around, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, trying to work out where they could be in the Deathlands. The mountain on which they stood was one of a few scattered for as far as he could see. He could turn 180 degrees and get a good view of what the terrain was like. It seemed to be scattered mountains, with desert in between. Although the air was cold now, he guessed that it could be mighty hot at the peak of the day. Enough that there was little scrub and vegetation around.

  Correll disturbed his musings.

  “Time to consign these friends to the past,” he said sadly. “Fate said their time had come, and you can’t argue with that.”

  The man and woman carrying one end each of the chilled corpses moved toward the incline where Correll was standing. Jak and Dean, each grasping the other end of a corpse, followed, not knowing what was expected of them. In turn, each of the corpses was tossed over the side of the incline. Dean lingered to take a look below. It was impossible to see what was at the bottom of the mountain, as the darkness and shadow closed in. He looked back toward Correll, an unspoken question forming.

  “There’s mutie dogs and jackals down there, other kinds of rodent. They pick the bones clean. Ain’t much clue left of us being here, ain’t no chance of any illness spreading, and you feed the fuckers and they don’t bother us much. Serves a lot of purposes.”

  Correll shrugged and turned back to the sec door, walking rapidly up the rock floor to where the metal door, its camou paint barely touched by the rad-blasted years, was silent and still. The rest of his party followed, with Ryan and his companions following a fraction of a second later.

  Correll rapped on the door with his knuckles. It barely sounded on the thick metal, but the pair on the other side of the door had to have been listening for his return and signal, as the door immediately began to rise. Correll entered while it was still rising to its full height, and was greeted by Lonnie, who had joined the others at the sec door. The crop-haired man seemed relieved to have left the med lab.

  “Well?” Correll asked simply.

  “He’s getting something called plasma, and the doctor did something to his shoulder, gave him some of the drugs. Travis is with him now, but he’s asleep and seems to be out of pain. Travis could learn a lot from her.”

  “Good.” Correll nodded.

  Then, turning to Ryan and his companions as they approached, he continued, “Your friend Mildred seems to be extremely knowledgeable. Cy sounds like he’s in good hands.”

  “It is only fair, as we were responsible,” Doc murmured. The silence that greeted his remark made him feel uncomfortable.

  “Really don’t think you should have pointed that out,” Krysty muttered, looking at their erstwhile opponents.

  “No, the old man is right,” Correll interjected. “But that was appropriate for all, then. Perhaps it gave us a chance to learn something about the other. The past is another land.”

  “Let’s hope we’ve sailed away from it, then,” J.B. whispered to Ryan as Correll led them all back down the corridor.

  “Yeah, and the tide doesn’t wash us back,” the one-eyed man replied thoughtfully.

  They were led into the section of the redoubt that was now used as living quarters by Correll’s people. Because of the problems caused by the giant worms and the manner in which they caused damage and possible death on the lower levels of the redoubt, it had been necessary for the community to base all their living operations around the upper two levels, rather than spread themselves across the whole base. Therefore, although they used the shower room with caution, they had taken most of the bedding from the dorms and used what had been offices and sec command posts and surveillance rooms to make new sleeping areas. They seemed to have either paired off, or slept and lived in small groups in what had once been military offices. The kitchens, which were also on one of the lower levels, had also been plundered, and the ovens and microwaves that had been previously installed in those areas had been taken out and reinstalled in an upper level area that had once, in the days before skydark, been used as an area for briefing the redoubt personnel. Thus, it was a long room that had plenty of space in which to deploy the ovens and also store much of the supplies from the kitchen areas.

  J.B. and Ryan both observed this with interest, but kept their peace. Dean, however, wasn’t so silent, and as they passed this area he noted to Krysty, “If they’ve got those working, then they must have a pretty good idea of how a lot of this works.”

  Correll stopped and turned to the younger Cawdor. “Son, I wish I could say you were right, but I don’t think any of us can claim that great a knowledge. Thing is, we’ve lived down here a while, and when the muties got too keen on using this place as a shortcut to wherever the hell they’re headed, then we all kinda figured that we needed to use that as little as possible. Which meant taking all the ovens out and getting them here, where it was safe. Only thing we had to leave was the really cold place—couldn’t figure a way of getting the food from that room and keeping it cold, so we had to leave that there and kinda take our chances like with the showers. But the other stuff…See, we took them apart kinda slow, so we could make out where everything went. Then we pulled them up here and figured out which bits of cable looked the same. But as to how it all actually works?”

  “Have you tried anything else?” Dean persisted.

  Correll allowed himself a ghostly smile that seemed unnatural on his grim visage. “Son, we live among this stuff, now. Where we eat and sleep, there’s flickering lights and old tech all around. Sometimes some of it gives out, sometimes we try to fix it. I don’t know if we do any good. I don’t even know if we really learn anything from it, but sometimes the lights start again, and sometimes you can still see the outside and some parts of in here on the screens.”

  Doc looked around him. “I think you do yourself a disservice, my dear sir. The air-conditioning is still working, there is still water filtered through the plant, you have nearly all the facilities up and running. You should be congratulated.”

  “I thank you kindly,” Correll replied graciously, “but the truth of the matter is that fate has been kind to us since our arrival here. We know how to keep things running, but if we had a real problem, then our feebl
e knowledge would be sorely stretched. Which is why, my friend, we wish to discover some more secrets of the old tech, and so unlock the way this place runs.”

  Ryan interrupted. “Which is exactly what we’d like to do.”

  Correll nodded. “Yes, we will talk more of this, but first we should eat. Your friend Mildred will be joining us. She has done a very fine job.”

  Turning on his heel in a manner that suggested conversation was now over, Correll moved off, trailing his party and the companions in his wake.

  As they walked on, J.B. turned it over in his mind. Correll and his people had the knowledge to keep some of the plant working, and working well. They would also, presumably, be able to maintain the wags that were stored on the second level. J.B. hadn’t noticed any on their way up, but then the wag bays were always kept apart from the rest of the redoubt because of the hazards of fuel storage. If the wags had been in as good a condition as the rest of the redoubt seemed to be, then they would have good transport, and plenty of fuel. From the way in which the party initially opposing them had been armed, it was an obvious conclusion that the armory had been well-equipped, and—taking a surreptitious glance at the party around him—they knew well enough how to look after their blasters. He had no doubt that the med lab was well equipped, as Millie would have made her feelings known on the matter to the man Lonnie, and Correll would have felt the rough edge of Millie’s tongue secondhand.

  All in all, they had a good base from which to wage a war, and the equipment with which to win it. Redoubts this well equipped and maintained were rare, and anyone who stumbled across them had just gotten lucky.

  Thing was, what did Correll and his people want to do with it? J.B. had a creeping feeling, tingling at the back of his neck, that Correll was spoiling for a fight with someone, and the companions had just stumbled into the beginnings of a private war, with the search for old tech and the arrival of an outside interest just the excuse and impetus he needed.