"Open them," Ryan ordered. "You've got blood on your face."

Dean carefully opened one eye, then the other. He touched the sticky blood on his chin and sighed. "Gets old. Wish I could figure out a way to stop this from happening."

"Don't we all. Anybody else awake yet?" Ryan asked the room, regaining his usual composure as the light continued to fade to a normal level.

"Yeah, but I wish I wasn't," Mildred Wyeth replied. "I think I scarred my retinas."

"Light was pretty d.a.m.n bright. Never seen it go so high," Ryan said. "Guess it doesn't matter much as long as we're all here in one piece."

"Speak for yourself, Ryan. I haven't tried sitting up yet," the black woman replied.

The last thing the physician remembered was feeling all of the fillings in her teeth starting to vibrate and a metallic hum rising within her mouth to match the pitch and frequency of the teleportation disks overhead and underfoot in the small redoubt in the desert.

Then came the smoke, and the blue haze, and the long, lazy tendrils of fog. Unlike most of her companions, all of whom subconsciously held their breath as the eldritch process of the jump began, Mildred always breathed deeply, taking the ion-charged atmosphere deep into her lungs. She believed it helped with the dispersal and recalibration of her individual molecules when they where broken down and rea.s.sembled at their eventual destination.

So far, she had managed to avoid any references to Star Trek , Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, having her "atoms scrambled" and the Starship Enterprise not because she didn't think it would be funny, but because it was tiring to be the only person in the room laughing at a jokethough Doc might get itand by the time she'd explained everything it wouldn't be funny anymore.

"Like looking into sun," Jak said softly, speaking for the first time since their arrival. His own ruby orbs were infinitely more suited for low levels of light and shadow instead of the bright lighting in the new mat-trans chamber.

"It's not that bad, Jak. Wasn't that bad, I mean," Ryan replied, getting slowly to his feet and keeping his blaster leveled at the door. "I took a good look when I came to, and I seem to be all right. The spots'll fade."

"Thank Gaia. You don't have the sight to lose," Krysty replied, revealing she, too, was awake.

"h.e.l.l of a ride," J.B. announced, sitting up and stretching. He took out his gla.s.ses and placed them on his lean nose before standing.

The mat-trans chamber they occupied was the traditional hexagonal shape, but everything else was different. A lower than usual ceiling tapered to a central point. Ryan had to duck when crossing the center of the room. An array of open silver mat-trans disks were overhead, close enough for Ryan to reach up and touch. A smooth, flat floor that appeared to be made of a thick clear substance with the lower mat-trans disks sealed within like insects in amber rested beneath the group's bodies. The disks were softly creaking as they contracted from their expansion, cooling down from the incredible heat unleashed during the jumping process.

The usual metallic smell was in the air, a flat, bitter scent of pressurized oxygen from the gases released during the jump.

There was nothing pleasant about a matter transfer jump. However, everyone was relieved to know that the odds were in their favor of being a long, long way from the Barrens, and that knowledge alone was enough to help relieve some of the feelings of illness that came with gateway transport.

However, this mat-trans chamber came with yet another new twist.

What could only be interpreted as a clear ob window was embedded in one wall, next to the doorway. At least the familiar thick armagla.s.s that served as the walls of the chamber was in evidence here, although colorless in a dingy opaque gray sort of way. Trying to see through it was impossible, like trying to peer through a window covered in grime.

"What gives?" Ryan asked. "This place is a mat-trans chamber, but the feel is all wrong."

"I agree," Krysty answered. "And I don't think we're the only ones here."

"Think we're being watched?"

"Hope not."

Mildred was standing in front of the ob window with J.B, who had unlimbered his Uzi and was standing combat ready.

"One thing's for sure. This isn't just another redoubt," the Armorer murmured. "If you think the chamber's different, get a gander at the control room."

Everyone but the still unconscious Doc clambered over for a look, keeping their heads low as they peeked outside. The window revealed a wide, low-ceilingedlike the chamberroom that was antiseptically white. A series of black lines gave the floor a checkerboard pattern. A single white desk with a comp and monitor rested directly across from the window.

"Simple, stripped down. Where's all of the hardware?" Mildred wondered aloud.

"Another room, perhaps?" J.B. replied. "There's a small anteroom off from the gateway between us and main control anyway."

"Mebbe. Mebbe not," Ryan said. "Still, I do see a door, off to the far left."

Everyone looked in the direction where the one-eyed man was gesturing. There was a door, which appeared to be painted eggsh.e.l.l white with a simple silver doork.n.o.b. No high-tech locking systems or security key pads were visible. The frame had the look of being reinforced, and a thin rubber seal could be spied for an extraclose fit, but that was all in the way of modification.

"From the lack of security, I'd guess this place is commercial. Not military," Mildred mused. "I wonder what part of Deathlands we're in this time?"

Ryan tried the handle on the heavy armagla.s.s door. It lifted up easily, and the door opened a crack.

"Never seen a mat-trans unit like this, and the colors of the walls are new. We're in unexplored territory here," he replied. "May want to take another jump out of here triple fast. Might be safer."

Doc remained oblivious, still unconscious and coiled in a fetal position on the floor. "Don't think these jumps are getting less stressful for Doc," Krysty said as she knelt next to him and pushed back a few wisps of long white hair from his face and forehead.

"My dear, you have a singular talent for stating the obvious even as you soothe my troubled brow," Doc retorted, smiling at her while keeping his eyes closed. "I do wish, however, the fates would choose the easier path and set me down gently upon it."

"You're not dead yet," Ryan said. "Get your skinny a.s.s up, you old faker."

"I believe a predark expression was, 'My eyes feel like poached eggs,'" Doc volunteered, then curled his long, hawkish nose and sniffed. "Burned poached eggs, at that, if the scent my nose has detected is true."

Ryan smelled the odor, as well, which was now wafting into the mat-trans chamber through the door he'd opened.

"J.B., you smell it?" Ryan asked urgently.

"Dark night," the Armorer replied as an affirmative, "smoke."

"And where there's smoke" Doc said, his voice trailing off.

"There's fire," Dean finished. "We've got to go. Now."

"Can you move yet?" Ryan asked, striding over to where Doc sat.

The old man shook his head slowly. "No," he whispered. "Not yet. Not at any kind of speed."

"I'm not asking for a sprint. I just want you to walk fast."

"Alas, my dear Ryan, I fear even elementary locomotion is beyond my reach. A few moments more, and I might rouse myself"

"We don't have a few minutes," Ryan snapped. "Guess you get to improvise, Doc."

"My good man," Doc said indignantly, "my life thus far has been nothing but one long improvisation."

"We'll have to carry him," Ryan said simply.

"Krysty, you take his feet. I've got his upper body. J.B., take the point. Mildred, Dean, fall in behind him. Jak, you're on the rear. Let's see what's burning. If there's a fire in the control room, we might not be jumping back after all. Triple red, people. Let's move!"

"Didn't count on fighting any fires today," Mildred said, glancing through the ob window at a bright red extinguisher hanging against one of the white walls outside the gateway. "And I imagine the charge in that old extinguisher wouldn't even put out a match."

"That's what we get for jumping into something besides a good old-fashioned military redoubt," Ryan retorted. "At least in those, we know what's coming, most of the time."

J.B. gripped the heavy handle of the chamber's door and jerked it open farther. The door responded easily enough, then the Armorer was outside.

Unenc.u.mbered, Mildred and Dean were close behind J.B. as he took extralong steps and flattened himself alongside the single door to the small control room.

"Go ahead," Ryan said after the seven friends were safely out of the mat-trans unit. "Open it."

THE UNDERGROUND SECTION of the Wayne Feldman Baptist Hospital and Medical Center was burning, and Alton Adrian knew it was only a matter of time before his pursuers discovered him. Once he was found in his hiding place, he'd be a dead man, his freshly chilled corpse nothing more than new kindling to toss on the bonfire of the world. He'd been warned to tread softly into this maze of hospital corridors and hidden stairwells by the old-timers, the scavengers who eked out a living by picking through the remains of the past and bringing back items that were still of value. By the very nature of their business, scavengers liked to talk. Information was just as valuable as something solid you could hold and touch, some times even more so. There were always rumors of lost caches of ammunition, secret stockpiles of gasoline or mother lodes of precious metals.

Some of these tales were close to home. Such as a hidden lair below the medical center. Adrian had been told time and time again the hospital was essentially clean of any valuables, but if a man wanted to go down deep, he might find comps or medicines or other high-ticket items worth their weight in jack as barter to a better life. Only problems with that course of action were the stickiesthe Baptist hospital was dangerously close to the part of the downtown area of the city they called home.

He had two choices, three, if he included the logical decision of never going near the abandoned hospital complex. The scavie could go in alone and quiet and try to avoid alerting any muties of his presence, or he could take in a team of mercies and openly engage any hostiles who might have set up squatter's rights within the hundreds of rooms.

With a team on his side, any loot would have to be shared. Adrian wasn't greedy, but he was practical. Not to mention the element of trust. He could round up a few good men, but it would take time, and the smell of possible big jack had a way of driving even the best of allies apart. So far, he was the only man with an investment in this scheme, and he'd paid in jack and favors to find out the secret of the med center's hidden bas.e.m.e.nt.

Days before, Adrian had been across the old state line to visit a tiny ville in Virginia known as Cana. A friend of his father's was rumored to live there, a colorful coot named Willard Boyles. Boyles was a semilegend in the scavenging business, with rumors and stories pa.s.sed from ville to ville about his prowess and sense of fair play. The wily pract.i.tioner had been at it for thirty years before making his big score and hanging up his walking shoes.

The only reason he'd admitted Alton Adrian into his home was due to the younger man's bloodline. Scavengers were sentimental like that. A few cheap self-brewed beers later, and the usual protective mask Willard wore had been discarded and he was speaking as bluntly and honestly as if he'd known Adrian all of his life.

"Experiments, boy! No telling what went on down there. Never been in those black labs myself, and I have no intention of going, either. Who knows what you might findor what you might let loose in the process!" Willard had said.

"Don't think I'll find anything to add much worse than the s.h.i.t already running around Deathlands, Will," the younger man replied. "And if I do, it'll probably chill me first."

"I'm not saying you'd go marching in and unlock Pandora's box intentionally. h.e.l.l, some doors were never meant to be opened. Excuse the pun, but that old hospital is bad medicine."

Adrian grinned. "Sure, you can say that. You're set until the last train goes West. Me, I'm still trying to make the big score."

Willard paused, remembering his past and his own endless days of traveling around the Eastern Seaboard of Deathlands while mining out a living from finding, repairing and selling pieces of the past. Perhaps it was the home brew or the sense of obligation to his old friend, Lee Adrian, the boy's father. Either way, Willard Boyles was indeed set for life, and as such, he had taken pity and offered up a secret he'd never had the courage to fully explore himself.

"There's a hidden bas.e.m.e.nt level in the med-center tower in that hospital, you know," he said casually, confirming what the young scavie had previously heard. "Not on any map or chart."

"So, the legends are true?"

"In this case, yeah. Tale I got was that there were freezies down there. Hundreds of them. All with jewels and jack to start a new life once they woke up."

Adrian listened to the older man speak, spellbound. A treasure trove had been kept in stasis along with the near dead. It was the ultimate score his ultimate score.

"Why so hush-hush?" he asked.

"Had to keep it a secret. Didn't want grave robbers going in."

"How'd they keep it hidden?"

"Money, of course. Jack. To be put in with the other freezies, you had to pay dear. The freezies' lair was private. Getting down there involved some trick with the elevators, back when they were functioning. I don't know the details. Don't matter anyway. They had to have a backup plan in case the elevators f.u.c.ked up, and that's where you'd go in."

"Will I have to rappel down the elevator shaft?" Adrian asked nervously, already feeling his arms ache. "I'll have to lose some weight and get in better shape."

"s.h.i.t," his new benefactor replied, taking another long swig of his beer, "you think I'd want to go diving down an elevator shaft? No way. No, what you'll need to do first is to find the stairs."

"All right. That I can handle."

"When you enter the main floor of the med-center tower, there's an admitting desk. You'll have two choices. Right or left. Go left. Take the stairs down all the way to the bottom."

"Okay." The scavie started to take out a sc.r.a.p of paper to make notes, but Willard's stern glare made him tuck the paper back in a pocket.

"What you doing, boy? First law of scavenging is to never write anything down."

"I know. Sorry. Nerves."

"This isn't that complicated. You'll remember it."

"Now, you'll have to go by feel, since the walls in the bottom look blank. There are no doors or windows. If a man was to have walked down there long ago, he'd never have suspected anything, and gone back up a level to the last floor listed on the guide maps. Keep running your fingers along the wall. I think it's the wall on your left. Feel around until you notice a small indention. That's the spot. Rig a series of explosive charges to take out the wall, and you should be in."

Adrian could scarcely contain his mounting excitement. "This is fantastic! What's inside once I bring the wall down?"

Will paused with an expression of guilt. "I don't know. I never was brave enough to go see for myself. Like I said, I've been told freezies, but who can say? I went down once, had a bit of plas ex in my backpack and a time-delay fuse, and I was ready to go, oh yeah. But h.e.l.l, I'll admit to you, Alton. I got scared. The stairwell was pitch-black, and I was alone and afraid of what I might find. So, I went back up and on my way, fully intending to go back down there with a partner, but I never did."

"And you think I should."

"Isn't my knowledge and advice what you came all the way to Cana for?"

"Yeah, but"

"It's an easy score for a smart man."

"Hah. Easy for you to say, Willard. You've made your bank. You'll live here in this cabin with your woman and your guns and your sec systems until you dry up and wither away."

"It's all up to you, boy. You're still young. How hungry are you?"

A FEW DAYS AFTER LEAVING Cana and returning home, Alton Adrian decided he wasn't just hungryhe was a starving man. So he had taken the long walk down into the dark and, once at the bottom of the stairs, he'd worked the claylike plas ex in his hands, molding and shaping it into four clumps of equal size. He pressed two of the clumps at eye level separated roughly by eight feet. The other two he placed low. Then he took out the wiring and used it to attach the four clumps of explosive to a single fuse. Extending the fuse as long as he dared, Adrian crept back up the stairs, knowing he'd need to be a floor away when the fireworks began.

He had no idea how thick the door or walls might be, so he overcompensated.

The wall went up in a sound of thunder.

The scavie crept back down to admire his handiwork, and artificial light spilled out into the darkness. The room he had opened had electric lighting from within. He'd been inside for only five short minutes when he heard noises and smelled burning oilcloth.

Adrian realized with mounting panic that he'd been followed into the darkand now into the light. The sound of the overheated explosion had been catnip to his visitors. Stickies. Six of them.

He ducked, hiding. If the underground chamber was filled with freezies, the crazy muties would probably burn them, too.

Adrian laughed bitterly. At least he could console himself with the sad realization that no matter how bad it got before the end, at least he wouldn't die alone.

"Wonder if you poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds start to drip and melt?" he asked aloud.

No answer was forthcoming.

THE EGGSh.e.l.l WHITE control-room door had opened into a much larger room filled with the missing comp banks and other hardware normally a.s.sociated with a working mat-trans unit. Ryan's keen eye raked over the room, looking for any signs of fire. The room appeared to be intact and unoccupied. All of the screens were flickering. No flashing red lights or warning systems had eruptedyet.