Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (24 page)

Drakkar answered with a similar one.

"What about if we're out of earshot?" In the half-light, Watty's birthmark looked as though a mortal wound had opened up on his face.

"We're not getting that far apart," Thomas told him. "We're working this side of the corridor and they'll work that side. Let's go. Remember, we've got crew on the outside and at camp waiting for us."

Thomas loved ruins. They were ingrained in him. He'd broken the rules and gone exploring as long as he could remember. He never quite lost the childish streak in him that hoped one day he'd cross a threshold and find out who he really was. He'd been in the Vaults long enough to meet several men in touch with the past, his past, and had known. He tucked his scarf in lightly about his gilled neck. They had looked at him, and known, and instead of telling him wondrous secrets about why he'd been remade the way he was, they'd tried to kill him.

They'd almost succeeded.

He paused in the corridor. Boys came to a stop behind him. Dirt and debris that brushed the flooring lightly seemed concentrated here. He knelt down and breathed lightly over the innocent looking litter. The dust skittered away and leaves stirred, to show a fine wire cutting across the passage. The wall light above shed little illumination on it.

"Watch it," Blade said. He pointed about the wire to them. They jostled his back, eager to look. "Don't

touch."

Montez pulled a leather strap out of his daypack. He handed it to Thomas. With a nod, Thomas motioned them back. He looped the strap about so that it would trigger it and leaned as far as he could.

With a jerk, he tripped the wire. There was a blinding puff of smoke and gas from the wall light. Its plasticase shattered into shards that, face-high, would have maimed someone.

"Holy God," Montez said, and crossed himself. Blade returned the leather strap to the cobbler's son before moving up the corridor.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He looked down as he carefully stepped across the debris, afraid to scuffle his feet. His companions followed suit.

Thomas found a doorway. It had been cracked out of its track and stood half-open by the explosions which had destroyed most of the Vaults. He pointed at Bottom. "Get it open," he told the husky boy.

Bottom wedged his frame in the space and gave an immense heave. The door gave, cracking aside like an eggshell. The cook staggered forward a step.

Thomas said, "Freeze, Bottom. Not another step."

Even in the blood-colored light, he could see the older boy pale as he realized what Blade meant.

Thomas eased past him. The room had been a lab, rather like the medical lab he and Lady had briefly been examined in. It had been stripped of anything but cupboards and counters. He saw nothing of any importance and no traps. Jeong stood next to the sweating Bottom in the doorway.

"Can I come in, Sir Thomas?"

He nodded. The thin boy wedged himself through,-sketching as he walked.

Thomas watched him, bemused. "What is it you see that I don't?" he asked as Jeong walked by, immersed in his drawing.

Jeong looked up. "Architecture, if nothing else," he explained.

"Ah. Maximum storage in minimum space."

"Something like that." He tapped a cupboard door. "High impact plastic," he said. "Wears like iron. We can't salvage much of that now. Most of the later plastics are degradable."

Thomas hid his amusement at being lectured by the boy. "When we open this place up, we'll get the cupboards and counters out." His voice was solemn.

Jeong nodded absently. He continued walking, his ink-pen flying in his fingers. Thomas waited until he was done before escorting the boy out.

They investigated two more rooms, sterile cells without any idea of what they'd been used for or their basic function. Piles of ash littered their floors. Thomas thought privately that they might have been used for record storage, their contents triggered to self-destruct with the rest of the building. He could see no other explanation. He wondered at a code that would destroy information before sharing it with intruders. He wondered if that had been the fate of Charlie's papers, papers which held so much information about the offices of DWP. The dean's office had been a library, a museum of books and paintings and other artifacts. Had it, too, been destroyed?

Thomas threw his hand up, coming abruptly out of his thoughts. The passageway in front of them was buckled and holed from the explosion, a doorway just beyond the worst of the damaged flooring looming blackly in the light. The air smelled dead. Acoustical tiles from the ceiling littered the floor. He felt a prickle of apprehension along his gills. He scratched his upper lip thoughtfully.

He'd made Watty gather some fist-sized rocks. "Give me one of those rocks," he said now.

Watty tumbled one into his waiting hand. He sized up the floor and pitched the rock.

He hit the mine on the first try. He wasn't sure there had even been anything there until the flare and explosion rocked the corridor. Acoustical tiles rained down on them, their white dust filling the air. Watty coughed and choked until Montez beat him between the shoulder blades.

Thomas leaned against the wall. A good-sized abyss replaced buckled flooring. The dean was no longer toying with him. And that also meant that whatever that door opened into, Thomas was determined to investigate. If the dean wanted him out, then Thomas wanted in.

But he didn't want to take the boys in with him just yet. The dean was almost certain to have left other traps in the general area.

"Listen up," Blade said, as soon as the coughing and confusion died down. "I'm going in, but I want you all to stay out here until I say to come in. Even then, don't take my word for it. Watch your step."

The boys nodded somberly. Montez's eyes were so large in his round face that Thomas thought of a barn owl. He shook the image out of his head and left them. Behind them he could hear Bottom's worried voice.

"Anybody else know how to whistle like Blade does?"

And Watty's shy voice answer, " I do."

Then silence.

Thomas examined the still smoking ruin of a floor. The mine had been highly concentrated. The hole was about three feet deep, and the edges of the flooring material were charred and incredibly smelly. The smoke that drifted up was damn near toxic. He untucked an end of his scarf and put it over his nose as he sidestepped the damage and surveyed the door. It was open, buckled out of its frame. Beyond, he could see a shadowy interior which, although wrecked, was intact.

This lab had been meant to withstand the self-destruct, he thought. So though its contents were damaged, they had not been removed or further salvaged. A huge chamber, like a gigantic egg, had cracked and he saw something slumped in its shadowy interior. All around the room, cabinets stood open . . . their insides still partially filled with supplies. He saw charts on the farther wall. Cables. Leads. Equipment.

A treasure.

What must it have cost the dean to leave bait like this open and waiting for him?

Blade began to move forward to lean inside the doorway to search for traps. Instead he froze, thinking rapidly. So far the dean had done nothing he could not do, although perhaps the dean's handiwork had been a little more spectacular. But explosives were something that Blade could reproduce and had, on many an occasion.

What he could not do would be to string a web of invisible rays across a doorway.

What if Jeong had been right and such technology existed? Drakkar hadn't doubted it for a moment.

Thomas ducked his chin down and examined the doorframe, such as it was. Then he spotted the small heads, studding the jam at irregular intervals. He had never seen anything like them before and, in truth, they did not resemble the outlets Jeong had drawn so quickly. But he knew that, if nothing else, technology evolved. His ancestors had had some very efficient means of killing themselves.

Taking care not to penetrate the barrier he imagined, he shifted to one side. "Watty," he called out. "Pitch a rock through here, underhanded."

The boy pulled out another fist-sized rock. He pitched it toward the door. As it sailed through, it seemed to be in slow motion. Then, caught up in midair, it pulverized to white ash. Thomas swallowed.

"Sweet Jesus," said Bottom. "Lookit that!"

"I told you," Jeong called out.

"That you did," Blade answered evenly. He paced back a step. Could the web be deactivated? How could he fight what he couldn't see? Then he smiled to himself. Why not fight fire with fire?

He backed off, taking a jump over the mine damage in the corridor. He patted down his vest until he found the vial he wanted. He took it out, grasping the slim glass. "Get down," he told the boys.

"What?"

"I said, get down." He waited until the noise and shuffling quieted, never taking his eyes off his target. When he threw the vial, he aimed it with inner, as well as outer, vision. Then he hit the floor, arms cradling his head.

The door frame blew apart with a shattering blast. It echoed itself a second later. When the smoke cleared, there was little left of the original framing, and nothing whatsoever of the network of hardware for directional beams.

Trout had said nothing till now. The healer in an awkward boy's body shambled to his feet. His pursed mouth worked soundlessly a moment, then he got out,
"Damn."

"And that's an understatement," Bottom said heavily as he got to his feet.

A piercing whistle split the corridor. Thomas an- -swered, wondering if the other party had found something—or just worried about the explosions. He had been unaware of any detonations in Stefan's wake, but as the corridor had curved and because of the nature of the building materials, thought that lower register noises were fairly well muffled. He gave a second whistle signal, used by troopers, meaning "all clear." Stefan should catch his meaning.

He approached the room cautiously, saw nothing else immediately suspicious, and entered.

The half-light did not do the room justice. He slipped his hand inside his jacket and got his small beam. He thought of Lady and what she would have wanted him to bring from here. The supplies here had been gone through, but many vials and packets and bags remained intact. Medicines? Chemicals? He did not have the background to know, but she would have.

The thin ray of light crossed the chamber he'd seen from the doorway. It was this which projected the carrion smell, though faintly. He stepped to it, then flipped the light away from the mummified, decaying flesh within. A cage of some sort? A healing chamber, with its patient left to die instead? He had no way of knowing. He knew only that it had failed if life had been its purpose.

"Sir Thomas!"

He turned on his heel. Montez leaned inside the door.

"What is it?"

"Stefan just sent Rubio back as a runner. They've found the library. And a packet of papers he ID'd as Warden's."

"Any trouble?"

Montez grinned, large eyes crinkling at the corners "He says Drakkar singed a few tailfeathers getting them."

"I'll bet he did. Okay, I'll make a last sweep through here and then we'll pull out." Thomas took a deep breath.

"What was this place?" Montez said.

Thomas shook his head. "I don't know." He left the chamber and made for the wall charts. What he saw there froze his breath inside him.

He reached toward the drawing and tables. LONGSHIP GENERATIONS AND ABERRATIONS it read. And he saw upon it his own evolution. How far from human he'd come—and how long the road back would be.

He'd once asked Denethan what it was to be human. The mutant from the desert whose burden it was to be reptilian as well had replied that he thought it was the intent, not the skin, that structured humanity. He hoped the Mojavan was right. If not, the journey would be impossible for him.

He put a hand out, uncertain of taking the chart down. What kind of an impact would it have on the Seven Counties? His hand hesitated. Then he snatched the object off the wall. It had a plastic skin. He rolled it up and put it inside his jacket pocket.

The boys had begun to gather cautiously outside in the hallway. He turned, ready to leave, when something caught the corner of his eyes. He turned and fixed the poster in his vision, staring.

It was a beast. Ursus and canus read below it, actually, with more diagrams of the genetic crossovers that had been done. It reared on two strong hindlegs, massive arms, shaggy and yet—shining in its bestial face was an incredible intelligence and compassion. He thought he recognized it for a fleeting second . . .
something rearing out of the night, from the ruins, swiping at him, catching his brow as he ducked away.
He touched his eyebrow, felt the tiny chevron of a scar.

It had been man-made, just as he had been. What was it—what was the purpose behind such bastardization?

Blade wet suddenly dry lips. He crossed the room and tore down the poster, determined to take it with him as well. Like a hair, a thin wire drifted down from its edge as he did so.

Too late, Thomas saw it. Too slowly, he reacted. Too close, he hit the floor. The sonic blast went off. Deafened, he dropped into a black pool.