Hellbenders

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 twilight.

“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 feeble 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.

Coincidentally, much the same set of thoughts were running through Ryan’s head as they walked on.

Mebbe, the one-eyed man mused, they would learn something later that night.

THE COMPANIONS WERE given their own sleeping and living space, with bedding and a change of clothes taken from the supplies that still existed. The space was an old office that had just had the office furniture removed, and was noticeably free from much in the way of old tech.

“You can shower if you’re willing to take a chance,” Correll said as his parting shot. “Ain’t usually a problem, just be ready to move fast if you feel those tremors.”

When he and the accompanying party had left them alone, Krysty said, “I don’t know about you, lover, but it doesn’t all add up yet.”

Ryan shook his head. “Mebbe we’ll discover more when we eat—mebbe get to meet the rest properly.”

“Yeah, I don’t think this is that big a community,” added Mildred, who had joined them when Correll had shown them their quarters. “Should be fairly easy to keep tabs on them all, get the feel of what’s going on.”

“Should be…” J.B. said quietly. “Reckon they’ve got enough here to start a small war, and that’s what they’re after.”