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Anubis, Set, Osiris "
"What talking about, Doc?" Jak demanded, fol-lowing the older man's eye and
head movements but seeing nothing but smooth, unadorned walls.
Doc started to nod toward the wall on his right, then his eyes narrowed,
widened, and his mouth creaked open. He shook his head. "Perhaps the light
playing is tricks on me."
The room was small and held only a table and a few chairs. Mildred and J.B.
laid
Ryan on the floor, and Krysty was gently placed on the tabletop. As her body
settled, she murmured faintly, "You won't have me& Ryan& "
Immediately, Ryan's eye snapped open, and he levered upright from the waist.
He clawed at his holstered blaster. Krysty was on his blind side, and his face
was a mask of agony and fear until he caught sight of her.
"What the fuck happened to me?" he grated be-tween clenched teeth.
Dean put a comforting hand on his arm. "You were out of it for a little while,
Dad.
That's all."
"How's Krysty?"
"Fine," she said weakly.
Waving aside J.B.'s proffered hand, he climbed unsteadily to his feet and bent
over Krysty. She, too, had returned to somewhat confused consciousness.
Sitting up, she embraced Ryan.
"Gaia!" she breathed. "Never had a jump night-mare like that before."
"Me, neither," Ryan replied as she scooted off the table. "We'll talk about it
later.
Find out first where we are. Anybody do a recce?"
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_40_-_Nightmare_Passage
"Only to here," Jak responded.
"Nothing unusual?" Ryan inquired.
"Not unless you consider two of our friends being unable to wake up unusual,"
Mildred replied.
"And wall paintings being there one moment and gone in the next," Doc said.
No one asked him to clarify his comment. Their long association with Doc had
accustomed them to his sometimes cryptic, often nonsensical remarks. But this
time, Ryan cast him a sharp, one-eyed glance.
"All right," he said, drawing his SIG-Sauer. "Let's do this by the book.
Triple red."
The group formed a wedge, with Ryan and J.B. taking the point, the others
fanning out behind. The wedge was the standard formation while exploring a
strange redoubt. More often than not, the instal-lations were deserted,
abandoned for a hundred years or more. Every once in a while, they came across
squatters, like the crazed twins who had staked claim to a redoubt in
Colorado. In that instance, Ryan and Krysty had been forced by violent
circumstance to chill them.
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With the toe of a boot, Ryan eased open the door on the opposite end of the
room.
Beyond it was a small foyer and another door. It was a disk sheathed in
gleaming metal surrounded by three concentric collars of steel. Affixed on the
wall beside it was a sec-code keypad. Beneath the keypad was a plastic sign
bearing red lettering: Biohazard Beyond This Point! Entry Forbidden To
Personnel Not
Wearing Anticontaminant Clothing!
Half a dozen one-piece coveralls hung from hooks on the wall. Hoods with
transparent Plexiglas face-plates were attached to them.
"Fireblast!" Ryan muttered.
As far as he knew, biological warfare hadn't played a large role in the
nukecaust,
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_40_-_Nightmare_Passage since the actual active
conflict had lasted less than a day.
Ryan touched one of the coveralls with the built-in baffle silencer of the
SIG-
Sauer. The flimsy fabric parted like an ancient cobweb, and he cursed again.
He called Mildred forward. When she read the printed warning on the wall, she
groaned.
"How bad could it be?" Ryan asked.
"Might not be bad at all," she replied. "Then again, all sorts of bacteria,
rickettsiae, viruses and fungi spores could be floating around in there."
"Still potent, still communicable after all this time?"
"Could be," she answered. "But you, John, Jak, Dean and Krysty were born in
the
Deathlands. More than likely, you've developed natural resistances to
infectious agents that may be fatal to me and Doc."
"Comforting notion," Doc stated.
"Dark night," J.B. muttered. "Why couldn't this place be like most of the
other redoubts?"
"Odds were we'd pop up into a medical instal-lation sooner or later," Mildred
countered reason-ably. "Frankly, I'm surprised we hadn't before now, since we
learned that bioengineering programs were going on prior to skydark. And
after."
Ryan caught the oblique reference to the per-verted researches they had
discovered within the Anthill complex in the Black Hills. Both she and Ryan
retained vivid, sickening memories of the crea-tures being bred there.
"Mebbe we should try another jump," Dean sug-gested.
Mildred shook her head, the beads in her plaited hair clicking. "I don't think
that's necessary. Just because this place may have housed biological weapons,
it doesn't
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_40_-_Nightmare_Passage mean any of them got loose."
Doc shuffled his feet uncertainly. "I recall read-ing an account of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]