Perception Fault (21 page)

“A moment, if you please, Mr. Cawdor.” Carr’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

Fingers flexing, Ryan’s teeth ground together behind his lips, but he kept his expression cool as he faced the facility’s leader. Of them, only Waltrop was armed, and Ryan figured J.B. or he could probably take him out and subdue the rest before an alarm could be tripped. However, even if they took the others as hostages, what was the point? They had no idea where Krysty and the others were being held, and the guards outside would simply gas them all before they could kill anybody. They’d wake up right back where they started, only this time, treated as true captives. Ryan had already had enough of the framework that had held him. He had no desire to find out what their real prisoner cells might be like.

“Yes?”

“You seem like an intelligent man, so I’m sure you’ll hear me out,” Carr said, his tone indicating that he’d known exactly what Ryan had been thinking about. “I have a question or two for you and your friend—” he nodded at J.B., who leaned against the wall, arms folded against his chest as he yawned again “—before we let you see your other companions.”

Ryan assumed an air of nonchalance as he sat on the
bed. “It doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere fast, so fire away.”

“What is your association with the group of men and women currently living in the city of Denver?”

The frank query took him by surprise, but Ryan tried to bull through anyway. “Didn’t you read the report from your sec man? We’re traders, from the south—”

Carr held up his hand, brushing away Ryan’s words. “Please, do not try to mislead me with whatever story you’ve created during your recovery here. Our reconnaissance drones spotted your convoy leaving the city from its northeastern quadrant, and tracked the heat signature of your vehicles’ exhaust back to their headquarters, so we know you are involved with them in some way. We also know that they are under siege from an opposing force that is quite large, although given their enemies’ recent lack of success, there is no telling just how long that force will stay together before internal friction begins to tear it apart. The bottom line is that you aren’t who you say you are, and therefore the obvious conclusion is that you have been sent out here to spy on us. The only questions to be answered now is for whom and why?”

Ryan had also folded his arms across his chest while the small man spoke, and he sensed rather than saw J.B. subtly tense a few feet away, ready to spring into action should Ryan give the signal. Instead, he lifted the index finger of his left arm up an inch, telling the Armorer to hold his ground—for now.

“Sounds like you’ve got this all figured out, so I don’t know how answering any of your questions is going to help me any.”

The administrator’s chest rose and fell in what might have been a sigh of annoyance, only Ryan couldn’t hear
anything, since he was so damn quiet. “I’m not going to try to bully or threaten you, Mr. Cawdor. Such crude tactics are better suited to the ill-dressed barbarians outside our gates, such as those deluded Indians that you revealed to us.”

“And whom you plan on eradicating from the earth, if possible, right?” J.B. asked, not moving a muscle other than his lips.

“Regrettably, yes. Although we have tried to work out a peaceful settlement with them before, the negotiations have always devolved into violence before anything meaningful could be worked out. I’m afraid that, since we cannot seem to live peacefully alongside them, and since their ambush tactics seem to be improving, they have left us with no choice but to eliminate them once and for all. I hope this won’t be the case with any other indigenous groups we may encounter. However, be that as it may, it is my hope that you and I can have a civilized conversation, wherein I can learn what I’d like to know without resorting to any sort of—” his lips twitched, as if he had just tasted something unpleasant “—physical coercion.”

The not-so-subtle message wasn’t lost on Ryan, either, and he shrugged. There was nothing in the deal he’d made with each leader that said he had to keep quiet about either of them. “I can tell you what I know about both of them, which isn’t much.” He laid out what he had discovered about both sides—Carrington and his vision of a free city, and Tellen leading his ragtag but well-armed army of revolution. He talked about what he had seen in Denver, both the good and the bad, and even speculated about where the rebuilt city’s power was coming from. The only thing he didn’t mention was that the people of the Bunker had Carrington’s daughter
among their guests. He didn’t want them to have that much leverage.

When he had finished, he leaned back in the bed and fixed Carr with his steady stare. “Okay, I’ve given you about all I care to at the moment. Now take us to our friends.”

“Fair enough, Mr. Cawdor. After all, I’m sure there will be plenty of time to talk later. Commander Waltrop, if you would escort both of these men to their friends so they can catch up.”

“Certainly, sir. Mr. Cawdor, Mr. Dix.” Waltrop gestured at the door, indicating both men should precede him through the exit.

As J.B. fell in step beside him, and they passed through the thick door, he muttered out of the side of his mouth, “That what you call mouths shut and eyes open?”

“When the other side already knows you’re slinging bullshit, throwing more usually doesn’t help.”

J.B. accepted the Trader’s wisdom with a nod. “So what are we doing?”

“Going along, for now.” This was the third time Ryan had been surprised by a potential adversary, and it was a feeling he liked less and less every time it happened. Also, he needed to learn more about this place before he formulated any kind of plan, and what he had seen so far—the formidable security, the incredibly high level of tech—hadn’t filled him with confidence regarding their ability to escape. But first things first. He wanted to see that the rest of his group was unharmed, and find out if they could add anything to what he’d seen so far.

Once in the corridor, Ryan was unsurprised to find two other well-muscled sec men in armor and carrying submachine guns flanking the entrance to their room.
The two men fell into step a pace behind and to each side of each man, while Waltrop stayed a few paces away, outside easy reach.

“Just follow the blue line, gentlemen, and it will take you to your destination.”

Ryan looked down to see a glowing blue line on the floor. He trailed it through the spotless white hallways, broken only by several more of the large airlock doors. They passed medical staff intent on their own duties, pushing small carts laden with equipment of reading some kind of electronic touch pads, every few seconds. The line led to an elevator, which opened when Ryan pushed the button. They entered, and saw that the button for one floor was also glowing blue. “I assume this is the one.”

“Correct.”

Ryan pushed it, and found he could barely tell that the elevator was moving. A few seconds later, the double doors opened, and he faced a nearly identical hallway, this one carpeted, with walls painted a soothing pale beige. The doors were more normal, as well, opening on hinges instead of the complicated airlocks in the hospital wing. The blue line led to two doors halfway down the corridor, one on either side of the hall.

“Krysty Wroth and Mildred Wyeth are in the room to the left, and Jak Lauren and Theophilus Tanner are in the room to the right.”

“Where are Caddeus and Rachel?” Ryan asked.

“They are being held in a separate facility,” was the only reply.

Ryan shrugged. That was something they would deal with when the time came, if possible. He went to the left door and waited for Waltrop, who spoke into a
small earpiece. After a moment, the door clicked open, revealing the two women inside.

“Ryan!” Krysty rose to her feet in a single fluid motion, but before she could reach him, he stepped aside to reveal the men in the doorway, holding his hand up in front of him, out of their sight, to warn her from showing any obvious affection for him.

“Good to see you, Krysty.”

Mildred had managed to repress her similar reaction upon seeing J.B., and had sat on the bed again, her right hand twisting the bedclothes the only sign of her nervousness.

“You folks probably want to talk, so we’ll leave you alone for now.”

“Any chance we can see Jak and Doc, as well?”

“The administrators are not comfortable with letting all of you congregate in one place at the moment. Perhaps something can be arranged later.”

“At the very least, can you get Jak outside for a bit? The kid gets a little stir-crazy if he’s confined for too long.” Ryan caught the sec man’s gaze and held it with his own. “Something like that might be remembered later on.”

Waltrop’s expression didn’t change one bit. “I’ll see if anything can be done.” He let the door close in front of him, his eyes never leaving Ryan.

Krysty waited until the door closed, then came up on Ryan fast, pushing him into the corner next to the door underneath the camera’s ever-watching eye. Her arms wrapped around him as she kissed him long and hard, then buried her face in the juncture of his chest and neck. Her whispered words carried up to his ear. “Saw you out on the ground when J.B. pulled you out of the
tunnel, with blood everywhere, and your face so pale… I thought I’d lost you for good.”

Ryan took her chin and lifted her face so he could stare into those emerald-green eyes, thinking like as not that he might drown in their depths someday, and that it would be a damn fine way to go. “I’m still here, walking and talking, so don’t you go putting me in the ground just yet.”

Near the other bed, J.B. and Mildred had enjoyed their own quiet reunion, and now Mildred turned back to the other two. “You see Doc or Jak yet?”

“No, but I spoke to both of them by walkie-talkie yesterday. Jak’s getting a bit wild, so I’m trying to get him outside for a while before he does something permanently bad to someone in here. How about Caddeus or Rachel?”

Mildred shook her head. “Nope, haven’t seen hide nor hair of either since we arrived. From what I gather, she’s also been kind of a handful during her stay here.”

Ryan frowned. “Yeah, that’s what I heard, too. I assume you two haven’t tried anything yet.”

“No, and neither have they—other than getting the distinct feeling that the guys around here haven’t seen a woman in a while, we’ve been treated very well.” Krysty’s eyebrows narrowed. “Any idea what they plan to do with us?”

Ryan shrugged as he exchanged a puzzled glance with J.B. “That’s the thing. We’re not quite sure yet. Why don’t you tell us what happened while we were in the caves first.”

“Not that much to tell.” Krysty recounted their encounter with the Native Americans, and how Jak’s inspired driving had helped them fight off the warriors. “Just when we were done and coming back to the
ambush hole, we saw this big old flying machine drop out of the sky in front of us. It was either stop or crash into it, so we chose the former. As soon as we come to a stop, these other vehicles seemed to come out of nowhere and surround us—and I don’t mean they drove up to us, they appeared out of nowhere, like they had been invisible and decided to appear around us. They were also armed with things we haven’t seen in a long time—like the stuff we saw at Crater Lake, only theirs worked a lot better.”

Ryan nodded as he listened, remembering the isolated compound of insane whitecoats that had been working to finish the job skydark had begun all those years ago. They had put an end to the whitecoats’ madness.

Mildred broke in. “They chased off the rest of the riders and shot them out of their saddles. The vehicle-mounted weapons had to be some kind of laser—just point and shoot, a blink of light flashed, and people were dying left and right.”

Ryan held up his hand to stop her. “You don’t think these guys are linked with Major Burroughs and his people, do you?”

Krysty shook her head. “Not from what we’ve seen. This seems to be a self-contained facility with no contact with anywhere else—at least, not that we know of. Anyway, don’t you think if they’d told Burroughs they had us, he’d be making tracks up here?”

Ryan conceded the point. They’d left Burroughs in a pretty high state the last time their paths had crossed. No doubt he’d love to get his hands on them again. “Yeah.”

Krysty continued, “Anyway, everything we saw was a pretty strong inducement to surrender when they
asked, and it’s not like we had much of a choice. Jak was for trying to fight our way out, but the cooler heads prevailed.”

Mildred sat on the bed now as she warmed to their tale. “All of the men were dressed in those armored enviro-suits like the ones they used when we were in quarantine, only bulkier. They could probably stop a rifle bullet, maybe even a .30-caliber shell. They asked us if we were allied with the men in the vehicles near the city, and Krysty and I just looked at each other, ’cause neither of us knew what the hell they were talking about.”

“So one of them shows us a picture on a small monitor of a few mil wags taken from an aerial position. It seems either Carrington or Tellen sent another convoy to shadow us and see exactly what we would find out here. We both say—”

“That we’ve never seen them before in our lives. The man nods and tells us to keep watching the monitor. The picture continues for a few moments, then boom! The group is vaporized, just like that.” Mildred snapped her fingers. “That’s why they wanted us to keep watching. They were looking for any kind of reaction to those guys getting killed. Damn, I’m getting slow in my old age.”

Krysty grinned at the other woman’s flash of insight. “There’s a whole lot about these people we don’t understand. We see the fireball in the distance, and a second later, we hear the report of the bomb they used. These people have some heavy-duty tech. That came from what they called a remote-piloted drone vehicle, if I heard them correctly.”

“And their medical equipment, too… Ryan, do you mind if I look at that shoulder?” At his nod, Mildred
waved him over. “Sit on the bed, please. It’s easier to examine their work.” He did so, and unzipped his jumpsuit enough so she could examine his healed injuries. “If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it. I’d have thought you’d be on your back for at least four to six weeks, maybe even immobilized in an upper-body cast while your bone knit back together. Instead, you were out how long?”