Red Holocaust

Epilogue

The code for the outer door of the redoubt, 108J, worked, and they trooped inside, leaving the two buggies out on the plateau for the local muties to find. Inside the cavernous building, the temperature had fallen since the time they left only a couple of days earlier. Many of the lights were either flickering or extinguished.

They spent an hour stocking up on food and ammunition, then using J.B.'s map, made their way to the gateway on the fourth level.

"Goin' to try a code, Doc?" asked J.B.

"I fear there would be little point. I think we must trust to the random element and hope we finish somewhere better than this wasteland."

"Somewhere warmer, Doc, if you don't mind," Henn put in, grinning.

Ryan was last into the chamber, with its now-familiar floor and ceiling patterns, and its strange glasslike walls. Everyone sat down, with Krysty pulling at Lori's arm to show her what to do. The girl had shown signs of great nervousness as they moved through the redoubt where she'd spent all her life, but her trust in the others carried her along. Now she sat with them on the floor.

"It's like a quick sleep and then a bad headache," said Finnegan to her. "We wake somewhere else."

"Somewhere good?" she asked.

"Who knows?" answered Ryan. "Everyone ready? Then here we go."

He closed the door firmly. The lights began to gleam and dance. He had just enough time to sit down before he felt the jump beginning.

The inside of his brain felt as if it had been chopped into a million splinters, then flushed down a dark, echoing drain.

Ryan Cawdor blinked open his eye and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that the chamber was uncomfortably hot.