James Axler - Death Cry

The ops room was large with a vast Mercator relief map of the world spanning one wall, forming a panorama over the wide door through which the field team entered. The map included more than a hundred tiny lights, each illustrating a point where a known, operational mat-trans unit was located. A plethora of colored lines linked them in a representation of the Cerberus network, the central concern of the redoubt when it had been built over two hundred years before. Strictly speaking, Cerberus was a nickname for the headquarters.

Like all of the military redoubts, this one had been named for a phonetic letter of the alphabet, as used in radio communications. Somewhere in the long-forgotten computer logs and paper files stored deep within the three-story complex, Cerberus was still Redoubt Bravo, a facility dedicated to monitoring the use of the miraculous mat-trans network. But lost somewhere in the mists of time, a young soldier had painted a vibrant illustration of a vicious two-headed hound guarding the doors to the redoubt, like Cerberus at the gates of the underworld. The soldier was long since forgotten, but his bold version of the hellhound lived on as a lucky charm and a mascot to the sixty-plus residents of the complex.

The redoubt was located high in the Bitterroot Range in Montana, where it had remained forgotten or ignored in the two centuries since the nukecaust. In the years since that nuclear devastation, a strange mythology had grown up around the mountains, with their dark, foreboding forests and seemingly bottomless ravines. The wilderness area surrounding the redoubt was virtually unpopulated. The nearest settlement was to be found in the flatlands some miles away, consisting of a small band of Indians, Sioux and Cheyenne, led by a shaman named Sky Dog.

Tucked beneath camouflage netting, hidden away within the rocky clefts of the mountains, concealed uplinks chattered continuously with two orbiting satellites that provided much of the empirical data for Lakesh and his team. Maintaining and expanding access to the satellites had taken long hours of intense trial-and-error work by many of the top scientists on hand at the base. Now, Lakesh and his team could draw on live feeds from an orbiting Vela-class reconnaissance satellite and the Keyhole Comsat. Despite delays associated with satellite communication, this arrangement allowed access to data surveying the surface of the planet, as well as the ability to communicate with field teams.

The high-ceilinged ops room was indirectly lit to better allow the computer operators to see their screens without suffering glare or obtrusive reflections. Two aisles of computer terminals stretched across the room, although a number of these currently stood unused. The control center was the brain of the redoubt, and Lakesh ensured that it was continuously manned. Right now, there were eight other people sitting at workstations dotted around the room, a mixture of long-term Cerberus staffers and several from the more recent influx of personnel that the base had acquired from a cryogenic-stasis squad found in the Manitius Moon Base.

“It is good to see you in such rude health,” Lakesh announced as he greeted his friends. Almost immediately, his eyes zeroed in on the black, metal-encased unit that Grant carried beneath one arm, and a confused frown furrowed his brow. “Over the comm, you said you were bringing the important files you had located.”

Weary, his muscles aching from his frantic dash across the freezing snow not an hour earlier, Kane’s explanation came out as an emotionless growl. “And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

Grant walked over to a free workstation and flipped the computer base from under his arm as though it didn’t have any weight to it at all. Gently he placed the computer on the desk and gestured to it theatrically. “One computer full of important files.”

Lakesh leaned forward, one hand reaching up to rest under his chin. Then he tilted his head, looking at the scarred computer from several angles before finally muttering, “Highly irregular.” He turned back to his trusted field team, noticing for the first time how exhausted the three of them appeared. “This is highly irregular,” Lakesh said again, more loudly this time as he addressed his colleagues, “but doubtless it is of incalculable value.” There was the trace of a lilting Indian accent to Lakesh’s speech, adding an almost musical tone to his words.

Brigid nodded. “Oh, it is,” she assured him. “I skimmed over the bulk of the files before we left the Grand Forks base. I can’t tell you what’s on there, but it’s encrypted to an almost implausible degree. It’s got to be some important material.”

Lakesh smiled, admiring the battered processor once more. “It certainly sounds promising,” he agreed. “Perhaps all of you would care to take a few hours for yourselves while I make a start on accessing these files.”

Grant didn’t need telling twice; he was already through the door and into the corridor without so much as a goodbye. Kane offered a halfhearted wave as he dashed out of the room after his partner, while Brigid Baptiste remained behind.

“What do you think it contains?” Brigid asked. “And more importantly, do you really think we can still access it? I told Kane that this was an insane way of looking at the files, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Oftentimes there is an admirable directness to Kane’s actions, I find,” Lakesh told her as he reached across the desk and pulled out several cables from the powered-down computer terminal located there.

Brigid smiled. For all of the apparent friction between herself and Kane, they were a good fit when push came to shove. Grant had reminded her earlier of the number of times that Kane had stepped in and put himself at risk to protect her and ensure that she reached her objective. She had done the same for him, of course—they were partners in peril. But there was more to it than that, a mystical bond that the two of them didn’t speak of often. They were anam-charas, soul friends, bonded throughout history to accompany each other as they faced whatever destiny threw at them.

Brigid unzipped her sable-collared jacket and pulled out the spectacles she had tucked safely in the inside pocket during the rushed exit from the underground base in North Dakota. “What can I do to help?” she asked, reaching past Lakesh to unplug the keyboard from the unused computer terminal.

He turned to watch her as she began searching for the right port at the back of the black box to insert the keyboard jack. He admired her utter focus and unwavering determination, feeling at that moment that he could watch her work forever. He stopped himself, blinking and remembering the task at hand. “Why don’t you take a few minutes to wash up and get yourself a change of clothes, Brigid?” he told her. “I can handle this and I’m sure that the joint expertise in this room can likely pull me free if I get tangled in any loose wires.”

Smiling, Lakesh gestured the breadth of the room, and Brigid looked up. Among the operatives at the terminals in the vast control center she could see Brewster Philboyd, an inspired astrophysicist of some renown, Dr. Mariah Falk, a caring woman and expert in the field of geology, and Donald Bry, the communications specialist who had helped get the satellites online. Lakesh was right. Between them, she realized, these people could probably fashion a working computer from scratch given enough pieces.

Brigid glanced at her reflection in the glass screen of the dead computer monitor before her, seeing her disheveled hair where it had been freed from the scarf, the mud-spattered white coat and scarf she still wore about her shoulders, and she realized that Lakesh had nothing but her own health at heart. “Yes, siree, I’ll take that advice,” she said breezily, plucking the glasses from her nose and turning to the exit doors of the ops center. “But you promise you’ll call me the second you find anything, okay?” she called back as she stepped toward the door.