Labyrinth

by James Axler

  As if that wasn’t miracle enough, there was also the ville.

  “Dark night!” J.B. exclaimed, thumbing his glasses back up the slippery bridge of his nose.

  From a distance, it was like skydark had never happened.

  Like the flooding of the canyon had never happened, either.

  A mile or two from the near shore of the lake, stone and brick buildings clustered around a central square with a little park in the middle. The largest building was three stories tall with a clock tower. On the far side of the city center stood a row of grain silos. A black strip of two-lane highway paralleled that end of town. The road petered out in the middle of the plain, either buried under shifting sand or ripped away by receding waters.

  “Little Pueblo,” Mildred said. “Just the way I remembered it.”

  “’Tis indeed a wonderment,” Doc prononunced. “Further evidence that the hand of the Creator works in mysterious ways.”

  “I’d say it was more a case of the laws of physics, working predictably,” Mildred countered.

  “And whose hand lies behind the laws of physics?” Doc asked with a confident grin.

  “Why does there have to be a ‘hand’?”

  “Touché, dear Mildred. I am sure we would all like to hear your explanation.”

  “On nukeday, the water was five hundred feet deep over the town,” she said. “All that liquid acted like a giant cushion to protect the buildings from shock and blast effects of incoming airburst missile strikes. My guess is the dam didn’t get off so easy, and that’s why the reservoir disappeared.”

  “Could have been a near-miss with an earthshaker warhead,” J.B. suggested. “Those babies had an effective blast diameter of five hundred miles.”

  “That would explain how the entrance to that redoubt got uncovered,” Ryan said. “The ground tremors brought the whole cliff down. Cracked the dam open, too.”

  “I don’t see any people moving, anywhere,” Krysty said, squinting against the glare. “And there’s got to be people. Not just our water thief. Somebody’s been tending those fields.”

  With rifle scope and binocs, Ryan and J.B. surveyed the terrain downrange.

  There was something else wrong with the picture.

  Unlike most other inhabited outposts in Deathlands, Little Pueblo didn’t have a defensive berm of piled dirt and debris.

  There were no perimeter gunposts. No fortified gates.

  J.B. lowered the binocs. “I suppose there could be snipers and spotters up here on the rim,” he said. “Although they wouldn’t be much use.”

  Ryan had to agree with that assessment. The canyon was so wide that much of it was beyond the range of even super-high-velocity, .50-caliber milspec rounds. Cap-and-ball weapons would be about as effective as chucking rocks. Snipers spaced out on the rim couldn’t protect the ville from a large invading force—they couldn’t concentrate enough fire to turn back attackers. The best they could do was harrass. And then only during the day. That was the problem with rim-based, spotter outposts, too. They’d be useless at night. Even if somehow they saw the invaders coming, they wouldn’t be able to direct defensive ambushes in the valley.

  “It’s like they don’t give a damn if they’re overrun,” J.B. said.

  “Or they know it isn’t going to happen,” Ryan said. “What do you mean ‘they know’?” Krysty asked. “They’re sitting on an oasis in the middle of a radblasted desert. The nearest ville of any size must be 150 miles away. A gang of blackhearts that sets out for Little Pueblo isn’t going to be in shape to rob it by the time they get here. If they get here.”

  “How would robbers even know it existed?” J.B. said. “After the reservoir was built, the ville’s name was probably taken off all the maps. It sure wasn’t on the one in the redoubt. Only way to find Little Pueblo would be to stumble onto it by accident. Then you’d have to walk out again to gather a chilling crew. And then walk in again to do the looting.”

  “It’s a safe bet that’s never happened,” Ryan said. “If it had, folks down there would know the desert wasn’t enough to keep trouble out. And there’d be perimeter defenses. “

  “Bastard thief got in, maybe two days ago,” Krysty reminded them.

  “He could be swinging from a tree right now,” J.B. said. “Or else his head’s on a stick in the middle of that square. No way of telling what kind of reception the folks down there give to strangers.”

  “We need water and food,” Mildred said.

  “Wait for dark, then steal,” Jak suggested.

  Doc didn’t like that idea. “From this vantage point the valley looks bucolic and peaceable in the extreme, with ample sustenance for all,” he said. “Perhaps the residents would happily share their bounty with us, if only to get news of the world beyond the hellish plain.”

  Jak came back with a less rosy, but much more likely possibility. “Chill us for blasters and ammo.”

  “We have a better chance of fighting our way out during daylight,” J.B. said. “At least we can see trouble coming.”

  “There’s another problem, whether we steal what we need or not,” Ryan told them. “It’s going to be a bastard long march out of this desert. It may not be possible to carry enough supplies to make it. Once we leave, there’ll be no turning back.”

  After a pause, Krysty said, “What about Minotaur?”

  “You read my mind,” Ryan said. “If that three-dimensional map is right, there’s a redoubt down there somewhere. And if there’s a redoubt, there’s a chance it has a working mat-trans unit.”

  “That would save us a whole lot of boot leather and blisters,” J.B. said.

  Before descending the cliffs and starting across the canyon floor, Ryan and J.B. each scoped the opposite rim, looking for sun flash off telesight lenses or gunbarrels, or evidence of shooters’ hides built among the rocks. When they found nothing, they assumed that their side of the gorge was likewise undefended, and that it was safe to proceed. A conclusion based on battlefield experience and common sense. No way would snipers be posted on only one rim of a canyon so wide. The most effective kill zone would be created by overlapping cross fire from two sides at once.

  In fighting formation the companions followed one of the large arroyos gouged out of the sand by the reservoir’s violent retreat. Long before they reached the outskirts of the ville, signs of vegetation started to appear on the slopes around them. First, scattered dry weeds and brush. Then living trees, albeit stunted and scraggly. As the weeds grew thicker and green, and the trees became more sturdy, the companions saw lizards, insects, rabbits and birds. The bugs sawed and sang in the afternoon’s blistering heat.

  When the arroyo took a dogleg to the right, they climbed the soft bank for a recce. Just ahead was a row of rectangular, concrete pads, each sprouting rusted wires and conduit, and broken off plastic pipes.

  “The remains of government-built, reservation housing,” Mildred said. “Those are the foundation pads for modular prefabs and double-wide trailers. The buildings must’ve washed away when the water ran out.”

  Around the slabs were unfenced, row-crop fields bordered by irrigation ditches. The water ran clear in the ditches, shaded by tall grass and overhanging trees.

  “Look at the current,” J.B. said. “The river’s still here, underground. They’ve got it working for them.”

  The companions then took turns laying on their bellies, washing their faces and necks, and drinking their fill of cool water. When they couldn’t drink any more, they rinsed out and refilled their canteens.

  “Somebody watching,” Jak said softly to Ryan.

  It was difficult to detect glee in those bloodred eyes of his. You had to look hard. And know what you were looking for.

  There was glee in them, now.

  At the edge of the field, a half-dozen, free-range chickens had stepped into view. Fat and sassy, they pecked at the soil for insects not thirty yards away.

  The albino had two razor-sharp knives in his hand, one ready i
n his fingers, the other clasped against his palm.

  Before Jak could get off a toss, the birds spooked, ducking back into the cover of the knee-high corn. He started to give chase, but Ryan stopped him. “No, Jak, let them go. Wouldn’t look real good if we showed up on these folks’ doorstep with their dead hens hanging on our belts. If nobody’s home, we can always come back and get them later.”

  Refreshed, if not fed, they slid back down into the arroyo and followed it all the way to the edge of the town square. As they climbed onto the predark street, they heard muffled singing and drumming. The noise was coming from the other side of the town square and park.

  “Somebody’s home, after all,” Ryan said. “Stay tight, now. We’re on triple red.”

  The central area of Little Pueblo stood on an isolated crown of bedrock. Most of the runoff from the breached dam had channeled through the surrounding gridwork of streets, washing away wood frame houses and trailer homes, leaving bare concrete slabs and open air basements.

  Up close, the city center wasn’t in such great shape, either.

  The street and sidewalks were all split to hell, with heaved-up cracks every few feet. Not one of the buildings that faced the little park had an intact window. The glass had been replaced by sheets of opaque plastic, pieces of scrap plywood and sheet metal. Ryan guessed that the repair materials that had been fished out of the lake, where all the loose debris would have ended up.

  Most of the structures along the street were one-story and made of cinder block. Some still had faded signs along their facades. Lupita’s Café, Little Pueblo Country Store and Bakery, Hardiman Insurance, Titterness Real Estate, Desert City Fashions.

  With the muzzle of his SIG-Sauer, Ryan eased aside the sheet plastic that covered the doorway of Lupita’s Café, and looked inside. Right off he got a whiff of freshly baked bread. It made his mouth water.

  “Hello?” he said.

  No answer.

  Ryan pushed in, waving for the others to follow, with caution.

  It was no longer a café. Lupita’s had been gutted down to the cinder-block walls and concrete slab. The ceiling rafters and conduit pipes were exposed. It figured that none of the submerged carpet, plasterboard, subflooring, ceiling tile, and interior plywood would have been salvageable. Mildew and rot would have set in long before it ever dried out.

  The main room’s furniture consisted of lawnchairs, plastic milk crates and six platform beds made of scavenged interior doors propped on pairs of fifty-five gallon drums and piers of cinder blocks. From the way the straw mattresses were flattened, the beds were at least double occupied. There were no blaster racks on the walls. No blasters leaning in corners, or tucked under the beds. No ammo or lead balls or tins of black powder, either.

  On the floor around the nonfunctional toilet in the café restroom were two mattresses; the adjoining storeroom had three more of the platform beds. Ryan figured that at least twenty people were sleeping in the three rooms.

  The kitchen was still a kitchen. It even had some of its original, predark appliances. The doors had been removed from a commercial-sized refrigerator, and its inside turned into a storage cupboard. The stove had been converted from gas to wood, its former oven now the firebox, which was giving off considerable heat.

  Cooling on a long, makeshift dining table were stacked loaves of bread-flat, round and golden brown.

  J.B. pulled a heavy crockery jar from the refrigerator pantry, flipped off the lid, and stuck his finger in. It came out gooey amber. He sniffed, then he licked. “Honey,” he said, eyes gleaming.

  Without another word, the companions tore into the pile of fresh bread, dipping great hunks of it into the honey pot. They ate every last crumb and took turns at the jar with moistened fingers until nothing sticky remained. Start to finish, the meal took four minutes.

  When they were done, Krysty said, “Traveling folks might carry corn and wheat seed with them for food, or to grow crops once they got where they were going, but bees? Chickens? No way could they survive a trip across that desert. How did they get here?”

  “Might have been mat-trans-ed in, I suppose,” J.B. said.

  “If the people here had access to mat-trans, why would they just import seed and livestock?” Ryan said. “Why wouldn’t they get the hell out if they could? What do you think, Mildred?”

  The black woman didn’t answer. She was staring at a square of chalkboard that hung from a nail on the wall. The board was a hundred-year-old artifact, and still in relatively good condition. It was the room’s only decoration. Across the top, “Lupita’s Daily Special” was painted in chipped, but legible hot pink. The dots over the i’s were in the shape of little flowers.

  There was no special today, or tomorrow, or ever again.

  “Mildred, is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Just wondering what if anything that might mean,” she said. She stepped aside so they could all see the words deeply scratched into the blackboard: “All Glory to Bob & Enid.”

  Nobody had a clue.

  It didn’t seem important at the time. Just odd.

  But when they started looking through other buildings, weapons ready in case the missing owners suddenly returned, they found more references to the pair. And on the streetfront wall of Titterness Real Estate someone had charcoaled three lines of tall, crooked letters: Our love for Bob & Enid, our love for one & other makes us strong & proud.

  “It would appear that paeans to ‘Bob and Enid’ are a recurring motif in these parts,” Doc said. “I would hazard the pair were early settlers, except for the glories and huzzahs that always accompany the inscriptions. They reflect a level of adoration normally reserved for deities.”

  “Goddess Enid sounds okay, but a god named Bob?” Krysty said.

  “That wasn’t here in 1992,” Mildred announced. She pointed across the street, through the line of mature trees, at the town square park.

  Ryan was already staring at the windowless, one-story, gray concrete monolith that rose from the middle of the park. The roof and sides of the 50-by-80-foot structure were ribbed for strength.

  Keeping low and single file, they trotted over for a closer look.

  There was only one entrance, a doorway accessed down a short flight of steps. The titanium steel and pressure-locked door was blocked by a pile of stones.

  The above ground structure was just the tip of the iceberg.

  “We’ve found Minotaur,” Ryan said.

  “Never was an island here, then,” Krysty said.

  “Map was right, though,” Dix stated. “Damn thing was smack in the middle of the reservoir—only on the bottom.”

  “Look at those reinforcing ribs,” Mildred said. “The walls are massive, designed to withstand tremendous pressure. Things are finally starting to make sense to me.”

  “Pray tell in what regard, my dear?” Doc asked.

  “The chronology,” Mildred said. “It’s all about the chronology. First came the rushed-through funding for the dam from Congress, then the town was condemned, and the residents relocated. A military no-fly perimeter was set up, supposedly to keep out saboteurs, but more likely to keep out prying eyes. The redoubt site was excavated and the complex installed at the same time as the dam, then hidden when the canyon was flooded. From the start, the whole Pueblo Canyon Dam project was about building Minotaur!”

  “The construction and engineering you’re talking about is way beyond anything I’ve seen before,” Ryan said. “The question is, why wasn’t hollowing out a mountain good enough in this case? Why the hell did they put it under all that water?”

  “Mountain complexes are designed to keep out nukestrikes, radiation and uninvited guests,” Mildred said. “Maybe this one was meant to keep something in.”

  Ryan picked up on her train of thought at once. “You mean because of the water depth?” he said.

  “That’s right. Without a pressurized suit or transport vehicle, no large organism could make it from the bottom to the surface al
ive.”

  “So we’re not just talking concealment, then,” Krysty said. “We’re talking total isolation, maximum quarantine.”

  “Predark whitecoats left behind some triple-ugly surprises,” J.B. said. “Maybe we better find out more about the place before we stick our beaks in there.”

  The sounds of muffled singing and drumming, which had momentarily waned, suddenly swelled.

  “It’s coming from the other side of the square,” Krysty said. “One of those buildings in the middle of the block.”

  “Time we introduced ourselves to the locals,” Ryan said. “See what they can tell us about Minotaur.”

  They followed the noise to its source, a two-story structure with a big marquee over the entrance. The marquee’s frame bore the name El Mirador Theater; a row of black plastic letters spelled out the current attraction: “Prays Bob & Enid.”

  There were no guards on the movie house’s front doors and wild festivities were in progress inside. Clapping hands, stamping feet and sticks thumping on metal kept the rolling, musical beat. The singing, now that they could clearly make it out, was more like yelling. There were no words to the tune, just nonsense syllables, joyfully shouted at top volume.

  Dee-dit-deedee. Dee-dit-deedee.

  “Here comes the bride?” Mildred queried.

  Chapter Six

  “The bride comes from where?” Krysty asked Mildred.

  Ryan and J.B. wore identical puzzled looks. Jak wasn’t paying any attention.

  “It’s just the words to an old song, ‘The Wedding March,’” Mildred told them. “Written by Felix Mendelssohn in the mid-nineteenth century. Before the nukecaust it was played as the bride-to-be walked down the aisle of the church, before the wedding ceremony.”

  “You think people are getting married in there?” Krysty said.

  “If the music means anything anymore.”

  “Sounds like a big crowd,” J.B. said. “Maybe the whole blasted ville. If we go in all peace and love, we might not come out again.”

  Peace and love wasn’t on Ryan Cawdor’s agenda.