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It had been so long since Rack had actually seen anything other than the odd
stickie on the sec vid that it took him a moment to take in what was
happening.
"Oh, shit," he breathed as it struck home. This had to be the group that had
taken out Sharofsky's men a few nights back. And now they were here. Well,
they'd pay for that.
Rack punched the button on the intercom in front of him. The speaker crackled
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seeped through the static.
"Main room. What is it, Si?"
"Al, you're not going to believe this, but even after that little warning
they've come here."
There was a pause, then the voice said, "You're shittin' me, right, Si? I
mean, no one comes here. Everyone knows this is nowhere, right? That's why
it's so safe.
That's why it was built, right? Jeez& Okay, let me deal with this."
The intercom went dead, and Rack lost his sense of urgency. Let Al deal with
it now. He would just sit here and watch, same as ever.
THE CARAVAN consisting of the Gate tribe and Ryan's people entered the
settlement. Once beyond the remnants of the wire fencing, there were other
posts with ominously still cameras that littered the few hundred yards until
they reached the point where the settlement began in earnest. They had entered
at a tangent to the main entrance, and as such it was some distance to the
first of the roads that crisscrossed the compound.
As Doc had suspected from the stories he had heard, the compound was military-
industrial in design, and was modeled on the area surrounding the old
Pentagon, long since wiped out in the nukecaust of skydark. And although this
area had escaped the complete desolation of what had once been the state of
Washington, it had received some residual damage. Many of the buildings that
dotted the way along the roads showed pockmark and burn damage, exacerbated by
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the fact that they had been left empty in the years since.
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The settlement seemed long dead, and the traffic signals at junctions that
indicated that at one time there had been much traffic around the compound
were now dead. A camera was mounted on each signal. As they progressed slowly
through the compound, Dean kept an eye on the cameras. They, too, seemed long
dead, but he couldn't shake the idea that they were moving just slightly,
almost imperceptibly, but enough to justify his paranoia.
The Illuminated Ones would surely know that they were coming, and it was
almost certain that they would have some kind of surveillance system in
operation. After all, they seemed to have a much better set of old tech than
any other sec force that the companions had come across in their travels. And
they seemed to be able to travel using the mat-trans units, a system that few
people, other than the companions, had ever discovered.
But despite the tech and despite the fact that they knew from their previous
encounters that the Gate caravan was on its way, the Illuminated Ones seemed
quiet. Too quiet.
There was little sign of any action within the compound except that of the
Gate themselves. Gloria had dispatched a series of outriders to traverse the
avenues and freeways of the compound, dodging between the buildings and
checking the alleyways for any signs of life. It was a large compound, and the
Gate progressed at a snail's pace while the outriders went on their mission,
quartering the areas directly ahead and combing them thoroughly. Small groups
scouted even farther ahead, running preliminary checks without endangering
themselves or the tribe.
Blasters were drawn, and nerves were taut.
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Jak held his .357 Magnum Colt Python with the barrel down to the ground and
his arm rigid, the tendons stretched as tight as his nerves. He walked beside
Gloria and Ryan. The warrior queen held her Vortak grasped in both hands,
barrel to her left-hand side. Her icy blue eyes darted around her, her
piercing stare attempting to cut through the surrounding buildings and see any
lurking danger.
The outriders returned, Tammy among them. The auburn-haired, statuesque woman
approached her queen and reported.
"I don't know how they're doing it, but they're up here somewhere and trying
to direct us."
Gloria held up her hand to halt the caravan, then said, "Direct us? What do
you mean, sweets?"
Tammy looked back in the direction she had come, as though searching for
inspiration. She grimaced, bit her lip, then shrugged. "It's kind of hard to
put into words, and it may sound really stupe, but I'm sure that there were
some intersections blocked on the way back that hadn't been when I went on the
way out."
"Are you sure?" Ryan asked.
Tammy shook her head distractedly. "Sure? What does that mean? I couldn't
swear an oath to say that it was so, but it does seem kind of odd. For
instance, there's all kind of junk littered about here, right?"
She waited for an answer. It was true that the compound was littered along the
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Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_59_-_Amazon_Gate road with the remains of old
vehicles. Some old armored wags, some automobiles, and the remains of
motorbikes lay on the sidewalks of the compound streets. They were rotten
hulks, rusted and stripped of anything that might have been of use. Many of
them showed fire damage that suggested a long-
ago firefight. They stood mostly on the sides of the wide streets, and hadn't
impeded the progress of the Gate caravan as it entered the compound proper.
"Okay, so there's a shit-load of old wags around the place. And?" Gloria
prompted, shrugging and smiling at the young warrior to encourage her into
expounding her theory.
"And this you see how they're all on the sides of the streets, right?" Tammy
answered, indicating the wrecks that were nearest to the caravan. When her
queen assented, Tammy continued, "Okay, well, I was sure that they were all
like that when I was scouting out. But when I was coming back from the far
quarter " she swept her arm back in the direction she had come " it seemed to
me that some of the wrecks had been moved so that they were across
intersections, making it kind of hard for us to make our way down some of the
streets."
"That's interesting," Ryan murmured to Gloria. "They must have figured that we
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