Downrigger Drift

“Yeah.” Ryan ground his teeth in frustration. In every base they’d jumped to, he had always been on the lookout for more information on the mat-trans units. How they worked, and more importantly, how a person could control where they jumped.

He’d come close a few times. Once, in an abandoned space station high above the planet, he’d had to leave a file full of documents behind just as the station comp began its self-destruct sequence. Another time, in the desert of what had been New Mex, he’d run into Major Drake Burroughs, from predark, who knew how to direct the jumps, sending a squad after Ryan and his companions when they escaped captivity. Someday, Ryan wanted to go back there and find out exactly what Burroughs knew. But that was another day…

Right now he still needed to figure out what to do about the elevator. They’d been lucky enough getting into the general system—trying to guess the passcode to access the mat-trans info would be like firing a bullet into the air blindfolded and still expecting to hit your target.

Wiping his forehead, which was now damp with sweat, Ryan ran his finger down the choices. “Security’s probably passcoded as well—they never trust anyone. Mebbe maintenance?”

“Good as any.”

Ryan hit number four, leading to yet another menu:

Maintenance Menu

1) General

2) Area

3) Room

4) Matter Transfer/Enter Passcode To Access

5) Other

Ryan sighed. “Feels like we’re wading two steps forward in shit, only to slip one step back.”

“Already done that today. Keep going. I think you’re almost there. Try number five. Mebbe we can tell it to unlock the sec code on the elevator.”

Ryan pressed the button. This made the console change again. Now a keyboard appeared, along with the usual horizontal rectangle, and a command: Enter Maintenance Task

Ryan looked at J.B. again, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me. You’re the one talking to it.”

“Some help you are.” Holding his breath, Ryan stabbed keys: Repair Matter Transfer Elevator.

The screen flashed, and more text appeared: System Diagnostic Running Matter Transfer Elevator Operating Normally. Last Inspection Of Matter Transfer Elevator Performed On 9/10/2000. Elevator Inspection Overdue. Do You Wish To Send Elevator To Maintenance Level For Visual Inspection?

Ryan grinned. “That sounds about as good as anything we can expect. Maintenance level’s got to be near the surface.”

“Makes as much sense as anything else we’ve seen so far.”

Ryan entered yes. A line of text appeared, with an entry rectangle underneath: Please Set Time For Elevator Inspection.

Ryan’s smile dropped off his face. “Nuke shit. How do we do this?”

“Hey, check the lower right-hand corner—some sort of timer.”

Ryan glanced down, and sure enough, there were numbers there: 13:37:10. As he watched, the last pair counted up to sixty, then the next pair to the left added one, and the rightmost pair started counting up from one again.

“Looks like that’s the clock. Ten minutes should be enough to get out of here and back to the elevator, right?”

“I’d say so.”

Ryan entered the time: 13:48:00, and hit Enter.

All of the earlier text disappeared, replaced by four lines: Countdown To Matter Transfer Elevator Inspection: 00:09:59 Please Ensure That All Personnel Are Clear Of Elevator Before It Departs.

Ryan slapped J.B.’s shoulder. “Time to go.”

The other man held up a finger-sized lump of plastique. “Ready. Hope we find some more of this soon. It’s my last detonator.”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Ryan trotted back to the access door.

“It’s a four-second fuse, so when the doors open wide enough, I toss it, wait for the boom and we go.”

“Three…two…one—” Ryan stabbed the keypad.

The door cycled open again, and as soon as the crack was wide enough, J.B. pitched the explosive into the corridor, calling “fire in the hole!”

Both men spun away, covering their ears and opening their mouths again. Seconds later, the C-4 detonated, sending a spray of pig-rat parts into the formerly spotless mat-trans control room.

Ryan peeked out to see yet another, deeper puddle of mutie pieces, blood and feces in front of the door. The pig-rats milled and scurried beyond, unwilling to approach at first, but fast losing their fear as they began scurrying closer.

“Go!” Ryan stepped out and leaped for the pipe again, his fingers already aching as they gripped it. Swinging his feet up, he pushed along it to make room for J.B., who keyed the door closed before jumping up just as a pair of muties sprang at his legs.

“Dark night!” J.B. lashed out wildly, catching one of the creatures in the face with his boot, and sending it crashing into the wall, where it fell back into the rodent army. The other one, however, latched on to his pant leg with its sharp claws and sank its tusks into his leg.

“Nuking hell!” Hanging on with one hand, J.B. drew his flensing knife with the other and stabbed the beast in the neck, blood spurting over his fingers and wrist. Sawing with the blade, he severed its head from its body, which fell away, leaving the jaws still locked on his thigh. Hammering at it with the butt of his dagger, grunting with each blow, J.B. broke the mutie’s jaw after several blows. Inserting his blade between the pig-rat’s open lips, he pried it off and flipped it away.

Meanwhile, Ryan hadn’t been a passive observer during the pitched battle. As soon as he heard J.B. curse, he’d looked over, seen the problem and acted. Drawing his SIG-Sauer, he’d raised the blaster over his head and fired several rounds into the swirling, squealing vermin below, ensuring that their attention was on their wounded and dying brethren. The hammer of his blaster had just clicked on an empty chamber when J.B. had finished removing the gruesome head of his attacker.

“You okay?”

“Yeah—for now.” J.B.’s face was flushed with the exertion of killing the mutie while hanging on the pipe, but he nodded. “Move out.”

“Give me a sec.” As fast as he dared, Ryan slung his forearm over the pipe to hold himself up, ejected the empty mag from his blaster, tucking it into his pocket, and replaced it with a full one—his last. Holstering his weapon, he reached up to secure his hold on the pipe with his free hand. “Ready.”

An ominous groan echoed through the tunnel, and the pipe Ryan and J.B. clung to dropped an inch, then another before shuddering to a halt.

Chapter Eight

“Pipe’s breaking! We’ve got to move!” Ryan began, hand-over-handing it as quickly as he could, sensitive to each shudder and jar as he clambered along the metal tube. He thought about telling J.B. to put some more space between them, but dismissed the idea. Every second they spent here was more stress on the pipe, and if it gave way, there was only one place to end up—straight down into the hundreds of slavering maws of the muties below.

So Ryan kept moving, trying to crawl as lightly as possible, if such a thing could be done while hanging from a pipe with his two-hundred-odd pounds pulling on it every time he braced a hand or foot. With every yard he gained, the pipe swayed and creaked ominously, and Ryan half expected that each time he reached up to grab the slick metal, it would be his last. The horde below was erupting into a frenzy, the pandemonium overwhelming, even to their carpet-stuffed ears. As he pushed forward, Ryan swore he felt something brush his back more than once.

“Ryan…hold up…need to rest…” J.B.’s voice, already weak, drifted to him above the shrieking of the muties.

“No, J.B., keep moving! We’re almost there. If you stop, you drop!”

“Gettin’ tired…”