Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

I jumped off the mediscan bed and headed down to the sixth floor. Not only had it been the main training area for prepubescent déchet, but it also held the bunk rooms, storerooms, and generators, as well as a secondary medical center and a gun cache—which was now the only cache, given the one I’d set up in the museum tunnel was undoubtedly gone.

The sixth floor was also an area that held one of the unalterable security points. A red light flashed as I approached the main door.

“Name, rank,” a gruff metallic voice said. I’d long ago named him Hank, simply because his tone reminded me of the cranky custodian who’d once run the Base Exchange. He was one of the few human ghosts who still lingered here, although he tended to avoid both me and the children.

“Tiger C5, déchet, lure rank.”

I pressed my thumb against the blood-work slot. A small needle shot out and took the required sample. While the system usually took an interminably long time to react, it was faster today, thanks to the fact that I was running all three generators twenty-four/seven so I could bring the south-siding exit into the security net. I could probably stop that now, because if the images Cat had shown me were any indication, no one but shadowed vampires was going to use that entrance anytime soon. Presuming, of course, the destruction wasn’t so complete that even an energy mass wasn’t getting through.

After the scanner had checked my irises, the door beeped and swung open. I made my way down to the generator room first. The backup generator was once again making an alarming amount of noise. I’d run a maintenance check on it only a couple of days ago, but it obviously needed a full-system check—not something I could risk, as it would take me close to a day to pull the thing apart, and probably that again to fix whatever was wrong, then put it back together—if, of course, I actually had the parts here to fix it with.

I ordered the computer to do another maintenance run, then coded the south-siding exit out of the system and switched its programming back to running only at night. Thankfully, the other two generators were purring along quite happily, but I included them in the maintenance check anyway. It would take them offline for an hour, but the solar system could cope with running the purifiers and the doors for that short amount of time. And it wasn’t as if I needed the full security system running right now anyway, because no one was getting in or out of this place very easily in the near future. Maybe not even me.

With that done, I headed for the hydro pods to clean up. Once I’d dressed, I attached my guns, then grabbed some fresh ammunition as well as a flash stick from the store and headed down to the south-siding exit. The destruction became evident long before I got anywhere near the tunnel. The two nearby nursery units were filled with dust and debris, but the lights were at least working in them. The same could not be said of the third nursery that now acted as a forecourt for the south-siding exit. The force of the explosion had caused a huge portion of the ceiling to collapse, and wires and broken lights hung in long and dangerous lengths. Sparks spun where wires touched, vivid but fleeting motes of brightness in the thick darkness.

I carefully picked my way through the mess and stopped in front of what once had been the tunnel’s entrance. Not only had it collapsed, but given the amount of dirt and stone mixed into the debris, it seemed the hill above us had caved in as well. I pulled the flash stick free and hit the switch. Its bright blue-white light pierced the darkness, but all it revealed was a solid wall of dirt, rock, and shattered concrete. I couldn’t see any way to get through the mess. The small air pockets and spaces that would normally have existed between the debris of concrete and stones—spaces that would have allowed me to slip through in energy form—simply didn’t exist because the soil had filled them.

Whether the whole tunnel was like that or simply this portion of it was impossible to say, but one thing was obvious—I wasn’t getting out this way anytime soon, and that was going to make things damnably difficult.

I swore, then turned and headed back. Sparks chased my heels, disappearing only once I’d reached the brightness of the next room. I returned to the generator room and shut down the power to the half-destroyed nursery room, then continued on up to the fourth level. If I couldn’t get out through the south-siding exit, then my only hope was the museum one, destroyed as it was.

I really didn’t want to think about what I’d do if it were as impassible as the other.

The little ones spun around me as I neared what remained of the staircase, then ran off laughing again. Apparently, the men had finally left the museum—no surprise, given dusk was coming in and Central’s drawbridge would soon be taken up for the night. Even Jonas had left, though he was walking around the museum, heading toward the south-siding exit rather than to either Central or Chaos. Bear and Cat were trailing after him.

I called to the darkness within me and, once I’d become energy rather than flesh, surged upward. The destruction became far more evident past the third level. The outer wall had collapsed inward, as had much of the inner wall. But—unlike the south-siding exit—there were plenty of spaces and gaps in between the huge chunks of concrete and steel, which gave me the room to squeeze through. Dusk had seeped into night by the time I reached the thick metal trapdoor that had once separated the staircase from the museum. It had been twisted like tinfoil and was now held in place by a solitary hinge. That it was even here said a lot about the strength of the old cover, given how close to the blast it must have been. I worked my way past both it and the few remaining concrete boulders, and finally entered the museum itself. Once I was absolutely sure no one remained, I regained human form and looked around.

The destruction was every bit as bad as the images the ghosts had shown me. The air was so thick with dust it felt like I was breathing in grit, and there was a vast mound of concrete, office equipment, and furniture sitting in the center of the museum. Th

e whole area was a sea of wires and cabling that hung from what remained of the walls or snaked across the floor. None of them were sparking, which meant the power was probably off. While most of the bunker’s old systems were powered by the old solar panels, the museum itself and all the newer additions—including lighting and security systems—were connected to Central’s grid. Meaning the laser curtain that usually protected the museum at night would now be inactive.

I walked across to the museum doors, my footsteps echoing lightly in the thick stillness. The security panel on the right side of the doors was dark, so I wedged my fingertips into the joint between the two heavy metal doors and tried to force them open. They refused to budge, so I called in the little ghosts, and after a moment, we’d opened them enough for me to slip through. I didn’t bother closing it, though—I just headed for the south-siding exit.

I found Jonas near the remains of the old grate that protected the tunnel’s exit. He rose as I approached, and the relief that crossed his features briefly warmed me, even though it undoubtedly stemmed more from Nuri’s statement that I was the only one who could rescue the missing kids than any true joy at discovering I was still alive.

I stopped several yards away from the exit’s remains and crossed my arms. Cat’s energy caressed my shoulder, but Bear was off investigating a section of grate that had been blown at least a hundred yards away from its original position. “I thought you didn’t have any government connection.”

Jonas frowned. “I don’t—”

“Then why were you in the museum inspecting the damage with the engineers? An ex-ranger now living in Chaos wouldn’t have been my first choice to call to investigate such an event.”

“And normally, that would be true. But the man in charge just happens to be a friend of mine, and we did have a vested interest in knowing whether you lived or died.” He paused and scanned me. “I can understand why they blew this tunnel, but what were they trying to achieve by blowing up the museum?”

“There was a secondary entrance situated there. I’m not sure how they knew about it, though. It’s certainly not in any of the base plans, and no one has ever seen me use it . . .” My voice trailed off.

Actually, someone had.

“What?” Jonas immediately said.

I cleared my throat and looked away. Penny was his niece, and it was unlikely he’d believe she’d do anything to jeopardize the hunt for the other missing children.

“Tiger—” he all but growled.

I grimaced. “The only person who knew there was an entrance in the museum was Penny. We used it the night I saved you both.”

“She couldn’t—”

“Once that might have been true,” I cut in. “But even Nuri has said there’s a darkness in Penny’s soul now that hadn’t been evident before. How do we know that darkness isn’t some form of connection back to those who held her?”