“Any hatches? Emergency exits?”
“None. If this burns I’d fry.”
He sounded weary now. On screen I saw him shoot anxious looks at the naked girl. “You have to hurry, Valdiva. I think she’s waking up.”
“You’ve got to give me some help here, Phoenix. Think, old buddy; is there any other access to that room?”
“None at all. No… wait… there’s one of those little elevators… what d’ya call them? Dumbwaiters; that’s it. There’s a dumbwaiter over there in the wall.”
“What’s it for?”
“What do you think? People working down here’d still have to eat even during a nuclear war. If they were too busy to leave, someone would send them down food to eat while they watched the US of A flame out on the screens.”
“Where does the dumbwaiter come down from?”
“The kitchen. Right next to the room you’re in… but wait.. . you don’t think you’re somehow gonna sneak down in that and come out guns blazing. The thing’s that big.” He held out his hands about a foot wide. “Like I said, it’s big enough for a plate of hot dogs, not for a platoon of marines…” He laughed. An edge of hysteria cranked it higher. “But while we’re talking about it, maybe you could send me down a steak and fries. I haven’t eaten in days.” He laughed again. “Fucking days. Man, I can feel my ribs through my shirt.”
Calmly, I said, “OK, Phoenix. Listen carefully. I’m going to send something down to you. Something nice.”
He shot me a look. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to help you.”
“Forget about sending a gun down in the elevator. She’ll know, guys. She’ll see it in my eyes. And you can bet your life she won’t let me use it on her.
“Phoenix, trust me. I’m sending something down that’s going to solve all your problems.”
I watched him on the screen. You could see the wheels turn inside his head as he thought about it. Suddenly he looked up at the camera, his face filling the screen. That was the moment when I realized he understood what I’d been driving at.
“OK, Valdiva. Send down that steak. I like them bloody, so make it a rare one. Plenty of fries. Potato salad. And don’t be niggardly with that mayonnaise- you hear?”
“I hear, Phoenix.”
“I’m waiting, Valdiva.”
“You just keep that mental image of a huge juicy steak. Think about golden fries. Onion rings. Do ya like apple pie?”
“Good God, yes. Send me a whole apple pie.”
“Keep that image in your mind, Phoenix.”
Picking up the backpack, I went quickly into the ad-joining kitchen. Phoenix hadn’t been house proud. Wrappers, cans, cartons covered the table, along with around a hundred spent syringes. Boy, the guy knew how to party.
Set in the wall was a small steel door. Beside it were two illuminated buttons. One was marked UP, the other DOWN. I pressed the UP button. Far away, I heard a click, then a faint humming.
I pulled a plastic tray from the crud on the table, then set a plate on it. A buzzer sounded behind me. I gripped the handle on the door and pulled it down. It slid open to reveal a small steel box little bigger than the interior of a microwave oven.
Phoenix’s voice came over the speaker. “How ya doing, Greg? Don’t burn that steak.”
“I won’t. I’m cooking the fries now.”
Zak came to the doorway and looked in. He gave an expressive gesture as if to ask what the hell I was doing. I put my fingers to my lips for him to stay quiet. Quickly I pulled the last two sticks of dynamite from the bag. Then he understood. He helped me unravel the fuse.
“I’m just frying those onion rings,” I called. “Do you need mustard?”
“Send down a whole jar. I’ll go nuts.”
“Steak’s nearly ready.”
“Nice and juicy, is it, Greg?”
“It’s beautiful. You’re going to love what’s on this tray. Steak, fries, the trimmings. A whole pie. A jug of cold sweet cream. Keep that image in your mind, Phoenix.”
The voice came back calm and genuinely grateful. “I knew I could rely on you to help me, Greg. Thanks, buddy. You’re a good man.”
“Here it comes.” I nodded to Zak, who placed the tray containing the dynamite into the midget elevator. Loosely, I coiled the fuse inside.
“I think you ought to speed things up. My roommate’s waking up. I think she’s gnnn…”
Tony shouted from the other room. “Hey, come and look at this-quickly, guys.”
“The food’s coming down, Phoenix,” I shouted and lit the fuse. As the sparks flew I slammed the door shut and hit the DOWN button. With a click it began to hum its way down to the sealed room below.
“Greg!” Tony’s voice rose. “Hurry!”
I ran into the adjoining room. On screen Phoenix rose from his chair. One look told me that thing had him in its grip. His eyes glazed. He moved like a sleep-walker. Behind him, the girl still sat as she had before, not moving so much as a finger, as if asleep.
Tony grunted. “Looks like sleeping beauty woke.”
I focused on the screen. Her eyes had opened. There was something cool and distant about them. They looked up at the camera that filmed her… It seemed as if she gazed through the TV screen directly at us.
Over the speaker I heard the buzz as the dumbwaiter descended into the Communications Center. In a dreamlike way Phoenix went to it, opened the elevator door. For a second he stood there without reacting, even though he must have seen the two sticks of dynamite and the burning fuse.
In one fluid movement he scooped the dynamite from the dumbwaiter, then as if he was shielding a newborn baby from the rain, he hugged it to his chest before moving away from the girl. He walked to the farthest corner of the room; there he pressed himself to where the two walls joined.
In an unearthly way things seemed to stay like that for whole moments, Phoenix pushing himself face first to the wall, the fuse burning toward the explosive he clutched to his stomach.
The girl gazed at the camera. Her eyes were languid, even sleepy. I knew she understood what was happening. Only she didn’t seem afraid. She tilted her head to one side, as if studying the expression on my face. Her dark hair spilled down over one naked breast. Her lips parted like she was just about to speak.
Then the flame reached the detonator. With a cracking thump a blossom of flame erupted in the corner of the room where Phoenix stood. A second later something wet and red struck the lens, smearing it so thickly we could no longer see the interior of the room.
For a moment no one spoke. The thick concrete floor that separated the lounge from the room beneath our feet shielded us. Even so, it knocked enough dust out of the carpet to mist the air. Electric lights flickered, then steadied again. The computer faithfully compensated for any damage; the backup systems kicked in, the air conditioner hummed steadily as before. Even with its human controller dead, the bunker’s electronic brain would automatically maintain everything as before. Probably for months, if not years.
Zak looked ’round the room. “I guess all this is ours now.”
Tony grimaced. “We still have to evict the bad guys, remember?”
I knocked the dust off my arms. “They can’t spoil anything now. Besides, Phoenix will have made sure all the storerooms were locked up tight. First we need to get hold of those antibiotics for Michaela. And we need to fix Tony’s leg.” I smiled. “Then we can all come back here, clean the house and maybe enjoy a vacation.”
“First, how do we find a way out of here?”
“We’ll find a way.”
Zak put his hand on my forearm. “There was something else, too, Greg.”
“Oh?”
“What Phoenix said about you being from a hive. That you were the same as the girl.”
