"Axler, James - Deathlands 050 - Pandora's Reboubt - Nick Pollotta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Axler James)

"Kid's stuff," J.B. said with a grin, snipping the string and pocketing the grenade. The checkered ball and slim activation lever, or "spoon" as it was called in the predark days, was a predark model from one of the world wars, but still deadly.
The corridor in front of the office was dark, and a quick check showed the overheads were also smashed. In the dim light from the mat-trans unit, they could see the standard redoubt map on the wall. This was level five, office and communications. Below them was storage, power and life support. Above them was the barracks, kitchen and hospital, and the top level-unmarked with a designation.
"Stranger and stranger," Ryan said, the muzzle of the Steyr SSG-70 sweeping back and forth in perfect rhythm to his own single eye. "We'll head for the elevator. One on one coverage, single yard spread. Soft penetration."
"Top floor?" Jak asked, his head tilted forward. "Check. If there's anybody here, they'll have supplies or people near the exit."
"Make sense."
"Check"
Keeping near the wall, they felt the air move constantly over them in artificial breezes from the ceiling vents. There was no dust or musky smell of mildew.
"This base must have been absolutely airtight until the recent intrusion," Mildred whispered. "Any supplies in the storerooms should be in perfect shape."
"Could be what those two were fighting over," Krysty noted, straining her spirit to sense any danger.
"Triple stupe," Jak snorted, crouched to offer as poor a target as possible. "Share goods and live."
"Wisdom indeed, my young friend," Doc whispered, patting the teenager on the shoulder. "Share and live. The Oracle at Delphi could not have said it better."
The albino teen ignored the compliment and concentrated on the job at hand.
The end of the hallway was completely dark, and there was no way to see if the elevator was there, or the location of the door to the stairwell. Ryan realized there was no gentle breeze from above.
"The ceiling!" he roared, firing the Steyr upward, working the bolt action. The flashes from the muzzle showed a human figure holding a machine gun as he dropped out of the darkness.
Fast and neat, the group split apart, their pistols and rifles barking a staccato reply. The figure jerked at each deadly impact, but he didn't fall or drop his weapon. Oddly, neither did he return fire. Then the impossible happened. Without dropping his rifle, the stranger opened both of his hands as if majestically offering a holy benediction and two heavy black balls landed on the carpeting with soft thuds, breaking apart and releasing their slim handles.

Chapter Two

"Grenades!" J.B. yelled, dropping his Uzi and diving toward the black spheres. Landing hard on his stomach, the Armorer punched out hard with both hands. He scored a double hit, and the charges bounded down the hallway, disappearing into the darkness.
"Three!" he yelled, covering his head with both arms.
"Open your mouths!" Mildred added, dropping fast.
"Two!" LB. roared, "One!" Ryan said, closing his eye.
Double explosions blossomed at the end of the hallway, filling the corridor with flame and thunder. Briefly the fireball silhouetted the hanging man, then violent concussions slammed into the group. A searing wave of heat washed over them, closely followed by a rain of broken ceiling tiles and smoking debris. It made Ryan think of an ant in the barrel of a cannon. Somebody cried out in pain, and a rifle discharged.
In rumbling fury, the blast expanded over them and moved down the corridor, smashing lights and slamming aside doors. Glass shattered somewhere, and an alarm began to sound. Partially deafened and battered, Ryan took heart at that. It meant power was still on somewhere in the redoubt, and each passing second brought them closer to safety. He knew a person died in the first few seconds of an explosion or else survived.
Slowly the strident force died away in ragged stages, leaving in its wake a ringing silence with streamers of acidic smoke moving in the air toward the ducts like ghostly fingers.
"Sweet Jesus!" Mildred coughed. "I.. .I've had fun before and this isn't it!"
Rolling onto his back, J.B. sat upright and worked his jaw a few times to try to pop his ears clear. "Yeah. Close one."
Leaning against the wall, Krysty hawked and spit to clear her throat. "Too damn close!"
"Everybody okay?" Ryan asked, using the rifle to lever himself uptight. Fireblast and hell, he'd felt better after torture.
A ragged chorus answered in the affirmative, then a sudden movement in the smoky darkness caused a wild fusillade of blaster fire.
"Cease firing!" Ryan snapped, shouldering his long blaster. "It's just the meat. He isn't alive."
"Not anymore, you mean," Dean corrected, removing the spent clip from his Browning and slamming in a fresh one. He stuffed the exhausted clip into a pocket where it rattled against others.
"No, he never was alive," Mildred said, patting her hands over her body in a quick check for wounds. There were a couple of holes in her shirt, but nothing worse. "Not for us, anyhow."
Whitish smoke drifting past his pale face, Jak was almost invisible in the dim corridor. "Possum?" He frowned.
"See for yourself," J.B. said, gesturing. Then he froze and touched his bare head. "Damn!" He turned and started down the corridor, scanning the floor.
Blaster in hand, Jak advanced carefully and pulled a match from a pocket. Striking it on his belt, he studied what remained of the hanging man in the tiny flickering light.
"Dead," he pronounced solemnly. "For while." Sharp spikes of rusty metal jutted from a wooden board that pierced the man's body in a dozen places.
Ryan stepped beside the albino teenager. "Nailed in place." He craned his neck to see into the smashed ceiling. The other end of the board was screwed to a truck-door hinge attached to the concrete roof. The match sputtered and died, so Jak struck another and lit a candle stub. Doc and Krysty did the same. In the soft glow of the triple flames, the scene lost its ghostly feel and became merely another killzone, as familiar as their own faces.
Nudging a lump of twisted steel and plastic on the floor, Dean bent and lifted the dropped weapon. "M-16 A-i carbine," he said.
"Good?" Doc asked.
"No." He tossed the broken weapon aside.
"Yeah, the gren did a good job on him," Ryan agreed. "Like it was supposed to do on us."
"Simple enough trap," said the returning Armorer, clutching his fedora. "When we approached, the chill swung down, and everybody would naturally shoot at him. Then when you put enough holes in the ropes, he drops the grens and goodbye." Smoothing out the crumpled brim, he smiled grimly. "Exactly the sort of thing I'd do."
Blaster in hand, Dean moved to inspect the corpse. Chunks of the man were missing, his clothes only rags, and the ropes holding him in place were burning in spots, allowing an arm to hang freely. What little remained of his clothes appeared to be a tan leather jacket, blue jeans and sandals made from car tires. Only one sandal was still on a foot, the other, and the foot inside it, were missing.
Pushing aside the homemade tan jacket, Doc uncovered a picture on the exposed chest of a curved knife backed by the rising sun. "What is that?"
Jak squinted against the candlelight. "Knife and sun?"
"Looks like," J.B. said, adjusting his hat to a proper cant.
"It's not paint," Ryan stated, trying to rub it off with a thumb. "Can't be a birthmark."
"This is a tattoo," Mildred said knowledgeably. She brushed fingertips over the cold torn flesh. "A lost art these days. See the ulcerations and pitting? It was done with a sharp pencil and machine oil. Very crude and must have hurt worse than double hell."
"Some sort of initiation?" Krysty asked.