Lost Gates by James Axler Page B

constant recycling, could account for why it hadn’t hit them straight away. And for why the effects were so low-level.
    There was no time to try to explain her theory to Doc. No point, either. It was only supposition, and if she knew anything about the old buzzard he would try to argue the point with her, even though there was no time for the niceties of debate. She just had to make sure that he got up, got moving, and then stayed moving.
    “Doc… C’mon…” she gasped as she tried to help him to his feet. But he was frozen, almost in rictus. His muscles had gone into such tight spasm that it almost seemed he was made of iron.
    “I…I can’t… Good grief, it’s not…even funny…” he managed to gasp as he tried to move his rigid limbs and assist her in helping him to his feet. He got as far as his knees before another spasm in the gut doubled him over so that his head smacked on the concrete floor.
    “Doc, time’s moving,” Mildred yelled. “Now move, you old bastard, or else you’ll buy the farm for both of us.”
    “Leave me,” he yelled in a voice strangled by his own laughter. “Go now.”
    “The hell I will,” she snapped. “You don’t get left behind. None of us do. Ever.”
    “I cannot move.” Doc forced the words out between pained laughter. He looked at her, and his eyes were clearer—even in the red emergency light—than she had ever seen them.
    “Shit, no,” she breathed. “Not on my watch.”
    Doc was looking up, still on his knees, but with his torso straightened. In truth, his spine was almost bent ata backward angle by the muscle spasm. It flashed into Mildred’s head, and she acted before she even had time to consider whether it might work. No time to wonder, just act. With a vicious upward jab she leaned down and punched Doc in the pit of his stomach, driving the air up and out of him. In any other circumstance, the expression that crossed his face would have been comical.
    Not now. The wide-eyed and puckered-mouth surprise as the air was expelled from his body was exactly what Mildred had hoped to see. As the last of the air left him, the shock of sudden oxygen deprivation made him collapse. His body went limp and he slumped to the floor.
    Limp. That was the key word. The spasm-induced rigidity had gone.
    Struggling to raise himself as quickly as possible, despite the agony he felt, Doc reached for Mildred’s proffered hand.
    “Thank you, Dr. Wyeth. Quick thinking. I may be a little slow because of it, but at least I am moving.”
    Mildred took his arm and began to pull him in her wake as she half walked, half ran along the corridor. She looked at her wristwatch as they moved down another level. Only one more. Less than ten minutes remained until the last destination default kicked in.
    They should do it. The place was empty.
    That was when the floor began to shake and break up beneath their feet.
    “What the—” she yelled in surprise, the rest of the question cut off as she was thrown off her feet, dragging Doc with her.
    With a wordless scream, she found herself thrown into a fissure opened up in the ground by the tremors in the earth.
     
    “H OW DO YOU THINK they’re doing?” Crabbe asked Sal.
    Ryan suppressed a grin. He could see from the look on the mechanic’s face that it was the last question he wanted to answer. If he said good, and they either didn’t come back or came back empty-handed, then he would be facing the wrath of Crabbe. Equally, if he answered in the negative, it could do little except bring on more opprobrium.
    “Hell, we’ll find out soon enough,” Crabbe murmured to himself, answering his own question. The relief on Sal’s face was almost laughable.
    But still, it was a question that Ryan had asked himself. He was sure that each of the other three companions in the room was thinking the same. The Armorer would be worried about Mildred in the same way Ryan knew he would worry about Krysty when it was her turn. He knew that he