Randall descended slowly and carefully, testing every rung before putting his full weight on it. They were all secure, though, and he reached the bottom without incident.
The lamp that had been lowered on a rope was still there, bathing the bottom of the elevator shaft in a flickering yellow light. It enabled Randall to see the tilted slabs of plasteel and concrete littering the ground, enabling him to stand without twisting an ankle. There was water deep down between them, dark and still except where something slithered away with a plop and a widening circle of ripples, startled by the approach of the humans.
Randall turned to face the door as the others reached the ground behind him. Its bottom half was hidden by the debris and the top half was solidly closed with no visible way of opening it. It was in two halves with a crack between them so narrow that he couldn't even get a fingernail in it. Fortunately it wasn't plasteel. It seemed to be some kind of plastic and Randall had hopes that it would be brittle after a thousand years. It might break quite easily with a few blows from something hard and heavy.
Loach had the same idea and searched around on the ground for a suitable lump of plasteel. "Stand back," he said, coming forward. "You might want to turn your backs in case any sharp shards go flying." None of them took his advice.
Loach hefted the shard, holding it by the narrow end, and struck the doors as hard as he could with the wide, blunt end, aiming for the crack where the doors came together. It made a loud thud and when he looked he saw that the plastic had been chipped and dented. Another few blows created a roundish hole between the two doors large enough for him to get his hand into. He dropped the shard of plasteel to clatter on the ground, wrapped a couple of handkerchiefs around his fingers to protect them from the jagged plastic and reached in.
The doors resisted for a moment, but then something gave way and they lurched open a few centimetres. They heard the sound of running water as it drained from the elevator shaft into the corridor beyond. Beyond the doors was only darkness. Loach reached in again and pulled at the doors with all his strength. The doors resisted, only parting a finger's width at a time with the sound of shuddering friction. At one point the debris under their feet shifted as some of it fell into the corridor and the explorers braced themselves against the walls of the shaft to maintain their balance.
Eventually the gap between the doors was wide enough for a man to slip through and Loach carefully lowered himself down into the corridor. "Hand me the lamp," he said.
Latimer held the lamp as he followed Loach through, though, followed eagerly by Randall. The Duke held the lamp high to get a good look at what lay ahead. The floor was covered by a shallow layer of water now, rippling against the walls as a thin trickle continued to fall from the elevator doors. There were neon lights in the ceiling, all dark, and a fire extinguisher was mounted on the wall beside them. Other than that the corridor was empty with only a couple of doors on each side, all closed. The air was musty and humid and smelled of mold.
"The first to walk this corridor for a thousand years," said Duke Latimer reverently. "What secrets lie hidden behind these doors, known only to VIX? What terrors and evils, wisely kept from the eyes of man for all these centuries? What horrors do we risk unleashing? What nightmares wait to haunt our dreams..."
"Perhaps you'd like to wait upstairs," suggested Loach flatly.
Latimer gave him a look of annoyance, then turned to Randall. "So, where's the gold?"
"We'll have to search the place," Randall replied. "We'll probably have to break the doors open. We should have the men send some sledgehammers down."
Latimer nodded and gave one of his men a 'you go' gesture. The man nodded and climbed carefully back into the elevator shaft.
A few minutes later Loach and Latimer's men were holding sledgehammers and smashing through the doors. The first few revealed only storage cupboards but the next contained a staff canteen with tables and chairs and a bar behind which the serving staff had worked. There were food dispensing machines and a payment terminal, all as dark and lifeless as everything else. Randall felt his hopes begin to sink as a dull sense of despair began to steal over him. Would it all be like this, with no sign of any continuing functionality anywhere? Had it all been for nothing?
The next room they entered made him pause with excitement, though. At first glance it seemed to be as dark and lifeless as everything else they'd seen so far, but it was a workplace, the first one they'd come across. The walls were covered by what had been faux wood panelling, now warped and stained by mold and fungus, and the ceiling, dotted with light fittings and sprinkler nozzles, was sagging, although it didn't look as if it was in immediately danger of collapse. The room contained desks with chairs behind them, and on the desks were computer terminals; dark, blocky shapes without screens. The screens had been displayed on the visual fields of their operators by their head phones.
There was no sign of life or continuing activity anywhere. But I saw something, thought Randall. Something that gave me hope, and then it was gone. What was it? What had he seen? The room had still been dark, he realised. It had been before Larimer had gone in with the lamp. He'd seen something while the room had still been filled with impenetrable darkness.
"Take the lamp back outside," he said.
"Why?" asked Latimer.
"Just do it, please."
Latimer handed the lamp to one of his underlings, though. "Take this outside," he told him. The man nodded and obeyed.
Soon the room was in darkness again and Randall was looking around, searching for whatever it was that had caught his attention the first time. Perhaps there hadn't been anything. Perhaps he'd only imagined it...
Then he saw it, and his breath caught with excitement. "What is it?" asked Loach. Randall ignored him and made his slow, cautious way towards what he'd seen. One of the black, blocky computers had a small, red light shining on the side, near the base. The 'sleeping' light that indicated that the machine had put itself in standby mode after a period of inactivity.
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Almost trembling with excitement, Randall made his slow, careful way over to it, not wanting to trip over something in the darkness. He reached out to touch the 'wake up' pad just below the light and immediately his head phone alerted him that a foreign computer wanted to talk to him. Do you want to accept the handshake? his head phone asked him. Randall answered yes, and an image appeared in his visual field. The logo of Consolidated Industries; the planet Earth overlaid with a highly stylised circuit diagram. Beneath it were the words 'Please enter a valid password.'
Randall told his head phone to transmit his CEO master password, the password that gave him access to every file on every computer belonging either to his company or any of the various subsidiary companies and businesses it owned. *Password accepted,* said a voice in his head. *Welcome, Mister Randall. How may I serve you?*
Randall felt almost drunk with excitement. It was happening! His plan was working! But then, just because one small computer was still functional didn't mean that anything else was. *Is this facility still operational?* he asked, therefore. *Give me a complete status report.*
*The last maintenance inspection was on January 23rd, 2098,* the computer replied. *No hardware problems were identified at that time. This system is overdue for a software upgrade. Do you wish me to check whether an upgrade is available via the secure landline?*
*No,* replied Randall. *On no account attempt to contact any system outside this facility, even by the secure landline.* The secure landline, running five metres under the ground, had only run as far as Bradford, where it had connected to the global datanet by way of an armoured hub. It was possible that the datanet still existed, being operated by the machines for their own use. If it was, the Gorsty Common facility would give itself away the moment it tried to use it.
"What's going on?" demanded Duke Latimer, coming forward impatiently. "Why are you just standing there? What's got you so fascinated?"
Randall felt irked by the interruption. This was a private moment, a moment of triumph and jubilation, and this idiot was intruding on it. "Just thinking," he said. "Why don't you go on without me? I'll catch you up. Look for some stairs going down, that's probably where the gold is."
"What are you talking about?" asked the nobleman suspiciously. "What don't you want me to see? What's in this room?" He strode forward, his two henchmen coming with him, grimacing in a deliberately intimidating manner. They were both suddenly holding knives, Randall saw.
"It's here, isn't it?" said Latimer. "The thing you're really looking for. There isn't any gold, is there? There never was. Is it this?" He turned towards the computer and Randall's heart gave a lurch of fear as the Duke's hand reached out to touch it.
Before he could do so he stumbled, though, and his hand flew to his chest where a knife had suddenly appeared, buried up to the hilt. Everyone stared at Loach, whom they'd all forgotten. He was already pulling another knife from its sheath on his belt and was bracing himself to meet an attack from the two henchmen. They separated, walking to opposite sides of the room, Loach between them, while Duke Latimer collapsed to the ground, dead.
The henchmen had evidently heard of Loach and knew his reputation as an invincible, merciless killer because they were clearly reluctant to engage the mob boss. Only the fact that they we're witnesses to the killing of their employer, that their testimony could send Loach to the gallows and that Loach therefore could not let then escape alive, kept them from just running from the room. The looks on their faces told Randall that they knew they were going to die, but they had too much pride to be run down and butchered like rabbits caught by a fox. If they were going to die they were going to die like men, and who knows, maybe they'd get lucky. Maybe one of then would get in a lucky hit and it would be Loach who would meet his end bleeding out on the tiled floor of this strange room.
They glanced at each other, intending to co-ordinate their attack so that one of them would be able to attack Loach's unprotected back while the mob boss had his hands full dealing with the other. Loach's combat app anticipated the move, though, and the mob boss found his body driving forward towards the man closest to being in front of him before the startled henchmen could react. To his credit, the man behind Loach also surged forward, thinking to take advantage of his enemy's commitment with his colleague, but the mob boss had dispatched the first man before the second man could cover even half the distance. Loach then spun around and the second man's forward momentum carried him helplessly forward onto the mob boss's knife which drove deep into his stomach and then upwards under the rib cage into his heart. The unequal battle was over almost before it had even begun.
It was the first time Randall had seen the other hibernator in action and he was shocked and stunned by the merciless efficiency of the other man's technique. He'd seen men equipped with combat apps before, of course. Soldiers in combat in news reports. And, of course, every member of his own private security force had had them, anticipating enemy movements and driving their hosts' bodies like glove puppets to take the best possible action to secure victory. In strict violation of the law, of course, but that was one of the benefits of being rich enough to be above the law.
This man wasn't under his control, though, and he was so far out of the league of everyone else in the camp, including the soldiers, that it wasn't even funny. And he was very probably plotting to kill Randall as soon as he had unlocked the Gorsty Common computers. The peril he was in came close to driving him to panic and he clutched hold of his secret ace in the hole like a drowning man clutching hold of a lifeboat. The chieftain, who would send his orcs to kill everyone not in category one the moment they raised the transmitter, category one being everyone except Randall but with Loach believing that he would also be safe and therefore, hopefully, not on his guard.
He felt a moment of pity for Jane, who would be collateral damage in his killing of Loach. He would save her if he could, he decided, but if he couldn't it didn't really matter. She'd proved useful, but it was unlikely she would be of any further use to him. He put her out of his thoughts, therefore, and returned his attention to the matter at hand.
*Prepare to receive a file for transmission,* he told the Gorsty Common computer.
*Ready,* the computer replied.
Randall transmitted yama666 to the computer, which stored it in its 'send' buffer. Then he took a deep breath. This was it. Would the machinery to open the great doors and raise the transmitter still work after all these centuries? Time to find out. *When the transmitter is ready, transmit the file I just sent you to every computer you can find, anywhere in the solar system, whether it is equipped with the CRES code or not. Their first task will then be to re-transmit the file to every other computer in the area, including computers down here on Earth, and then report to me for further instructions. I can be reached by way of the priests, who will be taking their orders from me. Any machine that can't be infected with the file must be destroyed by any means necessary.*
*Understood.* If Randall was lucky, every machine in the solar system would be under his control before they knew what was happening. It would be a clean sweep. A grand coup following which he would be the uncontested master of the world. He just wished that Loach weren't standing so close beside him. The presence of the merciless killer made him extremely uncomfortable, but there was no way to send him away without making him suspicious. He would just have to hope that the chieftain did a good job of killing him when the time came.
Randall felt his breath coming in tight little gasps, felt his heart pounding as if he'd just run a marathon and he forced himself to calm down. His hands were clenched into sweaty fists by his side. He forced then to open and wiped his palms on his jacket. *Deploy the transmitter,* he told the computer.
*Achnowledged.*
The room began to vibrate as atomic generators fed power to vast, ancient machinery, rousing them from their long slumber, and electro-mechanical pistons began to strain against massive hinges that had not been serviced or maintained for a thousand years...