Polygon (Original mix)

Sabiani

IN a small car, they went swiftly up the Tube, carried by anti-grav beams from below. Taylor glanced down from time to time. It was a long way back, and getting longer each moment. He sweated nervously inside his suit, gripping his Bender pistol with inexpert fingers. Why had they chosen him? Chance, pure chance. Moss had asked him to come along as a Department member. Then Franks had picked him out on the spur of the moment. And now they were rushing toward the surface, faster and faster. A deep fear, instilled in him for eight years, throbbed in his mind. Radiation, certain death, a world blasted and lethal— Up and up the car went. Taylor gripped the sides and closed his eyes. Each moment they were closer, the first living creatures to go above the first stage, up the Tube past the lead and rock, up to the surface. The phobic horror shook him in waves. It was death; they all knew that. Hadn't they seen it in the films a thousand times? The cities, the sleet coming down, the rolling clouds— "It won't be much longer," Franks said. "We're almost there. The surface tower is not expecting us. I gave orders that no signal was to be sent." The car shot up, rushing furiously. Taylor's head spun; he hung on, his eyes shut. Up and up.... The car stopped. He opened his eyes. They were in a vast room, fluorescent-lit, a cavern filled with equipment and machinery, endless mounds of material piled in row after row. Among the stacks, leadys were working silently, pushing trucks and handcarts. "Leadys," Moss said. His face was pale. "Then we're really on the surface." The leadys were going back and forth with equipment moving the vast stores of guns and spare parts, ammunition and supplies that had been brought to the surface. And this was the receiving station for only one Tube; there were many others, scattered throughout the continent. Taylor looked nervously around him. They were really there, above ground, on the surface. This was where the war was. "Come on," Franks said. "A B-class guard is coming our way."