Free Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake by Jerry Ahern

inside a dome, but rather in a wide structure with a gently curved overhead and gently curved bulkheads, like the belly of a massive ship. The guard across which Rourke leaned to stare through the left-side Gullwing’s window section elbowed Rourke in the ribcage, and Rourke leaned back.
    He stared ahead now.
    Vehicles of all descriptions were parked beyond an energy barrier similar to that at the opening of the submarine’s brig, the vehicle slowing, Kerenin passing papers through a window beside him to the shorter of two blue-uniformed guards, these uniforms like his, only fitting less well and with different rank. Something else caught Rourke’s eye. Each of the guards was only armed with what appeared to be one of the Sty-20 pistols.
    He logged away this detail as well. Were conventional firearms not allowed inside the domes?
    The papers were returned, Kerenin casually but with style returning a salute. The vehicle started ahead, the energy barrier turned off, crackling slightly as it reactivated behind them, Rourke watching through the vehicle’s rear window.
    The vehicles he had seen parked were more easily identifiable now as the Gullwing glided past them. Armored personnel carriers, massive, flat, their wheels enormous, their color gray.
    More personnel in uniform moved about here, attending the vehicles or merely standing beside them engaged in conversation. At the end of this tunnel through which they now moved was another dome, Rourke squinting his eyes against the light as the Gullwing moved out beneath it.
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    of tree-lined squares, rising several stories toward the height of the dome. There were smaller domes on either side, quadrants of their hemispheres just visible toward the edge of the tunnel which they had just left.
    The gull winged vehicle stopped beside a rounded curb abutting a horseshoe-shaped driveway. The doors opened on both sides this time and as Kerenin and the other two officers got out, Rourke was tugged toward the driver’s side door, Natalia toward the opposite door.
    Rourke stood in the light. It wasn’t sunshine, but felt warm to the skin. His eyes squinting against it now even more tightly, he looked “skyward,” the building before which the vehicle had parked a full ten stories high. There were a half-dozen other buildings beneath the dome, none so tall as this, all of them prefabricated in appearance, their color a neutral tan, but pleasing, perhaps because of the landscaping which set them off.
    The guard gestured toward the building, Rourke nodding toward him. It would have been easy enough to kill the man, but Natalia was on the other side of the vehicle. And where would they go, even if they could escape? Before escape could be considered, he had to know more.
    Rourke stepped onto the curb, Kerenin waiting there. Rourke wondered, suddenly, why the balding interpreter had not been brought along. He licked his lips. Kerenin started toward the large glass-looking double doors which fronted the building. Over the doors, Rourke read the Cyrillic letters which formed the words “Command and General Staff Headquarters Pacific Soviet Socialist Republic.”

Chapter Seven
    If the marble were a synthetic, it not only had the appearance of the real thing, but also the coldness of it. Rourke’s fingers moved away from the gray and black pillar.
    Kerenin alone conferred with the three men at the long, table-like desk at the far end of the vaulted room. Behind their seats there was mounted on the wall a familiar device—the hammer and sickle flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with the initials CCCP in gold or some similar metal beneath it.
    Captain Feyedorovitch approached Rourke, his hands on his hips. He spoke in Russian, Rourke pretending to be uncomprehending. “I know that you understand me, and that you will not acknowledge that you do. I have seen a man just like you. He had your height, your coloring, your