Текст книги "Hollow World"

Автор книги: Michael J. Sullivan

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

The trio in hazard suits at the far side of the room had ignored them, but then one turned. It could have been anyone’s eyes peering out of that shielded hood, even Pax.

“Two are already set—just got this last one. Having trouble with the timer or something, I guess. Not really needed, but I like to be thorough. Operation New Dawn is about to commence.” Warren looked at the clock on the wall. “About three hours, I figure—Dex has the bombs set to blow precisely at 14:54 Hollow World core time, which translates to sunset here. So in the morning, this village will be all that’s left of humanity. Just think of that, Ellis, the whole world cleaned, reset, and ready to sprout anew from our two seeds. And after I dropped out of high school, my mother never thought I’d amount to anything.”

“This is insane!” Ellis’s voice rose in volume and pitch more than he expected. He sounded a little hysterical, a man on the brink, but maybe that’s what Warren needed to hear. Ellis had to convince his friend just how bad an idea this was, and calm conversation just wasn’t going to cut it. “You know that, right, Warren? I’m talking totally off-the-fucking-hook nuts!”

Warren shook his head with that same condescending you-just-don’t-understand smile. “Ellis, why do you think you and I are the only two people to travel through time? If we could do it, don’t you think everyone else could have too?”

“No—not really. Hoffmann’s equations were wrong. His idea wouldn’t have worked at all if I hadn’t figured out the mistake, and I didn’t tell anyone. You were only able to do it because you had my notes.”

“Oh, so you’re the only one in two thousand years who could have figured out that error? We’re the only ones here. You don’t find that a bit strange?”

“Perhaps, but…well, maybe there’s a minimum jump threshold, and that’s why we traveled two thousand years instead of two hundred. More people might have tried but haven’t showed up yet. Not to mention it’s not the kind of thing you try without a really good reason. The high probability of death is a pretty big deterrent. Heck, even the most devout people who are convinced they’ll wind up in heaven aren’t taking the leap of faith to the afterlife. Even after Jesus came back and said the water’s fine, people are still terrified, and in the case of time travel, no one can go back to assuage their fears. It’s no coincidence that both of us had terminal illnesses. Neither of us would have tried otherwise.”

Warren smirked. “You know what I think? I think no one else has done it because it isn’t possible.”

“Huh?”

“C’mon, Ellis, milk crates and batteries? Seriously? Do you think that would actually work?”

“But it did.”

Warren shook his head. “Divine intervention, buddy. The Almighty picked us both up and chucked us into the future to be a pair of Noahs. And when the sun sets, we will be.” He looked out the window again and chuckled. “It’s Friday—did you know that? Gives a whole new meaning to TGIF, don’t you think?”

“I can’t let you do this. If this isn’t some joke—if you’re serious”—Ellis looked at the crate and the three people in hazard suits working over the table—“and it looks like you are…Shit, Warren, there’s no way I’m gonna let you kill millions of people.”

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it, buddy? They aren’t really people, now, are they? I’m doing this for us, and the world. You can’t tell me you like the idea of humanity living like Ken doll moles. Mankind got off course, slipped the rails, and skidded right over a cliff. We have the chance, right now, to put the old Lionel back on the metal. We can fix everything, and maybe this time God will approve and usher in the end of days.”

Ellis was shaking his head in broad swings. “Sorry, Warren. This isn’t going to happen.”

Warren looked at him sadly. “Already has, pal.”

“I’m going to put a stop to it.”

“Really?” Warren chuckled, a sound that made Ellis cringe. “How? Bombs are already in place. We’re just running out the clock. Besides, you seem to have misplaced your pistol. Or do you plan on fighting me and the rest of the Firestone Farm?”

Warren put up his fists like he was John L. Sullivan and laughed.

Ellis glanced at the three working at the table.

Warren noticed the look. “Trust me, everyone here—everyone on the farm—is in this one hundred percent. You’re not going to change their minds. They’ll do anything to stop being the five hundredth or ten thousandth of someone. After the bombs go off, they’ll each be one of just a handful, and after some plastic surgery, they’ll each be unique. They’ll each be special.”

Pax was right. Warren was planning on doing something much, much worse.

Ellis took a step toward the door and stopped.

“Where you gonna go? You don’t have a portal. Weather is getting colder, and not as many baldies are coming up here this time of year. There’s nothing but wilderness beyond this village. Trust me, I know that well.”

Ellis hesitated.

“I’ll tell you what,” Warren said in his old, barfly-friendly voice and clapped him on the back. “I’ve been working with Yal to build a still. We’ve made a few quarts of this awful moonshine from corn—you know it’s not just for fructose syrup anymore.” He winked. “Tastes like gasoline, but does the trick. What do you say the two of us go get loaded like that time when we snuck the Kool-Aid rum punch into the Bob Seger concert at Pine Knob. They don’t need me here. We can take a few bottles and hike up to the old Rouge River. I know a spot, a hill that looks down so that you can actually see old Detroit. The city ain’t there no more, but you can see where it used to be. You can see the Detroit River and a smidge of Canada where the Ambassador Bridge once was. We’ll get hammered on corn juice and remember the old days when we used to be rusted gears bound for the trash bin. C’mon, Dex has a book around here of pattern variations. It has pictures. We can pick out what we want our future brides to look like.”

Ellis felt boxed in. Warren was right—what could he do?

Fact is, people aren’t the same. You’re smarter than I am. I’m stronger than you are. These are facts.

Ellis couldn’t argue with facts. Warren had aged about a decade beyond Ellis, but he’d had work done too. Maybe a lot of work. With his broad chest, thick arms, and a neck the size of Ellis’s thigh, Warren looked like the football star he’d once been. And even if he could subdue him, Warren was right, Ellis was outnumbered. If they all joined forces, and there was no reason to think otherwise, they would overwhelm him easily.

You’re smarter than I am. These are facts.

“What do you say, Ellis?”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d prefer to drink alone,” he replied, feigning frustration and not having to act too hard. “You say Yal knows where this battery acid is?”

“Yep. Strong stuff. Don’t kill yourself. We just got done putting you back together.”

The distance between the Menlo Park complex and the Firestone Farm hadn’t changed, but the trip back took forever. Ellis jogged a lot of it and discovered Wat hadn’t been joking. He was hardly winded. He might actually be able to do a marathon if his leg muscles weren’t still fifty-eight years old.

Warren had him trapped. Maybe at one time there had been a dedicated portal booth back to Hollow World from the village, but just as cellphones had turned public phones into ugly, broken-down eyesores, the Port-a-Calls had made portal booths obsolete. Without a portal maker he couldn’t get back to Hollow World, and if he couldn’t get back, he couldn’t warn anyone.

There had to be a way to communicate, but Ellis hadn’t ever seen a Hollow World cellphone. Still, when he had first woke up on Pax’s bed, Alva had said she had contactedPax, and that Pax had replied. So, communication was possible. Maybe the Port-a-Call was multifunctional like a smartphone. Any way he looked at it, Ellis had to get his hands on one.

Yal was still busy cooking, shoving new splits of wood into the burner through the top of the big iron stove. No one else in the kitchen—hopefully no one else in the house.

“Master Ellis.” Yal grinned at him.

Yal was wearing the standard nineteenth-century white-shirt, black-pants ensemble that everyone at the farm favored. Yal kept the top two buttons open, revealing a V of skin. Nothing else was visible, causing Ellis’s hopes to sink.

Peggy—who hated carrying a purse—always used to complain how women’s clothes never had any pockets. She constantly misplaced her keys and wallet. For a time she kept her license and credit cards in a little plastic pouch that she wore around her neck like a security badge. It worked until she lost that too. But in a world where clothes were optional, Ellis imagined Peggy’s onetime solution would be commonplace. Hal had worn Geo-24’s Port-a-Call that way…maybe a lot of them did.

“How’s dinner coming?” Ellis asked, clapping Yal on the back and leaving his hand on the cook’s shoulder near the neck. He pretended to give Yal a friendly rub while using his thumb to feel through the shirt for the bump of a chain or strap.

Nothing.

Pax always kept the Port-a-Call in a vest pocket. Maybe Yal did too.

How much does Yal know? Will he fight me or obey hismaster ?

Ellis spotted the cast-iron fry pan sitting idle on the sideboard. One solid hit with that and Ellis wouldn’t need to worry about winning Yal’s cooperation. How ironic that just a few minutes ago he was fuming about Rob beating Yal with a little stick.

Let’s call that plan B.

“Yal?”

“Yes, master?” Yal halted fueling the stove in order to give undivided attention.

Yal…the name finally triggered a memory from his first meal in Hollow World. “Yal…you’re a cook,” Ellis said stupidly.

“Yes, master.” Not surprisingly, Yal looked confused.

“No, no. I mean you were a realcook, before coming here, weren’t you? I ate…something called a minlatta—I think?”

“Minlatta with tarragon oil sauce,” Yal said. “That was one of the last patterns I designed.”

“It was wonderful—really wonderful.”

Yal tried but couldn’t suppress a smile. Ellis imagined Yal didn’t get much praise around the farm. “Thank you. That’s very kind. Cooking is a lot harder without a Maker.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ellis said. “I can boil potatoes, but I wouldn’t have a clue how to boil water with a Maker.”

Yal shrugged, but the smile was still there, and Ellis saw his chance. “Yal? Do you have a Port-a-Call?”

“Me? No. Master Ren collected them from all of us during the initiation ceremony.” Yal glanced down at the white bandages still on the stumps of his missing fingers. “It’s part of our commitment to the farm.”

“How do you leave then?”

“We don’t.”

“I’ve seen Pol and Dex leave.”

“Well, if Master Ren wants us to go do something, he provides us with a POC, but we have to give it back afterward. No one leaves without Master Ren’s permission. I think Pol is the only person who has one all the time. That’s because Pol is always jumping back and forth.”

“Where does Master Ren keep the devices he takes from everyone?”

Yal shrugged. “In his room maybe?”

Ellis abandoned Yal to his boiling pots and went up the farmhouse stairs. He found it easy to locate Warren’s room—it was the only one locked. He tried kicking the door like in the movies, but either modern-day doors weren’t built very well or they were all props because all Ellis got out of his kick was a sore foot. He might have broken a toe, but the pain wasn’t that bad.

He had to get through the door, find a Port-a-Call, figure out how to use it, and get back to Hollow World in time to find someone to ring the alarm and send in the cavalry. Somewhere in the shadowy corners of his mind were questions: What cavalry? What alarm? And who exactly could he get to ring it? One of the things Ellis liked about Hollow World was its lack of central authority—its lack of any authority at all. No one tells anyone else what to do,he remembered Pax saying, as if the very idea of giving or accepting orders was inconceivable. Now, however, that was a problem, but it was the nextproblem. Small steps, he reminded himself. He also remembered to slow his breathing to avoid hyperventilating.

He ran back down the steps, drawing a look from Yal, and spotted the fireplace poker. He picked it up and with a reassuring smile at Yal, he raced back up the stairs. Once again he thanked the ISP for his new and improved set of lungs, even though his leg muscles and injured toe were not so pleased.

He shoved the point of the poker into the doorjamb and pried back the wood, splintering it. He jabbed it in again, splintered more. On the third try, he caught the metal faceplate of the lock and bowed the metal pole as he threw his full weight on it and prayed Archimedes was right about levers and worlds. The latch popped, the door swung open, and Ellis raced in.

Like the rest of the house, the bedroom was vintage Old West. Floral wallpaper competed with a just-as-busy diamond-patterned rug. White-lace-covered windows looked like three square ghosts standing vigil around the simple wooden bed. A mirrored dresser, complete with washbowl and pitcher, a wooden trunk, and two nightstands filled out the bedroom. Ellis laid into the locked trunk with his trusty poker. He didn’t so much open it as bash and rip it apart. Inside he found an old familiar high-school yearbook, an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, Warren’s football jersey—old number forty-eight—and what looked like a watch battery and a microwave. No bag of Port-a-Calls. No guns.

He searched the rest of the room and found nothing useful. There was a Bible on the nightstand that looked new. Thinking how books sometimes were hollowed out to hide things, he flipped through it. Ellis found nothing except that the bookmark ribbon lay somewhere in Leviticus.

Warren had anticipated the others looking for the POCs and had hidden them.

He looked under the bed and through the drawers of the dresser.

Nothing.

Disappointed, Ellis returned to the footlocker and pulled out the little appliance. Thinking there might be POCs inside, he shook it.

“That’s a Maker.”

Ellis’s heart skipped as he looked up to see one of them standing in the doorway, the name tag covered by a black wool coat that went perfectly with the wide-brimmed hat. Ellis froze, guilty as sin, caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“For such a back-to-basics fellow, it’s interesting that Ren has a Maker and a Dynamo hidden away, isn’t it?”

Ellis was worried the sound of his heart pounding was audible. What would Warren do when he found out? Lock him up, probably. Chain him in the chicken coop or something. He set the Maker down, and looked for the poker.

The coat-wearing intruder took a step toward him, and Ellis was just about to reach for the poker—which he’d left on the floor—when his visitor stopped, turned, and carefully closed the door, providing them with privacy.

Something in the person’s movements and expression was familiar. There was a gentleness around the eyes, concern in the line of the jaw, and the mouth was on the verge of a smile.

“Pax?” Ellis said the name as a wish with equal parts hope and disbelief.

The smile exploded into a giant grin. “You recognized me!”

Ellis physically wavered. He hadn’t expected the response. As much as he might have hoped, as much as he prayed for it to be true, it wasn’t really possible…was it? “Is it really—”

Pax rushed forward, wrapping him in a tight embrace. “I’ve been waiting for you. Thought you’d never get back.”

“Oh my God!” Ellis whispered, smelling the scent of cinnamon. “It’s you—Pax, you’re alive!”

“Of course, I’m—”

Ellis returned the hug, squeezing as hard as he could, and then, without thinking or caring to think, he kissed Pax—a long, hard kiss on the lips. A tear slid down Ellis’s cheek, and he said, “Oh Jesus, Pax, I thought—I thought that you’d killed yourself. I thought I had—God, you’re still alive!”

“Yes, Ellis Rogers, I’m fine—a lot better, now that…that…”

“What?”

Pax looked at him grinning, showing off those perfect teeth. “I can’t believe that you recognized me.”

“Listen, Pax, we need to leave. We need to go right now.”

“Together this time, right?” Pax smiled at him hopefully.

“Absolutely.”

Still holding on, Ellis felt Pax’s body stiffen. The arbitrator pulled away and stared intently into Ellis’s eyes. The bright smile was snuffed out and replaced by horror. “Oh no—oh…” Ellis felt Pax begin to shake. “They’re going to concrete Hollow World.”

Ellis nodded. “Three nuclear bombs. I think they’ve already placed the first two. They’ll go off in less than three hours—at precisely 14:54 Hollow World core time.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We still have a chance,” Ellis said. “If we can find the bombs, we can use your Port-a-Call and shove the warheads through to give your PICA company.”

“But how will we find them?” Pax pulled the POC from a vest pocket.

“They’ll be at the Geomancy Institute.”

“I think that might be a big place, and they’ll have hidden them, won’t they?”

“Probably, but that’s okay. I know a way to find them. We just need to make a stop on the way.”

 

Chapter Thirteen

End of Times

The forest was not as Ellis had remembered. He recalled his journey as frightening—a trip through the unknown. It had been night and the woods were intimidating. This time the soaring trees seemed majestic. Angled shafts of sunlight pierced the high canopy with angelic elegance, dappling the cascading river of moss-covered stones.

He and Pax scrambled up the rocks, following the river. The two had ported out of Firestone Farm back to the hill where they’d shared the stew. From there Ellis took out his compass and notepad, and made general guesses that Pax worked into the Port-a-Call. They performed a series of upriver jumps until Ellis felt certain they were close. Approaching from the opposite direction was more confusing than he expected, and he couldn’t find the marks he had carved in the trees.

That boulder looks familiar. Did I stumble on that?

They were running out of time.

“Yes, any Geo. Ask Vin. This is an emergency. Listen, just let me talk to Vin, okay?”

Behind him, Pax was speaking to Alva, although it looked as if Pax were talking to the sky.

“How are you doing that?” Ellis asked. “How are you communicating? Is it through the Port-a-Call?”

“No. Just a con…what? No, I wasn’t speaking to you, Alva. I was talking to Ellis Rogers…What? We’re sort of busy at the moment…Okay, all right!” Ellis heard Pax huff. “Alva says hello.”

“What’s a con?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s a microscopic receiver-transmitter implant. Just about everyone has them.”

“So, what? You just think about who you want to talk to and then talk?”

“Sort of, yeah…Vin? Yeah, I’m with Ellis Rogers, and we have a very serious problem…Of course, I’m alive. Listen, I need your help…Thanks, I knew I could count on you. I need permission and coords to the Geomancy Institute, and I need them right now…Yes, I’m serious…No! Don’t talk to Pol-789! Don’t talk to anyone on the Council. Go right to the institute…Yes…Yes…Tell them it’s for me, and that I’m bringing Ellis Rogers. Tell them—tell them the sky is falling…Yes, that’s what I said. The sky is falling. Tell them that…You don’t need to understand, and I don’t have time to explain. Just do it, Vin.”

“The sky is falling?” Ellis asked as he trudged up the riverbank.

“It’s a code phrase geomancers use. It indicates the most dire of circumstances. It means drop whatever you’re doing and get on this, because if you don’t, the world will end.”

“Code red,” Ellis said. “That’s what we used to say.” He saw it then, the bright pale scar cut into the bark of the giant tree—a crude arrow pointing to the right. “There!”

He pointed up the slope. “Up here, I think.”

They climbed, and Ellis was becoming desperate. Just as he thought they wouldn’t be able to find it, he caught a glimpse of bright red and blue.

“There it is!” he shouted as they ran to the pile of plastic milk crates surrounding his old van seat.

“ Thisis your time machine?” Pax asked, stunned.

“I told you it wasn’t much to look at.”

Ellis ran to the cooler.

His sweater was still where he’d left it. Throwing it over his shoulder he popped the top off the cooler. More cans of food, bottles of drinking water, and the Internet-purchased Geiger counter were still with the rest of his gear. He had no rational reason to expect it wouldn’t be—just the general nightmarish fear that the worst would always happen when he could least afford it.

“This is it.” He picked up the little handheld and showed it to Pax. The Mazur PRM-9000 was the size of a thick iPhone and looked a bit like a garage door opener except that it had a green digital display and a red LED warning light in the design of a radiation symbol.

“And that can find the bombs?” Pax asked.

“It should. Warren wouldn’t even let me get near the one they had at the lab because it was leaking radiation. The website I bought this from said it had excellent sensitivity for detecting even low levels of radiation in food, which was why I paid six hundred dollars for it. So it ought to be able to pick up a plutonium-leaking nuclear warhead.”

Ellis slipped the Geiger counter into his back pocket. “Have we gotten coordinates yet?”

“Not yet. I have Vin and Alva working on it. They’re calling in favors on my behalf from a few people I’ve helped in the past.”

Ellis pulled his sweater on and plucked leaves off it. Now that the weather had cooled, he found he was happy to have it again. “So you just, what? Think Alva or Vin and they can hear you?”

“They hear a faint tone or the name of the person who is trying to talk to them. The person being called can either accept or reject.”

“Wow.”

“Alva was being a real pain, though. Without my chip, the con can’t verify who I am. And they can’t call me, either, because they don’t have a designation to transmit to. Alva refused to accept my call until I answered all these questions. I actually guessed at one. I suppose it’s good that Alva is so careful, but—” Pax promptly turned away looking up at the trees. “Uh-huh…Really? That’s fantastic! Oh, thanks so much. Yeah, hold on. Let me get the POC out.” Pax grabbed the Port-a-Call. “Okay, go ahead.”

Pax dialed up the coordinates to the Geomancy Institute. A portal appeared, through which Ellis could see the control room in Subduction Zone 540. “We’re all set. Thanks, Vin.”

Looking through the opening, Ellis said, “I know you don’t like it, but I wish I had my gun right now.”

Reaching around, Pax drew the pistol out from where the coat had been hiding the weapon. “If there was ever a time for Superman, this is it, don’t you think?”

Ellis took the gun. He felt less confident holding it this time. He’d seen what it could do to a person, and the metal felt heavier than before. He checked the chamber to make sure it was loaded. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The moment they entered, dozens of people turned to face them. Expressions of irritation, annoyance, and suspicion were the big winners. As before, the geomancers were all wearing long coats and dark-blue safety glasses, some of which were propped on their heads or hanging around their necks. Above them giant screens displayed thermal weather maps of the planet that changed in real time.

“Ellis Rogers, I hope you aren’t planning on making a habit of taking tours here,” one of the many said, approaching them. “I thought I had impressed upon you the seriousness of the work we do here.”

“Geo-12?”

“Yes, and I—”

“Shut up and listen.” If anyone wasn’t looking, this got their attention. Everyone in Hollow World regarded geomancers highly, and a show of disrespect was shocking. Even Pax looked stunned.

“In about two hours, three nuclear bombs will explode and destroy this facility.” Ellis didn’t feel the need to explain the ramifications to people who knew them far better than he did. “The warheads have been ported in and placed somewhere nearby. We need to find and eject them into space.”

“How do you know this?” It wasn’t Geo-12 but one of the others who stepped forward.

“A group of people living on the surface wants to destroy Hollow World,” Pax said. “They have been responsible for several deaths over the last few months. One was Geo-24, who the killer had been impersonating.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Pax-43246018, arbitrator.”

“I’ve heard about you. I’m Geo-3.”

“Pol-789 was with you on the tour here,” Geo-12 told Ellis.

“Except that wasn’t the real Pol.” Ellis took out his Geiger counter and pressed the power button.

The device beeped once, the LED flashed, and an alarm sounded. The backlit LCD read 55.8 µSv/hr.

Ellis had no idea what all this meant. He’d never used a Geiger counter before, and he unfolded the accompanying directions. He scanned for a way to interpret the readings, but while it explained the use of the four buttons and spoke of recalibrating, the paper had no indication of what was a good number and what was bad. Ellis made the assumption that the flashing light and alarm wasn’t a positive sign.

Geo-3 stepped forward, took the device, and stared at it a moment. “An antique? Cute. Radiation levels here are naturally higher. It’s one of the reasons we don’t allow visitors, and when we do, it’s only for short periods. Initiates are altered to withstand these conditions. Still…” Geo-3 looked concerned. “846, run a standard on ground zero and put it on the main.”

Ellis had no idea who was being spoken to. There had to be close to a hundred individuals manning stations. The place looked like NASA ground control staffed by a welders’ guild. Those who didn’t wear the long coats and glasses worked naked at their illuminated virtual 3-D stations, each of which could have been nothing more than an incredible video game. Some even had snacks and drinks beside them. No tattoos, scarves, or masks. Ellis imagined geomancers didn’t care as much about standing out.

“What is it?” Pax asked.

“We only do a general condition survey once a month for known areas, but if this antique detector of yours can be trusted, it’s indicating we’re over the mark on radiation.”

A moment later the big center screen changed to a stylized image of a sun—a circle with numerous rays shooting out from the center. It took a moment for Ellis to realize it was actually an overhead view of the control base he was standing in. Over this were laid the ghostly colors that Ellis had seen in spy movies when they used thermal imaging. Numbers ran across the bottom like a news crawler.

“Look—at—that.” Geo-3 walked toward the screen, causing nearly everyone in the room to look up.

“What?” Ellis asked.

“The radiation istoo high. But why? 47, get a lock on the rad source.”

Everyone watched the main screen as colors were isolated and filtered out until just yellow and purple remained. Then the image moved and zoomed, closing in on the center of the purple cloud.

“Give them coats and glasses,” Geo-3 said, pointing at Pax and Ellis.

Geo-12 ran to a wall and retrieved the protective gear from a shelf and some pegs.

“Come with me.” Geo-3 took a step and then stopped, turned, and shouted to the room, “Wake up Geo-1 and Geo-2. Tell them the sky is falling.”

The glasses made it possible to see in the bright portways. They passed through the viscous molten stone, but didn’t go far out the door—just a few steps.

“There,” Geo-3 said. Looking through the walls of the portway tunnel, Ellis spotted a dull metal object set in the natural black rock about a football field away. “That could be an old-fashioned bomb.”

“I can barely see it.”

“On the side of the glasses,” Geo-3 said. “Two sensors. Top zooms in, bottom zooms out.”

Ellis ran his fingers along the rims of the frame, as he fingered something smooth his sight changed, pulling the image of the bomb closer until he could see the familiar radiation symbol on the dull-metal casing. “That’s one.” He turned to Pax. “Can you use your Port-a-Call to create a portal underneath it? Let it just fall out into space somewhere?”

Pax’s head was shaking. “Port-a-Call portals are limited to vertical formations for safety reasons, and besides that’s too far. The maximum distance a POC can open a portal is twenty-five feet, right?”

Geo-3 nodded.

“So someone has to go out there?” Ellis asked.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Geo-3 said, leading them all back inside. “And don’t worry about it we’ll take care of that one. But you said there were two others, right?”

“Yeah…but they were working on one of them so they may have only placed two.”

“And we have two hours?”

“Less than that, I think. The bombs go off at 14:54 Hollow World core time.”

They reentered the command center, and Geo-3 pulled off the safety glasses. “I want an immediate extraction on the P-grid. Send Alpha team to deliver the package into the void where it won’t bother anyone. 1004 through 1020, supply search teams with scanners set for a danger threshold above the envelope at a range of five hundred.”

“I don’t think we have enough scanners,” someone said from the upper deck.

Geo-3 looked annoyed but took a breath. “You have a Maker. Use it, and be quick or we’re all gonna die—so no pressure.” Geo-3 turned to Ellis and Pax. “I honestly don’t know how 1028 passed the entrance exam, much less survived the initiate program. His father must know someone.”

“Father?” Ellis was shocked.

Pax touched his back. “It’s a joke.”

Geo-3 smiled at them. “The two of you need to relax. Stress is not your friend.”

“We’ve only got minutes before we die in a nuclear explosion, and that’s if I got the time right,” Ellis said.

Geo-3 laughed. “So?”

“Well, if that isn’t a time to stress, I don’t know what is.”

A portal popped in the center of the command, and a geomancer in a hard hat walked out. “Status, Three?”

“Just another day, One.”

“That bad?”

The two exchanged grins that looked genuinely pleased. They could have been Top Gun fighter pilots, climbing into cockpits on the way to a dogfight.

“’Fraid so. We got three antique nuclear explosives hidden around the sublevel set to explode in less than one hundred and twenty-three minutes. Found one conveniently located right outside. I’m sending Alpha to eject it.”