by Dean M. Cole
“Thank you for your inspiring speech, Captain Obvious,” Bingham said flatly.
Vaughn frowned at the man again and then looked over the railing. “Start down, BOb.” Before the robot could respond, he held up a finger. “Not a goddamn peep! The only words I want to hear coming from your lipless mouth are ‘enemy destroyed.’”
Chapter 24
As she rounded yet another landing, Angela struggled to draw sufficient breath. Her lungs starved for oxygen. Having lost track of the number of the flights they’d descended, she felt as if they’d been going down the stairs for an eternity.
She looked down as they rounded the next bend and saw a glow coming up from below.
She glanced at Vaughn.
He nodded and then held a finger to his lips. Then he gestured for everyone to turn off their flashlights as he did the same.
Angela struggled to hold in her building excitement.
The lights were on in CMS.
In spite of her insistence that the experiment’s power would still be on, she’d held a deep-seated fear that the light here would be dead, that somehow the Necks would have found a way to power the mechanisms of the collider without energizing its surrounding circuits. She’d been half-certain that they would reach the bottom of the stairwell and find nothing but more darkness.
Glancing over the handrail, she saw the robot three flights beneath them, still leading the way. BOb had set a fast but steady pace all the way down the shaft.
Angela felt her pulse further quicken as the prospect of imminent discovery ratcheted up another notch. If the Necks or their minions had ventured this far into the ring, she and the rest of the team would likely cross paths with them soon, and she had no idea how that would play out other than with extreme violence.
As they continued downward, Angela began to hear the collider. The machinery generated a high-pitched whirring. If you were around it long enough, the sound would fade into the background, but now it was setting her teeth on edge.
Two flights of stairs later, they reached the bottom. A set of double doors stood between them and the CMS experiment’s facility. The noise coming through the panels now seemed to have a physical property to it. The frequency and amplitude of it seemed somehow different. Angela didn’t know if it was her imagination or if she was picking up on a change made by the robots.
BOb took up station to the left of the doors, Rachel to the right.
The woman looked no more winded then did the bot. On the other hand, Angela was still trying to catch her breath, and her legs burned with the exertion of having descended so many steps.
Panting as well, Vaughn pointed to Rachel and then extended two fingers toward his own eyes and then at the two small windows set into the doors.
Major Lee gave a single nod and then eased up to the window. Peering through it, she leaned left and right as she scanned the space beyond. A moment later, she gave the all-clear signal.
Angela released her held breath. Several of her teammates did the same.
Rourke gave her a sideways glance and then shook his head. “It felt like we were going down forever,” he whispered breathlessly.
Between pants, Angela nodded. “Couple of hundred feet at least.”
From behind her, Teddy patted her shoulder. “Where do we go from here, Command-Oh?”
“Like I said, we need to find a computer terminal.”
Wincing, Vaughn held out a hand. “Keep it down, folks.”
Rachel nodded and, keeping her voice low, said, “Get yourselves under control, people. From here on, we exercise extreme silence. Once we pass through these doors, I don’t care how loud it is. Not a single sound. Got it?”
They did.
Vaughn frowned as he regarded the major through knitted brows. Then he appeared to shake off whatever was bothering him. He stepped up and looked at the group. “Take a moment. Catch your breath, and then give me a nod when you’re ready.”
Angela whispered a silent thankyou. She’d been struggling to rein in her adrenaline. With her heart racing, it was difficult to slow her respiratory rate. After a few moments, she finally began to gain the upper hand. Her pulse slowed, and she managed to draw sufficient breath.
Swallowing, she looked at Vaughn and dipped her head.
He smiled and returned the gesture. Then he winked at her and mouthed, “Almost done.”
The other members of the group soon had their physiological responses under control as well. One by one, they nodded to Vaughn.
Standing beside him, Rachel drew something from one of the small pouches attached to her kit. Then she worked on some wires that extended from the frame of the double doors. When the woman stood to inspect her work, Angela saw she clamped a small, dark object over the wires.
Rourke leaned in and nodded. “You bypassed the door alarm, didn’t you?”
Rachel gave the young man a crooked grin. “It wouldn’t do having a klaxon announce our arrival.”
The major looked at Vaughn. She raised her rifle and held it across her body. “Ready, Captain?”
He nodded.
Rachel slowly eased the door open. She peered left and right and then, moving lithely, disappeared through the opening, waving for them to follow.
One after the other, they each slipped through the open doors.
Vaughn signaled for BOb to cover their rear. Then he grabbed Angela’s upper arm gently, and they passed through the opening together.
When the two of them stepped into the light, Angela looked right and saw the near side of the CMS experiment.
She looked at Rachel and pointed.
The major nodded and then began to advance in the indicated direction.
Holding his rifle at the ready, Wing Commander Bingham followed close on her heels.
Angela was happy to see the man fully invested for a change.
Crouching and looking left and right, Rourke walked just behind the man’s right side.
Positioning herself off the young doctor’s right wing, Monique transitioned into full badass mode. Her visage morphed from librarian into that of a warrior queen. It was the same hard look she’d given Bill when he’d tried to bail on them.
Aiming her weapon off to the side, Monique covered the right sector of the advancing team while Mark Hennessy on her opposite side similarly covered their left flank.
At the center of the formation and cupping Angela’s elbow, Vaughn guided her down the corridor while training his rifle up and to the left. At the same time, she covered the right sector, tilting her muzzle up as well.
She could feel Bill, Teddy, and the robot following close behind. Glancing back, she saw them walking backward, each of their weapons covering a discrete sector.
From above, the formation would look like a slowly advancing ring with ten weapons aiming out like the petals of an elongated, deadly flower, Angela and Vaughn forming the stamen at its center.
She looked right and saw something out of place.
A large set of pipes emerged from the wall only to end in a sharp, diagonal line as if they’d been cut. Thick cables extended from their open ends. Someone—or something—had cut them as well. Shattered pieces of the carbon fiber conduit sat mixed with short, thick strands of wire on the floor beneath the truncated assembly.
Staring at the severed lines, Angela realized they must be the supply couplings that fed power from the surface.
Or they used to anyway.
Smiling and releasing a silent sigh, Angela patted Vaughn’s hand and pointed at the cut cables.
He followed her gesture and studied the scene. After a moment, he gave her a meaningful look. Then a smile spread across his face, and he nodded his understanding: the Necks had already switched the collider over to the power they were pumping through the wormhole.
This was crucial.
Angela had expected to find the power lines cut, especially considering the conditions on the surface. It was doubtful, in the extreme, that the collider would have rem
ained energized if it had relied on Geneva’s infrastructure. However, the critical part of the finding lay in the power required to overload the wormhole. If they had arrived too early, if somehow the collider was still powered by Geneva’s grid, there wouldn’t be sufficient energy to reset the timeline.
This was good.
It was fucking outstanding, actually.
A few steps later, they emerged into the CMS experiment proper. It had a similar layout to that of the ATLAS experiment, although it didn’t have the large radiating network of pipes.
At the head of the slowly advancing group, Rachel spotted the control room. She pointed a bladed hand toward it and then redirected the ring-shaped formation.
A moment later and still crouching, they stepped up to the room’s entrance.
Using hand gestures, Vaughn moved the team into a defensive perimeter. At its center, Rachel tried the latch.
The door didn’t open.
After glancing back, she punched in the code Angela had supplied.
They all winced as a beep rang out with each keypress. Fortunately, the constant drone of the machinery all but drowned out the tones.
After the last beep rang out, the red light on the keypad shifted to green.
Angela released her breath.
Rachel grabbed the lever and slowly twisted it. This time it yielded, and the door unlatched. She swung it open.
Vaughn posted BOb as a sentry and then the rest of the team filed into the control room.
Rachel gently snicked the door closed behind them.
Angela watched Rachel and then turned to see everyone staring back at her expectantly.
She blinked. “Wh-What?”
Vaughn gave her a crooked grin. He pointed at a computer monitor that had a HiLumi logo floating across its screen. “We made it. This is it, this is what we’ve been looking for.”
Angela’s mouth went round as she stared at the logo. “Oh shit …” Pausing, she smiled and looked at Vaughn. “You’re right. I was so wrapped up in the race, I forgot about the finish line.”
Her gaze returned to the workstation.
This was it.
This was her chance to set everything right, to push the bastards out permanently. She wanted to do so much more than that to the Necks. She wanted to make them pay for what they had done to Earth’s life and for what they had done to the life of all the worlds that she and Vaughn had traveled through.
But she couldn’t do any of the last parts. All she could do now was settle for denying the bastards this Earth.
No, it wasn’t the vengeance she wanted.
But it would do.
Vaughn made a show of pulling the chair out from behind the computer terminal. “Madam, your coach awaits.”
Swallowing hard, she stepped slowly to the seat and then, still standing, stared at the HiLumi Intranet logo.
Vaughn pushed in the chair, buckling her knees and dropping her into the seat.
This was where they would end it all, where she would reverse what the bastards had done to them and bring everyone back.
Permanently, this time.
If she didn’t screw up.
Angela felt the other members of the team closing in. Standing behind her, they formed a semi-circle around the back of her chair.
Tentatively, she reached out for the space bar.
“Do it, Command-Oh.”
Chewing her lip, she pressed the bar.
The screen turned black. A white segmented circle with an atom icon on its side spun at its center. The rolling symbol was the HiLumi equivalent of a spinning hourglass.
They all watched in breathless anticipation.
After intolerably long moments, a message popped up on the screen. To Angela’s dismay, the customary sign-in block was missing. “What on earth?”
Mark leaned in. “What does it say?”
As she registered the words, Angela felt her stomach sink.
The lieutenant colonel read aloud. “There was a problem connecting to the server ‘HI-LUMI Intranet.’” Bending closer, he read the small print beneath. “The server may not exist, or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.”
“Shit,” Bill said through a growl. Several additional curse words rose from behind her.
Rourke leaned in. “Try rebooting.”
Angela frowned. “Ya think?”
After throwing an annoyed glare at the man, she shut down the terminal.
She looked at Rourke and pointed to the back of the workstation. “Check the connections.”
His face brightened, and he nodded.
While he inspected the wires, Angela had Monique de-energize the entire console.
After waiting sixty seconds, she looked at Rourke.
He held up a thumb. “All cables and connections look good.”
Angela pointed at Monique. “Power it up.”
A few moments later, the icon returned, but when the symbol completed its too long rotation, the screen displayed the same damned message: “There was a problem connecting to the server ‘HI-LUMI Intranet.’”
“What does it mean?” Teddy asked without humor, his normal Russian accent supplanting that of the surfer boy affectation.
“It means,” said Rourke, “that the ring isn’t the only thing the Necks isolated.”
“No,” Angela said, shaking her head. “It means we have to go to ATLAS.”
Chapter 25
Rourke puckered his forehead. “You said that would kill us.”
Angela shook her head. “Actually, I said it would damage our tissues. And it will. Long-term, it might even kill us. But we have a lot more to consider than just ourselves.” Her eyes lost focus as she stared through the wall. “That’s all it’s been about for quite some time now.” She shifted her gaze to Vaughn. “But there’s another problem, and it might be a deal-breaker.”
Vaughn tilted his head. “What could be worse than killer radiation?”
“Going into this potential battle with no weapons.”
“Why in bloody hell would we do that?”
“Because the ring is a damned big electromagnet. Any ferrous hardware,” she pointed at Chance’s rifle, “like your gun, will be yanked to the surface of the collider the instant you enter the tunnel. We’re talking about a seriously powerful magnet. It’ll crush anything caught in the middle.”
Monique nodded.
Bill and Teddy exchanged nervous glances.
Angela continued. “Additionally, the magnetic lines will induce an electrical current through non-ferrous metals. They’ll get damned hot.” She extracted a magazine from one of her pouches and held it up and pointed to the bullets within. “Like, the rounds will start cooking in their casings and eventually explode, hot.”
Eyes widening, Bill looked at Angela and pointed toward the collider tunnel. “You’re saying we can’t take any weapons with us, that we’re going to go up against a fucking army of ten-foot-long mechanical caterpillars with nothing but our bare knuckles?”
Monique’s eyes flared. “William! Keep your voice down. You will not shoot the messenger. No, sir!”
Bill looked at Monique. “I …! I just—!”
“Think of your family, William. What would they want?”
His head rocked as if she’d slapped him. Myriad emotions streamed across the man’s face.
Monique’s eyes softened. “Commander Brown is simply relating the facts, William.” She gestured at Vaughn. “It is up to Captain Singleton as to what we do with the information.”
Bill deflated. “Shit.” The man’s shoulders slumped, and his gaze fell to the floor. “S-Sorry, Angela.”
Angela waved it off. “It’s okay, Bill. Believe me. I’m struggling with the same thing.” She looked at the faces of their comrades. “We all are.”
They sat in uncomfortable silence. After a few moments, everyone turned and looked at Vaughn. Even Major Lee seemed content to le
t him take this one.
As Angela, too, looked at him, she saw the leader Vaughn was becoming. These military members, some of them outranking him, respected his leadership. They were all ready to follow his orders.
Vaughn pressed his lips into a thin line. Finally, he nodded and pointed at Angela. “Like you said, we have a lot more to consider than just ourselves. Our entire world hangs in the balance.” He regarded each of them soberly. “It’s all or nothing, folks. We can’t mail it in. We have to see this all the way through …” Pausing, he gave each of them a meaningful look. “All the way through … regardless of the cost.”
His words hung in the air for a long moment.
Vaughn stood weightily. He walked over to a corner of the control room and propped his rifle against the wall. Then he started shedding his battle rattle. Metal components ran through all of it.
He looked back at the group. “Let’s go, Team Two. Lose the metal.” He peeled off his watch and looked at its face. “We roll in five.”
Major Lee did a double-take. “Team Two? What about the rest of us?”
“I have other plans for you and BOb.”
Chapter 26
Vaughn stepped into the security booth and glanced at the retinal scanner next to the opposite door. “I hope you’re not going to be a problem.”
He tried the latch.
It turned, and the door opened, revealing a more spacious booth beyond.
After seeing the cut power coupling, he’d expected these doors to be unlocked. There’d been no evidence that the Necks or their bots had ventured into CMS’s aboveground facility—well, not until their massive dozers had shown up and flattened the place.
On the other hand, there’d been plenty of evidence that they’d worked their way into the below-ground portions of the facility. The Necks must have accessed the power conduits through the tunnel.
Fortunately, it looked like they had withdrawn from the area once they completed their modifications. Vaughn and the rest of the team had seen no further evidence of their presence, and BOb reported that he’d detected no sign of movement out to the limit of his passive sensors.