The astronomer looked up. “Those drives you brought back from Lockhardt Aeronautics had an incredible wealth of information. Before they started to build this bigger craft to deliver the nuclear payload to the main asteroid, they built a much smaller one, with a smaller payload, to try their method out on the biggest fragment.”
“So it’s already been blown off course?” H124 asked.
Orion shook his head. “No, unfortunately. It looks like it rendezvoused with the fragment, and then there was a political storm over the use of nuclear detonation. They argued to find a different way, something called the kinetic impactor technique.”
“What was that?” she asked.
“It uses a spacecraft to ram the asteroid, nudging it off course. The initial push wouldn’t be much. But over many years, the change in trajectory would start to add up, so that by the time it was due to impact Earth, it would have been well off course.”
“Did they try it?” Rowan asked.
“No. Right after that, the project lost funding. Everyone was sent packing. The impactor craft was never built. Looks like they just landed the smaller craft on the fragment and waited to see what was decided. They wanted to conserve its fuel. They never detonated the craft.”
H124’s mouth hung open. “You’re saying it’s still up there?”
Orion beamed. “It is. And I’ve been able to establish contact with it.”
“This is amazing!”
“Check this out.” Orion brought up a large floating display. “I worked up this model with Dirk’s help.” The display showed the two remaining fragments as well as the main asteroid. He pointed to the biggest fragment, the one due to hit next. “This is the one that’s going to hit BEC City. Not only is it larger than the first, but a continental strike will mean far more destruction.” He moved on to the next fragment. “This one will land in the Pacific Ocean, creating a ring of tsunamis.” He saved the worst for last. “This monster is going to be a land strike, too. An extinction-level impact.” He moved back to the first fragment. “The blast deflection craft is on this fragment. Its fuel is nearly depleted. It’s been using the heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 to generate electricity. It wouldn’t have enough fuel to rendezvous with the larger asteroid. It’s probably got just enough to take off from this fragment and detonate its nuclear payload.
“But if we could deflect this larger fragment away from the Earth, avoiding that land strike on BEC City, it would be huge. And we could use that data to inform our mission to deflect the main asteroid. The blast deflection technique is the fastest-acting method of all the ones I’ve read about on these drives. If we can get all the parts to build the deployment craft, and locate a large enough nuclear payload to divert the asteroid, we’re in business. But we have to work fast. Getting that final piece of the craft is vital. The sooner we can change the trajectories of these pieces, the safer we’ll be.”
Raven walked around the display, studying the images. “When can we try to deflect the larger fragment?”
Orion opened his arms wide. “Right now. We’re going over calculations, and we’ll be running some simulations in no time.” He paused. “Are we all in agreement that’s our best course of action? To test out the existing craft on the big fragment, while building the one that’ll deflect the main asteroid?”
“Sounds good to me,” Raven said.
H124 and Rowan nodded.
Orion moved closer to the display and had it reveal their calculations. “Okay.” Dirk studied them, and they conferred on the best angle to set off the detonation. It had to be very precise, or the blast could send the asteroid fragment hurtling toward them at an even greater velocity or more dangerous angle of impact.
She and Raven clustered around the display, the tension heavy in the room. Speaking in hushed tones, Orion and Dirk compared their calculations, then tried a series of simulations on the model Orion had built. They’d just finished the third simulation when suddenly Dirk stood up, rigid. His eyes fluttered, and he let out a strangled cry. He crumpled to the floor, convulsing. H124 rushed over.
“Has this happened to him before?” Raven asked.
“Not that I know of,” Rowan told him.
H124 ran to the door. “Where’s Astoria?” She took off down the hall. She heard Raven calling for the Rovers’ doctor.
She raced through the corridors of Sanctuary City, finding Astoria sharing a drink with two freighter pilots in the common room. When she saw H124’s expression, she immediately stood up. “What is it?”
“Dirk, he’s having a seizure.”
Astoria tossed her drink aside and ran with her back to Orion’s office, their boots clomping down the corridor. “What happened?” Astoria asked as they ran.
“He was just standing there, doing calculations with Orion, and all of a sudden he collapsed.”
“Damn it!”
They passed Byron in the hall and he joined them, sprinting in through the doorway. The Rover doctor, Felix, stood over Dirk, who lay immobile on the floor.
Astoria raced to her brother’s side. “Is he . . . ?”
“Unconscious,” Felix told her. “Does he have a history of seizures?”
She shook her head wildly. “No! Never!”
“We need to get him to a medpod.”
They loaded him onto a stretcher and hurried him to the med facility. Astoria clutched his hand the whole way, though he continued to convulse, oblivious to the world. Once in the doctor’s office, they lowered him into a medpod, which scanned him at once. Felix stared at the display, narrowing in on the cerebral section. “What’s this?” he asked Astoria, pointing to a small sphere inside Dirk’s brain.
“I have no idea!”
The doctor zoomed in on it, rotating the image. “It’s not natural. Seems to be made of surgical steel.” He read the data streaming in on a corner of the display. “It’s a transmitter, giving off signals to his brain. It told him to shut down.”
Astoria was incredulous. “What?” She looked back at her brother, pressing her hand against the medpod’s glass.
“Do you know where he could have gotten this?”
Astoria turned to meet H124’s eyes, a piercing glance that almost made H124 look away. “Murder City. Dirk and I were separated for most of the time. They could have done anything to him.”
H124 felt terrible. If they hadn’t tried to save those citizens, the PPC wouldn’t have captured Dirk. Astoria was in H124’s face before she had time to step away. “You did this. You made this happen!” she snapped, raining spittle on H124’s face. H124 held up a placating hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“If you didn’t have such a damned bleeding heart, my brother wouldn’t be lying here fighting for his life!”
Byron put a hand between them, trying to calm Astoria. “Dirk has just as much of a bleeding heart. He would have helped those people even if H124 hadn’t suggested it.”
Astoria locked Byron in with a hateful glare. Then her chin trembled, and she melted into sorrow. She turned toward Felix. “Can you take it out?”
“I’m damn well going to try,” he told her. He gazed at each of them in turn, then pulled out a handheld scanner. “I think I’d better make sure the rest of you don’t have one of these.” He moved it around each of their heads, watching the readout on his PRD. When he finished, he lowered it. “You’re all clear.”
Giving him space to work, they left the room, watching his progress on a large floating display through the window. He instructed the medpod to enter Dirk’s skull, using its extractor tool. Dirk began to convulse more violently, his body slamming against the walls of his medpod.
They heard Felix curse, and watched him try again, but each time Dirk’s body fought against the extraction. Astoria kept her hands flat against the glass, as Raven comforted her with a hand on her shoulder.
“I’
m going to try a controlled EMP,” he told them. He adjusted the settings on the medpod and set off the electromagnetic pulse, only to have the medpod’s control report that the EMP had failed to shut down the sphere. It was shielded.
Again and again Felix tried to extract it, but the sphere sent a seizure-inducing signal to Dirk’s brain every time, and his heartrate jittered so fast he risked cardiac arrest.
Finally Felix stopped trying and Dirk went still, his heart rate returning to normal. The doctor turned to them through the window. “I can’t get it out,” he told them. “And I’m afraid it seems to be sending out a countdown signal.”
Astoria’s face contorted in anguish. “Counting down to what?”
“My guess is an electrical surge that will kill him.”
She punched the glass, sending a ripple through the window. Rowan tried to reach out to her, but she shoved away his hand and stormed off down the hall, striking several other windows along the way.
“What do we do?” H124 asked Felix.
“I’ll keep searching for ways to stop it. Look through some records. Maybe there’s a record of this PPC device being used in the past.”
Orion, who’d been watching in silence, turned sadly away from the glass. “He was amazing. Never seen someone who could run calculations that fast.”
“He’s not gone yet,” H124 told him. “He’s not going to go down without a fight. We’ll figure this out.”
“Can you continue with the calculations in the meantime?” Raven asked him.
Orion nodded. “It’ll just take longer.”
Raven clapped an encouraging hand on the astronomer’s shoulder, and Orion slumped off in a daze.
Raven turned to the doctor. “Keep us posted, okay?”
Felix nodded, then turned back, flipping through records on his PRD.
H124 left to find Astoria. She searched the common rooms, the de-extinction lab, her quarters, and a host of other rooms, all to no avail. Finally she went topside to the stratified forest. There she found Astoria sitting beneath a tree. The mohawked warrior stared off at a pale blue sky, tracks of tears staining her face.
“Astoria?” H124 asked quietly.
She didn’t answer.
H124 drew closer. “Astoria? The doctor said he’s going to do some research until he finds a solution.”
Astoria merely stared off into the distance. H124 crouched down next to her, but Astoria made no indication that H124 was even there. She wasn’t sure what to do for her, so she reached out a hand, touching Astoria’s fingers. “Can I do anything for you?”
Astoria yanked away her hand, refusing to even look at H124.
Taking the hint, H124 withdrew, returning to the lift and traveling down. She stepped out to a quiet area in a side hallway. Maybe Willoughby would know what to do. She pulled up a comm window and called him.
He answered right way. “H,” he said, smiling. “You safe?”
She nodded. “I’m back at the Rover city. How are things on your end?”
He glanced around his office. “So far so good.”
“Something’s happened to Dirk.”
Willoughby frowned.
“The doctor thinks it’s some kind of PPC device that’s been planted in his brain. It’s sending out an electrical signal, which the doctor thinks will kill him.”
Willoughby cursed under his breath. “I think I know the device you’re talking about. It was only recently developed. It’s what Olivia calls a ‘coercion tool.’ You use it to threaten people to get what you want.”
“The PPC tried to get Astoria and Dirk to reveal the location of Sanctuary City.”
“And did they?”
“They didn’t know where it was at the time.”
“Once that device is implanted, it’s only a matter of time before the person dies.”
“How do we get it out?”
“I’m not sure. Let me do some digging and get back to you.”
“Thank you. So you’re okay there?”
“It’s getting more dangerous here by the minute. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last before the Repurposers pay me a visit.”
H124 shuddered just thinking of the black-clad men. “Watch your back. Let me know you’re okay.” She shut down the comm window and entered the main hall.
Raven ran by. “There’s a problem,” he said when he saw her.
“With what?” She fell in alongside him, jogging down the hall toward Orion’s office.
“With the blast deflection craft.”
They entered the astronomer’s office, finding his hands flying over the floating display, flipping through windows and entering commands. Onyx stood next to him, inputting commands in her own PRD console. She looked up at Raven.
“What’s happening?”
“We’ve been locked out,” Orion told him, staring wide-eyed through the display. “I don’t know how, but Delta City PPC hacked us. They’re now in control of the craft.”
“What the hell?” Raven walked over to Onyx. “Can you return control to us?”
She shook her head, dazed. “I’m trying, but whoever is on the other end is good. Really good.”
“And what is the PPC doing with the craft?” H124 asked.
Orion met her gaze. “We don’t know yet. So far they just wrested control. The craft’s just sitting there on the fragment, where it’s always been.”
Onyx entered more commands. “Damn it! I can’t get control back.”
Orion threw his hands up. “What can they be planning? What’s the point of taking this thing over? Don’t they know we’re trying to stop it from hitting?”
H124 approached him. “Wait a minute . . . can they see your simulations of where it will hit?”
He waved at his display with disgust. “Right now they can see everything.”
“So they know it’s going to hit BEC City?”
Raven looked up, meeting her eyes in simultaneous understanding.
“They want it to hit,” he whispered.
“It’ll get rid of their worst competition,” she added.
Onyx stared at them in disbelief. “But the fallout, the side effects. It’s not just going to damage BEC City. The whole world will be affected.”
Raven turned to her. “We know that, but they don’t. They lost all knowledge of science like this. They probably think it’ll just destroy the city. The smaller fragments that hit New Atlantic haven’t affected them too much in Delta City. They would have suffered an initial earthquake, some fine debris dusting the city, but other than that, the sky is redder, the temperature’s a little cooler . . .”
H124 couldn’t believe it. She felt frozen. “We have to get control back,” she said.
Onyx started entering commands again.
Orion stepped through his display so he could face H124 and Raven. “It’s more important than ever that you get that final piece of the craft. If this thing makes impact, the global implications are going to be catastrophic. And if that monster asteroid hits, well . . . we’re dead.”
Chapter 17
Byron and Rowan met up with H124 in Raven’s office. “We need a plan,” she told them.
She opened up the binder, showing the location of the last piece. “It was built in an underground facility by a company called Bering Aeronautics. Later on, Basin City was built on top of it.”
“I’m sorry. Where did you just say it was?” Byron asked, his jaw going slack. “Because I thought you just said Basin City.”
Raven gave a mirthless smile.
“You know that place is lethal, right?” Byron pressed. “Even Death Riders don’t go there.”
H124 had never heard of it.
“We don’t have a choice,” Raven told him. “We need that last piece.”
“Can’t we just build it s
omehow?” Byron asked.
“It’s specialty equipment, something that took them years to build. We don’t have that kind of time or,” he added ruefully, “the know-how.”
H124 turned to Byron. “So what are we up against?”
Rowan came forward, a grim look on his face. He brought up the display on his PRD, expanding the view so they could all see it. He entered a few search commands, and a rudimentary map flashed up on the display. “This is all the terrain we’ve ever been able to map in Basin City.” It showed just a handful of streets on the outer perimeter. Large red X’s marked the ends of each street. It didn’t even extend a quarter mile into the city. “No one has lived beyond these points.”
“What’s wrong with this place?” she asked.
Raven brought up a series of history files on his PRD. “Years ago, this area of the country was a hotbed of coal and natural gas extraction. They got careless in their extraction methods, and an accident led to a series of underground coal seams igniting. They thought they could extinguish it, and just kept building the city out. Decades later, the fire still burned. They couldn’t access the coal, so they tried fracking for natural gas, but that opened up even more fractures, allowing the fire to spread even more. This whole city is a warren of unstable ground and clouds of poisonous gases—carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, not to mention arsenic, selenium, and fluorine. The fire is really close to the surface in some places. If you fall through one of those cracks . . .” He thought a moment. “We’re going to need pyrometers.”
“What are those?” H124 asked.
“Instruments that can measure surface temperature from a distance. We aim an infrared beam at the ground, and the device tells us if we can walk safely over that section.”
His display showed historical video of underground coal fires, fissures with billowing gas, and barren ground.
Raven turned off his display.
“But it’s much worse than just fires,” Byron said. “Night stalkers are all over that place. We don’t know why there are so many. Maybe it’s the warmth, or all the smoke that dims the sun. But this place is night stalker central. No way we get in and out of there.”
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