Battle of the Ampere

by Richard Paul Evans

  Taylor was as surprised as any of us. “What happened?”

  “I think you just gave him an aneurysm,” Ostin said.

  “Is he dead?” McKenna asked.

  “Does it matter?” Jack said.

  Just then two other crew members approached us. They looked at the prone engineer, then back at us. “What happened?”

  “He fainted,” Ostin said.

  “Who are you?”

  Before Taylor could reboot them, I pulsed, dropping them both to the ground. “How many more are there down here?” I asked.

  “There are two working on that engine over there,” Taylor said, pointing to the farthest engine near the back of the room. “Jack and I can get them.” She looked at him. “Ready?”

  Jack lay the backpack down. “Let’s get them.”

  They walked over to the men.

  “That makes six crew,” Ostin said. “That’s about right for a night shift.”

  “We need to get these guys out of the way,” I said. I pointed to a small door. “What’s that room?”

  “It’s a head,” Ostin said. “The bathroom.”

  “We’ll lock them in there.”

  The bathroom door opened inward and Ostin, McKenna, and I carried the four men—the two crew members, the engineer, and guard—inside and stacked them on top of one another. As we lay the last man on top, Taylor and Jack came around the corner. Jack was dragging two men by their feet.

  “Put them in there,” I said.

  Jack dragged them to the bathroom, then lifted the men and threw them on top of the others. I pulled the door shut.

  “How do we lock it from the outside?” Taylor asked.

  “Like this,” Ostin said. He walked across the room, grabbed the guard’s rifle, then came back and wedged it between the door’s handle and the doorjamb.

  “That will hold them,” he said.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s plant the explosives and get out of here.”

  “Where should I put them?” Jack asked.

  “It shouldn’t matter,” Ostin said. “That much explosive will obliterate everything within two hundred feet. But generally speaking, the tighter the fit the better.”

  “But hide it,” Taylor said. “In case someone comes down here after we’re gone.”

  “How about back here,” Jack said, wedging the pack behind one of the engines. “They won’t see it.”

  “Bonus,” Ostin said. “That looks like a fuel line running across the wall next to it.”

  “How long are you setting the timer for?” I asked.

  “What do you think?” Jack asked.

  “I’d say thirty minutes,” Ostin said.

  “You’d better make it forty,” I said. “Just in case.”

  “All right,” Jack said. “I’m activating it. Everyone ready?”

  “Do it,” Taylor said.

  Jack pushed four buttons. The timer emitted a long, steady tone, then stopped. “We’re live.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Suddenly an alarm went off outside the engine room, reverberating loudly down the corridor.

  “What is that?” Taylor asked.

  “Maybe they’ve discovered the board’s escape,” Ostin said.

  “We better get out of here fast,” I said.

  Suddenly a voice boomed from a speaker box mounted below a surveillance camera. “It’s too late for that, Vey.”

  I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It belonged to Hatch.

  “Why do I bother looking for you, Vey, when you just can’t keep away from me? Is it my charisma? My animal magnetism?”

  “Your animal smell,” Ostin said.

  “Ostin,” Hatch said. “I didn’t notice you. But I’m sure you’re accustomed to being overlooked. I appreciate you giving me another chance to kill you.”

  “You know, I was the one who figured out how to blow up your Starxource plant,” he said. “I hope you appreciated that, too.”

  “Yes, the Peruvian government will be happy for that confession. So let me explain your situation to you. You are pinned down on the bottom level of a boat with only one corridor out, two tiny portals that Ostin couldn’t fit his arm through, and more than a hundred armed guards crowding both sides of the hallway. Checkmate. It’s over. There is no way off this boat.”

  “Check the corridor!” I shouted to Jack.

  Jack walked to the door and looked out its window, then turned back to me. “Guards in both directions.”

  “You didn’t trust me?” Hatch said.

  “Yeah, imagine that,” I replied.

  “You know how I like making deals, Michael. So here’s a deal for you. We’re in a bit of a hurry, so if you just walk out of the engine room and surrender, I’ll give you a relatively painless death by firing squad.”

  “That’s a great deal,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I take that?”

  “It’s the best you’ll get, Vey. Which is pretty generous for a truce breaker.”

  “I broke a truce with an evil, sadistic, psychopathic liar. I’m not losing sleep over that.”

  “I’m not a psychopath,” Hatch said. “But you’re right, I was lying. What we’re really going to do is strap you down, paralyze you with toxin from the puffer fish, then dissect you while you’re still alive so we can learn what is making your electricity grow. And then we’ll do the same to your girlfriend.”

  “You’d have to take us alive to do that,” I said. “And that’s not going to happen.”

  “I disagree. And here’s why. Either way, you die. But if you surrender, I’ll let your little buddy Ostin go home to his mommy.”

  Ostin shook his head. “They won’t let me go, Michael.” Then he shouted toward the camera, “Do you know what you are, Hatch? You’re a skid mark on the underwear of humanity.”

  “Remind me to cut out your tongue,” Hatch said. “But back to my deal. Ostin goes free, sans tongue, and, added bonus, we won’t torture your girlfriend.”

  I looked at Taylor. Even though she looked terrified, she also shook her head. “He’s a liar, Michael.”

  “You have sixty seconds to decide.”

  “Just a minute,” I said.

  “That’s what I just said,” Hatch replied.

  I walked over to the surveillance camera and threw a lightning ball at it. The light went out.

  “You just wasted twenty seconds,” Hatch said.

  Sixty seconds. It was too late to change the explosive’s time, but I remembered what Dodds had said about setting it off. I retrieved the pack and brought it over to Ostin and McKenna. Speaking softly so Hatch couldn’t hear, I said, “We need to be able to blow it quickly.”

  “You want me to light it?” McKenna asked.

  “It needs intense heat,” Ostin said. “You would have to flare.”

  “I can do that,” she said.

  “Only if it comes to that.” I handed her the pack. She and Ostin sat down on the ground with it.

  I walked back to the voice box. “Here’s a deal for you, Hatch, you sludge-breath. If your guards come within ten feet of this room, we’ll blow our explosive and everyone on board dies.”

  “It’s what they call a Mexican standoff!” Ostin shouted.

  There was a pause, then Hatch said, “Clever bluff, but you don’t have explosives.”

  “Of course we do, you human litter box. Why else would we have boarded this tub if not to sink it?”

  Another pause. “So let’s say you do have an incendiary device. I don’t think you have it in you to detonate it.”

  “You know me better than that, you dog-faced man-worm. I mocked you when you threatened to feed me to rats. Do you think I’m afraid to die now?”

  “No. In fact, if I were you, I would have already killed myself. I just don’t think you have the courage to kill your friends.”

  “Use your brain, you baboon butt!” Ostin shouted. “It’s the only logical choice you’ve given us. We can die sl
owly of torture with you mocking us, or we die quickly, save the world, and take you with us. I think even you could figure that out.”

  Hatch didn’t answer.

  But Hatch might have been right. I wasn’t sure that I had the courage. I knew that I couldn’t commit for my friends. I looked at Taylor. She was trembling. “What do you think?”

  “Ostin’s right. He’ll kill us anyway.”

  “McKenna?”

  She swallowed. “Just tell me when.”

  I looked over at Jack.

  “I say we make our deaths count for something.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay.” I turned back to McKenna. “On my word . . .”

  “What’s your decision?” Hatch asked.

  “We’re unanimous. Come and get us!” I shouted. Taylor gripped my hand tightly. After a minute I said, “Jack, what’s going on?”

  “No one’s advancing,” he said.

  “The door’s locked?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Let us know when they’re ten feet away.”

  “They’re probably trying to figure out a way to poison us through the vents,” Ostin said.

  I pointed to the voice box.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Hatch said. “Thanks for the idea.”

  “Sorry,” Ostin said.

  “Jack,” I said. “Tell me when.” He nodded.

  “Now what?” Taylor asked.

  “We wait.” I took her hand and we walked over and sat down next to Ostin and McKenna. I raked my free hand back through my hair. “I guess Abigail was right after all.”

  Taylor shook her head. “No, she wasn’t. We’re going to blow this thing and the world will be safer.”

  Suddenly, something came to mind. “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?”

  “Back in the jungle the chief of the Amacarra saw all this. He said, ‘over the water a choice would come to me’—that I would have to choose the lives of the ones I loved or the lives of many I don’t know.” I looked at Taylor. “I guess the guy knew our fate all along.” I took a deep breath. “So what do you want to do with the last ten minutes of our lives?”

  “They’re coming! Thirty feet!” Jack shouted.

  “Are you ready?” I asked McKenna.

  She looked frightened but nodded.

  I looked at Ostin. I could also see the fear in his eyes. In spite of my own fear, I wanted to comfort him. “At least we probably won’t feel anything,” I said.

  “We won’t,” he said stoically. “Water-gel explosives can reach temperatures upward of thirty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit in point zero, zero, two seconds. We’ll be incinerated before our brains can register pain.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. I put my hand on his shoulder. “At least we’re here together. I’m glad for that.”

  “Me too,” Ostin said. “But all things being equal, I’d rather be clogging.”

  In spite of my fear I grinned. He smile back at me. I took a deep breath, then turned back to Taylor. Her eyes were filled with tears. She took my hand and said, “Do you know what I hate the most about this?”

  “Dying?” I said.

  “I mean besides that.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I hate that my parents will never know what happened to me.”

  “Jaime will tell them,” I said. “He promised me he would.”

  “Good,” she said sadly. She took a deep breath, then looked deeply into my eyes. “I know we’re only fifteen, and just kids, but I just want you to know that . . . I would have married you.”

  I put my hand on her cheek. “I would have asked.”

  “Twenty feet!” Jack shouted.

  She softly sighed, putting her cheek up against mine. “Why aren’t you ticking?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because there’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

  Across from us McKenna said to Ostin, “You need to move away from me. I’m going to get really hot.”

  “It doesn’t matter, “ Ostin said. “I’m going to die anyway.”

  “It will hurt,” she said.

  “Just for a few seconds,” he replied.

  “Fifteen feet!” Jack shouted. Then he said, “We’re coming, Wade.”

  I pulled Taylor into me.

  “Ten feet!” Jack shouted. “Blow it!”

  McKenna took a deep breath, then said to Ostin, “Good-bye.” Then she closed her eyes and her skin began to turn red.

  Taylor and I embraced each other tightly. “I’m so scared,” she said.

  “I’ve got you,” I said.

  “I love you, Michael.”

  That’s when we heard the explosion.

  The Ampere rocked from the explosion’s shock wave. At first I thought the massive blast was from our own explosive, but when I realized that we were all still there, I figured that something else must have happened.

  “Holy crap!” Jack shouted. “What was that?”

  Sirens from the dock began wailing.

  Ostin ran to the portal and looked out. “It’s the Watt!” he shouted.

  I ran over to look for myself.

  From the light of the fires I could see that the top deck of the Watt was mostly blown off and smoke and fire was billowing up into the black sky. What was left of the boat was disappearing into the sea.

  “It’s sinking,” I said.

  “Michael, you’re glowing,” Taylor said.

  I looked down. My skin was glowing a pale white and electricity was sparking between my legs and arms and fingers. “What’s happening?”

  “What should I do with the bomb?” McKenna shouted. She had cooled down, but her arms were still wrapped around the explosive.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Jack, where are the guards?”

  “Mostly on their faces!” he shouted.

  Suddenly a massive bolt of lightning burst past our door, illuminating the engine room like the flash of an arc welder. Then there was another.

  “The corridor’s clear!” Jack shouted. “The guards are down.”

  Suddenly someone pounded on the engine room door. Tessa’s face appeared in the window. “Come on, you idiots!” she shouted. “Let’s go!”

  Jack opened the door. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Someplace a lot better than this,” she said.

  Then Zeus stuck his head in the doorway. “Hey, where did you get the nifty sailor duds?”

  “You came back,” I said.

  “You thought we’d let you have all the fun? Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” I said. “McKenna, how much time do we have on the bomb?”

  McKenna pulled back the flap. “Eighteen minutes and twelve seconds.”

  “Hide it!”

  “I’ll do it,” Ostin said. He took the pack to the back of the engine room and shoved it behind the engine, then returned. “We’re good.”

  *

  Outside the engine room door a handful of guards started to rally.

  “Tessa!” I shouted. “A little help.”

  “You got it,” she said.

  “I’ve got them,” Taylor said.

  I looked back out and the guards were standing in the corridor, looking around in different directions. I made a lightning ball about the size of a watermelon and threw it down the hall. It blew up around them like a grenade, scattering them like bowling pins.

  “Vámonos!” Tessa said.

  We followed Zeus and Tessa out of the engine room, then back up the utility stairway to the deck, which was crowded with sailors who had been woken by the Watt’s explosion and had rushed to the deck to see what was happening. In the darkness and commotion, few of them even noticed us, and Zeus and I easily took care of those who did. We ran to the side of the boat where we had left our rope.

  Zeus looked over the railing. “I hate water,” he said.

  “Someone better go down first,” I said, “and make sure our raft’s still there.”

  “We brought a boat,”
Tessa said.

  “I’ll go first,” McKenna said. “I’ll flash if it’s okay.”

  She grabbed the rope and slid down into the darkness. A moment later we saw a flash of light.

  “That’s your cue,” Jack said. “Go!”

  Zeus climbed over, followed by Tessa, Ostin, and Jack, leaving just Taylor and me.

  “Your turn,” I said to Taylor.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not taking another chance of you staying behind.”

  There was no time for discussion, so I climbed over the railing. I grabbed the rope and slid down a few yards, then looked back up. “Coming?”

  Taylor grabbed the railing and was throwing her leg over the side when someone grabbed her. It was one of the Elgen guards. Taylor tried to reboot him, but he was wearing a copper helmet. “Caught you,” he said.

  “Catch this,” I said. I threw a lightning ball at him, striking him on the copper of his helmet. Electricity sparked and sizzled around on his head, then he fell forward unconscious, dropping Taylor over the side of the boat.

  “Michael!” she shouted.

  I jumped out and grabbed her—both of us free-falling in the dark. Then I reached out toward the Ampere and magnetized, which pulled us up against the boat’s metal hull. I amped up my magnetism until we came to a sliding stop about twenty feet from the water. Below us was an idling speedboat with all our friends. Jaime was at the wheel.

  “That was cool,” I heard Ostin say.

  “I think my heart just stopped,” Taylor said.

  “Come on!” Jack shouted. “We only have four minutes to get clear!”

  I reached over and grabbed the rope, and handed it to Taylor. “Go.”

  She slid down the rope until she was low enough that Jack reached up and grabbed her, helping her into the boat. I reduced my magnetism and slid down the hull until I was just a few feet above the boat. Jack grabbed my hand and pulled me in, then shouted to Jaime, “We’re all here! Go, go, go!”

  “Everyone hold on,” Jaime said. He leaned on the throttle and the boat shot forward out to sea. By the time Jaime cut back on the throttle the Ampere looked like a toy boat in the distance.

  I looked around the crowded speedboat. Everyone was there except for Abigail. I smiled at Ian. He just shook his head. “Michael, my man, you know how to make trouble.”