“I owe you one, Commander Ryan, I will get you back home, I promise, so… hang on!”
The lasers burst into life. Without the required revolutions and the collider still dormant, the green and blue light burst from the spinning circle of the doorway, shot into the room, hit the far wall, and then an amazing thing happened — the lasers reflected off the old brick and burst backward through the doorway and smashed into the laboratory where the hurricane winds threatened to tear the people and the doorway apart. The electrical charge froze all and they spasmed and jerked. The handholds that Ryan and the others had were not quite enough and they were ripped from one another. The lights burst into a multicolored flash that engulfed the Russian and then the doorway came up to the dimensional-shift speed it needed. The entire room exploded. The guards watching the technicians collapsed into the cowering men and women, and the men next to Doshnikov felt their bodies being swept through the doorway.
Niles froze as the view below was distorted by the blinding light as the Wellsian Doorway burped and then, like a fishing net, a bright circle of light surrounded all and a sparkling sensation filled the room. Before anyone could blink, the sixteen Russians, Joshua Jodle, Jason Ryan, Sara McIntire, Will Mendenhall, Anya Korvesky, and Virginia Pollock vanished as they were pulled into the shift with battering harshness.
The Wellsian Doorway started to wind down as the main coolant lines erupted.
In the observation room Niles Compton turned from the window and saw the two guards staring numbly at the spot where a moment before their boss had been standing with twenty-one other people. Some loose papers still swirled and floated and the static electricity seemed to make anything made of metal glow with light blue haze. The two guards were in shock at the sudden disappearance of Doshnikov and the others. Their mouths were gaping in disbelief. Compton excused himself as he easily reached past Moira and then grabbed the radio before the two Russians could gather their wits, and then the director simply clicked the transmit switch three times in rapid succession. As he did he hoped he had remembered the right number of clicks that Jack had explained earlier.
The two guards turned and knew they had been had when the door burst open and two men — Sergeant Hernandez, who had lost himself in the shuffle and confusion when the intruders had herded everyone down below, and one other from a posted station outside — were on the two before they knew they were being attacked. The two powerful tranquilizer darts hit simultaneously and before the men could grab their chests where they had been struck, two more of the Pfizer chemical — supplied darts hit the men in the neck and shoulders respectively. Their vision clouded and their muscles froze and the paralyzing agent completed the cycle by momentarily cutting the oxygen supply to the brain, dropping the men cold within 1.2 seconds.
“The Los Angeles?” Niles asked.
Sergeant Hernandez rolled the first Russian over and then looked at the director.
“The sudden turn for one hundred and fifteen percent power from a standstill fried a few of her circuits, but other than a small fire in the power transfer cable, the crew says she will be good to go in two hours.”
“Thank God Xavier timed that right. Without the power we would have fried everyone inside that room.” After checking the family Koblenz and after Hernandez and the Marine had safely removed the baby carrier with the explosives, Niles went to the window to check on his other people.
The technicians had all stood and started running for fire extinguishers, and the lone Russian left guarding them could only watch in stunned surprise after the shock of the dimensional displacement. As he tried to close his mouth his weapon was removed from his right hand. The Georgian gangster slowly turned with his toupee askew and saw the young blonde girl from UCLA holding the Glock nine millimeter in his face. Her smile never met her gorgeous green eyes.
“What did you people do?”
“Oops,” she said as she jabbed the taller man in the ribs with the weapon. The young technician was thinking that she could very much get used to this. It was preferable to monitoring gamma radiation readouts.
18
Jenks cursed at the tight fit of the last laser emitter to be installed. It didn’t help any that Charlie was having a difficult time holding the ladder still as he tried in vain to check its wobbly movement on the uneven ground.
The doorway was almost completed and it wasn’t noon on the second day yet. It would have gone faster if they had the help of Collins and Farbeaux, but since the colonel, on Jenks’s own recommendation, had shut down the radar-operated defense system to save precious battery life, necessitating a fifty percent security awareness around the camp. That didn’t stop Jack or Henri from cringing every time the master chief let out a long profanity-laced tirade at poor Ellenshaw.
“There, damn it, that’s the last one,” Jenks said as he eased himself from the shaking ladder. He hit the ground and produced a cigar from his jacket pocket, then lit it with his lighter, the whole time staring a hole through Charlie. Once it was lit to his satisfaction he spit and then looked at Ellenshaw and was about to tear into him for trying to fling him from the ladder when he stopped himself. “Well, I guess I’ve had far worse assistants.” He chomped on the cigar and moved off toward the lone trailer in the center of the camp.
Charlie smiled at the false praise heaped on him by Jenks and allowed the ladder to wobble until it tilted over and hit the centrifuge on its way to the ground. The master chief looked up and shook his head.
“Almost got it, Master Chief?” Collins asked as he and Henri walked into the middle of camp drinking water.
“Yeah, if Crazy Charlie there doesn’t send the whole thing rolling down this hill.”
Jack looked at Ellenshaw as he struggled to get the ladder up. He nodded at Farbeaux, who reluctantly went to assist.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. The doc’s had a rough go of it.” Jenks removed the cigar and looked up from the interior of the trailer as he rummaged for the last two items to complete the doorway. “Hell, I’m used to losing soldiers and seamen. I have to remind myself that civilians don’t react like us old salts.”
Jack nodded, knowing he didn’t have to say anything beyond what Jenks had just explained.
“Is that the portable power unit everyone’s so paranoid about?” Collins asked as he finished his water.
“Paranoid? Yeah, you can say that, Colonel. There are two in existence. This one and one that NASA and General Electric keep close to home. But even more important to our little science experiment is this.” He raised a small foam-encased box and opened it. Jenks held the box out to show Collins. “That is the electrical transducer. It transfers the power from this box”—he slapped the five-by-six-foot generator/storage unit—“to our doorway. Without this you may as well be in Europe with American electrical plugs. You’re shit out of luck. I don’t want to even ask the director how he managed to snag these babies since together they’re worth about the cost of an aircraft carrier and her fighter wing combined.”
“Director Compton has his ways,” Jack said as he turned and looked at the sky. The ash cloud had thickened since morning and the white ash was falling at a far steadier rate. Jenks followed suit.
“That’s another little development. I didn’t want to say anything to the doc, but that’s why he couldn’t hold the ladder straight, I just like yelling. But if you hadn’t noticed, fearless leader, the damn earth is moving in rather peculiar ways since about nine this morning, and the winds have shifted as you just saw. The bulk of the ash cloud is now coming from the southwest, directly from Erebus and her little bitch sisters, and, oh, by the way, the temperature has dropped by twenty-one degrees in the past two hours.”