Incandescent purple splotches mixed with red, green, and yellow. Craig was immersed in a white-noise roar of unbelievable intensity. He felt as if every single nerve in his body had been stimulated all at once. He screamed as his body tumbled down the tunnel with the inexorable shock wave, slowed down so he could experience every nuance, every nanosecond of flight.
The cave walls closed down on him, turning liquid-metal purple, reflecting the light from the underground nuclear explosion back onto him. He heard a hissing as yellow and red particles popped off the surface of the liquid, boiling into a swirling plasma—
Streams of vaporized ejecta roared past, right behind a wavefront of impossibly blue-white light. His body moved with the particles, down the constricting tunnel as it stripped away the integrity of his image.
Electromagnetic waves set up resonances. His entire body became an amplifier of ever-increasing frequencies of light—
As his image roared down the tunnel, he tried to scream, but nothing came from his throat. Ahead, the battleship-thick blast doors seemed to crawl together, automatically closing off his path. The wavefront of light and a precursor of material shot past… and he thought he was going to make it past the closing barrier, to safety.
But the foot-thick steel doors inched shut just as he arrived.
Craig screamed as he impacted the thick, high-density shield, and felt himself spraying off into a million different directions.
The heat of a thousand suns struck him from behind.
CHAPTER 41
The huge explosion took place deep in the Nevada desert, five hundred miles from Livermore. But the spectators within the T Program laboratories witnessed it through status lines that scrolled across the workstation screens. PROCESSING.
The sealed door of the VR chamber looked like a bank vault slammed shut, holding Craig inside. Paige watched the silent door and wondered what Craig was seeing even now.
The explosion itself had lasted only a second, but the enhancements from the VR software manipulated terabytes of transmitted data and slowed the explosion down so that the human mind could grasp and experience every instant, stretching time so that an observer could truly witness hands-on, holding a nuclear explosion in his lap.
Paige heard the sudden sharp rumble of sound inside the chambers. An outcry of what might have been Craig’s voice, muffled and insulated through the thick walls of the chamber — and then silence.
They waited.
The computer monitors showed that the simulation had continued running. Gary Lesserec moved about like a demon, checking screen after screen with a broad grin on his face, showing his teeth like a manic Jimmy Olson. His pale skin was flushed, his reddish hair mussed and damp with sweat.
“How long do we sit here?” Paige asked.
Lesserec whirled as if he had been yelled at. “It should be about done by now. I don’t know why he hasn’t come out.”
Ben Goldfarb stood alarmed, yanking down on his conservative FBI tie. “Let’s get him out of there now. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”
“You don’t know,” Lesserec snapped back. “I know damn well what I’m doing. Let a professional handle this.”
Goldfarb spoke with an Antarctic chill. “I am a professional, Mr. Lesserec, and I know when things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to.” He grabbed Lesserec by the collar of his X Men t-shirt; with his other hand he pulled on the young man’s badge chain. “Use your magic code and get Craig out of there. Pronto.”
“I’d do what he says if I were you,” said Jackson, quietly.
“All right, all right,” Lesserec answered with an expression of disgust as he slapped at Goldfarb’s hand, but the special agent would not let go.
Paige stood by the badge reader at the access panel and pounded on the door of the VR chamber. “Craig, can you hear me? Are you all right?” Hearing no answer, she turned to shout, “Lesserec, get your damn badge over here!”
Lesserec lurched to the device, assisted by Goldfarb’s anxiety. When Goldfarb released his grip on the t-shirt, Lesserec smoothed the cotton fabric, then slid his laminated badge into the magnetic strip reader. After he punched in his access code, the locks disengaged with a heavy mechanical thump, and the insulated pneumatic seals unseated themselves. Goldfarb and Paige dug their fingers into the crack and pulled the heavy door open.
Inside, the room was lit only by dim, flickering sparks projected in holograms — the aftermath of the fading explosion out at the Nevada Test Site.
Craig Kreident lay on the floor in a veritable lake of his own sweat. He had toppled out of the automated chair and sprawled with an expression of extreme stress on his face. His eyes were squeezed shut, surrounded by wrinkles like tight slits. His mouth had been pulled back in a grimace. His skin seemed dry and desiccated, as if he had been mummified.
Paige rushed over. “Craig!” she said, dropping to her knees in front of him. She grasped his soaked shirt and pulled on his shoulders to raise him to a sitting position. He breathed shallowly, but at least he breathed.
“Let’s get him out of here. Help me,” she said.
Around them, the grayness and flickering static of the Virtual Reality chamber muted all sounds. Goldfarb and Jackson helped her lift Craig, shaking him until he groaned. His papery eyelids flickered open.
Paige shuddered when she saw the expression behind them, as if the holocaust were still playing inside his mind.
“I’ll get help,” said Jackson and took off.
Gary Lesserec’s muddy green eyes bugged out at the sight. He turned and ran back to the computer workstations.
“Hey, help us here!” Goldfarb said. Lesserec made no response as he disappeared.
“Asshole,” Goldfarb muttered and slung Craig’s right arm over his shoulders. Paige grabbed his waist. Craig groaned and his legs dangled from his body, twitching as if his nerves kept misfiring.
“Craig, are you all right?” Paige said. “Can you hear me? Say something.”
His breath rattled through his mouth, but Paige could decipher no words. Goldfarb and Paige moved forward, hauling Craig along with them. His shoes caught on the carpeted floor, and his jittery legs staggered forward, but Paige thought that might be more of a reflex action than a voluntary effort to assist them.
They walked him out to the main laboratory areas. T Program people scurried around, amazed at Lesserec’s sudden frenzy, but he wouldn’t speak to them at all. He had gone directly to his own workstation, knocking Danielle aside.
“Hey, somebody! Get me some water!” Paige yelled as she and Goldfarb let Craig slump into one of the swivel workstation chairs. His arms dangled behind him. Rivulets of sweat trickled from his fingertips to the floor.
“What did you see, Craig?” she said, whispering in his ear.
His gray eyes flew open. “I saw!” he said in a croaking whisper. “I….” But he could say nothing else.
Danielle hurried up with a cold can of Diet Coke she had yanked from the refrigerator. Paige grimaced at it, then popped the top and pressed the cool aluminum rim against Craig’s parched lips. He sipped some, then coughed, spewing soft drink.
Paige looked wildly around. “Get me some water!”
Tansy Beaumont brought a coffee mug half filled with water, knelt and handed it to Paige. Craig slurped from the tilted cup. Once his lips were wet, Craig began to gulp and gulp.
He gasped, shook his head, and the fog behind his eyes seemed to clear somewhat. He tried to focus on his surroundings again.