Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [32]
Mr Kelly stopped mid-sentence. ‘Excuse me?’
‘DANGER!’ shouted the girl again, her voice loud and urgent.
‘Excuse me, young lady,’ replied Mr Whitmore, ‘this is not the place for some sort of stupid prank!’
Howard turned to look at the girl.
Something’s wrong. Someone knows!
‘DANGER!’ shouted the girl again, but her finger pointed directly at the reactor, not him. ‘Tachyon interference with the reactor! The reactor will explode!’
Howard had no idea what the hell she was on about. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, perhaps she was just some flaky goth girl making some sort of a protest against experimenting with zero-point energy. He was with her on that, but now was not the best time. He wasn’t going to be distracted. He pushed his way forward towards Chan as the other students began to step back warily from the reactor in response to her outburst.
At last, standing beside the small boy, he looked down at him, his finger poised on the trigger, ready to whip the gun out and fire.
Chan turned to look up at him. ‘What’s the girl at the back saying?’
Howard found himself shrugging. ‘I … uh … I guess she’s having some kinda fit.’
‘Now stop it!’ snapped Mr Whitmore, pushing his way through the bemused students towards the girl. ‘Nothing is going to explode!’
Chan grinned up at Howard. ‘Crazy girl, huh?’
And Howard found himself smiling back at the kid, somehow not quite ready … not quite ready to pull out the gun and fire at point blank range. He really hadn’t expected to be looking down into a friendly face at the very moment he pulled the trigger on Chan.
∗
Without a warning Becks grabbed Liam roughly by the shoulders and man-handled him back from the reactor towards the walkway leading to the sealed exit.
‘Becks! What the hell are you doing? What’s going on?’
‘Imminent threat of explosion,’ she said crisply and calmly, and a little too loudly. Her voice spooked the other students nearby who quickly began to join them backing away from it.
‘Everybody, calm down!’ shouted Mr Kelly. ‘Nothing is going to happen!’
Liam looked up at Becks. ‘Are you sure it’s going to –?’
Becks suddenly stopped dragging him. ‘Too late to escape!’ She yanked Liam’s arm downwards to the floor and he dropped to his knees.
‘Ouch! What are you doing?’
She knelt down in front of him and wrapped her arms round his shoulders, shielding him from the reactor. Liam peeked over her shoulder and saw the reactor’s thick metal casing suddenly start to ripple like jelly and a moment later begin to collapse in on itself.
‘What the –?’
Becks reached out one hand and grabbed his nose painfully. ‘You must lower your head,’ she ordered, yanking him roughly down until he was almost doubled over, his head in her lap. Then all of a sudden he felt the oddest tugging sensation. As if he and Becks and the world around them was being sucked into a gigantic laundry mangler, stretched impossibly thin like elastic strands of spaghetti towards the reactor … following the collapsed metal casing into some inconceivable pinpoint of infinity.
‘Ooooooohhhhh Jaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy-zzzzzzussssssss!’
CHAPTER 20
2001, New York
Maddy and Sal stared at the shimmering window in the middle of the archway. Through a curtain of undulating, rippling air they could see the dim outlines of the storeroom they’d sent Liam and the support unit to.
‘Something’s definitely wrong,’ whispered Sal.
Maddy nodded. ‘That’s the third back-up window they’ve missed.’
Five minutes ago they’d been cheerfully prepping the scheduled return window, assuming that the simple scouting mission had been a success and Liam and the support unit would be ready and waiting to come back and tell them what exactly had happened to Chan.
Now, for the third time, both girls were staring at a dark storeroom with no sign of either of them.
‘Oh boy,’ uttered Maddy. ‘I don’t know what we do now. That’s it – we’ve tried all the back-up windows.’
> Maddy?
She stepped towards the desk and leaned over the deck mic. ‘Yes?’
> You should try the six-month window.
‘Yes … yes, you’re right.’
Bob