Apocalypse

59

The grenade arced across the dock and clattered against the deck panels as it vanished into the adjoining corridor. A terrific blast of noise and light flared outside and Lopez hauled herself up and out of the submersible. Ethan followed her with his pistol drawn as they tumbled down the Intrepid’s hull and leapt onto the dock.

Ethan ducked down behind one of the steel mooring bollards and aimed down the corridor through the faint wisps of smoke writhing from the flash-bang. He saw no movement, no soldiers, no gunfire. Nothing.

‘That was too easy,’ Lopez said from where she squatted behind a similar bollard.

‘Much too easy,’ Ethan agreed, and called back to Katherine. ‘Clear.’

Katherine Abell popped her head out of the Intrepid’s hatch before climbing out and watching as Ethan grabbed a mooring line and secured the submersible.

‘Tie her loosely,’ he said to Lopez. ‘We don’t know if we’ll have to leave in a hurry.’

‘I won’t be hanging around,’ she replied, and looked up at the dome above her, clearly imagining the near half-mile of water pressing down upon it. ‘Trust me.’

The adjoining corridor was lit by overhead panels, and narrow portholes on either side looked out into the darkness; but nothing cluttered their path as they walked into the complex.

‘The other submersible must be docked off one of the other arms,’ Lopez said.

‘The Event Horizon is normally anchored to the northeast of the coral-research station,’ Katherine confirmed, ‘because of the strong currents in the Florida Straits. It means that although Joaquin’s submersibles have to use more battery power to get here against the current, you can float out easily enough on minimum power and get back up to the yacht in the event of an emergency. My guess is that the other submersible will be docked on the southwest side.’

Ethan made a mental note.

‘What’s the time?’ Lopez asked, as they neared the end of the corridor where an open hatch awaited, mindful of the deadline that Charles Purcell had set them.

Ethan glanced at his watch. ‘Twenty eighteen hours,’ he replied, ‘only thirty minutes until Charles Purcell said everything would end. So there’s not long left to—’ He broke off and stopped in mid-pace to stare at the face of his watch.

‘What?’ Lopez asked.

Ethan watched in disbelief as the second hand on his watch ticked its way around the dial. He counted several ticks, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

‘My watch is ticking too slowly,’ he uttered.

‘Battery’s running out,’ Lopez suggested.

Katherine looked at her own watch, a digital one, and her jaw dropped.

‘No, he’s right, look.’

Ethan looked at the digital seconds counting up on the display. Even the digital watch was being distorted by something.

‘It’s like time has slowed down,’ he said.

‘It wasn’t like it on the way down here,’ Katherine said.

Ethan struggled to comprehend how it could happen.

‘The guys at Cape Canaveral told us that black holes wrap time and space around them,’ he said. ‘But if that’s the case, surely if Joaquin Abell really has one here, and it’s exposed, then it should be consuming the entire facility around it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lopez said. ‘Maybe he’s got it contained, but somehow some of its effects are still getting out, like a leak?’

‘Hell of a thing to spring a leak from,’ Ethan pointed out.

‘You say we’ve only got until 8:48 to finish this,’ Katherine said to him.

‘Yeah, barely half an hour until the time Charles Purcell said everything would end. He wrote a message on the wall of an apartment in Miami, then confirmed to us later that this would all end at 8:48 this evening.’

‘Well then you’ve actually got longer, isn’t that right? If time runs slower here because of Joaquin’s black hole, maybe you’ve got forty minutes instead.’

‘No,’ Lopez replied. ‘Purcell wrote that time on the apartment wall from his point of reference outside of the black hole’s influence. This will be over in normal time on the surface or in Miami, no matter what happens to our watches down here.’

Ethan looked ahead to where another open hatch vanished into the unknown. The two other hatches to either side of it were closed and locked.

‘Whatever he’s got down here, it’s powerful enough to slow down time for us the closer we get to it. Come on.’

Ethan led the way up to the open hatch and he and Lopez took position either side of it.

‘Ready?’

Lopez nodded, and then with one swift motion they plunged through the hatch, weapons trained on the broad open hangar before them. And then they stopped, jaws agape. Ethan lowered his pistol, words piling up in his mind but unable to break through the seal of disbelief that tied his lips.

‘That’s impossible,’ Lopez stammered. ‘How could they be down here?’

Ethan shook his head, his mind devoid of an adequate explanation for what they were looking at.

Parked in what clearly was being used as a storage space, their hulls and wings sagging with age, were the remains of countless boats and aircraft.