Callsign: King - Blackout

47

King pressed himself flat against the ground, trying to create as much friction as he could to keep from following Brown into the black hole. His legs and lower torso still dangled out over the precipice. He didn’t know whether the gambler had thrown himself in or simply fallen, but from the moment he’d managed to snare Brown’s leg, he’d known that his survival would depend on finding something else to hold onto.

In his peripheral vision, he’d glimpsed Brown’s arrival at the event horizon of the micro black hole. The gambler’s plunge seemed to slow as he neared the bottom of the crater, coming to an almost complete stop, suspended in mid air right above the roiling distortion that concealed the black hole. Brown’s agonized face gazed up from the pit, an expression of profound disappointment fixed there as if sculpted in bronze. His legs and lower torso, much closer to the center, appeared to stretch, as if made of taffy, and swirled into the nothingness.

King thought about what Pradesh had said earlier. You experience infinity…like being one with the mind of God.

I wonder what Brown’s infinity looks like.

He turned away, knowing that he was one wrong move away from sharing Brown’s fate. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any right moves. Then he felt a hand close on his outstretched arm.

It was Julia. Her face was a twisted mask of fear and exhaustion, but her grip on his wrist was fierce, determined. She certainly wasn’t strong enough to pull him back, nor did she weigh enough to anchor him, but he could see that she wasn’t about to let go. He gave her a nod of encouragement, and then, trusting in her resolve, he took a chance.

On his first try, he managed to scoot forward just an inch, but it was progress. He tried again and succeeded in getting his thighs up onto solid ground, and after that, he was able to extricate himself in short order. As soon as he was moving unaided, Julia shrank back, away from the edge, and pressed herself against a section of stone wall. King realized that he knew nothing about this woman that had just come to his aid; he wondered if he would ever get a chance to change that.

Fiona and Sara still dangled from Alexander’s outstretched arm. How long had they been there? A few seconds? Minutes? Alexander’s strength was literally the stuff of legend, but even demigods had their limitations. And if the mythic Hercules wasn’t strong enough to pull them back from the brink, what could he hope to accomplish? The simple truth was that pulling his loved ones from danger was beyond his ability. So what did that leave?

He was moving again before he had an answer, crawling to where Alexander still lay pinned and almost completely spent, but he did not stop there. Instead, he kept going, out over the edge. He moved with the practiced caution of a veteran climber, picking out handholds, wedging hands and feet into cracks. His limbs felt like molten lead, and every maneuver required an extraordinary exertion, but his destination was close.

“Sara!” He called out, and then, “Fiona! I’m here.”