Hollow World

Chapter Thirteen End of Times

The forest was not as Ellis had remembered. He recalled his journey as frightening—a trip through the unknown. It had been night and the woods were intimidating. This time the soaring trees seemed majestic. Angled shafts of sunlight pierced the high canopy with angelic elegance, dappling the cascading river of moss-covered stones.

He and Pax scrambled up the rocks, following the river. The two had ported out of Firestone Farm back to the hill where they’d shared the stew. From there Ellis took out his compass and notepad, and made general guesses that Pax worked into the Port-a-Call. They performed a series of upriver jumps until Ellis felt certain they were close. Approaching from the opposite direction was more confusing than he expected, and he couldn’t find the marks he had carved in the trees.

That boulder looks familiar. Did I stumble on that?

They were running out of time.

“Yes, any Geo. Ask Vin. This is an emergency. Listen, just let me talk to Vin, okay?”

Behind him, Pax was speaking to Alva, although it looked as if Pax were talking to the sky.

“How are you doing that?” Ellis asked. “How are you communicating? Is it through the Port-a-Call?”

“No. Just a con…what? No, I wasn’t speaking to you, Alva. I was talking to Ellis Rogers…What? We’re sort of busy at the moment…Okay, all right!” Ellis heard Pax huff. “Alva says hello.”

“What’s a con?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s a microscopic receiver-transmitter implant. Just about everyone has them.”

“So, what? You just think about who you want to talk to and then talk?”

“Sort of, yeah…Vin? Yeah, I’m with Ellis Rogers, and we have a very serious problem…Of course, I’m alive. Listen, I need your help…Thanks, I knew I could count on you. I need permission and coords to the Geomancy Institute, and I need them right now…Yes, I’m serious…No! Don’t talk to Pol-789! Don’t talk to anyone on the Council. Go right to the institute…Yes…Yes…Tell them it’s for me, and that I’m bringing Ellis Rogers. Tell them—tell them the sky is falling…Yes, that’s what I said. The sky is falling. Tell them that…You don’t need to understand, and I don’t have time to explain. Just do it, Vin.”

“The sky is falling?” Ellis asked as he trudged up the riverbank.

“It’s a code phrase geomancers use. It indicates the most dire of circumstances. It means drop whatever you’re doing and get on this, because if you don’t, the world will end.”

“Code red,” Ellis said. “That’s what we used to say.” He saw it then, the bright pale scar cut into the bark of the giant tree—a crude arrow pointing to the right. “There!”

He pointed up the slope. “Up here, I think.”

They climbed, and Ellis was becoming desperate. Just as he thought they wouldn’t be able to find it, he caught a glimpse of bright red and blue.

“There it is!” he shouted as they ran to the pile of plastic milk crates surrounding his old van seat.

“This is your time machine?” Pax asked, stunned.

“I told you it wasn’t much to look at.”

Ellis ran to the cooler.

His sweater was still where he’d left it. Throwing it over his shoulder he popped the top off the cooler. More cans of food, bottles of drinking water, and the Internet-purchased Geiger counter were still with the rest of his gear. He had no rational reason to expect it wouldn’t be—just the general nightmarish fear that the worst would always happen when he could least afford it.

“This is it.” He picked up the little handheld and showed it to Pax. The Mazur PRM-9000 was the size of a thick iPhone and looked a bit like a garage door opener except that it had a green digital display and a red LED warning light in the design of a radiation symbol.

“And that can find the bombs?” Pax asked.

“It should. Warren wouldn’t even let me get near the one they had at the lab because it was leaking radiation. The website I bought this from said it had excellent sensitivity for detecting even low levels of radiation in food, which was why I paid six hundred dollars for it. So it ought to be able to pick up a plutonium-leaking nuclear warhead.”

Ellis slipped the Geiger counter into his back pocket. “Have we gotten coordinates yet?”

“Not yet. I have Vin and Alva working on it. They’re calling in favors on my behalf from a few people I’ve helped in the past.”

Ellis pulled his sweater on and plucked leaves off it. Now that the weather had cooled, he found he was happy to have it again. “So you just, what? Think Alva or Vin and they can hear you?”

“They hear a faint tone or the name of the person who is trying to talk to them. The person being called can either accept or reject.”

“Wow.”

“Alva was being a real pain, though. Without my chip, the con can’t verify who I am. And they can’t call me, either, because they don’t have a designation to transmit to. Alva refused to accept my call until I answered all these questions. I actually guessed at one. I suppose it’s good that Alva is so careful, but—” Pax promptly turned away looking up at the trees. “Uh-huh…Really? That’s fantastic! Oh, thanks so much. Yeah, hold on. Let me get the POC out.” Pax grabbed the Port-a-Call. “Okay, go ahead.”

Pax dialed up the coordinates to the Geomancy Institute. A portal appeared, through which Ellis could see the control room in Subduction Zone 540. “We’re all set. Thanks, Vin.”

Looking through the opening, Ellis said, “I know you don’t like it, but I wish I had my gun right now.”

Reaching around, Pax drew the pistol out from where the coat had been hiding the weapon. “If there was ever a time for Superman, this is it, don’t you think?”

Ellis took the gun. He felt less confident holding it this time. He’d seen what it could do to a person, and the metal felt heavier than before. He checked the chamber to make sure it was loaded. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The moment they entered, dozens of people turned to face them. Expressions of irritation, annoyance, and suspicion were the big winners. As before, the geomancers were all wearing long coats and dark-blue safety glasses, some of which were propped on their heads or hanging around their necks. Above them giant screens displayed thermal weather maps of the planet that changed in real time.

“Ellis Rogers, I hope you aren’t planning on making a habit of taking tours here,” one of the many said, approaching them. “I thought I had impressed upon you the seriousness of the work we do here.”

“Geo-12?”

“Yes, and I—”

“Shut up and listen.” If anyone wasn’t looking, this got their attention. Everyone in Hollow World regarded geomancers highly, and a show of disrespect was shocking. Even Pax looked stunned.

“In about two hours, three nuclear bombs will explode and destroy this facility.” Ellis didn’t feel the need to explain the ramifications to people who knew them far better than he did. “The warheads have been ported in and placed somewhere nearby. We need to find and eject them into space.”

“How do you know this?” It wasn’t Geo-12 but one of the others who stepped forward.

“A group of people living on the surface wants to destroy Hollow World,” Pax said. “They have been responsible for several deaths over the last few months. One was Geo-24, who the killer had been impersonating.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Pax-43246018, arbitrator.”

“I’ve heard about you. I’m Geo-3.”

“Pol-789 was with you on the tour here,” Geo-12 told Ellis.

“Except that wasn’t the real Pol.” Ellis took out his Geiger counter and pressed the power button.

The device beeped once, the LED flashed, and an alarm sounded. The backlit LCD read 55.8 µSv/hr.

Ellis had no idea what all this meant. He’d never used a Geiger counter before, and he unfolded the accompanying directions. He scanned for a way to interpret the readings, but while it explained the use of the four buttons and spoke of recalibrating, the paper had no indication of what was a good number and what was bad. Ellis made the assumption that the flashing light and alarm wasn’t a positive sign.

Geo-3 stepped forward, took the device, and stared at it a moment. “An antique? Cute. Radiation levels here are naturally higher. It’s one of the reasons we don’t allow visitors, and when we do, it’s only for short periods. Initiates are altered to withstand these conditions. Still…” Geo-3 looked concerned. “846, run a standard on ground zero and put it on the main.”

Ellis had no idea who was being spoken to. There had to be close to a hundred individuals manning stations. The place looked like NASA ground control staffed by a welders’ guild. Those who didn’t wear the long coats and glasses worked naked at their illuminated virtual 3-D stations, each of which could have been nothing more than an incredible video game. Some even had snacks and drinks beside them. No tattoos, scarves, or masks. Ellis imagined geomancers didn’t care as much about standing out.

“What is it?” Pax asked.

“We only do a general condition survey once a month for known areas, but if this antique detector of yours can be trusted, it’s indicating we’re over the mark on radiation.”

A moment later the big center screen changed to a stylized image of a sun—a circle with numerous rays shooting out from the center. It took a moment for Ellis to realize it was actually an overhead view of the control base he was standing in. Over this were laid the ghostly colors that Ellis had seen in spy movies when they used thermal imaging. Numbers ran across the bottom like a news crawler.

“Look—at—that.” Geo-3 walked toward the screen, causing nearly everyone in the room to look up.

“What?” Ellis asked.

“The radiation is too high. But why? 47, get a lock on the rad source.”

Everyone watched the main screen as colors were isolated and filtered out until just yellow and purple remained. Then the image moved and zoomed, closing in on the center of the purple cloud.

“Give them coats and glasses,” Geo-3 said, pointing at Pax and Ellis.

Geo-12 ran to a wall and retrieved the protective gear from a shelf and some pegs.

“Come with me.” Geo-3 took a step and then stopped, turned, and shouted to the room, “Wake up Geo-1 and Geo-2. Tell them the sky is falling.”

The glasses made it possible to see in the bright portways. They passed through the viscous molten stone, but didn’t go far out the door—just a few steps.

“There,” Geo-3 said. Looking through the walls of the portway tunnel, Ellis spotted a dull metal object set in the natural black rock about a football field away. “That could be an old-fashioned bomb.”

“I can barely see it.”

“On the side of the glasses,” Geo-3 said. “Two sensors. Top zooms in, bottom zooms out.”

Ellis ran his fingers along the rims of the frame, as he fingered something smooth his sight changed, pulling the image of the bomb closer until he could see the familiar radiation symbol on the dull-metal casing. “That’s one.” He turned to Pax. “Can you use your Port-a-Call to create a portal underneath it? Let it just fall out into space somewhere?”

Pax’s head was shaking. “Port-a-Call portals are limited to vertical formations for safety reasons, and besides that’s too far. The maximum distance a POC can open a portal is twenty-five feet, right?”

Geo-3 nodded.

“So someone has to go out there?” Ellis asked.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Geo-3 said, leading them all back inside. “And don’t worry about it we’ll take care of that one. But you said there were two others, right?”

“Yeah…but they were working on one of them so they may have only placed two.”

“And we have two hours?”

“Less than that, I think. The bombs go off at 14:54 Hollow World core time.”

They reentered the command center, and Geo-3 pulled off the safety glasses. “I want an immediate extraction on the P-grid. Send Alpha team to deliver the package into the void where it won’t bother anyone. 1004 through 1020, supply search teams with scanners set for a danger threshold above the envelope at a range of five hundred.”

“I don’t think we have enough scanners,” someone said from the upper deck.

Geo-3 looked annoyed but took a breath. “You have a Maker. Use it, and be quick or we’re all gonna die—so no pressure.” Geo-3 turned to Ellis and Pax. “I honestly don’t know how 1028 passed the entrance exam, much less survived the initiate program. His father must know someone.”

“Father?” Ellis was shocked.

Pax touched his back. “It’s a joke.”

Geo-3 smiled at them. “The two of you need to relax. Stress is not your friend.”

“We’ve only got minutes before we die in a nuclear explosion, and that’s if I got the time right,” Ellis said.

Geo-3 laughed. “So?”

“Well, if that isn’t a time to stress, I don’t know what is.”

A portal popped in the center of the command, and a geomancer in a hard hat walked out. “Status, Three?”

“Just another day, One.”

“That bad?”

The two exchanged grins that looked genuinely pleased. They could have been Top Gun fighter pilots, climbing into cockpits on the way to a dogfight.

“’Fraid so. We got three antique nuclear explosives hidden around the sublevel set to explode in less than one hundred and twenty-three minutes. Found one conveniently located right outside. I’m sending Alpha to eject it.”

Geo-1 looked incredulous. “Nuclear explosives? What the bleez?”

“Honestly, I haven’t taken the time to ask. Figure we can do that later over antique cocktails.”

“Good enough,” Geo-1 said. “Prometheus! Wake up, old lady!”

“You know I don’t sleep,” a powerful voice boomed, and Ellis was certain that if the planet itself could speak, this was how it would sound.

“Prometheus, we have a problem here.”

Ellis couldn’t help thinking he was watching a live-action remake of Apollo 13. All around, people rushed with purpose, grabbing hazard suits and pulling them on. No panic, no fear visible. He and Pax could have been in a firehouse watching the men suit up and slide down the pole.

“I have been monitoring the situation,” Prometheus’s powerful voice boomed.

“If you would be so kind, please punch us to Full-Core. It’s time to make sure everyone is awake.”

“Announcing Full Core,” Prometheus said, and an alarm echoed. The sound inside the control room was muffled. But Ellis also felt a rumble as something large was moved, although he couldn’t see what.

“We’ve got at least one and possibly two more explosives to locate,” Geo-1 shouted. “Everyone not crucial, hit the portways. The rest I want remote-tracking. Keep your cons open for information about locations. Report the moment you find something.”

“What can we do?” Pax asked Geo-3.

“Stay out of the way and let us do our job.”

“Is this really just another typical day for you?” Ellis asked.

Geo-3 grinned. “Oh, the stories I could tell.”

Ellis and Pax had climbed up one tier of stairs to the second-floor stations and stood near the rail, which kept them out of traffic. The elevation made it easier to watch the Jumbotron, as they didn’t need to crane their necks so far. They stood holding on to the balcony rail, watching the big monitor as the purple cloud dwindled and disappeared.

A cheer filled the command center, but it was brief, as there were still two more to eject.

“I never knew it was like this down here,” Pax said. “It’s so scary—exciting, but scary. The rest of Hollow World has no idea. We show geomancers respect and all—revere them, observe Geomancer Day—but I don’t think anyone above us has a clue why. Until you actually come here and see it—you can’t really know.”

“That’s one gone,” Geo-1 told them, climbing up the stairs. “And a team near Amethyst Ring says they have a lock on the second. They’re moving to eject it now. But there’s been no sign of the third. Are you sure there were three?”

“They were working on the third when I left,” Ellis said. “Having trouble with the timer. It’s possible they couldn’t get it to work at all. The bombs are pretty old.”

“About as old as you.”

Ellis was wondering why Geo-1 never asked who or what he was. Most Hollow World residents gawked. The geomancers didn’t seem to notice.

“You know me?”

“Can’t go anywhere without hearing about Ellis Rogers. You’re as popular as the last tank of air at the bottom of the sea. So I’m old—real old, and these bombs are older than I am. Where’d they come from?”

“Museum of War in Jerusalem.”

“Makes sense, but those warheads wouldn’t be live. The radioactive materials would have been removed.”

“They obviously managed to rearm them.”

Geo-1 nodded. “So there might not be a third to deal with?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope not.” Geo-1 looked up at the screens. “Cause we can’t find it. And that disturbs me.”

Ellis imagined it took an awful lot to disturb Geo-1.

“How long do we have?” Ellis asked.

“Thirty minutes, and I—”

Geo-1 stopped, eyes darting about the way people do when listening to a sports broadcast on earphones. “Fantastic! I don’t need to remind you we’re in a race here, right?” There was a pause. “Good work!” Geo-1 looked up and grinned. “We got it. Right outside in the Sea of Gehenna portway—just appeared on the readout. Delta team is on it.”

“Did you say it just appeared?” Ellis asked.

“Yep. Must have just ported it in.” Geo-1 fixed Ellis with a crushing stare. The face was that of a twenty-something, but the eyes were old, and hard as those of a salt-leached sailor. “And you’re positive there were only three?”

“That’s what I was told and what I saw.”

“Okay then, looks like we have this.”

Ellis wanted to check the time, but the battery of his cellphone had finally died. He wished he still wore a watch.

“Could I use one of your Makers?” Pax asked.

Geo-1 pointed. “Third floor.”

“Does it have a standard menu?”

“It’s custom—but it has the basics too.”

“Thanks.” Pax took Ellis by the hand and led him up to the third floor, where they found a small bank of industrial-designed Makers in various sizes, each connected to an auto-feed gravel chute. One was the size of a walk-in freezer with huge double doors that would have been roomy enough to summon a Buick. A hand wave from Pax made one of the smaller countertop models light up.

“Antique watches,” Pax said.

A panel came to life and displayed a series of 3-D timepieces that rotated in midair. They were projected images but looked solid, as if he could pluck one up. Ellis saw complicated diver’s watches, digital ones, diamond-encrusted bracelet pieces, multicolored plastic ones, pocket watches, even an original Ingersoll Mickey Mouse with a leather band.

“Have a preference?” Pax asked.

“A digital.” Ellis pointed when Pax didn’t understand.

Pax selected the watch pattern. A flash occurred and a bing. Pax opened the door and handed Ellis the watch from the image. It felt warm and blinked 12:00. He played with the buttons, discovering the watch had a timer before he worked out how to set it, which he did according to the displayed Hollow World core time. If what Warren told him was accurate, they had seventeen minutes. Ellis set a countdown running. Then they returned to their perch.

“Pax,” Ellis said, “how did you know I wanted a watch?”

Pax shrugged. “You just looked like you did.”

“Seriously? You thought I looked like I wanted a watch.”

“Well you must have, right?”

“And how did you know I didn’t kill Geo-24 when we first met? Did I just look innocent?”

“I’ve told you…I’m an arbitrator and a good judge of character.”

“But you also knew the Geomancer’s phrase about the sky is falling.”

Pax smiled uncomfortably.

“You learned that from your first meeting with Geo-24, didn’t you? During that conversation on Miracles Day, right? Only I’ll bet Geo-24 never told you.”

“I don’t know what—”

“You probably said something that Geo-24 picked up on. You made a mistake because you were flustered and starstruck. You slipped and Geo-24, being trained to detect even tiny anomalies, noticed. That’s why Geo-24 was researching you. I bet your record was extraordinary. All those people you helped, like Vin. No one else could do anything. Even the ISP was helpless when Vin continued to scoop out pair after pair of eyes with a spoon. But you were able to save them all, weren’t you? Able to understand, to feel their pain.”

“Understanding and helping people is what arbitrators do.”

“But your skill goes beyond understanding, doesn’t it? You found out the code phrase from Geo-24, just like you found out about Ren from Pol. You tried to warn me about them. You knew what they were going to do.”

“No. No.” Pax’s head shook. “I didn’t know about all this. If I had—”

“You’re right. You didn’t know…until you found me at Firestone Farm. I was telling you how we had to leave, and then you brought up how they were going to concrete Hollow World.”

Pax looked frightened, drawing away from him. “Ellis Rogers, please, don’t—”

Below them the command room erupted in surprise as someone dressed in a full hazard suit entered, dragging another behind. The moment they cleared the tunnel Ellis could see the streak of blood the limp body trailed across the floor.

“People are with the bomb!” the member of Delta team who was standing said as others rushed to help the bleeder. “There was this series of loud pops, and 884 fell. I felt a pain in my…in my…” The team member collapsed. As he did, Ellis saw a small hole through the suit near the shoulder.

“Warren,” Ellis told Pax. “He’s guarding the bomb.”

“Send Beta and Alpha teams in to—” Geo-1 started to say.

“Don’t send anyone else!” Ellis shouted from above as he and Pax scrambled down the stairs to the cluster surrounding the wounded geomancers. “He’ll kill anyone who comes close.”

“Who’s he?” Geo-1 asked.

“Warren Eckard.”

“Another Darwin?”

“Yes. He has a gun and will shoot anyone coming near. He must have discovered we’re spacing the other bombs and intends to make certain this one goes off. He’ll probably wait until the last second and then port out.”

“Can you—can Prometheus create a portway to the bomb?” Pax asked. “Isolate it?”

Geo-1 nodded. “But it won’t help. Portways are tunnels with open ends. When the explosion goes off, half the force will blow back through here, ripping GI apart.”

“Like the barrel of a gun,” Ellis said. He glanced at his new watch: 00:14:53. “I’m going to need a Port-a-Call.”

“I’ve got one,” Pax said firmly. “And yes, I know what you’re thinking—and no, that’s not going to happen unless you shoot me dead. And yes, you’re right, we don’t have time to argue. So let’s go.”

“Promise to admit to me how you do that, and you can come.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know if we live through this.”

“Deal.”

“You might want to have everyone evacuate,” Pax said.

“Yeah.” Ellis nodded.

Geo-1 turned to Geo-3. “Call it. Purge Hollow World—everyone to the surface.”

“I hope they still remember the drill,” Geo-3 said.

“In fifteen minutes, if we’re all still here, you’ll know if we were successful. If not…”

“What are you going to do?” Geo-1 asked.

Ellis drew out the pistol. It felt cold. “Stop him.”