The Fusion Cage

XLI

‘Put it there.’

Alan set the fusion cage down on the floor alongside a set of steel doors, access panels that opened out onto a walkway that encircled the tower just below the salt chamber at the top.

The tower’s base possessed only a narrow entrance, used to bring in the vast lengths of steel pipe used to transport the salts up and down the tower. The heat inside was intense, Mary’s shirt soaked through and Alan’s hair matted flat against his head, his beard glistening with sweat and his face sheened.

Mary could feel the even more intense heat generated by the chamber above them permeating the air and the walls as she positioned the fusion cage beneath the chamber and looked up to the ceiling. When the solar array was active, it directed the light from the mirrors to the heating chamber where they now stood and at the salt tower above them, heating those salts to more than a thousand degrees centigrade.

Alan stepped back from the fusion cage, staring at it as though confused.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘It’s not a bomb, there’s no timer.’

‘Be quiet.’

Mary turned to the steel doors. From her pocket she pulled a small set of folding bolt croppers and handed them to Alan.

‘Break the lock,’ she ordered.

‘I don’t know if I can,’ Alan whimpered, the fear returning once more as he looked at the padlock holding the door latch in place.

‘Try,’ Mary replied, and jabbed the barrel of her pistol against his ribs.

Alan winced and turned, trying to fit the croppers around the padlock’s thick steel bar.

‘The latch,’ Mary uttered as she rolled her eyes. ‘It’ll be easier to cut the latch.’

Alan shifted the croppers to the thinner metal of the latch and dug his shoulders in as he heaved the croppers closed around it. The pincers bit into the metal, and from her vantage point behind him Mary could see them cut through the latch a bit at a time.

Alan heaved and huffed as he fought his way through the unyielding metal, but eventually the croppers sliced through the last of the latch with a sharp click.

‘Good, now open the doors.’

‘We’re three hundred feet above the desert!’ Alan gasped. ‘It’s dangerous to … ’

‘Now!’

Mary’s enraged yell was amplified by the confines of the chamber, and Alan visibly jumped in fright as he looked again at the gun in her hand and then turned and wrenched open a series of deadbolts keeping the doors in place. As the last of them was freed he reached for the handles and pulled the massive doors open.

A blaze of sunlight burst into the chamber as the doors opened to reveal the desert in all of its glory, a vast panorama of sandy terrain tiger — striped with black shadows as the sun began to rise on the far horizon. Mary was taken aback by the sheer spectacle of the huge heliostat array before her as a gust of fresh desert air billowed into the chamber.

Alan whimpered again and his knees buckled as he staggered back from the doors.

‘Please, no more,’ he begged.

‘Sorry, Alan, but you’re my insurance,’ she replied. ‘Out you go.’

Alan’s eyes widened in terror and he shook his head. ‘No, I won’t go.’

Mary aimed at him, the pistol pointed between Alan’s eyes. ‘Now.’

Alan stared up at her, his eyes glazed with tears, but then to her surprise he shook his head.

‘No. You’ll have to just shoot me, I’m not going out there!’

Amber’s eyes widened as she saw a pair of tiny looking doors open high up on the tower and Mary appeared, a gun held to the head of a man slumped on his knees before her.

‘What the hell, Mary?’

Her mother had never before shown even the slightest hint of aggression or violence in all of the years Amber had known her. A pacifist, philanthropist and devotee of nature, Mary Meyer had never even owned a gun as far as Amber could recall. Now, she was threatening the life of a man who looked suspiciously like he worked in the facility and was likely as innocent as Amber.

I don’t want any bystanders to get hurt, Mary had said. Amber’s finger rested on the trigger of the rifle but she began to waver uncertainly as she watched the exchange high above her. The man was crawling away from Mary, one hand held uselessly up to shield himself from the gun as he inched his way toward the ledge outside the heat chamber, three hundred feet above the desert floor.

‘Don’t do it, Mary,’ Amber whispered.

Mary shouted something at the cowering man, the wind now whipping at his hair as he backed out onto the ledge, and then she fired the gun over his head. The shot flashed brightly from the pistol’s muzzle and a few seconds later Amber heard the faint report on the wind.

Without conscious thought Amber switched her aim from the cowering man to Mary Meyer.

‘Don’t do it mom,’ she whispered again.

‘Move!’

Alan crawled backwards, fully outside of the chamber now on the wide ledge that surrounded the heat chamber. He was barely three feet from the edge, and as he got his first good look down so he shook his head again, anger finally breaking through on his features.

‘To hell with you, I’m not going any further!’

Mary aimed over his head and fired a single shot. The pistol jerked in her hand and the report rang in her ears, an unfamiliar burning smell assaulting her. Alan shook his head again, crying openly.

‘No, I’m not going further!’

Mary lowered the pistol and aimed at Alan’s head, steeled herself. Emotions churned through her mind as she thought about what Stanley had endured, at what had been done to him, and as she looked at the man cowering before her she realized that she had become what Stanley’s enemies had become: inhumane.

‘Mary, no!’

The shout from behind her sent a shockwave of alarm through her entire body and she whirled and aimed at the man who had appeared in the chamber behind her. Surprise gave way to fury as she saw Huck Seavers standing before her, his chest heaving as though he had been running.

‘You!’ she hissed.

‘It wasn’t what you think it was!’ Huck said quickly. ‘They had me over a barrel just like Stanley!’

Mary took a pace toward Huck, the pistol aimed squarely at his chest.

‘You, the multi — millionaire coal man, comparing yourself to my late husband?! How dare you even speak his name?!’

‘I didn’t murder him, Mary!’ Huck shouted, the wind picking up around the tower as the sunrise began to warm the deserts below. ‘He let go!’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I had a hold of him!’ Huck shouted. ‘He was being attacked by a man, the same man who convinced me to go into business with Majestic Twelve! I helped Stanley because I realized, too late, that we would all be dead if somebody didn’t make a stand!’

Mary shook her head. ‘You were at the scene! You killed my husband!’

‘I tried to save him!’ Huck protested, his hands in the air beside his head. ‘It’s why I came here! My own family are being threatened now, just like yours! I’ve had to hide them away! I’m not your enemy, Majestic Twelve is!’

‘What happened to Stanley?!’

‘He let go!’ Huck insisted. ‘Said that he didn’t want to give anything away about what you two had planned! He knew they’d get to him in the end! He told me you’d be here at Crescent Dunes, that’s all!’

Mary wavered, tears staining her eyes as she tried to figure out who was lying in what felt to her to be a world of liars. She kept the pistol aimed at Huck.

‘You’re not interested in my husband, or me! All you want is your profits!’

‘Yes!’ Huck shouted back. ‘And those profits are here!’ He pointed at the fusion cage in the centre of the chamber. ‘That’s it, right? The fusion cage that everybody’s chasing after? I don’t want to destroy it, Mary, not any more. I understand what Stanley was trying to do! I want to help. I can manufacture it for you, produce ten thousand of them and ship them for free! It’s the only way to stop Majestic Twelve from covering all of this up! Help me to help you, and let that man go! He’s innocent!’

Mary stared at Huck for a long moment and then she realized that he was telling the truth, saw the same light of compassion in his eyes that she had so often seen in Stanley’s. Huck Seavers, incredibly, had seen the light. Huck saw the change in her expression and he lowered his hands and took a pace toward her.

Mary lowered the pistol and turned to Alan, who was still lying in terror on the ledge.

The shot cracked past Mary, a snap on the wind like a bird’s wing, and she turned to see Huck Seavers quiver. The coal man’s chest shuddered and Mary saw a faint spray of crimson blood puff out on the gusty air from his back as the color drained from his face.

Huck Seavers looked down and saw a red stain spreading on his chest.

Mary dropped her pistol and dashed to Seaver’s side as his legs gave way beneath him and he slumped onto the chamber floor, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping for air.

‘No!’

Mary felt terror ripple through her belly as she held Huck in her arms and screamed at Alan.

‘Go, get help!’

Alan, unsteady on his feet and pale now from the sight of so much blood, staggered past them and ran for the exit. He got as far as the stairwell and then Mary heard a deep thump. She looked up and saw Alan collapse, his eyes rolled up into their sockets.

Moments later a dark skinned, Middle Eastern looking man ascended the steps to the tower, a pistol in one hand as he walked out into the chamber and saw Mary.