I sensed more movement coming from the river and twisted my head in that direction. All of a sudden, six smaller alligators stormed ashore. They moved in unison like a well-trained army. They moved with purpose.
They moved to kill.
Sparks of light punctuated the air. Loud bursts of gunfire deafened me. Smoke curled to the ceiling and dissipated. New smoke rose to replace it. And yet, the gators kept coming. I was smack in the middle of a damn war, surrounded by two sides fighting over the right to kill me.
A fist slammed into my back. My pain sensors erupted and I sank to my knees. Calloused hands grabbed my neck and yanked. I toppled backward and fell onto the bedrock.
Chase gave me a caustic look. “When I’m done with you even the gators won’t touch you.”
He grabbed something from the ground. His hand shot into the air. As it plunged toward me, I caught a glint of metal.
I screamed as a sharp blade stabbed into my side. Scalding heat raced through my body. Glancing down, I noticed my own machete penetrating my flesh just above my hip.
Abruptly, Chase’s hand wrenched it out of my body. Fierce stinging pain shot down my side and I nearly passed out.
The searing pain shifted to my head. My entire scalp felt as if it were on fire. I blinked. Through blurry eyes, I saw the gators grow smaller.
I blinked again, thinking that it was a trick of light. But no, they were indeed shrinking.
My boots jerked across the bedrock. The pain in my scalp intensified. I felt Chase’s powerful fingers dragging me backward.
By my hair.
I twisted to the side and rolled. He lost his balance and nearly stumbled on top of me. But at the last second, he let go of his grip. The throbbing in my scalp vanished.
Chase grabbed onto the wall for support. I rose to my knees and dove at him. My arm smashed into the back of his left leg. It collapsed and he fell to the ground. A cry of anguish emitted from his lips, rising above the din of gunfire, shouts, and alligator teeth grinding on bone.
Snaking under his right arm, I grabbed hold of it, isolating it from the rest of his body. I chopped at his hand but he refused to drop the machete.
I stood up, forcing him to rise with me. Then I yanked him around in circles, keeping him off balance.
One time around.
Two times around.
His hand opened.
The machete clattered to the bedrock.
I stopped suddenly, catching him off balance. Lowering my shoulder, I slammed it into his chest and drove him into the wall. He shook off the blow and shoved me away.
Twisting my body, I grabbed the machete. But Chase’s fist caught me on the shoulder before I could swing it at him. I stumbled north, forging an awkward path between two mid-sized gators. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Diane and Beverly, back to back, warding off Standish and some of Chase’s men. Beverly fought fiercely, using her forearms as vicious clubs. Diane, while lacking Beverly’s training, seemed to hold her own amongst the chaos.
I crashed into the Bell. My skin crunched into the metal surface and I tripped over its lip, landing hard on the ground.
Despite my collision with it, the Bell barely moved. If anything, it had drifted closer to the ground rather than toward the river. I examined it for a second. It seemed to be perspiring.
This can’t be good.
“Get up.”
Chase’s scream sounded nearly inhuman. I tried to respond, but I could barely move. I glanced behind me.
Chase marched toward me. He moved with ferocity, twitching with adrenaline. But it was the gun dangling from his right hand that dominated my attention.
I spat out some blood. “Screw you.”
To his right, a gator thrashed about on the ground. Two soldiers stood several yards away, pumping vast amounts of lead into its body. Chase walked by the gator and squeezed the trigger of his Smith & Wesson. It recoiled with a loud blast and a thin column of smoke wafted out of the barrel. The gator collapsed to the bedrock and ceased to move.
As he strode past the dead beast, my gaze fixed upon his face. I thought about Kolen and Adcock, Jenson and his colony, Cartwright and the Sand Demons.
I didn’t care what he did to me. What pissed me off was what he’d done to everybody else. But what really drove me to the edge of insanity was what I knew he would do if I failed to stop him. Not just to me. Not just to Beverly and Diane. But to thousands, if not millions of innocent people. I felt anger pouring through my body. It turned into fury and my fury turned into raw energy.
I started to roll over. But then I caught a glimpse of the Bell’s underside. A long stationary shaft ran from the top of the device to the bottom. Two drums, one on top of the other, were positioned at the top half of the shaft. Dripping with condensation, they counter-rotated slowly, emitting a soft-pitched buzzing noise in the process.
Toward the bottom half of the shaft, I saw a partially cracked door with a big thermos inside of it. Something crystallized inside my head. I still didn’t understand how the Bell worked. However, I knew that it produced a continuous supply of Red Mercury, which acted as a superconductor. And as I stared at the cracked door, I realized that, more likely than not, I was staring directly at the stuff.
Rictor removed some of the Red Mercury to give to Chase and that didn’t blow up the Bell. What if I do the same? Will the device explode?
Only one way to find out.
Sticking my machete under the Bell, I jabbed it at the thermos. My blade bounced off harmlessly. Clenching my fist, I jabbed it again and again. Eventually, I poked a few holes in it and a razor-thin line of powder began to seep out.
Grabbing some of the powder, I palmed it. Then, I rolled onto my stomach and lifted myself to my knees.
Chase strode right up to me and stopped. Just beyond him, I saw the giant alligator lumbering toward us. A plan formed in my brain and I readied the powder. If I threw it in his face at the exact moment the gator arrived, Chase wouldn’t have a chance.
“See you in the next life, Cyclone.”
As the gun leveled at my face, I realized my plan wouldn’t work. The gator was still a few yards away. The powder was at my side, clutched in my fingers.
Jumping up, I knocked his gun hand into the air. As I did so, I released the powder and it flew toward the river.
Chase and I struggled over the gun. I knocked it from his grasp. It fell to the ground and he shoved me toward the river.
As he stooped for his gun, I saw my pistol. My fingers closed around it. There was no time to think, only time to react. Raising the gun, I pointed it into the air. But before I could fire, the drifting cloud of Red Mercury sparked.
And then, the whole damn place went up in flames.
Chapter 64
A fireball formed over the river, sucking oxygen out of my lungs. The ground rumbled. The bedrock walls imploded.
Small slabs of rock hurtled in all directions, some smashing harmlessly into the walls. Others crashed into the gators. Still others knocked people down like bowling pins.
I focused my attention on the river. It seemed almost alive, shuddering and frothing angrily. I edged away, unsure of what to expect.
A jet of water exploded through the western wall. It slammed into the waterway, turning the seething river into white water rapids.
A loud bursting noise filled the air. The water level started to sink. Leaning closer, I saw a long, deep crack forming at the bottom of the rapids. It sucked the river into it, like bathwater running down a drain.
The gator paused in mid-step. Chase stood rooted to the spot. Both seemed to recognize that something bad was about to happen.
Something really bad.
I looked past Chase and saw Diane and Beverly ten yards away. They were staring at me and pointing. They appeared to be yelling, but I couldn’t make out the words.
My eyes shifted and I saw others looking at me. I swung around. Abruptly, the bottom of the riverbed crumbled away. My eyes widened as the river vanished. Next thing I knew I was standing next to a gigantic natural chasm.
Water gushed from the west, cascading into the hole. The torrent crashed thunderously against an invisible bottom, somewhere far beneath me. It was like the underground version of Niagara Falls.
And I was standing right next to it.
The Bell was still my primary concern. At any moment, it could explode, turning the current destruction into a citywide nightmare.
Remove the rest of the Red Mercury? Or shove it into the chasm?
As I stared at the Bell, which still floated several inches above the bedrock, I weighed my options. Somehow, the exposed Red Mercury had self-detonated, albeit at a relatively small level. Removing the rest of it all at once could cause a catastrophic explosion.
On the other hand, if I shoved the Bell over the chasm, it would eventually fall to the bottom. It would explode, that much seemed certain. But the reduced amount of Red Mercury along with the extra distance from the surface could limit its reach. Even better, it would be difficult, if not impossible to recover the Bell from the bottom of the hole.
I made up my mind. Turning away from the chasm, I took up position behind the Bell. I leaned my shoulder against it, feeling its lukewarm, wet surface against my skin. I pushed it with all my might.
“Cyclone.”
I ducked just as Chase’s fist sailed through the air. His hand slammed into the side of the Bell. Despite the mayhem that surrounded me, I heard a light ping emanate from the object.
He howled and shook his hand vigorously.
“It’s over,” I said. “You lost. Now help me get this thing over the chasm before it kills us all.”
“This isn’t over, not by a long shot.”
He tackled me to the bedrock. The ceiling above my head began to tremble. A collapse seemed imminent.
My eyes locked on his and I saw the insanity that plagued his soul. He was beyond reason, beyond help.
I elbowed him in the side and rolled back to the Bell. And that was when I got my second look at its interior. The drums vibrated but barely turned. The thermos of Red Mercury, now punctured, emitted a strange smoke.
I turned it over in my mind, quickly comparing my observations to everything I’d read in the journal. But I kept getting distracted by a single question.
Why does it need a constant source of electricity?
Ever since I’d unplugged it, the Bell had changed. It gained weight. It started to emit strange condensation. It no longer felt cold to the touch.
I remembered something from the journal. It talked about the process of creating a superconductor. One of the steps involved temperature. Words flashed before my eyes.
Liquid nitrogen.
Torsion.
My brain lit up like a Christmas tree. It was so obvious that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out already.
Red Mercury was a superconductor and thus, required supercooling. That was the purpose of the liquid nitrogen. Most likely, it was stored in the central shaft.
Chase jumped on top of me and rained blows down on my face. As I covered up, protecting myself, I pictured the Bell in my head. Fuel poured into the counter-rotating drums. They spun at top-speed, causing the molecules to undergo torsion. The resulting substance, Red Mercury, was collected in the thermos.
By removing the electricity, the liquid nitrogen apparatus had stopped working. As a result, the Red Mercury gradually lost its superconductivity. And that, I was willing to bet, was what caused it to become explosive.
I lifted my knees, throwing Chase off-balance and snapped an elbow at his jaw. It smashed against his face and I heard a tiny pop.
As he slipped to the side, I reached a hand underneath the Bell. I wasn’t one hundred certain that I was doing the right thing, maybe not even fifty percent. But I was out of options. Chase wasn’t going to allow me time to push it into the chasm. That left me with just one move.
I grabbed hold of the thermos. Doubts appeared in my mind, but I brushed them away. Everything I saw in Hartek’s journal indicated that Red Mercury became a dangerous substance upon reaching a superconductive state. However, it only became volatile when it lost superconductivity. And based on the relatively minor detonation I’d observed, I was willing to bet that one other factor played a role in the substance’s explosive power.
Concentration.
If my theory was correct, it wasn’t the Red Mercury losing superconductivity that I needed to worry about. It was a ton of Red Mercury particles losing superconductivity while still bottled up tightly within the Bell.
Bracing myself, I yanked the thermos and it popped out of the Bell.
I bit my tongue as the Bell slammed to the earth, crushing my arm under it. I heard a crack but it sounded like it came from the bedrock instead of from my bones. Still, it hurt so badly, I could barely think.
Clearing my mind, I lifted my hand and smashed the thermos against the bedrock. I heard it crack and felt the glassy substance disintegrate in my fingers. A single thought rose in my brain.
I’m still alive.
The Red Mercury hadn’t exploded. Yet. But I didn’t have time to enjoy my brief triumph. Through hazy vision, I saw Chase step over me. His face was twisted with rage.
I chuckled despite the pain. “I hate to have to tell you this. But I think I broke it.”
I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Beverly, running toward me. But it wasn’t just her. There was something else.
Something big.
Something mean.
Something deadly.
Chase shoved his face into mine. “Where’s Hartek’s journal?”
I reached into my satchel and removed the book. “You mean this?”
Before he could stop me, I launched it into the air. It arced gently before falling unceremoniously into the chasm.
His face tightened and he lifted his gun.
I yanked my pinned arm as hard as I could. The bedrock scraped off a layer of flesh as I dragged the limb partway out from under the Bell. But once my wrist reached the lip, I couldn’t move it any farther.