“Harcourt,” said Church, “you disappoint me.”
Bolton went for his gun. Church took it away from him and handed it to Violin. She removed the magazine, ejected the round, and then threw the weapon away.
“Harcourt, you have one chance here,” said Church. “Tell me how to stop the countdown. We have the code, but we need to know what to do with it.”
Bolton pulled himself up so that his back was against the car. His clothes were torn and he was bleeding from a dozen cuts.
“Oh really, Deacon?” he said, laughing in Church’s face. “And what will you offer me? A plea bargain? My life? What?”
“What do you want?” asked Church, his voice soft, almost gentle. “What can I offer you that would mean anything to you? Just ask. Tell me what will get this done.”
Bolton spat in Church’s face. “You’re a monster, Deacon. You know that? I even tried to crawl inside your head. Jesus Christ, that was scary as hell. But I know who you are. I know what you are.”
“Then we both know,” said Church as he wiped the spittle from his face. “How does that help us help each other?”
Bolton sneered. “Even if I told you what to do, you couldn’t do it.” He looked at his watch. “You have less than two minutes.”
“Tell me and we’ll try.”
“No, you ass, you have to be there, at the God Machine. You have to input the first ten values of pi. That code cancels out the first one and—”
“No,” said Church.
A slow smile formed on Bolton’s face.
“You’re lying to me,” said Church as he straightened. He tapped his earbud. “You heard?”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE
01:04
“I heard,” I said.
I stood in front of the God Machine. My clothes were torn and streaked with black muck from that alien ocean. Blood leaked hot and wet from my ears and nostrils and from the corners of my eyes. My hands were shaking with palsy. It felt like I’d been away for hours or days, but it had been seconds. Even time seemed fractured.
I turned to Prospero Bell.
“There is no way to stop it. Not even Bolton can do it now.”
Prospero, burned and crooked with damage and disease, smiled at me. His clothes were filthy but his teeth were so white.
“If I do this,” he said, “you have to promise me.”
“Anything,” I said, “I swear.”
“Swear on her. On my sister. On Junie,” he said. He looked down at the broken length of chain that was still locked to his ankle, and at the pipe I’d used to smash two of the links. Then he looked up at me again. “Swear on her.”
I was about to fall down. “I swear on my love for her. I swear, Prospero. I swear on Junie Flynn.”
“Okay,” he said.
He hobbled over to the machine. We were alone there. When the God Machine swallowed us, I went one way and Esteban Santoro went somewhere else. I came back and, so far, he hadn’t.
“Hurry,” I begged.
Prospero bent and kissed the metal skin of the God Machine. The jewels were flashing faster and faster now as the thing cycled up to send the signal to all of those other machines.
00:31
His fingers were crooked from damage, the tendons shortened by the fires that had burned him. But they danced over the surface of the jewels. He touched the emerald first, and then the topaz twice, then the diamond, then the ruby five times. Moving faster. “There is an operational code,” he said, “and that’s the one I gave to Bolton. It’s the calculation of three stars that can be seen from Antarctica. To use the God Machine as a global device, you input those coordinates.”
I nodded. I knew this. My legs buckled and I dropped to my knees.
00:25
“But there is a master code. That resets the entire system. It’s the coordinates of those stars on the day my ancestors first came here,” he said. “A billion years ago.” He turned to me. “That’s how you’ll send me home, too. You understand?”
00:14
“For the love of God, Prospero…”
“And then you put in the coordinates for the stars today. That’s the secret. That completes the energetic circle.”
He smiled and tapped the last numbers in. The same numbers Dr. Kang had found, and then the other set.
00:00:07
The lights all went off and we were plunged into darkness.
Total darkness.
I seemed to swim in it.
The only thing I could see was the digital display on the inside of my goggles.
00:00:02
Steady, unblinking. Burned into the moment.
I bent my head and wept.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX
Trey Willis stood on the deck, staring in blank wonder as the small quadcopters drifted back toward him. He almost ran, but he didn’t. Not because something held him in place — he was free now. But because he had to know what was going to happen.
The little machines flew back toward him, toward the control device he held.
One by one they settled back onto the deck in exactly the same place where they’d been before they’d swarmed off. It took a lot of courage for Trey to set down the device and pick up one of the drones. When he saw the plastic tanks on the bottom he recoiled, set it down, and went running for help.
The only thing he did first was to place the control device on the ground and smash it with his heel.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN
I sat on the edge of a filthy bed, my head in my hands. Alone. All alone.
It was Ghost who found me. He led Harry Bolt down the hall and into the chamber. Harry was covered in blood and soot, and his eyes were crazed. Harry stopped in the doorway and looked around, confused. I sat against the wall of a vast and empty chamber. Prospero’s bed, chains, and a few pieces of debris were the only things in there with me.
“But… but…,” stammered Harry, confused and frightened, “I thought the machine would be in here. There’s nowhere else it could be.”
I raised my head to look at him. “It was here. So was Prospero.”
“But, where’d it go? I mean… how’d they get it out of here? And where’s Prospero?”
Ghost went over and sniffed a spot on the floor where some of Santoro’s blood was spattered. He cocked a leg and pissed all over it. Then Ghost came over and began licking my face. I wrapped my arms around my furry friend and buried my face in his ruff and left Harry to answer his own questions.
I don’t remember passing out at all.
EPILOGUE
Head injury.
Yeah.
Another damn coma. Only two days this time. Lucky me? Not really. Actually, looking back on my life since joining the DMS I’m not really sure where my life falls in relation to the whole “luck” thing.
I woke up. I’m alive and my brain still works.
Hey, if you have your health you have everything, right?