“You guys are humanity’s last hope, don’t tell me—” Sitterson cut her off.
Don’t tell us what we are, bitch, we already fucking know.
“So?” he asked.
“There’s no cave-in,” Hadley said.
“What!?” We can’t fail we can’t fuck up we can’t let anything go wrong—
Hadley worked his keyboard and pointed at the main screen. It was a view through the tunnel, a staggering transfer through the fifteen cameras along its length. It went from moonlight at one end, to moonlight at the other, with no obvious blockage in between.
“The fucking tunnel is open!”
Sitterson breathed deeply for a second, composing himself. Then he hit a switch and spoke into his microphone.
“This is Control to Demolition.” He waited for a response but heard only static. “Shit, they’re not even picking up!”
“What?” Hadley asked. The panic was brewing in him, the constant nervousness expanding. He looked gray.
“Don’t worry,” Sitterson said, though he was more than worried. He hit another button and spoke again. “Broadcast, can you patch me in to Demolition?” “We’re dark on their whole sector,” an anonymous voice replied. “Might have been a surge in the—” Sitterson cut them off. Sat there breathing for a while. Looked up at the screen, tracking the progress of the Rambler as it careened around the forest track too quickly, wheels spitting grit and mud and the Jock driving it expertly.
He stood quickly, sending his wheeled chair rolling across the floor to strike the wall below the mahogany panels. Two open, three still closed. He blinked at them, then turned to Hadley, who was busy tapping away on his keyboard.
“See if you can bypass—”
“Fuck you think I’m doing?” Hadley snapped. Sitterson started to reply but decided better of it. Instead he turned and walked toward Truman.
“Get the door.”
The soldier shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Mister Sitterson, you’re not supposed to leave the—”
“Open the goddamn door!” Sitterson snapped. He was standing in front of Truman now, the soldier’s uncertainly evident, but his professionalism was also clear. He glanced down at the boy’s pistol, then snorted. What the fuck are you thinking?
“You got family, Truman?” Hadley asked without looking up from his screen. He was sweating, leaning closer to the computer than ever, eyes alight with text and numbers and whatever else he was absorbing.
“Yeah… ” the soldier said.
“Kids get through that tunnel alive, you won’t anymore.” Hadley didn’t even glance up. Sitterson nodded at the screen—the Rambler sliding around a curve, headlamps lighting the trees, wheels spinning—and decided to give Truman three seconds.
At the count of one he’d stepped aside and hit the panel to open the door.
“Good choice,” Sitterson said, and he started to run.
Demolition was one level down, and the staircase was at the end of this corridor, past the dog-leg and past Chem. He reckoned thirty seconds. He wasn’t as young or as fit as he used to be, but he ran faster than he had in years, ignoring the pains in his toes and shins, the burning of his lungs, the thumping of his heart.
Maybe three minutes ’til they reach the tunnel, he thought, running through their route in his mind. That’s if they don’t blow a tire or hit a tree or skid into a ditch. And with what was at stake, there was no way he could rely on anything so remote as luck.
“Make a hole!” he shouted at a couple of guards milling outside Chem. “Fucking move!” They pressed back against the wall and he ran by, wondering whether at that moment Lin might have glanced up at the door and seen his panicked shape rush by. Maybe she had. And if he didn’t run faster, maybe she’d never have the chance to ask him what it had all been about.
In his earpiece Hadley’s voice was shrill.
“I can’t override! It’s asking me to run a systems diagnostic!”
“By the time that’s finished, we’ll be finished!” Sitterson panted.
“Good luck, Buddy.” Sitterson smiled and ran faster, skidding around the dog-leg, pushing between two strolling workers and barreling through the swing-doors leading into the stairwell. He slid down the handrails, quick but cautious—a broken ankle now would mean the end of everything—and then back out into the corridor below. First door to the right was Sustenance, and when he drew level with the door to Demolition he kicked it open and ran inside.
There was a guard standing to the left, hand on the butt of his gun. Sitterson glared at him and rushed by. Just you fucking dare, he thought.
A second to scan the Demolition control room and he knew where the problem was. One large control panel was dark—power off—and from beneath came sparks and flashes. A man and a woman were working the panel, the man flicking a switch back and forth as if persistence could lure electricity back to him, the woman running diagnostic on a wired-up laptop.
Jesus Christ, where do we find these people?
“It’s not the breakers!” the man said, glancing up as he saw Sitterson approach.
“Fuck is going on in here?”
“We don’t know!” the guy whined. “Electrical said there was a glitch up top, one of the creatures?”
“The tunnel should have been blown hours ago!” Sitterson said.
The woman glanced up at him—pretty, terrified— and said, “We never got the order!”
“You need me to tell you to wipe your ass?” He shoved the man aside, glanced down at the laptop screen. She was stuck on the fucking password. “How do we get past this?”
“We’re fried inside,” she said, a quaver to her voice. “We need a clean connection to the detonator—” Sitterson snorted, dropped to the floor and crawled beneath the unit. If they needed a clean connection then why were they fucking around with switches and trying to run a fucking diagnostic! She was stuck on the password, for fuck’s sake! He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to chill, shedding the fearful anger and shifting focus to what needed doing and what had to be done.
After two seconds he opened his eyes again and pulled half a dozen quick-release bolts. Plastic covering fell away and a mass of wires and circuits was revealed.
“Okay, I need you to tell me exactly what went down first and how long after the other systems followed. And hand me a voltmeter.”
“Systems Tech is trying a reboot on the—” the guy started, but Sitterson cut in.
“We don’t have time. Talk me through.”
As the guy talked, Sitterson started checking boards until he found the one that had fried. He noted the number and shouted up for a replacement. It took thirty seconds for the woman to drop one in his hand, and another thirty before he’d replaced it with wire clips. Should be soldered, he thought, closing his eyes as he connected the last wire.
Something hummed, and he saw some of the surface indicators lighting up through the guts of the panel above him.
“We good?” he asked.
“No, that’s just local,” the woman said. “It’s not linked.
“Shit!”
“Lin’s here,” Hadley said through his earpiece.
“Oh, great, she’s just who we need right now. Tell her to go poison someone.”
“The Rambler’s a mile away from the tunnel,” his friend said softly.
“Okay. Okay.” Sitterson scanned the mass of boards and chips, wires and fuses, circuit connectors and relays. A flush of utter hopelessness hit him, but he shoved it aside with an angry growl. He applied the voltmeter here and there, noting where power had failed but also knowing that in each of these places, it shouldn’t really matter. It was the relay to the detonator that mattered, and he’d just replaced…