Vanished (14 page)

Chloe burst into tears and squeezed him like she'd never
let go.

"I'm all right. Shush." Jon kissed the top of her head, his
hand to her throat so he could monitor her pulse. From the
moment that pregnancy stick glowed positive, he had had an
irrational fear of losing the baby. It was as if he thought that
by factoring profound happiness into his life, something dire
would be required to balance the equation.

Chloe pulled away, now covered with mud. "I know what
you're doing. Stop it."

"Making sure you're OK is a crime?"

"Playing hovering husband is downright felonious. Besides,
you're the one who went swimming in primeval ooze, not me."

"And I, for one, cannot thank you enough." Thomas Hansen
squeezed mud out of his shirt. "Hey, you guys hear that?"

Chloe squinted. "What?"

"That."

Something dragged on the roof of the car.

"Mudslide!" Jon yelled.

As he pushed Chloe toward the exit, the ceiling creaked and
bowed. The weight of the mud deformed the door. He leaned
his shoulder into it but couldn't budge it.

"Get out of the way!" Hansen kicked the door off its hinges.

They jumped out and ran a few hundred feet down the
walkway before daring to glance back. The top of the Quanta
car bent but hadn't collapsed.

Chloe stared. "First fire, then mud."

Hansen doubled over, then sat hard on the walkway.

"Are you hurt?" Jon asked.

"I jammed my ankle busting through the door. Not as tough
as I thought I was. What's this about a fire?"

As Chloe explained, Hansen shook his head, incredulous. "A
fire that burns without fuel. Maybe you two were delirious or
something. From the explosion."

"So you think that's what it was?" Jon said. "An explosion?"

"What else could it be?"

Chloe met his eye. Jon didn't even blink. This guy was
sharp-he'd pick up anything between them. They helped
him up and started walking. Fifteen minutes later, they were
back at the access stairway.

Hansen stared at the fire, mouth ajar. "Impossible," he
finally said.

"It's reality," Chloe said. "Therefore it cannot be impossible."

"It hasn't diminished one bit," Jon said. "Maybe it's an underground pocket of gas feeding the flame."

"We should try to find a way past it to the stairs," Chloe
said.

"The stairs are long gone," Jon said.

"No, they aren't. If you look hard enough, you can see them
on the other side."

Jon didn't want to look. Something immeasurable was in
play here, something they shouldn't mess with. He reached out, mystified to feel no heat. This fire was an affront to the natural
laws of the universe.

He had to figure this out-observe, measure, deduce,
decide. If they could discern the true nature of this thing that
appeared to be fire, perhaps they could also find a way to pass
by it and get to the stairs.

"Chloe, honey. Stand with Tom. OK?" Jon said.

"You're not approaching the fire," she said.

"We'll do it together," Jon said. "Make ourselves a chain so I
can get close, check it out."

"No. I don't like it."

"He'll be all right," Hansen said. "We won't let him fall in."

Jon needed something to extend into the flame. Their twoways had been lost in the mudslide. The particle collector was
on the far side of the fire. He bent down, untied his sneaker,
handed it to Chloe. He stripped off his sock, handed that to
Hansen, then put his sneaker back on. He balled his sock and
tied it into a fat knot. It wasn't much of a measurement device
but he wasn't ready to sacrifice his sneaker to the fire.

This would be a simple experiment-either the sock would
burn or it wouldn't.

"Tom, you hold onto me, and Chloe, you hold onto him. But
no straining."

They linked up, hands clutched to forearms. Jon inched
forward, averting his gaze because the flames were mesmerizing. If he stared into them, he suspected that he'd uncover
a great truth. But maybe some things were best left hidden,
though he had never believed that until this very moment. And
did he truly believe that now-or was truth forcing itself on
him, so he had no choice but to believe?

"Jon, you're veering sideways," Chloe said. "Focus"

Yes. He needed to focus. It was the stairs that mattered. The
fire was irrelevant except as an obstacle.

Three feet away now. Creeping forward. The fire was mute.
Like starlight is mute, Jon thought. Unless one is walking into
a fiery sun, and then it's elementary, Watson. No, elemental.
Get it straight, Sherlock. The interaction of hydrogen and
helium cast photons out as light into the void in a vast miracle
of power and might.

What if he broke away and let the fire take him? Would
the hydrogen and oxygen, carbon and nitrogen that formed
Jonathan David Percy become a solitary photon before he
burned out?

Could he make his own light?

"Jon, you're pulling too hard," Chloe said. "Come on, slow
down."

Her words drew him back into focus.

Observe-this fire burned without fuel and spoke without
a voice.

Measure-this fire burned without warmth and without an
apparent beginning or end.

Deduce-this fire was impossible, and therefore could not
exist. That it did exist meant either their definition of fire was
wrong or it was limited by their means of observation and
measurement.

Decide-touch, feel, know.

That was what Jon wanted most, wasn't it? To know. Or was
it being known that he needed? Science teased him, strutting
out the laws of the universe with glory and majesty, trailing
him and Chloe in its wake. Know this, science said, but when
Jon knew, she'd uncloak the next mystery to be pawed over by
him and his fellow scientists. A pack of wolves ripping apart the
fabric of time and space and matter, clinging to their own scrap
of flesh and howling that they were the ones to pierce the heart
of the matter, raw tatters of the mystery clinging to their fangs
while the lifeblood flowed freely away-

-Jon smelled blood now, longed to drink deeply of its
nature, not as a beast hungers for blood but as a child cries
for milk, because he would die if he didn't know and so he
followed the blood to the fire-

-when something slammed against him. Jon kicked and
punched, trying to get to the fire. Almost there, reaching out his
hand, stretching, his body aching to be taller, bigger, smarter,
better so he could actually touch it-

-then Chloe slapped his face.

Jon coughed, found his voice. "Sorry, I don't know what ... I
just didn't know..."

"I told you not to do it," Chloe said. "You have to stop
playing hero."

"I'm sorry. I should have listened. I am so sorry."

"OK, I get it. You're both sorry," Hansen said. "What's done is
done. At least we know that those stairs aren't a viable option."

"Then what is?" Chloe snapped. "Jon, are you listening?"

He stared at the sock on his hand. The knot had been
sheared off, a perfect line with no threads hanging, no scorch
marks, no wrinkles.

Chloe unrolled the sock from his hand, gasped. "Oh, Jon,
oh, baby."

The tips of his fingers had been cleaved off. Impossibly, no
blood flowed, though Jon could see the capillaries, bones, and
tiny muscles. He felt no pain and no shock because, like the
sock, the margins of the cut were perfect.

As if scored by a laser, he thought. Laser-light amplification
by stimulated emission of radiation.

"We've got to get away from here," Jon said. "We've got to go
right now."

OGAN WAS AMAZED WITH WHAT HAD BEEN DONE OVER ON
East University. Cars pushed out of the way. Younger
adults helping the elderly and corralling kids.

Law and order served with a whopping dose of patience.

How long would this last? There had been no looting after
9/11. But Hurricane Katrina had been a national nightmare
from which New Orleans still hadn't fully recovered.

"The ambulances will be along soon," Logan said in response
to the constant questions. When pressed, he told people about
the informational meeting at two o'clock. Totally bogus, but it
gave them something to hold on to while they waited for the
official responders to arrive.

The injured were a concern. Some had been bandaged and
splinted, but those with significant wounds suffered considerably.

"Chet won't give me real painkillers," Paul Wells said. "Not
without a licensed medical person to write prescriptions. So we
loaded 'em up on Advil and promised help was coming. It is
coming, isn't it, Sarge?"

"Sure," Logan said. "Any minute now. Listen, I'll talk to Chet
in a little while. Meanwhile, can you get some supplies over to
South Spire? Jamie's got her hands full over there."

Wells eyed the Circle. "That looks pretty gnarly."

"We went around the fire. Even Hal Monroe did. But if you're
unsure ...

"Hey! I was just sayin', that's all."

They left Wells loading up a couple of knapsacks and Hal
watching over the injured, and headed down a couple of blocks
to the police substation.

As soon as they got inside, Logan went straight for the bottle
of Tylenol. The pain running down his lower back and into his
leg felt like a knife.

Pappas sat at the dispatch system, punched buttons, and
cursed up a storm. After a minute of getting nothing but white
noise, he tried to manually dial in the emergency bands.

Finally, he grabbed the Tylenol Logan had left on the counter
and slugged down a couple. "The radio is fried, too. Like the
cars and everything else."

"You saying an EMP blast took out everything?" Logan
said.

"Everything's digitally based these days. Anything from
microwaves to kids' toys to those musical greeting cards."
Pappas frowned. "Then again, the pulse would fade over
distance. This place is almost ground zero, but over on South
Spire we were almost a mile from the Circle. I'm surprised the
cars that far away from the blast were affected."

"Which means the trains might have been as well. Assuming
one was passing when the bomb went off."

"Quanta sold shares based on the high-speeds being
terrorist proof. Nothing like waving a red flag-saying you
can't blow 'em up. What better way to derail a MagLev train
than with an EMP blast?"

"Why now?" Logan said. "Why not wait until the president
was riding?"

"We would have found the bombs by then. There were
plans in place to bring in large-scale metal detectors and
check out the whole line. This was probably the last window
of opportunity."

"Bombs, plural? We only saw one."

"An initial detonation. Or maybe just something above
ground to make a splash, something to show on the nightly
news. I'd bet the EMP devices were planted in the Circle-in
the ground, as smaller devices linked in a series. Quanta ran
security checks on everyone involved in the construction and
design, but I'm betting no one vetted the landscapers."

Logan's neck prickled. Maybe the power was out, but his cop
radar was working overtime. "You've got all the answers."

"Just doing my job."

"Your alleged job."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Kinda strange how you knew nothing before the explosion,
but you're a font of information now that it's too late."

"You always this paranoid, Logan?"

"Only on days when a bomb blows up in my face."

Pappas came around the desk, got in his face. "I'm getting
sick of your insinuations."

"It's my home turf. So deal with it."

"If help doesn't come, you'll need me," Pappas said.

"Help will come."

"Dream on, buddy."

Logan had a good four inches on Pappas, but the guy didn't
back down. "Another tip?"

"I've been on the job longer than you, son."

"Don't you call me son."

"I got twenty years on you, most of 'em hard-earned. Point
is, Sergeant, my gut tells me this is bad. You've been a cop
long enough. You sense it, don't you? That razor-scrape in
your stomach-don't you?"

Pappas's voice was soothing now, inviting trust.

Maybe I am being a jerk, Logan thought. "I don't know
what I know-or who I can trust. You're just gonna have to
live with that."

The spell was broken by a hard knock at the door.

Logan unlocked it and let in Johnny Beck. The neighborhood baker, Johnny handed out free cookies every Friday to
the neighborhood kids. He knew each one by name-his own
brand of community policing. "I've been looking for you,
Sergeant," Johnny said.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to tell you what I heard."

"What's that?"

Johnny glanced nervously at Pappas. "OK to talk in front
of him?"

Pappas met Logan's glance, steel-eyed.

He nodded. "Mr. Pappas is a federal agent."

"So they are starting to arrive? People are nervous, saying no
one's come. Glad to see that ain't true."