There was a mad rush of what sounded like wind blowing by our steel cocoon. Given that the walls were a few feet thick, I could only imagine what it sounded like outside in the dome.
We all tightened our grip on one another, waiting for . . . what? Instant annihilation? Or would there be an inviting bright light for us all to walk into? The thought hit me that by being inside this protected igloo we might have given up our chance at a quick and painless death. If we had been standing in front of the Bridge, once the nuclear rush came blasting through from the future we would have been vaporized in a nanosecond. Huddling inside a thick bunker could mean the end would come agonizingly slowly, as the heat and radiation gradually burned through the metal skin on its way to get us.
The wind turned into a shriek. The pod shuddered as if trying to brace itself against the ferocious onslaught.
Tori let out a small, tense whimper. It was the only sign of fear that any of us showed.
“This is it,” Kent said.
As if on cue, the nuclear wind suddenly stopped. There was a moment of calm, then it picked up again with even more bone-rattling violence. The floor beneath us vibrated and the pod shook. I couldn’t imagine a force so strong that it could make such a solid structure tremble. I expected it to be torn from the floor and be tossed around inside the dome like a frantic pinball.
The red light continued flashing. We alternated between being bathed in blood-red light, to being thrown into total darkness.
I prayed that whatever was going to happen would happen fast. The waiting was torture. The pod grew hot, though I couldn’t tell if that was from our own body heat or from the atomic fire burning outside.
The wind grew into a demonic shriek that tore into my brain.
Until it stopped.
Suddenly.
It didn’t trail off, it simply ended. We were in silence. The only sound was the steady click . . . click . . . click of the red light as it flashed on and off.
We all looked up tentatively.
“Is that it?” Kent asked. “Is it over?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ve never been through an atomic blast before.”
None of us moved. We had no idea of what to do because we didn’t think we’d still be alive to have to worry about it. We stayed like that for I don’t know how long. Five minutes? Ten?
“We can’t go outside,” Tori said. “The radiation will—”
The wheel to the hatch began turning with a metallic squeal. Instantly, the red light went out and we were plunged into darkness.
I felt more intense panic in that moment than in the seconds before the bomb exploded.
“Someone’s out there,” Kent said, breathless. “They’re opening it up!”
“No!” I screamed. “The radiation!”
I pushed my way past Tori and Kent, stumbling over them in the dark to get to the wheel to stop it from turning. We were all caught up in a jumble of hands and arms and legs as I lunged for the door.
“Stop!” Tori yelled. “Don’t open it!”
“They can’t hear you,” Kent said. “It’s too thick.”
I struggled to prevent the wheel from turning but the force was too great.
“How could anyone be out there?” Kent said.
“It might be automatic,” Tori said.
“I can’t hold it,” I said, straining, doing all I could to keep my grip.
With one final twist the wheel stopped and with a sucking sound, the door was unsealed.
I fell back into the arms of my friends.
What would happen when radiation flooded into the small chamber? Would we die instantly or was this the beginning of a slow, agonizing fall into a burning oblivion?
We all lay on the floor, looking up with wonder and fear as light appeared around the edges of the frame. The light grew as the door was slowly opened, blinding us.
There was a rush of air into the pod. Fresh, cool air. Was that what radiation felt like? I held my breath, for whatever good that would do.
“What in blazes?” someone bellowed outside of the pod.
The hatch was thrown open and once my eyes adjusted to the light I saw that several men were standing outside in the dome. None of them looked to have radiation suits on, but they were all carrying rifles. They were soldiers, but I couldn’t tell if they were Retros or SYLO.
“Come out of there,” the same guy said, gruffly. “Keep your hands where we can see ’em.”
“There are two unconscious people in here,” I said.
“Leave ’em,” the guy commanded. “Put your hands on your head and step out.”
“What’s going on?” Kent whispered.
“You’re asking me like I know?” I replied.
“Shut it!” the guy bellowed. “Hands on heads. Step out one at a time.”
I went first. I put my hands on my head and cautiously moved forward, ducked down, and stepped out of the pod to face a line of armed soldiers, all pointing rifles at me.
They weren’t SYLO or Retros. At least as far as I could tell. These guys were wearing dark-green combat uniforms and green helmets.
“Stand right there,” the leader said. “Don’t move.”
The guy in charge was short, wide, and carried himself with confidence. Over his right breast pocket was a white patch with the name CARINO stitched in black. Over his left breast pocket was a black patch with U.S. ARMY stitched in yellow. Apparently a third branch of the United States military had joined the war. It was anybody’s guess as to which side they were on.
I followed his orders and stood there while the others crawled out of the capsule. I looked around the dome, expecting to see damage caused by the rush of atomic energy, but there was nothing. It looked no different from when we had stepped into the pod . . . with one very big change.
The Bridge was gone.
The giant frame that encased the wormhole into the future was no longer there. In its place was a white cylinder that looked all too familiar. It was a bomb that looked exactly like the one that had just detonated in the future.
In front of it were several jeeps that these soldiers must have driven through the door that was now wide open.
“We’re dead, right?” Kent asked as he stepped up to me. “Or it’s a dream.”
“I’m guessing we’re dead,” Tori said as she stepped up.
“Shut it!” Carino ordered. He turned to his men and said, “Get the others out of there. Be careful.”
Several of his men charged into the pod and a few seconds later they came out carrying Olivia and Feit. They laid them down on the floor in front of us.
Olivia groaned. It was the first sign of life she had shown since being shot by Feit’s pulser.
Kent knelt down to her but one of the soldiers stepped up and waved his rifle in his face.
“Back off, junior,” the soldier ordered.
“She’s hurt,” Kent said. “Can’t you see that?”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m seeing,” Carino said.
He walked to Olivia and looked down at her like she was an alien.
Olivia opened her eyes, blinked, and focused on the soldier who loomed over her.
“You’re kind of cute,” she said. “For a hallucination.”
Carino backed off, stunned, and he looked like the kind of guy who didn’t stun easily. He looked us all over, shaking his head, as if we were the ones who were hallucinations.
“Don’t move, none of ya,” he said and backed away toward his line of soldiers, most of whom were aiming their rifles at us.
From one he grabbed a chunky green canister that looked like a skinny shoebox with a huge antenna sticking out of one end. He stepped away from the group and talked into it.
“Carino here,” he said. “We got ’em out.”
“It’s a walkie-talkie,” Tori whispered.
“No it isn’t,” Kent said.
“Quiet!” a soldier commanded.
“What’s going on?” Olivia said, groggy.
“Don’t move,” Kent said. “Everything’s cool.”
One of the soldiers snickered.
“What’s so funny?” Kent asked.
“Everything is not cool,” the soldier replied.
Carino walked back with the giant walkie-talkie, or whatever it was, held to his ear.
“Kids,” he said into the device. “Yeah, kids. Four of ’em. And one older guy. They’re wearing some kind of red uniforms, or costumes.”
He listened and then said, “Roger. Will do. Carino out.”
He lowered the walkie-talkie and looked at us with a mixture of confusion and fear.
“It’s not my job to interrogate you,” he said to us. “That’s up to the brass. But I gotta know, how the hell did you get into the most heavily guarded military outpost in the world? No, better question: Why? You’re wearing red. Are you Commies?”
“Commies?” Kent said. “What are Commies?”
The truth hit me with a ferocity that was roughly equal to the power of the atomic bomb blast.
“It didn’t go off,” I said.
“What didn’t go off?” Carino asked.
“The test. It didn’t go off.”
“What test?” Kent asked, confused.
“Hell no it didn’t,” Carino said, glancing back to the white cylinder in the center of the dome. “When you sealed the hatch it set off alarms all over the place. The count was down to the last tick. Another half second and we would have had to cut you out of there from outside. We wouldn’t be standing here right now, that’s for sure.”
“It’s the test,” Tori said, the truth dawning on her. “The bomb. The original test that created the Bridge. Project Alcatraz.”
“Who are you people,” Carino asked with genuine curiosity. “How did you know that name?”
“I think maybe we should save that for the brass,” I said. “Are you going to take us to them now?”
Carino was too stunned to question us further. The fact that we had appeared inside of that emergency chamber was something he simply couldn’t get his head around. He rubbed the back of his neck, squinted as if trying to think of something to say to us, then gave up and motioned to his men.
“Load ’em up,” he ordered.
When his men lifted Feit, he let out a groan.
He was alive.
“Watch that guy,” I said. “He’s not one of the good guys.”
“Oh and you are?” Carino asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “We are.”
One of the soldiers helped Olivia to her feet and into one of the waiting jeeps. Each of us had our own vehicle with a driver and a soldier riding shotgun with a pistol aimed at us. The engines fired up and we lurched forward, headed out of the dome.
If I had any doubt about what had actually happened, it was washed away the moment we drove out of the door and into the sunlight.
The camp was gone.
Not a single building or vehicle was in sight. There was nothing around us for miles but empty desert.
“Can I ask you one question?” I said to the guard who had a pistol pointed at my chest.
“What?”
“Is today January the twenty-fourth?”
“All day,” he replied.
“What year is it?” I asked.
“That’s two questions.”
It didn’t matter. I knew the answer.
It was 1952.
The atomic explosion that had blasted the Bridge into the twenty-third century never happened. We had stopped it. The Sounders had stopped it.
Kent, Olivia, Tori, Feit, and I were in the middle of the dramatic explosion that reversed the process and were thrown back to the moment it began.
Before it began . . .
. . . and was about to begin anew.