DISTANT EARTHQUAKE
You’ve got to be kidding, Will thought frantically. His mind, he realized, was not designed to cope with this. In the space of two hours he’d gone from mortal terror straight into one of the most tender, confessional conversations of his life—if not the most—and then into the sublime bliss of an embrace with Gaia—and then straight back into the adrenaline-soaked fear brought on by the sound of the bomb.
Gaia was already moving, propelling herself toward the cabinet where the supposedly dead mechanism had come back to life. She was already down on her hands and knees, her face up close to the digital display, peering at the bomb’s components in the hopes of seeing something they’d missed.
And she’s not afraid, Will noted. Some part of his mind was reeling from what Gaia had just told him. But that part of his mind wasn’t in control right now. Maybe Gaia is automatically rational and collected at a time like this, he reminded himself, but you have to force yourself. So, do it. Force yourself.
“See anything?” he asked her, dropping onto the floor next to her. His lips were still tingling with Gaia’s kiss, and he impatiently ignored the sensation and stared at the bomb. Its display was flashing. The numbers read 00:00.
What the hell does that mean? Will thought wildly. The bomb mechanism clicked and beeped again, and as he watched, the numbers changed to 00:10.
And this time there was no question what the 10 meant—it meant ten seconds. Because the clock was counting down.
“It’s midnight!” Gaia said, looking at her watch. “It’s El Dia!”
And this is where we both buy the farm, Will thought, watching the numbers dial down from 07 to 06 to 05, each change accompanied by a loud beep. In the face of certain death—in what he knew was his last moment on earth—he felt a strange, otherworldly calm. At least I got to kiss her one last time, he thought as he and Gaia reached for each other, pulling each other into a final tight hug. And at least I can die with her in my arms. At this distance we’ll be vaporized—we won’t even be shadows on the wall.
Will’s eyes were clutched tightly closed, and Gaia’s fragrant, silken hair was pressed against his face. He could feel the smooth muscles of her back beneath his hands. He was counting the beeps—just two to go. As last moments went, it honestly wasn’t so bad.
Goodbye, Will thought on the final beep.
Nothing happened.
What the—?
That wasn’t entirely true, Will thought. Something had happened. They had both felt a faint, deep tremor, like a distant earthquake. And Will’s ears were popping; something had happened to the air pressure. But there had been no explosion.
Gaia was letting go of him and standing up. Will stumbled to his feet, glancing back at the bomb, whose mysterious display had gone completely dead. Behind him Gaia was walking back out of the room.
“Will!”
He followed her.
There was something wrong with the air out here, Will realized, stepping back out into the courtroom basement’s central area—the spot where they’d shared their secrets.
The smell, Will realized. The air smells different.
He could smell plaster dust—it was tickling his nose, threatening to make him sneeze—and behind that another smell. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it until he remembered a time at college when he’d joined a crowd watching firemen extinguish a burning dorm bunding. The aroma—burned air, charred paint, and blackened wood and stone—was the same as he was smelling now.
Will’s eyes were itching and burning. Looking around, he could barely see tendrils of dust and smoke hanging in the air.
He and Gaia stared at each other, confused.
“The wires,” Gaia said suddenly, snapping her fingers. “The wires from the bomb went through a hole in the wall, Will!”
“So?”
“So there was an explosion,” Gaia said, grabbing his hand and pulling him down the corridor. “Somewhere else.”
“What do you mean?” Will followed her, trying to keep from sneezing in the suddenly dusty air.
“You heard it, right?” Gaia said impatiently. “Exactly at midnight. A muffled explosion.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Look.”
Gaia was pointing at the floor. In the back corner of the basement, far away from the bright ceiling lights, Will saw a black metal plate sunk into the floor. It couldn’t be larger than three feet square, covered in the familiar diamond pattern of the plates one saw on a city sidewalk and walked over without noticing.
Looking closer, Will saw that the plate was warped and bent—and that bands of dust were radiating from its edges along the floor.
“Down there,” Gaia said, pointing. “Through that trapdoor.”
“Yeah.” Will realized that she was right. “There’s got to be another basement—a sub-basement below this one.”
“And that’s where the bomb went off,” Gaia finished, reaching down to pull the trapdoor’s handle. She grunted with the effort it took. The door squeaked as it swung upward, releasing a cloud of dust and smoke. “Come on—we’ve got to see what happened.”
Will came closer and peered down through the trapdoor. There was absolutely nothing to see except smoke and dust—Gaia had already sneezed once, and he was about to do the same thing. “But we don’t know where that goes,” Will argued weakly. There was no point—Gaia was already swinging her legs down into the hole. Will could see that she had found the iron rungs of a ladder leading into the darkness.
There’s no point in arguing, Will thought. I just have to follow her.
But what’s down there?
As soon as Gaia’s blond head had moved down far enough, nearly vanishing into the blackness below, Will swung his legs over and followed her. It was like disappearing down a well—if Will had been claustrophobic in the least, he would already be suffering.
“There’s light down here,” Gaia’s voice echoed up from beneath him. He took her word for it, although he couldn’t see anything. He was in a stone-walled tunnel leading straight down. The air was thicker with smoke, dust, and the smell of ash. His and Gaia’s feet clanged on the metal rungs, echoing crazily in the darkness.
And then, after a moment, he could see.
Gaia had dropped to the floor below him. After a moment he did the same thing, and they stood side by side, looking around.
They were in a small chamber, the size of a one-car garage. The stone ceiling was very low. The air was filled with dust. The floor was flat cement, covered in dust, crumbling cement, and rough blocks of stone. The only light came from a weak overhead bulb that was protected by a steel cage. A yellow-and-black radiation symbol was on the wall.
Fallout shelter, Will realized. This was the courthouse’s fallout shelter. Probably nobody even knows it’s here anymore.
Ahead of them nearly one entire wall had been destroyed. It was now a big, ragged hole leading into more darkness. A cool, wet wind blew at them through the hole.
“The bomb,” Gaia said, pointing upward to where Will could just make out the two wires that led from a hole in the ceiling. The wires extended a few feet and then stopped suddenly—their ends were burned and melted. “The explosives were down here, but the timer was up in that other room.”
“Lucky for us.”
“Right, but look,” Gaia said, walking through the dust cloud, moving closer to the blasted hole in the wall. “They used, what do you call it, shaped charges—seismic charges. You remember from class? How you can use C-4 plastique to channel an explosion in the direction you want?”
“You’re right,” Will said. The explosives themselves had vaporized, but the pattern of the debris matched that in the photographs Agent Baxter had shown them of demolition-bombing sites. An expert had blown this hole leading—where’?
Gaia and Will stepped closer to the hole, gingerly leaning on its ragged edges, which were still warm.
“Water,” Gaia said. “There’s water flowing down here.”
And leaning his head out through the hole, Will realized she was right.
The hole went into a circular tunnel that stretched off into the far distance in each direction. There were weakly shining work lights at regular intervals. A wide, metal-grid catwalk with a railing led along the edge of the tunnel. And far below, in a stone channel deep along the tunnel’s floor, water was flowing—a small underground river that moved through the tunnel.
The water pipes, Will realized. That’s what the map is about. He remembered Gaia’s description of the document she’d printed out, which apparently showed the Philadelphia water supply pipeline radiating out from the intersection of Decatur and Main.
On the opposite wall of the tunnel, on the stained, smooth concrete surface, someone had drawn an arrow in yellow chalk. Pointing down the tunnel to the left.
Gaia and Will looked at each other in the darkness. Will could only see the silhouette of her head through the dim, ghostly light from the work bulbs. Below them the rushing water roared past them, flowing like a bloodstream beneath the Philadelphia streets.
“Now what?” Will asked. His voice echoed crazily against the cement walls of the tunnel.