STORM: The Infinity Code

As they raced along the corridor toward the control room, Will noticed that the surveillance camera was still pointing uselessly up at the ceiling.

Someone must have noticed by now, Will thought. But if they had, evidently they didn’t care enough to check it out—or get it fixed. That was good news.

In fact, Sergei and Vladimir had noticed the camera. And the chewed wires of the primary access panel as well. Right at the moment that Will, Andrew, and Gaia threw themselves underneath the table in the anteroom, Sergei and Vladimir were facing the red chair, sharing their discoveries with Roden Cutler.

“Rats,” Sergei was saying. “Vlad and I, we saw them in the depot. This place is falling apart! They are eating it to pieces. Even the wires for the cameras!”

Cutler might have asked how rats could undo screws. But he was far too preoccupied with his weapon. Besides, the external security was tight—or so he thought. “Rats mean nothing to me,” Cutler said. “Nor do you, Sergei. Get out. Go and pick up your pay and leave. Vladimir, you stay here in case I need you.”

Sergei gave a quick upward kink of his blond eyebrows. Crazy, he was thinking—it was as clear as Russian vodka. There would be no complaint from him. He nodded at Vladimir and stomped his way through the inner door of the operations room. He waited in the narrow quarantine zone for the mechanism’s click of recognition. Then with a push, Sergei was half out into the anteroom.

Underneath the steel table, Will, Andrew, and Gaia could do nothing but hold their breath. Sergei’s hulking legs were right next to them, an electric gun dangling down from his belt. Will recognized it at once. This gun had been among the last batch of patents he’d read before his father died. Electric bullets. Will thought of the space police station. What weapons would they use? Not electric bullets. Sonic bullets? Perhaps. It was an extraordinary idea, to think there were law-enforcement agents orbiting Earth . . .

Still Sergei did not move. Will wished he didn’t have to breathe. Gaia, who had learned her lesson, did not even dare to. A cramp could kill her, she thought, before she’d move. Andrew kept his head down. Noiselessly, he switched off the wall-bugging mike and waited . . .

Sergei had been hovering, using his black-booted foot to keep the door open. He was trying to get his walkie-talkie to work. Trying to call the pay office, to check if someone was there. If not, he’d head right back in and demand the cash—without giving Cutler a chance to remotely change the settings of his radio-tracking bracelet. Sergei had no faith in the man. But someone finally answered, and Sergei spoke rapidly: “All right. I’m coming. Get it ready.” And he blundered away, out along the corridor.

Instantly, Will reached out to catch the door before it closed. He pulled a glove from his pocket and placed it around the jamb. “Just in case . . .” he whispered to Andrew.

Again, he glanced at his watch. Three minutes now until Gaia’s explosives went off. Andrew switched the mike back on but no one was talking. At least, not that they could hear.

“See—it’ll be fine,” Will said. He closed his eyes. And his mind flickered with the eerie orange light and the deadly white tubes.

Gaia tensed. Her head was aching, her body trembling. She couldn’t get rid of the faces of those two technicians. She should have checked to be sure they were all right. She should have helped them . . .

Twenty seconds. Andrew waved the mike. Someone was talking. Cutler. “All right, systems check. And—”

Will glanced at Gaia. Her face had gone deathly white. Will took hold of her wrist to look at her watch. The time matched his. Beside him, Andrew was intensely still. No. It had to work.

Gaia looked down. But she was thinking, how could it not have worked? Did the age of Elena’s chemicals have anything to do with it? No, she could only blame herself. Why hadn’t she tested it? Elena had had to smash her other bomb with a bat, and still she’d trusted it—trusted that the fuse would ignite her explosive.

The faces of the technicians vanished. Instead she saw only a swelling black hole tunneling its way out of the accelerator, down underneath St. Petersburg, deeper and deeper until it reached the center of their world . . .

“Maybe we can do something in there,” Will said, and he jerked his head toward the operations room. “There must be a central control system. Maybe we can still stop it.”

He glanced at Gaia, whose facial muscles felt paralyzed. “I might have put too much stabilizer in,” she said very quietly.

“I might have damaged the timer,” Will replied. There was no point in making her feel bad. “The circuit was really delicate.”

It was counting down, she thought. But she said nothing. And she thought furiously. It was her fault. She’d have to come up with another plan . . . Then something struck her.

There was no time to explain. Already, Andrew was standing up. “I don’t care who did what. Now we have no choice,” he said. With his forefinger he jabbed in the direction of Cutler. “We go in there.”