promise to fess up once we’re home.
As I’m making my rounds in the pit the next day, I encounter my parents at the base of the ladder. They’re both huddled over a portable. Because of my vow not to tangle with any tech, I veer away.
“He can’t do that.” Mom’s tone is harsh.
Uh oh. I slow and glance over my shoulder.
“Technically he can,” Dad says.
“There’s no danger, Spencer.”
“You can’t be sure of that. What’s to stop someone from Dongguan from just…popping in here?”
“The laws of physics.”
“Tell that to those boot prints. Come on, Ming, you know he’s right.”
“He’s—” Mom spots Beau, who is climbing down the ladder.
Beau is pale and his brow is creased with worry. “Dr. Daniels, I’ve orders from Officer Radcliff to cease all activities in Pit 21 and return to base as soon as possible.”
Thirteen
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My mom faces Beau with her hands on her hips. Uh oh, I brace for her to blast the poor guy—because Radcliff is the one who ordered us all back to the base, not Beau.
“No,” Mom says to Beau. “We’re not leaving. We’ve only been here two days and—”
“It’s not up for discussion, Dr. Daniels. Tell your team to pack up.”
I give Beau major credit for standing up to my mother. She glares at him and he stares right on back.
“The security team is welcome to leave. We’re staying,” Mom says in her don’t-argue-with-me tone.
“We can come back.” Dad appeals to Mom. “We’ll bring the astrophysicists and more security.”
Mom rounds on him. “Do you really think Tace is going to allow that?”
My father looks downright grim. “He’s going to have to. This is our only way to get answers.”
Or more questions. Remembering the swell of lights and the strange black rectangle, I rub my arm.
“Fine,” Mom spits out. “But we’re coming back. If Tace won’t agree to sending security with us, we’ll bring all the techs instead. Most of them have been training with pulse guns.”
Which might be effective against the magician, but not shadow-blobs. However, I don’t remind her of them or she might change her mind and stay. And I don’t want to be caught in the middle if she orders me to remain with her.
The rest of the day is spent packing up the camp and enduring lots of grumbling from the techs. My dad rigs the floodlights so he can turn all of them on from the surface when we return. Smart.
Beau, Niall, and I switch off the lights, starting with the furthest set and moving toward the ladder. When I reach the center, I pause. If the magician returns, he’ll see our footprints and the big floodlight. Hmmm. It might be a bad thing if he’s working for Jarren. So I smooth out the sand in and around the center, trying to make it appear…natural. It’s not perfect—far from it, but it’s…better. Then I move the light deeper into the Warriors.
We finish and stand at the bottom of the ladder. There’s enough sunlight so it’s not completely dark.
“Anything?” Beau asks me.
“No HoLFs.”
He peers at me, then nods at Niall. “You go first.”
Niall mounts the ladder, then Beau, and I’m last. I take a moment to wonder if we’ll be back. I hope so.
After I arrive at the surface, the ladder is pulled out and retracted to its smaller size—basically Niall pushes one end and Beau the other until the ladder’s only a couple rungs long. The action reminds me of crinkling space, which brings two distant points close together. And then I wonder if the black rectangle that appeared in the center of the pit is a form of crinkled space.
The BP Crinkler engine works in silence as it compresses large sections of space. The rectangle is on a much smaller scale, but there wasn’t any noise. Except the distance between Yulin and Dongguan is…uh, I’ll have to look it up. Would the time dilation also be a factor? One of Jarren’s goons said the time dilation sucks for us, implying it didn’t for them. So say Jarren is using the Warriors to travel around the Galaxy like my mom speculated, then there isn’t a time jump. That would be amazing! And it would explain so much.
“Oh no,” Niall says next to me.
I jerk in surprise, reaching for my gun. “What?”
“Your brow is furrowed and you have that look.”
“What look?”
“That you’re thinking big dangerous thoughts.”
“I’m not—”
“Lawrence, are you ready to go?” Beau asks.
“No, sir.”
“Then get your ass in gear. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
Niall mouths “later” as I