backyard, and were all tough as nails until something brushed against the tent at 2 a.m.
Smart gave Chevie the Timekey he was holding. “I’ve cloned keys for me and the team, but this is still the prime key with all the access codes. In fact, the entire history of the project is on this key. Don’t lose it.”
Chevie hung the key around her neck. “I’ll keep it under my pillow beside my photo of you.”
Smart lowered his face mask, and Chevie saw that for the first time in nine months, he was genuinely smiling. “I’m going to miss you when this is all over, Savano. None of these guys ever gives me lip. Having said that, if you foul this up, I will have you stationed in the Murmansk office.”
“We don’t have a Murmansk office.”
“Oh, we’ve got one, but it’s really deep under the ice.”
“I get the message. Don’t worry, Felix. The boy is secure, and I won’t let anyone else touch this Timekey.”
Smart fixed his mask. “Good. Then in ten minutes, you get to go home early with a commendation and a clean record. But if any strangers come through that pod, remember your training: always go for the chest shot.”
“I remember,” said Chevie. “Chest shot. The biggest target.”
They shook hands, something that Chevie did not particularly want to do, not because of any germ phobia, but because in the boredom of the last nine months she had developed a fondness for action movies—and as any film buff knew, when two cops develop a grudging respect for each other, then the supporting cop is about to die.
And if anyone’s a supporting player around here, she thought, it’s me.
Smart ducked into the pod, squeezing onto the bench beside his teammates.
He counted down from five with his fingers, then the entire team reached into the middle and overlapped hands. As they all touched, Smart tapped the pendant around his neck, the pod bloomed with orange light, and there was a loud whoosh, which immediately collapsed in on itself, creating a vacuum that Chevie could feel even from her position behind the computers.
The noise rose to hurricane level, and Smart’s crew jittered as their molecules were torn apart. They turned orange, then split into orange bubbles, which spiraled into a mini-cyclone that spun faster and faster in the center of the pod. Chevie swore she could see body parts reflected in the bubbles.
Reflected from where? Sub-atomia?
The wormhole opened like a drain of light, a little smaller than Chevie had expected, if she was honest, yet it was big enough to slurp down the atoms of the hazmat team and their leader. The bubbles spiraled down, forcing themselves into the pulsating white circle at the pod’s base. It shone like a silver dollar, then spun as though someone had flipped it, each revolution sending a blinding beam across the basement.
Chevie closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the wormhole had closed, leaving behind a wisp of smoke in the shape of a rough question mark.
You and me both, Chevie thought, stepping forward warily, around the bank of computers, and peering into the pod’s belly. It was cold in there, and blobs of orange gel shivered on the steel walls.
I hope those blobs weren’t important body parts.
Smart and his team were gone, there was no doubt about it.
I didn’t believe Orange’s story until this moment, Chevie realized. Not for a second. I am not sure if I believe it now.
But there was no denying that her partner had disappeared, whether into a wormhole as planned, or boiled to jelly by old-school laser beams.
I can worry about all of this when I am home in Malibu. Until then: act like a professional.
Chevie decided to use the ten minutes to check through the video on Smart Sr.’s Timekey. See if there was anything more she could add to her report. And, you never know, there was always the ghost of a chance that Riley was telling the truth. But even if he was, there was no way the bogeyman he was so afraid of could make it to the future.
Chevie suddenly saw a flash of Riley’s face: blue eyes wide, soot-blackened brow.
No way in heaven, but perhaps a way in hell.
She shivered. Maybe that boy was lying, but he sure believed he was telling the truth.
Alt-Tek
BEDFORD SQUARE. BLOOMSBURY. LONDON. 1898
Albert Garrick hummed a nursery rhyme he’d learned on the knee of an Irish woman who had nannied for half of the Old Nichol back in