Eye of the Storm (30 page)

Callum let out a long whistle as the implications of Sherri’s words sank in.

Nathan led the four raptors inside the cave, Grunt supporting Nipper, and Newton and Einstein deep in conversation. David followed them inside holding his rifle awkwardly. His face wore an
expression of profound relief. Edison was sent down to the valley to organise the crowd and set up hunting parties. They were going to need a lot of food if they were to feed everyone.

‘It’s strange the way fate works. Losing Claire, Alex and Watson today should have crippled us, yet as a result, we may have gained the force we need to have a real chance of trying
to take down the entire global pumping programme permanently,’ Sherri added, watching as Edison descended towards the small horde of raptors in the valley. ‘Claire talked about this for
years, but none of us ever thought we’d be in a position to try it. If I know Einstein, we’re not going to see much of him for a while. He’s going to be tinkering with his
machines day and night until they’re ready.’

‘Machines? What machines?’ Sam’s voice stabbed like a stiletto blade. At the mention of his mother, his eyes had ignited with fierce intensity and now they bored into Sherri.
‘If Einstein’s planning to follow up on something Mum wanted, then I want in on it.’

‘I don’t pretend to understand them,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘All I can tell you is that they are sort of ray-guns. The machines shoot beams of invisible particles
that apparently increase the mass of whatever they hit. Einstein wants to direct the machines at the nuclear waste pumping shafts. He thinks he can mess with the pressures there in a way that will
result in the simultaneous destruction of every pumping station around the world.’

‘God particles!’ Callum exclaimed. ‘You’re talking about a machine that produces a coherent stream of God particles.’

‘Erm . . . if you say so,’ Sherri replied, clearly flummoxed.

‘What
are
you talking about, Callum?’ Sam asked, turning his stare on his friend.

‘If it’s what I think, it means that raptors have discovered something that scientists in our world only started to look for recently,’ Callum replied excitedly. ‘You
know when there was a big deal in the news about the possibility of the world ending when they switched on the LHC in Switzerland?’

‘LHC?’ Sam’s eyebrows twisted into a frown as he tried to work out what the letters meant.

‘Large Hadron Collider,’ Callum explained.

‘Oh, yeah! The big bang and all that.’

‘That’s right! The scaremongers were saying that by trying to recreate the conditions that scientists believe existed at the beginning of the universe, they might actually cause a
miniature black hole and destroy the world. Anyway, I thought it was really interesting and read up on a lot of stuff about the experiments. One of the things they’re trying to do with the
LHC is to prove the existence of a particle called the Higgs boson, which is supposed to add mass to matter.’

‘OK, let’s just assume for a moment that I followed all that, which is far from certain. . .’ Sam looked down at the ground, his focus distant as he mentally played back what
Callum had just explained.‘I still don’t see why this Higgs thingy is such a big deal.’

‘To be honest, I don’t understand much of the physics behind it,’ Callum admitted. ‘But the idea of a machine that could create a coherent Higgs field for use as a weapon
is terrifying. The effects would be devastating. Depending how strong the beam was and where you aimed it, you could produce destruction more extensive than the detonation of a nuclear
bomb!’

Sam looked back up at Callum again and his eyes narrowed with disbelief. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Completely!’

‘What would the side-effects be?’ Sam asked. ‘Nuclear bombs can leave radiation that pollutes for millennia. What sort of after-effects would this Higgs particle weapon
leave?’

‘Not a clue,’ Callum replied with a shrug. ‘No one’s even managed to confirm the existence of the particles in our world. You’d better ask Einstein that
one.’

‘I will.’

Callum gave his friend a calculating look. ‘Sam, don’t get too involved. Your mum wanted you to try to go home. Sherri told me what your mum said before . . . before she died.
We’ve got two flying machines now. They’re our ticket out of here. I just know they are. One of them’s had a bit of damage, but it won’t take much to fix and they’re
really easy to fly. I can teach you in no time. Let Nathan and the others deal with the Imperium. It’s not our fight.’

‘Not
your
fight maybe,’ Sam replied, his eyes taking on a distant look again. ‘But my mum died for this cause so I’m not going anywhere for a while. If she had a
plan, then I want to see it through. I’m going to make the Imperium pay for taking her away from me.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Sam! That’s your anger talking. If you let your feelings about what happened today rule you, then you’re just going to get yourself killed.’

‘And trying to fly into the eye of a hurricane in the next best thing to a box kite is going to be perfectly safe, I suppose? I don’t think so.’

‘Sam, you promised you would get me back.’

‘What?’

‘In the boat – when we crossed,’ Callum said. ‘You said you would get me back home. I’m going to hold you to your word, Sam.
You
got me into this. Now
it’s time to go home. We’ve got the means. I’m asking you to keep your promise and come with me.’

‘You should listen to your friend, Sam,’ Sherri interrupted. ‘Nathan won’t be happy about you taking the flying machines, but I’ll support you. It was
Claire’s dying wish, after all, and we don’t really need them. Stealing them was all about denying the Imperium the power of flight. I can’t see Nathan strapping himself into one
of those contraptions and I certainly don’t want to do it.’

‘What about David? He built the machines. He has more claim on them than anyone,’ Sam pointed out. ‘Surely he should have a say in this? I know he wants to see the flying
machines of our world. Why not take him with you, Cal? I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’m ready to go home. Not yet.’

‘Sam, I’m never going to forgive you if you don’t come with me.’

‘Don’t say that, Cal,’ Sam pleaded. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to come with you. I meant what I said that day about getting you home, but that was before the
Imperium killed Mum. Surely you can see how important this is to me. If Mum had a plan, then I want to finish what she started before I go home. If I don’t, I’m not sure I’d be
able to live with myself.’

Callum shook his head. ‘I’m not ready to fall out with you. You’re tired, hurt and not thinking straight,’ he said. ‘It’s been a crazy day. Sleep on it.
We’ll talk in the morning.’

Sam nodded. ‘Good idea.’ He took a final look down at the raptors in the valley before heading into the cave. Callum and Sherri followed him inside. Despite the louder than usual
conversations both Sam and Callum were wrapped in their blankets and asleep within just a few minutes. For Sam, however, sleep brought no escape from pain.

* * *

By the time day finally broke, Sam felt terrible. His eyes burned and his stomach ached from twisting and turning inside until it felt like it was knotted tight. Throughout the
night he had been plagued by nightmares. Pursued by raptors through tunnels, woods and across fields, he had battled for survival again and again.

In some of his dreams he had stayed with his mother as she had held the rearguard during their flight from the Imperium search parties. In others he had gone with Nipper to the Central Square to
challenge for her life, but every dream ended the same way: with the one image that burned in his mind with crystal clarity. Over and over he saw his mother being impaled. Now he was awake, the
picture seemed to be imprinted on his retinas. No matter where he looked, he saw it. And every time he did, his eyes filled with tears.

Peeling off his blanket, he stretched and got up. He needed a distraction, something to focus on. Callum was still fast asleep. Sam stared at him for a moment and his chest tightened with
emotion as he considered again if he should deliberately part company with his friend. It was hard to imagine not having him close by, especially after all the recent adventures they had shared. It
wasn’t just Callum either. He knew he was gambling with the chance of never seeing his father and sister again, which added a whole different dimension to his feelings of guilt. However,
neither sleep, guilty sadness at breaking his promise to Callum nor the risk of never getting home served to change his mind. His resolve had hardened overnight. If Einstein had a way of destroying
the pumping stations, then Sam was determined to stay and help make the plan work.

Niamh rolled on to her back, opened her eyes and stared upward. Although her body felt desperately tired, her mind was far too active to allow her the blissful descent into
sleep. A hard line of light round her door made a stark contrast with the gentle moonlight seeping in round the edges of the curtains. The combination lit the room enough for Niamh to see the
swirling Artex patterns across the ceiling. Forcing her body to relax still further, she concentrated on following the lines of the patterns with her eyes in an effort to clear her head of worries
and unwanted images.

The visit to the prison today had been disturbing on many levels. She still felt degraded by the experience, although she knew it to be an unwarranted and irrational response. The thought of
what her father was going through made her want to cry. It was not just the loss of freedom and privacy, but of so many other simple things that most took for granted. And what had he done to
deserve it? Nothing! It was not fair. She wrapped her arms across her body and hugged herself, remembering again how good it had felt to hold and be held by him.

I’ll get you out of there, Dad,
she thought.
I don’t know how yet, but I’ll do it somehow.

Perhaps worse than seeing her father in that awful place was the image of her mother that she couldn’t get out of her mind. Was it real? Had Sam really seen it or was her imagination
playing tricks on her? Much as she wanted to believe the latter, Niamh could not bring herself to believe it. It had been too vivid – too real. She had felt Sam’s pain as if it was her
own and although she did not understand his mix of emotions, she could also still feel the searing heat of his anger surging through her like a roaring flame. Her heart had reflected her
brother’s pain and sorrow like a mirror, though she felt no anger. It was this difference that convinced her she was not suffering from an overactive imagination.

Rolling over again, she reached down the side of her bed and felt around until she found her laptop. She lifted it on to the bed and shuffled up, twisting her top pillow upright and settling it
behind her back so that she could sit up and lean back comfortably.

She opened the screen and pressed the start button. The sudden light from the screen seemed unnaturally bright in the dark room and she found herself forced to squint, nearly shutting her eyes
to reduce the glare until they had a chance to adjust.

The boot-up sequence seemed to take forever. Niamh drummed her fingernails impatiently against the laptop until the wireless internet icon finally showed as connected. Moments later, she had
logged into Facebook and her eyes went straight to the chat box at the bottom right of the screen. It showed just two of her friends online. The clock just below chat showed 02:04, which meant it
was just after nine o’clock in the evening in Florida. She clicked on the box, praying that one of the two was Tony.

The list expanded up the page. His name was on the list, but the dot next to his name was grey, indicating he was not connected. Given his position on the list, it looked as though she had just
missed him. For a moment, Niamh experienced an almost overwhelming sense of desperation and frustration. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. Why wasn’t anything going her way today?

She opened her eyes and was ready to log off when she suddenly saw the dot next to Tony’s name turn green, indicating he was online again. In a flash, she had clicked on his name, typed
Hi Tony
and hit send.

There was a brief pause and the little icon next to his name began to swirl, indicating he was typing a reply. The popping noise as his response arrived sent a thrill through her.

Hi Niamh. A bit late for you, isn’t it? Can’t sleep?

No. Visited Dad today and now I can’t get the prison out of my head. Wish I was back in the Keys.

I wish you were here, too. Missing you.

Missing you too. But Dad says we’ll be coming back at the first opportunity. There’s going to be a preliminary court
hearing soon and he says his lawyer will try to get the case dismissed for lack of evidence. I just hope he’s successful.

Fingers crossed. From what you’ve told me about your Aunt Aggie, I’m surprised she let you go and see him.

She didn’t.

Ah! Up to your old tricks again! What did you steal this time? A car? A train maybe?