The Doomsday Box (5 page)

“Let her down on the floor,” Carradine said. “It's all right.”

“It's not all right,” Danny said. “She's fainted or something.”

“It's what she does,” Carradine said, bewilderingly. “Just let her down to the floor. Gently.”

Danny glanced at Carradine, then did as he was told. Fuchsia's head rolled to one side as he laid her down. Her eyes were closed now and she was no longer choking, although she was taking long, slow, rattling breaths. Carradine knelt beside her. “Blackness,” she murmured. “Blackness and death.”

“Did she say ‘death'?” Danny asked. What the hell was going on here?

“The kid's sick?” asked Colonel Saltzman. “You want me to send for a medic?”

“She's fine,” Carradine insisted. “It's what she does,” he said again.

“She's not fine!” Danny snapped. Any fool could see she wasn't fine. Maybe she was having a seizure or something. Except she wasn't twitching: just lying there and breathing like a rusty engine. He knelt beside Carradine. “Let the colonel get a doctor.”

“Trust me,” Carradine hissed. To Fuchsia he said quietly, “Is Opal all right?”

“How would she know?” Danny asked belligerently. “Can't you see she's not well?”

“Darkness.” Fuchsia moaned as if she were in pain.

“Opal's in the dark?” Carradine asked. “Will she tell you this?”

“She said ‘death' a minute ago,” Danny muttered. Carradine was all right, at least not the worst of them, but Danny didn't like what he was doing now. He didn't seem to care if Fuchsia was sick. And what did he mean,
Will Opal tell you this?

“Yes,” Fuchsia said. It came out on a long, shuddering breath.

From the chair behind them, Opal stirred. Danny glanced around quickly. Her eyes were open, but blank and staring. Seated beside her, their helmets linked by a single cable, Michael looked asleep, but his face was tranquil.

Carradine said, “Can you tell me anything else, Fuchsia?”

“What's going on here, Mr. Carradine?” Danny asked.

“You sure you don't want a medic?” This from the colonel, who was looking concerned.

Fuchsia's eyes slid shut.

“She's fainted!” Danny said accusingly.

The colonel said brusquely, “Mr. Carradine, you can do what you like, but I'm getting medical help. The kid's not well.” He turned on his heel and walked off down the tunnel. Danny wondered why he didn't use his cell phone, then remembered they were deep underground, well out of range of any signal. He turned back to Fuchsia in time to see her open her eyes and sit up suddenly. She had the dazed look of somebody waking from a particularly deep sleep, but as she focused on him, she gave a slow, dazzling smile. “Hello, Danny.”

“Are you all right?” Danny asked.

“Oh, yes,” Fuchsia said. “It's really sweet of you to ask.”

“Can you remember any of that?” Carradine asked her.

Fuchsia shook her head. “I'm sorry, Mr. Carradine. Not this time.” She frowned. “But I knew something had gone wrong before I went under.”

“Yes, you told us. When you went under, you said something about darkness.” Carradine looked at her expectantly.

“I'm sorry.” Fuchsia shrugged helplessly.

“What's going on here, Mr. Carradine?” Danny asked.

Carradine glanced after the retreating form of the colonel and obviously decided he was out of earshot. “You're going to find out eventually, Danny. Fuchsia has a special talent.”

Danny looked at him blankly. “Like, out-of-body? The rest of us can do that.”

Carradine shook his head. “We're still testing Fuchsia for out-of-body abilities, but early on something else came up. She seems to be a functioning precog.”

“She can see the
future
?” Danny exclaimed. He didn't think that sort of stuff existed outside of Marvel Comics.

Fuchsia said coyly, “Oh that makes it sound like such a big deal, Danny. I don't have much control over it, but Mr. Carradine says the Project might be able to fix that eventually.” She smiled at him again. “Until they do, it's usually just . . . you know . . . flashes like I had about you and me.”

Like I had about you and me?
Danny was opening his mouth to ask her what all
that
meant when Opal said, “I'm back.”

M
ichael's eyes snapped open and he looked around. His mind was fuzzy from the anchor dream—as often happened, he'd found himself back with the Dogon in his native Mali—but he still realized there was something wrong. Danny and Mr. Carradine were kneeling beside Fuchsia, who was sitting on the floor for some reason. Michael turned his head quickly to see if Opal was all right and found her calmly unfastening her helmet. She gave him a little smile.

“Tu vas bien?”
he asked her quietly, then realized he'd reverted to his native French and translated, “You okay?”

Opal set the helmet down and combed her hair with her fingers. “I'm fine. Little bit of trouble with the projection, but I worked it out eventually.” She glanced across at the others. “What's happened?”

“I don't know,” Michael said. He started to remove his helmet.

Mr. Carradine was climbing to his feet. He offered a hand to Fuchsia, who took it and stood up too, a little unsteadily. Carradine called over his shoulder to Opal, “Any problems?”

“I was in the dark for a time,” Opal said. “I undershot the target—I think the coordinates the colonel gave us must have been a little off.”

“No, it was an equipment problem,” Fuchsia said.

Danny, who was on his feet now too, glanced at her quickly. “How do you know?”

“The battery pack is underpowered,” Fuchsia murmured, as if that explained how she knew.

Carradine asked Opal, “What happened?”

Opal shrugged. “I got confused. I came out-of-body and into the concrete they used to seal off the chamber rather than the time-tunnel chamber itself. There's no point of reference when that happens, so I wasn't sure of the direction.”

“Did you swim?”

She nodded. “I managed to go downward, unfortunately.” She gave a small smile. “But I realized I was wrong before I reached the center of the Earth. So I reversed direction and eventually came up in one of the offices. Once I was oriented, I was able to refocus on Michael and the rest of you.”

“So you just came back to your body?” Carradine sounded disappointed.

But Opal shook her head. “No. I came back here all right, but then I tried a direct line to the target chamber straight through the plug. Which worked.” She looked smug.

“Well done!” Carradine exclaimed. He glanced around. “Can't debrief you without the colonel. What the hell's keeping him?”

“Where's he gone?” Opal frowned.

Danny said, “Went to get a doctor. He thought Fuchsia was sick. She's an operational precog.”

Michael frowned. “What's an operational precog?”

“Somebody who can see into the future, according to Mr. Carradine,” Danny told him. They all turned in Carradine's direction.

Carradine laughed. “All right, all right, I'll fill you in. What—” He stopped. Running footsteps were sounding in the tunnel, and in a moment Colonel Saltzman appeared, accompanied by a young officer in Medical Corps uniform. “Later,” Carradine finished hurriedly.

The young officer zeroed in on Fuchsia after a nod from his colonel. “Colonel says you're feeling poorly, miss?”

“I'm fine,” Fuchsia insisted. “Are you going to take my blood pressure?”

In fact, the doctor did take her blood pressure, examine her eyes, and sound her chest with a stethoscope. “She seems okay now,” he said to the colonel.

“Told you,” Fuchsia said.

They waited until the doctor left, then Carradine said, “Opal made it to the target chamber, Colonel.”

“You really can tell me what's in there? What set the alarm off?” He still sounded doubtful.

Opal shrugged slightly. “Nothing, so far as I can see.”

They looked at her blankly.

“The rift—the time tunnel or whatever you want to call it—is still there. I could see it quite plainly.” She shuddered involuntarily. “It's very peculiar to look at when you're in your second body.”

“And while you're in your first one,” Carradine murmured. Michael glanced across at him. He kept wondering if Mr. Carradine had been associated with the original Project Rainbow.

“The good news,” Opal said, “is that there's nothing nasty in there. I looked very carefully—there's really nowhere to hide.”

“So what set off the alarm, little lady?” the colonel asked. “Or was it just a glitch in the system?”

“I think it must have been,” Opal told him. “Maybe it was the vibration of the drill. But anyway, there's nothing in the chamber that shouldn't be there.”

“So it's safe for us to open it up again?”

Opal said carefully, “I can't give you guarantees, but I could see no problem.”

The colonel gave a relieved smile. “Okay, that'll have to be good enough for me.” He turned away from her. “Mr. Carradine, looks like we're going in.”

T
he breakfast room was empty of guests when Michael came down, and empty of staff too as far as he could see, but there was a table set for five with Mr. Carradine's name tag leaning on a tiny jar of marmalade, so he took one of the places and waited patiently. There were bowls of cereal and fruit set out on a table to one side, but he thought it best to wait. Mr. Carradine had booked them all into one of the more anonymous hotels in Montauk, and the others should be down soon.

His thumb made a circling movement of its own accord.

Michael watched it happen and felt a sudden chill. The silence in the breakfast room grew louder, and beyond it he could hear intrusive traffic noises from the street outside. He could hear his own breathing. He could hear the steady pulse of blood within his veins. He became aware of the smell of raw sausages, drifting from the refrigerator in some distant kitchen. He could smell tomatoes and the musty scent of mushrooms and bacon and milk in an open carton and a farmyard hint of eggs.

He needed to get back to his room.

Time slowed as Michael began to push his chair away from the table—it made a hideous scraping noise on the wooden floor—so that he watched the waitress bustle over in a series of strobelike jumps. “Hi, honey,” she said cheerfully, her voice reverberating through his head. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” She handed him a laminated menu, and his nerveless fingers dropped it on the table with the sound of a felled tree.

“Have to get something from my room,” Michael muttered. He tried to push past her.

She gave him a big smile. “Your friends are on their way down,” she told him.

In fact his friends were in the corridor outside. He could smell Mr. Carradine's aftershave. He could hear a conversation about jazz between Opal and Danny. They were coming through the door in a tight little group with Mr. Carradine in the lead. Time was distorting like mad now, and when he looked at Opal he could hear her heartbeat. It grew faster when she saw him. Michael pushed the waitress rudely aside and strode across the room. The floor felt spongy underneath his feet.

“Michael,” Opal called out brightly, “we're not going home today. Mr. Carradine has arranged for us to stay on so we can watch the chamber being opened.” She sounded pleased.

Michael said, “Getting something from my room.” He tried to smile.

Mr. Carradine said, “Are you okay, Michael?”

“Fine,” Michael told him. It came out something close to a gasp. He kept moving with a purposeful stride, and to his relief they parted to let him through.

“Have you had breakfast?” Opal called after him, but he ignored her.

He thought there might be a problem with the stairs, but he almost floated up them. By the time he reached the corridor that led to his room, he was running, with the walls pulsating in time to each step. He reached his door and fumbled for the key card. The room next door was empty, but he could hear what was going on in a room along the corridor: a bitter argument between a husband and wife over some item of jewelry she'd bought. From another room he could hear snoring. In another he could smell the lavatory cleaner as a maid prepared a bathroom. His hand was shaking so badly he couldn't insert the card. He closed his eyes to a maelstrom of whirling colors, opened them, and tried again.

The card slid into the slot. He pulled it out, carefully, and listened to an electronic symphony as the little red light turned to green. He pressed the handle and pushed the door.