Apocalypse (50 page)

Olaf heaved one arm back to swing another punch, but Ethan took full advantage of the clumsy maneuver and stabbed the fingers of his free hand like lances into Olaf’s bleary eyes. The
giant growled and scrambled away from Ethan, releasing his wrist as he reached down for the pistol nestled in his shoulder holster and hauled it free to aim singlehanded at Ethan.

Ethan saw the pistol swing around to point at him, and in the fraction of a second before the moment of his death his marine corps training flashed through his mind and, rather than evading the
weapon, he instead lunged toward it.

Ethan grabbed the pistol’s barrel with both hands and clamped them down tightly. Olaf squeezed the trigger with the pistol pointed at Ethan’s chest from point-blank range. The
mechanism moved a fraction before jamming against Ethan’s fingers as he locked its movement and then shifted one hand to ram his index finger behind Olaf’s. With both of their fingers
trapped behind the trigger, Olaf could not fire the pistol.

Olaf stared at Ethan in surprise but before he could respond Ethan rammed his right knee deep into the big man’s groin with all of his might. Olaf’s legs collapsed reflexively
beneath him, and as he fell Ethan twisted and yanked his grip sideways across the pistol’s barrel, twisting it against the direction of Olaf’s fall.

Olaf howled in pain as Ethan twisted relentlessly aside, then crouched and drove his bodyweight into the maneuver. Olaf was forced sideways on his knees and his wrist trembled as it failed and
then the pistol snapped from his grasp. The huge man scrambled away from Ethan and reached out for the discarded rifle of the dead soldier.

Ethan let himself fall away from Olaf and rolled onto his shoulder to come up the other side onto one knee with the pistol aimed double-handed at Olaf. Olaf whirled and pulled the rifle into his
shoulder as Ethan squeezed the pistol’s trigger.

The bullet struck Olaf just to the left of center of his chest, a neat red stain appearing as if by magic on his vest. Olaf shuddered and stared at Ethan with his blue eyes wide and almost
instantly lifeless. The tiny stain on his shirt spread in moments to encompass his entire torso as his heart, grossly oversized after years of steroid abuse, spilled his lifeblood at a tremendous
rate.

Olaf’s huge arms trembled as the rifle dropped from his grasp, his once firm jaw hanging slack as he toppled over backwards and vanished amidst the swirling clouds of steam.

Ethan staggered, his balance uneven and his breath ragged in his damaged throat as he slowly got to his feet. He carefully picked his way forward over the cables to where Olaf lay and took the
rifle from beside the man’s corpse. He turned and moved to the far side of the chamber where the IRIS troops were protecting Joaquin.

It was then that he realized that the firing had stopped.

Ethan peered out through the whirling clouds of steam. Hazard lights flashed like beacons through the fog at him as though he was in some infernal subterranean nightclub, and he could hear
sirens as the smoke from the fires began setting off alarms. Then, above it all, he could hear Joaquin’s voice.

‘Olaf? Come out, Olaf! It’s over, we have them all!’

Ethan felt a crushing disappointment swamp him as he advanced a single pace to peer around the edge of the black-hole chamber. Several IRIS troops lay dead behind or beside the computer banks,
many of which sparked and smoldered from multiple bullet impacts. The remaining IRIS soldiers stood in the center of the dome with their weapons pointed at Bryson, Lopez and Katherine.

Behind the soldiers, using them as a shield, Joaquin called out again.

‘Olaf?! It’s over!’

Ethan shouted out in response. ‘I don’t think your little puppy is up to replying, Joaquin!’

A long silence ensued, during which he could almost sense Joaquin’s anguish.

‘Where is he, Warner? Bring him out here or I swear I’ll shoot Lopez dead right now!’

Ethan savored his reply.

‘He’s too heavy to carry,’ he shouted. ‘Most people are when they’re dead.’

Another silence followed and this time he could hear Joaquin’s voice cracking with suppressed rage.

‘It’s over, Ethan!’ he shouted. ‘Come out with your hands in the air where we can see you!’

Ethan thought hard about what Joaquin was willing to sacrifice in order to achieve his aims. It had become clear that the lives of other people, no matter how close they were, held little value
for him. It was also clear that there was no way he would let Ethan, Lopez or Katherine Abell leave the facility alive, for to let them do so would bring an end to Joaquin’s insane scheme.
Ethan stared up at the metal sphere towering above him, and realized that there was only one thing that Joaquin could not afford to lose.

‘It’s not over, Joaquin,’ he shouted back. ‘I’ve still got one play left.’

From the far side of the sphere, Joaquin laughed out loud.

‘You’re defeated, completely,’ he snapped. ‘I am holding a gun to Miss Lopez’s head. If you don’t show yourself in the next five seconds, I’ll kill her.
I can afford to waste a hostage, Mr. Warner, because I have three of them. What can
you
afford to waste?’

Ethan gripped the M-16 tighter and set the fire-control switch to automatic. Then he strode out into plain view with the rifle pulled tight into his shoulder and trained ahead of him.

He saw the small knot of people turn to look at him as he appeared through the hissing steam clouds. Joaquin was holding a pistol to Lopez’s head, but to Ethan’s relief he saw that
none of them had yet been restrained. The three remaining IRIS soldiers turned, aiming at Ethan. Bryson, standing between Katherine and Lopez, noticed instantly that there was no longer a weapon
pointing at him. Having lost several men, the soldiers’ professionalism was starting to crumble.

‘Drop the weapon, Warner!’ Joaquin shouted.

‘I’d urge you to compromise,’ Ethan replied, edging toward them. ‘You still stand to lose. I have the camera.’

Joaquin shook his head and tutted.

‘And you say that
I’m
insane,’ he said. ‘You are once again outgunned, four to one. Lose the weapon or Lopez will lose her head, as will you. I will retrieve the
camera from your cold, dead corpse.’

Ethan smiled grimly as he glanced up at the black-hole chamber beside him.

‘Then you’ll have to follow me to oblivion to get it.’

Ethan whirled and aimed at the giant metal plates of the black-hole chamber. In the instant that he aimed the weapon, he heard Joaquin’s terrified scream.

‘No!’

Ethan squeezed the trigger, and the rifle clattered and bucked in his grip as bullets smashed into the chamber’s walls.

The metal of the sphere buckled violently under the blows, and then two rounds ricocheted off and hit one of the giant power generators. The bullets smashed their way into
radiator vents, cables, wires and mounting bolts as a shower of sparks and metal fragments sprayed down onto the deck.

Ethan flinched, stopped firing, and looked up.

The panels held firm.

Joaquin’s laugh echoed around the dome and then he gestured to his men.

‘Kill him.’

Scott Bryson moved before any of the soldiers could pull their triggers. He grabbed one of them around the jaw and shoulders and lifted him off of his feet before yanking his head violently one
way and then the other. Ethan heard a dull crackling sound as the soldier’s neck snapped like a dry twig. Holding the soldier’s limp corpse against his chest, Bryson grabbed the rifle
that was still in the dead man’s grip and turned it toward Joaquin.

The tycoon leapt to one side, grabbed Lopez and shoved his pistol up under her jaw.

Ethan dropped onto one knee and aimed at the other two IRIS soldiers as they turned to defend their boss. In an instant, nobody could move. Bryson kept his rifle trained on Joaquin, the two IRIS
soldiers held Bryson and Katherine Abell in their sights, and Ethan’s rifle was fixed on the soldiers.

‘Mexican stand-off,’ Bryson said as he looked at Joaquin. ‘Time for you to make your choice, little man. You want to die here, or in prison up top?’

‘Just shoot the asshole!’ Lopez shouted as she struggled against Joaquin’s grip.

Joaquin sneered at Bryson from behind Lopez’s long black hair.

‘You’ve already lost. You’ll never make it out of here alive and I already know that I’ll be in Puerto Rico tomorrow.’

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. ‘What the hell makes you think that?’

‘Because I saw tomorrow’s news!’ Joaquin shouted back. ‘I was there! This is all preordained, Mr. Warner. No matter what you do the future cannot be changed! It’s
over for you, because you’re all going to die here and there’s nothing that you can do to stop that from—’

A deep cracking sound from behind Ethan cut Joaquin off in mid-sentence as it echoed across the dome. Ethan glanced over his shoulder, up at the sphere. Clouds of steam were drifting across the
roof of the dome amid showers of sparks and the pulsing glow of warning beacons. From somewhere within the sphere emanated a deep humming sound, as though every atom in the facility were vibrating,
and another deafening crack thundered through the dome.

Ethan saw the metal panel where his bullets had struck suddenly warp, the solid steel buckling like paper crushed in an invisible hand. A blast of steam and smoke billowed in a toxic cloud from
the damaged electromagnet high above them and set off another smoke alarm. Ethan turned back to Joaquin.

‘Looks like everybody’s time is running out,’ he said with a tight grin. ‘We should all leave, right now.’

Joaquin shook his head, his face suddenly racked with panic and desperation.

‘We can’t leave!’ he shouted. ‘You’re not going anywhere!’

Katherine looked at her husband.

‘If you leave now, with us, then this is all over, Joaquin! There’ll be no hard evidence to convict you! We can fight this, together!’

Another pair of deafening cracks thundered out from inside the sphere. Ethan flinched in shock as he guessed that the failed electromagnets were destabilizing the containment field. With the
delicate repulsive balance within the chamber lost, the black hole was beginning to drag on the sphere around it. It would only be a matter of moments before the panel failed, and with it the whole
facility.

‘The chamber’s going to breach!’ Ethan shouted at Joaquin.

Joaquin shook his head and gestured to the control panel nearby.

‘Widen the field from the remaining generators,’ he ordered one of his men. ‘Compensate for the imbalance!’

The soldier obeyed instantly and ran across to the control panel to stare at the endless array of screens, dials and instruments.

‘How?’ he shouted.

Joaquin jerked Lopez toward the panel, one eye on Ethan and the other on the buckling panel high up on the sphere.

‘Use the touch-screens!’ Joaquin ordered. ‘Fourth on the left!’

More sirens began going off as the black hole began to collapse the sphere. Ethan felt the metal panels beneath his boots begin to vibrate, numbing his legs as he kept his weapon trained on the
IRIS soldier still aiming his weapon at Bryson.

‘We’re wasting time, Joaquin!’ Ethan warned him. ‘We’re all going to die!’

‘That one there!’ Joaquin shouted at the soldier, ignoring Ethan.

Everyone watched the soldier as he began pressing buttons on the screen before him. Ethan moved further away from the sphere as he glanced up at the damaged panel to see it bowed inward like a
convex lens, rivets trembling under the unimaginable force.

‘It’s too late,’ Ethan shouted. ‘It’s going to fail.’

The IRIS soldier finished his adjustments and Ethan felt the vibrations in the panels beneath his feet cease as the deep hum faded away. Joaquin’s face illuminated with a bright smile as
he laughed out loud.

‘It is over! Nothing anybody does makes any difference!’ he cried out in delight. ‘The future cannot be changed. I cannot die here today!’

Lopez stared up at the trembling panel in the dome, ignoring the pistol at her throat. Bryson, still holding the dead soldier against his chest, glanced up at it, too, just as a tiny sound
tinkled above the hiss of steam and alarms. Ethan turned his head and saw a single rivet bounce down the side of the sphere to hit the metal floor plates with a high-pitched twang.

Ethan turned to Lopez.

‘Cover, now!’

Joaquin’s face collapsed into terror as with a final rending screech of metal torn through metal the panel imploded inward, ripped like tissue paper as it vanished from sight to be
replaced by a writhing bolt of blue-white plasma that snaked from within to envelop the power generator like a ghostly hand.

Ethan hit the deck as a screaming noise wailed through the dome. He glimpsed rippling streams of water vapor and ice that were plucked from the air of the dome, flowing like a writhing river
into the unimaginable blackness within the chamber. In an instant the failed power generator was torn from its roof mountings and smashed through the wall of the sphere with a terrific crash and
another blaze of pure energy that seethed across the ceiling of the dome and fell like white hot rivulets of rain down toward the deck.

‘The singularity’s been exposed!’ Joaquin bellowed above the din of rending metal and screaming alarms.

To Ethan’s amazement the falling globules of energy were snatched from midair and zipped back into the breach. Suddenly Ethan lost his balance, as though the whole dome was tilting onto
its side like a capsizing ship. The previously flat deck became a shallow ramp with the exit hatch at the top and the black hole’s chamber at the base. Yet despite the alarming sensation, his
brain told him that the deck was still level.

Ethan instinctively grabbed at the deck plates beneath him and searched for a hand hold. He realized that the black hole’s immense local gravitational influence within the facility was
overpowering that of the earth, and that now the singularity in the hole’s dark heart was the direction that gravity was taking.

Ethan saw the IRIS soldier behind the control panel scream as he was hauled upward from the walkway and span through the air toward the sphere, slamming into its wall with a crunch of shattered
bone as his legs crumpled beneath him. The ragged breach in the chamber folded further inward in a cacophony of failing rivets, like a giant black mouth with rows of sharp metal teeth, and the
soldier screamed a final horrified cry as he was dragged into the breach and vanished in a flare of energy.