pursuing cart appeared around the curving wall of the tunnel.
Darkness up ahead; Theo had only activated the roof lighting for a tiny arc of the
tunnel's circumference. He hoped Jake had managed to stabilize Moot. Damn --he
probably shouldn't have taken the hovercart; surely the need to get Moot to the
surface was more important than protecting the equipment in the tunnel. He hoped
Jake would realize that the monorail must be nearby.
Shit! Theo's cart touched the outer wall of the tunnel and started spinning around,
its headlight beams cutting swaths through the darkness. He fought with the joystick
that controlled the cart, trying to get it to keep from crashing into anything else. He
got it going back in the right direction, but now Rusch's cart was about halfway down
the visible part of the tunnel, instead of at its far end.
The hovercart wasn't going fast enough to make a real breeze, but it nonetheless
felt like breakneck speed. Rusch still had the Glock, of course --but a hovercart
wasn't like a car; you couldn't shoot out the tires in hopes of bringing it to a halt.
The only sure way to stop such a vehicle was to shoot the driver; Theo had to keep
pressure on the accelerator pedal for it to continue to move.
Theo kept rocking his cart left and right and raising and lowering it as much as he
could in the cramped tunnel; if Rusch was trying to get a bead on him from the rear,
he wanted to make himself a difficult target.
He checked the markers on the gently curving wall; the tunnel was divided into
eight octants of about three and a half kilometers each, and each octant was
subdivided into thirty-odd sections of a hundred meters apiece. According to the
signage, he was in octant three, section twenty-two. The access station was at
octant four, section thirty-three. He might just make it --
An impact!
A shower of sparks.
The sounds of metal ripping.
Dammit, he wasn't paying enough attention; the hovercart had banged against
one of the cryogenics units. It had almost flipped over, which would have dropped
Theo and the bomb down onto the floor. Theo fought again with the controls,
desperately trying to stabilize the cart. A furtive glance back confirmed his fears: the
collision had slowed him down enough that Rusch was now only about fifty meters
back. He'd have to be a hell of a good shot to take Theo out at this distance in the
dark, but if he got much closer ...
The tunnel was constricted up ahead by more equipment; Theo had to drop the
cart to only a few centimeters off the floor, but his control of the vehicle at its
current speed was poor --the cart skittered across the flooring like a stone being
skipped across a lake.
Another glance at the bomb's timing mechanism, the digits glowing bright blue in
the dim light. Thirty-seven minutes.
Blam!
The bullet zipped past Theo; he instinctively ducked. It hit some metal fittings up
ahead, illuminating the tunnel with sparks.
Theo hoped Jake and Moot had come down the elevator at the access station. If
the car was up at the top, there was no way Theo could wait for it, and he'd have to
try to make it up the numerous stairs before Rusch could get a bead on him.
Theo swerved again, this time to avoid a bracket supporting the beam pipe. He
glanced back. Damn, but Rusch's cart must have had a fuller charge to its batteries;
he was now quite close.
The curving tunnel wall continued to pass by, and --yes, by God, there it was!
The access station staging area. But --
But Rusch was too close now --much too close. If Theo stopped his cart here,
Rusch would blow him away. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Theo felt his heart sink as he passed the access station. He turned around in his
chair and watched it receding from view. Rusch, evidently deciding that he didn't
want to chase Theo all the way around the tunnel, took another shot. This one did hit
the hovercart, its metal body vibrating in response.
Theo urged the cart to go faster. He remembered the old golf carts CERN used to
have for traveling short distances in the tunnel. He missed those; at least they
weren't constantly in danger of flipping over at high speeds.
They continued on, farther and farther, swinging around the tunnel, and --
A great crashing sound from the rear. Theo looked back. Rusch's cart had
smashed into the outside wall. It had come to a dead stop. Theo let out a small
cheer.
He figured they'd gone about seventeen kilometers now --soon the staging area
for the campus monorail station would be swinging into view. He might be able to
get out there and take the elevator straight up into the LHC control center. He hoped
he'd see the monorail parked back there, meaning Jake and Moot had made it to
safety, and --
God damn it! His hovercart was dying, its battery exhausted. It had probably
sounded an alarm earlier, but Theo had been unable to hear it over the noise the
overtaxed engines were making. The cart dropped to the tunnel floor, skidding a
distance along its concrete surface before coming to a dead halt. Theo grabbed the
bomb and began to run. As a teenager, Theo had once participated in a re-creation
of the run from Marathon to Athens made in 490 B.C. to announce a Hellenic victory
over the Persians --but he'd been thirty years younger then. His heart was pounding
now as he tried to go faster.
Kablam!
Another gunshot. Rusch must have gotten his cart going again. Theo kept
running, his legs pounding, at least in his mind, like pistons. There, ahead, was the
main campus staging area, a half dozen hovercarts parked along its wall. Only
another twenty meters --
He glanced back. Rusch was closing rapidly. Christ, he couldn't stop here, either --
Rusch would pick him off like a sitting duck.
Theo forced his body to make it the last few meters, and --
The chase continued.
He tumbled into another hovercart and sent himself careening once more down
the tunnel, still heading clockwise. He looked back. Rusch dumped his own
hovercart, presumably worried about its batteries, and transferred to a fresh one. He
headed off in hot pursuit.
Theo glanced at the bomb's timer. Only twenty minutes left, but for once Theo
seemed to have a decent lead. And, because of that, he actually stopped to think for
a moment. Could Rusch possibly be right? Could there be a chance to undo all the
damage, all the death that had occurred twenty-one years ago? If there had never
been visions, Rusch's wife might still be alive; Michiko's daughter Tamiko might still
be alive; Theo's brother Dimitrios might still be alive.
But, of course, no one conceived after the visions --no one born in the last
twenty years --would be the same. Which sperm penetrated an egg was dependent
on a thousand details; if the world unfolded differently, if women got pregnant on
different days, or even different seconds, their children would be different. There
were --what? --something like four billion people who had been born in the last two
decades. Even if he could rewrite history, did he have any right to do so? Didn't
those billions deserve the rest of their allotted three score and ten, rather than to be
simply snuffed out, not even killed but completely expunged from the timeline?
Theo's cart continued its journey around the tunnel. He glanced back; Rusch was
emerging in the distance from behind the curve.
No. No, he wouldn't change the past even if he could. And besides, he didn't really
believe Rusch. Yes, the future could be changed. But the past? No, that had to be
fixed. Upon that much he'd always agreed with Lloyd Simcoe. What this Rusch was
saying was crazy.
Another gunshot! The bullet missed him, impacting the tunnel wall up ahead. But
there would doubtless be more, if Rusch realized where Theo was headed --
Another kilometer slipped by. The bomb's timer now read just eleven minutes.
Theo looked at the wall markings, trying to make them out in the dim light of his
headlights. It had to be just ahead, and --
There it was! Just where he'd left it!
The monorail, hanging from the ceiling. If he could make it there --
A new shot rang out. This one did hit the hovercart, and Theo almost lost control
of the vehicle again. The monorail was still a hundred meters ahead. Theo fought
with the joystick again, swearing at the cart, demanding it go faster, faster --
The monorail had five components --a cab at each end, and three cars in the
middle. He had to make it to the far cab; the train would only move in the direction
it thought of as forward.
Almost there --
He didn't slow the hovercart gently; instead, he just slammed the brake. The
vehicle pitched forward, Theo being tossed with it. It smashed onto the tunnel floor,
skidding along, sparks flying. Theo got out, grabbing the bomb, and --
Yet another shot and --
God!
A shower of Theo's own blood splashing against his face --
More pain than he'd ever felt in his life --
A bullet tearing into his right shoulder.
God --
He dropped the bomb, scrambled for it again with his left hand, and staggered
into the monorail's cab.
The pain --incredible pain --
He hit the monorail's start button.
Its headlights, mounted above the angled windscreen, snapped on, illuminating
the tunnel ahead. After the dimness of the last half hour, the light was painfully
bright.
The monorail heaved into motion, whining as it did so. Theo pushed the speed
control; the train moved faster and faster still.
Theo thought he was going to black out from the pain. He looked back. Rusch was
negotiating his cart past Theo's abandoned one. The monorail used magnetic
levitation; it was capable of very high speeds. Of course, no one had ever tested its
maximum velocity in the tunnel --
Until now.
The bomb's display said eight minutes.
Another bullet rang out, but it missed its mark. Theo glanced back just in time to
see Rusch's cart fall back around the curve of the tunnel.
Theo leaned his head out the side of the cab; there was wind in his face. "Come
on," he said. "Come on ... "
The tunnel's curving walls flashed by. The mag-lev generators hummed loudly.
There they were: Jake and Moot, the physicist attending to the cop, who was now
sitting up, mercifully alive. Theo waved at them as the monorail zoomed past.
Kilometers passed, and then --
Sixty seconds.
He'd never make it to the far access station, never make it to the surface. Maybe
he should just drop the bomb; yes, it would disable the LHC no matter where it
exploded, but --
No.
No, he had come too far --and he had no fatal flaw; his downfall was not
preordained.
If only --
He looked at the timer again, then at the wall markings.
Yes!
Yes! He might just make it!
He urged the train to go even faster.
And then --
The tunnel straightened out.
He hit the emergency brake.
Another shower of sparks.
Metal against metal.
His head whipping forward --
Agony in his shoulder --
He clambered out of the cramped cab and staggered away from the monorail.
Forty-five seconds --
Staggered a few meters farther along the tunnel --
To the entrance to the huge, empty, six-story-tall chamber that had once housed
the CMS detector.
He forced himself to go on, into the chamber, placing the bomb in the center of
the vast empty space.
Thirty seconds.
He turned around, ran as fast as he could, appalled to see the river of blood he'd
left on his way in --
Back out to the monorail --
Fifteen seconds.
Clambering back into the cab, hitting the accelerator --
Ten seconds.
Zipping along the roof-mounted track --
Five seconds.
Around the curve of the tunnel --
Four seconds.
Almost unconscious from the pain --
Three seconds.
Urging the train to go faster.
Two seconds.
Covering his head with his hands, his shoulder protesting violently as he lifted his
right arm --
One second.
Wondering briefly what the future held --
Zero!
Ka-boom!
The explosion echoing in the tunnel.
A flash of light from behind sending a huge shadow of the monorail's insectoid
form onto the curving tunnel wall --
And then --
Glorious, healing darkness, the train speeding on as Theo collapsed against the
tiny dashboard.
Two days later.
Theo was in the LHC control room. It was crowded, but not with scientists or
engineers --almost everything was automated. Still, dozens of reporters were
present, all of them were lying on the floor. Jake Horowitz was there, of course, as
were Theo's own special guests, Detective Helmut Drescher, his shoulder in a sling,
and Moot's young wife.
Theo started the countdown, then also lay down on the floor, waiting for it to
happen.
31
Lloyd Simcoe often thought of his seven-year-old daughter, Joan, who now lived
in Nippon. Of course, they talked every couple of days by video phone, and Lloyd
tried to convince himself that seeing and hearing her was as good as hugging her,
and bouncing her on his knee, and holding her hand as they walked through parks,
and wiping her tears when she fell down and skinned her knee.
He loved her enormously and was proud of her beyond words. True, despite her
occidental name, she looked nothing like him; her features were completely Asian.
Indeed, more than anything, she looked like poor Tamiko, the half-sister she would
never know. But externals didn't matter; half of what Joan was had come from
Lloyd. More than his Nobel Prize, more than all the papers he had authored or coauthored,
more than anything else, she was his immortality.
And even though she came from a marriage that hadn't lasted, Joan was doing
just fine. Oh, Lloyd had no doubt that sometimes she wished her mommy and daddy
were still together. Still, Joan had attended Lloyd's wedding to Doreen, capturing
