The Fold: A Novel Part 27

"Unfortunate," said Arthur, "but not unexpected."

"You know this is the nail in the coffin. Even he'll agree they have to shut you down for this."

"No," Arthur said, "he won't. At this point he's depending on this project as much as us. He's invested too much. The Albuquerque Door is going to make or break his career, too, and if he has a choice, I'm confident which way he'll go."

"Someone died," said Mike.

"And we've shown that was a fluke. The Albuquerque Door project works as promised. That's what matters."

"Can we put this on hold for now?" asked Jamie. "No matter how we look at this, the best thing is for me to go get checked out, right? So let's get that done and then we can argue about if this was a mistake or a bold step."

Mike looked at her. "And if it's a mistake?"

She spread her arms and then gestured up and down her body. "For the third or fourth time," she said, "fine."

"Well, let's be sure," said Arthur. He gazed at Mike. "Unless you have any other objections."

Mike turned his back on them and paced back and forth in front of the rings.

"Let's go," Arthur said.

"Back soon with a clean bill of health," said Jamie.

Their footfalls faded and the door hissed again. It closed with a thump. Olaf and Sasha spoke in quiet tones. Neil moved to join them.

Mike stood alone and took a few slow breaths. He stared up at the rings. There was a certain logic to what Arthur had said, but Reggie would shut the project down. At the very least, he'd put someone new in charge. The next time they opened the Door, who knew what would happen to the person who walked through it?

He turned and headed for the door. An insistent ant held up an image in his mind. Something he shouldn't see. He rewound it even as he turned his head to look again.

The twin rings stood up on the walkway. He'd moved so far to the right they were almost edge-on. He took a few steps until he could see the far side and the two inside edges of the rings there.

Then he took another step and saw the third ring.

He glanced over at Olaf, Sasha, and Neil. They were debating some point. None of them were near their stations. Behind them, the red light was dark.

Two rings close to him.

Three rings on the far side.

He took a few steps back, then walked behind the platform. From behind, there were only two of the big off-white rings. He traced them with his eyes. Then he walked out to the front again. He stepped to the left and looked through the Door.

Three rings.

His movement caught Neil's eye. "What's up?"

Back to the right. Two rings.

Mike cleared his throat. "Guys..."

They all looked up.

"Is the power on?"

"Yes," smirked Olaf. "That's why there's no sound at all."

Three rings.

Two rings.

He snapped his fingers twice and pointed at the rings. "Is the power on?"

The smirks vanished and Neil shook his head. "No, of course not."

"We've got a problem," said Mike.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

Neil and Sasha walked to the Door with long strides. Three quick steps brought Olaf back to his station. "We're shut down," he said. "No question about it."

Mike stepped up onto the platform and looked through the rings. From this angle, he could see into Site B. Jamie's sweats.h.i.+rt was still balled up on one station. Arthur's chair was still pushed out. The back wall was twenty feet farther away than the one he saw in the corner of his eye. The red light wasn't on there, either.

Sasha and Neil moved in on either side of him. "Oh, f.u.c.k," said Sasha. "What the f.u.c.k's going on?"

Neil reached out a hand toward the Door, but Mike slapped it down. "What?"

"Do you know how long it's going to stay open?"

The other man looked at his fingertips and shuddered.

Sasha stared up at the rings. "We've never managed to keep it open longer than ninety-three seconds."

"It's not open," Olaf called from behind them. "Power's down, the system's down, it's not-"

"It's open," said Mike.

"Maybe it just looks open," said Neil. "This might be some kind of afterimage or something."

Sasha pulled something from her pocket. She showed a handful of coins to Mike and Neil, then flung them through the rings. They chimed off the ramp in Site B. One quarter wedged itself into the expanded steel walkway. A pair of dimes rang on the concrete floor and rolled off out of sight.

"f.u.c.k," she muttered.

Mike dug around in his own pocket and found another quarter. He held it between his finger and thumb, and then flung it like a miniature Frisbee. The coin sailed through the rings and across the other room. It hit the floor, skidded, and pinged against the far wall.

"Are you sure it's open?" asked Olaf. He was poring over the data on his screen.

"Positive," said Mike. "We just threw about a buck in pocket change over onto Site B."

Olaf shook his head. "It can't be. There's no power."

They stared at Site B for a moment. Then Neil stepped back from the rings. Mike and Sasha followed him. They gathered by Olaf's station.

"It could just be an...an aftereffect," stuttered Olaf. "It's possible the magnetic fields have somehow created a...some sort of a lensing effect, like a gravitational lens, and we're just seeing an afterimage."

Mike ignored him. "Is anyone still over in the other building?" he asked Sasha.

She shook her head. "Shouldn't be. Arthur was running things alone."

"Neil, get over there. Fast. See if it's open on that end. Don't get near it."

"Okay." He made a wide arc around the rings and headed for the back door.

"And don't touch anything," Mike called after him. "Not the controls, not the coins, nothing."

"You taking charge?" asked Sasha.

"Just trying to make sure no one gets hurt," said Mike. "Figured someone should."

"We had good intentions."

"Just like you did with Tramp?"

Sasha winced.

Olaf's eyes were still locked on the rings. "We could just be seeing a delayed image, one that's a few moments off from-"

Mike shook his head. "It's not a gravitational lens, Olaf. The Door is open."

"It can't be." Olaf shook his head. He had the wide eyes and slack jaw of a man who'd been slapped hard and hadn't quite accepted it yet. "I mean...I mean Occam's razor. The power isn't on, so it can't be-"

"How the h.e.l.l do you get to gravitational lensing by using Occam's razor?" asked Sasha. She walked over to check the readouts from the other station.

"Well, I mean...there's no other way."

"The Door's open," said Mike. "The power's off, the program's not running, and the Door is still open. Why?"

"I...I don't know."

"Did something like this ever come up in your theories?" asked Mike. "Even the possibility of it?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"No," snapped Olaf. Getting defensive put him back on familiar ground. "No, it never came up."

"Get Arthur back here."

Sasha glanced over from the other station. "What about Jamie?"

Mike paused. So did Olaf. The three of them exchanged looks.

"How far's the doctor?" asked Mike.

"Not far," said Olaf. "They're probably halfway there."

"He'll turn right around if he thinks the project's in trouble," said Sasha.

"I'll send him a text," Olaf said. "Tell him there's an issue and he should come straight back as soon as he drops Jamie off."

Mike looked around. "I thought phones weren't allowed in here?"

"Your phone's not allowed in here," said Olaf. His finger moved across the touchscreen. It made him look old. Mike was used to students texting lightning-fast with their thumbs.

Sasha stared up at the rings. "What's powering them?"

"No idea," Mike said.

She took a step forward. "The energy has to be coming from somewhere," she said. "Something like this can't happen without-"

"Sasha," Olaf said, "watch the line."

The tip of her shoe was inches from the white paint. "It's not..." She glanced at the rings. "f.u.c.k. Is it safe?"

"Let's not find out the hard way," said Mike. "We need to make sure everyone knows it's open. Until we figure out what's going on, treat this like a standard run."

Olaf tapped out on a code on his keyboard. The red lights ignited and began to spin. Through the rings, they could see s.h.i.+fting red shadows over on Site B. It made Mike think of Bob sprawled on the floor in his own blood.

The phone fired off a handful of quick violin notes. The ants identified it as part of the "Russian Dance" from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Olaf tapped at the screen. "Jamie. They want to know what's going on."

"What are you saying?"

"That Arthur should drop her off and get back here."

"It's a wound," said Sasha.

"What is?"

She stared up at the rings. "We've been ripping and tearing at s.p.a.ce-time so often, we made a wound. But we kept ripping, so when it scarred, it didn't scar shut. It scarred open. Somewhere along the way, the Door became permanent."

"And we never noticed?" scoffed Olaf.