Michael Sullivan: Hollow World

Pax had the Port-a-Call out and jogged forward.

A portal leading to a star field of open space appeared inside the corridor. The conflicting energy of the portal in a portal created a rainbow of colors that sparked like a Tesla coil. From the wide eyes of Pax, Ellis could tell the light show was unexpected. Still, Pax had the presence of mind to shout back at Ellis, “Hurry! We need to roll this through.”

He looked at his watch. The glowing blue numbers read: 00:3:48.

Ellis ran forward and helped Pax push. The portal was only three feet away and right in front of the warhead, but even on wheels the bomb was hard to move. The thing felt like it weighed the same as a Volkswagen, and the portway gave little traction. Ellis’s feet were slipping and sliding. Then the case began to move, rolling slowly at first but then picking up speed.

“Don’t follow it through,” Pax warned, grabbing him. “Let it roll.”

The bomb continued to coast without their help, but when it reached the portal, it slammed to a stop.

“Storm it all!” Pax shouted.

It was obvious what had happened. The opening Pax made was an inch too high, and the wheels caught the lip. Objects needed to fully pass into a portal. Another safety feature, Ellis guessed, to stop people or things from being sheared off. Unless they could lift it and heave it through, the portal would need to be lowered.

Ellis looked at his watch: 00:2:38.

Pax pulled out the Port-a-Call again, and a second later the light show ended as the portal to space disappeared.

Ellis glanced down at Warren. There was a hole in the back of the suit. A much bigger one. Blood bubbled up like a tiny artesian well and drained down his sides onto the floor of the portway, where it made a growing puddle, spilling out bright red that was being illuminated from below by the lava. Warren wasn’t moving—wasn’t breathing.

“Stupid, stupid!” Pax was shouting even while manipulating the tiny control. Another portal appeared, this one at the same level, but a foot to the left. “Wrong bleezing coords, Pax!”

“Two-minute warning,” Ellis said.

The portal winked out.

Pax glared at the Port-a-Call with a fierce intensity that reminded Ellis of Isley playing with his Game Boy. Epic boss mob, Dad! he had shouted when Ellis had told him to empty the kitchen’s garbage. I’m down to my last life!

Another portal appeared, kicking out a new lightning-storm light show that caused it to flicker. This portal dipped down below the surface of the tunnel about a foot, and at the intersection the two wormholes fought each other. The whole portway flickered briefly, threatening to cut out.

Don’t worry. We haven’t had a tunnel failure yet. Everything down at this level runs off the Big D, and nothing’s going to interrupt her. Ellis hoped Geo-12 was right.

The new portal was also three feet back. Pax wisely realized they would need a runway to get the bomb rolling again.

Without a word, the two began pushing, only to find that Warren’s blood had spread out across the floor of the tunnel and partly around the bomb. It was like trying to push a car on ice.

Ellis pulled off his sweater and threw it on the ground, giving them something to get traction on.

00:01:31.

Leaning in, they threw their weight into it. Ellis was feeling the sweater about to give, when the bomb began to roll. The whole case inched forward at a snail’s pace, and once it was beyond the sweater, they couldn’t help it anymore, even though Pax continued to try until slipping and falling in the thin sheen of blood.

00:01:15.

Ellis raised his wrist so he could watch the clock and the warhead at the same time. The bomb inched forward at an agonizingly slow pace.

“One minute,” Ellis called just as the bomb reached the portal and then—

Pop!

The sparking hit a high note, and Pax’s portal lost its battle with the portway and vanished.

“No!” they both cried as the bomb rolled a few more feet and then stopped.

Pax took up the Port-a-Call again. “It’s not working! It’s not working !” That last word came out as a scream.

“Warren’s—get Warren’s!”

Together they rolled Warren over.

He’s dead . The thought was there knocking to get in, but Ellis didn’t have the time. He found the little device with its touch-sensitive screen, but the whole thing was covered in blood.

“I can’t get it to work,” Pax cried, wiping the screen on the thigh of the Amish pants. “It’s not the blood—it just won’t work! It’s broken like the other one.”

Ellis looked at his watch. 00:00:34 .

He stepped forward, reached out, and took Pax in his arms. “My God, how I wish you were a woman.”

Pax settled against his chest and squeezed. “What difference does it make? I’m me.”

“Yes, you are.” He’d spent almost thirty-five years married to Peggy, but he’d never felt this close to her—to anyone. What happens if your soul mate is in the wrong body?

He felt Pax smile.

“And you’re telepathic.”

“Uh-huh.” Ellis felt Pax’s head rub up and down against him. “I hear the thoughts of those near me—feel their emotions as if they’re mine.”

00:00:20.

“Why couldn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t tell anyone. If anyone had known—if the ISP had discovered—they could have used me to make the Hive Project a reality. I like my bowler hat. I didn’t want everyone’s uniqueness taken away—I couldn’t stand for it to all be my fault.”

“That’s why you tried to kill yourself. To deny them the secret.”

Again he felt Pax nod.

00:00:10.

“I wanted to explain, but I was afraid people would reject me, hate me. Still I knew if anyone would be able to understand, be able to forgive me—it would be you.”

“Even though you know what I did to my son, Isley?”

“Yes.”

“He told me he was in love.” Ellis felt tears fill his eyes. “Only it was with another man. I told him he had to get over it. That what he was feeling wasn’t love. It couldn’t be, because love like that was only between men and women. I told him he had to choose between his family and this queer of his, because my son wasn’t gay.”

“I know,” Pax said. Ellis looked down and saw that Pax was crying too. “And I know, afterward, you would have done anything to take it back.”

“I don’t even know why I said it.” Ellis was sobbing. They both were, as they stood hugging each other over the dead body of Warren Eckard in the molten Sea of Gehenna and waiting for…

Pax was the first to say it. “Shouldn’t we be dead by now?”

Ellis wiped his eyes and looked at his watch.

It blinked 00:00:00.

“The timer.” Ellis looked at the bomb sitting in its little chariot, a black silhouette against the blast furnace. “Warren said they were having trouble with the timer.”

Pax looked at the bomb too. “Does that mean it won’t go off at all, or do we just have more time?”

“Does it matter?” Ellis took the Port-a-Call from Pax and began scrubbing it with his shirttail. “Spit on your hands, wash them clean.”

“It won’t work. I told you, it’s not the blood.”

When Ellis had cleaned the device, he carefully handed it back. “Try it again anyway.”

Pax struggled. “No. It still won’t work. It’s frozen. I think the interaction with the other tunnel broke both of—oh, wait.” Pax looked puzzled. “The lock is on this one. No one puts the lock on.” Pax slid a finger across the surface of the device. “There.”

Another portal appeared. The warhead was out of the blood pool, and the two shoved again until the bomb was rolling forward at a good pace. They watched as if it were a caisson carrying a casket.