Eric Flint - Time spike

Like most things in Margo's quarters in the facility, the ashtray was simple and utilitarian. Aside from her politics and her knuckle-tightening disregard for each and every principle of defensive driving, the only extravagance the woman seemed to have was a devotion to ice cream that bordered on idolatry. She'd had some sort of enormous mostly ice cream dessert after dinner, and had then insisted on stopping at a Dairy Queen on the way back to the mine. How she managed that and kept her slim figure was a mystery. Just one of those people with a furnace for a metabolism, he guessed, rather enviously.

Nick gained weight easily, if he didn't watch his diet and slipped on his exercise program. That had been a problem for him even as a young man, much less at the age he was now. "We just don't know, is the only answer," he said. "And we never will know what happened to them-or is happening to them. Malcolm says it's theoretically possible, with enough data-which we might even have, with this event-that we could someday send a probe of some kind that might find them. But theoretically possible and technologically feasible are two completely different things." "As any physicist can tell you, especially particle physicists like me. The experiments we could do-ifwe could generate the energy." She gave him a look he couldn't quite interpret. "Do you pray for them?" she asked abruptly. "Yes. Every night." She nodded.

"I'm not religious, as I think you know. But if you want to say prayers now, please feel free. Or any time you're with me. I won't join you, but I won't mind, either." "Thank you. I will, then."

After he finished, she stroked his arm. "This is going pretty well, I think." "Yeah. So do I." "But I'm not budging on the driving. Forget that crap about the man taking the wheel." Nick chuckled. "I can live with that. Or not. But I noticed that Alex included a very nice life insurance policy in that package. So I guess I can't plead mercy for my poor kids left orphaned." "Poor kids! One of your sons is a lawyer, one of them's a computer technician with his own consulting business, and the third is studying to be doctor. And both your daughters look to be doing well for themselves too." "Well. True. I did pretty good by them, for a trash-hauler whose father was a steelworker." He lay back down next to her, cupping an arm around her shoulder, and stared at the ceiling again. "It's too bad we'll never know. Because if we could, I'd bet you dollars for donuts those 'poor people' will do just about the same, give 'em three generations. Including a fair number of the inmates."

Chapter 53 James Cook moved quickly through the basement of the administration building. The smell down here was even worse than he remembered. Spending the last few days in the cleanest air he'd ever known-whatever other problems the Cretaceous had, manmade pollution was not one of them-had had its effect on him. Using the beam of a flashlight, he took the stairs two at a time, shoved open the door to the main level and breathed in air that now carried a different stench. This was the smell of too many humans living without bathing or plumbing. Sweat, urine and feces. The rest of the Boomers followed close behind. All of them except Kidd and Leffen. Kidd was lying back at the armory, with Leffen-who'd really be pretty useless in a fight-left there to watch over him and, hopefully, keep Geoffrey from bleeding to death. Getting into the armory had been a simple matter of gunning down five not-wary-enough sentries and unlocking a door.

Gettingout of it and into the rest of the installation had been a different story altogether. What James simply hadn't foreseen was that, once inside the armory and at the door leading out, they'd have no way of knowing if there were any guards waiting beyond. In the end, after he dilly-dallied for a couple of minutes, Kidd had told him to just open the fricking door and he'd handle the rest. Which, he had.

There'd been four of Luff's men on the other side of the door, it turned out, all of them with pistols. Kidd had gone through rolling, come up, and taken out all of them. The whole incredible gunfight hadn't lasted more than three or four seconds. But he'd taken two bullets himself. One a minor flesh wound in the arm, but the other… Kidd would make it or he wouldn't. In the meantime, James didn't have any time to spare. Blacklock had given them a five-minute lead. Then, they'd start the main attack on the gate-which, from the sound of things, had already erupted. The Boomers needed to reach West Tower while everything was still chaotic and confused for the prison's defenders. The Boomers moved through the door, crossed the floor, dropped down a flight of steps, and then took off through the perimeter tunnel at a near run. They arrived at the base of West Tower short of breath, then leaned or squatted against the wall waiting for their breathing to even out. The next stage of the operation was going to take stealth, not speed. "Sounds like a war out there," Morelli said. Boyne snorted. "There damn well better be a war going on out there, Dino, or we're dead meat." "Yeah, I know. I was just sort of, you know, reassuring myself." When James was sure all the men were capable of breathing slowly and silently, he took off his shoes, tied the laces together and draped them across the back of his neck and over his shoulders. The others did the same. It was time to climb the one-hundred-plus steps to the observation deck. He wanted to rush, but didn't. Instead, his pistol in his hand, he climbed a few steps and then waited a few seconds. Unlike Hulbert, who'd kept his eyes to the scope, James had watched the way Griffin and Nickerson had stalked the guards outside the armory. He'd been impressed by the Cherokee's cold-blooded patience and it hadn't taken him long to understand the key. One or two sounds were hard to interpret. A succession of sounds is what brought sense and meaning. He took another few steps. Then, waited a few seconds. Then another few steps; another. And so on, all the way up the stairs. Time ticked away. James had to force himself to stay patient. He might be overdoing it, sure. Morelli had been right-thatdid sound like a war going on out there. The convicts in the tower above were probably not paying attention to anything else.

Still, he forced himself to maintain the stalk. None of the Boomers objected, even though they must all have been feeling the same impatience. By now, James knew his authority over them was unchallenged. In fact, it was probably even stronger than Boomer's had been. James wasn't erratic, the way the Boom could be. The stairs ended six inches above his head and the floor began. He motioned for everyone to be still and then took the next step so he could get a peek inside. The small room was full of cigarette smoke. A body was curled against the far wall. The man's head was down, his chin on his chest, as if he were asleep. James couldn't see the face. But the blood that soaked his entire coverall made it obvious he was dead.

Some guard out there-probably Hulbert or Nickerson or Marie Keehn-had hit the sniper's triangle. The cigarette smoke was coming from two other convicts, still standing at the firing windows with rifles in their hands. Next to the windows, rather, keeping under cover. The sniper's bullet that had taken out the con against the wall had obviously made them cautious. As James watched, one of the men spit out his cigarette, raised his rifle, took a quick step to the side, fired three shots, and scuttled back under cover. He couldn't have possibly been able to really aim at anything. But, in a way, that didn't matter. James knew that all the firing outside was just covering fire from Blacklock and his men. Unless the Boomers could take out the tower, any attempt to rush the gate would produce bad casualties. James dropped his left hand so Boyne and the others could see. Two fingers. Two cons. He pointed toward Boyne and then to the right. Boyne nodded. James took a deep breath and lunged into the room. The con who'd spit out the cigarette saw him coming, but before he could bring the rifle around, James had started shooting. James wasn't a gunfighter and he wasn't a hit man. He'd never fired a pistol at anything but a target in his life, and hadn't done that all that many times. But he had steady nerves-very steady-and he knew how to use a gun, and he wasn't worried about ammunition. They had plenty of pistol ammunition. And it was very close range. Later, he figured out he'd fired eight rounds. All but one of them hit the convict, somewhere in his body. Three of them had been fatal wounds. He looked to his right. Boyne had done the same, obviously. The rounds he'd fired combined with James' own had left James feeling a little dizzy.