Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

A flash of indescribable colour from the Crucible — and the radiation alarm screeched, warning lights flashing.

Nobody in the control room was alive to pay heed. The neutron burst had penetrated the thin walls, and everything within. Neutrons were even more damaging to organic matter than gamma radiation, the technicians’ flesh almost liquefied as they collapsed dead over their instruments.

With no one to shut down the particle accelerator, it kept running at full power, temperature gauges rising as the liquid nitrogen systems struggled to cool the electromagnets. One readout in particular rocketed upwards as the vital fluid dribbled out over the remains of Rutger De Klerx…

The elevator was halfway back to the runway level when an alarm sounded. Kang and Bok both blanched, the security chief shouting into his walkie-talkie and getting no reply. ‘What’s happened?’ asked Sarah, seeing her husband’s concern.

‘Radiation!’ gasped Kang. ‘A radiation leak!’

‘What? But how—’

‘They must have sabotaged the shields,’ said Mikkelsson. ‘If there was an unprotected neutron burst down there, it will have killed everyone in the control room.’

‘What about Rutger?’ His silence gave Sarah her answer. ‘Oh my God! What about us, are we safe?’

‘We’re shielded by the rock. Even high-energy neutrons can only penetrate a short distance.’ He looked over the car’s side. ‘But there is a chance that contamination might be drawn upwards by the ventilation system. Colonel, you should evacuate the facility until a hazmat team can secure the accelerator.’ Kang nodded, then gestured for Bok to hand him the radio.

‘And… them ?’ Sarah said, hesitating before saying the names. ‘Nina and her husband?’

‘I don’t know. If they got far enough around the tunnel, they might have survived.’

‘But they can’t get out, surely? The tunnel’s a loop — they can only go back to the control room, and that’ll kill them!’

Bok frowned in realisation. ‘There are ladders to the level above.’

Kang broke off from issuing the evacuation order to bark a new command: ‘All security forces! Find the Westerners — and kill them !’

Eddie looked back in the direction of the flash as he and Nina hurried around the tunnel. ‘What the fuck was that?’ he shouted over the accelerator’s wavering screech.

‘The neutron burst,’ she gasped in reply. ‘If we’d been any closer, we might have ended up like Lot’s wife!’ He gave her a blank look. ‘From the Bible? Turned into a pillar of salt?’

‘You remember that I skived out of Sunday school, right? But are we safe even if we weren’t in line of sight of it?’

‘We shouldn’t have been directly exposed. But I don’t think it’d be a good idea to go back.’

‘Hopefully we won’t need to.’ Eddie pointed ahead. There was an alcove set into the inner wall, a ladder leading upwards. Some of the accelerator’s cabling branched off and ran up the narrow shaft alongside it. ‘Must go to the next level.’

‘Anywhere’s better than here.’ They climbed over the gleaming tube—

A thudding jolt shook it. ‘What was that?’ Eddie said, jumping down on the other side.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nina, ‘but I doubt it was anything good…’

Confirmation came a moment later as the boom of an explosion echoed down the tunnel.

Without coolant, the electromagnets had overheated — and blown apart, the blast ripping through the pipework and cables around them. More liquid nitrogen erupted from the main feeder pipe. Without the magnetic field to guide the beam around the loop, the racing subatomic particles now wanted to travel in a straight line. They smashed into the wall of the metal tube, within seconds turning it red hot. The neighbouring electromagnets also overloaded as their coolant supply was cut off, a chain reaction tearing the enormous machine apart—

Eddie and Nina ran for the alcove as the blasts ripped towards them. A dense wall of swirling mist raced through the tunnel ahead of the explosions — not steam, but the air freezing as liquid nitrogen gushed along the floor. He practically flung her up to grab a higher rung before scrambling into the narrow shaft behind her. The icy wavefront gushed past below, detonations rattling the ladder as more magnets blew to pieces.

‘Keep climbing!’ Eddie yelled.

‘You think?’ Nina shot back sarcastically.

The top of the dimly lit shaft was a small dot a long way above. They continued their hurried ascent — as another, more violent explosion shook the walls.

The overload reached the accelerator’s particle source, on the opposite side of the huge loop from the control room. It exploded, sending one final surge of energy through the failing system. The electromagnets guiding the beam into the Crucible fluctuated, the stream of superfast particles burning into the crystalline sphere’s support frame. It melted like wax under a blowtorch, pitching its contents to the floor as more liquid nitrogen swilled from ruptured pipes—

Extreme heat met extreme cold as the Crucible hit the ground. There could only be one result. Not even the strange material of the Atlantean artefact could withstand such stresses. It burst apart, shimmering splinters scattering across the chamber.

Before they had even come to rest, a wall of fire tore through the room, obliterating everything.

A sudden rush of wind from the tunnel below warned Nina and Eddie that danger was coming their way. ‘ Hang on! ’ cried the Englishman.

A thunderous shock wave pounded the shaft, tearing away the ladder’s lowest section and jolting those above so hard that they both almost lost their grip. Smoke and embers surged upwards, blinding them in a hot, stinking haze. Then the noise faded, residual echoes of disintegrating machinery still rolling through the underground passage.

Nina coughed, squinting downwards. Her husband was still gripping the ladder below her. ‘Keep going,’ he gasped, ‘or we’ll choke on this crap.’ They resumed their climb, the bullet wound in Nina’s arm burning with renewed pain. ‘So, you think everything that just blew up was expensive?’

‘I’m going to guess that any sane poverty-stricken country wouldn’t even have considered it,’ she replied.

‘You haven’t met many dictators, have you?’

‘Have you?’

‘More than I’d like.’

‘Why am I not surprised?’ Nina reached the top of the ladder. ‘Okay, big-ass manhole cover blocking the way.’

‘Let me see.’ She leaned aside so Eddie could peer at the obstruction. ‘No locking bar on this side. Either we can just push it open, or…’

‘Or?’

‘Or it’s locked from the top.’

She sighed. ‘I will be really, really pissed if the thing that keeps us from getting out of here is a buck-fifty padlock.’

‘Pretty sure there’ll be more than that trying to stop us. Shift over.’ She squeezed against the cables, Eddie squirming up beside her. ‘This is cosy.’

‘Mind on the job, mister.’ They both managed their first smiles in some time. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yeah.’ He wedged his shoulder against the cover, bracing his feet. ‘On three.’

He counted down, then both pushed upwards. For a moment the heavy metal disc remained firmly in place, before shifting with a graunch of rusted metal. Eddie shoved harder, Nina seeing faint lights through the gap as it widened. ‘Looks like a tunnel,’ she said.

He raised a foot to a higher rung and strained again. The cover rose, Nina forcing it sideways. A few more seconds of effort, then Eddie lowered to bring it down flat on the floor before shoving it clear. ‘That’s given me a chip on my shoulder — out of the fucking bone.’