Matthew Reilly - Area 7

fanning outward in concentric circles, like ripples in a pond.

The first thing to go was the Emergency Exit Vent.

Its tight concrete walls were assaulted by the expanding

wall of energy within a second of the blast. They were

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turned instantly to powder. Had Schofield and Gant been inside

it, they would have been pulverized beyond recognition.

It was then, however, that the most spectacular sight of

all appeared.

Since the entire complex had effectively become a

hollowed-out shell, the superheavy layer of granite above

the underground section caved in on it.

From the sky above Area 7, it looked as if a perfectly

circular earthquake had struck the facility.

Without warning, an eight-hundred-yard-wide ring of

earth around the complex just gave way, turned to rubble,

and Area 7's buildings--the main hangar, the airfield tower,

the other hangars--were just swallowed by the earth, dropping

from sight, until all that remained in the place of Area 7

was a gigantic half-mile-wide crater in the desert floor.

From his position on board a Marine Corps Super Stallion

that had arrived at the complex only ten minutes earlier,

the President of the United States just watched it all go down.

Beside him, Book II, Juliet Janson and the boy named

Kevin just stared in stunned awe at the spectacular end of

Area 7.

DOWN IN THE X-RAIL TUNNEL, IT WASN'T OVER YET.

When the nuke had gone off, Schofield and Gant's

maintenance pod had been shooting through the tunnel like

a speeding bullet.

Then they'd heard the boom of the blast.

Felt the shudder of the earth all around them.

And then Schofield looked out through the rear window

of the two-person pod.

"Son of a ..." he breathed.

He saw an advancing wall of falling rock, rampaging through the tunnel behind them!

The roof of the tunnel was caving in, shattering into

pieces as the expanding pulse of the concussion wave rippled

outward from Area 7.

The problem was, it was catching up with them!

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Matthew Reilly

The X-rail pod shot through the tunnel at two hundred

and fifty miles per hour.

The advancing wall of falling rock shot forward after it,

doing at least two-sixty.

Chunks of falling rock rained down on the tunnel. It

was as if the passageway were now a living creature biting

down at the heels of the speeding X-rail pod.

Bang!

A chunk of concrete the size of a baseball landed on the

roof of the pod. Schofield snapped to look up at the sound.

And then--

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

A deafening hailstorm of chunks rained down on top of

the pod.

No! Schofield's mind screamed. Not now! Not this close

to the end!

The advancing wall of collapsing rock had caught them.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang--

Chunks assaulted the pod's windscreen, shattering it.

Glass exploded everywhere.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang--

Small chunks started entering the cockpit. The whole

pod started to shudder violently, as if it were about to run off

its ...

And then all of a sudden the concrete rain slowed and

the pod blasted clear of the falling chunks.

Schofield turned in his seat and saw the moving waterfall

of concrete receding into the tunnel behind them, shrinking

back behind a bend, falling back like a hungry monster

that had given up on the chase. The ripplelike expansion of

the concussion wave had run its course and petered out.

They'd outrun it.

Just.

And as the X-rail pod continued on its way down the

tunnel, Shane Schofield fell back into his seat and breathed a

long and deep sigh of relief.

BY THE TIME SCHOFIELD AND GANT WERE AIRLIFTED FROM

the canyonway outside the X-rail loading dock adjoining

Lake Powell by a Marine CH-53E, there was a veritable armada

of Army and Marine Corps helicopters in the air

above Area 7.

They looked like a swarm of tiny insects, black dots

hovering in the clear desert sky--all keeping at a safe distance

to avoid any lingering radiation.

The President was now safely ensconced in his Marine

helicopter, which itself was surrounded by no less than five

other Marine Super Stallions. Until the radio transmitter attached

to his heart was removed, the Marines would stay by his side.

And the moment he had been lifted off the tarmac at

Area 7, he had issued a standing order that all Air Force aircraft

in the continental United States be grounded pending

further notice.

schofield and gant--and their precious microwave-transmitting black box--were reunited with the President, Book II, Juliet and Kevin at Area 8, which had been secured twenty minutes before their arrival by two Marine Recon units.

During their sweep of the base, the Marines had found no live personnel except one Nicholas Tate III, Domestic Policy Adviser to the President of the United States, rambling incoherently, saying something about calling his stockbroker.

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Gant was immediately placed on a stretcher and her ankle

attended to by a corpsman. Schofield was given a temporary

gauze dressing for his bullet wounds, a sling for his

arm, and a dose of codeine for the pain.

"Nice to see you made it out, Captain," the President

said as he came over to where they sat. "Not so Caesar, I

take it?"

"I'm afraid he couldn't make it, sir," Schofield said. He

held up the black box, its green transmission light blinking.

"But he's with us in spirit."

The President smiled. "The Marines who swept this

base said they found something outside it that you might like

to see."

Schofield didn't understand. "Like what?"

"Like me, you sexy thing," Mother roared as she

stepped out from behind the President.

Schofield grinned from ear to ear. "You made it!"

The last he had seen, Mother had been flipping end over

end inside a speeding cockroach.

"Fucking indestructible is what I am," Mother said. She

was limping slightly on her real leg. "When it got hit by that

missile, I knew my cockroach was done for. And I didn't figure

old Caesar and his buddies would take kindly to finding

me in it. But when I ran off the runway, I kicked up a hell of

a dust cloud. So I bailed out under the cover of the cloud.

The cockroach flipped and smashed and I just dug a little

hole for my head in the sand under its front bumper, ripped

my fake leg off for added effect, and played dead until Caesar

and his choppers flew off."

"Ripped your fake leg off for added effect ..."

Schofield said. "Nice touch."

"I thought so," she smiled. Then she jutted her chin at

him. "What about you? Last I saw, you and the Prez were

heading off into outer space. Did you save the fucking day again?"

'I might have," Schofield said.

"More to the point," Mother whispered conspiratorially,

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"did you do what I told you to do with You-Know-Who?"

She nodded theatrically at Gant. "Did you kiss the friggin'

girl, Scarecrow?"

Schofield snuffed a laugh, cast a sideways look at Gant.

"You know what, Mother? As a matter of fact, I think I

did."

A SHORT WHILE LATER, SCHOFIELD SAT ALONE WITH THE President.

"So what's the word on the rest of the country?" he

asked. "Have they been watching all this every hour on the

Emergency Broadcast System?"

The President smiled. "It's funny you should ask. While

you were gone, we examined the complex's power history, and we found this."