The Fold: A Novel Part 21

"So he didn't HD?"

Mike shook his head. "The Door doesn't do anything to the traveler. That's why the wound doesn't make sense."

"How so?"

"He had an actual wound. A puncture or a cut in his left side, just under the ribs. I never had a chance to look at it. I think that was a lot of the blood loss."

"What caused it?"

"I don't know."

"Because you weren't looking."

"Don't be an a.s.s. Partly that. But I have no idea what could've injured him. There weren't any jagged edges around him. I was the closest person. Sasha was over on Site B with him, and she didn't say anything. Arthur was next closest and he was five and a half feet from me."

"Could there've been someone else over on Site B? Someone you didn't see?"

"Just beyond the Door? Maybe. They'd have to be really fast to stab him and get out of the way. Not to mention timing it as I just happened to look back at Olaf."

"Deliberate distraction?"

Mike shook his head. "It was just sheer chance I looked back. And that still wouldn't explain everything else that happened to him." He closed his eyes and watched again as his field of vision s.h.i.+fted around onto Bob. Watched the yellow man with pale eyes stumble forward. Heard him moan and collapse.

He opened his eyes and Reggie was staring at him.

"You okay?"

"It's two in the morning and I'm exhausted," said Mike. "And this isn't what I signed up for. Not remotely."

"I'm sorry."

"You know this is ruining my life on a bunch of levels, right?"

"I do."

"It happened right in front of me. Six feet in front of me." The crosswalk played again in his mind. Ninety-one times in just over six hours. Once every four minutes on average.

"I'm sorry," Reggie said again. "I really am. But I need you on this."

"Dammit," said Mike. "I'm an idiot."

"That's rea.s.suring."

"I missed something. We all did, we were so focused on Bob."

"What's up?"

"Let me check this out first. I'll call you tomorrow."

The face on the tablet blinked. "You need to double-check something?"

"I told you, I wasn't looking at him when he went through."

"What do you think happened?"

"I'm not sure," Mike said. "But I think I might've just found a clue."

TWENTY-TWO.

The sun was peeking over the horizon when Mike went over to the main floor. He found half of the Albuquerque Door team there. Most of the panels had been pulled off the back ring. Neil and Sasha examined components and cables one by one. Neil's eyes were puffy.

Olaf stood behind them and looked over their shoulders. He glanced over at Mike. "Do you need to be here?"

"Just doing my job," said Mike. He looked up and saw Arthur speaking to someone just out of sight-Jamie-in the control booth. "I'm kind of surprised to see you all working."

"We need to find out what went wrong," said Sasha, "before those idiots in Was.h.i.+ngton decide to shut us down."

"Then we're all on the same page," said Mike. He walked around the rings and studied the floor. There were still dark spots of blood on the pathway, caught in the corners of the expanded steel. There were thin swipes and trails in it where the puddle had been wiped up.

"Hey," he said, "is it safe to get close?"

Neil looked up from the rings and nodded. "We're powered down." He pointed off to the side where five thick connectors had been pulled apart.

"Thanks."

Mike crouched down to look under the ramp. Then he crawled forward. He reached out and swept his hand back and forth in the dim s.p.a.ce under the walkway.

"Looking for something?" asked Olaf.

"Maybe," said Mike. He straightened up and dusted his hands on his jeans. "Did you pick up in here at all?"

"What?"

"Did you move anything? Clean up anything?"

Sasha's eyes dropped to the dark spots. "What are you looking for?"

He told them. Neil and Sasha traded a confused glance and both shook their heads. Olaf rolled his eyes. "Is that important?" asked Neil. He reached up to wipe his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"No," muttered Olaf.

"I'm not sure yet," Mike replied. "Has anyone else been down here since...well, since it happened?"

"Arthur and Jamie were both down here for a while," said Sasha. "Did they move anything?"

"I don't think so," Neil said.

"No," snapped Olaf.

Mike counted to four. "Do you have any idea what happened to Bob?"

Olaf flapped his lips for a moment. He tensed, and Mike was sure the other man was going to swing at him. Then his shoulders dropped-not quite a slump-and he shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "It...it makes no sense. It shouldn't've happened."

"He HD'd," Neil said. "It's the only answer. He got scrambled somehow. Just like Tramp."

"You can't HD in the Door," said Olaf. "There's no point when the traveler is broken down, so it can't be a reintegration issue."

"What about the magnetic field?" asked Mike. He tugged open a workstation drawer and peered inside. "Neil's told me it can be pretty dangerous."

Sasha nodded, but Olaf shook his head again. "Everything was balanced. There was no flux. And he never crossed the lines."

"Besides, it wouldn't mess him up like that," said Sasha.

"What about his clothes?"

Olaf bit back another snide remark. "We don't know," he said. "Like I said, none of this should've happened." He waved a hand back at the rings. "The levels were all good, power was steady, nothing's misaligned. Everything checks out. It couldn't've happened."

"But it did," said Mike. "So how?"

"It had to be a programming issue." He jerked his chin toward the control booth. "The computer messed up one of the variables."

"And that would..." Mike glanced at the Door.

"I don't know!" Olaf threw his hands in the air. "All I know is we can't find anything wrong with the tech." He turned and half-stomped back up the ramp to loom over the two engineers.

Mike took a last look around the floor, then headed for the control room.

Jamie was hunched over a monitor, scrolling through lines of code. Arthur stood a few feet behind her, both hands on his cane. His eyes were red.

"Hey," said Mike.

"How are you doing?" asked Arthur. "This whole thing must've been a shock for you."

"I'm okay. Thanks for asking."

Arthur looked at him for a moment. "Is there something we can do for you?"

Mike nodded at the screens. "Any idea yet what happened?"

"Hardware problem," said Jamie. Her eyes never left the screen. More lines of code scrolled by.

"Olaf seems pretty sure it's a computer problem," said Mike.

She spun. Her eyes weren't as red as Arthur's, but they weren't far from tears. "Did you just come up here to stir things up?"

"No," he said. "Sorry. I was just trying to-"

"It's hardware," she said. "It has to be."

"If it was the program or the equations," said Arthur, "the Door couldn't've opened."

"Are you sure?" said Mike. "There's no way it could've opened...wrong?"

Jamie made a noise that sounded like a snort cut off before it could get free. The corners of Arthur's mouth trembled, as if his lips were fighting to form either a faint smile or frown and were too evenly matched. "No," he said. "I don't think so."

"That doesn't sound too certain."

Jamie tapped a key, freezing the scroll. She looked up over her shoulder at Arthur.

"I...this is why I told Magnus we need more testing," he said. "There are still a lot of things we don't know." Arthur hooked his cane on his pocket, pulled off his gla.s.ses, and pinched his nose. He took a few deep breaths. A few more moments pa.s.sed before he pushed the eyegla.s.ses back onto his face.

A moment pa.s.sed.

"The day after I arrived," said Mike, "Bob asked me if you'd been talking about him."

Arthur blinked. "Me?"

"Yeah."

"Talked about him how?"

Mike counted to three and then raised his shoulders in a casual shrug. "I don't know. We were out having dinner, Olaf showed up, and he changed the subject."

Arthur and Jamie traded a look. "To be honest," he said, "we'd all noticed that Bob had been acting a little odd lately."

"Odd how?"

"Just not like himself," said Jamie. "Kind of...well, paranoid."

Mike counted to three again. "Like Ben Miles?"

Arthur shook his head. "Nothing like that. He just seemed like he was hiding something."

"Any idea what?"

"I couldn't say."

Another moment pa.s.sed.

"Could the accident have anything to do with that flash drive you gave Jamie just before Bob went through?"