The Fold: A Novel Part 26

Olaf and Neil were there, each sitting at their stations. Olaf had a simulation running on his screen. They glanced up as Mike walked across the floor to them.

"How goes it?"

Neil looked at Olaf. "Fine," said Bogart's twin. "Is there something we can do for you?"

Mike stepped over the cables. "I was just wondering where Arthur is."

Neil opened his mouth, but Olaf cut him off. "He was up in the booth about fifteen minutes ago. He might be in his office now."

Neil turned back to his screen. He made a point of looking nowhere else.

Mike studied the two men. "Anything new on the...incident?"

"No," said Olaf.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No," he said. "We're just busy. We're in the middle of a simulation."

"Of the incident?"

"Of something related to it, yes."

"What?"

Olaf straightened up and turned from his station. "Weren't you looking for Arthur?"

"Sorry."

"Not a problem."

Someone coughed over the speakers and Mike glanced up at the booth. "If you need any help," he said, "just let me know."

"Of course," said Olaf.

Mike wandered back out into the hall and up the stairwell. He swiped his card again and unlocked the control room door. "Hey," he said, "I was..."

Sasha looked over her shoulder at him and held up a finger. "Ready in two," she said to the microphone.

"Oh," he said. "Sorry. I thought Arthur was up here."

She shook her head. "He's over at Site B."

Mike felt his brows furrow. "He's monitoring a simulation from the other lab?"

"Simulation?"

He looked past her to the screens. The ants carried out the images from Olaf's monitor a few moments ago. "You're doing a full run? Even though we don't know what happened last time."

"That's why we're doing it," said Sasha. She turned back to the screens. "We need data."

He glanced around the room. "Wait a minute...why are you up here?"

"Someone's got to monitor the system." An icon on one of the monitors flashed, and she leaned toward the microphone. "Johnny has a solution. We are ready in one." Her eyes glanced down at the lab and the s.h.i.+mmering rings.

"Why isn't Jamie-"

The scurrying ants put the picture together in less than a second. Mike yanked open the control room door and dashed for the stairwell. He pushed past Anne in the hall, spilling her coffee, and ran for the big door. He swiped his card too fast. The reader didn't get it until the second pa.s.s. The lock clicked and he yanked the door open.

Olaf made three quick keystrokes. "Power's good."

"No!" shouted Mike.

Threads of static electricity lashed around the rings, whipping back and forth between each one. An acid hiss echoed across the main floor. The air inside the rings thrashed and boiled.

And then it all grew still.

Mike ran past the workstations and up onto the ramp.

"The field has cohesion," boomed Sasha's voice. "The Door is open."

The third ring appeared. Jamie stepped up onto the ramp at Site B. Her hair hung around her face. Her clothes were rumpled. Mike could see Arthur behind her at one of the stations. The older man locked eyes with him, then looked away.

Jamie stood six feet and half a mile away from him. "Don't do this," said Mike.

She shook her head. "It'll be fine."

"Olaf," he called out, not looking away from her, "shut it down. Now!"

"We know what we're doing," he snapped.

"Like you did with Tramp?! Shut it down!!"

He heard Neil wheeze, and Sasha gasped over the speakers. Jamie took a few steps down the pathway toward him. She was inside the first ring, inches from the threshold. "It's going to work," she said. "There's nothing wrong with the code. There's nothing wrong with the tech. What happened to Bob was just a fluke."

"You don't know that."

"We do," she said. "I do."

"Jamie," he said, fighting the urge to glare at Arthur, "none of you know what happened. You don't-"

"It's going to be okay," she said. "Really."

She took a deep breath and stepped through the Door.

TWENTY-SIX.

Jamie b.u.mped into Mike and they stood nose to nose. She stayed there, pressed against him on the pathway. He could feel the warmth of her body. Her hair smelled like talc.u.m powder.

"It was sweet of you to be worried," she said. Her words carried the smell of sweetened coffee. "But you didn't need to be." She swept her hair away and it fell back in front of her face.

"Are you all right? Do you feel okay?"

"I'm fine. It worked. No problems."

"That was stupid," he said.

"Trust me. I'm not as dumb as you feel right now."

"We have forty seconds left on the Door," said Sasha. "Are you going back, or is that it?"

Jamie smiled at him. A real smile. "Well," she said, "am I going back, Mister Government Jerk?" She bounced on her toes. For a moment Mike had the odd thought that she was going to kiss him in front of everyone.

"No," he said. Then he looked over his shoulder and raised his voice. "No. Shut it down."

Neil glanced at Olaf, then bent to his station. Mike saw Jamie nod from the corner of his eye. Olaf reached down and stabbed at his keyboard.

"Closing the Door," boomed Sasha. "Stand clear."

Jamie put a hand on his chest and guided him a few steps back. He looked past her and glared at Arthur. The project head ignored him. Then the air between them rippled and a hiss of radio static echoed out of the rings.

"That was amazingly stupid," said Mike.

"Seriously," she said. "Unclench. Everything went fine. I'm okay."

He turned around and gave Olaf and Neil the Look. Neil cowered from it a bit. Olaf straightened up.

"What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?" Mike asked. "The last time someone went through there he died."

"And over a hundred and sixty times before that," said Olaf, "someone went through and nothing happened." His smug tone was back. Mike hadn't missed it. "This is what science is all about. Taking bold steps and not stopping the moment you hit a setback."

"A setback?" Mike marched toward Olaf, waving his arms back at the rings. The other man clenched his fists. "What happened to Bob was a setback?"

"We couldn't find anything wrong," said Neil. "We had to run a test to see if it was a fluke."

"There's a pet store down the street," said Mike. "You could've sent a rat."

"No," said Olaf, "we couldn't. Going back to animal testing would've sent up a huge red flag. It'd be declaring a failure."

"That's because it failed!"

"No, it didn't," said Jamie.

Mike turned on her. "Bob is-"

"We don't know what happened to Bob," Neil said, "but we can't find anything that says the Door was at fault. We needed more information."

"We had to run another test," said Jamie. "So I volunteered."

The big door hissed open on its piston and Sasha walked out onto the floor. Her eyes darted between them. She moved to stand near Olaf.

Mike looked at Jamie. "You could've been killed."

"But I wasn't."

"It made sense for her to go," said Olaf. His fingers danced on his phone.

"How does volunteering to get killed make sense?"

"Because I had the least to lose," said Jamie. "Everyone else has family or other commitments. I don't. It made sense."

Mike shook his head. "Nothing about this made sense." He looked around at the team members. "Seriously, what were any of you thinking?"

"I was thinking it's my life's work," said Jamie, "and I didn't want to see it get flushed away."

Her words echoed in the big room.

"We'll need to get you checked out," said Olaf. "Full physical and X-rays, first priority. CT scan too, just to be sure."

She nodded. "Of course."

He pointed at his monitor. "Arthur's bringing his car around to take you. Do you feel okay to walk?"

"I feel fine," she said. "There's nothing wrong with me."

"You can't just ignore this," Mike said to them. "This was insanely dangerous."

"Bob wouldn't think so," said Sasha. "He knew what this meant. He'd want us to keep working."

The door hissed open again. Arthur walked in, car keys in hand. "I'm right by the entrance," he said. "Ready to go."

Mike glared at him. "I can't believe you allowed this."

"Why not?"

"You could've had another body on your hands."

"Or we could've proved the Door works." He waved a hand at Jamie. "And we did."

"I have to tell Reggie what you did."