palm and each step shot splashes of water up his pants legs. She shouted something undecipherable behind him. Still, he ran, sucking great gulps of moist tunnel air. Finally, his hand slammed into a ladder, and he swarmed up the rusty rungs. But even as he climbed, comprehension came to him, and the futility of his effort slowed him down. With no surprise, he found the padlock holding the trap door closed at the top of the steps. Back down the tunnel, he heard the cautious footsteps of the old woman.
“We’re on a countdown,” she called. “We have to get out.” Her disembodied voice came up to him. “You can’t help him by dying down here.”
Eric said, “Why burn the whole university? Why burn the books?”
“I’ll show you, but you have to come right now. We may already be too late. Besides,” she said as Eric descended, “with all the shooting, your friend would have been smart to leave. He’s probably far away.” Bile rose in Eric’s throat. Teach’s strategy isn’t running, he thought, it’s to get off the main path and then not move. Teach’s strategy is to hide. He could be crouched behind some bush on campus right now, still as a deer.
“Hurry,” she said. “Time is running out.” She beckoned, her form outlined by the light behind.
“We’re at least ten feet deep,” Eric said, defeated, realizing that what she’d argued was true: he could do nothing. “Burn it to the ground and we wouldn’t know.” Everything’s gone, he thought. Dodge outside, unaware of the danger to come, and in the library, flaming fingers reaching everywhere, flowing across the rows and rows of books. Perfect tinder, a book: dry, thin, crisp. Irreparable.
“It’s not that,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “The tunnel’s wired too. We have to be beyond it or we’ll be trapped. You weren’t supposed to stop.”
Again, he found himself running, more like shuffling now, following her through the lit tunnel, passing one cave-black side passage after another. Whatever youthful energy that had spurred him up the ladder was gone. He sucked thin lungfuls of air that came and went too quickly to help; water weight dragged at his pants’ legs. He thought, How long since I threw the switches? They went past another side passage. She talked as she kept up behind him, panting out words. “Big explosive… seals the tunnel… little ones… along the way… finish it…. All entrances… blocked. Tunnels… collapse.” He thought he heard Dodge’s voice in his mind. “Grandfather,” it called. Fear and guilt spurred him on. Maybe, he thought, Teach will get him off campus. We’ll meet up. Then I can take him home. Eric pushed the possibility that Dodge might die down as hard as he could, determined not to think about it. He picked up his pace. Lights flicked by faster. We have to get home, he thought. Pope’s message was not all negative. I’ll get Dodge—oh God! let them escape!—and we’ll warn Troy and Littleton. We can get upstream into the mountains, drink only rain water. Pollution may be rampant, but it might be slowing. Radiation might be higher, but maybe not deadly; Pope didn’t say.
“There,” she gasped, pointing ahead to a large green box mounted on the side of the passage that became more visible as they rounded the slight curve. It blocked two-thirds of the tunnel, leaving just enough room for a person to fit through. “The bomb… We have to be… beyond it.”
“How much time?” The box loomed before them, and as Eric approached, he sidled to the opposite side, away from the explosive.
She slowed, as if a sudden movement might set it off. Her white hair had pulled free of the ribbon that held it back, and strands of it stuck to the sides of her face. “Chemical fuse. Five minutes minimum. Eight or nine minutes tops.”
Dodge’s voice came to him again, a remote echo, “Grandfather?” Eric stopped and cocked his head, listening, the bomb within arm’s reach, and the old woman collided with him, her eyes wide and wild.
“Go,” she hissed, and pushed by, careful not to touch the box.
“Did you hear that?” He remembered the vivid memories that had come more and more often lately, the inability to separate what was happening with what he recalled. But the voice sounded real.
“What?” She kept moving farther down the corridor, putting distance between her and the bomb. Indecisive, he took two steps the way they’d come.
“Don’t be a fool,” she said, backpeddling.
“I thought I heard something.”
She kept retreating. “I have to go,” she said, almost apologetically. “I’ve got a responsibility. Pope’s dead.” She started running again and shouted back to him over her shoulder, “I’m the Librarian now.” Her footfalls banged away.
Eric ran to the first cross tunnel. “Dodge?” The sound bounced back from an unseen, far wall. He listened intently. Water seeped out of a crack over his head and dripped steadily onto the floor. Around each small bulb suspended from the ceiling, a subtle nimbus glowed, casting edgeless shadows of pipes and conduits on the walls. “Dodge?” he cried again.
Clanging echoes of his own voice bounded around him. He looked back. The woman was gone, and he staggered forward, alone, in the tunnel whose bare walls offered no hope in either direction. Chest hurting, hand scraped, wet and loggy with fatigue, he felt profound isolation, like a marble in a long tube rolling nowhere. Forward or back, he could barely tell the difference.
Further down, from the next branch, a voice called, “Eric?” It was Teach. Slime underfoot nearly cost Eric his footing as he rushed to the opening and turned into it, running several paces away from the lit tunnel. “Dodge!”
Out of the darkness emerged Teach and the children. Teach said, “When the library caught fire, I guessed you’d go underground. I broke another lock.”
Dropping to his knees in the shallow water, Eric pulled the slender young boy to him. Dodge’s wet face trembled against Eric’s own.
“Rabbit,” sobbed Dodge.
“I know.” Eric stood. Tears marked the dust on Ripple’s cheeks. “We have to run. There’s a bomb.” Catching Teach’s eye, Eric said, “What about Federal?”
Looking grim and determined, Teach fingered his knife. “He’s dead.” They started toward the lit corridor.
The lights went out.
Dodge tightened his grip on Eric’s hand. Ripple inhaled sharply. Pure blackness.
“Was this supposed to happen?” said Teach.
Eric extended an arm and walked forward until a damp wall blocked his path. He lost his orientation. Which way? he thought. Did I come from the left or the right? Sickly, he recalled reversing directions several times before he’d got here. And, he thought, how much time has passed?
He’d thrown the switch—that started the bomb’s timer—covered the body, ran down two flights of stairs, climbed into the tunnels, ran some distance in them, went back for Dodge, Teach and Ripple. How much time?
“Left or right?” asked Ripple, parroting Eric’s thought.
“I don’t know. Right,” said Eric, pulling on Dodge’s hand, keeping his arm in front. Teach crowded behind him. Underfoot, the cement vibrated, then Eric’s ears popped.
“Was that it?” asked Ripple. “Are we too late?”
Her voice seemed to come from nowhere, as if she were drifting in space. The blackness was absolute, as solid as obsidian. “No. Too small. Too far away.” He thought, I turned right to get them. “Back, back, back!” He about-faced, put his hand out again and straight armed Teach. “We’re going the wrong way.” Within a few strides, Teach’s silhouette took form, and a few steps more around the gradually curving tunnel showed the bomb. Ceiling lights in a line beckoned beyond. Must be a different circuit, he thought. Breath came to him in quick sips. “Quickly, now,” he said. “That’s it.” In Eric’s head, a large stopwatch ticked off seconds. He giggled, a high pitched giggle that echoed metallically around him. He’d drug up a weird Gone Time association. It’s Sixty Minutes, he thought. Now for a few words from Andy Rooney. Only they won’t be words, and there will only be one. Looking larger and more ominous than before, the box raced toward them. How long, Eric thought, is five to nine minutes? Surely twice that time has passed.
Ripple reached it, ran by. Teach turned his shoulder, ran by, letting go of Eric’s hand, Dodge faced it, then ran by. Finally Eric slid his back along the cement, the box’s smooth surface catching a glint from the ceiling lights. His own breathing thundered in his ears; heartbeats throbbed, a death-clock. From within the box, a sharp snap, like a mouse trap.
Eric froze.
It’s a dud, he thought, and then he was beyond, following Teach, Ripple and Dodge who waved frantically at him to hurry from thirty feet farther along. He tried to laugh in relief, but he had no wind for it. All urgency fled.
