doubled over. Just as he felt himself falling, he was wrenched up and dragged to one side.
The flashing red lights, which made the inside of his T-shirt pulse red every second, suddenly went dark, and he was pushed to the floor. A familiar voice sneered, ‘So long, Singer — I hear radiation shrinks your balls. But that shouldn’t worry someone who didn’t have any to start with.’ There was a soft, cruel laugh, the sound of a door closing, and then… complete darkness.
Arn rolled over and sat up, pulling the shirt down from his head. He blinked. Everything was so dark, it was as if his eyes had been painted black. He managed to gulp air into lungs that still didn’t want to fully inflate, and he got to his feet holding his arms out in front of him.
He was like a blind man who had lost his cane. He couldn’t tell if he was in a room as big as an aircraft hangar, or as small as a broom closet. He certainly couldn’t hear the sound of his college group anymore.
The class was herded back into the lift. Edward tried to ask some questions, but Harper, distracted, kept checking the time and apologising for keeping them so long. The laser test-firing must have been nearing its countdown.
The lift took them back up towards the monitoring room. Harper turned to the chattering class and put his finger to his lips before he opened the door. He spoke softly to Beescomb and pointed to the rear of the room, and then went to join the technicians.
The room, which was so quiet before, was now a hive of frantic activity. Edward wondered why they had needed to be silent, as instructions, countdowns, and equipment checks were shouted from one scientific team member to the next.
Edward narrowed his eyes to concentrate on the multiple screens and display panels within the room, his gaze at last resting on a digital clock counting down in hundredths of a second — there was little more than four minutes remaining.
He stood on his toes and looked for his friend.
Arn slowly felt his way around the room. His outstretched hand and fingers drifted over locker doors, then some empty space, and then… He jerked back his hand, his heart pounding hard in his chest for an instant when he thought he felt a person there, standing quietly in the impenetrable dark.
He swore softly as he gripped the sleeve, and began to laugh in relief — it was just some sort of suit. Feeling around some more, his hand brushed across the top of a bench, knocking a plastic cup to the floor and sending a ballpoint pen rolling across its surface. Finally his fingers closed on a small plastic cigarette lighter.
He flicked the wheel, but other than a spark from the flint, there was nothing. He tried again and again — but obviously there was no gas. Still he held it out and flicked the wheel a few times more, spying the outline of a door in the split-second illumination. He stuck the lighter in his pocket and felt about the door until he came to the locking mechanism. He found, as he had hoped, that the door locked from the outside, but not from the inside. There was a button. He pressed it and pushed — the door swung open easily.
‘That’s one I owe you, Barkin.’
He stepped from the chamber and looked left and right. He was close to the laser acceleration track, and not far from where the ring bulged around the pipe. With all the cameras positioned there, he expected he’d get someone’s attention pretty quickly.
Barkin is going to pay for this, he thought, and jogged towards the bulge, leaning in close to the mechanism and waving his arms.
‘Moving into ignition lockdown.’ The room fell into silence. Even the chattering students were silenced by the suspense as they watched the screens.
A computer-generated voice counted down from thirty seconds: Twenty-nine — twenty-eight — twenty-seven — twenty-six…
One of the technicians was on his feet pointing. ‘Wha… what the… there’s a kid in there!’
The room descended into shouting, panic and confusion. Beescomb went as white as a sheet as he recognised the figure on the screen. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came.
Twenty — nineteen — eighteen — seventeen…
‘Shut it down, shut it down!’
Barkin smirked at the rear of the observation room and nudged Otis. Harper grabbed and lifted one of the technicians from his seat, taking control of his command board. The scientist’s voice had gone up several octaves as he screamed over his shoulder, ‘Abort, abort! For God’s sake, abort!’
Five — four — three — two…
The synthetically calm computer voice intoned, ‘Laser firing commencing.’
The room froze as if time had stopped. There was no sound or movement as everyone watched the screens. Edward held his breath.
The photonic diamond glowed, turning the chamber, and their screens an infernal red as the particles, which were travelling at a fraction under the speed of light, were given an extra kick by the laser.
On the screen, they could see Arn stop waving and turn to look at the bulge. The screen blurred slightly, like it was recording something behind a gauze veil. Then Arn blurred as the veil thickened and became more like a waterfall of oil.
Edward sucked in a breath in horror. Arn seemed to bend unnaturally for a moment, his body distorting, his mouth opening in a silent scream of pain and confusion. The Hadean red glow of the diamond, coupled with Arn’s horrific contortions, made it a scene straight from the pit of Hell.
The display went black.
The only sound Edward heard was Becky screaming Arn’s name. She actually cares after all, he thought with surprise.
The screen came back on.
Arn was gone.
Chapter 4
Weird Things for Company
Excruciating pain, dizziness and nausea. Light, then swirling colours, then darkness. Arn fell with a thump into mud and shards of something hard.
He blinked. There was nothing in front of his eyes. He sat up and pushed the heels of his hands into them and rubbed hard. He opened them again — there wasn’t the faintest ray or particle of light. His head hurt, reminding him of the time he had spent too long at the beach and got too much sun on the back of his neck.
It was like he was still locked back in the storeroom. Or have I gone blind? he thought dismally. He held out a hand, and waved it around — nothing.
He sniffed. There was a rank dampness, and something else unpleasant. He held his breath and strained to hear — there was faint dripping coming from somewhere far away. Arn stood and reached out again. He took a few steps, groping in the darkness like a blind man, and then his hand touched a wall. It was slick with slime.
He flicked his fingers. ‘Yecch.’
Arn stepped sideways and his head banged into something metallic, showering him with flakes of what he assumed was rust. He swore loudly, and after the echo died away, he heard something in the distance — a movement, like a shuffling or dragging.
‘Hello?’ No response. The noise stopped. ‘Hello, anybody there?’
It started again; this time it was closer. There came a soft murmur.
Arn remembered the cigarette lighter in his pocket, and pulled it free, frantically spinning the strike wheel. A split second of spark showed he was in a long tunnel. Plenty of debris, but he could navigate it.
The soft murmur came again, followed by a sound like a child giggling.
‘Who…?’
He was breathing hard through his mouth, and felt his heart thumping in his chest. The shuffling was closer,
