Vanished by Kathryn Mackel Read Free Book Online

anomaly. How could
we-
    "We didn't. The booms came from high above us. It was an
external event."
    A series of muffled blasts had come from above just as the
Boston-New York flew by, a silent missile speeding through the
explosions.
    "That just happened to occur at the same time we were
running our experiment?"
    "We need more information before drawing any conclusions." Jon tuned his walkie-talkie to the command frequency.
Static burst from the speaker.
    "Maybe it's broken," Chloe said.
    "No, it looks OK. Something's happened up there."
    "Could we have triggered a gas explosion?"
    "You know the topography. There aren't any gas lines
anywhere near the tunnels."
    "An earthquake or a plane crash? Maybe even some weird
sonic anomaly?"

    "Or the obvious-someone trying to blow up the trains." Jon
looked east and west, the tunnels empty as far as he could see.
The walls were intact and the lights burned bright. He had been
trained to spot any flaw in the guideways or tunnel. None was
apparent.
    "We're OK," Chloe said. "These tunnels are built to withstand anything."
    Jon pulled her close. "You really all right? You took a good fall."
    "No bleeding or cramping. We're both fine, sweetie."
    "OK. Good. Listen-this place will be crawling with Quanta
security in a little while. Before anything else, we'd better
retrieve the particle collector."
    "Jon. What if the trains ... ?"
    "They're fine. Besides, they weren't carrying passengers. A
few engineers, maybe a cheap politician who wants a photo op.
Stupid terrorists were two months early with their bomb."
    "If it was terrorists that caused this," Chloe said, "it happened
at Moment Zero-our moment zero."
    "We did nothing more than run a small cable and tweak the
trains so they'd cross in Barcester. They've done that before and
will do that many times a day when they're in operation. It was
our bad luck that the bomb went off at the same instant."
    "Scientific reasoning doesn't allow for coincidences, nasty or
otherwise."
    "Common sense does," Jon said. "For now, that's the hypothesis under which we should operate. We'll go to the stairway,
get the detector, and make a quiet exit."
    Chloe slipped her arm through his, and together they walked
toward the access stairway.
    "Maybe it was ... some sort of sonic blast?" Jon said. "Why
are we thinking the worst just because of a few loud bangs?"
    "Dread"
    "Don't get all poetic on me."

    "I can't help it. Dread is the only appropriate concept for the
sinking feeling in my belly."
    Jon stopped. "You said you were all right."
    "I am. Individually. But as for corporately, for Barcester or
even the United States or..." She stopped, panting.
    "You're hyperventilating. Honey, it's going to be OK."
    "Not an anxiety attack, idiot. Look-the fans aren't going."
    Sure enough, the blades that were visible through the grate
were not moving. "The vents must be closed. That's one of the
antiterrorism controls, right?"
    "I thought the fans were supposed to go double-speed. In
case of, like, sarin gas or something."
    "I don't know, Chloe. Some close, others vent. I just don't
know."
    She tightened her grip on his arm. "You're panting, too."
    "There's too much volume to diminish the air supply yet.
We'll be OK. You, me, the baby."
    "Promise?"
    "Absolute promise." He slipped into their little mantra. "As
in zero or space or vacuum
    "Oh, Jon. Vacuum. The train must have created some sort
of vacuum that ordinarily is back-filled by the vents and fans.
The air is depressurizing to fill that vacuum. Getting thinner
and thinner-"
    "No, we don't know that. Besides, vacuum requires a limited
space. The tunnels stretch too far to be..."
    She nodded, hardly in need of a lecture on Quanta architecture or basic physics. They walked the few hundred feet to the
access stairway in silence.
    The door was open.
    "It shouldn't be," Chloe said.
    "Emergency measures," Jon said, making it up as he went
along. "The locks must release