Day of Doom (14 page)

“I’m going to vomit, I swear I am,” said Dan from his hiding place.

“I’m right there with you,” said Amy. “‘Far too precious’? Just yesterday she was trying pretty hard to end one life. Mine!”

Atticus pointed to a large window.

“Look!”

They all turned to gaze out.

“What?” asked Dan.

“I saw a bolt of lightning,” said Atticus.

“So?” said Dan dismissively. “Itdoes happen, you know. It’s called a
storm
 
!”

At that moment another bolt oflightning appeared in the sky. Only it wasshooting upward, not down to the earth.

The others stared, openmouthed,while Atticus gazed pointedly at Dan.

“Oh,” said Dan sheepishly. “That’s,uh, that’s not good.”

“Ya think?” exclaimed Atticus.

An announcement was broadcast

over the station PA system.

“They’re calling our train,” said Amy. “Let’s go. But make sure Isabel doesn’t spot us.”

They took great pains to make sure they got on the train without Isabel or her people seeing them. However, they were so focused on Isabel that they failed to see someone else watching
 
them
 
. As Amy and Dan got into one car and Jake and Atticus into another, this person climbed aboard a car that was in between them.

Sinead Starling pulled her hat downlow and took her seat for the long rideahead.

“Stupid train,” exclaimed Jake.

He and Atticus were sitting in Amy

and   Dan’s   compartment.   Jake   was working on his laptop but his Internet connection kept failing.

“How can something like this happen in the twenty-first century?” he wanted to know.

Amy was looking out the window at the passing scenery. With all the worries

she had, Amy seemed at peace. It might have been the beautiful landscape she was watching as the train made its way to the West Coast. Or it might have been that she was resigned to whatever fate would befall her. Perhaps she didn’t really even know for sure.

She said, “I sort of like the train. Atleast you can see things you can’t at thirty-five thousand feet.”

“Yeah, but apparently you can’t get asolid Internet connection,” complained Jake. He looked at his screen. “Okay, I’mback on. Excuse me while I do some

digital sleuthing.”

Dan, who was watching Amy watch Jake with a lovey-dovey expression, rolled his eyes, sighed, and sat back in his seat. Dan could tell this was going to be a

very, very long ride. He snatched a glance at Atticus. He really liked Atticus, but the last official Guardian on earth could become very stoic on occasion. This appeared to be one of those occasions as he silently looked out the window.

“Is that snow?” exclaimed Amy.

They all looked outside, all except Jake, who was still glued to his laptop

screen.

Dan said, “How can it be snowing? Itwas seventy-five degrees in Chicago. Andwe’re not that far from there.” He quicklychecked his phone’s weather app.

“It’s thirty degrees out there! How

can  the   temperature   drop   forty-five degrees just like that?”

Then Dan blinked, and the snow seemed to simply vanish. “Okay, I am big-

time freaking out now.” As he continued to watch, a thunderstorm started up. But, like back in Chicago, the lightning was shooting upward. Dan gripped his seat and paled. Isabel Kabra, curse her, had been right that the apocalypse was coming. In fact, it was apparently already here. As they continued to stare out the window, all those    meteorological    anomalies disappeared and the sky cleared.

Atticus pointed to a distant hill. “Look!”

As they watched, the mound of dirt trembled and then came crashing down, taking some houses, and no doubt people, with it.

The train roared on.

“Was that an earthquake?” asked

Amy. “I didn’t feel anything.”

“The whole world has gone crazy,”

said Dan.

“No,” announced Jake.

They all gaped at him.

He was finally looking up from his laptop.

“The world has not gone crazy. In fact, it’s starting to make a lot of sense.”

Dan peeked over at Amy, who was looking all gooey-eyed again at Jake. Dan groaned. He’d had enough.

Dan snapped, “Okay, Mr. Genius, why don’t you enlighten us morons as to exactly what all makes sense?”

So focused was Jake on the data on his computer that he didn’t appear to have gotten Dan’s sarcasm at all. This seemed, to Dan, to be a genetic problem with the Rosenblooms.

Jake said amiably, “Glad to.”

He spun his laptop around so theycould all see the screen.

“I’ve been researching both thehistorical   accounts   of  Archimedes’

inventions, and the elements that we were forced to gather by Vesper One. I did a spreadsheet analysis that attempted to make sense of both the elements’ potential use and the plans that Archimedes had for his devices. I was, in effect, searching for a pattern.”

“Well, can you search faster?” complained Dan. “Because the world is coming to an end, bud, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Dan,” said Amy in an admonishing

tone.   “What   Jake   has   done   looks

brilliant.” She flashed Jake a huge smile.

Poor Jake looked on the verge of meltingunder its wattage.

“Go   on,   Jake,”   said   Amyencouragingly.

“Oh, give me a freaking break,”muttered Dan under his breath.

Jake continued. “What I found was

that the Doomsday device, constructed with the aid of all the elements we

gathered, has the potential not merely to disrupt the Earth’s magnetic field, but also t o
 
reverse
 
the polarity of the magnetic poles of the Earth entirely.”

“And that’s bad?” said Dan.

“It could be catastrophic,” answered Jake. “Reversing the polarity of the magnetic   poles   could   result   in unprecedented loss. It’s no wonder that all the planes were grounded. In fact, very

soon the entire Internet might crash.”

“Well, we knew that Vesper One had already activated the Doomsday device,” said Atticus.

“Yeah,” added Dan. “All the crazy weather, the planes, stuff like that? He had to have pulled the trigger. It’s the only explanation.”

“I still think that Vesper One is only doing a trial run,” Jake said. “He deliberately hasn’t activated the device to its full power yet. If he had, I think we’d see a lot worse than we have so far.”

“How can you be sure of that?” asked Amy.

“Fully reversing the magnetic poles of the Earth would cause catastrophic damage the likes of which we have never seen before, Amy. Tsunamis striking land

on the East Coast. Dozens of hurricanes forming simultaneously in the Pacific. Earthquakes  where   earthquakes   have

never   happened   before.   Increased volcanic activity. It could potentially even take the Earth out of its proper orbit. It could turn the world literally upside down.”

“And destroy it?” she said in a hushed tone.

“Absolutely. It could even interrupt the actual gravitational forces of the Earth. And if that happens, there would be no guarantee that anything would be left to hold us onto the planet.”

The others instinctively gripped their armrests as though to keep themselves firmly on Earth.

“Well,” said Dan. “I guess that’s sort

of the point of a Doomsday device. You k n o w ,
 
doomsday
 
!”   He   glanced surreptitiously at his knapsack, where the flask containing the serum was hidden.

Amy said, “But as evil as he is, why would Vesper One want to destroy the world? He lives on it, too.”

Atticus piped up. “It must be that he thinks if he demonstrates that he has the

ability to cause such devastation he can blackmail the rest of the world into doing his bidding.”

Dan said, “Exactly. The guy is going to use this threat to make himself supreme ruler of everything. And that would suck big-time, because the guy is obviously a jerk.”

Amy said, “And that explains what Isabel   was   doing  back  there.   Her

organization will reap enormous benefits if she’s ahead of the curve on this. She’ll

pretend to clean up the mess she helped cause. The people will love her when they should be arresting her.”

“That witch,” snapped Dan.

Amy stared at the laptop screen. “And   from  what   we   know   about subduction zones, the Cascade Mountains are the perfect place to set off the device and show the world the power Vesper One has.” She paused. “And that also explains the location of the hostages.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jake.

She looked at him. “They’re going to bury the hostages under what’s left of the Cascade Mountains when they turn on the device full blast.”

They all stared at one another.

Amy said, “Now the question is, howdo we stop it?”

As the train rattled on, no oneseemed to have an answer.

It was very late at night. The train wasrolling on toward Colorado.

Inside the compartment where Jakeand Atticus were staying, Jake sleptsoundly.

Atticus was having a much toughertime of it. He tossed and turned, tried deepbreathing, counted backward, but nothingworked. He finally sat up in his top bunk,drew aside the curtain, and looked out the

window. He had no idea where they were. All he could see was darkness and the

silhouettes of landscapes zooming by. And then Atticus started thinking about his mother.

Astrid Rosenbloom had been full ofhealth and vitality until she had startedgoing rapidly downhill. The doctors couldnever figure out exactly what was wrongwith her. But now it seemed to Atticus —based on what he had observed —  that the

doctors were always being reactive to his mother’s conditions. They had treated the effects of her illnesses. But they had not focused all that much on the cause. They had run many tests, to be sure, but had they run enough of them? And had they run the right ones?

It now seemed so simple that Atticus

couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it

before.

And I’m supposed to have such a big

brain.

When someone became ill and

continued to sink despite everything the doctors could do, and no cause was ever found, there often was a good explanation for that.

And a criminal one.

His mother had started feeling badnot that long after she had gained a newresearch assistant, Dave Speminer. Andthe whole time that assistant was with her, Astrid Rosenbloom had become sickerand sicker. And that assistant would have

been in an ideal place to administer a poison even after she was being cared for by the doctors, because he came to visit

her often.

Am I paranoid?

Dave Speminer? Dave Speminer?