“Hold up.” The sheriff started after him. “You got something goin’ on?”
“We might.”
She pointed toward the front of the camp. “Bigwigs told us to hang back, another bomb was rolling in.”
“Which is only going to blow pieces of that thing all over your county, Sheriff, and instead of one of those things, we’ll have hundreds. Or more.”
“Hundreds?” The sheriff said it like she’d forgotten what the word meant. “You sure?”
“Do you really wanna wait to find out?”
Her jaw muscles bulged. “I wanna stop that thing. But I can’t say I’m a fan of them bombing our community to do it.”
“We have no authority here. You know that, right?”
The sheriff snorted. “I’ll let the lawyers argue about jurisdiction later. Until then, last I heard, I was still sheriff of Angelina County. What do you need from me?”
Quinn paused. “Actually, that’s a good question.”
The sheriff followed him back to the rental, where Ezra sat typing on his computer with one foot out the door, like he was about to run to the bathroom.
“Dilution refrigeration!” he declared proudly.
“What?”
“It can freeze anything to within a few millikelvin of absolute zero,” Dr. Kripke said from the screen in the dash.
“So, what do we need?”
“Pretty simple actually,” Clo answered. “Just two isotopes of helium and a containment unit.”
Quinn glanced around the tree line. “Where the hell are we gonna get isotopes of helium out here?”
“Doesn’t anyone make birthday balloons?” she asked.
Quinn turned to the sheriff.
“They do party balloons in the florist shop at the Supersaver.” She turned to one of her deputies. “Ray, get over there and get a couple of those canisters.” She turned back to Quinn. “Will that be enough?”
“Get as many as you can,” Dr. Kripke said. “To cool the whole mass, this is gonna have to be a really big device.”
“How big?” Quinn asked.
“I’m still running the numbers. For now, just get as much as you can.”
“They do balloons at the pharmacy, too,” the deputy said. “We’ll swing by both.” He nodded and left with his partner.
“What about the other isotope?” Quinn asked.
“It’s commonly used in certain types of nuclear medicine,” Clo explained, looking at her tablet. “The closest facility is about 50 miles from you. Hospital in a suburb outside Dallas.”
“That’s too far,” Quinn breathed. “We’d never get back in time.”
“We’ll have them meet us halfway,” the sheriff said. “I know the chief of police over there. We’ll load up and run with flashers. At speed, we can meet them in, say, 20 minutes.”
“Forty minutes round trip,” Quinn said. “Plus gathering and loading time. That’s cutting it close. We still have to assemble the thing. What do we need for that?”
“We need at least a Class 3 maker,” Ezra said, staring at his screen. “The good news is there’s an auto parts store not too far away. They usually have an industrial model.”
“That’s Dan McClusky’s place,” the sheriff said.
“He have a maker?” Quinn asked.
“He’s got one,” the sheriff said. “Not sure if it’s what you need, though. And he’s not gonna be too happy about you using it. Mortgaged his house to buy the thing. Or so he keeps telling everyone.”
“One problem at a time,” Quinn said, walking around to the driver’s seat. “We’ll meet you there.”
“No, you won’t,” the sheriff said, walking to her patrol car. “We’re giving you an escort!”
Moments later, Quinn was speeding down the state highway with flashing patrol cars in front and behind.
“THIS is why you learn to drive!” Quinn called back to Ezra over the noise of the engine and the sirens.
The kid had one hand on the door and the other pressed to the roof.
Someone had recently scraped a sticker from the door of the combination auto parts and hardware store. The faint gum residue suggested it had once announced the store was for “Patriots Only.” Its removal suggested the owners were now serving both factions. Quinn hoped it was a sign of things to come and not a simple economic necessity.
Sheriff Landry was already arguing with the owner by the time Quinn arrived.
“No, sheriff,” the man told her. “Unless you got a warrant or something, you’re not gonna use my machine. I had to mortgage my house to buy—”
“We know that, Dan. You’ve mentioned it.”
“How long before all the garages in town have their own and don’t need to buy from me? Then where am I? Bankrupt and out of business, that’s where.”
He was a big man, and he was blocking the door to the back of the shop, where Quinn could catch a glimpse of a working garage.
“Where is it?” Quinn asked. “In the back?”
“Oh, no you don’t!”
Quinn held up his badge. “I’m sorry, sir. Title IV, Section 2 of the Science and Technology Control Act authorizes me to commandeer materials necessary to preserve life and property.”
“What about my property?” the owner shouted.
“You’ll be compensated for any—”
“Like hell! I sunk my life into that thing.”
Quinn didn’t doubt it. Makers had become essential to the parts market, not just for cars but for anything that needed to be repaired. Most professional repair shops had makers for machining their own parts based on technical specifications—a print file—downloaded off the internet. Mechanics didn’t buy parts, nor even the instructions for making parts, but rather the rights to use those instructions one time. Of course, in charging for each use, the companies inadvertently encouraged a thriving black market, including quite a few home hobbyists who made extra money by selling auto or washing machine parts to local technicians based on “cracked” print files, or those that had their copy protections hacked. As a result, parts stores were an endangered species, which was undoubtedly why the owner of that particular store was willing to throw a punch at a federal officer.
It came suddenly, but Quinn was much lighter on his feet than his size suggested, and he moved out of the way without having to make contact with the man, who fell into a wall of screws and then to the floor.
He looked at Quinn’s boots. “How the hell you move that fast?”
The sheriff nodded to a nearby deputy, who reached for his handcuffs, but Quinn stopped him.
“It’s okay. He’s just trying to protect his family.”
Quinn pushed through the doors to the garage and set his phone on a workbench. He tapped the connection to the Crimes Division lab, and Clo instantly appeared on the screen.
“Bad news, boss.”
“Shut it down!” someone off-screen yelled.
“Relax, young man,” Quinn heard Kripke say. “She’s just trying to inform the boss.”
“Shut it down,” the man repeated. It sounded like one of the Poindexters from Legal. “Shut it do—”
The connection went dead as Ezra walked in. He clutched his computer to his chest with both hands. He looked like he was afraid he was going to get mugged, and Quinn realized he’d probably never been in a place like that before.
“Plan B,” Quinn told him.
“What’s Plan B?”
“You’re gonna like it, actually.”
He dialed a number labeled ARKANE. A woman immediately answered.
“Agent Quinn! How those new feet treating you?”
“Just fine, Ms. Kane. Thank you. Got some feedback on the equipment pack, though.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
The woman on the screen was in her thirties. Her hair was buzzed short except for a mauve stripe on the top, and she sported several colorful tattoos on her neck, shoulders, and arms. She wore overalls and a tank top with the ARKATECH company logo. There was an ocean behind and below her, as if she were on some kind of balcony. Blue sky practically shone above.
“Look, I’m sorry to bother you like this, but we have a bit of a problem.”
“So I heard. The charming Officer Galois already filled me in. I got technical specs from Trotsky. Man, that guy is paranoid. Put three layers of encryption on it. Looks like we’re making some kind of high-pressure containment device,” she said, sipping beer from a bottle.
“That’s correct. Can you help?”
“Depends on what kind of maker you got there.”
Quinn held up the phone toward the tall, boxy device in the corner of the shop. A heavy pane of glass revealed the central cavity, which was dark.
“Well,” she said, “the good news is that’s one of mine. But if we’re gonna make this thing quickly, we’re gonna have to sync and update the firmware with the custom set I use here in the shop. The factory firmware slows the print heads down to minimize the chances of a fault. Is there someone there who knows how to access a UEFX?”
“I do,” Ezra said meekly. He even raised his hand a little like a kid in school.
“This is Ezra Chr . . .” Quinn stumbled over the name. “Chr . . .”
“Chrzaszczykiewicz,” Ezra said.
Quinn pointed the camera at him. “Our newest recruit.”
“Chrzaszczykiewicz?” Arkane scowled. “Where have I heard that before?”
“I was working on the Ordering Problem. At Stanford. With Dr. Bellamy.”
“Bellamy. Now there’s a piece ’a work. Yeah, now I remember. You revised the Forestall Estimate.”
Ezra went completely pale. Quinn actually reached out his hand instinctively, thinking the kid might faint.
“You’ve heard of me?” Ezra asked.
“Hell, yeah, man. Thought you were older, but hey, you’re doing great stuff. Since we’re on the clock, whaddya you say we crack this box open and get to work?”
As Ezra, now beet red, shuffled with the phone toward the maker, he turned once to Quinn, out of view of the camera, and silently mouthed words “Arkane!” excitedly.
The sheriff stood next to Quinn. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“Armani Kane,” Quinn said. “AKA Arkane, AKA the Arkatech.” He pointed to the stylized company logo at the bottom of the maker. “Entrepreneur, tattoo artist, and self-taught maker expert. She won the contract—fabricates all our equipment for us.”
“I see.”
“Well.” Quinn sighed deeply. “That’s the parts. If anyone can do it, those two can. But even assuming all this works, we still have the problem of delivery.”
“What do you mean?”
“The army’s gonna see us coming from a mile away. They’re not just gonna wave. Not with a bomb rolling in.”
“Hafta outrun ’em,” the sheriff said.
“Hauling a”—Quinn turned to Ezra—“Hey. How much is this thing gonna weigh?”
“Conservatively?” Armani said as she leaned in front of the screen. “About two thousand pounds, plus the helium.”
One of the deputies whistled. Quinn wasn’t sure if it was at the weight or the ample cleavage on the screen.
“Do we have enough maker sand for that?”
Everyone turned to the shop owner.
“Maybe a quarter,” he said sheepishly. “But they wholesale it over at Harbor Freight.”
“I’ll call and have them bring it over,” the sheriff said. Then she squinted. “Two thousand pounds . . .”
“That mean something?” Quinn asked.
“That’s about the size of a bull, right?”
Quinn squinted back. “You got an idea?”
The sheriff grabbed the radio on her shoulder. “Sherri, I need you to track down Delmer. Tell him if he shows up at McClusky’s with the truck in the next twenty minutes, I’ll tear up all his outstanding warrants.”
“Got it, sheriff.”
“Friend of yours?” Quinn asked.
“You could say that,” she said dryly. “As many times as I’ve arrested him, we’re practically kin. I’ll go make that call.”
The modifications to the maker took longer than the actual fabrication. Armani explained that to Quinn several times, but that didn’t stop him from pacing nervously. By the time she and Ezra were done, they had completely dismantled the machine and reoriented it horizontally. The shop owner stood in the corner with his hand to his head watching them take his livelihood apart.
“Don’t worry,” Armani told him with an easy smile. “I’ll send you a new one. And a case of beer.” She lifted her third empty bottle in a silent toast.
The device they fabricated was much larger that Quinn expected. He watched it being formed one microscopic layer at a time.
“There’s no moving parts,” he noted, nodding to the interior of the containment vessel, which was lined in grooves and nozzled chambers.
The maker’s print head moved back and forth over the half-finished structure, laying down tiny, specially shaped particles, fed through a narrow tube, and fusing them rapidly in place with microlasers. The resulting material was a kind of artificial metal crystal, eight times stronger than steel for the same weight.
“That’s the beauty of dilution refrigeration,” Ezra told him as he slid the maker forward again. “All we need is a standard compression pump, which we’ll insert at the end. At very low temperatures, the helium isotopes separate, sort of like oil and water. If you force them back together, they’ll separate again in a perpetual cooling cycle.”
“Is that what the double-walls are for?”
“Well, we want the anomaly to breach it, right? So, we’re gonna line that with a pressurized insulator before we add the helium. We’ve also crimped the lining of the inner containment so the whole thing is kinda like a faulty balloon. Once the outer casing is ruptured—”
“The insulator depressurizes, relieving the force on the helium and the whole thing blows.”
“Basically.”
“Clever. Who came up with that?”
Ezra shrugged.
Quinn smiled at him.
La Cucaracha played on a car horn over a engine rumble so deep Quinn could feel it reverberate in his chest. He joined the sheriff in the lot outside the garage to see what was coming.
“He’s here,” she drolled.
“Who?”
A high-wheeled monster truck appeared from around the back. While not as tall as its professional counterparts, it was completely customized, including a specialty paint job, heavily-magged tires, and a roll bar. The latter, along with the scuffed and dented exterior, suggested it was meant for serious offroading.
“Delmer Cotton.” The sheriff sighed. “Something of a local hellraiser, and the bane of my tenure.”
“Nice truck,” Quinn called as it pulled to a stop in front of them.
It was enormous. A giant diesel engine erupted from the hood, creating quite the contrast with the undersized man in the cab. He was short and thin with a crooked nose and well-defined muscles. They weren’t exceptionally large, but they suggested the man they were attached to worked for a living. He also apparently didn’t eat much. Based on his face and teeth, Quinn wondered if he might be nursing a meth habit. His head was shaved and he wore a loose-fitting t-shirt with more than one bad word printed on it.
“Sheriff.” He nodded to her coolly.
“They tell you what we need you to do?”
“Something about getting past those army guys with a heavy load.”
“This man here is Agent Quinn. He’s gonna ride shotgun. You got a problem with that?”
Delmer sized Quinn up.
“Long as he can handle hisself.”
It took five men to load the helium. When a nozzle snapped, a cap had to be cut from a retaining plate and welded onto the containment vessel by hand. By the end of the assembly, the guys in the shop and several of the deputies had joined Armani and Quinn in brainstorming the best way to get the device into the back of the truck. Quinn figured most of them were more interested in catching the attention of the wealthy and full-figured mechanic on the other end of the line than anything else, but he was happy for the help.
“Guess we didn’t think this through,” he suggested in frustration after a second chain snapped.
The device wasn’t too heavy for the shop’s manual lift. Rather, the lift wasn’t high enough to get the large device into the custom raised bed of the truck. They were short about seven inches. After his pride and joy was accused of being the problem, Delmer pointed out that the truck’s winch was strong enough to pull a semi, and the men looped the cable through the rafters of the building, one of which split during the hoist. For a moment, everyone thought the building might get pulled down on top of them. But after a serious shudder, it held, and the team was finally able to lift the device just high enough to slide it into the bed of the truck.
“I had one of my guys do a loop,” the sheriff told Quinn as he climbed into the cab. “Your best entry is near the water tower. There’s a gap in the patrols. Take the Franklins’ dirt road,” she told Delmer, “and cut through the back lot. You’ll have to jump the ditch when you cross Route 2. Be careful not to lose that thing.”
“I know it,” Delmer said, pulling a harness around his shoulders. “Strap yourself in, lawman. This ain’t no charity parade.”
A deputy finished tightening the last strap and slapped the back of the truck twice.
“Secure!” He held a thumb up.
Delmer turned the ignition and the engine roared. The whole truck shook, as if the monster engine was about to shake loose of its mount. Delmer revved it twice, which obliterated all other noise, before putting the truck in drive and pulling onto the road. The machine only stuttered once.
“Is this thing gonna be able to handle the weight?” Quinn had to shout over the noise.
“She’ll handle it. I used to raid cattle in this baby.”
“Cattle?” Quinn shouted in disbelief. “Wait, you’re a cattle rustler?”
“Retired!” Delmer said. “But don’t you worry. My baby’s old school like me. She can handle anything.”
“What about gunfire?”
“They gonna shoot at us?”
“They might. You know, go for the tires.” Quinn paused. “That’s what I’d do.”
He could literally see Delmer’s mind working, as if there were no barriers between his brain and his face.
“They’d have to get close,” Quinn said, “to make sure they didn’t accidentally hit one of us.”
“Well, then we’ll just have to outrun ’em.”
“Hauling 2500 pounds?”
Delmer leaned down and lifted a plank in the floor. He turned the spigot on an aquamarine canister.
“Nitrous?” Quinn yelled.
“No.” Delmer grinned. “Rocket fuel!”
Quinn went pale. “Seriously?”
“Cook it up in the shed out back.”
Quinn looked down at the oddly colored canister. “Is it safe?”
“Hell no, lawman!”
Delmer gave a yell and took a hard left onto a dirt road. At the end, they broke through a padlocked gate with barely a hitch and covered a short field before a road. After flying across it, they hit the ditch on the far side, and the entire truck jolted and went airborne. Quinn turned to check the cargo as Delmer yelled with delight at the top of his lungs. As soon as the tires hit the turf, Delmer slapped the red switch on the dash, and his custom-blended jet fuel was injected into the engine. The force of the acceleration caused Quinn to whiplash painfully, and he turned straight just in time to see flashes of fire erupt from the engine’s front-mounted exhaust. Magged tires gouged the earth as the truck tore across a wide open field that had probably once been farmland—straight toward the distant anomaly.
Electric Humvees appeared from the left on an intercept course, and Delmer banked right to give them a bit more space. The truck flew past the first with a gap of twenty feet. The soldiers inside had weapons at the ready, but they didn’t fire, presumably because they expected the second Humvee would make contact, which it did. It rammed the rear of the truck at high speed, but at such an oblique angle that the truck merely fishtailed, and the lighter Humvee spun out of control and almost tipped over, forcing its companion to break chase to check on the occupants.
Three more Humvees appeared then, heading directly toward them from the right. Delmer banked left, which caused the truck’s engine to sputter. Something was wrong.
“Problem?” Quinn yelled.
They were so close. He could see the black bulge of the anomaly just past a grassy depression. But the Humvees would be on them in seconds.
“Hold onto your ass, lawman!”
Delmer spun the wheel hard while pulling the parking brake, and momentum carried the truck into a spin. It turned over it roll bar again and again, bouncing over the nearest Humvee and forcefully ejecting the cargo.
After three more bone-jarring turns, it crashed to a halt.
Quinn was dazed, and it took him a moment to collect his thoughts, even after the truck righted itself and stopped shaking. He reached for the door but was held by the harness, which he had forgotten. He unhooked it at his chest. His feet hit the grass as the Humvees approached. They had been on an intercept course and after missing the truck, had to slow and turn around. They were followed by several civilian vehicles, which were having a harder time with the uneven ground. Quinn trotted ahead to check on the cryogenic device, which had rolled into a depression directly in front of the anomaly. Still, the black mass was slow, and the soldiers might’ve had a chance to drag the device away if the anomaly hadn’t chosen that exact moment to molt. Headlights flickered and every approaching vehicle died instantly and rolled to a stop wherever it was.
Delmer hopped down from the truck and tore off his shirt. He was pumping adrenaline and jumping up and down in a constant hoot and holler, taunting the soldiers, who were now cautiously approaching on foot, weapons at the ready. After shouting some profanity at them, he was tased, and he went down in audible gyrations.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Incident Commander Nguyen shouted as she got out of her car.
The soldiers surrounded Quinn, but before they could move in, there was a loud but muffled Pop! and everyone ducked. Their faces turned in awe as the anomaly lifted into the air and fell with a thud, shrinking rapidly, as if its internal structure had completely collapsed. The effect was instantaneous. As the heat from the rest of the enormous mass was sucked in by the radical temperature differential, the whole thing deflated in a wave that traveled almost too fast to see. In moments, every visible part of the blob was flat and frozen, and crystals of water vapor began forming on its surface, giving it the appearance of black ice.
As everyone stared, Sheriff Landry’s patrol car bounced slowly over the turf and stopped in front of Quinn, who got into the passenger’s seat. Ezra was behind the sheriff in the back.
“It’s alright,” the sheriff told the soldiers. “I’ll take him into custody.”
The colonel appeared then, helped down the grassy slope by one of his men, and Quinn rolled his window down so the two could talk.
“Where the hell are you going?” the colonel yelled.
“I have orders to stand down. Remember?”
Quinn slapped the side of the car and the sheriff turned for the road. The car was halfway to the airport before he thought to look back at Ezra. But the kid was simply staring out the window in silence, watching the world roll by through one missing lens. Quinn could just make out his face in reflection. He was smiling.