Salvation

The snarl of air venting into interplanetary space became a hurricane howl. Vapor was streaking across the lattice at incredible speed. Two roof panels ripped free and slammed down onto the tank, vibrating furiously as they were sucked away down the sides.

“Blow it,” Callum shouted.

The charges on the tank support struts detonated simultaneously. He couldn’t even hear them above the gale that was clawing at him. Snowflakes transformed to dangerous ice bullets, strafing down from widening cracks in the roof. The top of the tank vanished, dropping so fast he barely caught the motion. More lethal panels were scything through the air, following it into the cyclone funnel that had formed in the gulf its departure had created.

“It’s clear,” Raina yelled across their comms.

“Close it, Henry!” Callum shouted.

The gale took an age to subside as the ventchamber’s outer door labored against the incredible pressure. Twice as long as it took to form, Callum was sure.

Silence, when it came, was like a physical force slapping him. Callum took a shaky breath and stood up, tensed against the eerily still air. “Everyone okay?”

They called it in, voices unsteady with relief. Callum slowly unclipped the harness. Snow was falling through wide fractures in the broken roof. The inside of the building resembled a bomb site. He checked his radiation sensor, which showed him background levels only.

“Bloody hell, we did it!” he said. Then he started laughing at the surprise in his own voice.

—

The alarm clock’s buzzing woke Callum. Someone had turned the volume up to stadium-rock level and added earthquake-shake to it. Callum moaned weakly and opened his eyes—actions that were hideously painful. His hand groped around for the alarm clock. Somewhere in his aching brain he cursed the smartarse out-of-reach trick.

That was when he realized he wasn’t even in the bedroom, let alone his bed. He was sprawled on the settee in the living room with a cricked neck and one arm wedged under his torso. And the alarm was still buzzing away. His vision was blurry, but he could see through the open door into the bedroom where the red glowing digits taunted him.

“House,” he croaked.

“Good morning, Callum.”

“Switch the alarm off.”

“That is not possible. Your alarm clock has no interface. It is very old. I believe it was manufactured in the 1990s.”

“Bastard.” He staggered upright, groaning at the wave of pain the motion caused at the very center of his brain. The living room lurched nauseatingly around him. Somehow he managed to coordinate his limbs and tottered into the bedroom. He didn’t bother with the snooze or cancel buttons on the clock, just switched the fucker off at the mains.

Relief lasted about five seconds. “Oh, shit,” he gasped, and sprinted for the bathroom.

He didn’t know what he’d had to eat last night, but he certainly managed to throw up most of it into the toilet bowl. He pressed the flush, then slumped on the floor with his back to the washbasin, breathing heavily as his body abruptly turned to ice and his clearly lethal bastard of a headache hammered at the inside of his skull in an attempt to break free.

They’d spent another hour at the Gylgen disposal facility yesterday after dumping the tank, first helping the staff check to make sure no waste canisters had split or leaked during the chaos; then threading the portal doors back to Haumea station. Media drones had caught the roof buckling and the snowy air screaming into fissures as the panels were sucked down into the massive emergency vent. Everyone assumed the tanks had imploded. It took Connexion’s PR team a while to calm fears and reassure everyone that ED had worked their usual miracle, preventing radiation leakage from contaminating the surrounding area. Under Dokal’s forceful guidance, the PR team underplayed the potential damage level, emphasizing the debris would have only been mildly radioactive medical waste.

The news streams ignored that modesty and started playing old Chernobyl videos. By that time, Callum and the crew were all back in Brixton, kicking back in their office, cheering and jeering at the deluge of alarmist reports. If only you knew, he thought smugly. After that, they all went out for a quiet celebratory drink.

The shower helped a little. But he took four ibuprofen as soon as he got out, washed down with half a carton of fresh orange juice he found in the fridge. A fully stocked fridge. “Oh, thank Christ for that.” He slapped bacon rashers into the pan. Plenty of bread today, so two bacon sandwiches. Two mugs of extra strong coffee to go with them.

He found some clean clothes, shoved the entire dirty laundry pile into the housekeeping service’s bags—they could sort everything out, and screw the extra cost—and left them outside his door for pickup.