Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(57)

“In a way, I’m jealous of him,” Tin Man said, motioning toward the man in the cage. “This is a historic moment. No one in the history of the world has ever died this way. It’s like being the first person to walk on the moon.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Bart Young said. “Enough talking. Let’s see the demonstration.”

“We need to do something,” Riley whispered to Emerson.

“You would need to take out almost everyone in the room,” Emerson said. “You’re not the only one with a weapon. And the lady in black has the ultimate weapon.”

“I’m turning on the magnetic field now,” Berta said, pushing a button on the controls in front of her.

There was a low hum from the direction of the cage, and the man inside struggled against his chains.

“Is he in pain?” the director asked.

“No. Just scared,” Berta said. “The magnetic field is harmless to him. Its only purpose is to contain the strange matter.”

Emerson did an audible intake of air. “They’re not using the Penning trap to contain plasma. They’re using it to contain strange matter.”

“What’s strange matter?” Riley whispered.

“Do you remember in Yellowstone I said there were four types of ordinary matter—solids, liquids, gasses, and plasmas?”

“Sure.”

“Well, there are other theoretical forms of matter, called exotic matter. Forms that exist in the far reaches of space, but not on earth. At least, nobody thought they existed on earth.”

“Like what?”

“All the matter on earth is what physicists call baryonic, which is just a fancy way to say that things are made up of protons and neutrons. The number of protons and neutrons in an atom determine whether something is made of helium or carbon or uranium or some other element in the periodic table. Strange matter is, in very basic terms, stuff that’s not made up of protons and neutrons, because all the protons and neutrons have been squished superhumanly hard into a mass of disorganized basic particles called quarks. Under the right conditions, it could be, to put it mildly, dangerous.”

Riley lowered the rifle and watched as Berta pressed another button. A robotic arm dropped a small canister into the enclosure. It shattered on the floor next to Richard, revealing a tiny dollop of what looked like a shimmering, rainbow-colored bit of liquid mercury. The cement floor collapsed and was consumed by the shimmering little blob. Everything went quickly after that. The chains were compressed and sucked into the tiny ball, and Richard followed. He screamed in pain and horror and then he was gone. Ten seconds later, the little ball stopped shimmering, turned a gray color, and melted away into a flat mass. All that was left of the little glass room was the enclosure itself protected by the invisible magnetic field.

“What the heck just happened?” Riley asked Emerson.

No response. Emerson was gone. He was standing in the center of the room by the Penning traps. He waved at Riley and held his breath as he unplugged one of the four portable traps from a wall outlet. The machine switched to battery power. Emerson picked it up and walked back over to her, cradling the trap in his arms.

Everyone else in the room was gobsmacked, stupidly staring open-mouthed at the glass enclosure. No one seemed to notice Emerson skulking away with a Penning trap.

“Crap on a cracker,” Riley whispered to Emerson. “What . . . did . . . you . . . do?”

“I know. I clouded their minds. Great idea, right?”

“Wrong. You’re holding enough strange matter to probably destroy the entire island of Hawaii.”

“Or . . . I just got the evidence we need to put the bad guys out of business.”

“Okay,” Riley said. “Let’s very quietly leave with the evidence.”

Tin Man was the first to turn away from the glass enclosure and the first to see Emerson and Riley. He snatched a rifle from one of the soldiers and fired off a shot.

The director knocked the gun out of Tin Man’s hands. “You fool. They’ve got one of the traps. If you hit it, we’re all dead.”

“Run!” Riley said to Emerson. “Run fast.”

“Go after them,” the director ordered. “Don’t let them get away, but be careful of the trap.”

Tin Man and a handful of Rough Riders ran toward the tunnel. Riley fired off a round and the soldiers scattered, taking cover behind whatever they could find.

“I’ll buy you some time,” Riley said to Emerson. “That Penning trap probably weighs at least fifty pounds, and it will slow you down.”

Emerson looked at Riley and shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”

Riley took aim at where Tin Man was hiding. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you. I’m just going to buy you a thirty-second head start. Go.”

Emerson ran in the direction of the jail cells, and Riley fired a couple more shots into the laboratory room.

“There’s no escape,” Bart Young shouted. “You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

Riley backed into the tunnel, took a final shot, turned, and sprinted through the passageway. She reached the metal double door and heard footsteps behind her. Tin Man and two guards were no more than fifty feet away at the other end of the line of cells.

Tin Man raised his gun and pointed it in Riley’s direction. She ran through the metal door, slammed it shut, and heard the bullets ricochet off the door on the other side.