Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(58)

Emerson was waiting for her in the back seat of an ATV. The Penning trap was sitting next to him.

“They’re going to be in a lot of trouble with the director,” Emerson said. “They aren’t supposed to be shooting at the Penning trap.”

Riley jammed her rifle through the handles of the double door, barricading Tin Man on the other side. She jumped into the driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition, and raced down the tunnel in the direction of the exit.

“It’s only a matter of time before they break through,” she said. “Hang on to the Penning trap.”

Riley could see the light from the tunnel’s entrance in front of her, and she could hear Emerson behind her. He was blowing on the slide whistle, trying to alert Vernon and Alani.

Riley burst out of the tunnel entrance and into the fog, braking hard and coming to a sudden stop in front of Vernon and Alani.

“Get in,” Riley said. “We don’t have much time.”

Vernon and Alani piled into the ATV, Riley floored the gas pedal, and they took off along the Jeep trail, back toward Wayan Bagus.

“What is that thing?” Vernon asked, pointing at the Penning trap.

“A doomsday machine filled with strange matter,” Riley said.

Vernon eyed the trap. “Is it dangerous?”

Alani rolled her eyes. “What do you think, dumb-dumb? It’s a doomsday machine.”

“It contains some thick liquidy substance that sucked a guy right into itself, like some little black hole,” Riley said.

Emerson patted the Penning trap. “Not exactly. The simplest analogy is that it ate him.”

“No kidding? Like the Blob,” Vernon said.

“Under the right conditions, strange matter will attract normal matter and convert it into strange matter. That’s what happened to the man in the cave. The strange matter came in contact with the floor and converted it into more strange matter and that came in contact with the man and converted him into a little superdense ball of strange matter too.”

“So it’s a chain reaction,” Riley said. “Little by little, everything gets converted.”

Emerson held his hand over the trap to stabilize it as they bumped along the road. “Yes and no. Like I said, there are certain conditions that must be met. The first is that the strange matter has to be more stable than the normal matter.”

“And the second?”

“It has to be negatively charged,” Emerson said. “That’s also why it can be contained safely within a magnetic field.”

Riley scanned the road ahead for Wayan Bagus. Still no sign, but she thought she heard faint sounds of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” through the fog.

“All the baryonic matter on earth has positively charged atomic nuclei,” Emerson said. “For the strange matter to be attracted to the normal matter on earth, it would need an opposite negative charge. Otherwise, the two would repel each other, kind of like two positively charged magnets. Positively charged strange matter would just sit in a glob, not eating anything in its path.”

“And if you had a stable supply of negatively charged strange matter?”

“Theoretically, under ideal conditions, it could destroy the earth, gobbling up everything until there was nothing left but a little superdense ball of strange matter.”

“Armageddon,” Vernon said.

Emerson nodded. “Under ideal conditions, so to speak.” Riley looked at Emerson in the rearview mirror. “You know a lot about strange matter.”

Emerson shrugged. “I’ve been told on occasion I’m a strange man.”

“We study strange matter at the Keck Observatory,” Alani said. “Astronomers believe that on a cosmic level, exotic matter is much more common than normal matter and was probably created during the early stages of the universe. Around ninety-six percent of the universe is exotic matter. It’s just that none of it, before now, was ever discovered on the earth.”

Riley saw the outline of Wayan Bagus’s ATV ahead through the fog and slowed down.

“That doesn’t exactly explain how the National Park Service got their hands on it,” Riley said.

“I have a working theory, but it will have to wait,” Emerson said. “We’re about to get company. I can hear ATVs on the trail behind us.”





TWENTY-FIVE




EMERSON QUICKLY TRANSFERRED THE PENNING trap to Wayan Bagus’s ATV.

“Here’s the plan,” Emerson said. “They don’t know we have a second ATV, and they’re going to assume we’ll try to outrun them down the mountain.”

Riley looked down the mountain. The undulate terrain looked very steep and treacherous.

“Do you think we can outrun them?” she asked.

“Doubtful,” Emerson said. “That’s why Alani, Vernon, and Wayan Bagus will take the ATV with the Penning trap up the mountain to the summit and hide out at the Keck Observatory while you and I act as decoys and lead them down the mountain.”

“What about the unexploded ordnance?” Riley asked. “It’s one thing if we blow up. It’s another if the entire island of Hawaii is destroyed.”

Emerson nodded. “The bad guys won’t be looking for Alani and Vernon’s ATV, so they can drive at a safe speed, sticking to the Jeep trail and main roads.”