The Anomaly(71)

“Okay, fine. But does it help?”

“We could try to stop them producing energy?”

“What—all of them? Including the ones we saw in the rooms on the other side of the ball, before we got trapped here? And how? And with what? Punching them with our bare fists?”

“All right—we got anything else?”

“The spheres in the pool,” Pierre said thoughtfully.

“What about them?”

“The pyramids, whatever they’re doing, basically that’s magic as far as we’re concerned. We can’t do anything about it. But if it’s those balls being in the water that mean this place can make things, then…”

“…let’s get the balls out of the water,” Ken said.



We stood together back at the pool. I’m not going to lie to you—getting in there felt like the least appealing prospect in the world. It wasn’t only about the slimy plants on top, or the fetid, organic smell. It was Gemma, of course. What had happened to her. Though paradoxically I knew that a large factor in why we were even trying this was to avoid thinking about her death.

“Okay, so how do we do this?” Ken said.

“We have to avoid getting the water in our mouths. Which should be fine because it’s not deep. But having it on the skin probably isn’t a great idea, either, if we can avoid it. It was itching like hell this morning, and it wasn’t anything like this developed when Molly and I went in last night.”

“All right,” Ken said, stepping right up to the edge. “So how do I do that?”

“Seriously? You’re not going in there, Ken. You are the least aquatic human I’ve ever seen.”

“Bollocks. I go in pools all the time.”

“I know. I’ve seen you, in Florida. You spent all afternoon in a floaty thing, consuming a series of strong alcoholic beverages. I had to help you out in the end.”

“You’re a picky bastard, Nolan. And the way you cite past events, just because they ‘happened,’ is really annoying.”

“I’ll do it,” Pierre said. “Nolan, give me your jeans. Ken, your sweatshirt. I’ll put them on top of my clothes.”

“That’s not going to make a difference. It’s still going to soak through the cloth. And get on your hands.”

“It’ll help a little. And I’ll do it fast.”

“No, it’s going to have to be two of us,” I said. “Those balls will be heavy even if they’ve started to dissolve.”

“This isn’t going to work,” Molly said. “How are you going to find them? There’s hundreds of square feet of floor under there, and you can’t see any of it.”

“They’ll be down at the other end.”

“Unless the floor slopes this way. And why are we doing this anyway, Nolan? You’re putting yourself at risk, for what?”

“Because, love,” Ken said, “sooner or later something that’s come out of this pool is going to get hungry. We’ve got enough to deal with already. Stopping it getting worse is all we’ve got.”

He pulled off his sweatshirt.



Pierre wore Ken’s clothes on top of his. I wrapped Molly’s shirt around mine. There was no point in my trying to get into her jeans. I tucked mine into my socks, and Pierre did the same. I was aware it was likely to make no difference.

I perched on the edge of the pool. I still didn’t want to do this. I believed it was the right thing to do, the smart and forward-thinking thing, that it made sense to play a long game in the hope there actually was one. But I still didn’t want to do it.

I reached out my foot and shoved at a portion of the mossy plant material. It resisted, then broke away. The water beneath looked clearer than it had earlier in the day.

“Maybe all that cloudy crap was a stage one,” Ken said. “And it’s now forming into bigger things. Like the plant stuff.”

“That’d be good.” My skin was itching in anticipation, however, and I was trying not to wonder whether it was possible for water to get into the body via the skin’s pores.

“If you’re really going to do this dumb thing,” Molly said, “head straight for the carbon ball. Everything that lives on Earth is carbon-based, right? Get that one out of the pool and you’ve pulled the plug.”

“That,” I said, “is smart thinking, Moll. You win.”

I lowered myself down into the water. It was warm, the temperature of a moderate bath. Body temperature, I guess. My entry stirred the water around, but it stayed clear.

I walked out a few yards holding the light, to give Pierre room to follow. I’d given Ken my phone but they were keeping the screen turned off for now.

By the time Pierre had waded up to where I was, my clothes were already wet through. We needed to do this fast.

We walked farther into the pool, heading toward the middle on the grounds that’s where the balls were likely to be, assuming they’d rolled off the platform at the end in a straight line. “Keep an eye on how far the water comes up your chest,” I said.

“Why?”

“That’ll tell us if there’s a slope. If so, then the heaviest ball will be closest. I think. Yes?”

“I guess. If not?”