Coldbrook (Hammer)(52)

Bill’s comments about the Core had enthralled Jonah decades ago and they still did now. It sat behind eight feet of reinforced fifty-newton concrete, a foot of layered lead, six inches of steel, nine inches of graphite, and the largest Penning-trap network ever . . . and yet what was inside was a world away.

And Jonah opened his eyes to see.

The glow was both there – and not there. Staggering energies danced within flashes of quark-gluon plasma, countless collisions gave the core a sea of possibilities. It felt as though he was seeing with his own eyes and also remembering the view from someone else’s, when the core containment was still being constructed and the core itself remained a dream. It was an incredibly disturbing experience, and the first time he’d ever seen it he’d told Bill that he was seeing inside Schr?dinger’s box while the experiment was still under way. Bill had laughed, taken him to one side, poured a drink.

What he saw existed in a fold between realities. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. And he shut off the camera, remembering what Holly had said the one and only time she had looked. It’s like seeing into the mind of God.

‘He’s having a nightmare right now,’ Jonah muttered, and he stared at his list. There were the names of a dozen people, most of whom he had not seen for many years. He hoped they could all help. He flicked on the radio again as he started dialling, keeping it low, a background theme to his culpability.

‘. . . might well be a form of rabies. No one has yet been able to run tests, but from the descriptions that have come in – somewhat glorified and exaggerated, I suspect – it seems that the attacker is possessed by some kind of madness, and the victim is quickly infected. I believe one commentator has referred to them as . . . zombies? Well, let me tell you, science completely precludes . . .’

‘We need to stop and rest,’ Lucy said.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’ve been driving for hours.’

‘Really, I’m fine,’ Vic said. ‘Just a bit longer.’ Lucy had been scanning the radio, sometimes settling on a station playing sterile love songs, sometimes finding a news channel, occasionally encountering religious or talk shows where the theories were becoming more outrageous by the minute. Zombies, someone had said, and she’d snorted and scanned away. And, all the while, Vic had been absorbing the information and knowing for sure that it was ten times worse than anyone claimed.

He remembered a few years ago when the terrible earthquake had struck the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Haiti had been devastated, but for a long time the only firm news coming out of the country had been from individuals on blogs, independent radio stations and mobile phones. Confusion had reigned about how bad the quake had been and how many were affected, and even fly-bys by the US Coast Guard had given only a vague idea of the power and severity of the quake. It had taken almost twenty-four hours for outside agencies to penetrate to the affected zones, and another two weeks before the full, terrible human cost had been realised. At the time it had shocked him that, in a world so interconnected through the media and various forms of instant communication, a tragedy such as the quake could have caused such confusion for so long.

That was happening now, in the USA, and it was not a confined incident. But he could still hear that level of shocked confusion in most of the voices he heard, those of some of the newscasters most of all. How long until the big picture emerges? he wondered. He did not want to be anywhere near when he found out.

The satphone buzzed. He’d plugged it into the cigarette lighter to charge, and now he plucked it up and checked the screen. Holly! But no, of course not. Holly had gone through. Glancing sidelong at Lucy, offering her a weak smile that she did not return, he answered.

‘Jonah.’

‘Vic. Where are you?’

‘Heading north on 75.’ He saw no reason to lie.

‘How far are you from Cincinnati?’

‘Two, maybe three hours. Jonah, are you okay?’

‘Do you care?’

‘Of course I care!’ Vic glanced at Lucy. She was looking at him with something like pity. She signalled to the side of the road and mouthed at him to pull over. He nodded. ‘Hang on, I’m driving.’ He pulled over and switched off the engine. Olivia stirred in the back seat and then snuggled down again. Lucy leaned back to arrange their daughter’s blanket.

‘Do you have any idea what’s happening?’ Jonah asked, and Vic could picture the old bastard’s stern expression, his intelligent eyes narrowed to slits beneath the weight of his frown.