Ellis had no idea who was being spoken to. There had to be close to a hundred individuals manning stations. The place looked like NASA ground control staffed by a welders’ guild. Those who didn’t wear the long coats and glasses worked naked at their illuminated virtual 3-D stations, each of which could have been nothing more than an incredible video game. Some even had snacks and drinks beside them. No tattoos, scarves, or masks. Ellis imagined geomancers didn’t care as much about standing out.

“What is it?” Pax asked.

“We only do a general condition survey once a month for known areas, but if this antique detector of yours can be trusted, it’s indicating we’re over the mark on radiation.”

A moment later the big center screen changed to a stylized image of a sun—a circle with numerous rays shooting out from the center. It took a moment for Ellis to realize it was actually an overhead view of the control base he was standing in. Over this were laid the ghostly colors that Ellis had seen in spy movies when they used thermal imaging. Numbers ran across the bottom like a news crawler.

“Look—at—that.” Geo-3 walked toward the screen, causing nearly everyone in the room to look up.

“What?” Ellis asked.

“The radiation istoo high. But why? 47, get a lock on the rad source.”

Everyone watched the main screen as colors were isolated and filtered out until just yellow and purple remained. Then the image moved and zoomed, closing in on the center of the purple cloud.

“Give them coats and glasses,” Geo-3 said, pointing at Pax and Ellis.

Geo-12 ran to a wall and retrieved the protective gear from a shelf and some pegs.

“Come with me.” Geo-3 took a step and then stopped, turned, and shouted to the room, “Wake up Geo-1 and Geo-2. Tell them the sky is falling.”

The glasses made it possible to see in the bright portways. They passed through the viscous molten stone, but didn’t go far out the door—just a few steps.

“There,” Geo-3 said. Looking through the walls of the portway tunnel, Ellis spotted a dull metal object set in the natural black rock about a football field away. “That could be an old-fashioned bomb.”

“I can barely see it.”

“On the side of the glasses,” Geo-3 said. “Two sensors. Top zooms in, bottom zooms out.”

Ellis ran his fingers along the rims of the frame, as he fingered something smooth his sight changed, pulling the image of the bomb closer until he could see the familiar radiation symbol on the dull-metal casing. “That’s one.” He turned to Pax. “Can you use your Port-a-Call to create a portal underneath it? Let it just fall out into space somewhere?”

Pax’s head was shaking. “Port-a-Call portals are limited to vertical formations for safety reasons, and besides that’s too far. The maximum distance a POC can open a portal is twenty-five feet, right?”

Geo-3 nodded.

“So someone has to go out there?” Ellis asked.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Geo-3 said, leading them all back inside. “And don’t worry about it we’ll take care of that one. But you said there were two others, right?”

“Yeah…but they were working on one of them so they may have only placed two.”

“And we have two hours?”

“Less than that, I think. The bombs go off at 14:54 Hollow World core time.”

They reentered the command center, and Geo-3 pulled off the safety glasses. “I want an immediate extraction on the P-grid. Send Alpha team to deliver the package into the void where it won’t bother anyone. 1004 through 1020, supply search teams with scanners set for a danger threshold above the envelope at a range of five hundred.”

“I don’t think we have enough scanners,” someone said from the upper deck.

Geo-3 looked annoyed but took a breath. “You have a Maker. Use it, and be quick or we’re all gonna die—so no pressure.” Geo-3 turned to Ellis and Pax. “I honestly don’t know how 1028 passed the entrance exam, much less survived the initiate program. His father must know someone.”

“Father?” Ellis was shocked.

Pax touched his back. “It’s a joke.”

Geo-3 smiled at them. “The two of you need to relax. Stress is not your friend.”

“We’ve only got minutes before we die in a nuclear explosion, and that’s if I got the time right,” Ellis said.

Geo-3 laughed. “So?”

“Well, if that isn’t a time to stress, I don’t know what is.”

A portal popped in the center of the command, and a geomancer in a hard hat walked out. “Status, Three?”

“Just another day, One.”

“That bad?”

The two exchanged grins that looked genuinely pleased. They could have been Top Gun fighter pilots, climbing into cockpits on the way to a dogfight.

“’Fraid so. We got three antique nuclear explosives hidden around the sublevel set to explode in less than one hundred and twenty-three minutes. Found one conveniently located right outside. I’m sending Alpha to eject it.”

Geo-1 looked incredulous. “Nuclear explosives? What the bleez?”

“Honestly, I haven’t taken the time to ask. Figure we can do that later over antique cocktails.”

“Good enough,” Geo-1 said. “Prometheus! Wake up, old lady!”

“You know I don’t sleep,” a powerful voice boomed, and Ellis was certain that if the planet itself could speak, this was how it would sound.

“Prometheus, we have a problem here.”

Ellis couldn’t help thinking he was watching a live-action remake of Apollo 13. All around, people rushed with purpose, grabbing hazard suits and pulling them on. No panic, no fear visible. He and Pax could have been in a firehouse watching the men suit up and slide down the pole.

“I have been monitoring the situation,” Prometheus’s powerful voice boomed.

“If you would be so kind, please punch us to Full-Core. It’s time to make sure everyone is awake.”

“Announcing Full Core,” Prometheus said, and an alarm echoed. The sound inside the control room was muffled. But Ellis also felt a rumble as something large was moved, although he couldn’t see what.

“We’ve got at least one and possibly two more explosives to locate,” Geo-1 shouted. “Everyone not crucial, hit the portways. The rest I want remote-tracking. Keep your cons open for information about locations. Report the moment you find something.”

“What can we do?” Pax asked Geo-3.

“Stay out of the way and let us do our job.”

“Is this really just another typical day for you?” Ellis asked.

Geo-3 grinned. “Oh, the stories I could tell.”

Ellis and Pax had climbed up one tier of stairs to the second-floor stations and stood near the rail, which kept them out of traffic. The elevation made it easier to watch the Jumbotron, as they didn’t need to crane their necks so far. They stood holding on to the balcony rail, watching the big monitor as the purple cloud dwindled and disappeared.

A cheer filled the command center, but it was brief, as there were still two more to eject.

“I never knew it was like this down here,” Pax said. “It’s so scary—exciting, but scary. The rest of Hollow World has no idea. We show geomancers respect and all—revere them, observe Geomancer Day—but I don’t think anyone above us has a clue why. Until you actually come here and see it—you can’t really know.”

“That’s one gone,” Geo-1 told them, climbing up the stairs. “And a team near Amethyst Ring says they have a lock on the second. They’re moving to eject it now. But there’s been no sign of the third. Are you sure there were three?”

“They were working on the third when I left,” Ellis said. “Having trouble with the timer. It’s possible they couldn’t get it to work at all. The bombs are pretty old.”