//------------------------------// // Chapter 20: Dead End // Story: On Getting to the Bottom of this "Equestrian" Business // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Chapter 20: Dead End Gus suddenly found himself in the “safe space” inside Meridiem’s head. A brief sense of overwhelming pain quickly faded. “You should be OK now,” Gnosi told him. “Well technically, feel well. You’ll still need medical treatment when we get out of this. If we get out of this.” “You put a mental block on the pain, I’m guessing,” Gus concluded. “So what about the rule that you could only do this with my permission?” “If I took the time to ask you, we would have both been atomized before you could reply. Besides, I have access to a lot more power than usual.” Gus stood up from the cross-legged position he had awoken in. “Is that how you were able to stop time?” he asked Meridiem. Meridiem nodded. “And now we need you to help us figure out what to do.” “What about Father Delver?” “He was knocked unconscious from the initial shock,” Gnosi reported. “The damage must have been severe, because I couldn’t revive him.” “Anybody else?” “We were the only Markists on the flight. And that drink we gave you with dissolved Mark plaque is the only reason we could include you.” “So no chance of including Gwen.” “Sorry, Professor.” Gus sighed and closed his eyes for a few moments to think. Then he opened them to take a good look at his two companions. “You both look pretty tired. How long was it between when you initially stopped time and when you included me?” “Subjectively? I’d say ten, maybe fifteen minutes.” “Then the rings under your eyes is not merely fatigue, but the first sign of radiation poisoning.” “We had no choice,” Meridiem explained. “We had to start time for an instant before we could stop it again with you.” “And we already went through the same process with Father Delver,” added Gnosi. “So the first order of business is to set up some sort of shielding,” Gus told them. “But shields are not part of my special talent,” said Meridiem. “Sure they are. You’re stopping time by erecting a shield where time works differently inside than outside. A shield that blocks radiation should be child’s play compared to that.” Gus summoned up his trusty chalkboard. “The theory would look like this…” Gus and Meridiem spent a few minutes going over equations and visualizations, while Gnosi poked around the curtains in Meridiem’s imaginary bedroom. “Well that should keep us alive for now,” Meridiem said, signaling Gnosi to join them once again. “But we still don’t have any options for how to rescue ourselves.” Gus frowned. “It’s not that you have no options…just that you think the options you do have are all bad. Let’s list them and see if they have any redeeming aspects that we can use.” He wiped the chalkboard. Gnosi rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, the first option would be to give up and start time again.” Gus wrote down the words “1. Start Time”. He then asked, “What would the consequences of this decision be?” “Everyone in the plane would die,” said Meridiem sadly, ticking off points on her fingers, “followed by everyone in Air Force One, followed by a few hundred people on the ground dying instantly, followed finally by tens of thousands of people dying long-term from radiation poisoning.” For the moment, Gus decided to hold back the news he had overheard from Marshal Ustinov, that this one bomb might be enough to start World War III. “Alright. What’s the second option?” “There’s got to be a hatch in the baggage compartment that can be opened from inside,” said Gnosi. “I’m pretty sure I saw one,” Gus confirmed. “Then in that case, we open the hatch and push the bomb outside. But all that would do—” Gus raised a hand to stop him while using the other hand to write “2. Push Bomb Outside, Then Start Time”. “OK, now you can go over the consequences.” “Pretty much the same as Option #1,” said Gnosi. “The bomb wouldn’t start falling until Mary started time, and we’d all be dead before it fell out of range.” “The third option is that I push the bomb all the way to the ground,” said Meridiem. “That’s not—” Gnosi started to say. “The Professor wants all options, and this is one.” Gus finished writing the option down. “And then what would happen?” he asked in a neutral tone. “I’d die, even more people on the ground would die, the plane would crash, and there would be a few survivors, although they’d probably be pretty bad off with the fall, the explosion and the radiation,” said Meridiem. “There’s a chance that Air Force One might survive.” “Any chance that we could help?” Gus suggested. “Maybe push the bomb into the sea? My goal right now in brainstorming is to minimize the number of dead and injured, even if that means sacrificing our own lives.” “Hold on,” Meridiem said, and she then disappeared. A moment later, she returned. “I’ve just tested the shield you taught me, and it definitely gets weaker the closer I get to the bomb.” “Are you sure you can’t strengthen it some more?” asked Gus. “No. The same energy I’m trying to block also powers everything I’m doing, so it has to be at least semi-permeable. So there’s no way to get rid of that weakness. Anyone who rides on the bomb is going to be weakened pretty quickly. I don’t know if we’d be able to push it any distance after getting it on the ground before we’d all collapse.” “Can you push it up into space?” “When I say I can push the bomb ‘down’, I mean letting gravity affect it incrementally. I can’t push it up.” “And this missile has no rocket attached. So basically, these are our only options.” Gus stepped back to look at the board for a few seconds then shook his head. “No, nope, nada. None of these are acceptable. I want to save everybody.” “But how?” Gnosi and Meridiem asked in unison. “By changing the rules.”