The Last Zoo by Sam Gayton

Author:Sam Gayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andersen Press Ltd
Published: 2019-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

20

GLITCH ENCOUNTER

Slowly, Pia and Ishan circle the halo. They peer down into the hole at its centre. Light warps into a ring shape around it, but the hole is absolute black, absolute silence. Like a well dug down to the bottom of the ocean.

For a long time there is only the drone of the nanite stacks around them, and under that the ship’s deep thrum: two low notes of dread beneath Pia’s drumming heart.

‘What is it?’ Ishan says.

‘Hum’s miracle.’ She steps closer. It is big enough to climb through. ‘I’ve never seen a halo like it.’

‘What did it do to him?’

Pia looks at the tiny fragment of angel. Hum has fallen down into her palm, so small she can’t make out his shape. Just a glint. A smithereen thrown from a steel welder. ‘He wove it from his own light. His own essence.’

‘But what is it he wove?’ Ishan breathes in sharply as she puts a hand over the hole. ‘Don’t!’

‘There’s air, Ish. Rising up. It’s warm.’

A sudden, horrible thought: the hole is a mouth, breathing on them. She shudders and wipes her hand on her dungarees.

‘Don’t, Pia.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Stand that close.’ He motions her back. ‘Use the lamp.’

Good idea. Taking up the numinous, she swings its beam downwards. The hole lights up. It’s a riveted metal tube, rusty-brown and streaked with water stains. On one side is a bolted rung ladder that goes all the way down, beyond the reach of the lamp. Is that writing on the side? Some long serial number, in stamped black lettering.

Ishan blinks. ‘That isn’t... there aren’t any vents beneath this cargo space.’ He goes to his monitor and pulls up the ship’s blueprints to double-check.

The back of Pia’s neck tingles. ‘It isn’t beneath the deck, Ish. It isn’t even on this ark.’

Ishan is too engrossed in his own theories to hear her. ‘The angel must have zephyred around the layout of two ships or something? Or maybe...’

Pia shines the numinous lamp closer. ‘Look at that bit of the serial number.’ She reads it out loud. ‘1-17-US-WRDB.’

Ishan blinks. ‘That’s... that’s...’

‘It’s a portal,’ Pia says in wonder. ‘To the Weapons Research Development Bunker.’

‘But that’s—’

‘Inside the mountain,’ Pia finishes for him.

‘It’s practically inside the Seam!’ Ishan backs away. ‘That’s the delivery tube! They dropped the reality bomb down that nulling tunnel!’

‘The wardrobe that leads to Narnia,’ Pia murmurs.

‘We need to report this. This is... this is... I don’t know what this is.’

‘What are you freaking out about? It’s basically just a door.’

‘Are you serious? Basically just a door?’

‘How is this any weirder than zephyring?’

‘Because a genie can’t zephyr you to the hypocentre of an r-bomb blast!’

‘It could if its beard was long enough.’

Ishan starts shaking his head, very much not able to deal with what is in front of him. Does Not Compute. Does Not Compute. Like his brain is overheating.

‘Stop thinking how it is,’ she tells him. ‘Start thinking what we do with it.’

‘OK... OK, what then?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? What else do you do with a

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