We should be nearly back to Kelso by the time it goes boom. Any longer and we risk the bomb coming loose or a random lava flow destroying it. That’s plenty of time for us to climb out and bike a safe distance away. Heights scared Evie, but in the apocalypse, fear was relative.Īrjun continued, “The timer is set for-?” “Thanks.” Her heart beat like it was trying to escape her chest. Netflix even featured him in a documentary about the world’s greatest mountain climbers.Įvie screamed as her left foot slipped, sending loose rocks tumbling into the crater.Īrjun grabbed her arm, although the rope would keep her from falling. Google doesn’t exist anymore.”Įvie was the brains behind the plan to shield the sun Arjun was the expert mountain climber who, in the before-time, had scaled not only Mount Saint Helens but every major peak in Washington and Alaska, as well as challenging climbs in South America, Asia, and Europe. “That research makes you our only nuclear expert. I’m just a writer who wrote novels about nuclear terrorism,” Evie replied. Besides, this is a timer bomb, not an impact-detonating one. “The heat will fuse the firing mechanism. “Why can’t we just drop the bomb into the crater?”Įvie shook her head. I’m not even sure the bomb won’t spontaneously detonate when I activate the timer or if this crazy idea will succeed.” “Are you sure this is the right spot?” Arjun asked, shouting through the gold-coated, glass face shield. Despite the volcano’s intense heat, the roar chilled her. Arjun had heard it before, but this was Evie’s first time surrounded by a volcano’s eerie discord. When she found none, she gave a thumbs-up to Arjun.Ī low roar, like overlapping voices, filled the space beneath them-lava rushing through magma chambers and tunnels that extended almost six miles down. She curled her gloved finger inside the webbing, tugging on it to determine if any play might cause the bomb to slip out. On top was a rectangular box that held a digital display, currently off, as well as a keypad and keyhole. She inspected the steel and titanium webbing and six pitons that secured the one-hundred kiloton W70 to the rock face, a brushed metal gray bomb shaped like a sideways ice cream cone. Red rivers of lava flowed below her and her colleague, Arjun Patel. Helens’ crater vented around her tentative perch on this fourteen-inch ledge. Steam from the interior walls of Mount St. One hundred and ten feet down was as far into the volcano’s crater as she could climb. The suit would protect her for thirty minutes at 1,093 degrees Celsius, but the rope that secured Evie to the rock face would undoubtedly melt before she did. The digital thermometer strapped to her aluminum sleeve read 209 degrees Celsius. Sweat cascaded down her face, arms, chest, back, and legs, filling her silvery heat protection suit’s boots with a salty ocean. Evie Harding’s hand shook as it hovered over the atomic bomb’s detonation button.
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