Gale Force

It flared into a galaxy of stars, glittering, and I gasped and looked away from it. There was

something deeply wrong about it. Deeply alien.

''Oh God,'' I whispered. Silverton's face had gone an unhealthy shade of gray, and his hands

shook as he pulled the thing out. ''Drop it. Jerome, drop it!''

He got it free of the Dji

resembled, not at all. It fell with a thick, metallic clunk. Drops of oily black dripped from its

sharp edges, and both Silverton and I stared at it without saying a word for a few moments.

Then Silverton said, ''This shouldn't be here. This can't be here.''

I licked my lips and tasted sweat. ''What is it?''

He met my eyes, and I saw real fear in him, the big tough military guy. ''I don't know. If I had to

apply some kind of scientific principle to it, I'd say it was antimatter. Antimatter in suspension,

made stable in the real world.''

I knew the theory of antimatter, of course. Back in the 1970s, a scientist named Dirac had been

trying to figure out an explanation for the way matter behaved in certain circumstances, and he

came up with a theory about something called the Dirac Sea-a kind of negative energy that

exists underneath the positively charged matter in a vacuum. That led to scientists talking about

contraterrene matter, and antiparticles.

Human scientists had actually managed to artificially create antimatter-in fact, they regularly

did it, in places like CERN and Fermilab. Of course, their antimatter was unstable-it had to be,

considering that it was manifesting and interacting with the matter-based world. The longest

antimatter had ever lasted, even with all their technology sustaining it, was about fifteen seconds

before it a

But if this was some kind of bottled, stable antimatter, that was bad. Very, very bad. When

matter and antimatter collided, gamma rays were one side effect, which would explain the

radiation. Even this container, whatever it was, wasn't able to completely contain the antimatter,

so there was a continuous stream of radioactive energy pouring off it.

''Antimatter collisions are about ten times more powerful than chemically based energy,''

Silverton said, and wiped his sweating forehead with his sleeve. ''One kilogram of antimatter

a

''Which is . . .''

''Catastrophic would be charitable.''

''And how much do you think is in there?''

We both looked at the thing lying on the concrete floor, alien and deadly enough to destroy a

Dji

''I think,'' Silverton said slowly, ''that we're looking at about two kilograms.''

In other words, double the worst-case scenario he'd just described.

''We need the Dji

him.'' I nodded toward the dead Dji

Silverton nodded. ''I think we're going to need more than the Dji

''Like who?''

''God.''

Chapter Three

There was no way we could safely remove the black antimatter shard by ourselves. Touching it

had damaged Silverton already; he was trying to hide it, but I could see the pain in his face, the

way his gloved hands were trembling. I remembered Lewis's blistered hands– and that had

been on the aetheric.

''Let's get out of here,'' I said. Silverton didn't argue. He had trouble getting to his feet. I

dumped the equipment, stripped off his pack, and supported him on the way up the stairs. He

made it about halfway before his knees gave out. He was a big guy, and I had to work hard to get

him up the rest of the way and out into the hallway.

''Leave,'' he said. In the light from my floating lantern, he looked drawn and sick. ''You need to

get the Dji

''I don't need to go anywhere to do that,'' I told him, and concentrated on the invisible thread

that linked me with David. It was thin here, but still a co

attention shift toward me. I couldn't communicate with him over the aetheric, at least not from

this spot, but he knew I was looking for him.

I put my back into pulling Silverton down the hallway, trying to avoid the worst of the debris. It

seemed like a very long way, and I had to superoxygenate my lungs to keep spots from dancing

in front of my eyes. I'd pay for it later, but for now, I just wanted out.

My heels hit an inconveniently placed broken computer monitor, and I tipped backward.

David caught me. ''What the hell is going on?'' he asked. ''What are you doing?''

I whirled to face him. I can only imagine how I must have looked-wild-eyed, sweating, scared.

He took a step back. ''Help me get him outside,'' I panted. Without comment, he scooped up

Silverton in his arms and walked down the hall, olive-drab coat belling behind him. I hustled

after, feeling a shake in my knees that definitely hadn't been there before. In fact, I felt distinctly

sick now, wobbly, light-headed, but I was determined not to show it. We had enough problems

to talk about.

David simply blew the glass doors off their hinges at the entrance-effective, if a little showy.

The resulting hail of broken glass melted away in midair and formed a soft mound of sand,

which served as a bed on which he placed Silverton. ''Now,'' he said, and turned to me, ''what

the hell-''

He caught me as I collapsed. Which actually came as a surprise to me-the collapse, not that he

caught me. I hadn't felt it coming on; I'd thought I was coping just fine. David pressed his warm

hand to my forehead as he lowered me to the sand beside Silverton. ''Jo?'' He muttered under

his breath, something about stupid Weather Wardens and their foolish sense of invulnerability,

which really wasn't fair because I didn't feel at all invulnerable at the moment. I felt scared.

David's magical touch poured warmth into me, but it was like pouring it into a black hole.

Whatever was affecting me, it was wrong in ways I couldn't even begin to realize.

''Wait,'' I said, and held his gaze with all the determination I had left. ''David, I need you to go

into the basement. There's a dead Dji

go alone. Be careful-''

I had more to say, but it got lost somewhere, and the light was too bright in my eyes, and then it

was dark and still and quiet, and I was all alone, floating.

Well, dying always had been kind of peaceful for me.

I woke up in a hospital, hooked up to tubes, and I was alone. No David by my bedside. No Lewis

loitering in a chair. No Cherise, even.

All alone.

I pressed the call button, wondering if I was in a Warden hospital. Pressing the call button

seemed like an Olympic event, and one I wasn't likely to medal in at that. I was unreasonably

exhausted, considering I'd just woken up. While I waited for attention, I looked over the room I

was in. Typical hospital issue-an adjustable bed, with rails that were up. Machines that beeped.

A silently playing TV high in the corner, tuned to the Weather Cha

that at the very least I'd had Warden visitors.

Nobody was responding to my call. I pressed the button again, sweating with effort. My mouth

tasted like metal, and it was sticky and dry. Everything smelled wrong. My whole body ached,

the kind of nasty, all-over body aches you get with high fever, and there were some white-hot

spots of pain in various joints. I'd been hurt worse, but somehow, being all alone, hooked up to