NEPTUNE ISLAND, page 20
“Prepare that thing for takeoff. Now,” Maxwell ordered.
“I need Mr Kane’s authority before I can do that,” the pilot said, quivering.
Maxwell raised his gun and fired at the wall, inches from the pilot’s head. Concrete slivers and tile fragments bit into the pilot’s face. He flinched from the pain.
“Now!”
The pilot nodded hastily. “Okay.” He scurried past Maxwell and out the front door to the waiting Osprey.
Maxwell followed close behind. Passing through the filthy living room, he noted white powdery lines on the coffee table. Next to the cocaine was a DVD of Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. “My type of guy,” he declared.
When the rotors came to life, Maxwell climbed the Osprey’s rear-loading ramp. The downdraft pulled at his suit and he spotted a long rip down his coat sleeve. “Damn it,” he snarled. He removed the coat and threw it out the back of the aircraft. The coat undulated through the air before catching on the guardrail surrounding the raised platform.
The Osprey lifted from the staging, glided above the remains of the compound, and thundered over the jungle. Maxwell studied the destruction below him and considered the last hour’s events. If Sophia, Sienna, or whatever she called herself, had not sent Lincoln Monk the drive, then Eddie would never have triggered the machine. His friendship with Jonathan Kane was over because Monk had interfered. So Lincoln Monk had destroyed his life, and now it was his turn to return the favor. Despite the confusion in the compound, he recalled Monk, very much alive, heading towards the dome.
“Get us a safe distance away, but stay close to the island,” Maxwell commanded to the pilot over the headphones.
“W-What?” the pilot stammered, glancing down at the jungle canopy that was still shuddering and swaying from the continual earthquakes.
Maxwell placed his gun to the pilot’s temple.
47
47:00 minutes to implosion
The architects and interior designers understood the emotional impact of a breathtaking experience. The viewing level, the size of a soccer field, was an elegant blend of classic architecture mixed with ultra-modern design.
The level spanned the entire floor of the dome. Acrylic windows three-stories high wrapped around the curved design of the structure, allowing in the panoramic seascape. The overhead support beams, designed to appear like bulkheads, crossed the width of the room, giving the room a nautical feel, while the walls and parquet flooring perfectly reflected the warm glow of the sunlight flooding the cavernous space. A row of Corinthian support pillars ran the length of the room, with circular leather-clad benches fitted around their bases. The back wall, in line with the main entrance, housed a café, restroom facilities, two restaurants, a gift shop and a fully stocked bar—all of which overlooked the stunning panorama beyond the windows.
The magnificence and splendour reminded Lincoln of the wonder and adventure he’d felt reading Jules Verne’s classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In another time, he would have loved to be here. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand.
Several of the support pillars had split and cracked, causing the room to tilt at a thirty-degree angle toward the ocean floor three hundred feet below. The angle also caused the wrecked truck to slowly edge across the room toward the panoramic windows.
Kane stood before him, using Sienna as a shield, a gun jammed in her back. He made his way around the room toward the inner entrance, his eyes fixed on Lincoln. “The sound of gunfire is attention grabbing, don’t you think?”
Lincoln followed his movements across the room.
When Sienna lagged, Kane pressed the gun deeper into her back, prompting her to move forward. Sienna had no choice but to obey. “All the money I’ve spent bringing the wonders of the oceans to the unwashed masses, bringing this truly stunning structural achievement to the people—the Eighth Wonder of the World—all gone.”
King Kong will always be the Eighth Wonder, asshole. “You can’t win,” Lincoln said.
Kane smiled and dug the gun deeper into Sienna side causing her to flinch. “Really?”
“Eddie told me everything.”
Kane leaned his head out from behind Sienna, only his face visible to Lincoln. “Did he now?”
“I know about the machine—the prototype. Only Eddie and no one else knew the complete equations to make it work. Without them, the schematics are useless. That information died with Eddie in the cavern. I know about the Canary Islands and the politicians in Washington. With the media on your doorstep, it’s only a matter of time before the world knows what happened here. It’s over, Kane.”
Kane paused to consider his options. “That’s the thing,” he said. “The advances made here and the subsequent series of events could easily be misconstrued as the work of a man with gambling debts, a man battling dark demons within himself. A man so fundamentally flawed, in his mind, that this was the only way out. All that talent, and he used it for death and destruction. Oh, Eddie, what a waste of a beautiful mind.”
Lincoln understood where this was leading: the lone gunman ploy, blame Eddie.
“You think this is the end? This is only the beginning,” Kane said cryptically.
Another tremor pulsed through the dome. The structure lurched forward, increasing the slant of the floor. As the truck slid further toward the glass divide, Kane edged closer to the entrance. “I could give you a big speech about how I’m trying to change the world for the better, how I’m trying to get the human race to take responsibility for its actions—how I’m trying to create a new world. I could explain all these things, but I fear time is not on our side.”
Kane tightened his grip around Sienna’s head.
“Wait,” Lincoln pleaded. “You don’t have to do this.”
Kane whispered in Sienna’s ear. “Oh, but I do. Not only did you acquire data belonging to my company, you acted on this private information.” Kane’s tone became manic. “An employee of mine broke my trust and betrayed me. I simply cannot tolerate this type of behavior. I can’t and I won’t.”
“It doesn’t have to—”
The sound of gunfire echoed throughout the viewing level. Sienna’s back arched, her eyes widened in pain and disbelief. From across the room Lincoln reached out into thin air, helpless to protect her. Kane fired again. Sienna moaned and fell to the floor.
Kane lifted the gun and took aim at Lincoln’s head. Lincoln, stunned at the sudden shooting, stared in disbelief at the woman he loved lying on the floor. Blood matted the lower part of her back as she lay motionless at Kane’s feet.
Slowly, Sienna turned her head toward Lincoln and smiled. “You never gave up.”
Lincoln couldn’t find the words to comfort her as the life ebbed from her body. Blood seeped from her mouth and ran down the side of her neck. Her eyes closed for the last time.
“Touching,” Kane admitted.
His anger and hatred for the man before him took control as Lincoln turned his attention from Sienna’s lifeless form to the man responsible for the death and ruin of so many lives.
Kane gazed dispassionately at Lincoln and at the body on the floor. “That’s the third one today.”
Lincoln leapt at Kane. Kane fired. Lincoln twisted and fell as the bullet struck his hip.
As Kane squeezed the trigger again, the dome lurched. The bullet, missing Lincoln’s head by inches, whizzed through the air and ruptured the truck’s fuel tank behind him.
The truck exploded throwing Lincoln to the ground as the shockwave pulsed through him. In a fireball of smoke and flame, the wreckage lost its grip on the polished floor. The truck slammed through the panoramic window, shattering it into a million pieces before tumbling over the edge and dropping from sight to the ocean below.
48
41:00 minutes to implosion
Still anchored around the southern end of the island, thousands of boating enthusiasts witnessed the listing dome and the truck crashing through its glass wall. Phones and cameras captured every second of the spectacle playing out before them.
Two beer drinkers lazed on the deck of a cabin cruiser. Even with the no-go zone now resumed to three miles, they still enjoyed an unobstructed view of the day’s events. The first beer drinker spat out a mouthful of beer. “ Did you see that?” He angled his phone for a clearer shot. “First the dome tilts over, and now this.”
“Yeah,” the second drinker gasped. “I saw it.” He stood, hoping to get a better view of the dome. He placed the phone in a small pouch in the front of his baseball cap, still recording, and continued drinking.
A father and son in a nearby sailing boat watched in amazement as the last waves settled from the truck impact. The father rubbed his eyes, unable to comprehend the sight before him. “Did I just see a truck smash out of the big window and plunge to the ocean?”
The boy grinned with excitement. “How cool was that!”
Marie, enjoying her morning coffee, peered through the cabin window of the KSPN2 News helicopter as it flew high over the flotilla of boats. Her eyes locked on the truck as it disappeared below the surface. She lowered her sunglasses so she could witness, with her own eyes, the events unfolding before her. When the assignment desk at the television station had offered her the chance to cover Jonathan Kane’s grand revealing, she had accepted graciously but was less than enthusiastic about the assignment. She knew it was a fluff piece for the masses with little or no journalistic merit—just a piece designed to push the Neptune brand, to get the ratings up, and to charge the advertising clients accordingly. Her assignments were becoming more inane and frivolous by the week. It would only be a matter of time before her childhood dream of becoming a real investigative journalist was a distant memory. Now, however, she could smell a story. Her journalist’s instincts kicked in. She spoke into her headphones. “Tell me you’re getting all of this,” she said to Roy the cameraman beside her, his camera inches from her shoulder.
“Never stopped rolling,” he answered.
49
38:00 minutes to implosion
Kane sprinted toward the inner doors and disappeared down the main corridor. He climbed over the truck lodged in the outer entrance and stopped.
The gangway rested in a heap of crumpled metal at the base of the cliff, leaving a gap of several feet between him and the compound. Black smoke drifted throughout the compound, creating a hazy cloud of soot and ash, while intense fires scorched the battle-scared grounds.
He peered down at the crashing waves three hundred feet below, then across at the gaping divide and nodded, satisfied that he could make the jump. He took a deep breath and leaped across the abyss, rolling to a stop on the other side. He dusted himself off and smiled with satisfaction. His smile faded when he saw the crevasse crossing the compound and the Osprey landing platform—empty. Flapping in the wind, snagged on the platform’s guardrail, was Maxwell’s coat. Kane put his hands on his hips and shook his head in a genuine display of disappointment. “Leon,” he sighed. The ground wrenched apart beneath him and tore open. He lost his balance and tumbled backwards, arms flailing into the chasm.
*
Lincoln awoke to the sound of screeching metal and the whole world askew. Building debris rolled across the floor—still at a crazy angle—and through the shattered window frames. Sienna lay motionless on the floor before him. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. This wasn’t some wild dream or bizarre nightmare. This was real.
Lincoln crawled across the floor toward Sienna, careful not to slip down the incline to the edge. A circular chair at the base of a nearby pillar broke free and tumbled toward him. He braced himself as the chair bounced along the floor, passed above his head, and over the edge.
He continued crawling until he reached Sienna. He cradled her in his arms and squeezed her lifeless body close to him. The world could tear itself apart, but this moment was his and his alone. As a tremor shook the dome, he rocked her gently in his arms and kissed her lightly on the temple. “I’m so sorry,” was all he could say.
A track rail mounted to the cliff face broke free and buckled from the weight of the structure. The rail swung wildly away from the cliff and slammed into the back end of the dome, crashing through its exterior facade. As the rail sliced through the rear wall inside the viewing area, the café and gift shop exploded. Refrigerators, tables and chairs, clothes racks—anything not nailed down hurtled across the observation deck toward the glass window.
The café’s counter top tumbled end over end until the wreckage slammed into Lincoln still holding Sienna. Catching him across the upper body, the counter top flung him away from the falling debris. Lincoln watched in horror as Sienna’s body vanished over the side with the debris, trapped within the tumbling furniture shattering the viewing window. The dome swayed and edged further from the cliff face.
Lincoln pushed his grief to the back of his mind and turned from the shattered window frame, knowing he could mourn Sienna’s death later. He spotted a clothes rack lying at his feet, grabbed a random T-shirt, and put it on. The black shirt had a white Neptune logo emblazoned across the chest. He snagged a black baseball cap and slipped it on his head.
He examined the surrounding carnage and scorched flooring, and the previous location of the truck that was now at sea level. The hit from the counter had thrown him back toward the center of the room, in line with the inner entrance doors. He peered toward the open doorway at the second truck wedged in the main entranceway beyond the end of the corridor. The Pacific Ocean filled the window with a panoramic view, while the observation deck lay at forty-degree angle. The only way out was up.
Lincoln braced his legs against the tilted floor and made his way, staggering, toward the inner entrance. Systematically, he clawed his way up the incline when another quake shook the island. The dome swayed, and the sound of tearing metal filled the air. Then the screeching of tortured metal ceased, and the rumbling died away.
A long silence enveloped the room. For the first time, Lincoln could hear the boom of the ocean swell rolling against the cliff below. He tasted the salt of the ocean air washing through the observation deck, a welcome sensation from the events in the jungle.
Lincoln watched with curiosity as an office chair rolled across the floor and over the edge.
50
33:00 minutes to implosion
The roar of colliding bedrock thundered in the morning air. The island shook with the largest quake yet. The northern end of the island shuddered violently and lurched upwards. A plume of black dust and dirt rocketed into the air as the terrain collapsed in on itself. A cloud of dirt charged across the island, engulfing everything in its path.
Lincoln stumbled but managed to steady himself. Down the corridor, the main entrance gave way. The truck tore free from the framework and tumbled toward Lincoln and the observation deck.
Lincoln had nowhere to go and no time to scramble from the juggernaut’s deadly path. He spun around to the shattered window frame behind him and glanced at the ocean. A small chance of survival was better than none. In a split second Lincoln prepared himself for the final battle with Neptune Island. As the truck crashed through the inner doorway and barreled across the viewing floor toward him, Lincoln stepped through the broken window frame and into the blue void.
51
30:00 minutes to implosion
Marie stared open-mouthed, stunned by the series of events taking place before her eyes. While earthquakes rocked the ground, the northern tip of the island exploded, causing the dome to list precariously from the cliff. A truck fell through the observation level, and a man hung from the open deck three hundred feet above sea level.
Roy the cameraman continued recording every moment of the spectacle as it unfolded before him. Marie smiled. This was turning into a momentous day for her career and for journalism.
Not far away, the first beer drinker steadied himself on the deck of the cruiser. He lowered the can from his mouth and stared at the front of the dome. “Hey,” he called to his buddy. “There’s a dude hanging from the vista window.”
As the sailboat swayed with the swell, a boy tugged at his father’s shirt. “Hey, Dad, there’s a man outside. Look.” He pointed to the vista window.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” his father said, adding, “Poor bastard.”
*
Lincoln’s fingers had caught on a small rain channel circling the observation deck. He hung on with all his strength as the truck passed inches from his face, sailing through the air and tumbling down to the ocean. The truck crashed cab-first into the water then slowly sank beneath the waves.
Taking a moment to regain his composure, Lincoln breathed deeply. Now for the really hard part. With nothing between him and the raging ocean three hundred feet below, he clenched the rain gutter tighter.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
He glanced down.
Oh, shit.
Focus on the gutter.
By picking up his right hand, reaching further right and gripping the gutter, then moving his left hand nearer to the right, he clawed his way around the outside of the dome to the cliff face behind the structure.
He stopped above a small balcony one level below. He dropped, landing heavily on the balcony deck with his right foot collapsed beneath him. Rocking back and forth he clutched his ankle. Then, with the pain coursing through his leg, he managed to hobble to the balcony rail and peered across to the cliff face just a few feet away in time to see the last of the rail tracks supporting the dome rip away from the cliff face. The backing plate crumpled in on itself, and the crossbeams below buckled and collapsed. The dome swayed violently from side to side, gaining momentum until the sound of metal tearing apart reverberated through the sky. Slowly, inexplicably, the dome released its hold on the cliff and made its final journey downward.
The gap between the dome and the cliff was widening by the second. Lincoln had no time to think. Ignoring his ankle pain, he climbed onto the railing, focused on a small ledge running along the cliff’s edge, and jumped.
“I need Mr Kane’s authority before I can do that,” the pilot said, quivering.
Maxwell raised his gun and fired at the wall, inches from the pilot’s head. Concrete slivers and tile fragments bit into the pilot’s face. He flinched from the pain.
“Now!”
The pilot nodded hastily. “Okay.” He scurried past Maxwell and out the front door to the waiting Osprey.
Maxwell followed close behind. Passing through the filthy living room, he noted white powdery lines on the coffee table. Next to the cocaine was a DVD of Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. “My type of guy,” he declared.
When the rotors came to life, Maxwell climbed the Osprey’s rear-loading ramp. The downdraft pulled at his suit and he spotted a long rip down his coat sleeve. “Damn it,” he snarled. He removed the coat and threw it out the back of the aircraft. The coat undulated through the air before catching on the guardrail surrounding the raised platform.
The Osprey lifted from the staging, glided above the remains of the compound, and thundered over the jungle. Maxwell studied the destruction below him and considered the last hour’s events. If Sophia, Sienna, or whatever she called herself, had not sent Lincoln Monk the drive, then Eddie would never have triggered the machine. His friendship with Jonathan Kane was over because Monk had interfered. So Lincoln Monk had destroyed his life, and now it was his turn to return the favor. Despite the confusion in the compound, he recalled Monk, very much alive, heading towards the dome.
“Get us a safe distance away, but stay close to the island,” Maxwell commanded to the pilot over the headphones.
“W-What?” the pilot stammered, glancing down at the jungle canopy that was still shuddering and swaying from the continual earthquakes.
Maxwell placed his gun to the pilot’s temple.
47
47:00 minutes to implosion
The architects and interior designers understood the emotional impact of a breathtaking experience. The viewing level, the size of a soccer field, was an elegant blend of classic architecture mixed with ultra-modern design.
The level spanned the entire floor of the dome. Acrylic windows three-stories high wrapped around the curved design of the structure, allowing in the panoramic seascape. The overhead support beams, designed to appear like bulkheads, crossed the width of the room, giving the room a nautical feel, while the walls and parquet flooring perfectly reflected the warm glow of the sunlight flooding the cavernous space. A row of Corinthian support pillars ran the length of the room, with circular leather-clad benches fitted around their bases. The back wall, in line with the main entrance, housed a café, restroom facilities, two restaurants, a gift shop and a fully stocked bar—all of which overlooked the stunning panorama beyond the windows.
The magnificence and splendour reminded Lincoln of the wonder and adventure he’d felt reading Jules Verne’s classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In another time, he would have loved to be here. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand.
Several of the support pillars had split and cracked, causing the room to tilt at a thirty-degree angle toward the ocean floor three hundred feet below. The angle also caused the wrecked truck to slowly edge across the room toward the panoramic windows.
Kane stood before him, using Sienna as a shield, a gun jammed in her back. He made his way around the room toward the inner entrance, his eyes fixed on Lincoln. “The sound of gunfire is attention grabbing, don’t you think?”
Lincoln followed his movements across the room.
When Sienna lagged, Kane pressed the gun deeper into her back, prompting her to move forward. Sienna had no choice but to obey. “All the money I’ve spent bringing the wonders of the oceans to the unwashed masses, bringing this truly stunning structural achievement to the people—the Eighth Wonder of the World—all gone.”
King Kong will always be the Eighth Wonder, asshole. “You can’t win,” Lincoln said.
Kane smiled and dug the gun deeper into Sienna side causing her to flinch. “Really?”
“Eddie told me everything.”
Kane leaned his head out from behind Sienna, only his face visible to Lincoln. “Did he now?”
“I know about the machine—the prototype. Only Eddie and no one else knew the complete equations to make it work. Without them, the schematics are useless. That information died with Eddie in the cavern. I know about the Canary Islands and the politicians in Washington. With the media on your doorstep, it’s only a matter of time before the world knows what happened here. It’s over, Kane.”
Kane paused to consider his options. “That’s the thing,” he said. “The advances made here and the subsequent series of events could easily be misconstrued as the work of a man with gambling debts, a man battling dark demons within himself. A man so fundamentally flawed, in his mind, that this was the only way out. All that talent, and he used it for death and destruction. Oh, Eddie, what a waste of a beautiful mind.”
Lincoln understood where this was leading: the lone gunman ploy, blame Eddie.
“You think this is the end? This is only the beginning,” Kane said cryptically.
Another tremor pulsed through the dome. The structure lurched forward, increasing the slant of the floor. As the truck slid further toward the glass divide, Kane edged closer to the entrance. “I could give you a big speech about how I’m trying to change the world for the better, how I’m trying to get the human race to take responsibility for its actions—how I’m trying to create a new world. I could explain all these things, but I fear time is not on our side.”
Kane tightened his grip around Sienna’s head.
“Wait,” Lincoln pleaded. “You don’t have to do this.”
Kane whispered in Sienna’s ear. “Oh, but I do. Not only did you acquire data belonging to my company, you acted on this private information.” Kane’s tone became manic. “An employee of mine broke my trust and betrayed me. I simply cannot tolerate this type of behavior. I can’t and I won’t.”
“It doesn’t have to—”
The sound of gunfire echoed throughout the viewing level. Sienna’s back arched, her eyes widened in pain and disbelief. From across the room Lincoln reached out into thin air, helpless to protect her. Kane fired again. Sienna moaned and fell to the floor.
Kane lifted the gun and took aim at Lincoln’s head. Lincoln, stunned at the sudden shooting, stared in disbelief at the woman he loved lying on the floor. Blood matted the lower part of her back as she lay motionless at Kane’s feet.
Slowly, Sienna turned her head toward Lincoln and smiled. “You never gave up.”
Lincoln couldn’t find the words to comfort her as the life ebbed from her body. Blood seeped from her mouth and ran down the side of her neck. Her eyes closed for the last time.
“Touching,” Kane admitted.
His anger and hatred for the man before him took control as Lincoln turned his attention from Sienna’s lifeless form to the man responsible for the death and ruin of so many lives.
Kane gazed dispassionately at Lincoln and at the body on the floor. “That’s the third one today.”
Lincoln leapt at Kane. Kane fired. Lincoln twisted and fell as the bullet struck his hip.
As Kane squeezed the trigger again, the dome lurched. The bullet, missing Lincoln’s head by inches, whizzed through the air and ruptured the truck’s fuel tank behind him.
The truck exploded throwing Lincoln to the ground as the shockwave pulsed through him. In a fireball of smoke and flame, the wreckage lost its grip on the polished floor. The truck slammed through the panoramic window, shattering it into a million pieces before tumbling over the edge and dropping from sight to the ocean below.
48
41:00 minutes to implosion
Still anchored around the southern end of the island, thousands of boating enthusiasts witnessed the listing dome and the truck crashing through its glass wall. Phones and cameras captured every second of the spectacle playing out before them.
Two beer drinkers lazed on the deck of a cabin cruiser. Even with the no-go zone now resumed to three miles, they still enjoyed an unobstructed view of the day’s events. The first beer drinker spat out a mouthful of beer. “ Did you see that?” He angled his phone for a clearer shot. “First the dome tilts over, and now this.”
“Yeah,” the second drinker gasped. “I saw it.” He stood, hoping to get a better view of the dome. He placed the phone in a small pouch in the front of his baseball cap, still recording, and continued drinking.
A father and son in a nearby sailing boat watched in amazement as the last waves settled from the truck impact. The father rubbed his eyes, unable to comprehend the sight before him. “Did I just see a truck smash out of the big window and plunge to the ocean?”
The boy grinned with excitement. “How cool was that!”
Marie, enjoying her morning coffee, peered through the cabin window of the KSPN2 News helicopter as it flew high over the flotilla of boats. Her eyes locked on the truck as it disappeared below the surface. She lowered her sunglasses so she could witness, with her own eyes, the events unfolding before her. When the assignment desk at the television station had offered her the chance to cover Jonathan Kane’s grand revealing, she had accepted graciously but was less than enthusiastic about the assignment. She knew it was a fluff piece for the masses with little or no journalistic merit—just a piece designed to push the Neptune brand, to get the ratings up, and to charge the advertising clients accordingly. Her assignments were becoming more inane and frivolous by the week. It would only be a matter of time before her childhood dream of becoming a real investigative journalist was a distant memory. Now, however, she could smell a story. Her journalist’s instincts kicked in. She spoke into her headphones. “Tell me you’re getting all of this,” she said to Roy the cameraman beside her, his camera inches from her shoulder.
“Never stopped rolling,” he answered.
49
38:00 minutes to implosion
Kane sprinted toward the inner doors and disappeared down the main corridor. He climbed over the truck lodged in the outer entrance and stopped.
The gangway rested in a heap of crumpled metal at the base of the cliff, leaving a gap of several feet between him and the compound. Black smoke drifted throughout the compound, creating a hazy cloud of soot and ash, while intense fires scorched the battle-scared grounds.
He peered down at the crashing waves three hundred feet below, then across at the gaping divide and nodded, satisfied that he could make the jump. He took a deep breath and leaped across the abyss, rolling to a stop on the other side. He dusted himself off and smiled with satisfaction. His smile faded when he saw the crevasse crossing the compound and the Osprey landing platform—empty. Flapping in the wind, snagged on the platform’s guardrail, was Maxwell’s coat. Kane put his hands on his hips and shook his head in a genuine display of disappointment. “Leon,” he sighed. The ground wrenched apart beneath him and tore open. He lost his balance and tumbled backwards, arms flailing into the chasm.
*
Lincoln awoke to the sound of screeching metal and the whole world askew. Building debris rolled across the floor—still at a crazy angle—and through the shattered window frames. Sienna lay motionless on the floor before him. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. This wasn’t some wild dream or bizarre nightmare. This was real.
Lincoln crawled across the floor toward Sienna, careful not to slip down the incline to the edge. A circular chair at the base of a nearby pillar broke free and tumbled toward him. He braced himself as the chair bounced along the floor, passed above his head, and over the edge.
He continued crawling until he reached Sienna. He cradled her in his arms and squeezed her lifeless body close to him. The world could tear itself apart, but this moment was his and his alone. As a tremor shook the dome, he rocked her gently in his arms and kissed her lightly on the temple. “I’m so sorry,” was all he could say.
A track rail mounted to the cliff face broke free and buckled from the weight of the structure. The rail swung wildly away from the cliff and slammed into the back end of the dome, crashing through its exterior facade. As the rail sliced through the rear wall inside the viewing area, the café and gift shop exploded. Refrigerators, tables and chairs, clothes racks—anything not nailed down hurtled across the observation deck toward the glass window.
The café’s counter top tumbled end over end until the wreckage slammed into Lincoln still holding Sienna. Catching him across the upper body, the counter top flung him away from the falling debris. Lincoln watched in horror as Sienna’s body vanished over the side with the debris, trapped within the tumbling furniture shattering the viewing window. The dome swayed and edged further from the cliff face.
Lincoln pushed his grief to the back of his mind and turned from the shattered window frame, knowing he could mourn Sienna’s death later. He spotted a clothes rack lying at his feet, grabbed a random T-shirt, and put it on. The black shirt had a white Neptune logo emblazoned across the chest. He snagged a black baseball cap and slipped it on his head.
He examined the surrounding carnage and scorched flooring, and the previous location of the truck that was now at sea level. The hit from the counter had thrown him back toward the center of the room, in line with the inner entrance doors. He peered toward the open doorway at the second truck wedged in the main entranceway beyond the end of the corridor. The Pacific Ocean filled the window with a panoramic view, while the observation deck lay at forty-degree angle. The only way out was up.
Lincoln braced his legs against the tilted floor and made his way, staggering, toward the inner entrance. Systematically, he clawed his way up the incline when another quake shook the island. The dome swayed, and the sound of tearing metal filled the air. Then the screeching of tortured metal ceased, and the rumbling died away.
A long silence enveloped the room. For the first time, Lincoln could hear the boom of the ocean swell rolling against the cliff below. He tasted the salt of the ocean air washing through the observation deck, a welcome sensation from the events in the jungle.
Lincoln watched with curiosity as an office chair rolled across the floor and over the edge.
50
33:00 minutes to implosion
The roar of colliding bedrock thundered in the morning air. The island shook with the largest quake yet. The northern end of the island shuddered violently and lurched upwards. A plume of black dust and dirt rocketed into the air as the terrain collapsed in on itself. A cloud of dirt charged across the island, engulfing everything in its path.
Lincoln stumbled but managed to steady himself. Down the corridor, the main entrance gave way. The truck tore free from the framework and tumbled toward Lincoln and the observation deck.
Lincoln had nowhere to go and no time to scramble from the juggernaut’s deadly path. He spun around to the shattered window frame behind him and glanced at the ocean. A small chance of survival was better than none. In a split second Lincoln prepared himself for the final battle with Neptune Island. As the truck crashed through the inner doorway and barreled across the viewing floor toward him, Lincoln stepped through the broken window frame and into the blue void.
51
30:00 minutes to implosion
Marie stared open-mouthed, stunned by the series of events taking place before her eyes. While earthquakes rocked the ground, the northern tip of the island exploded, causing the dome to list precariously from the cliff. A truck fell through the observation level, and a man hung from the open deck three hundred feet above sea level.
Roy the cameraman continued recording every moment of the spectacle as it unfolded before him. Marie smiled. This was turning into a momentous day for her career and for journalism.
Not far away, the first beer drinker steadied himself on the deck of the cruiser. He lowered the can from his mouth and stared at the front of the dome. “Hey,” he called to his buddy. “There’s a dude hanging from the vista window.”
As the sailboat swayed with the swell, a boy tugged at his father’s shirt. “Hey, Dad, there’s a man outside. Look.” He pointed to the vista window.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” his father said, adding, “Poor bastard.”
*
Lincoln’s fingers had caught on a small rain channel circling the observation deck. He hung on with all his strength as the truck passed inches from his face, sailing through the air and tumbling down to the ocean. The truck crashed cab-first into the water then slowly sank beneath the waves.
Taking a moment to regain his composure, Lincoln breathed deeply. Now for the really hard part. With nothing between him and the raging ocean three hundred feet below, he clenched the rain gutter tighter.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
He glanced down.
Oh, shit.
Focus on the gutter.
By picking up his right hand, reaching further right and gripping the gutter, then moving his left hand nearer to the right, he clawed his way around the outside of the dome to the cliff face behind the structure.
He stopped above a small balcony one level below. He dropped, landing heavily on the balcony deck with his right foot collapsed beneath him. Rocking back and forth he clutched his ankle. Then, with the pain coursing through his leg, he managed to hobble to the balcony rail and peered across to the cliff face just a few feet away in time to see the last of the rail tracks supporting the dome rip away from the cliff face. The backing plate crumpled in on itself, and the crossbeams below buckled and collapsed. The dome swayed violently from side to side, gaining momentum until the sound of metal tearing apart reverberated through the sky. Slowly, inexplicably, the dome released its hold on the cliff and made its final journey downward.
The gap between the dome and the cliff was widening by the second. Lincoln had no time to think. Ignoring his ankle pain, he climbed onto the railing, focused on a small ledge running along the cliff’s edge, and jumped.
