It’s too much work. They tied a mess of rope to the ladder, and across the
shaft to the metal beam things that were once used to transport the elevator
car, back when there was an elevator in here. They still can’t figure out
what happened to it, but it’s looking like they’re going to have to somehow
build their own. Should teleportation stop being available to them at some
point, they don’t want to have to climb up and down a ladder five kilometers
at a time. Perhaps a slide? Or a staircase? No, none of this is at all
reasonable. It’s just too much work, and neither of them is equipped to take
on such an endeavor.
They still have plenty of work that has to be done either way, so they try
not to worry about it while they’re digging. The soil level could be piled
several meters thick, and they can’t dig straight down, instead opting for a
ramp that people can actually walk down. After waking up the next day,
having barely made a dent in the job, they decide it’s time to rethink this
whole thing.
“Hasting,” Heath suggests without elaborating.
“Hastings...Nebraska?”
“Yes.”
“What about it?”
“Stay with me here. Why doesn’t the ground over the elevator shaft just fall
down into the hole?”
Mateo points over their heads. “Because of this ceiling,” he says, knowing
that Heath is only asking to support his argument, not because he doesn’t
know. They’re standing on a little platform that they installed to give them
more room. It was the easiest part of yesterday’s work, drilling holes in
cement while hanging over the abyss.
“Right. So what would happen if we took out the ceiling first?”
“I don’t know,” Mateo says, nodding his head. “I get where you’re going with
this, but I’m not a civil engineer, or whoever would understand how this all
works. Maybe the ground would fall in, or maybe not.”
“We have to break through this anyway. Might as well start from below. All
we would have to do is extend this platform.”
“Uhuh,” Mateo begins. “And if there’s a platform, where does all the
concrete and dirt fall as we break through it? And if it doesn’t work, and
we still need to start digging from above, what happens to us when we
destabilize it enough to actually cave in?”
“Oh, yeah.” Heath frowns. “This is impossible!”
They’re silent for a few moments, before Mateo remembers something. “Why did
you bring up Hastings, Nebraska?”
“Oh, yeah.” Heath repeats himself, then shrugs. “It’s only thirty minutes
away the way you drive, but we could rent a power chisel without anybody
asking any questions.”
“Yeah, that’s one option.”
“What’s another one? Everything seems too slow.”
Mateo nods. “It’s gonna storm tonight.”
“Yeah...?”
He rifles through his bag until he finds their salvation. He holds it
between his fingers like it’s the most important find ever.
“It’s a bullet.”
“It’s a telebullet,” Mateo corrects. “It may just be all we need.” He
smiles, dreaming of Shawshank.
“What does it do?” Heath asks.
“Usually, you shoot it at someone, and it instantly transports them to
wherever you want.”
“Isn’t that something that you can do yourself?”
“Yes, but I can’t move a concrete ceiling and hundreds of cubic meters of
soil and rock.”
“But that little bullet can?”
“Well, it can be more destructive, which should be enough to destabilize the
ground, and cause a cave-in. Or, uh, not should, but could. Hopefully.”
“I guess we might as well try,” Heath figures, “as long as you don’t need
that bullet for something else.”
“It’s like you said, I can teleport myself, but only at this special
location. It has no other use in this reality. If we ever get back to the
main sequence, I could always find myself some more, I’m sure.”
“All right, I’m in. I assume you mentioned the storm, because there could be
thunder?”
“Yes, but the sound is not the only problem we have.”
“How does the bullet explode?”
“Right.”
“Well, I can make a little bomb. I assume it doesn’t have to be powerful
enough to blast through a mountain.”
“I assume as much as well.”
Fortunately, Heath already owns a six-meter long ladder, stored in his
flying carboat. They’re going to stop calling it that, as they’ve come up
with a proper name. It will now be known as The Olimpia. Mateo carefully
extends the ladder so that it’s resting on the ledge on the other side of
the shaft, and ties everything up. He runs planks across it so he has
somewhere to stand while he’s working. It’s absolutely not the safest thing
in the world, but he has himself tied to the structurally sound emergency
ladder with mountain climbing equipment, so it should be fine. It’s his job
to drill a hole in the concrete ceiling while Heath rigs up a small
explosive to catalyze the temporal bullet. This may not work at all, and it
might be a waste of their time, but the way they see it, they either spend a
couple hours on a lark before resorting to digging a hole by hand, or they
skip it. Either way, the digging will cost them days, not hours, so this is
hardly a digression.
While Mateo is constructing his safety platform, Heath goes out and buys a
special long drill, and the ten-centimeter bit that they’re going to need,
along with his own supplies. The hole doesn’t have to be pretty or clean. It
just has to be deep enough to get to the dirt. According to their research,
a normal ceiling should only be about twenty centimeters thick, but this one
is twice that, presumably to support the weight of the ground above. That’s
going to make it harder, but not impossible. That’s why he requested a super
narrow drill. Once the hole gets started, it goes surprisingly quickly. Now
all they can do is wait until the thunderstorm begins. They’re not sure how
loud the explosion is going to be, so it’s best to muffle it as much as
possible.
They’re in the middle of dinner when Thor’s battle against the God Butcher
begins. They leave their dishes on the table, and run back to the would-be
center of the country. Using radio transceivers, Mateo waits for a signal
from Heath, who is counting thunder strikes. Once it’s time, Mateo lights
the fuse, and tries to teleport out. For a split second, he’s stuck, and
doesn’t go anywhere, so he’s afraid the temporal energy already ran out, but
then the glitch disappears, and so does he. He meets Heath back on the
surface just in time for the temporal explosion. Heath timed it perfectly
with the storm, so Mateo feels compelled to give him a high five. At first,
it doesn’t seem to have been enough. It definitely shook the earth, but
nothing has changed from above. But then it does. The ground begins to sink.
More, then even more, until it all caves in. It worked. Holy crap, it
actually worked. They high five again.
Carefully, the two of them step over to the hole so they can get a look
inside, every once in a while looking up to see if police cruisers are
coming down the highway to investigate. They stomp on the ground to make
sure it’s still stable, and it seems perfectly safe...until it doesn’t. The
ground right under Mateo sinks. A normal person would probably reach out for
help, but he has the opposite reaction. He’s died—or come so close to death
that he would not have survived without time power intervention—so many
times, it feels more natural to let it happen. Instead, he pushes Heath away
with as much force as he can muster, which serves to pull him downwards even
faster. He slips off the grass, and tumbles down the hole. He spreads his
arms out, hoping to catch hold of the emergency ladder, the portable ladder,
the little platform, the ledge, the rope web, or some other structure, but
nothing meets his hands but dirt and other debris.
Finally, as he’s falling, he attempts to teleport himself to safety, but it
would seem that the explosion used up all the temporal energy left in this
place. There’s no way out. He’s going to actually die this time, and it’s so
incredibly unlikely that someone created an afterlife simulation in this
reality. It’s the end. As he’s falling towards his demise, he almost regrets
no longer having his faith, but he appreciates that it wouldn’t change
anything. Death is death, whether you believe in it or not.
Thirty seconds later, he reaches the floor, but it doesn’t hurt like it
should. Did he get his invincibility back somehow? He thought they decided
that was a separate phenomenon from the time power blocker. No, that’s not
what happened. He didn’t fall hard on the floor, and just not feel the pain
from it. He didn’t crash into it at all. It’s more like a magical force
sucked out all his momentum, and materialized the floor millimeters under
him. He’s landed safely as if he was never moving at all. He turns over, and
sees a ceiling above him. This isn’t just the elevator shaft. It’s the
elevator. It’s back. Or more accurately, he’s back. He’s obviously traveled
to an indeterminate moment in the past. He sits up, and is about to stand
up, when he notices people watching him from the main floor. One of them is
Danica Matic. The other is Bhulan Cargill. And the third...is Tamerlane
Pryce.
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