Part 19
[Jaunt us to where the others are.] John commands and the now familiar sensation of momentary disorientation washes across you. The plush interior of the television studio lift vanishes like a broken dream to be replaced by a barren, ash blackened landscape. Trees hang heavy and bent over with the soot piled on their thin branches. Thin, tough, blades of grass barely peak through the charcoal grey carpet.
At once you and John double over, coughing as if your lungs are about to burst but each breath you gasp in brings more of the warm, gritty ash into your airways.
John pulls himself upright, an arm against his nose and mouth and tries to breathe through the fabric of his sleeve.
[Come on, Jay] He calls. [We have to find shelter.]
[John? Jay?] Elizabeth calls out to you from nearby. She homes in on your mental touch and soon looms out of the thick gloom. Her face is wrapped in fabric, a thin gauze covering and protecting her eyes. She offers you strips of the same fabric and you bind them on gratefully following her to a temporary shelter.
[Liz!] John exclaims. [I had no idea the conditions were this bad. Why haven't you gone back to the Lab for your artificial environment suits?]
Liz shakes her head resolutely.
[There's too much to do. Too many people to talk to. I need these people to trust me and listen to me. I can't walk around in an AE suit with a helmet on!] She coughs and you can feel her weariness. [Hsui Tai and Andrew are in two of the other villages. We've already had to use matter transporters to get a few people out of housed collapsed or set alight by all this hot ash. We need time! We need to get these people moving and away from here. Tim says this ash eruption is just the first phase. We only have an hour or two before the entire mountain blows.]
[Alright Liz.] John soothes although you know that things are far from alright. [Jay and I are here to help now.]
John sends you to join Hsui Tai and later joins Andrew himself. Slowly, talking to family after family, struggling from house to house, you get enough people moving to start the avalanche of evacuation. As families see their neighbours starts moving, carrying small bags, trying to start vehicles with engines clogged with dust or ride choking animals, they begin to pack up and leave too. There are more rescues of people too confused by the end of their world to realise that they've been matter transported or that their house has been supported telekinetically until the last survivor crawls from the ruins. An hour passes and you're mentally and physically exhausted when John calls the five of you together in the relative shelter of a deserted house in the village where you first arrived.
"They're moving too slowly." Andrew says almost as soon as you and he jaunt in. His throat, like yours is dry and gritty. Even the short sentance sets him coughing and Liz hands you both glasses of cold clear water. You sip it and feel the pain in your throat momentarily increase and then begin to fade as the water numbs and soothes it.
"I know." John's eyes are red-rimmed and stand out in his smoke blackened face. "But I can't see anything else we can do here. Most, at least I hope it's most, will get out of the blast zone in time. TIM's managed to get in touch with the Russian authorities at last but the nearest large town is several hours from here. They're sending trucks and buses but...."
"They'll take too long." You finish for him. You run a hand through hair stiff with ash set almost into a cement by perspiration. "Is there nothing else we can do?"
"That's why I called you all here." John tells you. "TIM's got some suggestions." [TIM?]
[Thank you, John.] You all listen intently as TIM's reassuring tones fill your minds. [I have indeed identified both a possible solution and a potentially more serious problem.]
[Another problem?] You repeat weakly.
[Indeed.] Tim notes regretfully. [I am sorry, Jay, but I have identified a fifth complex of buildings on the satellite photographs in addition to the four villages you have evacuated. This complex does not appear on any maps of the region. The details are obscured by dust but I can make out tanks and vats of some kind. I fear it may be some kind of military chemical laboratory. If that is the case then there may be many people there and its destruction by fire might release lethal fumes that can kill more people even than the volcanic eruption.]
[But you're not sure, TIM?] You ask intently. [It might just be an unmanned water works or something?]
[Alas there is no way of telling, Jay, but the fact that the site is omitted from the official maps of the area suggest that its purpose is unlikely to be so innocent.]
John sighs and buries his head in his hands for a few seconds.
[And we're already so tired. Alright, TIM. What's the good news?]
[There may be a way to reduce the explosive force of the volcanic eruption.]
[What?] Liz exclaims. [How? It would give all those people a more time to escape.]
[I have been studying the geological make-up of this volcano and the system of which it is a part. The initial ash eruption was caused by the release of pressure from a weak lesser vent while the pressure build up remains in the main magma chamber and vent. If it is released more gently then the explosion is unlikely to be so severe.]
[How do we do that, TIM?] Andrew asks eagerly. He looks tired and his eyes are still streaming, trying to clear the grit.
[With great difficulty and danger, Andrew.] TIM answers apologetically. [With close proximity to the volcano you may be able to widen several of the smaller vents with your powers of telekinesis and either release the pressure more gently through this cone or release magma into other, more remote, elements of this volcanic region.]
[But if we get it wrong or aren't strong enough....] John's voice trails off.
[Then you will be standing on a natural bomb as it explodes.] TIM finishes solemnly.
Do you:
a) investigate this secret base?
b) Try to vent the volcano?
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