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00:19:49
Several cables lead from the bomb to the timer. How easy it would be to cut them, but which one? They’re all the same colour, the same length, the same width. It’s a gamble that none of us is willing to take. Yet.
Suddenly, the metal cylinder makes a noise, like something inside has broken off.
“That’s the fourth charge disabled,” Bastian says at the same time as Jim’s voice through the comm tells us the same thing. “Two more to go. We should leave, it’ll take us a few minutes to get to our new home.”
Our new home. That sounds so positive and is so deceiving at the same time. It’s our current home, but only one third of it. With not many of the important parts. No greenhouse, no loading bay, not even the kitchen. We’re having to start from scratch, and if Toby’s calculations are correct, we’ll starve within less than three months. Such a rosy future.
But yes, let’s call it our new home.
Bastian lets me climb down the ladder first, then follows suit until we’re both standing on solid ground, staring up at the bomb about to destroy our lives.
“He can do it,” Bastian mutters, more to himself than to me. “He’s a genius. He’ll disable the last two and everything will be as before.”
I do a quick calculation in my head. It took Jim more than ninety minutes to disable the second and third charge. Then almost forty to get rid of the fourth. He’s getting faster, but there are still two to go. He only has ten minutes each, and so far, his best time has been four times that amount.
He’s not going to make it.
“Let’s go,” Bastian says and pushes me forward, his hand at the small of my back. I walk without thinking, letting him steer me.
We’re going to die.
***
00:08:12
Everybody’s in our new command room, except for Jim. The room he’s working in is in the safe zone though, so that’s fine. None of us want to disturb him in these crucial last minutes.
Toby has brought another pack of biscuits, caramel ones, this time.
“They’re our last ones, but we might as well eat them now,” he says quietly before handing them out. I take mine gingerly. Eating this feels like something monumental. A moment that will never happen again. We could either die or live after this. Well, to be honest, we’ll live for a bit and then die anyway.
I nibble on my biscuit, not really hungry. My stomach is jumping up and down and I feel queasy with anticipation.
Jim still hasn’t told us that the second to last charge has been disarmed. He’s cutting it close, far too close.
I put my biscuit back on the table and get up.
“I need the loo,” I explain and leave the room before they can say anything.
“Seven minutes to go!” Will shouts. “Be quick!”
I nod and close the door behind me. Were these really my final words to the guys? I need the loo? How pathetic, but I can’t let them catch on what I’m about to do. If I’d told them how much I love them, they would have known straight away.
I walk quickly, first towards the toilets, just in case one of them decides to leave the room and see me, then change direction and run along a different corridor, the one that will lead me to the room where the bomb is.
“Charge disarmed, one more to go,” Jim says through the comm, sounding breathless and stressed.
00:05:01
He won’t manage to destroy the final one in just five minutes. It took him almost quarter of an hour this time. To do it in five minutes is impossible.
I skitter around a corner and enter the utility room. It’s been used for storage mainly, but now it determines our fate. I close the door behind me and lock it, just in case.
The comm crackles and I look down at my wrist apologetically.
“Louise, you better come back, we only have four minutes to go.” Bastian. I don’t want to tell him what I’m about to do so I stay quiet.
