Page 20 of Breaking Point
The ball hadn’t stopped.It bounced off the first girder and rammed into a second, that made an equally terrible sound.
Play had stopped.The players all hung in mid-air, staring at the cracked wall with the gaping hole, and the ball behind it.The ball was still whizzing with ferocious energy, hitting girders, walls, the back of the tank, more girders.
“Hit the kill switch!”Brice shouted, making Luciana jump.She tore her gaze away from the back of the tank and saw that he wasn’t shouting at her, or at the players in the tank.He was speaking into the terminal on the wall.
Someone jumped to obey, for the ball abruptly stopped its mad progress, all the electronics on its surface switched off, and it dropped to the floor.
Brice came back to his seat, his gaze on the players.
“The wall, Brice?”Luciana murmured.
“It won’t shatter.It can’t.That happened once, a long time ago, and they build the walls differently now.”
She relaxed.
“I told them to get the players out of there, anyway,” Brice said.“This game is over.”
She didn’t move.She knew that Brice would make sure that the situation was under control first.
The tankball playerswereleaving.They were swimming through the zero-gee zone, tugging each other over to the ladders on either side, and pulling themselves down to the middle zone.Luciana guessed that once every player was on the ladders, the gravity would be switched to normal, so they could all descend to the bottom.
The groundsmen were striding, their arms swinging, heading for the hatch, which was open now.
That was when the low, long metallic groan sounded.Luciana would never forget that sound.
Everyone froze.Everyone.The fans who had got to their feet, preparing to leave, all stopped and looked at each other, and around the arena.
It came again.This time, it was accompanied by a deep grinding sound.
Someone screamed.Others pointed toward the tank.
Luciana whirled, to see what they had spotted.
The girder-built structure that held up the platforms was falling forward.No room existed between the structure and the tank wall, and it fell against the wall, bringing all that weight to bear on the wall.
The players scrambled down the ladders, yelling at each other.
Fans screamed and tripped over each other, scrambling over the chairs and along the rows.A thick river of them was crammed into the aisles, as they tried to climb up to the stairs to the exits.
Then the tank wall itself gave way.The weight against it was too much.
Brice was right.The wall didnotshatter.It instead cracked at the base.An enormous thick slab of it, most of the back section, toppled forward in the same horrible slow-motion way that the platforms had.
“Out,” Brice said grabbing her hand.“Get out.”He pulled her toward the narrow door at the back of the box and opened the door.People were jammed in the hallway, not moving, screaming at each other and trying to pummel and push their way forward.
Brice didn’t shut the door.He turned, instead, dropped his cane, and wrapped his arms around Luciana.“Get down!”he shouted.
She would have dropped to the floor immediately, only he was already lowering her down behind the second row of four chairs.As she dropped she saw the broken off slab of wall fall against the wall directly in front of the box.
She screamed, ducked and closed her eyes.Brice pushed her head against his chest, and his arm came over her head.It muffled the sound of the front wall cracking, yet she still heard it, despite the overwhelming noise everywhere around them.People screaming and shouting, the rending of metal, a rumbling that sounded like enormous boulders grinding together.
The floor shuddered, throwing them against the chairs, then tossing them against the back wall of the box.Something large fell against the wall, just over their heads and Luciana cringed.She turned her head enough to peer over Brice’s arm.A huge girder—much larger than she had realized, now it was so close—had fallen into the box and the end was buried in the wall, which was groaning.
Then the shuddering began again.This time, it didn’t stop.
“Hold on!”Brice cried.She only knew what he had said because she couldfeelwhat he was saying through his chest.His arms tightened.
The floor tilted.She felt herself sliding and gripped Brice, smothering her scream against his chest.
