Travis looked at Dyer again. The man stared and waited for the answer.
“We’re honestly not sure how we got the combo,” Travis said. “We think Breach technology was involved, but if so, it was a kind we’ve never heard of.” He shook his head. “Look, you seem to have the whole picture of this thing. We’ve been piecing it together slapshot since last night, and we’re missing big chunks of it. If you know it all, please tell us.”
Dyer frowned. He seemed to struggle with some deep indecision. “This is all happening wrong,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
“Tell us what it is supposed to be like,” Paige said.
For a moment Dyer just stood there. He looked troubled by the idea he needed to express. Then he said, “The whole point is not to tell you. That’s what it’s supposed to be like. No current member of Tangent is supposed to know anything. Not for a few years yet.”
Travis found himself getting tired of the confusion. “You’re right,” he said. “It is all happening wrong—the people you expected aren’t here. But we are. I assume your purpose is the same as ours.” He nodded over the rail behind him. “To do whatever can be done about the Stargazer.”
Dyer looked more thrown by that than anything so far. “That must be an old nickname for it. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t think much can be done. Just management, like Allen Raines was doing.”
“You’re not here to stop it?” Paige said.
Dyer shook his head.
“What about the deadline?” Bethany said. “A little over six hours from now.”
“That’s the deadline,” Dyer said, “but it has nothing to do with what’s in this mine.”
Paige looked frustrated. “Just tell us everything. We already know the basics. We know Ruben Ward got instructions from the Breach in 1978. We know he spent that summer carrying them out. We know my father picked up on it later, and the Scalar investigation spent six years following Ward’s trail. Which led here, to whatever Ward created in this mine. So tell us the rest. Tell us what needs to be done, and we’ll help you do it.”
Dyer stared at her. His expression went almost blank, as if his thoughts had turned inward to process what he’d just heard.
“You’ve got the first few points right,” he said. “The rest is way off. Ward didn’t create anything in this place, and the Scalar investigation never picked up his trail. For all practical purposes, he didn’t leave one.”
Travis remembered their conversation on the Coast Highway. Their uncertainty as to how the investigation could’ve accomplished anything at all.
“But they spent hundreds of millions doing something,” Bethany said.
“Probably more like billions,” Dyer said. “Most of the cost was likely hidden one way or another.”
“The cost of what?” Bethany said. “What the hell did they do?”
Suddenly Travis knew. He realized he might’ve known hours ago, if he’d given it more thought. Might’ve guessed, anyway; he couldn’t have known for sure until they reached this place.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
Dyer nodded, seeing his understanding.
“They did the only thing they could do,” Dyer said. “They knew from the beginning that Ward’s trail was long gone, and so was the notebook with the instructions written in it. Trashed or burned before he killed himself. They were never going to see it again.”
“They needed a do-over,” Travis said.
Dyer nodded again. “They needed another Ruben Ward. And this is the place where they tried to get one. At the bottom of this mineshaft they created the second Breach.”
Part III
The Tumbler
Chapter Thirty-One
Paige started to speak, then stopped. Her mouth opened and closed a second and third time, but nothing came out. At last she just stepped to the rail beside Travis and stared down into the pit. Bethany did the same. They watched the light playing—slowly flaring and receding.
When Paige’s voice finally came, it was softened almost to a breath. “The colors are different.”
“Almost everything about it’s different,” Dyer said, “hard as they tried to duplicate the original.”
“Do entities emerge?” Travis said.
“No. But other things do.”
Every head turned to Dyer. Every eye widened a little.
“Understand,” Dyer said, “everything I know comes from Garner. I’ve obviously never been in Border Town. I’ve never seen the first Breach—or this one. Garner said the one you oversee is an opening to something like a wormhole, however loosely that term is defined.”
Paige nodded.
“He also said it’s a wormhole being used for a specific purpose,” Dyer said. “Someone out there, or something out there, either designed it or harnessed it for transporting the objects you call entities.”