"The first of the MCV's is ready to be tested in the anomaly," said Captain Daniels. "Want to come along to see how she does?"

  Jeffcott's first instinct was to say no, but then he remembered what the Captain had said about his 'suggestions'. "Sure," he said therefore, and he felt a twinge of irritation at the smirk that appeared briefly on the Captain's face. "Love to."

  "Good," said Daniels. "You're not wearing anything magnetic?"

  "I read the briefing document very carefully, Captain."

  "Good. I'll show you the way."

  The vehicle wasn't too far away, in the construction facilities yard. Jeffcott spotted it from the other side of the assembly and maintenance complex, a vehicle unlike any other he'd ever seen. It was covered in what looked like indoor central heating radiators and he guessed that they were filled with liquid nitrogen instead of hot water. The superconducting magnets would be inside them. Some obscure ceramic based on copper oxide but with an exotic mix of rare earth minerals mixed in, he guessed, if it dated from the eighties. A miraculous compound that, when cooled way below the freezing point of water, gained the ability to conduct electricity with absolutely no resistance.

  Jeffcott smiled to himself as he remembered teaching his students about these amazing substances. Put an electrical current into a superconducting circuit, he'd told them, and the current would keep flowing round and around forever, and all the time it was doing that it was generating a magnetic field more powerful than any other created by the hand of man. Engineers and researchers had been using them for years. It wasn't a surprise to find that the military had found a use for them as well.

  "All those tubes and pipes look very vulnerable," he said. "A single bullet, or the claw of an anomaly creature, could do a lot of damage."

  "It's normally covered with armour," the Captain replied. "They took it off for now so they could work on all the tubing."

  "Good to know."

  "Magnetic flux density is now fourteen point two tesla," they heard someone say as they approached. The voice was coming from a door at the back which had two of the magnetic panels attached to it. The front of the vehicle, he wasn't surprised to see, was a conventional cab such as any truck would have, with two passenger seats beside the drivers seat. The vehicle's engine was running but the cab was currently empty.

  "We've got a leak," someone else said. Two of the technicians ran to the back of the vehicle where a pool of liquid was boiling in the heat of the Arizona sun, producing a cloud of white vapour. Liquid nitrogen, Jeffcott assumed. One of the technicians pulled on a pair of gauntlets, tightened up a clip with a tiny spanner and the tiny stream that had been feeding the puddle stopped. A moment later, all trace of the puddle had vanished.

  "How much did we lose?" the first person asked. He was wearing a sweat-stained tee shirt and a wide brimmed hat to keep the sun out of his eyes,

  "Not much," someone still inside answered. "We've still got plenty."

  "Don't forget there's nowhere we can get more nitrogen once we go in," the first person reminded him. "All we'll have is what we take in with us."

  "There'll be no more leaks," the second technician assured him. "We replaced a cracked pipe yesterday. Some idiot forgot to tighten the clip. I've checked all the others."

  "What's it now?"

  "Still fourteen point two."

  "It's supposed to be fifteen."

  "This thing's been in a damp warehouse for thirty years being chewed on by rats. It's a wonder it works at all."

  "There's frost on one of your magnetic panels," said Jeffcott as he and the Captain drew close. "You've got an insulation leak."

  There was a curse from inside the vehicle and the second technician emerged. A small, skinny man with glasses. "Where?"

  Jeffcott showed him. "I'm guessing it's vacuum insulation," he said. "Some air's gotten in."

  "Can't be. The nitrogen would boil in the tubes."

  "Are you sure it isn't? If I know army work, this thing is way overengineered. Probably easily able to contain the pressure."

  "Then it wouldn't boil, surely."

  "No, but it would still be warmer than it should be. Have you worked with liquid nitrogen before? I'm guessing you normally work with electrical gadgets. Radar systems, that sort of thing."

  "And how much do you know about it?" The technician stared up at him, irritation in his eyes, shrunken behind the lenses of his glasses.

  "I've spent my whole life working with superconductors," Jeffcott told him. "I can probably lend a hand here."

  "Excellent," said the Captain. "He turned to the small technician. "How soon can you have this thing ready to go?"

  "We gotta drain the plate, find the leak and plug it," the man replied. "Be a couple of hours."

  "You've got one hour."

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "That's not how it works!" the technician replied, but Daniels was already walking away, back towards the administration block. The man stared after him in dismay.

  "David Jeffcott," said Jeffcott, holding out his hand.

  "Jack Starling," the small technician replied. His hand was small and grimy. It felt like shaking the hand of a girl. "They call me Bird. That's Harry Brooks," he nodded towards the big man with the small spanner, "and Gaston Archambault."

  "Call me Archie," the third technician said as he went to the cab and turned the engine off. Silence fell, allowing them to hear the clink and clatter of mechanics doing something to a truck in the garage behind them.

  Bird turned a frost-covered valve on the magnetic plate. "Stand back," he said. Jeffcott did so and the technician opened a tap at the bottom of the plate. Liquid nitrogen poured out to boil and smoke on the concrete ground.

  "So you're the guy who went in," said Archie, walking around to join them.

  "Yeah. You were af the meeting, I assume."

  "We've been here working on this pile of junk for the past thirty six hours," said Brooks, also joining them. "Daniels says we can sleep when this thing's done."

  "Unless they need us to help get the other one ready," said Bird with a grimace. He had dark circles around his eyes, Jeffcott noticed for the first time. So did the others.

  "Well, now that I'm here I can give you a hand," the physicist told them. He looked at the magnetic panel. The liquid nitrogen had slowed to a trickle. "You got a spare pair of gauntlets?"

  "You can't help us with this," said Brooks, though. "Two man job. Not enough space for a third man." He reached into a toolbox and took out a brass spanner. "Hold the bolt still, Birdy."

  The smaller technician nodded and reached for another spanner.

  ☆☆☆

  Daniels came back an hour later. He saw them smearing a quick-setting sealant on the outside of the plate and scowled before striding off again. When he came back after another hour, though, Bird was re-filling the cooling tubes with liquid nitrogen while Brooks started the pump. Jeffcott was inside, standing beside the reserve nitrogen tank and the cryo-cooler when he heard the Captain demanding to know how the work was progressing. He emerged to see the small technician bleeding air from the tubes, after which he opened the valves to let the nitrogen in the panel mix with the rest.

  "Ready to charge the coils," said Bird. "Flip the switch, Archie."

  "Flipping now."

  Jeffcott went back inside the vehicle to where Brooks was studying the readouts on the control panel. "Straight up to fifteen point one testas," he said grinning. "We got it."

  "Good," said Daniels, looking in through the door. "Get all your stuff put away and get this vehicle ready to move."

  "Now?" said Brooks in disbelief. "We have to check everything. Make sure there are no more leaks."

  "The anomaly is approaching us at one hundred and fifty yards an hour," the Captain reminded him. "Because of the time we lost..."

  "We didn't lose the time," said Brooks angrily. "It took two hours to repair a damaged panel. We couldn't have..."

  "That'll do Private," said the Captain sharply. "Get all your stuff put away. We move out in ten minutes."

  "We're not going to replace the armour first?" asked Jeffcott.

  "We're just popping across the boundary to test that engines work and guns fire. Five minutes and we'll be out again. We need to know that the magnetic field has the protective effect we hope it does or there's no point wasting any more time with these vehicles."

  "And what if it doesn't work?" asked Archie.

  "Then we go into the anomaly on foot, with spears and arrows," the Captain replied. "A hundred thousand men are being assembled at White Sands. We'll overwhelm those creatures with sheer force of numbers if we have to, but one way or another the anomaly is going down. Now put these on."

  He waved a man across carrying a bulging canvas sack from which he took six harnesses, each holding a magnet similar to the ones they'd worn on their first mission into the anomaly. These harnesses were stronger looking, though, made of plastic-covered steel chain of the type he'd seen bicycle chains made of. He beckoned Jeffcott over, told him to take off his shirt and pulled the harness onto his bare chest. It locked behind his back with a solid sounding click.

  "How do I get it off?" the physicist asked. He tried to reach around to the lock, between his shoulder blades, but his arms wouldn't bend far enough.

  "You don't. It's a precaution in case you suffer an altered perception that makes you want to take it off."

  Jeffcott nodded. "Fair enough," he said, remembering Mark Summers. He put his shirt back on and buttoned it up. The magnet made a bulge above his breast bone.

  The Captain handed out harnesses to the three engineers and two soldiers who walked over to join them. Daniels was already wearing his, Jeffcott saw.

  "Okay," Daniels then said. "Let's go.

  He gestured towards the MCV. Jeffcott and the engineers glanced at each other, then shrugged and climbed aboard. Daniels followed them, taking the seat beside Archie at the control panel. "That's where I should be sitting..." began Bird. Daniels just gave him a look and he fell silent.

  Jeffcott and Brooks took the second row of seats, beside the reserve nitrogen tank. There were empty screw holes in the bare metal walls where various things had recently been removed. Jeffcott assumed it had been 1980's era communications equipment. It had all been replaced by a single computer touch screen, currently turned off, where the Captain was sitting.

  Jeffcott glanced at the control panel and saw rows of dials showing temperatures and pressures. Jeffcott had no idea which dial corresponded to which panel but all the needles showed about the same reading and Archie looked satisfied as he looked at them. Through a small window in the forward bulkhead Jeffcott saw the two soldiers climb into the cab and then the vehicle jerked into forward motion.

  "I hope they learn to drive more smoothly than that," muttered the Captain to himself. "It's going to have to drive in close formation with four other vehicles.

  "The engine needs an overhaul," Bird told him. "I'm no mechanic. I don't know what sitting in a warehouse for thirty years does to an engine but I doubt it's good."

  "I was told it had been given a complete overhaul," the Captain told him.

  "I think they changed the oil, the battery and the rubber hoses," the small engineer replied. "Like I said I'm no engineer but they didn't give them time to do much more than that."

  "If the engine packs in one of the APC's can tow it," said the Captain irritably.

  "The pumps and coolers get their power from the engine," Archie told him. "If the engine packs up, there goes our magnetic shield."

  "The anomaly is approaching us at..." The Captain began.

  "Yeah, I know. I know, but we could have done all this at White Sands. That would have given us months to get these things perfect."

  "The Governor wants the anomaly stopped before it's devoured the entire state that he's the Governor of," Daniels said, but Jeffcott heard some sympathy in his voice. "We all have to obey orders."

  "It's a pity our orders don't come from someone able to think beyond his own political ambitions," said Archie sourly.

  "That'll do, Private," the Captain told him. "Just keep your eyes on the instruments."

  "Yes, Sir."

  They drove forward and half a dozen trucks carrying soldiers pulled in behind them. They drove in formation to the barrier af the exit from the base, which lifted as they approached. Two men in the guard post watched as they drove past. Then they were driving through the deserted streets of Phoenix, going south towards the anomaly, now only a couple of miles away.