Stormbreaker

steel floors, between the very latest in high tech and old curiosities from the Industrial Revolution.
    A podium had been set up in the center for Sayle, the prime minister, his press secretary, and the minister of state for education. In front of them were twelve rows of chairs—for journalists, teachers, invited friends.
    Alan Blunt was in the front row, as emotionless as ever. Mrs. Jones, dressed in black with a large brooch on her lapel, was next to him. On either side television towers had been constructed with cameras focusing in as Sayle spoke. The speech was being broadcast live to schools throughout the country and it would also be shown on the evening news. The hall was packed with another two or three hundred people, standing on first- and second-floor galleries, looking down on the podium from all sides. As Sayle spoke, tape recorders turned and lightbulbs flashed. Never before had a private individual made so generous a gift to the nation.
    This was an event. History in the making.
    “…it is the prime minister, and the prime minister alone who is responsible for what is about to happen,”
    Sayle was saying. “And I hope that tonight, when he reflects on what has happened today throughout this country, that he will remember our days together at school and everything he did at that time. I think tonight the country will know him for the man he is. One thing is sure. This is a day you will never forget.”
    He bowed. There was a scattering of applause. The prime minister glanced at his press secretary, puzzled.
    The press secretary shrugged with barely concealed rudeness. The prime minister took his place in front of the microphone.
    “I’m not quite sure how to respond to that,” he joked, and all the journalists laughed. The government had such a large majority that they knew it was in their best interests to laugh at the prime minister’s jokes. “I’m glad that Mr. Sayle has such happy memories of our school days together and I’m glad that the two of us, together, today, can make such a vital difference to our nation’s schools.”
    Herod Sayle gestured at a table slightly to one side of the podium. On the table was a Stormbreaker computer and, next to it, a mouse. “This is the master control,” he said. “Click on the mouse and all the computers will come on-line.”
    “Right.” The prime minister lifted his finger and adjusted his position so that the cameras could get his best profile. Somewhere outside the museum, a clock struck twelve.
    Alex heard the clock from about five hundred feet up, with the roof of the Science Museum rushing toward him.
    He had seen the building just after the plane had crashed. It hadn’t been easy finding it, with the city spread out like a three-dimensional map right underneath him. On the other hand, he had lived his whole life in West London and had visited the museum often enough. First he had seen the Victorian pile that was Albert Hall. Directly south of it was a tall white tower surmounted by a green dome: Imperial College. As Alex dropped, he seemed to be moving faster. The whole city had become a fantastic jigsaw puzzle and he knew he only had seconds to piece it together. A wide, extravagant building with churchlike towers and windows. That had to be the Natural History Museum. The Natural History Museum was on Cromwell Road. How did you get from there to the Science Museum? Of course, turn left at the lights up Exhibition Road.
    And there it was. Alex pulled at the parachute, guiding himself toward it. How small it looked compared to the other landmarks, a rectangular building jutting in from the main road with a flat gray roof and, next to it, a series of arches, the sort of thing you might see on a railway station or perhaps an enormous conservatory. They were a dull orange in color, curving one after the other. It looked as if they were made of glass. Alex could land on the flat roof. Then all he would have to do was look through the curved one.
    He still had the gun he had taken from the guard. He could use it to warn the prime minister. If he had to, he figured, he could use it to shoot Herod Sayle.
    Somehow he managed to maneuver himself over the museum. But it was only as he fell the last five hundred feet, as he heard the clock strike twelve, that he realized two things. He was falling much too fast.
    And he had missed the flat roof.
    In fact, the Science Museum has two roofs. The original is Georgian and made of wired glass. But