Strangers

three minutes, and we'll all be vapor. Not even time left for you to change me, I'll bet. How long does it take to change one of us to one of you? Longer than three minutes, I suppose."
        Abruptly, the machine gun tore out of Falkirk's hands as if it had acquired life and taken flight, wrenching loose of his grasp with such force that it cut his fingers and tore off a couple of his nails. At the same instant, Lieutenant Horner screamed as his machine gun erupted from his grasp with equal suddenness and force. Ginger saw both weapons spin through the air and drop with a clatter, one at the feet of Ernie Block and the other at Jack Twist's side, both of whom jubilantly took up the guns and covered Falkirk and Horner.
        "You?" Ginger said wonderingly, turning to Dom.
        "Me, yeah, I think," he said breathlessly. "I… I didn't know I could do it until I had to. Sort of the way Brendan heals people."
        Stunned, Dr. Bennell said, "But it doesn't matter. Falkirk said three minutes."
        "Two," Falkirk said, cradling one bleeding hand in the other and grinning happily. "Two minutes now."
        "And backpack nukes can't be disarmed," Alvarado said.
        Running, Dom shouted: "Brendan, you take the one outside this door. I'll get the one downstairs."
        "They can't be disarmed!" Alvarado repeated.
        

        
        Brendan knelt beside the nuclear device and winced when he saw the time remaining on the clock. One minute, thirty-three seconds.
        He didn't know what to do. He had healed three people, yes, and he had caused some pepper shakers to whirl through the air, and he had even generated light out of nothingness. But he remembered how the pepper shakers had gotten out of control and how the chairs had leapt off the diner floor and smashed against the ceiling. And he knew if he made one false move with the detonator in this bomb, he would not be saved by all his superhuman power.
        One minute, twenty-six seconds.
        The others had come out of the cavern where the ship rested and had gathered around. Even Falkirk and Horner remained under guard, though there was no reason for them to try to get their guns. They trusted in the efficacy of the bomb.
        One minute, eleven seconds.
        "If I smash the detonator," Brendan said to Alvarado, "pulverize it, would that-"
        "No," the general said. "Once armed, the detonator will trigger the bomb automatically if you try to wreck it."
        One-oh-three.
        Faye knelt beside him. "Just make it pop right up out of the damn bomb, Brendan. The way Dom tore those guns out of their hands."
        Brendan stared at the rapidly changing numerals on the detonator's clock and tried to imagine that entire device popping free of the rest of the bomb.
        Nothing happened.
        Fifty-four seconds.
        

        
        Cursing the slowness of the elevator, Dom virtually flew out of the doors when they opened, with Ginger close behind him, and dashed to the backpack nuke standing in the center of the main cavern on the bottom level of Thunder Hill. Heart pounding even faster than his stomach was churning, he crouched beside the bomb and said, "Jesus," when he saw the digital clock.
        Fifty seconds.
        "You can do it," Ginger said, stooping at the other side of the hateful device. "You've got a destiny."
        "Here goes."
        "Love you," she said.
        "Love you," he said, as surprised as she was by that statement.
        Forty-two seconds.
        He raised his hands over the nuclear device, and he felt the rings appearing immediately in his palms.
        Forty seconds.
        

        
        Brendan had broken out in a sweat.
        Thirty-nine seconds.
        He strained, trying to work the magic that he knew was in him. But though the stigmata burned on his palms, and in spite of the fact that he could feel the power surging in him, he could not focus on the urgent task. He kept thinking about what could go wrong, and that in some way he would be responsible if it did go wrong, and the more he thought the less he could direct the miraculous energy within him.
        Thirty-four seconds.
        Parker Faine pushed between two onlookers and dropped to his knees beside Brendan. "No offense, Father, but maybe the problem is that you, being a Jesuit, are just too damn prone to intellectualize. Maybe this requires going with your gut.