[The Tempest trilogy: Book 2] After the incident in Ostrava's Neoclash arena, Zoya faces dangerous challenges. Nightingale's uprising threatens to destroy the whole Europe, the racist Yeomen movement steps up their campaing against Castaways and Rya...
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It all makes sense now. I remember what Nightingale told me about the attack during the debate before the election. Now I know she didn't do it - it was a Yeoman disguised as a Castaway who blew up the place to give their leader a firmer ground to stand on and eliminate political opponents while keeping their hands clean.
Kill the opponent and blame it on Castaways. A genius move indeed.
Those are my thoughts as I enter the space between the 1st class car and the engine. This is my last chance to find the explosive - and it'd rather be done before the man arrives.
There aren't many hiding spots, so I look into the first one I lay my eyes on - the red box made for the fire extinguisher. I open it. Bingo.
The extinguisher isn't there. Instead, a smaller box with several flashing lights can be found inside. I don't lose time and grab it - the problem is that it won't budge. It's attached to the rear wall. It leads me to a dilemma - there may be some kind of wire or something similar that would just blow the whole thing up if I tried to remove it. Of course, it can also be just glued, but I can never be sure.
What to do now? Do it quick and risk the detonation? Or... what else can I do?
I carefully examine the device, even try to get my fingers behind (every pyrotechnician would be proud of me), but all I find out is that the explosive tightly clings to the wall. I'm running out of time. If the man arrives and sees my effort, he won't hesitate to push the button.
I wish I could just disconnect the locomotive from the rest of the train, like I've seen the heroes doing in old movies. But these goddamn supermodern trains come in one piece.
Looks like I have no choice but to use a bit of violence.
It's do or die. Either I'll be successful, or I'll blow up. A slight ray of hope comes from the fact the whole thing was schemed by Yeomen. They are not as thorough as Nightingale in their plans. Valentina would use some high-quality explosive immune to all kinds of diffusing. This looks like something an amateur pyrotechnician assembled within half an hour glued to the box.
I take a deep breath and whisper a short prayer. Then I jump up, spin in the air and rip the box off the wall with one kick. I get ready for a deafening explosion which tears both me and the whole train into pieces, but the fire extinguisher box just lands on the floor.
I let out a long sigh of relief.
"Zoya? What happened? I've heard a noise," Anastasia wonders.
"I'm alright, just a moment," I say as I use the emergency button to open the door. Fortunately enough, we're going through some rural area with no signs of settlement nearby. I throw the bomb out of the door as far as possible. The box lands in a crop field, tumbles a few meters and stays there.
I collapse on the floor, leaning my back against the door leading into the locomotive. "The bomb has been... diffused," I tell Anastasia. "It seemed to be just a cheap dud. Now I only have to take out the remaining terrorists and we can celebrate."
