Days of Boom: Chapter 45

Nolan Swift XLV Finding More Time

I heard yells coming from the center of the camp saying that they found the bomb. Megan and I, as well as a group of other demigods had been checking around Zeus’ Fist as well as the rest of the Capture the Flag field. Despite being a mostly open field, with the exception of the woods on the outside borders of the field, there were plenty of places to hide and it was close enough to the camp to completely wipe it out. Not to mention that I had never actually seen how big these explosions could get, as the only case that exploded was inside the stomach of a manufactured Disney monster. We ran for the center of the camp to see a large crowd of people circled around something, most likely the bomb.

“Out of the way,” I said as I forced myself into the center of the circle. It was there that I met up with El and Joe. They were looking at a silver case and were frozen in fear as they looked at it. “What’s going on?”

“Three minutes,” El said quietly, before falling to the ground on her knees and crying.

“There isn’t even enough time to evacuate,” Joe said fiercely as he kicked the ground in frustration.

“Quick, give it to me,” said a voice from the outside of the circle, but the mass of people parted for him. Dan was awake, but as he walked it looked like each step was going to make him pass out. He almost did fall over once, but braced himself against one of the campers who caught him on the way down. I wasn’t the only one that saw how weak he was as El pulled herself from the ground and ran over to him.

“No, if you try to disarm this bomb you’ll die. I won’t let you make that sacrifice,” El said angrily, but Dan’s face became like stone, stern and unmoving. He then turned his gaze back to El.

“It doesn’t matter. I could die today and save everyone or die in a few minutes and save no one. Even if we somehow managed to escape the blast, I’d just die tomorrow,” Dan replied, looking directly in her eyes.

“One of us could do it,” El spat back. “One of us could disable the bomb instead and you could walk us threw it. Then we can just be healed later or wait for the poison to leave our system.”

“It doesn’t work like that. The poison doesn’t leave your system and it doesn’t stop. There was a reason for the time limit of each bomb; if we slowed down at all, I would die before ever making it back to camp. I’m sorry El, but I won’t let anyone else but me disarm it. I won’t let another make that sacrifice,” he said and walked right past her toward the bomb, seemingly gaining some kind of resolve as he appeared to grow strength as he looked stronger then I had seen him in days.

“Joe, Swift, someone stop him,” El said, turning to us, but I couldn’t move. I knew Dan was right and so did Joe, as all he could do is turn his head away. El started looking around frantically, hoping that someone would step in, but no one did and all El could do was cry.

“Here goes nothing,” Dan said as he lowered himself to the bomb and placed his hands in the same spot he had for the other bombs, but this time nothing happened. Fear then moved across all our faces as Dan kept removing, then reapplying his hands over and over again. “I don’t understand; why isn’t it working?”

“Oh no…” I said out loud without thinking. Just then almost every eye in the area turned to me. It was like the air I was breathing was almost suffocating, having all attention turned to me.

“You know why it isn’t working, don’t you?” Joe asked, giving me a knowing smile.

“Just an idea,” I said. “Remember the rules of the game? We were told that if one bomb goes off, they all go off. I thought that when the bomb in Disney went off, the next one would too.”

“But it didn’t,” El commented. “It is right here counting down.”

“I know, but who ever said that it would go off right away?” I asked her and everyone seemed to go silent for a second. “The bomb’s deactivation has been deactivated, we can’t stop it now.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” El asked. I tried to think of anything to do, but I couldn’t think of anything until I looked at the clock counting down.

“I got it!” I shouted, without really meaning to. “Diane and Silver said that they reduced the time on the bomb, right? Well that means they should be able to increase it as well.”

“He’s right!” El also shouted before taking a calmer tone. “When they captured me, they played this dumb game with me where if I answered their questions honestly, they would increase the time on the bomb. Dan, can you do that?”

“Let me see,” Dan said as he placed his hands back on the bomb and concentrated.

“No I can’t, it needs some kind of key to do it and I can’t force it or it could go off. Let me try something else.” He concentrated again and I watched the counter. It was like time froze around me as the seconds on the clock passed slower and slower. Then I noticed that it wasn’t me, but the clock itself that was slowing down.

“Quickly, go find Silver and Diane and find out how to increase the time on clock. It is our only hope now. Do it quickly because I don’t know how long I can hold on,” Dan said, never taking his eyes off the counter.

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” El said. “I mean Dionysus has them tied up right over…Dionysus, where did they go?!”

“What?” the wine god said. He turned around and saw that both Bunnies Sun members were gone, with the vines that had wrapped them were basically untouched. “It wasn’t my day to watch them.”

El looked like she was ready to explode at the god, while Joe just placed his hand to his forehead and shook his head. Despite Dionysus appearing like his usual self, I could tell he was a little upset that those that trapped him in a small battle had escaped his grasp. It was then that Chiron reached for the bow he had on his back.

“Spread out, they couldn’t have gotten far,” Chiron said and made a motion for the campers to spread out. I knew that it was no use however. They would only be found if they wanted to be found and I didn’t know what this feeling was, but I felt that I would be the only one able to find them.