Countdown

Countdown

      Derek Gordon charged through a red light on his Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle; the black of the bike matching the night sky above New York City. Horns blared behind him but he was focused on the small monitor above his gauges. A red dot blinked in and out while a green dot approached. Derek was the green dot and if he didn’t get to the red dot before it stopped blinking, well, there would be trouble as in a new crater in Time’s Square kind of trouble.

      Derek left his bike near the New York Public Library ripping the monitor from its mount. He ran the best he could through the mass of people crowding the streets with their party poppers and New Year’s hats. The closer he got to Time’s Square, the more he had to shove people out of his way. He glanced at the monitor to determine the location of the red dot once more. He groaned internally when he realized it was under the stage in the center of the street. He continued pushing his way toward the stage and once had to catch himself from tripping over someone’s legs.

      He just reached the stage when the red dot on the monitor began to blink furiously. In a few minutes, the blinking would cease all together and Time’s Square would be leveled. Derek knelt next to the edge of the stage and lifted the veil. He spotted what he was looking for immediately. Directly under the center of the stage where a musician was currently screaming incoherently, a small blue backpack lie unobtrusively. Derek crawled under the stage. Doing his best impression of a sea lion, Derek dragged himself up to the backpack. The red dot on the monitor was flashing like a strobe light now and he only had seconds left to defuse the device. Derek reached into the backpack and pulled out a small cube the size of a softball. It glowed silver with indentations all around it. The people in the crowd began to cheer and scream louder as the countdown approached. The cube started to vibrate and glow a faint blue. Derek placed his right hand flat against the cube’s surface and whispered a soft chant in his native language. People on the streets began their countdown while Derek hurried to finish his chant.

      As the crowd reached one, the cube stopped vibrating and the light began to dim. Derek watched in relief while the cube changed from a faint blue to shining silver to a charcoal color. He placed the cube back in the backpack and threw it over his shoulder.

      When he shimmied his way out from under the stage, he was delighted to see couples kissing and friends raising glasses to toasts. He readjusted the backpack on his shoulder and carefully navigated his way back to his bike. With any luck it would still be back at the library.