TWENTY-SEVEN
For a moment I just stood there.
Peter Black was gone. Pan was gone.
Dead.
It was hard to comprehend, but it seemed like it should be the end. Music rises. Fade to black. Yet, I was left just standing there in the control room.
I was broken. It hurt to breathe. My knee was shouting at me. My arm hurt. My nose bled, and I could feel the stinging cuts along my arms and face.
My stomach growled and it made me laugh.
I stood there, tucking the Judge into a jacket pocket.
Around me the world broke apart. Rock rained down as the tunnel collapsed. The tunneler in which I stood thrashed about, breaking itself against the ageless stone it had once bullied into submission.
I smiled, oddly proud.
My idea worked, in a way: the tunneler was too old to work properly. Its gears, fl
