Apocalypse Machine Read Online Free PDF

like hail. It’s loud enough to keep anyone from talking. We clear the falling debris quickly, putting more miles between us and the volcano, but not the expanding cloud.
    As Kiljan maneuvers around a boulder that even the superjeep can’t tackle, we drive perpendicular to Bardarbunga once more, and I get a clear view of the eruption. Gray smoke, soot and earth rises several miles into the air, spreading out wide in a mushroom cloud that dwarfs any created by man. Orange streaks of lightning crisscross the sky as dust and debris generate enough static electricity to power a city.
    “This has to be the largest eruption in recorded history,” Holly says, hands pressed against the window, eyes wide with a mix of fear and admiration. Every volcanologist dreams of being this close to an eruption. The downside of that dream is that most volcanologists close enough to witness an eruption like this, don’t survive to tell the tale.
    I place my hands against the glass, sharing Holly’s awe. As soon as my right hand touches the glass, I yank it back, hissing through my teeth. I look at the glove, wondering what the burn across my palm looks like now. A slave to curiosity, I pull the glove from my hand and look at the wound, now bright red. It had been black, and I had mistaken it for frostbite at first. But the spike had been hot, not cold.
    No, I think, that’s not right either. It had been cold to the touch when I first reached out for it. It was even covered with a thin film of ice that my body heat had melted. But when I snapped out of that vision, or whatever it was, the spike had become scorching hot. A coincidence, I tell myself, but it’s hard to believe. The alternative is that physical contact with the spire triggered the reaction, and as a result, the subsequent eruption. But that makes no sense either, because Kiljan had the thing jammed in his toe and nothing happened. That pretty much leaves me with some kind of supernatural explanation, which is to say, no explanation at all.
    Beeping pulls my attention away from the view and my thoughts. Kiljan has the satellite phone in his right hand, dialing with his thumb, while he steers with the left.
    “Two hands on the wheel,” Phillip insists from the back seat. “Ten and two, for God’s sake!”
    Kiljan puts the phone to his ear, glancing at me for a moment while he waits for whoever is on the other end to pick up. The look in his eyes, determined but full of doubt, chills me. We’re roaring away from the volcano now, easily twelve miles out, but the big man still isn’t convinced we’re in the clear. I twist around and look out the rear window. The massive pyroclastic flow, lit in hues of orange by the setting sun ahead of us, rolls steadily downhill behind us. It’s not moving at 450 mph, but even at a fraction of that speed, it will eventually overtake us. Perhaps within minutes.
    Kiljan’s conversation is loud, fast-paced and completely unintelligible, as he’s speaking in his native Icelandic. When he hangs up, he looks simultaneously defeated and more determined.
    “Who was that?” Phillip asks. “Who were you speaking to?”
    “Airfield,” Kiljan says, and I find myself nodding. The small airfield is the fastest way out of the region. If we could get airborne, it would be our best chance of survival. Perhaps our only chance. “There is one plane remaining.” He glances at each of us. “But no pilot.”
    Phillip looks frozen in horror.
    Diego sags forward a little bit. “Mierda.”
    “But...” Holly starts, and then just shakes her head and looks out the window.
    “I can fly.”
    The words escape my mouth before I’ve really considered them. I have a pilot’s license. I got it three years ago, when writing a piece about how easy it is to do so. Took all the classes. Passed the tests. And flew a plane for the required number of hours, while a Modern Scientist photographer snapped photos of me. It was a popular piece, and part of why I get to