Twenty-four hours later.
The dust had settled, but the air still tasted metallic. The Geiger counters in the lab were clicking steadily—a rhythmic reminder that the land was poisoned.
Jason stood on the roof of the main hall, looking through binoculars.
The US Army had pulled back. Their tents were visible ten miles to the north, a sea of khaki on the horizon. They weren't advancing. They were digging in.
They were terrified.
"They think we have more," Howard Hughes said, standing beside him. He was wearing a lead-lined apron over his tuxedo. "Do we?"
"No," Jason said. "That was the only core. It'll take us six months to refine enough plutonium for another one."
"Well, don't tell them that," Hughes muttered. "Bluffing is the soul of aviation. And poker."
"Car approaching," O'Malley called out from the ground.
A single black sedan was driving slowly up the winding road. It flew a white flag from the antenna.
"It's the envoy," Jason said. "Let's go make a deal."
They met in the courtyard. The ground was covered in a fine layer of gray ash from the blast.
The car door opened. A man stepped out.
He wore a pristine military uniform with a chest full of medals. He held a corn-cob pipe. He looked at the devastation with a mixture of disgust and professional admiration.
General Douglas MacArthur.
He didn't salute. He walked up to Jason and stopped three feet away.
"Mr. Prentice," MacArthur said. His voice was deep, theatrical. "You have made quite a mess of my desert."
"It was a defensive action, General," Jason said calmly. "Soviet agitators breached the perimeter. I neutralized them."
MacArthur looked at the crater to the south, where the mountain used to be.
"With a device that violates every treaty of war since the Hague Convention," MacArthur noted. "The President is furious. Hoover wants to bomb you into dust."
"If you bomb us," Jason said, "you release the radiation. The fallout cloud will drift east. It will hit Texas. Oklahoma. Maybe Washington."
It was a lie—the core was stable unless triggered—but MacArthur didn't know physics. He knew power.
"I am here to accept your surrender," MacArthur said. "Hand over the device. Hand over the scientists. And perhaps you will escape the electric chair."
Jason laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound.
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out a ledger. The one he had stolen from Gates in California.
"I'm not surrendering, General. I'm negotiating."
Jason opened the book.
"Client: US Department of War. Order: Domestic Surveillance Grid. Vendor: Apex Industries."
MacArthur stiffened. The pipe froze in his hand.
"I know what you're buying from Gates," Jason said. "I know the Army is using illegal listening devices to spy on labor unions. And senators. And citizens."
Jason closed the book.
"If you touch me, General... if a single mortar shell lands on this mesa... I send copies of this ledger to the New York Times. And the London Times. And Pravda."
MacArthur stared at him. The General respected audacity. He saw a reflection of himself in Jason's eyes.
"You are blackmailing the United States Government," MacArthur said softly.
"I am establishing boundaries," Jason corrected.
"What do you want?"
"Sovereignty," Jason said. "The Ghost Ranch is now an independent zone. No US jurisdiction. No FBI. No taxes."
"Impossible."
"In exchange," Jason continued, "I give you exclusive rights to the Energy Battery. Infinite power for your battleships. Your tanks. Your cities."
MacArthur paused. He looked at the crater again. Then at the glowing blue windows of the lab.
Energy was the ultimate weapon.
"No bombs," MacArthur said. "You build no more devices."
"Agreed," Jason lied.
MacArthur nodded slowly. "I will take this to the President. But be warned, Mr. Prentice. You are creating a kingdom of sand. And the wind always changes."
MacArthur turned and walked back to his car.
The siege was over. The Cold War had just mutated into something far more complicated.
That evening, the sunset was blood-red through the haze.
Jason found Oppenheimer sitting on the edge of the cliff, legs dangling over the abyss. He was staring at the crater.
He was weeping. Silent tears tracking through the dust on his face.
"Robert," Jason said softly, sitting down next to him.
"I remembered the line," Oppenheimer whispered. "From the Gita. 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'"
He looked at his hands.
"We killed them, Jason. Those men in the trucks. Vaporized. They never even saw the light."
"They were soldiers, Robert. They came to kill us."
"We opened the box," Oppenheimer said, pointing to the Geiger counter buzzing on his belt. "Look at the drift. The radiation is moving east. We didn't just stop the attack. We poisoned the land."
Jason looked at the purple horizon.
"We stopped World War II," Jason said firmly. "Think about the timeline we avoided. The Holocaust. Stalingrad. Hiroshima."
"Did we avoid it?" Oppenheimer asked. "Or did we just delay it? And make the weapons bigger?"
Albert Einstein walked up behind them. He looked old. His violin case was in his hand.
"The physics is broken, Herr Prentice," Einstein said sadly. "Nature does not like to be tricked. We have stolen fire from the gods. Now the eagles will come for our livers."
Jason looked at his two scientists. The conscience of the world.
"We can't stay here," Jason said. "MacArthur gave us a truce, not a peace treaty. They'll come back. With better shields. Or better spies."
"Where can we go?" Oppenheimer wiped his eyes. "You said the desert was safe. It wasn't."
Jason stood up. He looked at the sky.
The stars were coming out. Clear. Cold. Distant.
"The ground is too crowded with ghosts," Jason said.
Howard Hughes walked out of the lab. He was holding a roll of blueprints. He looked manic, excited.
"I heard the conversation," Hughes said fast, unrolling the paper on a flat rock. "You're right. The ground is a trap. Borders are traps."
He pointed to the drawing.
It looked insane. It looked impossible.
It was an airship. But not a Zeppelin. It was a massive, rigid-body lifting body. Armored. Powered by four nuclear reactors. It was the size of an aircraft carrier, but floating in the clouds.
"Project Cloud City," Hughes grinned. "A mobile sovereign state. It never lands. It refuels in the air. It has labs. Living quarters. Defenses."
"It's science fiction, Howard," Jason said.
"So was the bomb yesterday," Hughes countered. "With the Blue Battery, we have the power-to-weight ratio. We can lift a city."
Jason looked at the blueprint.
A fortress in the sky. Beyond the reach of Hoover. Beyond the reach of Stalin. A place where he could safeguard the future without burning the present.
"Build it," Jason said.
"It will cost every ounce of gold you have left," Hughes warned. "And the rest of the uranium."
"Money is just paper," Jason said, looking at the crater one last time. "And uranium is just rock. Freedom... freedom is the only currency that matters."
He turned his back on the destruction.
"Start the engines, Howard. We're leaving the earth."