I had no doubt that Dharma was telling me the truth—that is to say, I had no doubt that Dharma believed everything that had been communicated to her by the cephalopeds. Did I buy into all her mumbo jumbo about the creature’s being connected to God? I couldn’t deny I had felt something when Oscar had enveloped me in his echolocation, but that could have also been a mind game. What really concerned me was the information the cephalopeds were keeping from Dharma, specifically about these so-called Blessed Heavenly Ones Who Nurture. Maybe I was still angry at God, but no God I ever prayed to or cursed ever used a sonic weapon to implode a seventy-foot crocodile, and I had a gut feeling that—WARNING: SYSTEMS THREAT! WARNING: SYSTEMS THREAT!

Identify systems threat.

ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE GRID HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED OVER THE CRATER OPENING. SHOULD EISENBRAUN GET TOO CLOSE TO THE GRID WHILE THE ABE UNIT IS ACTIVE, THE EMP WOULD DESTROY THE ABE UNIT’S BIO-CIRCUITS.

Switch to safe mode.

WARNING: SAFE MODE WILL NOT MINIMIZE THE EMP DAMAGE.

Guess I’m on my own then. Locate EMP point of origin, then shut down the ABE unit until Eisenbraun has cleared the grid.

EMP POINT OF ORIGIN: EIGHTEEN JUNCTION BEAMS SET AT TWENTY-DEGREE INTERVALS BEGINNING AT ZERO DEGREES NORTH. ENERGY SOURCES ARE POSITIONED THIRTY-TWO CENTIMETERS BELOW THE CRATER LIP. NEAREST JUNCTION BEAM IS LOCATED TWELVE FEET, EIGHT INCHES CLOCKWISE OF EXIT POINT. ABE UNIT SHUTTING DOWN.

I continued climbing, moving from the trunk of the redwood tree onto an upper branch that dead-ended at the crater wall a convenient four feet below the doline’s fractured lip. Reaching up, I managed to pull myself out of the massive sinkhole.

I was back in the redwood forest, the sun setting at my back. Stepping off four paces to my left, I lay prone on the limestone ground and leaned my head out over the crater’s edge, searching for anything that resembled an EMP beam.

The disruptive power of an electromagnetic pulse was first discovered during field tests for the atomic bomb. The resultant pulse generates a powerful electromagnetic field that can damage or destroy electronic devices, communication systems, and semiconductive computer chips within the blast area. Naturally, the potential damage caused by EMPs motivated world leaders to develop nonnuclear weapons that could blast their enemy’s cities back to the Stone Age, with more than a few nations investigating the means to target communication satellites.

It wasn’t long after World War III broke out that the first suitcase EMP weapons, or E-bombs, were detonated in Iran. By the time the Great Die-Off ended, upward of 60 percent of the Middle East’s power grids had been fried.