The Tower Tinker 15

“Someone built a fucking thirty-one mile long airgun?”

“Technically, I guess,” Glines said.  “Less technically, it shoots all of the air.  Each shot is one earth’s worth of atmosphere, gathered up into a ball and superheated.”

The wounded man was silent, his eyes wide.

“One shot, and Earth whatever this is is emptied in about two seconds, everything dies well before it can suffocate, with the sudden atmospheric and pressure shift.    The next shot empties the adjacent earth, probably.”

[...]

“Show my people,” she said.  She called up the Mad Bomber and The Man Who Stands Atop.  “Explain to them.  Disable it.”

The broken man nodded again.

“Broken trigger?” Cleo asked, dabbing at one eye.  She had cuts on the side of her face, but they were small and shallow.

“No.  Nothing broken.”