The Secret Bunker Trilogy

by Paul Teague

  Beyond The Karman Line

  The satellite matrix surrounding the Earth had the appearance of a prison cell when viewed from above. It may have been that the planet inside was contained for its own protection – or it could have been that it was caught behind bars. Does the animal in the zoo think that its captors are caged and that it is free? It all depends on perception.

  Docked to one of the largest satellites, outside the matrix and on the very edge of space, was a large, illuminated sphere. It had windows to look out into space – at the vast and unexplored area beyond the Earth, and down below, at the ailing planet which was currently enveloped in a blue shroud.

  Right at the centre of this orb, deep within its sturdy exterior, sat a lone man. He was middle-aged, his work area was sparse and he wore an unusual tie. He was surrounded by projections of faces – there were almost two hundred of them – they were holograms.

  The man seemed worried. He had a grave look on his face, and as he discussed matters with the assembled group it was obvious that he was having difficulty accounting for himself. The faces were those of the world’s leaders whose physical bodies were in stasis along with the population below. They were never supposed to be woken, but this man had been forced by drastic circumstances to resort to emergency planning procedures.

  He had communicated secret information to the Custodians of the three bunkers which were so far free from sabotage. He had spoken to one of the twins, the boy Dan, who didn’t yet know how the future of the planet below had been placed so precariously in his hands. Now he had awoken the consciences of the world’s leaders as their physical bodies slept on the Earth’s surface far below him.

  They were angry and in disagreement. He’d assured them once that this situation could not occur. Now they were learning that their planet might never waken from its current sleep – and that all those years of careful planning may well have been in vain.

  Concealed

  Amy watched the Troopers lining up in military fashion, a formation which she recognized from years ago. At one time she could have done this, moved in perfect unison, drilled and trained for precision and discipline. Only there was something quite inhuman about these soldiers.

  Kate was in charge here, and it looked as if she was ready to discard her old security team in favour of these soldiers. They were far superior physically, in height, build and strength. They were exactly the kind of army that you would want to have at your command and fighting on your side.

  Amy gestured to Simon and James – all three had taken up positions where they could not be detected. They knew that they would not be able to stay hidden for long, there were too many soldiers assembling here now. They also knew that, once armed, this new army would not be such an easy pushover as the bunker security teams had been.

  All three had been monitoring the Comms-Tab conversations that had been patched through to them. The devices were superb in a military situation – with no speakers there was nothing to alert Kate’s guards to their presence there. There was even a silent text-to-speech option, allowing constant contact and information transfer.

  There was a new plan. Amy wasn’t happy about it. She’d only just been reunited with her daughter and she wasn’t pleased to be exposing her once again to such extreme risk. But she knew for sure that there was really no choice. Dan and Nat were crucial to events in these bunkers and, however fearful she was, they would have to play out their role in this situation. Besides, without Dan and Nat, they were all trapped.

  Magnus wanted Dan and Nat to return a rewired enabling unit to the hangar area. He also needed somebody to clone the encrypted data that Doctor Pierce had used for his secured broadcasts to Dan.

  Sometimes you get a break in life. That’s what happened at that moment. All of the troops had been assembled, and were now being moved along the corridor to the weaponry and uniform area. The electronic glove worn by Kate had been replicated on the hands of several more senior members of her security team – seemingly just by touch – and this appeared to be what was giving them access to all of the rooms on this lower level.

  There were just three regular guards left once the troops had vacated the area. Simon, Amy and James took one each, and in no time at all three unconscious bodies were locked up in storage boxes – minus their uniforms, which were now being worn by the three imposters. All three had received military training, albeit for Simon and Amy some years ago now. But they looked authentic and nobody really took much notice of them as they headed off towards the lift and ultimately the hangar area where Nat and Dan would meet them and transport them back to safety. They needed access to the lift first though, and they’d need one of those electronic gloves to activate it.

  Magnus’s guards had only been shot unconscious which was a relief for Amy. They were just being escorted into the lift, presumably for interrogation. James knew what that would entail. Magnus’s team was quick to catch on – they recognized Amy, James and Simon and, on their signal, when they were all in the lift, they swiftly managed to overcome the four guards who’d been assigned to escort the prisoners. One of the guards was wearing an electronic glove. Amy asked him how to transfer it to her hand and it was soon clear that he had no intention of answering that question.

  Then Simon stepped forward. He armed his weapon and put his booted foot on the guard’s hand, aiming his gun in the centre of it. ‘You have five seconds to answer the question, then I’ll just blow it off,’ he said in a cold voice. James and Amy looked at him. They weren’t sure about the turn this had taken. They were mindful that these people were under the control of the devices in their necks, and they had no desire to hurt them or be cruel to them.

  Everybody in the lift had been shocked by Simon’s actions, but they had the desired effect. The electronic gloves had an ‘unlock’ code, which allowed them to be freely cloned and passed on, so long as it was authorized by the wearer. James, Simon and Amy each generated a clone and removed the one worn by the guard.

  ‘I’m going to stay behind and get Doctor Pierce’s encrypted signal cloned for Magnus,’ said Simon. James and Amy looked at him – reluctant – but then nodded. It was the right thing to do. On his own and dressed in the correct uniform now, he’d go unnoticed. And he had the electronic glove.

  Amy pressed the buttons in the lift, moving down to Level 4, the location of the hangar. A text message arrived on the Comms-Tabs alerting them that Dan and Nat were on their way there. They had just a few minutes to secure the area for them, to make sure it was clear of guards. That should be okay with the main activity going on around the Troopers one level up.

  Kate’s guards had been stunned and left unconscious in the lift. Amy and James marched out with Magnus’s security team appearing to be prisoners. As they exited, James fully armed his gun and shot the keypads in the lift several times. ‘That will slow them down!’ he said.

  They walked confidently away as if they had every reason to be there. As they encountered Kate’s guards, and there were relatively few of them, they stunned them with their weaponry. By the time they’d reached the end of the long corridor, Magnus’s team was armed and they were no longer pretending to be prisoners. They were soon in the hangar with the drones.

  The electronic gloves gave them access wherever they wanted to go now – at least Kate had helped them in that respect.

  Amy was amazed at the sheer size of the area. It seemed incredible that this could be located underground, in a rural part of Scotland, unknown to everybody. All was quiet in the hangar, there were still many unlaunched drones here. Amy shuddered as she pictured hundreds of the things making their way over to the other three bunkers. It was a chilling thought.

  There was some activity over on the far side of the hangar: a colourful shimmer of light, and Dan and Nat appeared on the Transporter. Amy would have thought herself to be dreaming only twenty-four hours previously, but she was already beginning to accept this new world in which she was operating.

  Nat r
ushed to the main console in the hangar, replaced the enabling unit, and placed her hand on the activation panel – the same panel that Dan had used earlier, the panel which had allowed Kate to capture and replicate his DNA sequence.

  As Nat declared victory, at the precise moment that the enabling unit scrambled the console and re-routed the control sequences to Magnus’s terminal in Quadrant 3, Kate’s device automatically scanned and recorded Nat’s DNA sequence on a console in the Control Room. The sequence that, when combined with Dan’s replicated DNA signature, would give unstoppable access to the remaining three Quadrants.

  They had to run and get out of the hangar – they’d already created enough trouble on Level 3 to get Kate’s attention. The lift had been disabled, but it would only be a matter of time before they found a way down, bringing some Troopers along this time, no doubt.

  They all ran towards the Transporter. Dan and Nat re-activated it immediately, hoping that, if they were interpreting the strange symbols correctly, they would now be taken to Quadrant 2.

  Three things happened at the moment of activation. The device which only moments before had harvested Nat’s DNA information, replicated it digitally and sent the update remotely to the electronic gloves, updating each one with the new data, including those worn by Amy, Simon and James.

  At the moment of activation, James took out his weapon and shot the activation panel to stop Kate’s troops following behind them. And on the far side of the hangar, the terminal where the enabling unit had been replaced exploded in a mass of electrical flashes. The cloned model which Magnus had created had successfully transferred all the data necessary for him to permanently disable the remaining drones.

  As they re-materialized in Quadrant 2 and made their way along the corridor to the main lift, the small group felt happy with what they’d accomplished. By now they knew not to stop to explore the unfamiliar levels. They needed to open up this area as soon as possible to the Custodian, Viktor. They’d now be able to stop the drones.

  They’d disabled the lift and a Transporter on the lowers levels in Quadrant 1, so Kate should not be able to follow behind them. They didn’t realize that Kate now had everything that she needed to access all areas of the four Quadrants. Having captured both DNA sequences, like Dan and Nat, there were now no doors closed to her. Her soldiers were assembling on Level 3, now dressed in full combat gear and fully armed. They had given away their only advantage – the unique DNA sequencing of the twins. As the lift made its way up to Level 1 of Quadrant 2, Amy breathed a small sigh of relief as the doors began to slide open. She thought that things could only get better now; events seemed to have turned in their favour.

  They were met by Viktor and a group of his armed guards. They raised their weapons which were set to kill. Viktor spoke in a cold, calm, ruthless voice. He was a man used to war. ‘Put your weapons down!

  ‘Twins, you must come with me. We have some nuclear submarines to activate.’

  Part Three: The Unseen Enemy

  Chapter One

  01:12 Quadrant 4: Dixia Cheng, Beijing

  Xiang looked once again at the data on the screen. Her lab team had alerted her to rush over quickly to share what they’d found. She’d been grateful for the distraction – the drones were arriving at regular intervals now, and the violent shaking of the bunker as one after the other launched its missiles was disconcerting and unnerving.

  Xiang was on familiar territory in the lab – this was where she preferred to be. The pressures of leadership were not something that she particularly enjoyed, though at certain times in life you have to make choices which are not ideal, but which are necessary. In Xiang’s case, to continue to do her ground-breaking work, fully financed and away from prying eyes, she’d had to assume a higher degree of seniority. If she hadn’t made these choices, she would not be in the very privileged position of looking at the unbelievable information that was being presented to her on the screen.

  If this information was correct, it changed everything that was happening in the four Quadrants. The drones were probably the least of their problems. But when and how should she tell the twins and their parents … if at all?

  Xiang was normally a calm and quiet leader, which is why the entire team from the lab – feeling smug with their discovery – jumped into action when Xiang exploded with impatience. ‘Check this data again!’ she commanded. ‘This work is sloppy. Come back to me only when you can confirm these results with a 99 percent or more degree of accuracy!’

  The lab team left the room, looking guiltily at each other. They knew that they’d rushed through the results to bring them to Xiang as quickly as they could. In scientific terms, she was correct – they had been sloppy.

  But to all intents and purposes the procedures that they’d followed were fairly irrelevant. The simple truth of the data facing Xiang on the screen was so compelling that she knew already it had to be true.

  Parted

  As far as Nat was concerned, it had just been an ordinary day. She was walking along with Dan, chatting as they did so, and they came to the kerb. They’d stopped there to wait for Amy to catch up with them, so she still wasn’t quite clear why she’d stepped ahead into the road.

  It all happened so fast. She was sure that Amy had told them to go on ahead, but Dan stepped back suddenly to look at something and Mum’s attention was caught by a stranger who distracted her.

  The future can spin around on events that occur in a single moment. And so it was for Nat. A black car suddenly accelerated forward towards her and Dan.

  Dan stepped back and as he did so avoided being struck by a fraction of a second. Amy had turned to acknowledge the stranger, and in so doing had been unaware of the vehicle that had suddenly veered towards her children. Nat saw something black approaching at speed to the side of her, but then there was a blank in her memory.

  The next thing she knew she was aware of a man crouched over her as she lay in the road. She was in some considerable pain, but he’d just used a device on her that was swiftly taking that pain away. She was aware of panic all around her – a mess of voices – but she could pick out her mum’s distinctly. She was crying and in a state of panic.

  As quickly as the pain went, she drifted out of consciousness once again and became aware of the man’s words fading. Then she fell into a deep sleep.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t save her ...’

  Nat was aware of nothing else for some time after that. She was alive, because she could dream. Or was this death? Whatever it was, it was fine, only she couldn’t wake up. She was able to dream endlessly, and inhabit a world of memories and imagination. But she never seemed to awaken. Try as she might to shake off the dream state and jolt herself out of it, she was unable to do so. She couldn’t move her body either. Wherever she was, she was trapped.

  01:29 Quadrant 1: Troywood, Fife

  Simon was now a free agent. He’d split off from Amy and James and he’d managed to win enough trust to be given one of the SymNodes. He’d seen these before, a few years ago, but the technology had advanced massively since then. He knew that The Global Consortium was experimenting with the glove-like devices to enable them to duplicate fingerprints, and, although they’d had some success, at the time he used them they were still unreliable. The idea was that you could send data directly from a fingerprint database to the glove and ‘become’ any person that you wanted to be.

  Retina identification had become more prevalent in recent times, but these SymNodes seemed to be using a completely different type of technology. They had now managed to link it with DNA. If that’s what these things were, you could literally become any person that you wanted to be in terms of gaining access to a building or prohibited area.

  Kate was demonstrating the damage that could be done when technology like this falls into the wrong hands. Simon thought about Kate again. He was massively conflicted. He and Kate had been teamed up many years ago on what was his first ever encounter with The Global Consortium. T
hey’d been in the military at the time, both fairly raw recruits, but eagerly volunteering to take part in some essential trials. They’d bonded well as a team, but after the events surrounding the accident, it had been quite clear that they were not to meet again. He’d thought about her often since then and wondered what had happened to her after that terrible day.

  He’d gone on to be groomed for The Global Consortium, where he’d worked ever since. He was never quite sure who he was working for or what his work was in aid of, but he knew it to be linked to the Government and the military in some way. The generous pay cheques came in every month, he was constantly given interesting work, he was happy with his lot. Until he’d killed the child.

  Kate had not recognized him in the bunker, but he knew her to be a good woman, honest and with integrity. As he made his way to the Operations Centre in order to obtain the encrypted data from Doctor Pierce’s secure message, Simon thought carefully about his strategy in these events.

  He needed to stop Kate and save her from whatever – or whoever – was making her behave in this way, but he was not going to let her die. He understood enough about The Global Consortium to know that this was what it had all been about all along.

  The current events in the Quadrants were what the training, subterfuge and covert operations had been about for all of these years. He’d always been on the edges, never part of the inner circle. Now he was right in the middle of it and having dedicated so many years of his life to this project, he was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  Simon was easily able to access the Operations Centre where earlier Dan had received the encrypted messages from Doctor Pierce. The bunker was a big place, and Kate was preoccupied with her new Trooper army. It would not be long before all four levels of Quadrant 1 were fully manned and properly guarded. Using the SymNode glove device, Simon was able to access the console that Dan had used earlier.