by Nick Cook
‘Yes, by an extremely ancient race called the Angelus. They’re no longer around, but Sentinel was their AI creation. He pulled the trigger that resulted in some of the psychic powers that you have just seen.’
‘And you’re seriously telling us we have those sorts of powers too?’ Jeanne asked.
I hooked my hands onto my jean pockets. ‘Yes, I am.’
Everybody started to talk at once, all desperate to know what this meant for them. It was routine when we got to this part of the talk.
I gestured at Sentinel. ‘If you could field all the questions, Sentinel, I need to check in with Melissa to see how she’s getting on with tracking Carl down.’
The recruits instantly crowded the AI’s monitor and began firing dozens of questions at him as I crossed to the reclining chair next to Melissa.
I lay down, slipped the headset on and jacked into Ember. As the headset’s sensors synced with my brain, I felt a tingle through my mind like gentle static and the familiar HUD swam into view over the room. Blue markers hovered over each of the recruits, indicating the activated Awoken gene within them. No surprises there.
I took a breath to centre myself for the coming head rush. ‘Sentinel, transport me to Melissa’s current location,’ I said into the headset’s mic.
‘At once,’ replied a part of Sentinel’s conscience – the section that wasn’t dealing with the recruits’ non-stop questions.
The view of the tower snapped away like someone had yanked me out of there. In a dizzying ascent, I rushed up into the sky and headed west. Within moments, England was skimming below me and then I was past it – out over the Atlantic and racing towards the east coast of North America as day became night. In less than a minute I was beginning to plummet down towards a cloud-covered New York and then I was homing in on a skyscraper that reflected the night cityscape in its windows. Even though my conscious mind knew it would be OK, my stomach instinctively knotted itself into a ball as I braced to smash into a window near the top of the building. But it didn’t happen – I passed through the glass unharmed and a virtual me was now standing next to Melissa’s virtual self in a high-rise apartment.
My shoulders dropped as I breathed a steadying breath and took in the older woman before us. Unlike my and Melissa’s avatars, this was a real woman pacing the apartment, her mouth in a tight line, tears beading her eyes. Fortunately, she couldn’t see us.
Melissa turned to me, her eyes filled with a question mark. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘I thought I’d better just check in. I’m concerned we haven’t heard back from Carl. Any news about him yet?’
‘Nothing so far. I’m worried too – I learnt that Carl was definitely all set to join us, even though his mother here wasn’t too keen.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Good question, as he now seems to have completely disappeared.’ Melissa gestured towards Carl’s mother who was now fumbling for a cigarette. ‘She’s frantic and has already been in touch with the police. They seem to have had some sort of argument before Carl stormed off.’
‘How bad an argument?’
‘Here, let me show you.’ Melissa gazed off into empty air. ‘Sentinel, please reset sim time to twenty-four hours previous to real time.’
At once everything reversed at high speed, including the dance of shadows across the apartment as night became the previous day.
I followed Melissa’s avatar and walked ghost-like through a wall into an adjacent bedroom. Carl was there – I recognised him from our previous encounter during my first ever Summoning – holding a paintbrush over a canvas with a crude outline of Alderney on it. No doubt that had everything to do with the suggestion I’d planted deep in his brain to help persuade Carl to join us.
As we viewed the replay, Carl’s mother stormed into the room and began to wave her arms around at Carl, who whirled round to confront her. We watched the argument play out in silence. This was how it always worked in the Ember sim view. Unless there was an active mic in the room for Sentinel to hack into, there was no soundtrack to listen to.
Carl pushed past his mum and headed out of the apartment.
‘Let’s just see where he goes to,’ I said.
Melissa’s forehead crumpled. ‘I’ve already run the available data through the sim – all the way to Times Square. He was drawing some people outside a cafe, when it seems he was freaked out by something. The next thing he was heading off down 43rd Street.’
‘Where to exactly?’ I asked.
‘That’s the crazy thing, Jake. Every single camera within a ten-block radius from Times Square went offline for about thirty minutes. Because of that, we lost Sentinel’s ability to simulate Carl’s movements from that point onwards. When the cameras did eventually come back online, there was no sign of Carl anywhere.’
‘But he can’t just have disappeared off the face of the planet. New York has millions of surveillance cameras, none of which are usually out of reach for Sentinel. One of them must have spotted him when they came back online.’
‘But they haven’t so far.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Me neither, so I’m going to ask Sentinel to trawl through every camera of every type, from webcams to phones if he has to, to try to pick up Carl’s movements after he left Times Square.’
‘That’s a lot of data to go through,’ I replied.
‘If anyone can do it, it’s Sentinel.’
‘True. OK, keep me posted and let me know the moment you have anything,’ I replied.
Melissa’s avatar brushed her long blonde hair back over her ears. ‘Of course.’
I took in my HUD’s clock. ‘I’d better get back for the test run.’
Melissa’s expression widened. ‘Hey, I’d forgotten that was tonight. Exciting times, but make sure you save some food for me.’
‘You don’t need to worry – those army chiefs always cook double the amount we need.’
‘Then have fun and I’ll see you later, although I’m not sure when – this is going to take a while.’
‘Good luck.’
‘I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for the test run,’ Melissa replied.
‘We all will. See you soon.’
She nodded and smiled at me.
With a mental push I raced out of apartment and then hurtled back up into the sky like a regular Iron Man minus the jet boots and metal suit. A moment later I opened my eyes to see the new recruits clustered around my seat. They were peering at me as though I were some sort of lab rat.
I pulled away my headset and waved at them to back off. ‘Give a man some space.’
‘As you can see, Jake has just returned from an Ember simulation run,’ Sentinel said, no doubt completing the commentary he’d been giving them while I’d been with Melissa.
Jess frowned at me. ‘So were you really in my home city, New York, just now?
‘Yep. Well, at least my consciousness was. As I’m sure Sentinel has told you by now, we can use Ember to project our consciousness to any point on this planet. And with training, if you decide to join us that is, you’ll have access to this technology too. But be warned: if anything is going to change your outlook on the world for ever, it’s using this bit of kit.’
‘I think we’re already there,’ Adam said as he dragged his fingers back in his blond hair. ‘An alien AI’s supercomputers, not to mention all the psychic powers we’ve witnessed, have already pretty much sealed the deal.’
‘Good to hear,’ I replied as I smiled.
A warbling tone came from one of Sentinel’s numerous smart speakers dotted around the room – made super-smart because he powered them.
‘If any of you are still unconvinced, then maybe this next demonstration will help make your mind up,’ Sentinel said. ‘Ethan, one of our Awoken team leaders, is about to return from Oxford.’
‘What’s unusual about that?’ Jeanne asked.
‘Because of the way that he is about to retu
rn,’ I said. ‘Sentinel, can you confirm we have permission from Captain Ericsson for Ethan’s return? I don’t want to go upsetting the government with an unauthorised jump.’
‘Already sorted out. The forms have been filled out in triplicate by Melissa,’ Sentinel replied.
I glanced across at Melissa’s body, completely still on her seat aside from a brief eye twitch. ‘I’ll make sure I thank her later.’
‘You should – she was very patient with Captain Ericsson.’
‘The hoops that man makes us jump through…’ I shook my head as I walked over to an X marked on the floor, which was surrounded by a white circle.
I pointed down. ‘Please step back as far as possible from this circle, otherwise it will all get very messy in here.’
Our show and tell was definitely having the desired effect – every recruit backed away from the marker.
Sentinel gazed down at us. ‘Ethan is about to jump in three, two, one…’
A burst of wild wind briefly squalled through the room. Then a bright light pulsed in the middle of the tower, hovering directly over the X. The light condensed into the form of a man with a phone clutched in his hand and a moment later Ethan stood where there’d been only empty air before.
Ethan did a three-sixty turn to take in the recruits all gawping at him. Then he spread his hands wide and bowed. ‘Hi, everyone, I’m Ethan. It’s good to meet you all.’
Jess stepped forward, her lips trembling a fraction. ‘That was quite the entrance, Ethan. I’m guessing that wasn’t a magic trick either.’
‘Nope, the real deal –’ his eyes strayed to her name badge – ‘Jess. A second ago I was in the Culham Fusion Centre just outside Oxford, where I was working alongside Jake’s dad, Professor Martin Stevens, on a new bit of kit we’ve been developing.’
‘Are you trying to tell us that you teleported here?’ Yu Yan asked.
‘Yep, the whole Star Trek routine, but with just the power of my mind.’ Ethan showed her his phone with a photo of the X on the floor of the mezzanine. ‘Chloe discovered an Awoken could jump like this when she did it by accident during a mission. After that, and with a lot of trials and errors, we discovered that any Awoken could teleport with sufficient training and with a picture of the target site to concentrate on. Cool, huh?’
Yu Yan gave him a slow wide-eyed nod.
If it was humanly possible, everybody was looking even more freaked out now. I had more than a little sympathy for them – I’d been in a similar position myself when Sentinel had first unleashed his unique brand of scientific voodoo on my body and triggered my own Awoken gene.
‘I know how much all of this is to take in, but trust me it gets easier, especially if you can keep an open mind,’ Ethan said. ‘Anyway, I come bearing great news, Jake. Martin and Claire are just about ready to test-run the prototype mini-fusion reactor.’
‘And they’re confident it’s going to work?’ I replied.
‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
I turned back to the new recruits. ‘You’ve probably seen enough to make your skulls burst and have a million more questions you need to ask, but we have one more thing for you to see tonight before we can talk properly. So let’s get down to one of the mess tents. While you eat, you’ll see the first test run of a new fusion reactor that’s key to our future plans. After that, each of you will be assigned a mentor, who will be able to talk to you one-to-one. Tomorrow you’ll be given a basic test to determine your ability. Then, when you have all the information, you’ll be in a position to decide whether you’re going to stay or go. I hope with all my heart that you choose to be part of this.’
I headed towards the stairs as all the recruits just gawped at me.
Chapter Four
I sat with Ethan, Chloe and Gem at the head of one of the benches just beneath a large screen in one of our thirty mess tents. The screens that had been erected in each tent meant everyone could watch a live feed of the first run of the mini-fusion reactor. And this was big deal – a very big deal for the future of our planet.
John, George’s dad and the local doctor, was eating with us too. He’d volunteered his services to the encampment, even though there wasn’t exactly a lot for him to do considering the self-healing abilities of the Awoken, not to mention Gem’s healers. I had a strong suspicion the real reason he’d volunteered was so that he could keep a close eye on George – and as George was so young, I couldn’t blame him for that.
Around us, a thousand other Awoken chatted and swapped stories about their days.
The new recruits sat together in a little huddle in the middle of all these people, looking as though someone had turned their worlds upside down. Not surprising when that was exactly what we’d done.
Daniel had volunteered to take care of the group until they’d been handed over to their individual mentors. I hoped that being among other Awoken would show them that whatever else was going on here, we were basically all good people doing something that they might want to seriously consider joining. Who wouldn’t to save the world? However, the hard part would come when they learnt that they were being asked to volunteer to be psychic soldiers – fighting an enemy straight out of a nightmare. No one would blame any of them for turning their backs on this when they heard they would be putting their lives on the line to defend the planet. Not everyone was cut out to be a soldier.
Across the table from me, Ethan finished his third chicken kebab – although I’d spotted him slipping at least one to Domino, the dog now resting his head on Ethan’s lap under the table.
Ethan drummed the edge of the table with his empty skewer. ‘Looks as if Martin is on track for the test run – it should be any moment now.’
John gestured at the screen. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing this mini-fusion reactor up and running. This will be a serious scientific breakthrough if he pulls it off.’
‘Oh, he will, thanks to Sentinel’s involvement,’ Chloe replied.
‘And Martin and Claire have been working flat out on it. After all, the whole network of Waveriders depends on it,’ Ethan said.
‘Here’s hoping,’ I replied.
I glanced up at the TV. It was showing a live feed from a large industrial-looking chamber filled with pipework. Within it, a metal doughnut-shaped device about three metres wide was mounted on a concrete block. Dad and Claire sat in the foreground of the structure inside a glass-windowed control room. They’d been in there working for the last twenty minutes.
I felt a slight feeling of static wash over my skin. When I glanced down, my kebab was gone and Ethan was licking his fingers.
‘Hey, Ethan!’
‘What do you mean, “Hey, Ethan!”?’
Gem peered across the table at me. ‘Jake?’
‘One of my kebabs just vanished and I’m joining the dots here.’
‘Ethan didn’t so much as move a finger if that’s what you mean,’ Chloe said.
I realised she was right. There was no way Ethan could have grabbed and eaten it in the brief moment I’d looked away.
‘Sorry, Ethan.’
‘No problemo.’ He grinned at me.
I cast a suspicious look at Domino. The dog just wagged his tail at me.
‘You probably ate it without realising with all the stuff that’s going on in your head,’ Chloe said.
‘Yeah, probably…’ Feeling mystified, I returned my attention to the screen.
Dad looked up from a monitor and gave a thumbs up. ‘OK, everyone, let’s get the containment doors closed,’ he said. I knew that everyone across the encampment would be listening to this, his voice relayed to every person via their eBuds.
The mess tent – no doubt all the mess tents – fell silent and everyone looked towards the screen. The new recruits leant in towards Daniel as he started to explain why this was such a big deal.
On the screen, a vast orange door, as high as a four-storey house, began to slide across to cut off the view of the torus-shaped fusion reac
tor. But a video feed in the control was showing a live view of the now enclosed reactor. On another screen, one of Sentinel’s micro-mind avatars, which allowed him to be in multiple places at once, gazed out at Dad and Claire.
‘All systems check out within safety parameters,’ Sentinel’s micro mind said to them. ‘It is safe to proceed.’
‘Then let’s do this,’ Claire replied. She punched in a series of numbers on a numeric pad and lines of graphs immediately began to climb upwards.
‘The fusion chamber temperature is at fifteen million degrees Celsius,’ Sentinel said. ‘Sixty million Celsius…and we now have twenty million Celsius. Target temperature has been achieved and is stable.’
Ethan punched the air. ‘Come on, you can do it, my beauty.’
‘Turning on turbine generators now,’ Claire said over the live feed.
Dad interlocked his hands round the back of his neck as every graph rose to the top of its displays before levelling out. Then he punched the air. ‘I can confirm we have stable energy production at one thousand megawatts.’
The tent exploded with cheers and whoops – a sound I could hear echoing across the encampment from the other mess tents.
Chloe did a little impromptu dance with Ethan spinning around with her, wide grins on both their faces.
I caught Gem giving me an uncertain look.
Oh, stuff it, I thought. This was a moment to celebrate. I crossed over to Gem and gave her a hug. ‘They did it – they really did it, Gem.’
‘And now we can beat the Shade once and for all,’ she replied, not trying to pull away.
I gazed up at the screen. Dad and Claire were being back-slapped by people in lab coats who’d crowded into the control room. A bottle of champagne was thrust into Dad’s hand.
I allowed myself to soak in Gem’s warmth. And for a moment I let myself pretend that the fate of the Earth wasn’t hanging in the balance and we could just be an ordinary couple.
Then the world came rushing back in as Sentinel’s voice came through my eBud. ‘Jake, we may have a problem. I need you in the tower immediately.’