by Nick Cook
Hammond blinked and looked away at the frigate. His shoulders slumped. ‘We honestly believed the soldiers armed with the Voletars would be more than able to hold their own against the Shade agents.’
Chloe shook her head. ‘And you see where that attitude got you. It was an unnecessary risk and you know it.’
Even Williams gave his employer a sideways glance.
Hammond held his hands up. ‘Look, however good a plan is, the first thing you learn at military academy is that it starts to fall apart at first contact with the enemy. So with hindsight, yes, I realise that maybe there was room for a more measured approach. However, that’s also why I’m here. In my briefcase are the plans for all future operations. We also discovered a strange cuboid device in the boot of one of the burnt-out vehicles. Our scientists have exposed it to every known test and have declared it safe, but they have no idea what it actually does. We thought Sentinel might be able to analyse it and give us some clues.’
Chloe gave me a meaningful look as my mind buzzed. Had there been two Lodestones at the manor?
‘From now on, I promise you we will work together,’ Hammond continued. ‘How does that sound?’
But as he passed me the heavy metal case, Melissa’s face filled my mind. This was all too late for her. A hard ball of anger grew in my chest as I took the briefcase.
‘Too little, too late, Hammond. Plus I’ve had almost as much as I can take with all the needless bureaucracy Captain Jacobs gives us here. If it was just down to me I’d tell you to get lost and leave us to fight the real battle with the Shade without you.’
Chloe stared at me. ‘You don’t mean that, Jake.’
I glowered at her. ‘Maybe I’m thinking clearly for the first time, Chloe. We’re the only ones who can stop the Shade. And all Hammond and his kind have done is get in our way. So I say let them play their war games while we get on with the real work of defeating the Shade once and for all.’
Hammond shook his head at me. ‘We’re heading off now – before you say something you seriously regret.’
‘Yeah, you do that,’ I replied.
Hammond gave a nod to Williams, and the two of them started back towards the helicopter, leaving the crate on its trolley.
‘Jake, this isn’t like you,’ Chloe said as we watched them go.
‘Maybe it isn’t, but perhaps this is the way it needs to be from now on. Everything has been back to front with the government trying to control us. Have you ever thought that maybe it should be the other way round?’
‘No, I haven’t actually.’ She half raised a hand towards me before letting it fall back again, a worried, maybe even disappointed expression on her face.
Unable to cope with seeing that in my best friend’s eyes, I turned away and headed for the house.
Chapter Nine
Inside Kelly’s old art studio, long ago converted into a makeshift lab, the retrieved Lodestone sat on the metal bench. A lattice of green laser dots danced over it – yet another scan in a battery of tests that Sentinel had been applying to the Shade tech. I’d been hiding out here for most of the afternoon, glad to have an excuse to escape the disappointed looks from Chloe and Ethan. She’d obviously spoken to him about what had happened with Hammond and I didn’t have the energy to defend myself to either of them.
My feelings of guilt about Melissa hadn’t been helped by the fact that Daniel still hadn’t reappeared. The sole comfort was knowing that the only practical way for him to get off the island was the ferry. And I’d already checked with Captain Ericsson, who’d confirmed that Daniel hadn’t been seen on it. Of course Ericsson had grabbed the opportunity to lay into me, and I’d only just managed to keep my anger in check. I vowed I’d sling him and his soldiers off Alderney as soon as I caught my breath.
The laser grid blinked off. ‘How’s the analysis going, Sentinel?’ I asked.
‘Very, very slowly. I’m having to tread carefully and only use passive scanning techniques,’ his voice replied from a speaker.
‘Why’s that?’
‘If I try a more active analysis – by, say, drilling into the device to gain access to its inner workings – then we’d almost certainly be in for a nasty surprise. The Shade are renowned for booby-trapping their devices.’
I stared at the speaker. ‘And now you tell me! If that’s the case, shouldn’t you be analysing this somewhere further away from the house and other people?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not taking any chances, hence my passive sensor approach. Using laser scans combined with acoustic resonance tests, I’ve detected a network of fine filament channels just beneath the surface of the Lodestone, which appear to make up patterns of Shade runic symbols. My guess is that these symbols, when activated in the correct sequence, will allow us to gain access to the cube’s controls. And once we have that, I can begin to infiltrate their communication network. However, if we get the sequence wrong, it will almost certainly initiate a self-destruct.’
‘So we get one shot at this?’
‘That’s right, Jake. So until we are sure of the runic key, the Lodestone will be useless to us. I would normally run a sim on Ember to dial time back to the moment when Johnson entered the sequence on the Lodestone to activate it. Unfortunately, the Shade made sure that the manor was completely free of all electronic devices at that time, which means I have no way to reconstruct their actions within Ember. What we really need is a real-life time machine…’ His words trailed away, a trait Sentinel wasn’t known for.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked.
‘We have someone with exactly that ability already here.’
‘Are you talking about Ethan?’ Back in London Ethan saw ghosts under Tower Bridge – which turned out to be a replay of an event that happened a long time ago.
‘Precisely. Ethan’s time-manipulation gift…’
‘What do you mean “time manipulation”?’
Sentinel coughed – another thing he’d never done in all the time I’d known him. ‘Sorry, I meant his ability to pick up memory imprints around certain locations,’ the AI continued, his tone measured as if he were reading from a script.
If I didn’t know better I would have said he was being evasive. ‘So maybe we could head back to the manor and see if Ethan can observe what Johnson did before we got there?’
‘I agree – it has to worth a go. But it will be challenging for him, Jake. He’s been able to master all the usual Awoken skills easily enough, but his unique gift with time is proving trickier, although he has been making some progress recently.’
‘I didn’t know he had been practising it.’
‘Oh, he has, but he wants to perfect it before he shows anyone what he’s capable of.’
‘Still, Ethan’s got to give this a try – if he can crack it, we’ll have a major edge over the Shade.’
‘I’m certainly not going to argue with you,’ Sentinel replied.
‘Then ask Ethan and Chloe to join me in the tower and be ready to teleport out.’
‘What about clearing this with Captain Ericsson first?’
‘This isn’t a dangerous mission, more a field trip, so let’s keep him out of this. He’s given me enough grief as I can handle for the moment – but if we find out anything, then we’ll let him know and he can pass it up the chain of command.’
‘You do realise we still haven’t told anyone that we know there was another Lodestone in the manor house?’
‘Just like Hammond didn’t tell us about the government developing Voletar guns. They aren’t the only ones who can have secrets.’
‘Without giving you a lecture, Jake, we should all be working together rather than pulling apart like this? Don’t forget General Hammond tried to give you his files for future mission to make amends for what happened.’
‘Maybe he did, but it doesn’t alter the fact they still make us jump through hoops and that’s just slowing us down.’
‘I don’t necessarily agree, but I do understand the em
otions you’re going through at the moment. Anyway, I’ll go ahead and contact Chloe and Ethan about the mission. And will Gem be joining you too?’
‘No, just Chloe and Ethan will be more than enough…’
‘I see…’ Sentinel replied.
I had an uncomfortable feeling that Sentinel understood more than I wanted him to. The truth was that after Melissa’s death, Gem was the one person I was trying to avoid, because I’d been reminded yet again why I couldn’t afford to get involved with anyone. What if I opened my heart to Gem and she died too? Or vice versa and I was killed in action? Could I really do that to her?
As the white light of the teleport jump faded away, a large crater swam into view.
A smell of cinders crowded my nose and my gums tingled as static washed over my exposed skin. Despite the heat of the summer day, there was also a distinct chill at the site of the destroyed manor house.
Chloe started coughing as Ethan covered his mouth with his sleeve.
My thoughts stuttered as I took in the scar in the earth. In many ways, this place reminded me of the ruined site where St Paul’s had once stood – now a gap in the famous London skyline, like a missing front tooth in a warm smile. I’d only been back there once with the others to visit the memorial plaque erected in the place of the cathedral. It had just felt wrong – exactly like here – and testimony to what the Shade were capable of.
Two soldiers at a gateway in a temporary fence round the site raised their Voletar rifles at us. ‘Halt,’ the taller of the two men said.
Sentinel whispered in my ear. ‘I’ve just communicated with Captain Jacobs about your arrival here, who was much more positive about your intervention than General Hammond. Any moment now Jacobs should be clearing it with the soldiers here.’
A radio on one of the men’s belts beeped. The soldier unhooked it, spoke into the receiver, and then each man raised a hand in welcome. ‘You’re free to pass.’
The two soldiers, exchanging slightly confused looks, turned back to their makeshift guard post.
‘It might have been a good idea to let Hammond know that we were coming first, Jake,’ Chloe said.
‘And I keep telling you, I’m not going to keep acting like a performing puppy for him.’
Chloe rolled her eyes and shook her head at Ethan, who shrugged back at her.
Yes, they were both judging me, but I was beyond caring. They would see I was right eventually.
I dialled in some of the Light Web, a power unique to me, even with all our thousands of recruits. The world transformed itself into a glowing network of light. But when I examined the crater, my heart squeezed into a tight ball. In many ways, the destruction was even more shocking than it was in the Real.
The light energy lines that normally linked everything in the world together in the Light Web had been ripped from the circumference of the crater, like a glowing nervous system with a dirty great chunk torn from it.
Ethan shook his head as he stared of the crater. ‘I never wanted to come back here ever again.’
‘None of us did, but needs must and Jake’s idea is a good one,’ Chloe replied.
Ethan raked his hand through his hair. ‘You do know I have problem trying to get this ability to work, right?’
‘I know that, Ethan, but Sentinel told me you’ve been practising.’
Ethan’s gaze sharpened on me. ‘Oh, he did…? And what else did he say exactly?’
‘Just that you’d been making some progress.’
‘OK…’ Ethan seemed to visibly relax.
‘Anyway, as so much is riding on this working, I’m hoping that you find a way to make this work.’
‘I’ll certainly give it my best shot.’ Ethan dropped into a cross-legged position at the edge of the pit as Chloe and I watched in silence. His chest began to gently rise and fall. Then he closed his eyes.
One minute…two minutes…eventually turned to thirty. Lines creased Ethan’s forehead as he clenched his fists. An hour later, as he visibly shook, I was about to suggest we give it all up as a monumental waste of time when his face suddenly smoothed. He stood up slowly, eyes still shut tight.
‘Any joy, Ethan?’ Chloe whispered.
‘Yes, finally nailed it,’ he replied. ‘I’m starting to see glimpses of the battle we had here with the Shade.’
‘Do you mind if we take a look?’ I asked.
‘Knock yourselves out,’ Ethan said.
Normally, to share what another Awoken could see, we would have used an Ember headset. But that only worked back in the tower and when we were all plugged directly into DT3. Out in the field, there was a simpler technique, which would work just as well here.
Chloe and I gently placed our hands on Ethan’s shoulders. At once the world shimmered and the ghostly image of the manor house appeared superimposed over the scene of destruction before us.
The phantom battle raged like a bad dream as it shimmered in and out of focus. Shadow crows dived at the line of vehicles defended by the spectral versions of ourselves and the SAS soldiers.
The air snagged in my throat as Melissa and I darted from the group while Chloe and Ethan cast fireballs to clear a path for us. We were heading up the steps and into the house.
Almost in slow motion, Melissa glanced back and raised a hand towards Chloe and Ethan with a smile. Then she followed me inside. It would have been the last time they’d seen her alive… I couldn’t suppress the tremble passing through my hands.
‘Are you OK?’ Ethan asked.
I forced my hand to steady on his shoulder. ‘Yes, sorry… Well, you know…’
‘Maybe you should duck out of this and let Ethan and me continue – rather than you relive it all again,’ Chloe said.
‘No, I don’t think I could feel any more broken than I already do.’
Chloe’s mouth became a tight line but she nodded. ‘Let’s go and get that code sequence.’
‘We might have a problem there, guys,’ Ethan said. ‘We can’t see the code Johnson entered all the way from out here. I’d say we should head into the house so I can pick up the memory imprint. But…’ He gestured towards the crater where the manor house had once stood. ‘The location of the meeting room is now in mid-air over a bloody great hole.’
‘You’re missing an obvious solution here,’ I replied. ‘I can levitate with my TK ability and raise all of us to the right spot.’
‘But you’ve only ever lifted one person before – and that was Inspector Clarke in an emergency,’ Chloe replied. ‘Can you really manage more than that?’
‘Only one way to find out,’ I replied.
I concentrated on Ethan, Chloe and myself, wrapping my focus round our bodies. Then I began to mentally lift all of us. It was a relief when I discovered it was actually almost effortless – as if we weighed nothing – but I was caught out by the lack of resistance, and I overcompensated. The three of us went shooting into the sky, the soldiers gaping up as they watched us ascend.
‘Hey, not so high, Jake. We haven’t got bloody parachutes with us,’ Ethan said.
But by contrast, Chloe was grinning at me. ‘Doing my best not to whoop here. This is so cool, Jake.’
‘Well, I’ll lose my breakfast soon if you don’t lower us a bit, Jake,’ Ethan said.
‘Sorry, my bad,’ I replied. I eased off and began to gradually lower us with my mind. I’d never thought to try using my telekinetic ability on myself before, but it seemed that I was no longer restricted to flying within the Ember sim. And the implications of that were huge. Excitement surged through me as my mind hummed with all the possibilities.
I floated us down to the middle of the crater as the soldiers watched on, looking well and truly freaked out now.
‘Ethan, time to try your ability again,’ I said.
‘Got it.’ He closed his eyes and the ghostly version of the manor house appeared before us once again. I could see the internal walls like a 3D architectural plan of the building.
‘That’s perfe
ct,’ I said. ‘Just keep going and I’ll float us over to the right location.’
We drifted through the doors of the phantom building and along the corridor, following the spectral versions of Melissa and me.
I floated us through several more walls until we were hovering in the meeting room where the Shade agents were gathered. Archios’s disembodied head floated over the Lodestone.
‘So this is the right place, wrong time. We need to get back to the moment that Johnson unlocked the Lodestone,’ Chloe said.
‘You do know I haven’t been able to select a specific time before, right?’ Ethan asked.
‘Can you try trial and error until you hit upon the right moment?’ I said.
‘Worth a try I guess, just don’t expect too much.’
Ethan squeezed his eyes tighter and began turning his head left and right, nose slightly raised, reminding me of Domino smelling the air for a bacon sandwich. Then his attention snapped towards the corner of the room and I saw a ghostly family gathered around a Christmas tree.
‘Obviously this is a happier memory for this room,’ Chloe said.
‘I expect it’s the previous owners,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to think about what might have happened to them when the Shade took over this place.’
Chloe grimaced at me.
Ethan started to twitch as more ghostly figures rapidly appeared and disappeared. We seemed to be hurtling back through time. Outside, countless vehicles came and went at high speed in reverse, the cars getting older in design, including numerous old Rolls-Royces befitting a car museum. Those were soon replaced by horse-drawn carriages as the ghosts moving around us became dressed in Victorian clothes. Suddenly the house started to dissolve as the walls vanished brick by brick, and grassy fields came rolling over to where it had stood.
‘However incredible Ember is, even Sentinel can’t manage to peer back this far in time,’ Chloe said. ‘This is seriously cool, Ethan, although I think you rewound a bit too far.’