by Nick Cook
Chloe groaned as the screen cut back to the studio. ‘They have no idea what they’re up against.’
‘How could they?’ I replied.
I felt my blood heat up as the channel repeated an interview with one of the idiots they’d managed to get into the studio.
‘I have Father Russell in the studio, the self-proclaimed leader of the EWPs – the End of World Pilgrims,’ the male newsreader said. ‘Father Russell, you are on record as encouraging people to welcome the arrival of the Shade rather than fear them. Would you to care to explain to our viewers what you mean?’
‘This bloody guy again,’ Chloe hissed.
‘Yes. It is my divine duty to spread the word because the day of judgement is almost upon us. The Shade are the angels of God who have come to judge us all. This is the End of Days where the worthy will ascend to heaven…’
I growled and turned away from the screen. ‘I would like to seriously throttle that priest for spouting crap like this. The angels of God – I mean, come on already.’
‘At least he’s a lone voice in the church leadership right now, although loads of people seem to be following him on what’s left of social media.’
‘I sometimes wonder about the human race.’
‘Me too,’ Chloe replied.
General Hammond pushed through the crowded production floor towards us. ‘I need you both to come and join Martin and me. It looks as if we’ve hit another problem and we need your help to sort it out.’
‘What sort of problem?’ I asked as we followed him back into the lab.
‘You’ll find out in a moment,’ Hammond replied as he ushered us into the Portakabin.
Dad was sitting at a bench, staring at a pile of charts. ‘Good, you’re here. I’m hoping that you guys may be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat for us. Otherwise, it looks as if we simply aren’t going to get every Waverider out there in time.’
‘But why?’ I asked.
‘Because we’re also having to repair the flight systems damaged by that bloody worm virus, so we’re down on the number of aircraft that we can use – and we’re already very thinly stretched. We’ve even been raiding flight museums for aircraft to help us – that’s how desperate we are.’
‘How far short are we talking?’ I asked.
‘At the last count, it was about twelve American cities that we can’t get to in time, from Dallas to Michigan,’ Hammond replied. ‘To complicate matters, all those cities are already swollen with evacuees. So we were wondering…’ He narrowed his gaze on us.
‘If we could try to teleport the Waveriders directly there?’ I asked.
‘Absolutely right,’ Dad replied. ‘Guys, you’re those cities’ only hope now.’
‘But you know how risky that is,’ Chloe said. ‘Ethan managed to pull it off with his team during that one emergency jump to Eaglehurst, but that almost went very badly wrong. And don’t forget my team suffered a lot of injuries when we jumped that Chinook to London.’
‘But they all survived, Chloe,’ I said. ‘And those were the first attempts to jump anything that big. At least we know it can work. With some more practice, maybe we could nail it. Then, even if it is as risky as hell, we have to try. All those lives are at stake.’
Chloe held my gaze and then slowly nodded. ‘You really do have all the right answers, Jake.’
‘You think?’
‘Yeah, I do, actually.’
I gave her a faint smile, appreciating her vote of confidence.
‘Excellent, so how would you like to proceed?’ General Hammond asked.
‘First, we need to get the remaining Awoken squads together to practise teleporting empty containers,’ I said.
Chloe nodded. ‘And to do that we’ll need a wide open space without anyone else around – in case it goes wrong.’
Hammond slowly smiled. ‘I think I know just the place.’
Chloe, Hammond and I were being driven in a military Land Rover by Williams. Through the windows, I watched the gentle wind turn the endless grasslands of Salisbury Plain into a rippling green ocean, a few house martins skimming over it, chasing down insects. It seemed a million miles from the Shadowlands-induced darkness that was about to fall. Unfortunately, it was nothing like that far away.
With a squeal of brakes, we stopped next to an orange crate that had been left in the middle of the wide open plain. Already there waiting for us was Susan, one of the original members of Ethan’s Awoken team, who’d teleported the crate back at Eaglehurst. With her was Gary, from Chloe’s Tiger squad, who’d helped successfully jump the Chinook. Each of them were studying a photograph in their hands.
As we got out of the vehicle, a waiting soldier handed Chloe and me a photo each. The pictures were the same: a gently rising hill with a huge X spray-painted on the grass in white paint.
‘That’s your designated jump target location,’ Hammond said, looking over our shoulders at the photo.
‘Got it,’ I said, then turned to the others. ‘OK, make sure you lock that image into your memory, everyone. We don’t want any mistakes with this jump and we don’t have time for broken bones to heal.’
Chloe gestured towards Susan. ‘Have you got any tips from the first jump you did with the container?’
‘Sure,’ Susan replied with a twang of a Birmingham accent. ‘Before Ethan got us to attempt the jump, he realised the biggest challenge would be keeping our jumps synchronised. He figured that if any one of us teleported too late, there was a good chance the container would be ripped apart.’
‘Which would be bad,’ I said.
‘Very bad,’ Susan replied. ‘As you know, we didn’t have much time to put a plan together for the jump to Eaglehurst, but it was Ethan who hit on the idea that each of us should keep an eye on the person next to them during the jump. That way, we could each make sure we timed our own jump as closely as possible to our neighbour’s. Simple, but it worked.’
‘Almost worked,’ I replied with a small smile. ‘Don’t forget you did materialise three metres above the ground.’
‘Just like my team did beside the Millennium Dome with the Chinook,’ Chloe said.
‘But don’t forget you were both attempting to do that in a rush,’ Gary said. ‘With a bit more time spent visualising the target, we should be able to increase accuracy – and these photos will hopefully only help that.’
‘I like your positive thinking,’ Chloe said.
General Hammond looked between all of us. ‘Then if you’re ready, would you like to proceed?’
‘The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned,’ I replied. ‘We’ve only got two hours to get the rest of the designated teams trained up – if this works.’
‘Then let’s make it happen,’ Chloe said.
General Hammond pointed to the orange crate. ‘This has been loaded up with concrete blocks rather than risk an actual Waverider machine.’
Susan cast him a sideways glance. ‘And what about us?’
‘I really would appreciate it if you didn’t kill yourselves. Talking of which, I’m not exactly happy that you didn’t volunteer others to do this instead of you, Jake and Chloe.’
I shook my head. ‘I need to know that this works before allowing any Awoken to bet their lives on it.’
‘The same goes for me,’ Chloe said.
‘I see, so you are leading by example,’ Hammond replied.
‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘And Gary and Susan here did actually volunteer to try it again. That takes serious courage in my book.’
‘As an army man, I approve, but on a personal note, please be careful,’ Hammond said.
‘Oh, we intend to be,’ Chloe said as the four of us took up our positions in each of the corners of the crate.
‘You’d better take the lead as you’re the most experienced at doing this, Susan,’ I said.
‘OK, but that’s not exactly saying a lot.’ Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath. ‘Right, everyone, I need you to keep
utterly focused and visualise us successfully completing the jump until it feels as if it’s already happened. Think of it as memory muscle training.’
Chloe, Gary and I fell silent.
The paintwork of the orange container felt rough under my hand as the gentle wind murmured around us. But I ignored all the sensations around me and concentrated on the mental image of the photograph, making the X as sharp as I could until I could almost smell the grass on the hillside.
Susan started to speak softly. ‘Now look left to your neighbour.’
I gazed along the crate towards the side of Chloe’s head. Her eyes were already on Gary, and Gary, in turn, would be looking at Susan – who would be looking at the back of my head. Our circle of concentration was complete.
General Hammond stood a short way off. Beside him, Williams had raised a radio to his mouth.
‘Light the signal flares,’ he said into the radio.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a burst of red smoke rising into the sky, at least four miles away, I reckoned.
This was it. No turning back.
I breathed in through my nose and out through the mouth, circling my breath. If only Sentinel were here to whisper some encouragement to us, but no – that was my job now.
‘We’ve got this, everyone,’ I said. ‘Keep your attention completely focused and don’t let your mind wander by even a fraction. Just keep looking at the person to your left and feel the metal of the container beneath your hands. On the count of three, when I say jump, we go together. Does everybody understand?’
‘Yes,’ came the calls back from Chloe, Susan and Gary.
‘Then let’s do this. Three, two, one, jump!’
As I pressed my hands onto the container, it began to flare with white light, and ahead the same was happening for Chloe. The container began to shimmer, its solid metal surface rippling and growing transparent as the smell of ozone filled my nose.
I felt a tug from the centre of my gut and Hammond and Williams vanished in a burst of light. For the longest moment, the world remained white, somewhere outside our reality maybe, and then the light faded away as red smoke billowed around us, making my eyes sting. With the slightest jerk, the container settled on the hillside.
Chloe stepped back from the container and stared over at me, wide-eyed. ‘Smooth!’ she said, heading towards me and raising her hand for a high five. Whoops came from Susan and Gary on the other side of the container as a solider ran towards us smiling, a radio in his hand.
‘So that settles it; we can really do this,’ I said. ‘We owe a debt of gratitude to Ethan’s craziness.’ I placed my hands on Chloe’s shoulders and tears instantly filled her eyes.
‘And we always will…’ she said.
The horizon of Salisbury Plain was lit up with dozens of red smoke plumes. So far, two hundred successful jumps had been made, all without a single problem.
‘This is going way better than I could have ever hoped for,’ Chloe said.
‘I’m certainly very impressed,’ General Hammond agreed.
‘Impressed is good, but this has to work. The future of all those cities is on the line,’ I said.
We watched Jason gather his most able jumpers, and I jolted when I spotted Jess among them. ‘How come Jess is on the jump team?’ I asked Chloe. ‘She’s got next to no experience.’
‘Ah, but you haven’t been keeping up to speed with her training,’ Chloe replied. ‘It turns out that Jess is quite the natural. She’s scored max points at teleporting – higher than many of the Awoken team leaders. She was the natural choice to include in Jason’s group after she was transferred from Mongoose.’
‘That’s quite some going when you consider the short time she’s been with us.’
‘And talk about being dropped in the deep end,’ Chloe replied. ‘A word of encouragement from you wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘Sure.’ I headed over to Jess. ‘So I hear you’re going to be on the next jump team.’
‘That will teach me for acing my training,’ she replied with a smile.
‘You know you don’t have to do this? We can always find someone else if you don’t think you’re ready.’
‘Oh, I’m more than ready. I’m happy to do this. After all, my country is on the front line of this invasion and that sucks. So yes, I’m stepping up the plate and giving this all I’ve got.’
‘Thank you, Jess.’
She hooked her hands in the corners of her jean pockets. ‘For what?’
‘For staying.’
‘You’re talking about the old selfish me. That version of Jess is so history.’
I smiled at her. ‘Then good luck – not that I think you’ll need it.’
Jess snapped me a salute and grinned. She returned her attention to Jason as he called out instructions.
I rejoined Chloe and Hammond. The general was talking into his radio, a hint of a smile on his face for the first time in days.
‘That’s excellent news,’ he said as he clicked the radio off.
‘Sounds positive for a change,’ I said.
Chloe beamed at me. ‘It really is, Jake. The first six teams have successfully teleported their Waveriders to frontline cities and all of them are now online, including Chicago.’
Hammond nodded. ‘If everything continues like this, then according to the revised projections, we can pretty much guarantee that every remaining major city will have received its Waverider before the Shadowlands hits them.’
‘That really is great news,’ I replied, a huge weight lifting from me.
‘Absolutely,’ Hammond replied with an even wider smile.
A flash of light came from behind us and we turned to see Jess and her team teleporting away with their container. Pride swelled though me. I would make sure I hunted Jess down tonight for a celebration drink.
A distant bang reached us. Everyone looked towards the horizon, where red plumes billowed up into the sky for multiple jump point locations.
A sense of foreboding filled me as Hammond’s radio squawked.
He hit the mic button. ‘Go ahead.’
‘There’s been an accident with the last jump team,’ we heard the guy at the other end say. ‘They materialised, but one of them was slightly out of sync and their container detonated. One of them was killed by a piece of shrapnel.’
My eyes locked on to Hammond’s, not wanting to know the answer, but needing to nonetheless. ‘Who?’
Hammond repeated the question into his radio.
‘Jess Walters,’ the man at the other end replied.
‘No!’ Chloe shouted as she dropped her head into her hands.
Two numb for any more tears, I just stared at Hammond. ‘I should have stopped her. She was too inexperienced.’
‘It was her choice, Jake,’ he replied gently.
‘But I should—’
Chloe whirled round to glare at me. ‘Jake, will you stop with this beating-yourself-up routine? You didn’t make Jess do anything. She tried, gave it her best shot, but it went wrong. It was an accident, an awful bloody accident, end of.’
‘I know, but it’s another death on my watch, Chloe,’ I replied.
She opened her mouth, but Hammond shook his head, and Chloe kept whatever she was about to say inside.
My eyes turned towards the red smoke plumes. Out there, Jess’s team would be grieving for her – another life sacrificed in this desperate scramble to save humanity. And whatever anyone else said, I had her blood on my hands.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A few weeks later, Chloe, General Hammond and I were sitting once again in the underground Cobra meeting room. Round the table sat Prime Minister Carter, his cabinet members and a number of senior civil servants, all waiting to hear our progress update.
Each and every one of us in that room looked shattered. It was hardly surprising, given that everyone had been running on adrenaline for weeks now. To add to the continuing sense of urgency, all the screens in the room were filled with e
ither video feeds from the news stations about the panic of the mass evacuations or military satellite feeds of the cities closest to the expanding frontline of the Shadowlands. The live feed from GCHQ had become compulsive viewing – we’d watched Waverider protected cities being enveloped by the Shadowlands one by one since our container teleport training day.
‘How much longer does this country have left before the Shadowlands fog bank reaches London?’ Prime Minster Carter asked.
‘Just over twenty-two hours, PM,’ Litchford replied.
Chloe traded a worried frown with me. So little time left before it was our country’s turn to face the darkness.
‘What about the refugee situation?’ Carter asked one of his senior civil servants.
‘All available office space has been turned over to accommodation,’ the woman replied. ‘Despite that, the current estimates are that we need two million additional beds. And that’s just London – every city across this country is facing similar challenges.’
Chloe raised a hand. ‘Could I say something?’
Carter nodded. ‘You’re part of the inner sanctum now, so please go ahead, Chloe.’
‘You should make an appeal directly to families in London, asking them to put people up. I bet there’s a couple of million spare bedrooms in the capital alone.’
The PM shut his eyes and then opened them again, a tired smile on this face. ‘Simple but effective. One of us should have already thought of that, but the problem is that everyone is so exhausted.’
‘That’s not surprising when we’ve been effectively preparing the country for an enemy invasion,’ General Hammond said.
‘Talking of which, how has the roll-out of Waveriders been going, General?’ Carter asked.
‘All cities throughout Europe are now fully protected and the factories are completing the final L2 and L3 Waveriders. After that, efforts will switch to the production of mini-fusion reactors to supply the remaining larger cities with additional power after the Fall.’
The PM grimaced. ‘I’ll never like that phrase being used for the Shadowlands hitting.’