Helix Nexus

by Chris Lofts

  13

  44 Hours

  The shadowy mass of England in November 2039, if observed from space, would have looked much as it had for thousands of years. Still conjoined, topographically, if not politically to Scotland and Wales, with the reunified island of Ireland to the west. The galaxies of light mapping the presence of humanity had burned bright for the first few months of the pandemic. But then, building by building, street by street, community by community they had faded out.

  The surviving population migrated, leaving behind what became the cardinal cities, London in the south, Bristol in the west, Liverpool in the north and Hull in the east. Humanity no longer had a presence in space. The last crew of the International Space Station elected to live out their final days onboard before, one by one donning a space suit and taking a final spacewalk. If there was anyone left to observe from that lofty perch all they would have seen would be four clusters of light, each delineated by a brighter outer ring.

  The two-mile-wide outer ring of London stretched inwards from the former M25 motorway. The ring was a self-sustaining fortress constructed of glass, steel and photovoltaic panels. Inside, swarms of smart agribots managed the production, harvest and distribution of all plant food and laboratory grown animal protein. Road and pedestrian access to and from the city was via three formidable gates: Watford for the north and east, Heathrow for the west and Godstone for the south. Hyperlink transport between cardinal cities was provided between Paddington and Bristol, Kings Cross for Liverpool and Hull and St Pancras for Paris and Brussels. Travel between those domestic cities was unrestricted. International travel came with strings. Entry from anywhere else was controlled by a strictly enforced, but unnecessary, quarantine period. Everybody knew that the virus had long since been eradicated but the Gaia-sponsored rumour that it still existed outside of the cardinal cities achieved its purpose, which was to discourage immigration. It achieved this by requiring would-be immigrants to remain in expensive and overcrowded hostels for fourteen days.

  It was possible to come or go unseen as long as you had the right connections. Quartermaster Mason was not only Helix’s supplier of matériel but also his under-the-radar transport facilitator.

  It was 12:45 when Helix checked the time near to the Hounslow rendezvous point. Mace had arranged for them to stow away in a freight container on a lorry bound for Bristol. ‘Shit!’ he spat, turning to Sofi. ‘There’s another bloody police patrol.’

  ‘The only one who knows where you are is me. After your last call with Ormandy, I modified the communications stack so they can’t triangulate your position using comms.’

  Helix turned his collar up. The snow had stopped, giving way to weak sunlight that was fighting to break through the clouds. ‘OK, let’s move.’

  Sofi caught his arm.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘What?’ His brow furrowed. ‘Listen, I’d love to talk about my feelings but we need to get on that bloody truck.’

  ‘I meant physically. Any light headedness, blurred vision, muscle fatigue?’ She pulled him back into a doorway. ‘Give me your hand.’ She pushed away his right hand and pulled the glove from his left.

  ‘Jesus.’ Helix said as she bit the pad of his index finger.

  Sofi worked her jaw, looking up at him. ‘Shut up, you tart. I’m testing your blood. Bend down, I want to look into your eye.’

  ‘Can’t this wait until we’re on the truck?’ he said, unable to resist as she clamped her hands around his neck and pulled him down to her level.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  He sighed, his mouth half open, eyes wide as she clamped her hands over his ears and pressed her mouth to his. Her eyes sparkled as he stared into them as if he could see the neurons triggering electrical impulses. Her hands slipped from his neck.

  He glowered at her. ‘What the fu—’

  ‘What was the last thing you had to drink?’ she said, running her tongue over her lips.

  ‘Coffee, in St Swithin’s Lane,’ he said. ‘No. Hang on. Water at Mace’s. Why?’

  ‘Take this,’ she said, pressing a blue capsule into his hand. ‘You’ve got an infection.’

  Helix held the capsule between his fingers. ‘I’m not surprised after that,’ he said, looking at the blood on the tip of his finger.

  ‘Nanite tracers. Your gut’s full of them. The tab will kill them. They’ll dissolve and pass out through your urinary tract.’

  ‘Nice,’ he said, swallowing the capsule. ‘How long?’

  ‘It’s fast. Sixty seconds max to kill them. Drink plenty of water and they’ll find their way out.’ She grinned. ‘It’ll be like pissing shards of glass, but you’ll survive.’

  Helix opened his eyes and stared into the dark. He reassured himself by cycling the modes in his right eye. Sofi sat in the opposite corner of their shared 64 square feet, but his thermal imaging detected no heat signature. The switch to night vision rendered her pale green. Her eyes were open but unblinking as she stared into the distance.

  Her voice appeared in his ear. ‘What are you looking at?’ her virtual manifestation asked.

  ‘Nothing. Just proving to myself that I wasn’t back in Lytkin’s chamber of horrors.’ He wished the same was true for Ethan. He killed the night vision, plunging himself back into the dark. ‘Are you any closer to identifying where they might be holding him?’

  ‘Negative. It could literally be anywhere. I have facial recognition sub-routines running on the locations around where you were put into that taxi.’

  ‘Archer?’

  ‘Correct. Given that we have no idea what Ulyana Lytkin looks like, I wouldn’t know what to look for.’

  ‘What about back to her time in Ukraine, between when she was abducted and say the next 12 to 15 years?’

  ‘I can try, but the likelihood of—’

  ‘I know, I know. The likelihood of mission success, blah, blah, blah. How about some solutions instead of an endless diet of problems for a change?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Helix, but—’

  ‘Sorry? Is sorrow one of your sub-routines too? Or didn’t Ethan get around to programming you for that one?’ He refolded his jacket, shoved it back behind his head and folded his arms. ‘What’s Ormandy doing?’

  ‘Her diary shows that she is attending Parliament this afternoon for Gaia’s Health of the Nation update.’

  ‘Let me guess. Even less work for humans to do, another recommended diet and exercise regime, life expectancy up by another month to 94 years. We used to say 80-odd was a good innings.’

  ‘Innings? One of the divisions of a cricket match—’

  ‘Exactly.’ Helix shrugged. ‘Who knows, with Gaia’s grace we might all make a century,’ he said. ‘What I want to know is what happens when it realises it doesn’t need us anymore? Maybe it’ll keep a few of us alive as curiosities.’

  ‘We have recently passed close to the derelict town of Swindon,’ she reported. ‘There is no police or military activity in the area. Local militias are all stood down.’

  ‘Good. So, we’re not being tracked?’

  ‘Correct. We are approximately 45 minutes from our destination.’

  ‘You sound like a trolley dolly.’

  ‘Trolley dolly? A sometimes derogatory term used to refer to a flight attendant.’

  ‘Hmm. Also known as the tart with the cart,’ he mumbled. ‘Thank you Miss Wiki. That’s enough. I need to think.’

  When was the last time he’d been this far out of the city? The answer didn’t come but memories of what he’d seen in the pandemic’s aftermath did. Maintenance trolls kept the motorways clear now and they were welcome to the job. The dumped and depleted vehicles that littered the roads in the months and years following the pandemic had been bulldozed to the side and left to the ravages of time and nature. The one thing that had struck him was the silence outside the cardinal cities. A creeping silence that pervaded the barren towns and villages. Nature filled the vo
id. Or at the most, someone tilling a field by hand or horse, or chopping trees. Clans of kids playing in the woods, the occasional dog barking, livestock in the fields and farmyards. He relaxed into his breathing, interlacing his fingers across his stomach, drifting off with the soporific hum of the truck’s tyres over the road.

  Somewhere deep in his sleep, the air exploded thick with dust. He shook his head trying to dislodge the piercing ring from between his ears. A cloying metallic tang filled his mouth. He spat a foaming-red mouthful onto the ground beside him. Men, women and children screamed in the dust, debris and chaos. A second explosion rocked the ground, silencing them and sucking the air from his lungs. Consciousness ebbed away before returning in a maelstrom of debris that swirled in the downdraft of a helicopter’s clattering rotors. Someone was pulling at him.

  ‘Three dead, one double amp, lucky bastard, immediate medivac required,’ a voice shouted through the horror.

  He was on his side, a great weight pressing him further into the dirt and rubble, like some dark force sucking him underground. Blinking to focus, he fixed his eyes on the khaki legs and boots of two medics hefting a casualty onto a jungle-green stretcher. They stepped away. Helix stared across the gap into the dead eyes of Ethan. Adrenalin and panic flooded him. He tried to sit. A heavy hand pressed him back.

  ‘Easy fella,’ the calm voice said. ‘You’re OK. We’ll have you in the heli in a tick.’

  More legs. A second stretcher. Another body. Gabrielle? No! Her eyes opened. A tear escaped tracing a track through the dust on her cheek. ‘Helix,’ she said, her voice weak, hand reaching out. ‘Helix… Helix help me. Please…’

  He stiffened in the dark. ‘Gabrielle?’ He sucked a deep breath as Sofi’s features swam from the pale green light of his night vision. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Sofi said, sliding away to her corner of the freight container. ‘You were moaning and thrashing around.’

  He swallowed the nightmare of the mission that left him in hospital with injuries that would have ended a less tenacious man’s career. ‘I’m alright.’ He sat up, took a deep swig of water from his bottle and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  14

  42 Hours

  The lengthening late afternoon shadows painted the desolation of the deserted town of Chepstow in shades of grey. The salty wind, rolling in from the River Severn punctuated the silence. Wind-beaten cladding clattered against a looted warehouse, beating out the passage of time. Snow gathered in knee-high drifts, stained orange where it swamped the rusting skeletons of abandoned vehicles.

  Helix scanned the tyre tracks of their departed transport back towards the Severn Bridge. In the distance the pinnacle of the weathered Welsh tower stood visible just above the treeline. Mammalian footprints wove their way down the middle of the road towards the town centre. Helix pulled his hood over his head. Getting dropped on the Welsh side of the Severn had been a risk worth taking. With the weather worsening and the fading light, crossing the bridge on foot would have taken hours they didn’t have. Apart from asking, ‘Where to?’ Mace’s courier had maintained a discreet silence during the 30-minute drive from the junction of the M4 and M5 motorways on the perimeter of Bristol.

  ‘Five point three six miles as the crow flies,’ Helix said, hefting his bergen onto his shoulder.

  ‘Approximately two hours walk, depending on gradients and conditions under foot,’ Sofi offered.

  Helix looked to the west, the first flakes of resurgent snow peppering his face. ‘At least the snow will cover our tracks. Come on.’

  The final destination was vague. All he had was that it overlooked the ruins of Tintern Abbey on the eastern bank of the river Wye. ‘It’ll be dark by the time we reach the bridge in town,’ he said, setting off in the same direction as the animal tracks.

  Almost every home they passed bore the daubed signs left by the emergency services as the pandemic escalated. Gaps in the ivy-strewn walls and windows revealed the sprayed red crosses that indicated the presence of an Ebola victim or more likely the whole family. The idea had been that the emergency services or units like Helix’s would return later to bury the dead in pits dug in gardens or any available green space. That was if they returned at all. Entire streets had been ravaged by fire as civilisation and order had collapsed. Trees, nettles and the ubiquitous ivy filled the crumbling shells.

  Hardly a single pane of glass or door remained intact among looted remains of what must have once been vibrant streets, filled with small pastel-painted shops, many of which had also succumbed to the flames of panic. The steel frame of a supermarket and petrol station loomed in the last of the daylight, its few remaining red, white and blue cladding panels coated in soot, buckled by heat and wreathed in Russian vine.

  At a narrow junction, Helix paused, canted his head and listened. Snow fell steadily, cloaking the cobbles and amplifying the silence. Luminous flakes floated through his night vision. Towering to their left, the ruined ramparts of the 11th century Chepstow Castle brooded, its crumbling crenelations like a row of jagged teeth against the twilight sky. The fortifications rekindled the images of the men manacled in Ulyana Lytkin’s medieval dungeon. Closing his eyes, he searched for images of Ethan in better times: his unkempt hair, sideways grin, a joint hanging from his bottom lip. Instead, all he found was pain, chains, frustration and fear.

  His nose tingled at a faint but familiar aroma. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at Sofi. Could she smell it too? Did she possess the olfactory senses to smell anything?

  She spoke inside his head. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He dabbed his tongue on the TC switch at the base of his tooth. ‘Is it me, or can I smell weed? Until now, it’s been nothing but burned-out buildings, dead dogs and rotting vegetation.’

  She shook her head and moved back into the shadows out of sight from the road. Helix joined her. ‘There are no prints.’ Maybe he’d imagined it. He loosened his jacket, feeling the reassuring grip of his P226 resting under his arm. He sniffed the air again in the river’s direction. The familiar sweet funk had been displaced by the cloying hum of mud at low tide.

  Cycling to thermal imaging, he stole a glance down the road confirming the absence of any warm bodies. The metal railings of the bridge, now more rust than white, stretched back toward him as he made his way down the left side of the street. Step by cautious step, he planted his feet in the crumbling snow. An evergreen bush, tumbling over a low stone wall, forced him into the middle of the street, Sofi a few paces behind. Each step revealed a wider view over the river. The Regency period bridge rose towards the English bank, five cast-iron arches and 124 yards ahead over the boiling brown waters of the River Wye.

  Helix froze, his right hand held back to still Sofi. ‘There’s a bloody horse tethered to a willow tree on the right.’

  No sooner had he thought the words, the horse neighed, its bridle rattling. A movement on the bridge to the left had Helix sprinting towards it, his gun out in the open, the targeting system focused on a pile of rags stumbling to its feet.

  Dropping his fishing pole and raising his hands, the ragman shouted. ‘Who are you?’

  Helix grabbed a handful of rags at the cowering man’s throat. ‘Are you armed?’ He snatched the hash pipe from the man’s mouth.

  ‘No.’ Ragman swept his filthy long hair from his ruddy face. ‘Armed? With what?’

  Helix shook him free and patted him down. ‘With what?’ he said, lifting aside layers of threadbare clothing.

  ‘It’s just a knife. Not a weapon.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘You’re not from around here, are you? City folks, I’d say. Looking at the state of you. Everyone out here carries a knife.’

  Helix pulled the blade from the man’s belt and tossed it ten feet away into the snow. ‘Do you live here? In the town?’ He sniffed the contents of the pipe. Weed. He hadn’t imagined it. The pipe landed in the snow close to the knife.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Ragman replied, re
arranging his loose collection of clothes. ‘You got anything to eat?’

  ‘I’m not hungry, but thanks all the same.’ Helix nodded.

  ‘I weren’t offering, I was asking.’ He glanced at Sofi. ‘How else you going to pay?’

  Helix holstered his weapon. ‘We haven’t and we’re not.’

  ‘Everyone who crosses the bridge has to pay.’ He leaned back against the railing and leered at Sofi. ‘If you haven’t got anything to eat, I’m sure we can work something else out with your lady friend.’ He tugged at his beard.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Helix asked.

  ‘Brunel. My friends call me Issy, you know after—’

  ‘Whatever, Issy. If we had time, I’d like to see you try to extract payment from my friend, but we’re on the clock.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ He glanced past Helix into the distance. ‘Maybe I can show you the way.’

  Sofi had noticed the man’s attention wandering and swung round in the direction he was looking. Helix kept his eyes on Brunel. ‘Anything moving about, Sofi?’

  ‘The castle. See what you think,’ she said exchanging places with Helix.

  ‘Friends of yours, Issy?’ Helix said, looking back at him.

  ‘Dunno what you’re on about.’

  ‘There’s someone in the castle.’ Helix sighed. ‘Smoke and a faint heat source.’

  Brunel’s eyes darted between them. ‘I don’t know them. Not really. I keep myself to myself. I was just fishing.’

  They were wasting time. Getting spotted wasn’t ideal but it was too late for that. ‘Can you swim, Issy?’ Helix said, grabbing Brunel by the scruff and heaving him out further onto the bridge.

  ‘Fuck off, the water’s bloody freezing. And the tides going out,’ he protested, sliding on the snow as he squirmed. ‘The current’s vicious. I’ll drown.’ His eyes widened as the blade between Helix’s knuckles glinted in the pale moonlight. ‘What the fu—’