by Nick Cook
‘Yes, there was – you could have tracked down suitable candidates to be Awoken and then infected them with Zoom like you did with us.’
‘And I would have. However, that takes time – time this world hasn’t got. Almost certainly the Shade are somewhere in this world, building yet another DEC machine. If they build just one, then yes, maybe you and Jake could stop them again. But what happens if they build, two, three, a hundred? If that happens, your world won’t stand a chance and that’s why we need to create an Awoken army – trained individuals who can be deployed around the whole globe. We have to make that happens as quickly as possible. You must see that?’
Chloe turned her back on the speaker and crossed her arms. ‘It still sounds like a computer just treating people as if they’re numbers on a spreadsheet.’
A sigh came from the radio. ‘I know you see me as cold-hearted, but we have to look at this situation logically for everyone’s sake.’
‘Screw you!’ Chloe shouted. She jumped up, turned the radio off and stared out of the window, her shoulders up round her ears.
Allan, Kelly and I exchanged long looks. As much as I hated to admit it, Sentinel was making lot of sense.
Kelly closed the battery compartment and headed for the door. ‘I need to close all the storm shutters and check the fuel level of the generator. Not to mention get a last bet in before we lose the internet connection, because we almost certainly will.’
‘And there’s something I need to check on too,’ Allan said, jutting his chin towards Chloe’s back. His look told me he didn’t really need to go anywhere, but he was giving us some time alone.
I nodded as he headed out, then stood up and crossed to Chloe. ‘Are you OK?’
She turned to me and wiped away a tear. ‘No, I’m bloody not.’
‘I can sort of see that.’ I opened my arms.
Chloe fell into my arms and hugged me. ‘That AI is driving me crazy.’
‘You and me both.’ I kissed the side of her head and gazed out of the window towards the studio.
Chloe pulled away and peered back over her shoulder to see what I was looking at. ‘A penny for them?’
I blinked. ‘Sorry, I’m just worried about Dad pushing himself too hard.’
‘I know what you mean. Every time I see him he looks utterly shattered.’
‘I just wish I could have carried on working with him on Waverider to relieve him of some of the strain.’
‘You didn’t have a choice, Jake. Don’t forget that your training is just as important as Waverider. Until we have our Awoken army in place, it’s you and me against the Shade. Meanwhile, Martin is more than capable of building Waverider by himself, especially with Sentinel’s help.’
‘I know that, but it’s hard to watch him killing himself like this,’ I replied.
Chloe reached over and squeezed my hand. ‘He’ll make it out the other side of whatever is going on in his head eventually.’
‘I hope so.’
With a low whine, the lights began to flicker, went out briefly, and then came back on again.
‘Talk of the devil – here we go again. Another power cut heading our way,’ Chloe said.
I stared at the empty chair at the table where Dad should be sitting and sighed inwardly. He was like a man possessed, and I knew that at least part of the reason he was pushing himself so hard was because he blamed himself for inventing the DEC experiment in the first place. Of course he’d no way of knowing that his invention would let the Shade into our world.
Chloe plated up some casserole and set it on a tray before me. ‘Go and see if you can get him to eat something.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ I picked up the tray and headed towards the back door.
Outside, the wind was rattling the fronds of the palms in the garden and moaned over the roof of Eaglehurst. Despite the power of the storm coming our way, part of me was thrilled at the idea of witnessing the raw power of nature.
I approached the studio, hearing fast dance music drifting through the walls. Dad often played some serious drum and bass in there to keep him focused while he worked late into the night.
I raised my hand to knock beneath the sign that read: ‘Keep out, I’m trying to concentrate in here.’
A sudden bang rattled the door, almost making me drop the tray as the lights flickered again. I shoved the door open and rushed inside.
Dad sat at a desk, scratching an unshaven chin. He was staring at a laptop screen as blue smoke weaved vapours around him.
The smell of burnt rubber stung my nostrils. ‘What happened?’ I shouted over the bassline of the music.
Dad spun in his office chair towards me and held up his hand. ‘Can you turn the music down, Sentinel?’
The music dropped to a faint murmur.
‘Yet another field failure, I’m afraid, Jake.’
I nodded, not knowing what he was on about. My gaze took in the contents of the lab. It was way more chaotic than the last time I’d seen it and I straight away noticed the addition of a hammock slung across one corner. But that wasn’t what really caught my attention. That honour, as always, went to Waverider, Earth’s best hope – along with our Awoken psychic army – of surviving the Shade’s invasion.
A silver sphere, supported on a steel pillar, had been mounted in the middle of the room. It bore a striking resemblance to the one in Dad’s original DEC experiment.
Behind Dad, a message scrolled across a laptop screen.
Field Failure – Automatic Experiment Termination.
I gestured towards Waverider. ‘I thought something had blown up in here.’
‘No, just what it says there on the screen.’ He massaged his temples with his fingers.
‘If it’s ever going to work, we’ve got to stabilise that field, Martin,’ Sentinel said from the boom box’s speaker.
I looked at Dad, waiting for an explanation. Instead, he got up and walked to one of the numerous whiteboards propped up around the room, all lit with angle-poise lamps and filled with complicated-looking formulas. He picked up a marker pen and stared at one of the longer equations. Even with my knowledge of physics, it still looked like a series of mad squiggles to me.
I carefully cleared a space among the screwed-up bits of paper that littered a nearby desk and set the tray down. ‘I’ve brought you one of Allan’s specials.’
Dad broke his gaze from the board and came over to examine the tray. ‘Thank you…’
He barely seemed to focus on the meal as he settled down to eat it.
I wandered over to Waverider’s chrome sphere. It was surrounded by equipment covered with dials and lights.
I reached out a hand to touch the metal ball.
Dad leapt up. ‘Jake, don’t—’
A huge spark arced across from the sphere and slammed into my hand. A tremor rushed through my body as I jumped backwards.
I shook my hand. ‘You could’ve warned me, Dad.’
‘He tried to,’ Sentinel said, his tone amused.
‘Sorry, Jake, there was some residual charge left after that last run,’ Dad said. ‘But don’t worry, it’s just static – no amps to do you any harm.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then.’
I started to frown, but caught him trying to keep a straight face. ‘What?’
‘I think that static may have messed with your hairstyle a bit, son.’ He swivelled a camera that had been filming the experiment towards me.
I saw myself on the screen, my hair spiking out all over. ‘Oh brilliant, a new hairstyle is so what I needed.’
Dad laughed, an actual real laugh. I found myself smiling back at him. It was good to see him lighten up like this a bit, even if it had cost me an electrical shock.
I held up my hands. ‘OK, OK. So apart from being great for practical jokes, how close are you with Waverider?’
‘Let me show you.’ For the first time in weeks his eyes really lit up, the exhaustion vanishing from his face.
‘But maybe
this time keep your distance from the sphere,’ Sentinel said.
I gave his webcam an eye-roll and backed into the furthest corner of the room.
‘Right, just give me a moment to reset the controls.’ Dad tapped a couple of keys and a new message popped up.
Press OK to reinitialise experiment, or Cancel to quit.
‘Just watch the sphere,’ Dad said. He hit the OK button. A humming sound from the sphere filled the room. Tiny sparks flickered around it and a gentle breeze washed over my face.
Dad caught my expression and smiled. ‘That’s a wind of charged ions you’re feeling.’
All I knew was that it felt as though I had been transported to a relaxing summer’s day on the beach.
‘And it gets better,’ Sentinel said.
Dad moved a slider on a piece of rack equipment.
An orange stream of light shot outwards from the machine. It cascaded over everything in the room like a golden ocean. At once, the tower’s lights began to flicker. What we were witnessing bore a lot of similarities to the Light Web, but unlike my alternative view of the physical world, under the touch of Waverider’s energy field everything looked utterly solid, with not so much as a ripple in sight.
‘But this is fantastic – you’ve managed to stabilise the energy field,’ I said.
‘Yes, but there is one major problem left to crack,’ Dad said. ‘As you know, I built Waverider to dissipate the build-up of dark energy, cancelling out the effects of any new DEC machine that the Shade might be building. That part of the machine works fine.’
‘So where’s the problem?’
‘The difficulty is—’
A burning flash blazed through the room, followed by a boom that rattled the window. Ears ringing, I watched the orange energy field collapse around us. At once, the room’s lights flickered out and plunged the room into storm darkness as the smell of burning rubber made us both cough.
Angry shouts drifted over from the kitchen.
Dad’s face was illuminated by the green writing on the laptop screen, which was now running on battery power. Field Failure – Automatic Experiment Termination.
He flicked the light switch a few times. ‘I think I may have just tripped the fuse box again.’
‘And there’s our problem,’ Sentinel said. ‘You see, we can only sustain it for a short length of time before the energy field collapses.’
A triumphant shout echoed up from the house and the lights flickered back on.
Dad’s gaze had wandered back to the whiteboards and he picked up a marker pen. ‘I’d better get back to it, Jake.’
‘Of course…’
He started tapping at the laptop keyboard and I suddenly felt invisible.
I opened the door, but paused on the threshold. Dad had already started writing on a whiteboard with one hand, the other with a spoonful of casserole hovering in front of his mouth.
Dad was probably our best long-term hope of stopping the Shade once and for all. But what if he, even with Sentinel’s help, couldn’t make Waverider work? Then the only thing standing in the Shade’s way of destroying all life on Earth would be us, the Awoken. And for now that meant just Chloe and me. Dad wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure.
I quietly closed the door behind me and stepped out into the growing howl of the wind.
Chapter Five
Screeches filled the air as unseen monsters prowled around a curly-haired woman tied to a chair. I couldn’t quite make out her face in the suffocating darkness.
‘Help me, Jake…’
My eyes snapped open to a shriek of the wind and rain slamming into the house. I dripped in sweat, my heart still racing from the nightmare. But had that been a dream or had that woman been reaching out to me again? The voice had certainly been the same – someone with an English accent and with more than a hint of London to it. Or was it the work of my imagination starting to fill in the blanks about this mysterious person? That was just as likely.
I tried turning the bedside light on, but it was dead.
Heart still pounding, I got up and crossed to my window, which rattled in its frame as the wind hammered into it. Through a waterfall of rain running down the outside of the glass, I noticed the sea around the island had become a landscape of sliding mountains smashing into the coastline. Spray plumes tens of metres high soared up into the sky. The air in my bedroom smelled of brine, driven in by a wind so strong it must have found cracks in the house’s armour where there were usually none. Even muted by the window, a deep bass note rumbled through my chest as if a giant were grinding the boulders of the island together.
I’d never seen a sea as wild as this, apart from in movies. The sheer power of the storm took my breath away. The wild, crazy part of me wanted to be out there, dancing in the spray. Not that I would risk it really. Kelly had drummed into us not to underestimate the sea. One big wave could sweep me out and they’d probably never find my body.
I spotted a single light in the tower’s window. Was someone up there with a lantern? Maybe it was Chloe, unable to sleep. Perhaps she’s decided to give the remote viewing another go now that she’d connected DT3 to the UPS. And if she had, I wanted to try too. Apart from anything else, it would mean I could ride this storm outside within Ember – without any physical risk to myself.
I quickly dressed and dug out a torch from the back of a drawer, before heading off.
As I walked along the corridors, Eaglehurst groaned and creaked around me. At that moment, the house sounded more like a sailing ship running at full tilt through a stormy sea, rather than a building standing on solid rock.
The wind screeched around the library as I climbed the spiral stairs. Rain poured over the glass dome as I reached the mezzanine. At once I spotted that the light strip on Sentinel’s quantum computer was on. A cable ran from it to a grey box, presumably the UPS that Chloe had fitted just in time for the storm. But Sentinel’s large screen was dark and his webcam was off – unlike DT3, everything else in here relied solely on mains power.
I drank in the incredible three-sixty-degree view of the hurricane raging across the islands.
The rotating beam of light from Les Hanois lighthouse carved its way like a thin glowing knife through the curtains of rain. Flashes of lightning lit up the clouds from inside like huge lanterns. Waves rolled in across the sea, impossibly tall…impossibly wonderful.
‘Epic, isn’t it?’ Kelly said.
I hadn’t noticed her sitting in the wingback chair. She sipped a mug of coffee as she gazed out at the storm, a battery lantern set on the windowsill in front of her.
‘I thought it was Chloe up here.’
She smiled. ‘Something tells me that even an earthquake going off underneath Chloe’s bed wouldn’t wake her.’
‘She can sleep through anything…’ I placed my hands on the windowsill.
‘I’ve not seen a storm this big blow through in all my years on the island, and that’s saying something,’ Kelly said.
‘But will the house be OK? This storm looks strong enough to rip the roof off.’
Kelly shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, Eaglehurst was built for storms like this and the window glass up here is lighthouse-thick. It can certainly cope with the worst that any storm can throw at it.’
‘I’m just glad we’re not out on Moon Dancer in this.’
‘Me too…’ Her gaze became lost in the storm again. ‘The raw power of nature in a storm like this is really something, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes, it is.’ Even though I was used to some incredible sights thanks to my Awoken ability, it didn’t stop this being every bit as inspiring. ‘Actually, I’m planning to go out in it.’
Kelly stared at me. ‘You’re most definitely not, Jake.’
I held up my hands. ‘Not literally, Kelly. I’m going to get some remote-viewing practice in.’
‘Oh right. Then don’t let me stop your fun. I doubt the rest of the household will sleep through this much longer anyway. I’m
going to put some more coffee on, ready for when they all inevitably wake up.’
‘Apart from Chloe.’
She smiled. ‘Apart from Chloe. Fancy a coffee yourself?’
‘Please, with an extra sugar for luck.’
‘And maybe a slice of Allan’s sticky toffee pudding. It will only go off in the fridge, otherwise.’
‘I like your thinking. But I thought you had a backup generator?’
‘I do, but there’s no way I’m going out to one of the outbuildings in this weather to start Henrietta up.’
‘You’ve named your generator?’
She smiled. ‘Doesn’t everyone? Anyway, I’ll sort her out in the morning when this storm has let up a bit.’ She took her battery lantern and disappeared off down the stairs.
I settled myself on to the sofa, doing my best to ignore the fury of nature flinging herself against the house, and put on the Ember headset. I felt a tingling sensation, but with no commentary from Sentinel. I assumed he was running on minimal power as he carried on with the compile.
Breathe… I told myself.
Despite all the noise howling around me, I began to shift my perception. At once, a deep sense of calmness flooded over me. The house blurred, and this time far more easily within the Light Web I pushed outwards and found myself looking down at my own body. Within moments, I let myself drift out into the squall.
Slate-grey rain bullets sped through me as if I weren’t there, which of course was true. The only physical sensation was the pull on my light-line connecting me back to my physical body. If the storm looked incredible in our everyday world, in the Light Web it appeared truly spectacular. The clouds rolled overhead, a storm’s mirror to the sea below, and cobwebs of energy coiled between them, breaking apart and reforming.
It was seriously awesome, and I wished Chloe were here to see it.
I picked out her storm-shuttered bedroom window. Feeling like Peter Pan about to make a house call on Wendy, I swept down to her room. I had no doubt the wooden shutters and window would be relatively easy for me to pass through, so how about something a bit more challenging?
I hovered for a moment outside her room, gazing at the wall fizzing and popping as energy patterns danced over it in the Light Web.