Extinction

by J. T. Brannan

‘That’s just what I’m afraid of,’ Rushton answered.

  The computer screen bathed Alyssa’s tired, drawn face in a pale blue light as she accessed database after database. It was getting late now, and there was only one other journalist left in the research room. Eduardo Lubeck covered vice stories, and was well known as a night owl.

  Not for the first time, she was grateful for the paper’s vast investigative resources; within minutes, she had found evidence of Karl’s transfer papers from his previous job, setting up anti-hacking programmes for several blue-chip firms in the capital. That was just under three years ago, but finding out where he’d gone next was more challenging.

  She quickly found out that he had been headhunted by the Department of Defence for some contract work, but she was struggling to find out exactly where he’d been posted.

  She decided to try a different tack, searching the vehicle registration database for a match. She wasn’t exactly authorized to do such a search, but her years in the field had taught her the rudiments of cyber hacking, and the vehicle database was one of the easiest government sites to strong-arm.

  Her eyes lit up as she found an SUV registered to Karlssen D. Janklow – thank heaven for unusual names, she thought – and she quickly took note of the address.

  It was a rented apartment in Allenburg, a small town way up north. Pretty much in the middle of nowhere, pure wilderness territory. What was he doing there?

  As she took a sip of coffee, she entered a new key phrase into the computer’s online search engine – ‘computer systems Allenburg’.

  The hits came back soon after, dozens relating to local businesses, everything from laptop repairs to bespoke software programs. None of it sounded like anything he’d need a DoD clearance for.

  She tried again – ‘military research Allenburg’.

  She drank more coffee as the page loaded, then glanced down at the results. This time, each site seemed to list the same four-letter acronym – HIRP.

  It seemed oddly familiar to Alyssa but—

  Without warning, she felt her chair suddenly move beneath her. Her coffee spilled on to her leg, burning her, and then her chair moved again. She planted her feet more firmly on the floor to keep her balance.

  Opposite her, she saw Lubeck rocked backwards in his own chair, his eyes going wide. ‘Earthquake!’ he shouted at her, even as the entire room started to shake, the desk moving across the floor, the walls rippling with the shock.

  Alyssa screamed briefly as the lights went out, then gathered herself and grabbed Lubeck, pulling him underneath the desk. If the ceiling collapsed, it might provide some protection. That was what people did, wasn’t it? But she didn’t know for sure; earthquakes didn’t happen here!

  The room continued to shake, pictures vibrating and falling off the walls, glass shattering on the floor. Alyssa heard Lubeck whimper next to her.

  And then, as soon as it had started, it was over. In the dark, Alyssa was surprised that Lubeck was hugging her. Seconds later, the lights came back on.

  Under the table, Lubeck and Alyssa just sat there staring at each other, their faces white with shock.

  Alyssa glanced up at the computer. It was back on now and reloaded, the strangely familiar acronym HIRP challenging her to press on with her investigation.

  8

  ‘ARE YOU OK?’ Rushton asked Alyssa as they stood in the crowded city street, watching as firefighters and paramedics entered the building, along with a team of structural engineers. It was late, but some of the buildings here were residential units which also had to be evacuated.

  Alyssa was surprised that Rushton had still been in the building, but perhaps she shouldn’t have been; with millions of bats in the square outside his office, and strange things happening not just across the country but across the world, he would have a caseload of literally hundreds of stories to manage. It would be a miracle if he ever found the time to go home again.

  ‘I’m fine, James, thanks. More surprised than anything, I guess.’ It wasn’t entirely true; she was still a little shaken by the quake, ‘minor’ or not. Added to which, her nerves were still shredded from watching her friend get shot right next to her, and then the subsequent attempt on her own life. But, she decided, the best way to cope with it was the method she always chose: ignore her tangled emotions and concentrate on work. Psychologists would probably give her hell for it but it seemed to work for her.

  She wanted to get back to the research room right away but all the buildings in the city had been evacuated whilst the damage was assessed, and each building had to be judged safe before anyone could return. As Alyssa looked around, she could tell that the quake had indeed been minor – everything was still standing, after all. But there was smoke pouring out of more than a few nearby windows, and she realized that it made sense to be careful.

  Rushton seemed to be having the same thoughts. ‘Pain in the ass, right?’ he said. ‘We’re probably not going to get back in for hours. Still, I don’t suppose they can take any chances.’ He studied her again. ‘You sure you’re OK?’

  Alyssa nodded. ‘Just thinking.’ She paused, then turned to him. ‘Have you ever heard of a government research programme called the HIRP?’ she asked, initializing the word.

  Rushton’s eyes narrowed briefly, then he nodded his head. ‘Yes, I think I have. Is that where Karl was working?’

  ‘I think so, yes. He was working for the DoD some place, and HIRP is the only base near to the town his vehicle’s registered to. When I can get back in there,’ she said, gesturing to their offices, ‘I’ll try and confirm it. But what is it?’

  ‘If my memory serves,’ Rushton began, ‘it stands for the High-frequency Ionospheric Research Project.’

  ‘And what the hell is that?’

  Rushton smiled. ‘I know about the project because Jamie Price was going to do a piece on it last year.’

  ‘Going to?’ Alyssa prodded.

  Rushton nodded. ‘I had to pull it in the end,’ he admitted. ‘It was good, but it was a bit too inflammatory, without the evidence to back it up. It was intriguing, but in the end it was just based on hearsay and circumstantial evidence.’

  The pair had to move as a stretcher was raced past them towards one of the buildings which still had smoke coming out of the windows, and Alyssa felt slightly perturbed as she saw people readying their cameras to get shots of the victim when he or she was trundled back to the ambulance. It didn’t help that she knew some of the photographers.

  ‘OK,’ Alyssa said, turning back to her editor, ‘tell me about it.’

  ‘HIRP was designed over twenty years ago to investigate atmospheric data. Apparently the ionosphere is a great conductor of radio signals, and what started out as a purely scientific project caught the interest of the military when they realized that they could improve their communication and navigation technology by exploiting the ionosphere in line with this research. Secure comms with the submarine fleet and ground-penetrating radar – you know, the kind that could investigate, say, a cave system in the Middle East, see if any terrorists are living there – are just some of the things the DoD are interested in.’

  ‘Sounds like there’s nothing too out of the ordinary there,’ Alyssa commented. ‘So what was Jamie’s story about?’

  ‘Well, it all started when the residents of a small village near the base started to suffer from headaches. And I don’t mean just your average little headache, I’m talking about really debilitating migraines, suffered by pretty much everyone in that village, over a hundred people.’

  ‘And?’ Alyssa asked. ‘What did he find out?’

  ‘Well, he did some digging, turned up a few rumours about the place; I mean, just the average, what you’d expect when the military takes on scientific research and sets up a covert, secretive base around it. You know the sort of thing, they’re building some sort of new weapon of mass destruction there, something worse than nuclear, maybe biological or chemical. Another theory was that they were experi
menting with mind control, beaming out special radio waves to subdue the population, make us all into government lapdogs.’

  Alyssa nodded, aware how it all worked. Anything labelled ‘covert’ was an immediate target for the lunatic fringe, who seemed to compete to come up with the most imaginative – crazy – purpose for the project concerned. But the fact that a seasoned reporter like Jamie would launch an investigation was interesting. ‘So what was Jamie’s take on it?’

  ‘Well, by the time he got up there to interview the people, lawyers from HIRP had already been there to apologize and negotiate a payoff. They accepted and just clammed up, wouldn’t speak to Jamie at all. Apparently HIRP admitted that a recent test might have been to blame, I think they said it was just a five-second burst from the radar field to do a live check on submarine communications. Anyway, that was that – nobody would say anything, and all Jamie could get was an interview with a HIRP spokesperson, and that wasn’t even on the base itself.’

  ‘So he never even got to see the base?’

  ‘He took some long-distance shots but nothing we could use; he was too far away, and the location is protected and remote.’

  ‘So have outsiders never been there?’ Alyssa asked, her curiosity piqued further.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. Every year they actually have a public open day, even people from the press can attend. It’s all very sanitized of course, and you aren’t allowed to roam free, but they show you some of what they do there, and they publish a lot of their research online too.’

  ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that they’ve got one of these open days coming up.’

  ‘The last one was just two months ago, so there won’t be another until next year. And they don’t let the press in at any other time. So what are you going to do?’

  Alyssa thought about it for several moments, not even noticing when the body was stretchered past her, camera lights flashing all around. Finally, her mind made up, she said, ‘First of all, I’m going to confirm that Karl was working there. Then I’m going to go and see Jamie, look at what he found out. And then I’m going to go and have a look at the base.’

  ‘And just how are you going to do that? No press, no outsiders, remember?’

  Alyssa looked at him, her features set, determined. ‘I’ll find a way,’ she said.

  9

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight by the time the newspaper offices were cleared ready for use again, but the late hour didn’t deter Alyssa. As soon as she was able, she was back in the research room, behind the same computer; the only difference was that while Lubeck had decided not to return, the room was now much busier than it had been before. An earthquake was a big story, after all, especially here in the city, and her paper’s reporters were some of the best in the world, hard-working and dedicated. But, she soon found out, they weren’t here just for the earthquake story; things had been happening elsewhere too.

  In fact, it turned out that small-scale natural disasters had occurred over a significant portion of the globe. Checking the online news stations, Alyssa saw floodwaters crashing over fishing villages, sandstorms sweeping over desert cities, a volcano that had spewed out a gigantic ash cloud; image after image of devastation.

  Tyler Bradshaw, a local reporter sitting at the desk next to Alyssa, turned to her. ‘It’s probably not as bad as it looks,’ he said, in a tone that was less than confident. ‘Like what we just had, these things are all classified as low-level events. What’s of more concern,’ he continued, ‘is that there have been so many, spread over such a vast area of the planet. There have been fourteen of these low-level disasters around the world in the last few hours. It’s just unbelievable,’ he said, shaking his head.

  Two hours later, Alyssa had found clear evidence that Karl had indeed been working at the High-frequency Ionospheric Research Project.

  The task had been made easier by knowing where to look; concentrating only on HIRP focused the search and enabled her to spend her time a lot more efficiently.

  As Rushton had pointed out, several facets of HIRP’s activities were available on the web for scrutiny. On an open data research site, she finally found Karl’s name on two separate papers, labelled as a consultant on computer network security at HIRP. The trouble was, these papers had been published two years before, so all it proved was that Karl had worked there at that time; it didn’t necessarily mean he had still been employed there.

  She also found him in a group photo taken at one of the base’s ‘open days’, which appeared on numerous websites. This was more recent but still over a year old.

  She used some of the open data sites to delve further into the web, until she found the archives of the internal staff newsletters. These weren’t exactly public access, but they had been easy enough to find. Nothing secret was likely to appear in a newsletter, after all. She scrolled through endless notices about bake sales and softball games, and at last found what she was looking for, in a newsletter just two weeks old: ‘HIRP Adventure Club will be meeting at the Bear Tavern in Allenburg at 7 p.m. this Tuesday to discuss provision of a new hangar for the club glider. HAC president Karl Janklow requests that all members attend.’ This was confirmation that Karl was still working at the base when he was killed.

  Thinking back, Alyssa recalled that he had always been fond of clubs and meetings; indeed, he had been president of the Ski Association back when she’d first met him. The memories of those times flashed before her, events, parties, faces . . .

  Why didn’t I think of this before?

  She almost cursed as she reached for the telephone. It was late, but she had to know. And if she played it right, then perhaps gaining access to the base might not prove as impossible as Rushton feared.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, the phone rang only twice before a nervous, tearful voice answered, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Elizabeth Gatsby?’ Alyssa asked, sure from the reaction that it must be. Liz Gatsby was Karl Janklow’s younger sister, and the tearful voice answered one of the questions she’d had – Karl’s death must have been reported already.

  ‘Yes,’ Liz answered. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Alyssa Durham. We met a couple of times at parties a few years ago. I was a friend of Karl’s.’

  The tears started again, but Liz managed to control them. ‘Yes . . . Yes, I remember you.’

  ‘I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am to hear about your brother. We were good friends.’

  ‘Yes, I remember . . . How did you hear?’

  ‘I’m a reporter,’ Alyssa replied. ‘I saw the name over one of the wires, and just wanted to get in touch, offer my condolences. Do you know what happened?’ she probed, wary of being too interrogative but at the same time needing some quick answers.

  ‘Yes . . . The local police, well, local to where Karl was living, called to say that he’d been involved in an accident. An avalanche while he was driving. . .’ The voice started to crack again, and Alyssa let her cry, just waited until she was capable of going on. ‘They say they can’t find the body . . . They might never find it. Oh!’ And the tears began once more, and Alyssa felt her heart go out to the woman.

  Karl had always been close to his sister, Alyssa knew; he had looked after her in the way typical of an older brother, and she had looked up to him in turn. Alyssa was no stranger to loss, and knew exactly what she must be going through.

  Eventually, Liz managed to carry on. ‘And there was someone else too, a lady I think Karl was seeing, Leanne . . . somebody. I don’t know . . . Karl and I hadn’t seen each other since he moved away. I don’t think he was allowed to get away much.’

  Alyssa made a note to check out the name. An avalanche was clever, she thought. In that part of the world it could well hide a body indefinitely. And who was going to investigate that far north anyway?

  ‘Has HIRP been in touch with you at all?’ Alyssa asked next, fishing for information.

  ‘You . . . know h
e worked there?’ Liz asked, her surprise evident.

  ‘A guess,’ Alyssa replied evenly. ‘It was about the only place up there he could be working.’

  Liz seemed to be thinking on the other end of the line. ‘Yes,’ she answered finally. ‘With Mom and Dad gone, and Karl unmarried, I’m the next of kin. They rang a few hours ago, to express their sympathies, ask if I wanted to go up there, collect his personal effects, you know.’

  Alyssa’s heart leaped, her unvoiced hopes confirmed, but she managed to contain her sudden excitement. ‘So will you be going?’

  ‘I really want to,’ Liz replied, ‘but I can’t afford to go up there. And with two kids at school and my own work, I just don’t have the time anyway. I asked them to pack up his things and send them down to me.’ She paused. ‘Even though they’ve not found the body, we’re going to have a memorial service for Karl at our church. I need to speak to the priest but I think it will be early next week. It would be nice if you could be there.’

  Alyssa forced back her own tears, the reality of Karl’s death coming violently back to her. ‘I will.’ She sniffed. ‘Thank you, Liz.’

  Over three thousand miles away, Professor Niall Breisner waited in the secure communications room for the call to be patched through. He was sweating, and it wasn’t from the heat generated by the large banks of electrical equipment that filled the room. This wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to having.

  Moments later, the image of General David Tomkin appeared on the screen in front of him, the large high-definition picture making it appear that the man was in the room with him, an impression that did nothing to calm his nerves.

  ‘Professor,’ Tomkin said in greeting.

  ‘Good evening, General. How are you?’ Breisner winced at the banality of his words even as they left his mouth.

  ‘Not happy, so let’s skip the pleasantries,’ Tomkin said plainly. ‘What the hell is going on up there?’

  ‘We always knew there would be indicators,’ Breisner offered. In fact he remembered quite clearly that he had briefed Tomkin in precise detail as to how these sorts of things were more than likely to happen.