by Ian Williams
“No idea. It just felt right, like I was doing something totally natural.”
The sidelong glance Stephen gave him proved the lie was not holding. Perhaps he knew exactly what was happening and was intrigued to see whether his pupil would share it? Graham suspected there was still a huge amount his two new friends were not telling him. Mind reading was no stranger than telekinesis after all. If they were reading his thoughts, at least they would know just how exhausted he was too.
“You have done well, Graham.”
“Thanks … so?”
Stephen looked on, then sighed. “Fine. I did promise, I suppose. What would you like to know?”
“The Sentient war, what happened? Why did it start? I can’t remember much about Isaac, but I know I was there when it first began.”
“OK.” Another long outward breath. “I will show you, Graham. Then after that, we train some more. Deal?”
“Deal,” Graham said, his hand already extended out to seal the deal with a handshake. After his last attempt at one with a Sentient, he half expected his hand to float through like it had with Luke. Only this time it did not. Their hands slapped hard against each other’s, confirming once again that his worst nightmare was actually his new reality.
“Perhaps I can take this opportunity to show you what you should soon be able to do, once we weed out that nasty habit you have of acting like a human, of course,” Stephen said with a cheeky wink. “Alex, are you coming along?”
She looked up and then returned to her colourful picture-book. “Nah, that sounds boring. I’m reading about Elephants.” Her imitation of his real daughter was uncanny at times.
“Very well. This way, Graham.”
* * *
11pm, Thursday: 25 hours until Switchover
Conrad looked over the coordinates displayed on his wrist computer one last time. He was confused by what they had found sat at the location. A small, plastic pad had been embedded into the soil, covered only by a thin layer of dirt. Its purpose was in no way obvious to them.
But this was the right place. Among the garbled data streams they had discovered contained within the damaged data coin, details of the park he and Joe were in had appeared. It was somehow important to their last victim, and almost certainly the killer-cult too. Everything else was yet to reveal its secrets to the highly capable Barbara. So without much else to go on, and a looming deadline to stop their own investigation, they had taken a chance and gone straight to the place.
“You certain this is right?” Joe said before dropping to a knee and wiping the 50cm square free of debris.
“The coordinates match, this is it.”
Torch aimed at his feet, Conrad searched the night-time scene around them. He could see nothing that alleviated his own doubts about the place. The park was deserted. Anyone outside at this time of night was breaking curfew anyway and would soon find themselves in trouble if discovered. Nearby housing blocks were a good hundred or so metres away and almost entirely dark. Most residents had found their beds by then. The pair of them would have been alone if not for the company of a few distant street lamps.
He knew he was missing something.
“What was the dead guy at the apartment called again?” he asked.
“Hang on a sec,” Joe replied, checking his own screen. “It came up a little while ago as… Rama Nayak, er, twenty-one year old student at the local polytechnic, studying computer science.”
“So,” Conrad was thinking aloud again. “He’s good with technology, understands it better than most. That would explain how he knew to use older devices, such as the data coin.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, it isn’t compatible with our modern equipment, it’s from before Simova even existed. Our wrist computers don’t communicate with it in the same way. That would make it a much safer method of hiding information, and any proof that he and Oliver were involved with our killer-cult.”
“You’ve been spending far too much time with Barbara, you’re starting to sound like her.” Joe laughed to himself.
“We should check our database for old equipment that might match this plastic pad. Upload a photo of it, see what comes back.” Conrad said, ignoring his partner’s comment altogether.
After returning to his feet, Joe snapped a quick picture with his wrist computer, then began swiping the screen as he searched for a similar looking device. While he did this, Conrad took the position kneeling beside the pad. He leaned in closer. Running his fingers around the edge, he found it impossible to dig them in far enough to reach the underside. It was not just a pad, he discovered. It was a box of some kind.
He bashed his fist on the top to confirm. A dull thud returned.
Whatever it was, he had a feeling it would not be easy to get into, considering the shadowy nature of the people he sought. It had been made far too well to be broken into. They needed another way.
“I’m getting nothing,” Joe said. “Nothing that matches it at all. The thing must be an import. There’s loads of illegal tech coming into the country these days, especially now that Simova don’t run the show.”
Bugger, Conrad thought while he picked the dirt from his fingernails. “Let’s think this through for a moment,” he said, returning to his feet. Once up he arched his shoulders back to stretch his spine. His body wanted rest, but his mind still refused to allow it. “Why would anyone have a box like this buried in the ground in such a public place? I can only think of two possible reasons: One would obviously be to hide something important in plain sight. Two would be to have somewhere safe to make an exchange.”
“You mean a dead-drop?”
“Exactly. This could be how the killer-cult communicates.”
“So you still think they were members?”
“I’m simply speculating, but that would make sense. It seems a little suspicious to me that this Rama guy and his friend would have devices hidden like this. What did they have to hide? We have a witness who said they saw two men clearing out the apartment. That was probably our two victims covering up their work. That isn’t normal behaviour, is it?”
“If that’s true then what’s inside this box could be a major lead, possibly something we could use to track them down.” Joes stopped to consider this. “We need to tell DCS Chalmers.”
“No,” Conrad said, a little too forcefully. “She’ll tell us to report it and let the taskforce take a look. I’m not doing that until I absolutely have to.” He initiated a call back to the station as he spoke. “There has to be something about it on the data coin. Let me try Barbara again.”
A couple of rings later and the tech department head answered. The dark shadows around Barbara’s eyes made it clear how tired she was. They had kept her at the station well beyond her work hours. She still managed a friendly smile regardless.
“You’re quite the taskmaster aren’t you, Conrad?” she said. “What is it now?”
“Is there anything about a dead drop box in the data you’ve recovered? Any mention of a regular exchange of any kind?”
“Hang on, let me take a look. You may have to wait for a bit, there’s a lot of it I haven’t been able to read. It’s been coded to fragment if tampered with. Very clever stuff really. Each time I’m close to piecing something new together it breaks apart again… Oh.” She stopped and angled her head down to her computer screen suddenly. “What’s this then?”
“Oh?” Conrad waved Joe over. “What have you found, Barbara?”
“I’m not sure. I searched for anything that looked like it could be to do with a dead-drop, and a file popped up.” She fell silent, as she tapped at her screen.
“What’s it say?”
“Right, sorry,” she said, realising she had stopped talking again. “The data inside is heavily encrypted, it’ll take a minute or two to decipher. The system seems to think this file is linked to the address I gave you. Huh… Looks like an access code generator. Six digits, randomly set each time to keep it secure.�
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Without a word shared between the two of them, Joe set about investigating the box for an access panel. He knelt in front of it, then began sliding his hands across the surface. “Where are you, you bastard,” he said.
“If it’s different each time, can we generate one using that program?” Conrad asked Barbara.
“I think so. There’s a few more layers of encryption first. Hang on a sec… There. The code is 442519.”
That was easy, Conrad thought, while watching his partner’s search of the box. He could feel the anticipation rising as he sensed an imminent breakthrough. What hid within had a real chance of securing his and Joe’s continued involvement in the case – unless they found someone’s lunch inside.
“Try pulling at the side, maybe it slides away.”
“I’ve tried that already, Conrad,” Joe replied, slightly irritated by the back-seat-driving. “Just give me the code.”
“It’s 442519.”
The moment the last digit had left Conrad’s mouth a light flashed in the centre of the box. Joe leapt away as a motor began to whirl from inside, followed by more lights emanating out of the middle, like tiny firefly landing-lights across the surface.
“Ha,” Joe said. “The thing’s voice activated.”
Conrad could barely believe his eyes. The top of the box opened out like a plastic flower. Each petal flipped over, then settled on the ground around it, while a circular object corkscrewed out from below. In one smooth and automated motion, the contents of the box had revealed itself to them. But it was far from done yet. The three foot high, cylindrical object in the centre of the open container began to boot-up, with a beep and a click.
“What the…” Joe said, still sprawled out on the grass.
The top of the device stretched out its eight arms, one at a time. Each snapped into place at full extension. At the end of the arms were small rotors, which spun at varying speeds as the boot-up process progressed. They had accidentally activated a drone. Sitting at the front of the main body of the craft was a large lens, now focusing squarely on them.
“Shit, its watching us.” Conrad stepped to the side. The lens followed him.
“But who’s watching on the other end?” Joe said, stumbling to his feet.
As soon as all eight rotors were revving at speed, their gnat-like roars coasting away into the night, it lifted off its pedestal and hovered a few feet above. It scanned them both with a blue light that raced up and down before disappearing. The angry buzz it spat at them upon the scan’s completion made it clear they had failed whatever check it performed. Then followed a red dot, aimed directly at their chests.
“What’s going on?” Barbara said. Her view of the world slowly turned on its side as Conrad lowered his arm.
He watched the drone hesitate before choosing its target. “Don’t move, Joe.” He held his arms apart as if to keep it and his partner away from each other. Unfortunately for Joe, the drone had ignored Conrad for now and chosen him instead. The red dot then began to glow brighter as another whirling sound built within the craft.
“What do I do?” Joe called. “Do I shoot it?”
The thought had already occurred to Conrad. With the buckle of his holster sticking at the worst possible moment, he shouted his answer above the noise. “Yes, shoot it, shoot it now!”
Joe was much quicker at removing his weapon, but he still did not manage in time. At the peak of the noise a red bolt rocketed out from the nose of the craft and struck him in the centre of his chest. The force of the blast pushed him clean off his feet and sliding a few feet across the dry ground. He had no time to call out in pain, the shot had been too fast.
“Joe,” Conrad yelled in a panic.
The drone swooped away in reaction to its own release of energy, before correcting itself a moment later. Now it wanted another victim. It slowly manoeuvred itself to find him still standing and pulling frantically at the button of his holster. By the time he finally got it loose, he was already a painted target. It fired as he fell to the side, narrowly missing him. The shot scorched the earth a few feet away.
“Conrad, talk to me, please,” Barbara shouted through the small speaker of his wrist computer.
Face down in the dirt, Conrad ungraciously rolled onto his back, lifted his arse off his Taser pistol and yanked it free. While the craft struggled to relocate its target, he took the time to line-up the perfect shot. Once he had it dead in the centre of his sights he pulled the trigger.
The added charge blew every motor, sending bits flying off in every direction. It smashed into the ground, where the remains of the blades spun it around and kicked it back into the air, its last dying breath a pathetic display of broken plastic and smoking innards.
Joe had not flinched an inch since being hit. He lay flat on his back and staring directly at the night-time clouds. As soon as Conrad saw his partner’s unresponsive state, he knew they had seriously fucked up. They were not even supposed to be there and now one of them was down and possibly badly hurt.
He picked himself up quickly, dropping his glasses to the grass as he moved, and raced over. Dropping heavily beside, he turned his friend’s face to the side and was shocked by the lack of life in his eyes. Was he dead?
“Conrad?”
“Barbara,” he said. She had heard the whole thing. “Joe’s been hit with some kind of energy beam.”
Thoughts of having to tell his partner’s wife and three little girls that their beloved husband and father had died filled him with instant terror. The image of them forced its way into his brain unannounced, their teary eyes scraping at his subconscious, distracting him from the task at hand. They would never forgive him if he lost Joe.
“No, how, what the hell happened?” Barbara said.
“I can’t explain right now, you need to call for help. Please be quick, he’s not breathing. I think his heart might have stopped, I can’t find a pulse.”
“It’s already gone through,” she said, her eyes glued to her own screen. “A call went out the moment his wrist computer detected a surge, then stopped working. Someone’s on the way.”
Conrad pulled his partner into his lap and cradled his limp head. “Hurry, please.”
“I’m so sorry, Conrad. The system says they’re possibly ten minutes out still. There’s been another failure on the Mag-Lev line.”
“What? For Christ’s sake, he might not last that long. I have to do something.”
“I can help,” a distorted voice called out to him from behind.
He twisted around to see, expecting to find a Good Samaritan standing there waiting to help. What he actually saw never even occurred to him; the drone.
“Who are you?” Conrad said. Again he could hear Barbara asking what he saw in the background.
The sound was broken and fuzzy as it tried to come through the smoking remains of the drone. An occasional popping sound interrupted the digitized voice, splitting its words at awkward moments.
“First… tell us who you… are?”
“Conrad. My friend, the one you may have killed, is Joe.”
“Why are you tampering…erring… tamperrrrr… ing… with our equipment?”
“We’re police officers. You’ve killed enough people already. Believe me, you do not want to be a cop killer too.”
No answer came in response. The threat was lost on them, it needed to be considered and weighed-up.
“You said you could help. If you don’t he may die. Damn you, answer me!”
More silence. If not for another crackle of burning electronics, he would have thought the device had finally packed-up. It had not. They were there still, he knew.
When the response eventually came, it was short and to the point.
“Pick…ppick up the drone, aim it… aim it directly at your friend.”
He did this with a hesitant glare into the lens first. He could not tell if they could still see him or whether they were going on audio alone. It did not matter. He still felt the ne
ed to give them a good look. If what they had planned failed to work, he wanted them to know the face of the man hunting them from then onwards.
“Is it done?”
“It’s done,” Conrad said. “Whatever it is you’re going to do you’d better hurry.”
Amid the many sparks and puffs of smoke Conrad could feel something trying to kick in inside the craft. The internal components were not completely fried thankfully. It vibrated in his hands, he could feel it running up and down his arm as it increased in intensity.
“What’s it doing?” he said.
Before any answer could come, another short burst of energy leapt out of the front of the drone. It struck Joe in the side, causing his body to shake all over. The device itself had dealt its last blow, then disintegrated in Conrad’s hands. It fell to pieces, falling out of his grip and down to the ground in a loose pile of scrap. There was not a single part of it still lit. To bring Joe back it had sacrificed itself.
Still on his back, Joe coughed back to life. His arms suddenly shot up to the sky as the muscles started to spasm. His heart was ticking normally again. Conrad dropped to the floor beside his friend and tried his best to sit his partner up. The sobbing faces of Joe’s family that had once haunted his mind now faded into the night. They would be spared the torment after all.
“Joe, can you hear me? You’re OK, buddy, you’re OK,” he said, squeezing his friends hand hard.
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain later. There’s help on the way. Don’t try to move.”
At such a late hour the disturbance had woken a few of the residents nearby. Where no lights had been on before, now a dozen or so were; they had made far too much noise while trying to keep their night-time investigation a secret. The DCS was certainly not going to like hearing about it either. She would not give a shit about how close they had come to the enemy. Success had charged too high a price for them.