by A. G. Taylor
“I’m sure you’ll have a good laugh with Colonel Moss about it,” Rachel said, leaning close to him, “when you see him in the prison yard after your court martial.”
Bright rattled the cuff against his chair mockingly. “Do you really think you’ll be able to hold me?”
Rachel smiled grimly. “I hear you’ve run out of serum. I think our prison walls will do just fine.”
Bright closed his eyes.
Rachel stood over him. “Face it, Bright, you lost,” she said with a hardness in her voice that made Commander Craig look up in surprise. “Your war is over. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement, you’ll tell me everything you know about what happened to Sarah Williams and the others.”
Bright’s eyes snapped open. He looked at Rachel with a new interest and laughed unexpectedly.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“You know,” he said, relaxing a little, “when I saw those kids lift off in that plane I was convinced it was HIDRA whisking them off. But now it turns out you don’t have them either. So who does?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Rachel said coldly.
Bright shook his head. “All these months you’ve had them right under your hand and you let them slip away. The scientific find of the century and you lost it. All that precious research grabbed by someone else.”
“All I care about is their safety,” Rachel asserted. “Help us find them and I’ll make sure you get some consideration for it at your trial.”
Bright held her eyes. “Please. I’d have more respect if you just admitted that we both want those children because of their powers. Whether it’s for war or science, what’s the difference?”
“I’m not like you.”
“Really? I don’t see you crying over any of the other orphans running around this country. Well, I guess someone else is looking after Sarah and the others now.”
“You’re not going to help us,” Rachel said through gritted teeth.
Bright stared blankly at her and said nothing.
“Then you can take a nap.” Rachel reached inside her pocket and removed a syringe-gun. Before Bright could react, she jammed it against his neck and pulled the trigger. A second later, he slumped forward in the chair, unconscious. Rachel turned and walked to the door.
“Prep him for transport,” she ordered Commander Craig. “The interrogation can continue at the Pacific Mobile Base. I want him out of this country. He’ll tell us what he knows whether he wants to or not.”
Craig signalled for the commandos outside to help him with Bright. As Rachel exited the room and crossed the lobby, her personal assistant, Lt. Kaminski, ran into the building and gave a hasty salute.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” Kaminski said breathlessly. “Our space observatory in the Philippines just sent through an initial report of an object headed towards earth.”
“Another meteor?”
“That’s what they think, sir,” Kaminski replied. “It seems to originate from the same quadrant of space as the Australian and Russian strikes. Their initial projections suggest that it will come down somewhere in the Pacific North American region. They’re working to improve that estimate.”
Rachel nodded. “Okay, I want to be ready for this one. All HIDRA personnel are to be put on full alert. Get my plane ready for transport to the Mobile Base. Wherever that meteor comes down, I want to have our people ready to move in within the first few hours. Our best chance of finding a cure for the fall virus is getting access to an infected meteorite shortly after impact.”
“I’ve already summoned your jet, sir,” Lt. Kaminski replied. “It’s waiting for you on the runway.”
Rachel smiled at his efficiency. “Very good, Lieutenant.”
Kaminski produced an umbrella as Rachel strode out of the building towards the private jet sitting on the runway.
“The Ulysses has been notified you’ll be arriving, sir,” he yelled above the crash of the rain and the roar of the jet engines powering up. “They’re currently crossing the Date Line on the same latitude as Japan. You’ll be on deck within eight hours.”
The HS Ulysses was HIDRA’s mobile base of operations in that part of the world – a decommissioned US aircraft carrier designed to provide response to any event that happened in the Asia–Pacific region. There was just one problem: Rachel hated ocean travel almost as much as she disliked flying.
“I forgot to ask,” she said to Kaminski as they approached the jet. “What’s the estimated time until the next meteorite strike?”
“It’s a best guess at the moment, sir,” Kaminski replied, “but the Philippines station is saying four days.”
“Then we’ve got four days to find out where it’s going to hit, evacuate the area and get our scientists on the ground. This is the big one, Kaminski, I can feel it.”
“Yessir.”
The meteor had crossed light years of space. In the great vacuum, the rock appeared to be stationary. In fact it was travelling at high speed – almost twenty kilometres a second. Ten metres across and irregularly shaped, it was practically invisible against the black curtain of space – an insignificant speck in the vastness of the universe.
This meteor, however, was the subject of great debate on a blue planet circling a sun several million kilometres away.
Scientists in an observation station near the equator of that planet had designated it a PHO – a Potentially Hazardous Object – and were busy giving it a name and a number. The meteor was large enough that if it hit the planet it would create an explosion with the force of several nuclear bombs.
They were worried.
The scientists would have been a lot more worried, however, if they’d known that the meteor wasn’t alone. Their sensors had not yet detected that it was one of many – one of almost fifty, ranging in size from less than a metre across to thirty. They travelled in a ragged pattern scattered across hundreds of thousands of kilometres of space, but they were all going in the same direction.
The storm was coming…
And it was headed directly for earth…
17
Sarah Williams awoke and noticed two things. Firstly, she was no longer in Makarov’s jet, but lying in a bed in a white-walled room with a window that stretched from ceiling to floor. Secondly, she had a splitting headache – probably the result of the gas she’d inhaled on the plane.
With a groan, she pushed herself into a sitting position and took a better look around. The room was anonymous; its bare walls were clean as if they’d been freshly painted and there was a brand-new smell to the carpet. It was like being in a building that had been recently renovated. The contents of her pockets – a few coins, the keys to their apartment in Melbourne, the envelope containing the passports – had been laid out on a small table beside the bed. Her clothes were neatly folded on a chair in the corner and looked as if they’d been washed. Throwing back the bedcovers, Sarah touched the soft material of the gown she was now wearing. On the right shoulder an M set into a circle was sewn in gold.
M for Makarov, Sarah thought with a shake of her head.
Slightly unsteadily, she got out of the bed, walked to the window and looked out. An expanse of blue sky greeted her. In the distance there were mountains on the horizon, but looking down she saw only flat, snow-covered plains – an empty landscape devoid of buildings. The vision was bright and hard and clear, bringing to mind an exceptionally cold winter’s day. It was like looking at the view from a plane window. One thing was for sure – she wasn’t in Australia any more.
“Welcome, Sarah.”
She jumped away from the window and looked round to see who had spoken. The voice seemed to come from all around. A section of the window lit up with images, as if a projector had been turned on it. The head and shoulders of a woman appeared on the glass – she was blonde and attractive, although her face had a strange quality to it. There was something about the skin – a little too smooth, m
aybe. Or the features – a little too perfect.
“I trust you slept well,” the woman continued. “If English is not your preferred language, say speech options or touch the glass to customize.”
As an alphabetical list of languages began to scroll up the window, Sarah leaned closer. She now saw that the woman projected on the glass was a computer generated image, albeit an incredibly realistic one. An avatar.
“My name is Lucy,” the image continued. “I have been assigned as your personal concierge during your stay. Say concierge options or touch the glass to customize my attitude and appearance.”
“Where am I?” Sarah asked, feeling only a little self-conscious at talking to a window.
“The Chukotka Autonomous Zone, Russian Federation,” the woman replied. An animated map of the world appeared, zooming in towards the Asian continent. The image expanded further, towards the far north-eastern corner of Russia.
“Chukotka is located on the Chuckchi Peninsula and is one of the most remote and sparsely populated areas of the globe,” Lucy continued as a stream of geographical data began to scroll. “Total area: 737,700 square kilometres. Population: 83,987. Main industries: gold, coal, copper and lead mining. Current local time: 11.36 a.m. Local temperature at ground level: -10°C…”
Sarah held up a hand. “Woah, stop!”
Lucy immediately ceased talking and the data stream on the window froze. Sarah took a deep breath and tried to process what she’d just been told.
“What is this building?” she asked.
“Makarov Tower 7,” Lucy replied as a line drawing of a skyscraper replaced the data on the screen. “153 floors tall, the tower is one of seven positioned at major locations around the world, including Hong Kong, Mexico City and Berlin. Each tower is identical in height, design and building materials. Because of their distinctive tapering shape, many of the Makarov Towers have attracted the nickname the Spire. You are welcome as one of the first guests at the newly constructed Tower 7.”
Sarah moved to the door. “If I’m a guest,” she said looking for the handle and not finding it, “I guess I’m free to leave this room whenever I want. How do I get out of here?”
“Guest services have been informed you are awake,” Lucy said with a calmness that was starting to grate on Sarah. “Please wait for one of our operatives to escort you to brunch.”
“Sure,” Sarah said, moving away from the window. She grabbed her clothes from the chair and started dressing hastily, scanning the room for some other way out as she did so. It didn’t take long to find: an air vent located in the wall above the bed.
Robert, she called to her brother. Robert? Nestor? Anyone? There was no response from him or the others. Either her power had failed or there was something blocking her communication with them. The sensation was strange, accustomed as she was to the easy psychic connection with her friends. Putting aside her unease at this development, she decided to use more conventional means of locating them.
“That is not necessary,” Lucy said from the window, not a hint of emotion in her voice, as Sarah stood on the bedside table to reach the vent.
Running her fingers over the raised screws that held the grille-covering in place, Sarah bent to retrieve a coin from the table and set to work unscrewing them one by one.
“I really think it would be better if you waited for your escort, Sarah,” Lucy continued. “Perhaps you would like to do some yoga or other wake-up exercises in the meantime.”
“Thanks, but I don’t like waiting,” Sarah said as she ripped the grille away and cast it across the room. Makarov had drugged them on the plane – she wasn’t about to wait around for his minions to collect her from the room. Placing both hands on the edge of the vent, she pulled herself up and squeezed through into a narrow metal shaft. She slid forwards with her elbows and knees. A couple of metres ahead, another grille was set into the floor of the shaft. Reaching it, she looked down into corridor on the other side of the bedroom door.
“Sarah, can you still hear me?” Lucy called from the room. “This really isn’t necessary.”
“Oh, shut up,” Sarah replied. With all her might, she pushed down on the grille and it popped out, landing with a clatter on the floor a couple of metres below. Manoeuvring round, she lowered herself through the gap, hung for a moment and then dropped. Landing deftly, she went into a crouch and surveyed the corridor in both directions. The walls and floor were pristine, featureless and white, just like those in the bedroom. The entire place had the look of somewhere newly made.
The sound of footsteps moving down the corridor sent Sarah running in the other direction. She rounded a corner and pressed herself into the wall, sneaking a look back as she did so. A woman in a plain blue uniform bearing the Makarov logo approached the door to her bedroom. The door slid open automatically and the woman looked inside. Sarah expected her to react to finding the room empty, but surprisingly the woman merely stood there, staring blankly ahead as if waiting for some kind of command.
Sarah pulled her head back. Her movement triggered a sensor and a door slid up beside her, revealing a larger chamber beyond. Checking the area was deserted, she moved into the semicircular room. Lift doors were set into a central column, but she ignored them for the moment, opting instead to move to the massive windows that were along one side of the room. They showed another angle of the ice desert outside and she took a moment to scan the view – little different from what she had seen from the bedroom window. In the distance stood something that looked like buildings – maybe a small village or a factory, but that was about it.
Bleak. As much of a desert as the outback of Australia.
On the other side of the room, a computer terminal set into the wall caught Sarah’s eye and she walked over. As she touched the screen, a welcome message flashed on, followed by a series of icons. General Information. Local Environment. Guest Services. Tapping the final option, a new screen opened up and she tapped Guest List. The names of the others appeared on the screen:
Louise Bates
Alex Fisher
Nestor del Fuentes
Octavio del Fuentes
Sikong Wei
Robert Williams
Sarah Williams
She hit the option next to her brother’s name: Locate. The screen changed to a spinning 3D map tracing a path from the area in which she was standing to a room several floors above.
“The guest you have requested, Robert Williams,” a computerized voice from the terminal announced, “is currently located on the 153rd floor. The central express lift has been called for your convenience.”
With a hiss, the lift doors slid open. Sarah hesitated, but decided she had no option but to take the lift, as more footsteps approached from the direction in which she’d come. As she stepped into the lift, the doors closed and the car began to rise swiftly. Seeing a small fire extinguisher set in the wall under the lift control panel, Sarah removed it, thinking it might make a useful weapon against whatever awaited her on the 153rd floor.
Seconds later the lift came to a halt and the doors opened. Weapon raised, Sarah jumped through and into a crouch, finding herself…
In a garden.
Blinking in confusion, Sarah took in her unexpected surroundings. The lift appeared to have taken her to the very top of the Spire. The walls were sloping glass, angled to a point high above – like being inside a transparent pyramid. The room itself was a large open space, clearly intended as a kind of viewing platform. The unusual thing about the place was that the entire floor was covered with grass. Around the edge of the area stood rows of trees through which a gentle breeze blew – no doubt artificially created. It was like being in an indoor park.
In the centre of the room, on a gentle incline, was a long stone table around which Robert and the others sat. They looked in surprise at Sarah’s sudden entrance. She straightened up and slowly lowered the extinguisher. Her friends didn’t seem like they were in danger. They seemed like they were having lunch.
>
“Sarah!” Louise cried as she ran over and threw her arms around her. “It’s okay!”
“What is this?” Sarah asked, looking over at the others. She allowed the extinguisher to drop from her hand onto the grass.
“Come on,” Louise said, taking Sarah’s hand and leading her towards the table.
As they approached, a tall man got up from the head of the table and walked towards them. The first thing Sarah noticed about him was his hair – which was completely white. The second thing she noticed was his eyes – deep, black irises that seemed to swallow you up as you looked into them. The man stopped before her and extended a slender hand to shake.
“Greetings, Sarah,” he said with a lilting Russian accent. “I’m Nikolai Makarov. Welcome to my world.”
18
“You arrived just in time to save us, Sarah,” Octavio said sarcastically as she approached the stone table. “Lunch was getting cold.”
Ignoring him, Sarah took a seat between Robert and Louise. The table was a single slab of polished stone and covered with a feast of food – bacon and eggs, chips, hamburgers, ice cream, chocolate. A woman in a uniform identical to the one Sarah had seen on the floor below, approached the table and laid a plate in front of her. Sarah noticed the vacant, expressionless eyes with interest, remembering the way the other woman had stood there uselessly in the corridor after going to her room. There was something robotic about them both.
“Thank you,” she said, but the woman gave no response. She merely walked back to where two similar attendants stood, off to the side of the table, waiting to serve should they be needed. Sarah’s stomach rumbled at the smell of the food – she hadn’t eaten in hours – but she refused to take anything until she had some answers about what was going on.
At the other end of the table, Makarov resumed his chair, laying a napkin across his lap with a flourish. “I hope you forgive us for starting the meal without you,” he said, pouring tea from a silver pot. He offered some to Alex, who was sitting to his right. “You were in such a sound sleep, we didn’t want to disturb you. It seems you inhaled a stronger dose of the sleep agent than the others. Probably when you tried to block the vents in my plane.”