Final Days

by Gary Gibson

  ‘Jeff Cairns,’ Saul gasped, from where he lay helpless. ‘I thought Farad could help me find a man called Jeff Cairns.’

  ‘We know who he is,’ said Narendra. ‘He and Farad once worked together. What do you know about their work?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Saul shook his head vigorously, so his cheek rasped against the concrete. ‘Something off-world, that’s all I know. Might be mineral assessment or something else, I have no fucking idea.’

  ‘But you’ve been assigned to find both him and Maalouf?’

  ‘No.’ Saul twisted his head around so he could finally look up at Narendra. ‘I wasn’t assigned by anyone. I’m here for personal reasons, that’s it.’

  ‘You’ll need to give me more than that.’

  The last thing Saul wanted to do was tell Narendra about Olivia. ‘All I know is that Jeff’s in some kind of trouble. That’s the sum total of my knowledge.’

  Narendra addressed Eren in rapid-fire Turkish. When he looked down at Saul again, his expression was tight-lipped. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘There’s some other reason you’re here.’

  Eren dragged Saul over to the window, fumbling one-handed with the latch and pushing it wide open. Saul tasted air damp from the condensation that gathered under the city canopy, as Eren pushed him up against the frame. He struggled, but Eren seemed to expend little effort in pushing Saul head-first out through the window, a firm grip on his collar the only thing keeping Saul from tumbling to his death. He felt his bowels turn to water as he stared at the void separating him from the ground.

  ‘Eren,’ said Narendra, coming to stand by the window, ‘thinks we should let you drop, if you have nothing useful to tell us.’

  Saul stumbled over his own words in panic, his heart beating so hard it felt like a terrified animal trapped in his chest. ‘All I know is Jeff was on to something that the ASI’s been trying to cover up, that’s it, I swear I have no idea what it is, but they’re killing anyone who was involved in any way.’

  ‘And this is the truth?’ demanded Narendra.

  ‘Goddammit, yes.’

  ‘Are you aware,’ asked Narendra, ‘that you were followed as soon as you arrived in Sophia?’

  ‘By your people, yes.’

  Narendra uttered a brief word to Eren, and Saul found himself suddenly pulled back from the window. He collapsed in a heap on the floor, his heart still thundering, and watched Narendra discard the burned-out stub of his cigarette and grind it under his boot. Saul sensed a shift in the atmosphere. Perhaps, he hoped, they were starting to believe him.

  ‘Not our people,’ Narendra replied. ‘Not Al Hurr or any of the other groups.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor do I. Three men tracked you all the way across town from the Array, all of them ASI agents. At first we assumed they were working in conjunction with you, but then it became clear they were following you without your knowledge.’

  ‘You’re saying my own people were following me?’

  Narendra nodded. ‘There’s been a steady influx of government operatives through the Array, over the past couple of weeks. We assumed it was the beginning of another clampdown, particularly when people living here began to disappear or turn up dead. But the military forces pouring in through the Array over the past few days are far greater in number than at any point in the past. Not only that, the news from Earth is full of . . . things, indescribable monstrosities growing like weeds. Do you know what they are?’

  Military forces? ‘No,’ said Saul, ‘I don’t. And I’m not sure anyone does.’

  Narendra stared at Saul for what seemed like a long time, then spoke again to his colleague. Eren’s reply was angry, but something in the defiant way Narendra replied suggested that he was standing his ground over some issue.

  ‘I’m going to tell you something you don’t know,’ continued Narendra, turning back to Saul. ‘And I want you to know the only reason I’m sharing it with you is because it’s clear something very extraordinary is taking place – both here and back on Earth. Farad Maalouf was my brother.’

  Saul gaped at him. He recalled the pictures he’d seen of Maalouf and, studying Narendra’s face, saw what might be a family resemblance in the eyes and the shape of his jaw.

  ‘You just said he was your brother?’

  ‘My half-brother, to be precise,’ Narendra continued, quivering with barely suppressed rage. ‘He was gunned down like a dog, just a few streets from here.’

  ‘And you think I had something to do with it? I only just got here!’

  ‘You are an ASI agent, so it would be foolish of me to take you at your word. We are on different sides of a war.’

  Saul groaned. ‘What the hell are you talking about? What war?’

  Narendra stared at him in disbelief. ‘You help to maintain an unjust system, and we oppose it. We should be able to build our own wormhole networks, to find our own star systems to colonize, as and when we please, instead of having to route all our traffic through Copernicus. And now you are sending in your military to crush us without mercy.’ He gestured at Eren. ‘He is here in order to carry out your execution. The only reason you’re still alive is because I spoke on your behalf.’

  Something clicked inside Saul’s head. ‘That’s because you already believed me, isn’t it? You know I had nothing to do with your brother’s death.’

  Narendra’s nostrils flared. ‘I believe there are reasonable grounds for doubt. But believing you carries a price, because it means placing my trust in you. If that proves to be a mistake on my part, Eren will kill me as soon as he has finished disposing of you.’

  ‘Then, if you don’t think I killed Farad, what is it you need from me?’

  ‘I want you to tell me just how you came into possession of the encrypted database we found stored in your contacts.’

  Saul’s shoulders sagged in defeat. ‘I found it when I went looking for Jeff Cairns back on Earth. I figured I might be able to dig up some clue as to where he’d gone, but there was no way to break the encryption on the files.’

  ‘And Jeff Cairns worked with my brother, an expert in such matters. This is another reason you are still alive,’ Narendra explained. ‘If your intention was to kill him, it makes no sense that you would bring with you the very same information he died helping to steal.’

  ‘And . . . you’ve cracked the files?’

  ‘We did, yes.’ Narendra nodded. ‘But what we discovered is . . . troubling.’

  Narendra said something to Eren – and Saul gasped as a bag was once more pulled over his head.

  ‘I would rather you didn’t see just where we’re going,’ he heard Narendra say, as Eren lifted Saul back up on to his feet. ‘But it’s not far.’

  Saul stumbled along blindly, one man pushing him from behind while the other led him with a firm grip on his upper arm. When they next came to a stop, Saul felt the floor suddenly lurch beneath him, and guessed they had boarded an elevator. As they emerged once more, he felt a breeze blowing through the narrow slit just above his mouth.

  ‘We’re going to put you in the boot of a car,’ he heard Narendra say. ‘Do not struggle.’

  Two pairs of hands bundled him into a cramped space, then he heard the car’s boot lock click into place just an inch above his head. A moment later he felt the vehicle accelerate.

  No more than ten minutes passed before the car came to an abrupt halt, and soon the boot clicked open once more. Hands reached in and pulled him out, and once more he was led through a series of twists and turns. When they finally tore the bag from his head, Saul blinked under flickering strip lights that illuminated a narrow corridor with peeling, whitewashed walls, and a stairwell at the far end.

  They led him to a door, on which Narendra continued rapping until it swung open, revealing a surly-looking man in his early twenties. He wore faded work clothes and held an Agnessa submachine gun close to his chest. He nodded to Narendra and Eren, but spared Saul only a brief, contemptuous glare, before leading the thre
e of them into what appeared to be someone’s living room. A TriView sat in one corner, while a couch and armchair were positioned on a thick, patterned carpet. The room smelled of a mixture of mint and cigarettes.

  ‘Where are we?’ Saul asked.

  ‘This was Farad’s apartment,’ said Narendra. He gestured to Eren, who merely nodded and collapsed into the armchair, placing the shotgun across his knees.

  Narendra beckoned to Saul to follow him into what had clearly been Maalouf’s office, where a second TriView was mounted on the wall. Narendra left the door open, and Saul, glancing back towards the living room, saw that Eren could easily keep an eye on them from where he was sitting.

  Narendra activated the TriView. ‘The database contains many video sequences we are still struggling to comprehend,’ he explained as he turned back towards Saul. ‘We want to know what they mean.’

  ‘You’re buried in shit right up to your neck, I think,’ Saul muttered under his breath.

  ‘I am a businessman, not a revolutionary,’ Narendra responded sotto voce, with a nervous glance towards the living room. ‘For all that I would like to see the men responsible for killing Farad pay, I would now prefer to be almost anywhere but here.’ He nodded towards the TriView. ‘Please, pay attention.’

  Saul found himself watching several figures in bulky spacesuits making their way across what appeared to be a bridge that was illuminated by rows of lights. Tinny-sounding voices crackled with static, and a notice flashed up, warning them this recording was classified. To Saul, it all looked very flat and artificial, without the aid of his contacts.

  The footage was raw and clearly unedited, and appeared to have been recorded through some kind of suit-mounted camera rather than through anyone’s contacts. The view shifted suddenly, as whoever was recording these images glanced up. Saul noticed that the bridge led into a passageway entrance in the side of a building of monumental proportions. An angled wall rose up and up above brbefore disappearing into a sky so black and empty that something about it sent a chill all the way through him.

  The suited figures began talking amongst each other about low-pressure zones and high-gravity areas, and of Founders and artefacts. At one point, Farad Maalouf’s face, pale and nervous-looking, became visible through the smeared glass of a suit helmet.

  The scene changed abruptly to what appeared to be the deck of a cruise liner, or a ferry, moving through heavy weather, with dark grey clouds scudding low over a stormy sea. Something huge grew out of the water directly ahead, almost incomprehensibly large – obviously one of the alien growths currently dominating the headlines. Enormous leaves were intermittently visible through the cloud cover.

  The view then blurred as whoever was making the recording – through contacts, this time – made a sudden movement. There was a brief glimpse of a woman’s face and then the scene changed again, as abruptly as before, now showing Copernicus City as it would appear from further along the crater wall.

  Something was wrong, however. The entire city was in ruins, as if it had undergone some cataclysmic aerial bombardment. The view slowly panned around to reveal that the upper levels of the city’s tallest buildings had been sheared off, and their debris scattered for tens of kilometres all around.

  Another change of scene, and this time Saul found himself looking at what appeared to be satellite footage taken from low-Earth orbit. He saw the surface of the Earth was now dotted with the same flower-like growths, but in far, far greater numbers than they existed currently.

  That settled it, then: this footage was obviously faked. Any reasonably skilled graphic artist could generate images like this, impossible to distinguish from reality. But what gave Saul pause to wonder – even to doubt his own sense of disbelief – was the look of utter dread he saw on Narendra’s face, as he glanced towards him.

  ‘Farad caused us much consternation,’ said Narendra. ‘He was given the opportunity to infiltrate a highly secretive research project backed by the ASI. At first we rejoiced, because we now had one of our own deep in the enemy’s territory, reporting back to us. It was clear that one of the greatest discoveries ever made in the history of mankind was deliberately being kept hidden from us all. But, within a short period of time, Farad became . . . recalcitrant.’

  ‘What do you mean, “recalcitrant”?’

  ‘At first, he refused to report back on anything he had seen and learned, so he was accused of becoming a turncoat. I tried to speak to him, because I was worried for his life, and finally he admitted to me that he was terrified of telling us what he knew in case we thought he was insane. He swore he was working on assembling the proof we would need in order to believe him.’ Narendra shrugged. ‘We had no choice but to go along with that explanation.’

  Saul pointed to the TriView display. ‘And this is the proof he was bringing back?’

  ‘Presumably,’ said Narendra. ‘Although I would rather it was not the case. Please,’ he gestured to the display, ‘there’s more.’

  Saul turned back to the TriView and reeled in shock. The view had shifted back to the figures in pressure suits, except that this time some of them had cracked their helmets open, and were engaged in lifting a naked Mitchell Stone on to a makeshift stretcher. His skin was tinged blue and, as Saul watched, an oxygen mask was placed over his mouth. After that, he was carried down a long corridor with a high, vaulted ceiling, the walls decorated with carefully carved glyphs and shapes so utterly inhuman that they verged on the obscene. Another sudden jump-cut, and Saul watched as Mitchell was lifted out of some kind of cabinet in a sterile-looking room filled with pipes and monitors.

  ‘I can’t make sense of any of this,’ said Saul. ‘What is it supposed to be?’

  Narendra regarded him with sad eyes. ‘You cannot explain it?’

  ‘It can’t be real.’ But how, then, to explain that image of Farad Maalouf peering out of his helmet, surrounded by that impossible landscape?

  ‘That is Eren’s assumption,’ said Narendra. ‘He thinks Farad somehow invented all of this. But this does not explain why someone in the ASI wanted him dead, nor, presumably, why they wanted Jeff Cairns dead as well.’

  Saul shook his head and turned back to the TriView, thinking he couldn’t possibly experience any greater shocks than he had already received. But what came next was like the final coup de grâce in a particularly one-sided boxing match.

  He again found himself looking at what he had at first assumed to be a bridge, but which now appeared to be a parapet connecting the monumental structure he had seen earlier to other, identical edifices. Something about them made him think of a cemetery – or, perhaps, a mausoleum. The video had been filmed from the point of view of someone pushing a heavy steel box, mounted on balloon-type wheels, with serial numbers stamped along its side.

  Saul recognized it immediately as the hijacked shipment Hanover’s squad had been sent to track down.

  The suited figure trundling the box came to a halt, whereupon a second figure, which had been walking just ahead, stopped and turned to look back. Saul recognized Jeff’s face looking out through the visor, an expression of worried concern on his face as he spoke. This time, however, there was no sound, suggesting he must be communicating over a private link.

  ‘I have studied these video fragments very carefully,’ explained Narendra. ‘Particularly the ones that were most recently uploaded into the database. There are ways to determine if those images are real or not – certain signs of artifice that cannot be avoided. Yet I have found no such evidence.’

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Saul replied stubbornly. ‘You’re trying to tell me this is all real?’

  ‘You’ve seen those same things on the news feeds. There are hundreds of hours of these recordings, much of it showing what appears to be a ruined and lifeless Earth – lifeless, that is, apart from the growths. Eren may be happy to deny the evidence of his eyes, but I cannot. These are things that have not happened yet – but obviously will.’

  Somethin
g occurred to Saul. ‘You said Farad died somewhere near here. Did you recover his contacts?’

  ‘Yes.’ Narendra nodded warily. ‘Why? Because you think they might have recorded the face of his killer?’

  Assassination had become a much harder business once UP-enabled contacts had become a mainstream form of communication, since they were capable of recording their wearer’s last moments. ‘That crossed my mind, yes,’ said Saul. ‘If the ASI were really behind the hit, they’d have made recovering the victim’s contacts a priority.’

  ‘You’re assuming Farad’s killer came face to face with him,’ Narendra pointed out. ‘Or that the killer hadn’t disguised himself in some way.’

  ‘That’s why Eren thinks I’m here, isn’t it?’ Saul muttered. ‘He thinks I was sent to recover the files Farad stole.’

  Narendra’s expression told him he’d guessed right. ‘We guarded Farad very carefully on his return,’ said Narendra, ‘but he was killed despite our best attempts.’

  ‘So do you know who did it?’

  Narendra turned back to the TriView projection and skipped through a series of menus. After a couple of seconds, Saul recognized the streets of Sophia, from the viewpoint, again, of someone wearing contacts.

  ‘You are witnessing the last minutes of my brother’s life,’ Narendra explained, his expression sour.

  From the way the view shifted around, it was clear that Maalouf was casting darting glances all around. He was accompanied by three grim-faced men, Eren amongst them, and it was late at night. The giant struts supporting the city’s canopy curved overhead like white bones. The four men crossed a street quickly, all of them shooting glances here and there, as if they were being hunted.

  Saul flinched instinctively as the first shots rang out. He saw one of the three men accompanying Maalouf drop to the ground, blood pouring from one side of his head. Maalouf either started to run, or was dragged, in the direction of a doorway. Saul caught a brief glimpse of a van skidding to a halt nearby, its tyres screaming on the tarmac.