“Wait! This is the bit I didn't understand,” a rotund man in his sixties with a bulbous nose that suggested a lifelong drinking habit spoke up. “I read this and I still don't get it. You're claiming that these nanites that make up this alien creature are in other people?”
“No, not other people. All people. All of us have them.”
“I don't know about anyone else, but I do not have robots inside me.”
“They're tiny. You'd need powerful microscopes to see them.”
“Nonsense.”
“I don't care if you believe me. I'm telling you the facts.”
The woman piped up. “If there were nanites inside us, we'd have found evidence to support that claim.”
“I'm not an expert on Shun nanotechnology. But I'd expect that if you're advanced enough to rip wormholes through the space-time continuum and transfer your consciousness to colonies of miniature robots, you'd be advanced enough to give these nanites the capability of evading detection. That to me is the least difficult thing to comprehend.”
No one spoke. Linwood glared at the attendees, daring them to challenge her. It was Kingston who finally broke the silence. “Your team knew about the nanites back in 1984. What did you find out about them?”
“That they were unlike anything we've been able to create ourselves. Back in 1984, the whole science of nanotechnology was in its infancy so to find an actual working implementation of the theory was awe-inspiring. We did what we could to research them. It was at the back of my mind that we might replicate the technology ourselves, but they were resilient to being studied. Back then, I thought this was due to the primitive technology we had at our disposal, but now I realise that it was because they didn't operate the way we theorised nanites would operate.
“Most people like to think of nanites as tiny robots, working under instruction. The layman gets its ideas from science fiction movies and is more bothered about the idea of out-of-control nanites converting everything to a grey goo. But the Shun nanites weren't like that. They were more advanced and adaptable than what we could conceive. And they were connected. They could influence each other and send new instructions to each other at a rapid pace. They acted like they were alive—like they had a consciousness of their own.”
The woman next to Kingston shifted in her chair. “You say they were connected? What were they connected to? Where were they getting these instructions? From Irulal?”
It’s something that Linwood had tried to understand. Ever since Irural’s commandeering of Laura Brody she’d had an inkling that there was something else there that she didn’t understand. And then with the Faceless, communicating with Irural somehow. A hidden network they hadn’t yet detected?
“I don't know. Irulal as a consciousness only existed as the highly complex relationship and interactions between the nanites. When she agreed to provide a sample of these nanites to us, they acted differently. You wouldn't say at that point they were Irulal at all.”
“And these nanites are inside us?”
“Irulal claimed to have been releasing nanites into the environment. Over the last twenty years, they've been replicating and working their way into the human race. She claims everyone has nanites inside them.”
“And these manage the physical changes we experienced earlier this morning?”
Linwood nodded. “Yes. Irulal was using the mobile network to broadcast new instructions to the nanites inside all of us. They were preparing us.”
“Preparing us for what?”
“To be taken over by the rest of the Shun. We were all going to become host bodies for the rest of Irulal’s race.”
The woman held Linwood’s gaze, and it seemed to Linwood that the mood of the room had changed somewhat. She had no idea whether they believed what she was telling them and if push came to shove, she'd have to admit that she was relying on what Max Harding had told her. He was a whole other kettle of fish to be concerned about.
“You're telling us that the light show at Jodrell Bank this morning, was an attempted invasion?” Phillips said.
“Yes, that's exactly what it was.”
“And you were able to stop it?”
“Yes.”
“With the help of Max Harding?”
“Max destroyed the technology at Jodrell Bank that Irulal was using to bring her people here.”
“This light show...”
“That’s right,” Linwood replied.
“Max Harding is a civilian. What was he doing facing an alien threat whilst at your own admission, you were fifty miles away?”
“I had equipment and access to the intelligence network. I thought I might provide help remotely.”
“But you couldn't?”
“I tried to block the signal by shutting down the telephone network but that proved impossible. It was down to Max at that point to end this.”
“A civilian,” Phillips repeated.
“A fugitive from the police,” the woman next to Kingston added. “And you let him go alone to face this alien?”
“There was no time to debate it. Irulal had a head start on us. We were improvising,” Linwood said.
“And why was Max Harding involved, anyway?”
Kingston interrupted. “As Alice has already indicated, this information is included in her report.” He made a show of checking his watch. “I suggest we move onto the most pressing matter of what to tell the public. Social media is already highly active and critical of the lack of any official responses from Government. The Home Secretary has made it clear we’re to have a statement ready by nine o’clock this morning. That gives us a little over four hours. I'm assuming we're not ready to announce that we've had contact with alien life forms over the last thirty years, so what do we want to put in this statement?”
Linwood felt something lift as she heard Kingston’s words. The quiet confidence that had been so prevailing in the room mere moments ago had evaporated.
“Anyone?” Kingston repeated to a sea of blank faces.
6
6th May 2013
Trenton Winborn was exhausted. Working with Department 5 had a way of doing that to a man. He got out of the car and waved his security clearance at the men guarding the perimeter. The police had long since been pushed back to the main roads leading up to Jodrell Bank.
Dawn was breaking and the Lovell Telescope sat gloriously against the landscape, looking impossibly incongruous with the background of trees and greenery. He’d never been here before to visit and as he approached the dish, he couldn’t help but direct his eyes all the way to the top. Boy, that baby was huge.
They didn’t know enough about what was happening across the country to offer anything less than rudimentary advice to the government. From what he’d seen on the news, the country was in a state of shock. Most people were staying at home and rightly so. The incident had happened in the middle of the night and affected everyone. It had caused blackouts and that meant anyone on the roads had suffered a collision. From the reports he’d seen from the emergency services, they were impossibly overstretched. Disaster plans had been put into action and Winborn knew they were only one phone call away from martial law being put into place. Whatever they discovered in the next few hours could affect the lives of the country’s population forever.
He found Ned and Lucy on the engineering gantry half way up the Lovell Telescope. Both D5 agents, they’d been working at the TALOS Institute under Winborn’s leadership for the last five years. He trusted them about as much as he trusted any of his people. Ned grinned as he helped him off the ladder. “Surprised to see you up here.”
“I thought I should check out the scene of the disturbance myself.”
Ned led the way along the gantry to a small office built into the supporting legs of the dish and opened the door for his superior.
The room acted as some kind of control room for the dish. No larger than a typical office, the space was crammed with hardware. Metal cabinets were built into two of the wa
lls. A third wall was largely filled with a window looking back onto the main office block, whilst the fourth wall had the door they’d just walked through. Two desks held bulky looking computers, hooked up to larger network boxes. The machinery was antiquated. They had processors at TALOS that could fit in your pocket that had more processing power than this room.
“The sprinkler system had been set off. Everything’s fried,” Ned explained. “We’ll get IT up here but in all honesty, I don’t know if they will find anything useful.”
“The alien was in here though?” Winborn asked.
“According to Max Harding, this is where he first confronted it at this site,” Ned said.
Winborn still wasn’t clear on who Max Harding was. He’d been the only one up here fighting an alien life form that had spent years hiding in an MI18 base.
“Any sign of the alien’s remains?” Winborn asked.
“Nothing. Harding claimed he shot it and it fell from the top of the antenna array. He didn’t say what happened to the body,” Ned said.
“It was a nanite organism,” Lucy suggested. “After the trauma of a shot, it might not have been able to hold together its form.”
“MI18 called the alien Irulal,” Ned offered.
“Yes,” Winborn replied. “I’ve read the Operation Snowflake file on the way here.”
“Operation Snowflake?” Lucy asked.
Ned stopped taking photographs. “In 1983, the RAF brought down three alien spacecraft over the Isle of Arron. There was one survivor. This alien, Irulal. It survived by occupying a human host, a small girl called Laura Brody. After it murdered the girl’s mother and boyfriend, it attempted to escape the island. Linwood’s MI18 crew was able to contain the life form and bring it back to the Marine Lake base—the Tombs. Only, the containment wasn’t sufficient and Irulal escaped. On that occasion, she flooded sections of the base and killed many of Linwood’s team. Two civilians were killed as well but Dominic Thadeus destroyed her with a weapon based on the armaments from her crashed ship.” Ned paused. “Clearly, that wasn’t the end of it, but that’s all the files show. Something happened afterwards that we’ve not been privy to. Irulal survived somehow and she’s behind this attack. Do we know what she was trying to do?”
Winborn nodded. He’d been briefed by Jaq over the phone and added to their story. “This is only what Max Harding reports, bear that in mind. Irulal was doing something that would open a doorway to her own people.”
“An invasion?”
Winborn shrugged. His opinion of the security services had never been lower. How did all of this go on at MI18 with Linwood being completely oblivious? “Come on, let’s go up to the dish. I want to see what the antenna platform looks like.”
Ned led the three of them back across the gantry. The wind had picked up a touch, and Winborn shivered and instinctively reached a hand out to the rail.
“It’s up this way,” Ned said, indicating a small ladder leading off the walkway to a hatch above them. The three of them made their way up and suddenly Winborn found himself standing on the surface of the dish. The air moved differently up there, the sounds more distant. Calmer.
In the centre of the dish, a tall metal framework towered up, reaching for the sky.
“That’s where Harding said he killed Irulal,” Lucy said, pointing up at the structure.
“Right. Have you been up there yet?”
Ned smiled. “Yes, it’s quite a climb.”
Winborn nodded and grabbed hold of the ladder in the centre of the tower, but when neither of the others moved he said, “Are you not coming?”
“Like he said,” Lucy replied. “It’s quite a climb.”
He surprised himself by reaching the top within a couple of minutes and as he made his way onto the small platform he gripped the handrails and took in the view. The sun was up over the horizon and a deep mist clung to the ground like a baby’s blanket. He let himself close his eyes, just for a moment, to soak in those early morning rays and—
A noise crackled above him. A bright light hit his eyes through his closed eyelids.
He snapped his eyes open and glanced upwards. Nothing.
Then as he pulled his radio from his jacket and thumbed the call switch, he noticed small bumps further along the handrail. And more, slightly larger than a fist, clinging to the side of the antenna array.
“Did you see that?” he asked into the radio.
Lucy replied. Her voice unsure. “I don’t know what I saw. A flash of light, a reflection? Perhaps you ought to get down.”
“Yeah.”
But whatever he’d seen, it wasn’t there anymore. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. A spark of energy from the handrail stung his fingers. Static discharge?
“Have you seen these shapes up here, the bumps on the handrail?” Winborn asked.
“They must be the structures Harding damaged. We’ve waiting on some containment before we try to take a sample. I’d suggest you don’t touch them.”
Winborn pocketed the radio. Sensible suggestion. If Irulal had made these constructs, who knew what they were capable of?
He bent low and stared at the mounds. They looked like piles of sand that had been glued together. They must have been bigger when Harding was here. Winborn wondered what had happened to the rest of the material. If Harding had been up here and destroyed them as he claimed, he wouldn’t have had much room to manoeuvre. He’d have been very close to these constructions and to Irulal.
Damn, where was her body? Harding’s report described how she’d taken his wife’s form by this point, so that meant an adult amount of mass. If she’d become as delicate as these mounds of sand looked, had she disintegrated? A fall from the top of this structure to the dish below could have dissipated her structure even more. Then the wind could have taken care of the rest.
He looked over the edge and noticed Ned and Lucy taking photographs and talking into a voice recorder.
Damn. Winborn snatched his hand. It was stinging. He stared at the handrail, wondering what had just happened. The mound he’d been looking at—surely it had been further along.
7
6th May 2013
Out in the corridor, Linwood saw Max. Tired and in need of a shower and a change of clothes, he was flanked by two agents. He nodded as he saw her but there was no warmth there, only barely disguised hostility. He rose from his chair and approached, and at first, one agent put an arm out warning him back, but Linwood shook her head and the arm retracted. Max had every reason to be pissed off.
“What the hell am I doing here?” Max asked. “They're treating me like a criminal.”
“They're scared and they're pulling together all the facts. It might not make them feel any less scared, but it will help them forget for a time they were no longer in control for a while back there.”
“What have you told them?”
“Everything I know,” Linwood replied. “I'd suggest you do the same.”
He sighed and turned away. “I can't believe this shit.”
Linwood felt for him. In the space of three days, he'd been attacked, been accused of murdering his mistress, then fought for his life with an alien life form that had stolen his wife's body.
“You're in the best place. They can help you,” Linwood said to his back.
“Right. You would say that though.”
“You're right. I would. But in this case, I mean it. Besides, who else have you got to turn to?”
The door opened again behind her and she turned to see Toby Kingston stepping out. He acknowledged her with a dip of his head then walked around her to be beside Max. “We're ready for you now, Mr Harding.”
Max turned and glanced at Linwood then Kingston. “Well, let's get this over with.”
MAX WAS EXHAUSTED. It wasn’t just the lack of sleep; it was all of it, the whole bloody shit storm he’d landed in.
They’d given him no choice over coming to London and he wondered whether he’d have come, anyway. He want
ed to know what had happened as much as anyone else, hell no, more than anyone else. He was the one who’d been left to fight this invasion attempt on his own. It was his wife and mistress dead. A hollow, empty void pulled at him from deep inside, threatening to consume him with emptiness and doubt. The night he’d left Heather on a promise of telling Cindy about his affair repeated itself over and over. Like a video stuck on a loop, playing on the back screen of his mind. He should have stayed the night. If he’d never left Heather’s side and come clean to Cindy, she’d not have killed her.
Crap. She might not have done it the same night, but Cindy was always a vindictive monster. Don’t kid yourself that she’d have let Heather alone.
So, it was still his fault. Whichever way he spun it. Heather could never have been a part of his life.
But the people in the room weren’t concerned with that ache in his heart. They wanted answers like he was some kind of expert on alien invasions.
The preamble was over. He introduced himself, explained how he worked as a network consultant, and how he’d come to be wrapped up in the Jodrell Bank Incident.
They were asking about Cindy. She was dead now. He’d killed her. He wished they’d change the subject.
“I’m sorry Mr Harding, I’ve heard what you’ve had to say but I find it incredulous that you could be married to this woman and not know she wasn’t even human.” This from a woman sat next to Kingston. For the past thirty minutes, she’d done the majority of the talking and the rest of the people in the room seemed happy to let that continue.
“I don’t know how you want me to respond to that,” Max said.
“Truthfully.”
Max hesitated, considering how to answer. “My wife was human.”
“She was part of the alien entity. We’ve already heard how alien nanites have infected people. Your wife was one of the most affected wasn’t she?”
“I know nothing about nanites. All I can say is that for most of the time we were together, Cindy was normal.”
“And you saw nothing unusual in your wife in all the years you were married.”
The Faceless Stratagem (Tombs Book 2) Page 4