by Ian Whates
“In exchange for your friend’s safe return.”
“Exactly.”
“That can be arranged.”
“First of all, I need to know that she’s safe.”
“Of course. A live feed…”
“No!” He cut across her. “For all I know you could have pre-recorded something, and there’s no way I can judge the sophistication of your CGI or know what other methods you might have to simulate a convincing image or conversation. I want Claire here, now, physically. My Claire, not some other imposter.”
The Director stared at him. “And for this you will deliver the Tenaga Sapphire?”
“Once I know for certain that Claire’s okay, that you haven’t harmed or abused her in any way, we can begin to discuss the matter.”
The pause was longer this time. Perhaps she was receiving ambiguous or conflicting intel regarding his sincerity. Either way, she was going to have to make a judgement call. Eventually, she nodded. “Very well. But please understand that I’m doing this as a gesture of good will.”
“Really? And why would you want to do that?”
“To show you that we’re not monsters, to demonstrate that we can be reasonable. You see, we wish to recruit you. We’d like you to join the Faramund.”
“What?”
“You have a natural gift—do you have any idea how rare that is?—and you’ve shown great resourcefulness, which has convinced us that you would make an excellent addition to our organisation.”
“So all this was…an audition?”
“In a sense. It became that as the mission progressed. You will of course be handsomely paid…”
Fortunately, while Chris was still trying to formulate a diplomatic response that didn’t involve a choice profanity or two, the door opened. They’d clearly anticipated his request, because in walked a third blue-clad guard, leading Claire—another Claire. His Claire? That had yet to be determined.
“Chris!” She ran into his arms as he stood up to meet her.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” she assured him. “They’ve treated me okay, apart from the locked doors and no fucking access to any fucking thing.”
In the brief second before the guard separated them, Chris took the opportunity to affectionately brush the tumble of hair from her face, catching a glimpse of her earring.
Silver. Hardly conclusive evidence, perhaps, but it was a good start.
Their removing his coat had been a wise precaution, but that wasn’t the only thing with pockets. As Chris sat down again, the fingers of his right hand strayed into a trouser pocket, finding the lozenge he’d programmed at home that morning. He moved it within his palm, and then triggered it.
He wouldn’t claim to have done so without misgivings—this was one of the nastiest devices ever to have come into his possession—but he couldn’t see any other way out of this. Force was the only language the Faramund seemed to understand, strength the only position they respected.
“Now all that remains are the formalities,” Freund said. “Once you have committed yourself to the Faramund and delivered the Tenaga Sapphire to us, your friend will be released.”
She hadn’t waited for his response to the proposal, he noted, confident that he had no choice. “I don’t think so,” he said quietly.
Faux-Claire was the first to react. She reached for her throat, coughing as if trying to clear it. The Director had time to stare at her in alarm before she did likewise, the three guards following suit almost at once. Only real-Claire and Chris remained unaffected.
“What have you done?” Freund gasped, glaring at him.
Chris didn’t respond immediately, waiting until the guards had slumped against the wall or dropped to their knees and the collective rasp of tortured breathing was close to unbearable. Then he pressed the second stud on the lozenge. Within seconds, the five blighted Faramund started to recover, their breathing less strained.
Two of the guards reached for their guns, but Chris held up a hand to forestall them. “Don’t, or I’ll trigger it again and this time you’ll die, all of you.”
They looked to the Director, who glared at Chris for an instant and then asked again, “What have you done?”
“Nanophages, millions of them, tailored to your physiology.” He had no intention of being too specific, of explaining that the phages targeted the difference in their blood, attaching themselves to the haemoglobin and preventing it from transporting oxygen, in the process suffocating from within. Let the Faramund work that out for themselves, as they doubtless would given time; for all the good that would do them. “As soon as they entered your bodies, the phages would have set to work, at the same time replicating themselves like miniature von Neumann machines. By now your systems will be flooded with them, and”—he glanced up at the ventilation grate—“so will everybody else in this building if the air here is circulated as I suspect it to be. I’ve flicked the off switch for now. All those millions of phages are still there, in your bodies, but they’re dormant. If I don’t reinforce the ‘switch off,’ they’ll turn active again three months from now and they’ll kill you all—everyone who’s breathed this air. And it won’t stop there. They’ll continue to replicate, to spread and infect…There will be no stopping them. You now have millions of microscopic time bombs ticking away inside you.”
He didn’t blame the Director and faux-Claire for their appalled expressions, Chris felt pretty appalled himself, but they’d made him do this, they’d forced his hand. He ploughed on.
“So, here’s how it’s going to work. You will go back to your client and report that you’ve failed to retrieve the Tenaga Sapphire. Further, you will stay out of my London and out of my way. You will not trouble me or my friends again in any shape or form. If you fail to comply in any way, I’ll trigger the phages and they will destroy you.
“In return for your compliance, I’ll come back here every three months and ensure that the phages remain dormant and you all continue to live. I know this London now, so I can find my own way here. You won’t know where or precisely when I’ll be coming through…Oh, and don’t bother trying to analyse the frequency of the deactivation signal. It changes after every use according to a preprogramed random sequence.”
“What happens if you get killed or incapacitated?” Freund asked, not unreasonably.
“You’re just going to have to pray I don’t.”
The Director stared poison at him, leaving no doubt that he’d just made a dangerous enemy. “This isn’t over,” she assured him, but they both knew that for now she had no choice.
“Fuck, it’s good to be home,” Claire said once they were. Chris wasn’t about to argue. The Faramund had kept their word and seen them safely back—as he knew they must. But he was under no illusion that this marked an end to the matter. The Faramund wouldn’t rest until they’d found a way to circumvent the Sword of Damocles he’d just left dangling over their heads, but it would take them a while to do so, if they ever could. For the present, at least, he was in the clear.
Their erstwhile captors had deposited the two of them on an anonymous street corner, leaving them to make their own way to the nearest tube station. After the antiseptic cleanliness of the Faramund world, Chris welcomed the familiar traces of urban grime. Claire was right—it was good to be home.
As they walked, she continued to worry him for details. He’d already told her more than he should have, and was being made to regret the fact at every turn.
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” she said. “You slept with her?”
Why had he mentioned that part? “Yes, I slept with her, okay? Now can we change the subject, please?”
“And you did so thinking she was me.”
He hesitated. God, this was awkward. “Yes.”
She gave him an odd look then, one he found difficult to fathom. Surprise, certainly, and there was amusement in there too, but something else as well. “And?” she said at length. “Was I any g
ood?”
He choked back a laugh, but recovered in time to shake his head and say, as solemnly as he could muster, “A gentleman never tells.”
“I bet I was fucking awesome!”
THE SMALLEST OF THINGS
Copyright ©Ian Whates 2018
COVER ART
Copyright © Ben Baldwin 2018
First published in hardcover in October 2018 by PS Publishing Ltd. by arrangement with the author, this eBook edition is published in November 2018. All rights reserved by the author. The right of Ian Whatesto be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN 978-1-78636-238-4
PS Publishing Ltd
Grosvenor House, 1 New Road
Hornsea, HU18 1PG, England
[email protected]
www.pspublishing.co.uk
Contents
THE SMALLEST OF THINGS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SMALLEST OF THINGS