“If you let us out of here we could try looking for her,” Stacey said. Her voice was steadier than it had been outside in the corridor. Max had noticed how close she was sitting to the jumpy kid. There was more than studying going on for these guys.
“What would it take to use the telescope to send a signal?”
“What kind of signal?” the professor asked.
“A signal into space.”
The jumpy kid grinned, then said, “That’s not a transmitter out there. That’s a radio telescope. It doesn’t transmit anything. If it did, it would be pretty useless at picking up any kind of signals. You probably didn’t notice that all our mobiles were turned off when you confiscated them. Even a mobile phone signal can cause unwanted interference.”
No, Max hadn’t noticed that, but he had seen signs on the approach to the complex, asking that mobiles be turned off. He hadn’t appreciated why at the time though.
“Let me worry about the science. If I can find my wife, I can show you what she’s capable of.” Max looked at Peter, still sat nursing his nose with a tissue, dabbing it, then inspecting the results. It seemed to have stopped. “Peter, you’ve got CCTV all over this place, and I’m guessing as a security guard it’s your job to monitor the feeds.”
Peter stared defiantly at him, refusing to cooperate.
Max sighed, then pointed his gun at the security guard. “I’m not going to ask you again. Where did she go?”
The man’s face turned grey. “I’ve told you mate. Your wife’s not here.”
“She might not have looked like a woman. It’s hard to explain. She might have been in disguise.”
“In disguise?”
“Yes, but a really good one.” Max realised how ridiculous the words sounded. “Something like a mask, only you might not have recognised it as one. It’s more of an animated mask. High tech. It might have looked like someone you know.”
“I’ve told you mate, I ain’t seen her.”
“Who else is on duty with you tonight?”
Peter fidgeted, grabbed the bottom of his jacket and tugged. “It’s just me tonight.”
“Come off it. One man to cover this whole site?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
Max wanted to grab the man and throttle the lies out of him but that would mean putting the rifle down, and Peter looked a mean son of a bitch.
Something through the window caused them both to glance through the glass. Max didn’t spot it at first, but Peter had. He muttered something under his breath.
“What’ve you seen Peter?”
“He said he was going to get a coffee.”
“Who did? Your friend? The other security guard?”
Peter sighed. “John. Due to retire in a few weeks’ time. Got himself a dicky ticker. Shouldn’t be working at all by rights, but he’s a stubborn old fool.”
“So what? You’ve seen him out there?”
“The tower on the left of the dish.”
Max looked and now that he was looking in the right direction, he saw it at once. The lights had been turned on in the rooms built into the left supporting tower of the Lovell dish.
“What’s in there?”
The rest of the room’s inhabitants were staring at telescope now. “It’s the control station for the telescope,” Dr Foster said softly.
Max stepped around the bank of terminals and faced the professor. “Could it be students?”
Dr Foster shook his head. “They’re not allowed in there. I mean, there’s no need for them to be in there. Maintenance engineers go up there from time to time, but not at this time of night, and not without my knowing about it.”
“What’s the control station do?”
“It’s the primary receiver for signals, before they get routed to us in the control room. And the systems to monitor the machinery to move the telescope. And there’s a few redundancy systems in there, but they haven’t been used for years.
“The telescope’s moving,” Stacey said quietly.
For a moment, they all watched as the steel framework travelled on its axis.
“Can you stop it?” Max snapped.
Dr Foster was already jogging around to the bank of instruments in the centre of the room. “I can immobilise the dish from here. Just give me a moment.” He tapped on a keyboard then paused. Something was wrong.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Max said, racing around to the professor’s side of the desk. Dr Foster had a puzzled expression on his face, like he was solving a riddle.
“I don’t understand,” he said, as he tapped at the keyboard again. Different windows appeared on the screen which he dismissed with a click of the mouse as soon as they appeared. “Daniel, come round here.”
The student who’d been comforting Stacey got to his feet, and he hurried to the problem terminal. Max wasn’t about to take any chances, no matter what was going on with the terminal, and he patted the rifle slung by his side. Daniel shook his head dismissively and took over the keyboard from Dr Foster.
“What are all those screens?” Max said. The windows kept appearing on the monitor, more and more started to fill the space, appearing faster than they could be cleared. Max bent down, confident that no one was about to try and tackle him for control of his gun. The windows weren’t your typical operating system kind. They shared the same basic appearance, but beyond the font and colour scheme, there was nothing that suggested they were normal.
“Is it a virus?” Peter said, standing up.
“I don’t know. It’s more like a data corruption. The messages are senseless. They’re not even in English,” Daniel said.
“Forget English,” Max countered, “that’s not even a language. Look at the characters.”
Although, if you inspected a message closely, you’d see the odd familiar Arabic character, most of it was unintelligible.
“Russian?” Daniel said, but Max could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
“Peter? Did John come up here tonight?” Max asked.
Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. I only saw him briefly as he came into the building. He was very late for his shift. I thought he wanted to catch up, to look busy, you know?”
“What about other nights?”
“Sure. We both have access to all the rooms.”
Stacey piped up. She’d got to her feet and was looking at the men clustered around the broken terminal. No, Max realised, she was looking at the base of the terminal.
“Guys, I don’t think that’s normal.” She pointed at the base of the terminal, and Max raced back round to her side of the equipment. Light wisps of smoke were slowly creeping up the side of the terminal, like ghostly fingers.
“The telescope’s stopped turning,” Daniel said.
Great, thought Max, he was too late. He should have gone to the telescope rather than wasting more time in here.
“Professor, you might want to back away from the terminal.” By now, the smell was obvious to all of them; an acrid burning, like an electric fan being switched on for the first time after a summer accumulating dust.
“No, we need to get to the bottom of this. I’m not having my equipment being abused so blatantly. I’ve got my annual report to the university due next week.”
Max saw how absorbed everyone was, so took the rifle off his shoulder and placed it carefully on the floor beside him. Gingerly, he touched the edges of the terminal’s access panel, and seeing as how they were only warm, not scalding hot, Max flicked the catches, and let the panel drop down to the floor.
A plume of smoke rose into the air, and Max put his hand over his mouth and nose whilst the initial cloud passed. Sparks crackled over the component cards housed in neat rows. There were no flames to account for the smoke but something was getting very hot in there. Max’s face flushed with the sudden heat now that the panel was gone. He wafted his hand to clear the smoke then saw the foreign object embedded in the guts of the machine. Stacey saw it too. “Oh my go
d! What is that? Is that—?”
Attached to a circuit board, buried in the circuitry, a single finger was trapped. Max recognised the gold band at once. He felt lightheaded and put a hand to the floor to steady himself.
“Guys, you’ve got to see this,” Stacey said, her voice shaking.
“What’s going on?” Dr Foster said as he hurried back around to the back of the terminal, Daniel in tow. Max moved aside so they could see inside the terminal. For a moment, neither of them knew how to react, then, before Max could stop him, the professor struck his hand into the terminal base and grabbed hold of the finger.
The scream surprised them all, like a wild animal in a trap. Dr Foster yanked his hand back and held his fingers to his lips, tears welling at his eyes.
“Are you OK?” Stacey said, helping him to his feet.
“I’ll live. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He turned to Max. “How did that get there? I take it that’s something to do with you.”
“Not me. My wife. It’s her finger. I recognise the wedding ring. She must have put it there.”
“When?”
“She’s been impersonating John, your security guard. I’m sure she’ll have had ample time to drop it in there.”
“I’m not getting this impersonation thing,” Owen said. “You’re making out she’s a master of disguise.”
“Trust me. She could impersonate your mum and you wouldn’t notice anything was wrong until she tried to kill you.”
“Or chop my fingers off?” Owen smiled cockily. “This is a massive hoax isn’t it?”
“I wish it was.”
“You’ll have plenty of time for wishes when you’re sat in a police cell.” Max spun round to see Peter holding the rifle. A little shaky, sure, but steady enough, and close enough, to not miss the shot. Max swore, angry with himself for being stupid enough to let his guard down.
“We don’t have time for this. I’ve wasted enough of it already. If we don’t stop my wife doing whatever it is she’s doing, we’re all in danger.”
“Shut it,” Peter said coldly. “Listen to yourself. You’re mental. Stacey, go get us one of those phones.”
Stacey looked anxiously between the men at either end of the gun.
“Do it,” Max said.
“I told you to shut it.”
Dried blood was smothered all over Peter’s lips and chin.
And then, before Stacey could take a step towards the bin where she’d dropped the phones, the terminal exploded.
Max spun on his heel, feeling the force of the blast propel him around. Fragments of casing and hot shards of metal blasted out from the explosion. Max’s reactions saved him from being hit by anything. The others weren’t so lucky. Peter fell to the ground and screamed as flame zinged through the air. Dr Foster and Daniel were standing by the window and got blasted against the glass, which shook as their bodies hit. Owen, like Max, had been far enough to the side to avoid any debris flying his way.
In a heartbeat, Max was on his feet and at Peter’s side. He picked up the rifle and slung the strap back on his shoulder before grabbing Peter’s sides and helping him to his feet.
Stacey hurried to the fallen men by the window.
“Oh God,” he said, stepping back hurriedly. “Keep away from those two!”
Stacey stopped in her tracks; Owen too.
Stacey looked across the room at Max but it was Peter she saw. Her scream could have shattered glass. She was still wailing as Max pounded across to her, took her arm and led her away towards the main door.
Peter’s face was gone. In its place was a mask of featureless skin.
“What the hell’s happened to him?”
“No time to explain. We need to go, or we’ll be next.”
She resisted the pulls on her arm. “But the others.”
They both looked over to where Daniel and the professor had fallen. As one, they lifted their heads up and stared blankly in Max’s direction. Both faces were blank.
“Daniel!” Stacey screamed, and tried to run over to her boyfriend but Max grabbed her sleeve even tighter.
“You go to him, and you’re finished. You might end up like him, or you might end up dead.” He pulled her round so she could look into his eyes. “Trust me, this isn’t anything you can fix. The only thing we can do is get out of here.”
Max could feel how unsteady she was on her feet, as he started to pull her towards the doors.
Peter had started to move. Whatever had kept him immobilised, had worn off. Daniel and the professor were also on their feet and moving towards them. Even without eyes, they were having no problem navigating around the equipment and furniture in the room.
“What do they want?”
“To stop us.”
Max yanked open the doors and pulled her through behind him. Sensing that their prey were about to escape, the blanks sped up. Seeing the faceless bodies hurrying towards her was all the incentive Stacey needed. She ran along the corridor, heading for the staircase at the end.
“Come on,” she yelled at Max who was still lingering by the door.
Max kept tight hold of the door handle, as he scanned the door for any way to lock it. There was only the keyhole, and Max knew who’d have the key. A quick look along the corridor convinced him that he wasn’t going to find anything he could use to quickly secure the door.
Instead he waited.
Stacey shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”
The first blank, Peter, would be at the door in a couple of seconds.
Just as the blank got to an arm’s length from the door, Max slammed the door inwards. The edge of the door punched against the blank and knocked it down. The surprise would only work the once, and the other two were right behind Peter.
Max ran.
Stacey’s face broke into a relieved smile, as she hovered nervously by the top of the staircase.
The doors opened behind Max and he heard two pairs of footsteps giving chase. A third, right behind them.
Stacey screamed a warning at Max, but he didn’t need it; he was already running as fast as he could. Stacey wasn’t going to wait. She ran down the stairs, but Max was right behind her.
“Get out!” Max yelled at her back. He made it to the stairs and chanced a look behind. Big mistake. The three blanks were closing on him. Max leaped down the stairs three at a time and almost ran into Stacey at the bottom.
He grabbed her and they ran together to the main door. Stacey pressed the exit button and the door lock clicked. The footsteps were almost right behind them. Max banged open the door and they both ran through.
Stacey slammed it shut, and leaned against it. Max joined her.
And then, a smooth milky white face appeared, framed in the narrow window of the door. Stacey yelped in surprise. The blank, even without eyes, watched them, evaluating them.
The door handle moved. Then the door shook as they tried to open it.
Max grinned. “They’re confused. They’ve forgotten about the security button.”
Stacey backed away from the door. “Is it still Daniel?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I think so.”
“But, it can’t be. Daniel would never hurt me.”
“He’s not in control. Something else is driving him.”
“What could do this? Where’s his face gone?”
“It’s alien technology. Nanites. They work fast.”
Stacey was looking at Max with a strange expression. Max knew it was a lot to process, but having the evidence chasing after you has got to be compelling.
“You’re not joking are you?”
“No,” Max said and carefully let go of the door.
“Won’t they work out how to get out?”
“Yes.”
And in answer to her question, the door suddenly shook in its frame as a weight barged into it. Another thud. The door wasn’t going to last long at this rate.
“We’re going,” Max said.
A smile started to break o
ut on Stacey’s face. “Which one’s your car?”
“We’re not leaving.”
“But you said—”
“I meant, we’re going up there.” And he pointed in the distance where the telescope loomed over a line of trees.
“Uh uh, no way. We’re leaving. We need to call the police.”
“Stacey, listen to me. The thing that’s controlling your friends is also controlling my wife. Right now, she’s up on that telescope doing God knows what. The messages on the terminal screen—that’s to do with her as well. She’s doing something seriously wrong with this facility and we need to put a stop to it.”
“I’ve left my car keys in my bag, and that’s back in the lab.” Stacey’s face was a mass of confusion, torn between staying to help her boyfriend, and a complete stranger, and her own survival instincts.
“Look, do what you like,” Max said and started to run along the path towards the telescope. He heard her footsteps running after him.
“Wait,” she shouted.
48
Max struggled to breathe, feeling that first sign of a stitch developing, he measured his pace and focused on the destination. This can’t be happening. Max had not had much chance to take stock of the crazy world that had appeared around him. This nightmare world had always been there, just on the periphery of his reality, waiting for the right moment to storm onto centre stage. And now it was here, and Max wanted it to end. This wasn’t a life he wanted. He wanted to lie down in front of the television with his love. But she was dead. If death was an option tonight, he didn’t know if he’d shun it or embrace it.
The girl ran along beside him, and Max was impressed. She’d stopped complaining and was keeping an easy pace with Max.
“How are you involved with this?” she asked, pulling a strand of hair away from her face where the wind had blown it.
“I told you, it’s my wife up there,” he said, pointing to the lighted control room.
“She’s an alien?”
“No.” But as Max considered what Stacey was asking, it was hard to consider Cindy as normal. Bearing in mind that she could steal people’s faces, and chop off parts of her anatomy to cause more destruction, it would be difficult to argue that she was entirely human.
The Face Stealer Page 28