“What does she want with the dish?”
“You tell me, you work here.”
“I’m just a second year student. I’ve been working on my end of year project.”
“She’s gone to a lot of trouble to take control,” Max wheezed. “Whatever it is, it’s important.”
When they reached the gated perimeter surrounding the entire telescope, Max spotted the access gate hanging open and headed for it.
“When we get inside,” Max said, “I’ll keep her distracted and you try to work out what she’s been doing.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Oh, should be pretty easy. She wants me dead.”
In the distance, back behind them by the main complex, a smash of glass shocked the night air.
“They’ve found their way out,” Max said despondently. “Still I suppose they’ve given us a bit of a head start.”
Stacey took one last glance behind her, then dashed through the open gate and to the base of the telescope. Max followed.
“You can get up there by using these access ladders to the gantry.”
Stacey didn’t wait for Max to offer to go first, and instead grabbed the rungs and started climbing. Max looked up and saw the gantry she was referring to. It must have been sixty foot high.
They climbed in silence. The wind blew harder this high up and the air colder. Stacey waited at the top of the ladder and helped him to his feet, but as she did so, Max felt her tense up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look, they’re almost here,” she said pointing down to the field. Max peered over the railings. The three blanks were running across the field towards the access gate to the telescope. Instinctively, Max held his gun to his shoulder and looked through the sight. Stacey knocked it aside.
“What the hell—” he started but she glared at him.
“One of those is my boyfriend. You can’t just kill him.”
“He won’t have that compassion towards us when he gets up here.”
“I don’t care. You’re not doing it.”
Max considered the girl beside him, the thunderous look in her eyes, then glanced down at the field again.
“Too late, they’ve gone. We’re running out of time.”
The gantry led to both of the control towers, but it had been the left-most tower that Max was interested in. He could see the light edging the door frame, but without windows, Max couldn’t see who was inside.
A noise below made Max look down the access ladder. Sure enough, the blanks were on the ladder making their way steadily towards them. Max pulled the rifle to his shoulder and fired a shot before Stacey could stop him. The weapon’s discharge echoed around the steel infrastructure, and almost took Max off his feet.
“You bastard,” Stacey yelled.
“Don’t worry. I only wanted to scare them.” Max checked their progress and saw with satisfaction that his plan had had the desired effect. He’d deliberately shot wide, hoping that the men’s natural self-preservation instinct would temper their enthusiasm. Daniel’s blank visage stared up at them. Max continued to point the rifle at him.
“Ever fired a gun before?” Max turned to Stacey, passing the rifle to her, making sure the blank on the ladder could see the end was still pointing at its head.
“What are you doing? You can’t expect me to—”
“You’re going to shoot anything that comes up that ladder. If you don’t, we’re finished.”
“I can’t,” she said and Max could see that she was shaking. He squeezed her arm above the elbow and looked her in the eye.
“You can.”
She took the rifle from him and pointed it down the access ladder.
“If they start to move again, fire another warning shot.”
“Uh huh,” Stacey said, squinting down the sight, her arms trembling. But at this close range, maybe even a poor shot would be good enough.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Max said with a confidence he didn’t feel, and he hurried along the gantry to the control room door. Losing the gun was hard and it meant facing Cindy without a weapon. Max took a deep breath, and he slammed open the door.
He knew the sight that met him would haunt his dreams for years—if he survived the night. A latticework of silver tendrils crisscrossed the room, reaching into the far corners where he lost the ends of them to the darkness. And at the centre of this mass, Cindy stood, supported by the tendrils twisting out from her body.
“Help me, Max.” Her voice was pained: every syllable an effort.
“What can I do?” Max said hoarsely.
Her eyes pleaded with sorrow and tears. Despite everything that she’d done, Cindy was still the woman he married. The woman he’d planned to have kids with if only things had worked out. Now, thinking about it, he realised why she was never going to be able to carry his children. What chance would a new life have against these machines inside her? The tendrils were doing more than keeping her prisoner; they were flowing—alive. The silver tendrils reached from Cindy, to the computer terminals, to the ceiling lights, to the power sockets.
Max stared. He felt impossibly pathetic against such a creature of havoc.
“What do you want?” he eventually asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Cindy, shut up. I’ve done talking with you,” Max said shaking his head.
Her face dropped, like a switch had been flipped, and her expression changed. Cold. Irulal.
Max stepped fully into the room. Parts of it had been dissolved, used as raw material for the nanites and on top of the computer terminals, new structures were gradually building up. At first, they looked no more sophisticated than termite mounds, but Max could see patterns across their surface. And the patterns shifted, dancing across the silver skin like living circuit boards. He edged around the room. Irulal’s eyes never left him.
“Your bodyguards are coming to protect you. That little package you left for them in the base station did the trick. You must be pleased that more people have died.”
The voice that answered wasn’t Cindy’s. There was an edge to it that wasn’t there earlier. He knew he was speaking to Irulal. “I couldn’t risk anyone interfering.”
“Why not? What are you doing? What do you need the telescope for?”
Irulal’s head tilted to the side.
“So curious, and so resilient. I’m glad my vessel had you for company all these years. You must have been quite entertaining for her.”
“Is Cindy still in there?”
“I’d never want to leave my favourite toy. She’s still here, but she’s having a rest for a while. There’s still a lot to do.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What do you need the telescope for?”
Another tendril shot out from the corner of her left eye, and embedded itself into a panel on the wall, inches from Max’s head.
“It’s time that my kind came to see the work I’ve done for them. I’ve been working for so long.”
“Time for your long service award?”
Irulal grinned. “For such a three-dimensional species, your capacity to find comedy in your lowest moments always surprises me.”
“Glad I’m keeping you entertained,” Max said, and he ducked under the latest tendril that had narrowly missed him, and stepped over to what he presumed to be the main computer terminal. This device seemed to be important to the creature; this was where it had started to construct the new structures.
The computer screens were active, and displayed the same kind of incoherent windows on the screen as he’d seen back in the main complex.
“What’s all this for? You building a giant iPhone? Texting your mates. Asking for a lift?”
“No. I’m not going anywhere. My ‘mates’ will be stopping here as well.”
Max’s mind was racing. One of these aliens was problem enough. How would they deal with more of the things?
“I don’t think that’s going to be a great i
dea. We’re already pretty overcrowded as it is.”
“Overcrowding won’t be a problem.”
“Why not?” Max said warily, already suspecting the answer.
“We don’t plan to co-exist with your kind. You are just the raw materials for us.”
“Is that right? Just raw materials?” Max said and chuckled. His hands dug into his pockets, and slowly, he pulled out the object he was looking for.
“What’s that? Is it a weapon?” Irulal asked with amusement. “You really should just learn when to roll over and play dead.” A tendril struck out from Irulal, but Max was expecting it and ducked to his left, feeling the air swish above him as it passed.
Max grabbed a chair and used it to clamber onto the desk beside the computer. He glanced above him and took a step backwards.
Another tendril flew towards him, this time it brushed against his jacket, and he flung it off before the nanites had a chance to latch on to him.
“Cindy!” he yelled at the centre of the silver mass. “If you can hear me, you’ve got to fight it. For God’s sake, you’ve fought me for long enough. What chance does a deranged alien life-form stand against you?”
“Shut up. If you don’t, I might just wipe her mind.”
“I’ve done talking to you,” Max said. “I want to talk to my wife. We need to talk about our divorce.”
A tendril zipped through the air. Max saw it but it was too late for him to move aside.
It struck his chest. Instantly, the silver patterns rolled along the ligament and began to flow across his torso. Max felt cold.
But things were about to get even colder. He unclasped his hand and flicked his lighter on. The flame flickered as Max lifted his arm high above him.
“What are you doing?” Irulal said, genuinely curious.
“Shutting you down.”
The lighter was becoming too hot to hold, and the nanites crawled around his torso. Max resisted the urge to run, knowing that if he ran now, he would be sealing not only his own fate, but possibly the entire world’s.
The sensor above his head eventually picked up the heat of the flame and the sprinklers opened, sending sprays of water from three locations on the ceiling. The cold water drenched Max in seconds, his shirt and trousers instantly soaked. But then he realised with relief that the pressure that had been building up around his chest had lessened. The tendril retreated, withdrawing back into the host. Max heard a crackle from a panel across the room, then another from the terminal by his feet. He dropped to the floor and stepped back, just in time to see a larger spark flash from the top of the monitor. The screen went black.
“What have you done?” Irulal said. If she was angry, she refused to show it.
“Put a stop to your plans.” Max stepped back towards the main door, ducking as sparks flew from the terminals. A burning smell hung in the air.
“You’ve stopped nothing. Our plan is already in motion. All that needs sending is the final signal.”
Max’s smugness at being so ingenious vanished. He stared at Irulal, looking into its eyes, willing to see something of the woman he’d married. Max knew he was finished. He’d run out of ideas. His hopes would have to rest with Linwood and the rest of the MI18 team. Was there anything else they could do?
A noise from behind him, out on the gantry. Stacey screamed.
He pulled open the door and ran out of the control room. It took a second to register what he was seeing. Two of the blanks stood on the metal walkway, one behind the other. Max recognised Daniel’s clothes on the blank closest to him and Peter behind him. Dr Foster was nowhere to be seen. Stacey’s face lit up at the arrival of Max. Tears streamed down her face in pain. Daniel held on to Stacey’s hair with an unrelenting grip.
“I couldn’t do it Max. I told you I couldn’t.”
The rifle lay on the floor between them, forgotten or irrelevant to the blanks, it was too far away for Max to reach.
“It doesn’t matter. You did your best.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Are we going to die?”
Max didn’t get a chance to respond.
The sky above their heads lit up. Max and Stacey both looked up. Above the dish, a disturbance was forming: a light show that reminded Max of the photos he’d seen of the Northern Lights. Blues, greens, and yellows, all shone from a central light source that was growing in intensity and size. Irulal had been right. It had been too late to stop her.
The blanks holding Stacey both stared as well, and Max seized his chance. He lunged for the gun and twisted it round in his hands. With all the force he could muster, he charged the rifle’s butt into Daniel’s face with a sickening crunch. Max winced but brought it down again on the blank features.
A sound that could have been a howl of pain filled the night air, and the man that had once been Daniel, let go of Stacey’s hair and lifted its hands to his face. Peter pulled his comrade aside but in the ensuing scuffle, Max struck again, first at Daniel, then at Peter. But in Max’s haste, he’d allowed himself to get too close and even as he raised the rifle again, Daniel grabbed Max’s arm and twisted. Max yelled.
Max struck out with his foot, kicking hard at Daniel’s left knee cap with a crunch of cartilage. The grip lessened on his arm, and Max used that momentary chance to swing a left-hook at the creature’s face. Daniel fell back, knocking his comrade as he did so.
Stacey shouted at him to stop but Max blocked out her cries as he brought the rifle up to his shoulder. These two have been shown enough leniency. He squeezed the trigger, then again.
The men fell.
Stacey screamed. “You’ve killed them.”
Max lowered his rifle, and turned to the girl, her eyes red with anger and tears. “No. They’ll live. I aimed for their shoulders. Enough to knock out most men. Faceless or not.”
She calmed at that, but Max could see how shaky she’d become.
“Where’s the third man? Where’s Dr Foster?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He never came up.”
Max leaned over the railings and saw the remaining blank standing at the bottom of the ladder. Dr Foster looked up at the gantry, and after a moment’s hesitation, ran back across the field.
“Where’s he going?” Stacey asked.
“No idea,” he said, raising his rifle. “But I can stop him.”
Stacey didn’t react quickly enough, and Max fired off a couple of shots. His aim was poor though and he saw the impacts on the grass behind the running blank. Dr Foster changed course, away from the main building, towards the fields on the left.
Max fired off another round but it went wild. “I’m not going to get him, and I don’t have time to go after him. We’ve got to stop that,” he said, pointing up at the light show.
“What is it?”
“A means of her communicating with her own kind. She’s planning an invasion.”
“An invasion? You mean like her?”
“I guess so. This is my first alien invasion. I’m making this up as I go along.”
Stacey looked unsteady, like she might drop at any moment. Max grabbed her elbow and steadied her. “Hey,” he said, “we’re still alive. We haven’t lost yet.”
Blue flashing lights zipped along the middle distance. The sprinklers must have been linked to the local fire station. At least that meant the authorities would soon be on the scene. Whether they’d be able to help would be another matter. The light show from above the Lovell telescope must be visible for miles.
Max reached for his phone, intending to call Linwood, then he realised it was still in his jacket pocket. He glanced at the control room. It had gone surprisingly calm inside since he’d made a break for it. Now that the bodyguards had been dealt with, it was surely only a matter of time before Irulal would act.
With a terrible, tearing sound of metal against metal, the roof of the control station exploded outwards like a steel volcano erupting. Instinctively, Max grab
bed hold of Stacey and they huddled on the gantry as bits of shrapnel rained down on them. Stacey whimpered.
When the metal stopped raining, Max leapt to his feet and pulled the rifle to his shoulder. Squinting down the eyepiece, he got a glimpse of Irulal as she hauled itself out of the control station, using its tendrils to anchor and pull itself. It looked like a human spider. He pulled the trigger, mouthing goodbye to Cindy as he did. The bullet missed; a metallic clang sounded where it struck the telescope’s infrastructure. He pulled the trigger again. He swore as it too missed.
And then, it was out of his line of sight.
“It’s heading for the dish,” Max said to Stacey. “What’s the fastest way up there.”
“I don’t know about fastest, there is only one way.” She pointed out a small metal cabin on the far side of the gantry. Max could see a system of staircases leading up from the gantry into the belly of the telescope, rising all the time. “What are you going to do?”
“Whatever it takes,” Max said then jumped over the bodies of the blanks “Get out of here. Get as far away as you can.”
Stacey didn’t need telling a second time. Max heard her start down the ladder, and he felt a pang of sadness. He truly was all alone now.
49
Max yanked open the door. The staircase rose steeply before him with tiny metal treads, almost a ladder. It was dark under the dish, shielded as it was from the light of the disturbance. He started up the steps but his foot slipped and he fell awkwardly on the metal treads. A throbbing pain blistered from his shins.
He looked down to the ground and guessed he was at least fifty metres up. The wind had picked up, and it chilled Max in his sodden clothes, and with the wind there was something else: a noise or vibration, almost imperceptible. He placed a hand on the metal framework and his hand buzzed from the touch. Soft vibrations. It felt alive.
The fire engines had pulled into the complex now, and he hoped that although he couldn’t see Stacey on the field, she’d been smart enough to head for the authorities. But what if those damn blanks had woken up and gone after her? More worryingly, what if they were pursuing him. He scanned the staircase behind him but couldn’t see any sign of them.
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