by Mike Essex
He was only thirty but he had worked with Tethers for years and had a good understanding of how they worked. He and his team built a prototype that could block the wave and tested it in Birmingham. For the next day no one in Birmingham died, whilst other cities continued to feel the force of the sound wave.
It was enough to convince the Governments of the world to proceed. Tobias built a larger scale prototype and successfully blocked the wave. This prototype would turn into the large circular towers that were built around London. They emitted a high frequency noise to trap the signal in the city and pull back the waves that had escaped. The UK’s greatest city was cordoned off from the world and it remains that way today with a weak signal still lingering on trapped behind the barrier. The only people who live there now are those who don’t fear death and who have nothing else to live for.
The remaining population of London relocated and the city of Birmingham grew to the behemoth it is now.
Sadly for my mother the solution came too late. She died two months before she was due to give birth to us, minutes before the solution was turned on. If she’d been able to survive a few moments more then she’d be alive now.
My father had been part of the team that worked on the solution with Tobias, which is why he could never escape her death. Had he worked faster and harder he felt he could have saved her. The truth was she was just unlucky. Will and I only survived because she was in the hospital for scan when she died. Despite all of the chaos in the world a doctor had saved us. A wonderful, kind doctor.
As I lay there reminiscing I knew that another kind doctor would save me now. March.
THIRTY-NINE
Mr King
“Sir your nine o’clock meeting is here.”
Mr King usually liked hearing from his secretary. She had a sweet voice and it reminded him of girls he had dominated in his youth. Today however was not a day he liked hearing her voice. It had been one month since he had been saved from financial ruin and now his financial backer wanted to collect.
“Ok. Send him up,” said Mr King.
He’d heard nothing from his backer for a month. Beyond an initial meeting request, he didn’t know what to expect. All he could rely on was his history with the man and that didn’t bode well.
Tobias Zen stood in the lift as it ascended to the top floor. He knew Mr King was a showman like himself and what head of a large company wouldn’t want the top floor office? All the better to spy on your rivals, he thought.
He had planned this meeting for a long time and knew that Mr King would never meet with him under different circumstances. He had encouraged the board of directors to invest and he knew that his little ‘death stunt’ would cause the share price to fall and Mr King to panic. He had known Mr King for a long time and this was exactly the reaction he expected. It was all going to plan.
Their meeting started rather formally whilst the two men hid their true intentions. Discussions were had about the growth of Birmingham, the economy and Government policy. The conversation was dull and mundane but was merely a chance for the men to understand each other. The words were not important, instead they watched body language for tells and tried to determine what the other person wanted.
Tobias knew exactly what he wanted but he enjoyed watching Mr King sweat. He enjoyed toying with the man and was more than happy to wait before he unveiled his request.
For Mr King this proved frustrating and tore away at him like a young boy eager for it to get to Christmas day.
“Look Tobias, let’s cut the bullshit,” said Mr King as he slammed his hands on the table midway through a discussion about resuming trade with Europe.
“I know you are here for a specific request. Your invitation said all I had to do was listen to your request and then you would go,” Mr King knew that invitation well. He had read it over and over again every day since it arrived. “So tell me.”
Tobias waited for a second. “Ok,” he said. “But I’d rather show you,” he opened his briefcase to reveal a large map. On the map were the locations of every single one of Mr King’s telecommunications stations. Every receiver and distributor in the world was located in blue dots.
He was stunned. “How did you get this? I demand to know!” Mr King was shocked to find even stations he had never publicly declared were listed on the map.
“Please. This was child’s play. You aren’t the most secretive man. Although I especially like how you have receivers located near to every embassy in the world. It’s almost as if you wanted to spy on the Government. I’m fairly sure that is treason.”
“If it’s blackmail you want then….”
“Blackmail?” Tobias laughed. “We all know that I have had more than enough to blackmail you for over twenty years. The world never did find out who funded the Separationists experiments did they?”
Mr King looked at Tobias and wondered how much longer he would have to live under the shadow of his past. Tobias had held this information over him for so long. He had used it before to manipulate Mr King to fund his early experiments and to start TethTech and now he was using it again for another purpose.
“I refuse. Whatever you want, I refuse. You can’t manipulate me with that information forever,” said Mr King.
“Why not?” replied Tobias. “It’s as true today as it was back then. You funded the experiments that killed a billion people. Why can’t I hold that over you forever? It will never cease to be true.”
“It was an accident! No one expected the experiment to go that way.”
“You tried to play God! You tried to separate the Tethers that bind the world together. What did you expect to happen? If I hadn’t been there to clean up your mess. If I hadn’t made so many sacrifices that day then what? Every single human being on the planet would have died. Because of you. So yes, I do feel that you owe me, and I’m here to collect.”
Mr King knew Tobias would never forgive him. He had made a lot of enemies over the 20 Day Siege and it was something he couldn’t move past. “Fine. Turn the evidence in. Tell the Government that I funded the whole thing. Tell them that I’ve been spying on Government officials for years. Tell them everything. But I won’t be your slave for the rest of my life.”
“Are you sure?” asked Tobias. “If I do that then your company will fall. Everything your family has worked decades for will be destroyed and your company will go bankrupt.”
“It hasn’t been my company for a long time,” Mr King thought back to how the directors had bullied him into buying shares and how they treated him like their puppet. “The second I’m tarnished in the scandal the board will disown me and the company will continue under another puppet. We are too big to fail. We have a hand in all of the world’s telecommunications. Do you really think the Government will be prepared to lose that? I refuse.”
Tobias smiled. This was exactly the response he had expected. Exactly the response he had hoped for. “Very well. I hope you like prison and becoming a public hate figure. I will go public with this information. Not today, not even this week but one day when you aren’t expecting it I will reveal your secrets to the world and they will see you for what you really are. ”
“You know I could expose you too!”
“For what? Being a hero? Saving the world? You’ll only implicate yourself if you expose what really happened that day,” Tobias removed a small grey device from his pocket that emitted a high pitched screeching sound. “And just in case you were recording this conversation, I’ve just destroyed any listening devices. Have a good life Glenn.”
Glenn King ripped the tape recorder from under his desk. Sure enough the footage was gone. He tossed it to the floor and put his head in his hands. He had hoped Tobias was bluffing.
Tobias Zen strolled out of Mr King’s office knowing that he had got the right result. The blueprints were just showmanship. What he really wanted was for Glenn to panic and that is exactly what had happened.
He had never planned to have an alliance with Mr Kin
g. His real plan was about to begin. Tobias stepped into an elevator and retrieved a small nail sized object from his briefcase. He slipped the object onto the elevator control panel and watched as it whizzed into life.
“Sir,” a voice came through on the intercom to Mr King. “We have received word that Tobias Zen’s elevator has gotten stuck. We are sending engineers to the floor now.”
Mr King didn’t want Tobias to spend a second longer in his tower than he had to.
Tobias shared that wish but he had work to do. His elevator continued to descend whilst the nail sized device gave out a fake signal so it looked like he was stuck.
He quickly reached the twelfth floor; the mainframe room for Mr King’s telecommunications empire. A 9pm meeting was no coincidence. He knew security would be lighter at this time and that the engineer manning the mainframes would now be trying to fix a broken lift.
Tobias slipped inside and removed a USB stick from his pocket. He inserted it into one of the computers on the mainframe and downloaded two gigs of data onto the server. When Tobias was finished he walked back into the elevator and went back to the floor he had been ‘stuck’ on.
He had to wait fifteen minutes for the maintenance man to eventually free him. During that time he thought about how his little virus would change the world and how Mr King had already given him everything he needed. He would still expose the man but not quite yet.
“We are so sorry Mr Zen,” said the maintenance man.
“That’s quite alright,” replied Tobias. He took another elevator down to the ground floor with the maintenance man and left the building.
Tobias looked up into the sky at the satellite dishes that surrounded Mr King’s tower. “Soon you will work for me,” he said silently to them.
FORTY
Emmie Keyes
Three months had passed since I’d arrived at The Deck headquarters and my recovery had been slow. The TethTech team who operated on me had damaged my internal organs and it took time for me to regain my strength and for my stomach to heal.
Grace had an even worse time than me. Although her back wasn’t broken it was badly bruised and she had to have physiotherapy several times a week. It was over a month before she could stand up on her own and even longer before she could walk.
Today was the first day in three months we had felt alright. We’d both been through hell but it felt like we had so much more to do. One thing was clear, both of us wanted to stop Tobias. I wanted to get vengeance for Will - and for the operation - and Grace wanted to get payback for Gabe. We joked we were the Vengeance Girls.
Despite our hatred for the man, I had no intention of killing Tobias, at least not the next time I met him. There were so many questions I had to ask him. Most of all I wanted to know why he had operated on me. All March had found inside me was a tracking chip but that was smaller than my finger. It certainly didn’t justify my belly being cut open.
At The Deck base I’d been subjected to several tests to check my blood levels and body chemistry and everything came back normal. Either he hadn’t had chance to finish his experiment or there was something lurking deeper in me that I had yet to discover.
I shook off that thought. I trusted March had done all he could and it was his visits during my recovery that helped bring me back to full strength. He had checked on me every day. His support had been amazing and he had brought me back to full health.
On the day he told me nothing was wrong and that Tobias hadn’t hurt me long-term I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that I kissed him. At the time I wondered if it was just the drugs and the emotion of the moment but over the next few weeks I felt my feelings for him grow stronger as he stayed for me by my side.
It was the first kiss of many that we would share. What started out as just a spontaneous kiss evolved into a relationship and he was my rock throughout my recovery.
On the one month anniversary of our first kiss he travelled to Birmingham using the Skin 2.0 and brought me back my motorbike and another present. It was Pixie the dog. She had completely healed and her fur had grown back. She was the nicest present I had ever been given. Pixie slept on my bed with me every night and kept me company when the pain was at its worst.
There had been one more vital event during my three months of recovery. When I finally had the strength to sit up I had watched the tape on my brother’s DualCam. Gabe had tried to make me watch it sooner but I refused. It was the last memories I had of my brother and I wanted to be the first one to see them on my own terms.
I rested the DualCam on the side of the bed and turned it on. The two orange lights on it turned into dual rainbows that cascaded across the screen creating a clear image. As I flicked through the footage I saw events that had occurred in the last year of my life. Almost all of the footage was time I had spent with Rex. I hadn’t realised it at the time but whenever I spent a long time with Rex it must have been creating a Tether event for Will.
It was no surprise I felt a lot of love for Rex and Rufus. When my father had left they had been the most supportive people in my life. My father had given me some money and I used it to buy my apartment which is where I met the two brothers. I’d been a wreck when I arrived but they had been there to make me laugh and cheer me up along the way. I owed them a lot and it dawned on me as I watched the footage that I hadn’t spoken to them in over three months. I hoped they hadn’t presumed the worst had happened to me.
Other key events whizzed by as I fast forwarded through the footage. Day after day of my life moved by in a blur but there was nothing I hadn’t seen. Nothing I hadn’t known before. As I reached the last significant event, passing my police officer’s exam, the camera showed only minutes of footage remained. The clock reached zero and that was the story of a year of my life finished.
There was nothing useful. I wondered why my brother had wanted me to have the camera. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a kind gesture to help me remember who I really was. Now Will was dead he could have simply wanted me to try and move forward with my life. Although that would mean Will knew I would survive. Which was equally confusing.
I set the footage to rewind at the highest speed. A year of my life went by in reverse and as the blurs grew faster the screen turned to nothing but static. Once the highest speed was reached green lines started to appear and the background static turned to black.
Will had left me a message.
The lines formed hundreds of numbers. Far more than I could remember. Before I could write them all down the camera stopped rewinding and was back to the start. I forwarded and rewound the footage over and over until I had written down the entire sequence.
The numbers meant nothing to me. I scrolled through my phone but I’d never called anyone with those digits. The code itself was too long to be a phone number anyway. I considered other possibilities such as map references, book numbers and barcodes but I didn’t have the resources to even look at those ideas.
So I decided to be honest with The Deck and tell them what I had seen. If Will had intended for me to understand the numbers then he must have known I’d need help. Perhaps he had always intended for me to meet with The Deck.
They disappeared with the box for days as I continued to rest and recuperate. Two weeks later I met Jill for the first time.
“Hi Emmie. I’m Jill or you can call me the Seven of Diamonds.”
“Hi. I’ll stick with Jill,” I replied.
“Haha, no problem. Most people do.”
“It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for saving my life … three times,” I said.
“I think it was four times. But who’s counting?” she replied. “We’ve finally figured out the code on the DualCam. If you amplify the numbers out across wavelength, frequency and amplitude they produce a sequence of notes that creates a sound. Yet we’ve seen that sound before and that’s what worries me.”
“What sound is it?” I asked.
“Well it’s the total opposite to the sound wave that killed a bil
lion people,” replied Jill. “During the 20 Day Siege, a sound was played that broke Tethers and killed people instantly but this noise is different. It’s the exact opposite in terms of structure and sound. Whatever its purpose is, it’s certainly not designed to kill. At least that’s what we hope.”
“So can we play it?” I wondered out loud.
“Sadly not. The boss doesn’t want to risk it. The last time a sound wave was played like this it did far too much damage. However, we’ve tapped into every listening device on the planet thanks to our backer. If anyone uses the sound or even tests it then we will know and we’ll be able to stop them.”
“How?”
“That I don’t know yet but we’ll be ready when the time comes.”
Since that day Jill had worked nonstop to find answers, while Grace and I had recovered and we hoped we were ready.
FORTY-ONE
Tobias Zen
Tobias knew it was time. He had waited for this day for years and now he could lay his past to rest whilst taking control of his future.
He stared at the glow of his computer screen. Fifty seven documents were open. They connected Mr King to the Separationists and proved he had funded their experiments. It was enough to destroy him and Tobias was ready to push the button.
Tobias checked everything was in place. He had bank records and private emails. It would be plenty. He zipped up the files and added them to an email which was sent out to every major news journalist in the world. It was 6:00AM and the sun rose on what Tobias knew would be a new world.
Mr King had known this day would come. Not just since his meeting with Tobias five months prior but even since the 20 Day Siege. He had done his best to hide the truth but Tobias had too much information on him. As he stepped into the office he wondered if today would be his last day as a free man.