Warhead

by Andy Remic

  Oz and Baze both had digital binoculars, and the tiny clicks and whirrs that they had made signified a careful set of observations. ‘Anything?’ asked Jam.

  ‘Two guards, standard Nex,’ said Oz softly. Then he placed the binos down on the pine-cone-scattered ground and started to fit the long digital sight to his huge SSG550.

  ‘Two,’ confirmed the huge figure of Baze. He scratched at his bushy black beard. ‘Seems about ten too few, if you ask me. If this is the K-Labs, then shouldn’t they have more protection? You’d expect a damned battalion to be camped out there.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Jam. He scanned along the lines of smaller buildings which were set back from the main concrete complex. ‘The K-Labs are highly specialised, very well hidden, and have practically finished their research tree. Their job is done. A large group of guards would only draw attention to such a place. The labs’ main defence is the covert nature of the base.’

  ‘How did you find out about the K-Labs?’ asked Baze.

  Jam shrugged his armoured shoulders. ‘I used to work with Durell. I knew many of his secrets. The fucker thinks I am dead—buried under a billion tonnes of Austrian mountain. What has he to fear from discovery? He rules the world and HATE rules much of the wild land between towns and cities ... or so Durell would have us—and the herded populations—believe. Amazing, the power of the media, isn’t it?’ He threw a sideways glance at Sonia, who nodded.

  ‘Something’s happening down there,’ said Baze softly.

  The group returned to their surveillance. One of the smaller buildings had ten trucks parked outside, huge battered military FukTruks used for the transportation of infantry, ammunition, supplies—even a couple of tanks could be carried on the back under the heavy flapping tarpaulins. Engines started up, spurting clouds of black diesel smoke. With tyres crunching frozen earth, the vehicles turned in wide circles and rolled away down a bumpy track, disappearing between two small hills where they were swallowed by the forest.

  ‘What do you think they’re transporting?’ asked Oz.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s not barrels of EDEN. What’s the point of destroying this installation if there’s nothing here? I think it’s time we made a move. Oz, you confident?’

  Oz settled himself against the ground and sighted through his scopes. He said, ‘Yes, Jam. I am always confident.’ A shot rang out and a bullet took the first Nex guard between the eyes, flipping it backwards where it smashed against the wall and folded down into a sprawled heap.

  A second shot rang out, but the other Nex had already turned and was sprinting for cover. The round took it high in the shoulder, spinning it, momentarily stunned, to the ground. The Nex, bleeding, started to crawl towards a doorway—beyond which it could set off alarms.

  ‘Oz?’ asked Jam coolly.

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Oz. The third bullet caved in the top of the Nex’s head, and it dropped lifeless to the ground. It twitched for a while, body jiggling as if an electric charge was passing through its dead limbs. Then it finally lay still.

  ‘There is no dignity in death,’ came the soulful voice of Rekalavich.

  ‘There’s little dignity in life, either, my friend,’ replied Jam. ‘Come on, let’s move out. We have a job to do.’

  Using trees for cover, they made their way down the hillside. Oz and Haggis used their ECubes to scan for sensors, heat, vid, audio. Jam could no longer use his own ECube. It did not recognise him as human.

  The group hunkered down a hundred metres from the towering walls of the old nuclear power plant. No longer did a core burn at the reactor’s heart. But the Nex had to have been guarding something. And instinct told Jam that his team was in the right place. The K-Labs, one of the crucial research and development centres for this new biological weapon—maybe even a production centre for the toxic shit, for EDEN ... well, it was in there.

  He could feel it. In his bones. In his newly created Nex soul...

  Jam’s teeth ground hard deep within his chitinous armoured head. His copper eyes glowed. And pain started to gnaw at the centre of his brain, the agony growing, until his vision blurred and he lowered his head in submission ...

  let us () out

  make () us free

  we see you () see you

  you traitor () to our kind

  traitor we see your acts () betrayer

  we see you rot () we see you burn () you not control us () we live here ()

  here in your soul in your mind in your heart and you can never be free

  we see your () pain ()

  we see your () weakness ()

  weakness

  Jam frowned, buzzing sounds and pain spinning inside his skull. And then they were gone.

  Shivering, Jam turned, breathing deeply, filled with confusion. Then, with a single movement of his clawed hand, he gave the signal to advance and the team moved slowly across the final few metres of barren land ... killing ground ... and towards the narrow door.

  The door swung open. There were no guards, no automated alarm or defence systems. Jam, with Oz close behind, moved into a narrow corridor and the group shuffled forward, bristling with automatic weaponry, and halted, covering each other’s arcs of fire.

  Oz stared down at his ECube, then shook his head ‘It’s been blanked. I think the building is made out of some kind of material which interfered with ECube scans; pretty handy for an old nuclear plant, eh, Jam?’

  ‘Yes. Far too convenient.’ They moved forward, the clattering of Jam’s claws against concrete the only sound in the cold corridor. They moved into another, wider corridor which was painted a dull yellow and had a grey floor. The walls were covered with piping, tubes, wiring and corrugated sections of steel. Oz ran his ECube across one of the cables.

  ‘DigiOptic. No need for that in a power plant.’

  ‘I have a gut feeling we are in the right place,’ said Baze.

  ‘Then why is it so deserted?’ asked Sonia. To her own ears her voice seemed small; she felt tiny in this place, insignificant amongst these soldiers.

  ‘I have a bad feeling that we’re too late,’ said Oz softly. He rubbed at his bushy eyebrows, and hoisted his submachine gun thoughtfully. ‘Those FukTruks? Maybe they’re taking the last dregs of EDEN away to safer quarters. You’d think this place would be riddled with Nex. I thought we were going to have to fight our way in.’

  ‘It’s definitely been too easy so far,’ conceded Jam. ‘Come on. Let’s find the labs. There will be answers to our questions there.’ He set off, the rest of the team close behind him.

  And in my experience, he thought sourly, easy is always a bad thing.

  The interior of the Hemnesberget power plant was a muddle of cables and piping. Many cables trailed haphazardly across the floor—which had changed from dull grey concrete to black, shining vinyl. But somehow the place seemed too neat, too clinical.

  The group of Spiral agents and REBS had stopped at an intersection.

  ‘Looks like they were in a rush to finish something,’ said Baze, gun barrel weaving in a constant arc as he searched for Nex enemies.

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ growled Jam. ‘Can you locate the centre? The old reactor? That is where I would put the labs; it would offer a central power source, a core for cabling and piping and any local networks. It would also be the most secure location available here. The easiest to guard.’

  A squeal of rubber against the gleaming vinyl floor alerted the group. They turned to stare at a tall, thin, balding man, clutching a PDA the size of a clipboard, his long white coat flapping around his Arran sweater and grey chinos. His brown flip-flops slapped to a halt as he stared at the group and their weapons.

  He frowned. ‘Are you with the Nex?’ he asked. Suddenly Jam leapt forward, a blur of glistening black, his Steyr TMP’s muzzle pressing up under the man’s chin. The man swallowed, slowly.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he finally managed to squeak.

  ‘Take us to the K-Labs,’ said Jam.

  ‘I...
I... I’m just a technician. That area is restricted.’

  ‘I’ll fucking restrict your breathing.’

  ‘OK, OK, but you need codes ...’

  ‘You want me to persuade you to remember them?’ Jam lifted his free hand, and huge armoured spikes slid free of his forearm. The serrated chitin prongs gleamed like oiled steel in the yellow globe-light of the dim corridor.

  ‘I... I... I’m sure I could find the codes.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  Oz moved forward, prodding his own gun into the man’s face. ‘Why is this place so deserted? Where are all the fucking Nex?’

  ‘They have finished here,’ stammered the technician. ‘Most of them have left. They have been called back for—well, for something. I don’t know what. I just service the machines.’

  ‘Machines?’

  The technician went pale. ‘For the production. You’d better follow me. You’re not going to shoot me, are you? I just service ProdK machinery, make sure we keep production levels at a sufficient output.’

  ‘Lead the fucking way. Before I get really angry.’ As Jam spoke, a curious smile crossed his armoured ScorpNex face ... a hint of some distant memory, some private joke. ‘You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,’ he said. He pushed the technician forward. The man stumbled and righted himself. Then, with many nervous glances over his shoulder, he led them through a maze of yellow corridors. They passed several ceiling-mounted gun emplacements; but the guns were pointing uselessly at the ceiling.

  Oz shook his head. ‘Some defensive system!’ He snorted with derision.

  A minute after the group had passed, a tiny amber light flickered on the side of the first mounted gun. It turned smoothly in full circle, quad barrels lowering and aiming at the last point of exit for the group. And inside the tiny AI chip, algorithms clicked and flickered as the defensive systems linked together, instructions flowing through the gun network like fire through a tinder-dry forest. As the group passed each gun, so it came to life in their wake. The defensive systems knew, in their simple machine-intelligence way, that it was one thing to let an enemy in.

  It was quite another to let them out again.

  The technician halted outside a pair of huge alloy doors. A code pad lay to the right, hidden among the metal panels, the myriad pipes, the thick clusters of cabling. ‘This is the old reactor,’ said the technician softly. ‘This is where the K-Labs are sited. But there’s nothing left—they have been stripped. You’re wasting your time.’

  Jam’s face moved in close, slitted copper eyes observing the tall man closely. ‘You’re lying about something. You’re holding out on us. Something is not right—smells bad.’ His gun pressed against the side of the man’s head. ‘Open the doors.’

  ‘High radiation levels,’ observed Oz, studying his ECube.

  ‘In thirty-six hours, it ain’t going to fucking matter,’ said Sonia J, coming forward to stand beside Jam. ‘Come on, we need to get in.’

  Jam tilted his head to look at her. She smiled and nodded, and Jam gave a small nod in return, acknowledging her bravery and her willingness to get to work.

  The technician punched in the entry-code digits on the doors, and slowly, ponderously, they slid back on well greased rails ... to reveal a huge chamber, easily as large as a football stadium and split into three levels. The group were entering on the central level, and ramps led off below and above them. The whole chamber was visible in a gloomy half-light, despite its three-tier layout: floors were built from galvanised mesh panels, support struts were narrow lengths of steel, and huge swathes of clustered cables ran everywhere, across floors, walls, hanging in loops from ceiling struts. Towards the centre of the chamber the lower level housed a huge pool containing a sparkling green liquid through which could be seen two huge cylinders whose lower parts disappeared into darkness.

  ‘That’s the reactor core, and the fuel assembly,’ observed Jam, taking a step forward onto the overhanging metal gantry. Above the glittering lake of coolant were huge rails, and assemblies of lifting gantries and cranes. The coolant pool filled the whole of the mammoth chamber with a soft green glow, and the total effect was one of immense eeriness. This was a dangerous place; this was where controlled nuclear reactions had once occurred.

  The technician was silent. He seemed to be looking for something.

  ‘What are you not telling us?’

  ‘N-nothing! Look, the computer systems are over there. The K-Lab research benches, all lining the sides of the upper level—what used to be the reactor-monitoring equipment.’

  ‘Jam, it’s really dangerous in here,’ said Oz. ‘The levels of rad are real high.’

  ‘You wait outside with the others. Guard the doors. Make sure we don’t get any nasty surprises.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Sonia.

  ‘You heard the man. The rad levels are toxic. I am ScorpNex; I have increased resistance, improved genetic tolerance. You, however—you are human, Sonia. You can die as easily as all the other humans here.’

  ‘You need me,’ said Sonia defiantly. Jam moved forward, his gaze locked to hers and she stared back at him. ‘You need me to access the computer systems. You need me to access HIVE archives. Without me, you are screwed.’

  ‘Oz, get her a gun.’

  Oz passed Sonia an Uzi, which she looked at in distaste, and a small hand-held comm. ‘We’ll keep in touch, yeah? Jam can’t use it—because of his claws.’ Oz turned, and the group of men moved back into the wide corridor.

  The technician made as if to follow them but Jam nudged him with his gun. ‘I think you would be safer with us.’ Jam pushed the technician out onto the gantry, and then stepped out himself. The structure rattled under his weight. They moved slowly up the nearest ramp which rose gently towards the top level of the K-Labs, providing an even more expansive view of the huge chamber. Below, the coolant rippled in its house-sized container. The green light seemed to seep into every corner, every crevice.

  Creaks and rattles echoed through the vast space. The ambient temperature was cool, with a breeze flowing down from wide ceiling ventilation pipes. Sonia followed Jam up the long ramp, and then along another suspended walkway that veered left, opening onto a platform set out with big benches and a host of complicated glass mechanisms. Tubes and vials sat in racks, scattered amongst computers and metal tools, laboratory ovens, microscopes, centrifuge machines and several industrial cubic autoclaves. Racks held trays of Petri-dishes, slides and thousands of bottles of chemicals.

  ‘K-Labs,’ said the technician, simply.

  Jam’s eyes were scanning. He could not believe that nobody was there, that their group had, in fact, arrived too late. The Nex had packed up and left—which meant only one thing. EDEN was definitely ready. The biological agent had been produced, probably on a mass scale. And now it was on the move. The Priest had been right.

  Durell was ready for his onslaught against mankind ...

  Jam moved towards the computers, with Sonia beside him. They switched on the machines and light spat from twenty screens. HIVE logos flowed across monitors and Sonia moved forward, resting her hands on a keyboard.

  » HIVE MEDIA SYSTEMS

  .. LOG-ON KL SYSTEMS INITIATED

  .. ALL SYSTEMS PRIMED

  .. TESTING MEMORY SECTORS –

  .. TESTING MULTI-POINT PROCESSOR UNITS

  .. TESTING ZERO-K ALGORITHMS

  .. EDEN/K-LAB SYSTEMS © HIVE MEDIA SYSTEMS

  » PLEASE ENTER EMPLOYEE ACCESS CODES NOW – []

  Sonia accessed the terminal with a few deft keystrokes. Filing systems flowed across the screens and Sonia’s jaw fell open. ‘I do not believe it,’ she said, voice soft, face glow-lit by the monitors. ‘Why would they still give me access? And here, of all places?’

  ‘You’re an employee of HIVE. You have an A-rate clearance. They never would have thought in a billion years you would go anywhere near a K-Lab production unit. How could they? You present TV programmes. You only ever connect to Me
dia-Systems. But they are all networked by the same password laws—the same huge server mechanisms. Mad, eh?’

  ‘Yes, but the Nex also tagged me as a REB.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jam, ‘and they also condemned you to death. Things are moving too fast, Sonia J, Media Queen—I think Durell has more things to worry about than a tiny little rogue TV presenter ...’

  Jam moved closer to the central console and squinted, looking over the folders which appeared to be in a strange archaic language. They spread out in glowing spirals of data.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ said Sonia slowly.

  ‘It’s encrypted. It uses a Nex conversion system.’

  ‘And you can convert it? In real time? In your head?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘There are lists of figures. Most of them don’t mean anything to me. Scroll down there.’ Sonia obeyed, and Jam was silent for a while.

  ‘You see anything?’

  ’The EDEN production has definitely finished. A million barrels have been shipped over the previous two months. Here!’ Jam pointed. ‘Print that section.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Shipping destinations. A hundred and twenty locations around the globe where EDEN has been transported; much of it airlifted, some by trucks, some by cargo ship. Durell has been planning this for a considerable time. Unfortunately, we’ve discovered his game too late.’

  ‘We still don’t know if EDEN is the biological poison it’s supposed to be.’

  ‘It is,’ said Jam softly. Sonia moved through various folders until an image flickered onto the screen. An incredibly complex series of molecular structures rotated, then merged to create a new chemical—which in turn spun softly. ‘That is EDEN. It is a poison. It has one purpose: to shut down the human organism as quickly as possible. Durell uses his media empire to string the population along. According to the propaganda, EDEN is the cure to all their ills. It will remove a toxin called HATE from the fucking air and give them back their liberty ... that way, Durell’s plans are virtually unobstructed. Last thing he fucking needs is the truth leaking out, the people of the world rising up in their millions against his new regime; against the Nex.’