by John McNally
“Why not?” asked Finn.
“Shut up, Stubbs. He’s too smart, that’s all,” said Kelly.
“Causes too much trouble. He drinks in the laboratory, makes unreasonable demands and once, at a conference in Geneva, he got some ladies to hang me upside down off a hotel balcony.”
Before Stubbs could add further evidence of Al’s moral decay, a red ant flicked up on to the concrete.
“Fire!” snapped Finn.
DRRRRRRRRT!
The red ant flew in several directions at once.
“Watch out for reds,” warned Finn, making his call. “Bad ant, bad sting, bad attitude.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Has lots of friends…”
Six red ants appeared over the concrete ridge at once, sting-tipped abdomens twitching, armour flashing in the sun, making them look as angry as they probably felt, given what had just happened to their pal. It was in its way an awesome sight, if you happened to like crouching, twitching killers the colour of hell and the size of German shepherds.
They all seemed to move at once.
DRRRRRRRT! DRRRRRRRRRT! DRRRRRT! DRRRRRRRT!
Finn, freaked, picked up a Minimi and promptly put it down again: it weighed a ton. He picked up an M27 instead. It was heavy too, heavy and dull and cold in his small hands, a million miles from an Xbox controller, and he hadn’t a clue where to find the safety catch.
The reds were popping up all over now, an army emerging over a ridge.
“Where the hell are they all coming from?” said Kelly.
“We must be near their nest,” Finn said.
“But how do they know we’re here?”
“Alarm pheromone,” said Finn. “Sends them into an attack frenzy.”
* * *
The Beta stirred. It had fed, and now was resting, regenerating – semi-animate, semiconscious – when it was dragged back into full sentience by an intense burst of swarm pheromone on the air… the swarm must be signalling, must be sensing it in turn.
Roused, it issued back a burst of its own, then tasted something else on the breeze as it shifted and backed up.
Kill…
* * *
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!
The reds kept coming, now from the other side of the slab too. Kelly and Delta fired back to back as Stubbs scrambled in to start up the Apache engines.
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!
When, just to make matters worse…
Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…
“It’s on the move again,” Stubbs shouted, firing up the auxiliary power. “Finn, can you check the bearing?”
Finn clambered into the cabin and checked the monitor.
“Seventy metres…”
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!
“Sixty-five metres… oh crap.”
“What?”
“I think it’s headed our way,” said Finn.
Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…
SIXTEEN
DAY TWO 08:58 (BST). Hook Hall, Surrey
The recovery teams had divided the crash site into a search grid even as the last of the flames were being extinguished.
A four-man team in special protective suits and with magnifying optics then moved into each of the twenty-metre-square sections to search through the ash and debris, parting each blade of grass and examining every grain of debris as if in a lab.
Al and King arrived twelve minutes into the search, the Mangusta ripping across the open field, Al insensible to the venerable vehicle’s underside and suspension. King emerged pale and shaken from the experience.
Much had been totally destroyed. Ash and oil and the occasional chunk of superstructure covered the bulk of the site. Both pilots had died (Flying Officer James Garwood, Flight Lieutenant Jane Lachild).
The team reported that so far no nano-bodies had been recovered at all – but the fire was likely to have done a lot more damage, indeed to have obliterated everything at the nano scale. “Any organic matter will have been instantly consumed.” They weren’t just looking for a needle in a haystack, but a miniaturised needle in its charred remains.
“We’ve found the aluminium transport cases, open and burnt out, away from the main fuselage. We think they must have been taken out by the airman who parachuted out, landing fifteen metres or so beyond the main impact. Although his chute didn’t fully deploy, it did just enough to slow his descent. He was still unconscious.”
“Where is he now?”
“On his way to hospital. Critical.”
“Could they have got out of those boxes?”
“It’s impossible to say.”
“What about the equipment? Is that still there?”
“There are a lot of nano-metal fragments that we’ll have to piece together and reconstruct in order to find out if anything is missing. We’re talking hours.”
“Hours we don’t have,” said Al, taking in the devastated scene. All around was blackness and the smell of aviation fuel. Any organic matter will have been instantly consumed. He could hardly bear the thought. His throat tight, he whispered, “Finn…”
King stepped in and ordered, “Make time. Throw everyone at it, then let’s get it all back to the hall and go through it.”
* * *
“In! NOW!” shouted Kelly, blasting at yet another wave of ants to cover Delta’s dash back to the Apache.
DRRRRRRRRRT!
“Scarlatti position?” asked Delta, as she clambered over Stubbs to hit her seat.
“Fifty-five metres. Come on!”
Kelly backed in, blasting at the reds through the open door. Delta fired up the engines.
“Come on, come on…” Finn urged the aircraft, eyes glued like Delta’s to the available power indicator as it climbed from red towards green.
DRRRRRRRRRRRT!
Kelly gave a final burst and slammed the door shut. The rotor wash was strong enough to blow back further red ants, but still they were on the ground and the Scarlatti was closing in.
“Thirty metres… twenty-five…” reported Stubbs.
Delta growled at the power indicator. “Stubbs! Do your thing!” she called.
“Can’t. Not twice. Certain blade damage,” said Stubbs.
Then Finn saw it. The Beta. A speck in the sky at first. But closing fast.
Fast and furious.
Delta gritted her teeth as the last red bar lit and edged to green.
“GO!” screamed Finn.
Delta tipped the aircraft forward and drove it fast across the top of the grass as the beast closed in. As soon as she had enough momentum, she instructed, “Hold something,” and threw the world upside down.
Finn clung on, heart beating and leaping round his chest like a jackrabbit. If he gripped the seatbelt straps any harder, his fingers would snap. Delta had just thrown the Apache round a full 360 loop. The Scarlatti was still there. She skimmed the top of the pasture in an attempt to outmanoeuvre it among the clumps and hummocks. When this didn’t shift it either, she corkscrewed another full 360 to try and confuse it. Under any other circumstances, it would have been the best rollercoaster ride ever.
But again, as they levelled out, the beast was right on their tail – kzzwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzwwkwwkzzwkzzkzkwkwkw – centimetres away, the only saving grace being that when it curled its abdomen ready to strike it increased drag and lost speed.
“You won’t be able to keep this up all day,” Stubbs observed. “The airframe will hold. The rotors will hold. The swash plates and engine mounts won’t.”
“You want to put some money on that?” said Delta, rolling the aircraft again, producing new screams from the engine.
“No. I want to go home and take a nice hot bath,” Stubbs added helpfully.
The thought – hot/cold – flashed through Finn’s brain and he yelled: “UP! GO UP!”
“Up? Great,” said Delta.
“UP!
Into cold air. It won’t like the cold. Its blood has to stay at forty-five degrees to fly. It’s colder up there, right?”
Delta took 0.006 seconds to think it through and hauled on the collective pitch lever, putting them into as rapid a climb as the machine could manage, trying to balance out increasing ascent and decreasing speed, Kelly calling out the danger as Stubbs called out the altitude.
“It’s getting closer… it’s getting closer…”
“Altitude 50… 70… 125 macro-metres… You should lose 1.5 centigrade every 100—”
“I know the stats!”
“It’s still gaining,” said Kelly.
“Altitude 150 macro,” said Stubbs.
WkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzwwkwwkzzWZZKKZKZWKZZZZZ
Delta levelled out to regain speed and stretch ahead of the Beta Scarlatti a fraction.
Finn looked back out of the vent window – there it was, a carnival freak, evil incarnate, burning fury, giant eyes boring into his, locked on just as they had been in the flames.
Kill…
“Just keep going!”
When they reached 300 macro-metres, because of the wind chill, they began to notice the cold.
Almost imperceptibly at first, the Scarlatti started to slow and drop back.
At 500 macro they lost visual contact altogether.
At 800 macro they were beginning to freeze.
“Talk to me, Stubbs!” said Delta.
Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…
“It’s… falling away.”
Finn was frozen. They had climbed what seemed to him an impossible distance above the earth.
“It’s turning…”
Kelly was slapping and thumping his upper arms to try and get some warm blood into them. Delta’s hands were locked on the controls.
Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…
“It’s picked up the westerly course again… descending fast now,” said Stubbs.
“Yes! Yes!” said Finn.
“Follow it down and whack up the heating,” said Kelly.
“Taking her down.”
“Turn off the engine,” said Stubbs, “we’ve just burnt a quarter of the remaining fuel.”
“Check.”
They started to warm up again as Delta took them on autorotation almost silently back to earth.
She looked across at Finn, pushed up her shades and inspected him (he was roughly the same age as Carla, roughly the same size and colouring, roughly as smart even).
“Good call, Noob1,” she said.
Finn raised an eyebrow, recognising the gamer slang, and deciding to take it as a compliment.
“What do you play?” he asked.
“Few shooters, few drivers,” said Delta.
“You don’t look like a gamer,” he said. “You don’t look like a soldier either. You look like you’re in a band.”
“Well, you look like a noob, Noob.”
She restarted the engine as they approached the ground and they powered forward after the Beta, which had returned to its persistent southwesterly course.
“We’re back and locked on. Well done, boy wonder,” said Kelly. “Chip off the Allenby block.”
They swept down towards a field of mustard in flower, a perfect, endless plain of canary yellow, and Finn glowed inside in a way the others could not begin to imagine – feeling part of a family, feeling part of this unlikely crew.
SEVENTEEN
DAY TWO 12:33 (BST). Hook Hall, Surrey
The admired Commander James Clayton-King had not slept properly for thirty-six hours and had never been under such pressure, or such scrutiny.
The various parties involved in the Boldklub project were being brought together for an emergency briefing and to start turning contingency plans into action.
Everyone wanted answers.
About the helicopter crash and the failure of the mission.
About identifying the enemy.
About security.
About ‘time wasted on crackpot schemes’ (favourite phrase of the Deputy Prime Minister).
About the containment of the Boldklub secret.
About plans for mass population evacuation and resettlement.
About the potential destruction of a significant chunk of suburban London and the southeast of England: some 60,000 homes, shops, offices, factories, ancient monuments and buildings, motorways, fields and farms, baronial estates – the marks of 4,000 years or so of human activity and habitation.
He had to prepare for the potential tsunami of panic and political fallout if it got anywhere near that far.
He had to deal with increasingly irate and anxious world leaders.
And he still had to deal with the Scarlatti outbreak, with trying to save the world.
But worst of all he had to deal with Al.
And the curse of hope.
Down in the labs Al watched the tiny charred metal remains of Engineer Stubbs’s Pinzgauer truck being painstakingly reassembled by a team from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, using tweezers, glue and magnifying glasses.
The Pinzgauer was one of the four pieces of nano-hardware found thus far in the wreckage at the crash site. The best preserved of these was the food container which had largely been protected from the fire by the body of the airman. No nano-human remains, youth or adult, had been found. There was also no sign of the Apache.
The chief crash investigator had warned, “The foam in the carry case could have burnt at a high enough temperature to consume metal,” – the effects of intense heat on nano-materials being as yet a complete unknown. But, while there was no sign of the Apache…
Hope.
Back up in the control gallery, the mood was grim. The Presidents of the US and France, together with their advisors, were blunt and critical.
“I fail to see how, in all the planning and investigation, that malicious act of sabotage was overlooked.”
“The irrational is always overlooked. You cannot assume everything, you cannot protect against every possible occurrence,” said King.
“But do you have any idea what’s going on here?” asked the US President onscreen.
“We’re certain about the course of events to this point.”
“But we’re nowhere near finding out who did it – or why,” noted General Mount to King’s right. Solemn.
King turned to address the world leader feeds from London, Paris, Washington and Berlin. A list he knew would soon have to be extended.
“Not yet. ‘Dr Spiro’ was appointed at Porton Down more than a year ago. His cover identity and academic record were a sophisticated cocktail of identity fraud and forgery; his character and security references obtained through blackmail and bribery. Who would have the resources, the will, to pull off something this big? This professional? And what do they want? The Italian and Russian mafias are crippled by infighting. Celestial1 are in pieces and frankly not up to this. No fragment remains of PICUS2 or the Knights Templar3. And nothing suggests another state is involved, so we’re looking at an as yet unidentified criminal network.”
“Exactement the General’s point. They are ‘unknown’,” said the French President.
“Which brings me to mine,” said King. “Whoever these people are, if they can do this to me, they can do this to anybody, and they’ve probably infiltrated your most sensitive institutions too. There must be other operatives out there, we just don’t know who they are yet.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable digestion.
King saw his chance.
“We propose – given the very small chance the crew survived and continued their mission – to sweep for radio communications in a widening circumference around the crash site for as long as possible.”
“How long exactly?” asked the US President.
“The Scarlatti will not leave its young until their final moult, which won’t be until tomorrow
morning at the earliest. We propose to continue the search for at least the next six hours in orde—”
“Six hours? You’ve got to move half a million people!”
“At the same time the evacuation can be planned for, and preparations for area destruction can be advanced.”
“We should start the evacuation now. Why wait?” asked the British Prime Minister.
“As we said, there is a small chance that the crew—”
“There isn’t a chance in hell!” The US General Jackman lost his cool and stood up. “If they were alive then why haven’t they contacted you?”
Al marched in from the labs to answer this one.
“If they had a fix on the Beta Scarlatti, they would have had to stay on it: they couldn’t double back and risk losing the trail. They are following our orders to prosecute the mission at all costs and we have to give them twenty-four hours, their original mission time, before we do anything drastic. So far there is no nano-chopper, there are no nano-corpses…”
“Because they were all consumed by fire! Delaying the evacuation increases the risk for us all!” complained the German Chancellor.
“Your fears are not a proof in science. Far from it,” said Al.
“We’re not in a laboratory, we’re at war!” snapped General Jackman from Washington.
“Hey! I did my part. I delivered for you! All of you!” Al said, turning round and looking every screen in the eye. “Now they get their chance to deliver too!”
“OK, gentlemen! ‘Chillax’, as my ten-year-old would say,” ordered the British Prime Minister. “King, are you reasonably confident you can organise an evacuation in twelve hours?”
“Absolutely certain,” said King, insulted.
“And do you think there is any realistic prospect these poor wretches survived? Because, if there isn’t, General Jackman is right: we should not waste a moment searching for them.”
Commander James Clayton-King calculated. The world leaders watched him. The teams in the gallery watched him. Al watched him.
“On balance… at this point…”
Come on, King, thought Al.