by John McNally
“I see, is there anything else you would like to give away while we’re at it, Monsieur? Your independent nuclear deterrent the Force de Frappe? The American Pacific Fleet? Deutsche Bank? Or perhaps, Prime Minister, a minor member of the royal family? I’m sure they’d be delighted to oblige. Any takers? No…? Because it would be as absurd as it would be cowardly,” said King. “We have no real idea who we’re dealing with, let alone whether we can trust them.”
“True,” said the American President, “though we are talking about Armageddon, not buying a used car – and we had a deal and a deadline. It is 18:00 hours, and there are no other alternatives on the table, so surely it’s now time to coordinate evacuation and plan for the nuclear option.”
“Well? Are you going to evacuate?” asked the French Conseiller Scientifique.
King called up a map and some faked aerial footage of fire crews and emergency services in heavy protective suits dealing with an overturned chemical tanker on a section of motorway.
“These pictures are being released to the media now. We’re going to announce that a chemical tanker has overturned causing a spill that requires the evacuation of a small area. This will, by degrees, be expanded in order to achieve a phased evacuation, thus avoiding mass panic. When there are no other options on the table, we will begin to break up the Large Accelerator and prepare the nuclear warheads.”
“And when do you judge that to be?” asked the Prime Minister.
“We’ll have to begin the process at midnight tonight. In six hours.”
“And the nuclear strike time? Should the deadline pass at noon tomorrow?”
“We can’t at this stage give a precise—”
“Non! This is not an acceptable answer. France will be next. Then the world. Are you prepared to destroy this thing or are you not?”
King said the last thing he wanted to say, the last thing he wanted to think about.
“If by noon tomorrow we have acceded to our enemies’ demands and they have not honoured the deal and given us the location of the nest site, and if we have not discovered it ourselves, then, given the increasing likelihood of a swarm, we will be forced to detonate.”
“Hold your fire!” said Al, bursting in on the conversation with a laptop. He hooked it into an available terminal. “Nobody’s doing any deal without my say-so! Remember, I have the sequencing codes. In the meantime, we may yet be able to find these bad guys – and our little people too.”
“Oh, come on! You don’t still think for one moment they survived?” said General Jackman in Washington.
“General Jackass!” Al shouted. “May I remind you you’ve had to kiss my butt before and if I find my nephew you will be kissing it again!”
The American General harrumphed. Al had driven him to fury over the Fukushima business, and had been absolutely right.
King half closed his eyes. He hated discourtesy and name-calling, but he also loved to see Al in full flight and with fire in his belly.
“Well, what the hell is it then!” roared Jackman. “What have you got?”
“Calm down, Linden,” said the US President.
“Yes, sir, Mr President.”
* * *
Kill…
The Beta Scarlatti hovered over the water.
Its compound eye was confused by the foaming, turbulent surface and not sensitive enough to penetrate beneath. Its senses clung to the multiple scents… although the chaotic air was confusing and dispersing these too, and it was even in danger of losing the scent of its nest… yet still it hung there…
Wkwkzkzkwkdkdkwkxzxhxkxkwwkwkwkxxzzzzz
…wanting to kill with every fibre of its exhausted being, but its purpose was the swarm.
It latched on to the last of the swarm pheromone and, slowly, rose and turned back.
Finn kicked towards the sunlight, needling through the crazed, rushing water, lack of oxygen crippling mind and limb alike. As his lungs reached bursting point, the very zenith of pain, he felt himself break the surface of the water, out of death and back to life – GASP…
Cool, life-giving oxygen flowed through him.
GASP…
Live…
GASP…
He choked and his limbs began to thrash and he realised he was being dragged down the course of the stream at tremendous speed. The banks rushed past. He could just see, further down the rapids, the stricken Apache sticking out of the clump of green weeds where it had crashed.
He could hear something too. A voice.
“Noob! Noob!”
Delta!
He caught a glimpse of her as the water spun him around again. She was scrambling across the floating weed bed outside the aircraft, trying to get to him. Stubbs was there too, attempting to pull himself up the fuselage.
Finn raised his hand to signal and – SWOOOSH – the current sucked him under again.
He was tossed around 360 and emerged in slower water that deepened and darkened.
The playground-sized clump of weeds was still a good distance away, but Delta was now at its edge.
“FINN!” he heard her call, using his name at last.
“Here!” he yelled back.
He kicked towards her, but the current and his soaking clothes made progress slow.
As he thrashed away, the stream ran clear of the woods. He got snatched views of fields above the banks.
Ahead Delta was trying to manoeuvre a twig off the weeds to use as a boathook.
Encouraged, Finn kicked on. Then he realised he was gathering speed.
“Get out of the current! Get out of the current!” Delta called.
The weeds had drifted into slower water on the right bank while he was now in the fast water, about to shoot past.
Finn kicked with all his might. Delta stretched out with the improvised boathook.
“That’s it! Go on!”
He thrashed and flapped. Delta was right at the edge of the weed bed, half immersed herself.
Finn’s fingertips brushed the end of the twig and he threw everything into a snatch… and just managed to get hold of the end of it.
Yes.
Then Delta looked over his shoulder and roared, “AHHHHHHHH!”
Finn turned to see a gigantic duck launch itself like a ship from the opposite bank – vivid green and blue in plumage, and bearing down, fast and curious. Finn kicked wildly, desperate to make it to the weeds.
Stubbs, back at the Apache now, yanked open one of the stow holds.
The bird loomed over Finn, jolting its beak from side to side, bemused.
A red distress flare, fired by Stubbs, arced out of the remains of the Apache and hit the duck, glancing off its chest and causing feathered pandemonium.
QUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAACKCKCCKCK!
Finn dived under to avoid being decapitated by a wild wing. When he emerged, the duck was hitting the opposite bank in comic flight. And Delta was still on the other end of the stick.
She hauled on it and, with a last scramble, she managed to help Finn up on to the weeds.
With a double ker-splash, they both fell back on to the jelly-like surface. They lay there a beat, panting.
“Not a textbook landing,” said Delta to break the ice.
“Kelly…” said Finn. “Where’s Kelly?”
He raised his head. The stream slid by. Acres of black water. No sign, no hint of anyone.
TWENTY-THREE
BBC NEWS 24 FLASH 18:23 HRS BST
“A chemical tanker has overturned on the M25 slip road at Junction 14 in Surrey and a cloud of gas is escaping from the vehicle. Police say the cloud is ‘potentially hazardous’ and have started evacuating the immediate area. They stress the move is ‘purely precautionary’, although the villages nearby will be put on standby. In fact, yes, we have pictures from the scene now…”
; SKY NEWS – BREAKING NEWS! 18:24
“…utter devastation! A cloud of lethal toxic gas, possibly cyanide, is already spreading through local villages, filling the lungs and the lanes of leafy Surrey with death and devastation. The emergency service advice is clear and unambiguous…”
THE SUN WEBSITE NEWS FLASH 18:24
‘RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Celebrities caught in poison gas dash…’
GOOGLE ANALYTICS 18:25
String = ‘SURREY GAS CLOUD’: NEWS – 3,765 new articles. WEB – 127,823 hits in 0.38 seconds. TWITTER – 134,877 related tweets.
* * *
They watched the water intently for five minutes or so.
“He’ll make it,” said Delta. “He’ll figure it out and he’ll make it downstream. We just have to wait.” She set her jaw and allowed no doubt whatsoever.
Soaked through, Finn felt the cold grip him. The stream alone was like the Amazon at their scale – and fast – the woods like its great forests with multiples of its lethal threat. And Kelly was already injured. The Scarlatti? It would sting him – surely – if it picked up his scent on the way back. Finn felt sick. He should have let Kelly blow it up when he had the chance. Stupid. Now they were all in danger, much worse danger. He should have obeyed… To save one life he risked six billion. What kind of maths was that?
He reached instinctively for the spharelite stone at his chest, but it wasn’t there.
* * *
“This is the movement of a pull-cord light switch, 120 millimetres long. It’s from the background of quadrant four.” Al slapped a display playing the Cooper-Hastings video on a loop, pointing out the dangling light cord in the background to show the world where the white line on the blow-up on the main screen came from.
“This is a breakthrough?” asked General Mount.
“This cord moves very slightly back and forth during the course of the video, but not like a pendulum as you’d expect. In irregular oscillation. Mysterious, unless you’ve never thrown up on a cross-channel ferry.”
“He’s at sea?” said King, getting there first.
“Correct,” said Al. “This movement is consistent with that of a twenty-metre craft in a moderate swell. If we can find the right weather, in the right sea area, at the right time… we might be able to find the right-sized craft, and then we’re on to something!”
The watching world chewed it over. All the resources and technology at their disposal had been trumped by a piece of string? If anyone else had come up with this, it would have been called crazy. But when Allenby got hold of an idea…
“Alert the coastal commands of every European nation,” King ordered.
“Satellite feeds! Naval intel! Now!” General Jackman barked in Washington.
“Préfet Maritime! Vite!” ordered the French President.
“Let’s go, people!” called Al. “I want the Royal Navy, the coastguard and every pirate in the land scouring their screens to find this thing!”
Just keep going.
* * *
Finn, Stubbs and Delta secured the weeds as best they could to the bank and waded ashore.
With a line and pulley, they managed to haul the Apache carcass off the weeds and on to the muddy bank.
Stubbs worked away, soaked and largely silent. The old man was in survival mode, moving steadily from task to task, occasionally stopping to cough up some of the stream.
The blink of a strobe light began to flash across the scene. Stubbs had turned on the Apache’s landing light to act as a beacon.
“Kelly,” he said, and Finn and Delta nodded.
Now securely on dry land, they took in their landing place properly for the first time. The mud had been pressed flat and there were huge rubber bootprints and flowers. Further up the sloping bank was short mown grass, a path and, looming large above it all, a wooden structure twenty storeys high.
“Shed,” said Stubbs.
Leaving the Apache landing light on, Finn, Delta and Stubbs climbed the bank.
When they reached the top, they came upon an Eden – a sunset garden of breathtaking beauty, colourful and carefully planted, designed to ramble and enchant, with beds of flowers backed by shrubs and trees and dry-stone walls. Jasmine scented the warm air and the ‘magic hour’ light seemed to lift and define everything it touched.
Looking like they’d been dragged backwards through hell, Finn, Delta and Stubbs regarded it in wonder.
Climbing up a rock and using Delta’s field glasses for a better view, they could see the path led up a perfect lawn to an ancient house that spread itself out across the loveliest spot in the valley.
And they could see open windows. And the distant flicker of movement inside.
Finn’s heart – which had felt frozen at the stream – jump-started and began beating hope all over again.
Somebody was home.
Contact.
“How far d’you think it is?” asked Finn.
“At nano-level? Fifteen to twenty K,” Delta said.
That might take two hours running flat out in perfect conditions.
Their orders were clear: if they couldn’t destroy the nest site – and without transport and ammo there was no going back – they were to make contact with a patrol and report its location.
All that mattered now was contact. The macro-radio on the chopper’s underside had been shattered in the crash, but the house gave them hope. Finn took it in again as the sun set. It looked perfect and homely. He wanted to eat cake in front of the TV with Grandma and Yo-yo on a Sunday evening while Al ranted and drank in the background.
The door to the shed had been left open a crack and inside they found a mass of old mowers, gardening equipment, bits of string and a spoil heap of plastic toys. To Stubbs – Disneyland. Invention glittered in his eyes and bizarre potential vehicles formed in his imagination.
They had taken what they could salvage of their supplies out of the stricken Apache. They badly need rest, but the original mission time ran to 06:00 hours, after which a mass-evacuation plan came into effect. The survival of the Beta Scarlatti and the nymphs left them with only one possible objective – they had to report the location of the nest site before it was too late.
“We just have to get to that house, find a phone and hit 911,” said Delta. “We don’t need a reception committee. We just need a landline.”
They had been through it in one of the ‘emergency fallback’ briefings back at base. Any mention of the word Boldklub or Scarlatti to the operator would get them put straight through to Hook Hall.
“It’s 999,” corrected Finn. “If they have a grandma, they’ll have a landline. Grandmas think mobiles fry their brains.”
Thinking of Grandma made his heart jump again. Made him impatient. “Let’s go,” he said.
“I’ll stay. Wait for Kelly. I’ll only hold you up, and I’ll see what I can find in the shed,” said Stubbs. Finn and Delta nodded.
“We can take an M27 and your Beretta and Stubbs can take the Minimi,” said Finn.
Delta pointed up at a cloud of midges hovering above them.
“If we wait, we can avoid those dive-bombing our butts and help Stubbs set up. Kelly may even show up meantime.”
“Very unlikely. With that leg…” said Stubbs, adding to Finn’s guilt.
“He was a warrior, he was boss. Could have survived anything,” said Delta.
“I note you use the past tense…” said Stubbs.
Delta was about to reply when Finn interjected.
“Hey, I think something’s happening at the house,” he said, pointing up the garden.
Delta and Stubbs looked up. Finn grabbed the field glasses.
Lights were on in every window all of a sudden, and figures were running from room to room. As they watched, a large 4 × 4 backed up to what must have been the back door and its tailgate swung open.
They all took a turn with the field glasses.
“What are they doing?” asked Finn.
A loud voice rang o
ut through the silent garden.
“Attention! This is a police announcement…” came a voice through a loudhailer, distorted as it travelled past on a road beyond.
“Prepare for evacuation overnight in an orderly fashion. You are in no immediate danger. Help elderly or vulnerable neighbours to prepare and contact the authorities if you need further assistance. Keep tuned in to local radio and television for…”
“They’re getting the hell out,” said Delta. “Already.”
“What does that mean?” asked Finn, looking at Stubbs.
“They think we’re dead.”
* * *
DAY TWO 21:03 (BST). Siberia
In Siberia it had been ‘night’ for over six hours. The sun, that barely dips below the horizon in summer, was at its lowest point, the temperature well below zero.
Kaparis and his team had spent the last three of those hours monitoring communications around the declared exclusion zone and, naturally, around the nest site at Willard’s Copse.
Despite Li Jun’s best efforts, they were still locked out of Hook Hall, but progress was being made on local telecoms systems.
Kaparis had not allowed himself to relax, but at the same time his stress levels were subsiding.
Footage from the nest site had been exhaustively studied. The crew had made it to the site and destroyed the Alpha. But the Beta lived, and had pursued them, so based on this and on rational assumptions (of logistics, morale, supplies, etc.), Kaparis’s military analysts predicted only a 13 per cent chance the crew had made it further than 200 metres beyond the nest site.
There was nothing to suggest otherwise. No communication intercept. No pause in the evacuation.
Thus far the threat held.
* * *
The Beta had bucked its instinct and willed itself forward. Into the smoke. Into the pyre. Fury and swarm preservation inflamed its forebrain.
It had dropped on to fleeing nymphs, seizing them and depositing them on to one of the new hosts.