by Gary Gibson
‘How can you be so sure?’
Dan took a sip of his coffee before replying. ‘Where I live in Orlando is right across the street from a hotel. After I heard about Lou, I hired a room there with a good view of the inside of my own apartment. I wasn’t there more than a couple of hours before I saw someone sneaking around inside my place. I grabbed my rucksack and left town as fast as I could.’
‘Maybe we should talk to the police.’
‘What could we tell them? The only thing that connects us to each other is our work on the Founder Network, and officially that doesn’t even exist. They’d have laughed us out of the station as soon as we started saying anything about Founders or ancient alien artefacts.’
Jeff nodded, feeling his heart sink. Everyone on the sci-eval teams based out at Tau Ceti knew that the catastrophe that would wipe out life on Earth was due some time during the next thirty years. They had lodged protests regarding the restriction on their access to the data recovered from the near-future, and it hadn’t helped that the time-stamps had been carefully removed from the few images and scraps of information they were granted access to. Something was being deliberately kept from them and, being scientists, it was only a matter of time before one of them took matters into their own hands.
Stealing a copy of the entire database had been Farad’s idea, and he’d first approached Lucy, since she was the one with the in-depth knowledge of the Tau Ceti station’s security protocols. With her help, and with Jeff and Dan’s more than willing support, they had found a way to hack into the station’s networks and copy the unaltered records recovered from the near future. Unfortunately, the files they had recovered proved to be protected by a particularly impenetrable form of encryption, one that Farad had assured them would take time and considerable skill to break.
The four of them had agreed to return to their respective homes at roughly the same time, Farad volunteering to try and find some way to reverse-engineer the protected files in the meantime. And then, once they had acquired the proof they needed, they would go public.
A sick chill wrapped itself around Jeff’s bones as he poured himself another coffee. He noticed his hands were shaking. ‘Then I guess we’re lucky we managed to stay alive this long.’
Dan shot him an exasperated look and pointed at the cabin’s wall-screen. ‘Don’t count your chickens just yet. Haven’t you seen the news?’
‘I didn’t come here to watch the news. The whole point of a place like this is to avothe outside world.’
‘Right.’ Dan stood and gestured towards the screen. It came to life and he quickly navigated to one of the main news-feeds, in which Jeff saw an aerial view of the ocean. The water was foaming for kilometres around, while a headline caption suggested they might be witnessing an undersea volcano. An inlaid satellite image revealed that the disturbance was taking place a few hundred kilometres north of the Mariana Islands, nearly halfway around the world.
‘It’s already started,’ said Jeff, that sick feeling getting worse.
‘I figure we’ve got no more than a couple of weeks before it’s all over,’ said Dan. ‘You’ve seen the way the ASI and military have been building up reinforcements all around the Florida Array. Training exercise, my ass. They’re trying to tell us the increased security is because of some hijack, but I figure our glorious leaders are going to evacuate themselves to the colonies before things turn really nasty. The last thing they need is us finding proof that they were the ones responsible for all this before they have a chance to make their getaway.’
Jeff swallowed. ‘I guess it’s too late to talk to the press.’
Dan nodded. ‘Even if we did, we’d only be making ourselves easy targets. And we’d have no way of proving what we know – not unless we can find some way inside those encrypted files. You still have your copy of them, right?’
Jeff gave an involuntary glance towards the rear of the cabin. ‘It’s somewhere safe.’
‘Uh-huh. I hope so.’
Jeff rotated his coffee mug between both hands. ‘You really think they’re going to try and take over the colonies by force?’
‘What else are they going to do? Ask them for refugee status?’ Dan barked. ‘Fat chance of that. They’re going to want to run things themselves, and their job’ll be that much easier if they can find a way to convince the people out there they had nothing to do with the end of life on Earth.’ Dan stabbed at his chest with a finger. ‘But we’re the ones who can tell them all what really happened. We’re witnesses to the greatest crime in history. So we’ll make our own escape, and stop these bastards in their tracks.’
‘Escape where?’
‘To the colonies.’
Jeff sighed and put his mug down. ‘You’re not thinking logically. How could you possibly get inside the Array, and past the ASI’s own cops if they’re out looking for us?’
‘I know people in the Florida Array, and up at Copernicus,’ said Dan, his expression fervent. ‘People I trust. They can help us get through safely.’ His hands tightened into fists, his expression intent. Jeff was reminded of a deer standing poised in the long savannah grass, ready to take flight at the first sign of danger.
‘You didn’t say whether anything’s happened to Farad. The files are useless unless he managed to find some way to crack them.’
Dan shook his head. ‘I tried getting hold of him, but he seems to be completely offline. Even if he’s okay, I couldn’t begin to tell you for sure where he is.’
Jeff wondered if that didn’t make him the most sensible out of all of them. ‘He’s on Newton, visiting family – or that’s his cover story, anyway. What if we can’t warn him before the ASI locate him?’
Dan regarded him bleakly. ‘Then we’re screwed, unless we can find a way to hack the database files ourselves. That’s not to mention the risk we’d be taking if we actively went looking for him. We could wind up making it easier for them to catch us, as well as him.’
‘There must be someone else we could send the files to, who could help us?’
Dan sighed and shook his head. ‘Remember, the files are stored in an intelligent format.’
‘Lucy mentioned something about that, but I didn’t quite follow it all.’
‘It’s a compression technology that automatically transmits an alert back to its point of origin whenever it’s sent through any kind of network. And if it doesn’t have explicit permission to be transferred on that network, it tells the ASI exactly where it’s been and where it’s headed, making it even easier to track us down. And assuming we just went ahead and forwarded the information to a news agency or anyone else, there’s a chance the whole package might erase itself if they didn’t use the correct decryption method. That’s why we’re keeping our copies strictly offline.’
Jeff nodded, embarrassed now that he hadn’t paid more attention at the time.
Dan’s expression grew more contemplative. ‘But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t maybe still find a way to break that encryption, if there was someone we know much closer to hand, someone we could trust. I was thinking about Olivia, as a matter of fact. She’s a network-security consultant, isn’t she? Would she be able to do it?’
Jeff felt himself stiffen. ‘I don’t want Olivia involved in any of this.’
‘We’re all involved in this,’ said Dan. ‘Everyone on the whole goddamn planet is involved. Or would you rather just wait a couple of days and let her figure out what’s going on along with the rest of the human race?’
Jeff felt a sudden, desperate need to be with her. ‘It’s not that simple. We were supposed to spend time together after I got home. Instead I barely stopped by long enough to tell her I was going to disappear for a while, but I couldn’t tell her the reason why. I mean, the less she s, the better, right?’ He had tried to assure Olivia that he would explain everything once the time was right, but even as he’d spoken the words, the look on her face had told him how very inadequate they were. ‘Maybe we could just wait and see if Far
ad tries to get in touch before—’
‘No.’ Dan shook his head firmly. ‘The longer we wait, the more chance that whoever caught up with Lucy and Lou will find us as well.’ He gazed pointedly at Jeff. ‘I had an easy enough time finding you, so how hard do you think the ASI would find it?’
Jeff stared at him, mute with shock.
‘Exactly.’ Dan nodded, half to himself. ‘Your UP can be traced with a court order. Every time you buy something, or rent a car or anything else, your contacts know where you are and when you were there. Same goes for me. All the ASI have to do is prove sufficient cause.’
Jeff swallowed. ‘We could get ourselves new contacts.’
Dan shook his head, ‘Purchasing them legally leaves us right back where we started. No, we need black-market contacts preloaded with fake UPs, the whole works.’
‘I have no idea where to get hold of something like that.’
‘I do, though,’ Dan replied, picking up his rucksack and dropping it on a table standing near the couch. He dug out a slim black rod and then a smaller, metal oblong the size and shape of a credit chip, dumping them next to each other on the table.
He picked up the black rod. ‘I used this to fry every locator node in my hire car and clothing. You’ll need to swipe it down over all your own clothes, as well.’ He put the rod down and picked up the metal oblong. ‘This is what car-jacking crews use to override a vehicle’s locking system.’
‘Where did you get hold of this stuff?’
‘I didn’t,’ Dan said simply. ‘I built it myself. There’s hardly an electronic lock or locator in the world that can stand up to even crude hacks like this one.’
Jeff glanced towards the door. ‘So your car . . . ?’
‘Is stolen,’ Dan confirmed. ‘I also made some enquiries on the way here and found out about a guy in Missoula who can get us untraceable UPs. Nobody will know who we are.’
‘Why not just use unregistered UPs? They’re good enough in an emergency.’
‘But they won’t help us get through Array security, will they? We need complete false identities for that.’
‘Okay.’ Jeff nodded. ‘Do you want me to come to Missoula with you?’
Dan squinted at him. ‘Do people around here know you?’
‘Some of them, yes.’
‘Did you go into town on your way here?’
‘Nope.’
Dan thought for a moment. ‘I need to head down to Lakeside just now, and try and find another car. I can ditch the one I brought while I’m at it, but I think it’s best I do that on my own.’
‘Why?’
‘Nobody there knows who I am, whereas you need to stay out of sight in case someone’s been making enquiries about you. It shouldn’t take me more than a half day, at the most, to track this guy down. If it takes longer, I can sleep in the back of the car and be back here by tomorrow morning. What supplies do you have?’
‘You mean like food, that kind of thing?’ Jeff glanced at the beer bottles piled on the table. ‘That was pretty much it. I meant to pick more supplies up today.’
Dan sighed. ‘Okay, if I’ve got enough time, I’ll grab us something for the trip, but I’d rather not use any rest stops on the way if I can avoid it. You get yourself ready and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Sound like a plan?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Jeff agreed. ‘Assuming I still believe we even had this conversation after I have some more coffee.’
Dan nodded towards the wand-like device. ‘Remember to use that on all your clothes as well as your car,’ he advised. ‘Just hold down the button, swipe it over your stuff, and the readout’ll warn you if you missed anything.’
‘And the car-jacker?’
‘Just press it against any car’s ID panel, and you’ll be in after a couple of seconds.’
‘That’s it?’
Dan grinned. ‘I know. Scandalous, isn’t it?’
He walked over to the door, hesitating as he put his hand on the handle. ‘We’re not to blame for all of this, Jeff. We even warned the ones who are. I really don’t know how much more we could have done.’
‘I wish I could feel that sure.’
Dan pulled the door open, letting in a blast of freezing mountain air. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
‘Okay.’ Jeff pulled his crumpled bathrobe closer around him. ‘If anything happens, should I call you?’
‘If anything happens, it’ll probably be too late.’
‘Right.’ Jeff felt far from reassured. ‘Okay. I’ll be waiting for you.’
EIGHT
Secure Military Facility (location unknown), 28 January 2235
Mitchell Stone awoke to pale-green light filtering through a barred window, high up, the shadows of branches flickering against the wall opposite. He stared up at a ceiling painted yellow, faint lines scarring the plaster, before smoothing both hands across his face and close-cropped scalp. The air smelled of detergent.
The memories slowly trickled back. He remembered being revived in a lunar cryogenics facility, then being transported to a ship carrying a wormhole gate that led back to a time when grey ashen clouds hadn’t yet swept the world clean.
He tested his fingers, wiggling them slightly before raising one arm and bringing it close to his face. He studied the delicate whorls of his fingertips as if he had never seen them before, more memories slowly dripping back into his conscious mind like sticky molasses. With every day that passed, they came back to him a little more quickly – an inevitable side effect, Albright had assured him, of the cryogenics revival process.
Mitchell sat up on the thin mattress, clad only in disposable medical blues, and swung his arm from side to side, slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity, until it moved in a blur of speed. He finally stopped and pressed it close to his chest, gasping at the sudden pain lancing through his muscles.
He looked over at the far wall of his cell, four metres away. He imagined himself there, and—
—he was there, his face pressed to the opposite wall, pinpricks of sweat standing out on his forehead. He groaned as cramp took hold of both his legs, pinpricks of fire spreading simultaneously through his chest and belly. He let himself slide down the wall to rest on his haunches, once more waiting for the pain to diminish. But, with every day that passed, the agony was just that little bit less.
After that, he stood up again, on unsteady legs, and stepped over to the wall immediately beneath the window.
The barred window was tiny, much too small to even contemplate squeezing through. It had also been placed far enough above head height to make it almost impossible to see more than a thin sliver of sky. Mitchell jumped up, and managed to grab hold of two bars, before pulling himself up with a grunt.
On his first day here, he’d been as weak as a fish flopping on a fisherman’s deck, but now his upper-body strength was coming back to him fast. He caught a glimpse of sycamores planted in a line beyond the window, and an airstrip further off. Low one- and two-storey buildings with whitewashed exteriors stood beyond it. He dropped back down, entranced by that vision of blue skies and flourishing grass. Just then, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching his cell door.
The guards were coming for him yet again.
‘All right, interview five,’ began Albright, tapping at the desk between them.
Mitchell guessed his interrogator was in his mid-forties, with hair greying at the temples. He wore the uniform of the Second Republic’s military.
‘Subject is Mitchell Stone. All right, Mitchell,’ said Albright, looking back up. ‘Let’s start from the beginning again. Tell me how you wound up in that cryogenics lab.’
Mitchell shifted in the folding metal chair, to which he was handcuffed on either side, and glanced up at the bouquet of omnidirectional lenses mounted in the ceiling directly overhead. ‘You’ve asked me that same question every single day since I woke up,’ he said, dropping his gaze again. ‘And every single day I give you exactly the same answer.’
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Albright’s expression remained stony. ‘Things are going to be a little different this time, Mitchell, so just humour me.’
‘I was trying to reach the colonies,’ Mitchell replied, spreading his hands as far as the handcuffs would allow. ‘By that time the growths were spreading fast back on Earth. I couldn’t get to any of the colony gates in all the panic, so I figured I had at least an outside chance of staying alive in the cryo lab.’ He lowered his hands again. ‘And that’s where you found me, ten years later.’
Albright glanced down and scratched a note into the reflective surface of his desk with a plastic stylus.
Books lined a plywood bookcase set against one wall, next to which stood a hospital gurney equipped with leather restraints and a small medical-supplies cabinet. A window beyond the desk offered a better view of what was undoubtedly one of Array Security and Immigration’s regional admin centres, and Mitchell gazed past Albright’s shoulder and out at the sunlit landscape with longing.
‘Why were you trying to reach the colonies?’ asked Albright.
Mitchell sighed. ‘I didn’t want to die, any more than anyone else did.’
Albright frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s the only reason?’
Mitchell shrugged. ‘I can’t think of any other.’
Albright touched the desk once more, and Mitchell saw icons blink and shift across its surface. Contacts would have made his life much easier, but clearly they weren’t going to trust him with anything like that.
A small TriView screen came to life on the wall behind Albright’s desk. It showed a still image of a man lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by a tangle of machinery and tubes. A figure dressed in a protective suit, face hidden behind a visor, stood by his bedside, taking notes.
This, thought Mitchell, was something new.
‘Do you recognize the man in the bed?’ asked Albright.
Mitchell found he couldn’t drag his eyes away from the image. Intellectually, he’d realized that his younger self was, at that very moment, still recovering from his recent experiences at Site 17, but actually seeing the evidence here was another matter.