The Chaos Code

by Justin Richards

  ‘You know what you’re doing?’

  ‘I understand simple electronics, thanks.’

  ‘And helicopters,’ he said. ‘I heard a helicopter, just before… Someone started the fire, then escaped in a helicopter.’

  Matt could smell burning again. Smoke was drifting between them. ‘I don’t know what good you think this will do, but you might want to hurry,’ he told her. He ran to the door and looked out.

  A figure was lurching along the corridor. A figure made of fire. It crackled and hissed angrily, black smoke wreathing the red flames. A high-pitched wail echoed down the corridor after it – the alarms were working again.

  ‘I’m reconnecting the sprinklers now,’ Robin said.

  ‘So we swap fire demons for waterspray monsters, great.’

  ‘Not quite.’ She was working furiously, fumbling for the next wire, pulling it over to reconnect. ‘How long have we got?’

  Fire spilled into the room. The creature seemed to gather itself, and Matt saw with horror that it was going to leap at them.

  ‘Not long,’ he said, and his voice was shrill and shaking.

  Robin grabbed another wire.

  The fire filled the doorway. It surged forward as if catapulted across the room. Sparks flew through the air and bit at Matt’s face. There was a sudden hiss like angry snakes as Matt’s whole vision was one of flames and smoke.

  ‘That’s it,’ he heard Robin say through the fireball.

  And then the wailing and hissing seemed to combine into a cry of anguish and fury. And the fire was gone.

  ‘What happened – where’s the water?’ Matt said.

  The wailing faded in response to a press of a button, and Robin closed up the cupboard doors. ‘There’s no water,’ she said. ‘That would ruin everything. As bad as fire.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Can’t you hear it?’

  There was still the hissing sound, even though Robin had shut off the alarms. ‘Gas?’ He was finding it hard to breath.

  ‘Inert gas. Starves the fire of oxygen. Us too, if we aren’t careful. We should get out and stop the firemen using their hoses.’

  ‘Yeah – they’ll just make more water creatures.’

  Robin sighed, as if he was missing the point. ‘They’ll ruin Dad’s books.’

  They picked their way through the mess and debris in the gathering morning light. The last fire engines had gone, the experts having declared that the house was structurally intact. They implied that after the fire, it didn’t deserve to be.

  ‘It wasn’t the house the fire was trying to burn,’ Robin told them.

  Several of the upstairs rooms were burned out, and the whole place stank of smoke. The carpet down the main stairs was a damp, charred mess. The corridors were blackened and discoloured.

  Katherine was gone. Her room was a blackened ruin, but there was no sign of a body. ‘You think she escaped?’ Matt asked.

  ‘I’m sure she did,’ Robin replied shortly. ‘In Dad’s helicopter.’

  ‘But she can’t –’ Matt broke off. ‘Oh, right. She started the fire. She was playing along with us.’

  ‘She thought you knew something useful about the disc,’ Robin reminded him. ‘She wanted to know what it was. And then last night I said I thought Dad would be able to decipher the symbols on the disc easily. She didn’t need us any more. Simple as that.’

  ‘Bitch,’ Aunt Jane said. They both looked at her. ‘Forget I said that,’ she told them. She put her hand to her mouth as she thought: ‘She probably never called Mr Smith. I left her to it. She said she’d spoken to him. That… woman.’

  Something had occurred to Matt too. ‘I bet she’s taken the other disc,’ he said. ‘It was in the library, on the table. While I was asleep, I bet she took it.’ He ran to check.

  The wood panelling lining the passageway from the hall to the library had warped in the heat. The glass on several of the pictures was cracked and discoloured. One of the paintings had burned almost away, leaving just the heads of two girls staring out from history – one dark-haired and blue-eyed like Robin, the other fair-haired with smudged green eyes.

  The library was in surprisingly good shape. The water hadn’t reached it, but several bookcases on the gallery were a charred mass. A ragged black line ran down the stairs and across to the door. But the fire had followed Matt and Robin, and hadn’t stopped to burn the books.

  The table was as Matt had left it. His drawing of the symbols from the disc had curled in the heat, but it was intact. The books were where Robin had left them. And, as Matt had expected, the wooden box containing the metal disc was gone. Only Dad’s clay copy of the disc from Valdeholm was still there. Katherine Feather had not wanted to risk disturbing him by taking it from under his hand, Matt guessed.

  Matt found Robin and Aunt Jane in the passage. Robin was holding the blistered remains of the burned canvas. She had been crying – smears running down through the dark grime on her cheeks. Aunt Jane was comforting her – hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  ‘There are others,’ Jane was saying.

  ‘Poor Lisa,’ Robin murmured. Then she saw Matt, and she forced a smile. ‘The picture got burned,’ she said.

  ‘Tell him,’ Jane said to Robin. ‘You should tell him.’

  But Robin did not answer. She took the burned fragment of canvas and walked slowly back to the library. The picture, the portrait of the fair-haired woman, was back on the side table.

  Even the little room off the library where Matt had used the computer smelled of smoke, though it was otherwise undamaged. It was in here he had first met Julius Venture, Matt thought – it seemed such a long time ago, but it was only a few days.

  Robin had her father’s notes – a sheaf of papers covered with small, neat handwriting and what looked like mind maps. Matt had done some mind maps at school – boxes of ideas linked together with a web of lines showing connections between them. She set the notes down on the table and switched on the computer.

  ‘Let’s take stock,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘We still have Arnold’s copy of the disc, but we’ve lost the other one. We know that it shows a map of some sort, probably Antarctica, and possibly it gives the location of Atlantis. But with Katherine gone, we know nothing that Harper won’t now know.’

  ‘Not true,’ Robin said without looking up from the screen as the system loaded. ‘At least, we know more than Harper thinks we do. Dad’s notes and what we’ve seen for ourselves confirm it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Matt asked.

  ‘I mean that we know what he’s up to. Look.’ She gestured to the screen and Matt and Aunt Jane came round the table to see.

  It showed a map of the world, a simple outline of the continents and landmasses. But overlaid on it was a series of dots. As Matt watched, the dots were joined by a series of thin lines arcing down and across the map.

  ‘Looks like what Harper had in his computer system. Showing ancient sites,’ he said.

  ‘I was afraid you’d say that. This is something Dad worked out ages ago.’

  ‘And what are the lines?’ Aunt Jane asked. ‘Flight paths or something?’

  ‘They are significant lines of longitude and latitude round the earth’s surface,’ Robin said. ‘Now watch.’

  She worked the mouse, and more lines appeared. The new lines were not as regular. Some were straight, others ran in gentle curves. But all of them went through several or more of the dots.

  ‘Ley lines, and lines of magnetic force,’ Robin said.

  ‘Ley lines? You mean that people claim to find by dowsing and stuff?’ Matt said, remembering.

  ‘Tracks or paths connecting ancient sites,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘That’s right. Ancient connections.’

  ‘And what does this tell us?’ Matt wondered.

  ‘These are all sites that adhere to the blueprint we talked about,’ Robin said. ‘They are all interconnected. You can see, they’re all linked in a vast web. They are all in significant locations. And they are
all on Harper’s model.’

  ‘You think.’

  ‘I know. I saw it. I remember.’

  ‘You’ve got a better sort of memory than me then,’ Matt told her.

  ‘I’ve got a different sort of memory from you,’ Robin shot back. ‘But there’s another thing too. All these sites are themselves models of the real world in some way. And that’s what Dad’s notes told me. That’s what he was afraid Harper was up to. He’s defining the linkages between the sites, he’s putting the overall model back together. Each of these sites is just a small part of the whole. Harper’s been researching them for years, remember – looking for more and more of these significant ancient sites. Put them all together, and it gives you a single, unified, overarching model.’

  ‘You mean like a computer model? Some sort of simulation?’ Aunt Jane asked.

  ‘Like his model of the pyramid and the amphitheatre?’ Matt asked. ‘Like the way we think he controls these elemental creatures of his?’

  ‘Exactly like that. They’re all tiny parts of the overall blueprint we talked about. Bits of what he’s up to. Pieces of information he needs to complete his overall plan.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  Robin stood up. She walked across the room, head down in thought. Then she turned to look at them. ‘Don’t interrupt till I’ve finished,’ she said. ‘Then you can ask me questions about it, but hear me out first, all right?’ She seemed suddenly older, more serious than Matt had seen her before. Like a concentrated version of herself.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The ancient sites that Harper has marked, the sites on his blueprint, if you like, form a network as you can see. Each of them in some way mirrors the world and the heavens – time and space. You know that the pyramids and their relationship to the Nile mirror the major stars and the Milky Way. We talked about the Nazca Lines in Southern Peru too. Well, each of these ancient sites has some property or aspect that mirrors the real world. It’s size, or shape, or alignment – whatever. So, for example, Stonehenge is a giant clock that calculates and echoes how the sun moves. The Great Pyramid at Giza has dimensions that are based on the size of the earth itself and actually models the northern hemisphere. The temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia is an even more accurate definition of time. Have you ever been there?’

  Matt shook his head. He looked at Aunt Jane, and saw that she was watching him.

  ‘This is important,’ she said quietly. ‘Robina knows what she’s talking about.

  ‘Robina?’

  ‘Please,’ Robin insisted. ‘Questions later. Even questions about my name. OK?’

  ‘OK. Sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry too. Of course you’ve never been to Angkor. But I have. It’s magnificent. And its whole construction echoes and defines the passage of time – right down to taking precession into account. The wobble of the earth on its axis, remember?’

  ‘One degree every 72 years, wasn’t it?’ Matt said. ‘I remember.’

  ‘That’s right. Which is, incidentally – or rather, not incidentally at all because it’s quite deliberate – a component of the ratio between the dimensions of the Great Pyramid and the earth. You see, everything interconnects. It’s all part of a whole. These aren’t isolated coincidental sites, they’re all part of an overall model – like a blueprint of the world. Angkor Wat, for example, is incredibly impressive. It’s made up of 72 small temples brought together in a single structure. And, like the Pyramids, it mirrors a constellation – in this case the Northern Constellation of Draco. But because of precession, the earth moves in relation to the constellations as it wobbles. Angkor was built some time between 800 and 1200 AD, but it maps the constellation exactly as it appeared in 10,500 BC. At the point in history that the ancient Egyptians call “The First Time”.’

  ‘In fact,’ Robin went on, ‘all the models are correct as at 10,500 BC – that’s the date when each of them is perfectly aligned, or would have been if they were there. It’s like a baseline date. And that is true whether you examine a mirror of Leo or Orion at Giza in Egypt, or Draco in Cambodia. To give you just one example, in 10,500 BC the Great Sphinx would have been looking directly at the constellation of Leo at the Spring Equinox. It doesn’t matter whether you look for a shadow resembling a feathered serpent at Chichen Itza in Mexico, or the point where the sun sets relative to the Way of the Dead. They are all exactly aligned as they should be 12,500 years ago. Because, each was built to a design created in 10,500 BC, even though many – most – of them were actually constructed long after the original purpose had been forgotten. But they were built to plans and using techniques and methods that were remembered and passed on. Passed on by the last few survivors of an ancient civilisation.’

  Robin paused. She glanced at Aunt Jane, then said: ‘The last few survivors of Atlantis.’

  Matt couldn’t stop himself. ‘According to some theory or other,’ he blurted out. ‘I mean, yes, you’ve got some impressive facts and figures and an incredible memory for the detail. But I keep telling you, Atlantis is just a myth. It was never real.’

  He was surprised at the vehemence behind her reply. ‘It’s not just a myth,’ she shouted at him. ‘How many times? You think I’m making all this up? Do you? It isn’t theory, it’s fact.’

  Robin paused, breathing heavily. Matt didn’t dare say anything. He waited until she had calmed down enough to continue, albeit in a rather more terse and abrupt tone.

  ‘The whole ancient system is a giant simulation of the world,’ Robin said. ‘I assume that you can understand that much. You said yourself, it’s like a computer model. A representation, a copy if you like of time and space. An attempt to map out the chaos of the world. And with his knowledge of how to manipulate the elements – like the golems from the earth and fire demons and water creatures – Harper can use that model not only to predict apparently chaotic events and the passage of time, but to manipulate them. All he needs is the key – the knowledge of how to control that model rather than just read it. Like the difference between running computer code and being able to change it to do something else. Looking at data in a spreadsheet or a document is easy enough – he can do that. But with the knowledge he’s after now, he hopes to be able to change that data – to recalculate the spreadsheet with his own numbers, or rewrite the document so it says what he wants it to say. And his document is the whole world.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ Matt said.

  ‘You think so? He can already make small changes. Insignificant in global terms. But you’ve seen it.’

  ‘Well, yes. A bit of it. But are you saying he can predict what we’re going to do, or who’s going to win the FA Cup or what the winning numbers are in next week’s lottery? Or even pick a winner he chooses at random and then make that prediction come true?’

  ‘No, not yet. But,’ Robin said, ‘that is what he is after. That’s the level of control – of power – he thinks he can achieve when he knows what is written on that disc. It will tell him, or it will guide him to something else that will. Unless we can stop him.’

  ‘So, is that what the people of Atlantis were aiming for?’ Aunt Jane asked. Matt was surprised she was accepting it all so easily, despite what she had seen the night before. ‘They were striving for a world over which they had total influence and control?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Robin said. ‘Control even over nature. How perfect would that be? But they allowed their ambition and greed to take over from their earlier peaceful, altruistic notions as their empire and their influence grew. They had mastery over their environment, they understood the deeper mysteries of the universe. They knew things that people are only just rediscovering today. The important thing for us now is that they had a different way of thinking, a different way of reasoning.’

  ‘And they could predict the future?’ Matt asked. ‘Is that what you’re telling us – they actually foresaw future events? Like some sort of fortune telling?’

  Robin sighed. ‘I�
�m saying they were getting there. That was their aim. That was a skill they wanted to add to their repertoire, if you like. And they were close, so very close, when the catastrophe came. It was the remnants of those predictive skills that saved the people of Akrotiri when Thira was destroyed by the eruptions. That’s why no bodies have ever been found in the ruins. Not like Pompeii, for example, where no one warned them what was about to happen. But thousands of years before that, in 10,500 BC, the Atlanteans could not save themselves …’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Some said it was nature’s revenge.’

  She stood in silence, staring at the table, suddenly lost in her thoughts. Matt glanced round, and saw the surviving piece of the burned painting lying by the computer.

  ‘The other thing you need to know about,’ Aunt Jane said slowly, as if she was not sure she should tell him, ‘is their longevity. That the people of Atlantis lived incredibly long lives.’ She picked up the piece of canvas, holding it so Matt could see the faces of the two girls looking back at him. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Matt just stared. He felt cold inside, out of breath. Not sure of anything any more. Just staring, at the blue-eyed, black-haired girl in the old painting. ‘That’s you?’ he said at last, turning to look at Robin on the other side of the room. ‘It can’t be you. Can it?’

  ‘With my sister Lisa,’ she said, her voice completely level. No tone, no emotion. ‘Poor Lisa. I inherited the curse, but she didn’t.’

  ‘What curse?’ Matt said, hardly daring to think what she might mean.

  ‘Longevity.’

  Matt’s head was reeling, and he felt like the room was spinning round him. ‘But then – just how old are you?’ he managed to ask.

  Her mouth twitched as she suppressed a smile. ‘Oh, compared to Dad I’m a youngster. Robina Jane Venture, born August 12, 1835.’

  Chapter 17

  It was a joke. They were having him on. But it wasn’t like Aunt Jane to joke, and Robin looked so sad. She was fourteen, Matt told himself. Fifteen at the most. Had to be.