THE SWARM WAS INCREASING in size but Kingston had reached the top of the fence and was holding onto the top bar with all his strength. His hands were white with the pressure and his face curled up in a snarl of anger and exertion.
He dropped, unable to maintain his grip.
Carter beside him was having less luck, not even able to reach the top of the fence. He bent beside her and cupped his hands together into an impromptu step. “Here,” he said. “I’ll boost you.”
She managed a smile and rested her foot in his hands, preparing to reach the highest points of the fence.
The roaring car engine took them both by surprise. So intent on scaling the fence they hadn’t been paying attention to anything else. Kingston spun around to see the black Nissan, speeding along the access road, then bumping up the kerb onto the grass verge. It was aiming for them and Kingston pulled Carter away from the fence as he could finally see the person behind the wheel.
“Stuart,” Carter said, her relief evident.
His face was taut in concentration as he sped towards them, but he was only aiming for the fence and he smashed into it, sending wire and metal fence posts flying.
Kingston followed Carter as she ran through the newly created opening and hurried to the driver’s door. The car was making a strange noise now, bits offencewere sticking out at strange angles from the wheel arches. Nixon cut the engine and scrambled out, and Carter embraced him. “Idiot, I thought you were dead.”
“Gave up on me too soon,” he said but he was smiling.
“No time to congratulate yourself,” Kingston said. “We’ve got to run.” He clapped Nixon on the shoulder as he ran past him, down the embankment towards the building. Running past the dark shapes of dead Faceless on the ground, he tried not to focus on them and hoped that there would be no more inside. Max looked exhausted, and he had little hope that the man could protect them again.
A distinct hum could be heard in the air behind him and he glanced back at the grey cloud bearing down on them. It bristled and danced in the air, tearing through the blue sky with an unwavering determination. They had seconds before it would be upon them.
Max reached the door first and headed inside, quickly followed by Payne, then Kingston. Nixon and Carter held back, mesmerised by what was heading their way.
“Hurry!” Kingston shouted.
And as the humming switched to an angry buzzing sound, the detectives turned and ran. Their feet slipped precariously a couple of times on the wet grass but never enough to bring them down.
They brushed past Kingston in the doorway and Kingston slammed the door shut, running along the corridor towards where Max and Payne were waiting.
“Why are we running? We’re safe right?” Payne asked, then he heard the buzzing again. The swarm wasn’t fazed by a door. It was working at the edges and whilst it had impeded their progress, it hadn’t stopped it entirely.
“Run!” Kingston ordered.
“MAKE IT STOP!” LINWOOD shouted but Winborn ceased what he was doing and faced her. A resignation dropped over his face—a puzzled look.
“I can’t.”
“Then let me try.” She hurried forward, but Winborn lifted his weapon and reminded her of her place in all of this. She was still a prisoner.
“If you’ve got no control over that swarm than how can you control the Faceless? How can you hope to achieve your goal? You’ve got to have a way to turn them off.”
A flash of recognition across the man’s eyes. There was something then, a way to end this that Winborn wasn’t prepared to admit to.
“This will not end,” he said. “This is merely the beginning. You’re lucky to be here. I’m glad you made it. Irulal thought a lot of you. She considered you formidable.”
“And you know how well that ended for Irulal.”
“And how much it cost you. I know it all.”
The lift doors pinged open and Linwood and Winborn turned to see the new arrivals.
Dean was helping Jaq into the room. With his spare hand, he was holding a black ion blaster and shot Winborn without warning. The energy blast lit the room and zipped in front of Linwood’s face, striking Winborn in the chest. He was propelled backwards and crashed into the window. A crack appeared, and he slumped to the floor.
Without hesitating, Linwood hurried around to the controller, snatched his weapon from where he’d dropped it, then bent and checked on his condition. He was out cold.
“Perfect timing,” she said and smiled at Dean. But she didn’t have time for more pleasantries. She needed to stop the swarm, and she didn’t have a clue how to do it. Winborn had controlled them with the panel at his desk. The operating system was unfamiliar. Something that TALOS had developed for their own use. This made things easier for him as anything he wanted easy access to was already up and available to see. Problem was, it made little sense to her.
Dean helped Jaq into the room. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Linwood glanced up and noticed something different about Jaq. She brought the pair of them up to speed and then Jaq bent over in pain. Dean settled her in a chair, and Linwood came to check on her. Silver flashed across Jaq’s eyes and she took a step back.
“You’re contaminated,” Linwood said.
Jaq smiled wanly. “Of course I am. The nanites covered me, remember.”
Linwood felt guilt. She should have done more to save Jaq back in the restricted section but there wasn’t time. Winborn was prepared to kill them all to protect his secrets.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could say. But then to Dean, she said, “We need to stop the swarm. It’s out of control.”
“What swarm?”
Linwood explained as she dragged Dean over to the controls.
“He can’t have done this on his own,” Dean said.
“He’s not who we thought he is.”
“Irulal?”
“No. A Shun definitely. But not Irulal. It doesn’t matter which of the bastards is influencing him. We just need to stop this. Do you think you can make head or tail of it?”
The control screens flashed as Dean flicked through them, trying to find something that made sense. But like Linwood, he was struggling with the unfamiliarity of the interface and shrugged. “If there’s something in here that can stop them, it’s buried.” Then he turned to look at the fallen body of Winborn. “I don’t suppose he’s waking up anytime soon.”
Linwood checked the man’s condition, but he was still unconscious.
“There might be another way.” She hurried over to Jaq. “You’re infected. That means you’ve got a way in.”
“To what?” Jaq asked warily.
“The Harmony. It’s the communication network for the Shun. It’s how they’re able to control other people once they have the silver inside them.”
“Winborn mentioned the Harmony, but I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a network of information. It’s how they take control of people. Where their consciousnesses hide when they don’t have a body to operate.”
“But why do you think I’m connected?”
“They use the silver to control people. That has to be done through the Harmony. You’re contaminated so you’ve got a way in.”
Jaq was shaking her head. “OK. Let’s pretend that I understand what you’re talking about. How can I connect to this Harmony?”
“You’re already connected. You don’t need to do anything other than listen.”
Jaq fell silent but after the briefest of pauses, said with a mass of frustration, “There’s nothing to listen to.”
“You’re not trying hard enough.”
Jaq stiffened at the insult. “I came here to help. You don’t have to be so bloody callous.”
“You’re no good to me if you can’t access the Harmony. Tell me now if I’m wasting my time because if I am, I may as well head outside with a pistol and do my best to help those guys.” Then more softly, “Jacqueline, you’ve got to push for it. I know
it’s there.”
Jaq sighed and closed her eyes. Linwood hoped that she was right about this. When her old MI18 team had been controlled by Thadeus, he’d had to have been using the Harmony. But, the communication couldn’t just be one way.
A few seconds passed and Linwood resisted the urge to shout at Jaq to hurry. But then it didn’t matter. Jaq’s breathing increased. It looked like she might be having some kind of seizure and Linwood gripped the woman’s shoulders and held her steady. “Easy does it,” she said.
“I’m in. Or at least, if I haven’t gone mad I’m in,” Jaq said with a curious lilt in her tone. “It’s so vast. It’s like I’m getting stuck in a swamp.”
“You’re not stuck,” Linwood said. “You’re right here. You need to find the information Winborn was keeping from us. It’s in there somewhere. We need to stop the swarm.” Her foot knocked against the disabled ion blaster she’d dropped earlier. The weapon that was now useless because Winborn had remotely deactivated it. She smiled, hoping that she understood Winborn enough to guess what safeguards he’d put in place with the swarm. “Find us a kill switch.”
Jaq nodded. “I don’t understand what I’m seeing. Colours. Flashes of light. Images I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand it. Just find Winborn. He’ll point you at it.” Linwood hoped that would be the case. If Winborn was unconscious, he might not be in the Harmony at all. And if he was in the Harmony, it could be terribly dangerous sending Jaq to go and find him.
“How’s it looking over there?” Linwood said to Dean who was attending the camera feeds.
“Not good. They’ve made it inside the building, but the swarm is following.”
Great, she thought, like they needed another problem on the inside to deal with. But, it might buy them some time if her friends could find shelter inside the building. there had to be plenty of secure areas they could use.
Plus, she thought selfishly, if the swarm was inside chasing down her team, it wasn’t on the outside hurting the public.
“I’ve found him,” Jaq blurted. Then she shook. It took Linwood all her strength to keep Jaq from falling to the floor. For a terrifying few seconds, Linwood thought she might be having a cardiac arrest. But then it stopped and Jaq went still as a board. “He’s weak. But you’ve unsettled him. The idea of a kill switch is very much at the front of his thoughts.”
“Can you access it? Or tell me what we can do out here?”
And a curious thing happened. Jaq smiled, the corners of her lips rising in a tiny crescent of satisfaction. “He’s not as clever as he thinks he is. Without your help, he would never have come up with the idea of a swarm at all.” Jaq’s eyes flashed open and despite the blindness, Linwood felt she was staring right into her soul. “This is your fault.” She closed her eyes shut again, not giving Linwood the opportunity to argue.
“That’s not important,” Linwood snapped. “Just find me that switch.”
66
5th June 2013
“He’s coming round.” Dean was splitting his attention between the camera feeds and Winborn. Linwood hurried over and saw the man stir. “What did she mean, that this was your fault?” Dean asked.
Linwood didn’t reply. Jaq’s breathing had slowed, and she was still and unresponsive.
“Linwood!” Dean insisted. “Tell me what she meant.”
“It’s not important.”
“You’re lying.”
Jaq spoke. “She’s responsible for the swarm.”
Linwood glared at the woman, and in a frightening moment, imagined pushing her hand against the woman’s mouth, forcing her to stay quiet.
“That can’t be possible. All the technology has been here. She was as surprised as I was when we saw what was in that casket.”
“Not the physical creation of the swarm, but the idea,” Jaq said.
Linwood risked a look at Dean and saw him staring right back at her. “Your idea?”
She considered not saying anything. It wouldn’t matter anyway in a few minutes. If they couldn’t access the kill switch then they would die as soon as the swarm reached them in the control room. But Dean looked furious, and before she knew what she was doing, she’d nodded her head. The catharsis driving her admission.
“Back in the Tombs when I was studying Irulal, I discovered that she was largely constructed of nanites. We knew little about nanotechnology back then but there were already some papers being written on the possible application of nanorobots in medical science. You’ve watched fantastic voyage?
“They were cutting our funding, and we were no longer considered the darling of the security service. And there was pressure to demonstrate our value. I wrote a paper on how we could weaponise the nanites. The swarm was one of those ideas.”
For a moment, Dean didn’t speak, but when he found his voice it was sad. “You wanted to create weapons?”
Linwood shook her head. “No. I was playing with ideas. I hoped it would give me insight into what Irulal was. What she might do.”
“And did it?”
“She escaped soon after. She discovered I was working on a weaponisation paper and that set her off.”
“That’s the reason she broke out from the Tombs?”
“It’s not the only reason, but yes, I think it was a factor.”
“Jesus, Linwood. We lost a lot of friends that day.”
“I know.”
“Because you wanted to make weapons.”
“Are you even listening? I told you I didn’t want to create any weapons. I was exploring possibilities. I never intended for anyone to see my research. I locked it up in the strongroom. It was meant to be forgotten about.”
“You could have destroyed it.”
“I should have.”
Jaq, who’d been quiet throughout the exchange, spoke up. “If you’re interested, I’ve got the kill switch.”
Linwood’s heart lifted at the news. “Fantastic. We might make it through this after all.” She rushed up to Jaq and then two things happened simultaneously.
A silver tendril shot across the room and struck Jaq in the shoulder, pinning her back against the wall. A splash of blood hit Linwood in the face as she watched the impossible happen. Jaq howled in agony. That same tendril snapped back and punched Linwood backwards. Her head cracked on the floor.
A second later, the lift doors opened and two Faceless barged in. They were blocking their escape. Dean raised his weapon to fire, and Linwood tried to shout out a warning but it came too late. Winborn was on his feet and struck another tendril across Dean’s back, sending him flying head first over the control panel where he landed in a heap at Linwood’s feet.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you stop this,” Winborn said. “Face it, you’ve lost.”
67
5th June 2013
Linwood lay on the floor, a hand against the back of herhead. She’d been blindsided yet again by the Shun.
The Faceless were blocking the lift doors like bouncers and Winborn was in front of his window gloating.
At the first sign of trouble, Jaq had dived behind the sofa. Winborn was sending tendrils in her direction, whipping them across the room, but these were striking the furniture, sending clods of stuffing into the air.
Good. She needed to stay alive. She knew how to stop the swarm and that was their number one priority. Getting out of here alive was a close second.
Linwood scrambled to a spot against the wall, half hidden behind a display cabinet; she tucked her legs in and tried to stay calm. Mistakes were the remit of the panicked. She was cool. There was still a way through this. There was always a way through.
Dean looked to be out for the count. He’d taken a knock to the head when Winborn had thrown him across the room. He liked to put on the tough guy image but he was still a human being and that knock might well see him in hospital.
A tendril shot out and smashed into the plaster wall above Linwood’s head.
“If you’re t
rying to kill me, you’re doing a terrible job,” she called to Winborn.
And then he stepped away from the window and came to stand before her.
“I can kill you whenever I choose.” His face was dark. The humanity that had once been there, replaced with the coldness of space. Eyes dark. Blacker than the void between stars. And his voice was affected. That familiar cadence of the Shun. The arrogance.
“So get it over with. I’m tired of this bullshit.” And she was tired, but she knew he wouldn’t do it. At least not immediately. There was some need in these creatures, some desire to be listened to. Winborn needed an audience.
“Irulal thought you were different to the others. There was a time when she thought you might help her.”
The change in tack surprised her. “Irulal didn’t seem to want my help.”
“The Shun are proud but we’re lost. It’s difficult to find any people to trust.”
“Must make it kind of difficult when you go around invading planets.”
“We thought you had something we needed,” he said.
Linwood frowned. Irulal had never been this open with her about the Shun’s motives for visiting Earth. “What was that?”
Winborn turned and directed a tendril towards the sofa where Jaq was hiding. All the time he continued talking. “We’ve been looking for so long, we sometimes forget why. Earth is the forty-first planet we’ve visited. We knew it was the end of our search. We had to go on the defensive when you attacked.”
“Wait, we attacked no one.”
“Not yet. But our records show that one day you will.”
He was talking in riddles. Linwood wondered how much damage the ion blaster had done to him.
“You’ve got to stop the swarm. Talk to us. Maybe we can help you find what you’re looking for.”
Winborn looked like he was considering this. “The Shun are committed to taking over your world now, and I need to have the heralds in place before they arrive.”
“You don’t need to turn us into Faceless. We can help you without that.”
The Faceless Stratagem Page 28