by Jule Owen
“Yes,” he says. “Slight change of plan, nothing to worry you.” He gazes round at the doors, pointing with an index finger. “We were going to go… that way.” He indicates to a corridor at three o’clock to their current position. “But now we need to go…” he spins on his heel and then walks around the lift shaft, still pointing. ‘That way.” He walks up to a door and it clicks open.
“Was that locked?” Mathew asks.
“What is locked?” Lestrange replies, his smile mischievous, Mathew thinks. “After you,” he says, stepping back and making way.
They pass through the door into a kind of utility room with metal cabinets filled with machinery and pipes. Then they pass into another room through a door and into a corridor and start to make pace. Lestrange doesn’t falter. He knows where he’s going now.
In the car, with Jonah and Drake, Kilfeather blinks at the map. “I don’t believe it,” he says.
“What?” Jonah says.
“The second Erlang has disappeared.”
Jonah and Drake both stare at the table.
“He was here,” Kilfeather indicates with his finger. “Then he completely disappeared.”
“And we’re going the wrong way to get to the stationary Erlang.”
“I’ve requested the car change course.”
They all peer ahead as they turn onto a new road. “Warning,” the on-board computer says. “Congestion ahead.”
Jonah says, “List alternative routes.”
“You are on the fastest route,” the car says.
Jonah yanks open the door, and holding onto the door handle, leans into the road. The way ahead is jammed with Accountant vehicles. He gets out of the car, walks towards the jam and speaks to some soldiers. Kilfeather and Drake watch him from inside the car. He comes back and gets in.
“There’s no point pulling rank,” he says. “It’s jammed a mile ahead. Not all our vehicles are plugged into the central traffic management system yet.”
“Let’s turn around and go back to the train,” Drake says.
“Frack that,” Kilfeather says. He calls Winterbourne. “I need you to hack our car.”
“Okay. Give me two minutes.” There is silence on the line. Jonah, clearly on edge, gets out again and climbs onto the bonnet and then onto the roof.
“This is an expensive car. A beautiful car.” Drake says. “The man’s an animal.”
Kilfeather snorts.
Winterbourne says, “I am sending you the countermand code now.”
“Thanks.”
Kilfeather activates the screen on the spinel sheet that separates the passenger part of the car from the driving section. The surface transforms from transparent to opaque. “Computer, please initiate emergency manual override.”
“Warning. Security access code required.”
Kilfeather inputs the code Winterbourne has given him. A holographic steering wheel appears as well as a virtual dashboard that curves around him. The cameras show him the road ahead, as well as views of the side and rear of the car and numerous data panels. Too much to take in. He says, “Start and drive,” and he steers the car off the road and onto the wide, empty pavement. Then he accelerates.
The High Train glides to a halt at Station 22 on the 20th floor of the not especially notable Tower 22, a building mainly housing staff managing the city’s sewerage systems. It is cheaper to rent here than elsewhere in the currently extant buildings of the city. Mathew chose it as the place to locate his new private lab mainly for this reason, but also because people are unlikely to visit for any other purpose than for work during office hours. There are hundreds of empty basement rooms across the burgeoning city. George helped him move and set up his equipment. He made dozens of journeys back and forth and knows the way instinctively.
“There’s three doors,” he says to Clara as they walk along the dimly lit corridor towards the lab. They stop as they reach an ordinary door, blocking their path. “They act as security airlocks,” George stands facing the door, gripping the handle. A blue light scans him. The lock on the door releases. “You get authorised through one, step through and the door closes behind you. You get scanned again, the door opens ahead and shuts behind. There’s a short length of corridor and then another two doors. The sixteen invented the encryption on the security system. Hoshi says there’s no way for anyone to breach it.”
“Unless they have one of these,” Hathaway says, raising his gun.
Clara sees him first. Her eyes widen. She opens her mouth to speak, but words fail her.
George turns around. Hathaway’s face noticeably pales.
Clara says, “George, whatever you do, keep this door shut. Don’t let this man through.” Clara pushes her son forward and yanks the door shut on George.
“Who was that?” Hathaway says.
Clara blinks at him.
Hathaway steps forward, aiming his gun again. “Who was that?!”
“George.”
“George,” Hathaway says, amazed.
“Your son.”
34 Misfire
George is paralysed. He stands between two doors. He recognised the man with the gun. It was Director Hathaway. Everyone knows who he is. George also knows Hathaway is his biological father. His mother has shut the door on him because she is trying to keep Hathaway away from Hoshi and his father. He knows this is because she thinks they are in more danger, but he can’t leave her there with that man. Now he’s not sure what to do.
“Hoshi!” he calls. “Hoshi, are you there?”
“Yes, George.”
“We have a problem.”
“I know, George.”
“What do you advise we do?”
“I have a plan. I need you to stay where you are until I tell you to open the door.”
Young Mathew follows Lestrange, jogging occasionally to catch him as he strides through a maze of rooms and doors and corridors, right and left turns, up and down stairs. Doors that Mathew suspects should be locked to them open as Lestrange approaches.
“Wait,” Mathew says, clutching his side. “Give me a minute, will you? What’s the rush?”
Lestrange halts suddenly, spins on his heel and stares at Mathew, surprised. “Ah.” He seems to have forgotten he has a companion. “A slight miscalculation on my part. I had planned our path exactly based on what I knew would happen from history. I hadn’t accounted for your presence. It didn’t occur to me the fact of you being here, however periphery to main events you are, would change the way the other players behaved.
“I’ve had to change our route, but the timing now has little margin for error. Ideally we would wait, but our exit will be compromised for quite a while after today’s events and I don’t want us to have to go all the way back to London. We will still make it on my current calculations, but we must be quick. Are you ready to walk again?”
Mathew nods.
They set off once again.
Hoshi gets off the machine slab, sits and pulls on her shoes.
“What’s going on?” Dr. Erlang asks.
“Change of plan.”
The doctor sighs with relief. “I have to say, I’m relieved.”
“I wouldn’t be too pleased.”
“Why?”
“Hathaway is outside the lab with a gun.”
“What?” Erlang is panic-stricken and then says, “But he can’t get in. They’re Silverwood’s most secure doors.”
“Agreed. Unless you have a hostage.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s with Clara.”
“Oh my God!” Mathew rushes to the door. Hoshi races after him and pulls him from the range of the blue light automatically scanning him. “Whatever you do, you mustn’t go out there.”
“I’m not leaving her with Hathaway. He’s insane. Is George with her?”
“He’s between the doors. Safe. I’ve asked him to stay there. For now, he’s listening to me. I wish you would too. I will go round the back through the service tunnels.
Just as I approach, I will ask George to open the door he is standing behind. Hathaway will be stunned by George and distracted. I will come behind him and grab his gun.”
“But he may shoot you.”
“It does not matter if he shoots me. I cannot die. Besides, it may be just as well. We were going to decommission me anyway.”
“What if he captures you instead?”
“That crossed my mind too. If he does, I will initiate my own destruction. Please, Mathew, we don’t have time to debate this. Stay here. I will communicate with you soon.”
Hoshi strides across the room and leaves through a door at the side. Mathew stares after her.
Hathaway says, “You have to let me through the door. I need to speak to him.”
Clara steps away from the door, but not too far. She leans against the wall next to it. “I’ll do no such thing as long as you are holding that gun. What did you come here to do? Kill Mathew?”
“He killed Leah.”
“Nonsense! I don’t believe for a minute you ever thought so.”
“Oh, he may not have pulled the trigger himself, but he lured her to her death. She would never have been captured if it hadn’t been for him.”
“Captured? What on earth do you think happened?”
“Your husband filled her head with coalition propaganda. He turned her against me.”
Clara gapes at Hathaway, incredulous. “Mathew hadn’t spoken to Leah in ten years. She went to Birmingham on her own. She ran away. She was terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of you!”
“I don’t believe it.”
“She did not want to raise her child amongst the Accountants. She feared for her son’s safety and for her own. She did not want him to be like you.”
“You expect me to believe that after ten years of not knowing you she just appeared at your home?”
“She didn’t come to us. We didn’t even know she was in Birmingham. Leah left instructions with the authorities to come to us with George if anything happened to her.”
“So how do you know all this if you weren’t talking to her?”
“She wrote something for us. She hadn’t been able to contact us because she was in hiding. There were concerns for her safety.”
“Of course there were concerns for her safety. She was being held by the secret services who then went on to murder her.”
Clara shakes her head, “I don’t think they did.”
“Who did, then?”
“We always thought we should ask you.”
“You think I killed her?”
“She betrayed you, didn’t she? She gave the coalition information about the Accountants. She left you and took your son. I always thought you had killed her in revenge.”
“I loved her,” Hathaway says, bereft. “I wouldn’t have touched a hair on her head, no matter what she did.” And Clara believes him.
“Then someone else on your side killed her. The police said it was an Accountant-style execution. She was made to kneel and then shot in the head.”
Hathaway’s face pales further. “They would,” he hisses. “They would hardly admit they shot her.” But the fires goes out of him, the gun is limp in his hand. He stares at Clara. “I thought George was dead.”
“The press release announced his death. It was intended to make him safe. They think he saw who shot her but the killer was disturbed before he turned the gun on George. But he doesn’t remember anything. Thank God.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Not until you get rid of that,” she points at the gun.
Hathaway glances at the weapon, turns it in his hand as if surprised it is there at all. Then he nods, turns on the safety, drops it on the floor and kicks it away.
“How do I know you don’t have another?” Clara asks.
Hathaway holds up his hands. “Search me.”
She stares at him sceptically. “Do you think I’m going anywhere near you?”
“Do you think I would hurt my own son?”
“You might still hurt Mathew.”
“I won’t.”
Clara sighs and then nods.
Lestrange and Mathew race along a corridor. Suddenly Lestrange grabs him, bundles him into a nearby room and extinguishes the lights before they automatically fire up. He brings Mathew beside him, pressed against the wall, and puts his finger to his lips. Mathew watches Lestrange’s listening face. Someone runs past at full pelt. They wait a moment. Lestrange relaxes.
“Good. It’s clear. Come on.”
“Who was that?”
“No one you need to concern yourself with.”
Hoshi’s body is biologically human, but Dr. Erlang and the sixteen did not see the point of making a body if it was not the best it could possibly be. Within the tolerances of the particular build and design they have chosen, her body is optimised to peak performance. Strong and fast enough to overpower the most brawny of men, she is swift enough to outrun the fastest short-distance athlete.
She runs now with precision and efficiency along the maze of corridors; her brain anticipates each turn and corner perfectly.
The carefully balanced AI brain she carries within her skull does not get overwhelmed, as human brains do, by threats and fear. Nevertheless, she experiences emotion and she loves Clara.
For this reason she puts everything she has into getting to her and she has already run numerous scenarios to prepare for whatever will greet her when she arrives.
Lestrange has stopped again. “Okay. This is getting complicated,” he says. “No matter.”
“What is going on?” Mathew says.
Lestrange opens a door onto a metal staircase. “Down here.”
At the bottom there is another door. It clicks open automatically.
“Okay. Good. Through here.”
They walk along a metal walkway, above a boiler room, holding on to waist-height rails. Down below, white metal caged machines hum. On the other side of the walkway there is another door and another set of stairs.
“Up here,” Lestrange says.
Four flights up, on one of the stairwells, there’s a hatch. Lestrange pulls off the grating. “In you go,” he says.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Not so, I’m afraid. Go on.”
Mathew climbs in. It is roomier than he feared, a horizontal tube four foot square. He edges along on his hands and knees.
“Where to?” he asks Lestrange.
“Keep going. There’s another grate at the end. When you get to it, turn around and kick it open.”
Mathew does as he’s told and slides into a small empty room.
“There’s no door,” Mathew observes.
“We’ll go through there,” Lestrange says, indicating to another grate, this one body height. He goes and examines it, hooking his fingers around the edges, trying to get a grip on it. And then he stops and sighs.
“I don’t believe it,” he says.
“What?”
“Kilfeather’s changed his route.”
Kilfeather drives straight into the underground carpark of Tower 22. Winterbourne finds the map of Silverwood’s underground tunnels and rooms and transmits it to Kilfeather, who uses it to navigate his route to Erlang. With Winterbourne’s help they calculate a shortcut to claw back some of the time they’ve lost. Winterbourne manages to get some doors unlocked for them through the central security system of the buildings they pass under. To get through others they have had to blast the locks away.
“How far?” Jonah asks.
“Almost there,” Kilfeather says.
Via his e-Pin, Winterbourne says to Kilfeather, “There’re three consecutive doors ahead I’m unable to unlock. They’re the doors to Erlang’s rooms.”
“Can we shoot them open?”
“You can try.”
Hoshi registers the junction to the corridor ahead. She skids to a stop at the end.
“Open the door,” she transmits to
George.
George grasps the handle and the blue light scans him. The door unlocks and he pulls the door open.
Hathaway stares. “George,” he says, whispering.
“Director Hathaway,” George says coldly. A glance registers Clara is unharmed and the man has cast aside his gun.
Hoshi comes out of the corridor. She steps forward and starts walking steadily towards Hathaway. Hathaway doesn’t notice her. She spots the gun, scoops it from the floor, cocks the trigger and points it at Hathaway’s head.
Clara watches her and says, “Hoshi, that won’t be necessary.”
In the room at the side, behind a thin wall, Mathew says, “Hoshi?” He goes to the grate and peers through and comes face to face with the image of his mother.
Lestrange tries to pull him back from the grate, but Mathew shakes him off. He starts to violently pull at the grate. George, Clara, Hathaway and Hoshi are startled by the noise and turn to look.
Behind them Kilfeather, Drake and Jonah run along the corridor. Kilfeather sees Hoshi with the gun. He lifts his own and aims and shoots. Mathew pulls the grate away and falls into the corridor. He scrambles to where Hoshi is standing, shot and poised to fall, as Kilfeather fires again, hitting him. Hoshi falls to the ground and Mathew falls with her.
Dr. Erlang, still in his lab, watches Hoshi shot on the screen. A moment later, he is scanned through the doors and walks up behind George, towards Kilfeather and Hoshi, who is slumped on the floor. There’s a boy with her, lying propped on an elbow, shocked and staring at his hand, which is exploring the hole in his right side and the increasingly large pool of blood seeping onto his hands, clothes and the floor around him. The boy, who looks just like him as a young man, stares directly at him and then at Hathaway. He opens his mouth to speak.
Jonah screams, “Abomination!” at Dr. Erlang and raises his weapon.
Hathaway realises how close he is to George and says, “No!” and steps forward, blocking the bullet with his own body. The force of it slams him against one wall. The second bullet hits Dr. Erlang.