The Shuttle’s arm twitched then began jittering between several locations around the Shuttle itself. In the accelerated time-frame, the arm appeared to exist only as a series of trembling poses linked by blurred lines of movement.
“Ha,” Anna let out a short laugh, “this reminds me of a test that I did with Douglas… a long time ago… though now it seems I’m the mouse in the spherical cage.”
The manipulator arm continued to blur as the exterior skin of the Shuttle began to disappear.
“It reminds me of those old nature shows,” said Mike, “You know, where a dead animal decays at super-speed?”
“Da, and the… oh,” Lana paused and pointed, “We have another friend.”
There were now two small assistants; the first was still attached to the large manipulator arm, the second appeared to be crawling over the remainder of the Shuttle’s surface.
“Fai?” Cathy smiled, “Is Number4 copying itself?”
There was a brief exchange of strobe lighting and Fai replied.
“It has created modified smaller versions of itself to conduct the program more efficiently.”
Lana laughed, something the others were not used to hearing.
“Number4 is a mother!”
Anna pointed out through the window.
“Then I can only assume she’s trying for a family…”
They saw several more units appear, smaller in size than Number4’s two assistants, but moving so fast between locations that it was no longer possible to count their number. Suddenly the manipulator arm flipped out and away from the Shuttle. Number4 was now attached to the end of the arm.
There was a brief flash of strobe light and the smaller units converged on Number4. Within a second, Number4 had been disassembled.
“What the hell…?” Cathy struggled to get a better view.
Just as suddenly a new structure began to appear in the same location.
“Evolution…” said Mike, almost in wonder.
“No,” said Fai, factually, “With evolution, the required end state is not known. According to the message, my external server counterpart is being upgraded. We should now see higher rates of progress.”
“Oh good,” said Cathy sarcastically, “Because I was getting so bored with all this waiting around.”
Fai was quiet for a few seconds then replied, “I see. Sarcasm.”
As the self-cannibalisation continued, the manipulator arm rapidly flickered between the former cargo bay and the clear space next to the Shuttle. The fabricators suddenly and drastically swelled in number, then the Shuttle fragmented. It held its approximate shape for barely a second, then the manipulator arm began reshuffling the component parts.
Abruptly all motion ceased, but the Earth’s day and night continued to pulse by.
“Field extension?” said Anna.
“Yes, Dr. Bergstrom,” Fai replied, “We’re experiencing an annual event. Earth’s orbit around the Sun is again passing through the Perseid cloud, a stream of debris left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle. My counterpart has extended the Field as a precaution.”
“Damn…” Mike stared at the collection of parts and slowly moving fabricators, “would you look at it? I hope they put it back togeth-”
He was interrupted by multiple flashes of Perseid debris harmlessly grazing the Field’s outside surface, then the swift construction process resumed.
A sudden and prolonged exchange of strobe light occurred, then all the fabricators disappeared.
“I have news,” said Fai, “the last message was a diagram.”
Fai displayed the plan view; the Earth was surrounded by a ring of lunar debris, broken in one place by a concentration of lunar mass. At hundreds of locations around the circle, markers were displaying various chemical symbols.
“But it’s impossible!” said Mike, “There was Helium-3 on the surface… but even before Siva hit it, the rest of the Moon was… dead…”
“As I understand it from the Archive logs, Eva’s secondary function at the FLC was to undertake geological surveys.”
“Yeah, after we’d dealt with Siva, we were supposed to start building an off-planet launch centre,” Mike rubbed his forehead, “Thomas Gray’s grand plan. It was supposed be all tropical domes and smiling families, but it didn’t turn out that way. It was going to be more subterranean, so Eva was supposed to do the surveys.”
“I find no record of any results being submitted to Archive, and there are no records of any previous lunar subsurface surveys. Did she discuss any of this with the FLC crew?”
“If she’d found this periodic table of elements in the Lunar mantle,” Mike jabbed at the diagram, “I’m pretty sure she’d have said something!”
“Maybe she wouldn’t,” said Lana, “You know how she was at the end.”
“At the end, Lana,” said Cathy, “I was on the receiving end of Eva’s mania. I don’t mind admitting we didn’t get on… but all of this is too much of a coincidence.”
Cathy looked at the circular diagram again and shook her head.
“Her name turns up within the Jupiter message, then the fabricator bots out there find useful material right within our grasp. Material that Eva must surely have known about. Material that we’d only find after she blew up the Moon… an event that, by the way, stopped Earth getting the full Siva whack!”
“Oh, come on!” Mike cut in.
“Mike,” she said quietly, “I can’t put it all together, but look around you, there’s something else at work here.”
FIRE
20th December 2112
Cassidy knew that the exiles were still gathered outside the Node, and that the Field hadn’t been altered yet. Her brother was making a bad choice and she desperately needed a few moments to talk him out of it. As she dashed onto the Observation Deck balcony looking for Alfred, she hoped she could persuade him to delay the proceedings.
Ahead she could see Alfred holding a touchscreen tablet at his side and overlooking the area outside the Node. He must have heard her approach because he turned to face her.
“Ah, Miss Briars, I was sad to hear that your brother chose to join the exiles.”
“Yeah, I need to talk to you about that,” Cassidy arrived at his side, “Look, he’s not a Novaphile, or anything like that -”
“Of course not,” Alfred replied, “Being the brother of such a prominent member of our Council, the notion of him being Exordi Nova is preposterous.”
Cassidy didn’t like the way he’d just put her at ease by using Tyler to imply there was a family connection to Exordi Nova.
“Well, exactly,” she smiled, “He just hasn’t thought it through. Please can we delay their departure, so that I can talk-”
“I’m so sorry,” he turned to face the window, “The process is just starting now…”
She saw them all standing in position outside, including Tyler who was furthest away. She could see panicked looks being exchanged between everyone and frequent glances towards one individual at the front. Following their lines of sight, she realised it was Kate. Her crutches were on the ground and she stood with her eyes closed; a picture of composure. Suddenly the sky flashed into an even faster blur and she felt a slight swell of dizziness.
The Field had contracted.
There was a fraction of a second, then the exiles all disappeared from their standing positions and began bolting around the area outside the Node at bullet-like speeds. Individuals were no longer recognisable in their accelerated time-frame. Occasionally, people would clump together in discussion, but then fly apart again only to regroup elsewhere.
Several of the supply crates jittered around slightly, sometimes spawning random items that would then disappear. Another crate suddenly arrived next to a driftwood tree that was entangled in the remains of the old bridge. The tree was demolished over the course of a single second; reappearing as a pile of wood which seemed to spontaneously burst into flames near the Mark IV dedication stone. Tents flashed into existence a
round the fire and the Sun started to arc towards dusk.
•
Outside the Node, the slow passage of time had almost completely removed the original bridge that had once provided access to the far bank. During their first day, Danny and the others had begun work constructing a simple rope bridge that they hoped would allow them to leave the island with their supplies.
When the daylight had begun to fade, their focus had turned to preparing for their first night. The arctic clothing that Alfred Barnes had granted them would not be enough, so the priority had shifted to building a fire.
Several days before their exile, the branches of a driftwood tree had become visible above the surface of the receding seawater. Caught in the rusty bridge remnants, it had been a welcome source of firewood.
Using the tools they’d been granted, they’d cut the wood and constructed the fire’s framework. Danny had been grateful for Tyler’s continuous assistance, particularly during the task of gathering Kate’s remains. With no option for burial here, it was agreed that cremation within the fire was the most dignity they could provide for her. The exiles’ first gathering would be one of sorrow.
Assembling the lightweight pop-up tents had been easy, but even this had carried a painful lesson. As they’d been unable to anchor them to the rocky ground, an empty tent had been swept off the island by a strong gust of wind. Thereafter a heavy supply crate was placed in each.
As he sat in front of the fire, Danny occasionally glanced over at the observation window, but the view changed so slowly that everyone appeared frozen. At their new accelerated 2400:1 rate, he knew that those inside the Node had travelled through barely ten seconds.
“Anyone know when we are?” Tyler was asking.
“Last date I saw was twenty-one ten,” someone replied, “but what does it even matter?”
Food rations had been passed around and he found himself drawing the inevitable comparison to his life before any of the Node events had happened: a time when he’d lived day-to-day on Archive’s handouts and had to survive by his wits alone. He knew those days were about to return and more harshly.
‘Always forwards, Danny. Never back,’ his mother’s words drifted into his head; but right now, he’d have given anything to go back. He’d have given anything to be back hiding in the Gene Pool’s disused structure, or running scared from a gang of Archive curfew thugs.
The fire crackled and he tried not to think about the fact that there was no longer any liquid sap in the long-dead tree. By the time those in the Node had travelled through a few weeks, he’d be just as dead as the tree. He’d be just as dead as everyone he used to know.
“Ghosts,” said Danny, staring into the fire.
In the Gene Pool’s earlier days, before it had become a venue for the easy trade of vice, he’d heard one of the teenagers reciting a poem. A common theme for the intellectual discussions was that of a future that had no future. Danny couldn’t recall the exact angst-riddled words but the feeling had stayed with him. Maybe that had been the point, he now thought; the words were long lost to time, but the sentiment had prevailed.
“Ghosts?” said Tyler with a shiver.
“Sorry,” said Danny, “It was just some dumb poem…”
The others were still looking at him.
“It was something like ‘If you have no future, then you’re already a ghost, and no amount of rattling your chains will make a difference’.”
“I’d like to rattle Barnes’ chain!” someone cracked.
“His evolutionary chain!” another laughed.
Others now joined in with their mock-gravitas deliveries of the Latin phrase Alfred Barnes was fond of using. The moment of levity swiftly passed though and a quiet descended around the fire again as each of them became lost in their own thoughts.
Danny saw a small movement from one of the tents nearby and Caroline Smith made her way hesitantly towards the group. The rumour was that she had supplied the list of their names to Alfred Barnes; it was obvious from the silent reaction of the others that they didn’t want her here.
“Please may I sit?” she spoke to Danny.
There was adequate space around the fire, but he knew that wasn’t why she was asking his permission. Without looking at her, he gestured to an empty piece of ground.
She sat down next to him but, unlike the others, made no attempt to warm her hands. For several seconds, the only sound was that of the flames, then she seemed to find the courage to speak.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Words,” Danny stared into the fire.
“I believed him. No,” she confessed, “no… I wanted to believe him. I wanted it all to be true…”
“Just words.”
“He used the marking to…” she faltered and stared at the flames.
Danny rubbed at his forehead, feeling the circle of raised and ruptured skin. The heat of the fire was doing little to ease the pain.
Although he found it difficult to sympathise, he knew Caroline’s pain was of a different kind. When they’d discovered her in the packing crate, she’d been angrily screaming and shouting that Alfred was to blame; she’d been discarded as easily as everyone else.
If it wasn’t so tragic, Danny thought, there was a laughable parallel to it all. The focus of so much animosity, both Smiths had entered or exited the Node unconscious and in a box.
To warrant her expulsion, he thought, Caroline must have unsettled Alfred somehow. Knowing the ease with which Alfred had killed Kate and Colonel Beck, it should have been a trivial matter to dispose of Caroline in the same way, and yet he hadn’t. Perhaps as a means of increasing conflict between the exiles, he’d ensured her survival.
Caroline leaned towards the fire and began to scrape at the loose ring of gritty, black ash that surrounded it.
“Archive, Exordi Nova…” her voice tremored as she continued to gather a small pile of ash, “… It doesn’t matter anymore… Like you say… just words…”
Danny watched as she closed her hand around the ash and lifted it from the ground. Opening her palm, she inspected the texture and frowned. She leaned forward and dropped some spit onto the ash in her hand, then began mixing it into a paste.
Holding up the same hand, she looked directly at him. He could see the orange fire reflected in her watery eyes. Without breaking eye contact she dipped her thumb into the black paste, then with a calm determination she used the ash to inscribe on her forehead a rough circle that mirrored his.
“Ghosts,” she closed her blackened palm and pointed at the Observation Deck, “are only seen by the living.”
Danny followed her line of sight to where Alfred Barnes stood motionless within the Node.
“We can rattle our chains,” the fire burned in her eyes, “We just have to speak his language.”
•
A commotion broke out on the Observation Deck below and Cassidy could see several people dashing for digital recording binoculars. Cassidy saw a pair on the balcony’s recharging bank and grabbed them. Watching where everyone else was pointing their binoculars she trained hers on the dedication stone, where there appeared to be intense activity.
Near the stone was the crate that she’d last seen next to the former bridge. It seemed that each of them were taking it in turns to use tools. Without taking her eyes from the scene, she hit the record button.
Although the pace of activity remained the same, the number of people gathering around the stone thinned. There now followed a flickering trail of bi-directional traffic, as the people shuttled back and forth between the edge of the fire and the stone.
It began to dawn on her that the flurry of activity had been the group carving new words into the dedication stone that faced the Node. As she watched, the carved letters began to fill with the ash they’d collected from the fire. Within a second, the ash had completely filled the hollows of the carving.
Cassidy recognised the phrase as a variant of one that Alfred Barnes continually used. The ex
iles were sending his words back to him, not as ‘Crescat nos fortior’ but ‘Crescat Kate fortior’:
‘Kate grows stronger.’
Seemingly instantly, all the exiles arranged themselves around the stone, taking care not to occlude the message. They were obviously doing their best to stand still for many hours, but even the act of breathing was making their outlines and features shiver.
She looked at the gathered group but, despite the message’s content, she couldn’t see Kate. Cassidy suddenly spotted one of her crutches, but Kate wasn’t holding it.
Danny was using the crutch to hold his elbow raised for many hours. Held in his hand, proudly displayed for all to see, was a small silver metathene case that reflected their fire.
As she looked at the wider group, she now picked up on a detail that had been staring her in the face since they’d assembled: imitating Danny’s Exordi Nova burn mark, each of them wore a black, circular ring of ash on their forehead.
She was about to try looking again for Tyler, but felt the binoculars being wrenched from her hands by Alfred Barnes.
“Give me that!” he muttered and put them to his own eyes.
The significance of Kate’s crutch suddenly hit her. It explained the reason for the message and explained why Kate herself was not part of the symbolic demonstration of solidarity; she was dead.
As Alfred’s expression began to change, Cassidy felt her world begin to crumble.
The defiant message was being freely transmitted through the observation window, proclaiming that ‘Kate grows stronger’ despite not being present herself. The format of the message pointed an accusing finger in Alfred’s direction and Cassidy had no way of knowing how he’d react. He already had a large army of Civil Protection Officers on the Observation Deck; dissent may not be tolerated.
More worryingly, only a moment ago, Alfred had implied a connection between her, Tyler and the exiles. Cassidy knew her life would mean nothing to Alfred, following this.
Boundary (Field Book 3) Page 38