The Embers of Hope: A science-fiction thriller (Hibernation Series Book 2)

by Nick Jones

  ‘Correct,’ Jameson nodded. ‘And what about the Hibernation programme?’

  Jacob and George both shook their heads, lying.

  So it was true after all. The whispers in the corridors, the rumours.

  Jameson waved it off. ‘At the moment, it’s vapour, an idea, just a dream. But with your help we might be able to take it forward.’

  Jacob wanted to scream, Do we have our funding or not?! Instead he spoke, nerves biting at him, his voice cracking slightly. ‘I’m sorry, but how does this align with our research?’

  Jameson walked as he spoke, comfortable, no script necessary, ‘For so long we talked about how we might deal with the past. Well, here is it. It’s come to deal with us, but we have a problem… mankind, I mean. We forget too easily. In recent memory billions perished, dark days, almost impossible to comprehend for anyone, but now we have stability again, the zones, safety.’ He looked at them again. ‘There are some who believe we have beaten warming, that the dark days are over, that we have energy and resources under control.’

  He didn’t need to add that they were wrong. People wanted security; they wanted to be told everything was okay, wanted to forget the Superflu, mass migration and famine. Jameson was right. Better to forget and believe it was all going to be okay. Jacob swallowed hard. He was being told it wasn’t, and by the most powerful man on the planet.

  ‘What I am telling you is highly classified,’ Jameson reminded them. ‘It doesn’t leave this room. Your funding is approved, but I need you to do something for me. I need you to work with a team from the Baden Corp. Teach them everything you know. Then, you can go back and continue where you left off. Six months maximum. You have my word.’

  There it was, move made, swift and direct. They had what they wanted – funding, and a promise of future direction – but it came with a condition, one that would pause progress and take them off course. Baden? Teach others what they knew? What the hell did that mean?

  ‘Sir?’ Jacob managed, ‘Does this mean Baden are in charge? Do we hand everything over to them? What about the…’ He paused, realising with a creeping concern what they might be asked to do. ‘Do we hand over the artefact?’

  ‘Victor is in charge,’ Jameson said in a way that somehow expertly reminded them Victor always had been. ‘He will report to me and keep Baden in line. You two run the team, but the focus must be towards the Hibernation programme.’ He folded his arms and stood for a while in deep thought. Eventually he said, ‘When we face adversity, we adapt and it makes us stronger. Each of us, at some point, will feel the pain of tough decisions ahead. This is of global importance. I expect you to give Baden your full cooperation. Victor will explain everything. For now, I just need to know I can count on you.’

  It wasn’t a question. Jacob locked eyes with George. His pained face showed a mixture of fear and confusion. He then glanced back at Reyland, who was standing to attention at the back of the room, expression cold.

  That’s when Jacob knew. Like one of their games, he and George had crossed a line and not even known it.

  He felt his heart sink. There was no going back. Not now.

  Not ever.

  Chapter 6

  Three months later, in the very room George and Jacob had first tested their abilities against one another, a new experiment was taking place. Four Baden candidates stood in a circle surrounding Theo Hyde, the most gifted student. Theo closed his eyes and focussed. His ability had been a surprise – unexpected – and exactly what the project needed.

  Victor Reyland watched them in his monitor. He had always had a gift for picking the best, but even he was surprised by how well Theo was working out. He had assured the young man that this project would finally give him somewhere to excel, a place where he could reach his full potential. George Mohanty had taught Theo well. Now it was time to see how far they could take things.

  Reyland leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He watched as Theo connected the group together in a neural network. This was new, this was interesting, a human daisy chain of energy. The group surrounding Theo shook, eyes rolling back in their heads, bodies stiff. Theo had excitedly described the lights to Reyland, the auras and the colours. Reyland couldn’t see them, but it didn’t matter. The kid was a puppet and Reyland was holding the strings. He zoomed in and watched Theo’s eyes flash open and it was obvious the young man was gone, replaced by a more powerful version that dominated the others. Reyland glanced around the floating holographic monitors.

  Five meetings were underway in various rooms within GCHQ, each of them under detailed surveillance. The individuals involved had been briefed on agenda items, topics and ideal outcomes. None were aware of Theo or the Histeridae team.

  Theo’s objective was to infiltrate the minds of the attendees without their knowledge and alter the outcomes of the meetings. This was his third attempt. Reyland’s eyes flicked between the various scenes of meeting rooms filled with people engaged in heated debate. The subject matter in each scenario was complicated and emotional. This was deliberate. If they were going to use the Histeridae in the field, they needed these situations to be as real as possible. Reyland felt his mind swell with potential. On his right a screen displayed Theo’s success rate – how many decisions he had correctly altered – it was currently just over 70 percent. The awareness reading – the amount of people who had felt the invasive changes – was showing zero.

  Ten minutes later, when it reached 82 percent, Reyland made the call.

  ‘Hello, Victor,’ Jameson said.

  ‘Good news, Sir. I think we’ve secured our first negotiator.’

  ‘Theo Hyde?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  There was a pause. ‘I had a good feeling about him,’ Jameson whispered.

  Four of the floating screens in front of Reyland flickered and the lights above dimmed. He frowned and continued. ‘He’s managed to change the course of multiple scenarios without the knowledge of the participants. It’s beyond anything we expected.’

  The percentage now read 86 percent. The screen filled with static before popping back into life.

  ‘We’re going to need it, Victor.’ Jameson sighed and Reyland could almost hear the cogs in his mind turning. ‘Hibernation is going to buy us time – you and I both know it’s going to save us – but people are scared, they don’t understand…’ He trailed off slightly. ‘Perhaps they don’t want to.’

  Eighty-nine percent. Theo’s nose was bleeding, and it wasn’t a trickle. It was pouring. The lights dipped again and every screen in the room flicked off and back on. Reyland scanned the faces of the operators around him. They looked frightened.

  Jameson continued, ‘This thing, this Histeridae. It was sent for a reason. It enabled the Hibernation chip and now it’s going to help us persuade the politicians in charge that the programme is the only option. I sometimes wonder –’

  ‘Sir?’ Reyland interrupted.

  There was a splintering sound, like warm bourbon covering fresh ice. He glanced over at the window that separated him from the experiment. It had cracked, thin lines of pressure creeping from its centre. Through distorted glass, Reyland watched Theo lift an inch from the floor, blood dripping from his shoes. The group had collapsed, their contorted bodies twisting and writhing, mouths gasping like fish on a riverbank.

  Theo continued to levitate, the Histeridae glowing through his fingers like angry lava.

  The lights went out and people screamed.

  Chapter 7

  India.

  2092

  It was past midnight and the storm, which had briefly subsided, was building again. There was a sudden howl of wind, followed by a whip of rain that became a constant, loud hammering. It sent shutters banging and objects crashing to the floor. Secrets were being spilled, truth from silence, and the storm seemed to know it.

  Nathan had allowed George to drink, and unseen pieces were finally falling into place; Reyland, Jacob, the Histeridae programme, but he needed to be ca
reful. Tip George over the edge and he would fall unconscious. He reached behind a cupboard, grabbed a second bottle of green liquor, pulled the cork and winced at the strong and fragrant fumes. When he returned from the kitchen, Mohanty eyed the bottle, grinning.

  ‘It’s good having you here, Nathan,’ the old man said.

  Nathan poured them both a drink. Mohanty tipped his hand, ensuring his measure was a triple. ‘Take it easy,’ Nathan said as gently as he could.

  Mohanty shushed the suggestion away. He gulped half his drink and darkness fell over him. Nathan had watched this transformation a few times. George was a man with a painful past, one that haunted him, and each time he allowed himself to slip back his aura changed, his eyes changed, everything changed. It was clear to Nathan George’s thoughts had returned to Theo.

  ‘He wasn’t a week in the ground before Reyland wanted to start again,’ George whispered, staring ahead without focus.

  ‘Theo died?’ Nathan was shocked.

  George glanced at him and nodded. ‘Died of a massive brain haemorrhage. Poor kid. Straight after the experiment, in the darkness and confusion, I went to him. Technically he was already dead, but his eyes were still active, he knew what was happening.’ George took another sip of his drink. ‘We had to pry the Histeridae from his fingers. The group he networked couldn’t remember a thing. They were the lucky ones. I’ll never forget his parents at the funeral. They looked lost.’

  Nathan took a sip of the green liquid. The burn was pleasant but he couldn’t imagine drinking two glasses, let alone two bottles. Mohanty’s eyes rolled a little. Nathan pressed on.

  ‘What happened then?’ he asked. ‘Did you stop?’

  Mohanty laughed but his face fell quickly. ‘Reyland stepped things up even more. New recruits, bigger tests. We lost two more. Just kids, really.’ He drifted off and finished his drink. He looked hopefully at the bottle. ‘There was nothing we could do, Nathan. I know how it probably sounds. Innocent like the Nazis, eh? But I can assure you. Every night, Jacob and I would whisper and plan. We knew we had to stop Reyland somehow, but when you are in as deep as we were you lose track of the surface.’

  ‘I’m not judging you,’ Nathan said simply. ‘I’ve done my fair share of things I regret.’

  Mohanty shrugged, managed a brief smile and held out his glass. Nathan poured a small measure and then tilted his head, frowning in disapproval. George seemed to understand. Booze for information.

  ‘You have to understand,’ George said, ‘the world was going crazy. The UN was overconfident, all that new power. Jameson had been re-elected. The energy was tangible, and the rollercoaster was running.’ He sighed. ‘In the end I couldn’t stand it. Jacob tried to talk me out of it but I confronted Reyland, told him what we were doing was wrong.’

  ‘What happened?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go. Reyland knew that.’ A bitter, thin smile returned. ‘He’s a smart one.’ George’s glass was empty again and Nathan realised he hadn’t even seen the drink go down.

  Jesus, does he absorb it through his skin?

  George tapped his finger against the glass and Nathan felt a terrible sadness. The past gnawed at George when the sun went down, chewed his soul like a shark tiring its victim, bite upon bite until only despair remained. The man drank to forget, and that was as old as fermentation itself.

  George was staring at him. His face – always changing, always different – had become the man Nathan had spoken to on his first night here.

  George whispered, ‘After Theo died, they brought convicts in. We killed dozens of them, testing, experimenting, trying to replicate it. It was Reyland who said death was relative.’

  Nathan watched as George’s elbow slipped awkwardly from the armrest of the chair and his eyes closed with a lazy roll.

  Damn it, I gave him too much.

  ‘George, what do you mean?’ Nathan leant forward and steadied him. ‘What prisoners? Replicate what?’

  George jerked and looked at Nathan as if he had been rudely awakened. He placed his glass on the table and rubbed his hands down his face. ‘I was better than Jacob. From the start I was stronger than him. Theo and I could have done amazing things with the Histeridae…’ He drifted again.

  ‘Death is relative – what does it mean?’

  ‘After we lost Theo, we just went deeper, trying to understand how to control the Histeridae.’ George locked eyes with Nathan. ‘That’s when I saw him.’

  ‘You saw Theo?’

  ‘Yes. Inside the Histeridae, in a place that isn’t anything like here. I saw him and it was awful.’ Tears rolled down his cheeks but he didn’t move, didn’t blink. ‘He spoke to me.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He begged me to help, he was scared, screaming.’ George’s voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears. He exhaled heavily – like a dying breath – and covered his face. He stayed like that for a while as if scared to move. ‘They cloned Theo’s body and I was given the job of bringing him back.’

  ‘But it didn’t work,’ Nathan suggested.

  George shook his head and wiped his eyes. ‘I tried. I tried so hard and I nearly had him. I connected with him, really believed I could guide him back.’

  Nathan placed a hand on George’s shoulder and offered a broken smile.

  George whispered, ‘He just slipped away, like some kind of ghost. I never saw him again.’

  Chapter 8

  Theo Hyde – a man Nathan had never met – was falling, screaming in a silent void and begging to be heard. Nathan turned away and when he looked again it was Jen falling, her lifeless eyes shining solid black like the Histeridae, body tumbling into foaming water, rolling over and over. He screamed in horror and woke in tears.

  The nightmare clung to him, Jen’s spirit drifting in the shafts of speckled sunlight that cut across the room. He lifted his legs out of bed and stood upright. His head pounded a steady rhythm. How did George drink the way he did, night after night? Nathan felt dried out, like an abandoned snakeskin, and he’d only had two glasses.

  The room was warmer today. George had lit the furnace. The promise of a warm shower sent a shiver over his back. The evening came flooding back to him. He had hoped to persuade Mohanty to try and contact Jen. That was going to be more difficult now. Yet somehow, as the sunlight filled him, he couldn’t help but feel something akin to hope. If Theo Hyde had somehow lived beyond the death of his body, then Jen might be alive, too – at least her spirit, or her soul, or whatever you wanted to call it.

  Nathan cursed his lack of ability with the Histeridae. If only he could get inside, he would spend the rest of his days searching for her. He realised, with little surprise, that he would happily die in there if it meant they would be together.

  Like heaven. A place to exist forever. Joined.

  It was a strange thought, informed by religion but void of any real meaning or possibility, for Nathan at least.

  He showered, enjoying the forgotten feeling of warm water on his skin. He stretched, high and long, arching his back. His body was feeling good but something still worried him, something aside from the newly unearthed past, something potentially more pressing. The body his soul currently occupied was on loan, and the planned hire of six weeks had turned into seven months. The procedure had been the best he could afford, but he never expected to make it this far or last this long. He never thought he would need to worry about living this long.

  He stepped from the shower and heard the familiar crashing of pots and pans. He dressed and joined George in the kitchen, and in that time decided that splintering should be the last thing on his mind.

  The smell of fresh bread hit his stomach. George was stood at an old wooden table that acted as an island – the Captain’s bridge, as he called it. He didn’t look up when Nathan entered the kitchen. The evening had been an emotional one, souls had been laid bare. Nathan pulled up a stool and George looked at him sheepishly, pouring coffee for th
em both.

  Nathan studied him. Apart from the obvious apprehension, he seemed fine, functional and comparatively sprightly for a man of his age and nocturnal drinking habits. George passed him a steaming mug of coffee.

  ‘Thank you for telling me the truth,’ Nathan said, taking a drink. George managed a weak smile.

  They sat in silence for a while, eating bread with butter and jam and sipping coffee. Eventually Mohanty said, ‘Now do you understand why you can’t ask me to do it? Why I can’t go inside that thing again?’

  Nathan considered his answer carefully. He couldn’t make George use the Histeridae, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up.

  ‘I understand your concerns, George,’ he said. ‘It must have been hell, but it’s also a long time ago, and with Jen? It could be different.’

  George shook his head and began clearing the dishes. Nathan waited. He understood George’s defences were like a tide, arriving and welling up with force but then receding again, as quickly as they had arrived. It was all about timing.

  ‘You met Jen once, didn’t you?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘I did,’ George replied. ‘When she was young, a party at her home. Jacob and Veronica always threw good parties.’

  ‘Do you think she would recognise you?’

  George stopped busying himself and stared, a plate and towel in his hand. His lip was trembling, but it wasn’t anger, it was something else. ‘Nathan, I said no.’

  ‘Please, George, she might be alive. You could save her.’

  ‘I’m not going to do it,’ Mohanty said, firmly.

  ‘Well then, teach me to use it?’

  ‘It doesn’t work that way. You can’t just decide to learn.’ He paused, eyebrows raised. ‘You can improve, but you either have it or you don’t. In all my years there was never any in-between.’

  Nathan knew it was pointless to continue and decided to return to the subject later, when George’s guard had lowered again. He changed course and steered the conversation back to questions that had been left hanging the night before.