by Sam Fisher
For some strange reason Tom thought back to their other life, as teenagers at conventions playing nerdy games. He remembered how Francine always kept to the main hall and never went into the smaller gaming rooms where you could avoid the crowds. When they had done battle, she had refused to go into a gaming booth. They had played using headsets in the main meeting room, under powerful lights and with just a few fellow gamers watching. Then he remembered how jumpy she had been, even after she had won. How she had promptly left. That's when it came to him.
Tommy Boy held his hands up. Francine took a step towards him and lifted the bazooka to his head. He looked around and swept his hand in front of him, causing the floor to shrink. The horizon rushed towards them from every direction. Tommy Boy looked up, and four walls crashed into place. He mouthed a word and a rectangle of steel fell from the sky, thumping onto the four walls.
Francine glared at him. 'What are you doing?'
He ignored her and glanced over her right shoulder towards the wall behind. It started to move towards them.
'What are you doing?' Francine's face was frozen in panic.
She glared at the walls and they stopped moving. But the effort had distracted her. Tommy Boy grabbed the huge gun from Francine's small hands, spun it around and rested his finger on the trigger.
'I just remembered. Confined spaces – a no-no, hey, Francine? I know what an egomaniac you are, and although your avatar looks nothing like you, I kinda knew you would put as much of your mind into it as possible, claustrophobia and all. Mistake, baby!'
He pulled back his finger and Francine's body exploded into a hundred messy pieces.
88
California Conference Center, Los Angeles
The silence in the earth tunnel was even more oppressive than the darkness. It was hard to believe that such unspeakable horrors lay directly overhead. Mark crawled back to the opening into the drain and clambered down to the floor of the tunnel. He slid down the final three feet and almost went over in the slimy mess underfoot – a cocktail of mud, waste and filthy water.
Twenty feet along the tunnel Mark heard a clanking sound and froze. It had come from some distance away. He swept the space with his torch. There was nothing but tunnel walls, slime and darkness. The sound came again. Then a faint illumination appeared, close to where the Mole had ploughed into the drain from the shaft running down from the surface.
He turned his light off and crouched down close to the wall. He could just make out someone descending from the roof of the tunnel on what looked like a rope ladder. The figure was alone, but he could not see clearly. A torch beam cut through the black, running along the walls as the shape approached. Mark shielded his eyes and threw himself flat to the floor. The torch light ran along his body.
'Mark!' a voice called.
'Steph – thank Christ!'
He clambered to his feet, brushing away the clinging soil.
'The Mole's down too?'
'Yep. The Big Mac the same?'
'Yes. Looks like the whole system is offline. I don't know what the hell has happened.'
'You got out of the Big Mac through the emergency hatch?'
'Yeah. The manual override. How far into the barrier are you?'
'20.16 feet, to be precise,' Mark replied.
Stephanie handed him a long metal tube – a Sonic Drill. She had another slung over her shoulder. 'Not quite the Mole, but it seems the only option we have.'
He smiled at her. 'Good thinking, Steph.'
89
Pete gazed around the cramped interior of the Bullet at the back of the Mole. The emergency light cast a depressing sombre glow. His suit was down. That was to be expected. It was obvious that E-Force had suffered a complete system failure. Kneeling up on the seat that ran along one wall of the machine, Pete lifted a metal shutter covering one of four opaque panels made from glass doped with terbium and dysprosium, which made them strong enough to stop a Magnum bullet at close range.
What he saw made his heart sink. Blue flames surrounded the Mole, licking at the body of the machine. Normally this would be of little concern – the machine could travel through a furnace for an hour. But with the system down, coolant would no longer flow through the nanotubes under the outer skin of the vehicle. This would make it warm up with surprising speed, and then only the metal structure itself would provide protection from the searing heat.
The blue flames, Pete knew, came from burning fuel, and they would be particularly hot – around 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. He didn't need a thermometer to tell him that. He'd made a close study of the engineering details of all the machines used by E-Force. They were pretty sturdy pieces of technology. The shell of the Mole was made from maxinium, an alloy five times more resilient than the strongest titanium-steel composite. In its own right, it could resist heat, corrosive chemicals and high-powered impacts. But not forever. And he couldn't climb out. With his cybersuit not operational he would never make it through the flames.
How long did he have before the structural integrity of the Mole and the Bullet was compromised? He ran through the numbers in his head and was horrified by the conclusion.
He was sitting inside a pressure cooker. If the system stayed down, he had no more than four minutes before the hull started to heat up beyond the critical limit. Immediately after that, thermal energy would flow from the outer shell straight to the interior of the Bullet. Then Pete would slowly cook.
90
Everywhere and nowhere
Francine's gore was all over him. He shook himself and let the mess slither away. A sound from behind made him spin round. A young girl of about eleven was standing next to him and smiling.
'Tom.'
He simply stared at her, uncomprehending.
'It's Sybil.'
Tommy Boy ran a hand over his forehead. Then broke into a grin.
'We have to move fast. Everything's falling apart,' Sybil added. 'Follow me.'
They were in a tunnel, lights running overhead, tarmac underfoot. The end appeared as a silver disk that grew bigger and brighter. Emerging from the exit, they were in a street of old cottages. The cottages had thatched roofs, rose gardens. It was a chocolate-box English village. The street was merely a muddy track pitted with the marks of horses, piles of steaming dung here and there. It stank – a rich country smell of grass and animal odours.
Sybil walked ahead of him. 'This way,' she called back, heading along a narrow garden path. On each side lay flowerbeds filled with psychedelic arrays of exotic plants that were quite alien to a real English country garden.
The door to the cottage swung open and Sybil walked in. The hall was dimly lit by sunlight filtering through leaded windows. A wooden staircase ascended to the first floor. Sybil immediately headed towards a lounge. Low oak beams ran over the ceiling, and the walls were whitewashed. There were more leadlight windows in deep recesses. Dried flowers stood in a vase inside an empty fireplace. Incongruously, the floor was scattered with small metal boxes. The closest one had a label that read 'Operating system'.
'Quick, open it,' Sybil snapped.
Tom twisted the key and the lid lifted.
Sybil let out a deep sigh and walked over to another metal box. This one was marked 'Programmes A1–C4'. Opening the lid, she let the contents flow over her. 'Whoa! That feels good,' she laughed, and scrambled to the next box.
Tom left her to it and walked through a low doorway into a dining room. A long, narrow teak table and six chairs took up most of the floor space. The table was stacked with more boxes.
He looked at the nearest one: 'Francine'. He opened it and the information soaked into him. Francine had been freelance for a year. This project was for a mysterious organisation, a group calling itself the Four Horsemen. She had known very little about them. They had their protocols cleverly guarded and resisted even her most determined efforts to break them. She had only seen the face of one of the four and knew no names other than their aliases – Death, Pestilence, War and Con
quest.
Tommy Boy glanced along the table and read the labels on the boxes. 'The Dragon', 'The CCC', 'Money', 'Plans and layouts'. There were dozens of them. Then he noticed one marked 'The Four Horsemen', and at last he realised where Sybil had taken him. He wasn't inside Francine's computer, he was in the mainframe of the Four Horsemen. Sybil had broken through into a system that had resisted Francine. He grabbed the box and put it in his pocket.
'Sybil?' he called through to the lounge.
There was no reply.
He lifted a couple of boxes. One was marked 'Political assassinations'. Another was labeled: 'Foreman'. Underneath this was another box. It was larger than the others, and as Tommy Boy read the two words on the lid a surge of excitement and fear rippled through him. 'Third Bomb'.
He felt a rush of air behind him and spun around. A horribly corrupted version of Francine's avatar stood three feet away. She had been pieced together from the slivers and shards of the body that had been blown asunder by the bazooka. She was a hideous sight, dripping blood and oozing some obscenely pungent pus. An oily liquid dribbled from Francine's eyes and ran down the remnants of her face. She had a huge knife in her hand. It caught the light from the window in the dining room.
Francine lunged forward so fast that Tommy Boy had no time to defend himself. But then, an inch from his throat, the blade slipped from Francine's twisted, wet fingers. He threw himself to one side as her body collapsed in a squelching heap. There was a huge black hole a foot wide in her back.
Tommy Boy looked from the ruined form of Francine's avatar to see Sybil, now standing erect, a beautiful young woman in a business suit. A freshly discharged radiation weapon was in her hand.
'Thanks,' he said simply.
'You're welcome.'
91
Base One, Tintara
Tom shook his head and tried to focus as the starlit sky over Tintara replaced the inside of the cottage. He glanced at his laptop, which was displaying the screensaver he always used – the Rolling Stones mouth with its red lascivious tongue poking out. Then, like a train speeding out of the night, reality hit him – along with the memory of what he had seen just before Sybil had saved his avatar existence. Two words reverberated around his brain – 'Third bomb'.
'Sybil?' he snapped.
'Tom.'
'Status, please.'
'System is functioning at 45 per cent. I've diagnosed the operating network, backup systems, external feeds and comms. We've sustained serious damage to a number of key components. They'll take time to repair.'
'Details, please, Syb. How long? You saw that box too, yeah?'
'I did see it, Tom, and I'm doing everything I can. Processing systems here at Base One are coming back online now. The satellite network is functioning at 30 per cent of normal levels, but most of the damaged systems will be self-diagnosed and repaired within three minutes. Comms are down completely.'
'When will they be up?'
'Insufficient data for an accurate evaluation.'
'Sybil, please. Ballpark.'
'An hour.'
'Shit – can you open the box, the file?'
'It's on your screen.'
A schematic appeared on Tom's screen. It was a low-grade, 2D representation of the CCC. A light flashed close to the ramp on B6. It was the bomb. To one side of the screen Tom could see a digital timer – minutes, seconds. On the far right, tenths of seconds flashing past faster than he could follow them. It was obviously the countdown for the detonation. As he stared, the first number clicked down.
The bomb would go off in seven minutes.
92
California Conference Center, Los Angeles
Mai lifted the roller-door and stared at Josh in horror. He had taken his helmet off and his face was covered with sweat and dirt. Blood was running from his nose. Senator Foreman looked far worse. His shirt was in shreds, the oxygen mask was splattered with blood and oil, and his hair was slick with mess. He was clutching a piece of rag to his left arm, which was red raw. They limped in and collapsed against the wall.
Mai knelt beside Foreman and gently removed the rag. His arm was a swathe of red and yellow, the skin blistered. Pieces of shirt material and rag clung to the sticky wounds. Mai opened her med-kit and found a small plastic bottle. She wetted a ball of cotton wool and gently wiped at the acid burns on the senator's arm. He winced and she stopped for a moment.
'Hold still,' she said, and she plucked a small metal cylinder from a holder inside the med kit.
'What's that?'
'It's a Vasjet.' She pushed one end against a clear patch of flesh on his arm and depressed a small button at the other end of the cylinder. 'A needle-less injection. It sends a narrow beam of atomised liquid through your skin and the wall of the nearest blood vessel.'
'That's fantastic,' Foreman replied.
A second later, a blend of anaesthetic and antibiotic began to circulate around the senator's body. A few moments more and the anaesthetic kicked in, numbing the agony in his arm. Mai returned to cleaning the wounds.
'I can feel it working already,' Foreman added in astonishment.
'Mai, is your suit up?' Josh asked.
'Negative. Went off about two minutes ago.'
'Mine too. Comms?'
She shook her head.
'Marvellous. How's Mr Gardiner?'
'Not good,' Mai replied. 'I've made him as comfortable as possible, but I can't do a lot with just this med-kit.'
'So what's the situation out there?' Dave asked.
Foreman glanced up. 'Useless. No chance of getting out that way.'
Dave looked down, his eyes screwed up tight.
'What about the assassin?' Mai asked, dabbing at Foreman's blistered skin.
'Oh, we had a little tête-à-tête with the Dragon,' the senator said, looking up.
'Yeah, really nice guy,' Josh added. He walked over to the roller-door and pulled it down. 'I think the only chance we have is to get out the way we came in. We'll have to get into the tunnel and try to find a way through the obstruction.'
'Mark said it was at least 30 feet thick.'
'Yes, but he also said he was taking a Mole down there. We won't last five minutes out in the car park. If the fumes don't get us, the fires will.'
'What about Pete?'
'We have no idea where he is, Mai,' Josh said, a tint of desperation in his voice. 'With the comms down . . .'
'Yeah, you're right.'
'What about Marty?' Dave asked, looking up.
Josh strode to the back corner of the room, where there was still a pile of unused tablecloths. 'Dave, look in the corridor for a couple of lengths of metal, about so long.' He stretched his arms out. 'Failing that, look in the next open room. Make it quick.'
'Josh, you need those wounds looked at,' Mai said.
He waved her away. 'I'll live,' he said. He tossed the tablecloths onto the floor.
93
Pete eyed the flames beyond the window. It was starting to warm up in the Bullet. He glanced at his watch. Two minutes and the air would be burning his throat. Thirty seconds more and he'd be dead. He sat as still as possible, conserving his energy. 'Well, this is not the way I thought it would end,' he said aloud, laughing bitterly.
He thought back to all the dangerous situations he had been in during his career. He remembered GWII, the minefield a mile outside Basra. The armoured car ahead of his had hit a mine, sending the vehicle ten feet off the road, then they had come under attack from snipers. Four of his men had died in the blast and another had an arm blown off by shrapnel, but Pete had walked away untouched. Then there was Afghanistan and the incident that had seen him and the army go their separate ways. He should have died then, but he hadn't.
94
Base One, Tintara
Tom hit the control panel of his laptop and winced at the ripple of pain that shot along his arm. 'Sybil, we need comms. Now!'
'I understand, Tom, but that's a negative. I can't repair the network any fast
er than it's doing itself.'
Tom looked away from the holoscreen and stared at the wall. He suddenly felt completely useless. Back there in that alternate reality he had been empowered. He had functioning legs again, he could walk, he could run. Now, here in this dense, clumsy world of solid matter and the more prosaic laws of physics, he could do nothing. He couldn't even use his phenomenal intelligence. Every avenue was blocked. I might as well be living twenty years in the past, he thought, not twenty years in the future. All this wonderful technology at their fingertips and yet they were no better off than they had been before the invention of the internet – before radio, even.
'That's it!' Tom exclaimed. He looked back at the holoscreen, his face alight with hope. 'I'm a freakin' genius!'
95
California Conference Center, Los Angeles
Out in the corridor the fumes were far worse than they had been even a few minutes earlier. Dave had an E-Force oxygen mask clamped to his face. He was breathing deeply, but the acrid gases settling on his skin were burning and itching.
There was no sign of anything like the metal poles he was looking for on the floor of the corridor. He ran on ten yards and reached a roller-door. He pulled at it but realised it was locked. Crossing the corridor, he tried the first door on that side, but it was locked too. Then he saw a narrow cupboard door next to the shutter. Trying the handle, he found that it too was locked. He stood back and ran at the door, crashing into it with his shoulder. It shook but held fast. Then he kicked the lock with the flat of his boot. The wood shattered. One more kick and it swung inwards.
Dave had got lucky. Propped against the wall, he could see what looked like lengths of scaffolding for a lighting rig. Four of the poles were at least ten feet long, but after moving these to one side with his good arm, he found what he was looking for, a set of cross pieces about five feet long. He grabbed the first two, tucked them under his arm and headed back to the corridor.