Spiral

by Andy Remic

  ‘Well done, my children, for convening so early. It is good to see the servants of God so willing to carry out His work.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jam, casting glances at Nicky and Slater. ‘We’re just warming up her engines.’

  ‘And are they warm?’ asked The Priest softly.

  ‘They are now.’

  ‘Praise be - then what are we waiting for? Onward, Christians! Let us discover the source of this scourge.’

  The Apache, engines roaring with power, lurched up from the airstrip, rotated through two full circles, then shot straight upwards with a caterwaul of engine; it halted, hovering, rotated again through about 270 degrees, then, with its short squat nose dipped, hammered forward into the heavy falling rain.

  Jam grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry! I’ll get the hang in a minute—’

  ‘Or twenty,’ muttered Slater.

  ‘I fucking heard that!’

  The rotors thumped through the downpour.

  Nicky found herself staring out and down at the bleak landscape below. They passed a town, grey and huddled, its roofs slick with water; cars moved warily, like predators hunting through the streets, and occasional shoppers cowered under huge umbrellas. The streets were laid out like some huge brick-walled game, and a feeling of melancholy fell over Nicky as she watched these tiny people in their tiny houses with their tiny lives.

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ said Slater.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You’re looking at the people - secure in their ignorance, not aware of the world events unfolding around them. They watch the news, believe the media and propaganda - like sheep. They have no real concept of what is really going on, of what the stakes are.’

  ‘That’s quite profound for you, Slater.’

  The huge man smiled, revealing his missing teeth. ‘Slater not think too well sometimes, but he hold a gun well and know what he believe in. You laugh at Slater sometime, but really I is good and I smash the bad men.’

  Nicky patted his huge bicep. ‘I know, I know. When we’re laughing, we’re just fucking with you. We love you really; we know you’d give your life for us.’

  Slater nodded, a big smile across his face.

  The Apache banked, heading towards the coast; below, cliffs sailed into the distance and they were flying low over cold churning grey seas. Jam and The Priest seemed to be arguing.

  ‘We’re not going lower,’ said Jam through gritted teeth.

  ‘The wave formations will mask us against radar,’ said The Priest softly, eyes bright with the light of conviction.

  ‘Yeah, and then drag us down and wrap us in Neptune’s cold fishlike embrace. You can go to fuck, you insane religious bastard.’

  ‘God will protect us.’

  ‘God will laugh at us!’

  ‘You do not know God’s will as I do.’

  ‘What, so you’re in contact with the man himself?’

  ‘Let me just say that I have seen the light.’

  The Apache dropped closer to the waves; sea spray rattled against the glass and Nicky and Slater stared out warily, watching the churning water, the crests of white foam against the rolling liquid slate-grey.

  ‘Do you know anything about this Kamus?’ asked Nicky, after long moments of thought.

  ‘A little,’ said Slater slowly, his eyes hooded. ‘It used to be an operational Spiral base. A military centre, a place from which we could mount operations in middle and eastern Europe.’

  ‘What happened? Why did they close it?’

  ‘Several reasons.’ Slater’s voice was cool, his eyes moving to stare out over the sea once more. ‘Things kept going wrong; people started dying. The Kamus is built into the side of a mountain, high up on a ridge. There are only two ways to reach the place - by air, or by a single cable car. Kamus was a fortress; almost impregnable. Tunnels inside travel across and down, deep down - access shafts, huge stores, research centres - all carved from within the rock. In the end, Kamus-5 was beaten by an enemy - not an external physical enemy, but an internal psychological one.’

  ‘It was haunted?’ asked Nicky softly.

  ‘Not haunted, more cursed.’

  Nicky shivered.

  Slater continued, his gaze still distant. ‘I remember the last days; the huge transporters leaving the platform; much heavy equipment was abandoned there, they said it was not cost-effective to move. Hah.’

  ‘What else?’

  Slater looked at her. Met her gaze. ‘It was said, those who worked deep within the research centres — something down there turned them mad. There was some kind of massacre, in the living quarters - thirty or so people, including wives, children, all were involved in some kind of shooting. Lots of bad death. Deaths of innocent people.’ Slater rubbed at his temples. ‘It was covered up well. I be honest, Nicky - Slater not really want to go back.’

  ‘We don’t have much choice.’

  ‘Only a mad man would set up camp in the Kamus.’

  ‘Or a fanatic,’ said Nicky sombrely.

  Slater nodded.

  They remained in silence for the rest of the journey.

  Spiral_Memo6

  Transcript of recent news incident

  CodeRed_Z;

  unorthodox incident scan 556126

  A Russian nuclear-weapons depot was completely deactivated this morning. The deactivation sequence lasted for 180 seconds. Both reactors and fission services were left stranded and without power and cooling.

  The reactivation occurred as an automated sequence that left technicians and scientists without answers concerning the nature of this apparent security breach. When reactivation occurred, all passwords and security measures were instigated without authority intervention.

  This would suggest either a complex bug in software, or it could hint at hacker/subterrorist involvement.

  The Russian Minister for Technology, Sergei Kessolov, was unavailable for comment.>>#

  CHAPTER 14

  THE CALM

  Carter and Natasha had a simple breakfast of fruit and bread and cheese brought to their room by Marcus, and washed it down with thick black coffee containing lots of sugar. Carter gestured for Marcus to stay, and the large black man sat on the end of the bed, making the aged and rusting springs creak. He poured himself a coffee and grinned over at Carter.

  ‘They say you a bad boy.’

  Carter shrugged. ‘You look quite a bad boy yourself.’

  Marcus shook his head, long dreads swaying. ‘I here, man, because I am mathematician and I am good mathematician. I help repair the Spiral mainframe codes.’ He beamed, and sipped at his coffee. ‘I let Gol tell you about that; he may not want me to speak.’

  ‘And there’s me thinking you were merely a beefy bouncer. Nats, don’t he look like a bouncer?’

  Nats nodded, taking a bite of melon. ‘Sorry to stereotype you, but it’s the muscles.’

  ‘A man must work out,’ said Marcus. ‘You not want to turn to fat; to grow old and fat and weak and plump. I stay trim; I run and I fight. They say you are a fighter, Carter - this true, man?’

  ‘I used to box, once. In the army.’

  ‘Maybe one day we spar?’

  Carter shook his head. ‘Don’t know about that.’ He reached over; felt Marcus’s huge bicep. ‘Hmm. Maybe another time, Marcus - you understand? - I’ve got a broken rib at the moment...’ The last bit was spoken in the voice of an injured squeaking schoolboy.

  Marcus grinned. ‘Look forward to it. Gotta go, man, or Gol will cut off my dreads.’ He stood, hoisted his AK47 and stepped from the room. He peeped back in. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

  ‘Our pleasure,’ said Nats, smiling as the door closed. ‘A mathematician, eh? I wonder just what the hell my illustrious father is up to down here in Kenya under the Spiral umbrella?’

  ‘I’m sure its not legal,’ said Carter.

  ‘With Gol, it never was.’

  They dressed and, stepping outside into the early-morning sunshine, saw Gol sittin
g on the porch steps. He turned, smiling up at the couple and stroking his greying beard. ‘Looks like we’ve been lucky,’ he said.

  Carter stood, stretching his back. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Lucky?’

  ‘No signals have been triggered; we’ve scanned the ECubes via our hacked satellite links. There are reports of you - both of you - fleeing the UK but there is no mention of your destination, no traffic referring to Africa. If your enemies - our enemies - are coming here for us, then they are extremely quiet about it.’

  Carter snorted. ‘Don’t get lazy, Gol. Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they are not there.’

  Gol frowned, his face hardening. ‘I know that, boy. And we have been making preparations. This operation is far bigger than you - or anybody - suspects. It would appear we are safe from discovery, for now; and you, therefore, can help us.’

  ‘Help you? How?’

  Gol smiled down at Natasha. ‘I know for a start that you are a little hacking genius; you worked on the QIII Proto at its integral stages, and you know the Spiral mainframes like the back of your own hand. We have a little problem decoding information that we could use your assistance with ...’

  ‘Just what the fuck is it that you are doing here?’ asked Carter. He sat down on the steps, looking out over the orange trees, which swayed gently in the caress of some warm breeze.

  ‘This is Spiral_F,’ said Gol. ‘We are the secret police of Spiral. The secret within the secret. The central layers of the onion, surrounded by outer layers and outer layers and outer layers. Spiral watches Spiral, who watches Spiral - we are a central mechanism to stop bad things happening.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Carter rubbed at the back of his neck, easing the tension, ‘I knew there was a secret police,’ he gave Natasha a long sideways glance, ‘but I didn’t realise you were involved.’

  ‘Not many people do. Our cover is that of a research centre; and yes, we do research in the name of Spiral. But we are so much more than that... ironically, we are the people who are supposed to have all the answers, and yet there are things happening here and we’re at a loss to discover the real reasons. This QIII, this military processor - something is out of place, a discordant note, and I’m not sure how deep it goes. You want to know what we do here, Carter? We solve problems. Pure and simple. And then we hunt.’

  ‘Hunt?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Gol, dark eyes gleaming. ‘We hunt.’

  It was night.

  Gol had spent some of the day showing Natasha and Carter around his private world within the rocky canyon; the orchards flourished with the loving care of a small group of village women who travelled in by foot to tend the trees and harvest the fruit.

  Now they were seated outside, around the side of the house, where a small fire had been built. Carter sat with his back to the wall of the house, Natasha beside him. Gol was seated across the fire, large chunks of meat on a skewer before him sizzling fat into the flames. Also present - some of them meeting Carter for the first time -were a few other members of this Spiral_F operation whom Gol slowly introduced.

  ‘This is Marcus; I think you have already met.’

  Marcus grinned, reached over, and shook Carter’s hand, his dreads swinging near to the flames.

  ‘Careful, mate, or your hair will fry.’

  “S all right, Mr Carter. It happened before.’

  ‘This is Shanaz; our resident computer expert and presently on the hack with the newly updated Spiral mainframes - or she was, until the HQ was stomped into chemical oblivion. She learned her computing trade at BUET - the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka.’

  Shanaz smiled, a wide beautiful smile; of Bangladeshi descent, she wore her hair long, a silken web that descended to her waist and which she plaited and decorated with interwoven wooden beads. Her lips were a deep red, shining in the glow of the flames.

  She reached over to shake Carter’s and Natasha’s hands; Carter’s gaze met the intelligent bright look of the woman and he licked his lips; there was wildness there, true animal wildness that promised nothing less than a true roller-coaster thrill.

  When she spoke, her words were a soft purr, a luxury sound, the husky growl of a hunting animal. ‘I have heard many things about you, Mr Carter. Gol speaks with -shall we say, passion - about your exploits.’

  ‘I am sure he does.’

  ‘Are you everything he promises you to be?’

  Carter was entranced by that beautiful gaze and that throaty, husky, magical voice. He realised that their hands were still touching, her skin warm against his, the fingers stroking his hand with gentle pressure.

  ‘I... I am not sure.’

  ‘Come, do not be modest, Mr Carter.’ Shanaz licked her gleaming red lips. She turned, winked at Gol, then back to Carter. ‘He says that you really are an animal.’

  The men chuckled; Natasha glared, first at Shanaz, then at the side of Carter’s head.

  Shanaz broke the handshake. She licked her fingers. Carter swallowed.

  ‘And this is Jahmal; another professional computer hacker. He used to be wanted by the FBI, no less, until he taught them a few things about data protection; bought us freedom and their respect.’

  ‘Yo, man,’ said Jahmal, grinning. He was a slim black man, his head completely round and shaved as close to the scalp as the clippers could go; his whole face seemed to be one huge grin. He shook Carter’s hand energetically.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Carter.

  ‘And you, and you; ignore Shanaz, she’s a weird bitch. It’s nice to have some new faces round here, we’re stuck down in that dump and we hardly ever get some new blood to tell us stories around the fire and liven up the evenings …’

  ‘Jahmal!’ snapped Gol, frowning.

  ‘Sorry!’ he said. ‘They don’t know?’

  ‘Not yet. I am saving it,’ said Gol. He smiled at Nats and Carter over the flames; the heady scent from the orange trees flowed down and around the group. ‘Our struggle - it is the struggle to keep Spiral from becoming what it aims to destroy. Within any corporation there is always corruption; it comes from a myriad of different sources. You can never know from where. We are here to try and stop that; we have been specially vetted; we are about as pure as you can get.’ Gol laughed at that. ‘Fucking funny, hey? Spiral_F is a collection of people who have been brought together for that special purpose. To keep the good good. To keep Spiral pure. We operate external to Spiral policy. We are the hidden camera behind the grille and it spreads much further than this little gathering you see here ... I am merely a small cog in a huge machine that watches another huge machine.’ Gol held his arms wide and grinned. When he spoke again, his voice was low, eyes staring into the fire where fat dripped sizzling and spitting to be consumed and spat out as black smoke. ‘Spiral operates as cells; individual cells so that no one person can be in total control. But that system is breaking down ... one or maybe more of the cells have turned against Spiral. And they are powerful.’

  There was silence. The flames crackled. Gol stared into the fire, melancholy descending on him.

  ‘I never fucking thought it could happen so fast, or so bad,’ he said. ‘Two bases wiped out; the DemolSquads being tagged left, right and centre. We’ve sent out warnings but it is too little too late. And there are other, wider implications. Strange events have been happening all over the world - you may have seen them on the news. A malicious new computer virus, nuclear submarines going missing, power cuts, jet fighters crashing, gas plants powering down, the deactivation of a Russian weapons depot, financial institutions losing millions of dollars, digital interference in the stock exchanges ... all sorts of shit, being blamed on software bugs and human error - but this is not the case. We are linking many of the cases, chasing them back to their source, but the paths are not clear. But there is one thing we are sure about - all these world events, all these fuck-ups on a global scale - they are not fuck-ups, they are a test of some sort, an initiation -
and they all stem from the same source.’

  ‘The QIII,’ whispered Carter.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They are testing it before it becomes fully operational?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gol nodded. ‘It is flexing its muscles; running internal diagnostics; seeing how far it can go. But it is little things, the odd submarine here, a power station there, wipe the computers in a bank in London - and then replace the data in a “freak occurrence” ... when the final push comes, it will come in a sudden rush. Everything will happen at once, and this fucking processor can do it.’

  ‘Why haven’t they done it yet?’

  ‘A couple of reasons,’ said Gol softly. ‘One, we know about them, this Spiral splinter group, and we have agents searching for them as we speak. Two, the QIII isn’t quite finished - it’s working, and is running its own diagnostics but it isn’t quite complete. A premature attack might fail. And finally, we have the schematics. We understand how it works. And we can stop it.’

  Carter looked from Natasha to Gol. ‘You have the schematics for the fucking QIII processor? How the fuck did you get them?’

  Natasha smiled bitterly. ‘It was a long, hard fight, Carter.’

  Carter shook his head, rubbing at his tired eyes as Natasha moved over to Gol and placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right, father?’

  Gol looked up and smiled weakly. ‘Yes, but soon you must leave this place. The reports are coming in. They will be here in the early morning; a force of Nex with heavy armour support. It would seem that they want what they think is rightly theirs.’

  “We will not leave,’ said Natasha.

  ‘We will fight,’ growled Carter. ‘You say the Nex are coming? Well, we have fucking run for long enough. We will not flee any more - there are only a few of us, but we can make a difference. Shouldn’t we be working now?’

  ‘I have a hundred people working on this thing - we can do no more than we are already doing,’ said Gol softly. ‘But that is for later. Now, now we must relax, we must drink, and then - then we will prepare. We cannot evacuate this place because there is nowhere to run ... and our research cannot be moved without many days of labour. We must defend ourselves against these infidels ...’ He rubbed at his beard thoughtfully, his stare fixed on Carter. ‘You say you are ready to fight with us, Mr Carter ... but I wonder?’