The Sentient Corruption (The Sentient Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian Williams

  “Well, they’re not usually required for situations at home on ‘Blighty’. Nothing big normally happens this side of the Channel. Nothing the world would give a single shite about, at least.”

  Graham attempted a smile as he shook his head. His prison buddy had a way with words that he found himself a little envious of. Inside his own head he always had quips like this or some humorous remark ready to deliver for a quick laugh, but they rarely exited his mouth in the way he intended. In contrast, his incarcerated companion had complete control over his words, like a comic with perfect timing.

  “I guess that changed as soon as an entire city was cut off.”

  “More like trapped in a giant snow globe,” the stranger added. “Do you think if someone shook it we’d see snow this year?”

  “Would make a nice change.” He turned away from the window and again spoke straight to the back of the stranger’s head. “I’m Graham.”

  “That’s nice,” the man replied without even twisting his neck to speak in the correct direction.

  “What’s your name?” Graham asked directly this time. Maybe the stranger had just missed the prompt?

  “So, Graham, what’s the plan? You had to have a reason to come here.”

  “Honestly, I couldn’t even begin to answer that. I’ve had a crazy time recently. You wouldn’t even believe.”

  “Really, I wouldn’t? Why not try me and see what happens?”

  “OK, I suppose we’ve both got the time,” Graham said. “Fine. I’ve only recently awoken from a three-month long coma, which came after eighteen months trapped in a world I have no idea how to describe. Suffice it to say it was somewhere out of this world. Now I find myself blacking out at random times and waking up somewhere else entirely. It’s like my subconscious is fed up with trying to lead me somewhere and is choosing to take over instead, as if my body isn’t always my own.”

  The stranger stayed silent. Was he in shock after Graham’s story?

  “Anyway, I didn’t expect this would make sense to you. In fact, I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, no-one will ever believe any of it.” Graham sat on his small bed and placed his head in his hands. “I should tell them some bullshit story just to get back to my family.”

  “You can’t do that, not yet. Jane and Alex will be fine.”

  Graham sat up and glared over at his companion, his eyes arrow-sharp and dead on target. “How do you know their names?” he insisted of his new friend. “Hey, I’m talking to you. I never told you their names.”

  “Don’t worry about it, G. Just stay focused.”

  “What? Who the fuck are you, buddy?” Graham said, gripping the bars of his cell too hard again. “Answer me!”

  “My name isn’t important, what you’re here for is.”

  “And what is that? I told you I woke up here, I didn’t bring myself intentionally.”

  “Will you just stop panicking for one damn second and think. Who is here that you may want to speak to? Think for once in your miserable life, Graham.”

  Despite being utterly confused by the knowledge his friend somehow had about his life, Graham thought on the request. There were two he knew were there, both of which he had no idea of how to track down in such a strange place. Stephen and Sean had come to this place while Graham slept, and they were the only reason he would have made the trip. Regardless of how much he tried to ignore it before, he could not do so anymore. They were why he was there, whether he had agreed to the trip upfront or not.

  So how did this stranger know any of that?

  “Good. Now, are you going to find them or not?” the man said.

  “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  “You know that already, G.”

  Do I? Graham considered before coming up with a giant blank. The conversation was going nowhere until he got an answer to this simple question. He had had enough of the sudden games and demanded something in return. “Just tell me your fucking name!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

  “Hey, hey, enough,” someone said from behind. “What’s all the noise for?”

  Graham snapped his head to the side in reaction and was surprised to find a pair of soldiers standing in the doorway. “Sorry, I wasn’t shouting, I was trying to talk to my friend,” he said, pointing to what was now an unexpectedly empty cell. “Wait, there was…”

  “Whatever, buddy. Just keep it down, OK. You’ve got a visitor.”

  Graham kept his gaze hovering over the bed his mystery friend had been sitting on only a moment or two ago. In the time it took him to speak to the soldier the stranger had completely vanished. His heart fell to the floor the instant he realised what had happened; he had been speaking to no-one at all. I really am going crazy, he told himself as he landed heavily on his backside.

  Black-outs were not to be his only symptoms of madness, it seemed.

  The soldier took his seat at the desk again and began to work. Graham saw it in his peripheral vision. He did not spot his guest, though, who decided to speak and break him out of his frozen stare.

  “Graham?”

  Irrelevant of how much time he spent peering into the same cell, it was still empty. That someone had called to him remained something relegated to the rear of his attention.

  “Graham, it’s Sean, Phoenix’s brother, hey.”

  “Sean?” Graham suddenly said. “Oh thank God. I need to get a call through to my family, check everyone is OK. They don’t know I’m here.”

  Sean looked nervously to the soldier standing a few feet behind him and then to the other sat at the desk. “They’re all fine. I sent a message to them the second you arrived. Graham, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry. I promise you, I didn’t mean to come.”

  “Didn’t mean to? What does that even mean?”

  He had no desire to say it out loud, not in front of the military’s prying eyes, but he had to. First and foremost, he had to make things right with his family. A message was not going to cut it, he needed to speak to them. After that they would try and convince the man with the keys that he was no threat, just a confused man who had wandered there by mistake. It was going to be a hard sell, he knew.

  Graham beckoned Sean over to the bars so he could try and whisper instead. “I’ve been having these weird black-outs since I came out of the coma,” he said with a suspicious glance over to the desk. “I went asleep last night then woke up here. I don’t understand it myself.”

  “Don’t worry, Graham. I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Wait, how did you know I was here?”

  Sean looked up to the corner of the room to a small camera and then winked at Graham.

  Shit, that means they saw me talking to no-one, Graham thought with a deflated sense of pride at having been seen acting unnaturally. He felt ashamed.

  “Corporal, can you let my friend out please?” Sean asked the soldier manning the desk.

  “On whose authority?”

  “How about Brigadier friggin’ Harrington, will that do it for ya? He sent me down to get this man.”

  It was beyond insane for Graham to hear this. Why would anyone want to speak to him after the trouble he had caused?

  After a second of deliberation and a speedy scan of the messages on his screen, the soldier huffed and then begrudgingly obliged. “Fine, opening cell number four.”

  The door to Graham’s cell clicked open and swung in. He stood and approached freedom like a woodland creature poking its head out at the break of dawn.

  “Come on. Stephen’s really excited to see you again. He made me promise to take you straight up to see him.”

  Graham again had to check the now empty cell a few along from his own. And again he was disturbed to see it not only empty, but devoid of any signs it had ever been occupied during his short stay; whoever he had spoken to had to have existed only within his own mind. He had held a conversation with himself.

  “Hang on. Take me up to where?” Graham a
sked.

  “To where Stephen is working.” Sean took the lead and walked them out of the temporary lock-up, slipping past the soldier in the doorway – who gave them each an untrusting look in reply. Down the few steps to the yard and out to where the large craft was still parked, and they were ready for the next part of their journey.

  “I don’t understand, where is Stephen working?”

  Standing in the middle of the yard – in the way a little too – Sean held out his hand and pointed directly above himself. “It’s called the Ring,” he said. “It’s where we’re going, Graham.”

  Chapter 5

  The Ring

  The large copter readied itself for take-off as Graham and Sean took a seat toward the front. Sat along the side walls and seated on a central bench were soldiers on their way to their place of work, each of which knew where that was.

  For Graham their destination was still a mystery. So when the craft lifted off and hovered before setting off into a steep climb, he could only imagine it was somewhere that gave the military a great advantage.

  Feeling his body being shoved down into his chair, he gripped the padded armrests of his seat and watched through a thick layer of glass above his head as the clouds quickly approached their craft. Once the clouds had passed them by the copter spun around to face the purple bubble, and an odd structure above it.

  “What is that?” Graham asked as he struggled to understand what he was seeing. Sean only laughed in response and sat back in his seat; the journey was normal for him.

  From their newly gained height they were afforded a much more revealing view of the military’s operation and Graham could instantly judge their capabilities. They had the perfect vantage point over the city in the form of a suspended structure that circled the top third of the force-field, at roughly a two kilometre height. Graham could see the height on the computerised readout being projected onto the glass above him. He had to recheck it a few times just to convince himself.

  As they neared the Ring Graham could see roughly how it all worked. It was one giant train connected at both ends and constantly spinning at a slow speed. At a regular interval – around a quarter of a kilometre apart from each other – were metal ovals that appeared to hold the train in a constant magnetic field and floating through their centre. These ovals themselves were attached to enormous rotors on either side that kept them and the rest of the circular structure hovering at this height.

  The two storey train travelling between the oval rings slowed to a speed that Graham and Sean’s craft quickly matched. The glass-screened roof he and the rest of the passengers watched through allowed them the best view of the underside of the Ring as it appeared to stop just for them.

  With each of the train’s carriages attached together by a flexible material that had the same look of vulcanised rubber, it was easy to make out one from another. They were much longer than he would have expected, which told him of just how strong the materials used in the Ring’s construction really were.

  The sound of heavy machinery buffeted their now small looking copter, giving Graham a shock. He looked up to see as a large metallic claw reached down to them. He failed to notice his own craft had continued to fly up at the same time; he was far too engrossed by the Ring itself.

  The two vehicles were to meet like one giant robotic handshake then, one that almost entirely engulfed their own craft. It happened just as roughly as he had quickly come to expect, and forced him to grab Sean’s arm beside him.

  “It’ll be over in a second, Graham,” the scruffy-haired Sean reassured him.

  Once their craft was in the safe hands of the Ring’s docking arm it was pulled up and into the centre of the two storey structure, its wings folding down to its side to fit within. Then, after they had come to a final stop, Graham could feel the Ring again set off on its perpetual journey around the city. With its new passengers comfortably aboard it could resume.

  “Welcome aboard the Ring. Please stay seated until the doors are open,” one of the pilots called back over the speaker system.

  As before, the back of the copter split in two and the doors swung out. From his seated position facing the front, Graham could only see this happening in the corner of his eye. But out the nose of the craft he could see a number of people running about in orange or blue outfits and wearing similar headgear to that of the two pilots. These were the crew responsible for the safe boarding of others and the ones in charge of the area. They waved or gestured their instructions to the pilots, who nodded or spoke their confirmation back into their radios.

  Graham’s chair restraints automatically flipped up and out of his way as soon as the exit was cleared. He first waited with Sean as the soldiers and staff exited before them, then sheepishly followed out into a slick metal world with soft blue carpeting and low level white lighting set into the floor. The copter had settled snugly into its docking space and left them with little to tell the inside of one from the other. Not even a tiny gap in the floor to act as a seam between vehicles was allowed; once attached these were the same structure.

  “Come on, this way,” Sean said as he pulled the gobsmacked Graham along with him.

  They left the copter hanger via a ten-foot-high shutter at the end of the double storey space. The staff lined up to pass through a checkpoint. Only after being searched by a pair of soldiers manning a walkthrough metal detector were they to be let in. The military were as paranoid as ever and were even checking their own for extra safety. No doubt the giant purple force-field below them was to blame.

  Sean stepped around the queue and approached the front, ushering Graham to follow quickly behind him. He had some form of authority over them it seemed, or at least he was much more important than Graham had realised, as without so much as a second glance the soldiers waved him through with a quick once-over of a handheld scanner.

  “What are you all doing up here?” Graham asked as he was led through another door and up a set of stairs to the second floor.

  “I’m not doing anything, Stephen is. I’m just here to keep him happy while he works. If anyone can bring that shield thing down it’s him.”

  At the top of the stairs it opened out into one long tube-like corridor that stretched away and out of sight around the distant curve of the Ring. Running the length and on either side were unbroken windows that looked down upon the shimmering force-field below them and the distorted view of the city behind it.

  Peering out with an amazed look on his face, Graham surveyed his new height over the scenery, like a hovering eagle circling its mountainous home. It was astonishing to him to see such a sight. He had certainly never heard of the military’s use of this kind of equipment before. It was far more advanced. It seemed not only the public had made use of Simova’s innovations over the years.

  His concentration was broken after a short moment of marvelling by a quick flow of air behind him. He arched his head to the side, not wanting to look away from the view completely, and spotted what had passed by: a small four-seater cart with two chatting passengers. This was enough to bring him about and staring along the corridor. He then noticed the thin tracks set into the floor, one for each direction of travel.

  “Bet you never thought you’d ever see a train so big it needed another one inside.” Sean walked over to the nearby wall and pressed a button to call their own tiny cart. “The Ring is like twelve kilometres long, so they need this to get around inside it. Neat, huh?”

  No words came to Graham’s mind as he watched a cart race toward them from around the long curve. He could scarcely believe such a structure could be set up temporarily above a city. Although, not for one second did he think it had been built for this one situation. Instead he assumed it had been an already working design that the military had yet found a use for. This, then, was the Ring’s proving ground.

  He and Sean took a seat each in the cart that stopped for them and were instantly whisked away at speed, passing those walking along the window in a blur as
they travelled. Graham struggled to take his eyes off the city below, despite feeling slightly sick at the sight of so much of the Earth passing beneath him. He had neither the interest nor the concentration to ask anything of his guide at that moment. Too much had changed for him since closing his eyes the night before. What were his family making of his unexpected trip? Were they angry at him for leaving, or simply confused by it?

  It was Sean who interrupted the whoosh of the air as it was pushed aside by their cart. “Graham, can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Sure,” Graham replied, still with his gaze venturing out the window.

  “What was it like inside the Sentient world?”

  “So, Elliot and the others told you about all of that then?”

  “Only roughly. They said you were put in there by Luke, to keep you alive.”

  Graham shifted in his seat; he had become uncomfortable with the conversation already.

  “It’s OK, you don’t have to talk about it.” Sean could hardly have missed the signs coming from Graham. “All that matters is that you’re back in the real world now, even if it’s gone to shit. I’m glad you’re OK.” Sean swallowed back what must have been a raw emotional reaction to what he wanted to say next. Graham had a good idea what it involved, but let it come naturally instead. “Shame I can’t say the same for my sister.”

  “Phoenix is a tough little cookie, Sean. I bet she’ll be hiding somewhere safe.”

  “Yeah, but safe for how long. It’s been three months already and nothing has changed. In there,” Sean nodded his head toward the window, drawing Graham’s view that way again. “In there, it’s been chaos. You can’t see it from here, not just the fires, there’s been a lot of fighting going on. The Ring has a magnified view of what’s happening down there.”

  “Does the military know who is fighting against who?” Graham asked.

  “Some kind of army has control of the city. In most parts they have it locked down, but there are some places that haven’t fallen yet. There’s been small pockets of resistance, hiding and only appearing during the quiet moments. I just hope Phoenix isn’t part of the fighting.”