Eva

by Simon Winstanley

Tristan nodded, but knew he was missing something.

  So far, his choices had been guided every step of the way. Pod One would easily have accommodated the four of them currently standing in the office, yet the more spacious Pod Two had been brought to his attention. He then realised what he’d missed and turned to the man.

  “You said ‘All of us’,” Tristan pointed at the lantern on the corner of a nearby desk, “This was here before you arrived, and you said ‘stairwell friends’. Where are they?”

  The man with Miss Pittman sighed and pointed to something that she was holding in her closed hand.

  “Your dad ain’t gonna make this a problem, is he?”

  “No,” Sarah replied, placing whatever it was into her shoulder bag, “I want to get out of here just as much as you do.”

  The elevator bell chimed and the doors started to close. Tristan saw the man react in an instant, dashing to the door and extending his arm. The doors closed on either side of his arm then, detecting the obstruction, they opened again.

  “The chair!” he pointed.

  Tristan grabbed a wheeled office chair and thrust it towards him. The man made light work of kicking the chair on its side and bracing the elevator doors open.

  While the gentle bell continued to notify them of the elevator’s intended descent, the phones throughout the room simultaneously rang.

  •

  With the phone pressed to his ear, Bradley Pittman waited impatiently and studied the dried blood on his hands. He’d managed to get most of it off by using his own spit and wiping it on his trousers. But under his fingernails, Monica Walker’s blood persisted; an infuriating reminder that even in death, she’d managed to get under his skin.

  After watching her fall through the glazed circular window at the centre of the Eye, he’d seen her get absorbed by a massive electrical disturbance. When the light show had finished, there was no sign of her body in the lake below, but at this height it was difficult to tell. Again, he felt the acute frustration that he’d been denied the more visceral thrill of watching her die in the village square.

  He looked down on the circular, flat disk of the USV far beneath him. A few radial segments now had basic power again, some were flickering on and off, but others were still in shadow.

  He heard the phone pick up.

  “Glaucus Dock,” his daughter replied.

  “Hey, Pumpkin-pie.”

  “Dad!” came her bright-sounding reply, “Is everything OK? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine, I’m at the Eye,” he glanced around the deserted, ring-shaped space, “Why’d you turn your radio off?”

  “My radio? Damn, I must’ve… left it down at Samphire. How did you manage to find me?”

  “I checked if your access card had been used,” he smiled at his own ingenuity, “and the elevator matched. So, why’re you all the way up there?”

  He heard her aggravated-sounding sigh.

  “Some complete idiot managed to crash a maintenance buggy into a wireless network hub near the base of the stairwell. The repeater chain runs all the way up the south side but the signal keeps dropping out, so I’m trying to reset it from the other end.”

  Her voice sounded slightly faint.

  “Are you on speaker-phone?” he checked.

  “Yep,” she replied, “It’s the only way I can talk and -”

  There was a clattering sound and then she continued:

  “Sorry, dropped my screwdriver.”

  “Listen, I’m worried for you honey. Some damn hacker took down my Peace Keepers. I don’t wanna alarm you but the last time I saw him, he was on the stairs near you. I’m gonna find someone loyal to come get you.”

  “Dad, I’ll be fine,” she replied immediately.

  “All the same, I’m sendin’ someone up.”

  “OK… thanks, but I think they’ll have to take the stairs,” she advised, “The elevator’s jammed on this floor… why don’t I make my own way down -”

  “You just stay put,” he cut in, “an’ keep out of trouble.”

  “OK, Dad.”

  “Maybe when all this mess is over, we could figure out some sorta panic button for you to carry. Hell, nobody’d mess with my li’l girl then!”

  There appeared to be a slightly longer pause and then he heard her reply.

  “I wouldn’t need a panic button. Everyone still remembers the January execution… they know how powerful you are. I could brandish a tube of lipstick and good people would do what I asked.”

  He felt his chest swell with pride. She obviously still admired him.

  “OK, you sit tight, Pumpkin,”

  “Dad, one last thing before I go.”

  “Sure, what is it?” he pressed the receiver to his ear.

  “Everything you’ve done here,” she said, “you have no clue what it means to me.”

  She hung up on him.

  •

  During the last few minutes, the former occupants of the Warren had managed to maintain their silence. They’d kept only one of their lanterns lit, but even this had been placed under a desk to further dim its light.

  Noah had left the door open just enough so that they could hear what was going on in the neighbouring room. As far as he could tell, Sarah Pittman and Marcus Blake had arrived in the elevator and then encountered two others. He didn’t know if they were armed, but they were apparently offering a way out of the USV.

  A few moments ago, a speaker-phone conversation had begun between Sarah and her father; one that was easily overheard through the open door. In the gloom, he felt Nathan Bishop tap his shoulder and whisper, “She’s just lied to him about the elevator, Marcus blocked it with a chair, right?”

  “Yep, I think she’s trying to buy time,” he replied.

  “Shit, if this is for real,” Nathan whispered, “we could all get out.”

  The phone conversation appeared to be drawing to an end and he felt Nathan lean closer again.

  “You know Bradley Pittman’s my cousin, right?”

  Nathan had explained it to him on several occasions. It almost seemed to be an act of confession; something that would both absolve and distance himself from the actions of those in his family tree.

  “Yeah, Nate, I think you mentioned it.”

  “OK, I don’t remember meeting his daughter in person, but if she recognises me…”

  “It could complicate matters,” he found himself agreeing.

  “But if we wanna leave,” said Nathan, “we have to get out there.”

  From the other room, they both heard the phone call end.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Dammit, Broadstone!” Nathan hissed, “I mean you’ll have to take the lead.”

  •

  Tristan could see the man was both frustrated and stunned.

  “It was a bloody lipstick?!” he yelled, pointing at her shoulder bag, “You got me up here with -”

  “Yes!” she now shouted back, “I got you up here! Now, do you want to yell about it, or can we all get the hell out of here?”

  The man opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.

  “Tristan, are you there?” Lucy’s spoke through Tristan’s handset.

  “Go ahead, Lucy,” he raised his index finger and broke eye contact with Sarah and the man; it was the quickest way he could think of to ensure they both stayed quiet.

  “The temperature just dipped by one degree.”

  “Understood.”

  “The incoming message is still arriving, but I followed your advice and started playing back what we’ve received so far, at a hundred times the normal rate.”

  “What have you got?” said Pavna.

  “So far, we have one word, heavily distorted and -”

  “Yes, fine,” Tristan cut in, “what’s the word?”

  “It sounded like…” Lucy hesitated, “Arc.”

  “Keep recording, Lucy and -”

  “Two degree drop!” she cut in, “Get a move on!”

 
“We’re running out of time,” Tristan established eye contact with the man, “Please, your friends, where are they?”

  “We’re over here,” came a voice.

  Tristan whipped around to see that several people were emerging from a doorway at the opposite end of the room. Their sudden arrival made him take a step back and move closer to Pavna. At the same time, the man from the elevator ran towards the group; quickly disappearing into their midst and calling for someone named Sabine. Suddenly, the air was alive with chatter, and still the group continued to spread into the room.

  “Tris?” Pavna’s anxious voice called out from his side.

  “It’ll be alright,” he hoped.

  The group stopped moving and murmured conversations subsided as one of their number stepped forwards.

  “I’m Noah,” he extended his hand, “We still don’t know who to trust, but we’d like to leave. Please.”

  Tristan suddenly found himself smiling at the thought of the single, time-distorted word that Lucy had just relayed. Like the other unexplainable phenomena today, the word’s origin was also unknown, but its timing had been perfect. The word ‘Arc’ answered a question that had been on his mind since their arrival at the Glaucus hatch; he was here to rescue, not be rescued.

  He took hold of Noah’s hand and shook it.

  “Let’s get you all out of here.”

  RTO

  25th April 2113

  It had been four months since the Discovery had departed for Earth, but for Lana that same time had passed in just over two hours. In that short time the ISS had become quieter, not least because the remainder of the crew were still in hibernation. Currently she was the only one awake.

  Before the Discovery’s departure she’d had Mike, Cathy and Anna for company. Before their Solar System round trip, she’d been surrounded by the ISS crew. Before that she’d had the claustrophobic FLC, where it was physically difficult to be alone. She found it hard to recall a time when she’d felt this level of isolation. She wasn’t finding the experience uncomfortable; if anything, she thought, it was a welcome contrast.

  Through one of the smaller glazed inspection portholes, Lana spotted that the Earth was continuing its time-accelerated rotation. Continents and oceans were mere impressionist sketches; blurred bands of fluctuating shades that concealed their true form.

  On previous occasions, small pieces of orbital debris had impacted the surrounding Field and provided brief firework displays. Sometimes the Field had been extended to protect the fabricator machines that were working near the ISS. During those times, their almost subliminal speed would drop to a snail’s pace and Lana had been able to see them more clearly. Bearing only a passing resemblance to their initial design, the fabricators now tended to travel in pairs: a large device that appeared to handle the manufacturing, and a smaller multi-limbed counterpart that conducted the assembly work.

  Currently there didn’t appear to be any fabricators in the vicinity. She hoped this was a positive sign that preparations elsewhere were requiring their presence.

  She turned from the porthole and continued to float along the ISS central axis toward the Return To Orbit module still docked at the end.

  Valery Hill had killed Charles Lincoln by trapping him inside the RTO and then venting the atmosphere. There hadn’t been enough time to deal with the body so Lana knew it was still in there, on the opposite side of the access hatch.

  Steeling herself, she opened the hatch. Immediately she could smell there was a slight metallic tang to the air. As the door swung further open, she could see Charles’ lifeless form within. His hands were still stained from where he’d used his own blood to daub a circular symbol on a console as a posthumous warning to the crew.

  Tentatively she pulled herself inside the silent RTO, all the while watching Charles’ vacant stare. The inanimate expression seemed at odds with her memory of the man and, perhaps because of the quiet space, she half expected him to suddenly move or speak.

  “Ledyanaya Lana,” she spoke aloud, in part to dispel the silence but also to encourage herself to regain her icy composure.

  Bracing herself against the RTO wall, she took hold of his leg and easily pushed him down towards one of the seats. In zero gravity he had no weight, but his mass gave him inertia; as his body made contact with the seat, his torso and arms flexed slightly under the motion.

  “Lana?”

  She let out a short gasp of shock before realising that it was only Fai calling to her on the comm panel. She took a steadying breath then replied.

  “Go ahead.”

  “This is the ten-minute crew revival warning.”

  Without replying, Lana clipped the seatbelt around Charles’ lap then exited the RTO. Ahead of her, still floating where she’d left him a minute ago, was a second body.

  The medical pump intersecting his chest was keeping the blood pumping around his circulatory system, but its continuous nature meant that he no longer had a pulse. Although his alveoli had extremely limited functionality, his diaphragm wasn’t capable of inflating his lungs. At Fai’s suggestion, his lungs had been filled with an oxygen-rich perfluorocarbon liquid; he was taking in oxygen but was no longer breathing in a conventional sense.

  The majority of his body was tightly wrapped in a rigid shroud of wires, fluid-filled tubes and bulky monitoring equipment. In a few places that had escaped this coverage, Lana could see his capillary-burst hands and feet; dead extremities that had been the first to suffer the cold vacuum of space.

  Were it not for Fai’s electronic feedback, there was little to confirm that Miles Benton was even alive. Lana took hold of Miles and his surrounding bundle of equipment and manoeuvred him inside the RTO.

  The whole operation to move Miles from the medical bay would have been simpler if it had been conducted while Mike and Cathy were still aboard, but Fai had only determined a theoretical approach for Miles’ treatment after their departure.

  Lana carefully guided Miles into position and then connected his monitoring cables to sockets on the RTO wall.

  “Thank you, Lana,” said Fai, “I’m interfaced now.”

  Lana glanced over at the recently deceased Charles. She could understand Fai’s logic of storing biological material that might potentially be used to save Miles, but found it all deeply unsettling; the idea of harvesting presumably dead tissue seemed ghoulish.

  “Fai,” she suppressed a shiver, “do you have a solution yet?”

  “No. But if the M-Field functions as calculated, then this issue will become trivial.”

  Lana looked at the array of machinery surrounding Miles.

  “How long will the equipment keep him alive?”

  “Twenty-four minutes.”

  Lana drew a deep breath. It seemed a ridiculously short amount of time, but she’d seen the calculations; Fai was never wrong in these matters.

  “Lana, I have begun the revival subroutine for the crew,” Fai continued, “As requested, Ivan Meznic will be the first. He will regain consciousness in four minutes.”

  “Understood,” Lana began backing her way out of the RTO, “Was the auto-suggestion successful?”

  “Yes,” replied Fai.

  Looking at Miles, she felt the need to confirm something again.

  “Fai, you are absolutely certain that Ivan was never part of the ego-morph program?”

  “Confirmed,” said Fai, “Ivan Meznic was never enrolled in the ego-morph program. The Pittman-Wild audio conditioning used at the Pittman Academy is the only detail in common with Miles Benton. Our hibernation bay audio conditioning of Ivan Meznic succeeded as predicted.”

  “Thank you, Fai,” Lana nodded, still a little uncomfortable with the grey area they had ventured into.

  Explaining the catastrophic events of the past fourteen days to the crew would be difficult. Telling them that some of the crew had already departed for Earth would be harder still. The construction underway in orbit would undoubtedly add credence to her claims, but having Ivan�
��s receptivity to the project could only help.

  She left the RTO and closed the hatch behind her.

  “Shall I initialise the M-Field now?” asked Fai.

  “Da,” she nodded.

  Through the circular hatch window she could see Miles’ cocoon-like profile; floating in mid-air and tethered to the RTO wall by an umbilical monitoring cable.

  Miles’ future was now in Fai’s hands.

  VOLATILES

  DAY31 : 17JUL2119

  Accompanied by his own Civil Protection Officer, Alfred Barnes continued walking up the spiral stairs at the centre of the Node’s spherical structure. Along the way he took in the view of the nearby levels.

  The premature departure of the Node had meant that some of the floor spaces had not been completed in time, leaving a vast, open and airy space between several levels. He’d heard people mention that if the Node had actually departed on time, then this impressive view would simply have been another collection of offices.

  They were barely a month into the Node’s journey, but he could see that people had already started improvising; in a few places he could see clusters of sofas and chairs marking out unofficial meeting spaces.

  Obviously he’d have to start watching those types of spaces more carefully.

  It had been his intention to assume power within the Node more gradually; building up a network of influential people that would subtly push him to the top. But when Colonel Beck had invited him to form a civilian government, he’d had to quickly reassess his plans; the position of president gave him instant authority, something which had required a different approach.

  Engineering the failure of Colonel Beck’s Biomag had been a tricky task, one that had involved retrofitting the Biomag of each individual aboard the Node. Under the guises of replacing a defective capacitor, Trevor Pike had carried out the actual update. By the time the operation was complete, Alfred was able to target the RF identification chip of any Biomag and cause it to fail.

  The failure of Beck’s Biomag had apparently been extraordinarily bloody and explosive. It had even hospitalised the person that Alfred had set up to take the blame.