The Tau Directive

by Tomas Black

  “You can unhitch, now, Mei,” he said.

  Mei slid back, relaxing the strain on her tether and released herself. She tied onto the line attached to the first stake. Magnús gestured to Drum to do the same.

  “The three big men at the back will easily take the strain,” he said, pointing with his axe. He shouted across the crevasse. “Stay there. Support the weight.” All three nodded and remained seated.

  Drum walked over to the new safety line and hitched himself to it. He then unhitched from the main tether.

  “Are you alright, Mei?”

  She smiled. “I’m fine. His fall caught me off guard. Just sore from hitting the ice.”

  Drum could hear a roaring coming from the crevasse. He belayed out his line and moved to the edge. He gingerly leaned over. Magnús and Mei did the same. Sergei was swinging freely at the top of a giant ice cavern with a river of white water raging beneath him.

  “He fell into an ice cave,” said Magnús. “There are many beneath the glacier. He will need to climb out. Too much friction on the edge to pull him up.”

  Drum looked down and waved. Sergei gave a mocking salute. “You going to hang around all day or are you coming up?”

  Sergei smiled grimly. “The sides are like glass … and my rope skills are lacking.”

  “I’ll get him,” said Mei. “I’ve performed a crevasse rescue before.”

  “That is good,” said Magnús, “I’ll get you the equipment.”

  Drum knew that Mei would have to rig Sergei to a series of ropes to allow him to pull himself up. It would work, provided he was not injured.

  Magnús returned with a set of ropes and pulleys. “You have used this type of belay device before?”

  Mei examined the equipment, “yes”. She methodically secured the gear to her harness and shouldered a coil of rope. After attaching it all, there wasn’t much left of Mei to see.

  Magnús tied Mei to a rope that both he and Drum were secured to via a series of pulleys. They in turn were secured to the metal stakes. They moved to the lip of the crevasse and waited until Magnús had smoothed out the edge, ensuring there were no sharp rocks beneath the rope. He nodded and Drum took up the strain. They gently lowered Mei into the cave.

  Mei descended to within a few metres of the dangling Russian. “You ok?”

  “I am embarrassed to be hanging here. I have no training.”

  Mei started to swing. Drum could feel the tension in the rope and braced himself. She gave one last swing and grabbed Sergei, wrapping her legs around his waist. Drum thought he saw the young Russian smile. He watched as she expertly fitted the rigging and the belay device to Sergei’s harness.

  “Listen carefully,” said Mei. “You step into this loop of rope and pull on this rope, pushing yourself up. Once the rope is fully tightened, you lift your foot and slip the rope up. Repeat the process until you are at the top and then we will pull you over the lip.”

  “This is very romantic,” said Sergei, a grin spreading across his face.

  Mei rolled her eyes and let go, swinging herself free. “Try it.”

  Sergei placed his foot in the makeshift stirrup and stood, at the same time pulling on the belay rope. He slid upwards a metre before the belay device locked.

  “Good,” said Mei. “I’ll see you at the top. Pull me up,” she shouted.”

  Drum and Magnús pulled Mei up with ease and she was soon standing at the top, unhitching her ropes. “He’ll make it,” she said.

  Drum peered over the edge and watched Sergei’s laborious progress. They had lost valuable time. “How far to the tunnel?” he asked Magnús.

  Magnús examined his GPS device. “Not far. Just under half a kilometre. We step up the pace, I think.”

  A hand appeared at the edge of the crevasse. Drum and Magnús knelt and each grabbed an arm, pulling Sergei up and over the lip. He knelt in the snow, head down, panting. He lifted his head. “Thank you, Mei.”

  It took them a further twenty minutes to re-rig the ropes and stow the rescue gear. Magnús split the team into two so that Poacher, Brock and Hazard could traverse around the ice cave. They assembled at the end of the granite canyon.

  “We should be fine once we clear this area,” he said “We move faster, I think.”

  They set off at a good pace. Drum could once more make out distant mountain peaks and far off valleys. The sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky. They were coming to the end of the glacier. Magnús examined his GPS and shaded his eyes as he stared into the distance. “There,” he said.

  Drum followed his gaze and saw a small red flag fluttering atop a long slim pole.

  “Where’s the tunnel?” asked Drum.

  Magnús waved them on. “This way.”

  They walked on for a few hundred metres until they reached the flag. They were now close to the glacier’s edge. Then Drum saw it; a large, corrugated steel tube buried in the ice and snow.

  “The dome is just over the ridge,” said Magnús. “I take your man there and leave you here. Follow the tunnel. It will take you to the outer door.”

  There was a squawk in Drum’s ear. “Ben, this is Stevie.”

  “Receiving.”

  “Not sure if this is relevant, but Alice insisted I call it in.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “A helicopter just flew overhead, circled the boat and headed across the glacier. Looks like you might have company.”

  Drum looked back but could see nothing except the white featureless landscape of the glacier. “Roger, Stevie. We’re entering the ice tunnel so may lose comms. I’ll make contact once inside.”

  “Roger, Ben. Take care.”

  Drum turned to face the team. “Listen up, people. We have inbound. Just one chopper, but there could be more. Let’s move it.”

  They cleared drifts of snow from the entrance to the tunnel, which was just wide enough for two people abreast. Magnús and Poacher headed off across the snow to find a hide at the edge of the glacier. They would be their eyes and ears from outside the compound. After a few minutes of digging and scraping, the team moved inside the tunnel and donned their headlamps.

  The tunnel was a steel tube with an ice floor that extended into the glacier at a slight incline. It hadn’t been used in many months—maybe years. Drum wondered if the entrance was passable. The glacier may have moved and crushed sections of the tube. They kept walking, with Drum and Mei taking the lead. With every step, the surrounding air temperature dropped.

  “How far does this descend?” asked Mei.

  “Magnús estimated about fifty metres,” said Drum. “We should be at the door soon.”

  The tunnel levelled out and ended in a small cavern. At the end was a large steel door covered in ice. At its centre was a locking wheel that kept the door secure.

  “That looks frozen solid,” said Brock. “It could take us some time to get through.”

  Hazard moved forward and examined the door. “Break out the cutting torch. That should work.”

  Brock took off his pack and pulled out the small cutting torch and two small gas cylinders. The plan was to melt the ice rather than to cut through the door, but there was no guarantee that it would open after that.

  Hazard lit the torch which gave off a fluttering orange flame. He adjusted the gas mixture until the flame turned to a roaring, ice-blue cone. He played the tip of the cone around the hinges of the door, methodically moving around the seal. The ice melted quickly and, for the first time since entering the tunnel, Drum thought they may have a chance. He tried his comms.

  “Drum to Overwatch, receiving?”

  There was a crackle of static in his ear but no answer. As he suspected, they were too far down to send or receive via radio. He hoped for a better signal once inside the complex.

  Hazard was now working the torch around the door’s locking plate. The small cavern was quickly filling up with steam and a pool of water had accumulated on the floor. Hazard applied the torch to the centre wheel once more before it
sputtered and died. “That’s the end of that.”

  Drum stepped forward and gingerly touched the central wheel. It was warm but not hot. He gripped it firmly and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Needs more muscle. Sergei, give it a go.”

  The young Russian stepped forward and stamped down into the slushy ice to get a good footing and grasped the wheel. He grunted and strained. There was a grating noise from inside the door as metal ground on metal.

  “I think it moved,” said Brock. “Keep going.”

  Sergei took a breath, gritted his teeth, and tried again. This time the screeching grew louder and the wheel began to turn. He let go and cursed, his strength spent. “It needs more heat, I think.”

  Mei stepped forward and examined the door.

  Sergei laughed. “A little thing like you won’t turn that.”

  Mei smiled and removed her ice axe from her belt. “Give me your ice axe. This requires more brain and less brawn,” she said, slipping the handles of the two axes between the spokes of the central wheel. “Take hold of your axe.”

  Sergei gripped the handle of his axe. Mei did the same. “Now turn.”

  Sergei heaved up on his axe, while Mei pushed down on hers. There was more grinding and the wheel moved.

  “Keep going,” said Mei.

  Sergei put his entire weight behind the ice axe and the wheel moved another ninety degrees.

  “Remove the axes and try it now,” said Mei.

  Sergei took hold of the wheel once more and applied more force. It now turned freely. After a few more turns, they heard a ‘clunk’. Sergei heaved on the wheel and more ice broke free from around the seal of the door. “A little help here, I think.”

  Brock and Hazard stepped forward and grabbed a section of the wheel. All three men pulled. There was a high-pitched squeal as the door moved on its old hinges and swung halfway open and came to a grinding halt.

  “That’s it,” said Brock, puffing. “Best we can do.”

  “That should be enough,” said Drum. He slipped off his pack and stepped inside.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Control

  Jeremy Burnett woke from a troubled sleep. He thought he heard someone scream. He sat up and listened, but all he could hear was the whirl of the air circulating in the vent above. The cell block was a small, dank area down a side tunnel off the main corridor that went around the central cavern. A single shielded bulb illuminated his five-metre square cell. He shivered. The scream, real or imaginary, had unnerved him.

  He heard footsteps. He jumped down from his bunk and waited for the door to unlock. There was a clang as electromagnetic bolts snapped back and the door slid open. Baz appeared with an armed guard in tow.

  “The professor wants you, frat boy. Let’s go.”

  Jeremy pushed past Baz and out into the tunnel. The guy was pissing him off. Ever since the incident in the barn, Baz had been less inclined to go hand to hand with him and resorted to insults instead. A typical bully, thought Jeremy.

  They walked out into the main corridor and around the central cavern, passing a larger dormitory area for the guards. They stopped at one of the steel doors. Jeremy looked up at the camera and the door swung open. Kovac must have granted him access to Tau’s inner sanctum. The man was already there, talking to the two technicians.

  “Jeremy, just in time. I understand you all know each other now. Good, good. It’s time for the transfer.”

  Jeremy walked up to them and nodded to Sarah and Wolfgang.

  “Do you need me Professor?” said Baz, standing by the door.

  “Not now, not now.”

  Baz walked out, leaving the guard at his post by the door.

  “The transfer process is delicate,” continued Kovac. “Tau’s neural net must be distributed across the processors of each TPU. That will be your job, Wolfgang. It’s essentially the exercise we have been practising these past weeks. Once we’re happy with the main array, we’ll transfer Tau’s core program. That will be your job, Sarah. It should be straightforward, just remember to checksum each of the data blocks to detect any corrupt memory locations.”

  “What happens if I find a corrupted block?” asked Sarah.

  “You mark it as bad and move on to the next. There are bound to be a few. It’s a complex device. After the transfer is complete, we’ll spin up the Tau processors and initiate the core program. That’s where you come in, Jeremy. You’ll see a large energy draw when Tau comes online. Your job is to keep the environmental parameters in the green. Understood?”

  “Yes, Professor.”

  They took their allotted places at each console. Jeremy tapped the keyboard and the screen brightened, showing the environmental dashboard. Everything looked to be working as it should. He looked over to Sarah. She and Kovac were in conversation. He tapped a new command on his console and brought up a terminal window. This gave him direct access to the operating system. From this screen you could do almost anything, including shutting down the server, providing you knew the relevant system commands and had the required access. He had neither. The only command a user of his limited set of system privileges could do was list the directory and execute minor system commands. One of these was called Ping. All it did was send a packet of information to a device on the network. If the device was active the packet was returned, hence the name Ping. He typed the command followed by the IP address Jane had given him. All he had to do was hit Enter and the address would be pinged, alerting Jane.

  His hand lingered over the keyboard. If he alerted Jane too early, Tau would detect its presence. He didn’t know what would happen then. If he alerted Jane too late, the transfer would complete and Jane would be powerless to stop Tau. He looked up in time to see Kovac walking over. He quickly minimised the window.

  “Everything alright, Jeremy?”

  “Yep, all good. Everything is in the green.”

  “Good man. We’re starting the transfer of the neural net and spinning up the processors. As each layer of the network comes online, it should draw power. Monitor the readouts. If they start to climb into the red, decrease the power. Any problems, give me a shout.”

  “Will do, Professor.”

  Jeremy watched as Kovac returned to the other console. He noticed Wolfgang looking at him. Jeremy glanced down at his keyboard and back at Wolfgang. The man gave a slight shake of his head. Jeremy’s hand hovered over the Enter key.

  ~~~

  Drum moved into the core room. It was really an enormous cavern with rough-hewn walls lined with large racks where drilling cores were stored in neat stacks. It was deathly cold inside, his breath forming clouds of fog in the light from his headlamp. He examined the room and located another steel door at the far end. He walked over and found the light switch. He looked around once more for signs of a camera and flicked on the light.

  “God, it’s colder than my freezer in here,” said Brock, squeezing through the door. He dumped his pack at his feet. “So far, so good.”

  Drum nodded and waited for the rest of the team to enter the room. They unloaded their packs, ditching their harnesses and ice grips. Each retrieved their allotted weapon, fitting suppressors and loading up with magazines. Mei had elected to use just one sidearm of a Chinese make that Drum didn’t recognise. Sergei armed himself with a snub-nosed Heckler and Koch MP5. A good close quarter weapon. He and the rest of his troop had chosen a similar make and model. Hazard transferred sets of explosives to a small backpack. It would be Brock’s job to get him to his objective. His job was to deploy the EMP, which was still strapped to his back.

  “Everyone got a flashlight?” said Drum. Everyone patted the sides of their combat fatigues. “Check your sidearms.” The chamber was filled with the sound of weapons being drawn, clips ejected, snapped back in, and sliders racked. It was a symphony of sound that he had heard many times before, and it made his heart race in anticipation of the fight to come.

  Drum removed his phone from its Faraday pouch and turn
ed it on. “Jane, this is Drummond.” He waited, but there was no reply. “Jane, this is Drummond, come in Jane.” He checked he had a connection to a cell tower but the signal was very weak. Something was wrong.

  “No answer,” said Drum. “We go as planned. Hazard and Brock to the comms and server rooms, the rest of us to the inner control room.”

  “But we have no access to the control room,” said Mei. “Without Jane, the doors will remain sealed. For all we know, Tau has detected our entry.”

  “If that was the case,” said Drum, “we would already be in a fire-fight. We stick to the plan. Plant the devices and extract Jeremy. We have the advantage of surprise on our side.” He looked around the group. There were no dissenters, but then he never expected there would be.

  He gripped the wheel of the door and turned. Much to his relief, it moved freely. He kept on turning until he heard a satisfying clunk as the locking bolts retracted. He pressed down on the handle and the door swung smoothly inwards.

  “That was a little too easy,” said Brock.

  Just then, a klaxon sounded and a light above the door in the corridor flashed red. They had tripped an alarm.

  ~~~

  Jeremy noticed the power rising on his display panel as more of Tau’s processors came online. He watched the green bars of the temperature display step closer to the red. He moved the mouse over the power meter and clicked off a few bars. The temperature gauge fell back as the speed of processors was reduced.

  “Don’t be too shy with the power, Jeremy. We need more processor cycles.”

  “Right,” said Jeremy, and clicked on the power display, increasing the number of watts to each processor. The temperature of the array increased once more. He watched as the gauge moved ever closer to the red line.

  “We’re moving into the red, Professor.”