The Aurora Conspiracies- Volume One

by Sam Nash

  Her heart pounded arhythmically, punctuated with a sharp sporadic pain. Were these his pains or hers? Their synergistic sensations gave him acid reflux and her an unwelcome resurgence of grilled halloumi.

  “I will not let them take you away from me.” He whispered. She felt his overwhelming distress of losing her, of loneliness and despair. In this one moment in time, she understood his perpetual, unflinching driven nature and his complete dedication and intent to crack the secret behind triggering supernatural abilities in sensitive individuals.

  A method by which, he could provide British Intelligence Services with an alternative candidate to using his wife. She comprehended his late nights and early mornings, working on carefully crafted reports to the Ministry of Defence regarding his progress. The extreme studies on clinically dead volunteers in The Crypt. All to spare Mary from perpetual incarceration and being used as a captive resource. To spare her the indignity of living out the rest of her days in the underground bunker surrounded by machine guns and razor wire. A living weapon stored in the base within a base, to be utilised at the command of a faceless bureaucrat in Whitehall.

  “They are not going to let us leave, are they?” Mary said, her mental entrainment fluctuating in intensity. Dan and Parth both shook their heads. “What about our human rights? They cannot detain us against our will, can they? Surely we have some rights under civil liberties?”

  Parth tried to wrap his arms about her but she dodged his attempt, retreating to a distance beyond his reach. “I tried that avenue. Apparently, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, allows the Minister of Defence to make emergency regulations that can override almost all other legislation when there is a threat of terrorism. Visser has unwittingly given them full authority to do whatever they like.”

  Her meal was opposing gravity in her gullet. Mary tried to swallow but her mouth was as arid as the Savannah. “I escaped the clutches of a Soviet terror cell, I can do it again.” The words caught in her throat.

  “They would track us down in a heartbeat. Whatever your mental capabilities are, honey, our bodies remain vulnerable to attack. We can’t fight the system. Believe me, I have been trying for a very long time.” Mary couldn’t breathe. Fresh air – she needed fresh air. Mary held her hands to her chest, forcing the air into her lungs.

  Parth failed to notice her dismay. “There are any number of ways they could dispose of us. Accidental poisoning of our food, a not so random brake failure on our car, hey, they could even dose us with polonium and point the finger of blame at Visser’s lot.”

  Mary unhooked the neural activity cap from the armrest of her chair and examined the electrode nodules regularly spaced in the fabric. She thought of Alexi. In his strange way, he had been kind to her, treated her with respect. He had no intention of castrating her neural activity with electrical devices that could short circuit her brain. Now they were coercing her into a mission that could potentially result in Alexi’s death.

  If only Dan had driven her to an airport instead of a coastal town in Norfolk. They could be hiding out in some exotic country without fear of extradition. She breathed deeply, then sighed. “We still have to find a way out of here, before our situation gets worse.” She muttered.

  “What about the one and half million people living along the Wasatch Fault, relying on us to save them from an earthquake?” Parth said, the gravity of their plight etched upon his forehead like a memorial plaque.

  “They also have Connie.” Dan said, raking his face with tense fingertips. “They have my Constance, God knows where. As soon as she regains consciousness, they will interrogate her relentlessly and if she refuses to give up her sources…”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “No. I won’t be manipulated like this. There has to be a solution, we just haven’t figured it out yet. If we put our heads together, we are more powerful than anything they can come up with.” She perched on the footrest of her reclining chair facing Dan. Parth lingered by the door, watching their driver peer at them through the glass panel.

  “Darling, I have every faith in you, but I don’t think it wise to discuss it openly. These walls have ears, and more besides.” Parth gestured towards the nosy driver. Dan and Mary turned to look in the proffered direction. The driver winked at Mary. She scowled back at him.

  “Okay, we will do it my way…” Mary fixed her stare at her brother, locking eyes and synchronising with the agitated beta waves escalating in his brain. Without arousing suspicion, she began her silent communication. “Can you hear me Dan? Nod if you can.” A broad grin appeared on his face. He signalled with a single, definitive, curt nod. “We have to maintain the upper hand here at all times. They are scared of what I can do. Together, we are an unstoppable force. It’s clear that we have to stay long enough to stop the deaths of all those innocent people in Utah, but we cannot allow them to detain us, or worse still, impair our abilities” Another curt nod. “Okay, now you try and respond to me, inside your head.”

  Dan shuffled on the chair, looking down at his feet. “No, Dan. Keep eye contact with me. To start with at least.” He looked directly into her pupils. They were almost indistinguishable from her rich cocoa irises. Parth looked on. He could guess what Mary was attempting to do. He had seen the same expression on Dan’s face the night he drew Tower Bridge. Dan squinted between intense frowns, hoping she could hear him say a simple, “Hello.” It wasn’t working. Mary waited patiently, watching him relax and take a breath. It was then she heard him.

  “I’m scared too, Mary.”

  Mary gasped, a smile breaking out between her lips. “It is a scary situation, but we have each other to rely on now.” A moment of peace filled Dan’s thoughts. His beta rhythms slowed to calmer alpha waves, in the knowledge that Mary was in control. “I’m going to distract the guard and see what I can find out. You practice on Parth while I’m gone. A partial Hive Mind is better than none.” Another nod from Dan and Mary stood up, touching her husband’s shoulder with affection as she passed. “Just nipping to the loo. Won’t be long.”

  Out in the corridor the cheeky driver, sent to guard them, escorted her to the restrooms then stood equidistant between the laboratory door and the Ladies’ Room. Mary shuffled slowly, taking in her surroundings and trying to catch a glimpse of those inside the Tactical Room. As she neared the toilets, an older gentleman with hooded eyes and an upper lip so stiff as to render it immobile, bumped into her. “Oh, I am sorry.” Mary trotted out, automatically.

  “No, no. My fault, young lady. I was checking my flies and not looking where I was going.” He gave her a slack jawed smile and she watched him waddle down the corridor and let himself into Tactical. Mary recognised him at once, but maintained her composure. She sauntered into the powder room and used the facilities while a nebulous plan began to coalesce into tangible action.

  Winky the guard was waiting for her, eager to recommence the flirtatious banter. She had no time to waste. The Secretary of State for Defence had just entered the Tactical Room and she needed to hear what they were saying. Hurrying back to the lab, she turfed Parth off her chair and made herself comfortable. “Dan, keep Parth busy and the guard off my scent. You know what I have to do.” More nods, then she closed her eyes. Her larynx vibrated with the Beatles number once again.

  It was like the flipping of a switch, her consciousness detached from her brain and whooshed through the door, along the corridor and she was inside the Tactical Room within seconds. Yelena and the Minister were mid snarl. Flynn was directing events from his computer terminal and listening in on their debate a few feet from his station.

  “Please, Minister. I cannot stress this enough. We have employed every technical and electronic means at our disposal and we cannot locate Visser’s Hive Mind. Without Mary, Fort Williams will become an expensive pile of rubble within eight hours, and the Five Eyes data stream along with it.” Yelena stole a quick glance at a sympathetic Flynn, before turning her penetrative gaze on the politician. She knew this dance we
ll and had yet to twirl him into submission.

  “She is just too dangerous. The whole thing is too unstructured to control. How do you know that they didn’t brainwash her into assisting them while they held her captive? She could be a Soviet Asset by now. No, it just won’t do. Get that prototype working on her head or sedate her. Hell, sedate the lot of them, to be on the safe side.” His loose bottom lip was thick with saliva, which he wiped away with a nonchalant thumb, rested against his mouth.

  “We could still do that, but after she has helped us to stop the annihilation of our secure data feeds. Just think about all the innocent lives lost if we fail. Bude GCHQ are already working with the NSA, trying to re-route the streams through Harrogate, but they just haven’t the spare capacity. If Mary can find the Soviets, think of the kudos you will have earned with the Americans…” Her hand was on the upper sleeve of his arm, administering tender strokes to his body as well as his ego. “I have known Mary for a long time. She is a kind-hearted, gentle soul. Putty in my hands. Let me mould her, Minister.”

  Yelena dipped her voice down a seductive octave and guided him towards the viewing area at the rear of the room. She sat beside him, allowing her knee to connect with his. “Leave it to me, sir. I can have this all wrapped up in a bow with your name on it before the PM has cleaned her teeth tomorrow morning.”

  Yelena was the performer, dancer and actress of great cunning and notoriety. Here the seductress, all charm and promises. Once the wife, fierce businesswoman and friend, now the spy, wielding her influence and intelligence as deftly as Shakespeare brandished his quill. So many masks, so many faces. How many more guises lurked beneath those passionless eyes? “All the World’s a stage…” The echo of Grampy’s voice replayed in Mary’s mind.

  Mary had heard enough. It was obvious that information was far more important to this government than lives. She allowed her consciousness to drift back to her physical self, reconnecting her mind and body fully before slowly opening her eyes. Yelena was a skilled manipulator. Mary would need to dance carefully if she was going to bring about a satisfactory conclusion to this affair.

  ***

  Their driver knocked and entered the lab. “Dr Arora, the pathologists have sent through images from the initial stages of the post-mortem on the dead Hive Operative. If you would like to follow me, I can set up a video link between you and their theatre. Perhaps you can give them some direction to speed up the process.” Parth seemed momentarily dazed, then grappling with his thoughts, he wandered towards the door.

  “Will you be alright here, Mary? Shall I ask them to bring some coffee to you?” He scratched at the back of his head, blinking rapidly.

  “Coffee? You know I never touch the stuff. Actually,” Mary said, sliding from her chair and facing the guard. “Would it be possible for Dan and I to get some fresh air? It is so stuffy in here. Can we go and sit outside for a little while?” Mary conjured her most imploring look at the driver. He raised one eyebrow and smirked.

  “I’ll make the arrangements. Wait here.” He gave her one last hope filled flash of his sparkly blues and turned to leave with her husband.

  Dan and Mary waited in silence until another agent arrived to collect them. Muscles bulged beneath the straining fabric of his charcoal twill suit and when he leaned forward through the door, his jacket hung open to reveal the gun holster strapped tightly against his ribs. “Follow me.” He said, with neither introduction nor civility. They walked several paces behind him, his swagger filling the width of the corridor. Unlike their driver, Muscles trained his attention on his surroundings, glancing in all directions as though he was expecting a marauding hoard to attack.

  Passing through the air conditioned foyer through the front entrance, the oppressive heat seemed to radiate from every paving slab and brick. Past the dimly lit paths was the blackness of the Buckinghamshire countryside. Just an occasional bleat from a sleepless sheep, to remind them that life extended beyond the silent confines of the base. Mary noticed a trail leading down to a grassed area.

  “What’s down there?” Mary asked the agent. She watched him sniff and pucker one corner of his lip up.

  “A drainage pond.” He swept the sides of his jacket backwards, digging his fists into his trouser pockets and pushing his chest in her face. “Look, lady. I have better things to do with my time than babysit a couple of clueless civilians. Do what you have to do quickly, then I can get back to doing them.” He planted his feet stiffly on the tarmac, locking and unlocking one knee in frustration. Muscles watched his pet civilians walk down to the pond, hesitating while their sight adjusted to the darkness.

  They sat on a wooden bench overlooking the water. Bull rushes grew thick and wild and there was a slick of algae coating the surface. It was a far cry from her favourite duck pond in the park near to the university. How she longed for those simpler days. It felt like months since she had ridden, carefree and happy through the muddy puddles on her push bike. And now, the fate of one and a half million people rested on her ability to find a Soviet terror cell who have access to unlimited means and technologies.

  “I don’t think King Kong back there can hear us if we keep our voices low.” She whispered, raising her chin to the massing clouds above and clicking the joints in her spine free of tension. Mary told Dan all that she had discovered from the Tactical Room and shared her consternation over the Defence Minister’s brash disregard for their civil liberties. “Unfortunately, I think Parth is right. If we mount an escape, we could be seriously injured, or worse. If we did manage to get free, there isn’t a corner of the world where they could not find us eventually. Our best hope is to broker a deal through Yelena. She still believes that I am harmless.” A triple flash of light lit up the sky on the horizon.

  “I think I can be of help with that. Leave it to me, I have an idea.” A protracted grumble of thunder made Dan raise his voice.

  “Why, what are you going to do?” Mary said, snapping a small twig from a shrub and dissecting each attached leaf in turn.

  “I discovered a new trick while I was practising reading Parth’s mind. I think it will come in handy if the minister cuts up rough. You concentrate on stopping Visser’s Hive and I will do my best to get us out of here.” He leaned back on the bench, stretching his long legs to the water’s edge.

  “Are you going to tell me what that is?” She stopped peeling the stem and faced him.

  “Hmm, not yet. Let me sort a few things out first and then I’ll tell you about it.” A mischievous smirk assembled beneath his nose. “Do you think the storm is heading this way?” He said, changing tack.

  “The metaphorical one or literal one?” They smiled, knocking shoulders together. “It’d be good to clear the air. It’s been so humid for days now.”

  “I love thunderstorms. A good one can be exhilarating to watch.” As he said it, a streak of fork lightning stabbed the grassland in the distance. The sheep were silent.

  “Me too, well any meteorological event is exciting.” The shrubs and small trees surrounding the pond area began to rustle, buffeted by the strengthening breeze. It cooled and tingled Mary’s skin.

  “I definitely inherited that from Grampy. He is obsessed with forces of nature. He took Dad and me to Iceland once, just to see the Northern Lights. Mum wasn’t interested so she stayed at home.”

  “It is an amazing sight, I must admit. I went with a bunch of mates from college. I think they were expecting to get crazy drunk and have some sort of spiritual experience under the Aurora Borealis. By the time we had travelled up to a latitude high enough to see it, my mates had drunk themselves into a stupor and had passed out in the truck. Daft sods.”

  The latency period between lightning strikes and corresponding thunderclaps had shortened noticeably. Single drops of rain splattered and rippled the tiny algal disks on the pond, forewarning them of the storms arrival. Neither of them indicated a desire to find shelter.

  “You didn’t get drunk with them?” Mary asked, cupping her
hand out in front of her and catching the odd droplet in her palm.

  “No. I was taking antibiotics for a cut that had become infected on my arm. I knew I shouldn’t have waded into those Icelandic Hot Springs. They are just teeming with bacteria. It’s like human stew. Hind sight is a wonderful thing. Anyway, alcohol and peer pressure plus a small wound and in I went. At least it made me lay off the booze so I was able to enjoy the lights.”

  The sporadic rain droplets continued to entertain them. Dan stuck out his tongue and caught one in his mouth. “A weird thing happened while I was there though.”

  “Oh?” The volume of thunder claps was gradually increasing. It quickened her heart beat, stirring a release of pleasant dopamine into a bloodstream that was already rich with adrenalin. The tangy smell of ozone, prickled her nostrils and dissolved into her taste buds, combining with particulate odorants from the parched vegetation opening their pores to the storm.

  “We were in this convoy of trucks, being bumped and bounced around. You could see the Aurora shimmering in the gaps between the trees. We had a fancy truck with skylights as well as side windows. The higher up the mountainside we drove the easier it was to see. Then the green and pink lights, wafted and changed colour to mostly red. The cables between the telegraph poles suddenly showered us in sparks and caught fire. Then the engines cut out. We were completely stranded. No heat or light or mobile phone signals.” A streak of lightning forked out in crooked fingers across the sky.

  “Cor! That was a good one.” Dan effused, distracted for a moment. “The guides built big fires and kept everyone as warm as they could. They said it must have been a surge of geomagnetism from an intense solar storm reaching our atmosphere.” The crack of thunder was ear-splitting. The storm had arrived.