by Sam Nash
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Minister’s elite superiority oozed from each and every syllable. Parth was well matched in the escalating row that sent Mary and Dan slinking out of the Tactical Room, virtually unnoticed.
“You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I certainly don’t envy your position.” Dan drooped his arm over her shoulders and gave her a brotherly squeeze.
“Would you mind if I had a few minutes in the lab alone, Dan? Nothing personal. It’s just all the clamour. I need to think.” He removed his arm and stepped away from her.
“Of course. It’s a big decision. I am going to see if I can’t find that uptight, lady-suit. You know, the one who greeted us with a broom shoved up her arse. Ms Official Secrets Act. I’m sure Mr Muscle, over there, can arrange for me to see her.” They tittered in the agent’s direction, who looked quite affronted by the nickname.
“Do you need her for something specific?” Mary inquired, her interest piqued. Dan was walking backwards down the corridor towards the reception area.
“I’ll tell you later.” He tapped the side of his forehead in exaggerated prods.
“Oh, right. Okay.” She understood.
The water in the thermos flask was tepid. It made her tea look like dishwater and taste even worse, but the caffeine was a welcome buzz in the early hours of the morning. Her tummy gurgled but the hatred for ginger deterred her from consuming one of Parth’s biscuits. Perhaps she would relent later.
Mary reclined in the dentist chair and looked up at the ceiling tiles. She listened to the whirring of the air conditioning unit and the intermittent roll of thunder, drumming overhead. It reminded her of Brighton. Night time summer storms seem to be a frequent occurrence back then. Days of relentless humidity would see panting dogs and her overwrought mother, scurrying for the shade and praying for the weather to break. When at last the wind changed, it carried away the blistering heat and with it, her mother’s genial mood.
As the storm raged, Mary would lie on her bed, listening to her parents spitting venom through clenched teeth, trying to keep their voices low so as not to wake her. Forward wind twenty-five years and the British Government were still at the heart of family rows. Did her mother know she had married a spy? Had they kept tabs on Mary all her life? Professor Haas certainly had extensive knowledge about her. Did Yelena have a dossier overflowing with reports about every peculiar event that had taken place in her life since birth? Did MI6 know that Dan and Mary were siblings before Parth tested their blood? It was a sobering thought.
The stillness felt good. The leather backrest cradled and supported her body. She resisted the urge to let her eyelids close, the ceiling tiles blurring through the thick mass of lashes in front of her pupils. If only she could project her entire body out of the pyramidal building and away from the intense security and aggressive atmosphere of the government facility. To fly like a superhero up into the air, with Dan and Parth in each arm. Mary stifled a giggle. There she was, harbouring extraordinary abilities and her extra normal husband was still fighting her battles for her back in Tactical.
Would it be so bad if she did manage to access Visser’s mind and compel him to commit suicide? He was a murderer of innocent people and of his own guards, but then, so was she. The memory of the New Zealand earthquake trickled into her thoughts. The families of ten antipodean victims, wholly unaware that their deaths were by unnatural causes. All those people mourning for relatives whose lives Mary had unwittingly snuffed out.
How many more gruesome and painful fatalities would result from Alexi’s latest plan? How many families shattered by the loss of loved ones living along the Wasatch Fault? Surely their survival was justification for taking one more life. If she exterminated Visser, would Alexi find another mind reader to lead the Hive in his stead? For all Mary knew, the organisation behind Alexi’s terror cell was vast and fragmented. She thought it entirely feasible that he had the backing and support of a much larger political entity. She had heard both Visser and Alexi referred to with military titles. Could it be that they were acting under the orders of the highest Soviet authority?
Mr Muscle was looming outside the lab. He peeked in at Mary and leaned against the door, the thumping noise as it connected with the wooden doorframe engineered to remind her of his presence. She snapped out of her reflections and forced herself to make a decision.
Closing her eyes, Mary hummed the tune. Her body went limp. Mary’s mind soared into the wild and electrified night sky, through the lashing rain and up above the condensing mists. Large swathes of England lay under a thick blanket of storm cloud but she was able to make out a faint outline of the coast. Brightly lit towns and cities edged the English Channel like the lower branches of a Christmas tree festooned with fairy lights. I need to go north. Get to Alaska and then focus on finding Visser.
Drifting past Cardigan Bay and then the Irish Sea, she found it slow going without the aid of the Hive to boost her energy. Which was the quickest way to travel, over the North Pole or across Northern America and Canada? The Arctic might get confusing – all that snow and few landmarks, I might get lost. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Mary kept the thought of one and a half million Utah residents at the front of her mind. They had just five hours of blissful ignorance until Visser unleashed the Hive Mind and initiated a catastrophic quake. A dose of endorphins stimulated her neurons, kicking her brainwaves into a faster beta frequency. She surged ahead, making rapid headway across oceans and landmass. Before long, Mary spotted the silted trails of the Tanana River that underlined the airport at Fairbanks.
Where do I even begin to look for them? How can I find them if Flynn, with access to all that technology, cannot? Mary paused high above the Fairbanks skyline, analysing each trunk road and thoroughfare for convoys of similar trucks, but to no avail. Think. What can I do that technology can’t? I can synchronise with other people’s brainwaves. Maybe I am looking at this problem from the wrong angle. Instead of attempting to find Visser’s body, perhaps I should be tuning in to Visser’s mental frequency, like a radio.
An image of Lars Visser wafted into her unconscious thoughts. Those verdant feline eyes, masking the decades of depravity they had witnessed; the jawline jowls weighing down the corners of his mouth and the dark malefic recesses of his deplorable mind. She could feel his impatience and pent up anger simmering in his hippocampus. A cauldron of smelted hatred and envy, his hunger for power was barely contained within his neural network. It lurked just beneath the surface, awaiting an opportunity for release.
Mary felt a wave of revulsion. She could almost sense his presence, but the link was tenuous. Why was this so difficult? She had infiltrated his mind so easily back in her hospital prison. A fleeting image of an air freshener in the shape of a moose head, hanging from a rear view mirror passed through her subconscious. It swung erratically to the side of a large steering wheel. Visser was in the driver’s cab of a truck. She could see the tattooed knuckles of the driver clinging onto the wheel as the lorry lurched across uneven ground.
The link was failing. Her sight blurred and faded and an electronic squeal resonated through her skull. A tremulous pulse fractured her beta rhythms, sending her body into convulsions. The disharmony jerked her psyche across thousands of miles into the lab of the government facility and back into her bucking and heaving physical form.
Half conscious, Mary writhed and clashed with the dissonance in her biological circuits, her back arching away from the chair and her arms flailing in unpredictable spasms. Mr Muscle saw Mary in distress. Spurred into action, he bounded into lab and cradled Mary’s thrashing skull with his enormous hands, allowing free movement of the rest of her body. A quick tap to his earpiece, and Muscles was able to inform security of the situation. Within moments, Parth was at his wife’s side and shortly after, a team of medical professionals.
***
By the time Mary’s fitting had ceased and synergy restored between heart and mind, she awoke to find herself sur
rounded by medical equipment and monitors of every distinction. Her temples itched from the electrode adhesive pads connecting her neural activity to a series of cables supplying the computer terminal. Parth was holding her hand and balancing his forehead on the arm of her chair. Whether he was resting or praying, she could not tell.
“Parth? What happened?” Mary peeled the sticky pads from her forehead, one by one. Parth sat upright on a tall lab stool, beaming with relief.
“Darling, how are you feeling? Are you in any pain?” He jumped to his feet, leaning over her and brushing loose strands of hair behind her ears. Mary swiped her tongue around her dry mouth and held the back of her throbbing head. He kissed her awkwardly on her forehead. She froze, unable to avoid him. “As far as I can tell, you had some sort of seizure.”
“How long have I been out?” She shuffled forward on the chair, dangling her feet over the side, trying to reach the floor. Her scalp prickled with radiating pain. It disorientated her.
“For quite some time. It’s a quarter past six.” He clutched her arm, steadying her movements. Mary held a protracted blink and sighed.
“I’m not much help at all, am I?”
He didn’t answer her. He moved to a side bench and switched a newly arrived kettle on to boil. Mary stayed perched on the footrest of the seat. “Have they found Visser yet?”
“No. Looks like their trucks avoided main routes from Fairbanks airport where the traffic cams were. Flynn said he’s running out of options.” Parth handed Mary a plastic strip containing paracetamol and codeine tablets. She accepted them with a grateful smile. Parth made two cups of tea and sat with her while she took the pain killers.
“What set off the convulsions, honey? What were you doing?” He sipped at his tea, trying to appear nonchalant, but the knotted brow conveyed his anxiety.
“I was trying to find them. I managed to link briefly with Visser’s mind but then there was this God-awful deafening noise and everything shook inside me. The pain was excruciating, then it all went dark.” Mary let the steam from her cup ease the tension above her nose.
“Do you think it was the affects from their screening technology? They could have rigged up portable solenoids in the trucks.” Parth dipped a ginger biscuit into his tea and took a huge soggy bite.
“I don’t think so. Their tech didn’t cause me pain or seizures, just stopped me from detecting the Hive chatter.” She traced her fingertips across her tender scalp.
Parth turned to face the computer and tapped in some commands. Sequenced images of Mary’s brain activity appeared on the monitor. Her pineal gland in the heart of her limbic system was glowing, showing intense and continuous action. “I’m a bit concerned that your brain morphology is changing. You have never had seizures before, have you, love?”
“Well, just that one time. When I was fifteen.”
Parth spun back around. His jaw hung open. “When was this? You didn’t tell me.” Mary stood up and stretched her legs, turning to face her husband.
“When Grampy and Dad took me to Iceland to see the Northern Lights. It’s funny you know, because Dan told me earlier that he was in Iceland at the same time. Isn’t that a remarkable coincidence?” Parth didn’t answer her. He opened a new browser window on the computer and searched for meteorological sites that could confirm or refute his suspicions. Knowing full well that Parth would be impervious to any attempt at discussion during these bouts of extreme concentration, she left the lab and made use of the Ladies’ Room.
On her return, Mary passed the uptight suit-lady. She bustled by gripping a stack of freshly photocopied documents. They smelled of hot, bitter toner. Suit-lady rounded the foot of a flight of stairs and scurried up the steps, her kitten heels clicking against the metal treads.
Mary loitered near to the Tactical Room. Even in the gloom, she could see the minister and Yelena arguing through the small window in the door. It was like watching an old silent movie in black and white, but without the subtitles. Behind them, the wall monitors displayed a giant digital clock. The countdown ticked away with thirty-one minutes remaining. She felt sick.
“Good to see you back on your feet, madam.” It was Mr Muscle. “Is there anything you need?” He had suddenly found his manners and was using them to persuade Mary to return to the lab. A few hours ago, he would have simply ordered her to return. She thanked him for his kindness and made her way back to Parth.
“Mary, come and take a look at this.” Parth beckoned her over to his side. “This website lists all the major solar storms that the earth has experienced going back thirty years. They often follow X-class flares or coronal mass ejections at the sun’s surface, then the storm arrives a day or two later, depending on the strength of the flare. I am willing to bet that the date Grampy took you to Iceland is somewhere on the list. Furthermore, look at this weather watch update…it appears that we are currently under the influence of another geomagnetic storm right now.” He looked up at her. It took a while for the information to seep through the grogginess.
She leaned closer and whispered. “You think that I am sensitive to geomagnetism? That’s what caused my seizure and why I couldn’t link easily with Visser?”
Parth reached out for her hand. She withdrew and made a point of sinking both fists into her trouser pockets. A pained expression overtook her husband with a realisation that he could not smooth over this level of hurt and betrayal with clumsy skin deep affection. “It would make sense. Not a particularly scientific hypothesis, but proving that theory would be dangerous to your health.”
Mary thought about the conversation she and Dan had earlier that night at the pond. How she had begged him to keep the secret of the Icelandic storm a secret from Parth. She felt stupid thinking that he would not piece together the clues. And now he had blurted out his suspicions in a lab that was almost certainly rigged with covert cameras and microphones. It would be all the information they needed to initiate a fresh set of studies into sensitive individuals.
The aircon pumped out a cooling stream across the side of her neck. She closed her eyes and recalled fragments of their wedding day. How his sisters had railed against a mixed religion marriage, their outright refusal to be her bridesmaids. How his mother had scoffed at the registry office ceremony and his father had argued with Grampy over finances. She scolded herself for not seeing the warning signs sooner. “How has it all come to this? This is not the life I dreamed we would have together when you proposed to me on your parent’s veranda in Colaba.”
Parth turned to face her. The rigid lines framing her mouth were scars of his duplicity. A glaze of saline balanced on the brims of her eyelids. “Will you give me a chance to fix us? I can make it all up to you, I swear.” He implored, his shoulders slumping towards his lap.
Parth had always looked after her, provided comfort and protection whenever vulnerabilities had her beaten. He had been the voice of reason throughout many trials and tribulations. He had been her best friend and confidant. It made the stinging barb of deception all the more grievous. Lowering her voice once more, Mary pulled in close to her husband’s ear. “I’m scared, Parth. I don’t want to be trapped here being poked and prodded by government people. This is no way to live.”
He stood up and embraced Mary for the benefit of any active cameras watching them, dipping his head to bury his nose in the side of her hair. “It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? There are a few houses on this base, and unlimited funding for you to buy whatever you liked. I could set up a whole new lab with incredible equipment and we could start again together, from scratch. You could be the deciding factor on the War against Terror. Just think of that. You could save the world as we know it.”
Mary pulled away, horrified. She knew Parth had always been ambitious, but to sell her freedom for his career was beyond comprehension. Hot blood rushed to the surface of her skin. Her hands tingled with static. She moved to the farthest wall and tightened her fists against the rage building inside. He followed her, backing her into
the corner. “I mean, this could be a good thing. We can get clearance for Grampy to come and visit, send for that fur ball of a cat you love so much – I mean really, it wouldn’t be so very different from being at home.”
“Except you would be free to come and go as you please. To continue your research in your department back at the university. To see your colleagues and friends while I am locked up like a lab rat with magnets strapped to my noggin. Are you quite mad?” The tingling intensified in her arms and chest. She pressed her hands against the wall, trying to control the energy welling up inside.
“It wouldn’t be like that. You would be an incredibly important person here. You would be at the heart of all their crucial operations and manoeuvres, but from a safe distance. It’s a brand new career for you. I thought you’d be pleased. You always said that being a lab tech didn’t stretch you enough.” He reached out to touch her face. She blocked him with an unyielding arm.
“Did you know that Professor Haas offered me a research placement? A PhD in Biomedical.” She examined his features. How could he be so calm at a time like this?
“Yes, he did mention it. A daft idea, if you ask me. What use is a doctorate to you? Whereas this is a chance for you to be involved in something extraordinary. It could change the course of history. Maybe I could find methods of increasing your efficiency, too. This could be great for us both.”
Mary side stepped Parth and walked away, fearful that the power gathering in her limbs would seek to earth itself through her husband’s body. His opinions tore at her heart, ripping the substance that had bound her love for him. The ballast of her steadfast and loyal feelings slipped away, casting him adrift.
Chapter Twenty-Six