Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Thank you.’

  They turned off at a junction just past the Angel of the North, that huge ancient ribbed steel statue which stood solitary guard over Tyneside. Somebody back then had foresight, Angela thought, because if ever anywhere on this world needs divine protection, it’s the city with a gateway to St Libra. Although if Elston was correct about the latest North murder, it was too late already. The majestic, rusty old angel had been caught sleeping.

  A couple of minutes later they turned into Last Mile. Here the elegance of Newcastle’s Georgian centre and the utility logic of its residential estates had been abandoned in favour to the gods of commerce. The gentle valley had once been a sprawling industrial estate of light factories, wholesale markets, and warehouse stores. A lot of those original twenty-first-century frame and panel structures of the estate were still there. Their outlines invisible now, swamped under the twenty-third-century composites which automata had assembled around and over them like mechanical tumours.

  Kingsway, the broad main road leading straight up to the gateway, was ruled by the major trans-stellar companies. Angela directed Atyeo into one of the avenues branching off the thoroughfare, where he parked in front of the Honda franchise. The glass wall of the showroom displayed a pageant of the latest models; but not for St Libra were the sleek sedans and roadsters that caught the eye, and were envied by school kids the trans-worlds over; this was the arena of utilities and farm trucks and land exploras, that could take anything nature at its most rugged could throw at them. The showroom took up less than a quarter of the building; the rest was occupied by tanks of raw feeding 3D printers and microfacture cells which produced customized components and interiors that assembly rigs could screw, bolt, click-lock, laser and epoxy onto a range of standard bodywork/chassis combos shipped in from the more sophisticated principal factories.

  Angela led them along the other side of the avenue, past the suppliers selling GM grain and seed which was guaranteed to sprout from St Libra’s soil with its melange of vigorous alien bacteria. It ended in a wall of glass doors which led into the huge Birk-Unwin store.

  ‘This was one of the first to sell stuff to people emigrating through the gateway,’ Angela said as the squad filed in through the doors. ‘Birk started out with a single stall back in the day.’

  ‘How do you know all this crap?’ Gillian Kowalski asked as she stared round at the cliff-like shelving rows.

  ‘I’ve been here before,’ Angela said, which wasn’t quite true, and was stupid because it gave too much away. ‘Their branch in Abellia, anyway,’ she added.

  Birk-Unwin was primarily a retail warehouse selling clothing and household items; the kind of products perfectly suited to its buy-it-cheap-and-pile-it-high philosophy. However, a small section at the side was given over exclusively to camping kit – and small was a relative term amid the store’s cavernous interior. There were no assistants, they cost too much. Instead smartdust meshes watched and security guards patrolled to deter pilfering. Customers would pull an item from bins on the shelves and try it on; if it didn’t fit they dropped it and reached for the next size. A small team of staff walked along the shelves, restocking and throwing stuff back that people had tried on.

  In the camping section, Angela found herself a couple of pairs of excellent leather hiking boots from an established Austrian company (three seasons out of date) then had to scramble along a high shelf to track down the waterproof garters that fitted them. After that came eight pairs of proper (nonsynthetic) wool socks; long-sleeve T-shirts, three pairs of lightweight UV-proof trousers, and sunguard oil in litre bottles. She went for practical equipment next: a solar charger, a small hand-pumped torch, inertial guidance module, solid memory cache that could link to her bodymesh, and in a higher price bracket, two wraparound sunglasses with smartlenses that provided night vision, infrared, and electronic magnification. Last of all she found a decent utility belt pre-loaded with a whole range of useful compact camping tools. It took a while to put it all together, as the squad members kept asking her opinion about stuff they found.

  She was advising Leora Fawkes on a self-cooling bottle when she caught sight of Paresh stiffening. His mouth moved silently, a sure giveaway that he was on a call. Knowing what was coming, she dropped a couple of cotton sunhats into the collapsible weather-resistant bag on her trolley. The display on the handle registered their smartdust tags, and she tapped the Finish & Pay icon. Her e-i told her it had authorized payment to Birk-Unwin’s account. Everything she’d chosen was in the bag; she zipped it up in a decisive motion.

  ‘Everyone!’ Paresh announced loudly. ‘We’re leaving. Now.’

  Angela swung the bag round and pushed her arms through the shoulder straps. Paresh was suddenly standing beside her. He didn’t look angry, exactly, more like troubled.

  ‘Problem?’ she asked.

  ‘We have to go,’ he said tightly.

  ‘Sure.’ Keeping it light. Not knowing what all the fuss was about. Couldn’t envision that Elston had just gone into meltdown when he found out about their innocent little detour.

  The minibus set off back along Kingsway and up to the HDA camp squatting on the slope above. It was crowded in the vehicle now, with the aisle full of store bags, and an air of apprehension building as they approached the high perimeter fence. Angela noted the innocuous matt-black spheres rolling along the run-track between the razor mesh, the lion and eagle emblem. A big sensor hoop curved over the entranceway in front of the red and white striped barrier. Guards in thick coats carrying automatic pistols in weather sheaths stood by the side, waiting for an alert from the AI which reviewed the deep scan of every vehicle that came in. She stared at the lion and eagle emblem, unable to look away. Her body’s core temperature seemed to be dropping by the second, making it impossible to move as the memory came flooding back. The last time she’d passed through a fence with that same evil emblem glowing proudly on the posts had been twenty years ago . . .

  *

  That little shit Vance Elston had been sitting in the car with her. They’d told her it was the prisoner transfer vehicle – stupid stupid, since when did the UK region prison service agency use black limousines with opaque windows. It was the day after the court case had finished with its frightening, insane verdict, and she was still in a daze at being found guilty, so numb she never thought to question anything. Not that it would have done any good. She was meat now, no longer human with rights. Not that she had many in the first place.

  She’d taken one look at Elston with his air of superiority and smart grey fatigues, and knew him for what he was – someone small, brown-nosing his way up the career pole with a whole flock of insecurities about his origins making him a rule-worshipping fascist. But the court had found her guilty and sentenced her, so she didn’t care what kind of ass had been sent to escort her to Holloway. He walked her calmly and politely out of the court cells and she questioned nothing until she saw the limousine – which wasn’t quite right.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she’d asked.

  ‘A holding facility.’

  Which should have started the alarm bells ringing loud and clear. But her mind just wasn’t up to it – the horror of everything she’d seen at Bartram’s mansion, the fear of being caught at the gateway, and the worry, so much worry that everything had gone wrong. But there had been no sign of him, no word, no mention by the dumb police who questioned her. So it must have been okay. The money transfer had worked. That thought alone held her steadfast through the farce of a trial.

  Even then, driving through London on the way to the prison where the judge wanted her to spend the rest of her life, she clung to that one precious chunk of knowledge. They didn’t know. Everything would be all right. And even then, she was sure that one day she’d be out because the monster was real, and one day people would meet it again.

  The car had pulled into a small compound somewhere near the Thames, with the HDA signs prominent on the fence. A crystal-white executive VTOL jet
was sitting on the pad. It didn’t register, because such a thing didn’t apply to her. So she sat passively in the limousine as it drove towards the striking little machine. There were HDA guards from the GE Legion standing beside the airstairs. Then they pulled up outside and Elston opened the door.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked. Her brain was finally starting to work again, assessing, plotting out scenarios. None of them ended well.

  ‘Come with me,’ Elston said.

  ‘You’re not taking me to prison. What is this? What’s going on?’

  He held up a palm-size taser. ‘Get in the plane, or I use this and drag your zapped ass up those stairs.’

  She shrank away from him, and he really did it, he jabbed the taser prongs down on her shoulder. When she stopped screaming, the two guards pulled her stunned, shaking body out of the car and hauled her up the airstairs.

  The flight was three hours long, but she didn’t know what speed they were travelling at, and she didn’t recognize the marque. The plane had narrow delta wings, it was probably supersonic. It was night outside when they landed, so she had no idea where they were. Not that it mattered – even if she knew the exact geographical coordinate, it was of no possible use. There was no one she could call, no one who would help.

  All she knew was that they were near the sea, she could smell it in the air as she walked down onto the hot tarmac of the apron. A windowless van was waiting for them. She didn’t protest when Elston told her to get in.

  This time the drive was barely ten minutes. When they stopped, gravity was different, lighter than Earth. The reception area was a huge metal cave as big as any airport hangar, with curving walls illuminated by bright artificial lights. There were a lot of struts arranged in triangles, reinforcing the walls.

  She was quickly hustled away down a corridor that seemed to be built from ducts and pipes and cables, the only unencumbered flat surface was the concrete floor. There were pressure doors at every junction. And she went through a lot of junctions. Part of her thought that might be deliberate, that they were intentionally disorientating her.

  The section she wound up in was like a clinic in a dirt-poor country. Metal furniture and not much of it. Desks with minimal electronic modules, none of it neat, they all sprouted a tangle of fibres and cables. No windows. Guards who were ordered not to talk to her.

  She only ever knew three rooms. Her cell, four metres to a side, with a small bed that hinged down from the wall, a plastic office chair, a table where she ate all her plastic tray meals, a toilet, and a washbasin. Room two, the interview room, was next to it.

  Angela was taken straight there. It was almost identical to the cell. Square with a table in the centre, her chair on one side; two chairs on the other. The guards sat her down and secured her wrists and ankles, then a technician came in and stuck various electrodes and sensor pads on her skin. Smirking when he unzipped the front of her prison service overall to apply the heart monitor and another couple of cold pads just below her bra which would monitor temperature and perspiration. She glared back at him, but inside the dread was building.

  Death was the only true fear. But it wasn’t something which she had control over, she was realistic about that. Then again, they hadn’t brought her here simply to kill her. The restraints, the sensors, the unknown location, the effort involved getting her here – it all meant one thing. They wanted the truth, and she was going to give that to them. But the truth they so desperately wanted wasn’t important to her. That was her one hope. Her talisman. The knowledge which would keep her sane and rational.

  Once all the patches were stuck to her body, the technician manipulated a couple of cameras on segmented metal stalks so they could track her eyes, watching pupil dilation and blink-rate. Then there was a simple mic so vocal stress patterns could be analysed.

  ‘You’re so ready,’ he said, stroking her cheek. Angela didn’t flinch, just awarded him a sneer.

  Elston was one of the interviewers. The junior of the pair who occupied the chairs opposite her for all those countless hours. It was Major Sung who asked most of the questions, again and again.

  ‘We’ll begin with the calibrations,’ he told her as the technician finally left and the door slid shut.

  Angela gave him her best pitying look. ‘You want to know about the monster. I’m not here to hide anything. I just can’t understand why you didn’t look into this earlier.’

  ‘So you know, we haven’t stopped searching,’ Sung replied levelly. ‘There is no evidence it ever existed, no trace. We have had no sighting in the wilds around Abellia. No forensics proof. Nothing. We’ve spent a small fortune examining this, and now we need to know if it really is just a bullshit legal defence ploy.’

  ‘It’s not! I saw the fucker. It’s real!’

  ‘We’ll get to that. But first, tell me your name.’

  ‘Angela Tramelo.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ which was what appeared on her birth certificate, which was presumably the file he was reading.

  ‘What were you studying at Imperial College?’

  ‘Sports physiotherapy.’

  And so it went. She thought for about eight hours. They gave her something to drink when she asked. Even unstrapped her twice so she could use the toilet in her cell. But other than that the questions went on relentlessly. What did you see? What room were you in when the attack happened? What did the alien look like? What did you do? Why did you run? Describe the alien in more detail. Did you see it actually kill the others?

  Did you kill them?

  Did you have a glove made of blades?

  Did you hate Bartram North?

  Did he hurt you?

  Did you detest the sexual acts he made you perform?

  Why would the alien kill them all?

  *

  After they removed the sensors and electrodes and unstrapped her they took her back to the cell, gave her a meal tray, a plastic pack containing a clean T-shirt, underwear and trousers, soap, toothpaste and brush, a towel – and locked the door. She had no idea how long it was before the door slid open again; she was asleep on the bed. The guard brought in a fresh meal and said: ‘You’ve got half an hour.’

  He was telling the truth. Half an hour later she was back in the interview room with the pervy technician feeling her up. Sung and Elston came in.

  ‘I’d like to go through yesterday’s testimony again,’ Sung said.

  Angela groaned in resignation and slumped her shoulders.

  That style of questioning went on for five days without a break. Every detail she could remember, every incident queried as they made her describe the event repeatedly. Each time they looked for discrepancies, hounded her at the slightest variance, mocked, shouted, sounded sympathetic.

  On the sixth day Angela was taken to the third room. It was a lot bigger than the others. But then it had to accommodate a machine the size of a hatchback car. When she saw it for the first time she thought it was a medical full-body magrez scanner. It wasn’t a bad guess. They didn’t use it that day, nor for several more. Instead, she was strapped down on a metal gurney with only a blanket for padding. She refused and struggled the first day. It took three guards to force her down while the same technician fastened the restraints.

  ‘What are you fucking doing you bastards?’ she screamed at them. It made no difference, the abuse, the curses. They didn’t care. So as before the sensor patches were applied, the cuff around her arm to monitor blood pressure. The only thing missing was the camera to watch her eyes.

  Then the technician wheeled in an IV drip.

  ‘No!’ she yelled. ‘No no no. You can’t do this.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but we can,’ Major Sung said. He nodded, and the technician slid a needle into the vein on the top of her hand.

  It took a while for whatever they were using to take effect. The room stilled, then it grew hot. Walls began to move – breathing. Voices sounded like orchestras. Insistent voices. The technician loomed
large, adjusting the flow, making it just right for her he told her. And the voices began. She started speaking. Profound thoughts about how the universe worked. How colours were so important. How Marj was such a comfort when she was a child. She could remember Marj, so that was real, truthful. Marj who was sweet. How she missed her mother, who if they didn’t know was French you know. How she loved her mother. How she hated the alien. The alien that was a dark shadow cast across her memories, bursting out of the nicest images of her life.

  The gurney spun round like a carousel. She threw up.

  Angela never did know how long that part lasted. Days at least. The drugs left her too confused between the sessions. Often they’d have to feed her milk drinks with proteins blended in, or soups where someone patiently spooned the warm liquid between numb lips. Her swallow reflex kicked in, otherwise she would have drooled it all out again.

  She was definitely ill at some point. Feverish and shaking. People argued around her. She’d almost recovered when they strapped her down on the table again. The needle was as big as her arm, and the narcotic spewed out of the end, engulfing her in champagne bubbles that glowed with magical light. She started talking again, but always aware of what she said. They probably wouldn’t expect that. The narcotic was supposed to have a stronger effect.

  They let her recover for a whole day. Then she had to be guided on unsteady feet back to room three. Once again she was strapped down on the gurney. ‘I fucking hate you,’ she told them. ‘When I get out of here I’m going to kill all of you. I’m going to lead the alien right here and watch and laugh while you scream and die.’

  ‘Hold still,’ the technician said. This was new. This was different. No sensor pads now. A metal crown with adjustable screw clamps that went round her head. He turned the screws until the contraption was fixed to her, pressing into her flesh, then he fastened it to the gurney somehow. She could hear the harsh metallic clunk as it slotted into its lock mechanism.

  Delicate metallic spiders swung into view, except normal spiders didn’t have legs ending in flat plastic hooks. She cried out helplessly, mewling pitifully as he carefully hooked their curved edges round her eyelids, holding them permanently open. She couldn’t blink now. Couldn’t move her head – not that she tried, too scared any motion would rip her eyelids. Couldn’t move her limbs. ‘What are you doing?’ she yelled at them. As always, they never bothered to answer her.