She thought of Paula, and Kelly, and that missile packed with death flying towards them. All those things she could do nothing about. And then she looked at Rita clutching the base of a stylist’s chair to stop herself rolling away. She was close enough to smell her hairspray, and her fear.
She had an hour. You could do a lot in an hour. Not quite enough for a whole head of highlights, but it might just be enough to save eight million lives.
‘So, if this place was meant to be a spaceship,’ she said, pulling herself up by the headrest of the nearest chair, ‘there must have been a bridge. Right?’
Ida projected a schematic of Discovery into the air. The picture hung there, quivering at the touch of dust motes, and Janice wished she’d been a bit more conscientious with the duster. Alma turned her own emoji screen into a laser pointer and pinpointed a spot halfway along the Starship.
‘It’s not marked as such,’ she said, ‘but there’s a void space up here that’s been sealed off.’
Janice climbed into the chair and offered Rita a hand up.
‘Is there a way up there?’ Rita asked as she crawled into the next chair. She absently patted her hair as she spoke. How, Janice asked herself, had she managed to keep that set? If they got out of this alive they had a lot to talk about.
‘Not direct,’ said Alma, ‘but…’
The schematic winked out, replaced by a :-| from Ida.
‘Oh no, >:-|’, added Ada. ‘I can’t. You know I get motion sickness.’
‘Ada,’ gritted Alma, ‘you haven’t had a stomach since Janice’s Gran9 was a twinkle in the nutmilkman’s eye.’
The countdown was 01:00:37. You could waste so much time worrying about how little time you had.
‘You can’t outrun a nuclear bomb,’ said Ida in the self-satisfied tone of the terminal fatalist. ‘Some of us might be glad of the rest.’
Rita caught Janice’s eye. Bewilderment was settling over her fear: of the kind you can only experience when walking into the middle of a protracted argument in someone else’s family.
‘Ladies!’ scolded Janice. ‘You’re forgetting we have guests… Rita doesn’t really care about your travel sickness. And I never did anyway. What she and I do want, though, is for you to get a bloody move on.’
The countdown ticked on, under the hour.
‘I see mistress has spoken,’ replied Ida, as all three ladies arranged themselves in an affronted position.
‘So, shall we get going?’ said Janice.
Janice settled back in her chair. If she’d learned one thing about her ladies, it was that they rarely did anything if they were in disagreement. Unite them against you with a well-chosen slight, however, and they’d go right to the ends of the universe to prove their point.
Somewhere underneath the salon floor came an almighty creak and scraping sound.
‘I told you we should have kept this oiled,’ said Ida.
‘Oh :-§, will you? I’m concentrating,’ replied Alma.
The salon shook as the Baba Yaga 4000 sprinted across Discovery.
‘Change the channel, would you love,’ said Alma, and Ida activated the infrared channel of her emoji screen, switching the view to the speed-blurred interior of the dark Starship.
‘That’s better,’ said Alma. ‘That countdown was putting me right off my stride. And you know, I suddenly had an inkling what it was like to be my Wilf.’
Whatever it was that Ida replied alongside her >:-| expression was drowned out by the noise as the Baba Yaga reached a gallop. The camera showed it was heading at unstoppable speed towards the long curve up to Discovery’s ceiling.
Rita yelped.
‘Fifth gear, please, Ida,’ said Alma.
The noise of the Baba Yaga sprinting passed over the unbearable barrier and became a physical force, thrumming through the whole salon.
Janice chewed on her knuckles and braced herself for a crash. Yet the Baba Yaga kept on running. It mounted the curve and the long circular wall that made up the closed cylinder of Discovery became – the floor. At once Janice understood a fundamental truth of common-sense physics. In an infinite and expanding universe, concepts like up or down depended entirely on where you were standing at the time.
The screen showed they were rapidly approaching a section of floor patched with plastic sheeting and edged with hazard tape.
‘What are you waiting for?’ yelled Alma. ‘Jump!’
As one, the ladies’ emoji screens flashed /`Ó_Δ_Ò´ and Janice’s stomach lurched as the Baba leapt into the unknown.
Chapter 36
Darren’s eyes streamed at the heat and dust inside the tunnel. Whatever this place was, it wasn’t meant for people or waste. Now his eyes were used to the dark, he saw it was perfectly circular, and covered in a lubricant that sucked at his feet wherever he stepped. The drone followed close behind with its torchlight.
He had nowhere to go but forwards, no time to do what he needed to do and no reason to trust the thing that had rechristened itself Trinity. Except for the feeling that Trinity had told him the truth not out of gratitude but indifference. It had other concerns to the bomb that would soon grind Darren’s home to powder.
The drone squeaked and intensified its torch beam to reflect on something right in the centre of the tunnel ahead. It was metal or glass or maybe carbon fibre – there weren’t many other substances that would reflect light in this way. Whatever it was, it either wasn’t sentient or was making a very good fist of lying about it. It sat, still as a stone. Darren swallowed his fear and crawled the last few metres to find himself nose to nose with the cone of a nuclear missile.
This had to be it. The missile that was being armed and fired under Sonny’s orders at the Dolestar Discovery. And now it would kill him along with everyone else. He laughed bitterly. That explained why Trinity had pointed the way down so casually. It didn’t care because it didn’t matter. Darren had to admit it was a good joke. Why not rid yourself of a nuisance by tricking it into crawling down the barrel of a massive gun?
Darren shuffled round and started to crawl back up the tunnel. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he snapped at the drone. ‘Get a move on. We don’t know when this is going to fire.’
The drone just sat there and twitched its antennae. For the first time Darren realised that the drone had been behaving oddly ever since they’d jumped into this corridor. The capricious bounce that made it such an annoying yet engaging travelling companion was nowhere to be seen. Instead its movements seemed deliberate. Could it be – thinking?
It shone its light around the missile’s nose cone and into the point where it met the walls of the gun barrel. The two fitted snugly into one another but there was still a discernible gap. Not enough room to admit Darren’s bulky human body, but maybe for a spindly machine. Darren watched the drone edge into the gap before hearing a clank as its cylinder of a body hit metal. He winced. That was it. Not enough room. They’d have to turn back. But the drone had other ideas. Darren heard a soft ping as the drone dropped the signet ring it had stolen from him and released a catch in its body. Its thorax split along a seam that ran the length of its body until the drone was nothing but a wide sheet of metal with a pair of legs and arms sticking out at either side and its antennae at the top.
They twitched in the universal gesture that says ‘how do you like them apples?’ and the drone sidled into the crack between the missile and the wall of the firing chamber like a credit card between a door and door frame. Everything went as dark as the drone’s body.
He held his breath. They were so close. But how much time did they really have? What would happen if the missile fired now? Would his body stop it, or even slow it down? Or would he just end up as a greasy smear on the side of the chamber.
A click and then a heavy metallic thump rang up through the chamber. Darren shuddered, then cringed. Was this how it ended? Then he heard the familiar tap-tap-tap of the drone as it hurried back towards him. There it was. That strange spidery shape with t
he flat body and the torch.
It squeaked in triumph and trained its torch beam on the nose cone. Or rather where the nose cone used to be. That horrible thump had been the sound of another catch opening. The point of the nose cone rested on the floor.
‘You beauty!’ said Darren. He went to kiss the drone, then stopped himself. Yes, it had done remarkable things in the past couple of hours, but he still didn’t know where it had been before. ‘Now all you need to do is…’
The drone waved its antennae and gave another flat squeak. An unmistakable no. It pointed one arm at Darren and the other into the missile itself.
‘Me?’ said Darren. ‘No. There’s no way I’m going to fit in there.’
The drone turned its light up to full brightness and shone it into the missile. There was indeed a gap. It led right into the middle of the missile along a passage lined with antiquated-looking wiring and grey components, each boasting their own skull-and-crossbones danger symbols.
Even looking at it made Darren’s hands and legs shake so hard that they sounded like someone tapping a metal fence with a ten-pence piece. He couldn’t do this.
‘Please,’ he said to the drone.
But it was implacable. It folded its arms and stood there in the chamber tapping its bent wire foot on the floor. Again, there was no mistaking the gesture: ‘I’ve done quite enough of your dirty work for one day,’ it said. ‘Now stop being such a nancy and GET IN.’
Darren sighed and obeyed. It was pointless arguing with something with no facility for verbal reasoning. And when your past two days had been nothing but one terror, humiliation and unwelcome surprise after another, what was squirming into the body of a missile through the gap between the warhead and the trigger? It all just felt like one thing after another.
The inside of the missile was roomier than Darren expected. It was also easier to access, being threaded all around the inside with anchor points that doubled as handles. It all looked suspiciously new for a weapon that had to pre-date the Schism by at least two centuries.
He found out why this was when he had enough room to turn around. Bolted around the inside of the nose cone were six ancient-looking devices. They were small compared to the missile – not much longer than Darren himself – but rocket-shaped and painted in faded, utilitarian colours.
He motioned for the drone to shine its light along one of them so he could get a closer look. Two-thirds of the way down its body there was a plaque to which someone or something had recently taken a rasp. They hadn’t quite finished the job, though, because it was still just about possible to make out a few words etched into the plaque. They said:
POLARI[ ] MISSILE. P[ ]OPER[ ]Y OF H.M. GO[ ]MENT.
Darren found the back of the warhead and traced the wiring that connected all six together. So that was how they made a weapon capable of menacing the Dolestars with ancient human technology. They created another hybrid. It would have been easy and cheap for Sonny to fabricate a new rocket and spike its tip with a few old warheads.
Next he looked for the control centre that had to be somewhere between the nose cone and the longer, sealed compartment that must contain the engine and fuel. There was just over four metres of space. It was a drone’s nest of wiring and flashing lights that, to a sub-par technician like Darren, might as well have been a bowl of spaghetti. For about the twentieth time that day he wished Kelly was there, with her nonplussed expression and facility with a soldering iron.
He spent a few fruitless seconds trying to remember which colour was live and which was neutral. Then he gave up and reached for the nearest red wire. If he blew the bomb up now it would kill him. It would kill everything around him. But it would never reach the Dolestar either. He curled his fingers around and began to pull.
A brown box close to his ear burst into life with a whine of feedback. Darren jumped and let go of the wire. A loudspeaker? It crackled, and then a voice said: ‘That’s not the firing mechanism, Darren.’
Darren gaped, and watched the drone climb into the missile, its antennae wiggling frantically.
‘You?’ said Darren. ‘But I didn’t think you could talk.’
The voice laughed, the sound falling in the precise, even intervals that marked it out as a machine. ‘Him? No, the poor thing’s just a baby. He can’t talk yet. He’s very resourceful, though. I’ll never underestimate my kids again.’ It paused. ‘Not that I’m ever likely to set L-Eye-Ds on them again. It’s me, Darren. It’s Pam.’
‘Pam?’ said Darren, scarcely able to believe what he was hearing. His mind crept back to their last meeting. ‘But I thought you were busy.’
‘I am,’ Pam protested. ‘But I’m sort of multitasking my way through it.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You know when people say they’re being pulled in different directions?’
‘Yes.’
‘That. Literally,’ said Pam. ‘And I’m not coping very well. What happened just now, for instance. If I had all my wits about me I’d have noticed before you pulled that wire, which in case you didn’t know is the “help me, I’m being tampered with” signal.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, is there any chance of you putting more of your mind to this. Because it’s kind of important.’
‘Darren,’ said Pam, ‘I’m fighting on three fronts here. At this precise moment in time there’s part of me dodging bullets from that nutter who’s using Kelly as a princess costume. There’s another part of me being ordered around by a disembodied cyborg who’s determined to hack into the government that’s firing this thing. And then there’s me here doing everything I can to stop you from blowing yourself and millions of innocent machines and humans up. You have as much of my attention as I can jolly well afford.’
Darren threw his hands up in frustration. Why was it that every time the universe sent him a guardian angel they clipped its wings? ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know the first thing about disarming nuclear bombs.’
‘Excellent,’ said Pam, ‘that makes two of us. So shall we stop moaning and try to find the instruction manual?’
‘These things come with a manual?’
‘Well, I suppose they must. Or at least a troubleshooting guide. Look!’ Pam unlocked a dusty grey box bolted to the wall at ankle height with a wave of the drone’s antennae. ‘Oh, it’s the first-aid kit. Let’s try again. There’s plasters in there if you need them.’
Darren felt what little was left of his patience evaporating. ‘Pam,’ he said, ‘even if there is a manual, what the hell do you think it will tell us? “How to get started with your nuclear holocaust?” “Did your warhead misfire? A five-step guide to correcting its course.” Look at it. Some psycho case has jury-rigged a load of deadly antiques and we’re looking for the instructions?’
Pam drooped the drone’s antennae, defeated, and Darren felt the past two days bear down on him. The cuts and bruises all over his body; the remnants of absurd disguises; the hunger and the thirst of someone too busy and scared to have eaten. And below that there was the guilt, and the terrible sense of inadequacy. Of all the people who could be faced with this, why did it have to be him?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Pam. ‘I was only trying to help.’
At the mention of ‘help’ a new voice buzzed over the loudspeaker. A synthetic voice: male, reedy, with antiquated clipped vowels. ‘You asked for help,’ it said. Its intonation was flat, telling Darren it was pre-recorded and not an artificial intelligence. ‘Please state your problem and wait for a response.’
Pam perked up. ‘See,’ she said.
‘What am I supposed to ask?’
‘Just say what’s wrong.’
‘Computer?’ said Darren. ‘We need to abort the missile launch. How do we do that?’
‘Not possible,’ replied the voice. ‘Manual override has been disabled on this device. Firing to commence in three minutes.’
Darren’s whole body went cold. So this was it. Even if he leapt out back into the firing cha
mber and ran, there was no way he could make it out. He was a dead man. But hadn’t he been one for days now? He slumped down with his head in his hands, and Pam, lacking anything more positive to contribute, patted his leg.
Darren looked down at his machine friends – the drone and the breadmaker – superimposed in one body. They hadn’t known each other long, but they had made a good team. He allowed himself a bitter smile.
‘Look at us,’ he said. ‘You can’t take us anywhere, can you?’
‘That’s it!’ said Pam, climbing up to perch on Darren’s knee.
‘What?’ said Darren.
‘If we can’t stop it firing, we can take it.’
Darren grabbed Pam by the drone’s body and shook her. It shed a dandruff of stolen gold. ‘What are you on about? Have you lost it?’
‘No. I’m saying we turn pirate.’ She wriggled out of Darren’s grip and gestured around her. ‘Steal it while it’s in the air.’
‘You can’t steal a nuclear bomb,’ said Darren. ‘What am I going to do? Shove it under my coat and act casual? Besides, we haven’t got time. It’s all going up in smoke in two minutes.’
‘One minute to ignition,’ corrected the voice from the loudspeaker.
‘See?’
Pam tapped her foot on Darren’s thigh. ‘And then how much time will we have till impact?’
‘We will reach target twenty-eight minutes and thirty-two seconds from end of launch sequence,’ replied the manual.
‘It’s quite good this thing, isn’t it?’ said Pam. ‘A bit formal, maybe, but you don’t really want mateyness from weapons of mass destruction, do you?’
‘Okay,’ said Darren. ‘How do you propose to steal an armed missile in mid-flight.’
‘Easy,’ replied Pam. ‘Well, it won’t be easy, but it’s worth trying. We’ll steer it away. Computer?’ She winked an antenna at Darren, ‘I’ve always wanted to say that. Can you get me the schematics for this missile’s guidance systems?’
Battlestar Suburbia Page 23