The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  He heard the high-pitched whine of the rotors beginning to spin up, and felt the slight vibration as the machine balanced itself. A few minutes later, they left the islands behind and continued their journey south.

  He pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and ran his fingers over its glassy surface. It had belonged to General Napier who, presumably, was now long-dead in a basement at Andersen Air Force Base. Bradley had only taken the phone from Napier to prevent him from raising the alarm; in a collapsing world, the last thing that Bradley needed was to become the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

  He sighed and stared out of the window.

  He pressed his thumb against the glass and closed one eye. From this perspective, the entire collage of fractured moon rock was hidden from view. Somehow the idea that the lunar shards could pose any threat at all now seemed preposterous; a fanciful tale, not unlike the many lies he’d helped Archive to sow over the years.

  He opened both eyes wide again and the optical illusion was undone; the threat of the broken Moon shifted back into view.

  BLACK BOX

  After crawling along ladders, running and jumping across the slick Parisian rooftops, he’d picked up an array of injuries. Assuming they made it out of France alive, he’d be rewarded with some painful reminders of the experience.

  When they’d eventually returned to street level, the crowds had disappeared. Rapidly developing mutual distrust ensured that any individuals they did meet gave them a wide berth; at this precarious time it was best to assume hostility.

  Seeking refuge from the night rain, they broke into a boarded-up petrol station. The pumps had been bled dry long ago, but it wasn’t fuel they needed. Marcus had selected the station because it was built at the base of a cell network mast.

  The building’s interior had been cleared of supplies and in some places the shelves were also missing. They made their way past the empty till and through to a workshop at the rear.

  Stripped of its hubcaps, parked over the room’s vehicle inspection pit, was a modern-looking car. A hose was protruding from its petrol tank and the partially dismantled engine was clearly visible. Rather than use jump leads, which lay on the floor nearby, it seemed that someone had opted to take the car’s battery instead.

  This vehicle was going nowhere.

  Marcus looked around the remainder of the room and located the main fuse board. A quick check revealed that the cell network mast was active and taking its power from here. As he’d predicted, despite the dire circumstances, Archive needed to maintain communication.

  While Sabine investigated the room for supplies, he opened up the laptop and set it on a nearby workbench. After it had booted up, he continued studying the data.

  Several hours ago, he’d discovered a breach in Archive’s security. It hadn’t been anything proactive on his part, the firewalls surrounding their servers had simply been deactivated by someone called General Napier. Everything that Archive had been involved with for the past decade had become instantly available to anyone with a web connection.

  Before Marcus had left the Warren, he’d discussed many things with Monica, but the new Archive files left nothing to the imagination.

  From what he’d learnt so far, there were various underground survival villages in several places around the world. Locations, names, access codes, even personnel details had been left unlocked for anyone to find.

  He had no way of knowing if Monica had independently acquired any of this data, but he thought it best not to leave anything to chance. If he could get back to the Warren unscathed, then they’d have a serious advantage in the months to come.

  At the other side of the workshop, Sabine was pulling back a dusty old tarpaulin that covered an even older and dustier black car.

  Black, he thought.

  Suddenly he found himself staring at the laptop screen. He had the overwhelming feeling that something was out of place, something on the periphery of his vision that was falling into a perception dead-spot.

  With a creeping dread, he now saw it: an unobtrusive, tiny black box in the upper-right part of the screen. Most people would simply mistake it for a dead pixel, but he knew what it truly was. Using the screen’s sync and refresh routines to divert screen content data, the laptop had been quietly recording everything he’d done. It might also have been reporting his location when in range of open wireless networks.

  “Bollocks!” he slammed the lid shut, realising what had happened.

  When the firewall had gone down, anyone was free to take the data, but Archive had tracked where it all went.

  He turned round and delivered an angry kick to the workbench.

  “Their bastard ego-morphs are mopping up!” he continued to rail, even though he knew Sabine wasn’t understanding a word, “She’s been following me since…”

  He stopped as a sudden and blinding thought struck him.

  If the ego-morph had been tracking him, then she could have intercepted him at any time. Marcus could conclude only one thing: she was trying to determine where the laptop was going.

  The laptop and its data were now toxic.

  If they took it with them, then Archive could discover the Warren facility that was hidden next to their own USV. If they left it behind, then Monica would lose about a decade’s worth of Archive knowledge.

  Every moment they spent stationary increased the risk that they could be found. It was now utterly foolish to hope that Monica’s previous plan would get them back to the Warren.

  He needed a new plan.

  Reaching into his bag, he pulled out Woods’ inhaler and took a dose. Waiting for the effects to begin, he stared at the workshop that surrounded them. Slowly, its dark corners appeared to recede and a clarity began to permeate his thoughts.

  In normal life, Marcus found that problems were things to encounter and negotiate around. With the inhaler, it seemed that his thoughts were being transported past obstacles, to arrive at a point were he’d already reached a solution.

  As the plan began to gain form, he realised that the first step would be to make the laptop’s information useless. He also began to realise why the jump leads had been discarded, and why the older car had been so carefully hidden.

  Firsthand experience had shown him how stubborn modern car immobilisers could be. It seemed that someone at the workshop had simply sidestepped the issue by transferring the fuel and battery to the older car; a vehicle that could be reasoned with and coaxed into life with a simple twist of exposed wires.

  As the seconds ticked by, the other parts of his revised plan obediently arranged themselves into place. Taking advantage of the broader language bandwidth that the inhaler had given him, he talked through the ideas with Sabine.

  Several minutes later they were ready and, as discussed, she set the laptop down on the floor next to the electrical fuse board.

  Simply destroying the computer wouldn’t work. If their plan was to succeed then they’d need to trigger a reaction.

  Using the jump leads he’d found, he wrapped the red cable multiple times around a cylinder of scrap iron. After connecting the black cable to the fuse board, he made the appropriate arrangements to complete the circuit.

  He lowered his improvised device into place directly over the position of the laptop’s hard drive, then looked across to Sabine.

  Grasping the insulted handle of one of the jump leads, she nodded and took a deep breath.

  “Bon voyage,” she clipped the last cable into place.

  An electrical-sounding hum immediately filled the air. As the cable pulsed with alternating current, the induced electromagnetic field in the iron got to work.

  At first, the desktop icons remained steady, but then the laptop’s programs and services began to fail. Applications launched themselves only to shut down again instantly, processor temperature warning boxes popped up on the screen and then pixelated. The integrated graphics chip failed next, splitting the screen into odd, offset quadrants and turning the ov
erall result into a fauvist mosaic of its former self.

  Marcus knew that the data inside was burning. After this, no-one would be able to retrieve the information. He just hoped that the masses of Archive data they’d just sacrificed would be enough to secure their freedom.

  They disconnected the jump leads, and Sabine tossed them into the glove compartment of the old car. Returning to his side, they both watched the laptop screen flicker and twitch to itself.

  “Là,” Sabine pointed to the upper-right of the screen, where the black pixel remained.

  The tracking was still active.

  He knew they probably didn’t have long.

  NIGHT WATCH

  Afew moments ago, her smartphone had started receiving error reports from the laptop she’d been tracking. There was a small but real possibility that she could lose him. This was not something she’d want to try explaining to Archive. In an instant, her intervention parameters changed from Level Five to Level One: subject disposal.

  Anxiety and self-conflict were definitely increasing. She could feel it. That in itself was not a good thing. The metathene had always given her a clinical, detached edge on matters. However, in its absence she was finding herself increasingly swayed by minor indecisions.

  “M’as-tu entendu?” the man with the knife threatened her again.

  Archive’s standing directive had been to track anyone idiotic enough to have downloaded Napier’s files. What made her current target noteworthy was that he appeared to be constantly on the move. It was very frustrating. Another source of frustration was the pitiful attempt at a street mugging she was being forced to endure.

  It was delaying her.

  The whole situation was absurd, but it bothered her that she hadn’t seen the mugger cross the dark street. She attributed that particular oversight to the inconvenient lunar distraction; under normal circumstances she’d have detected his approach much sooner.

  “J’ai dit donne moi ta montre!” he pointed at her watch then glanced around himself nervously.

  Again she felt internal conflict over his request. The watch had been given to her when she was a child; a teacher’s gift that had reinforced how special she was.

  She imagined that most ordinary people would be feeling fear in this situation, but she was feeling something that was closer to outrage.

  In these types of exchanges, she knew that appearances were important. To him, she appeared to be a woman of slight build, perhaps wandering down the wrong street. A victim. It would be important to reinforce this opinion for the next few seconds.

  “H-Here,” she forced a stammer, offering her watch forward and unclipping it.

  It amazed her that people still held knives the wrong way up when attacking.

  The man’s eyes darted quickly to check the watch. It was only momentary, but it was enough.

  With one hand she grabbed his wrist, and with the other she hooked his elbow away from him. In the fraction of a second it took to unfold, he reacted instinctively and tightened his grip. The momentum of the combined actions delivered the knife swiftly into his throat.

  Again, she felt an emotional component flare; a displeasure at the imposition he’d dared to make. Apparently that emotion was called anger.

  Stepping to one side, she placed one leg behind his knees and brought him to the ground. As he hit the road, she knelt on his forearm to drive the blade home, then held his nose and mouth closed. The last thing she needed right now was further noise; her true target was only a few yards away and she didn’t want to risk the possibility of alerting him.

  Soon the man became still and she stood to regain her composure.

  As the sound of her own heartbeat receded, she stared at the dark street and allowed her peripheral vision to return. After a few seconds it became clear that the street was still empty. The only sound was from the recent rainwater trickling down the drain near her feet.

  Instinctively, she reached for the watch on her wrist but found it was missing. Evidently it had been thrown clear during the neutralisation. Stepping back, she checked the ground near the dead man but the watch was nowhere to be seen. With a sickening lurch, she realised it must have fallen into the open drain.

  The sense of inner conflict amplified.

  She looked further down the street; she needed to pursue her target.

  She looked back at the deep drain; she needed her watch.

  She couldn’t tell how many times the thought loop had repeated, but apparently a solution must have presented itself.

  Holding a warm-handled knife, she found herself walking stealthily towards a nearby petrol station; the last known location of her target.

  She quietly made her way through the open shop-front and between the bare shelves, her ears straining to pick up any sound. Moving through an open doorway at the rear of the building, she stepped into a workshop. A cone of dust-filled light illuminated the faintly petrochemical-scented air. The motes of dust were moving; something large had therefore been recently disturbed.

  Her target was here.

  From her previous observations, she’d seen nothing to suggest that he carried a gun, but before proceeding any further she paused to assess the room’s details.

  To her right, standing on the workshop’s concrete floor was an estate car. Probably less than a year old, it was now useless; its battery had been removed.

  To her left was a stack of packing crates; an ideal location for any assailant to hide behind.

  Bridging the space between the car and the crates, a tarpaulin covered the floor, beyond which was a workbench. Although the open laptop on top of it was facing away from her, she was sure it was the model she’d been tracking.

  Studying the scene, it seemed obvious that things had been carefully arranged. She was supposed to retrieve the laptop by walking straight over the tarpaulin.

  It only took a moment to spot that the grey cloth sagged slightly in the middle; no doubt it was covering the workshop’s vehicle inspection pit.

  A small part of her actually admired the audacity of her target; he’d thought several moves ahead and had planned to trap her. She found herself rubbing at the empty space on her wrist, but she was denied the tactile pacification that the watch normally gave her.

  “Archive’s little silver trinket,” a man’s voice reached her from the shadows, “It’s s’posed to make you feel special.”

  She didn’t know how, but it seemed that the man knew something about her upbringing. For the first time, she felt that this situation may not be under her complete control.

  “I saw you wearing the watch in the club,” he said, “I would ask what happened, but I guess you lost it in the fight.”

  For a moment she wondered how he could have known, but then she realised that he must be commenting on her bloodstained clothes.

  “How does an ego-morph get into a fight anyway?” he continued, “You lot are normally better prepared. Maybe going cold turkey on the metathene is screwing with your mental state.”

  “How…?” she reacted but stopped herself.

  “Previous experience,” he stood up from behind the crates, “You should put the knife down. We both know I ain’t here to fight.”

  Like herself, this was someone who planned ahead. The possibility of weapons must have occurred to him. If she needed to adapt to the situation then the knife was giving her a false sense of security.

  “You stole files from Archive,” she tossed the knife to the floor without breaking eye contact, “I want them back.”

  “I burned the data,” he walked to the laptop and turned it so that she could see the flickering screen, “But I’m sure if you remote scan the bios, you can check this is the machine that downloaded the files.”

  She reached for the smartphone in her pocket.

  “Easy,” he warned her, “Nice and slow.”

  She slowly withdrew the phone, “You realise I could just summon help?”

  “You won’t,” he pointed to the wo
rkshop’s garage doors, “The world’s ending out there. Nobody’s coming. Besides, you don’t want Archive to know how bad you screwed this up. I’m guessing ego-morphs are only as good as their last job. You don’t wanna do anything that’ll risk your cosy place in a bunker someplace.”

  She knew there was some truth to what he’d said. As soon as this mission was complete, she could return to Archive for debriefing, and they could replenish her metathene. Having full mental clarity again was something she deeply desired. The simple fact that she was experiencing a deep desire for anything was something she wanted rid of.

  Her phone reported that the laptop’s magnetic hard drive had been ruined, but the bios did have the correct identity.

  She’d still need proof that the data she’d been tracking had been destroyed. That meant acquiring the corrupted hardware; something he seemed to have worked out.

  “So. Here we are,” the man threw his arms wide, “You need the laptop. And we need to leave.”

  He’d just said ‘we’. Although she’d only been tracking him, it was possible that he had an accomplice. Someone that she couldn’t see. Her mental state was obviously more compromised than she’d realised. Sluggishly, the memory of the nightclub woman with the beer bottle returned to her.

  “You and your nightclub date?” she ventured, rubbing at her wrist.

  “That’s right,” he produced a metal lighter from his pocket.

  Previously, she’d thought the faint smell of petrol in the air was due to their location. But now she saw that the workbench under the laptop was wet.

  “The data’s already burned, but,” he waved the lighter in the direction of the workbench, “… well, you know.”

  If he lit the lighter, the trace amounts of fuel in the building itself could incinerate the room.

  A fragment of her ego-morph psyche reminded her that self-sacrifice was acceptable if it protected Archive. The larger, perhaps more emotionally swayed part of her, screamed for self-preservation.