The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  “I’m sorry, you gotta believe me! I remember passing out when we were back in London, but that’s it. I don’t -”

  “You don’t… have a clue,” Bradley seemed surprised, “But this other stuff… well I’d say we struck gold.”

  Marcus wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but knew that he desperately wanted to leave this dark place.

  “So you’ll try and get me out of here?”

  He heard Bradley laugh, then the silence resumed.

  •

  Marcus couldn’t understand why his friends hadn’t come to see him. In the quiet darkness it was difficult to know exactly how much time had passed, but it seemed that weeks had gone by since Bradley’s last visit. In a bizarre way, he was almost looking forward to hearing his voice again; he was the one person who had taken the time to talk to him.

  Suddenly a straw arrived at his cheek. He took it into his mouth and drew on the cold water. After a few seconds it was withdrawn again.

  “You can have some more in a minute,” said Bradley, “I help you. You help me.”

  “With what?”

  “Marcus,” he replied from near his ear, “I wanna know everything that Monica Walker told you about Sam Bishop’s little ‘substandard’ list.”

  COUNTERPOINT

  Izzy and Tristan raced through section after section of the ARC’s spherical domes. With any luck they could catch Marcus before he underwent the routine sleep calibration. The sooner they could let him know about the genetic marker problem, the safer they might be.

  They arrived at the entrance to the calibration room and saw that the inner swing doors were still moving; apparently someone had entered just before them.

  There wasn’t a moment to lose. Clutching the bloodwork results tightly in her hand, Izzy pushed open the door. The sight that greeted her was not what she’d expected to find.

  General Broxbourne, Robert Wild, Ian Holister and two sergeants were facing away from them. They were looking at two other men: Marcus, who appeared to be asleep in the calibration chair, and Bradley who was standing over him but with his hands raised.

  She felt herself freeze to the spot.

  “Secure the room, Sergeant,” General Broxbourne pointed at the entrance, and the nearest man immediately took up position next to the door.

  Broxbourne saw the bloodwork page in her hand and, before she could react, he took it from her. Without even looking at the page’s details, he faced Bradley.

  “Step away from Mr. Blake.”

  “General,” Bradley began in relaxed tones, “When I got here -”

  “I said step aside,” Broxbourne repeated and turned to Robert, “How long has he been in there?”

  Robert made his way forward and round to the other side of the monitoring equipment. After checking an LED display, he looked back at the General.

  “About thirty-two minutes.”

  Broxbourne’s jaw clenched, “Get him out.”

  “I’ll have to use the emergency exit,” said Robert moving swiftly between different pieces of equipment and flipping several switches.

  Suddenly the chair’s headrest and footrest dropped simultaneously.

  Immediately, Marcus snapped awake in wide-eyed terror.

  Tristan dashed forwards, “I’m helping him!”

  The sergeant nearest the chair was about to move to intercept, but Broxbourne shook his head.

  “Marcus it’s OK!” Tristan grabbed his hand, “I’ve got you.”

  Marcus seemed unable to form words. He simply looked blankly at each of them in turn.

  “Can you hear me?” Tristan tapped at his hand and gestured for him to look him in the eye. Although Marcus nodded, Izzy could see that his eyes were brimming with tears.

  “What did you do?” Izzy rounded on Bradley.

  Bradley ignored her and spoke directly to General Broxbourne.

  “Jim,” he said, “I came here lookin’ for Robert. I think the real question here is why he wasn’t supervising the -”

  “He was with me,” Broxbourne stated and turned to one side, “A serious allegation has been brought to my attention by this man.”

  Izzy could see that Broxbourne was talking about Ian.

  “Ian?” she said, “What… what are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Iz,” he looked nervously around the room, “I really am… I just didn’t know who I could trust.”

  “Why couldn’t you trust us?” Tristan stared at him in disbelief.

  “I do trust you,” he shook his head in confusion, “but I couldn’t let this go. He has to face justice.”

  “Who?” Izzy looked around the room.

  Ian raised an arm.

  “Him,” he pointed directly at Bradley.

  Bradley reacted with utter incredulity, “I never met that man in my life!”

  “With respect, Sir,” said Ian, “that isn’t true. I met you when you arrived at the Dover USV aboard the last train. I was the one who searched your pockets.”

  Ian reached into the envelope he’d been holding and pulled out a smartphone.

  “What’s that?” Bradley attempted a frown, but Izzy could see through the inconsistencies: he clearly recognised the device.

  “It’s General Napier’s phone,” said Ian, “You told me to destroy it.”

  “I did no such thing!” he lied, “Jim, come on. You think I’d -”

  Suddenly a tinny sound came from the phone; the sound of multiple noisy jets and heavy aircraft taxiing on runways. It seemed that Ian had started playing back a video clip. He held it up so that the others could see.

  The view on the screen twisted around until it pointed at a man’s face. Izzy didn’t recognise the flash-illuminated man, but she could tell that Bradley definitely knew who he was.

  “Did Napier have a pacemaker?” the man was frowning.

  “What?” the camera’s view rapidly changed perspective to frame Bradley Pittman looking directly into the phone’s lens, “Don’t think so… maybe he kept it quiet… I would’ve. Don’t matter now.”

  On the screen, Bradley gave a shrug then the view twisted away sideways and ended up in a dark pocket. The aircraft noise faded slightly and the audio became a little more muted, but the conversation continued.

  “Guess that was your first time, huh, Alfred?”

  “I’m not comfortable with the fact you killed him, but I understand it was for the good of Mankind.”

  “All o’ this is for the good of Mankind, Freddy! You just gotta pick a side.”

  Ian stopped the playback and handed the phone to General Broxbourne.

  Izzy didn’t know how easily the others would be able to spot Bradley’s minute facial contortions but, to her, his face was alive with a desperate struggle to maintain control.

  “Not your first time though is it?” Robert suddenly spoke up, “One-on-one kills are like a perk of the job for you.”

  Bradley turned his head slowly to look at him.

  “You better watch your damn mouth, Wild,” he threatened.

  “What about Dot Pittman?”

  “Last warning,” Bradley locked eyes on him.

  “Was there any remorse?” Robert seemed set on his path, “Or did it actually give you a sick thrill when you crushed your Mom’s throat?”

  “Jim,” he calmly turned to Broxbourne, “the crazy bastard’s lying, he’s try-”

  “You told me yourself!” Robert pointed at him.

  “Ha!” Bradley reacted, “I think I’d kind o’ remember telling you something like that!”

  “Would you?” Robert turned to look pointedly at the calibration chair surrounded by equipment, “Would you?”

  Izzy saw Bradley’s face collapse.

  “I ain’t…” he faltered and resorted to pointing, “that… thing…”

  It was almost painful to watch him slowly putting the pieces together: his utter loss of control, the calibration process he’d been through when he’d arrived at the ARC, and the fact that his own mo
ther’s invention had been used to record his confession.

  “You son of a bitch,” he delivered flatly.

  “There’s no point trying a counter-threat,” said Robert, “Jim knows all my sins. I’ve been paying for them for a long time. You… well… you’ve got nothing.”

  Bradley’s eyes widened and Izzy saw a new idea ignite.

  “Wait…” he wagged his finger at those around him, “Wait, I have got somethin’…”

  “What?” said Broxbourne.

  “OK…” he continued wagging his finger as he tried to construct a new bargain, “OK, the er, Evolution Safeguard?”

  “What about it?” the General folded his arms.

  Bradley turned to look in Marcus’ direction.

  “I got info ’bout a genetic threat,” he smiled triumphantly and looked at Izzy, “Right here at the ARC.”

  “Stop,” Jim held up a hand, “Don’t say any more. Not here. We’ll have this discussion in private.”

  Bradley now stood up straight and thrust out his jaw, “Understood, General.”

  Broxbourne nodded and turned to one of the sergeants.

  “Escort Mr. Pittman to executive suite D-One.”

  “Sir?” confusion passed over the young man’s face.

  “D-One,” he repeated.

  Izzy saw a look of recognition become quickly concealed.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Bradley,” said Broxbourne, “Speak to no-one. I will expect a full briefing in one hour.”

  “It’d be my pleasure, General,” Bradley smiled proudly, then followed the sergeant from the room.

  Izzy felt the situation falling out of their control. Again, Bradley had escaped punishment, and had just leveraged the situation to make it appear that she posed a genetic threat.

  “Sergeant,” Broxbourne called to the man nearest the door, “Escort Kitrick, Westhouse and Blake to my ready room. Now.”

  THE DEAD LINE

  Jim picked up a framed photo from the shelf near his desk. The couple staring back at him were so young and optimistic. So eager to make Archive’s ambitions a reality. But even back then, he and Gwen had been concealing their own goals. As he looked at his wife’s smiling face, he knew this was the right time. He turned to face the other three people in the ready room.

  “My wife always said that survival would come down to one thing,” he said, “Escaping the Dead Line.”

  “The what?” Marcus reacted as though the words had a significance for him.

  Jim returned the photo to the shelf and walked to the main table.

  “It’s what she used to call it,” he said, “The Dead Line. She always said the best hope for mankind was to escape our own evolutionary dead end. To escape our confined set of genetics.”

  None of them spoke as he reached into his briefcase and placed some old photocopies on the table.

  “I’ve seen that list before,” said Marcus.

  “You may have seen part of the list,” he corrected.

  “Whatever,” Marcus turned to Izzy, “I was there when Nathan Bishop gave Monica a photocopy that looked just like that one. Every one of them names has a genetic augmentation.”

  Jim eyed him carefully; clearly, he already knew a lot. Not for the first time, he considered how insecure Archive had truly been.

  Jim ran his finger across some of the red-lined names.

  “That augmentation is why we spent so long trying to find them,” he sighed, “It wasn’t easy. There were some who got away. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t regret the fact we couldn’t help them.”

  “What?” Izzy shot glances at the others, “You’re not trying to eliminate them?”

  Jim winced at the abhorrent thought and shook his head, “Of course not.”

  Sitting down at the table, he pointed at the red-lined names on the photocopies.

  “Gwen and I worked for years to rescue a handful of descendants of these names, and yet…”

  He unfolded Izzy’s bloodwork page and set it on the table.

  “… A few days ago, during a fragment bombardment, you both arrived here, on the same sub, and carrying the same genetic marker… The same one that Sam Bishop failed to identify.”

  He pushed the photocopies and blood results page across the table until they met in the same place.

  “I’m not a believer in fate or divine guidance, but everything about your presence here is impossible.”

  For some reason, Marcus chose that moment to turn to Tristan. Although they both exchanged a look, he couldn’t tell what it meant.

  Tristan broke the silence.

  “Or it’s a ‘possible’ that we don’t understand yet.”

  Jim felt a cold chill spread down his back.

  “It was something my dad used to tell me,” Tristan shrugged.

  “I remember,” Jim nodded, “Sebastian used to say that didn’t he? When you were doing homework together.”

  Tristan smiled, “He meant that we might not have the answers right now, but it didn’t mean we wouldn’t find them. It’s how he persevered with the Glaucus Docking Ring system.”

  Jim found himself looking at the framed blueprint at the other side of the room. It seemed that everywhere he looked, coincidences were multiplying. If he himself hadn’t acquired Sebastian Westhouse’s designs, then the various Glaucus-equipped facilities around the world would never have existed. The ARC itself wouldn’t have been possible.

  Looking at Tristan now, he found it hard to believe it had been 25 years since they’d first met. Under Gwen’s supervision, the young Tristan had been on the other side of some one-way glass, completing spot-the-difference puzzles. As Jim knew all too well, Tristan’s intelligence was as sharp as Sebastian’s.

  He gestured to the photocopies on the table.

  “Mr. Blake, you may well have seen these before, but they were missing some crucial pages.”

  Reaching into his briefcase, he retrieved several old pieces of notebook paper, and placed them alongside the photocopies. The now yellowed pages featured the exact same handwriting and red ink notes.

  “About twenty-five years ago, I met Dorothy Pittman.”

  “Bradley’s mother?” Tristan checked.

  Jim nodded and carried on, “There’d been a Heavy Rain false alarm, and we were all gathered in London’s Whitehall bunker… several people didn’t make it in time. It highlighted the flaw in simply trying to preserve a population. What was needed was a way to preserve human life in broader terms.”

  Jim pointed at the photocopies.

  “Dorothy gave me a few minutes to make photocopies of her father’s research notebook, but while I was copying it, I found a problem. I knew I had to act on it immediately…” he pointed to one red-lined name, “Do you recognise this person, Tristan?”

  Tristan leaned over and studied the line of text.

  “Margret Brentwood?” he said and then closed his eyes in recognition, “That’s my grandmother.”

  Jim nodded.

  “Several days before the Heavy Rain incident, I’d begun the process of acquiring your father’s Glaucus patents for Archive. Being thorough, I’d conducted a routine check of the Westhouse family tree. The Brentwood name only became significant to me when I saw it in Sam Bishop’s notebook a few days later.”

  “You said you found a problem,” Izzy studied him.

  “Margret was a carrier of an augmented gene set,” he explained, “A trait that is passed down the maternal line.”

  “So?” Marcus frowned.

  He realised that, other than his discussions with Gwen, this was the first time he’d talked openly about the subject. He cleared his throat and turned to face Tristan.

  “If Archive had discovered that your mother or you were also carriers, they would have invoked their Evolution Safeguard directive. You would have been terminated.”

  Marcus shook his head in disgust, “Execution by ego-morph, right?”

  “I did the best I could,” Jim pointe
d to the ragged-edged pieces of notebook paper, “I tore out Margret’s details and several pages either side of it, then made damn sure that I convinced your father to give us the Westhouse designs.”

  “By making him part of Archive,” said Tristan, “you guaranteed our safety.”

  “If someone else did discover that there’d been a breach in genetic safeguards,” Jim nodded, “then the Protected Lineage Directive would already be in place.”

  He saw Tristan take a deep breath.

  “Dad never told me any of this.”

  “It’s because I never told him,” Jim pointed out, “It was the safest option.”

  Marcus prodded at the modern bloodwork results on the table.

  “What about this?” he said, “What’s to stop Archive just coming for Izzy next?”

  A look of anxiety seemed to pass between Tristan, Izzy and Marcus. It seemed they all shared the same misconception.

  “I thought you all understood?” Jim spoke quietly, looking between each of them, “There is no Archive now.”

  “What?” said Izzy.

  He realised that perhaps he’d been living with the knowledge for longer than they had.

  “Archive’s purpose,” he told them, “was to save mankind from Siva. All of that ended the day that the lunar shards crippled the planet. Archive is… dead.”

  The news seemed to have genuinely stunned them.

  “All that’s left,” he looked around at them all, “is the people who survived. Those who made it this far.”

  Izzy exhaled, “You mean like Pittman.”

  “No,” Jim replied, “He’s finished.”

  “Really,” Marcus folded his arms, “Cos it looked like you just let him off the hook.”

  Jim looked over at the photo on his shelf.

  “Gwen always said that Pittman never really understood what Archive was about. She was right. For him it was about asserting his control… saving only those who could pay for the privilege. He thought the world would just dust itself off and he’d be left in a position of power.”

  “Mate,” Marcus gave a derisive laugh, “You just sent him off to an executive suite.”