The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  Suddenly the surrounding darkness disappeared and she skidded to a halt inside the brightly-lit space. She whipped around and looked back into the dark control room.

  Mat had the laptop and tablet in his hands and was running towards her, but Tessa had doubled back to get her bag.

  “Leave it!” Noah was yelling.

  “It’s got the other tablet!” Tessa shouted and, swinging her arm wide, grabbed it from a worktop.

  Mat cleared the threshold and quickly set everything he was carrying down on the floor.

  “Tess, come on!” Pavna held her arms out through the open doorway.

  A metallic buckling sound came from the far side of the control room, followed by a high-pitched hiss.

  “Oh shit,” Noah’s voice barely managed a whisper, “It’s gonna… Tessa run!”

  Sabine could see that Tessa was already doing so at considerable speed. A mechanical click came from within the Glaucus Ring that surrounded the door. Tessa shot through the doorway and Pavna caught hold of her, just as the interlocking plates spiralled closed. The matching set of interior plates closed into place and the room fell quiet. The only sound now was of each of them regaining their breath.

  EXODUS

  Megan knew that the ARC would still be accessible for several years but, for her, today’s exodus marked the end of an era. The focus would now be on tackling the issues of the present, rather than preserving an inaccessible version of the past.

  Over the last few hours, traffic within the ARC itself had dwindled drastically as people took up residence on the various vessels that would be leaving Pico Island. There were still large items of heavy machinery at the ARC, but the priority had been placed on people, and technology that could be carried by hand. If the trip to the equator worked out, then there would be other opportunities to return and collect the secondary items.

  She continued walking and entered the common area, where people were still packing up. Through the bustle of activity, she could see Nathan Westhouse shaking hands with a few people.

  Under different circumstances these parting handshakes should have included Jim Broxbourne and Terry Ford but, as she knew very well, life didn’t always work out the way you wanted it to.

  Like every person operating under Archive’s broad reach, Jim had been working ‘For the good of Mankind’. His unique and covert take on this mandate had resulted in many ‘substandard’ people being saved over the years.

  Even after Broxbourne’s death, the screening for augmented individuals had continued. With every passing year, more had arrived at the ARC. It had almost become a safe haven for the genetically different.

  “Megan,” Nathan called and walked in her direction.

  “Hey Nathan,” she said, “Can you give me a hand in the ready room?”

  “Sure,” he walked alongside her.

  She made her way through the mostly empty central control room. She could see Marcus hunched over his laptop, wearing his characteristic frown.

  “Speaking with Rachel,” Nathan said, “She thinks that we’ll probably have to decommission the Iseult when we all reach the equator.”

  “Wow,” she laughed, “I’d no idea that old thing was still going.”

  Marcus looked up from his laptop as they passed him, “You talking about me?”

  “Yes,” she joked, “How’s it coming?”

  “Event log’s working,” he shrugged, “but I still need a few hours.”

  Megan nodded and walked into the ready room.

  Undoubtedly there were bigger rooms that had been cleared, but this small space seemed somehow emptier than any other room at the ARC.

  “Is it just these two?” Nathan pointed at some packing crates on the floor.

  “I can take the small one,” she said, “I just need a minute.”

  She cast her eyes around the space.

  At the centre of the room was an area that seemed much larger than the briefing table that had once been there. Broxbourne’s imposing desk and chair had been replaced by dust-grey outlines and a worn patch on the floor. The shelves that had once proudly displayed multiple framed photos now supported nothing but thin air.

  She found herself staring at the one remaining frame that hung on the wall, and the red line that she’d drawn around it earlier in the day.

  Nathan quietly arrived next to her. Like his mother, he seemed to have a knack for reading people’s mood.

  “It was a nice touch,” he said, “It meant new beginnings, right?”

  Megan thought about the numerous occasions that she’d seen the broken circle symbol over the years, the strongest memories being within a London skyscraper.

  “Depends on who you ask,” she said, “but yeah.”

  Nathan picked up the larger packing crate, “Ready?”

  “Yep,” she smiled, knowing that it wouldn’t fool him, but hoping that it might make the departing a little easier.

  “As backup plans go,” Nathan glanced at the stacks of metal at the side of the room, “It’s the best we can do.”

  Megan nodded and began pulling her thoughts back toward the present day. She collected the small crate from the floor and turned away from the old Exordi Nova symbol.

  The new beginnings sentiment had never been more relevant, she now thought; the world they were about to venture into would bring its own set of challenges.

  AIR

  In the quiet of the ready room, Mat found himself dragging deep breaths along with everyone else.

  “Everyone OK?” he managed, and saw that the others were nodding.

  Although they’d made it safely through the door, they were now in a small, sealed room. Oxygen would soon become an issue.

  Sitting on the floor, Noah suddenly looked directly ahead, “Perfect…”

  Mat turned to see that a bright red Exordi Nova symbol had been sprayed over the far wall.

  “This whole thing’s been a trap,” Noah dropped his head just as a pumping noise began from behind the plates in the door, “And now they pump out the oxygen-”

  “Talk less,” Pavna cut across him and gave a quick glance in Ebony’s direction, “Breathe slowly, OK?”

  Although Mat could see that Noah wasn’t handling the situation very well, Tessa appeared much more collected. Her eyes were darting around the room, but the look was one of calculation not anxiety.

  “What have you got, Tess?”

  She stopped walking and faced him.

  “The fact there’s so little in this room tells us something.”

  “Like what?” said Pavna.

  “It means that the stuff that is here is significant,” she made overlaying, twisting motions with her hands.

  “We just need to see how they fit together?” he guessed.

  “Exactly,” she said, “Look, everything that we’ve seen so far tells us that the ARC was cleared of anything useful.”

  “And?” said Noah.

  “And in this one room,” she looked around, “someone just so happens to leave a pile of useful metal, and a picture on the wall?”

  Sitting on the neat stack of metal, Sabine cleared her throat.

  “The circle,” she pointed to the symbol, “It attracts our attention to the picture.”

  Mat looked at the blueprint that was mounted on the wall: the Westhouse designs that had made the construction of the ARC a possibility.

  During the many briefings he’d received in this room, the framed image had eventually become a texture, absorbed within the surrounding decor. Now, in the absence of all other distractions, the Exordi Nova symbol around it was trying to tell him something.

  New beginnings, he recalled the circle’s symbology. Despite their current predicament, he thought, someone was trying to tell them that their situation was not an ending.

  He walked closer and looked more carefully at what the plans were actually illustrating.

  “Pav,” he called over his shoulder, “You remember Tristan telling us about Broxbourne’s firs
t visit to his dad?”

  “When he saw the capsizing yacht model?” Pavna joined him.

  “Yep, the yacht’s Glaucus Docking Ring had an integrated rescue pod.”

  He ran his hand over the blueprint.

  “But Mat,” she said quietly, “we know this sphere doesn’t have an escape pod.”

  Mat found himself grinning.

  “Broxbourne went one better,” he pointed at the plans, specifically at the place where the ready room was connected to the control room, “This whole sphere is the escape pod.”

  Pavna physically backed away and looked around the room.

  “It’s…” she looked at the lighting overhead, “It’s why everything else was being shut down… to power this.”

  He hadn’t noticed it, but the others had of course been listening to their conversation.

  “Why didn’t the computer program tell us?” said Noah.

  “Maybe it did,” said Tessa, “but we couldn’t see it ’cos the screen was dead.”

  “We need to get that laptop plugged in,” said Pavna, “ and see if we can work out how to launch this thing.”

  “Sabine,” Tessa pointed to the stacked metal, “Are there any computer ports behind there?”

  Sabine carefully sat Ebony down on top of the stack; after quickly making her way along its length, she turned and shook her head.

  “What are we missing?” Mat looked at the others.

  Unless they found a way to launch, no amount of circular-symbol best wishes would change the more pressing issue that breathing would soon become a luxury.

  “Ebony,” Sabine gestured for her daughter to join her again and sit at her side.

  Ebony drew up her feet and climbed along the stacks of metal, using alternate hands to transfer herself between the handles that were attached to the nearby wall.

  Mat realised that he’d been so preoccupied with what had been removed from the room that he’d missed the addition of something new.

  “They weren’t here before,” he pointed at the handles.

  “Maybe Broxbourne got old,” said Pavna, “and used them to support -”

  The pumping sound that had begun a minute earlier abruptly ceased, leaving the room in silence.

  A low vibration passed through the floor under their feet. Mat watched as the Fai tablet that was resting on top of the laptop slowly slid onto the floor.

  It suddenly dawned on him.

  The reason for the one minute countdown hadn’t been for the sake of courtesy, it was because the entire process was automatic and unstoppable. Although the laptop screen hadn’t been able to show them the purpose of Broxbourne’s room, the separation process was presumably still running.

  “Grab a handle!” he yelled, “Now!”

  A loud ratcheting sound vibrated through the door and the surrounding air.

  Moving as fast as he could, he snatched the laptop and tablet from the floor. Stuffing them both into the bag that still hung around his neck, he dashed to join the others. Perhaps taking their lead from Ebony, they were sitting on the stacks of metal and holding onto the wall handles.

  Sounding like a machine-gun had been fired at the sphere, a series of metallic clangs rang out. Mat could picture the retaining bolts outside being detonated as the ready room severed itself from the rest of the ARC.

  “Hold on!” he yelled and turned to Pavna, “Whatever happens next, don’t let go.”

  A metallic screech shot through the walls, followed by a hydraulic hiss near the door. Although nothing visibly changed within the room, he felt his whole body sway as the massive sphere ejected itself sideways from the ARC.

  He pictured their sphere beginning to rise through the water like a bubble of air, but the tiny porthole in the room showed nothing but black seawater beyond its glass. He desperately hoped they weren’t travelling in the opposite direction.

  Throughout the curving walls, low-frequency pops and reverberations began to punctuate the silence. The sphere was adjusting to a change in depth; the metalwork either contracting or expanding under the pressure.

  As he turned to look at Pavna, his head suddenly felt heavy and he wondered if oxygen deprivation had already begun. Pavna seemed to be noticing the same thing and he saw her experiment with moving her head around.

  Her eyes flew wider open, “We’re rolling!”

  There were no visual cues inside the sphere, but he now realised that they mustn’t be sitting upright anymore; his head was heavy because they were being tilted onto their backs.

  The metal against his back began to press into him with the force of his own weight. It seemed that the stack of metal had been tethered in place but, in their new orientation, the individual pieces were beginning to shift as the sphere rolled.

  The much smaller Glaucus escape pods had been designed to have positive buoyancy, he just hoped that this room was similarly equipped. But when he looked at the porthole again, he saw it was still dark beyond the glass.

  “Please be right,” he murmured, staring at the red circle ahead of him.

  There was a clatter a short distance away and he felt the metal underneath him settle. He heard Noah let out a short growl of pain.

  “Noah!” Tessa shouted.

  “I’m alright,” he called out, “Damned beam just pinned my leg for a sec. Why load up the room with so much of this crap?!”

  The lights flickered and went out.

  More distortion noises rippled through the walls and a repetitive low-pitched hammering began. In the darkness he could feel that the space was swaying again. But, he suddenly noticed, the room hadn’t continued to roll over; the sphere had stabilised into a new position.

  In the darkness, he turned to Pavna to tell her, but was immediately distracted by a new light source. Beyond the glass in the porthole, the seawater was now a dark-blue colour.

  “Maman, c’est bleu!” Ebony called out.

  The room continued to sway and the porthole became brighter still. He now knew for certain that they weren’t sinking. But what would happen when they reached the surface was still unknown. It was possible that the automated procedure might simply end, or it might helpfully open the door and flood the sphere.

  The low-pitched hammering noise stopped and the lights flickered back on.

  Mat eased himself upright from the reclined position that the sphere had forced on him. What he was seeing and what he was feeling didn’t match; as though gravity was acting diagonally. It took him a moment to reorient his mental picture to adjust to the idea that the room itself was tilted. He could see that Pavna and the others were having similar difficulties.

  It was only then that he understood why the sphere had been purposefully loaded with so much metal in one place. By weighing down one side of the sphere, the other side would tilt up. When the sphere reached the surface, the airlock door would be above water and free to open. Presumably, he thought, these finer points must have been within the data that the laptop had been unable to show.

  “Don’t stand up yet,” he called out, “We’ll hit the surface soon and it’ll get rough.”

  “Assuming we can get out of here,” Pavna reached for her radio handset, “Lucy should be able to hear us.”

  The lights flickered again as turbulence suddenly increased.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Their slow but significant acceleration up from the depths came to an abrupt end. As they hit the surface, Mat felt the sudden deceleration in the pit of his stomach. The room dropped again as the sphere negotiated its way toward a new floating position.

  “Everybody up!” Mat staggered to his feet and looked at the airlock door, which had remained closed.

  “New problem,” Pavna seemed to voice his own thoughts.

  “How do we get it open?” said Noah.

  “No,” he stared at the flashing green light that was next to airlock, “The new problem is how we get it open from down here.”

  The sphere’s new orientation had pla
ced the airlock above their heads.

  “Damn,” said Noah, then glanced behind him, “Could we use some of this junk?”

  “It’s attached to the floor,” Tessa shook her head.

  Amid the room’s incessant swaying, Mat became aware that Pavna was holding Ebony. His first thought was that something drastic must have happened; Sabine always kept a tight hold of her daughter.

  “Pav, what’s hap-” he stopped and stared.

  Sabine was climbing her way up toward the airlock door. The handles that had been attached to the circumference of the room were now like a ladder to her. About halfway up, when the slope became too steep, she changed her approach; hooking her toes under the handles to give herself additional grip. As she neared the door overhead, she switched to her hands only; using her bodyweight to swing between handles.

  Without warning, the door suddenly spiralled open, sending in a blast of cold air and causing Sabine to falter mid-swing. Dangling from one arm, she quickly recovered and swung herself forwards again, grabbing hold of the last handle. Assessing the doorway, she quickly adjusted her grip, turning her back on the opening.

  It took Mat a second to realise she was positioning herself so that she could use the door’s rim to climb out through the hole. The room continued to sway in the wake of the sea’s turbulence, swinging her from side to side as she hung from one handle.

  Moving cautiously, Sabine released one hand and took hold of one of the metal plates that surrounded the doorway, as though testing it for grip.

  “The water sensors,” Noah barely whispered, “What if spray from the sea -”

  “It won’t,” he hoped the door wouldn’t snap closed.

  Sabine seemed to find a gripping point on the metal plate and transferred her weight. Again, for a moment, she hung from one arm whilst finding her next hand hold. As she began to pull herself up, Mat could almost feel the strain burning in his own arms.

  “Come on,” he willed her on.

  She thrust an arm forward out of view, followed swiftly by the other. Her legs kicked through the air, as though she was trying to give herself extra momentum. The flailing quickly stopped and she hauled herself up and out through the doorway.