by Scott Baker
Shaun saw the whole thing in the mirror.
‘Holy-fuck-me-shit,’ he muttered, wide-eyed and disbelieving.
Lauren, horrified and thrilled at the same time, was too glued to the horrific scene behind them to chastise him. Through the open back doors she watched the smoke, fire and carnage disappear into the distance before losing sight of it altogether as they rounded the next bend.
It was only then that she looked down at her blood-soaked blouse.
Then she felt it; across her right arm, just below the shoulder. A bullet had caught her and she hadn’t even noticed, but she noticed now. It throbbed. She stared as the blood spread over the white of her shirt. Shaun noticed too, and with a wave of fear he spoke, trying to keep his voice steady.
‘Lauren. Focus,’ he said as he brought her back to the moment. ‘I need you to guide me to the hospital. We need to get to the hospital.’
‘Something tells me they’re going to be busy tonight,’ she said slowly as she turned around, holding her arm. There was no humour in her voice, only horror and incomprehension. They were supposed to be going to England tonight. Shaun was supposed to be brushing up on his speech right now, not dealing with this … whatever this was.
Ten minutes of speeding later, he spun the wheel into the hospital’s emergency unit. He entered just as another six ambulances left, sirens screaming.
They were met immediately by medical staff rushing out. The staff looked shocked at the state of the paramedic truck but did not question it. The news had obviously reached here about the shoot-up on the freeway.
Good, fewer questions, Shaun’s brain voiced.
Gurneys and wheelchairs were waiting for them as they fell out of the ambulance in shock. He refused the chair, instead dragging the hobo out of the ambulance cabin and hoisting him onto one of the wheeled beds. Lauren, however, merely fell in a heap into the wheelchair that was offered to her. She sank down into the vinyl cushioning, and though her body stopped at the seat, her heart, mind and soul sank all the way to the floor. Within moments of the immediate danger passing, without the desperate need for survival, she burst into tears, overwhelmed.
Shaun stood on shaky legs as his wife, along with the man they had hit, were wheeled away by medical staff. He made to follow but his legs failed him. His first step held his weight; his second did not. Shaun fell to one knee alone in the middle of the emergency driveway. Both hands went to the ground. With chaos all around him, Shaun Strickland was alone, overcome with grief and unable to move.
Weeping uncontrollably, he sank to the ground.
CHAPTER 11
BRUSSELS, 2008 AD
The shovel penetrated the damp earth, slicing it as it went down. The archaeology student pushed hard, levering up another chunk of dirt. He had been digging all day, and had earned nothing but sweat for his trouble. He had come on this trip to Brussels thinking that there would be a lot of French, German and Belgian girls who would want to spend time with an Italian guy like him. His French was pretty good too, and he wanted the chance to practise it.
But there were no sexy French women here. There was little else but dirt and history. The site was close to the city, and right near the site of the famous Battle of Waterloo, but he did not care. He did not expect to find anything of interest. The site had already been dug so many times.
Silvio looked across at the nerdy guy he was partnered with. Alec was earnestly digging away, sweat beading on his freckled shoulders and dripping down his weedy arms. If only he would shut up about the history of the place. He was like a living textbook. The story might have been interesting too, if only it wasn’t coming from someone quite so annoying.
‘In 1814, twenty-five brutal years of war came to an end with the surrender of the French General Napoleon Bonaparte.’ Alec was in full swing. ‘Captured and banished, he was imprisoned on the Mediterranean Island of Elba. The remaining allied European powers then set about restoring the mainland continent to the earlier peace it had enjoyed.’
If the runt would do more digging and less talking, they might actually get through their required quota of holes before the afternoon break, which meant that Silvio could get home to prepare for tonight. He had heard about a bar not far from the hostel and he was keen to try his luck.
‘Things were all pretty good for a while, but then on the first day of March in 1815, Napoleon escaped from his island prison on Elba. Some say he bribed the guards, some say he was rescued by loyal subjects, but no one really knows who braved the waters to get him. He sailed to France, and people treated him like he was some sort of god. Nineteen days later he was Emperor again. His army rallied to him. The soldiers who had been captured during the years of fighting had been released, enabling Napoleon to reform his Grande Armée. The European allies prepared to resume war and to overthrow the Emperor for a final time—’
‘Seriously, do you ever shut up?’ Silvio grunted.
Alec ignored the interruption. ‘Napoleon resolved to attack the British, Prussian, Belgian and Dutch armies before the other powers could come to their assistance.’ He was getting excited now, his eyebrows leaping about on his face and his voice reaching a fever pitch. Silvio continued to dig broodily.
‘The Duke of Wellington took up a position on the Brussels road where it emerges from the woods of Soignies south of Waterloo. On the road at the southern side of the valley, below the second crest, stood La Belle Alliance Farm. That farm is where you and I are standing today.’
Alec finished as if waiting for applause. He did not receive any. Silvio was on his hands and knees using a soft brush to dust away at something. Alec peered down. He had never seen Silvio so interested – perhaps all his lecturing was finally having an impact. He did not really expect to find anything on this dig, he just loved the thought of being where it had all happened. He craned to make out the shape as it emerged from the dirt. There was no mistaking it. It was a human skeleton.
‘Does everyone die in this position?’ Silvio asked rhetorically some time later as he carefully removed dirt from around the hip area. The skeleton was almost complete and lay in the classic ‘white chalk outline’ pattern that looks like it’s running.
Alec was silent. They had been meticulously uncovering the form for about twenty minutes now, and had agreed not to let anyone know they had found something until they finished. They dared to hope and believe that it was a soldier. They would be heroes.
As they prepared to victoriously reveal their find to their supervisor, Silvio came across something else. Brushing away tentatively at the porous head of the right femur, he caught a glint of silver. His soft-bristled brush flicked away the dirt specks and more metal was revealed. A bullet! They had found a … wait. Silvio did not say anything at first, but within moments he alerted Alec to the shiny metal cylinder embedded in the bone. Silvio brushed frantically, intrigued.
Barely an hour passed before the two students sat back on their haunches, surveying their find. Complete with a decayed musket still clutched in its hands, lay the bones of a soldier from the Battle of Waterloo. Along the length of his right femur, a thin cylindrical object ran about a tenth the length of his thigh. It was the circumference of a dime and had several small markings, holes and, strangest of all, lights. One thing was certain: it did not exist in 1815.
SAN FRANCISCO, 2011 AD
David Black was about to hit ‘play’. This was his moment of truth. Five years of development had gone into cracking the encryption.
As one of the world’s best codec development software engineers, this moment was akin to winning Olympic gold. It hardly mattered to him that no one really understood what he did; he most often described himself as a ‘digital magician’.
‘Codec’, short for ‘compress–decompress’, referred to an algorithm that encoded video data to get a better picture quality for less storage space. Five years ago he had received this tiny circular disc, and he had been pretty sure it contained video data. The pattern of the blocks on the di
sc was sequential, meaning that something continuous was recorded, rather than chunks of data randomly placed fragmented all over the disc.
And now, finally, he thought he had it. Figuring out this compression sequence had been one of the most incredibly demanding tasks imaginable. It was so far beyond anything he had seen – like finding a rocket ship well before the Wright brothers ever soared down Kitty Hawk Beach.
Each new codec that came on the market had brought him closer to understanding the marvellous little disc, but the data had been woven into the molecular structure of the disc itself. With a little over two years of calculating, tweaking and recalculating, he had finally worked it out. It had become much more important to him to solve the equation than to actually see what was on the disc. He was into the math, which was lucky because his instructions stipulated that he was not permitted to see whatever images the disc held. He was well paid and working at the frontier of his field, so he did as he was asked.
The small room in which he now sat was dimly lit, with a couch at one end and several other comfortable chairs. At the other end was a large plasma screen. Sitting back, with his supervisor, he asked the two Europeans who had commissioned the project if they were ready. They nodded, leaning forward, their eyes glued to the screen. David hit play.
Nothing. Black. Shit.
David did not know what to say. He had promised them that he had cracked the codec, and he knew he had. There was data on the disc … but then white text appeared on the screen:
IDENT: 0012
SUBJECT: Napoleon Bonaparte
OFFICER: X10
It appeared for five seconds and then the screen returned to black. They all sat there stunned. The fact that there was only five seconds of image did not matter in the slightest to him; with technology like this, you either got it or you did not. David had retrieved the data from the disc, and he felt extremely pleased with himself. He only started to feel nervous when the visitors continued to sit in silence. He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. What did they expect?
Finally, one of the men said something to the other in Italian. The other grunted. Then the first man spoke again, his thick accent making it difficult to understand what he meant.
‘Of this, you have made another video?’ he asked David directly. It was his supervisor, Randy Bilis, who answered.
‘Ah, no – this is the only player in the world that can play this disc. As you requested, we only made one unit.’
The Italian spoke again, explaining to his counterpart. The second man, silver haired and larger than the first but without his associate’s thick, black beard, nodded slowly. Then he spoke. The first man interpreted.
‘My friend here, something different was expecting to see. Something with more picture. There is nothing else you have found?’
Randy, a forty-two-year-old Texan who prided himself on getting things done, slid off the table where he had been sitting, and stood above his clients.
‘This, gentlemen, as per your instructions, was the first time anything has been played from this disc. I have to tell you it’s hard to work on a codec when you can’t actually look at the picture you’re trying to see. We copied the data and monitored the signal with vector scopes, histograms, parades, you name it, until we were sure there was an image of some sort. Of course without being able to—’
‘The images are not of concern to you.’ It was the second man who now spoke. Randy and David looked at him in surprise. He had never spoken in English before. What’s more, his English was perfect, his accent French, not Italian. ‘There is nothing else on the disc. You are certain of this?’
‘The rest is just black. It’s funny, actually. I’ve never seen compression like this. That disc is capable of holding about twenty hours on each of its fifty platters – all up, that’s a lot of data,’ said David.
‘I see. And all this space is unused?’ the question was directed at David.
‘Ah, yeah. There’s no data there.’
‘Then,’ the large Italian man said, standing, ‘I think our work here is done. Thank you for all your expertise. We will take this unit, and as agreed, you will be receiving your final payment today.’
‘So, that’s it?’ David asked, as much to Randy as to their clients. ‘There’s no more? I mean, there’s some incredible stuff we could do with this codec. We could make a camera that records in it and sell the patent to, like, Sony or Panasonic or someone.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ the Italian man said. ‘I’m sure the non-disclosure agreements you signed will be honoured, as we would hate to encounter any legal difficulties.’
‘Of course,’ Randy said, jumping on the grenade.
David looked at his boss, suddenly realising how in the dark he had been kept. Randy had joked about this whole thing with David, about striking it rich. David was being well paid, at least by his standards, but he suddenly wondered whether he was getting stiffed on the payments too.
Hands were shaken and the unit – David’s pride and joy – was handed over to the Europeans like a farewell present. When the doors were closed and the mysterious clients were out of earshot, David exploded.
‘What the hell is going on? Not tell anyone about it? Randy, that compression is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s genius! Whoever invented it needs to be given a Nobel Prize, and now they’re going to beat us to the patent and we’re going to miss out. You said this was our ticket!’
Randy looked at him directly. He had known that this day was coming for a long time, but he had needed David to complete the project, and the only way he would do that was with the promise that he would get royalties from the inevitable sale and marketing of the new compression system. David was one of the only men on the planet who could reverse engineer the codec simply from the small amount of data found on the disc.
‘David,’ Randy said, looking as if he were about to give the explanation David deserved. ‘You’re fired.’
With that he turned and walked out the door, to be replaced by two burly-looking security guards who grabbed David firmly by the arms and escorted him from the building. As David’s protesting screams echoed through the empty hallways, Randy stepped out of the building and blinked in the sunlight, a satisfied grin spreading across his lips. He was set for life. Several million dollars had already been deposited in his bank account, and now, with the success of the codec, another fifteen million would hit it today. Randy knew that David was so brilliant in some ways, but so naive in others, and he felt nothing but overwhelming relief that five years of on-spec research had paid off. Five years since the Frenchman and Italian had approached him. It was a big risk, but he had done it, and no one knew. His clients had stressed the need for secrecy. He did not know or care why – the numerals on the first bank cheque overcame any initial misgivings. After that, he just didn’t seem to have any more.
David sat at the bar and signalled for another Southern-and-dry. The barman obliged even though he knew he shouldn’t. The straggly-haired, heavyset man who had been here all afternoon had confided that he had just lost his job, so the barman cut him a little slack.
Through the alcohol fog David saw something familiar on the television behind the bar. The picture blurred in and out of focus.
‘I haven’t been drunk for shhevral yearsh,’ David continued in his four-hour confidence. ‘I’ve lived the last two years going shhtraight home after I finish, but not today, no sireee, not today. Not home today. Shhayy …’ he said, with one eye open staring at the television. ‘That’s my home just there,’ he said, motioning his floppy arm towards the television.
‘That’s your home?’ the barman said as he towel-dried a glass. ‘Man, that house got shot up tonight.’ He reached and turned the television up, taking a closer look at his unsteady patron.
‘… no one home. Police are urging anyone with information to contact them about the whereabouts of the house’s sole occupant, a Mr David Black.’ An image appeared on the screen: David last
summer.
‘Hey,’ he said, pointing, ‘datsh mee!’ With this he promptly slid off the stool and crashed into an unconscious heap on the floor. David Black fell into a deep sleep, oblivious as the television went on without him:
‘… also killed this evening. One of the four other victims who worked with Mr Black at Newcom Technologies was his supervisor. Forty-two-year-old Randy Bilis is survived by his wife and two children.’
CHAPTER 12
When Shaun woke, the first thing he felt was the pain. Even before the light. His eyes were heavy. Impossibly heavy. He was lying flat. His head fell to the side. He saw a man standing next to a bed. He saw the man reach out and brush the hair off someone’s face who was lying on the bed. His eyes were so heavy.
He fought to focus. To see the face. To see Lauren. To see her alive, lying on a bed next to him. The man walked to an open elevator door at the end of the hall. The door started to close. The man turned. Shaun couldn’t see his face, but thought he looked familiar. ‘God, how long have I been asleep?’ Shaun refocused as another man walked over to Lauren’s bed, this one was wearing all black. He raised his hand and pointed; pointed with the long silenced muzzle of a—
Shaun woke from his dream. More pain. How long had he been asleep? He was slouched in a chair, his jacket around his shoulders. He had been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember what. He refocused. Looking over, he saw that Lauren lay on a bed not far away.
