by Paul Teague
I know what Dad meant about that guy in HR now. ‘A viper’. He must have felt the same thing when he left his job. I don’t feel that I am much further forward. What do I know? Mum is missing, but is probably okay. That’s about it.
They are looking for her. I can’t progress that, I’m in their hands on that one. Dad, Harriet and David are safe. I haven’t seen them with my own eyes, and even though I am unsure of Kate, I do believe her that they are okay at least. They might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The worst that could happen would be that they were restricted to a certain area. The Red Zone probably.
And what about me? How did I get lucky? And why am I on the ‘biometrics database’ or whatever she called it? I know I’ve joined a lot of random mailing lists but I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing too sinister about most of the gaming sites that I visit. I’m certain I didn’t get myself onto any biometrics database. I really must read the terms and conditions more carefully next time I register.
I decide to focus on the facts. Dad, Harriet and David are alive and fine. Mum is alive – and I hope she’s fine. I’m certainly feeling much better after my time in the MedLab – or whatever it was that Kate called it – and the burger and chips that I just ate seem to have enabled amazing recuperative powers.
‘Am I okay to take a look around?’ I ask Kate, ‘Get a feel for the place?’
‘No problem!’ Kate replies, pleased to get away from the tricky and troublesome topics, I suspect. She looks very relieved that I’m changing the subject.
‘Kate,’ I ask, remembering that there’s one more thing that I want to ask her right now, ‘how did this place change so much, from the old bunker that we saw? It seems incredible, it’s like it’s a different place.’
Happy to move on to other topics, Kate introduces me to yet another new word. Who needs ‘home ed’ when you get to spend the day in a hi-tech, space-age military-style bunker? It’s doing wonders for my vocabulary.
‘Transmogrification,’ Kate declares.
This has the sound of something unpleasant that might happen to a cat.
‘Transformation using nanotechnology,’ Kate continues. ‘A technological based process that completely changes the interior of the building. It’s not technology that I’ve ever seen before, I think I’m probably as amazed as you are.’
‘How does it happen while we’re right in the middle of it?’ I wonder aloud.
‘When the sirens sounded, everybody inside the bunker went to the Holding Area. The bunker staff recruited for this mission had been briefed to do that, and our first role was to move any civilians who were in the vicinity into the Holding Area with us – pending formal clearance to leave and assume our duties.
‘We got to your dad and brother and sister just in time to secure them with us in the Holding Area.
‘The change process happened while the lights were out …’
She pauses as if considering whether to tell me something.
‘We’re still not quite sure why there was such a long delay with the lights coming back on.’
‘How come I got away with it, as I wasn’t inside the safe room with you?’ I ask, genuinely intrigued by this conversation now.
‘You got lucky,’ Kate replies. ‘The entrance is only a superficial transformation; if furniture, fixtures and fittings are involved I’m guessing it gets a bit messy!’
Whatever this was, it was pretty incredible. This place has been completely transformed. I know it’s the same building, the shape and layout is the same, but it’s as if the team from that home makeover show on TV have been let loose on the place after drinking way too much coffee.
‘How come you came to get me in those anti-virus suits too?’ I ask, squeezing out one last question.
‘We hadn’t had time to ascertain if the corridor was 100 percent free of any external contamination at that time, so protocols state that until we’ve completed that process, we have to use the suits … sorry if we frightened you!’ she adds in, remembering that she is talking to a youngster rather than an adult.
I ask Kate if it’s okay if I take a look around on my own. For someone who just spent twenty-four hours alone in the dark, I’m feeling quite plucky now. Burgers and sleep are amazing things, they can completely restore me.
‘Fine,’ she says, ‘you’re on surveillance wherever you go and your biometrics will only give you access where you have clearance.’
I’m not sure if this is useful information or a warning. As in ‘Don’t go anywhere you’re not supposed to.’
‘No problem,’ I say and I’m on my way, fuelled by a space-age burger.
I can remember most of the layout from my previous walk through, and even though it’s completely different in appearance, I can still find my way around as the corridor layout is exactly the same. Red Zone rooms are visibly marked as are Green Zone rooms. Even I can follow that. To get through any door you place your hand on a pad. Presumably it scans your hand in some way – something to do with your biometrics whatever it was – as I’m never blocked wherever I go.
The dormitories – Green Zone – no problem. The chapel – Green Zone – no problem. The broadcasting studio – Green Zone – no problem. Only it’s not a broadcasting studio any more. Now it’s a gym. I won’t be needing that right now – or anytime soon – so I make my exit swiftly.
As I walk through to the doors, I notice an area just along the corridor that I haven’t spotted before: Red Zone. Look, I’m sixteen years old, what do you expect? It was only a matter of time until I tried one of the hand pads on a Red Zone door. I know I’m on camera, I don’t try to hide it, because I expect to be denied access. No big deal.
When I put my hand on the pad, I’m half expecting that ‘Uh-uh’ sound that they use on that family quiz show when somebody messes up an answer. Maybe Mum’s right, too much time spent watching old clips on video websites. So there’s nobody more surprised than me when I place my hand on the pad and the door opens.
It’s dark inside at first, but the lights are wired to come on as soon as someone enters. It takes my eyes a short time to adjust, but as they do, they fall on three figures in what I can only describe as ‘pods’. They’re wired up to all sorts of electronic gadgetry, and they’re unaware of me.
At first, I think I’ve stumbled on some kind of sleeping area, but I saw the dormitories only a few minutes ago. They were Green Zone. This is Red Zone.
These three figures are not sleeping. They’re unconscious, restrained, they’re being kept that way by the gadgetry.
I recognize one of them: she was the lady who gave us our tickets when we came in – these must be the staff. Used to serving tourists. Caught up in something by accident. ‘Unauthorized personnel’ is what Kate would probably call them. Or ‘Unauthorized personnel, Dan’ more likely. Building more rapport.
One of the lights in the room flickers into life as I move further into the room. I don’t know why – or how – I got into this room, but I’m very pleased I did.
As the light adjusts to full brightness and my eyes acclimatize, I focus on another three figures held captive in these sinister pods. It’s Dad, David and Harriet.
Chapter Ten
Blast Doors
The device that quietly and undetectably pulsated in her neck was made of extremely advanced technology. Only a very limited number of people knew its source. It worked very cleverly in the background; she was completely unaware of its effect upon her consciousness. Those who knew how to look for the devices would have immediately spotted that it was currently in ‘receive’ mode. Somebody was controlling her thoughts, but not in a robotic way. Her device emitted a faint blue light. The untrained eye might have mistaken it for a vein in her neck. The trained eye would have looked specifically at the colour, because that was the most crucial thing. Blue, red, yellow, purple, black or green – it made all the difference. She had full consciousness and complete knowledge of what was going on around her.
&
nbsp; She was not aware that her recognition of the child in the car had been suppressed by the device, but it had been, working away undetected in the background, filtering out the elements that would create a strong emotional response. Things that might distract her right now. It was very subtle. So as she rushed past the black car with her new companion, there was no glimmer of recognition. Neither the child nor the car registered in her memory, even though she was aware of both. She knew that there were questions to be asked about why the child had been in the car in the first place, but it was as if her attention had been caught by something else.
She had a very strong and compelling sense that she must take shelter in the bunker. But she’d come for the laptop, juice and Dan’s phone, and she’d even returned to the car to get one of them. She knew too that there was urgency and that they would have to hurry.
The sky was now darkening quickly; this appeared to be much more than a storm. It was unworldly. She knew it must be freak weather conditions, maybe a solar effect or something similar, but she instinctively felt that the siren and the darkness were linked.
The two figures rushed towards the cottage, through the doors, and with massive urgency they tried to make up for those few lost seconds when she’d returned to the car. They approached the bunker doors just too late. If only they hadn’t returned for the tech. They would have made it if they’d not wasted those vital moments. They approached the run-up to the blast doors as the gap between them began to narrow to a close. There was just time to see Dan’s face and hear his calls to them as the heavy doors shut tightly with a deep and final rumble. They were all alone.
Deceit
I’m stunned for a few moments as I look at the still forms of three members of my family in their glass pods. They are unharmed; I can see that no physical damage has been done to them. I can also figure out enough from the screens and dials surrounding them to see that they are alive.
I’m not totally sure what I’m looking at, but I’ve seen enough hospital dramas to know that these are monitoring life signs, and Dad, David and Harriet all have constantly pulsing heart rates and lively brain activity. In fact, David’s brain activity looks really lively on the screen. He must be thinking about his online game sites again. My instinct is not to panic, but I am suddenly pretty angry.
It’s okay Kate saying that they have to ‘stay contained’ because they don’t have clearance. I can accept that. After all, the alternative is to be trapped beyond the bunker doors. I’m happy that they’re okay. But I assumed that being ‘contained’ would mean being held in a comfortable room somewhere together. I didn’t think it would mean being frozen or put to sleep … or whatever it is that has been done to them.
The other thing that’s bothering me is that Kate has deceived me. She hasn’t actually told me any lies, but she hasn’t told me the whole truth either. For instance, my family are being held in a Red Zone area. I’m only supposed to have Green Zone access, so I’m not supposed to be seeing this. It makes me wonder what else is going on in the other Red Zone rooms.
And even more intriguing is why I can get access to these areas. It has to be some terrible computer error or glitch. Maybe they use the same dodgy operating system as me.
At the moment, I need to stay focused. I’m the best hope for Dad, David and Harriet. If I end up in one of these pods too, we’ll be at the mercy of whoever is running this place. I don’t get the feeling that anything sinister is going on, but I’d still rather be conscious and moving than stuck in one of these glass coffins.
‘Don’t call them coffins,’ I think. But that’s what they remind me of. Bearing in mind what’s happened in the past day or two, I’m pretty impressed with how maturely I figure out what needs to come next. Dad would be proud of me – if he was awake. I need to be cool about this situation, because if I cause trouble, I’ll probably end up in the same place as all the other ‘civilians’ in this room.
If I end up here, I won’t be able to figure out what’s going on. Dad needs me to make sure that somebody is looking out for them. And there’s Mum too. I can’t bear ending up in here and not knowing what’s happened to her. So everybody needs me to play the game with Kate and just keep things ticking over. For some reason I’ve got clearance to roam freely. Who knows why? That might change when they have more time to acclimatize to their new surroundings, or when they get their mission instructions. The best bet is to stay cool, keep off the radar and maintain a low profile. Great strategy, Dan. Because at that very moment, Kate bursts into the room with two armed guards at her side.
The World Sleeps
The darkness crept across the surface of the Earth, obliterating all light, filling all spaces that it encountered. It began with the skies, but it moved across the Earth, permeating the seas, blocking the sun’s rays, extinguishing all flames.
Many things could be planned for in advance. Nuclear power stations closed down, one by one, under government instructions. Just a routine drill, a test for a ‘national emergency’. It didn’t matter what the excuse was, they were used to instructions like this ‘from above’. They just did what they were told, when they were told.
Most flights were grounded, but you can’t account for everything. In matters like these, you can’t save everybody. What else can you do if you need the whole world put to sleep for a while? Some lives are bound to be lost.
All in all, it was as well executed as you could hope for. So that when the freak global weather patterns turned from grey skies, to black, and then something much, much more sinister, most of the world had pretty well stopped itself.
When the final surge of blackness came, there was just enough time for the internet to go crazy with conspiracy theories, religious predictions and apocalyptic scenarios.
If only they had known before they slipped into that deep slumber, the biological stasis that the darkness brought with it. This was no Doomsday scenario. The darkness had been unleashed across the planet specifically to prevent the destruction of the Earth.
Conscience
Loyalty can be a funny thing. It can change in the blink of an eye. He’d never before questioned the work that he was doing or the tasks that he was asked to do. He understood that governments have to act for the ‘common good’ and that sometimes people had to do things that might make the ‘ordinary’ man or woman uncomfortable. But being responsible for the death of a child? That can never be justified. So on the day that he drove away from that desperate scene, his loyalties changed. As the sight of a crowd gathering around a dying child at the roadside grew smaller in his rear-view mirror, his conscience kicked in. He knew that he could not question his orders or challenge what had just happened.
He couldn’t even explain it. Asking questions, making waves and prying into the mission outcomes would not get him any closer to the truth. He would need to maintain his cover, keep his poker face on. But he was not a child killer. And he was not going to let the loss of a child’s life go unchallenged.
Nor was he a fool. The machinations of the shadowy figures in his organization sometimes took years to play out. So it would be with the death of this child. He was a patient man; he knew the importance of the long game. So he would wait and watch. But the death of this child had not gone unnoticed. And he would make sure that the young life that he had just helped to end would not go unavenged.
Chapter Eleven
Grounded
Kate looks as much troubled as she does annoyed. She can’t explain how I got in here, but she knows that she’s going to have to think of something quickly. And I must have the same look on my face that I did when Mum caught me hunting in her wardrobe for my birthday presents. That guilty look of somebody who knows that they’ve just been caught red-handed and knowing that they have some serious explaining to do.
Fortunately, Kate speaks first.
‘Dan, we’re really disappointed to find you in here,’ she begins.
Darn, she used the ‘disappointed’ word. I remember eve
rybody wheeling out that one when I was having my problems at school.
‘The incredible thing is that you seem to have full clearance across the bunker,’ she continues, ‘so you are in fact authorized to be here.’
Phew, advantage Dan. She doesn’t want me here, she doesn’t like me being here, but it appears that there’s not much that she can do about it.
Time to go on the offensive, but she gets in before me.
‘We need to explain what’s going on, Dan. I’m sure you must be shocked to find your family like this?’ she says.
Kate is good. In fact she’s very good. She has this knack of seeing what’s going on in my head, then dealing with it in a way that answers all of my questions. Yet it leaves the biggest questions unanswered still.
How does she manage that? I think back to Dad and his rants about the HR people at his work. ‘People must make a living out of this,’ I think to myself, ‘of saying one thing, then meaning another thing entirely.’ Maybe politics will eventually make sense to me after all.
‘Your Dad and your brother and sister are in stasis,’ Kate explains.
I decide to let her say what she wants to say, uninterrupted. I hope Dad can’t hear this, I wouldn’t want him to think that this ‘not interrupting’ thing is going to become a habit anytime soon.
‘They were exposed to the darkness beyond the blast doors when the sirens went off. You were all caught in the corridor.’
‘So was I!’ I interject.
‘Here’s the strange thing, Dan,’ Kate continues.
She’s doing that ‘Dan’ thing again. It works every time with me.
‘We checked you out thoroughly in the MedLab and you’re absolutely fine,’ she explains, raising another mystery rather than solving any.
