The Last Mayor Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  Anna rolled on the floor as someone stripped her, and washed her burning skin with cold wet towels, and laid ice on her forehead. More hands took her pulse in a blur and stripped off her boots and socks, feeding a needle into her arm while someone else held her hand.

  Her eyes were blurred with tears and she began to sob.

  "Jake," she tried to say, though it came out garbled. "Help me!"

  "They've gone, they'll help your friend," a kind man's voice said. She barely saw the oval of his face through her tears. "It's going to be OK, I promise."

  She cried even harder.

  Finally they were helping her.

  INTERLUDE 4

  Outside the sun was rising, as the sixteen wall screens flashed to life around James While.

  He took up position in the center of his open office, facing out toward the Golden Horn. Rachel Heron appeared first on screen seven beside the window, as Head of the Logchain, followed by the rest of the SEAL cabinet; the Abstract Heads of Political Quiescence, Vision, Disarmament, Unification, Economic Flow, Persuasion, the Commons, and Space; the Advancement Heads of Apotheo, Free Radical, Aum Laxar; the geographic Heads of the Americas, Eurasia, Asia Pacific and South-East Asia. Last of all came the SEAL's originator and its continuing President, Olan Harrison.

  James While looked round at them, studying their faces and making mental notes, remarking the calm expression of Farthas Gurgen of Vision, the tear stains on Yalti Ibrahim Mohammed's cheeks in Quiescence, every detail a clue. Every one of these Heads, each a God or Goddess in their arena of responsibility, could have had Means, Motive and Opportunity to execute a plan of this immense scale.

  "James," said Olan Harrison, calling the meeting to order. "You called this meeting. What do you have for us?"

  Olan was an old man now, wizened but still alert, seated at the north of the circle. Forty years ago he'd founded the SEAL primarily to invest in new technology, raise standards of living and shepherd in a golden age for humanity. He'd been a billionaire since his teenage years, when he started and grew an early telecoms company into the modern-day backbone of global infrastructure. To say he owned the media would be an understatement. For forty years he'd laid down the cables and airwaves upon which all human communication was transmitted.

  He'd hired James himself; funding the competitions that had found him, backing his investments, setting him on this track to Cabinet Chair with oversight of the entire SEAL.

  "Sir," said James, and turned slowly, taking in the other Heads. Each of them showed the stress of the assault, though they masked it well. Their world was under attack and none of them had rested for a moment since the first strike that morning. "Esteemed colleagues. I'm afraid the prospects going forward are dismal."

  "An amputation?" Harrison asked.

  James looked at him, thinking back to the threat he'd made to Joran Helkegarde an hour earlier. To cut off one man's arm was such a small thing compared to what he had to offer now.

  "Far worse than that. I believe this morning was just the first assault in an apocalypse-level campaign. Reports from the Logchain suggest a weaponized form of the T4 virus was triggered early this morning by the blast on the hydrogen line. We didn't know this bastardized form of the T4 was even out there, but early analysis suggests it's in everyone now, everywhere. It could have been spreading for months or years. The signal sent from Alpha Array simply 'triggered' it, most likely in preparation for a second strike to follow."

  Surprise showed on their faces. It was the first time James had put this supposition into words, constructed from a hundred intersecting data points.

  "Triggered to do what?" asked Harrison.

  "I don't know that yet, sir," While answered, "though we'll have a clearer idea soon. In the last two hours reports have come in showing a handful of people around the world were thrown into comatose states by the signal. Some of these patients have been admitted to national facilities already, while we've swept up several ourselves, though we don't yet have total numbers. What we do know is they are already displaying preliminary symptoms of genetic type one." He gave a gesture and a hologram appeared beside him; a gray figure with bright white eyes. "Genetic type one was trapped in the T4 code, an enigma the Logchain has been working to decode for seven years. The changes thus far are minor, with a brightening of the eyes, some pallor in the skin. Rachel Heron's working hypothesis is that this signal may have functioned to ready the ground for a second one to come, in a sense 'vaccinating' the coma sufferers against a second attack."

  Harrison grimaced. "That's a lot of supposition. What's the second attack?"

  James nodded. "I know, Sir, but based on the capabilities we've seen to date, it fits the data. I'm projecting a strike on the hydrogen line equal to a massively infectious plague, powerful enough to wipe out human civilization entirely." He paused a moment to let that settle in. "With the T4 already out there, the Logchain postulates a widespread, near-instantaneous conversion to a number of genetic types, many as yet not decoded." A set of holograms flashed up alongside type one; first a red giant that towered over While, then a melted yellow thing, a twitching black and white creature, a wispy black wraith, a giant blue face, and more. "All the types we witnessed in the Arrays, split out like the colors in a rainbow."

  The cabinet were plainly shocked. They'd seen these types in footage from the Arrays, but not so clearly as this. The types as yet decoded from the T4 were a secret kept as tightly as the SEAL was capable of.

  "In anticipatory trials to date," he went on, "the Logchain has determined that all these specimens, compared to the more passive type one, are killing machines, jostling for position at the top of any predatory chain imaginable. If a second signal successfully triggers all those who remain un-vaccinated, which is the vast majority of the world, I anticipate total annihilation. What happened in the Multicameral Array will repeat itself in the wider world, without any boundaries. The human race as we know it will cease to exist."

  He paused and made eye contact with Olan Harrison. The old man showed no surprise. "Again, it's a lot of supposition. Is your basis for any of this solid?"

  "We have reports from the coma patients we picked up." James While made another gesture, and holograms of brain wave function appeared floating beside him. "They're already exhibiting signals that we can detect, tied into steep changes at the cellular level. Their brains are changing, their DNA is changing, and it looks to both myself and the Logchain like the wind-up to a second blast." He took a breath. "In essence, it seems they're being rewired to act as transmitters for the line, to further spread their own infection."

  Silence resounded. Eyes around the room flashed left and right.

  "So if this is true, then the end is coming," Harrison said, contemplatively. "How long do we have, and what do you suggest we do?"

  James While paced. "I can't predict how long, though we should have better data soon. I've already assigned our Bordeaux facility to begin the enormous task of tracking every coma-triggered person on the planet. Expertise and equipment are currently en route. I'm also launching an unprecedented review of the SEAL, to root out whomever was involved in this plot."

  He let that hang. They would surely know already that he was looking into them all, and be expecting this. Perhaps they wouldn't have thought it would be stated so nakedly.

  "You're investigating us," Harrison said flatly.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. Drill deep, son. Dig the bastards out. Don't let anything stand in your way."

  While nodded. "In the meantime, I would like to put motions before the Heads for an enormous resource requisition. I believe we need to invest in shielding equipment that will allow a portion of humanity to withstand the next hydrogen line blast, in the event it cannot be prevented. Lifeboats, if you will, to ride out the coming storm. Currently that kind of shielding equipment only partially exists, used to minimize ill effects at the Logchain. We will need a prodigious investment of qualified human capital to progress
the technology to a practical stage. At the same time we have to begin screening lists of survivors to place into these lifeboats."

  Harrison smacked his gums. "You want us to fetch the people and build the Ark before we even know if it will float."

  "That's right. We have to assume that the technology will catch up in time. To do anything less will be to leave the response too late. And I'm suggesting a dozen Arks, with three thousand per Ark. Those numbers should allow us to restart a modest level of civilization once the threat is passed. That is the level of thinking that is now required; planning for the continuity of our race. Currently we have several underground facilities that might serve, but we must build others, beginning today. I am sending projected sites out to you all now, with required roles."

  Silence met him. Eyes dropped as they opened their attachments.

  James watched them. His requisitions abandoned thousands of ongoing projects, but they'd seen the footage from the Multicameral Array. This was real.

  "Do it," Harrison said. "The SEAL is at your disposal. Start your preparations."

  James While nodded. He already had. Now his plane for the Logchain was waiting.

  * * *

  Joran Helkegarde slipped in and out of nightmarish sleep, punctuated by the hammering of the helicopter's blades and Sovoy's voice telling him to, "Shut up, stop crying, nobody cares." He saw bodies transforming again, and his Array in chaos, and all his one hundred subjects gone, while a nuclear bomb burst across the sky in his mind.

  The Array had looked so beautiful in the snow. One hundred young men swimming on an ocean of thought. Thought soup, Sandbrooke had said, but now Sandbrooke was dead, and he'd done it.

  His arrogance.

  He thought back to what While had said at the end of their conversation, with the knife still hanging over his eyes.

  "I don't trust you, but I don't have the luxury of writing you off. Find a way to stop a second blast and you'll have a chance. Show me how brilliant you can be, or this will be your life, and your legacy."

  Joran had looked past the knife hovering over his face and seen the lifeline being offered. He'd jumped on it greedily.

  The line had cut out, but the message resonated. While's offer pushed the pain and self-pity back, made the horrible visions of the Array fade. He started to think clearly, in methodical steps.

  Someone had used his Multicameral Array to launch an unprecedented attack on the world. They'd piggybacked on the first ever successful transmission from the human mind onto the hydrogen line, warping his moment of greatest triumph into his greatest failure.

  How?

  Now those moments came back to him, and he pushed the weakness away. Guilt would help no one now. He called to Sovoy, and kept calling until Sovoy woke up and came over, cursing and angry. But soon Sovoy sat down, and listened, and the light came back on in his eyes. They began to brainstorm. Ideas flowed, and a working theory started to form.

  The transfer off the helicopter happened but he barely noticed, locked into discussion with Sovoy as they wheeled his gurney out and down, carted deep underground. Before they were shoved into a shared cell off a plain white hallway, he asked for paper, pens, and to speak to James While.

  Half an hour after that the call from James While came in, carried on a laptop screen.

  He was standing in what looked to be the empty cabin of a luxury jet. Oval windows studded the rounded walls left and right, through which blue sky showed.

  "What do you have?" he asked.

  "It wasn't just Hello," Joran said hurriedly, keen to get it all out and prove he could be useful again. It was guesswork built on existing knowledge and hearsay, but it included information at its base that no one else had access to. "The transmission had to have been more. The simple binary toggle of yes/no on the line couldn't have done what we saw; not when the signal is made up of human thought already, not when we were just adding focus at a local level."

  While's face remained impassive. "You're telling me something I already know. I need more than that."

  "No, wait. You didn't know that. How could you? You may have assumed it was a complex code, but you didn't know that. Assumptions will get us all killed."

  While's expression hardened. "You're wasting my time."

  "Piers Sandbrooke," Joran blurted. "He's the only person who could have double-spoofed the transmission up the data spines. Nobody else had access."

  "Anybody could have hacked that system."

  Joran shook his head so hard his arm throbbed. "Not possible. There was no intranet to the data spines, no circuits to hack, and only myself, Sovoy and Sandbrooke could have pre-loaded the signal in, locked by biometrics. It would have meant going round to every pod and typing the code in manually, and no one could do that without being seen. Every pod in the underhall was staffed at all times, so it's impossible."

  While looked away for a moment, tapped on a keyboard they couldn't see, then looked back.

  "Those were security measures you never reported, not SEAL-approved. Still, it doesn't explain the fact that Sandbrooke died in the arena."

  "So he was willing to die for his cause. That's worth knowing, surely?"

  While stared. "I've just ordered the interrogation of his every known acquaintance and family member. If there's anything there we'll find it. What else can you tell me?"

  Sovoy tapped the white board urgently.

  Joran remembered. "Yes, brain waves. I'm willing to bet you're seeing subdued brain wave readings in all staff who were evacuated from the Arrays? Nothing massive, just rounded peaks and troughs, but a clear pattern with the shift localized from the pre-frontal cortex to the spine, where there's new activity."

  Now While's expression showed a faint ripple of surprise. "How did you know that?"

  Joran's heart leapt. "I didn't, it's a mathematical guess based on several theories we've just invented. That the line could have that kind of instantaneous genetic effect, it suggests deep, automated change. I think you're going to see more of that; the movement of consciousness into the spine." He was almost babbling now. "Those things in the arena were not thinking creatures, they were a regression. Get me some skull-caps and I can start measuring the changes in thought; that'll be a beginning to knowing what's happening on the line, and from there we can build up to prevention. I just need data."

  While looked at him for a moment, weighing his request. Then he tapped more keys.

  "Prove that theory. I'm sending you all the data I have. You'll be moved to a lab; you'll have staff and equipment. Get me hard answers and a solution before the second strike comes, and you'll turn your legacy around."

  He shut the connection. Joran looked at Sovoy and saw the excitement mixing with shame on his face. He understood it. It was selfish to be glad that their careers would be saved when thousands had just died.

  But it wasn't functional. Like a faucet, Joran turned the shame off. It wouldn't help him survive the days and weeks to come.

  LARA

  7. JANINE

  Lara didn't see Witzgenstein for three days.

  In that time they kept her locked alone in a sealed-off cube in the back of a semi-truck trailer with metal panel walls. There was a narrow cot with a thin mattress on the floor, a toilet that ran straight through a hole in the chassis, a skylight in the ceiling that was locked an inch open, and a single copy of the Bible.

  The trailer drove and Lara rode. They pushed food and bottled water at regular intervals through a sealed metal flap in the door. They pushed a damp towel through the flap once a day, which she used to mop herself down. At times she caught the sound of the convoy around her; other engines, other voices, but not many.

  Her jailers didn't talk to her. Nobody answered when she called out or banged on the walls.

  This was it.

  The prison rolled on, and she lay on the cot and gazed up through the skylight at blue and white skies, with her hands on her swelling stomach, thinking and not thinking. Sometimes long periods
passed where she could have sworn she'd been asleep, but could remember no moment where she'd opened her eyes or closed them. Time became a seamless stream of consciousness, broken by the one circling question she couldn't let go of.

  Who was she, now?

  It was an old favorite. There was no answer. A prisoner, a leader, now a prisoner again.

  She'd stopped thinking about things that were too real, like her children, because they hurt too much. The stress of those thoughts left her anxious and drained, and she could not afford that. She had another child inside her now, and had to protect it. So she ate the food they gave her, and rested, and let her thoughts run in pointless circles about herself.

  Sometimes she looked at the Bible. She didn't read it, but looked carefully at the cracked leather spine, ran her fingers over the worn front, embossed with gold, and sounded out the lists of exotic names at the back, savoring each strange combination of letters like a rare fruit. She held it like an idol against Witzgenstein, even though that made no sense. Not reading it, but holding it close, was the only meaningful rebellion she could make.

  Finally, the convoy stopped.

  Voices called up and down past her, and for a long time there were grating sounds, and rasping sounds, and shutters grinding open, and voices cursing. After that there was a long, long silence, until her door was opened for the first time in three days and three nights.

  It was dawn outside, and the heavenly scent of fresh air overwhelmed her. Flowers, grassy sap, dew, so many things. She saw black iron railings and pavement and a towering figure in the narrow doorway that she recognized.

  Crow.

  For a moment she felt she might be rescued. Even as she felt it, she knew it wasn't true, and that hopes like that would break her faster than despair.

  "She's ready for you," he said.