He shivered. The air was cold but humid at the same time. He sneezed as he reached the bottom of the stairs; allergies. God knew what pollen was in the air here. Rachel Heron was waiting for him on the worn asphalt, Persian beauty bundled in a thick red parka.
"It's good to have you here, James," she said.
He nodded. They'd slept together once, at a SEAL conference. It had been excellent exercise and a vigorous affirmation of their mutual attraction. Once though had been enough.
He looked past her to the glass and concrete campus of ten buildings that SEAL money had built, long before he was even born. The Logchain was designed to investigate and decode the human genome in depths none were attempting anywhere else on the planet. This was investigative science of the highest caliber, and Rachel was one of the keenest minds he knew, but there were secrets here too, kept from him for years.
This had been coming for a long time.
"Rachel Heron, I'm placing you under arrest."
Her pleasant expression faded as the words sunk in. "What? Why?"
"You know why," he said, as a stream of tactically armed soldiers poured out of the belly of his jet. In seconds Heron's small retinue were surrounded.
"I don't. And you don't have the authority to do this, James." His men tightened plastic cuffs round her wrists. "I'm a SEAL Head."
"The SEAL is in pieces, fragmented by this attack. I'm barely keeping it together. You have been withholding information from me, and I need to see it."
Heron blanched in outrage. "What information? You've seen everything."
While studied her face. He'd thought he'd known her. Perhaps he had. It was possible she just didn't know, but that argued for incompetence, and he didn't believe she was incompetent. She was too smart not to know.
"I've been monitoring unaccounted for, heavily encoded data streams leaving the Logchain for years now, Rachel. Either it's with your approval or it's sabotage of the SEAL. In both cases I need to take you into custody."
Her outrage became confusion. "Wait, you're talking about the deep pipes? Jesus, James, talk to Harrison. How was I to know you weren't in on that? He kept a private line on certain research threads, that's all I know. It's certainly not sabotage!"
James took her by the arm and started the long perp walk to her own campus. "You knew I didn't know. So now I'm talking to you. You're going to show me everything you've been doing here, and what you've been sending to Harrison."
She spluttered something about privilege and security clearance, but he ignored it. He'd guessed a long time ago the feeds were directed to Olan Harrison, one of the few remaining areas in the SEAL still shuttered to him. It had always made Heron an intelligence target he'd hoped to convert. Sleeping with her had bought him social capital, but she'd been too careful to let her guard slip. Once was enough to know that.
Now, though, was his chance.
* * *
His team moved smoothly into position, well prepared to infiltrate without raising alarm. They wore the right uniform, carried the right badges, and their arrival had been pre-authorized by James While himself, the consigliore of the SEAL, and none would question them.
They reached the comms facilities before any alarm could go out, warning Olan Harrison what was happening at his longstanding pet project. One more blackout in the midst of the global chaos would go relatively unremarked. Besides, While didn't anticipate needing much time to get to the bottom of things here.
He frogmarched Rachel through the open square at the center of the Logchain, paved with red bricks and garlanded with a central fountain. Four buildings were spread out around it while the remaining six lay along a central spine leading away to the north; some larger, some smaller, all interconnected, but none what he was looking for.
He'd studied the plans, both the ones before construction and the ones that had been altered afterwards. Tunnels were missing. Rooms were missing. On the plane he'd pulled in favors and compromised himself to find them, but the evidence they offered was incontrovertible. Something was happening and he'd been cut out of the loop since he'd started as COO, sealed out by Olan and Rachel at every step. It had never been that way with the Multicameral Array. Such was the problem of inheriting programs you hadn't initiated.
He stopped in front of Building 3, a squat dome called the 'Donut' which housed a circular workflow analysis line. He gave Rachel a slight jostle, forcing her to look at him.
"We're here."
"Where, at the Donut? Jesus, James, you've finally cracked. You want to run some blood samples through the ring?"
His security personnel circled in tightly on the doors.
"Rachel, stop bullshitting me. I know there's something happening here underground. There are tunnels, secret facilities. Don't tell me they're for night soil. Whether it's sabotage or not is for me to decide."
Rachel snorted. "You've lost it. But all right, I'll show you. You're COO, perhaps it's time you knew."
"Lead on," he said, and she did. Through the door she gave a nod to someone, a building supervisor While recognized from his files. He nodded one of his team over, and they cuffed the supervisor, adding him to the procession.
"What's that for?" Rachel demanded. "He's not even cleared for the tunnels."
"Rachel, please. No more signals. Imagine I'm very serious, and holding a gun to your head."
Her beautiful face split in derision. "You wouldn't dare."
"There are few things I wouldn't dare. Here, I believe, are the elevators."
It was a small security door she'd been studiously ignoring and walking past. A flash of panic lit in her eyes.
"These lead into containment. We're not wearing suits. We can go round…"
While gave a signal, and one of his men pulled a black metal battering ram out of a hard case rucksack. He swung it and pounded the door once, twice, then the hinges squealed inward and Rachel Heron held up a hand.
"I have a pass card, James, I'll do it."
She scanned her card; the light flashed green and the door clicked open. On the other side was a hallway with no doors. While pushed her down it first, followed by his team. There was a left turn, a right, then an elevator door.
"Containment?" he said.
Rachel held her card to the security panel, and behind the door the mechanism whirred into life.
"It wasn't personal," she said. "Withholding this from you. What Olan wants, he gets. He's the King, after all."
While snorted.
Rachel granted him a withering smile. "Don't think you know everything about him. There are depths even you don't see."
While met her smile with cold indifference, realizing something important. Yes, she had thought of him that way; a useful tool, perhaps, while she alone knew the truth.
"Get in," he said, as the elevator doors opened.
"Don't be angry," she answered dismissively, and stepped in. "It doesn't become you." While followed and held up a hand to stop his team from following.
"I'm not angry. Push the button."
Rachel pushed the button and the carriage started down.
"I spoke to him just an hour ago," she said. "He's directing our investigation personally. He won't be happy that you're interfering. The Logchain has always conducted its own oversight."
"I don't care if he's happy. Neither should you. There are bigger matters at stake."
The carriage came to a halt and the doors opened.
"Here are your tunnels," Rachel said.
Ahead stretched a long, tall white hallway, with floor-to-ceiling glass panes set into the walls at regular alternating intervals. There was a funny feeling in the air, like a stiff nicotine buzz mixed with a chill breeze.
"It doesn't mean anything that we have this," Rachel started, her voice becoming strange now, defensive and dismissive at once. "You'll see, there are no leaks here, nothing to investigate. You'll find-"
While started forward, pulling Rachel with him. She lurched to keep up.
&nbs
p; The first glass panel drew closer on the left. His heart began to thump in his chest and beads of sweat sprang up on his temples despite the sharpening chill in the air.
"I prefer not to come this close," Rachel said. "The shielding is far from perfect, and they make for a hell of a headache."
While felt the headache already beginning to form in the back of his head, matched with a dark premonition of what he was about to see. Five more steps, then five more, and he was standing in front of the first glass pane, and looking inside, at-
A gray man.
He stood naked like a specimen in a cage, thin gray skin sucked tight to thin bones, eyes a bright, flashing white. Clamps held him perfectly immobile at arms and thighs, while in each corner of his white-lined 'display' box there were large gray triangles that seemed to waver if James looked at them for too long, like a heat haze.
A genetic type one, in the flesh, expressed into reality.
Just as they'd promised they'd never done.
"I didn't make them all," Rachel said quickly. "I inherited them, I just studied them. Harrison was very clear about secrecy."
James While stared at the figure behind the glass; far more than he'd expected to find. Rachel kept talking but he didn't look at her, as everything she said now was almost certainly a lie.
This was it. He bit his lip so hard it bled. He'd suspected secrets but to find this at the heart of the Logchain? He should have come in earlier, using up his political capital in the SEAL, perhaps, but exposing this before…
Before what? Before these things were tied to the hydrogen line? Maybe they already were. Maybe this whole damn thing was inevitable.
"Come on," he said, and dragged her roughly, walking too fast for her to easily keep up. Her high heels clacked staccato on the floor.
"I don't like to come this deep without additional shielding," Rachel stammered as he pulled her on. "We have some rudimentary protections, working with magnets, but it doesn't do much for…"
He tuned her out and reached the second cell. Inside it was genetic type two, a giant red monster. It was enormous, easily three times as tall as a man, seated and hunched over to fit beneath the already-tall ceiling. The chill emanating from it was visceral, cutting through his skin and making his blood run cold. Its bright red eyes hung overhead in its giant head, and just looking at them sent a flood of confusion across his thoughts.
Rachel said something. He turned the world, honing his focus to cut through the uncertainty, and looked at her.
"What have you done?" he hissed, then started forward again, pulling her with him.
"Stop now, it's getting dangerous," Rachel shouted, then tried to punch him in the face. He caught it on the chest and strode on.
"Look, there are signs," she shouted, pointing.
There were signs on the walls. Biohazard. He ignored her and kept walking
At the next cell was type three, a single fizzing black creature draped in dangling white ribbons of skin. His headache thickened but he couldn't stop now, even though Rachel Heron was lashing at him with both her fists and feet, shouting.
He had to see it all. The glass windows stretched on and on.
Beyond type three was four, a pink one with too many arms, then five was a melted yellow thing, then six a shimmery black wraith, then after that Rachel passed out and he couldn't drag her any further. The black thing pressed to the glass and seemed to reach directly into James While's head, forcing needles of uncertainty into his thoughts.
He spun the world, dragged Rachel Heron up into his arms, and started back at a run.
By the end of the hall his nose was bleeding freely but he couldn't stop moving for fear he wouldn't start again. The blood pooled on Rachel's belly until he got into the elevator and hit the button, then the headache kicked into high gear and he dropped to the floor.
The doors closed slowly, and the hallway shimmered ahead, the end not even in sight. How many glass cells, he wondered, as he slumped on his side. How many pieces of the T4 had already been 'expressed' onto the real world, and how long had they been here, waiting to be broken free?
11. READ ME
In a mile or two I'm almost dead. Every trudging step cracks ice somewhere in my clothing. After a time I jettison the sled, even though it has everything I need to survive up here, because I'm not going to survive with it.
There's nothing. This land is a waste. I'm ready to lie down and die, but the wispy pieces of the Feargal/Sandbrooke-wraith inside me pushes on.
It doesn't talk. It's bits of different people only, shards of the upper half and not the legs, but I suppose that's bad enough. It just keeps working my muscles, and on I go.
In time, there's a house, and I break in. It's not a normal house; it's a mansion, some billionaire's lakeside palace on the edge of existence, acting like a Bond villain. I pass through like I'm seeing only one frame of my life out of five, out of ten, barely registering a room before I'm through it.
I smash up furniture and put it in the middle of a marble floor. I have a little bottle of gasoline in my pocket, saved for just this eventuality, and a fresh box of matches. Feargal's touch guides me as I spray the juice and set the spark, then I lay back and wriggle out of my freezing, damp clothes. I see my black feet. I see the cut on my thigh turning dark. The marble is freezing but soon the fire licks up, and I lie on the seared, icy bedding of my clothes and shiver.
It's dark when I wake, and the air is empty. For a time I feel lost, not in space or time but in myself. I can't remember who I am, gasping for the line to hold onto, but there's nothing there.
The air is thin.
I pull myself together slowly. My clothes are mostly dry, and I shrug on the inner thermal layers. I feed the fire, then remember the USB key in my jacket pocket, and dig it out. I turn it in my hands, like I'm inspecting a fine diamond. So much effort, for this.
I don't waste time. A search of the mansion reveals everything I need, but none of it working. A flashlight with no working batteries. A laptop with no power supply. A can of ravioli with no can-opener.
I improvise on the last one, and eat cold old pasta huddled on a leather sofa next to my fire. Outside the storm rages on, tearing at the house, but inside it is warm. Probably I can just stay here forever, but the wraith-shreds inside me push awkwardly. I push back, but right now they have more willpower than I do.
By the morning I've got a generator working, dug out of one of the huge garages, amongst various Ferraris and Porsches. There is no attachment to run it to the laptop, so I improvise that too, shelling cables, fusing wires and using the transformer from a lawn mower. I carry it all over to my fire and switch on the computer. It lights with a reassuring chime, just audible over the chutter of the generator. Damn, they build these things to last. All I need now are some VR goggles and I'll be back where I started, opening the prepper bible Cerulean made for me before he died the first time, tucked away in Sir Clowdesely.
When the desktop comes up, showing a background photo of a tall, well-muscled man and his beautiful wife with three cute kids, I take a deep breath then insert the USB key. The drive icon pops up, unlabeled, and I open it. Inside there are dozens of folders and one text file. The text file is titled:
READ ME
I scan the folders, which have names like:
Multicameral Array
Logchain
Olan Harrison
SEAL Heads
Apotheo Net
Ark 12
T4
I get the dizzy sense of standing on the edge of a huge precipice. I don't know if I'm ready for this moment, because perhaps it's all here. Everything I've wanted to know, everything I need to find somebody to blame.
I remember shark-eyes in the lobby of the research facility, telling me it's not about revenge, or justice, but about protecting the people I love. Lara, I think. My kids. That's a good thing to think. I hold them close, pushing away the chill shreds of Feargal in my middle, and doing this for myself.
> No folder looks better than another for me to start with, so I click on the top one, Multicameral Array. That only leads to another 'READ ME' text file, along with dozens more folders. There are Alpha, Beta, Gamma and so on, as well as 'Pre-Event', 'Event', Post-Event', and many more.
I click further through folders, but within each there are dozens more like Russian nesting dolls. I scan what must be thousands of neatly organized files. There are images, videos, text, spreadsheets, pdfs. They have names like:
Multicameral Alpha remit SEAL 11/16
Gamma Post-Observation sign-off.354
Permissions High-wave Trancing – log99
I feel myself tumbling down into the rabbit hole. I click more rapidly, looking for the end to this endlessly branching inner system of folders, but I can't find it. I get twenty levels deep into the organizational tree, but it doesn't end. It's overwhelming and reinforces the dizzy feeling.
I pull all the way out to the root directory and try another thread, digging into the Logchain folder. Just as before, there are dozens of folders with strange names like they're written in a different language. Screens rush by, and excitement blurs into frustration. It's like the first time I discovered the Deepcraft user-made worlds portal. It gave me a migraine for weeks before I figured out the specific route through its menus to the best place to build my calm, static, real world, non-violent, limited-player Yangtze facility.
It just keeps on going.
Deep in, I randomly click on a video.
It shows a long white hallway ahead, high-tech looking, like a sterile lab of some kind with clinical strip lighting above. Someone's breathing heavily. The camera starts to jog side to side, as whoever's holding it runs forward. There are floor-to-ceiling glass panels set into the walls ahead, and as the cameraman runs ahead I catch a glimpse of what's behind each, and-
Jesus goddammit, I know the occupants, though they're on the blurry screen for an instant each only.
A gray zombie. A demon. A leper.
I lean in, glued to the little screen as the panting gets louder and the jolting motion from side to side becomes more violent. More glass panels pass by; a blue thing, a yellow one, another wraith, and then we're beyond the types that I've seen and onto the truly bizarre, things that hardly look human, like something out of a Ripley's Believe It Or Not. A giant jellyfish thing, spurting feebly, hanging from metal stakes. What might be a hugely enlarged human cell, oozing fluids. A kind of electrical zag twisted into a helix, like bottled lightning.
The Last Mayor Box Set Page 180
