by Nick Cook
Chloe’s eyebrows rose as the level number ticked past minus fifteen. ‘So just where are we meeting the prime minister exactly – a secret bunker?’
‘Basically, yes,’ Hammond replied. ‘And as you’ve both previously signed the Official Secrets Act and have now been given sufficient security clearance, I’m allowed to tell you a little about where we are. This is part of an extensive bunker complex built to withstand a direct nuclear strike and it is where the government can take shelter during national emergencies,’ Hammond said.
‘How have they been able to keep it secret all these years?’ I asked.
‘Our country has always been very good at secrets.’
But did secrets like this, however big, really matter any more when the Shadowlands were due to sweep over this country within three months? Nevertheless, my curiosity had been stirred up. I stepped behind Hammond so he couldn’t spot what I was up to, shifted my vision and focused. As I started to vanish, Chloe’s eyes widened, and I put my finger to my lips. I dialled up to the X-ray frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum to see exactly how extensive this secret bunker complex was.
Through the metal walls of the lift, I could see a network of rooms and interconnecting corridors criss-crossing the levels we were dropping past. The skeletons of hundreds of people working at transparent glowing computers immediately caught my eye…
Computers?
‘So how come you have working computers down here?’ I asked Hammond as I returned to the Real.
General Hammond turned round and stared at me. ‘How could you…?’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, I forgot whom I was talking to. To answer your question, the systems down here have been hardened against both nuclear and cyber attacks. As soon as the spread of the Shade’s worm virus was detected by GCHQ, all external connections to the internet were automatically severed. Additionally, many of the computers in this complex are designed as stand-alone systems without any form of networked connection. You can’t even plug-in so much as a memory stick into a computer around here.’
Chloe raised her chin at him. ‘And they’re all still running despite the Shade’s virus attack?’
‘I’m pleased to say that the more critical systems are safe, although as you know the damage inflicted by the worm was significant across the country’s infrastructure. At least the power grid is now up and running again. We also have some of our key communication systems back online, thanks to secret military satellites – which were deliberately shut down by us during the attack, before automatically rebooting a day later. It means we’ve re-established links with most of the world’s leaders.’
‘You mean that Sentinel could have been protected in this way too?’ Chloe asked.
Hammond looked past her to the doors as the lift started to slow. ‘As you both will know, that AI was his own master. We could have tried to contain Sentinel in a room, but we all know he would have hacked past our best firewalls within seconds.’
I shrugged. ‘Yes, he was always too much of a free spirit.’
Hammond sighed. ‘Something for which he paid the ultimate price.’
With the barest tremble, the lift came to a stop at minus thirty.
‘So just how deep are we?’ I asked.
‘About a mile down,’ Hammond replied.
Chloe whistled as the doors slid open to reveal soldiers directing guns towards our feet.
‘ID badges,’ the taller guard said.
Hammond moved forward and raised his lanyard. Chloe and I followed, and the soldiers stepped aside. From behind them, a thin man with cropped blond hair in a dark suit appeared. ‘My name is Litchford and I’m the PM’s PA. The prime minister has been expecting you – he is in a Cobra emergency meeting at moment. He would like you to join him in order to brief the assembled ministers.’
Chloe and I nodded, and we followed Litchford along a white corridor lined with plain doors – no names or even numbers on them. One of the soldiers escorted us, his machine gun held to his chest in a relaxed but ready fashion.
I caught a faint whine coming from the floor. ‘What’s that noise?’
‘It’s an underground generator, which would keep this facility going for up to a year in the event of an attack,’ Litchford replied. ‘This facility was designed to keep up to five hundred people alive. There’s everything down here, from a restaurant to a huge laundry room. There’s even a cinema.’
‘Quite the home from home,’ Chloe said.
‘You should see what our American cousins have beneath Capitol Hill,’ Litchford replied.
We arrived at the end of the corridor. The door here was very different to all of the others – plated in thick steel and guarded by two armed soldiers, whom we once again had to show our ID badges to. That done, Litchford pressed his hand against a glass panel, which emitted a pulse of light. The clunk of several bolts being released came from deep within the doorframe.
‘Talk about a secret lair,’ Chloe whispered to me.
The door opened with a slight hiss of escaping air and murmuring voices beyond reached us.
We followed Litchford into a large wood-panelled meeting room with paintings adorning the walls. I recognised some of them as former prime ministers including Winston Churchill. Between the portraits, numerous monitors filled the walls, displaying either charts or muted live newsfeeds.
Around a large polished table sat at least thirty people. The new prime minister, Richard Carter, was at the head of the table. Everyone was staring at the largest screen mounted behind the PM, showing the live feed from GCHQ of the spread of the Shadowlands.
My eyes quickly drank in the information it was displaying. The Shadowlands had now spread to at least a quarter of the US, the death count a sickening twenty million. The leading edge of the dark fog bank was now creeping towards Canada’s western coast.
‘We’re as good as defenceless against this attack,’ one of the women said.
Litchford gestured to three empty seats at the end of the table and we listened to the conversation as we sat down.
‘Yes and no,’ Prime Minister Carter replied. ‘We know now for certain that the Waveriders developed by Professor Martin Stevens work. Every device has protected the American cities where they have been installed. And the Waveriders for our own country will be manufactured and in place in plenty of time before the Shadowlands reaches our country.’
‘Despite that damned Shade virus damaging them?’ a man with bushy eyebrows asked.
Carter gestured towards Chloe, Hammond and me. ‘That’s where I’m hoping our guests will be able to update us and present us with a solution.’
The PM stood and headed along the table to shake General Hammond’s hand. ‘Good to see you, my old friend, although I wish it were under different circumstances.’
‘Then that makes two of us,’ Hammond replied. He nodded to Chloe and me. ‘I’d like to introduce you to two of the leaders of the Awoken army, Jake Stevens and Chloe Haze.’
Carter shook our hands. ‘Of course neither of you need any introduction to those of us in this room. Everyone has been briefed by the security services and we are all fully aware of what you’ve already done in trying to protect us from the Shade. Our country, this entire world, already owes you a huge debt of gratitude.’
‘Thank you and everything,’ Chloe replied, ‘but it’s what happens next that’s going to be key.’
‘And that’s why we’re here,’ I said. ‘As you probably know, my dad is Professor Martin Stevens, and he’s confident that all the Waveriders can be fixed.’
‘Oh, thank god,’ Carter replied as he sat back down. All the people round the table nodded.
‘However, before we start getting too carried away, there’s one problem,’ I continued. ‘The worm virus took out the manufacturing facilities for the Waveriders’ circuit boards and they will now have to be built by hand.’
‘So we need electronic engineers, lots of them,’ Chloe added. ‘People who can build a computer circ
uit board with not a lot more than a soldering iron, a bunch of chips and duct tape.’
‘How many people are we talking about here?’ the minister with bushy eyebrows asked.
‘As many as you can send to the Culham facility,’ General Hammond said. ‘Hundreds – thousands if possible.’
‘Then we’ll gather everyone that this country can spare,’ Carter replied. ‘But don’t go yet, because your visit is perfectly timed. We’re expecting a video call from the US president at any moment. I’m sure you’ll find him more than accommodating to this and any other requests that you may have.’
A phone on the wall warbled and Litchford picked up the handset. ‘President Whitlock is online, PM.’
‘Then put him up on the screen,’ Carter replied.
Litchford flicked a switch on a control console on the table. The live feed of the Shadowlands was replaced by a man sitting in a leather chair. The man’s eyes looked so watery, his face so grey, that I barely recognised this man as President Tom Whitlock, the guy who was normally always full of energy. By contrast, the person on the screen looked as though the life had been sucked right out of him.
Behind him an aeroplane window was visible, beyond it blue sky and clouds, confirming what the news had been saying: that he was now on board Air Force One.
‘Prime Minister Carter, is there any news about getting our remaining Waveriders back online?’ Whitlock said. ‘The situation over here is worsening by the minute. I could do with some good news, as otherwise I’m going to have to make an impossible decision.’
‘What sort of decision?’ Carter replied.
‘We’ll get to that in a moment, but first brief me about what’s happening at your end.’
Carter nodded at Chloe and me. ‘I think you’ll want to hear what these two Awoken leaders have just told me.’
We both stood as the president’s eyes looked down at us from the screen.
I stepped forward and my jaw tensed as I prepared to talk to the most powerful person on the planet. ‘Hi, Mr President, my name is Jake Stevens – and this is Chloe Haze. We’re two of the Awoken leadership, but it’s my dad, Martin Stevens, who invented the Waverider machine.’
‘And also, if I’m not mistaken, that goddamn DEC device that created all this mess in the first place?’ Whitlock replied.
I felt old anger surge at the accusation, but Chloe’s hand was already on my arm. ‘Let me handle this, Jake.’
I nodded to her, not trusting myself to speak.
‘We haven’t got time to get into that here,’ Chloe said. ‘But in a few words, Mr President, you’re so wrong that it isn’t funny. Rather than throwing around accusations like that, you may be interested to hear that the same incredible man, Professor Martin Stevens, is currently working flat out to repair the damage to the Waveriders so we can save as many people as possible.’
Prime Minister Carter nodded at Chloe with an encouraging smile. Good, at least he got it.
Chloe continued. ‘The problem is, we simply haven’t got enough people with the right skills to repair all the Waveriders fast enough.’
Whitlock’s eyes sharpened on her, although he seemed to be looking more tired by the minute. ‘In that case, we’ll send whoever you need to sort this out – although you should all be aware that we’re also taking steps to deal with the source of the problem.’
‘The source of this problem being what exactly?’ Prime Minister Carter asked.
‘Something that relates to that difficult decision I mentioned. Just before this conference call, I authorised a nuclear strike against the singularity that consumed the Brookhaven Laboratory.’
I stared at the screen. ‘But what about all those people under the New York Waverider dome? They’re within range of any nuke blast on Long Island.’
‘It’s an awful sacrifice, but one that has to be made in the name of the greater good,’ Whitlock said, his voice strained.
‘But you can’t do that! Chloe shouted. ‘All those millions of people will be wiped out after they’ve just been saved!’
‘I can assure you it wasn’t an easy decision,’ Whitlock replied.
It felt as if the air was being sucked straight out of my lungs. Gem was there with her Panda team. They were defending all those people. And there would be no way for us to teleport in to save them, or for Gem to teleport out with the others.
‘I must urge you to reconsider,’ Carter said.
‘I have already wrestled with my conscience, Prime Minister,’ Whitlock replied. ‘But this may be our only hope of saving as many people as possible, both in this country and across the whole planet.’
‘But do you even know this will work?’ Carter asked.
‘Our scientists believe a concentrated burst of energy will be sufficient to collapse the singularity that’s appeared there.’
‘But you’re playing with people’s lives. This is a huge gamble and you know it,’ I said, almost shouting.
‘I do know it, but that doesn’t mean we mustn’t try. Make no mistake, this has been the hardest decision of my life, but it doesn’t stop it being the right choice.’
I stared at the US president, desperately trying to come up with something to stop him doing this, but I couldn’t. The problem was, part of me could understand his cold logic – as much as I hated it.
On the video feed, a US military officer with stars on his lapels appeared next to Whitlock and whispered into his ear.
The president nodded and returned his attention to us. ‘I’m going to share a live feed from the camera mounted on the cruise missile that’s already been launched. It’s currently three miles out from its target.’
His image disappeared, replaced by a video of rolling black fog beneath a bright blue sky. The view from the missile’s camera dipped downwards as it started to dive. Beneath the fog, the faint dome of golden light and the skyscrapers of New York flashed past.
My heart twisted at the brief glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. Was Gem there now, seeing the missile streak through the sky overhead? The next moment, the missile roared past the statue towards Long Island, showing cars abandoned in the streets, houses burning – no sign of anyone left anywhere. A brief scene of the woodland around Brookhaven filled the screen in the last moments. The dark vapours swirled away for a moment to reveal an image straight out of hell. A black pulsing orb sat in a crater, while shadow crows too numerous to count burst out of the blackness of the singularity. The screen blazed white before breaking apart into static.
No one said a word as the image was replaced by a satellite view of New York, the bio dome now vanished. A white ball of light blossomed from where Brookhaven had once stood, before fading away to leave only dark fog.
I stared at the scene, my mind locking up. All those people had just been wiped out in the space of a single breath, on the basis of a mad gamble. But my mind was filled with only one beautiful face, the woman that I loved and would never able to hold again in my arms.
‘Gem…’ I whispered. Grief swirled in an ice-cold torrent that numbed me to the core of my being.
Whitlock’s face reappeared, the grim-faced US officer still by his side.
‘Nuclear detonation confirmed,’ the officer said as he studied a tablet in his hand.
Chloe stared at the screen. ‘You complete and utter bastards!’
Whitlock shrugged at her. ‘That’s as maybe, Miss Haze, but it’s what needed to be done. So let us all pray that it was a price worth paying.’
The officer’s gaze narrowed on his tablet. ‘Mr President, gravitational detectors indicate that the singularity is still present at the Brookhaven site.’
Fury rose through me. ‘You killed all those people, and for what?’
The president raised his hands. ‘I don’t answer to you, Jake Stevens, but only my own conscience and God.’
Carter shook his head. ‘Then may God have mercy on you and your soul, Whitlock.’
The president scowled. ‘I don’t need
you to give me any lectures.’
The military officer looked up from his tablet. ‘Mr President, we have detected significant Shade activity around the singularity.’ He tapped the tablet’s screen.
Once again, the view from inside Air Force One was replaced by the satellite feed. But this time black fog darker than I’d ever seen it was boiling out ever faster from where Brookhaven had been. A swarm of specks began to rise from it and race westwards – thousands if not millions of dark spots travelling at high speed.
‘Please tell me that’s not what it looks like,’ General Hammond said.
Almost in answer, the monitoring satellite zoomed in to reveal the dots as individual shadow crows in a huge surging flock.
President Whitlock and the military officer reappeared on the screen. ‘There seems to be a condensed column of shadow crows heading outwards from the singularity,’ the officer was saying. ‘They are heading towards…’ His voice trailed away.
‘Where to, man?’ Whitlock said, drumming his fingers on the table.
The officer ignored him and whirled round. ‘Order our fighter escort to intercept incoming threat, priority alpha!’ he shouted to someone off-camera.
‘I don’t understand what’s happening,’ President Whitlock said, standing up.
‘We need to get you into the survival pod at once,’ the officer replied.
Through the window of Air Force One, I saw a speck of black, like a smudge, appearing in the blue sky – and growing fast.
Two F22 fighter jets streaked away, afterburners blazing, to meet the patch of darkness that had now grown to fill half the sky.
‘Oh god, they’re coming for the president…’ Chloe whispered.
‘We could try to teleport there and get him out,’ I suggested.
