Helix Nexus

by Chris Lofts

  ‘Helix, where exactly are you?’

  ‘On suspension, ma’am. As per your orders.’

  ‘Location?’

  ‘With my brother. At the Observatory.’

  ‘Really. Then perhaps you can explain the explosion that has just destroyed said Observatory.’

  Helix stumbled towards a parked AV, catching himself on its side as all strength deserted his legs. ‘What explosion?’ Ethan. The break in comms. ‘What fucking explosion?’ he shouted.

  ‘I thought that might be the case. As a P1 location, the MoHD is notified of anything untoward that occurs. The explosion was heard in Westminster and the police have had a least a dozen calls from concerned residents in the Meridian. Is your brother with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You best come in until we know what’s happening. For your own protection.’

  ‘Protection? I can look after myself. I need to find Ethan.’

  ‘Major. The building has been completely—’

  ‘I’m going to find him.’ He’d lost one brother, he wasn’t going to lose the only surviving family he had. Ethan had to be alive. ‘If he’s in there, I don’t want anyone near him.’ Brushing his finger over the display, he ended the call. He had to get to his AV. Get back to the Meridian.

  Before he could move, he felt a piercing sting in his neck. ‘Fuck!’ Confusion coalesced with a drug-induced dizziness as he lost motor control. He shuffled around, his fingers probing the site of the sting. Pulling the barb from his neck, he swayed as he turned to locate its source. His vision faltered and faded. Fumbling at the fastening of his jacket, he went for his gun.

  ‘Ethan. Where are…’

  Gravity won. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  9

  The hazy gauze of consciousness found Helix in complete darkness. Were his eyes open or closed? The effortless switching of the functions provided by his ocular prothesis was gone. No night vision. No thermal imaging. No rangefinder. No weapons systems. His body was absent. ‘Hello.’ The word registered in his head but failed to materialise as sound. His mind was telling his muscles to flex, to probe his environment. Where was the adrenalin-powered rush to action? There were no smells, nothing to taste, nothing to touch and nothing to hear. If your consciousness had been decanted, were you even alive? He searched the darkness for what he could recall. Ormandy. An explosion. Ethan. The rain. The sting. The figure stepping from the shadows.

  He had to move. Had to find his brother. The imperatives were clear, but the paralysis complete. Was Ethan dead? He could deal with that if he had to. Injured? He’d been there before, they’d been there before. Anger rose like magma with no outlet, filling his head with a scream that was as silent as it was futile.

  He instructed his body to take a few deep breaths, tried to create a space in which he could think. Thought was all he had.

  A pin prick of light penetrated the darkness. Helix focussed on it, willing it manifest into something tangible, something with which he could orientate himself in his sensory deprived existence. It was like looking down the barrel of gun, a narrow lens of focus, foggy objects forming. The field of vision expanded, the round edges flattened. Was he going towards it, or was it coming to him? Was this the white light they talked about when experiencing near death? If he could have used his eyes he would have squinted in the burgeoning light, containing the hazy haloed image of a person as if they were standing in front of the sun.

  ‘Gabrielle?’

  The gentle face and features of Gabrielle Stepper swam into focus. She smiled. Many were the nights he’d seen that face in his dreams. Happiness was peppered with regret at his inaction, his failure to express his feelings when he’d had the chance. Guilt knotted somewhere in his conscience. At least she was safe. Where was the image coming from? Regardless of the crumb of comfort it provided, he wanted to set it aside and work out how to get to Ethan.

  ‘Dear Helix,’ she said, pausing to moisten her lips. ‘Where to begin? This must be the fifth or sixth version of this that I’ve tried to write.’

  Helix recognised the words. The letter she’d left for him. The one he carried in his jacket pocket. His brain told him to move his lips in time with hers, reciting every memorised word, down to her confession about killing Valerian Lytkin and her regret at not telling him what had happened before she disappeared. ‘Leaving London will be easy,’ she’d concluded by saying, ‘Tearing myself away from you won’t be.’ With that, she looked up, blew him a kiss and dissolved into a blinding light.

  Wherever Helix had been he was now aware that he was lying in a pool of warm water. Panic rose. His childhood aquaphobia threatened to overwhelm him as his bodily senses exploded back into reality. Dizziness filled his head as he was thrust upwards. The shell of the pod he’d been trapped inside split and fell to the sides. The water drained away. His body spasmed against the restraints holding him down as he was spun around. The bed folded beneath him, leaving him in a reclined seated position facing the bearded giant he saw in the last few moments of consciousness in that rain-swept street.

  Helix blinked under the white lights, at the white ceiling, white walls, white floor. No windows. No doors. Virtual or actual reality? The bearded giant was playing his part, with a white coat and trousers contrasting against his weathered skin, heavy black beard and matching eyebrows. Helix tilted his head at the array of threatening instruments hanging dormant on their jointed mechanical arms at either side of his head and upper body, like a demented dentist’s surgery. A hundred questions rattled through his mind. He selected one to test his voice.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he croaked.

  His jailer stiffened his shoulders, expanded his barrel chest and flexed his neck to the sound of cracking vertebrae. Helix pressed against the restraints. His right arm and leg were heavier than usual. He blinked his left eye closed. Darkness. The reason for his encumbrance – the Prosthetic Command Module giving control to his enhanced prosthetics – lay on a polished metal tray alongside the folded pages of Gabrielle’s letter. His jacket, shirt and trousers lay in a heap on another table with his shoulder holsters and P226s.

  ‘What have you got to do to get a drink in this place?’ Helix said.

  A metallic rattle echoed around the room as Beardy dropped whatever it was he was doing. He stepped away from the severed heads of a Doberman and a golden retriever. The dogs’ dead eyes stared back at Helix, their lolling tongues hanging from the sides of their mouths. A polished ivory-white skull – presumably belonging to the second of Blackburn’s Dobermans – sat beside them.

  Helix pushed against the head restraint as his jailer put the end of a drinking straw between his lips. He fixed his eyes on him as he drank. Rolling the water around his mouth, he swallowed.

  ‘You killed Yawlander and Blackburn.’ The evidence was circumstantial, the link tenuous, but Helix clung to it as something that might make some sense amidst the confusion.

  Beardy raised his eyebrows but otherwise remained impassive. He offered the straw again.

  ‘I’ll take the eyebrows as a yes.’ He swallowed again. ‘Where’s my brother?’

  Beardy turned away and went back to work on the dogs’ heads.

  ‘What have you done with Ethan? Answer me, dickhead.’

  ‘Insults w-won’t work, Major Helix,’ a male voice said from behind him. ‘It will t-take more than that to penetrate D-doctor Archer’s thick skin.’

  Helix strained his eyes at the limits of his peripheral vision. ‘Doctor Archer?’

  ‘Yes. Appearances c-can be deceptive. W-what we see, is not necessarily what we get.’

  The voice was familiar. The stutter. ‘Where’s my brother? What have you done with him?’

  ‘Ethan is in excellent h-hands,’ the holographic rendering said as it stepped from behind the seat.

  ‘Lytkin?’ Helix said. ‘Valerian Lytkin. You’re—’

  ‘D-dead. Yes. Sadly the earthly power of resurrection remains elusive.
And as dear G-Gabrielle’s letter tells us, what was left of me was eventually d-discovered by the police smeared all over the walls of my apartment like one of the Jackson Pollock paintings hanging on its walls.’

  ‘What do you want – sympathy? You got what you deserved or should I say he got what he deserved. So, enough with the impressions, who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Who do you want me to be?’ The hologram shimmered and pixilated briefly.

  ‘You sound like a hooker in a cheap whore house.’

  The hologram re-rendered taking on a new appearance and voice to match. ‘How about this?’

  Helix stared back at his murdered older brother Jon. ‘Fucking comedian and a piss-poor impressionist.’

  ‘Or this.’ The hologram shape-shifted into Terry McGill, the architect of Jon’s death. ‘Nathan Helix VC DSO – some fucking war hero you turned out to be,’ it mocked.

  ‘Nice one. At least I had the pleasure of putting a couple of bullets into that cunt while he squealed a slick of his own blood and vomit.’

  ‘Or perhaps Ethan in all his former glory. Hey Nate.’

  Helix closed his eyes, fought to control his breathing. ‘Where is he? What do you want?’

  ‘The latter is a question I can answer, Major,’ Julia Ormandy replied.

  Helix’s eyes sprung open.

  Ormandy’s image morphed into Yawlander’s as it stepped over to the tray containing Gabrielle’s letter.

  ‘OK. You’ve made your point. Whoever you are. Whatever you look like. I will find you and I will kill you if you’ve harmed a hair on my brother’s head.’

  ‘This is quite the confession, Helix, and something you chose not to disclose. That could put you on a sticky wicket with your new boss,’ Yawlander’s avatar said. ‘How did she put it? “He made me a murderer,” written in her own hand. And, “I try to reconcile what I did with the greater benefit to humanity.” How very noble. Gabrielle Stepper – saviour of humanity – again.’

  The General morphed into the form of his eight-year-old daughter Lauren and climbed onto Helix’s lap. ‘I want Gabrielle,’ the child whispered, running a curious finger over one of Helix’s many scars.

  He could have done without the reminder that he needed to deliver the news of Lauren’s father’s death. ‘You want Gabrielle?’

  The child nodded before assuming the appearance of the husky-voiced Anastasia Sachman, the news anchor from the BBC, the capital’s single Government controlled news channel. Sachman’s avatar slid from his lap and sauntered across the room to Archer. Reaching up on tiptoes, she whispered into the giant’s ear. He nodded and left the room. All three of the dogs’ heads Archer had been working on had now been skinned and stripped of flesh, the eyes and tongues set aside like the ingredients for a macabre meal.

  They wanted Gabrielle? Helix’s mind raced. Whoever was behind the various personas wasn’t clear. Regardless of gender, what could anyone want with Gabrielle? Old theories bounced around his head. Was somebody cleaning up? Were Yawlander and Blackburn the first ones? Ethan’s missing. And what about himself? He wasn’t sure where he was, apart from being held hostage by a towering taxidermist. Was Gabrielle next? And what about Gabrielle’s twin sister, SJ? They were the nexus. The ones responsible for Justin Wheeler’s very public fall from grace and Valerian Lytkin’s— His eyes fell upon the dogs’ skulls mounted on a three-armed frame with the two Dobermans flanking the retriever. ‘Cerberus.’ He mumbled.

  ‘Something to say, Major?’ Sachman breathed, coming up alongside him.

  ‘Cerberus - the hound of Hades. The pseudonym Valerian Lytkin attempted to hide behind when he was threatening Gabrielle Stepper. But Valerian Lytkin is dead and good riddance.’

  Sachman’s jaw tightened as she folded her arms over her ample augmented bust.

  ‘His father is long dead,’ he continued. ‘His mother was murdered as the family escaped the war-ravaged Ukraine, his sister was abducted at the same time, missing, presumed…’

  ‘Presumed?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’m impressed, Major. You really are everything I expected.’

  ‘The disappeared daughter. The silenced sister.’ He snorted. ‘Looks like she’s back from the dead. You can ditch the charade now, Miss Lytkin.’

  The hologram of Anastasia Sachman shimmered as she laughed. ‘Miss Lytkin? I haven’t been called “Miss” for I don’t know how long. And I haven’t been called Ulyana Lytkin for even longer. The only thing that ties me to that name is blood. And you know what they say about blood being thicker than water, Major.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘You and I are not so different,’ Lytkin said, extending her holographic fingers, examining the polished nails. ‘We have both lost people close to us.’

  ‘You, me and pretty much every other member of the human race. I imagine there’s little or nothing else we have in common.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ She smiled, losing interest in her fingers. ‘Your brother. Jon, wasn’t it? Killed in an accident—’

  ‘Don’t even mention his name,’ he said, pressing up against the wide straps. ‘It wasn’t an accident and you know it.’

  ‘Deliberate, accident, incompetence, fate, call it what you will. And what about Ethan?’

  The question hung in the air. Sweat ran between Helix’s shoulders as he arched his back against his bindings. ‘McGill got—’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, brushing at something on the lapel of her jacket. ‘Colonel Terrance McGill, he was the link, the common denominator.’

  ‘And he’s dead. Why are we even talking about that piece of shit? He was as insignificant as whatever it was you just flicked off your jacket.’

  ‘But you had your revenge upon him for the death of your brother and the injuries he caused Ethan.’

  ‘You heard. Good. Let’s move on.’ Helix sighed, giving up the struggle against the restraints. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘I have no doubt a similar fate awaits those responsible for the death of General Yawlander whom, while not strictly family, I understand you admired.’ She sauntered closer, her arms folded. ‘Tell me, Major, how did it feel to finally get to McGill?’

  ‘He got what he deserved. It was quicker than I would have liked. I wanted to see him suffer. For what he’d done. For what he would have done if I hadn’t got to him first.’

  ‘Tochno tak.’ She exhaled, the Slavic words carried on her breath. ‘Exactly my point.’ She pressed her hands together in front of her lips. ‘The coup de grace.’ She snorted a laugh. ‘It was never part of my toolkit.’ She ran her fingers over the instruments arrayed around Helix, as if they were delicate fronds of foliage. ‘Too quick. Too kind. It robs the recipient of the chance to reflect or repent for their deeds, for their betrayal.’

  Helix stared into her holographic eyes. ‘Did your brother know you were still alive?’

  ‘Dear Valerian.’ She laughed, breaking eye contact. ‘Such an optimist, or should I say, dreamer. He left a clause in his will to the effect that should I reappear within 12 months of his death, then his entire estate would revert to me.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Not really, Major. I have— No. Cancel that. I had no interest in his group portfolio. Science, technology and engineering all require so many tangible assets. But his work with Gabrielle Stepper piqued my interest.’

  ‘She wasn’t working with him,’ Helix spat. ‘He wanted to steal her research and use it to wreak his revenge on those he thought responsible for your mother’s death and your disappearance.’

  ‘And he had been close…’ She paused, her fingers hovering over Gabrielle’s letter where it lay on the tray. ‘“I try to reconcile what I did with the greater benefit to humanity.”‘

  ‘So, that’s it.’ Helix sighed. ‘You mean to finish what he started. Good luck with that. Everything in his lab was destroyed after I killed McGill. I saw the fireball.’

  ‘Not everything. My brother may have been
a romantic but he wasn’t stupid. I’ve seen the recordings of his last conversation with Stepper, before she…’ She stared off into the distance. ‘They were going to Berlin the next morning. He had backups. Everything he needed. And with her and her DNA he would have unlocked the pathogen.’ She smiled towards the door. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  Helix pressed his forehead against the restraint, straining to see. The dull thud of something heavy being lowered to the floor came from behind. A muffled groan and incoherent protests were followed by laboured breaths and stifled movement. Archer returned to his bench and went back to his canine project.

  Helix’s chair turned 90 degrees. The vague outline of a torso, head, nose and a mouth pressed against the heavy material of a bergen-sized sack writhing on the floor.

  ‘Our father’s escape plan failed less than one hour after my mother and I were separated from him and Valerian,’ Lytkin said. ‘My father was betrayed by the men he’d paid to protect us. After they finished with my mother, they murdered her and I was placed in a so-called orphanage with ten other girls, aged six to sixteen. Others came later.’ A photograph of a 14th century Ukrainian castle overlooking a river gorge flashed onto the wall. ‘Our “uncle” as we were required to call him, would gift their mothers to his men. We never asked where the meat we used to feed the farm pigs came from.’

  ‘And these were the men that your brother was hellbent on murdering with a bioweapon, risking a war in the Middle East,’ Helix said.

  ‘Not exactly. Valerian had tracked down those who took my mother and me away, but I passed through many hands before arriving at the castle.’

  It was no wonder she was fucked up. Compared to her, Valerian had led a charmed life. Helix understood the need to avenge what had been inflicted on the family, an eye for an eye and all that, but there were limits. He cleared his throat. ‘You said you wanted me to meet someone.’

  ‘Our uncle had a son, Dmitri. He was almost the same age as me.’ A photograph of a sullen black-haired teenager replaced the castle. ‘We were given the best healthcare and a first class education by doctors and tutors who lived in the castle with us. That’s where I met Archer. Dmitri attended most of the classes too. As each girl reached maturity they would be taken, usually late in the evening for… how should I put it?’ She pursed her lips. ‘Extra classes with our uncle. If we were compliant, our education continued. If we were not, or if we failed to perform to his satisfaction, solitary confinement in the castle’s dungeons gave us time to reflect.’